The Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, says the state Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission (PCACC) is resuming its investigation of allegations of fraud against the deposed Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, after the court threw out suits challenging the process.

The commission is investigating Mr Sanusi over an alleged N2.2 billion land racketeering in Gandun Sarki area of Kano.

Other Kano Emirate Council members being investigated over the matter are Sarki Ibrahim, the Makaman of Kano, and Shehu Dankadai, the Sarkin Shanun Kano.

Mr Sanusi had in an ex-parte motion asked the Federal High Court in Kano to stop the investigation..

The suit also sought an order restraining the PCACC chairman, Muhuyi Rimingado, the Attorney-General of Kano State and Mr Ganduje from investigating the then emir.

But the court on June 8 dismissed the case. Justice Lewis Allagoa, in a ruling, said that the commission did not violate the right of the deposed emir by investigating the allegations against him.

Speaking on the issue on Monday at a media interactive session held at Africa House, Government House, Kano, Mr Ganduje said the courts decision has cleared the path to the resumption of the investigation.

Our state Anti-Corruption Agency will continue probing the former Emir over the issues he has with them.

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When he took them to court to stop the agency from probing him, the case was quashed. So they will continue probing him according to the set down law, Mr Ganduje said.

The state government eventually dethroned Mr Sanusi on March 9.

Mr Ganduje also spoke about the reform of the traditional institution in the state which pitted his government against Mr Sanusi.

When we wanted to bring on board reform to our traditional institution, the former Emir did not cooperate with the process of reform. The process was truncated, so the only option for him was to find his way out. And that was what happened, he said, alluding to the dethronement of Mr Sanusi.

That time there was this so-called Kano Elders Forum that tried to also frustrate the reform process. Their case was squashed by another court of competent jurisdiction.

And it is the sole aim of trickling down development to other parts of the state, particularly the communities that house the new emirates that they were created.
The mob demands a scalp in Atlanta, and the Fulton County district attorney is telling the media he may give it to them, the facts be damned. The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, a V.P. nomination contender, didn't need to wait for an investigation before firing the cop and accepting the resignation of the chief of police:

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced the police chief's resignation at a Saturday afternoon news conference, and had called for the immediate firing of the officer who opened fire. "I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force," Bottoms said. She said it was Shields' own decision to step aside and that she would remain with the city in an undetermined role. Interim Corrections Chief Rodney Bryant will serve as interim police chief.

Even after seeing the body cam footage, the D.A. has concluded that police misbehavior is at issue. The attorney who writes under the name Shipwreckedcrew writes at RedState:

"[Brooks] did not seem to present any threat to anyone. The fact that it would escalate to his death seems unreasonable," Fulton County DA Paul Howard said to Fredericka Whitfield of CNN. If the view of the Fulton DA is that video shown around the world shows Brooks was not a "threat to anyone", then I expect it might come to pass that there are widespread resignations from the Atlanta PD. The attorney hired by the family of Rayshard Brooks started gaslighting the public yesterday in a press conference when he said "In Georgia, a taser is not a deadly weapon." He MIGHT be correct  although there are many anecdotal cases of tasers causing death from the reaction that some have to being tased with a sudden jolt of electricity. But his comment is not accurate in the sense that Atlanta PD policy  just revised last month  says police may use deadly force in response to a subject possessing "ANY object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury." So whether at taser is a "deadly weapon" is irrelevant to the question of whether the officer was justified in his actions.

The dashboard and body cam video of the incident is available, and it shows that the interaction with police was polite and normal until the moment came when handcuffs were being put on the subject, at which point he became violent and was able to escape from the hold of two cops, grab the taser, run away, and turn as if to fire the taser at the officers pursuing him. This absolutely meets the official Atlanta P.D. criteria for use of deadly force in response to a subject possessing "ANY object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury."

Here are some cropped screen grabs, and you can watch the video for yourself directly below them.

Brooks begins to struggle when handcuffed

Brooks starts to break free

Brooks points taser at the officers

Brooks runs away and again points taser at officers just before they fire guns at him

Stacey Abrams, the failed candidate for governor of Georgia who persisted in the delusion that she had won despite a 50,000-vote shortfall of a majority, is disgracefully claiming that Brooks was murdered for the crime of sleeping in his car, language clearly intended to inflame emotions and cause more violence. Perhaps the fact that she has not been called in for screening as Biden's V.P. has driven her mad:

Thats NOT why Rayshard Brooks was shot, killed by APD, @staceyabrams. Were fellow Georgians  and I was actually raised in Atlanta. But distorting what occurred for political expediency is shameful. Brooks NOT murdered because he was asleep in a drive-through. Stop pandering. https://t.co/yWYbRsJgth  James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) June 14, 2020

Photo credit: Twitter video screen grabs, cropped.
Lucknow, June 15 : UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath would visit Ayodhya on June 18 to review the preparations for the Ram temple 'bhumi pujan', tweeted the Chief Minister's Office, here on Monday. The 'bhumi pujan' is likely on July 1.

Champat Rai, general secretary of Shri Ram Janambhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, said they had extended a formal invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the 'bhumi pujan'.

Sources said the Prime Minister might not be able to attend the function due to the Covid-19 crisis. He could attend it through video link.

The Chief Minister will also review the progress of development work and the law and order situation in Ayodhya.

The levelling of temple site is in full swing and soil testing is also being done at the site.
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Hamilton Heights Christian High School has retired jersey numbers #1 & #2 in honor of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nickeil-Alexander Walker. The Canadian cousins attended the school in Chattanooga, Tennessee prior to their college days.

Back in high school, both of them where rated as four star recruits according to Rivals.com.

Shai who attended University of Kentucky, played for the Clippers his first NBA season and helped the team make the playoffs. Now, as a sophomore in the league, he has established as one of the best young guards with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

On the other hand, Nickeil went to Virginia Tech for two years before declaring for the NBA Draft. The 19 year-old, who was a first round pick, has struggled to find minutes with the New Orleans Pelicans as a rookie, averaging 12 minutes and 5 points per game.

Before the season started, VAVEL previewed that the Alexander cousins where gonna make an impact in the league. A couple of months later, both of them where selected to be part of the Rising Stars Game in Chicago during the All-Star Break.
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Riyadh, Saudi Arabia  Mon, June 15, 2020 11:45 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec16f1 2 World Saudi-Arabia,pandemic,coronavirus,coronavirus-restrictions,SARS-CoV-2,COVID-19,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus,COVID-19-infection Free

Saudi Arabia called on people to comply with health measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on Sunday, as its daily tally of cases rose above 4,000 for the first time.

The Saudi Arabian health ministry reported 4,233 new coronavirus cases to bring the total to 127,541, with 972 deaths, the highest among the six Gulf Arab states.

Saudi Arabia, which has a population of some 30 million, allowed employees to return to offices, commercial centers to reopen and prayers at mosques to resume in a three phase plan which began last month. A curfew is due to end by June 21.

"There are two paths before us. The average infection rate could rise if people continue not to comply, or we could bring the rate back down," a health ministry spokesman said.

The move follows a similar warning from Iran.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that Iran will reimpose restrictions to stem a surge in coronavirus cases if health regulations are not observed. After gradually relaxing its lockdown, Iran has seen a sharp rise of new infections.

Saudi authorities re-imposed curfew hours in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah on June 5 and suspended work at offices for two weeks as the number of infections there increased.

"We will intervene or apply additional measures in any region that requires that," the ministry spokesman said during a virtual news briefing.

The Saudi capital Riyadh recorded the biggest spike in the last 24 hours, with 1,735 more infections, followed by Jeddah and the holy city of Mecca with more than 300 each.

The total number of cases in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is more than 326,760, with some 1,770 deaths, Reuters calculations show.
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Vietnamese airlines have been opening new domestic routes and offering discounts in an effort to restore their operations after the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic.

According to the observation of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters, the domestic terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City has been quite bustling in the past few days.

All airlines in Vietnam have restored 100 percent of their domestic routes and are now running new services as well as giving away cheap tickets to attract customers.

Budget carrier Vietjet Air recently ran a program offering cheap tickets with prices starting at VND8,000 (US$0.34), taxes and airport fees excluded, along 52 domestic routes.

National carrier Vietnam Airlines is selling tickets from VND49,000 ($2.1) for all domestic routes until the end of this month.

Fierce competition is going on between local carriers, evidenced by a host of discounts and promotions, said Quynh Vy, a resident in Phu Nhuan District.

A flight ticket may now cost only a few thousand dong, Vy added. (VND1,000 = $0.043)

I have recently booked tickets to Phu Quoc Island [off southern Vietnam] for my family vacation in late June. Each ticket costs only VND500,000 [$21], a very affordable rate, Vy elaborated.

Passenger board a Vietjet flight at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Quang Dinh / Tuoi Tre

This summer, air ticket prices are 20-30 percent lower compared to the same period last year, said Thang, who works at a flight ticket agent in Ho Chi Minh City.

Flights from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to such popular destinations as Phu Quoc, Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Quy Nhon cost VND1-1.8 million ($43-77) on average.

Local airlines are shaking hands with tourist firms to provide affordable tours, helping to speed up the recovery of both aviation and tourism, according to Doan Thi Loc, deputy director of state-owned Saigontourist.

Travel agents in Ho Chi Minh City said they are raising the quality of their tours while charging only 70-80 percent of the rates before the COVID-19 epidemic.

Vietjet has sold 200,000 zero-dong tickets to local tourist companies to help stimulate travel demand in the country, Chu Viet Cuong, said the airline's board member.

Aside from beefing up domestic operations, airlines in Vietnam are preparing for the restart of some international routes.

Local carriers are likely to resume flights to South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan when they can obtain local authorities' approval.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
June 15 : 'Kaafir' a hard-hitting political drama which consists of eight episodes was released on Zee5 on 15th June 2019. Today, the show completes its one year of release. On this occasion, the team of 'Kaafir' celebrated it with a heartwarming video giving out a beautiful message.

The video was shared by the official page of ZEE5, "Yeh #Kaafir ki duniya hai, jisne sirf ishq aur insaaniyat se sabko Mohit kar Dia #1YearofKaafir #HumanityIsMyReligion #KaafirOnZEE5"

In the video, one can see the star cast of the show thanking their fans for their immense love and also making a plead to always follow the path of humanity.

'Kaafir' is a story of a recently married Pakistani woman Kainaaz Akhtar who tries to commit suicide but winds up in the Indian side of Line of Control (LOC) and is deemed to be a Pakistani militant and gets imprisoned for seven years. During her trial in jail, she also gives birth to a daughter and names her Sehar.

Lawyer turned journalist Vedant gets to see the footage of Sehar in one of his projects. He gets to know the plight of Sehar and Kainaaz and decides to bring justice to them. Dia Mirza and Mohit Raina shine in this show beautifully directed by Sonam Nair who captures the turmoil of the innocent men and women who get caught and are thrown into jail.

The show has a total of eight episodes and all of them are equally fascinating and intriguing. Each episode is beautifully woven with the other and ends up in asking for more.

Go watch the show today streaming on ZEE5.
A politician, Timi Frank, has called on the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, to prevail on those preventing the Edo Governor, Godwin ...

A politician, Timi Frank, has called on the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, to prevail on those preventing the Edo Governor, Godwin Obaseki, from joining the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).





Frank, in a statement on Monday, told PDP leaders to seize the opportunity of having Obaseki in their fold if they truly want to take over Edo State.





He warned that if PDP rejects Obaseki, other political parties are waiting to receive him.





If PDP is not careful embracing Obaseki now, the party may eventually lose the governorship election.





Noting that the APC governors failed to protect their colleague, he urged PDP governors, especially from the South-South, to act.





He noted that Wikes intervention will go a long way in resolving the Edo PDP crisis.





Frank said though some leaders in the state chapter may consider the move as injurious, accepting Obaseki will later turn out to be in their best decisions.





He counselled Wike and others to rally round Obaseki and provide a soft landing for him.





Frank also advised Obaseki to reach out more and give assurance of peace, togetherness and understanding to the warring members of PDP in Edo.





It is not over for him because the Edo people know the truth and will surely reward him at the poll, the statement added.
Reliance Industries (RIL) said that global alternative asset firm TPG and leading consumer focused private equity firm L Catterton will invest in Jio Platforms.

Reliance Industries said that global alternative asset firm TPG will invest Rs 4,546.80 crore in Jio Platforms. The investment will translate into a 0.93% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis for TPG.

Seperately, RIL announced an investment of Rs 1894.50 crore by L Catterton, one of the world's largest consumer focused private equity firms. This investment values Jio Platforms at an equity value Rs 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.16 lakh crore. L Catterton's investment will translate into a 0.39% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis.

With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised Rs 104,326.95 crore from leading global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG and L Catterton since 22 April 2020.

RIL made these announcements on Saturday. Shares of RIL gained 3.34% to settle at Rs 1,588.80 on Friday.

Meanwhile, the shares offered in just concluded rights issue by RIL will be listed on stock exchanges today. On June 11, the allotment of partly paid-up shares to the demat accounts of the shareholders was completed by RIL. RIL's Rs 53,124 crore rights issue was India's largest-ever rights issue. It ended last week with a 1.6 times subscription.

Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology platform focused on providing high-quality and affordable digital services across India, with more than 388 million subscribers.

TPG is a leading global alternative asset firm founded in 1992 with more than $79 billion of assets under management across a wide range of asset classes, including private equity, growth equity, real estate and public equity. TPG is making the investment from its TPG Capital Asia, TPG Growth, and TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD) funds.

With approximately $20 billion of equity capital across seven fund strategies in 17 offices globally, L Catterton is the largest consumer-focused private equity firm in the world.

RIL is India's largest private sector company. The company's activities span hydrocarbon exploration and production, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals, retail and digital services.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEET Exam

The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) submitted a proposal to the Bombay High Court on June 15, stating students can now choose to not appear for the pending ICSE (Class 10) and ISC (Class 12) examinations that got postponed due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

If they opt out of writing the exams, the students will be assessed on the basis of internal exams or selections scores, the data for which has already been collected from the respective schools.

The board also stated that all ICSE-affiliated schools in the country will be informed about this decision, following which the respective schools will have to contact the Class 10 and 12 students and make a note of their choices. The last date for submitting the response has been set as June 22.

The proposal was submitted by the education board in response to a petition that was filed by the parent of one of the candidates, seeking directions to have the exams on the remaining subjects cancelled. The plea filed by Mumbai resident Arvind Tiwari had challenged the ICSE boards plans to conduct the remaining exams from July 2 across Maharashtra, reported India Today.

The ICSE and ISC board examinations were supposed to be held in March but got postponed due to the coronavirus lockdown. There are 226 ICSE board schools in Maharashtra, where coronavirus cases breached the 1-lakh mark days ago. As many as 23,347 Class 10 students are supposed to appear for the pending ICSE board exams.

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

Notably, the Maharashtra government has also deemed the COVID-19 situation in the state unfit for holding examinations as it could jeopardise the health and safety of several persons involved in the process. Besides, the availability of public transportation also remains an issue.

The High Court bench that was hearing the case has posted the matter for further hearing on June 17.
South Korea should prepare for all possibilities



President Moon Jae-in took the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration to remind North Korea that it must not revert to the past era of confrontation by cutting off communication and raising tensions. Twenty years ago, the then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, signed the declaration to promote national reconciliation in the first-ever inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.



"The direction is clear. The South and the North should steadily move forward, step by step, with optimistic conviction, for reconciliation, peace and unification, like the swirling river that eventually flows to the sea," President Moon said. His remarks were apparently aimed at urging the North to stop making threats against the South and return to dialogue.



The President was cautious not to provoke Pyongyang. But he gave the impression that the liberal government was giving a lukewarm response to a series of recent threats by the North, including military action.



Critics question if Moon is capable of dealing with the North's hostile moves and military threats toward the South. His stressing of inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation is in stark contrast to the North's harsh rhetoric and verbal threats.



His policy of active engagement with the North is now being put to a major test. How can he persuade Pyongyang to come back to the negotiating table to discuss ways of easing tensions and restarting the stalled peace process on the peninsula?



As things stand now, Moon finds it hard to appease the North Korean leadership, including Kim Yo-jong, sister of Kim Jong-un and first vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party Central Committee, who is leading the charge against the South. On Monday, the party's mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun, kept up the bellicosity, saying, "Relentless retaliatory actions will continue."



It appears to be useless for Moon to vow to resolve the "uncomfortable and difficult problems" facing the two Koreas through dialogue and compromise. Yet he went out of his way to plead with the North to move toward peace and co-prosperity by implementing the April 27 Panmunjeom Declaration and the Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration that were announced during his summits with Kim Jong-un in 2018.



It is deplorable that the North is showing no intention of ending its hostile stance to resume dialogue. Thus inter-Korean relations are expected to deteriorate further down the road without any breakthrough in the deadlocked nuclear talks between Pyongyang and Washington.



Against the backdrop, President Moon should prepare for all possibilities. He needs to consider sending a special emissary to Pyongyang to break out of the deadlock. It is important to step up international cooperation to solve the Korean issue peacefully.



One option is to ask China, the sole ally of North Korea, to exert influence over Pyongyang to prevent it from going back to square one, and to resume dialogue with the South and the U.S. It is also necessary for Seoul to work more closely with Washington to prod Kim to avoid any miscalculations.




The growth of Azure has been phenomenal, said Greg Howett, CEO, Edgenexus. We are very pleased to be working with Microsoft and their partners to offer the tools needed to migrate any application into the cloud, both as an end result or as part of hybrid infrastructure.

Edgenexus Advanced Load Balancer for Azure Now Available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Microsoft Azure customers worldwide now gain access to Advanced Load Balancer to take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and agility of Azure to drive application development and shape business strategies.

Edgenexus today announced the availability of its Advanced Load Balancer for Azure in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store providing applications and services for use on Azure.

Edgenexus customers can now take advantage of the productive and trusted Azure cloud platform, with streamlined deployment and management.

Advanced Load Balancer for Azure allows users to easily achieve security, traffic management, SSO/pre-authentication and load balancing. Its technology can be deployed in all stages of the journey into the cloud and provides a consistent unified application delivery layer: on-premises  hybrid  cloud.

On-premises solutions can be deployed as virtual appliances or physical devices to load-balance and protect applications such as Always On VPN, Exchange/SFB, and custom web applications.

In a hybrid situation, Advanced Load Balancer for Azure plays an important role in providing services such as GSLB (multi datacenter/cloud load balancing) as well as ensuring that critical services such as ADFS are always available.

With regards to the cloud, powerful tools such as the Layer 7 traffic management can seamlessly migrate workloads between multiple datacenters and clouds with zero downtime.

Once fully migrated, Edgenexus technology can provide advanced load balancing/ADC and application security in Azure. In addition, it can even run a microservices host.

The growth of Azure has been phenomenal, said Greg Howett, CEO, Edgenexus. We are very pleased to be working with Microsoft and their partners to offer the tools needed to migrate any application into the cloud, both as an end result or as part of hybrid infrastructure.

Our ADC load balancer offers the advanced features required in Azure that are not native as well as providing a unified application delivery approach encompassing hardware and software. This allows maximum flexibility and zero downtime when migrating workloads.

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. Were happy to welcome the Advanced Load Balancer from Edgenexus 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 the Advanced Load Balancer at its page in the Azure Marketplace.

About Edgenexus:

Eighteen years ago, Edgenexus started building technology to make the internet faster. Since then our passion for speed has only been outshone by our dedication to simplicity and usability.

Every day we challenge ourselves to make our products easier to use whilst at the same time adding more advanced features. It is this dichotomy that powers our best innovation! It is this challenge that drives us forward.

Our load balancers/application delivery controllers, (WAF) web application firewalls and (GSLB) global server load balancers work beautifully together, connected with a simple-to-use and elegant interface.

Edgenexus has offices in the UK, the United States, and Malaysia, and to find out more, please visit: https://www.edgenexus.io/

For more information, press only:

Amy Hedger, hello@edgenexus.io

https://www.linkedin.com/company/edgenexus/
Appointment

15 June 2020

The Board of Hammerson is pleased to announce that Robert Noel is to succeed David Tyler as Non-Executive Chair of the Company. Mr Noel will join the Board and take over the position with effect from a date to be confirmed but no later than 1 October 2020, at which point Mr Tyler will step down from the Company. When he joins, Mr Noel will also chair the Nominations Committee.

Mr Noel has built a long and successful career in the real estate sector most notably at Great Portland Estates plc and Land Securities Group PLC (Landsec). In March of this year he stepped down from Landsec, where he had held the role of Chief Executive Officer for the past eight years.

Mr Noel is also Senior Independent Director at Taylor Wimpey plc and a Trustee of the Natural History Museum.
As a typical magmatic hydrothermal metallogenic system, the porphyry copper (molybdate - gold) deposit is the most representative metallogenic type above the plate subduction zone, and has a very important economic value. Recently, the research progress of porphyry copper deposits has been reviewed in Science China: Earth Sciences, namely the latest progress and key scientific problems in the formation mechanism of porphyry copper deposits. The paper, titled "metallogenic mechanism and major challenges of the subduction porphyry copper ore system", was published in the recently published Science China: Earth Sciences (vol. 50, 2020). It was written by Professor Huayong Chen and Dr. Chao Wu from Guangzhou Institute of geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The systematic literature investigation reveals that large PCDs are generally formed from initial arc magmas (from subduction-induced partial melting of the mantle wedge), which eventually ascend to the shallow crust (3-5 km) for mineralization after a series of complex evolution processes, and summarizes the current research on metallogenic mechanism, as well as existing scientific problems.

The PCDs consist of porphyry copper-molybdenum and copper-gold deposits, which are widely distributed in circle-Pacific and Central Asian metallogenic belt. PCDs are mostly spatially and genetically associated with shallow, intermediate to acid, porphyritic intrusions. PCDs usually have large reserves, shallow burial depths and are easily mined, which make them the key deposit type in the industry. As many world-class copper deposits are PCD-type, the physicochemical mechanism and geodynamic background of PCD formation have long been a hotspot of ore deposit research. This study summarizes the processes including (1) the dehydration or partial melting of subducting slab, which induces partial melting of the metasomatized mantle wedge; (2) the ascent of mantle-derived magma to the bottom of the lower crust, which subsequently undergoes crustal processes such as assimilation plus fractional crystallization (AFC) or melting, assimilation, storage and homogenization (MASH); (3) the magma chamber formation at the bottom of the lower, middle and upper crust; (4) the final emplacement and volatilization of porphyry stocks; and (5) the accumulation of ore-forming fluids and metal precipitation. Despite the many decades of research, many issues involving the PCD metallogenic mechanism still remain, such as (1) the tectonic control on the geochemical characteristics of ore-forming magma; (2) the reason for the different lifespans of the long-term magmatic arc evolution and geologically "instantaneous" mineralization processes; (3) the source of ore-forming materials; (4) the relative contributions of metal pre-enrichment to mineralization by the magma source and by magmatic evolution; and (5) the decoupling behaviors of Cu and Au during the pre-enrichment. These unsolved issues point out the direction for future PCD metallogenic research, and a resolution to them will extend our understanding of the metallogenesis at convergent plate boundaries, which will potentially benefit the industrial exploration for PCDs in Central Asian and Pacific Rim.

###

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant No. 41725009), the "135" Planned Project of Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No.135PY201606) and the Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Type B) (Grant No. XDB18030206).

See the article: Chen H, Wu C. 2020. Metallogenesis and major challenges of porphyry copper systems above subduction zones. Science China Earth Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-019-9595-8. http://engine.scichina.com/publisher/scp/journal/SSTe/doi/10.1360/SSTe-2019-0130?slug=abstract
The app was suspended ahead of an Amnesty International report analyzing contact tracing apps from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, which found that the Norwegian app was one of the most alarming for privacy because of its live or near-live tracking of users locations. The rights group said it shared its findings with authorities earlier this month and urged them to change course.

Oslo: Norway has suspended use of its smartphone app meant to track and trace coronavirus contagions after a public spat between health authorities and the information watchdog.

Geir Bukholm, an official at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said the decision Monday to delete data and halt any further information gathering from the app weakened the countrys preparedness should the infection rate increase. The app was being tested in three municipalities.

But the Norwegian Data Protection Agency said, amongst other things, that the low infection rate meant data gathering on the app could no longer be justified against privacy concerns.

Norway currently has between 50 and 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to the NIPH. There are between 20 and 50 new cases each week.

Fearing a second wave or localized spread of the infection, the health directorate will argue in a meeting with the data watchdog on Friday that the technology should be turned back on.

European governments have been rolling out smartphone tracing apps to help beat back any fresh coronavirus outbreaks. Norway was one of the first out of the blocks but its Smittestopp raised concerns because it used GPS tracking and uploaded data to central servers every hour.

The app was suspended ahead of an Amnesty International report analyzing contact tracing apps from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, which found that the Norwegian app was one of the most alarming for privacy because of its live or near-live tracking of users locations. The rights group said it shared its findings with authorities earlier this month and urged them to change course.

This episode should act as a warning to all governments rushing ahead with apps that are invasive and designed in a way that puts human rights at risk, said Claudio Guarnieri, head of Amnestys Security Lab.

Other countries such as Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Latvia are adopting a decentralized approach using a Google-Apple software interface that experts say is better for privacy because keeps data about contacts on iPhones and Android devices.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.
The number of total COVID-19 cases in Texas rose from 87,516 to 88,831 over the weekend, according to the Houston Chronicle Data Team.

In the Houston area, the regional case count is up to 22,901. Harris County added 210 new cases Sunday, for a grand total of 16,778 cases. The statewide death toll added 6 new deaths, meaning 1,980 people have died in Texas from the virus.
- A market survey conducted by YEN.com.gh has had many Ghanaians beseeching Nana to change to rule for churches to operate for only an hour

- According to most of the interviewees, church service entails so much that can simply not fit in 1-hour no-matter how it is handled

- President Nana Akufo-Addo instituted the '1-hour' policy for churches in a bid to help contain the spread of COVID-19 in the country

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

A section of Ghanaians has been reacting to the president's order for churches to operate for only one hour in each session as a measure to help contain COVID-19 spread.

This was during a market survey that was conducted by YEN TV to gather views on how Ghanaians think the measure would help them or otherwise.

Although there have been people supporting the president's order that one hour is enough to have a church service, most people have been reacting in the negative.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians react as NAM 1 returns to business & signs new artiste

See full video below:

The most resounding assertion made by most of the interviewees has been that a single hour is not enough for praises, worship, testimonies, sermon and offertory.

According to most of the people interviewed, there is virtually no point in going to the church when there would not be sufficient time to partake in the various aspects that make the church what it is.

Funnily enough, one lady indicated that the testimony of a single person is usually more than even 30 minutes which means only two of that would exhaust the entire hour.

READ ALSO: We are signing new artistes to generate income & pay Menzgold customers

Meanwhile, the entire number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in Ghana has jumped once again but this time by 304, moving the figure to 11,422 from the previous 11,118.

Sadly, the number of people who have died due to the coronavirus has also increased from the previous 48 to 51 which means three more people have succumbed.

This has been according to the latest update by the Disease Surveillance Department of the Ghana Health Service on June 14, 2020.

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Source: YEN.com.gh
Twenty-two senior United Nations officials have issued a joint statement condemning pervasive and systemic racism in the United States and beyond.

The officials, who are Africans or of African descent, urged authorities and the international community to go beyond and do more than just condemning the act.

Among the signatories are the Director-General, World Health Organisation, Tedros Ghebreyesus, and the Executive-Director, Joint UN AIDS Programme, Winnia Byanyima, the UN said in a report on Sunday.

The statement comes amid massive protests in major cities across the U.S. and around the against racism.

The protests were sparked by the death of an African American, George Floyd, after a white police officer knelt on his neck in the U.S. city of Minneapolis on May 25.

The UN officials position came a few days after the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said employees of the organisation were free to protest in private capacity.

Mr Guterres clarification was in response to complaints by staff over a guidance issued earlier by the UN Ethics Office that warned them against demonstrations.

I also want to be clear about the recent guidance issued by the Ethics Office and relevant departments, he said in an internal memo.

It does not in any way indicate that staff are to remain neutral or impartial in the face of racism.

To the contrary, there is no ban on personal expressions of solidarity or acts of peaceful civic engagement, provided they are carried out in an entirely private capacity.

The UN officials said their expression of solidarity with the peaceful demonstrations was in line with their responsibilities and obligations as international civil servants to stand up and speak out against oppression.

As leaders we share the core beliefs and the values and principles enshrined in the Charter of the UN that do not leave us the option to keep silent, they said.

Referencing Floyds last words while pleading for breathing space, the UN officials said they conveyed the deep trauma and inter-generational suffering from racial injustice, particularly against people of African descent

A desperate yearning for a long-departed mother, they said in reference to Floyds cry to his late mother for help.

Reaching deep from the bowels of fragile humanity. Grasping for breath. Begging for mercy. The entire world heard the tragic cry.

They said it was time for authorities to go beyond simply condemning acts of racism, which they described as a global scourge that has been perpetuated over centuries.

The officials also called on the UN to step up and act decisively to help end systemic racism against people of African descent and other minority groups, according to to the report.

(NAN)
London, UK, June 15, 2020

As countries continue their phased opening approaches, retailers in the UK have started to open their doors for the first time in three months since lockdown was enforced on March 23, 2020.

With consumer confidence levels at their lowest ever recorded and a decrease in GDP of 14 percent forecast by the end of 2020, there are challenges ahead. But, despite these challenges, there is still room for certain business models to grow and flourish.

"Clearly, there will be tremendous headwinds for retailers as customers emerge into the post Covid-19 world of retail. We are already seeing several emerging and growing trends which, smart retailers will need to adapt to," said Nick Taylor, Senior Managing Director, International Retail, and the article's author. "Before the Covid-19 pandemic structural changes in retail were already evident. What the pandemic has done is accelerate those changes."

For the latest information, articles, and perspective on the recent economic impacts, please visit the Gordon Brothers Resource Hub at: www.gordonbrothers.com/covid-19.

About Gordon Brothers

Since 1903, Gordon Brothers (www.gordonbrothers.com) has helped lenders, operating executives, advisors, and investors move forward through change. The firm brings a powerful combination of expertise and capital to clients, developing customized solutions on an integrated or standalone basis across four service areas: valuations, dispositions, operations, and investments. Whether to fuel growth or facilitate strategic consolidation, Gordon Brothers partners with companies in the retail, commercial, and industrial sectors to put recent economic impacts assets to their highest and best use. Gordon Brothers conducts more than $70 billion worth of dispositions and appraisals annually. Gordon Brothers is headquartered in Boston, with 25 offices across five continents.
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday that federal civil rights law also protects gay, lesbians and transgender employees, has energized a Baton Rouge nonprofit to try again to get the East Baton Rouge Parish Metro Council to adopt widespread protections for LGBTQ individuals.

Leaders with the Progressive Social Network say the Supreme Court decision opens the door for their proposed Fairness Ordinance, and they are calling upon the city-parish to seize the historic moment and take action immediately by adopting it.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome supports their efforts, as do two of the councilmen seeking to challenge her in this falls municipal elections.

But Broome and others acknowledge they would first need to review a current draft of the proposed Fairness Ordinance before lobbying for its adoption.

Progressive Social Network and other local civil rights groups claim city-parish leaders already have a viable draft of the ordinance in their hands and should put it on Metro Councils agenda as soon as possible, given the shift in sentiment Mondays ruling from the Supreme Court is expected to create.

Through the years the LGBTQ+ community has sought after nothing more than equality and this is a step in that direction, Christopher Bradford, chairman of the board for Baton Rouge Pride, said in a prepared statement Monday. For cities like Baton Rouge, a capital city and economic center of a state, to hold back from making a decision on equality shows that until theres a change in leadership we cannot continue to progress further.

Bradfords statement went on to say, The change needs to come from city council members who refuse to show their true colors.

PSN was joined in its call for action by the Louisiana Trans Advocates and the local chapter of the NAACP.

+2 Supreme Court shoots down Gov. Edwards' order barring LGBT discrimination against workers A split Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday shot down Gov. John Bel Edwards order that bans companies contracting with the state from discrimin

The landmark ruling from the Supreme Court prohibits an employer from firing a person for being gay or transgender. In the 6-3 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the first appointee from President Donald Trump to the high court, and Chief Justice John Roberts, the court stated, An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits and actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.

Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII (of the Civil Rights Act) forbids, the courts decision reads.

PSN has spent the past few years lobbying the Metro Council to adopt its proposed Fairness Ordinance, which would not only grant LGBTQ individuals protection in the workplace, but within the city-parishs housing and public accommodations arenas as well.

The city-parish already has anti-discriminatory protections for city employees, which Broome reinstated in 2017 after taking office.

But the proposed Fairness Ordinance would go a step further by creating a special commission to review, investigate and mediate claims of discrimination in the parish, something that's been done in both Shreveport and New Orleans.

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But the nonprofit groups proposal faced pushback from religious groups and could never gain enough support among council members who were skittish about supporting the measure.

Last year, Councilman Matt Watson yanked a resolution addressing LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace after receiving criticism from those on the left who felt it wasnt strong enough and from those on the right who insisted such laws infringe upon religious freedoms.

Watsons resolution specifically aimed at having the Metro Council revisit the topic after the Supreme Court issued its rulings regarding discriminatory practices against LGBTQ individuals.

Why LGBTQ protection initiative will be dropped from Baton Rouge Metro Council's agenda The Metro Council is set to discuss protections for LGBTQ people on Wednesday  an issue that surfaces periodically  but the watered-down res

The Republican councilman, whos also running for mayor this fall, said Monday hes open to talking about potential local legislation again.

He previously said he couldnt support PSNs measure because it was constantly changing but never ruled out supporting its goal.

Throughout my public service, Ive looked to law, to the courts, to the courts interpretation of law to affect how I do my job, Watson said. This is a substantial ruling that affects a lot of people, whether youre in the class of people or not, its going to affect your life."

He added: "There is no question in my mind that because this (ruling) has handled employment discrimination, this will expand to housing discrimination.

Metro Councilwoman Tara Wicker was the lone Democrat on the council who opposed local legislation protecting gay and transgender individuals. Wicker, who has also announced a mayoral campaign, said after Mondays ruling that discrimination on every front is wrong but still wouldnt single out the LGBT community as a group uniquely in need of protections.

Do we start picking and choosing what those categories are, or do we just make sure that everybody has equal access? she said. As Mayor-President, I want a city-parish that makes sure that everybodys covered and not pick out who is favored over someone else.

Wicker added she doesnt want the current debates over systemic racism and racial inequities to get overshadowed by discussions of LGBTQ rights.

Broome, like Watson, acknowledged the evolving nature of PSNs proposed ordinance but welcomed the opportunity to work with the group on finalizing something that could be beneficial for the entire parish.

My basic premise around discrimination is that its wrong overall, Broome said Monday. Theres no doubt in my mind that todays ruling is going to have a variety of entities outside of city-parish government looking at their policies.
The number of new confirmed Covid-19 cases have shot up to 79 in Beijing with health authorities adding 36 more to Sundays tally, the countrys health authorities announced early on Monday.

The National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday that it received reports of 49 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on the Chinese mainland on Sunday, of which 39 were domestically transmitted and 10 were imported.

Of the domestically transmitted cases, 36 were reported in Beijing and three in Beijings bordering province, Hebei.

Since June 11, Beijing has recorded 79 new cases of Covid-19 after not reporting any for 55 days, triggering fears of a second wave of infections and pointing to the difficulties in curbing the pandemic raging globally.

Also read | Final gift: Widow of Chinese Covid-19 whistleblower doctor gives birth

Majority of the cases have been linked to the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale market - the biggest in Beijing - for vegetables, meat and seafood in the southwest of the city in the Fengtai district: The infected are either traders or buyers who visited the market.

A district head has been sacked and other local officials have been punished following the new cases, the government announced on Monday.

Zhou Yuqing, deputy head of Fengtai District, has been removed from the post for failing in his duty in Covid-19 prevention and control work.

The district has declared a state of wartime management, and authorities intend to test all 46,000 residents living in communities in the vicinity of Xinfadi market, Zhang Jie, deputy district head of Fengtai, said at a press conference on Sunday.

The market has been shuttered and 11 residential communities are under lockdown.

Three schools and six kindergartens nearby have been suspended.

According to a statement by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the fresh cluster outbreak in Beijing, the first identified case had symptom onset on June 9, and was confirmed on June 11.

Several of the initial cases were identified through six fever clinics in Beijing... Preliminary laboratory investigations of throat swabs from humans and environmental samples from Xinfadi Market identified 45 positive human samples (all without symptoms at the time of reporting) and 40 positive environmental samples. One additional case without symptoms was identified as a close contact of a confirmed case, the WHO statement said.

Meanwhile, 17 out of 19 new imported coronavirus cases registered on Saturday came from South Asia.

The sharp spike analysts said indicates that loosening restrictions and worsening contagion in the region poses a danger to the countrys domestic situation. The 17 patients were reported in South Chinas Guangdong Province, with 14 flying from Bangladesh and three from India, a state media report said.

As of Sunday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 83,181 including 177 patients who were still being treated, with two in severe condition.

Altogether 78,370 people had been discharged after recovery and 4,634 people had died of the disease, the NHC said in its daily bulletin.

By Sunday, the Chinese mainland had reported a total of 1,837 imported cases. Of the cases, 1,745 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 92 remained hospitalised. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported, official news agency, Xinhua said, quoting the NHC.
MIAMI, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN and LEN.B), one of the nation's leading homebuilders, announced today that the Company will release earnings for the second quarter ended May 31, 2020 after the market closes on June 15, 2020, instead of before the market opens on June 16, 2020, as previously announced. Additionally, the Company will hold a conference call on June 16, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

About Lennar

Lennar Corporation, founded in 1954, is one of the nation's leading builders of quality homes for all generations. Lennar builds affordable, move-up and active adult homes primarily under the Lennar brand name. Lennar's Financial Services segment provides mortgage financing, title and closing services primarily for buyers of Lennar's homes and, through LMF Commercial, originates mortgage loans secured primarily by commercial real estate properties throughout the United States. Lennar's Multifamily segment is a nationwide developer of high-quality multifamily rental properties. LenX, formerly known as Lennar Ventures, drives Lennar's technology, innovation and strategic investments. For more information about Lennar, please visit www.lennar.com.

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Incredible photos taken just eight months apart show how a drought-stricken farm has been transformed into an unrecognisable sea of green.

Ravaged by drought and dust storms, farmers in central News South Wales watched helplessly last year as their crops and livelihoods shrivelled under cloudless skies and mountains of red dust.

But then the rains came.

Several months of consistent rainfall have turned parched, barren paddocks into pastures of lush feed.

ABC reporter Lucy Thackray shared incredible photographs of the once arid property after months of consistent rain



The contrasting images of a family farm near Dandaloo in central NSW were shared by ABC western plains reporter Lucy Thackray.

In the first photos taken at the height of a two-year drought in October 2019, there is only red dirt dotted with rocks, dead roots and broken sticks.

But in the latest images, the paddocks are thick with green foliage for cattle to feed on.

Ms Thackray said it was wonderful to see the transformation, which had come 'just in time'.

'Everyone was desperate with dust storms 2-3 times a week, empty dams, grassless paddocks and struggling for water for critical supplies,' she said.

'Its incredible how resilient the environment can be but there are still years ahead before farmers recover.'

Unfortunately, she said some farmers had not been so fortunate and had missed out on the rains.

Ms Thackray has previously shared haunting footage of the property during a dust storm - which stripped the topsoil of vital nutrients needed to grow crops.

Thick plumes of red dirt covered homes and cars, and entered people's homes.

One family in Broken Hill in the state's mid-west were forced to eat their dinner in bed under a sheet to stop the dirt from contaminating their food.

'Within three minutes the mashed potato was turning red from the dust  that's how thick it was. Inside the house,' Rhonda Griffin previously told the ABC.

She has previously share haunting footage of the property during a dust storm - stripping the topsoil of vital nutrients needed to grow crops

The dust storms came as dams in the western parts of NSW dried up when rainfall plunged to just 10 per cent of regular levels.

A horror bushfire season followed that was felt across five states.

The smoke from the blazes, fuelled by months of drought and heatwave temperatures covered large parts of Australia's east coast, turning the sky orange for weeks.

One of the hardest hit areas is along the Victorian and New South Wales border, where a pair of enormous fires combined to create a 'mega blaze' stretching for 600,000 hectares.

At Mallacoota, a small coastal town in the north-east corner of Victoria, about 4,000 tourists and residents found themselves stranded on the beach and had to be evacuated by the Australian Navy as fires closed in.

The dust storms came as dams in the western parts of NSW dried up when rainfall plunged to just ten per cent of regular levels. Pictured: A farmer riding a bike on parched land

The same farmer rides a ute through fields thick with green grass months later after periods consistent rain. The region suffered through a two-year drought

An inquiry into the bushfires opened in May, with a stark warning that such disasters would become longer and more frequent.

The Bureau of Meteorology's head of climate monitoring, Karl Braganza, said a prolonged drought was one of the key factors that led to the dangerous fires.

However, Mr Braganza emphasised that the recent bushfires were part of an underlying climate trend, which has emerged this century and 'really challenged what we thought fire weather looked like preceding this period'.

The once arid land now has thick green grass for sheep and cows to graze on. Pictured: A truck driving through thick green fields

A similar picture, taken nine months later, show the same dog and ute travelling through the bone-dry farm

'This isn't a one-off event that we're looking at here,' he said. 'The frequency of these events, if you look at the historical record, seems to be increasing.'

Scientists say the country's summers are lengthening and are becoming increasingly dangerous, with shorter winters making it more difficult to carry out bushfire prevention work.

Australia has seen dozens of inquests into the causes of bushfires and steps that could be taken to mitigate them. But many measures recommended by inquiries going back to the 1930s have still not been implemented.

The inquiry is required to report its findings by August 31 ahead of the next bushfire season.
Lisa Steele, general manager of the Culloden Estate and Spa, prepares to reopen for business (Liam McBurney/PA)

Pubs, restaurants and hotels are to open in Northern Ireland at the start of July in a major stride out of lockdown.

Ministers in the Stormont Executive agreed to the move at a meeting on Monday.

From June 26, caravan parks, camp sites and self-contained tourist accommodation will be able to reopen.

Expand Close Lisa Steele, general manager of the Culloden Estate and Spa (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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A week later on July 3, hotels, restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, pubs and bars will be able to welcome customers back.

Pubs and bars opening on that date will have to primarily function as restaurants and offer substantial meals.

Hotel leisure and spa facilities will have to remain closed on July 3.

No decision has been made by the executive on whether to reduce the social distancing measure in Northern Ireland from two metres to one  a move the hospitality sector has been demanding.

Ministers are giving consideration to reviewing the measure.

Northern Ireland again recorded no further coronavirus deaths on Monday, the sixth occasion in the last 10 days.

The Covid-19 death total recorded by the Department of Health in the region remains at 541.

Stormont Economy minister Diane Dodds made the announcement about the hospitality sector on a visit to a Belfast restaurant.

This is a good day for the Northern Ireland economy, she said.

Its a good day for tourism and hospitality in particular, a sector that has been incredibly hard hit by the lockdown after the pandemic.

So good news for the sector in general.

Earlier, First Minister Arlene Foster said the successful suppression of Covid-19 in the region had enabled the fast-tracking of the reopening of the hospitality sector.

This is a good day for the Northern Ireland economy. Diane Dodds

Only hotels had previously had an indicative opening date  July 20  with other hospitality outlets having been unclear when they could potentially start trading again.

The proposals to allow hospitality businesses to open on July 3, and caravan parks a week earlier, were contained in a paper tabled before the executive by Mrs Dodds.

Lisa Steele, General Manager of the five star Culloden Estate and Spa on the outskirts of Belfast, said: We are delighted with todays announcement and look forward to welcoming guests back from Friday 3rd July.

Weve been working hard to prepare our magnificent property for reopening and are excited that guests will soon be able to enjoy the 5-star experience we at Hastings Hotels are renowned for.

A relaxation that allowed people living on their own to interact with one other household in a social bubble came into effect in the region on Saturday.

The move saw grandparents reunited with grandchildren after a three-month lockdown absence.

Expand Close Templeton Robinson estate agent Brent Howell placing a for sale advertisement into a window display at their Ballyhackamore branch in east Belfast on Monday (Liam McBurney/PA) PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Templeton Robinson estate agent Brent Howell placing a for sale advertisement into a window display at their Ballyhackamore branch in east Belfast on Monday (Liam McBurney/PA)

On Monday, passenger flights resumed at Belfast International Airport, and the housing market also restarted, with estate agents able to show properties to prospective buyers once again.

All non-essential retail outlets were permitted to reopen on Friday.

Some major chains in Belfast city centre, such as Zara and Apple, waited until Monday to welcome customers back.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  Do you believe that?

This was Rappler chief executive officer Maria Ressas response to CNN Philippines Rico Hizon on Monday when she was asked to comment on Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roques remarks that President Rodrigo Duterte values press freedom in the country.

Ressa pointed out that aside from Rappler, Duterte has repeatedly threatened the Philippine Daily Inquirer and broadcast giant ABS-CBN during his four years in office because of their critical coverage of the government.

Actions, actions speak louder than words. He has threatened journalists not just in words but in actions, stressed Ressa.

In a briefing today, Roque insisted Duterte has nothing to do with Ressas conviction and that the President supports press freedom.

"Naniniwala po siya sa malayang pananalita at ang paninindigan niya, ang taong gobyerno ay hindi dapat onion-skinned, hinaharap ang puna ng taumbayan lalo na kung ito ay nanggagaling sa media," he said.

[Translation: The President believes in free speech, he maintains that public officials should not be onion-skinned and should face criticisms from the public, especially those coming from the media.]

The embattled Rappler CEO cried foul over the governments abuse of power regarding her case and the violation of her rights.

I have been a journalist for almost 35 years. Ive worked in many different countries around the world. Yet, that time period I have never been called a criminal. Now, this government has done that and it is codified, said Ressa.

Calls to uphold and defend press freedom continued to mount following the guilty verdict handed down against Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former writer-researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. over a cyber libel case.

Despite concerns on the court decisions implications to the current state of the press, Ressa herself urged fellow journalists to continue on with their duties  even with fear hounding their storytelling processes.

She appealed to media personnel to continue fighting for and protecting their rights.

Dont be afraid, because if you dont use your rights, you will lose them, Ressa told reporters in a briefing after the court proceedings.

If we dont challenge a brazen move to try to roll back the rights guaranteed in the Constitution, we will lose them," she said. "We shouldnt be voluntarily giving up our rights.

Ressa also warned against the possible intimidation of those in power against journalists, and reminded her colleagues to look straight past these factors and just do the story.

Theres a sword hanging over journalists heads," she said, "and what Id recommend, this is the lesson weve learned, is that you have to look at that sword, acknowledge that its meant to make you doubt yourself, its meant to make you not push as hard because there will be consequences"

"What you need to do is back that away and look ahead and do the stories, she added, noting how investigative journalism is much more essential today than ever.

Rapplers legal camp said it will file an appeal against the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46s ruling, which sentenced both Ressa and Santos to up to six years in jail for violating the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

The case stemmed from a 2012 Rappler investigative article which reported on businessman Wilfredo Kengs alleged connection to illegal activities. Keng filed the complaint in 2017, nearly five years after the story was posted on the online website.

READ: 'Free press, free speech narrower': Rappler slams cyber libel verdict on Ressa

After the verdict announcement, Kengs camp said it was pleased with the decision, with justice now on deck for Keng.

Ressa, for her part, appealed to the government to learn to work with journalists.

We are not your enemies, Ressa stated.

The Integrated Bar of the Philippines said while the move may possibly cause a chilling effect on the media, this should inspire journalists to hang on to their respective duties.

I think instead of having that chilling effect on media, I think it should fortify your resolve to do your professional jobs better, IBP president Domingo Cayosa told CNN Philippines The Source.
The research, Southeast Asia Online Video Consumer Insights & Analytics: A Definitive Study, was carried was carried out by leading Asian analyst Media Partners Asias AMPD out between 20 January to 11 April 11, in Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines, with insights collected from a sample of 32,245 individuals.In addition to Viu ranking first by number of users amongst major video streaming platforms, excluding YouTube, in Southeast Asia Research , the service was assessed as second by streaming minutes amongst major streaming platforms, excluding YouTube, in Southeast Asia. In terms of time spent per week among users, Viu was in the Top 4 in excluding YouTube.Assessing the research findings, Janice Lee, managing director of PCCW Media Group, said that since launch Vius focus has been to build the leading OTT streaming platform for todays viewers with a sustainable and robust business model. Our investments in content span the top pan-regional content , such as Parasite and A World of Married Couple to celebrated Viu Original productions including Asian adaptations of international formats such as Pretty Little Liars, My Bubble Tea and The Bridge, she noted. In addition to serving viewers with great content, we have built traction by offering high quality localisation in languages and user experience in our markets. All this has helped us serve our users better.And in the latest part of improving content, the 10-episode second season of Endemol Shine Groups The Bridge , produced by Viu and in association with HBO Asia Originals, is now airing on Viu, HBO GO and HBO across 24 territories in Asia. The award-winning series returns with Singapore's Rebecca Lim (pictured) and Malaysia's Bront Palarae reprising their lead roles.In season two, the cast has been expanded to include talent from Indonesia and the Philippines. Indonesias Ario Bayu plays a law enforcement officer with a hidden agenda. Rounding out the regional cast are Wan Hanafi Su, Fikry Ibrahim and Chew Kin Wah from Malaysia, Lukman Sardi, Amanda Manopo and Miller Khan from Indonesia, Adrian Pang from Singapore and Joseph Marco from the Philippines. TJ Lee and Jason Chong return to direct, alongside Zahir Omar.With this show, we are delighted to bring the best of Asian talent to our audiences, commented Sahana Kamath, head of original production for Viu Indonesia and Malaysia. This gritty and atmospheric second season returns with an impressive cast from across Southeast Asia. It is a true regional production with more twists and turns, digging deeper into character and moving the action seamlessly across three countries. We believe our viewers will enjoy this bolder and more adrenaline-pumping season two of The Bridge.
In this Aug. 23, 2019 photo, Paul Whelan speaks while standing in a cage as he waits for a hearing in a courtroom in Moscow. Read more

MOSCOW  Former Marine Paul Whelan was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in a Russian prison for espionage Monday, the conclusion to a case that has added tension to already strained relations between the United States and Russia.

Whelan, 50, said throughout the trial that he was framed. His lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said his client was unwittingly handed a flash drive containing "state secrets" while visiting Russia for a wedding in late 2018. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Whelan was caught "red-handed."

Whelan has said he thought the flash drive that he received from an acquaintance contained holiday photos. He said Monday that he plans to appeal the court's decision.

Now that Whelan has been convicted, speculation is rife about a possible prisoner exchange with the United States. Zherebenkov, Whelan's attorney, said Monday that "Paul expected this decision because even when he was detained, he was told [by Russian security service agents] that he would be exchanged."

Without revealing his source, Zherebenkov said he was told Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot who was arrested in 2010 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States, and Viktor Bout, a gun runner who inspired the 2005 Hollywood film "Lord of War," are the people the Kremlin is focused on as possible trades for Whelan's release.

"I heard talk that, why should we waste time on the appeal if we can just go ahead with the exchange?" Zherebenkov said. "I can't give you any names, but I know that the exchange is being discussed."

In July, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggested the United States should "free Yaroshenko; swap him for an American or Americans who are serving their sentence here," according to the Interfax news agency.

"I'm in no position to discuss prisoner exchanges," U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said Monday. "Paul has now just become a convict in the Russian system. I'm advocating for justice for Paul. . . . What we're looking for is not an exchange, we're looking for justice for Paul Whelan."

Even before the verdict came down, Whelan appeared to believe a guilty result was a foregone conclusion, shouting from within a glass enclosed area in the courtroom that Russia "feels impotent in the world, so they're taking political hostages."

This is slimy, greasy, rubbish Russian politics  nothing more, nothing less, Whelan called out to reporters.

After the verdict, Whelan shouted that he had no English translation and had no idea what decision was announced.

Speaking on the courthouse steps after the verdict, Sullivan described the case as "a mockery of justice."

"Is this an impediment? Absolutely," Sullivan said of the relationship between Moscow and Washington, referencing current affairs as at a "low ebb."

The U.S. Embassy has repeatedly condemned the prosecution's lack of evidence and described Whelan's treatment as "shameful." He was not permitted to phone his family until 16 months into his detainment, and the embassy said he did not have access to English-speaking doctors for a preexisting inguinal hernia.

After experiencing "severe abdominal pain" late last month, Whelan had an "emergency hernia operation" at a Moscow hospital, Whelan's twin brother, David Whelan, said in an email, citing information from the embassy. The surgery was successful, he said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday in a statement that "the treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling."

"The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses," the statement said. "We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations."

The trial, which began in March, has been largely behind closed doors with the court citing the classified materials in the case. Proceedings continued despite the strict coronavirus-related restrictions imposed in Russia's capital.

"Whelan was under surveillance for a number of years; there was a certain script, and there were obvious elements of provocation," said Zherebenkov, Whelan's lawyer. He added that over the course of many trips to Russia, Whelan got to know about 60 people "but not a single one has stated that Paul tried to recruit them."

Whelan, who also has Canadian, Irish and British citizenship, was the corporate security director at BorgWarner, a Michigan-based automotive parts supplier, at the time of his arrest. He received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines in 2008, according to military records.

"I need the president of the United States and the prime ministers of Canada, Ireland and England to act decisively to end this political charade," Whelan said in the courtroom Monday.

_____

The Washington Posts Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbukomova in Moscow contributed to this report.
The City of Dearborns City Clerk Office is looking to hire voting assistants for the two upcoming 2020 elections.

These elections are the Michigan state primary election on Tuesday, Aug. 4 and the presidential election on Nov. 3.

Interested applicants should be willing to work prior to, during, and shortly after the day of the elections, and should be able to lift and carry objects up to 40 pounds and be comfortable dealing with the public.

Individuals will be compensated at $10 per hour. Accepted applicants must undergo a drug screening and a criminal history check.

Applications are due by 8 a.m. on Monday, June 22. Interested individuals can apply online at www.cityofdearborn.org.
12:03





The 'Dabangg' director wrote, "My experience is no different. I have experienced exploitation and bullying first hand." He further said, "Arbaaz Khan on Dabangg and ever since. So here is my story 10 years after Dabangg. The reason I moved out of making Dabangg 2 ten years ago is that Arbaaz Khan in collusion with Sohail Khan and family was trying to take control of my career by bullying me. because Arbaaz Khan sabotaged my second project with Shree Ashtavinayak Films that I was signed up with by personally calling their head Mr. Raj Mehta and threatening him with dire consequences if they made a film with me. I had to return the signing money to Shree Ashtavinayak films and moved to Viacom Pictures. They did the same thing. Only this time the sabotager was Sohail Khan and he intimidated the then Viacom CEO Vikram Malhotra. My project was sabotaged and I was made to return my signing fee of Rupees 7 Crores plus interest of Ninety odd lacs. Its only then that Reliance Entertainment came to my rescue and we forged an enduring partnership for my film Besharam.





"The 'Yuva' director added, "But to behold... Mr Salman Khan and family sabotaged the release of the film and got their PROs to run a sustained negative smear campaign against me and my film Besharam before release. This scared the distributors from buying my film. Reliance Entertainment and I were capable and courageous enough to release the film ourselves but the battle had just begun. My enemies, which there were many ran a sustained negative Trolling and badmouthing campaign against the film till the Box Office of my film collapsed. But to their horror, Besharam had still netted 58 crores before it went out of theatres.""So they fought on... They sabotaged the Satellite release of the film that was pre-sold to Mr Jayanti Lal Gada who was the main agregator for Zee Telefilms those days. With Reliance's goodwill, they were able to re-negotiate the satellite rights sale with Gada for a much lesser price," he further said.





Talking about his projects and how they were affected, Kashyap added, "Over the next few years, all my projects and creative endeavours have been sabotaged and I have been repeatedly threatened with life and rape threats given to/for the female members of my family. The sustained gaslighting and bullying destroyed my mental health and that of my family and led to my divorce and breaking up of my family in 2017. They erred and sent some of these threats as texts, sent to me as sms from several numbers. Armed with evidence, I went to the police in 2017 to file an FIR which they refused to register but registered a non-cognizable complaint. When the threats continued, I forced the police to trace the numbers but they couldn't be traced back to Sohail Khan (the suspected sender). My complaint remains open to date and I still have all the evidence."





The director further wrote, "My enemies are sharp, cunning and always attack me from the back and stay Hidden. But the best part is after 10 Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan years, I know who my enemies are. Let it be known that they are Salim Khan, Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Sohail Khan for. There are many other small fry's but Salman Khan family is the head of this venomous serpent. They use a clever mix of their ill-gotten money, political clout and connections with the underworld to intimidate anyone and everyone. Unfortunately truth is on my side and I am not going to give up like Sushant Singh Rajput.





"I refuse to cow down and will fight on till I see the end of either them or me. Enough tolerance. It's time to fight back."The 'Dabangg' director wrote, "The suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput brings to the forefront a much bigger problem of what many of us have been dealing with. Exactly what might compel a person to commit suicide?? I fear his death is just the tip of the iceberg just like the #metoo movement was for a much bigger malaise in Bollywood."









Kashyap also made allegations that talent management agencies ruin the career and life of an actor, "The death of Sushant Singh Rajput brings under scanner the role YRF talent Management Agency might have played in pushing him towards his suicide but that is for the authorities to investigate. These people don't make careers. They ruin your career and life. Having suffered personally for a decade, I can confidently say every Talent Manager and all Talent Management Agencies of Bollywood are a potential death Trap for Artists. They are all basically white collared Dalaals and everyone is involved. They all have an unspoken code of conduct they adhere to. Their one simple mantra is, 'Hamaam me sab nange aur jo nange nahin hain, unko nanga karo kyonki agar ek bhi pakda gaya to sab pakde jayenge'. Following is mostly their modus Operandi'."









The director shared how the agencies find talented people and get them to sign a contract, "First the talent scout (Casting Directors, etc.) working on a cut/commission spots a needy wild talent from out of Mumbai with little connections or property. The talent is then lured with free invites to Bollywood parties and random Restaurant launches on the pretext of introducing them to celebrities. The Blinding glamour of celebs and lure of easy money is unleashed on the unsuspecting. Mind you they are all ignored and treated very badly at these parties so they feel demoralized and their self-confidence breaks."









He added, "Once the confidence is broken, the scouts offer them a multi-year exclusivity contracts and pressure them to sign-up for it by promising to protect them from predators or offering a pittance. Mind you, breaking these legal contracts means heavy penalties for these budding talents but the scout makes sure through bullying and coercion that there is very little option for the talent but to sign up. Once the talent is signed up with the Talent management agency, they give up their right to exercise free choice and their discretion in any matter concerning career and they are made to work as bonded labor with very little money. Even if they are brave and manage to escape the clutches of their Talent Management agency somehow, they are systematically boycotted and their name smeared till they jump ship to another Agency in the hope of a better tomorrow."





Talking further about the struggle of an actor, Kashyap said, "But that tomorrow never comes. Their new agency turns out to be the same. Over a period of few years, mostly the prime of any actor, the talent is repeatedly broken till they either commit suicide or they succumb to Prostitution and escort services (Yes male escorts also) to feed the ego and sexual appetite of the rich and powerful, not just in Bollywood but also in Corporate world and politics."









He concluded by writing, "So this is not a threat, it's an open challenge. Sushant Singh Rajput has moved on and I hope he is happier wherever he is but I will make sure that no more innocent will kill himself over lack of work with dignity in Bollywood. I hope suffering actors and creative artists will share my post on various social media platforms as will the media and people who patronize the entertainment industry." -- ANI

Director Abhinav Singh Kashyap appealed to the government to launch a detailed investigation into the demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput and shared a hard hitting Facebook post about his own experience of bullying in the Bollywood industry.
"NopSec is leading this market transition, and I am excited to help the company deliver its next-generation technology to customers. said Parag Baxi, VP of Product

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In her 3 1/2 years as Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields appeared to have struck a balance rare in American law enforcement. Known as a staunch ally of police officers who worked closely with unions, Shields simultaneously championed progressive policies such as levying lengthy suspensions in use-of-force incidents and mandating that body cameras be on at all times.

Shields resigned hours after a white officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, who was black, on Friday night after a DUI stop. Shields said in a statement that she stepped aside "for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve."

Shields, who was one of the first American police chiefs to walk with protesters after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, is described by allies as one of the most liberal law enforcement leaders in the country, a force for transparency in policing and reducing the use of force.

Now, after the Brooks killing, she has stepped down amid outcry and sorrow - and two weeks of controversy and calls for her resignation after police used less-lethal weapons on protesters and two college students were Tasered and forcibly removed from their car.

Shields is the second police chief to no longer be on the job amid calls for police policy changes after Floyd's death. Louisville, Ky., Police Chief Steve Conrad's employment was terminated this month after police killed the owner of a barbecue restaurant. Conrad had been criticized since Breonna Taylor, 26, was shot and killed after police entered her apartment on a no-knock warrant in March.

The tenures of police chiefs like Shields who model themselves as reformers can often be short - and lead some to wonder whether the changes they put in place will stick.

Thomas Manger, former chief of the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department and past president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, thinks Shields's departure will have a chilling effect on policy-change efforts.

"It becomes more difficult for police chiefs who take over during these turbulent times when they see good police chiefs like Erika stepping down," Manger said. "You think, My God, here's somebody doing all of the right things, but because of an incident involving one of her cops she's not here."

This month in Atlanta, during protests against police brutality, civil rights leaders affiliated with Black Lives Matter and the Georgia NAACP criticized the department's use of force to clear streets, including the incident with the college students. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard charged six officers who allegedly used Tasers on the students after smashing the windows of a car and pulling them from the vehicle after curfew. Four of the officers were fired.

Brooks, 27, was killed outside a Wendy's. According to a preliminary report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, officers were called to the restaurant after a complaint about a man asleep in a car at the drive-through. Officers performed a field sobriety test on the man, later identified as Brooks. After he failed the test, officers attempted to place him in custody. The situation escalated and Brooks grabbed an officer's Taser and ran. Video appears to show Brooks turning back toward the officer and pointing the Taser, and the officer is seen drawing his gun and firing at Brooks. The officer who shot Brooks was fired.

Shields voluntarily stepped down fewer than 24 hours later. Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, said Shields will continue to work for the department in a job to be determined. Shields and Bottoms's office did not respond to requests for comment.

The Rev. James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP, thinks Shields should have been fired. He said the organization is not satisfied with a job change.

"Anything less than her firing is insufficient," Woodall said. "We've seen the continuation of police violence against black people in this city for way too long. This is not an isolated incident. We had adequate training, and we had citizen review boards. We got all of those things that always seem to be recommended in these moments. But still, yet again, here's another murder of another Atlanta citizen."

Woodall is calling for an investigation into the culture and practices of the entire department.

"If you don't do that," he said, "if you just bring somebody and make them the face of the Atlanta Police Department, and there has not been a culture change, you will have the exact same problems and end up right back in the same situation."

Shields, a former stockbroker in Boston, moved to Atlanta in 1994 and climbed the ranks of the Atlanta force after patrolling some of the city's most impoverished communities. She was named chief in 2016, becoming the second woman and only openly LGBT person to lead the department. Shields successfully fought for pay raises for officers and leaned on programs that prioritized use of social services over imprisonment.

In January, Shields suspended police car chases, arguing that the risk to the officer, everyday people and the suspect outweighed the benefit of apprehension. Shields then sent a trove of data on Atlanta police chases over the past three years to the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit organization that studies policing techniques and trains law enforcement leaders.

"No police chief has ever done that," said Chuck Wexler, the group's executive director. "But she looked at everything that happens with police chases and made that unprecedented decision."

Wexler said he spoke with Shields on Saturday night and again Sunday morning. She told Wexler the incident with the college students and Brooks's death forced her to consider resignation. Wexler said Shields told him it was her idea to quit.

"She just felt like this was the right thing to do, to step down, that it might help quell the anger in some ways if by her taking responsibility and stepping down," Wexler said. "That's the kind of person she is. She was not asked to do so by the mayor. She did this on her own."

Atlanta police Capt. Stephen Zygaj, the former president of the Atlanta Police Union, said Shields emphasized community policing and developing relationships with citizens, "instead of walking around like Darth Vader's [Stormtroopers]," he said. Shields earned the respect of the rank and file, Zygaj said, when she successfully lobbied in 2018 to raise pay for officers, typically a pursuit led by union bosses, not police chiefs.

"We never had a chief fight to get officers paid like she did," Zygaj said.

Adam Wilson, a former police officer and author of the book "Tactical Reload: Strategy Shifts for Emerging Leaders in Law Enforcement" interviewed Shields extensively for the book and described her as one of the most liberal police chiefs in the country, especially in the realm of officer discipline.

"No policy can alleviate human error completely, but I think she was doing everything she could to mitigate it," Wilson said.

In 2017, Shields punished Officer Quinton Green with a 20-day suspension for using his fists in a struggle to subdue a man suspected of preparing to smoke crack cocaine. No drugs were found on the man.

"These people calling for her firing obviously didn't spend any time studying what she had done or what she stood for," Atlanta Police Union President Ken Allen said.

In a statement calling for Shields's dismissal, the NAACP characterized over-policing of Atlanta's minority communities.

"At this time, we must address the oversaturated police presence in Georgia's Black communities," the statement read. "This is not the first time a Black man was killed for sleeping. The Atlanta Police Department has a history of antagonizing our Black communities."

Woodall said he never met Shields but knew she had a relationship with other members of the organization.

"In many respects, I pay due deference to her and her leadership," Woodall said. "However, the fact is that there are still people dying. I think people are missing that. We can do all the reforms and all the piecemeal solutions we want. But at the end of the day, people are still dying. There has to be accountability."
The General Legal Council (GLC) in collaboration with the National Accreditation Board (NAB) has published a report on tertiary institutions that are accredited to offer legal education at the faculty level for LLB degrees.

The joint report signed and issued by the Chairperson of the General Legal Council, Justice Anin Yeboah who is also the Chief Justice is on the assessment of the tertiary institutions and it is aimed at informing the general public in making choices for legal education at the degree level.



Below is a copy of the statement



GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL



OUTCOME OF THE JOINT NATIONAL ACCREDITATION BOARD (NAB)  GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL (GLC) MONITORING VISITS TO LAW FACULTIES



WHEREAS THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL (HEREAFTER GLC) IS THE STATUTORY BODY MANDATED by the Legal Profession Act, 1960, Act 32 to be responsible for the organisation of Legal Education and upholding standards of professional legal conduct in Ghana, and IN EXERCISE of its mandate, in its bid to ensure that legal education at the Ghana School of Law meets international and professional standards, resolved many years ago, to monitor and evaluate academic facilities of teaching and learning in all tertiary institutions accredited by the National Accreditation Board (hereafter referred to as NAB) to study Law.



In a spirit of ensuring that these standards are maintained decided to undertake yearly monitoring and evaluation of all Law Courses in both public and private universities, so that minimum standards of proficiency shall be met by all such accredited Law Faculties, pending the entry of their graduates into the Ghana School of Law to pursue Professional Law Courses.



NOW THEREFORE, in pursuance of the said mandate, the NAB/GLC having organised one such joint monitoring and evaluation exercise in the Law Faculties of tertiary institutions offering law in 2019, the GLC at a meeting on Friday, 29th of May 2020 resolved and decided on its own mandate to publish the report of the 2019 Monitoring Teams that visited the Law Faculties of the Public and Private Universities listed below as follows:-





1. UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST:



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on University of Cape Coasts Faculty of Law:



The pyramidal structure of the Faculty was not in conformity with the approved NCTE/NAB norm.

About half of the current teaching staff were on the Assistant Lecturer rank.

The Faculty lacks the capacity to mentor other institutions due to its weak staff strength.

Only eight (8) out of the fifteen (15) teaching staff were qualified to teach per NAB standards.

Some lecturers had been assigned courses which per their background and qualifications should not teach those courses.

The teaching load for some of the lecturers was high (15 credit hours per week) as compared to NAB/NCTE norm of 9-12 credit hours per week.

The Faculty had no tutorial system in place.

The SSR stood at 1:29 which was slightly above the approved norm, though within the operational norm of 1:30.

Arising out of the above findings, the Board directs University of Cape Coast to:





Desist from entering into any affiliation agreement with any tertiary education institution to mentor any law programme since UCC Faculty of Law itself did not have the requisite qualified staff to handle its law programme.

Submit the list of all private universities currently being mentored by the Faculty and indicate those responsible for various activities. This must be done within a month from 31st March, 2020.

Work towards improving its pyramidal structure within five years from 31st March, 2020.

Put in place a tutorial system for students to be handled by lecturers. This must be done within a month from 31st March, 2020.

Address all the inconsistencies identified in the teaching staff course allocations and submit a report to the Board by the end of June, 2020.

Work towards reducing the teaching loads of lecturers to a maximum of three or four courses per week. Evidence should be submitted before 2020/2021 academic year begins.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

2. UNIVERSITY OF GHANA



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on University of Ghanas School of Law:



The faculty strength of the School in terms of numbers had dwindled over the years. In five (5) years time, majority of the current teaching staff would be retiring.

Some of the teaching staff due for promotion had not been promoted even though they had applied.

Lack of promotion was a University-wide issue and there was a lot of dissatisfaction among lecturers of the School due to this.

Although the law programme needed a blend of professional and academic expertise, from all indications, some of the lecturers used working hours to do private practice.

Staff did not feel properly remunerated for the work they were doing and as such there were dissatisfaction among lecturers.

The teaching load of some of the lecturers was rather high.

The SSR for the School was 1:39.

The Universitys requirement of a terminal degree for teaching appointment was adversely affecting the School. Although the staff informed the team that it had presented papers on this matter to the School and the University, the matter was yet to be taken into consideration for concrete resolution.;

Some of the books in the Schools library were worn out.

The School had a qualified law librarian.

The Schools library was opened to the general public.

The Board commended University of Ghana School of Law for being the only Faculty of Law in Ghana with a qualified Law Librarian and for making its Library accessible to the general public. It however, directs University of Ghana to:



Put measures in place to ensure that adequate and more qualified law lecturers are recruited as soon as possible. If possible, reconsider its position that only persons with terminal degrees should be recruited to teach the law programme.

Ensure that because of its high SSR, its student intake into the law programmes is reduced by half of its current admissions from 31st March, 2020.

Provide a roadmap within one month from 31st March, 2020 on how it intends to address the high SSR of the School.

Liaise or collaborate with the Information Studies Department to develop a programme to train law librarians for the law faculties in Ghana since there was a deficit of qualified law librarians in the Country.

Re-examine its promotion system so it does not overly disadvantage persons who are due for promotion.

Develop a mentoring policy to ensure that faculty, especially new faculty are trained by the old ones. This should be done within 6 months from 31st March, 2020 and copy submitted to the Board.

Conduct tracer studies to know whether it was achieving its aims in relation to its students who had graduated from the institution.

Put in place a system to ensure the identity of all users of the library are known and any security measures necessary to ensure effective and safe use of the library.

Come up with a succession plan for the School looking at the issues pertaining to headship and so forth in the Faculty.

Put measures in place to ensure that lecturers who are practicing lawyers do not spend majority of their time at the court at the expense of teaching.

Submit an updated staff list for the School using the attached NAB approved template.

3. CENTRAL UNIVERSITY



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on Central Universitys Faculty of Law:



The Faculty was running the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme on its Kumasi campus without accreditation from NAB.

The Staff-Student Ratio (SSR)  1:60  of the institution was too high and above the approved norm of 1:27.

The institution did not have adequate volumes of the relevant textbooks and law reports.

The list of books provided showed a heavy reliance on foreign publications rather than local authors in the core courses.

The space available at the library was inadequate for the number of students enrolled on the programme.

The teaching staff had not been publishing as required.

The minimum entry requirements of the Faculty made it possible for persons with other professional certificates such as ICAG (Institute of Chartered Accountant, Ghana) certificate to enroll onto the law programme.

Majority of the teaching staff were on the rank of Lecturer.

In the light of the above findings, the Board directs Central University to:



Cease fresh admissions forthwith since its SSR of 1:60 was higher than the approved norm of 1:27

Stop running the law programme on its Kumasi campus since the institution does not have accreditation to run the programme in Kumasi.

Present a road map on how it intends to deal with the high SSR within one month from 31st March, 2020.

Adhere strictly to the NAB/NCTE minimum entry requirements and not admit persons with only professional qualifications since professional qualifications are outside the approved norms for entry into first degree programmes.

Procure Ghanaian authored text books in instances where they are available rather than foreign ones.

Increase volumes of text books and law reports to an appreciable level in line with the number of students enrolled on the programmes. The university should have at least five sets of relevant Ghanaian law reports.

Expand the library space or additional space should be provided since the place is not big enough for the number of students admitted into the institution.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

4. KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (KNUST)



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on KNUSTs Faculty of Law:



The Student- Staff Ratio had increased to 1:36 from a 1:28 recorded at the previous monitoring exercise in 2016.

Three (3) faculty members were currently pursuing PhD studies in response to recommendations from the 2016 monitoring exercise.

The LLM programme which was accredited in 2016, had not commenced at that time due to human resource constraints was currently running.

Faculty strength had improved but majority of the staff were still holders of Master of Laws (LLM) degree as against terminal degree holders and senior lecturers as should be the case in a public chartered institution.

An internal arrangement to secure a law librarian has been made.

Library Committee has been set up.

The institution has a mentoring policy that the Faculty was implementing.

The Board commended the staff development efforts made by the Faculty and for having a mentoring policy. It however, directs KNUST to:



Reduce student intake into the law programme since its SSR is higher that the approved nor of 1:27.

Recruit more LLM holders who are qualified lawyers to teach at the undergraduate level to solidify the foundation of legal education for students.

Produce an actionable orientation plan for users of the Resource Centre/Library.

As much as possible, minimize co-teaching or at best stop it in response to the concerns of students.

Keep the class size at the minimum manageable level for effective teaching and learning

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template

5. MOUNTCREST UNIVERSITY COLLEGE



The Board took note of the significant improvements achieved by Mountcrest University College since the previous monitoring exercise in 2016, and commended it for the Facultys staff-student ratio of 1:12, increased staff strength, adoption of strategies to upgrade its staff to attain terminal degrees and a well-stocked library with relevant law text books and law reports.



The Board was however not satisfied with the level of staff research output and the absence of a mentoring policy for its young faculty members. It therefore directs as follows:



The faculty should ensure that its staff improve on their research output within two years from 31st March, 2020

Furnish the Board with the list of all students enrolled on the law programmes (LLB and LLM) according to levels within one month from 31st March, 2020.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

6. KINGS UNVERSITY COLLEGE



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on Kings University Colleges Faculty of Law:



The institution operates a city campus and runs its evening law classes on that campus.

The Dean of the Faculty did not have any law qualification(s) and as such was not qualified to be an Acting Dean for the Faculty of Law.

The staff strength of the Faculty was inadequate as its current SSR (1:32) was above the approved norm of 1:27.

The law library had poor lighting system, inadequate numbers of printers, photocopiers and computers for students to use.

Inadequate volumes of books available at the library.

The e-library phase of the library was virtually non-existent.

Some students complained of inadequate books for their use and the fact that there was not e-library to supplement the books in hard print that they could access for their studies.

Non-existence of properly structured tutorial system for students.

There was no alternative power source in case the power supply from ECG or the national grid goes off.

Low research output by lecturers.

The Board directs Kings University College to:



Recruit a qualified person in the area of law to provide academic leadership for the running of the Faculty of Law and in effect the law programme.

Ensure that all staff on its list who do not have a research Masters in Law do not teach on the programme.

Ensure that it expedites action on plans for its set up an e-library.

Improve lighting system in the library.

Note that if the CVs of the two identified teaching staff of the institution proved that they were not qualified to teach on the law programme, the computation of the SSR will be based on 191 students to 4 teaching staff, which will give us an SSR of 1:48, Since this figure would be higher than the approved nor, Kings University College would be required to cease fresh admissions. On the other hand, if the two staff are adjudged to be qualified, then the Faculty would be required to reduce its student intake into the law programme by half of its current intake.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

7. UNIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on University of Professional Studies Faculty of Law:



The Faculty had drastically improved on its facilities and staff strength since the last monitoring exercise in 2016.

The current SSR (1:23) of the Faculty was commendable.

Staff of the Faculty of Law were not publishing as required.

One (1) teaching staff had been sponsored to pursue a PhD and may join the Faculty in the year 2020 after completion of the programme.

Out of eighteen (18) teaching staff, (10) were on the rank of Assistant Lecturer. Meanwhile, the NCTE pyramidal structure does not make provision for an Assistant Lecturer rank.

There were certain discrepancies in the placement of staff. For instance, some staff who had almost the same qualifications were placed on the rank of Lecturer while others were on Assistant Lecturer rank.

The Board commended University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) for having implemented majority of the key recommendations made by the Joint Monitoring Team in 2016. It also commended UPSA for the improvement in its library in terms of stock, relevance, adequacy of books and space allocated to the law programme.



The Board however, directs UPSA to;



Take steps to upgrade the qualifications of its existing teaching staff within five years from 31st March, 2020.

Develop a policy on mentoring of lecturers, especially new lecturers and submit a copy NAB within six months from 31st March, 2020.

Reconsider the Assistant Lecturer nomenclature and come out with a road map on how it would ensue persons in this category upgrade their qualifications to attain terminal degrees in their area of teaching.

Encourage its staff to publish and submit evidence on same within 2years from 31st March, 2020.

8. WISCONSIN INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on Wisconsin International University Colleges Faculty of Law:



The institution had improved significantly on its staff strength and their qualifications since the last monitoring exercise was conducted in 2016.

The team however noted that the SSR (1:35) was high and above the approved SSR.

The library space was adequate and it had adequate stock of relevant text books on the law programme.

The institution did not have a documented mentorship policy although it had an internal arrangement to mentor young faculty.

The Faculty was running three streams of students: Evening, Weekend and Day.

The library was stocked with the relevant textbooks but it was not up to date with its law reports on decisions given by the Courts of Ghana.

There was a dearth of publication by the staff of the faculty.

In light of the above findings, the Board directs, Wisconsin International University College, Ghana (WIUCG) to:



Reduce student intake onto the law programme to half of its current intake from the 2020/2021 academic year.

Provide a roadmap to address the high SSR at the Faculty within one month from 31st March, 2020.

Encourages its staff to increase research output. Evidence of this must be submitted to NAB within two years from 31st March, 2020.

Procure current editions of the Ghana Law Reports and Supreme Court of Ghana Law Reports and add more volumes to the existing stock of books. The Faculty should have at least five sets of relevant Ghanaian Law reports with six (6) months from 31st March 2020.

The Faculty should upgrade the qualifications of its existing teaching staff within five years from 31st March 2020.

Develop a mentoring policy within six (6) months from 31st March, 2020 and submit a copy for the attention to the Board.

Conduct tracer studies to determine how students who had passed out of the Faculty were performing at least within 2 years from 31st March, 2020.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

9. ZENITH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on Zenith University Colleges Faculty of Law:



The institutions Faculty did not operate as the other faculties of law because it run a University of London law program; students could stay at home and just register to take their examinations.

The examinations were flexible in that students registered to take particular courses as and when they were ready to write them.

The Academic Board of the University College did not have any academic control over the running of the law programme.

Failure to adhere strictly to the approved NAB/NCTE norms on the minimum entry requirements.

Lecturers only facilitated students to write examinations as such there was no strong academic presence of the lecturers on the campus. Additionally, the teaching staff were not publishing as much as they should.

The examinations and related processes had been outsourced to WAEC.

The institution was running a Diploma in Law which had not been accredited by the Board.

Arising out of the above findings, the Board directs Zenith University College, La to:



Ensure that the Academic Board of the institution get more involved with the running of the law programme although the programme is owned by the University of London, UK.

Stop running the Diploma in Law programme since it is not accredited.

Submit an updated staff list for the Faculty using the attached NAB approved template.

10 GHANA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (GIMPA)



The Board took note of the underlisted findings on GIMPAs Faculty of Law.



The staff-student ratio (1:33) had not improved since 2016, when the first monitoring exercise was conducted.

The perception that the Faculty of Law was a cash cow of the Institute was real but the Institute was not averting its mind to that.

Some lecturers who were due for promotion had still not been promoted despite submitting the necessary documents.

The library did not have adequate and relevant textbooks as required.

The library was not manned by a qualified law librarian.

Some students were denied access to write the end of semester examinations for non-payment of school fees.

The Faculty of Law had instituted a monthly faculty series which encouraged presentation of papers. The institute also has a journal and was encouraging staff to publish in the journal.

The team took note of the fact that the immediate past Rector and the former Dean of the Faculty of Law entered into an agreement to run two unaccredited programmes and students enrolled onto the programmes were yet to be awarded certificates.

The Board commended GIMPA for instituting a monthly faculty series which encouraged faculty to present papers; it also has its own journal where faculty could publish. It however, directs GIMPA to;



The Board further approved the following general recommendations made by the Joint Monitoring Team and directed all Law Faculties to comply accordingly:



GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS



The Faculties of Law:



Should upgrade the qualification of its current teaching staff to at least terminal degrees within three to five years from 31st March, 2020.

Recruit or train qualified librarians to man law faculty libraries within three to five years from 31st March 2020.

Should ensure that lecturers publish in their subject areas within two years from 31st March, 2020.

Should conduct at least one tracer studies within two years from 31st March, 2020.

Those that did not have a mentoring policy in place should do so and present evidence within 6 months form 31st March 2020.

Those that needed to procure computers and stationery for their law library should do so and present evidence with 6 months from 31st March 2020.

Should procure at least five sets of relevant Ghanaian law reports within six months from 31st March 2020.

That each institution should ensure that its full-time staff as compared to part time lecturers should be in accordance with the NAB approved policy of 55% Full time and 45% Part time of its teaching staff. Evidence of compliance must be submitted to the Board before the next academic year.

Should ensure that its SSR higher than 1:27 such as 1:60 such as was in the case of Central University, should reduce admission numbers by half of what was admitted at the last admissions.

Should submit an updated staff list using NAB approved template within one month from 31st March, 2020.

Road Map in addressing the issues raised should be provided within a month from 31st March, 2020.

The Board requested all Law Faculties to submit detailed responses outlining measures it intends to take, with clear timelines, to address the identified deficiencies by 31st March 2020.



Also, the team agreed that the instrument or questionnaire that was used for the joint Monitoring Assessment should be reviewed to include assessment of the number of students admitted or enrolled into the Law faculties and the number that graduate from the stated faculties for each academic year.



SGD



JUSTICE ANIN YEBOAH



CHAIRPERSON OF THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL









Source: Daily Graphic









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Yasser Albaz should have returned home to Oakville from a business trip to Egypt on Family Day in 2019.

Instead, he was detained without cause at a Cairo airport and transferred to Egypts grim Tora prison, where he has remained for 16 months. And now, his family fears he may have COVID-19.

To date, there have been no formal charges laid against Yasser, his daughter Amal said Sunday.

As soon as he went to the airport, his passports were confiscated, she said, noting that her father carries both Egyptian and Canadian passports. He was travelling on a Canadian passport at the time of his detention. There was no warrant, nothing at all for his arrest.

Alongside supporters, the family protested for three days across Ontario this weekend, rallying at the offices of seven separate MPs in Toronto, Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, London and Waterloo.

Amal, who worked for the Star in 2015, said her family is urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to secure the release of her father and have him transferred immediately to a Canadian hospital for treatment.

The only medical treatment he should be receiving is here in Canada, Amal said.

Global Affairs Canada is closely monitoring the situation and providing consular services to the family, spokesperson Angela Savard told the Star.

The Prime Minister raised this case directly with the Egyptian President on the margins of the 33rd African Union Summit. Minister Champagne continues to raise this case at every opportunity with his counterpart, including earlier this week, Savard said.

Canada keeps telling us that this is a priority for them and that this case is very important. And, you know, as much as Id love to believe that, we need to see results, Amal said. We need to see an outcome  and that outcome is having my father home here with us.

Amal said shes terrified that she wont see her father alive again. I am terrified for my fathers life. We all are. And we just dont have the time (to wait) anymore, she said.

On Thursday, the family learned that Yasser has developed symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and was briefly taken to hospital.

Weve warned the (Canadian) government of this risk  of the fact that should there be an outbreak in Tora prison, it would be absolutely uncontrollable and it could cost people their lives, Amal added. He is very sick and he is writing his will to be passed to us. Thats how serious it is, she said. Her father, in his 50s, has underlying health conditions which increase his risk.

The family has learned of two other prisoners that have died as a result of the virus last week.

The arrest came as a shock. The family has roots in Egypt and has travelled back and forth between Egypt and Canada without incident many times, Amal said. My father is not political whatsoever. Hes just a businessman.

Tora is infamous for its awful conditions. Detainees sleep on concrete, and basic hygienic necessities are in short supply, if provided at all.

The conditions in there are absolutely horrible, Amal said. Youre talking no ventilation  cramped in a cell, sharing a hole in the ground as a washroom, sleeping on a concrete floor  completely unsanitary conditions.

Jenna Moon is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: is a breaking news reporter for the Star and is based in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @_jennamoon

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Xiaomi working on two Redmi phones that will be more affordable than the 10X 4G

Xiaomi is working on two Redmi phones that will be cheaper than the CNY 1,000 Redmi 10X 4G, reports Digital Chat Station. Could one of them be the newly-announced Redmi 9?

That seems to be the case as the two devices reportedly use MediaTek Helio G8x chipsets (MT6969T and MT6769V/CT). The 10X 4G has a G85, the Redmi 9 has a G80, so were in the right ballpark. Depending on the specifics, we may be looking at the Redmi 9 and a Redmi 9A (a model that doesnt officially exist yet).

The Redmi 9 still hasnt made an appearance on Xiaomis official website in China, even after its European debut. Of course, the Redmi 10X duo has been selling well, so maybe the company wants to leave it some breathing room before unveiling two more affordable models.

Source | Via
This crypto sector hit $1 bn in two years. Source: Getty

Another crypto sector has a rocket under it, but this time its not Bitcoin and, according to experts, has actual revenue attached.

Decentralised finance, or defi in the crypto lingo, is an almost $US1bn ($1.5bn) industry; it cracked the billion mark when markets generally were peaking in February.

Its an example of how crypto assets are continuing to mature into investable products that are attractive to more than just the sectors evangelists, says Apollo Capital chief investment officer Henrik Andersson.

When we look at the value of these assets, there is certainly value in Bitcoin as digital gold but beyond that the rise of defi is very exciting, he told Stockhead.

We believe its an attractive area for investors because of the ability to do simple cash flow analysis such as net profit valuation or price to earnings.

Since the great crypto crash of late 2017 when Bitcoin fell from almost $US20,000 to just over $US3000 by the end of the year, investors exposed to the hype then have been highly cynical about new moves around cryptocurrencies.

Yet institutional investors have been moving slowly ahead with plans for entry.

Andersson says where institutional custodial and insurance products herald cryptos acceptance by the biggest end of town as a real investment, entities that produce actual revenue and profits (or losses) are a further step-change.

Defi-s expectations

Decentralised finance is a digital take on financial products, based mainly, but not entirely, on the Ethereum platform.

Ethereum is a Blockchain-based platform that allows people and companies to build products that use smart contracts to cut out middlemen and create peer-to-peer systems uncontrolled by a central authority.

This technology is mostly suitable for financial contracts. Its very powerful when you apply it to finance and I think this might be the main use case of blockchain technology because financial contracts are well defined, Andersson said.

Story continues

It comes with new concepts that investors and adherents are using to give an idea of value.

Locked value is one, which measures the amount of currency, be it dollars, Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, currently held in smart contracts on a particular platform. The higher the value of money held, the better the platform is doing, adherents say.

Total locked value (TLV) in the decentralised finance sector topped $US1.2bn in February, up from nothing in late 2017. It has since come back to $US965m after the crash in March.

About half of these assets belong to Maker, a platform which offers credit. It has locked up $US509m, 2.2 million Ether, and 54,200 Bitcoin, according to Defi Pulse, a website that tracks in almost-real time total TLV levels.

Maker is forecast to make $111,082 this year, and has a price to earnings ratio (P/E) of 5,545.85, according to decentralised finance earnings tracker Token Terminal.

Decentralised exchanges are another section of the decentralised finance sector which is growing quickly. These are platforms on which traders buy, sell and short crypto assets using smart contracts rather than bid through a centralised authority.

Individuals can lend money or take out margin loans from each other, rather than through a Commsec-like institution.

These differ to centralised exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase, which operate more like an ASX, and which handle significantly more trades  up to $US6bn worth a day.

In contrast, earnings for decentralised exchanges that use the Ethereum platform are forecast to hit $US12m this year and a little over $US3bn has been traded since the start of 2020, compared to $US2.4bn in 2019, according to Token Terminal data.

Exchanges include dYdX, which wrote $US700m in margin loans in February and March to traders wanting to exploit markets, and the Kyber Network which is forecast to make $US2.1m in revenue this year and has a 111.45 P/E.

Uniswap is the largest, seeing almost $US755m in trading volume in the year to June.

Big kids are playing in the sandbox

Institutional acceptance of digital assets has been rising over the last two years, with trading volumes in CME Bitcoin futures rising significantly this year, indicating the presence of large traders.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) launched its Bakkt exchange, a secure marketplace for institutions to trade in Bitcoin derivatives, in September.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the crypto arm of the global fund manager, began actively operating late in 2019 and this year moved to offer custodial services for European institutional and sophisticated investors in Bitcoin as well as digital assets backed by metals.

Nomura, a Tokyo-based management consultancy and research firm, received approval in November to use its custody and depositary services for cryptocurrencies.

Coinbase competitor Gemini just hired former investment banker Jeremy Ng to head its Asia Pacific operations.

And Deutsche Borse just launched its first centrally cleared Bitcoin exchange traded fund.

Traded on regulated markets, investors can buy and sell the ETC in the same way they would when trading conventional shares or ETPs, with the identical regulatory protections in place, the sales pitch goes.

Singapore is a poster child regionally for regulating digital assets, enacting legislation in January 2019 to regulate the operations of crypto companies.

Other countries in the Asia Pacific region fall somewhere between Singapore and complete bans on digital assets.

However, China has embraced the concept to develop its on centrally-controlled cryptocurrency called Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), which could be launched this year.

Fintech Chain (ASX:FTC) chair Chris Ryan said last year the Chinese government was supportive of transactions it could track, such as Alipay Money which is effectively a digital currency.

The company is building its payment system to be able to handle digital currencies.

Ecuador was the first country to launch a cryptocurrency, in 2015, while Venezuela issued the Petro in 2018 in a bid to offer an alternative to its own, valueless currency.

Even the Australian Reserve Bank thought about it, telling a Senate select committee in January that it had run a trial to see whether a wholesale settlement system allowing financial institutions to settle customer payments between each other could work on an Ethereum network.

It said such a system could potentially lower costs and speeds of transactions, if set up under the right conditions.

For more articles like this, please visit us at Stockhead.com.au. Subscribe now to stay ahead with the latest stock news and insights.

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A man was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for a woman's 1987 murder that was unsolved for nearly two decades.

Joseph Scott Hatley, 42, of Round Rock, pleaded guilty to murder as part of a plea agreement, said Erath County District Attorney John Terrill.

If Hatley had been convicted at trial, set to begin next week, he faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Hatley was arrested last year in Central Texas after Stephenville's cold-case detectives matched his fingerprints to those found near the body of Susan Woods, Terrill said. Woods, who knew Hatley through a relative, was found dead in 1987 in her water-filled bathtub a few days after she was killed, Terrill said.

The medical examiner determined that she died from asphyxiation or drowning. Authorities said Woods, 30, was killed after someone tried to rape her.

Detectives could not identify the fingerprints when they first ran them through a national database because Hatley, then 21, was not in the system, Terrill said. But when the case was re-opened recently, the prints were matched to Hatley, who had since been convicted of robbery in another state, Terrill said.

Hatley's arrest and plea cleared Woods' estranged husband, who was a suspect for years in the case that rocked the rural town, Terrill said.

"This was a shock to everybody," said Terrill, who has been the area's district attorney since 1985. "It was notorious because it happened in a quiet community and was unsolved for so many years."
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Manila, Philippines  Mon, June 15, 2020 12:35 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec5843 2 SE Asia Maria-Ressa,Philippines,Rodrigo-Duterte,libel-case,freedom-of-speech,freedom-of-expression,press-freedom Free

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was convicted Monday of cyber libel and sentenced to prison in a case that watchdogs say marks a dangerous erosion of press freedom under President Rodrigo Duterte.

Ressa, 56, and her news site Rappler have been the target of a series of cases and probes after publishing stories critical of Duterte's policies, including his drug war that has killed thousands.

The award-winning former CNN journalist faces up to six years behind bars in the culmination of a case that has drawn international concern.

It was not immediately clear how many years she would actually have to serve if the conviction becomes final, and Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa allowed Ressa to remain free on bail pending an appeal.

"We are going to stand up against any kind of attacks against press freedom," a defiant Ressa told journalists after the conviction in Manila.

"It is a blow to us. But it is also not unexpected," she added. "We are meant to be a cautionary tale. We are meant to make you afraid. But don't be afraid. Because if you don't use your rights, you will lose them."

Monday's verdict decided a trial that stemmed from a businessman's 2017 complaint over a Rappler story five years earlier about his alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation's top court.

Ressa, who Time magazine named as a Person of the Year in 2018, did not write the article and government investigators initially dismissed the businessman's allegation.

But state prosecutors later filed charges against her and Reynaldo Santos, the former Rappler journalist who wrote it, under a controversial cyber crime statute aimed at online offences such as stalking and child pornography.

Santos was also found guilty on Monday and allowed to remain free on bail.

'Fake news outlet'

Duterte's government has said the case is not politically motivated and that authorities must enforce the law, even against journalists.

But rights groups and press advocates say the libel charge along with a series of tax cases against Rappler and a government move to strip the news site of its license amount to state harassment.

"Ressa... and the Rappler team are being singled out for their critical reporting of the Duterte administration," Amnesty International said.

"With this latest assault on independent media, the human rights record of the Philippines continues its free fall."

Human Rights Watch said the case "will reverberate not just in the Philippines, but in many countries that long considered the country a robust environment for media freedom."

Ressa's verdict comes just over a month after government regulators forced off the air ABS-CBN, the nation's top broadcaster, following years of threats by Duterte to shut down the network.

Both Rappler and ABS-CBN have reported extensively on Duterte's anti-drugs campaign in which police have gunned down alleged dealers and users in operations condemned by rights groups.

Some of the crackdown's highest-profile critics have wound up behind bars, including Senator Leila de Lima, who is serving three years in jail on drug charges she insists were fabricated to silence her.

In 2018, Duterte denounced Rappler as a "fake news outlet" and subsequently banned Ressa and her colleagues from his public engagements.
Forensics officers examine blood on the doorframe of the house in Darndale where the couple were stabbed

A 25-year-old man is due to appear in court this morning accused of stabbing his parents in north Dublin.

David Dignam and Phyliss Dreelan were injured during the stab attack at their home in Darndale over the weekend.

Gardai believe that the couple were set upon as they slept in a downstairs room shortly after 7am on Saturday.

Mr Dignam, in his 40s, was stabbed at least 10 times in the neck, shoulder and chest, while Ms Dreelan, in her 50s, also suffered knife wounds attempting to come to his aid.

A family member alerted gardai, who arrested the suspect close to the scene at Snowdrop Walk a short time later.

Violent

The 25-year-old, understood to be the couple's son, was quizzed at Coolock Garda Station over the weekend and is due to be charged with two counts of assault causing harm, as well as producing a weapon.

He is expected to appear before Dublin District Court in the Criminal Courts of Justice this morning.

Detectives have also found a large kitchen knife they believe was used during the attack.

They are still attempting to establish a motive in relation to the incident, and are investigating reports that the suspect may have taken drugs in the hours before the incident.

"Why this happened isn't yet clear - it was a very violent assault and the male still remains in a serious condition in hospital," a senior source told the Herald.

"Early indications are that the couple were attacked while they slept on a couch in the sitting room," the source added.

Initially, Mr Dignam had been described as being in a critical condition and Ms Dreelan as having non-life threatening injuries.

However, his condition has since been upgraded to stable.

Both are continuing to receive treatment at Beaumont Hospital.

The house was sealed off for a technical examination by forensic officers.

A garda spokesman said: "A man in his 20s arrested following a stabbing incident in Darndale remains in Garda custody.

"He is expected to appear before a sitting of Dublin District Court on Monday, June 15, at 10.30am to face charges in connection with the investigation."
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - BMO Capital Markets is hosting its fifth annual - and first virtual - healthcare conference on June 23rd. Almost 60 companies across the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and healthcare services industries will be participating in the one-day event through a series of fireside chats, panel discussions and one-on-one meetings.

The conference, hosted by BMO Capital Markets' Healthcare Research team, comes at a time when the world is focused on the evolving developments related to COVID-19. It will highlight implications of the pandemic across the healthcare industry, including impacts on drug utilization, pipeline delays, vaccine development and effects on insurance costs. Other key topics include biopharma's innovative portfolios across a variety of areas such as rare disease, oncology and dermatology, as well as health insurance pricing and utilization.

A keynote presentation featuring Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding , Epidemiologist and Health Economist at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, will address:

Areas where the public may be misinformed about COVID-19

Drug treatments and vaccine development for COVID-19

Prevention and treatment of certain life-threatening diseases

Important considerations related to drug safety

Status and outlook for Medicare

Public policy issues

Participating companies include:

Amgen (AMGN)

Anthem (ANTM)

Emergent (EBS)

Horizon (HZNP)

Humana (HUM)

Incyte (INCY)

Mallinckrodt (MNK)

(MNK) Moderna (MRNA)

Regeneron (REGN)

For a full agenda, click here .

Media Registration:

Media who wish to attend the conference can register directly by clicking here .

About BMO Capital Markets

BMO Capital Markets is a leading, full-service North American-based financial services provider offering corporate, institutional and government clients access to a complete range of products and services including equity and debt underwriting, corporate lending and project financing, mergers and acquisitions advisory services, securitization, treasury management, market risk management, debt and equity research and institutional sales and trading. With approximately 2,700 professionals in 33 locations around the world, including 19 offices in North America, BMO Capital Markets works proactively with clients to provide innovative and integrated financial solutions.

BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE,TSX: BMO) one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America with $880 billion total assets as at January 31, 2020.

SOURCE BMO Financial Group

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Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron says fighting racism should not lead to a "hateful" rewriting of history following worldwide protests over the killing of George Floyd in the US.

Protesters in the US, UK, Australia and elsewhere have targeted statues of historic figures associated with slavery or other past human rights abuses, as well as colonialism.

"I will be very clear tonight, compatriots: the Republic won't erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its artworks, it won't take down statues," Macron said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday.

Anti-racism protesters stand on the monument in Place de la Republique in Paris on June 13. Credit:Getty Images

Macron's address came after an unusually long silence, as France faces both exceptional economic blowback from the coronavirus pandemic and rekindled anger over deep-seated racism.
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Armenia, Ukraine depositories sign memorandum of cooperation
Kuwaiti Ambassador to Korea Bader Mohammad Al-Awadi, left, with Kim Duk-soo, traditional percussion master and founder of SamulNori, a percussion music group, at his residence Friday during an event with cultural and government dignitaries. The event was held to promote cultural ties between Kuwait and Korea. Korea Times photo by Shim Jae-yun
Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput passed away on June 14 by suicide. The late actor's family has reached Mumbai from Patna and will carry out his last rites today. The actor was found in his home by the house help, who then called the police. According to reports, police did not find a suicide note, but found antidepressants at home, and a few media reports suggested that the actor was getting treated for the same at Hinduja Hospital.

Sushant Singh Rajput :Mumbai  Sushant  ; 4   Sushant    | FilmiBeat

Sushant Singh Rajput was the youngest of five siblings and is now survived by his father and four sisters. The late actor's body was taken to Mumbai's Cooper Hospital where he tested negative for COVID-19. A group of doctors then carried out a post-mortem from 10:30 pm to around 11:30 pm on Sunday. The caused of death was revealed as asphyxia, and ligature marks were also seen around the neck.

The report shared by India TV revealed that the actor had consumed a glass of juice before locking himself up in his room on Sunday morning. He lived with four people in the house, including a friend Siddharth Pithani, two cooks--Neeraj and Keshav, who were from Bihar and Deepak Sawant, who was his cleaner.

According to a few reports, for the past one month, the late actor had cut off his conversation with his father, sisters and his close friend Rhea Chakraborty. It was speculated that the actor was dating Rhea for quite some time now.

The talented actor's sudden demise has left the Indian film industry in shock, many fellow actors like Shah Rukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan, Anushka Sharma and more have expressed their grief on social media. Fans have also called out filmmakers and actors for not reaching out to the actor, who may have felt left out and unwelcomed by the industry.

Sushant Singh Rajput's Cousin Reveals He Was Supposed To Get Married In November

Sushant Singh Rajput Was Going The Parveen Babi Way: Mukesh Bhatt Recalls His Meeting With The Actor

Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM
Russian historian accused of student murder waives defense lawyer

 RAPSI, Eugeny Varlamov

17:40 15/06/2020

ST. PETERSBURG, June 15 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) - History professor Oleg Sokolov charged with killing his postgraduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko and arms trafficking has waived his attorney Alexander Pochuyev who had defended him from the investigation beginning, the United press service of St. Petersburg courts reports.

According to video records submitted by the press service, Sokolov thanked Pochuyev for his work and asked law enforcement bodies to check threats the lawyer received in relation to this case.

Sokolov said he wanted to be defended by attorney Sergey Lukyanov who attended the first hearing and wanted to sign an agreement with the historian but later, after their personal meeting he announced that they could not reach a deal.

Sokolov voiced his desire to waive the defense lawyer after a prosecutor read an indictment against the defendant. The court was to adjourn the hearing until June 22.

According to investigators, rescuers pulled the 63-year reader out of a local river early on November 9 and hospitalized. Womans severed hands and a nonlethal pistol were found in his backpack. Other parts of her body were found in his flat. The man was arrested when left the hospital the next day. He voluntary surrendered.

The victim was identified as the 24-year postgraduate student of the St. Petersburg State University and Sokolovs partner.

The professor pleaded guilty. He said that he gunned the woman and broke up her body.

Sokolov is a historian and ideologist of reconstruction of Napoleonic period battles. He has been conferred the Legion of Honor, the French national award instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte.




Two young, Ohio sisters died after the brick pillar their hammock was tied to collapsed and fell on them Sunday night.

Scout Scaravilli, 14, and Chasey Scaravilli, 12, of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, were at their home, lying in a hammock tied between a tree and a brick pillar, Sunday at about 7.45pm, when the pillar suddenly collapsed.

The two girls were then buried beneath the pillar rubble.

Sisters Scout Scaravilli, 14 (pictured), and Chasey Scaravilli, 12, died Sunday night during a 'freak accident' when the brick pillar their hammock was tied to collapsed onto them

Scout and Chasey (pictured) were rushed to the hospital where they died from their injuries

Police and fire crews arrived at their home to free them from the debris and they were taken to the hospital, where they later died from their injuries, Cleveland.com reported.

Scout, a rising ninth grader, and Chasey, a rising seventh grader, were students at Cleveland's The Hathaway Brown School, which released a statement about their passing.

'The entire HB community is saddened by the loss of the Scaravilli sisters; they will be greatly missed by so many friends, classmates, and teachers. Our thoughts and prayers are dedicated to their family,' Hathaway Brown Head of School Fran Bisselle said in the statement.

Scout (left in 2017), a rising ninth grader, was an athlete, while Chasey (right in 2018), a rising seventh grader, was known for her artistic abilities

Chasey was known at the school for her artistic abilities and sense of humor, while Scout was an athlete and devoted big sister.

Of the two girls, the school's Director of Middle School, Sharon Baker, told Fox 8 that, 'You couldn't be around them without smiling or laughing. They brought such joy into every room they entered.'

Police are investigating the incident, which is being called a 'freak accident.'

The sisters leave behind their parents and two younger sisters.
Doctors, nurses and other attendants at a Covid-19 care centre in Arunachal Pradeshs Changlang district have started pasting their photographs on their personal protective equipment (PPE) kits allowing patients to know their care providers.

Changlang, the second most populous district in Arunachal, recorded its first Covid-19 case on June 1. The district now has 55 positive cases, the highest among all districts in the state. Arunachal has a total of 91 cases until Sunday.

Patients in the centres are kept in isolation and they arent allowed to go out or meet anyone. Though there is a helpline which they can use, they dont get to see a human face and even their care providers look the same as all are covered in PPE kits, Devansh Yadav, Changlangs deputy commissioner, said.

The patients are already in stress because of the disease. So we thought that since the doctors and other attendants talk to them regularly and they have a level of comfort with each other, the patients should get to know who are the ones taking care of them, he added.

Yadav, who is a doctor himself and did his MBBS from AIIMS, Delhi before joining the civil service, got the idea of pasting photos of caregivers on their PPEs from a friend based in New York.

My friend told me about this practice used by several hospitals there and how it brought some cheer to the patients. So when we started getting cases in our district from the beginning of June, we decided to implement it as no helpline can replace a human face, said Yadav.

We have got some feedback from the Miao centre and it seems patients are happy to know the faces behind the PPE kits. From Monday, we will implement it in the other centres where Covid-19 patients are admitted, he added.

The district has eight Covid-19 care centres and three of them are being used to admit positive cases. The one in Miao is located nearly 100km away from the district headquarters and has half a dozen patients.

On the advice of the DC, we started printing photos of doctors and other care providers in A4 size papers and pasted them in front side of the PPE kits, Dr Hensam Jongsam, the in-charge of the Miao centre, said.

The patients are nervous about the disease and their conditions. So there was not much of reaction from them, but once they are asked about it they give a positive opinion, he added.
As European countries emerge from their coronavirus lockdowns and lift travel restrictions to revive their tourist industries, the EU has been aiming to coordinate the border reopening among its 27 members.

The bloc has recommended that the member states fully reopen their frontiers with each other on June 15, and many countries are planning to relax controls on that date.

But the border reopenings have been far from harmoniously coordinated.

Early openers

Italy, which has been among the world's hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe -- in many cases that list includes Sweden and the UK.

Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13.

Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries.

Neither did tiny Luxembourg -- but quickly found all its neighbours closing their borders instead.

EU's mid-June plans

In line with the EU's plans to reopen borders in the bloc by mid-June, Belgium, France and Greece are lifting restrictions on Monday for travel within Europe.

Paris, however, has specified it wants reciprocity and so may impose restrictions on those countries blocking travellers from France.

Greece, on the other hand, has gone further, also allowing travellers from farther afield, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon.

Germany is due to end land border checks on June 15, while the Dutch government has announced it would ease warnings against non-essential foreign travel from the same date.

Austria, which has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours, will on June 16 lift travel restrictions with a total of 31 countries -- but has excluded Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Story continues

The Czech Republic is also allowing free travel with a number of European countries from Monday, but restrictions are still in place with those deemed a risk due to their levels of coronavirus infections.

Holding out

Spain will only lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with fellow EU countries.

The land border with Portugal will however remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic.

However, Spain's Balearic Islands will see an earlier contingent of foreign guests when they welcome 11,000 Germans from June 15 in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector.

Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions.

Meanwhile, others are lifting border controls, but are still doing so more gradually.

Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights.
Nadiya Hussain has shared a powerful post on the racism she's experienced, pictured here in London, January 2020. (Getty Images)

Nadiya Hussain has shared a powerful post to Instagram recalling an incident when she was turned down for a modelling job when she was younger because of her skin colour.

The GBBO winner and chef posted two photos of herself on Instagram yesterday. In the first, she is holding her palms up to the screen, while in the second she has her middle finger up.

In the accompanying caption she described an incident she experienced when she was told black hands dont sell jewellery at an audition for a hand modelling job.

Read more: Nadiya Hussain and Saira Khan take part in #EidAtHome video

I was responding to an ad in the paper, back in the day when we looked for jobs in the paper...there was an ad for a hand model needed to model jewellery, she wrote.

I called. Made an appointment. No previous experience required. I had hands, I needed the money, so figured it was a no brainer!

But on arrival she realised it might not be the sure thing she expected it to be.

The room went quiet, the room filled with white faces and white hands, she recalled.

The receptionist stumbled. I sat down while she called someone in. I was met by a women who came and greeted me.

While Hussain figured it was her turn to show her hands, she realised she was mistaken when the woman started speaking.

Hussain wrote: She said Im sorry I didn't know you were black yes, right but the ad wanted hands, I have hands black hands don't sell jewellery. That was her response.

The chef said the blood rushed to her face: I was so embarrassed, I was now a deep shade of burgundy. I never really thought about my hands, till the colour of the skin that covered them stopped me from getting a job. When you are a teenager, already a little lost, words like this stick.

Nadiya Hussein meets the Queen in 2016. (John Stillwell/AFP via Getty Images)

Read more: Nadiya Hussain opens up about battle with panic disorder

She went on to say the experience has had a lasting impact on her.

Story continues

Fast-forward to my 30s and now my hands are in my cookbooks and in cookery shows, even now I look at them and still I have a seed of doubt imbedded telling me that people must be disgusted by the sight of my brown hands, she says.

However, shes determined to overcome those feelings.

But as you can see from my second picture, you know how I feel about it now. I use my hands with pride and allow them to grace cookbooks and cookery shows, to hold my children's hands and stroke their little faces, to cook, to feed... to hold!

Read more: Books you can read to educate yourself about race

She said one job in particular helped her redefine that experience.

I have since worked with Swarovski with these very hands, worn their jewellery with pride! she said.

When I worked with them they never knew the anxiety I felt at the thought of showcasing my hands, but I did it anyway! We need to start representing with our voices, with our eyes, with our thoughts, with our hearts and with our hands! I am taking ownership back with my hands!

Despite the incident taking place years ago, the chef doesnt believe things have changed that much. She recently revealed that she has experienced more racism in 5 years working in the TV/Food industry than any other time of my life  but said that now is the time to call it out.
Mumbai, June 15 : Maharashtra notched a new high of 178 Covid-19 deaths on Monday, sending the state toll zooming past the 4,000 mark, while the second-highest number of cured patients were discharged.

The state also recorded 2,786 new patients, taking the total of 110,744, but a stupendous recovery rate of 50.61 per cent.

This means over half of the patients who are infected are recovering fully and returning home, said an official.

Monday's toll was 24 higher that the previous high of 152 on June 11, while number of cases was 821 less than the highest of 3,607 on May 11 to rest at 2,786.

For most of June, the state has been recording three-digit highs - 103 deaths on June 2, 122 on June 3, 123 on June 4, 139 on June 5, 120 on June 6, 109 on June 8, 120 on June 9, 149 on June 10, 152 on June 11, 127 on June 12, 113 on June 13, and 120 on June 14.

Monday's figures work out to roughly one death every 8 minutes, and a whopping 116 new cases notched every hour.

With the latest fatalities, the state death toll zoomed past 4,000 to touch 4,128 while the total number of Coronavirus patients catapulted to 110,744 -- both highest in the country.

The Health Department said of the total number of cases declared till date, 50,554 were active cases.

Despite the gloomy data on the perpetually growing number of Covid-19 deaths and cases, the state continues to record an impressive recovery rate, standing today at 50.61 per cent and a mortality rate of 3.70 per cent.

Of the latest fatalities, Mumbai notched 68 deaths - taking the city death toll up to 2,250 now, while the number of Covid-19 positive patients here went up by 1,067 cases to touch 59,293 now.

Dharavi - Asia's biggest slum - continued to show improvements with 25 new cases, taking the total to 2,068 cases and and the number of fatalities stable at 77.

Besides Mumbai's 68 deaths, there were a stunning 46 fatalities in Thane (Thane, Mira-Bhayander, Kalyan-Dombivali, Navi Mumbai), 21 in Palghar, 14 in Pune, 13 in Dhule, eight in Raigad, three in Jalgaon, two each in Solapur and Jalna, and one in Ratnagiri.

The victims comprised 122 men - the highest ever, and 56 women, and nearly 69 per cent of them suffered from other serious ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, heart problems and asthma.

On the positive side, a total of 5,071 fully cured patients returned home on Monday, taking the number of those discharged to 56,049 now. This is the second time such a huge number of patients have recovered and discharged after 8,381 were sent home on May 29.

Meanwhile, Mumbai suburban train services resumed limited operations only for government staff engaged in essential services from Monday.

From Tuesday, the number of domestic flights at Mumbai International Airport Ltd. will be doubled from the existing 50 to 100.

Marking a revolution of sorts, most schools "reopened" from June 15 from Monday with students donning their full uniforms to attend digital classes with education imparted online.

The MMR (Thane Division) remains a problem area with the highest-ever 143 new Covid-19 deaths, pulling up the toll to 2,873 and the number of positive cases touching 82,433.

Pune Division's fatalities zoomed to 655, besides 15,060 patients.

Since June 1, Thane district - with 18,732 cases and 480 fatalities - has overtaken Pune district which has 12,419 patients but 494 deaths.

Nashik Division has 291 deaths and 4,534 positive cases, followed by Aurangabad Division with 147 fatalities and 3,390 cases, and finally Akola Division with 71 deaths and 1,745 cases.

Latur Division has 25 deaths and 647 cases, Kolhapur Division 32 deaths and 1,566 patients, and finally Nagpur Division with 14 deaths and 1,280 cases.

Meanwhile, the number of people sent to home quarantine increased to 589,158 now, while those in institutional quarantine decreased to 28,084.

There are as many as 80,670 beds currently available in 1,547 institutions for Covid-19 related quarantine in the state on Monday.

(Quaid Najmi can be contacted at q.najmi@ians.in)

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
He's known for his scathing critiques of the mainstream media.

And FriendlyJordies, whose real name is Jordan Shanks, laid into some of Australia's most popular stars in his latest YouTube video on Sunday.

The 30-year-old comedian didn't hold back while reviewing a satirical public service announcement created by the taxpayer-funded ABC.

Ouch! FriendlyJordies, whose real name is Jordan Shanks, laid into some of Australia's most popular stars in his latest YouTube video on Sunday

In the video, celebrities including Osher Gunsberg, Anthony Callea, Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald and Deborah Mailman urged the public not to start a podcast while bored in lockdown.

Jordan, who makes a living producing his own content for fans without the help of traditional media, dryly described the skit as 'your tax dollars at work'.

'Holy hell. It doesn't get easier every time you watch it,' he said, adding that it was basically an 'all-star cast... telling you you're not interesting'.

Taking offence: He didn't hold back while reviewing a satirical public service announcement created by the taxpayer-funded ABC, starring the likes of Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg

He described the video as 'obnoxious', and said it lacked 'self-awareness' at a time when more people are getting their content from independent creators.

Jordan also pointed out that several of the people in the video, including Osher, actually have podcasts themselves.

Turning his attention to Fitzy, who co-hosts a Sydney breakfast radio show with Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli, he said: 'They're paid millions of dollars for their "skill" where they have to mask what they're saying with loud, annoying music because that's less annoying than them.'

Harsh words: He described the video as 'obnoxious', and said it lacked 'self-awareness' at a time when more people are getting their content from independent creators

He then stated that several ABC favourites have in fact started podcasts during lockdown, including celebrity chef Adam Liaw.

Jordan went on to say that Osher's long-running podcast was 'absolutely f**ked'.

The funnyman singled out the Bachelor presenter's recent interview with NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian as an example of him dropping the ball.

'You have no idea what you're talking about': Jordan also pointed out that several of the people in the video, including Osher, actually have podcasts themselves

'You have no idea what you're talking about. Don't interview politicians. Your talent in life is looking down when someone doesn't receive a rose,' he said.

Moving on to ABC host Leigh Sales, Jordan pointed out that she also has a podcast, in which she talks about her favourite wines with fellow journalist Annabel Crabb.

'I've always wondered why they always come off so stupid when they're talking to the most powerful members of society, and now I know it's because as soon as the cameras flick off, all they think about is Netflix and the Tony Awards,' he said.

Jordan concluded his video with a mock public service announcement for the ABC: 'The truth is, you're not entertaining. You're just not... So, please, shut the f**k up.'
A pastor is trending on Facebook after he said from the pulpit that it is a sin to be a tenant because that makes you have another Lord apart from Christ.



Pastor Charles Osasuwa, founder of Rock of Ages Christian Assembly Inc, said God is a Jealous God and doesn't approve of his children having other lords besides him. He said tenants have landlords and this means they are serving another lord. He added that this makes it a sin to live in a rented apartment.



He adviced his congregation that once they make their first salary, they should begin planning towards owning a home. He said it doesn't have to be an elaborate home. He said their first home is not the home they'll live in indefinitely but one that they own to avoid sinning against Gid by having a landlord.



He said: "The tenant is always at the mercy of the landlord. The landlord can call the tenant anytime and he can request to use his apartment anytime. The Christian who is a tenant should work towards freeing himself from the second Lord which is the Landlord.



Osasuwa also said churches who operate in rented properties are not left out.



He said: "A church that operates in a rented apartment is having two lords. This should not be.



Watch the video below.











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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- When the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic canceled graduations and other special events, Cathy Vitale still wanted to make sure her son was recognized for his hard work.

Earlier this month, Vitale planned a surprise drive-by and ceremony for her 15-year-old son Charlie Vitale at their Annadale home to celebrate his eighth-grade graduation from the Seton Foundation for Learning, a not for profit, non-sectarian organization that supports special education programs.

Due to the coronavirus crisis, Vitale said she and other parents were disappointed that ceremonies wouldnt be the same this year. Her son had faced so many obstacles since he started school, she said, and this was a special moment for him to be recognized and acknowledged.

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

Charlie Vitale (center), 15, was surprised with a graduation ceremony at his Annadale home. He is graduating eighth-grade from the Seton Foundation for Learning. He is seen here with his family. (Courtesy/Cathy Vitale)

The FDNY led the drive-by celebration, followed by about 30 cars honking their horns to congratulate Charlie.

After the drive-by, family and friends -- as well as school staff and Charlies teachers -- joined in front of the Vitales home for a commencement ceremony.

Charlie, clad in his cap and gown, walked to the "Pomp and Circumstance graduation march to the front of his home. He sang the Star-Spangled Banner as his cousins proudly held American flags. Cathy Vitale announced Charlies name to receive his diploma, and he gave flowers to his teachers.

After a short speech by Charlie, he was surrounded by confetti and cheered on by his guests. You can watch the video above of Charlies graduation ceremony and drive-by.

Charlie will attend Bishop Patrick V. Ahern High School, Graniteville, in the fall.

Charlie Vitale (center), 15, was surprised with a graduation ceremony at his Annadale home. He is graduating eighth-grade from the Seton Foundation for Learning. (Courtesy/Cathy Vitale)

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Blackouts in California this summer could damage Silicon Valley's Big Tech firms after offices were closed during the coronavirus pandemic and employees were ordered to work remotely at home.

Millions of California homes were left in the dark last summer when a series of intentional power cuts by PG&E and Edison International temporarily suspended electricity to stop wildfires.

Big Tech firms in Silicon Valley managed to stay afloat during those electricity outages because of fortified power lines, but power cuts this summer could spark a catastrophic fallout for thousands of staffers who've set up home offices.

With corporate offices now closed, there could be nowhere for staffers to flee if the power falters. Normal day-to-day operations that kept such large enterprises running smoothly could be downed, leaving behind an industry in crisis.

Big Tech firms in Silicon Valley, including Google (pictured), could be affected by a series of blackouts and power cuts this summer as staffers work from home

Last summer, utility companies PG&E and Edison intentionally cut power to millions of California homes to avoid potential wildfires sparked from power lines

'Were going to have people sheltered in place and without power,' Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, told Bloomberg.

Part of the reason Silicon Valley's Big Tech firms avoided blackouts last year was the type of power lines that fuel their operations,

'What PG&E is doing is blacking out the kind of low-voltage wires that deliver power to homes,' Michael Wara, head of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford Universitys Woods Institute told Wired.

'But, typically, big commercial customers, like a tech headquarters ... tend to be located closer to the bulk transmission system [and] the high-voltage lines, which are much less impacted by this outage.'

The types of power lines typically found in residential neighborhoods are more prone to wildfires because of their proximity to the ground and vegetation.

Pictured: Firefighters spray water on a spot fire at a home during the Kincade Fire on Vinecrest Road in Windsor

The bulky transmission lines often find at commercial businesses aren't impacted in the same way.

'The lines in the South Bay where the tech headquarters are, like in Mountain View and Santa Clara County, are [surrounded by] wide open space - there's basically no vegetation. It's flat,' said Wara.

Facebook was among several Silicon Valley firms that pivoted operations from in-person at large corporate buildings to remote work after California's lockdown guidelines closed businesses.

In March, Facebook advised its 50,000 staffers to work from home to avoid spreading the coronavirus.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg later announced that the company had extended its work-from-home plan until 2021, allowing employees to avoid the Menlo Park office for the next several months.

Zuckerberg continued to push for remote working in April when he revealed via livestream that he expects about 50 per cent of staffers to work remotely within the next five to 10 years.

Facebook, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured), was among the several Big Tech companies who advised employees to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic

Certain employees will be allowed to work remotely full time, but need to notify Facebook of any location changes by January 1, 2021.

Employees were permitted to work remotely through the remainder of 2020. The office is scheduled to reopen July 6, but at a limited capacity.

Similarly, Twitter, which reported 5,100 employees in its most recent earnings report, ordered employees to work from home .

It was later revealed by CEO Jack Dorsey that the company will allow most of its employees to work from home permanently.

'Opening offices will be our decision. When and if our employees come back, will be theirs,' a spokesperson for the company said.

Google, with some 118,000 staffers, announced that it extended remote working from the original June 1 end date to December 31 in May.

Under the direction of CEO Jack Dorsey (right), Twitter sent its thousands of employees home to work and later said the company will allow most of its employees to work from home permanently.

The majority of Google workers are expected to work from home during this time, according to CEO Sundar Pichai.

But Pichai added that some employees can work from its Mountain View office on July 6.

Tech companies Apple and Microsoft followed suit. Apple told all 12,000 employees at their office in Cupertino to work remotely and Microsoft did that same for 150,000 workers.

Between those five Silicon Valley firms, around 336,000 Big Tech workers could be impacted by power cuts.

Apple told all 12,000 of its staffers at the Cupertino, California, office (pictured) to work from home

In 2019, more than three million people were affected by rolling blackouts as local utility companies tried to prevent live wires from sparking wildfires.

The reason utility companies shut off power is solely to 'significantly reduce catastrophic wildfire risk to our customers and communities,' Michael Lewis, PG&Es senior vice president for electric operations, told The New York Times.

Blackouts also threaten to halt California's course to revive the economy.

California state and utility workers told Bloomberg they're working to minimize the threat.

Last month, regulators adopted new shutoff rules that would require companies to restore electricity within 24 hours after threatening weather occurs.

PG&E, the state's largest utility company, set a personal goal of 12 daylight hours after strong winds ease, and doubled the number helicopters it will use to find downed power lines.

Firefighters battle a blaze on a farm during the Kincade fire in Windsor, California on October 27, 2019

Even so, new developments in California's landscape have the potential to make wildfires more widespread and dangerous.

California was drought-free last summer, but now almost 50 per cent of the state is riddled with drought, according to a June assessment from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The means there's an 'above normal significant large fire potential,' the National Interagency Fire Center said.

Since January, more than 6,600 acres in the state have already been scorched.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic has still gripped California in an unprecedented health crisis.

'The reality is Mother Nature hasnt changed her mind with respect to wildfires because of covid,' Don Daigler, director of business resiliency for Edisons Southern California Edison utility, told Bloomberg

'We still face the same fire risk as communities as we did last year.'

Millions of Californians were affected by power cuts last summer. Pictured: Carlos Lama of Bayside Cafe, which was among businesses to lose power due to Pacific Gas & Electric Corp's public safety power shutoff, uses an LED lamp and light from his phone at the counter of the restaurant

Almost 50 per cent of California is covered in drought, which could be a catalyst for several wildfires this summer

So far, California has recorded around 149,000 confirmed cases and a death toll of 5,063.

Utility companies, whose intentional blackouts sparked widespread backlash, understand the concern, but don't want the number of new remote workers to influence power shutoffs when needed.

Conditions like high winds, low humidity, hot temperatures and dry vegetation should still be the main deciding factor.

'The approach we take is different, but the calculus really hasnt changed,' said Daigler.

They're working to reduce the need for power cuts, as well as make them shorter and smaller when they do occur.

'We want to reduce the impact of public safety power shutoffs on customers whether they are working from home or not,' according to Matt Pender, director of the community wildfire safety program with PG&E.

Conditions like high winds, low humidity, hot temperatures and dry vegetation are factors that contribute to California's often volatile wildfire season

PG&E ha begun installing switches and other devices to isolate blackouts to avoid mass power cuts like last year.

It also gained mobile diesel generators that can be found at 48 substations.

PG&E was forced to file bankruptcy last year after an investigation found its equipment was responsible for sparking deadly fires.

A $13.5billion settlement was reached between PG&E and the state California this month.

PG&E and Edison have also reinforced their field equipment by installing stronger poles and snaking some power lines underground.

Edison is installing 600 miles of power lines with a special coating that prevents sparks if touched by tree branches.

Utility company PG&E was forced to settle with the state of California after their power lines sparked deadly wildfires in 2019

Pictured: Maria's Restaurant manager Rich Fuxjager holds a battery-powered lamp in the kitchen of Maria's restaurant as they continue to work with a limited menu following a power outage in 2019

PG&E predicts that these steps could cut the number of residents affected by blackouts by one-third.

Both utility companies are also working to build more pop-up community resource centers during blackouts to adhere to public health guidelines.

Vans with charging stations will be sent into neighborhoods darkened by blackouts to assist residents who don't want to to travel to resource centers.

Some counties in April sought to impose new regulations on utility shutoffs, but officials argued that final decisions should be delegated to those companies.

'Based on these rules and standards, it is appropriate for the utilities to have the final say over shutting down power and for the [California Public Utilities Commission]to hold them accountable,' said spokeswoman Terrie Prosper.
Who was this cheery chap arriving in the Commons with a nod and a wink and a cheery wot ho?

Why, it was Robert Jenrick, Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Or the current minister, at any rate.

His cheeks were flushed peony pink, his brow a frown-free zone. As he waited for departmental questions to start, he shot a colleague sitting behind him a warm, walrussy smile. This was one chirpy-looking politician and certainly not one who feels his career is about to disappear down the plughole.

Mr Jenrick has just endured a weekend of further allegations over his relationship with property developer Richard Desmond, whose 1billion development in east London he approved two weeks before the ex-publisher handed the Tories a 12,000 donation.

Frown-free: Robert Jenrick, Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Or the current minister, at any rate

If the Secretary of State had spent the past few days tossing and turning over the matter, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

He limbered up with a few breezy queries relating to lockdown. Laura Farris (Con, Newbury) wanted to know when weddings would be allowed. Jenrick couldnt say.

Tim Loughton (Con, E Worthing and Shoreham) mocked the discrepancy in the Governments rules where outdoor social events were allowed but religious services were not. He joked that the clergy should simply disguise services as barbecues with a very long grace.

Jenrick was relaxed enough to afford himself a wry chuckle.

Labours housing spokesman Steve Reed was the first to attack. He referred to the Desmond matter as cash for favours.

The planning process was now something that could be auctioned off at Conservative Party dinners.

Jenrick puffed out his chest and corrugated his forehead. I take my responsibilities as secretary of state extremely seriously indeed, he said gravely.

The application had indeed been a highly contentious one but he had acted in good faith and with an open mind.

Mr Jenrick has just endured a weekend of further allegations over his relationship with property developer Richard Desmond, pictured with wife Joy Canfield

As a matter of transparency, he had also handed over all relevant documents on the matter for the Cabinet Secretarys perusal.

Liz Twist (Lab, Blaydon) referred to a Conservative fundraising dinner where Jenrick sat next to Desmond while the application was still pending.

I didnt know who I was going to be sitting next to until I arrived, Jenrick insisted.

This, strangely, I can believe. Finding a minister who would knowingly agree to sit next to Mr Desmond would have been quite a task for the evenings organisers. His charms are not to everyones taste, it is alleged.

One of the whiffier aspects of the case was that Jenrick helpfully approved the plans a day before a new tax was due to come into place, thus saving Mr Desmond an estimated 40million.

Sarah Jones (Lab, Croydon Central) asked whether Jenrick had been aware of the new levys existence. He replied that the tax was a matter of public record.

A yes then.

If the Secretary of State had spent the past few days tossing and turning over the matter, he was doing a good job of hiding it

If the opposition bowling had been on the tame side thus far, then it was about to turn dire.

Up in Scotland, the SNPs Tommy Sheppard shook with indignation. He considered Jenricks answers entirely unsatisfactory. He pondered why the minister should be allowed to remain in post when he was now the subject of a police investigation. Eh?

Jenrick looked wearily at Sheppard. The Honourable Member was talking cobblers, he said. A Labour member of the House of Lords had referred him to the police but they had quickly decided there were no criminal matters to investigate.

Tommys eyes popped as if someone had just jabbed a knitting needle into them.

Jenrick derived equal satisfaction in his response to Ruth Cadbury (Lab, Brentford and Isleworth) who accused him of breaching the ministerial code by not informing his department of his attendance at the fundraising dinner with Mr Desmond.

Actually he had informed them, and had said so moments before.

I am sorry to disappoint the Honourable Lady with her pre-prepared question, Jenrick remarked cockily. And with that, off he strutted.

Like I said, if Jenricks toast, no ones told him about it.
MOSCOW  A Russian court convicted an American corporate security executive Monday of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison after a closed trial that the U.S. denounced as a mockery of justice, and it angrily said his treatment in jail was appalling.

Paul Whelan, a former Marine from Novi, Michigan, has insisted he was innocent, saying he was set up when he was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 while he was visiting Russia to attend a friends wedding.

We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

The 50-year-old Whelan, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, has publicly complained of poor prison conditions and has said his life is in danger. Two weeks ago, Whelan underwent a hernia operation, which his twin brother, David, described as emergency surgery  which is never a good sign.

He said his brother had been allowed one phone call in 18 months and had voiced concern about coronavirus infections in Moscows Lefortovo prison, where he was being held.

Pompeo said the U.S. was outraged by the verdict and noted that Paul Whelans treatment has been appalling, adding that authorities ignored his medical condition and kept him isolated from family and friends.

He called the proceedings a secret trial, with secret evidence and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses. The Moscow City Court, where the trial took place, said it was held behind closed doors because authorities saw it as necessary for considering sensitive information.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan called the trial a mockery of justice. Whelans lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about.

David Whelan described the case as political and voiced hope that the U.S. government will help gain his freedom.

The Russian Federation wouldnt talk about releasing Paul until he was convicted, he told The Associated Press. And so, now that that has happened, we hope that the U.S. government will speak to the Russian government. We will have to continue to treat it as a political case, which is what it is, and seek a political solution for his freedom.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Whelan was a political hostage, telling reporters his guilt was proven at the trial. Peskov refused to comment on whether Russia could be eyeing his exchange for some of its citizens in the U.S. custody.

Whelans Russian lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, pointed at Russian official statements signaling a possibility that Whelan could be exchanged for Russians Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko.

There have been proposals of exchange, the issue is being discussed, he said.

Bout, a Russian arms trader, is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. for a 2011 conviction on charges he conspired to sell millions of dollars of weapons to Colombian rebels. He insisted he was a legitimate businessman.

Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot, is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the U.S.

Russian officials and lawmakers have cast the convictions of Bout and Yaroshenko as politically motivated and pushed for their release.

Leonid Slutsky, the head of foreign affairs committee in the Kremlin-controlled lower house of parliament, rejected Pompeos statement as meddling in Russias judicial system. He said Moscow is open to discuss Whelans possible exchange for Russian citizens who have remained in the U.S. prisons on unfounded charges and in inhumane conditions.

Political will is required for reaching such agreements, he said.

Yaroshenkos wife, Viktoria, also voiced hope that he could be exchanged for Whelan, the Interfax news agency reported.



Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Mike Householder in Canton Township, Michigan, contributed.
HONG KONG, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Moving into an office in Admiralty, a sought-after location right at the center of Hong Kong's most thriving business district, should have meant a career boost for Lucy Wu. Instead, it has made her a reluctant witness of violence and vandalism.

Exactly one year ago on June 12, the businesswoman was discussing the design of their newly-rented office in a building when she saw a growing number of black-clad protesters surrounding the Legislative Council (LegCo) building across the street.

As the situation evolved, rioters began to charge police cordon lines, set fires and use violent measures to repeatedly storm the LegCo complex.

"That was the first time I had ever seen such crazy vandalism with my own eyes," she said, adding that violence and vandalism continued to escalate in Hong Kong since then, even making daily commuting a difficult task and almost putting a halt to her company's operation.

Wu said she noticed that Hong Kong's social order is "recovering somewhat" since the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, adopted a decision last month to institute Hong Kong national security laws. "I feel more and more Hong Kong residents are regaining confidence in Hong Kong's future."

Organizers of the United Front Supporting National Security Legislation and guests attend a press conference in south China's Hong Kong, June 1, 2020. (Xinhua/Lui Siu Wai)

Nearly 2.93 million Hong Kong residents have signed a petition in support of the national security legislation for Hong Kong during an eight-day campaign starting from May 24.

The large number of people signing the petition fully demonstrates that the national security legislation is an essential move that meets the aspirations of Hong Kong residents, Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) said while receiving the petition from organizers.

Luo said the legislation will prevent, stop and punish acts and activities endangering national security, maintain Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of Hong Kong residents.

Leung Fong-yuen, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Tourism Industry Employees General Union, is among those who felt the pains caused by the disturbances most acutely.

"In the worst hit sectors such as tourism, retail, catering and hotels, many people are struggling with scarcely any hope for business in the coming year," she said. "That's why my colleagues and I fully support the national security legislation for Hong Kong."

Leung was one of the around 25,000 people who volunteered to collect public signatures for the petition at the more than 5,400 street stands set up across Hong Kong during the campaign.

She recalled one day when she was appealing to passers-by, saying loudly that the violent incidents have resulted in a loss of 120 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 15.5 billion U.S. dollars) to Hong Kong's services sectors. Hearing her words, many people came up to sign in support of the national security legislation.

"It's because it really hit a nerve for many people," she said.

Rioters attempt to break into the Legislative Council building in south China's Hong Kong, July 1, 2019. (Xinhua)

Since June 2019, vandalism, arson, assault on police officers and passers-by and activities connected to home-grown terrorism have become rampant in Hong Kong.

Felix Chung, a LegCo member representing the business sector, said the unrest has resulted in a series of social problems and has scared visitors away.

"There is no peaceful environment for us to do business here," he said, adding businesses in Hong Kong generally understand and support the central authorities' decision to enact national security laws for Hong Kong and expect the legislation to bring back stability to the community.

Some big international companies have also joined local people, voicing support for the national security legislation for Hong Kong.

HSBC Chief Executive Peter Wong, also chairman of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce (HKGCC), said businesses recently surveyed by HKGCC are largely positive about the impact of the legislation over the long run and agree that it will help Hong Kong maintain its status as a global financial hub.

Hong Kong's GDP slumped 8.9 percent year on year and 5.3 percent quarter on quarter during the January-March period this year, both the largest for a single quarter ever on record. The labor market also worsened in the first quarter, with the jobless rate up to 4.2 percent, the highest in more than nine years.

Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a webinar this week that the decision to establish and improve Hong Kong's legal system and enforcement mechanisms at the state level to safeguard national security demonstrates the central authorities' determination and will bring Hong Kong back on track.

The more the bottom line of national security is consolidated, the greater the space will be for Hong Kong to leverage its advantages under "one country, two systems," he stressed.

Zhang's remarks were echoed by people from all walks of life in Hong Kong.

Chow Man-kong, deputy director of the China Economic Research Program of Lingnan University, said the enactment and enforcement of national security laws will help Hong Kong out of the current predicament.

Despite efforts by successive HKSAR chief executives, the deep-seated problems in Hong Kong society have not yet been resolved due to obstruction by the opposition and external forces, he said. "Hong Kong cannot move forward if 'one country, two systems' is not consolidated."

In the eyes of Dan, an Australian who has been living in Hong Kong for nearly 22 years and operates a consulting business, the national security legislation is of paramount importance to Hong Kong at present.

"It is a fantastic opportunity to restore peace and order back to Hong Kong society," he said, adding that by creating a foundation of safety and trust "we can get on and start building a better and healthier future together."
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is expected to join his Chinese and Russian counterparts at a virtual conference of the Russia-India-China trilateral on June 22, against the backdrop of a tense border standoff between Indian and Chinese militaries, diplomatic sources said on Monday.

The meeting, being convened at the initiative of Russia, is expected to deliberate on a range of key issues like ways to collectively tackle the coronavirus pandemic and address common security threats, they said.

It is unlikely that the the border standoff between India and China will figure in the meeting as bilateral issues are usually not discussed under the trilateral format, the sources said, citing convention.

"It will be a good opportunity for all the three countries to come together and discuss regional issues in order to synchronise our views to contribute to regional stability," a senior diplomat told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

Indian and Chinese troops have been engaged in a bitter standoff in several areas along the Line of Actual Control in mountainous eastern Ladakh for over five weeks. Both the countries are holding talks at military and diplomatic levels to resolve the dispute.

Russia has already said that India and China should resolve the border dispute through talks and that a constructive relationship between the two countries was important for regional stability.

The trilateral meeting on June 22 was scheduled to be held in March, but had to be postponed due to the coronavirus crisis.

Constructive relationship between our Indian and Chinese friends is very important to promote regional dialogue on stability and sustainable development, Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin told PTI earlier this month.

He also said that Russia was looking forward to further expanding its interaction with India and China at the upcoming meetings of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the BRICS and Russia-India-China trilateral forum.

The three foreign ministers are also expected to deliberate extensively on the evolving political situation in Afghanistan after the US inked a peace deal with the Taliban in February.

The deal provided for the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, effectively drawing curtains to Washington's 18-year war in the country.

The meeting of the RIC foreign ministers is also expected to delve into key connectivity projects in the region including the implementation of the 7,200 km-long International NorthSouth Transport Corridor (INSTC) linking India, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia with Europe.
A 13-year-old boy caught an 11-foot, 6-inch, nearly 900-pound tiger shark during a recent 36-hour offshore trip in Port Aransas, according to an employee from the charter boating company the teenager was on. The 13-year-old is from Weatherford, which is about 29 miles west of Fort Worth

Stacy Springer, an employee with Dolphin Dock Deep Sea Fishing, told mySA.com the large tiger shark was reeled in by the young angler, Micah Harless, and his father Robbie during their 36-hour trip that ended Monday morning. The charter boat had around 14 people on board, she said.
The gondoliers are back in action as tourists flock back to Venice. (Photo: AFP/Andrea Pattaro)

The lagoon city is already welcoming visitors back to its splendours as Italy relaxes the restrictions that halted the flow of visitors.

On Saturday, a long queue of tourists built up outside St. Mark's cathedral, one of the most famous monuments in the city

Staff checked people's temperatures as they entered.

On Friday, the famed Cafe Florian reopened after more than three months

Boss Marco Paolini said he hoped the reopening will be a big success and that the worst is now in the past.

Venice has been one of the world's most popular destinations, attracting more than one million visitors from China alone last year.

But visitor numbers are still just a fraction of what they would be at this time of year.
The UNs top human rights body agreed to a request by African countries to urgently debate racism and police brutality on Wednesday following unrest in the US and beyond over George Floyds death.

The killing of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police on June 13 reignited a push for protest in the US city. Atlanta initially saw heavy protests after the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, a Black man, died on May 25 after a policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. His death sparked calls across the US for policing reforms and triggered global protests.

Here are the latest updates:

Tuesday, June 16

05:25 GMT  New York police officers sickened after drinking tainted milkshake

At least three police officers from New York fell ill and were hospitalised after dining at a popular restaurant chain in Lower Manhattan, according to a news report.

The three officers reportedly found substance, believed to be some sort of cleaning solution or disinfectant mixed in their milkshake drink, NBC News reported.

When New York City police officers cannot even take (a) meal without coming under attack, it is clear the environment in which we work has deteriorated to a critical level, a statement from a police union said.

03:28 GMT  Australia to probe arrest of Aboriginal man

An Aboriginal man, whose violent arrest by South Australian Police was caught on video, has been released from custody with all charges dropped, reports said, as police launched an investigation on the incident.

Henry Noel, 28, has been released from the Port Adelaide Police Station after a social media video appeared to show an officer striking him several times during an arrest on Monday night.

A person familiar with the case told NITV that Noel had really bad injuries to his face, his arms, his legs.

#Breaking  South Australian police launch investigation following a social media video appearing to show an officer striking an Aboriginal man several times during an arrest last night @SBSNews pic.twitter.com/PlLxIwt4Tb  Jarni Blakkarly (@JarniBlakkarly) June 16, 2020

03:05 GMT  Trump to sign order creating police database

A senior administration official says an executive order that President Donald Trump is expected to sign on Tuesday would set up a database for tracking police officers who have complaints about excessive use of force in their records.

The official says the administration wants to keep such officers from moving between police departments.

The presidents executive order comes as lawmakers work quickly in response to outrage over the death of George Floyd. Senate Republicans are also poised to unveil an extensive package of policing changes.

02:45 GMT  New York City to disband plain-clothes anti-crime units

New York Citys police department is disbanding the type of plain-clothes anti-crime units that were involved in the 2014 death of Eric Garner and have long been criticised for aggressive tactics, Commissioner Dermot Shea announced.

The units, which focused primarily on seizing illegal guns, were responsible for a disproportionate number of shootings and complaints, Shea told reporters after meeting with top deputies to discuss the move. About 600 officers working in the unit will be given new assignments.

Garner died when an officer enforcing a ban on the sale of loose cigarettes used a chokehold to wrestle him to the ground.

02:21 GMT  Seattle City Council votes to ban tear gas, pepper spray

The Seattle City Council has voted unanimously to bar police from using tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd-control devices after officers repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators protesting racism and police brutality.

The 9-0 vote came amid frustration with the Seattle Police Department, which used tear gas to disperse protesters in the citys densest neighbourhood, Capitol Hill, just days after Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best promised not to.

A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary order banning Seattle police from using tear gas, pepper spray, foam-tipped projectiles or other force against protesters, finding that the department had used less-lethal weapons disproportionately and without provocation.

01:54 GMT  Feds to review cases into hanging deaths of 2 Black men

Federal authorities will review local investigations into the hanging deaths of two Black men in southern California to determine whether federal law had been violated, AP news agency reported, quoting officials.

Local authorities have said there is no evidence of foul play in the deaths of Robert Fuller in Palmdale and Malcolm Harsch in Victorville and early indications point to suicide in both cases, but sheriffs have pledged to continue the investigations.

The announcement follows protests prompted by the initial determination of suicide as the likely cause of death for Fuller.

People who participated in a town hall hosted by Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Monday voiced concerns that Fuller and Harsch may have been lynched and urged investigators to look into the possibility that hate crimes were committed.

01:14 GMT  Family of Rayshard Brooks demands criminal justice reform

Pleading through tears Monday, the family of a Black man killed by Atlanta police outside a drive-through demanded changes in the criminal justice system.

An autopsy found that 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back late Friday by a white officer who was trying to arrest him at a fast-food restaurant for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car. Brooks tried to flee after wrestling with the officers and grabbing a stun gun from one of them.

Not only are we hurt, we are angry, said Chassidy Evans, Brooks niece. When does it stop? Were not only pleading for justice. Were pleading for change.

The Brooks family and their attorneys spoke to the media on Monday days after Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by police at a restaurant parking lot in Atlanta [Ron Harris/AP]

Monday, June 15

20:50 GMT  Second man charged in death of retired St Louis police captain

A second man has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of retired St Louis police Captain David Dorn during a pawn shop break-in that followed a night of violent protests on June 2.

That night, four officers were shot, officers were pelted with rocks and fireworks, and dozens of businesses were damaged.

Mark Jackson was charged with second-degree murder, robbery, burglary, stealing and three counts of armed criminal action. Stephan Cannon was earlier charged with first-degree murder, robbery and other crimes. Both men are jailed without bond.

20:45 GMT  Activists create petition calling for justice for Rayshard Brooks

Activists created an online petition demanding justice for Rayshard Brooks. The petition has gathered over 52,000 signatures.

20:00 GMT  Atlanta mayor announces series of police reforms

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms has announced immediate reforms within the police department, including orders requiring police officers to de-escalate situations and imposing a duty to intervene when officers see another officer using excessive force.

Bottoms said that, when she saw the death of Rayshard Brooks, It was clear that we do not have another day, another minute, another hour, to waste.

She said the police must find a better way to handle confrontations, and that she is heartbroken over Brooks death.

19:39 GMT  New Jersey police ordered to release names of disciplined officers

New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S Grewal issued an order requiring all law enforcement agencies in the state to begin publicly listing officers who commit serious disciplinary violations.

The order mandates every state, county, and local law enforcement agency in New Jersey to annually publish a list of officers who were fired, demoted, or suspended for more than five days due to a disciplinary violation, with the first list to be published no later than December 31, 2020, according to a release issued by his office.





The order is meant to build public trust, according to Colonel Patrick J Callahan, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police. By releasing the names of State Troopers who committed serious disciplinary violations, we are continuing the long, hard work of earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve, Callahan said.

17:28 GMT  Protest reaches Georgia Capitol, mayor says use of force needs review

The March on Georgia, organised by the states NAACP, reached the Georgie State Capitol building in Atlanta on Monday. Demonstrators delivered a list of demands to the state legislature.

These demands included ending Citizens Arrest and Stand Your Ground laws, among other measures regarding voter disenfranchisement, which are necessary to end systemic racism in the criminal justice system and voter suppression in Georgia, the organisation said in a release.

The march came as Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms she would issue a series of administrative orders to accelerate a review of policing in the wake of the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks.

16:08 GMT  Black Lives Matter banner in Seoul removed after Trump complaints

A man walks near a Black Lives Matter and a Gay Pride banner at the US Embassy in Seoul on Sunday [Lee Jin-man/AP]

A large Black Lives Matter banner draped on the outside of the US embassy in Seoul was removed on Monday after President Donald Trump expressed his displeasure about it, two people familiar with the matter told the Reuters News Agency.

The banner  seen as a rare show of open support for the Black Lives Matter movement by a Trump appointee, Ambassador Harry Harris  had hung on the building on Saturday as the embassy tweeted in support of the anti-racism campaign across the US and worldwide in response to the killing of Floyd.

Bloomberg News reported earlier that both Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were displeased about the banner.

The U.S. Embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change. Our #BlackLivesMatter banner shows our support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society. pic.twitter.com/Y4Thr2MRdw  U.S. Embassy Seoul (@USEmbassySeoul) June 13, 2020

15:48 GMT  Family of Rayshard Brooks calls for reforms, justice

During a news conference on the killing of Rayshard Brooks, his family called for drastic change in the Atlanta Police Department.

The trust that we have with the police force is broken, Tiara Brooks, Rayshards cousin, said at the news conference.

True justice will never prevail because Rayshard will not come back, Tiara said, calling for demonstrations to continue in order to make sure another case like his will not occur.

Lawyer L Chris Stewart, who is representing the Brooks family, questioned whether there was an acceptable definition of justice. He presented what he said were photos of vehicles that had been shot by police during the fatal incident. It should never have happened, Stewart said.

A man and two children mourn at the site of a Wendys restaurant where Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot and killed by police in a struggle following a field sobriety test [Dustin Chambers/Getty Images/AFP]

Rayshards widow, Tomika Miller, said she wanted to thank everyone for their protests and support.

Miller called on protests to remain peaceful, as the family wants to keep his name positive and great.

The news conference ended suddenly as one of Brookss cousins broke down at the mention of his funeral. The man departed in tears, saying: I want yall to know, you took my cousin from me  you took the wrong person, presumably speaking to the Atlanta police.

14:03 GMT  Supreme Court will not consider qualified immunity case

The US Supreme Court declined to hear a number of cases involving a legal defence called qualified immunity that can be used to shield government officials from lawsuits, including police officers accused of excessive force.

The justices are rejecting appeals in cases that had been pending before the court for months, including a dispute over whether officers in Tennessee can be sued for using a dog on a man who says he had surrendered.

The decision to reject the cases comes as a national spotlight is once again trained on the polices use of force after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Democrats and Republicans in Washington have been pulling together their own versions of police reform legislation.

12:45  Alabama to place removed Confederate statue in a museum

A Confederate statue removed from Alabamas port city earlier this month has been relocated to the History Museum of Mobile, Mayor Sandy Stimpson said on Sunday on Twitter.

The statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes stood near the Mobile waterfront for 120 years until June 5; the museum will develop a plan to protect, preserve and display it and place it into the appropriate historic context.

Another Confederate monument has been taken down:

Mobile, Alabama removed the statue of a Confederate admiral from its pedestal last night. https://t.co/Au0eaIEu8W pic.twitter.com/NgDaoMNb84  John Bowles (@JPBowles) June 5, 2020

Attorney General Steve Marshall had sent a letter to the mayor after the statues removal, saying the city could be subject to a $25,000 fine for permanently moving the statue, an action that would violate a state law protecting monuments more than 40 years old, AL.com reported.

The statue was dedicated in 1900, the year before Alabama ratified a Constitution that established white supremacy in the state by essentially disenfranchising Black people and poor white people.

12:35 GMT  British PM praises Black Lives Matter demonstrator who carried suspected far-right protester from danger

The instincts of the Black Lives Matter protester who emerged from chaotic scenes in London carrying an injured white man, suspected of being a far-right demonstrator, during scuffles with counterprotesters on Saturday represented the best of us, Prime Minister Boris Johnsons spokesman said.

Patrick Hutchinson has been hailed a hero for carrying the injured man over his shoulder, an image that has gone viral on social media after it was taken by a Reuters photographer.

Patrick Hutchinsons instincts at that moment represent the best of us, the spokesman told reporters.





10:40 GMT  Black Americans disproportionately die in police Taser confrontations: Reuters

As police confront protesters across the US, they are turning to rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas and other weapons meant to minimise deaths.

But some are using a weapon that has the potential to kill: the Taser. When those encounters have turned fatal, Black people make up a disproportionate share of those who die, according to a Reuters analysis.

RIP Rayshard is spray-painted on a sign as as flames engulf a Wendys restaurant during protests in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant was where Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by police following a struggle in the restaurants drive-thru line [Brynn Anderson/AP Photo]

Reuters documented 1,081 cases through the end of 2018 in which people died after being shocked with a Taser by police. At least 32 percent of those who died were Black, while at least 29 percent were white. African Americans make up 14 percent of the US population, and non-Hispanic whites 60 percent

09:22 GMT  UN rights council agrees to debate on racism, police violence

The UNs top human rights body will hold an urgent debate on allegations of systemic racism, police brutality and violence against peaceful protests in the US on Wednesday, a statement said.

The decision by the UN Human Rights Council followed a request last week by Burkina Faso on behalf of African countries, it said in a statement on Monday.

The death of George Floyd is unfortunately not an isolated incident, the letter said.

#HRC43 has opened & starts w/ GD on item 5. It was decided that an urgent debate on the current racially inspired #HumanRights violations, systematic #racism, #PoliceBrutality & violence against peaceful protests to take place Wednesday, 17 June at 3 p.m. https://t.co/wUEEG9n2Bg pic.twitter.com/8SYNTgRThD  HRC SECRETARIAT (@UN_HRC) June 15, 2020

Catch up on previous updates here.
Bhubaneswar:

Ruling BJD MLA Byamakesh Ray on Thursday regretted over his conduct during recital of the national anthem in Odisha Assembly a day before.

I regret for raising slogan during recital of the national anthem. It has been done out of emotion in the Mahanadi and Polavaram issues, Ray said in a statement in the Assembly after being criticised by different quarters, including his own party.

Stating that his conduct was not intended to disrespect the national anthem, Ray claimed he has maximum respect for the anthem. Earlier, ruling BJD spokesman Samir Ranjan Dash had tendered apology outside the Assembly for Rays conduct.

While members of the House including Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Speaker Niranjan Pujari were standing in respect to the national anthem, Ray was yesterday found shouting slogan opposing Chhattisgarh governments construction of projects on upstream of river Mahanadi.

While speaking in the House, Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of the Congress targeted Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for the conduct of the BJD member.

Though Patnaik was present in the House, he did not ask his party member to shun from shouting slogan during recital of the national anthem, Mishra said.

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Coronavirus Outbreak LIVE Updates: The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Tuesday exempted constitutional and government functionaries and their staff members travelling across states on official work from the requirement of 7-day home quarantine, if they are asymptomatic, ANI reported.

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"All four are between ages 24-30 and under quarantine: Dept of Information and Public Relations," said the government of Mizoram.

Four new COVID-19 cases were reported in Mizoram on Monday night, taking the state's total number of confirmed cases to 121. Of the four asymptomatic individuals, three had returned from Delhi and one from Maharashtra.

The number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus worldwide has topped 8 million, reaching 8,003,021 on Tuesday, according to latest data released by the Johns Hopkins University.

The United States is still leading the world with the highest number of COVID-19 infections, about 2 million or 25% of all reported cases. However, the outbreak is growing fastest in Latin America, which now accounts for 21 percent of all cases, according to a Reuters report.

Mainland China reported 40 new confirmed coronavirus cases on 15 June, down from 49 a day earlier, the National Health Authority said on Monday.

China is grappling with a resurgence of the coronavirus just as its economy is trying to recover from shutdowns earlier this year. After nearly two months with no new infections, the capital Beijing has seen a spike in cases linked to the biggest wholesale food market in Asia.

In a bid to ensure COVID-19 testing of all symptomatic persons and close contacts of people infected with the novel coronavirus, ASHA and Auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM) workers have been tasked to conduct door to door health screening in Odisha.

While, 2,205 patients were cured of the virus, the state recorded eight COVID-19 deaths till now, according to health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Assam reported a total of 4,309 confirmed coronavirus cases on Tuesday after 151 more people tested positive for the virus. Of the total, there are 2,093 active cases in the state.

An addition of 10,373 cases saw India's COVID-19 caseload rise to nearly 3.43 lakh while the toll stood at 9,914.

India reported the highest single-day rise in deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic after 396 fatalities were recorded across the country on Monday, even as the number of fresh infections fell to a six-day low of a little over 10,000 cases.

On Tuesday afternoon, Modi will hold a video-conference with chief ministers, Lieutenant Governors and administrators of 21 states and union territories. These include Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and the North-Eastern states.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet the chief ministers for over two days - Tuesday and Wednesday - to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the wake of rapidly spreading coronavirus disease.

The maximum recoveries are from Maharashtra where 50, 978 have been declared cured. Maharashtra is also the state with the highest number of cases at over 1.07 lakh.

During past 24 hours, 7,419 patients were declared cured. The recovery rate has now risen to 51.08 percent even as Indias overall count stands at 3,32,424. There have been 9,520 casualties so far. According to the health ministry, more than 70 percent of the casualties were due to comorbidities.

A total of 1,69,797 COVID-19 patients have so far been cured in the country according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Monday the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were unlikely to be effective in treating the novel coronavirus. Citing reports of heart complications, the agency said the drugs' unproven benefits "do not outweigh the known and potential risks".

US regulators revoked the emergency authorisation for malaria drugs championed by president Donald Trump for treating COVID-19, amid growing evidence they dont work and could cause serious side effects.

Of the 2,301 COVID-19 samples tested in King George's Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, on Monday, results of 35 have come out positive, according to news agency ANI.

In the past 24 hours, India registered 10,667 fresh COVID-19 cases and 380 deaths. The total number of positive cases in the country stood at 3,43,091, according to the latest data released by the health ministry on Tuesday.

Of the total, there are 1,53,178 active cases, according to the latest data released by the health ministry.

With over 10,000 more people testing positive for the novel coronavirus across the nation, India's total number of COVID-19 infections crossed 3.43 lakh on Tuesday.

The number of COVID-19 recoveries registered across the nation was 1,80,013 since the outbreak, taking the recovery rate in India to 52.5 percent on Tuesday. So far, at least 9,900 COVID-19 patients lost their lives due to the virus, said the health ministry.

In a tweet this morning, the 55-year-old AAP leader said: "Due to high grade fever and a sudden drop of my oxygen levels last night I have been admitted to RGSSH. Will keep everyone updated (sic)".

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain has been admitted to the National Capital's Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) due to high fever and breathing trouble. He will be tested for coronavirus on Tuesday.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has written to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi over hike in petrol-diesel prices. The letter states, "It's duty and responsibility of the government to alleviate suffering, not put the people to still greater hardship. Government doing nothing short of profiteering off its people when they are down and out," amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The COVID-19 recovery was at 60.3 percent after 2,187 cops were cured of the infectious disease.

Two more deaths of members of Maharashtra Police personnel took the toll in the force to 42 on Tuesday. The total number of coronavirus cases climbed to 3,626 after 11 more tested positive for COVID-19, said the Maharashtra Police.

"The total number of positive cases in the state now stands at 13,096, including 302 deaths, 9794 recovered and 9567 discharged," said the Rajasthan Health Department.

Rajasthan registered 13,096 coronavirus cases on Tuesday after 115 more individuals tested positive for COVID-19. With one more death in the state the COVID-19 fatality climbed to 302.

108 new COVID-19 cases in Odisha in the past 24 hours take the overall count in the state to 4,163, said the Odisha health department on Tuesday.

US Ambassador to India, Ken Juster handed over the first lot of 100 ventilators from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to India at the headquarters of the Indian Red Cross, ANI reported.

Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa said there is no need for another coronavirus lockdown in the state. He said he would ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help in acceleration of economic activities.

The Academys Board of Governors also decided to extend the eligibility window beyond the calendar year to 28 February, 2021, for feature films, and delay the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from December until 30 April, 2021.

For the fourth time in its history, the Oscars are being postponed. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC Television Network said Monday that the 93rd Academy Awards will now be held 25 April, 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned because of the pandemics effects on the movie industry.

Total confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Pakistan have risen to 1,48,921, reports Dawn. This figure includes patients who have recovered (56,390) and the death toll in the country which stands at 2,839. While Punjab province has reported 55,878 cases so far, Sindh has reported 55,581 cases.

The tally of COVID-19 cases in the district rose to 49 as a woman tested positive for the disease last evening, the officials said. With this, there are 10 active cases in the district.

A woman died of COVID-19 in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli, becoming the district's first fatality due to the disease, officials said on Tuesday. The woman, a resident of Thana Bhawan area, died on Monday, they said.

Twenty-seven new cases were reported in the last 22 hours, Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian said, adding that strict measures have been implemented to stem the spread of the deadly virus. Since the outbreak at the Xinfadi wholesale market in the last five days, the total confirmed new cases have reached 106, he said.

The COVID-19 cases in Beijing have jumped to 106, a senior city official said on Tuesday, warning that the situation is "extremely severe" in China's capital where the authorities have mounted massive containment measures including mass testing of about 90,000 people and lockdown around the wholesale market which reported the new infections.

The board had also submitted the proposal before the Bombay High Court on Monday in response to a petition filed by a parent seeking directions to the authorities to cancel exams in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases.

The class 10 and 12 students of CICSE board can choose not to appear for pending board exams and be marked as per their performance in pre-board exams or internal assessment, according to top officials.

"This facility should be operational with 120 beds in the next 2-3 days& will gradually be ramped up to 250-300 beds. In Delhi, 30-35 hotels will be requisitioned; we will be able to add 3000-3500 beds," Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal told ANI.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday visited The Surya hotel which has been attached to the Holy Family Hospital, a dedicated COVID-19 facility.

Tamil Nadu government to provide Rs 1,000 each as a relief measure to 13.35 lakh differently-abled cardholders in the state, in the view of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports ANI.

The exams which were postponed due to the lockdown to contain spread of coronavirus, are now scheduled to be conducted from 1 to 14 July. However, several parents have been demanding the exams be scrapped.

According to Gerry Arathoon, Chief Executive and Secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the students will have to communicate their option to their respective schools by 22 June.

The board had also submitted the proposal before the Bombay High Court on Monday in response to a petition filed by a parent seeking directions to the authorities to cancel exams in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases.

The students of Class 10 and 12 of CICSE board can choose not to appear for pending exams and be marked as per their performance in pre-board exams or internal assessment, according to top officials.

"The ministry can confirm today two new cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand related to the border as a result of recent travel from the UK. Both cases are connected," it said in a brief statement.

After three-and-half week of no fresh COVID-19 infections, New Zealand reported two cases of the novel coronavirus on Tuesday, health authorities said. Both the new patients were recent arrivals from the United Kingdom, the health ministry said.

Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting to be held on 23 June to discuss current COVID-19 situation in the country, ANI quoted sources as saying on Tuesday.

On the first day of its reopening on Monday, 76 tourists visited the park in 19 vehicles, they said.

The Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh, which was shut since March-end due to COVID-19 outbreak, has reopened for tourists after a gap of over two- and-a-half months, officials said.

In view of a slew of anti-COVID-19 initiatives being taken by the government, the recovery rate was high, he said adding adequate relief was also being provided to the poor people.

The COVID-19 recovery rate was high while fatalities were low in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister E Palaniswami said in Chennai on Tuesday.

He was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital after complaining of high fever and difficulty in breathing.

Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain tested negative for the novel coronavirus, ANI quoted sources as saying. His condition is stable although he continues to have fever.

At least 343 patients were cured of the infectious disease so far, said the state health department.

No new cases of the novel coronavirus were reported in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, said the state health department. The total number of COVID-19 cases in the state was at 556 including 194 active cases.

"He was admitted to a private hospital for a stent procedure. He died on 14 June due to COVID-19 infection," a senior official said.

Maha Vir Chakra awardee Lt Col (retd) Raj Mohan Vohra has died due to COVID-19, senior officials said on Tuesday. The decorated officer breathed his last on 14 June , they said.

At present, the COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 50.61% in the state, at par with the national average recovery rate.

The recovery of over 5,000 patients also reduced the number of active cases in the state from 53,017 (on Sunday) to 50,554, despite 2,786 fresh cases being recorded on Monday.

More than 55,000 recoveries of COVID-19 patients were reported in Maharashtra, exceeding the total active cases in the state on Monday. While the count of recovered patients reached 56,049, the active cases were 50,554, according to the state health department.

The Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) has set up a 280-bed facility, which was handed over to the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation on 12 June during a virtual meeting held by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

Former deputy mayor Pramod Rathod of the BJP has written to divisional commissioner Sunil Kendrekar asking him to begin operations at the new COVID-19 facility in Chikalthana MIDC of Maharashtras Aurangabad district, an official said on Tuesday.

So far, there have 2,205 recoveries while eight patients have succumbed to the disease, said Sarma.

Assam reported 4,319 coronavirus cases on Tuesday after 10 more individuals tested positive for COVID-19, said state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. Of the total, there are 2,103 active cases.

The recovery rate rises to 52.47 percent, which is indicative of the fact that more than half of positive cases have recovered from the disease, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

During the past 24 hours, 10,215 COVID-19 patients were cured, taking the total to 1,80,012, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

Delhi government attaches Hotel Taj Man Singh to Sir Gangaram hospital and directs it to isolate all their rooms and place them at disposal of hospital with immediate effect for accommodating COVID-19 patients.

While two patients have been booked for attempt to murder under Section 307 of the IPC, one COVID-19 patient has been booked under sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) of the IPC, Mandi SP Gurdev Chand Sharma said.

Three COVID-19 patients have been booked for allegedly not revealing their test results and travelling to Himachal Pradesh's Mandi district from Delhi-NCR, police said on Tuesday.

The Gujarat government reportedly allowed the Jagannath Yatra in Ahmedabad to take place amid the coronavirus curfew, India Today reported. "Yatra will go out with more than 200 devotees and [Home Minister] Amit Shah will also give 'Hajri'," the report quoted a statement as saying.

"Hours after being transferred out of Allahabad, the Senior Superintendent of Police Satyarth Anirudh Pankaj tested positive for coronavirus today. He was shifted to Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital's Covid-19 ward," News18 reported.

As many as 862 of these deaths occurred in the areas falling under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) limits, he said here, citing a fresh review of COVID-19 fatalities in the state carried out by authorities. This has now been corrected and fatality figures have been updated accordingly, he said.

Maharashtra chief secretary Ajoy Mehta on Tuesday said as many as 1,328 deaths, that took place due to COVID-19, were not reported as fatalities caused by the viral infection in the state.

The BMC said that 941 new COVID-19 cases and 55 deaths have been reported in Mumbai on Tuesday. Total positive cases stand at 60,142 and death toll is at 3165.

Reports said that after more than a month, the Telangana government released testing figures. The bulletin said that 44, 431 samples have been tested for coronavirus so far.

"To address the stigma associated with coronavirus, the Union Health Ministry issued an illustrated guide, saying the pandemic is causing a difficult time and that rumours and misinformation create more stress and can "hamper Covid-19 recovery"," News18 reported.

He was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital after he complained of high fever and difficulty in breathing.

Delhi's Health Minister Satyendar Jain who had tested negative for #COVID19 today, will once again undergo test tomorrow.

1,859 fresh COVID-19 cases and 93 deaths have been reported in Delhi on Tuesday. Total number of positive cases stand at 44688 and death toll is at 1837: Directorate General of Health Services, Delhi

If you come with a certificate stating that you are not infected with the disease when you come from abroad, then you are allowed in Puducherry: Chief minister V Narayanasamy

Boundaries of Puducherry with Cuddalore & Villupuram (both in Tamil Nadu) to be sealed from tomorrow. People to be allowed only for medical services. E-passes from Chennai will not be allowed here: Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy

Coronavirus Outbreak LATEST Updates: The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Tuesday exempted constitutional and government functionaries and their staff members travelling across states on official work from the requirement of 7-day home quarantine, if they are asymptomatic, ANI reported.

Coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu, one of the worst-affected states, touched 48,000 on Tuesday after 1,515 new cases were reported.

"Chennai recorded 919 cases today, taking its tally to 34,245. With 49 deaths, the death toll rises in the state to 528. A total of 1,438 persons got discharged today while there are 20,706 active cases in the state," The Indian Express reported.

Around 300 COVID-19 care isolation coaches will be placed on Tuesday at Delhi's Anand Vihar Terminal by the Centre in view of rise in COVID-19 cases. Northern Railways CPRO says "Only, people with mild symptoms will be kept here. Management of coach and patient will be done by the state."

The Uttar Pradesh government said that 516 new cases of coronavirus were recorded in the state in last 24 hours, taking total number of active cases to 5,259.

A total of 8,904 people (61% recover rate) have recovered while 435 others lost their lives due to the disease," said Principal Health Secretary Amit Mohan Prasad.

During the past 24 hours, 10,215 COVID-19 patients were cured, taking the total to 1,80,012, the health ministry said on Tuesday.

The recovery rate rises to 52.47 percent, which is indicative of the fact that more than half of positive cases have recovered from the disease, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

More than 55,000 recoveries of COVID-19 patients were reported in Maharashtra, exceeding the total active cases in the state on Monday. While the count of recovered patients reached 56,049, the active cases were 50,554, according to the state health department.

The recovery of over 5,000 patients also reduced the number of active cases in the state from 53,017 (on Sunday) to 50,554, despite 2,786 fresh cases being recorded on Monday.

At present, the COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 50.61% in the state, at par with the national average recovery rate.

The COVID-19 recovery rate was high while fatalities were low in Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister E Palaniswami said in Chennai on Tuesday.

In view of a slew of anti-COVID-19 initiatives being taken by the government, the recovery rate was high, he said adding adequate relief was also being provided to the poor people.

The students of Class 10 and 12 of CICSE board can choose not to appear for pending exams and be marked as per their performance in pre-board exams or internal assessment, according to top officials.

The board had also submitted the proposal before the Bombay High Court on Monday in response to a petition filed by a parent seeking directions to the authorities to cancel exams in view of the spike in COVID-19 cases.

According to Gerry Arathoon, Chief Executive and Secretary, Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE), the students will have to communicate their option to their respective schools by 22 June.

The exams which were postponed due to the lockdown to contain spread of coronavirus, are now scheduled to be conducted from 1 to 14 July. However, several parents have been demanding the exams be scrapped.

Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa said there is no need for another coronavirus lockdown in the state. He said he would ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help in acceleration of economic activities. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradeshs Shamli district reported its first coronavirus death on Monday.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Tuesday said he has been hospitalised here after running high-grade fever and suffering a sudden drop in his oxygen level. The 55-year-old minister has been tested for COVID-19, an official said.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a potshot at the Gujarat government, which recorded the highest COVID-19 mortality rate at 6.25 percent, a double of what Maharashtra has registered. Quoting figures from a BBC article, Rahul tweeted saying, "Gujarat Model exposed."

Citing reasons like people reporting late to hospitals, lack of trust in the quality of healthcare facilities, low levels of testing in backward areas, the BBC pointed out why Gujarat recorded a high mortality rate.

Two more deaths of members of Maharashtra Police personnel took the toll in the force to 42 on Tuesday. The total number of coronavirus cases climbed to 3,626 after 11 more tested positive for COVID-19, said the Maharashtra Police.

The COVID-19 recovery was at 60.3 percent after 2,187 cops were cured of the infectious disease.

Congress leader Sonia Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the "ill-advised and insensitive" hike in fuel prices during the COVID-19 crisis.

In a letter to the prime minister, she said, "It's duty and responsibility of the government to alleviate suffering, not put the people to still greater hardship. Government doing nothing short of profiteering off its people when they are down and out," amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain has been admitted to the National Capital's Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH) due to high fever and breathing trouble. He will be tested for coronavirus on Tuesday.

In a tweet this morning, the 55-year-old AAP leader said: "Due to high grade fever and a sudden drop of my oxygen levels last night I have been admitted to RGSSH. Will keep everyone updated (sic)".

In the past 24 hours, India registered 10,667 fresh COVID-19 cases and 380 deaths. The total number of positive cases in the country stood at 3,43,091, according to the latest data released by the health ministry on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet the chief ministers for over two days - Tuesday and Wednesday - to discuss the COVID-19 situation in the wake of rapidly spreading coronavirus disease.

On Tuesday afternoon, Modi will hold a video-conference with chief ministers, Lieutenant Governors and administrators of 21 states and union territories. These include Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and the North-Eastern states.

India saw a jump of over 11,000 novel coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, taking the total number of infections to over 3.32 lakh, while the toll rose to 9,520 with 325 more deaths, the Union Health Ministry said.

There are 1,53,106 active cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), while 1,69,797 people have recovered and a patient has migrated, according to the ministry's data updated in the morning.

The number of confirmed cases rose to 3,32,424 with 11,502 new infections in the last 24 hours, the ministry said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to interact with chief ministers of states and representatives of Union Territories on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss ways to check the pandemic as a phased lockdown exit continues across the country.

State-wise cases and deaths

As many as 120 out of the 325 more deaths were from Maharashtra, followed by 56 from Delhi, 38 from Tamil Nadu and 29 in Gujarat. There were 14 more fatalities in Uttar Pradesh, 12 each in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, and 10 each in Rajasthan and Haryana.

Five COVID-19 deaths were reported from Karnataka, followed by four in Jammu and Kashmir, three each in Telangana and Puducherry, and two each in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Punjab.

A person each succumbed to the infection in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha.

India is the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic after the US, Brazil and Russia.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, which has been compiling COVID-19 data from all over the world, India is in the ninth position in terms of death toll.

Of the total 9,520 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,950 fatalities, followed 1,477 by Gujarat and 1,327 in Delhi.

The toll from the pandemic rose to 475 in West Bengal, 459 in Madhya Pradesh, 435 in Tamil Nadu and 399 in Uttar Pradesh. There have been 292 COVID-19 deaths in Rajasthan and 185 in Telangana.

The number of fatalities reached 88 in Haryana, 86 in Karnataka, 84 in Andhra Pradesh, and 67 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 59 COVID-19 deaths, followed by 39 in Bihar, 24 in Uttarakhand and 19 in Kerala.

Odisha registered 11 coronavirus deaths so far, followed by eight each in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Assam, and seven in Himachal Pradesh.

Five people have succumbed to the contagion in Chandigarh and Puducherry, and one each in Meghalaya, Tripura and Ladakh, the ministry said.

More than 70 percent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, it added.

The maximum number of cases are from Maharashtra with 1,07,958 infections, followed by 44,661 in Tamil Nadu, 41,182 in Delhi and 23,544 in Gujarat.

The tally rose to 13,615 in Uttar Pradesh, 12,694 in Rajasthan and 11,087 in West Bengal.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 10,802 in Madhya Pradesh, 7,208 in Haryana, 7,000 in Karnataka, and 6,470 in Bihar.

As many as 6,163 people have contracted the deadly disease in Andhra Pradesh, followed by 5,041 in Jammu and Kashmir, 4,974 in Telangana, 4,049 in Assam and 3,909 in Odisha.

There are 3,140 cases of the pathogen in Punjab and 2,461 in Kerala, while 1,819 people have been infected in Uttarakhand and 1,745 in Jharkhand.

A total of 1,662 people are afflicted with the disease in Chhattisgarh, followed by 1,076 in Tripura, 564 in Goa and 518 in Himachal Pradesh.

The number of coronavirus cases rose to 458 in Manipur, 549 in Ladakh and 352 in Chandigarh.

Puducherry has registered 194 COVID-19 cases so far, followed by 168 in Nagaland, 112 in Mizoram and 91 in Arunachal Pradesh.

Sikkim has 68 COVID-19 cases, while there are 44 infections in Meghalaya and 38 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have registered 36 COVID-19 cases so far.

Administrative measures

In Telangana, the state government allowed private labs to conduct COVID-19 tests, while fixing the charges at Rs 2,200. It also fixed the fees for treatment in private hospitals.

The Karnataka government also said private hospitals would be roped in to treat COVID-19 patients and uniform rates across the state would be fixed for everything from testing to treatment at those institutions.

Maharashtra, the worst-hit state, announced that classes for 9-12 standards would begin from July 1, except for in the red zone areas, while classes for 6-8 standards would begin in August.

The state also saw suburban train services in Mumbai, known as the city's lifeline, resuming after nearly three months, but only for ferrying people engaged in essential services.

EMU train services for essential service staff, as identified by State Govt, has resumed in Mumbai suburban today after a gap of 85 days Systematic access control and social distancing being ensured These special suburban services will not be available for general passengers pic.twitter.com/VgDRbcu3yx  Ministry of Railways (@RailMinIndia) June 15, 2020

In Delhi, the number of COVID-19 tests would be increased to 18,000 per day from 20 June, the ruling AAP and the main Opposition party in the Delhi BJP said after an all-party meeting held by Union home minister Amit Shah.

Besides, necessary equipment like oxygen cylinders, ventilators and pulse oximeters for treatment of COVID-19 patients will be provided by the Centre to Delhi and 37,000 beds will be arranged by the month-end for patients in Delhi.

Nearly 5,000 tests per day are estimated to be done at present in Delhi, which recorded 1,647 new cases to take its tally to close to 43,000 while the death toll rose past 1,400.

The Delhi government has also directed all laboratories and hospitals to work on their full potential, ramp up their COVID-19 testing capacity to meet the increased demand of processing samples and process the samples within 48 hours.

Delhi's Health Minister Satyendar Jain said laboratory facilities under the Centre in the national capital are being extended to the city government.

Centre asks states to augment healthcare infrastructure

Amid reports of shortage of healthcare infrastructure, the Centre has asked states and Union Territories to engage with the private sector for augmenting such infrastructure and provisioning critical care at reasonable rates.

There have been several reports indicating an emerging shortage of healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals with ICU beds, ventilators and oxygen-supported beds, for management of COVID-19 patients, the health ministry said.

There have also been reports of overcharging by healthcare providers for COVID-19 treatment, it said in a statement.

The ministry has asked the states and UTs to engage with the private healthcare providers to facilitate enhanced bed availability and critical care health facilities as well as to ensure fair and transparent charges for services provided.

In this regard, some states have already taken an initiative and have reached an agreement with the private sector on reasonable rates and arrangements to provide critical care for in-patient admissions.

PMJAY package and CGHS package rates are already available with the states and the rates of CGHS are fixed area wise, the statement said.

In order to ensure that patients receive prompt, good quality and care at reasonable rates, it has been suggested to states to have consultations with the local private healthcare providers and arrive at reasonable rates, while factoring in cost elements for personal safety equipment for healthcare providers, the ministry said.

It has been suggested that the rates, once fixed, must be widely publicised so that both the patients and service providers are fully aware and capacities are used optimally, it said.

States have also been asked to proactively engage with the private sector health providers and consider pooling in public and private healthcare facilities, as this will help in providing prompt, good quality and reasonable health care to COVID-19 patients, the ministry said.

With inputs from PTI
22 doctors and 60 other health workers have reportedly tested positive for Coronavirus in Rivers state.

Rivers State branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) announced this and decried lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for their members fighting the virus.

Speaking in Port Harcourt, NMAs chairperson in the state Dr. Obelebra Adebiyi called for an upward review of the hazard allowances paid to doctors employed by the state government as she listed some challenges health workers face in the state.

Adebiyi said;
Boris Johnson during the video talks with the presidents of the three major EU institutions and Michel Barnier, the bloc's chief negotiator. - Andrew Parsons/Downing Street

Boris Johnson has called on the three EU presidents to put a tiger in the tank of Brexit negotiations and said he sees "no reason" why a deal cannot be done in July.

There was renewed optimism in London and Brussels about the prospects of finally breaking the deadlock over fishing, the level playing field guarantees and the European Court of Justice after the video call, which was held online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

I dont think we are actually that far apart, the Prime Minister said, but what we need to see now is a bit of oomph in the negotiations.

The faster we can do this, the better. We see no reason why you shouldnt get that done in July, the prime minister said after hour long talks with the presidents of the European Commission, Council and Parliament.

I said to the three presidents, put a tiger in the tank because it is very clear what the UK needs and our EU friends need, Mr Johnson said after the meeting where both sides renewed their commitment to striking a zero tariff, zero quota free trade deal before the end of the year.

Ready to put a tiger in the tank but not buy a pig in a poke, tweeted Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, after the video call with the prime minister where the EU restated its red lines but said it was ready to go to every effort to break the impasse. Both sides agreed to an intensified schedule of talks in July and August before the meeting

Mr Johnson did not set the three EU leaders a July deadline in the discussions, which were set up to evaluate progress in the free trade talks.

With EU leaders distracted by the coronavirus crisis, diplomatic sources said a breakthrough was more likely to come in October, which would give MEPs time to ratify the deal, but admit the real deadline is one minute to midnight on New Years Eve.

Story continues

Mr Johnson said: I certainly dont want to see this going on into the Autumn and Winter as perhaps in Brussels they would like. I don't see any point in that so lets get it done."

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the commission, said EU fishermen needed the predictability of a long term fishing deal rather than the annual negotiations over fishing opportunities favoured by Britain.

This afternoon, @EP_President, @eucopresident and I met with @BorisJohnson to discuss the future relationship between the EU and the UK. We will revitalise and intensify talks in July to find an agreement before the end of the year. pic.twitter.com/cvBBfyLPMq  Ursula von der Leyen #UnitedAgainstCoronavirus (@vonderleyen) June 15, 2020

Mr Johnson told Mrs von der Leyen he understood the EUs concerns but pointed out that a majority of UK fishing communities voted for Brexit and to take back control of British waters.

Weve got to make sure our fishery communities around the country get advantage of [...] our fantastic marine wealth, he said later.

Mrs von der Leyen admitted that some of the EUs demands over the level playing field guarantees were unprecedented.

The call for commitments that would prevent the UK from undercutting EU standards on tax, labour rights, environment and state aid are more stringent than similar commitments in the blocs trade deals with Canada and Japan.

But the commission president warned Mr Johnson that unless the UK agreed to level playing field guarantees, which she said would also protect British businesses, the trade deal would never be ratified by the European Parliament or the EU member states.

We cant leave the EU and remain somehow controlled by EU law that isn't going to work but there is a good deal to be done, Mr Johnson said.

Mrs von der Leyen told the prime minister there was no need to change the negotiating mandate given to Michel Barnier by the heads of state and government of the remaining 27 member states in order to find the necessary compromises.

Mr Johnson reassured the EU presidents that he remained committed to the political declaration, which is a joint document setting the terms of the trade negotiations. Michel Barnier, the EUs chief negotiator, has repeatedly accused the UK of reneging on commitments made in the declaration.

Mr Johnson will today make a statement to the House of Commons about Global Britain, in which he is expected to give an upbeat assessment of the UK's future as an independent trading nation outside the EU.

Mr Johnson will tomorrow make a statement to the House of Commons about Global Britain, in which he is expected to give an upbeat assessment of the UK's future as an independent trading nation outside the EU.

Part of the reason for conducting trade negotiations with countries like the US and Japan at the same time as dealing with Brussels is to put pressure on the EU to give Britain a good trade deal to avoid British money being spent elsewhere.
A man has been charged after someone was photographed apparently urinating next to the memorial dedicated to Pc Keith Palmer, the Metropolitan Police has said.

Andrew Banks, 28, of Stansted, Essex, has been charged with outraging public decency.

He will appear in custody at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.

Pc Palmer was stabbed to death in the grounds of Parliament by Khalid Masood in 2017.

On Saturday, a man was seen to apparently urinate next to the memorial during far-right protests in London.

The incident, which was caught on camera, sparked outrage, with MP Tobias Ellwood describing the incident as "abhorrent".

Mr Ellwood, who gave first aid to Pc Palmer as he lay dying, called on the man to come forward.

Home Secretary Priti Patel also hit out about the "absolutely appalling and shameful incident".

She said: We have seen some shameful scenes today, including the desecration of Pc Keith Palmers memorial in Parliament, in Westminster Square, and quite frankly that is shameful, that is absolutely appalling and shameful.
Raoul tells us that licensing, under the existing Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, would serve two important functions. First, it would provide a new channel for complaints of serious misconduct by police, which could be a helpful backstop when a police department fails to act against a rogue officer. Second, it would ensure that if an officer is fired or resigns while under investigation for misconduct and loses his or her license, that officer could not be hired by another department in Illinois.
Vietnam is in the early stage of AI development. It has made a strong start at the A level, and is, step by step, moving towards the B and C levels.

AI is present in Vietnam in all fields where data are generated and in automation, such as corporate financial reports, failure prediction or machine maintenance, and process automation.





Ha Binh Than, CEO of Lac Viet Computing Corporation, believes that AI will be popular thanks to mobile terminals, cloud computing, machine learning algorithms and deep learning on increasingly faster and stronger infrastructure, according to Moore's Law.



Bosch, the worlds leading group in terms of providing AI-based services, has been expanding its investments in Vietnam since 2008.



Robert Bosch Engineering Vietnam believes that the demand for AI is very high, especially in agriculture, service, environment, administration management and transport. However, the development has been hindered by the thinking that AI application is still unnecessary or too early for a developing country like Vietnam.



AI has been used at farms to predict crops, crop diseases, and increase yield and harvesting quality. Meanwhile, state management agencies use AI to manage traffic and replace paper tickets.



With AI, people can create apps that automate all of the aforementioned tasks.

AI is present in Vietnam in all fields where data are generated and in automation, such as corporate financial reports, failure prediction or machine maintenance, and process automation.

According to Than of Lac Viet, there are four problems that Vietnams businesses need to solve, including market demand; manpower with good knowledge in theory in AI and related tools; data collection and issues that need to be solved with Vietnamese natural language.



Though technology giants and academic researchers have basic tools, it will be very costly to use them. They are still not flexible enough and it will take time to localize them. Therefore, Vietnam needs to seek manpower that can undertake this work, from universities, academies and research centers.



Than said all the issues are intricate and costly. However, if Vietnams businesses can do this, they will develop.



Than said it is also necessary to find suitable marketing strategies for the development of AI apps in Vietnam.



Robert Bosch Engineering believes that AI is a long game and businesses cannot reap fruit after a short time of investment.



Most polytechnic universities and junior colleges provide AI training to students. However, the knowledge students can receive at school only touch Mrs the surface of the submerged iceberg.



According to Le Thanh Nguyen, director of the Saigon Hi-tech Park Incubation Center (SHTP-IC), the potential for Vietnams startups to develop AI products and commercialize the products are great. However, startups can only go fast and far if they can connect research centers, institutes and schools.

Tu Linh

AI technology applied to promote Vietnams tourism, culture The Saigon Innovation Hub (SIHUB) in Ho Chi Minh City on June 4 started applying artificial intelligence (AI) technology in Boi singing (classical drama) through launching the Echoing Drum Show  The Art of Hat Boi.
1 imported COVID-19 case among 407 new infections on June 14

As of 12pm on June 14, Singapore's Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmed 407 new cases of COVID-19 infection in the country, including an imported case  the first in five weeks.

The imported case involves a Bangladeshi national who arrived in Singapore on June 10 to seek medical treatment that is not related to COVID-19 infection.

His health declaration submitted before immigration clearance indicated he did not have any COVID-19 symptoms, and had not been diagnosed or suspected to have COVID-19 infection.

Photo courtesy: Facebook/Lawrence Wong

The man was placed on Stay-Home Notice upon arrival in Singapore, and could only leave his designated place of residence for medical consultation and follow-up. He was subsequently tested for COVID-19 after arrival in Singapore and his results came back positive on June 13.

Contact tracing is ongoing, and identified close contacts have been placed on quarantine, MOH said.

Majority of the new cases continue to be Work Permit holders residing in dormitories, including in factory-converted dormitories. There were also nine cases in the local community, including four Singaporeans.

Among the four Singaporean cases, three were detected due to proactive surveillance of persons working at dormitories, even though two of them are asymptomatic. The remaining case is a family member of a previously confirmed case, and had already been quarantined earlier.
A man has been jailed for urinating next to the PC Keith Palmer memorial during violent far-right protests in London.

Andrew Banks, 28, from Manor Road in Stansted, Essex, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday and was sentenced to 14 days in custody.

The court heard Banks had drank up to 16 pints between Friday evening and Saturday morning.

An image of Banks urinating next to the memorial to PC Palmer, the officer stabbed to death in the 2017 terror attack near Parliament, was widely shared on social media on Saturday.

It followed violent clashes that day between police and far-right protesters who claimed to be guarding statues in central London.

A man has been jailed after he urinated at the memorial to PC Keith Palmer in London (Getty Images)

Prosecutor Michael Mallon said Banks was in central London to protect statues but admitted he did not know which ones.

Banks was said to have drunk 16 pints across Friday night and Saturday morning, and had not slept.

He contacted police after being confronted by his father, the court heard, and Banks counsel Stuart Harris said the defendant was ashamed by his action and had mental health issues. He had previously tried to take his own life, the court heard.

The court was told Banks was very remorseful and did not know there was a memorial nearby.

Chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said he had caused public revulsion and told the Tottenham Hotspur fan: I accept you were drunk and did not know where you were urinating.

A court artist's sketch of Andrew Banks, right, who pleaded guilty to outraging public decency (PA)

Your explanation is you had 16 pints to drink, you hadnt been to bed, and a group of football supporters were coming up to protect the monuments.

The irony is rather than protecting the monuments, you almost urinated on one. That was more by luck than judgment.

You showed no respect at the time for a man killed while protecting the Houses of Parliament.

The photo was widely condemned by politicians, including Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who gave first aid to PC Palmer as he lay dying after being stabbed in the grounds of Parliament by Khalid Masood in 2017.

Story continues

Ellwood tweeted the photo, writing: Absolute shame on this man.

Read more: Boris Johnson says it is 'absurd' Churchill statue is 'at risk of attack'

Of all the images to emerge over these few testing days, I find this one of most abhorrent.

Commander Bas Javid of the Metropolitan Police described the image as "disgusting and abhorrent", while home secretary Priti Patel referred to the "desecration" of PC Palmer's memorial, and said it was "absolutely appalling and shameful".

Police are confronted by protesters claiming to defend statues in central London on Saturday. (PA)

A total of 113 people were arrested on Saturday at the London protest, and the violence was condemned by Boris Johnson as "racist thuggery" and described as "mindless hooliganism" by police.

Saturday's far-right demonstration took place after thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters marched in multiple events sparked by the death of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers in the US last month.

Floyd's death has prompted weeks of discussion and outrage about racism and colonialism in the UK.

On Sunday, Johnson announced plans for a cross-government commission to examine "all aspects" of racial inequality in Britain in the wake of two weeks of Black Lives Matter protests.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the prime minister acknowledged that the country had much more to do to deal with the issue.

Read more: Former PMs statue boarded up over fears it will be confused with slave trade advocate

He said the commission on race and ethnic disparities would look at "all aspects of inequality  in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life".

Johnson said: "What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

"We stamp out racism and we start to have a real expectation of success. That's where I want to get to but it won't be easy."

Police are confronted by protesters in Whitehall near Parliament Square, London, on Saturday. (PA)

A statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was boarded up due to vandalism during an anti-racist protest.

Members of Saturday's far-right demonstration, which was attended by several hundred mostly white men, claimed to be guarding the statue of Churchill as well as the Cenotaph.

However, the event turned violent after hundreds of self-proclaimed "statue defenders" took over areas near the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square and hurled missiles, smoke grenades, glass bottles and flares at police officers.

The prime ministers previous tweets about Churchill's statue were branded a "deflection" by shadow justice secretary David Lammy.

Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said he was "extremely disturbed" by the "completely unacceptable" scenes of violence on the streets on Saturday.
[June 15, 2020] The Bumble Bee Seafood Company Announces Acceleration of Its Sustainability Efforts

The Bumble Bee Seafood Company today announced a $40 million commitment over the next five years toward efforts that will further restore and protect the health of the world's oceans. The company has created a dedicated Accelerator Fund focused on further closing the gap on some of the biggest industry challenges in the sustainability space. Desired outcomes of the initiative include ensuring the abundance of tuna stocks, reducing the impact of fishing on other species and working to remove plastics and other waste from the ocean. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005022/en/ "Our sustainability journey started many years ago and we're proud of our past accomplishments, but now is the time to accelerate our actions," said Jan Tharp, President and CEO of the Bumble Bee Seafood Company. "It's the right thing to do for our planet, for the billions of people who rely on seafood for sustenance and for the long-term success of our business." Tharp said the company will use the Accelerator Fund to pursue new ideas, partners and technologies, while also continuing to advance several current initiatives making a significant impact. Complete details are available in the company's Seafood Future Report which will be updated annually to track against progress. Initiatives include: Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere: Bumble Bee recently partnered with FCF Fishery Company, Ltd. and Ocean Outcomes to launch a first of its kind in the region longline albacore FIP in the Indian Ocean. This work is designed to move the fishery towards the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC (News - Alert)) standard that ensures the abundance of the target albacore stock, mitigates the impact of fishing on other species, and certifies the fishery is monitored and well-managed. By 2022, Bumble Bee plans to source 100% of its light meat tuna from MSC-certified fisheries, and by 2023 all longline albacore will come from a credible FIP.

Bumble Bee recently partnered with FCF Fishery Company, Ltd. and Ocean Outcomes to launch a first of its kind in the region longline albacore FIP in the Indian Ocean. This work is designed to move the fishery towards the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC (News - Alert)) standard that ensures the abundance of the target albacore stock, mitigates the impact of fishing on other species, and certifies the fishery is monitored and well-managed. By 2022, Bumble Bee plans to source 100% of its light meat tuna from MSC-certified fisheries, and by 2023 all longline albacore will come from a credible FIP. Plant-Based Foods: Providing alternative, sustainable ways for consumers to enjoy ocean-inspired food is a key pillar of the company's long-term commitment to ocean health. Earlier this year, Bumble Bee became the first and only major seafood company to enter into the plant-based protein sector via a joint distribution venture with Good Catch Foods.

Providing alternative, sustainable ways for consumers to enjoy ocean-inspired food is a key pillar of the company's long-term commitment to ocean health. Earlier this year, Bumble Bee became the first and only major seafood company to enter into the plant-based protein sector via a joint distribution venture with Good Catch Foods. Global Ghost Gear Initiative: Bumble Bee recently extended its partnership with the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to include a project in Indonesia to develop and deploy ocean-safe tracking mechanisms to find and collect lost and abandoned fishing equipment.

Bumble Bee recently extended its partnership with the Global Ghost Gear Initiative to include a project in Indonesia to develop and deploy ocean-safe tracking mechanisms to find and collect lost and abandoned fishing equipment. Reducing Plastic Shrink: The company is also planning to eliminate the plastic shrink on its multipacks through continued innovation, making its overall packaging nearly 95% recyclable in 2020 and expanding to 98% by 2025.



To commemorate this announcement, Bumble Bee is partnering with World Oceans Day, a global ocean conservation collaborative designed to raise awareness and encourage action to restore and protect the world's ocean.

"We are thrilled to partner with Bumble Bee on our World Oceans Day month-long initiatives," said Jeff Demain, Director of World Oceans Day. "As a seafood industry leader, Bumble Bee shares in our mission to protect the ocean - every day, year-round. We're proud to partner as they further advance their environmental sustainability efforts, and with their support, we can continue growing the global movement to protect our blue planet and our one global ocean." Bumble Bee's science-based and progressive approach to sustainability helped drive the formation of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation in 2009. Working alongside scientists, the tuna industry, and the World Wildlife Fund, the company continues to stay close to research and best practices for sustainable tuna fishing, bycatch mitigation, and tracing product entering the supply chain through a leadership role with its Trace My Catch initiative. To further its commitment, a percentage of sales for Bumble MSC-certified Wild Selections product line has generated $1 million dollars since 2014 to support WWF's fishery improvement efforts. For more information about the company's sustainability efforts, visit TheBumbleBeeCompany.com In 2019, Bumble Bee continued traceability efforts by partnering with SAP to utilize SAP's (News - Alert) Cloud Platform Blockchain to trace the journey of Bumble Bee's Natural Blue by Anova yellowfin tuna from Indonesia. Natural Blue by Anova is the first and only fair-trade, MSC-certified ahi tuna on the blockchain. For more information about the company's sustainability and traceability efforts, visit TheBumbleBeeCompany.com. ABOUT THE BUMBLE BEE SEAFOOD COMPANY The Bumble Bee Seafood Company is on a mission to create a new generation of seafood lovers by delivering delicious, healthy and sustainable seafood options in innovative ways. As an industry leader in sustainability, Bumble Bee works to protect the health of our oceans, marine life and the fishing community through multiple efforts, including the development of dolphin-safe fishing practices, partnerships with organizations like World Wildlife Fund, the Marine Stewardship Council, the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, and as a founder of the?International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), a global partnership of scientists, tuna processors. Bumble Bee's full line of seafood and specialty protein products are marketed in the U.S., Canada and over 50 markets globally under leading brands including Bumble Bee, Brunswick, Clover Leaf, Snow's, Wild Selections?and Beach Cliff. For more product information, visit www.BumbleBee.com. For more on the company, visit TheBumbleBeeCompany.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005022/en/

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A NASCAR team raced a car with a "Blue Lives Matter" flag on its hood and the phrase "Back the Blue" on each side in a pair of Xfinity Series races over the weekend.

That came just a few days after the only black driver in NASCAR's top-flight Cup Series, Bubba Wallace, drove a "Black Lives Matter" car. Earlier that Wednesday, NASCAR banned all displays of the Confederate flag at its events and properties, following Wallace's call for just such a measure.

On Saturday, Mike Harmon Racing unveiled what it described as a "Thin Blue Line" paint scheme for a Chevrolet it was entering in Xfinity Series races at Florida's Homestead-Miami Speedway that day and on Sunday. The traditional "Thin Blue Line" design, featuring a blue stripe against a black background, was shown on each side of the car, with "Back the Blue" over each rear wheel.

"Mike Harmon Racing supports our LEO's [law enforcement officers] and First Responders, we THANK YOU for your service, sacrifice and dedication," the team said in a tweet.

The driver of that car, Kyle Weatherman, said in a tweet Saturday, "A lot going on in the world right now and I wanted to express that most first responders are good people. My uncle is a firefighter and he would do anything to help save lives."

"Blue Lives Matter" became a rallying cry for some law enforcement officers and supporters after the Black Lives Matter movement, with its emphasis on raising awareness of police brutality, originated in 2013.

The flag, which incorporated the "Thin Blue Line" design into a version of the Stars and Stripes, was reportedly created in 2014 by a 19-year-old University of Michigan student. That person, Andrew Jacob, said in 2018 to Harper's that the "black above [the blue stripe] represents citizens, and the black below represents criminals."

Supporters of the "Blue Lives Matter" phrase and the flag, which is also called the "Thin Blue Line" flag, claim that they honor police officers, as well as other first responders such as firefighters and emergency medical personnel, for performing difficult, dangerous and often thankless work.

Some critics assert that, unlike with too many black people, deaths of police officers are almost always thoroughly investigated and receive great attention. Evidence that the "Blue Lives Matter" flag has become enmeshed in far-right culture emerged during the violent 2017 demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., when it was spotted next to Confederate flags and other symbols being toted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

A prominent manufacturer of the flag, Thin Blue Line USA, said at the time, "We reject, in the strongest possible terms, any association of our flag with racism, hatred, and bigotry. . . . The thin blue line flag stands for the sacrifice law enforcement officers of this nation make each day."

The flag was at the center of a dispute last year between Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, R, and Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, D, after the latter banned it from county buildings, including police stations. "The flag provides a symbol of support to some but it is a symbol of dismissiveness to others," Elrich said then, adding, "To have the racial tensions heightened over something like [the flag], I did not think it would be productive."

In May, San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott barred his on-duty officers from wearing "Blue Lives Matter" face masks that had been distributed to them by their union. In an internal email at the time obtained by KTVU, Scott said that the design was a "meaningful expression to honor fallen officers" but that it "may be perceived as divisive or disrespectful."

Some "Blue Lives Matter" demonstrations have sprung up amid the nationwide "Black Lives Matter" marches in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. While Saturday's Xfinity Series race was gearing up near Miami, a "Back the Blue" rally unfolded in Tampa, Fla.

"I am here to support all law enforcement officers because the largely negative rhetoric that's being spread against them is unfair," a participant in that rally told the Tampa Bay Times. "It's unbalanced. We're judging everybody by the actions of some bad police and it's time for that to stop."

President Donald Trump has expressed dismay at the death of Floyd but, as the protests continue to attract crowds and spur discussions of new approaches to policing, he has repeatedly made it clear that he fully backs law enforcement.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his allies "want to totally destroy our great Police Departments," adding, "No way!!!" In another tweet, the president simply exclaimed, "LAW & ORDER!"

Mike Harmon Racing has used its cars to make political expressions in the past. In February, it raced one with a "Trump 2020 paint scheme in the Xfinity Series season opener in Daytona Beach, Fla.

The two races over the weekend saw the team's "Back the Blue" car finish 33rd out of 37 competitors and then, on Sunday, 35th out of 38. Weatherman was unable to complete either race, bowing out on Sunday because of "fire," according to the official results.
Call for double testing before hospital to care home transfer  First Minister says virus risks effectively tackled

This article is old - Published: Monday, Jun 15th, 2020

People are staying in hospital longer as a result of new processes to help protect care homes from coronavirus, the first minister today acknowledged. However there are calls from some who want to see even stricter processes as they are fearful of the virus spreading to previously unaffected care homes.

Data seen by Wrexham.com  correct as of last week  comes via a new internal dashboard for local authorities allowing them to gain a high level view on the care home situation in North Wales.

Care homes are designated as having a current outbreak if there was a positive test in the last 28 days, for either staff or resident, and are therefore deemed unable to admit. The data we have seen indicates 21% of homes were deemed as having a current outbreak, 77 out of 363 care homes in total.

There is a range in days provided since last positive test, some being a few days through to weeks, showing that the virus is still in circulation. Previously Welsh Government have told us the R figure is higher in such settings, than in the wider community.

Nearly 12,000 tests of residents and staff had taken place, with Denbighshire and Conwy making up the majority of the 406 confirmed cases. Wrexham had 514 of 1,733 outstanding in progress tests.

The data also pointed to a recent uptick of the number of patients waiting to be discharged to existing care home places, as well as discharges to step down beds, with around 170 people in total delayed ready for discharge for various reasons and destinations.

Locally we have been told there is a preference from some care home staff for further caution including two negative tests to be secured for an individual coming from a hospital setting, along with a week in a step down location, before transfer to a care home.

We asked First Minister Mark Drakeford about the backlog of people, and put comments to him that some care staff in the care sector related to us that they have a real reluctance to accept new people due to pure fear of introducing the virus into care homes.

We also asked what is being done to rebuild the trust in the process, and how can it be that we are several months into the pandemic and care settings still apparently have a higher R figure than community transmission.

The First Minister said: I dont think the second point will be a surprise.

That will be the case in almost any place in the world that where you have groups of people particularly vulnerable to the illness, all under the same roof, that the risk of the R number being higher than it would be in the community made up of people of all ages and far, far more dispersed.

I dont think it will be a surprise to anybody to find that the R rate is higher in enclosed communities with vulnerable people than it is in the community as a whole.

You will know, and I know you have asked me questions in the past, about the anxiety in care homes at having received people from the health service, who were then found later to be symptomatic.

Thats why we have taken the actions we have to try to make sure that that doesnt happen.

Does that mean that some people are staying longer in hospital than would otherwise would be the case? Yes, it does. But, they are remaining in hospital so that we can be confident that if they were to be discharged and go to a care home, the risk of taking Coronavirus with them has been reduced to the absolute minimum.

So there are fewer people going from hospitals to care homes, but its because of everything that we have learned.

He added: What are we doing? Were making sure that anybody who leaves the hospital is tested, and must be tested as not having Coronavirus.

We are offering care home testing once a week for the next four weeks to all care home staff. We are trying to make sure that we protect that three quarters of care homes in Wales who havent seen a single case of Coronavirus during the pandemic, from people being discharged into them and bringing the virus with them.

I think trust is being rebuilt because of that, because care homes I hope can see all the extra things that we are putting in place to make sure that the fear that you refer to in the sector, is being carefully attended to and the risks of somebody bringing the virus with them into care homes, has been effectively tackled by the measures that weve put in place.

You can view the full briefing from today on the below video:
Jack Myers, founder of MediaVillage and AdvancingDiversity.org Not only has MediaVillage been a community for the media and advertising industry to advance wisdom, leadership, education and opportunity for all but now more than ever we are doubling down on our mission to advance diversity from advocacy to activism, said Jack Myers.

MediaVillage has announced that the "Media Industry Advancing Diversity & Economic Relief Fund" has been set up to raise capital for 12 organizations and non-profits serving the media, marketing, and ad community. The remainder of MediaVillage and AdvancingDiversity.org founder Jack Myers Leadership Conversations for Renewal and Growth at MediaVillage.com will focus on advertising, agencies, education, diversity, the audio experience, music videos, film industry, new out-of-home and aging community realities through the lens of racial harmony and activism.

Not only has MediaVillage been a community for the media and advertising industry to advance wisdom, leadership, education and opportunity for all but now more than ever we are doubling down on our mission to advance diversity from advocacy to activism, said Myers, who launched the Advancing Diversity Council at an event at CES this past January. We are inviting industry leaders to share their message focused on Black Lives Matter, racial harmony, diversity, inclusion, equality, from a perspective that communicates their beliefs, passions, commitment and, most importantly, actions being taken. This is building on the creation of AdvancingDiversity.org, which has long provided a home to share the voice of leadership on the ACTIONS we take.

All conversations with Jack Myers are available on-demand within 72-hours at MediaVillage. The remainder of the 24 Leadership Conversations are available at MediaVillage, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook Live. Most conversations occur at 1:00pm Eastern Time (unless otherwise noted) and include:



Wednesday, June 17: Aline Santos, Global CMO and Chief Diversity Officer, Unilever speaks out on diversity, brand purpose, Advanced Media, and creativity. (pre-taped)

Thursday, June 18: Special Vevo-sponsored Collective Leadership Conversation at 10:00am with Kevin McGurn, President of Sales and Distribution.

Monday, June 22: Michael Smith, Chief Marketing Officer, NPR, discuss Why NPR Matters to Culture, Equality, Society, Business.

Thursday, June 25: Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Group, speaks out on diversity, equality, agency economics, and the future of the ad business.

Thursday, July 2: Ken Dychtwald, author of The Age Wave; Peter Hubbell, author of The Age of Aging; Keith Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus, DDB; and Susan K. Feldman, Founder, In the Groove, discuss Who We Are. Why We Count. Why Are We Being Left Out?

Monday, July 13: Jodi Senese, CMO, Outfront; Mark Kidd, CEO, Captivate; Greg Kahn, Founder Internet of Things Consortium; Anna Bager, President and CEO, Out of Home Advertising Association of America, discuss The Future of Life Out-of-Home and in the Office.

Wednesday, July 15: Ken Thewes, Chief Marketing Officer, Regal; Cliff Marks, Leading Film Director with National Cinemedia President, discuss The Future of Film Deals, Distribution & the Theater-Going Experience.

Thursday, July 16: Michael Nathanson, Lead Analyst, MoffettNathanson, discusses the Economic Look Back to April 15 and Forward to 2021. View the April 15 Myers/Nathanson Economic Conversation on-demand here.

Jack Myers Leadership Conversations are a core platform of the fund-raising commitment. Funds raised during the Media Industry Advancing Diversity & Economic Relief Fund conversations drive can be made at MediaVillage or via text to GIVE at 860.406.4919. Twelve organizations were chosen as recipients of the Relief Fund by the Advancing Diversity Council, an organization of 40 industry leaders focused on advancing diversity from advocacy to activism.

The 12 beneficiaries are: 4As Foundation, ADCOLOR, Advancing Diversity/Mentors Playlist, American Education Foundation (AEF), AAF AdCamp for High School Students, Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, International Radio & TV Society Foundation (IRTS), Jacaronda Foundation College Loan Relief, John A. Reisenbach Foundation NYC 1st Responders Fund, No Kid Hungry, NY/LA Restaurant Employee Fund, and TD Foundation for Children of Wounded Warriors and Fallen Heroes.

MediaVillage hosts 90 distinct content platforms dedicated to amplifying voices of leadership and bringing the media and advertising community together through shared experiences, human connectivity, online education, market intelligence and advancing diversity. Jack Myers Leadership Conversations for Renewal & Growth sponsorship opportunities include: Title Partner ($50,000); Activist Partner ($30,000); Leadership Partner ($15,000); Community Partner ($5,000); Supporting Partner ($3,000). For details email Jack Myers at Jack@MediaVillage.com / Mark Altschuler at Mark@MediaVillage.com. Follow @mediavillagecom @advdiversity @jackmyersbiz.

For interviews with Myers, or any other press needs, please contact Diane Stefani at Diane.Stefani19@gmail.com.

About MediaVillage:

MediaVillage is the media and advertising communitys B2B Knowledge Center of Excellence. Through our collective impact approach, we implement effective and cost efficient B2B growth solutions. For the past decade, MediaVillage, in collaboration with partners across the marketing ecosystem, has been pilot testing innovative strategies for generating growth. Today, more than 150 companies, organizations and industry leaders are members of the MediaVillage Knowledge Exchange, a B2B Solutions Marketplace and Center of Excellence for Advancing Marketing Solutions, Diversity and Education.

About Jack Myers:

For more than 40 years, MediaVillage founder Jack Myers has been singularly dedicated to identifying, developing, and introducing solutions to the challenges confronting media companies. As the worlds leading media ecologist, hes a noted expert on generational and gender shifts, the impact of technological advances on business economics, and the dynamics of business growth and decline. His background includes executive roles at CBS Television, ABC Radio, Metromedia Outdoor, Television Production Partners, and UTV Cable Network.
VATICAN CITYPope Francis on Sunday urged political and military leaders in Libya to end their hostilities and called on the international community to take to heart the plight of migrants trapped in the lawless nation.

During his weekly blessing overlooking St. Peters Square, the pontiff called for an end to the violence and a path toward peace, stability and unity in the country.

He said thousands of migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people are more vulnerable to forms of exploitation and violence.

There is cruelty, the pope said, departing from prepared remarks. We all have responsibility. No one can feel exempt.

The Popes comments came as forces allied with a UN-supported government in the capital Tripoli are preparing to launch an attack on rival forces led by military commander Khalifa Hifter in the strategic coastal city of Sirte. If successful, it could help them seize key oilfields and facilities in Libyas south.

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.

Hifters forces launched an offensive on 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 earlier this month 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 UN-backed peace process a chance.

After Gadhafis fall and killing, Libya also emerged as a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty to Europe.

Most migrants make the perilous journey in ill-equipped and unsafe rubber boats. The International Organization for Migration said its estimated death toll among migrants who tried to cross the Mediterranean in March passed the grim milestone of 20,000 since 2014.

On Saturday, the UN migration agency said a dozen people were missing and feared drowned after a boat carrying around three dozen migrants bound for Europe capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coastal town of Zawiya, about 48 kilometres west of Tripoli.

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Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov



Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has indicated creating a "zone of stability, steady development and good neighborliness" in Central Asia as priority in his foreign policy. This, according to the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Korea, played a significant role for the bilateral negotiations between the United States and the Taliban in February. The following is the second in a series of written Q&As with Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov about Uzbekistan's vision of the major aspects of political settlement in Afghanistan and its contribution to ensuring regional security.  ED.



Q: It is clear that the work on hosting the Tashkent Conference would be impossible without tight cooperation with your colleagues in the region, who have participated in the Forum. Are the states of the region ready to continue such close cooperation?



A: The President of Uzbekistan in his appearances at the international and regional platforms such as the United Nations, CIS, SCO and OIC, and others has numerously expressed readiness to jointly with our partners, including the countries of Central Asia, promote search for political resolution of the Afghan crisis.



It is quite obvious that not a single country is capable to tackle the Afghan problem on its own. The leader of Uzbekistan has emphasized not only once the important role of the neighboring countries in stabilization of Afghanistan. The efforts of the neighboring countries and partners must not replace, but add to the other.



All of the countries of Central Asia are actively promoting resolution of the Afghan crisis. Under the presidency and on the initiative of Kazakhstan, the U.N. Security Council held ministerial debates on Afghanistan. It was during this event that the initiative was enunciated to hold the Tashkent Conference which was endorsed by all countries of the region.



In its turn, Kyrgyzstan has proposed to establish the research center on Afghanistan in Bishkek to more thoroughly study the processes underway in this country.



All of us understand that it is necessary to draw Afghanistan into regional economic processes. This idea was broadly endorsed by participants of the Seventh Conference for Regional Economic Cooperation on Afghanistan in Ashkhabad, the Tashkent Conference, as well as the International High-Level Conference on Problems of Terrorism and Sources of its Financing, which took place in Dushanbe.



The "India-Central Asia" Ministerial Dialogue held in Samarkand with participation of Afghanistan for the first time can serve as another example of active regional interactions on the Afghan direction.



Q: Do you consider that Afghanistan stopped to be a stage of clashing interests of world powers, like it was during the Cold War?



A: Yes, indeed from the outset the Afghan conflict was a product of geopolitical confrontation of the two world systems. The President of Uzbekistan has said right away that the flame of war was imposed on the Afghan people from outside. It is not their choice.



And up until now the large centers of power are clashing between one another in Afghanistan while pursuing their own interests.



The constant dragging of new partakers into conflict has led to its unprecedented aggravation.



To a great regret, for over a span of decades the illusions remained in terms of the possibility to militarily tackle the Afghan problem. It is pity that it was possible to realize the dead-end nature of such an approach only after unparalleled human victims and massive economic and political losses.



Today it can only be  the close cooperation of the world's big players  above all, Russia, China and the United States, the EU countries and the states of the Muslim world.



We are noting with pleasure that Moscow and Beijing have lately achieved tangible results at their trilateral meetings joined also by other interested countries. All this forms necessary external conditions for effective resolution of the Afghan issue.



Q: Following from that then, who do you believe can act as a guarantor of emduring peace in Afghanistan?



A: These are, firstly, the large powers: the United States, Russia, China, the EU countries, and certainly, at much the same level, Afghanistan's immediate regional neighbors. These are external forces, but sustainability of all peace arrangements in Afghanistan will depend on involvement of domestic Afghan political forces in them. Without nationwide accord and reconciliation it will be impossible to achieve notable progress. It is extremely important to preserve and further develop the state law-enforcement institutions, full-scale operation of the civil society structures and observance of the rights of Afghan women, and so on. In sum, I mean all of those positive things which were achieved over the last 18 years in building an independent Afghan state and creating foundations of civil society.




UPDATES ON COVID-19

India PIB

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Recovery Rate more than 50%

A Total of 1,62,378 Patients cured of COVID-19

Posted On: 14 JUN 2020 3:35PM by PIB Delhi

With 8,049 COVID-19 patients cured in the last 24 hours, the recovery rate has become more than 50%. A total of 1,62,378 patients, so far, have been cured of COVID-19.

Currently, the recovery rate is 50.60%. This indicates that of all the cases of COVID-19, half of them have recovered from the disease. Timely case identification and proper clinical management has been the road to recovery.

Currently, 1,49,348 active cases are under medical supervision.

ICMR's testing capacity for detecting the novel Coronavirus in infected persons is continuously being ramped up. The number of government labs has been increased to 646 and private labs has been increased to 247 (A total of 893). In the last 24 hours, 1,51,432 samples were tested. The total number of samples tested thus far is 56,58,614.

Today, the Union Health Minister along with the Union Home Minister held a meeting with the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and Chief Minister of Delhi to review the COVID-19 situation in the NCT of Delhi. Strengthening of containment measures, ramping up testing and adequate health infrastructure preparedness were discussed in the meeting.

For all authentic & updated information on COVID-19 related technical issues, guidelines & advisories please regularly visit: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/ and @MoHFW_INDIA .

Technical queries related to COVID-19 may be sent to technicalquery.covid19@gov.in and other queries on ncov2019@gov.in and @CovidIndiaSeva.

In case of any queries on COVID-19, please call at the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare helpline no.: +91-11-23978046 or 1075 (Toll-free). List of helpline numbers of States/UTs on COVID-19 is also available at https://www.mohfw.gov.in/pdf/coronvavirushelplinenumber.pdf .

****

MV/SG

(Release ID: 1631508)

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The Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) is calling for increased investment in community-based alternatives to prison, a reversal of plans to increase prison capacities, and a review of existing legislation designed to reduce committals to prison for less serious offences.

The trust made the calls in response to todays Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2019 which shows a significant increase of people committed to prison in Ireland in 2019, including a 21% increase in the number of committals on sentences of less than 12 months.

The 2019 report, subtitled 'Creating a Better Environment' is introduced by the Director General Caron McCaffrey. She set out the situation in relation to numbers behind bars.

2019 has seen numbers in prisons continue to rise. In 2018, we reported on significant increases over a short period of time. These increases have been sustained in 2019, putting pressure on the system in a number of areas, including prisoner accommodation, the provision of services and the volume of prisoner escorts.

The total number of prisoners in custody on 1 January 2019 was 3,904 which increased to as high as 4,068 by the end of August before receding to 3,950 by the end of the year.

The average number of female offenders in custody was 170, an increase of 3% on the 2018 figure of 165. The average number of male prisoners was 3,801, an increase of 2% on the 2018 figure of 3,726, she said.

Laois Offaly TD and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan published the report.

I am very conscious of the increasing numbers in custody over recent years, and in particular the rise in offenders committed to sentences of less than 12 months. These statistics underline the potential benefits and scope to extend the use of community service orders, which oblige an offender - if assessed as suitable - to address their offending behaviour by carrying out unpaid work in the community.

This is something which I would hope the newly established Judicial Council might consider through its Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee, she said.

IPRT Executive Director Fiona Ni Chinneide responded to the rise in numbers.

The figures published today are a stark reminder that imprisonment is over-used as a response to offending in Ireland. In particular, the rise in the rate of committals on short sentences points to a failure in policy, which must be addressed if we are to build safer communities and enhance confidence in the criminal justice system. International evidence finds that short prison sentences can increase risks to public safety, so it is essential that community-based alternatives are prioritised and resourced, she said.

The trust said short-term sentences continued to make up a significant bulk of all committals to prison in 2019, despite evidence that it is cheaper, often more effective and less damaging to respond to less serious offending through community service, restorative justice and other community alternatives to prison.

If the courts continue to commit high rates of men and women to short-term custody, overcrowding will become unsustainable, prison resources will be drained, outcomes for offenders will deteriorate and the objectives in our penal policy will not be met. In particular, the increase in the number of committals for default on court-ordered fines is concerning. These are offences for which the judge did not consider imprisonment appropriate in the first place. If the Fines Act is not working, it needs to be reviewed and alternative sanctions enforced.

We strongly welcome Minister Flanagans focus on the concerning rise in the number of people committed to sentences of less than twelve months in his statement today, and the potential to extend the use of community service orders. This is an approach we hope to see taken up by the incoming government, said Ms Ni Chinneide.

The Trust said the rise in the number committals under short-term sentences comes despite the introduction of the Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Amendment) Act 2011, which it said provides that the court shall consider community service orders as an alternative to sentences of less than 12 months.

The Trust also said that there has been no published analysis of the impact of this legislation. A statement said the IPRT believes that further examination is needed to understand the reasons why there continues to be an increase in the number of short sentences handed down by the courts.

Ms Ni Chinneide also responding to plans by the Irish Prison Service to increase prison capacity following a cell audit, which was designed to identify where spaces could be added across the prison estate

Additional space is not created through a cell audit. In reality, placing another bed in an existing cell perpetuates and normalises crowding, and exacerbates the existing strain on prison resources, staffing and access to rehabilitative services. Instead, overcrowding should be addressed by a safe and structured reduction of the prison population, rather than the expansion of prison spaces.

In the Annual Report for 2019, the Irish Prison Service states its goals to endeavour to become a world-class prison service and to become a global leader in penal practice  now is the prime opportunity to drive action towards those goals. As society attempts to settle into a new normal, it is critical that recent COVID-19-related successes on the safe reduction of the prison population by over 10%, successful collaborative working and a focus on community alternatives are retained, so that prison resources can be focused on the rehabilitation of those people who have committed serious offences, Ms Ni Chinneide.

In response to the information detailed in the Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2019, IPRT has called for:

- The principle of imprisonment as a measure of last resort to be enshrined in statute, which was a core recommendation in the cross-agency, Department of Justice and Equality-led Strategic Review of Penal Policy (Recommendation 32);

- Publication by the Office of the Inspector of Prisons of their revised prison bed capacity figures;

- Investment by the next Government in community-based sanctions nationwide, including national roll-out of evidence-led approaches such as restorative justice;

- A review of the impact of the Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Amendment Act) 2011;

- A review of the Fines (Payment and Recovery) Act 2014.
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Maria Ressa, editor and CEO of Rappler, arrives for her promulgation on charges of cyber libel - Getty

One of the Philippines most prominent journalists has been found guilty of cyber libel charges, in a verdict widely viewed as a test of press freedoms and attempt to silence government critics.

The ruling, which can be appealed, could lead to six years in prison for Maria Ressa, the editor of Rappler, one of the countrys most influential news sites, which has reported extensively on the brutal realities of a drugs war waged by Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine president.

The verdict was issued by Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa in the Philippine capital, Manila, on Monday morning on a case that stems from a businessman's 2017 complaint over a Rappler story five years earlier about his alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation's top court.

Ms Ressa did not write the article and government investigators initially dismissed the businessman's allegation, but state prosecutors later filed charges against her under a controversial cyber crime statute that took effect in September 2012, months after the story was published.

Reynaldo Santos Jr, a former writer for Rappler, was also convicted. Both have been released on bail pending appeal.

Maria Ressa has often been critical of the Philippine government - Isaac Lawrence/AFP

In a press conference following the verdict, Ms Ressa vowed to fight the verdict, calling the case "a cautionary tale" for the Philippine media.

The decision for me is devastating because it says that Rappler is wrong, she said in a news conference after the ruling. She appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights and hold power to account.

In an interview with ABS-CBN over the weekend, she accused the government of doing "legal acrobatics" to get the case to court. "We have done nothing wrong," she said.

As she walked into the court room early on Monday morning, she told the BBC: This verdict has an impact on press freedom, not only in the Philippines but all around the world. The quality of our democracy is at stake.

Story continues

Human rights activists have warned the trial is intended to have a chilling effect on the media in the Southeast Asian nation.

Rappler has consistently run content critical of President Duterte and his administration, publishing detailed investigations into extrajudicial killings of the poor and marginalised that have often allegedly been linked to the authorities and their violent campaign against drugs.

Ms Ressa in particular has been hounded by the authorities, with eight active cases filed against her and her media organisation since President Duterte came to power in 2016, including alleged tax evasion and media foreign ownership violation. If convicted of all, she could face decades in prison.

President Rodrigo Duterte has waged a controversial war on drugs - Lean Daval Jr/Reuters

Media freedoms have come under repeated assault since Mr Duterte took power. Last month, the countrys biggest broadcaster, ABS-CBN, was forced off air by a cease-and-desist order that was widely condemned as attempt to crush media dissent.

Human Rights Watch said that the campaign against Rappler was occurring in the context of worsening media freedom and freedom of expression in the Philippines.

Journalists from other media groups had suffered intimidation and attacks on and offline, it said in a statement, adding that social media users critical of the government were also being targeted, with several arrested for violating the countrys fake news regulations during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government should reverse this alarming affront to justice and quash the convictions of Rapplers Ressa and Santos, said Phil Robertson, HRWs deputy Asia director.

The prosecution was not just an attack on these individual journalists, but also a frontal assault on freedom of the press which is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.

Earlier this year, Reporters Without Borders ranked the Philippines 136th among 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index, citing the Rappler case and the targeting of the Philippine Daily Inquirer by the Duterte administration. Its report pointed to state troll armies [that] use the weapon of disinformation on social media.

Ahead of the trial, Amnesty International accused the government of pursuing Ms Ressa and Rappler on politically motivated grounds.

The organisation calls on the Philippine authorities to immediately halt its crackdown on media freedom, journalists, and critics of President Rodrigo Dutertes administration and its deadly 'war on drugs', it said in a statement.

The authorities must allow journalists and independent media houses to freely operate and carry out their work without any threats, intimidation and harassment.

Good morning from Manila! "I learned from experience that joy does not reside in the things about us, but in the very depths of the soul, that one can have it in the gloom of a dungeon as well as in the palace of a king." St. Therese of Lisieux  Maria Ressa (@mariaressa) June 14, 2020

President Duterte has denied the case is politically motivated and has dismissed Rappler as fake news. His spokesman on Monday said the court verdict should be respected.

But Ms Ressas stand against corruption and human rights abuses in the face of threats and intimidation has resonated around the world.

Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, praised the editor for her courage and her fight for press freedom: a model for the world, adding that she was appalled, angry at the verdict.

Ms Ressa has thanked her supporters but indicated she is bracing for the worst. Hours before her trial she tweeted the words of St Therese of Lisieux, an 18th century French nun.

I learned from experience that joy does not resident in the things about us, but in the very depths of the soul, that one can have it in the gloom of a dungeon as well as in the palace of a king.
Six young Siberian white cranes  four females and two males  were taken to the Kunovat Nature Sanctuary (Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area), according to the regional government's press service.

For now the cranes are staying in an open-air aviary on the marshland, where the birds will spend several days. After they adapt to the local climate and environment, the cranes will be released. Special transmitters have already been attached to the birds to track their further movement, migration routes and wintering areas.

"The cranes almost have never seen people. They are truly wild and so will easily adapt in nature," said Yury Markin, director of the Oka Nature Reserve, where the birds were raised. The birds are about a year old and weigh from 5.2 to 6 kg. He said that they chose the biggest birds brought up by their parents to send to Yamal. The cranes will start to form pairs in three years. Siberian white cranes are monogamous and mate for life.

The project to restore the white crane population is part of the Yamal-Arctic comprehensive research expedition, operated by the Russian Arctic Development Center.

Back in June 2019, four young cranes (two males and two females) were delivered from the Oka Nature Reserve to the Kunovat Nature Sanctuary and also released into the wild. It is believed that one of the birds was later seen wintering in Turkmenistan.

The endangered Siberian white crane is a sacred bird of the Khanty people. It has been included in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUNC) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), as well as in the Red Data Books of Russia and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area.
In November 2015, 61 percent of Houston voters rejected a city ordinance that would have barred employers from discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, a devastating blow for LGBTQ advocates in the nations fourth-largest city.

Four and a half years later, two-thirds of the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court extended federal workplace protections to gay and transgender employees across the entire country, with Justice Neil Gorsuch  a conservative jurist appointed by President Donald Trump  penning the majority opinion.

The ruling marks a stunning turnaround for LGBTQ Houstonians, who lacked such protections under local, state or federal law before Monday. Still, they remain subject to discrimination in public places, meaning a restaurant owner may no longer discriminate against gay and transgender employees but can refuse service to LGBTQ customers.

Houstons anti-discrimination measure  branded by supporters as Houstons Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, and by opponents as the Bathroom Ordinance  would have applied to employers, housing providers and places of public accommodation. It would have protected 13 classes on top of sexual orientation and gender identity: sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, and family, marital or military status.

Supporters of the local anti-discrimination law say they will continue tentative plans to push for a second version of the measure in 2021, the next city election, to ensure the remaining classes and locations are covered. They also say a local ordinance would provide an added layer of protection for members of Houstons LGBTQ community beyond the Supreme Court ruling.

It is very clear, if you put it in the context of whats happening in our country right now, that having de jure employment protections doesnt mean that the problem is solved, said Annise Parker, the former Houston mayor and first openly gay mayor of a major American city. Because, in fact, weve had protections around race for a very long time and we still are trying to work hard to dismantle systemic racism. So, it is a big step forward, but theres still much work to do.

Houstons LGBTQ advocacy groups have eyed the 2021 election since their first attempt ended in a resounding defeat. Mondays court ruling will strengthen their case and their odds of success, contended Austin Davis Ruiz, communications director for the Houston GLBT Political Caucus.

If you can no longer discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity as its decided in this interpretation of the word sex, then it should be able to be extended to all these other areas that still lack federal protection, Ruiz said.

The courts 6-3 ruling applied to a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, along with race, religion and national origin. Gorsuch wrote that it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.

Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile, wrote in dissent that transgender people will be able to argue that they are entitled to use a bathroom or locker room that is reserved for persons of the sex with which they identify, arguing that female sexual assault victims could suffer serious psychological harm if they saw an unclothed person with the anatomy of a male in a restroom or locker room.

Alitos argument echoed the one made by opponents of Houstons 2015 anti-discrimination ordinance  namely, that men could claim to be women and enter womens restrooms to commit sexual assault or abuse. The ordinances supporters said that behavior was illegal, accusing opponents of fearmongering and peddling false information.

Jared Woodfill, a Houston attorney and activist who co-chaired the campaign against the 2015 ordinance, said his group would be ready to wage an opposition campaign and defeat HERO 2.0 by the same or a greater margin as the first time.

If they want to go to battle on that issue again, I think the people of this great city will overwhelmingly again reject a bathroom bill ordinance that says a man can be a woman or a woman can be a man depending on how they feel that day, Woodfill said.

Alternatively, Houston City Council could pass an anti-discrimination ordinance if Mayor Sylvester Turner were to place it on a meeting agenda and the majority of the 17-person council approved it. Turner, who controls the City Council agenda, did not address that possibility in a statement Monday praising the Supreme Court ruling. Through a spokeswoman, the mayor declined to say whether he thinks the ordinance should go through City Council or the November ballot.

During last years mayoral campaign, Turner said he was working with his LGBTQ advisory board to find opportunities to do more public education on the issue, but stopped short of saying he would advocate for a ballot measure in 2021.

A second attempt at a local anti-discrimination ordinance, Parker said, should include protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity even after the Supreme Courts ruling, just as the initial ordinance included federally protected classes, such as race and national origin.

If you are African American or a woman and feel that you have been discriminated against, you have access to the federal courts, but you dont have anything you can do at the local level, Parker said. So, that hasnt changed, which is why local and state nondiscrimination protections are important.

Samantha Ketterer contributed to this story.

jasper.scherer@chron.com
By Linda So

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As police confront protesters across the United States, they're turning to rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas and other weapons meant to minimize fatalities.

But some are using a weapon that has potential to kill: the Taser. When those encounters have turned fatal, black people make up a disproportionate share of those who die, according to a Reuters analysis.

Reuters documented 1,081 cases through the end of 2018 in which people died after being shocked by police with a Taser, the vast majority of them after 2000. At least 32% of those who died were black, and at least 29% were white. African-Americans make up 14% of the U.S. population, and non-Hispanic whites 60%.

(To explore the Reuters database of deaths involving police and Tasers, click here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-taser-database )

These racial disparities in Taser deaths are horrifying but unsurprising," said Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. Police violence is a leading cause of death for black people in America, in large part because over-policing of black and brown communities results in unnecessary police contacts and unnecessary use of force.

In 13% of the deaths identified in police reports, autopsies or other records as involving people of Hispanic ethnicity, Reuters was unable to document race. The race of the person who died was also unknown in the remaining 26% of the cases.

The deaths illustrate a challenge for U.S. law enforcement at a time when protests over police killings have thrown a spotlight on their tactics. Tasers, which deliver a pulsed electrical current meant to give police several seconds to restrain a subject, have been nearly universally embraced since the early 2000s as a less lethal alternative to firearms. About 94% of Americas roughly 18,000 police agencies now issue Tasers.

Tasers drew fresh attention over the weekend after the Friday night death of Rayshard Brooks. A police officer shot the 27-year-old with his handgun after Brooks ran away with an officer's Taser and pointed it at police following a scuffle, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. A lawyer for the Brooks family, L. Chris Stewart, said Brooks wielding of the Taser didnt justify his shooting, noting that police routinely argue in court that the devices are non-lethal weapons.

Story continues

In a series of reports https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-taser in 2017, however, Reuters identified more than a thousand cases since 2000 in which people died after being shocked by police with the weapons, typically in combination with other forms of force.

Most independent researchers who have studied Tasers say deaths are rare when they are used properly. But the Reuters investigation found that many police officers are not trained properly on the risks, and the weapons are often misused. Tasers fire a pair of barbed darts that deliver a paralyzing electrical charge or can be pressed directly against the body  the drive stun mode  causing intense pain.

Some recent examples of Taser misuse highlight the risks and confusion surrounding the weapon.

On May 30, during nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, two college students, Taniyah Pilgrim, 20, and Messiah Young, 22, had gone out to get food and were stuck in traffic due to the demonstrations in Atlanta.

In a confrontation with police caught on bodycam video, one officer repeatedly struck the driver's side window with a baton as a second officer stunned Pilgrim with a Taser. A third officer used a Taser on Young, as the police dragged the black students out of the car.

Video footage of the officers shocking them drew criticism around the country. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields apologized at a news conference the next day. How we behaved as an agency, as individuals was unacceptable, she said. Young was treated in the hospital and required stitches. Shields resigned on Saturday after the Brooks killing.

After the May 30 incident, one officer wrote in a police report that he used his Taser because he was unsure whether the students were armed. The Tasers manufacturer, Axon Enterprise Inc, warns in guidelines distributed to police departments that the weapon should not be used on people who are driving or restrained. And law enforcement experts say Tasers generally shouldn't be used on anyone who is already immobilized, such as in a car.

Six police officers involved in the incident -- five of them black, one white -- were charged for using excessive force. Four have been fired. Two have sued the mayor and police chief seeking their jobs back. An attorney representing the two officers says he believes the firings were politically motivated.

The question police should be asking is not: Can I use the Taser? but Should I? said Michael Leonesio, a retired police officer who ran the Oakland Police Departments Taser program and has served as an expert witness in wrongful death lawsuits against Axon. This is a dangerous weapon, Leonesio said. The more its used, the more people are going to die.

Axon says its weapons are not risk-free but are safer than batons, fists, tackles and impact munitions. Any loss of life is a tragedy regardless of the circumstance, which is why we remain committed to developing technology and training to protect both officers and the community, the company said in an email to Reuters.

TASE HIS ASS

On a hot July day in 2017, Eurie Martin, 58, wanted a drink of water. After walking more than 12 miles to visit relatives for his birthday, he stopped to ask a homeowner for water in Deepstep, a town of about 130 people in central Georgia. The homeowner refused and called police to check out Martin, a black man, according to the district attorney.

Martin was walking on the side of the road when a Washington County Sheriffs deputy arrived and tried to speak with him. Martin, who suffered from schizophrenia, ignored him and kept walking. The deputy called for backup.

The officers said Martin got defensive and clinched his fists, ignoring commands to place his hands behind his back, the district attorney said. One deputy told another to Tase his ass, according to the officers dashboard camera video.

When the deputy fired the Taser, Martin fell to the ground, removed the Taser prong from his arm, and walked away. A third deputy arrived and fired his stun gun at Martins back, causing him to fall.

The deputies surrounded Martin as he lay face down, applying the weight of their bodies and deployed their Tasers 15 times. Martin could be heard crying out in pain saying, they killing me. He died of cardiac arrhythmia during police restraint, according to an autopsy.

He was a victim of walking while black, said Mawuli Davis, an attorney representing Martins family. The deputies, who were fired after they were indicted, said they followed their training on use of the stun gun.

Last November, a judge granted the three deputies  all white - immunity from prosecution just weeks before they were to go trial on murder charges in Martins death.

In its guidelines distributed to police departments, Axon warns against using multiple Tasers at the same time. Law enforcement experts say repeated applications and continuous use of stun guns can increase the risk of death and should be avoided.

The sheriffs office declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

The judge ruled the deputies acted in self-defense and that their use of the Taser was justified and reasonable under the circumstances. Citing Georgias Stand Your Ground Law, the judge wrote all people have the right to use reasonable force to protect themselves against death or great bodily injury.

The district attorney appealed the ruling, and the case is scheduled to be heard before the state Supreme Court in August. If the high court overturns the lower courts ruling, the murder charges against the deputies will be reinstated.

Martin died for daring to ask for a drink of water in the Georgia sun, said his sister Helen Gilbert. Every person of common sense knows he did nothing to deserve his death. I will not rest until this long walk to justice is complete."

SCRUTINY

Deaths involving Tasers typically draw little public scrutiny  no government agency tracks how often theyre used or how many of those deployments prove fatal. Coroners and medical examiners use varying standards to assess a Tasers role in a death. And there are no uniform national standards governing police use of Tasers.

Late in 2009, as evidence of cardiac risks from Tasers mounted, the manufacturer made a crucial change: It warned police to avoid firing its stun guns electrified darts at a persons chest.

But on March 3 in Tacoma, Washington, that warning wasnt heeded.

Newly released video and audio recordings show Tacoma police officers using a Taser and beating a black man as he shouted, I cant breathe -- similar to George Floyds desperate cry when a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed a knee into his neck on May 25.

Police said they found Manuel Ellis, 33, trying to open doors of unoccupied cars and that he attacked a police vehicle and two officers. An attorney for his family said he was walking home from a convenience store when the confrontation with police took place.

Police handcuffed Ellis and bound his legs with a canvas strap after firing a Taser into his chest, according to an autopsy report. He lost consciousness, and efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. An autopsy listed his cause of death as respiratory arrest due to hypoxia as a result of physical restraint.

His death sparked protests in Tacoma on June 5 after video of the incident surfaced. The governor called for a new investigation, and the citys mayor demanded the four officers involved be fired and prosecuted. Two officers are white, one is black and the other is Asian. They have been placed on administrative leave, but have not been charged.

One of the officers, Christopher Burbank, declined to comment. Attempts by Reuters to reach the other three were unsuccessful. The Tacoma Police Department said it was cooperating with county and state investigators.

(Additional reporting by Grant Smith. Editing by Jason Szep)
A man waves a rainbow flag as he rides by the US Supreme Court that released a decision that says federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination on June 15, 2020 in Washington,DC. - The US top court has ruled it illegal to fire workers based on sexual orientation. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, protects LGBTQ+ employees. This historic decision means it's now illegal to fire an employee on the basis of their sexual orientation, which had not been explicitly outlawed in more than half of states before June 15. The 6-3 decision is being touted as the most notable declaration of LGBTQ+ rights in America since the SCOTUS legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.

Conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Trump nominee, authored the ruling, writing, "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee's sex when deciding to fire that employee. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law."

After the court announced the landmark decision, Joe Biden shared his thoughts in a statement published on Medium, calling it "a momentous step forward" for the United States. "Before today, in more than half of states, LGBTQ+ people could get married one day and be fired from their job the next day under state law, simply because of who they are or who they love," the former vice president wrote. He added that the ruling "affirms that LGBTQ+ Americans are entitled to equal rights under the law."

Biden noted that the ruling "has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity. That everyone should be able to live openly, proudly, as their true selves without fear." He added that, if elected as president later this year, he will sign into law the Equality Act, which is currently a bill in the US Congress. This act would protect LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination across various areas of life, including housing, education, employment, public spaces and services, federal funding, and more.
RICHMOND, Va. - Police fired a chemical irritant, stun grenades and rubber bullets at protesters outside police headquarters Monday night, the second straight night of angry demonstrations at the downtown building in Virginia's capital.

A crowd of about 200 to 300 people had converged on the headquarters to find riot police, an armored vehicle and a line of city dump trucks and work trucks forming a barrier around it. Social media accounts showed photos and videos of police shooting at least three rubber bullets at protesters who wielded laser pointers.

A little more than an hour into the confrontation, officers fired numerous canisters that cleared people out of a parking lot across the street from the headquarters.

It was a much quicker and more severe response than the night before, when protesters kept up a tense confrontation until nearly 2 a.m. Monday before police used tear gas to clear them out.

The standoff that began Sunday evening was sparked by an incident in which a city police vehicle struck several demonstrators on Saturday. One person was taken into custody after authorities said she crossed a police line and struck with a bullhorn an officer who tried to stop her.

Richmond police said Monday that three officers were injured Sunday, and several city vehicles and privately owned buildings were damaged or vandalized. The department said pepper spray was deployed after the crowd disregarded warnings to disperse.

The confrontation began Sunday, shortly before 10 p.m. outside Richmond police headquarters on Grace Street. A crowd of about 300 protesters, many dressed in black with black head and face coverings, converged in a parking lot across the street from the building.

They confronted several dozen officers in riot gear, standing in a line along the block and holding clear shields. An armored vehicle was behind the police in the entrance to the building's parking garage. Several officers looked down from the roof. City dump trucks had been stationed at either end of the block to seal it off to traffic.

Almost immediately, the officers put on gas masks. Soon a helicopter was circling overhead, aiming a spotlight onto the crowd.

The protesters chanted "Black Lives Matter" and "no justice, no peace," while several stood close to the officers yelling profanities and shining lights in their faces. Some protesters carried knives on their hips; one had a samurai sword in a sheath.

The police wore body armor, carried rifles and kept their hands on what appeared to be cans of pepper spray. They were from both city and state police, joined later by Henrico County police.

One protester, a recent law school graduate, said she was pepper-sprayed for trying to record the badge numbers of officers.

After the pepper spray was deployed, the crowd backed up a little. But protesters surged forward again, yelling taunts.

Police deployed spray a second time after a protester seemed to lunge at an officer, who pushed the man back with his shield.

Around 10:50 p.m., some protesters began telling others in the crowd to leave or back off. A young woman who had been helping lead the protest had been taken into custody early in the confrontation, and several others now told the crowd that they wanted to de-escalate as part of negotiations to have the woman released. About two-thirds of the group left.

Those who remained stepped back and urged one another not to provoke the police or throw anything. They chanted "Let her go" and "We won't leave without her," referring to the person taken into custody.

By midnight, the number of protesters had grown again. More police had come onto the street as well. They once again stood face to face, but the tension seemed to have ebbed. Protesters confronted individual officers with messages that ranged from profane taunts to heartfelt pleas for peace.

"Why you fighting against people you're supposed to protect?" one man asked an officer who stared straight ahead.

"You got your hand on your pepper spray," another man said. "Do you not see the problem here, man?"

When one officer seemed to be physically overcome and stooped to remove his gas mask, some protesters ridiculed him while others stepped in to defend him. "We're not against him," one man said.

The crowd thinned over the next two hours, and many of the officers - who were regularly rotated off the line with fresh replacements - had removed their gas masks. But shortly before 2 a.m., they fired tear-gas canisters into the parking lot. Some protesters hurled them back. Many dispersed, but social media images showed a few keeping up the vigil into the morning hours.

"This demonstration escalated into rioting and violence that lasted throughout the night and into the early morning hours," Richmond Police Chief William Smith said in Monday's statement. "Last night's actions far exceeded what is considered to be lawful First Amendment activity. Organizers were intent on provocation and creating mayhem by throwing rocks and other objects at the officers on duty, who showed great restraint in response to these attacks."

The event that sparked the confrontation took place Saturday evening. A police SUV drove up onto a curb, striking multiple people who were blocking the vehicle's path near the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Avenue, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. No one appeared to be seriously injured, the newspaper said. Several videos of the incident were posted on social media.

The incident occurred as demonstrations continued in Richmond and elsewhere after the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Early Sunday, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney, a Democrat, tweeted that he was asking the local commonwealth's attorney for a "full investigation" into the Saturday night incident.

"While the investigation is underway, I have instructed the Richmond Police Department to place the officer involved on administrative leave pending the result of the investigation," Stoney tweeted.

Stoney has also called for a disciplinary review of officers who tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators at the Lee statue earlier this month.

- - -

The Washington Post's John McDonnell contributed to this report.
A Black Lives Matter banner was removed from the facade of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Monday, two days after it was unfurled in a show of solidarity with the anti-racism movement.

The banner and a smaller rainbow flag put up for Pride Month were replaced with a "We will not forget" banner, marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War.

An embassy spokesman said U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris, a retired Navy admiral, ordered it taken down to avoid the "misperception" that taxpayer dollars were used to support an organization.

The ambassador had decided to display the banner "to communicate a message of solidarity with Americans concerned with racism, especially racial violence against African Americans," the spokesman said. "He wanted to highlight the enduring American values of racial equality, freedom of speech, and the right to peacefully protest.

"However, the Ambassador's intent was not to support or encourage donations to any specific organization. To avoid the misperception that American taxpayer dollars were spent to benefit such organizations, he directed that the banner be removed."

Bloomberg News reported that the banner was removed after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump expressed their disapproval upon seeing news coverage of the two-story-tall banner hanging behind the main flagpole displaying the U.S. flag. The State Department did not comment on the issue.

The banner, which also was displayed on the embassy's Web page, was the most dramatic and straightforward display of diplomatic support.

"The U.S. Embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change," the embassy tweeted before the banner was removed. "Our #BlackLivesMatter banner shows our support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society."

Harris quoted both President John F. Kennedy and a eulogy to Martin Luther King Jr. in tweets accompanying a photo of the banner and posted on his ambassadorial Twitter account.

"Recent weeks remind us that MLK's work remains unfinished," he wrote. "Friends, I believe that work falls on each of us today."

South Korea has experienced a small but significant wave of support for the anti-racism campaign, from citizen activists to K-pop stars.

A week before the banner went up, about 100 demonstrators marched through downtown Seoul, holding slogans such as "Koreans for Black Lives Matter" and "Stop state violence against the people."

The rally's organizer, Shim Ji-hoon, said earlier that the U.S. Embassy's move struck him as "a pleasant surprise."

"While I welcome the Seoul Embassy's show of solidarity, I cannot but see an irony here," he said. "It makes me question, are American diplomats in Seoul breaking away from President Trump?"

Harris has been one of the most outspoken diplomats on the issue of racial injustice, often citing his personal history.

Earlier this month, he tweeted a photo of protesters outside the Seoul Embassy who were parading with the slogan, "US imperialism means 'I can't breathe!' "

Harris said in his tweet, "I disagree w/ these protesters but respect their right to peacefully protest here in democratic ROK," referring to the Republic of Korea, the official name of South Korea.

"I am deeply troubled about the events surrounding the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and the ongoing aftermath," he said in a statement attached to the tweet. " . . . As an Asian American who was reared in the segregated South of the 1960s, I never thought I would see this happening again, especially in the 21st Century."

As the protests against police violence, sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, have spread across the United States and the world, diplomats have faced sometimes uncomfortable questions from their counterparts and governments in the countries where they work.

Embassies have found a variety of ways to address the issue, some subtle and some blunt.

The U.S. Embassy in South Africa has posted the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on its Web page above a quote from U.S. Attorney General William Barr.

"The outrage of our national community about what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis is real and legitimate," Barr said, in part. "Accountability for his death must be addressed. . . . Justice will be served."

The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria saluted local protesters who marched on embassies in the region.

"They join many Americans who are similarly outraged by what transpired and we have seen them express their shock, grief, frustration, and anger in many parts of the United States," said a statement on the embassy website. "We in the U.S. Mission are not immune to these feelings and like the Secretary of State we find the actions that led to the death of Mr. Floyd abhorrent. His death was a tragedy and never should have happened."

Pompeo recently expressed his personal condolences to the Floyd family in a Fox News interview, calling the actions of the police officer who put his knee on Floyd's neck "abhorrent." But he has not spoken about the broader issue of inequality in the United States.

This is the second year that embassy actions were perceived as political in nature.

Last year, Pompeo ordered embassies not to hoist rainbow flags during Pride Month on the same flagpoles used to fly the U.S. flag. Many embassies host pride events to show support for LGBT rights, particularly in countries where discrimination is rampant. Some embassies bathed their embassies in multicolored lights or flew rainbow flags.

After Pompeo's order, some embassies - including the mission in Seoul - hung rainbow flags from the facades or posted photos from previous years showing them flying prominently outside. Pompeo took no action against those displays.

- - -

Kim reported from Seoul.
Joe Biden is running away from his record as the "pro-China" candidate so quickly that his defenders in the liberal press can't make heads or tails of it. Ordinary Americans are equally confused.

Biden spent over three decades opening American markets to Chinese goods, ignoring China's abhorrent human rights record, and dismissing the challenge posed by our greatest rival for global leadership. The "made in China" era coincided with the closure of tens of thousands of American factories, stagnant working-class wages, and the loss of America's ability to produce essential goods domestically  a vulnerability that took on incredible significance when we learned that we were dependent upon China to produce the medical equipment needed to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

This disaster was facilitated by politicians of both parties, and no one was more gung ho than Joe Biden, poster child for the globalism that reigned supreme until the 2016 presidential election, which Donald J. Trump won by campaigning on a platform diametrically opposed to the "open markets and open borders" philosophy of the D.C. establishment. In the White House, President Trump became the first American leader in decades to take a firm stand against China's malfeasance and demand a genuinely fair and reciprocal trade deal for American workers.

While Joe Biden was the vice president of the United States, conversely, he was downplaying the consequences of China's rise  even as his own family tried to get rich through deals with Chinese state-owned companies.

How is it possible, then, that Biden has suddenly tried to recast himself as the "tough-on-China" candidate in the 2020 race?

Biden's campaign even ran an ad claiming the president had "rolled over for the Chinese" in response to the coronavirus that Beijing unleashed on the world. It's one of the most poorly executed flip-flops in American electoral history, coming just months after Biden called President Trump's life-saving ban on most travel from China "hysterical xenophobia."

No one is buying it. Everyone knows about President Trump's record of success in bringing China to the negotiating table through strategic counter-tariffs. The "Phase One" trade deal that was inked earlier this year represents the first major trade concessions from China in a generation. Even the fanatical free-traders who actually liked Biden's globalism see right through his new facade. The libertarians at the Cato Institute, for instance, published an article acknowledging that Biden's reversal is "futile" and "inherently lacks credibility."

Even the intellectual left is aghast at Biden's fake toughness on China. The Atlantic called it "utterly futile" and "pointless  even dangerous." The New York Times published an op-ed all but begging Biden to drop the act.

If even his own supporters are rolling their eyes at Biden play-acting as a China skeptic, why are he and his team even bothering to attempt the deception?

The answer is simple. Americans have finally woken up to the economic and national security threat posed by China. The coronavirus pandemic made that threat impossible to ignore. No one wants to go into this November as the "pro-Beijing" candidate.

Unfortunately for Joe Biden, he's been the "pro-Beijing" candidate throughout his political career, and there's a decades-long record to prove it.

Ken Blackwell served as mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio treasurer, and a U.S. ambassador to the U.N. He currently serves on the board of directors for Club For Growth.

Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr.
Market Power and Privacy

Other Things to Worry About

Googles Android and Apples iOS operating systems run a combined 3 billion smartphones worldwide. Back in April, the tech giants released software development kits for use by health departments, raising hopes that much of the time-consuming work involved in tracing spread of the coronavirus could be automated.So far, at least, those hopes have been dashed. If Silicon Valley planned to save states the trouble of starting a tracing system from scratch, that hasn't worked out. Just three states  Alabama, North Dakota and South Carolina  have committed to using the Google-Apple API. Many more have said theyll build their own.The lack of interoperability  different apps that can share information  means it will be tougher to trace the coronavirus as it spreads across state lines. Officials in 17 states toldthat they dont intend to create apps or use smartphones to perform contact tracing at all. The Dakotas and Utah are the only states that have released apps so far. (North Dakota has already paired with South Dakota to roll out a separate contact tracing app that doesnt use the Google-Apple API.)Contact tracing apps have the potential to solve a lot of the problems associated with manual tracing. Hunting down and informing the contacts of a single infected individual can take several days, which is why some cities and states are hiring contact tracers by the thousands. When an app works well, it doesnt present the same problems as relying on individuals to remember all the people theyve come into contact with recently, or even to know the names of those who were near them in public.But no matter what app a state might use, getting millions of individuals to download it will be a tough sell. An Oxford University study suggested that it would take a 60 percent adoption rate for contact tracing apps to be effective. No country has come close to achieving that level of penetration.When Iceland announced last month that 38 percent of its population had downloaded its version, it represented a record high. Singapore, which is highly advanced when it comes to tech adoption, saw only a 20 percent uptake. Polls suggest that many Americans, if not most, will be wary about downloading and using such apps. A new study found that people who think they have been exposed to the coronavirus  even if they havent  are much less likely to download a contact tracing app.There are serious privacy concerns involved in having health information intersect with government agencies. Those may be particularly acute at the moment. By definition, during a season of protest, distrust of the government runs high. Protesters are now being warned by organizers to turn off their cellphone data, or leave their phones home entirely. Alarm bells went off in Minnesota after Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington directly compared efforts to look into the affiliations of protesters to contact tracing.People who were at these protests should be concerned that the government could use that data, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told. I want to encourage (contact tracing) but its hard when our executive leaders are not clarifying how that data will be used.Even when health officials can gather names of individuals an infected person has come in contact with, those individuals have to respond to their outreach. Contact tracing is really an art, says Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). Its the art of building enough trust with a person who has a disease, so that person will reveal contacts so those contacts can be notified.Human contact tracers have already run into the problem of people refusing to answer calls from unknown numbers. Theres reason to be skeptical. Whenever theres a mass outreach effort, unfortunately scammers will piggyback on it.Health departments make every effort to ensure confidentiality. For contact tracing apps to be widely used, such assurances have to be built in. If an app is catastrophic to privacy, its not going to be used, Nojeim says. Even if its mandated, people will find a way around it.Google and Apple sought to assuage privacy concerns when they designed their API. It can only be used by government health departments or their contractors, which cant store data themselves. The API requires agencies to disable their apps when the pandemic ends.The system relies on anonymized Bluetooth data, which is changed repeatedly. If two people using the app are near each other, their phones collect an anonymous identification from each other in what is sometimes called a handshake.If one of the users is later diagnosed with COVID-19, that user can then decide  voluntarily  whether to notify the people he or she came into contact with. Notifications include no information about who potentially exposed them or where any exposure may have occurred. Its basically a flag warning them that getting tested might be a good idea.Its a decentralized approach. Rather than data being collected by and stored at a health agency, all the information stays on individuals phones. At this time, Google and Apple happen to be supporting the most privacy-friendly version of contact tracing, Frederike Kaltheuner, a tech policy fellow at the Mozilla Foundation, said during a CDT webinar. Theyre trying to prevent government from developing more invasive apps.European countries including Germany, Italy, Ireland, Austria and Poland, among others, have either released apps based on the Google-Apple API or intend to do so. Other nations, however, including France and the United Kingdom, decided to develop their own. In part because it intends to store data for years, the U.K. is now being sued for failing to meet privacy standards under GDPR  the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Unions privacy regulation.France, meanwhile, has been unsuccessful in its attempt to convince Apple to allow its app to capture Bluetooth location data when its not running. Apple says that exception would open the floodgates for commercial uses. This is a reminder the Google and Apple have an extraordinary market power when it comes to mobile phones, Kaltheuner says. Its remarkable Google and Apple can dictate to European countries how they can use their apps.Rather than apps, Asian countries such as China, South Korea and Taiwan are relying on GPS and telecom data to assist manual contact tracing and enforce quarantines. Last week, South Korea began using QR codes, requiring people to log when they enter some public spaces. So far, from what weve seen in Asia, the data suggests that contact tracing apps have really not been what theyd promised to be, but they do play a role, says Dev Lewis, a fellow at Digital Asia Hub, an Internet think tank in Hong Kong.There are other challenges involved with developing an effective contact tracing app. For one thing, Bluetooth signals are imprecise. People might be near each other but their phones might not sync up if there are too many layers of clothing or other physical separation between them. There are bound to be false negatives and false positives.Also, not everyone has a smartphone. Apps have to be designed in ways that can be used on older phones. Lewis notes that Singapore went into lockdown mode after an outbreak among migrant workers in dorms who didnt have the app.Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair recently suggested people would need to have digital IDs that would record their disease status in order to facilitate opening up businesses and international travel. Kaltheuner emphasizes that app use should be strictly voluntary. Employers, landlords and other parties shouldnt be able to force people to download apps.Under the Google-Apple API, its up to individual users to send out alerts about infections. But people with the app shouldnt be able to use that power in vindictive ways, scaring their contacts with false announcements. Google and Apple are planning to work around this potential problem by requiring a code from a health authority to send out notices.For all the hurdles and drawbacks, contact tracing apps are well worth using, says Albert Gidari, consulting director of privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. They may not solve every problem, but they can vastly speed up the process of tracking and tracing. If not enough people have smartphones or dont want to download apps, thats an argument for more resources and education, he suggests.Whatever the theoretical problem, the benefit is obvious: Bluetooth contact tracing saves lives, Gidari says.In this instance, Google and Apple embraced privacy and data protection as central design principles. But no government yet seems to have squared the circle involved in protecting privacy and decentralizing data, while also achieving enough adoption so that digital contact tracing actually works to limit spread of the disease.We all know an app is not going to solve the pandemic, Kaultheuner says.
CAIRO - Flights to and from Egypt are scheduled to resume on July 1 as the tourism season will cautiously resume in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the official Mena news agency reports, quoting the Egyptian minister of civil aviation, Mohamed Manar.

The minister said connections will resume with countries that are also reopening airports within the next month. Hotels will also reopen although they will be forced to cut the number of guests by half to guarantee social distancing and security.

Operations at airports will resume gradually, added the minister. ''Airplanes will be completely sterilized and disinfected at each trip. The use of masks will be mandatory for passengers and crew. Disinfectants, gloves and masks will be provided aboard the flight'', he said.

Masks will also be mandatory at airports, along with social distancing, and passengers' temperatures will be taken.

Before boarding a flight, travelers will need to sign a statement regarding their contacts and state of health.

Passengers from countries listed as at risk by the World Health Organization (WHO) will need to bring with them the result of tests taken over the previous 48 hours.
Fifteen pro-democracy activists appeared at court Monday over charges of participating and organizing massive anti-government protests last year.

It is the second court appearance by the group of activists, who were granted bail by the courts last month.

Pro-democracy activist Lee Cheuk-yan said Monday that the arrests were political prosecution. He also said that the national security law was a total disregard of common law and the rule of law in Hong Kong.

"This political prosecution is a total destruction of Hong Kong rule of law and want to change it to rule by fear. But of course, the worst is still yet to come, the worst is national security law coming to Hong Kong and the DOJ (Department of Justice) has already said that they will not apply common law to this national security law. So what sort of rule of law have we left in Hong Kong," he said.

Martin Lee, Jimmy Lai and Lee Cheuk-yan and 12 other activists were arrested in May and accused of various charges related to the protests in 2019.
(TNS)  Dayton is the largest city in Ohio not to outfit police officers with body-worn cameras, though that could change following recent protests and calls for police reforms that include increased transparency.Some of Daytons elected leaders have supported using body cameras for years, and the citys police union recently signaled a willingness to adopt the technology, which came after the national uproar over George Floyds death and local protests criticizing police actions and conduct. I am open to exploring body cameras for Dayton police, said Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. Im hopeful well be able to move forward with this transparency tool.But some groups and researchers say cameras dont necessarily change how police behave and interact with the public, and policies on their use tend to be very important.Earlier this month, Whaley released a five-part plan aimed at improving community-police relations amid growing calls for police reforms and after multiple protests in the city. After her announcement, the Dayton Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 44 issued a statement saying it supports the plan and welcomes using body-worn cameras to increase transparency.The Dayton FOP always has been in support of any and all technology that will aid the department and its officers with transparency and building a stronger community partnership, said Jerry Dix, the local union president.Body cameras are another fact-gathering tool that the union supports, but the community has to be educated about its limitations because it is not a catch-all answer, he said.Of Ohios largest six cities, Dayton is the only one that has yet to provide officers with video cameras.Even police in some small Ohio cities, as well as sheriffs deputies and campus police officers, wear mobile video recording equipment in the normal course of their duties.By 2016, nearly half of general-purpose U.S. law enforcement agencies had acquired body-worn cameras, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and adoption of the technology continues to grow.Dayton police officials and elected leaders have talked about deploying the technology for years.In 2015, the Dayton Police Department surveyed residents about their views on body cameras, including under what circumstances they would be OK with being recorded.Almost two-thirds of respondents said they feel safer when police officers wear video cameras. About three in four respondents said body cameras would increase trust between the police department and the community it serves.The vast majority of respondents said they believed body cameras would reduce the likelihood of confrontations, improve police officers behaviors, protect police against false accusations and help resolve complaints.But the police department never acquired camera equipment.Police officials this week said the department tried to get grant funding for body cameras, but that did not work out.Officials have long said the cost of the equipment and related video storage system is one of the main issues.The department also was concerned about data storage and the considerable amount of work needed to review and redact large amounts of information.Police also say they were concerned about privacy and recording crime victims and witnesses, especially inside their homes and elsewhere where they might not expect such intrusion.When the department initially looked at this technology, it was relatively new, and due to the increase in equipment, storage, and labor costs, the decision was made to continue to invest in in-car cameras, the police department said.The police department says it regularly evaluates new studies about body-worn cameras and innovations in the equipment.The department said some recent tech upgrades means it could be less-labor intensive to store data and redact information.Whaley said the the city looked into body cameras in the past, but determined the long-term data storage costs to be too high.But she said shes had some talks with state officials about possible ways to help cover the cost of the technology.Theres also an ongoing debate about whether body cameras actually change behaviors and lead to better interactions.Organizations like the ACLU of Ohio originally hoped that body cameras would provide an extra level of transparency that could help deter unwarranted and unconstitutional police behavior since officers knew they were being recorded, said Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist, with the ACLU of Ohio.But Daniels said its not clear that body cameras actually benefit the larger community, even though many in law enforcement over time have warmed to the technology, believing video evidence would result in fewer bogus complaints of unnecessary force and could confirm their versions of events.Recent protests in Ohio and around the country revealed that body cameras and citizens filming police on their mobile devices have not solved legitimate and widespread concerns about police behavior, he said.Police have responded to protests in unacceptable and unconstitutional ways that were caught on video and yet most officers were not held accountable, he said.So, while body cameras may and do prove helpful in at least some individual situations, they are not leading to larger, structural changes, or an overall increase in accountability, or even a reduction of these terrible incidents, Daniels said.The big take-away from research on body-worn cameras is that their effectiveness depends on context and specific implementation, said Andrea Headley, an assistant professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University.Different jurisdictions that use body-worn cameras see different levels of impact on officer performance outcomes, based on policies such as whether they must be activated or if it is left to the discretion of officers, she said.Other factors include public access to video footage in a timely manner, data storage and standards for checking footage regularly and randomly, she said.Headley is a co-author on a study that has been accepted for publication that found that Washington, D.C., residents believed that body-worn cameras could impact officer behavior but would not result in greater community trust of police.
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus V.Makei takes part in the video-conference of the Eastern Partnership Foreign Ministers meeting

On June 11, 2020 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus Vladimir Makei took part in the video-conference of the meeting of the foreign ministers of EU member states and Eastern Partnership countries.

Minister Makei stressed the importance of joint actions to overcome the socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, welcomed the EUs intention to provide assistance to the Republic of Belarus in this area, and thanked those EU member states that have already provided such assistance.

Speaking about the vision of the Eastern Partnerships future, the Minister emphasized the importance of promoting foreign investment, facilitating partner countries access to the EU market, developing energy and transport communications, introducing green and information technologies. The Minister called for supporting Belarus proposal to establish a regional Eastern Partnership IT-school in Minsk.

Minister Makei highlighted the upcoming entry into force in July of the Visa Facilitation Agreement with the EU as one of the deliverables of the Eastern Partnership and stressed the need for the early start of negotiations on a new Belarus  EU framework agreement.

The Minister reaffirmed Belarus commitment to the vision of the Eastern Partnership as a non-confrontational initiative aimed at creating an area of peace, stability and prosperity in the region and bringing tangible results for the benefit of the partner countries.

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The wife of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who was poisoned by the Russian nerve agent Novichok has taken to social media to clarify how her husband makes a cup of tea following the BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings.

Sarah Bailey took to Twitter to assure eagle-eyed viewers that her husband 'never puts the milk in first' after a scene from the drama showed the officer, who is being played by the actor Rafe Spall, pour milk into his cup before the hot water.

Following the show's first episode on Sunday, Mrs Bailey clarified the blunder and explained the precautions she and her family took after her husband was poisoned.

She tweeted: 'I'd like to point out I changed the bed (twice), bleached everywhere, I was told I couldn't touch Nick and he's never made tea by putting the milk in first!'

Sarah Bailey, the wife of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who was poisoned by the Russian nerve agent Novichok, assured viewers of the show her husband does not put the milk in first

During last night's episode, the detective, who is being played by the actor Rafe Spall, was seen pouting milk into his mug first

Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey (left), who was poisoned by the Russian nerve agent Novichok in 2018, is being portrayed by the actor Rafe Spall (right) in the BBC drama

Following the assurance, viewers shared their relief with the clarification, with one thanking Mrs Bailey for 'answering these worrying details'.

One user wrote: 'I was outraged! But thanks for clearing it up he's a good man.'

While another said: 'Thank you for answering these worrying details. My husband was so troubled by the tea making.'

Another Twitter user added: 'I was also pretty worried about the tea but I figured he just wasn't feeling himself.'

Meanwhile another viewer was immediately drawn to the 'suspicious' goings-on in the kitchen and wrote: 'There is something very suspicious going on here. Milk first in tea!!! Just not right.'

The BBC's The Salisbury Poisonings follows the aftermath of the poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018 and tells the story of how ordinary people and the public services reacted to the crisis as Salisbury became the epicentre of a national emergency.

Eagle-eyed viewers took to Twitter to share their confusion with the way the officer made his cup of tea

Prior to the show's broadcast, DS Bailey described the 'terrifying and a very stressful time' he experienced following the incident.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain he said: 'At first I put it down to exhaustion or a migraine because at the time we had no idea what we were dealing with and we couldn't begin to comprehend that it could be something like a nerve agent.

'It was terrifying and a very stressful time.'

Talking about the drama, which reportedly upset his parents, DS Bailey continued: 'They weren't happy, but that was because of how they found out about it and it got out in the press.

'Their reaction was more to protect me and my family because they didn't know it was happening.

The drama The Salisbury Poisonings follows the aftermath of the poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018

The story looks at how the public services reacted to the crisis in Salisbury which became a national emergency. Pictured: Rafe Spall in The Salisbury Poisonings

In the drama officer's are seen cordoning off a park bench after Sergei Skripal and his daughter are found poisoned

'I sat down with the writer and I understood the vision and that's when we started to understand that it was about the human aspect of the story.

'It was a huge story and the human aspect can sometimes get lost.

'This (drama) is really about normal people going about their normal lives and getting caught up in a huge event.'
RIDLEY TOWNSHIP  It will be a no-tax-increase 2020-2021 final budget for taxpayers in the Ridley School District in spite of a $3,231,892 increase in expenses over the current budget.

We needed to pass a no-tax-increase budget,said Ridley School Board President Michael Capozzoli. These are tough times for people. The board directed Superintendent (Lee Ann) Wentzel to come up with a no-tax-increase budget and she did it.

The final budget for 2020-2021 calls for general fund expenditures of $114,322,740 with the real estate millage rate remaining at 41.30 mills, or $4.13 for each $100 of assessed value. The proposed budget approved at the May school board meeting called for a tax increase of 1.400 mills that translated into a $139 tax increase for a house assessed at the average of $100,000.

Every year we try to work to avoid a tax increase, Wentzel said. We knew in constructing a proposed final budget early in May that there were more unknowns than usual. In order to complete a budget in a timely fashion given the various constraints placed upon the district we opted to present an initial round of expense cuts in the proposed final budget with a tax increase that was under the maximum allowed by law.

Wentzel said the district is very aware of the economic conditions faced by the community and the district is under the same challenges.

It was a financial risk being taken out of concern for individual community members, the superintendent said of the final budget. It will require the board to begin determining the deeper program eliminations that will be required as part of the 2021-2022 budget.

Wentzel outlined factors that will increase expenses for the upcoming school year., citing at the top of the list COVID-19 mandated safety requirementrs, such as masks, gloves and special cleaning supplies that exceed any previously ordered needs of the district. Also on the list are special education expenditures that continue to go up without corresponding funding support from federal sources, accounting for another 5.15 percent increase in costs. She cited medical benefits and perscription drug increases. Additional pension costs of $579,462 is due to the increasing employer share. Charter school tuition for 87 students accounts for a $1,475,000 item in the budget.

To answer increasing expenses, the district has approved restrictions for temporary positions and overtime. No work-study student workers will be permitted to be hired and retiring staff will be replaced only as needed. There will be a reduction in discretionary spending and all non-contractural travel is eliminated.

Capital projects that are already in design or construction and have a fully defined funding plan can continue. Also, schools and department/teams are being directed to ensure that they use grant balances, consistent with grant terms, to provide the greatest degree of flexibility in responding to the economic circumstances.

The states Homestead/Farmstead Property Tax Reduction of $221 is included in the budget.

The virtual meeting was led by Capozzoli, who was sidelined by the COVID-19 virus on March 27 when he entered Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park. He was released from the hospital on June 3, more than two months after he was admitted.

I vaguely remember my wife dragging me off and dropping me at Taylor and the next thing I remember was waking up at (the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania) and I wasnt sure where I was and what was going on, Capozzoli said.

During his time in the hospital Capozzoli was on a ventilator for 2-1/2 weeks and experienced other complications. His wife, Eileen, also had the virus.

She was a trooper through all of this, he said.
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The preliminary post-mortem report of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput on Monday said that the cause of his death is asphyxia due to hanging. Rajput was found hanging in his Bandra residence on Sunday morning by his domestic help. The police suspected it to be a case of suicide but no suicide note was found from the site.

On Sunday, his body was taken in an ambulance to Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital for COVID 19 test and postmortem. The provisional postmortem report was submitted by doctors at Bandra Police Station.

"Team of three doctors have conducted the autopsy of #SushanthSinghRajput. The provisional cause of death is asphyxia due to hanging, Abhishek Trimukhe, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP)," tweeted ANI.

Provisional postmortem report has been submitted by doctors at Bandra Police Station. Team of 3 doctors have conducted the autopsy of #SushanthSinghRajput. The provisional cause of death is asphyxia due to hanging: Abhishek Trimukhe, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). #Mumbai ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

A shocked Bollywood film fraternity expressed grief on the death of the young actor on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra cyber unit has strictly asked people to no circulate pictures of Sushant's dead body. Maharashtra Cyber, nodal agency for cyber security and cybercrime investigation for the state, issued a warning against the same. "A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste (sic)," read a tweet on the unit's official handle.

It further read, "It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action (sic)," adding, "Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth (sic)."

It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action. (2/n) Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

Reportedly, Rajput's last rites will be performed in Mumbai, on Monday, after his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna, according to various reports.

His father and other family members have left from their residence in Patna for the airport. They'll be leaving for Mumbai today. BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo, who is also a relative of Sushant, is accompanying family.

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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On June 14, Russia's new Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces was consecrated at a ceremony outside Moscow. The cathedral and adjacent museum were built in Patriot Park, a military-themed complex 60 kilometers outside Moscow, to mark the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II. The construction of the cathedral has been mired in controversy, with the removal of a mosaic depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and questions about the funding. Initially, the consecration ceremony was to take place on May 9, Victory Day in Russia, but it was rescheduled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The officers were near the 2300 block of Winchester Street around 3:15 a.m. to break up the party when Earl drove into a nearby parking lot in a silver Land Rover at a high rate of speed with damage to the front wheel, the charging documents state.
DOVER, N.H. (AP)  A woman who lost her partner in a collision that killed seven motorcyclists last year in New Hampshire wants to put a pause on her lawsuit against the company that employed a pickup truck driver involved in the crash.

Mediation efforts are scheduled in September in an insurance case involving the company, lawyers for Mary Lou Welch said in court papers recently. They ask to postpone her case until Oct. 1.

Welch sued Westfield Transport of Massachusetts for emotional distress following the crash last June in Randolph. Her partner, Albert Woody Mazza Jr., died.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, who was employed by Westfield Transport, has been charged with seven counts of negligent homicide and pleaded not guilty in the case. Westfield had tried, unsuccessfully, to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the company should not be held responsible for the crash because it hired Zhukovskyy.

Since then, the insurer for Westfield, Pilgrim Insurance, filed a petition in federal court in Boston asking a judge to divide liability payments among victims and their families. Pilgrim asked to have its $1 million policy divided for Westfield. The suit details multiple claims. The company said it is unable to determine amounts to be paid and wants the court to decide.
Alfred Ulysses Giallarenzi, born in New York City, was described as a short man, handsome, with a swarthy complexion and black hair. He worked as a telephone operator and was a member of the National Guard. He was married to a woman named Mollie and had three children.

He was sent to Oswego, New York, for National Guard training in the summer of 1931. That is where he met Angela Carlucci, the wife of a local Syracuse businessman.

What started as a written flirtation blossomed into a physical love affair. In 1933 the two arranged for a hitman to end the life of Joseph Carlucci, Angelas husband.

Carlucci was murdered on Thompson Road and the gunman made his getaway in a snow-covered DeWitt Cemetery.

This set off one of Syracuses most puzzling and sensational trials which made headlines and crime magazines across the nation. Out of the three involved in the crime, only one was executed in Upstate New York.

To hear the rest of this story, check out The Condemned, a new true crime and local history podcast by syracuse.com. The podcast tells the backstories of five men from Onondaga County who were all sentenced to die in the electric chair.

This is the fifth story in our series of macabre episodes of The Condemned." If you want to hear more, check out the series on our Acast page. Be the first to listen to new episodes by subscribing on other popular platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.

Stay tuned for the for our epilogue to be released on June 22.

MORE ON THE CONDEMNED

The Condemned: 3 brothers executed in less than 15 minutes at Dannemoras electric chair in 1903

The Condemned: How a drunken saloon boast led to the invention of the electric chair

The Condemned: Witnesses gather for the execution of a Manlius shoe repairman in 1924

The Condemned: The first use of the electric chair left many of its witnesses horrified in 1890

1881: Hundreds watch Onondaga Countys final hanging
SACRAMENTO  Gov. Gavin Newsom gave a broad defense Monday of the accelerated reopening strategy in much of California, despite concerns from some public health experts that the state could see new coronavirus outbreaks.

Newsom said that even as Californias economy has begun reopening since May 8 and people have ventured outside their homes more, including over the Memorial Day weekend, the number of patients hospitalized and in intensive care units with coronavirus-related illness has remained stable.

Theres a certain point where you have to recognize you cant be in a permanent state where people are locked away for months and months and months on end, to see lives and livelihoods completely destroyed without considering the health impact of those decisions, Newsom said at a news conference.

Newsoms administration said 52 of the states 58 counties have met state criteria to reopen at a faster pace. Much of the Bay Area, however, is moving far slower than the rest of the state in lifting orders that barred such activities as in-store shopping, sit-down dining and indoor religious services.

On Thursday, the state reported 3,461 new coronavirus cases, a single-day record, and some local health officers have said the momentum behind reopening plans is risky.

Josh Edelson / Special to The Chronicle

Still, Newsom said Monday that the state is confident of its decision to allow county health officers to reopen with safety precautions.

Newsom noted that Californias positive test rate  the percentage of people tested who are confirmed to have the virus  has dropped to 4.5% and has remained stable. The positive rate was around 41% at the start of the outbreak, when far fewer people were tested.

The governor said the states shutdown measures have given public health officials time to increase hospital capacity and secure personal protective equipment for medical workers and ventilators for seriously ill patients.

We wanted to buy time, Newsom said. We wanted to mitigate a peak and a spike.

At the same time, California is carefully monitoring data in 13 counties where the trend line has been more concerning.

Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency, said the counties have reported warning signs such as increasing positive test rates or hospitalizations. He said the state is deploying extra resources to those areas.

The list of affected counties includes Los Angeles County and several rural areas that began reopening at a brisk pace.

The California Department of Public Health declined to release a full list of the counties. A spokeswoman said the agency doesnt publicly disclose counties on the list unless they report an irregularity for three consecutive days.

While Newsom downplayed concerns about reopening, he also cautioned Californians to be vigilant about wearing face masks and social distancing. He noted that the worst pandemic of the 20th century, the 1918 flu outbreak, featured a moderate first wave and a more virulent second wave several months later.

Let us be cognizant of that past and let us be mindful of our present, Newsom said.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
The incoming coalition has promised a new housing commission, stronger protections for tenants, planning reforms and affordable home packages.

The draft deal, agreed between the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens,

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Under the 'Our Shared Future' programme document, cheap housing, better supports for tenants and an overhaul of planning regulations are promised. The deal says:

We understand that provision of more affordable housing has a profound benefit socially and economically and believe the State has a fundamental role in enabling the delivery of new homes and ensuring that best use is made of existing stock.

Measures listed include putting affordability at the heart of the housing system and prioritising the increased supply of public, social and affordable homes.

There will also be a state-backed affordable home purchase scheme to promote home-ownership while the social housing stock will be increased by more than 50,000, with an emphasis on new builds. It says that the next minister for Housing will bring forward a target for the delivery of affordable homes over the lifetime of the Government to be available for qualifying purchasers as a matter of priority.

Those affordable homes will be delivered through local authorities (Serviced Sites Fund), requirements under Part V and by the Land Development Agency. Properties will be sold through the State-backed Affordable Purchase Scheme.

The help-to-buy scheme will also be expanded while the mortgage to rent scheme will be strengthened.

There is also a pledge to increase the social housing stock by over 50,000 over the next five-years, the majority of which are to be built by local authorities.

Social housing reforms include allowing households to move from one authority to another while owners can buy out their own home.

There will be a cost rental model, similar to the Vienna Model and others, for the construction and management of properties.

A system of holding rental deposits will also be set up. The new government will also reduce the reliance on the use of HAP for new social housing solutions while the residential tenancies board will be transformed into an independent and strong regulator for tenants and landlords.

There will also be a review of the existing management company legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose and acts in the best interests of residents.

The new government will also instruct local authorities, as part of their housing strategies, to undertake and publish a rental needs assessment.

The remit of the land development agency will be overhauled so that development of sustainable communities is its core objective. It will provide affordable homes, cost rental and social housing.

The government has also promised to ensure that state lands being offered for sale, whether owned by a local authority, government department, commercial or non-commercial semi-state agency or any other agency, would automatically first be offered to the LDA.

In planning, there will be a use it or lose it clause for the construction of ten units or more. There will be the creation of an independent building standards regulator while the use of the vacant site levy will be strengthened.

On homelessness, the new coalition proposes a number of measures to reduce the numbers of people without homes, saying:
Missed the most recent top news in Sacramento? Read on for everything you need to know. Driver fatally hit pedestrian, drove away scared as police arrived, CHP-South Sacramento says Read the full story on ABC Sacramento, KXTV. Sikh community gathers at Cesar Chavez Park to honor Black Lives Matter Read the full story on CBS Sacramento. First phase of 55-hour I-5 partial closures ends today Read the full story on ABC Sacramento, KXTV. Rather be safe than sorry: Faces Nightclub owner plans July or August reopening Read the full story on FOX40. 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 suspect told officers that he hit the pedestrian, but got scared when he saw the police coming and drove away, according to CHP.

Members of the Sikh community in Sacramento are standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

The first wave of closures is nearly done, but there'll be some additional 55 hour I-5 closures in the coming weeks as well.
Blue plaques will be reviewed for their links to racism or slavery as more signs for BAME people are set to be put up.

English Heritage will look at London's 950 plaques and provide more information on those that celebrate people who were racist or linked to the slave trade.

The charity also wants to recognise more people from ethnic minorities in the capital and put up plaques that commemorate their history.

Sir Edward Codrington's blue plaque being temporarily removed from entrance to Codrington Mansions in Brighton

The priority is to inform people about celebrated figures with more detail and context online and on the Blue Plaque App.

English Heritage is not currently looking to write more information on the plaques themselves and have not named which ones they are reviewing.

But there are fears for a number of plaques to historical figures that also have statues that feature on a 'topple the racists' hit list.

Hero of two world wars Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery's blue plaque could be under threat due to views on 'savage' Africans War hero Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery The blue plaque to Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery may come under threat as English Heritage reviews signs across London. The wartime general, who won the first notable land defeat on the Nazis in 1942, had questionable views compared to today's standards. It means the tag on 'Monty's' birthplace in Kennington, south London, which was erected in 1987, could be removed or be tweaked to reflect his views. For now the English Heritage website refers to him as a 'celebrated British Army officer, best known for his leadership during the Second World War'. After the war, Monty suggested Britain extend its control in Africa and tighten its grip on resources on the continent. He said 'there is no reason whatever why he [the African] should suffer; and in any case he is a complete savage and is quite incapable of developing the country himself [ ...]' English Heritage has not said which plaques are under threat. Advertisement

Lord Horatio Nelson has come under fire in recent weeks and activists have set their sights on the 170ft column to him in central London.

The Royal Navy officer led Britain to victory in a number of crucial battles during the Napoleonic Wars, but some claim he was a 'white supremacist' for his views on slavery.

The admiral has two blue plaques - both on New Bond Street in Mayfair where he lived - in the capital which may be under threat.

Lord Herbert Kitchener is another with landmarks in London that could face changes.

As the face of Britain's 'your country needs you' hiring campaign during the First World War, Lord Kitchener is one of the most famous faces of the 20th century.

But his detractors say his overseeing of the 'scorched earth policy' in the Boer Wars makes him unfit to be memorialised.

The Army officer has a statue by Horse Guards Parade and a blue plaque to show where he lived in Westminster.

Explorer Captain James Cook could also have a plaque and statue to him tweaked if protesters get their way.

The Royal Navy officer navigated to Australia and mapped Newfoundland off the coast of North America.

He is a symbol of 'racial oppression and violence', according to the 'topple the racists' page.

A monument to him stands in The Mall in Westminster and 'must be removed', the website says.

Already widely disputed for his role in establishing British rule over India, memorials to Sir Robert Clive have been thrust to the front of the debate around statues.

'Topple the racists' want his monument in Whitehall to be torn down and a blue plaque in Mayfair shows where he lived.

Fredrick John Horniman was a tea merchant and plantation owner who may also be wiped from London's streets.

He founded the Horniman Museum, which is now under pressure to change its name.

A plaque to him hangs on the side of the museum and there is another to show where he lived in Croydon.

The final historical figure who is on the protesters' hit list and has a blue plaque in London is Sir Evelyn Baring.

The 1st Earl of Cromer was Governor of Southern Rhodesia during the Second World War and later Governor of Kenya.

'Topple the racists' claim his role in the suppression of the Mau Mau uprising means he should not be remembered with landmarks.

His blue plaque is a direct target for the demonstrators, who say it should say more on it than 'just colonial administrator'.



Lord Horatio Nelson has come under fire in recent weeks and activists have set their sights on the 170ft column to him in central London. And a blue plaque to him could be next

As the face of Britain's 'your country needs you' hiring campaign during the First World War, Lord Kitchener is one of the most famous faces of the 20th century

Explorer Captain James Cook could also have a plaque and statue to him tweaked if protesters get their way

The final historical figure who is on the protesters' hit list and has a blue plaque in London is Sir Evelyn Baring

English Heritage has set up a group to curate a list of BAME plaques that should be installed.

Bob Marley had a blue plaque put up last year at a house where he lived in Chelsea in 1977.

Ghanian 18th-century abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano is also set to get one for him this year.

Indian Muslim Noor Inayat Khan, a Special Operations Executive agent in the Second World War, is another on the list.

The review comes after Black Lives Matter protests said there were ethical issues with celebrating historical figures who were involved in slavery or imperialism.

One demonstration in Bristol saw a statue of a 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston pulled down and dumped in the city docks.

Since then other statues - including Sir Winston Churchill's - have been vandalised or threatened to be torn down.

Pictured: Poet Benjamin Zephaniah unveiling an English Heritage blue plague for Bob Marley, at his home on Oakley Street

Pictured: Bob Marley's plaque after English Heritage set up a work group to prioritise BAME historical figures

Slave trader Edward Colston was taken down and thrown into a river in Bristol by Black Lives Matter protesters

Also under threat is Oxford University's statue of Cecil John Rhodes, a mining magnate and former PM of South Africa's Cape Colony.

The Cecil Rhodes Trust has funded hundreds of scholarships for students from Africa but his statue was removed from the University of Cape Town in 2015.

The imperialist leader is divisive due to some seeing him as a racist and complicit in paving the way for apartheid in South Africa.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of statues and street names and boarded up monuments such as Sir Winston Churchill's and the Cenotaph.

The move was designed to protect them from anticipated fierce protests at the weekend but the mayor faced a backlash including from the PM who branded it 'absurd and shameful'.

Activists daubed the words 'was a racist' under Churchill's name on the statue during angry anti-racism protests last weekend.

His granddaughter Emma Soames told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she felt 'extraordinarily sad that my grandfather, who was such a unifying figure in this country, appears to have become a sort of icon through being controversial'.

She said if people were 'so infuriated' by seeing the statue, it may be 'safer' in a museum.

People stand near the boarded up Churchill statue at Parliament Square in London on Saturday

A worker cleans graffiti from the plinth of Churchill statue at Parliament Square last Monday following protests

But Churchill's grandson Nicholas Soames swiftly condemned any attempt to move it from the spot the former PM had chosen before he died in 1965.

'I will have nothing of taking statues down and putting them in museums,' he said.

Sir Nicholas told protesters to 'read your history and grow up', and said it was 'rubbish' and a 'lunatic representation' to call his grandfather racist. He told LBC: 'All his life he fought fascism.'

Churchill, who was PM twice, is considered a national hero and often leads polls on who was the greatest-ever Briton.

But some claim his legacy is tarnished by controversial remarks he made about different races.

They also point to his role in the Bengal famine in 1943 after Allied forces halted food supplies, leading to an estimated 3million deaths.

English Heritage refused to be drawn on which plaques could be removed or have extra information added.

A spokesman said: 'Shortly after we became a charity in 2015, we made a commitment to improve the representation of BAME figures on London's blue plaques.'
A cold peace approach to the crisis that has led to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cutting their relations with Qatar could derail relations in the region

Hopes of a breakthrough in the crisis over Qatar faded after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit meeting in Riyadh last week, even if the overture provided an opportunity for Doha to reiterate its position and return to its traditional practices.

The main gain, according to observers, was for Qatar to claim that weve done nothing wrong, and anyone who wants to change his position can contact us. The warm welcome that was given by Saudi King Salman to the Qatari Prime Minister who replaced Qatari Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani at the summit confirmed leaks that contacts have been taking place over recent months to reconcile the Gulf countries.

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut relations with Qatar over its continued support for terrorism and militant groups seeking to undermine the security of neighbouring countries. Qatar denied the allegations and reneged on commitments it had signed in 2014 to change its policies.

Since then, Qatar has been trying to open a dialogue with Saudi Arabia alone, especially after Kuwaiti and US mediation failed to thaw the ice with the four countries. These have insisted that Qatar must change its harmful policies before reconciliation can take place. However, over the past few months Saudi Arabia seems to have become more open to seeking reconciliation, especially after the 14 September attack on its oil facilities that cut its oil production in half.

Saudi Arabia has softened its stance on the crisis in Yemen, and it has been opening up to Qatar with the possibility of preparing for negotiations with Iran when conditions allow. Qatar has been cozying up to Iran and Turkey, both of which are at odds with Saudi Arabia and the other three countries boycotting Qatar.

Just after the summit in Riyadh, the Bahraini Foreign Minister criticised Qatar, reminding the world that it had failed to keep its promises. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gergash said that Qatars suggestion that it can resolve the dispute by talking to Saudi Arabia alone, bypassing the other three boycotting nations, is a repeat of attempts to split ranks and evade commitments, tweeting this a few days ago.

In another tweet he said that addressing the long-term genuine grievances of the four states is at the heart of resolving Qatars crisis. We are not there yet.

Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told the US news service Bloomberg in an interview that Qatar was not currently engaged in talks with the UAE over mending the rift. Our conversation right now is with Saudi Arabia, and we think we are going to look at the rest of the issues at a later stage, he said.

Al Thani also told Reuters that there had been some small progress in the talks with the Saudis.

In his opening speech at the Doha Forum in Qatar this week, Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani said that our position towards solving this crisis has remained unchanged: lifting the blockade and settling differences through dialogue based on mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The issue of coexistence and good neighbourliness among nations is separate from any other issues.

Western analysts in the region, or those following its affairs from the outside, say that the Qataris have got what they wanted in not capitulating to what they called the Saudi Big Brother attitude.

This might lead to a fissure within the quartet of countries boycotting Qatar, according to the analysts. The other three countries are unlikely to refuse Saudi overtures, but they will not be happy with a bilateral reconciliation that will give momentum to groups these countries are fighting, among them the Muslim Brotherhood.

In its efforts in Yemen, Saudi Arabia accepted the Yemen Muslim Brotherhood Islah Party as one of its partners in the negotiations. Though the Emiratis were not happy with that, they have stayed committed to their alliance with the Saudis on Yemen and other issues. But with Qatar and Turkey working hand-in-hand to support Brotherhood militias in Libya, posing a threat to Egypts national security, the discontent with the dialogue will increase.

For this reason, Bahrain announced its strong support for Egypts stance on Libya, and the Qatari-Saudi talks are being kept away from the media glare to guarantee their success, according to the Saudi official position. Qatar, however, will always find ways to leak information, reinforcing its claim that they came to us, and they need a resolution of the crisis more than we do.

Yet, there is a possibility of such developments stopping at any moment, like what happened in September 2017 when US and Kuwaiti mediation led to a telephone conversation between the Saudi crown prince and the emir of Qatar. When the Qatari News Agency QNA broadcast the news, saying that the two had agreed on various matters during the call, Riyadh announced that it was cancelling the contacts and accused the QNA of misrepresenting the conversation.

For now, Saudi Arabia wants peace with its adversaries but not necessarily a warm one. Other countries, including Egypt and Bahrain, would also not object to a cold peace as long as Qatari policies of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran and Turkey stop.

Nobody can guarantee that this will happen, however, not even Saudi Arabia if it chooses more than a cold peace with Qatar on its own and without the rest of the quartet, as many observers think it might.

The awkward position is that of the UAE, as its close relationship with Saudi Arabia is more important than any other issue. Qatari-backed groups have stepped up their campaigns against the Emirati leadership since the media reported a dialogue between Doha and Riyadh. Muslim Brotherhood sites on social media have led a concerted attack on the UAE and circulated fake news about differences between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

The cold peace approach to the Qatar crisis could thus derail the strong relations among the countries of the region. That could lead to a heyday for the Muslim Brotherhood and other Qatar-supported groups, leading to more instability in the region.

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BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev has resigned, citing an ongoing criminal investigation into the assignment of national radio frequencies.



Abylgaziev announced his resignation in a statement on June 15, saying: "I have nothing to do with this case, and the accusations made against me have no basis."



Noting he hadnt been questioned, Abylgaziev said the corruption probe undermined trust in the government and limited its ability to combat the coronavirus pandemic.



"In today's difficult conditions, when the country confronts the threat of coronavirus infection and struggles with its impact on the economy, the government must work in a state of stability and enjoy the full confidence of citizens," Abylgaziev said.

Lawmakers had raised suspicions over his involvement in the suspect sale of radio frequencies involving a leading cable television company and a major telecoms company, even though he has not been named as a suspect by the investigators.



Abylgaziev took a two-week leave of absence on May 27 "in order to avoid accusations of exerting any pressure on the course of the investigation."



He was appointed as prime minister by President Sooronbai Jeenbekov in April 2018.



Jeenbekov's Social Democratic Party leads a majority coalition in parliament, which must now nominate a new prime minister.

With reporting by AFP
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 16) - The government is eyeing to buy radios for poor communities, especially those without internet connection, as the Department of Education is gearing for an alternative learning scheme amid the pandemic.

Ang radyo is hindi naman mahal. Kung magtagal ito talaga, sayang ang panahon, we might buy the radio at 300, said President Rodrigo Duterte during a late night address on Monday. Para maibigay sa lahat ng barangay para yung mga mahirap may communication sila sa mga teacher nila.

[Translation. A radio is not that expensive. If this will last for a long time, we are wasting time, we might buy the radio at 300. We could give them to all barangays so the poor ones will have a means of communication with their teachers.]

Classes are expected to open August 24 without any face-to-face interactions. The Education department is considering to cater classes through Internet, television, or radio.

Duterte said that he will look for money to buy the radios.

We will try to come up with something in the next few days. Maybe before the end of the week, I would be able to look for the money, he said.

Meanwhile, Education Secretary Leonor Briones also said during the inter-agency meeting that the agency is negotiating with two telecommunication companies that could provide free service.

DepEd said that there were so far around 10.6 million students who enrolled online for the upcoming school year.
Turkeys jets carried out new cross-border airstrikes on Monday targeting Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

Turkey frequently conducts aerial attacks against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq.

The latest operation, codenamed Operation Claw-Eagle, hit suspected PKK targets in several regions in Iraqs north, including Sinjar, according to a tweet from the military, which claimed 81 PKK targets were struck, including shelters and caves.

The ministry said the jets took maximum care not to harms civilians and returned to their bases safely. There was no immediate statement from the PKK, which has waged a more than three-decade-old insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

There was also no immediate comment from Baghdad or northern Iraqs semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The PKK is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The conflict has led to the loss of tens of thousands lives since it started in 1984.

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Bhopal, June 15 : The political war before the Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh has spilled from social media into police stations. The Crime Branch of Bhopal Police on Monday registered a case against senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and 12 others for sharing an alleged fake video involving Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

According to Bhopal Range ADG Upendra Jain, Singh has been made accused in other sections including defamation.

BJP leaders including former ministers Umashankar Gupta, Vishwas Sarang and Rameshwar Sharma had lodged a complaint against Digvijaya Singh and associates saying they had distorted a video released by Shivraj Singh Chouhan that criticised Kamal Nath government for its liquor policy. The same video was pruned into a 9-second clip to suggest the chief minister wanted the excise department to just saturate the state with liquor.

The BJP leaders complained soon after the video shared by Digvijaya Singh went viral on Twitter. Chouhan had earlier warned of action against people sharing the content. Digvijaya Singh deleted it as soon as the controversy escalated. BJP leaders slammed the fake video and said it has been released to "confuse the public".

Singh says he is being targeted for taking up the case of cheating with the tribal people by Chouhan's supporters. They should instead investigate who has manipulated the video. Singh said agents of a chit fund company in Budhni misappropriated Rs 4.5 million collected by tribals.

In 2019, the matter came to the notice of Kamal Nath government and a case was registered. However, Shivraj Singh has not been able to get justice to the victims since 2012. On the contrary, the tribals were sent to jail because the "BJP thugs" were touting for the chit fund company, Singh said.

During a visit to Amla Pani village of Nasrullaganj block in Sehore district recently he found that tribal people in a hamlet had been duped of a huge amount. He had informed Chouhan about the entire incident. In a letter he warned the Chief Minister that if there is no action he will protest at his residence.

Former chief minister Kamal Nath has come to Digvijaya's rescue now. He said that this action is malicious. If a video is edited, action should be taken against the one who produced it.
The parents of a University of Utah student who was shot and killed on campus in 2018 filed another lawsuit against the school on Monday.

In the lawsuit, Jill and Matt McCluskey allege the university violated the state constitution by dismissing their daughters requests for help in the weeks leading up to her death.

Track athlete Lauren McCluskey, 21, had contacted university police more than 20 times to report harassment by her ex-boyfriend, Melvin Rowland, 37, before he fatally shot her outside her dorm. She had broken up with him after finding out he lied about his background and status as a sex offender.

McCluskeys parents say that university police ignored their daughter because of an `indifference to the risks that women experience when they are suffering from domestic violence, according to the lawsuit.

The University of Utah declined to comment on the familys most recent suit until its attorneys could review and respond to the new filing. The university has acknowledged mistakes and made campus safety changes, and said that its staff deeply regret not better understanding the danger Lauren faced.

The suit names several state and university employees as defendants, including Officer Miguel Deras who has been accused of showing off explicit images of Lauren McCluskey while investigating an extortion case she filed before her death. Deras has denied the allegations.

Jill and Matt McCluskey filed a separate lawsuit against the school in June 2019 for federal law violations and civil rights violations under Title IX. In that case, the university did not reach a settlement with the parents after two days of mediation.

Both lawsuits are expected to proceed simultaneously. The parents have said any proceeds from the $54 million federal lawsuit will be used to promote campus safety.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Education Universities
Mens Shed volunteers with the first Warkworth Tinker Cart. From left, Paul Maguiness, Dave Johnson, Ron Copeland, Les Taylor and Mike Izzard.

Volunteers at Warkworth Mens Shed have neared completion of their first Tinker Cart and simultaneously come a step closer to transforming the teaching of science, technology and engineering in New Zealand schools.

Warkworth inventor and educator Mike Izzard hit on the Tinker Cart idea while teaching children in Japan.

Carts vary but are essentially a mobile, powered work station, typically including a 3D printer, 3D scanner, laptop, Wifi connection, computer-controlled cutting tool, solar panel and digital projector.

In addition, the carts store a variety of materials (such as wood, metal and paper), electrical devices (such as motors, switches and lightbulbs) and tools (such as soldering irons and glue guns). The carts can be wheeled into classrooms and used by students to assemble a vast range of projects to meet curriculum goals.

Since returning to New Zealand last September, Mike has joined forces with the Mens Shed to further develop the Tinker Cart.

The latest model features a deep, hinged door, which opens to allow access to the tools and supplies.

Mike says trays holding components in the cart will have a sensor identifying when a component is running low and automatically reorder it.

Once the prototype is complete, plans for it will be circulated throughout New Zealand to other Mens Shed groups so that they can build their own carts to support local schools.

Mike says initially the Warkworth Mens Shed will construct two carts  one for Mahurangi College and another to be lent out to other schools, so they can appreciate how a Tinker Cart can aid student learning.

Mike says the carts are relatively straightforward to make. A handful of volunteers constructed the first one in Warkworth in about three weeks.
Contact tracing is a tried and true strategy for reducing the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, as demonstrated in many countries such as South Korea and Taiwan. In recent weeks, the UK and France have also started or increased their track and trace capabilities. However, the US is still far behind, while still hoping to reopen its economy, says GlobalData.

In light of recent events and the incredible infectiousness of COVID-19, it is possible that there is a large number of unknown new cases in the US. If the economy reopens without significant testing of the population, then America will be pushed back to square one with its pandemic response, if not actually pushed into a worse situation than before. James Spencer, Data Scientist at GlobalData

Paul Romer, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, is calling to conduct 600 million tests a month to keep the infection rate down while the economy reopens. However, more conservative estimates of 400-700 million tests in total are also being considered. These tests exceed the US population because duplicate testing may need to be performed in some cases - as people may be infected later, after their first test.

GlobalData believes that this will only strengthen the economic position of the main testing producers such as Roche or Bio-Rad Laboratories.
New Delhi, June 15 : Delhi Congress has planned a protest at doorstep (Dehleez) on Tuesday to highlight the plight and sufferings of the people.

"Congress workers on Tuesday will wear black arm bands and sit on dharnas outside their houses (Janta Ke Beech, Ghar Ki Dehleez Par) at over 1000 locations across Delhi to protest against the failures of the BJP Government at the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party Government in Delhi in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic," said Chaudhary Anil Kumar the state president of the party.

Delhi Congress alleged that the BJP government at the Centre and the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi have finally admitted that it was due to the incompetence and failure of both these Governments that the Covid-19 pandemic has made a surge in the Capital.

Chaudhary said that very few tests were done, there were severe shortage of beds for Covid patients and people were driven to the edge of a scare due to the incompetence and failures of both these governments as they wasted precious time in tackling the pandemic since the Covid-19 lockdown.

Earlier In the day at an all-party meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday, Delhi Congress president suggested that school and college hostels be converted into isolation centres, apart from the three Delhi Government hospitals with a combined bed strength of 2,609 -- Ambedkar, Burari and the Indira Gandhi Hospital at Dwarka -- which are either ready for inauguration or nearing completion. They should be thrown open to Covid patients to make up for the shortage of beds, Chaudhary had suggested.
Credit: Grapheal

Chronic or hard-to-heal wounds, those that do not heal after six weeks, place a significant economic burden on health systems around the world, costing around $30 billion annually. They lead to half-a-million amputations per year globally. In the United States alone, more than 6.5 million people suffer from such wounds.

The costs and incidence of chronic wounds are increasing due to the growing number of older people, among whom pressure ulcers and leg ulcers are more common, and the increase in people with diabetes, who are more prone to foot ulcers.

Faced with this problem and considering that proper assessment of these wounds is not within the reach of caregivers with the relevant expertise, Graphene Flagship scientists in France have developed a new graphene patch that allows them to be monitored remotely.

"The conductivity of the Graphene electrode varies according to the physicochemical changes in the wound, so we have produced films of this material on a polymer (a plastic) and integrated them into a bandage that can record biological parameters by direct contact with the wound bed," explains Vincent Bouchiat, CEO of Graphene Flagship Associate Member Grapheal, a spin-off from France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Grapheal is based at Neel Institute, in Grenoble, where this technology was developed.

A smart, connected dressing

The graphene dressing is ultra-flexible, adapts easily to any part of the body, and has tiny wireless electronics (with lightweight, fully flexible electrodes) that transfer the data to a mobile application. Then, using a telemedicine software and medical technologies in the cloud, the information can reach the hospital to be monitored and evaluated by a specialist.

Medical and nursing staff can remotely monitor how wounds are healing with this system, receiving alerts on any infection that may arise, which helps to prevent complications.

"This can improve and individualize the treatment of chronic wounds that require long-term care," says Bouchiat, who emphasizes: "In particular, it provides an early detection of infections, allowing a hospital solution at home."

Stimulating healing

The incorporation of graphene into skin patches of these types not only does not interfere with wound healing, but in fact can actually promotes it, actively stimulating this process, as demonstrated by the pre-clinical studies that have already been conducted.

The first human trials are about to begin. This medical device has been classified as class II-b (such as condoms or insulin pens, for example) and requires the European mark of conformity. Its launch is planned for 2023.

The creators of the patch had intended to present it in February, along with other projects of the major European initiative known as the Graphene Flagship, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which was canceled to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In this context, the researchers point out that this new graphene device will be able to help monitor the chronic wounds of isolated people, such as those who have now been forced into this situation by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Explore further Graphene for remote wound monitoring

More information: Graphene Flagship: Graphene Flagship: graphene-flagship.eu/
Premier Doug Fords Progressive Conservatives have slowly and deliberately starved to death human rights protections, charges Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca.

As the province marks the 58thanniversary Monday of the Ontario Human Rights Code, Del Duca warned the equality and human rights fought for by Black Ontarians are being eroded by the Ford government.

This is an urgent issue that demands action now, said the Liberal chief, noting that on June 15, 1962, under a PC government, Ontario was the first province to adopt human rights protections.

Del Duca pointed out Doug Ford has left positions at the human rights commission vacant, cut or eliminated, resulting in unacceptable delays for those seeking justice.

Asked Friday why the Tories have yet to announce a successor to Renu Mandhane, who left for a federal judicial appointment on May 22, Attorney General Doug Downeys office said the government is currently reviewing potential interim candidates for chief commissioner.

We will have more to say on an interim chief commissioner the next few weeks, said Downeys office.

Once an interim chief commissioner is in place, the attorney generals office will run a fully open and merit-based recruitment competition for a new chief commissioner to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

On May 28, Downey quietly appointed Dr. Jewel Amoah, the human rights and equity adviser for the Halton District School Board and a member of the faculty of law at the University of the West Indies, as a part-time commissioner on the OHRC.

Amoah is currently the only Black commissioner at the rights group. There was no news release of her appointment, which was posted Friday on the Ontario government website listing orders in council.

Some names being bandied about at Queens Park as potential chief commissioners of the OHRC are Jamil Jivani, a Yale-educated lawyer and Fords adviser on community opportunities, and retiring Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders.

Both men are Black and highly regarded by the premier, though the OHRCs ongoing investigation of racial profiling and discrimination against the Toronto Police Service might make Saunders appointment problematic.

But that potential conflict did not stop the Tories from naming an active-duty Toronto officer, Const. Randall Arsenault, as a part-time commissioner on the human rights commission in January.

The police officer thats serving (is) top notch. You cant ask for a better police officer than what the attorney general appointed, Ford said after the Star revealed the posting.

I support our police and I support the appointment that the attorney general made. If theres a conflict, they remove themselves.

Del Duca pointed out that controversial appointment came after Doug Ford ignored a short list put forward by Ontarios human rights commissioner to fill vacant positions, and instead chose to appoint commissioners with ties to the Progressive Conservative party.

In 2018, Arsenault posted a picture on Instagram, where he has almost 63,000 followers, of himself and his partner in the uniforms posing with the premier at his annual Ford Fest picnic in Vaughan.

The constable wrote in the caption that officers have been taking photos with politicians in all levels of government and all political parties for quite some time now. I was proud to stand beside our Premier Doug Ford.

Also named at the same time as Arsenault was McMaster University professor Violetta Igneski, whose sister Jasmine Igneski held senior posts in the Tory governments of premier Mike Harris and prime minister Stephen Harper.

After the Star disclosed the news about Arsenault and Igneski five months ago, there was a mad scramble to do communications damage control in the attorney-generals office.

Thats because Mandhane had written to Downey on Feb. 7 warning that he had failed to consult her in advance and urged him to sign an agreement reaffirming the commissions independence.

QP Briefing, a Torstar publication, revealed last week that the attorney generals officials couldnt say exactly when he signed the memorandum asserting the OHRCs arms-length role.

That led to a flurry of texts and emails with Downey finally writing: all Im going to say is I signed it in February.

The OHRC received the signed document on Feb. 27 at the same time as the attorney general was on the defensive to the opposition on the issue during the legislatures daily question period.

Robert Benzie is the Star's Queen's Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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Imad Shehadeh sensed an apocalyptic felt need.

As chatter increased in the Arab world over the soaring coronavirus death tallies in China and Iran, the president of Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (JETS) in Amman began preaching on eschatology in lockdown.

The coronavirus could qualify as one of the calamities that point to the end times, but could also just be a passing plague, he said in a widely shared video series posted in March.

We cannot be dogmatic, but at the very least [these] distresses have resemblance to much more severe events in the future time of tribulation.

Diligently studying to incorporate aspects of all theological systems, Shehadeh aimed to keep the Cross central within a literal hermeneutic.

The more we study prophecy, he said, the more we can see things in our world that others cannot, like a physician who knows immediately how to treat a wound.

COVID-19 has left many bleeding.

Shehadeh previously wrote a four-volume commentary on biblical prophecy. It was written in Arabic, he said, to address the gap created by a lack of traditional Catholic and Orthodox focus on eschatology. A gap sometimes mirrored in the older Protestant denominations of the Middle East.

Shehadeh founded JETS in 1991. By contrast, the Near East School of Theology (NEST), the first Protestant seminary in the Middle East, was founded in Beirut in 1932 by pioneering Presbyterian and Congregationalist missionaries.

Every time there have been wars and pestilences in history, some people have either proclaimed the end or busied themselves with the question of signs, said George Sabra, president of NEST. We should not waste time doing the same, but show Gods love and compassion toward the suffering.

In fact, there is a distinct danger in a dispensational-type approach to eschatology, he said. It often leads to Christian Zionism, which, with its pro-Israel bias Sabra believes is harmful to the Christians of the region.

Shehadeh sees harm going both ways.

We need to shield ourselves from theologies that often lead to a Christianity dominated by a victim mentality, in line with political and religious extremism, he said, acknowledging that some dispensationalists also fall prey to such extremes.

But allegorical interpretations deny God the right to express himself through the plain-sense words of Scripture.

Shehadeh emphasizes his approach is not about any modern political entity but about Gods mercy to all nations. Many Americans, however, put Israel in the forefront.

According to a LifeWay Research survey released in March, 7 in 10 evangelical and black Protestant pastors see the modern state of Israel as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy in advance of the end times.

The birth pangs of the Messiah are a shared belief between evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, stated Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People Ministries, a joint sponsor of the survey.

And a similar survey sponsored by the Joshua Fund suggests Jewsat least in Americaare responding at even greater rates. Nearly 2 in 5 (38%) said the pandemic has increased their interest in the Bibles teachings (including end-times prophecies), compared to 1 in 5 (22%) for non-Christians in general.

It is unwise to guess if these findings hold in Israel, said fund founder Joel Rosenberg, who also co-sponsored the LifeWay survey through the Alliance for Jerusalem.

But while the Hasidic community has been hit hard by the pandemic, Rosenberg believed the return to the Bibleincluding the New Testamentis driven by the less observant.

Most Jewish people in Israel, the US, and around the world have either rebelled against or drifted from strict Orthodox Judaism, he said.

Whatever the reasons, the rejection of their own religion has left them spiritually empty and searching.

To address this need, the Joshua Fund published a 12-page fact sheet in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. It summarizes Gods sovereign purposes for plagues as either divine judgment, warning of sin, or awakening from spiritual slumber.

Just like Pseudo-Methodius, back in the seventh century.

The original Methodius was a fourth-century church father, a bishop in Olympus. But in northern Syria, an unknown author appropriated his name to write a Syriac apocalyptic text, following the Islamic conquests of Christian territory.

Islams arrival was the punishment for sin, said Wageeh Mikhail, a Christian-Muslim relations expert for ScholarLeaders, summarizing Pseudo-Methodius. But even if Islam is dominating now, a later Roman emperor will arise and defeat the enemies of the faith.

After establishing peace, this emperor would proceed to defeat the armies of Gog and Magog. He would then go to Jerusalem and offer his crown to Christ. The crown would be taken up to heaven along with the spirit of the emperor, at which time the Antichrist would appear and usher in the final battle.

Yet the delay in these eschatological events eventually shifted Middle East Christian literature from apocalypse to apologetics, said Mikhail, formerly the director of the Center for Middle East Christianity at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo.

The shift is witnessed in two 13th-century commentaries on Revelation preserved from the Coptic golden age. One, by Bulus al-Bushi, calculates Muhammads name to equal the 666 mark of the beast, wrote Stephen Davis of Yale University in The Harvard Theological Review. The other, by Ibn Katib Qaysar, mentions Bushi but leaves out this detail. Instead, using Quranic terminology it identifies the apostle John, the author of Revelation, in similar reference to Muhammad, as a messenger.

Yet Qaysar also revives a literal understanding of the millennium, which church fathers uniformly abandoned by the fourth century.

Patristic writing did not limit eschatology to future events, Mikhail said, but applied it as a present reality after the Incarnation.

Bishop Gregory Mansour of the Maronite Catholic eparchy of Brooklyn said this approach still influences Lebanon today.

September 14 is the Feast of the Holy Cross, though the Maronite vibrant understanding of the end times extends this focus until November. The liturgy emphasizes the need for preparedness through the eschatological passages of Jesus, Paul, and Revelation.

It is not so much an end-of-time prediction, Mansour said, but the worlds resistance and opposition to God, every time he is introduced to society.

And in this light, the bishop appreciated the approach of Pope Francis, who said the new coronavirus is not necessarily Gods judgment on us, but an opportunity for us to judge ourselves and see where we went wrong.

Sympathetic, Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox diocese of London believes this is a crucial time to refine the message even further.

So far, the Middle East has suffered more than 36,000 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, and more than 3,700 deaths.

Even so, in Egypt, Christians do not tend to be overly worried about the end times, where the government has said the nation is coexisting with the virus.

But Angaelos is nevertheless very concerned by talk that emphasizes either Gods wrath or the waywardness of the world.

People are so troubled and fragile, they need a comforting, empowering word to get them through these days, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic will pass, but the image of God we engrave in their hearts and minds will not.

Back in Jordan, Shehadeh agrees.

Only 20 percent of Revelation is about judgment, he said in his video series. The rest is about Gods feelings for people tragically led toward sin by Satan.

Proper eschatology must keep the centrality of the Cross in a message of Gods grace, Shehadeh said.

And we prepare for the end times by trusting in the character of God as his witnesses, eager not only to warn of his judgment, but also to share of his love in Christ.

Additional reporting by Jeremy Weber
European and Asian bourses fell Monday on fears of a second wave of coronavirus infection, while US stocks shrugged off early weakness following fresh Federal Reserve announcements of emergency lending to support the struggling US economy. China shut down all indoor sports and entertainment venues in Beijing and undertook a massive test and trace initiative following a COVID-19 outbreak linked to a wholesale food market in the country's capital. "More than 100 cases have now been confirmed," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference, adding that the origin of the cluster linked to the Xinfadi market was still unclear. "A cluster like this is a concern and it needs to be investigated and controlled -- and that is exactly what the Chinese authorities are doing," WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said. The Chinese outbreak came as investors were already anxious over increased coronavirus cases in Texas, Florida and other US states. Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai all tumbled, while bourses in Frankfurt, London and Paris also retreated. "The numbers are still very low in the Chinese capital but the risks are high which may explain the apprehension we are seeing in the markets," said analyst Craig Erlam at trading firm OANDA. US stocks opened in the red, but reversed by mid-session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended at 25,763.16, up 0.6 percent after regaining more than 900 points from its session low. The reversal came after the Fed launched its long-awaited Main Street Lending Program to support businesses harmed by coronavirus shutdowns and said it would also begin a highly anticipated program to purchase corporate bonds. The announcements come a day before Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to kick off two days of congressional testimony. Wall Street has been jittery in recent days as more states have seen an uptick in coronavirus cases. Some analysts have largely dismissed the trend as the result of increased testing, but others have expressed fear the elevated cases could slow the reopening of the economy. "Falling infection rates have provided investors the confidence that the lockdown approach was working, allowing equity investors to look forward to 2021 as impressive monetary and fiscal policy provide a post-pandemic bridge. "However, rising new daily COVID-19 cases in two of the three most populous states in the US will test that resolve." - Key figures around 2045 GMT - New York - Dow: UP 0.6 percent at 25,763.16 (close) New York - S&P 500: UP 0.8 percent at 3,066.59 (close) New York - Nasdaq: UP 1.4 percent at 9,726.02 (close) London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.7 percent at 6,064.60 (close) Frankfurt - DAX 30: DOWN 0.3 percent at 11,911.35 (close) Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.5 percent at 4,815.72 (close) EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,136.40 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 3.5 percent at 21,530.95 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 2.2 percent at 23,776.95 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 1.0 percent at 2,890.03 (close) West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 2.4 percent at $37.12 per barrel Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.6 percent at $39.72 per barrel Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1317 from $1.1256 at 2100 GMT Dollar/yen: DOWN at 107.37 yen from 107.38 yen Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2596 from $1.2540 Euro/pound: UP at 89.85 pence from 89.76 burs-jmb/hs
The Supreme Court declared Monday that the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination.

In a major victory for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, the justices said the law's ban on job discrimination on the basis of "sex" can be read to forbid bias against employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, appointed by President Trump, spoke for a 6-3 majority.

"Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

"Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren't thinking about many of the act's consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it's no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit."

The decision is a remarkable example of a conservative justice following the words of a liberal law  in this instance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Gorsuch said it was surely not intended to protect gay and lesbian employees, but its words prohibited employers from making hiring or firing decisions based on sex, he said.

Joining the decision were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. In dissent were Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

The ruling came as a shock to many. Liberals and conservatives alike had widely expected that the court's movement in recent years toward extending rights to the LGBTQ community would slow following the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote most of the court's major rulings on gay and lesbian rights, including the 2015 same-sex marriage decision.

Gorsuch had promised in his confirmation hearings that he would follow the words of the law and be guided by what it said, not by his view of a good policy or the intentions of the legislature. And these cases fit that model.

Gorsuch said during the oral argument in October that the case was "really close." But he concluded that if the law prohibited discrimination based on sex, that meant the LGBTQ employees should win.

Roberts' decision to join in the ruling was also a surprise. He had strongly dissented when the court upheld same-sex marriages.



2020 the Los Angeles Times

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A senior academic who was sued by Perths Murdoch University after participating in an ABC investigation on foreign students will continue in his senate position at the institution after both parties withdrew all legal claims against each other.

Gerd Schroder-Turk will continue in his senate position at the Perth university. Credit:Change.org

Associate Professor Gerd Schroder-Turk blew the whistle over moral concerns about international student recruitment practices at the WA university in ABCs Four Corners segment titled Cash Cows in May 2019.

The university refuted Mr Schroder-Turk's claims and later sued the mathematics academic for what could potentially have been millions of dollars.

On Friday Dr Schroder-Turk posted a statement regarding the federal courts settlement in which he said he and the university had decided to drop all legal claims against each other as part of an agreed resolution.
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Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. Photo: PA Video/PA Images via Getty Images

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has ordered a review of the two-metre social distancing rule after backlash from the hospitality industry, with chancellor Rishi Sunak admitting an easing could have a significant impact on the sectors reopening.

Earlier, government scientists told ministers that halving the two-metre rule could be done if coupled with other measures, such as getting workers to sit side by side.

But some, including chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty, had signalled they were reluctant about such a move, as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country continues to rise.

Sunak noted it will be ministers rather than the governments scientific advisers who make the final decision, and they will consider advice from economists as well as scientific and medical experts.

READ MORE: UK economy slowly recovering, says Bank of England chief

Ministers are under intense pressure from Conservative MPs, who see the easing of the two-metre rule as crucial to the further reopening of the economy, which shrank a record 20% in April.

Sunak acknowledged the decision will have a major impact on the hospitality sector, with the government stating restaurants and pubs can start opening next month.

In an interview with Sky News, he said: You are right to highlight the impact it has on business  it is the difference between maybe three-quarters and a third of pubs opening, for example, so it is important the we look at it.

Obviously many other countries around the world use a different rule. We have seen a couple of countries recently  Norway and Denmark  have moved from two metres to something less as well.

It is important that we look at it comprehensively, in the round, and that is what we will do urgently.

The interview comes as all shops in England prepare to open on 15 June for the first time since the lockdown was imposed in March, and amid fears of a new wave of job losses as the government starts to wind down its furlough scheme.

Story continues

Sunak acknowledged further redundancies were inevitable and said that it underlined the importance of getting the economy going again.

Labours shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds has said the two-metre social distancing rule should only be relaxed if the science backs such a move.

Earlier this month, the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) and UK Hospitality said venues such as pubs and restaurants will not be able to make enough money as the two-metre regulation reduces the number of patrons they can host at one time.

READ MORE: UK hospitality sector wants two-metre distancing rule to be revised
MERIDEN  Roberto Rosado, chief of the Willimantic Police Department, has been named Meridens next police chief, city officials announced Friday.

Rosado, a Meriden native, will replace outgoing Chief Jeffry Cossette effective July 1.

I am pleased to announce that the Meriden Police Chief Search Committee has selected Roberto M. Rosado as our next Police Chief, City Manager Tim Coon said in a statement. I have had the chance to work with Chief Rosado in the past, and the City is getting an experienced, enthusiastic and skilled leader. It will be a great pleasure working with him to continue the fine work our Meriden Police Department has done in the past, the present, and into the future.

Rosado, now a Windham resident, joins Meriden after serving 22 years in the Willimantic Police Department. As a native of Meriden, Rosado joined the Willimantic Police Department in 1998 and was promoted to the rank of detective, patrol sergeant, detective lieutenant, and most recently as chief for the last four years.

Rosado, who signed a five-year contract on Friday, described Meriden as home.

Meriden has always been home, first and foremost, Rosado said in a phone interview. Ive always wanted to be a Meriden police officer.

Rosado said hiring a police force that is diverse, reflective of the Meriden community itself, is important.

Its something Im looking forward to, to help the department grow and diversify, Rosado said. Its something I did in Willimantic.

Rosado said another goal is to build strong relationships with community partners and criminal justice partners, to not only reduce crime, but to build trust with the community.

Rosado earned his bachelors degree from Eastern Connecticut State University and was a graduate of the FBI National Academy in 2015. This August, Rosado will earn his masters degree in criminal justice with a concentration in management from the University of New Haven, according to the citys announcement.

Rosado has a passion for increasing diversity and improving relations with all community members, Coons statement said. He has had extensive involvement in community outreach programs and has been instrumental in building relationships with youths, college students and citizens.

Rosados starting salary will be $130,000, according to city officials.

Deputy Mayor Michael Cardona, who chairs the City Council Public Safety Committee and sat on the search committee, said there were 44 applicants for the job.

Cardona said Rosados experience and his Meriden roots were among the qualities that ultimately led to his selection.

Being a Meriden native was important, Cardona said. That does bring a unique level of perspective, having grown up in the city.

Cardona commended the work of the police chief search committee in recruiting and selecting Rosado.

This was nine people who really dedicated a lot of time over the past six months to come to this conclusion, he said.

Rosado and Mayor Kevin Scarpati acknowledged the ongoing national discussion, which has culminated in protests, about police accountability, brutality and racism spurred by the death of George Floyd, an African-American man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last month.

With regards to everything happening across the nation, its clear that we as leaders, police chief, mayor, the City Council, need to first acknowledge what is right, what is wrong and listen to what is being said in these protests, not only in Meriden, but elsewhere, Scarpati said. Then we need to act.

Scarpati said the city itself can enact procedures and policies to ensure the police chief and others within the department are held accountable.

Scarpati said Rosado outlined several things he would like to do to improve police and community relations in Meriden, including engaging youth.

He has a good agenda, Scarpati said. ... I believe he will hit the ground running.
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According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Aviation Cyber Security Market is accounted for $ 2,794.63 million in 2017 and is expected to reach $ 6,482.54 million by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 9.8% during the forecast period. Growing cyber-attacks, rising number of air passengers and increasing number of DDoS attacks are the major factors influence market growth. However, Lack of efficient security solutions may hinder the growth of the market.

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Reece nodded at her, then cocked her head and considered what words could possibly capture the significance of what they were about to do. Smithsonian staff were at Lafayette Square to collect mementos from the historic protests over George Floyds death, which had roiled the nations capital  and the country. After days of deliberation, museum employees had decided they must preserve what they could, as a first step toward creating a future exhibit or collection capturing the moment. The exhibit may not appear for months, maybe years, if at all.
June is Pride Month and although parades and festivals have been cancelled for this year, most Canadian companies are showing their rainbow colours in support of the LGBTQ+ community. But, when organizations focus on LGBTQ+ inclusion, the T is often silent. Because trans and gender diverse people are under-represented in the Canadian workforce or not out to their employer, trans voices are often not heard and their needs not considered.

Despite recent changes in legal protections and increasing public acceptance, trans and gender diverse people disproportionately face experiences of stigma and discrimination at work simply because of their gender identity or gender expression. And, this is particularly true for people with intersecting identities such as race, indigenity, or disability.

As reported by Trans PULSE this year, while the majority of trans people in Canada have a college degree or higher, more than half make less than $30,000 per year. This and other arresting statistics reflect the ways that trans and gender diverse people continue to be left behind in the broader movement for LGBTQ2+ equality, which has primarily focused on challenges faced by cisgender gay and lesbian people, despite many of the founders of the movement being trans.

To remedy this gap, the University of Torontos Institute for Gender and the Economy and Pride at Work Canada partnered to conduct the first ever Canada-wide survey of trans inclusion practices in large employers. Seeking input from the organizations that make up Pride at Work Canadas partner network, the survey reflects the policies and practices that shape the workplaces of millions of people across Canada.

The report, which will be released Thursday, shows that we still have a long way to go. The good news is that corporate interest in trans inclusion has been growing in the past few years. While in 2017, only half of firms surveyed had anti-discrimination protections for trans people, that figured increased to 62 per cent last year. But, keep in mind that organizations are  since 2017 changes in the Human Rights Code  legally prohibited from discriminating against people based on their gender identity, so we might expect that even more companies would have incorporated these principles in their own policies.

As part of our research, we compiled current best practices for trans inclusion, both in terms of basic accommodations, such as non-discrimination protections, assisting employees with transitions, gender-inclusive facilities and forms, and more advanced inclusive practices, such as executive leadership support, inclusive recruiting, regular training, targeted allyship programs, diversity and inclusion managers, and networking with relevant community organizations.

Our survey sought to understand the degree to which Canadian employers followed these practices.

Our finding: most companies are just starting their journey toward trans inclusion.

Even when it comes to basic accommodations for trans and gender diverse people, most employers still have room to improve. Of those 62 per cent of organizations with anti-discrimination protections, only half include them in job ads and fewer than 20 per cent extend these protections to contractors and suppliers.

Many firms do not have a plan for an employee transitioning at work, including changing names and identity markers or accessing necessary medical procedures. And, while nearly three-fourths of all those surveyed provide an all gender washroom, most admitted that these accommodations were usually at the headquarters and not broadly available at all company locations.

When it comes to real inclusion  making it possible for trans people to get jobs and be their authentic selves at work  Canadian companies are just getting going. Only about one-fifth of companies have visible executive leadership support of trans inclusion. Such leadership is crucial not only for signalling the importance of inclusion but also for preventing organizational resistance.

One of the most popular interventions in the diversity and inclusion space is employee training. In our survey, three-quarters of organizations have indeed offered some kind of training on gender identity, but only 41 per cent of these offer this training regularly. We know that a one-off training session conducted at corporate headquarters will not build comprehensive organizational competencies around trans inclusion.

Interestingly, the majority of companies indicated that they did provide key organizational supports such as community networking, employee resource groups, allyship programs, and diversity and inclusion managers who have a responsibility for trans employees. The twist here is that most of these are umbrella initiatives that are focused on the entire LGBTQ+ community. As a result, attention to issues that are specific to trans and gender diverse employees was low.

As we are celebrating Pride this month, many companies will be flying rainbow flags, and, in other years, will be marching in Pride parades. But, we heard loud and clear from trans employees and champions that this is not enough. Our report shows that the next step is for employers to engage in real change to policies and practices.

Jade Pichette is manager of programs, Pride at Work Canada. Sarah Kaplan is distinguished professor and director, Institute for Gender and the Economy at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management.
As many as 1.28 lakh coronavirus-related public grievances have been filed with the central government, according to an official statement.

Call centres in different cities and languages to seek feedback on such public grievances was launched on Monday by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, who also interacted live with citizens whose grievances have been successfully redressed, it said. This is the first time that a senior minister of government has interacted live with citizens who had filed grievances related to the pandemic and also paved way for other ministries to take up citizen grievances in an effective manner along with a feedback mechanism, the statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

The feedback call centres would seek feedback from individual citizens on citizen satisfaction on 1.28 lakh Covid-19 public grievances that have been filed on CPGRAMS (Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System) for the period March 30, 2020 to May 30, 2020, it said. Singh complimented the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) on reaching the milestone of redressing over one lakh Covid-19 public grievances so far.

He said that Covid 19 pandemic has created a world of digital opportunities to empower Indias citizens and DARPG must make best use of the crisis led reforms in coming days. Singh said that the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inspired the government to put in a lot of effort to address grievances of common man.

The DARPG has in collaboration with BSNL operationalised feedback call centres in Bhubaneswar, Guwahati, Jamshedpur, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Ajmer, Guntur, Coimbatore and Guntakal with 1,406 call centre operators, the statement said.

Feedback call centres would operate in several languages including Hindi, English, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese and Rajasthani, the statement said.

On the occasion, Singh interacted with four citizens whose grievances were redressed on the Covid-19 national monitor within a period of three days. Amongst the citizens who interacted with the minister were Renuka V Parasappagol resident of Bijapur, Karnataka whose grievance of a refund from Canara Bank was redressed by Department of Financial Services.

Others with whom the minister interacted were Gordhanbhai Jethabhai Patel resident of Vadodara, Gujarat whose grievance of a refund of mature MIS (Monthly Investment Scheme) investment was redressed by Department of Posts.

Lakshminarayanan, a resident of Delhi, had a grievance related to the treatment of his daughter with HCQ (Hydroxychloroquine) which was redressed by the AIIMS and Mrithinjayan, a resident of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, whose grievance related to acceptance of monthly instalments of deposits was approved by the Department of Posts, it said. The citizens informed Singh that they had learnt of the Covid-19 national monitor for public grievances from his tweets and statements, and thanked the government for timely redressal of their grievances.

Singh said that in Modi 2.0, CPGRAMS has witnessed radical reforms and transformational governance resulting in comprehensive overhaul of grievance redressal in India. Amongst the steps taken were the implementation of CPGRAMS reforms in top 20 grievance receiving ministries/departments delineating last mile grievance officers, integration of state/union territories grievance portals with CPGRAMS and feedback call centres, the minister said. Singh said DARPG should bring out a compendium of success stories on successfully redressed public grievances which may be disseminated for restoring confidence in citizens that the government is sensitive to their issues.
The Black Lives Matter protest movement sweeping across the United States has cast light onto a vastly unjust justice system underpinned by systemic racism.



George Floyd, was just the latest in a long line of unarmed black men who have had their lives tragically and brutally taken by the hands of white police officers in America.

As the world watched Floyd take his last breath, desperately crying out "Please Help me I can't breathe," it triggered a wave of heartbreak and anger across America and beyond.

From Buenos Aires to Vancouver, Cape Town to Aukland, and in almost every major city in Western Europe, protesters gathered in their thousands to demand justice for George Floyd and equality for all people, regardless of their color.

George Floyd's death and the Black Lives Matter movement has effectively held-up a mirror to American society and revealed a system of racial inequality, a two-tier justice system, and an inherent double standard.

Two-tier justice system

In America, black people are more likely than white people to be arrested. Once arrested, they are more likely to be convicted, and once convicted, they are more likely to receive lengthy prison sentences, according to a 2018 report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in America.

On average, black men in the U.S. are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated than white men; and their prison sentences are 19.1 percent longer than those of white men convicted for the same crime.

The Sentencing Project a non-profit Washington-based organization working to reduce incarceration rates in America and address racial disparities in its criminal justice system  finds that, in not guaranteeing equality under the law, the U.S. is in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

"By creating and perpetuating policies that allow such racial disparities to exist in its criminal justice system, the United States is in violation of its obligations under Article 2 and Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which ensures that all its residentsregardless of raceare treated equally under the law."

Police officers in America are more likely to use force against black citizens  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.

Another factor worth noting is the presence of black people in jury selections. A 2010 report by Equal Justice Initiative shows that the exclusion of black juries is a significant problem. In Houston County, Alabama, 80 percent of black Americans who qualified for jury service on death penalty cases were excluded.

"We see that the death penalty trials are infected from the beginning to the end with racial bias," said Casandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project.

"We know overwhelmingly that prosecutors are far more likely to seek the death penalty when the victim is white. White lives matter more when we actually look at how the death penalty is applied and that should be very, very troubling to us all," Stubbs added.

Police brutality

In recognition of the widespread and long-running campaign of State violence against the black community, people of all races and color have taken to the streets across all America to demand change.

The protesters, though largely peaceful, have been met by a wave of police brutality.

In New York, two officers shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground resulting in him being hospitalized in a critical condition.

On at least two occasions, police vehicles have been used as a weapon. In New York, police rammed a group of protesters, while in Los Angeles, police drove their vehicle into protesters, briefly trapping them underneath the engine.

Police have repeatedly deployed tear gas to disperse peaceful crowds. The most widely shared incident took place on June 1 outside the White House so that Donald Trump could have his photo taken with a Bible outside a church.

Another favored tactic amongst riot-clad police is the use of rubber bullets. In LA, military veteran CJ Montano, who said he had his hands up, was shot in the head, hip, legs stomach and ribs. And in Texas, police are conducting an internal investigation after a pregnant woman was reportedly shot in the stomach.

Even journalists have not been immune.

Journalists have been arrested, assaulted and beaten on numerous occasions. According to the Nieman Journalism Lab, police attacked journalists on "at least" 140 separate occasions in just the last four days of May. One journalist, 21-year-old Balin Brake, lost his left eye after a tear gas canister hit him in the face.

U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a non-profit project, says it is investigating more than 100 "press freedoms violations" at protests. The BBC report that "about 90 cases involve attacks."

And Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has asked his embassy in Washington to investigate the use of force by police against an Australian news crew after footage emerged showing officers use their riot shields as a weapon against a journalist and his camera operator.

According to one tally by U.S. media, a total of 13 deaths have been recorded since the protests began.

Double standards

The heavy-handed crackdown on protesters and complete disregard for American civil liberty, highlights what many in the international community label a "double standard."

Critics argue that while the U.S. is all-too-often eager to condemn other nations for human rights violations, yet remains blind to its own issues.

As Molly Montgomery, a former U.S. foreign service officer whose postings included Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina noted; "Our diplomats are accustomed to expressing concern about other countries' human rights violations. Today they're being asked by foreign governments to explain our own."
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Public trust in the European Central Bank appears to have dropped by more than in other governing institutions over the past decade, even as confidence in the euro currency remains robust, a new ECB paper said on Monday.

Having pushed monetary policy close to its limits since the global financial crisis, the ECB has faced a barrage of criticism and legal challenges, raising questions both about policy and the way it communicates with the public.

The bank has launched a strategy review, but the exercise had to be postponed due to the coronavirus crisis - which also forced the bank to take even more radical measures.

"Compared with both EU and national institutions, trust in the ECB appears to have been disproportionately affected by the crisis, experiencing a deeper fall and a slower recovery," the ECB paper said, referring to the decade since the global financial crisis.

As a result, trust in the ECB was lower than in the European Commission and the European Parliament, even as 76% of euro zone citizens expressed support for the euro itself.

Top sceptics included Germany and Austria, which have long criticised the ECB's ultra easy monetary policy and where citizens now trust the national government more than the ECB.

Countries that also suffered more in the debt crisis, such as Greece and Spain, were also among the sceptics.

Although the paper suggested few potential solutions, it noted that the ECB had a communication problem.

"Making communication more accessible to people with differing levels of education and prior knowledge, and also addressing the concrete concerns of citizens in different parts of the euro area  such as the ECB's role in economic outcomes  can enhance trust in the ECB," it said.

It also criticised general education levels, arguing people needed to understand better what central banks do and what services they provide.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Los Angeles, June 15 : Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt feels a lot of modernday pop culture is "pornographic".

In an interview to Sunday Times newspaper, the 39-year-old actor said that everything in mainstream culture is now objectified, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

"I considered myself an artiste even back then. Which, I grant, was pretentious. But a lot of pop culture is pornographic. We don't see people as people. We see them as things, and when we watch pornography we don't see the people in the video as people either," he said.

"We don't think about who they are or what their lives are like. We just see them as a thing. We do that to each other in general. We put labels on people and objectify them, rather than trying to understand them as a whole person," he added.

The actor also admitted to being "guarded" about his personal life because he doesn't enjoy being objectified.

"I'm guarded about not putting myself out there for that sort of consumption of objectification," he added.
MANZINI  There should be no alcohol sale for an extra month in Manzini as it is the epicentre of the novel coronavirus.



This was said by the Manzini Regional Administrator (RA), Chief Gija. He said his prayers were that Cabinet would make a decision that would favour his request of having an extension on the ban of alcohol sales in the region.

Last week, the RA said he had requested that government reviews the issue of Manzini as it had the highest cases in the country and needed to be treated differently.

As of Saturday, the Manzini Region had 291 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. From these statistics, in a single day, the region recorded 30 new cases.



Region



Chief Gija said his plea to government had been necessitated by such drastic increase in confirmed cases in the region. The RA said he had requested Cabinet to halt the sale of alcohol in the Manzini Region or alternatively permit its sale once a week.

If you recall the regulations by the Minister of Commerce (Industry and Trade), he said a person can buy two cases of alcohol or two bottles of whiskey per day. With such amounts, some of the people will host house parties, Chief Gija said.

He said in fear of such incidents, his plea was to have the ban extended and or allow the public to have one day a week to buy alcohol. Chief Gija said the residents needed to be patient for just four more weeks.

Meanwhile, some liquor shops were getting ready for operations in the hub of the country yesterday while others had their gates locked with overgrown grass.



In one liquor outlet, among many that were visited, employees were found cleaning in preparation of resuming operations after being closed for a lengthy period.

Thirsty Corner was being prepared as early as 10am yesterday. The employees at the bar said they were cleaning their premises following that they had been closed since mid-April.



Premises



Three employees were found scrubbing the walls and floor. On the premises porch, there were empty crates and other utensils that were ejected from the premises.

The employees stated that they would disinfect the premises before replenishing the stock. They said some of the alcohol had been procured while more was expected to be brought in during the course of the week.

We shall be setting up the sanitisers for our customers as well. Despite that this is a bar, people will buy and leave the premises as we have to adhere to the regulations, an employee said.

Furthermore, the employees were ecstatic to return to work after an extended period of time. When the hub of the country was declared an epicentre, one of many strategies that were employed by the Distaster Management Team was to clamp down on liquor outlets.



The liquor outlets were ordered to close despite that in the other regions they were still operational at the time.



Establishments



Meanwhile, establishments like the Marios Pub and Grill were found closed yesterday and the same was the case at One Up Bottle Store. At One Up premises, the gate was locked while there was slight overgrowth within the yard due to the fact that the refreshment and socialising establishment had been closed for over a month.



Also confirming that all was set for today was the General Manager of Tops Liquor Shops, Likusasa Nxumalo. He said the shops were ready for today and had the stock ready.

Nxumalo said leading to their reopening, was capacitating their employees on COVID -19 and how they were expected to make sure that their customers adhered to the regulations.

We gave them questionnaires as means to screen how safe they were before resuming work and weve now taught them on how to screen our customers, he said.



Outlets



Nxumalo said they had four outlets located across two regions: Mbabane and Manzini. He said their shops were at Ezulwini, Manzini, Matsapha and Mbabane. In all four outlets, he said, they would be emphasising on adhering to the rules.

Also, popular hangout spot in Manzini, The Xchange, had its stock replenished on Saturday. Excited members of the public shared some of the photos captured when a truck had gone to deliver beverages to the business.

The Xchange Director, Mxolisi Mabuza, confirmed that all was set for today. He said stock had been replenished, but more was to be added as the week progressed.



Guidelines



Mabuza said they would be intensifying their adherence to the guidelines set by government in order to protect their consumers. He said social distancing would not be an issue for patrons at his establishment as there was ample space.

People who would want to use our restaurant and butchery would be able to practise social distancing. We have enough space that will accommodate those who will want to buy, eat and leave, Mabuza said.












The number of warheads dropped from 13,865 to 13,400 due to cuts in the US and Russia. Chinas arsenal grows from 290 to 320. The stockpiles of Pakistan, India and North Korea are also up; Israels is stable. Differences between Washington, Moscow and Beijing could undermine decades of anti-proliferation action.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews)  The number of nuclear warheads in the world has declined, except in Asia with China showing the greatest increase, this according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released today.

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of nuclear warheads dropped from 13,865 to 13,400, with the United States and Russia  which together still possess more than 90 per cent of global nuclear weapons  dismantling part of their retired nuclear weapons under the 2010 New Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty START.

By contrast, China has gone from 290 to 320 nuclear warheads. To get to the level of the US and Russia, Chinas military is working on building a nuclear triad with new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft.

Pakistan has the largest number of warheads after China at 160, up by ten over last year. Pakistans historic rival, India has 150 warheads, up from 130-140.

Israel, which last year had between 80 and 90 warheads, now has 90.

North Korea, which has been isolated from the international community (except for China and to a lesser extent Russia) and under international sanctions for its nuclear missile programme, is estimated to have 30 to 40 warheads, up from 20 to 30 in 2019.

This shows that the moratorium on nuclear and ballistic tests, unilaterally decreed by the Kim Jong-un regime in 2019 as part of the negotiations with the Trump administration, did not dampen its military ambitions.

Unlike the United States, Russia, Great Britain and France, Asias nuclear powers do not share information about their nuclear capabilities, especially with respect to the deployment, status and size of their stockpile. For example, Israel has a long-standing policy of not commenting on its nuclear arsenal.

The 2010 New START treaty is scheduled to expire in February 2021; negotiations between Washington and Moscow for its extension have made little progress.

This is due in part to the US administrations insistence that China must join any future nuclear arms reduction talkssomething that China has categorically ruled out.

For analysts, the stalemate between the three powers  all engaged in the modernisation of their respective nuclear forces  could undermined decades of multilateral action to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
President Donald Trump's 74th birthday falls on the same day as the U.S. Army's 245th founding anniversary.

President Trump spoke to West Point graduates on Saturday and shared that his 74th birthday coincides with the 245th founding anniversary of the U.S. Army which now has more than 700,000 soldiers and where more Latinos are joining the troops.

According to a published report in CTV News, President Trump said: "Unrelated, going to be my birthday also. I don't know if that happened by accident. Did that happen by accident, please? But it's a great day because of that Army birthday."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army posted a video on their Twitter account recognizing the bravery, commitment, skill, and answering the call to serve. The U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper also expressed his gratitude to those who served in the past, those are still in the service, and those who plan to join the troop.

Pres. Trump Received Well Wishes from Members of Republican Party and His Children

Trump's administration, members of his party, and his children sent him their messages through their social media account. The White House adviser and president's daughter Ivanka Trump tweeted: "Happy Birthday @realDonaldTrump! Love you!"

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted as well and wrote: "Happy birthday, President @realDonaldTrump! I am proud to serve under your strong leadership and wish you continued strength and fortitude as you continue to lead this great nation."

Meanwhile, Republican congressional candidate in California Errol Webber also reached out to the POTUS and wrote: "America is better for having you as @POTUS, @realDonaldTrump! #HappyBirthdayTrump."

According to a published article in the New York Post, the "#HappyBirthdayTrump" became trending and ranked second on early Sunday wit nearly 100,000 tweets. This was also confirmed by the tracking site Trend24.

Trump Supporters in Florida Celebrate His Birthday

Supporters of Pres. Donald Trump in Florida celebrated as well his birthday on Sunday through caravans, flotillas, and parades throughout his home state.

In the president's home in Palm Beach County, his birthday was celebrated in different ways. Some of these include caravan of trucks, motorcycles and boats were riding along highways, and the intercoastal waterway since early morning.

Meanwhile, Florida will be playing a big part in Trump's re-election bid for President because he will accept his nomination together with Vice-President Mike Pence in the last week of August.

Trump's Opponents on Twitter

Even though the "#HappyBirthdayTrump" became the second trending term on Twitter early Sunday, his opponent used that day in a different way by calling it an Obama Day according to a published report in CNN.

During Trump's birthday on Sunday, a Twitter party was seen on the same day honoring former Pres. Barrack Obama even though his birthday is still in August.

In fact, on Sunday morning a "#ObamaDayJune14th" became the top political hashtag which is close behind "Happy Birthday Mr. President." Moreover, it has pictures of Obama instead of Trump.

Check this out!
BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq has agreed with major oil companies operating its giant southern oilfields to cut crude production further in June, Iraqi officials working at the fields told Reuters on Sunday. Baghdad aims to improve its compliance with its output cut targets under a global deal with OPEC and its allies to reduce oil supply

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq has agreed with major oil companies operating its giant southern oilfields to cut crude production further in June, Iraqi officials working at the fields told Reuters on Sunday.

Baghdad aims to improve its compliance with its output cut targets under a global deal with OPEC and its allies to reduce oil supply.

Iraq has agreed with Russias Lukoil to start an additional cut of 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) as of June 13 to lower production from the West Qurna 2 field to around 275,000 bpd.

Lukoil cut output by 70,000 bpd in May in response to a request by Iraqs oil ministry, two Iraqi oilfield managers told Reuters on Sunday.

Production from West Qurna 2 was around 395,000 bpd in April, the managers said.

The Iraqi oil managers, who oversee production operations, said state-run Basra Oil Company had asked BP to cut production from the Rumaila oilfield by around 140,000 bpd of its total production, which stands at between 1.4 million bpd to 1.45 million bpd.

Exxon Mobile Corp has agreed also to cut an additional 70,000 bpd from the West Qurna 1 field to reduce production to around 350,000 bpd in June, the two Iraqi managers said.

Production was cut by around 50,000 bpd in May and stood at around 420,000 bpd.

Lukoil, BP and Exxon were not immediately available for comment.

Iraq has told OPEC it would start an urgent plan to cut its oil production gradually to fully comply with its quota, after the group demanded that Baghdad and other laggards adhere to a pact on output curbs.

"We will keep lowering production gradually to comply with OPEC quota," said one Iraqi oil official.

OPEC, Russia and allies agreed on June 6 to extend record oil production cuts until the end of July, prolonging a deal that has helped crude prices to double in the past two months by withdrawing almost 10% of global supplies from the market.

The group, known as OPEC+, also asked countries such as Nigeria and Iraq, which exceeded production quotas in May and June, to compensate with extra cuts in July to September.

(Reporting by Aref Mohammed and Ahmed Rasheed; writing by Rania El Gamal; editing by Mark Potter and Jane Merriman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Iran urged the UN atomic watchdog on Monday not to make an "unconstructive" decision in their meeting of Board of Governors in Vienna on its nuclear programme.

Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors were scheduled to convene on Monday and discuss a slew of issues including Iran's nuclear program.

Abbas Mousavi, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said a claim by Israel was the basis of allegations against Iran.

He added the documents Israeli officials claimed to have obtained through espionage were decades-old and worthless.

Mousavi warned the IAEA of a "proportional reaction" if a decision against Iran was made at Monday's meeting.

The IAEA last week said Iran had continued to increase its stockpiles of enriched uranium and remained in violation of its deal with world powers.

It raised concerns about access to two of three locations it identified in March as places where Iran possibly stored and/or used undeclared nuclear material or undertook nuclear-related activities without declaring them to international observers.

Iran's nuclear deal promised Iran economic incentives in return for the curbs on its nuclear programme.

President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal unilaterally in 2018, saying it needed to be renegotiated.

Iran has since slowly violated the restrictions to try and pressure the remaining nations to increase the incentives to offset new, economy-crippling US sanctions.

Mousavi also reacted to protest rallies near the Iranian Embassy in Afghanistan and other countries over treatment of their migrants and refugees by Iran.

"They were only a handful of people and we gave a warning to the Afghan ambassador in Tehran that such actions, insults and offenses are intolerable," he said.
Rights groups hailed a US Supreme Court decision on Monday, that barred workplace discrimination against gay and transgender employees, calling it a watershed victory for LGBT rights and a defeat for President Donald Trumps administration.

The landmark 6-3 ruling represented the biggest moment for LGBT rights in the United States since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. Two conservative justices joined the courts four liberals in the decision: Neil Gorsuch, a 2017 Trump appointee who wrote the ruling, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

The justices decided that gay and transgender people are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex as well as race, colour, national origin and religion.

The Supreme Courts historic decision affirms what shouldnt have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are, said Sarah Kate Ellis, president of the gay rights group GLAAD.

Workplace bias against gay and transgender employees had remained legal in much of the country, with 28 US states lacking comprehensive measures against employment discrimination. The ruling  in two gay rights cases from Georgia and New York and a transgender rights case from Michigan  recognises new worker protections in federal law.

At my first job, I was stealth out of survival. I wasn't out as trans because I was afraid of being fired. Today's #SCOTUS ruling will encourage so many more folks to move beyond that fear. We honor you, Mrs. Aimee Stephens, for your fight. I know you're looking down on us.  Raquel Willis (@RaquelWillis_) June 15, 2020

Finally

The legal fight focused on the definition of sex in Title VII. The plaintiffs, along with civil rights groups and many large companies, had argued that discriminating against gay and transgender workers was inherently based on their sex and consequently was illegal.

Finally. Today, the law, justice and fairness are on our side, said Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, an organisation that advocates for LGBTQ rights.

We have a long way to go in securing the full and undeniable civil rights of LGBTQ people, especially those in our community who are Black, Indigenous and people of color for whom their sexual orientation or gender identity is only one of many barriers to equal opportunity in this country, Jennings said in a statement.

Trumps administration had backed the employers who were sued for discrimination. The administration and the employers argued that Congress did not intend for Title VII to protect gay and transgender people when it passed the law. Gorsuch conceded that point in his opinion but said what mattered was the text of the law.

In this moment of national crisis, its heartening to have good news from the Supreme Court! Today is a watershed moment for fairness and equality and affirms that LGBTQ people are, and should be, protected from discrimination under federal law. 1/4 pic.twitter.com/8BNQlOn9hH  National Center for Transgender Equality (@TransEquality) June 15, 2020

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex, Gorsuch wrote. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Trump said at the White House on Monday he will live with the Supreme Court decision and called the ruling a very powerful decision.

Strongly supported by evangelical Christian voters, Trump has taken actions that have undermined gay and transgender rights since taking office in 2017.

The fight for justice continues, but today we celebrate the US Supreme Court decision that federal employment discrimination laws protect LGBT employees! pic.twitter.com/TfiNlXHDRx  SisterSong (@SisterSong_WOC) June 15, 2020

Just one step

The court ruled in two consolidated cases about gay people who have said they were fired due to their sexual orientation. One involved a former county child welfare services coordinator from Georgia named Gerald Bostock. The other involved a New York skydiving instructor named Donald Zarda who died after the litigation began, with the matter then pursued by his estate.

I am elated and I am filled with so much gratitude and appreciation for the justices for making the right decision, Bostock said on MSNBC on Monday.

I think this is just one step in laying the groundwork, though, because it underscores given everything going on in our country today that we still have more work to do, he said.

Gerald Lynn Bostock, plaintiff in Bostock v Clayton County, Georgia speaking at an event at the National Press Club to discuss the state of LGBTQ rights in the workplace Washington, US [File: Mary F Calvert/Reuters]

The court also ruled in a case that involved a transgender funeral director named Aimee Stephens fired by a Detroit funeral home after revealing plans to transition from male to female. Stephens died in May. Stephenss wife Donna is now representing the estate.

I am grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, Donna Stephens said in a statement.

Todays decision handed down by #SCOTUS is another step toward ensuring full protection of LGBTQ individuals across the country, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. https://t.co/btyN4W1J9u  Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) June 15, 2020

The Human Rights Campaign gay rights group called the decision a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality.

Alphonso David, the groups president, said: No one should be denied a job or fired simply because of who they are or whom they love.

Especially at a time when the Trump Administration is rolling back the rights of transgender people and anti-transgender violence continues to plague our nation, this decision is a step towards affirming the dignity of transgender people, and all LGBTQ people.  Sarah Kate Ellis (@sarahkateellis) June 15, 2020

The White House had no immediate comment.

Trumps administration last week issued a rule that would lift anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in healthcare.

His administration also backed the right of certain businesses to refuse to serve gay people on the basis of religious objections to gay marriage, banned most transgender service members from the military and rescinded protections on bathroom access for transgender students in public schools.
Jen and Farzan Dehmoubed are now accustomed to shoppers following them through the supermarket. In fact, the Carlsbad couple enjoys the interest.

The Dehmoubeds are drawing lots of appreciative looks and gaining some customers, thanks to their new product, the Lotus Trolley Bag.

It consists of four heavy-duty reusable grocery sacks that hang like accordion files in a shopping cart. Before and after use, they can be folded up in a 2-pound over-the-shoulder carrier that resembles a yoga mat bag. Similar trolley bag systems have been popular for years, especially in other countries, but the Dehmoubeds believe their design is so unique theyve applied for a patent.

Jen Dehmoubed demonstrates how the Lotus Trolley Bag system can be carried into the supermarket. (Credit: Lotus Trolley Bag)

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Since they introduced the Lotus Trolley Bag at Fiesta Del Sol in Solana Beach two weeks ago, the couple has sold several hundred bags and theyre now in talks with buyers at two local supermarkets that could begin selling the $30 products as early as next month.

Its been pretty funny and great, Farzan said. Every time we go shopping with this, at least five people will stop us. Its very exciting.

The ecology-minded couple, both 37, were using reusable sacks long before California voters banned single-use plastic bags last November. Over the years, they grew frustrated with the flimsy quality of the reusables and the difficulty they had cleaning them, storing them and even remembering to bring them into the market when they shopped. So, when the bag ban took effect last fall, the Dehmoubeds decided to come up with a better solution, both for themselves and other California shoppers.

Jen runs a private tutoring business and is the main grocery shopper in the household. Farzan is a businessman with a background in marketing and innovation. Combining her shopping experience and his entrepreneurial skills, they spent five months researching, testing and refining the concept for their product. Jen, a yoga enthusiast, came up with the name, because the bags unfold like a lotus blossom.

The pastel-colored trolley bag is made from 120-gram non-woven polypropylene (most reusable bags are 60-gram) with reinforced handles and cloth mesh bottoms, for easy cleanup in case of a spill. One of the bags has an insulated lining for frozen items and another has vertical sleeves to securely hold wine bottles and egg containers. Sturdy rods that hold the bags in place across the shopping cart rim can be removed from the bags before washing.

The Lotus Trolley Bag system includes three mesh-bottom bags and one insulated bag for frozen items. When not in use, they can be rolled up into an over-the-shoulder bag. (Lotus Trolley Bag)

For their initial launch, the Dehmoubeds were going to commission 1,000 trolley bags, but when they saw the reception the bags were getting from friends and shoppers this spring, they decided to take a gamble and start with 5,000. The risk seems to be paying off.

On the first day at Fiesta Del Sol, they sold out all 100 in the booth, then the next day they brought 130 and sold out again. The bags are now for sale via Amazon, where all of the buyers so far have left 5-star reviews. The Dehmoubeds are now talking with buyers at Jimbos and Ralphs supermarkets, which are considering putting the product on store shelves for a test market in July.

Farzan said its been thrilling to see their idea come to fruition and receive such a positive response. But its also been gratifying to know that the product theyre making promotes their own healthy, ocean- and Earth-friendly lifestyle.

This is something that were both really passionate about, he said. Im a surfer and I hope that with this product we can make a dent in the number of plastics we use.

A portion of all sales will benefit three of the couples favorite charities: 1% For the Planet, Surfrider Foundation and the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

To learn more about the Lotus Trolley Bag and see a video demonstration, visit lotustrolleybag.com.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
For a little more than $2,000, you can buy a small silver-plated case containing some hair of the Virgin Mary, a relic venerated by Catholic believers. Add a few hundred dollars, and youll get a wax-sealed reliquary carrying pieces of clothing worn by St. Peter and St. Paul, together with a yellowed record, handwritten in Latin, that supposedly attests to the relics authenticity.

A more significant investment, $16,750, will get you an austere multichambered reliquary with 50 of the most important relics in Christendom, including the remains of top-tier saints like St. John the Baptist and St. Benedict. But devotees on more of a budget can easily find scraps of the True Cross soaked in Jesus blood, ancient-looking nails containing iron filings of the nails used in the crucifixion, garments of martyrs, skullcaps worn by popes and the personal effects of revered mystics.

Most of the relics on sale online are counterfeit junk. Many of them even look fake in the pictures. The ads are carefully designed either to lure unsuspecting believers or to excite eccentric collectors. The whole business smells of scam. Final sale with no returns due to the Sacredness of this item, one online vendor warns, implying a peculiar moral system in which selling sacred articles is totally fine, but returning them is somehow sacrilegious.

In recent years, the business of relics has boomed. An article published in the Italian newspaper La Stampa in February documented the increased trade in all things holy, a trend confirmed by Vatican officials. The phenomenon is partly fueled by thefts from church altars in a rapidly secularizing Europe  according to the Italian police, on average more than 300 relics have been stolen in the country every year since 2010, and the number of thefts has spiked in the last three years. Buyers from the Philippines and Brazil lead the rankings of relic-hungry countries, but theyre not the only ones.
New Delhi: The preliminary postmortem report of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput confirmed his suicide. Sushant was found dead at his Bandra home in Mumbai on Sunday (June 14, 2020).

On Sunday night, Mumbai BMC said the actor's postmortem will be completed by late-night and appealed to the media to not assemble at the hospital in view of coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Earlier, a team of Mumbai Police later reached the actor's residence to investigate the matter. DCP Abhishek Trimukhe said, "Prima Facie, this looks like a case of suicide. No suspicious thing was found at the spot."

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Cyber Police Department, the nodal agency for cyber-crime investigation on Sunday asked netizens to refrain from circulating pictures of deceased Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. They also warned of legal action for circulating photos of Sushant's body and asked people to delete pictures that have been already shared.

The 34-year-old actor, who was reportedly battling depression, was found hanging at his Mumbai residence on Sunday. He was said to be under stress and depression for the last few months.
A new political action group that aims to bring issues that affect young people to the forefront plans to hold a series of digital town hall meetings starting on June 23.

Future Majority is a non-partisan, non-profit group started about a year ago by frustrated young Canadians who want to voice their concerns in a political way.

Future Majority is looking to represent all political philosophies, said Sean Jacklin, Future Majority organizer for Peterborough-Kawartha riding.

We are constantly surveying the membership groups to see where the needle is pointing in regard to political philosophy.

The group is planning to host a series of digital town hall meetings looking at issues such as mental health coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, education funding, a universal basic income, and racial inequality.

We want to focus on income security coming out of COVID-19, Jacklin said.

Especially with what is happening in the world right now, our focus will be on racial inequality as well. On top of access to education and ability of education and the looming climate change we have coming, we really need politicians to focus on that too.

He said hopes to see at least 100 people participate in the digital town hall.

Our hopes are to have them in the room interacting with the community members and politicians who are attending and expressing their voices, Jacklin said.

One issue they are interested in talking to politicians and community leaders about is the feasibility of a universal basic income (UBI) that would help not only young Canadians, but all Canadians.

We are in a unique position where a program like a UBI can be talked about with politicians without them dismissing the question, he said.

The infrastructure we have proven is there to distribute, it might not be a universal basic income right now, but it is a basic income program offered through the CERB (Canada Emergency Relief Benefit).

Jacklin said data backs up how this affects Canadians in their lives.

The group wants answers for politicians, he said.

With the data we have and the ability to ask these questions now we can progress this toward something that looks like UBI hopefully, Jacklin said.

Jacklin said the group has invited politicians to join in on the digital town hall meeting including Peterborough Mayor Diane Therrien, MP Maryam Monsef and MPP Dave Smith.

People interested in joining the digital town hall on June 23 at 3 p.m., can sign up at facebook.com/events/541067096583804/
Chennai, June 15 : The coronavirus infection in Tamil Nadu is at its peak and will come down in the coming days, said the members of a medical expert committee here on Monday.

The medical expert committee met the Chief Minister K. Palaniswami to discuss the increasing coronavirus infection in the state. The committee was set up by the state government a few months back to advise it on the spread of the coronavirus infection.

As on Sunday the number of COVID-19 positive cases in the state stood at 44,661.

Speaking to the reporters after meeting the Chief Minister, the members of the medical expert committee said the coronavirus infection is at its peak in Tamil Nadu.

The members said the infection numbers will come down now. They also said there are possibilities of the infection rate going up again after three months.

The experts said the public should not lower their guard, but continue to be cautious by following safety measures like wearing masks and others.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
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Monday, June 15, 2020 at 3:31AM

While the May 2020 update for Windows 10 didn't cause too many issues, we can't say the same for the June 2020 update. SlashGear reports how the company's support forums are being flooded with user complaints about not being able to print on any printerand that even includes "printing" documents into a PDF.

The issue surfaced with update KB4557957, which was released last week. Microsoft acknowledges the problem but doesn't go into detail about it. The Windows 10 print spooler may error out or close, preventing users from printing. It might even take down the app trying to print, so remember to save the work you're doing. There is no official fix for the issue yet. Microsoft says it's still "investigating" the problem.

If you want to attempt to "fix" it temporarily, you can try a PCL6 driver for your printer to get it working again. We caution you against this if you aren't too familiar with how your PC works. Or you can opt to uninstall the update, but that would take with it whatever bug or security fix it comes with.
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(All dollar amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted.)



TORONTO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX:K; NYSE:KGC) (Kinross) is pleased to announce today that it has reached an agreement in principle (agreement) with the Government of Mauritania (Government) to enhance the parties partnership. The key terms of the agreement, which remain subject to definitive documentation, are the culmination of discussions between Kinross and the Government that balance the interests of both parties. The terms contemplate reasonable commercial trade-offs intended to provide certainty and resolution of outstanding matters.

Key terms of agreement

Under the terms of the agreement, the Government will provide Kinross with a 30-year exploitation license for Tasiast Sud under the 2008 Mining Code and the 2012 Mining Convention, granted with expedited permitting and the possibility of early mining. The agreement also provides for the reinstatement of the tax exemption on fuel duties1 and the repayment by the Government to Kinross of approximately $40 million in outstanding VAT refunds with an agreed payment schedule through 2025.

Kinross will make a $10 million payment to the Government after completion of the definitive agreements to resolve disputed matters related to fuel use and tax exemptions. In addition, upon receiving the exploitation license for Tasiast Sud, Kinross will make a $15 million payment to resolve disputed matters arising out of Kinross prior application to convert the Tasiast Sud exploration license into an exploitation license.

At Tasiast, Kinross has also volunteered to update its existing fixed 3% royalty payable under the 2006 Tasiast Mining Convention (the 2006 Convention). While the 2006 Convention remains in full force and effect for Tasiast, the mining laws of Mauritania have evolved in a manner that is consistent with other African mining jurisdictions. Accordingly, Kinross decided it was appropriate to pay an escalating royalty tied to the price of gold1 that aligns with the 2008 Mining Code (that replaced the 1999 Mining Code) and the 2012 Mining Convention, and is comparable with other royalties in the region.

A renewed partnership approach for Tasiast Sud contemplates the Government receiving a 15% free carried interest in Tasiast Sud with an option to purchase an additional 10% participating interest in the project after additional feasibility work is completed.

The parties have also agreed to enhanced exploration programs at Tasiast Sud and Kinross-held concessions north of the current mining area, to the extent achievable in the current COVID-19 environment. The exploration program at the large, underexplored and prospective Tasiast Sud property is expected to focus on upgrading existing indicated resource estimates of 193 Au koz.2 and inferred resource estimates of 817 Au koz2 and to potentially enhance the probable reserve estimates of 144 Au koz.2

The Government will have the right to nominate two observers to the Board of Directors (Board) of the Kinross subsidiary operating the Tasiast mine and will also have a right to nominate one representative and one observer to the Board of the Kinross subsidiary that will operate Tasiast Sud. These changes are intended to enhance transparency and communication between Tasiast and the Government.

1 The fuel tax exemptions and updated royalty structure are effective July 1, 2020.

2 See Appendix with full assumptions related to Tasiast Suds mineral reserve and resource estimates.

J. Paul Rollinson, Kinross President and CEO, commented on the agreement: We are pleased to see further development of a positive foreign investment climate in Mauritania with this successful outcome of our discussions with the Government, along with the IFC-led Tasiast project financing signed in December 2019. This balanced agreement will deliver increased stability, position Tasiast for long-term success, and provide enhanced benefits to Mauritania and its people.

Mohamed Abdel Vetah, Mauritanian Minister of Petroleum, Mines and Energy, commented on the agreement: This agreement is a result of positive efforts between the Government of Mauritania and Kinross to amicably resolve our discussions. It also highlights our commitment to providing an attractive investment climate in the country and ensures that the Mauritanian people will receive the appropriate benefits from the Tasiast mine. Tasiast is an important contributor to Mauritania and we believe our new agreement will be a positive model for other foreign mining investors. We are pleased that our longstanding and important partnership with Kinross has been strengthened, and we welcome the continued investment in our country and contributions to its socio-economic development.

Updated royalty structure to align with current laws

The Company believes that voluntarily updating the royalty structure for Tasiast so that it aligns with Mauritanias current mining conventions and codes will strengthen the foundation for long-term stability and further align interests by ensuring the country receives an appropriate share of economic benefits from the Tasiast mine.

Gold price Percentage point increase

above the 3% 2006

Convention royalty Total Tasiast royalty

(including existing 3% royalty) Below $1,000/oz. 1.0 % 4.0 % $1,000  $1,199/oz. 1.5 % 4.5 % $1,200  $1,399/oz. 2.0 % 5.0 % $1,400  $1,599/oz. 2.5 % 5.5 % $1,600  $1,799/oz. 3.0 % 6.0 % $1,800/oz. and above 3.5 % 6.5 %

For more information on the agreement: https://www.kinross.com/files/doc_presentations/2020/06/Terms-Reached-with-the-Government-of-Mauritania.pdf

Generating value through responsible mining

From 2010 - 2019, Kinross has contributed approximately $3 billion to Mauritanias economy, supporting the countrys economic growth through taxes, procurement, community programs and wages. From 2013 - 2019, Kinross has also invested more than $30 million in training and capacity building as part of a long-term strategy to grow local content. In 2019, 95% of the employees of the mine were Mauritanian and the Company intends to increase the number of Mauritanians in management positions. Kinross continues to put a priority on using in-county suppliers, and in 2019, the Company conducted business with more than 235 Mauritanian suppliers.

Consistent with its approach across all operations, Kinross works closely with local communities near Tasiast to understand and support local development initiatives. Since 2010, the Company has spent more than $12 million on local community programs in areas ranging from health, animal husbandry, small businesses for womens groups, infrastructure, and renewable energy. Development indicators such as poverty, literacy, employment, quality of housing and access to basic services have all shown significant improvements in communities around the mine. Kinross will continue to work closely with communities and authorities to realize the positive development outcomes related to responsible mining.

About Kinross Gold Corporation

Kinross is a Canadian-based senior gold mining company with mines and projects in the United States, Brazil, Russia, Mauritania, Chile and Ghana. Kinross focus is on delivering value based on the core principles of operational excellence, balance sheet strength, disciplined growth and responsible mining. Kinross maintains listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange (symbol:K) and the New York Stock Exchange (symbol:KGC).

Media Contact

Louie Diaz

Senior Director, Corporate Communications

phone: 416-369-6469

louie.diaz@kinross.com

Investor Relations Contact

Tom Elliott

Senior Vice-President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development

phone: 416-365-3390

tom.elliott@kinross.com

Cautionary statement on forward-looking information

All statements, other than statements of historical fact, contained in this news release, including any information as to the future financial or operating performance of Kinross, constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of certain securities laws, including the provisions of the Securities Act (Ontario) and the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on the expectations, estimates and projections of management as of the date of this news release, unless otherwise stated. The words anticipate, believe, continue, expect, focus, forecast, intend, offer, option, outlook, potential, priority, will or variations of or similar such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results may, could, should or will be achieved, received or taken, or will occur or result and similar such expressions identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are, necessarily, based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kinross as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. The estimates and assumptions of Kinross contained in this news release, which may prove to be incorrect, include, but are not limited to: (i) that the parties will enter into definitive documentation in accordance with, and on the timeline contemplated by, the terms and conditions of the term sheet, on a basis consistent with our expectations and that the parties will perform their respective obligations thereunder on the timelines agreed; (ii) that the exploitation permit for Tasiast Sud will be issued on timelines consistent with our expectations; (iii) that the benefits of the contemplated arrangements will result in increased stability at the Companys operations in Mauritania; (iv) the accuracy of the mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates (including but not limited to ore tonnage and ore grade estimates); (v) the potential for long-term success at Tasiast; (vi) the terms and conditions of the existing mining convention being interpreted and applied in a manner consistent with its intent and our expectations and without material amendment or formal dispute (including without limitation the application of tax, customs and duties exemptions and royalties); (vii) the ability to conduct enhanced exploration at Tasiast Sud and other Kinross-held concessions; (viii) the effect of changes designed to enhance transparency in the relationship between Kinross and the Government; and (ix) that other disputes between Kinross and the Government will not arise relating to unresolved or other matters. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about managements expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking statements made in this news release are qualified by this cautionary statement and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators of Canada and the United States including, but not limited to, the cautionary statements made in the Risk Analysis section of our MD&A for the year ended December 31, 2019 and the Annual Information Form dated March 30, 2020. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect Kinross. Kinross disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law.

Other information

Where we say "we", "us", "our", the "Company", or "Kinross" in this news release, we mean Kinross Gold Corporation and/or one or more or all of its subsidiaries, as may be applicable.

Appendix: Tasiast Sud Mineral Reserve and Resource Estimates

Tonnes

(kt) Grade

(g/t) Ounces

(Au koz.) Probable Reserves 2,231 2.0 144 Indicated Resources 5,840 1.0 193 Inferred Resources 35,784 0.7 817

The mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates for Tasiast Sud do not contemplate the escalated royalty structure included in the term sheet signed with the Government of Mauritania.

Kinross Mineral Reserve and Resource Statements Notes

(1) Unless otherwise noted, the Companys mineral reserves are estimated using appropriate cut-off grades based on an assumed gold price of $1,200 per ounce. Mineral reserves are estimated using appropriate process recoveries, operating costs and mine plans that are unique to each property and include estimated allowances for dilution and mining recovery. Mineral reserve estimates are reported in contained units and are estimated based on the following foreign exchange rates: Mauritanian Ouguiya to $35

(2) Unless otherwise noted, the Companys mineral resources are estimated using appropriate cut-off grades based on a gold price of $1,400 per ounce. Foreign exchange rates for estimating mineral resources were the same as for mineral reserves.

(3) The Companys mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates as at December 31, 2019 are classified in accordance with the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) CIM Definition Standards - For Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves adopted by the CIM Council (as amended, the CIM Definition Standards) in accordance with the requirements of National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (NI 43-101). Mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates reflect the Company's reasonable expectation that all necessary permits and approvals will be obtained and maintained.

(4) Cautionary note to U.S. Investors concerning estimates of mineral reserves and mineral resources. These estimates have been prepared in accordance with the requirements of Canadian securities laws, which differ from the requirements of United States securities laws. The terms mineral reserve, proven mineral reserve, probable mineral reserve, mineral resource, measured mineral resource, indicated mineral resource and inferred mineral resource are Canadian mining terms as defined in accordance with NI 43-101 and the CIM Definition Standards. These definitions differ materially from the definitions in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) SEC Industry Guide 7 under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Under SEC Industry Guide 7, a final or bankable feasibility study is required to report mineral reserves, the three-year historical average price is used in any mineral reserve or cash flow analysis to designate mineral reserves and the primary environmental analysis or report must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. In addition, the terms mineral resource, measured mineral resource, indicated mineral resource and inferred mineral resource are defined in NI 43-101 and recognized by Canadian securities laws but are not defined terms under SEC Industry Guide 7 and are normally not permitted to be used in reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of mineral deposits in these categories will ever be upgraded to SEC Industry Guide 7 mineral reserves. Inferred mineral resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever by upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian securities laws, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, except in rare cases. U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource exists or is economically or legally mineable.

The SEC has adopted amendments to its disclosure rules to modernize the mineral property disclosure requirements for issuers whose securities are registered with the SEC under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act). These amendments became effective February 25, 2019 (the SEC Modernization Rules) and, following a two-year transition period, the SEC Modernization Rules will replace the historical property disclosure requirements for mining registrants that were included in SEC Industry Guide 7. Following the transition period, as a foreign private issuer that files its annual report on Form 40-F with the SEC pursuant to the multi-jurisdictional disclosure system, the Company is not required to provide disclosure on its mineral properties under the SEC Modernization Rules and will continue to provide disclosure under NI 43-101 and the CIM Definition Standards. If the Company ceases to be a foreign private issuer or lose its eligibility to file its annual report on Form 40-F pursuant to the multi-jurisdictional disclosure system, then the Company will be subject to the SEC Modernization Rules which differ from the requirements of NI 43-101 and the CIM Definition Standards. The SEC Modernization Rules include the adoption of terms describing mineral reserves and mineral resources that are substantially similar to the corresponding terms under the CIM Definition Standards. As a result of the adoption of the SEC Modernization Rules, the SEC now recognizes estimates of measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources. In addition, the SEC has amended its definitions of proven mineral reserves and probable mineral reserves to be substantially similar to the corresponding CIM Definitions. U.S. investors are cautioned that while the above terms are substantially similar to CIM Definitions, there are differences in the definitions under the SEC Modernization Rules and the CIM Definition Standards. Accordingly, there is no assurance any mineral reserves or mineral resources that the Company may report as proven mineral reserves, probable mineral reserves, measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources under NI 43-101 would be the same had the Company prepared the reserve or resource estimates under the standards adopted under the SEC Modernization Rules. U.S. investors are also cautioned that while the SEC will now recognize measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources, investors should not assume that any part or all of the mineralization in these categories will ever be converted into a higher category of mineral resources or into mineral reserves. Mineralization described using these terms has a greater amount of uncertainty as to its existence and feasibility than mineralization that has been characterized as reserves. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to assume that any measured mineral resources, indicated mineral resources, or inferred mineral resources that the Company reports are or will be economically or legally mineable. Further, inferred mineral resources have a greater amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. Therefore, U.S. investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of the inferred mineral resources exist. Under Canadian securities laws, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, except in rare cases.

For the above reasons, the mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates and related information in this presentation may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements under the United States federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.

(5) The Company's mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates were prepared under the supervision of and verified by Mr. John Sims, an officer of Kinross, who is a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101.

(6) The Companys normal data verification procedures have been used in collecting, compiling, interpreting and processing the data used to estimate mineral reserves and mineral resources. Independent data verification has not been performed.

(7) Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have to demonstrate economic viability. Mineral resources are subject to infill drilling, permitting, mine planning, mining dilution and recovery losses, among other things, to be converted into mineral reserves. Due to the uncertainty associated with inferred mineral resources, it cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to indicated or measured mineral resources, including as a result of continued exploration.

(8) The mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates for Tasiast Sud do not contemplate the escalated royalty structure contemplated by the term sheet signed with the Government of Mauritania.

Source: Kinross Gold Corporation
Wrinkles, furrows, spots: a person's aging process is accompanied by tell-tale signs on their face. Researchers from the Institute for Neural Computation at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (RUB) have developed an algorithm that interprets these features very reliably. It makes it possible to estimate the age and ethnicity of people so accurately that it catapulted RUB researchers to the top of the league table worldwide for a while. The RUB team published its report in the journal Machine Learning from May 2020.

The system has learned to estimate

"We're not quite sure what features our algorithm is looking for," says Professor Laurenz Wiskott from the Institute for Neural Computation. This is because the system has learned to assess faces. The successful algorithm developed by the Bochum-based researchers is a hierarchical neural network with eleven levels. As input data, the researchers fed it with several thousand photos of faces of different ages. The age was known in each case. "Traditionally, the images are the input data and the correct age is the target fed into the system, which then tries to optimise the intermediate steps to assess the required age," explains lead author Alberto Escalante.

However, the researchers from Bochum chose a different approach. They input the many photos of faces sorted by age. The system then ignores the features that vary from one picture to the next and takes solely those features into consideration that change slowly. "Think of it as a film compiled of thousands of photos of faces," explains Laurenz Wiskott. "The system fades out all features that keep changing from one face to the next, such as eye colour, the size of the mouth, the length of the nose. Rather, it focuses on features that slowly change across all faces." For example, the number of wrinkles slowly but steadily increases in all faces. When estimating the age of the people pictured in the photos, the algorithm is only just under three and a half years off on average. This means that it outperforms even humans, who are real experts in face recognition and interpretation.

The system also recognises ethnic origins

The slowness principle also enabled it to reliably identify ethnic origin. The images were presented to the system sorted not only by age, but also by ethnicity. Accordingly, the features characteristic of an ethnic group didn't change quickly from image to image; rather, they changed slowly, albeit by leaps and bounds. The algorithm estimated the correct ethnic origin of the people in the photos with a probability of over 99 percent, even though the average brightness of the images was standardised and, consequently, skin colour wasn't a significant marker for recognition.

###

Funding

Alberto Escalante was funded through a joint grant by the German Academic Exchange Service and the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico.

Original publication

Alberto N. Escalante, Laurenz Wiskott: Improved graph-based SFA: information preservation complements the slowness principle, in: Machine Learning, 2020, DOI: 10.1007/s10994-019-05860-9

Press contact

Prof. Dr. Laurenz Wiskott

Neural Computation Institute

Ruhr-Universitat Bochum

Germany

Phone: +49 234 32 27997

Email: laurenz.wiskott@rub.de
Ondo State Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi, may soon join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to run for governor on the partys platform.

Leaders of the party in the state have listed conditions, the deputy governor must fulfill before he is allowed to run on their platform.

According to the party leaders, Ajayi must agree to serve one term and hand over to a core PDP loyalist.

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However, some core members of the opposition party who have purchased the nomination and expression of interest forms, have vowed never to step down for Ajayi, the Nation reports.

According to reports, the deputy and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu have since parted ways politically because of Ajayis governorship ambition.

The newspaper further reports that a PDP chieftain, who pleaded anonymity, said Ajayi is expected to formally announce his defection this week and will not resign as deputy governor.

Southwest National Vice Chairman of the PDP, Eddy Olafeso has revealed that none of the aspirants were prepared to step down for the deputy governor.

Read Also: Ondo Gov, Akeredolu Sacks Aide For Abandoning Office, Responsibilities

I can confirm to you that as at today, only six people have collected the PDP governorship form for the election. Erewa, Okunomo, Ayorinde, Jegede, Eddy and Oba Akingboye.

In the tradition of PDP, it is only the delegates who determine who becomes their governor. You can check the interview of our national chairman of yesterday.

He has already established that while we encourage people to join us, due process is constantly followed in whatever you want to become in the party.

The NWC has not taken any decision. People can participate, but nobody is stepping down for anybody. The decision of who becomes the governor is taken by the people.
The Supreme Court's ruling on Monday was a triumph for the rule of law. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

The Supreme Courts ruling on Monday that federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is not only a victory for civil rights, but also for the rule of law. For years, some conservative justices on the court have put conservative ideology ahead of established principles of judicial decision-making. But the decision to protect gay, lesbian and transgender individuals from discrimination was the opposite: The six justices in the majority clearly followed the law.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex or religion. The issue before the court was whether the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sex also forbids discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. There were three cases before the court. Two involved men who were fired from their jobs when their employers learned that they were gay. The third involved a transgender woman, Aimee Stevens, who was fired from her position at a funeral home because of her gender identity.

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that these firings were because of sex. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justice Gorsuch had professed, even before going on the court, that judges should focus on the plain language of a statute, and that is exactly what he did in his opinion for the court.

A simple example illustrates why Gorsuch and the court were correct. Imagine an employee named Chris who never has met the employer. Chris and the employer had communicated by text and email, but never met in person or talked by phone. Chris often has referred to a husband in discussing evening or weekend plans. When Chris and the employer meet, the employer is surprised that Chris is male. The employer fires Chris, saying that he does not want to employ gay people. If Chris were female, Chris would still have the job. That, by definition, is employment discrimination because of sex.

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Likewise, Justice Gorsuch said that Aimee Stevens would have continued to have the position as a funeral director at Harris Funeral Homes if Stevens were male, but lost the job for being female. That, too, is employment discrimination because of sex.

Conservative justices, starting with Justice Antonin Scalia, have urged following the plain language of statutes and not the legislative history behind them. These justices have long said that the statute that was adopted has to speak for itself, and that the court shouldnt be trying to infer legislative intent. I often have criticized conservative justices for abandoning this approach when it serves their ideological agenda, as in the many cases where the court has required compulsory arbitration of consumer and employee disputes, notwithstanding federal law to the contrary.

But to their great credit, Justice Gorsuch and Chief Justice Roberts joined the liberal justices in following the plain language of Title VII. Justice Alito in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a separate dissent, focused on how Congress in 1964 did not intend to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That is unquestionably right, since those issues werent as much on the public mind in 1964. But for those justices who profess to interpret statutes based on their plain meaning  and Justices Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh often do  that should be irrelevant.

The decision is hugely important in protecting gay, lesbian and transgender individuals from discrimination in workplaces across the country. But its significance is broader than that. It should be understood to say that all federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex also outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

I would like to think that the courts denial of review this morning of a challenge to Californias sanctuary law also reflects conservative justices following precedent rather than ideology, but that is less clear since the justices dont have to explain their reasoning when they opt not to review a case. In the case, the United States challenged a California law prohibiting state officials from informing federal immigration officials when undocumented immigrants are to be released from state custody, and it puts some restrictions on transfers of immigrants in state custody to federal immigration authorities. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit unanimously upheld that California statute, following long-standing precedent that the federal government cannot compel states to enforce federal mandates.

Here, too, the law is clear and the Supreme Court denying review, over the objections of Justices Thomas and Alito, is a good sign. However, a denial of review by the Supreme Court is not a decision on the merits. It means that the 9th Circuits decision stands and the California law remains in effect. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit came to the opposite conclusion and the Supreme Court could grant review in that case and still strike down laws like the one in California.

Still, today we should celebrate a huge advance, both for civil rights and for the triumph for the rule of law.

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a contributing writer to Opinion.
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(Kitco News) - African Gold Group (CVE:AGG) announced Monday that Danny Callow was appointed as president and CEO. Scott Eldridge will be non-executive chairman of the board.

"We are very pleased to be announcing the restructuring of AGG at a time when we are ready to move to the construction phase of our flagship Kobada Gold Project", commented Stan Bharti, outgoing Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AGG. "We are positioning AGG to be the next multi-asset gold producer in Africa, and have the benefit of this new Board's vast experience to take this Company into production. We now have a top-class operating team led by Danny Callow who has built and operated a number of mines in Africa over the past 28 years, most recently running Glencore's African Copper and Cobalt division, and who has fast-tracked Kobada into being construction ready in a few short months."

The company also proposed a name change from African Gold Group to Avion2 Gold Inc. Name change is subject to shareholder approval.

The company's Kobada project is in Mali and has a resource base of over 2.2 Moz of gold.
The man accused in a Concord Township double homicide is scheduled to appear in Lake County Common Pleas Court June 18 for a pretrial hearing.

The hearing will be Blake Sargis first court appearance since he was arraigned in April on an 18-count indictment.

Sargi, 27, of Concord Township is accused in the Jan. 3 shooting deaths of Euclid residents Heavenly Goddess Murphy-Jackson, 38, and William Larondez Jackson Jr., 39.

A Lake County grand jury in April indicted Sargi on four counts of aggravated murder and four counts of murder. All eight of those charges are unclassified felonies. He was charged with four counts of first-degree felony aggravated robbery, four counts of second-degree felony robbery, and two counts of fourth-degree felony aggravated drug trafficking.

According to the indictment, Sargi is accused of drug trafficking between Oct. 1, 2019, and Jan. 4, which was the date of his arrest. All counts but the drug trafficking charges carry firearm specifications that have three-year mandatory prison terms if he is found guilty.

Sargi entered a not guilty plea at his April 14 arraignment hearing, according to court records.

Lake County Sheriff Frank Leonbruno said at a Jan. 6 news conference that dispatchers received a call shortly after 11 p.m., Jan. 3, from Sargis stepmother. She said her stepson had shot and killed two people. She said the victims were in a white vehicle parked on Andrea Drive in Concord Township.

Leonbruno said at the news conference that deputies were immediately dispatched. Due to the nature of the call and threat of armed violence, the Lake County Sheriffs Office SWAT team was dispatched.

When deputies arrived in the 7500 block of Andrea Drive they found the two victims inside of a 2019 White GMC Yukon. Leonbruno said both appeared to have been shot in the head and were dead. They were in the front drivers side and front passenger seat of the vehicle.

Deputies secured that scene; detectives and the Lake County coroner were called.

Other deputies responded to the Oakridge Drive home where Sargi lives with his mother. Leonbruno said the father came out of the home and told authorities the mother was trying to convince Sargi to come out of the house and she feared what would happen to him.

After a SWAT negotiation, Sargi gave himself up to law enforcement and was arrested.

Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge Pat Condon has been assigned the case. A jury trial date is scheduled for Aug. 24, according to court records.

Sargi has been out on bond since a family member posted a $1 million cashiers check Jan. 7. Painesville Municipal Court Judge Paul R. Malchesky set a $10 million bond with a 10 percent cash/surety option at Sargis initial Jan. 6 arraignment hearing.

Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. ODonnell continued Sargis bond at the April 14 arraignment hearing.

Conditions of Sargis bond include electronic monitored house arrest with GPS monitoring, no use of drugs or alcohol, no contact with the victims families or witnesses, and no possession or direct control of any firearm or other deadly weapon.
People marched in Palmdale, California, to demand an investigation into the death of 24-year-old Robert Fuller, who was found hanging from a tree early Wednesday near City Hall: Josie Huang/KPCC/LAist via AP

Investigators in California are taking another look at the death of a black man found hanging from a tree in Los Angeles County after an outcry from his family.

An early report labelled the death as a suicide, but the family disagree, saying he was not suicidal, and have called for an independent investigation and autopsy.

The body of 24-year-old Robert Fuller was discovered in Poncitlan Square near Palmdale City Hall on 10 June. No note was found at the scene, but the Sheriff's department was quick to rule the death as a suicide, while also acknowledging its homicide team was still investigating.

Adding further confusion was a press release that linked the death to Covid-19-related depression, but with no clear evidence to back up that assumption.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office performed an autopsy on Friday, but has deferred announcing the cause of death while more information is gathered. This could include both test results or witness statements.

In Palmdale on Saturday, hundreds of protesters, including Mr Fullers sisters, marched from the park near city hall to the sheriffs station. Many carried signs that read, Justice for Robert Fuller.

His sister Diamond Alexandria, speaking at the march, said: "We keep hearing one thing and then another. We just want to know the truth."

Meanwhile, an online petition demanding an investigation collected more than 200,000 signatures. Kim Kardashian West and Viola Davis are among the celebrities calling for a thorough and proper investigation into Mr Fuller's death.

The city has issued a statement supporting an independent inquiry, and three elected officials  county Supervisor Kathryn Barger, state Senator Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita, and Assemblyman Tom Lackey of Palmdale  urged California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the probe.

Robert Fuller was found dead June 10, 2020, hanging from a tree outside City Hall Palmdale. Sign this petition to demand for a thorough and proper investigation #JusticeforRobertFuller https://t.co/czUqCrmE8m  Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2020

The city of Palmdale is joining the family and the community's call for justice, and we do support a full investigation into his death, said Palmdale Public Information Officer John Mlynar, NBC News reports. We will settle for nothing less than a thorough accounting of this matter.

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The city has already reached out to Mr Fuller's family, offering help and support, and will do everything possible to assist Mr Fuller's family during this difficult time as a complete vetting of his death is investigated, Mr Mlynar said. The city joined the Fuller family in the call for an independent investigation and autopsy, he added.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva will hold an online town hall on Monday to address the death following large protests over the weekend.

Angel Fuller, centre, and Diamond Alexandria, right, Robert Fuller's sisters, attended a rally in the Palmdale park where the body of Mr Fuller was found hanging from a tree on 10 June. (Francisco Lozano via AP)

Disturbingly, this is the second time the body of a black man has been found hanging from a tree in Southern California in recent weeks.

Mr Fullers case brought more attention to a case on 31 May in Victorville, a desert city approximately 45 miles east of Palmdale.

The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department said foul play was not suspected in the death of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch. His family have said they were concerned it will be ruled a suicide to avoid further media attention and scrutiny.

He didn't seem to be depressed to anyone who truly knew him, Mr Harsch's family told reporters. Everyone who knew our brother was shocked to hear that he allegedly hung himself and don't believe it to be true. The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible.

The deaths of the two men come amid nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police.

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With festival called off, apple promotions will be reshaped

Too close for covid: The Apple Festival board decided to call off the event and promote apple growers in other ways.

The N.C. Apple Festival, another entertainment victim of the coronavirus, wont take place downtown but instead will involve a variety of promotions to boost the apple industry.

Due to our street layout we are not able to control the number of attendees, which would allow for social distancing, Festival Director David Nicholson said in a news release. This decision was made after speaking with local leaders in government and in the health field. We believe that in the best interest of the future of the festival, the apple industry and our community not to hold these events.

What Labor Day weekend looks like now is in the Hendersonville City Councils court more than the Apple Festival boards. Although Main Street wont be closed for the Apple Festival, that doesnt prevent the City Council from having one of their Open Streets weekends, City Manager John Connet said. Thatll be a discussion of what do we do Labor Day weekend.

Among the ideas are holding large sidewalk sales like the ones the Apple Festival featured decades ago, promoting roadside apple stands and U-pick orchards around the county and inviting growers to set up at the citys new Saturday morning farmers market at the railroad depot on Maple Street.

The Apple Festivals core mission of promoting the apple industry and pushing the sale of fresh apples will go on.

We are now reaching out to the nonprofits and downtown merchants to see what their plans for their events are and well be advertising the apple growers, Nicholson said. Were still hoping people will come (to Henderson County) and buy apples.

Mike Stepp, owner of the Stepps Hillcrest Orchard and the reigning Apple Farmer of the Year, said the family is adapting to the coronavirus climate as the selling season nears.

First of all, let me say we fully support the committee and all the work theyve done, he said. We kind of feel like they didnt have a choice and its the wisest thing they couldve done.

Stepp and his family operate a busy farm with an on-site bakery, U-pick orchard and the sale of apples, pumpkins, jams and other products. Family members are preparing now for changes in order to carry on their retail business under public health guidelines.

We plan to be open, he said. Were blessed to have 100 acres we can work with and weve got a lot of open space. We know weve got to tweak some things. Were going to do everything just like a normal year.

Occupying a prime location near the Historic Courthouse, the Hillcrest Orchard apple stand records a robust four days of sales of apples and pastries during the Apple Festival. Stepps daughter, Danielle, leads the team of family farmhands that sells at the festival.

She takes care of all that, Stepp said. That is a very big part of our farm revenue but again its just something youve got to work with. We trust the Lord to take care of us and do what we need to do. It may be a little bit of a tweaking and a challenge, but well get through.

As for the crop, Stepp said his orchard in Edneyville had survived frosts in April and May and dodged damage from a hailstorm on May 31.

I was very thankful and sort of amazed in one way that I didnt see any more damage than we did, he said. For two nights in May, lows reached 28 in the orchard but Stepp said it didnt stay cold for too long. Still, he expects to see frost ring, scarring or splitting in some apples hurt by the cold snap.

The decision to call off the traditional festival, Nicholson said, came after months of discussion of alternative ways to hold the festival, which packs tens of thousands of people onto Main Street for four days of music, food, vendors, kiddie rides and other attractions and culminates with the King Apple Parade on Labor Day.

We came up with a plan B but at the end of the day we cant control the crowd, Nicholson said. There are 19 ways to enter this festival, so you cant control it. If it were a ticketed event we could control the crowd.

The history of the North Carolina Apple Festival goes back many years prior to the Street Fair, he added, and some of those early features may happen this year.

We are proud to have a great relationship with our local apple industry, he said. We still plan on encouraging persons to support our apple growers. We will be using our website, social media and advertisements throughout our area to encourage the purchase of North Carolina apples this fall.
New Delhi:

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has severely condemned the terrorist attack at the army base camp in Uri, South Kashmir that unfolded in the early hours of the day. The Prime Minister tweeted that those behind the gruesome attack shall not be spared and be given a befitting reply.



The PM hailed the supreme sacrifices made by the brave soldiers of the Indian army who were killed during the terrorist encounter. He said that the entire nation shall always remember the martyrs and be grateful for their supreme sacrifices made in defending the sovereign and territorial integrity of our nation .



Modi tweeted that has been apprised of the situation by both the Home and Defence Minister. The PM also said that the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar shall go down to Kashmir to take stock of the situation on ground.

The Indian government has strongly condemned the brutal terror attack on an army base at Uri which has inflicted heavy casualties on the Indian Army. As per reports released by the army earlier in the day, 17 soldiers of the army were killed while 20 got injured in an encounter where four terrorists stormed into a military base in Uri at around 0400 hours.

Immediately after the militants entered the camp, explosions and exchange of heavy fire were heard from inside, official sources said. All the four terrorists have been nuetralized by the army.

This attack comes at a time when the Kashmir Valley has been brimming with unrest for more than two months ever since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8 in which nearly 80 people have lost their lives so far.

We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016

Have spoken to HM & RM on the situation. RM will go to J&K himself to take stock of the situation.

 Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 18, 2016





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A Bristol music venue named after Edward Colston has removed its signage from the building after the slave trader became a target of the Black Lives Matter protests.

Workmen were this morning pictured drilling out the lettering at Colston Hall ahead of a total rebrand this autumn to distance themselves from the 'divisive' figure.

Bosses today insisted they will not expunge Colston's namesake from the hall's history, but said: 'We cannot continue to be a monument to his memory.'

Colston Hall, which has been played by legends including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, announced the intention to change name in 2017 as part of a 49million revamp.

But fierce pressure from anti-racism campaigners to wipe out visible monuments of the 17th Century merchant from the city appears to have accelerated the process.

Workmen were this morning pictured drilling out the lettering at Colston Hall ahead of a total rebrand this autumn to distance themselves from the 'divisive' figure

Contractors use an aerial platform outside Bristol music venue Colston Hall to remove the name of 17th century merchant Edward Colston

One hardhat-wearing contractor works on removing the metal lettering running down the side of the hall

A bronze statue to Colston, a trader with the Royal African Company who shipped thousands of enslaved Africans to the Americas, was toppled by BLM activists and thrown in the river earlier this month

A worker scrubs over the faint outline of Colston stickering at the front entrance of Colston Hall

A bronze statue to Colston, a trader with the Royal African Company who shipped thousands of enslaved Africans to the Americas, was toppled by BLM activists and thrown in the river earlier this month.

But his philanthropy to projects in Bristol continues to memorialise him in street names, monuments and buildings - some of which are on a hit-list drawn up by anti-racism campaigners.

Colston Hall is one of the sites listed on website Topple The Racists, along with Colston Tower and Colston Girls School, which have also bowed to the backlash and promised a renaming and removal of a statue, respectively.

The school has also launched a six-week consultation into changing its name, which the principal acknowledged 'does not always sit comfortably'.

While Colston Hall's removal of the lettering was welcomed by some, others asked why the company was waiting until the autumn to officially change the name - after originally announcing the switch in 2017.

The Hall replied it had been force to pause the name change action while it concentrated on a shake-up to mitigate the economic fallout coronavirus.

Colston Hall has not yet decided on a new name and is consulting with communities across Bristol.

Colston Hall's 2,075-capacity auditorium has been mothballed since 2018 for the multi-million pound revamp.

Bosses today insisted they will not expunge Colston's namesake from the hall's history, but said: 'We cannot continue to be a monument to his memory'

The venue said the move was 'just one step on our road to announcing a new name for the venue in autumn 2020'

Colston Hall, which has been played by legends including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, announced the name change in 2017 as part of a 49million revamp

Colston Girls School moots name change Colston Girls School is launching a consultation into changing its name, which its principal acknowledged does 'not always sit comfortably'. Head Kerry McCullagh said: 'Following the protests in Bristol last Sunday, many of our students, both past and present, have contacted the school to share their feelings, including about the name Colston's Girls' School, which some students wish to keep and others wish to change. She added: 'A six-week consultation will begin in September 2020 when we hope to be able to reopen the school to all year groups and facilitate the necessary opportunities for our students to debate and discuss the issue with their peers in person.' Advertisement

In a statement, Colston Hall said today: 'Today Bristol Music Trust took down the Colston Hall lettering from outside of the building.

'This is just one step on our road to announcing a new name for the venue in Autumn 2020.

'We have taken this action as a symbolic moment and a public demonstration of the commitment we made three years ago to change our name.

'The name Colston has been divisive for many years and we have personally experienced strong views from both sides since our declaration in 2017 that we would be changing.

'We have worked hard since then to understand the issues involved and consult widely to find a new name.

'We believe we are here to share the unity and joy that music brings us. The hall was built 150 years after Colston's death and not founded with any of his money. We cannot continue to be a monument to his memory.

'We have no wish to forget the past, but when we re-open our redeveloped building as one of the best arts and educational venues in the country, it must be as a place that is welcoming to everyone.

'There is more to be done before we can announce our new name, and many of the actions that will follow won't be so public. But today marks a big step on our journey and we are excited and hopeful as we look to our future.'

Before: Fierce pressure from anti-racism campaigners to wipe out visible monuments of the 17th Century merchant from the city appears to have accelerated the rebrand

Ugly scenes were witnessed in London this weekend as pro-statue activists - including supporters of the far-right - with BLM campaigners.

Across the country, may of the public are resisting the wave of statue removals and have sought to defend them.

Boris Johnson has announced he intends to lead a commission on race and ethnic disparities to look at all aspects of racial discrimination.

Shadow justice secretary David Lammy accused the Government of writing its commission on race and ethnic disparities 'on the back of a fag packet' to 'assuage the Black Lives Matter protest'.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'You can understand why it feels like, yet again in the UK, we want figures, data - but we don't want action.

'Black people aren't playing victim, as Boris indicates, they are protesting precisely because the time for review is over and the time for action is now.'
Beijing reports 51 virus cases

Global Times

By Liu Caiyu, Liu Xuanzun and Wang Qi Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/14 23:28:40

Genome sequencing indicates imported source: municipal CDC

Beijing reacted swiftly after a total of 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported as of Sunday, taking measures including expanding nucleic acid testing, strengthening management of residential communities in seriously affected districts and starting epidemiological investigations after a cluster of cases was uncovered at the city's largest wholesale food market.

The sudden spike in the capital city came after China experienced a short period of calm and it has triggered mounting concerns over a possible second wave of the virus.

Beijing reported eight new confirmed cases as of press time on Sunday to bring a total of 51. Many had direct or indirect contacts with Xinfadi market in the capital's Fengtai district, according to a press conference on Sunday.

Since Friday, health authorities in Beijing acted quickly in response to the emergency and are working against the clock to collect information of anyone in the city who had been to the Xinfadi market or had any contacts with it since from May 30. Anyone who confirmed contact must undergo a nucleic acid test.

Some experts said the strain of the virus detected at Xinfadi might originate from imported cases and they called for more detailed epidemiological investigations to find the source or origin of the new strain.

Fengtai district in southern Beijing has declared a state of "wartime management." The district intends to test all 46,000 residents living in communities in the vicinity of Xinfadi, Zhang Jie, deputy district head of Fengtai, said at a press conference on Sunday.

Xinfadi market is closed and 11 residential communities are under lockdown. Three schools and six kindergartens nearby have been suspended, Chu Junwei, head of Fengtai district, told an early press conference on the same day.

Not a second Wuhan

An official in charge of community work in a sub-district of Fengtai, who asked for anonymity, told the Global Times on Sunday that residential communities in her sub-district have resumed temperature registration, an epidemic control and prevention measure that had been lifted on June 6, when Beijing lowered its COVID-19 response to Level III. More community workers have been deployed to residential community entrances once again to make sure everyone registers.

The other focus is to find those who have recently been to the market. The sub-district is using big data to search for these people, the official said.

After screening, those believed to be at risk of infection will be tested while quarantining at home, the official said.

Aside from Fengtai, many sub-districts in Beijing have upgraded their COVID-19 risk level to Level II from Level III since Saturday. The whole city has increased its guard against the virus again - people who were inclined to take off their masks due to the hot weather are now taking full precautions again. In supermarkets and restaurants, people are conscious of keeping a certain social distance, having their temperature taken before entering and deliberately avoiding gatherings.

Unlike the previous situation when a whole city would upgrade the risk level when a case was spotted, which may have huge impact on people's daily lives, the current risk alert applies to related communities, said Zeng Guang, a chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He noted that the move would help the authorities to curb the virus spread more precisely.

The sudden spike in Beijing has caught the national attention with many worried that a second wave of the coronavirus might have begun.

Some public health experts reached by the Global Times warned that considering the high flows of people at Xinfadi market and the number of close contacts with confirmed cases, slight omissions of screening may increase the risk of virus spreading, meaning that Beijing is facing an arduous mission in tracking all of the contacts.

But it is still too early to judge the scale of the outbreak when the source of infections remains unknown. The number of confirmed cases over the next two weeks will be a decisive indicator for whether the regional COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing will trigger a second wave, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Wang said that "if the number of new cases confirmed daily show an upward trend within the average incubation period of virus, that is 7 days, Beijing should consider imposing stronger anti-epidemic measures, so new wave of the outbreak could be properly controlled."

Different from the outbreak in Wuhan, the cluster of infections in Beijing comes at a time when China has gained rich experience in coping with COVID-19 - first in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, and second in Shulan, Northeast China's Jilin Province. Therefore a similar scale of lockdown will not be seen in Beijing, Wang noted.

Zeng from CDC agreed that Beijing will not become a second Wuhan, with no need to shut down the city, and the virus will not spread to other places across the country. The epidemic in Beijing is more of a short-term outbreak. The number of cases is likely to increase for a few days, but then it will be brought under control, the senior epidemiologist said.

As long as close contacts of confirmed cases and people who had contact with the wholesale market are tracked, the safety of Beijing can be ensured, Wang said.

To expand the scope of COVID-19 tests, Beijing designated 98 institutions and hospitals for groups or individuals to undergo testing. The daily maximum testing capacity is more than 90,000.

Long lines of local residents were seen Sunday in front of Beijing You'an Hospital near Xinfadi market, waiting to be tested.

"We started the nucleic acid testing service yesterday with 500 people per day at 7 am," a member of staff from the hospital told the Global Times. People need to present their ID card and pay 230 yuan to get tested, and the results will be available after 24 hours, she said.

Take guard again

After the novel coronavirus was reportedly detected on a chopping board used by a seller to process imported salmon at Xinfadi, the market as well as the majority of Beijing residents have reacted swiftly regarding the safety of salmon and the source of infection.

Yang Peng from Beijing Disease Control and Prevention Center was quoted by China Central Television (CCTV) on Sunday as saying that the investigation into the exact source of the virus at Xinfadi is still underway.

"Through genome sequencing, [we found] the strain of virus came from Europe and is initially related to imported cases," Yang told CCTV.

Yang said that the source of the virus and how it spread is not yet known.

Ever since Xinfadi's closure, a large number of vendors flooded into other smaller wholesale markets like Dayanglu in the southeast of Beijing's Chaoyang district, resulting in a situation where demand exceeds supply.

One vegetable seller surnamed Yu said that Dayanglu market has tightened the management of visiting sellers, including temperature monitoring, regular disinfections, checking health QR codes and ID cards and checking registration information. "It's just like when we were at the highest alert level The prices of vegetables and meat are rising, but we have enough supplies to keep up," she said.

Compared with Saturday when a large number of people rushed to markets to buy and stock up on food, there were significantly fewer people in the markets on Sunday.

A seafood seller surnamed Zhang in a wet market in Chaoyang told the Global Times on Sunday that market management had arranged for everyone to be tested the day before at a local hospital, which had eased their nerves.

Zhang said that even though she does not sell salmon, her chopping board and other equipment were tested and no trace of coronavirus was found.

Although experts said that fish are an unlikely source of the virus, on Saturday, supermarkets and restaurants stopped offering salmon.

Zeng revealed that preliminary results from the virus gene sequencing show that the strain in Beijing this time does not resemble the type widely circulating in China.

Two samples have already been tested, and more tests are needed to determine where the epidemic is headed, he noted.

In an interview with the Global Times on Sunday, Chen Xi, an associate professor of public health at Yale University, suggested making a comparison of types of viral gene sequencing from different countries to determine whether the virus detected in Beijing comes from the same countries as the salmon was imported from.

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aimee stephens

My name is Aimee Stephens. Im 58 years old, and I live in Redford, Mich.

michael barbaro

Aimee, I wonder if you could read from the letter that you handed your boss.

aimee stephens

Sure. Dear friends and co-workers. I have known many of you for some time now, and I count you all as my friends. What I must tell you is very difficult for me and is taking all the courage I can muster. I am writing this both to inform you of a significant change in my life and to ask for your patience, understanding, and support, which I would treasure greatly. I have a gender identity disorder that I have struggled with my entire life. I have felt imprisoned in a body that does not match my mind, and this has caused me great despair and loneliness. With the support of my loving wife, I have decided to become the person that my mind already is. At the end of my vacation, on Aug. 26, 2013, I will return to work as my true self, Aimee Australia Stephens, in appropriate business attire. I realize that some of you may have trouble understanding this. In truth, I have had to live with it every day of my life, and even I do not fully understand it myself. It is my wish that I can continue my work at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes doing what I have always done, which is my best.

[music]

aimee stephens

I gave it to the boss. And then two weeks later, he came back with his own letter, which was my letter of dismissal. Basically, his letter to me was that, your services are no longer needed. This is what were offering. You have 21 days to make up your mind. But if you accept severance package, you will have to agree to keep your mouth shut and not ever talk about this to anyone. And I didnt think I could live with that the rest of my life. At that point, I knew I had to do something. After all, this was not only happening to me, but to thousands of others. And the only thing I knew to do was basically to take it to court. Thats what I did.

[music]

[crowd chanting]

archived recording Were coming on the air because of a major civil rights decision out of the United States Supreme Court.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

archived recording The decision now is clear from the Supreme Court 

michael barbaro

Today 

archived recording  they have issued a ruling that now bans discrimination by employers against transgender individuals and gay individuals. crowd chanting Trans lives matter! Trans lives matter! Trans lives matter!

michael barbaro

Adam Liptak on the surprise majority that decided the case. Its Tuesday, June 16. Adam, tell us about this ruling on Monday.

adam liptak

The Supreme Court issued a huge ruling, a very consequential ruling. It said that all across the nation, its no longer permissible for employers to fire people simply for being gay or transgender. Now, you might think thats already the state of the world. But in 27 states, theres no federal protection for gay and transgender workers. Gay people have a constitutional right to get married. They have since 2015. They can get married on a Monday morning, and when their employer found out about it Monday afternoon, they could be fired without consequence, simply for being gay. Until Mondays ruling from the Supreme Court.

michael barbaro

So in the national debate over the rights for gay and transgender people, this was a kind of untouched area  employment.

adam liptak

Right, its sort of surprising. I mean, most people I think, think its unlawful to discriminate against them for being gay or transgender. But until this Supreme Court ruling on Monday, people were without protection in about half the nation.

michael barbaro

And Adam, remind us of the specific cases that are involved in this ruling. I know weve talked about them in the past on the show.

adam liptak

Yeah, so there are actually three separate cases, two of them involving gay men, one involving a transgender woman. The cases involving gay men were a government worker in Georgia and a skydiving instructor, both of whom alleged in their lawsuits that theyd been fired for being gay. And the third was a transgender woman named Aimee Stephens, who, Michael, your listeners may remember, because 

michael barbaro

Right.

adam liptak

 you had a conversation with her and she described how, when she announced she was going to assume the gender identity that she believed was hers, the reaction of the funeral home for whom she worked was to fire her.

michael barbaro

Right, this letter that she had spent years composing in her head and on paper that told her friends and her colleagues and her boss who she was, was actually what ended up getting her fired.

adam liptak

Thats right.

michael barbaro

And, Adam, what was the central legal question posed in these three different cases?

adam liptak

The question in the case is whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  a landmark piece of civil rights legislation which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, and sex  applies to sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. And drilling down just a little bit more, the key question is whether the phrase discrimination because of sex covers sexual orientation and gender identity.

michael barbaro

Right, and as I recall from talking about these oral arguments with you many months ago, the case very much rested, not just on what the entire court thought of the phrase because of sex and what it meant, but specifically what the conservative justices on the court, who are now in the majority  what they thought that that phrase meant.

adam liptak

Thats right. I mean, you have a court where the four more liberal votes are pretty much locked in. You know what theyre going to do, and they have to pick up a conservative vote. And the question with this court was, the conservative vote they would ordinarily be sure of picking up was that of Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote all four of the major gay rights decisions before this one. But he retired in 2018, replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And so the court has a five justice conservative majority. And for the liberals to win, theyd have to pick off at least one of them.

michael barbaro

And it sounds like they did that.

adam liptak

Oh, yeah, in fact they got two, Justice Gorsuch, President Trumps first appointee, and they also picked up Chief Justice John G. Roberts. So you got a 6-3 decision in the end. And, Michael, just to put that in context, this is a very conservative court. This is a court that gay rights advocates were terrified of. So to get a 6-3 victory from this court on a consequential, stunning, vastly important decision is really something.

michael barbaro

So lets talk about these two conservative justices who sided with the liberal justices in this case.

adam liptak

Well, the key justice is Justice Gorsuch. He writes the majority opinion. Hes the only one whose language we have in front of us and whose reasoning we know for certain. And he says it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employers mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague.

michael barbaro

So Gorsuch is arguing, you cant divorce discrimination based on sexual identity, sexual orientation, from gender, and perhaps cultural expectations of gender.

adam liptak

Thats right. He says, listen, it may not be the only factor, but its a factor and thats good enough for this law.

michael barbaro

Right, and therefore, by his logic, that word, that phrase, because of sex in 1964, clearly applies to gay and transgender people today.

adam liptak

Exactly right.

michael barbaro

And so what explanation do the other conservative justices who did not join Gorsuch in the majority give for breaking with him, and with Roberts, if Gorsuch and Roberts found a pretty conservative justification for extending these rights to gay and transgender people?

adam liptak

So there are two separate dissents, but the theme that runs through both of them, Michael, is that its just not a natural way to read this set of words. That in 1964, nobody thought that they were prohibiting discrimination against gay people and transgender people. And Justice Kavanaugh in his dissent says, even today, when you ask people what because of sex means to them, they will not typically say oh, that means because of sexual orientation, because of gender identity. Then Alito and Thomas, but not Kavanaugh, go on to talk about what they view as the very pernicious consequences of the majority decision, which they say will have an impact on restrooms and locker rooms and college sports and maybe professional sports and religious employers and freedom of speech. Justice Alito even says it might prohibit people from using anything other than the preferred pronouns of the people to whom they talk.

michael barbaro

Right, but of course in the end, those three justices were outvoted. And two of their conservative allies went in the other direction. And I have to say, and I dont know if this is the case for you, it seems surprising that the majority opinion in this landmark gay and transgender rights case was written by a conservative member of the court.

adam liptak

Oh, yeah. No, I think its a big surprise to me, big surprise to gay rights advocates, big surprise to the L.G.B.T. community. I will say this, Michael, that if youd asked me in September what the outcome of this case was going to be, I would have said its classic 5-4, conservatives against liberals.

michael barbaro

You said that on our show. You said this was 

adam liptak

Right, but once it was argued, once we saw Gorsuch struggling with this textual question at the argument in September, I started to think that there was a live possibility it would be 5-4, the liberals plus Gorsuch. And I guess the chief justice came along for the ride.

michael barbaro

But that makes me wonder, does a ruling like this, and the composition of the majority, does that make you conclude that ultimately, we dont really know this relatively new Supreme Court, this conservative majority court, as well as perhaps, everyone thinks that they do?

adam liptak

Thats a really important point. People on the left are very unhappy that President Trump got to appoint two people to the Supreme Court. But those two people dont vote together all that often. Overall, their voting will be conservative. But theyre individual people with individual jurisprudential commitments, and they will from time to time surprise you as Justice Gorsuch surprised us in this one.

michael barbaro

Well be right back. Adam, how is this ruling being received by those who are champions of religious liberty? Because I have to imagine that they are not looking favorably on a ruling that says every employer, including employers run by people whose religion says that being homosexual is wrong, would welcome this ruling.

adam liptak

Sure, theyre nervous about this ruling. And in dissent, Justice Alito said theyre right to be nervous, that this ruling can make religious people and religious employers on the hook for employment discrimination if they just follow the dictates of their faith. Justice Gorsuch, who is ordinarily very sympathetic to those kinds of claims of religion said, listen, thats not this case. Well deal with that case down the line. But he did say, let me tell you, first of all, Title VII itself has an exemption for religious employers. There are other laws and constitutional provisions which can protect religious people and religious employers. So his basic answer is, well get back to you on that.

michael barbaro

Hm, so this ruling may leave open the possibility that an employer could bring future cases that could make it all the way up to the Supreme Court challenging this ruling on the grounds of religious liberty, saying this ruling infringes on my right to practice my religion the way I see fit.

adam liptak

Yeah, clashes between religious employers and their employees are commonplace, and were waiting, even in this term, for a decision on whether employment discrimination laws apply to Catholic school teachers. So that clash is something thats very much on the front burner at the court, but we dont have an answer yet.

michael barbaro

Adam, youve been covering the Supreme Court for The Times for more than a decade. And you have watched this debate over L.G.B.T.Q. rights play out before the justices on many occasions. Where does this decision stack up in that history of the decisions that they have made?

adam liptak

Well, for gay rights, it easily ranks with the top three. It ranks with the decisions in which the court struck down a Texas law making gay sex a crime. It stands with the decision establishing a constitutional right to same sex marriage. And now for gay people, we have this enormously consequential decision protecting them from employment discrimination. And lets not forget, for transgender people, we have the first major transgender rights case from the Supreme Court ever.

michael barbaro

So by definition, this is a historic case when it comes to rights.

adam liptak

Some historic cases are symbolic only. This historic case will have a real-world impact for lots and lots of people.

michael barbaro

Its interesting that this decision comes three and a half years into an administration, the Trump administration, that has repeatedly taken actions to restrict the rights of transgender Americans, in particular. You know, banning them from serving in the military, telling the military to stop paying for gender confirmation surgery. And just about a week ago, narrowing the definition of sex discrimination in the Affordable Care Act to omit protections for transgender people. So how does Mondays decision affect those? Because after all, the United States government is a major employer, right?

adam liptak

Yeah, so as an employer, its subject to Title VII like other kinds of employers. When its talking about health care, when its talking about the military, those are different statutes, and whether it has the power or not to disadvantage transgender people is an open question. This decision of course, gives you some sense that challenges to Trump administration actions would meet with positive reception at the court. But theyre different statutes in different settings, and the president gets a lot of deference when its the military whos involved. We do have a quick sense that President Trump is prepared to accept the Supreme Courts decision on Monday. He was asked about it at a press availability and he said, they ruled, and we live with their decision, a very powerful decision.

michael barbaro

Speaking of that kind of atmospheric change, I have noticed that in the protests that weve been seeing all over the United States for the past few weeks, that in addition to protesting against racism, demonstrators have taken up the issue of trans rights and calling for the protection of black trans people, for example.

adam liptak

Yeah, so society is moving very fast on these issues. The protests reflect that. One thing that struck me that also reflects it is that more than 200 major corporations filed briefs in these cases saying, please subject us to these laws, please make it possible to sue us. Because the commitment among very large parts of society to equality for black people, gay people, trans people is moving quite quickly in the direction of equality. And the Supreme Court, which is seldom very far out of step with the American public, as reflected in this decision, seems to agree.

michael barbaro

Adam, what has been the response from the plaintiffs in this case? I remember speaking with Aimee Stephens after the oral arguments, and she had some real doubts about whether the court was going to ultimately rule in her favor.

adam liptak

Yeah, thats right, Michael. There are three plaintiffs in the three cases, two of them have sadly died, including Aimee Stephens, who died just a few weeks ago. So she didnt see the result of her lawsuit. But she did sketch out some thoughts in anticipation that the court might rule in her favor. So she wrote these words. Firing me because Im transgender was discrimination, plain and simple. And I am glad the court recognized that what happened to me is wrong and illegal. I am thankful that the court said my transgender siblings and I have a place in our laws. It made me feel safer and more included in society.

michael barbaro

Thank you, Adam.

adam liptak

Thank you, Michael.

[music]

aimee stephens

They asked me a question. And that question was, are you willing to see this through to the end? And I told them then that I was raised on a farm, that I was used to hard work, and that I didnt give up so easily. Theyve had people, I guess, in the past, who started this process, and it can get to you to the point that you just want it to be over. And you say well, Im done. Im not going any further. Or perhaps they try to settle out of court. I had in my mind what I needed to do, and it wasnt to really settle out of court. It wasnt to just give up and walk away. And that yes, I would see this to the end.

michael barbaro

Well be right back. Heres what else you need to know today.

archived recording (dermot shea) Good afternoon, everyone. Its been a tough few weeks for the N.Y.P.D., for the city, really, for the whole country.

michael barbaro

In a major reform by the nations largest police force, New York City is disbanding its anti-crime unit, a team of 600 officers who patrol the city in plain clothes that has been involved in some of the citys most notorious police shootings.

archived recording (dermot shea) Make no mistake, this is a seismic shift in the culture of how the N.Y.P.D. polices this great city. It will be felt immediately in the communities that we protect.

michael barbaro

The decision makes the N.Y.P.D. one of the first police departments in the country to begin defunding and dismantling its operations in the wake of nationwide protests.

archived recording (dermot shea) We can do it better. We can do it smarter. And we will.

michael barbaro
Regulatory News:

The Remy Cointreau Group (Paris:RCO) announces it has entered into exclusive negotiations with the Lhopital family to acquire a majority stake in the capital of the Champagne de Telmont company.

This family-owned champagne estate was founded in 1912 in Damery, near Epernay, on the slopes of the hills of the Marne Valley. It has been crafting champagnes under the brand "J. de Telmont" for over a century. This Maison is one of the last family-owned estates in Champagne: Mrs Pascale Lhopital and Mr Bertrand Lhopital represent the fourth generation of true master craftmen in the art of champagne. Mr Bertrand Lhopital, alongside the Remy Cointreau Group, will continue working with his team on the upstream side (vineyard/sourcing) and on the champagne production side to perpetuate the estate's know-how and family tradition.

The scope of the acquisition deal includes the brands, stocks, production resources and real estate assets of the domain, as well as vineyards in Champagne. This acquisition would enrich Remy Cointreau's portfolio of exceptional wines and spirits with a high-end champagne brand that offers significant growth potential overtime, especially on the international market.

The signing of the deeds of acquisition is contingent, in particular, on the statutory process for notifying employees.

The transaction, which will be submitted for the administrative authorisations required by laws in force, should be completed in the third quarter of the financial year 2020/21.

About Remy Cointreau:

All around the world, there are clients seeking exceptional experiences; clients for whom a wide range of terroirs means a variety of flavours. Their exacting standards are proportional to our expertise the finely-honed skills that we pass down from generation to generation. The time these clients devote to drinking our products is a tribute to all those who have worked to develop them. It is for these men and women that Remy Cointreau, a family-owned French Group, protects its terroirs, cultivates exceptional multi-centenary spirits and undertakes to preserve their eternal modernity. The Group's portfolio includes 12 singular brands, such as the Remy Martin and Louis XIII cognacs, and Cointreau liqueur. Remy Cointreau has a single ambition: becoming the world leader in exceptional spirits. To this end, it relies on the commitment and creativity of its 1,900 employees and on its distribution subsidiaries established in the Group's strategic markets. Remy Cointreau is listed on Euronext Paris.

About the Maison J. de Telmont:

For four generations, the J. de Telmont estate has been driven by the desire to share the secrets of champagne and Champagne by offering an exceptional experience. With its various cuvees, each of which expresses the specific characteristics of the terroirs of Champagne, the Maison J. de Telmont invites its guests to enter its discreet world of authenticity and nobility. This initiation is also an opportunity to (re)discover the magic of Champagne through focused workshops. The deep grape-growing roots of the Maison J. de Telmont and the family's strong commitment to caring for its terroirs support this Maison in a very demanding environmental approach, long to implement, and promise of the future. Since 2017, more than a third of the grapes harvested are certified "Organic Agriculture", or in the process of conversion.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005647/en/

Contacts:

Laetitia Delaye +33 7 87 25 36 01
Nokia and Broadcom announced that they are collaborating on the development of advanced semiconductor technologies, including new custom system-on-chip (SoC) processors, which will be integrated into Nokias 5G Powered by ReefShark portfolio. The collaboration further expands the range of Nokia ReefShark chipsets available for 5G solutions and will improve both the system performance and energy footprint of 5G networks.

The two companies will work to develop new custom system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, which utilize Nokias wireless technology and Broadcoms expertise in application-specific integrated circuit ASIC technologies. The added performance brought by custom silicon solutions is crucial in realizing the capabilities and benefits of 5G and delivering on its requirements. While collaborating with Broadcom, Nokia continues to further expand its silicon capabilities and improve the penetration of ReefShark solutions in its AirScale radio access portfolio.

These new chipsets are designed to be deployed in several building blocks of Nokias AirScale radio access solution. By deploying ReefShark-based products, operators will benefit from a reduction in size and power consumption, while also seeing a boost to capacity and overall performance with a lower total cost of ownership.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: This important collaboration highlights our continued commitment to developing our 5G Powered by ReefShark chipset portfolio and ensures that our 5G solutions deliver a best-in-class performance to our customers. We are delighted to bring Broadcoms silicon technology leadership and best-in-class ASIC capability to the table, allowing us to deliver a high performance and serve our customers needs as the demand for 5G services increases.

Frank Ostojic, SVP and General Manager of ASIC Products Division at Broadcom, said: We are excited to partner with Nokia to develop and deploy highly integrated custom silicon solutions for 5G infrastructure. Nokia and Broadcoms collaboration accelerates silicon innovation and enables operators and end-users to realize the unprecedented benefits of 5G.
BRECKSVILLE, Ohio -- Mayor Jerry Hruby has defended his use of the Southwest Enforcement Bureau -- a SWAT-type organization that includes officers from 18 Cleveland suburbs -- to police the pro-Black Lives Matter rally June 9 on Brecksville Road.

Some demonstrators were angry that police were dressed in riot gear, including helmets and chest protectors. They shouted profanities and insults at police and chanted: Why are you in riot gear? I dont see no riot here!

Hruby said he called in the Southwest Enforcement Bureau, of which Brecksville is a member, because certain individuals or groups have tried to take over pro-Black Lives Matter rallies in other Cleveland suburbs. He was not more specific.

Other demonstrations have occurred in Chagrin Falls, Medina, Parma, Brooklyn, Olmsted Falls, Cleveland Heights and Lakewood.

These (Southwest Enforcement Bureau) officers are trained and equipped to protect the public and property during demonstrations, Hruby told cleveland.com in an email late last week. We can never predict when a peaceful, well-intended group of demonstrators can be influenced by those who wish to agitate the situation or who have a goal that is less than peaceful.

At the June 9 Brecksville demonstration -- organized to remember George Floyd, the black man who was suffocated by a Minneapolis police officer May 25 -- none of protesters who yelled at police would identify themselves to cleveland.com, while calmer protesters didnt hesitate to provide their names and hometowns.

Representatives from The Party for Socialism and Liberation were at the demonstration, handing out literature that condemned Floyds killing, but its unknown how many from that group attended or what their role was, if any.

Samantha Barchet, the Brecksville resident who organized last weeks demonstration, said the event wasnt affiliated with any organization.

Meanwhile, some demonstrators were unhappy with news coverage of the June 9 event, saying it was too negative. They said a large majority of the 850 or so demonstrators were peaceful and respectful.

Most of us were not there to give police a hard time, said Brecksville resident Jim Duffy, who with other members of Brecksville United Church of Christ attended the demonstration.

Duffy said most police are professional and hard-working people, but added that the overall system of policing needs reform to end practices such as racial profiling. He questioned whether a strong police presence was necessary at the June 9 demonstration.

It was a little overdone, given where most of our heads were at, said Duffy, referring to what he said was the benevolent mindset of most demonstrators. But I also understand that police didnt know where everybodys heads were at.

Duffy said he was disappointed in the name-calling and profanities hurled at police by some demonstrators.

Thats a shame, Duffy said. It was uncalled for, and I think most of us felt that way. These particular policemen were not involved in the events in Minneapolis.

Kate Klonowski, an Independence resident and Duffys fellow Brecksville UCC parishioner, said she did notice that some more aggressive demonstrators were egging on police.

This was not cool, but certainly not (reflective) of the vast majority of demonstrators, Klonowski said.

However, Barchet, a 2018 Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School graduate, said she did not regret the harsh words aimed at police. She said it was to be expected when protesters were met with officers wearing riot gear.

People are angry, and in my opinion, swearing hurts much less than rubber bullets, tear gas and the racism that black Americans face every day, Barchet said in an email to cleveland.com.

The city has clearly put itself behind their law enforcement, but has yet to acknowledge the struggles of black people and the damaging lack of diversity in (Brecksville), Barchet said. They are not mutually exclusive.

A white bubble

The June 9 demonstration wasnt the first in Brecksville to protest the killing of George Floyd. Another took place two days earlier, on June 7, in the citys town square. Ohio Senate candidate Tom Jackson, a Democrat, and Bob Belovich, of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Democratic Club, spoke.

Janice Oakley, a Democratic precinct committee person who lives in Sagamore Hills, said about 50 people showed up June 7. She said Brecksville police cruisers were parked in all four quadrants of the square and that demonstrators felt very protected.

A preview of the June 9 demonstration was posted on a website called rallylist.com. The post said the demonstration was scheduled for between 4 and 6 p.m. and stressed that it would be peaceful.

I organized this protest because people are dying, Barchet told cleveland.com. Black people are being killed, they are being oppressed, and they have been for hundreds of years.

I think a lot of people in Brecksville live in a white bubble where they can be ignorant to it, Barchet said. Black people in my community dont feel welcome in this town. I organized this protest to make Brecksville more welcoming and to give a voice to those who feel unwelcome here.

The rallylist.com post said the city would let demonstrators occupy a municipal parking lot near the Brecksville Road fire station, but asked them to stay off roads and away from the station.

No violence will be tolerated, the rallylist.com post said.

According to the city permit given to Barchet, about 100 people would demonstrate. Many hundreds more showed up.

I was surprised at how much this event took off, Barchet said. I had no idea it would reach as many people as it did.

Hruby said it wasnt a problem that the number of demonstrators exceeded expectations.

We were prepared no matter the number, Hruby said. It is better to be prepared for more than you anticipate when considering you are protecting them and their surroundings.

On June 8, the day before the demonstration, Hruby posted a message to residents on the city website. He said the city had been receiving calls about the demonstration from residents and businesses. They were worried because demonstrations in larger cities, including Cleveland, have ended in violence and looting.

Some are troubled that this event is being permitted within our city, and others, of course, support this demonstration, Hruby said. Brecksville city officials have taken an oath of office to uphold the Constitution, and therefore, to deny this request would be to deny ones rights to assemble and ones right to free speech.

Hruby, in his message to residents, said local law enforcement has a history of, and reputation for, professionalism. He said they would protect both demonstrators as well as people and property not involved in the protest.

The city has assured the organizer we will do everything in our power to keep the peace, and to protect the safety and welfare of all, Hruby said. That is our responsibility, and we take it very seriously.

Unexpected marches

Duffy said demonstrators received guidelines asking them to stay on public property and not to obstruct traffic during the protest.

At the demonstration, people carried signs saying, No lives matter until black lives matter, End police brutality and Know justice, know peace.

Helicopters hovered high overhead. Some believed they were police helicopters, but at least one belonged to a TV news station. Police acknowledged that a low-flying drone was theirs.

Suddenly, a demonstrator appeared in the street and announced to the crowd that police would let them march north. A march was not included in the city permit, but police not only allowed it, they led the way with a cruiser, its lights flashing. Officers blocked the Ohio 82 intersection as demonstrators headed north on Brecksville Road.

The demonstrators, upon returning to the original protest site, lay face down in the street, imitating the way George Floyd was held down by police.

Hruby said the march and lie-down originally were not part of the demonstration, but police knew they were common practices in other George Floyd demonstrations.

The police are trained to expect and react to these marches and sit-downs, Hruby said. Our regional unit has assisted in other recent demonstrations and knew what they may expect to take place."

There was a second march north on Brecksville Road, but this time, many demonstrators, including Duffy, stayed behind near the fire station. When the second group of marchers returned, they came face to face with a line of police blocking the road.

Duffy said he couldnt see or hear the group of demonstrators shouting at police from where he was standing, so was surprised to hear about it in a news report the next day.

It wasnt hugely visible, Duffy said.

Klonowski witnessed a conflict between members of The Party for Socialism and Liberation and a few young men carrying a giant American flag. They walked aggressively toward each other. A police officer positioned himself between the two groups, and peaceful demonstrators told both sides to walk away from each other, and they did.

Klonowski said she was thankful that most demonstrators dispersed at the designated time and that police were patient with those who did not, even though officers wore gear indicating that they expected trouble.

The strong police presence was overkill, Klonowski said, but officers were not overly aggressive. She felt bad that some protesters tried to provoke them.

It could have ended much more negatively, but it didnt, Klonowski said. For that, I think we are all grateful to everyone -- law enforcement and demonstrators alike.

Hruby was pleased that no one was hurt and no property was damaged. When asked about the taunts by some demonstrators toward police, Hruby said, The police did their job and were professional, respectful and tolerant at all times.

Barchet said shes not planning another demonstration yet, but would like to do so.

The momentum of the entire Black Lives Matter movement needs to continue, Barchet said. One thing I really want to work on is getting the local leaders in this town to make any kind of statement in support of black lives.

Read more from the Sun Star Courier.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has asked Delhi to start rapid antigen detection test along with the usual RT-PCR tests, and the Delhi government on Monday directed the district magistrates (DMs) of each of the citys 11 districts and chief district medical officers (CDMOs) to send at least 1,000 samples every day.

Both are measures aimed at massively scaling up testing for coronavirus disease (Covid-19), doubling it in two days and tripling it in the next six days as was promised by Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday.

Shahs comments came after his meeting with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday; hours after his comments, the Delhi government issued an order, asking all testing laboratories to scale up lab testing immediately and release results not later than 48 hours since collection of the samples.

According to the Delhi governments recent submission in the Delhi high court, the combined daily testing capacity of 40 labs, 17 public and 23 private, is 8,600 per day.

However, ICMR chief Balram Bhargavas communication dated June 14 to the government states that these labs have a capacity to test 18,000 samples per day, which indicates that the Capitals labs are being underutilised.

The government is targeting 18,000 tests a day by June 20,.

This will further increase the Capitals current testing rate of 14,390 tests per million.

In containment zones and hospitals, the Delhi government will be devising a plan to start using the antigen tests.

Rapid antigen detection tests are quicker (maximum 30 minutes compared to 2-5 hours for RT-PCR tests) but are non-confirmatory tests. This means that those who test positive through rapid antigen detection tests are considered truly positive for Covid and do not have to undertake an RT-PCR test. But, those who test negative must go for an RT-PCR test for re-confirmation.

The plan to start testing at every polling booth in containment zones will essentially be through these tests. The rapid antigen detection test is nothing but an elimination method. It will help us narrow down on a smaller size of people who actually need the RT-PCR test  said an official from the state health department who asked not to be named.

The government has also directed its hospitals and Covid Testing Centres to increase the number of samples collected and has created linkages for each district with four laboratories for processing the samples. A total of 27 testing labs, both government and private, have been linked with Delhis 11 districts. Sundays order made it clear that labs can test as many samples as they want provided the results are released within a maximum of 48 hours. It also asked all labs (both in private and public sector) to work on their full potential and also further ramp up their testing capacity on priority to meet the increased demand of processing.

We have a capacity to accept about 100 government samples, but we have been asked to take in about 300. How can we do that. We do not have the machines or the staff. I had to ask my staff to stay back to ensure that all the samples are process; but this can be done only for one or two days, said the owner of one of the private labs in the city. The reports of all Covid-19 test samples have to be given within 48 hours as per the mandate of the Delhi High Court.

Covid-19 testing in Delhi fell to 4,900 a day on average during the last one week owing to some of the laboratories being shut down for not following ICMR guidelines. The week before 5,590 samples were being tested each day, as per Delhi government data.

The central government is extending to us the facilities of the testing labs that are under its jurisdiction. Delhi has been the only state to conduct maximum tests across the country, and it will continue to do so in the future with the support of the central government, said Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain in a video address on Monday.

This comes just a day after the government resumed sending its samples to be tested at the centre-run National Centre for Disease Control. The government had stopped sending samples to the laboratory as several of the test reports were pending.

Large number of samples were reported pending at NCDC labs. To allow optimum time to the labs to clear the backlog, it was decided that no samples will be sent to the said labs till the pending samples are processed and reported. With no Delhi government samples pending with the said labs, it has been decided to allow submission of samples by various districts, Delhi government, and municipal hospitals with immediate effect, the Sunday order read.
Neither Tesla nor Alameda County will report whether anyone's been infected with COVID-19 at the Fremont plant. Above, a metal stamping press. (Russ Mitchell / Los Angeles Times)

According to Tesla, more than 10,000 people work at its electric-car assembly plant in Fremont, Calif. How many have been infected with COVID-19?

Tesla won't say. Neither will the Alameda County Public Health Department. The county, which includes the cities of Fremont and Oakland, cites federal health privacy law to explain the silence.

But experts say the law in question is not so clear cut. And elected officials and worker advocates are beginning to speak out, not only about Tesla but also about the tight hold public health agencies are keeping on information that could better inform the public on matters of life and death.

Some go so far as to say the agencies, by withholding detailed information about where COVID-19 is clustering, risk losing the support of the people they are trying to protect.

"When you're not giving people that kind of information, people get justifiably cynical," said Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who has grappled with his own public health department over data transparency.

"My constituents start to wonder, how serious is this really?" he said. "On the one hand, they're told it's important to wear masks, that businesses need to shut down. On the other hand, they won't tell me where the clusters [of cases] are. This isn't about transparency for the sake of transparency. It's about whether my neighbor should head to the convenience store because there've been 14 infections there."

The issue is especially charged in Alameda County, where Tesla defied public health orders and reopened the factory a week earlier than the date the county had given.

Chief Executive Elon Musk invited officials to arrest him. The county caved, the plant reopened, and thousands were back at work on the assembly line.

In a recent internal email sent to workers by Tesla safety head Laurie Shelby, the company acknowledged workers have been infected but didn't say how many. The email also claimed that all infections occurred outside the factory, with "zero Covid-19 workplace transmissions." The email offered no details on how it could have reached that conclusion. The Washington Post reported the existence of cases at Tesla on Tuesday.

Story continues

Alameda County has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Northern California; since Musk defied the county order May 11, cumulative cases have more than doubled, up 104% from 2,064 to 4,207 by Sunday.

Across Alameda's eastern border in San Joaquin County, where housing is relatively affordable to factory workers, cases are up 149% since May 11, to 1,550. Santa Clara County  the heart of Silicon Valley, with housing prices among the highest in the nation and filled with software specialists who can work from home  had more cases than Alameda on May 11 but now has 983 fewer. Its case count since May 11 is up only 27%.

The public doesn't know whether Tesla contributed to Alameda's mushrooming caseload, and if so, by how much. The Alameda County Public Health Department has the numbers but is keeping them confidential.

An Alameda County spokeswoman said federal health privacy law prevents disclosure of the Tesla data. Asked to specify exactly which parts of the law prohibit dissemination of aggregated data, the spokeswoman sent a link to the language of the law  the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act  and offered no further comment.

Alameda County Administrator Susan Muranishi declined a request for comment. Alameda's top health officer, Dr. Erica Pan, also declined. Four of the five elected Alameda County supervisors did not return phone calls or emails from The Times. A representative for Supervisor Scott Haggerty said, "Maybe next week." Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

All workers deserve to know whether their business place is a coronavirus hot spot, said Mara Ortenburger, communications and research head at Worksafe, a workers rights group. "They deserve to know so they can take steps to support themselves and their family" by deciding whether to go to work or not, she said. "It's especially crucial if they have elder or immunocompromised family at home."

Sallie Milam, deputy director of the Network for Public Health Law, said employer data "also might provide management incentive to comply with public health orders and provide measures to protect their workforce."

Tesla workers have complained about receiving only scant information about coronavirus infections at the Fremont plant, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. They said you dont need to know unless youre on the trace end of it, a worker told the Chronicle, referring to efforts to trace infected workers contacts.

Data transparency has become a hot topic among county health officials across the country, said Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Assn. of County and City Health Officials. "There's been a lot of pressure on health departments to release information," she said. "They started out being very conservative, but the pressure has mounted over time"  pressure, she said, mainly from elected officials.

Many health officials echo Alameda County's contention that HIPAA, on the books since 1996, prevents any disclosure of public health information that could identify an individual.

But the law is complicated. "It's a labyrinth of regulations," Milam said. Many health agencies are taking too strict an interpretation of the law, said Al-Amyn Sumar, an attorney at the Ballard Spahr law firm in Washington. HIPAA gives some leeway to public health agencies, especially if there are state laws that supersede HIPAA.

"There would be minimal privacy interest" in more site-specific location information but "a significant public interest in knowing where the outbreaks are happening and what the public health response is to that," he said. It's unclear how California law fits into his analysis, he said.

In Iowa last month, the Black Hawk County Health Department, under pressure from the public and the news media, announced that 1,031 workers had been infected at a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant there.

Public health agencies generally are unaccustomed to public controversies over data release and tend to be conservative, Milam said. Provisions in HIPAA could be interpreted as barring identification of an employer, she said. But there's a way for public health agencies to free themselves from the HIPAA yoke. It involves an organizational structure change into a "hybrid entity."

The concept is simple: Public health agencies are subject to HIPAA when they provide any health services directly to patients. That makes the agency "covered" by HIPAA. Even one practicing physician on staff makes the entire health agency a covered entity. If the health agency doesn't provide health services, it doesn't come under HIPAA. Large counties throughout the U.S. typically provide health services.

Any covered agency can convert itself into a hybrid agency, however, by creating an information wall between the health providers and the rest of the public health department, Milam said. The California Department of Public Health, for example, is a hybrid entity.

Pre-pandemic, public health agencies in general were under no pressure to make the conversion, and many may not even know the option exists.

Freeman, of the county and city health association, said she's intrigued. "The pandemic is going to change a lot of things," she said. "It'll cause us to pause and determine whether what we have in place fits our needs and perhaps readdress" some policies.

The Times emailed the Alameda County spokeswoman Friday morning and asked whether the health department had ever considered becoming a hybrid entity or might consider it in the future. Thus far, there's been no response.
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.
Gadkari said India believed in peace and non-violence and do not want to be strong by becoming an expansionist

Ahmedabad: India is not interested in land of Pakistan or China but wanted peace and amity, Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday.

Addressing virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally of Gujarat BJP from Nagpur in Maharashtra, he said India believed in peace and non-violence and do not want to be strong by becoming an expansionist.

"India never tried to grab land of its neighbours like Bhutan and Bangladesh," he added.

The Minister of Road Transport & Highways and MSME also said that COVID-19 crisis will not last long, as a vaccine is on its way soon.

"India do not want land that rightfully belongs to Pakistan or China. All India want is peace, amity, love, and (want) to work together (with neighbouring countries)," Gadkari said.

His comments came at a time when India and China are engaged in a stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Talking about the completion of one year of the second term of the Modi government, Gadkari said its biggest achievement was to bring peace in the country by dealing with matters of internal and external security.

"...Whether it is about almost winning over the Maoist problem or securing the country from Pakistan-sponsored terrorism...There is China on the one side of our border and Pakistan on the other side. We want peace, not violence," he said.

"The strong steps taken by our government against terrorism and naxalism; giving importance to internal and external security has made peace possible in the country," Gadkari said.

During his speech, the Nagpur MP referred to famous novel "Mrityunjaya" by Marathi novelist Shivaji Sawant, saying peace and non-violence can be established by only those who are strong and not weak.

"We should not make India strong by becoming expansionist. We want to make India strong for establishing peace. We never tried to grab land of Bhutan. Our country made Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the prime minister of Bangladesh after winning the war (with Pakistan in 1971), and our soldiers returned thereafter.

"We did not take a single inch of land. We do not want land either of Pakistan or China. All we want is peace, amity, love, and wanted to work together," he said.

Gadkari also said the coronavirus crisis will not last long as scientists in India and abroad have been working to develop a vaccine.

"This crisis is not going to last long. Effort is on in our country to develop a vaccine for coronavirus. Scientists across the world are working in this direction.

As per the information received by me, I can say with confidence that very soon we will find vaccine. Once we develop a vaccine, we won't have to fear the crisis, Gadkari added.

"The crisis is deep, not just for our country but for the entire world. Our government under Modiji is standing with the people. Let us leave aside negativity, and with self confidence, we will deal with the crisis and defeat the coronavirus," he said.

Referring to Emergency, Gadkari further said India has braved many crises, and so has the BJP since its formation.

He said, "(From Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi to successive Congress governments) the Congress gave the slogan of 'garibi hatao ', but the condition of the common man, farmers and the poor did not improve".

On the other hand, poverty of Congress party leaders, workers, and flatterers ended, he said.

Gadkari also referred to annulment of Article 370 and the "sacrifice" made by Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

"We brought terrorism exported by Pakistan under control by repulsing terrorists, but the Congress lacked courage and did not give importance to the crisis," he said.

Gadkari said the NDA government was guided by the concept of "Antyodaya" of Deendayal Upadhyay.

"We reached out to the poorest of the poor by opening 35 crore 'Jana Dhan' accounts. We provided LPG cylinders to 9 crore families, and constructed two crore houses under the 'Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana', he said.

He also listed promotion of bee-keeping, khadi industry, e-rickshaws, cleaning of the Ganga river as major achievements of the government in the last six years.

"The Road Transport and Highways ministry is working to develop Jammu and Kashmir by constructing roads, tunnels, and encouraging local crafts for the economic development," he added.
Global funds and trusts have enjoyed a strong run in recent months despite the significant sell-off that hit stock markets around the world in March.

Investors in some big name funds took a pounding as markets nosedived, but those who didn't panic sell have been rewarded for holding their nerve.

These big beasts of the global fund and investment trust world, such as Fundsmith, Lindsell Train and Scottish Mortgage, have recorded some sparkling gains since markets hit a bottom on 23 March, but which have done best and why?

We take a look.

Terry Smith now manages more than 20billion in his flagship Fundsmith Equity fund

Global funds and trusts are often considered the cornerstone of a stock market portfolio, but many investors will have looked on aghast as markets fell around the world as the coronavirus crash hit.

The average fund in Morningstars global large-cap equity fund sector fell by 20 per cent during the crash between late February and late March, while its average investment trust counterpart was down by almost 27 per cent.

However, both have bounced back, with the average trust up 27 per cent between 23 March and 8 June, while the average fund recouped all its losses and then some, returning 25 per cent over the same period.

Star manager Terry Smith's flagship Fundsmith Equity fund was down 19 per cent when markets were at their most volatile between 19 February and 23 March, but it returned more than 20 per cent between that low point and 8 June..

The fund has also seen significant demand and according to investing platform Interactive Investor, was its most bought fund in May. Fundsmith's assets under management are now just over a colossal 20billion, compared to 17.5billion this time last year.

It is the biggest fund in the UK, a long way ahead of Morgan Stanley's Global Brands fund in at second place with assets worth 13billion.

But Fundsmith Equity is not the only global option that has caught investors' attention as of late.

The post-crash sugar rush in the markets has seen them attract plenty of cash, with Investment Association revealing that in April global funds were the best-selling sector, with some 1.2billion of savers' money ploughed in

So why are people focusing on global funds and trusts at the moment and why are they doing so well during a time of such economic upheaval?

How have the biggest global funds and trusts performed? 19 Feb -

23 March 23 March -

8 June Year to

date One

year Five

years Alliance Trust -29.20% 32.60% -2.30% 7.00% 66.10% AVI Global Trust -31.80% 31.40% -9.80% -3.50% 45% Bankers -23.10% 25.10% 1.00% 9.10% 66.20% Blue Whale -20.80% 21.90% 11.80% 17.30% N/A F&C Investment Trust -26.10% 29.80% 0.10% 8.10% 69.60% Fundsmith Equity -18.90% 20.20% 7.20% 11.80% 138.50% Lindsell Train Global Equity -17.60% 17.80% 2.10% 1.80% 117.00% Monks -24.90% 36.20% 8.30% 17.00% 109.10% Scottish Investment Trust -17.20% 17.20% -5.10% -0.70% 37% Scottish Mortgage -13.40% 32.90% 29.40% 47.80% 185.10% Witan -31.30% 23.90% -11.90% -2.80% 40.70% Average global fund -20.10% 24.50% 6.80% 14.70% 77.90% Average global trust -26.60% 26.70% -2.30% 5.40% 53.40% All data to 8 June. Source: Interactive Investor/Morningstar

Global funds are heavily invested in the US

Darius McDermott, of Chelsea Financial Services, said the success of global funds is largely down to the success of the US, which has dominated global stock market performance in recent years.

'Those funds that have been overweight US stocks have done much better than those that have been underweight. US tech in particular has been on fire,' he said.

Teodor Dilov, of Interactive Investor, agreed exposure to tech stocks has served certain names such as the 10.8billion Scottish Mortgage investment trust well.

But he also believes the strong performance of certain funds and trusts during the coronavirus pandemic are down to having a high quality active manager.

'The best performers have one thing in common  most of them pay little attention to benchmark,' he said.

ii's Dilov said funds with 'high quality active managers' have performed best

'The figures also show what investment trust enthusiasts have long known  investment trusts might fall behind funds in a market downturn, but when the tide turns, they will often lead the recovery.

'If we look at the largest global investment trusts, the Scottish Investment trust, which has produced the lowest returns since the March market low, is still up 17 per cent - not far behind Fundsmith Equitys 20 per cent.

'F&Cs performance since the March low is not that far behind Scottish Mortgage. These are very different trusts, but we rate them both highly.'

McDermott added: 'These funds really show how a long-term investment in high conviction active strategy really can benefit investors but remember to balance your portfolio and don't fall in love with one fund or manager.'

While we all know the go-to names for a global strategy such as Fundsmith and Scottish Mortgage, which have indeed performed strongly throughout the crisis, it might be worth looking at the more up-and-coming names.

The 364million Blue Whale Growth fund for example, managed by Stephen Yiu, was only launched in September 2017 but is up 50 per cent since then.

The manager recently told investors he would rather avoid companies at 'bargain basement prices' following March's downturn, as they are unlikely to deliver either growth or income.

Meanwhile the Monks Investment trust is by no means a small trust at 2.2billion, but is often overlooked by Scottish Mortgage, which is also managed by Baillie Gifford.

Monks fell by 25 per cent between 19 February and 23 March, but has come back stronger with a return of 36 per cent since then.

The US makes up 58 per cent of the market in the MSCI ACWI global index and a heavy weighting to American shares has helped some big global funds.

However, one that is underweight the US, Lindsell Train Global Equity, has still recorded good performance. Having slumped 17.6 per cent in the February to March crash, it has bounced 17.8 per cent since the 23 March low point.

Lindsell Train Global Equity has its biggest country holding in the UK at 35 per cent and the US makes up just 32 per cent.

The rise of the lockdown investor Stock markets crashing tend to put savers off investing in shares, but there has been a sizeable rise in new investors in Britain during lockdown, reports suggest. But who are these novice investors and what do you need to think about to get started? On this podcast, we discuss what first timers need to know about building an investment portfolio, some tips on easy ways to get started, and why British isn't always best for investors. 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.

Some of the best and biggest global investment trusts made significant losses in March while Morningstars global large-cap blend equity investment trust sector was down 26.6 per cent

However global investment trusts made a swift return to recovery following March's crash

Going for growth has paid off

It's worth noting that these top-performing global names tend to follow a growth investing approach, a style which has massively outperformed value in recent years.

McDermott said: 'All the global growth funds are at the top of the performance tables and all the global value funds are at the bottom.

Chelsea Financial Services' McDermott said global growth funds have performed best

'The likes of Fundsmith, Lindsell Train Global, Scottish Mortgage, Rathbone Global Opportunities, Baillie Gifford Global Discovery and Blue Whale have all got this trade absolutely right and it shows in their performance.'

All these funds had been doing well before the coronavirus crisis, but the spread of the virus and ensuing shock to markets has served as the perfect test to sort the wheat from the chaff while pushing the growth versus value divide to a greater extreme.

For example, growth stocks such as Netflix and Microsoft have done well as streaming is on the rise and people adapt a new normal of working from home.

Meanwhile, typically deemed value sectors such as airlines, oil and gas, and retail - which McDermott points out were struggling even before the Covid-19 outbreak - have have suddenly been hit by the worst crisis since the war.

He added: 'In some cases, revenue is down almost 100 per cent. It is extraordinary. Many value funds don't exist anymore and those which do have seen heavy outflows.

'So the fund flows also perpetuate the status quo of growths outperformance.'

Looking over the last 12 months, the average fund in Morningstars global large-cap equity fund sector has still delivered positive returns of 14.7 per cent despite the clear fall in March

Don't put all your eggs in one global basket

Despite the success of growth strategies and the attractiveness of global funds with their diverse make-up of stocks from around the world, experts still warn investors against having 100 per cent of their cash in one style of area.

'Styles can change quickly and it's difficult to tell when,' said McDermott. 'Don't just look at funds at the top of the one year performance charts or you will inevitably end up with a portfolio pointed entirely one way.

'Also watch out for funds getting too big as a larger fund is harder to manage. This probably doesn't matter for Fundsmith Equity because Terry only invests in liquid mega-cap stocks. Likewise for Morgan Stanley Global Brands.

'Scottish Mortgage should be fine too as it is an investment trust. But watch out for those managers investing in mid and small caps where the fund size is ballooning.'

While Dilov said global funds and trusts are a great 'one stop shop for diversification' it is important to look under the bonnet to make sure you are getting the diversity you want.

The 3.7billion F&C Investment Trust has just 6.4 per cent in the UK compared to the 1.5billion Witan which has only 22 per cent in home stocks.

Dilov added: 'Some funds and trusts have high weightings to the US  its the worlds largest market after all. But it is worth looking at the geographical exposure, as well as top holdings. Many of the super star performers have a high weighting to FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) stocks.'
NEW BRUNSWICK (dpa-AFX) - Band-Aid, the bandage brand of healthcare major Johnson & Johnson, announced the launch of a range of bandages in light, medium and deep shades of Brown and Black skin tones. In an Instagram post, the company, which has sold its traditional soft-pink bandages till now, said the new bandages will 'embrace the beauty of diverse skin'. The decision comes amid the intensifying protests for racial equality following the killing of African- American George Floyd. The company said, 'We hear you. We see you. We're listening to you...We stand in solidarity with our Black colleagues, collaborators and community in the fight against racism, violence and injustice....We are dedicated to inclusivity and providing the best healing solutions, better representing you.' Band-Aid also committed a donation of $100,000 to Black Lives Matter movement that works to create racial justice and equality, CNN reported. Its parent Johnson & Johnson has already committed $10 million donation over the next three years to fight racism and injustice in America. Many corporate majors across the United States have expressed solidarity to the movement and announced millions in donations to support the campaign BlackLivesMatter. Apple last week committed $100 million for a new racial justice and equality initiative, while PayPal has committed the highest amount of$530 million to support black and minority-owned businesses and communities. 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.
LANSING, MI -- Lucky lottery players whove won huge prizes will finally be able to claim those tickets starting Monday, June 15. Claim centers across the state have reopened after being closed since March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Offices in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Livonia, Saginaw, and Sterling Heights are now open via appointment only. To schedule an appointment, players should call 1-844-917-6325 and pick which office they would like to visit.

The reopening comes at a time where an estimated $20 million in jackpot prizes need to be paid out by the state. When offices closed, players were initially assured they would be able to schedule appointments to claim jackpot prizes, but the Lottery was not allowed to reopen their offices until now. The state has processed drop-off claims for prizes of $50,000 or less, but prizes larger than that have not been paid out.

Players who visit a claim center to redeem their prize take the following precautions:

Players should wait in their vehicle until their appointment time and avoid forming lines or congregating in groups.

Players must bring and wear a face covering unless a medical condition requires use of an alternate form of protection.

No guests will be allowed to accompany the player inside the office unless necessary to assist players as an accommodation for a disability or as an interpreter.

During the appointment, players must observe social distancing, follow directional signs and floor markings, and stand behind plexiglass shields on Claim Center counters.

A maximum of 10 prize claims will be processed per appointment.

Players who are sick or do not feel well should not schedule an appointment or visit a Claim Center.

Lottery staff will follow health and safety protocols during appointments, which include wearing masks, observing social distancing, use of plexiglass partitions on counters, and frequently disinfecting shared or common surfaces, reads a press release from the state. Each Claim Center will have a greeter to let players with appointments in at scheduled appointment times.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, appointments from 7:45 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. will be reserved to assist vulnerable populations, including people who are over 60, pregnant or have chronic health conditions, according to the state.

Anyone who visits a claim center to redeem a prize must provide their government issued photo ID and Social Security card. The name on the ID and Social Security cards must match in order for the claim to be processed.

Prizes of more than $601 to $50,000 can be claimed via a drop-off form. Players who wish to drop off their claims at an office should following these procedures:

Complete a Ticket Receipt Form in advance of visiting the Claim Center.

If a player has not completed a Ticket Receipt Form in advance, one will be provided, and players are asked to complete the form in their vehicles.

Provide copies of government issued photo ID and Social Security card. If a player does not have copies available, Lottery will make copies onsite.

Players should remain in their vehicle as much as possible and avoid forming lines or congregating in groups.

Follow all posted signage and Lottery staff instructions.

Drop-off claims will be accepted from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Once a claim is processed and determined to be valid, players will be mailed a check. Claim forms and further information about the drop-off process is available at the states lottery website.
Passengers conducting health declaration as immigrating into Vietnam

Vietnam and Japan have agreed to a trial project in which a chartered flight for Japanese business people will be allowed to land in the Southeast Asian nation, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

Some 250 business travellers, who pass the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test before departure will be carried on the trial flight.

Previously, in late March, Vietnam suspended entry for all foreign nationals. The Japanese government expects Vietnam to accept travellers from Japan who undergo PCR testing before departure and will work on raising its PCR testing capacity.

Vietnam is willing to accept Japanese business travellers as it goes about resuming economic activities, a source in Japan's Foreign Ministry told Nikkei Asian Review. Most of the travellers on the maiden flight will be business people newly assigned by their Japanese companies to posts in Vietnam.

Japan will also consider relaxing entry restrictions for Vietnamese as it looks to fill private-sector jobs with Vietnamese technical trainees.

Several days ago, Vietnams government also announced to consider resuming flights to some other Asian destinations, including Tokyo, Seoul, Guangzhou, Taiwan, and Laos.

The consideration is based on the condition of places that have had no new COVID-19 cases for at least 30 days, the Government Office said in a statement last week, citing a prime ministerial directive. The flights should undertake strict anti-pandemic measures in line with the Health Ministrys regulations.

Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also considering the re-opening of international flights with Vietnam, as foreign media reported.

Japan has banned entry by foreigners but is considering allowing business travellers from Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Vietnam who tested negative for COVID-19 both while leaving their home country and arriving in Japan, said Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese national newspaper.

Elsewhere, South Korea is planning a limited resumption of international flights to certain destinations including Vietnam, which has garnered international acclaim for its effective dealing of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, Taiwans Minister of Health and Welfare, Chen Shih-Chung said last month that only a few countries could meet its requirements for resuming flights based on objective data. Of which, New Zealand and Vietnam are the most likely countries to open up in the first wave, Taiwan News reported.

Though Vietnam has yet to open its doors to international visitors, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control had said at a meeting on May 28 that the tourism industry could pilot a plan to welcome foreign tourists to island destinations on a trial basis with strict safety measures in place.

Phu Quoc, Vietnam's largest island in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang, was on the list of priority destinations.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jun. 14

By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:

Implementation of the project of Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support overall business restructuring and transformation plan of Samruk-Energy, Kazakhstans largest power generation company, is underway, ADB representative told Trend.

The official said that ADBs current non-sovereign loan portfolio in Kazakhstan includes three projects for about $162 million.

The ongoing projects in private sector include, apart from the loan to Samruk-Energy, two loans to support the construction and operation of solar power plants of a 50MW and 100 MW installed capacity in the Southern Kazakhstan.

"The solar power plants in South Kazakhstan that ADB is financing will boost the development of an early-stage solar power sector in the country and help replace imports of electricity in power-deficient southern Kazakhstan with indigenous renewable sources," the official said.

Talking benefits that Kazakhstan is to gain from implementation of these projects, the official said that these projects are aimed at promoting economic diversification, inclusive growth and sustainable development.

ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members.

---

Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
After some joyous months, when the few people still driving saw gas prices hit $2 and then drop, the last several weeks have been a let down.

Specifically, its $2.08-a-gallon let down.

That was the average price for a gallon of regular in the state on Monday, as reported by GasBuddy.com. A month ago we were paying an average of $1.98. The only bragging rights for Jersey is were a penny a gallon below the $2.09 national average price.

Were seeing a slow demand (for gas) recovery, said Tom Kloza, Oil Price Information Service global petroleum analyst. New Jersey was a little late to recover, but were recovering a little more now.

Whats driving the increased demand and price uptick is more traffic as coronavirus travel restrictions are lifted and businesses reopen, he said. That doesnt mean we will see a return to the high traffic volume and gas prices to match of the summers of 2017 to 2019.

Were not going to have a week this summer driving season that will match the summers of 2017, 2018 or 2019, Kloza said.

Gasoline demand during those summers broke the 9 million barrel per day mark, hitting a record of 9.9 million barrels per day last August. Nationally, demand in the U.S. is currently 5 million barrels of gasoline a day, he said.

Traffic has steadily increased in New Jersey for the past eight weeks, following a national trend, according to Inrix Traffic Research, which has tracked the effect of coronavirus since the week of March 20.

Traffic volume in New Jersey dropped to 39% of normal volume during the week of April 17, the lowest point during the COVID-19 pandemic and as of June 12, is at 78% of normal volume as of June 12, according to Inrix latest traffic synopsis.

But the state still is lagging behind the national recovery in traffic volume. New Jersey is one of only four states where travel declines still exceed 20%. Hawaii has the largest at 46%, followed by New Jersey and Massachusetts at 22% and Connecticut at 20%, Inrix said.

What does it mean? That for every 93 miles traveled in the U.S. last week, that distance could have been 116.5 miles if not for the virus, Inrix said.

Some experts predicted that COVID-19 will prompt families to take to the roads rather than the skies, opting for "micro-vacations this summer, within a 500-mile radius of home.

As Americans drive more, they are boosting gasoline demand, and that increased demand is generally lifting pump prices, said Robert Sinclair, a AAA Northeast spokesman. Higher demand will continue to push up gas prices in the coming weeks, but the numbers arent going to spike as high as they typically do in summer.

A year ago, Jersey drivers paid an average price of $2.69 a gallon for regular. Less traffic means less demand for gasoline, which keeps the brakes on prices increasing, Kloza said.

Demand will come up a little bit, but I dont think well see a tremendous upside in prices, Kloza said. For most states it will be the lowest demand since the mid-1990s.

Work travel has seen the biggest loss, followed by some discretionary trips, he said.

That doesnt mean the Parkway will be a dream (ride) from the Driscoll Bridge to Snooki and JWows house, Kloza said.

The traffic losses have occurred during the work week losses as more people work from home, he said.

"A lot of that traffic is gone. It will be a shadow of its former self, Kloza said.

However, a spike in coronavirus cases could prompt the return of travel restrictions or the phases in New Jersey business reopenings, which would drive traffic down and prices with them, he said.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
Meghan Markle made a deeply personal speech to the graduating class of her former high school in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

The Duchess of Sussex, 38, shared her own experiences of growing up in Los Angeles in the wake of the 1992 beating of Rodney King and the riots that followed.

Speaking on 4 June, she told the teenagers leaving school that she was sorry they had to grow up in a world in which there were still inequalities and racism.

The speech also encouraged them to use their voices to vote and to make changes to the world they were entering.

Read more: Full transcript of Meghan Markle's impassioned anti-racism speech given to students at former high school

Now, former press secretary to the Queen Dickie Arbiter, has suggested such a speech could never have been made if she had still been a senior royal.

He told Newsweek: It would have been pretty impossible.

"What's happened in the states is an absolute tragedy and it should never have happened but unfortunately it did happen.

"Had Meghan and Harry still been in the UK and working members of the royal family that speech couldn't have happened.

"I'm talking about the whole speech, end of. It's highly politicised because of the very nature of what it is.

"And it's starting to voice opinions about the internal affairs of another country. I don't think the queen has to say anything.

"It is a social issue for the United States and it is not for a head of state to voice an opinion, whether the queen or the president of France or whoever."

Dickie Arbiter is a former press officer at Buckingham Palace. (PA Images)

While the Queen herself would not wade directly into political matters, there are examples of royals voicing support for similar issues to race equality including gender equality.

Omid Scobie, biographer of Harry and Meghan, responded to Arbiter in Newsweek by saying: For the simple fact that racism and police brutality is a human rights issue, not political, I'd like to think that Meghan's speech would have been just as possible as a working member of the Royal Family.

Story continues

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, on gender equality

In a speech in Kenya in September 2019, Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, said gender equality was a fundamental right and said women should have more political participation.

The speech was opened with greetings from the Queen.

Speaking about the role of the Commonwealth, she said: Together we need to have an increased focus on ending gender inequality and discrimination, and an increased focus on building environments that enable womens political participation and economic empowerment.

Only by ensuring the sustained rights of women and girls will we see justice and inclusion and a transformed future.

Much of Sophie's work has involved talking with other governments and nations. (Getty Images)

Read more: Meghan Markle shares devastation at George Floyds death in speech to her former LA high school

She also said: Earlier this year I publicly committed myself to championing women's meaningful participation in peace processes and to support the vital role women are already playing in resolving conflict, countering violent extremism and building peace at the local level.

Sophie continued: But we must not limit our ambitions - we also want to promote women as negotiators, as ceasefire and peace agreement monitors, as front-line peacekeepers and as political leaders.

Part of the reason she was in Kenya was to launch the Platform for Girls' Education policy paper on gender responsive education sector planning.

And she even went onto quote the Queen, saying: Her Majesty The Queen reminded us all earlier this year as we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Commonwealth that the "nations of the Commonwealth agreed to move forward as free and equal members".

This equality I believe does not just mean those in government, or at the top of the tree of enterprise... it encompasses all of society regardless of gender, of background, or origin, race or religion.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, on gender equality

During Harry and Meghans tour of Africa, which took them to South Africa for several days, both of them made comments which spoke about the ongoing reform and drive to equality in the nation.

Speaking in Johannesburg, Prince Harry said: We will always seek to challenge injustice and to speak out for those who may feel unheard. So no matter your background, your nationality, your age or gender, your sexuality, your physical ability, no matter your circumstance or colour of your skin  we believe in you, and we intend to spend our entire lives making sure you have the opportunity to succeed and change the world.

Harry has spoken frequently about gender equality. (Getty Images)

Read more: Prince Charles calls on world leaders to learn from the coronavirus outbreak: 'We simply cant waste more time'

Speaking to Queens Young Leaders in June 2018, Harry said: Your generation is the first that will have to deal hands-on with topics and issues that have been known about for a very long time. You are the future leaders who will need to pick up the baton on issues such as climate change, food security, equality and access to education, and improving the lives of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, on equality

Even before she stepped back as a senior royal, there were statements which could be seen as commenting on internal affairs in a country.

Much of Harry and Meghan's work in South Africa was around equality. (WireImage)

In Johannesburg in 2019, she said: The recent crisis has sparked a much-needed conversation in South Africa, and the world is listening. I met a group of young girls yesterday who wanted to talk to me about their experience. Some of which was harrowing.

As someone who has been a long-time advocate of women's and girls rights, I worried about what was happening and my intention on this tour was to meet with women across South Africa to listen and to learn.

So from students to politicians, from apartheid campaigners of the 50s to teenagers on a beach, from the mothers with HIV providing health care to their community, and to the entrepreneurs who are driving the businesses of the future - they all showed me a power and a solidarity that, in this moment, in this time, all women, and all people, can take strength and inspiration from. Because these amazing African women have discovered self-belief and found their worth.

On the same trip she said: We are encouraged to hear your President take the next steps to work towards preventing gender-based violence through education and necessary changes to reinforce the values of modern South Africa.

William, Duke of Cambridge, on gender equality and climate change

In a speech delivered in Namibia, he said: Namibia remains a strong supporter of the principles set out in the Commonwealth Charter, and you have shown particular leadership on issues such as gender equality and climate change.

I'm particularly pleased to learn that Namibia is joining the Commonwealth Clean Oceans Alliance as part of a Government programme to reduce plastics, including in national parks.

Prince William once admitted to writing to ministers. (WireImage)

William, Duke of Cambridge, on writing to ministers

In an interview with GQ in 2017, William admitted that he writes to ministers, something his father is known to have done too.

William insisted he did not lobby the leaders, but said he helps out the charities he represents by putting them in touch with the right politicians.

He said: I have written to ministers but purely to point them towards people I think they should see.

So a charity might ask me if I can help with someone and I can help get them access to the people in Government. There are issues I am interested in and I am happy to connect people to ministers.

The Queen on political issues

The Queen herself is said to have waded into political issues, including Brexit and the UKs relationship with Ireland.

People suggested this hat was chosen for its resemblance to the EU flag - something which was said to be a coincidence. (Getty Images)

In her Christmas message in 2019, her comments about reconciliation were seen as a veiled comment intended to calm tensions between leave and remain camps as Brexit was delayed.

She closed her message by saying: Its a timely reminder of what positive things can be achieved when people set aside past differences and come together in the spirit of friendship and reconciliation. And, as we all look forward to the start of a new decade, its worth remembering that it is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change.

Read more: Queen granted permission to repair Buckingham Palace roof - 200 years after leak spotted

And in 2014, she hosted a state visit by the Irish head of state, and said: Even more pleasing, since then, is that we, the Irish and British, are becoming good and dependable neighbours and better friends; finally shedding our inhibitions about seeing the best in each other.

Our two governments have responded to the change in mood. We now cooperate across the full range of public business; indeed, there is today no closer working relationship for my Government than that with Ireland.

She even stated: Our two governments will continue to work together in Northern Ireland to support the First and Deputy First Minister and the Executive to advance the peace process and to establish a shared society based on mutual respect and equality of opportunity.

While Royal Family members might never tell you who they have voted for, there are clear examples of when they made comments about the internal workings of other countries, and lent their vocal support to issues which sometimes stray into politics.

Watch the latest episode from Yahoo UK's The Royal Story
On the last day of the 1971 war, Lieutenant General R M Vohra, then a Lieutenant Colonel in command of 4th Horse, one of the Indian Armys most decorated and feared tank regiments, decimated the better part of a Pakistani armoured brigade that was trying to stop his tanks from crossing the Basantar river and thrusting deeper into that country. He was later awarded a Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) and his regiment the Basantar battle honour.

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Hyderabad: The cost of conducting a COVID-19 test in private lab has been fixed at Rs 2,200 and the fee for treatment of the infection in corporate hospitals Rs 4,000 per day.

These charged were fixed by the Telangana government on Monday. The chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao held a review with the chief secretary and other senior officials and announced some key decisions on Sunday.

One of them is giving nod to private labs who have taken permission to conduct tests. The fee for the test is Rs 2,200, Health Minister E Rajender told reporters here.

The charge for treatment of patients in ICU without ventilator support has been fixed at Rs 7,500 per day, while it would be Rs 9,000 per day for those who are on such support, he said.

Since the cost of some anti-viral injections is in the range of Rs 40,000 Rs 50,000, such treatment can be charged separately, he said.

The government would like to convey to the private players not to consider views of those who would like to get tested without having any symptoms, he said. The information related to tests and those undergoing treatment at private hospitals should be shared with the government as preventive measures, including tracing of contacts and others, need to be taken, he said.

The chief minister has allowed recruitment of healthcare personnel on a temporary basis, if necessary, to conduct a survey of every house in Hyderabad for influenza like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI), pneumonia cases and others, he said.

He said Telangana is in a position to conduct about 7,500 tests per day, he said. People should utilise government healthcare facilities and if those who can pay to go to private hospitals, they can do so, he said.

The state government has received requests from some people who wanted to choose the private sector, Rajender said.

Asked about the 50,000 tests proposed to be conducted in Hyderabad and adjoining areas as part of measures to contain the infection, he said the 50,000 tests would be conducted free of cost from the coming week to 10 days.

The government is ready to conduct more tests if necessary. Quoting ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research), Rajender said there is no community spread of the virus in Telangana. The state has followed the guidelines of ICMR, he said.

The Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said there is no need to fear the virus and that Hyderabad is in a better position compared to other cities and states. The government has decided to increase the number of tests as misinformation, including in the social media, has been spread about testing in the state. The government has decided also to instil confidence in the people in this regard, he said.

The tests would be conducted for people with influenza-like symptoms, family members of positive cases, and high risk groups, including doctors and other healthcare personnel, police, government officials and mediapersons, he said.

The private diagnostic agencies should not indulge in malpractice to test many people, he said. The state government on Sunday said it would conduct COVID-19 tests on 50,000 people in 30 assembly segments in the state capital and four adjoining districts which are witnessing a spike in new cases in a bid to contain the spread.

Chairing a high-level review meeting on COVID-19, the Chief Minister instructed officials to conduct the tests in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Vikarabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts over the next 10 days, an official press release said here on Sunday.

Rao also asked them to prepare guidelines for the private hospitals and laboratories to conduct COVID-19 tests, treatment and the cost by following the norms, it said.
She recently revealed that her favorite days were when she was fresh faced and not wearing any makeup.

And Salma Hayek did just that on Sunday when she took to social media for a makeup free selfie.

The 53-year-old actress put her age-defying looks forward while posing in front of a plant outside.

Stunner: Salma Haeyk showcased her gorgeous makeup free complexion in a no filter selfie on Sunday

'#selfiesunday #nofilter #nature,' she captioned.

Salma's selfie saw her style her brunette tresses out into loose waves that framed her olive skin complexion.

Her post comes after she recently revealed her past struggles with self-worth and self-love.

Not easy times: Hayek, 53, recently revealed she used to struggle with self-worth but now loves the skin she's in

'My favorite days are the days that you're not wearing makeup, and you're not looking in the mirror because you're not thinking about how you look,' she told People last month.

'You're just present, and you're just doing your thing. And this is the best thing about not wearing makeup, when you're not thinking, "How do I look without makeup? Oh, I forgot to put makeup".'

She continued: 'When you're just living life, and this is not your priority.'

Hayek admitted that she dealt with physical insecurities when she was younger, which she's learned from.

Going bare: Hayek recently told People: 'My favorite days are the days that you're not wearing makeup, and you're not looking in the mirror because you're not thinking about how you look'

Timeless beauty: She also admitted: 'When I look at pictures of me in my 30s or in my 40s, I see myself more beautiful than I saw myself at the time' (pictured in June, 1996)

She added: 'When I look at pictures of me in my 30s or in my 40s, I see myself more beautiful than I saw myself at the time.

'I used to criticize myself so much. Now when I look in the mirror and there are things that I dont see, I think about how much Im going to like me in 10 years.'

The Like a Boss star also revealed how her looks pigeonholed her as an actress earlier in her career.

She told Total Film: 'Unfortunately, I never had a lot of chances to do parts where I could use a lot of the things I learned. Ive had directors say to me, "Dumber and faster. Sound dumber and speak faster!"'

Hayek has recently been isolating at home in London with husband Francois-Henri Pinault, 57, and daughter Valentina Paloma, 12.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, says Executive Jets Services Ltd, the flight company that conveyed musician Naira Marley and ex-BB Naija housemate, Kim Oprah, to Abuja for a concert, has been suspended indefinitely.

Mr Sirika said this at the daily briefing on the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, on Monday, in Abuja.

The minister said the flight was approved for a different purpose  to convey a serving judge from Lagos to Abuja and back, on official assignment.

But the flight operator violated the approval, he said.

He also said the flight crew will be punished for providing misleading information while the flight captain will also be sanctioned for providing false information.

We approved a flight indeed, but not for any musician. The approved flight was to convey a justice on official assignment, but ExecuJet illegally used it to convey musician to Abuja for a concert. We have suspended ExecuJets operations indefinitely, (it) will also be fined, the minister said.

The development comes barely 24 hours after the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) sealed Jabi Lake Mall for violating the ban on public gatherings.

READ ALSO:

Naira Marley held a concert at Jabi mall on Saturday in contravention of the directive of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 as part of measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Tolu Ogunlesi, an aide to President Muhammadu Buhari on new media, also tweeted, ExecuJet are the culprits here. According to the Minister of Aviation, they provided false information and used approval granted for an illegal flight operation to convey a musician to Abuja (for an illegal concert).

Background

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that hip-hop artiste, Azeez Fashola, aka Naira Marley, held a concert at Jabi mall on Saturday in contravention of the directive of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 as part of measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Ms Oprah was the event anchor.

The concert was put together by Play Network Africa, Traffic Bar, ElCarnival, and was sponsored by Glenfiddich.

Nairabox and Ariiya sold the concerts tickets for N20,000 and N250,000.

Naira Marley, 26, and Oprah shared videos of themselves inside a private jet enroute Abuja and upon arriving in the federal capital

A flier advertising the concert which was shared on Instagram on Saturday by the organisers and Oprah indicated that it was meant to be a drive-through.

But this was not the case as videos circulating on social media show Naira Marley performing on stage before a crowd at the venue.

But the organisers said they instructed the crowd to go back to their cars before Naira Marley mounted the stage and have proof to back their claims.

This has sparked outrage on social media with many comparing their actions to that of Nollywood actress, Funke Akindele, who was on April 6, arrested and fined for hosting a party in her Lekki home in violation of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Naira Marley, who is not a stranger to controversies, was also indicted when he showed up at the party which Akinedele organised in honour of her husband, Abdulrasheed Bello, also known as JJC Skillz.

Many Nigerians have also taken to social media to criticise Naira Marley, Oprah, and the organisers of the concert, Play Network.

Editors Note: The name of the private airline company that was suspended has been corrected in the first paragraph.
Mumbai: Six people, who were smuggling gutkha, or chewing tobacco, comprising betel and palm nuts, worth Rs4.84 lakh from Gujarat, were arrested by the Oshiwara police station authorities on Sunday night.

The police also seized a truck and a tempo along with the banned gutkha.

The accused will be produced before a local court on Monday.

The accused have been booked under Sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant), 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life), 272 (bid to sale adulterated edible substance) 273 (sale of noxious substance), 336 (an act endangering personal safety of others), 34 (several people are involved with a common criminal intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, and the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Dayanand Bangar, a senior police inspector from Oshiwara police station, said, We acted on the basis of a tip-off and organised a trap for the truck, which was carrying the contraband from Gujarat, near Rajnagar in Jogeshwari (West). We unearthed the banned substance and all six accused were arrested.

The truck was to deliver seven buffaloes in Mumbai. The banned gutkha, worth Rs4.84 lakh, was hidden at the top of the truck, said Raghunath Kadam, inspector, Oshiwara police station.

The accused have been identified as Sahal Madhia (24), Arar Madhia (31), Chandrakant Pawar (52), Zuber Kamani (30), Imtiyaz Madhia (40) and Imran Ravani (40).
The family of a PATH employee killed by the coronavirus filed a wrongful death suit against the railroad, contending it didnt supply protective equipment, conduct testing or do enough to protect them.

The suit, filed in Superior Court in Hudson County by the family of Robert Elijah of Aberdeen, contends he was exposed to COVID-19 in the railroads C yard in Journal Square, Jersey City on March 15 when he embraced a co-worker, who later tested positive for the coronavirus. He was 61, according to his obituary.

Elijah, who worked as a Power Rail Mechanic for 18-years, was one of two Port Authority of New York and New Jersey employees claimed by the virus.

Mr. Elijahs death is a tragedy for PATH and for the Port Authority, said Cheryl Ann Albiez, an authority spokeswoman. "Consistent with previous statements, the Port Authority does not comment on pending litigation.

Elijah was not wearing a mask at the time he is thought to have contracted the virus because PATH officials instructed employees not to wear them unless they were performing their specific job function, the suit said.

While Port Authority officials announced at its April 23 board meeting that front line employees had been issued and directed to wear masks and other protective gear, the suit claims PATH ordered foreman to tell employees to return masks on March 5.

The suit also faults PATH for not starting to test workers until mid- May, despite earlier union requests and for not initiating contact tracing. PATH was the last metro area commuter rail system to offer testing.

Elijah died on April 23 after a horrible and protracted death over 20 days after his April 3 admission to Bayshore Medical Center with pneumonia symptoms, the suit said. The pneumonia spread to his other lung, despite being put in the hospitals intensive care unit. He experienced heart and kidney failure and was placed on dialysis, the suit said.

As his condition worsened, Elijah developed blood clots and was given blood thinners, and he later received a plasma infusion. Elijah had bought N 95 masks for his family before he was hospitalized, and none of them tested positive for COVID-19, court papers said. None of his immediate family, including Shelia, his wife for 40 years, were allowed to visit him in the hospital.

The suit contends that PATH failed to provide a safe place to work, provide masks and hand sanitizer, timely quarantine workers who had been exposed to COVID-19 or provide prevention education.

If PATH management had just done their jobs and provided testing, PPE and training to its employees then Robert Elijah would be here today, said Dave Ortiz, President of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 864 and Elijahs union representative. His death could have easily been prevented by his employer taking simple steps to keep its workers safe.

The suit also charged PATH with instituting a claw back policy, limiting workers infected with COVID-19 to 10 sick days from 14. That policy was rescinded after the PATH union objected.

PATH union employees are approaching a tenth year working without a new contract.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas today addressed more than 6,500 people attending the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Virtual Global Forum.

The AJC Global Forum is the global Jewish advocacy organization's signature annual event. Originally scheduled to take place this week in Berlin, Germany, the venue was changed to an online meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"What an honor it would have been to host you here for the first time in AJC's long history and 75 years after the end of the Shoah," said Maas. "Now, more than ever we need voices like yours, and organizations like the AJC to counter the voices of hatred, racism and intolerance. As this virtual meeting proves, even cyberspace can become a meeting place for the wise," borrowing, he noted, from a Talmudic expression.

The foreign minister spoke emphatically about rising antisemitism in Europe, Germany-Israel relations, and the ongoing threats to Israel from Iran.

With antisemitism increasing in Europe in recent years, the coronavirus pandemic health crisis also "is a breeding ground for hatred, violence, racism, and antisemitism," said Maas. "The coronavirus has revived some of the vilest stereotypes about Jewish citizens, reminding us of the darkest times in our history."

"I am grateful to the AJC for pointing this out loud and clear," said Maas.

Germany, which will assume next month the presidency of the Council of the European Union, and currently holds the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), is helping lead regional and global initiatives to combat antisemitism. The IHRA, Maas noted, has established a task force against Holocaust denial and distortion.

The EU Council will be taking action to enhance Europe's democratic resilience. "We must protect the rights to peaceful protests and freedom of speech, but this does not mean that we must accept foreign disinformation campaigns or allow cyberspace to become an incubator for hate crime, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and distortion," said Maas.

In responding to the pandemic, Germany's humanitarian assistance also has benefited Israel. "I am glad we could also help our friends in Israel. We treated Israeli citizens who were stranded around the globe as if they were our own, bringing them home on German planes. This was a moving example of the trust on which our unlikely wonderful friendship with Israel is built."

In this 55th year of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany, prioritizing those ties was demonstrated most recently in the foreign minister's visit to Jerusalem a few days ago, his first trip outside Europe since the lockdown. In meetings with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Maas discussed "the many serious questions linked to a potential annexation of land in the West Bank" and "Iran's highly problematic behavior towards Israel and the entire region."

"We will continue to do everything we can to prevent the nightmare scenario of a nuclear-armed Iran," Maas told the AJC Virtual Global Forum.

Germany is also targeting Iran's proxies, especially Hezbollah. "Our recent ban of Hezbollah activities in Germany has sent a firm message," Maas said. "An organization whose stated goal is to eliminate the State of Israel has no room to operate within our borders. And we will encourage other European states to follow our example."

AJC has had a more than 70-years relationship with Germany, and in 1998 opened an office in Berlin, which is today directed by Dr. Remko Leemhuis.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


Retired Msgr. J. Robert Yeazel, a well-known Central New York priest, is recovering in a rehabilitation center in Schenectady after a two month battle with Covid-19.

Yeazel, 78, tested positive for the virus in March, and was taken from his home at the Nottingham senior living center to Crouse Hospital for treatment, according to Rev. John D. Manno, pastor at Holy Family Church. Yeazel was a senior priest at the church in Fairmount.

At Crouse, he received convalescent plasma from blood donations of those who have recovered from the virus, the Yeazel family said in letter to clergy and parishioners in early May.

Yeazel subsequently tested negative for the virus at Crouse, and three weeks ago was transferred to rehab. He was on a ventilator from the day he was admitted to the hospital, Manno said. At one point, he was taken off it for several days but then required it again, he said.

He is being weaned off the ventilator now, but also has a feeding tube, Manno said.

Father Yeazel is in good spirits, and is making good progress, Manno said. He can communicate with family and friends with an iPad, and continues to get physical and occupational therapy. Hes very weak after spending so much time hospitalized, Manno said.

"Everybody who knows him knows hes a fighter,'' Manno said. Its a miracle hes recovered, and we know thats because he has a lot of strength.

Before retiring in 2017, Yeazel served at Holy Cross Church in DeWitt starting in 2000, and before that was pastor at Immaculate Conception Church in Fayetteville, followed by eight years as vicar for priests for the diocese.

Manno said those who desire to can send a card to Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital, 1270 Belmont Ave. Schenectady, NY 12308.

Its not know how long he will remain in rehab, Manno said.

Yeazel was raised in Syracuse, graduated from Christian Brothers Academy and was ordained to the priesthood nearly 55 years ago.

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Elizabeth Doran covers education, suburban government and development, breaking news and more. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact her anytime 315-470-3012 or email edoran@syracuse.com
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 14)  Netizens backed Frankie Pangilinan under the hashtag #HijaAko after she criticized TV host Ben Tulfo for saying the way women dress invites sex offenders to commit crime.

It all started when Pangilinan, daughter of Senator Francis and actress Sharon Cuneta, reacted past midnight on Saturday to a now deleted Facebook post by the Lucban Municipal Police Station, which told women to dress modestly to avoid getting harassed. "STOP TEACHING GIRLS HOW TO DRESS?? TEACH PEOPLE NOT TO RAPE," she tweeted.

READ: PNP Chief orders probe on Lucban police station's victim-blaming post on social media

On Saturday evening, Tulfo tagged Pangilinan in a tweet, wherein he called her "hija" and said all a rapist or a juvenile sex offender needs is an opportunity to commit a crime. "Sexy ladies, careful with the way you dress up! You are inviting the beast," he said.

Pangilinan countered Tulfo's tweet on Sunday morning, saying, "rape culture is real and a product of this precise line of thinking, where the behavior is normalized, particularly by men. She added, the way anyone dresses should not be deemed as an 'opportunity' to sexually assault them. ever."

Pangilinan also replied to her tweet a screencap of a Facebook post from BITAG Live, which Tulfo hosts. The post argued sex maniacs and rapists cannot be taught how to control their sexual desires and criminal state. "Ang tanging magagawa ay manamit ng tama. Huwag nating pukawin ang pagnanasa nila. Ito ang iyo magagawa," he said.

[Translation: What can only be done is to dress properly. Do not rouse their desire. That's what you can do.]

"Bago natin sila baguhin, baguhin muna natin ang sarili't pag-iisip natin. Gets mo, Hija?," read the post, adding that Pangilinan's dad Kiko authored the Juvenile Justice and Welfare act, which discusses how children and teens committing crimes should be handled accordingly.

[Translation: Before we can change them, let's change ourselves and our way of thinking first. Get it, Hija?]

Pangilinan also took offense to Tulfo addressing her as "hija," adding it "will not belittle" her point.

A few hours after, Pangilinan tweeted the hashtag #HijaAko, which contains a screencap of a message from an unnamed sender saying they'd "also like to sign up for the hija label if that's what ben tulfo's calling girls who fight for their rights as human beings."

And the hashtag was born. #HijaAko now has over 20,000 tweets mostly from netizens condemning Tulfo's victim-blaming remarks, with others opting to share their own experiences of sexual harassment.

"stop telling girls what to wear. it doesn't matter what girls wear or what time of day it is. rape/sexual harassment happens bcos of the offender's dirty twisted mind," one netizen shared.

Another Twitter user tweeted that the culture of victim blaming will never be abolished as long as men who think like Tulfo exist.

Meanwhile, this netizen criticized the way Tulfo addressed Pangilinan, saying "boomers love to use hija/hijo to downplay our points and our efforts to make a change to hide the fact that they grew up believing problematic beliefs that they carried out through adulthood."

Lawyer and human rights advocate Erin Tanada III, who is also Pangilinan's godfather and a partymate of her father, expressed support for her as well. "We should stand-up to bullies in the form of Dirty Old Men!," he tweeted.

I never said that Im blaming the victims. Lets get it straight, this is not a blame game. I said, lets not awaken the beast within the criminals," said Tulfo in a statement to bitagmedia.com, said the website in one of its recent releases.

It looks like Frankie Pangilinan has addressed my reaction to her tweets last night," said Tulfo, according to the site. Sa paggamit niya ng hija sa kanyang Twitter account, patuloy na mananatili ang gabay at anino ni Ben Tulfo sa kaniya.

[Translation: With her using "hija" in her Twitter account, the guidance and shadow of Ben Tulfo will always remain with her.]
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. (CSE:MYCO) (OTC: NLBIF) (FSE:0NF) ("Mydecine" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce the establishment of a research division agreement with Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation ("API"), a translational commercial drug development institute hosted in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The agreement with API provides exceptional capacity for Mydecine and the ability to significantly speed their product development with leading experts in the pharmaceutical sciences and established drug development facilities. The Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is consistently ranked in the top 15 globally for the citations of research by international QS rankings in pharmacy and pharmacology and includes a wide range of experts from discovery, pharmaceutical analysis, drug action, disposition, formulation and clinical development. [1] Mydecine is also able to access broader expertise through the agreement such as API's collaborating institute the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) - ranked among the top 5 institutes in the world for AI/ML[2]  as well as experts in mycology, pharmacometrics, neuropharmacology and much more at universities throughout the API network.

Through the agreement, Mydecine has the ability to immediately commence fungal discovery investigations with varietal mushrooms and their extracts, including scheduled substances. With access to GMP capacity and Health Canada licenses that include the ability to move to import and export, conduct R&D, and clinical trials Mydecine is able to begin work that will take other companies years to establish the capability for. Research and development is commencing with a significant program to extract, analyze, and determine the effects of various compounds from fungi and their pharmacokinetic disposition and development of dosage forms for specific indications, providing Mydecine with an extensive assets and capacity to become a leader in the space. The end goal is developing products with clinical applications over a period of three years. In exchange for these services, MYCO entered into a two-year commitment and will be paying API a total $1,099,345 in year one and $1,136,249 in year two ending February 1, 2022. Year three and beyond will be a right of first refusal to either party.

"We see this agreement as a core component of our work as a company," says Mydedine CEO Josh Bartch "the API team at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences gives us the ability to rocket our product development ahead by years, providing the know-how, facilities, and licenses to quickly establish Mydecine as a leader in naturally sourced therapies for a wide variety of indications. The research division also provides a phenomenal synergy with our other recent acquisitions, giving us a dedicated team to explore myco-inspired treatments particularly for areas of high need such as mental health."

"Our partnership with the University of Alberta will unlock brand new avenues for the study of medical uses of mushrooms," Robert Roscow, CSO of Mydecine. "This partnership is a fundamental aspect of Mydecine's expanding unique research network. We are investigating the potential of mushrooms and their compounds to improve human health and wellness. This research partnership opens up, not only investigation of single molecules from mushrooms but also more complex formulations. The breadth of research resources at the University of Alberta, from world class AI to cultivation and pharmacology, as well as their possession of Health Canada License allows an unprecedented level of study."

"Back to the fungal future," Dr. Neal Davies, Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences "Pharmaceutical activity of fungal metabolites have been known for at least 15 centuries and contemporary research has discovered some novel molecule leads for unique mycological medications for nature inspired treatments in the new millennium. This bodes very well for the program developing promising treatments."

"We're thrilled to be working with Mydecine," says API CEO, Andrew MacIsaac, "we see their focus as one of growing importance and high potential that will serve them well. By developing a world class R&D program that discovers potential new lead compounds, synergistic effects, and increased therapeutic indications for mushroom-derived products, Mydecine will stand out in this bourgeoning sector.

[1] http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/1990/toyear/2020/index?ai&mlmining&world

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/pharmacy-pharmacology (Sort by ranking indicator citations per paper)

[2] https://investalberta.ca/industry-profiles/artificial-intelligence/

About Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation

API is a not-for-profit commercial drug development institute that works in collaboration with the University of Alberta's Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences as well as research and post-secondary institutions across Canada. API draws on an interdisciplinary network of over 30 pharmaceutical scientists, clinicians, regulatory, patent, and market experts in a variety of fields and disease areas to bring life-saving research to the real world.

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.

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.

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.



On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Joshua Bartch

Chief Executive Officer

For Further Information Contact

Corporate Communications

+1-250-488-6728

SOURCE Mydecine Innovations Group Inc.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  Senator Ping Lacson said there seems to be no solution and end in sight in the COVID-19 health crisis due to the Health Department's incompetence.

In a text message, Lacson expressed his concerns after the number of COVID positive cases in the country continues to increase three months since strict quarantine protocols have been implemented.

Lacson explained among the issues involved is the inability of DOH to test enough patients in order to assess the real situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

The senator said this is made worse by not reporting the tests conducted and the results accurately and in a timely manner.

"It is a basic management principle to base a sound decision on accurate information. Sad to say, this is not the case," Lacson said.

Senate President Tito Sotto, however, said the government is doing what it can given the situation we are in.

Sotto believes the country is able to cope with the crisis despite the late recognizance of the epidemic, the hard headedness of some Filipinos, and the viciousness of the virus.

"We can criticize but we also just have to try and help," Sotto said.

For its part, the Health Department explained operational issues in laboratories still persist.

"Ito pong mga operational issues natin, logistics-wise napakalaking bagay po sa amin. Mayroon ho tayong current international shortage on the different logistical supplies na kailangan ng isang laboratoryo na hindi ho madaling makuha sa panahong ito," Health Usec. Rosario Vergeire said.

[Translation: These operational issues, logistics-wise are a big deal for us. We currently have an international shortage on the different logistical supplies needed by a laboratory, which are not easily acquired in these times.]

The DOH said it is also continuously conducting emergency hiring of health human resources to help in the fight against COVID-19.

"So ngayon po nagha-hire na po talaga ng mga encoders para po sa mga laboratoryo, para po sa mga ospital, para po sa mga local government units para po makapag-encode nang maayos ng datos at maging real time ang information natin," Vergeire explained.

[Translation: Right now, we are hiring encoders for laboratories, hospitals, and local government units in order to achieve real-time reporting of our information.]
Nana Ofori Owusu, Director of Operations for the Progressive People's Party (PPP), has expressed worry over the reopening of schools for final year students in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.



According to Nana Ofori Owusu, asking the students to go back to their various schools in this crucial season of COVID-19 may endanger more lives and also create fear and panic in their homes.



President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, delivering his eleventh update on COVID-19, reiterated that final year tertiary students will resume school on Monday, June 15, 2020 while those at the Junior High Schools resume on June 29, and the Senior High Schools on 22nd June.



From tomorrow, Monday, 15th June, the last batch of institutions in this phased approach, our educational institutions, will begin to re-open, with final year students in our tertiary colleges and universities returning to school to prepare for and take their exit examinations. As has been stated, final year Senior High School (SHS 3) students, together with SHS 2 Gold Track students, will resume on 22nd June; and final year junior high school (JHS 3) students, the week after, on 29th June. The decision to include our schools in phase one of the easing of restrictions was taken advisedly," the President said.



But Nana Ofori Owusu has cautioned the President and the stakeholders in the education sector to reconsider their decision.



He asked how the President expects the students and their lecturers to stay safe and free of the virus infections when they cannot determine their health status especially now that research has proven that some COVID-19 patients are asymptomatic.



Speaking to host Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', Nana Ofori Owusu appealed to the President to go for an alternative given by the Minister of Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh which suggests that the final year students could be graded using their continuous assessment.



This, to him, is a better option than opening the schools because if the students are to be graded based on their continuous assessment, there will be no need for final examinations.



He echoed the President's statement that ''we're not in normal times'', hence ''I am pleading that, with the Hon. Minister's own alternative solution to the problem that he enumerated and it made perfect sense, I plead that we look at that option and push that option onto the children''.









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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Early coronavirus testing for George Floyd protesters in Minnesota is showing that one in 70 Black Lives Matter protesters have tested positive for COVID-19 - as a second wave of infections is feared.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Minneapolis - and across the country - to protest police brutality in the wake of Floyd's May 25 death at the hands of white officer Derek Chauvin.

The images of protesters gathering in such close proximity had public health officials urging demonstrators to get tested due to concerns of a potential surge in new COVID-19 infections.

Early testing of protesters in Minneapolis from last week is now showing a positivity rate of 1.4 percent.

The images of George Floyd protesters gathering in such close proximity following his May 25 death had public health officials urging demonstrators to get tested over fears of a potential surge in new COVID-19 infections.

Following the George Floyd protests, the average number of new cases has been around 400 a day, which is down from the peak when 700 were reported in the last few weeks of May

The health department set up four testing sites last week specifically for those who had participated in the protests with more than 3,300 people undergoing tests.

Results from about 1,300 of the tests - or 40 percent - carried out at those sites on June 9 and 10 have already come back and show that 1.4 percent of protesters who were tested have been infected with COVID-19.

The seven-day average of positive tests across Minnesota is 3.7 percent. It is higher because it is based on people who have been tested because they are displaying symptoms.

Currently, more than 417,000 tests have been carried out across the state.

Not all suspected cases of COVID-19 are tested, which means the data is not representative of the total number of people in Minnesota who have or had coronavirus.

Based on the current number of infections, about 500 in every 100,000 Minnesotans have coronavirus.

The health department breaks the prevalence of COVID-19 in the state by race. That data shows that 1,500 per 100,000 black people in the state have COVID-19 and 177 per 100,000 white people have the virus.

Health officials warn it is too soon to forecast if the protesters could be the source of widespread community transmission that could result in a spike in cases.

The decline in infections comes despite a huge increase in testing. The state is now, on average, testing more than 10,000 people per day compared to the 7,500 tests late last month

Hospitalizations across the state are also now decreasing gradually. The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital as of Sunday was at 369, which is the lowest since May 1. Hospitalizations peaked on May 28 with 606 COVID-19 patients

Meanwhile, data from the Minnesota Health Department shows that infections and hospitalizations appear to be gradually decreasing across the state even as testing ramps up.

The latest health data figures shows Minnesota has had 30,471 infections and 1,298 deaths from coronavirus.

The data shows that the pace of the outbreak has slowed significantly in recent weeks.

Following the Floyd protests after his death, the average number of new cases has been around 400 a day, which is down from the peak when 700 were reported in the last few weeks of May.

The decline in infections comes despite a huge increase in testing.

The state is now, on average, testing more than 10,000 people per day compared to the 7,500 tests late last month.

Hospitalizations across the state are also now decreasing gradually.

The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital as of Sunday was at 369, which is the lowest since May 1.

Hospitalizations peaked on May 28 with 606 COVID-19 patients.

Minnesota has reported 1,298 deaths across the state from COVID-19. Just over 1,000 of them have been linked to long-term care facilities

While the rate is relatively low, health officials warn it is too soon to forecast if the protesters could be the source of widespread community transmission that could result in a spike in cases

While infections and hospitalizations appear to be declining in Minnesota, it has been spiking in other states like Florida and Texas as most pushed ahead with reopening and President Donald Trump planned an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Alabama reported a record number of new cases for the fourth day in a row on Sunday. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina all had record numbers of new cases in the past three days.

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May.

In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hot spots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 - the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

Perhaps more troubling for health officials, many of these states are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69 percent to 77 percent of hospital beds are occupied, depending on the region.

While Utah's governor announced last week that most counties there would pause their reopenings, most states are not considering a second shutdown as they face budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment. Many went ahead with reopenings before meeting government infection rate guidelines for doing so.

New York, the hardest hit state, has utilized health guidelines to instruct its reopening and continued to see all measures of infection drop - new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positive rates among those getting tested.

However, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned New York City and Long Island officials on Sunday that their reopenings were at risk if they do not stop further large public gatherings that he said are threatening progress on curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

Fears that a second wave of infections is happening - or that states failed to curb their first wave - have prompted health officials to plead with the public to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.

Trump still plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March on Saturday in Tulsa, although those attending will have to agree not to hold the campaign responsible if they contract COVID-19.

Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.
The East Timorese government has widened the multi-party coalition on which it is based, securing the support of 41 out of the 65 parliamentarians.

The new alignment marks a shiftearlier this year the government was on the verge of being thrown out of office, and former president and prime minister Xanana Gusmao was poised to become prime minister again. Now, however, Gusmaos political coalition has collapsed and he and his National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) party have been shut out of power.

Gusmao had been a senior minister, and the CNRT a coalition participant, in the government of Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak. In January CNRT parliamentarians voted down the governments budget in a bid to force an early national election, which is not due until 2023. Gusmao announced that the CNRT had formed a new alliance with the smaller Democratic Party and KHUNTO formation, giving it a parliamentary majority. In February, Prime Minister Ruak submitted his resignation to President Francisco Guterres.

Before this was accepted, however, East Timor recorded its first cases of coronavirus, from March 21, and a state of emergency, which remains in place, was declared on March 28. The country has fortunately avoided widespread infection, with a total of 24 confirmed cases, none of them active any more. East Timors borders remain closed, although the land border with the Indonesian province of West Timor is a porous one and there are escalating infections across Indonesia.

For the government, the state of emergency appears to have bought it time. Last month Ruak announced that the Democratic Party and KHUNTO were abandoning Gusmaos coalition and joining the government, together with Fretilin, the largest party represented in the parliament. The government plans on passing the annual state budget by the end of July.

In addition to losing all its ministries, the CNRT lost the post of parliamentary president (equivalent to speaker). Amid chaotic scenes on May 18-19, including parliamentarians flipping over tables and throwing objects at each other, the ruling coalition parties installed Fretilins Aniceto Guterres Lopes as the new parliamentary president.

Gusmao and the CNRT have attempted multiple legal challenges, including one seeking a fresh national election, but all have been defeated.

The sudden reversal of fortune for Gusmao has raised tensions in Timors capital Dili. In 2006, then President Gusmao helped instigate a violent split within the Timorese military as a means of ousting the Fretilin-led government. He worked closely with the Australian government, which seized on the coup attempt to stage a military intervention to force the removal of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and consolidate his grip on power.

Last month, the Association of Black Brigade Combatants, an organisation of some anti-Indonesian resistance fighters aligned with Gusmao, threatened to demonstrate and occupy the parliament. The US embassy issued an alert warning American citizens that the demonstration would be illegal and likely met by police out in force, adding that people should exercise increased caution due to crime and possible civil unrest.

Police are securing a road leading to Mari Alkatiris residence, which was burned down in the 2006 crisis. Gusmao continues to travel around the country campaigning against the government.

Unlike in 2006, it does not appear likely that his bid for power will be backed by Australian imperialism.

Before he quit the government, Gusmao focussed on developing the Timor Seas untapped Greater Sunrise reserves. He spent $650 million buying out stakes held by multinational energy giants ConocoPhillips and Shell. At the same time, he led the Tasi Mane infrastructure mega-project centred around oil refining facilities on East Timors south coast that were being constructed in anticipation of oil and gas being piped there from the untapped Greater Sunrise reserves in the Timor Sea.

Australias Woodside Petroleum, backed by Canberra, has refused to agree to piping the oil and gas to Timor, insisting that either a floating facility be built or that the energy is piped to Darwin, in northern Australia, where existing processing facilities could be used.

Amid the protracted standoff, Gusmao proceeded with his construction projects. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on an airport, port facilities, multi-lane road highwaysnone of which have been used. It is widely understood in Timor, however, that those with the right political connections have enriched themselves via state contracts and kickbacks.

While in opposition, Fretilin criticised the Tasi Mane project as an extravagance. The party also condemned what it deemed excessive public expenditure that threatened the viability of Timors sovereign wealth fund. The fund was built up through revenues from the Bayu-Undan gas field, with the first Fretilin-led administrations after formal independence in 2002 imposing austerity budgets despite Timors enormous poverty and lack of social infrastructure.

The newly-reforged government will almost certainly move to slash public spending, and likely rein in the large construction projects promoted by Gusmao. The coronavirus crisis has triggered an economic shock to the country, compounded by the global collapse in oil and gas prices.

East Timors sovereign wealth fund is worth around $US16 billion and provides the vast majority of the Timorese states revenues. Bayu-Undan, however, is nearly dry, and without the exploitation of Greater Sunrise the state will be threatened with outright collapse.

There have been recurring rumours of Chinese interest in either financing or directly constructing pipelines from Greater Sunrise to Timor.

For the Australian government, the worst outcome of the protracted Timorese political crisis would be to lose influence in the strategically located state to Beijing. Earlier this year South Australian Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick spoke in parliament to describe East Timor as a stationary aircraft carrier to Australias north and warned of the danger that China would move to establish a military base there (see: East Timors coalition government collapses).

Further Australian state intrigue and manoeuvring in Dili can be expected.
Equipped with foreign languages and basic knowledge about the tourist attractions and relic sites as well as communication skills, the clubs members have actively introduced and provided visitors information about the cultural and historical values of the destinations.

With the ability to speak English and French fluently, Vu Hoang Long, a student from Department of History under the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has joined the promotion of culture and history at the National History Museum over the past few years. In addition to his support of the museums management board, Long has enthusiastically shared his knowledge and interesting information about the land, history, culture and people of Vietnam through the images, documents and artefacts displayed at the museum, contributing to helping visitors have an overview of the nations national history.

Student Vu Thi Linh from the Department of Southeast Asia Studies, who can speak both English and Thai, has joined activities to escort visitors around the Temple of Literature with helpful information. She mastered the knowledge of the historyand unique architecture of this special relic site as well as thoroughly grasping the education of others about Vietnam in the past. The information about the organisation of examinations in feudal dynasties, which was introduced by Linh, has made visitors extremely surprised and interested. They can thereby know more about the values of Vietnams first university.

The Cultural - Historical Promotion Club has a large number of members equipped with high level skills and foreign language abilities. Agility, friendliness and enthusiasm are common characteristics of the volunteers in yellow uniforms. They are always present at the relic sites to promptly support and guide tourists. Besides the basic knowledge on the culture and history they have learnt in the school, the students find out more information via the internet and social networks. In addition, they exchange and help each other improve both their knowledge and skills. They have also been supported by their teachers and managers of the destinations. The volunteeractivities not only are a playground for students to apply their knowledge into reality but also offer opportunities for them to improve their skills and contribute to preserving and promoting the values of national historical relic sites to all people.

Head of the Cultural - Historical Promotion Club Ngo Quang Minh said the clubs goal is to spread and promote cultural and historical values to both international and domestic visitors. The knowledge that students have learnt in their schools has been applied to reality and the activities can help them improve both their confidence and foreign language abilities.

After the social distancing orders in Covid-19 prevention and order were eased, tourist attractions and relic sites reopened and the groups of volunteers continue to appear weekly to support domestic tourists.
The Spanish government will present a 3.75 billion-euro ($4.2 billion) stimulus program for the car industry on Monday, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said.

The plan includes reforms to the investment framework and fiscal rules, Sanchez said in a speech Sunday in Madrid. The government will also present a stimulus plan for the tourism industry on June 18, he said.

The two industries combined account for about 22 per cent of Spanish gross domestic product, with car production accounting for a fifth of the countrys exports. Both sectors have been severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which led the government to impose one of the worlds strictest lockdowns. The economy could shrink as much as 15 per cent in 2020, according to worse-case scenario estimates by the Bank of Spain.

The country is progressively lifting the confinement orders through a four-phase plan to ease the lockdown. As part of this plan, two planes with German tourists are scheduled to arrive on the island of Mallorca as a pilot test on a return to receiving visitors.

The country aims to open its borders with all members of Europes so-called Schengen-free travel region as of June 21, Sanchez said. The only exception to the reopening will be Portugal, as the border between the two nations will remain shut until July 1.

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All political parties in Delhi should forget their differences and join hands in the COVID-19 battle of the national capital, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Monday after chairing an all-party meet. Leaders of the BJP, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Congress and the BSP attended the meeting.

Shah appealed to the four parties to ask their workers to help in ensuring the ground implementation of the Delhi government's coronavirus guidelines.

These steps will enhance public trust and the COVID-19 situation in Delhi will improve soon, Shah said.

All parties should forget their political differences and work together for the people of Delhi, he said after the meeting.

We will have to increase COVID-19 testing in Delhi by adopting new solutions, the home minister said.

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 meeting was held in the wake of a spurt in novel coronavirus cases in Delhi.

Shah also apprised the leaders of the steps taken to check the coronavirus pandemic and sought their views on the issue, a home ministry official said.

The deadly virus has infected over 41,000 in the national capital so far and claimed more than 1,300 lives.
Berlin: Borders opened up across Europe on Monday after three months of coronavirus closures that began chaotically in March. But many restrictions persist, it's unclear how keen Europeans will be to travel this northern summer and the continent is still closed to Americans, Asians and other international tourists.

Border checks for most Europeans were dropped in Germany, France and elsewhere at midnight, nearly two weeks after Italy opened its frontiers. The European Union's 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, aren't expected to start opening to visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly much later.

German police officers remove signs at the French-German border outside Strasbourg, eastern France, shortly before it reopened at midnight. Credit:AP

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time "to turn the page of the first act of the crisis" and "rediscover our taste for freedom."

But he warned: "This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard. ... The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other."
We're already months into the coronavirus pandemic, and most of the world has accepted the new normal, while some countries like Vietnam and New Zealand are safe for now. COVID-19 vaccines are also in various stages of trials, with some pledging doses by the end of the year.

Nevertheless, we're still learning a lot about the virus and the infection it causes.

Now, experts are sending out a warning regarding diabetes and the possibility that the novel coronavirus disease could trigger it.

Diabetes and COVID-19 Link

In a report by Newsweek, experts who are studying diabetes believe that COVID-19 could trigger the metabolic condition.

A warning was issued in the New England Journal of Medicine with a letter from a group of international researchers who mainly focus on diabetes.

The team said in the letter that they had found evidence that new cases of diabetes have been linked to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, otherwise known as the novel coronavirus that's causing havoc today.

In addition to new cases, experts also say that those with existing diabetes have also been seen to have "severe metabolic complications."

Before the warning was sent out, doctors already listed type 1 and type 2 diabetes as risk factors of moderate to severe COVID-19 cases, wherein the patient would have to be admitted to the hospital or worse, put in intensive care.

Read Also: Virus Update: Which Human Genes are More COVID-19 Prone? Study Wants to Know Answer Using Home DNA Tests

How Does the Coronavirus Trigger Diabetes?

So, how could the coronavirus disease trigger this widespread health problem?

The scientists involved in the studies surrounding the two problems believe that stress is one of the biggest triggers of diabetes and that people who have a viral infection have elevated stress due to the highly infectious nature of the virus.

Many who are positive are frightened that they could pass the virus to their family and friends, especially to the elderly population that is at most risk of catching and developing severe COVID-19.

In addition, they believe the new coronavirus could affect how our body processes sugar, especially as it triggers organs that play a massive role in our metabolism.

The receptors that the coronavirus uses to attach itself to a cell and hijack it are often found in the pancreas, kidneys, fat tissue, and the small intestine.

The Unknown Remains Unanswered

"We don't yet know the magnitude of the new onset diabetes in COVID-19 and if it will persist or resolve after the infection; and if so, whether or not or COVID-19 increases risk of future diabetes," said diabetes Professor Paul Zimmet from the Monash University in Melbourne and International Diabetes Federation's Honorary President.

Although it seems like forever since the new coronavirus has been discovered, we haven't had contact with it long enough to know how exactly the virus influences glucose metabolism.

Experts also have no clear view of whether it triggers classic type 1 diabetes or type 2, or perhaps create an entirely new form of the health problem.

With that, the team is creating the CoviDiab Registry project that will hopefully shed more light on the connection of the viral infection to diabetes.

"By establishing this Global Registry, we are calling on the international medical community to rapidly share relevant clinical observations that can help answer these questions," Zimmet further said.

Read Also: COVID-19 Update: Greatest Coronavirus Risks Can be Found in These Places; Clinical Trials Speed Up Spread of Other Diseases

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
His conclusion: An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. And therefore, he said, the employer is in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the law.

In writing the opinion, Justice Gorsuch assumed the role of his mentor, former Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, for whom he once was a clerk. Justice Kennedy played a pivotal role in many of the biggest gay rights cases of the last quarter-century and was the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

When Justice Kennedy retired in 2018, gay rights advocates said they feared that the court was less likely to support their cause. Instead he wrote an opinion that was immediately hailed by gay and transgender rights groups as a landmark victory.

With his opinion, Justice Gorsuch employed a fundamentally conservative principle  a literal reading of the words of a statute  to reach a decision that contrasts sharply with the conclusions of the other conservative justices on the court.

In a dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. called the majoritys reasoning preposterous and said it was difficult to recall a more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes.

Asked about the ruling Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump said that some people were surprised but added that the court had ruled and we live with their decision.

But for many who have known Justice Gorsuch for years, Mondays opinion may not have come as a complete shock.
Looking for more of the best deals, latest celebrity news and hottest trends? Sign up for Yahoo Lifestyle Canadas newsletter.

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As lockdown restrictions in certain areas of Canada begin to lift, a new study reveals that 85 per cent of womens service providers anticipate an increase in gender-based violence as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Canadian Womens Foundation (CWF), there is evidence that links an increase of violence against women, girls, trans and non-binary people whenever a public crisis or disaster occurs. This includes not only physical, sexual and emotional violence, but also child and elder abuse. As public health directives instructed Canadians to stay home, Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) reported that 20 percent of the 70 shelters it represents experienced an increase in calls for help.

ALSO SEE: Anxiety, depression will likely surge during coronavirus pandemic  here's how to combat it

In a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle Canada, Andrea Gunraj, vice president of Engagement for the CWF, explained how COVID-19 has exacerbated what was already considered a high-risk climate for women.

Image via the Canadian Women's Foundation.

Rates of gender-based violence were high in Canada, even before the pandemic: on average, every six days, a woman is killed by her intimate partner, Gunraj said. Social isolation may mean that abusers are in close proximity around the clock and other people arent around to see the signs of violence and intervene.

ALSO SEE: 'I have to stay and help': Family of doctor who died by suicide says she was 'tormented' by COVID-19

Despite more people relying on social media, text messages and video calls to stay in touch, quarantine provides ample opportunity for abusers to carefully monitor womens digital devices and conversations.

In April, the CWF launched a new campaign called Signal For Help to provide victims of abuse to non-verbally communicate to family and friends that they are unsafe and in need of assistance, without leaving a digital trace.

Story continues

In an instructional video, the CWF instructs anyone who receives a signal for help from a friend or loved one not to react. Changing the conversation to address the signal can put your loved one at further risk, instead, remain calm and carry on the conversation as best as you can.

How can you help if you receive the signal?

If you received a signal, the CWF advises you to try reaching out in a manner deemed safe. Phoning the person who signalled for help and asking yes or no questions like, Would you like me to call 911?, Do you need me to call a shelter? or Do you want me to look into services to help you? are ways to intervene without putting your loved one in further danger.

Image via Getty Images.

The CWF also advises using text messages, email, WhatsApp or social media to check in, which can reduce the risk of the persons device or conversation being monitored.

Additionally, to help support the person in need, ask if they would like you to check in on them regularly or what you can do to help support them.

How to get help

The CWF recommends calling 911 and notifying local authorities if you or someone you know is in immediate danger.

Websites like Shelter Safe can help you locate a shelter within your area, and provides access to valuable resources that can help you develop a safety plan for you and your family.

Image via Getty Images.

Many womens shelter pages, like Shelter Safe, recommend women seeking help view their page in privacy mode (also called incognito mode or private window) to avoid having the website saved in your browser history. If you dont know how to go into privacy mode, Shelter Safe provides instructions depending on your browser to navigate safely and delete your browsing history if you suspect you are being monitored.

They also have a Hide Page button, which will immediately take you away from the website if you become unsafe and need to hide what you are doing quickly.

If you need to make a phone call to a shelter, it is recommended that you use a friends phone or a public phone away from your partner or abuser.

For additional resources, click here.

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Senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi on Monday slammed Nepal over the newly passed Napalese constitutional amendment. Taking to Twitter, the Congress leader stated that Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is not realizing that he is "hurtling the country on the path to self-destruction." He added that he is becoming China's "puppet." The examples that Singhvi gave included the "confrontational anti-India stance" and "Anti-USA pettiness".

India and Nepal have been at loggerheads after Nepal redrew its map showing parts of Indian territory - Kalapani, Lipu Lekh, and Limpiyadhura in it. Nepal claimed that the new map has been drawn on the basis of the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 signed between Nepal and the then British Indian government.

Read: India notes passage of Nepal's constitutional amendment for new map; terms it 'violative'

#Nepals Oli does not realise he is hurtling #Nepal on path to self destruction by making it vassal state of #China and becoming latters puppet. Its confrontational anti India stance and its anti #USA pettiness, looking US aid and a gift horse in the mouth, are two examples.  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) June 15, 2020

Read: Congress calls passage of Nepal's bill for new map a 'colossal failure of BJP govt'

Nepal incorporates Indian territories in the new map

On Saturday, Nepal's House of Representatives (Lower House) passed a constitutional amendment to include Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura in Nepal's official Map unanimously. The amendment was introduced in the House on Tuesday. The map was passed unanimously, as the KP Sharma Oli-led government enjoyed the support of the main opposition party Nepali Congress and Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal in passing the new map. This move came a day after the firing at the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar that killed a labourer. According to security forces, the firing took place due to a local issue that had cropped up recently.

After the events in the lower house, Nepal Parliament's upper house on Sunday endorsed the proposal to discuss the Constitution amendment bill. Now, the bill will undergo a similar process in the National Assembly, wherein the ruling Nepal Communist Party commands two-thirds majority.

Meanwhile, reacting to Nepal incorporating parts of Indian territory in its official map, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had slammed the "unilateral act." Further, India has also called Nepal's new map "violative."

Read: Nepal's lower house passes bill to redraw map including Kalapani, Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura

Read: Nepal's upper house endorses proposal to consider amendment to update new political map
Xi Jinping has set China the goal of leading the world in cutting edge technology, but has overlooked the very basics. While the regime is pursuing quantum computing, artificial intelligence and space dominance, it has neglected one of the founding concepts of physics. Isaac Newton's third law says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

As Xi pushes harder and harder for global dominance, he is provoking a growing pushback. Not just from the US. A growing number of people, countries and organisations are realising that Xi's China is not the China they thought they knew.

Ignoring physics: Chinese President Xi Jinping. Credit:AP

The China that had followed Deng Xiaoping's dictum to "hide your brightness, bide your time" for the preceding four decades was given a new direction by Xi: "Strive to achieve." It's no sin to strive. But when you are striving to take territory from your neighbours, sovereignty from your friends, and liberties from people everywhere, you are going to ruffle a few feathers.

Among the latest to awaken is the secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance was forged to protect Europe from Russia. But Stoltenberg has now named China as a threat, too. China was too big a threat for America to manage by itself, the former Norwegian Labour prime minister said in a remarkable speech last week. Beijing was now a threat to democratic values everywhere and a global military force to be reckoned with.
A British pilot, Vietnams most severe patient of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), no longer requires antibiotics while his lung capacity continues to improve during treatment in Ho Chi Minh City.

As of Monday morning, the British patient has been disconnected from a ventilator for 48 hours without any complications, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control announced.

Doctors at Cho Ray Hospital in the southern metropolis have stopped giving the Briton antibiotics.

He is now only taking antifungal medication.

The patient continues to be fed via his gastrointestinal tract, while his lung capacity is also improving.

Doctors are focusing on restoring the muscular strength of his legs so that he will be able to walk again.

The 43-year-old man, a Vietnam Airlines pilot, was confirmed as the countrys COVID-19 patient No. 91 following his diagnosis in mid-March.

After being cleared of the coronavirus following his treatment at the Ho Chi Minh City Hospital for Tropical Diseases, he was transferred to Cho Ray Hospital on May 22 with severely damaged lungs.

A lung transplant was believed to be the only option to save the Briton.

However, he has been making a remarkable recovery in the past weeks.

Doctors gave the green light to disconnect the patient from ECMO life support, which he had been on for nearly 60 days, on June 3.

He was taken off his ventilator on Saturday, the Ministry of Health said, adding that a lung transplant is no longer necessary.

Vietnams COVID-19 tally is currently at 334, with 323 having recovered, according to Ministry of Health statistics.

No death from the disease has been recorded in the country.

Among the 11 active cases, only seven still test positive for the novel coronavirus, while the others have tested negative at least once since receiving treatment.

It has been 60 days since Vietnam last documented an infection in the community.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Tit for tat: ISI hand in disappearance of two Indian officials in Pakistan

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: Two Indian officials at the High Commission in Pakistan have gone missing.

Both officials who set out on work on Monday morning, did not reach their destination.

Indian officials tell OneIndia that this is nothing but tit for tat action. The two staffers who went missing are posted at the Islamabad mission and had stepped out for some work.

Missing Indian High Commission staff in Pakistan: Efforts on to trace the two | Oneindia News

Two Indian officials in High Commission at Pakistan missing

Tensions have been mounting between the two countries since India expelled two Pakistan officials on charges of espionage. The two officials were identified as Abid Hussain and Mohammad Tahir Khan. India had also expelled a driver, Javed Hussain.

Sources tell OneIndia that this is clearly the handiwork of the ISI and is meant to avenge India's actions against its officials, who were caught trying to gather sensitive information about the movement of Indian troops.

India will now lodge a strong protest with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. The matter is being taken up with Islamabad, the source cited above said. The official also said that this action amounts to harassment and is aimed at obstructing the normal functioning of our officials. The officer also said that Pakistan is trying to take revenge and is looking to expel Indian officials from Islamabad. We are prepared for such action will react accordingly the officer also noted.

After India declared two Pakistani officials as persona non grata, Pakistan had accused India of torturing its officials. The charge was however rubbished by India. The officials had been caught red handed, officials say, but they were not subject to any torture.

Pakistan has just been making a ground, so that it can harass Indian officials in Islamabad.

India, it may be recalled had issued a demarche after the Pakistani officials were caught red handed trying to gather information against the Indian troops. India had investigated the matter and then asked the two officials to leave the country.
Ghosts of Siletz Bay: Oregon Coast Shipwreck Appeared Sometimes

Published 06/14/2020 at 6:24 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Lincoln City, Oregon)  There has long been talk of something paranormal lurking in the waters of Siletz Bay in Lincoln City. Purportedly, a ghost ship periodically pops up on foggy days (notice how its never sunny days), slowly cutting its way through the atmospheric murk and then disappearing again. A promotional video once sold by the Lincoln City Visitors Bureau for many years even had interviews with some who had seen it, a video tape and DVD about ghost stories of the central Oregon coast that had plenty of interesting and eerie tidbits.

However, there is some stranger truth behind the fiction  or rumor, or legend. There is indeed a ghost of a shipwreck lodged in the muck of the bay, farther west of the Three Brothers rock structure. Its been there closing in on 200 years now, back to the very beginning of European settlers on the central Oregon coast. Even stranger: it was visible less and less over the last century or so and finally disappeared by the 60s. For awhile there, it would only make periodic appearances out of the sand and mud, much like its legendary ecotoplasmic counterpart.

Buried there is likely a brig called the Blanco which apparently wrecked somewhere about 1864. It took a whole month for this to be even be reported by local newspapers, and by then no one really knew what had gone on. The crew was long missing, the cargo was all gone, and its hull was split in two.

There are no local native legends about what happened to the crew, largely because the tribes located here at this point were forcibly moved shortly after during another wave of the U.S. government's genocidal treatment of indigenous people. No tribes living here now are descended from that original group so no word-of-mouth stories were passed on.

Clearly, the ship was looted, and at least one white man at the time blamed a few of the local tribesmen for this and possibly the disappearance of the crew. An Indian agent named Simpson overseeing the reservations claimed hed seen some of the ships supplies, even the crews clothing, in their hands. However, local residents blamed the wreck itself on the crews disappearance. It was common practice for Oregon coast homesteaders to raid shipwrecks for construction materials like lumber, as that sort of refined material was scarce.

Oddly, the ship departed from San Francisco headed for Coos Bay on the southern Oregon coast. How it wound up this far north is also still a mystery.

In the early 2000s, a group of scientists from around Oregon and Washington  who all specialized in fields other than archaeology  took some high tech equipment out into the bay to try and uncover what was there. That was a difficult if not impossible endeavor, as the thick sand layers didnt allow ground penetrating radar. Using a cart full of different kinds of gear, they dragged it along the bay in the narrow two-hour windows of extreme low tide and came up with mixed results.

One scientist came out in 1951 to examine the wreck and determined it was the right dimensions of the Blanco, and the findings in 2005 found something with a similar size laying under the bay. What exactly it was they couldnt say, but it was likely a shipwreck. There are also plenty of theories this may not be the Blanco, as this part of the Oregon coast had plenty of ships go missing.

For now, the mystery ghost ship of Lincoln Citys Siletz Bay is still just that. Its one of those legendary parts of Oregon coast history youre near when goofing around those sands, but you just dont know it. Hotels in Lincoln City - Where to eat - Lincoln City Maps and Virtual Tours

Oregon Beach Vacations. Literally over 260 homes available as vacation rentals all quite distinctive and carefully selected to be special. Available in Yachats, Waldport, Newport, Nye Beach, Otter Rock, Depoe Bay, Gleneden Beach, Lincoln Beach, Lincoln City, Neskowin, Pacific City, Tierra Del Mar, Rockaway Beach, Manzanita, Cannon Beach, Seaside, Florence and Astoria. 1-800-723-2383



Sea Horse Oceanfront Lodging . Oceanfront rooms may start at special prices, depending on month. Vacation Rentals and Romance Suites. Fireplaces, and your pet is welcome.1301 NW 21st Street. Lincoln City, Oregon. 800-662-2101. 541-994-2101. www.SeaHorseMotel.com











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Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde called for a complete overhaul of the policing system in Canada Sunday, two days after a Metepenagiag First Nation man was shot and killed by New Brunswick RCMP.

"This pattern is too systemic, too much violence, too much people getting hurt and too much people ending up dead, and it doesn't have to be that way," Bellegarde said in an interview with CBC News Network.

Rodney Levi, 48, was visiting a church minister and looking for guidance the evening he was shot, Metepenagiag Chief Bill Ward has said.

RCMP spokesperson Jullie Rogers-Marsh said police responded to a call of a "unwanted man" around 7:40 p.m. Friday.

"When police arrived they were confronted by a man who was carrying knives," Rogers-Marsh said.

Rogers-Marsh said RCMP tried using a stun gun before shooting Levi.

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"Why did this have to happen when a person had mental health issues?" Bellegarde said.

Levi's death comes eight days after Chantel Moore, 26, was shot by a police officer in Edmundston during a wellness check.

Healing walks were held in Moore's memory Saturday afternoon.

Chantel Moore/Facebook

Quebec's independent police investigative agency, Bureau des enquetes independantes, is looking into the deaths.

The same day Levi died, dashcam footage was released publicly as part of a court application to stay criminal charges against Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam.

The footage from March shows Alberta RCMP jump-tackling the chief to the ground without warning, punching him in the head and putting him in a chokehold.

Bellegarde is pushing for community-based policing services as an option for First Nation communities. "At least that way you're not coming in with fear or malice toward our people."

There should be a zero-tolerance policy for excessive force and higher recruitment standards for officers to prevent those with racial biases from joining the force, Bellegarde said.

Story continues

He also called for more civilian oversight and increased use of dashcams, as well as enhanced de-escalation and mental health training.

"All these things can be looked at," Bellegarde said.

"We've got to start going down that road sooner rather than later, either looking at revamping the whole system of policing or looking at putting proper policies and legislation in place so that this systemic violence ends toward First Nations people."

Across North America there's been a growing movement for police reform, sparked by the deaths of Black and Indigenous people at the hands of police.

"It's continually a pattern of our people either getting hurt or being killed at the hands of police," Bellegarde said.

"The police are there, they're sworn to protect and serve, not assault and kill."

CBC has permission from Chantel Moore's family to use the photos included in this story.
Hundreds of President Donald Trump fans across Florida paraded their yachts in flotillas -- or "Trumptillas" -- on Sunday to celebrate his 74th birthday. The boats set sail from the Sunshine State's major marinas. They flew American flags, and some had Trump's "MAGA" slogan emblazoned on the hull. "They make him look like he's a racist, but he's not, and I'm here to celebrate him," said Rachel Cramer, who was dancing on a boat leaving Fort Lauderdale to join a flotilla of dozens of other yachts headed for Boca Raton. "Also, happy birthday, Mr President!" Cramer wore a mask with the Republican president's face on it and a T-shirt that read, "Trump 2020 -- fuck your feelings." Further north in Jacksonville, about 1,000 boats participated in the Trumptillas, according to official Duval County estimates. Trumptillas became popular in early May as Florida residents wanted to show support for the president while still respecting social distancing guidelines Pro-Trump flotillas for the president's birthday also took place in Tampa, Pensacola and Sarasota on Florida's west coast, as well as in the Keys off the state's southern tip. The Republican Party announced Thursday that Trump will accept the GOP presidential nomination in Jacksonville following a row over coronavirus restrictions with the governor of North Carolina, where the event was originally scheduled. Supporters of US President Donald Trump wave flags as they participates in a boat rally to celebrate Donald Trump's birthday in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on June 14, 2020 Boats in the "Trumptilla" -- a flotilla of Donald Trump supporters -- wave American flags, Trump 2020 flags and MAGA flags for the US president's birthday on June 14, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida A boat decked out with Donald Trump paraphernalia participates in a "Trumptilla," a flotilla for the US president's birthday, on June 14, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Sushant Singh Rajput had been a hugely popular television actor, in shows like Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil and Pavitra Rishta. His successful turn as the male protagonist Manav in Pavitra Rishta, a Balaji Telefilms show, spurred appearances in celebrity dance reality contests and then a commendable career in Bollywood.

Hindi film and television actor Sushant Singh Rajput has passed away aged 34 in Mumbai on 14 June 2020. A spokesperson from the Mumbai Police said that the cause of death was suicide.

Amid the outpouring of grief on social media from the actor's many fans, public figures and showbiz insiders, his colleagues from the television industry expressed grief and shock over the loss.

Sushant had been a hugely popular television actor, in shows like Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil and Pavitra Rishta. His successful turn as the male protagonist Manav in Pavitra Rishta, a Balaji Telefilms show, spurred appearances in celebrity dance reality contests and then a commendable career in Bollywood.

Filmmaker and choreographer Remo DSouza remembered the feeling on the sets of Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa  Sushants last major television show before he transitioned to films  that the actor would make it big in the movies. He was a star on the stage, DSouza says. We used to have a lot of conversations about his dance. The last time we spoke was on the sets of Just Dance, where he had come to promote his film Chhichhore. He joked with me saying You make dance films and you havent cast me even though Im a good dancer. Sushant laughed and said that he should be in my next dance film to which I responded that I had no intention of stopping [making dance films] and that maybe wed work together. This is just shocking.

His peers in the TV industry recalled the actor as happy-go-lucky, always smiling and fooling around, according to Hiten Tejwani. He may have left Pavitra Rishta to do films but he still visited us on the sets of the show to tell us which movies he had signed or what was going on in his career, Tejwani says. I dont know what he was going through that made him take such a drastic step... We werent in touch every day but we have worked together and would keep meeting, being part of the same industry. Im yet to come to terms with the news.

Another Pavitra Rishta co-star, veteran actress Usha Nadkarni played Sushants onscreen mother in the serial. At the time that they started work on Pavitra Rishta, the young actor had lost his mother, and Nadkarni says Sushant took to calling her Aai like others on set, discussing his family and dreams for the future. Sometimes, Sushants father and sister would visit him on the sets, Nadkarni recalls.

Nadkarni received the news of Sushants passing through her hairdresser at Balaji Telefilms, but initially brushed it off as a hoax or misunderstanding. I told her, Koni dusra asel (It must be someone else). He achieved everything he dreamed of during those Pavitra Rishta days, Nadkarni says. The apartment, cars, Bollywood stardom  all of which he accomplished through his own hard work and through Gods blessings. So I cant understand what has happened

Sushants death comes close on the heels of his former manager Disha Salian's demise and for those who knew them both, the twin losses have been especially difficult to come to terms with. Krushna Abhishek had some appearances alongside Sushant on Comedy Circus and The Kapil Sharma Show, and remembered sitting with Disha, who had been his friend for many years, and Sushant, when the duo were promoting the film Sonchiriya. Abhishek says he pointed out to them at the time that each had achieved their dreams  Disha of managing a top Bollywood actor and Sushant of being a movie star.

Now both of them are no more and I cant understand what has happened Abhishek says, echoing the sentiment of so many of Sushants peers. A few months ago we were together at a party at Salman Khans Panvel house and were supposed to meet up again. But we didnt and over the past four months, he stopped replying to messages. Today I found out that he had passed away.

***

A list of working suicide prevention helpline numbers in India is available here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669
90 Day Fiance stars Colt Johnson and Larissa Dos Santos Lima finally broke things off for good after a tumultuous marriage of less than one year. The ill-fated couple is now appearing on the fifth season of TLCs 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, each of them solo and ready to take new steps in their lives.

On the June 14 season premiere of 90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After, Colt and Larissa both began to branch out after their divorce. Larissa moved on from her latest boyfriend, Eric Nichols, and prepared to finish up her legal obligations after her third arrest for alleged domestic violence against Colt.

Meanwhile, Colt headed out from Las Vegas to Chicago for a secret second date with his new girlfriend, Jess Carolineand didnt tell his always-involved mom, Debbie Johnson.

Colt Johnson | Bryan Steffy/WireImage

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Larissa Dos Santos Lima And Her Ex-Boyfriend Make Amends

Colt and Jess bonded over their shared love of cats

Jess, a 26-year-old Brazilian au pair who met 34-year-old software engineer Colt online, met up with her new boyfriend at a bar in Chicago during his secret getaway.

The date started a bit awkwardly, with a few long pauses as the pair warmed up to each other. Im really excited for this weekend, Colt said over beers. I really appreciate you inviting me out here.

Despite the awkwardness of the couples second date, Jess told 90 Day Fiance producers she was infatuated with her new beau. I so happy Colt come to Chicago. And its not just for internet, she said. I like Colt because Colts smart and funny and beautiful, have beautiful eyes. And Colt love cats.

And Colts famous love of cats didnt scare Jess away. In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect.

You have five or six cats? Jess wanted to know.

At one point in my life, I had 15 cats, Colt revealed.

Youre crazy, Jess quipped, slipping down her sleeve to reveal a huge cat tattoo on her upper shoulder.

Im a crazy cat guy, Colt said flirtatiously. Are you a crazy cat girl?

The 90 Day Fiance star compared Jess to his ex-wife

Before the date really began to heat up, Jess addressed the elephant in the room. She, like Larissa, was Brazilian. And although Colt insisted that he hadnt set out to find another woman from his ex-wifes home country, the coincidence seemed too obvious to ignore.

You like Brazil girl, Jess pointed out.

Well, yes, Colt admitted. Ive only been married to one Brazilian, of course. And now Im dating you.

As for his ex-wife, though, Colt claimed she couldnt have been more different from his new girlfriend. Jess is way different than Larissa, the 90 Day Fiance star told TLC producers. Shes young, shes fun, she likes to have a good time. I feel like shes a breath of fresh air. Shes given me life again.

The new couple flirted and talked about sex on the first date

Jess and Colt began to flirt even more as they started talking about the possibility of going home together.

I proposed to my ex-wife after five days. So I never really learned how to date one, Colt joked.

Okay. I teach you, Jess said flirtatiously. Starts tomorrow.

Starts tonight, Colt corrected her. Oo, tonight? Good boy! Jess agreed.

When Colt asked Jess for his first lesson, Jess was ready with a steamy answer. Brazilian people kiss on the first date. Sometimes sex on the first date, she told the 90 Day Fiance star. American boys is slow, slow. Need five dates for a kiss and 10, 11 dates for sex.

11 dates for sex?! Colt asked incredulously.

But it didnt seem like Colt was going to be one of those American boys. Instead, he suggested that Jess go back to his hotel room with him, suggesting that they maybe have sexand she happily agreed.
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Linkedin Maher al-Mounes (Agence France-Presse) Damascus, Syria  Mon, June 15, 2020 10:06 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdebc4e3 2 Books Syria,novel,author,books,Literature,conflict,Khaled-Khalifa,pandemic,coronavirus Free

The novel coronavirus pandemic briefly gave Syrians a sense of belonging to the rest of the world after years of isolating war, Syrian author Khaled Khalifa said.

But the international community is too busy to look their way and the planet will continue to be as barbaric as ever, with no lessons on the value of nature learnt, said the award-winning writer of the novel No Knives in the Kitchens of this City.

Khalifa spoke to AFP in his home in the Syrian capital Damascus, where the government has announced 144 cases of the COVID-19 disease and six deaths in areas it controls.

What has the virus meant for Syrians?

For years during the war, Syrians were preoccupied with their limited world, a world of daily death.

But today their tragedy has become part of humankind's as a whole. They shared in the meaning of fear and death with the rest of the world.

Today their fear has become communal, shared with others. It's probably the first time that they feel they are part of humankind.

But despite this, we have remained on the margins and our problems interest no one.

The world is too busy with the coronavirus to hear Syrians. Tomorrow, there will be other reasons for it to be busy and unable to hear us. Nothing will change and the war will continue.

What is a virus in war?

Syrians are those to least fear the coronavirus because they have been, and continue to be, bogged down in death, but... the virus has compounded the difficulties of their daily lives.

All burning issues in Syria have remained (burning issues) during the pandemic and will afterwards. We live in a tunnel of perpetual waiting.

One cannot compare the coronavirus to war, as it belittles (the suffering of) millions of human beings.

We are speaking of a huge human tragedy, 10 years of hardship for a huge group of human beings. What has happened in Syria remains unique in its production of collective suffering.

Read also: 'Humankind' brings out the best in humanity

What will the world look like afterwards?

The world will remain just as barbaric as before the battle against COVID-19 and become even more brutal. It will not change or learn from this lesson that came as final warning that we cannot defy nature.

In the battle against coronavirus, nature is not an enemy but the one attacked. All that it does is try to defend itself. The attacker are the large companies abandoning all principles in the quest of profit.

The third party afflicted along with nature are people who would like life to be more humane.

Who will win this battle?

Some people say the conflict will intensify in the markets with even greater abandon of values and even more encroachment on nature.

In realistic stories, the good never prevails, it's always evil that wins in the end. But this time we can't let it, because it's clear this will be a last stand.

For 30 years, we have not heard a politician in the world say: "These are our principles." They all say: "These are our interests."

We need to produce new values to preserve humaneness, adapted to all humanity.

How has the pandemic affected you?

The coronavirus allowed me to give wider rein to my imagination.

Years ago when I wanted to write something very imaginative, I was scared no one would believe it. But now everything will be easy to believe because what has happened was once unimaginable.

I think hundreds of screenwriters are thinking of making films about the coronavirus. But the virus in Syria is different to the virus in America. Even if it's the same illness, its social consequences are totally different.

The coronavirus forced me to think more and ask myself questions we still have not answered.

How did these humans become so selfish? Why is there all this production and waste of resources today? Why is there no justice? Why are murderers living on, protected by bank owners and large companies?

Are we able to build a more humane, less criminal future?
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Fidan Babayeva  Trend:

The National Confederation of Entrepreneurs (Employers) Organizations of Azerbaijan plans to organize business missions of Azerbaijani entrepreneurs in Russia, Bulgaria and other countries In September 2020, Spokesperson for the confederation Ilhama Abdullayeva told Trend.

She noted that the negotiations are currently underway with these countries.

In the near future, it is planned to implement specific projects in the field of tourism, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, services and consulting with Turkey, Russian regions, Uzbekistan, India, Montenegro, Bulgaria, the Persian Gulf countries and others, Abdullayeva said.

The confederation is closely cooperating in various sectors of the economy with Turkey, many regions of Russia, EU countries and Asia.

"The introduced restrictions have caused a certain decline in trade, tourism, logistics, the service sector and a number of other areas of the economy. In particular, the subjects of micro-entrepreneurship, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are most affected by this kind. Therefore, to continue the activities of entrepreneurs in this segment, as well as to preserve jobs, they need support during the quarantine regime," the spokesperson added.

The National Confederation of Organizations of Entrepreneurs (Employers) of Azerbaijan was established on March 5, 1999 in Baku and passed official state registration. It unites in its ranks over 1,000 business entities, including 35 associations and socio-economic unions.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: Fidan_Babaeva
In this time of pandemic, its easy to lose a robust sense of where we are in the year. Today, the Supreme Court reminded us that were at the time of year when it delivers decisions in major cases.

Until recently, this was a dreaded time for conservatives. We dreaded it mainly because the Supreme Court was prone to inventing new constitutional rights based on its policy preferences, not on any credible reading of the Constitution.

With the addition to the Court of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, and the subtraction of Justice Kennedy, there seemed to be less reason for dread. Today, however, the Court, in an opinion by Gorsuch, one-upped the Kennedy Courts. It invented new rights based not on the Constitution, but on a statute that plainly does not confer them.

The statute is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new rights are freedom for lesbians, gays, and transgender individual from employment discrimination based on their LGT status.

These are rights that, properly understood, I believe such individuals should have. Employment discrimination, properly understood, because of sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong.

Todays decision may reduce the amount of it. On the other hand, it will lead to the filing of a great many meritless suits and will enable left-liberal judges to construe Title VII as banning sex-specific restrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities, and to take the statute on additional absurd and harmful frolics.

But all of this is beside the point. The point is that Congress has never banned discrimination against lesbians, gays, and transgender individuals. Rather, it has continuously declined to do so.

Yet, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch joined the four liberal Justices to conjure up such a ban. The four libs were happy to turn the floor over to Justice Gorsuch for his own absurd frolic into pseudo textualism.

They must have had a good laugh. This isnt the first time that idiosyncratic pseudo-conservative legal theory has played into their hand.

Justice Alito was not amused. His dissent, in which Justice Thomas joined, is a masterpiece. Here is how it begins:

There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on any of five specified grounds: race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin. 42 U. S. C. 2000e2(a)(1). Neither sexual orientation nor gender identity appears on that list. For the past 45 years, bills have been introduced in Congress to add sexual orientation to the list and in recent years, bills have included gender identity as well. But to date, none has passed both Houses. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend Title VII by defining sex discrimination to include both sexual orientation and gender identity, H. R. 5, 116th Cong., 1st Sess. (2019), but the bill has stalled in the Senate. An alternative bill, H. R. 5331, 116th Cong.,

1st Sess. (2019), would add similar prohibitions but contains provisions to protect religious liberty. This bill remains before a House Subcommittee. Because no such amendment of Title VII has been enacted in accordance with the requirements in the Constitution (passage in both Houses and presentment to the President Art. I, 7, cl. 2), Title VIIs prohibition of discrimination because of sex still means what it has always meant. But the Court is

not deterred by these constitutional niceties. Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H. R. 5s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation. A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall. The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written. A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 16 (2012) (emphasis added). If every single living American had been surveyed in 1964, it would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual orientationnot to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time. The Court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The Courts opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriatedthe theory that courts should update old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society. See A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 22 (1997). If the Court finds it appropriate to adopt this theory, it should own up to what it is doing. Many will applaud todays decision because they agree on policy grounds with the Courts updating of Title VII. But the question in these cases is not whether discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity should be outlawed. The question is whether Congress did that in 1964. It indisputably did not.

(Emphasis added)

Justice Kavanaugh wrote his own dissent. I wish he had joined Justices Alito and Thomas, but maybe I should be grateful that only one of the two Justices appointed by President Trump indulged in egregious judicial activism.
MILTON  For the third time, the pride flag was swiped from the towns Veterans Memorial Park. This time it was found missing on Flag Day.

Meant to fly during the month of June to honor military members from the LGBTQ community, the pride flag was cut down overnight on Saturday, Supervisor Benny Zlotnick said. He said the vandals also left the New York state flag, which was on the same pole as the pride flag, on the ground where he found it on Sunday morning. Zlotnick said the continued pilfering of the flag is disappointing.

"You would think people would have better things to do," Zlotnick said. "It's a shame a few people who want to be vocal against this community of people think they are speaking for the town. They are not."

Previously: Milton raises third pride flag after two others stolen

The flag was put up for the third time last Tuesday after vandals took down two others that were raised on June 1 and 3. Zlotnick said the town will raise a fourth flag on Tuesday  and this time, surveillance cameras will be trained on the flag. He also said the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office is investigating the flag plundering.

Councilwoman Barbara Kerr said after hearing about all the flag thefts, people "have donated pride flags like crazy" to the town. She also said those who are opposed to the flag should meet with town officials, not commit a crime.

"Stealing the flag is not the right way to do it," Kerr said. "Come in and sit down and talk, talk it out with us. Stealing is not the proper way."

The first pride flag raising inspired hateful comments on Facebook about Democrats and Zlotnick , a Republican who ran as a Democrat. Robert J. Mink Jr., whose profile photo is President Donald J. Trump making a profane gesture, told commenters that "it's down." Retired town employee Wayne Howe who started the Facebook rant thanked Mink.

Ellie Dillon, the chair of the town's Democratic committee, said she is upset by people who are now accusing Zlotnick of raising the pride flag as a favor to the party.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"I so resent that statement," Dillon said. "It's mean-spirited and the actions the vandals are taking is criminal. This is a hate crime. I can't call it childish because even a child knows it's wrong to steal. It's so mean-spirited, it takes my breath away."

Zlotnick said he'd like the thief to be caught.

"You will find more people in favor of what we are doing than not," Zlotnick said. "We will continue the good fight."
Seoul: South Korea`s President Moon Jae-in urged North Korea on Monday (June 15) to refrain from raising tension and return to dialogue, after threats trumpeted by state media in Pyongyang to cut ties and take military action.

The recent flaring of tension between the neighbours stoked fear of military provocation by the North and posed another setback amid stalled talks to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes.

Besides the threat to sever ties, state media over the past few days have aired the possibility of closing a joint liaison office in the North and retaliatory measures for a campaign by defectors to fly anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

"The promises of peace on the Korean peninsula that Chairman Kim Jong Un made before our 80 million people cannot be turned back," Moon told a meeting with senior aides, referring to pacts struck at the summit of the two leaders in 2018.

"North Korea should not cut communications, raise tension and try to go back to the past era of confrontation," he added.

"I hope it will resolve uncomfortable, difficult problems through communications and cooperation."

Moon`s remarks came as South Korea marked the 20th anniversary on Monday of the first summit between the two nations, which had pledged to step up dialogue and cooperation.

At their own first summit in 2018, Moon and Kim signed a declaration to work for "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" and cease "all hostile acts".

But the North cut hotlines with its neighbour last week and vowed to suspend all contact if Seoul did not halt defectors from sending in leaflets and other material.

"I also regret that North Korea-U.S. and inter-Korean relations have not made progress as expected," Moon said in a separate anniversary message.

"But what`s most important is trust, which the South and North should build through constant dialogue."
K atherine Williams-Dunning, the daughter of country music legend Hank Williams Jr., has died at the age of 27.

Katherine died in a car crash in Tennessee over the weekend, authorities have confirmed.

Officials told CBS News that Katherine, who ran her own clothing business, was driving a vehicle which was towing a boat when it rolled across multiple lanes of traffic.

Katherine was in the car with her husband, Tyler Dunning, who was flown to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. The extent of his injuries are not known.

Her sister, Holly Audrey Williams, posted an emotional tribute on Instagram.

Sharing a family photograph taken last Friday, she wrote: I talked the family into taking this picture and had no idea it would be our last together with my precious little sister Katie.

We all went to my great aunts funeral on Thursday whom we all loved dearly, and now are faced with another one. ALL we need is prayers. My daddy. My little brother. Katies husband (he is awake and responding dont know injury extent yet). My niece and nephew. Her Mama. The Dunning family. All of us.

So. Many. Prayers. Jesus is close. Thank you all.

Katherine and Tyler married in 2015 and have two children together, aged five and two.
WASHINGTON  A grim blame game with partisan overtones is breaking out over COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents, a tiny slice of the population that represents a shockingly high proportion of Americans who have perished in the pandemic.

The Trump administration has been pointing to a segment of the industry  facilities with low federal ratings for infection control  and to some Democratic governors who required nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients.

Homes that followed federal infection control guidelines were largely able to contain the virus, asserts Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, which sets standards and pays the bills. Trying to finger-point and blame the federal government is absolutely ridiculous, she says.

Verma says data collected by her agency suggest a connection between low ratings on safety inspections and COVID-19 outbreaks. But several academic researchers say their own work has found no such link.

Advocates for older people say the federal government hasnt provided needed virus testing and sufficient protective gear to allow nursing homes to operate safely. A White House directive to test all residents and staff has been met with an uneven response.

The lack of federal coordination certainly has impeded facilities ability to identify infected persons and to provide care, Eric Carlson, a long-term care expert with the advocacy group Justice in Aging, told lawmakers.

Democrats are critical of the Trump administration.

We need a plan from CMS and we need resources to stop the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes, says Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.

Nationwide, more than 45,500 residents and staff have died from coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to a running count by The Associated Press. Thats about 40% of more than 115,000 total deaths. Nursing home residents are less than 1% of the U.S. population.

Its a sensitive election year issue for President Donald Trump, whos trying to hang on to support from older voters.

With more coronavirus legislation possible this year, congressional Democrats are pressing for a national testing plan and additional resources for nursing homes. Republicans are mainly seconding the administrations arguments.

During a recent briefing for lawmakers, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, blamed New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the high numbers of deaths in his state. A since-rescinded state directive that nursing homes had to accept recovering coronavirus patients ended up being a death sentence in New York and several states with similar policies, Scalise said.

On Monday, Scalise sent letters to Cuomo and the Democratic governors of California, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania demanding they justify their policy.

He echoed earlier, less forceful, comments from CMS head Verma, who has said state orders requiring nursing homes to take recovering COVID patients were not appropriate and may have contributed to this issue as well.

But Harvard researcher David Grabowski, who serves on a nonpartisan commission advising Congress about Medicare, says neither state policies, nor bad apples among nursing homes, have driven the outbreak.

Instead, Grabowski says its simpler: Because the virus can be spread by people who show no symptoms, that means if its already in a community, the staff can unwittingly bring it into the nursing home. Once inside it easily spreads among frail residents living in close quarters.

The secret weapon behind COVID is that is spreads in the absence of any symptoms, Grabowski told lawmakers at a recent briefing. If COVID is in a community where staff lives, it is soon to be in the facility where they work.

He proposed a federal effort to regularly test nursing home staff and residents, along with greater supplies of masks, gowns and other protective gear.

The federal government needs to own this issue, said Grabowski.

He said his own research, along with studies by experts at Brown University and the University of Chicago did not find a relationship between facilities with low federal ratings and COVID-19 outbreaks.

CMS head Verma said her agency has been on top of things from the beginning, issuing numerous safety guidelines, setting new coronavirus reporting requirements, and providing Medicare payment for testing residents. She says states have money from the federal government that they can use to support testing of nursing home staff.

The nursing home industry says just one-time testing for every resident and staffer would cost $440 million.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat and chairman of a special panel on the pandemic, says the crisis in nursing homes should not be a partisan issue.

Nursing home residents have died from the coronavirus in states governed by Republicans and Democrats, in big cities and in small towns, in rural and urban communities, Clyburn said.

Appearing before Clyburns committee last week, Alison Lolley of Monroe, Louisiana., told of losing her 81-year-old mother, Cheryl, to COVID-19 in a nursing home outbreak this spring. The family was not allowed to be with her.

My family was robbed, Lolley said. Mama was trapped in a petri dish, and we were shut out. Mama died alone and our family will forever be scarred by this tragedy.

___

AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.
Most evangelical churches say donations have grown, stayed same despite lockdowns

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Optimism is beginning to return to evangelical churches and organizations in the U.S. as a majority of them saw cash donations growing or remaining the same during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in April compared with the same month last year, according to a survey.

Asked how total cash donations, excluding one-time extraordinary gifts, changed for them between April 2020 and April 2019, 66% of churches and 59% of Christ-centered nonprofits said it was higher than or the same as April 2019, shows the survey by Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

Asked how donations changed between April 2020 and January 2020, when a pandemic of this magnitude was not even imaginable, 72% of churches and 61% of nonprofits said it was higher than or the same as January, adds the survey, conducted between May 12 and May 27 with 1,341 leaders of evangelical churches and nonprofits.

The optimism documented in January is already beginning to return, said Warren Bird, ECFA vice president of Research and Equipping, in the survey report.

Despite financial challenges, 69% of churches and 46% of nonprofits said they are optimistic about giving over the next three months  May to July.

Ministries that do evangelism are most optimistic about future cash donations, at 62%, and ministries providing education are least optimistic, at 29%.

The study also shows that the role of online giving increased for churches, but remained largely unchanged for other nonprofits. While 64% of churches saw an increase in online giving, 34% saw no change.

Most surveyed churches and ministries have applied for loans through the Trump administrations Paycheck Protection Program, which is intended to help small businesses and nonprofits weather coronavirus-related shutdowns. And most churches and nonprofits said they have no plans to change staffing levels over the next three months.

Rough and uncertain waters are still ahead for some, particularly summer camps, schools, short-term missions, and other ministries involving near-term travel and large in-person gatherings, said Bird. Yet the responses in this report indicate the impact of the pandemic to date is reasonably manageable.

Churches also helped each other financially.

The Churches Helping Churches Challenge, launched by the AND Campaign and other Christian organizations on April 3, urged larger, more stable churches to assist at-risk churches in their own community. It also created the COVID-19 Church Relief Fund to provide $3,000 grants to help congregations in need.

In a little over a month, the initiatives Relief Fund raised nearly $650,000 from 1,371 individuals and ministries, with 100% of all funds donated going directly to churches.

Meanwhile, the United Methodist Church saw a steep decline in giving during the month of April.

At the end of May, the UMC General Council on Finance and Administration held an online meeting to discuss the drop in giving after large numbers of UMC congregations were closed due to coronavirus-related restrictions on religious services. Collections for the month of April were down 26% compared to the same time last year, as well as being 45% lower than in 2017.

Another factor given for the drop in giving was the denominations ongoing debate over LGBT issues, specifically whether the UMC should continue to adhere to the belief that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.
The United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson will reportedly join a video-conference with the EU leaders on June 15 in a bid to make negotiations on a future EU-UK relationship. According to an international media report, Johnson would use the meeting to press the 27-nation EU to aim for an agreement by the end of the summer and not to use coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to drag its feet. However, the officials in Brussels expect no breakthrough in the Brexit deadlock.

As per reports, the officials in Brussels said that no one expects any breakthrough unless Johnson decides to surprise. A senior official reportedly said that the meeting was scheduled in the withdrawal agreement, however, no one expects much. Earlier this month, negotiators also made a very little progress towards a free trade pact, but the agreed to intensify negotiations. The upcoming meeting between EU and UK is expected to open the way for a renewed political push.

READ: Britain 'formally Confirms' To EU That It Won't Extend Post-Brexit Transition Period

While speaking to an international media outlet, one EU official said that the video-conference would be an opportunity for the blocs leaders to emphasise that the insistence of their chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, on a broad deal that would keep Britain closely aligned with the EU reflected the will of all member states and not his intransigence.

Another official reportedly also added that despite plans to speed up negotiations, major progress was unlikely until after the summer when London would scramble to get something done in the 11th hour, as it did last year to clinch a deal on its withdrawal agreement.

READ: Brexit: EU's Chief Negotiator Accuses UK Of 'backtracking' On Commitments

UK wont extend post-Brexit transition period

The video conference comes after the British government told EU that it would not seek an extension to the post-Brexit transition period beyond December 31, 2020. Earlier this month, Britain and the EU also finished the fourth round of negotiations without any major breakthrough. Barnier said in a statement that the UK is backtracking from its commitments made before the post-Brexit talks started in March. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Barnier said that no substantial progress has been made in the roundtable talks.

(Image: AP)

READ: EU, UK Still At Loggerheads In Post-Brexit Negotiations

READ: Bank Of England Reminds Banks Of 'no Deal' Brexit Risk


Emergency funds available for furloughed K-State employees through the KSU Foundation

Monday, June 15, 2020

The Kansas State University family highlights new KSU Foundation emergency response fund for furloughed employees. | Download this photo.

MANHATTAN  The Kansas State University family remains strong and committed to helping each other through hardships  particularly through the KSU Foundation's new employee emergency response fund.

Employees experiencing financial hardships because of COVID-19 furloughs may apply for grant funds  up to $700  online at ksufoundation.org/emergencyfund/ or in the KSU Foundation's lobby, 1800 Kimball Ave. Priority will be given to those demonstrating need and awards will be reviewed each business day in the order of application with notification of status within three to four business days. Eligible employees may choose to pick up a check at the foundation or have it mailed.



Hundreds of K-Staters have supported the #KStateStrong Emergency Response Fund since it was established in March to address emerging needs of K-State students, faculty and staff as a result of COVID-19. In early May, university leaders faced the difficult decision to start implementing targeted emergency furloughs and now more than 400 employees are affected.



"The drastic measures K-State had to take to address the COVID-19 pandemic, while protecting the health and safety of everyone at the university and in our communities, have resulted in furloughs and other stressful impacts on our employees and their families," said university President Richard Myers. "The KSU Foundations employee emergency relief fund is an example of the K-State family coming together to help each other. Thank you to all our generous donors for their support during this difficult time."



A few generous donors made significant gifts to the #KStateStrong Emergency Response Fund specifically to assist K-State employees affected by university furloughs. Those gifts are dedicated to providing relief grants to furloughed K-State staff.



"During this time of uncertainty and financial hardship for many K-Staters, donors have sent a clear message of support to the entire K-State family through #KStateStrong Emergency Response Fund," said KSU Foundation President and CEO Greg Willems. "These awards assisting K-State staff are unprecedented and a prime example of how the K-State family always comes together to make our university community stronger."



Emergency grants and loans are also available to students experiencing financial hardships, which can be accessed through the Office of Student Financial Assistance. The KSU Foundation is accepting donations to many of these emergency resources.
"Being able to create that detailed estimate and go straight to the proposal, to customize it and make it look the way we want, and with everything in the cloud  its the holy grail really."

STACK Construction Technologies [STACK], the industrys leading preconstruction software, today announced the release of advanced estimating capabilities that will set a new standard for industry professionals. This anxiously anticipated release means STACK users can now perform lightning-fast takeoffs, generate detailed estimates, and create company-branded bid-ready proposals  all in a single cloud-based platform.

Our advanced estimating release opens so many doors for specialty subcontractors, said Phil Ogilby, Founder and CEO of STACK. Combining robust takeoff and estimating functionality is almost unheard of when it comes to construction software, but were showing teams what they can and should expect from their preconstruction solution.

In the past, preconstruction teams have had to juggle multiple software solutions or manually input data into spreadsheets, a time-consuming process that increases risk of mistakes and inaccuracies. Now, however, estimating teams can complete accurate, winning proposals in a fraction of the time.

Now that I can stay in one platform without exporting to Excel, Im able to do twice as many estimates as I did before, said Warren Crossman, owner of Crossman Flooring. I can go back to my takeoff if I see something I want to change and make the update right there  its all done in STACK. I really appreciate how much its improved my workflow.

By eliminating the need to move numbers from platform to platform, STACK is removing the risks associated with manual data entry. Contractors can also make STACK the central hub for all of their price and material databases, ensuring all account users are working from the same source of information.

The easiest part has always been working in STACK, said Mark Van Doren, Principal at WestPro Construction Solutions. His team includes a lot of details in their estimates, so accuracy is extremely important. When exporting to Excel, its easy to introduce errors by inputting data incorrectly or missing a decimal. But now STACK will allow us to eliminate spreadsheets and will be the bridge between our takeoffs, estimates, and our accounting software.

In addition to a streamlined workflow, STACKs cloud-based platform allows preconstruction teams to collaborate from anywhere and access critical project data on any device, in real-time. This unmatched flexibility and reliability provide teams with the competitive edge they need to win more profitable work.

Being able to create that detailed estimate and go straight to the proposal, to customize it and make it look the way we want, and with everything in the cloud  its the holy grail really, Van Doren added.

About STACK Construction Technologies

STACK Construction Technologies is the industrys leading cloud-based software solution for preconstruction professionals. It provides a centralized hub where plans, specs and other construction documents can be stored, evaluated, measured and shared with internal and external project stakeholders. Founded and headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, STACK delivers intuitive and innovative software for thousands of subcontractors, general contractors, suppliers and manufacturers to ultimately improve the projects outcome and profitability. STACKs solution powers seamless plan and document management, real-time team collaboration and a more efficient digital takeoff and estimating process. For more information or to see how STACK software is helping preconstruction teams to gain visibility, insight and alignment throughout the bid process, visit http://www.stackct.com.


Three days after the Thane civil hospital claimed a 46-year-old Covid-19 patient from Ambernath was doing well, the hospital staff on Sunday informed the family that the patient is no more.

The family had earlier complained about no communication from the hospital regarding the patients condition after he was admitted on June 6.

I received a call from the hospital on Sunday evening and they said he is no more. It was a complete shock as three days back the hospital staff had claimed that my father was doing well, said the deceaseds 25-year-old son who lives in Shiv Nagar - a slum in Ambernath.

On Monday morning, the family left for Thane civil hospital.

The last time I managed to inquire about my fathers health was on June 11 through the control room number of the hospital. Last two days nobody replied to my calls at the hospital, said the son.

The family had alleged they have been unable to contact him or get any information about his condition for almost five days after he was admitted.

The son said he tried to find out about his fathers condition from hospital authorities and Ambernath Municipal Corporation (AMC), but neither responded to his queries.

The family lives at Shiv Nagar locality in Ambernath. The man worked at a salon in Ambernath, while his son works with a private company.

Thane Civil Hospital authorities said they inform the patients family only when there is any major change in the patients condition

A staff from the hospital, who did not wish to be named, said, The patient was unwell on Sunday and succumbed to death. The doctors are yet to reveal more about the death. The family has been informed to come to the hospital.
Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged 'Golden State Killer', escapes a death sentence under a proposed deal with prosecutors that requires him to plead guilty to 88 charges, including murder and rape.

The deal, revealed by sources, has yet to be finalized in the courts.

Court officials also are working on locating a venue big enough under coronavirus safety measures to allow crowds of family members of the victims and media expected when the former cop accepts the deal.

Although there is a moratorium on the death penalty in California, DeAngelo will likely not spend too many years in prison because of his advanced age.

Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged 'Golden State Killer', escapes a death sentence under a proposed deal with prosecutors that requires him to plead guilty to 88 charges, including murder and rape. He is pictured during his arraignment after he was arrested in April 2018

Sacramento County Supervising Assistant Public Defender Joseph Cress tells the Sacramento Bee that the agreement will bring closure to the families.

'We feel this is a just resolution of this case and that the resolution provides some finality and closure for the victims,' Cress said Monday.

'This also avoids the stress and financial costs of a lengthy trial.'

DeAngelo is suspected of at least 13 murders and more than 50 rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s, and hundreds of home invasions.

The statute of limitations has expired on those crimes, however, making them impossible to charge.

DeAngelo, however, was arrested in April 2018 on the basis of groundbreaking genetic genealogy evidence.

He previously had indicated no willingness to accept a plea deal. But sources have indicated that he has reversed himself on many of the previous charges under the current deal.

DeAngelo was arrested in April 2018 on the basis of groundbreaking genetic genealogy evidence. He previously had indicated no willingness to accept a plea deal. The accused killer is pictured in an undated law enforcement photo

Six counties had consolidated their cases in Sacramento County, and four of those counties were seeking the death penalty before the deal was revealed.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Steve White had allowed prosecutors, over defense objections, to take four more cheek-swab DNA samples from DeAngelo as they tried to link him to old crimes.

Public defenders were looking for a way prosecutors in Sacramento, Contra Costa, Orange, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties to agree to a deal that scraps plans for a preliminary hearing that was set to begin in August.

Prosecutors had been pressing to get the hearing, which would have included 150 witnesses testifying over eight to 10 weeks, under way as soon as possible because many victims and witnesses are in their 80s or older.

Investigators surreptitiously collected DNA from DeAngelo more than two years ago that they say proves he is the rapist who broke into couples' suburban homes at night, binding one man and piling dishes on his back.

A pioneering method of building a family tree from old crime scene DNA, using a popular online DNA database to find a distant relative and eventually zero in on DeAngelo.

The new process has since been used nationwide in other cases.

DeAngelo was taken on into custody by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department on April 24, 2018 on two murder charges for the 1978 deaths of Brian Maggiore and his wife Katie, who are believed to be the Golden State Killer's first murder victims.

DeAngelo was taken on into custody by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department on April 24, 2018 (pictured) on two murder charges for the 1978 deaths of Brian Maggiore and his wife Katie, who are believed to be the Golden State Killer's first murder victims

He was later also charged with the murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith who were found dead in their home by their 12-year-old son in 1980.

Despite an outpouring of thousands of tips over the years, DeAngelo's name had not been on the radar of law enforcement before the ground breaking DNA evidence was used.

Investigators said DeAngelo has three adult daughters. An old wedding announcement says he married Sharon Marie Huddle in 1973, according to the Sacramento Bee . They are now divorced.

DeAngelo appeard gaunt during a court appearance in March

DeAngelo previously worked as a police officer in Auburn, California before he was fired in 1979 for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a Sacramento drug store. He was also a police officer in Exeter, California from about 1973 to 1976.

Investigators believe he was committing the crimes while he was an officer.

Before he retired last year, DeAngelo had been working at a distribution center for Save Mart grocery stores. He worked the for 27 years.
Telephone conversation of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus V.Makei with Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain

On June 4, 2020 on the initiative of the Spanish side, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, had a telephone conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and Cooperation of Spain, Arancha Gonzalez Laya.

The heads of Foreign Ministries exchanged information on the measures taken by Belarus and Spain to fight the spread of coronavirus infection.

V.Makei thanked the Spanish public organizations and families for their support in the implementation of the Chernobyl cooperation programs.

The Ministers focused on the development of the Belarusian-Spanish political dialogue and the main areas of trade and economic cooperation, as well as discussed interaction between Belarus and the EU.

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Japan's Defence Ministry on Monday said that it will cancel plans to deploy a costly, land-based U.S. missile defence system aimed at bolstering the country's capability to tackle escalating threats from North Korea.

Defence Minister Taro Kono told reporters that he has decided to "stop the deployment process" of the Aegis Ashore after a discovery that the safety of one of the two planned host communities cannot be ensured without technological redesigns, which he says would be too time consuming and costly.

Defence officials had promised never to allow rocket boosters, used to intercept a missile flying over Japan, to fall outside of the Ground Self-Defence Force's Mutsumi base in Yamaguchi, southwestern Japan, where one of the two land-based missile defence systems had been planned.

The other system had been planned for Akita in the north. A safe fall of rocket boosters on to the base would require redesigning both software and hardware, Kono explained.

(Image credit: Internet)




South Korea called in Japan's top envoy in Seoul on Monday to lodge a protest after Tokyo failed to honor wartime forced labor victims at an information center on industrial revolution sites registered on UNESCO's World Heritage list.







Second Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-ho expressed regrets to Japanese Ambassador Koji Tomita, hours after the Industrial Heritage Information Center showcasing 23 Meiji-era sites opened to the public without a commemorative measure for the victims.







The center, launched in March, had been closed due to the coronavirus.







Among the 23 sites that were put on the UNESCO list in 2015 is notorious Hashima Island, also known as Battleship Island, where many Koreans were forced into labor  a reason South Korea had opposed the designation.







In regard to the 2015 designation, Tokyo said it would establish the information center to remember the victims, recognizing "Koreans and others who were brought against their will and forced to work under harsh conditions in the 1940s at some of the sites."







Tokyo also said it would "sincerely respond" to a recommendation by the International Council on Monuments and Sites, an advisory group of UNESCO, that an "interpretive strategy" should allow an "understanding of the full history of each site."







On Sunday, a pool of Tokyo-based correspondents toured the center, which had been closed soon after its opening in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.







The center focused on the achievements of Japan's industrial revolution in areas of iron, steel and coal mining, while giving short shrift to the suffering of Korean victims during Japan's colonial rule from 1910-45. (Yonhap)


New Delhi:

A top intelligence officer today blamed Pakistan for the terror attack in Uri, saying this was just one of the scores of such dastardly acts which originated from across the border in last few decades.

Director of Intelligence Bureau Dineshwar Sharma said the whole country was highly agitated over the terror strike in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 18 soldiers were killed and an equal number were battling for their lives.

This incident is only one in a series of such dastardly acts during the last few decades for which planning, financing, training, arming and indoctrination on religious lines owe their origins to sources beyond the borders of India, he said at a conference of top security experts from South Asian countries.

The second Meeting of the High Level Group of Eminent Experts to strengthen the SAARC Anti-Terrorism Mechanism was attended by intelligence chiefs of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Maldives, besides India.

Director General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan Aftab Sultan did not attend the meeting amidst the ongoing hostility between India and Pakistan over terror attack in Uri.

Sharma asked the SAARC nations to strictly enforce internationally mandated sanctions against terrorist entities and individuals.

The IB Director said the terrorist organisations use easily accessible technology to attack both soft and hard targets.

Self-radicalisation over internet and social media, and spread of influence of Islamic State all over, including in our country, has added new dimensions to the threat, he said.

He identified countering financing of terrorism as one of the most important tools to fight the terror menace.

Sharma said cyberspace has become an important area for radicalisation and spread of jihadi materials.

The problem of fake currency feeds into supporting terrorism and can create economic destabilisation in South Asia, he said.

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In a twist that appears to close the book on a nationally watched lawsuit in Detroit over a federal right to access to literacy, a federal appeals court has dismissed an appeal and recognized a settlement in the case.

The June 10 order by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, in the case known as Gary B. v. Whitmer did not disturb an earlier order that set aside an April 23 decision by a panel of the court recognizing a U.S. constitutional right to a basic minimum education guaranteeing access to literacy.

Thus, the groundbreaking panel decision remains wiped off the books in the 6th Circuit, though other courts may look to the reasoning of the bold opinion that recognized the federal right of access to literacy. The order also means the full 6th Circuit court wont hear new arguments about whether such a right exists, which some legal observers believed would lead the court to conclude that it doesnt.

The June 10 order was brief and signed by all 16 active members of the 6th Circuit.

Before the en banc court is appellants motion to dismiss this appeal as moot based on the settlement agreement reached by the appellants and the governor of Michigan, said the order, with appellants referring to the Detroit schoolchildren who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The court having considered the motion, it is hereby granted, and the appeal is dismissed with prejudice. All other pending motions in this appeal are hereby denied as moot.

Lawyers involved in the case told Education Week they understood the order as meaning the settlement ended the case but that the 6th Circuit panel decision remains vacated and thus has no precedential value.

The settlement in the case stands, said Rekha Radhakrishnan, a spokeswoman for Public Counsel, a Los Angeles-based legal organization that represented the schoolchildren.

The settlement , which Public Counsel reached with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in May, includes payments of $280,000 to seven original plaintiffs, $2.7 million to the Detroit district for literacy programs, and a promise that Whitmer will propose legislation to provide nearly $95 million for Detroit literacy over a longer term.

John J. Bursch, a lawyer representing the Michigan legislature in an attempt to intervene in the case to oppose the panels decision on a right of access to literacy, said he agreed the settlement stands and that the panel decision has been set aside.

The April 23 opinion for the 2-1 panel was written by Judge Eric L. Clay and revived a lawsuit brought by the group of Detroit children alleging poor conditions in their schools.

The recognition of a fundamental right is no small matter, Clay wrote in a decision that prompted nationwide debate . Where, as plaintiffs allege here, a group of children is relegated to a school system that does not provide even a plausible chance to attain literacy, we hold that the [U.S.] Constitution provides them with a remedy.

The panel recognized the right to a basic minimum education and access to literacy as part of the 14th Amendments guarantee of substantive due process.

Plaintiffs contend that access to literary, as opposed to other educational achievements, is a gateway milestone, one that unlocks the basic exercise of other fundamental rights, including the possibility of political participation, Clay wrote. While the [U.S.] Supreme Court has repeatedly discussed this issue, it has never decided it, and the question of whether such a right exists remains open today.

Now, with Clays opinion removed as a precedential matter, that question remains open. But there are other pending cases, including in Mississippi and Rhode Island, that seek recognition in one form or another of a federal right to education. Clays words could have an influence in those cases and in the larger movement.
The fact the show was going ahead at all is, though, one of the few bits of good news British theater has had recently. Since March, newspapers here have been filled with articles warning that theaters face financial ruin without government assistance because they cant make a profit until social distancing is removed.

British theater is on the brink of total collapse, wrote the producer Sonia Friedman in The Daily Telegraph. I know it sounds melodramatic, she added, but it is a statement of fact. Several major theaters, including Shakespeares Globe, have issued similar warnings, as have stars like the director Sam Mendes.

On June 9, Oliver Dowden, Britains culture secretary, told The Evening Standard newspaper that help was coming. Of course I want to get the money flowing, he said. I am not going to let anyone down. But that vague promise has not stopped the talk of crisis. Cameron Mackintosh, the theater impresario behind shows like Les Miserables, had started consulting staff about potential redundancies, a spokeswoman said.

Foster said his show was not a sign the crisis in British theater has been overplayed, just as the boom in drive-in movies or drive-in discos did not mean there wasnt a crisis in those areas of culture. I dont think theaters will be open until at least next spring, he said. The simple reason to do the car park shows, he added, was just to do something, to keep telling stories and bring in money to pay his staff and freelancers.

Philpott, who had been hired just for this series of shows, agreed. His first thought after being offered the job was, he said: Flippin heck, Im going to be able to pay my mortgage next month.
Second meeting of the Belarusian-Ukrainian Working Group on Interregional and Cross-border Cooperation

On June 9, 2020 the second meeting of the Belarusian-Ukrainian Working Group on Interregional and Cross-border Cooperation was held by videoconference (Minsk-Kiev).

The Belarusian part of the Working Group was headed by the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Andrei Evdochenko, the Ukrainian part was headed by the First Deputy Minister for Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine, Vasyl Lozynskii.

The central topic of discussion was the preparation for the third Forum of Regions of Belarus and Ukraine to be held in Grodno this autumn. Particular attention was paid to the business side of the Forum.

The parties discussed the development of Belarusian-Ukrainian interregional and cross-border cooperation, including the extension of the legal framework, coordination of joint activities in the preparation and implementation of new cross-border projects, as well as emergency prevention and response cooperation.

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WASHINGTON - Five years ago, consultants warned the nations oil companies that with a wave of Baby Boomer retirements coming they faced an employment crisis.

The industrys usual recruiting grounds, such as engineering schools and the construction sector, would not be able to supply enough candidates to fill all the coming job openings. The industry, the consultants advised, was going to need to do something it hadnt been very good at: attracting minorities and women to its ranks.

Now, in the wake of national protests over the killing of George Floyd and other African Americans at the hands of police, the industry is under pressure to diversify is workforce like never before. But it will not be easy.

Even as the oil sector has become increasingly global and technology-driven, it remains one of the whitest industries in the country. Only 12 percent of the industrys U.S. employees are minorities compared to 23 percent in the general workforce, according to the Labor Department.

Minorities working in oil and gas frequently speak of being the only one in offices and oil fields. They describe a bastion of white men that is not unwelcoming to minorities but not exactly opening its doors, either.

Theres more familiarity and opportunities to build relationships if youre a white male, said one African American woman working in the oil and gas sector, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the industry. Theres a lot of legacy folks who had their folks or aunts and uncles in the industry because it is very familial. They arent used to seeing (minorities) in that space.

One only need look at the industrys top ranks, in which there are few minority leaders. Willie Chiang, CEO of Houston pipeline company Plains All American, is Asian. Bob Patel, CEO of LyondellBasell, the chemical giant with headquarters in Houston and Europe, is from India.

But among the largest American oil and gas companies, every CEO is white. Occidental Petroleum made waves in 2016 by naming Vicki Hollub as the first woman CEO of a major oil company.

FLOYD FALLOUT: African American leaders call on oil industry to diversify

Oil companies contacted for this story declined requests for interviews, instead referring to written statements and internal data on diversity. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth wrote that he shared the anger and pain felt by so many Americans at the recent killings of unarmed black men and women. Exxon Mobil pointed out it counts two African Americans on its nine-member board.

The American Petroleum Institute, the industrys largest trade group, said in a statement that working with communities of color is a priority for API, and we are committed to achieving greater diversity within the industry.

I am appalled

With protesters across the nation voicing anger at the death of Floyd and other African Americans killed by police, U.S. companies have stepped into the fraught issues of race and justice with unusual vigor. Nike is running ads saying, For once, don't do it, and Larry Fink, CEO of the investment management company BlackRock, wrote on LinkedIn, I am appalled.

The oil sectors response has been more tepid, even as it came under fire from civil rights leaders Rev. Jesse Jackson and Marc Morial, head of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, for failing to hire more minority workers. That reluctance to embrace the protests is raising questions among minority leaders of whether energy companies are willing to change their cultures to not only hire more African Americans, Latinos and Asians, but also offer them paths to executive suites.

Oil and gas is a little behind the curve, as is energy at large, said Paula Glover, president of the American Association of Blacks in Energy. You cant bring a monolithic group to any community and expect youre going to build trust. This is not just about hiring more people.

Since its earliest days the American oil industry has been dominated by white men, including titans like John D. Rockefeller and H.L. Hunt who became fabulously wealthy tapping the nations oil fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the industrys early wildcatting days, racism abounded, setting in place a system in which whites controlled the flow of oil to Americans homes and gas stations. In Texas in the 1930s, African American workers were not allowed on oil rigs under the Souths segregation laws  known as Jim Crow  according to a paper by a Columbia University researcher published in the Journal of Southern History.

African American farmers in East Texas were rarely able to reap the financial benefits of the new oil boom, due to clouded property titles written by white landowners that made obtaining royalties difficult. Efforts to secure their mineral rights through the courts were made difficult by a legal system designed to benefit whites over minorities, not to mention the threat of violence from groups such as the Klu Klux Klan if they resisted.

NEW FACES OF ENERGY: Oil and gas industry grows tech workforce

After the 1960s civil rights movement, African Americans began to enter the oil and gas industry, seeking the hefty paychecks that the industry has long used to attract talent.

In the 1970s and 80s, Luddy Hayden rose swiftly through the ranks at the old Gulf Oil, eventually becoming general manager of international government and public affairs at Chevron, which acquired Gulf in 1984. When speaking with black colleagues, he would hear stories about promotions being handed to less capable white colleagues.

They didnt think they were being treated fairly, said Hayden, 75, who retired from Chevron in 2007. And I believed them. I didnt have any reason not to. The oil and gas industry is probably the most conservative industry we have in this country.

1.9 million openings

For the energy industry, increasing diversity is not just a matter of conscience, but one of necessity. Just as the industry struggled with drilling accidents and spills before a series of high-profile incidents such as the Exxon Valdez spill forced them to crack down on safety lapses, rapidly approaching labor shortages are forcing them to rethink approaches to diversity.

More than 1.9 million oil and gas jobs are expected to come open by 2035. With the U.S. workforce becoming increasingly diverse, minority communities and women represent critically vital and available talent pools to help meet the industrys future workforce demands, the consulting firm IHS Markit wrote in a 2015 report.

The American Petroleum Institute projects that nearly half the industrys hires over the next two decades will be minorities.

At the same time oil executives are coming under pressure from investors pushing companies to be better corporate citizens when it comes to the environment, society and their own governance.

Its tipped over from something investors asked about on the side to a very central question when theyre deciding to allocate capital, said Gabriel Rio, CEO of Milestone Environmental Services, a Houston oil field services company. The industry has a harder time on the environmental side, but the diversity issue is something the industry can control and set goals around trying to improve.

In recent years, industry representatives have begun recruiting more women and minorities through informational meetings in and around U.S. oil and gas fields. The American Petroleum Institute is a partner with companies such as Microsoft and Boeing in the STEM Careers Coalition, a nonprofit funding science and technology education at schools with high minority enrollments.

Already, the industry has had some success, with the percentage of women working in oil and gas increasing from 18 percent in 2015 to 22 percent last year. Over the same period, African Americans increased 3.5 percent to 7 percent on the industrys workforce.

NEW IMAGE: Oil and gas shifting workplace culture to woo younger generations

Whether the trend will continue  especially in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic and climate crisis challenging the sector as never before  will take years to find out.

Despite the slowdown, companies are investing in this area. Its not like in the past when diversity was put on the back burner, said Katie Mehnert, a former oil executive at BP and founder of Pink Petro, which advocates for women in the oil sector. But we need to be more welcoming to outsiders. If you look around, the war for the talent is real and its not just in energy. People have choices, and they want to work somewhere they feel where they belong.

Mentors needed

In the meantime, minorities seeking to climb the corporate ladder are presented with a conundrum. While opportunities might grow as companies seek to diversity in upper ranks, minorities lack mentors and role models.

Rio, the founder of the oil field services firm, first joined the oil and gas sector in 1999 after graduating from the University of Texas. Working in the oil fields, he said he routinely overheard coworkers making racist comments, some directed at him as a Latino.

He brushed them aside. But more concerning to him was a lack of minority executives to approach for advice.

When it comes to ethnicity, it adds another element for a younger person to navigate, Rio said. People who dont have to deal with it are often blind to it.

After bouncing around the oil and gas and finance sectors for more than a decade, Rio partnered with a private equity firm to start his own company in 2014. Almost 60 percent of his employees are minorities.

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james.osborne@chron.com

Twitter.com/@osborneja
SNP MP Amy Callaghan, 28, has undergone life-saving emergency surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage.

The MP for East Dunbartonshire was found collapsed at home by her partner, before being rushed to hospital for emergency neurosurgery.

She is now recovering in hospital, according to a statement posted on Twitter.

The SNP politician was elected to the House of Commons in December after ousting the then Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson from her East Dunbartonshire seat.

Her brain haemorrhage was said to be 'related to a previously manageable medical condition', a statement from her office said.

Ms Callaghan has previously battled cancer, having been diagnosed with melanoma when she was 19. She has been cancer-free since 2014.

She underwent emergency neurosurgery after 'imminent risk to life was identified' but is now stable in hospital.

SNP MP Amy Callaghan, 28, was found collapsed at home by her partner. She has now undergone emergency life-saving surgery

The MP for East Dunbartonshire campaigning before last December's election with Nicola Sturgeon

The statement said: 'Thanks to the immense skill and response of the medical team involved in her care, Amy was able to successfully pull through the operation and is now stable in hospital.'

Thanking NHS staff for 'saving her life', it added: 'Amy is in good spirits and able to communicate well with family. She has been overwhelmed with the messages of support and kindness, which are a huge source of encouragement.

'She has made great progress thus far but is under no illusion of the seriousness of her condition and the rehabilitation that will follow.

'As she always has done throughout her life, she will continue to fight. She is determined to overcome what barriers, if any, may now arise as a result of this incident.

'She wants to make clear that her constituency work will continue: her office is still open for all those who require help and support.

'There will be a period of required rest and recovery. Whilst this is ongoing, we ask that you respect her and her family's safety and privacy.

'It is the privilege of her life to be elected as the Member of Parliament for East Dunbartonshire.

'There is absolutely no doubt that Amy will come back stronger, fitter and more determined than ever to continue in that role and serve, to the best of her ability, the people of her constituency.'

Ms Callaghan, 28, has previously battled cancer

SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has sent her good wishes to the 28-year-old.

Ms Sturgeon tweeted she was 'sending lots of love and strength to @AmyCallaghanSNP and her family, and wishing her the speediest possible recovery'.

SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford MP said: 'My thoughts and best wishes are with Amy and her family at this incredibly difficult time.

'I wish Amy a full and speedy recovery from everyone in the SNP, and would ask that people please respect her family's privacy now and in the weeks to come.'

A spokesman for the MP added: 'On Wednesday, Amy Callaghan was found collapsed at home suffering from a brain haemorrhage.

'She was admitted to hospital for emergency neurosurgery and is now beginning the process of recovery.

'Amy and her family would like to express their thanks and gratitude to our NHS staff for their excellent care and support.

'All our thoughts are with Amy and her family at this time. We would ask that people please respect their privacy as she recovers.'
An Oklahoma couple sued their servicer for failing to properly respond to qualified written requests when their insurance company paid off their mortgage after their house burned down.

The borrowers argued Seterus did not conduct a reasonable investigation, provided factually inaccurate responses and did not explain why it could not pay down the note as requested.

Read on for highlights of the judges recent opinion on the dueling motions for summary judgment.
Emily Bloom said she barely had time to dive to safety before a gray Kia with its engine revving was driven through the intersection where she had stood moments earlier in downtown Gainesville, Fla., protesting police brutality.

While marching with fellow protesters in the Richmond, Va., suburb of Lakeside, Rachel Kurtz said she, her husband and her 11-year-old son had to leap to the sidewalk and out of the path of a blue pickup truck.

In the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Dan Gregory fell to the ground, shot in the shoulder, after he said he attempted to stop a black Honda Civic headed toward a group of protesters. And in front of the Bakersfield Police Department in California, Lexi Colebrook said she watched in horror as an SUV hit her friend, who managed to stumble toward the sidewalk and escape serious injury.

The incidents are among at least 19 cases in the past few weeks in which witnesses or police say civilian vehicles were driven through massive demonstrations after the May 25 death of George Floyd, who was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer for nearly nine minutes.

In at least eight of the events, a driver faces charges for what prosecutors described as a deliberate act, according to arrest and court filings.

That includes the event in Richmond, where prosecutors say the driver sought to intimidate protesters with his truck and hit one demonstrator's bicycle, running over the cyclist's foot. According to court documents, the driver told police he is a high-ranking official of the Ku Klux Klan.

In Illinois, a motorcyclist was charged with hate crimes and aggravated battery after police said he plowed into a demonstration in Bloomington.

The accusations echo the 2017 vehicle attack at a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that killed Heather Heyer, a counterprotester. And they occur amid a resurgence of internet memes featuring messages such as "All lives splatter" and "Run them over" and pictures of bloodied trucks.

"To me, this is a pattern beyond coincidence," said Jacob Stoil, an expert on military history and irregular warfare who is an assistant professor at the U.S. Army's School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "We've now seen a pretty steady stream of it." Stoil, who emphasized he was speaking about his personal research and not on behalf of the Army or any institution, added, "My research would suggest that this is a cluster, and a growing cluster."

Shared in numerous instances by right-wing activists and some members of law enforcement, the social media messages at times seem to encourage attacks, using phrases such as "Run 'em all over" and "Get the protester plow." Others put the onus on protesters to get out of the way, such as when commentator Steven Crowder recently tweeted: "Charge or block a vehicle and break the windshield with the driver still in it? Congratulations! You are now a speed bump!"

During the recent spate, police and local officials deemed at least two of the vehicle incidents as accidental encounters caused by panicked drivers who happened upon pedestrians in a street or highway, including one involving a truck driver in Minneapolis in the immediate wake of Floyd's death. That driver was detained and then released without charges.

Police have not made arrests in at least three other cases in which videos or witnesses statements suggest there was an attempt to harm protesters by a driver.

Apart from the cases involving civilian vehicles reviewed by The Washington Post, allegations also have surfaced about actions by law enforcement. The New York City Police Department recently opened an investigation into a May 30 incident in which two of the department's SUVs were driven into a crowd of protesters.

As cases wind through the legal system, it could take months before a motive is determined, assuming one is clear and eventually surfaces. But the images of vehicles headed toward demonstrators revive a sense of dread.

"I don't think anybody can forget the car barreling down onto the downtown mall," said Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor, recalling the 2017 Charlottesville rally in which neo-Nazi James Alex Fields drove into a crowd and fatally struck Heyer. Fields was found guilty of first-degree murder and pleaded guilty to hate crimes; he was sentenced to life in prison plus 419 years.

After the Richmond event on June 7, Taylor charged Harry Rogers, the 36-year-old driver of the blue pickup, with attempted malicious wounding, destruction of property and assault. Taylor said her office is reviewing photographs that appear to show Rogers at the Charlottesville rally, as well as other photos from 2013 and 2014 in which he appears to attend events while holding a Confederate flag and wearing a white Ku Klux Klan robe.

Rogers declined an interview request made through the Henrico County Jail, where he is being held without bond. He has not yet had an opportunity to enter a plea in the case. His attorney, George Townsend, declined to comment on the allegations or whether Rogers appeared in photos at previous rallies.

In the current court proceeding, Townsend said: "All of these alleged crimes, they're all on video. So Mr. Rogers and the alleged victims are going to have their day in court." Taylor said her office has videos of Rogers's truck striking protesters, but declined to provide them.

According to court documents, Rogers told police that he had been "ordered" to patrol Confederate monuments in the area, though he did not elaborate. Taylor said in an interview that police recovered boxes of ammunition, firearms and a green Ku Klux Klan dragon robe from Rogers's home.

In the Bakersfield incident on May 29, Colebrook told The Post she remembers seeing the driver of an SUV arguing with protesters before heading toward them.

She recalled the fear of seeing the SUV bearing down on her and her friend. Her friend was directly in front of her holding up a sign that read "Respect existence or expect resistance," Colebrook said. Suddenly the friend was hit by the hood of the SUV and doubled over in the street.

The driver, 31-year-old Michael Tran, is accused of making a U-turn to again drive "through the crowd," Bakersfield police wrote in a court document. Tran refused to make a statement to police, the document states, and has pleaded not guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. Family members could not be reached for an interview, and the public defender representing him did not respond to requests for comment.

At a protest a day later on the opposite side of the country in Gainesville, Bloom and several other witnesses told police that the driver of a gray Kia sped past other cars, then swerved into marching protesters and brandished a gun at them.

"Everyone took it personally," Bloom, 19, told The Post. "There's no more powerful way to say you're against the movement than to literally, belligerently bulldoze through it."

William Connelly, the 64-year-old driver, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Connelly's attorney, Mark Feather, said his client is a veteran who had no intention of coming near the protesters and harbored no ill will toward them. He blamed the encounter on the fact that "law enforcement didn't provide a safe place for people to protest" and said that Connelly waived his gun "to keep violence from escalating."

"We're really glad everybody's OK," Feather said, noting that no injuries were reported. Gainesville police did not mention any injuries in an arrest report.

On June 7 in Seattle, Gregory was sitting on the curb eating a hot dog when he saw a black Honda Civic turn the corner. The car appeared headed toward protesters. "I had a feeling, he's going to hurt somebody, he's doing it on purpose," Gregory, 27, recalled, so he ran beside the car, reached through the open driver's side window and grabbed the steering wheel with his right hand, hoping to stop the Civic.

As the driver continued to move forward, Gregory said he lost his grip and said the next thing he remembers is lying on the ground. He'd been shot by the driver with a Glock 26 pistol, police wrote in court documents. Gregory has since been released from the hospital after surgery.

"The defendant drove to the [Capitol] Hill protests to see 'how bad' the protests were," King County prosecutors wrote in a summary of their case against the driver, Nikolas Fernandez, who is charged with first-degree assault. They added, "As protesters yelled at him to stop, and even put a metal barrier in his path, he continued to drive forward."

Fernandez, 31, has not yet had the chance to enter a plea in response to the charges. His father, Ross, said he's in the process of hiring a lawyer and said that the charges are baseless.

"It was a clear case of self-defense," Ross Fernandez said. "He was going to work and took the wrong turn."

In Henrico County, prosecutor Taylor alleges that Rogers "purposefully made a U-turn" in order to get behind the group of protesters and then kept moving forward even as people stood or biked in front of him, asking him to stop. "The only reason for him to do that and maneuver his car in such a manner is because he was there to intimidate, disrupt," Taylor said in an interview.

Lorenzo Boyd, director of the Center for Advanced Policing at the University of New Haven, said vehicle-ramming incidents were once a common tactic of the Ku Klux Klan.

"Police are supposed to watch what is going on," he said. "Even when you are protesting police, it is their job to still protect you."

Online messaging encouraging such tactics was in circulation well before Fields fatally struck Heyer with his car in Charlottesville in August 2017.

In January 2017, a video published by the conservative news outlet the Daily Caller was reposted on Fox News's website, titled, "Here's A Reel Of Cars Plowing Through Protesters Trying To Block The Road." The article's author wrote, "Study the technique; it may prove useful in the next four years." Fox later told CNN that "we regret" the post.

At Fields's trial, prosecutors revealed that months before the attack, he had shared images on social media of a car ramming into a group of people, sending them flying. One image was flanked by the words, "YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO PROTEST BUT IM LATE FOR WORK."

Similar messages have been circulating online in recent weeks. "JUST DROVE THROUGH MINNEAPOLIS," reads one meme shared by a Republican county commissioner in Oklahoma, accompanied by a picture of a large truck spattered with blood. "DIDN'T SEE ANY PROTESTERS." A fire chief in West Virginia lost his job in the first week of June after pictures on social media showed him wearing a shirt that read: "All lives splatter. Nobody cares about your protest."

Some social media posters have said they have no intention of endorsing attacks but feel that protesters do not have a right to impede drivers. "The intention to harm or kill should be denounced and punished," wrote Brandon Morse on the conservative site RedState earlier this month, "but if you're a protester and you begin giving signs that you have more than just the intention to protest, then be prepared to find out that you're no match for a giant hunk of metal being self-propelled by a V6 engine."

Josh Lipowsky, a senior research analyst for the Counter Extremism Project, said the messaging is dangerous regardless of intent. "Putting this out there into the public sphere - we do not know who is going to see that and take it to heart," he said.

Ari Weil, a master's degree candidate in international relations at the University of Chicago who has researched vehicle-ramming incidents, pointed to legislative efforts in 2017 that proposed limiting liability for drivers who hit protesters blocking a roadway. The bills were proposed in a half-dozen states. Florida's version would have exempted drivers from liability if they "unintentionally" killed or injured a person who "obstructs or interferes with the regular flow of vehicular traffic."

The bills did not pass.

- - -

The Washington Post's Alice Crites and Warren Fiske contributed to this report.
An F-15 fighter jet flies over the Atlantic ocean as it prepares a mid-air refueling process on May 27, 2012. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times)

Pilot Missing After US Air Force F-15 Fighter Jet Crashes Off UK Coast

A U.S. Air Force fighter jet crashed off the UK coast Monday morning during a training mission, the 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs confirmed in a news release.

The crash happened at about 9:40 a.m. (4:40 a.m. ET) and prompted a major search and rescue operation to retrieve the pilot in the North Sea, off the coast of Yorkshire.

At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board, the release stated.

The cause of the crash as well as the status of the pilot are unknown at this time and UK Search and Rescue have been called to support, it added.

The public affairs office said as soon as additional details become available, they will be provided. The Epoch Times couldnt confirm if the pilot has been located.

The U.S. Air Force said the type of jet was an F-15C Eagle and lift-off was from the Royal Air Force Base Lakenheath, northeast of London.

On the same morning as the crash, RAF Lakenheath posted a photo on Twitter showing three F-15s in flight. The caption of the post read, Ready to take on Monday.

RAF Lakenheath is the largest U.S. Air Force-operated base in England and the only U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) F-15 fighter wing.

The area where the plane went down is often used by UK and U.S. military jets for training sessions. At the time of the incident, four military jets were deployed in the area for training, according to Sky News.

A U.S. military helicopter crashed on the coast of eastern England in 2014, killing all four crew on board.

Reuters contributed to this report.
The two activists had been arrested on April 19. They had posted an interview with Ai Fen, the doctor who had launched the alarm on the coronavirus. New outbreak of the disease in Beijing. Ten residential areas of the capital are isolated and quarantined.

Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Two Beijing activists will be tried for posting government censored articles about the coronavirus crisis. The news of the indictment of Chen Mei and Cai Wei was reported yesterday by their family members.

Chen and Cai were arrested on April 19th. They had published the interview given on March 10 to "People" magazine by Ai Fen, the doctor from Wuhan who first launched the alarm on Covid-19 on GitHub - the largest open-source website in the world.

In the past two years, through their collective project "Terminus 2049", Chen and Cai have circulated material prohibited by the authorities, including articles on the "MeToo" movement against violence and gender discrimination, and on the eviction of a large number of migrant workers from some Beijing homes.

Chen and Cai live in Beijing, where a new coronavirus outbreak has occured. Yesterday 36 cases of contagion were counted in the capital, all related to the Xinfadi market. In total, 79 new infections have been registered in the capital since 11 June. Other infections have occurred in the provinces of Hebei and Liaoning.

China is the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. Last month, the government said it had eradicated the disease. There are 84,729 confirmed cases in the country and 4,645 deaths. The authorities fear a second wave of infections after last December. To counter the spread of the virus, they have isolated and quarantined 10 residential areas of the capital.
India's nationwide lockdown, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, has revealed cracks in the social fabric like never before, explicitly marooning the weakest, poorest, and the most disenfranchised among us. The unorganised sector accounts for 93 percent of the country's total workforce: a population of 420 million that keeps the machinery of the Indian economy running. As social security laws evade these millions, families and individuals belonging to this demographic are rendered especially vulnerable to the horrors of human trafficking, which includes illegal sex and labour rackets. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported 38,503 cases of trafficking in the country between 2011 and 2019. For 16-year-old Somesh Singh*, a victim of labour trafficking from Bihar's Gaya district, memories of his time in a bangle factory in Jaipur last year  cooped up in a burning, tarry hole  are already woolly. On returning home earlier this year, Somesh says he had "mistakenly heaved a sigh of relief", believing the worst was behind him. The lockdown, however, with its caveats of monitored movements, limited human interactions, and consequently, fewer meals seems to Somesh not a far cry from his days in bonded labour. For Somesh and three other survivors of trafficking who spoke with this correspondent, 'home' amidst a lockdown has only meant grave uncertainties, and a fear that the "new normal" will push them back into the net of trafficking from which they escaped. Somesh Singh, 16, Bihar Somesh loved going to school, but had to forsake it three years ago for his two younger siblings  a brother and a sister  as his father, the sole breadwinner in the family, failed to keep up with piling expenses on a plummeting income. He is a daily-wage labourer who was previously employed at an oil factory all the way across in Gujarat, and earned Rs 7,000 a month, until the lockdown was imposed. "The men who smuggled me away to Jaipur lived in our neighbourhood. They promised me that they'll enrol me in a good school and help me study. They knew about my family's condition too," he says. Somesh's family  also comprising his mother and a married elder sister living in an adjacent village  was unaware of his plans of escaping to Rajasthan in search of a better life, and lived in the dark about his whereabouts for months until news of Somesh's rescue surfaced.

"They (traffickers) did not pay me for the three or four months that I was there, working in the factory. There were 10 more boys and a few girls working with me, and most of them were from my village, trafficked at different times," he says. He tells me that the other boys and girls working with him were either his age, or younger than him. While the boys handled the manufacturing, the girls were sent to the markets to sell the jewellery. "None of us were allowed to call home. They beat us up every time we even mentioned home, and said this is where we will have to live for the rest of our lives," he says. His homecoming coincided with the initiation of the lockdown, only weeks before which his father had returned to the village from Gujarat, hoping to resume work after reuniting with his son. But the coronavirus outbreak knocked the wind out of their sails, bringing their meal-count down to two  sometimes even one  from three, as his father's local odd jobs began drying up too. "I have been suffering from a fever for several weeks now, ever since I returned home. I have been to the doctor who gave me medicine, which is now over. I did not get any (free) medicine after that, neither do we have the money to buy more. Thank god no one else at home is sick," he says. "You know, I would often get fever while living there. The bhaiyyas had given me medicine only once  that's it. I would have to work with raging fever, and look forward to the three meals of only rice every day," Somesh tells me. With the lockdown underway, means of assisting his father at earning a living have fast disappeared too. Government help remains a distant reality as well. "There's barely any food at home. It's becoming difficult to survive. I would initially feel really afraid to step out, and I haven't even been able to meet any of my friends. We anyway lost touch after I left school," he trails off, sounding crestfallen, only to cheer up a second later and tell me that he hopes to become a doctor someday. "I'll go back to school once this lockdown ends, and study hard," Somesh says, his smile seeping through his words over the phone. He tells me his fears have merely "lessened", with help and guidance from NGO workers who had rescued him from the factory. "They told me to be brave, and I have tried really hard. The lockdown is only making the process harder, but at least I am with my family," he says before hanging up, and asking me to "stay safe". Ashwani*, 26, Andhra Pradesh Ashwani coughs intermittently for over a minute before beginning the conversation. She informs me she had pneumonia three months back, and is yet to recover completely. "My symptoms were tending towards tuberculosis, the doctor had said. He prescribed medicine and food worth Rs 2,500 per month. How can we afford that under the lockdown?" she asks. Living in Vijaywada with two daughters and her husband  who recently graduated to driving a rented car from a rented auto  Ashwani has been taking life one day at a time, especially since her rescue from a prostitution ring a year-and-a-half ago. Her husband used to earn around Rs 10,000 a month; ever since the lockdown, he has only received half his salary. "The owner has asked him to come to work only two or three times in all these months," she says, before being overcome by another bout of coughing. The Rs 15,000 she loaned from a neighbour (at 15 percent interest) to pay for her treatment is now exhausted, with her health only worsening.

"I still have aches and ailments due to the abuse I faced during my time in prostitution," she tells me. Six years ago, when she joined a beautician training school in Vijaywada, a friend of hers swindled her into prostitution, luring Ashwani with promises of a better life. "Back then, I was estranged from my husband and was living at my mother's house with my daughters," she says. Her girls, aged 12 and 14, were enrolled at a private convent school till last year, following which they were shifted to a government institute. Ashwani herself was forced to drop out of school in Class Seven, at the young age of 13. Soon after, she was married off by her mother  who works as a domestic help  and father, who drives an auto. Quite expectedly, they were unhappy with her "untimely return". "They had plans of sending off my brother to study further, and get my sister married off. They obviously treated me and my girls as liabilities," she says, adding that she now shares only a nominal relationship with her parents. After her rescue and rehabilitation, Ashwani reconciled with her husband on being counselled by the police and local NGO. "A client beat me up and absconded with my jewellery. That is when I went to the police to complain, and consequently, I was rescued too," she says. "I tried to kill myself by overdosing on sleeping pills once I was rescued," she adds abruptly. "I now talk to another survivor like me, whom I met through Vimukthi [an Andhra Pradesh-based NGO], every time I feel lonely or suicidal," Ashwani says. But forestalling thoughts of hunger, sickness and death has become tougher in the pandemic. Her ration card provides her only a handful of rice and pulses every month, besides the paltry sum of Rs 1,000 from the government ever since lockdown ensued. Ashwani misses going to work and earning for her family, she says. "I used to bring home Rs 3,000-4,000 a month from a local supermarket, where I would do the job of packing goods. But my health did not allow me to continue for long. Now, during the pandemic, even if the shops reopen, there is no way for me to go back to work since my health has only worsened under lockdown. It's a vicious cycle, you see," she sighs. Her husband, despite being supportive, often reminds her that her earnings will amount to nothing if all of it is spent on her treatment when she is taken ill, owing to work-induced exertion. "What do we do?" she asks. "Just when I thought life was getting back to normal, the lockdown came and bulldozed our lives yet again." Munira Ali*, 15, West Bengal Munira misses Surat, the city she has come to call her first home, even though her origins lie in Canning city in Bengal's South 24 Parganas district. Her father, who works at a salwar tailoring workshop, moved with his family all the way to Gujarat a couple of years ago, only to make frequent visits back home after Munira was smuggled into a sex-trade racket by a man posing as their well-wisher. "He won the trust of my family and brought me with him to Canning from Surat in late January last year. Esrafil [perpetrator] was trying to send me off to Pune or Mumbai, but got caught midway by the police and the Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra (GGBK, a local NGO), who rescued and rehabilitated me for around a week before sending me back to my family," she recalls. The nightmare, however, was far from over, as one of Esrafil's wives, Munni, attempted to traffic Munira off to Maharashtra the very next month. "She threatened me with murder, and blackmailed me constantly, when she realised that trying to fool me would not work. Munni initially posed as someone trying to save me from her husband by giving us information about his whereabouts. But her cover was blown," she says. In the past couple of years, Bengal's porous borders along the districts of South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduar have proved propitious for trafficking rackets and other illegal businesses. According to the data released by NCRB, the state registered the highest number of trafficking cases in 2016, amounting to a total of 3,579. Canning and Diamond Harbour subdivisions under the South 24 Parganas, in particular, have emerged as major hotbeds for this crime.

"It is a reality of several women in this part of the state," says Kakali Das, Munira's handler from GGBK, owing to which the district administration introduced a rehabilitation programme named 'Swayamsiddha' in 2018. The scheme aims to spread awareness about trafficking among locals through various mediums and channels. Supplementing their efforts, the NGO too has proactively rescued and counselled several women in the region like Munira, most of who continue to fight long and tedious legal battles at court against their traffickers. "The second time too I was rescued by GGBK and the Baruipur Police, who nabbed us in the dead of the night, on 22 February last year. Since Esrafil is a seasoned trafficker, he was being closely monitored by the police for very long," Munira tells me. The case is now being handled by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), with Esrafil and his accomplices facing charges under the POCSO Act. Munira and her family travelled back to Bengal earlier this year, in order to attend one such court hearing, soon after which the lockdown was imposed. "We are a family of eight at the moment. I live with my parents, my three younger sisters  who go to school  and one elder sister, who is pregnant. My maternal aunt too is pregnant, and is living with us at the moment, but we don't have any income through the lockdown," she says. While the family continues to be coerced into withdrawing all charges against the perpetrator by his associates, the Alis* remain undaunted and resolute in their pursuit of justice. They have been a constant source of strength to the 15-year-old, who, after losing her friends on dropping out of school in Class Nine, has found companionship in her parents. "They always look out for me. After being rescued for the second time, I suffered from severe anxiety and required medication, which the NGO gave me," she says. However, she ran out of medicine soon after the last batch arrived in February, following which her health, both physical and mental, witnessed a sharp dip. Concern clouds Munira's voice as she speaks of the lockdown's effects on her family. "There are two pregnant women at home, and my elder sister is just 22. On top of that, my headaches have started to relapse, because the medicine is not reaching me anymore due to the lockdown. There is barely any food at home either. We don't even know when the next court hearing will be and when the proceedings will end," she says. The teenager attributes a large part of her regained confidence to a local NGO named Bandhanmukti, where she works as a community leader spreading awareness about trafficking through skits and street theatre. Munira is slowly, but surely, rediscovering the joys of stepping out alone, even after sundown, despite having to look over her shoulder ever so often. With Cyclone Amphan further aggravating their already precarious living conditions in the South 24 Parganas  one of the worst-hit districts in Bengal  the roof above their heads has literally caved in, leaving them with little to no hope. "During the lockdown and until the cyclone happened, the government had only been giving us some ration, not money. We have been borrowing money from a cousin of mine, who is a doctor. He is also helping us source some medicine since we have two pregnant women at home, and we cannot have them falling sick," she says, only to prove in the very next moment that her spirit, despite the weight of her hardships, is far from broken. "I want to start my own business of clothing and tailoring," Munira says, of her aspirations for the future. "I have no plans of getting married any time soon." Ujwala Gokul*, 25, Tamil Nadu For 15 years, Ujwala and her family  comprising six younger siblings and her parents  woke up at 4 am to clean the grounds, feed the hens, and look after the eggs at a farm in Pudupatti, a stone's throw from their village Alampatti. Their village may have as well been miles away as "the farm-owner never allowed us to even call our relatives, forget letting us step out of the farm. We weren't allowed to go to the hospital if we fell ill. If we complained about being sick, the owner would say we are making excuses to get off work," Ujwala recalls. It has only been a year since they returned home  a rented one-room-and-kitchen unit sheltering nine people  and hope has already started to peter out.

"Back on the farm, only our living quarters were free. We were not given any food; just Rs 150 per day, which too we had to beg for most of the time. We toiled till 6 in the evening, and went back to nothing. Now, we pay Rs 1,000 as rent, while our income has been zero since lockdown was imposed," she says. Ujwala, who studied till Class Six, was working as a salesgirl at a textile shop 30 minutes away from home after being rescued, until the shutters came down three months ago. One of her younger sisters, who has studied till Class Eight and is 16 years old, accompanied her to work. "Since my sister hasn't turned 18 yet, the shop owners were not allowing her to work there for the longest time, until they finally agreed. I would get paid Rs 4,000 a month, while my sister would earn Rs 2,000. My father found work as an agricultural labourer and earned around Rs 2,000 a week. All of that has stopped now," she informs. Her mother is homebound, looking after two of her disabled siblings. Being able to afford only one meal for each person every day through the lockdown, their prognosis shows little promise at present. Ujwala requests a moment's pause before resuming her account. "I got married last month, but that did not really work out well, so I am still with my family," she tells me. Her body seems to be giving up on her, with an obstinate headache compounding her agony. "Nothing feels right anymore, you know? We do lead a more peaceful life than we did before, but our difficulties have only doubled under lockdown. It takes a while to rebuild your life after facing decades of abuse; whatever progress we had made has now been completely shattered," she says. The family is currently surviving on her siblings' disability pension, and the Rs 1,000 they received in April through the Public Distribution System at ration shops. "We are now being merely granted some oil and rice for free, with pulses being subtracted from the list since May. But the quality of rice we get is so inferior that it does nothing for our nourishment," the 25-year-old says. As compensation for the years they lost working as bonded labour, Ujwala's family has been granted a piece of land at Pudupatti by the government. "But what do we do with it?" she asks, as the village name triggers horrors that they have all struggled to move past. She can barely recount their initial days at the farm, besides a stray memory of her father being informed by a neighbour about lucrative opportunities in a neighbouring village. "That's how he landed up there. Soon after, the farm-owner asked my father to bring the rest of the family to the farm too, and that's how we all dropped out of school," she says in a monotone. On being rescued from Pudupatti, the family was sent to a rehabilitation centre by a NGO for six days, following which they received sporadic counselling. "We are able to talk to our neighbours freely; the trauma does not get in the way," Ujwala trails off, before adding  "Our lives had begun to resume normalcy, you know, but now it's like starting from scratch again"  both emotionally and financially, because of the coronavirus outbreak. Clearly, the pandemic has set them back by several long years.

*Names changed to protect individual's identity  Illustrations Adrija Ghosh for Firstpost
A further 27,600 people are returning to work after the easing of lock down restrictions was sped up, with all retail outlets now allowed to open.

Last week, 33,000 people closed their claim for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP).

27,600 of these people reported that they were returning to work, and 17,000 are male and 10,600 are female.

The sectors with the most employees returning to work this week are wholesale and retail trade, including the repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles. 7,700 in this sector are back to work.

The construction sector is next, with 5,300 people returning to building sites, and manufacturing has 2,500 employees returning.

In terms of the ages of those returning to work, the largest cohort are those aged 35-44, with 7,100 returning to work.

There are 5,500 employees aged 25-34 returning to work this week, and a further 4,600 people under 25 are returning to their jobs also.

This week's PUP payments, issued by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, were paid out to 498,700 people and were valued at 174.6m in total.

There were 517,600 people on PUP payments last week, so there has been a decrease of 18,900 people receiving the payment.

In Cork, 50,300 are currently receiving the payment, although later this week 3,100 people in Cork will have signed off PUP.

As well as those relying on PUP, there are now over 60,600 employers who have registered for the Temporary Covid-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme.

An estimated 400,000 employees are currently being supported by the scheme.

The above payments are in addition to the 225,600 people who were reported on the Live Register as of the end of May.

Minister for Employment Affairs & Social Protection, Regina Doherty, has said the number of people on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment continues to fall. Photo Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

"The numbers receiving the Pandemic Unemployment Payment continue to gradually decline  with the total now dropping below the 500,000 mark," said Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty.

"Only a few short weeks ago, there were approximately 600,000 receiving the payment so some progress has been made but it is also clear that the return to a new normal will be gradual and incremental.

"That is why I extended the payment beyond its originally planned life cycle into August.

"My Department will continue to monitor the rate of the economys reopening, the continuing need for income support and the developing health situation and will develop a number of options for Government to consider before the schemes projected end in August."
While todays rise in safe haven demand has been fairly mixed, the British Pound to Canadian Dollar (GBP/CAD) exchange rate has seen solid gains. The pair is climbing more easily as coronavirus jitters and market trade concerns hit the Canadian Dollar, but the Pounds potential for gains is limited as coronavirus and Brexit concerns also dominate its own outlook.

Last weeks GBP/CAD movement was generally positive, but the pair ultimately only registered small gains.

After opening last week at the level of 1.7010, GBP/CAD spent the week climbing. GBP/CAD briefly touched on a high of 1.7174 towards the end of the week, the pairs best level in over half a month. However, GBP/CAD ultimately slipped back from those highs and closed the week closer to the level of 1.7041.

Since markets opened this week, GBP/CAD had been climbing again and currently trends near the level of 1.7103.

Todays movement has been largely due to the Pound benefitting from Canadian Dollar weakness.

The Pound is not typically considered a risk-correlated currency. As a result, it has benefitted against rivals perceived as riskier during todays risk-off movement.

As investors sell assets considered riskier, even the Pound has benefitted somewhat.

However, the Pounds potential for gains has been limited. GBP/CAD could have climbed even higher if not for factors weighing heavily on the Pound.

Critics remain anxious about Britains handling of the coronavirus ahead of a potential second wave, as the nations death-count is higher than many other major economies.

On top of this, Brexit fears have been rising again. Britains government has reasserted over the past week that it will not extend the Brexit transition period.

In a statement released by a Downing Street spokesperson today:

We are looking to agree a high quality free-trade agreement based on the agreements the EU has already reached with other countries, but whatever happens we will be ready for 1 January when we will take back control of our laws, border and money,

Canadian Dollar (CAD) Exchange Rates Throttled by Plunging Oil Prices and Manufacturing Activity

The Canadian Dollar plummeted against many major rivals today, as it was hit lower by a variety of both domestic and global factors.

The Canadian Dollar is a currency often correlated to risk and trade-sentiment. As a result, it was already less appealing following todays news of fresh coronavirus cases in Beijing.

As fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections rise, investors are more hesitant to take risks. Currencies like CAD are falling as investors head for safer assets.

The Canadian Dollar was hit particularly hard as prices of oil, Canadas biggest export, were also hurt by the coronavirus news. Oil prices tumbled 4% today.

Further dampening the Canadian Dollars appeal was todays Canadian manufacturing sales report, which was highly concerning.

After already seeing a concerning March, Canadas manufacturing sales were forecast to be hit 20% lower as the coronavirus hit in April. Instead, the figure came in at a worrying 28.5%.

Still, despite the dire figures some analysts believed there was hope ahead for Canadas economic outlook. According to Josh Nye, Senior Economist at RBC:

April should prove the low point for Canadian manufacturing as easing of physical distancing measures allowed some factories to reopen or increase capacity,

GBP/CAD Exchange Rate Forecast: Coronavirus, Oil and Brexit in Focus This Week

For now, the Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate is expected to remain sensitive to shifts in market sentiment, which will of course be driven largely by coronavirus developments.

If there are further signs that there could be a second wave of coronavirus infections, investors will be even less willing to buy currencies correlated to risk like the Canadian Dollar.

This is probably the easiest chance GBP/CAD has of registering further gains. Continued weakness in oil prices would of course weigh on CAD too.

Still, even in this situation the Pounds potential for gains may be limited.

Britains coronavirus situation is also concerning to markets. On top of this, investors will be anxious about the next round of Brexit negotiations beginning today.

If prices of oil rebound, or if the Bank of England (BoE) takes a dovish tone in its policy decision later this week, this could also hurt the Pound to Canadian Dollar exchange rate.
Apple Maps rolled out its Nearby feature to India last week. But Apple's mapping system still lacks in many ways with Google Maps.

Apples mapping service launched back in 2012. Its been almost a decade but Apple Maps still has a lot of catching up to do. Google Maps is preferred by commuters globally and rightly so because it has regularly updated with useful features.

Apple Maps enabled its Nearby feature in India just yesterday. This feature lets users find nearby places for services like food delivery, groceries, medical stores, petrol pumps and restaurants. In other markets like Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands, Apple Maps rolled out real-time transit information.

Apple Maps went through a major update last year with iOS 13. It introduced more useful features and visual changes as well. Apple Maps is still way behind especially due to its limited availability in many countries. Apple, like Google, launches or tests its features in the US. But the wider roll-out for Apple Maps takes longer than Google Maps.

For example, Apple Maps started showing Covid-19 testing sites this April but this feature is limited to the US and Puerto Rico. Google Maps however rolled out this feature in India last week.

Its fair to say that Google Maps has wider availability thanks to its Android dominance and it works on iOS too. Apple Maps is however limited to iPhones.

Apple Maps has only now expanded real-time transit to six more countries in addition to 32 cities in Australia, China and the US. Its Nearby feature too which is now available in India, rolled out to 30 more countries.

Turn-by-turn navigation on Apple Maps arrived in India just last year. It has now been expanded to more countries like Bahamas, China, Greece and Uruguay. Google has had this feature for the longest time and it even introduced this on the Maps Go app for low-end Android phones in 2018.

Apple Maps is slowly but definitely catching up to Google Maps. But it looks like Google Maps will still be the go-to app for directions.
United Kingdom had record number of abortions in 2019: report

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More abortions were performed in the United Kingdom in 2019 than in any previous year since the procedure was legalized in 1967, according to a new report.

The U.K. Department of Health and Social Care released its annual update on abortion procedure statistics for England and Wales last Thursday.

According to the report, there were 207,384 abortions performed on women living in England and Wales in 2019, the largest number since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed.

Compared to 2018, the rate of abortions has increased for women over the age of 35 while remaining basically the same for women under the age of 18.

The age which saw the highest abortion rate in 2019 was 22, with a reported 31.6 per 1,000 women. This is a slight increase from 2018, in which those aged 21 had the highest abortion rate, with 30.7 per 1,000.

Minors seeking abortions have declined over the past several years, according to the report, even though the numbers remained about the same from 2018 to 2019.

The decline since 2009 is particularly marked in the under 16 age group, where the rates have decreased from 4.0 per 1,000 women in 2009 to 1.4 per 1,000 women in 2019, explained the report.

The abortion rate for 18-19 year olds has also declined from 31.6 per 1,000 women to 23.8 per 1,000 women in the same period.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a British pro-life group, released a statement declaring the latest statistics a national tragedy.

This appalling figure shows us that abortion is becoming more and more normalised. Propaganda telling women that abortion is simple and safe coupled with easier access to abortion pills is driving up abortion numbers, stated Antonia Tully, SPUC director of campaigns.

But behind the figures are real women who have taken an irreversible step and who are likely to be suffering physically or emotionally.

Jonathan Lord, medical director of Marie Stopes U.K., a major British abortion provider, argued that the uptick in abortions might be due to a lack of good access to contraceptives.

The contraceptive needs of women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, including those who already have children, have been sadly neglected, stated Lord, as reported by The Guardian.

Lack of investment in contraceptive services has led to poor access and unacceptable waits, particularly for the most effective long-acting methods, such as the implant and coil.

In England, Wales, and Scotland, elective abortions are legal for up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy, with later abortions permitted provided they fall under certain circumstances.

Last October, Northern Ireland had its law prohibiting abortions save when medically necessary overturned, allowing for broader access to the procedure.
Shares of tyre makers were trading higher in an otherwise weak market with JK Tyres, TVS Srichakra, Ceat and Apollo Tyres gaining up to 10 per cent on the BSE in the intra-day trade on Monday. At 01:46 pm, these stocks were up in the range of 2 per cent to 6 per cent, as compared to 2 per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex.

However, MRF and Balkrishna Industries were trading flat, after gaining 3 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively, in the intra-day deals on the BSE. Among the individual stocks, JK Tyre surged 10 per cent to Rs 65.70 on the BSE in the intra-day trade. TVS ...
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Manila, Philippines  Mon, June 15, 2020 08:48 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeb4fab 2 SE Asia Philippines,Maria-Ressa,journalists,libel-case,libel,media,freedom-of-speech,freedom-of-expression Free

The head of a Philippine news website known for its tough scrutiny of President Rodrigo Duterte faces up to six years in jail after being found guilty of cyber libel by a Manila court on Monday in what is being seen as a test case for media freedom in the country.

Maria Ressa, chief executive of Rappler, was charged with cyber libel over a 2012 article, updated in 2014, that linked a businessman to murder and trafficking of humans and drugs, citing information contained in an intelligence report from an unspecified agency.

After handing down the verdict, Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said freedom of the press could not be used as a "shield".

Ressa, who had denied any wrong doing, was allowed to post bail.

The cyber libel is among the numerous lawsuits filed against Ressa and Rappler that have drawn global concern about a free and open media in the Southeast Asian country.

Rappler's operating license was rescinded in 2018 over alleged foreign ownership violations, and it is also dealing with a case involving alleged tax evasion. Both cases are ongoing.

Media watchdogs have said the charges against Ressa were trumped up and aimed at intimidating those who challenge Duterte's rule, in particular his deadly crackdown on illicit drugs.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha on Monday warned activists not to criticize the monarchy while at the same time dismissing reports linking a Thai activists disappearance in Cambodia to alleged violations of Lese-Majeste.

Since Wanchalearm Satsaksit went missing earlier this month, the Thai and Cambodian governments have denied having any role in the incident, even as some social media posts have linked the Thai palace to his disappearance.

The worrying thing is the undermining, criticizing of the monarchy. I beg all of you not to believe in distorted information or disseminate information to create hatred, Prayuth told reporters. I need to say this today because I want Thailand to stay peaceful.

He added that the Kingdoms strict Lese-Majeste law, which criminalizes royal defamation with prison sentences of up to 15 years per offense, had not been applied recently.

What I want all Thais to know is that, lately Article 112 has not been used. Do you know why? Because the King has mercy and advised us not to exercise the law, Prayuth said, adding he received the advice in person a couple of years ago.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who succeeded his late father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, following his death in October 2016, has spent much of his reign in Germany.

In reporting about Wanchalearms disappearance, the Isra News Agency reported that the activist had been charged with violating the Lese-Majeste law. The article was picked up by other media.

But Krisana Pattanacharoen, deputy spokesman for Thailands national police bureau, earlier stated that Wanchalearm was charged with violating the Computer Crimes Act in 2018.

To link things that have no correlation is not accurate. What happened abroad is just what happened there. No [Thai officials] would dare to do that, Prayuth said, referring to the apparent abduction in Cambodia.

Wanchalearm, 37, apparently was abducted by a group of armed men near a Phnom Penh condominium on June 4 and driven away in an SUV.

He had fled to Cambodia from Thailand after Thai authorities issued a June 2018 warrant for his arrest, accusing him of violating the Computer Crimes Act for operating a Facebook page deemed critical of the Thai government.

U.N. probe request

According to Human Rights Watch researcher Sunai Phasuk, the United Nations has presented a request to the Cambodian governments representative in Geneva to urgently investigate the disappearance.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights received a petition and acted according to International Protocol for the Protection of Persons from Enforced Disappearances, Sunai told BenarNews. Cambodia, a party to the protocol, needs to reply in two weeks. The U.N. will disclose the information from Cambodia to the missing mans relatives.

Wanchalearms sister, Sitanan Satsaksit, said she was glad to hear of the U.N. response. Sitanan has said she was on the phone with her brother when he was snatched.

Our family wants him back. Im praying every day that he remains alive, she told BenarNews on Monday. It has been quite a while since he disappeared but I hope both governments find the truth as soon as possible.

U.N. officials did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment.

Since the 2014 coup led by Prayuth overthrew the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, at least 104 people have fled the country over fears of prosecution, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.

At least 98 people were charged with violating Lese-Majeste, and 119 others with sedition, during the same time period, according to iLaw, an online legal advocate group. Authorities also have filed charges under the Computer-Related Crime Act.

Civilian rule was officially restored last year through the Thai general election, which critics said was engineered to keep Prayuth in power.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:18:16|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, June 15 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday asked the world's leading companies to take bold action to address environmental, social and governance risks.

Serious threats, including climate change, poverty, loss of biodiversity and widening social inequalities, could undermine the human future. And the coronavirus pandemic has underscored the world's fragilities, which extend far beyond the realm of global health, Guterres told the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit.

Launched in 2000, the UN Global Compact is the largest corporate sustainability initiative in the world. It calls on companies to align their operations and strategies with 10 universal principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.

"Now more than ever, as big decisions are made about our future, companies need to address environmental, social and governance risks holistically and move beyond business-as-usual," he told the virtual event.

He asked companies to take more ambitious and comprehensive action across their operations and value chains by setting goals in line with UN best practice business benchmarks across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

"It is especially important for you to support efforts to achieve emissions reductions of 45 percent from 2010 levels this decade, and to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century. The world also needs a business community fully committed to transparency and accountability."

From its inception, the UN Global Compact has advanced the vision that when businesses unite, they can be a powerful force for good. In an unprecedented time of global uncertainty and crisis, this vision has never been more important, he said. Enditem
Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Even though the Dick Dowling statue being moved from Houston was headed for a state park in Port Arthur, city officials should have been asked if they wanted it. As Mayor Thurman Bill Bartie made it clear on Friday, he emphatically does not. That is almost certainly the view of the rest of the City Council and a majority of Port Arthur residents. As such, the Texas Historical Commission should find a new site for the statue when it votes on this issue on Wednesday.

Moving a statue of a Confederate figure into any city right now, much less a black-majority city like Port Arthur, is just tone-deaf. The nation is convulsed with demonstrations over the cruel killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Vast changes are sweeping the country, from banning Confederate flags at NASCAR race tracks to possibly renaming military bases named after Confederate generals. This is a time for subtracting Confederate imagery from America, not adding it. Millions of Americans of all ethnic backgrounds want to stop pretending there is anything admirable about a movement that tried to divide the country to perpetuate slavery.
According to the ordinance, the landlord would have the option to enter a mutually satisfactory agreement" with the renter that includes offering to spread out repayment of each months unpaid rent over 60 days, to submit the matter for mediation, to apply the tenants security deposit toward the unpaid amount, to offer to waive all or part of the unpaid rent if the tenant moves out, or to enter into some other agreement with the renter.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:50:11|Editor: huaxia

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Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), speaks at the board of governors online meeting in Vienna, Austria, June 15, 2020. The chief of the IAEA on Monday announced the launch of a global initiative using nuclear and nuclear-derived techniques to make the world better prepared for future outbreaks of diseases crossing from animals to humans. (Dean Calma/IAEA/Handout via Xinhua)

VIENNA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday announced the launch of a global initiative using nuclear and nuclear-derived techniques to make the world better prepared for future outbreaks of diseases crossing from animals to humans.

Based on the technical, scientific and laboratory capacity of the IAEA and its partners, the Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (ZODIAC) project will establish a global network of national diagnostic laboratories that can conduct coordinated monitoring, surveillance, early detection and control of emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola, avian influenza and Zika, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told an online meeting of the board of governors.

Zoonotic diseases are caused by bacteria, parasites, fungi or viruses that originate in animals and can be transmitted to humans, according to the IAEA. Many of these diseases are treatable if medication is available, such as E. coli and brucellosis. But others have the potential to severely affect humans, such as Ebola, SARS and COVID-19.

The director general pointed out that COVID-19 had exposed problems related to virus detection capabilities in many countries, as well as a need for better communication between health institutions around the world.

While the IAEA has been doing important work to help countries in these areas, such as through the provision of COVID-19 tests, Grossi said it was "essential to pull these diverse strands together into a coherent and comprehensive framework of assistance."

The new initiative will allow member states to have access to equipment, technology packages, expertise, guidance and training, and decision-makers will receive up-to-date, user-friendly information so that they can act quickly, he added.
A white woman has issued a grovelling apology after a viral video showed her accusing a Filipino man of breaking the law because he was writing Black Lives Matter on a wall outside his own San Francisco property.

Lisa Alexander, who is the CEO of makeup company La Face Skincare, was branded a 'Karen' after the footage showed her confrontation with James Juanillo.

She issued a statement Sunday saying that she was sorry she had disrespected the man, and that she should have minded her own business.

Juanillo, who appears as Jaimetoons on Twitter, posted the video of the encounter on Friday, which has been retweeted more than 159,000 times.

He was chalking the slogan on his wall when Alexander approached him and told him he was breaking the law. She also insisted he didn't own the property, and claimed she knew who lived there.

'I want to apologize directly to Mr. Juanillo,' Alexander said in a statement.

'There are not enough words to describe how truly sorry I am for being disrespectful to him last Tuesday when I made the decision to question him about what he was doing in front of his home.

'I should have minded my own business,' she adds.

Lisa Alexander, pictured, accused James Juanillo of defacing private property of a person she knew but he had really only written on the wall of his own San Francisco home

Alexander, who is white and the CEO of makeup company La Face Skincare, issued a statement saying that she was sorry she had disrespected James Juanillo and that she should have minded her own business

Juanillo, who identifies as Jaimetoons on Twitter, posted the video of the encounter on Friday which has been retweeted more than 159,000 times. He claimed Alexander lied and said she knew who lived in his home during the encounter which happened Tuesday

The woman continues to say that since the incident she has learned that her actions were those of someone who is not 'aware of the damage cause by being ignorant and naive to racial inequalities.'

'When I watch the video I am shocked and sad by the way I behaved,' she says. 'It was disrespectful to Mr. Juanillo and I am deeply sorry for that.'

Alexander claims that she did not realize at the time that her actions were 'racist,' and that she has learned a 'painful lesson.'

'I am taking a hard look at the meaning behind white privilege and am committed to growing from this experience,' she adds, offering to meet with Juanillo for coffee, so she can continue to 'learn and grow and be a better person.'

Alexander has deleted all her social media accounts and websites and at least one beauty business has cut all ties with her company.

Juanillo posted the video of his run-in with Alexander to Twitter explaining: 'A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stenciling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall.

'"Karen" lies and says she knows that I don't live in my own house because she knows the person who lives there,' he adds.

The video starts with Alexander asking, 'Is this your property?' as a white man with her stands apart and also films the interaction.

'I'm asking you if this is your property?' she says again.

Juanillo had chalked Black Lives Matter onto the wall in front of his house

'Why are you asking that?' Juanillo responds.

'Because this is private property, sir,' the man with Alexander responds. 'So, are you defacing private property or is this your home? You're free to express your opinions but not on people's property.'

Alexander continues to stand in front of Juanillo and says, 'It's just respect'.

'Your sign is good. This is just not the way to do it,' she adds, referring to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.

As the couple don't appear to believe that Juanillo could live in the home, he asks, 'If I did live here and this was my property this would be absolutely fine? And you don't know if I do live here ...'

Alexander interrupts to say 'we actually do' know the people that live there.

Make up designer Lisa Alexander stopped on the street to approach a man who she believed was writing on private property. James Juanillo recorded the interaction in which he was berated by Alexander and a white man named Robert as they claimed he didn't own his house

Alexander was joined by a man named Robert who also recorded the interaction

James Juanillo wrote Black Live Matter on the small black wall in front of his house

'That's why we're asking. We know the person who does live here,' she states. 'I'm not disagreeing.'

Juanillo then suggests that Alexander calls the person who she believes lives there or to contact the police instead.

'Your options are to call the police if you believe I'm committing a crime,' he says.

'I'll be more than happy to talk to them.'

The pair continue to argue over who is in the wrong and exchange first names before Alexander walks away and Juanillo tells her he'd wait there until the cops arrived.

'And that people is why Black Lives Matter,' he says, showing his chalked front wall as the couple leaves and Alexander can be seen on her phone.

'That's Karen and shes calling the cops and this is gong to be really funny because she knows the people who live here "personally".'

Alexander is seen calling the cops as she walked away from the house

Jaime Toons posted the video to Twitter on Friday and Alexander was identified

He added that he managed to outsmart Alexander in the interaction

The man who recorded the video, James Juanillo, claimed the cops didn't even get out of the car when they arrived after make up designer Lisa Alexander called in the complaint

Juanillo later added on Twitter that the cops did arrive after Alexander called them but left 'without even getting outta the car'.

'Don't be mad that a POC outsmarted TWO WHITE PEOPLE,' he wrote.

'The discussion went exactly as I thought it would.

'Why do you think I started recording? So, I could record a pleasant conversation with a racist who wouldn't believe I lived in a big old house?'

Alexander was identified online by the anonymous beauty collective and Instagram account Estee Laundry.

And beauty brand Birchbox has already said it has severed all ties with the LA Face brand.

'We have not worked with LAFACE for several years & as a result of the CEO's actions today have officially cut ties with them,' it said in a statement, according to Metro.

'We've removed their products from our website & will not be working with them in the future.'

Alexander is just the latest in long string of 'Karens' to be identified and widely shared on social media this week.

The name 'Karen' has been used to describe entitled middle-aged white women.
A status yellow thunderstorm warning is in place for 25 counties around Ireland.

Met Eireann said the warning is in place for Cavan, Monaghan, Donegal, Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Louth, Offaly, Westmeath, Meath, Galway, Leitrim, Roscommon, Sligo, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary.

They added that the UK Met Office has a status yellow thunderstorm warning in place for Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry.

The warning is in place from midday until 9pm this evening.

The warning for the counties in the North comes into effect at 1pm.

Met Eireann said: Scattered thunderstorms developing through the afternoon and evening with heavy downpours and a risk of localised flooding.

The UK Met Office has said that some flooding is likely and warned of dameage to buildings from lightning strikes.

They added: There is a good chance driving conditions will be affected by spray, standing water and/or hail, leading to longer journey times by car and bus.

In four of those counties, a status orange rainfall warning has been put in place.

The warning is for Longford, Cavan, Leitrim and Roscommon and is in place until 6pm.

Met Eireann said there will be intense thundery downpours today, in excess of 50mm, will lead to surface flooding.

Meanwhile, a weather advisory remains in place for the entire country.

Met Eireann has warned that thunderstorm/lightning activity will develop on Monday especially in parts of the midlands, west and north.

The advisory is in place until 11pm.

Earlier: More thunder and lightning due as weather advisory issued for entire country

A weather advisory has been issued for the whole country ahead of expected further thunder and lightning storms.

Yesterday Met Eireann announced a Status Yellow thunder warning for 19 counties.

Today they have announced a new advisory for the entire country, which came into effect at 6am.

The forecaster said: Thunderstorm/lightning activity will develop on Monday especially in parts of the midlands, west and north.

The advisory is in place until 11pm this evening.

Deirdre Lowe from the Met Office says the stormy weather will spread from the west, which has been worst hit so far, to the east and to parts of Ulster.

Its going to be very warm and humid again, she said.

She added that the risk of storms would slightly shifting further eastward, so middle parts of the country at risk.

The temperature today will see highs of 23 degrees in the midlands and north, with it being around 18 degrees around the coasts.

Met Eireann says that tomorrow will be mainly dry in the morning for much of the country there'll be isolated showers becoming more frequent and widespread in the afternoon.

They said that temperatures will be around 15 to 17 degrees and up to 20 degrees in the southeast.
Harrison Ford on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark (Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

Veteran screenwriter David Koepp has revealed why he quit the upcoming movie in the Indiana Jones series.

It was announced back in February that Steven Spielberg would not make the movie, with Logan director James Mangold coming in to replace him.

Read more: James Mangold promises Indiana Jones 5 will go somewhere new

This would make it the first Indiana Jones movie without Spielberg at the helm, something that caused some disquiet among fans.

Koepp penned Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (along with movies like Jurassic Park and Mission: Impossible), but was later rumoured to have been replaced by Jonathan Kasdan, writer of Solo: A Star Wars Story, and son of Lawrence Kasdan, writer of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Now Koepp has confirmed that he won't be working on Indy 5, which was reportedly just weeks from rolling cameras prior to the coronavirus lockdown.

Steven Spielberg and assistant director David Koepp on the set of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Credit: Universal Studios/Getty Images)

Asked if he was still involved in the project, Koepp told Collider: Not anymore. When James Mangold came in he deserves a chance to take his shot at it.

Id done several versions with Steven. And when Steven left, it seemed like the right time to let Jim have his own take on it and have his own person or himself write it.

Spielberg will still be a 'hands-on' executive producer of the movie, according to reports, though there's some disparity with how far along the movie is.

Harrison Ford, now 77, said during an interview with CBS in February that shooting was set to begin 'in about two months'.

Read more: Five things you might not know about Indiana Joness whip

However, producer Frank Marshall told Collider last month that scripting had 'just started', so it could be that the whole project is now back to square one.

Comments from Mangold would perhaps back this up.

He told Comicbook.com that 'you have to push something to someplace new, while also remembering the core reasons why everyone was gathered. And to use Logan as an example of that, when you're dealing in a world of a very pressured franchise'.

The movie is scheduled for release on 29 July, 2022, though if scripting has 'just started'  coupled with the studio delays caused by lockdown  that could mean it could yet be pushed back.
In a remarkable turnaround for a state that has long protected the records of cops, Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal on Monday ordered all law enforcement agencies in New Jersey to begin publicly identifying officers who have committed serious disciplinary violations.

Until now, the identities of officers subject to discipline have generally not been disclosed to the public unless they faced criminal charges.

Today, we end the practice of protecting the few to the detriment of the many, said Grewal in a statement. Today, we recommit ourselves to building a culture of transparency and accountability in law enforcement.

The issue of greater transparency in cases involving police misconduct has come under public scrutiny, in the wake of the continuing nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

But while an increasing number of states have opened up records related to disciplinary actions involving cops, with New York most recently repealing a decades-old law that allowed the police to keep the disciplinary and personnel records of officers secret, New Jersey until now had long pushed back.

Police unions have repeatedly lobbied against any efforts to open disciplinary records.

Under the Attorney Generals order, every state, county, and local law enforcement agency in New Jersey will be mandated to annually publish a list of officers who were fired, demoted, or suspended for more than five days due to a disciplinary violation.

That first list is to be published no later than December 31 of this year.

This is a tremendous step forward for transparency, said Gov. Phil Murphy, in his daily briefing on Monday. This is a step forward for law enforcement, as well, to help generate greater faith among the communities in which our officers serve that no one will get away with committing serious disciplinary violations."

CJ Griffin, a noted public records attorney who has fought with the state for the release of police records, called the move a great first step toward police transparency in New Jersey, and applauded the the Attorney General for taking action.

But I really do hope it is only a first step because the public wants and needs so much more, said Griffin. We need open access to the actual internal affairs files, not just a neatly worded sentence or two about why major discipline was imposed upon certain officers. We really need to be able to identify when the system hasnt worked.

Yet the attorney added that many holes remain in new policy.

Where complaints are sustained and officers resign, often in good standing, no disclosure is required, Griffin pointed out.

In Elizabeth, for example, an internal affairs investigation found the citys longtime police director had abused black and female staff with racist and sexist slurs. But the Union County Prosecutors Office refused to release its report.

The director was never disciplined, Griffin said, but rather resigned due to public pressure.

Nothing about the AGs directive today would make any of it public because no discipline was imposed, the attorney said.

The State PBA in a statement said it will review the policy to ensure that officer rights are protected.

While we too are angered when police officers abuse their power, we also believe that everyone deserves to be treated equally under the law, said PBA President Patrick Colligan. Police officers especially. Unfortunately, the Attorney Generals major discipline directive does not treat every officer equally.

He said while the term major discipline sounds like an officer has severely violated the public trust, in reality police officer discipline wildly differs from town to town.

Major discipline in some places could be handed down for a uniform violation. The Attorney Generals Directive is far too broad and it treats all officers unequally, added Colligan. While we have pledged to work with the Attorney General on enhancing our profession this new policy does not recognize those arbitrary differences. The policy is going to smear officers unfairly who have not violated the public trust and I would respectfully suggest it needs to go back to the drawing board.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey said no single policy can accomplish the goal of diminishing police power and shrinking its scope.

But this policy and others like it, large and small, will point us in the direction of justice, said Amol Sinha, the groups executive director. We need to reimagine the role of police, and, as we get there, we need policy changes that will make a meaningful difference now, and greater transparency surrounding police abuses and tactics is among the most critical."

Sinha said the new order is a big deal, but added, It can go further, and should not be limited to officers whose accusations have been sustained, given the inherent conflicts when police investigate themselves."

Meanwhile, the State Police said it will go further than the order requires, announcing it will publish a list of all State Troopers who have committed major disciplinary violations over the past twenty years.

State Police Superintendent Patrick J. Callahan said that list will be released publicly no later than July 15.

"We cannot build trust with the public unless were candid about the shortcomings of our own officers, Callahan said. By releasing the names of State Troopers who committed serious disciplinary violations, we are continuing the long, hard work of earning and maintaining the trust of the communities we serve.

In the wake of the Attorney Generals order, the State Police on Monday released the details of a case of a trooper, who had been separated from the force for racially insensitive behavior, as well as the name of the trooper, who resigned for her off-duty actions  including having questionable associations, engaging in racially offensive behavior, and publicly discussing police patrol procedures.

The State Police, which has been fighting disclosure of the matter before the New Jersey Supreme Court had refused to say what the behavior was, or whether the trooper had resigned or had been terminated.

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 her name.

Since at least 2000, NJSPs Office of Professional Standards has published an annual report summarizing disciplinary matters involving State Troopers. Each report includes, among other things, a synopsis of major discipline, which briefly summarizes each disciplinary action against a State Trooper resulting in termination, demotion, or suspension of more than five days, but excludes the name of the State Trooper.

Officials said in that time, the State Police has imposed major discipline in approximately 430 cases, including dozens of State Troopers who received suspensions of more than 180 daysas well as a number of State Troopers whose employment was terminated as a result of their misconduct.

The identities of those State Troopers will be published in the list promised for next month.

The other two law enforcement agencies in the Department of Law & Public Safety  the Division of Criminal Justice and the Juvenile Justice Commission  will publish similar lists both identifying any law enforcement officers suspended for serious disciplinary violations as far back as the agencies records go and providing a summary of that misconduct, according to the department.

Local journalism needs your support. Subscribe at nj.com/supporter.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

At the start of Refugee Week, a timely study reminds us of the experiences and 'cultural acclimatisation' of recent arrivals.

The simple but important act of preparing and sharing familiar foods is one of the biggest challenges for refugees building a better and healthy new life in Australia, Flinders University researchers say.

Many resettling from war zones, drought, persecution and deprivation, often after lengthy transition and racism in refugee camps, then face the daunting prospect of finding work, housing, schooling, and every day necessities such as food upon arriving in Australia.

The new study focuses on the experience of Afghani refugees in Adelaide, finding language and cultural issues, limited income and difficulties in sourcing halal ingredients among barriers and additional stresses in their immigration experience. Transport and shopping practices might also influence their ability to provide healthy food options for their family.

Researcher Dr. Foorough Kavian says Afghanis are one of the fastest growing refugee groups in Australia, with South Australia home to about 6000 people of Afghani ancestrywith most of them refugees.

About 12,000 refugees arrive in Australia every year as part of the rising tide of global dislocation of millions of people.

"Afghan refugees to Australia typically migrate via countries such as Iran and Pakistan and may well come by boat," she says. "In transition countries, food stress and poverty are often aligned with racism and lack of resources.

"Our study focused on both the transition and then destination country, where racism and access to services is followed by possible lack of income and other stressors.

"In Australia, despite social services supports, there are still difficulties in accessing appropriate food due to significant cultural and religious differences, problems with language, housing and employment marginalisation."

The project, focusing on the experience of 10 young Afghani refugee women in Adelaide in 2017, recommends a culturally appropriate program to assist newcomer refugees and immigrants with healthy adaptation and navigating the new food system in Australia.

"While availability of multicultural food is improving Adelaide, we found different structural, cultural and political factors come in to play as the women learn and re-learn how to manage provision of food for themselves and their families."

The researchers say the increasing number of Afghani refugees to Australia, as well as other minority groups, is increasing the need to address the social determinants of health by increasing pathways to employment and financial security to alleviate food stress and poverty.

"Migration, Stress and the Challenges of Accessing Food: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Recent Afghan Women Refugees in Adelaide, Australia" has been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Explore further Public health service gaps for both refugees and migrants to Australia

More information: Foorough Kavian et al. Migration, Stress and the Challenges of Accessing Food: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Recent Afghan Women Refugees in Adelaide, Australia, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2020). Foorough Kavian et al. Migration, Stress and the Challenges of Accessing Food: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Recent Afghan Women Refugees in Adelaide, Australia,(2020). DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17041379 Sue Booth et al. Food insecurity, food crimes and structural violence: an Australian perspective, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health (2020). DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.12977 Journal information: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health
Equate Group, a global producer of petrochemicals and the worlds second-largest producer of ethylene glycol (EG), has announced changes in its senior leadership team with the appointment of Naser Aldousari as its new chief executive officer (CEO).

Aldousari, currently working as the Senior VP of Equate, replaces Dr Ramesh Ramachandran, who will retire as CEO of the Greater Equate Group, effective September 30, 2020, according to a statement.

Aldousaris career has spanned more than 24 years in the global petrochemical industry and includes several senior leadership roles with Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) and membership on the Equate and The Kuwait Olefins Company (TKOC) Boards of Directors.

Sulaiman AlMarzouqi, Chair of the Equate Board of Directors, said the organisation is committed to a smooth and seamless transition within the senior leadership team as Equate prepares for a new era of continued success and growth. On behalf of the Board, he thanked Dr Ramachandran for his long and dedicated service to MEGlobal and Equate that delivered extraordinary results across the globe.

As we enter a next phase of growth of Equate, Aldousari is ideal to take over the leadership of this great company, he said. He has the experience, knowledge and vision to lead Equate through this challenging time and prepare it for new levels of success in the future.

Equate lead director from Dow, Raja Zeidan added: We are looking forward to the leadership that Aldousari will bring to our organisation. We also thank Dr Ramachandran for the many milestones he achieved while CEO with MEGlobal and then CEO of Equate. He brought a new level of shareholder value and a global perspective that has become a core part of our identity and strategy. We thank him deeply for his leadership and dedication.

Aldousari said he is looking forward to his new responsibilities.

"I am honoured to assume the role of CEO of Equate, Aldousari said. I know this organisations impressive achievements are only the beginning of what we can accomplish. I am grateful for the confidence placed in me by the Board and am committed to continuing the operational excellence, innovation and global leadership for which Equate has become known.

He added: I would like to thank Dr Ramachandran for his hard work, innovative thinking and commitment to Equates values. He has taken us to a new level of achievement and has given us the platform from which to launch a new era of success for Equate.

Dr Ramachandran called his time as Equate CEO one of the pinnacles of his career.

It has been a privilege to work with a team of people dedicated to excellence, in whatever division or role in which they work, he said. Equaters can be proud of the successes we have achieved in the past few years and your resilience and determination will serve you well. Naser will make a superb CEO and with the support of the new leadership team, I have full confidence in his ability to continue the organisational excellence that makes Equate a global industry leader. TradeArabia News Service
East Syracuse, N.Y.  Spirit & Sanzone, one of Central New Yorks oldest and largest beer distributors, has closed after selling its lineup of brands to competitors.

The East Syracuse-based distributor, which also dealt in wines, liquors and other beverages, sold the Onondaga and Cortland county rights to most of its brands to Onondaga Beverage Co. of Liverpool. Further to the east, in Utica, Rome and into the Mohawk Valley and the Adirondacks, the brand rights were sold to McCraith Beverage of New York Mills in Oneida County.

Spirit & Sanzone, founded 100 years ago, closed its plant and warehouse at 6495 Fly Road in East Syracuse and laid off 64 employees, according to a layoff notice sent to the New York State Department of Labor. The transactions took effect on June 1. It also had a location in Marcy, Oneida County.

Brands that are being transferred to Onondaga Beverage include mainstream products from Miller, Genesee and Molson, along with imports like Asahi, Speckled Hen, Paulaner and Warsteiner, and craft brands like 21st Amendment and Uinta.

Upstate New York craft brands transferring to Onondaga Beverage include Three Heads of Rochester, Sackets Harbor Brewing and McKenzies Hard Cider near Buffalo.

Several wines, spirits, soda and sparkling water brands are also moving to Onondaga Beverage.

Onondaga Beverages acquisition of the new beer lines will boost its share of the local market from 58% to nearly 70%, the company said. Its portfolio in Onondaga County already included such brands as Constellation (Corona etc.), Mark Anthony (White Claw hard seltzer etc.), Yuengling, Heineken and Pabst.

Beer distributors work in a system in which they acquire exclusive rights to market and sell beers in specific geographic regions. Sometimes a distributor may sell a brand in certain counties, while a competitor handles the same brand in other counties.

Onondaga Beverage Co., at 7655 Edgecomb Drive in Liverpool, is a division of A.L. George Distributing operating in Onondaga and Cortland counties. (It goes by the name A.L. George in other parts of Central New York, the Finger Lakes and the Southern Tier).

The other large distributor located in Onondaga County is T.J. Sheehan of Liverpool, whose portfolio includes Anheuser-Busch InBev (Budweiser, Bud Light etc.), plus big brands like Guinness and Bass and many craft brewers.

There are several other local distributors who specialize mostly in craft beers.

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Don Cazentre writes 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.
The first sign something was wrong was when Deanna Tabacco woke up from a nap and couldn't see properly out of one eye.

"It was all blurry and I thought I had something in my eye," the 28-year-old Melbourne graduate architect, said. "It turns out it was nerve damage."

Deanna Tabacco was diagnosed with MS five years ago. Credit:Penny Stephens

In the months following, her symptoms seemed to disappear before re-emerging.

After undergoing a series of MRI scans, Ms Tabacco was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease which attacks the central nervous system by interrupting information on its way from the brain to the rest of the body.
US forces in Hassakeh failed to stop a Russian convoy that drove through their checkpoint, in the latest incident between the two opposing forces writes Al-Masdar.

The Russian and US forces were involved in another skirmish in northeastern Syria after the former refused to stop at an American checkpoint in Hassakeh Governorate, while in Idleb, the Syrian Air Force reportedly destroyed a jihadist convoy that was traveling through the Jabal al-Zawiya region.

According to reports, the Russian military police convoy, consisting of eight vehicles, refused to stop at a US checkpoint along a road between the cities of Tel Tamr and Qamishli.

The US military responded by sending four vehicles to chase the Russian forces in an attempt to stop them from traveling through the village of al-Baydar in northwestern Hassakeh.

However, the US military was unsuccessful in their aggressive attempt to obstruct the Russian forces from continuing towards the city of Qamishli.

This latest incident comes just days after the Russian military committed a similar act, which resulted in a US military vehicle getting stuck along a road in the Hassakeh Governorate.

Despite the US withdrawal from several border points in northern Syria, they continue to maintain a presence in several areas in the Hassakeh and Raqqa governorates.

The reason for the US resurgence in these governorates is likely due to the Russian militarys wide-scale expansion into the northeastern region of Syria.

The Russian military has already established a large presence at Qamishli Airport, where they possess not only aircraft, but also air defense equipment.

Elsewhere, I Idlib reported that the Syrian Air Force targeted a convoy consisting of foreign jihadists from the Turkistan Islamic Party and the Hurras al-Deen group, as they attempted to travel between the towns of Deir Sonbol and al-Baraa.

As a result of this attack by the Syrian Air Force, several jihadists were killed and wounded, while a number of vehicles were destroyed.

This attack was reportedly carried out by the Syrian Air Force after their reconnaissance planes spotted the jihadist convoy moving from Deir Sonbol to al-Baraa last night.

Shortly after this strike, the Russian Air Force unleashed its most powerful attack since early March, as their warplanes targeted the jihadists in several areas around Idleb and Hama governorates.

Russian airstrikes were reported over the town of al-Baraa, as they attempted to weaken the jihadist base near the southern Idleb frontlines.

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.
SOUTHFIELD, MI  An elected official in suburban Detroit will stand trial on charges related to the handling of absentee ballot records.

Sherikia Hawkins, a clerk in Southfield, was bound over this week to Oakland County Circuit Court, the Michigan Attorney General's office said.

According to the Associated Press, Hawkins is charged with election law-falsifying records, forgery of a public record, misconduct in office and using a computer to commit a crime.

The attorney general's office said a computer was used to fraudulently alter or modify a qualified voter file after the Nov. 6, 2018 general election to falsely reflect that previously logged absentee ballots were void due to arriving in envelopes that were not signed by the voter.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has said no races were won or lost based on the alleged acts, AP reports.
Disabled Tibetans seeking low-paying jobs in Chinese government departments must now pass political tests to qualify for employment, with applicants required to reject ethnic separatism and denounce Tibets exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, a state directive says.



Issued in the Tibet Autonomous Region on June 11, the recruitment notice restricts employment to would-be government workers who have a firm stand on the political principles of anti-secession, criticizing the Dalai [Lama], safeguarding the reunification of the motherland, and national unity.



The notice, a copy of which has been obtained by RFA, also requires applicants for jobs including drivers, office cleaners, kitchen helpers, and other kinds of support staff to support the [ruling Chinese Communist] Partys leadership and socialist system.



Job seekers with disabilities must abide by the Constitution and laws of the Peoples Republic of China, the recruitment notice goes on to say.



Chinese demands that even disabled Tibetans now meet political qualifications to find work shows the CCPs sense of deep insecurity, U.S.-based China analyst Ganze Lama Kyab told RFAs Tibetan Service in a recent interview.



It underscores that in Tibet, the Chinese governments top priority is political correctness as a number-one requirement for hiring. Anyone who doesnt toe the official Chinese policy line has no chance for a livelihood now in Tibet, he said.



Tibetans seeking work as auxiliary police officers in Tibetan areas of China have also been barred from employment over a wide range of concerns, with recruiters told to disqualify anyone engaging in separatist activities or having family members who have left Tibet to go into exile abroad, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



My younger brother tried to enroll in the Chinese police force, a former resident of Tibets Chamdo prefecture now living in India told RFAs Tibetan Service, adding, But because Im now in India, they have denied my brother the job.



Tibetans wanting to join the Chinese army must also have no record of engaging in Tibetan political activities, Shide Dawaa researcher at the Tibetan exile government-connected Tibet Policy Institute in Dharamsala, Indiasaid.



The Chinese crackdown on Tibetans for their loyalty and devotion to the Dalai Lama is in violation of international laws as well as a breach of freedom of speech and worship, Dawa said, adding, It even goes against Chinas own laws, including its regional ethnic autonomy laws.



Regarded by Chinese leaders as a dangerous separatist, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan region in 1950.



Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lamas photo, public celebrations of his birthday, and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social medial are often harshly punished.



Chinese authorities meanwhile maintain a tight grip on Tibet and on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identities, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture, and extrajudicial killings.



Reported by RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The first stand-alone medical marijuana growing facility in Grand Rapids opened with a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday, June 15.

Officials with marijuana company Terrapin Care Station were joined Monday afternoon by Mayor Rosaylynn Bliss and city commissioners, among other elected officials and nonprofit partners, on a Zoom conference call for the ribbon cutting.

Terrapin officials say the 35,000-square-foot medical marijuana growing facility at 2055 Oak Industrial Dr. NE will bring 30 new jobs to the area.

The medical marijuana grown at the facility will be sold to West Michigan medical marijuana dispensaries with plans to expand that reach across the state.

In all, the facilitys licenses allow up to 6,000 plants. Officials say theyre only going to grow about 3,000 in the initial phases.

The virtual ceremony featured a sizzle reel with rock guitar and scenes of the grow operation space. The ribbon cutting itself was a brief pre-recorded clip of people cutting the ribbon.

Terrapin officials say there will be an emphasis on diverse hiring.

We continue to work with city leaders to craft a cannabis program for Grand Rapids that offers opportunity for those left behind by a failed drug war, Chris Woods, owner and chief executive of Colorado-based Terrapin, said in a statement.

Were thrilled to be bringing jobs to Grand Rapids at a time of economic uncertainty. But we would be negligent if we didnt do so with an eye toward an equitable future.

To that end, Terrapin is working with the Color of Cannabis, a Colorado-based organization promoting social equity for people of color in the marijuana industry, to host a resume building workshop for people of color seeking jobs at Terrapin.

That virtual event is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, June 18, and people can sign up for it here. Color of Cannabis will also screen resumes for Terrapin to ensure diverse hiring.

Finally, Terrapin will hold a virtual job fair for the general public from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, June 23. Pre-registration and job description can be found here.

Terrapin has been a responsible partner with a proven track record around investing in the communities in which they do business, Grand Rapids Commissioner Nathaniel Moody said in a statement.

Its been wonderful to hear from Terrapin and to work with them on building upon social equity programs to increase opportunity for those left behind. I look forward to continued work with Terrapin as we develop programming that provides opportunity for all.

State Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, said she was glad to see the diverse hiring initiative, as well as the companys partnerships with two community organizations, MomsBloom and Kids Food Basket.

Im here very excited to welcome Terrapin to Grand Rapids because its clear that theyre serious about having that social equity conversation," Brinks said. "I cant wait to see you continue to grow as part of our community.

MomsBloom provides in-home practical and emotional support for families of newborn babies in the Kent County area. Kids Food Basket is an area organization that provides evening meals, as well as educational experiences, to children.

Terrapin leaders say theyre offering financial and volunteer support to both organizations.

According to the state records, Terrapin is currently the only licensed grower in the city. Additionally, there are four businesses licensed to sell medical marijuana through provisioning centers in the city.

Terrapin has six dispensaries in Colorado and a grow operation in Pennsylvania. In all, the company has more than 300 employees.

Read more:

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Vandals chucked orange paint over a bust of Charles de Gaulle and defaced it with the word 'slaver' prompting outrage from right-wing politicians.

The bust of de Gaulle - France's wartime resistance leader and later president - was vandalised in the northern town of Hautmont near the Belgian border.

The act comes as statues are being toppled and removed globally amid worldwide anti-racism protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the US.

Vandals chucked orange paint over a bust of Charles de Gaulle (left) in France and defaced it with the word 'slaver' (right) prompting outrage from right-wing politicians

De Gaulle is seen as a national hero in France for resisting the Nazi occupation while in exile

President Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Sunday that France would not erase 'a trace' of its history and vowed it would not remove statues of its historical figures

President Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Sunday that France would not erase 'a trace' of its history and vowed it would not remove statues of its historical figures.

De Gaulle is seen as a national hero in France for resisting the Nazi occupation while in exile before himself becoming head of state in 1958. Slavery was abolished throughout France in 1848.

The local mayor Joel Wilmotte said the statue had already been cleaned, denouncing the vandalism as 'scandalous'.

The head of the regional council for northern France, the prominent right-wing politician and former minister Xavier Bertrand, said the act was particularly outrageous coming just days before the 80th anniversary of de Gaulle's 1940 call on the French to keep fighting.

'At a time when we must remember that General de Gaulle kept the Resistance flame alive, the vandalising of this statue in Hautmont is scandalous,' he said, demanding that the perpetrators be punished.

Local MP Sebastien Chenu added: 'The French, and even more its political leaders, must always remember that it is largely thanks to him that France could be liberated when everything seemed lost.'




Haiti - Culture : Contest of Sculptures of the Heroes of Independence





The Embassy of Haiti in Washington D.C, announces the launch of the "Sculpture Contest of the Heroes of lndependence" This competition aims to promote Haitian culture through its history and ta acquire 7 sculptures of the Heroes and Heroines, founders of the Republic for a permanent exhibit at the Embassy.

lnterested artists will have ta produce sculptures of:



- Jean Jacques Dessalines, a 6-foot sculpture that will be displaycd outside the Embassy.

- Busts of Sanite Belair, Catherine Flan, Marie Jeanne Lamartiniere, Toussaint Louverture, Henry Christophe, Alexandre Petion.

The rules of participation are as follows:



1- The free contest is open to all Haitian and foreign sculptors.



2- The contest is open until August 2, 2020.

3- The sculptor presents photos of his creations for a first sorting.

4- A selection jury composed of artists, art connaisseurs and representatives of the Embassy will choose the five best artists.

5- The choice will be based on the originality of the pieces presented, the finish and the material used.

6- An amount of $500 will be advanccd for the realization of the scale models.



7- The five finalists will have two months to submit the model;.

8- The choice of the final pieces will be based on the same criteria as in point 5.



9- The winners will be informed individually by ne-mail.

10- The Embassy will negotiate the prize for the best model presented for each hero.



11- Sculptures can be made in bronze, reinforccd concrete, copper or fiberglass.

12- All the sculptures must be sent to the Embassy no later than 30 April 2021.

13- Participation in this competition implies the total and unreserved acceptance of these rules.



Entries can be sent bye-mail to : wilzafrazil.metellus@diplomatie.ht and amb.washington@diplomatie.ht



For any further information, please contact Mrs. Wilza Metelllus at :

wilzafrazil.metellus@diplomatie.ht



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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
Beloved fitness fashion brand PE Nation has been slammed over a 'tone-deaf' Instagram post about the global Black Lives Matter movement.

The brand, founded by Pip Edwards and Claire Tregoning, posted on social media saying 'equality for all' but failed to mention the critical protest itself by name.

Calls for racial equality, particularly at the hands of police, have resulted in worldwide protests following the killing of George Floyd in America.

Major brands have flocked to throw their support behind the movement, often using the 'Black Lives Matter' slogan.

But PE Nation posted a message simply saying: 'One nation. One world. One earth.

'Our diversity in race, gender, religion and age is our global strength.

Pip Edwards (pictured, right) founded the brand PE Nation with Claire Tregoning (left) but have come under fire from the Black Lives Matter movement

Champion surfer Jess Miley Dyer questioned PE Nation for not mentioning Black Lives Matter on its social media pages (pictured)

'We must unite and stand together, to make for a greater change.

'We will not tolerate any kind of discrimination. . #WeAreAllInThisTogether #equalityforall #equality'

For some fans of the brand, this didn't go far enough - and failed to mention the suffering of black people after Mr Floyd's death at the hands of American police.

Dozens of angry commentators replied to the post, accusing PE Nation of ignoring the suffering of people of colour - and even threatening to boycott it.

One wrote: 'If you are going to succeed as a brand, you need to make mention that black lives matter.

'Right now, it is not about All because All of us arent dying. Black people are! This is a lazy PR post. You are being lazy.'

Another added: 'As a black woman who wears your products this is by far the most disappointing post by a retailer that I have seen in the midst of this situation.

This is the post PE Nation put on its Instagram page to address the global movement for racial equality, saying #equality for all

Pip Edwards was accused of being 'quintessential white privilege' by disappointed fans, after her brand PE Nation failed to mention the Black Lives Matter movement by name

'Today is not about all religion and so on, the issue at hand is about racism against black people. Messages like this is exactly what dilutes the issue.'

The phrase 'Black Lives Matter' is used to tell the public about the disadvantages people of colour suffer in society, which are disproportionate to those suffered by white people.

Another disappointed fan wrote: 'Did you mean to write black lives matter?'

'Not good enough,' one woman commented.

'This isnt about equality. Why are you afraid as a brand to stand up and say black lives matter? Not ok.'

The post received just three positive comments, with one fan agreeing with their sentiment writing 'ONE EARTH'.

Another replied with a positive emoji, and a third with a love heart.

One fan of the brand (pictured) said the message was 'tone deaf' and 'misses the mark completely' as it didn't mention Black Lives Matter

Pip Edwards (pictured) founded the brand with friend Claire Tregoning, but their acknowledgement of the global outcry over racial equality was called 'tone-deaf'

One former shopper even described Ms Edward's, one of the brand's founders, as being 'quintessentially' privileged by the colour of her skin.

'Pip is quintessential white privilege,' another user said.

'Use this privilege to educate your other rich white clients.'

One shopper commented asking whether the brand was making any charitable donations.

'You guys can see from the comments that the Black community acknowledges that you are not doing enough,' she wrote.

'Have you donated any portion of sales to a charity? This is performative activism.

'Your black buyers will soon stop purchasing from you unless you step up now.'

Mr Floyd died on May 25 after a police officer stood on his neck for eight minutes, during which bystanders pleaded for his life.

Another high-end fitness brand, Luluelemon, have made numerous posts about Black Lives Matter, and donated $250,000 to related charities.
Chennai: DMK President MK Stalin questioned the ruling AIADMK Government over its handling of rising COVID-19 cases in the state, as Tamil Nadu had surpassed 44,000 cases on Sunday (June 14).

He questioned the government on reasons for steep increase in the pisitive cases in the state, and the plan of action for flattening the curve in Chennai.

Stalin also questioned the State govt on the refusal to collaborate with opposition parties, on the pre-emptive economic revival plan, and budgetary allocations.

He also seeked government's response on why they haven't put forth solutions found by expert committees in the public domain.

Stalin suggested that Tamil Nadu should follow the Kerala model, where the localities with very high number of cases should be sealed and groceries, essentials should be delivered to home.

He stated that people should remain indoors, wear masks while stepping out and also maintain social distancing.

He accused the government of attacking the common man during the present COVID-19 crisis by hiking fuel prices at a time when crude rates were relatively low.

He suggested Rs 5000 as an essential cash relief for all ration card holders and lashed out at the government for moving to hastily open TASMAC (state-run) liquor outlets across the state.

Stalin while talking to the journalists via video conference did not take any significant questions from them to suggest substantial solutions for overcoming the current crisis, despite multiple requests to the organizing team.

There were a plethora of questions raised by several journalists about alternative solutions, ideas, and also specific issue-based questions, all of which went unanswered.

The only response was the party would conduct similar virtual media addresses in due course.

As of Monday (June 15) 8 AM, Tamil Nadu has recorded a total of 44,661 COVID-19 cases, of which 19,679 are active.

Of the total cases in the state, 31,896 have been recorded in the capital city, Chennai.

The state has so far seen 435 COVID-19 casualties.
The US Supreme Court voted on Monday to protect LGBT+ Americans from workplace discrimination, in a landmark ruling that has stunned activists, having been passed with the help of conservative justices and in an environment where gay and transgender rights are under attack from the presidency.

As of today, nowhere in the United States is it legal to fire someone for being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Thats a big deal, said Roy T. Englert, a Washington appellate lawyer who wrote an amicus brief in the case hoping to persuade conservative justices, such as Neil Gorsuch.

The vote was passed 6-3 with Justice Gorsuch - one of the two justices on the top court appointed by Donald Trump - authoring the majority opinion, saying Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay and lesbian workers from discrimination.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids, Mr Gorsuch wrote.

Torie Osborn, a longtime activist a former head of the National LGBTQ Task Force, told the New York Times that the decision was bigger than marriage. Its a watershed.

The decision follows the Trump administrations move last week to roll back protections against transgender patients against sex discrimination by doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies.

The courts ruling on Monday, which came in the middle of LGBT+ Pride Month, could have a sweeping impact on the US employment landscape.

Of the roughly 8m LGBT+ workers in the US, more than half live in states that do not have anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation and gender identity.

US lawmakers expressed their joy at the courts decision on Monday, with Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders tweeting that it was fantastic news.

No one in America should face discrimination for being who they are or for who they love, the erstwhile Democratic presidential candidate wrote.

Not everyone was happy with the majoritys opinion, including dissenting opinion author Justice Samuel Alito.

Mr Alito scolded Mr Gorsuch for presenting his opinion as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice [Antonin] Scalia, the courts conservative bellwether who died in 2016 after 30 years on the bench.

No one should be fooled, Mr Alito wrote. The courts opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justie Scalia excoriated  the theory that courts should update old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.
New Delhi [India], June 14 (ANI): CPI leader D Raja on Sunday urged Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to take the political parties and Opposition into confidence over the ongoing Ladakh stand-off between India and China.



"The point is, the government, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh should take political parties into confidence, Opposition into confidence because Parliament is not in session. Also, there are difficulties in convening the Parliament. In such a situation, the Defence Minister should call upon political parties and share the information and explain the government's approach," Raja said while speaking to ANI.

The CPI leader recalled how during the Doklam stand-off in 2017, the then Defence Minister had convened an all-party meeting.

"Earlier when there was a stand-off at Doklam, the then Defence Minister convened an all-party meeting and similar approach can be followed today. No need for making it government versus Opposition. It is in the country's interest," he said.

The CPI leader said that it is "quite positive" that both the countries initiated a dialogue to sort out their differences.

"It is quite positive that both India and China are talking to each other. Both expressed their willingness to discuss and sort out all differences. Both countries have shown the maturity and both countries are working together and cooperation between India and China is there in multifarious fields," he said.

"...Both countries are working in several international forums. Both countries are close neighbours and they cannot afford to continue this standoff. Both have expressed readiness to talk to each other and bring the standoff to end as early as possible," added the CPI leader.

The CPI leader further responded to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's statement that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership Jammu and Kashmir will touch great heights and "people from the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir will demand that they want to be part of India".

"We should point out the Defence Minister for that matter to the government, that nobody is critical of fighting ISIS, nobody is questioning the fight against terror groups but the whole issue is how to win the confidence of the people Jammu and Kashmir," Raja said.

"Nothing should be done to alienate the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Already damage has been done by abrogating Article 370, 35A, the snatching of statehood for Jammu and Kashmir, they all alienated the people," he added. (ANI)
The Book of Shanghai in English widens foreign understanding of city

By:Zheng Qian | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-06-15 17:09

A book comprising ten short stories describing Shanghai was published by Comma Press, a British publishing house, causing a wide sensation.

The ten stories included in The Book of Shanghai were all works of writers born or living in Shanghai. The Chinese-British project, supervised by two professors from Fudan University, has many innovations compared with the past cooperated publications.

Different from the classification of schools of Shanghai literature by overseas sinologists, this story collection targets a wider and more general audience. In addition, compared with the traditional publishing process of a Chinese book, this book was made through arrangement with a foreign publishing house which translated the articles on its own before publishing it in English through local mainstream channels.

With common people as the protagonists, the articles included in the collection reflect a real Shanghai. Dai Congrong and Jin Li, the two Chinese professors who led the project, introduced that at first they wanted to recommend more stories depicting modern and urban Shanghai life, but the British partner was not interested. Many young Chinese writers refuse to define pioneer consumption or leading an elegant life as the only sign of urbanity, but instead turn their attention to those ignored groups,said Jin Li, a critic.

In Dai Conrongs view, this book can present a multi-faceted, contemporary and changing Shanghai to overseas readers whose understanding of China is too traditional.Speaking of China, many foreigners mention dumplings, red lanterns and tea, and their understanding remains at the plain level of these oriental marks. Many dont know the rapid changes in modern China and the thoughts of young Shanghai people,said Dai.
Late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's last rites will be performed on Monday at Pawan Hans crematorium in suburban Vile Parle as his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna, the actor's spokesperson told PTI.

Sushant's family members, who had left from Patna this morning have reached Mumbai. BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo, who is also a relative of Sushant, accompanied the bereaved father to the western metropolis and responded to queries from journalists before boarding the flight.

"We wanted to conduct the last rites Patna, but in view of the coronavirus outbreak, it may not be feasible. Hence, the rituals may be performed in Mumbai. We are shattered. He was so young and full of life, inspired others to realise their potential," Babloo told PTI.

Bihar: #SushantSinghRajput's father (in blue t-shirt) & other family members leave from their residence in Patna for airport. They'll be leaving for Mumbai today. BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo (in white shirt in pic 3) who is also a relative of Sushant, is accompanying family pic.twitter.com/uITfJaLbIt  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

Local newspapers also re-published photographs of Rajput's extended holiday in his home state, during which he spent time with family and childhood friends at his Patna residence, visited his ancestral village in Purnea district and went to Bablu's place.

The actor also had his "mundan" (tonsure) ceremony performed on the banks of the Ganges in Khagaria, in accordance with the wishes of his late mother, who belonged to the district. "We were planning to get him married later this year," Bablu said wistfully and added that none in the family had any inkling that the actor was going through a turmoil, though he had begun to display a strong spiritual bent of mind of late. "Ever since he acted in the movie 'Kedarnath', he seemed to have been mesmerised by the pilgrimage centre. He would keep looking for an opportunity to visit the place again. He was always spiritual, the orientation had grown stronger in recent times though," Bablu said. The cousin's observations were in consonance with Rajput's last Instagram post, which is a week old but has gone viral on the social media following his demise, wherein he ruminated about the ephemeral nature of life while remembering his late mother, who died while he was still in school.

Bablu was also asked about the demands of a "CBI inquiry" into Rajput's death by some political leaders in the state, to which he replied, "At the moment, we are weighed down by the immensity of the tragedy. If, upon reaching Mumbai, we find any signs of foul play, then naturally we will try to ensure that the matter is probed thoroughly and justice is done."

As reported earlier, Sushant Singh Rajput was found hanging in his residence on Sunday morning by his domestic help.

As details about his final hours emerged, it has come to light that the last thing Sushant consumed before ending his life was a glass of juice on Sunday morning, at around 10. Then, he locked himself up in his bedroom, according to the India Today website.

He did not respond despite repeated knocks on the door by his domestic help, who then called neighbours. The police arrived shortly afterwards and broke into Sushant's flat around 12.30pm and found him hanging. The police have said there was no suicide note.

"Sushant Singh Rajput has committed suicide, Mumbai Police is investigating. -DCP Pranay Ashok, Spokesperson Mumbai Police," a statement released by Mumbai Police on Sunday afternoon, read.

The actor's mortal remains were then taken to Cooper Hospital in the city for conducting postmortem.

Sushant Singh Rajput was reportedly battling depression over the past few months and undergoing treatment for the same. His social media posts from the past couple of months reveal that he even tried yoga and meditation to battle his state of mind.

News of Sushant's demise comes within days of the news of his manager Disha Salian's death.

(With inputs from agencies)

If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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[June 15, 2020] Lieff Cabraser and Alexandra Foote File Breach of Contract Insurance Denial Lawsuit Against Farmers Group Inc. on Behalf of Dominique Crenn Restaurants Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn, and Petit Crenn

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and the Law Office of Alexandra L. Foote, P.C. announce the filing of a restaurant insurance breach of contract lawsuit on behalf of Dominique Crenn and Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn, and Petit Crenn against Farmer's Group Inc. in San Francisco Superior Court. The complaint alleges that Crenn's business interruption insurance policy claims were wrongly denied by Farmers Group after the restaurants suffered grave financial losses after complying with government-ordered COVID-19 business shutdowns. The lawsuit follows the previous filings for acclaimed chefs Pim Techamuanvivit (Kin Khao, Nari in San Francisco), Daniel Patterson (Alta Adams in Los Angeles; Coi in San Francisco), and Naomi Pomeroy (Beast in Portland). As detailed in the complaint, the founder and operator of Atelier Crenn, Bar Crenn, and Petit Crenn, Crenn was forced to completely and immediately shut down all her venues at the order of state and local authorities as part of the Coronavirus-related shelter in place orders. Currently the only female chef in America to attain three Michelin stars, Dominique Crenn is widely viewed as one of the most important and prominent chefs in the world. She received James Beard Foundation Best Chef: West recognition in 2018, and in 2016 was honored as "Best Female Chef in th World" by the World's 50 Best Restaurants.



"We are truly honored to have the opportunity to represent world-class restaurateur Dominique Crenn as she courageously takes action against the wholesale denial of her restaurants' insurance denial claims," said Lieff Cabraser partner Robert Nelson, who represents Crenn and her restaurants in the case. "This is the fourth lawsuit we have filed on behalf of several of the country's finest chefs, including Naomi Pomeroy, Pim Techamuanvivit, and Daniel Patterson, and we'll be continuing to file actions against other insurance companies on behalf of chefs, independent restaurant groups, and others." Crenn's restaurants purchased business interruption insurance from Farmers Group and Truck Insurance Exchange that include express coverage for "Lost Business Income" and the consequences of actions by "Civil Authority." Contrary to the coverage provisions in their policies, when Crenn submitted claims for coverage, Farmers and Truck Insurance summarily denied the claims. The complaint further alleges that these denials were part of a premeditated strategy on the part of the defendant insurers to deny all claims relating to "shelter in place" orders and COVID-19.

"I have known Dominique Crenn since the beginning of her first restaurant, Atelier Crenn, and have helped her face business challenges over the years," notes Alexandra Foote, who also represents Crenn in the case. "She is truly one of the most sensitive and beautiful people I have had the pleasure to represent, a poet and a chef; an inspiration to all, especially women. The denial of the insurance coverage for the restaurants causes real and lasting harm to her, the businesses, and the people who created and sustained these unique and internationally treasured restaurants she brought forth into the world. May her courage inspire others to come to this fight now in the courts, where we aim to relentlessly achieve fairness for all." The complaint maintains that the denial of valid and justified insurance claims constitutes a breach of contract as well as a breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unfair business practices, and seeks declaratory relief and damages. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005795/en/

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This story has been updated.

With a new state law concerning public statues about to take effect, Albemarle County officials are hoping residents will chime in through an online survey and virtual meetings on how the Court Square grounds in downtown Charlottesville should look.

The county launched a February Court Square Community Conversations project designed to give residents a voice in how the grounds could be redesigned as an inclusive public space. The project was to include public meetings and gatherings that were quickly quashed the next month amid COVID-19 restrictions.

This important engagement process relied heavily on coming together to explore a more inclusive history and to develop a common understanding of Court Square as an important public space, officials wrote in a news release seeking public input.

A law going into effect July 1 will give local governments the power to remove, relocate or put monuments into perspective. Albemarle had outlined a six-month time frame during which county staffers were to lead community conversations around memorials, monuments and uses of public space; educational tours of the Albemarle County Courthouse Historic District; and public listening sessions.

The countys Office of Equity and Inclusions equity work group, along with county staffers and members of Albemarles Historic Preservation Committee, were to draft options for the future of the property for the Board of Supervisors to consider in June.

That didnt happen.

The timing of COVID-19 and the restrictions on gathering resulted in many events being paused, officials wrote. As a local government, many of our resources were diverted to our pandemic response.

Officials said the current courthouse grounds are a hodgepodge patchwork of memorials and monuments with no design or intended meaning.

The property is home to several markers and monuments, including tributes to American presidents and Confederate soldiers, commemoration of exploration [and] a heroic ride, and memorialization of a local lynching, officials said on the county webpage addressing Court Square. Each of these markers were placed under specific circumstances, but no cohesive vision or master plan for this public space has been articulated.

That, officials say, may be changed with the new law.

The legislation granting local authority over monuments and memorials for war veterans by the General Assembly earlier this year presents an opportunity for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to establish a vision for the space, they wrote on the website.

This important public space has not been curated to craft a narrative and to do so, we need your help, officials wrote. Albemarle County has spent the past several weeks re-tooling the Court Square Community Conversation to invite the community to participate. As a community, we need to have conversations about whats important to us, what do we want this space to say about us, what do we want to project today and moving forward, and how do we do that at Court Square.

The county has planned a virtual discussion at 6:30 p.m. June 29 on how to present multiple stories in a public setting. The meeting will be led by Sara Bon-Harper, executive director of James Monroes Highland; Louis Nelson of the University of Virginia; and Jennifer Stacy, a member of Highlands Descendant Advisory Panel.

Court Square will the topic of a virtual panel at 6 p.m. July 20 on the cultural landscape of the square and the historic significance and design of its current markers and monuments.

UVas Elgin Cleckley; Justin Reid of Virginia Humanities; Kirt von Daacke, of UVa; and Betsy Baten will serve on the panel, and Andrea Douglas, of the Jefferson School, will moderate.

Two community conversations on memorials, public spaces and Court Square are scheduled for July, as well.

The first takes place at 6 p.m. July 8, while the second is scheduled for noon July 24. Links to join the virtual discussions will be posted at publicinput.com/courtsquare closer to the time of the events.

The county has opened a survey for local comment on the same site.

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[June 15, 2020] IIHM and Dr. Suborno Bose Launch 'SAHAS' An Entrepreneurship Cell, Allocate 1 Crore for Students to Become Job Creators

NEW DELHI, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrepreneurship is the key word today. In yet another fresh and unique effort by the International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM) and Dr. Suborno Bose, the Chairman and Chief Mentor of IIHM, launched SAHAS, a proactive entrepreneurship cell, where students will be encouraged and guided to become entrepreneurs, instead of looking out for jobs in the market. Combating the prevailing tough times where the job market looks grim, IIHM's fresh new initiative comes as a massive support system for the young students passing out of the hotel school, who can fulfil their dream of starting their own hospitality enterprise start-up with support from SAHAS. The first chapter of SAHAS was inaugurated at IIHM Delhi. SAHAS is a corpus fund of Rs 1 Crore and students will be encouraged and motivated to start their own enterprise. Students who require capital for their start-ups will be supported through SAHAS. Dr. Bose dedicated 15th June, his Birthday as the 'SAHAS DAY' and allocated this corpus as a return gift to the entire IIHM student community. He himself was a Chartered Accountant and with no experience of family business some 27 years ago he decided to leave his profession and started a hotel management college in Kolkata sending his entire family in disbelief and a debate for his future. No one back then would leave a career as a CA and even blink to think of starting something completely new, after all the hard work of clearing the CA exam. The focus and that passion to make some difference in someone's life kept him going. Opening a business does not need money but a drive to do something of yourself and come out of the comfort. "We will help any student who needs a seed capital from this fund that will be available from all IIHM campuses. They will also be guided on how to approach a venture capitalist for loans for their startups. Gradually this fund amount will increase in future," said Dr. Suborno Bose.



The Big Announcement of the Corpus Fund for SAHAS and a proper guidance on becoming an entrepreneur can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/iihmhotelschool/videos/896528577481059/ The SAHAS Cell will be available at all 10 IIHM campuses across India with a panel of experts including successful businesspersons in the hospitality sector, respectively from each city. They will be invited to discuss ideas, guide and motivate students of IIHM on entrepreneurship.

"Along with placing students in hotels or retail or healthcare sector as per the changing times we also have to encourage them actively to become entrepreneurs. I have seen many youngsters who want to become entrepreneurs, they want to start something of their own, but somehow or the other they lack proper guidance, funding and some of them even believe that it takes a lot of money to start your own business, which is a myth. It takes a lot of passion, courage and hard work to become an entrepreneur. If someone is very passionate about their idea, they are courageous and are willing to work hard, SAHAS will support them," said Dr. Suborno Bose. The effort aims to change the mindset of the youth from becoming job-seekers to job creators. IIHM has, in the past, created many entrepreneurs like Yangdup Lama, an alumni of IIHM, who has become a successful mixologist entrepreneur, Sandip Gupta, a successful restaurant entrepreneur in Hong Kong with over 40 restaurants and many more spread across the World. SAHAS aims to take this effort forward and igniting the spark of self-reliance among the youth. About IIHM IIHM (International Institute of Hotel Management) is the largest chain of premier hospitality and hotel management schools across India that started its journey in 1994 at Kolkata. IIHM is a part of Indismart Group, the conglomerate that operates the Indismart Hotels. IIHM campuses are located across ten national and international cities with the associate institute IAM-IHM located in Kolkata, and Guwahati. Students passing out of IIHM are armed with an international degree from the University of West London and equipped with global hospitality skills that enable easy placements in any hospitality brand across the world. IIHM is dedicated to its pursuit of excellence in teaching and placements. Real time experience is the key to success in hospitality and that makes the institute popular. In recent years, IIHM has been instrumental in organizing the Young Chef Olympiad, a unique idea and initiative inviting young culinary talents across the world to participate in the biggest cookery reality shows of all times. The institute has bagged several prestigious awards in the past 24 years. The list includes the Best Education Brand Award from Economic Times consecutively in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It was also featured in Forbes Magazine as Great Indian Institute and Great Place to Study consecutively in the year 2018 and 2019. IIHM was also awarded as one among the World's Greatest Brands & Leaders 2015-16 by URS International (IMEA - Process Reviewer PriceWaterhouseCoopers PL) and also received the Best Institute in Hospitality Education 2017 Award by Assocham from Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon'ble Minister of State for HRD (Higher Education), Govt. of India. For more information, please visit: http://www.iihm.ac.in Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1084107/IIHM_Logo.jpg



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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.
BP will take a writedown of up to $17.5bn (15.5bn) in its second-quarter earnings after sharply lowering its long-term oil and gas price outlook as it now expects a faster transition away from fossil fuels.

The earnings are due on August 4 and CEO, Irishman, Bernard Looney in September is set to announce his strategy to "reinvent" BP including a smaller focus on oil and gas and a larger renewables business.

In a statement, BP said that the aftermath of the new coronavirus pandemic would accelerate the transition to a lower-carbon economy in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

"We have reset our price outlook to reflect that impact and the likelihood of greater efforts to 'build back better' towards a Paris-consistent world," Looney said in a statement.

BP shares were down 5.5pc in early trading.

BP revised its assumptions for benchmark Brent crude oil prices to an average of about $55 a barrel between 2021 and 2050 and Henry Hub gas to $2.90 per million British thermal units.

The revised prices are down around 30pc from previous assumptions, a company spokesman said.

BP also sharply increased the assumed price it will have to pay governments for carbon dioxide emitted from its oil and gas activities to $100 per tonne of CO2 in 2030 from a previous $40 a tonne.

As a result, BP will take non-cash impairment charges and write-offs in the second quarter in a range of $13bn to $17.5bn after tax, the company said.
Gabrielle Williams, Victoria's Minister for Women, has condemned the misogynistic language sacked Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek used to describe her in recordings that led to his downfall.

Premier Daniel Andrews sacked Mr Somyurek from cabinet on Monday morning, shortly after The Age and 60 Minutes exposed widespread branch stacking in Victoria and his derogatory comments towards Ms Williams and members of the LGBTQI community.

Gabrielle Williams has welcomed Daniel Andrews' move to sack Adem Somyurek. Credit:Penny Stephens

Mr Somyurek has since apologised for saying of Ms Williams, who also holds the Prevention of Family Violence portfolio, that he would: "F---ing force her out of the ministry."

"That f---ing stupid bitch, when Andrews goes  She's a stupid, stupid moll," Mr Somyurek said in the leaked audio. "Im going to f---ing knock her f---ing head off. Shes a f---ing psycho bitch."
Since his release from prison two years ago, the former jihadist once known as Abu Aicha has made an impressive showing of turning his life around. The 27-year-old Belgian who traveled to Syria in 2013 says he rejects the Islamic State and prefers studying to fighting. His advice to other Muslim youths curious about the group: Stay away.

"I had seen with my own eyes what ISIS had done," said the Brussels native, describing the time when he used a nom de guerre and lived in an Islamic State enclave in northern Syria. He spoke on the condition that his real name not be published, fearing reprisals from Islamic State loyalists. Of all the returnees from Syria the Belgian has met since coming home, most "do not want to have anything to do with the Islamic State," he said.

His words, echoed by other returnees in Europe, are cause for cautious optimism across a continent that saw thousands of citizens travel to the Middle East to join the group. As recently as two years ago, European officials were bracing for new waves of terrorist attacks as young men and women left the caliphate to return home, often ending up in prisons crowded with other Islamists.

Now, scholarly studies are beginning to confirm what some law enforcement officials had observed privately: Despite initial fears, an overwhelming majority of the returnees appear to be shunning extremist causes so far, and many avowedly reject the Islamic State and its violent tactics.

"A number of signs point to disillusionment among returning fighters and released offenders," said Thomas Renard, a Belgian terrorism researcher and author of a forthcoming study on prison radicalization. "They don't seem to be reconnecting to their previous networks or returning to violent extremist activities. We are seeing reports from the security services that confirm this."

The trend, if it continues, is genuinely good news for a region that experienced a string of deadly bombings and shootings by Islamic State supporters beginning in 2015. Officials say there have been no Islamic State-directed attacks on European soil since 2017, and the number of overall incidents linked to Islamist groups, including "lone-wolf" attacks, has fallen sharply.

And yet, despite the relative quiet, European officials worry that the gains may be fragile. In other parts of the world, the momentum appears to be shifting in the Islamists' favor. The Islamic State is gaining strength in Iraq and Syria, as measured by the number and scale of terrorist attacks in recent months in its former strongholds. Across Africa, extremist militias are surging, with groups aligned with both al-Qaida and the Islamic State vying for control over large swaths of rural territory from the Horn of Africa to the Sahel.

A restored caliphate - or the emergence of a charismatic new leader - could again inspire global followers just as the Islamic State did, including some who previously renounced violence, officials and terrorism experts say. A prolonged economic downturn stemming from the coronavirus pandemic will only make it easier for violent groups to win recruits, the officials said.

"We are not naive," said a Middle Eastern counterterrorism official whose government monitors hundreds of citizens who joined the caliphate and are now home again. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal security assessments, said many of his country's returning fighters, like those in Europe, claim "they no longer want to be part of ISIS, and that they understood they made a mistake."

But some "could tomorrow join a new group or would fall for a new ISIS," the official said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State. "You can never be 100 percent certain."

The challenge of dealing with Islamic State returnees looms larger in Belgium than in most European countries. The small, polyglot nation of 11.5 million had the highest per capita rate of immigration to Iraq and Syria in all of Europe, with about 500 of its citizens joining Islamist militant groups in the region between 2013 and 2016.

On March 22, 2016, a terrorist cell loyal to the Islamic State detonated three bombs at a Brussels subway station and at the city's international airport, killing 32 people and awakening leaders to the scale of the terrorist threat facing the country. Parliament quickly passed tough new laws that led to the incarceration of scores of Belgian men and women returning from the Middle East, regardless of whether they had served as fighters. Returnees who were regarded as particularly dangerous were placed in a special units for extremists - called CelEx - in Belgium's largest prisons.

Terrorism experts feared that the returning Islamist militants would radicalize other inmates, touching off fresh waves of violence. So far, however, the threat has failed to materialize. Instead, Belgium's efforts at rehabilitation have shown early signs of success.

Inmates who already have completed sentences have largely remained peaceful, and the number of prisoners in CelEx units has steadily declined, according to a forthcoming study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King's College London.

Out of 368 inmates who were released after serving time in CelEx units between 2012 and early this year, none have been involved directly in a terrorist attack or plot, the report found. Belgian officials, citing extensive interviews with former detainees, found that 84 percent of male returnees from the Middle East and 95 percent of the women "have been showing signs of disengagement" from extremist ideology since their return. Of those still in prison, about half had made a similar transition.

"There are some signs that radicalization in prison may be either slowing down, or at least more latent," said the report, an advance copy of which was provided to The Washington Post. "In the post-caliphate era, the jihadi narrative has become somewhat less attractive to vulnerable inmates. There are also less proactive recruiters in prison."

The study urged caution, noting that deradicalization is a "long and hazy process, extremely difficult to measure." Belgian officials have implemented an aggressive outreach program for former inmates that includes extensive interaction with police, counselors and social workers to help ensure successful reintegration into Belgian society.

Renard, the report's author, noted that a small minority of former CelEx inmates appeared to retain extremist views and would continue to merit close monitoring by police. But the worries about large contingents of radicalized youths waging jihad in Belgium have receded, he said.

"In a way, we have moved back to something that is more manageable: a smaller number of cases to be managed and dealt with," Renard said. "This is not to say that the terrorist threat is disappearing. Most people coming out of prison will not be a threat. But some will."

Belgium's successes so far are partly a result of the Islamic State's failures. The group's 2014 declaration of a new Islamic caliphate in the Middle East was the event that initially drew thousands of European and North American Muslims to Iraq and Syria.

But beginning in 2015, the extremist group lost battle after battle to the U.S.-led military coalition, culminating in the destruction of the Islamic State's last Syrian stronghold in early 2019. As the idea of a physical caliphate faded, enthusiasm for the project also ebbed among some of the early supporters.

Other former supporters of the Islamic State have become disillusioned by the terrorist group's brutal tactics, which included videotaped executions as well as the systematic enslavement and rape of female captives. Abu Aicha, the Brussels man who traveled to Syria, said he was ready to come home after just three months of living in an Islamic State-controlled region near Aleppo. After telling his local commander he was going to Turkey to visit his wife, he left Syria, never to return. His short career as a jihadist eventually led to a conviction and time in prison, where he met other inmates whose experiences had turned them against the Islamic State.

"People disliked how ISIS was just killing people who had not agreed with them, and how they went into mosques and slaughtered people," he said.

Yet the man also believed that at least some of his former cellmates could again be lured away by extremist causes. "There are many in prison who I believe would be susceptible to something new," he said. "They are waiting for a new group or hero figure."

The prospect of such a group emerging has increased in recent months, counterterrorism officials say. Despite the loss of the caliphate, the Islamic State has not been defeated, but remains active in Iraq and Syria and across a network of regional affiliates from North Africa to Southeast Asia.

A new analysis of terrorist attacks linked to the Islamic State shows a steady rise in the number of incidents in both Iraq and Syria, after a decline in violence last year. The group carried out 566 attacks inside Iraq alone during the first three months of 2020, compared with 292 during the same period last year. The recent tempo of violence is similar to what officials saw in 2012, when the group was gaining momentum ahead of its military breakout across eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, said Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a co-author of the study, published by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy.

The group's recovery is not entirely surprising. Islamic State leaders laid the groundwork for a terrorism campaign long before the caliphate's fall by dispersing fighters and pre-positioning weapons, explosives and supplies, Knights said in presenting his findings in late May.

"There are hundreds if not thousands of caches in caves" scattered across Iraq, Knights said. "Each is like an insurgency in a box."

While the group is not nearly strong enough to claim and hold territory as it did in 2014, it is clearly benefiting from political and economic instability in both Iraq and Syria, terrorism experts say. Similar conditions prevail in parts of West Africa, where local Islamic State and al-Qaeda affiliates had already begun to exercise de facto control over rural villages in areas where local governance has traditionally been weak.

Now, with much of the world preoccupied by a global contagion and economic turmoil, the Islamist groups could see a potential for realizing their ambitions on a much shorter timetable, said a senior Western counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security assessments.

"Security forces overseas are focused on covid-19," the official said. "This might relieve pressure on these groups and create space for them to reconstitute. We are very concerned about that."
P lans for a dedicated running track through the City of London have triggered a backlash from residents at the Barbican opposed to the unnecessary and outdated scheme.

City councillor and retired engineer John Edwards, who is its main backer, has begun a public consultation on the proposed 4.2km route, more than a third of which would snake through the Grade II*-listed complex.

Mr Edwards said the SquareMileTrack, which would have a synthetic rubber surface for about half its length, would be flush with the pavement, good for the health of City workers and residents, and gentler on the knees of runners than York stone pavements.

However, the plan has alarmed some apartment owners who say the pedestrian paths of the Barbican Highwalk would be overwhelmed with City workers and other visitors.

Hilary Sunman, chairman of the Willoughby House residents group, said in an email to Mr Edwards: Our main concern is that a running track at podium level would be intrusive for the residents. The Barbican residents cherish the calm of the highwalks. There are other concerns  for example, is this appropriate for a Grade II*-listed site?

Another resident David Bradshaw said: The majority, if not all, Barbican residents would be opposed to his desire to create a running track.

But Mr Edwards said the podium  the raised pedestrian area of the Barbican  was underused and had been created as a public right of way rather than for the private use of residents. He also insisted that the track could be created at very low cost over a number of years when pavement were upgraded.
Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the Oscars, initially expected to occur on 28 February, could be postponed by almost eight weeks

The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is scheduled to hold another online meeting on Monday to finalise the date of the Oscars in 2021, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the Oscars, initially expected to occur on 28 February, could be postponed by almost eight weeks.

Discussions on extending the eligibility window of the contending films released beyond 31 December 2020 will also take place during the meeting. The news comes after the pandemic showed no signs of waning in the US.

(Click here to follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak)

The 54 governors presiding over the meeting will not yet take a call on the nature of the Oscars next year  whether it'll be held online or in-person  since they feel they could still wait and see how the pandemic unfolds.

In a bid to remain inclusive, the Academy recently increased the number of women and people of colour on their board.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its new members last Wednesday, which included the Selma filmmaker, A Star is Born producer Lynette Howell Taylor, and casting director Debra Zane.

Incumbent governors reelected included Whoopi Goldberg, Dolemite Is My Name screenwriter Larry Karaszewski and Participant Media CEO David Linde among others.

The organization that puts on the Oscars said that the number of women on the 54-person board has gone from 25 to 26 and people of color from 11 to 12.

The Board of Governors represent each of the academys 17 branches and work to set the organizations strategy, finances, and fulfillment of its mission.

DuVernay, who was nominated for her documentary 13th, has been an active and vocal member of the film academy for years. She recently backed up David Oyelowos assertion that members of the academy threatened to squash Selmas awards chances after they wore T-shirts with the words I Cant Breathe to the films New York premiere in 2014 in honor of Eric Garner.

The academy responded on Twitter condemning the threats, writing, Ava & David, we hear you. Unacceptable. Were committed to progress.

The Oscars this year are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the pandemic. In April, over a month after theaters closed and a number of film festivals were cancelled as a safety precaution, the Academy announced revised eligibility requirements for this year, allowing movies that debuted on a streaming service to be considered for an Oscar.
MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI - With nearly all of Muskegons annual summer festivals canceled, tourism officials are playing up the areas beaches, parks and other natural resources.

Were expecting people to be enjoying the outdoors a lot more than they have in the past, said Bob Lukens, the countys community development director.
The Spanish Health Ministry reported on Sunday that 48 new coronavirus infections had been detected in the previous 24 hours. This is the same figure recorded last Monday, which was the lowest seen since March 5.

Since the crisis began, the numbers have tended to be misleading on Sundays and Mondays, with underreporting over the weekend due to lower staffing levels in hospitals. But according to the latest figures, the weekly number of cases is also on a clear downward trend, with an average of 3.6 infections per 100,000 inhabitants.

More than three million PCR tests and 1.7 million rapid coronavirus tests have been carried out since the beginning of the crisis in Spain

Of Spains 17 regions, only Madrid reported more than 10 new coronavirus cases in the previous 24 hours, with 12 infections, according to the report released last night by the ministry.

The Health Ministry still has not updated the total number of fatalities related to Covid-19, and has for the last three weeks been working on an update of the entire historical series. As a result, around 2,000 deaths are in a kind of limbo until they are assigned to a specific date. According to the Health Ministry report, 26 people with the coronavirus have died in the last seven days. The official death toll from the pandemic in Spain still stands at 27,136.

The number of coronavirus patients requiring hospitalization and intensive care in the past week has also fallen to a record low. According to the latest figures, only five patients were admitted into intensive care and 110 to hospital in the past week. Two out of three hospital admissions were recorded in the four regions hardest hit by the pandemic: Madrid, Catalonia, Castilla y Leon and Castilla-La Mancha.

The Health Ministry also announced on Sunday that more than three million PCR tests and 1.7 rapid coronavirus tests have been carried out since the beginning of the crisis in Spain, bringing the total number of diagnoses to 4.8 million.

English version by Melissa Kitson.
Bkav Technology Group on Monday revealed a ventilator designed by Bkav and doctors at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

The ventilator BAC385 is designed and produced by Bkav and doctors at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases.  Photo courtesy of Bkav CEO

On his Facebook page, CEO Nguyen Tu Quang said: Though there are only a few positive cases of COVID-19 in Viet Nam, the ventilator is to treat other acute respiratory illnesses at many health facilities across the country which still face a shortage of breathing equipment.

According to the CEO, the BAC385 ventilator is being researched and tested at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases before applying for permission from the Ministry of Health.

Quang also said besides self-designed machines, Bkav also completed a model based on the design of US-based medical and healthcare equipment company Medtronic. In early April, Medtronic announced it was offering a free design, detailed instructions and source code to help countries produce their own ventilators.

The CEO said his ventilators will be produced non-profit for anti-pandemic purposes and contribute to supporting countries in reducing the extent of damage caused by the pandemic.

BKAV's AI Technology Institute also predicted that COVID-19 will continue in the next nine months with 17 million infection cases. The next epicentre will be the US and Brazil.

In May, Vingroup completed two invasive ventilator models based on the design of PB 560 and donated 2,400 ventilators to Russia and Ukraine.  VNS
A lot of people in this town dont believe that racism exists here, said Lebanon resident Jesseca Wolter.

The small mid-valley town is no stranger to the nationwide resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Wolter, joined by fellow Lebanon residents Micah-Lyn Borden, Jack Bauer, Karissa Doyle and Elati Bourgeois, arranged a march from Century Park to Academy Square on Sunday to give their communitys voices a chance to join the call for racial justice.

Our town has profound roots in systemic and institutionalized racism, Doyle said. I will never understand the turmoil of being in (a black persons) skin.

Doyle, who is white, criticized non-black people  including herself  for having their eyes open but not seeing and listening but never hearing when it comes to racial equality.

Borden said the police in town havent had a track record of brutality that she knows of, but shes still concerned that no ones brought attention to racism here. She wants her young black son to be safe and be able to trust the police when he grows up.

Its reasons like that, Doyle said, that make staying neutral during this civil rights movement is akin to having a leaky roof but not fixing it just because the water isnt dripping directly onto you.

The protest drew a crowd in excess of 300 people. At the Academy Square gazebo, numerous speakers took the stage to share their experiences with or as people of color.

Lebanon police officers, assisted by some Albany officers, escorted the marchers and monitored the perimeter of the gazebo during the peaceful protest.

Two black, Deaf sign language interpreters, Tie Burchan and Rian Gayle, also translated the speakers testimonies and signed each chant alongside protesters during the march.

Were taught from a very young age that black lives do not matter, said speaker Kira Johnson. We see innocent black folks murdered in the streets, while white rapists  Brock Turner, Johnsons example  pass through the justice system and get treated better for good behavior.

This is something Ive seen happening a lot, Bauer said, just from our lack of diversity.

Despite having a liberal facade, Bauer said, the Pacific Northwest is no exception to racial injustice. When Oregon reached statehood, there were black exclusionary laws built into its laws. Oregon also had one of the largest per capita Ku Klux Klan membership rates in the early 1900s. This history is one part of the reason Sundays protest was necessary, Bauer said.

It is no longer enough for us to be quietly non-racist. It is time for us to become vocally anti-racist, Bauer said. We need to do this to uphold the very motto of this town The City that Friendliness Built.

But still, Bauer said, too many people think the Black Lives Matter movement intends to negate the struggles of non-black people  it doesnt.

In response to naysayers like the ones Bauer called out, Lebanon resident Mary Mitchell brought a sign reading All Lives Cant Matter Until Black Lives Matter.

Black people are the ones in danger," Mitchell said. Its really nice seeing how many people are supportive of this movement  especially in this small community.

Erique Arriaga, his wife Montoya Dancy and her cousin Merlanda Faoa agreed it was nice to see Lebanon have such an outpouring of support because theyve felt the insidious presence of racism in the town before.

Faoa, who is black, described the town as unfriendly. She said shes been stared at in grocery stores and people have gone out of their way to avoid her in public, even before social distancing became the norm.

When he first visited Lebanon, Arriaga, who has Native American ancestry, said the lack of diversity was immediately apparent. Dancy, who is black, agreed.

I love it, but it always gave me an uneasy vibe, Arriaga said. Ive been to Iraq and (served) overseas, and its great over there. But here, you have to watch out.

Christan Stagg attended the event with her husband, Anthony Mobley, and friends from Portland.

Im here to support the people in our community who experience racism and the effects of racism and supremacy directly and systemically, said Stagg, who has lived in Lebanon for 20 years. Its powerful to see support in Lebanon. This community has had a long history with white supremacy and racism, so to see this many people come out to support vulnerable populations  is very powerful.

Bourgeois was the final speaker at the event and issued a challenge to those in attendance.

I ask you to advocate, to have conversations with your friends and your family about racism, she said. Its OK to be uncomfortable. Talk about it. Pray about it. Black lives matter.

Reporter Nia Tariq can be reached at nia.tariq@lee.net.

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I lived in Los Angeles in 1965. I worked on the 8th floor of the tallest building in town at the time, the IBM building on Wilshire Boulevard.

The building was right next to the famous Ambassador Hotel, where, a few years later, Bobby Kennedy was killed. I could see a large section of the city from the window of my office, including a section called Watts.

I knew Watts pretty well, as I worked there as a volunteer with the Urban League.

Our committee meetings were held at night. I also tutored black students on Saturday mornings. Watts, in my view, was a pretty nice place to live, certainly better than the tenements of Bedford Stuyvesant and other run-down sections of New York.

In Watts, the buildings and homes were low-rise, sunny and, to all appearances, comfortable. And then in August of 65, I looked out my window and saw Watts burning. A disheartening sight.

In May of 2020, almost 55 years later, its deja vu for me. The same confrontation between an African American and the police that started the protests and riots in Minneapolis started the disturbances in Watts.

Protest would not be the correct description of what happened in Watts, at least at the beginning. Rebellion would be more accurate.

Rebellion against housing discrimination, which was wide spread, segregating not only blacks but Mexicans, Japanese, people from the Philippines; against police brutality; against the lack of good schools; against job discrimination.

The spark was the arrest of a 21-year-old black man by a white California Highway Patrol officer. The charge was reckless driving. The incident occurred near the young mans home in Watts, and his brother, a passenger in the car, walked home and brought back their mother.

She owned the car, which the police impounded. The mother scolded her son for drinking and driving. And then things got out of hand.

Someone shoved the mom. Someone struck the young man who had been driving. The mom jumped on an officer. Another officer pulled out a shotgun. Backup cops tried arresting the driver.

The mom and brother fought with officers. A mob formed and threw bricks and other objects at the police. The family was arrested. The crowd grew. Police tried to break up the crowd but were attacked.

The area became a combat zone. Rioters tore up the pavement, tossing pieces at police cars, fighting, cursing. Fires started. Then looting, on a grand scale. Mostly of businesses owned by whites and Koreans. Whites who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time were pulled from their cars and badly beaten, or killed.

In all, between Aug. 11 and 16, 34 people died, 1,000 were injured, almost 3,500 were arrested. Close to 1,000 buildings were damaged and/or looted, including 267 that were totally destroyed.

The authorities had to call in 2,300 National Guard troops to supplement the 14,000 law enforcement officers who worked to control the situation.

So what did the government do to eliminate police brutality, housing discrimination, poor schools, lack of good jobs?

What government usually does: Create a commission.

A Commission with a capital C, led by the highly respected former head of the CIA, John McCone. The Commissions report, issued four months after the riots, identified high unemployment, poor schools and inferior living conditions as the cause of the riots.

The Commission recommended preschool programs, improved police-community ties, more job training. The usual.

And no doubt what well hear when the present protests ease.

I kept at my job on IBMs eighth floor. Except the pleasant view I had for a year or more was gone, replaced by smoke wafting from Watts, day after day.

I dont recall if I stuck with the Urban League, or eventually returned to tutor. I think so, but my memory is not what it used to be.

However, those riots will stay with me forever.

Along with the knowledge that, as in Watts, recent protests and riots will spawn a Commission, and politicians, parasites, social workers, experts, opportunists, the kind of heart, professors, carpetbaggers, agitators, priests, ministers, nuns, rabbis, psychologists and fellow travelers will promise the moon.

And deliver smoke.

Same ole, same ole.

Sean Sullivan is a Norwalk resident.

A note from James Walker: As a guest editor overseeing some of the content you will read as the nation grapples with the deaths of unarmed black people, I want to give a voice to the people of Connecticut at this crucial time in Americas history.

I hope the voices from our neighbors -- young and old and ethnically diverse -- will open the door to constructive and honest conversations on systematic racism and what we, as Nutmeggers, can do about it.

This is part of a national conversation taking place after the death of George Floyd sparked riots and protests and former officer Derek Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder for causing his death.

This series includes the voices of 11 people from some of our communities around the state. These are their experiences and thoughts on what is taking place in the country today.

I would also like to know your thoughts -- because all voices are needed regardless of point of view. Add your voice to the discussion by emailing me at realtalkrealpeoplect@gmail.com.
The United Nations on June 14 said that it was appalled by the twin attacks by Islamist militants in north-eastern Nigerias Borno State. According to an international media outlet, dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed when the fighters attacked Monguno, a garrison town where UN and other aid workers are based, and a village in Nganzai. The twin attacks also came days after at least 81 villagers were killed in Gubio.

As per reports, a Boko Haram faction called itself the Islamic State in West Africa (Iswap) said it is behind all three attacks. Four years ago, the splitter group declared its loyalty to the Islamic State group. In the recent twin attacks at least 20 soldiers and over 40 civilians were repeatedly killed. While speaking to an international media outlet, people from Goni Usmanti Village in Nganzai said that the militants shot 38 people and set a truck on fire with passengers inside.

READ: Asian Shares Fall On Fears Virus Outbreaks Are Rebounding

Moreover, al least 15 people, including nine soldiers, also died in Monguno town. According to reports, militants armed with heavy weapons including rocket launchers arrived in Monguno, which is a base for several international non-governmental organisations. The militant group arrived on June 13 and overrun the government forces in the area.

According to a statement, the UN said, On 13 June, non-state armed group operatives aboard light trucks mounted with heavy artillery raided Goni Usmanti community in Nganzai LGA before penetrating the town of Monguno around 11.45 a.m. from two different entry points, resulting in clashes with the military which lasted for about two hours. The armed assailants reached the humanitarian hub, where over 50 aid workers were present at the time of the attack.

READ: HRW Reacts To Ressa Guilty Verdict In Libel Trial

UN condemns the horrific attack

The agency further also informed that the vehicles were set ablaze and unexploded missiles were found outside the main humanitarian facility, however, nothing was seriously damaged. The UN said that the protective security measures deployed at the humanitarian hub prevented any harm to the over 50 aid workers who were in the facility at the time of the attack. According to a media report, the militant group also distributed letters to residents, the local Hausa language warning them not to work with the military or international aid groups.

While taking to Twitter, UN humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon condemned the attack and called the incident horrific. Kallon also added, I am deeply saddened by the news that many civilians, including an innocent child, lost their lives in these horrific attacks. My deepest condolences go to their families. Those who were injured are also in my thoughts and I wish them a speedy recovery.

I am appalled by continued violent attacks launched by non-state armed groups in civilian areas in Borno



My deepest condolences go to the families of the people who lost their lives



I also reiterate that civilians & aid workers are #NotATarget https://t.co/0d7glhIAXx  Edward Kallon (@EdwardKallon) June 14, 2020

(Image: @EdwardKallon/Twitter)

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With protestors tearing down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, and news that London Mayor Sadiq Khan is calling for a review of city statues and plaques, the long history of British slavery and its legacy has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks.

Often, this legacy focuses on Britains history of slave trading or its Caribbean colonies. Rarely does it include colonial Virginia. In a world dominated by American news, power and culture, its easy to forget that American slavery started in 1776 when British American slavery ended. In other words, American slavery was once British slavery. Slavery is one of Americas original sins. But its Britains sin, too.

There was a time before 1776 when the United States didnt exist, when it was just a collection of British colonies. There was even a time when British colonialism in the Americas didnt exist. These things had to start. And British America started with the Colony of Virginia, in 1607. Twelve years later, before Puritans arrived at Plymouth Rock, English merchants brought some 20 enslaved people to Virginia. From almost the very beginning, Britons bought and sold enslaved people in what would become the United States.

There was a time, too, when rebellions in British America werent about taxes but about slavery. In 1712, for instance, in New York, when some 23 enslaved people revolted, only to be executed. Or the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies, when enslaved Africans, led by an Angolan man known as Jemmy, fought for their liberty. In the end, some 20 white colonists and 40 enslaved people died in the uprising and as in New York, slave laws were strengthened.

When those rebellions did turn to taxes, as during the American Revolution, they were still about control of enslaved people. In 1775, in Thomas Jeffersons home of Virginia, Royal Governor Lord Dunmore issued his famous proclamation to quell revolutionary fervour. It stipulated that any enslaved man who served with the British would become free. But those who decided to take Dumore up on his offer found it wasnt as attractive as he made it out to be. In Canada, these recently freed people faced racism and derision in the northern British colonies, which still kept other people enslaved.

Jefferson and others didnt forget. And in his Declaration of Independence, Jefferson accused King George III of exciting domestic insurrections among us, an obvious reference to Britains use of enslaved people as pawns in their imperial conflicts.

Jefferson wanted to say more. A complicated figure with conflicting views on slavery, the man who enslaved some 600 people over his lifetime, including his own children, wanted to blame George III for American slavery. And in a passage that was eventually deleted, Jefferson accused the monarch of keeping open a market where men should be bought and sold and suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.

The point of drawing attention to this history isnt to let America off the hook for slavery and everything it did and didnt do in the 155 years since emancipation. Its not to point the finger at Britain exclusively, though if you want evidence on how slavery built British wealth, look no further than the Legacies of British Slave-ownerships database, where youll find the families of former Prime Minister David Cameron and George Orwell listed, among many others.

Instead, its to remind those of us who need reminding that just as there was a diaspora of diverse Africans, kidnapped and enslaved for centuries, there was a diverse diaspora of Anglo-American peoples doing the kidnapping, colonizing and enslaving. These were the people who would make up modern nations like the U.S. and Canada, but they were also a part of the British Empire.

Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free, American author Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his son in Between the World and Me. Of some 250 years of American slavery, 157 years were under British rule. American slavery is British history; American history is British slavery.

Melissa J. Gismondi is an award-winning writer and radio and podcast producer.
With the current emphasis on racism's rise in American culture, the fact that it is present in many areas of healthcare cannot be ignored. Racism in hospitals exists. It affects patient care, physicians, hospitals, medical staff and medical students. Healthcare should not tolerate racism. It erodes the trust in physicians by healthcare facilities and it is much more common than most people think. As society focuses on racism on a general scale and in specific institutions, the next few editions of this column will explore the issue as it relates to various areas of healthcare.

Specific healthcare arenas affected by racism

In February 2020, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) released its Assessment of the Prevalence of Medical Student Mistreatment by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Sexual Orientation. That report, also the subject of an article in Psychology Today, asserts that the racism that has made its way to hospitals begins in the treatment of medical students. It also includes females, Asians, multi-racial students and unrepresented minorities in its studies, as well as gay, lesbian and bisexual students.

This is not the first time the problem has been recognized and articulated. As far back as 2000 and 2004, racism was identified as a problem in healthcare by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In reports issued in those years consecutively, NIH cited certain measurable treatment and availability disparities in several areas between Caucasians and people of color. They started with insurance coverage and expanded into the topics of quality of care, geographic and institutional variation, stereotyping by providers and patient behavior.

Racism and bullying of medical students

The JAMA report on the impact of racism on medical students is painfully and embarrassingly specific. Over 27,000 graduating students participated, and the conclusion was that the students in the groups mentioned suffered a higher level of mistreatment than white, male heterosexual students. This corroborates NIH findings that recurrent mistreatment (defined by several to numerous incidents) was experienced by minority students more frequently. It also led to more incidents of high burnout.

The impact of racial disparity on health

The results of the behavior revealed in medical schools is evidenced beyond learning institutions and into society at all levels of health, both within and outside hospital walls. Statistics show inequity among common conditions and unexpected threats, such as the current coronavirus pandemic. The most recent statistics regarding racial disparity show major increases in the occurrence of health issues among African Americans and other minority communities. In April, the American Medical Association (AMA) specifically mentioned the fact that in Michigan, 35% of coronavirus infections and 40% of deaths caused by the virus occurred in African Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports a disproportionate national rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths within the minority community.

One of the reasons COVID-19 is so brutal to minorities is the generally lower quality and frequency of health care received on a regular basis. For instance, a CDC report concluded as recently as March 2020 that while the rate of diabetes in the non-Hispanic white community is 7.4 percent, it is over 12% among African Americans and Hispanics. Much of this can be attributed to the lack of access for many to basic health services.

The need for real change

The recent acknowledgment of racism in healthcare by many in the medical profession is encouraging. The reporting of the issue in major journals accessible to the public is also important in solving the problem. As the fight against racism in government, law enforcement and society at large play a larger role, it should also include healthcare.

Ask Dr. Haqqani

If you have questions about your cardiovascular health, including heart, blood pressure, stroke lifestyle and other issues, we want to answer them. Please submit your questions to Dr. Haqqani by e-mail at questions@vascularhealthclinics.org.

Dr. Omar P. Haqqani is the chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at Vascular Health Clinics in Midland: www.vascularhealthclinics.org
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RTHK: Russian academic charged with spying for China

The Russian state news agency Tass says the president of the Saint Petersburg Arctic Social Sciences Academy has been charged with treason, following allegations that he spied for China.

Valery Mitko, who is 78, is alleged to have handed over classified material to Chinese intelligence during a trip to China. Tass understands the material includes research on hydro acoustics and submarine detection methods.

Mitko denies the allegations.

Tass said Mitko is a doctor of technical sciences and, in addition to his post at the Arctic Social Sciences Academy, is also a member of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

Mitko is under house arrest and his lawyer says he is appealing against the ruling, Tass said.

Tass also said Mitko had a third degree disability, without offering further explanation.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
LEXINGTON, Ky., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The award-winning producer of American history documentaries, the producer of films on the history of how bourbon became a world-wide commodity, and the maker of acclaimed films on the lives of noted historical figures such as Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Clay, is now chronicling the history of hemp production in America! Pre-production is underway for The Seed and Fiber of Wealth, a ninety-minute documentary film for public and cable television and channels streaming worldwide.

As hemp makes its resurgence on the national stage, the Witnessing History Education Foundation, Inc. ("Witnessing History") will bring you the little-known backstory of hemp, its deeply-rooted history and uses, and how it is making a comeback to fuel a revitalization of manufacturing and sustainable products in America. This film will enable millions of people to understand how extraordinarily versatile and beneficial hemp is, and how central it has been, and will be, to the growth and development of our country.

"This is outstanding news for the re-emerging hemp economy both in the U.S. and globally," said internationally renowned hemp industry leader and educator Joy Beckerman, who is assisting with the project. "Witnessing History's exquisite focus on hemp and its promising future is precisely what this exceptionally useful crop, economic developers, our nation's farmers, and the public need."

The Seed and Fiber of Wealth is a historic opportunity for Americans to appreciate the impact of industrial hemp throughout history and today. This film will be the foremost, comprehensive, richly-illustrated documentary film account of America's fascinating journey with, and the many uses of, hemp. For more information and how to become a sponsor, visit SeedAndFiberOfWealth.com.

The Telly Awards have been honoring excellence in video and television across all screens for 41 years and Witnessing History has won a Telly Award for every one of the eight documentary films it has produced thus far. Its most recent film, "In the Declaration, all men are created equal:" Abraham Lincoln in Illinois 1830-1860, which was purposefully created to inspire unity, has been awarded 2020 Telly Awards in two categories. Witnessing History is an IRS 501(c)(3) non-profit, distinguished producer of documentary films on American history. Check them out on WitnessingHistory.org or its YouTube channel. They are broadcast on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network affiliates all across America, as well as cable and numerous streaming channels.

Kent Masterson Brown, President of Witnessing History, is now available for interviews and press inquiries. Please contact him at (859) 608-2323 or [email protected].

Witnessing History Education Foundation is committed to providing high-quality films, premium digital content, and educational materials free of charge to broadcasters and their audiences worldwide about enduringly glorious American history.

SOURCE Witnessing History Education Foundation

Related Links

https://www.witnessinghistory.org


The Supreme Courts decision on Monday outlawing anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination is a triumph for both the country and the court. It is a victory for the country because, in one fell swoop, the court granted vital protections to LGBTQ people in every state, making the United States a fairer, freer place. It is a victory for the court because the decision is an encouraging sign that the justices can still practice neutral and responsible jurisprudence without partisan influence. The six-justice majority was able to set aside its own potential biases and deliver an unequivocal endorsement of simple, rather obvious legal theory. By following the most straightforward path, the court reached a historic result that brings millions of LGBTQ people closer to full equality under the law.

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Mondays decision in Bostock v. Clayton County revolves around a question fraught with political ramifications: Does Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bar discrimination because of sexual orientation and gender identity? The law forbids discrimination because of sex, but does not mention LGBTQ people. Civil rights advocates have long argued, however, that it is not possible to discriminate against a gay, bisexual, or transgender person without taking their sex into account. So, when an employer engages in anti-LGBTQ discrimination, they are engaging in a form of sex discrimination under Title VII.

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This argument rests on textualism, the theoryascendant in conservative legal circlesthat courts should look to the plain text of the law, not legislative history or congressional intent. Most scholars agree that Congress wasnt thinking about LGBTQ people when it passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. But Congress wasnt thinking about a lot of things, including sexual harassment, which SCOTUS didnt outlaw as discriminatory until 1986. Bostock therefore asks: When the text of a law leads to an outcome that Congress probably didnt envision, should the court still follow the text to its logical conclusion?

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In a breezy 29-page opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch said, emphatically, yes. (Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberals.) An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally fires an individual employee based in part on sex, Gorsuch wrote. It doesnt matter if other factors besides the plaintiffs sex contributed to the decision. And it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex. He explained:

Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employers mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an employee to fire based in part on the employees sex, and the affected employees sex is a but-for cause of his discharge. Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth. Again, the individual employees sex plays an unmistakable and impermissible role in the discharge decision.

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To Gorsuch, this proposition was apparently so self-evident that he felt little need to elaborate much further. He cited several precedents stretching Title VII beyond Congress intent, including a decision prohibiting male-on-male sexual harassment. And he barely responded to Justice Samuel Alitos raging, incandescent 54-page dissent, which balloons to 107 pages when you count a bloated appendix that includes several dictionary definitions of the word sex and an old enlistment application excluding gay men from the military. Where Gorsuch did bother to provide a retort, he was remarkably dismissive in the face of Alitos fury, accusing him of adopting a conversational definition of sex and overlooking the statutes strict terms. And he charged Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh with refusing to enforce the plain terms of the law, abandoning textualism in favor of a murky inquiry into what Congress might have expected.

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Alito was clearly wounded by Gorsuchs claim to the textualist high ground. He huffed:

The Court attempts to pass off its decision as the inevitable product of the textualist school of statutory interpretation championed by our late colleague Justice Scalia, but no one should be fooled. The Courts opinion is like a pirate ship. It sails under a textualist flag, but what it actually represents is a theory of statutory interpretation that Justice Scalia excoriatedthe theory that courts should update old statutes so that they better reflect the current values of society.

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In reality, the majority did no such thing. Gorsuchs critique is dead right: Alito does not want the court to stretch Title VII beyond its applicationas expected by Congress in 1964and that approach is not textualism. It is anti-textualism. It elevates the alleged mental processes of long-dead lawmakers over the ordinary meaning of words. Bostock was a hack test, a challenge to the conservative justices to stick by their principles even when they lead to a liberal outcome. Gorsuch and Roberts passed. Alito and Thomas failed. Kavanaughs more measured dissent argued that the court shouldve let Congress handle a matter of such importance. But, unlike Alito, Kavanaugh seems happy with the result, even congratulating LGBTQ people on winning a battle he thought they should lose.

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A decision this monumental will have major ripple effects beyond the law, none beneficial to the president. In 2016, Trump rallied the Republican base by promising to appoint a staunch conservative to the vacant Supreme Court seat. The justice he ultimately appointed just delivered a landmark win to LGBTQ people. Some conservative evangelical voters may conclude that, in fact, Trump cant be trusted to drag the court rightward, making them less tolerant of his other profane grotesqueries. At his campaign rallies, Trump has often boasted of delivering the Supreme Court to the right for a generation. That assertion may have a little less power after Monday.

But there will be plenty of time to gauge the political impact of Bostock. For now, it is worth celebrating both the decision itself and, in cautious terms, the court that handed it down. The Trump administration lobbied hard to bring the conservative justices into line on this case. But Gorsuch and Roberts stood their ground, refusing to kowtow to immense pressure from the conservative legal and political movements. They showed genuine integrity. And they gave the country a reason to believe that perhaps Trump has not permanently corrupted the Supreme Court after all.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to The Gist on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what's on the radar of our editors for the morning of June 15 ...

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An emergency response worker is seen at the site of a crude oil spill at a Trans Mountain Pipeline pump station in Abbotsford, on Sunday, June 14, 2020. Trans Mountain estimates as much as 1,195 barrels of light crude spilled from the pipeline pumping station. While an investigation is ongoing, the Crown-owned company said in a statement the cause of the spill appears to be related to a fitting on a one-inch, or 2.5-centimetre, piece of pipe. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what's on the radar of our editors for the morning of June 15 ...

---

COVID-19 in Canada ...

OTTAWA  A key body the Liberals vowed to create to help resolve systemic inequities in Canada's housing system remains unstaffed, with delays in appointments chalked up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The national housing council and a related advocate were created, on paper, as part of the Liberal government's decade-long housing strategy that was put into law last year.

Applications closed in mid-October but the positions hadn't been filled by the time the pandemic struck Canada in mid-March.

An online notice from early April says the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. still hopes to establish the council this year, but suggests a delay due to COVID-19.

The notice said the federal government was "focused on addressing this crisis" given the "uncertain and evolving circumstances related to COVID-19." The notice added that appointing the council "remains a priority for the government."

Two months later and with the backdrop of promises by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to address systemic racism and inequities in Canada, appointments have not been made.

Leilani Farha, global director of The Shift, a group that advocates for the right to housing, said the council and advocate could be playing a large role in how governments respond to the pandemic.

---

Also this ...

ABBOTSFORD, B.C.  Trans Mountain estimates as much as 1,195 barrels, or 190,000 litres, of light crude spilled from its pipeline pumping station in Abbotsford, B.C.

While an investigation is ongoing, the Crown-owned company said in a statement the cause of the spill appears to be related to a fitting on a one-inch, or 2.5-centimetre, piece of pipe.

The statement said the pipeline restarted on Sunday afternoon, after all safety protocols were completed.

It said the spill was fully contained on Trans Mountain property, the free-standing oil has been recovered and it will be disposed of at an approved facility.

Sumas First Nation Chief Dalton Silver said the spill happened just south of a cultural and burial ground of great significance to their people.

He said in a statement Sunday that it's the fourth time in 15 years that there has been a spill from the pipeline on their land.

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In Case You Missed It ...

MIRAMICHI, N.B.  A former provincial ombudsman says the recent police shootings of two Indigenous people in New Brunswick have left him feeling distraught over the lack of police training on dealing with mental health issues, like those presented by the two victims.

"I've long felt that police are not really well equipped to deal with these kind of cases," Bernard Richard said in an interview Sunday.

"In most provinces (including New Brunswick), there are crisis intervention units that are available around the clock to respond to these types of situations."

However, there has been no indication whether police sought the help of mental health experts before the deadly shootings in Edmundston and near Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation, west of Miramichi.

"That would be one of the first questions I would have to ask," said Richard, who served as the province's ombudsman from 2004 to 2011 and now advises six Mi'kmaq First Nations in New Brunswick on child protection issues.

"I was a bit stunned that, in both these cases, the primary response was police, and they felt it necessary to use lethal force."

And in both cases, police were called to deal with people who appeared to be suffering from mental health challenges, Richard said.

---

What we're watching in the U.S. ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. Senate Republicans are poised to unveil an extensive package of policing changes that includes new restrictions on police choke holds and other practices as President Donald Trump signals his support following the mass demonstrations over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole African American Republican in the Senate, has been crafting the package set to roll out Wednesday. While it doesn't go as far as a sweeping Democratic bill heading toward a House vote, the emerging GOP legislation shares similar provisions as Congress rushes to respond.

With Trump set to announce executive actions on law enforcement as soon as Tuesday, the crush of activity shows how quickly police violence and racial prejudice are transforming national party priorities.

"I think we're going to get to a bill that actually becomes law," Scott said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." Scott said the choke hold, in particular, "is a policy whose time has come and gone."

The GOP package is one of the most extensive proposed overhauls to policing procedures yet from Republicans, who have long aligned with Trump's "law and order" approach but are suddenly confronted with a groundswell of public unrest in cities large and small over police violence.

Over the weekend, the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks during a routine stop by a white officer in Atlanta led to an outcry, more protests and the police chief's swift ouster.

---

What we're watching in the elsewhere...

SEOUL  South Korea's president called on North Korea to stop raising animosities and return to talks, saying Monday the rivals must not reverse the peace deals that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reached during 2018 summits.

President Moon Jae-in's efforts to defuse rising animosities came after North Korea threatened Friday to destroy an inter-Korean liaison office located in North Korea and take unspecified military steps against South Korea.

If North Korean were to take such actions it would be a serious setback to Moon's efforts toward Korean reconciliation and finding a negotiated solution to the North Korean nuclear issue.

"North Korea must not sever communications and create tensions to turn back the clock to a past confrontational period," Moon said during a meeting with top presidential advisers, according to his office. "We must not push back the pledges of peace that Chairman Kim Jong Un and I made."

Moon, a liberal who met Kim three times in 2018, was a driving force behind now-dormant diplomatic efforts between Pyongyang and Washington, including the summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in Singapore in 2018.

During two of the three inter-Korean summits, Moon and Kim agreed to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and take other steps to boost exchanges and dial down military tensions. Those summits initially helped to improve their countries' ties significantly, before their relations became strained again after the breakdown of a second Kim-Trump summit in Vietnam in early 2019.

---

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - June 15, 2020) - ICEsoft Technologies Canada Corp. (CSE: ISFT) (the "Company" or "ICEsoft") is pleased to announce its plans for a non-brokered private placement of up to 1,155,781 common shares in the capital of the Company (each a "Common Share"), in association with the conversion of CAD $40,000.00 in secured convertible debt principal and CAD $16,577.02 in associated accrued interest and CAD $110,046.38 in unsecured junior debt principal and CAD $6,743.83 in associated accrued interest (collectively the "Converting Debt").

The Converting Debt is held by ICEsoft President and CEO, Mr. Brian McKinney of 30 Royal Oak Plaza NW, Calgary Alberta. The Converting Debt shall convert at a rate of CAD $0.15 / Common Share. Total aggregate insider participation is expected not to exceed CAD$173,367.23.

The Private Placement is anticipated to close on or about June 15, 2020.

The securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a hold period under applicable securities laws, which will expire four months plus one day from the date of the applicable closing of the Private Placement. Closing of the Private Placement is subject to receipt of all necessary corporate and regulatory approvals, including approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About ICEsoft Technologies Canada Corp.

ICEsoft Technologies Canada Corp. is a software-as-a-service ("SaaS") company. ICEsoft's current software, which is available as freeware with a pay to use version, is used by some 150,000 developers, 20,000 companies, and some 400 paying customers. ICEsoft's newest product Voyent Alert! is an affordable Community Alerting Service specifically designed to meet the needs of small to medium sized municipalities, regional governments and campuses. The flexible platform serves the dual purpose of alerting and advising residents during a critical incident as well as providing targeted day-to-day communication services.

Story continues

For more information, please contact:

Brian McKinney

President and Chief Executive Officer

Tel: 4036633320

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

NEITHER THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE NOR ITS MARKET REGULATOR (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE THIS NEWS RELEASE, REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE CANADIAN LAWS, IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWS SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES, AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL SECURITIES AND THE COMPANY IS NOT SOLICITING AN OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN. THESE SECURITIES HAVE NOT BEEN REGISTERED UNDER THE 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 U.S. PERSONS UNLESS REGISTERED OR EXEMPT THEREFROM.

Forward-Looking Information Advisory

Certain statements made herein may contain forward-looking statements or information within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities laws. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans","expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates",or "believes" or the negatives thereof or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements or information herein include, but are not limited, to statements or information with respect to the completion of the Private Placement, expected insider participation, payment of fees to Cormark timing of closing andthe use of proceeds of the Private Placement.

Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forwardlooking statements or information. We have made certain assumptions about the forward-looking statements and information, including receipt of all approvals required for the Private Placement and the use of proceeds of the Private Placement. Although our management believes that the assumptions made and the expectations represented by such statements or information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements or information will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, should one or more of the risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements or information. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include the ability to receive the approvals necessary to complete the Private Placement, ability to complete the Private Placement and those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Listing Statement dated May 27, 2019 and in the Company's most recent Management Discussion and Analysis filed on SEDAR.

There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements or information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements or information contained herein. Except as required by law, we do not expect to update forwardlooking statements and information continually as conditions change and you are referred to the full discussion of the Company's business contained in the Company's reports filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada.

All forward looking statements and information contained in this News Release are qualified by this cautionary statement..



NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57898
Gwyneth Paltrow has been staying in great shape during lockdown from the coronavirus pandemic.

And last week the 47-year-old Emma star told the July/August 2020 issue of Shape magazine what exercises she is doing now that she cannot hit a gym.

'I try to do exercises every day for my back and neck because of all the Zoom calls I'm on,' began the Oscar-winning beauty who also runs GOOP. 'My husband, Brad, and I take a walk at least three or four times a week.'

Still slender: Gwyneth Paltrow has been staying in great shape during lockdown from the coronavirus pandemic. And last week the 47-year-old Emma star told the July/August 2020 issue of Shape magazine what exercises she is doing now that she cannot hit a gym

Her one and only: 'I try to do exercises every day for my back and neck because of all the Zoom calls I'm on,' began the Oscar-winning beauty who also runs GOOP. 'My husband, Brad, and I take a walk at least three or four times a week'

The star also added she hits her computer for help.

'And I've been doing a lot of online classes: Tracy Anderson, the Class by Taryn Toomey, Bulldog Yoga, CorePower Yoga.'

But the blonde admitted that she does not have her routine down yet. 'I haven't fully figured that out,' says Paltrow.

The mother of two - she has Apple and Moses with Chris Martin - has said she has generally slowed down.

'Now I feel different, letting my body go to sleep and wake up in its natural rhythm, having my kids around all the time, eating meals together and having meaningful conversations,' said the cookbook author.

Good girl: The star also added she hits her computer for help. 'And I've been doing a lot of online classes: Tracy Anderson, the Class by Taryn Toomey, Bulldog Yoga, CorePower Yoga.'

Always in great shape: Here she is seen on the beach in 2019

'We linger at the table; our dinners are an hour and a half long. My heart feels fuller, and my mind feels calmer in that respect.'

Before COVID-19 she was moving too fast.

'I had not realized how much the normal pace of life was overburdening our bodies, our minds, and our nervous systems,' the Oscar-winning actress shared. 'As we have been forced into the confines of our own homes, that has brought up a lot of emotional distress for some, and for others it has been very peaceful. In my case, I have experienced both.

'I was constantly trying to pack in wellness moments, but I wasn't really decompressing until the weekend or when I went on vacation,' she said.

A work in progress: But the blonde admitted that she does not have her routine down yet. 'I haven't fully figured that out,' says Paltrow

The GOOP founder went on to say, 'I have started to settle down in my brain and body. It has given me new perspective about how much I will take on going forward.'

Her stunning cover

Her next project is season 2 of The Politician on Netflix, premieres on June 19.

She asked Shape if she could interview an expert on the subject: Nadine Burke Harris, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.P., California's first surgeon general.

'I was intrigued that we'd never had a surgeon general in California,' says Paltrow.

'When I saw that Dr. Burke Harris was a female African American M.D. and had spent her career helping children who'd grown up in adverse childhoods in disenfranchised neighborhoods, I watched her TED Talk. And I sort of fell in love with her.'

Gwyneth told Nadine: 'I've always felt like the bad things that happen to us become a footnote. We're not taught how to process trauma at the time. It's amazing to see how you've created science around adverse childhood experiences and conditions like heart health and asthma. What was the reaction of your colleagues?'

Harris said: 'An interesting thing that's inextricably a part of my story is how race plays a role. Because when you're the only Black person in your science class of 1,000 at [the University of California] Berkeley, there's a sense of a different level of excellence that's required.

Now is different: The Iron Man actress added, 'But I wasn't really decompressing until the weekend or when I went on vacation'

'My message always includes a blend of real life, like, 'Hey, this is how it shows up. This is what it looks and feels like.' But I don't mess around when it comes to the science. When people say, 'that's not really scientific,' I say, 'Actually, individuals with higher doses of adversity have down-regulated beta-agonist receptor in their pulmonary endothelial.'

Paltrow asked, 'What happens in the body when we experience stress?'

The doctor said: 'The fight-or-flight response is activated. The amygdala in our brain triggers the fear response, and that prompts the release of stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline increases your blood pressure and your blood sugar, and it shunts blood to your big muscles so they work harder and more efficiently. Cortisol is more of a long-term stress hormone. It raises your blood pressure and your blood sugar as well, and it can make you slightly more aggressive.'

Sunkissed lady: Next up for the actress is season two of the show The Politician

Gwyneth also said she was upset by how much domestic violence is happening during the pandemic.

'It's so upsetting and heartbreaking. I feel like we need to fix the systemic problems that cause trans-generational harm from parent to child. And this is what's so beautiful about your work,' said the Emma star.

Harris added, 'That's exactly what my work is focused on, even more so with COVID-19. Because if you have an adult who had adverse childhood experiences, they may have an overactive stress response.

'Then throw a stressor like a pandemic into the mix, and you have folks who are at greater risk of not only negative health outcomes but also negative mental and behavioral outcomes. And everyone is stressed right now. That means difficulty with impulse control, executive functioning, and for some, anger and frustration.'
Former UK Prime Minister Winston Churchills photograph briefly disappeared from the Google over the weekend taking the netizens by surprise. A blank box appeared in place of Churchills photo when people searched World War 2 Leaders on the search engine.

People on Internet were unable to comprehend as to what had happened and why Churchill photo wasnt visible in the results. The glitch was fixed after people took to social media to outrage over it.

Yep, happened for me too when I searched World War II leaders. Got pictures of 53 leaders but no pic of Churchill. https://t.co/kpIKhCedHq pic.twitter.com/YD51EthxV5  Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) June 14, 2020

This triggered curiosity particularly owing to the rising momentum of Black Lives Matter protests as people across the globe are tearing down the statues of racist and colonial leaders. In fact, the London administration last week boarded up statues of historical figures, including that of Churchill, ahead of anti-racism protests in the city. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was "shameful" that the monument to Britain's wartime leader was at risk of attack. Anti-racism protesters, who have taken to the streets following the death of African American George Floyd, have put statues at the forefront of their challenge to Britain's imperialist past. Meanwhile, Google on Sunday said that it would probe as to why Churchills photograph had disappeared from search results. It cited automatic update that caused the disappearance of World War 2 leaders photo from its search. The search engine giant also apologised for the glitch. Were aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google. We apologise for any concern. This was not purposeful & will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear. it said in a tweet.

Were aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google. We apologise for any concern. This was not purposeful & will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear.  Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 14, 2020

However, Google faced swift backlash on social media soon after Winstons photo stopped appearing in search results.

Google has removed Churchills photo out of all the previous Prime Ministers photos. Utterly disturbing that such a company can have that power to censor our British history. Shame on you @Google pic.twitter.com/aRC0PY93qs  Adam Brooks (@EssexPR) June 13, 2020

Had to check this for myself...according to Google all pics of Churchill have been wiped from the earth... pic.twitter.com/WEgupeUub1  Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) June 14, 2020

Winston Churchill's picture has been removed from the Google list of UK Prime Ministers. This is going to far, the agenda blatant, our history is being erased before our very eyes, we need to fight back. pic.twitter.com/CALQNnh7TE  Darren of Plymouth  (@DarrenPlymouth) June 14, 2020
A Fulton County, Georgia, medical examiner has ruled Rayshard Brooks death outside an Atlanta fast food restaurant Friday night a homicide.

Brooks was cooperating with police officers during a sobriety test, but then struggled with the officers as they tried to arrest him and ran. The medical examiners autopsy found that Brooks was shot in the back twice and died from organ damage and blood loss.

Officer Garrett Rolfe has been fired, and the Atlanta police chief, Erika Shields, has resigned. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on administrative leave.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNN his office will decide later this week what kind of charges, if any, Rolfe would face.

"(Brooks) did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable," Howard said. "If that shot was fired for some reason other than to save that officer's life or prevent injury to him or others, then that shooting is not justified under the law," he added.

Shields resigned Saturday even as the investigation into the shooting had barely begun.

I have served alongside some of the finest men and women in the Atlanta Police Department. Out of a deep and abiding love for this city and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief.  It is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve."

Police dash and body cam video shows the 27-year-old Brooks asleep in his car and blocking the drive-thru lane of a Wendys fast-food restaurant.

It took a few moments for Officer Rolfe to waken Brooks. The video shows the two having a cordial conversation, but Brooks didnt seem to know what city he was in or what restaurant. At one point, Brooks told the officer I know youre just doing your job.

When the second officer, Devin Brosnan, arrived, Brooks failed a breathalyzer, was handcuffed and appeared to resist arrest.

The officers wrestled him to the ground, demanded he stop fighting and warned Brooks that they would use a Taser on him. Brooks apparently grabbed one of the officers Tasers and pointed it at the police as he tried to run off. Rolfe opened fire and three shots could be heard as Brooks falls to the ground.

Fellow officers attempted to comfort Rolfe as an emergency team tended to Brooks, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The shooting set off a day of protests in Atlanta Saturday that started peacefully but turned violent. Demonstrators tried to block an interstate highway and the Wendys restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned to the ground.

Thirty-six people were arrested, and police are looking for the suspect who started the fire.

A lawyer for the Brooks family, L. Chris Stewart, says he wants Rolfe to be charged with an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder.

You can't say a Taser is a nonlethal weapon  but when an African American grabs it and runs with it, now it's some kind of deadly, lethal weapon that calls for you to unload on somebody, Stewart said.

But the only African American member of the U.S. Senate, South Carolinas Tim Scott, says more questions need to be asked.

The question is when the suspect turned to fire the Taser, what should the officer have done? Scott told CBSs Face the Nation, adding that what happened in Atlanta is certainly a far less clear one than the ones that we saw with George Floyd and several other ones around the country.

The death of Brooks comes as the entire country is grappling with the issue of how police treat African American men suspected of relatively minor crimes.

Many Americans regard last months death of George Floyd in Minneapolis as the last straw in several such incidents.

Floyd died after an officer held his knee on Floyds neck when Floyd was suspected of trying to spend a counterfeit $20 bill. His death set off protest marches in nearly every major U.S. city and in several European capitals.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Media OutReach - 15 June 2020 - As Malaysia slowly emerges from the enforced lockdown period and into the recovery phase of the Movement Control Order (MCO), many Malaysians will be hoping that the economy will start to recover, too. However, recent data from the Department of Statistics indicates unfavourable conditions for the country's labour force in the coming months, especially for unemployment and retrenchment.

To boost opportunities for workers, Melewar Learning Resources, an education and training provider under the Melewar Group, has launched an employability programme, My EMPRO (Malaysia Employability Programme), which aims to equip Malaysians with sufficient skillsets, knowledge and education -- particularly around English proficiency, communication skills and soft skills -- to improve job prospects for either initial or re-employment. The programme is targeted at three groups: retrenched workers, unemployed graduates, and school leavers.

Melewar Learning Resources is a Master Licensee of Direct English programmes in partnership with the Linguaphone Group (UK), and a regional leader in English language learning and training.

Tunku Dato' Seri (Dr) Iskandar bin Tunku Abdullah, Group Executive Chairman of the Melewar Group, is enthusiastic about the initiative: "even back in 2011, we envisioned the importance of the English language in contributing towards human capital development when we partnered with Linguaphone Group. Today, that contribution is more important than ever as we get Malaysians back to work following the coronavirus crisis".

From an employer's perspective, poor English proficiency among workers and fresh graduates has been a common cause for concern. The 2019 Jobstreet Job Outlook Report found that 64% of Malaysian employers felt that poor command of English is one of the main reasons why fresh graduates are unemployed. A 2016 Global English and Work Study by the University of Cambridge found that 60% of Malaysian workers do not have the necessary English proficiency skills to take full advantage of their jobs. Another industry survey by Malaysia Employers Federation in 2016 indicated that 90% of Malaysian employers say that fresh graduates need to improve their English proficiency.

Story continues

Dato' Satinah Syed Saleh, Director of Melewar Learning Resources, shares her excitement on the potential of My EMPRO in assisting jobseekers in their pursuit for successful employment: "Whether upskilling retrenched workers to re-join the labour force, or preparing fresh graduates and school leavers for the world of work, we are excited about the possibilities and potential of the My EMPRO programme to offer new opportunities for job-seekers".

My EMPRO is a 7-day course, featuring both general language learning as well as target-specific modules, taken from the Business English (Direct English, UK) course. The programme has 49 total contact hours and also covers other practical skills such as resume writing, interviewing, and social media for work purposes. Upon completion, participants are awarded the Certificate of Achievement (Direct English, UK), Certificate of Completion and the globally recognised Test Report from Linguaskill -- The English Proficiency Certification Test by Cambridge Assessment English.

ABOUT MELEWAR LEARNING RESOURCES

The Melewar Group had envisioned the importance of the English language in contributing towards human capital development in emerging and developing economies when, through its company English Learning Group Limited (ELG), it entered into a partnership with the Linguaphone Group, UK -- a global leader in language training to establish a network of Direct English programme providers in a number of South East Asian and South Asian countries in 2011.

This partnership has brought significant impact to the English language training and learning sector not only in Malaysia but also in the region. With the potential for further growth and success, Melewar Learning Resources Sdn Bhd has since been established to assume the setting-up and coordination of Direct English centres in Malaysia and Singapore.

In Malaysia and around the region, Melewar Learning Resources is now at the forefront delivering high quality English language training and other training programmes to cater to the needs of a wide spectrum of learners. Thousands of learners: from university students to young professionals to corporate executives, from absolute beginners to advanced learners have benefited from the trainings conducted by Melewar Learning Resources.
ST. LOUIS  St. Alexius Hospital, a south St. Louis institution that has been bought multiple times in the past decade, is moving closer to yet another sale.

The trustee running the 190-bed hospital that serves a low-income community has been working with an investment banker to market the hospitals assets, according to court documents. Last week, a hedge fund made a $47 million bid for the company that runs the hospital.

Employees are nervous about private, for-profit buyers.

The neighborhood needs somebody that actually cares about the patients and not profits, said Rebecca Haase, who works in the emergency department. She wants the hospital to be purchased by a reputable nonprofit.

Haase said employees are exhausted by the hospitals ongoing struggles. The air conditioning system that cools the emergency department, she said Thursday, has been broken for weeks.

Carol Fox, a principal at the financial advisory firm GlassRatner Advisory and Capital Group and the trustee for Americores case, said in an email Friday that the parts for the repair were ordered and paid for on June 4, and they will be installed promptly when they arrive. She added on Monday that the unit was serviced over the weekend and was operating.

A sale in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case can happen very quickly, said Daniel Doyle, a lawyer at Lashly & Baer in St. Louis. The entire process can be as short as 40 to 60 days, if it is carried out efficiently. But the trustee could also extend the process if she decides that waiting longer would lead to better bids.

Any number of groups could bid, from a healthcare chain or a group of doctors, to a for-profit group of investors who see a need for healthcare in that neighborhood, he said.

It could be any number of people who see some sort of opportunity for that facility, Doyle said.

St. Alexius Hospital has struggled financially, with negative profit margins in 2015, 2016 and 2017, according to the most recent data from the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition. It serves a high percentage of uninsured patients, and patients on Medicare and Medicaid.

In 2018 the hospitals former owner, Florida-based Promise Healthcare Group, filed for bankruptcy. In January 2019, the bankruptcy court authorized a sale of Promises ownership stake to hospital management company Americore Holdings.

In December, less than a year after buying the hospital, Americore Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.

The court approved the trustee, Fox, to take over running Americore.

Foxs attorneys wrote in a court filing that a sale will benefit all of the hospitals stakeholders and ensure that St. Alexius Hospital continues to serve as a healthcare provider in the local community.

Fox said June 29 will be the deadline for bids.

Last week, one of Americores lenders  The Third Friday Total Return Fund  submitted a proposal to consolidate Americores assets and take ownership, according to court documents. The proposed purchase price includes $22 million in cash and a $25 million credit bid.

Third Fridays principal officer, Michael Lewitt, declined to comment on the proposal. Bradley Shraiberg, an attorney representing The Third Friday Total Return Fund in the case, said the company feels that the plan will allow all of the Americore hospitals, including St. Alexius, to reorganize and put proper management in place.

The main hospital is located at 3933 South Broadway. The hospital also has the Lutheran School of Nursing, located near the intersection of Miami Street and Jefferson Avenue.

The Missouri State Board of Nursing considered shutting down the nursing school after a review found high employee turnover, financial issues and outdated facilities. The schools pass rate on the National Council Licensure Examination had dipped to 79% in 2015 and 78% in 2016, below the 80% rate required for registered professional nursing schools.

The issue was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Raishelle Willis, the schools interim program administrator.

Willis said she hopes that a new buyer will offer a stronger financial foundation for the school. If the hospital was bought by a nonprofit, Willis said, the hospital and the school would become eligible for different types of grants and aid.

The school has been unable to admit new students since January. Willis is hoping that the moratorium on admissions will be lifted in August so the school can admit a new cohort.

We all just hope and pray that we get someone that has good intentions for the hospital and for the nursing school. Someone that is financially stable, Willis said.

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The Supreme Court on Monday slammed auto dealers and Federation of Automobile Dealers' Association (FADA) for flouting norms pertaining to the sales and registration of Bharat Stage-IV compliant vehicles. The court also directed the road ministry and the auto dealers' association to submit details of such vehicles sold after March 27 by Friday.

A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra said that its March 27 order on relaxations for sale and registration of BS-IV vehicles has been apparently flouted by automobile dealers. The court further stated that while it allowed sale and registration of 1.05 lakh BS-IV vehicles, it now seems 2.55 lakh vehicles have been sold.

The Bharat Stage emission norms are standards instituted by the government to regulate output of air pollutants from motor vehicles. The BS-IV norms have been enforced across the country since April, 2017.

Also Read: 'Help or we will die': Auto dealers send SOS to PM Modi amid coronavirus lockdown

On March 27, the apex court had relaxed the March 31 deadline for winding up sales and registrations of BS IV compliant vehicles across the country amid the 21-day nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19. It had allowed sale and registration of only 10 per cent of the unsold inventory of BS IV vehicles during that 10-day period after the lockdown, which was enforced since March 24.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta had disposed of two applications filed by FADA and Honda India seeking modification of apex court's order of October 24, 2018, by which it had fixed the March 31, 2020 deadline for sale and registration of BS IV compliant vehicles.

Also Read: India moves to BS-VI norms amid coronavirus lockdown

The apex court had on October 24, 2018 said no Bharat Stage-IV vehicle would be sold or registered in India from April 1, 2020. In 2016, the Centre had announced that India would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020. The court had passed the order in 2018 while deciding the issue of whether BS-IV compliant vehicles should be permitted to be sold in India after March 31, 2020.

By Chitranjan Kumar
Years pass between large-scale protests against police violence and racial injustices, but many of these protesters' messages remain the same.
PORTLAND, Ore.  A Portland man who accidentally shot himself in the groin but told police he was robbed and shot by a homeless man at a bus stop was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison.

Marcus Anthony Davis Jr., 35, wasnt allowed to have a gun because he had been convicted of prior felonies and was on federal supervision for a drug offense at the time of the Jan. 8 shooting.

U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut sentenced Davis to five years and nine months in custody after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The prison term was a joint recommendation by the prosecutor and defense lawyer as part of a negotiated plea deal.

The prosecutor said Davis made a dangerous choice to pick up a gun when he clearly knew he was prohibited from carrying guns.

"He paid a significant price with his physical injuries and the sentence hes now going to receive,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Burkhart said.

"I dont think anything the court can say or the government can say can top the injuries he gave to himself to stop him from possessing firearms. Hopefully this is the last time we will see Mr. Davis.''

Davis was treated at a local hospital on Jan. 8.

Records showed that a single bullet traveled through the top of his penis, through his right testicle, into his upper inner right thigh and exited through his lower right thigh, according to Burkhart.

Davis claimed he had been robbed and shot by a white homeless man at a TriMet stop at Southeast Powell Boulevard and 82nd Avenue, but he couldnt share any details about the suspect, according to the prosecutor.

Police went to the location and found no evidence of a shooting or robbery.

The gun was accidentally discharged as Marcus Anthony Davis Jr. had the loaded firearm in his front waistband, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Burkhart told the court.

Officers later recovered a gun in the car of Davis girlfriend that was the one believed to have been involved in the shooting. The gun was hidden in Davis bloody clothes, according to the prosecutor.

It was a .40-caliber handgun loaded with six bullets. The gun had blood on it and a shell casing was stuck in the slide. They also discovered a gunshot hole in a black pair of sweatpants.

The gun had been reported stolen in 2018.

Based on the injuries, physical evidence, the bullets trajectory, the jammed shell casing and hole in Davis pants, police determined the injuries were self-inflicted.

The evidence gathered showed the injuries were consistent with an accidental discharge occurring while the defendant had the gun in a pocket or waistband, Burkhart wrote in a sentencing memo.

Davis, described by the prosecutor in court papers as a member of the Rolling 60s gang, was on federal supervision from a 2016 conviction for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He has prior convictions in Multnomah County for assault and attempted murder.

Mr. Davis has taken stock of his future, Assistant Federal Defender Francesca Freccero told the judge. He resolved his new charges very quickly."

Davis, appearing by video for the hearing, told the court hes committed to being a "better role model and example'' for his two children.

Marcus Anthony Davis, 35, was sentenced Monday after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and admitted he had violated his federal supervision.

In January, U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta granted Davis about 10 hours of temporary release so he could be present for the birth of his daughter.

Freccero said her client was deeply grateful for the temporary release. Immergut said she was impressed that Davis returned to custody on his own.

"I have to keep them and myself safe,'' Davis said of his children.

The judge imposed a two-year sentence for his supervised release violation, to run concurrently with his sentence for being felon in possession of a firearm.

"My hope, Mr. Davis, being a parent does turn your life around,'' Immergut said. "Im banking on you to make a change.''
michael barbaro

Donald, the pandemic feels different in the U.S. than it did two weeks ago, three weeks ago, a month ago. It feels  and these are highly qualitative words, and I know youre probably rolling your eyes  it feels less desperate, and it feels a little less urgent. And Im not even quite sure why that is. So what do you make of that? I mean, does that mean weve gotten complacent?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Yeah. I think some parts of the country are not afraid yet. They see this as something that happened to the other. To urban New Yorkers, to blacks and Hispanics in the big cities far away. But I also see that, even in New York, its a combination of, Well, we survived the first wave and it didnt get me. Or, The people I knew who got it, survived. And, Boy, am I bored, and frustrated in lockdown. And, I want my job back. And, I want my hanging out with my friends back.

michael barbaro

Mm-hm.

donald g. mcneil jr.

And I think we have gotten used to the idea of death  of absorbing a lot of death.

michael barbaro

From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

[music]

michael barbaro

Today, my colleague, Donald G. McNeil Jr., returns with an update on the state of the coronavirus, and what weve learned about the virus six months into the pandemic.

[music]

Its Monday, June 15. Donald, the last time that we spoke to you was in mid-April, when the death toll from the coronavirus in the U.S. was nearing 40,000. And various states, at that time, were beginning the process of opening back up. Slowly, but opening back up. Where is the pandemic now?

donald g. mcneil jr.

OK. Well, there are 113,000 dead in the U.S., the last time I looked. Basically, every state has reopened to some extent in different ways, with different phases. In about 21 of those states, cases are going up, as was feared. Hospitalizations are going up. So I would see this as a very worrying situation.

michael barbaro

Well, given that  I mean, in terms of how the United States is managing the virus and its spread, are we doing better now than we were many, many weeks ago, when we spoke? Or are we doing worse?

donald g. mcneil jr.

I think were doing considerably worse in that now we know what the danger is, and yet were still getting an enormous number of infections. Now, the places that were hit hard in the first wave  which is New York in the Northeast, but also places far away from that, like New Orleans, Seattle and California  they are mostly coming down. They got seriously scared. They had intense lockdowns that lasted relatively long. They are wearing masks, they are practicing social distancing. And cases are coming down in those states. In states where there wasnt a big first wave of the virus, where they were more upset by the economic effects of the lockdown  lots of people out of work, lots of people suffering, lots of people frustrated in their houses  those are were the cases, in general, are going up. Places like Texas, places like North and South Carolina, places like Arizona. And thats dangerous because theyre coming out of lockdown, and opening society, and encouraging people to be in greater contact with each other at a time when the cases are already on the upswing. So youre not flattening the curve. Youre allowing the curve to spike up again.

michael barbaro

So is it fair to say, at this point in the pandemic, the cities and the states that were hardest hit at the beginning seem to have enforced the strongest lockdowns, and therefore the virus infection rates seem to be going down there. Whereas states that werent hit as hard at the beginning, and perhaps didnt respond as forcefully, are now experiencing an uptick in infections instead?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Yes. In general, thats correct.

michael barbaro

So, Donald, now that we have lived with this virus for about half a year, I want to turn to the things that we have learned about it, and that we didnt know when we first started talking to you. And I wonder if we can start with transmission.

donald g. mcneil jr.

OK.

michael barbaro

I remember you telling me, back in February, the main modes of transmission are droplets. You cough or sneeze near me, I catch the virus from you. The other was the virus living on surfaces. And I would touch that surface, I might touch my eye, I would get infected. What have we learned about the actual levels of transmission from these two? Did one of them turn out to be a much bigger vector than the other?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Those two are still vectors, although surfaces may be a little less important than we feared. But the really important thing weve learned is that there is aerosol transmission. Little tiny, tiny droplets, the kind that hang in the air inside a room for hours, can hold enough virus to transmit this disease. And we emit those droplets not just through coughing or sneezing, but just through talking, especially loud talking, through laughing, through singing. You know, were unaware of this fine mist of droplets that comes out of our mouth at all times. Youre only sort of aware of it if youre in the front row at a theater and you realize the actresses are spitting on you. But, actually, if you and I were to sit three or four feet apart, and were talking, and joking, and laughing, we would actually be spreading a cloud of a very fine mist of droplets at each other. So were learning that transmission, particularly in indoor spaces where there is no wind, is probably a major spreader of this because everybodys vulnerable to it.

michael barbaro

OK. So staying on this idea of what weve learned  asymptomatic carriers. What have we learned about people who may not even know they have the virus? They dont show any symptoms, but they may be spreading it. How much has our understanding changed about how important asymptomatic carriers are in this pandemic?

donald g. mcneil jr.

It has changed a lot. The initial estimates out of China were that there were very few asymptomatic carriers  like, 1 percent. That has turned out to probably be quite wrong. The C.D.C estimates that the number of asymptomatic carriers is about one third.

michael barbaro

Wow.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Right. And that changes a lot about how we handle this disease.

michael barbaro

What do you mean?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Well, OK  so temperature checks probably arent very useful because 

michael barbaro

Youre asymptomatic.

donald g. mcneil jr.

 one of the symptoms you feel is fever. If you dont feel fever, you can still spread the disease. So youre going to have to detect the disease through testing rather than through saying, hey, weve got a lot of sick people around here. Because one third of your people are not going to be sick, but theyre still spreading the disease. So if you wanted to open up your office to people  like I said, fever checks wouldnt work. Youd actually have to test everybody, youd have to test them frequently, and youd have to be able to get the results back very quickly. Because you dont want somebody whos asymptomatic working in the office for two or three days while youre waiting for the results of the test to come back.

michael barbaro

And how possible is that kind of testing? I mean, what youre proposing is every workplace having some sort of mandatory testing system to weed out people who may have the virus, and especially those who may be asymptomatically infected.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Yeah. I mean, theres a lot of thinking about testing. In the beginning of it, when we only had, you know, 10,000, 20,000 tests, we were only testing people who were sick, who had symptoms. It was very hard to get a test. Now, weve reached a point where were on track to get to a million a day, I think. When youve reach that level, you can use testing for surveillance. That is, you sort of look around the country and say, where do we have hot spots? Now, probably, to do that right, we need, like, 5 million tests a day, thats what a Harvard study suggested. And it means testing in New York City, but also testing in Winnemucca, Nev., and every place else. Because you want to know wherever the virus is popping up, you want to spot it, and you want to test not just the sick but a broad spectrum of people. You know, maybe one day, you test all the third graders in the county, or something like that. Another day, you test everybody in nursing homes, and things like that. Now, thats at the 5 million test level. If you go up there was a Nobel Prize-winning economist at N.Y.U. who proposed that, if we had 30 million tests a day, we could literally use this as a way to completely reopen the economy. And that would mean everybody whos in contact with other people in an office would have to be tested every day, and wed need rapid results. And it would cost, he figured, about 1.5 billion dollars per week. But he said, you know what, thats a whole lot less than lockdown has been costing us. We could completely reopen the economy if we could test 30 million people a day. And wed save money by having the old economy going again. Now, the logistics of doing that is wildly unimaginable. The proposal from the N.Y.U. economist has been put in the crazy ideas box for now. And yet, people who have really studied this stuff think of it as, wow  crazy, but good. So what are you going to do? You know, it depends on what people are willing to commit money to do.

michael barbaro

OK. And for those who have had the virus, and have recovered  of which there are hundreds of thousands of people  what are we learning about immunity?

donald g. mcneil jr.

We know that people have antibodies. We know they have IgG antibodies, which are the ones that appear later, and usually  usually  indicate immunity. So we know that people turn up positive on antibody tests. And top experts are saying, we think we can assume theyre immune to the disease, but were not sure yet. Because we dont really know what level of antibodies you need in order to be immune. So nobody is saying, OK, thats it, youve passed one test, youre immune. Thats what people would like to think. All sorts of people ask me, should I get an antibody test? And I keep saying, sure, if its going to make you feel better, get an antibody test. But dont assume youre immune just because youve got a positive. You probably are, but we dont know that yet. Its still too early.

michael barbaro

So recalling our very last conversation, in which we talked about the idea that there might be two classes of people in this pandemic  the immune and the susceptible. We are not yet at a place of our understanding of the coronavirus where anyone is truly considered immune, and therefore sort of invulnerable and able to wander the world differently than the rest of us.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Scientifically speaking, no, were not there yet. But practically speaking, a lot of people  even doctors I know  whove been infected and have recovered are behaving as if theyre immune. Theyre reasonably confident that theyre immune. I mean, they shouldnt let down their guard, A, because its not smart and, B, because it sets a bad example. But they probably worry a whole lot less than they did before. Now, we do not know how long immunity lasts  and thats going to be another great, big question. And we cant know that until some months, or years, have passed because this virus has only been around since November. So, probably, the immunity is going to last a few years. But we dont know that yet either. These are all unknowns. Immunology is complicated.

michael barbaro

And given everything you just said  under the current circumstances, where will the United States be by the fall when it comes to death?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Im very worried about the fall for several reasons  which I can go into if you want to.

michael barbaro

Please.

donald g. mcneil jr.

OK. We know the virus transmits indoors. And when it gets cold, people arent going to be able to eat outdoors again. Theyre going to want to get into warm spaces. So the possibility for transmission is really high. We also know, not just from 1918, but from  Michael Osterholm at Minnesota has looked at eight influenza epidemic since, I think, its 1763. And in each one of them, no matter what time of year the virus first hit, winter, spring, summer, or fall, it faded, and then came back several months later in a much more lethal wave. And that was the phenomenon in 1918. There was a brief, but scary, breakout in Haskell County, Kansas, in army camps and stuff. And then, the disease mostly disappeared in the United States  seems to have mostly gone overseas and hit the troops in the trenches in Europe. And then, in the fall and winter, it came roaring back. And a third of the deaths took place in a little tiny period between September and December, 1918. So Im very worried that something like that could happen this fall and winter, and that were not mentally prepared for it.

michael barbaro

So the infection and death rate for the next few months quite likely will not be representative of what this virus is capable of. And the fall and the winter may be very, very different and much scarier.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Thats possible. And thats what a lot of top public health people are worried about  that we will have transmission. I mean, were still seeing 20,000 new infections per day. And were at about a little under 1,000 new deaths per day. And thats been consistent for a couple of months now.

michael barbaro

And this might be a strange question  but is that a good number, or a bad number?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Thats a terrible number. I mean, 1,000 deaths a day from this? 20,000 new infections a day? I mean, thats not an epidemic you have under control. You know, we dont talk about it that way, but thats a rapidly spreading epidemic. Now, we may become complacent about that, we may sort of accept that as the new norm. And that may lull us into a sense of complacency when fall arrives. And thats a worry. And thats why Im so eager for treatment or vaccine to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

michael barbaro

And where are we in that vaccine process now?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Well, theres 150 or so vaccine candidates being looked at around the world. In the United States, we have designated different candidates for warp speed. Meaning, testing the vaccines, but simultaneously paying companies to build factories to make them so that all the ones that turn out to be both safe and effective will have, hopefully, millions of doses ready to roll immediately. Because one of the big roadblocks to getting vaccine is not just testing the vaccine and making sure it works, but then suddenly producing 300 to 600 million of doses for this country, depending on if you need one or two doses, and seven-plus billion doses for the world. So you want to get a head start on the production as much as you can. So were doing that with a number of candidates. And weve never seen anything like this before.

michael barbaro

Does all that encourage you to think that we might have a vaccine much faster than weve ever had a vaccine before? I remember you telling me that the fastest weve ever really had a vaccine in production and available to people, from start to finish, is close to four years.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Yes that was the mumps vaccine, and the record is four years. But I think were doing things very, very differently this time. Weve got multiple candidates. And some of those vaccines  if what were being told is correct  are actually going into production even as we speak.

michael barbaro

Wow.

donald g. mcneil jr.

So thats very encouraging to me. But things go wrong when you test vaccines. You get surprises that you didnt expect. And so lets hope multiple things dont go wrong.

[music]

michael barbaro

Well be right back. So, Donald, weve talked about the risk of many different activities in this moment of the pandemic. We have not talked about something that has been going on for several weeks now in the United States, which are large-scale protests and demonstrations since the police killing of George Floyd. And I wonder what your sense is about the risk involved in those protests of spreading the virus?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Well, I dont worry when there are crowds, outdoors, spaced 6 feet apart and wearing masks. I do worry when people are jammed up against each other, either confronting a police line, or on a dais while theyre making speeches, or something like that. I worry about anybody whos pushed into the back of a police van. I worry about people whove been in cells together. I worry about the funeral ceremonies, which all took place indoors. You know, these are all potential super-spreader situations.

michael barbaro

And have we yet seen any uptick in transmission from the U.S.? I know it may take several weeks for us to determine that, but have we?

donald g. mcneil jr.

I mean, if we have spikes here, its going to be very hard to say, oh, that spike came from the protest. Because how do you do contact tracing of everybody else who was in a crowd of 10,000 people with you? You know, its easy to do contact tracing on your family and your co-workers at the office. Its very hard to do contact tracing on a whole crowd of strangers. So we wont necessarily know, when people fall ill, that they got infected at the protest march. I mean, each individual person may say, well, the only time Ive been in association with a lot of other people was when I was at a protest march. But for some epidemiologist to put all those stories together as those people turn up in hospitals, or as their grandmothers turn up in hospitals, is going to be very difficult. So we may not see the signal we would expect to see, if that makes sense.

michael barbaro

Im curious, you know, reflecting on everything that you have just told us, Im curious how you are operating now in the world knowing everything you now know, six months into this pandemic? What your routines are, what your precautions are. Are you taking the subway? Are you always wearing a mask? Are you going to any kind of office?

donald g. mcneil jr.

Im working from home. Im working a lot. Im lucky in that Im not out of work. But my girlfriend, and a lot of other people I know who are out of work, are pent-up, and frustrated, and angry. And some are really worried about their income. I always wear a mask when I am indoors with other people, as in the grocery store or pharmacy. I avoid going indoors with other people, basically, at all costs. If I were riding the subway, I would definitely wear a mask. Im not riding the subway. Im very worried about whats going to happen in New York City when a lot of people have to go back to work. Because right now, weve got near gridlock on the F.D.R. Drive and stuff sometimes, because a lot more people are in cars because theyre afraid to go on the subway. But at some point, were going to have to go back on the subway. And, frankly, I think the M.T.A. ought to take the windows off the buses and subways. I know its crazy  and I know its going to be cold in winter, and hot and un-air conditioned in summer. But thats the way to get breeze blowing through enclosed spaces. And if we want to go back into our offices, were going to have to find a way to have breeze blowing through enclosed spaces so that the virus does not hang in the air. Were going to have to rethink our workplaces, or stay out of them, because theyre going to be too dangerous until we have a vaccine.

michael barbaro

Do you intend to return to an office anytime soon?

donald g. mcneil jr.

No. Im 66 years old. You know, Im reasonably healthy, but Im also in a higher-risk group. So I think me being in an office with a lot of members of The Daily team breathing on the microphones, or whatever, would be dangerous for me right now. So no. And Im sad that, you know, I have not seen my granddaughter, except on video. She was born on the 4th.

michael barbaro

Mazel  mazel tov!

donald g. mcneil jr.

Thank you. Thank you. And I intend not to hold her until Im vaccinated or immune. My daughter  the apple did not fall far from the tree, and shes just as determined as I am that we should play by the rules on that, I think. So its sad. But Im taking the long view. This increases the chances that both my granddaughter and I will make it to her high school graduation. So thats the plan. And if I have to sacrifice a little bit of seeing her right now, you know, OK, Ill make that sacrifice for both of us.

michael barbaro

Well, we wish both of you the best. And were really grateful for your time. And thank you very much.

donald g. mcneil jr.

Thank you for letting me on again.

[music]

michael barbaro

The Times reports that, as infections rise in 22 American states, officials there are facing a choice: Accept the increase as the cost of reopening their economies, or slow the reopening process and even impose new restrictions, however unpopular they may be. In an interview published on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House advisor on the pandemic, said that waves of infections would likely spike and fall for months, and that he did not expect the U.S. to return to normal for another year.

[music]

Well be right back.

michael barbaro

Heres what else you need to know today. The chief of police in Atlanta resigned over the weekend, after an officer she oversees killed a 27-year-old black man, Rayshard Brooks. Before he was shot to death, Brooks had failed a sobriety test, run from the police and grabbed a taser from an arresting officer  a sequence of events that Atlantas mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, said did not warrant his death.

keisha lance bottoms While there may be debate as to whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe that there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should. I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force.

michael barbaro

Bottoms immediately ordered that the officer who had killed Brooks be fired. And the Times reports that protests over the death of George Floyd have been held in more than 2,000 U.S. cities and towns across all 50 states over the past three weeks. The protests, The Times found, defied traditional demographic fault lines, occurring not just in Democratic strongholds, but in rural, conservative and majority white communities.

archived recording (protest) 1 Black lives! archived recording (protest) 2 Matter! archived recording (protest) 1 Black lives! archived recording (protest) 2 Matter! archived recording (protest) 1 Black lives!

michael barbaro

The protests continued over the weekend, from Brooklyn to the small town of Haughton, La.

archived recording (speaker) When I say black lives, yall say matter. Black lives! archived recording (crowd) Matter! archived recording (speaker) Black Lives! archived recording (crowd) Matter!

michael barbaro
But Mr Shoebridge said he had 'no regrets' about attending both rallies

A Greens MP is being condemned by Aboriginal groups for risking a 'Ruby Princess-like' outbreak of COVID-19 by visiting a remote indigenous community just 48 hours after attending a 20,000-strong protest.

David Shoebridge marched in Sydney's Black Lives Matter rally on June 6, when protesters ignored health advice to stage a march.

Just two days later, Mr Shoebridge took part in an anti-logging rally with the Gumbaynggirr community in the Nambucca State Forest - almost 500km away.

Indigenous leader Warren Mundine slammed Mr Shoebridge, and said a virus outbreak in their vulnerable community would 'make the Ruby Princess look like a Sunday afternoon picnic'.

David Shoebridge (centre) marched in Sydney's rally on Saturday June 6, where thousands of protesters ignored health advice to call for an end to racism and Aboriginal deaths in custody

Two days later, on Monday, Mr Shoebridge (centre) took part in an anti-logging rally with the Gumbaynggirr community in the Nambucca State Forest - almost 500km away

20,000 people flooded the streets of Sydney on Saturday (above) , 30,000 in Brisbane and 10,000 in Melbourne as part of Black Lives Matter rallies, despite COVID-19 restrictions remaining in place

The Ruby Princess cruise ship became Australia's largest single source of COVID-19 infection after 2,700 passengers were allowed to disembark in Sydney on March 19 without adequate health screenings.

The cruise ship has been linked to at least 22 deaths across the country.

Mr Mundine said Mr Shoebridge has shown 'contempt'.

'He, as an elected official, has really let the side down,' Mr Mundine told the Daily Telegraph.

'We all know from Closing the Gap that Aboriginals live shorter lives and that we have chronic illnesses in our community that are multiple times worse than the wider Australian community.'

But Mr Shoebridge, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, said he had 'no regrets' about attending the anti-logging rally so soon after the protest.

The Ruby Princess became Australia's largest single source of COVID-19 infection after 2,700 passengers were allowed to disembark in Sydney on March 19 without adequate health screenings

'Precautions and social distancing were undertaken at the forest gathering and I have no regrets working with the local Aboriginal and the non-indigenous community to save Nambucca State Forest,' he said.

Scott Morrison warned activists against attending the June 6 protest, saying it would put community health and safety at risk.

'One of our greatest fears at the start of this COVID crisis  has been our concern for the potential impact on indigenous communities,' the prime minister said.

The Sydney protest was given the green light at the eleventh hour, after organisers launched a successful appeal against the New South Wales Supreme Court's decision of a day earlier which had ruled the protest illegal.

The Court of Criminal Appeal's decision outraged many, who claimed it was insulting to the millions of Australians who have personally sacrificed by isolating themselves in line with government directives to stem the spread of coronavirus.

The protests, which took part in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide, were in solidarity with African-American George Floyd, who died after being arrested in Minneapolis by a police officer who knelt on his neck for eight minutes.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann labelled protesters 'self-indulgent' and 'selfish'for attending the events.

Labor's indigenous Australians spokeswoman Linda Burney described Senator Cormann's comments as 'tone deaf' and 'politically expedient'.
This transmission electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 -- also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19 -- isolated from a patient in the US. Virus particles are shown emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. The spikes on the outer edge of the virus particles give coronaviruses their name, crown-like. Credit: NIAID-RML

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has created a database of COVID-19 in vitro diagnostic devices and test methods

As part of EU efforts to provide guidance on the use of coronavirus tests, the JRC has created a database of COVID-19 in vitro diagnostic devices and test methods that gathers information on available tests in one place.

Testing for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus or past exposure to it is an essential aspect of combatting the COVID-19 outbreak, and for efficient strategies for gradually lifting the confinement measures.

At the moment, a large number of tests already exist in the EU, and new tests are being developed.

Different tests are suitable in different contexts. Information on their performance, i.e. how well they work to achieve their intended purpose, is important for making choices, for instance as part of national strategies.

As a follow up action to the Guidelines on in vitro diagnostic tests and their performance, the JRC has developed a database, which gathers in a single place information on the currently available tests.

The database contains publicly available information on devices, including elements of performance, and a collation of relevant scientific literature.

It does not include manufacturer technical documentation, which is not publicly available.

About COVID-19 tests

The COVID-19 tests fall broadly into two categories: those detecting the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and those detecting past exposure to the virus, i.e. the body's immune response to the infection.

If a person is infected, nasal or throat swabs can be used to reveal the presence of the virus.

This can be done by either focussing on the specific genetic material of the virus (in a so-called RT-PCR or reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) or on certain specific molecules that are present on the surface of the virus (referred to as antigen tests).

The tests detecting past exposure to the virusalso called serological testsreveal the presence of antibodies in the blood of an infected person, produced in response to the virus.

Antibody tests are abundant on the EU market, but their effectiveness for the diagnosis of COVID-19 is limited because antibodies become detectable in the patient's blood only several days after infection.

Nevertheless, antibody tests could become essential for performing large-scale population surveys and for guiding de-escalation strategies when the pandemic is under control.

Ensuring good test performance

EU law (Directive 98/79/EC) stipulates that CE-marked devices must be manufactured so that they are suitable for the purpose intended by the manufacturer, taking account the generally acknowledged state of the art.

The manufacturer is responsible for evaluating the performance of the tests before placing the device on the market. This must be reflected in the technical documentation of the device.

National competent authorities are responsible for the surveillance of devices on the market, and for taking appropriate action against devices that do not conform with the legislation.

Given the rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the performance of the device in the clinical practice may differ from the initial performance study carried out by the manufacturer.

Therefore, the European Commission recommends carrying out additional validation of COVID-19 tests.

Validation refers to confirmation that the test achieves the performance levels specified by the manufacturer.

Such studies are carried out by laboratories in the EU Member States.

The JRC has recently developed a positive control material for the validation of RT-PCR tests, which is available to laboratories in Europe.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

Provided by European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Ed Westwick seems to have news related to his Gossip Girl days.

The 32-year-old English actor shared cryptic social media posts on Sunday teasing some kind of announcement the following day.

He sparked the interest of Gossip Girl fans by including 'xoxo,' a staple of the series' opening titles.

More to come: Ed Westwick, 32, shared a mysterious post to his social media accounts on Sunday that seemed to hint at Gossip Girl news; pictured in December

'Got a little something for you... Tomorrow 1pm.. Hint....xoxo,' he wrote.

His post also included a black box with 'xoxo' written in pink letters.

Though his post didn't give any indication of his announcement, he made it clear enough that it was Gossip Girl related.

The 'xoxo' (meaning 'hugs and kisses') was featured in the opening titles of each episode and narrated by Kristen Bell.

Hint hint: His cryptic post included the 'xoxo' that Gossip Girl narrator Kristen Bell said in the show's opening titles

Late last month, HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly revealed to Vulture that the reboot of Gossip Girl would be delayed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

'They hadnt even started production yet; they were in pre-production and ready to roll,' Reilly said at the time.

Prior to the delay, fans were expecting the series to be released later in 2020.

The new series will be set eight years after the original ended and will explore how social media surveillance and New York City have changed.

Time to wait: HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly announced a Gossip Girl reboot was delayed until 2021; Leighton Meester and Westwick in a publicity still for Gossip Girl

The reboot cast Doctor Sleep's Emily Alyn Lind as the main character Audrey, with Kristen Bell returning to narrate as Gossip Girl.

The cast also includes Eli Brown, Adam Chanler-Berat, Thomas Doherty, Jonathan Fernandez, Tavi Gevinson, Jason Gotay, Zion Moreno and Whitney Peak.

Though Bell will be returning in the narration role, Ed said it was unlikely he or any of the other original cast members would return for the reboot in an interview with Hollywood News in May.

Changes: The new series will take place eight years after the original ended and explores changes in social media and New York City; Chace Crawford, Blake Lively and Westwick in a still from Gossip Girl

Asked if he would like to make an appearance, the actor mused: 'Absolutely I would, but I dont know that they want us!

'I dont know anything about this reboot except from what you guys have read... Im not sure how our characters would fit in,' he continued.

'Im so lucky to have known those people, to have played that role and to have been in New York City and doing that. Are you kidding me, Id go back in a heartbeat, but I dont think its going to happen.'
We look forward to resolving the remaining project permits, she said. For decades, more than 50 other pipelines have safely crossed the Trail without disturbing its public use. . . . The pipeline will be installed hundreds of feet below the surface. . . . There will be no construction activity on or near the Trail itself.
Paul Hollywood is reportedly planning to expand his business empire.

The Great British Bake Off judge, 54, has trademarked his name to allow him to open restaurants, bars and even his own range of kitchenware, The Sun reports.

Paul, who has an estimated 10million net worth, has already released cookery books and ready to bake rolls in supermarkets.

Rolling in dough: Paul Hollywood is reportedly planning to expand his business empire

The celebrity baker is said to have taken out trademarks which will allow him to launch his own cookery schools, branded clothing and kitchen essentials.

Paul has also ensured his name can't be used by other brands in European countries.

MailOnline has contacted Paul's representatives for comment.

Plans: The Great British Bake Off judge, 54, has trademarked his name to allow him to open restaurants, bars and even his own range of kitchenware (pictured in 2018)

Paul has been relaxing at his 800,000 farmhouse in Kent after Bake Off filming was delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The baker has transformed his ex girlfriend Summer Monteys-Fullam's horse stable in the grounds of his country house into his own bar, installing a hatch that pulls down to become a table for drinks and plush lighting.

Channel 4 was due to start taping the 11th series in spring, with Matt Lucas replacing Sandi Toksvig as the show's new co-host alongside Noel Fielding.

Paul has been relaxing at his 800,000 farmhouse in Kent after Bake Off filming was delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis (pictured with Prue Leith, Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig)

A Channel 4 spokesperson confirmed the show would resume filming once it was 'safe to proceed'.

Paul's new girlfriend - pub landlady Melissa Spalding, 36 - is self-isolating with him in his farmhouse, just eight months after splitting from Summer.

Friends say she immediately accepted his invitation to relocate from the nearby Chequers pub in the village of Smarden where she lived, amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

Paul bought the Grade II-listed house last year for him and Summer to live in.

A friend told The Mail on Sunday: 'Paul and Melissa got together soon after his split from Summer and they are really happy together. Actually its looking like this one could very well last for Paul.'
Amber Heard appeared to a suffer a setback as she defends herself in a $50 million defamation suit from ex Johnny Depp, as a chunk of her legal team withdrew from the case.

Among those who departed from defending Heard, 34, in the suit included Roberta Kaplan, one of the founders of the Time's Up initiative aimed at ending sexual misconduct in show business.

Heard lawyers Kaplan, John Quinn, Julie Fink, Davida Brook were listed in court paperwork as seeking to leave the case in a move 'endorsed' by the actress, The Blast reported Monday, citing court docs.

The latest: Amber Heard, 34, appeared to a suffer a setback as she defends herself in a $50 million defamation suit from ex Johnny Depp, 57, as a chunk of her legal team withdrew from the case. She was snapped in Italy last year

The Austin, Texas-born beauty, according to court docs, has 'retained the services of another trial counsel licensed in Virginia, Elaine Bredehoft,' as the case is proceeding there.

Heard 'does not object to the withdrawal of withdrawing counsel and has endorsed the proposed order granting leave to withdraw,' according to court docs, the outlet reported.

The parting appeared to be amicable, as Heard's previous firm of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LL told The Blast that they've 'been proud to serve as Amber's counsel,' intimating that their departure was a byproduct of moving the case to Virginia amid revised arrangements in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown and gradual reopening.

'In the strange and unexpected circumstances of today's world, as travel and logistics have become more costly in light of the pandemic, we understand the decision to move the case to local, Virginia-based trial counsel,' the law firm said. 'We believe Amber and we believe in Amber.'

Individualist: Depp was seen in a bold ensemble earlier this year in London

Doomed: Heard and Depp were snapped in January of 2016 in LA, months before their split

Reacting to the personnel switch, Depp's attorney Adam Waldman told The Blast that 'for years, #TimesUp and others inexplicably hitched their wagons to Amber Heard's abuse hoax.

'Ms. Heard's lawyers, one of whom co-founded the #TimesUp Legal Defense Fund, have now apparently unhitched from Ms Heard's long-disproven frauds. We intend to discover why.'

Heard, who played the role of Mera in the 2018 blockbuster Aquaman is slated to return to the franchise for its 2022 sequel, is being probed by Depp's legal team as to how much money of her settlement with the eccentric A-lister she donated to ACLU and Children's Hospital Los Angeles, as stipulated.

It's been a difficult 2020 for Heard, as her mother Paige Heard died last month.

'I am heartbroken and devastated beyond belief at the loss of my mom, Paige Heard,' she said on social media. 'She left us too early, clasping onto the memory of her beautiful, gentle soul. She will be missed from the very depths of our hearts forever.'

The actress, who's been an outspoken advocate on a number of gender and social issues, including women's rights and gender inequality, is currently dating cinematographer Bianca Butti.
IndiGo aims to operate 70 per cent of its pre-Covid-19 flights by the end of this year, its CEO Ronojoy Dutta on Monday said, adding that resuming international passenger services in July would be a "good idea". The Centre should allow the airlines to operate 50 per cent of their pre-Covid domestic flights now, Dutta told PTI in an interview, while expressing hope that the limits imposed on airfares would be removed in August as promised by the government.

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Digital Editor
Chennai, June 15 : With coronavirus infection going up in Chennai, as well as Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami on Monday announced full lockdown in these areas from June 19 to 30.

In a statement issued here, Palaniswami said full lockdown will be implemented in Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu subject to some relaxations to essential/emergency services.

On the exemptions, he said that while hospitals, diagnostic labs, pharmacies, ambulance and hearse vans are allowed to function, plying of taxis, autorickshaws, private vehicles will be banned except for medical emergencies.

Central and state government offices will function with 33 per cent staff strength. However, staffers living in containment zone are exempted from attendance.

Banks can function with 33 per cent staff only on June 29 and 30 but ATMs and cash refilling vans will function as usual.

Ration shops will function from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., but those in containment zones will remain closed and doorstep delivery of items will be made.

Vegetable, grocery, petrol outlets will function between 6 a.m. and 2 p.m., while mobile vegetable, fruits shops will be allowed between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Hotels and restaurants are allowed only parcel sales between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. Online players are allowed to accept orders and make doorstep deliveries.

Amma Canteens and community kitchens will function, and NGOs will provide relief service with government permission.

Media and judiciary are allowed to function.

Contruction work where the workers are staying at the site are allowed.

RTPCR tests will be done of factory workers and for the 12 days - June 19 to June 30 -they will have to stay inside the factory premises or near the factory. Workers will not be allowed to travel to their factory from Chennai Metropolitan area. However, continuous process industries and factories making essential items can function with adequate safety measures.

Trucks carrying goods and essential items can ply without any hindrance.

E-pass will be issued for those wanting to travel out of Chennai for the purpose of attending weddings, or funerals on submission of proof.

For inbound and outbound trains/planes, the existing procedures will continue.

According to Palaniswami, none of the above relaxations on June 21 and 28 (Sundays) when full lockdown will be implemented.

The Chief Minister also announced a financial assistance of Rs 1,000 for those having rice only ration card and for members of welfare boards.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Kurdish Officials Fear Looming US Sanctions on Syria Could Hinder IS Fight

By Nisan Ahmado June 14, 2020

Looming U.S. legislation that imposes stringent sanctions on the Syrian government has raised concerns among the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with Kurdish officials warning that including northeast Syria region in the sanctions could hinder their fight against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which takes effect June 17, sanctions the Syrian government over human rights abuses and targets companies working with the regime and its military, construction, energy and engineering sectors. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has called it "economic terrorism."

Sinam Mohamad, the SDF representative in the U.S., told VOA that authorities in northeast Syria fear the sanctions could impact their economy, deepening the impoverishment of civilians already struggling to recover from IS destruction.

"As Caesar sanctions are about to go into effect, the status of northeastern Syria must be taken into consideration especially when these sanctions might affect the battle to fight IS," Mohamad told VOA.

Mohamad said SDF was unsure if the region, known by locals as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, will be protected from the consequences of the crippling sanctions, especially as it uses the Syrian currency, Lira.

She said Kurdish officials hope Washington in its sanctions act makes it clear that their area will remain open to commercial transactions with other countries and international organizations providing aid to rebuild infrastructure in their region.

The SDF has been assured by the U.S. deputy special envoy to the anti-IS global coalition William Roebuck, according to Mohamad. The assurance, Roebuck added, was "a positive stand. But it's still unclear what are the procedures that will be put in place to exclude this region from the sanctions."

US stance

A U.S. State Department spokesperson told VOA that the sanctions seek to prevent the Syrian regime from "abusing the international financial system and global supply chain to continue brutalizing the Syrian people."

The official said the U.S. will provide exemptions for humanitarian aid to ensure civilians are not harmed by the sanctions.

"As the sanctions under the Caesar Act enter into force, the United States will remain in close coordination with our partners, the humanitarian community, and civil society groups, and we will continue our support to help meet humanitarian needs and create the kind of stability and security necessary for a better future for the Syrian people," the spokesperson told VOA.

The Caesar Act passed the U.S. Senate later last year in a bipartisan effort and as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020. It is named after a pseudonym used by a Syrian military police forensic photographer based in Damascus. The photographer defected from the Syrian regime in 2013 and smuggled out of Syria about 55,000 photographs documenting systematic torture of prisoners between 2011 and 2013 by the Syrian regime security inside detention facilities.

Kurdish officials in a May statement warned that the sanctions, if applied to the northeastern region, could negatively impact their efforts to go after IS remnants and maintain security and stability.

"IS danger could return to Syria and the world, and measures must be taken to support the effort to fight IS in our areas," the statement read. "We will make all necessary efforts to mitigate the effect of the sanctions on our areas as we will work to limit its negative consequences," the statement said.

Deteriorating economy

Some Syria experts say the approaching U.S. sanctions have already worsened Syria's fragile economy with the Syrian currency hitting an all-time low, standing Sunday at $0.002 USD. Prices have been rising as Syrians across the country took to the streets recently to protest deteriorating living conditions.

To face the possible consequences on the northeast, Kurdish authorities have called on farmers in the region to sell their crops to the local administration and banned exporting it to the areas under the Syrian government.

However, some experts charge that Caesar Act's overall effect on the local economy will be limited. The sanctions, they say, will deal a blow to the al-Assad's regime for its alleged war crimes as well as its main backers Russia and Iran. Similarly, the act could discourage countries such United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and China to reestablish relations with the Syrian government.

"Caesar Act is quite targeted in terms of its secondary sanctions, that is specific to the companies contributing to the construction efforts to petroleum and to aircrafts and other things to do with to the military, so it shouldn't have quite a negative effect on the people as a whole," Genevieve Zingg, a legal fellow at the Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC), told VOA.

Zingg said that the U.S. humanitarian exemptions ensure Syria will have free access to medical and humanitarian supplies, especially as the war-torn country remains vulnerable to a coronavirus outbreak.

The sanctions, she said, will not achieve justice for crimes committed during the Syrian war. However, "they are very important as a deterrent mechanism to ensure that we are not normalizing relations with a regime and its allies that perpetrated horrible war crimes and violations of international law throughout this conflict."

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and millions have been displaced. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has documented during the war more than 16,000 deaths from torture, including some 125 children.

VOA's State Department correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this story.

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Hanoi is often scorching hot at midday when Nguyen Phuong Ha is waiting for her lunch with her co-workers in a crowded restaurant.

A man orders food on his phone with the Utop app.  Photo courtesy of Utop

Sitting in the heat for the usual wait of more than 20 minutes for her food would normally be unbearable, but now Ha can have food on her table in less than five minutes.

Before arriving at the restaurant, the 23-year-old woman ordered her lunch with Utop, an application which helps people order food for dining in before they arrive at the restaurant.

Ha works in crowded Cau Giay District, which is filled with office buildings where thousands of people go out for lunch at the same time.

"Time spent waiting for food could be more than 30 minutes somedays when the restaurants are too busy with customers at the same time.

"I have only more than an hour for lunch and a nap. Waiting that long for food really makes me tired in such hot weather," she told Viet Nam News.

As most of the diners are young office workers, lunchtime is also time for them to hangout.

Nguyen Huy Hoang, 33, who works for an IT company in the same area told Viet Nam News: Having nice food and drink in a cool restaurant or cafe is something necessary for us.

Like Ha, Hoang and his friends have about one or two hours for lunch and don't want to waste time waiting for food in crowded canteens, food courts or restaurants.

Ordering food to my place is nice but it costs more, says Ha, adding, I dont like to spend as much on shipping fees as my meal and I still need to use a plastic container.

Smart eating

The concerns of people like Ha and Hoang may be a thing of the past soon due to Pham Nguyen Vu, founder and CEO of Utop, a technology firm offering an online-to-offline (O2O) solution, combining traditional and online retail methods with digital technology.

"A lot of O2O platforms offer home delivery but only few offer the in-home delivery solutions while demand for it is very high as most people still enjoy being served their meals in a traditional method," Vu says.

The firm launched a smart menu in May, which the CEO says aims to be a solution to minimise waiting time for ordering food and drinks, adding that Vietnam had avoided the risk of COVID-19 infections for a few weeks but its impact will continue.

In this case, Utops smart menu will become a tool to protect consumers, limiting crowds and cash use, which are believed to worsen the situation, he adds.

With the app, one can order food and drinks from a list of locations within a 5km radius, or users can scan a QR code on the table or the front desk at food courts and canteens to save time.

No cash is needed as they pay for everything with Utop points, which they can also use to buy other services connected with the firm.

As for businesses, the app gives them access to technological advances they dont need to build themselves to attract customers.

With Utops technology, owners of restaurants and food courts can understand their customers behaviour on the online platform.

According to the CEO, restaurants will benefit from the firms promotional activities, adding: "It is difficult for small shops or food courts to have enough capital and personnel to develop technology solutions.

Restaurants, cafes etc can use Utop for free and get access to AI, QR, e-wallet, analyse data and other advantaged technology, though Utop takes a percentage from every order placed on the app after the first three months of use.

After running the app for a week, Nguyen Thi Huyen, owner of Coffee Huyen, said the app helped her reach and serve more customers especially who prefer technology.

"As soon as they order, information about their drink is on the POS (point of sale) screen. After several orders, I can identify who the customer is, a patron or a stranger, predict the time the customer will arrive and also their taste to better prepare drinks and serve them better.

Established in HCM City a year ago, Utop has more than 200,000 users and more than 800 partner stores, restaurants, food courts and canteens in Hanoi and HCM City.

According to Nguyen Hai Tan, the firms chief marketing officer, its monthly active user growth rate is consistently above 40 per cent.

Believing that the smart menu will attract investors to the firms technology, Tan tells VNS: We plan to build Utop as the leading O2O platform in Vietnam. VNS

Minh Huong

E-wallet companies spend big money to beat rivals Bleeding money is the strategy that all the three biggest players  MoMo, Moca and ZaloPay  have been using to gain part of e-wallet market share.
Plans to fast-track two dams in NSW have prompted calls for Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley to apply biodiversity protection laws to help save ecosystems that would be threatened by the projects.

The appeals come as Prime Minister Scott Morrison said environmental approvals would be slashed to 30 days for major projects  down from about 90 days until this year  to help spur a post-pandemic economic revival.

Water is released down the spillway at Wyangala Dam in 2016. Credit:Wolter Peeters

The two dam proposals  to lift the Wyangala Dam wall on the Lachlan River by 10 metres and build a new weir on the Macquarie River  could have devastating impacts on major wetlands in those two valleys, say separate submissions to Minister Ley from two academics.

"If ever there was a project that should not be fast-tracked, this is it," Jamie Pittock, a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, said of the proposed $650 million Wyangala plan, with 471,000 hectares of floodplain wetland likely to be "significantly desiccated".
As the world sits in limbo, waiting for the pandemic to run its course, we can't help but wonder what the future will look like. For the youth of our country especially - future leaders who had to stall their studies, graduate online, and put job searching on hold, tomorrow holds a lot of uncertainty. According to the Guardian: "the 'corona class of 2020' was the most exposed age group to the likely unemployment surge caused by the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the digital age we live in offers numerous resources to give them a step up and provide this country's youth a solid chance they need to prepare themselves for an uncertain future.

Kalnisha Singh

Tip 1: Mind over matter

The Goalcast channel on YouTube, which will help you find your inspiration.



TED Talks can assist in delving deeper into interesting topics and exploring alternative perspectives.



The website www.awakenthegreatnesswithin.com offers free downloadable resources.



Future Proof Academy offers a free course on What is your Moon shot?.

Tip 2: Crack the code

Tip 3: Work at your own pace in your own space

Tip 4: Chart a course

Edx.org



Khanacademy.org



Coursera.org

Tip 5: Bursaries without burdens

With June being Youth Month, there needs to be a focus on South Africas youth and, more importantly, their future. Many media outlets are painting a very bleak picture of the impact Covid-19 has already had on this vulnerable generation, yet focusing on the problem will not lead to a solution. The important takeout lesson for 2020 is that if the pandemic has had an impact on everything, how we do everything should be relooked: how we look after our environment, the way in which we engage with our fellow human beings, and, yes  how we educate ourselves.This is why Ive compiled five tips on how you can sharpen your skillset, without needing to spend a single cent.First of all, get your mindset right. Yes, the future looks uncertain and turbulent. But you are still in control of your future. Find your determination and will. Start by setting goals and systems that will help you to achieve your objectives. Understand why you want what you want. Useful resources include:Prepare yourself for the new world of work. Do some research and identify which skills are in high demand, are fitting for remote work, and cannot be automated easily.The programmes listed below are all working towards solving two complex challenges: youth unemployment and the shortage of software skills in South Africa:Before you start, remember to confirm which careers are headed for a dead end. A few examples include travel agent, telephone switchboard operator, postal worker, newspaper reporter, door-to-door salesperson, and more. A simple Google search will provide you with these project trends to ensure you avoid careers without bright futures in the digital age.Dont forget about the fast-rising Gig Economy. Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers, and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients. There are multiple freelancing platforms available, such as Giraffe Linkdpro and Fiverr If you have your heart set on obtaining a certificate or degree, consider taking advantage of the many free online education resources on the market today, such as:These platforms offer leading-edge educational resources and access to some of the greatest minds in education in the world  for free.Bursaries are offered by institutions and companies to make it affordable for people to study who would otherwise not be able to do so. A useful resource is zabursaries.co.za for a list of all bursaries in South Africa for 2020  2021. Also look at corporate foundation websites; there are several South African and international businesses that offer bursaries and scholarships.For post-graduate study, consider enquiring at the local offices of global institutions and embassies. There are several programmes that seek to invest in Africas next generation of leadership. A good website to start with is www.opportunitiesforafricans.com Key skills of the future are resilience and adaptive learning. Work to adapt and overcome, find your niche and help rebuild our economy.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 15:07:37|Editor: huaxia

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JAKARTA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- An Indonesian Air Force fighter jet went down in the country's western province of Riau on Monday, and no casualty was reported, the Air Force's Spokesman First Marshal Fajar Adriyanto said.

An engine failure was allegedly blamed for the accident, an investigation would be carried out to find more details about the cause of the mishap, the spokesman added.

"When the jet was about to land there was a problem on its engine. It was predicted as an engine failure," the spokesman told Xinhua by phone.

The accident occurred when the fighter jet and two other aircraft were having flight exercises in Kampar district.

"The pilot was safe, but several houses and the aircraft were damaged," said Adriyanto, citing that the Air Force will compensate for the damages. Enditem
Jaime Robles has been tested twice for COVID-19: results negative.

He is a true hero, working in the ICU of a major Toronto Hospital where his day includes helping nurses change patients positions, changing diapers and cleaning dirty bums every time a patient has a BM, moving patients in and out of bed or preparing them for the cold room if their struggles have ended. Jaime is a personal support worker (PSW).

The health care workers at the bottom of the pile really carry the weight of the system in a lot of cases and in a lot of ways. In long term care the PSWs have most of the work to do with very few doctors involved and not many nurses. The PSWs are the first to see that wounds, the dreaded bed sores, are opening up. They feed the patients, dress them and keep them clean. Ideally, they are like friends who know them, who ask about their families and remember how they like to be washed and what their favourite foods are. When they are frail, they help them sit up in their wheelchairs and hold the spoon at just the right angle to help the food go down and not cause choking.

The Ontario Ministry of Health estimates there are 90,000 people working in the field. They can start at about $16 an hour and may make the princely sum of $20, perhaps a few dollars more.

Right now, in the midst of the pandemic, PSWs are hard to come by and this is making things tough for the system. Can you blame them for opting to stay home rather than risk their health and the health of their families? Not only is the work physically tough, some patients and families are abusive.

Jaime is an example of a PSW whos doing OK. Hes working in the intensive care unit at North York General where he has regular hours and an allowance in lieu of benefits. Here, his skilled careful work is respected. He works about 30 hours a week.

Until recently, to make ends meet, he also worked at a long-term-care home. He told me that in LTC he would have at least 10 patients and be expected to get them up, washed (dirty bums and all) dressed and ready for breakfast in as little as an hour and he was always hearing from above that he was too slow.

Jaime came to Canada in 2005 from Mexico, wanting to explore things here and perhaps make a better life for himself. I always wanted to be a nurse, he says. Being a PSW gave me a chance to see if nursing was a good career for me, and try it out. This was one of the best choices I made in my life.

Since the P in PSW stands for personal, lets get personal. Jaime is in his early 40s and loves good food, maybe laced with jalapeno peppers and including peameal bacon. He has a great network of friends and although winter is his least favourite season, he applied for a position in Whitehorse and was ready to give it a shot. Happily, he travels back to Mexico at least once a year to hit the beach and see his parents and siblings.

I know how hard his job is first hand from being a caregiver myself, looking after my husband Gerry, who had Lewy Body Dementia, at home for about seven years. I will always remember Jaime arriving during the Thanksgiving weekend, a time when its touch and go having PSWs to help. Jaime stepped in cheerfully showering Gerry, and choosing a flashy pink T-shirt and navy sweat pants as holiday attire. Even on that first day, he volunteered to stay past the hour he was getting paid for, telling us that he didnt have any plans for a while so why not help?

At the time Jaime worked for an agency that provided PSWs to people in the community. He might have had 15 or 30 hours a week and usually was assigned to about 15 different clients. That meant travelling from home to home on the TTC through all types of weather and to all types of situations and clients.

Support? Personal support workers support the client/patient and also in our case, the family (me!). About a month after Gerry died, Jaime called and took me out for breakfast  weve enjoyed scrambled eggs every few weeks ever since. But not now, due to the perils of COVID-19.

Im hoping for breakfast together again soon. Meanwhile I have a deep and strong respect for these women and men. I hope that some day, they will receive the remuneration they deserve and the respect that goes with it.
Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Academic and Students Affairs, University of Ghana, has appealed to students of the institution to keep visitors out of campus, as part of measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.



She said the institution has put in various arrangements to ensure the safety of students while they were on campus.

Prof Amfo made the appeal on Monday, when she toured the University as part of activities marking the reopening of the institution for its final year students.



The re-opening is in line with the Presidential Directive that all tertiary institutions in the country should resume from June 15, as part of the gradual easing of the COVID-19 restrictions.



The Pro-Vice Chancellor, who was accompanied by the Registrar, Mrs Mercy Haizel-Ashia, visited the Akuafo Hall, the Balme Library and the University of Ghana Business School.



The delegation was received at the Akuafo Hall jointly by Dr Gladys Nyarko Ansah, Hall Tutor and Dr Clement Appah, Hall Master, Akuafo Hall.



Prof Perpetua Dadzie, University of Ghana Librarian, conducted the delegation around the Balme Library.



Prof Amfo also appealed to the students to follow the University's directives as part of measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.



She said some of the directives for containing the disease might seem to be a bit harsh but they were for the good of the students; citing in particular the one banning students from receiving visitors.



"They (students) are here for a short while to complete their exams and so, they should comply with the directives. Keep the visitors out, so that they are all safe."



She said once the University took delivery of the personal protective equipment (PPE) promised by the government, they would be distributed to the students.



Prof Dadzie said the Library was practicising social distancing, hand washing with liquid soap and the use of sanitisers as part of measures to help contain the spread of COVID-19.



Dr Appah, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said to contain the COVID-19, the University Management has ensured that veronica buckets filled with water for washing of hands with soap and hand sanitisers were placed at all entry points of halls of residence, departments, faculties and colleges.



He said all their lectures and examinations were been conducted online.



In another development, the Ghana News Agency paid a similar visit to the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).



Mr Rami Baitie, Director, Corporate Affairs and Institutional Advancement, GIMPA, said in line with the Presidential Directive, the Institute has formally reopened for the final year students.



He, however, noted that their examinations, which was being conducted online, started about two weeks ago and that it would be brought to a close by the end of the month.

Source: GNA









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BAMAKO, Mali - Armed men killed at least 24 Malian soldiers in an ambush on an army patrol in the Segou region near Malis border with Mauritania, the army said Monday.

Malis Armed Forces said eight soldiers survived Sundays assault in Bouka Were, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Mauritanian border. The army said four vehicles were destroyed.

Malis security has deteriorated in the past few years.

Al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliated extremists are present and stage regular attacks. Since 2015, extremists have been moving from the arid north into the countrys more populated centre, stoking animosity and deadly violence between ethnic groups in the region.
In a sign that designer drugs are becoming more prevalent in Australia, synthetic cathinones - commonly known as 'bath salts' - have been detected in the nation's wastewater in the largest study of its kind in the country.

These emerging family of drugs mimic the effects of ecstasy and amphetamines are among 15 new psychoactive substances (NPS) found in a study of Australia's metropolitan and regional wastewaters over the past three years.

Led by the University of South Australia, the study revealed a range of new stimulants gaining popularity, with N-ethylpentylone and ethylone among the most prevalent.

UniSA analytical chemist Dr Richard Bade says drug seizure data and surveys show that synthetic cannabinoids are actually the most widely used NPS in Australia but are notoriously difficult to detect in wastewater, while cathinones are more easily traceable.

New psychoactive substances are increasingly found at music festivals, with users attracted to the 'novel effects' or experiences that these drugs provide.

"There is little information relating to potential side effects, but they can include paranoia, hallucinations and panic attacks and we know they have caused some deaths at music festivals, with people mistaking them for ecstasy," Dr Bade says.

Samples covering all states and territories were collected bi-monthly from October 2017-June 2018 and October 2019-February 2020.

The study demonstrated the 'wax and wane' cycles of many designer drugs, such as N-ethylpentylone, which was initially seen widely in South Australia, Victoria and the ACT but by 2019 was only found in Tasmania's wastewater.

"On the other hand, eutylone was not found in the first sampling period but was the most prevalent NPS in all states and territories in late 2019 and early 2020, except South Australia," Dr Bade says.

The legality of these drugs is complex in Australia, with different laws applying to NPS across the country. In South Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria, there is now a blanket ban on possessing or selling any substance that has a psychoactive effect other than alcohol, tobacco and food.

In other states and territories, specific NPS substances are banned and new ones are regularly added to the list. This means that a drug that was legal to sell or possess today, may be illegal tomorrow.

"Little is known about safe doses of NPS," Dr Bade says. "There are numerous reports that they have caused fatalities, but pharmacokinetic studies have not been done on these substances, so no-one knows for sure, which adds to the concern surrounding them."

This is the most comprehensive wastewater study of NPS ever undertaken in Australia, with up to 53 locations sampled every two months between October 2017 and February 2020, covering more than half of the population.

###
Major projects will have their approval times slashed under environmental laws in a federal bid to fast-track billions of dollars of building work in the recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed on Monday to cut approval times by 25 per cent by the end of this year in a "streamlining" of the federal process for mining expansions, roads, rail and other big projects.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced funding for new infrastructure projects and promised to cut down on environmental approval times. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Morrison said approval times under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act had been reduced from 90 days last year to 40 days this year and would fall to 30 days for major projects under his plan.

Blaming the laws for costing business $300 million from delays last year alone, Mr Morrison also signalled deals with state leaders at national cabinet to fast-track construction approval at state level.
Image He Xiangjian, the founder of the Midea appliance brand, in 2018. Credit... Imaginechina, via Associated Press

The Chinese police said on Monday that they had foiled what appeared to be a brazen kidnapping attempt aimed at one of Chinas richest men, a home-appliance tycoon whose company has ambitions to move from rice cookers and air-conditioners into the next-generation world of industrial robotics.

Strangers broke into a residence at the Royal Orchid Village, a high-end property in the southern Chinese city of Foshan owned by the appliance maker, Midea Group, and threatened the lives of the people inside, the local police said. The authorities were alerted to the break-in about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, they added, and rushed to the site.

By 5 a.m. on Monday, the police said, they had arrested five suspects. They said the victim, a man surnamed He, was safe.

The police did not provide a full name for the victim, but the Chinese media widely reported that he was He Xiangjian, the 77-year-old billionaire founder of Midea, one of the best-known brand names in China.
SCHAUMBURG, Ill., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As companies reopen offices and facilities after coronavirus closures, they face many new challenges as their employees return to the workplace. To help businesses manage these risks, Zurich North America Insurance today launched a new content series focused on transitioning back to the workplace.

On the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Hub, risk managers and other visitors can now find new podcasts, video presentations and articles that address many major concerns for businesses mapping out a strategy for transitioning back to the workplace, including tips on conducting a hazard analysis, cleaning strategies, addressing employee anxiety and improving cyber resilience. The hub offers the content in three formats so that visitors have options based on how they best like to receive information.

"Helping our customers understand and manage emerging and evolving risk is at the center of all that we do at Zurich," said Julie Bolton, Vice President, Casualty Risk Engineering. "Our risk engineers help Zurich customers identify and mitigate the risks they face on a normal day. The spread of COVID-19 is unprecedented in our life time and navigating the associated risks requires companies to take additional care to protect their employees and the public. As a company that cares about our customers and our communities, it means a lot to be able to supply specialized guidance more broadly through our resource hub."

As businesses begin to open facilities and return employees to office buildings, retail and service outlets, and manufacturing operations this new content is designed to help them navigate the challenges they face and plan their strategies for protecting their business, their employees and their communities.

The first wave features insights from Zurich's risk management team addressing the following topics:

Navigating a safe transition to the post-COVID-19 workplace  Dr. Nina McIlree , Vice President, Medical Management, Zurich North America

 Dr. , Vice President, Medical Management, Zurich North America Hazard analysis must be first step in returning to the workplace  Fred Myatt , Assistant Vice President  Casualty Technical Director, Zurich North America

 , Assistant Vice President  Casualty Technical Director, Zurich North America Face masks in the post-COVID-19 workplace: Who needs protection?  Julie Barbaro , Senior Risk Engineering Consultant with Zurich North America

 Senior Risk Engineering Consultant with Zurich North America Disinfecting offices and facilities during the COVID-19 crisis  Clayton Shoup , Technical Director, Large Casualty  Risk Engineering, Zurich North America

 , Technical Director, Large Casualty  Risk Engineering, Zurich North America Returning to the workplace: Now is the time to focus on cyber resilience  Gerry Kane , Vice President, Cyber Risk Engineering, Zurich North America

 , Vice President, Cyber Risk Engineering, Zurich North America Construction after COVID 19: What contractors need to know  Jon Tate , Vice President, Construction Risk Engineering, Zurich Services Corporation

Zurich will address additional topics over the coming weeks, including physical distancing practices in the work environment, reopening idle facilities and machinery, and how to balance costs and risks in supply chains.

Since early March, Zurich's Coronavirus Resource Hub has been a "go to" for businesses looking for information to help manage day-to-day operations as they shuttered work facilities to slow the spread of the virus. As the virus and business risks associated with it have evolved, the site's content has shifted to guide businesses as they begin to transition back to the workplace.

The video presentations and podcasts bring together key risk management specialists sharing their knowledge to help manage the evolution and impacts of COVID-19 and plan strategies for protecting their businesses, employees and the communities they serve.

The podcast series, Risk Insights: Coronavirus What businesses need to know now, began in April and today adds six new episodes as part of the focus on transitioning back to the workplace. The series is available on podcast platforms including Apple, Google, Stitcher and Spotify, in addition to Zurich's Coronavirus Resource Hub at www.zurichna.com/covid19.

About Zurich North America

Zurich North America is one of the largest providers of insurance solutions and services to businesses and individuals. Our customers represent industries ranging from agriculture to technology. Zurich North America is part of Zurich Insurance Group, a leading multi-line insurer that serves its customers in global and local markets.

Zurich North America is part of Zurich Insurance Group, a leading multi-line insurer that serves its customers in global and local markets. With approximately 55,000 employees, Zurich provides a wide range of property and casualty, and life insurance products and services in more than 215 countries and territories. Zurich's customers include individuals, small businesses, and mid-sized and large companies, as well as multinational corporations. The Group is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, where it was founded in 1872. The holding company, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd (ZURN), is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and has a level I American Depositary Receipt (ZURVY) program, which is traded over-the counter, on OTCQX. Further information is available on www.Zurich.com.

SOURCE Zurich North America Insurance
The Bhopal Crime Branch on Monday registered an FIR against senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh in connection with the circulation of an alleged "edited" video of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's old statement on liquor.

The FIR has been filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, a day after a BJP delegation headed by former minister Umashankar Gupta submitted a memorandum to the crime branch of Bhopal police case against Digvijaya Singh for sharing the "edited" video on Twitter.

In their complaint to the crime branch, the BJP leaders said that Chouhan had given a statement against the liquor policy of the then Kamal Nath government on January 12 this year.

This 2.19-minute video was edited and a nine second part of it was shared on Twitter by Singh to malign the image of the chief minister, the BJP leaders said in the complaint.

However, Digvijaya Singh, after the furor said - "Tribals of Budhni were duped of Rs 450 crore by agents of SS Chouhan and no FIR was registered in his tenure. I had written to him that if there is no action, I'll stage sit-in protest at his residence. It perturbed BJP. It should be checked that who edited the video."

They had demanded a case against the senior Congress leader and his associates for "conspiring to malign the CM's image".

BJP MLA Rameshwar Sharma also shared the screenshot of Digvijaya Singh's tweet and said that the post has now been deleted.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said that he has directed the officials to take strict legal action against the offenders, who twisted the CMs statement against the liquor mafia.

The Congress has not yet reacted on this issue. "The video was shared on social media and a large number of people shared it. The police should go to the source of the video instead of making it a political issue," a Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.
In a study published today (15 June 2020) in Addiction, University of Bristol researchers have found evidence for a causal link between prolonged experience of loneliness and smoking.

Although numerous studies have shown there is an association, it has been difficult to disentangle whether being lonely leads to substance abuse, or if substance abuse leads to loneliness.

By applying a novel research method to the question - Mendelian randomisation - which uses genetic and survey data from hundreds of thousands of people, the team found that loneliness appears to lead to an increased likelihood of smoking behaviour.

"This method has never been applied to this question before and so the results are novel, but also tentative. We found evidence to suggest that loneliness leads to increased smoking, with people more likely to start smoking, to smoke more cigarettes, and to be less likely to quit," said co-lead author, Dr Robyn Wootton.

There was evidence that being lonelier increases the likelihood of starting smoking, the number of cigarettes smoked per day and decreases the likelihood of successfully quitting. This reflects the trends observed during the pandemic - YouGov's Covid-19 tracker suggests 2.2 million people across the UK are smoking more than they were before lockdown. In the other direction, there was also evidence that starting smoking increased individuals' loneliness.

"Our finding that smoking may also lead to more loneliness is tentative, but it is in line with other recent studies that identified smoking as a risk factor for poor mental health. A potential mechanism for this relationship is that nicotine from cigarette smoke interferes with neurotransmitters such as dopamine in the brain," said senior author Dr Jorien Treur.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action of Smoking & Health (ASH), commented that, "If lonely people are more likely to start smoking and find it harder to quit, they are more likely to suffer the harm caused by smoking. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable premature death, with thirty times as many people who die suffering serious smoking-related illnesses such as cancer, heart and respiratory disease. This research highlights the need for smokers suffering from loneliness to be given support to stop, to improve not just their health and wellbeing but also to help reduce their loneliness."

The team also investigated the relationship between loneliness and alcohol use and abuse, and found no clear evidence for a causal relationship there.

"While the method that we used in this study has important advantages, it is also early days for this type of study. We therefore suggest further research is conducted when more is known about the genetics of alcohol dependence and loneliness," said Dr Jorien Treur

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), during the first month of lockdown the equivalent of 7.4 million people said their well-being was affected through feeling lonely. "Lonely" people were more likely than others to be struggling to find things to help them cope and were also less likely to feel they had support networks to fall back on.

Knowing whether there is a causal effect of loneliness on smoking is important for informing stop smoking services and helping people to quit.

"Suddenly, the whole of the UK has become more socially isolated than ever before, and for many people this will likely increase their loneliness. We were really interested to find that loneliness decreases the likelihood of stopping smoking and we think this is a really important consideration for those trying to stop smoking during the pandemic," said Dr Wootton.

"We are still yet to see the full effects of the coronavirus pandemic on alcohol and cigarette use in the UK. Whilst our study does not look at the effects of loneliness and social isolation as the result of the pandemic, it can shed some light on the consequences of loneliness in general," said Dr Wootton.

###

Paper: Bi-directional effects between loneliness, smoking and alcohol use: Evidence from a Mendelian randomisation study by Robyn E Wootton, Harriet S R Greenstone, Abdel Abdellaoui, Damiaan Denys, Karin J H Verweij, Marcus R Munafo and Jorien L Treur in Addiction, June 2020.

Notes to editor

The study was co-led by the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group (TARG) in the School of Psychological Science and the department of Psychiatry of Amsterdam UMC hospital in the Netherlands, part of the Medical Research Council funded Integrative Epidemiology Unit. Additional funding came from NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and through a Rubicon and a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

Research method - Mendelian randomisation

The study used a method known as Mendelian randomisation to explore whether there are in fact causal effects between substance abuse and loneliness, and if so, in which direction. Mendelian randomisation can be thought of as similar to a randomised control trial. A randomised control trial is the 'gold standard' for causal evidence but it is not always possible. For example it would be unethical to randomise people to smoke or to be socially isolated. Using a method known as Mendelian randomisation, the researchers instead used genetic variants that predispose individuals to be more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or to socially isolate. The study used data from multiple European samples of people who were asked how often they felt lonely, and how often they felt isolated, prior to the pandemic. More information about Mendelian randomisation can be found in this short explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoTgfGotaQ4

The authors did not find any evidence to suggest loneliness led to increased drinking behaviour. It could be that effects are cancelled out, because some individuals drink less when alone and others drink more. However, this does not lead them to conclude that there are no possible effects - these are early days for genetic research into loneliness and alcohol dependence and hence more work is needed on this topic in the future when larger samples are available.
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Im sure you can imagine what all comes along with this, honey, Shangela says over the phone, bouncing between interviews. Im writing jingles, Im recording things. Im over here designing labels. I got a lot going on.

The spring was supposed to be busy for the drag queen, who is one of three stars of the series Were Here, which premiered on HBO in late April and was renewed for a second season last week. But press for the show was instead done virtually from her native Paris, Tex., where shes been quarantining, and where she developed the idea for the latest project that is keeping her so busy.

When the realities of the coronavirus pandemic hit earlier this spring, Shangela, who first gained national attention in the second season of RuPauls Drag Race, watched as work for the majority of drag performers across the country dried up.

Drag queens, where do we get our livelihood? Where do we get our paychecks? Its in nightclubs, bars, venues where we do drag brunches and bingo, restaurants  all of that was gone, she says. So drag queens joined the 40 million people in America that were out of work, but also a lot of those queens dont get to reap the benefits of stimulus checks. A lot of those queens depend on tips really, in order to survive. I was talking to a couple of friends of mine, drag entertainers, and they were like, Girl, I dont know if Im going to be able to pay rent. I have to choose between rent or groceries this month.

Motivated to do something, she set to work on the Feed the Queens initiative, applications for which opened over the weekend, which aims to fund-raise $100,000 to help provide 1,000 or more drag queens, drag kings and trans drag performers across America with $100 food gift cards.

Hunger has become a significant issue in the drag community. I cant have my sisters being hungry, Shangela says. And I know what its like to need help along the way.

Story continues

The initiative is also promising to benefit a significant number of drag performers of color.

Look, I recognize as a black drag queen that COVID-19 hits our community even harder than it does to others, because we have a harder time getting certain resources, Shangela says.

I, in no way, want to distract from the great conversations and the activism thats going on right now with the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the Black Trans Lives Matter movement, she continues. You have to remember, and thats what I tell a lot of people, even with all of those things going on, which deserve attention, were still in the middle of a pandemic. Forty million people are still out of work in America, and drag queens are still out of work and being hit with hunger in our community. And we started working on this program two months ago, and its important that its coming out right now, because as you can see, the situation isnt getting a lot better for a lot of people.

In the years since breaking out on RuPaul, Shangela has been featured on Ariana Grandes song NASA, appeared in A Star Is Born at the request of Lady Gaga herself, and became the first person to walk the Oscars red carpet in drag, last year. Were Here, which also stars Bob the Drag Queen and Eureka OHara, features the trio traveling to small-town America to stage one-night-only drag shows with locals.

Im so grateful that during a time when so many people need a reminder about compassion and humanity, that weve been able to have a show like this, Shangela says. I always think about what an impact it would have had on my experience as a young gay person who didnt see a lot of visibility of people who looked like me on television and film, to have that experience, in their local community.

And at the intersection of Pride Month and the Black Lives Matter movements happening around the country following the police killing of George Floyd, Shangela says drag has never been more needed.

Drag has always been a form of activism and protest, she says. I think that the mere existence of a drag queen is part of activism because youre thumbing your nose up. Youre saying, Im not going to allow the box that our system, our culture created for me to fit in [to box me in]; Im not going to walk in these gender norms that people like to push forward or push onto people. Its saying, Im going to live outside the box. And that in itself, is a form of activism. Throughout history, whether youre talking about the Comptons Cafeterias riot or even Stonewall, drag queens are right there on the front line, being very vocal and being very active in our fight for equality. Drag is definitely a part of activism.

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Eva Pharma will become the first company to sell Gileads COVID-19 drug remdesivir in Egypt

Egyptian drugmaker Eva Pharma said it had reached a landmark deal with Gilead Sciences Inc to become a licensed manufacturer of the US company's antiviral treatment remdesivir for COVID-19 in 127 countries.

Remdesivir, originally developed to treat Ebola, appears to shorten the recovery time of COVID-19 patients. The experimental drug has recently been authorised for the treatment of certain hospitalised patients in a number of countries including the US, the UK and Japan.

The voluntary licensing agreement provides Eva Pharma with Gileads technology as well as manufacturing specifications and methods in order to accelerate the timeline of the production of remdesivir as soon as possible, the company said in a statement sent to Ahram Online on Sunday.

Eva Pharma is currently waiting for registration approval by Egypts health authorities, which is expected to be completed this week, after which the medicine will be ready for sale, a source at the company told Ahram Online.

The drug, which is administered by intravenous infusion, will only be offered to hospitals and will not be sold at pharmacies. It is not available in a capsule or tablet form.

The Egyptian firm is yet to set a price for the drug, but it is expected to cost around EGP 2,000 ($123.6) per vial. One patient may need between five to ten vials, experts say. Remdesivir is estimated to be priced at as much as $5,000 per treatment course in the United States.

California-based Gilead said on Friday it was adding four generic drugmakers in Egypt and India to its non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements to further expand the supply of its investigational antiviral for COVID-19 in 127 countries. Now a total of nine companies: six in India, two in Pakistan and one in Egypt have struck deals with Gilead, its website shows.

The countries consist of nearly all low-income and lower-middle-income ones, as well as several that are upper-middle- and high-income, Gilead had said. Sudan, Libya, Morocco, Ghana, India, North Korea and South Africa are among the countries.

The licences would be royalty-free until the World Health Organization declares the end of the public health emergency arising out of COVID-19, or until a product other than remdesivir or a vaccine is approved to treat or prevent the disease, the American drugmaker said last month.

The experimental antiviral drug is considered a supportive treatment and is mainly used for severe cases, patients with blood oxygen levels of 94% or those who need mechanical ventilators or life support using an ECMO, a machine that oxygenates the red blood cells.

Gilead says the safety and efficacy of remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 are not yet established, though clinical trials demonstrated that the drug improved clinical outcomes.

Data from a US clinical trial in late April indicated that patients receiving remdesivir had a 31% faster recovery time than the placebo group.

The drug was granted emergency use authorisation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for COVID-19 on 1 May and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said last month it may give an initial green light for sale of remdesivir as a COVID-19 treatment.

Gilead had said it aims to have more than one million remdesivir treatment courses manufactured by December.

Eva Pharma and Gilead have collaborated before to offer treatments for HIV and hepatitis C patients in Africa.

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Broyhill Asset Management, a boutique investment firm based in North Carolina, released its Q1 2020 Investor letter  a copy of which can be downloaded here. Established as a family office, the company invests with a long-term, objective, and rational perspective. You should check out Broyhill Asset Management's top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash.

In the said letter, Broyhill Asset Management highlighted a few stocks and Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) is one of them. Philip Morris International is a cigarette and tobacco manufacturing company. Year-to-date, Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) stock lost 17.4% and on June 12th it had a closing price of $70.42. Here is what Broyhill Asset Management said:

"During the quarter, we diversified our cirgarette exposure by adding Philip Morris International (PM), which distributes Marlboro, along with other brands, outside of the US. The thesis here is similar to our investment in Altria (our largest single position at quarter end), which we discussed in our annual letter. We passed on PM initially only because it was significantly more expensive than MO. But late in the quarter, a sharp sell-off in PM provided us with an opportunity to establish a position in one of the best managed tobacco companies in the world, one that also enjoys a dominant position in emerging markets and a rapidly growing next generation product, IQOS."

In Q1 2020, the number of bullish hedge fund positions on Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) stock decreased by about 16% from the previous quarter (see the chart here), so a number of other hedge fund managers don't seem to agree with PM's growth potential. Our calculations showed that Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM) isn't ranked among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds.

The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds' poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

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Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, 2020s unprecedented market conditions provide us with the highest number of trading opportunities in a decade. So we are checking out stocks recommended/scorned by legendary Bill Miller. We interview hedge fund managers and ask them about their best ideas. If you want to find out the best healthcare stock to buy right now, you can watch our latest hedge fund manager interview here. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when the S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemics significance before most investors. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
File: Andrew Wheeler, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee oversight hearing to examine the Environmental Protection Agency, Wednesday, May 20, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP) Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it has started the process of reopening its Philadelphia office, a regional headquarters for five states and Washington, D.C., prompting the agencys largest union to question whether it is safe to return amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Region 3 headquarters at 17th and Arch Streets has more than 700 workers to serve Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia as well as Washington.

The rush to reopen Region 3 offices makes no sense, said Marie Owens Powell, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 3631, which represents 659 employees at the Philadelphia offices. EPA employees for months have been effectively working from home, carrying out the EPAs mission to protect human health and the environment. There is no reason why telework cannot continue until either a vaccine or effective treatment are available.

Powell said the EPA has not offered a reason for reopening that justifies the risk to employee health and welfare.

She said the EPA has been stonewalling union requests to see the data it is using to determine which offices should reopen.

Last week, EPA Administrator Andrew R. Wheeler said the agencys research scientists created reopening criteria using data from Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Wheeler said he is briefed on the status of each facility every day. The EPA is using a dashboard of metrics. Once a facility is designated as green, it can be reopened.

The Philadelphia facility has been designated as green and will be disinfected this week as employees continue to work from home. In Phase Two, employees are expected to return to work but can be exempted with a managers permission. In Phase Three, all employees must return unless they are sick or meet other exempting factors.

 READ MORE: EPA chief Wheeler to visit Pottstown for grant to clean up old newspaper site

It takes several weeks to complete the reopening phases, which can be rolled back if needed.

This is a very methodical approach, Wheeler said. Its going to be a very slow process. The data for Philadelphia is looking pretty good at this point.

 FAQ: Your coronavirus questions, answered.

However, in a letter to Region 3 Administrator Cosmo Servidio, Local 3631 said scientists within the union analyzed the EPAs reopening metrics and dispute the findings. For example, the union said the EPA is relying on state data for a trend in influenza-like illnesses rather than Philadelphias own data, which find community transmission is still occurring.

 READ MORE: Black birders take flight with help from Philly scientists
In recent years, the district attorneys in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx  now joined by Queens  have scaled back prosecutions for minor crimes like marijuana possession and turnstile jumping, because disproportionate numbers of black and Hispanic residents were arrested for these offenses, and prosecutors did not believe they were serious enough to justify a criminal record. More recently the prosecutors have declined to seek convictions for many social-distancing violations for the same reason.

On Friday, Mr. Shea denied that the police leadership and the district attorneys were at odds. For the last six years, he said the Police Department also has been steadily shifting its strategies, though, he added, maybe not as fast as some people like.

Are we always in lock step? No, he said. Were human beings and from different agencies. Still, he noted arrests and summonses have been cut dramatically over the years, and officers have been focused on violent crimes rather than minor offenses.

But some senior police commanders were furious about some district attorneys decisions not to prosecute, people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings. Police union leaders said some of the prosecutors were caving in to public pressure and picking which laws they wanted to enforce.

It is a dereliction of duty to their oath of office, said Edward D. Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association. More important than undercutting the work of the N.Y.P.D., it is undercutting public safety.

Police personnel were also pulled from the district attorneys office in Staten Island, which tends to take a more conservative approach to law enforcement than the prosecutors in the other four boroughs. Ryan Lavis, a spokesman for the office, did not respond to several requests for information on how the office was handling protesters accused of minor offenses.

Two weeks ago, a few days into the protests, demonstrations turned violent as police officers and protesters clashed in the streets. Images of burning police vehicles and looting led the mayor to impose a curfew.
Perhaps at no time is an organizations culture more on display than during a crisis. Jayne Hitman and Paul Robert assist credit unions in shaping their cultures to shine at just these moments.

Hitman is national relationship manager for CUNA Creating Member LoyaltyTM (CML), a comprehensive development strategy with expert guidance focused on increasing employee engagement and the member experience.

Paul Robert is CEO of FI Strategies, LLC, a strategic partner for CML.

Hitman and Robert will appear regularly on the CUNA News Podcast in a new series on service culture.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 14

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.

"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.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
When an official with the World Health Organization mentioned that asymptomatic spread of the respiratory illness COVID-19 was rare, it caused a major stir, and eventually, the comment needed to be clarified.

Connecticut health experts have joined the chorus exclaiming that, while it isnt known how common COVID-19 is spread by those without symptoms, its definitely an aspect of the illness that needs to be treated with vigilance.

Without doubt, there is some asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of COVID-19, said Dr. Tom Balcezak, chief medical officer of Yale New Haven Health Services. We know this because of epidemiological studies.

Dr. Michael Parry, director of infectious disease at Stamford Hospital, agreed that theres no question that COVID-19 can be spread by those without symptoms. Are these asymptomatic people as contagious as someone who is fully symptomatic? That question is harder to answer, Parry said.

The comments came after a news conference last week when Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHOs emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, made comments that raised eyebrows  and hopes  among many. In some countries with very detailed contact tracing, she said asymptomatic patients have been identified and followed.

Theyre not finding secondary transmission onward, she said. Its very rare.

But the following day, Van Kerkhove walked back the comments, saying the question of asymptomatic infection is very complex.

Some reports have indicated that people with no symptoms can transmit the virus. It is not yet known how often it happens, WHO stated on its website. WHO is assessing ongoing research on the topic and will continue to share updated findings.

The initial comments made a stir, because one of the major concerns about the illness is that a significant number of those infected dont have symptoms, and can spread the illness without being aware of it.

According to guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 35 percent of people with COVID-19 are asymptomatic. In fact, that is part of what has made the illness so problematic, Balcezak said.

He pointed to Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which caused a pandemic in the early 2000s. Like COVID-19, SARS is caused by a coronavirus, but was somewhat more controllable, because it has very little pre-symptomatic spread.

In those cases, by isolating those with symptoms, we can help stop the spread, Balcezak said. If you cant tell who has the virus, it is more difficult to stop it. Showing symptoms is a marker for presence of virus and the earlier the symptoms are shown, and the faster you can isolate, and the lower you can make the incidence.

It is possible that those without symptoms are less likely to spread the illness than those with symptoms, said Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease at Bridgeport Hospital.

He said, for one thing, one of the major symptoms of COVID-19 is coughing, which also spreads the illness.

However, Saul said, its still possible for asymptomatic people to spread the disease, so everyone needs to practice prevention techniques, such as mask wearing and social distancing.

Sofia Pendley, clinical assistant professor of the public health program at Sacred Heart Universitys College of Health Professions, echoed those thoughts.

The tricky thing about asymptomatic spread is that there still remains a lot of unknowns and gray areas, Pendley said. Due to these unknowns, from a prevention perspective, its best for everyone to continue with the recommendations of frequent hand-washing, mask wearing for everyone over 2, and social distancing guidelines.
China has halted imports from European salmon suppliers amid fears they might be linked to a coronavirus outbreak at a Beijing market, although experts say the fish itself is unlikely to carry the disease.

State-run newspapers reported the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at Beijing's Xinfadi market, the source of a cluster of infections that has sparked fears of a second wave of the pandemic in China.

The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves. "We can't send any salmon to China now, the market is closed," said Regin Jacobsen, CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost.

"We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified," said Stein Martinsen, head of sales and marketing at Norway Royal Salmon.

Genetic traces of the virus from the Beijing market outbreak suggested it could have come from Europe.

Keith Neal, an emeritus professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases at Britain's University of Nottingham, said any link to salmon was likely the result of cross contamination.

"Markets can be crowded places, so like in Wuhan, (they) help fuel spread," he said, referring to the Chinese city where the virus originated.

Neal said finding a link to Europe was not surprising, given the global spread of the virus.

"China gave the world this virus and it was always very likely to give it back to them. Finding a strain prevalent in Europe probably reflects people returning to China after travelling to Europe," he said.

Norway's Food Safety Authority said there was no evidence fish could be infected. Shares in Norway Royal Salmon, Faroe Islands-based Bakkafrost and Norway's Mowi and Salmar were down 3-5% at 1225 GMT.

Both Bakkafrost and Norway Royal Salmon said employees had been tested for the virus, and none had tested positive. China accounts for about 5% of global salmon demand, according to Bakkafrost.

Order cancellations were limited to China and had not affected other markets, said the Norwegian Seafood Council, a marketing firm.
Syracuse, N.Y.  More than 16,000 gallons of milk, 31,000 pounds of produce, 25,000 pounds of meat, and 12,000 pounds of other dairy products will be given away this week across a series of drive-thru food distributions open to the public.

The largest will be held Wednesday at Destiny USA in the East Side lot off Solar Street. Each car will receive up to two gallons of milk, as well as a 20-pound box each of produce, meat and dairy.

All told, more than 8,000 gallons of milk, 17,000 pounds of meat and 12,000 pounds of dairy products will be given away.

The meat, produce and dairy products were made available by Renzi Foodservice.

The giveaway starts at noon.

Three similar events are scheduled for southern Onondaga County:

Tully High School, (5848 State Route 80, Tully)  Tuesday at 3 p.m.

St. Patrick Church, (1865 State Route 80, Otisco)  Tuesday from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Grimshaw Elementary School, (5957 State Route 20, LaFayette)  Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m.

Each household that attends will receive two gallons of milk, a 22-pound box of produce and a 10-pound box of meat.

The produce and meat boxes at these three giveaways were made available through the Food Bank of Central New York.

More than 4,000 gallons of milk, 17,000 pounds of produce and 8,000 pounds of meat will be given away across the three giveaways.

A milk-only giveaway will also be held Tuesday at Central Square Middle School. More than 4,000 gallons of milk  up to two gallons per car  will be distributed.

That giveaway begins at 12:30 p.m. Cars will not be allowed to start lining up before noon.

The giveaways are funded through the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which provides government-funded grants to food banks and community organizations to provide food to those in need.

The Salvation Army is also hosting a milk and food giveaway today (June 15) at its Adult Rehabilitation Center at 2433 Erie Blvd. E. in Syracuse.

Milk, bread and other food will be distributed to anyone in need. The giveaway runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or as supplies last.

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Barkeepers dilemma: How do I run my place if people have to stay six feet apart?

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

Syracuse mom with coronavirus chooses hospice over ventilator: The finality of it

Youth sports can restart in Central NY early next month, Cuomo says

Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Contact Jacob Pucci at jpucci@syracuse.com or find him on Twitter at @JacobPucci.
A Tipperary man has been jailed for 20 years for the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his younger sister and seven daughters over a 23-year period.

From 1977 to 2000, James O'Reilly (75) subjected the young girls to horrific sexual abuse, as well as physical beatings, starvation and degradation, the Central Criminal Court heard on Monday morning, June 15.

O'Reilly of Killeens, Ballynonty, Thurles, Co Tipperary pleaded not guilty to 81 counts of rape and sexual abuse. Last December, after a five week trial, a jury convicted him of 58 counts of rape and nine counts of sexual assault.

O'Reilly's rape of one daughter caused her to become pregnant in late 1988. He continued to rape her during the pregnancy.

At the time OReilly told his daughter to allege she had been raped by another man. He continued abusing her and only stopped when she threatened him with a knife.

Later DNA tests confirmed he was the father, a factor which was used to secure his conviction.

One victim said she was starved and forced to beg for food outside while another said she did not know what a Christmas present was until she was an adult.

Caroline Biggs SC, prosecuting, told the court that the victims wished to waive their anonymity, allowed for the naming of their abuser.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt described O'Reilly's actions as horrific and noted the escalating and repetitive nature of the offending.

He noted that O'Reilly continues to deny any wrongdoing and there was no evidence of remorse or regret on his part for his crimes.

He commended the courage of the victims and noted the stoicism as well as the occasional flashes of good humour shown by them throughout the lengthy trial.

He said he was taking into consideration O'Reilly's abuse of his dominant position, the duration of the offending and the incalculable pain and harm caused to the victims.

It's not clear any of them will ever be free of the adverse effects.

O'Reilly was aged around 34 when he raped the first victim, his 13 year old younger sister. He abused her for the next three years, attacking her in a van.

He first abused the second victim, his daughter, when her mother was in hospital having suffered a miscarriage. His daughter was aged between four and six.

In 1977, she was aged around eight when he drove her in his van to a bog and raped her. He told her she would be put into foster care if she told anyone.

One victim testified that from the age of ten she was raped in the back of van if it was raining and outside the van in a field if it wasn't.

The trial heard that the family lived at a place in Dublin at one point, living in an old-fashioned horse drawn wagon and later in more modern trailer.

O'Reilly raped another daughter when her mother was in hospital giving birth to another child.

This baby boy died in 1983 and while his partner was grieving, O'Reilly took one girl out and raped her in the pony shed.

O'Reilly moved the children around the country and in the late 80s they were living around at a location in the south where he continued to abuse them.

One victim, who was raped until she was aged 20, said she couldn't tell her husband because saying you are being raped [as a] Traveller is like being thrown to the side of the road, you'd have to go back to the bog.

Kathleen O'Driscoll said she could remember her father abusing her form her earliest childhood memories. She said she prayed each night that she would not wake up.

Ms O'Driscoll said her father threatened that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would cut her throat and the throat of any person she told. She said she has put up with being raped, starved and beaten all her life.

Margaret Hutchinson was aged ten in 1981 when her father first began molesting her. A year later he raped in the back of the van.

She testified that during this time he raped her hundreds, thousands of times.

A witness at the trial recalled how in 1986 she met this victim in the bog and she was shaking and crying. She said she still gets knots in her stomach remembering how the victim told her her father was abusing her.

Another victim recalled having to attend hospital with a head injury from beatings. She was aged ten when her father began raping her and he would rape her up to three times a week for the next six years.

Justice Hunt said a life sentence was the appropriate starting point based on the horrific facts. He said the mitigating factors presented carried little weight and that the main factor submitted in mitigation was O'Reilly's age.

He noted that O'Reilly was in robust good health when he was interviewed four years ago but there was evidence his health has deteriorated since. He said the court was leaving it the executive to engage in any future intervention of the custodial sentence because of infirmity.

He said the difference between a life sentence and a lengthy but finite sentence may be academic given OReillys age.

He imposed a range of sentences from two years to twenty years. A number of victims sobbed during the sentence hearing and as sentence was passed.

Garnet Orange SC, defending, submitted that his client has no previous convictions and has never been on garda radar. Mr Orange asked the court to have regard for an elderly man facing a lengthy sentence who also has hearing difficulties.

Victim impact statement

The daughter Reilly said she can remember her father abusing her from her earliest childhood memories.

In her victim impact statement, which she read out in court, Philomena Connors said she sometimes thinks why did her mother have her and wishes she had never been born. She said she always had emptiness in her heart and she still has to this day.

Ms Connors said her father had control over her and she could not see how normal people lived. She said she went on thinking what was happening was normal, but she knows now it was not normal.

She said when she was a child, she did not have a choice what happened to her. She said her children have a right to a childhood and she does not want them to have the life she had.

Ms Connors said the abuse affects her every single minute of her life. She said she always thinks why, but knows she will never get an answer.

The victim impact statements of the remaining seven women was read out in court on their behalf by a garda sergeant.

In her victim impact statement, Kathleen O'Driscoll said she can remember her father abusing her from her earliest childhood memories. She said she prayed each night that she would not wake up.

Ms O'Driscoll said her father threatened that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would cut her throat and the throat of the person she told. She said she had watched him cut the throats of goats.

She said that at the time, she had never heard anyone in her community speak about rape and she said that women in her community are expected to be virgins. She said that if the marriage of a Traveller woman ends, she would have to return to her parents.

Ms O'Driscoll said to feel guilty for the actions of another is wrong. She said the fear kept us silenced.

Christine Rooney, the accused man's sister, said she felt like her brother had stolen her childhood and education. She said these were things she could never get back.

Ms Rooney said her brother thought he could control her with fear and it worked. She said he would not feed her and she had to beg for food outside.

He will not beat me, Ms Rooney said. She said in her view he should never be free to cause the pain and misery he inflicted on her to anyone else.

Helen O'Donoghue said she had no education, no life and her father took everything from her. She said she has put up with being raped, starved and beaten all her life.

Ms O'Donoghue said she feels suicidal at times and it is her kids that keep her going. She said she has never had the love of parents to this day.

She said as a child she did not know what a Christmas present was or what Christmas dinner was. She said she did not even know what age she was until she got married.

Ms O'Donoghue said she had never learned to read or write and would have loved to go to school. She said she could not make a life for herself as she did not know-how.

Margaret Hutchinson said the abuse was a constant part of her life. She said her father told her if she ever told anyone about the abuse he would kill her and her mother.

Ms Hutchinson said her father took her childhood and her innocence. She said she had no friends and only went to school for her Communion and Confirmation.

She said her father threatened that he would make her pregnant and that no one would marry her. She said that when she became pregnant aged 16, she knew the threat he made was now real.

Ms Hutchinson said her father wanted her to give the baby up for adoption. She said her baby was a secret that he wanted to get rid of but she would not let him.

She said that after she gave birth she was dirty in the community. She said that other Traveller parents would not let their daughters be friends with her.

Ms Hutchinson said that since this became public, her whole family has been affected. She said she had thought her father could not hurt her anymore, but he is still having a huge effect on her family.

Mary Moran said her life was never ever going to be the same again. She said she struggles to wake up every morning.

Ms Moran said the pain is always in her heart and it never leaves. She said there are times when she does not even want to leave her house.

She said her father destroyed her life and took everything from her. She said she hates her mother more for not stopping him.

Anne Reilly said she loves her children to bits and if she did not have them she would kill herself.

Ms Reilly said when she goes out, she runs everywhere just to get home. She said she would have loved to go to school and could not even write her name until she was aged 16.

She said she has gotten justice in the eyes of the law, but it is never going to be enough justice. She said she cannot put into words how her father has ruined her life.

Bridgette O'Reilly said her whole childhood was taken away from the start. She said she hears her father's voice and has flashbacks daily.

Ms O'Reilly said she is afraid to go to sleep and will stay up for days at a time. She said she locks herself away and goes days without eating.

She said no matter how much she tries, it will never go away. She said if not for the support of her partner, her children, her neighbours and Women's Aid, she does not know where she would be.
Philadelphia Police Department crime lab officers in North Philadelphia Aug. 15, 2019. Police had to investigate two fatal shootings, six other shootings, and four stabbings from Friday, June 12, to Sunday, June 14. Read more

Two people were slain, five others were shot, and four were stabbed from Friday through Sunday in Philadelphia.

The deadly violence pushed the citys number of homicide victims this year to 182, an increase of 35 victims, or 24%, compared with this time last year, according to the Philadelphia Police Department.

The most recent homicide victim, a man in his 20s, was shot along with another man just before 3 p.m. Sunday in the 6500 block of Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, police said.

The man who died was shot once in the chest and died at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, while the other man, 64, was shot once in the back and is in critical condition at the hospital, police said.

At 9:47 p.m. Friday, a 29-year-old man died after being shot multiple times in his chest in the 2500 block of Bonaffon Street in Elmwood Park, police said.

The victim was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania by private vehicle and was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. Police said the gunman wore a dark hoodie and remains at large, as does the gunman in Sundays slaying.

The Police Department released these details about the other shootings and stabbings from Friday and Saturday. An arrest was made in only one case.

At 1:56 a.m. Saturday, two men were stabbed in the 1500 block of Tasker Street in South Philadelphia. A 65-year-old man was stabbed in the left forearm, left hand, face, and right bicep. A 35-year-old man was stabbed in the right hand, right foot, and face. Both are in stable condition at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. An arrest was made and a weapon recovered.

Just two minutes before the Tasker Street incident, a 36-year-old man was stabbed in the left buttocks in the 3100 block of Cottman Avenue in Mayfair. He was admitted to Jefferson-Torresdale Hospital in stable condition.

On Saturday, just after 11 a.m., a 33-year-old man was shot in the back in the 2500 block of North Ninth Street. He was driven by private vehicle to Temple University Hospital, where he was in stable condition.

At 12:49 a.m. Friday, a 23-year-old woman was shot in the left thigh in the 1800 block of Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia. She was transported to Temple by private vehicle and is listed in stable condition.

At 12:23 a.m. Friday, a 37-year-old man was stabbed in the right leg in the 3200 block of North Philip Street in Mayfair. The victim walked into Temple hospital and was listed in stable condition.

On Friday, at 10 p.m. a 34-year-old man was shot in the left side of his head in the 5100 block of Warrington Avenue in Kingsessing. He was transported to Penn Presbyterian by police and is listed in stable condition.

At 9:20 p.m. Friday, a 22-year-old man was shot in the right leg in the 5100 block of Folsom Street in West Philadelphia. He is in stable condition at Penn Presbyterian.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet a top Chinese official in Hawaii Wednesday in the powers' first senior-level talks since tensions skyrocketed over the coronavirus pandemic, reports said. Pompeo will hold talks with senior Chinese foreign policy official Yang Jiechi, The South China Morning Post said, quoting an unnamed source. Politico and CNN also reported on plans for the meeting. CNN said it would take place at Hickam Air Force Base next to Pearl Harbor. The State Department did not comment on the reports. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said that "more information will be given when available," saying only that the two countries were "maintaining communications via diplomatic channels," according to the state-run Global Times. It will be the most senior in-person meeting between the two nations since January when Vice Premier Liu He met President Donald Trump at the White House to sign the first phase of a deal aimed at ending soaring trade tensions. But friction has sharply intensified since then as the Trump administration, with Pompeo leading the charge, seeks to blame China for COVID-19. Trump, under fire at home over his response to the pandemic, has pointed to China's early suppression of news of the virus when it emerged in the metropolis of Wuhan. Pompeo has sought to popularize a theory, discounted by most mainstream scientists, that the virus came from a laboratory in Wuhan -- not a market that butchered exotic animals, as widely believed. While Trump has described Chinese President Xi Jinping in friendly terms, his administration has increasingly cast the Asian power as an enemy, with candidates from his Republican Party running advertisements harshly critical of Beijing ahead of November elections. The Trump administration has also taken measures in response to China's push for a new security law in Hong Kong, where pro-democracy activists fear an erosion of the financial hub's guaranteed freedoms. And Trump is expected soon to sign into a law an act, widely supported in Congress, that would lay out sanctions against Chinese officials over alleged abuses in the western region of Xinjiang. Activists and witnesses say that at least one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in a massive brainwashing campaign. China says it is providing vocational training to discourage Islamic extremism. China has recently hit back by criticizing the United States over racism and police brutality following widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd -- including US police's use of force to disperse a peaceful demonstration outside the White House. Yang, a veteran force behind Chinese foreign policy, also held a quiet meeting in August, in New York, to discuss tensions. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese Politburo member Yang Jiechi shake hands following a meeting in Washington in November 2018
A 26-year-old Chinese man was recently labeled Wuhans fattest person after gaining a whopping 100 kilograms during the citys five-month lockdown.

The man, referred to only as Zhou, to protect his privacy, wasnt exactly fir before the coronavirus started wreaking havoc in Wuhan, prompting the authorities to impose a strict lockdown. But at least he kept his weight in check, worked at a local cafe and lead a relatively normal lifestyle. But that all changed when Zhou started spending most of his time indoor. Unable to burn off any calories, he started gaining weight, and in a few months time he had ballooned to 616 pounds (280 kilograms), over 200 pounds more than he weighed before the Covid-19 epidemic.

Photo: Weibo

Zhous shocking case was revealed last week, by one of the doctors who treated him at the Wuhan University Central South Hospital, a long with photos of his admission, on June 1st. He reportedly told doctors that he had not left his home since before the lockdown, in January, and that his weight had made it impossible for him to sleep comfortably anymore, which was why he finally asked for medical assistance.

Doctor, I havent closed my eyes for 48 hours. Its so uncomfortable. Can you help me? Zhou allegedly asked Dr Li Zhen, the deputy director of the Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Center of the Central South Hospital of Wuhan University. By that point, he had already contacted other doctors, who had refused to assist him because of his extreme weight.

Photo: Weibo

After a team of paramedics struggled to get Zhou out of his home and into an ambulance, he was admitted in the ICU, where initial tests revealed various symptoms, such as heart failure and respiratory dysfunction. Unfortunately, his size made it hard for doctors to conduct other needed tests, like blood pressure and EEG. For 10 days, doctors tried to stabilize him, and on June 11 he was declared stable and out of immediate danger.

Dr. Li Zhen said that the patients obesity was caused by genetic factors and endocrine abnormalities exacerbated by his inactivity and increased calorie intake during Wuhans five-month lockdown. He had his team are hopeful that Zhou will be able to lose at least 50 pounds so he can safely undergo a gastric bypass or stomach reduction surgery to help him shed most of the excess weight.

Photo: Weibo

I can only hope that by adjusting diet and rest and other methods, it (body weight) can reduce more than 50 pounds in three months so that the risk of surgery will be greatly reduced, the doctor said.

As someone who has put on some serious weight during these trying w months, I can totally relate to Zhou, although 100 kilograms seems like a lot
13:13 | Lima, Jun. 15.

Remarks are made in a televised press conference within the framework of a mandatory social isolation imposed to prevent the COVID-19 from further spreading in the South American country.

#PeruEstaEnNuestrasManos En breve, conferencia virtual del presidente @MartinVizcarraC. pic.twitter.com/3LbJ7UjJJT
South Africa: Public urged to report suspected GBV cases

National Police Commissioner, General Khehla Sitole, has called on the public, families and communities to report suspected cases of domestic violence.

Sitole made the call amid a deluge of media reports of fatal gender-based violence cases across South Africa last week.

We are urging people to alert the police of such cases before it's too late to help a victim of such cases, he said, adding that friends, families and neighbours are often aware of cases or potential cases of domestic violence.

However, Sitole applauded what he described as sterling detective work that led to suspects traced and arrested in most of the cases.

In the case of the killing of 45-year-old Nompumelelo Tshaka, her alleged murderer, Ayanda Zenani was arrested. Tshaka's body was found dumped in an open field in Mthatha by a passer-by on 5 June 2020. Zenani has since appeared in the Mthatha Magistrate's Court on Thursday, 11 June. He will be appearing in the same court again on 18 June 2020 for a formal bail application, read the statement.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Msunduze Reserve, a 52-year-old Bhekukwanda Cele has appeared in the Ndwedwe Magistrates Court, charged with the alleged murder of his estranged wife, 31-year-old Nwabisa Mgwandela. It is alleged that three men assaulted and tied her up with a rope, leaving her hanging in the house on 7 June 2020.

Recently in Gauteng, 28-year-old Tshegofatso Pule was killed. Her body was found in the bushes on 5 June 2020. Her family reported her missing on 7 June 2020, and it was identified the following day. The police are following leads to apprehend and bring her killer to book. Pule was eight months pregnant at the time of her death.

In the Western Cape, the 34-year-old ex-boyfriend of slain 25-year-old Naledi Phangindawo has appeared in court in Mossel Bay for her murder. She was killed in KwaNonqaba a week ago and the suspect fled to Lwandle in Strand but later handed himself over to the police. The suspect remains in custody until his next court appearance.

In another incident in the Western Cape, last month a suspect was arrested for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, 34-year-old Nomfazi Gabada. The suspect, Sithembele Klaas, was initially arrested earlier this month but the case was withdrawn. The investigating officer persevered in this matter and obtained a warrant for the arrest of Klaas. He was then traced and rearrested on Saturday. Klaas will be brought before a Magistrate at the Khayelitsha Magistrates Court today.

Police in the statement said in all the cases where suspects have been arrested, the victim was in a relationship with the suspect.

It is these circumstances that makes the prevention of crimes against women and children that much more complex, read the statement.

Sitole in the statement reassured the public that crimes against vulnerable people will not go unpunished.

"The Family Violence Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit is extremely obstinate in its cause to bringing perpetrators of crimes against women, children and people of vulnerable groups to book.

Crimes against women, children and all other vulnerable groups continue to remain a priority of the South African Police Service.

SAPS is making a clarion call to family, friends and neighbours, who often are aware of cases or potential cases of domestic violence.

We are urging people to alert the police of such cases before it's too late to help a victim of such cases.

People with information can call the SAPS Emergency Number, 10111, before a crime is committed or when a crime is in progress.

Callers that want to remain anonymous may contact SAPS Crime Stop Number 08600 10111 or send a tip-off via MySAPSApp, which can be downloaded on any android or iPhone. All information received will be treated with confidentiality.

Other contact details:

GBV Command Centre - 0800 428 428

Childline Toll Free - 0800 055 555

Human Trafficking Hotline - 0800 222 777.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks after a video-conference summit on vaccination at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, on May 4, 2020. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Pool via AP)

Macron Says France Wont Remove Statues or Allow False Rewriting of History

French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday that France would stand firm against racism but would resist vandals destroying statues or people pushing for a false rewriting of the countrys history.

We will be inflexible when it comes to tackling racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination, and new strong decisions will be made to reinforce the egality of chances, Macron said, according to a translation provided by TIME. But this noble fight is perverted when it turns into communitarianism, into a false rewriting of history.

Following worldwide protests over the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, some people in the United States and other countries have targeted statues of historic figures associated with slavery or other past human rights abuses.

France will not allow it, Macron insisted in a televised address to the nation, and called instead for people in France to look at all of our history together with lucidity.

I will be very clear tonight, compatriots: the Republic wont erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its artworks, it wont take down statues, he said.

Macron said legitimate struggles against racism became twisted when they became exploited by what he described as separatists.

It is necessary to unite around Republican patriotism. We are a nation where everyonewhatever their origin and religioncan find their place, he said, according to a translation by RFI.

France has seen a string of protests galvanized by Floyds death. According to France24, at least 15,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday.

French authorities have responded to the demonstrations by banning police chokeholds and vowed to stamp out racism among police.

Reacting to the swell of public anger, French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said last week in a televised address: The chokehold method will be abandoned. It will no longer be taught in police and gendarmerie schools. It is a method that has its dangers.

Castaner vowed he would crack down on racism in the ranks of French law enforcement.

Too many officers have failed in their republican duty. It is not enough to condemn it, he said. We have to track it down and combat it.

Members of law enforcement objected to being portrayed as racists and have held several protests of their own. The most recent took place in central Paris on Sunday evening, following Macrons address.

Macron, in Sundays address, said police deserved the support from the state and recognition from the Nation.

Without Republican order, theres no security, no freedom, he said, according to a translation provided by RFI.

The order is upheld by our police force and gendarmes across the country. They are exposed to risk everyday in our name, Macron said.
Locks lose charm due to coronavirus lockdown in Tamil Nadu's Dindigul

India

oi-Ajay Joseph Raj P

Dindigul, June 15: Dindigul, a place in Tamil Nadu that is known for its renowned lock industry, whose products have got the GI tag, has been badly hit during the lockdown as owners struggle for financing, getting new orders and paying salaries to staff.

About 200 skilled locksmiths from several villages in the district have been engaged for the past several decades in making locks from scrap metal with their unique skills to make the end products extremely durable.

Four TN districts including Chennai to be in lockdown from June 19 till 30th

Many owners said that the industry was already beset with problems before the COVID-19 enforced lockdown as they had to face stiff competition from branded players and some companies opting for cheaper products from China.

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

"We never expected this kind of situation. The locks lost their purpose during this lockdown. All shops were closed and employees were the worst affected", Premkumar, a third generation entrepreneur in the district told an news agency.

It was much more difficult in the present scenario and therefore the workers were being asked to make just two or three locks per day, he said. Even after the locks were made, it was difficult to get them to customers due to restrictions on movement of vehicles.

Another entrepreneur Mohan said most shops and markets were closed and he expected the situation to stabilise in about three to six months. He said there are 10 major companies manufacturing locks, whose average sales volume annually ranges between Rs one crore to Rs two crore.

Referring to the branded players entering the segment, he said the machine made locks are better priced but do not have the same quality of those made by the players. He claimed that locks of reputed manufacturers could easily break open, but not those made here as complicated mechanisms are used.

Customers' faith in their products could be gauged from a recent incident where the management of a temple insisted on locks from them after miscreants broke into the shrine, which until then was using a branded make, he said.
Gates at the Phoenix Park that have been closed to traffic since the Covid-19 pandemic should stay that way, according to a Green Party Councillor.

It is despite traffic jams through the park over the weekend with some reporting delays of up to 90 minutes.

Traffic is much calmer along Chesterfield Avenue in the Phoenix Park this afternoon after a weekend of gridlock.

Some people reportedly missed their slots at Dublin Zoo due to the long delays caused by the traffic.

Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon hopes it was a freak occurrence.

"There has been some changes to the traffic lights as you exit Phoenix Park," said Mr Pidgeon.

"They tried to change them midway through the traffic jam but unfortunately and understandably, a guard took over and started directing traffic and that had the effect of further slowing it."

A lot of different aspects have been blamed for gridlock.

With only the Parkgate St and Castleknock entrances open to cars since the pandemic some say the rest of the gates should now be reopened.

However, others believe it is down to too many cars travelling through the park in the first place.

The Office of Public Works, which maintains the park's facilities, did not reply when asked for comment.
WASHINGTON  Under political pressure over protests against police brutality, President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Tuesday that encourages law enforcement agencies to adopt high standards for the use of deadly force.

"We want law and order and we want it done fairly, justly, and we want it done safely," Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday, declining to provide details ahead of a formal signing ceremony.

Trump and his staff developed the executive order amid protests in cities nationwide in response to a series of police killings, particularly last month's death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The White House was itself the scene of protests in the week following Floyd's death.

The order comes down as Trump, down in pre-election polls to Democratic challenger Joe Biden, faces criticism over his handling of nationwide protests over Floyd's death.

President Donald Trump

In recent weeks, aides talked about a possible national address on race by Trump. The president said he wanted to wait until he had something specific to propose. He and aides proceeded to meet with a number of groups about what might be in the executive order, even as skeptics pointed out that the president has a very limited role when it comes to local police policies.

Telling reporters he plans to sign the order on Tuesday, Trump also said he wants to see what Congress might be able to do on the issue.

More: Americans' perceptions of police drop significantly in one week as protests continue, survey finds

Maybe they can get something passed and maybe they can't," he said.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives is set to pass a sweeping criminal justice reform bill out of committee on Tuesday. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020, unveiled by Democrats last week, would ban state and local law enforcement agencies from using certain police tactics such as chokeholds or "no-knock" warrants in drug cases.

Story continues

It would also end "qualified immunity," or protections that make it difficult for citizens to sue police officers for using excessive force. Republicans are also expected to unveil their own criminal justice bill, led by South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who said ending qualified immunity was a "non-starter."

During a "roundtable" discussion last week in Dallas, Trump said he wanted to design an order to "encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation" of disputes.

Trump also touted "pilot programs that allow social workers to join certain law enforcement officers so that they work together.

Before the Dallas event, several local officials pointed out that he did not invite the city police chief, county sheriff, or the district attorney, all of whom are African-American.

More: 200 of Trumps tweets singled out protests, police following George Floyd death

More: I spent years working to reform police forces. Trump wants to roll it all back: Tom Perez

While condemning Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police, Trump has long cast himself as a friend of police and encouraged them to use aggressive tactics.

Trump has criticized some protesters for being violent. In one tweet that criticized property damage in Minneapolis, Trump tweeted that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Aides said the executive order would include a call for a national certification system for law enforcement agencies. In theory, agencies they could only win certification if they are following the most modern practices for handling confrontations that could turn violent.

Officials did not detail how such a certification system could be set up or might work in practice.

The order also proposes the creation of a database to track the uses of excessive force by police officers nationwide, said the aides who spoke on condition of anonymity because Trump has not yet made the order official. The database would be intended to help police departments avoid hiring officers who have a history of abuse cases.

The order also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage police departments to embed mental health professionals in their response to calls, aides said.

JaRon Smith, a deputy assistant to President Trump, has described the order as a way to link police to the communities they serve.

This week, what were looking to do is sign an executive order that will be good glue to bring communities and police together, he told Fox News on Monday.

He said the order deals with "co-responders," social workers and others who could be brought in to help police with challenges ranging from drug addiction to alcohol abuse to homelessness.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump to sign order to encourage police to limit deadly force
From nearly the very first week that U.S. schools entered a new normal thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, educators and researchers have sounded the alarm about its detrimental effects on learning. Almost everything researchers know about what affects learningtime on task, online learning, summer learning loss, and chronic absenteeismindicates that many students will come in with significant deficits from the 2019-20 school year.

Just how much students could regress remains a matter of some debate; one estimate put it at a half or more of a year of learning. And every district must devise ways to diagnose and respond.

The Cleveland district, for example, has bold plans to group students in new ways based on need and possibly even to do away with traditional grade levels. Many districts will probably hew to more traditional arrangements. But whatever their approach, districts will need to get a good handle on what students successfully learned during their months of remote instruction and what they might need additional help on.

One of the things we realize is that no matter how good a job we do, theres going to be a regression and theres going to be learning loss, says Mark Secaur, the deputy superintendent of the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools in Woodmere, New York. And a lot of the work weve done is to try to identify the gaps that will be caused by this and try to mitigate them.

But how do you start getting that gauge? Part of the problem, educators say, is that the term diagnostic in K-12 is a slippery, ill-defined one. But that is not stopping vendors of both commercial exams and other products from using the term as they hawk services to help districts get a sense of where kids are.

The superintendents and testing experts EdWeek interviewed say: Not so fast.

So-called diagnostic tests may not provide as much helpful information as leaders think, and some of the most powerful strategies are also the simplest, though they will involve detailed work before school begins: Putting teachers in touch with one another, and going through what was actually taught from March onward with a fine-toothed comb.

Here are their five tips for grasping what students know and dont for the 2020-21 school year, and how to respond.

1. Dont use state tests or off-the-shelf exams as a diagnostic tool.

Thats one of the recommendations from Scott Marion, at the Center for Assessment, who said hes had to talk a few state chiefs out of the idea of administering last springs state test in the fall.

The year-end tests, which are generally used to gauge students broad grasp of standards and meet state requirements under federal law, arent so great for pinpointing areas of instructional strength and weaknesses.

Do not give a general assessment of the prior year content, or earlier content, that isnt tied to your curriculum as closely as possible. And if you do, dont make deterministic decisions about them, said Marion, noting that the results will be tenuous at best. For example, some students who look like theyre behind might bounce back in two weeks and should not be automatically put in a remedial track.

Adding to the confusion, well-meaning groups are compiling lists of so-called diagnostic assessments districts might use at the beginning of the year to figure out where kids are. But testing experts warn that each of these exams was developed for different purposes and need to be considered within those contexts. While some might provide some general guidance to district leaders to help allocate funding or identify focus for PD, theyre unlikely to be of much use to teachers, who need to plan for fine-grained teaching differences.

I dont think I can give you a large-scale assessment that can tell you what aspects of fractions you know and dont know, Marion explains. We need things that are much more in teachers hands for the instructional piece.

Its a sentiment largely echoed by other educators, even as they acknowledge that many districts are getting pitched by vendors for solutions.

District leaders love assessment and love measurement, and theyre usually a little light on the what-do-we-do-with-it-now piece, said Eric Kalenze, a high school English teacher in Minneapolis and director of ResearchED U.S., a teacher collaborative that aims to improve the use of education research in K-12 schools. My biggest caution is to figure out ways to strengthen your local assessment and feedback process, rather than go to the global tests. Theyre not going to give you as good a picture of what is happening in front of you.

2. Equip teachers with better real-time gauges of learning.

Rather than diagnostic exams, districts might consider investing in teacher training on how to develop and make use of their own day-by-day and minute-to-minute gauges of what students know that help them alter teaching in real time. While this idea of formative assessment has been around for decades, it is still not deeply ingrained in American schools .

Many teachers are worried about negotiating large disparities in student performance as a result of the digital divide and differential access to learning materials. But as formative assessment expert Dylan Wiliam notes, schools have always had a range of student abilities at each grade level because of social promotion and other decisions.

One idea, he says, is to help teachers learn how to ask range-finding questions that help them quickly judge where a whole class is at the beginning of a lesson. In biology, for example, a teacher could pose something like this: What percentage of water taken in by a corn plant is lost by transpiration?

Students responses to that will indicate whether they have the prerequisite knowledge or not for the days lesson, and teachers can then pitch their instruction appropriately.

Most people think that the purpose of feedback is to improve the work, said Wiliam, an emeritus professor at the University of College London. But in fact, its to improve the students performance on a task not yet attempted. Feedback is designed to make you play better for the next day.

3. Connect your teachers to one another now.

Kalenzes school has just one section in English in grades 6-12, so hell get to see all his students in the next grade in the fall. That turns out to be an ideal setup for the return to school.

I have all this knowledge about who got exposed to what, and thats going to be super handy going into next year: Lexie never read Romeo & Juliet and someone else never did the persuasive essay, he said. I think to the extent possible; you should really connect previous grade level teachers to current grade level teachers in the early going to discuss certain students. That might be more informative than anythingway more informative than a standardized testbecause then you can talk about whos been disconnected, whos been completely out of loop, and whos thrived.

Arrangements like the one in Kalenzes school are a difficult lift for larger high schools and for most school districts, of course. Some districts are considering looping keeping teachers with the same students as they progress to the next gradebut the practice isnt always logistically feasible (or desirable, if a teacher doesnt have a good grasp on the curriculum in the successive grade).

But the basic idea of connecting each students prior year teachers to their new ones to review their progress, stands out as a best practice, even though it may take some administrative finagling.

4. Focus on the gaps in your content and the curriculumnot just on students performance gaps.

Its a truism that students can only demonstrate mastery of a topic if theyve been given enough exposure to the crucial content and skills that underpin it. Thats the idea behind some districts approaches.

In the Hewlett-Woodmere schools, the district has helped teachers meet in collegial circles by subject and grade level to talk about what parts of the 2019-20 curriculum they were able to cover during the shift to remote learning, and what they ended up leaving out, due to pacing problems or difficulty teaching that content through distance learning. The point is to get to a consensus about what, in general, students didnt get a sufficient opportunity to learn.

Then, the teachers will examine the next years curriculum, weave in these missing foundational pieces, and alter the scope and sequence of lessons and units to match.

The answers to these questions are serving as the impetus for curriculum writing, says Secaur. The 3,000-student district was able to redirect its conference and workshop funds for the year towards curriculum to aid the process.

Not only will that help make sure that learning stays on grade level, he also believes teachers are more likely to embrace it than other external interventions.

There is a big lift involved, but by having the teachers lead the way in that work, theyre going to be much more invested in the outcome than if we were to tell them, Oh, were going to loop next year, he said. We really want them to point the way.

Districts that already use shared curricula across their schools and grades are in a better position to help teachers come together and identify the skills and content that most students probably missed in the last few weeks of the 2019-20, said Mike Magee, the CEO of Chiefs for Change, in a recent webinar with some of the nations largest superintendents. Districts that have yet to standardize what students are learning may want to prioritize that for the upcoming school year, he said.

A handful of publishers, like Great Minds, the publisher of the Eureka Math materials, also say they will release curriculum-aligned tests that will purportedly help target foundational skills for each of their units. Those exams will be at least theoretically aligned to specific content, and potentially could be more helpful than more generic reading and math exams in helping to pinpoint teaching gaps.

5. Resist the temptation to reteach. Focus on grade-level curriculum instead.

While its highly tempting to go back and reteach the last chunk of the school yearespecially if in-person teaching is possiblethe smart money says thats probably the wrong move. With the possible exception of one-on-one tutoring, the research literature on remediation generally finds few benefits for students. (Historic, continuing gaps in performance between underserved students and their peers also testify to how hard it is to catch students up en masse.)

Our number one commitment is to accelerate. We are going to stay on high expectations on current grade level, and use intervention time and home time to address the needs, said Scott Langford, the assistant director for instruction of the 30,000-student Sumner County, Tenn., schools north of Nashville. Everything Ive read is that when you go back and try to over-remediate, all you do is grow larger deficits.

Langfords district hopes to use that as a jumping-off point for intervention, so as teachers identify foundational skills and content students need help with, it can supply parents with information and ask them to focus on those skills at home. That would free up teachers to spend most of their time on the grade-level curriculum.

There will need to be some backtracking, of course: Its impossible, for instance, to do fractions absent some grasp of decimals, and in such cases focused attention might be necessary. And for some administrators, it can be hard to avoid the temptation to focus on reteaching, especially when external pressures, like end-of-course exams, drive a lot of handwringing.

But top leaders say the overall goal for teaching should be broader.

The key issue is what skills and competencies students need to take the next math course and progress through all the courses, notes Secaur of the Hewlett-Woodmere district. My concern is not, are we going to have a 93 percent average on the algebra Regents exam. Its, are students going to be prepared for geometry? We have to make sure that area is covered.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

Several protesters have been arrested Sunday evening on and near the upper deck of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a protest that effectively closed westbound Interstate Highway 80 for over an hour.

The California Highway Patrol said westbound lanes on the bridge west of Treasure Island were shut down by Black Lives Matter protesters at about 4:45 p.m. By 6:30 p.m., two of the five westbound lanes had reopened, and traffic was moving slowly through the area, the CHP said. The main traffic slowdown as of 6:30 p.m. was on I-80 just east of the Fremont Street interchange in San Francisco.

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.
Due to the unprecedented consequences, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have brought on businesses, small enterprises with the ripple effect biting real hard, it has become seemingly critical that businesses be given a financial boost to get them back on track for the post-COVID-19 period which has now become known as the new normal life.

The world of work has been profoundly affected by the pandemic. In addition to the threat to public health, the economic and social disruption threatens the long-term livelihoods and wellbeing of millions.

The pandemic is heavily affecting labour markets, economies, and enterprises, including global supply chains, leading to widespread business disruptions.

It is against this background that one of the leading Microfinance operators in Ghana that survived the financial sector clean up and still going stronger, Leverage Microfinance, is seeking to reach out to all kinds of businesses to inject funding into their operations.

The Shareholders of Leverage Microfinance Co. Ltd. have injected an additional capital to increase its stated capital to 4.7 million Ghana Cedis. This has received the approval of the Central Bank of Ghana (BOG) as of March 2020.

With this injection, the company can now extend to its clients, loans with medium-term repayment options.

Leverage Microfinance is happy to inform the general public of its readiness to assist individuals and other corporate bodies in acquiring loan facilities from the company to meet their economic and other business or personal needs.

This was revealed by the CEO of Leverage Microfinance Co. Ltd., Gilbert K. N. Adamtey, in an exclusive interview after 9 years of operation.

He reinstated that, although the minimum paid-up capital within the sector is 2million Ghana Cedis, the injection and approval has come at the right time to complement the efforts of its clients in these trying times for businesses and individuals as a result of the global pandemic.

The CEO hinted, that the company has also added on to the existing board and management team astute professionals to strengthen its corporate governance structure for operations.

As the vision of the company is to provide financial solutions to livelihoods in Africa, Leverage Microfinance currently has a number of tailored-made products for its customers. A recent product introduced is the Leverage Public Sector (Controller) Loan.

This product is geared towards meeting personal commitment for growth including the establishment of second line of business income.

He also expressed appreciation to the staff and all stakeholders who have held forth for the company in the past 9-years of the companys operation.
Paris cafe and restaurant owners cheered Monday as the government allowed them to reopen their dining rooms after three months of lost revenue during the coronavirus lockdown. The sooner-than-expected reopening for the Paris region was announced by President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday as news came of France's lowest daily COVID-19 toll since March -- nine deaths in 24 hours. While restaurants across most of France were allowed to open earlier this month, those in and around the capital, where circulation of the coronavirus remained high, could serve clients only on outdoor terraces until now. "The question now is whether clients will come back," Albert Aidan, the manager at L'Ami Georges, a few blocks from the Opera Garnier, told AFP. "Most companies are still having their employees work from home," he said. Several nearby restaurants remained closed. Many shared Macron's optimism that France has marked a "first victory" against the coronavirus thanks to strict stay-at-home orders imposed in March. "It's going to be a party," Stephane Manigold, owner of four Paris restaurants, including the two-starred Maison Rostang, told AFP. Manigold has successfully sued his insurer, French giant Axa, to pay some 70,000 euros ($79,000) in compensation for lost business. Didier Chenet, head of the GNI association of independent hotel and restaurant owners, estimates that social distancing rules which saw restaurants remove tables to ensure a distance of one metre (3.3 feet) between diners, have cut capacity by half at least. Unless the government lifts the one-metre rule, he said, "recovery will be very slow, with economic conditions that are not viable for our businesses," he said. - 'Can't open in a day' - Foreign tourists, the key ingredient for success at Paris restaurants in particular, are not expected to arrive in pre-COVID numbers anytime soon, even as the EU begins to tentatively open up its internal borders. The first train from Paris to Germany since mid-March left the Gare du Nord station early Monday, heading for Dortmund. "We're taking the children to see their grandmother and spend some holiday time together as a family. It feels good after so long!" said one passenger, Alexis. Not all borders are open, though. Hard-hit Spain, for example, will allow free travel with the rest of the EU only from June 21. Many Paris restaurants said they will need time to restock and get their employees back, and some complained about the short notice that came from Macron only Sunday evening. "At best we'll open two restaurants on Wednesday, and the others next week," said Manigold. "One day maybe politicians will understand that you can't just open a restaurant in a day. They could have avoided the abruptness," he added. Francisco Ferrandez of La Bocca in central Paris said he started calling his employees after Macron's address. "It's like with the closure, everything at the last minute. When they announced the closure, we had to throw away fresh produce, and for the reopening they tell us from one day to the next." The COVID-19 epidemic has claimed more than 29,000 lives in France, one of the world's highest reported tolls. Health Minister Olivier Veran on Monday proclaimed that "the bulk of the epidemic is behind us" but warned the virus was "not completely defeated." This meant things will not be returning quite to normal for a while. Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet, and his staff worked between spaced-out tables amid arrows on the floor to show clients where to walk ahead of reopening his dining room Tuesday. Clients will be asked to use sanitising hand gel on entry and keep their masks on until seated, he said. "We'll have to try to alleviate the nervousness...," Fontaine told AFP. And in Lyon in the east, the brasserie Georges -- one of Europe's largest -- welcomed some 50 clients on Monday for lunch with a reduced staff and only half its tables available. Awaiting her order after having her temperature taken and disinfecting her hands, 71-year-old Genevieve Beaujolin said she could not imagine returning home to Italy "without eating a sauerkraut at the Brasserie George's!" Until now, restaurants in and around the capital could only serve clients on outdoor terraces Macron said the government had mobilised 500 billion euros to ease the coronavirus blow to the economy France reported just nine COVID-19 deaths in the previous 24 hours -- the lowest figure since March
A Conservative peer has said recent death threats against journalists and politicians in Northern Ireland are "beyond despicable" and has called for paramilitaries to be "put out of business for good".

Lord Jonathan Caine raised the issue in the House of Lords on Monday after loyalists threatened journalists working at the Sunday Life and Sunday World newspapers last month.

A number of politicians were subsequently threatened by loyalists after condemning the threats.

It is understood the threats emanated from the breakaway South East Antrim UDA.

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Lord Caine said: "The recent death threats to journalists and politicians in Northern Ireland from paramilitary groups are quite frankly beyond despicable and have no place in any society that is based on democracy and the rule of law."

He added: "Everyone in Northern Ireland should be able to go about their daily business without threat or the fear of threat and we now urgently need a renewed and serious effort to put all paramilitary groups - which were never justified in the past and have no justification today- out of business for good."

Lord James Younger, speaking on behalf of the UK Government, said: "Ending paramiltarism and the harm caused by paramilitarism is a priority in the new programme for government.

"He will know that these are complex issues and require a long-term approach. A targeted approached to tackling paramilitarism was also recognised within the New Decade New Approach agreement."

Lord Younger said the PSNI's Paramilitary Crime Task Force has had a number of recent successes in dealing with paramilitary organisations.

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Lord Peter Hain, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, raised the case of Jennifer McNern - reported in the Belfast Telegraph last week.

Ms McNern is taking legal action against the Stormont Executive over the delay in the delivery of a victims' pension.

Lord Hain said: "She is having to drag herself this week to the High Court in Belfast to force the NI Executive to meet its legal responsibility to implement the victims payment scheme for those like her severely injured through no fault of their own."

Lord Hain said it was "shameful" that victims were not being provided with pensions for the injuries they received.

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Lord Younger said: "The key to unblocking progress is a designation of a department to provide administrative support to the victims payments board. The Justice Minister (Naomi Long) has indicated that she is prepared to take on that role and the Secretary of State is working as hard as he possibly can to take matters forward. It is urgent."

Ms McNern sustained horrific injuries when she was 21 in the 1972 Abercorn restaurant bomb in Belfast city centre. Her sister Rosaleen also lost her legs, and her right arm, in the explosion.

The legal action will focus on the Executive's "failure to comply with legislation to provide payments for those severely injured through no fault of their own during the Troubles".

The Victims' Payment Scheme had been due to open for applications on May 29.

But a row over the definition of a victim has meant that didn't happen, and structures passed into law at Westminster in January to administer the scheme aren't in place.

UUP Peer Lord Reg Empey said there was a need for a "fresh start" in tackling paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.

"It is now 22 years since the Belfast Agreement was ratified by referendum but yet every single one of the paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland, plus a few that have developed since, are still functioning. Surely that demonstrates the need for an absolutely fresh start in terms of tackling this paramilitary violence," he said.
Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Candelaria Mining Corp. (TSXV:CAND, OTC PINK:CDELF) (the Company) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a letter agreement with Accendo Banco, S.A. (Accendo) providing the terms under which Accendo will provide a loan facility for US$9 million. Funds advanced under the facility will be used for financing construction of the Companys Pinos project and working capital purposes.

The loan facility will be secured against the assets of the Company and its subsidiaries, will bear interest at 13% per annum, and have a term of 60 months from the initial draw date. Candelaria may draw US$500,000 upon execution of the facility, with the balance to be made available on completion of final loan documentation.

In connection with the loan facility, Accendo will receive a cash fee from the Company of 2% of the amount of the Loan Facility, as well as 18 million non-transferable share purchase warrants (the Bonus Warrants). Each Bonus Warrant will entitle Accendo to purchase one common share of the Company at a price (the Exercise Price) of C$0.11 per share for a period of 60 months.

Accendo is a registered full service bank under the laws of Mexico. Mr. Javier Reyes is Chairman of Accendo and a director of the Company. In connection with the loan, Mr. Reyes has agreed to resign from his position as director of the Company in order to comply with bank internal requirements.

Closing of the loan facility transaction is subject to exchange approval and completion of final documentation.

About Candelaria Mining

Candelaria Mining is a Canadian-based gold development and exploration company with a portfolio of highly prospective projects in Mexico, one of the worlds best mining jurisdictions. Candelarias 100% owned Caballo Blanco Project hosts an Indicated Resource of 521,000 ounces of gold and 2,170,000 ounces of silver (31,220,000 tonnes grading 0.52 g/t gold and 2.16 g/t silver) and an Inferred Resource of 95,000 ounces of gold and 590,000 of ounces of silver (8,630,000 tonnes grading 0.34 g/t gold and 2.14 g/t silver). Potential exists to increase these estimated resources through continued drilling and exploration. Candelaria also holds the Pinos Gold Project which hosts a Measured Resource of 4,444 ounces of gold and 228,892 ounces of silver (85,847 tonnes grading 1.6 g/t gold and 82.9 g/t silver), an Indicated Resource of 20,586 ounces of gold and 267,745 of ounces of silver (175,697 tonnes grading 3.6 g/t gold and 47.4 g/t silver) and an Inferred Resource of 60,657 ounces of gold and 811,082 of ounces of silver (529,267 tonnes grading 3.6 g/t gold and 47.4 g/t silver). For more information on resource estimates, please see the technical reports prepared pursuant to NI 43-101 which are available on the Companys website at www.candelariamining.com .

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD,

Curtis Turner

Chief Executive Officer

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

Email: info@candelariamining.com

Phone: 604-349-5992

Neither the 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.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Saiful Azam became the only fighter pilot to have downed four Israeli aircraft.

Palestinian activists are mourning the loss of Saiful Azam, 79, a Bangladesh fighter pilot who died of natural causes in the capital, Dhaka, on Sunday.

Azam, also a former legislator from Bangladeshs mid-northern Pabna-3 constituency, was regarded as a legendary figure for Bangladeshi people, thanks to his record as an ace fighter pilot.

A unique figure in the history of Bangladesh, Azam fought in wars as a fighter pilot in three different countries  Jordan, Iraq, and Pakistan.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, he was the only pilot to have downed four Israeli aircraft.

Mourning him on Facebook, Palestinian historian Osama al-Ashqar hailed Azam as a great airman.

Our brothers in Bangladesh and Pakistan were our partners in resistance and defending the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the holy site in Jerusalem, he added.

The Palestinian professor Naji Shoukri posted on his Twitter prayers mourning Azam.

Saiful Azam loved Palestine and fought for the sake of Jerusalem, said Shoukri, saluting him and wishing him Gods grace.

Renowned Palestinian journalist Tamer al-Mishal lauded Azam, calling him the Eagle of the Air.

Downing four Israeli warplanes

On June 5, 1967, four Israeli jets were descending on Jordans Mafraq airbase to smash the countrys tiny air force, shortly after the entire Egyptian air force had been destroyed.

Jordanian air force commanders deployed Azam to thwart the attack, shooting down two aircraft. He was shifted to Iraq two days later to defend air bases, where he shot down two more Israeli planes.

In recognition of Azams contributions, he was conferred with military awards by Jordan and Iraq. The United States also gave him the Living Eagles title in 2001 for his outstanding skills.

After the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the veteran pilot joined the Bangladesh Air Force to serve his homeland. In 1980, he retired and joined the civil service and later took up a political career.

Describing Azam as the pride of Bangladesh, former chief of Border Guards Bangladesh, Major General Fazlur Rahman, said his name will remain a part of Bangladeshs history.

He is a source of inspiration for every soldier in the battleground on how to defeat the big enemy with limited weapons. He set a milestone in optimum use of skills and courage during war, Rahman said.

Star of courage medal

Born in a remote area in Bangladeshs central district of Pabna in 1941, he spent his childhood in the Indian city of Kolkata with his father. After the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, his family migrated to Bangladesh (then East Pakistan).

According to the South Asia-based analytical website Roar Media, Azam left home at the age of 14 for higher secondary education in then West Pakistan (now Pakistan). In 1958 he was admitted to Pakistan Air Force Cadet College, where he completed his education as a pilot officer.

Popular defence blog Fighter Jets World also recorded that after learning the fundamentals of aviation in Pakistan, Azam was sent for advanced air combat training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

During the 1965 India-Pakistan war he also downed an Indian warplane, encouraging Pakistani forces to stand against India with limited warfare tools.

The act was widely applauded in Pakistan, which awarded Azam Pakistanis Star of Courage (Sitara-e-Jurat) medal, the third-most prestigious award of its military.
Manila: Award-winning Philippine-American journalist Maria Ressa, head of a news website critical of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, has been found guilty of cyber libel in a landmark verdict seen as a major blow to press freedom in the country.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa, 56, her online news site Rappler and former reporter Reynaldo Santos jnr guilty of defaming a wealthy businessman. The Rappler's story on May 29, 2012, cited an unspecified intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The site's lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

Maria Ressa, editor and CEO of Rappler, passes through a disinfection chamber as she arrives in court in Manila on Monday. Credit:Getty Images

Ressa was not the author of the report, which was posted four months before the law on cyber libel was enacted, sparking criticisms that the case was politically motivated and filed in retaliation for Rappler's reporting.

"The decision for me is devastating because it says that Rappler is wrong," Ressa said in a news conference after the decision was handed down. Her voice cracking, she appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights "and hold power to account".
An Orewa building, built with Rodney ratepayers money, has been sold for almost half its CV value.

An unconditional deal is in place for the former Rodney District Council administration centre, on Centreway Road, at a price that Auckland Councillor John Watson describes as a fire sale of staggering proportions.

The property has a CV of $28.8 million, but Cr Watson says the sale price was almost half that  $15.1 million.

By any measure, thats a woeful deal for a prime, 1.9ha site only 500m from Orewa Beach and with business mixed use zoning, Cr Watson says. Its a scandal, and thats without taking into account the substantial capital investment put into the site just prior to the Councils amalgamation. The relatively new Tasman Building, for instance, cost more than $12 million alone.

The purchaser is Sustainable Property Investments, whose director, John Bolam, is a long-term Whangaparaoa resident. Mr Bolam says that the company specialises in re-purposing, leasing and operating commercial properties.

Council will continue to lease the site, which provides face-to-face services for ratepayers, until around 2022/23, when those services will be amalgamated at a hub in Albany. Mayor Phil Goff says an alternative location in Orewa will be found for a customer service centre and local board meeting rooms.
Lori Vallow's oldest son has broken his silence over the deaths of his two siblings, Joshua 'JJ' Vallow and Tylee Ryan, revealing that he wishes he could trade places with them.

Over the weekend Colby Ryan and his wife Kelsee visited the site where seven-year-old JJ and 17-year-old Tylee's bodies were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of Lori's husband Chad Daybell's home in Salem, Idaho.

In the wake of the discovery last Tuesday, the fence outside Chad's property has been covered with touching tributes to the children, who disappeared in September but were never reported missing by their mother.

Photos from the East Idaho News show Colby adding his own tribute, a sign, amongst the many flowers, ribbons, stuffed animals and other mementos left by other members of the community.

The sign reads: 'To my beautiful little brother and sister. We will never forget you. This is not the end. You will have justice and we will meet again in paradise. I love you so much. Rest in peace.'

Lori Vallow's oldest son Colby Ryan broke his silence over the deaths of his siblings Joshua 'JJ' Vallow and Tylee Ryan over the weekend as he visited the site where the children were buried at their stepfather Chad Daybell's property in Salem, Idaho (pictured)

Colby left the sign above on the fence outside Chad's property. It reads: 'To my beautiful little brother and sister. We will never forget you. This is not the end. You will have justice and we will meet again in paradise. I love you so much. Rest in peace'

Tylee and JJ's bodies were found on the property of their stepfather Chad Daybell last week

Colby also shared his grief in an Instagram post on Saturday after police officially confirmed that the remains belonged to JJ and Tylee.

'I don't even know how to start this. But to my beautiful, Amazing, sweet angels. The only peace I have is knowing you are in paradise,' he wrote in the caption of several photos with his siblings.

'I'm broken over this. To not see [your] beautiful faces, hear your voices. Or know that I can't hug you or see you kills me. I will never let anyone forget you. I have prayed that I could be with you again, and one day that will be true.

'I have more love for both of you than you could ever know. I miss you both. I love you both. This seems like a nightmare. It seems unreal. You were taken from all of us. You both touched so many lives. You impacted so many people. That will never go away.

'Just know I will carry you every day and everywhere I go. My daughter will always know how lucky she is to have you both watching over her. Tylee And Joshua. I will never be able to express my love for you. But know this, I'm still here for you. I will always wish I could have traded places with you. But I'll never let you be forgotten. With all of my love to you both. Forever you're in our hearts.'

Colby's sign is seen amongst a growing pile of tributes placed outside Chad's property

Colby is pictured with his biological sister Tylee in an undated Facebook photo

Rexburg Police on Saturday confirmed that the two sets of remains recovered from Chad Daybell's property (pictured) had been officially identified as JJ and Tylee

Chad Daybell, 51, is facing two felony charges in the disappearance of his wife Lori's children. Lori is currently behind bars on charges of neglect and desertion

Colby is Tylee's biological sister - both born to Lori and her third husband Joseph Ryan.

He came to love JJ like a brother after Lori and her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, adopted the boy years ago.

Colby and other relatives had spent the better part of the past year desperately hoping that the children would be found safe after they vanished over nine months ago.

But on Wednesday they received the news they've been dreading, when authorities confirmed that two sets of human remains recovered on Chad's property belonged to JJ and Tylee.

Police are now facing mounting questions over why it took so long to find the children in a location that they had already searched six months prior in January.

Timeline of JJ and Tylee's disappearance July 11, 2019: Lori Vallow's husband, Charles Vallow, is killed by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona. August: Lori moves children JJ and Tylee to Rexburg, Idaho, where Chad Daybell lives with his wife Tammy. September 8: The last time Tylee is seen during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with Lori, JJ and Alex. September 23: The last time JJ is seen at his school in Rexburg. October 19: Chad's wife Tammy, 49, dies at their Idaho home. October 25: A friend of Tylee receives a vague 'miss you' text from her phone but says that it didn't sound like the teen. November 5: Lori and Chad tie the knot on a beach in Kauai. November 26: Out-of-state relatives ask Idaho police to perform a welfare check on JJ and learn both he and Tylee have not been seen for months. November 27: Police execute a search warrant related to the children at Lori's home and discover that she and Chad have fled Idaho. December 11: Tammy's body is exhumed from a Utah cemetery and her death is reclassified as suspicious. December 12: Lori's brother, Alex Cox, is found unresponsive in Arizona and dies. December 21: Rexburg police issue the first press release about JJ and Tylee, revealing they believe their disappearance could be linked to Tammy's death. December 24: Lori and Chad issue a statement through an attorney saying they love their son and daughter and look forward to addressing 'allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor'. December 30: Police accuse Lori and Chad of lying to investigators and say they believe the couple know where the kids are or what happened to them. January 3, 2020: Police search Chad's home in Salem and remove 43 items. They also comb over sections of the snow-covered yard with rakes and metal detectors. January 26: Lori and Chad are seen for the first time in months as police serve them with a court order to produce the children to authorities in Idaho in five days. January 30: Lori misses the court deadline to produce the children to Idaho authorities. February 20: Lori is arrested in Kauai. March 5: Lori is extradited to Idaho, where she is held on $1million bond at Madison County Jail. April 9: Authorities reveal they are investigating Lori and Chad for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with Tammy's death. June 9: Police search Chad's home in Salem for the second time and discover human remains in the backyard. Chad is taken into police custody and charged with destruction or concealment of evidence. June 13: Police confirm that the remains belonged to JJ and Tylee. Advertisement

Chad was arrested the same day that the bodies were found and was charged with two counts of destruction or concealment of evidence. He is being held on $1million bond at Fremont County Jail.

Lori has spent the past four months behind bars at the neighboring Madison County Jail on five charges related to the children's disappearance: two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of children and one misdemeanor count each for obstructing an investigation, criminal solicitation to commit a crime and contempt of court.

Prosecutors have not said whether they plan to add additional charges in light of the body discovery.

Authorities began searching for the children in late November after performing a welfare check ordered by concerned relatives who said they hadn't spoken to seven-year-old JJ, who is autistic, in months.

When officers first went to Lori's home in Idaho on November 26, she told them that JJ was visiting relatives in Arizona - which investigators say was a lie.

Officers returned the following day and found that Lori and the man she married weeks earlier, Chad, had fled from the home.

Authorities said the couple had repeatedly lied about where JJ and Tylee were and refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Lori and Chad were named persons of interest in the children's disappearance after investigators said they believed the mother knew where her children were or what happened to them.

The case captured nationwide attention with the revelations that police are also investigating three mysterious deaths linked to Lori and Chad, as well as family members' claims that the couple are members of a dangerous doomsday cult.

The first death is that of Lori's estranged husband Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona on July 10.

Charles and Lori had gotten into an argument when the father came to pick up JJ at the mother's home in Chandler.

Lori's brother intervened and fatally shot Charles.

Police initially determined that he acted in self defense - but the case was reopened amid the multi-state search for JJ and Tylee, who had moved to Idaho, where Chad lived, with their mother in August.

The second mysterious death was Tammy Daybell, who was found dead at the home she shared with Chad on October 19.

An obituary stated that Tammy passed away in her sleep and her cause of death was ruled as natural after Chad reportedly declined an autopsy.

Investigators reopened the case after learning that JJ and Tylee were missing, as their mother had married Chad just two weeks after Tammy died.

They believe the two cases could be linked.

Tammy's body was exhumed on December 11 and the autopsy results have not yet been released.

On December 12, Lori's brother, Alex Cox, was found dead in Gilbert, Arizona.

An autopsy determined that the 51-year-old's died of natural causes but noted that he had the overdose drug Narcan in his system at the time.

Police tracked Lori and Chad down in Princeville, Hawaii, in late January and served the mother with a court order requiring her to physically produce the children to authorities in Idaho by January 30.

Lori failed to meet the deadline, prompting her arrest and extradition to Idaho, where she is currently being held at Madison County Jail in lieu of $1million bond.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 18:58 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee6143 1 National same-sex-marriage,same-sex-couples,LGBT-in-Indonesia,Soppeng,South-Sulawesi,homosexual,homosexuality Free

A same-sex couple who recently held a wedding ceremony in Soppeng regency, South Sulawesi have been arrested and accused of falsifying their sexual identities prior to their marriage.

The Soppeng Police have detained the 24-year-old groom, identified only as MTR, and the 21-year-old bride, identified as MT, following a medical check-up and a series of interviews with several witnesses.

We have questioned seven witnesses, including the marriage officiant, Soppeng Police general crimes unit head Adj. Comr. Amri told kompas.com on Monday.

He said that MTR, who was found to have female genitalia, was identified as male on their identity card.

Amri said that the bride, MT, had known about her partners sexual identity prior to their marriage. However, she refused to disclose such information to her parents as she had already fallen in love with MTR, he said.

Read also: Of coming out and acceptance: LGBT youth seek peace in conservative Indonesia

Both MTR and MT have since been charged under Article 263 of the Criminal Code on document forgery, which carries a maximum punishment of six years in prison, according to Amri.

The couple held their wedding on June 9. Despite the smooth proceedings, rumors circulated among the attendees regarding the grooms sexual identity. The village head said that neither the village administration nor the local Religious Affairs Office (KUA) had issued a marriage license for the couple.

MTs parents reported their suspicion to the Soppeng Police on Saturday.

Our entire family is ashamed, we have become the subject of ridicule because we were lied to. All this time, we thought [MTR] was a man based on his ID card, MTs parents said.

While Indonesian law does not criminalize homosexuality, anti-gay sentiment has risen in the past few years and same-sex marriage is not legally recognized. (rfa)
A second person who attended the Black Lives Matter protest has tested positive to COVID-19 as two Melbourne primary schools have been forced to close because of an outbreak linked to one family spread across three suburbs.

Victorias Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton confirmed 12 new cases on Monday, bringing the state's total to 1732.

Professor Sutton said the second person who tested positive after attending the Black Lives Matter protest on June 6 is unlikely to have acquired the virus at the rally.

He said the young woman had only displayed mild symptoms in recent days and had taken precautions at the rally, including wearing a face mask and observing social distancing measures, so it was unlikely she has infected others.
China and Pakistan possess more nuclear weapons than India, according to a new yearbook released by a leading conflict and armaments think-tank on Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)s Yearbook 2020 pegs the number of nuclear warheads in the Chinese arsenal at 320, while the nuclear forces of Pakistan and India are estimated to have 160 and 150 weapons, respectively.

The figures have been updated till January 2020.

India and its neighbours were ranked in the same order by SIPRI last year too when China possessed 290 nuclear warheads, Pakistan 150-160 and India had 130-140 warheads at the start of 2019.

The findings come at a time when India and China are caught in a border confrontation along the contested line of actual control in eastern Ladakh. Also, there is a noticeable military buildup on both sides of the borderstretching from Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.

China is carrying out significant modernisation of its nuclear arsenal and developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time made up of new land and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable fighter jets, the SIPRI said in a statement announcing the launch of the yearbook.

India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, it said.

The yearbook, which assesses the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security, found while there has been an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads in 2019, all nuclear weapon-possessing countries continue to modernise their nuclear arsenals.

With 6,375 and 5,800 warheads, Russia and the United States together possess more than 90% of global nuclear weapons.

The nine nuclear-armed countriesthe US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Koreatogether account for an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons as of January 2020.

This marked a decrease from the 13,865 nuclear weapons that SIPRI estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019. Around 3,720 of the nuclear weapons are currently deployed with operational forces and nearly 1,800 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert, SIPRIs statement said.

It also highlighted low levels of transparency in reporting on nuclear weapon capabilities.

China now publicly displays its nuclear forces more frequently than in the past but releases little information about force numbers or future development plans, the statement said.

The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide no information about the status or size of their arsenals, it added.

India was the third-biggest military spender in the world last year after the US and China, according to a SIPRI report released in April. It was the first time that two Asian countries featured among the top three military spenders.

New Delhis defence spending grew by 6.8% to reach $71.1 billion in 2019, said the report on Trends in World in World Military Expenditure.
On Wednesday, June 10, the Sixth Circuit US Court of Appeals signed an order dismissing the Gary B. v. Whitmer case, commonly known as the Detroit literacy case, legally bringing it to a conclusion. The settlement reached last month between Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the plaintiffs in the Gary B. v. Whitmer case will stand, but a legal precedent for the constitutional right to an education has been vacated.

In a calculated move, all 16 judges of the Sixth Circuit court agreed not to rehear the case en banc, as they had indicated they would in a decision May 19. The unusual decision to rehear the case en banc was initiated by the request of several Republican Michigan legislators to the appeals court seeking to overturn the April 23 ruling of a three-judge panel of that court. The majority opinion of that panel, written by Justice Eric Clay, in overturning a June 2018 ruling in Detroit, allowed that the Detroit plaintiffs had been denied access to a basic education.

An attorney for the Republican-controlled Michigan legislature, John J. Bursch, told the press, The important point is that the en banc 6th Circuit already vacated the opinion, so it has no precedential value. From a legal perspective, its as though Judge (Eric) Clay never even wrote it. Thus, it appears the May 19 decision allowed the court to permit the settlement between the plaintiffs and the state of Michigan to stand, but legally abrogates any precedent declaring a federal, constitutionally-mandated guarantee to education.

The April 23 decision itself emphasized that it was narrow in scope. The decision merely recognized the right to access to basic literacy, equivalent to a third-grade reading level, in order to provide access to skills that are essential for the basic exercise of other fundamental rights and liberties, most importantly participation in our political system.

As the WSWS pointed out at the time, the enthusiasm for that narrow scope by the plaintiffs and their supporters expressed the shift to the right of liberalism over the past half century.

The settlement following the April 23 decision, hastily reached on May 14 between the seven plaintiffs representing all students in the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) and the State of Michigan, provides for $280,000 for the seven plaintiffs and merely $2.7 million to provide literacy initiatives in the district. These funds are available to the governor to distribute without legislative approval.

The settlement also stipulates that the governor will propose legislation during her first term for a further $94.5 million for literacy initiatives in the district. Particularly under conditions of massive budget cuts being fueled by the loss of tax revenue caused by the coronavirus pandemic economic crisis, this money will undoubtedly not be approved.

The class-action lawsuit was originally filed by the seven Detroit students in 2016, alleging that the appalling conditions in the Detroit schools denied them basic literacy skills. The suit sought to set a legal precedent based on the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution for equal protection in regard to education. US District Court Judge Stephen Murphy III dismissed the case in June 2018, sending it to the US Court of Appeals.

The case was seen as a challenge to the prevailing precedent that the federal government has no constitutional obligation to provide access to education for its citizens. That precedent was set in 1973, when the US Supreme Court ruled that there is no fundamental right to education in the Constitution in the San Antonio (TX) v. Rodriguez case. The latest decision by the Sixth Circuit court to vacate the ruling by its own three-judge panel ensured that the Detroit case would proceed no further and set no new precedent.

In 2018, following the denial of the plaintiffs claims in Detroit, the Center for Educational Equity (CEE) at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York, initiated another class action suit, this time in Rhode Island. This suit, which is awaiting an imminent ruling from US District Court Judge William Smith on a motion to dismiss, was launched by veteran litigator Michael A. Rebell. The CEE chose Rhode Island because it has no requirement for civics courses, and minimal history requirements.

The Rhode Island case takes a different tack than the one in Detroit. Rebell based the current case on the successful outcome of a prior suit against the state of New York, in which the courts agreed that, from a fiscal standpoint, the state of New York was obligated to prepare its students to participate in civic life.

Unlike the Detroit case, which focused on the educational environment preventing basic literacy skills but failed to prevail on appeal on claims of equal protection under the 14th Amendment, the Rhode Island case was launched explicitly to challenge the assertion that the federal government has no obligations for education and that those obligations fall to the states and municipalities.

In a 2019 seminar with Atlantic magazine, Michael Rebell said the suit is about Education that is adequate to prepare [students] to be capable citizens. He explained that in the 54 decision in the Rodriguez case, the dissenters left open a loophole by citing the 15th and First Amendments: the right to vote, the right to petition government and to freely express themselves.

He pointed out that there have been suits in 47 state courts since 1973, some with limited gains, but that 40 percent lost their cases altogether. Many of those cases were launched following the 2009 recession, when states slashed education budgets, tens of thousands of teachers were laid off, class sizes increased and additional pressure was placed on students to pass standardized testing. Most of these cases revolved around inequitable and inadequate funding for schools. They were not intended to require federal intervention based on constitutionally-protected rights.

While the April 23 decision in the Detroit literacy case merely ensured the right to a third-grade reading level, which has now been curtailed by the Sixth Circuit, the Rhode Island case makes participation in the political system its foundation.

The thoroughly limited scope and achievements of these and other legal battles over public education underscore the inability to secure even the most basic rights of the working class within the framework of the existing political system.

Mass austerity is on the agenda, with every state planning to impose the economic crisis produced by the pandemic onto the working class. To guarantee the right to a free, high quality public education for all requires a struggle against the broader capitalist system, which subordinates the needs and aspirations of the working class to the profit interests of the capitalists. We urge all educators to sign up for our newsletter to follow developments, and contact us today to take up the fight in defense of public education.
An eight-year-old boy has died after falling from a moving caravan.

The child fell off while the mobile home was being towed along Edith Farms Road in the remote Northern Territory town of Katherine on Sunday.

He was rushed to Katherine District Hospital but could not be saved.

An eight-year-old boy has died after falling off a caravan in Katherine, in the Northern Territory (file image)

Police have seized a white Mazda utility and a white Roma caravan which were involved in the incident.

An investigation has been launched to determine how the horrific incident unfolded and anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers.

It's the second death of a child in Katherine in just a week after an Aboriginal baby died while her mother was in police custody.

The 21-year-old woman was arrested last Sunday at a unit complex in Katherine East following reports of 'quarrelling'.

Northern Territory police are not treating the baby's death as suspicious, but say a report will be prepared for the Coroner and a thorough investigation is underway.
To the Kennedy School Community,



I was terribly saddened and angered to read about the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of someone charged with protecting the public. With the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the racist treatment of Christian Cooper, and a Covid-19 mortality rate for black Americans that is more than double that for white Americans, we are remindedyet againof the scourge of racism in American society and of the imperative to change. I know that many of you have felt fear and grief in the wake of these events as well.



Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said that the protests that have followed George Floyds killing stem from generations of pain, of anguish, unheard. Indeed, Martin Luther King, Jr., said many years ago that a riot is the language of the unheardand also said For years now I have heard the word Wait!  This Wait has almost always meant Never.



I hope that everyone in this country can hear that pain, understand it, and take action now. We at the Kennedy School need to do our part, and to do so with a sense of urgency.



One of our core values at the School is belief in the worth of each person regardless of their race and other characteristics. We must hold true to that value in everything we doas we work with and learn from each other, and as we apply our skills and knowledge to make a more just society.



In my remarks for graduation, taped before George Floyds death, I expressed the hope that our graduates would take on the challenge of systemic inequities. I am gratified that so many of our students are recognizing the urgency of this challenge and taking it on before they graduate, through their learning about racism and their advocacy and organizing for racial justice.



We have worked hard in the past few years to appoint more faculty members who are actively engaged in teaching, research, and practice on many aspects of racial inequity, including health, education, democracy, policing and criminal justice, and more. As these faculty memberssome of whom will be starting next monthoffer courses, conduct research, and build programs at the Kennedy School, all of us at the School and people outside the School can gain a better understanding of the broad, deep, and enduring impacts of racism, and, crucially, of actions we can take to overcome racism.



Despite the horrible events we have seen in Minneapolis and elsewhere, I believe that progress is possible and is possible right now, not just at some hoped-for future time. Bryan Stevenson, who was a speaker in last weeks virtual graduation, is one of the most important and impressive alumni of the Kennedy School and of Harvard Law School. As part of his lifelong fight for justice, he recently led the creation of a national lynching memorialwhich is described as a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy. Such truth-telling and reflectionat the Kennedy School and elsewhere at Harvard and in the worldcan inspire us and direct us to action. We can make a crucial difference and can do so now. That is our responsibility and our opportunity.



If you seek support at this hard time, please reach out to your friends and colleagues at the Kennedy Schoolincluding those in the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, in the Office of Degree Programs and Student Affairs, and in the Office of Human Resourcesand elsewhere at Harvardincluding those described here.



Sincerely,

Doug

Douglas W. Elmendorf

Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/announcements/death-george-floyd?
Jim Ryan, CEO of SIE, has reaffirmed that testers are going through a library of over 4,000 games in regard to PS5 backwards compatibility. An Amazon France listing for the console has apparently revealed how much it weighs. Xbox Series X fans comparing the PlayStation 5 with a router should best avoid buying a Linksys Velop Intelligent Mesh Wi-Fi System.

Working For Notebookcheck Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! English native speakers welcome! News Writer (AUS/NZL based) - Details here

In an interview with CNET, Sonys Jim Ryan has been discussing the PS5 backwards compatibility situation. PlayStation fans have hoped that the next-gen console could offer some sort of backwards compatibility, even via emulation software, all the way back to the original PlayStation One, and there may be a future announcement made in regard to just how backwards compatible the PS5 truly is. However, fans should be pleased with the fact that Ryan has made it clear that testing of over 4,000 PS4 games is ongoing and the company is happy with the progress thats been made.

An apparently official listing for the PS5 has appeared on Amazon France. There is no price offered but the listing does reveal a weight: 4.78 kg (10.5 lbs). Keep in mind thats the item weight, so it would include the box, DualSense controller, cables, etc. However, the majority of that weight would relate to the PS5 console itself, yet again demonstrating that its not a svelte or petite device. For reference, the original PS4 weighs in at 2.8kg (6.2 lbs), the PS4 Slim is a lightweight 2.1 kg (4.6 lbs), and the beefier PS4 Pro packs 3.3 kg (7.3 lbs). The listing also states a release date of December 31, 2021  but the Amazon post is clearly a work in progress.

Xbox Series X fans and those who simply dont like the controversial design of the PS5 have frequently described the hardware as looking too much like a router. However, it has been pointed out that Sonys creation is not the only next-gen console that resembles a router. The Linksys Velop Intelligent Mesh Wi-Fi System, which conveniently comes in either black or white, could easily be mistaken for Microsofts console. Looks like PS5 console design haters will have to resort to comparing it with Saurons tower from The Lord of the Rings movies or a new expensive campus performing arts center that replaced three academic arts departments and cost $60 million (see embedded tweets below).
Austin is now in Stage 4 of its COVID-19 risk-based levels after 30 new hospital admissions on Sunday

According to the city's website, the new risk-based guidelines set out five distinct stages of risk, from the lowest threat, Stage 1, to the most serious, Stage 5, along with recommended behaviors for each stage.

The recommendations for the fourth stage are as follows: practice good hygiene; stay home if you're sick; avoid other people who are sick; maintain social distancing; wear fabric face coverings in public; avoid non-essential travel, all social gatherings and any gatherings of more than two people for high-risk individuals.

READ ALSO: Heres what you should know about a 'second wave' of coronavirus cases in San Antonio

On Sunday, Austin Mayor Steve Adler wrote a letter about the spike in local hospitalizations, stating that the city passed its 20 new daily hospital admission it has been averaging in the span of seven days. He added the spike will soon lead to an "overwhelming surge" in hospital admissions.

"Make no mistake, we will be seeing more hospitalizations and deaths," he said in his letter, adding that the city needs Gov. Greg Abbott's help when it comes to enforcing masks and social distancing. In Texas, masks are recommended but not mandated.

In the letter, Adler also revealed he was tested for COVID-19 last week. The mayor posted a video of him being tested on his Instagram on Wednesday as a way to encourage others to get tested if they are experiencing symptoms or have been exposed to the virus. He said it was "a little uncomfortable" but "pretty quick."

"Sure, it feels funny. But its fast and it doesnt hurt," he concluded in his letter.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre
This agreement regulates the relations related to the rights of the citizens of member states of the Eurasian Economic Union with regard to the provision of pensions. This is what Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia Smbat Sagiyan said during a discussion on ratification of the Agreement on Provision of Pensions to Workers in Member States of the Eurasian Economic Union held as part of the session of the Standing Committee on Regional and Eurasian Integration of the National Assembly of Armenia today.

Sagiyan recalled that the Agreement was signed on December 20, 2019 in Saint Petersburg and added that the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs finds ratification of the Agreement appropriate, taking into consideration the importance of the Agreement in the context of the new realities.

By this Agreement, the pension rights of a worker shall be exercised in accordance with the terms and procedure through which the pension rights of the citizens of other countries working within the framework of member states of the Eurasian Economic Union are exercised, that is, in the country where the citizen has gained work experience.

The amount of the pension may not be reduced, and payment may not be discontinued based on residency in another member state to the Agreement.

The pension for work experience gained upon entry into force of the Agreement shall be prescribed and paid by the member state in the territory of which the work experience was gained.

After some discussions, the parliamentary standing committee gave its approval.
Amid nationwide protests of racial inequality following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, the shooting of another Black man by white police officer, this time in Atlanta, has again reignited anger and calls for police reform.

Rayshard Brooks was shot Friday night after he tried to flee from two white police officers following an incident in which he fell asleep inside his car outside a Wendy's restaurant. His death has been ruled a homicide.

Brooks was 27.

His death came just weeks after Floyd, an unarmed, 46-year-old Black man, died while detained in Minneapolis. Floyd was pinned to the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin, who held his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd's death sparked national protests against police brutality and systemic racism.

Here is a timeline of the events surrounding Brooks death.

A birthday party before it all happened

Rayshard Brooks was a father of four.

Brooks family attorney Justin Miller said that to celebrate his daughters eighth birthday, Brooks took her Friday to get her nails done and picked up something to eat, hours before the altercation later that night outside the Wendys. The birthday party was supposed to roll into the following day and Brooks daughter had picked out a special dress to wear Saturday, when they were supposed to go skating.

'Lawful but awful': Atlanta police had better options than using lethal force in Rayshard Brooks shooting, experts say

Protest live updates: Rayshard Brooks' widow to speak; Tulsa jaywalking arrest 'nonsense'; Minneapolis officers quit after George Floyd

Police make initial contact with Brooks

On Friday night, Atlanta Police were dispatched to the Wendys. According to body camera footage that was released on Saturday, two white officers approached Brooks car at 10:42 p.m. after he had fallen asleep while waiting in line at the drive-thru. Other customers, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, were forced to drive around before the officers arrived.

Story continues

Once at the scene, officers asked Brooks to move his car over to a parking space away from the other cars near the drive-thru, the bodycam footage shows. In the video, Brooks is seen stepping out of his car and answering the officers' questions.

The officers administered a sobriety test at 11:22 p.m., according to the bodycam video. Brooks failed. The bodycam footage then shows that one minute later, the two officers tried to handcuff Brooks, before he attempted to flee. In the short struggle, Brooks appears to wrestle a taser from one of the officers, while the other one removed his taser from his holster and deployed it.

According to the bodycam video, three gunshots are heard seconds before 11:24 p.m.

Later, the GBI obtained surveillance footage from cameras outside the Wendy's.

These new videos indicate that during a physical struggle with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officer's Tasers and began to flee from the scene, the GBI said. Officers pursued Brooks on foot and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the Taser at the officer. The officer fired his weapon, striking Brooks.

One officer was treated for an injury and discharged after the confrontation

Brooks taken to hospital for surgery

According to the GBI, Brooks died late Friday night at a hospital after he being taken there for surgery.

'Have yall heard nothing anybody has said?'

By early Saturday morning, news of Brooks death started to circulate, leading to protests in Atlanta, with the epicenter at the Wendys where the incident occurred.

Several hundred people gathered in the parking lot. Some chanted "say his name" and carried signs that read "He didnt deserve to die" and "convict the killer cop." The restaurant was closed to patrons.

Weve been out here for a couple weeks now and yall still killing folks, said Kayla Pruitt, 24, of Atlanta. Its like have yall heard nothing anybody has said?

A Wendy's restaurant burns in Atlanta after demonstrators set it on fire Saturday night following the death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot and killed by Atlanta police.

The peaceful protest suddenly turned violent around 8:30 p.m. afterriot police arrived, toting guns. Some protesters began surrounding one police car and rocking it. Other protesters surged on the police and troops without touching them, forcing the law enforcement officials to walk backwards from the crowd. After a few minutes, law enforcement officials released several canisters of tear gas into the crowd, sending protesters fleeing.

Protesters later shut down an interstate highway in both directions and set fire to the Wendys restaurant, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Police chief resigns, Atlanta mayor calls for change

Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Saturday that Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned. Bottoms then called for the officer who shot Brooks to be fired and for the other to be placed on administrative duty.

"While there may be debate as to whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe that there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should do. I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force," Bottoms said.

One officer fired, other reassigned

By early Sunday, Atlanta Police Department Sergeant John Chafee confirmed to USA TODAY that officer Garrett Rolfe, who was hired in October 2013, was fired for shooting Brooks. The other officer involved in the incident, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative duty. Brosnan was hired in September 2018.

Protests continue Sunday: They are killing us every day

Again on Sunday protesters set fire to the Wendys restaurant where Brooks was killed.

Some in the small group at the restaurant played music from speakers. Others held each other in front of the memorial of flowers and stuffed animals that lined the front of the gutted restaurant.

Occasionally, cars pulled in and rolled around the building, tracing the drive-thru line that Brooks was waiting in when he fell asleep, prompting the fatal 911 call.

Only a few protesters showed up to the Capitol building, where state police had one street blocked off. No protesters came near the law enforcement officers.

Brooks' death ruled a homicide

On Sunday night, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office ruled Brooks death a homicide, caused by two gunshots wounds to the back.

March on Monday

Brooks' widow Tomika Miller and other family members were to address media on Monday morning, along with family attorneys L. Chris Stewart and Miller.

A March for Justice was also under way, starting at The Richard B. Russell Federal Building and ending at the state Capitol.

Contributing: Jordan Culver, Grace Hauck, David Heath, Conor Hughes, Nicquel Terry Ellis, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rayshard Brooks death timeline: How it led to protests, police firing
Pediatric specialties

Obstetrics

Behavioral health

Primary care

Geriatrics

Physical therapy

(TNS)  The new coronavirus pandemic has necessitated the embrace of virtual medicine regardless of how ready patients, doctors, nurses and health care systems were for the shift.Now that telehealth has been quickly rolled out across the nation and patients and clinicians have found the experience useful, it is unlikely that virtual doctor visits, in all its various forms, will be temporary, said Dr. Devin Mann, senior director for informatics and innovation at New York University.Once we get back to whatever the new normal is, I think they will all play a role in the spectrum of ways that we interact between clinicians and patients, he said. The genie is definitely out of the bottle.Before the pandemic, the use of technology to deliver health care  often referred to as telehealth of telemedicine  was largely a secondary tool clinicians and patients used to exchange emails regarding test results.But in a matter of days this spring, as hospitals canceled elective procedures and in-clinic visits in an effort to slow the spread of the virus and preserve protective gear, patients were using telemedicine for everything from simple questions with primary care providers to OB-GYN visits.There is still much that needs to be figured out for telehealth to be a viable option. One of the biggest obstacles are federal and state regulations surrounding payments, and definitions of what constitutes a virtual visit.Outdated rules and regulations made telehealth difficult before waivers came from states and the federal government in response to the coronavirus pandemic, said Dr. Jeffrey Wolff-Gee, medical director for care delivery transformation at Swedish Medical Center.It got held up for the longest time because the regulatory environment around it made it very difficult to do, he said. And now we can do it.Heres what that looks like in practice for six different areas of care. Its how we go to the doctor now.Telemedicine has been in use at Seattle Childrens hospital since the mid-2000s for autism, psychiatry and sleep medicine, but it ramped up after the coronavirus outbreak, said Dr. Mark Lo, medical director of telehealth for the hospital. By mid-May, something like 70 to 80% of our volume was all done virtually, across more than 40 pediatric specialties, he said.Some of the challenging aspects have to do with keeping the kid in view of the camera, Lo said. Our ideal state, he said, would be for virtual visits to be follow-ups, where the provider knows the patient and its not starting from scratch.For those practicing primary-care pediatrics virtually, he said, a major component of care would be history-taking from patients parents. Parents could also play a role in augmenting video visits by sending photos and videos to their childrens providers in instances where additional visual documentation might be helpful.But some care simply cant be provided remotely, particularly for complex patients requiring providers from across disciplines and specialties, or for those needing X-rays, biopsies or physical evaluations.But Lo said virtual care has been particularly successful with autism, mental health and adolescent medicine specialties at Childrens, and he can envision a future where virtual care is used routinely to complement in-person care.Lo hopes that might increase accessibility for patients in remote areas. One thing thats come up a lot has just been equity of care as well, Lo said. We want to make it available to everybody whether they live in Seattle next to the hospital or the furthest reaches.Before the coronavirus outbreak, the University of Washington began a partially remote prenatal care program known as TeleOB, equipping patients with blood pressure cuffs and fetal Dopplers for self-monitoring at home and using video for some of their many prenatal appointments.While telemedicine has advanced rapidly in recent months, TeleOB was ahead of the curve. UW is one of only a few institutions nationally that offers telemedicine options for prenatal care (others include the Mayo Clinic and the University of Utah).Some components of prenatal care  ultrasounds, vaccinations, lab tests, screenings  must remain in-office, especially if patients are managing a pregnancy complication Dr. Sue Moreni, OB-GYN division chief of UW Neighborhood Clinics and director of UWs TeleOB program, says TeleOB was a useful option for low-risk patients balancing their care with work or family obligations.Their video visits are conducted over a HIPAA-compliant version of Zoom, with interpreters available. And the home equipment is free, with the expectation that patients will return it at the end of their pregnancies.As telemedicine becomes the new norm, Moreni hopes it will also promote greater equity in access to health care.One of the biggest advantages to telehealth that will hopefully only get better is trying to close some of the disparities in health care, Moreni said, citing telehealth visits as a useful option for rural or low-income patients who might face unique challenges to accessing a traditional appointment. Thats really one of the biggest societal advantages when youre looking into the future of telehealth that that can really offer.Its OK to not be OK. The phrase is ubiquitous for good reason  one-third of Americans are experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety following the coronavirus outbreak. According to Keri L. Waterland, division director of Behavioral Health and Recovery at the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA), its normal to not feel OK right now. Theres no shame in feeling emotions around this time and feeling depression or anxiety or even feeling some trauma, she said.And if you have access to a phone and an internet connection, initiating therapy with a mental health professional may be easier than you think.Previously, intake interviews for therapy needed to be conducted in-person. But as behavioral health goes virtual, these assessments can now be provided online, Waterland said. Its one of many changes behavioral health services in the state have undergone since the pandemic began. HCA has also purchased 2,000 Zoom licenses for behavioral health providers, and procured laptops and other technology for providers and patients.Waterland said every individual seeking care will have different needs, and not all can be addressed online. But, she said, We are really embracing telehealth and telemedicine and acknowledging that for a swath of the population this really, really works.For immediate help, a new support line, Washington Listens, will soon be operational for anyone experiencing elevated stress due to the COVID-19 outbreak.Waterland hopes that resources like Washington Listens will help to lessen social stigmas tied to mental illness and emphasize to users that theres nothing wrong with experiencing strong feelings during a time of upheaval and fear. When we have our lives really uprooted, having a strong emotion about that is part of what were supposed to do as human beings, she said.Telehealth was being used by a sliver of UW Medicines primary care doctors before the new coronavirus pandemic. That changed quickly with the adoption of virtual services exploding from 25 clinics to 300, and from 130 primary care providers to now 2,600 in the sprawling system.The broad dispersal of telehealth is something that will become part of a primary care doctors practice even after the pandemic, said Dr. Crystal Kong-Wong, a primary care physician at UW Neighborhood Clinics.Kong-Wong and her colleagues first contact with new patients is now through a video chat, which is something that usually didnt happen with first-time patients before COVID-19.I was pleasantly surprised by how much you could get out of a first virtual interaction with a patient, she said.On a normal day, Kong-Wong, who is also the associate medical director for digital health at UW Medicine, would see 18 to 20 patients a day. Since the switch to telehealth, she is still having those visits, just in a different form.I think for a lot of those patients, having the telemedicine option was a reassuring and powerful tool for them to be able to interact with a doctor that they knew and had an established relationship with, she said.As Kaiser Permanente Washington was converting existing appointments and scheduling new appointments as telehealth visits, Dr. Cindy Burdick was reaching out to her geriatric patients because she knew they were at higher risk for COVID-19 and could be impacted by the virtual interaction.Senior care can be complicated, as many patients are on multiple medications and could be suffering from several chronic conditions. Because of this complexity, Burdick, the medical director of Medicare and Medicaid at Kaiser Permanente, used her patient outreach calls to assess her patients needs. She tried to find out if they had enough food, housing and transportation. She wanted to know who had chronic conditions that needed to be addressed, who had health care gaps and who might need advanced planning directives.Having affordable care, somebody you really trust, and an integrated system will be really important because you cant have things falling through the cracks in senior care, Burdick said.Using technology will play a larger part in how Burdick interacts with her patients from now on. Because of this shift, she said, it is going to be important for providers to be cognizant of which modality works best for each patient.Social distancing and virtual visits arent ideal for physical therapy, yet physical therapists found a way to navigate the obvious hurdles caused by the new coronavirus pandemic.After Gov. Jay Inslee issued the stay-home order on March 23, Michael Domingo gathered his staff at GO PT in South Lake Union for a meeting where they worked through a mock session to get an idea of what would be possible virtually.For people whose jobs largely rely on touching another person, Domingo was impressed with how quickly they were able to adapt.Im actually surprised how quickly our team members have been able to jump into it, he said.They found that limiting sessions to 60 minutes helped, as did putting more emphasis on education and making sure patients understood how to do things at home like exercises, recovery from those exercises and soft tissue massages.GO PT opened on May 11 with new procedures to keep staff and patients safe. No more than three patients are seen at the clinic at one time. Masks are required, as are temperature and health screenings for anyone entering the clinic.Patients are still making telehealth appointments, and Domingo believes this could be a growing part of the business if a temporary state mandate requiring health insurance companies to pay for telehealth visits is extended beyond June 17, the date Inslees telehealth order is set to expire.The Legislature passed a bill last session that goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2021, making insurer payments for telehealth visits the same as for in-person visits.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin on Monday took a swipe at the Tamil Nadu government and urged it to explain the reasons for the steep hike in the number of Covid-19 positive cases in the state. He also asked the AIADMK government to come clean on allegations of community transmission and the steps it intended to take to curb the rising coronavirus cases in Tamil Nadu, especially in capital city Chennai.

On June 9, the numbers by the Greater Chennai Corporation show that 460 people died due to Covid-19, but the Tamil Nadu state health department reported only 224 deaths on the same day. How could government officials be unfamiliar with reporting mechanisms even after 85 days of the lockdown, the DMK president said addressing a virtual press conference.

Refuting the state health secretarys claim that the mismatch in the death toll was due to a procedural lapse, Stalin said, Data mismanagement of this scale cannot be possible unless the state government at the highest level is complicit.

ALSO READ | Tamil Nadu, second worst-hit state nears 45,000-mark with1,974 new Covid-19 cases

He also urged the government to release the reports submitted by various committees constituted to curb the spread of the coronavirus and to look into the discrepancies in the Covid-19 deaths data.

Stalin hinted that the DMK may approach the courts if the government does not release the actual data on deaths due to Covid-19 within the next two days.

A day earlier on Sunday, Tamil Nadu recorded 1,974 new Covid-19 cases and 38 deaths taking the total case count of the state close to the 45,000-mark to touch 44,661, the state health department had said.

The death toll in Tamil Nadu rose to 435, with the addition of the 38 latest fatalities due to the infectious coronavirus disease. Barely a day before, on Saturday, the state had recorded the highest single-day spike in its Covid-19 tally with 1,989 positive cases.

Tamil Nadu is the second worst-hit state by the coronavirus pandemic reporting a large number of Covid-19 patients, preceded only by Maharashtra which has over 1 lakh coronavirus cases.

The state currently, has 19,676 active cases and 24,547 patients have recovered and been discharged till date.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijaya Baskar on Sunday said people suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure should keep their parameters under control and take proper medication. His statement came amidst a sharp spike in the death of many of those affected with coronavirus and also suffering from co-morbidities like diabetes mellitus and hypertension among others ailments.
Tayla Myree sets out flowers on a shrine at a burned Wendy's on Sunday in Atlanta. Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, was fatally shot by a white Atlanta police officer outside the Wendy's on Friday night. Read more

Atlanta's top prosecutor said his office will decide this week whether to bring charges against the police officer who shot Rayshard Brooks, a black man whose killing outside a Wendy's on Friday sparked a fresh wave of protests against police violence in the Southern city and added fuel to nationwide anger over racial injustice.

Family members on Sunday recalled Brooks as a good father who was getting his life back together when he was shot and killed in a confrontation with Garrett Rolfe and another Atlanta police officer after a DUI stop.

Public outrage mounted across the country over the weekend, as demonstrators in New York, Los Angeles and other cities and towns took to the streets for the latest in a wave of protests prompted by last month's killing of another black man, George Floyd, in the custody of Minneapolis police.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office determined Sunday that Brooks suffered organ damage and blood loss from two gunshot wounds, and that his official cause of death was "gunshot wounds of the back."

Also on Sunday, Senate Republicans outlined a legislative proposal to enact police reforms  their answer to a sweeping bill introduced last week by Senate Democrats.

Brooks's father, Larry Barbine, told The Washington Post in an interview from his Toledo home that the family was in shock, unable to accept that his son had been killed just as his life seemed to be going better than it had in years.

"I can't understand why it happened like that," Barbine said of the shooting. "I heard of his passing on Saturday. Not his passing, his murder. I'm just devastated."

In an interview with "CBS This Morning" two days after her husband's death, Tomika Miller, Brooks's widow, called for the officers involved to be prosecuted.

"I want them to go to jail. . . . If it was my husband who shot them, he would be in jail," Miller said in the interview, which airs in full Monday morning. "He would be doing a life sentence. They need to be put away."

According to a preliminary report by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, officers were dispatched Friday night to a Wendy's in Atlanta on a complaint about a man parked and asleep in the drive-through. The officers performed a sobriety test on the man, later identified as Brooks. When Brooks failed the test, officers attempted to put him in custody. The response escalated, and Brooks grabbed an officer's stun gun and began running away.

Video of the encounter appears to show Brooks turning back toward the officer and pointing the Taser at him, at which point the officer is seen drawing a weapon from his holster and firing at Brooks.

Paul Howard, the Fulton County district attorney, told CNN on Sunday that a decision on whether to bring charges in the case will be made "sometime around Wednesday."

"He did not seem to present any threat to anyone," Howard said of Brooks. "The fact that it would escalate to his death seems unreasonable."

The police department has fired Rolfe, the officer who shot his gun, and pulled the other officer, Devin Brosnan, off street patrols. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned Saturday.

Efforts to reach Rolfe and Brosnan by phone on Sunday were unsuccessful. Vince Champion, Southeast regional director of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said the union is providing legal services to the officers but declined to make the lawyers available for an interview and said he was speaking for the officers.

He said he did not have much background on the officers and could not opine on whether the shooting was justified because "we have no investigation."

"Unlike the district attorney, the former chief of police and the mayor, I don't base my facts and do things just on one video," Champion told The Post. "I do investigations, as I've done all my life as a police officer, and I get both sides of the story."

Champion was critical of the decision to terminate Rolfe within 24 hours of the shooting, arguing that it was made to "pander" to rioters and that it denied the officer his due process rights.

And he said that after the chief's resignation, officers in Atlanta now feel they have "nobody on their side."

"We are in a catch-22 between both sides at this point," Champion said. "We've got the citizens that we depend on not liking us, we've got the administration and the government that we depend on not liking us. ... We welcome changing, we always do. It's the cities and counties that don't want to pay for it."

The University Avenue Wendy's where Brooks was shot was in flames Saturday after a day of protests that continued into Sunday. Authorities announced a $10,000 reward for information about who started the fire.

Dozens of signs and bouquets of flowers lined the fence around what used to be the restaurant's outdoor seating area. Protesters stood on the tables holding signs and chanting, "Say his name!" "Rayshard Brooks!" Spray painted tributes on the walls read "RIP Rayshard." And just before 5 p.m. a group of bikers pulled into the parking lot blasting anti-police songs by the 1990s rap group NWA.

Rolfe, the officer who shot Brooks, was hired in 2013, while the other officer, Brosnan, was hired in 2018, according to the Atlanta Police Department.

Rolfe was assigned to the department's High Intensity Traffic Team, a special operations unit aimed at reducing alcohol- and drug-related traffic violations. Members of the team are "specially trained and equipped to detect and process alcohol and/or drug-impaired drivers," according to a police department document, although it was not immediately clear whether the unit was still in operation.

In May 2019, Rolfe was awarded a silver pin for making between 50 and 99 DUI arrests within a year, the department said in a Facebook post at the time.

Rolfe was one of four officers accused of making a false arrest in March 2015. The Atlanta Citizen Review Board, which investigates allegations of police misconduct, ruled the claim against him as not sustained, meaning there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of misconduct, according to a document on the review board's website. The allegation against one of the other officers involved was sustained, with the board recommending he receive additional training.

The incident has drawn national attention. Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost in her bid for Georgia governor in 2018, said protesters were right to demand accountability and should continue to push for change until meaningful reforms are made.

"There's a legitimacy to this anger. There's a legitimacy to this outrage. A man was murdered because he was asleep in a drive-through, and we know that this is not an isolated occurrence," she said on ABC News's "This Week."

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., noted that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had acted swiftly in the wake of the shooting. Scott said it was hard to parse whether the police had used excessive force.

"The question is, when the suspect turned to fire the Taser, what should the officer have done?" he said on CBS News's "Face the Nation."

Lawyers for the Brooks family have said that Brooks was celebrating his daughter's birthday earlier that night. Brooks had been looking forward to the party all week, according to Barbine.

"The night he got killed, he had had a few drinks and he was heading back. He had called me and he was telling me about the birthday party, and how he was glad to be with the kids. I asked him, 'How are you and your wife coming along?' and he said, 'I'm back in good graces.' And I told him, 'That's where you need to be,'" Barbine said.

Brooks was born and raised in Atlanta. He had some troubled years, Barbine said, but had recently settled down, straightened out his relationship with his wife, and was getting into a routine of working hard and showing up for their kids.

Kiara Owens, Brooks's 26-year-old half-sister, said in an interview that Brooks worked in construction and traveled for the job, working gigs in Ohio, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. He had no real permanent residence for this reason, often staying in hotels or with family friends while in Atlanta, she said.

"I don't fully fault the officers, I don't fully fault my brother," she said of the shooting. "Everyone was just trying to make it home that night."

Bottoms announced Saturday that Interim Corrections Chief Rodney Bryant would take over leadership of the department as interim chief until a permanent replacement is found.

Bryant spent a long career in law enforcement, and held several high-level leadership roles in the Atlanta police department before retiring from it in April 2019 and later taking a role as acting head of the Atlanta City Detention Center. Bottoms said former chief Shields would remain with the department in a still-undetermined role.

Amid the mounting calls for change at the national level, Senate Republicans plan to release a proposal on Wednesday that addresses officer misconduct, training and tactics, and a system for local departments to better report cases in which officers' actions result in serious injury or death, two of the legislation's authors said Sunday.

Scott and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who have been working on the GOP's answer to a bill released by House Democrats last week, both endorsed a ban on chokeholds Sunday. But while Scott stressed on NBC's "Meet the Press" that both chambers of Congress and the White House "want to tackle the issue," it is not clear whether such a ban will appear in the GOP bill.

In a bid to hold individual officers more accountable for their actions, the House Democrats' proposal includes a provision to change the doctrine of "qualified immunity," making it easier to sue officers who "recklessly" violate civil rights, whether or not they did so with intent. Scott called that provision a nonstarter.

"The president sent the signal that qualified immunity is off the table. They see that as a poison pill on our side," Scott said on "Face the Nation." "So we're going to have to find a path that helps us reduce misconduct within the officers. But at the same time, we know that any poison pill in legislation means we get nothing done."

Protests continued in several cities over the weekend. In New York, thousands of demonstrators dressed in white marched Sunday to draw attention to violence against black transgender people.

In California, activists and local authorities have demanded investigations into the hanging deaths of two black men in recent weeks.

On Saturday, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger requested that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra investigate the death of Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old black man who was found hanging from a tree last week near city hall in Palmdale, about an hour north of downtown Los Angeles.

Becerra's office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday. According to the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner's office, a decision on the cause of Fuller's death has been deferred pending additional investigation.

More than 215,000 people have signed a petition demanding a full investigation, and at a briefing by city authorities on Friday, local residents questioned why Fuller's death was originally classified as a suicide.

Authorities are also investigating a separate incident in which Malcolm Harsch, a 38-year-old black man, was found hanging from a tree near a homeless encampment in Victorville, about an hour east of Palmdale, on May 31.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department is conducting a death investigation but told the Victorville Daily Press on Saturday that no foul play is suspected.

An online petition for a probe into Harsch's death had garnered more than 16,000 signatures as of Sunday night.

_____

Willis reported from Atlanta. Miranda Green in Los Angeles and The Washington Posts Karoun Demirjian and Rachel Siegel in Washington contributed to this report.
A Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) working at its office located at the Press Trust of India Building has tested positive for COVID-19.

The ministry said that its office on the second floor of the PTI Building will remain closed on June 16 for disinfection and sanitisation activities.

All officers and staff of the MSDE located at the PTI Building have been advised to work from home on Tuesday.

"BK Ray, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), sitting in 2nd floor, PTI Building, has tested positive for COVID-19 on 15-06-2020. The officer has last attended the office on 11-06-2020," said an office memorandum issued by the ministry.

Disinfection and sanitisation activities will be carried out in the MSDE office rooms, corridors and common areas, it said.

The ministry further said all officers and staff who came in contact with Ray are advised to take the necessary action as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on June 4, 2020.
By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL, June 15 (Reuters) - South Korea's President Moon Jae-in urged North Korea on Monday to refrain from raising tension and return to dialogue, after threats trumpeted by state media in Pyongyang to cut ties and take military action.

The recent flaring of tension between the neighbours stoked fear of a military provocation by the North, and posed another setback amid stalled talks to rein in its nuclear and missile programmes.

Besides the threat to sever ties, state media over the past few days have aired the possibility of closing a joint liaison office in the North and retaliatory measures for a campaign by defectors to fly anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

"The promises of peace on the Korean peninsula that Chairman Kim Jong Un made before our 80 million people cannot be turned back," Moon told a meeting with senior aides, referring to pacts struck at summit of the two leaders in 2018.

"North Korea should not cut communications, raise tension and try to go back to the past era of confrontation," he added.

"I hope it will resolve uncomfortable, difficult problems through communications and cooperation."

Moon's remarks came as South Korea marked the 20th anniversary on Monday of the first summit between the two nations, which had pledged to step up dialogue and cooperation.

At their own first summit in 2018, Moon and Kim signed a declaration to work for a "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula" and cease "all hostile acts".

But the North cut hotlines with its neighbour last week and vowed to suspend all contact if Seoul did not halt defectors from sending in leaflets and other material.

"I also regret that North Korea-U.S. and inter-Korean relations have not made progress as expected," Moon said. "It's time for the South and North to find a breakthrough." (Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 06:28:03|Editor: huaxia

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ROME, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Vittorio Colao, the head of Italy reconstruction task force, said Monday that he would recommend an economic plan resting on three main pillars: innovation, environmental sustainability, and inclusion.

Colao said the strategy his task force recommends for relaunching the Italian economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic includes support for small- and medium-sized businesses as well as for the unemployed, reform of the way government contracts are awarded, and the inclusion of additional aid for export-driven companies.

Colao said the plan focuses on rebuilding and modernizing infrastructure, protecting the environment, reforming the public administration, rethinking education, and reinforcing the tourism sector.

Colao's remarks were part of Conte's multi-day "Estates General" talks and the "Progettiamo il Rilancio" (We Are Planning the Relaunch) plan, which was launched Saturday. The talks include in-person and virtual conferences with ministers, European Union officials, and representatives from the corporations, the financial sector, and trade unions.

On Monday, Conte praised Colao's plan as "an important contribution to the debate taking place for the preparation of the government's plan."

The plan comes amid dire economic news for Italy, with the Bank of Italy, the country's National Statistics Institute, and the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development all predicting the Italian economy will contract by at least 9 percent this year.

Colao is a former investment banker and consultant best known for heading multinational mobile phone giant Vodafone for 10 years. Enditem
There is one major difference between outgoing Boral chief executive Mike Kane and the incoming Zlatko Todorcevski: The former reported to a board of directors but the latter will be beholden to three major activist shareholders.

The board, for that matter, will also effectively report to this activist trio of Kerry Stokes' Seven Group, the aggressive former-investment-banker-turned-asset-manager John Wylie and Perpetual Investments, which is well known for using its large shareholdings to insert itself (figuratively) into boardrooms.

Incoming Boral CEO Zlatko Todorcevski may need to exercise his cat-herding skills. Credit:Rob Homer

Between them the trio control around 20 per cent of Boral, but as a force they will punch well above their ownership weight.

According to those in the know, these shareholders were kept in the loop about progress in appointing a new chief executive.
Photo credit: ABIR SULTAN - Getty Images

From Harper's BAZAAR

Prince Charles is set to meet with French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron at Clarence House in London on Tuesday.

Charles has been staying at Birkhall in Aberdeenshire during lockdown, which is where he recovered from coronavirus.

Along with his wife Duchess Camilla, Charles will be the first member of the British royal family to hold an official meeting post-quarantine.

The world is taking small steps towards exiting the lockdown imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic. And while many members of the royal family remain quarantined, Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, are set to return to public life in the coming week.

Charles and Camilla are set to meet with Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, on when he travels to the United Kingdom. An official statement regarding the visit explained, "The President of the French Republic will visit London on Thursday 18th June 2020 to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of General de Gaulles Appel to the French population to resist the German occupation of France during WWII."

The BBC reported that, per a Clarence House spokesperson, "government guidelines on social distancing would be followed" for the meeting, and noted that Macron wouldn't be subject to the 14-day quarantine imposed on most visitors to the United Kingdom as he is a "representative of a foreign country on business." According to The Telegraph, Macron has also requested a video call with the queen, although it is unclear if this will go ahead during his trip.

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The Russian embassy in Vilnius is clarifying the circumstances of an act of vandalism of the monument to the Hero of the Soviet Union and World War II participant, Afanasy Loshakov, in the Kedainiai region of Lithuania, a spokesperson for the embassy told Sputnik on Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2020) The Russian embassy in Vilnius is clarifying the circumstances of an act of vandalism of the monument to the Hero of the Soviet Union and World War II participant, Afanasy Loshakov, in the Kedainiai region of Lithuania, a spokesperson for the embassy told Sputnik on Monday.

"This is an awful incident. The embassy is now investigating the circumstances of the incident. We are contacting representatives of local authorities. The embassy staff will visit the site later today," the spokesperson said.

Sputnik Lithuania has reported, citing local police, that the monument to Afanasy Loshakov, located at a cemetery in the village of Seta, was stained with red paint on Sunday.

During wartime, Loshakov distinguished himself during the liberation of Crimea. He was awarded the high title of the Hero of the Soviet Union for "successful military operations to break through the enemy defense and the liberation of the cities of Armyansk and Yevpatoria." In July 1944, Loshakov died in battles for the city of Mati in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic and was buried in Seta.
DENVER, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- SM Energy Company ("SM Energy" or the "Company") (NYSE: SM) today announced the final results of its offers to exchange (the "Exchange Offers") its outstanding notes listed in the table below (together, the "Old Notes") for newly issued 10.00% senior secured notes due 2025 (the "New Notes"). As of 11:59 p.m., New York City time, on June 12, 2020 (the "Expiration Time"), approximately $295.8 million aggregate principal amount, or approximately 12% of all outstanding Old Notes, were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn, excluding principal amounts of Old Notes tendered pursuant to the previously announced exchange agreement (the "Exchange Agreement") entered into by the Company with certain holders of the Old Notes (the "Backstop Group"). Together with the Old Notes and 1.50% Senior Convertible Notes due 2021 ("Old Convertible Notes") to be exchanged pursuant to the Exchange Agreement, the Company expects to exchange approximately $612 million aggregate principal amount of Old Notes and approximately $107.0 million aggregate principal amount of Old Convertible Notes and issue approximately $447 million in aggregate principal amount of New Notes on the settlement date, which is expected to be on or about June 17, 2020 (the "Settlement Date"). After giving effect to the Exchange Offers and the private exchanges with the Backstop Group, the Company expects to reduce its outstanding senior debt by approximately $272 million.

The following table sets forth the approximate aggregate principal amounts of each series of Old Notes that were validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or prior to the Expiration Time, other than Old Notes tendered pursuant to the Exchange Agreement:

Title of Old Notes Tendered CUSIP Number / ISIN Outstanding Principal Amount Acceptance Priority Level Principal Amount of Old

Notes Tendered 6.125% Senior Notes due November 15, 2022 78454LAK6 / US78454LAK61 $436,047,000 1 $45,017,000 5.000% Senior Notes due January 15, 2024 78454LAH3 / US78454LAH33 $500,000,000 2 $81,151,000 5.625% Senior Notes due June 1, 2025 78454LAL4 / US78454LAL45 $500,000,000 3 $104,564,000 6.750% Senior Notes due September 15, 2026 78454LAN0 / US78454LAN01 $500,000,000 4 $43,115,000 6.625% Senior Notes due January 15, 2027 78454LAP5 / US78454LAP58 $500,000,000 5 $22,007,000

Based on these results, the Company expects to accept all Old Notes tendered for exchange and issue New Notes as consideration therefor on the Settlement Date. The New Notes issued in the privately negotiated transactions will be fungible with, and comprise one series with, the New Notes issued in the Exchange Offers.

Holders of Old Notes accepted for exchange will also receive a cash payment equal to the accrued and unpaid interest on such accepted Old Notes from the applicable latest interest payment date to, but not including, the Settlement Date. Interest on the New Notes will accrue from the Settlement Date.

The Company expects that approximately $65.5 million in principal amount of Old Convertible Notes that remain outstanding after the Settlement Date will be secured pursuant to their terms on a pari passu basis with the New Notes (and any refinancing of such amount of Old Convertible Notes will also be required to be secured on a pari passu basis with the New Notes).

In conjunction with the Exchange Offers, SM Energy also announced the results to date of its previously announced solicitations of consents (collectively, the "Consent Solicitations") from holders of Old Notes to amend certain provisions (the "Proposed Amendments") of the indentures governing the Old Notes (collectively, the "Indentures"). The Company did not receive consents sufficient to effect the Proposed Amendments in any series of Old Notes. As such, the Proposed Amendments will not be adopted or become operative.

The Exchange Offers were only made, and the New Notes were offered and to be issued only, (a) in the United States to holders of Old Notes who are reasonably believed to be "qualified institutional buyers" (as defined in Rule 144A under the Securities Act) and (b) outside the United States to holders of Old Notes who are persons other than U.S. persons in reliance upon Regulation S under the Securities Act. The holders of Old Notes who certified to the Company that they were eligible to participate in the Exchange Offers pursuant to at least one of the foregoing conditions are referred to as "Eligible Holders." The Company made the Exchange Offers only to Eligible Holders through, and pursuant to, the terms of the Confidential Offering Memorandum, as amended.

The New Notes and the Exchange Offers have not been and will not be registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Securities Act, or any state or foreign securities laws. The New Notes may not be offered or sold in the United States or for the account or benefit of any U.S. persons except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the Securities Act. The Exchange Offers and Consent Solicitations were not made to Eligible Holders of Old Notes 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. This press release is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to purchase or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or sell any securities, nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events, or developments that we expect, believe, or anticipate will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "budget," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "plan," "project," "will," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, among other things, the completion of the Exchange Offers and the private exchange, the redemption of the Old Notes, the completion of the Consent Solicitations and the effectiveness of the Proposed Amendments. Such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and analyses made by SM Energy in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments, and other factors that SM Energy believes are appropriate under the circumstances. These statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause SM Energy's actual results and performance to be materially different from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Some of these risks are described in the "Risk Factors" section in Part I, Item 1A of SM Energy's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 and Part II of our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2020. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak as of the date of this press release.

About the Company

SM Energy Company is an independent energy company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development, and production of crude oil, natural gas, and NGLs in the state of Texas. For more information about SM Energy, please visit its website at www.sm-energy.com .

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He asked Putra to get back to the caldera to see if there was a living population. After five days, Putra found what he was looking for one evening, lying on a low branch, probably sleeping, the biologist says. He took pictures of the lizard and measured the size and shape of its body parts, such as the length of its nose-horn and head. He also observed its behavior before finally releasing it the same night.
Jovita Carranza, Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, testifies at the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Hearings to examine implementation of Title I of the CARES Act on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 10, 2020.

The Small Business Administration is reopening its Economic Injury Disaster Loan and EIDL advance grant portal to a broader array of eligible small businesses and nonprofits affected by the coronavirus pandemic, beginning Monday.

The portal had been accepting applications only from agricultural businesses for the last month, as demand was high, and those businesses had not been EIDL eligible in the past.

"To meet the unprecedented need, the SBA has made numerous improvements to the application and loan closing process, including deploying new technology and automated tools," SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza said in a statement.

The EIDL program has gotten less attention that the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program, which has been popular on Main Street but had a rocky initial rollout with businesses delayed in getting funding and large public companies being shamed into returning funds. As of Sunday, 1.43 million loans had been approved for a total of $95.6 billion through the EIDL program.

The loans available under the program had been for as much as $2 million, but that number was dropped to $150,000 due to demand. The program's emergency grant was also dropped from its initial amount of up to $10,000 per business, to $1,000 per employee, per business.

As of Friday, the PPP had 4.5 million loans approved for a total of $512 billion, with nearly $130 billion left unallocated for small businesses. Carranza and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were questioned about the implementation of both programs last week by the Senate Small Business Committee.

Data from the National Federation of Independent Business from earlier this month found that of the respondents who applied for an EIDL loan, 57% have been approved so far, 38% have not heard yet about the status of their application, and 5% were denied. About 36% of EIDL applicants have received the loan as of June 2. Sixty-nine percent of those who requested the EIDL emergency advance had received those funds.

Unlike the Paycheck Protection program, which businesses have the opportunity to apply to through June 30, businesses can apply to the EIDL programs through end of year.
ATLANTA  Pleading through tears Monday, the family of a black man killed by Atlanta police outside a drive-thru demanded changes in the criminal justice system and called on protesters to refrain from violence amid heightened tensions across the U.S. three weeks after George Floyds death in Minneapolis.

An autopsy found that 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back late Friday by a white officer who was trying to arrest him at a fast food restaurant for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car. Brooks tried to flee after wrestling with officers and grabbing a stun gun from one of them.

Not only are we hurt, we are angry, said Chassidy Evans, Brooks niece. When does it stop? Were not only pleading for justice. Were pleading for change.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Monday that she was ordering changes to police use-of-force policies, including requiring that officers receive continuous training in how to deescalate situations and use those techniques before taking action that could be fatal. She said she also was requiring officers to intervene if they see a colleague using excessive force.

The mayor said that after Brooks shooting, it was clear Atlanta did not have another day, another minute, another hour to waste in changing police practices.

Other cities nationwide are taking similar steps, and packages of police reforms have been proposed or are emerging in Congress.

About 20 of Brooks children, siblings, cousins and other family members sobbed at a news conference as over 1,000 people gathered not far away at an NAACP-led protest outside the Georgia Capitol.

Floyds death May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into the black mans neck touched off demonstrations and scattered violence across the U.S., and Brooks killing rekindled those protests in Atlanta. The Wendys restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned down over the weekend.

Evans said there was no reason for her uncle to be shot and killed like trash in the street for falling asleep in a drive-thru.

Rayshard has a family who loves him who would have gladly come and got him so he would be here with us today, she said.

Relatives described Brooks as a loving father of three daughters and a stepson who had a bright smile and a big heart and loved to dance. His oldest daughter learned her father was slain while celebrating her eighth birthday with cupcakes and friends, wearing a special dress as she waited for Brooks to take her skating, said Justin Miller, an attorney for the family.

Theres no justice that can ever make me feel happy about whats been done, said Tomika Miller, Brooks widow. I can never get my husband back.  I can never tell my daughter hes coming to take you skating or for swimming lessons.

She asked those demonstrating to keep the protesting peaceful, saying: We want to keep his name positive and great.

Several Democratic lawmakers joined protesters and called for Georgia to pass reforms including the repeal of the states citizens arrest and stand-your-ground laws.

While some Republican leaders pushed back against swift action on some proposals, GOP House Speaker David Ralston endorsed rapid passage of a hate-crimes law, telling lawmakers that failure to act would be a stain on this state we can never wash away.

Morgan Dudley, 18, skipped work to join the demonstration after her job kept her from joining protests following Floyds death three weeks ago.

I was like, You know what? This is not a trend. This is an actual problem that were facing,' said Dudley, who is black.

Officials nationwide are responding to calls for reform while protests persist. The New York City Police Department is disbanding the type of plainclothes anti-crime units that were involved in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner and have long been criticized for aggressive tactics, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday.

In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a panel of residents, activists and one police official will review the Police Departments policy on when officers can use force. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mayor Tim Keller said he wants a new department of social workers and civilian professionals to provide another option when someone calls 911.

And New Jerseys attorney general ordered police to begin divulging names of officers who commit serious disciplinary violations.

In Congress, Republicans are on the brink of introducing a bill with restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices, while a Democratic proposal would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force encounters and ban chokeholds. The White House will announce its own executive actions Tuesday.

In the Atlanta shooting, Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the shots that killed Brooks, was fired, and the other officer at the scene, Devin Brosnan, was put on desk duty. Police Chief Erika Shields resigned.

Police released the officers disciplinary histories, which showed Rolfe received a written reprimand in 2017 for use of force with a firearm but provided no other details. Rolfe, who was hired in October 2013, also got a written reprimand in 2018 and an oral admonishment in 2014, both for vehicle crashes. A firearm discharge case from 2015 listed no conclusion.

Brosnan was hired last June and had no disciplinary history.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he hopes to decide by midweek whether to charge the officers. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation.

Police were called to the restaurant over complaints of a car blocking the drive-thru lane. An officer found Brooks asleep in the car.

Police video showed Brooks cooperating with the officers for more than 40 minutes until a breath test determined his blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit. When one of the officers moved to handcuff him, Brooks tried to run and the officers took him to the ground.

Brooks broke free and took off with a stun gun but was shot. Rolfe told authorities that Brooks fired the stun gun at him.

Asked why Brooks ran, family attorney L. Chris Stewart suggested that he may have feared for his life.

They put George Floyd in handcuffs and he was subsequently killed, Stewart said. So just getting put in handcuffs if youre African American doesnt mean, oh, youre going to get nicely taken to the back of a police car.

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writer Ben Nadler in Atlanta contributed to this report.
By Express News Service

KALABURAGI: Amid speculation over reimposition of the lockdown, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar on Sunday stressed that there is no such proposal before the State Government. Chairing a meeting of officials to review the steps taken to control spread of Covid-19 in Karnataka, Dr Sudhakar pointed out that the recovery rate in the state is more than satisfactory and the mortality rate too is less than the countrys average.

When such is the case, where is the question of imposing the lockdown again? These are just rumours, he said. Amid rising cases infections, there was apprehension that the lockdown may be clamped down again as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to talk to Chief Ministers on June 16 and 17.



On June 17, our state will be taking part in it around 3 pm, where the current situation will be discussed, he said.

So far, 7,000 people in the state have been infected with Covid-19 of whom 3,955 have been cured and discharged from hospitals. The recovery rate is over 54 per cent and there are 2,956 active cases, he pointed out.



The mortality rate is not alarming as only 86 people have died. While it is 1.1 per cent in Karnataka, the national average is 2.8 per cent. People need not be afraid, but should exercise caution, he said. Across the state, 71 laboratories are conducting swab tests of symptomatic patients, the minister added.


Russian photographer Slava Stepanov was planning a business trip to Russias Omsk region in early June when he remembered an intriguing but blurry satellite photograph he had seen years ago. Stepanov set aside a day from his Omsk schedule to drive to the town of Tyukalinsk and -- using Google Maps to guide him -- set up his drone to get a clearer look at a forest grove on the towns marshy outskirts.

What the drone revealed in crisp detail as it rose above the marshy landscape was "awesome," Stepanov says. Stretching for 300 meters, in Cyrillic letters 82 meters high, was the name Lenin spelled with decades-old pine trees.

Vladimir Lenin was the founder and first communist leader of the Soviet Union. After his death in 1924, he became a kind of godhead of the Soviet Union.

Stepanov, who has studied the rarely photographed geoglyphs that are scattered throughout the former Soviet Union, says the trees were most likely planted in the 1970s for one of the many Soviet anniversaries when there was pressure to prove ones dedication to the communist system. "In the U.S.S.R., people were very focused on anniversaries, especially the birthday of Lenin and the anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution," Stepanov says. "Every factory, every enterprise, or even whole villages tried to somehow congratulate higher, stronger, more powerfully; to be more interesting and more noticeable than the rest. Among other things, there was an idea that communism would be eternal."

Three people in Tyukalinsk, including a local schoolteacher, spoke to RFE/RL. While all of them had heard of the Lenin forest, none were sure of when it was planted or why. The year 1970 would have marked the 100th anniversary of Lenins birth.

Forested political statements are not unique to Soviet totalitarianism. Adolf Hitlers followers in Nazi Germany also famously planted trees that contrasted each autumn and spring with the evergreen pine trees around them to display a swastika.

The swastika grove was reportedly cut down in the early 2000s, but another remnant to European dictatorship remains today on a mountain above the Italian town of Antrodoco, near Rome.
WASHINGTON, D.C.In a landmark ruling issued today by the U.S. Supreme Court, employers are barred from discriminating against current and potential employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The ruling essentially finds that the use of the word "sex" in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in employment "because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin," should be legally interpreted to mean "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," though dissenting Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Cavanaugh had argued for a more literal interpretation of the word, with Kavanaugh adding that, "I believe that it was Congress's role, not this Court's, to amend Title VII."

Perhaps of interest is that the decision was authored by Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Associate Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

Currently, 22 states as well as the District of Columbia already have laws on the books which prohibit sexual discrimination of gays and transgender people in the workplace. However, the ruling is likely to have a far more encompassing reach than simply outlawing sex discrimination in employment, and may spill over into the sheaf of cases of businesses discriminating against non-hetero and non-cisgender individuals who wish to obtain such services as wedding photography, flower arrangement and wedding cakes, the latter including a case out of Colorado, a decision on its merits of which the high court essentially sidestepped in 2018 in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

The title case referenced in the current Supreme Court decision is Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., involving child welfare advocate Gerald Bostock, whose leadership at the county agency won several commendationsbut he was fired "for conduct unbecoming a county employee" after he began participating in a gay recreational softball league. But the high court had actually considered two other cases dealing with similar themes which it incorporated into the Bostock ruling: Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, a case out of New York where skydiving company Altitude Express had fired Donald Zarda for having attempted to calm a female skydiver's fears of his holding her close while jumping by telling her he was "100 percent gay"; and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which transgender woman Aimee Stephens, who originally presented as male when hired by the funeral home but came out during her employment and began wearing dresses to work, and was fired for that reason. (Stephens died in early May.)

Most of the objections and concerns of those who have (and likely will) oppose(d) this decision were dealt with in Justice Gorsuch's opening paragraphs of his 172-page decision:

"Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

"Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they werent thinking about many of the Acts consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters imagination supply no reason to ignore the laws demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, its no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit."

Indeed, the Harris Funeral Home case is one which has sparked frequent defenses of the business by religio-conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, which released a statement early today which reads in part, "The court's insistence that a Christian funeral home must retain a transgender employee threatens its freedom to operate according to its understanding of sexuality that is rooted in the facts of science and human history."

"Allowing judges to rewrite the Civil Rights Act to add gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes poses a grave threat to religious liberty," claimed FRC head Tony Perkins. "We've already witnessed in recent years how courts have used the redefinition of words as a battering ram to crush faith-based businesses and organizations."

Such negativity was countered by far more positive commentary.

Black queer and transgender people understand the necessity of federal protections more than most," wrote David J. Johns, Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition, in a press release. "We predominantly live in Black communities, many of which are in the South, where most states lack protection from discrimination in both healthcare and employment. This mornings ruling gives hope to the many Black queer and transgender people in the South, and in small rural and isolated communities, who have been shut out of employment opportunities because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The ruling is significant and the Trump administrations continued attacks on our communities and the recent murders of Dominique (Reemie) Fells and Riah Milton are sobering reminders of how much work there is left to do. ... We need Congress to fully protect LGBTQ/GL people from discrimination and pass full federal non-discrimination protections through the Equality Act. Until our laws remedy systemic racism and inequality, and our culture catches up to those laws, our movements pursuit of LGBTQ/SGL equality is far from done."

"In this moment of the national COVID-19 health crisis and vitally important nationwide demonstrations in support of Black lives and against systemic racism, its heartening to have good news from the Supreme Court," wrote Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "Today is a watershed moment for fairness and affirms that LGBTQ people are, and should be, protected from discrimination under federal law."

However, she cautioned, "While todays decision ensures that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination at workand very likely in other key areas such as education, housing, and health careother forms of discrimination remain legal in many states. ... With todays ruling, we still need Congress and state lawmakers across the country to catch up with the Supreme Court and the American people and fully protect transgender people from discrimination in all aspects of daily life, by passing full federal non-discrimination protections."

Pictured: Aimee Stephens being interviewed after the Supreme Court argument in her case (her wife, in pink, also attended)


(Natural News) A new study that looked at the effects of face masks on the spread of the coronavirus in a town in Germany revealed that using face covering can reduce transmission by as much as 40 percent.

The study, which was authored by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, analyzed the city of Jena in the central province of Thuringia. During the height of the coronavirus outbreak in Germany, the city was among the first places to adopt the use of masks, making face coverings mandatory for citizens riding trains, buses and going into stores as early as April 6. The rest of Germany followed suit, with most states requiring face masks in public by late April.

According to the researchers, new infections in the city  which has a population of 108,000  almost disappeared after face masks became compulsory.

Early adoption led to lower infections

The authors compared Jenas trajectory with a synthetic control that used weighted-average sample data from other towns and cities in Germany. This created a synthetic town that was similar to Jena  but adopted compulsory face masks later than April 6.

After April 6, the teams data noted a 13-percent drop in new infections in Jena within the first 10 days compared to the control group. According to the authors, the gap in caseloads between Jena and the synthetic control unit continued to widen, with Jena lowering their new infections by 25 percent within 20 days. The control group, in comparison, saw their numbers rise in the same period.

By adopting face masks early, the city of Jena was able to curb its daily infections by 40 percent, the authors wrote in their report. If the same treatment were applied to bigger cities, they wrote that it could have a significant face mask-effect in the reduction of [COVID-19] infections. In particular, the team noted a marked decline in cases within 20 days.

The team also noted that their paper was the first to provide field evidence that said masks were a cost-efficient method to stymie new infections. Despite their results, the team stressed the need for more comprehensive studies, especially outside Germany, to determine other variables and biases. For their study, they also included various models of masks, as German states didnt require a specific type. (Related: Face masks, public hygiene helped Japan fight the coronavirus.)

Lower infections after face masks became mandatory

A similar study from researchers in Texas and California also suggests that wearing a mask is the most effective way to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. In their report, the team analyzed infection data from Italy and New York City, looking at infection rate trends before and after masks were made mandatory.

Based on their report, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, both locations saw their infection rates go down after the measures were put in place. The researchers noted that wearing face masks prevented over 78,000 infections in Italy between April 6 and May 9, and more than 66,000 new cases in New York City between April 17 and May 9.

Wearing of face masks in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent interhuman transmission, and this inexpensive practice, in conjunction with simultaneous social distancing, quarantine, and contact tracing, represents the most likely fighting opportunity to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers wrote in their report.

New York City remains the hardest-hit city in the U.S. with 208,954 cases and 30,758 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Meanwhile, Italy has a total caseload of 236,305, with 34,223 deaths, as of Friday night.

Pandemic.news has more stories about the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

Sources include:

Bloomberg.com

FTP.IZA.org [PDF]

TheHill.com

PNAS.org

Coronavirus.JHU.edu
A recent study confirms that two patients are likely to have contracted the Legionnaires' disease by inhaling contaminated toilet water after flushing.

According to a recent report published in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal last week, the two patients were admitted at a hospital in France who likely contracted the disease after inhaling the toilet water that was sprayed with aerosol while flushing. They used the same hospital room, but five months apart.

As reported in Live Science, Legionnaires' disease could spread through flushing the toilet, which releases "plumes" of contaminated water into the air.

French researchers suspected that toilet plumes could spread the Legionnaires' disease. However, this is the first time that genetic analysis has linked patients' infections with contaminated toilet water.

The study's lead author Dr. Jeanne Couturier, a medical biologist at the Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris, told Live Science that their analysis strongly suggests that "the toilet water is the source of the transmission."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) described the Legionnaires' disease as a serious lung infection or pneumonia, which is caused by Legionella bacteria that live in watery environments. The bacteria becomes a health issue when it grows and spreads in building water systems like hot tubs, cooling towers, sink faucets, decorative fountains, and showerheads.

Bacteria are not usually transmitted to other humans, but instead, by inhaling airborne water droplets like mists. People who were exposed to Legionella bacteria do not get sick, but older adults and people with weak immune systems or chronic lung disease have higher risks of acquiring the illness. Meanwhile, some people got sick by drinking contaminated water.

Legionnaires' Disease Prevention: What can we do?

The report discussed the cases of two patients who both had weak immune systems. The first patient was aged 18, who underwent a bone marrow transplant and took immunosuppressive drugs. The patient was admitted in December 2015 for transplant-related complications. After five months, the 51-year-old man patient was admitted to the same room in May 2016. He was being treated for Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

After being released, both patients developed Legionnaires' disease either while in the hospital or. Thus, their infections were regarded as health-care-associated, but they both recovered after taking antibiotics.

After a thorough investigation, researchers located Legionella bacteria in the room's toilet bowl water while no other potential sources of infection were identified.



The genetic analysis found that the bacteria strains in the toilet water were either identical or closely related to those discovered in the patients.The contaminated toilet was disinfected daily with bleach, which prevented the Legionella growth over the next year and a half.

Also, Dr. Couturier advised close the lid before flushing. "It seems important to educate patients to close the toilet lid before flushing, particularly immunosuppressed patients or patients with comorbidities, who are more at risk of Legionnaires' disease," the lead researcher said.



The findings also suggest that investigators of Legionnaires' disease cases in health care settings should consider toilet flushing as a possible route of transmission.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Yet, the government did not clearly specify a time frame for the census.

The Cabinet of Ministers has set a national census as a long-term priority in its finalized action plan.

Yet, the government did not clearly specify a time frame for the census and its format.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the then Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers Dmytro Dubilet said in late November 2019 that the census was planned for late 2020. Almost 100,000 interviewers with tablets had to go around the houses and apartments of Ukrainians.

Read alsoPopulation count in Ukraine: Fresh data released

A total of UAH 3.4 billion (US$127.1 million) was allocated in the national budget for the census. At the same time, Dubilet said, conducting a census in such format would be an "inadmissible luxury" for Ukraine, so it was decided to conduct an "electronic census" and save from UAH 2 billion to UAH 3 billion (US$74.8 million to US$112.2 million).

On January 23, 2020, Dubilet reported the results of a population assessment carried out according to data from mobile operators, the State Statistics Service and electronic registers, the Pension Fund and the State Register of Individual Taxpayers. According to the estimates, 37,289,000 people lived in Ukraine as of December 1, 2019. The figure excludes residents of the Russia-occupied areas.

After a government reshuffle in March this year, the issues of conducting a census were not widely discussed.
The head of Ukrainian MFA stressed that he was ready to cooperate in any format for the sake of de-occupation of Ukrainian territory and the release of Ukrainian prisoners

Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba AP

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba reported his readiness to discuss the date of the next summit in Normandy Format with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Kuleba stated this in an interview with Ukrinform.

"We are looking for a date, and I am convinced that we will find it. I am open to communication with Sergei Lavrov," the minister said.

Kuleba also stressed that he was ready to cooperate in any format if it would help solve the country's problems, as well as contribute to the de-occupation of Ukrainian territory and the release of Ukrainian prisoners.

As we reported earlier, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and foreign policy adviser to the President of France Emmanuel Bonn discussed in detail the course of the Minsk process.

Ukraine is doing everything possible to fully implement the Paris Agreements, which would open up the possibility of holding a summit of the leaders of the Norman Four in Berlin. We greatly appreciate the mediation efforts of France and Germany as our partners in the Norman format. Today, strengthening our coordination is very important," Yermak said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:40:12|Editor: huaxia

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A member of the Young People Against Corona campaign disinfects a hotel in Tripoli, Libya, June 10, 2020. An anti-coronavirus volunteer campaign called Young People Against Corona in Libya's capital Tripoli is helping fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Libya. Launched in early March by young Libyan volunteers, the Young People Against Corona campaign now tasks itself with cleaning streets and providing meals for foreign workers and freelancers who were economically affected by the shutdown of the government since mid-March. (Photo by Mohamed Arhomah/Xinhua)

TRIPOLI, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Ali Durman, 25, never thought he could help fight the COVID-19 pandemic in his country Libya as a member of an important anti-coronavirus volunteer team.

Durman spends two days every week working with a campaign called Young People Against Corona, where he meets the rest of the members for a plan to sterilize a certain location in the capital Tripoli.

"About four months ago, I saw on Facebook an advertisement for volunteer work related to fighting the novel coronavirus. I was excited about the idea and contacted the campaign's officials. The next day, I joined them," Durman told Xinhua.

Their mission started with raising the public awareness of the coronavirus outbreak, before expanding to help sterilize public and private locations, according to Durman.

"We form a team of five and sterilize the entire facilities, despite the hardship of the work and no financial compensation," he noted.

Launched in early March by young Libyan volunteers, the Young People Against Corona campaign now tasks itself with cleaning streets and providing meals for foreign workers and freelancers who were economically affected by the shutdown of the government since mid-March.

"After we posted an advertisement for volunteers, more than 600 wanted to join, from whom we chose 120 young people, including 54 women ... from different orientations, cities and affiliations," Wasim Al-Kabir, the campaign's executive director, told Xinhua.

"It is true that the war caused a social rift and left scars between the Libyans," Durman said. "But such voluntary actions enable the Libyan youth to demonstrate love for their country."

Asma Al-Darhoub, another volunteer in the campaign, said participating in the volunteer work is a humanitarian action.

"I am a doctor and I try to present my experience to this group of young people. We want to reflect an important image that we stand with people in this hard work ... with no goals except serving and mitigating Libya," Al-Darhoub told Xinhua.

War-torn Libya has so far confirmed 418 COVID-19 cases, including 62 recoveries and eight deaths, according to the National Center for Disease Control.

The first coronavirus infection in Libya was reported in March, while the first death was in April.

In order to fight the deadly virus, the Libyan authorities closed the country's borders as well as schools and mosques, banned public gatherings, and imposed a curfew.

The UN-backed government and the east-based army had been engaged in a deadly armed conflict over the capital Tripoli for more than a year, before the UN-backed government recently announced its takeover of the entire capital city and all western Libya by expelling the rival east-based army.

Libya has been suffering escalating violence and political instability since the fall of the late leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011, making it difficult for the authorities to provide proper healthcare for the public.




Haiti - Bahamas : 75 Haitians repatriated to Haiti





The Bahamas Immigration Department has confirmed the resumption of repatriation of Haitians in an irregular migration situation in the Bahamas archipelago.



Friday a Bahamasair flight that landed at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince had on board 75 Haitians (67 men and 8 women.)



The Immigration Ministry recalled that this first repatriation had been postponed in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Haitis refusal to authorize this flight. Clarence Russell, Director of Immigration reiterated that the Government of the Bahamas will continue repatriation and strengthen "its fight against illegal migration by instituting more effective management of border controls in accordance with Bahamian laws."



Recall that on June 3, violence erupted in the Bahamas Carmichael Road detention center because Haitians detained because of their irregular migration situation https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30949-haiti-social-haitians-detained-in-the-bahamas-demonstrate-and-want-to-be-repatriated-to-haiti.html , some were in this center since February 2020, demanded a date for their repatriation to Haiti.



Note that the International Organization for Migration, in 2015 estimated that 18% of the population of the Bahamas was made up of migrants living in the territory in an irregular migration situation, including 20,000 to 50,000 Haitians.



A number which over the past 5 years has increased considerably.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















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The two Indian High Commission officials were arrested in the morning from the Embassy Road in G-6 area of Pakistan's capital after their vehicle allegedly hit a pedestrian

Islamabad: Two officials of the Indian High Commission were released on Monday hours after the Pakistani police arrested them for their alleged involvement in a hit-and-run incident in Islamabad.

Police released the two officials after the Foreign Office informed the authorities that they had diplomatic immunity.

The FO identified the officials as Dwimu Brahma and Paul Selvadhas who arrived in Pakistan in 2017. Both of them were non-diplomats, it said. Police said that after completing formality, they were released and handed over to an official of the Indian mission. Officials of the Foreign Office were also present on the occasion, they said.

The two officials were arrested in the morning from the Embassy Road in G-6 area of the capital after their vehicle allegedly hit a pedestrian. A police official told the media that they were shifted to Secretariat Police Station and a case was registered against them for "injuring a person in reckless driving and trying to flee."

According to the FIR, they were allegedly carrying fake currency.

The pedestrian was critically injured and shifted to a hospital for treatment, Geo News reported, quoting some eyewitnesses.

Earlier on Monday, India summoned the Pakistan Charge d'affaires in New Delhi and lodged a strong protest to him over the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Accidents involving vehicles belonging to diplomatic missions have been frequent in recent years, Pakistani media reports said.

Earlier this year, a SUV belonging to the US Embassy drove into a car on a main artery of Islamabad, killing a woman and injuring five members of her family. The police arrested the Pakistani driver of the US Embassy and registered a case against him.

Monday's incident comes two weeks after India expelled two Pakistan High Commission officials here on charges of espionage. India had declared Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir as 'persona non grata' after they were found obtaining sensitive documents relating to movement of Indian Army troops from an Indian national, according to authorities here.

Following their expulsion, Pakistani agencies started harassing a number of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad including charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia.

Pakistan had downgraded diplomatic ties by expelling the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad following India's decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.


Sushant Singh Rajput passed away yesterday leaving several questions unanswered and a void in the hearts of his loved ones. Reports suggest that the actor was suffering through depression but no note has been found by the police at his residence about the reason behind him claiming his life. After a lot of celebs took to social media to send their condolences, Arjun Kapoor took to social media to share a screenshot of his last conversation with Sushant.









Read More - Deepika Padukone releases a strong statement about mental illness







, where he posed with the actor for a special issue. His caption read, 18 months ago... My last msg to him was when he posted about his mom a week after the release of Kedarnath. He was missing her I assume while the movie was being celebrated. I didnt know him well enough though our paths crossed at yrf, events & screenings every now & then. I cant say I understood what made him make this choice. I can say I felt the pain he did about losing his bearings & feeling that void of his mother. I hope ur in a better & happier space my friend. I hope u have found ur peace. We will all wonder & try & make sense of what happened today. I just hope & pray that when the circus settles down we as a society in due course realise ur choice wasnt driven by one singular moment or thing but a culmination of so much that defines a human being not just by the profession u were in. Rest my dear brother Sushant you are now I hope at peace.The incident has come as a strong blow for one and all. Our condolences are with the grieving family. RIP Sushant!
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Sunbathers were back on the beach in Spain today as the country announced it will re-open to British tourists from June 21 - but any UK visitors will face a two-week quarantine when they return home.

Spain will scrap the travel restrictions on Britain and most of its European neighbours from next week, three months after hotels were forced to shut their doors because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Beaches have also re-opened in Benidorm today, including for British expats, with designated areas for over-70s and spaces marked out for sunbathing.

Airlines are gearing up for a new wave of British tourists, with easyJet offering cut-price deals and British Airways planning to restore half of its daily flights to Spain in July.

However, the UK Foreign Office is still advising against all 'non-essential international travel' for the time being - a warning which will invalidate most travel insurance policies if it is ignored - and any returning Brits will face quarantine.

By contrast, thousands of German tourists have been invited to jump the queue and were lounging in Spanish swimming pools today after they were encouraged to fly to the Balearic Islands in a pilot project.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has brought forward the resumption of the tourist season by 10 days to this Sunday, saying that 'the recovery of tourist activity is key for this government'.

It came as borders were thrown open across Europe today as a raft of countries including Germany and France lifted three months of coronavirus checks.

SPAIN: A handful of tourists soak up the sun in roped-off areas of a beach in Benidorm today - where beaches partially re-opened on Monday with designated spaces for over-70s and a maximum of 25,000 visitors at a time

SPAIN: A police officer wearing a mask explains the rules for using the Levante beach in Benidorm today as it re-opened following the coronavirus pandemic

SPAIN: A German holidaymaker puts down a beach towel in Palma de Mallorca today after thousands of Germans were invited to resume the Spanish tourist season

This map shows the European borders that are still closed (in red) and those that are open again (in green). Spain is planning to throw open its borders in the next two weeks, while Sweden's borders have been closed against its will because of its stubbornly high infection rate. The UK and Ireland are both enforcing two-week quarantines. The EU's external border is still generally closed, as seen in Eastern Europe

SPAIN: German tourists rest at the swimming pool of the RIU Concordia hotel in Palma de Mallorca today after they flew to the Balearic Islands in a pilot project

SPAIN: German tourists board a bus in Spain today as the Balearic Islands carry out a trial run for resuming their tourist season

SPAIN: People on a beach buggy make their way along the promenade of Levante beach on Monday after the town's beaches were reopened following three months of closure

This map from flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows air travel resuming across Europe as many countries throw open their borders following months of restrictions

Which countries are allowing British visitors and which are not? AUSTRIA - Flights from UK remain banned, borders open to 31 countries from tomorrow but not Britain BELGIUM - Borders open with Britain from today BULGARIA - Britons subject to 14-day quarantine, unlike most EU countries CYPRUS - Britons currently excluded, but likely to be admitted again in July DENMARK - Tourists only allowed from Iceland, Germany and Norway - notably not Britain or Sweden FRANCE - Arrivals from UK subject to 14-day quarantine because of Britain's own quarantine rules GERMANY - Britons no longer need reason for entry from today, all land borders now open GREECE - UK visitors excluded from resumption of tourist season starting today ITALY - Travel to and from Britain allowed since June 3 MALTA - Still closed at present, will start opening for selected countries - not including Britain - on July 1 NETHERLANDS - Britons and Swedes remain banned PORTUGAL - Britons are allowed to fly in, although land border with Spain is closed SPAIN - Borders will open to EU countries and Britain on June 21, and Portugal on July 1 SWEDEN - Has never closed borders SWITZERLAND - Travel restrictions for EU and Britain lifted from today Advertisement

British expats already in Spain were enjoying Benidorm's beaches for the first time in three months today as they re-opened with designated areas for over-70s.

The new rules also include a cap on visitors and a pre-reservation system which will be rolled out further into the summer season.

The capacity of the main beaches has been cut from the usual 40,000 people a day to 25,000 as a result of the need for social distancing.

The Levante and Poniente beaches have been divided into 20 sectors, with plots which can be occupied by one to four people - five if one of them is under six years old - up to a maximum occupancy of 20,488 people.

Sunbathers were watched by supervisors wearing blue tops and face masks who helped direct sunbathers to their spot on the beach.

Benidorm mayor Toni Perez said: 'We're making sure people can enjoy the beach as they've always done knowing that these public spaces are protected.

'It's a very versatile system. Benidorm is here today to say to the world that it can manage beaches of this size which are capable of giving enjoyment to thousands of people.'

British tourists were told to leave Spain in mid-March when the Spanish government announced that all hotels were closing because of the pandemic.

Spain was one of the worst-hit countries at the time, piling up more than 8,000 coronavirus deaths in the month of March alone.

Its lockdown was one of the toughest in Europe, with exercise not regarded as a valid excuse for leaving the home.

But Spain is now easing out of lockdown after seeing its daily infection count drop from nearly 10,000 per day at the height of the crisis to only 2,400 in the last week.

Spain's death figures are now almost unusable after a controversial change in methodology, but the rate has certainly slowed in recent weeks.

Most of the country's border controls will be lifted for EU member states from Sunday - and the Spanish foreign ministry has confirmed that this includes transition-period Britain.

'It's considered that the UK is included in the announcement and can return to Spain along with EU nationals when border controls are lifted from June 21,' a statement said.

Britain's two-week quarantine rule has prompted a tit-for-tat measure from France but there is no indication that Spain will do the same.

Still, Germans have been given preferential treatment and invited to the pilot project in the Balearic Islands after their country's relative success in handling the pandemic.

Germany has seen fewer than 9,000 deaths - a far lower figure than Britain, Spain, Italy or France - despite having the largest population in western Europe and nine usually free-flowing land borders with other countries.

UK airlines will now be looking to stage a revival after flights were grounded across the globe when the virus spiralled out of control in March and April.

According to the Daily Telegraph, flights are running from Britain to 26 destinations in Spain during the month of June - with airlines planning to scale up their operations next month.

EasyJet will be offering flights for under 20 in the hope of luring tourists back to international travel after months of crisis for the aviation industry.

Ryanair is planning to run 1,000 flights per day by July, including many to Spain, while British Airways is looking to have 50 per cent of its Spanish schedule back in place by next month.

BA is planning to operate flights to Spain from London Heathrow and London Gatwick - the UK's two busiest airports in normal times.

Those three airlines have also begun a legal challenge over the UK's 14-day quarantine plan which they say will throw the travel industry into fresh chaos.

Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan today lambasted the government for keeping the 2m social distancing rule in place for pubs and restaurants while passengers are 'packed like sardines' on planes.

This chart shows the daily number of virus cases in Spain, which has been consistently below 1,000 since the end of last month after reaching nearly 10,000 at the height of the crisis

Two people walk along the shore near an area of sun-loungers on a beach in Benidorm today as Spain starts to resume its tourist season after three months

German tourists rest at the swimming pool of the RIU Concordia hotel in Palma de Mallorca on Monday

An elderly man rides his mobility scooter along Levante beach promenade after the town re-opened its seaside to visitors

Deck chairs are arranged along the seaside in Benidorm where sunbathing has already resumed - with foreign visitors including UK tourists allowed back in the country from June 21

Lifeguards get ready to start work at Levante beach - where local authorities are setting up a reservation system so that social distancing can be maintained on summer holidays

Elderly people make their way along Levante beach promenade after the town's beaches were reopened after three months of closure

GREECE: A plane arriving from Germany is sprayed with water after landing in Thessaloniki today, as Greece re-opened its two main airports to arrivals from 29 countries

Passengers get off their plane in Thessaloniki after arriving from Germany, whose citizens have generally been treated favourably after the country limited its virus deaths

GERMANY-DENMARK: Cars queue on the Danish side of the border in Krusaa this morning after both countries eased their travel restrictions

GERMANY: A TUI flight attendant gives safety instructions to German tourists on the first flight from Duesseldorf to Mallorca in a Spanish tourism pilot project

BRUSSELS AIRPORT: Flight attendants wearing face masks sanitise their hands inside a plane at the Zaventem International Airport today

SWITZERLAND: Two border guards in the town of Thonex open the barrier that closed access from France as the country lifts its travel restrictions today

Spain's decision to admit Britons stands in contrast to countries such as Greece and Netherlands which have put the UK on a blacklist of countries with worryingly high infection rates.

Several countries including Greece are still excluding Britons because of the UK's dire figures, while Swedes are similarly unpopular in many countries.

Britons are allowed into Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy but not Greece, the Netherlands or Austria and will have to quarantine in France,

Elsewhere in Europe, motorists were queuing to enter France from Italy and Germany from Denmark this morning after emergency checks were lifted overnight.

France's borders are open for travel within Europe, but Paris is insisting on reciprocity - meaning a 14-day quarantine for British visitors.

The French government has criticised the 'uncoordinated fashion' in which Britain imposed the quarantine after initially saying that France would be exempt.

At present, the UK Foreign Office is still advising Britons against 'all non-essential international travel' in any case.

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders, French president Emmanuel Macron said it is time 'to turn the page of the first act of the crisis' and 'rediscover our taste for freedom'.

But he warned: 'This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard... the summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.'

In addition, most of the continent is still closed to visitors from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas - although Greece is allowing some tourists from further afield.

FRANCE-ITALY: French gendarmes approach a car driver at the border check point Saint-Ludovic at the Franco-Italian border, after France reopened its border to Italians

FRANCE-ITALY: A view of the border checkpoint at Saint-Ludovic today after France lifted its travel restrictions - although it is insisting on reciprocity, meaning a quarantine for Britons

SWITZERLAND-ITALY: Italian police officers carry out checks at the Italian-Swiss border as seen from the Italian side near Como today

Germany and Belgium among those opening their borders today in line with an EU directive to resume travel by mid-June.

All nine of Germany's land borders are open and the country is allowing flights from Italy, but not Spain until June 21. Some flights to London have continued all along and UK travellers are not banned.

Germany and the Netherlands have both lifted their warnings against non-essential foreign travel in Europe, although Germany is advising against travelling further afield until at least August 31.

Austria has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours and will lift travel restrictions for 31 countries tomorrow, but not including the UK or Sweden.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz are both planning to holiday in their homelands this year.

'The recommendation is still, if you want to be really safe, a holiday in Austria,' Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg told ORF television, recalling the scramble in March to bring home thousands of tourists as borders slammed shut.

'In Austria, you know that you don't have to cross a border if you want to get home, and you know the infrastructure and the health system well,' he said.

PORTUGAL-SPAIN: Workers re-open the border with Portugal in the Spanish village of Salvaterra Do Mino today, in a move to ease travel restrictions for workers - although visitors will remain banned until July 1

What European summer holidays will look like In France, the world's number one tourist destination, the government is banking on the French taking their holidays at home to boost the tourism sector. Paris, Europe's most visited city, has gradually begun coming back to life, with cafe terraces open again. The Eiffel Tower reopens on June 25, albeit with limits on the numbers of visitors. The Mona Lisa and other artworks will again be on view at the Louvre from July 6. Spain's borders remain closed today as it goes through the final stages of rolling back one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. However, Germans are allowed to visit the Balearic Islands as part of a pilot project. Travellers will have their temperature taken on arrival under the scheme, which will be conducted according to 'strict health guidelines', the region has said. Tourism on the mainland will resume in July but masks will remain compulsory in public and closed spaces until the virus is defeated, authorities have warned. Italy reopened to travellers from Europe on June 3 and many of its historic sites have been reopening since May, including Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and Rome's Colosseum. But, just like Venice's canals where gondolas await punters, the landmarks currently remain quiet. With tourism making up 13 percent of GDP, authorities are keen to push the Italy brand. Switzerland and Austria have agreed to re-open their borders with northern Italy, throwing open the Brenner Pass which is a major axis for north-south travel. Greece is re-open its borders to the majority of European tourists, as well as those from certain other parts of the world, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand. However, anyone from a region particularly badly hit by the virus will have to undergo mandatory tests and spend their first night on Greek soil in a designated hotel. These include the Paris region, Madrid and Italy's northern Lombardy region, among others. Britons are currently excluded altogether. Across the country, tourists will have access to all of Greece's tourist gems, including archaeological sites and museums, with systems in place to filter visitors at the entrance. While open-air cinemas, nightclubs and tavernas are already open, and parasols and beach towels will have to be kept well spaced out on the sand, there is one downside - buffets are off the menu in hotels. Advertisement

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

'You can go abroad for your holiday again,' foreign minister Stef Blok said.

'But it won't be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.'

Greece has gone further, allowing travellers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon - but not Britain.

Greece's two main airports in Athens and Thessaloniki will reopen to arrivals from 29 countries from Monday, the start of the tourist season. Sea connections with Italy and land borders with the Balkans are also re-opening.

Spain will only start to lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with some of its fellow EU countries.

Prime minister Pedro Sanchez yesterday moved that date forward by 10 days, saying that 'the re-opening of our frontiers is a critical moment'.

However, Spain's Balearic Islands are welcoming 11,000 Germans from today in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector.

'This pilot programme will help us learn a lot for what lies ahead in the coming months,' Sanchez said.

'We want our country, which is already known as a world-class tourist destination, to be recognised as also a secure destination.'

Sanchez said Spain's land border with Portugal would remain closed till July 1 because Lisbon had requested it.

Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights.

Norway and Denmark are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a high per capita death rate.

Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions.

Italy, which has been among the world's hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe.

Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13. Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries.

Neither did tiny Luxembourg - but quickly found all its neighbours closing their borders instead.

GERMANY-DENMARK: A queue of vehicles line up to cross the border into Germany at a checkpoint in Froeslev in Denmark this morning

GERMANY-DENMARK: A police officer watches cars queue to cross the border into Germany this morning as Germany re-opened all nine of its land borders
Contractors work to install pipe at a solar thermal facility. Credit: Dennis Schroeder, NREL

So you want to build a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant. Have you developed a technical specification that clearly defines the key project requirements? Does your team have the relevant experience and knowledge to successfully deploy a CSP project? Have you designed your plant for the daily start-ups and transient conditions it will experience? Have you planned appropriately to prepare and mobilize your O&M team to take over operation of the plant at the appropriate time? Have you fully considered the implications of building a plant at a remote location?

CSP holds tremendous potential as a lower-cost, on-demand renewable energy source. With the relatively nascent global CSP industry still in a learning phase, knowledge sharing is critically important to help new plant designers and builders avoid known pitfalls and build high-quality plants that will offer cost-competitive renewable energy and grid services.

Documenting a wealth of lessons learned from the CSP industry, a first-of-its-kind report released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) gathers decades of industry knowledge and best practices to support stakeholders including lenders, designers, and developers to leapfrog past known development and technology hurdles.

Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office, the Concentrating Solar Power Best Practices Study focuses on lessons learned from engineering, construction, commissioning, operations, and maintenance of CSP parabolic trough and power tower systems.

Mark Mehos, NREL group manager for Thermal Systems R&D, sees the report as a means to help build a new wave of reliable CSP plants in U.S. and global markets. Mehos explains that future CSP installations built with longer duration storage will be complementary to solar photovoltaics (PV) and batteries. According to Mehos, such hybrid systems are becoming the standard.

The controller room operator at the Ivanpah Solar Project monitors systems operations and more than 157,000 heliostats that track the sun and reflect the sunlight to boilers that sit atop three 459-foot-tall power towers. When the concentrated sunlight strikes the boiler pipes, it heats the water to create superheated steam, providing electricity to 140,000 California homes. Credit: Dennis Schroeder, NREL

"Think about a plant that combines CSP and PV, operating all day and into the night," Mehos said. "CSP can fill in during the shoulder periods late into the evening or really early in the morning when PV and PV-and-battery systems with short duration storage aren't necessarily generating electricity."

To get there, he said, "The first thing we need is for CSP to continue to lower its cost while improving overall reliability."

In developing the report, NREL partnered with Solar Dynamics Managing Director Hank Price, a 30-year veteran in the CSP industry and former NREL researcher. Price describes an evolving CSP industry with significant opportunities to share knowledge and bypass known issues in plant development. During the course of a year and a half, the authors visited all the operating molten-salt tower plants in the world outside of China, as well as many of the world's 80 operating trough plants.

"We visited and talked to a lot of people involved in these projects and have a good idea of the issues the plants are facing," Price said. "None of them are insurmountable problemsthey were more related to implementation and understanding correct designs and correct operations. We think the report will help the financial community be more comfortable that projects will work, and we hope to give guidance to projects as to the key things to watch out for."

The project team concluded that some of the most significant key learnings were at the management level. Price said, "We went in thinking this would be about technology, but literally over half of the issues identified were about implementationhow to do it right, the structure of the project, the relationship of the parties, and having a clear definition of what the projects are trying to achieve."

Explore further NREL report finds similar value in two concentrating solar power technologies

More information: Concentrating Solar Power Best Practices Study: Concentrating Solar Power Best Practices Study: www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/75763.pdf
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday his country would sell gasoline to Venezuela, if asked to do so, for "humanitarian" reasons, despite a raft of U.S. sanctions imposed on the South American country.

Lopez Obrador added he has not received such a request from the Venezuelan government.

The U.S. 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.

As Venezuela suffers a severe gasoline shortage, Iran sent a flotilla of five tankers of fuel to the country in May, despite Washington's criticism of the trade between the two nations.

Nevertheless, Lopez Obrador said he would be willing to send gasoline to Venezuela under the right circumstances.

"Mexico is an independent, sovereign country," he said during his regular morning news conference. "We make our own decisions and do not mess with the policies of other countries."

The United States, which did not hinder Iran's tanker cargoes, is considering imposing sanctions on dozens of additional foreign oil tankers for trading with Venezuela, a U.S. official told Reuters earlier this month.

(Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez in Mexico City; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Matthew Lewis)
Animals Australia is bidding to stop the live export of tens of thousands of sheep. Credit:Louie Douvis

This year the government imposed a ban on the trade of all live sheep to the Middle East between June 1 and mid-September or during the northern summer following the Awassi Express disaster when thousands of sheep died from heat stress on board.

Animals Australia has filed an urgent application in the federal court aimed at stopping the live export of tens of thousands of sheep to the Middle East during the summer heat, claiming the Department of Agriculture's exemption is unlawful.

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Tina Hutchinson, the assistant secretary with the Live Animal Export branch of the Department of Agriculture, which acts as the regulator of the trade, said on June 2 that the ship could not leave because animal welfare standards could not be guaranteed, determining there was a "significant risk of heat stress if the exemption is granted."

However, on Saturday, the Department's Deputy Secretary David Hazelhurst unexpectedly overturned Ms Hutchinson's ruling and granted RETWA an exemption in response to a new application, citing "Australia's trade relations" and the "exceptional circumstances resulting from the global pandemic."

Mr Hazelhurst also said "it was appropriate to grant the exemption" because of the "likely impact on RETWA and related persons, the industry, and Australias trade relations."

He agreed that the temperature onboard, or wet bulb temperature, could reach 31.4 degrees but said he believed this could be"substantially mitigated" but "not fully" by ventilation on the Al Kuwait vessel.
Among the most extraordinary things about this cash exchange, which took place on May 13 and is secretly captured on tape, is that for Somyurek, it was not unusual. Even more extraordinary is the way this former taxi driver has amassed his immense political power  not just in Victoria but at federal level.

McLennan then drove off under instructions to deliver the forms and cash to ALP head office.

With the money stuffed into a blue folder along with Labor membership forms, the state cabinet minister waited for the handover. His bagman Nick McLennan, a senior adviser to another of Premier Daniel Andrews' ministers, was on his way. After arriving, McLennan made his way to Somyurek's car, leant into the driver's side window and took the folder filled with $50 notes.

Wearing a dark blue sweater, balding and slightly paunchy, Adem Somyurek strode towards the shopping centre as if on an ordinary grocery run. But he then spun around and walked back to his car. He drove to the furthest parking spot, opposite a Red Rooster.

On a clear autumn day just before noon one of the most powerful politicians in Victoria drove into a suburban shopping centre car park, got out of his four-wheel-drive and walked briskly to an ATM. He used two bank cards to withdraw a wad of cash.

"I'll be just running the joint," boasts Somyurek in one recorded exchange. "It's who I say is going to be the f---ing premier."

According to Somyurek, state and federal ministers are intimidated by him. The numbers he claims to control  almost two-thirds of the Victorian ALP  mean Somyurek has been impervious to any challenge from Andrews, Anthony Albanese, Bill Shorten or any other Labor heavy hitter. By his own account, it is Somyurek who is truly in charge of Victoria.

And the tapes capture damning reflections on Andrews. Somyurek recounts comments allegedly made by the Premier's cabinet allies, claiming they say the Victorian leader is untrustworthy and a "c---".

The recordings are also peppered with colourful allegations about Somyurek's Victorian ALP friends and enemies. He claims close ally and cabinet minister Marlene Kairouz holds a "meaningless" portfolio "made up just to make it look like we're interested in the suburbs". He labels Gabrielle Williams, Victoria's Minister for Women and the Prevention of Family Violence, a "stupid bitch" whom he will "f---ing force  out of the ministry".

The recordings reveal Somyurek ordering others to forge signatures and create dozens of false statements in which Labor branch members claim to have paid for their memberships when Somyurek or his political operatives have footed the bill. He also talks about directing taxpayer-funded parliamentary employees  who themselves claim to have the backing of their bosses  to conduct party political operations. Somyurek's misconduct appears to breach ALP rules designed to stop branch stacking and may also breach the law.

An investigation by The Age and 60 Minutes has unearthed dozens of phone and video recordings captured over 12 months that provide an unprecedented insight into Somyurek's operation. Beneath the bravado and deal-making of a chronically ambitious politician is a self-described "stackathon" that has funnelled hundreds of fake members into local ALP branches, to seize control of large sections of the Victorian Labor Party and become a powerbroker with unrivalled influence.

"As we drove home to our housing commission flat every night, I remember my parents would always tell me to take note of the conditions and to never end up like them  that is entrapped and without choice."

In his 2003 maiden speech to State Parliament, Somyurek, then 36, spoke of memories "indelibly etched in my psyche", waiting as a child inside factories for his parents to finish menial, low-paid jobs.

In his 20s, he gravitated to those who could open doors for a young man with a funny name who drove taxis and studied at night. He worked as a staffer for Labor MP Jacinta Collins in 1996 and, after a 1999 byelection, in the office of federal MP Anthony Byrne. By 2002 he had built enough influence within the party to secure a seat in the state's upper house.

The recordings depict a man who sees himself as a general in battle. There are those in the ALP who need to be vanquished: "f---ed", "sacked" and "stabbed".

Adem Kubilay Somyurek was born in 1967 in Izmir, a coastal city with a history of battles and conquerors: the Persians, the Greeks and, finally, the Turks. His parents migrated to Australia when Somyurek was 18 months old. His sense of history would shape his life as a series of contests to be fought and overcome.

Signing up fake members can involve dishonest or potentially illegal acts, including forgery of signatures on forms or false declarations that a person has paid for their own membership. The ALP attempts to stop stacking by requiring a member to pay a small amount  usually $50 a year  when they join. The use of fake addresses to conceal branch stacking also involves impropriety. It can also involve using taxpayer-funded parliamentary staffers to secretly engage in branch stacking on the public purse.

Dastyari was schooled by the most infamous branch stacking machine of them all  Labor's NSW Right faction. He says branch stacking becomes corrupt when political operatives sign up people they know have no genuine interest in becoming party members, or who may not even know what they are joining. Dastyari says this amounts to "a con job".

But convincing someone to sign up as a Labor member isn't easy. "Most people can't get their own family members to show up to their kids' recital. Good luck trying to convince your mates down the street to join a political party," says former senator Sam Dastyari.

The more ALP branch members a politician controls, the more votes they control within the party. This equates to influence over Labor policy at national and state conferences, as well as who is chosen to run for the ALP in state and federal seats.

The rest of his speech is mundane, mostly recycled Labor talking points. His enemies say this hints at something. "Without any policy bone in his body," says a senior Labor federal MP, nominally in Somyurek's Right faction, who did not want to be named. Even some of Somyurek's allies say he exists for one thing  "power".

The secret tapes show a man supremely confident of his power. "I am f---ing more powerful than Conroy, Robert Ray, f---ing Greg Sword, all of them put together."

"I'm f---ing busy, mate. I'm a f---ing minister. I'm the most powerful man  Every time anyone has a problem, they go through me," he barks in one covert recording in late 2019.

The tapes reveal Somyurek as boastful and a big noter. But Labor insiders agree he is now more powerful than any of the factional warlords who have come before him, such as Stephen Conroy, Graham Richardson, Kim Carr, Greg Sword and Robert Ray. And he isn't shy in saying so.

"Anybody who is anybody in Australian Labor politics knows the name Adem Somyurek," says Dastyari.

Somyurek estimates on tape that by the end of 2019 nearly two-thirds of the Victorian ALP was under his control. Other Labor sources agree and note he became the only member of the Andrews government on the federal ALP national executive, the main decision-making body of the party that counts party leader Albanese, federal shadow minister Mark Butler and former treasurer Wayne Swan as members.

Ethnic communities have long been targeted by branch stackers. They are tight-knit groups often with a long-held interest in grassroots politics, which makes their people ripe for recruitment as real and fake members. In the past, the practice has been defended on the basis the ends justify the means. A disadvantaged community is empowered and Labor's base is broadened.

The state Ombudsman has previously described the use of taxpayer-funded staffers to engage in party business as wrong. Barrister and corruption fighter Geoffrey Watson, SC, goes further. He argues that if a minister was to abuse public resources, engage in egregious dishonesty to amass power or promise political benefits to branch stackers, they could be at risk of committing the jailable offence of misconduct in public office.

Somyurek declined multiple requests for a sit-down interview but emphatically denies involvement in branch stacking.

Top from left: Kim Carr and Graham Richardson. Bottom: Stephen Conroy and Greg Sword. Credit:

A TROUBLED ROAD

Somyurek has always made headlines.

As a backbencher in the Brumby government in 2009 he lost his job as chair of the electoral matters committee after receiving a one-month suspended jail sentence and $300 fine for driving while disqualified.

Five years later, under Andrews, he became minister for small business, innovation and trade, but he was forced to resign from cabinet in 2015 for standing over his chief of staff, Dimity Paul. Retired judge Michael Strong, who investigated the allegations, made adverse findings against him, which the Premier said caused him to lose confidence in his minister. Somyurek once again found himself in the political wilderness.

Somyurek did what he does best and began planning his return to the centre of power by controlling the Right faction. There were public hints that he was not only intent on regaining a cabinet spot but securing enough numbers to cause a reckoning among those who had cheered his demise. He took advantage of divisions within the party that opened up after a pact between Conroy and Carr deteriorated in early 2018, just as the new federal seat of Fraser in the western suburbs of Melbourne was being created. The Left and the Right wanted it for themselves and Somyurek went about shifting old alliances, realigning the factions and establishing himself as the key powerbroker. Some unions aligned with the Left, the CFMEU and RTBU, joined the Somyurek camp.

"Adem Somyurek did something that I think no one thought he'd be able to do. He united the Right of the Labor Party in Victoria, as much as it could possibly be united, and he did it by himself," says Dastyari. "That's unprecedented. That's unheard of. And that's what makes him such an unprecedented figure in Australian politics."

As his power grew, Somyurek began to flex his political muscle. Time and time again, he would threaten real or perceived enemies with a mixture of bombast and genuine threats.

Three years after he was cast out of the ministry, Somyurek clashed with state Tourism Minister John Eren in the parliamentary dining room, allegedly threatening him with a butter knife (allegations Somyurek denied). The same day in February 2018, text messages Somyurek had sent to Eren threatening federal Labor's defence spokesman, Richard Marles, were leaked.

"I'm going to f--- that Marles," Somyurek wrote. "No one f--- lies to [sic] and rat f---s like that and gets away with it. There will be payback mate".

Somyurek believed Marles and Eren were blocking his factional plans. It's unclear how serious the "payback" threat was. But Marles remains safe in his seat of Corio.

Richard Marles Credit:Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Somyurek's accumulation of power did not go unnoticed. Later that year political operatives controlled by Conroy and Carr were briefing journalists that Somyurek was engaged in industrial-scale branch stacking. But without any hard evidence, their attempts to investigate were fruitless.

In November 2018, with the re-election of the Andrews government, Somyurek achieved the seemingly impossible for someone with such a poor parliamentary record. He was recalled by the Premier as the Minister for Small Business and Local Government. The position made him responsible for upholding the integrity of local councils, including some led by Labor operatives running their own party branches.

"To my good friend, Adem Somyurek, I'm very pleased to welcome Adem back to the cabinet and he's going to do a fantastic job," Andrews said.

Somyurek was back, bigger and stronger than before.

"Daniel Andrews, I can only assume, made the assessment, it's better to have him inside the tent than outside," Dastyari says.

(L to R) Jaclyn Symes, Gabrielle Williams, Daniel Andrews, Melissa Horne and Adem Somyurek. Credit:Photo: Eddie Jim

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, who was taken out by factional bosses when his popularity waned, has watched on with horror. Rudd regards Somyurek as "the Frankenstein of factional politics".

"Having been a willing accomplice, he then became the kingpin himself," says Rudd.

Credit:

THE SECRET RECORDINGS

The first covert recording of Somyurek was made in the second half of 2019. The Age and 60 Minutes have obtained more than 100 audio and video surveillance files.

Somyurek is always on the phone, mixing charm and menace as he micro-manages those in his operation. He is a quintessential ALP numbers man, as unsubtle as he is effective.

"Our people have been putting like industrial-scale numbers, you know, just f---ing masses for a year," he says on one recording in which he describes his state-wide activities.

On another recording, he talks of launching a "big f---ing stackathon" to crush his rivals.

He claims that across Victoria, his operation involves placing fake members into branches every month. "We've got f---ing massive numbers" being stacked in seats, he tells several young Labor operatives on one tape. He describes stacking in the federal seat of Calwell (held by Maria Vamvakinou) and putting "massive numbers in Lalor", the seat of federal opposition whip Joanne Ryan.

Somyurek says he has "just started" to stack in federal MP Tim Watts' seat of Gellibrand, but claims he has been at it a long time elsewhere: "Scullin [the seat of federal MP Andrew Giles] keeps going, Jaga Jaga [the seat of federal MP Kate Thwaites] keeps going ... I've been keeping a watching brief on all of those." (There is no suggestion any of these members are aware of the stacking).

Somyurek is dismissive of the idea that some of the members he's signing up are actually interested in joining the ALP, scoffing at the prospect that "by some stroke of amazingness, that some people joined [the ALP] of their own accord".

He can easily "rock up f---ing 50 people to a branch meeting" and discusses with zeal how to cover up branch stacking through a practice called "warehousing". This involves getting members to sign up with false addresses, only to later move them to different branches in different locations after their membership addresses have been accepted as genuine.

"I think we do need to do some warehousing. So you put some people in now. And in about a year later, put them in . another area," he says in one recording.

The only thing that drives Somyurek more than accumulating numbers is holding on to the numbers he already controls. "We're just going to go to town. This is f---ing war  we got f---ing numbers over them all over the place and we got 63 per cent, so they gotta be f---ing careful."

When Left faction members began stacking branches, Somyurek described it with genuine excitement as "the trigger to start the war".

"I've been secretly itching for it, to tell you the truth," he said. "We're going to be arseholes, and f---ing bad and loud."

A branch meeting at the home of Jasvinder Sidhu, a rival numbers man from the Left faction, turned violent in late January. The meeting was gatecrashed by 100 people and Sidhu claims he was punched in the head (a man is now facing assault charges). Sidhu, who declined to be interviewed, has claimed that forces aligned with Somyurek were behind this hostile takeover of his branch, an allegation dismissed by Somyurek.

Jasvinder Sidhu with Daniel Andrews. Credit:Photo: VISPENN Photography

But the covert recordings capture Somyurek taking credit. "Our little operation, as acrimonious as it was, has been very successful. We are about to take over that branch easily," he says of the Sidhu fracas. In another conversation with Labor operatives in early February, Somyurek chuckles at how Sidhu infuriated the gatecrashers at his house by publicly accusing them of violence.

"They are very angry, very angry with him," he says in the conversation. And then, as laughter erupts, he adds: "They want to bomb his house."

Credit:

MASTER AND COMMANDER

Somyurek is involved in so much political string pulling that he needs a significant number of loyal Labor operatives to be at his service. There's plenty to do. Any form of recruiting  ethical or otherwise  is labour-intensive. The job requires hundreds of forms to be filled out and dozens of branch meetings to be organised.

"These guys aren't going to do anything without me, they're very hierarchical, they see me as controlling the party, and do what I'll want them [to do]," he says on one tape.

Somyurek's soldiers appear to include taxpayer-funded staffers meant to be working for other MPs. This is a high-risk endeavour and potentially unlawful, particularly in Victoria, where the ALP was engulfed by the 2015-2018 "red shirts" scandal. Parliamentary funds were used to help pay for red-shirted Labor staffers to engage in political campaigning, an arrangement state Ombudsman Deborah Glass described as improper and in breach of parliamentary rules. Police launched an investigation but no charges were laid. Andrews ordered the ALP to repay $380,000 to the state and endorsed laws passed in 2019 expressly prohibiting parliamentary staff from engaging in party political behaviour.

The recordings of Somyurek appear to show him directing parliamentary employees to form a "flying squad" of branch stackers tasked with "raiding" branches. His squad includes aspiring Labor operatives who have just landed their first jobs as parliamentary employees in the offices of state and federal MPs. In one recording, Somyurek says he has directed several senior ministers "to offer up a staff member" to his operation.

He claims cabinet minister Robin Scott agreed to allow an electorate officer, Nathan Croft, to branch stack while employed in Scott's office. "He'll be doing work from there, Robin won't mind," Somyurek says. Another tape captures Croft claiming Scott approved the arrangement.

"I spoke to Robin and he said on his days [when I work at his office] he's pretty chill," Croft says. "I gave him the heads-up that I was doing some of this stuff and he's like, 'Have fun.' "

Scott told The Age he and his office have no involvement in branch stacking.

Robin Scott (L) and Premier Daniel Andrews Credit:Photo: Simon O'Dwyer

On another tape, Somyurek is recorded claiming he will direct state MP Tien Kieu to try to enlist a taxpayer-funded staffer. "I will speak to Tien and get you for a couple [of days]," Somyurek says. Kieu said on Friday the staffer, Jake Cripps, was "working for me but I don't know anything about branch stacking".

SECOND IN CHARGE

Somyurek's closest ally is Marlene Kairouz, who has been Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor since 2016. Two years after that she gained the suburban development portfolio. It was a promotion that did not impress Somyurek, who says in one recording it is a "made-up portfolio, just to make it look like we're interested in the suburbs".

"It's meaningless. She [Kairouz] says, 'I don't even know what it means.' It is not a real job. It's just tacked on and she shouldn't have a f---ing adviser for it."

Marlene Kairouz Credit:

Kairouz, who did not respond to efforts to contact her, is taped having discussions about using staffers on the public purse, including her adviser Nick McLennan, for political work. She complains on one recording that renewing the membership of hundreds of party members takes forever and "my staff were just working on that, it was terrible".

The recordings suggest McLennan's job as a senior policy adviser to Kairouz has been arranged by Somyurek in part to help accumulate numbers. As Somyurek describes it, it's a job provided"because of a factional thing". Yet he repeatedly complains that McLennan isn't branch stacking aggressively enough, despite being paid more than $100,000 a year.

Nick McLennan Credit:

"He has a brilliant, light ministerial portfolio that has nothing in it. Suburban development is nothing ... he's gotta do some f---ing factional stuff," Somyurek says on one recording. "He should be all over the branches stuff now," he says in another. "He hasn't got much on. He's an adviser with no f---ing job  he's got suburban development, he's got nothing.

"The guy got a 30 f---ing thousand-dollar pay rise ... He didn't get there because he's a great policy genius."

In a meeting with the "flying squad", Kairouz addresses young staffers like a football coach, urging them to recruit with zeal.

"You guys have come in now where we are in charge. We're it," Kairouz says of her and Somyurek's influence within the ALP. "We're very big, but if we can continue to grow, why not?"

Kairouz is recorded on tape saying: "In the Parliament, people come to Adem and I, particularly Adem, they don't know anything. So we are in charge now."

Kairouz did not respond to questions about branch stacking. McLennan also declined to answer questions.

THE SOMYUREK WAY

Somyurek's stacking operation relies heavily on members of Melbourne's rapidly growing Indian community. He scoffs at his rivals who use "Anglos" to stack.

"Stacking Anglos, it's not going to work. Anglos just f--- off after a while," Somyurek says.

Somyurek prefers members from ethnic communities because they last for years. He directs his operatives to use Indians as they stack branches that are controlled by "Anglo" members. "We can put 1000 [Indians] in, they're all fully f---ing resourced," he says in another recording.

Somyurek's interactions with the 20-something Labor staffers placed in his branch stacking flying squad are just as telling.

Behind their backs, Somyurek describes these young staffers as "patronising and annoying", and "real little f---ing slimy little f---ers, little passive-aggressive f---ing gay kids".

"We'll have our gay kids just doing what they do: just being patronising and annoying."

Yet given the chance to stack in Somyurek's service, these staffers don't hesitate. They boast about how they'll turn other young political idealists into factional warriors.

"You sit them down and go, 'Oh, there is factions and this is how this works, and you're in this faction and it's the best faction.' And then a year later, they're flying around," says one.

YOU SCRATCH MY BACK ...

The exchange of favours, of course, is the lifeblood of politics. But former prime minister Rudd warns favours given in the shadows are deeply problematic.

He describes a culture of favours and fear created by "faceless, factional thugs whose power is underpinned by industrial-scale branch stacking".

"It makes it really hard for people to stand up and have the courage and simply say 'no' because they fear for their own future in politics, they fear for their ability to be elected to Parliament, they fear their ability to stay in Parliament."

In February Somyurek called someone he thinks owes him, Meng Heang Tak, the state member for Clarinda in Melbourne's south-east. Somyurek claims he landed Heang the safe seat formerly held by Hong Lim.

Meng Heang Tak (L) and Former MP Hong Lim Credit:Photo: Wayne Hawkins and Paul Harris

"Whereas Hong used to be this f---ing whingeing turd, Heang's not like that. It's like, 'I got you in [to Parliament], you gotta do as I say,' " Somyurek says.

Somyurek describes how Heang must hand over his branch members. "So I rang Heang up, I said, 'Mate, what's going on? ... We support you for preselection and you hand your votes over.' "

As if to make his point, Somyurek later calls Heang and instructs him to start branch stacking by placing 13 people  the maximum that can be put into a single branch at any one meeting  every month. It is unclear if that instruction was carried out.

"From now on, it's just going to be hard, hard, hard war  and then we're going to start big recruiting."

The "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" ethos underpins Somyurek's operation. Safe seats in State Parliament are offered as rewards to ethnic community leaders in return for them placing members into branches that will help Somyurek control federal seats and federal MPs.

Somyurek is recorded in a conversation describing how one branch stacker is seeking a federal seat in Parliament. Somyurek tells another parliamentary aspirant, Manoj Kumar, to funnel members into the Cranbourne ALP branch, which supports state MP Pauline Richards, whom he is trying to topple.

"Put them all to Cranbourne. I'm going to take that branch," Somyurek instructs Manoj, who in turn seeks an assurance Richards will be rolled at preselection and lose her job.

"Our numbers will be enough [to] put Pauline out or not?" Kumar responds.

Somyurek has many lieutenants. He instructs Sepal Patel, who is a part-time parliamentary employee, to transfer "all his people into the Cranbourne branch, we're going to f---ing take that over". Patel is recorded describing how he will conceal his branch stacking by warehousing  using fake addresses to disguise the location of fake members.

"I can just use my friend's address," he says. He then describes how he will sign up Cranbourne residents using a false Springvale address and "ask them to transfer" into Cranbourne once they've been accepted as ALP members.

Adem Somyurek and Ramazan Gunes. Credit:

Some of the audio and video capture what appears to be the attempted falsification of documents. A video recording shows Somyurek telling a Turkish businessman, Ramazan Gunes, to forge the signatures of members on documents so it appears they attended a branch meeting that they did not.

"Do you know their signatures?" Somyurek asks Gunes before telling him to "just do all of it".

When Gunes asks: "How am I meant to do their signatures?" Somyurek tells him: "Do your sibling's one then."

Somyurek pushes him to forge other signatures. "Do you know how to do it? Do Bestem's as well."

Gunes hesitates, before refusing, saying: "I can't do it."

Somyurek then retreats. "If you don't know how, if you can't do it well, let's bring them back [to sign themselves]."

PAYING THE BILLS

Somyurek is engaged in another elaborate deception. The membership forms he sends to ALP head office on behalf of his real and fake members all state that a member must "pay for their own membership".

But in some cases Somyurek is secretly paying for members, either using his own cash or that of his lieutenants. "We should try not to let people know about the payments. No one," he says. "Ramazan will pay for the Turks," Somyurek says in another recording.

Somyurek says many of his Indian members are funded by two wealthy brothers, Aloke and Aakash Kumar, who own the Thornbury Theatre.

"The good thing about Indians is they pay. Well, people pay for them. But I'd rather not be exposed too much with the Indians," Somyurek says.

The Age made several attempts to contact Aakash and Aloke Kumar for comment.

Adem Somyurek (L) and Aakash and Aloke Kumar (R) Credit:

Somyurek is forced to dip into his own pocket to pay for other fake members, including his Somali recruits. "I'll have to pay for them," he says of Somalis. "They didn't want to do it because they were stretched. I said, 'Well, if they are here, they are our responsibility, they are ours.' "

It was the need to pay for fake members from his own bank account that led Somyurek to the Hampton Park shopping centre in Melbourne's south-east on May 13. It was a cash-drop operation he had undertaken exactly a month before. But this time, Somyurek was being watched. Covert cameras capture him withdrawing multiple sums from an ATM.

He then places the cash in a folder with membership forms he has filled out and which each include the explicit statement, above a signature, that the member named has paid for their own membership. After driving to a corner of the car park, Somyurek hands the folder to Kairouz's adviser McLennan.

This is high-stakes politicking. A covert recording captures Somyurek talking about the April 13 handover. "I've packaged it up and given him [McLennan] the funds. I've packaged it up," he says. "If he gets caught on the street, he'd better not say he's doing f---ing this stuff."

The Age and 60 Minutes have seen copies of the membership forms used by Somyurek in his branch stacking operations and have spoken to several of the new recruits. Some admitted they did not pay for their own memberships, while others were unable to name the Premier of Victoria.

THE POWERBROKER

Somyurek likes to say he wields the real power in Victoria  not Andrews.

The Premier's political allies don't trouble Somyurek. "They are being brave because they think they've got the Premier. F--- the Premier. Right. This is what this is about. F--- the Premier," Somyurek tells a meeting of his backers.

Andrews notched an emphatic election victory in November 2018 and has enjoyed enduring popularity with the public due to his handling of the COVID-19 crisis. Yet Somyurek is quick to repeat criticism of the Premier.

Somyurek claims that even Andrews' most staunch allies, such as former upper house MP Gavin Jennings, complain about the Premier behind his back. "He started bagging the f--- out of Daniel, saying the c--- this and that," Somyurek says of Jennings, who retired from Parliament in March.

Somyurek alleges others in Victorian Labor don't trust Andrews. "They hate him. They say Daniel is a prick  yeah, saying we don't trust him. You know," he claims.

Somyurek thinks it is he who will decide who is Victoria's next Labor leader. "I'll be just running the joint ... It's who I say is going to be the f---ing premier."

And then there is Victoria's Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Women, Gabrielle Williams, a Labor up-and-comer whom Somyurek intends to crush.

"I will f---ing force her out of the ministry, that f---ing stupid bitch, when Andrews goes  She's a stupid, stupid moll," he says. "I'm going to f---ing knock her f---ing head off. She's a f---ing psycho bitch."

Gabrielle Williams Credit:Photo: Penny Stephens

It is clear from the tape Somyurek wants to reshape the party to suit his interests. Politicians who block him won't survive if he has his way.

"F--- 'em, they've got to die. The younger, the new generation of leaders have got to be taught a lesson."

CANBERRA CONNECTIONS

Federal MPs in Victoria are placed in two camps by Somyurek. There are those he says offer him fealty and can expect his protection in return.

Rising federal Labor MPs Josh Burns (the member for Macnamara) and Tim Watts (the member for Gellibrand)  who Somyurek claims rely on his numbers in the party to keep their safe seats  fall into the first camp. According to the recording, neither is directly involved in branch stacking.

"Tim Watts is like bowing to me. I don't know what they say behind my back," says Somyurek in a video in which he imitates Watts bowing to him.

Tim Watts(L) and Josh Burns Credit:Photo: Alex Ellinghausen, AAP

Another to be "protected" is Anthony Byrne, the member for Holt in Melbourne's south-east and the deputy chair of the Federal Parliament's powerful intelligence and security committee. "Anthony's got a terrible reputation, everyone thinks he's a waste of space. I don't. I protect him. I had to stop articles talking about Anthony Byrne going. I said he's got my protection, he's going nowhere."

And then there are those Somyurek has sworn to force from Federal Parliament, such as Rob Mitchell, the member for McEwen in Melbourne's north and an ally of former Labor leader Shorten.

"They're all saying that I'm going to kill people ... I did call in Robert Mitchell and told him that he needs to think about his future. I told Mitchell he's got to retire ... I said, when are you going?"

Another on the hit list is Left faction federal MP Julian Hill, the member for Bruce, whom Somyurek blames for doing the numbers in seats he controls. In comments made after Somyurek, as local government minister, sacked a council, he boasts about removing Hill from Parliament.

Julian Hill (left) and Robert Mitchell. Credit:Photos: Alex Ellinghausen

"I'm looking forward to this actually. In between sacking councils and stuff, I'll be sacking Julian."

He boasts about toying with Lalor MP Joanne Ryan, whom he is also trying to topple. "She's [Joanne Ryan] always going on about me," Somyurek says.

THE UNTOUCHABLE MAN

Rudd warns that many MPs may feel they have no choice but to cosy up to Somyurek, a man who Rudd says may have amassed such backroom power that he may believe himself above the rules.

"If we now have a faceless man with even more power, then he has to be rooted out. Otherwise, it is fundamentally destabilising for our party's and our country's future," the former prime minister says.

Rudd, however, doubts if the ALP can take on Somyurek. It is a sentiment shared by Somyurek himself.

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Of Andrews, Somyurek is recorded saying: "The shit I'm doing is, like, pretty bad for him." But should the Premier challenge the kingmaker "it'll just be too destabilising".

"F--- the Premier," he says.

Victoria was never going to be enough for Somyurek. He claims his reach in Canberra now extends to federal Labor leader Albanese's inner circle.

"I'm having discussions with people who are close to Albo," he boasts on one tape. It comes as no surprise to learn Somyurek is dismissive of Albanese's authority. As he tells one Labor staffer: "Who's going to protect Albo?"
BEIJING, June 15 (ChinaMil) -- On Monday afternoon, a Chinese defense spokesperson slammed the flight by a U.S. C-40 military transport aircraft over Chinese territory without Chinese sides permission on June 9, calling it an extremely wrong and dangerous action.

Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense (MND) of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), said that the U.S. military aircrafts flying across Taiwan grossly violates China's territorial sovereignty and seriously undermines peace and stability of cross-Straits relations, which was extremely wrong and dangerous.

"Chinese side urged the U.S. side to abide by the one-China policy and the three China-US Joint Communiques stipulations, and stop all acts that provoke China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Ren Guoqiang.

Taiwan is an integral part of China and there is no way out for using Taiwan to contain China and attempt to raise status by bonding with foreign forces, said Senior Colonel Ren.

The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has firm will, full confidence, and possess enough capabilities to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity, protect the common interests of compatriots on both sides of the strait, maintain regional peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, and resolutely thwart any attempt to create so called one China, one Taiwan, Ren stressed.
[June 15, 2020] The Association for Advancing Automation Launches Five New Virtual Events

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) today announced an impressive lineup of five new virtual events taking place in the fall of 2020. As COVID-19 continues to make it difficult or impossible to hold large gatherings, A3 is transitioning the following 2020 in-person conferences to virtual events as well as adding two new events: RIA Robotics Week: September 8-11 (new)

International Robot Safety Conference: October 6-8

Autonomous Mobile Robot Conference: October 26-27

AI & Smart Automation Conference: October 28-29 (new)

MCMA TechCon: November 9-10 The in-person Collaborative Robots, Advanced Vision & AI Conference is postponed until the Fall of 2021. However, A3's Robotic Grinding and Finishing Conference, slated for December 2-3 in St. Paul, Minnesota, will be held in-person if possible, and online if not. "As the adoption of automation is expected to increase dramatically coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it's more important than ever that A3 provide high-quality education on how to successfully apply robotics, AI, machine vision, motion control, and related automation technologies," said Jeff Burnstein, A3 president. "We're very excited to reach thousands of people virtually this year while planning our return to live events such as Automate 2021 next year." Agendas, keynote speakers, and specific conference session topics will be released for each event within the coming weeks. RIA Robotics Week RIA Robotics Week, September 8-11, will be the signature virtual Fall event for the robotics industry. The industry is at the beginning of a new era for robotics and automation. Robots are recognized as the best way for the global economy to quickly get back on its feet - while protecting workers and increasing productivity. Companies from myriad industries are racing to adopt automation. Join A3's 20+ expert speakers, four high-level keynote presenters, and thousands of attendees for this free four-day virtual conference and exhibitor showcase. Henrik Christenson of UC San Diego will be one of the keynoters, addressing the new US Robotics Roadmap set to be unveiled this fall. Attendees can learn how to lift their operation into the future with insights into the latest robotics and automation technologies. Register today. ABB Inc., ATI Industrial Automation, Calvary Robotics, FANUC America, Harmonic Drive, JR Automation, OnRobot, SCHUNK, and Universal Robots have already signed on as Platinum Robotics Week sponsors, with more companies to be announced soon.



International Robot Safety Conference The Virtual International Robot Safety Conference (IRSC), October 6-8, will examine key issues in robot safety and provide an in-depth overview of current industry standards related to industrial and collaborative robot systems. Attendees will walk through real-world risk assessments, learn about OSHA enforcement, and delve into the latest advancements in safety technologies. The virtual IRSC will also feature the first deep-dive into R15.08, the new safety standard for industrial mobile robots.

Autonomous Mobile Robot Conference Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are changing the automation landscape across industries, from manufacturing and warehousing to retail and medical. They even clean the floors. At the AMR Conference, October 26-27, attendees will learn how to deploy AMRs in dynamic environments across multiple sectors while getting a full briefing on the new industrial mobile robot safety standard. AI & Smart Automation Conference This revolution goes by many names: Industry 4.0, The Factory of the Future, Smart Manufacturing, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). No matter the label, this transformation will touch every aspect of the automation ecosystem, from product design to manufacturing processes to the delivery at a customer's door. The AI & Automation Conference, October 28-29, will help unlock the power of AI by featuring discussions on data strategy, advances in AI robotics and machine vision, and AI-powered optimization and prediction. MCMA Technical Conference MCMA TechCon, November 9-10, will provide the latest updates on motion control, motors, and related automation technologies. Sessions will explore practical solutions from leading experts covering new ways to use these key components along with important new technologies. Sponsorship opportunities are available for all the Fall virtual conferences. Reach out to Jim Hamilton at [email protected] or (734) 929-3268 for more information. Those interested in speaking opportunities can contact Robert Huschka at [email protected] or (734) 929-9364. About Association for Advancing Automation (A3) The Association for Advancing Automation is the global advocate for the benefits of automating. A3 promotes automation technologies and ideas that transform the way business is done. A3 is the umbrella group for Robotic Industries Association (RIA), AIA - Advancing Vision + Imaging, Motion Control & Motor Association (MCMA) and A3 Mexico. RIA, AIA, MCMA and A3 Mexico combined represent over 1,275 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, system integrators, end users, research groups and consulting firms from throughout the world that drive automation forward. For more information, visit: A3, RIA, AIA, MCMA, A3 Mexico. The association plans to host several in-person, industry-leading events next year, including the A3 Business Forum (February 1-3, 2021 in Orlando, FL), the biennial Automate Show & Conference (May 17-20, 2021 in Detroit, MI), the International Robot Safety Conference (October 4-6, 2021 in Columbus, OH), the Collaborative Robots, Advanced Vision and AI Conference, and the Autonomous Mobile Robot Conference. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005338/en/

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15.06.2020 LISTEN

Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has rebuffed claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that the Akufo-Addo government made 631 promises in its 2016 manifesto.

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah insisted that the NPP made 388 promises.

As we get to the 2020 national conversation period, one of the narratives they [NDC] seek to cap is a narrative of dishonesty and in order to give life to that narrative, they have to create scenarios that if indeed we made 388 promises, they will find ways of adding some 235 to make it 631 then say therefore that we have been dishonest. Part of the strategy of increasing our promises from 388 to 635 is to enable them lay a claim of dishonesty against this administration, he said.

The NDC at a media engagement on Monday argued that the Akufo-Addo government made 631 promises in its 2016 manifesto adding that only 83 of such promises have been delivered.

NDC thus rated the Akufo-Addo government 14% [Fail] for the 83 alleged promises fulfilled.

But in a swift response, the Information Minister accused the NDC of engaging in a dishonest exercise.

Yes, there was a lot of drama, flashes, and screams in their presentation today, but if you strip it of all the drama, the screams and the flashes, in substance, if you take the form away, there were two main claims they made which the government believes must be corrected in time. The first one is the claim that whilst government in its report in February this year, outlined 388 promises and accounted for those 388 promises, they (NDC) have discovered an extra 235 promises which the government of Ghana has hidden or refused to account for. In their opinion, the NPP administration made a total of 368 promises and has been intellectually dishonest in not accounting for 631 and 388 rather just to downplay our achievements.

Secondly, they make a claim that the NPP has failed in delivering 86% of this supposed 631 promises, in other words, they claim we have only achieved 14% of this supposed 631 promises, he said. NDCs claims

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Monday, June 15, 2020, assessed the NPPs manifesto as against the promises achieved.

A presentation on the promises of the NPP which was led by Samual Okudzeto Ablakwa, the North Tongu MP, said the fulfilment of the NPP's promises was woeful despite the NDC's leniency.

You are given four good years of the destiny of the people and all you can do is 14 percent. And even this we have been so generous. You scored an F.

He further accused the government of mind-boggling intellectual dishonesty because it was not being candid with citizens.

You don't even have the courage to apologise for it and try to see you make amends but you think you can lie your way through by understating the number of promises that you make.

 citinewsroom
A Murray hardyhead after environment agencies transplanted a population of the endangered native fish. Credit: North Central Catchment Management Authority

The New South Wales government plans to release two million native fish into rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, in the largest breeding program of its kind in the state. But as the river system recovers from a string of mass fish deaths, caution is needed.

Having suitable breeding fish does not always guarantee millions of healthy offspring for restocking. And even if millions of young fish are released into the wild, increased fish populations in the long term are not assured.

For stocking to be successful, fish must be released into good quality water, with suitable habitat and lots of food. But these conditions have been quite rare in Murray Darling rivers over the past three years.

We research the impact of human activity on fish and aquatic systems and have studied many Australian fish restocking programs. So let's take a closer look at the NSW government's plans.

Success stories

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the NSW restocking program involves releasing juvenile Murray cod, golden perch and silver perch into the Darling River downstream of Brewarrina, in northwestern NSW.

Other areas including the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Macquarie and Murray Rivers will reportedly also be restocked. These species and regions were among the hardest hit by recent fish kills.

Fish restocking is used worldwide to boost species after events such as fish kills, help threatened species recover, and increase populations of recreational fishing species.

Since the 1970s in the Murray-Darling river system, millions of fish have been bred in government and private hatcheries in spring each year. Young fish, called fingerlings, are usually released in the following summer and autumn.

There have been success stories. For example, the endangered trout cod was restocked into the Ovens and Murrumbidgee Rivers between 1997 and 2006. Prior to the restocking program, the species was locally extinct. It's now re-established in the Murrumbidgee River and no longer requires stocking to maintain the population.

In response to fish kills in 2010, the Edward-Wakool river system was restocked to help fish recover when natural spawning was expected to be low. And the threatened Murray hardyhead is now increasing in numbers thanks to a successful stocking program in the Lower Darling.

After recent fish kills in the Murray Darling, breeding fish known as "broodstock" were rescued from the river and taken to government and private hatcheries. Eventually, it was expected the rescued fish and their offspring would restock the rivers.

Swan Hill, home to a larger-than-life replica of the Murray cod, is just one river community that relies on anglers for tourism. Credit: Flickr

Words of caution

Fish hatchery managers rarely count their fish before they hatch. It's quite a challenge to ensure adult fish develop viable eggs that are then fertilised at high rates.

Once hatched, larvae must be transported to ponds containing the right amount of plankton for food. The larvae must then avoid predatory birds, be kept free from disease, and grow at the right temperatures.

When it comes to releasing the fish into the wild, careful decisions must be made about how many fish to release, where and when. Factors such as water temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen levels must be carefully assessed.

Introducing hatchery-reared fish into the wild does not always deliver dramatic improvements in fish numbers. Poor water quality, lack of food and slow adaptation to the wild can reduce survival rates.

In some parts of the Murray-Darling, restocking is likely to have slowed the decline in native fish numbers, although it has not stopped it altogether.

Address the root cause

Fish stocking decisions are sometimes motivated by economic reasons, such as boosting species sought by anglers who pay licence fees and support tourist industries. But stocking programs must also consider the underlying reasons for declining fish populations.

Aside from poor water quality, fish in the Murray Darling are threatened by being sucked into irrigation systems, cold water pollution from dams, dams and weirs blocking migration paths and invasive fish species. These factors must be addressed alongside restocking.

Fish should not be released into areas with unsuitable habitat or water quality. The Darling River fish kills were caused by low oxygen levels, associated with drought and water extraction. These conditions could rapidly return if we have another hot, dry summer.

Stocking rivers with young fish is only one step. They must then grow to adults and successfully breed. So the restocking program must consider the entire fish life cycle, and be coupled with good river management.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority's Native Fish Recovery Strategy includes management actions such as improving fish passage, delivering environmental flows, improving habitat, controlling invasive species and fish harvest restrictions. Funding the strategy's implementation is a key next step.

Looking ahead

After recent rains, parts of the Murray Darling river system are now flowing for the first time in years. But some locals say the flows are only a trickle and more rain is urgently needed.

Higher than average rainfall is predicted between July and September. This will be needed for restocked fish to thrive. If the rain does not arrive, and other measures are not taken to improve the system's health, then the restocking plans may be futile.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Danny Callow appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer;

Scott Eldridge appointed as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board;

Jan-Erik Back appointed as Vice-Chairman, Strategy of the Board;

John Begeman appointed as Lead Independent Director of the Board; and

Proposed change of name to Avion2 Gold Inc.

TORONTO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- African Gold Group, Inc. (TSX-V: AGG) (AGG or the Company) is pleased to announce the following structural changes to the board of directors (the Board) and management of the Company as it moves towards construction and first gold at its flagship Kobada Gold Project in southern Mali.

Highlights include the appointment of Danny Callow appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Eldridge as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board, Jan-Erik Back as Vice-Chairman, Strategy of the Board, John Begeman as Lead Independent Director of the Board and proposed change of the Companys name to Avion2 Gold Inc.

The Company is pleased to announce the appointment of Danny Callow to the role of President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Callow, currently serving as Chief Operating Officer of the Company, is an experienced mining engineer from the Camborne School of Mines with an MBA from the Henley Management College, UK. He brings a wealth of experience in building and operating mines in Africa, and will be a key player in the next phase of bringing the Kobada Gold Project into production.

The Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Scott Eldridge to Non-Executive Chairman of the Board. Mr. Eldridge is an accomplished executive with international experience in raising project finance debt and equity for mining projects. He co-founded Euroscandic International Group Inc., a private company offering merchant banking and advisory services, and was head of Debt Advisory. Mr. Eldridge has served as VP Finance and CFO of Amarillo Gold Corp, President and CEO of Arctic Star Exploration Corp and is CEO of Canarc Resource Corp. He holds a BBA in International Business and Marketing from Capilano University in Vancouver and an MBA in Corporate Finance from Central European University in Budapest.

Mr. Eldridge will replace Stan Bharti who has elected to step down from the position of Chairman of the Board. The Company would like to thank Mr. Bharti for his tireless efforts as Chairman of the Board.

The Company is pleased to announce that John Begeman has accepted the appointment as Lead Independent Director. Mr. Begeman is a Professional Mining Engineer with over 40 years of experience. He previously served as the President and CEO of Avion Gold Corporation, Chief Operating Officer of Zinifex Canada Inc. and Vice President, Western Operations of Goldcorp Inc.

In his capacity for Goldcorp, he was responsible for its surface gold operations in South Dakota and the Industrial Minerals Division in Saskatchewan. He currently serves as a Director and Chairman of the Board for Premier Gold Mines Limited and is a director of Yamana Gold Inc. Mr. Begeman holds a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering, a M.S. in Engineering Management and an MBA. Mr. Begeman is a member of the NACD, ICD, and holds the ICD.D director designation.

Mr. Jan-Erik Back, a graduate of the London School of Economics has accepted the position of Vice-Chairman, Strategy of the Board. Mr. Back brings more than 20 years professional experience in executive management with a track record in the mining, natural resources, infrastructure and related sectors. Most recently Mr. Back served as the Chief Investment Officer for Eurasian Resources Group with a specific focus on the financing and development of Eurasian Resources Groups portfolio of copper and cobalt assets in Africa. Mr. Back has extensive experience in financial markets and has served as Global Head of Investments and Structured Finance Group at BTG Pactual Commodities and previously spent over 10 years with the Hatch Group with a focus on project financing for mining projects.

We are very pleased to be announcing the restructuring of AGG at a time when we are ready to move to the construction phase of our flagship Kobada Gold Project, comments Stan Bharti, outgoing Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AGG. We are positioning AGG to be the next multi-asset gold producer in Africa, and have the benefit of this new Boards vast experience to take this Company into production. We now have a top-class operating team led by Danny Callow who has built and operated a number of mines in Africa over the past 28 years, most recently running Glencores African Copper and Cobalt division, and who has fast-tracked Kobada into being construction ready in a few short months.

Mr. Pierre Pettigrew will remain on the Board as an independent director. Ryan Ptolemy will step down as an Executive Director, but will remain as Chief Financial Officer of the Company. The Company would like to thank Mr. Ptolemy for his contributions as a director of the Board.

Name Change

The Company is also pleased to announce that it intends to change the name of the Company from African Gold Group, Inc. to Avion2 Gold Inc., subject to shareholder approval at the next annual general meeting of shareholders of the Company, regulatory approval and TSX Venture Exchange approval.

About African Gold Group

African Gold Group is a Canadian listed gold company on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: AGG) focused on the development of the Kobada Gold Project in southern Mali. For more information regarding African Gold Group visit our website at www.africangoldgroup.com.

For more information:

Daniyal Baizak

VP Corporate Development

(416) 861 2966

Cautionary statements

This press release contains forwardlooking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forwardlooking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding, construction of the Kobada Gold Project, management and Board changes, change to the name of the Company and other statements with respect to the future plans or intentions of the Company. Generally, forward looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", aims, "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of exploration activities; regulatory risks; risks inherent in foreign operations; and other risks of the mining industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Hamilton Beach Brands Holding Company (Hamilton or the Company) (NYSE: HBB) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and indexed under 20-cv-02323, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants who purchased or otherwise acquired Hamilton securities between February 27, 2020, and May 8, 2020, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.



If you are a shareholder who purchased Hamilton securities during the class period, you have until July 21, 2020, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com . To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here for information about joining the class action]

Hamilton was founded in 1904 and is headquartered in Glen Allen, Virginia. The Company, together with its subsidiaries, designs, markets, and distributes small electric household and specialty housewares appliances. The Company sells its products through a network of mass merchandisers, e-commerce retailers, national department stores, variety and drug store chains, specialty home retailers, distributors, and other retail outlets.

As a holding company, Hamilton primarily operates through its subsidiaries, which are located throughout the U.S. and internationally, including Mexico. According to the Companys most recent annual report on Form 10-K, Hamilton has two Mexican subsidiariesGrupo HB/PS S.A. de C.V. and Hamilton Beach Brands de Mexico S.A. de C.V.

The complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about Hamiltons business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (i) Hamilton had inadequate disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, particularly with respect to one of its Mexican subsidiaries; (ii) consequently, the Companys accounting included certain irregularities with respect to the timing of recognition of selling and marketing expenses and the classification of certain expenditures within the statement of operations at this Mexican subsidiary, as well as potential misconduct with respect to the realizability of certain assets of the Mexican subsidiary; (iii) as a result of all the foregoing, Hamilton could not accurately attest to its financial results, particularly with respect to these metrics, and was consequently at an increased risk of delaying the filing of its periodic reports with the SEC; and (iv) as a result, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On May 11, 2020, during pre-market hours, Hamilton announced that it could not timely file its 1Q20 10-Q because of certain accounting irregularities with respect to the timing of recognition of selling and marketing expenses and the classification of certain expenditures within the statement of operations at its Mexican subsidiary. Hamilton further stated that its Audit Review Committee has commenced an internal investigation regarding the realizability of certain assets of the Mexican subsidiary.

Following these disclosures, Hamiltons stock price fell $1.03 per share, or 8.99%, to close at $10.43 per share on May 11, 2020.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com
Fighters affiliated with Yemens Southern Transitional Council hijacked a convoy carrying billions of foreign-printed Yemeni riyals near the port of Aden on Saturday. The 64 billion riyals, printed in Russia, were bound for Yemen's central bank in Aden, Reuters reported.

Yemens central bank reported the heist and warned of dangerous consequences. The STC claimed responsibility for the seizure, saying it was done to end corruption and prevent the use of public money in supporting terrorism.

Why it matters: The STC and forces loyal to the government-in-exile of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi are on the same side of Yemens civil war in name only. Saturdays heist is the latest in a series of rows between the supposed allies, the most prominent components of the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition against Houthi rebels who have taken control of Yemens north.

The heist is almost certain to worsen their relationship (which Saudi Arabia has so far proven unable to mend), thus potentially further benefitting the Houthis, who have links to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Whats next: The latest round of indirect talks between the STC and Hadi government in Riyadh has made no clear progress. Saudi Arabias government wants out of the conflict but cannot simply cut and run, or the Houthis could expand their control, leaving an Iran-linked Zaydi Shiite state armed with ballistic missiles on the kingdoms southern border.

Saudi Arabia has already been hit by a number of Houthi ballistic missiles as well as Iran-made drones and cruise missiles, the United Nations said last week. The UN has called Yemens civil war the worlds worst humanitarian crisis and has warned that the United States, Iran, France and United Kingdom may be complicit in war crimes for arming various parties in the conflict.

Know more: As the United States pushes the UN Security Council to renew an arms embargo on Tehran, the UN said Iranian weapons used to bomb Saudi Arabia last year were obtained in a manner inconsistent with a 2015 resolution that enshrined the Iran nuclear deal.
May 27, Ukrainian Cabinet approved a memorandum of cooperation with Louisiana Natural Gas Export Inc (LNGE). It's about the supply of American liquefied natural gas to Ukraine. Minister of Energy Olga Buslavets said that the government has only preliminary approved the document, instructing it to finalize all key ministries. "Only after that will a final decision be made," the minister said. According to LNGE Chief Executive Officer Ben Blanchet, Buslavets put the issue of approval of the memorandum on the agenda of the Cabinet meeting on May 27.

Gas market participants and experts were very wary of the signing of the memorandum by the Cabinet with an unknown American company. Naftogaz head Andriy Kobolev cast doubt on the viability of the project. He assured that the Naftogaz will not participate in the project. The company reported that the proposed project might be commercially unsuccessful. And this judgment is of great weight since it was Naftogaz that was considered as one of the parties to sign the project with the Americans.

It turned out that LNGE was registered in Louisiana in 2018, its final beneficiaries are unknown. Dzertkalo Tyzhnia outlet published a document, according to which Louisiana Natural Gas Exports, even in offshore Delaware, is officially recognized as a malicious tax evader. The publication claimed that the allegedly co-owner of the company and part-time director  certain William Miller  was judged in the 1980s for fraud and fictitious sale of shares in the company in which he then worked. In fact, he served eight years. In 2019, he became involved in another major litigation, also related to securities fraud.

The draft memorandum with LNGE has not been officially published by the Cabinet. Experts ironically note that no matter how the Ze-team repeats the story of the signing of the scandalous billion-dollar agreement on the LNG terminal in the south of the country. During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, Kyiv signed documents on a major project with a ski instructor. Interestingly, as Ben Blanchet told 112.ua, the Americans want to offer Ukraine a contract for the mandatory purchase of 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually. Ukraine barely escaped from such a contract with Gazprom in the Stockholm arbitration.

In view of the foregoing, we recorded an interview with the head of the American company, in which a person who introduced himself as Ben Blanchet told 112.ua the details of the project being discussed with the Ukrainian Cabinet. He also confirmed that he was discussing the project with President Zelensky. The LNGE PR service has verified that the language described below is correct.

Blanchet did not deny that the Ukrainian side is discussing a contract for the purchase of 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year from Louisiana Natural Gas Export (a little less than half of all imports to the country, which amounted to 14.2 billion cubic meters in 2019). American businessmen expect to conclude it with one of the state companies - Naftogaz or Natural gas transmission system of Ukraine. Their company does not yet have the unequivocal support of the US or Poland authorities. It expects to receive it, as well as financing of large international financial state institutions for the construction of large infrastructure facilities necessary for the implementation of the project, in particular the Polish gas interconnector. For this, LNGE needs to obtain the consent of the Ukrainian government for 20 years to buy from them the agreed volume of liquefied natural gas from the United States.

* * *

As reported before, you will sign a memorandum with the Cabinet on the part of Louisiana Natural Gas Export Inc (on the Ukrainian side, the document must be signed by Prime Minister Denys Shmygal). The memorandum has been preliminarily approved, but, as Minister of Energy and Environment Olga Buslavets said at a press conference, it is still being agreed with the ministries. At what stage is the work with this document?

The Cabinet of Ministers has preliminarily approved the document, instructing it to finalize (before signing) within one day. The procedures are still ongoing. The memorandum itself is not a binding document. This is a framework agreement that sets the parameters for subsequent documents containing the obligations of the parties. We expect that three separate agreements will be approved - for the purchase and sale of gas, for gas storage and for the construction and operation of the gas pipeline, plus all additional agreements that might arise depending on how the parties agree to structure the cooperation.

Could this be Naftogaz or Ukraine's Gas Pipelines, which will take on certain obligations with regard to investments in infrastructure projects or the purchase of the required amount of gas?

The Cabinet will choose the counterparty from the Ukrainian side. We will not take part in this. If it is Naftogaz or Natural gas transmission system of Ukraine, we will be happy to work with them.

What kind of infrastructure facilities are provided for by the project?

To implement our project, it is necessary, first of all, to increase gas pipeline capacities between Ukraine and Poland, the so-called gas interconnector. In addition, we should decide whether it is necessary to increase the capacity of the regasification plant in Poland (in Swinoujscie, - ed.). This is what we discussed with the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine. The parameters of the interconnector that we proposed are based on the already existing project of such an interconnector, which has been considered for a long time (since 2015, - ed.). There is a project to study its capabilities, and with our assessment, we proceeded from these data.

So the project involves gas production in the USA and its subsequent liquefaction for shipment to regasification facilities in Poland and further through pipelines to Ukraine? In particular, media posted some information that Ben Blanchet owns the Abbeville site in Louisiana, where the oil and gas field is located?

Firstly, with regard to the Abbeville mine, it is my and my family's property. This land has been owned by my family since 1790, in the 30s of the last century, a field was really discovered there. Actually, thanks to this, I got into the oil and gas business. The site is not affiliated with Louisiana Natural Gas Exports. This is private property and is not part of LNGE's business.

Now let's talk about a part of the upstream project (exploration and production in oil and gas fields). For the overwhelming majority of companies in the United States that specialize in LNG, it is also unusual to have their own production. These are usually exceptions. In addition, according to the legislation, production and ownership of gas pipelines cannot be concentrated in one hand (the requirement of a third energy package, which is also implemented in Ukraine, - ed.). But since we and our partners have vast experience in the gas production business in the USA, we, unlike most companies on the market, nevertheless are considering the possibility of buying deposits. We would like to purchase them and conduct our own gas production.

You had your meeting with Zelensky in Ukraine or in the USA?

We met in Ukraine, at the Presidents Office. This project also meets the goals of the United States, which are interested in exporting liquefied natural gas. This is an important part of American foreign policy. The states are interested in a strong independent Ukraine and, in particular, are ready to help it in the issue of energy independence, which can be achieved only by ending dependence on Russian gas.

As far as I understand, you already have an idea of what volumes of gas can be delivered from the USA to Ukraine, you name them? And its very important - what price will it be?

We are talking about 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year. We do not have a clear price agreement  this is still a matter of negotiation. I can only talk about what we offered Ukraine for our part. The price we offer will, on average, be more favorable than the prices of spot contracts on a TTF hub (based on the prices of this hub in Ukraine, the price of the gas PSO for the population is calculated. The prices of the hub are considered one of the most affordable in Europe, - ed.). If we look in the future, and we expect that in the case of a successful implementation of the project, deliveries will begin no earlier than 2023, then the price at which we enter our model will be more competitive in comparison with TTF, and in addition, it will be less volatile.

The most important question is whether Ukraine should undertake to buy a certain amount of gas under the project? What model of calculations, in this case, are we talking about?

The volumes are 5.5 billion cubic meters per year - this is what we propose to include in the contract (compulsory purchase). The scenario in which this volume of gas will not be in demand in the country is unrealistic. We also offer our help, but if Ukraine wants, it can cooperate on this issue with other companies  hedge price risks (in case of a price failure, if the LNG, supplied under a contract with an American company, turns out to be much more expensive than pipeline gas supplies in Europe, - ed).

But the cost of the project is about $ 200 million. Could you afford it?

Just look at how similar interconnectors were founded in Eastern Europe, and you will have a good idea of how we will finance this project. Wherever it comes to capital-intensive infrastructure projects, both in Europe and in the USA, the company that implements the project makes initial investments and attracts the remaining funds from credit institutions. We have already held preliminary negotiations with the US Eximbank, the International Development Corporation, and perhaps European financial institutions will also want to participate, because all over the world no one is implementing infrastructure projects at their own expense. It is much more economical to attract funds from credit institutions, and if these are state institutions, you can be sure of providing financing on good terms.

Who exactly are the partners with whom you spoke previously from Poland? Gaz-system? Representatives of the Polish government?

In particular, we talked with the Gaz-System, but we cannot begin detailed negotiations until we receive confirmation of the Ukrainian sides interest in the form of a signed memorandum of cooperation. Now we have a general assessment of the project, but, of course, it requires more in-depth study, in particular the technical side. This is a huge area of work, but it will need to be completed, since we want to be sure that we are getting the optimal project with which all parties agree.

Naftogazs Executive Committee Andriy Kobolev doubted the viability of your proposed project. Have you met with him in person or have you met with any of Naftogazs representatives on the issue of cooperation in the project?

I cant imagine on what basis Mr. Kobolev came to the conclusion that we do not meet the requirements of their compliance. Nobody (from Naftogaz) asked for any information or documents from us. His statements, which we saw in the public sphere, are not confirmed by any facts. If Naftogaz really is our side in the negotiations, I will be very glad to have the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Kobolev and answer all his questions. When we work with large international banks, when we work with the Chinese state corporation CNPC, none of them had questions about compliance. I am absolutely sure that we can reassure Mr. Kobolev and his team.
Metro Bank logo at one of their branches. (Dave Rushen/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Troubled challenger bank Metro (MTRO.L) has confirmed it is in early talks to acquire peer-to-peer lender RateSetter.

Metro Bank said in a statement on Monday it had entered into exclusive deal talks with RateSetter, but said discussions were at an early stage. The statement followed a report from Sky News on Sunday evening revealing the deal talks.

Metro Bank said a takeover could accelerate the company's stated strategy to grow its unsecured consumer lending book.

There can be no certainty at this stage that a formal agreement will be reached, nor as to the terms of any agreement, the bank said. A further announcement will be made if and when appropriate.

Shares in Metro Bank rose 1.9% amid a wider market sell-off.

Founded in 2010, RateSetter is one of the UKs biggest peer-to-peer lenders. The companys online platform connects borrower with individuals willing to lend their money out directly, essentially sidestepping banks. RateSetter says it has over 84,000 customers and has lent 3.6bn ($4.5bn) over its platform since inception.

Accounts show RateSetter made a pre-tax loss of 8.2m on revenues of 33.2m in the 12 months to 31 March 2019.

Any deal would mark the first time a high street bank in Britain has acquired a peer-to-peer lender.

The timing of the potential transaction is likely to raise eyebrows. Metro Bank, which was also founded in 2010, is currently in turnaround mode after a disastrous 2019. Metro Bank lost 130m last year after a loan miscalculation issue that battered the companys share price.

The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are both investigating Metro Bank over the loan issues. Regulators are also investigating self-reported sanctions issues at the bank.

The backdrop of COVID-19 could also complicate talks. RateSetter recently reduced interest payouts to customers, citing a rise in loan payment holidays among borrowers and an expected increase in loan defaults. The company has also reduced new lending and warned customers that trading of loans on its platform is taking longer than usual.
The operations against Prosperous Armenia Party are based on the fact that this political party is the most effective and most prestigious of all opposition parties, and if the political party is neutralized, it will be easier for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to establish absolute monopoly. This is what political technologist Armen Badalyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He recalled that the operations against Prosperous Armenia Party began after its leader Gagik Tsarukyan demanded the governments resignation, and these operations need to be viewed as part of the same chain of Tsarukyans meetings with representatives of other opposition parties.

It is obvious that this cant be based on the fact that there was a criminal case that was being examined and that these operations are simply a coincidence. Besides that, we see that the new director of the National Security Service of Armenia has already started providing his services to the Prime Minister. Nikol Pashinyan managed to appoint a person who will perform his desired actions against political opponents. Prosperous Armenia Party has most likely calculated all the consequences of its actions since it is not only a political party, but also a serious economic factor and has created hundreds of jobs for citizens who will also show interest in these events, Badalyan noted.

According to the political technologist, if Tsarukyan is arrested, the future processes will depend on the actions of other political parties. If those political parties managed to bring thousands of citizens out to the streets and organize a peoples movement, the authorities may retreat. If not, the ruling party will be able to continue to repress the opposition, Badalyan said.
The Minneapolis City Council has 13 members. Of the 13, 12 are leftist DFL loons. The 13th is a leftist Green Party loon. They are missing only a local member of the Legal Marijuana Now Party for the trifecta.

Minneapolis sits within the congressional district represented by Ilhan Omar in Congress. Perhaps she makes the trifecta.

The Minneapolis City Council made big news when 9 of its 13 members pledged on June 7 to disband the Minneapolis Police Department. Omar of course supports their efforts.

I supplied my own take on the political background in Revolutionary theater in Minneapolis. I noted that the pledge to abolish the police comes up against 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.

Now comes news that the Minneapolis City Council has voted unanimously to explore a new model for public safety. The councils idiotic resolution is posted online here.

To get anything on the November ballot, however, the City Council and charter commission would need to work on an expedited schedule. I dont think theyre up to the task, but let it be. At some point revolutionary theater will yield to the reality that Minneapolis residents and homeowners who cant afford private security would like to be able to call on the police for protection when victimized or threatened.
Holy CNN special, Batman!

Joseph DAngeli, New Jerseys own Batman, will be featured as part of a coronavirus special hosted by Anderson Cooper.

DAngeli joins a group of bat experts for Bats: The Mystery Behind COVID-19," airing 10 p.m. ET Sunday, June 14.

CNN says the special will look at the possible connection between bats and many deadly human viruses, including the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

DAngelis bat cave is the Wildlife Conservation and Education Center in Garfield, home of up to 45 bats along with other animals like snakes, lizards, turtles, a kinkajou and a barn owl. Before opening the center in 2017, DAngeli operated a facility in Ridgefield Park starting in 2010.

Ive been working with bats for 25 years, DAngeli tells NJ Advance Media. Hes happy that CNN put out the bat signal, and hes excited to see his bats  my little sky puppies," he calls them  in promos for the TV special. DAngeli is currently preparing for the reopening of his wildlife center, shuttered since March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While the exact origin of COVID-19 has not been confirmed, some scientists believe the virus that causes the disease came from Horseshoe bats in southeastern China. It is thought that wet markets in Wuhan, China played a role in the transmission of the virus between species. The program will focus on how human encroachment on bat territory could have had an effect on the transmission of diseases. It will also examine the link between bats and a possible treatment for COVID-19.

Most of the people that are educated enough to be following this pandemic know that its not the bats fault, DAngeli, 53, tells NJ Advance Media. I have gotten surprisingly few negative comments. If anything, I have gotten sympathy and sincere thoughts for whats going to happen to us because of this."

I hope you will all tune in tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on CNN! Posted by Joseph D'Angeli on Sunday, 14 June 2020

Other bat experts in the special will include Dr. Shi Zhengli, a virologist in China known as bat woman for her studies on coronaviruses that originate in bats. Shi has ventured into caves looking for samples.

Of course, this isnt the first time that a connection has been drawn between bats and a virus. Its thought that fruit bats are natural hosts of the Ebola virus and that the virus can be transmitted to humans through contact with secretions from infected bats and other animals like gorillas and chimpanzees, according the World Health Organization.

When DAngeli set out on his quest to become a chiropterologist, or someone who studies bats, he wanted to dispel some of the more insidious blood-sucking notions found in pop culture.

What I wanted to do was show people what I already knew about bats, that they were kind animals that had this very intricate social structure," he says. Along the way, he has educated people about threats to bats including white-nose syndrome, a fatal fungal disease.

DAngelis fixation on bats began when he was a child. His father owned the Apartment Lounge, a nightclub and restaurant overlooking the Hudson River in Weehawken.

Joseph D'Angeli, a bat expert who has a "cave" in New Jersey, has been working in bat education for 25 years. Here, he shows a bat to children at the Watchung Public Library in 1995.Jim Pathe | Star-Ledger file photo

I would play outside (the restaurant) and I would notice these weird animals flying around the lights outside," says DAngeli, who grew up in Ridgefield and New Milford. He also loved Adam Wests Batman.

It was a no-brainer, he says.

On another occasion, DAngeli was taking a shortcut home through the woods after a Little League game when he encountered a swarm of bats feeding.

They were flying all around me, he says. I was petrified.

When he got home, his father explained the bats werent going to hurt him.

They were underdogs and Ive always liked the underdog, he says. Plus, he always had a thing for caves.

Before DAngeli was a man of bats, he was a touring musician with the 80s metal band Roxx. Tiring of the music industry, he turned to bats as a full-time pursuit. DAngeli started out in 1992 with six fruit bats from a zoo in Egypt.

D'Angeli hopes to reopen his wildlife center soon.Joseph D'Angeli

I wanted to live with the bats, I didnt want to study them," he says. I became obsessed. I wanted to learn everything I could.

Now, he applies a little of the showmanship he used in music to his bat education efforts, like when he gave a series of talks at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and when he welcomes visitors at the wildlife center. The facility is staffed by three employees and volunteers.

We try to give them a more intimate experience than you would get at most zoos, DAngeli says of those who seek a bat encounter.

Each year, he hosts a three-day event called Batstock, which combines music and art with bat presentations and a bat walk.

DAngeli expects his wildlife center will reopen either the weekend of June 19 or 26.

Were keeping our fingers crossed, he says. He anticipates introducing two species to the facility.

Its kind of evolved into New Jerseys official bat cave, he says. I cant imagine I have a lot more competition."

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Send a coronavirus tip here.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:32:15|Editor: huaxia

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MALE, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Shops in the Maldives re-opened on Monday as a two-month lockdown on the region of Greater Male was eased, local media citing the Ministry of Economic Development reported.

Maldivians in the capital city of Male and the neighboring suburbs of Hulhumale and Vilimale were allowed to go outside without a permit on Monday as the government continued to ease restrictions and restart economic activity amid a slowdown in confirmed cases of COVID-19.

According to guidelines from the ministry, shops in Greater Male are allowed to open their doors from 9 am to 9 pm and provide delivery services until 10 pm. Parks and public spaces have also been re-opened, though a curfew will apply to all residents in the area between 10 pm and 5 am.

A lockdown on Greater Male was first imposed on April 15 after community transmission of COVID-19 was discovered in the dense urban capital of Male, where over 90 percent of COVID-19 cases have been found according to state media.

The lockdown has helped the government flatten the curve over the last two months and begin easing restrictions. Maldives currently has 2,035 confirmed cases, out of which 1,311 have fully recovered and eight have died.

Maldivians make up only 34 percent of all confirmed cases, with the rest being foreign nationals, particularly migrant workers who have been susceptible to infection due to poor housing conditions.

Maldives is planning to reopen its borders to tourists with no new restrictions or fees starting July 1. Enditem
The National Blood Service, Ghana (NBSG) has recorded a 21 per cent decline in total blood collections and supply per last years record for January to May.



Dr Justina Ansah, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Blood Service, who attributed the situation to the COVID-19 crisis, explained that the total units of blood collected for the first five months of last year was 73,063. However, this declined to 57,268 for this year.



The CEO announced this at an event held on a virtual platform to commemorate the 2020 World Blood Donor Day, in Accra.



The Day is observed annually on June 14 to express appreciation to voluntary, unpaid blood donors for their life-saving gift of blood.



This years theme is: "Safe Blood Saves Lives", while the slogan is "Give blood and make the world a healthier place".



Voluntary blood donations constitute 28.7 per cent of the total units collected, with the 71.3 per cent coming from family replacement donations.



Dr Ansah said the situation was worrying as the implications for the sharp drop were for patients.



"This means that patients who cannot find relatives and friends to donate blood for them during emergencies such as bleeding from complications of childbirth, aggressive cancers, severe anaemia and severe bleeding from trauma may not recover," she stated.



She said since blood was not manufactured and also had a short span, its continuous supply must be assured through regular voluntary donations so that blood and its components became available whenever needed.



The CEO, therefore, appealed to eligible donors between the ages of 17 and 60 to visit the blood collection centres to donate blood to save and improve the quality of life of patients.



Dr Ansah explained that due to the pandemic, an appointment system had been introduced to ensure strict adherence to social distancing and other protocols at the collection sites.



She assured donors that adequate precautionary measures had been put in place, saying, "We are regularly monitoring the implementation of these measures to ensure strict compliance".



"We urge you to continue to donate blood on a regular basis and to also encourage your friends and relatives who are eligible to also donate blood."





She explained that there had not been any demonstrable transmission of COVID-19 through blood and its components; nonetheless, adequate measures had been put in place to contain any potential risk of infection through transfusion.



Mrs Tina Mensah, a Deputy Minister of Health, also commended voluntary blood donors for their continuous support in savings lives.



She said timely access to safe blood and blood products was important for all countries, as part of a comprehensive approach to prevent needless deaths.



In this era of a new normal way of doing things, I strongly believe that community participation is key in ensuring a sufficient, safe and sustainable blood supply, she said.



Mrs Mensah said: "Not long ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) targeted the year 2020 for all countries to obtain 100 per cent of their blood supplies from only voluntary unpaid donors however, Ghana has not achieved even 50 per cent of this target, despite the many efforts being made by the NBSG.



"My Ministry will continue to support the NBS to achieve this target. I wish to also pledge the Ministry's commitment to ensure self-sufficiency in safe blood and products based on 100 per cent voluntary unpaid donors".



The Minister gave the assurance that the process to secure the legal backing for the Agencys status as NBS would be completed soon.



We will take concrete steps in ensuring that majority of Ghanaians develop the culture of voluntary blood donation and also provide support for blood donation campaigns at all levels," the Minister said.



Dr Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, the WHO Country Representative, urged the Government to collaborate with blood donor associations and nongovernmental organizations to increase investment in blood transfusion services in line with WHO guidelines.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The son of late actor Irrfan Khan, Babil, has remembered Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found dead in his Mumbai apartment on Sunday. Irrfan died after a two-year battle with cancer in April.

On Instagram, Babil shared a picture of Sushant, and wrote in the caption, WTF is happening? I cant find the words. Man, if you feel clear signs, dont go searching for a reason, please go to the doctor instead. Babils post has received 10000 likes. Several people left broken-heart emojis in the comments section, while one person wrote, May his soul rest in peace.

While the police have confirmed that Sushant died by suicide, no note was found at his residence.Sushants team shared a message for his fans: It pains us to share that Sushant Singh Rajput is no longer with us. We request his fans to keep him in their thoughts and celebrate his life, and his work like they have done so far. We request media to help us maintain privacy at this moment of grief.

On Sunday, many members of the film community such as Akshay Kumar, Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Anushka Sharma, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Sushant former collaborators such as Sara Ali Khan, Sanjana Sanghi, Abhishek Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra and others left condolence messages for the actor.

Also read: Let Sushant Singh Rajput go in peace, Sonu Sood requests media; Anushka Sharma and Vikrant Massey call for sensitive coverage

Sushant was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others. He was 34. The last rites will be performed after his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna tomorrow, his spokesperson said on Sunday.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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Samsung first launched its Galaxy A71 5G series in early April but the handset is now finally set to launch in the US this week. As its branding implies, the device will deliver next-gen networking at a fraction of the cost of flagships. But users wont be able to pick the mid-ranger up at just any carrier, at least to start. Instead, it will be available exclusively for T-Mobile and Sprint starting June 19.

Now, Samsung also indicates the handset will be available to purchase from its website from the 19. Samsung hasnt specified just yet which colors will be available either. But that timeframe will be exclusively for those carriers too.

What is the Samsung Galaxy A71 5G?

Aside from the inclusion of 5G next-gen networking, the Samsung Galaxy A71 5G isnt too different from the Samsung Galaxy A71. Samsung built the device on a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED platform with an edge-to-edge Infinity-O Display. That effectively means its selfie shooter is tucked up under the display panel in the form of a punch-hole camera.

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As with all devices in the South Korean tech giants A-series portfolio, the driving purpose behind the design is to offer users the latest features available without the flagship pricing.

From that design direction, Samsung not only includes the display outlined above. It also utilized a Snapdragon 730-series processor, backing that up with 6GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Thats expandable by up to 1TB, despite already being around double the average storage in use right now by competitors.

Driving the package, and the latest Samsung OneUI overlay on Android 10, is a 4,500mAh capacity battery. Thats right around 500mAh more than the average battery currently in use by smartphones. Topping off the decision to use a larger battery, Samsung has equipped that with 25W Super-Fast Charging.

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Samsung wasnt joking around on cameras either with this smartphone. To begin with, it picked a 64-megapixel wide-angle lens for the primary snapper in a quad-camera array. A 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle snapper backs that up. Just behind that, Samsung opted for a 5-megapixel sensor for both Macro shots and depth-detection.

Other pricing and availability

As noted above, the Samsung Galaxy A71 5G will launch first at T-Mobile and Sprint. Itll also be available from Samsung directly for those carriers. Thats set to start on June 19. This handset was announced at a price of $599 and Samsung hasnt detailed any carrier deals at this time. The company hasnt made it clear how that cost will be split for carrier payment plans. Or if any promotions will be available.

The premium feature-packed mid-ranger will land at other carriers as well but there isnt a set timeframe for that launch just yet.

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Instead, Samsung simply indicates that it will become available at AT&T, Verizon, and additional carriers later this summer. The news at least partially confirms earlier rumors pertaining to carrier availability. That probably implies that this will be coming to the other big carriers in the US as well as at least a few subsidiaries and pre-paid MVNOs.

In the interim, the South Korean tech giant also says it will be selling the Galaxy A71 5G unlocked too within that same general period.
President of Taiwan to Propose Humanitarian-Aid to Assist Hong Kong

Honest News Straight to Your Home. Try the Epoch Times yourself, and get a free gift.

In response to the National Security Act crisis in Hong Kong, the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen, announced last Wednesday that the Taiwan Executive Yuan will form an ad hoc group.

President Tsai Ing-Wen took the initiative to speak out against the CCPs push for the Hong Kong version of the National Security Law and, at the same time, announced that a consensus had been reached with the Premier of Taiwan to form an ad hoc group. The Mainland Affairs Council will propose specific mechanisms to provide assistance to Hong Kong residents including those residing in Taiwan.

President Tsai expressed in the press briefing: The Chinese Communist Party needs to stop before its too late and should not break the promise of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong for 50 years.

President Tsai continued: We will provide the necessary assistance they [the Hong Kong people] need so that they can come live and work in Taiwan. We also hope that the Mainland Affairs Council will propose their plan in the shortest amount of time and explain it to the people.

Regarding doubts that Taiwan will not lower the immigration threshold for the people of Hong Kong, and the question of whether it is still necessary to amend the refugee law, President Tsai explained that the existing immigration restrictions for the people of Hong Kong are relatively lenient. She reaffirmed Taiwans support for the people of Hong Kong in the pursuit of freedom and democracy.

President Tsai added: Regardless of whether there will be any adjustment to this regulation in the future, I would like to make it clear to everyone: One thing is certain, that is, our hearts and determination to take care of the people of Hong Kong will never change.

Over concerns that after gaining control over Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party may resort to using force against Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-Wen said that the current situation does require a high degree of attention, and she will ask the relevant ministries to step up their efforts and forecasting of the situation.
We are interested to receive an export offer for 2500 tons of Husk Sunflower Pellets for September deliver to Limassol Port Cyprus.
A Black Lives Matter protester who saved an injured white man during violent clashes in London has said he stopped somebody from being killed.

A photo of Patrick Hutchinson carrying the man over his back at the weekend was widely shared on social media, with many calling him a hero.

It followed violent clashes between police and far-right protesters claiming to be defending statues in central London.

Hutchinson and his friends spotted an altercation involving the lone white man and young black demonstrators on the steps near Royal Festival Hall in London on Saturday.

He said the man was on the floor and that he and his four friends moved in to stop him from being trampled.

Patrick Hutchinson, right, carried a white man to safety during protests in London on Saturday. (Reuters)

He told the BBC: I scooped him up into a fireman's carry and marched him out with the guys around me, protecting me and shielding me and protecting this guy from getting any further punishment.

"I wasn't thinking, I was just thinking of a human being on the floor. It wasn't going to end well had we not intervened.

"We did what we had to do. We stopped somebody from being killed."

Read more: Boris Johnson says it is 'absurd' Churchill statue is 'at risk of attack'

Hutchinson carried the injured man over his shoulder while the others formed a barrier around them, before handing him to nearby police officers.

The white man did not utter a word and the group have not spoken to or seen him since.

Hutchinson, a personal trainer and grandfather, had formed a group with four of his friends with the aim of protecting young Black Lives Matter protesters from getting caught up in violence.

In a separate interview with Channel 4 News, Hutchinson spoke of wanting equality for all of us.

He said: "At the moment the scales are unfairly balanced and I just want things to be fair, for my children and my grandchildren."

A total of 113 people were arrested in London on Saturday following violent clashes between far-right protesters and police.

Twenty-three police officers were injured as several hundred demonstrators, mostly white men, took over areas near the Palace of Westminster and Trafalgar Square and hurled missiles, smoke grenades, glass bottles and flares at police officers.

Story continues

Patrick Hutchinson carries a white man to safety during protests in central London on Saturday. (Getty Images)

Patrick Hutchinson hands the white man over to police after carrying him to safety. (Getty Images)

Thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters have taken to the streets of the UK in the past two weeks following the death of African-American man George Floyd at the hands of US police officers.

Another member of Hutchinsons group, Pierre Noah, 47, a bodyguard and martial arts teacher from Croydon, spoke about rescuing the white man.

Read more: Former PMs statue boarded up over fears it will be confused with slave trade advocate

"They were going to beat him up and stamp on him, he said. "If we didn't do that I wouldn't like to think what would have happened to the poor guy.

"We wanted to save his life and save the Black Lives Matter campaign as well. We were ready to help anyone, no matter what their colour, it's for the right purpose.

Saturdays far-right protest was condemned by Boris Johnson as "racist thuggery" and described as "mindless hooliganism" by police.

A 28-year-old was charged with outraging public decency after a photo appeared to show a man urinating on a memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death in the 2017 Westminster terror attack.
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 in New York City, N.Y., on June 9, 2020. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)

NYPD Ending Plainclothes Anti-Crime Units, Says Commissioner

The New York City Police Department will eliminate its plainclothes anti-crime units and will transfer those personnel to detective assignments and neighborhood policing, said NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea on Monday.

Thankfully, here in New York City, angry demonstrations have turned peaceful. Thoughtful discussions about reform have emerged, Shea said during a news conference, adding that it will affect about 600 officers.

We welcome reform, but we also believe that meaningful reform starts from within, he told reporters.

Shea noted that the move is not without risk, questioning whether the decision would result in fewer guns being taken off the streets of New York City. But he said the risk rests squarely on my shoulders.

The move comes after sometimes violent demonstrations including arson, riots, and vandalism in the wake of George Floyds death in Minneapolis police custody, which reignited the Black Lives Matter protest movement.

This is a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city, he said. I would consider this in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of Stop, Question and Frisk I think its time to more forward and change how we police in this city. We can do it with brains. We can do it with guile. We can move away from brute force.

Shea noted that the anti-crime officers are involved in a significant number of shootings and generate the most complaints compared to other NYPD units.

NYPD officers detains a protester for being involved in a looting of a store after marching against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, N.Y., on June 2, 2020. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

There will continue to be plainclothes units in the NYPD, whether its in surveillance teams, whether its narcotics or things of that nature, but  when you look at the number of anti-crime officers that operate within New York City and you look at a disproportionate, quite frankly, proportion of complaints, shootings  again, I think we can do better, he said.

Weve shown that we can build prosecutable cases, with evidence, with intelligence, with video, and, make no mistake, we will need the cooperation of the five district attorneys  but we also have to do it with the communities that we serve, Shea added. We need cooperation, we need trust, and all of this goes into this decision.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have both called for police reforms but both have stopped short of calling to defund police departments. Cuomo said on June 7 that police departments will not be defunded, noting that there are tensions and distrust between police and civilians.

Look at that looting. It was frightening, he said after days of unrest. It was criminals who were exploiting the situation who were opportunistic, who were just stealing.

On Monday, the governor said that he would sign more law enforcement reforms passed by the states legislature earlier in the month.

NYPD union bosses, however, criticized lawmakers and the media for attempts to demonize officers during the protests.

I am not Derek Chauvin; they are not him, Mike OMeara, president of the New York Association of Police Benevolent Associations, told reporters last week, referring to the officer who knelt on Floyds neck. He killed someone. We didnt.

News outlets and lawmakers are trying to shame us into being embarrassed about our profession, he remarked.
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Motilal Oswal 's research report on KNR Construction

Though 4QFY20 revenues were lower than expectation, KNR Construction (KNR) outperformed on operating margins yet again. Higher interest outflow and depreciation owing to mobilization of HAM projects, coupled with higher tax rate led to lower PAT (4QFY20/FY20: -29%/-18%). Order book (incl. L1) stood strong at INR79b, providing strong revenue visibility with OB/Rev ratio of 3.6x. -The net cash balance sheet coupled with pending proceeds from monetization of road assets, provides key competitive advantage in bidding for newer projects. KNR has time and again demonstrated its strong execution capability despite the financing challenges in the sector as dependency on bank financing is minimal.

Outlook

However, owing to the impact of COVID-19 related execution challenges in 1HFY21, we have cut our FY21E EPS by 25%, but raised FY22E EPS by 9%. We maintain our Buy rating with TP of INR280 (prior: INR270), based on Mar'22E EPS.







For all recommendations report, click here

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies 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.

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CONNECTICUT - In connection with the disappearance of a New Canaan mom Jennifer Dulos, the Connecticut state police investigators searched a property in Avon on Thursday

Despite the search efforts, they failed to obtain new clues or evidence based on their news release of the state police.

According to Crime Online, the state police searched a home in Avon with an area of 25,000 square feet that sits on four and a half acres which are located at 44 Sky View Drive.

As part of the case, Troopers had previously visited the property and the state police followed up wherein they brought several K9s to check the property for clues.

"J4J" which means "Justice for Jennifer" had been spray-painted in the property at the Sky View Drive.

The owner of the vacant home believes that it was spray painted during the first year anniversary of the disappearance of Dulos.

During the search, the state police brought with them a septic company that was tasked to pump the septic tank of the property.

Moreover, NBC Connecticut reported that not less than a dozen state police vehicles were seen arriving at the home based on the sources in Connecticut.

In has been a year since Jennifer Dulos went missing, the mom disappeared after dropping her kids off at school, but the search for Dulos continues despite a year after.

Earlier this year, Fotis Dulos passed away after he attempted to take his very own life, but Fotis Dulos retained his innocence.

Aside from being charged with murder, Fotis Dulos also faced charges of kidnapping in the first degree, commission on felony murder, two counts of tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution in the first degree but he had pleaded not guilty to the numerous charges.

Due to the passing of the defendant, Fotis Dulos' charges had been dropped as the state asked for it and the judge agreed to nolle the murder charges as well.

Related article: George Floyd New Video Shows Cops Ignoring By-Standers' Pleas to Let Floyd Live

Jennifer's body was never found

The state police also eyed his then-girlfriend Michelle Troconis and his friend Mawhinnet as co-conspirators in the case and charged them as well but both of the alleged co-conspirators have pleaded not guilty with the charges.

In a report by New York Post, the property where the police on Thursday morning is just estimated two miles away from the former home of Fotis Dulos which is located on Jefferson in Farmington.

In January of 2018, Fotis was hired by the homeowner to secure a permit for the repair of the damaged water system at the home.

The Sky View Drive Home is currently vacant but the homeowner previously shared that he would welcome any police investigations to be done if they asked to search the property as help in solving the case.

Homeowner David Ford emphasized that if the police wanted to come up and search the house, he added that they could whatever they need to do.

Ford also mentioned that if it helps to find closure for the five kids as to where their mother is it is totally fine with him as he supports it.

Related article: Rayshard Brooks Autopsy Reveals Death By Organ Damage and Blood Loss from Two Gunshot Wounds

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  A lawmaker suggests a probe on the Philippine Depositary Receipts issued by other television networks, as House committees tackle measures seeking to grant a fresh 25-year franchise to media giant ABS-CBN.

Nueva Ecija 2nd district Rep. Micaela Violago on Monday said before the joint House panels on legislative franchises and good governance that a probe must be also done on the Philippine Depositary Receipts (PDRs) issued by other television networks the way the chamber is investigating the PDRs issued by ABS-CBN Corporation.

Kanina sinabi ni Chairman Alvarado, all the PDRs of all major broadcasting companies are almost the same like GMA and ABS-CBN. The only difference is the price, Violago said Monday during the House joint committee hearing.

[Translation: Chairman Alvarado earlier said that all the PDRs of all major broadcasting companies are almost the same as GMA and ABS-CBN. The only difference is the price.]

"In aid of legislation, in the near future sana (hopefully), maybe we can also investigate 'yung sa PDRs ng ibang (the PDRs of other) broadcasting companies the way we investigate the PDRs of ABS-CBN," she added.

The controversial Philippine Depositary Receipts issued by the holding companies of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation to foreign investors have been a point of contention among lawmakers, with some saying this violates the media ownership rules under the 1987 Constitution.

"'Yung holding companies allow the Lopez group of companies to raise large capital through PDRs they can avoid risks, and avoid taxes in the process by selling to itself and avail of tax avoidance schemes," SAGIP Party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta said Monday.

"In other words, 'yung holding companies ginagamit para manipula through corporate layering 'yung pagaari at pati 'yung pamamalakad ng mass media, isang bagay na nauwi sa monopolyo na ipinagbabawal ng batas."

[Translation: In other words, the holding companies are used to manipulate through corporate layering the ownership and management of mass media, something that has led to a monopoly and is banned by law.]

According to Marcoleta, 198 million Philippine Depositary Receipts representing 61 percent of over 320 million Philippine Depositary Receipts have already been sold by ABS-CBN Holdings Corporation, with majority of the buyers being foreigners; however, the breakdown of the figures was not provided.

The Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that the PDRs issued by the holding companies of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation and GMA Network, Inc. were allowed and registered with the government.

SEC Commissioner Ephyro Amatong said Thursday that before Calida's petition and the House hearings, no complaints were raised with the SEC about the PDRs, so the regulatory body did not look into possible constitutional violations.

Insofar as SEC regulations are concerned, ABS-CBN did not violate any, he said.

Philippine Depositary Receipts allow foreign investors to hold equity shares of local companies listed on the Philippine stock exchange and to receive their dividends or interest. However, the title over the stocks remains with the company.

ABS-CBN has repeatedly explained that the PDRs were not the same as shares of stock and do not accord its holders voting rights. The Constitution limits mass media ownership to Filipinos.

Fourteen House bills seeking to renew the network's franchise are pending before the body, the earliest of which was filed in July 2019.

ABS-CBN's franchise expired May 4, which was cited by the National Telecommunications Commission as basis to order the shutdown of its broadcasts a day later.
CHICAGO  Amazon warehouse workers in New York walked off the job to demand protection against Covid-19. A county judge in Illinois ordered a McDonalds franchise to work out an agreement with its employees to supply more masks and hand sanitizer. And grocery store workers at Publix and Trader Joe's in Florida have haggled for hazard pay as they work public-facing jobs.

Across corners of the labor market traditionally without unions, the coronavirus is spurring new interest in organizing for safer workplaces and better pay as the nation embarks on a long economic recovery.

Most states have already crafted or kicked off plans to reopen their economies after shutting them down to curb the spread of Covid-19. Now, many among the millions of people who toiled away at invisible low-wage jobs stocking shelves or setting up medical equipment the whole time are looking to capitalize on how essential theyve become.

In literally a day, grocery store workers have gone from just a job, to having a job thats incredibly stressful, demanding and scary, said Damon Silvers, the policy director and special counsel for the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. The nature of the job has been transformed. Employees are saying, If Im going to risk my life, how about paying me more?

Union membership across the country has been on a steady decline since the early 1980s but organized labor has attracted the national spotlight in recent years thanks to series of teacher strikes, including in conservative states like West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona. Unions are happy to leverage the new angst brought on by the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees launched an initiative to educate nonunion workers about how organizing can protect their health and safety as Covid-19 persists. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters offers an online resource guide for nonunion workers. And the California Labor Federation has a team responding to nonunion workers trying to file for unemployment, spokesman Steve Smith said.

Story continues

Despite the new energy, organizing efforts are slow and may ultimately falter. No ones yet formed a union based on not being able to get PPE. If employees do try, they may face new hurdles enacted by the National Labor Relations Board under the Trump administration, which many labor officials interviewed for this report see as anti-union. The agency recently issued rules unions complain would prolong the election process. NLRB argues the changes will increase transparency.

Coronavirus hit the U.S. at a time when the labor market was tight  unemployment was low and employers were actively looking to hire. But in a matter of days, companies shut down and hundreds of thousands of people across the country were laid off. For those still on the job, it created fear and anxiety among low-wage workers, and raised questions about the value they provide in a crisis and the risks theyre forced to take on at a moments notice.

Theres a disconnect in what people think of workers  theyre heroes  and what theyre being paid, said Zach Koutsky, political director for Local 881, which represents retail food and drug store workers in Illinois as well as employees in the cannabis industry. Calls come in from frozen pizza plant workers, cannabis workers and nonunion grocery employees, he said. They say, 'Dear god, we need to meet with you. Its always been there, but its definitely picked up.

The uptick in union phone calls isn't likely to translate into membership, labor experts say.

Its very hard for them to join because the laws are imbalanced, the NLRB is incredibly hostile right now and a good number of states have governors and legislative bodies that are very antagonistic toward labor, said Robert Bruno, director of labor studies at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Employers arent afraid to spend millions to keep their operations union free.

Still, members of Congress have also taken note of this workforce in the Pandemic Heroes Compensation Act, legislation introduced last month to setup a victims fund for a wide range of essential workers.

On September 11, it was the heroic firefighters and officers who ran into the burning buildings to save lives, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the sponsor, told reporters on a conference call hyping the bill. Today, it is the hospital workers, nurses, doctors, EMS, janitorial staff, pharmacists, technicians and all essential workers.

It's a mishmash of industries. Steel mill workers in Gary, Ind., have called the AFL-CIO asking how to get more personal protective equipment because their bosses didnt supply enough. Ride-hail drivers in California are asking union shops how to get gear too. Employees at the Pilgrims Pride chicken processing plant in central Minnesota have protested working conditions. And while larger grocery store chains like Kroger or Jewel-Osco have a unionized workforce, people employed at smaller stores in St. Louis and restaurant workers in Chicago want to know how to organize.

In this Wednesday, June 3, 2020 photo, cashier Rosario Vargas, center, bags groceries for customers at the Presidente Supermarket in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. The U.S. government is set to issue its latest report on the layoffs that have left millions unemployed but have steadily slowed as many businesses have begun to reopen and to rehire some laid-off workers. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

I was just talking to a dental hygienist who wanted to know how she can get a union started, said Bob Reiter of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

This wouldnt be the first time safety issues would become a lightning rod for the labor movement, of course. Union organizers have leveraged the works of Upton Sinclair, the safety hazards of the mining industry in Appalachia and the difficult farming conditions in California to secure new worker rights and safer conditions.

In Chicago, where hundreds of nursing home assistants are calling for pay increases to at least $15 an hour, the heart of their concerns was about safety.

Workers are worried they could lose their house and their familys health, said Diana Tastad-Damer, director of organizing for UFCW Local 1189 in Minnesota. So, its being put in a bigger picture than just wages or livelihood. Now its about their familys livelihood and survival.

Dave Cook, president UFCW 655 in St. Louis, Mo., hopes the pandemic will change the way the country looks at low-wage jobs and how low-wage workers look at themselves.

Without your Dollar General or your Amazon warehouse workers, Americans wouldnt be fed, he said. Maybe these workers will start to understand the value they have for society, because for decades they've been told they have no value and that theyre replaceable.

Greg Ferrara, CEO of the National Grocers Association, says the 1,600 independent grocers in his organization were attentive early on to safety issues and as a result havent heard calls for union representation. But he acknowledges employees have a renewed interest in safety.

When youre working in a place where you have a shield in front of you or youre wearing a mask and doing enhanced sanitizing procedures, employees are much more aware of the important role theyre playing," he said. "Whether it ties to an interest in organized labor, I cant say.

Its too early to say whether Covid-19 concerns will lead to a rise in union membership, said Roberta Lynch, executive director of AFSCME Council in Chicago.

Our current history is providing a compelling picture of more and more workers who are not able to earn a decent living, whose jobs are fragile and in jeopardy and who dont have retirement security, who have been turning to unions more and more with the pandemic, Lynch said. I think theres every reason that that will intensify.



CLARIFICATION: This report has been updated to clarify Rep. Carolyn Maloney as sponsor of the Pandemic Heroes Compensation Act.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. Doctors of Yerevans St. Gregory the Illuminator hospital are already actively cooperating with the French doctors who arrived in Armenia to help fighting the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Spokesperson of the medical center Tsovinar Khachatryan told Armenpress that the Armenian and French doctors conducted a joint visit to get acquainted with the treatment process of coronavirus infected patients. The French doctors spent the whole day in hospitals. They held discussions with the local specialists on the treatment process of patients who are in serious and critical condition.

A group of French doctors arrived in Armenia via a special flight to help the healthcare system to battle the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia said today.

This is the first such kind of an initiative on engaging foreign doctors which became a reality by the cooperation between our Office, USAID and the ministry of healthcare. Most of the doctors, who overcame the virus in France, visit Armenia for the first time and they are sure that they will invest all their experience and knowledge in the responsible mission to save human lives, the statement says.

Recently Lithuania, Georgia and the World Health Organization (WHO) also expressed readiness to assist Armenia in fighting the COVID-19.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
FORT RUSSELL TOWNSHIP  A man in his 70s has died following a residential structure fire Monday morning on Glennoak Drive.

The 70-year-old man reportedly was found deceased at the scene as firefighters were extinguishing a fire at the rear of the house that spread to the house itself, causing extensive damage.

Edwardsville Deputy Fire Chief James Whiteford declined to say if the victim was the homeowner. The cause of the fire is unknown but Whiteford said no one else was injured and said no vehicles had to be moved as the fire did not spread.

Edwardsville Fire Department took the lead after the initial call came in as a deck fire at approximately 10:30 a.m. for an incident in the 3400 block of Glennoak Drive, which parallels Route 143 between Edwardsville and Roxana.

When fire personnel arrived on scene, the rear deck was heavily involved. In addition, there were flammable items in an otherwise empty in-ground pool that had to be extinguished.

Whiteford said crews knocked the fire down before it could burn more than the homes roof. He believes the home is salvageable though he described the blaze as in transition when they arrived. Heavy black smoke was visible at the onset of the blaze from surrounding areas such as East Alton, according to a Hearst Illinois photographer on scene.

Fire crews rescued a dog and a cat from the home. A second cats whereabouts are unknown, Whiteford confirmed.

Glen Carbon, Wood River, Holiday Shores and Hamel fire agencies were called to assist. Madison County Emergency Management Agency, Madison County Sheriffs Department and the countys deputy coroner were also on scene. Troy Fire Protection District and Collinsville Fire Department assisted Edwardsville by temporarily manning their facility.

Whiteford said since there are no fire hydrants in that area, Hamel and Holiday Shores brought in tankers with about 3,000 gallons of water to fight the fire, which took purportedly 30-40 minutes. Crews worked for roughly 30 minutes or more to snuff out the blaze.

The Illinois State Fire Marshals office is leading the investigation.
The United Nations' top human rights body will hold an urgent debate this week on "racially inspired human rights violations, systematic racism, police brutality and the violence against peaceful protests" in the wake of the George Floyd killing in the United States.

The Human Rights Council agreed unanimously to hold the urgent debate, described by council spokesman Rolando Gomez as a "session within a session", on Wednesday as the 47-member state body resumes work left over from its March session that was suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak.

A letter sent on Friday by Burkina Faso Ambassador Dieudonne Desire Sougouri on behalf of the Africa Group to the council's president called for the "urgent debate" and noted the "tragic events" linked to the May 25 killing of Floyd in Minneapolis."The death of George Floyd was unfortunately not an isolated incident," Sougouri said during session. The council has only held four previous urgent debates, mostly on Syria, though it has held dozens of special sessions.

Last week, relatives of Floyd and other victims of police violence as well has hundreds of rights groups urged the council to hold a special session on the "escalating situation of police violence and repression of protests" in the United States alone.

(Image Credit: AP)
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Over the last few days, physicians and nurses across the country have taken a knee, galvanized by the recent death of George Floyd, as well as the disproportionate effect of the coronavirus pandemic on African-American families. The White Coats for Black Lives movement firmly identifies racism as a public health issue and calls on everyone in the health care system to take action.

As physicians, we can see what role we have in fighting this injustice; however, as South Asians, we know that awareness within our communities is still lacking. The goal to be the model minority often overshadows outward displays of camaraderie. Some of this may be secondary to focusing efforts in fighting their own other battles (such as Islamophobia) and against hate crimes directed towards their own communities. However, racism within the South Asian community against African Americans is not uncommon, and many of us have bore witness to overt racism growing up. The silence has not gone unnoticed  in fact, in the past few days, South Asian or Bollywood celebrities have been called out on their colorism campaigns and misappropriation of black culture.

The role and duty of South Asian physicians

Our generation of South Asian professionals in North America will need not just to express gratitude for the activism that has reduced racist structures (or at least deferred their attention from us), but also to acknowledge the privilege afforded to us by education and profession. Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian physicians must lead that charge.

Asian physicians make up the second-largest majority of the medical profession within the United States  Asian doctors are anywhere from 11 to 15 percent in fact. Of these, for example, greater than 60,000 physicians and approximately 10 to 12 percent of entering medical students are estimated to be of Indian heritage in this country. For context, approximately 13.4 percent of the total population identifies as black or African American, thereby accounting for a large part of our patient population who we have a duty to care and advocate for.

Like many of our second-generation colleagues, our parents were primarily part of a migration from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka most prominently. It began around 1965 and exponentially increased through 1990, thanks to relaxed immigration legislation and increased employment opportunities, many brought about by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and The Fair Housing Act of 1968. The large number of South Asian immigrants who arrived during those years did so as either university graduates, or with the funds to obtain an education here on U.S. soil. As a result, South Asian immigrants overall have been prominent in fields that require extensive and often expensive training, such as medicine and technology.

We children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of these immigrants can use our position to advocate for change. The first thing to do is speak out against racism within our own communities. Despite our different families and upbringings, both of us authors have bore witness growing up to elderly community members, outwardly spewing racist propaganda  particularly condemning engaging in romantic relationships with black women or men. Being taught however, to be good Indian or Pakistani girls and to respect our elders we kept our mouths shut against these acts, and today feel embarrassed by that complacency.

But we are no longer those young girls, and today we advocate that South Asians voicing their support for black lives must be followed by action.

South Asian physicians, in particular, must be part of solutions to tackle health inequities for our black patients. Health disparities in medicine are prevalent in all fields of medical practice. Coronavirus is claiming the lives of African Americans at an alarming rate, almost 2.5 times greater than Whites or Asians. Black men continue to have a substantially lower life expectancy. The medical community should have as a primary aim going forward to help narrow the disproportionate gap in African-Americans death from coronary artery disease, stroke, and cancer.

Furthermore, South Asian physicians should organize around the development of programming that creates equity not only for black patients, but for our black colleagues as well, who are considerably underrepresented in health care (which in turn adversely impacts black patients). If nothing else, we should take our good fortune and funds to contribute to organizations that will abolish health inequities that we see daily in our line of work.

To be sure, South Asians have endured discrimination. We have seen the look of disappointment on patients faces when a brown doctor walks into the room. We continue to endure microaggressions aimed at our origins. However, of the utmost importance now is that we take the immense burden of fighting for persons of color away from our black colleagues and patients and allow them to rest  they have been fighting just to matter for long enough. Now we must fight for them.

Inna Husain is an otolaryngologist. Meeta Shah is an emergency physician. Image credit: Shutterstock.com
As Delhi prepares to ramp up testing for the coronavirus infection, Heath Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said laboratory facilities under the Centre in the national capital are being extended to the city government.

Interacting with reporters, he also asserted that Delhi was doing "maximum testing earlier" and will continue to do more testing with whatever resources are at its disposal.

"As far as increasing of testing capacity is concerned, in Delhi most of the lab facilities are under the Centre, so those are being extended to us," he said.

The Delhi government had designated 42 labs for carrying out COVID-19 tests.

Asked about the high-level meeting on Sunday with Union Minister Amit Shah, he said the meeting was "very fruitful".

"The main outcome of it was that Centre and Delhi government will be working together to fight COVID-19 in the national capital," Jain said.

The meeting was held to discuss the recent spurt in coronavirus cases in the city, and attended by Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Delhi recorded 2,224 coronavirus cases on Sunday, the highest single-day spike here taking the COVID-19 tally in the city to over 41,000-mark, and the death toll due to the disease mounted to 1,327, authorities said.

Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev on Sunday also met senior officials through a video link and discussed how to ramp up the testing facilities to 10,000 in next two days, and to have 100 per cent house-to-house survey in containment zones and other points pursuant to directions of the Union Home Ministry.

Jain, when asked why the decision to have COVID beds in small nursing homes, was withdrawn, said, "Initially, we thought this would increase further our dedicated beds for COVID patients. But then dengue and malaria season is approaching, and many of these nursing homes are located in dense localities, so we withdrew the order".

On PWD's preparations ahead of the monsoon, he said, drains are being desilted. On the decision to acquire properties for installation of more beds for treatment of COVID-19 patients, Jain said trains, banquet halls, and other properties will be used as the extensions of the hospitals for the treatment of less serious patients, and more serious patients will be treated in hospitals.

"We have around 45 per cent of beds available even today. More than the cases, the real question is how many beds do we need for the treatment of the patients. We are making all necessary arrangements as per the planning," he said.

On the question of whether there is a community spread in Delhi, given in the last three days over 2,000 cases were reported every day, Jain said, "There is no need to go into technicalities."

"There is a coronavirus situation in Delhi, and this virus spreads in big cities where there are close community areas. We are taking strong action against this outbreak, and that is how we are able to treat the people infected with the virus," he added.

Asked about imposing penalty on people for not wearing masks or following social distancing, the Delhi heath minister said, it was "absolutely necessary".

"Some people think it was not required, and they think they can spit anywhere, but they will only learn if a penalty is imposed on them," he said.
A Vietjet aircraft (front) that skidded off the runway and into the grass field at Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City, June 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Tuan.

Two foreign pilots of Vietjet Air whose aircraft skidded off the runway at Tan Son Nhat airport Sunday have had their licenses seized.

The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (CAAV) announced this without disclosing their names or nationalities.

It also set up an inspection team to investigate the incident, decode the black box of the Airbus A321neo aircraft and analyze the flight data.

The six flight attendants on the trip have also been suspended, though it is not clear why.

Flight VJ322, which had arrived from Phu Quoc Island with 217 passengers, landed at around noon at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport and skidded off the runway into a grass field.

Fortunately, no one was injured, but the accident affected dozens of other flights since the runway is the only operative one currently in operation with the other being closed for upgrades.

The low-cost airline blamed the heavy rain and strong winds for the accident.

Dinh Viet Thang, director of CAAV, too said unfavorable weather conditions were to blame.

"The Vietjet aircraft landed, moved a short distance before skidding off the runway," Thang said.

With Storm Nuri forming over the East Sea early on Saturday, heavy rains and strong winds have lashed many parts of southern Vietnam, including HCMC, during the weekend.

The airport shut down for six hours, affecting nearly 190 Vietnam Airlines, Jetstar Pacific and Bamboo Airways flights, which were delayed or had to be diverted at other airports.
Ambulances parked in a queue in front of the Greater Chennai Corporation as number of COVID- 19 cases surge in the city. PTI photo

The vulnerability of frontline workers led by doctors fighting Covid-19 yet again came to the fore with 142 doctors including 40 postgraduate students drafted for coronavirus duty at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGH) here in the last one week, taking ill.

This disconcerting development unfolded, even as Tamil Nadu on Sunday added 1,974 new Covid-19 positive cases to take the total to 44,661. While of the fresh cases, Chennai alone added 1,415 today, the total death toll due to the virus touched an alarming level of 435 with 38 more deaths- the highest so far confirmed on a single day in the past 13 weeks- due to the virus.

However, sources told DC that all the doctors who took ill suffered from only "mild symptoms" of Covid-19, which is not unusual in medical situations such as this, with a huge crisis unfolding in terms of numbers in greater Chennai and three adjoining districts in North Tamil Nadu.

Though other government and private hospitals also face this risk, the relatively cramped space at RGGH where the number of beds have been increased to 400, is partly responsible for this development, sources said. The Omandurar government hospital for instance is far more spacious.

The doctors at RGGH, who work on two daily shifts, are split into different groups and one group after a week are sent for 'home quarantine' as a precautionary measure, to help improve their immunity with nutritional supplements and rest; a week after that, they return to duty and the cycle continues. This gives them enough time-leg to overcome the mild infections of Covid-19 and there was no cause for alarm, the sources pointed out.

Even the RGGH dean, Dr R. Jayanthi is believed to be mildly infected by Covid-19 virus and has been advised home quarantine, sources said. Consequent on her going on leave, Dr K Narayanasamy, director and professor of Hepatology, Madras Medical College (MMC) has been given additional charge of dean of RGGH, according to an official order here.

Besides doctors, nurses, health workers, para-medics, ward boys and doctors on non-Covid duty also face this risk. In Mohan Kumaramangalam government hospital in Salem for instance, the wife of a 43-year-old sanitary worker of a family of four who had all tested positive for coronavirus, died on Sunday. Thirty others working in that ward in which the woman died, have now been "isolated", Salem hospital sources said. A 54-year-old nursing superintendent at RGGH also succumbed to the virus, as a result of repeat infection after she was cured, a late night report said.

COVID-19 claims cop's life

In another sad development, Covid-19 claimed the life of a policeman, a special sub-inspector in Chennai who died in Kancheepuram today, sources said. Flummoxed by 277 persons missing from various quarantine centres in the city, the Chennai Corporation has asked Cyber crime police to probe the matter, even as nine persons who walked out of their 'home quarantine' in hotspot of Tondairpet were sent to institutional quarantine.

Meanwhile, the Tamil Culture Minister, Mr. Ma.Foi. K. Pandiyarajan inaugurated a special 224-bed Siddha Medical Centre at the Ambedkar Arts College in Vysarpadi in North Chennai, where patients with mild coronavirus symptoms would be sent for treatment.

The death reports of the 38 fatalities due to Covid-19 confirmed today, made a very sad reading, with patients ranging from a 30-year-old woman in Chennai to an 82-year-old male again in Chennai. Of the 38 casualties, a majority of 31 suffered from co-morbidities, the Health department said.
Sources told PTI that the Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately.

New Delhi: India on Monday summoned the Pakistan charge d''affaires and lodged a strong protest to him over the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Pakistani media reported that two Indian staffers, who went missing on Monday morning, were arrested by Pakistani authorities for their alleged involvement in a "hit and run accident".

Official sources said the Pakistan charge d''affaires (CDA) was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs and a demarche was issued to him over the reported arrest of the two officials.

In the demarche, it was made clear to the Pakistani CDA that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials and the responsibility for their safety and security lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, they said.

The sources said the Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately.

In the morning, the two staffers in Islamabad went missing following which India took up the matter with the Pakistan Foreign Office.

The two staffers went out of the High Commission in a vehicle for official duty at around 8:30 Am (IST), but did not reach their destination, the sources said.

The incident comes two weeks after India expelled two Pakistan High Commission officials here on charges of espionage.

India had declared Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir as ''persona non grata'' after they were found obtaining sensitive documents relating to movement of Indian Army troops from an Indian national, according to authorities here.

Following their expulsion, Pakistani agencies started harassing a number of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad including charge d''affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia.

Ahluwalia''s car was aggressively tailed by Pakistani agencies on at least two occasions following which India lodged a strong protest with the Pakistan Foreign Office.

After the expulsion of the two Pakistani officials, it was expected that Pakistan would also resort to a tit-for-tat response, going by similar episodes in the past.

India''s expulsion of the two Pakistani officials and subsequent harassment of Indian High Commission staffers in Islamabad by Pakistani agencies came in the midst of frayed ties between the two countries over the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir by India.

Pakistan had downgraded diplomatic ties by expelling the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad following India''s decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.
P.E Nation founder Pip Edwards is known for her cool girl style.

And the 40-year-old fashion designer didn't disappoint on Monday, when she stepped out in Sydney's Bondi Beach in a longline silver jacket by her upscale label.

Pip was seen filling up her black Mercedes-Benz convertible before emerging from a service station with a packet of Dunhill cigarettes.

Smoking hot! On Monday, health and fitness guru Pip Edwards was busted buying a packet of cigarettes at a Bondi Beach service station. The P.E Nation founder then made a controversial confession

A representative for P.E Nation confirmed Pip is indeed a social smoker.

'Pip is committed to a balanced lifestyle and will sometimes, on occasion, have a social cigarette,' they said.

The mother-of-one paired the stylish bomber jacket with matching silver leggings and a tight sweater.

Smoker! A representative for P.E Nation confirmed to Daily Mail Australia: 'Pip is committed to a balanced lifestyle and will sometimes, on occasion, have a social cigarette'

Poll Is it okay to enjoy the odd 'social cigarette'? Yes No Is it okay to enjoy the odd 'social cigarette'? Yes 218 votes

No 199 votes Now share your opinion





She completed her ensemble with a Fendi bag she wore across her body, along with a pair of pink-soled sneakers.

The beauty showed off her flawless complexion while choosing to wear her shoulder-length blonde tresses out.

Pip was also seen grabbing a takeaway coffee during the outing.

Recently Pip was attacked over what some called a 'tone-deaf' Instagram post about the Black Lives Matter movement.

All style! Pip wore a silver jacket which she paired with silver and white leggings

Amid the ongoing anti-police brutality protests following the death of George Floyd, Pip opted not to use the hashtag of any particular BLM group.

Instead, P.E Nation posted a message saying: 'One nation. One world. One earth. Our diversity in race, gender, religion and age is our global strength.

'We must unite and stand together, to make for a greater change. We will not tolerate any kind of discrimination.'

On the run! Pip was seen texting while walking during the outing

The following hashtags were added: #WeAreAllInThisTogether, #equalityforall and #equality'.

The highly-successful businesswoman also recently spoke about 'being alone at 40' during an interview with supermodel Elle Macpherson for Gritty Pretty magazine.

'I think one of my greatest fears since forever was being alone,' Pip said.

Chic: Pip was later seen with a tan Fendi bag, which she wore across her body

She was quick to clarify, however, that she was only alone in a romantic sense, because she does live with her 12-year-old son, Justice.

The activewear mogul also added that she was 'really happy to be alone', which she had never expected to be able to say to herself.

Pip said she used her 40th birthday in April to reflect on her personal life so far.

Quick coffee! Pip was later seen getting a coffee from a local cafe, with the barista coming out to personally hand her the hot beverage

'I spent some time going through the career changes, the many men, the trials and tribulations of life,' she said.

'I really sat with myself and I'd probably never done that in 40 years.'
Australia's prime minister expressed concern Monday for an Australian man sentenced to death in China in a case that could further inflame tensions between Beijing and Canberra.

A Chinese court revealed on Saturday that Karm Gilespie, who used to work in Sydney as an actor and then an investment coach, had been condemned to death earlier in the week on drug-smuggling charges.

Gilespie was detained seven years earlier but his case had not been made public by Beijing, Australian authorities or his family.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australian officials had been providing "appropriate consular assistance" since his detention, but did not offer concrete reasons for the secrecy surrounding his case.

The sentence risked adding to increasingly troubled diplomatic and trade relations between Australia and China, its biggest trade partner.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australian authorities had been in touch with their Chinese counterparts on multiple occasions over his case.

"I and the government are very sad and concerned that an Australian citizen, Mr Karm Gilespie has been sentenced to death in China," he said.

Chinese state media said Gilespie, in his mid-fifties, was arrested on New Year's Eve in 2013 at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, northwest of Hong Kong, with more than 7.5 kilograms (16 pounds) of methamphetamine in his checked luggage.

His arrest was not made public and friends told Australian media they had been confounded by his sudden disappearance.

Gilespie's family issued a statement Monday asking his acquaintances to "refrain from speculating on his current circumstances, which we do not believe assists his case".

"Our family is very saddened by the situation. We will not be making any public comment and ask that the media respects our privacy at this difficult time," they said in the statement issued through the foreign ministry.

- Rising tensions -

The sentence could further damage the increasingly troubled relationship between Beijing and Canberra, with tensions growing recently after China reacted furiously to Australia's call for a probe into the origins of the coronavirus.

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Beijing subsequently imposed tariffs on Australian goods and warned Chinese tourists and students about visiting because of racism Down Under.

China's foreign ministry on Monday said Gillespie's sentence had "nothing to do with relations between the two countries", and said the Australian would have his "lawful rights protected".

China will "facilitate consular visits from the Australian side", foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular press briefing -- although he added he was unsure if China's current virus containment measures might hinder this.

Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said Sunday that Australians "shouldn't necessarily" see Gilespie's sentence as further retaliation by China.

But at least one media figure was quick to make the link.

Greg Sheridan, foreign editor of The Australian newspaper, said the sentencing "has to be seen as Beijing continuing its fierce and increasingly vicious punishments of Australia".

Last year, China sentenced two Canadian nationals to death on drug-trafficking charges during an escalating diplomatic row with Canada over the arrest of top Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Canadian attempts to plead for clemency for Robert Schellenberg and Fan Wei have so far been unsuccessful.
The Katy Area Chamber of Commerce has announced that it will soon be launching a new program geared towards connecting and mobilizing community leaders in the Katy area.

Leadership Katy is a 10-month program open to the general community that will bring business and community leaders together for educational and hands-on training and collaboration.

Its essentially a civic leadership program, explained Matthew Ferraro, Katy Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO. It will address business economic development, health care, unity, school, government, education and community and cultural awareness with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

Related: SUNDAY CONVERSATION: Networking vital to business, says Katy Chamber vice president

Members will meet once a month. Events include retreats, training sessions and government affairs trips to Austin and Washington, D.C.

Participants receive in-depth exposure to the issues facing the community through lectures, discussion groups, on-site visits, simulations, and other leadership development activities, Ferraro said. The program enables participants to develop their leadership capacities, build strong relationships, and prepare themselves for the challenges of the years to come.

MORE FROM CLAIRE GOODMAN: Judge KP George assembles youth leadership council

Graduates from the program, Ferraro believes, will go on to strengthen the Katy community in general. Community leaders can build a better community when you understand what your community's doing, he said. This is about coming together, getting to build deeper relationships - and not just business related, but personal relationships as well.

The class sizes will be small, with fewer than 30 members each year. Smaller classes will create better relationships and stronger graduates, Ferraro said.

ON HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Get your home ready for hurricane season with easy updates

Ferraro stated that the program not only edifies the leadership in the chamber, it contributes to a more diverse chamber. While Fort Bend County is the most racially diverse county in the nation, prior to Ferraros time at the chamber, the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce was predominantly comprised of white males. Even though I wasnt affiliated with the Katy chamber at the time, that really stuck with me, Ferraro said. A chamber should be a representation of the whole community.

The chamber is currently accepting applications for the program, which will begin in August. Applicants do not need to be members of the chamber, although membership fees are reduced for chamber members. Members will meet once a month.

Tuition for the program is $2,500, which covers all transportation, airfare, lodging and meals. Leadership Katy will meet on the second Wednesday of each month.

For more information, or to apply for Leadership Katy, visit www.katychamber.com/leadership-katy

claire.goodman@chron.com
A teenager who pleaded guilty to robbery in the fatal stabbing of Barnard College student Tessa Majors was sentenced on Monday to spend 18 months in a limited secure facility.

The teenager, now 14, was charged as a juvenile, as he was 13 at the time of the murder in December 2019. In June he pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery.

ABCs Aaron Katersky reports for ABC News Radio:

He will serve a minimum of six months in an Administration for Children's Services (ACS) facility, after which ACS officials could make the decision to release him and monitor his progress, according to the New York City Law Department.

His placement can be continued until he turns 18, the law department said. He will get credit for the time served since his arrest.

MORE: 3rd teen suspect in Barnard killing turns himself in

Majors, 18, was stabbed to death on Dec. 11 in upper Manhattan's Morningside Park, just off the campus of Columbia University, as three teenagers tried to rob her.

PHOTO: In this Dec. 26, 2019, file photo, a makeshift memorial stands for 18-year-old Barnard College freshman Tessa Majors in Morningside Park in New York. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images, FILE)

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said Majors' last words were, "Help me! I'm being robbed."

The other two teenage boys arrested, Rashaun Weaver and Luchiano Lewis, were both 14 at the time and were charged as adults.

MORE: Barnard murder: Teens planned to rob male before picking Tessa Majors, suspect said, per police testimony

Weaver is accused of fatally stabbing Majors as Lewis allegedly held her in a headlock.

A victim impact statement from Majors' parent was read in court on Monday.

"There are no words adequate to describe the pain and suffering that the family of Tess Majors has endured since her death by murder," the statement said in part. "On Labor Day weekend 2019, the parents of Tess Majors dropped her off at Barnard College in New York City to begin her freshman year of college. One hundred days later, they brought her home to Virginia in an urn."

The statement claimed that "the respondent has shown a complete lack of remorse or contrition for his role in the murder of Tess Majors. By his own admission, the respondent picked up a knife that had fallen to the ground and handed it to an individual who then used it to stab Tess Majors to death. The family cant help but wonder what would have happened if that knife had been left on the ground."

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Weaver's and Lewis' trials on murder and robbery charges are pending. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Lewis' attorney declined to comment to ABC News on Monday. Weaver's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.

ABC News' Courtney Condron contributed to this report.

Tessa Majors killing: Teen charged as juvenile sentenced to 18 months originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The UK should not lift lockdown rules until the test and trace system is ready to cope with huge numbers of people, a World Health Organization director has warned.

Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO's chief for Europe, said the Government must only take sure-footed steps and not rush into decisions like scrapping the two-metre social distancing rule.

He said test and trace must be 'robust' and ready for 'aggressive' use if the number of new cases starts to soar again.

Dr Kluge said: 'The key words here are to do it gradually. Do it carefully.'

His comments come after data last week showed that the NHS's test and trace system was not able to get co-operation from a third of contacts in its first week.

Britain is gradually returning to something of a normal way of life as restrictions on spending time outdoors, travelling across the country, and meeting up in small groups have all been lifted.

'Non-essential' shops, including clothes stores, will reopen for the first time today, and face coverings over the nose and mouth are now mandatory on public transport.

And Government ministers are coming under pressure to loosen the rule demanding that people stay 2m (6'6") from others who they don't live with. Scientific evidence suggests the majority of infectious droplets do not travel that far, but the Government is sticking to the measure as a precaution.

WHO's director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge (pictured), has said England should exercise caution as it prepares to relax its lockdown measures

Speaking to The Guardian, Dr Kluge said the timing of the end of lockdown is as important as the timing of its start.

He said: 'We know that early lockdowns saved lives and bought some time for the health system to be ready.

'But I would rather than instead of looking to the past, jump to the future and say that the question of lifting the lockdown is as important as going to the lockdown.

'The key words here are to do it gradually. Do it carefully.'

His comments came as the first statistics from England's NHS test and trace system were published last week.

The data showed that the contact tracing system had only managed to get co-operation from two thirds (67 per cent) of people who had been close to someone confirmed to have Covid-19.

Baroness Dido Harding, who leads the test and trace scheme, admitted: 'Is it completely perfect? No, of course it isn't.'

She added: 'We won't have got all of the contacts. Some were unreachable, some didn't want to provide contacts, some said ''well, I've already told my mates I tested positive''.'

The government has now launched a review to decide whether to drop the two-metre rule in place. Pictured: Boris Johnson at Downing Street's press conference

Critics said the fact that thousands of people either refused to follow the self-isolation rules, or could not be contacted at all, was cause for concern and showed the system was still not ready to play a major role in the UK's coronavirus battle.

Dr Kluge told The Guardian: 'Contact tracing is key especially as the UK starts to relax the social and physical distancing measures. There has to be a robust track and trace system in place of operation.

'I would like to reply [to questions about the first results of the system] and say we need an effective tracking system in place, it is one of the measures that we recommend that are in place now.'

Dr Kluge added that with summer holidays on the horizon, it was important that Europe did not become complacent and crucial that governments issue the flu vaccine to those who were vulnerable.

The Test and Trace scheme requires anyone who has been in close contact with an infected person to self-isolate for 14 days

Yesterday Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the government had put in place a 'comprehensive review' of the current social distancing guidelines

Under the Track and Trace scheme, Britons who have been in close contact with infected patients are being told to self-isolate for 14 days, even if they are asymptomatic.

The scheme will require anyone who develops symptoms associated with the coronavirus to get tested by ordering a test online or by calling 119.

If a patient tests positive they must remain in isolation and will be asked to share phone numbers and email addresses for close contacts.

Those who are listed will then receive a text message or email asking them to self-isolate for 14 days depending on the point at which they came in contact with the infected person.

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.

The WHO chief's comments come as Mr Sunak confirmed the government had put in place a 'comprehensive review' of the current social distancing guidelines.

Speaking on Sky News yesterday he said: 'The Prime Minister has put in place a comprehensive review of the two-metre rule. That review will involve the scientists, economists and others so that we can look at it in the round.

'I know that of course it's the difference between three-quarters and maybe a third of pubs opening, for example, so it's important that we look at it.'

Britain's test and trace failure: Official data shows a THIRD of Covid-infected Brits refused to give details of contacts or couldn't be tracked down as head of flagship scheme Baroness Dido Harding admits it's 'not at the gold standard yet'

Britain's test and trace fiasco deepened again last wek after damning figures showed Number 10's flagship system had only tracked down the contacts of two thirds of Covid-19 patients in its first week.

Between May 28 and June 3, 8,117 people who tested positive for the coronavirus were referred to the NHS's flagship scheme.

But shocking statistics showed contact tracers could only get information from 67 per cent of them (5,407).

Hundreds did not respond to phone calls or refused to give details of people they had been in contact with, the Department of Health admitted in another blow to the scheme that has been described as 'shambolic' by workers.

Baroness Dido Harding  the head of the test and trace scheme  admitted it wasn't yet 'at the gold standard we want to be'. She added: 'Is it completely perfect? No, of course it isn't.'

She added: 'We wont have got all of the contacts. Some were unreachable, some didnt want to provide contacts, some said "well, Ive already told my mates I tested positive".'

But officials said they were happy with test and trace's performance so far, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock repeated his plea for people to use the system, saying it was the 'civic duty' of people to take part if they were contacted.

The data came as feedback from the Isle of Wight suggested that the NHS's long-awaited coronavirus contact tracing app  which has yet to be rolled-out  could be an effective way to stop the spread of the disease.

Just two new cases of the illness have been discovered on the island since the app's initial trial ended on May 26  a noticeable drop on the 45 cases spotted during the trial, suggesting it stopped patients from infecting other people.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously promised the app, then considered a vital part of the government's test and trace strategy, would be ready to be rolled out across the UK by the middle of May.

He claimed that the test and trace system is 'already helping to stop the spread of the virus'. The Health Secretary added the system was 'key to helping us to return to a more normal way of life.'

But repeated delays have meant the app  now considered the cherry on top of the cake  is still unavailable anywhere except the Isle of Wight.

Staff paid up to 27-an-hour to ring contacts of infected patients have described the test and trace scheme as 'shambolic', with call handlers warning the system was 'obviously not ready' when it was launched in England at the end of May.

In the first week of the service, 26,985 contacts were successfully reached and 85 per cent agreed to self-isolate for a fortnight. But it means that the army of 25,000 staff hired to only contacted one person each for the whole week, on average.

It is not clear how many of these contacts later tested positive for Covid-19 themselves because, controversially, people are not routinely tested after being contacted.

The same test rules that apply to the public continue to apply to them and officials said they did not have data to show how many people had reappeared in the system as patients.

Between May 28 and June 3, 8,117 people who tested positive for the coronavirus were referred to the NHS's flagship scheme. But shocking statistics show contact tracers could only get information from 67 per cent of them (5,407)

Of those people who were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, just over three-quarters (79 per cent) were contacted within 24 hours of their case being transferred to the Test and Trace system. Some 14 per cent were contacted between 24 and 48 hours, 3 per cent between 48 and 72 hours, and 4 per cent were contacted after 72 hours

The nationwide test and trace figures, released by the Department of Health on June 11, cover the period between May 28 and June 3.

Overall 31,794 contacts were identified  the equivalent of almost six (5.8) for every infected patient. Only 26,985 of these contacts  85 per cent  were successfully tracked down and advised to self-isolate, the statistics revealed.

LONG-AWAITED NHS CONTACT-TRACING APP COULD CUT DOWN NEW CASES, ISLE OF WIGHT TRIAL SUGGESTS The NHS's long-awaited coronavirus contact tracing app could be an effective way to cut down new cases and stop the spread of the disease, a trial on the Isle of Wight has suggested. Just two new cases of the illness have been discovered on the island, which is home to around 140,000 people, since the app's initial trial ended on May 26. This was a noticeable drop on the 45 cases spotted during the trial, suggesting that it worked by tracking the spread of the disease early on and stopped those patients from infecting other people. Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously promised the app, then considered a vital part of the government's test and trace strategy, would be ready to be rolled out across the UK by the middle of May. But repeated delays have meant the app  now considered the cherry on top of the cake  is still unavailable anywhere except the Isle of Wight. Results from the island must be taken with a pinch of salt, however, because the numbers of patients are so small there is a large margin for error, and it may actually be an increase in testing capacity which has helped to contain the outbreak. Officials are now said to be reconsidering the importance they had placed on the app and instead focusing on 'traditional' contact tracing using human staff. Advertisement

The programme said the number of people reached includes those who provided details about recent contacts or whose cases have been investigated as part of an outbreak.

The number that were not reached includes those where contact details were unavailable or incorrect, or where there has been no response to text, email and call reminders. It also includes people who the service has been able to contact but who refused to hand over details of their contacts.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that people had a 'civic duty' to work with the NHS Test and Trace system, describing it as the 'radar' for tracking coronavirus.

At the Downing Street press conference on Thursday he said the system would continue to improve and he was 'confident it will be world class'.

Mr Hancock said: 'Testing for the virus and tracing how it spreads is critical for containing it locally, so that we can ease the national lockdown.

'It's by isolating the virus that we can control it and we can stop it spreading through our communities.

'In this plan to lift lockdown, test and trace is our radar, if you like, it helps us identify where the virus is and trace how it is spreading through the community.'

Contact tracers try 10 times to reach someone in the first 24 hours after they have been referred to the service, attempting to get through to them by email, phone and text.

Of those people who were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, just over three-quarters (79 per cent) were contacted within 24 hours of their case being transferred to the Test and Trace system.

Some 14 per cent were contacted between 24 and 48 hours, three per cent between 48 and 72 hours, and four per cent were contacted after 72 hours.

Finding people fast is vital for the system to work because the plan is for it to find potentially-infected people before they start to show symptoms and pass the virus on to other people.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, said: 'Tracing is vital to the safe easing of lockdown.

'Though this is early data, Matt Hancock needs to explain why a third of people dont appear to have been contacted and what action they will take to rectify this.'

Professor Keith Neal, an epidemiologist at the University of Nottingham, said: 'Being unable to contact 33 per cent of diagnosed cases is a concern particularly as a mobile number is involved in requesting the test.

'Some of these are part of other investigations including those related to care facilities  this data should be obtainable and identifiable. Nearly 80 per cent of those reached were contacted in a timely manner.

'An absolutely crucial part of the test and trace system is the public committing to it  the system can not work without the publics involvement.'

Baroness Harding  who was chief executive of TalkTalk when it was rocked by a huge cyber attack in 2015  admitted the system was not yet where she wanted it to be.

She said: 'We are not at the gold standard yet that we want to be, of isolating all contacts within 48 hours of someone requesting a test. But you can absolutely see the path of how we are going to get there.'
By Trend

As many as 2,449 people have been infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 24 hours in Iran, said Sima Sadat Lari, spokesman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Trend reports citing the ministry.

According to Sadat Lari, 113 more people have died from the coronavirus over the past day.

Sadat Lari added that the condition of 2,765 people is critical.

So far, more than 1.26 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 189,800 people have been infected, 8,950 people have already died. Meanwhile, over 150,500 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.

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 us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Joe Biden's search for a running mate has advanced to the next phase as his campaign conducts more extensive reviews of some prospects, including at least several African American women, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Among the candidates who have progressed to the point of more comprehensive vetting or have the potential to do so are Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., former national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, all of whom are black. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is white, is also in that group, as is New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is Latina.

The pool of prospects remains fluid, and some close Biden allies suggested other contenders could also face the more intensive vetting process. The people describing the situation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive private conversations and an evolving search process.

The Biden campaign declined to comment. Biden has vowed to choose a woman, and Biden has repeatedly stressed that he wants a running mate who is "simpatico" with him.

The candidates who continue to be under consideration by the campaign reflect in part the growing prominence of African American women amid a national uproar over police violence and racism that has sparked protests around the country. These developments have added pressure on Biden to select a black woman as his ticket mate.

"I think that a ticket that is not reflective of the diversity of this country is a ticket that is doomed to fail," said Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, who said she has long felt Biden should pick a black woman and feels "even more so now."

More News Health experts warn of coronavirus risks at Trump's upcoming rally

Biden's search is attracting even more attention than that of most candidates because at 77, he would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. Beyond potential health issues, some Democrats believe that if elected, Biden might not seek a second term, giving his vice president an early advantage in the race to become the next chief executive.

In a recent interview with CBS News, Biden said the national upheaval of recent weeks has not affected his decision beyond placing "a greater focus and urgency on the need to get someone who is totally simpatico with where I am."

But many Biden allies believe the protests have upended the calculations Biden must make. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who was once seen by Biden allies as a leading candidate, has seen her stock fall recently in their eyes.

As outrage has grown over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who lost his life when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as he cried out that he could not breathe, Klobuchar's record as a local prosecutor has come under criticism from activists. They contend she was too tough on black and brown people and not hard enough on the police, contributing to systemic problems.

Another variable is the pressure Biden faces from some quarters of the party to give strong consideration to a Latina running mate. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., took herself out of the running last month, leaving Lujan Grisham as the most prominent Latina prospect.

Others who have been mentioned by Biden allies include Sens. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs in the Iraq War and is Asian American. Baldwin hails from a crucial state President Donald Trump won in 2016 and was the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.

"She has an appeal that goes way beyond the obvious political candidate," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., of Duckworth. "I believe they are taking her seriously." Durbin has been in touch with Biden and his associates.

Another Midwestern Democrat who has received at least some consideration is Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who Biden has previously said was on the list.

The Biden campaign is expected to undertake a deep scrub of the backgrounds of its finalists, requesting documents and answers to personal questions. Those who have received close consideration in past years say the process was intense.

"We got a 129-question survey to answer," said former Housing and Urban Development secretary Julian Castro, who was vetted by Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. "You sit for hours with teams of lawyers to go over your personal, financial, political history."

Biden has tasked a group of four allies - former senator Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and former White House counsel Cynthia Hogan - to spearhead his running mate selection process.

Of the group getting a closer look from the campaign, Harris stands out for her experience on the national political stage. She is the only black woman in America who is currently either a U.S. senator or a governor, and she ran for president against Biden in the Democratic primaries.

Several top Biden allies said this past week that they increasingly view Harris as the best fit to be Biden's running mate. They believe the senator from California, a former state attorney general, could appeal to the party's activist wing as well as its professional class, helping Biden meet a challenging moment of upheaval on race.

Rice has never sought or held elective office, but she has the most extensive record of dealing with foreign governments and representing the United States on the world stage. She served as ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser during the Obama administration. She has faced criticism, however, for her public comments about the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including two U.S. diplomats, which she later acknowledged were not fully accurate.

Demings has also emerged as an intriguing prospect to many Democrats. She hails from the nation's largest swing state and made history as the first female chief of the Orlando Police Department.

Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., said Demings "has a tremendous background" and the "added importance" of being from Florida. Crist said he expressed his enthusiasm for Demings on a recent call with Dodd.

Still, the law enforcement backgrounds of Harris and Demings are likely to face public scrutiny and receive close attention from the campaign officials vetting them. In recent years, liberal activists have grown more skeptical of prosecutors and police, and the current protests have focused on law enforcement's treatment of African Americans.

Bottoms, an early Biden endorser, has received national attention for her widely praised response to Floyd's killing and the resulting protests in her city.

Warren, who like Harris ran against Biden in the primaries, developed a reputation during the race as an ideas candidate with detailed plans for advancing a liberal agenda, particularly on economic issues.

Some Democrats who have spoken with Biden said they have not been given an indication that he is leaning toward any specific candidate. Biden said at a May 27 virtual fundraiser that he hoped to name his vice-presidential pick around Aug. 1. "We're in the process of deciding the basic cut - about whether or not they really want it. Are they comfortable?" he said that day.

Former Georgia gubernatorial nominee and state House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who has shown strong interest in the job but has drawn skepticism from some Biden allies questioning her experience, said on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" that she would answer if called, but "I have not received any calls."

The former vice president has been guarded about discussing specific candidates in his public remarks, but he has occasionally revealed some details. He has previously disclosed that Demings was under consideration and said that more than one African American woman was in the mix.

Crist, a former Republican who was vetted by John McCain's campaign in 2008, said the experience "can be grueling."

"It's like a no-stone-unturned kind of process," Crist said. "Which it should be."
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Several other opposition forces have joined the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) in condemning as politically motivated criminal proceedings launched against its leader Gagik Tsarukian.

The National Security Service (NSS) interrogated Tsarukian for more than eight hours on Sunday after searching his home and announcing the launch of three separate criminal investigations into the wealthy businessman heading Armenias largest parliamentary opposition party.

Tsarukian and his associates denounced the crackdown as government retribution for the BHK leaders recent strong criticism of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and demands for his resignation.

The Bright Armenia Party (LHK), the second opposition group represented in the parliament, likewise said on Monday that the countrys political leadership ordered the criminal proceedings in a bid to silence a key political opponent.

The Bright Armenia Party strongly condemns criminal prosecutions resulting from political expediency and carried out through a selective enforcement of the law, read a statement issued by the party leadership.

The LHK also criticized the Armenian police for detaining at least 252 BHK supporters who protested against the NSS actions against Tsarukian outside the NSS headquarters in Yerevan. The police argue that the demonstration was illegal because it was held during a coronavirus-related state of emergency in the country.

Other opposition groups, which are not represented in the National Assembly, condemned the crackdown in even stronger terms. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) claimed that it is part of Pashinians attempts to establish dictatorship. The recently formed Hayrenik (Fatherland) party of former NSS Director Artur Vanetsian accused the authorities of fabricating the cases against Tsarukian.

A Dashnaktsutyun leader, Ishkhan Saghatelian, confirmed that he hosted on Sunday a meeting with senior representatives of the BHK, Hayrenik and two other opposition parties that discussed the latest developments in Armenia. The LHK did not take part in the talks.

Saghatelian told RFE/RLs Armenian service that despite their overall mutual understanding the participants did not reach any concrete agreements. We will meet again if need be, he said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Office of Prosecutor-General insisted on Monday that the controversial investigations into Tsarukians business activities are not politically motivated. Pashinian also denied through his press secretary issuing any orders to the investigators.
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Police officials confirmed that Sushant Singh Rajput was under medication for depression

Sushant Singh Rajput's last rites will take place on Monday at Vile Parle crematorium, reports Press Trust of India. Confirming the news, Rajput's spokesperson said that the deceased actor's last rites will be performed after his father reaches Mumbai from Patna.

The police have confirmed that the deceased actor was battling depression. According to a police official, authorities found out during the probe, that the 34-year-old actor was under medication for depression.

No suicide note was found from the spot, the official added.

Mumbai Police as well as the crime branch officials visited his rented flat on Sunday, but nothing suspicious was found. Rajput had been living with two cooks and a house help.

As per Asian News International, a post mortem has been conducted and further details of the autopsy report are awaited. The post mortem was conducted at Mumbai's Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital.

"His body was found hanging at his Bandra residence today. We are investigating," Manoj Sharma, additional commissioner of police, Western Region, told Press Trust of India. An accidental death report will be registered on the basis of preliminary information sources from the Bandra Police said.

Police officials also told the news agency that they did not find any foul play in their initial investigation.

Editor's note: This article had inadvertently referred to the Vile Parle crematorium (which is located near the Pawan Hans Hub) as the Pawan Hans crematorium. This has been corrected.

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A collection of Suicide prevention helpline numbers are available here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669
After last years 20000mAh Mi Power Bank 3, Xiaomi has announced its new 30000mAh Mi Power Bank 3 in China with support for maximum 24W (9V-2.6A) USB Type-C input and 18W output offering fast charging. It can charge Mi 10 and K30 Pro up to 4.5 times and the iPhone SE 2020 10.5 times. It has Polycarbonate and ABS body and comes with two USB Type-A ports with a maximum 18W output.

The power bank has four LED charge indicators as well as a button on the side, similar to 20000mAh Mi Power Bank model. It also has lower power mode to charge accessories like Mi Band and headsets. The company says that you are not allowed to carry the power bank in flights since 20000mAh is the maximum capacity allowed.

Xiaomi 30000mAh Mi Power Bank 3 specifications

30000mAh, 3.7V, 111Wh battery

2 x USB Type-A Output  5V-2.4A / 9V-2A / 12V-1.5A

USB Type-C Output 5V-3A / 9V-1A / 12V-1.5A

USB Type-C Input  5V-3A / 9V-2.6A

Micro USB Input  5V-2A / 9V-2A

Protection from over current, over-power, short circuit

Dimensions: 154.572.328.3mm

Charging time: 7.5 hours (24W charger); 10 hours (18W charger)

The Xiaomi 30000mAh Mi Power Bank 3 comes in Black color, is priced at 169 yuan (US$ 23.8 / Rs. 1,810 approx.) and will go on sale in China through mi.com from June 18th.
Whelan was under surveillance for a number of years; there was a certain script, and there were obvious elements of provocation, Zherebenkov said. The lawyer added that over the course of many trips to Russia, Whelan got to know about 60 people, but not a single one has stated that Paul tried to recruit them.
NEWTOWN  A triathlon summer camp organized in the name of a slain Sandy Hook Elementary School first-grader has found a way around the coronavirus crisis by offering a modified program for kids who want to swim, bike and run.

Instead of a six-week program with a finale featuring 3,000 spectators, the Race4Chase program has proposed an abbreviated two-week program that starts later in the summer, to take advantage of easing reopening restrictions.

In certain areas, we know there are people who are desperate for summer camps, said Kevin Grimes, executive director of the Chase Michael-Anthony Kowalski Sandy Hook Memorial Foundation, which runs the triathlon camp in conjunction with 28 YMCAs in Connecticut and three other states. On top of that, kids want to come back to compete because they had such a great experience the year before  some kids learned how to swim and bike at these camps.

Chase Kowalski was one of the 20 first-graders and six educators who were slain during the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. The childs parents converted their grief into action, forming a nonprofit to honor his spirit by providing grants to run free triathlon camps.

This year was supposed to be the biggest Race4Chase triathlon camp season to date, with 16 sites in Connecticut and 12 others in South Carolina, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

It was also supposed to be the year that a Race4Chase camp was going to be located in Newtown for the first time, at the newly built Community Center on the towns sprawling 185-acre Fairfield Hills campus.

But in late April as the COVID-19 pandemic surged in Connecticut, the CMAK foundation was forced to cancel its camps.

Since then, the state has seen a steady decline in coronavirus hospitalizations  a reliable sign that the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak is behind Connecticut for now. In response, the state has been deliberately reopening beaches, parks, hair salons, hotels, offices, retail stores and restaurants. On Wednesday, the state plans to reopen amusement parks, gyms, libraries, nail salons, tattoo shops and theaters, all with social distancing and infection-control rules.

As a result, the CMAK foundation proposed an abbreviated triathlon camp to its participating sites.

No one is happier about the decision than staff at Newtowns Community Center, which is preparing for its own phased reopening on June 22.

The Race4Chase camp is the perfect program to be offered at the Community Center and to be hosted on the Fairfield Hills campus, said Matthew Ariniello, Newtown Community Center director.

The camp registration in Newtown is booked. Information about camps that may be providing the modified Race4Chase program at nearby YMCAs in Brookfield, Milford, Stratford, Trumbull and Wilton-Norwalk is expected soon at cmakfoundation.org.
Cairo International Airport received on Monday the first special flight of the airbridge repatriating over 3,000 nationals stranded in Qatar through Omans capital Muscat.

The Air Cairo flight had 174 nationals on board, who were taken from Qatar to a transit in Muscat, from which they were flown to Egypt, Al-Ahram reported.

Egypt announced last week that it will operate 18 special flights starting Monday to repatriate 3,000 nationals stranded in Qatar through Muscat.

Egyptian authorities agreed with the Omani airliner Al-Salam to transport stranded Egyptians in Qatar to Muscat, who would then be taken by Egyptian airliners from Muscat to Cairo.

In late May, dozens of Egyptians stranded in Qatar demonstrated in front of the headquarters of the Egyptian Embassy in Doha demanding to return to Egypt.

Videos of the protests in front of the embassy were circulated on social media.

Egypts immigration minister Nabila Makram said earlier this month that Qatari authorities did not take any measures against Egyptians in Qatar and that to the ministrys knowledge, none of the Egyptian workers' contracts were terminated.

Makram said there are roughly 70,000 Egyptian nationals in Qatar, according to official records, but that the real number probably exceeds 300,000.

There have been no direct flights between Qatar and Egypt since June 2017 when Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain cut most political, trade and transport ties with the Gulf state over charges it supports terrorism, which Doha has denied.

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Since the arrest and detention of Mubarak Bala, the atheist community in Nigeria has been afflicted by a more virulent form of Taqiyyah. Some Muslim individuals, who are seeking to fulfill imagined protective duties, have reached out to atheist and humanist organizations.

These questers for this-worldly and otherworldly gains, desirers of Ummah capital, and transcendental mileage have been the prowl. Even before the arrest of Bala, Taqiyyah Muslims were there. Taqqiyyah lurked in the underground atheist movement and is linked to Bala's arrest, the outing of atheists, and a clampdown on freethinkers in the region. In the post-Bala-arrest dispensation, Taqqiyah is taking a more insidious and desperate dimension as Muslim zealots seek to consummate their jihadist intent.

From the Arabic word, waqa which means to shield oneself, Taqiyyah is a practice in Islam of concealing one's religious dispositions due to threats of murder and persecution. It is deployed as a protective gear for Muslim individuals or communities especially minorities living in majority sections. In the context of the atheist movement, Taqiyyah Muslims are double-faced Muslims who deceive and lie about their identity and intent.

They have a real face, which represents their authentic Muslim identity. And the other face which they assume to commit mischief. Amphibian in nature, Taqiyyah Muslims display abilities to blow hot and cold at different times, and claim to hold religiously contradictory positions. They approbate and reprobate for the sake of Allah and Islam. Taqiyyah Muslims present themselves as atheists while concealing their Muslimness. They pretend to be ex Muslims or non-Muslims. They infiltrate atheist networks mainly to gather information for their Muslim sponsors and interest groups. These special forces of Mujahideen spy for the Islamic establishment where their genuine loyalty lies. They are the secret service agents of the Ummah. Taqiyyah Muslims indulge in religious espionage. They strive to fulfill a sacred obligation that is confessionally meant to earn them Allah's reward in the hereafter. Simply put, Taqiyyah is a religious duty. Atheists in Muslim dominated communities are in danger not really because Allah exists and has the power to harm or punish them in any way. Atheists are endangered mainly due to the treacherous exploits of Taqiyyah Muslims.

Some Taqiyyah Muslims are members of various atheists, humanists, and freethought groups. In most cases, they are dormant, and seldom participate in physical meetings. These Muslims joined in lodging a petition against Bala and in supplying information to those who brought the petition. Recently some persons outed a former Taqiyyah Muslim, who is gay to highlight his hypocrisy. This Taqiyyah gay Muslim used fake and multiple Facebook identities to infiltrate atheist networks and gathered information about atheists and atheism in the region.

It is these Taqiyyah Muslims who compiled the so-called list of atheists that the petitioners said they would use to "pick up" other atheists who would be prosecuted along with Mr. Bala.

Since the arrest of Bala, two persons have been exposed as Taqiyyah Muslims who are trying to out and implicate atheists. They used multiple Facebook accounts to disguise and hide their real identities. They used these accounts to contact atheists pretending to be in danger. These fake ex-Muslims asked for support or asked to join the humanist organizations. They set up accounts and used them to send known atheists friend requests on Facebook.

In these two cases, local contacts cross-checked and discovered that they were spies working for the petitioner-Muslims. One of them, MH contacted some humanists stating that the sharia police, Hishba, detained him for denouncing Islam. He wanted to join an atheist organization. After some background checks, local sources advised that MH was "a scam and belonged to the group looking for ex-Muslims to be arrested".

In another fraudulent move to infiltrate the atheist network, MH opened a second Facebook account with the name Bala Fred Mubarak. After some investigations, it was discovered that MH was using this Bala-like identity to confused and entrap atheists. In a related development. local and international atheist leaders have also been approached by another Taqiyyah Muslim, GM. Like MH, GM claimed to be ex-Muslim seeking help and support from atheists. Some people sent the contact details to an atheist in the area. After making some inquiries, an atheist source in the region stated: "He is a confirmed spy for those guys who are threatening and intimidating atheists. No doubt about it".

It is interesting to see how those claiming to be angry over Bala's Facebook posts and are campaigning to have him jailed or killed are using the same Facebook to perpetrate fraud and mischief.
Police in India were called to a park in the middle of the night by local people who reported 'paranormal activity' after outdoor gym equipment started apparently moving by itself.

Officers in Kashiram Park in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, filmed the bizarre sight that confronted them on on June 11 as a shoulder press machine noisily moved up and down despite there being no one using it.

They soon discovered that rather than being the work of a phantom fitness freak, it was down to pranksters who had liberally lubricated the machine and set it in motion.

Officers were called to Kashiram Park in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India, on June 11 after reports of 'paranormal activity'

At the beginning of the clip, the equipment moves quickly and makes a banging noise as a crowded of uniformed officers look on and film.

But the machine gradually loses momentum and gets quieter as the footage carries on.

A local source said: 'The mischievous act was down to a few miscreants who had applied grease to the moving part.

'With a light push, the machine was able to operate without supervision due to the greasy nature of it.'
Police at the scene of a security alert on Waterloo Street in Derry. Credit: Leona O'Neill

Two people have been arrested after a security alert in Londonderry in which suspected guns were found.

Police received a report of firearms at an address in Waterloo Street in the city shortly before 5am on Monday morning.

Officers responded and, as a precaution, the Army bomb squad called in to examine the items, which have been taken away for further examination.

As a result Waterloo Street was closed for a time, however, it has since been reopened.

A man, aged 24, and a woman, aged 28, were arrested on suspicion of firearms offences and they both remain in police custody at this time.

Police thanked residents for their patience during the disruption.

Meanwhile a number of homes in west Belfast were evacuated following the discovery of a suspicious object on Springifeld Avenue.

The object was examined and declared a hoax, and was taken away for further examination.

Springfield Avenue has been reopened.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, June 16 police confirmed the man and woman were released on police bail pending further investigation.
By Express News Service

Karnataka ranks tenth in states with the highest number of COVID-19 positive cases with 7,000, of which 2,956 are active cases, and 86 deaths, as on June 14. However, the state with a population of 6.5 crore has handled the situation by far better than many other states in the country to contain the spread and keep the numbers down.

Neighbouring Maharashtra leads the COVID-19 tally with 1,04,568 cases, of which 51,379 are active cases and 3,830 deaths. Early understanding of the problem and measures put in place helped Karnataka contain the pandemic and win laurels. Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Lav Agarwal, openly appreciated Karnatakas Corona war rooms and technology used to provide information and statistics to citizens, the media and experts.

The state has two COVID-19 war rooms -- the state war room and the BBMP war room  which collate data on cases, areas, patients age, compounded growth rate, tests per million, cases per million, transmission type, deaths per million, positivity rate, active and former containment zones, quarantined numbers, etc. The New Indian Express takes a look at teams at various levels who played a stellar role in keeping figures down to impressively contain the spread.

BS YEDIYURAPPA, Chief Minister

At 78, BS Yediyurappa has been at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19. He was one of the first few chief ministers to take precautionary measures against the virus spread. On March 13, almost two weeks before the Union government ordered a lockdown, Yediyurappa had decided to announce a partial lockdown in high-risk districts. This was later extended to the entire state effectively slowing down the infection rates. Even as he steered his team of ministers and bureaucrats, Yediyurappa did not forget the frontline workers and announced insurance policies for policemen and Asha workers  who had been excluded in the Union governments COVID insurance scheme.

On one side, he went on city tours to interact with residents and assess the economic impact of the lockdown and on the other, announced an economic relief package of over Rs 2000 crore to help struggling farmers and labourers. After the initial controversy, Yediyurappa decided to pay for tickets of migrants returning on Sharamik Express trains and KSRTC buses. He was also one of the first CMs to push for resuming economic activities to salvage revenues. He also ensured social harmony was not disrupted with his stern warning against communalising COVID.

Dr C N ASHWATH NARAYAN Deputy Chief Minister

Coupling his professional experience with best use of technology, Dr CN Ashwath Narayan pushed for telemedicine in Karnataka in the backdrop of COVID-19. From holding talks with industries, Nasscom, investors and IT-BT giants, he struck a balance between precaution and progress throughout the crisis. With video conferences, including one with the American Consul, he engaged with potential investors in the state in a post-COVID era.

Dr K SUDHAKAR Medical Education Minister

From responding to the oppositions questions over COVID-19 in the Assembly to keeping track of every single COVID testing lab in the State, Dr K Sudhakar has been hands-on in handling COVID. Despite healthcare not being under his ministry directly, he was made in-charge of operations to contain the virus. The first of Karnataka ministers to push for TTT  Trace, Test and Treat formula, he has been at the forefront of ensuring virtual training for frontline workers, including doctors and nurses on handling COVID. Sudhakar cut across party and state lines to connect with Kerala Health Minister Shailaja to exchange best practices in containing the virus.

EXEMPLARY DISTRICTS

CHAMARAJANAGAR 1 CASE, NO DEATHS

Strict enforcement kept numbers almost zero. Chamarajanagar has turned into a role model district in Karnataka for remaining a green zone with just one positive case. Incidentally, the first and the only case is of a medical student from Mumbai who had come with his mother to his uncles house in Hanur. The district conducted more than 2,700 tests, all of which proved negative. As the backward district is situated between red zones in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Mysuru, the district administration took stringent measures to seal interstate, inter-district and inter taluk borders, besides enforcing strict lockdown norms to prevent the infection spread. They closed wildlife sanctuaries and places of worship. Village heads helped in fighting the virus effectively.

KODAGU 3 CASES, NO DEATHS

Peoples support helped contain cases. Immense support from residents district and relevant district-level decisions helped Kodagu fight COVID efficiently, officials said. The first major decision that helped us contain the pandemic was when we traced the route map of the first P-15 case and identified primary contacts within 24 hours. Timely orders from the DC and SP and team work too helped. Next important decision was when we closed borders with Kerala and further, local intelligence helped us trace inter-district and inter-state travellers. After the lockdown was relaxed, we ensured that inter-state travellers were shifted to institutional quarantine from the checkpost, said Ananya Vasudev, in-charge official of NDRF. Kodagu DC Annies K Joy said that public support helped contain the disease.

UDUPI 1,005 CASES, NO DEATH

Impressive administration despite high numbers. Udupi has seen 1,005 positive cases and leads the districts with the highest tally in the state. But so far, it has kept its mortality to just one. The administration of district, which has seen a heavy influx from Maharashtra, Telangana, the Gulf and UAE, has been proactive in identifying, tracking, and quarantining the returnees. They tested vulnerable travellers on priority and identified and treated cases early. DC G Jagadeesha ensured proper communication with the public through short videos on awareness. Cases were managed in designated hospitals based on clinical categories. Asymptomatic patients were moved to government hospitals, but those who were critical were treated at Dr TMA Pai Hospital, which is attached to Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

MYSURU 114 CASES, NO DEATHS

The district had zero cases at one point. Mysurus district administration was the first to bring down active cases count to zero (now 20) during the first wave of COVID and has managed to keep the mortality at zero. Mysuru city managed to be one up on the disease despite the presence of multiple clusters  including the mysterious Nanjangud pharma case. The timely contact-tracing by surveillance teams led by district surveillance officer Dr T Shivaprasad, coupled with containment measures, acted as the first line of defence. The health team led by DHO Venkatesh and District Surgeon H R Rajeshwari offered top-notch treatment. The captain of the ship, DC Abhiram G Sankar, led the battle by setting up a COVID-designated hospital from scratch. The role of Police Commissioner Dr Chandragupta and SP C B Ryshyanth was commendable.

KOPPAL 13 CASES, NO DEATHS

Team work, planning behind success. Though people and officials took time to realise the enormity of the pandemic in January-February, they got into the act as soon as the nationwide lockdown was announced in March-end. In fact, district, police, health and urban local body officials put in a lot of effort to preempt possibilities of an outbreak. The district administration also took up a vast awareness campaign in rural areas. An official said that Deputy Commissioner P Sunilkumar had a grasp on the imminent fallout of the pandemic. He was a step ahead in taking precautionary measures, such as identifying many government buildings for quarantine centres.

THE STARS AMONG OFFICIALS

Jawaid Akhtar

Additional Chief Secretary, Health And Family Welfare Department

Initially, when the state started its war against COVID-19, there was no expert committee to study the virus strain here. But Jawaid Akhtar decided to form a technical expert committee of epidemiologists to evolve measures to contain the virus. Akhtar made a bold move of procuring Personal Protection Equipment (PPEs) from China. Starting with zero PPEs to bringing in four lakh PPEs, it was a significant step. He also initiated training programmes in association with the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences for doctors, nurses and other staff on how to handle COVID cases. Akhtar also established tele-ICU and alarm tests, involving both public and private sectors.

PANKAJ KUMAR PANDEY

Commissioner, Health And Family Welfare Department

As the state health commissioner, Pankaj Kumar Pandey is one of the officials leading Karnatakas fight against COVID-19. Pandey and his team ensured that the COVID containment measures started from January 30 itself. From screening of international passengers to stamping passengers for home quarantine and then bringing in the new quarantine rules of sending the home quarantined people to mass quarantine if they violated the rules, his directions were invaluable. His team also extended screening from the airport to other public places like the High Court, Vidhan Soudha, Vikas Soudha and MS Building.

MUNISH MOUDGIL

Nodal Officer, Incharge Of State War Room

Munish Moudgil has left no stone unturned in providing day-to-day analysis of all districts from the state war room. He has even developed many apps to check on people with symptoms and those under home quarantine. His analyses have helped in identifying hot spots, clusters and risk areas using GIS analysis. Moudgil and his team finds out Moudgil and his team can find out whether a person has visited the fever clinic or not. If not, the health department is put on duty to get the person to do the tests. Similarly, the health of migrant labourers is tracked through apps. Another app keeps track of healthy people, primary and secondary contacts.

B H ANIL KUMAR

Commissioner, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

The BBMP, which often recieves flak, has surprisingly done well during the COVID crisis. B H Anil Kumar, BBMP Commissioner, has been very active throughout and has ensured that BBMP officials are carrying out their duties. He formed quick response teams in all zones which are in charge of surveillance and quarantining of primary and secondary contacts. He and his officers have identified hotels, hostels and guest rooms as quarantine centres. He has taken the lead in creating containment zones and putting measures in place effectively. He has conducted many spot inspections to check the situation on the ground and advises officers on taking effective measures.

ABHIRAM G SANKAR

Deputy Commissioner, Mysuru

Mysuru DC Abhiram G Sankar is leading the COVID fight by example. From timely contract tracing to fighting fake news, his leadership has helped Mysuru move from top of the chart to the bottom. Abhiram successfully fought the first wave of the pandemic by bringing down 94 active cases to zero with zero mortality, a recognition which it holds till date. The DC has been instrumental in setting up a COVID-designated hospital from the scratch and handling of the mysterious Nanjangud pharma cluster case effectively. Endorsed even by his seniors, this 2011-batch IAS officer has tactfully fought fake news mills through his social media connect by providing first-hand information.

Using tech to tackle the virus

COVID-19 WEBSITE

The COVID website  www.COVID19.karnataka.gov.in  is a one-stop shop for all information, including media bulletins, software and apps. Addresses of inter-state arrivals without revealing their names and personal details are also put up on the site.

APTHAMITRA HELPLINE

The Apthamitra helpline with a toll-free number 14410 and the app were launched to help identify people with ILI, SARI and COVID-like symptoms. It also intends to identify low-risk people having some symptoms similar to COVID and provide them telemedicine support.

CONTACT TRACING & DASOHA 2020 APPS

The Contact Tracing app has a database of primary and secondary contacts of COVID-positive patients. The DASOHA 2020 app, along with the Hunger Helpline 155214, were launched to provide food to migrant workers, unorganised sector labourers and others.

SEVA SINDHU APP

The Seva Sindhu app deals with the exodus and influx of migrant labourers, and also helps people register themselves for travelling in or out of Karnataka. It now also allows applicants to register themselves for seeking one-time financial relief meant for barbers, washermen, auto and cab drivers, powerloom and handloom workers, etc.

GEOSPATIAL MAP

The geospatial map, from the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre, provides information on containment zones, hotposts, patient location, primary and secondary contacts, testing and collection centres, isolation centres, medical colleges, hospitals and fever clinics.
The Guardian/ YouTube

The parents of a seven-year-old child who was allegedly sprayed with mace by police at a peaceful protest in Seattle have spoken out about the traumatising incident.

Footage of the protest that showed the boy screaming in pain while protesters attempt to help by using a milk-like substance to wash the childs eyes went viral online at the beginning of June.

The video also shows protesters confronting the officers allegedly involved in spraying the child and asking for their badge numbers. One officer allegedly refused to give the protesters his badge number.

Mando Avery, the father of the seven-year-old, told The Guardian that he and his son had just finished praying with members of their church as part of a peaceful anti-racism protest when a police officer fired mace at the group which hit his son in the face.

When asked by the newspaper what he would say to police about the alleged incident he said: I would say that you were targeting my boy.

I dont know if you were trying to set an example and strike fear into him. You did a great job, Mr Avery said.

The boys father also claimed that officers and a group of emergency medical technicians standing about a block away did not try to assist his son.

No officer, whos paid to protect, chose to stand up, break the ranks, go help this child, he told the outlet.

I just dont understand how any of them can sleep.

The childs name is being withheld to protect his privacy.

The Guardian contacted the Seattle police department for comment, and was referred to the citys Office of Police Accountability (OPA), which said it was expediting its investigation into the incident.

The OPA reportedly said the child pepper spray case was currently being investigated. We should have a public update on the progress soon.

The department reported at least 12,000 complaints, of which a majority were related to Mr Averys son, the newspaper reported.

Protesters who witnessed the scene and posted the video had previously called on people to file complaints with the department.

Story continues

Shenelle Williams, the boys mother, told the newspaper that hearing her sons scream was the most gut-wrenching feeling.

I kind of feel like a failure as well, she said, because I feel like I couldnt protect him, but there was nothing that we could do at that time to prevent it.

The Seattle Police Department recently banned the use of tear gas at protests for 30 days.

Warning: The video below contains footage that some viewers may find distressing.

The family have received some criticism online about bringing their young child to the protests, but said that when they arrived they had seen other families and young children, saying that it had initially felt completely safe.

We just wanted to stand up for what was right, Mr Avery said. Ultimately our boys will become men and our daughters will become women. And they will ultimately have to face some of the same racial injustices. And enough is enough. Black lives matter, he told The Guardian.

According to the newspaper, the family is working with a lawyer before deciding on the next steps going forward.

Evan Hreha, the 34-year-old hairstylist who filmed the footage of the alleged incident, told the newspaper that he confronted the officer he believed had maced the boy and said that he would post the video online.

Mr Hreha, said he was later arrested by police a week after posting the footage, with police alleging that he had pointed a laser in an officers eye.

There are currently no pending charges against Mr Hreha and no sign of any documentation with any narrative about the incident that allegedly justified his arrest, his lawyer, Talitha Hazelton said.

Mr Hreha, who is white, was reported to have been denied bail and held for two days. He told the newspaper that he believed his arrest was a response to him posting the footage online.

Its woken me up a bit, he said. It just kind of shattered that false narrative that was in my head that cops always protect and serve.

The Guardian contacted the Seattle Police Department for comment, and was referred to the OPA, which said it did not know if a complaint had been received about Mr Hrehas arrest.

Seattle Police Department referred a further request for comment to the city attorney, according to the report, which said the police department had not yet referred the case.

The Independent has contacted the Seattle Police Department for comment.

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WASHINGTON - Driven by a swift-moving national debate, Senate Republicans are on the brink of introducing an extensive package of policing changes with new restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices as Congress rushes to respond to mass demonstrations over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans.

Its a sudden shift of GOP priorities, with President Donald Trump signalling support. The White House will announce its own executive actions on law enforcement procedures on Tuesday, a crush of activity that shows how quickly protests over police violence and racial prejudice are transforming national politics.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opened the chamber Monday declaring that Senate Republicans are developing a serious proposal to reform law enforcement.

While the emerging GOP package isnt as extensive as the sweeping Democratic proposal, which is headed for a House vote next week, it includes perhaps the most far-reaching proposed changes to policing procedures from the party long aligned with a law and order approach. Confronted with a groundswell of public unrest over police violence, in cities large and small nationwide, even the most conservative senators are joining the effort.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole African American Republican in the Senate, has been crafting the package set to roll out Wednesday, and said he spoke with Trump about it over the weekend. Scott warned that pushing voting into later this summer would be a bad decision. He has said the chokehold, in particular, is a policy whose time has come and gone.

The weekend shooting death of Rayshard Brooks by a white officer in Atlanta led to a renewed public outcry, more street protests and the police chiefs swift resignation.

Democrats have said the GOP package doesnt go far enough to match the outpouring of support for reforms. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Republicans not to settle for minor changes.

Now is the time to seek bold and broad-scale change, not change around the margins, Schumer said Monday.

Two senior administration officials told reporters that Trumps executive order would include establishing a database that tracks police officers who have complaints about excessive use of force in their records. The officials said the president wants to keep officers facing such accusations from being able to hop from one police department to another.

The officials said the executive order would also establish a national credentialing system that would give police departments a financial incentive to adopt best practices on such things as use of deadly force. The two officials briefed reporters on the executive order on the condition that they not be identified.

With the political debate fluid, it is unclear whether the parties will be able to find common ground. The proposals share many similar provisions but take different approaches to address some of the issues. Neither bill goes as far as some activists want in their push to defund the police by fully revamping departments.

The debate is changing almost daily, complicated by the fall election, with the Senate Republican majority at risk. McConnell, who is up for reelection in November, is backing the GOP effort after the death of Breonna Taylor when police entered her home in Louisville. Its a dynamic political environment in the aftermath of the killing of black Americans and the outpouring of protests and Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have overwhelmingly altered the national conversation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider policing issues at a hearing Tuesday.

Central to the Republican package would be the creation of a national database of police use-of-force incidents, similar to what the president is proposing in the executive order to improve transparency so officers cannot transfer without public oversight of their records. The Democrats have a similar provision.

The GOP bill would encourage police body cameras and include a long-stalled effort to make lynching a federal hate crime.

Additionally, the Republican package is expected to restrict the use of chokeholds by withholding certain federal funds to jurisdictions that continue to allow the practice, according to a Senate Republican unauthorized to discuss the pending bill and granted anonymity.

While chokeholds have become a symbol of police brutality  and a ban is included in the Democrats bill  the manoeuvr is already banned in many departments. Police nationwide are far more likely to kill someone by shooting.

Yet the Republican bill does not go as far as the Democratic proposal, particularly on the issue of eliminating qualified immunity, which would enable those injured by law enforcement personnel to sue for damages. The White House has said that is a line too far. But its a timely issue after the Supreme Court on Monday declined to get involved, rejecting cases to take up the issue. As an alternative, Scott has suggested a decertification process for officers involved in misconduct.

Still, Democrats signalled a willingness to look at the Republican approach for areas of common ground.

Nothing is a non-starter, said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the Houses third-ranking Democrat, on a conference call with reporters.

Democrats face criticism over activists calls to defund the police, and party leaders in Congress have distanced themselves from that approach. It focuses on shifting policing resources to other community services. Democrats did not include it in their bill, which instead provides grants for jurisdictions to consider new ways of policing.

Leading civil rights groups have backed the Democratic bill, but its unclear if the Republican proposal will be extensive enough to gain broad support.

This is really a moral issue at this point, said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

In an interview, she warned that any bill with half measures will be woefully insufficient to meet the moment.

At the same time, one large police union, the influential Fraternal Order of Police, said in a statement it is working with Congress and the White House on the proposals, having provided feedback on the Democratic bill and substantial input on the emerging GOP package from Scott.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Colleen Long, Michael Balsamo and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.
News18 Daybreak | Sushant Singh Rajput's Death Opens Conversation on Mental health and Other Stories to Watch Out For

Jun 15, 2020 09:38 AM IST Daybreak



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Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput Found Dead At His Bandra House, netizens talk about mental health crisis



Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Bandra residence in Mumbai, say reports. He was 34. The police officials were alerted by a domestic help and a team of Bandra Police rushed to investigate and details are awaited. He has committed suicide at his residence in Bandra (sic). Our team is there, Manoj Sharma, additional commissioner of police, Western Region said.



The actor, who became popular with his starring role in the television show Pavitra Rishta, made his foray into Bollywood with Kai Po Che in 2013.



Lets talk mental health: Soon after the report of Sushant Singhs death, a significant conversation around mental health began on social media as people found it difficult to wrap their heads around the fact that a young successful actor could end his life. Unfortunately, it is perhaps also the only time social media is talking about suicide, depression and mental health. Mental health has been stigmatised for decades and it is high time people need to spread awareness about the same.



Challenge taboo: The news of Singh's death shocked the industry and fans alike. His passing away has not only opened the gates of conversation around mental health, anxiety, and depression - something that is still considered a stigma in our society, but also how media should cover suicide more sensitively. A simple google definition of 'commit' simply states: perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act). And it's the reason why we shouldn't use it when reporting on Bollywood actor Sushant Singh's death.



In Other News



Indias tally: With India recording 11,929 Covid-19 cases in the last 24 - another record high - the tally crossed the three lakh-mark. Many cities and states also witnessed a spike in the number of infections. Gurugram, Faridabad, Vadodara, Solapur and Guwahati are among the top 15 cities where there has been a 40-50% surge in the novel coronavirus cases in the last ten days. Figures on the number of Covid-19 infections from across India reveal that 63% of the country's coronavirus patients are concentrated in 15 cities.



Plan B: Testing for coronavirus will be significantly increased in Delhi over the next one week, union home minister Amit Shah and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal decided at a meeting held to review the handling of the pandemic in the national capital Sunday. Shah announced a series of decisions taken at the meeting, including doubling of testing in next 2 days and tripling it in the next 6 days while the key focus area will be containment zones.



Need peace: India is not interested in the land of Pakistan or China but wants peace and amity, Union Minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari said. Addressing virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally of Gujarat BJP from Nagpur in Maharashtra, he said India believed in peace and non-violence and does not want to be strong by becoming an expansionist. "India never tried to grab land from its neighbours like Bhutan and Bangladesh," he added.



Back on track: The Western and Central Railway have decided to resume selected Mumbai suburban services over main line and harbour line only for 'essential staff identified by the state government'. These trains will run from 5.30 am to 11.30 pm with an interval of approximately 15 minutes. 73 pairs of suburban services, including eight pairs between Virar and Dahanu Road, will run from June 15. Heres all you need to know.



Global front: Globally the coronavirus death toll surpassed 4,30,000-mark on Sunday, a number of countries continue to further reopen their economies and ease lockdown restrictions. China, where the first Covid-19 case was reported, has recorded the highest spike in daily cases while South Korea, Italy, UK and Spain are witnessing an overall decline. On the other hand, countries like Brazil and India are now seeing a rapid rise in infections. The current global case count stands at 7,787,271 infections.



On Our Specials



Where are funds? In the last two months, the Karnataka government collected as much as Rs 267 crore for its Covid-19 relief fund but not a single rupee was spent by the end of May, reveals RTI. It revealed, donations worth Rs 267,72,37,574 were received in the Chief Minister's Covid-19 relief fund between March 25 and May 19, but the money has not been used. When questioned, the government said the money has been set aside for emergency use and currently, various department funds are being used. Revathi Rajeevan reports.



Bilateral talks: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the government will at an appropriate time come out with details about what he described as the tussle and dispute with China. The government will not keep anyone in the dark. At an appropriate time we will disclose all the details. Let me make it clear that we will not make any compromises, Singh said during BJPs outreach program, Jan Samvad, for the Jammu region. Suhas Munshi reports.
Hyderabad:

A local court on Thursday sentenced A Raghunathan, former CFO of Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, to 18 months imprisonment in connection with two cheque bounce cases filed against him and businessman Vijay Mallya by GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd.

Third Special Court Magistrate M Krishna Rao also imposed Rs 20,000 fine in each case on Raghunathan after the latter appeared before the court.

Earlier, on several occasions, the order on quantum of punishment had got adjourned as the warrant issued against Raghunathan was still pending.

The court had on April 20 convicted Kingfisher Airlines, Mallya and Raghunathan, in connection with two cheque bounce cases involving Rs 50 lakh each, under relevant sections of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

The matter relates to cheques issued by Kingfisher Airlines Ltd to GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (GHIAL), which operates Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, towards charges for using the facilities at the airport for Kingfisher Airlines flights.

During arguments today, GHIAL counsel G Ashok Reddy submitted that it was after five months Raghunathan had finally appeared before this court.

He further informed that Vijay Mallya is absconding and is out of the country, and sought the court to proceed with sentence order against Raghunathan.

Raghunathans counsel said that several warrants were issued by different courts and he was unable to appear before this court. He sought for splitting the case against Raghunathan. He had appeared before other courts in the past few days in connection with NBWs issued against him after he had moved the High Court, and got the warrants recalled.

Reddy argued that the High Court in its order (for recall of NBWs) had made it clear that its order will not stand in way when the matter reached at the stage of judgement, pronouncement of sentence or conviction of the accused in the case.

The court had earlier issued non-bailable warrants against Kingfisher Airlines, its chairman Mallya and Raghunathan on the ground of dishonouring the two cheques.

It had earlier said that before imposing the quantum of punishment, it would hear the plea of the convicts (Mallya and others, who had so far not appeared/attended the court), and then pass its order with regard to sentencing them or imposing fine or both.

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A land deal for Altona's new $15 million police station has hit a legal snag, forcing the state government into leasing a site it planned to buy.

Keys for the two-storey building were meant to be handed to Victoria Police in coming days, but the local council said the landowner behind the deal had not lodged subdivision plans to allow the Galvin Street corner block to be sold.

The new two-level Altona Police Station under construction at 1 Galvin Street, Altona is nearing completion. Credit:The Age

Hobsons Bay City said the 78-hectare Ajax Road Industrial Subdivision precinct had never been approved for subdivision, and no application had been lodged to hive off commercial parcels.

"No subdivision has been approved for commercial parcels of land at the Ajax Road Industrial Subdivision," a council spokeswoman said.
The appointment of Hussein Arnous, as Prime Minister of Syria, brings to mind the appointment of Shapour Bakhtiar as Prime Minister of Iran, which failed to save the Shah of Iran writes The New Arab.

In January 1979, with the Iranian revolution against the Shahs rule at its apex, the embattled ruler played the last trick up his sleeve. The Shah appointed a new prime minister, a lawyer and academic who had a role in Irans history through his work with Iranian politician Mohammad Mosaddegh during the latters short government lasting from 1951 to 1953. That new prime minister was Shapour Bakhtiar.

In the short period before Ayatollah Khomeinis return from Paris exile, which heralded the end of his own short government, Bakhtiar introduced a number of reform measures that could have established an alternative for Iran. That alternative included ridding the government of the Shahs widely hated rule without falling into the trap of sectarianism and opaque theocracy, which has since exported revolutions and pain throughout the region. Among his reforms was the dissolution of the SAVAKthe deadliest and most feared secret police force at the timeas well as releasing political prisoners, lifting censorship of the press and licensing a number of opposition newspapers.

However, when he returned from France at the beginning of February 1979, Khomeini refused to walk a path of a moderate and gradual change. His entrance in Tehran was like that of a conqueror, carrying with him a radical program that he did not attempt to hide or dress down in appeasing colors. Khomeini refused to work with a secularist, leading to the end of Bakhtiars government. One day that April, Bakhtiar disappeared, having managed to flee to France just as another moderate liberal figure, Abu al-Hassan Bani al-Sadr, the first president of the Iranian Republic, would also do less than two years later.

From exile in Paris, Bakhtiar would establish the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance and survive two assassination attempts before Iranian agent Ali Vakili Radacting on orders from the Supreme Leaderkilled him with several knife wounds to the chest in the former prime ministers home in the Paris suburb of Suresnes.

On Jun. 10, 2020, of this year, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad removed Prime Minister Imad Khamis from his posting, in a dramatic move just one month before the Peoples Assembly elections. Assad then replaced him with Hussein Arnous, appointing the latter as head of that same government until the elections.

There are similarities between the two examples. The Shah wanted to play his last card to preserve what he could of his rule. He knew that his days were coming to an end, and he would leave just days later to Egypt, where he would reside as a guest of his friend Anwar Sadat until his death. He had offered his final concession to rescue what remained of his rule or guarantee that he could perhaps return soon after leaving Iran.

Bashar al-Assad possesses neither the Shahs intelligence nor strength of character. He may not yet realize the size of the catastrophe that he himself has wrought by destroying his country, killing and driving millions of people from their homes. But Syria is not Iran, and while the Shah of Iran was a decision maker, Assad is not, and there are those who map out the countrys politics on his behalf.

The similarity lies in Arnous, who, like Bakhtiar in Iran, will be the last prime minister of Assads Syria. Arnous will look for a place of self-exile, which will certainly not be France. Nobody knows what his end will look like, though it will be very far from Bakhtiars.

On the other hand, there are great differences between the two examples. Where the Shah brought in a respected man with a long history of opposition political work, Assad appointed a caricature, a man who has no ability to run matters in a normal country, with a normal economy and functioning living conditions, markets, ministers and officialslet alone a collapsed country like Syria.

Assad wanted to suggest that the cause of the problem was former Prime Minister Khamis, so he removed him from office and replaced him with Arnous. Khamis had no real political, economic or security leadershipall of that power was in the hands of the ruling family, security apparatus, Russia and Iran. So Assad expelled him, putting in his place another puppet with no real power, whose fate will be even worse than that of Khamis.

Arnous has no history of corruption, but he doesnt have the leadership sense or charisma to make any breakthrough. Arnous was a minister in the Assad government as his boss bombed his neighbors and brothers in Idleb governorate, while he failed to move a single muscle.

Frankly, I feel a little bit of sympathy for Arnous, despite him not deserving any sympathy. Appointing someone to become prime minister of Syria just as the Caesar Act comes into effect is like using him as a human shield for the gun pointed straight at you. Assad believes that by offering up a new target he may postpone the judgment of historybut this will be in vain.

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.
A seven-year-old Oklahoma girl was killed after she was struck by a propeller in a freak boating accident as investigators said they noticed an odor of alcoholic beverage emanating from the operator of the vessel.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol was called to the scene at the Kiowa 2 boat ramp near Waurika Lake in Jefferson County at around 5:15pm on Saturday.

According to state troopers, nine passengers whose ages range from 6 to 37 were supposed to be inside a 2007 Master Craft boat.

The operator of the boat was identified as Caleb K. Newton, 36, of Comanche, Oklahoma.

Kyndi Beth Harkins, 7, of Comanche, Oklahoma, died on Saturday afternoon after investigators said she suffered 'extensive injuries' when she was struck by a boat propeller in Waurika Lake

Oklahoma investigators are trying to determine how Kyndi fell into the water

She is seen bottom right with her father Charles, her mother Kamran, and her brother Kross

Investigators said that the boat started traveling southbound near the ramp at idle speed.

The seven-year-old girl, Kyndi Beth Harkins, for an unknown reasonended up in the water from the swim deck and was struck by the propeller, investigators said.

Harkins was pronounced dead at the scene after suffering massive injuries, according to authorities.

No other injuries were reported.

Troopers on the scene said that they were investigating the circumstances of the accident.

Kyndi died after she was struck by a propeller as the boat traveled at idle speed at the Kiowa Two boat ramp in Waurika Lake in Jefferson County, Oklahoma, at approximately 5:15pm on Saturday

A GoFundMe page to benefit Kyndis family has raised more than $16,800 as of Monday afternoon.

Kyndi Beth Harkins life was tragically lost all of a sudden due to a freak boating accident, according to the page.

She was the light of her mom Kamran, her dad Charles, and her brother Kross life!

She was one of the kindest, happiest, funniest girls full of life!

She never left anyone out and she enjoyed life to the fullest.

This sweet family should not have to worry about anything other than their baby girl!
Our data shows that after an initial shock at the onset and first two months of the COVID-19 economic crisis, SME economic activity is returning to pre COVID-19 levels  good news for Australian small businesses and their employees, chief financial officer Simon Schwarz (pictured) told Insurance Business.

The sector is showing clear signs of recovery and growth, he explained. Cancellation rates are back down to below pre-crisis baseline levels, and new business enquiries and sales are increasing to above pre-crisis baseline levels. That means that the number of SME businesses in operation is returning to normal levels and starting to increase.

Read more: FM Global sheds light on Australias "strong foundation"

BizCover tracks the SME insurance market across the key indices of enquiries, new business clients, cancellations and renewals. The company has gathered data from SME customers utilising its online platform on a daily basis since the start of the crisis in February.

Our indices are a measure of the volume of SME businesses that are in operation, not the volume of economic activity being conducted by those businesses, Schwarz explained. While there may be a 10% contraction in economic activity through the economy as a whole, our indices show that the number of SME businesses re-opening or starting up is starting to grow, with that growth expected to continue in line with the growth shown in our indices.

Additionally, we expect that a proportion of people who have been made unemployed through this crisis will start new businesses, which will also drive growth.

Most importantly from the industrys standpoint, however, Schwarz says they have observed an increase in SME businesses purchasing and managing their insurances online, with the work from home situation required by the lockdown accelerating the transition to an online digital economy.

However, the data also revealed some significant hits during the global health crisis.

As the crisis kicked in and businesses closed their doors, the index saw a high level of cancellations that peaked at 83% above BizCovers normal rates just prior to Easter, he added.

Read next: Is the worst over? Chief economist on recessions impact on insurance

Additionally, there were declines in enquiries and new business clients which saw respective dips of 41% and 53% below baseline levels at their lowest point during Easter. As Australia flattened the COVID-19 curve after Easter, the BizCover index started to reveal cautious optimism in the SME sector. Cancellations began to return to normal levels and enquiries and new business clients showed signs of an uptick.

BizCover CEO Michael Gottlieb, says he has observed a noticeable rebound in the companys enquiries and new business clients indices as the easing of restrictions has begun.

New business sales have improved dramatically from the lows of early April and are now only 3% below the February baseline and enquiries are 11% above pre-pandemic levels, he said.

Its a testament to the Australian spirit that many have found the strength to adapt, move forward and rebuild their livelihoods after such a difficult period. Many have found the silver lining in this economic and health crisis and used it to forge ahead as entrepreneurs in their own right.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has permitted 331 Chinese experts, business managers and high-skilled workers to enter Vietnam.

The decision was issued on June 12 following a proposal the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi sent to the Vietnamese Government Office on June 2.

The Deputy PM asked the Ministry of Public Security to grant entry visas for the Chinese workers who will be quarantined for 14 days upon entry.

Since March 22 Vietnam has not allowed entry for foreign nationals except those with diplomatic and official passports and business managers, experts and high-skilled workers. All arrivals are quarantined for 14 days.

Vietnam is considering resuming commercial flights with China, with Guangzhou being one of the first destinations, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc had said at a June 12 meeting with Chinese firms operating in Vietnam.

He said the Vietnamese government will continue to support and create favorable conditions for foreign experts, businesses and investors, including those from China, to return to Vietnam.

The National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control has said that around 2,700 foreign experts are expected to enter Vietnam in June and July. Some 1,800 others have been given special entry.

Last Friday, 150 Chinese experts were placed in quarantine after a special train carrying them arrived in the central province of Quang Ngai. They had been granted special entry to enter Vietnam to work for economic projects at the Dung Quat industrial park.

Meanwhile, the Chinese capital, Beijing, is facing a new Covid-19 outbreak with authorities announcing 49 new cases, bringing the number of people affected in the capital by the latest outbreak to 79  all of them linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market, a food distribution centre in southern Beijing, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

A recent Guardian report said "Beijing authorities have locked down residential compounds and fired officials over a new Covid-19 outbreak as health officials warned the risk of the outbreak worsening was very high."

China, where the pandemic first broke out last December, has reported a total of 83,000 infections and an official death toll of 4,634.

Tran Dac Phu, senior advisor at the Public Health Emergency Operations Center under Vietnam's Health Ministry, said the new outbreak in Beijing was a "lesson and wake-up call for Vietnam."

Vietnam has gone two months without community transmission caused by novel coronavirus. Of the 334 Covid-19 patients recorded so far in Vietnam, 323 have recovered.
"Our nation faces a severe blood shortage due to an unprecedented number of blood drive cancellations in response to COVID-19, and PenFed employees are stepping up to meet this need," said PenFed Credit Union President/CEO and PenFed Foundation CEO James Schenck. "At PenFed, we believe that giving back to our local communities is an important part of doing business and we are proud to support the American Red Cross and their vital mission. It's more important now than ever to donate blood and save lives"

The donated blood will be used to help patients of all ages: accident and burn victims, heart surgery and organ transplant patients, and those battling cancer. Each donated pint of blood can save up to three lives. The blood donated at PenFed's 85th anniversary blood drives will save at least 255 lives.

In total, PenFed employees and colleagues in the Greater Washington Area donated 28 pints. Future events are being scheduled in PenFed offices and financial centers throughout the country to reach or surpass the goal of 85 total donated pints.

"We deeply appreciate the support of PenFed. What an incredible way to celebrate and commemorate 85 years of service. Every two to three seconds in this country, a patient needs blood or some type of blood product," said Regina Boothe Bratton, American Red Cross external communications manager. "Because of partners like PenFed, the Red Cross can continue to carry out its mission to support those in their greatest time of need."

About PenFed Credit Union

Established in 1935, Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed) is America's second-largest federal credit union, serving over 2 million members worldwide with over $26 billion in assets. PenFed Credit Union offers market-leading certificates, checking, credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and a wide range of other financial services with members' interests always in mind. PenFed Credit Union is federally insured by the NCUA and is an Equal Housing Lender. To learn more about PenFed Credit Union, visit PenFed.org , like us on Facebook and follow us @PenFed on Twitter . Interested in working for PenFed? Check us out on LinkedIn . We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.

SOURCE PenFed Credit Union

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European nations eased border controls on Monday as coronavirus cases declined after three months of lockdown, with German tourists heading for Majorca and French bargain-hunters streaming into Belgium to buy cheap cigarettes.

But the continued closure of most of Spain, a patchwork of quarantine rules and remote-working by many who once commuted across borders mean pre-crisis travel levels are still a way off.

Greek airports allowed more international flights as the country sought to salvage its summer season, German tourists flocking to neighbouring Denmark caused an 8 km (5 mile) queue and Italians popped into France to buy lottery scratch cards.

Spain is initially allowing in 10,000 holidaymakers from Germany as the Madrid government works out how to handle mass tourism before opening up more fully in the coming weeks.

Hundreds of German sunseekers, the first tourists to visit Spain since borders were closed in March, arrived in Majorca on Monday on a flight from Dusseldorf.

They passed signs reminding them in German and Spanish to wash their hands and wear masks, then queued at a distance from each other to have their temperatures read and paperwork checked by border staff also with faces covered.

"Holidaymakers can be happy that the beaches in Palma have never been so empty," said Aage Duenhaupt, a spokesman for travel company TUI. "But there won't be parties in the same way this year."

The Schengen area of 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland operates control-free crossings. But for three months they have been mostly closed.

Officials hope lifting internal border controls will allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July and revive a tourism industry that flatlined during the lockdown.

The sector makes up almost 10% of the EU economy and even more in Mediterranean countries.

In Greece, passengers arriving from airports deemed high-risk will be tested and quarantined for up to 14 days, depending on the result. Restrictions remain for passengers from Britain and Turkey. Arrivals from other airports will be randomly tested.

The European Commission has launched a site, "Re-open EU https://reopen.europa.eu/en", giving information on travel, coronavirus rules, and whether hotels and beaches are open.

SPAIN CLOSED

But it will not be a return to unfettered travel for 420 million Europeans. Spain will allow no foreign tourists until June 21, with exceptions for some islands.

Elsewhere, the right to travel will depend on where you live and where you are going. The Czech Republic has a traffic-light system, barring tourists from 'orange' or 'red' countries such as Portugal and Sweden.

Denmark will accept tourists from Iceland, Germany and Norway, but not Sweden, if they book at least six nights' accommodation.

Britain's two-week quarantine for visitors means Britons will face the same confinement in France.

Before the crisis, about 3.5 million people crossed an internal EU border every day, according to a 2019 European Parliament report, some 1.7 million of them commuters.

Many of the latter are now working from home, while continued restrictions and health concerns are expected to curb tourism and business travel.

In the Belgian village of Macquenoise, tabac stores did brisk trade as French citizens queued, well apart, to buy cheaper tobacco three months after prices rose at home.

"It's worth the effort," said Nadege Caplain, who made an early-morning 200-km (125 miles) round trip to buy cigarettes.
ICMR recommends use of rapid antigen kits for testing in containment zones, healthcare settings

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jun 15: In view of its high specificity but relatively low sensitivity, the ICMR has recommended the use of rapid antigen test kits for diagnosis of COVID-19 in containment zones and healthcare settings in combination with the RT-PCR test.

The kits will allow faster diagnosis without laboratory examination Standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection kit (rapid antigen test kits) is a rapid chromatographic immunoassay for qualitative detection of specific antigens to SARS-CoV-2. It has been developed by SD Biosensor, a South Korea based company, the ICMR said in an advisory.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

ICMR issues advisory on antigen detection test for COVID-19

Suspected individuals who test negative for COVID-19 by rapid antigen test should be tested sequentially by RT-PCR to rule out infection, whereas a positive test should be considered as a true positive and does not need reconfirmation by RT-PCR test, said ICMR said.

The Standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection can be interpreted as positive or negative after 15 minutes of putting the sample into the well by appearance of test and control lines, which can be read with a naked eye, requiring no specialized equipment, it said.

The maximum duration for interpreting a positive or negative test is 30 minutes. After that the test strip should be discarded, it said.

In view of its high specificity while relatively low sensitivity, ICMR recommends the use of Standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection assay as a point of care diagnostic assay for testing under (containment zones and healthcare settings) settings in combination with the gold standard RT-PCR test, the advisory said.

The ICMR further said that the Standard Q COVID-19 Ag rapid antigen detection test has a very high specificity (i.e. ability to detect true negatives). "Specificity ranged from 99.3 per cent to 100 per cent at the two sites. Sensitivity of the test (i.e. ability to detect true positives) ranged from 50.6 per cent to 84 per cent in two independent evaluations, depending upon the viral load of the patient. Higher viral load correlated with higher sensitivity," it said.
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The remarkable story of American Jewish Committee's (AJC) pioneering relations with Germany is told in a new publication, "AJC and Germany: History in the Making 1945  2020." Authored by Deidre Berger, director of AJC Berlin from 2000-2019, with a foreword by AJC CEO David Harris, the publication is available at http://ajc.org/AJCGermanyeBook.

Founded in 1906 by Jews of German descent, Germany is in AJC's DNA. But it was the profound decision of AJC leaders in the late 1940s, very soon after the Holocaust, to reengage Germany that set AJC, uniquely among international Jewish organizations, on a journey that has yielded a range of productive partnerships with the German government and civil society.

"AJC was the first Jewish organization to seek contact with Germany after the Holocaust, and AJC remains today an important partner for Germany," says Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her sentiments towards are echoed by other senior German political leaders throughout the story told in the publication.

The pathbreaking policy statement on Germany that AJC leadership adopted in 1951 was indicative of the AJC approach. While vigorously criticizing the lackluster German confrontation with the crimes of the Nazi regime, AJC rejected the idea of collective German guilt, choosing instead to emphasize policies that encouraged democracy.

"In its postwar quest to anchor Germany in the community of Western democratic nations, AJC has remained resolute in its search for a better future, while never forgetting or minimizing the crimes of the past," Berger writes.

Active engagement through diplomacy and education to promote democracy and fight antisemitism has been at the core of AJCs approach to Germany. Many ground-breaking projects and programs AJC initiated with the government, foundations, faith groups and educators, are detailed in "AJC and Germany: History in the Making 1945  2020." Notably, the Konrad Adenauer exchange program between American Jews and Germans, now in its 40th year, and the special partnership launched in 1994 between AJC and the Bundeswehr are two of the most creative examples of successful efforts to foster enduring understanding and cooperation.

Over the past 75 years, AJC has been a trailblazer at pivotal moments in Germany's history. AJC was the first global Jewish organization to commit itself to Germany's renewed sovereignty, as well as to the reestablishment of Jewish life in Germany. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, AJC was again the first major Jewish organization to support German unification. And, in 1998, AJC became the first international Jewish organization to establish a permanent presence in Germany, with the visionary help of Lawrence and Lee Ramer of Los Angeles, California.

"The momentous decision to open an office in Berlin was a powerful signal of faith that a newly united Germany was taking important steps to atone for its past and demonstrating responsible partnership and leadership in the reunification of Europe," Berger writes.

For more than 20 years, AJC Berlin has acted on the ground as a watchdog to monitor extremism and antisemitism, ensure the maintenance of accurate historical memory; support the renewal of Jewish life; strengthen Germany's ties with the U.S. and Israel; and serve as a partner in confronting challenges to transatlantic security and democracy.

"The involvement of AJC in Germany for more than a century is an outstanding example of the vital role that an organization can play in creating a safer world for Jews and all minorities, addressing threats to democracy, and working toward mutual understanding and peace among nations," writes Berger.

The key role of David Harris, the son of survivors, in steering the evolution of AJC's relations with Germany is central to the story. Since he became AJC CEO in 1990, Harris has built on the groundbreaking achievements of his predecessors at the helm of AJC, and continued to expand the ties to levels that were unimaginable on May 8, 1945, when World War II ended.

In her conclusion, Berger writes: "AJC's work in Germany has demonstrated over and over again the power of an outreached hand and a bold vision to overcome the consequences of unparalleled human depravity during the Holocaust. It is a telling case study in AJC vision and methodology, and the mind-boggling, history-changing results of seven decades speak for themselves."

AJC and Germany: History in the Making 1945  2020 can be downloaded at http://ajc.org/AJCGermanyeBook.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


Hajia Ayishetu Seidu, Municipal Chief Executive of Savelugu has described the achievements of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo as what will secure his government a second term in the upcoming general election.



She said the country has experienced major development projects and social interventions under President Akufo-Addo that have changed the living conditions of the citizenry which Savelugu has not been left out.



Hajia Ayishetu made the remarks when she spoke to the Ghana News Agency in at Savelugu.



She said the Savelugu municipality has received its share of the One-District-One-Factory which is the Yoo Rice Processing Factory, the Technology Solution Centre for the training of artisans and the increase of beneficiaries under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty.



Also over 200 persons with disabilities have received farm inputs, sheep, deep freezers and cash to support their businesses, she added.



Hajia Seidu noted that in the educational sector, the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy had been one of the major projects under the New Patriotic Party led government that has earned President Akufo-Addo international recognition, adding, The number of schools under the Ghana School Feeding Programme has risen from 24 schools in the then Savelugu/Nanton District to 40 in now Savelugu municipality.



Under the free SHS programme, furniture, beds, dormitories and places of convenience are being constructed and the construction of the Diare SHS.



She said, special attention was also being given to the Savelugu School for the Deaf by expanding its dining hall and rehabilitating its girls dormitory, construction of a fence wall to prevent the encroachment of their land and provision of essentials such as sugar, milk, soap, gari, pepsodent under the disability fund.



The upgradement of the Savelugu Market, the Planting for Food and Jobs, the construction of CHIPS compounds and the provision of furniture to schools are also some of the projects the Savelugu municipality benefitted, she added.



The MCE said, the declaration made by President Akufo-Addo as 2020 being the year of roads, the Savelugu municipality has been a major beneficiary of road projects including the construction of the Savelugu-Kumbungu and Savelugu-Dipali roads, and reshaping of Diari-Adayili, Diari-Nambagla, Savelugu-Bunglung, Pong-Tamale-Kpalung, Kadia-Sana, Pigu-Dikpuni and Disiga-Sakpuli roads.



We in Savelugu municipality have resolved to endorse President Akufo-Addo second term and would vote for him massively in the coming elections.



She said President Akufo-Addo had fulfilled his campaign promises to Ghanaians and that no amount of hindrance would stop the citizenry from voting for his government for a second term.



She appealed to Ghanaians to give President Akufo-Addo a one touch victory in the December 7 elections to continue his developmental agenda for the betterment of the citizenry.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Actor Sonam Kapoor has lashed out at those who are harassing actor Sushant Singh Rajputs friends and family for information about his death. Sushant died by suicide on Sunday, at the age of 34. He was reportedly suffering from depression.

On Twitter, Sonam wrote, Blaming a girlfriend , ex girlfriend, family , colleagues for someones death is ignorant and f**king mean spirited. Her tweet has received over 5000 likes in half-an-hour.

Sonam isnt the only one who has expressed this sentiment. Earlier in the day, actor Kriti Sanons sister Nupur had written in a social media post that Kriti had been called heartless by trolls for not commenting about Sushants death. Kriti had worked with Sushant on Raabta.

Nupur had written on Instagram, Everybody has suddenly started talking about mental health on social media since yesterday...and then we have people harassing people who are actually in a state of shock,who are hurt,who are grieving ..by sending them disgusting tweets, msgs, comments for not posting on lnstagram !! You are so heartless ek post tak nahi daala Tum logo ne ek reaction nahi diya kitne pathar dil ho tum These are the comments and msgs we are constantly getting !! Aap ki permission ho toh sukoon se ro sakte hain?? Please??

Also Watch | Sushant Singh Rajput funeral: Kriti Sanon, Shraddha Kapoor, others attend

Actor Sonakshi Sinha, in a veiled Instagram post, wrote, The problem with wrestling with pigs is that you get dirty and the pig enjoys it. To certain people trying to garner publicity and highlight THEIR issues using the death of a member of our fraternity...PLEASE just stop. Your spewing negativity, hate and toxicity is really not required right now. Have some respect for the departed. Really.

Also read: There are many Sushant Singh Rajputs in the industry, Karan Johar doesnt decide their success or failure: Koena Mitra

Sushants last rites were performed at the Vile Parle crematorium on Monday. The actor was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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A home under construction in the Flying Horse development on Colorado Springs' far north side. Residents within Flying Horse are concerned the road layout cannot support growth approved by Colorado Springs City Council June 9.
The two words left her overcome. You again They were uttered with shock by an employee at a funeral home who saw her arrive at her fathers house. Her again. Another death. The third in two weeks. Another member of her family. First it was her aunt, in a residence. Then her father-in-law, in his home. And then finally her dad. The same virus, Gracia Mendez explains, struck in the worst way possible in March, although shell never know for sure if it was Covid-19, because none of her relatives were tested. While the whole of Spain was confined in their homes, she had to go to the same funeral home three times, finding it full of bodies but empty of mourners.

Gracia, 52, is the only one of her six siblings who lives in the city of Jaen, where her father and aunt also lived. Communication during the lockdown was made by phone, given that there was no alternative. As such, she had to bear the burden of the conversations with doctors. Until the end came. Three of her siblings were able to accompany her in the funeral home when their aunt died. Another two arrived in time to share their fathers final hours. They still havent found the strength to collect the ashes. They will do so in July, when they can all see each other and process the three tragedies that have befallen them all of a sudden.

One day he woke up with fever and a cough, and four days later he died Gracia Mendez, psychologist who lost three family members

Everything started the week before the state of alarm was declared in Spain, in a bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus. When the government was preparing to lock down the entire country, to protect the population from infection, the virus had already arrived in Gracias life. Her aunt Rosario was as tough as old boots. Shed been in a residence since 2009, when she had an accident and could no longer take care of herself. Her condition had worsened in recent times. She was doubled over, she had constant tremors due to Parkinsons, but in her head she was completely lucid, she explains. Gracia, a psychologist, who works in a high school, would go and see her every week.

It all happened in a matter of days. They told me she was very sick, Gracia explains, adding that her aunt was cared for at all times by the staff, something that leaves her in peace. She had to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life. With her father isolated at home on doctors orders, on March 15 she was given the option to go and say goodby to Rosario. It was the end. But, she thought, what will happen to her father? What if he catches the virus? With a very heavy heart, I decided not to go, she explains. She couldnt risk another tragedy. When she called to explain, she was told her aunt had just passed away  it happened that quickly. On her death certificate they put cardiorespiratory arrest, but they recorded it as if it were Covid-19, she explains. They told me they would tell the funeral home that she had died due to a respiratory issue. They never did the test. There werent any tests at that point.

They didnt let us all into the funeral home, we could only be there for a short time, she explains. Three siblings came from Marbella, Seville and Ciudad Real. The rest live in Madrid, and things were really bad for them to be able to come.

They told me directly, Your father has the coronavirus Gracia Mendez, psychologist who lost three family members

Six days later it was her father-in-laws turn. It was very similar to my aunt, just that he was at home. One day he woke up with fever and a cough, and four days later he died. The cause? Cardiorespiratory arrest due to his age, but for me it was coronavirus. After that my in-laws got sick too. They had fever, muscular pain They stayed in quarantine. Her father-in-law was 96, and slept beside his wife until the night before. They sent him treatment for pneumonia, she explains. When he got worse and the situation was very serious, the family decided that the end was here. He received palliative care.

The situation with her father then began to worry her. He was 94 and completely dependent, after a number of strokes. He did not speak, apart from with his looks. He had lost his wife a year before. I think he was aware of everything, Gracia explains. She would go and see him every day. He lived with a carer, who would move him with a lift. On the 13th, she called me concerned saying that he couldnt swallow, she says. I went to the doctors surgery and asked the doctor to go and see him. But my father would get pneumonia very easily, it wasnt the first time. Gracia tried to space out her visits, and not approach her father when she was there. But one day [the carer] told me, Youre father is fading away. I told her that I knew.

When she called for an ambulance, the crew turned up in full hazmat gear, like you see on the TV. They told me directly, Your father has the coronavirus. She asked for tests for them both, but was told that there werent any. We had the option of going to the hospital, but we couldnt be with him there. I called my siblings. We decided that he should stay at home. Two of them were able to come and to be with him. They left Don Quintin with an oxygen tank, with which he spent his last two days.

She was at home, and couldnt sleep that night. At 7am the telephone rang. I ran to the car, she says. I couldnt breathe. I decided I wanted to see the funeral home take my father away. She got there in time, and was able to see the doctors sign the death certificate. Possible Covid-19. Before she went into the house, she saw the same employee. You again. Ill never forget that scene, she says. I went to pieces. She was carrying the weight of three deaths and three bereavements.

English version by Simon Hunter.
Video footage has been released of the moment a gunman fired into a Bronx park were teenagers were celebrating their graduation, killing a 19-year-old girl who was celebrating her college degree.

Tyana Johnson, 19, was identified as a victim of the shooting that took place late on Friday night at Shoelace Park in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, New York.

Over the weekend, the NYPD released surveillance footage from a nearby street camera that shows the BMW driven by the alleged gunman and his accomplices.

Two men are seen close to the vehicle just as the shooting takes place.

As the gunshots rang out, people were seen running for cover in all directions while five others clambered into the car before it was seen to speed away.

Johnson was struck several times in the head, torso, hip and buttocks and died later at Jacobi Medical Center.

Scroll down for video

Tyana Johnson, 19, died after being shot in the head, torso, hip and buttocks on Friday night

Video footage which shows the vehicle use by the gunman and his accomplices has been released by the NYPD over the weekend

Johnson had invited her friends the park to celebrate after earning her associate's degree, and was to take part in Monroe College's virtual graduation ceremony on Wednesday, according to the New York Daily News.

'She was going to further her college career,' her uncle, Marlon Johnson, said on Sunday at a memorial to his niece erected near the park.

'I want my niece back. She didn't deserve to go. I still can't understand how this happened,' he said.

Johnson had invited her friends the park to celebrate graduating from Monroe College

Johnson was celebrating the end of the school year with friends at a Bronx park

Tyana Johnson, 19, died after being shot in the head, torso, hip and buttocks. Pictured, police are gathered near the scene of the accident

'I met her at a party and she's the one that encouraged me to go to college,' a friend called Moi told the Daily News.

'When I started school, we became closer, and she became my sister. And it's just been like that ever since. She's like the most overprotective, strongest person that I've known. She's like a mother in the group  and I think she's the youngest in our group.

'I would never expect something like this to happen,' Moi said. 'When we would be sad or depressed, she would be the one telling us to get up, smile. She basically wouldn't allow it.'

Johnson had been with a group of fellow teens at Shoelace Park in the Wakefield section of the Bronx on Friday night at around 11pm when gunshots rang out

Johnson was celebrating the end of the school year with friends at a Bronx park

NYPD Police Chief Rodney Harrison posted footage on Twitter of the shooting and appealed for information that would lead to the conviction of Johnson's killers.

'Two unknown males exited a silver BMW and opened fire on a high school graduation party in a Bronx Park. This should have been a joyous occasion, but instead it turned into a nightmare,' Chief Harrison wrote.

'The perpetrators struck four people, killing an innocent 19-year-old female who we believe was caught in the gunfire and not the intended target. She was struck five times, including one time in the head. The NYPD needs the public's help in solving this senseless murder,' he pleaded.

Surveillance footage taken from a nearby street camera shows the moment the gunman showed up along with their accomplices in a BMW

NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted after the deadly shooting at Shoelace Park

The two shooters fled in a silver BMW. Police say the motive is unknown but may be gang related. No arrests have been made so far.

Several other people were also shot including a 15-year-old boy who ended up being shot in the buttocks.

One other 16-year-old teen was hit in the ankle and a 24-year-old man, identified as Manny Brown was shot in the groin.

Both ended up taking themselves to Montefiore Medical Center according to the Daily News.

A 15-year-old boy, 16-year-old boy and 24-year-old man were shot. Pictured, police on scene

Johnson's friends posted some heartbreaking tributes to her on social media

The killing happened in Shoelace Park which was sealed off to the public on Saturday

The remains of a night of partying were left behind as crime scene investigators were on scene

All three men are expected to survive.

Police say they believe the gunman was targeting one of the three men who were shot but Johnson was caught by the gunfire.

The gathering where the teens were celebrating the end of the school is usually an animated affair.

'It's usually very loud and rowdy. It was a huge crowd,' the witness said who believed there to have been around 150 other teens all gathered at the park.
Poonam Kangra, Congress leader and a member of Punjab State Commission for Scheduled Castes, along with her husband, Darshan Kangra, and one of her sons Vikasdeep were arrested on Sunday night on charges of abetment to suicide of a local resident, deputy superintendent of police (DSP), Sangrur, (rural), Satpal Sharma said.

Earlier, the police had booked Kangra, her husband and three sons on June 4, when the resident, Sanjeev Kumar, (50) took his own life and died at the Government Rajindra Hospital in Patiala, under Section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Sangrur City Police Station-1.

Kumar allegedly committed suicide after Vikasdeep had eloped with his daughter the previous night.

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MasterChef Australia judge Jock Zonfrillo has sparked backlash following his questionable remarks about Asian food on Sunday night's episode.

When contestant Khanh Ong decided to stay true to his Vietnamese roots for a fine-dining challenge, Jock, 43, controversially said that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining'.

Outraged viewers of Channel 10's competitive cooking show flocked to Twitter to label the chef's comments 'ignorant and highly problematic', while others called for the 'Eurocentric definition of fine dining to be dismantled'.

Controversial: MasterChef Australia judge Jock Zonfrillo (pictured) has sparked backlash following his questionable remarks about Asian food on Sunday night's episode

When given the option to create a fine-dining dish that represented any country, Laura Sharrad and Emilia Jackson chose France, while Khanh went with Vietnam.

However, the choice didn't go down too well with Jock.

After the Scottish-born restaurateur gave his verdict on Asian food's place in fine dining, MasterChef's season two winner Adam Liaw led the backlash on Twitter.

'Asian cuisines are full of fine dining. Kaiseki, Confucian cuisine, Thai/Vietnamese court cuisine, almost any regional cuisine in China, Peranakan food... It's just that the Eurocentric conceptualisation of Michelin, World's 50 Best etc. constantly ignores it,' Adam tweeted.

Other viewers followed suit, with one writing: '"Asian food doesnt lend itself to fine dining - Jock [is an] absolute dinosaur at 43. Sorry you had to listen to such patronising crap, Khanh. I know YOU know that there isnt an Asian cuisine w/o millennia of exquisite refinement behind it. How ignorant.'

Divisive: When contestant Khanh Ong (pictured) decided to stay true to his Vietnamese roots for a fine-dining challenge, Jock, 43, said that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining'

'Highly problematic': After the Scottish-born restaurateur gave his verdict on Asian food's place in fine dining, MasterChef's season two winner Adam Liaw led the backlash on Twitter

'I find it highly problematic that on tonights MasterChef, Jock thinks that Asian cuisine and "fine dining" are mutually exclusive and the other judges appear to agree,' another tweeted.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel 10 for further comment.

Calling out the Eurocentricity of the term 'fine-dining', one viewer wrote on Twitter: '"Many Asian cuisines don't normally adapt themselves to fine dining." Is that because there's been a particular mindset that has been levelled at non-Western European food, and the ones who have made them fine dining distinctively White?'

Another added: 'Fine dining Asian food is like that fake accent you come back with after travelling for a week in the UK, US, or Aus. Fine dining is a fake colonial money-making concept.'

Criticism: Others called for the 'Eurocentric definition of fine dining to be dismantled'

A third tweeted: 'Asian food's inability to be fine dining according to some chefs is like reinforcing stereotypes... It's more to do with the chef's inability to understand that kind of food and see how it can be fine dining. A chef who knows Asian food can make it work, 100 per cent.'

Meanwhile, fan favourite Khanh was eliminated from the competition on Sunday.

The 27-year-old chef was sent home after failing to impress the judges with his quail dish.
(Natural News) Working for a tech giant like Google is a dream come true for many people  after all, this was the company that brought products and services such as the Android Operating System, the Chrome ecosystem, and even media platforms like YouTube and Google Play.

This was the case for Zach Vorhies.

A software engineer, Vorhies started out as a developer for LucasArts, the multimedia arm of film giant LucasFilms, where he worked on games based on two of the studios biggest franchises: Indiana Jones and Star Wars.

According to Vorhies, he had just completed a year at the multimedia firm when Google reached out to get him as an engineer.

After working at LucasFilm, I got offered a job at Google, which I couldnt refuse ? it was a dream to work there, Vorhies said in an interview with Charlene Bollinger.

Everything was really great for the five, five-and-a-half years that I worked there. It was fantastic: great food, great pay, great benefits, massages on my workday  every rumor about how great it was as a workplace was matched and exceeded. I was really, really happy at Google, Vorhies said.

That utopian image was soon shattered, however.

Censoring fake news

According to Vorhies, things started to shift at his workplace by 2016.

November of 2016, Donald Trump won the election, and as a result, YouTube and the whole of Google decided to radically change their politics, Vorhies stated, adding that the tech giants upper management started to become more vocal regarding their displeasure with the elections results.

One week after the election, the company had this company-wide meeting, and at this meeting they had this fireside chat with all the executives and all the employees talking about what this election meant for Google, Vorhies said, noting that what he heard surprised him.

During that meeting, Vorhies recounted, Google chairman Sergey Brin basically spoke about how personally offended he was with Trumps victory against Hillary Clinton, which was followed by Google CFO Ruth Porat breaking down into tears after recounting how Googles management thought that Trump was going to lose.

These statements from upper management, Vorhies said, seemed off, especially since this wasnt Googles election, but rather, an election of the American people.

But that wasnt even the most concerning part.

According to Vorhies, Google CEO Sundar Pichai noted during their meeting that one of the most effective things Google did during the 2016 U.S. elections was their censoring of fake news from its platforms  a task that the tech giant is keen on ramping up.

I thought to myself, wait a minute, what does that mean? Were censoring fake news? Who decides what fake news is? Vorhies recounted.

This, Vorhies said, made him question what Google was really doing. And, as it turns out, luck was on his side.

Google has always been an open company, because theyre like we dont have anything to hide, were good. So it turns out that Google put their design documents about how to, what fake news needed to be censored, Vorhies stated, and I found it, I found these design documents, and as I looked through, I started seeing some very controversial policy decisions that were in the works.

Among the things Google was censoring were articles and stories about Clintons Benghazi deals.

What they were classifying as fake news was this story about how Clinton was running weapons through Benghazi in order to arm ISIS terrorists, and I was like is that fake news? Vorhies explained, adding that he was able to find what he said is evidence that the event actually occurred.

This blatant effort on Googles part to obfuscate the truth, Vorhies said, was alarming.

Are they really trying to censor fake news? Or are they trying to censor actual news that is politically inconvenient for them? Vorhies stated, adding that this realization led him to look further at Googles systems.

I started to suspect that the censorship was up to no good and I said well if Google is going to have this censorship regime where they classify fake news, then they need to have a censorship system to remove that fake news from the user, Vorhies said.

What he found were design documents that basically spelled out Googles plans for a censorship regime.

And it apparently had a name: Machine Learning Fairness.

Googles AI decides whether information is fake news

Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that simulates the human brain. Being a digital replica of the mind, this program possesses simulated brain neurons called neuronets which then get trained on piles of input data with the expected output.

In the case of Google, this AI will be used to separate fake news from legitimate stories.

Its a classifier, this is what it does, it takes an input and it assigns an output between zero and one about how true that classification is and so, this was how Google was going to censor the Internet, Vorhies said, they were going to create classifiers that would classify all kinds of fake news through a bunch of all their different domains: YouTube, Google News, Google Search.

Vorhies noted that judging by the design documents he was able to procure, this Machine Learning Fairness system was going to be rolled out to every major service that Google has.

Vorhies deems that scenario, wherein a pre-programmed electronic brain gets to decide what is fake and what isnt, as scary. (Related: Project Veritas bombshell: Google engaged in massive censorship effort to prevent repeat of 2016 when Trump won the presidency.)

Knowing that they were planning to release this, I started to download these documents and save them for my own sanity, Vorhies recounted, because when I was reading the things that they were saying, it was clear that what they were trying to do was digitize a form of like, postmodernism under the guise of like We have to create a fair and free internet for all races, Vorhies stated, referring to a school of thought that considers moral values to be non-existent.

Things started to worsen from that point forward, Vorhies explained, noting that Googles corporate culture started to shift on a weekly basis, with the company becoming more and more left-leaning as an entity.

It was changing every single week, getting more extreme, getting more Marxist, more postmodern; it was getting scarier and scarier, Vorhies recounted.

By the time 2017 rolled in, Google had become even more blatant in adopting more draconian measures, according to Vorhies.

The covfefe narrative

In June 2017, YouTube had a company-wide meeting in LA called The Stream Event.

During that meeting, Vorhies said, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, got up and had this speech saying that the company is going to start suppressing fringe content, as well as the fake and trashy news. Wojcicki added that YouTube is going to start boosting up more authoritative content from channels such as CNN, CNBC, CBS, and The New York Times, among others.

Wojcickis announcement, Vorhies said, felt Nazi-like.

Google did not stop there, according to Vorhies; it also figured in an event that has since taken on a life of its own in the internet: The covfefe incident.

The incident, which happened after Trump went to Saudi Arabia, saw the president tweeting the words despite the constant negative press covfefe.

The tweet, which garnered significant traction online, was then deleted by Trump, and followed it up with another tweet, asking if anyone can figure out what covfefe means.

As it turns out, many did, all thanks to an entry in Googles Google Translate service.

If you set the source language to Arabic, the output of that was we will stand up and so if you put it together with the tweet, what Trump said was despite the constant negative press, we will stand up, Vorhies said.

Mainstream media did not like that interpretation.

The New York Times, in particular, found that translation problematic, spurring the paper to write a column refuting it. Google, Vorhies recounted, then picked that article up and used it as a basis to delete the word from its database, effectively rendering it as gibberish. All hell broke loose soon after.

Mainstream media companies started going after the President and started advocating for the use of the 25th Amendment to remove him from the presidency, saying he was tweeting nonsense and so, therefore, was mentally incapacitated, Vorhies said, noting that the activities conducted by Google  deleting information to give weight to a story from a publication thats trying to overthrow a sitting president of the U.S.  was an act of sedition.

This, Vorhies said, was the final straw.

Whistleblower goes public with Google documents despite threats to his life  thats what Google does to former employees

Vorhies started collecting and compiling data from within Google  a dangerous task fueled by his discovery that his employer was involved in a massive conspiracy to cover things up and silence any dissenting views.

Thats when I started to get and pool all this information together. I knew that in some way or somehow, I have to let the world know that this is what Google was doing, Vorhies said, adding that in order for Google to operate, its people have to remain in the shadows, unseen.

Thats how it works, thats the playbook, Vorhies stated.

Armed with over 900 pages of internal documents, Vorhies did the most logical thing he could think of: Talk to Project Veritas and its founder, James OKeefe.

Vorhies and OKeefe corresponded through phone conversations, after which Project Veritas sent a representative to collect Vorhies data.

Much to Vorhies surprise, however, the expose he was expecting from Project Veritas did not push through, noting that nothing happened for a year and a half after he sent his collection of Google documents.

This went on for the next couple of months, until April 2019 when Vorhies decided that he has had enough.

After several waves of censorship that crashed in April and May, I was just like I cant do this anymore. I hate waking up and going to work and participating in this beast of a system thats about to kick anyone out of the internet that disagrees with their corporate philosophy, their values, Vohries said. Right then and there, he talked to his supervisor and announced that he was going to tender his resignation.

That was when the call came.

According to Vorhies, he was drafting his resignation letter when he received a call from OKeefes producer, Joe Halderman.

Halderman wanted him to check a transcript that they had of a sting operation Project Veritas had done against Jen Gennai, one of the AI directors at Google. In it, OKeefes team coaxed Gennai into saying that only something the size of Google can stop the next Trump situation in 2020.

So it turns out he (OKeefe) wasnt responding to me because operations were active, they were doing sting operations, Vorhies recounted, adding that the reason OKeefes team didnt move in 2018 was that the Google internal documents were so extreme that OKeefe and the rest of Project Veritas thought it was some sort of fishing intelligence operation on Googles behalf.

Project Veritas, Vorhies said, managed to wrangle several more Google employees in their sting operations  including an engineer who worked on the sites Machine Learning Fairness system.

Upon OKeefes invitation, Vorhies went to New York, where he filmed an anonymous video detailing some of the conspiracies at work within Googles halls. And to nobodys surprise, it broke the internet.

The only regret that we have is that we released it on a Wednesday and not at the beginning of the week, on a Monday, Vorhies said, noting that his video was the only thing that netizens talked about for three days.

Soon, however, the expose that made him the internets newest star also put him in the crosshairs of his former employees.

As it turned out, Google was not going to leave me alone  they came after me. They came after me with an army of lawyers, they started the letter sending, saying we want access to all of your information, we want to know what you accessed, who you gave it to, Vorhies recounted.

He added that Google, after deducing the whistleblowers identity in the Project Veritas anonymous video, laid out an elaborate trap for him to fall into.

They were able to figure out from the Project Veritas video what it was and figured that it was me and it was clear that they wanted me to prove it for them that it was me that did it, Vorhies said, noting that he soon asked lawyers for advice.

They let me know that this was their (Google) first step of many in having my entire life be destroyed, Vorhies recounted. When he pressed the lawyers about the reason behind it, they said Thats what Google does to former employees.

Rather than wait for Google to serve him with more legal documents, Vorhies decided to take matters into his own hands: He took all the legal documents and designs he pilfered from Google and sent it to the U.S. Department of Justice.

He then warned OKeefe that in the case of his untimely death, the latter should distribute all of Googles documents to the public.

Vorhies then took to Twitter to convey a message to Google: An image of a man who slew a dragon that was about to eat him, with the caption in the event of my untimely death, all documents will become public.

As a response to his tweet, Google called the police and a bomb squad on Vorhies, which then led to a tense standoff.

I couldnt believe there was a bomb squad, and police helicopters and police on adjacent rooftops with long rifles just for me. Im a software engineer, I dont even have a criminal record, why are they doing all these exaggerated things? Because of a tweet? Or because Google was trying to stop me? Vorhies recounted.

Instead of waiting for the police to barge in his house and possibly kill him, Vorhies, hands stretched up above his head, decided to face the police.

I came out, I said if theyre going to do anything against me, let them do it with all of these cameras pointing at them and good luck trying to get them out of the hands of like 20 bystanders  that stuffs going to go on the internet, its going to go on Facebook, its going on Twitter, Vorhies said.

He packed his clothes as soon as the standoff dissipated, and by the next morning, he was already in Washington, D.C., in a safehouse.

Similar to what he and OKeefe did before, the two of them filmed a video regarding the corruption and the culture of lies and deception within Google  only this time, Vorhies was clearly identified.

In addition to filming the video, all 950 pages of Vorhies Google documents were made accessible to the public via a download link. Needless to say, everyone wanted to get their hands on the precious documents.

That first day that it got released, there was an email notification that Project Veritas received for each time that link was downloaded and that link was downloaded just constantly, more than once a second for like hours, Vorhies stated, adding that he and Project Veritas believe that every intelligence agency and technology company in the world now each have a copy of the controversial Google files.

So, whats next?

According to Vorhies, a barrage of antitrust action against Google, for starters.

Within 30 days, maybe 60, antitrust investigations were launched by the DOJ, 51 state attorneys general got together and started their antitrust action and also, the city of New York. So three administration levels of the government got together and pushed this antitrust action onto Google, Vorhies stated.

Vorhies is quick to point, however, that it wasnt solely because of him.

I wouldnt claim it was because of me but it happened within 30 to 60 days of me disclosing all of this to the general public, which was my hope, Vorhies said.

Despite the current slate of actions being levied against Google and other Big Tech, Vorhies thinks the censorship usually associated with the elections is not going to get better just yet  its going to get worse.

I think its going to get really bad in September or October and Im really afraid for the president and his allies, Vorhies said.

According to Vorhies, judging by how aggressive Twitter is lately, it is highly likely that the social media platform will ban everything that Trump says, as well as ban all the supporters that are going to talk about it.

In addition, Vorhies said, there is a possibility for a total information lockdown.

Every single day that progresses, the more my dystopian concern becomes more of a reality and thats why Im here fighting today because I know what the Deep State is able to pull off, Vorhies said.

Fortunately, he has no plans of ever quitting.

Watch the full interview below:

Sources include:

INC.com

Nature.com

TheGuardian.com

InfoWars.com

Breitbart.com

CNBC.com

ProjectVeritas.com

TechCrunch.com
On May 27, two days after a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, an officer in Tallahassee, Florida, killed Tony McDade, a Black trans man. He was 38. According to the Human Rights Campaign, McDade was at least the twelfth transgender or gender nonconforming person to be killed in the US this year. That number is very likely an undercount. Last Tuesday, the known total rose to 14, following the killings of Dominique Remmie Fells, 27, in Philadelphia, and Riah Milton, 25, in a robbery in Liberty Township, Ohio. Both Fells and Milton were Black trans women, a group that is particularly vulnerable to police brutality and other forms of violence. Yesterday, activists in cities across the country marched in memory of McDade, Fells, Milton, and others, and in solidarity with all Black trans lives. In New York alone, thousands of people dressed mostly in whitea nod to a silent protest parade organized by the NAACP, in 1917congregated outside the Brooklyn Museum. We cant just talk about trans people when theyre dying, Eliel Cruz, an organizer of the event, told CNN. But what are we doing actively and intentionally to create space for them to be safe and well?

Yesterdays marches were covered by major news organizations, but they werent especially prominent across the news cycle as a whole. In recent days and weeks, the same has been true of the killings of McDade, Fells, and Milton. There have been some efforts to move Black trans lives closer to the center of the current conversation on race. The cover of the latest issue of Time magazine features a photographtaken by Devin Allen, whose work appeared on Times cover once before, following the death of Freddie Gray, in 2015of a recent Black Trans Lives Matter protest in Baltimore. We leave out the LGBT community, especially when it comes to the black trans community, Allen told the Baltimore Sun. As a straight, black man, Im going to give the same energy that I give to all my people to that community. Yesterday, the New Yorker unveiled its next cover, by the artist Kadir Nelson, on which Floyd metaphorically embodies the history of anti-Black violence in the US. McDade is among those depicted within Floyds frame. (The covers accompanying text online does not mention that McDade was trans.)

Related: The Story Has Gotten Away from Us

Still, recent coverage clearly speaks to a longer-term complaint of Black trans activists and their alliesthat Black trans lives are commonly erased within power structures and ecosystems across society, from the broader Black Lives Matter movement to the news media. As the recent protests have taken hold, the narrative about the violence against Black trans people often gets left behind, Nicole Cardoza writes in the newsletter Anti-Racism Daily. Centering those that are most vulnerable is critically important in movement work, because a specific communitys distinct pain can be minimized when lumped in with others. Writing for The Independent following the killing of McDade, Melz Owusu, a researcher and organizer, argued that what it means to be a black cisgender man in the Western world has been conceptualised for years, whereas what it means to be a black trans man/masculine person is an experience many are not ready to acknowledge, and thus are not ready to protect.

Many of us in the news media have helped perpetuate that disparity. A resource document, posted over the weekend with input from Black trans activists and journalists including Janet Mock and Raquel Willis, notes that Black trans women get disproportionately LESS media coverage than cis Black folks. News outletsoften following the lead of law enforcementcommonly misgender the victims of anti-trans violence by using their deadnames, or the names they were assigned at birth. There is no reason any pro-LGBTQ+ workforce should be upholding [this] as a journalistic practice, the document says.

The issues with mainstream media coverage of trans peopleand Black trans people, in particulargo beyond deadnaming and a relative lack of attention. Monica Roberts, who runs the blog TransGriot, noted on Twitter yesterday that Black trans voices are grossly underrepresented as commentators on TV news. FYI, Roberts wrote, Black trans people are also Black people fully versed in talking about Black community issues and politics. As CJRs Zainab Sultan reported last year, the stock-photo galleries from which news organizations source images have historically reinforced lazy stereotypes about trans and gender nonconforming people. (To help rectify that, staff at Broadly, a site run by Vice, set up their own gallery with stock photos that more accurately represent trans people from a range of backgrounds.) Also writing for CJR last year, Lewis Raven Wallace listed a variety of ills afflicting coverage of the broader trans community, including the misuse of pronouns, the systematic exclusion of trans people from the field of journalism, and the quoting of fringe anti-trans activists to achieve balance.

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In the current context of police-brutality protests and COVID-19the disease caused by the new coronavirus that has disproportionately hit communities of colorthe violence and public-health crises affecting Black trans people demand more of our collective focus. Recently, prior to the killings of Fells and Milton, CJRs Betsy Morais and Alexandria Neason composed a chronology tracking six months of life and death in America. In addition to McDades, it marked other deathsof Monika Diamond, a Black trans woman who was killed in Charlotte in March; of a trans woman known as Lexi who was killed in New York, also in March; of Nina Pop, a Black trans woman who was killed in Sikeston, Missouri, in Maythat did not go entirely unremarked, but did not rise to the top of our broader attention economy, either. This despite the fact thatas the Human Rights Campaigns Tori Cooper told the AP, following Pops deathwe are seeing an epidemic of violence that can no longer be ignored.

Below, more on Black and trans lives:



Other notable stories:

ICYMI: The mystery of Tucker Carlson

Correction: An earlier version of this post misspelled the name of Melz Owusu.

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.
Augustoberfest to return in 2022, but in a new location

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Augustoberfest, usually held in downtown Hagerstown. But this year's festival is moving out of Hagerstown.
To apply and get accepted for an internship at Google, is a dream come true for all is it is known for having one of the most coveted internship programs in the country. According to a report from CNN, there were over 125,000 applications last 2019- a 17% increase from 2018.

This year, Google has announced that it will be carrying on with its summer internship program however, it will be focused primarily on WFH open source projects.

According to a portion of its blog found in The Express Tribune, it stated that although 2020 would be the first time that the internship is virtual, the essence of what it feels like to be part of the family hasn't changed.

"We want our interns to have fun and make an impact on products that people use every day. Although many aspects of the program remain the same with interns working from home, we had to make some adjustments. Interns won't have the benefit of working next to experienced Googlers in a traditional office environment, which in turn impacts the kinds of projects they can work on." the tech giant revealed in its blog.

The Internship (2013): Film Portrayal over Reality

Don't we ever stop to wonder and think what it is like to work for the biggest tech companies of the world?

People who often seek an answer to the question turn no further towards the movie, The Internship starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

If you haven't seen the movie, this movie tells the story of how salesmen find themselves unemployed in the digital world. They eventually land an internship at Google to prove they've still got game.

But some aspects of the film does not reflect the reality of how Google conducts its internships. According to Kitt Vanderwater, who did wo internships for Google before hiring her said the competitive aspect of the film is not accurate telling Mashable that it gives off the opposite.

Intern Matt Melone agreed, saying the hyper-competitive aspect of the movie was inaccurate.

"The recruiting team made it clear in the beginning that we weren't competing. Everybody here is Googly, and Googliness is not just a word used in the movie." said Matt Melone who is now the program manager for Google.

But the facilities that Google offers to its employees are a dream come true for all: free lunches, haircuts, gym, nap pods, campus bikes, foosball, pool, ping pong, laundry service, a subsidized massage program, and a whole lot more.

Read Also: Google Reveals That Suspicious Apps Can Bypass Anti-Adware Security And Cause Ads To Flood Your Phone

How to get an internship at Google

As of this writing, the internship is only applicable to UK residents aged 18 and above.

Applicants need to select the sector programme they are interested in, with six available to choose from. These are:

Investment banking

Technology

Operations and marketing

Finance and professional services

Consulting

Commercial Law

Once selected, simply fill out an application online, by visiting www.brightnetwork.co.uk/internship-experience-uk/#application.

The internships will run from June 29 to July 16, 2020. For more information on the schedule of each programme, visit: brightnetwork.egnyte.com

Read Also: Join over One Million Users Who Downloaded Google Stadia App with its Free Premium Access: Here's How
A sign announces the closure of an ice cream shop in Denver at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in April. Credit: Andrew Sorensen/CU Boulder

At the start of 2020, David Bortz, like most Coloradans, didn't know what a coronavirus was. For the last few months, tracking this virus is practically his full-time job.

Bortz, an associate professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics at CU Boulder, is a mathematical biologista numbers man who uses complex equations, or mathematical models, to tackle some of the trickiest questions in the life sciences.

Today, he's a member of Colorado's COVID-19 Modeling Team.

Think of it as the state's epidemiological dream team. It's made up of researchers from across Colorado who have been assembled to try to get ahead of the pandemic. They include scientists from CU Denver, CU School of Medicine, the Colorado School of Public Health and Colorado State University.

"The scientific community in Colorado, and worldwide, has redirected an enormous amount of resources to tackle this crisis," Bortz said.

The modeling team has been working long hours to give public health officials in Colorado timely guidance on how various measures might slow or accelerate the spread of the virus. The group uses mathematical and statistical modeling to answer questions like: would loosening social distancing restrictions today put a new strain on hospital intensive care units across the state in a few weeks?

Bortz said that the modeling team is now facing a new challenge: studying how the state might continue to reopen businesses, and what the ramifications could be.

Bortz spoke to CU Boulder Today about what it's like to suddenly be a mathematician in the public spotlight, and why epidemiological models are important public health toolsdespite some uncertainties.

People seem to be paying attention to models more than ever before. What is that like for someone in your field?

It's exciting to be a part of a research team where mathematical modeling and analysis have such a central role in both policymaking and public discourse. Simultaneously, however, there's obviously a lot of pressure to make sure we get it right. Which means the team has been working non-stop for the last few months.

You're focusing now on something called an SEIR model. How does that work?

SEIR models belong to a mathematical epidemiology framework that divides a population into people who are susceptible (S) to a disease, exposed (E), infectious (I) and recovered (R). The mathematical modeling can help to answer questions like: How fast does an individual who is susceptible become exposed? How fast does an individual who is infected become recovered on average? And so on.

How do you ensure that these sorts of tools are reliable for informing public health decisions?

As researchers have studied this class of equations for about 100 years, we have a really good understanding of the core mathematics as well as how uncertainty propagates from case counts to uncertainty in ventilator needs. It's similar to how we think about hurricane forecasting.

In any weather prediction, there is going to be uncertainty from meteorological measurements as well as different predictions from the different computational models being used. The overall result of this variation is that meteorologists provide a cone of uncertainty that allows them to predict that, for example, a hurricane will land somewhere between northern Florida and South Carolina.

So we may not know exactly how strong the winds will be, but we know enough to say it's time to evacuate?

Exactly. In the case of COVID-19, if we had let the virus go unchecked, we may not know the death rate perfectly, but a likely outcome would have been that the disease would have been fatal for 1% or more of the U.S. population. Projecting further into the future, we also know that if we completely release social distancing recommendations too early, there's going to be a noticeable second peak in the epidemic.

What kinds of questions are you and your colleagues focusing on now?

How do you open up restaurants? What restrictions are needed to open up bars? And by what date, and how do those choices influence the economy? Do you ask people to wear masks when they're hiking or biking or just when they're out on the street and going to the grocery store? Those are the sorts of questions that need evidence-based answers because of the real and widespread impact these choices have on public health and the economy.

It really does seem like we're in the moment of a movie when the team comes together to turn back disaster.

It's humbling, and I'm honored to be a part of this team of world-class researchers providing guidance to the State Epidemiologist and the Governor. However, the real superheroes are the people on the front lines of the pandemic. I can make predictions about the needed reduction in the infection rate, but it's the actions by the medical professionals, essential workers and everyone who follows the public health recommendations that really result in turning back this disaster.

Explore further The math behind the COVID-19 modeling
UPDATE: Listen to 911 calls just before man brandishing gun on highway was shot by CPL holder

EATON COUNTY, MI  A Michigan man allegedly seen firing gunshots into the air and pointing a handgun at motorists in the middle of a roadway was shot and killed by a passerby with a concealed pistol license.

The Eaton County Sheriffs Office said it received multiple reports from citizens about a black male dressed in a black hoodie and jeans who was firing off rounds and brandishing the pistol in the middle of the 6500 block of Saginaw Highway at 8:25 a.m. on Monday.

As deputies were responding, 911 dispatchers advised that the man had been shot, police said. Upon arrival, deputies found a man with apparent gunshot wounds and a handgun next to his body. He died at the scene.

Preliminary investigation indicates that a 22-year-old resident of Delta Township had been traveling east on Saginaw Highway when he stopped near Brookside Drive. The male standing in the highway then pointed the pistol at him, according to police.

The 22-year-old, a CPL holder, fired his pistol from his vehicle, striking the male, identified as a 26-year-old with a last known address in Walker. Further information will be updated pending next of kin notification.

Eaton County detectives are investigating at the scene and interviewing multiple witnesses. Anyone who observed any part of the incident is asked to contact Det. Buxton at 517-323-8484.
By Yi Whan-woo



The United Kingdom has launched a network aimed at increasing digital trade and investment opportunities in the Asia Pacific region and also forging partnerships with the region, the British Embassy in Seoul said last week.



The Digital Trade Network in the Asia Pacific is a three-year pilot program co-launched by the U.K. Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).



The embassy said the network is expected to increase the U.K.'s digital tech expertise across key markets, including Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia, and support U.K.-Asia Pacific tech collaborations.



The diplomatic mission also said the launch of the network was timely because demand for digital technology has been increasing in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and that the network would help IT businesses respond to this demand.



"We're creating a new digital trade network  starting in the Asia Pacific  to help our firms break into new markets and negotiating cutting-edge digital chapters in our free trade agreements," U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quoted as saying. "And as we throw the government's weight behind our tech industry, the U.K. will strive with our friends to design global standards for emerging technologies, safeguarding our values of freedom, openness and pluralism."



Natalie Black, Her Majesty's Trade Commissioner (HMTC) for the Asia Pacific, said the network "will allow us to create new collaborations, driving trade and investment and ensuring we all benefit from the best global digital innovation."



Gerard Grech, chief executive of Tech Nation, the U.K. growth platform for tech companies and leaders, said Asia Pacific is of "huge strategic importance to the U.K."



He said connecting U.K. tech businesses into regional networks would help U.K.-based innovative and research and development businesses make the leap into these new key markets.



The U.K. has committed 8 million pounds ($10 million) to launch and run the network in the region over the next three years.



The U.K. drew more than 10 billion pounds of investments in 2019, ranking third behind the United States and China.



The embassy said the U.K. had demonstrated its strength in creating successful tech businesses in recent years, with 79 tech unicorns developed in the U.K.  more than Germany, France and Israel combined.



The DIT helps exports, investment, market access and trade "supporting and encouraging U.K. businesses to drive sustainable international growth, ensuring the U.K. remains a leading destination for international investment, opening markets, building a trade framework with new and existing partners that is free and fair and using trade and investment to underpin the government's agenda for a global Britain and its ambitions for prosperity, stability and security worldwide."


President Donald Trump walks off Marine One in Washington on May 30, 2020. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Trump to Announce Police Reform Executive Order: Conway

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said President Donald Trump is expected to make an announcement on an executive order on police reform on Tuesday.

The president has been listening to many people across the aisle and across the country when he is formulating these ideas, and he has a very large group of people helping him with that as well, Conway told Fox News on Monday.

The move comes during weeks of protests following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody. Four officers were fired, and one former officer, Derek Chauvin, faces second-degree murder charges.

I think it wont surprise you it will talk about the role of law enforcement, making sure that people understand the role is to keep their communities safe and their neighborhoods protected, and that we dont want to cast aspersions over an entire industry, she said.

The specifics of the order were not detailed.

Trump last week said the White House was working on an executive order that would encourage police departments to meet professional standards in use of force.

Were working to finalize an executive order that will encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation, Trump said during a meeting in Dallas, Texas.

State Police stand guard as smoke billows from buildings that 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)

During the Dallas meeting, the president outlined a four-point plan to address the issue, including increasing access to capital for business owners in minority communities, dealing with racial disparities in health care, implementing an executive order to have police departments meet professional standards on use of force, as well as a pilot program for social workers to be employed in police departments, and a push to have Congress pass a bill on school choice.

Trump at the time declared that his administration does not support the calls to defund or dismantle police departments.

Well take care of our police  were not defunding police, he said at the time. If anything, were going the other route: Were going to make sure that our police are well trained, perfectly trained, they have the best equipment.

This week, the calls for police reform intensified after a police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, a black man, in Atlanta, Georgia, which sparked demonstrations and rioting over the weekend.

A Wendys location, near where Brooks was shot, was burned to the ground. Atlanta police are still searching for a person of interest in the case.
Russian and Danish researchers have made a first-ever experimental observation of a plasmon nanojet. This physical phenomenon enables nanoscale focusing of light and, theoretically, allows engineers to bypass one of the fundamental limitations of the ordinary converging lens. Tight compression of light waves is necessary to use them as signal carriers in compact devices that would work much faster than today's electronics. The study comes out in the June 15 issue of Optics Letters.

Before laser pointers became available, the amorous heroes of romance novels had to make do with small rocks they would throw into a beloved's window to indicate their presence. Among the numerous drawbacks of rocks as signal carriers is their mass, which means sending a message requires an effort and time. While the electron does not weigh as much as a rock, it still cannot be put in motion instantaneously. If we could replace the electrons in microcircuits with photons -- the massless particles of light -- the resulting devices would operate much faster.

What prevents engineers from abandoning electronic chips in favor of their photonic analogues is the need for miniaturization. With today's technology, such optical devices would have an enormous size. To make them smaller, engineers require a way to control photons on such a small scale that the light wave itself has to be localized, squeezed into a minimum space. Ideally, the light needs to be focused into a spot smaller than 50% of the original wavelength. While this feat is impossible in the classical optics due to what's known as the diffraction limit, modern research has already found several ways around it. And the newly observed plasmon nanojet is likely to become one of them.

A team of Russian and Danish physicists has created a focusing component, or nanolens, capable of converting light into electromagnetic waves of a special kind, compressing it to 60% of the initial radiation wavelength. This new contraption is made up of a square piece of dielectric material 5 by 5 micrometers in size and 0.25 micrometers thick. Shown in figure 1, the square particle lies on a thin 0.1-micrometer gold film, next to an etched grating that diffracts light.

Illuminating the grating in the gold film with a laser generates excitations known as surface plasmon polaritons, which travel along the metal's surface. These SPPs are essentially two kinds of waves coupled to each other and propagating together. First, there's the collective oscillation of electrons in gold -- the plasmon part -- and then there's also a surface light wave called a polariton. The point of converting light to SPPs is that there are ways to focus them to a greater extent than the initial laser pulse.

"One of the mechanisms that enable subwavelength focusing relies on the plasmon nanojet, a phenomenon we have observed in an experiment for the first time," said the paper's lead author, Professor Igor Minin of Tomsk Polytechnic University.

The scientific explanation of why waves undergo compression in the superlens is as follows. "Using computer simulations, we figured out the appropriate dimensions of the dielectric particle and the diffraction grid in the gold film. When these parameters are right, SPPs have different phase velocities at different points in the particle. This causes the wavefront to bend, creating a vortex in the particle and therefore a region dense with SPPs behind it, which we call a plasmon nanojet," said study co-author Dmitry Ponomarev, a leading researcher at the MIPT Laboratory of 2D Materials and Nanodevices and the deputy director of Mokerov Institute of Ultra High Frequency Semiconductor Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The study has demonstrated a new and efficient mechanism for strongly localizing radiation and manipulating it on the nanoscale, which is a prerequisite for densely packing optical components in photonic and plasmonic devices that would operate much faster than conventional electronics.

The head of the MIPT Center for Photonics and 2D Materials, Valentyn Volkov, who co-authored the study, added: "The experimental observation of plasmon nanojets has been made possible by a concerted effort on the part of our center's researchers and the colleagues in Moscow, Tomsk, and Copenhagen. This collaboration is not over, and we are planning to show other exciting effects that have to do with the formation, propagation, and application of plasmon nanojets."

###
Burying the film, as the Disney corporation has done with the notorious Uncle Remus fantasy Song of the South, is the wrong answer, Stewart says. In 2015 I co-taught a course at Northwestern University with my colleague, Miriam Petty, for the 100th anniversary of The Birth of a Nation. It is crucial we look back at these films. These were huge, very expensive, very popular films, with really long lives. They were protested at the time they were made. And its instructive for us now, as we figure out what we want from our media, and how to change the representation of what we see on screen."
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's prime minister on Monday warned political activists not to criticize the monarchy, saying doing so could damage their job prospects even though the king had asked him not to make prosecutions under a law protecting the royal family.

Insulting the monarchy is a crime under Article 112 of Thailand's criminal code, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The suspected kidnapping of a Thai democracy activist in Cambodia this month ignited small protests by university students, with some questioning in online comments the "lese majeste" law.

"Before, we have Article 112 of the criminal code and we don't have a lot of problems, but now Article 112 has not been used because the king has kindly asked not to use it," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said.

"Now people are violating this. So what does this mean, what do you all want? I have to say this today to create peace in the country," he said.

The king is traditionally revered in Thai culture as the protector of the nation and the Buddhist religion. Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since 1932.

But recent months have seen an unprecedented surge of online questioning of the institution.

In March, a Thai-language hashtag that translates as #whydoweneedaking? was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in Thailand after an overseas activist commented online about King Maha Vajiralongkorn travelling in Germany during the coronavirus crisis.

King Vajiralongkorn, 67, who was crowned last year, has a second home in Germany. He spends much of his time outside Thailand.

Prayuth said the king has instructed him personally not to use Article 112 for prosecutions but people who questioned the monarchy could face difficulties in the job market.

"Those who have this kind of behavior may find it hard to find work, businesses do not want this sort of people to work for them, so how can they make a living? I am worried for them," Prayuth said.

Story continues

Charges under the lese majeste law have been decreasing since 2018, according to the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group.

But some rights groups say authorities use other laws, including a Computer Crime Act and a law against sedition law, more often.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has been called upon by rural businesses to introduce the Countryside Code in school lessons.

It comes following reports of numerous incidents taking place in rural areas as the country emerges from the Covid-19 crisis.

These include fly-tipping, littering, trespassing, country lanes being blocked, gates being left open, dogs chasing livestock and a lack of social distancing.

There has been a spike in these crimes occurring as more people have flocked to the countryside to enjoy the hot weather since lockdown rules were eased.

The Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has now written to the Secretary of State for Education calling for the Countryside Code to be taught in schools.

The Code, which applies to all parts of the countryside in England and Wales, aims to help everyone respect the countryside.

CLA president Mark Bridgeman said the rural group wanted the public to be 'safe' and to 'respect' the countryside as a place of work.

A lack of education on how to treat the countryside has left a generation without a basic understanding of what is an acceptable and indeed necessary standard of behaviour in a rural, working environment which produces food for the nation.

"We all have a part of to play in improving that understanding, but help in the classroom would be a great start."

With recent problems arising, including the tragic death of another walker attacked by cattle, the group said it 'strongly believed' this was the right time to get the Countryside Code into classrooms.

"There is an opportunity for lessons to be learned from the crisis," Mr Bridgeman said.

It is imperative we set standards and expectations, while promoting an ethos of respect for the countryside in schools up and down the country emphasising the impact it plays in childrens health, wellbeing and attainment.

Furthermore, there have been reports of disposable barbecues in rural areas catching fire and destroying land and habitat.

The CLA said reducing the risk of wildfires was 'key' at this time of the year, and raising awareness was one way in which the risk can be reduced.
A spike of 11,502 new Covid-19 cases and 325 deaths has been reported in the last 24 hours in India. With this, the total number of Covid-19 cases in India has reached 3,32,424 on Monday.

With an increase of 11,502 cases in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India reached 3,32,424 on Monday, according to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry. The spike is marginally lower than the highest-ever spike of 11,929 new cases the country registered a day earlier.

With 325 deaths being reported from across the country, the toll due to COVID-19 has now reached 9,520. The COVID-19 count includes 1,53,106 active cases while 1,69,798 patients have been cured and discharged or migrated so far.

Maharashtra with 1,07,958 cases continues to be the worst-affected state in the country with 53,030 active cases while 50,978 patients have been cured and discharged in the state so far. 3,950 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far from Maharashtra. It is followed by Tamil Nadu with 44,661 cases and the national capital with 41,182 confirmed cases.

Also Read: Nepal border firing: India takes up killing of its national at border with Nepal govt

Also Read: Amit Shah to chair all-party meeting to review Covid-19 situation in Delhi today

The global number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus infection has surpassed 7.6 million, with over 427,000 fatalities being reported since the start of the outbreak, according to the latest data provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday. The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has increased by 137,526 over the past day, down from 142,672 the day before, to 7,690,708, according to the WHO.

Over the past 24 hours, 4,281 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, down from 5,055 the day before, taking the death toll to 427,630. The majority of cases and deaths  3.71 million and 199,252, respectively  are still concentrated in the Americas. The United States remains the worst-hit country having the highest single count of cases, over 2 million, and fatalities, 114,466.

Also Read: Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao decides to test 50,000 people for Covid-19 in and around Hyderabad in next 10 days

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
An aspiring New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for the Akyem Oda Constituency, Mr Richard Asante-Bediako, has denied rumours that he had been disqualified from contesting in the partys constituency primary slated for June 20.



Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Akyem Oda last Wednesday, Mr Asante-Bediako said the announcement by the General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, about his disqualification at a news conference in Accra last Monday was an error.



According to him, the error had been corrected and he was physically, morally and spiritually ready to win the seat at the expense of the Member of Parliament (MP), Mr William Quaittoo, and the other contestant Mr Alexander Akwasi Acquah, an Accra-based business executive.



Member in good standing



When the Daily Graphic contacted the Eastern Regional Secretary of the NPP, Mr Jeff Konadu, on the issue, he confirmed that Mr Asante-Bediako had not been disqualified.



He stressed that the error about Mr Asante-Bediakos disqualification of the NPP had been rectified.



Mr Konadu said as a member of the Eastern Region vetting committee, he was aware that only one parliamentary aspirant, Mr Edward Kwaku Aboagye, was disqualified and the remaining three, namely, Mr William Agyapong Quaittoo, Mr Alexander Akwasi Acquah and Mr Richard Asante-Bediako were cleared to contest in the primary.





Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
By David Kennedy

Pennsylvania state troopers dont enlist for medals or to win popularity contests. Many of us grew up wanting to be troopers, proud to serve our communities and willing to lay down our lives if necessary. Since the formation of our department in 1905, our ranks have suffered 98 line-of-duty deaths. Some date back so far we dont even have pictures of those brave troopers.

We believe our Call of Honor is nothing less than a sacred oath. Every trooper must memorize it. In particular, it includes this line: It is my duty to obey the law and to enforce it without any consideration of class, color, creed or condition. The line is important because it means no one is above the law. Including us. Especially us. Thats the way it should be.

Were incredibly proud of the work our department has done in the areas of social justice and maintaining standards of proper behavior through a strict disciplinary system. In fact, proposals offered by Gov. Tom Wolf and other legislators would duplicate many robust practices already in place that make Pennsylvania a model for holding its law enforcement agencies to the highest standards.

For example, Wolf is calling for a review of training and officer education. The Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission currently reviews, develops curriculum and oversees the training of municipal police officers under the direction of the Pennsylvania State Police. When President Barack Obama created the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, Pennsylvania police officers played a vital role. The initiative was chaired by Philadelphia Police Chief Charles Ramsey. The curriculum was crafted by FOP Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1, which consists primarily of Pittsburgh police officers. MPOETC adopted its guidelines from President Obamas task force.

The governor raises the idea of enhancing officer safety and wellness, but Pennsylvanians should know that our department already requires a Fitness for Duty standard, which could entail independent medical and psychological evaluations throughout employment. Emerging issues are identified and dealt with through a comprehensive Early Intervention Program  one of the first in the nation.

The Pennsylvania State Police also knows it has an important role to play in our communities on social justice issues. Our Office of Heritage Affairs serves as an ally to victims of hate crimes and as a mediator between law enforcement and community members involved in contentious situations. Its work has been meaningful, even if it hasnt warranted the attention of the media. This office also teaches cadets about cultural diversity, racial profiling awareness and implicit bias. We provide these services to other police departments that request it.

Wolf has called for the creation of a new deputy inspector general and Pennsylvania State Law Enforcement Advisory Commission to review allegations of misconduct. These steps ignore that the state police already has an exhaustive review of all instances of misconduct. Each case must be reviewed by: the Internal Affairs Division; area commanders; bureau directors; troop commanders; the Department Disciplinary Office; and the Office of Chief Counsel. The departments Equal Opportunity Employment Office and Equality and Inclusion Office also investigate incidents of alleged wrongdoing within the state police. All allegations of criminal misconduct are thoroughly investigated by experts, in consultation with the attorney general, elected local district attorneys and even federal agencies. Police shootings and other serious uses of force receive outside reviews from the district attorney in the county where an incident occurs, as well as the governors own Office of General Counsel.

Pennsylvania state troopers also have a track record of bringing our own members to justice. We do this because we took an oath to serve our fellow Pennsylvanians. It includes these words: I must serve honestly, faithfully, and if need be, lay down my life as others have done before me, rather than swerve from the path of duty. Those who violate this oath do not deserve to wear our uniform.

We want  and will do  more.

The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association recently signed on to work with Attorney General Josh Shapiro to push for legislation that would create a statewide registry to allow police departments to check the backgrounds of all potential officer candidates. We have long supported a statewide registry so our department can ensure it only hires people who are worthy of being a state trooper, and look forward to being part of this effort.

Our Call of Honor is more than just words. Its our commitment to our fellow Pennsylvanians.

David Kennedy is president of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association.
Tata Motors on Monday reported consolidated net loss of 9,894 cr in the quarter ending 31 March, 2020. The auto major had reported net profit of 1,117 crore in the year-ago period.

The consolidated revenue from operations declined 28% to 62,493 crore as against 86,422 crore in March 2019.

Here are the key takeaways from the company's Q4 results:

-Q1FY21 expected to be significantly weaker for both JLR and Tata Motors with full impact of lockdowns being reflected in results.

-Actions underway to significantly deleverage Tata Motors Group with JLR to become sustainably cash positive from FY22.

-Tata Motors expects gradual recovery of sales, improving cash flows for remainder of year for JLR.

-While outlook remains uncertain, Tata Motors expects gradual recovery of sales and improving cash flows in FY21.

-Tata Motors expects to end FY21 with positive free cash flows.

-Tata Motors sees significantly lower sales in Q1 and negative free cash flow of about 5,000 crore in Q1FY21.

-Consolidated Ebitda margin in March quarter was at 4.6%, down 510 bps on annual basis.

-JLR suffered a loss of 501 million pounds in Q4.

-Tata Motors has called out cost savings programme of 1,500 crore, cash improvement programme of 6,000 crore.

-JLR retail unit sales fall 31% in Q4 and 12.1% in FY20.

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LIMA, PERU / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2020 - Alicorp S.A.A. ("Alicorp" or "the Company") (Lima Stock Exchange:ALICORC1 and ALICORI1) a leading Peruvian CG and B2B company, announced today the reorganization of its top management structure. These changes are related to Alicorps culture of flexibility which obliges the company to be in constant evolution, in order to achieve efficiency and create value for the consumers, the society and its shareholders.

Mr. Alfredo Perez Gubbins, CEO stated: "Our aspirations require us to constantly reinvent ourselves in order to develop in a sustainable and continuous way. For this reason, we are organizing our structure differently, developing new units and teams with different capabilities, to continue strengthening ourselves and take on new challenges".

After 40 years at Alicorp, Jaime Butrich, the current VP of Supply chain, will be leaving Alicorp at the end of year 2020.

Stefan Stern, current VP of Alicorp solutions, will take over the position and transition into the role beginning on July 15.

Additionally, Luis Estrada Rondon, current VP of Commodities & Crushing, will take on the role of VP of Commodities & Alicorp Solutions, while the Crushing Business will fall under the responsibilities of the VP of Consumer Goods International led by Jose Antonio Cabrera.

In addition to her current position, Paola Ruchman, VP of Human Resources, has been named Chief of Staff of the CEO. Furthermore, Patricio Jaramillo, VP of Consumer Goods Peru, will also incorporate the role of VP of Innovation.

INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT

Gisele Remy Ferrero

MD Corporate Finance & IRO

T: (511) 315-0800 Ext: 444410

E-mail: Investorrelations@alicorp.com.pe

About Alicorp

Alicorp is a leading consumer goods company headquartered in Peru, with operations in other Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and exports to 22 other countries. The Company focuses on four core businesses: (1) Consumer Products (food, personal and home care products), in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and other countries, (2) Industrial Food Products (industrial flour, industrial lard, pre-mix and food service products), and (3) Aquaculture (fish and shrimp feeding) and (4) Crushing (soy and sunflower seeds).

Story continues

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements represent Alicorp's expectations or beliefs concerning future events, and it is possible that the results described in this press release will not be achieved. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Alicorp's control that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made, and, except as required by law, Alicorp does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors.

SOURCE: ALICORP S.A.A. via EQS Newswire





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/593932/Alicorp-Announces-Senior-Management-Changes




The coronavirus pandemic has impacted every sector, but perhaps, the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors have been most affected. Which is why, with the proper compliances, safety and sanitisation measures, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for responsible reopening being issued, these sectors should now resume. The time for recovery is around the corner.

In his Independence Day speech last year, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi emphasised the importance of making India a global hub for tourism, urging each citizen to visit 15 tourist destinations in India by 2022. With an inward focus on travel, we must convert this into an opportunity and advance our domestic tourism and hospitality sectors.

Travel, tourism, and hospitality have an immense multiplier effect on the economy. These are sectors that can exponentially create jobs, and India needs high-quality job creation now. Travel and tourism has employed more than 42 million people in India or accounted approximately for 8.1% of the total employment opportunities. Last year, it contributed 9.3% to Indias Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and received 5.9% of total investments. It can accelerate the path to 9-10% annual growth and add millions of high-quality jobs each year. This is necessary, given that 72% of Indias population is below 32 years, and the average age is 29. Tourism is the perfect fit for the future generation.

India is ranked third in the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)s Travel and Tourism Power Ranking, which assesses 185 countries on the basis of four key sector ingredients: Total travel and tourism GDP, foreign visitor spending, domestic spending, and travel and tourism capital investment. India is now ranked behind only China and the United States (US). The World Economic Forum conducts a biennial study across 14 vital parameters, and India has improved by 12 places over the last two years, now ranking 40th out of 136 countries in terms of travel and tourism competitiveness.

This is encouraging and makes the sector an essential cog to the New India growth story. The sector is relatively untapped. An added aspect of the travel and tourism sector is that not only does the sector provide high-quality jobs and countless synergies, it also enhances investment into India, accelerates development, and showcases Indias unique treasures.

Systematic tourism promotion campaigns will be important in the near future. There are two that I have helmed, which brought the spotlight on Indias attraction for tourists. Incredible India and Gods Own Country blended potential with awareness, allowing Indian entrepreneurs, global entities, domestic and foreign tourists, and the government machinery to work together and accelerate growth in the sector. A domestic-focused Incredible India 2.0 that showcases what the nation offers to Indians could be the post-pandemic plan for the sector. India, after all, has amazing diversity, from 38 Unesco World Heritage sites to the Himalayas to pristine beaches, and plenty of other natural assets. Besides that, Indias achievement in tiger population conservation has led to a rise in the tiger population to 2,967 in 2018 from 2,226 in 2014. This is an increase of 741 tigers or nearly 25%, making India home to around 70% of the worlds tiger population.

Prior to the pandemic, work on transportation to allow access to many of Indias hidden treasures was paying off. The UDAN scheme has been a huge success, and now the government can focus on the earlier plans of launching 100 tourism-oriented trains. Also adding to the ease of access is the work that has been done on highways, roads, and ports, highlighted by the Bharatmala and Sagarmala projects. There has also been work done to enhance airport capacity and expand regional connectivity. The Airports Authority of India has estimated capital spending targets of more than ~20,000 crore by 2022, and more than 70 regional airports that are under-utilised will be developed.

The Holistic Island Development plan is an ambitious policy directive focusing on the Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) and Lakshadweep Islands. It addresses tourism-based projects that automatically create jobs for the islanders, and enhance connectivity through key infrastructure projects.

Until the pandemic, the restaurant industry was a dynamic sector. Expect to see them rebound, starting with Unlock 1.0, with delivery services such as Zomato and Swiggy having been involved in essential goods deliveries and maintaining the supply chain for food delivery throughout the lockdown. India has recently become a major player in the culinary ecosystem, making restaurants a ~4,25,000 crore market. They create millions of jobs and have a massive multiplier impact as well.

Travel and tourism will be the key driver for high-quality employment and unparalleled sustainable growth for the next 30 years. Despite challenges, as we responsibly reopen, the opportunities for the sector to help growth will continue to increase, and the domestic demand will help build confidence in the sectors revival. The pandemic has only altered the progress, not stopped it. A responsible and phased recovery is imminent, and there is no better time for it than now. The positive impact of the sector will span all the downstream and upstream benefits that accompany growth in this sector. This has the potential to become the biggest job creator for India.

Amitabh Kant is CEO, NITI Aayog

The views expressed are personal
And then, in the eighth and final episode, Krasinski stood to reveal, finally, the matching pants. He buttoned his jacket. The suit was complete. And a few days later, it was announced that he had sold S.G.N. to ViacomCBS.

The arc of S.G.N. parallels, in its way, the path of the nation over those same eight weeks. The show started out offering a charming break from bleakness  a sign of a nation improvising new ways to help one another through a crisis. It ended as a reminder of how little had really changed. Soon, there would be fire in the streets.

When the first episode ran, the United States was close to a full-on lockdown, warily bracing for the pandemics impact. The crisis wasnt entirely partisan yet. Homebound optimists stepped out each night to applaud essential workers; they looked for ways to be together, apart. If we were careful, if we kept washing our hands, we could defeat the common enemy. Yes, the pandemic was further exposing so much we already knew  that generations of young people would be left in financial ruin, that inequality and racial inequity were expanding. But perhaps things had to get bad before they got better. S.G.N. fit perfectly into that padded narrative: Good would prevail, love would conquer all.

By the time Krasinski managed to get his pants on, though, the old order of things had firmly reasserted itself  and not just in the easing of restrictions in many states. The coronavirus, it turned out, had reshuffled very little about how we do things. It had taken Americans mere weeks to arrange themselves into vocal, ideological and occasionally armed factions over it. Corporations that had briefly gone silent figured out how to advertise their way through a pandemic, crafting sentimental commercials about honoring front-line heroes  the same workers who, in many instances, were speaking out against their unsafe working conditions. S.G.N. was no stranger to this phenomenon: By the third episode, AT&T had swooped in to provide free cellphone service to nurses and doctors, and in a display of gratitude, Krasinskis daughters drew the companys logo, a product placement as cute as it was blatant.
TORONTO, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today BioRender , creator of the first web-based graphical tool for scientists to create publication and presentation-ready figures, announced its inaugural Graphical Abstract Contest , to give scientists a way to promote their research and win prize rewards. As key medical research meetings throughout the world have been canceled, postponed or moved to a virtual environment, BioRender is donating its $50K marketing budget to the science community in the form of cash prizes for a first-of-its-kind, worldwide, scientific art contest.

"This contest comes at a time when all conferences and meetings have been cancelled or postponed, so having the opportunity to be involved with these graphical abstracts has been a refreshing way to explore a wide variety of topics, including the pathology and immunology of SARS-CoV-2 infection," said Jarrod Dudakov, Assistant Professor of Immunology at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. "Graphical abstracts are an increasingly vital aspect of science communication and this competition, and BioRender more generally, contribute significantly toward raising the bar in the research community's progress in visual literacy."

At a time when scientists are racing for answers while also trying to help calm fears around the world, being able to network, share research, and present information in a unified, digestible manner is critical. Social distancing has made this a largely remote effort and presents a unique challenge for the science community to share research. To that end, BioRender created a virtual community to enable the continued sharing of research.

"At BioRender, we have always recognized the need for scientific knowledge to be universally understood and communicated through visuals that are clear, standardized, and accessible," said Shiz Aoki, co-founder and CEO of BioRender. "Our mission is to empower the world to communicate science faster through visuals. Graphical abstracts are quickly becoming the ideal way to lower the friction in communicating complex scientific concepts."

There are more than 5,000 entrants in the contest, which include original research from Stanford Medicine, John Hopkins Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Yale School of Medicine. Today BioRender selected People's Choice Award winners for each category of the contest:

Submitted research will be peer-reviewed and each submission will be eligible for cash prizes of up to $6,000. Submissions to the Graphical Abstract Contest contribute to a public gallery that the scientific community can virtually tour to learn about the latest in research while networking and voting for their favorites to win People's Choice Awards. Lead scientific researchers and renowned experts from around the world will come together to judge submissions within their specialization for visual appeal, clarity, accuracy, complexity, and ease of understanding with the best winning Expert's Choice Awards.

BioRender will announce the Expert's Choice Award finalists on June 17 and all winners will be announced on June 29.

About BioRender

At BioRender, we envision a world where science is universally communicated and understood through visuals. We believe science communication should always be fast, repeatable, and standardized. To help make that vision a reality, we are creating the standard visual language of biology and the suite of tools to communicate it.

Led by CEO and Co-founder Shiz Aoki, the Lead Medical Illustrator for National Geographic for a decade, our team is composed of environmentally and socially conscious engineers, science illustrators, designers, and entrepreneurs who are backed by an incredible group of investors, including Y Combinator.

Recently heralded in Nature as ' a staple of biomedical research drawings ', our first product is a web-based graphical tool that enables scientists to create publication and presentation-ready figures up to 50 times faster than traditional tools. With a comprehensive library of 20,000+ icons and intuitive drag-and-drop functionality, this tool enables scientists across 30+ fields of life science to create professional illustrations that more effectively communicates their research.

Media Contact:

Interdependence PR for BioRender

Samantha Harber; [email protected]

(406) 272-2627

SOURCE BioRender
Penn National Gaming has had to furlough thousands of people across the country but more than 200 people at corporate offices in Wyomissing near Reading and in Las Vegas could be laid off permanently.

The company filed a WARN notice with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry. The company will lay off 233 people at 825 Berkshire Blvd. in Wyomissing and at 3980 Howard Hughes Parkway in Las Vegas, Nevada beginning Aug. 15.

These layoffs at Penn National Gaming are the unfortunate result of COVID-19 related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond our control, the company said in its WARN notice. The impact on our business was not reasonably foreseeable until now. We simply could not foresee, that the initial closures of our properties, that were issued by one or two states for a limited period of time, ultimately spread throughout all the states in which we operate and eventually be extended, interrupting almost all business and travel temporarily. These significant drags on our business will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Finally, we could not have anticipated when our properties would be allowed to reopen and how restrictive the new operating conditions would be, and the negative impact this would have on business volumes.

The company had furloughed 26,000 people due to COVID-19 and the related state shutdowns.

Based on the sudden and unforeseeable events in March, we were forced to furlough 26,000 of our team members in April, Eric Schippers, senior vice president of public affairs and government relations for Penn National Gaming Inc. said in a statement. At the time, we were hopeful that wed be able to call the employees back within a couple of months. However, while we have been able to reopen some of our properties on a limited basis, the continued social distancing requirements and uncertain business volumes means our properties will not be able to resume normal operations for the foreseeable future."

After reevaluating its business, Penn National said that it legally had to send WARN notices to 233 people that could potentially be permanently layoff but its not for certain that all 233 people will be laid off.

We had a legal obligation to send a formal WARN notice to all the team members who could potentially be laid off, Schippers said.  To be clear, however, that does not necessarily mean that all those team members will be laid off.

The company has also announced that it is extending its medical and pharmacy benefits coverage through July 31 for furloughed employees. The company said its COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund has raised $1.7 million through private donations from its senior executives, board of directors, and its foundation, and that the funds are available to help the furloughed employees with any emergency funding needs. The company has received more than 2,800 applications for support and more than $335,000 has already been distributed to employees."

Penn National is based in Wyomissing, Berks County and has more than 40 casinos, off-track wagering facilities and racetracks.

In the midstate, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course in East Hanover Township will reopen both its gambling floor and its horse racing operations at 9 a.m. Friday. The casino has been closed since March when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the closing of all non-essential businesses. The property is permitted to reopen on Friday with capacity restrictions as Dauphin County moves into the green phase.

The WARN Act is federal legislation that offers protection to workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of a covered-business closing and covered-business mass layoff. The company filed the notice with the state around June 10.

These are extremely challenging times both on a personal and a professional level, but the steps we have taken to this point, and plan to take going forward, are all aimed at positioning our company to be able to weather this storm and come out stronger on the other side, Schippers said.

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North Korea's recent proclamations of aggression could be a sign of frustration at what it views as "failed diplomacy," said an expert on Monday.

On Saturday, North Korea issued a warning of retaliatory military measures against South Korea.

"By exercising my power authorized by the Supreme Leader, our Party and the state, I gave an instruction to the ... department in charge of the affairs with (the) enemy to decisively carry out the next action," said Kim Yo Jong, who serves unofficially as one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's top aides, according to a statement carried by state news agency KCNA obtained by NBC News. Kim Yo Jong is the younger sister of Kim Jong Un.

Pyongyang has been angered by defectors who have been sending rice and anti-North propaganda leaflets  typically via balloons or in bottles by sea.

The balloons and rice have been standing issues between the two countries, but the context in which Pyongyang is now operating in is quite different, so the recent developments need to be seen in a "broader context of frustration," said John Park, director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"We're in the long shadow of what the North Koreans view to be failed diplomacy at the leader-to-leader level," said Park.

Pyongyang is moving in a different direction because the North Koreans feel they have been let down by the U.S. and South Korea. And it comes two years after the historic summit in Singapore in June 2018, between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump, said Park.

There has been little progress since, and a second round of talks ended abruptly in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi when both sides could not agree on the removal of sanctions.
Construction work takes place, at the site of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam near Assosa, Ethiopia on June 28, 2013. (Elias Asmare/AP)

Egypt: Ethiopia Rejecting Fundamental Issues on Nile Dam

CAIROEgypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia on June 14 said talks would continue later this week to resolve their dispute over a Nile River dam that Ethiopia is constructing, even as Cairo accused Addis Ababa of rejecting fundamental issues at the heart of the negotiations.

While Ethiopia wants to begin filling the dams reservoir in the coming weeks, Egypt has raised concerns that filing the reservoir too quickly and without a deal could significantly reduce the amount of Nile water available to Egypt. Both countries have made clear in the past that they could take steps to protect their interests, should negotiations fail, and experts fear a breakdown in talks could lead to conflict.

The talks resumed last week via video conference after months of deadlock and will start up again on June 15, statements from the three main Nile basin countries said on June 14.

However, the most recent negotiations have been punctuated by strong comments from both Egypt and Ethiopia.

Egypts Irrigation Ministry said in a statement late on June 13 that Ethiopia is looking to renegotiate a number of points of contention, which demonstrated that there are many fundamental issues that Ethiopia continues to reject.

Irrigation Ministry spokesman Mohammed el-Sebaei accused Ethiopia of bogging down the talks with a new proposal he called concerning.

A day earlier, Ethiopias deputy army chief had said his country will strongly defend itself and wont negotiate its sovereignty.

Talks came to an acrimonious halt in February, after Ethiopia rejected a U.S.-crafted deal and accused the Trump administration of siding with Egypt. At the time, Egypts Foreign Ministry said it would use all available means to defend the interests of its people.

Construction of the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile is over 70 percent complete and promises to provide much-needed electricity to Ethiopias 100 million people. Egypt seeks to protect its main source of fresh water for its large and growing population, also more than 100 million.

The Ethiopian proposal aims to scrap all the agreements and understandings reached by the three countries during the negotiations spanning nearly a decade, el-Sebaei said on June 13.

The Irrigation Ministry statement said the contentious issues included Ethiopias total rejection of addressing technical issues related to the mitigation of droughts. It also said Ethiopia rejected the inclusion of a legally binding dispute resolution mechanism.

Ethiopias Water and Energy Ministry said on June 14 el-Sebaeis comments were regrettable. It said that if the ongoing negotiations failed, it would be because of Egypts obstinacy to maintain a colonial-based water allocation agreement that denies Ethiopia and all the upstream countries their natural and legitimate rights.

Egypt has received the lions share of the Niles waters under decades-old agreements dating back to the British colonial era. Eighty-five percent of the Niles waters originate in Ethiopia from the Blue Nile, which is one of the Niles two main tributaries.

Ethiopia has said it plans to start filling the dam next month, at the start of the rainy season.

By Samy Magdy
Pakistan has been continuously targeting civilian areas in Jammu and Kashmir during the ceasefire violations in the last few days. Mortar shelling and light arm fire resulted in the death of one woman and injuring three others at Batgran village of Uri recently.

Batgran is the last village of Line of control from Indian side and the village has faced the worst attack of shelling by Pakistani forces in the last few days. The locals claimed that no one from the government's side has reached out to them so far and only Indian Army has taken the first hand assessment of the situation and has provided ration and medical help to people of the village.

The villagers are living in fear as Pakistan continuously violates ceasefire and is targets their homes. According to the villagers,. its always Pakistan who targets civilian area while Indian army target their Army posts only in retaliation.

A villager named Hafiz Ahmad, who lost his mother in ceasefire violation said, Every time Pakistan violates ceasefire and targets only civilian areas while our army engagement is only with Pakistan army posts but Pakistani forces target only civilians. Pakistan violates ceasefire at least twice a week and targets civilian areas. I lost my mother in recent ceasefire violation of Pakistan, no one from civil administration has visited us.

Pakistan has been violating ceasefire in Hajipeer and Kamalkot sectors of Uri for the last few days and have not only been targeting indian army posts but several residential areas. Pakistan has targeted many villages close to LoC recently which has created panic among villagers in Chrunda, Batgran, Hathlanga, Mothal, Sahoora, Silikote, Balkote, Nambla, Garkote and Main town Uri.
Rebekah Vardy wants to be 'the next Victoria Beckham' and Coleen Rooney is a 'closed book', Kyle Walker's ex Annie Kilner has claimed.

In a new interview, the mother-of-three, 27, weighed in on the WAG row, admitting she 'doesn't blame' Coleen, 34, for accusing reality TV star Rebekah, 38, of leaking stories about her to the media in October - a claim she fiercely denies.

The model insisted she's 'stuck in the middle' as she gets along with the women, who held a video meeting last month in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a very public and expensive court hearing, yet their feud has since ended in a bitter deadlock.

Feud: Rebekah Vardy wants to be 'the next Victoria Beckham' and Coleen Rooney is a 'closed book', Kyle Walker's ex Annie Kilner has claimed (pictured together in 2016)

Social media sensation Annie, who was in the WAG circle due to her nine-year relationship with Manchester City ace Kyle, 30, shared her thoughts on the wives of Wayne Rooney and Jamie Vardy, describing them as 'chalk and cheese'.

The brunette told The Sun: 'Becky and Jamie saw themselves as the next Posh and Becks. Becky doesnt air her dirty laundry but she enjoys the limelight and, as much as people judge Becky, in person shes not like that.

'A lot of the Wags are like, "I cant be friends with her," but I can be. Im friends with everyone.

'Coleen is extremely private and gives away very little. Shes like a closed book and has had to be.'

'I would do the same': The mother-of-three, 27, weighed in on the WAG row, admitting she 'doesn't blame' Coleen, 34, for accusing Rebekah, 38, of leaking stories about her to the media

Conflicted: The model insisted she's 'stuck in the middle' as she gets along with the women (pictured with Rebekah in 2018)

Annie also claimed she can't imagine the pair 'being in the same room as each other', declared their friendship is over and insisted their dispute will 'rumble on forever'.

She also said that while she understands why the Liverpudlian detailed her accusations about the I'm A Celeb star on social media, she feels 'sorry' for her friend Becky, who was hospitalised three times over the row.

Mailonline has contacted Coleen and Rebekah's representatives for further comment.

Coleen has reportedly been told that her case against Rebekah 'isn't very strong', leaving things a 'total mess.'

Inspiration? 'Becky and Jamie saw themselves as the next Posh and Becks', the model said about the I'm A Celeb star and husband Jamie Vardy (Victoria and David Beckham pictured)

Going strong: The mother-of-five and the Leicester City striker, 33, have been married for four years

The mother-of-four is said to be planning on 'forking out' on a 'very expensive' London legal team who are 'media and privacy work specialists'.

It's claimed that Coleen has not admitted to 'a crucial detail of her efforts to catch Becky red-handed'.

The pair have failed to reach a resolution, meaning their dispute could go to the High Court.

'Closed book': According to Annie, Coleen, whose sons play with her friend's three boys, is 'extremely private' (pictured with her four sons earlier this year)

Annie's interview came after she admitted she still struggles with the pain of her failed relationship with her ex and the father of her three boys, Kyle.

She confessed that 'every day is filled with pain' after discovering he'd been unfaithful with reality star Laura Brown, but would still be open to rekindling their romance.

After their split, he fathered a child with ex Lauryn Goodman during a romance last summer.

Annie also claimed that the sportsman shared the news just days after she suffered a miscarriage.

Way back when: Her interview came after she admitted she still struggles with the pain of her failed relationship with her ex and the father of her three boys, Kyle (pictured)
Mohali: As many as 177 Indian nationals from the region stranded in Dubai following the coronavirus outbreak landed at Chandigarh International Airport on Monday in an Indigo Airlines flight at around 2.55 pm .

Operating under the Indian governments Vande Bharat Mission: Phase-2 to evacuate Indians stranded abroad, the flight had on board 177 passengers from Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, said an airport spokesperson .

About 168 passengers were from various districts of Punjab, and the rest from Chandigarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu and Kashmir.

All passengers were screened by the health department, Punjab, before being handed over to respective states after immigration and customs clearances for quarantine as per state protocols.

The states had also arranged for transportation to take them back home.

District nodal officer, Dr Harmandeep Kaur Brar, said all the passengers would be quarantined at government facilities at various places for 14 days. Those who came in today were asymptomatic, she added.
Due to Russias taxation system, the Russian budget will receive up to US$10 billion more from local oil firms in 2020, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Sazanov told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.

Russias economy is struggling this year because of the measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic and the plunge in oil prices, which is reducing the budget revenues from Moscows principal export, oil.

While it would lose revenues from lower crude oil sales and lower oil prices, the Russian budget will benefit from up to US$10 billion (700 billion Russian rubles) in additional taxes from the oil companies, Sazanov told Reuters.

That is because of the Russian tax mechanisms and its policy to keep fuel prices broadly stable, regardless of the movement of the major international crude oil benchmarks. When crude oil prices are low, oil companies pay the budget. When oil prices are high, Russia pays the companies for keeping fuel prices stable.

This year, at oil prices between $30 and $40 a barrel, the Russian budget will receive up to US$10 billion from the oil firms, due to the tax system, Sazanov said.

When the budget especially needs cash to meet its obligations ... this works well. Under no circumstances we are going to abandon or revise it, the deputy finance minister told Reuters.

However, the amount of money that the Russian budget will receive from this particular tax policy will not be nearly enough to offset the losses for the budget from the low oil prices.

Russias revenues from oil and gas will be US$42.8 billion (3 trillion rubles) lower than planned, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in the middle of March.

Russias economy is not going as well as one would have hoped, the finance minister admitted after prices started sliding in March, saying that the oil price factor alone is set to reduce the countrys budget income by US$40 billion compared to earlier estimates.



By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com



More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Sushant Singh Rajput's maternal uncle has sought a police investigation on his death. He has said that he doesn't think Sushant committed suicide. Police must investigate the matter as there seems to be a conspiracy behind his death.

We do not think Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide, he has been murdered and police must investigate, actors maternal uncle RC Singh said on Monday. We do not think he committed suicide, police must investigate the matter. There seems to be a conspiracy behind his death. He has been murdered, said the maternal uncle of Sushant Singh Rajput, outside Sushants residence in Patna, Bihar.

Actor Sushant allegedly committed suicide at his Bandra residence by hanging himself in Mumbai on Sunday, the police said. Actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide at his Bandra residence by hanging himself in Mumbai on Sunday, Additional Commissioner of Police Dr Manoj Sharma confirmed.

However, no suicide note has been recovered from Rajputs residence, as per the police. Further investigation is underway.

Also Read: Indias Covid-19 count reaches 3.3 lakh, spike of 11,502 cases in last 24 hours

Also Read: Nepal border firing: India takes up killing of its national at border with Nepal govt

Several Bollywood celebrities, sportspersons and politicians from across the board expressed their shock and grief over Rajputs demise.

Originally from Bihar, Rajput started off his career with television and gained popularity with Ekta Kapoors TV serial Pavitra Rishta, while acting alongside actor Ankita Lokhande. He made his debut with Abhishek Kapoors Kai Po Che, and went on to act in several blockbuster hits such as M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, PK and Kedarnath. Rajput was last seen in Chhichhore alongside Shraddha Kapoor.

Also Read: Amit Shah to chair all-party meeting to review Covid-19 situation in Delhi today

For all the latest Entertainment News, download NewsX App
New Delhi, June 15 : Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital, here around 4 p.m. on Monday, to review it preparedness for Covid-19 cases.

The visit followed an all-party meeting, chaired by Shah at his North Block office in the morning, in the backdrop of worrying spike in the number of Covid-19 cases in the national capital.

The Covid-designated hospital recently invited negative publicity after several purported videos shot in it premises showed patients' bodies lying on the floor in wards. The videos also showed some elderly patients left unattended even as they cried for help.

Refuting such claims, the hospital said several people had recovered there. "Videos that show patients lying on the ground have been shot at different time periods," it claimed.

On Sunday, Shah had a meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Members of the State Disaster Management Authority, AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, Commissioners of three Municipal Corporations and senior officers from the Union Home and Health Ministries were also present.

Shah's visit assumes significance as the number of Covid-19 cases in the city crossed 41,000 and death toll rose to 1,327.
Doctors Without Borders has pulled out of a hospital in the Afghan capital where gunmen last month killed 25 people, including mothers, in a horrific attack on a maternity ward. The organisation, which specialises in medical assistance in hostile environments, said it feared being the target of another attack after the raid on Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul on May 12. Three gunmen stormed the facility in a brazen daylight assault that triggered international outrage and shocked a nation already used to decades of war. Sixteen of those killed were mothers who were "systematically shot dead" in a raid that lasted for hours, said Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which ran the maternity ward. The facility was one of MSF's biggest projects worldwide and was home to almost 16,000 deliveries in 2019 alone, the group said. But on Monday MSF said it had decided to end all its activities at the hospital over fears of being targeted again. "The decision comes with the understanding that while no information has emerged about the perpetrators or motive of the assault, mothers, babies and health staff were its deliberate target and similar attacks may repeat in the future," it said in a statement. No group claimed the attack, but President Ashraf Ghani pinned the blame on the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. US Special Representative to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said IS was responsible. "We were aware that our presence in Dasht-e-Barchi carried risks, but we just couldn't believe that someone would take advantage of the absolute vulnerability of women about to give birth to exterminate them and their babies," said MSF Director General Thierry Allafort-Duverger. "Higher walls and thicker security doors won?t prevent such horrific assaults from happening again. The hospital is in an impoverished neighbourhood of the capital largely dominated by the Shiite Hazara community, and its closure is expected to affect more than a million people, MSF said. The attack on the hospital was not the first targeting MSF in Afghanistan. More than 70 MSF personnel and patients admitted into MSF health care programmes have been killed in Afghanistan over the past 16 years, it said. In October 2015, an MSF hospital in the northern province of Kunduz was destroyed by a US airstrike in which 42 people were killed. The attack on the maternity wing of the hospital in the AFghan capital left 25 people dead
In this respect, a 1999 Agreement on Consular Relations between Australia and the People's Republic of China will come into play. Article 11 of that agreement makes clear that Australian consular officials should have monthly access to any Australian detained in China. While Australia does not provide citizens with legal advice in these circumstances, consular officials are able to facilitate access to local Chinese lawyers.

Second, Australia will want to ensure that Gilespies appeal rights are respected. To that end, Gilespies legal team will need to formally lodge an appeal. There will also be a need for Gilespie and his legal team to properly prepare for an appeal, and consular officials will want to ensure that those communications can take place without interference. Nevertheless, the rates of success for appeals in the Chinese legal system are very low, and while every legal avenue needs to be pursued, there is every prospect that the appeal will fail.

Third, Australia will want to ensure that this case moves through the Chinese legal system without any undue haste and that an appeal decision is not reached very quickly. In the normal course of events, an appeal may not be resolved until 2021 or longer, and this may be to Gilespies advantage as he would not want to have his case being finalised during the current bilateral tensions. It would be preferable for any appeal outcome to be delayed until such time as the bilateral relationship had returned to some of the levels of pre-COVID normalcy, because at that point there may be need for an intense diplomatic campaign to save Gilespies life.

The legal options for Gilespie are not strong. The Chinese legal system is opaque and exceptionally difficult for under-resourced foreigners to access and enjoy success in criminal appeals.
[June 15, 2020] HAUSER To Share Special Performance 'ALONE, TOGETHER - FROM KRKA WATERFALLS' Today At 2pm ET / 11am PT

NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HAUSER today shares ALONE, TOGETHER  FROM KRKA WATERFALLS, a special performance event from Croatia's gorgeous Krka National Park. Performing solo among the park's world-famous waterfalls, the event will stream globally on HAUSER's official YouTube channel today (Monday, June 15th) at 2PM ET / 11AM PT. The concert arrives on the heels of HAUSER's "Alone, Together  from Arena Pula," a special performance event the cellist dedicated to frontline workers in which he performed solo at Croatia's iconic Arena Pula without a live audience  watch the concert here. The latest effort in HAUSER's continued goal to provide audiences everywhere a much-needed musical escape in these troubling times, the event will feature the acclaimed cellist performing his renditions of classic compositions, including numbers from his recent debut solo album Classic . "After completing the 'Alone, Together' performance at the Arena Pula it occurred to me that with such beautiful locations nearby there is a fantastic opportunity to play my favorite repertoire in these extraordinary settings. Not just one but a whole series of unique performances! It means so much to me to be able to connect with so many of you; even though I may be playing alone, we can still share that experience together. And the Krka waterfalls performance has a special significance for me as this one will go out on my birthday! Come and join me and help me celebrate  Alone, Together."  HAUSER



WATCH RECENT MUSIC VIDEOS FROM HAUSER HERE WATCH HAUSER'S "ALONE, TOGETHER  FROM ARENA PULA" CONCERT HERE

CONNECT WITH HAUSER: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | YOUTUBE HAUSER APPROVED PRESS IMAGE (CREDIT ROGER RICH): DOWNLOAD HAUSER SHORT BIO: DOWNLOAD Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, OKeh, Portrait and Masterworks Broadway imprints. For email updates and information please visit www.sonymusicmasterworks.com/. CONTACTS

Larissa Slezak | Jamie Bertel

Sony Music Masterworks View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hauser-to-share-special-performance-alone-together---from-krka-waterfalls-today-at-2pm-et--11am-pt-301076959.html SOURCE Sony Music Masterworks

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Clementine Naperville

Clementine Naperville is a residential program exclusively for adolescents between the ages of 11 and 17 seeking treatment for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder or exercise addiction. Treatment integrates personalized medical, psychiatric, clinical and nutritional care, as well as comprehensive academic and family support.

"With any eating disorder, early treatment intervention is optimal. Clementine gives adolescents customized treatment that correlates with long-term health and greatly improves chances of full recovery," said Joel Jahraus, MD, CEDS, FAED, Chief Medical Officer of Monte Nido & Affiliates. "Eating disorders do not discriminate, and we are proud to provide treatment to adolescents, in the Chicago metropolitan and greater Midwest region, an opportunity to remain close to home and their families."

According to the National Eating Disorder Association, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental health illness, and early intervention can be a major factor in recovery. Identifying and treating an eating disorder within the first three years of illness improves the speed of recovery, reduces symptoms and increases the likelihood of permanent healing. Monte Nido & Affiliates believes recovery is possible at any age, and help can be provided to everyone irrespective of the duration of their eating disorder.

For more information or to inquire about treatment at one of the Monte Nido & Affiliates programs, please contact:

Monte Nido: 888-228-1253, or visit www.montenido.com

Clementine: 855-900-2221, or visit www.clementineprograms.com

Oliver-Pyatt Centers: 866-511-4325, or visit www.oliverpyattcenters.com

About Monte Nido & Affiliates

Monte Nido & Affiliates is the country's leading eating disorder treatment provider, offering residential and day treatment programs for eating disorders. Founded in 1996, Monte Nido & Affiliates operates 25 facilities in ten states, with residential programs being Joint Commission accredited. Monte Nido & Affiliates includes three distinct eating disorder treatment brands: Monte Nido, Oliver-Pyatt Centers and Clementine.

Contact: Claire Vartabedian or Abigail Cox

L.C. Williams & Associates

312-565-3900

[email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Monte Nido

Related Links

http://www.montenido.com


Airline stocks were some of the worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic and March 2020 stock market crash. Canadas flag carrier Air Canada (TSX:AC) gained a remarkable 38% over the last month compared to the broader TSX remaining flat with the S&P/TSX Composite rising 5%.

Air Canadas impressive bounce can be attributed to growing optimism over the economy, which triggered a solid market rally after the March 2020 stock market crash. There are fears, however, that the outlook is not as positive as the market believes.

Is the stock markets optimism overdone?

A spike in coronavirus cases in the U.S. and Latin America is weighing on stocks. This could lead to further travel restrictions impacting airlines and tourism. The latest economic data also point to a rough road ahead for the foreseeable future, which would further impact travel demand. That has sparked fears that Air Canadas latest rally is overdone and there is more downside ahead for Canadas flag carrier.

Even after taking significant measures to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and travel bans on its operations, Air Canada reported a larger first quarter 2020 loss. The airline announced a $1 billion net loss for the period despite revenue declining by only 16% year over year, which can be blamed primarily on a $711 million foreign exchange loss.

Even after the measures taken by Air Canada to blunt the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its finances second quarter earnings will likely be worse. The pandemic only negatively affected first quarters final month, whereas it will have a profound impact on the economy and travel for the entire second quarter.

During the first quarter conference call, Air Canadas chief financial officer stated that Air Canada was burning through around $20 million daily to cover fixed costs. When thats considered along with Air Canada reducing second-quarter capacity by 85% to 90%, virtually wiping out most of its operating revenue, its operating loss will balloon out substantially.

Story continues

An even greater fear is that the impact of the coronavirus on air travel will be far more severe than 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and the 2003 SARS epidemic. Air Canada expects it to take three years or possibly longer to recover from the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic has been labelled by some industry insiders as the darkest period ever for commercial aviation.

How bad is the outlook for airlines?

Despite this particularly gloomy outlook, there are signs that Air Canadas stock may be more positive than some pundits believe. The impact of the pandemic will be mitigated by Air Canada, sharply reducing costs by grounding most of its fleet, furloughing employees, cutting wages and reducing costs as well as capital spending.

Sharply lower fuel expense because of the oil price collapse will further cut operating costs for the foreseeable future.

The carrier also substantially boosted its liquidity, which saw Air Canada finish the first quarter with $6.1 billion of cash and short-term investors, 4% higher than at the end of 2019.

Canadas flag carrier also recently closed a fully subscribed equity offering that generated gross proceeds of nearly $1.6 billion. That significantly boosted Air Canadas cash buffer, liquidity and financial flexibility, markedly improving its ability to survive the current crisis.

Unlike its U.S. competitors, Air Canada has not received a government bailout. This provides an additional lever that can be used in an emergency to ensure Air Canadas survival.

There are signs that air travel and tourism may recommence far sooner than anticipated. Many countries, notably in Europe, have begun reopening their borders. Others such as Colombia have flagged that tourism and international flights can recommence within the next three months.

While travel demand will remain low for some time, this bodes well for steadily increasing capacity and hence operating revenues.

Foolish takeaway

The latest developments coupled with Air Canadas considerable liquidity and strong financial position explain why its stock spiked considerably over the last month.

While there are certainly significant headwinds ahead for the airline industry, Air Canada is one of the best positioned to emerge in solid-shape and return to growth. That makes Air Canada a top contrarian play for risk tolerant investors seeking outsized returns.

The post Air Canada Soars 38% in a Month: Time to Buy? appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

Fool contributor Matt Smith 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
John Diaz / The Chronicle 2018

Maria Ressa, the Philippines most prominent journalist, was honored by Time magazine as a 2018 Person of the Year as among the worlds guardians of truth. Her pursuit of truth for the news website Rappler has made her the target of years of government threats and harassment, including phony accusations of fraud and tax evasion.

The efforts to silence her during the authoritarian rule of President Rodrigo Duterte took a chilling new turn Monday when she was convicted of cyber libel that could put her in jail for up to six years. The case against the Rappler CEO and Reynaldo Santos, a former staffer, stemmed from a 2012 article that linked a businessman to illegal activities.
Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media

BRIDGEPORT  The Bridgeport Fire Department had to extract a person from a vehicle after it crashed into a garage on Sunday, according to officials.

Scott Appleby, the director of the citys emergency communications department, said the incident was originally reported as a structure fire because of the crash, but first responders determined that to not be true.
North Greeley Avenue closes Monday between Interstate Avenue and Going Street for a five-day paving project.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation will close the road during all hours and days through Friday, June 19. Some intermittent daytime lane closures are likely after the paving project ends.

The closure applies to all motor vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians.

Crews will repave the section, install a two-way bike path on the east side of Greeley, and erect a concrete barrier to separate users.

Drivers should follow the designated detours. The Interstate 5 ramp to Greeley will also be closed.

North Greeley Avenue will be closed through Friday, June 15.PBOT

Bicyclists are asked to use the designated detour on Interstate Avenue and Willamette Boulevard during construction.

FAIRVIEW 6 a.m.: An earlier semi-truck crash has lanes close both east and westbound near Fairview Parkway. Traffic is getting by with minimal delay.

CRASH... a semi has overturned on westbound I-84, rolled over barrier into eastbound lanes. Appears to be other vehicles involved in westbound side. One lane getting by both directions. SLOW DOWN, and avoid this area if possible #LiveOnK2 #pdxtraffic pic.twitter.com/3aSbvIVqiY  Mike Warner (@MikeKATU) June 15, 2020

Update 7:20 a.m.: Backup is growing near Fairview for this semi-truck crash. Use Sandy or Halsey as an alternate. Reports are the trailer needs to be unloaded before this crash can clear. Clearing the scene could take several hours.

#pdxtraffic UPDATE/Seeing a lot more slowing for traffic in BOTH directions on I-84 in Fairview. Crews still working on this semi crash. pic.twitter.com/Zhn70u5DXF  PDX Traffic Alerts (@TrafficPortland) June 15, 2020

Check back throughout the morning for the latest commuting updates and follow us on Twitter: @trafficportland

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 17:49:01|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Qantas is planning to sell its minority stake in the Vietnamese airline Jetstar Pacific amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Qantas Group executive and Jetstar Group CEO Gareth Evans said on Monday the group will cease being a shareholder in the coming month.

"Subject to the necessary approvals, our intention is to cease being a shareholder in the coming months so we can focus on our other airlines," Evans said.

Jetstar Pacific is owned by two major shareholders. Vietnam Airlines hold 70 percent, and Qantas holds 30 percent.

Qantas said the group and Vietnam Airlines (VNA) had agreed to introduce changes to improve the profitability of the low-cost carrier in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Pending government and regulatory approval, Jetstar Pacific is set to operate under its original name Pacific Airlines and feature a new logo inspired by VNA' brand colors and design.

The airline will also change its reservation system to streamline its bookings, network and customer functions with VNA.

Qantas established Jetstar Pacific in 2007 as part of its strategy to build its presence in Asia through joint-venture partnerships using the Jetstar brand. However, the airline faced fierce competition and suffered financial strains.

Evans said with a highly competitive domestic market in Vietnam and the disruption caused by the coronavirus, "the time is right to take advantage of the strength and scale of Vietnam Airlines in its home market".

Vietnam Airlines Executive Vice President and Pacific Airlines Chairman Trinh Hong Quang said the change would unlock economies of scale and help the industry to embark on a post COVID-19 recovery.

"Low-cost carriers will play a certain role in supporting the return of travel as restrictions ease, and by streamlining functions, Pacific Airlines can remain competitive, inherit many of the efficiencies of Vietnam Airlines and continue to offer the low fares our customers expect." Enditem
The New York Police Department (NYPD) plans to reassign roughly 600 plainclothes police officers into new roles effective immediately, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea has announced.

The anti-crime unit, which especially targeted violent crime and gun violence, will be disbanded as the department refocuses on community-based efforts.

Officers are set to be reassigned to work in a variety of assignments including detective bureaus, neighbourhood policing, and other assignments, Mr Shea said at the press conference on Monday, CNN reported.

This is a seismic shift in the culture in how the NYPD polices this great city. It will be felt immediately among the five district attorneys' offices. It will be felt immediately in the communities we protect, Mr Shea added.

The announcement follows weeks of unrest in New York and across the US over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in custody in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground by his neck for a prolonged period of time.

Thankfully, here in New York City, angry demonstrations have turned peaceful. Thoughtful discussions about reform have emerged, Mr Shea said, according to WNBC.

We welcome reform, but we also believe that meaningful reform starts from within, the commissioner said.

The states officials have been under pressure by demonstrators to defund the police department and reallocate budgets back into community policing.

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch spoke out against the decision.

Anti-Crimes mission was to protect New Yorkers by proactively preventing crime, especially gun violence, he said in a statement.

Shooting and murders are both climbing steadily upward, but our city leaders have clearly decided that proactive policing isnt a priority anymore. They chose this strategy. They will have to reckon with the consequences.

On Friday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a police reform agenda that includes the banning of chokeholds in the state.

The series of reforms included a number of provisions such as banning chokeholds by law enforcement officers, prohibiting false race-based 911 reports, and designating the Attorney General as an independent prosecutor for matters relating to the civilian deaths.

The agenda also repealed section 50A of the civil rights law to allow for transparency of prior disciplinary records of law enforcement officers.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday also announced a pledge to cut funding to the NYPD.

This is 21st-century policing, Mr Shea said at the news conference announcing the transition of the anti-crime units into other assignments, The New York Times reported.

We must do it in a manner that builds trust between the officers and the community they serve.
We knew wed missed shopping, but if pictures of swarms of shoppers queuing up to get into Primark are anything to go by, wed underestimated just how much wed missed a good browse.

Non-essential retailers in England have lifted their shutters for the first time since lockdown began three months ago, and it seems people couldnt wait to scratch their shopping itch.

Early-morning images showed queues of eager punters in London, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool and other cities waiting for big-name brands to throw open their doors.

From hand sanitiser stations on entrance to perspex screens at the tills, the high street shopping experience may look pretty different due to social distancing guidelines, but it doesnt seem to be putting people off.

But while stores have done their part in trying to ensure customers stay as safe as possible while in store, there are also measures we can take ourselves to try to stay protected.

Read more: These M&S sandals are our summer essential  and theyre on sale

Primark saw huge queues this morning as stores reopened in England. (Getty Images)

Be face-mask safe

We never thought face coverings would become summers most essential item, but here we are.

From Monday, wearing a face mask on public transport to help protect against the coronavirus is compulsory in the UK.

This news follows government advice, released last month, that suggested face coverings should be worn in enclosed spaces  including on public transport and when visiting some shops.

As part of their guidance for shoppers in staying safe while browsing, some shops, such as Anthropologie, are recommending customers wear face coverings while in store.

And according to Parvinder Sagoo, medical adviser at Simply Meds, face coverings should be a must when hitting newly reopened stores.

The main thing you should be doing to prevent possible transmissions is to wear a mask at all times, she says.

Sagoo suggests opting for a mask that covers your mouth and nose area fully and sits tight enough on the skin.

If you can purchase a filtered mask this is advisable, failing that a well-made, double layered mask should suffice, she says.

Story continues

Sagoo recommends keeping the mask on at all times, even in areas that are less crowded.

If you do take the mask off, she says, ensure you keep it in a sealed tight container or bag and not just loosely in your handbag as it could be open to gathering bacteria.

Read more: John Lewiss up-to-70%-off sale: the clearance items to add to your basket

A shop worker gets ready to welcome customers to Uniqlo in London. (Getty Images)

Shop smart

As Monday mornings queues suggest, some periods are going to be busier than others, so it is worth seeking out quieter browse times. To counterbalance this, many stores, such as Uniqlo, are introducing staggered opening times.

No doubt shops and shopping centres today will be packed, Sagoo says. She suggests trying to keep your distance from others as much as possible, and avoiding a store altogether if it looks crowded or has a queue that is not adopting social distancing measures.

If you are clothes shopping, avoid any small or compact areas or the top floor of shops where there is not much air flow as it can get hot and muggy, a haven for any possible bacteria, she says.

Read more: High street brands selling affordable non-medical face masks

Pack a safer-shopping kit

While many stores are introducing hand-sanitising stations and regularly disinfecting shopping baskets, its worth taking your own antibac essentials, such as hand sanitiser and antibacterial wipes, with you.

I would also advise wearing surgical gloves especially if you are heading into a clothes store where everyone will be touching the clothes and materials, therefore increasing risk of possible transmission, Sagoo says.

For added peace of mind, she also suggests washing all clothing purchases to ensure they are virus-free before putting them in your wardrobe.

People were keen to get their shopping fix this morning. (Getty Images)

Social distance, social distance, social distance

Other people are usually the problem when it comes to social distancing  you may be adhering to the rules, but if someone else isn't then this could cause risk to your health, says Sagoo.

She suggests trying to stay alert whilst moving round the shops.

If anyone is coming too close to you, step back and keep the two-metre rule in mind, Sagoo continues. If someone appears to be coughing or sneezing, then move far away from them.

When you are queuing for the till, be mindful of your space.

If you feel anyone is coming too close to you then politely ask them if they could move away, she says.

At the till, use your gloves when using the pin pad. If you do not have gloves, ensure you use hand sanitiser as soon as you are out of the store.
There are more ways than one for Scott Morrison still to stuff up the virus crisis. And in seeking to avoid such a calamity hed do well to remember a rule followed by all successful leaders: dont believe your own bulldust.

Its become increasingly clear that Morrisons handling of the corona crisis has benefited greatly from his disastrous handling of the bushfires. Obviously, he resolved not to make the same mistakes twice  and he hasnt.

Scott Morrison has done a great job in shielding Australia from the impacts of the coronavirus, but now comes the hard part. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He was too slow to appreciate the magnitude of the political, environmental and human consequences of the fires. And by the time he did, it was too late. But when the medicos gave him the classic Treasury advice to "go early, go hard", he took it.

When youre dealing with "exponential" growth, starting a week or two earlier than you might have can make all the difference. And it has. Morrisons entitled to be terribly proud of our success in suppressing the virus, which compares well against all the big advanced economies.
The Takoradi Campus of the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC) has been disinfected to make way for academic work to begin on Monday June 15, for the final year students.



The disinfection exercise, under the auspices of the government of Ghana, formed part of control measures particularly in tertiary institutions where final year students were expected to report for final preparation towards their end of term examination and official exits from such institutions of higher learning.



On March 17, this year, the government announced the closure of both public and private educational facilities across the country when COVID-19 become a national crisis to reckon with, but almost three month after closure, final year students at the various stages of the academic ladder have the opportunity of a planned reopening to enable them to formally leave school.



Ms. Nusrat-Jahan Abubakur, Director of the Takoradi Campus of the GTUC therefore lauded the Government for the intervention and for also bearing the cost of the exercise.



"We are happy to note that Zoomlion may continue this exercise of clearing our campuses of any infection on quarterly basis," she added.



She added that various arrangements have also been made to allow students who would prefer writing their final papers online to do so, while a designated shed had been allotted to students willing to be present on campus for such duties.



Ms. Abubakur said, "We have prepared well as a university for the comeback of these students bearing in mind all safety protocols".



In another development, the Director of the Takoradi Campus also appreciated the Government through Parliament for approving the Public Communication Technology University Bill to make the University fully autonomous.



The Bill, when finally assented by President Nana Akufo-Addo, will position the school to deliver highly driven technology education in the country.



Ms. Abubakur said, "We are grateful as a university for such a great move on the part of the government and his committed to making this a reality."



The Bill, has 44 clauses and four sections. Currently the GTUC run campuses in Accra, Takoradi, Ho, Kumasi with over 8000 undergraduates and postgraduate students.

Source: GNA









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VEsoft Inc., the Hangzhou, China-based developer of the Nebula Graph database, raised $8M in a series pre-A funding round.

The round was led by Redpoint China Ventures with participation from Matrix Partners China, who previously contributed as an angel investor.

The company intends to use the funds for additional product development and to bring Nebula Graph to market in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Led by Sherman Ye, CEO and founder, VEsoft provides graph database Nebula Graph, which  soon offered as a cloud service  give large organizations a solution to store and process billions of data points with trillions of relational connections. Currently in beta mode, it will soon be commercially available.

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15/06/2020
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he was no longer bound by agreements signed with Israel in May, stating, "The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including security ones." Nearly a month later, after initial casting about and uncertainty, a new status quo is emerging. The current indirect cooperation includes continued security alerts from Israel to the Palestinian Authority, but hardly any in the opposite direction. It also includes extra care to prevent friction between the two sides security forces.

After Abbas May 19 announcement, his associates clarified that it includes security coordination with the IDF and the Shin Bet, which for years has helped thwart terror attacks by organizations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others.

It must be noted that this security coordination protected not only Israelis, but also the Palestinian Authority and Abbas himself. For example, in 2006, according to the British Sunday Times, the Shin Bet shared information on the intention of a Hamas terror cell to target Abbas and prevented the overthrow of his regime.

It's in the Palestinians' interest to show that they will continue to prevent terror attacks against Israel and in general and that they will maintain control. Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian Authority official responsible for relations with Israel, said in an interview with The New York Times: We are  not fools, and we dont want chaos. We are pragmatic. We dont want things to reach a point of no return.  We will prevent violence and chaos. We will not allow bloodshed. That is a strategic decision.

A senior Palestinian security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, We are determined to prevent violence and terror activities in our territory and we will protect any Israeli who enters Palestinian Authority areas. He clarified that if an Israeli is found in distress in Palestinian Authority areas, the security forces would contact the Red Cross to have him or her returned to Israel and not act through coordination channels with the IDF. Ending security coordination does not mean allowing violence and terror in our territories and we will not allow any forces to act with violence even at the friction points with the IDF and the settlers, he emphasized. But now we will do so without coordinating our moves with the IDF, and if necessary, we will coordinate with the Red Cross and transmit messages.

Following Abbas guidance, the heads of the five Palestinian security forces requested clarification on the new mode of operation. At meeting with Abbas two days after the initial declaration, these leaders were instructed to refrain from direct contact with Israel, but to make sure that peace is maintained within Palestinian Authority areas. Any contact with Israel will be made through international organizations, primarily the Red Cross.

With that, the heads of the security forces instructed their forces not to travel with weapons or in uniform, in civilian or military vehicles, outside of Palestinian Authority territories (outside the West Bank's Area C under Palestinian security control), or near IDF checkpoints in the West Bank.

This new order was tested on June 9, when seven Israelis in two vehicles entered the West Bank city of Qalqilya by accident. Palestinian police stopped them and reportedly turned them back to an area under Israels control and reported the incident to the Red Cross office. But an Israeli official involved said that a Palestinian officer called the Israeli coordination and cooperation office to report that the seven were found and were being returned to Israeli territory.

When Israeli border patrol officers chased a truck suspected as stolen and tried to enter Hebron, Palestinian police stopped them. The Palestinian government presented the incident as indicative of a new era in relations with Israel. Since then the two sides have been careful not to let such an incident recur.

An even more sensitive issue is that of Israeli action against terrorism within Palestinian Authority territories. Until Abbas declaration, Israels security forces had entered villages and cities almost nightly to arrest men wanted for suspected membership in terrorist organizations. Before nearly every such incident, the Palestinian security forces were alerted to keep away from the site. Following Abbas announcement such operations virtually ceased, but they have restarted, and miraculously, there hasnt been any friction. Several residents of the large village of Yabed were arrested June 8 on suspicion of killing Israeli soldier Amit Ben-Ygal on May 12 by throwing a rock at his head during an IDF operation in the village. Israeli security forces worked in the village for several nights without Palestinian interference before suspects were arrested.

A senior Israeli security official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that a few days after Abbas declaration, Israel told the Palestinian security chiefs that it would not permit Palestinian security forces to interfere with anti-terror security activities, but it will reduce the potential for friction to a minimum. It's clear that even now messages are being passed between Israel and the Palestinians to keep them clear of its operations. According to the same source, Israel continues to transmit messages to the Palestinians regarding terror plots that could harm the Palestinian Authority itself, but at a far lesser volume.

The two sides know that this situation is temporary and that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu realizes his intention to actually implement US President Donald Trumps peace plan and annex West Bank settlements, the situation will change. Israel is preparing for such a possibility, convening the heads of the security establishment, the Shin Bet, Mossad and the IDF June 3 to prepare and plan for new conditions.
TDT Manama

Ministry of Foreign Affairs international affairs undersecretary Dr. Shaikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa held an online meeting yesterday with the accredited Ambassadors of European Union (EU) countries to Bahrain, to discuss strengthening relations between the two sides and exchanging viewpoints on issues of mutual concern.

Dr. Shaikh Abdullah hailed the close strategic relations between the Kingdom and the EU. He also noted that the Kingdom, under the leadership of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, is crucial to maintaining security and stability in the region, protecting maritime security, combatting terrorism in all its forms and eliminating its sources of financing.

The undersecretary reviewed the most prominent measures taken by Bahrain to promote public and religious freedoms and consolidate the value of tolerance, as well as achieve a comprehensive human rights system within the framework of the rule of law and institutions and a developed democratic process.

He noted the preventive measures taken by the Kingdom to address the coronavirus (COVID-19) according to the highest standards of quality and efficiency to ensure the safety of all citizens and residents, calling, in this regard, for developing a global strategy to anticipate and prevent epidemics and disasters.

The Ambassadors commended the development of friendship and cooperation relations between the EU and Bahrain, wishing the Kingdom further progress and prosperity.
Security officials barred private media journalists from covering an official event held in Chinhoyi city on 12 June that the president Emmerson Mnangagwa was attending. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) joins its affiliate, the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ), in condemning the ban and urges the authorities to ensure access for all journalists to official events.

12 journalists reported to the ZUJ Head Office in Harare that they had been barred from attending the event.

They claimed that the Presidents security guards had a hostile attitude towards them and accused the journalists of arriving late to the event. The journalists said they arrived at the venue well before the event started.

Efforts made by the Mashonaland West ZUJ provincial secretary Paul Pindani to secure access to the event for private media journalists were unsuccessful and only state-controlled media organisations were allowed to cover the event.

The union announced it would seek to engage with the authorities to put an end to these practices.

ZUJ's Secretary-General, Foster Dongozi said the incident was disgraceful and very unfortunate and claimed that the ban violated media freedom laws.

By turning away journalists from covering a State event, the Presidents security team deprived media workers an opportunity to generate income for their families. The most affected would be freelance and community media journalists, who have already suffered a big impact on their income due to the Covid-19 crisis, Dongozi added.

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: Banning journalists from doing their work is unacceptable and goes against any effort by the government towards a more inclusive and democratic Zimbabwe. We deplore this act by the Presidential security officials and urge the president to guarantee journalists freedom to work and the citizens right to be informed.
Covid-19 cases in Amritsar, the worst hit district in Punjab, have doubled over the last 27 days with the number of cases jumping from 305 to 613.

The first Covid-19 case was reported in the district on March 21 after a UK-returned man tested positive for the deadly infection. The district, which falls under the red-zone, took 58 days (till May 18) to report 305 cases, of which 263 patients had returned from Takht Hazur Sahib in Nanded, Maharashtra.

However, soon after relaxations were imposed community transmission (where a patient has no travel history and has not come in direct contact of any infected person) commenced and Covid-19 cases doubled from 305 to 613 in 27 days (till June 14).

Of the 613 Covid-19 patients in the district, 418 have recovered and 21 have succumbed to the disease.

17 DEATHS IN 27 DAYS

While Covid-19 cases are rising in the district, there has been a corresponding decrease in recovery rate.

As many as 295 of 305 people were discharged from Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Amritsar, till May 18 while 418 of 613 patients have been discharged till June 14.

Amritsar has reported 17 Covid-19 deaths in 27 days, of which 10 deaths were reported in the last five days.

ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE IN PLACE: ADC

When asked about the steadily increasing cases in Amritsar, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) Himanshu Aggarwal said, Most of the cases are being reported through flu corners and many are close contacts of Covid-19 patients. The health department and district administration is actively surveilling the district and trying to contain the contagion. At least 1,000 samples from the district are tested at GMC Amritsar daily.

We have already announced the first containment zone in the district and a survey is under process to identify other potential containment zones, ADC Aggarwal said, adding that people were advised to maintain social distancing and wear face masks to avoid infection.
Most absurd statement I have heard. Case of robbing Peter to pay Pau when the perpetrators are sitting on millions  Absurd and tone deaf  A pathetic, illogical and inappropriate proposal for sure. And the culprits? The reactions were mostly negative, after local newspaper Today in Seychelles asked its readers this one simple question: The Truth Reconciliation National Unity Commission has announced in an interview over the national television channel their proposal for a national lottery from which to pay compensation to victims who have brought their case to the Commission. What do you think of their proposal? 

The Seychelles Truth, Reconciliation and National Unity Commission (TRNUC) resumed its session on May 25 after an eight week break due to Covid-19 pandemic. At the end of February, 425 cases had been registered with the commission, which started hearing cases in September 2019. Cases relate to allegations of murder, disappearance, unlawful land acquisitions, claims of denial of the right to employment or unlawful termination of employment, unlawful detention, torture, forced exile, rape, among others. Among those, over a hundred cases have been heard to date and, according to the TRNUC, most complainants anticipate that they will be awarded some form of compensation in recognition of the human rights violations they endured during the one-party system.

Speaking to Justice Info, the TRNUCs chairperson, Gabrielle McIntyre defends the project of a lottery, submitted in a context of scarce financial resources for the country to President Danny Faure, whose decision is pending on the matter. The commissions chairperson stresses that its not the commission role to raise money or to find ways of raising money. The government needs to explore the idea further, she says, as the country is going through an economic crisis due to Covid-19 and it was concerned that funds will be limited to award compensation to victims at the end of the process in September 2022.

The Commission has made clear that it will seek to obtain or recommend that compensation be obtained from perpetrators who have unjustly enriched themselves through human rights abuses and abuses of power. But not all alleged perpetrators are people of means. There needs to be other sources of revenue available to award compensation, says McIntyre. What the TRNUC sought to underscore to the authorities is the importance of ensuring means are identified to compensate victims of human rights abuses, adds McIntyre.

A national lottery should be reserved for charity purposes

The announcement of the national lottery was met by scepticism among victims as pointed out by two of them who spoke to Justice Info. Cyril Lautee, an active supporter of the resistance movement Mouvman Pour Larezistans (MPR) during the early 1980s, confessed in January before the TRNUC his involvement in various plots to destabilize the government during the one-party era. Lautee and his family were targeted and victimized. He was eventually forced into exile after losing his job as a pilot. During his testimony, he asked for forgiveness for his actions that could have hurt innocent people and called on the alleged perpetrators to do the same.

Lautee who says he is willing to forgive supports the idea of compensation but does not believe that this should be borne by the Seychellois people. The people who abused us and violated our rights still have many assets in the country and I believe these should be disposed of to compensate the victims. A national lottery should be reserved for charity purposes. In our case, we were abused and harassed by a small group of people and they should pay personally for what they did to us, says Lautee.

Lautee, who has appeared thrice before the commission as a complainant and witness to two other incidents, adds that although he feels compensation might help some victims, it might not be enough to bring closure. How do you calculate the damage done, the abuse and a persons trauma? I was tortured, lost my job, forced into exile and torn away from my family. I lost many years and what happened to me still traumatizes me to this day. Can you put a price to it?, adds Lautee.

Former police officer Rivalse Hoareau who presented his case behind closed doors during the first week of June, is also seeking compensation. Former President Albert Rene has so many assets in the country. My case dates to when he was president and it was under his presidency that my right was violated. So, it is only fair that his assets are used to compensate me and other victims, says Hoareau. Why should we go to the people to ask them to buy a lottery to helps us? They were not the one who used their powers to abuse us and violate our rights, adds Hoareau.

Recommended reading Seychelles: a time for truth in Paradise

Compensation for victims is a necessary remedy

A risk, for a truth and reconciliation commission that is highly respected, based on peoples reactions, would be that the proposal of a lottery undermines the seriousness of the exercise. McIntyre doesnt think so: A lottery is voluntary, people do not have to participate in it and it was just a proposal made to start the debate and thinking on where the money for compensation can come from, she says.

The purpose is to find the truth and to reconcile and unite people. The act establishing the commission seeks to find the truth by offering an amnesty to perpetrators and to help right the wrongs that occurred. The act provides for the commission to recommend reparations and compensation to victims, adds McIntyre. Compensation for victims is a necessary remedy, particularly where perpetrators are benefiting from the possibility of amnesty following a full and frank disclosure and sincere apology. Compensation is a means of acknowledging a wrong, she further adds, explaining that the issue of how much to pay victims based on the crime, is currently being researched by the commission.

On June 5, the Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of the Indian Ocean French Chang Him, testified in 2019 before the TRNUC on his brother David Son Chang Him killing, in 1977. We are asking people to take part in a national lottery at a time when people have very little themselves. Maybe we should sort out the money from other funds such as the anti-corruption commission which is investigating corruption cases and which we hope will eventually prosecute individuals who may have plundered the states money, says the Archbishop to Justice Info.
Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo, says he will make his next move known after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

The governor who is seeking a second term, was last week disqualified from the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election in the state.

Obaseki while speaking via his Twitter handle on Sunday, said he is still consulting with his supporters.

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I appreciate the sustained show of solidarity, support and goodwill from Edo people and Nigerians in the face of injustice by the @OfficialAPCNg screening committee, he wrote.

I will be making my next move known after I complete consultations with my supporters and meet with @MBuhari.

I appreciate the sustained show of solidarity, support and goodwill from Edo people and Nigerians in the face of injustice by the @OfficialAPCNg screening committee. I will be making my next move known after I complete consultations with my supporters and meet with @MBuhari  Godwin Obaseki (GGO) (@GovernorObaseki) June 14, 2020

The governor according to Jonathan Ayuba, chairman of the screening committee, was disqualified over a defective certificate.

Read Also: Obaseki Has Not Registered With Us: PDP

In our view of the issues raised. We concluded that the higher school certificate was defective, he had said.

The NYSC certificate  and act of the aspirant taking the party to court  these are some of the issues we have attached and based on the party constitution this has made us to recommend that the above candidate thereby his excellency Godwin Obaseki is not eligible to participate in the governor.

The disqualification was also upheld by the APC national working committee, and accused Obaseki of unduly interfering in the state legislature.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 18:36:07|Editor: huaxia

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CHONGQING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality reported two new imported COVID-19 cases and four new imported asymptomatic cases on Sunday, the municipal health commission said Monday.

The new imported COVID-19 cases were a Chinese couple, who departed from Mumbai, India, and arrived in Chongqing on flight CA638 on June 13. The couple are being treated at a medical center in the city.

The asymptomatic cases were also passengers on the flight and have been placed in quarantine.

As of Sunday, Chongqing had reported a total of six imported confirmed COVID-19 cases, including three cases cured and discharged from hospital. There were still 14 asymptomatic cases under medical observation in the city as of Sunday. Enditem
I want to see Lincoln Pool open, he said. It probably cannot open until about July 1 because it takes a while to get a pool up to operating capacity. I am not going to open the water park (Island Oasis) because we have looked at that 1,000 ways and it is just not possible to manage that with the social distancing requirements.

Steele said when Lincoln Pool opens, there will be a schedule that will allow only a certain number of swimmers into the facility at one time.

He added the opening of playgrounds and splash pads will depend on the language of the issued DHMs.

Ill look at it when it comes out, Steele said of the DHMs. If we can open playgrounds, I will. But that is dependent upon what the DHM says.

Steele said that in the upcoming weeks, he looks forward to Ricketts deciding that the Central District Health Department is doing so well that it can join 89 counties in moving forward to a phase III DHM. He said he wants to see events such as Husker Harvest Days and the Nebraska State Fair held, and for schools to be able to reopen in the fall.
First came the dash to equip U.S. hospitals with protective gear when the coronavirus swept across the country. Now companies are scrambling to get a limited supply of masks, gloves and disinfectants they need to reopen.

For businesses already struggling from the pandemic, that means further constraints on time and costs. The shortages also present a conundrum as Americas economy restarts: If companies cant get enough supplies, more people are at risk for the virus, adding to the prospect of another surge in cases that would leave the market even more short of protective equipment.

Its been challenging, said Peter Elitzer, president of Peter Harris Clothes, a discount retailer that has reopened almost all of its 79 stores. How do you find the masks? How do you find the sanitizer? How do you find the wipes? Forget it. To get the Clorox wipes is completely impossible.

Elitzer shelled out $60 (U.S.) a gallon for hand sanitizer before tracking down a distiller that could produce it for $35  still triple the usual price. Plastic barriers, masks and thermometers are selling at premiums, he said. The company had to furlough workers just to cover the $50,000 in added expenses.

Inventories will remain tight and short-term price spikes are expected for high-demand items as businesses crank back up just as doctors begin performing elective surgeries again, said D.G. Macpherson, chief executive officer of W.W. Grainger Inc., the largest U.S. distributor of industrial supplies. Hospitals also are rebuilding stockpiles ahead of a potential second wave of the virus later this year.

Things are still challenged now in a number of categories, Macpherson said in an interview. Its getting better, I would say. But theres a long way to go.

As manufacturers scurry to meet demand, bottlenecks are popping up. Honeywell International Inc. crammed a typical nine-month procedure into six weeks to open production sites for N95 masks in Rhode Island and Arizona. The company wants to add more capacity but is bumping up against a lack of the filter material thats sandwiched between the inner and outer layers.

Theres no easy fix because there are only two manufacturers of the machines that produce the material, said Will Lange, chief of Honeywells personal protective equipment business.

Disposable gloves and hospital gowns are among the items with the biggest kinks in the supply chain, he said. Honeywell is looking to set up U.S. output of hospital gowns after beginning a production line in North Africa. The company doesnt make gloves but procures them from third-party manufacturers and sells them, a task thats become difficult after the World Health Organization put in an order for multiple millions of them, Lange said.

The tight market for those products could become critical if COVID-19 resurges. As it is, cases are accelerating in some states, with Texas and Florida reporting record numbers of new infections. This has led to concerns that reopenings may come at the cost of spreading the virus.

I dont think the supply chain is ready yet for a second wave of massive demand for PPE, Lange said. Its probably going to take about nine months to get to a really good spot.

Maryam Barnes, an orthodontist in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas, said she is paying exorbitant prices for masks, gowns, face shields and other supplies just as the number of patients shes able to schedule has dropped by half because of social distancing.

Disposable gowns  those are ridiculous, Barnes said. They can cost as much as $20 each, whereas it used to be $20 to $30 for boxes of 50, she said.

Strange activity

The top concerns among small-business owners are whether customers will return as they reopen and if there will be adequate supplies of hand sanitizer, disinfectants and face coverings, according to a survey in May by the National Federation of Independent Business.

The trade group, which represents about 300,000 small businesses, had urged members to begin accumulating those supplies about a month ago in anticipation of the reopening, said Holly Wade, director of research and policy analysis. Theres concern that larger companies with more buying power will have an edge in acquiring essential goods, squeezing small businesses even more on availability.

Theres so much strange business activity thats happening right now, Wade said. Even if they have a supply now, its unclear how long those will last and if theyll be able to restock.

H Town Restaurant Group, which has four locations in the Houston area, stocked up on about six weeks of supplies including masks, gloves and sanitizer and is purchasing more in case a second wave of the virus puts more pressure on the supply chain, said co-owner Tracy Vaught. The group is operating at a loss as it opens its restaurants at limited capacity, and the extra cost of protective gear for her 150 employees doesnt help.

Its just what we have to do to be in business, Vaught said. Its not negotiable.

In Albany, New York, Elitzer of Peter Harris Clothes worked from his dining-room table during the lockdown to secure supplies. Locally made face coverings cost $8 apiece before he received a shipment from China at $1.45 each. He negotiated acrylic barriers down to $75 each from a local sign manufacturer, after initially paying as much as $175.

Other entrepreneurs are also proving resourceful in finding their own solutions. Steve Trollope, who co-owns a prenatal-imaging centre in Reno, Nevada, resorted to making his own hand sanitizer from aloe and Everclear grain alcohol to provide for workers and the patients he attended throughout the pandemic.

Early on, it was a real scramble. We were at the point of getting desperate to locate certain items, said Trollope, who now can buy sanitizer again. The supply chain seems to be mending itself.

Grainger expects demand for plastic barriers, masks, disinfectants and other supplies related to COVID-19 to be elevated for the long term. Companies are adopting practices that wont fade even if the virus eventually does, said Macpherson, the CEO.

For the next few years, were going to be in a world where these types of products are going to be the norm for how we work, he said. Frankly, when we go into the grocery store, you ask yourself, Why didnt we always have this? Why did we let people sneeze on each other in the first place?
LEUVEN, Belgium, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Fund+, an investment firm focused on innovative European Life Sciences companies, today announced changes to the Board following the AGM. Luc Debruyne and Gerard Lamarche have been appointed to the Board of Fund+.

In accordance with the Company's governance charter, Honorary Chairman Desire Collen, Arnoud de Pret, Pierre Drion and Hilde Laga have stepped down from the Board following expiry of the term of their office. Desire Collen, Honorary Chairman, will remain as a Board observer.

Chris Buyse, Managing Partner and Executive Board Member of Fund+, commented: "We are delighted to welcome Luc Debruyne and Gerard Lamarche to the Board. Luc Debruyne brings outstanding scientific and commercialisation experience from GSK, where he led the global vaccines business; and a wealth of international expertise having worked across Europe and managed businesses globally including significant focus and experience in the US. Gerard Lamarche will leverage his track record of successful transactions and brings an invaluable perspective to the Board following an impressive track record of strategic roles at well-established industrial companies.

Mark Waer, Chairman of the Board, said: "On behalf of all Board Members, I would like to express our sincere appreciation and gratitude for the exceptional contributions our colleagues Desire Collen, Arnoud de Pret, Pierre Drion and Hilde Laga have made since the start of Fund+ in 2015. Their expertise and support have been very important in guiding the Company's strategy and helping Fund+ to create a strong portfolio of leading innovative companies each with the potential to bring important breakthrough therapies to patients."

Desire Collen said: "I am very proud of the achievements of Fund+ and would like to thank my fellow board of director members and our investors for their support over the years. Our strong patient-centric approach, addressing unmet medical needs and aiming to make a significant societal contribution to the Belgian ecosystem has led to investment in 13 portfolio companies with two exits, Ogeda S.A. and Qbiologicals NV. I am very excited to welcome Luc Debruyne and Gerard Lamarche to our Board and look forward to their contributions and support for the next stage of Fund+ growth."

Fund+ also announced the promotion of Dr Louis Declerck, currently Investment Analyst at Fund+, to Associate. Louis holds an M.D. degree (pre-specialisation Neurosurgery) from the KU Leuven, Belgium and has combined his medical degree with an M.A. in Civil Engineering (Biomedical Engineering) at UGent, Belgium.

Luc Debruyne

Luc Debruyne was President of Global Vaccines and member of the Corporate Executive Team at GSK (GlaxoSmithKline), a position he was appointed to in 2013, accountable for 17,000 people and growing revenues to more than $7bn in 2018. He joined GSK in 1991 as a commercial strategy director in R&D, and since then has served in multiple capacities in many countries. A business leader with more than 30 years' experience in the life sciences industry, Debruyne is currently Board Member of the Institutional Advisory Board of VIB Life Science Institute, Strategy Advisor to the CEO of CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), Life Science Advisory Board Member of Greenlight Biosciences and Research Fellow at KU Leuven (Economics & Business Faculty). Luc Debruyne holds a Master in Physical Education and Kinesiology from KU Leuven, Belgium. He attended a Sustainability Leadership Programme at the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at the University of Cambridge.

Gerard Lamarche

Gerard Lamarche is a Director and member of the Standing Committee of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert. In 2019 he joined, as Chairman of the Board, Multifin S.A., the Family Office and anchor investors of ABInBev, and has held Directorships at LafargeHolcim, Total and SGS. In 2000 he joined NALCO (a US subsidiary of the Suez group, world leader in industrial waste water treatment) as Managing Director before being appointed CFO of the Suez group in 2003. Earlier in his career from 1995-1997, Gerard Lamarche joined Compagnie Financiere de Suez as Advisor to the Chairman and Secretary to the Executive Committee before being appointed Deputy Director in charge of Planning, Control and Accounting. He graduated in Economics from the UC Louvain and the INSEAD Management Institute (Advanced Management Program) for Suez Group Executives. He also trained at the Wharton International Forum in 1998-1999 (Global Leadership Series).

About Fund+

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Relations with Hungary deteriorated after the adoption of a new education law in Ukraine in 2017.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says Ukraine will not introduce amendments to its new education law in terms of the education process for ethnic minorities other than those recommended by the Venice Commission.

"I'm absolutely convinced it is within our powers to solve this problem... In a very simple way. Our Hungarian colleagues argued that Ukraine did not comply with the recommendations made by the Venice Commission to the education law. We've implemented these recommendations  and this is a 'red line' I'd like to clearly outline for all who are worried about the future of the education law. Ukraine will make no additional changes to the education law other than those that are included in the Venice Commission's conclusions for reaching some compromises with Hungary," he said during the Pravo Na Vladu ("Right to Power") TV panel show on TV Channel 1+1 on June 11.

Read alsoUkraine FM Kuleba refutes "fake news" following his visit to Budapest

The minister added that the Venice Commission recommended that the transition period to a new education system be extended.

"I'd like to clearly stress that Hungary has never refuted one very clear fact during official and unofficial talks, and public statements, that is Ukrainians of Hungarian descent should speak the state language, i.e. Ukrainian. And this is a fundamental principle," he said.

"Our partner is not easy. Hungary is a very difficult negotiator, and I have already felt this during these months. But we need to hold a dialogue with any partner, especially that Hungary is our neighbor. It is a member state of the European Union and NATO, which in the previous decades, since the start of Ukraine's independence, has supported Ukraine in all its European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations," Kuleba said.

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 then been blocking meetings of the 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 December 8, 2017, the Ukrainian authorities were recommended to balance the language-related provision in the education law.

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 a 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 taught 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 that the number of subjects taught in Ukrainian for the national minorities not to be increased, which is provided for by the new law on secondary education.
W omen across Switzerland gathered together for a "mass scream" to demand gender equality and an end to gender-based violence on Sunday.

The annual march, named the Women's Strike or Frauernstreik, heard the vocal protest echo through Geneva and cities around the country at exactly 3.24pm local time.

The timing was chosen for a reason. According to Swiss government data, it is the time in the working day that the average woman in effect begins to give away her labour for free due to the country's gender pay gap.

Despite its reputation for high quality of life, Switzerland falls behind other highly-developed countries on equal pay.

According to recently released figures, Swiss women typically earn a fifth less than their male colleagues - a disparity larger than it was in 2000.

One participant, Roxanne Errico, a 19-year-old student, told Reuters news agency that she joined protest in tribute to her mother, who was killed by a violent boyfriend.

She said: For me it is emotional. Because I scream for me, but I also scream for my sisters and brothers, I scream for all the other children who lost a mother or a father, and I also scream for my mother, who would have screamed if she was still here."

The Women's Strike protest has run for decades, this year the event was subdued due to Covid-19 restrictions, but in 2019 half a million people joined.

Marchers also staged a flash mob and held a minutes silence for women killed by husbands or boyfriends.

Another Geneva resident, Rose-Angela Gramoni, said she had taken part in every strike since 1991.

Ms Gramoni, who is in her 70s, explained: Now I can die in peace, the next generation is here to take over. But for a while, I was very sad. I thought we fought for many things, but we did not finish the job and nobody was here to finish it."

Demonstrators also used the march to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community, and called for recognition of often unpaid work caring for family and relatives.

I would love to walk at night wearing a skirt, shorts or leggings without being insulted, without being scared to be raped, said Geneva resident Vani Niuti, 20.
Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old Black Lives Matter protester, has been found dead days after tweeting that a man who offered her a ride to church, had molested her in Tallahassee, Florida.

She was last seen on June 6, 2020 at a demonstration in the Tallahassee area, according to the Police Department.

Hours prior to being reported missing, Salau tweeted that she had been molested by a man while looking for a place to stay after the demonstration.

READ ALSO  It Was A Beautiful Scene  Trump Reacts To George Floyds Protesters Getting Tear-gassed

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She added that she had called the authorities to report what had happened. .

Before her death, the teenager had emerged as a leading voice in recent protests throughout the area.
It is a gift, as Robert Burns wrote, to see ourselves as others see us.

One of those others is Caroline Glick, who writes on her webpage from Israel: Americans are now expected to kneel for the Star Spangled Banner and disavow American history while swallowing whole a false, malicious new history that claims America has been a force for evil at home and worldwide since it was nothing more than a sparkle in a racist colonialists eye.

Regimes in China and Iran, who violently repress even peaceful demonstrators, are mocking us and claiming we are no better than they when police and the National Guard put down street violence.

These are the inevitable consequences when a nation forgets who and what it is and when some of its citizens reject the values that built and sustained it. Have we forgotten that the evil of slavery and Jim Crow laws throughout the South have been mostly corrected and, in some cases, atoned for in blood and legislation? Perfect we have not yet become, but our journey is advancing, not retreating, or sheltering in place.

The current anarchy started with justifiable outrage over the killing of George Floyd. After peaceful demonstrations, things turned violent. Political correctness and censorship of speech quickly followed as mob rule became the norm.

TV programs about the police have been canceled before a single complaint. Gone with the Wind is gone from HBO Max. Career journalists are being fired for writing headlines that offend certain employees who claim words can lead to physical harm. Stan Wischnowski, the top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, resigned after he attached this headline to a column: Buildings Matter, Too. His career at the paper spanned 20 years.

The New York Times, which brags of its commitment to a diversity of opinions on its editorial page, apologized and withdrew from its website a column written by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who called for a military response to street riots.

Rioters and looters seem to think of themselves as second American revolutionaries and morally superior to the Founders, some of whose statues they are pulling down and others they are defacing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol Building. The irony is that most, if not all, of these notable men were Democrats, a party opposed to Reconstruction after the Civil War and the authors of Jim Crow laws. Their racist descendants opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Will these purists tear down the Richard Russell Senate Office Building, named for the senator from Georgia who opposed all such legislation?

Yes, reforms are needed as they always are in a pluralistic nation with competing ideas, especially because of our racial history. But tearing things down, including history, does not help others rise. No life is improved, no family stabilized.

Out of many, one is our national motto. We seem to be practicing it today about as much as the unofficial one, In God we trust. Unfortunately, the tribalism unleashed on the land appears to have become out of one, many, and we are fighting each other with a zeal that would be better directed at real enemies.

As Abraham Lincoln observed in his first inaugural address: We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

If only it were so today. The shame is ours that it is not.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.

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DUBLIN (dpa-AFX) - Ireland's trade surplus decreased in April as exports declined more than imports, figures from the Central Statistics Office showed on Monday. The trade surplus decreased to EUR 5.78 billion in April from EUR 10.44 billion in March. In the same month last year, the trade surplus was EUR 5.39 billion. Exports declined by a seasonally adjusted 32.0 percent monthly in April, and imports fell 11.0 percent. On an unadjusted basis, exports decreased 10.0 percent annually in April, while imports declined 21.0 percent. Data showed that exports to Britain decreased 26 percent on year in April, while imports were down 0.2 percent. 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.
But the explanation was belied by the video  which showed the president pursing his lips while looking down as he gingerly made his way down the ramp. Trump only slightly increased his gait to a more normal speed for the final two steps of the journey. The general at his side seemed to have no trouble walking down the ramp.
It circulates every few weeks on social media, and gets thousands of shares each timeoften when a news outlet has announced layoffs or losses. Why, someone asks, has the journalism industry still not made it possible to pay a few cents to read a single article, instead of buying a subscription?

There are many sites, advocates of the idea will say, for which they would not consider a subscription but would read the occasional story. But they are denied by a paywall. Given that demand, a simple cross-publication mechanism to pay, say, twenty cents for an article, or fifty cents for a feature, would surely be a revenue-raiser.

The idea has definitely occurred to major publishers across the planet. Publishers can be accused of being slow to wake up to the internet, but theyre not that slow, nor that likely to leave money on the table.

But there is, it turns out, a long list of reasons you cant pay for journalism by the articleand why you shouldnt expect to see the idea catch on anytime soon.

One of the core reasons publishers are reluctant to adopt this mechanism is that most publications are conceived as package deals. Premium outlets want to sign up subscribers, especially on recurrent payment plans. That means you decide once, and then the cost to you is invisible. If the subscription includes a print product, this also vastly increases your value to advertisers. A single new subscription might be worth, on average, hundreds of dollars of annual revenue to a publication.

At the moment, most users encountering new and tempting content on such a site will just click away when they hit the paywallbut a small fraction will subscribe. If a third option of paying twenty cents is added, some from each group will choose that.

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But if a subscription is worth a hundred dollars a year to a publisher, then even one person clicking on the twenty-cent button instead means the publisher needs five hundred people to buy articles to make up for the lost revenue. The ratios are different for different outlets, but the math remains intimidating.

Theres also a philosophical objection. As noted, newspapers and magazines have been conceived as a packagea mix of the light and the heavy. Some stories cost far more to produce than others, but it balances out because you buy the whole thing. That logic dies if you separate them out.

The difference between subscribing to a newspaper or a magazine and paying per article is, says Tony Haile, the founder of analytics tool Chartbeat and now chief executive of Scroll, a startup providing ad-free browsing of various publications through an app, best understood in terms of gym memberships.

At Equinox or somewhere like that, you might pay a hundred dollars a month. Now, you do have the single-serving thingBarrys Bootcamp and Soulcycle and so forth, he says. Theyre all ridiculously expensive, and that works.

If you would take the micropayments version of a gym membership, it would be like, I can turn up and I can pay a couple of quid, and I can go into the gym whenever I want to use it. No gym works like that.

If an outlet wanted to try to start itself up on a pay-per-article model, it might workbut the price point would likely be much higher than the handful of cents we generally discuss. That gets trickier, Haile says, because information is fundamentally different from other arenas.

Gaming is perhaps the greatest triumph of micropayments. But in games, you know what youre buying in advancethree extra lives, a hundred coins, whatever. For a journalistic article, youll only know whether you enjoyed it after youve finished it.

And gaming companies only have to deal with a few large partners to make it work. Media companies would need to devise a low-friction method for users to pay across sites owned by dozens of different publishers, without new log-ins and usernames each time. That would require lots of sites to take the plunge at once, agreeing on a system and a payment providerwhich would presumably need to take a cut in order to keep operating.

Its Hailes first law of media, he says. The success of any project is inversely correlated with the amount that requires publishers to work together.

In the UK, one company is attempting it. Axate was started by Dominic Young, who previously led Rupert Murdochs scheme to push industry-wide collaboration. But they found that the publishers most willing to take the risk in joining were those that were not yet making money from subscriptions. Axate launched with very few publications, and thus not many articles.

Matt Kelly, of the publisher Archant (disclosure: I have a column in one of its publications), was the second to join. In truth it did very little business for us, he says. We felt eventually we needed to try a different approach to get people to support us.

There are more problems stilldifficulties in delineating which content would be paid for versus free, challenges with advertising, problems with middlemen. But they all amount to a core issue.

Readers would like to pick the very best content and pay less for it than they would if they subscribed. But no organizationmedia company, television network, or record companycan produce only hits. Nor should they try.

And so it amounts, ultimately, to a reduction in revenue when we all need more. Weve been waiting twenty-five years for micropayments. And it looks, at this moment, like they may never arrive.

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James Ball is a journalist and author based in London, UK. His latest book is Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered The World.
The Presidency on Sunday attacked the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) for expressing displeasure over the high rate of insecurity in Northern Nigeria.

The forum in a statement signed by its coordinator, Ango Abdullahi, disclosed that President Muhammadu Buharis government has failed in its fight against bandits and Boko Haram insurgents.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the insecurity across Nigeria last week with over 140 people killed in separate attacks, majority of them in Northern Nigeria.

Recent escalation of attacks by bandits, rustlers and insurgents leave the only conclusion that the people of the North are now completely at the mercy of armed gangs who roam towns and villages at will, wreaking havoc, Mr Abdullahi said.

It would appear that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and governors have lost control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold.

The situation is getting worse literally by the day as bandits and insurgents appear to sense a huge vacuum in political will and capacity which they exploit with disastrous consequences on communities and individuals. As a responsible body, the forum has joined millions of others in prayers and in giving advice and encouragement to all authorities that have responsibility to protect our communities.

It is now time to say, enough is enough. Our people are known for their patience and respect for constituted authorities, but all governments must be aware by now that all Northerners have been pushed to the wall. The forum is aware that some citizens are contemplating peaceful protests, which are their constitutional rights, to draw attention of President Buhari and all levels of authority to the plight of people of the North.

President Muhammadu Buhari [PHOTO CREDIT: Bashir Ahmad]

Our current circumstances in the North clearly demonstrate that President Buharis administration has woefully failed to achieve either.This is unacceptable. We demand an immediate and comprehensive improvement of our security in the North. We are tired of excuses and verbal threats which criminals laugh at, and our fellow citizens see as a clear failure of leadership which they see as part of them. Enough is enough.

Ignore NEF  Presidency

Reacting to the NEF, the Special Adviser on Media to Mr Buhari, Femi Adesina, said Mr Abdullahi was only speaking for himself, describing him as a mere irritant and featherweight.

We are not surprised by this latest statement by Prof. Abdullahi, and our past position on what his group represents remains unchanged: a mere irritant and featherweight.

The former vice chancellor signed the statement under the banner of Northern Elders Forum (NEF). Hearing that title, you would think the body was a conglomeration of true elders. But the truth is that NEF is just Ango Abdullahi, and Ango Abdullahi is NEF.

Femi Adesina, the spokesperson to President Muhammadu Buhari

Before the 2019 presidential election, the one-man army called NEF had shown its antipathy against President Buhari, and its preference for another candidate. They all got beaten together.

NEF is merely waving a flag that is at half-mast. President Buhari steadily and steadfastly focuses on the task of retooling Nigeria, and discerning Nigerians know the true state of the nation.

They dont need a paper tiger to tell them anything, Mr Adesina said without addressing the worsening security situation.
MONROVIA, LIBERIA (June 15, 2020)  As COVID-19 continues to spread in Liberia, The Carter Center has answered the request of the government to assist with prevention efforts and mental health support.

The Center is working with the National Incident Management System; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection; Ministry of Internal Affairs; Ministry of Justice; the National Council of Chiefs and Elders; and civil society partners to raise awareness about COVID-19 prevention measures and to ensure that information about COVID-19 reaches all persons. The Center will facilitate dissemination of Ministry of Health messages through local partners.

The Centers Mental Health Program supports the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support pillar of Liberias national COVID-19 response. It provides technical support to social workers and mental health clinicians in outbreak counties, including clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health, and underwrites mental health training within the context of COVID-19 for clinicians and social workers in all 15 counties in collaboration with government and U.N. partners.

It also has helped train 100 contact tracers with WHO-approved methods and, along with other partners, conducted a rapid assessment of the COVID-19 treatment and observation centers in Montserrado County, aiding efforts to identify the needs of people in isolation as well as gaps in mental health service delivery. Importantly, the Center is working with the national mental health services user organization Cultivation for Users Hope to provide continuous mental health support to persons living with mental illnesses across the country and to highlight their needs related to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Rule of Law Program is helping to distribute messages through its network of traditional leaders and town criers, as well as community radio. Additionally, because the pandemic and Stay at Home orders have exacerbated domestic violence, the program and its partners will work to spread awareness on domestic violence as a crime and citizens rights and remedies and continue to support meaningful access to justice for victims.

The Centers Democracy Program is supporting its partner, the Liberia Election Observation Network (LEON), as it responds to a request from the Ministry of Health and the National Public Health Institute of Liberia to assess citizens opinions and knowledge about COVID-19. In late May and early June, LEON surveyed 2,250 people throughout the country and conducted 11 focus groups. Findings have been shared with the Ministry of Health and released in a public report to inform messaging to combat further spread of the disease. LEON has also been monitoring social media for rumors and misinformation as well as monitoring how the state of emergency is affecting people around the country. LEONs research has identified important findings, including concerns about COVID-19 testing, a lack of information on how  beyond handwashing  to prevent the spread of the disease, concern about the impact of the state of emergency and curfew on local economies, and an increase in domestic violence.

The Carter Center has been a partner with Liberia since 1997 and has worked with Liberians on a range of challenges, including Ebola. It is honored to once again work with key Liberian government and civil society partners to assure the health and well-being of all. With support from our development partners, including the government of Sweden and the U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), the Center stands ready to support ongoing COVID-19 efforts.

For more information about the work of The Carter Center in Liberia, please visit our new Facebook page (facebook.com/CarterCenterLiberia).

###

Contact: In Atlanta, Soyia Ellison, soyia.ellison@cartercenter.org, Rennie Sloan rennie.sloan@cartercenter.org

In Liberia, James Dorbor Jallah, dorbor.jallah@cartercenter.org or +231 (0) 886-554699 / +231 (0) 777-554699



Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope.

A not-for-profit, nongovernmental organization, The Carter Center has helped to improve life for people in over 80 countries by resolving conflicts; advancing democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity; preventing diseases; and improving mental health care. The Carter Center was founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, in partnership with Emory University, to advance peace and health worldwide.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. The National Assembly of Armenia will discuss the issue of stripping head of ''Prosperous Armenia'' Party, MP Gagik Tsarukyan of immunity, ARMENPRESS reports President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan wrote on his Facebook page.

'I inform that I have received the petitions of the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia on giving consent to initiate criminal persecution against member of the parliament of the Republic of Armenia Gagik Tsarukyan and deprive him of liberty, Mirzoyan wrote.

The parliamentary discussions on the issue will take place during the regular session of the National Assembly on June 16.

On June 14 leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan was taken to the National Security Service for questioning. He stayed there until 23:30. Tsarukyans supporters organized a rally outside the NSS demanding to stop the actions against the lawmaker.

Earlier the NSS issued a statement according to which a company, that is included Gagik Tsarukyans Multi Group Concern, has caused tens of billions of drams in damage to the state.

In another statement, the NSS said it revealed numerous cases on giving bribes to voters by the Prosperous Armenia party members, as well as candidates to vote in favor of the party during the April 2, 2017 parliamentary elections.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
Dozens more migrants have today been picked up crossing the English Channel in five boats - taking the total to arrive this year past a record 2,000.

Around 70 migrants were taken into the Port of Dover in Kent this morning following a rescue mission involving the Border Force vessels Hunter and Seeker.

Two migrants, intercepted by the HMC Speedwell, had attempted to make the dangerous crossing from France in a fibreglass canoe.

It comes a day after 17 migrants in two boats reached Britain from the continent, taking this year's total number of arrivals to 1,991 - with 2019's 1,850 figure already eclipsed.

Fifteen migrants crammed into a small dinghy were also escorted by the French navy into British waters last week, as people continue to risk their lives in search of asylum in the UK.

Two migrants today attempted to cross to Britain from France in a fibreglass canoe as dozens more made the dangerous journey

The pair were among around 70 migrants who attempted to cross the English Channel today

The migrants' small dinghy was escorted by the French navy boat Abeille Languedoc and was intercepted by UK Border Force in the English Channel against the background of the White Cliffs of Dover.

After signing a joint action plan in January, French authorities are now obliged to intercept migrant vessels making the life-threatening journeys and bring them to the closest safe port.

The narrow Strait of Dover is the busiest shipping lane in the world and can feature dangerous conditions.

At least 1,620 migrants have crossed to the UK in small boats since the coronavirus lockdown was announced on March 23.

This is despite the continuing Covid-19 crisis and repeated warnings of the dangers of crossing the English Channel in small vessels.

Around 70 refugees were taken into the Port of Dover this morning following a rescue mission involving the Border Force vessels Hunter and Seeker

Migrants are seen wrapped in blankets and wearing face masks as they travel to Dover on board a Border Force vessel

Today's arrivals push the total number of migrants to attempt the crossing this year over 2,000

Migrants taken to Dover are issued with masks and are assessed for symptoms of Covid-19, but are not routinely tested.

So far in June, 261 migrants have made it to the UK - including 166 in eight boats on June 3, a single-day record.

Last Wednesday, four migrants were dramatically rescued three miles off the French coast after they tried to paddle across the Channel 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.

So far in June, 261 migrants (seen today) have made it to the UK - including 166 in eight boats on June 3, a single-day record

Migrants taken to Dover are issued with masks and are assessed for symptoms of Covid-19, but are not routinely tested

Migrants are seen at the Port of Dover in Kent today after being intercepted by Border Force

The staggering 2,000 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

Speaking about today's arrivals, a Coastguard spokesman said: 'HM Coastguard has been coordinating search and rescue responses to incidents off Kent today, working with Border Force, Kent Police and other partners.

'Border Force vessels Hunter and Seeker and an RNLI lifeboat from Dover have been sent. 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 have pushed this year's total arrivals over the 2,000 mark.

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.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Danny Boyles opening ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics briefly united the world in Anglophilia. The Britain celebrated there seemed amused, multicultural, cool  the Britain of the Beatles, the National Health Service, Shakespeare and Mr. Bean. There was, however, one strong dissonant note: the moment when, as a camera follows the Queens supposed helicopter from Buckingham Palace to the East End, Churchills statue in Parliament Square smiles and waves its stick in greeting. That had no place in this warm celebration of Cool Britannia.

Those who abhor Churchill do so for good reason. Shashi Tharoor has explained that Churchill was a war criminal and an enemy of decency and humanity, a blinkered imperialist untroubled by the oppression of non-white peoples, a man who fought not to defend but to deny our freedom. When angry Londoners attacked this same statue last week, many cheered here in the colonies Churchill struggled all his life to keep.

Boris Johnson disagrees. The statue, says the British prime minister, is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving this country  and the whole of Europe  from a fascist and racist tyranny. His achievement? I suppose America, Russia, the rest of Europe, not to mention the rest of the Empire, had nothing to do with it?

The war was won thanks to half the worlds determination and to the superior innovation of free societies  not a few speeches. I am as much of a historian as is Johnson  that is, not at all, in spite of his awful book on Winston  but unlike him, I read actual historians. And, as the historian Richard Toye has so painstakingly demonstrated, the myth of Churchills speeches stiffening the spine of a half-defeated world is just that  a myth. In a world where Winston Churchill never existed, the war would still have been won.

Naturally Johnson would have to defend Churchill. The entire movement that has catapulted Britain out of Europe and Johnson into No. 10 is based upon a painstaking preservation of various absurd myths about British history. The notion that Churchill saved Europe is an unsubtle claim that Europe owes Britain. The idea that Britain, with its vast overseas empire, stood alone in 1940 is an equally unsubtle reminder that it could stand alone today.

Story continues

Beyond Brexit, the notion of Britishness that Churchill embodies is one that has no place for racial minorities and which, as my colleague Therese Raphael has pointed out, dismisses their justified complaints. Without an honest reckoning with its past, the Britain of 2020 will continue to be adrift in a world with few allies, uncertain of what its own economic advantages are and with an increasingly unclear sense of itself as a modern nation.

This is a Britain whose mind has been poisoned by such myths and, yes, held back by the weight of statues of slavers and imperialists. Johnson said that statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. Statues do not teach; schools do.

So, take down such statues  Churchill, of course, but also Clive of India on Whitehall and the generals of the British Indian Army in Trafalgar Square. But if we are to leach this poison from the British mind, then it is school curricula that will have to change. A University of Liverpool lecturer pointed out her students know very little about Britains past, let alone Britains connections with the wider world or the history of the world outside Europe.  They therefore know practically nothing about empire and its legacies  including in Britain.

While the British Empire is taught in schools, it makes up a tiny part of the high school syllabus. Of 15 heads of school history surveyed by one academic in 2016, only one taught the Empire as a study of exploitation. The rest taught the controversy, as creationists would put it. Its 2020: There is no controversy. Empires arent things to be proud of. When protesters attacked Churchills statue, they were not attacking just him, but this state-sanctified notion of Britishness that centers and renders indispensable a racist, imperialist warmonger.

This doesnt mean Britain must replace a cartoonish Land of Hope and Glory narrative with something unremittingly dark and equally cartoonish. As with any country, there is a broader, more inclusive and more nuanced narrative to be told. Gladstone, whose name is being removed from the University of Liverpools halls of residence, was indeed the son of a slave trader. But eventually he saw slavery as a taint on national history and spoke of an invasion of Afghanistan as uniting criminality and folly in a higher degree than any undertaking in my recollection; his Cabinet saw real danger in investing self-interested white settler minorities with power over black majorities anywhere in the Empire.

This works both ways: The crusading anti-imperialist economist J.A. Hobson was also a blazing anti-Semite and racist, as Jeremy Corbyn belatedly discovered. But there are forgotten heroes, too. From a small fountain by the Thames looks out the blind Hackney MP Henry Fawcett, called the Member for India, who for two decades single-handedly held Whitehall to account for its profligate spending of the colonys taxes. If Johnson had written a biography of Fawcett instead of Churchill, he would be an infinitely better prime minister.

Any countrys history is what they make of it. A history that remembers how unimportant many of Churchills constructive acts were, and how awful his destructive ones, would better fit the Britain of the 21st century. It would also be truer.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mihir Sharma is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was a columnist for the Indian Express and the Business Standard, and he is the author of Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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George Floyd's brother Philonise Floyd returns at the end of a lunch recess during the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on June 10, 2020. (Michael Reynolds/Getty Images)

Calls to Defund the Police Not Coming From Floyd Family: Brothers Attorney

George Floyds brother Philonise said that officers can perform their duties and be respectful toward others.

What I would like is for all police around America to get their jobs and do them the right way, the correct way. Innocent people shouldnt have to die, Floyd said in a Fox News interview on June 14. You can do your job and still maintain respect for others.

There have been calls to defund or dismantle police departments in the wake of Floyds death while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25. However, even some Democratic lawmakers and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden have sought to distance themselves from the movement.

The Minneapolis City Council went a step further, last week passing a resolution to come up with a plan to replace the police department.

Floyd family attorney Benjamin Crump, meanwhile, told Fox News that the push to defund police departments has not come from Philonise Floyds family or anybody working with us.

George Floyd in a file photograph. (Christopher Harris via AP)

We want to try to work to say we need to do restructuring and we need to work together and in concert to try to solve this problem, Crump told the news outlet. This is not a black problem. This is not a white problem. This is an American problem, and the only way we can heal this country is by working together.

What we want is people from both sides of the aisle, people from communities of color, community partners, to get with law enforcement, Crump added, so we dont continue to have  black people being killed by the police unjustifiably and unnecessarily and senselessly, and nobody being held accountable.

On June 12, the City Council unanimously passed a veto-proof resolution to pursue replacing its police department with a community-led public safety system.

The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color, the five city council members wrote in a resolution, reported Reuters.

Protestors demonstrate outside of a burning fast food restaurant in Minneapolis on May 29, 2020. (John Minchillo/AP photo)

It was reported that at least seven Minneapolis police officers have quit and another seven are in the process of resigning, citing a lack of support from department and city leaders as protests over Floyds death escalated.

Current and former officers told The Minneapolis Star Tribune that officers are upset with Mayor Jacob Freys decision to abandon the Third Precinct station during the protests.

Demonstrators set the building on fire after officers left. Protesters also hurled bricks and insults at officers. Numerous officers and protesters have been injured.

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights launched a civil rights investigation into the citys police department this month, and the FBI is investigating whether police willfully deprived Floyd of his civil rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
MUSKEGON, MI - The design for a large new sculpture planned for Muskegons new beach roundabout has been released by city officials who have launched a public fundraiser to help pay for it.

The proposed 22-foot steel-and-glass sculpture would be installed at the new roundabout at the entrance to the Pere Marquette beach, at Beach Street and Lakeshore Drive, and the city is seeking $50,000 in public donations to make it happen.

This fundraising process, crowdsourced through the platform Patronicity and to be matched with a one-to-one grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), is the same way that Muskegons downtown dog park, 767-827 W. Western Ave., was funded.

The theme of the sculpture will be Celebrating Muskegon - with an emphasis on the us in Muskegon, according to literature promoting the fundraiser.

The sculpture has been designed by North Carolina-based artists John Littleton and Kate Vogel, and is envisioned as a tribute to the character and resiliency of the people and communities of Muskegon, according to the citys fundraising page.

The city of Muskegon is raising money for a new sculpture, titled "Celebrating Muskegon," made of steel and glass, to install at the new roundabout at the entrance to Pere Marquette Beach. The design is by North Carolina artists John Littleton and Kate Vogel and represents resilience and strength, as well as the city's natural resources. It will contain programmable LED lighting.

Spanning an area of 30 feet by 35 feet, the artwork will consist of steel poles leading up to circular steel bands, filled in with blue and green glass. The steel is meant to represent Muskegons industrial past, as well as strength and resilience. The colors of the glass represent Muskegons natural resources, including trees, water and sky.

The glass bands will contain LED lighting, which can be motion activated or programmed with lighting sequences.

Littleton and Vogel, the artists, have installed public works across the country, and their work also appears in many museums worldwide, including in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland - and the Muskegon Museum of Art.

The fundraising campaign is open until Aug. 13. Higher-level donations will receive rewards, including a sticker, tote bag, or shirt with the Watch Muskegon logo. Those who give more than $1,000 will have their names permanently recognized on a sign installed near the sculpture, according to the fundraising page.

Read more on MLive:

With tourism hurt by coronavirus, Muskegon County promoting beaches, natural attractions

Emotional stories shared by black residents at Muskegon forum on policing

Police laud neighbors who tried to save victim of double homicide

Community celebrates Muskegon High School graduating seniors with send-off parade
Thought Leaders Dr. Vadigepalli

Dr. Schwaber Thomas Jefferson University News-Medical spoke to Dr. Vadigepalli and Dr. Schwaber about their groundbreaking research in which they managed to map the neurons in the heart. News-Medical spoke to Dr. Vadigepalli and Dr. Schwaber about their groundbreaking research in which they managed to map the neurons in the heart.

What led you to begin this research?

We have been working in the domain of the visceral emotional neuraxis for some time. This visceral emotional neuraxis is where there is an interplay between the state of peripheral organs, mood and mental function, and so on.

It is well known that stress has a detrimental effect, particularly at the heart and probably at other organs. There is a whole system of communication between the brain and the organs that subserves this and allows this interplay between visceral state and emotional state.

The health of the peripheral organs depends on that interplay operating properly. When it does not, you get, for example, heart failure and heart disease. At the same time, it has been demonstrated under some conditions that you can improve a diseased organ by improving the way that the innervation of the organ is operating by getting it into a more healthy domain.

These are all interesting scientific and clinical questions, but it is a topic that has not gotten a huge amount of support and funding. It tends to, as they say, fall between two stools. It is not quite neurology, and it is not quite cardiology. It is there and it is known about, but it is not really focused on.

A program came along called SPARC. It is not focused on neurology or the heart, or lungs, blood or any specific traditional area. It is an overarching scheme that tries to address opportunities that are not being chased by specialist organizations.

A large program was put together with the goal of providing a comprehensive mapping of the relationship between autonomic outflow and, particularly, the vagus nerve and peripheral organs, including the heart, which we are interested in.

The initial phases of it were foundational. The goal was, "Let's see what this is all about. How is this thing organized? How does it work?", and to use those answers as a springboard for getting into more clinical studies. We applied and eventually were able to receive some support, and this work is the byproduct of the contribution to that effort.

It has been a fairly longstanding interest to get to the function beyond the structure. This first attempt looked at the anatomical and molecular structure of the system. Ultimately, the goal is to figure out the function of the system.

This video shows a 3D model in rotation displaying the arrangement of intrinsic cardiac neurons in the rat heart.mp4 Achanta et Play

Why are neural processes within the heart such an important aspect of bodily function? And why was it so important to map this neural system?

Heart disease is very common and by far the biggest cause of death worldwide. People suffer mightily from heart disease. They may have a considerable amount of pain for some time or be very reduced in their functionalities.

The pharmaceutical approaches that have been taken so far have been somewhat efficacious. They are not worthless, but they are far from addressing the problem.

The development of devices to manipulate the activity of the peripheral nerves would potentially be a great positive influence in understanding and dealing with organ health - in this case, heart health.

It is really important to unpack the neural computation and circuit part surrounding organs in order to be able to better view, design, and test these devices and make them safe. So far, we do not know enough to be able to make those devices effective and safe.

The key to this is to develop a detailed anatomical molecular and functional map of the system of the heart itself. For example with the vagus nerve, you could essentially stop the heart completely if you altered this in the wrong way.

What is the intracardiac nervous system and how does it function?

In one route, the central nervous sends an axon out to its target and innervates the muscle or the skin directly. That trafficking and communication is direct and back and forth between the peripheral target and the central nervous system.

However, what often surprises people is that there is a parallel nervous system called the autonomic nervous system in which that is not the case. In the autonomic nervous system, there are neurons interposed between the nerves coming out from the brain and the end organ.

So in our case of the heart, that means that there is a whole nervous system that is intermediate, like a little brain in the heart. It is the effector that is affecting the heart, not the brain.

This is something that is not actually that widely known, even within cardiologists. The neurons tend to be embedded in fat pads on the atria and in the ventricles in humans.

All the positive effects that the outflow from the brain has on the end-organ must pass through these intermediate neurons embedded in the heart.

People have been studying these neurons, but there has been far less than a comprehensive appreciation of their number, organization, distribution, and certainly not their molecular identities and phenotypes. We are beginning to fill in these gaps.

Raj carried out research that showed that there is a tremendous amount of local activity within this system, that does not depend on the brain. The heart does communicate sensory stuff information with the brain, but on a moment to moment basis, it has a closed-loop system taking care of things locally.

We looked for control properties and showed that there is much potential for local computation in a way that simplifies the problem for the brain to regulate. We were not dealing with a comprehensive map like we are today.

Now that we have this complexity, we want to see if we can turn that into a dynamic understanding of how all these molecules lead to certain controlling properties. What kind of local computation happens? There are some fascinating questions to chase, now that we have this comprehensive foundational substrate.

In the next phase, one of the things that we are doing is working with Peter Hunter in Auckland, New Zealand, who is developing an abstraction of the heart which he called a scaffold.

We are mounting our mapping into that scaffold in such a way that there is now an independent objective 3D representation of the heart and of the heart's nervous system, in such a way that other data can be integrated into it.

Image Credit: Intrinsic and extrinsic innervation of the heart in zebrafish ( D anio rerio ): Zebrafish Cardiac Innervation - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Organization-of-intracardiac-nervous-system-demonstrated-with-acetylated-tubulin-AcT_fig1_272844021

What is knife-edge scanning microscopy (KESM) and how did you use it?

A small company in South San Francisco called 3Scan developed this KESM technology.

We had just taken a rat heart and taken something called the cryostat, a device that takes a larger piece of tissue like a heart and turns it into tissue sections that can be mounted onto glass slides for looking at under the microscope. In doing this we were a little bit limited by the fact that the heart has got these giant chambers that can collapse in different ways.

What we wanted to achieve was to take the data that is present at each slide, as stained neurons, and stack those sections along with the mapping of the neurons back into a 3D representation of the whole organ with the correct positioning of those neurons. But when each one of those sections is distorted to a fair extent, the outcome is not accurate.

One of the things that cause this problem is called the banana problem. If you have a banana and it has got a curve, and you cut it into thin slices and then put the slices back together by stacking them you are going to lose the curve  they are just going to be straight up and down. It is not going to look like a banana.

What knife-edge does is take a diamond knife that is transparent meaning that the microscope can see the tissue through it. The diamond knife is sectioning at five microns, which is pretty thin. A microscope camera system is then capturing digital images of the section as it is being sectioned, at a resolution of about a half a micron by a half a micron pixel size.

Due to the very high-resolution image of the tissue section in situ, you are capturing a detailed image of the section itself which means that the stack is going to be exactly the same as the original organ with no distortions. That is knife-edge scanning microscopy.

The second part of the problem is that there is a lot of data. If you are doing it manually with whole slice imaging, depending on how the slide is imaged even the stacking may not be that straightforward to do and the alignment becomes a problem even after you have a reference frame to get around the banana problem.

What the KESM system was doing was not only acquiring images within one reference frame but setting the whole system up for high data throughput. The mass of data that you collect and sort is integrated into the whole KESM system in such a way to make a downstream analysis much easier. That makes a world of a difference.

How did you build your 3D model of a rodent heart?

KESM was the first part of it, acquiring the rat hearts and getting the image data. That was quite a large volume of image data.

We have a second collaborator called MicroBrightField, MBF Biosciences. Their specialty is software for 3D mapping of tissue sections from the brain and subsequent 3D reconstructions of regions of the brain.

However, they modified their software to work with the heart. Using their TissueMaker and Tissue Mapper software, they were able to take data from 3Scan and turn it into a stack of images mappable by the software.

We have other collaborators in Orlando, Florida at UCF, as well as ours in Philadelphia, who had used that software to create these mappings and these 3D representations.

It has very much been a joint effort. A lot of teamwork has been involved, for which I am proud of. The key was that everybody was sold on what the goal and purpose of this is. To get to that 3D map at a very high resolution was a unique once in a lifetime opportunity. An essential element was to let the data speak for itself and not bias it with what we thought the biology ought to be.

What did you find in terms of neuronal distribution in relation to anatomical structures of the heart? How have you applied this to the functions of these anatomical structures?

The rat heart is the most widely used model of physiology, pharmacology, and biochemistry. It has similarities to humans but is also widely different.

It is important to have a clear picture of the organization of neurons in the rat. The prior literature tends to focus on what is called the base of the heart. It seems counterintuitive, but the base of the heart is the top of the heart. This comes from embryology as the heart grows from the top down, and so the base is the origin of the heart, where it grows from. Then it grows down to the so-called apex at the bottom of the ventricles.

The base of the heart (hilum) is where the focus of this neural system has been. The hilum of any organ is the region in which the vessels that serve it enter and exit. So you have arteries and veins  the pulmonary artery, the aorta, pulmonary veins, and so on going in and out of this region.

In development, the neurons migrate into the heart, down the vessels, and then just scatter out. The thought was that you are going to wind up with this very variable, disorganized, and haphazardous scattering of neurons.

This is not what we actually saw when we were able to put the thing back together. There is quite a lot of innervation coming from the hilum around the vessels, especially with the pulmonary veins and around the vena cava.

These clusters are almost like a continuous sheet of neurons that extend out of the hilum. One of the places they go to is the thin membrane separating the atria called the interatrial septum.

The clusters continue down the left atrium on the posterior surface of the heart, and those clusters are substantial. They are not continuous - they are distinct clusters that extend all the way to the ventricular boundary. That was a big surprise.

The next thing that we have done looked across quite a few different hearts. What we found is that they are actually quite consistent with one another and it is not a random or wildly variable situation at all.

Having a full map starts opening up new possibilities to say: Are these clusters the same? How are they different? In what ways can they be exhibiting distinct functions, or are they there for redundancy? Suddenly the way we ask those questions might change because the path at least has been refined in a very substantive way.

What did you find out through gene expression analysis of individual neurons?

One of the important questions before going into this was what is the level of complexity of these neurons? Are they mostly based on one or two types of molecules that they use to communicate? Are they cholinergic? Do they use adrenaline or adrenergic neurons? Most of the literature that has been out there describe it as a two-part system.

For a long time, these things were thought of as a nuance that could not do much, because the brain must be where everything happens.

Here, we went into single neuron gene expression, and that in itself was a technically challenging feat. Laser capture microdissection was needed and most importantly spatially tracking where we were getting these neurons from so that they could be put back together into the map.

When looking at that gene expression that is spatially tracked, there is a tremendous amount of complexity. There is a wide range of neurotransmitters in the neuromodulatory system present. And so, the potential for computation is immense. On top of it, there were not distinct types of neurons that they broke down into distinct neuropeptides. There were not distinct sets of neurons that made distinct neuromodulators. We see a combinatorial logic at play.

The way we have to think about the problem is not that there are completely distinct parts that somehow come together, but rather every neuron has some capability to do many, many things. Multiple neurotransmitters and neuromodulator processes can be activated and flexibly used in each neuron.

And so, how would that system operate? It opens up a lot of new questions into how we think about plasticity and adaption within this process. There is a story that connects this to the brain and molecular gradients.

We are following behind the technologies that have been recently developed in the brain. The leader there was the Allen Institute.

They have developed technologies together with MicroBrightField (MBF) and have been the leader in figuring out how to make these kinds of molecular atlases. What they have found consistently is that the neurochemical properties or the molecular phenotypes are present in gradients throughout the different parts of the cerebral cortex. You see modulators and transmitters and receptors distributed in gradients.

That is what we were looking for at the heart as well. And indeed, there are gradients. It is not like all the neurons do the same thing. The distribution of cardiac neurons are differentially expressing modulators and transmitters and receptors.

They do so in an interesting way that suggests that in addition to direct neuron-to-neuron function, there could also be opportunities for paracrine function, that is, a cluster of neurons might be bathed in a modulator so as to alter the population activity. This provided opportunities to start thinking about interventions much more broadly.

It was weakly known that there was more at the heart than acetylcholine and norepinephrine, but fundamentally that is how people have thought about the system  that the neurotransmitter that is used by the neurons at the heart is acetylcholine and there is a modulation from norepinephrine inputs, but that is about it.

Through our research, the heart neuronal system has been shown to be more interesting, more complex, and more organized than previously thought. There looks to be a fundamental structural organization to the heart's nervous system both in terms of its clustering, its distribution, and the kinds of modulatory factors and receptors that it employs.

Up until now, the only other organ with such a detailed neuronal 3D map is the brain. How could the protocol you have used help to detail other organs, and how could this help improve scientific and medical knowledge?

MBF Biosciences was our exclusive collaborator and subcontractor on our grant for doing the heart. However, once the SPARC leadership saw what we were getting, they snatched them off into what they call MAPcore, where they are working with all the other organs in the SPARC program, such as the pancreas, the bladder, and the intestine.

Also, there were so many lessons learned in working with the heart, not just in KESM and with MBF Biosciences, but with how to annotate and share that information and turn it into a more generalizable scaffold.

The vision for SPARC is to have all this data in a single, highly structured, annotated, and accessible resource that is available to the community in every way. The hope is that this will be a heavily used resource that will get populated with additional relevant data sets that have used it.

How far away do you think 3D neural imaging of a human heart is?

The only thing that stands between us and that is money.

There are a few technology scaleups that have to be made, but none of them are insurmountable. It is very clear what it is that we have to do, and we have given it much thought. A lot of detailed planning has occurred on how one might go about that.

We have even scaled some of this to a small chunk of a pig heart. The pig heart is huge - it is as big as a human heart and it is more similarly organized to a human heart. It is not exactly the same, but it is a good scaleup.

We think the human heart will be done in less than a decade, given that so many things have been figured out in the pipeline and the key is timing. As with anything, when people gather around, put their collective brains and technologies together to work on a problem and it is all fresh in the mind, that is the time to do it.

Image Credit: Africa Studio/Shutterstock.com

How could this model and subsequent human models influence our understanding of cardiac health and disease?

One is the therapeutic or protective effects of the vagal activity on the heart passing through these neurons. If you could associate the protective or therapeutic activity to specific neurons and modulators, you could emulate that either by finding the right stimulation parameters or feeding with the right molecular manipulations.

Another step that would really help augment our efforts to develop interventions is getting a sense of dynamics of the system. We need to develop into how these parts move about and interact with each to yield certain network dynamics.

When we develop that initial understanding, that would help prioritize and narrow down the intervention possibilities instead of just relying on static anatomical snapshot data. This is a substrate on which dynamic simulations and models will be built.

What are the next steps for your research?

We have explored the variability across hearts in both males and females, a paper that is just about done. In another direction, we have begun to explore mounting these data sets into Peter Hunter's Auckland Bioengineering Institute scaffold.

We have also started to build dynamic models of the system to examine what control properties they exhibit, and how they would play in circuits together with the central nervous system. That is the grant we do not have funding for but hope will be funded July 1st.

I think this SPARC effort out of the common fund in the Director's Office has been successful and is doing what it intended to do, which is to begin to make not a third stool between the two, but a bridge.

Hopefully, we are heading in a direction where the individual institutes will then invest in making people cross those bridges and connect two disparate fields towards improving human health in ways that have not been possible before this.

Where can readers find more information?

Read the iScience paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101140

SPARC portal: https://sparc.science/

About Dr. Vadigepalli

Rajanikanth Vadigepalli, Ph.D., is Vice-Chair of Research and Professor of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology at Thomas Jefferson University.

Dr. Vadigepallis collaborative research program at the Daniel Baugh Institute for Functional Genomics/Computational Biology is driven by a convergence of systems engineering, computational modeling, bioinformatics, and single-cell scale transcriptomics, to identify and target key control points for intervention in disease.

Ongoing international collaborative projects focus on central and peripheral neural circuits controlling the heart, brainstem neuroimmune processes leading to hypertension, liver regeneration in alcoholic liver disease, and cell fate regulation underlying developmental defects.

About Dr. Schwaber

James Schwaber, Ph.D., is Director of the Daniel Baugh Institute for Functional Genomics and Computational Biology and Professor of Pathology, Anatomy & Cell Biology.

Dr. Schwaber uses systems biology approaches in the mammalian brain to study adaptive neuronal processes.

His main interest is in the emotionalvisceral neuraxis and disorders involving this interaction, including those related to stress and autonomic imbalance in neurogenic contributions to hypertension, addiction and withdrawal from the dependent state, and neurodegenerative conditions including epilepsy.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Supreme Court on Monday paved the way for a critical permit for a proposed natural gas pipeline that would cross under the Appalachian Trail, siding with energy companies and the Trump administration.

The justices ruled 7-2 to reverse a lower court ruling that had thrown out the permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. It would bring natural gas from West Virginia to growing markets in Virginia and North Carolina. Its supporters say the pipeline would bring economic development, thousands of jobs and reduced energy costs for consumers.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a majority of the court that the Forest Service had the authority to issue the permit here. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

Other legal issues remain before construction of the pipeline could begin. The narrow question before the Supreme Court was whether the U.S. Forest Service has the authority to grant rights-of-way through lands crossed by the Appalachian Trail within national forests, as project developers Dominion Energy and Duke Energy and the Trump administration argued.

The pipeline would run in part through the George Washington National Forest, where a 0.1-mile segment of the pipeline would cross about 600 feet (about 183 meters) beneath the Appalachian Trail.

Atlantic Coast Pipeline spokeswoman Ann Nallo said in a statement that the decision is an affirmation for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and communities across our region that are depending on it for jobs, economic growth and clean energy" and that they look forward to resolving the remaining project permits.

The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had argued that because the 2,200-mile (3,540-kilometer) scenic trail from Georgia to Maine is considered a unit of the National Park System, no federal agency can grant a right-of-way for the pipeline. They say only Congress can approve such a crossing.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the environmentalists in 2018 and threw out a special-use permit for the 605-mile (974-kilometer) natural gas pipeline.

Story continues

D.J. Gerken, program director for the Southern Environmental Law Center, which represented the environmental groups before the Supreme Court, said they were disappointed with the ruling but that it doesnt mean much for this pipeline in the near term because it is still missing a total of eight required permits.

Gerken said the Forest Service will now need to restart the environmental review process and then decide if it will reissue a permit for the pipeline. The Forest Service still needs to address three other issues cited by the 4th Circuit when it tossed out the permit, including the courts finding that the agency had failed to fully consider alternative routes to avoid national forests.

The practical, real-world requirement of having to look for a different route for this thing is still very much on the table, he said.

The project has had numerous setbacks since plans were first announced in 2014. Legal challenges brought by environmental groups have prompted the dismissal or suspension of eight permits and halted construction for more than a year.

The project is more than three years behind schedule and its original price tag has nearly doubled to $8 billion.

Dominion says the pipeline will bring a critical new gas supply to Virginia and North Carolina to support the shift away from coal and toward intermittent natural resources like solar. The company also says greater availability of natural gas will attract manufacturing businesses.

Environmental groups say the pipeline would scar pristine landscapes, put numerous rivers and streams at risk of increased sedimentation and harm sensitive species.

___

Associated Press reporter Denise Lavoie contributed to this report from Richmond, Virginia.
MIDDLETOWN  City and school leaders met virtually with the states junior senator Monday to talk about the need for racial justice and desegregation in Middletown schools, and across the nation.

Discussions such as these are taking place throughout the country as a result of the death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police May 25, and subsequent demonstrations and protests.

Murphy, a member of the U.S. Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also the parent of two elementary-age children, grew up in Wethersfield.

My schooling in Connecticut is frankly a story of two experiences, said the senator. I didnt have a single black friend growing up.

No people of color lived in his neighborhood and there were about two children of color enrolled in his public school system, he said.

We had income diversity in Wethersfield, but we did not have racial diversity, said Murphy, author of the Strength and Diversity Act, which creates a federal grant program to support voluntary, community-driven strategies to increase diversity in schools.

He knows Middletown is the opposite case, but, the reality is, in this state, you are more likely than not to go to school in a segregated environment, Murphy said.

Mayor Ben Florsheim, who previously worked for Murphy, said the topic was often discussed when it came to issues that needed to be dealt with on the local, state and federal level.

This question of school segregation ... seems like an anachronistic one in a world where Brown v. Board of Education (the 1954 ruling) was over a half-century ago, Florsheim said.

In reality, the number of actually segregated schools has risen since then.

No one is born a bigot, Florsheim said. That doesnt cover the fact there are structural inequities, there are systemic things that need to be changed. Its not just about individual prejudice, its about dismantling racist systems and structures.

Superintendent of Schools Michael Conner said Middletown is a melting pot, however, theres still much to be accomplished.

When I look at the context of racial segregation in schools, its this pathology of creating higher levels of the achievement gap; immense drop-out rates for students, especially students of color, Conner said.

There also are income disparities.

Within five to eight miles, you might have one district where theres a high propensity of black and brown students, Conner said. Farther afield are schools with predominantly white students, he said.

Keigwin Middle School Principal Silvia Mayo Molina held an online conversation with about 50 children and faculty members Friday, where they talked about movements happening across the nation.

We know these topics are tough, but theres no reason why students cant have a voice, and share their ideas with adults, she said.

Educators also learn from their students. Our practices improve when we think about ways we can do things differently and better, she added.

There are many new immigrants entering Middletown schools, members of second- and third-generation families who have lived in the city for decades.

Whether at the state or federal level, if there are different funds being focused for specific programs, you end up having some de-facto segregation, Molina said.

To watch a recording of the meeting, visit facebook.com/senchrismurphy/live.
Vaughan is being forced to confront its past, grappling with the legacy of the man who gave the city its name  a slave owner who actively fought against the abolition of slavery.

The citys heritage committee passed a motion last week asking council to reconsider its celebration of Benjamin Vaughan Day, which is what the city renamed the August Civic Holiday in 2013.

While the motion stopped short of asking the city to change its name, activists say it should compel city to address the broader issues of anti-Black racism in its midst.

Committee member Giovanni Senisi brought the motion forward for Tuesdays meeting because he thought it was not right that the city and residents were celebrating someone who represents the worst of humanity.

I want this motion to give council the opportunity to correct a past mistake, said Senisi, a teacher. The proclamation that renamed our Civic Holiday Benjamin Vaughan Day was in 2013, recent enough to reflect our current values  and I dont believe our values are represented by having a special day where we celebrate the man who, in 1792, stood up in the British Parliament and argued that freeing slaves in Jamaica would bring about the end of civilization.

He not only owned hundreds of slaves on his plantations in the West Indies, but he used his political influence to vigorously fight against efforts to end slavery.

According the city website, when Lt.-Gov. John Graves Simcoe arrived in 1792 to govern Upper Canada, he named Vaughan Township in honour of British diplomat Benjamin Vaughans contributions to foreign affairs.

Vaughan is just one of many cities confronting their historical legacies of anti-Black racism and colonialism amid the Black Lives Matter movement that has taken hold of much of North America.

In Toronto, the city is facing calls to change the name of Dundas Street, named after Henry Dundas, an 18th-century politician who delayed Britains abolition of slavery by 15 years.

And across Europe and the U.S., statues of colonialists and Confederate leaders have been pulled down, as people look to remove the symbols that put colonizers and slave owners on pedestals.

For Vaughan, Tuesdays motion comes amid allegations of systemic discrimination against the Black community. The city is currently facing a human rights complaint from the Vaughan African Canada Association (VACA), which alleges the community faces anti-Black racism and discrimination from city staff, and councillors. The complaint is ongoing.

The mayor, a councillor and two city staff are also facing a $25-million lawsuit for cancelling a Caribbean cultural festival in 2019 as it was underway. The lawsuit, which is ongoing, asks courts to impose mandatory cultural competence and anti-racism training for all city of Vaughan employees, servants, agents and representatives.

Shernett Martin, the executive director of VACA, said shes not surprised Vaughan has a Benjamin Vaughan Day given its strained relationship with the Black community.

I find it difficult to believe that no one at city hall researched who Benjamin Vaughan was before they passed this motion. Its even more troubling if they knew what they were doing and did it anyways,said Martin.

When you have no diversity in council and a bunch of councillors who have zero experience working with the Black community in a constructive manner, you get this sort of ignorance.

But Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said he has long spoken out against anti-Black racism.

It is incumbent upon each of us to stand up and take meaningful action against this type of injustice and inequality  parents and the children they raise, educators and the students they teach, voters and the representatives they elect. We must be accountable for our actions and inactions, which also serve to perpetuate the issue, he wrote in a statement.

On Tuesday, Bevilacqua said he plans to introduce a resolution to rename Benjamin Vaughan Day to John Graves Simcoe Day in honour of the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada who was an abolitionist. He also wants the city to mark Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day.

But Martin said little has changed at the city since the human rights complaint was filed in 2018. In a letter she will be sending to council this week, she is asking the city to commit to change.

VACA has made deputations to the city of Vaughan as early as 2004 asking for changes, asking for better hiring practices, asking for more diversity in staffing, asking for the right to celebrate our Caribbean and African culture, asking for funding to have a space for our community, said Martin.

We have met with the mayors office and every member of council. We have heard racist remarks from members of council, past and present. We have endured city staff telling us I dont like working with people like you, she added.

Yet, there is no recourse and nothing is done. Our emails and concerns are ignored and go unanswered. We live in a city where we are marginalized and our race determines our outcomes. Enough is enough.

Martin said beyond changing Benjamin Vaughan Day, the city should create a mayors task force on equity, hire a director of diversity and inclusion, and create a city-wide equity policy with the participation of cultural groups.

In an interview, Bevilacqua said he is committed to hiring a chief diversity officer. He acknowledges that while the city has a diversity and citizen engagement task force, it has not focused on anti-Black racism.

Could we do more? Absolutely, he said. We certainly have to listen to the concerns being raised by the Black community, as to how they feel they are being treated. You have to listen to people who are feeling disenfranchised, and are not feeling included  because thats an issue.

Noor Javed is a Toronto-based reporter covering current affairs in the York region for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @njaved

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In the wee hours of June 1, Antonio Gwynn Jr. started scrolling social media. On May 29, he had taken pictures of a rally protesting the death of George Floyd, but spent most of his time following the protests online. Thats when he saw video of clashes between police and protestors on Bailey Avenue in his hometown of Buffalo. He worried about all the debris strewn across the street so at about 2 a.m., he headed down to Bailey Avenue and started gathering trash.

I just decided I wanted to go out and help clean, Gwynn, 18, told TODAY Parents.

Antonio Gwynn Jr. has always been a self starter. That's why he decided to clean up a street in Buffalo after clashes between the police and protestors cause extra debris. (Courtesy Jenna James)

Gwynn had a U-Haul to move into his first apartment so he brought that with some work gloves and a couple of boxes of trash bags. He listened to the radio as he methodically cleared about 10 to 15 blocks of trash, which took about 10 hours. As he worked, Nicole Hopkins was driving past and stopped to talk to him and took a photo. Later, Kimberly LaRussa shared it on the Sweet Buffalo website and the news of his good deeds spread. But Gwynn was blissfully unaware that he had become famous.

I didnt know anyone was noticing, he said. I was just trying to clean up.

Then the messages and offers started. Someone gave him a car. The mayor offered Gwynn a job following college. Someone else started a GoFundMe so that Gwynn, who originally planned on going to technical school to study to be a mechanic, could cover expenses.

Everyone just started messaging me saying like how can they donate or how can they help, Gwynn explained. I didnt know how to take it. It was a surprise.

Gwynn felt especially stunned when Medaille College offered him a four-year scholarship.

I was just happy and excited, Gwynn said. I plan on studying business.

Gwynn wants to own his own businesses, a mechanic shop and cleaning and moving company plus a clothing line. The donations put his dreams within reach and a second GoFundMe has been started to get his cleaning business off the ground. Duane Thomas, a pastor and youth leader at Change Church, felt happy when so many good things started coming to Gwynn.

Story continues

I was just as in shock as Antonio was and I was excited, the 37-year-old told TODAY Parents. These were a lot of the things that I wanted to do for Antonio but I didnt have the means to do at the time and I prayed for him for days. The answer was just amazing.

The two met in a youth organization called Kappi Phi, where Thomas was a mentor, and soon after Gwynn started attending Thomas church. They became close, but when Gwynns mother, Leola Littleton, died of a heart attack two years ago, Thomas welcomed Gwynn to his family. Thomas has three sons and eight stepchildren, but never thought twice about it.

(Littletons death) was a big blow to his family, Thomas said. I vowed to do whatever I can do. I am going to be there for him. We had our ups and downs. No families are perfect but we have always seen it through. We have always had each others back.

When Antonio Gwynn Jr.'s mother died, Pastor Duane Thomas welcomed him to their family. He felt as if his prayers were answered when the Buffalo community thanked Gwynn for cleaning up a neighborhood. (Courtesy of Seek First Enterprises)

He wasnt surprised when Gwynn, who he describes as generous and a self-starter, helped to clean the street without nudging.

If Antonio sees that something needs to be done, as long as he knows how to do it, hell take that task on, Thomas said. Theres a lot of things that I needed done at the church and Antonio would make sure it was done even before I got there.

Gwynn says he didnt clean up Bailey Avenue for recognition but he hopes that it encourages others to contribute to their communities.

People should continue doing good no matter if anyone is looking, he said.

Thomas hopes people learn from Gwynns selflessness and challenge how they perceive Black men.

There's a lot of people that sometimes are afraid of our African American males just because of how they look, he said. At the end of the day it's not the color of your skin that matters. It is what's in the inside  Antonio did not (clean) for a reward. He just did it because thats who he is.
More than 7,000 people have backed an online push to remove the Emancipation memorial in Bostons Park Square, with many slamming the statue for the same reason that Frederick Douglass reportedly critiqued the original in Washington, D.C., in 1876: it depicts Abraham Lincoln standing tall over a freed slave on his knees.

Ive been watching this man on his knees since I was a kid. Its supposed to represent freedom, but instead represents us still beneath someone else, wrote Tory Bullock in an online petition signed by 6,947 people as of Sunday afternoon. I would always ask myself, If hes free, why is he still on his knees? No kid should have to ask themselves that question anymore.

Bullocks petition comes as cities across Massachusetts and the country have seen protests over racial injustice and police brutality ever since the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In addition to calls for police reform, national leaders have debated the fate of Confederate monuments and the names of U.S. military installations honoring generals who fought against the Union to protect slavery. Statues of Christopher Columbus in Boston and other cities have been vandalized or taken down in recent days.

In a Facebook video last week, Bullock called on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to tear down the statue or work with artists that can erect that black man so he can stand up on his two feet ... they can be shaking hands."

Remove The Emancipation Memorial Dear Boston, This statue needs to go. -Your Black Friend I'm going about this civically to see if Boston is as 'woke' as it's currently claiming to be. Sign the peition: https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/remove-the-emancipation-statue PLEASE DO NOT DONATE MONEY ON THE PETITION! I just need your signature #Boston #EmancipationMemorial #WhatAboutCrispus? #DesgraceOnPurpose Posted by Tory Bullock on Thursday, June 11, 2020

Boston.com reported that Walsh supports rising calls to remove or change the statue. Walshs office said the mayor is interested in recommissioning the statue in favor of a memorial recognizing equality, Boston.com reported.

Washington City Paper wrote that John Cromwell, a Howard University historian, recorded remarks by Douglass at the dedication of the original statute which went unreported by newspapers at the time.

Douglass, the keynote speaker at the 1876 event, strayed from prepared remarks to say that the memorial, sculpted by Thomas Ball of Charlestown, Massachusetts, showed the Negro on his knees when a more manly attitude would have been indicative of freedom," according to Cromwell.

Statues of Columbus have been toppled or vandalized in a host of cities, including Miami, Richmond, St. Paul and Boston, where one was decapitated. The head of the statue was reported severed to Boston police sometime before midnight last Tuesday.

The statue in Bostons North End has been damaged several times in recent years. In 2015, the statue was dosed in red paint with Black Lives Matter spray painted onto its base. In 2006, the head of the statue was removed and remained missing for several days.

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On Tuesday, June 9 around 1:00 AM, Harper Woods police arrived at the Parkcrest Inn responding to a report of shots fired. No one was struck or injured. Two arrests were made: Lewis Nichols, 27, and his companion, Priscilla Slater, 38.

By Wednesday around noon Slater was found unresponsive in a holding cell. Attempts to revive her failed and approximately ten minutes later a St. John Hospital doctor pronounced her dead. Her body was transported to the Wayne County Medical Examiner and as of this writing no details have been released on the cause of death. Michigan State Police are investigating the case, according to local news media outlets.

Nichols awaits trial and is facing 20 charges, including assault with intent to murder among others. Since Slater was accompanying Nichols at the time of the alleged shooting, she would have faced a firearm charge. Regardless of Slaters role in whatever transpired at the Parkcrest Inn, she had the right to a fair trial but did not get to see her day in court. She also had the right to medical treatment while in detention.

On Sunday, the Harper Woods Director of Public Safety Vincent Smith told the press that six public safety personnel had been placed on administrative leave. Their connection to Slaters death has not been clarified by the Harper Woods police, but the action is likely a product of protests by Slaters family and friends this week.

On Friday, protesters congregated at the Harper Woods City Hall to demand answers to Slaters death in custody. The citys mayor, Ken Poynter, denounced protesters as outside agitators while simultaneously offering condolences. His wife tore up a sign held by one of the protesters.

What was meant to be something positive and condolences, turned out because of a number of outside agitators who were not even from Harper Woods, they have made a really good peacefully integrated community look extremely bad, Poynter said. The mayor has not clarified who the outside protesters were. It is likely that Slater had family and friends outside of Harper Woods who joined Fridays protests.

Protestors gathered again on Sunday outside City Hall on Friday to demand answers. Director of Public Safety for Harper Woods Vincent Smith told the online news outlet ClickOnDetroit that he was still awaiting the results of an autopsy toxicology report from the Wayne County Medical Examiner.

The protest over Slaters death takes place amid growing international demonstrations against police brutality, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Easyjet is considering legal action against its outspoken founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in the latest twist in the boardroom bust-up.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the airline would not rule any measures out after Stelios repeatedly published allegations the company insists are outright lies.

Stelios has been in a public battle with Easyjet's management for several months over a 4.5billion order for more than 100 planes with Airbus, which he believes will bankrupt the airline if it is not cancelled and is no longer necessary.

Outspoken: Easyjet is considering legal action against its founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou

In his efforts to get the contract axed, he unsuccessfully tried to unseat four board members  including Lundgren  and has offered a 5m bounty to 'whistle-blowers' who can provide him with information that could scupper the order.

Since making the extraordinary request, Stelios claims he has received information showing board members met a Swiss lawyer linked to the Panama Papers scandal  which the company denies. Lundgren said: 'We have been very clear the allegations are all completely false and we think it's very disruptive and very disturbing as we manage our way through this pandemic.

'We need to consider what our options are  there are lots of actions we could pursue.'

In response, Stelios said: 'The short answer to any of the scoundrels if they are threatening to sue me is 'see you in court'.'

Stelios alleges finance boss Andrew Findlay and former directors, now-ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall and Stobart Group boss Warwick Brady, had a secret dinner in 2016 with Marc Bonnant, which was arranged by Airbus.

According to the Panama Papers, financial and legal documents leaked in 2016, Bonnant was a director of at least 176 of the off-shore shell corporations registered through Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. It was suspected some of the shell corporations registered were used for illegal activities such as fraud  although there is no suggestion those linked to Bonnant were used for this purpose.

Easyjet has said the directors were all in meetings on the dates he has pinpointed.

Stelios still owns a third of Easyjet's shares with his family  though he sold a 0.7 per cent stake in the group last week, worth around 22m. Easyjet shares fell 4.7 per cent in trading yesterday.

An Easyjet spokesman said: 'We are committed to resume constructive relations with our major shareholder and our chairman John Barton has written to Stelios to invite him engage in direct discussions. At the same time, management and the board's first priority is the successful restart of flying after a period of grounding during the crisis.'
At some point, free-agent defensive end Jadeveon Clowney will sign on the dotted line. How much the 27-year-old gets, and where he plays in 2020, remain anyones guess.

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Among his options for the 2020 season are the Browns, according to cleveland.coms Mary Kay Cabot:

The Browns have also been big players in the Clowney sweepstakes this offseason, and they havent given up on the idea of landing him. ... This is despite a report last month by ESPNs Adam Schefter that Clowney turned his nose up at Clevelands offer despite the fact it was higher than anyone elses. Clowney originally wanted about $20 million a year, and then reduced that to about $17 million or $18 million, according to ESPNs Diana Russini. Hes apparently still hoping for that blockbuster deal.

Adding fuel to the fire, Sports Illustrateds Albert Breer reports the Browns are willing to pay a good rate (Ive heard theyd be O.K. going to the $15 million range on a one-year deal) to sign Clowney.

The Tennesseean reports the Titans could be a possible home for Clowney, but as of right now, they arent an active bidder.

The Titans remain interested in the former Texans and Seahawks defensive end, but right now theres nothing new as far as the team is concerned. No conversations of recent, Titans General Manager Jon Robinson said during a Zoom conference call on Thursday. I think were going to continue to monitor it and see.

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Last week, NBC Sports Mike Florio reported both the Seahawks and Browns had offers on the table for the three-time Pro Bowl selection. Per 247 Sports:

My understanding is the Seahawks have been in the range of $15 million on a one-year deal for Jadeveon Clowney, Florio said on 106.7 The Fans Chad Dukes vs. The World. "The Seahawks have been led to believe that the Browns offered 18 (million), and he has yet to take that. I dont know what he wants. With him, it comes down to getting a number that hes happy with.

At one point, both the New York Jets and Philadelphia Eagles were mentioned as potential landing spots for Clowney, who has 32 sacks over the last five seasons. But at this point, its unlikely either team will land the former No. 1 overall draft pick (2014).

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Mike Rosenstein may be reached at mrosenstein@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
The market started the week on a negative note on June 15 as the benchmark indices extended selling pressure after losing 1.7 percent last week.

The Nifty50 fell 159.20 points or 1.60 percent to 9,813.70, while the BSE Sensex was down 552.09 points or 1.63 percent at 33,228.80.

The broader markets, however, outperformed frontliners as the Nifty Midcap index declined 1.2 percent and Nifty Smallcap index gained 0.4 percent .

"Today's fall is nothing to do with CPI and IIP data announced over the last weekend, it is majorly due to rising coronavirus cases and catch up with global markets. The current consolidation is needed because the markets globally including India rallied smartly in the last three weeks. Globally also markets started consolidation given the fear of virus," Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol.

Here are 5 factors that weighed on the market:

Global Correction

Asian peers closed lower today as investors worried about the potential impact of the increase in coronavirus cases once again. Japan's Nikkei was down 3.47 percent and South Korea's Kospi fell 4.76 percent, at the time of writing this copy.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng and Australia's ASX 200 declined 2.2 percent each, while China's Shanghai Composite corrected a percent as industrial output missed analysts expectations.

Reports suggested that the cluster of news infections found in the district of Beijing, while some US regions also reported a sudden increase in hospitalisation of COVID-19 infected people.

Coronavirus Cases Rising

The number of coronavirus cases are on the rise in the country, rising more than 11,000 per day for the last five days.

The country now has over 3,30,000 cases with over 9,500 deaths. The only respite is the recovery rate which has increased t0 about 51 per cent. India currently sits at the fourth spot only behind the United States, Russia and Brazil.

Another cause of worry is that cases are rising exponentially in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat. If these states continue to get affected then that would have a major impact on the country's revenue, experts feel.

With 41,182 confirmed novel coronavirus cases, Delhi remained severely impacted, while Maharashtra has 1,07,958 confirmed novel coronavirus cases and Tamil Nadu 44,661 cases.

Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister, Manish Sisodia recently told reporters that the capital could hit 5.5 lakh cases by July-end.

Lockdown Fears

By the weekend, we are going to complete three months of nationwide lockdown. The government eased lockdown measures with effect from June wherein shopping malls, restaurants, religious places, hotels, retail shops etc were allowed to open.

But given the fast-rising coronavirus cases in key cities of the country, it looks like that the lockdown is expected to be extended further in July in containment zones, experts feel.

Hence the next phase which is expected to be in July would be closely watched by the market.

Banking & Financial Services Under Pressure

Banking and financial stocks remain a key driver for market direction on either side for the last couple of months. Today also the major reason behind the fall in the market was a correction in banking and financials.

Nifty Bank plunged 3.6 percent to 19,912.90 and Nifty Financial Service index was down 2.9 percent at 9,818.

Among others, Auto, FMCG, Metal, Realty and Infra indices were down 1-3 percent.

Technical View

The Nifty50 fell 1.6 percent and formed a bearish candle on the daily charts.

Experts feel 9,700 could act as immediate support for the index and if that breaks then it could retest previous week's low of 9,544.35.

"9,700 is the support for the week - we need to keep above it to avoid further breakdown! If we do trigger this level, we can slide down to Friday's low which was around 9,550. On the upside, we need to trade above 10,050 to start an upward journey. If we can cross 10,050, we could go up to 10,250 and then 10,400," Manish Hathiramani, Proprietary Index Trader and Technical Analyst at Deen Dayal Investments told Moneycontrol.
[June 15, 2020] Pharmacy Quality Solutions and Humana Partner to Launch New Outcomes-Based Pilot Program

Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS), the leading technology provider of pharmacy performance management services, and leading health and well-being company, Humana (NYSE: HUM), have partnered on a new diabetes outcomes-based pilot program that will be hosted within PQS's EQuIPP platform. Humana will be incentivizing pharmacies to improve patient outcomes for specific diabetes quality measures in this first-of-its-kind program using EQuIPP. Select pharmacies in Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, and Texas, serving Humana Medicare Advantage members with a prescription drug benefit, will be able to track the performance of their patients through the following quality measures: Diabetes Control - A1c Testing and Diabetes Control - A1c Under Control through the 2020 program year. For pharmacies, higher performance scores will correspond to greater incentives. "We recognize the important role pharmacists play in helping patients manage their diabetes, and we designed this innovative program to reward pharmacies for these positive outcomes," says Michael Taday, Vice President of Humana's Pharmacy Clinical Strategies and Operations. "Humana's focus on value-based care creates opportunities for pharmacists to expand their scope of work and impact patient outcomes in a holistic approach." "We couldn't be more excited to work with Humana on this next chapter of qualty measurement use for pharmacy providers," says Emily Endres, PQS VP of Client Services. "The PQS dashboard will provide transparent data for pilot stores that will allow the provider to have a holistic view of lab values, testing information and a full set of resources that will walk the pharmacy through a diabetes management process through the use of quality measurement, each step of the way."



As a part of this 854-store pilot program, documentation provided by the pharmacy that captures patient encounters will be used to understand the impact pharmacists have on improving diabetes care. "This A1c program will show how EQuIPP shares data between participating pharmacies and Humana to increase positive outcomes for patients with diabetes," says PQS Chief Executive Officer Jeff Newell, RPh. "PQS and Humana are focused on collaborating with pharmacists to expand outcomes-based solutions. As the neutral intermediary between health plans and providers, PQS enables actionable data to drive quality improvement. We look forward to expanding this pilot more broadly with other disease states in the future."

About Pharmacy Quality Solutions, Inc. Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS), is the leading provider of performance management services representing nearly 90% of Medicare lives and 95% of community pharmacies. PQS delivers the quality insights and guidance necessary to support its customers' efforts to optimize the quality of medication management and use for their Medicare, Medicaid and commercial populations. PQS connects medication use stakeholders to actionable, quality information in a consistent and reliable fashion, allowing them to move more quickly from measurement to improvement. Its industry-leading platform, EQuIPP, provides dependable measurement and reporting on key medication use quality measures, including addressing medication adherence, gaps in care, and patient safety. PQS provides measurement insights that are timely, actionable, and simply understood. For more information, please visit www.pharmacyquality.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005020/en/

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For two years, Airbnb has been battling a New York City bill that would force short-term rental services to hand over data about hosts. Friday, Airbnb agreed to share that data. The two sides reached a settlement with compromises that Airbnb says provide more protections for hosts information than the original bill would have and build the trust thats needed to legitimize short-term rentals.

As a result of the agreement, Airbnb and other short-term rental services will provide the City with information about listings if they are for an entire apartment for five or more nights a quarter. That information will include address, nights booked and the hosts name, address, phone number and email. Airbnb will only share this info if hosts consent, but if hosts dont consent, they wont be able to list properties for short-term rental.

The requirements wont go into effect until approximately six months after an amended City ordinance is passed, and even then, the information sharing will only apply going forward. It will not be retroactive. Though, Airbnb previously agreed to hand over data for NYC listings rented between January 1st, 2018 and February 18th, 2019.

For NYC, this saga is about weeding out listings that violate short-term rental laws. Officials estimate as many as 35,000 current Airbnb listings break laws that prohibit entire apartments from being rented for fewer than 30 days without a tenant present, Bloomberg reports. While the settlement could mean Airbnb loses those listings, the company hopes that the agreement will lead to sensible short-term rental laws.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday chaired an all-party meeting to review the management of coronavirus situation in Delhi. During the course of the meeting, Congress demanded that Covid-19 testing should be provided to all, as it is everyone's right.

The party has also demanded that Rs 10,000 should be paid to every family whose member is infected or in containment zone according to sources. According to PTI Congress has also demanded that 4th-year medical students should be used as non-permanent resident doctors. Due to the crunch of healthcare staff, 4th-year students of ...
The Queensland government has revealed it has considered reopening exclusively to New South Wales as part of a travel bubble.

The idea, while improbable, is one under consideration if the COVID-19 situation worsens in Victoria.

However, the Palaszczuk government maintains its preference is to open to all Australians on 10 July.

Visit Business Insider Australia's homepage for more stories.

The Sunshine State is getting ready to welcome visitors back as Australia look to escape the colder months.

Having adopted one of the toughest stances of any state, the Palaszczuk government has tentatively nominated 10 July as the day it'll reopen to the rest of the country.

However, having made clear that the day is dependent on the number of COVID-19 cases in Australia, the state has concocted a novel idea if it's not happy with the status of containment, particularly in Victoria.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles told The Brisbane Times "some work has been done" on figuring out how Queensland could create a travel bubble with New South Wales.

"It is difficult to see how we could enforce something like that but certainly throughout this whole situation we have assessed all of the possible options and that has been one that has been considered at different points in time," he said.

"It would be possible, I think it is probably unlikely."

While New South Wales has had more cases than Victoria, the latter's level of community transmission presents a far more pressing concern to states like Queensland, which has just five active cases. New South Wales visitors coincidentally also represent nearly 30% of all domestic tourism in the Sunshine State, compared to Victoria's 21%.

However, while preferencing one state over another might make sense on paper, the improbability of setting up a domestic travel bubble is a difficult undertaking both legally and logistically.

Queensland and Western Australia's current travel bans are already being challenged in the High Court by Clive Palmer and a range of tourism operators backed by One Nation, based on the constitutional premise of "absolutely free" trade and movement between states.

Story continues

While those challenges are yet to be decided, the impracticalities of a travel bubble are just as tall an order. Exactly how a state, particularly one with shared borders as large as Queensland, could filter out domestic arrivals is unclear  a shortcoming Miles acknowledges.

It would also put the state on a collision course with the federal government which has pressured it to reopen so it can begin flying in international university students.

The Sunshine State certainly isn't the first to consider it, with Tasmania contemplating striking a similar deal with South Australia and Western Australia.

Queensland maintains its preference is to lift all travel restrictions and reopen to everyone from 10 July unless the situation worsens.

However, with Victoria's school holidays ending a week earlier than New South Wales on 12 July, they look destined to miss out one way or another.
As Ghana battles with the COVID-19 pandemic, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Sunday reminded Ghanaians that their survival is in their own hands.

Let me repeat: our survival is in our own hands. If we are lax and inattentive, we will continue to have serious challenges with the virus. If we are mindful and self-disciplined, we have it in us to defeat this pandemic, and help return our lives to normalcy. I appeal to each and every one of you for your help in this regard, President Akufo-Addo stated in his 11th broadcast to the nation to give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Akufo-Addo said it was important for him to remind residents of the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions, hotspots of the pandemic, and in the Western and Central Regions, where there was a surge in infection cases, to continue to adhere strictly to the social distancing and enhanced hygiene protocols announced.

With the doctors and scientists telling us that the virus is transmitted from human contact, through talking, singing, coughing and sneezing, which results in sending droplets of the virus from one person to another, residents of these four regions, and, indeed, all Ghanaians, must remember that the wearing of masks is now mandatory. Leaving our homes without a face mask or face covering on is an offence, he stated.

The Police have been instructed to enforce this directive, which is the subject of an Executive Instrument.

GNA
Bloomberg reached out to an Allstate representative for comment on the matter, but did not receive a timely response.

According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Allstate employed 45,780 as of the end of 2019.

It was speculated in the Bloomberg report that the company may be preparing for a price war against its major competitor, State Farm. State Farm is dropping its insurance rates by 11% on average throughout the US  rates in Illinois will fall almost 14% on average  next month.

Read more: Allstate, USAA extend coronavirus refunds

Although Allstate has provided its auto insurance customers monthly rebates, it has yet to actually reduce insurance rates in the wake of the pandemic.
The federal government has exclusive authority over the presence of aliens in the United States, including which aliens may be removed from the United States and the procedures for doing so,  Francisco told the court in a brief. He was quoting from a 2012 Supreme Court opinion in which the court struck down an Arizona law that attempted to give police a greater role in detaining immigrants.
Oluwatoyin Salau

A Nigerian woman who went missing days ago in Florida, after tweeting about being sexually assaulted, has been found dead.

19-year-old Oluwatoyin Salau was last seen in a CCTV footage on June 10 at about 7:03 pm at Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida.

Friends and loved ones took to Twitter, asking people to help find her. Unfortunately, last night, Tallahassee Police Department announced that two women were found dead in South Wood and a suspect is in custody. Friends revealed on Twitter that one is Toyin.





Toyins last tweets were posted on June 6. She narrated on Twitter how she was sexually assaulted that day by a man who offered her a ride when she was stranded after the Black Lives Matter protest.

Toyin, a race activist, took part in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the Tallahassee area on June 6. Afterwards, she said a Black man disguised as a man of God offered to give her a ride to church to pick up her things. He ended up subjecting her to sexual assault.

She tweeted about it and revealed that she reported it to the police.

Unfortunately, she went missing afterwards and was later found dead.

Below are tweets from her friends announcing her death and Toyins last tweets revealing she was sexually assaulted.
Chief Minister Sri K Chandrashekhar Rao on Saturday declared that the state has decided to contain the spread of coronavirus with strict measures in Hyderabad and its surrounding areas. He also declared that 50 thousand coronavirus tests would be conducted in 30 Assembly segments of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Vikarabad, Medchel, and Sangareddy Districts in next one week to ten days as a precautionary measure. The CM has also instructed the officials to prepare guidelines for the private hospitals and labs to conduct Covid tests, offer treatment and the fee to be paid strictly following the Covid conditions.

The CM held a high-level review meeting here on Pragathi Bhavan on Sunday on the spread of coronavirus and the containment measures. Medical and Health Minister Sri Etela Rajender, Chief Secretary Sri Somesh Kumar, CMO Principal Secretary Sri S Narsing Rao, Secretary Sri Rajasekhar Reddy, senior medical officials, medical experts took part in the meeting.

The officials pointed out that compared to other states, the spread of virus is less in the state. They also said that there is an increase in the percentage of recoveries while there is fall in the death rate. They stated that when compared to other places in the state, number of positive cases being registered are more in Hyderabad, Rangareddy and Medchel districts followed by Sangareddy and Vikarabad districts. In this context, the CM instructed that more focus should be put on Hyderabad and the four districts around it. He also instructed that measures should be taken on a war footing in the 30 Assembly segments in these five districts.

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Hyderabad is like heart of Telangana State. It is a city with more population. It is one of the Metropolitan cities in the country. It is a responsibility on all of us that the health of citizens, the image of the city and the progress and development of it should be maintained on a permanent basis. Though the spread of coronavirus is less in the State, but more number of positive cases are being reported from Hyderabad and its surrounding places. There is a need to put an end to this. In the next ten days as a precautionary measure, 50,000 people from Uppal, LB Nagar, Maheswaram, Ibrahimpatnam, Rajendranagar, Seri Lingampalli, Chevella, Pargi, Vikarabad, Tandoor, Medchel, Malkajgiri, Qutballpur, Kukatpally, Malakpet, Amberpet, Musheerabad, Khairatabad, Jubilee Hills, Sanath Nagar, Nampally, Karawan, Gosha Mahal, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura, Bahadurpura, Secunderabad, Secunderabad Contonment, Patancheru Assembly Constituencies corona detection tests would be conducted. Utilise the services of the private labs and hospitals in this regard. The officials should finalise the guidelines for conducting tests, fee collected by the private labs and hospitals. Offer home Quarantine for those who tested positive but have no serious symptoms, the CM said.

We have taken a decision to conduct tests on 50,000 people as a precaution to protect Hyderabad. People should not panic. However, everyone should follow the personal hygiene and precautions. Especially the aged should remain in their homes only. People with other health complications should also be careful. The government is ready to offer treatment to the coronavirus positive patients whatever may their number. Test Kits, PPE Kits, ventilators, ICU Beds, beds, masks are available with the government adequately. Nobody should entertain any fear. Besides taking measures on a war footing to contain the virus, the government is in all preparedness to offer medical treatment to the patients with all the commitment and alertness, the CM declared.

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The Defense Ministry is currently negotiating with foreign partners on the need to provide assistance and support in the implementation of the said plans.

Minister of Defense has named the three pillars of Navy combat capabilities development in accordance with NATO standards.

"I'd like to emphasize the need to pay special attention to the increase in Navy combat capabilities development in accordance with NATO standards, as well as with regard to directions which were approved by President. In particular, these are the three pillars," the defense minister said on June 15 at the ceremony to appoint a new Navy Commander in Odesa.

"The first pillar is the provision of modern ships with missile armament, aircraft, coastal missile systems, combat service support, and electronic warfare assets. The second one is the establishment of a proximal maritime zone integrated situation awareness and reconnaissance system, command and control system, as well as an underwater situation awareness system. The third pillar is the development of a modern base system in both the Black and Azov Sea regions. The Ministry of Defense will do everything necessary to implement this program in practice," noted Andrii Taran.

Read alsoWhy Russia is afraid of Ukraine's Neptune missiles

He has also said that the Defense Ministry is currently negotiating with foreign partners on the need to provide assistance and support in the implementation of the said plans.

"I held these talks during my recent visits to Berlin and Paris and received assurances from foreign partners in support of our aspirations to develop the fleet," added Andrii Taran.
An attempt to reintroduce criminal defamation in this tiny democracy should be fought off at all costs, writes Jim Nolan.

The coronavirus pandemic has provided cover for a variety of authoritarian moves against free expression in the South East Asia region. In the Philippines, a full frontal attack on the free media has occurred with the Duterte governments cancellation of the broadcasting licence of the countrys largest broadcaster - television network ABS-CBN. In Malaysia the Communications and Multimedia Act (CMA) continues to be used to prosecute media workers who are reporting the pandemic despite the relevant ministers commitment to review the acts restrictions on press freedom. In Indonesia, access of journalists to West Papua is still restricted and political activists have been arrested and jailed.

To add to this litany of woes, on Friday, June 5, the Minister of Justice of Timor-Leste published a draft law proposing to re-introduce criminal defamation law. This is an especially troubling development since - alone among South East Asian nations - Timor-Leste abolished colonial era criminal defamation laws when its new Press Code was adopted back in 2014. Although the press law was not without its critics (for good reason), at least it was a cause for celebration that the scourge of criminal defamation had been removed from the statute books.

But this latest proposal was not put forward after a considered analysis of any deficiencies in the existing law. This might be expected where a law reform commission or similar body has cast an expert eye over the law with a view to sensible and measured reform. Rather, it bears all the hallmarks of a desire among those who resent Timor-Lestes freedom and democratic achievements to wind these back.

The real basis for the apparent need sought to be addressed by the new bill is the existence and rise of social media. The paper argues that since the adoption of the Penal Code in 2009, access to social media has become widespread in Timor-Leste, which today is less limited than it was then, and access to social networks has become widespread in particular through mobile devices.

The paper says that [t]hrough the media and social networks, the offences against honour, good name and reputation are amplified, and that amplification affects more seriously the dignity of those targeted, as well as the State, which is also responsible for ensuring their dignity. There is nothing in the draft law which differentiates between media generally and social media.

Timor-Leste suffered serial colonial wretchedness at the hands of Portugal and then Indonesia. The criminal defamation laws in both jurisdictions served no purpose apart from the suppression of democratic politics and freedom of expression. In Indonesia, the adoption of the Press Law in 1999, with all its imperfections, was a decisive blow struck against the New Order government which had been the source of grievous oppression of Indonesian and the then-East Timorese citizens. It is breathtaking that such a state of affairs could be seriously proposed for reinstatement in Timor-Leste.

Regrettably, the formulation of the present criminal defamation proposal has all the appearances - and if adopted will surely have the effect - of turning the clock back to laws redolent of the era of Portuguese colonialism.

The grim irony of the proposal will be that if adopted, it will restore colonial era Portuguese-style laws when Portugal itself has long accepted that such laws as still exist in Portugal are subject to the overarching rights to freedom of expression underwritten and secured by Article 10 (2) of the European Convention on Human Rights, with recourse to the European Court of Human Rights.

Although Portugal remains one of the few countries in Europe where defamation is still a criminal offence, Freedom House says prosecutions are uncommon, and that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has repeatedly ruled against Portuguese authorities for their handling of both civil and criminal defamation cases.

In February 2018, Portugals parliament adopted changes to the criminal code that granted journalists protected status. No such protections or safeguards accompany the Timor-Leste proposal.

In its brief reasons accompanying the bill, the Justice Department advances the grotesque justification for the bill as conferring criminal dignity on the proposed offences which flow from the violation of inchoate rights to honor, good name and reputation. The reasoning apparently is that since, under section 36 of the Constitution, everyone has the right to honor, good name and reputation, a law criminalising offences against these will confer criminal dignity on those entitled to such rights.

Quite what is meant by the conferral of criminal dignity is not explained. Human dignity is what is normally protected by law in a civilised society. Even allowing for the vagaries of translation, criminal dignity is a problematic concept.

This flies in the face of the consensus in the democratic world which regards criminal defamation laws as toxic, liable to gross abuse by the wealthy and well connected as well as being anti-democratic and anti-transparency.

The proposal is all the more curious since the legal system of Timor-Leste already provides for complaints against the media and journalists to be addressed by laws which do not criminalise free speech and publication. Timor-Leste and its media have worked long and hard to establish a robust, effective and highly regarded Press Council. Complaints against the media may be adjudicated by the Press Council, yet nowhere in the brief accompanying paper is the existence of this council even mentioned. It is also notable that Timor-Lestes Press Council has also expressed its serious concerns about the present proposal.

Given the drift of the concerns embodied in the bill, it is not at all surprising that the real object of the concern is the impact upon - and this is no surprise - public office holders. Such offences are apparently doubly stinging because the public office holders are not just affected personally but re dealt with in the paper as surrogates for the democratic society as a whole.

Thus, the extension of draconian criminal libel is advanced under the pretence that it is all about the humble task of ensuring that citizens' honour, good name and reputation is dubious given the real world beneficiaries of this solicitude just happen to be politicians and high public officials.

Recent experience in the region illustrates that the real effect of reforms of this kind will invariably be misrepresented. The law of unintended consequences will operate. In Indonesia, the Electronic Transaction Law, usually referred to as the ITE law, is a case in point. Despite the warnings from the IFJ and its affiliate, the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI Indonesia), and many human rights and press freedom NGOs about the widespread draconian impact of the bill, the Minster at the time insisted that it was merely a technical measure designed to deal with electronic records or e-commerce. This claim very rapidly proved to be specious and the predictions of critics were vindicated within months of the enactment of the law. There is no doubt that the same will happen with this law if it is enacted.

Not content with this attempted root and branch reinstatement of a criminal defamation law already well and truly discredited in the democratic world, it is also proposed that corporations and dead persons will also be able to sue to protect their honour, good name and reputation.

Far from representing an additional step in the improvement of the Timorese legal system as the paper suggests, it represents a serious retrograde step which is out of keeping with modern notions of the rule of law, democracy and transparency.

Nobel Prize winner and former president Jose Ramos-Horta has already condemned the proposal, commenting that he has not seen the proliferation of social media affecting the security, peace or development of the country and the dignity or prestige of the government.

It must be withdrawn.

Jim Nolan is the International Federation of Journalists pro-bono legal expert in the Asia Pacific.
British soldiers of the infamous Punitive Expedition of 1897 proudly posing with the looted Benin artefacts.

15.06.2020 LISTEN

The trustees of the British Museum have become the worlds largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display."

Geoffrey Robertson, Who owns history?

When I heard the news that the Director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, had expressed support for Black Lives Matter, I thought somebody must be playing a joke, a nasty one at that. The director of the imperialist citadel of looted African and Asian artefacts expressing solidarity with those revolted by the many racist killings of African Americans, Africans and other Black peoples in the last decades and, specifically by the recent cruel murder of George Floyd by a racist policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A?

Yes, in a statement posted on the website of the British Museum, the director, Hartwig Fischer, posted a blog post in which he mentioned Black Lives Matter and George Floyd and declared:  The British Museum stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, with the Black community throughout the world . We are aligned with the spirit and soul of Black Lives Matter everywhere. Fischer also added: I hope that we will find the right ways to allow the museum to better reflect our societies and our complex, contentious and blended histories, and become more than ever a theatre of human connection. (1)

Anyone who knows a little bit about the British Museum and the millions of looted artefacts it has been keeping from Africa, Asia, the Americas, mostly stolen and plundered by the conquering violent colonial armies, will be shocked by this blatant hypocrisy.

The example of violent European looting usually discussed in the literature is the notorious Benin invasion in 1897 by a British Expedition force, called, the Punitive Expedition that attacked the Kingdom of Benin, (now part of Nigeria and not to be confused with Republic of Benin, a former French colony), stole some 4000 Benin artefacts from the palace of Oba Ovonramwen ,killed hundreds of innocent children, women and men, burnt Benin City and sent the king into exile. (2) The British sold some of the artefacts to Germans and other Europeans and kept the rest in British museums where the Benin bronzes are to be found today. The British Museum has some 700 pieces and the Ethnology Museum/Humboldt, Berlin, Germany has some 500 pieces. (3)

Ever since the nefarious invasion, the people of Benin have been asking for the return of their artefacts but have received either no response or insulting comments on the inability of Nigerians to look after the Benin artefacts and the lack of adequate museums in Nigeria. Denigrating responses and racist arguments have characterised the reactions of British and other Western museums, led by the venerable British Museum, in their relationship to Africans and other non-European peoples. (4)

This then is the background on which the British Museum now pretends to stand in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, with the Black community throughout the world.

Queen-Mother Idia, Benin, Nigeria, now in British Museum, London, United Kingdom. Will she finally be allowed to return home in Benin City from British exile since 1897? Will the British play the same game as they played when Nigeria asked for the sculpture for FESTAC?

Does the director of the British Museum expect us to believe in his hypocritical words of solidarity with African peoples, African American and Black people all over the world who are victims of racist violence and oppression? It is clearly the lack of diversity at the upper echelon of the British Museum, at least at the level of the advisers of the director, that has led to the failure of this statement by Hartwig Fischer, intended to demonstrate support but finally demonstrating lack of sincerity, empathy and solidarity.

The British Museum as well as other British and Western museums have all contributed to the racist atmosphere in the world that makes it possible for others not to consider black people as human beings entitled to the same rights as all others. The museum could look at some of the racist views of its directors and curators that reinforced views on the alleged inferiority of African people and the corresponding superiority of Europeans. Here are a few examples of the views expressed by Thomas A Joyce, former director in the British Museum:

Mentally the negro is inferior to the white, The remark of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: the negro children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in.

In certain of the characteristics mentioned above the negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthropoids.

For the rest, the mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test. Given suitable training, the negro is capable of becoming a craftsman of considerable skill, particularly in metal work, carpentry and carving.

Cannibalism is found in its simplest form in Africa. In that continent the majority of cannibal tribes eat human flesh because they like it, and not from any magical motive or from lack of other animal food. In fact it is noticeable that the tribes most addicted to this practice inhabit just those districts where game is most plentiful.(6)Du Bois described the views of Joyce as ridiculous but Joyce was engaged as expert to lecture British colonial administrators on native races. (5)

Joyce wrote the official guide to the ethnographical collections of the British Museum (1910).and was honorary secretary of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1903-13, first as vice-president, and then president (1931-33).Joyce was president of the Anthropological Section of the British Association in 1934.In an entry in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, volume 1 on Africa, Joyce wrote inter alia, the following:

Africa, with the exception of the lower Nile valley and what is known as Roman Africa), is, so far as its native inhabitants are concerned, a continent practically without a history, and possessing no records from which such a history might be reconstructed

The negro is essentially the child of the moment; and his memory, both tribal and individual, is very short.

A statement issued by the Victoria and Albert Museum entitled Black Lives Matter: Race and Equality at the V&A is not much better.(6)

The Victoria and Albert Museum as well as universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and other institutions in Britain and the Western world are holding thousands of precious Ethiopian manuscripts, crosses, tabots and other treasures that were looted in 1868 at Magdala by a British invasion force under the command of Sir Robert Napier. The Ethiopian Emperor, Tewodros II committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of invading British army. The son of the Emperor, Prince Alemayehu was abducted by the British and brought to Britain where he died in 1879 at the early age of nineteen years. (7)

Crown of Tewodros, Ethiopia, now in Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Crown of Tewodros II, Ethiopia, looted at Magdala in 1868 now in Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Tristram Hunt and his people at the Victoria and Albert museum, like many Western Museum officials, have become past masters in producing statements that either do not tell the full story or present a slant that effectively prevents the reader from getting a full picture or the whole story. (8)

Most of the text is merely to show the good work that museum is doing and the credentials of Tristram Hunt as somebody who has always opposed racism and oppression. Nobody can doubt that they are producing interesting pieces by experts. Tracing the links of some of the objects in the museum to slave owners or connections to slave owners is commendable. Short statements on the Maqdala collection and Asante gold weights are welcome although it would seem to us that instead of talking about Asante gold weights they could have spoken about the many Asante gold artefacts that are in their museum and elsewhere in Britain. It is also encouraging to read: We want to bring a new urgency and transparency to the colonial histories connected to V&A collections and British cultural history. This work must continue so that the past is confronted, understood and reflected upon.

The statement of the Victoria and Albert Museum concludes: We want to work closely with our staff, audiences and communities, and use the V&A platform to create a space for discussion about race, equality and injustice as an institution that welcomes and represents all. For a museum born of the colonial moment with a custodianship of the legacies of that history, it is particularly important how we learn and understand again, and again.

726201865452 image005

Pectoral disc. Kumasi, Ghana, now in Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom

It appears from the text that Victoria and Albert considers that displaying looted artefacts and relating them to the colonial past of the museum exhausts much of the required functions. They want to tell the history of Ethiopia and show its glorious past and achievements but it does not occur to them that Ethiopians may want to tell their own history with their own artefacts that have been hijacked and now remain in museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. For them London appears to be the natural environment of the Ethiopian treasures. There is in the text not a word about restitution nor about the fact that the museum has rejected Ethiopian request for restitution of the looted artefacts and to the fact that Ethiopia has not accepted an offer to lend her looted Ethiopian artefacts.

Gold mask, 20 cm in height, weighing 1.36 kg..of pure gold, seized by the British from Kumasi, Ghana, in 1874 and now in the Wallace Collection, London, United Kingdom

Gold mask, 20 cm in height, weighing 1.36 kg of pure gold, seized by the British from Kumasi, Ghana, in 1874 and now in the Wallace Collection, London, United Kingdom.

Hartwig Fischer, Tristram Hunt and other museum directors surely know that the relations of Africans, African Americans, and other Black peoples with the countries and museums of the Western world have a long historical background of oppression, denigration and plundering starting from slavery, through colonialism to the neo-colonial present. If they really want to help to ensure that we Africans, African Americans and others are accorded respect and human rights, they should start from their museums:

1. They should examine the justifications for their museums especially regarding their alleged roots in the European Enlightenment that is full of racist ideas.

Hegel, Kant, Hume, and others were instrumental in codifying the scientific and popular perceptions of the human race. They played a strong role in giving Europeans a sense of their cultural and racial superiority.(9) This is the basis of the Western assumption that they have a God-given duty to collect and guard artefacts of Africans, Asians, and others. We still hear to-day this philosophy in the response of a British Museum spokesperson who, in answer to an African people requesting the restitution of their looted drum in the museum, declared that the British Museum took seriously its duty as a universal museum. (10)

The museums should re-examine the Hegelian excision of North Africa from the rest of Africa which they seem to follow. Africa is one continent and museums should not follow racist division of Africa and its culture.

2. They should examine their acquisition of artefacts, often in very violent ways linked to the brutal military invasions of the British army in Africa and elsewhere. The British Museum is indeed a brutish and bloody museum with objects secured at the cost of the lives of many Black peoples over the centuries.

3. British and Western museums should finally after hundred years or more illegal detention, return the looted artefacts and stop making insulting proposals such as lending Benin artefacts to Nigerians on short term loans, presenting these as generous offers.

Those museums directors who rejected or attacked the Sarr-Savoy report on restitution should re-examine their arguments and grounds for the rejection and accept finally that slavery, colonialism and racism are at the basis of imperialist plunder of African and Asian artefacts and therefore Felwine Sarr and Benedicte Savoy are absolutely right when they recommend in their ground-breaking report The Restitution of African Heritage: Toward a New Relational Ethics that artefacts taken by force or without the consent of African owners should be restituted. (11)

The museums should finally accept that until they return a considerable part of the looted African and Asian artefacts their credibility will always be in doubt. They should not be misled by a few who for various reasons are unable or unwilling to tell them how Western museums are viewed by non-European persons: monstrous omnivorous beasts with insatiable gargantuan appetite for artefacts of others that would use force if necessary.

4. The museums should ensure that in their own institutions there is fair treatment and equal opportunity for all persons irrespective of race and colour.

5.They should remove all racist objects and statues as well as misleading labels and misleading or untruthful descriptions in their museums. They should in this context collaborate with cities, museums and others that wish to remove statutes or change street names. The British museum should in this context tell the full history of its benefactors and sponsors including those with links to production and sale of weapons of destruction.

6. The museums should take the initiative to create in major cities and towns, Museum of Infamy/Museum of Controversy/Museum of Disputes/Museum of Doubt where all the statues and objects removed from public spaces may be viewed by interested persons. Thus, when the Rhodes sculpture is removed from Oriel College, it should not be sent to the Ashmolean Museum or the Museum of Oxford that may have already have enough of such problems but should be sent to a museum set aside for such controversial figures as the imperialist Cecil Rhodes and the slave trader Edward Colson. Removal to the Museum of Doubt should be followed by studies on these wicked characters.

Don't put them on a pedestal

Statue of slave trader Edward Colson removed from its pedestal and being thrown into the port in Bristol, United Kingdom.

One thing Hartwig Fischer must do and preferably as quickly as possible, will be to explain what he meant by his declaration that the removal of the Parthenon Marbles from Athens by Elgin was a creative act. Fischer is reported by The Guardian to have declared in an interview with a Greek newspaper: When you move a cultural heritage to a museum, you move it outside. However, this shifting is also a creative act. The Guardian Does this apply to all removal of artefacts from their countries of origin to Europe and the Western world or only to the act of Elgin? The name of Elgin has been synonymous with vandalism and here comes the director of British Museum who describes this as creative act. Does the violent removal of artefacts from Benin to Britain in 1897 also constitute a creative act? This is decisive for determining the credibility of Fischers alleged sympathy and solidarity with Africans, African Americans and Black peoples.

We do not believe in the destruction of statues and other sculptures however offensive and ill-conceived they may appear to us. But why should oppressed people see every day a statute that denies their humanity, mocks them, and thereby also influences others in their attitudes towards Africans and persons with African origins? Why are some persons so concerned by the destruction or removal of statues of slave traders than about the lives of millions of persons killed during slavery and their descendants who still suffer from the results of the nefarious Transatlantic slave trade.? Why should objectionable statues glorifying monsters of history occupy the centre of a city and other public places ? What are their catastrophic effects on children of discriminated groups who have to pass by such objects on their way to school? What effects do such daily painful sufferings have on the mental state of African children and children of African descendants? Those opposing removal of statues of monsters must think about these issues and propose other solutions.

Instead of calling protesters against certain statues vandals, these courageous youth must be congratulated for tackling head-on the centuries old issue of racism in the Western world that their elders have not always been ready to face and in some cases, did not even want to discuss. What is important to notice is that in most cases the protesters came from all races and classes. This gives us hope that a world free of racism is possible. Those who have failed to act against racism and atrocities are not qualified to criticise the youth for trying to combat racism that has cost millions of Africans, African Americans, and Asians their lives. Black Lives Matter should be considered for the Nobel Prize for Peace.

One of the most noble incarnations of a peoples genius is its cultural heritage, built up over the centuries by the work of its architects, sculptors, painters, engravers, goldsmiths and all the creators of forms, who have contrived to give tangible expression to the many-sided beauty and uniqueness of that genius.

The vicissitudes of history have nevertheless robbed many peoples of a priceless portion of this inheritance in which their enduring identity finds its embodiment.

Architectural features, statues and friezes, monoliths, mosaics, pottery, enamels, masks and objects of jade, ivory and chased gold in fact everything which has been taken away, from monuments to handicrafts were more than decorations or ornamentation. They bore witness to a history, the history of a culture and of a nation whose spirit they perpetuated and renewed.

The peoples who were victims of this plunder, sometimes for hundreds of years, have not only been despoiled of irreplaceable masterpieces but also robbed of a memory which would doubtless have helped them to greater self-knowledge and would certainly have enabled others to understand them better.

Today, unbridled speculation, fanned by the prices prevailing in the art market, incites traffickers and plunderers to exploit local ignorance and take advantage of any connivance they find. In Africa, Latin America, Asia, Oceania and even in Europe, modern pirates with substantial resources, using modern techniques to satisfy their greed, spoil and rob archaeological sites almost before the scholars have excavated them.

The men and women of these countries have the right to recover these cultural assets which are part of their being. A.-M. MBow, former Director-General, UNESCO, Paris.(12)

Kwame Opoku.

Looted Ethiopian cross, Magdala, Ethiopia now in Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom.

NOTES

1. Hartwig Fischer ,see Annex I

2. K. Opoku, Benin to Berlin Ethnologisches Museum: Are ... - Looted Art www.lootedart.com  news

.K. Opoku, Benin Dialogue Group Removes Restitution of Benin Artefacts ...www.modernghana.com  news  benin-dialogue-grou...

Kwame Opoku: Did Germans Never Hear Directly or Indirectly ...www.africavenir.org  archive  september  article  kw.

benin Plan of Action For Restitution: Will This Ensure The ...www.modernghana.com  news  benin-plan-of-action.

3. List of holders of Benin Artefacts-Annex II

4. How often does Nigeria have to ask for artefacts to be returned? www.elginism.com  similar-cases  how-often-dos-nig...

Nigeria demands unconditional return of looted artefacts: A ...www.pambazuka.org  arts-books  nigeria-demands-u

5. 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica,Volume 19

Negro by Thomas Athol Joyce and Walter Francis Willcox

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Negro

6. Black Lives Matter: Race and Equality at the V&A  V&A Blog www.vam.ac.uk  blog  news  black-lives-matter-rac...

7. Loan of Looted Ethiopian Treasures to Ethiopia: Must ...www.modernghana.com  news  loan-of-looted-ethio...

When will the West return Ethiopia's treasures - Elginism

www.elginism.com  similar-cases  when-will-the-wes

On the Ethiopian treasures that are in the British Museum, see www.afromet Ethiopian treasures are also found at the following places in the United Kingdom: The British Library, The British Museum, Duke of Wellington's Regimental Museum, Halifax, Dundee University Museum, Edinburgh University Library, The John Rylands University Library, Lancaster Museum & Priory, National Archives of Scotland, The Schyen Collection (London/Oslo), The Victoria & Albert Museum and Windsor Castle. More stolen African treasures can be found at the homepage of the African Reparations Movement www.arm.arc.co.uk

8. K. Opoku, To Decolonize Is To Decontextualize, Tristram Hunt. Should ...www.modernghana.com  news  to-decolonize-is-to-d...

9. Excuses for retention of artefacts  Elginism www.elginism.com  similar-cases  excuses-for-retent

Kwame Opoku deconstructs Cuno - Elginism

www.elginism.com  similar-cases  kwame-opoku-dec...

Kwame Opoku: Affirmations And Declarations: Review Of ...

www.africavenir.org  archive  february  article  kw...

Kwame Opoku, Nefertiti, Idia and other African icons in European museums: The Thin Edge of European Morality

News - Looted Art www.lootedart.com  news

10. Kenya's Pokomo people ask the British to return what was ...

www.wvnews.com  newsfeed  international  kenyas-p

K. Opoku, Some Have Waited For 100 Years; Others Are Tired After Few ...

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The British Museum takes its commitment to being a world museum seriously.''

Statement by a British Museum spokeswoman in response to demand by Pokomo people (Kenya) for the return of their looted ancestral drum.

11. Restitution Report: museum directors respond | The Art ...www.theartnewspaper.com  comment  restitution-rep..

K.Opoku, Further Comments On Sarr-Savoy Report On Restitutionwww.modernghana.com  news  further-comments-on...

12. A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage to Those Who Created It, A-M. MBow, in Lyndel V. Prott (ed.) Witnesses to History-Documents and Writings on the return of Cultural Property, UNESCO Publishing, 2009, p.30.

ANNEX I

A message from Director Hartwig Fischer

The British Museum stands in solidarity with the Black community throughout the world. Black Lives Matter. Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum 5 June 2020

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis is shocking. The subsequent protests, the explosion of pain, indignation, and rage in America and across the world, have brought home how deep the experience of racism is for so many in our societies.

The British Museum stands in solidarity with the British Black community, with the African American community, with the Black community throughout the world. We are aligned with the spirit and soul of Black Lives Matter everywhere.

We stand with everyone who is denied equal rights and protection from violence in the fullest sense of these terms. These are challenges that we as a society must address, injustices that must be overcome.

The death of George Floyd and of many others must sharpen our awareness of how much more we as a major public cultural institution need to do in the fight against inequality and discrimination. We need to embrace the fact that diversity of background, thought, ability and skills are essential for the success of our Museum. And for the heritage sector as a whole.

Inclusion and diversity are at the heart of our values. We will put our best efforts into making them a reality. We will work to diversify our own staff, listening to conversations such as those at last years National Programme conference, held at the Museum, which explored equality and diversity in UK museums. We will broaden the diversity of voices present in the interpretation of objects in the collection  were currently learning a lot from our collaboration in Manchester Museums new South Asia gallery project which is driven by community co-curation. We will continue to research, acknowledge, and address the colonial history of Britain and its impact on our institution in exhibitions like Collecting Histories and Reimagining Captain Cook: Pacific perspectives from 2019. But there is much more to do. In all this we will need to draw on the support of our many long-standing partnerships  with community organisations in our home borough of Camden and beyond, and museums in this country and across all continents. We will move forward together with them as we listen, learn, and act.

And, though it will take time to realise, the Museums developing masterplan project provides a unique generational opportunity to reconsider, rethink and rebalance the display of the collection, introducing greater diversity of collections on display, expanding museum narratives. And above all, involving multiple voices.

In the midst of this debate, the extraordinary breadth and depth of the collection continues to challenge us to discover our common human past. We must reach out beyond what we already know. We must believe that we can enlarge our sense of ourselves as individuals and as communities.

Shortly before lockdown, the Museum started a series of public debates on the Era of Reclamation led by former Deputy Chair of the Museums Trustees, Bonnie Greer. As Bonnie remarks in a blog she published to accompany the series:

Here, inside the British Museum, a theatre of human connection, reclamation can find the seeds that can begin the process of an even deeper, more profound engagement. We need now to see and know that we are the same species, with the same stories. And that we have always been in search of what we ultimately are seeking to reclaim: ourselves

Bonnie has also written a blog reflecting on current events which can be seen here .

Working with partners and listening to both friends and critics, I hope that we will find the right ways to allow the Museum to better reflect our societies and http://www.modernghana.com/ghanahome/columnist/category.asp?menu_id=50&c_id=915 our complex, contentious and blended histories, and become more than ever a theatre of human connection

Oba Ovonramwen, during whose reign the British looted the Benin Bronzes, with guards on board ship on his way to exile in Calabar in 1897.

Oba Ovonramwen, during whose reign the British looted the Benin Bronzes, with guards on board ship on his way to exile in Calabar in 1897. The flowing gown hides the shackles on his feet.

ANNEX II

LIST OF HOLDERS OF LOOTED BENIN ARTEFACTS

Head of an Oba, Benin, Nigeria, now in Bristol Museum, Bristol, United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Commemorative Head of an Oba, Benin, Nigeria, now in Bristol Museum, Bristol, United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Western museums holding looted Benin artefacts appear not to be interested in readers knowing the exact number of the looted Benin artefacts they are holding. Even the Benin Dialogue Group(BDG) does not appear to be interested in the public knowing the exact numbers of Benin artefacts they hold. One could have expected that the major museums would have provided an accurate list of museums and number of Benin artefacts they hold so that we could assess the importance of their proclaimed intention to loan Benin artefacts to Benin/ Nigeria. It does make a difference whether a museum lending one(1) artefact to Nigeria holds two, hundred or five hundred objects. Any pretence of the museums having a mandate or duty to educate the public becomes difficult to sustain in view of this singular failure of informing the public about their looted artefacts.

The following list does not pretend to be exhaustive but aims at giving an idea about numbers of the artefacts some major museums hold so that arguments about the policies of the museum can be measured against numbers. Hopefully, readers in cities where the museums are located would be able to ask a few questions based on this list and above all, ask whether figures given here are accurate and if not, what the correct figures are.

Berlin  Ethnological Museum/Humboldt Forum 508-580.

Boston, - Museum of Fine Arts 28.

Bristol, Bristol Museum 8

Chicago  Art Institute of Chicago 20,

Field Museum 400

Cologne  Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum 73.

Frankfurt am Main -Museum of World Cultures 51

Glasgow _ Kelvingrove and St, Mungo's Museum of Religious Life 22

Hamburg  Ethnological Museum, Museum of Arts and Crafts 200.

Dresden  State Museum of Ethnology 182.

Leipzig  Ethnological Museum 87.

Leiden  National Museum of Ethnology 98.

Lisbon- Sociedade da Geografia-3

Museu Nacional de Etnologia-3

Museu nacional da Arte Antigua-1

Liverpool- World Museum 40.

London  British Museum 900.

Munich-Museum Funf Kontinente 25

New York  Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art 163.

Oxford  Pitt-Rivers Museum/ Pitt-Rivers country residence, Rushmore in Farnham/Dorset 327.

Philadelphia -. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 100.

Stockholm  Museum of Ethnography 43

Stuttgart  Linden Museum-State Museum of Ethnology 80.

Vienna  World Museum, formerly Ethnological Museum 200.

Zurich-Rietberg Museum 11.

According to Kathy Curnow, the following German cities have each not more than 25 Benin artefacts - Braunschweig, Bremen, Dusseldorf, Freiburg, Gottingen, Hannover, Heidelberg, Hildesheim, Mannheim, and Ulm. Kathy Curnow, IYARE! Splendor & Tension in Benins Palace Theatre, 2016, p. 201, WWW.IYARE.NET Printed in the USA by Amazon.com

There are considerable numbers of Benin artefacts in leading American museums and galleries.

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Commons/Reginald Kerr Granville

British looters looking at their precious loot. The remains of the metal roof gives an idea of the damage done to the building by the British invaders.

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Bernie Grant, Labour Member of the British Parliament, from 1987 to his death in 2000. Grant urged the British to return looted Benin artefacts. Benin Bronzes Campaign Files | The Bernie Grant Archivehttps://alchetron.com/Bernie-Grant-744944-W. He could have told the British Museum director a lot about solidarity with Africans and sympathy for oppressed African Americans.

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Asante gold head-dress or ceremonial hat, Kumasi, Ghana, now in British Museum, London, United Kingdom.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 15:34:24|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish air campaign destroyed 81 targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq as part of the Operation Claw-Eagle launched on Sunday night, the defense ministry said Monday.

The airstrikes were carried out against PKK hideouts in Sinjar, Qandil, Karacak, Zap, Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk regions, the ministry tweeted, adding fighter jets have returned to Turkish bases safely.

The Operation Claw-Eagle was taking place under the right of self-defense arising from international law and aimed to ensure the security of Turkish citizens and Turkey's borders as the PKK had been "stepping up harassment and attack attempts against the police and military bases," said the statement.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than 30 years, which has caused the death of more than 40,000 people.

Turkey has long been conducting operations against the PKK in southeastern Turkey and in northern Iraq where the armed group has hideouts.

Ankara has intensified these operations in the past few months. Enditem
Syracuse, N.Y.  The 88 days since the state-imposed last call on March 16 seemed like an eternity for Dave Grzasko, but he made the best of it.

He walked at least 4 miles a day. His chicken wing intake shrunk, and so did his waistline. He reckons hes down about 15 pounds.

Im not going to lie, it was the longest three months of my life, said Grzasko, who turned 64 in May. "Worst birthday ever. Spent it at home.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo closed bars and restaurant dining rooms to help slow the spread of coronavirus. Grzasko heard the news as he walked into Nibsys Pub on Tipperary Hill that day. Nibsys has been part of Gzaskos routine; hed stop for a few pints of beer, talk with his friend, order a dozen wings and head home. Now what am I going to do? I need this place," he said on that Monday afternoon. "This is where my friends are.

Central New York entered phase three at 8 a.m. Friday, meaning bars and restaurants could reopen at a 50% customer capacity while maintaining other social distancing requirements. That was good enough for Grzasko. At 11 a.m., he grabbed the same spot at the Nibsys bar as he did 88 days ago.

We finally have our freedom back he said. I dont ever want to go through that again.

Seven blocks away, a customer was waiting at 9 a.m. outside for Mike Wojenski to unlock the front door at Steves. By 11:30 a.m., he and three other regulars watched Price Is Right at the bar, all sitting at least 6 feet apart from one another.

Its like going to a bar for the first time ever. It feels good, said longtime customer Ron Togs Togni. Its like being 18 all over again.

Wojenski spent the forced sabbatical sprucing up the tavern his grandfather opened in 1937. He splurged for a new bar top, new dining room chairs and a new mens room. It was the perfect time to bring his place up to date.

Well, almost. The calendar below the corner TV still read March 16. Rather than be reminded of the day bars went dark at 8 p.m., Wojenski directed his friend Pat Quigley to bring the calendar up to a day worth celebrating.

Thats more like it, Wojenski said as he reached June 12. Its good to be back. Were healthy, and were together.

The calendar at Steve's still read March 16, the day bars were ordered closed. Bars were allowed to reopen on Friday in Central New York for the first time since March 16.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

When the lights went out at Swallows on South Avenue four hours before St. Patricks Day, the jukebox played Closing Time by Semisonic as patrons walked out the back door to go home. On Friday afternoon, the Talking Heads Once In a Lifetime seemed to be on repeat. Customers apparently couldnt get enough of David Byrne saying Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

It wasnt quite the same, but it was close. Bartenders now served while wearing masks, and jugs of hand sanitizer had taken spots once reserved for ketchup. Swallows owner Pat Cregg taped instructions on how to stop the spread of germs at 8:30 a.m. Friday, 20 minutes after his first customers arrived.

That didnt keep the people away, though. The state allowed restaurants to start serving food and drinks outside last week. On Thursday, Swallows had a soft opening. Mike Ziemann, whos been working at the Valley bar for 40 years, said he went through seven cases of chicken wings. Thats 1,400 wings, give or take.

And he was back at it for the true opening Friday morning.

People just want to be normal again, he said. Were all going to be smart about this because we dont want to have to go through it again. This affected so many people in different ways.

Colleen Small, a daytime bartender at Swallow's, delivers a couple beers on Friday. Bars were allowed to reopen on Friday in Central New York for the first time since March 16.Charlie Miller | cmiller@syracuse.com

The bar at Limp Lizard on Onondaga Boulevard in Westvale still hasnt reopened, even though the restaurant resumed indoor dining. On Sunday afternoon, two customers had a drink at the bar while waiting for takeout orders. Nick Ford, the barbecue restaurants general manager, said hes waiting for phase four to fully reopen the bar.

That hasnt slowed his business. The dining room was full Saturday, and most tables outside were occupied. Since the dining room closed in March, he refocused on takeout dining. He raised money to deliver thousands of meals to staff at local hospitals and to the National Guard. He also sent his food truck into neighborhoods nearly every night.

We held our own, he said. This disrupted everyones lives, and we had to adjust. But I feel good about the future. Central New York rallied. Were going to be fine.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

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Barkeepers dilemma: How do I run my place if people have to stay six feet apart?

Coronavirus in NY: Cases, maps, charts and resources

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com

Charlie Miller finds the best in food, drink and fun across Central New York. Contact him at 315-382-1984, or by email at cmiller@syracuse.com.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 06:51:16|Editor: huaxia

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People rest at a park in New York, the United States, June 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

An influential COVID-19 model produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington also revised its projections, forecasting nearly 170,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by Oct. 1.



WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The United States will see even more grave situation in containing the COVID-19 pandemic as states started reopening and schools would resume in-person instructions soon, leading epidemiologists have said.

"I fear that we will not see a turning point for a year," Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, told Xinhua in an email interview.

An official photo of Stanley Perlman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Iowa, as posted on the university's website. (Photo credit: UIowa)

The country's confirmed COVID-19 cases have surpassed 2,083,000 as of Sunday afternoon, with over 115,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University tally. States including Texas, Florida and California hit new highs for daily confirmed COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday projected that the United States was on pace to reach 124,000 to 140,000 COVID-19 deaths by July 4, and that more fatalities could be expected in Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, North Carolina, Utah and Vermont in the next month versus the last month.

An influential COVID-19 model produced by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington also revised its projections, forecasting nearly 170,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by Oct. 1.

The projections painted a grim picture of what could come when summer turns to fall, with a steep rise in daily deaths forecast in September.

"Based on the IHME projection and the current COVID-19 fatality rate of 5.55 percent, we will see an additional 1 million confirmed cases in the United States in the next three and a half months," Zhang Zuofeng, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research with the school of public health at University of California, Los Angeles, told Xinhua.

An official photo of Zhang Zuofeng, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research with the school of public health at University of California, Los Angeles, as posted on the university's website. (Photo credit: UCLA)

Zhang attributed the surge in new COVID-19 infections to three main factors: the mass gatherings across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd, an African American who died in police custody, which resulted in close contacts and rapid spread of the virus; businesses reopening in all states which would increase gathering and infection possibilities; and school resumption which might be a hotbed for a new wave of infections.

As all 50 states moved to relax restrictions and about two weeks after people ventured to Memorial Day celebrations, hot spots have emerged in states such as South Carolina and Missouri and cities such as Houston and Phoenix, according to a report by The Hill.

Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states, and only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive weeks, according to the report.

States may need to re-implement the strict social distancing measures that were put in place earlier this year if COVID-19 cases rise "dramatically," the CDC's Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases Jay Butler said on Friday.

"The situation is very worrying," Zhang said. 
The Philomath City Council came out of an executive session at its June 6 meeting and voted to not pursue any further legal action in the fight against Senate Bill 1573, the state law that prohibits certain annexations from being submitted to the voters.

At least, thats the decision for now.

Based on the councils discussion in the open meeting, it appears that the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic uncertainty has forced the City Council to not at this time file an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

The Oregon Court of Appeals in a May 13 ruling rejected the challenge from Philomath and Corvallis, which was organized after SB 1573 was signed into law in 2016. The two cities claimed that the state law violated the home rule provisions of their city charters.

City Attorney Jim Brewer, who also represented Corvallis in the appeal, said the cities had until June 17 to appeal the decision. One change in the approach would involve who foots the bill for attorney fees.

When the appeal process started, Brewer said the League of Oregon Cities had committed to backing the effort financially but through some kind of mishap, the League did not file an appeal, a path that both Corvallis and Philomath pursued.

The League has not been paying or compensating the cities and weve been doing this work for free, Brewer said.

Brewer said the cost moving forward to get a petition for review to the Supreme Court would run in the range of $10,000 to $20,000. Following up with a briefing would run in the neighborhood of that same amount.

Frankly, we just can't keep doing the work for free, Brewer said. Weve been doing it pro bono and we dont begrudge that but as I think about it and the likely financial issues that the country, the state, the cities are going to be facing in the near future, you may have better places to spend your money right now.

Brewer said that the Oregon Court of Appeals decision did leave some holes related to home rule issues, which could be addressed by the cities in a later challenge.

The council then voted 6-1 (Matthew Thomas nay) to not pursue with a petition for review.

Im voting for this but I want to emphasize that I feel this is a very important issue and I believe that we should do some future action to strengthen our position so we can go after this issue again, Councilor Matt Lehman said.

Lehman said he believes that the state will seek further control in the future.

Annexations in my opinion is just the first thing that the state government is going to try to mandate and take further control out of the citizens hands at the municipal level, he said.

I think we should make a stand here and now about that, Lehman added. But I understand the time frame and the current economic situation doesnt allow us to to make that stand.

The council also voted to direct the Planning Commission to take a look at the city charter and possible revisions to its annexation review section.

SB 1573 was signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown in March 2016. SB 1573 backers promoted the legislation as an effort to streamline the development process and help ease a housing supply crisis in the state.

In early 2018 following an unfavorable ruling in Benton County Circuit Court, Philomaths councilors voted to follow state law and make final decisions on annexation applications, a move that Brewer advised at that time.

Brewer in September 2018 advised Philomath to plan for the worst and hope for the best when it comes to the state Court of Appeals decision. A city review of annexation criteria followed and out of those discussions, a clause that states, Annexation of property must be of benefit to the city and community of Philomath was added in code language. The council approved those criteria changes this past January.

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Hermes' Birkin Bag / Korea Time file



By Kim Jae-heun



Chanel opened its online store here in 2018 but it has seen limited sales of cosmetics due to its headquarters' management policy. It could be seen as Chanel's last shred of pride to maintain the policy of selling their handbags and clothes in exclusively offline boutiques.



Yet it is not out of the realm of possibility that it could soon start selling these traditionally offline products online, as Hermes does.



Hermes, which launched its online service June 3, showed how successfully a luxury brand can transition to online sales with most of its luxury items selling out on the day the service was launched.



Nearly all the items from slippers priced in the 800,000 won range to comparatively cheaper handbags priced at 2 million to 3 million won went out of stock.



The demand for Hermes items exceeded the supply online. There are four handbag types available for sale in the women's section as of June 14.



This totally went against the theory proposed by so-called experts that people will not purchase luxury items online because they want to check them out prior to payment.



Hermes' success could influence Chanel's decision on whether to sell leather goods online amid the prolonged pandemic that is decreasing its sales in many countries with the notable exception of the Asia region. Chanel is the last luxury brand to maintain a policy of not selling products online among the so-called "big three" luxury brands.



Chanel Korea failed to respond to the question of the possibility of selling other goods online besides cosmetics here.



It came as a surprise when Hermes said it would commence internet sales. It had long refused to operate online sales claiming this diminished the brand's image. It now operates online stores in Europe, the United States, China and South Korea.



Along with other luxury brands such as Chanel and Louis Vuitton, Hermes has long been pursuing its business based on boutiques where it invites customers to experience firsthand its high-end fashion goods before purchasing them.



But it could not bury its head in the sand to the reality that many young customers were shifting toward online shopping amid the continued COVID-19 pandemic which became a decisive point for Hermes in its decision to start an online business.



A factor contributing to the success of Hermes' online shopping is its low entry barrier compared to boutiques.



Anybody in any age group can visit the website and take time to surf around Hermes goods online without feeling burdened to buy something as when Korean sales staff shadow customers in its stores.



This boosted sales of small extravagances such as key chains, scarfs and neckties.



Currently, stock is selling out faster than the warehouse can secure new inventory. Customers have to keep coming back to Hermes' website to check if availability updates have been made.



Meanwhile, Hermes's most expensive, signature items  the Kelly and Birkin bags  are not on sale online. This applies for Hermes' French online customers too. Only VIP customers with a certain item purchasing history are eligible to purchase these two handbags. The bags' prices are in the 20 million won to 30 million won range.



Prior to Hermes, French luxury jewelry brand Cartier opened an online store here May 25, as, in the same month, did Italian fashion house, Prada. Louis Vuitton and Chanel started their online stores in 2018.


(Alliance News) - Bezant Resources PLC on Monday said its sale of an 80% interest in the Mankayan copper-gold project in the Philippines to Mining & Minerals Industries Holding Pte Ltd could be in jeopardy.

Shares in Bezant were down 14% at 0.11 pence in London in late morning trading.

Mining & Minerals agreed to make a funding commitment of up to USD2.3 million for exploration - plus a further funding commitment of up to USD2.2 million through creation of a definitive feasibility study - in order to acquire the stake though a reverse takeover transaction.

The buyer has since applied to the Singapore Stock Exchange to extend the time period to complete its reverse takeover and was initially denied, but has since lodged an appeal on the grounds that the buy had "been hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic".

Mining & Minerals is also "pursuing alternative opportunities to achieve a potential listing and fundraising on certain other recognised global stock exchanges" should the deal or similar initial public offering on the Singapore Stock Exchange not go through by the December 31 deadline.

Lockdown measures in the Philippines have only just begun to ease and have meant no exploration activity at the Mankayan project since the lockdown began in mid-March. Singapore, likewise, has been under a two-month lockdown and is only slowly easing its restrictions.

Given this, Mining & Minerals has advised Bezant that is has not been able to meet its expenditure commitments as required under the transaction agreement between the two firms. So far, an application has been made to the Philippine Government Mining Agency requesting an extension of the exploration period and work programme commitment revisions.

In addition, Mining & Minerals has "engaged an independent expert to update the JORC 2004 resource information to JORC 2012" and completed the required "technical and social audits for 2018".

In light of all that has happened, and the pandemic itself, Bezant has opted "to defer taking any action or granting any waiver" until the outcome of the extension application is known or more information is provided as regards Mining & Minerals' "listing and funding strategy".

Bezant is, however, reserving its position and its rights under the transaction agreement with Mining & Minerals.

More information and clarification from Mining & Minerals is expected in the third quarter of the year and more updates will follow "as and when appropriate".

By Anna Farley; annafarley@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Two thousand protesters marched and rallied in Palmdale, California on Saturday demanding an investigation into the death of Robert Fuller, a 24-year-old black worker found hanging from a tree near City Hall four days earlier.

Fullers death follows a similar incident involving the hanging death of an African American man on May 31 in the city of Victorville. The body of 38-year-old Malcom Harsch was found hanging from a tree outside a public library in that city, which is just 50 miles east of Palmdale.

Fullers death was quickly categorized as a suicide by the Los Angeles County Coroners Office. Pending investigation, Harschs death has also been ruled a suicide.

Demonstrators gather in front of Palmdale, Calif City Hall to demand an investigation into the death of Robert Fuller. [Josie Huang/KPCC/LAist via AP]

Family and friends of Fuller believe that he was lynched and are demanding an independent investigation into what happened, including an autopsy. On Saturday, the day of the protest, Palmdale city officials relented their initial positions and joined the call for a full investigation, reversing a statement issued by City Manager J.J. Murphy the day after the discovery of the body. That statement had been seconded by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

Palmdale is located in Los Angeles County, about 60 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Together with Victorville, situated in San Bernardino County, the Palmdale area is an important center for the aerospace industry and logistics. Scores of parts assembly companies and transportation firms employ thousands of multiethnic workers currently being exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic, especially after the recent implementation of return-to-work policies.

At the Saturday protest, demonstrators rallied at the tree where Fullers body was found, laying bouquets, lighting candles and dedicating the square to his memory. Fullers friends and family insist that Robert was not suicidal. My brother was a survivor, his sister Diamond Alexander told the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper also quoted other friends and family members, according to whom Fuller was a peacemaker who loved music and video games. A few days before his death, Fuller had attended a Black Lives Matter protest sparked by the May 25 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Tommie Anderson, one of Fullers close friends, indicated that the circumstances of the event were suspicious. His body was found by a passerby on Wednesday at 3:30 a.m., a time when many young people never go out, hanging from a tree that was too thin, considering his body size and height.

Left, Robert Fuller. Image Credit Family via Najee Ali; Right Malcolm Harsch (Image Credit Malcolm Harsch Family)

The family said in a statement to the media, Everyone who knew our brother was shocked to hear that he allegedly hung himself and dont believe it to be true, as well as the people who were there when his body was discovered. He didnt seem to be depressed to anyone who truly knew him.  The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible.

In the case of Harsch, the Victorville Fire Department discovered his body near the public library after being notified by a passerby. As with Fuller, Harschs family members expressed their doubts that he had committed suicide. The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible, the family wrote in a letter Saturday.

There are many ways to die, but considering the current racial tension, a black man hanging himself from a tree definitely doesnt sit well with us right now, the family wrote. We want justice, not comfortable excuses. The Harsch familys statement also raised questions as to why it took so long, 12 days, to perform an autopsy.

On the same day that Harsch was found, a rally had taken place in Victorville denouncing Floyds death at the hands of the Minneapolis police and the wave of police killings across the US.

In Palmdale, following the initial rally, the demonstrators marched to the Palmdale sheriffs headquarters. Other supporters joined the march as it got underway shutting down traffic along the Sierra Highway. The marchers rallied again at the entrance of the sheriffs office.

The day before the protest, concerned Palmdale residents had presented the City Council a petition with more than 1,500 signatures, demanding a full independent investigation. An online petition currently has more than 230,000 signatures from all over the US and internationally demanding a full investigation into Fullers death. A similar petition for Harsch had collected over 20,000 signatures as of Sunday night.

Meanwhile, the San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department, while not yet changing its initial finding on Harschs death and insisting that there were no signs of foul play, indicated that the investigation is continuing.

The suspicions of the families and supporters are well-founded. Harsch allegedly hanged himself with a USB cord, while Fuller was found on a tree that could hardly support his weight. The hanging deaths of two black men in public places has historic resonance with the practice of racist lynching in the US which prevailed from the end of the 19th century through the first few decades of the 20th.

The existence of groups of Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department deputies with ties to white supremacists has been widely reported in the local media, further raising questions in Palmdale.

Last year groups linked to the Ku Klux Klan were allowed to openly distribute recruitment fliers in Victorville and other San Bernardino County cities, raising suspicions about the refusal of both departments to initially carry out full investigations into the deaths of Fuller and Harsch.

The Los Angeles Times noted decades of housing discrimination against black residents in which San Bernardino Sheriffs deputies played a part. In 2011 the Justice Department launched an investigation into allegations that black residents in subsidized housing were being harassed and discriminated against by county housing agency officials, aided by sheriffs deputies.

The quick response of Palmdale residents to the discovery of Fullers body is part of the growth of mass protests by workers and youth across the US and internationally against racism and police violence sparked by the murder of George Floyd.
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New York; As poor countries around the world struggle to beat coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases  ones that are readily prevented by vaccines.

This spring, after the World Health Organisation and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for shots, many countries suspended their inoculation programs. Even in countries that tried to keep them going, cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted by the pandemic and health workers diverted to fight it.

A health official administers a polio vaccine to children at a camp in Nigeria in 2016. Programs like these have stopped during the coronavirus pandemic. Credit:AP

Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh.
By Trend

According to the governments decree, railway traffic has resumed on June 15 in Georgia, Trend reports via Georgian media.

Georgian Railways says the company is ready to transport passengers safely and in compliance with regulations imposed by the Ministry of Health.

At the entrances of the carriages, the passengers will undergo temperature screening, and after entering the train, they will have to wash their hands with disinfectant solutions. They must wear face masks during a journey and observe social distancing rules.

According to Director of Passenger Transportation Branch Dachi Tsaguria, the passenger train will operate on the following directions: Tbilisi-Batumi, Tbilisi-Zugdidi, Tbilisi-Poti, Tbilisi-Ozurgeti, Tbilisi-Kutaisi.

Georgia reports 15 new cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and one recovery on June 15.

Currently, Georgias coronavirus cases stand at 879. Some 704 patients recovered from the novel virus so far. Meanwhile, 14 people died of coronavirus in Georgia.

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If the other three police officers that were standing around when George Floyd was murdered had thought about intervening, and stopping their colleague from doing what he was doing, like what we did, George Floyd would be alive today still, Hutchinson said, referring to the unarmed black man in Minneapolis who died May 25 after a police officer put a knee to his neck for almost nine minutes.
A clearly defined, accurately depicted and accepted boundary is essential for exercising sovereignty within the nation state, and the process starts with mutually accepted broad contours of where the boundary should lie followed by a political agreement to refine and define it. The boundary is then subjected to delineation, which essentially implies drawing on the map where the boundary runs, and finally demarcation by identifying and marking on the ground with natural features and boundary pillars.

Where such an exercise is not considered critical, politically or economically, and both nation states find it expedient to let the ground reality prevail, the concept of frontiers emerges wherein both states exercise control up to a general line, leaving an opaque zone or buffer ensuring avoidance of confrontation or conflict.

Finally, boundaries can be defined by natural features such as rivers, watersheds and prominent landmarks or artificially by latitude and longitude reference.

Colonial Britain addressed boundaries and frontiers from the perspective of imperial interests and not securing lasting sovereignty for a unified India. Consequently, except where a direct threat from a neighbouring power suggested demarcation so as to draw the inviolable line, the British were content to declare major stretches as frontiers. While the McMahon Line came near to defining the generally accepted alignment of the Indo-Tibetan boundary in the eastern sector, the western sector remained the major bone of contention.

INHERITED BRITISH LEGACY

Post the First Anglo-Sikh War and under Article 4 of the Treaty of Lahore on March 9, 1846, the Lahore Durbar ceded all territories between the Beas and Indus rivers to the British and Article 12 in turn rewarded Gulab Singh with independent sovereignty of these territories. The Karakoram in the north and its extension south-east was the extent of the Sikh Empire when these treaties were concluded.

William Johnson, an official of the Survey of India, while at Leh en route to Khotan in 1865, came up with the advanced boundary line of the Kashmir state without any serious physical survey. This extended the ceded territories of the Sikh Empire eastwards to the Kun-Lun watershed, encompassing Aksai Chin. It found expression in the Survey of India map of 1868.

In 1893, Hung-Ta Chen, the Chinese official at Kashgar, handed a map showing the proposed boundary to George McCartney, the British consul-general at Kashgar. This showed the border along the Karakoram mountains, which was a natural boundary up to the Indus river watershed. The British presented this line, known as the Macartney-MacDonald Line, to the Chinese in 1899 through Sir Claude MacDonald, the British representative at Peking. The Chinese did not respond and it was taken as accepted. The boundary had more or less reverted to the extent of the ceded territories of 1846. In 1962, the Peoples Liberation Army advanced up to the 1899 MacDonald Line and is generally now the Chinese claim line as was also articulated in 1959.

Based on imperial British cartographic declarations of shifting boundaries in the western sector, India inherited and chose to persist with the whole of Aksai Chin being part of erstwhile Kashmir state integrated into India. While the analysis, views and theories doing the rounds of academic circles and seminars may suggest the long term strategic purpose of Chinese actions and the threat to India, the fundamental objective is to bring around an agreement on the contours of the boundary, of course as perceived by the Chinese, so as to set the path for delineation and demarcation.

EXPANSIONIST POWER

Diplomacy by its very nature is designed for sugar-coated compromise. It is no substitute for, and is inversely proportional to, hard national power. Under the Sino-Indian Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement (BPTA), 1993, the two sides agreed to call the entire disputed border as the Line of Actual Control (LAC), which in fact became a frontier; liable to alteration by force and with the hope of delineation. After 22 rounds of talks by special representatives, nothing appears to have been reconciled. Chinese incursions have been generally glossed over and presented as a peaceful diplomatic solution.

China today is an expansionist power with historical grievances, much like Germany in the 1930s, blatantly disregarding treaties and conventions. Such powers have always been balanced by coalition of alliances or building corresponding power to resist and address the asymmetry. Our neglect, unwillingness and incapacity to invest in creating such corresponding power, and our ideologically and morally driven non-alignment precluding alliances fore-closes these options. With both avenues closed to address this expansionism, the future holds humiliation behind the facade of diplomacy.

COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES

Irrespective of the political dispensation in power, our national security issues are a matter of exaggeration and magnification of minor tactical actions by the ruling party and any setback, actual or perceived, is painted as a sell out by the opposition leaving no scope or ground for serious and pragmatic debate for resolution with national interest in focus. Then there is the Indian Parliament 1962 resolution to recover every inch of Indian territory from China making any seriously negotiated settlement nearly impossible.

For six decades, we have wished away the reality. Emotional hyper nationalism is no substitute for comprehensive national power and sober handling of national security issues. What then is the solution to this logjam? Do we have the will and wherewithal to force the issue? Can we shed the ideological baggage or impractical resolutions? If not, then perhaps a practical and honourable accommodation with China remains a pragmatic option. Zhou Enlais proposal of 1960 and Deng Xiaopings of 1982 need serious consideration free from and above bindings.

The nation and the political leadership are free to choose what course to follow but would not be free from the consequences of the choice.lgnsbrar@gmail.com

The writer is a former chief of staff at Leh-based 14 Corps and deputy chief, integrated defence staff. Views expressed are personal
A 17ft long python was caught in the Everglades, after a tussle with a man who calls himself the Python Cowboy.

Mike Kimmel, who runs the Python Cowboy YouTube page, posted a video to his channel on Friday, that documented his journey to catch the snake.

Mr Kimmel went to an island in the Everglades, in order to find a Burmese python, and not long after spotting a small black snake, saw what he was looking for.

My heart started pounding, he told CNN. Ive caught big ones before, but this one looked extra large.

During the 15 minute long video, Mr Kimmel, who also owns Martin County Trapping & Wildlife Rescue, managed to catch the snake, but was badly bitten by the python.

Despite bleeding profusely, Mr Kimmel managed to drag the python back to his boat, where he euthanised it.

He tied cloth around his bleeding arm and reported the death to the Python Action Team in Florida.

Pythons are not indigenous to the Florida Everglades, and were first reported in the area, in the 1980s, most likely because of abandonment from pet owners, according to the outlet.

There are estimated to be over 100,000 Pythons in the Everglades, that kill indigenous racoons, otters and occasionally alligators.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: The Burmese python is a large nonvenomous constrictor that is an invasive species in Florida.

Burmese pythons are found primarily in and around the Everglades ecosystem in south Florida where the snake represents a threat to native wildlife.

Recommended Florida could use drones to fight pythons

Floridas Python Action Team pay people to remove the species from the Everglades, but Mr Kimmel will also be selling the skin online.

I was proud that I came out on top and I knew that I was going to get a good paycheck out of it, Mr Kimmel told the outlet.

But most of all, a snake that size can really get to anything, so I was thrilled to get this dangerous predator out of the ecosystem.
UAE-sponsored militants seize billions of Yemeni riyals destined for central bank

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 5:56 PM

Forces affiliated with Yemen's so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC), who are backed by the United Arab Emirates, have seized a convoy of billions of riyals destined for the central bank in the southern port city of Aden, as they seek to wrench control from the rival Saudi-backed militiamen linked to former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

The monetary institution said in a statement on Saturday that the separatists, who broke off alliance with Hadi's administration and announced "self-administration rule" in Yemen's southern areas in April, commandeered the convoy as it departed, warning of "dangerous consequences."

An unnamed source was also quoted by AFP as saying that the convoy was carrying 64 billion riyals (approximately $256 million US dollars) in banknotes printed in Russia for the Hadi-controlled Yemeni central bank.

Another Hadi loyalist source said the cash was taken to a military base, describing the act as "piracy."

"The action is part of several measures to end sources of corruption and to prevent the use of public money in supporting terrorism," the STC said in a statement in return.

Back on June 8, pro-Hadi forces claimed territorial gains following fierce clashes with southern separatists in Yemen's Abyan Province.

A military official told Turkey's official Anadolu news agency on condition of anonymity at the time that Hadi loyalists had captured the city of Ja'ar.

STC spokesperson Mohammad al-Naqib, however, dismissed the report, saying the UAE-backed militants had repelled an "infiltration attempt" against the city.

"Within half an hour, the infiltrators were eliminated," he said in a tweet.

Aden has been the seat of Hadi's administration after Houthi Ansarullah fighters took over the capital, Sana'a, in late 2014.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in order to bring Hadi back to power and crush Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past five years.

More than half of Yemen's hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or closed during the war by the Saudi-led coalition, which is supported militarily by the UK, US and other Western nations.

At least 80 percent of the 28 million-strong population is also reliant on aid to survive in what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

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(Sharecast News) - Argentina-focussed President Energy updated the market on its Paraguay asset, as well as its drilling plans for Rio Negro in the second half of the year, on Monday.

The AIM-traded firm said locations have been identified for two new wells which it was planning to start drilling within the next four months.



Preliminary discussions were taking place with service providers to capitalise on current pricing, in view of the fact that many currently had "significant" capacity, and there was currently "virtually no new drilling" of conventional wells taking place in the whole of Argentina.



The board said the first well would be the Las Bases 1001 development well, targeting proven unproduced attic gas in the Las Bases structure, with six billion cubic feet of total recoverable reserves.



It explained that the target depth would be 1,700 metres, with a P50 well rate of 100,000 cubic metres, or 605 barrels of oil equivalent, per day, with a high chance of success and estimated costs of $1.9m (1.52m) completed.



The second well would be the Estancia Vieja EVN-x1 exploration well, which would target a new and thus far undrilled independent structure for both gas and oil to the north of the producing Estancia Vieja field.



There, it said the P50 case was oil production of 40 cubic metres, or 252 barrels of oil, per day, and 60,000 cubic metres, or 350 barrels of oil equivalent, per day.



Target depth would be 2,000 metres, and President said there was a "good exploration chance of success" for that well, with estimated costs of $2.5m completed.



In a success case, the whole of the Estancia Vieja north structure would be opened up with an estimated 14 million barrels of oil and 26 billion cubic feet of gas in place, which would require up to a further six wells.



Once completed, the wells could be placed on stream without delay, the board claimed.



There were no 2P reserves booked for the Estancia North structure in the current independent audited 2P group reserves of 26.4 million barrels of oil, calculated as at 31 December 2019.



In addition to those plans, the firm said there would be follow up infill drilling and workovers in Puesto Flores, but for the current year the two planned wells were the priority.



As a result, the permitting and procurement processes had started, with permits expected within the next two months.



In Paraguay, President said the term of the Pirity Concession, being its principal asset in the country, had benefited from an extension of time due to force majeure, meaning the concession period was extended until the first quarter of 2022.



In the event of successful drilling, that period would be extended further into a long-term production licence.



Before the Covid-19 crisis, President was in "substantive discussions" with an unnamed foreign national oil company which, after detailed due diligence, made a preliminary offer in relation to a farm-in, including the drilling of a well on the Delray complex containing, in total, an estimated 230 million barrels of oil equivalent in place.



Due to the Covid crisis, those discussions were suspended, and as a result, while at present there had been no concrete reengagement with that party and there was no guarantee that would happen, the board said the detailed discussions "encouragingly demonstrated" that the farm-in prospectivity was "real and tangible".



The force majeure extension of the concession period would be of significant benefit in the ongoing farm-out process, it added.



In the Pirity Concession as a whole, as it had previously indicated, President had identified in its estimation more than 500 million barrels of oil equivalent in place.



"We believe now is the time to plan and invest for the future, particularly as we will have negligible third party debt at the half year end and are in a solid position," said chairman Peter Levine.



"The fact that we will be able to bring successful wells into production in Rio Negro without any delay or excessive costs demonstrates the value of our conventional onshore wells in central locations with the benefit of owning and operating the regional pipelines and infrastructure.



"This enables us to transport produced oil and gas from the fields to the main national pipelines and on to our offtaker Trafigura, a strategically important major shareholder in President."



At 1130 BST, shares in President Energy were up 0.75% at 1.69p.
YEREVAN.  Germany will provide a 20mn euro loan to Armenia under a financial and technical cooperation agreement between the two countries. Deputy Minister of Finance Armen Hayrapetyan stated this at Mondays sitting of the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs of the National Assembly of Armenia, during the discussion of the issue of ratification of the agreement on financial cooperation between the governments of Germany and Armenia.

According to him, these loans will be managed by the Armenian-German Fund (CIZ), which will refinance agricultural, small and medium-sized business, as well as private-mortgage loan programs in Armenia.

"The borrower [of this loan] will be the Central Bank [of Armenia], which will be responsible for managing that loan. The German government's funds will be provided through the KfW bank. Thus, the loan will not be a burden at all on the [Armenian] government debt," Hayrapetyan explained.

In addition to these loans, various grants are also planned to be provided.

After the discussions, the aforesaid committee endorsed the ratification of the abovementioned agreement.
OTTAWA - Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19, the country's ambassador to Canada said Monday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Temporary foreign workers from Mexico plant strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., on May 6, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Canada and around the world. The government of Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19. The Mexican ambassador to Canada says his government wants to know more about the circumstances around the death of the two men and what's being done to prevent similar tragic outcomes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

OTTAWA - Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19, the country's ambassador to Canada said Monday.

That means as many as 5,000 temporary foreign workers expected to arrive in Canada in the coming months are being held back, for now.

"It's so we can reassess with the federal authorities, provinces and farmers why this happened and if there is anything to correct," Juan Jose Gomez Camacho said in an interview.

The two men  one died this month and the other in late May  were employed by different farms in the Windsor, Ont., area, a farming heartland in southwestern Ontario that has seen ongoing outbreaks.

The outbreaks were cited Monday as the reason Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the region can't follow in the footsteps of others and loosen restrictions designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Ford was quick to say people shouldn't blame the workers.

"They came here, they self-isolated for two weeks and they picked it up since they've been here," he said.

"So I don't want any finger pointing at these hard-working migrant workers. They're good people, they mean well, and they're hard workers too."

Gomez Camacho said across Canada, 300 Mexicans are believed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus.

His government needs assurances that the situation can be brought under control, he said, before allowing more workers to arrive.

He said agriculture firms reporting outbreaks are even asking Mexico to keep sending people, and "that will not happen."

But he said the pause is intended to be temporary, respecting the fact that farmers often need workers at specific times, and the government isn't trying to spoil that.

"We are pausing this quickly now to understand," he said.

The decision to hit pause is a further blow to the agriculture industry which has been struggling to find enough labour to handle this year's planting and harvest season, due in large part to the travel restrictions in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mexicans make up about half of the temporary foreign worker population employed in the agriculture sector, which in 2018 meant there were 25,060 people employed on farms, in greenhouses and other related jobs.

The dizzying array of government departments charged with ensuring workers are being treated well is difficult to navigate at the best of times, and COVID-19 threw up even more challenges, Gomez Camacho said.

But he commended the Canadian government for making what he called a "tremendous" effort to put protections in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Programs have been implemented at both federal and provincial levels to assist temporary foreign workers since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They include money to cover the costs of mandatory isolation requirements as well as the purchase of personal protective equipment.

Gomez Camacho said the Mexican government worked with Canadian officials to design some of those supports, including a provision that workers be paid while they were in isolation upon arriving in Canada.

The vast majority of firms are complying, he said.

"But we also know, we have always known, some will not," he said.

On his government's part, they also put in a place a program this year that saw only workers who were requested by name by Canada's farms and greenhouses allowed to travel here.

He said many workers are connected to small family farms, and have developed relationships over time.

The pause on allowing more to arrive is a nod to that relationship, he said.

"We are doing this out of solidarity with Canada," he said."We understand the role these workers play in your food chain."

Gomez Camacho said one bright light of the COVID-19 crisis is that Canadians seem to be understanding that as well.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

He said the embassy and consulates have fielded calls from Canadians thanking Mexicans for their efforts, and supporting calls for better safeguards on their work.

Late Monday night, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough's office issued a statement in response to the ambassador's comments, saying the government took them seriously.

The Liberals engage regularly with Mexican officials, the statement said, citing recent calls between other cabinet ministers whose files include the foreign worker program and their Mexican counterparts.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also spoke Monday to Mexican President Lopez Obrador and expressed his condolences over the death of the two men, the statement said.

"Our government will continue to engage and work closely with the ambassador and other Mexican officials to ensure their citizens are safe and receive the support they need when they come to work in Canada," the statement said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
JPMorgan Chase will bring more of its trading personnel back to its New York headquarters starting next week, according to a person with knowledge of the bank's plans.

Since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in New York in March, most of the company's traders and salespeople have worked from home. JPMorgan kept about 20% of the division's staff working from offices during the crisis, and beginning June 22, that figure will climb to as much as 50% by mid-July, said the person, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank's plans.

Wall Street is on the cusp of reopening its trading floors amid what has been a historic run in markets. Last month, CNBC reported that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were planning to bring traders back in mid to late June.

At JPMorgan, the trading division will be an early test of how to safely ramp up attendance; other businesses have yet to announce their plans. Workers will have to wear masks in common areas, and desks will be marked with green or red stickers indicating where staff can sit, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the bank's plans.
Baraka Lusambo, 7, a Tanzanian with albinism who had an arm chopped off in a witchcraft-driven attack, puts on his shirt during a prosthetic fitting while he sucks on his lollipop, at the Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

In many parts of Africa, people with albinism are misunderstood, mistreated, and even attacked or killed. Now they are also being blamed for the coronavirus pandemic.

Traditional African belief systems have cast people with albinism as having magical properties and there is a lucrative trade in their body parts.

The coronavirus has also become a significant health issue because of lockdowns. People with albinism cannot access vital medical support and supplies of suncream.

International Albinism Awareness Day on June 13 aims to create a world where people with albinism can live a life free of stigma, discrimination, fear, and violence. The 2020 theme is "Made to Shine."

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

People with albinism living in Africa are being blamed and persecuted for the coronavirus pandemic now hitting the continent, adding to the discrimination and stigma that already can blight their lives.

So far, Africa has been the continent least affected by COVID-19. But the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week that the pandemic is accelerating.

It is more bad news for people with albinism, according to the United Nations that is hosting International Albinism Awareness Day on June 13.

"There are reports of persons with albinism being branded "corona" and "COVID-19" in some countries, effectively labeling them scapegoats of the pandemic and further ostracising them in their communities," said Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a statement.

Kenyan TV has reported people with albinism having to go into hiding, and social media comments have confirmed that across Africa people with albinism are being targeted even more than in the past.

Dr. Charlotte Baker, Director of the UK-based Albinism in Africa Network, told Business Insider, that African belief systems explain people with albinism as carrying a contagious curse. COVID-19 is just another way of perpetuating this myth, she said.

Story continues

"It is the perceived whiteness of people with albinism. It is being interpreted that they are carriers of what is seen as a white man's disease. It comes from China where people have fair skin in the African mindset and so they are seen as carriers of this disease. It's another dimension of the stigma attached to albinism," she said.

These beliefs can incite brutal attacks against people with albinism. A baby born with albinism may be considered a curse and be killed, according to Dr. Baker.

"In African black society to have a white child born into a community is so very visibly different and people are forced to try and explain that," she said.

"They may accept the genetic explanation but at the same time, it is a society that has many layers of other beliefs," Dr. Baker added.

Witchdoctors take advantage of the ignorance and superstitions, fuelling beliefs that people with albinism possess magical qualities or that the body parts of people with albinism used in charms and potions bring wealth, power, and good luck.

These beliefs fuels a grim trade in the hair, limbs, and entire bodies of people with albinism. The oft-quoted figure for the body of a person with albinism is $75,000.Customers for these body parts are often the leading figures in African societies, said Dr. Baker.

Election years are particularly unsafe for people with albinism, according to Under the Same Sun, an albinism advocacy group. There is an increased demand for body parts in the lead-up to elections when office-seekers are willing to pay thousands for the supposed supernatural boost to their political ambitions.

"They consult the witch doctor. The witch doctor says we need to you know the arm or the hair of a person with albinism," said Dr. Baker.

"Then there's another set of people involved in gathering those body parts and trading them. Often a person with albinism is identified, in the first instance, by a family member or a community member," she said.

Catherine Amidu shows her protective alarm inside her home in Machinga, Malawi. People with albinism in several African countries live in fear of being abducted and killed in the mistaken belief that their body parts carry special powers and can be sold for thousands of dollars. 17-year-old Amidu survived an attempt on her life in 2017.

AP Photo/Thoko Chikondi

The data on the number of people attacked for their body parts is unclear, said Dr. Baker. According to Under the Same Sun there have been more than 520 attacks on people with albinism in 28 African countries reported since 2006. But Dr. Baker said many more attacks are suspected that go unrecorded.

For example, the number of children reported to born with albinism is often less than the statistical average. This indicates that babies with albinism may have been killed at birth, said Dr. Baker.

Albinism is a hereditary condition that results in a lack of pigmentation in skin, hair, and eyes. While in Europe and North America approximately 1 in 20,000 people have albinism, the rates are much higher in Africa, with about 1 in 1,400 occurrences in Tanzania and as high as 1 in 1,000 reported for select populations in Zimbabwe.

In neighboring Malawi, for example, there are more than 134,000 people with albinism, representing 0.8% of the total population, according to the national statistics office in 2018.

For some people with albinism, life is a relentless struggle of the pariah, continuously bullied, persecuted, and marginalized.

And the coronavirus epidemic has only worsened their vulnerability.

Without sunscreen people with albinism face early death

United Nations' first independent expert on albinism, Ikponwosa Ero, addresses the media in Kenya's capital Nairobi, November, 2016.

REUTERS/Katy Migiro

Ikponwosa Ero, a UN independent expert on albinism, has warned of the COVID-19 threat. She said in a statement: "Other hardships for persons with albinism, many of whom are already amongst the poorest of the poor, include a severe lack of access to basic necessities such as food, sunscreen, and other life-saving devices. Persons with albinism and their family members, also lack access to accurate information about their condition vis-a-vis COVID-19."

Access to sunscreen is a life and death issue for people with albinism. It is skin cancer, not the body parts robbers that most threaten them, said Dr. Baker.

"Often it's overlooked but that's the biggest threat," said Ero, also not it is not uncommon for Africans with albinism to die early, many in their forties, because they've got skin cancer after years of skin damage that's been untreated.

'Made to Shine'

The UN International Albinism Awareness Day is on June 13, 2020, and its theme is "Made to Shine." Whilst recognizing the human rights struggles of people with albinism worldwide, the theme was chosen to celebrate the achievements and successes of the albinism community worldwide.

"It emphasizes that persons with albinism were made to stand out because they are outstanding in many ways as proven by the quality and quantity of their success stories in recent years," said Ero.

Dr. Baker is also hopeful that the stigma of albinism is gradually being challenged. Media coverage of the issue, NGOs and energized local groups campaigning for the rights of people with albinism and African governments more willing to grapple with albinism issues, are all causes for cautious optimism.

"These kinds of positive messages are really getting through now," she said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
After the Supreme Court delivered a landmark ruling barring LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace on the basis of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Gov. Charlie Baker said he was not only happy with the decision but happy it wasnt a narrow ruling based on political ideology.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, not only agreed with the majority ruling but wrote the opinion outlining that the 1964 law, commonly known as Title VII, outlaws discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex, which extends to the present-day debate over whether a gay or transgender employee can legally be fired or passed over for a job.

I was glad to see the Supreme Court ruling. I was also glad to see it was 6 to 3, the Republican governor said Monday afternoon during a news briefing at the Massachusetts State House. The basic thrust of the courts opinion was your performance at work should be about your performance at work. Period.

Gorsuch took a textual interpretation of the 1964 law, noting that it protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination, whether that was the intention of the law or not.

Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result, Gorsuch wrote. Likely, they werent thinking about many of the Acts consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters imagination supply no reason to ignore the laws demands.

Mondays decision was joined by Justices John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous, Alito wrote in the dissent. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

When asked about the ruling, Baker said, Its important for people to not have their employee status jeopardy by their gender identity, sexual persuasion or their sex.

Baker was one of several elected officials in Massachusetts to back the decision published Monday. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called the ruling a sign of progress.

This is a victory for every #LGBTQ+ person in our country and the organizers who fought tirelessly to make it a reality. No one should face discrimination for who they are or who they love, the Boston Democrat tweeted.

Progress. This is a victory for every #LGBTQ+ person in our country & the organizers who fought tirelessly to make it a reality. No one should face discrimination for who they are or who they love.



Today we celebrate, tomorrow we continue fighting for equality & justice for all. https://t.co/MPXcjVFIBZ  Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) June 15, 2020

Massachusetts Auditor Suzanne Bump said the ruling was worth celebrating.

There are many troubling things happening in the world, but we must remember to celebrate victories. With todays 6-3 #SCOTUS ruling, #LGBTQ+ people no longer have to worry about losing their job because of who they are or who they love. Thats worth celebrating! #Pride #MAPoli  Suzanne M. Bump (@MassAuditor) June 15, 2020

Attorney General Maura Healy called the decision a win for LGBTQ people everywhere.

This is a win for LGBTQ people everywhereespecially Gerald Bostock, Don Zarda, and Aimee Stephens. Don and Aimee passed away before they could see their courageous work come to fruition. Grateful for their bravery and for standing up for what is right. https://t.co/Kkl3QqBmbj  Maura Healey (@MassAGO) June 15, 2020

Bakers remarks mark the latest example where he and the Trump administration have diverged on national policy.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently finalized an administrative rule that would effectively allow doctors to deny medical care to a transgender person.

The rule itself reverses an Obama administration change on how sex discrimination is interpreted, reverting to an earlier definition of the word sex that strictly defines male and female based on biology. The rule no longer applies sex discrimination to those who are mistreated on the basis of gender identity or sexuality.

Dr. David A. Rosman, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said in a statement that the Supreme Court ruling was a monumental step forward that coincided with an ill-conceived step backward on medical protections.

The elimination of nondiscrimination protections in health care is not only abhorrent, but it perpetuates stigma and will have serious consequences to the physical and mental health of untold members of the LGBTQ community, women and non-English speaking patients, erecting barriers to comprehensive, non-discriminatory health care premised on intolerance and bias, which MMS vehemently denounces, Rosman said. The stress and fear felt by our patients who are targeted by this bigoted and hateful line of thinking is demoralizing and dangerous.

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The EUs chief diplomat on Monday called for Europe and the United States to launch talks aimed at forging a common transatlantic front against an increasingly assertive China.

Brussels and Washington are at odds over a range of major global issues, but EU foreign affairs high representative Josep Borrell said the two sides should make common cause to defend our values and our interest.

Borrell made his call during video talks with the 27 EU foreign ministers and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Borrell told reporters he had suggested launching a distinct bilateral dialogue focused on China and the challenges it poses to the EU and US by its actions and ambitions

For us its important to stay together with the US in order to share concerns and to look for common ground to defend our values and our interest, he said.

The call comes as Europe struggles to calibrate its response to Chinas growing willingness to throw its weight around under President Xi Jinping.

The meeting kicked off a crunch week for Europe-US relations, with a virtual meeting of NATO defence ministers starting Wednesday already overshadowed by Washingtons controversial plans to slash its troop presence in Germany.

US President Donald Trumps America First approach has seen ties with Europe lurch from crisis to crisis in recent years, but EU officials feel there should be scope to work together on China.

It is not clear how Washington will receive Borrells suggestion. The US has pursued a tough-talking approach to Beijing, in contrast to the EUs bid to strike a delicate balance between cooperation, competition and confrontation.

However, the EU has struggled to forge a unified position on China at times, with 27 countries competing national interests coming to the fore.

 Annexation warning 

The Middle East peace process was also on the agenda, as Brussels seeks to persuade Israel to back down from plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

The new Israeli government led once again by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signalled it intends to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, as proposed by Trump, with initial steps to begin from July 1.

Borrell was at pains to praise Trumps Middle East peace plan for injecting long-absent momentum into the process.

A senior EU official said Mondays talks would be the start of three weeks devoted to strongly reaching out to all parties to try to stop the annexations, which Brussels says breach international law.

Pompeo has urged the Palestinians to embrace Trumps Middle East peace plan, which promises them an independent but condensed and demilitarised state as well as international investment.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas travelled to Jerusalem last week to tell Israel of Europes serious concerns about the proposed annexations.

Borrell said Pompeo had listened and taken notes as EU ministers outlined their views but had not accepted or refused anything.

 Court concern 

Europe is also increasingly alarmed by Trumps withdrawal from international institutions and agreements, most recently the World Health Organization and the Open Skies treaty with Russia.

Mondays meeting came after the US leader authorised sanctions against any International Criminal Court official who investigates US troops  a move that EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said was a matter of serious concern.

The EU is still studying Trumps order on the ICC to assess its likely impact, but the senior official said the bloc thought the sanctions move was wrong.

NATO defence ministers hold their own video talks on Wednesday and Thursday, after Washington told Berlin it was considering withdrawing 9,500 troops from the 34,500 currently permanently based in Germany.

Allies will hear from US Defense Secretary Mark Esper while also discussing NATOs coronavirus response and how to handle Russias growing arsenal of weaponry, including next generation hypersonic missiles.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge has been a part of Prince Williams life for nearly 20 years. The beloved royal couple met at St. Andrews University in 2001 and became fast friends before they began dating shortly thereafter. Though the duo was able to enjoy their relationship privately, as they got closer to graduation, Kates name leaked to the press.

From then on everything from their 2007 breakup to talks about the duchess alleged lackluster work ethic to the birth of their three children has made front-page news Luckily because Kate is so beloved by the British public and press, the majority of her time in the spotlight has been pleasant.

However, in the early days of her relationship with Prince William, some fans were absolutely convinced that the duchess mother Carole Middleton orchestrated the entire thing.

RELATED: The First Time Prince William and Kate Middleton Met In Person They Were 9 Years Old

Kate Middletons former roommate says she had a poster of Prince William in her dorm room

Following the Cambridges engagement in 2010, friends and peers of Kates began coming out of the woodwork. One of those people was Jessica Hay, the duchess former roommate at her high school boarding school, Marlborough College.

After struggling and being bullied at her first high school, Downe House School, Kate transferred to Marlborough where she would make life-long friends. However, according to Hay, the duchess always had her sights set on a certain prince. Hay claims that Kate had a poster of Prince William hanging on their dorm room wall. She would joke, Theres no one quite like William,' Hay told royal expert Kate Nicholl for her book, Kate: The Future Queen.

The Duchess of Cambridge adamantly denied having the poster in her BBC engagement interview with Prince William in 2010. , No, it was the Levis guy on my wall, not a picture of William. Sorry!, she said.

RELATED: Dark Secrets Behind Prince William and Kate Middletons Past Breakup

Kate Middleton dealt with a lot in order to have a relationship with Prince William

In the early days of their relationship, the Cambridges were expected to hide their feelings for one another. There was no PDA, the prince adamantly denied being with Kate in public and he even ignored her at his 21st birthday party.

The prince was young and unsure about commitment, so he was often flaky, backing out of his plans with Kate and, not including her. In 2007, the duchess decided shed had enough. The relationship had long-since been public, which was even more humiliating when the price was photographed in London clubbing and flirting with another girl. The photos were in the newspaper the next day.

The humiliated duchess ended the relationship and flew to Ireland with her mother to get away from the constant press and attention. Though the pair would be back on track three months later, the Cambridges relationship hasnt been a fairytale.

RELATED: Kate Middleton Decided to Sue Tatler Magazine Because of 1 Specific Claim, Source Says

Royal fans were convinced Kate Middletons mother orchestrated her relationship with Prince William

Though royal life isnt something anyone would choose, early in the Cambridges relationship, royal fans were convinced Kates mother, Carole Middleton put her daughter on a path to marry the prince. In fact, Kate was initially supposed to go to college somewhere else, but she took a gap year instead and ended up at St. Andrews with the prince.

At the time there were a lot of rumors going around that Carole might have tried to orchestrate the relationship by ensuring her daughter went to St Andrews, royal expert Rebecca English said in the documentary, William and Kate: Too Good to Be True. There was talk of Kate having a poster of William on her wall at her school, Marlborough College. That said, I have spoken to a lot of Kates friends who were at school with her over the years. Nobody remembers her having that poster.

From these stories and the current Tatler exposes, Catherine the Great, royal fans havent always made it easy for Kate.
Government is approaching a workforce dilemma, one that has been long in the making and which the COVID-19 crisis has made even more urgent: whether to initiate badly needed but internally unpopular changes in how government work is performed and managed, or to continue to rely on antiquated practices.Failing to confront this dilemma could undermine performance at a time when efficient, effective government is needed more than ever. As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo put it recently in introducing his state's fiscal 2021 budget, "This is a moment in history unlike any other, and government needs to function and deliver results. "Delivering results will, of course, be all the harder in a time of plummeting tax revenues and unexpected and unreimbursed pandemic-related expenditures, which have already cut state and local government employment by more than 1.5 million jobs . An analytics firm predicts that 3 million more state and local positions could be lost in coming months, including those of first responders as well as employment in social services, sanitation, health care and other vital public services.Despite investments in technology, government remains dependent on its people and their capabilities. When urgent situations arise, public employees prove again and again that they are capable of impressive accomplishments. Creating work environments that support high performance has been a theme in other sectors for more than two decades.The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted several workforce problems that together will make it difficult, if not impossible, to meet the public's expectations without a comprehensive rethinking of government's people management practices: Government was experiencing talent shortages before the current crisis. The shortages were triggered by demographic trends, the emergence of new skill requirements and a tight labor market, among other factors. These shortages will remain after the pandemic. Where governments are still hiring, filling vacant positions that can't be cut, business closings and layoffs in other sectors are likely to trigger increased applications for public-sector jobs. However, former private-sector employees who find themselves dissatisfied with their government experience may opt to return to their former employers. That's costly for governments. Few elected officials have experience managing large groups of employees. They ran for office because of public policy concerns, not improved management. And political differences often block efforts to change antiquated civil service laws. A report from the National Academy of Public Administration decried government's all-too-common "culture of compliance . . . where meeting the requirements of the rules has become more important than delivering value to taxpayers." Civil service rules contribute to that culture and are a barrier to change, given that an entrenched principle is that employees should be treated the same regardless of their contributions. The typical jurisdiction's workforce is aging, with many employees within a decade of retiring. They are accustomed to working in a compliance culture. There are a number of reasons people resist change, but one that is all too common in government is distrust of elected officials. Surveys show that interest in public-sector careers is declining among young Americans. The perceived qualities of a government job are misaligned with their interests. Meanwhile, public employers too often rely on antiquated systems for hiring, training and career management. The George Floyd protests are likely to intensify this lack of interest.For decades public employers have operated with people management policies and practices that ignored what was happening in labor markets and what in other sectors has been a revolution in the way work and workers are managed. The public administration academic community largely ignores workforce management.But in responding to the COVID-19 crisis, long-needed changes have been prompted in the government work management paradigm that are closer to what is now common in the private sector. Working remotely, for example, changes the supervisor-employee relationship; they now have to agree on what needs to be accomplished, and employees have more autonomy in how they achieve results.In addition, the need for front-line workers to respond to coronavirus hot spots means more flexibility in staffing; those workers' counterparts in back-room administrative jobs have learned they are less important. Professional expertise is more highly valued; commitment and high performance are valued; agility and problem-solving skills are valued. It's no longer a "do-as-you're-told-and-follow-the-rules" work environment. Heroic efforts and results are recognized.The pandemic also has triggered new roles for human resources specialists: working with managers to strengthen relationships with remote workers; keep those still on the job healthy; maintain morale; and, where layoffs are necessary, take the lead in identifying the individuals agencies can  and can't  afford to lose.It's fully possible to transition permanently to a work environment and culture that both reduces labor costs and supports improved performance. In the late 1980s, American companies were confronted with low-cost global competition that triggered a revolution in workforce management that unleashed organizational energy.The lessons learned are readily available to the public sector, and the most recent large-scale success story in government is the state of Tennessee. The state's reform strategy, a transformation of its civil-service system encompassing goal-based management and pay for performance , was initiated by then-Gov. Bill Haslam shortly after his inauguration in 2011 and led by Rebecca Hunter, who was then the state's HR commissioner.HR expertise is central to reforms like Tennessee's, but changes on that scale are possible only if HR partners effectively with elected officials, executives and managers. When the end of the pandemic crisis is in sight, HR will be expected to lead in moving to a new normal. That would be an ideal time to ask managers and employees for input, to understand what's working and what's not. They want to contribute and to have their value recognized. It's an opportunity to address problems and transition government permanently to practices that support better performance.GoverningGoverning


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The Programme for Government has been hailed as "by far" the strongest ever on climate action and environmental issues.

Friends of the Earth said that while the vision of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Green Party was not perfect, it can put Ireland on the right path towards shedding the countries label as a "climate laggard".

"This is by far the strongest Programme for Government on climate action we have ever seen. Is it perfect? No. Is it everything we need to do? No. But it can put Ireland on the path to implementing the Paris Agreement and shed our climate laggard label. And in some areas Ireland would become a genuine world leader," said the group's director Oisin Coughlan.

Friends of the Earth said that the Programme for Government the "best chance of a faster and fairer climate action over the next five years".

However, the Irish Offshore Operators Association described plans to end new exploration for offshore oil and gas and a ban on importing fracked gas or building terminals that could allow that as "virtue signalling gestures which while appealing to the Green voter, will ironically increase our emissions".

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) said the document had positive aspects but lacks clear commitments on budgets and on how emissions targets can be achieved.

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association said that the Programme for Government could lead to a new start for relationship between environmentalists and family farms but hit out at a "troubling lack of specifics" on the question of how farmers would be paid to help lower emissions, amongst other objectives.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said the draft programme contains "significant advances for human rights" with the commitment to end Direct Provision and bring in a law to prevent hate crime.

However, it expressed disappointment that the "illegal and discriminatory" Public Services Card has not been scrapped.

Housing charity Threshold said the document showed a commitment to strengthening the sector and improving protections for tenants overall but expressed concern that the commitment to homelessness prevention is not accompanied by specific measures or investment.
It had been a tough five years at George Washington University, but when Hannah's last semester arrived, so did relief. She started applying for jobs, envisioning life away from the District of Columbia.

The feeling didn't last. One night in March, Hannah, in Florida for a job interview, met up with friends in Fort Lauderdale, where a stranger sexually assaulted her, she said.

She returned to campus and sought help from the student health center. Next, she wanted to see a psychiatrist. But then the coronavirus forced GWU to close. Hannah didn't hear back from the counseling center until after she settled home in rural Iowa.

"[GWU's] big thing is that you should try to find counseling at home. But there is no counseling at home," said Hannah, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her first name. "The closest psychiatrist is two hours away, and they also have a long waiting list. For therapy in the area, there's two or three within a half-hour drive, but they're not taking patients right now."

For millions of students, their universities also serve as health-care providers. Students purchase school-sponsored health care, get yearly checkups with on-campus physicians and seek advice from therapists in the counseling center.

But those relationships were thrown into chaos when the virus sent students scrambling back home in other states, where crucial services often can't be accessed or simply aren't available.

Campuses have responded by offering group counseling sessions through video and wellness webinars. But with students scattered throughout the country, schools have scaled back one of the most important services they provide: clinical therapy.

On-campus therapists face a hodgepodge of state licensure laws that dictate where they can and can't practice. Medical and psychology boards in nearly every state have relaxed some guidelines, and some states are allowing anyone with a valid license to practice. But Maryland, Virginia and about two dozen other states still require psychologists to apply for temporary licenses or receive special permission to practice.

The result is that many college students can't access therapy. Some on-campus practitioners are getting emergency licenses, said Joy Himmel, member of a coronavirus task force for the American College Health Association, an organization of college health professionals. But many schools are limiting clinical therapy to students who either live in-state or in a state where interstate telehealth is legal. Several schools aren't taking any new clients, according to a survey from the national college health group.

Last month, a group of student leaders representing 2 million students at more than 130 schools called on states to suspend their regulations so caregivers can practice freely in any state.

"Once we moved online, students who were receiving continuous counseling from the university were unable to have that continuous care," said SJ Matthews, the outgoing student body president at GWU

She and other leaders who signed the letter say students aren't getting the nearly immediate care they would normally receive on campus. As the semester winds down, students are worried about how they will transition to care over the summer. Some students may face the same issue come fall, if their universities start the semester remotely.

"Their entire support network is gone," Matthews said. "They rely on the university for health care, but they also rely on their network of student staff and faculty that support them. It's hard to lose that so quickly."

When campuses across the country emptied, it quickly became clear that the health and economic crises caused by the coronavirus would trigger new cases of anxiety and depression among a population that is already vulnerable.

"All the uncertainty is really building and affecting our students," said Grace Wickerson, a senior from Florida and the outgoing student body president at Rice University, the private school in Houston. But many students weren't able to get help from counselors at Rice after leaving campus.

Student leaders there surveyed 1,400 undergraduates and found that 30% reported exacerbated mental health problems. In a matter of weeks, they have confronted a host of new challenges - adjusting to online classes, losing jobs and scholarship money, and moving into hostile home situations. Many have lost friends, parents and grandparents to covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Their social lives have collapsed.

"There's a real element of grief here that goes beyond, 'I just want to be back at school,' " said Lisa Henderson, a licensed professional counselor and trauma expert at the American Counseling Association. "For a lot of students, this is the first time they've started carving out their own way of life."

School psychologists are no stranger to these hurdles: Their patients often travel over state lines for summer and other breaks, raising cross-state licensure issues. Typically counselors try to connect students with psychiatric services in their own communities, Himmel said, and many are doing the same now. But this break is different.

"During the summer, students leave to their homes and there's plenty of time to transition to other care providers," said Christopher Holstege, executive director of the Department of Student Health at the University of Virginia. "This happened quickly."

The university's counseling center had an average of 229 visits per week in the month that followed spring break, counseling center data shows. Staffers are working with caregivers in other states and, in many cases, providing services to in-state students directly.

After the University of Maryland's flagship campus in College Park shut down, the number of students seeking consultations increased by more than 30%, said Chetan Joshi, director of the school's counseling center. Staff members have been expanding outreach efforts, including workshops, newsletters and other nonclinical services that focus on teaching skills and educating the campus community.

"It is mind-boggling because it is such a mishmash of rules and regulations," Joshi said about state licensing laws. "That aspect of things has been one of the biggest challenges of working remotely."

Campuses are dealing with the regulatory roadblocks by beefing up self-help resources but restricting clinical services. U-Md. has maintained relationships with all students who started therapy before the campus shuttered, but out-of-state students who want to start therapy are being redirected to providers in their home communities, Joshi said.

American University has limited clinical services to students living in D.C., but the staff is promoting a 24-hour emergency hotline and consultations about off-campus therapy and treatment options. Georgetown University students living outside the city can access teletherapy and telepsychiatry services so long as their state of residence allows it.

GWU counselors are licensed in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, but officials are trying to extend their reach. Counseling center staffers said they may be able to get temporary licenses on a case-by-case basis.

"Right when students left, there was a three-week gap before state licensure laws were relaxed," said Cissy Petty, vice president for student affairs and dean of students, explaining why Hannah may have not been able to receive care when she moved back to Iowa. Many of the laws have since been softened.

Now, campuses are confronting the possibility of spending another semester online, and school psychologists don't want the complexities of interstate care to deter students from asking for help.

"Most clinicians would say that working across state lines would be ideal," said Kelly Greco, assistant director of outreach and prevention services at the University of Southern California. But, she said, "we don't want people to not reach out because of that. We want to have the conversation about what are your current needs, is there anything that we're offering now that can help that need and address it, and then how can we connect you with the services where you're at." Greco said the school is offering services designed to fill in the gap: daily workshops about coping and stress management, drop-in virtual consultations, multilingual counselors and special hours for international students.

Looking ahead, Janet Orwig, associate executive officer for member services at the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, said an agreement between about a dozen states called PSYPACT could start to address students' concerns. Orwig is executive director of the agreement, devised in 2015 and set to take effect in July, which will allow psychologists in participating states to practice across state lines without individual state licenses.

Particularly as students are faced with the possibility of spending another semester at home, there is an opportunity for states to standardize their practices, said Henderson, the American Counseling Association expert.

"There certainly are things that are different about each state, but there are also things widely accepted about the human condition," Henderson said. "When treating someone in Ohio versus Oregon versus Tennessee, the principles of doing so are going to be pretty consistent."

- - -

The Washington Post's Susan Svrluga contributed to this report.
Kerry Washington is trying to bring a little peace of mind and body to the world during these uncertain times.

And on Sunday the American Son star, 43, held another one of her --- 2:30 Yoga: Self-Care Sunday -- teaching sessions in the backyard of her home for her Instagram followers.

The A-list actress has been using her videos to help raise money and awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has garnered more and more support in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests and rallies.

Scroll down to video

Body and mind: Kerry Washington shared another -- 2:30 Yoga: Self-Car Sunday -- meditative session in her backyard of her home for her Instagram followers

For this episode the mother of two asked her followers to focus on leading with their hearts and being in touch with their hearts, and that the end result is to 'take care of yourself to get what you need.'

'For the last 2 weeks we have focused our yoga practice on raising money and awareness for the movement for BLACK LIVES,' she began in he caption of the nearly 30 minute video.

'This week we did same but we vigilantly focused on OURSELVES. As change makers. Thank you to all who brought your heart to yoga, whoever YOU are. Sending you so much love.'

Enlightened: The American Son star, 43, is trying to work the mind and body while raising money and awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement

For this episode the mother of two asked her followers to focus on leading with their hearts and being in touch with their hearts

Deeper meaning: This week the actress focused on OURSELVES

Looking colorfully-sporty in purple-patterned Good American leggings, matching headscarf and a classic white v-neck t-shirt, Washington began by re-stating she is not a yoga teacher but that she has been practicing on-and-off for more than 20 years.

She began first by calmly suggesting people to use a towel 'under your bum' and sit in the meditation position with their eyes closed and focus on breathing in-and out through the nose.

The New York City native mentioned that the last two sessions focused the yoga practice on making the world a better place.

'I think it's important to really remember that part of how we make the world a better place is by starting with ourselves; not to be selfish and self-centered, but to be self-loving and to be strong,' she said.

Serenity: The Scandal actress proceeded to go into her many yoga positions, both laying down and standing standing up, while offering guidance and words of wisdom

Veteran: Washington has been practicing yoga on-and-off for more than 20 years

Lovely: Looking colorfully-sporty in purple-patterned Good American leggings, matching headscarf and a classic white v-neck t-shirt

Washington went on to address some of the recent comments about followers wanting to find things like: serenity, calm, connection to oneself, self love, healing, and to not feel alone.

'So all of that starts with breath,' she answered in her soothing tone of voice.

Her introductory phase also included focusing on leading with the heart and being in touch with our hearts.

'When you can feel your heart beats you feel you are human; that you are alive. Feeling the heart beat might even remind you of how vulnerable you are, or how magical you are,' she explained.

One love: 'I think it's important to really remember that part of how we make the world a better place is by starting with ourselves,' she said in reference to the current state of the world

After mentioning how the state of the world right now can make us all feel a little broken, she proceeded to go into her many yoga positions, both laying down and standing up, while offering guidance and words of wisdom.

By the end of the session, Washington offered the greeting, Namaste, which she also defined as 'the god in me bows to the god in you.'

'My desire for you is to feel warm love in your heart. Let that warmth grown and shine out today.'
Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., writing for the panel, acknowledged that the state law may well frustrate the federal governments immigration enforcement efforts.

However, he wrote, whatever the wisdom of the underlying policy adopted by California, that frustration is permissible, because California has the right."

The Trump administration told the Ninth Circuit that Congress, in enacting immigration laws, expected that states would cooperate with the federal government. That is likely the case, Judge Smith acknowledged. But when questions of federalism are involved, we must distinguish between expectations and requirements. In this context, the federal government was free to expect as much as it wanted, but it could not require Californias cooperation.

In a petition seeking the Supreme Court review of the case, United States v. California, No. 19-532, lawyers for the Trump administration wrote that the state law conflicted with federal ones and posed a risk to public safety.

When officers are unable to arrest aliens  often criminal aliens  who are in removal proceedings or have been ordered removed from the United States, those aliens instead return to the community, where criminal aliens are disproportionately likely to commit crimes, the petition said. That result undermines public safety, immigration enforcement and the rule of law.
An Estonian hitman, who was jailed for his role in a Kinahan cartel murder plot and who is wanted over the murder of a Lithuanian pop stars lover, will challenge a bid to extradite him in October.

Imre Arakas (62) was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder James Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. He is currently serving his sentence in a segregated block in Portlaoise Prison.

Passing sentence at the Special Criminal Court in 2018, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Arakas had agreed to the vital role of pulling the trigger for financial gain and he was prepared to offer his own detail on how the murder of Mr Gately was to be performed.

The Estonian separatist told his associates in a text message that he would take out his target with one shot to the head. The judge said the married father-of-two was ready, willing and able in his dedicated role.

Lithuanian authorities also suspect that ex-wrestler Arakas was allegedly part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder a man who had an affair with famous Lithuanian pop star Vita Jakutiene.

Lithuanian police are seeking the surrender of Arakas, whose a last address in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, to face charges, which include a count of murder as well as firearms and conspiracy-related charges in relation to the shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius. There is also another warrant for the sole charge of criminal damage.

Aoife OLeary BL told Mr Justice Paul Burns that additional information from the Lithuanian authorities had been sought and received, that affidavits had been filed in respect of her client and that two other men had now been charged in Lithuania.

Arakas, a former freedom fighter who was previously part of a movement to separate Estonia from the former USSR, was joined by video-link from Portlaoise Prison for the brief hearing.

Ms OLeary told the court that her clients sentence is due to expire in October 2029 and that she would be seeking a senior counsel in the case, as it was a very significant matter of murder, firearms and criminal damage.

Arakas appeared by video-link but expressed a desire to be present in the court for his extradition hearing.

Mr Justice Paul Burns fixed 9 October for the hearing with the matter in for mention on 20 July to resolve any outstanding matters
The COVID-19 pandemic has tested India's health infrastructure and put it under immense stress. The lack of beds and medical resources to treat patients hasnt only affected those infected by the coronavirus, but other patients as well.

Nowhere has this shortage been more critical than in antenatal and postnatal care. For expecting mothers facing potential birth complications, this could prove fatal.

For expectant mothers facing potential birth complications, and babies born with congenital defects, this scarcity could be a life and death issue.

Sri Sathya Sai Health and Education Trust, which runs a chain of hospitals in Maharashtra's Navi Mumbai, Haryana's Palwal and Chhatisgarh's Naya Raipur, has mobilised its pediatric cardiac surgery services across the three hospitals to provide free treatment to infants born with congenital heart defects.

When Devanand Bharati, a labourer from Kharora, arrived at the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Hospital in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur, his son Tanmay was in critical condition because of a malfunctioning vein in his heart. Five days later, he'd made a recovery.

A couple from Assam with a child battling Tetralogy of Fallot and the son of a fisherman from Alibaugh, born with a congenital heart defect, received similar treatment.

The Sanjeevani Hospital community outreach programme has also identified vulnerable pregnant women and, through tele-consultations, provided medical and psychological support.

Some hospital staff and volunteers have also delivered food rations to homes of pregnant women during the lockdown.
The Berkeley Unified School District board unanimously approved a Resolution in Support of Black Lives Matter during a meeting last week. The move will start the process of of renaming Jefferson and Washington elementary schools.

The current school names commemorate the first and third U.S. presidents, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who both owned slaves.

In 2005 Berkeley community members tried to rename Jefferson Elementary School but the motion was not passed. The current Black Lives Matter movement across the country, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, inspired a renewed, successful effort to change the names of the schools.

A press release from BUSD states, "Noting that Black Lives Matter protests have swept the nation as demonstrators demand justice in response to the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and far too many other Black Americans to list, the Resolution In Support of Black Lives Matter includes the following action steps: Initiate a School Renaming Process for Jefferson and Washington Elementary Schools in accordance with the Districts policies."

Also included in the resolution is a new, year-round Black Joy Campaign, described as resources and training for teachers to identify additional measures of racial inequity and collect data in schools.

The resolution was written by board member KaDijah Brown and Superintendent Brent Stephens.

"This is the first, but not the last, of our work around ensuring that we move from the thought of equity to excellence," Brown said at the board meeting.

Im frustrated that the same level of passion and concern is not given to the other issues that plague our district and cause our district to perpetuate the school to prison pipeline and perpetuate school push-outs, she added.

Andrew Chamings is a digital editor at SFGATE. Email: Andrew.Chamings@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AndrewChamings
Peers at Westminster last night overwhelmingly backed abortion regulations for Northern Ireland despite opposition by the Stormont Assembly.

The House of Lords supported the provisions by 355 votes to 77  a majority of 278.

An earlier bid led by independent crossbencher Baroness OLoan for the regulations to be rejected was heavily defeated by 388 votes to 112, majority 276.

Northern Irelands restrictive abortion laws were changed by MPs last year at a time when Stormont was collapsed.

However, earlier this month the now-sitting Assembly registered its opposition to the imposition of regulations by Westminster, which permit abortions up to birth in cases of severe non-fatal disability.

Outlining the measures, Tory frontbencher Viscount Younger of Leckie said: The regulations provide the new legal framework for access to abortion services in Northern Ireland and ensure ongoing legal certainty.

Prior to the changes, women and girls were forced to travel to England to access services or look to unsafe alternatives outside of the healthcare system, potentially putting themselves at risk, he said.

Lord Younger added: I recognise that this is an emotive issue and views on all sides of the debate are strongly held.

These are extremely difficult and often distressing decisions for women and girls. However, the essence of these regulations is to provide women and girls with the opportunity to be able to make individual informed decisions based on their own health and wider circumstances.

As a result of the absence of the Assembly and a functioning Executive, Parliament placed this duty on the Government to act to protect the human rights of women and girls.

But opposing the regulations, Lady OLoan said: We now have a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly. Abortion is a devolved matter. The Assembly voted to reject these regulations on June 2. I ask you to listen to the people of Northern Ireland. Listen to our Assembly. Do not approve these regulations.
Americas cops must stop attacking journalists By Courtney C. Radsc, exclusively for the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka View(s): View(s):

WASHINGTON, DC  It is no surprise that journalists would go out to the streets to cover the largest and most widespread protests the United States has experienced in more than 50 years. What has been surprising is that journalists would meet with violence and retaliation at the hands of the police, just for doing their jobs.

Since the start of the demonstrations against systemic racism and police brutality that have swept the US in the wake of the death of George Floyd, there have been more than 380 reported incidents of anti-press violence. While some have involved journalists being caught in the melee of violent protests and rioting, the vast majority  around 80%  appear to have been perpetrated by law enforcement, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker.

These flagrant violations of press freedom have been as widespread as the protests themselves, with reports coming from 61 communities in 33 states. The police behind these attacks are failing to abide by the law and uphold the US Constitution. Journalists who have clearly identified themselves, presented press credentials, and carried professional equipment have been assaulted, arrested, and shot at anyway. Determining just how prevalent these targeted attacks have been will be critical for addressing the broader problem of police impunity.

Some of the attacks against journalists appear to have been racially motivated. In a live broadcast from Minneapolis on May 29, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez can be seen calmly telling police officers that he is a reporter, only to be arrested anyway. As the camera pans to the ground, one catches a glimpse of his entire crew being taken into custody. Meanwhile, a block away, Jimenezs white colleague continued to report from the scene unmolested. In another incident, Detroit police officers were spotted demanding to see a black reporters credentials while leaving his white colleagues alone.

Although Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has since apologised to Jimenez and the CNN crew, the attacks on journalists covering the protests in his state have continued. If anything, the fact that Minneapolis police could arrest a CNN reporter in the first place signals to law enforcement everywhere that all tactics are now on the table. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), there have since been at least 54 more arrests of journalists, including several who also were broadcasting live. In these cases, the officers involved seemed to know they were being recorded and did it anyway.

The fact that police officers are not deterred by the presence of a camera should alarm all Americans. Just as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin can be seen looking directly into the camera as he presses his knee into Floyds neck, police who allow themselves to be filmed attacking journalists and other civilians clearly do not fear consequences. After all, police in the US enjoy qualified immunity, which is why they have long faced little or no accountability for grave injustices committed against African-Americans like Floyd.

Making matters worse, America now has a commander-in-chief who has long condoned violence against civilians. In 2017, President Donald Trump urged police officers not to be too nice to suspected gang members when taking them into custody. And early in the current protests, he invoked a racist trope, warning demonstrators that, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.

Trump has attacked journalists consistently since the outset of his presidency, singling out individual reporters and smearing the press as purveyors of fake news and the enemy of the people. In the toxic environment he has helped to create, Greg Gianforte, a Republican congressman from Montana, paid no political price for physically assaulting a reporter during his campaign. After years of being demonised by elected officials who are sworn to uphold the law, it is little wonder that the press would now be deemed an acceptable target by law enforcement.

Moreover, this anti-press rhetoric follows a much longer trend toward police militarisation. Fueled by the transfer of heavy weaponry, supplies, tactics, and soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the police have increasingly come to behave more like commandos than like public servants duty-bound to uphold freedom of expression, assembly, and the press.

This is not just a domestic US problem. Several of the journalists who have been attacked by police recently are foreign correspondents working for overseas outlets. For example, Australian television journalist Amelia Brace was broadcasting live from outside the White House when she and her cameraman were suddenly attacked by a phalanx of heavily armed police. Similarly, the German journalist Stefan Simons was shot at numerous times by Minneapolis police despite repeatedly shouting Im press.

Australian and German diplomats have complained to their US counterparts about these incidents, and foreign correspondents sent to cover the protests have been warned to prepare as if they were covering a warzone. New York City, meet Egypt circa 2011.

For our part at the CPJ, our board sent a rare letter to local lawmakers indicating our intention to pursue justice for journalists who were attacked or unjustly detained. We will continue to investigate these anti-press incidents for as long as necessary. The recent wave of assaults is clearly not just a case of a few bad apples. That hoary excuse for a corrupt organisational culture cannot even withstand the proverb from which it is derived: One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.

Police attacks on journalists must be met with swift and meaningful accountability. That means rooting out the bad apples as well as the rot that has spread more widely across Americas police forces. As the protests have shown, only when impunity ends can justice begin.

Courtney C. Radsch is Advocacy Director at the Committee to Protect Journalists and author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020.

www.project-syndicate.org
A new federal government document sheds more light on how Canada believes its immigration system will be impacted after the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada set to modernize immigration system A new federal government document sheds more light on how Canada believes its immigration system will be impacted after the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada set to modernize immigration system A new federal government document sheds more light on how Canada believes its immigration system will be impacted after the coronavirus pandemic.

Canada set to modernize immigration system A new federal government document sheds more light on how Canada believes its immigration system will be impacted after the coronavirus pandemic. Kareem El-Assal Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Canada is expecting a significant surge in immigration applications once global travel restrictions begin to ease.

This is revealed in a new document that is publicly available on a federal government website.

The purpose of the document is to find a vendor that can help Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) modernize how it processes immigration applications.

Canadas special immigration measures during COVID-19

The document notes that the coronavirus pandemic has impacted IRCCs operations.

Canada has implemented travel restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19, and federal government employees in Canada and abroad are adhering to strict social distancing and remote working measures.

Nonetheless, IRCC continues to do its best to fulfil its mandate to temporary foreign workers, international students, visitors, permanent residents, citizenship seekers, refugees, asylum claimants, and Canadian citizens.

IRCC has introduced many special measures to support application processing for foreign nationals during this time.

On the other hand, the document acknowledges that many IRCC processing and contact centres have been shut down or are operating at significantly reduced capacity. This has severely limited IRCCs ability to process applications.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

How IRCC is looking to improve application processing

Once IRCCs operations return to normal, the department expects it will have significantly different policies, procedures, and digital solutions in place to handle the post-coronavirus spike in applications that it is expecting.

IRCC is seeking to be proactive by developing new strategies, processes, and digital systems to enable it to better fulfil its mandate.

IRCC, for example, would like to utilize digital processes whenever possible to minimize the need for in-person or paper-processes. This would not only protect the safety of IRCC and the public, but could also result in more efficient and faster application processing.

As such, IRCC is looking for a vendor to support its modernization efforts in the following ways:

Develop tools and technologies to rapidly increase IRCCs operational capacity so it can handle current manual application processing challenges and the anticipated surge in applications

Develop digital tools to address new social distancing requirements by reducing the need for in-person meetings through digital solutions (e.g., online citizenship testing, and visa and citizenship applications)

Identify digital technology solutions for IRCCs case management system

Identify how to automate certain processes so that immigration agents can focus more of their time on complex immigration applications

Incorporate data analytics solutions to provide insights on operational volumes and processing capacities so that IRCC can effectively respond to changes in Canada and abroad

Develop strategies to strengthen IRCCs cybersecurity

Canada remains committed to welcoming immigrants, workers, students, and visitors

Under Canadas current Immigration Levels Plan 2020-2022, the country is seeking to welcome over one million immigrants in the coming three years.

The coronavirus pandemic has slowed immigration to Canada in 2020, but immigration minister Marco Mendicino says Canada remains committed to welcoming immigration to supporting its economy.

In addition, Canada is still holding Express Entry and Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) draws at the moment, plus also processing study and work permits, and enabling immediate family to enter the country.

It is highly likely that Canada will see a major spike in permanent and temporary resident arrivals once the global health and economic situation improves. Prior to the start of the pandemic, Canada was welcoming record numbers of immigrants, foreign workers, and international students.

By seeking to modernize its processes through the use of technology, IRCC should be in a stronger position to accommodate even more foreign nationals once the pandemic is over.

Find out if you are eligible for any Canadian immigration programs

 2020 CIC News All Rights Reserved
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Today, seven miles isnt far to travel. My wife, Karen, and I think nothing about hopping in our car and driving to a beloved restaurant 15 or 20 miles away for a date night.

But thats because technology has made travel so much easier than before. If we were traveling on foot? We would rarely venture out of our immediate property  especially not for something as temporary as a meal.

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend told me a story he heard from one of his parents. His parents were children when one of them had their life upended by a shocking announcement from the father: He was taking a new job over near the county line. The family would have to pack up and move.

The new destination was incredibly far away. The kids felt like they were moving to the edge of the world, distant from everything they knew and loved. Their entire lives were about to change.

The actual distance the family moved? Seven miles. The county line was just seven miles away.

Things are obviously different today.

I know many grown children who now live far, far away from their families. Some live in another state. Some actually do live on the other side of the world. The recent COVID-19 crisis has disrupted the travel industry and certainly caused some families to rethink their distance from each other. But pre-crisis, it wasnt that unusual for families to spread out across the country.

Two centuries ago, this would have been stunning to hear. People couldnt travel casually back then. Families on foot could travel maybe 20 miles a day. On horseback, they could cover up to 40 miles. If they boarded a ship and had favorable winds, they might have been able to travel 100 miles in a single day.

Then train travel arrived in the 19th century and increased mobility. The arrival of cars and buses in the early 20th century expanded travel even further, turning potential daily mileage from the tens into the hundreds. Lengthy road trips became more common, and families grew much more mobile.

By the 1960s, air travel became accessible to the average person. And today, its rare to find someone who hasnt traveled on a jet plane to a faraway destination. For many, a weekend trip to a resort in Mexico or a week in Europe may have been an annual event. Prior to March 2020, international travel was exciting, but still fairly ordinary.

Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic cast a lot of this industry in doubt. The travel industry is returning, slowly, with some precautionary changes. But it will eventually return to what it once was. Even more intriguing, commercial space travel may even become an option over the next few years or decades, thanks to the efforts of ventures like Elon Musks SpaceX and Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic.

What do these facts have to do with the Bible or end-times prophecy?

Daniel 10-12 is a well-known prophetic passage. These chapters describe a vision of the future given to Daniel. These passages predict the emergence of the Antichrist in the last days. Daniel 12 contains an especially intriguing statement about what life will look like prior to the end. The Bible predicts this will be an age of unique human technological capabilities, different from any other generation that precedes it.

But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase. (Daniel 12:4)

In this vision, the angel speaks to Daniel and tells him to seal up what hes been told because no one would understand it until the end times.

But today? A phrase like many shall run to and fro seems awfully familiar.

In ancient Israel, people might have traveled several miles a day for trade or worship. Today, many members of our church think nothing of driving 15 miles to a church service, 150 miles to a concert, or flying 1,500 miles for a vacation.

We are living at a moment when travel may be a luxury for many, but it is very much a possibility for anyone. If I wanted, I could travel to the other side of the planet in less than a day.

Ours is a generation defined by our ability to go to and fro with incredible ease. Todays access to travel would astound our ancestors, most of whom were born, raised and buried in the same place. Consider these stats from 2019:

One in four Americans have traveled internationally.

In 1960, international tourist arrivals were around 70 million. Last year, they were 1.4 billion.

Even when traveling domestically within the U.S., 75 percent of people go further than the state bordering their home.

The average Americans daily commute is 16 miles each way to work.

In other words, Daniels prophecy has become a reality in our time.

Could our traveling generation be the period of human history to which Daniel was referring?

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted travel and will force the industry to continue to evolve. Who knows what it will look like in the years to come? I suspect any immediate declines will eventually give way to further growth. Is it possible travel could evolve even more as technology allows?

If the return of Christ is delayed a few more years, the future may increase our ability to run to and fro beyond our collective imagination.

As I explain in detail in my new book, Tipping Point, we are moving at lightning speed toward the return of Christ and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy in our lifetimes.

This article is adapted from The Tipping Point: The End is Here by Jimmy Evans. You can pick up the book here.
Never a cop around when you need one By Michael R. Shannon

Its been a tough year for keepers of the peace. First you had the heavilyarmed 2nd Amendment supporters in Richmond, VA. The Associated Press warned it was going to be a show of force. That looming threat forced Virginia Gov. Ralph Blackface Northam to declare a State of Emergency, ban weapons from the capitol grounds and mobilize the state police. It was touchandgo. Cong. Don Beyer of Northern VA tweeted, [Richmond] drew large numbers of white nationalists, militias and racist conspiracy theoristsNeoNazis tried to use the rally to launch violent attacks. Petula Dvorak, the Washington Posts chubby chronicler of conventional wisdom, lamented, Yall, it smelled like fear out here in Virginia. After the rally, the increasingly unstable leftist stenographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch, screamed, America  although we may be too frightened to even admit it  just witnessed arguably the most successful use of terrorism on U.S. soil in nearly a generation. The aroma of cordite had barely cleared the air before fanatical antiWuFlu lockdown protestors took to the streets selfishly wanting to go back to work. Business owners, drunk on visions of Ayn Rand, threw open the doors to their establishments and actually tried to attract customers. Some restaurants boldly began serving food! Concerned relatives rushed home from the liquor stores and pot shops to shrinkwrap their grandmothers as those uncaring disease vectors took to the streets without masks or social distancing. A few preemptive arrests, forcible business closings and punitive fines managed to extinguish that outbreak. Only to suddenly have pastors start to go rogue. Churches that willingly gave up Easter services got restive and threatened to start worshiping God again. Then came a miracle! Politicians who never darken the door of a church  unless its to troll for votes  suddenly became concerned about the welfare of Baptists. Rapid response saved the day. A few pastors spent the night in jail, state police photographed the license plates of worshipers daring to disobey Caesar and a local police entered sanctuaries to tell worshipers to go home. All that safekeeping comes at a steep price. One can only be on high alert for so long before exhaustion takes its toll and the system begins to break down. Thank goodness, peaceful protesters objecting to George Floyds incustody death finally showed up to give authorities a wellearned break. And the rest of us a lesson. If your cause is blessed by the leftist establishment, the treatment is kid gloves. If your cause isnt PC enough, God help you. The over 20,000 guntoting 2nd Amendment supporters in Richmond were met with unrelenting hostility on the part of the state and the city. Police forced protesters into an enclosure ringed by fencing that looked like Gitmo for Guns. Activists that wanted to be part of the official proceedings were forced to go through a single metal detector. That caused a tremendous backup only matched by a second backup inside the fence where thoughtful police provided a single bathroom to serve thousands. Protesters who didnt disarm had to stay outside and wander the streets. At the conclusion of the Day of Disdain on the part of the authorities, the capitol grounds were left spotless and the streets of Richmond quiet. Heres where Im confused. The peaceful Floyd protesters are met with open arms by city, state and the OpMedia. Protesters come and go as they please. Police chiefs cant say enough about how inspiring the protesters are. And after all that love, I could swear I saw buildings burning and stores being looted. Armed lockdown protesters in Michigan that legally entered the capitol building were described by the media as storming the capitol. While Floyd rally attendees who did storm a police station are mostly peaceful. The people who want to open the stores that looters loot feel the full weight of the law when they step out of line. While the peaceful protesters lay waste to downtowns across the nation. Heres the real lesson for people who pay taxes. The moral cowards who compose our modern authorities specialize in arresting those they know wont put up a fight. People like you. If there is a chance for controversial coverage by yapping news poodles, the authorities wont even try to enforce a curfew that would save local businesses. They claim to be overwhelmed. As the gutless mayor of Minneapolis admitted to WCCO, he surrendered a police station to peaceful protesters because he wanted to reduce our footprint in the Third Precinct. de-escalate and prevent handtohand combat. Too bad enforcing the law is often handtohand. Theres only one more powerful symbol of the collapse of law and order and the utter cowardice of politicians than a burning police station. And thats a burning policeman. Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr (at) gmail.com. He is also the author of Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!). Home
The Atlanta police officer who shot dead Rayshard Brooks on Friday night could face murder charges, the district attorney has said, after it emerged that on pulling the trigger Garrett Rolfe told his partner: 'I got him.'

Brooks, 27, died in the car park of a Wendy's, having failed a sobriety test and wrestled with officers, stealing a taser and running away.

Autopsy results released on Sunday night lists Brooks' cause of death as gunshot wounds to the back. The manner of death is listed as homicide.

Brooks was shot twice and died from organ damage and blood loss.

Paul Howard, the district attorney, said he expects to announce charges against Garrett Rolfe on Wednesday following the Friday night killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta

Paul Howard, district attorney for Fulton County in Georgia, where the shooting happened, said Rolfe's response to the killing would make it hard to argue self-defense.

'There's one good thing about video,' said Howard, referring to surveillance camera footage obtained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI).

'Because in the video we actually get a chance to hear the officer's first statement after the shooting took place.

'And what the officer said is not that his life was saved.

'What his statement was, he said: "I got him".'

Rayshard Brooks, 27, a married father of four, was handcuffed after failing a sobriety test at a Wendy's. He wrestled with the police, grabbed a Taser, pointed it at Rolfe and was shot dead

Garrett Rolfe, 27, joined the Atlanta police department in 2013. He has been fired for Friday

Howard said that his office is 'still experiencing some difficulty' getting all of the body-camera and dashcam footage from Atlanta police.

Rolfe's bodycam was knocked off in the scuffle with Brooks, but shows the beginning of their interaction, which lasted for around 30 minutes and was cordial.

Brooks is even seen smiling, relaxed, as he engages with Rolfe and his partner, Devin Brosnan.

The two officers had been called after Brooks was reported to be sleeping in his car in the drive-through lane of a Wendy's.

Brooks failed a sobriety test, and as the two men were placing him in handcuffs he resisted for around 30 seconds and the three scuffled on the floor.

Police were called to the Wendy's on Friday night after Brooks was asleep at the wheel

Brooks's car was blocking the drive-through lane. He told officers he did not have a weapon

For 30 minutes Brooks spoke cordially with the two officers in the parking lot

Rolfe is seen administering a sobriety test. A breathalyzer showed Brooks to be over the limit

'Stop fighting! Stop fighting!' an officer says, according to audio from the body camera.

During the struggle, Brooks grabs an officer's Taser, escapes their grasp and starts running away from the two, the videos show.

"He's got my f****** Taser," an officer says, according to the body camera footage.

Brooks runs away, with Rolfe, also 27, following, before he turns and points the Taser at the officer, who opens fire with his gun.

'(Brooks) did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable,' Howard told CNN on Sunday.

'If that shot was fired for some reason other than to save that officers life or prevent injury to him or others, then that shooting is not justified under the law.'

Howard said there were three charges which were 'relevant' in the case, and could be filed.

'One would be the murder charge in the state of Georgia,' he said.

'That charge is a charge that is directly related to an intent to kill.

'The second charge is felony murder. And that is a charge that involves a death that comes as a result of the commission of an underlying felony, and in this case, that underlying felony would be aggravated assault.'

He said his office was unlikely to pursue the third charge, aggravated assault.

'I believe in this instance, what we have to choose between  if theres a choice to be made  is between murder and felony murder.'

Paul Howard, the district attorney, has said Atlanta police have not yet turned over footage

Rolfe had been recently trained in de-escalation tactics, according to his department record.

In addition to the de-escalation training, he took coursework in April in cultural awareness. This past January, he passed a course entitled 'Use of Deadly Force.'

Rolfe has also had multiple courses in tactical team operations and firearms training.

Brooks was a married father of four children - three girls of his own, aged eight, two and one, and a 13-year-old stepson.

His attorney, L. Chris Stewart, said that on Friday, shortly before his death, Brooks was celebrating his eldest daughter's eighth birthday with her at an arcade.

Brooks's shooting is the latest caught-on-video death of a black man by police in recent months.

It has sparked new outrage among protesters already inflamed by the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer, and the February killing of black jogger Ahmaud Arbery by three white men now charged with murder in Brunswick, Georgia.

The Wendys where Brooks was killed was burnt down Saturday night amid protest at his death

The burnt-out restaurant is seen on Sunday morning after protests turned violent

An artist pays tribute to Brooks, a 27-year-old married father of four gunned down on Friday

The Wendy's where Brooks was killed was burnt down on Saturday night.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating Brooks shooting death, and Howard said his office will make a decision on whether to file criminal charges around Wednesday.

Rolfe, who had been hired in 2013, was fired on Saturday and the second officer, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative duty.

Erika Shields, the Atlanta police chief, resigned on Saturday.
Daisy Edgar-Jones made a rare appearance with her boyfriend Tom Varey on their stroll in London on Saturday.

The couple looked very much in love as they held hands while enjoying the summer sunshine.

Tom, 29, is a dead ringer for Daisy's onscreen lover Paul Mescal, 24, who plays Connell Waldron in BBC series Normal People.

Cute couple: Daisy Edgar-Jones made a rare appearance with her Paul Mescal lookalike boyfriend Tom Varey as they held hands on a sunshine stroll in London on Saturday

Power couple: Her boyfriend Tom, played Cley Cerwyn in Game Of Thrones and has also appeared in BBC1's The Village and the Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge

Daisy, 22, best known for playing Marianne on the show, looked incredible wearing a white prairie style blouse tucked into denim shorts and flat yellow sandals.

She tied a denim jacket around her waist and carried a brown leather bag across her body.

Daisy wore her hair half-up and wore sunglasses which had blue lenses.

Finding fame: shot to stardom following her highly-praised role in BBC drama Normal People (pictured with co-star Paul Mescal who plays on-screen beau Connell Waldron)

Handsome Tom was casually dressed for the outing, wearing a striped T-shirt with jeans and brown leather boots.

Tom was raised by his mother, Karen, in a two-up, two-down terraced house while Daisy enjoyed a similarly comfortable, middle-class upbringing in leafy Muswell Hill, North London.

The actress' father, Phillip, is a successful TV executive and she attended the 18,000-a-year Mount School for Girls, before doing her A-Levels at Woodhouse College in Finchley, North London.

Stunning: Daisy, 22, best known for playing Marianne on the show, looked incredible wearing a white prairie style blouse tucked into denim shorts and flat yellow sandals

Sweet: The couple looked very loved up as they held hands during their walk

Long-term love: The couple have been dating for two years after meeting on the set of the film Pond Life in 2018

Her boyfriend Tom, played Cley Cerwyn in Game Of Thrones and has also appeared in BBC1's The Village and the Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge.

The couple have been dating for two years after meeting on the set of the film Pond Life in 2018.

Daisy and Tom played friends who go off on a life-changing fishing trip in the low-budget movie, based in Doncaster.

The loved-up pair, who appeared in the most recent series of the ITV drama Cold Feet, are isolating together with another couple during the coronavirus outbreak.

Close encounter: and Tom played friends who go off on a life-changing fishing trip in the low-budget movie, based in Doncaster

Close: The loved-up pair, who appeared in the most recent series of the ITV drama Cold Feet, are isolating together with another couple during the coronavirus outbreak.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed June 10 his Cabinet and spoke about the country's recent struggles, saying that "the resilience of the Iranian people" and their struggle against the coronavirus pandemic and US sanctions will be "recorded in the history of the country." While Iran's recent struggles have yet to be recorded, the new parliament, which began its first session May 27, comes into office at a time of compounding crises.

Amid the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, an economic recession and US sanctions, the power of Irans conservative establishment has dramatically increased, setting the stage for a new era of hard-line politics. In a sharp turn to the right, Irans legislative body is now dominated by multiple conservatives factions, virtually all of whom campaigned against Rouhanis administration and his platform of external engagement and internal moderation. Conservative politicians and critics have assailed Rouhani for the Iranian nuclear deal and the US "maximum pressure" campaign.

Leading this new parliament is former Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the first Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) general to be speaker of the Iranian parliament. Ghalibaf joined the IRGC in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq War, where he quickly moved up the ranks. Later in his career, he developed sway within the IRGCs growing political and economic network that peaked after he became head of the massive Iranian engineering conglomerate Khatam al-Anbia, which is seen by many as an extension of the IRGCs economic influence in the country.

Overtly ambitious, he served as mayor of Tehran between 2005 and 2017 and ran for the presidency in 2005 and 2013 with varying degrees of failure. He capped off his tenure with another failed presidential bid in 2017, ultimately ceding the conservative ticket to now-Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, who was soundly defeated by Rouhani. Ghalibafs time as mayor of Tehran was mixed, gaining plaudits for modernizing the capitals aging infrastructure, but plagued by allegations of corruption.

Ghalibafs speakership will oversee a 76% conservative majority and a healthy contingent of his fellow IRGC members, with as many as 24 joining the ranks of conservative members of parliament, continuing a trend that has seen more former IRGC commanders join parliament over the years. While the IRGC is notoriously factional, its members' growing power in parliament will give their patronage networks more opportunity to expand their economic entrenchment in the country. Where previous parliamentarians have spoken out about the IRGCs economic influence, former commanders elected as parliamentarians will now be able to neuter one of the only governmental bodies that could place a check on their growing influence.

Conservative members of parliament gained a majority after Irans Guardian Council oversaw a massive purge of sitting legislators and aspiring candidates in the 2020 elections. Ninety sitting members of parliament were barred from running  more than a third of the incumbents who were seeking to run. The purges and disillusionment toward the government following the November 2019 protests, combined with growing fears of the coronavirus pandemic, resulted in an abysmal 42.5% turnout  the lowest since the revolution.

All of these domestic dynamics swirl under the storm created by the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal and impose a maximum pressure campaign, which has levied crushing sanctions that have devastated the country. After spending the 2016 and 2017 campaign cycles promising change, and with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Rouhanis legacy in tatters and the economy in free fall, Rouhani and the moderates inside Iran have virtually no accomplishments to show for. Rouhani will most likely finish his final term as president hemmed in by hard-liners in parliament opposed to his agenda. While Irans Majles (parliament) may lack substantive tools to affect Irans foreign policy, Ghalibaf, who unsuccessfully ran against Rouhani twice for the presidency, maintains a loud bullpit that can be used to lambast the president and excoriate his policies. Moreover, the new conservative majority will be able to gridlock Rouhanis domestic agenda, including any legislation he supports and annual budgets.

Despite all the factions left of center being sidelined in the current parliament, Ghalibaf will still have to contend with the myriad of political parties that comprise his conservative majority. This includes as many as 50 supporters of former President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, including Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi and Ali Nikzad, who are both vice speakers of the assembly, and the ultraconservative Paydari Front, led by Mostafa Mir-Salim who challenged Ghalibaf for the speakership and who still holds considerable sway among hard-liners. It is unclear how long the unity between these factions will last.

The first week of the new parliamentary session saw many performative gestures but other legitimate indicators of how Ghalibaf and this parliament may proceed in the coming years. In his first speech on the Majles floor, Ghalibaf stuck to familiar positions espoused by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that negotiations with the United States would be "fruitless and harmful, and instead championed vengeance against the killing of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January.

Ghalibaf, who is less of an ideologue than many conservatives and more pragmatic in his political leanings, will most likely attempt to wed himself to positions espoused by the supreme leader. As of now, Iran has adopted a policy of strategic patience, waiting for the results of the US election before determining a more long-term strategy. Ghalibaf doubled down on his rejection of negotiating with the United States when he commented on a tweet from US President Donald Trump concerning the recent prisoner exchange, saying that Iran must not stop the struggle and reject compromise with the nonbelievers.

Internally, a conservative majority in parliament will most likely give Irans unelected state apparatus an explicit pass to tighten its screws on Iranian society. The November 2019 protests and the subsequent crackdown that killed hundreds of demonstrators marked one of the most brutal periods of government repression since the 1979 revolution. Many Reformist members of parliament spoke out against the crackdowns, including prominent Reformist parliamentarian Mahmoud Sadeghi  now convicted on corruption charges  who wrote on Twitter that state TV should accompany its footage condemning protesters with footage of a few [of them] being shot. With many parliamentarians affiliated with state organs now in the new parliamentary majority, these kinds of condemnations will evaporate, as will the semblance of legitimate investigations into state repression, allowing the establishment free rein to solidify its grip on internal dissent.

As the pendulum of Iranian politics swings back toward the conservatives, and a new wave of authoritarianism sweeps the country, Ghalibaf will be leading the parliament at a crucial time for Iran. On his watch, the country must manage a pandemic, a sanctions-induced recession, a presidential election in 2021 and perhaps the succession of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Even though Iran has entered an era of conservative dominance, what remains unclear is how long it will last and if this will usher permanent domination of Iranian politics by forces within Iran who are hostile to accommodation with the West and liberalization at home.
Tamil Nadu government has announced "maximised restricted lockdown" in parts of the state. The maximised lockdown would take place from June 19 to June 30 in areas of Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur district -- all within the limits of Metropolitan Chennai Police.

CM Edappadi K Palaniswami said in his announcement that vegetable stores in these areas would be allowed to remain open from 8am to 2pm. This move comes after the Tamil Nadu government held consultative meetings with experts and senior officials on Monday.

Senior epidemiologist and member of the 19-member expert committee on coronavirus, Dr P Kuganantham said that the panel advised the government to cut down relaxations to prevent the spread of the virus.

Palaniswami said that there was no community transmission in Tamil Nadu and that the pandemic has been brought under control in most districts. However, capital city Chennai has been most affected in the state.

Tamil Nadu has 44,661 cases of coronavirus and is one of the most severely-affected states in the country. It has 19,679 active cases, 24,547 discharges and 435 deaths.

Prime Minister Modi is scheduled to meet the chief ministers of all states and UTs in two batches on Tuesday and Wednesday. He will meet CM Palaniswami through video conferencing on Wednesday. On the same day, he would meet the CMs of Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnataka, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Telangana, and Odisha as well.

Also read: Worse is yet to come? Coronavirus cases to peak in mid-November, claims study

Also read: No lockdown extension in Delhi: CM Arvind Kejriwal
Huge crowds have been photographed crowding stores across England as shops re-opened for the first time after 83 days of lockdown.

There was a big queue outside the Nike Town store on London's Oxford Street, the capital's busiest shopping street, with many shoppers ignoring social-distancing rules.

About 400 people, some who had been there for more than an hour, were lined up at 10am (local time) on Monday, according to the Evening Standard.

Nike Town was capping store capacity at 100 people at one time, a staff member told the UK newspaper.

Department stores, clothing retailers, electrical outlets, bookshops and other non-essential stores have been closed since March 23 when Prime Minister Boris Johnson imposed a lockdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Shops re-opened in London on Monday. Shoppers here are queuing for Nike Town on Oxford Street. Source: Getty Images

The reopening only applies to England, with stores in Scotland and Wales waiting for guidance from their devolved administrations on when they can resume trading. Non-essential stores in Northern Ireland reopened on Friday.

The UK government is encouraging people to go out and spend to help boost the economy, which shrank by a quarter over March and April.

The British Retail Consortium reports the lockdown has cost non-food stores 1.8 billion pounds (AU$3.28 billion) a week in lost revenues.

"The government's priorities have always been lives first, but clearly restoring livelihoods, protecting jobs, making sure our economy can motor and recover again is really important," business minister Paul Scully told UKs Sky News.

The massive line of people, some wearing face masks, outside Nike Town at Oxford Street. Source: Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images

Foot traffic was up 41.7 per cent across England's retail stores. Source: AAP

Retail footfall across England's retail destinations had increased by 41.7 per cent by 11am in comparison to last Monday, researcher Springboard said.

Stores look very different, though, as they must observe social distancing regulations. As well as having to queue outside as numbers inside are restricted, shoppers are greeted with hand sanitisers and there are limits on touching and trying out products.

Story continues

Some chains are reopening all their English stores, while others are taking a phased approach.

Primark, owned by Associated British Foods, reopened all its 153 stores, while Marks & Spencer, which has traded online and kept its food halls open, reopened the majority of its clothing spaces.

More shoppers descend on Oxford Street. Source: AAP

Rival store Next reopened 64 stores, having already reopened 64 homeware stores during the lockdown. John Lewis re-opened just two outlets.

Many small independent stores, where it is difficult to implement safe social distancing practices, remained closed.

Sofie Willmott, an analyst at GlobalData, said while the queues on high streets might look promising for retailers, there were tough times ahead.

"Footfall and spending will take a long time to return to pre-COVID levels," she said.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

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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.

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.
The body of Malcolm Harsch, from Victorville, California, was found hanging from a tree near the Victorville City Library. According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, there was no foul play and Harsch committed suicide.

Lynching or suicide?

According to a report in the Victor Valley News, the death of Malcolm Harsch, a 38-year-old black man, is still being investigated, but the chances of it being a suicide instead of a hate crime are high.

The spokeswoman from the Sheriff's Department, Jodi Miller, said that there were no indications at the scene that shows it was foul play, but the cause of his death and the manner are all still pending.

On May 31, the Victorville Fire Department discovered Harsch's body after they received a dispatch call. When the responders arrived at the scene, they found his body hanging from a tree.

Harsch's family, who is living in Ohio, said in a statement to Victor Valley News that they find it difficult to accept and believe that Harsch committed suicide. They said that he had conversations with his children about seeing them soon and that he did not show any signs of depression.

According to the family, they were told that Harsch had blood on his shirt and that there was no sign of any struggle at the scene. They also said that Harsch's body stayed at the San Bernardino County coroner's officers for 12 days before they performed an autopsy.

Also Read: Ohio Lawmaker Ask If Colored People Get COVID-19 Because They Don't Wash Hands Properly

Similar incident

In Palmdale, California, a similar incident happened. Robert Fuller, a black man, was found hanging from a tree, and his case was also ruled out as suicide, as reported by ABC 7. Black Lives Matter protesters stormed the crime scene and offered prayers and held vigils.

The county leaders and city leaders are now calling for an independent investigation of Fuller's death after the outcry from the public, as Fuller's family and friends don't believe he committed suicide.

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva hosted a virtual town hall on June 15 for two hours and the residents of Palmdale discussed the death of Robert Fuller and the investigation.

The public is suspecting that the deaths of the two black men are connected to the ongoing protest in the country against police brutality and racism. The fact that they are dangling from a tree is eerie similar to the execution-style that white Americans used on African Americans until the 1950s.

According to VOA News, people feared that the racist residents had lynched the two men, and it may not be the last incident as more black lives can be in danger since the police department refused to investigate further. The petition that demands the full investigation of the death of Robert Fuller had reached 215,000 signatures as of June 14.

On June 12, the residents of Palmdale made it clear at a news conference that they do not trust the local authorities as they think they won't investigate Fuller's death properly. The public wants an independent investigation and transparency, as they believe that no black man would hang himself in public.

Related Article: Body of Black Man Found Hanging from a Tree in Palmdale California, Suicide or Lynching?

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15.06.2020 LISTEN

Earlier today, the Chief Executive for Prestea Huni-valley Municipal Assembly, *Dr. Isaac Dasmani* joined the Bogoso Area Council and Rickshaw (Pragya) Drivers Association to desilt choked gutters at the market roundabout in Bogoso.

The exercise ensured the gutters were free to allow easy flow of water to restrict floods which have the capacity to destroy lives and properties.

The heavily choked gutters were the major causes of flooding in the area due to the sub-culture of creating filth and tipping it into the gutters and drains.

Residents were urged to desist from dumping garbage into drains, indiscriminate littering, and ensuring that their environs are always clean.

Dr. Dasmani further donated One Hundred pieces of nose mask to the Richshaw drivers as part of measures to ensure public safety to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Could remnants of DNA from a now extinct human subspecies known as the Denisovans help boost the immune functions of modern humans?

An international study co-led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, and published in the scientific journal PLOS Genetics, represents the first characterizations of genes in the DNA of healthy individuals from geographically and genetically distinct populations in Indonesia.

Scientists studied genomic diversity among 116 individuals from three Indonesian populations: the Mentawai on the west coast of Sumatra; the Sumba in central Indonesia; and the Korowai, a group of hunter-gatherers from the western side of the isle of New Guinea.

The Korowai are of particular interest, as their DNA holds the world's last remaining significant remnants of genetic codeas much as 5%from a cousin of modern humans called the Denisovans, the study says. Like the better-known Neanderthals of Europe, the Denisovans of Asia also are an extinct human subspecies who lived tens of thousands of years ago. And just as Neanderthals passed on certain immune properties to those of European ancestry, the Denisovans may have passed on protective immune genes to their southeast Asian decedents.

"Genome sequencing efforts have mainly focused on populations of European descent," said Dr. Heini Natri, a TGen postdoctoral fellow and one of the lead authors of the study. "Most of the world is deeply understudied. As we move further into the age of personalized and genomic medicine, understanding how genetics drives disease-risk across diverse populations is crucially important."

Why study Indonesia?

Spread across more than 17,000 islands between mainland Asia and Australia, Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago. Geographically as large as the U.S. or Europe, Indonesia's 273 million inhabitants make it the world's fourth most populous nation, after China, India and the U.S. And yet, Indonesia has been largely excluded from the genomics sequencing boom of the past decade, and there previously have been no analyses of diversity in gene regulation in either Indonesia or the other island nations of southeast Asia.

"This lack of information from Indonesia is alarming as it is an epicenter of infectious disease diversity, such as malaria and other emerging tropical diseases," Dr. Natri said. "Immune pressure from infectious diseases are responsible for some of the strongest selective forces on humans throughout our species' evolutionary history, and Indonesia offers unique advantages for studying responses to these diseases."

Because of Indonesia's island environment, its many isolated villages and the relatively low population density on most of its nearly 6,000 inhabited islands, the study suggests there is low genetic diversity among those who live on each island, and even in each village, but also high genetic diversity among people from island to island, "making it a near unique study system for examining gene-by-environment interactions," the study said.

Scientists focus on immune properties of ancient human DNA

Dr. Nicholas Banovich, an Assistant Professor in TGen's Integrated Cancer Genomics Division, a human geneticist, and a senior author of this PLOS Genetics paper, said the study's results highlight genes involved in the function of immune cells. This suggests a potentially adaptive response to local environmental pressures, including pressures from various tropical diseases.

"One of the unique aspects of Indonesia is individuals on the island of New Guinea have high remnants of DNA from one of our extinct ancestors, the Denisovans," Dr. Banovich said. "We found these remnants of ancient DNA are driving changes in genes involved in immune function. This study demonstrates the power of including understudied populations in an effort to increase the overall understanding of human genetics."

The international team is continuing its study, integrating more genetic data, exploring patterns of local ancestry and how archaic human genes are imbedded in modern-day populations.

"We are now attempting to pinpoint individual genetic changesin particular, those that are carried over in these remnant DNA fragments from Denisovanswhich regulate how much or how little a gene is turned on, and how these genetic changes may shape immune response," Dr. Natri said.

Explore further Ancient DNA reveals new branches of the Denisovan family tree

More information: Heini M. Natri et al, Genome-wide DNA methylation and gene expression patterns reflect genetic ancestry and environmental differences across the Indonesian archipelago, PLOS Genetics (2020). Journal information: PLoS Genetics Heini M. Natri et al, Genome-wide DNA methylation and gene expression patterns reflect genetic ancestry and environmental differences across the Indonesian archipelago,(2020). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1008749
Tens of thousands of people joined a second round of protests in Auckland and Wellington on June 14 in solidarity with the mass movement in the United States against the killing of George Floyd and police racism and violence more broadly.

In Wellington, as many as 20,000 people marched from Civic Square to parliament. Thousands more gathered at Aotea Square in Auckland and then marched to the US consulate, where they observed two minutes of silence for George Floyd. About 250 people also rallied in Dunedin.

Demonstrators were of all ages and they included white people, Maori, Pacific Islanders and immigrants from Asia, the US and Africa. They held home-made placards and chanted slogans including No Justice, No Peace, Black Lives Matter, I cant breathe, and No armed police.

Part of the protest in Wellington

Expressing widely-held sentiments, one protester, Beth, commented on a Wellington Facebook page that she was attending to say that, yes the system of racism is prevalent throughout the world. Everyone deserves a fair shot at life. As we are born into this world, none of us ask to be treated differently If you cant start to stand up for the well-being of your fellow beings now, then when?

The protests reflect the growing movement to the left by workers and young people. They follow mass demonstrations last year against inaction on climate change, and nationwide strikes by healthcare workers and teachers.

It is not accidental that global protests against police violence have erupted during the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed the ruling elites indifference to the deaths and suffering of working people. While New Zealand has avoided the horrific toll seen in other countries, unemployment and social inequality are soaring.

Earlier rallies, held on June 1, were criticised by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the pretext that they breached coronavirus social-distancing rules. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, from the right-wing nationalist NZ First Party, said organisers should have been prosecuted. The Australian government has also threatened protesters with mass arrests.

Having lifted its COVID-19 restrictions, the Ardern government is seeking to defuse and contain the protests by feigning support. Faced with widespread opposition, police have backed away, for the time being, from a plan to introduce new armed units across the country.

Justice Minister Andrew Little told demonstrators outside parliament: When well over half of the men in our prisons are Maori, when nearly two-thirds of women in our prisons are Maori, that tells you there is something wrong with the system.

The prison population, in fact, has fallen only slightly under the Labour Party-Greens-NZ First coalition government, from 10,280 to 9,489. Littles own ministry is projecting this will increase to 11,400 by 2029.

Prisons are severely overcrowded. Radio NZ reported that during New Zealands COVID-19 lockdown several prisons locked inmates in their cells 23 hours a day. Officials said this inhumane treatment was the only way to ensure social distancing.

The government has recruited an extra 1,800 frontline police officers, an increase of 20 percent compared with the 2016 figures. It has also expanded police training programs in working-class schools, and introduced anti-democratic anti-terror and censorship legislation.

Protest organisers, however, promoted illusions in reform, encouraging demonstrators to channel their anger into voting. Laura OConnell Rapira, from the liberal protest group ActionStation, appealed to Little and the Labour Party to follow through on your promise of justice transformation if re-elected.

In Auckland, Julia Whaipooti, from the group JustSpeak, told the rally: By design, colonial structures take power away from indigenous people and people of colour. Camille Nakhid, an Auckland University of Technology professor of social sciences, noted that Maori and Pacific Islanders, and other ethnic minorities, have higher rates of incarceration and are less likely to get the medicine we need.

Some speakers portrayed police violence as simply the product of racism that is supposedly rampant in the population. One speaker in Wellington called on protesters to recognise how you are part of the problem hold yourself accountable, recognise how you hold racism in your heart, how you hold anti-blackness in your heart.

These misguided conceptions are refuted by the massive international and multi-racial protests over the murder of George Floyd.

Racism undoubtedly plays a role in police brutality. However, the main reason Maori are over-represented in prisons, and as victims of police brutality, is that they are one of the most impoverished sections of the working class. Areas such as South Auckland, with large Maori and Pacific Island communities, have a larger and more heavily armed police presence compared with more affluent suburbs.

On Radio NZ today, Prime Minister Ardern described the murder of George Floyd as horrifying but once again refused to directly condemn police brutality in the US. She stated that New Zealand has always been a nation that stands against racism, discrimination and that kind of violence.

Asked what she would do in response to the protests, Ardern said her government will boost Maori representation in District Health Boards, the police and the broader justice system. This would help achieve what we all want--communities where people feel safer, she said.

Such changes to the ethnic mix within state institutions will do nothing to reduce police brutality or improve services for the working class, Maori and non-Maori. Last August, Police Minister Stuart Nash boasted that Maori currently make up around 13 percent of the Police workforce (Maori are 16.5 percent of NZs population). Diversity has increased in tandem with militarisation and a major increase in killings by officers.

For decades, Labour and National Party governments have sought to divide Maori from non-Maori workers through this type of race-based identity politics. A thin layer of Maori has been brought into the state bureaucracy, universities, businesses and the political establishment, while the vast majority remains mired in poverty.

Workers and young people who joined the weekends protests must oppose the attempts to use such divisive racialist politics to steer them behind the Labour Party or its ally, the Greens. These are the very parties that have boosted the police and military and formed a coalition with the NZ First Party, adopting its xenophobic and anti-immigrant policies.

In preparation for the struggles ahead, a campaign must be waged to unite workers, of every ethnicity and nationality, based on a socialist and internationalist program that represents their shared class interests.

The government is now presiding over rapidly rising social inequality, which is expected to reach levels unseen since the 1930s. Whoever wins the coming election will further strengthen the armed forces of the state in preparation to suppress mass opposition to poverty and militarism.
Texas Southern Universitys Thurgood Marshall School of Law is still working to meet key admissions standards, according to the American Bar Association.

The bar associations legal education and admissions council has requested that the school submit a report demonstrating compliance by Aug. 1 for review at a meeting later that month. If TSU does not demonstrate compliance, the school will be required to appear before the council again in November.

Joan R.M. Bullock, dean of the Thurgood Marshall School of Law, said the college is now working to demonstrate that its in compliance with published policies and procedures with its incoming August class and will report on the process to the ABA after the current admissions cycle concludes.

Im very confident in the steps that Ive taken and that we have policies and procedures in place that will not only encourage us in bringing in a strong class but making sure that we do, said Bullock, who arrived as TSUs dean of the law school last summer. Since then, she said she has worked to ensure procedures are recorded and understood by law school staff.

On HoustonChronicle.com: TSU law school still out of compliance with admissions, bar association says

Three years ago, the historically black law school was publicly censured, required to pay a fine and mandated to provide the bar a plan of action toward compliance with accreditation standards. The ABAs May report concluded that TSU still hasnt demonstrated adherence to sound admissions policies and practices, but has proved compliance with other standards that were formerly in review, including admitting students who appear capable of satisfactorily completing its program of legal education and being admitted to the bar.

So far, everything is working very well, Bullock said, but theres still more work to do.

The final standard that needs to be met ties into some of the controversy at the law school that Bullock said she immediately addressed when she took the job last July.

An ongoing investigation ordered by the schools board of regents found fraudulent and dishonest activities occurred in the law schools admissions process. Four students who applied to TSUs law school paid the former assistant dean of admissions of the law school more than $100,000 in return for scholarships and acceptance to the school, according to an auditors report.

Two other students agreed to give more than $18,000 to the assistant dean, but he was fired before they could pay him, according to the report.

Bullock stated in a letter to the ABA in November that she fired the former assistant dean and engaged the colleges Office of Internal Audit.

The parents of one student sold their vehicle for $10,000 to pay the same administrator, the report alleged. Nearly $13,500 in cashier checks and money orders, designated for a law school program, was also found under the assistant deans desk calendar, according to the report.

What the ABA wants to ensure is there are no other opportunities for that to happen again  such that we can start fresh and have procedures that we can all be proud of, Bullock said.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas Southern to host public visitation, memorial service for Dr. Thomas Freeman

The protests about police brutality following the May 25 death of George Floyd, who grew up in Houstons Third Ward, have further affirmed the need for the historically black law school, which aims to provide a quality legal education to black students who are often unwelcome or met with hostility within the legal system, Bullock said.

Thurgood Marshall School of Law is a special law school  special in how its been created  and with whats been going on recently, a school like Thurgood Marshall still needs to be in place, Bullock said.

Bullock said TSUs law school gives an opportunity for students to see that enough is enough, and that the law and culture needs to be changed.

It just really affirms to me that Im in the right place and its the right time, and the school being brought into compliance, its important, Bullock said. It allows the school to continue to educate and to change laws to make this country a better place and a true democracy.

brittany.britto@chron.com
A student passes by Konkuk University campus in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap



Konkuk University decides to offer partial refunds



By Bahk Eun-ji



Konkuk University's latest decision to offer partial tuition refunds is putting other schools under pressure over whether to follow suit. Many universities have consistently refused to do so, despite growing calls from their students, according to school officials Monday.



Konkuk University said Monday it will offer students a partial tuition refund, becoming the first university to do so, as its students have been demanding compensation or the chance to retake their courses at no further cost. Classes have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.



The school's tuition committee, which includes university officials and student council members, has decided to reduce the tuition fee for the second semester for its 15,000 students. The committee has met 19 times since early April to reach that decision. The decided method dictates the amount of tuition that has to be paid in accordance with the ratio agreed upon by the two sides as indicated on the tuition bill.



"Since it is a special situation due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we decided that it is inevitable for schools to reduce tuition fees in part within available financial resources," an official of Konkuk University said. "School officials and students of the committee are in last-minute negotiations over the reduction rate, and it is expected to be decided sometime within this week."



Konkuk is the first university to reduce the amount of tuition fees since the virus pandemic impacted educational institutes. So far, universities have responded to requests for tuition refunds by organizing additional resources or by offering "special scholarships" secured through fundraising by faculty and students.



Most universities here postponed the start of the spring semester by one or two weeks and even though they resumed classes, many have been replacing on-campus classes with online ones due to the continued COVID-19 outbreak.



However, the comparatively lower quality of online classes led more students to demand tuition refunds, and a network of 27 university student councils held a number of news conferences across the country since March. According to the association, 83.8 percent of respondents said universities should refund part of their school tuition for the delay in opening as compensation for the period they replace offline lectures with online ones, citing its survey of 12,213 members nationwide for five days from Feb. 28.



Universities have claimed that they still have to pay fixed expenses such as labor and facility maintenance although they have stopped providing on-campus lectures. They said they cannot afford to return tuition fees due to financial deterioration such as a decreasing number of international students, expenses for quarantine work on campus, establishment of remote class infrastructure and operation of facilities such as dormitories and restaurants.



But other universities seem to be struggling with the decision to reduce tuition fees.



"Most universities find it difficult to refund tuition fees for the first semester, except for some universities considering returning a certain amount of money to students in the form of special scholarships," an official of a university in Seoul said on condition of anonymity.



"Even though we have provided online classes for the spring semester, universities also spent a lot of money, including quarantine costs caused by the virus outbreak and facility costs for the remote classes. In addition, tuition fees have been frozen for the last 10 years, so the university's finances are not sufficient," he said.



Regarding Konkuk University's tuition refund plan, an official from the Ministry of Education said, "It is a matter for the university to decide on its own."



The official then said the education ministry is aware that there are many objections from universities to refunding tuition fees because they have been financially struggling.


The first fast radio burst to be discovered in the Milky Way has been traced back to a magnetar  a neutron star with a strong magnetic field  32,616 light-years away.

Fast radio bursts are mysterious, brief pulses of energy whose origins have long been unclear but are used to probe the space across which they travel to Earth.

The magnetar  'SGR 1935+2154'  is the closest source of a burst detected to date, with the next nearest being some 490 million light-years away in another galaxy.

Analysis of the burst  detected by telescopes in Canada and the US in April  may help experts better understand the origin of these powerful phenomena.

However, the signal from SGR 1935+2154 was far less powerful than those from other galaxies, leading experts to suggest magnetars may not be their only source.

The first fast radio burst found in the Milky Way has been traced to a magnetar  a neutron star with a strong magnetic field, pictured in this artist's impression  32,616 light-years away

Astrophysicists have long speculated that fast radio bursts  which would need all the energy released by our Sun over eight decades to form  might originate from magnetars, but the link has been challenging to establish conclusively.

'I wouldnt say its the nail in the coffin that weve figured out that fast radio bursts come from magnetars,' astronomer Emily Petroff of the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, told Nature.

'But its by far the most promising piece of evidence that weve found,' she added.

Magnetars  spinning remnants of some supernova explosions  are extremely dense and are surrounded by extremely powerful magnetic fields that occasionally release radiation, typically in the form of gamma and X-rays, as they decay.

Experts have speculated that magnetars have vast energy reserves that might be able to power fast radio bursts, which could be released from the star's surface directly  in the form of a so-called 'starquake'  or the magnetised surroundings.

A bout of activity was detected from SGR 1935+2154  one of 30 known magnetars in our galaxy  on April 27, 2020, with various satellites including NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detecting streams of gamma rays from the star.

The following day, astronomers at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) in Penticton, British Columbia, detected a huge radio flash from the region of the sky where SGR 1935+2154 lies.

The team had only expected to pick up faint radio pulses, University of Toronto astronomer Paul Scholz told Nature.

Instead, he added, 'we got something much more exciting.'

A bout of activity was detected from SGR 1935+2154 on April 27, 2020, with various satellites including NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detecting streams of gamma rays. The following day, the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) in Penticton, British Columbia (pictured) detected a huge radio flash from the same region of the sky

In the United States, meanwhile, the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (or 'STARE2', for short) succeeded in detecting the radio pulse full-on.

STARE2  which is based at sites in both California and Utah  makes use of low-tech radio antennas to scan the sky.

'I was so excited that it took me a little bit of time to open up the data and inspect it, to make sure it was real,' STARE2 researcher Chris Bochenek of the California Institute of Technology told Nature.

Further analysis of the radio burst  and the simultaneous emissions of other wavelengths of light, such as X-rays, during the event  may help experts better understand the origins of magnetars.

In the United States, the Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (or 'STARE2', for short) succeeded in detecting the radio pulse full-on. STARE2  which is based at sites in both California and Utah  makes use of low-tech radio antennas, one of which is pictured

In fact, this is the first time that astronomers have detected other emissions accompanying fast radio bursts  a feat perhaps only possible because SGR 1935+2154 is so much closer to Earth than the other magnetars studied.

It is also possible, Dr Petroff told Nature, that not all fast radio bursts are generated by magnetars.

Some of the bursts detected from distant galaxies, for example, appear to repeat at intervals that would be hard to reconcile with a magnetar source.

Furthermore, the fast radio burst detected in April was around 1,000 times less energetic than its counterparts from outside of the Milky Way.

Researchers are interested in fast radio bursts not only insofar as their origins are mysterious, but also because they can help us learn more about the parts of the universe they travel through before they reach Earth.

'Each serves as a kind of backlight shining through all the material between us and the source,' says astronomer Jason Hessels, also of the University of Amsterdam.

'Scientists have recently started to use that information to map the distribution of matter in the Universe,' he added.

'Theres an exciting future to the field, even if this is more or less the answer to where the bursts are coming from.'

Pre-prints of the various research teams' articles, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, can be read on the arXiv repository.
June 15 : Controversial Queen Of Bollywood, Actress Kangana Ranaut just took to her social media profile and said that the industry treated actor Sushant Singh Rajput unfairly.

The young actor Sushant Singh was found dead at his Mumbai apartment on Sunday, at the age of 34. His last rites took place in Mumbai.

Kangana Ranaut dropped the video on her social media. She captioned it, PSA - It is important to give talent their due. And if celebrities are struggling with personal and mental health issues, the media should try and emphasize with them, rather than making it difficult for them!

In the video Kangana is seen saying, How can a person whod scored a scholarship to Stanford University be mentally weak? Why wasnt his debut performance in Kai Po Che acknowledged? Why did a terrible film like Gully Boy win all the awards when a spectacular movie like Chhichhore was ignored? Why have these people not acknowledged my work, and the superhit films Ive directed?

Kangana then steered the speech towards herself, and pointed fingers at the lapdog journalists whod been writing blind items against Sushant and making him out to be an uncontrollable actor. She said that the same people who wrote about Sushants alleged drug use find Sanjay Dutts addiction cute.

Kangana said that the same people who write these reports have been texting her, asking if she isnt having similar thoughts. Why are these people trying to put these ideas in my head? Kangana demanded. Was (Sushants death) a suicide or a planned murder? she speculated. Sushants only fault is that he believed them when they called him worthless. He didnt remember what his mother told him. It is up to us now to decide who will write the history, she concluded.

Sushant was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others. The actor was to appear in Dil Bechara, a remake of The Fault in our Stars.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
This World Sickle Cell Day (observed every year on June 19), find new stories and resources about sickle cell disease!

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder that causes sickle shaped red blood cells that can stick together, blocking blood flow and oxygen from reaching all parts of the body. People with SCD can experience pain, anemia, infection, and other serious health problems (also known as complications) that may require care by a healthcare provider. When health problems, such as serious pain (also known as pain crises), cannot be managed at home or a visit to a healthcare provider is not possible, children and adults with SCD often require care in hospital emergency departments (ED) or clinics for treatment. In fact, the Sickle Cell Data Collection (SCDC) program (CDCs current SCD monitoring project) found that, in California, people with SCD seek care in the ED an average of three times a year from their late teens to their late 50s.

Read personal stories from two women whose lives changed forever due to sickle cell disease.

Lametra Scott (and her son Rickey)

In September 2012, Lametra Scott gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Rickey. Before his birth, Lametra had no idea that she carried the sickle cell trait (SCT). It wasnt until one of her prenatal visits that her doctor told her that she and her sons father both had SCT, and that their son would have a 25% (or 1 in 4) chance of having sickle cell disease (SCD).

When Rickey was born, his primary care doctor tested him for SCD; Lametra was comforted to learn that he did not have the disease. Instead, she was told that he carried the trait for SCD just like his parents. She and her sons father immediately breathed a sigh of relief. However, this comforting feeling did not last long.

Read the rest of Lametras story to find out why.

Aaron Washington

Having sickle cell disease nearly killed Aaron. She experienced one devastating medical complication after another. She had her first episode of pain, called a sickle cell crisis, at 8 months old and her first stroke at 8 years old. Her doctors told her she would not live to see her 13th birthday. Today at age 25, thanks to a successful bone marrow transplant, Aaron is defying all the odds.

Read her inspirational story.
When costs rise, most food companies adjust. Safe, fair, and sustainable business practices are typically a priority. Regrettably though, it is not always the case. Several food science experts believe an increase in food fraud is inevitable due to COVID-19. The Food Authenticity Network Advisory Board, which includes over 1,500 food science experts from around the world, met earlier this month. Given the disruption in global supply chains caused by COVID-19 and the decrease in the level of surveillance, an increase in the number of cases of food fraud, according to the group, is more than likely.

There already have been reported cases. Several packages containing counterfeit food products were seized during a recent investigation in the European Union. Packages came from Brazil, China and Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden and Great Britain. Substitution of ingredients, counterfeiting, incorrect labelling were included.

With physical distancing and unprecedented health measures, the food chain has been challenged since the beginning of the pandemic. The obvious objective is to protect workers. From farm to table, each company participating in the food chain has seen its operating costs increase. No company has been immune to this. This is essentially why food prices will go up. But some companies, albeit a minority of them, will try to remain competitive by not following well-established rules.

Indeed, each recession brings its share of criminals and food fraudsters, who are motivated by the desire for economic gains. COVID-19 is no exception, and is an ideal scenario for criminals. Above all, most of the regions of the world are facing extreme economic slowdowns due to COVID-19. Businesses may be tempted to take short cuts or turn a blind eye to things that may not seem entirely right.

The context is ideal for fraudsters. Many consumers, financially challenged by our faltering economy, will become full-time bargain hunters. Now that buying locally is more popular than ever, the number of products whose provenance has been tampered with may also increase. Consumers need to ask the right questions and monitor prices. For example, ask your retailer if their suppliers have been audited recently since the start of the pandemic. Audits are quite common practice in normal times, but the pandemic may have disrupted the schedule of several companies.

The product categories most often affected by food fraud are oils, fish, seafood, and meat products. Spices and liquids are also highly targeted when the market contracts. Honey, fruit juice, organic food products are also often affected by fraud during an economic crisis. We must, therefore, be vigilant. And if you suspect something, you can report a food safety or labelling incident to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which now has a generous budget to combat fraud.

Finally, without being illegal, the reduction of the quantity sold per item without changing the price is another phenomenon to watch. Well known as shrinkflation, you risk seeing the quantity of several products decrease without the price changing. For example, instead of getting 500 grams of a product, you get 400 grams of the same product, without lowering the price. There is a resurgence of cases like these when costs increase.

Food fraud has been around for thousands of years. With better detection technologies and with greater surveillance practices, we can protect ourselves. Governments are on the lookout, and consumers must be, too.
Bhubaneswar, June 15 : In a shocking incident, a 70-year-old elderly woman had to drag her 100-year-old bedridden mother on a cot to the nearby bank to withdraw pension money of Rs 1,500.

The incident came to light after a video of the woman dragging her bedridden mother on a cot to a bank in Odisha's Nuapada district went viral on social media.

The woman from Bargaon village dragged her mother on the cot after the bank official allegedly asked for physical verification. The incident took place on June 9.

"I went to the bank several times in last three months and requested the bank official to release the pension amount. However, the official informed that they would release the pension if I bring my mother to the branch," said Punjimati Dei.

Bank manager Ajit Pradhan allegedly asked Dei to bring her bedridden mother Labhe Baghel to the bank.

Her mother is an account holder under Jan Dhan Yojana of the Central government.

The Centre had announced Rs 500 monthly assistance for women Jan Dhan bank account holders from April to June in view of the COVID-19 situation.

A district administration official informed that the woman reached the bank with her mother before the manager could visit her home for the verification.
Drug major Sun Pharmaceutical Industries on Monday said that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries and Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC (Hikma) have entered into an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement for plaque psoriasis medicine, Ilumya, for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Sun Pharma, however, did not disclose the financial details of the agreement.

ILUMYA (tildrakizumab) is an US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved monoclonal antibody used for the treatment of adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy.

As per the licensing agreement, Hikma will be responsible for the registration and commercialisation of the product in all MENA markets and Sun Pharma will be responsible for product supply.

"Sun Pharma is eligible for upfront and milestone payments from Hikma," the drug maker said in a press release.

The term of this agreement is 15 years from first sale, with two years' automatic renewal periods, it added.

Commenting on the development, Aalok Shanghvi, Senior Vice President - Emerging Markets, Sun Pharma said, "We are pleased to partner with Hikma to offer ILUMYA to patients in the MENA region. Hikma's strong presence in the MENA region will enable access to a new treatment option for people who are unable to manage their moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis."

The US FDA approved ILUMYA in 2018 based on data from the pivotal phase-3 reSURFACE clinical development program. It has also been approved in Australia, and in Europe under the brand name ILUMETRI.

Boosted by the development, shares of Sun Pharma rose as much as 1.92 per cent to hit an intraday high of Rs 489.05 against previous closing price of Rs 479.80 on the BSE.
20 soldiers, 40 civilians killed in Nigeria attacks

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 4:54 AM

At least 20 soldiers and more than 40 civilians have been killed in two separate militant attacks in northeastern Nigeria.

The attacks took place in the Monguno and Nganzai areas in northeastern Borno State on Saturday.

Eyewitnesses said militants armed with heavy weaponry, including rocket launchers, overran government forces in Monguno in the late morning hours, killing at least 20 soldiers and roaming the area for three hours. Hundreds of civilians were injured in the crossfire.

The local police station and the United Nations (UN)'s humanitarian hub in the area were set on fire in the attack.

The militants distributed leaflets among the residents warning them not to cooperate with security forces and international aid workers.

Another group of militants raided Nganzai also in the late morning hours. They arrived on motorcycles and in pickup trucks and killed more than 40 residents.

It was not immediately clear what group or groups of militants were responsible for the two attacks.

The new attacks came just days the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group killed at least 69 people in a raid on a village in Gubio.

Boko Haram and its offshoot, the so-called West Africa Province (ISWAP), have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more in the northeastern areas of Nigeria.

The violence has spilled over into the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.

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Here are todays top news, analysis and opinion. Know all about the latest news and other news updates from Hindustan Times.

Southwest monsoon has advanced further, rains to continue in at least 4 states: IMD

Southwest monsoon has further advanced into some more parts of the north Arabian Sea, Gujarat, Diu, some more parts of Madhya Pradesh, remaining parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar and some parts of east Uttar Pradesh, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday. Read more

Increase Covid-19 testing capacity, Delhi govt orders labs

The Delhi government on Monday ordered private and government laboratories to work at full capacity and increase their scale of testing for Covid-19, according to ANI. According to the order, private labs will have to give results within 48 hours. Read more

60-year-old man is Chandigarhs sixth Covid-19 casualty; citys positive case count reaches 355

A 60-year-old man from Bapu Dham colony, who was admitted at the Government Multi Specialty Hospital in Sector 16 on June 12, died of Covid-19 on Monday. He is the citys sixth Covid-19 fatality. The citys positive case count is 355 out of which 54 are active cases. Read more

Cant forget those at home: UKs loneliness minister on writing letters

The UKs minister for loneliness - described as the worlds first such minister - on Monday asked people to consider writing to the lonely amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.The portfolio was created by former Prime Minister Theresa May, when she appointed the first such minister in January 2018. Read more

Virat Kohli has won nothing as a leader: Gautam Gambhir

When it comes to achieving personal milestones, India captain Virat Kohli has achieved plenty. The right-hander has registered 27 Test hundreds, and 43 ODI hundreds. He has scored over 11000 runs in the ODIs, and many believe Kohli could be the one to reach or surpass Sachin Tendulkars feat of 100 international centuries. Read more

Bollywood is not a family: Gulshan Devaiah reacts to industry turning its back on Sushant Singh Rajput

Actor Gulshan Devaiah has rejected the theory that Bollywood is a family. He was reacting to a statement by actor Meera Chopra, in which shed apologised on behalf of the film industry for not standing by Sushant Singh Rajput. Read more

Watch | Rifle in one hand, milk packet in the other: RPF constables humane gesture to help distressed mother

A video of Railway Police Force (RPF) constable Inder Singh Yadav running after a Shramik Special train to help a distressed mother went viral, and showed that heroes are all around us. As a father of two daughters, I couldnt see a parent in pain, Yadav says. Read more

Video of kids enjoying on makeshift seesaw in Madhya Pradesh village wins praise. Watch

When it comes to resourcefulness, these kids in a village in Madhya Pradesh deserve full marks. A video shows these children having a gala time on a makeshift seesaw they put together using just two logs. Their video is winning them a ton of praise on Twitter. Read more

Watch| Dragged me from Indian side: Bihar man recounts Nepal firing incident
The remote Shetland Islands have joined the space race renaissance after the first suborbital launch from the archipelago.

A 6.5ft (2m) rocket called Skylark Nano blasted off from Fethaland Peninsula on Shetland's Mainland and reached an altitude of around 20,000 ft (6km).

Rocket firm Skyrora, based in Edinburgh, performed the launch on Saturday.

The fledgling rocket start-up hopes to use a Scottish spaceport to send commercial orbital missions into space by 2022.

A 6.5ft (2m) rocket called Skylark Nano blasted off from Fethaland Peninsula on the mainland of Shetland and reached an altitude of around 20,000 feet (6km) on Saturday

Skyrora says the launch was purely for educational purposes, to help the firm plan for future missions that may launch from northern Scotland.

The Shetland site is one of three proposed spaceports in Scotland.

Nano provides experts with valuable data to help improve their larger launch vehicles.

The firm has previously had successes, with Nano's first launch occurring in Ross-shire, Scottish Highlands in summer 2018.

Skyrora says the launch was purely for educational purposes to help the firm plan for future missions that may take off from the site. Nano also provides valuable data that Skyrora will use to further improve their larger launch vehicles

The firm has previously had successes, with Nano's first launch occurring in Ross-shire, Scottish Highlands in summer 2018. Another milestone was successfully reached last month when the company performed a full static fire test on their Skylark-L launch vehicle

Skyrora XL is a three-stage rocket which the British rocket scientists hope will take satellites and place them into sun-synchronous orbit up to 620 miles above Earth. It is 11 times longer than the Nano at 75ft (22.7m)

45million spaceport WILL be built in Scottish Highlands The UK Space Agency in partnership with Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and Highland and Island's Enterprise (HIE) put forward a plan to create a launch site for rockets to carry micro-satellites in 2018. Their plan to build a vertical launch site on the Melness Crofting Estate, on the A'Mhoine peninsula of the Scottish Highlands beat competing bids from other remote Scottish regions for the launch site, which would propel the micro-satellites into low orbit as early as 2021. However, following rumours of secret deals and strong-arm tactics, many in the remote coastal community of around 150 crofters and farmers opposed the plan. Advertisement

Another milestone was successfully reached last month when the company performed a full static fire test on their Skylark-L launch vehicle.

Robin Hague, head of the latest success, said: 'The launch signifies a vital step towards Skyrora's ambitions to become the UK's 'go-to' satellite launch provider.

'We're ecstatic and truly proud. This is a great success for Skylark Nano, and the Skyrora team in general.

'Launching from Shetland is very important for us because it's a potential option for our Skyrora XL orbital commercial launch vehicle.'

Skyrora XL is a three-stage rocket which the British rocket scientists hope will carry satellites into sun-synchronous orbit up to 620 miles above Earth.

It is 11 times longer than the Nano at 75ft (22.7m) and engineers hope it will be able to carry payloads of up to 700lbs (315kg).

Scotland is currently deciding where to locate its spaceport, and Shetland is one of the potential landing spots.

By launching here, Skyrora gathered vital data on launch conditions on the islands north of mainland Britain.

'To understand the local launch conditions, learning more about the wind profiles in Shetland is critical,' Mr Hague says.

'Skylark Nano's third successive launch is testament to the engineers who have worked tirelessly to bring to life a reusable rocket that can provide valuable intelligence for the future of the UK space programme.'

Volodymyr Levykin, Skyrora CEO, adds: 'With this successful launch from Shetland we are further closing the gap to making the UK a rocket launching nation again.'
Actor Rhea Chakraborty was seen at the Dr. R. N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai on Monday afternoon. This is where late actor Sushant Singh Rajputs body was taken for postmortem on Sunday evening.

Sushant died on Sunday by suicide. The Mumbai Police has revealed that the provisional cause of death was asphyxia due to hanging.

Rhea and Sushant were rumoured to be dating. She has not yet reacted to the news of his death publicly. She was seen wearing a mask at the hospital and had covered her head with a white dupatta.

Rhea at the hospital. (Varinder Chawla)

Rhea at the hospital. (Varinder Chawla)

Neither Rhea nor Sushant ever confirmed their relationship status. They were often seen on dinner dates and even went on holidays together. When asked in an interview if he was seeing someone, Sushant had once said, Im seeing many. Oh, you mean it as a metaphor? Im not allowed to say. Its not that someone else is saying that Im not allowed to say it. I cannot allow myself to say anything.

The rest of Sushants family have also arrived in Mumbai from Bihar for his funeral. His last rites will take place on Monday at Pawan Hans crematorium in suburban Vile Parle, the actors spokesperson said.

Rajputs last screen appearance was Nitesh Tiwaris 2019 film Chhichhore, where he played the role of a father who conveys a message of hope and affirmation to his son who attempts to kill himself. And his last social media post, dedicated to his late mother who died in 2002 when he was a young teen, was on June 3.

Also read: Let Sushant Singh Rajput go in peace, Sonu Sood requests media; Anushka Sharma and Vikrant Massey call for sensitive coverage

Rajputs sudden death comes days after his former manager, 28-year-old Disha Salian, died by suicide on June 9. Its such devastating news. My deepest condolences to Dishas family and friends. May your soul rest in peace, he had said, mourning her death.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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A Chinese firm described as 'trying to hide' its ties to the Chinese Communist Party is set to be given the go ahead to build two hydroelectric power stations in Australia.

Goldwind Australia is part of Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, based in Beijing.

The company shipped medical supplies to China during the coronavirus outbreak and is now expected to be chosen to build two crucial power stations in the NSW Hunter Valley.

Daily Mail Australia understands the WaterNSW hydro-electric projects at Glennies Creek and Glenbawn Dam were deemed not profitable enough by the Australian bidders, with shortlisted companies AGL and Meridian dropping out of the race.

Glennies Creek Dam is the second hydro-electric project that Goldwind has been shortlisted for, in the NSW Hunter region. Australian firms could not compete, several have dropped out

Goldwind is listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges, but 40 per cent of its top ten investors are owned by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Conditions imposed by WaterNSW included that the company with the winning tender would have to hand back the hydro-electric project after 40 years and comply with government directives, such as not using water during drought.

This has raised questions about what is motivating the Chinese firm to invest.

NSW Labor Senator Deb O'Neill told the Senate on Monday she was 'deeply troubled' by the prospect of a major utility with access to critical NSW energy assets being owned by a company with major ties to a foreign power.

She asked how the company could be trusted with energy infrastructure when it had sent much-needed protective equipment to China during the pandemic.

'If they cannot be trusted with medical gloves and masks how can we expect them to act in Australia's interest with our dams and our power grid,' she said.

A model shows Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. Ltd. wind farms in China. Goldwind Australia is a part of the giant multinational firm, headquartered in Beijing

'What is even more troubling to me is Goldwind's desire to hide their ties with the ruling Chinese Party.'

A decision has not yet been made over the hydroelectric tenders, and any decision will be subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval.

A Goldwind spokesman told The Daily Telegraph the company took steps against the virus in China, Australia and elsewhere, including with 'reciprocal PPE assistance between our teams'.

The spokesman said the company had built several projects in Australia that had needed approval from the board, and that it had a clearly defined process.

The company has made big inroads into Australia's taxpayer-subsidised green energy sector.

Goldwind says on its website that it is now running four wind farms and two solar farms.

Chinese firm Goldwind is one of the world's biggest wind turbine generator manufacturers. It has built multiple wind farms in Australia where its turbines are installed

It has plans to build four more wind farms and another solar farm.

Four other projects are now under construction.

Goldwind secured loans from a banking consortium including the ANZ, Westpac and the Commercial Bank of China to install its turbines at the $300 million Cattle Hill wind farm near Lake Echo, Tasmania.

The company has a 20 percent stake in Cattle Hill with the other 80 percent owned by PowerChina, which is owned by the Chinese Government.

It also has another wind turbine project at Biala where it will install 31 of its turbines in the NSW Southern Tablelands.

Glenbawn Dam in the NSW Hunter region has been earmarked by WaterNSW for a hydro-electric project. Pictured: Lake Glenbawn

Goldwind is also building the Stockyard Hill wind farm in Victoria, with Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews launching the project in June 2018.

Said to be Australia's largest wind farm, Stockyard Hill will consist of 149 wind turbines made by the Chinese corporation.

The Victorian Premier said at the time it had been made possible 'thanks to the Andrews Labor Government winding back the former Liberal Government's anti-wind farm planning rules that almost killed off the clean energy sector'.

Wu Gang, chairman and founder of Xinjiang Goldwind at the Clean Energy Summit in Sydney in 2017. The firm now has four wind farms and two solar farms in Australia. It has plans to build four more wind farms and another solar farm, as well as having four under construction

Construction is nearly complete on another Victorian project for Goldwind at the Moorabool Wind Farm near Ballan in central western Victoria, which will install 107 wind turbines made by the Chinese firm.

Victoria is the only Australian state to have signed up to the controversial Belt and Road initiative, despite warnings from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and national security agencies.

Having signed the initial agreement in 2018, the Andrews Government significantly deepened it with a new agreement in October last year.

Critics fear China is using the trillion-dollar Belt and Road, which provides loans and investment in infrastructure projects from the Chinese government, to buy undue influence through debt diplomacy across critical trade choke points around the world.
Precision genome editors can correct single-letter DNA mutations, which underlie thousands of diseases. Scientists hope to one day use these editors therapeutically. Credit: Fairman Studios, LLC

CRISPR has sparked a renaissance in genome editing. Now, next-generation CRISPR technologies let scientists modify the genome more efficiently and precisely than before. Such tools could one day serve as therapeutics, but many challenges remain.

During an unusually warm week in January, a hundred scientists from around the world converged in Palm Springs, California, to talk shop. The biologists, geneticists, and chemists came from start-ups and universities, and they had a lot to discuss. Their topic was the genomeor, more precisely, how to alter it.

It was the 1st International Conference on Base Editing, and the mood in the room was electric, says David Liu, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator at Harvard University. "The meeting was bustling, people were excited, and it was packed," he says.

In between talks, scientists ducked outside to eat lunch in the sunshine and share the latest in a field recently kindled and currently blazing. Just three and a half years earlier, Liu and colleagues published a paper describing the first "base editor," a tool with the promise of taking the genome editing technology CRISPR to the next level.

With base editors, scientists suddenly had a more efficient and precise way to modify the genome. Such editors could let scientists correct single-letter mutations in DNAthe kind of tiny genetic spelling errors that underlie thousands of human diseases, including sickle cell anemia.

"That was the breakthrough paper," says Reuben Harris, an HHMI Investigator at the University of Minnesota, who helped organize the January conference. "It triggered a landslide in this area." Today, scientists have published more than 300 papers on the technique, used in organisms ranging from bacteria to goats.

Now, the field is inching closer to the clinic. Within the last few months, Harris, Liu, and others have reported the kind of practical refinements needed before base editors are ready for therapeutic use.

Already, scientists have seen success in animals. A week and a half after the conference in Palm Springs, Liu jetted to another meeting, in Banff, Canada, called "Engineering the Genome." This time, he reported using base editors in mice to correct the genetic error behind progeriaa rare human condition characterized by rapid aging and early death. It's a long-term study that Liu's team and their collaborators at the National Institutes of Health and Vanderbilt University are still wrapping up. But he calls the results so far "incredibly exciting."

Credit: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

And this month, he and colleagues report performing a similar feat in mice with a genetic form of deafness. By injecting base editors into the animals' inner ears, the researchers partially restored hearing, Liu's team reports June 3, 2020, in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Still, many hurdles remain if genome editors are to be used in peopleincluding how to ensure precision, so they revise only where intended, and how to safely deliver them as treatments. Liu acknowledges the field's growth and its challenges. "We are at the fragile beginnings of this new era of human genome editing," he says.

How do base editors alter the genome?

To understand how base editors work, it helps to start with CRISPR.

The powerful genome editing technology burst onto the scene in 2012, offering scientists a newand simplerway to make targeted changes in DNA. Until then, scientists relied on clunkier tools. Engineered proteins, for example, like zinc-finger nucleases and TALENs, can edit the genome, but designing them can be costly and time-consuming.

With CRISPR, scientists don't need to create a whole new protein to edit a DNA target. Instead, they can simply generate a short strand of RNA. This "guide" RNA directs its partner, protein scissors called Cas9, to the desired spot. Then, Cas9 tethers itself to the DNA and snips both strands. It's a very efficient way to disrupt a gene, Liu says, because in most cells, cutting DNA leads to chunks of DNA being inserted or deleted at the target site.

CRISPR's potential captured his team's interest. Liu and his new postdoc at the time, Alexis Komor, thought they could harness the technology to do even moreto individually edit the four letters (A, T, G, and C) that make up DNA. "What fascinated me was whether we could make precise edits by doing chemistry on the genomewithout cutting the DNA."

Komor and Liu's 2016 breakthrough was linking a version of Cas9 with an enzyme able to rearrange atoms. The result was a hybrid protein, dubbed a cytosine base editor, that could park at specific points in the genome and convert one type of DNA letter into anotherC to T or G to A. One year later, Liu's team developed adenine base editors, which can switch A to G and T to C.

David Lius team engineered the first class of base editor, called a cytosine base editor, from three separate proteins. Credit: David Liu/Fairman Studios, LLC

Both classes of base editors fuse two powerful proteins to create an entirely new way to edit the genome, Harris says. "Putting [the base-modifying enzyme] together with Cas9 is sort of like whoever figured out how to put peanut butter together with chocolate," he says. "You come up with something that's even more unique than either alone."

DNA has four "letters." Can base editors swap any one letter for another?

Most base editors can make only certain kinds of swaps. But an even newer tool can do more. About seven months ago Liu's team introduced "prime editors," another technology to precisely edit the genome in human cells. Prime editors still rely on the DNA-binding ability of Cas9, but this time Liu and his postdoc Andrew Anzalone melded it with a different kind of enzymeone that can insert text directly into the genome.

If Cas9 is like molecular scissors, and base editors are pencils, then prime editors are molecular word processors, Liu says. They do a "search and replace," locating the stretch of DNA researchers want to target and trading the old letters for a stretch of new ones specified by the researcher.

His team has used prime editors to make every possible kind of DNA-letter swap in mammalian cells, in addition to inserting or deleting genomic text. Now, Liu says, "A good chunk of our lab is devoted to advancing prime and base editors to be maximally useful and maximally therapeutically relevant."

How do scientists envision using such precise genome editors?

If you ask Liu about the therapeutic potential of precision genome editors, he'll start giving you numbers.

There are more than 75,000 genetic mutations linked to human disease, he says. About half are single-letter DNA swaps. Two-thirds of those swaps are C to T, G to A, or the reverse. Those are exactly the kinds of genetic changes base editors can fix, Liu points out. Such genetic changes, called point mutations, underlie progeria as well as various metabolic disorders, certain causes of deafness and blindness, and hundreds of other genetic conditions. Prime editors offer even more flexibility because they can repair larger genetic glitches. The most common cause of cystic fibrosis, for example, is a small deletion of just three DNA letters.

Three distinct classes of genome editing agents are known to work in mammalian cells. Nucleases like Cas9 act like molecular scissors that cut DNA sequences selected by scientists. Base editors are like pencils, rewriting one DNA letter to another. And prime editors act like word processors, with a search and replace function that finds one DNA segment and swaps it for another. Credit: David Liu/Fairman Studios, LLC

It all adds up to two new technologies with promise for treating disease. In fact, along with nucleases like Cas9, Liu points out, base editors and prime editors represent the only classes of genome editors known to work in mammalian cells. Neither has made it to clinical trials yet, but with base editors, scientists have had time for some fine-tuning. Work in animals from scientists in academia and industry, Liu says, "has really helped pave the way for base editors' use in patients."

Currently, both base and prime editors are finding use in the labto modify genes in cultured cells, for example. And researchers working with plants could potentially use the tools to engineer certain traits, such as resistance to herbicides.

"Both base editing and prime editing are extremely important, especially for agriculture," says Caixia Gao, a plant geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences's Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology. Her group and Liu's team have now adapted prime editors for use in plants, the researchers reported on March 16, 2020, in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

What challenges remain before base editors are ready for therapeutic use?

In less than four years, base editors have leapfrogged from academic idea to potential therapeutic. But it could be many yearsif everbefore such a genetic medicine is ready for market, a fact that Beam Therapeutics, a biotech company Liu cofounded in 2018, pointed out before it went public in February. (The company recently announced preclinical data from its efforts to use base editors to treat sickle cell disease and alpha-1 antitrypsin liver and lung diseases.)

Last year, two groups of researchers from China waved a warning flag. In a pair of papers published in Science, the teams reported that in mouse embryos and rice, cytosine base editors were a little too active; they wielded their red pen more liberally than scientists intended.

Rather than sticking to DNA targets, these base editors sometimes rewrote the genome in unexpected places, says Gao, who led the work in rice. For human use, genome editing has to be just right"off-target editing" could potentially introduce harmful mutations. (Both papers gave adenine base editors a clean bill of health.)

"We were kind of shocked because we didn't expect to see such effects," Gao says. "We thought, 'here's this extremely important tool, and now we have to reconsider using it.'" Liu sent her an email right away, she remembers. "He said, 'this is a great paper.'"

There are more than 37,000 known point mutations linked to disease. Cytosine base editors could, in theory, correct about 14 percent of these mutations (C-G to T-A), and adenine base editors could potentially correct nearly half (A-T to G-C). Credit: David Liu/Fairman Studios, LLC

His team had anticipated the possibility of base editors gone rogue. Liu says the Science papers helped motivate him and others to go after a solution. "I think everyone in the base-editing community felt a responsibility to study and minimize the occurrence of off-target editing," he says.

In February, the researchers published a solution in Nature Biotechnology. They developed a rapid assay to detect the editing errors and created a new suite of cytosine base editors that make 10 to 100 times fewer mistakes. "We wanted to fix the problem," Liu says. The paper was one of a torrent scientists have recently published in the field. Other research groups have independently reported new base editors with very low or undetectable off-target activity. And Liu's team and others have continued to refine base editor technology.

Later that same month, for instance, Harris's team reported in the journal Life Science Alliance another way to achieve greater specificity with cytosine base editors. And Liu's group developed three new Cas9 variants that can target areas of the genome once inaccessible to editing. In June, two other research groups reported dual base editors that combine the DNA letter-swapping abilities of both adenine and cytosine base editors. And Liu's team has now tapped artificial intelligence to predict base editing outcomes, he and his colleagues report June 12, 2020, in the journal Cell.

Base editors still aren't perfect, Harris says. But he calls the spate of recent improvements "several steps in the right direction."

How could scientists eventually package base editors into a form people can use?

Most drugs are small molecules that can be packaged into a pill. Genome editors are large, complicated moleculesso scientists can't just stuff them into a pill for people to swallow, or inject them into people's bodies, Liu says. They have to find other ways to get the molecules into patients' cells.

One method relies on viruses, says Guangping Gao, a gene therapy researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and president of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. Scientists could potentially package genome editors into small viruses like adeno-associated viruses, for example. These viruses, which have already seen clinical use in several FDA-approved drugs, could then infect patients' cells and dump their payloads.

It could be that scientists will need to develop entirely different delivery systems. Researchers are currently experimenting with lipid nanoparticles and using electric fields to coax genome editors into cells that can then be transplanted into patients.

Delivery remains a major hurdle, Gao says, but he's still excited about genome editors' potential. "Gene therapy is now in its golden age," he says. And genome editors "open even more avenues for treating disease."

Explore further New machine learning model predicts which base editor performs best to repair thousands of disease-causing mutations
The Asian Tropopause Aerosol Layer (ATAL) is a thin layer of aerosol with a thickness of about 3-4 km, which appears regularly at the height of the tropopause layer during the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) period over the Tibetan Plateau. How is it formed? Where are aerosols from? From human activities or natural sources? There are questions in debate since the discovery of ATAL in 2011.

Drs. Jinqiang Zhang and Xue Wu from the Key Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with scientists from the CAS Aerospace Information Research Institute, conducted in situ observations using a balloon-borne portable optical particle counter (POPS), aiming to further understand the composition and sources of the ATAL. The observation campaigns were conducted in 2018 and 2019 at Golmud and Qaidam in Qinghai Province of China. Scientists are now preparing for 2020 summer campaign.

"If we would like to further understand the possible source regions of the observed aerosols, a Lagrangian particle dispersion model is the right tool to do the job," said WU.

They combined the observations with the simulation results from a Lagrangian model called MPTRAC and found that part of the aerosol in the ATAL was transported vertically from the Earth surface at the southwest of the Himalayas to the ATAL by the convection formed during the ASM season; while the majority of the aerosols could be transported from the upper troposphere to the tropopause layer via a spiral upward transport inside of the ASM anticyclone. So the composition of the aerosols in Southwest Asia in the boundary layer, as well as the aerosols in the upper troposphere may eventually influence the ATAL.

"The aerosols in the boundary layer are mostly pollution out of human activities, and the aerosols in the upper troposphere may also contain natural aerosols, like mineral dust and volcanic sulfate aerosols," said Wu.

In situ observations for multiple years are essential to studying the ATAL, and Zhang is now preparing a campaign in the 2020 summer.

###

Their study was recently published in Environmental Research Letters. Zhang is the first author and Wu is the correspondence author. It was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Mumbai, June 15 : Actor-comedian Vir Das says it is very convenient to put blame of death of a young person on depression, and shrug off ones own role in driving it.

Vir's comment comes as several unconfirmed reports claim that actor Sushant Singh Rajput was battling depression over the past few months, indicating that it drove him to take his own life.

"It's convenient to pass off the death of a young person as 'oh...depression'. That means you no longer have to own your systemic part in it. MOST people you know have suffered from depression at one point or another, even if they don't know it. How you treat people matters," Vir posted on his Twitter.

"It is hugely ironic to see journalists and media houses who relish, enjoy, and milk the failure of every project now write articles about mental health and positivity," he added.

Sushant was found hanging in his Bandra residence on Sunday morning by his domestic help. He was reportedly battling depression over the past few months and undergoing treatment for the same. His social media posts from the past couple of months reveal that he even tried yoga and meditation to battle his state of mind.

Vir took to social media to mourn the loss, while cherishing his legacy.

"Sushant Singh Rajput was a complete outsider who made it from background dancer to a movie star through hard work and talent. That's an amazing and unique true story. Take a moment to remember that above everything. For outsiders, actors struggling, for anyone. That's a legacy," Vir posted on Sunday.
Hartford, CT - 91% of LGBTQ adolescents in a US survey report at least one experience of bias-based bullying, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. This number is more than double estimates from previous studies with predominantly heterosexual youth.

By the time they reach middle school, sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescents are at heightened risk of suicide, depression, sleep troubles, and eating disorders. These health consequences often stem from the distress of being stigmatized for their sexual and gender identities. Based on this knowledge, researchers wanted to learn whether being mistreated for other reasons (such as their weight, race/ethnicity, religion, disability status) also contributes to their health.

"When considering approaches to reduce health risk, we need to better understand the wide range of bias-based bullying experienced by SGM adolescents," says Leah Lessard, postdoctoral fellow at the Rudd Center and lead author of the study. "Given that multiple forms of bias-based bullying can worsen negative health behaviors, it is critical to understand how school-based interventions, such as Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs), may be able to reduce targeted bullying."

The study reports findings from the LGBTQ National Teen Survey, a comprehensive survey conducted in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign to assess victimization, health behaviors, family relationships, and experiences of LGBTQ adolescents across the United States. Researchers asked participants ages 13-17 questions about school-based GSAs, their experiences of bias-based bullying, and health risk indicators, including stress, sleep problems, depression, and unhealthy weight behaviors.

Key findings include:

* 73% of SGM adolescents surveyed reported experiences of bias-based bullying for reasons beyond their sexual or gender identities, such as being bullied because of their body weight (57%), race/ethnicity (30%) and religion (27%).

* Each type of bullying was positively related to health risk, including depression, sleep problems, stress, and unhealthy weight control behaviors.

* The presence of a Gay Straight Alliance at school was associated with less bullying of students for their weight, gender, religion, disability, and sexuality.

Given these results, GSAs have positive implications for not only students facing LGBTQ-related bullying, but also for those who experience other types of bias-based bullying. By reducing rates of targeted victimization, these organizations may help lower the risk of unhealthy behaviors in vulnerable adolescents.

"The harmful effects and wide range of bias-based bullying experienced by SGM youth calls attention to the importance of promoting broad-reaching inclusion and acceptance within schools, " said Lessard. "Due to the breadth of stigma-reduction across multiple social identities, our results underscore GSAs as a promising avenue to support healthy outcomes for SGM youth."

These findings are particularly important as schools face new challenges in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As smartphones and social media usage increase, the possibility for bias-based cyberbullying does too. Educators and student leaders can host virtual GSA meetings and utilize online learning platforms to continue to foster social inclusion for adolescents at risk for victimization in the absence of in-person meetings.

###

Study co-authors include Leah Lessard, Rebecca Puhl, Ryan Watson of the University of Connecticut.
The former president of the Congress party is suddenly quite active again and it seems he is trying to accomplish something that he was unable to earlier. He had resigned from the party's top post last year following a drubbing in the general elections. These new efforts appear to be his exertion for regaining the throne. He has done some virtual press conferences and made some statements on the central government's preparation, or the lack of it, in handling the Covid-19 crisis. His supporters say that through a tweet in February, he had warned the government about the dangers of the novel coronavirus but it did not take his advice seriously.

Recently, he has started having virtual meetings with experts in various fields. First, he spoke with former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan. Then he had a conversation with Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee. Thereafter, he also chatted with public health experts Professor Ashish Jha from Harvard University and Professor Johan Giesecke of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Next in line was industrialist Rajiv Bajaj. And on June 12, the Congress leader invited university professor and former American diplomat Nicholas Burns.

This conversation between Burns and Gandhi was wider in a sense as they discussed the issues of tolerance, the political atmosphere of the United States and India, the post-Covid world order, the role of the Indian diaspora, the role of USA in international cooperation, the differences between authoritarian and democratic governments.

First, we need to understand the rationale behind Rahul Gandhi having these conversations. We all know that after assuming the Congress president's post, he presented himself as a leader who listens to and consults everyone. He was trying to portray an image in contrast to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's whom he was repeatedly blaming for not listening to anyone. Now, again he is bringing the same issues to the forefront, that he is open to ideas but the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership does not listen to anyone. There is no doubt that the BJP has its own explanations. But this is the strategy on which Rahul Gandhi has been working since the government's demonetisation move.

The second thing which we need to understand is how this strategy has worked so far. It hasn't. The BJP was successful in creating an image of a non-serious politician for Rahul even before he assumed the Congress presidentship. Some of his biggest political investments have gone wrong in a big way like the Rafale corruption narrative. His decisions on the appointment of chief ministers from his party, which came after much discussions, have not worked well. This gives the message that even if he is taking decisions after consultation, they have failed to favour his party.

In a time of crisis like Covid-19, his focus should have been on presenting a reliable governance model in the states where the Congress is in power with or without alliances. But instead of that, he is more concerned about highlighting the flaws of the government. He has not even acknowledged the role of his party in the Maharashtra government, the state that has been worst-hit by the pandemic.

Now let's analyse some of the prominent points from his conversation with Nicholas Burns. During the chat, he equated racial discrimination in the USA with religious discrimination in India. On all parameters, this is a wrong comparison. Burns, while criticising the policies of President Donald Trump, was defending the democratic institutions of India, but Gandhi could not do the same.

The Congress leader was trying to understand from Burns why the relationship between the US and India is more on a give-and-take basis instead of larger cooperation based on universal values. The question should be understood in terms of its formulation. He should have understood that these attitudes do not work anymore in international relations. His party has faced it many times. The relationship between two countries cannot be based on mere political philosophies. Philosophy can be a talking point but, in the 21st century, you need to have shared economic ties to keep your relationship alive.

Burns accepted that the US has ideological ties with China and discussed it at length. However, Rahul Gandhi failed to address anything on this issue and only responded that he does not want violence but cooperation. The interesting part is that at the end of the talk, Burns expressed how challenging it was to enforce and follow social distancing norms in the USA and motivate the youth to wear masks at public places. He also admired that India is following these norms in a better way, but Gandhi failed to acknowledge that.

In conclusion, Rahul Gandhi has to come out of this notion that he is a person who does not have any accountability to the nation. He is an MP from the Congress party and its former president as well. He wants to use the identities of a Congress leader and a common man at the same time which he can not. With all his failures, he is still the most reliable opposition face of the current political system. He needs to understand that his actions and thoughts are crucial as they represent the principal political opposition of India. If he declares the president of USA as authoritarian, he needs to understand that it will reflect on India-US relations in future.

In this renewed attempt, which is more on the digital platform, he is trying to present himself as a leader who is attempting to find answers to problems with experts who are acknowledged by Indian intellectuals. There is no doubt that this is a good attempt to portray himself as a person who is trying to understand challenges, but the issue is that he is not in academia nor is he working with a think tank. He is a politician and people are expecting a political alternative from him.

Rahul Gandhi needs to talk politically and should take political questions directly. He is not working in the media or academia. If he is interested in politics, he should start a political conversation in India. These digital conversations and consultations are good for his understanding but, by having them on a public platform, he is not doing any favours either to his guest or himself. His voters are suffering daily hardships, they have barely any time to watch these videos. He needs to understand that people who are appreciating his efforts are few in number and cannot help him regain the throne.

(The author is director of Center of Policy Research and Governance and tweets from @RamanandDelhi. Views expressed are personal.)
Trump did none of those things. Instead, he threatened to unleash combat troops against U.S. citizens and denounced governors and mayors who, in his telling, needed to crack down on radical anarchists from antifa, even though most protests were peaceful.
When the first instalment of Eoin Colfer's fantasy series Artemis Fowl came out in 2001, the author described it as "Die Hard with fairies". Kenneth Branagh, who has directed a long-awaited film adaptation for Disney, says he looked for inspiration to The Godfather.

"The story arc that inspired us was that of Michael Corleone  someone who is slowly introduced to the family business and then is faced with the question of whether he can do it well and whether he wants to take over," says Branagh.

"The difference is that instead of dealing in drugs and extortion  this wise guy's racket is stealing treasure from the fairy world. And that he's only 12."

Ferdia Shaw in a scene from Artemis Fowl Credit:Disney+

The eight Artemis Fowl books have sold 25 million copies. That translates into legions of fans, many of whom stormed the internet in a fury when the trailer for the new film revealed that Artemis Fowl, the sociopathic genius who calls himself a criminal mastermind, was apparently portrayed by young Irish actor Ferdia Shaw as an innocent.
UW in the News

State, national and international media frequently feature the University of Wyoming and members of its community in stories. Here is a summary of some of the recent coverage:

Oil City News was among media outlets publishing UWs release noting that the university is developing a process to deal with cuts -- which could be 20 percent -- to the block grant it receives from the state. This is in response to Gov. Mark Gordons call for state agencies to prepare for significant budget reductions this biennium. The Casper Star-Tribune (CS-T) published a similar article.

The UW Board of Trustees approved a roughly $25 million plan last week that would reopen campus to faculty and students in the fall semester, reported The Laramie Boomerang and CS-T. The plan includes social distancing, testing, mass use of face coverings and other changes to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Cowboy State Daily, SweetwaterNOW, Oil City News and Sheridan Media were among other media outlets announcing the plan.

The Boston Globe interviewed UW economist Linda Thunstrom about her widely published research on whether saving lives through social distancing is worth the economic costs. Inside the calculus of coronavirus risk: Everyday interactions bring about agonizing decisions was the title of The Globe piece.

In a series of related articles, UW economist Rob Godby told Cowboy State Daily that Wyomings coal, oil and natural gas producers are facing significant losses following the COVID-19 pandemic. Godby also commented on a follow-up Cowboy State Daily piece, titled Wyoming Oil Production Decline Catastrophic, Recovery Unlikely.

WIRED also quoted Godby for an article about how COVID-19 is adding to the rapid decline of coal production in Wyoming.

UW law Professor Michael Duff spoke with Law 360 on the current case of McDonalds workers suing the company under the public nuisance law. Duff said there is almost no case law available in which employees have tried to sue under a public nuisance theory because the fact-pattern that leads to such a suit hardly ever occurs.

Big Horn Radio Network published UWs release highlighting the research from UW and Western EcoSystems Technology indicating that mule deer are less likely to use their migration corridors if the land is disturbed. Science Magazine also published UWs release. The findings were published in the Journal of Wildlife Management.

Despite multiple mountain ranges, three major highways and ranges that span hundreds of miles, Wyomings pronghorn have little-to-no genetic differentiation, according to a UW study. UW doctoral student Melanie LaCava led the study, Big Horn Radio Network reported.

Environmental News Network and Bioengineer published UWs release noting the impacts of climate change on mule deer migration patterns. The study was led by a team of researchers working with lead author Ellen Aikens, a 2019 graduate of the Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at UW.

Christine Porter, a UW kinesiology and health associate professor, discussed with Wyoming Public Radio (WPR) that more COVID-19 deaths in Wyoming will be expected as the state reopens.

UWs Alumni Association is hosting a virtual 5K run to commemorate the associations first meeting 125 years ago. Oil City News and SweetwaterNOW published UWs release.

WPR interviewed recently elected Associated Students of UW (ASUW) President Riley Talamantes and Vice President Courtney Titus. WPR said the pair might be the first females to hold the two ASUW positions.

Scott Henkel, director of the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research at UW, spoke with WPR about the millennial generation.

The Cody Enterprise published UWs release noting the analyzation of social distancing research by Neely Mahapatra, an associate professor, and Sukyung Yoon, an assistant professor, both in the Division of Social Work.

Tennessee Watson, a WPR education reporter, was selected as a finalist by the Education Writers Association for her contribution to the audio documentary Students on the Move: Keeping Uprooted Kids in School.
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog on Monday called on Iran to allow "prompt access" to two sites where past nuclear activity may have occurred.

"I hope we can do better," Rafael Grossi, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters when asked about the agency's current relationship with Iran.

Grossi was speaking at the start of a meeting of the agency's Board of Governors which is expected to discuss a report earlier this month in which the IAEA expressed "serious concern" that Iran has been blocking inspections at two sites.

"There are areas where our cooperation is ongoing and there is this issue where quite clearly we are in disagreement," he said.

Grossi repeated an appeal to Iran to "cooperate immediately and fully" with the agency.

If the Board of Governors pass a resolution critical of Iran, it would be the first of its kind since 2012.

Even though the two sites in question are not thought to be directly relavent to Iran's current activities, the agency says it needs to know if activities going back almost two decades have been properly declared and all materials accounted for.

The report detailed efforts by the agency's officials to get access to the locations.

Iran told the agency the report was a source of "deep regret and disappointment" and hinted the queries were based on "fabricated information" from "intelligence services".

Israel has previously claimed its intelligence services unearthed information on an alleged previous nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

Grossi said that there were "no legal ambiguities" around the requests for access.

"The agency works on the basis of a very rigorous, dogged, meticulous technical and scientific analysis of information," he said, insisting: "Nothing is taken at face value."

Western states have voiced concern over Iran's denial of access to the sites concerned, with the United States being particularly vocal.

- Brink of collapse -

The latest row over access comes as a landmark deal between Iran and world powers in 2015 continues to unravel.

Under the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran committed to curtailing its nuclear activities for sanctions relief and other benefits.

But the Islamic republic has slowly abandoned its commitments after US President Donald Trump's decision two years ago to renounce the deal and reimpose swingeing sanctions.

Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is now almost eight times the limit fixed in the accord, according to an IAEA assessment published earlier this month.

However, the level of enrichment is still far below what would be needed for a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA says it continues to have access to all the facilities needed to monitor Iran's current nuclear activity.

The latest tension will further complicate efforts by the deal's EU signatories -- the so-called E3 of France, Germany and Britain -- to keep the deal from collapsing.

Trump has called for the E3 to follow his lead and leave the deal.

Last month, the US said it was ending sanctions waivers for nations that remain in the Iran nuclear accord -- a move likely to have most impact on Russian firms working on Iran's nuclear programme.

The American move brought condemnation from the E3 and was branded "unlawful" by Tehran.

Iran is also concerned that the US is pushing for an extension to an international arms embargo against Tehran which is set to be progressively eased from October.

Last week Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged other UN Security Council members, especially veto-wielding China and Russia, to stand against the American "conspiracy".

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There was a lot of joy inside newly reopened Central New York bars and restaurants over the weekend.

Customers that came (in) were so happy to be back inside with all of us, said Kelly OConnor Metrick, manager of San Miguel Mexican Restaurante at 425 N. State St. in Syracuse. "We had one customer kiss the bar!

Some people even went on binges.

We went to the 916 Riverside in Brewerton Friday, The TS Steakhouse on Saturday, and The Tavern in Geneseo on Sunday,'' wrote a member of the Facebook group Where Syracuse Eats, using the name J-nine Marie. It was WONDERFUL to be out. Everyone just seemed so happy to be back to work, and back out of the house. I am hoping to go out down town this week or weekend! I am not afraid and going to support these businesses as much as possible.

Restaurants were allowed to open their dining rooms Friday for the first time in almost 90 days. It started slowly since the reopening came with restrictions like seating no more than 50% of capacity, customers wearing masks when not seated and social distancing.

And many restaurants decided not to open up indoor dining right away, preferring to wait for fewer restrictions and a greater level of confidence that the coronavirus pandemic is winding down.

The takeout business was still really strong, even with the open dining rooms, said Bud Loura, a consultant to the dining industry through his company, RestaurantQB. That doesnt seem like its going to go away anytime soon.

And with nice weather most of the weekend, the outdoor dining option that started the week before was still a big factor.

For the restaurants that did open their dining rooms, the experience, overall, was positive.

People were excited to be back, said David Hoyne, who opened the dining room and bar at Kitty Hoynes Irish Pub & Restaurant starting Friday afternoon. And for the most part, people did well abiding by the rules and restrictions. Just a few things here and there with masks  some people got up to go to the bathroom and forgot to put the mask back on. But all in all, it went well.

Jason Thomas, owner of the Arad Evans Inn and Papa Gallo restaurants in Fayetteville, agreed. Customers were mostly respectful of the needs of restaurant staff and other customers.

People were good about not lingering, he said, noting that with limited capacity restaurants needed to turn over tables more quickly. For the masks and the distancing, we had to give some friendly reminders a few times.

Michelle Roesch, owner of The Brasserie Bar & Bistro in Camillus Township 5 had the same experience.

We had a great weekend, she posted in Where Syracuse Easts. People were so happy to be back out and everyone was really respectful of all the regulations and other parties in the restaurant.

Both Hoyne and Thomas said the constant need for cleaning and sanitizing was one of the big challenges.

We cleaned and sanitized, and then we cleaned and sanitized some more, Thomas said.

We had some times when, if we couldnt remember if we sanitized a table, we did it again, just to be sure, Hoyne said. So there may have been a lot of double cleaning.

The biggest wrinkle Loura observed through his contact with local restaurant operators was outdoor live music. Despite some confusion about whether its allowed (it is, with distancing restrictions in place), a lot of places booked bands or allowed musicians to play for tips.

But in some cases it proved hard to police the crowds, Loura said. "People coming and going, getting too close,'' he said. The (owners) need to remember that has to be managed or they could jeopardize their (liquor) licenses.

On Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned restaurants and bars that they must control the size of the crowds because the State Liquor Authority will suspend licenses if they dont.

Otherwise, Loura said, the crowds seemed manageable.

Ive heard from owners that it wasnt overwhelming as far as crowds lining up out the doors, he said. That didnt really seem to happen.

That was confirmed by Louis Rescignano in the thread at the Where Syracuse Eats Facebook page.

Customers were very happy they could come in to eat at Twin Trees III in North Syracuse, said Rescignano, who owns that location. We were happy to have them back. Not as busy as I thought it would be. Take out was still very strong.

Another issue that owners are figuring out is whether to require reservations. The crowds the first weekend seemed to indicate reservations are a good idea, but not necessarily a requirement.

Hoyne started by requiring reservations, then relaxed that. Thomas said calling ahead is suggested at this point.

The crowds may continue to be somewhat limited by the customers who just arent ready to come back out. Thats the case for Deanna L. Granato, who posted her thoughts on the Where Syracuse Eats thread.

While I love dining out I wanted to let places get used to being open & systems in places, she wrote. Everywhere I went by in Liverpool was packed, The Retreat, Limp Lizard & Santagellos. Cant wait till we dont have to be at 50% capacity.

Those who did venture out seemed to enjoy the experience.

Rise n Shine (diner on Westcott Street) was AMAZING!!, wrote customer Tonya Felton of Mexico. Indoor seating was all within new guidelines and the staff were so friendly and professional. The food was outstanding as always and the new outdoor seating area is so nice!! I also helped myself to my first  adult drink pouch and it definitely wont be my last."

This week, the key is not to let things get out of hand, Loura said.

The main thing is we dont want to screw this up and go backwards, Loura said. Were going in the right direction. Lets keep it that way.

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Don Cazentre writes 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.
Since the launch of the governments SME guarantee scheme for small businesses suffering from the knock-on effects of COVID, weve seen how important it is to provide a financial lifeline to Australias SMEs in the wake of the pandemic. Its not just in the interest of business owners and their employees; now more than ever before we need a strong small business sector to revitalise the economy.

That said, theres still more to be done. Theres a dire need to expand eligibility for these lifeline small business loans  its how were going to get these essential businesses back on their feet.

In this crisis, there is also an opportunity. The Australian economy needs small businesses to succeed now more than ever, which means we have a golden opportunity to build a better, more supportive and inclusive ecosystem than the one we suddenly left behind three months ago.

What we need to see from the government and SMEs alike

The governments recent announcement on the SME Guarantee Scheme for small businesses affected by COVID-19 is a great step in the right direction for the future of our economy. One of the main things we need to see from the government is access to capital.

With unemployment undoubtedly increasing, a lot of people are going to try and start their own micro-businesses as a form of employment. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. For Australia to grow itself out of the crisis, these new businesses will need easy access to capital. It is unreasonable to expect them all to be able to bootstrap their way to success.

The residential property market is a good case study for this issue. Tighter lending restrictions last year led to sustained price falls in Sydney and Melbourne, their lifting encouraged growth in the sector. The same is true of SMBs, but with the added complication that speed of finance is another incredibly important factor. The SME Guarantee Scheme is great, but weve seen banks struggle to get money to their customers in an efficient way during these challenging times for SMEs.

Theres another factor at play as well. Established SMEs will also be finding themselves with greater requirements for working capital because supply chains and inventory chains are inevitably going to get longer. Our political leaders have been careful not to signal exactly what they want to change, but a post-pandemic Australia that is less reliant on global supply chains is a likely outcome. Economic nationalism is bound to boom  but its going to be up to each sector to navigate exactly what this means for them and without working capital, we can forget about Australians embracing this new world.

What the SME sector will become post-COVID

Whilst theres going to be a lot of trial and error, there are a few sectors where the writing is on the wall. With the manufacturing process re-shoring post-pandemic, manufacturing businesses will start flourishing. Historically, its been very difficult for Australian manufacturing businesses to compete with cheap imports and Scott Morrison has stated he is no fan of protectionism in this area. However, this might not be entirely in his hands. Were seeing something new with a change in consumption thanks to coronavirus, and many analysts predict were going to start favoring buying local and supporting local businesses. This has been a long time coming, if coronavirus is the impetus to make it truly happen, this will only be a good thing for the SME sector as a whole.

Retail and hospitality businesses are going to increase with people demanding to get out and about post-lockdown, but this might not be in the traditional sense. Were going to see an increasing emergence of online shopping businesses across several different sectors, and with more Australians buying locally, proving you have local products and ingredients will become an important USP. Retail will also see a huge shift in the why, where, and how people buy due to the economic nationalism we will experience.

With Australians also bound to experience less disposable income, were going to start making smarter and more thoughtful decisions when it comes to spending our money. The value of each exchange will need to be focused upon, rather than simply competing on price. This is bound to change the Australian economy and SME sector for a long time to come. As we exit lockdown in Australia, its hard not to be a little excited.

Yanir Yakutiel is the CEO and founder of non-bank lender Lumi.

Keep up to date with our COVID-related stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
India's Mahindra Group said Friday that it could relinquish control of Ssangyong if the Korean SUV-maker's losses continue. The Indian parent company added that it has no intention of continuing money-losing businesses and Ssangyong needs a new investor.

The threat makes it difficult for creditors to justify an additional bailout, while the Korean government finds itself in an awkward position after intervening to save jobs at the ailing carmaker.

In April, the Indian automaker scrapped a plan to invest W230 billion in Ssangyong and said it would provide only W40 billion in one-off bailout as it looks to sell its share (US$1=W1,204). At the time, Ssangyong said the aid shows Mahindra is not going to abandon it, and the chairman of state-run Korea Development Bank, Lee Dong-gull, explained that the decision seems to be due to Mahindra's own money problems.

But in a first-quarter earnings conference call on Friday, Mahindra CEO Pawan Goenka said, "Ssangyong needs a new investor. We are working with the company to see if we can secure investment."

Mahindra's Anish Shah, who is slated to succeed Goenka next year, said the Indian automaker's stake in Ssangyong will decrease if new investments can be attracted or someone else acquires Mahindra's stake. Shah said Mahindra hopes to shed its money-losing businesses "within a year," and risky operations will either be subject to a new partnership or "closedown."

Mahindra owns 75 percent of Ssangyong and has invested W700 billion in it, but its stake is only worth W240 billion now.

The comments sounded alarm bells at KDB. A staffer at the bank said "they are not particularly different than what was stated in April" but added, "We will continue to monitor the situation." In other words, KDB is trying to determine whether Mahindra's threat is part of pressure tactics to get the Korean government to provide more support or whether it really intends to pull out.

But sources said Mahindra means it. President Moon Jae-in stepped into the crisis back in 2018 by pressuring Mahindra to rehire laid-off Ssangyong workers during his state visit to India. Shortly afterwards, 119 Ssangyong workers who were laid off in 2009 were rehired.

Mahindra may have come to the conclusion that it can no longer maintain a company whose labor union is so vehemently opposed to downsizing.

Ssangyong claims to remain hopeful. A company source said, "In January next year, we plan to roll out a new electric vehicle, while a new SUV is slated for release in the second half of 2021."

Lee Hang-koo at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade said, "Because of the government's resistance to layoffs, KDB will have no choice but to bail out Ssangyong, which employs 4,900 workers. The problem is sustainability, and without restructuring, further aid could be like pouring water into a bottomless pit."
New Delhi: The government will sort out the misunderstanding, if there is any, between India and Nepal through dialogue, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh asserted on Monday (June 15) amid rising border tension between the two neighbouring countries.

Rajnath, who was addressing a virtual 'BJP Jan Sanwad' rally today, stated that tied between India and Nepal are not ordinary. "We are bound together by 'roti-beti' and no power in world can break it," he said.

Speaking on the Indo-Nepal border issue, the Defence Minister also said that the road built by BRO in Lipulekh is very much in Indian territory.

A day ago on June 14, India strongly raised the killing of its national by Nepalese border guards in a border area near Sitamarhi district of Bihar. The matter was raised with the Nepali mission in Delhi and by the Indian mission in Kathmandu with the Nepali Home Ministry.

On June 12, Nepalese Armed Police Force opened fire on a crowd at the India-Nepal border, thus killing a 22-year-old Indian farmer from Bihar's Sitamarhi and injuring two others following an altercation. They also took one Indian national into its custody before releasing him a day later.

The incident comes amidst heightened tension between India and Nepal after Nepali PM KP Sharma Oli-led government issued a new map showing parts of Indian territories as its own. The Indian side has rejected the new Nepal map saying it has no historical evidence. India, on the other hand, termed the territorial claims by Nepal as artificial enlargement.

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 May 8.




By Jung Min-ho







SolGent, a subsidiary of Korean genome sequencing company EDGC, has begun building its second COVID-19 detection kit production facility in Daejeon to meet increasing demand overseas.





When completed near its first manufacturing plant in September, the new one is expected to be capable of producing kits for 30 million tests a week, the company said Monday.





The kits (DiaPlexQ) have been exported to more than 50 countries, including Germany and the United States. It has received CE marking, a certification that demonstrates conformity with health and safety standards for products sold in Europe, and emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.





"The company's first-quarter revenues this year have already reached 95 percent of revenues of the whole of last year," an official told The Korea Times.





Last Wednesday, 100 officials of Solgent and EDGC attended the groundbreaking ceremony.





"Thanks to Solgent's advanced technology and know-how, it could take a major step forward during the pandemic," EDGC co-CEO Shin Sang-cheol said during the event.





In a statement, Seok DO-su and You Jae-hyung, co-CEOs of Solgent, said they would continue to build trust with customers around the world with top-quality products and innovations.


TANZANIA, Tanzania - Libyas U.N.-supported government has requested United Nations assistance following the discovery of mass graves in territory recently recaptured from rival forces commanded by Khalifa Hifter, the U.N. said Monday.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the U.N. political mission in Libya is in communication with authorities on what kind of assistance the United Nations can offer.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed shock late Friday at the discovery of mass graves and called on the government to secure the grave sites, identify the victims, establish the causes of death and return the bodies to next of kin. He offered U.N. support in carrying this out, the U.N. said.

The United Nations said Friday that at least eight mass graves have been discovered, mostly in Tarhuna, a key western town that served as a main stronghold for Khalifas east-based forces in their 14-month campaign to capture the capital, Tripoli.

Government-allied forces announced on June 5 that they had recaptured Tarhuna, some 65 kilometres (41 miles) southeast of the Libyan capital, their latest in a string of battlefield successes that reversed most of Hifters gains. Days earlier, the government said it regained control of all of Tripolis entrance and exit points and Tripoli airport.

Fathi Bashagha, the interior minister in the U.N.-supported government, said last week that authorities were documenting evidence of alleged war crimes in Tarhuna, noting that preliminary reports indicated dozens of victims found in the citys mass graves had been buried alive.

Bashagha also said that special investigative teams uncovered a shipping container in Tarhuna full of charred bodies, presumably of detainees, and blamed powerful militias loyal to Hifter for heinous crimes. A feared Hifter-allied militia called al-Kaniyat, notorious for its targeting of dissenters, had controlled the town.

The discoveries have raised fears about the extent of human rights violations in territories controlled by Hifters forces, given the difficulties of documentation in an active war zone.

Libya is teetering on the brink of a new escalation as government-backed militias are continuing their campaign, now focused on recapturing the coastal town of Sirte. The hometown of Libyas late dictator Moammar Gadhafi would provide access to the countrys vast oil fields under Hifters control. The intensified fighting forced nearly 24,000 people to flee their homes last week, according to U.N. humanitarian officials.

That campaign is taking place as international pressure intensifies to end the fighting.

The latest call came Sunday from Pope Francis, who urged political and military leaders in Libya to end the violence and move on a path toward peace, stability and unity. He also called on the international community to take to heart the plight of migrants trapped in the lawless nation.

The U.N. political mission in Libya said it convened a meeting with a delegation from Hifters forces on June 3 to talk about a cease-fire and another meeting on June 9 with a delegation from the U.N.-supported government.

Haq, the U.N. deputy spokesman, said Monday the mission is preparing for a second virtual meeting with Hifters delegation to take place soon as part of the ongoing process.

Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising toppled Gadhafi, who was later killed. The country has since been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments.

Forces under Hifter launched an offensive trying to take Tripoli in April 2019, and the crisis in the oil-rich country has steadily worsened as foreign backers increasingly intervene despite pledges to the contrary at a high-profile peace summit in Berlin earlier this year.

Hifters offensive is supported by France, Russia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries. The government in Tripoli is backed by Turkey  which sent troops and mercenaries to protect the capital in January  as well as Italy and Qatar.
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington is confident she will remain leader of the LNP even if a challenge against her leadership is made at a party room meeting scheduled for 2pm in Brisbane.

Ms Frecklington, who has led the state LNP since its 2017 election defeat, is fending off political assassination, believed to be coordinated from senior members of her own party.

Queensland opposition leader Deb Frecklington is fending off an attack from within her own party. Credit:Dan Peled/AAP

"I am the leader and I am here to stay," she said.

It is understood senior members of the state's conservative party are attempting to orchestrate a coup against Ms Frecklington and install Broadwater MP David Crisafulli as leader.
Quake in Turkey kills 1, injures 9: An earthquake of 5.7 magnitude shook Bingol province in eastern Turkey, killing one person and injuring nine, officials said. The quake damaged dozens of homes and buildings, Turkey's disaster and emergency management agency said. It said two security guards at a military installation in the region were injured when an observation tower collapsed. One of them later died, the Bingol governor's office said on Twitter. Eight more people were injured in villages in the area.
Mr. Dibbits said one possible way to deal with a problematic statue would be to treat it like a bronze likeness of the deposed former president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. A statue of him was beheaded during a 1966 military coup, and later placed next to its body on a plinth, with a plaque explaining the history of its desecration. He said it was a way to simultaneously present both the history of Nkrumahs regime and of the revolution that removed him.

Another option, said Valika Smeulders, who leads the Rijksmuseums history department, would be to gather several overturned statues in a single place, like a park, as some countries that were once in the U.S.S.R. have done with monuments to Stalin and Lenin.

Youd have to put it, as they did in the Soviet Union, not in the city center, but somewhere outside, she said. I think then you send a message that this is not what you want in our city center, but it was a period of time and we look back on it now, and the craziness of it becomes really clear.

Fallen statues mean empty plinths, Ms. Smeulders added: Now we must also think about what should go on those.

Cedar Lewisohn, an artist and curator at the Southbank Centre in London, and a member of the organization Museum Detox, which campaigns for the interests of people of color in the art world, said this was a chance to think about who chooses what gets valorized.

We will be seeing some contemporary responses, for sure, to these voids that have been created, he said. There will be contemporary art commissions to replace these things. Those will have to be very thoughtful and thought-out processes  and lets hope they are better than what they replace.
Can you explain the 2016 election of Donald Trump by looking at the countrys wine consumption habits?

Thats what Karl Storchmann, a New York University economics professor and executive director of the American Association of Wine Economists, believes. Wine drinkers lean left, Storchmann said.

It isnt exactly a groundbreaking revelation. Demographers have long known that Democrats tend to favor wine while Republicans favor beer. Still, its interesting that wine is such a potent marker of American identity  cultural, political or otherwise. Wine and beer can hint at income and education; whether you live in an urban or rural setting; whether you live on the coast  all of it comes out, more often than not, in what you drink.

This left Storchmann with another question. Wine drinkers may lean left, but does the wine industry?

When he compared states per-capita wine consumption with their percentage of votes for Trump in 2016, a clear pattern emerged. Washington, D.C., is the most prolific wine consumer, at over 25 liters per person per year, and also favored Trump the least, giving him just 4.1% of its votes in the last presidential election. Meanwhile, the state with the lowest per-capita wine consumption, West Virginia  about 2.5 liters per person  had the second-highest share of Trump votes of any state, at 67.9%, just barely trailing Wyomings 68.2%. With the exception of a few outliers, like New Hampshire, where wine consumption is high (close to 20 liters per person) but votes for Trump were also relatively high (46.5%), the data follow a more or less linear pattern.

To be clear, this is correlation, not causation. And to economists, its not actually very surprising. I would say that drinking preferences have more to do with demographic and cultural factors than political affiliation, said Steven S. Cuellar, an economics professor at Sonoma State University. You could have just as easily looked at the correlation between political affiliation and NASCAR viewership.

Another factor: Some Republican-leaning states have tighter alcohol laws. For example, many counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia prohibit the sale of alcohol altogether. In a 2013 paper, Cuellar and his colleagues found that states with more restrictive laws tend to have less variety in their wine selections as well as higher prices  which might also make residents there less likely to buy wine. Nevertheless, however you want to explain it, higher wine consumption is usually a phenomenon of the left.

But the people who power the wine industry, Storchmann believes, do not necessarily reflect these left-leaning tendencies. The bucks go to the right almost overwhelmingly, he said. He reached that conclusion by searching the Federal Election Commissions database to see which presidential candidates had received donations from people who work in the wine industry. He found that most wine-industry dollars had gone to Trump, rather than to Democratic presidential candidates.

He posted infographics about those findings on Twitter and Facebook, and the revelations sparked controversy. Blogger Tom Wark performed his own counter-analysis of the FEC data, concluding the opposite: that the wine industry has directed more money toward Democrats than toward Trump in the 2020 campaign.

Whatever the overall share of wine-industry donations to Trump versus Democrats, what we can say for sure is that a number of prominent owners and executives have made significant contributions to Trumps 2016 and 2020 campaigns. They include Tom Barrack, owner of Happy Canyon Vineyard (who has donated $360,600 to Trump); Michael Kahn, co-owner of Empire Distributors ($70,200); Wine Spectator publisher Marvin Shanken ($185,800); Sheldon Stein, president of the wholesaler Southern Glazers ($25,400); and Grace Evenstad, owner of Domaine Serene winery in Oregon ($50,000).

Cakebread Cellars co-founder Dolores Cakebread, who gave $7,650 to Trumps campaign, declined an interview, but a winery spokesperson emphasized that the winery itself does not make political donations.

Bill Foley, owner of Foley Family Wines and the chairman of Fidelity National, has contributed $255,600. Foley  who announced his purchase of Sonoma Countys Ferrari-Carano Vineyards recently  made the donations in March without listing his wine-industry affiliation. He declined to comment for this story.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

One political donor took issue with the way the FEC database characterized his giving. John Jordan, owner of Jordan Winery in Healdsburg, appears to have contributed $75,600 toward Trumps campaign in 2019. But Lisa Mattson, the winerys director of marketing and communications, said Jordan merely donated to the Republican National Committee, not to Trump specifically, and that the committee subsequently redirected his contributions to a Trump fund. He has no control over where the RNC transferred it, Mattson said.

That raises an important question. If wine industrys major players are at odds with those of their customers, is that bad for business?

Twitter offered a small bit of early insight there, as wine drinkers reacted to Storchmanns post. Definitely not buying anything from these folks, tweeted @ursomoneyhoney. Boycott time, said @elisekerm. But other voices dissented: @lexx82 said, I really dont give a s if they support Trump or donate to Republicans. Im drinking wine because i love it and it taste good not for political purposes (sic).

Yet there can be little doubt that the current social unrest  catalyzed by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis  has renewed American consumers sense of importance about where they spend their dollars. So far, much of that energy has been directed toward, for example, encouraging people to support black-owned businesses, lists of which have proliferated across the internet (including at The Chronicle). But it could easily turn in the other direction, with drinkers boycotting businesses that dont stand for what they believe in.

I was curious about whether other local wine businesses  wine shops  might be trying to align their practices with their customers political views. So I tried to find a store in the Bay Area that carries products from Trump Winery, the Charlottesville, Va., estate that the president owns. A query on Wine-Searcher showed only one, a store in Berkeley. It turned out to be a search error, I learned after speaking to the owner. The shop has never carried Trump wine.
DUBLIN, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Global Space Launch Systems - Market and Technology Forecast to 2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global space launch market is dominated by companies based in the United States, China, and the European Union. A number of firms in the US, China, and the EU are taking steps towards debut suborbital and orbital launches, while also attracting new funding.

This report examines, analyzes, and predicts the evolution of launch system technologies, markets, and outlays over 2019 -2027 in the space industry. It also examines space launch markets geographically, focusing on the top 95% of global markets, in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following:

Overview: Snapshot of the various space system launch tech in the space market during 2019-2027, including highlights of the demand drivers, trends and challenges. It also provides a snapshot of the spending with respect to regions as well as segments. It also sheds light on the emergence of new technologies

Market Dynamics: Insights into the technological developments in this market and a detailed analysis of the changing preferences of governments around the world. It also analyzes changing industry structure trends and the challenges faced by the industry participants.

Segment Analysis: Insights into the various Systems market from a segment perspective and a detailed analysis of factors influencing the market for each segment.

Regional Review: Insights into modernization patterns and budgetary allocation for top countries within a region.

Regional Analysis: Insights into the Systems market from a regional perspective and a detailed analysis of factors influencing the market for each region.

Trend Analysis: Key space launch vehicle markets: Analysis of the key markets in each region, providing an analysis of the various Systems segments expected to be in demand in each region.

Key Program Analysis: Details of the top programs in each segment expected to be executed during the forecast period.

Competitive landscape Analysis: Analysis of the competitive landscape of this industry. It provides an overview of key companies, together with insights such as key alliances, strategic initiatives, and a brief financial analysis.

Scope of the report:



Define and measure the Global Space Launch System Market

Financial forecast of the Global Space Launch System Market and its various sub-segments with respect to main geographies

Analyze and identify major market trends along with the factors driving or inhibiting the market growth

Analyze the effect of unpredictable, but realistic factors on the market

Study the company profiles of the major market players with their market share

Analyze competitive developments

Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction



2 Executive Summary



3 Current and Future Technologies of the Global Space Launch Systems

4 Current and Future Market Overview of the Global Space Launch Systems



5 Market Analysis



6 Global Space Launch Systems -Market by Region to 2027



7 Global Space Launch Systems Market by Technology to 2027



8 Global Space Launch Systems Market by Applications to 2027



9 Global Space Launch Systems Market by Orbits to 2027



10 Global Space Launch Systems Market by Payloads to 2027



11 Global Space Launch Systems Market by Launch Services to 2027



12 Global Space Launch Systems Market by End Users to 2027



13 Events based forecast for the Global Space Launch Systems Market to 2027



14 Leading Companies in the Global Space Launch System Market



15 Conclusions and recommendations



Companies Mentioned



Adcole Maryland Aerospace

Addvalue Tech

Advanced Space

Airbus Defence & Space

AST & Science LLC

Astro Digital

Audacy

BAE Systems

Black Sky

Boeing Co.

Bradford

Bridgesat

Chang Guang Satellite Technology

China Academy Of Space Technology

Clyde Space

Ducommun Inc

Effective Space Solutions Ltd.

Elbit Systems

ExPace

FOMS Inc

GAUSS Srl

Gom Space

Goonhilly Earth Station

HawkEye 360 Inc

Inmarsat

Innovative Solutions In Space

Israel Aerospace Industries

ISS Reshetnev

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Kongsberg Satellite Services

Leonardo

Lockheed Martin

Luxspace

Made In Space

NASA - Swarm Technology

Northrop Grumman Corp

OneWeb Satellites

Open Source

Phase Four

Planet Inc

Pumpkin Space Systems

QinetiQ Space

RBC Signals

Relativity Space

Rocket Lab

Saab

SSL (formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC)

ThrustMe

Tyvak Nano Satellite Systems Inc

ViaSat

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/9ccjch

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.

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Research and Markets

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Even after more than a decade since their divorce, Jennifer Aniston still has her way to influence the decisions of her ex-husband, Brad Pitt.

Since their historical reunion at the 26th Screen Actor Guild Awards earlier this year, rumor has it that the former golden couple of Hollywood have reunited and rekindled their romance. However, neither Jennifer of Brad has confirmed or denied their relationship.

However, regardless if they are back in each other's arms, it seems like the 51-year-old actress has her way to sway the "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood" actor, especially in taking actions with what is happening to the world right now.

In the latest Brad Pit news, the Hollywood A-lister is said to be matching the million-dollar donation made by Jennifer Aniston to support the ongoing protests to fight racism.

Last week, the "Friends" alum low-key donated a whopping $1 million to the "Color of Change" foundation, which is considered the United States' largest online racial justice organization helping to advance causes for the black people.

A source told Mirror that Brad would match the said amount as he also expressed his support for the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. The source said that Jennifer played a significant role in persuading Brad to make such a bold move.

"Brad is really involved with the charity because of Jen and said he would match her donation," the insider revealed.

"He went to the protests this week and was at her home the day after. They are both very passionate and want to help as much as they can."

Last week, the 56-year-old actor attended a peaceful protest in the streets of Los Angeles together with thousands of protesters.

In the photos obtained by the Daily Mail, the award-winning actor blended in the crowd while using his rare BMW motorbike. He was wearing a grey hoodie with a printed "George Floyd" text in the front, which he paired with ripped jeans.

Jennifer Aniston's Donation

While "The Morning Show" actress quietly donated a part of her wealth to Color of Change, a source said that Jenn was deeply affected by the brutal death of George Floyd at the hands of white police officers.

That is why she decided to show her support by donating a massive sum of money to a charity. Jennifer also left a link on her Instagram profile to encourage fans to share their donations as well.

Last week, Jenn used her social media platform to spread awareness about the efforts to end racism and social injustice.

"This week has been heartbreaking for so many reasons. We need to acknowledge that the racism and brutality in this country has been going on for a long time-and it's NEVER been okay," Jennifer wrote alongside a video of James Baldwin.

"It's our responsibility to make noise, to demand justice, to educate ourselves on these issues, and more than anything, to spread love," she added.

READ MORE: Angelina Jolie Threat: Angie Reveals Biggest Fear For Daughter's Life
The Boston Police Department continues to investigate a fatal shooting in Dorchester on Saturday afternoon.

In a statement Sunday, police said they responded to a report of shots fired just before 4 p.m. Saturday in the area of a 82 Wheatland Ave., where in a hallway in one of the residences they found an adult male suffering from gunshot wounds. The unidentified victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Boston police on Sunday asked anyone with information on the incident to contact Boston Police Homicide Detectives at (617) 343-4470. Anonymous tips can be sent to the CrimeStoppers Tip Line at (800) 494-8477 or by texting the word TIP to CRIME (27463).

Anyone in need of emotional support can contact the Boston Neighborhood Trauma Team at (617) 431-0125 or at BPHC.org/trauma.nd.
If you are going to say that the governor of Illinois is ruining Illinois, it would help to list some things that support your argument. Maybe start by stating three key facts -- not opinion, but facts -- that would perhaps sway readers towards your way of thinking. Without supporting statements, its just empty sentences with whining mix in. I also hope you conservatives are happy with your decision to vote that idiot into the presidency. Seems to be working out really well, especially these last two weeks, much less the last three and a half years. At a time where the nation needs calm, focus and togetherness, you have elected someone who is absolutely incapable of any of those things. His narcissistic modus operandi is completely worthless in America today.
3 1 of 3 NOAA Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Right on schedule, dust from the Sahara Desert is headed our way. The African dust cloud is slowly traveling westward across the Atlantic Ocean.

Small amounts of the dust could land in Southeast Texas next week, according to Houston's ABC 13.
Stuart R. Morris, Esq., CPA, B.C.C., has been named to Florida Super Lawyers every year since 2007. Im very grateful and honored to be recognized by my peers and included for the 14th year in a row in Florida Super Lawyers. - Stuart R. Morris, Esq., CPA, B.C.S., founding partner of Morris Law Group

Morris Law Group, https://law-morris.com, headquartered in Boca Raton, Fla. with three other offices in South Florida, is pleased to announce that founding partner Stuart R. Morris, Esq., CPA, B.C.S., has been selected by his peers as a top attorney and recognized as one of the Florida Super Lawyers for 2020. This is the 14th consecutive year that Mr. Morris has received this honor.

Mr. Morris is a top-rated estate planning attorney, board-certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates, and also a Certified Public Accountant. He founded Morris Law Group in 1991 and employs his combined legal and tax experience to interpret and translate complex legal issues for his clients, including highly compensated individuals and entrepreneurs. According to Mr. Morris, Im very grateful and honored to be recognized by my peers and included for the 14th year in a row in Florida Super Lawyers.

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations. The Super Lawyers selection process is rigorous and results in third-party validation of the professional accomplishments of the selected attorneys. Super Lawyers can be found online at http://www.superlawyers.com, where you can search for lawyers by name, practice area and location.

As an essential business throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Morris Law Group has remained open and available to serve clients at their convenience, whether in person, by telephone or video conference. Read more about the safe social distancing procedures at Morris Law Group here. For more information or to schedule an appointment with an attorney, please contact Morris Law Group, visit http://www.law-morris.com or call (561) 750-3850. Subscribe and watch our Wealth Preservation Series of videos on YouTube.

About Stuart R. Morris, Esq., CPA, B.C.S., Founding Partner, Morris Law Group

Attorney Stuart R. Morris is board-certified in Wills, Trusts and Estates and is a Certified Public Accountant. He founded Morris Law Group in 1991, and practices in estate and gift tax planning, probate and trust administration, wills and trusts, business structuring and succession planning, asset preservation planning, domestic and international tax planning, and special needs planning. Mr. Morris is one of Worth magazines nations Top 100 Attorneys, has been selected to Florida Super Lawyers since 2007, named to Florida Trends Florida Legal Elite, received the Legal Elite Award from U.S. Business News, and is recognized as a Top Attorney in Palm Beach and Martin counties by Palm Beach Illustrated. He has an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating, the highest rating afforded an attorney, from Martindale-Hubbell. He is a member of The Florida Bar, the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the American Bar Association.

About Morris Law Group, Wealth Preservation Attorneys

Morris Law Group, a South Florida estate planning law firm with four conveniently located offices, provides personalized, discreet services to help protect their clients wealth now and in the future. The Morris Law Group team of knowledgeable and qualified attorneys and professionals has more than 150 years of combined experience in managing complex estate planning, tax planning, trust and estate administration, and business structuring and succession planning for clients. An AV Preeminent-rated law firm by Martindale Hubbell, Morris Law Group is adept at translating these strategies into easy-to-understand, jargon-free language, so clients can make informed decisions about their Wealth Preservation Solutions. Contact Morris Law Group, visit http://www.law-morris.com or call (561) 750-3850 for more information. Subscribe and watch our Wealth Preservation Series of videos on YouTube.
WATERBURY, Conn., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Webster Bank announced today a donation of $100,000 to address social injustice and racial equity efforts.

Webster will make a $75,000 donation to the Equal Justice Initiative, a national human rights organization that advocates for criminal justice reform and racial justice. In addition, Webster will donate $25,000 to RE-Center Race & Equity in Education, based in Hartford, Connecticut. Webster will partner with RE-Center to develop and provide education, training and community conversations on racial injustices and anti-racism programs for our bankers and the communities we serve.

"Racism, discrimination and intolerance in any form are unacceptable. Webster is dedicated to respecting the dignity of every individual, and we stand in support of those impacted by racial injustice," said John R. Ciulla, Chairman, President and CEO of Webster. "Supporting organizations that work to promote change is important for our bankers, our customers and our communities."

For more than 80 years, Webster has been committed to strengthening the communities it serves through philanthropic giving, including Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) opportunities. In addition, over $3 million in funding is awarded annually to support organizations that serve vulnerable individuals and families.

About Webster

Webster Financial Corporation is the holding company for Webster Bank, National Association and its HSA Bank division. With $31.7 billion in assets, Webster provides business and consumer banking, mortgage, financial planning, trust, and investment services through 157 banking centers and 308 ATMs. Webster also provides mobile and online banking. Webster Bank owns the asset-based lending firm Webster Business Credit Corporation; the equipment finance firm Webster Capital Finance Corporation; and HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank, which provides health savings account trustee and administrative services. Webster Bank is a member of the FDIC and an equal housing lender. For more information about Webster, including past press releases and the latest annual report, visit the Webster website at www.websterbank.com

SOURCE Webster Bank

Related Links

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Turkey's health minister on Monday warned citizens against complacency as daily coronavirus cases doubled compared with figures in early June.

The country registered 1,592 new cases and 18 COVID-19 deaths for the past 24 hours, Fahrettin Koca said on his official Twitter account.

There were 786 infections in a 24-hour period on June 2. At the height of the pandemic, Turkey recorded over 5,000 daily cases in April.

Koca's tweets often remonstrate those ignoring the continued dangers from the pandemic.

In capital letters, he wrote on Monday: "The increases are intensifying in certain areas" but did not offer further information.

"Will it be complacency or a fight? We will be able to control the spread if we all adhere to the mask and distancing rule," Koca added in lower case lettering.

In recent weeks, Turkey has allowed intercity travel including the resumption of domestic flights, reopened cafes and restaurants, and ended weekend lockdowns.

With the latest figures, Turkey's fatalities have reached 4,825 and the total number of cases are nearly 180,000.

Between April and late May, Turkey was under weekend curfews as the government sought to avoid a full lockdown like in France in a bid to keep the economy going.

The Turkish Medical Association (TTB) raised concerns last week over the move to ease restrictions as the reality of the situation in Turkey was not made clear.

"We haven't been able to fully overcome the first wave yet," Cavit Isik Yavuz, a member of the TTB's group focused on coronavirus, said during an online press conference.

The TTB said on June 12 there was "no evidence" the outbreak had been brought under control, contradicting Turkish officials' statements last month.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
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Boris Johnson's race equality commission will also look at issues faced by working class white boys, it was revealed today as Labour accused him of wanting a 'culture war'.

Labour's David Lammy said the PM was not 'serious' about change, slamming him for accusing black people of 'playing the victim' and fuelling a 'culture war' for political ends.

Mr Johnson faced a backlash after saying the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities would look at 'all aspects of inequality - in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life'.

He said he wanted to 'change the narrative' to stop the 'sense of victimisation', as well as stamping out racism.

Downing Street confirmed the commission will also look at the obstacles that face working class white boys, as well as ethnic minorities.

The move follows two weeks of protests across the country by the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing in the US of George Floyd, who died as a white police officer knelt on his neck.

Mr Johnson also defiantly insisted he would resist attempts to tear down Winston Churchill's statue 'with every breath in his body' after the structure was attacked by anti-fascist and BLM activists.

Boris Johnson (pictured in a London shopping centre yesterday) said the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities would look at 'all aspects of inequality - in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life'

The monument to Britain's greatest war-time leader Winston Churchill was covered in graffiti last weekend (left, being cleaned off) that said Churchill 'was a racist' while a protester attempted to set a union flag on fire on the Cenotaph. It has since been boarded up

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The Mail On Sunday launched a petition yesterday calling on Boris Johnson to guarantee that he would not allow Churchill's statue to be taken down

'Race audit' in 2017 found poor white working class have lowest attainment The government's 'race audit' found in 2017 that white children receiving free school meals have the lowest attainment levels at Key Stage 4 A 'race audit' ordered by Theresa May and published in 2017 found ethnic minorities are more likely to be low paid, on benefits and victims of crime. However, it also highlighted that poor white children perform worse at school, while white adults are more likely to be overweight and to drink alcohol at harmful levels. White children start to fall behind other ethnicities from age seven. Some 71 per cent met the expected standard for grammar and spelling at Key Stage 2, compared to 75 per cent of black pupils, 79 per cent of Asian, and 87 per cent of Chinese. At GCSE, the average score for white children receiving free school meals was 37. For black children the equivalent figure was 44, and Asian 47. White pupils from state schools had the lowest university entry rate of any ethnic group in 2016. Chinese pupils had the highest attainment throughout school, made the most progress and were the most likely to stay in education and go to university. Advertisement

Shadow justice secretary Mr Lammy criticised the Government for not providing details on the scope of the commission.

'If he was serious, why are there no details about how it will be staffed, its remit, its terms of reference, its timetable? That's the question,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'It's because this was written on the back of a fag packet yesterday to assuage the Black Lives Matter protest. Get on with the action, legislate, move - you're in Government, do something.'

Mr Lammy said it is 'deeply worrying' and 'frankly immature' that Britain is still 'having a conversation about whether racism actually exists'.

'And, frankly, when you watch a man die like we did in eight minutes and 46 seconds - I'd like to ask Boris Johnson why he thinks the way to commemorate his death is to announce yet another commission, and why he insists on talking about statues.'

Mr Lammy claimed the Conservative Party wants a 'culture war because they want to distract from the central issue'.

Mr Johnson was also criticised for saying that the Government wants to stop the 'sense of victimisation and discrimination'.

'You can understand why it feels like, yet again in the UK, we want figures, data - but we don't want action,' Mr Lammy said.

'Black people aren't playing victim, as Boris indicates, they are protesting precisely because the time for review is over and the time for action is now.'

Tory MP Nus Ghani also voiced doubts about the step. 'Another commission? Ok, its welcome. But we have the data on obstacles, prejudice and inequalities. We just need to crack on with real practical solutions which will have a positive impact,' she said.

The new commission will report directly to Mr Johnson and be overseen by Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch.

Downing Street said it would also examine why working-class white boys fell behind in school.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'It will look at wider inequalities including issues facing working-class white boys in schools, for example.'

The spokesman said the commission 'will be examining, in detail, racial and ethnic inequalities in Britain but it will also look at other, wider, inequalities'.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Mr Johnson said: 'The whole point of having a review is to look at the areas where people feel there's more that needs to be done.'

He added: 'I think what we want to do is learn now very fast what fresh changes we need to make.

'What I feel most strongly is that there are so many positive stories that are not being heard.

'Things really are changing

'You're seeing young black kids now doing better in some of the most difficult subjects in school than they were ever before, more going to top universities.

'We need to start telling that story and building up a culture of high expectations, a narrative about success, as well as stamping out the racism and the discrimination that unquestionably exists.'

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the aim of the commission would 'effectively champion the voice of BAME groups in particular', adding in the Commons: 'These inequalities are live inequalities which means we need to act now.

'The aim of the commission, importantly, is to set out something that is forward-looking, a positive agenda of change balancing the needs of individuals, community and society but also maximising opportunities, ensuring fairness for all.'

Ms Patel said it would 'build on' recommendations already made to the Government.

The commission was launched after another day of violent scenes on the streets of London over the weekend as Black Lives Matter demonstrators and counter-protesters clashed in the capital on Saturday.

In shocking scenes, missiles, smoke grenades, bottles and flares were hurled at riot police who tried to move far-right activists away from Whitehall.

Six police officers were injured and more than 100 people were arrested in Saturday's protest, which was condemned by Mr Johnson as 'racist thuggery'.

The statue of Churchill in nearby Parliament Square has become a focal point for counter-protesters after BLM supporters had daubed it with graffiti the previous weekend.

It had even been boarded up to protect it from further vandalism over the weekend.

Churchill is widely considered a national hero and often leads polls on who was the greatest-ever Briton. His picture was chosen to appear on the new polymer 5 notes.

An anti-racist rally and a pro-statue counter-protest descended into chaos over the weekend. Pictured: One demonstrator kicks another at a protest at the Cenotaph

Seven in 10 Britons believe there is significant racial tension in the country Almost 70 per cent of Britons think there is a fair amount of racial tension between people of different races and nationalities, a new poll has suggested. Research from Ipsos Mori indicated that while the public were more open minded in their attitudes towards race in the past decade, the majority still felt tensions were noticeable. Out of the representative sample of 1,059 adults interviewed between June 5-10, 69 per cent said they thought there was at least a 'fair amount' of tension in Britain between people of different races and nationalities, while one in five said there was a 'great deal' of tension. Half of those polled stated that they thought Britain's public services treated black and Asian people the same as white people, while a third claimed black people were treated worse and 27 per cent said that Asian people were more unfairly treated. There was an improvement in tolerance based on the question of whether those surveyed would be happy for their child to marry someone from another ethnic group, with 89 per cent agreeing with the statement compared with 75 per cent in 2009 when the same question was asked. Advertisement

However, critics say his legacy is tarnished by controversial remarks he made about different races and his role in the Bengal famine in 1943 after Allied forces halted food supplies, leading to an estimated 3 million deaths.

Mr Lammy criticised the Government for not providing details on the scope of the commission.

'I don't know why he's announced a commission behind a paywall, in the Telegraph, buried in the middle of yet another article about Churchill,' the Labour MP told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'If he was serious, why are there no details about how it will be staffed, its remit, its terms of reference, its timetable? That's the question.

'It's because this was written on the back of a fag packet yesterday to assuage the Black Lives Matter protest. Get on with the action, legislate, move - you're in Government, do something.'

Mr Lammy said it is 'deeply worrying' and 'frankly immature' that Britain is still 'having a conversation about whether racism actually exists'.

'And, frankly, when you watch a man die like we did in eight minutes and 46 seconds - I'd like to ask Boris Johnson why he thinks the way to commemorate his death is to announce yet another commission, and why he insists on talking about statues.'

Mr Lammy claimed the Conservative Party wants a 'culture war because they want to distract from the central issue'.

Mr Johnson was also criticised for saying that the Government wants to stop the 'sense of victimisation and discrimination'.

Lord Woolley of Woodford, who chairs the Race Disparity Unit's advisory group, said it is 'real discrimination' - and that some of the Prime Minister's language is 'frankly unhelpful'.

The Telegraph reported that the new commission will report directly to Mr Johnson and also be overseen by Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch.

It said an independent chairman or woman will be appointed to oversee the body, which will comprise people 'with a mix of ethnic, social and professional backgrounds'.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said it was 'the height of lunacy' to accuse the wartime leader - who was Prime Minister twice - of racism after he led Britain to victory against fascism in World War Two.

He warned that Britain cannot 'photoshop' it's history of colonialism and exploitation and should instead seek to educate children on the controversial lives of the leaders that statues depict while addressing racial inequality nationwide.

Mr Johnson, who wrote a biography of Churchill in 2014, said: 'We need to address the present, not attempt to rewrite the past  and that means we cannot and must not get sucked into never-ending debate about which well-known historical figure is sufficiently pure or politically correct to remain in public view.'

Talking of Churchill, he said: 'He was a hero, and I expect I am not alone in saying that I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better.'

He added: 'If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history  like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better.'

At-risk landmarks - including the Cenotaph and statues of Churchill and Nelson Mandela - were boarded up ahead of predicted clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and far-right demonstrators looking to protect them over the weekend.

The monument to Britain's greatest war-time leader was covered in graffiti that said Churchill 'was a racist' while a protester attempted to set a union flag on fire on the Cenotaph in this month's clashes.

Sadiq Khan was accused of 'surrendering' the capital's streets 'to the mob' after he ordered the boarding up of the monument to Britain's greatest prime minister and the nearby Cenotaph.

Mr Johnson said it is 'outrageous' that the statue needed covering up and asked: 'What has the world come to when one of this country's greatest ever leaders  perhaps our greatest  has to be shielded from the wrath of the mob?'

On Saturday, when demonstrators descended on the capital to 'protect' the statues, one was caught on camera (pictured left) urinating next to a memorial to PC Keith Palmer, the policeman murdered buy an Islamic terrorist during an attack on Parliament. Labour's David Lammy (pictured right yesterday) has accused Mr Johnson of 'back of a fag packet' efforts to assuage Black Lives Matter protests

Mounted police were seen in an altercation with protesters who threw bottles and cans at them next to the boarded up statue of Nelson Mandela in London over the weekend

The Nelson Mandela statue before and after it was covered up by large boards to protect it from graffiti during clashes

A man approaches mounted police during a protest near Parliament Square, London, on Saturday

Bottles are thrown at mounted police as members of far right groups gathered to guard statues in Parliament Square on saturday

The Prime Minister was quick to condemn the violence seen across the capital over the weekend

Anti-racism protesters tore down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and rolled him into a harbour last Sunday.

And when demonstrators descended on the capital on Saturday to 'protect' the statues, one was caught on camera urinating next to a memorial to PC Keith Palmer, the policeman murdered buy an Islamic terrorist during an attack on Parliament.

A 28-year-old man from Essex was last night charged with outraging decency over the incident.

The Prime Minister was quick to condemn the thugs who wreaked havoc across the city on Saturday.

His comments came after he pledged to establish a cross-government commission to examine racial inequality in Britain.

The anti-racist rally and a pro-statue counter-protest descended into hooliganism driven by a hard core of violent activists on both sides yesterday. Pictured: Clashes in Trafalgar Square on Saturday

A man was beaten to a bloody pulp in Trafalgar Square on Saturday as the Black Lives Matter protests turned violent shortly before the 5pm curfew kicked in

A group of men carry an injured man away after he was allegedly attacked by some of the crowd of protesters in Southbank near Waterloo station on Saturday

A man, whose face was covered in blood, was seen lying on the floor near Waterloo Station in London as the protests turned violent on Saturday

Boris Johnson spoke out against what he described as the 'racist thuggery' seen during demonstrations on Saturday after facing criticism for his response to the unrest this week

Mr Johnson told broadcasters: 'What I really want to do as Prime Minister is change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

'We stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success.

'That's where I want to get to but it won't be easy.'

However the announcement, which included little detail, was sharply criticised by opposition parties.

Police fought to maintain control in Trafalgar Square on Saturday amid both Black Lives Matter and pro-statue protests in London today

A man identified as a far-right protester was carried to safety as animosity was briefly set aside on a day of clashes in London between rival groups and police last night

For Labour, shadow equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: 'We are in the midst of a global health pandemic that has sharply exposed deep structural inequalities which have long since needed urgently addressing.

'That the Prime Minister now says he wants to 'change the narrative... so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination' is condescending and designed to let himself and his Government off the hook.

Liberal Democrat equalities spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the commission was a 'welcome first step' but said the Government must go further.

'Too many people's lives are blighted by discrimination, inequality and injustice. The Government must move further and faster to redress institutional racism in the criminal justice system and many other parts of our society,' she said.

Hero Black Lives Matter supporter reveals the moment he carried white 'far-right' protester 'whose life was in danger' to safety - as he declares 'it's not black versus white, it is everyone versus the racists'

A hero Black Lives Matter supporter has lifted the lid on the moment he carried a 'far-right' protester, whose 'life was in danger', to safety in the midst of clashes with anti-racism protesters in London.

Patrick Hutchinson drew the attention of a nation yesterday when an image of him lifting the bloodied white protester onto his shoulders amid violent clashes near Trafalgar Square went viral.

Tonight, the personal trainer and grandfather, who 'wouldn't hurt a fly', relatives said, revealed why he intervened and what he hopes his actions will inspire from people in future.

He told Channel 4 News: 'If the other three police officers that were standing around when George Floyd was murdered had thought about intervening, and stopping their colleague from doing what he was doing, like what we did, George Floyd would be alive today still.

'I just want equality for all of us. At the moment, the scales are unfairly balanced and I want things to be fair for my children and my grandchildren.'

Mr Hutchinson told reporter Keme Nzerem he knew nothing about the man he saved, who he described as 'partially unconscious'.

A hero who carried a far-right protester to safety in the midst of clashes with anti-racism protesters in London yesterday has identified himself

Patrick Hutchinson, pictured speaking to Channel 4 News, has lifted the lid on the moment he intervened to help a protester 'whose life was in danger'

Personal trainer Patrick Hutchinson (right) has taken to social media to claim he was the man who had helped the opposition protester, telling his thousands of followers 'We saved a life today'

Mr Hutchinson (right), who lists himself as a qualified personal trainer and UK athletics coach who has links to Hercules Wimbledon Athletics Club on his Instagram page, attached four pictures to the social media post, including one of him carrying the man and a selfie of him with a friend

'On arrival I note, at this point, the guy was already on the floor,' he said.

'It was pretty hectic, it was almost like a stampede there was lots of people, people trying to protect him but unsuccessfully.

'And then the guys went in there, they put a little cordon around him to stop him receiving any more physical harm.

'He was under physical harm, his life was under threat. And as they did that, I thought, 'well if he stays here he's not going to make it'.

'So I went under, scooped him up, put him on my shoulders and started marching towards the police with him, whilst all the guys were surrounding me, and protecting me and the guy I had on my shoulder.

'I could actually feel strikes and hits as I was carrying him, so these guys were probably taking some of that themselves on their person.

It was [scary], you don't think about that though at the time. You just do what you've got to do.'

Asked his reaction to being called a hero, he added: 'I was just the guy caught on camera with him on my shoulder, but all these guys were all party to it. Without them protecting me, I would have probably got stampeded as well underneath it. So it was a team effort.'

Mr Hutchinson added: 'I had no plans to go up there. I was at home looking after my grandchildren - and my friend said we've gotta go and protect the women and the children and stop these young guys from getting in any trouble.'

His younger brother Don told the Daily Mail: 'My brother is a big guy but even though he has the capability to hurt people, he wouldn't hurt a fly.

'His first thought was that someone was in danger. He didn't think, 'Oh, this is a black guy or white guy.' He thought someone could die and I have to get involved.

'He wouldn't stand there and see someone kicked to death'

'Patrick just took it all in his stride. All he said is, 'It's not black versus white, it's everybody against racism'.'

Don said he hoped his brother's actions could help the country to heal, adding: 'It is time that we all set our differences aside and learn to work together.'

He said he was relieved his brother was not mistaken as a 'protagonist' by police.

After the interview was broadcast, many took to social media to commend Mr Hutchinson's actions, including Labour MP David Lammy who described him as a 'hero'.

He added: 'It's easy to focus on the worst instincts of human behaviour. But it is vital we also celebrate the best.'

Other friends and followers reacted similarly, with one saying: 'Saw this photo and felt so much pride and power and humanity through what you guys did, big respect.'

Another said: 'Yes coach, my boss,' while one added: 'This is what I want to see. A truly incredible man. Nothing but respect.'

A man identified as a far-right protester has been carried to safety from protesters as animosity was briefly set aside on a day of clashes in London between rival groups and police

Far-right supporters have been accused of being the instigators of the violence by attacking police as well as BLM supporters, who then fought back as the scene descended into violence

Father to three daughters, he had earlier taken to social media to identify himself as the man who helped the opposition protester, telling his thousands of followers: 'We saved a life today'.

Mr Hutchinson, who lists himself as a qualified personal trainer and UK athletics coach and who links to Hercules Wimbledon Athletics Club and ARK security on his Instagram page, attached four pictures to the social media post, including one of him carrying the man and a selfie of him with a friend.

Along with the hashtag Black Lives Matter, he wrote: 'It's not black versus white, it is everyone versus the racists. We had each other's back and protected those who needed us.'

The grandfather had posted a week ago in support of American Mr Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes while he was under arrest.

In the post Mr Hutchinson used the hashtags #blackouttuesday, #enoughisenough and #justiceforGeorgeFloyd.

Another who claims he was involved with the rescue effort, Jamaine Facey, posted a picture on Facebook page of him and others with Mr Hutchinson, saying: 'Me and The team #overseer #system #securitysystem #family #fatherslove #systemchange'.

Mr Facey, who list himself as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter on his Facebook page, had earlier posted a video on social media encouraging others to come in support of protests saying: 'You couldn't be bothered to be there when you were asked to help the future generations. So do not comment now that the outcome doesn't fit your narrative.'

The photograph of Mr Hutchinson was taken during violent clashes in Trafalgar Square, Black Lives Matter protesters and some counter protesters, which headed over the River Thames towards Waterloo Station.

Far-right supporters have been accused of being the instigators of the violence by attacking police as well as BLM supporters, who then fought back as the scene descended into violence.

One of the protestors, claimed to be 'far-right' by the crowd, was seen lying injured on the ground after being chased past the Royal Festival Hall.

But photos then show Mr Hutchinson pick him up and carry him over his shoulders to safety - flanked by police in riot gear.

Reports suggest he was badly beaten by some demonstrators, before other protesters stepped in to protect him.

Both BLM supporters and opponents were seen attacking each other, and even clashed with riot police attempting to keep the scene under control.

Pictures have also caught the moment another counter-protester was left with a bloodied face after being hit during a scuffle with protesters.

Earlier in the day there were skirmishes between anti-racism groups and far-right activists. Anti-racist protesters have rallied for days against racism and police brutality since the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

Several hundred demonstrators, mostly white men, attended a protest at Parliament Square organised by far-right groups, including Britain First, which claimed they wanted to protect statues such as Winston Churchill from vandalism.

One counter-protester, claimed to be 'far right' by the crowd, was seen lying injured on the ground after being chased past the Royal Festival Hall

Reports suggest he was badly beaten by some demonstrators, before other protesters stepped in to protect him

But fights erupted in areas near the Houses of Parliament and Trafalgar Square, as some demonstrators assaulted police officers with foul-mouthed chants and missiles, smoke grenades and flares.

Shards of glass were strewn along the streets close to the Cenotaph on Whitehall after bottles were thrown at police officers clad in riot gear.

A man urinated next to a memorial dedicated to police officer Keith Palmer, who was killed in the 2017 Westminster terror attack amid violent clashes between far-right protesters and police in central London.

MP Tobias Ellwood, who gave first aid to PC Palmer as he lay dying after being stabbed to death in the grounds Parliament by Khalid Masood, said the image of the man urinating next to the memorial was 'abhorrent'.

The Tory MP for Bournemouth East and chairman of the Defence Select Committee, tweeted a picture of the man and wrote: 'Absolute shame on this man.

'Of all the images to emerge over these few testing days I find this one of most abhorrent. Please help identify him.'

Pictures have also caught the moment another white counter-protester was left with a bloodied face after being hit during a scuffle with protesters

Hundreds of protesters have tried to break into London's Waterloo Station chanting 'Black Lives Matter' and 'F*** EDL' as outnumbered police scrambled to hold them back

Scotland Yard said that as of 5pm on Saturday, they had arrested five people for offences including violent disorder, assault on police, possession of an offensive weapon, being drunk and disorderly and possession of Class A drugs.

By around 5.30pm, London Ambulance Service said it had treated 15 people for injuries, including two police officers.

Six of these patients, all members of the public, had to be taken to hospital.

The Metropolitan Police Federation chairman, Ken Marsh, condemned the 'disorder and unruliness', and suggested the man pictured urinating next to the memorial should be sent to prison.

He said: 'It's horrendous. The man urinating next to Keith Palmer's memorial is disgusting.

'A faction of people today only had one intention - to be violent and unlawful, they didn't come here to protect the statues, it's just disorder and unruliness.

Scenes outside Waterloo Station descended into chaos as hundreds of protesters tried to break in after demonstrations today

Police fight to maintain control in Trafalgar Square amid both Black Lives Matter and pro-statue protests in London today

Police armed with shields and riot gear reinforce the blockade on Whitehall as louts rush up the police line

'I suggest serious custodial sentences in relation to assaults on police and others, criminal damage and urinating next to the memorial of heroes.'

The violent scenes are in contrast with peaceful demonstrations that took place at Hyde Park and Marble Arch by anti-racism protesters in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

On Friday, statues in Parliament Square - including of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi - were boarded up to prevent them being targeted by protesters both from the Black Lives Matter movement and far-right groups.

The Metropolitan Police had warned people joining demonstrations on Saturday that they must be off the streets by 5pm or risk being arrested.

The violence has been condemned by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Priti Patel, with the latter branding it as 'thoroughly unacceptable thuggery'.

Speaking before the clashes, Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, said the crowds had turned out to 'guard our monuments'.

Mr Golding, who was convicted of a terror offence last month, told the PA news agency: 'I am extremely fed up with the way that the authorities have allowed two consecutive weekends of vandalism against our national monuments.'

There were similar gatherings on Saturday in Belfast, Glasgow and Bristol with crowds massing around monuments.

In Brighton, more than 10,000 protesters formed a line along the seafront in a Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
LG recently unveiled the Velvet, a mid-range 5G phone with very decent specs, a quirky camera array and one of the simplest LG smartphone names in years. It was only available in Korea at the time, but LG has revealed that it will arrive in key European markets this month and come to North America and elsewhere in the weeks ahead.

The Velvets 5G capability comes from Qualcomms 765G processor with an integrated 5G modem. That chip, along with the 6GB of RAM and 4,300 mAh battery should give it decent performance and great battery life. It also come with the same 6.8-inch 1080p OLED screen we liked so much on the V60 ThinQ, along with an SD slot for extra storage and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

LG

From there, things get weirder. If one screen wont do, the Velvet has an optional Dual Screen case (above) that gives you a second display for multitasking, writing, drawing and other chores. And LG being LG, it has arranged the 48-megapixel main camera, 8-megapixel ultrawide camera and 5-megapixel depth sensor into a stylish raindrop pattern.

LG has yet to reveal the price, but it costs the equivalent of around $700 in Korea. As mentioned, it will appear in Europe (Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Poland) in June and come to North America, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America in the weeks ahead.
[June 15, 2020] Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund Inc. Announces Shareholder Approval of New Management and Subadvisory Contracts

Western Asset Investment Grade Income Fund Inc. (NYSE: PAI) (the "Fund") announced that, based on certified voting results from the Fund's Special Meeting of Shareholders (the "Special Meeting"), shareholders have voted to approve the new management agreement for the Fund's manager and the new subadvisory agreement for the Fund's subadviser. Approval of these new agreements was proposed in connection with the pending combination of Legg Mason Inc. ("Legg Mason"), the parent company of the Fund's investment manager and subadviser, and Franklin Resources, Inc., a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton (the "Transaction"), which will result in the automatic termination of the Fund's current management and subadvisory agreements. The new management and subadvisory agreements will each become effective upon the consummation of the Transaction. The Fund is a diversified closed-end management investment company that is advised by Western Asset Management Company, LLC, an affiliate of Legg Mason, and is sub-advised by Western Asset Management Company Limited, which is an afiliate of the adviser. An investment in a Fund involves risk, including loss of principal. Investment return and the value of shares will fluctuate.



Any data and commentary provided in this press release are for informational purposes only. This press release may contain statements regarding plans and expectations for the future that constitute forward-looking statements within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are based on the Fund's current plans and expectations, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning such risks and uncertainties are contained in the Fund's filings with the SEC (News - Alert). The Fund files its semi-annual and annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "Commission"). These reports are available on the Commission's website at www.sec.gov. For more information, please call Investor Relations: 1-888-777-0102, or consult the Fund's web site at www.lmcef.com. Hard copies of the Fund's complete audited financial statements are available free of charge upon request.

Category: Fund Announcement View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005294/en/

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Speaking to reporters on Monday, Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman said Iran sees propaganda against the Iranian government as unacceptable and cannot close its eyes to anti-Iranian protests by Afghans.

Referring to recent Afghan anti-Iranian protest in front of the Iranian embassy in London and Kabul, Seyed Abbas Mousavi said the protests were meant to "destroy the relations of the two countries" and added: "Such actions and insults will not be tolerated".

On Sunday hundreds of Afghans rallied in front of the Iranian embassy in London to protest what they called the "maltreatment of Afghan migrants by the Iranian police and government". Similar but smaller rallies were held in front of Iranian embassies in other European capitals and in the United States.

Afghans protesting in front of the Iranian embassy in London on June 14.

The protesters demanded justice for tens of Afghans allegedly killed by Iranian police and law enforcement forces since May 2.

On June 5, thiree illegal Afghan migrants burned to death in Iran's Yazd Province in a vehicle after the car which had been shot at by the Iranian police caught fire during escape.

Also on May 2 around fifty Afghan nationals trying to cross a river to enter Iran were allegedly drowned by the Iranian border guards who forced them back into the river. The Iranian Police has denied any responsibility for the incident.

On June 7, protesters sprayed paint on the gate and the plaque of the Iranian embassy in Kabul and threw stones at the embassy.

On June 13 Iran summoned the Afghan ambassador in Tehran over what it called "recent offensive moves against the Iranian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan".

A statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Saturday said the protests were held "under the pretext that a number of Afghan nationals who had plans for illegal entry into Iran or had entered Iran illegally with the help of traffickers have died".
Two students of the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Cynthia Obieshi and Samuel Osuji, died during a s3x romp at the we...





Two students of the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Cynthia Obieshi and Samuel Osuji, died during a s3x romp at the weekend.





The Police made the confirmation after the undergraduates were discovered dead on Sunday.





Orlando Okeokwu, Police spokesman, in a statement, confirmed that the corpses had been deposited in the morgue.





He said acting on a report received, operatives of the Divisional Police Headquarters, Nekede/Ihiagwa Division, moved to Room 19, Vic-Mic Lodge





The hotel is situated around the JMJ bus stop.





Okeokwu noted that officers broke into the room and found the lifeless bodies of one Cynthia Obieshi and one Samuel Osuji.





The police said Cynthia visited her boyfriend, Samuel on June 13, 2020, and passed the night with him, but unfortunately, both of them could not wake up the next morning.





The statement noted that preliminary investigation suggests that they may have died as result of drug consumption.





Okeokwu added that investigation of the incident has commenced.
Military members and veterans can get up to four free months of Apple Music through the Apple Music military discount -- but...
The University of Manchester has been named as the worlds 27th best university, maintaining its highest position in the QS World University Rankings.

These are the worlds leading university rankings rating the globes top 1,000 institutions across 80 different countries. This year sees Manchester maintain its highest ever position globally while also ranking sixth in the UK, and eighth in Europe.

These results were released on June 10, 2020 by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS uses six indicators to compile the rankings, including academic and employer reputation. Manchesters reputation amongst employers was once again the highest-ranking indicator, scoring 97.4 out of 100, said a statement from the university.

Earlier in the year, this outstanding reputation was again demonstrated when the university was named the most targeted institution by the UKs top 100 graduate employers for the third year in a row by The Graduate Market in 2020. Manchester was also named the University of the Year for Graduate Employment by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020.

QS itself also ranks Manchester in the top 10 UK universities for overall graduate employability, alumni outcomes, employer reputations and partnerships with employers in its own employability rankings which lists more than 1,000 universities globally.

Other successes for the university this year include it being named the top institution in the country, second in Europe and eighth globally in the Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings. The Alliance Manchester Business School also saw improvement, moving up to fifth in the UK, 11th in Europe and 45th in the world in the latest Financial Times worlds best MBAs.

Deputy President & Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Luke Georghiou, said: Im delighted that the University has retained its position in the latest QS Rankings, especially with such a strong score for graduate employment. This is the latest independent recognition for our strengths in helping our graduates start or improve their careers.

The higher education sector across the world finds itself in challenging times at present, but these latest results are a welcome reminder of the excellent work, research and discoveries universities are making around the world.

For our own results, as always, our thanks have to go to all our staff and students whose immense hard work and efforts, especially during these unprecedented times, make our University the global success it is. -- TradeArabia News Service
Former Lawmaker In Iran, Parvaneh Salahshouri, Being Tried For Voicing Criticism

06/15/20

Source: Radio Farda

A preliminary court in Iran has found former outspoken female member of parliament guilty, and soon she will be put on trial. The case against Ms. Parvaneh Salahshouri, with numerous plaintiffs, and after preliminary investigations, has been referred to the court, Fars news agency reported June 14. Salahshouri is a sociologist and reformist politician who was a lawmaker representing Tehran.



Parvaneh Salahshouri

Based on the indictment, Parvaneh Salahshouri, 55, is charged with "spreading lies intended to disturb public opinion," and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic regime."



Ms. Salahshouri was initially summoned to the Public Prosecutor's Office on February 1, 2020 and was released on bail. In a tweet on Sunday, Salahshouri described the primary verdict as the "outcome of being people's representative".



A number of local media including the state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA), reported that Salahshouri's tweets and some of her interviews have led to her prosecution. Salahshouri, who is notorious for not mincing her words, had frequently lambasted the Islamic Republic and its style of governance.

In a post published on her Telegram channel, Salahshouri said in January 2020 that the IRGC and "certain other entities" had lodged complaints with the court against her. She maintained that the charges against her violated Articles 84 and 86 of the Islamic Republic Constitution, which allow legislators "to speak about all affairs of the country".



Earlier, Salahshouri had made some fiery speeches lambasting the regime. In one of her speeches in a public session of parliament, she strongly criticized the "objectionable governance of the country and grim despotism and the ever-increasing powers of parallel, unelected centers of power." Furthermore, she had called the Islamic Republic's system as a "rogue tyranny".

Referring to the widespread mid-November anti-regime protests in 22 out of 31 provinces of Iran, Salahshouri tweeted, "People expressed their protests, but received bullets and detentions in response."



Moreover, Salahshouri disclosed that several children among the protesters were shot dead by the security forces in the crackdown. She also called for a "truth-finding committee" to investigate the killing of protesters including children, such as 14-year-old Nikta Esfandani who was directly shot to death in the west of Tehran.



In the November 2019 anti-regime rallies held in more than 100 cities in Iran, hundreds of protesters were killed by police and security forces.

#___ "                                    ."



: #_ pic.twitter.com/1XKPO1ih0Q  Parvaneh Salahshouri   (@P_Salahshouri) June 14, 2020

Salahshouri, who garnered almost two million votes to represent the capital city, Tehran (Mya 2016-May 2020), announced in the final weeks that she would not seek reelection.



"Given the structures that restrict Parliament's authority, ignoring the people's demands and wishes, improper supervision of the Guardian Council over elections, the mid-November events, and despite what I owe to the people, I have decided not to run in the next election," Salahshouri said.
Egypts flagship carrier Egyptair has racked up losses of over $3 billion and airports have achieved zero income on the back of flight suspension over the coronavirus pandemic in place since March, the civil aviation minister said.

Private airlines have also incurred substantial losses over the past three months, aviation minister Mohamed Manar said in TV comments to Al-Hadath satellite TV channel late on Sunday.

Last month, Egypts finance ministry decided to lend EgyptAir EGP 2 billion ($127.39 million) to help it handle the impact of the pandemic on its operations.

Egypt halted all international flights on 19 March in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It has since only allowed its airports to open to domestic, freight and special repatriation flights.

The country announced late on Sunday that it will gradually resume regular international flights at all its airports starting 1 July, with foreign tourists allowed to fly into three coastal governorates only, which have had the lowest numbers of recorded coronavirus cases in the country.

According to Sunday's announcement, the resumption of tourist trips will come gradually and under certain conditions.

Travelers must sign an acknowledgement at departure airports that they are free of the virus prior to boarding their planes, while those coming from countries with high rates of coronavirus will be required to submit PCR test results to prove they are coronavirus-free before travelling.

Passengers and aircrew will also be obligated to wear masks on board planes while keeping safe distances between one another.

Manar said based on assessment by the World Health Organisation (WHO), there would be no need to keep some plane seats empty to limit the risk of transmission.

In separate TV comments, the minister said the country has so far repatriated around 30,000 Egyptians from abroad, as part of a government plan to bring home nationals stranded outside the country due to international flight suspensions.

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Ross was a Confederate general who later served as governor of Texas before becoming A&Ms president, where he served from 1891 until his death in 1898. He is credited with saving the struggling university in its early years, boosting enrollment and securing additional funding to improve infrastructure. The statue was dedicated in 1918 in front of the Academic Building. A&M students have traditionally placed pennies on the base of the statue for good luck before taking exams. Last week, petitions began circulating arguing for and against the removal of the statue, the oldest on A&Ms campus.

A group of at least 100 who support keeping the statue on campus had gathered shortly before 1:30 p.m., while a group of about 200 in favor of removing it assembled on the Simpson Drill Field at 2 p.m. before marching over to the monument. The statue, which was covered with a tarp and fenced off after officials discovered Wednesday morning that it had been vandalized with graffiti, was protected by several barriers. Although no uniformed officers were visible in the immediate area, Texas A&M staff members stood ready to intervene if necessary. While police had taped off areas of the sidewalk for protesters to stand at a distance from their opponents, those barriers were ultimately disregarded.
With the cloud of union oversight now dark on Erlanger Hospitals horizon and the turnover of nurses at the hospital peaking due to consistent managerial abuse, literally double caseloads, and declining benefits, there are many longtime hospital nurses who are past being fed up, and believe me on this, my emails have tripled from nurses begging for help. I have nothing to do with it, other than to open light on the dark secret that our Level 1 trauma center is on the brink of being unsafe for human beings.

Thats right: It will come as no surprise, except to the hospitals bumbling Board of Trustees, when state and federal oversight for our biggest public hospital soon steps in and blows the whistle on a swirling circus unprecedented in the hospitals history.

Top doctors are leaving with a flood of the best nurses. Management just ganged up on the in-house doctors  the hospitalists -- and they are getting ready to bolt like a herd of wild elephants. Worse, the hospitals fiscal year ends June 30 and get ready for a report that will resemble the Wuhan flu on its worst day, with the bloodiest damage to be found under the subset line: pensions.

Several weeks ago I revealed the hospital is in chaos and, despite the Board of Trustees labeling me a gossip columnist and immediately giving a grossly-inadequate CEO Will Jackson a now somewhat bogus unanimous approval, Erlanger has sagged further south in just two weeks. Three of the best floor nurses in the hospital, each with over a decade of meritorious service, have just been castigated and fired because they refused to take charge of a floor assignment because it was too darn dangerous. They fear that soon one of Erlangers tightly-woven nursing family will kill a patient due to unforgivable and horrid under-staffing.

On the Saturday night the three who stood up to horrible management reported for work, the patient-nurse ratio was 1:8, which is exactly twice what pending federal legislation will allow. There are documented cases where Erlangers ICU ratio has been as high as 1:5, when a web search can find no exception higher than 1:2 and thats rare  every source from the American Medical Association to various hospital standards is staunchly 1:1.

According to several studies, the third-leading cause of death in the United States is preventable death caused by medical error. The most conservative number is about 700 per day. Yearly figures range from 250,000 to 400,000 and a white paper recently obtained from United Nurses United reads: Nurses have witnessed preventable death and disability daily at their patients bedsides in hospitals big and small from coast to coast. Despite these warnings, hospitalized patients remain at risk and the consequences are alarming. The long-held perception of nurses that there simply are not enough nurses present to provide the care needed has been validated by dozens of studies.

The same nurses group gives these acceptable inpatient ratios: Medical/Surgical 1:4 (like Erlangers West Wing 8, where tonight it will be 1:8); Emergency room 1:3 (where at Erlanger tonight it will again be double, two nights ago it was triple); Coronary Care 1:2 (at Erlanger is either 1:5 or 1:6); Acute Respiratory Care 1:2 (at Erlanger it is 16:2), and on and on the great disparity goes.

According to one floor nurse on the condition of anonymity, The nurses that were fired were from the 8th floor. I am sure you've read the article about the Erlanger Union hopefully being formed. It stemmed from that situation. Do you know what Jan Keys did for the nurses who stayed on shift and took NINE patients each? She gave them a $25 gift card. She didn't take patients. Honestly, she's been away from bedside too long, she wouldn't know what to do. That was the best she could do at that point? A $25 gift card?

How does under-staffing continue? Many nurses continue to turn in their notice. Before COVID happened, staffing issues were already beginning to be a problem, the nurse answered. I remember overhearing a nurse director crying to Jan Keys in the director's office, asking Jan to not force her to have her staff do team nursing, taking 12 patients to a team. Jan said that was how it was going to be and she (the director) needed to follow suit. Team nursing was Jan's idea of resolving the short staff issue; a "new" nurse matrix to hide the fact that we (the hospital) needed more nurses.

The staffing issue has not been fixed yet and it continues to get worse as people leave. There was a time last week where there was just one nurse and one tech for seven patients. It wasn't an ICU or med-surg floor, I think it was Estar or something like that, she said. But I am sure you can imagine the dangers of only having two people in an isolated area. There are some shifts where there are no patient care techs, so the nurse has to do all the nurse care and the patient care. I never have a problem with that, unless I have seven patients and they all require total care; I can't get it all done myself. Its impossible. Unfortunately, this happens often.

Jan Keys, the administrator who is over nursing and the emergency room, is the focal point of a half-dozen nurses who have told me, Jan Keys, Ted Nelson, Angie Basham all claim to know what it is like at bedside, they say they support nurses, but during any of this crisis, no one has ever seen our fearless leaders taking patients, only scolding staff for not team nursing and telling their directors to take patients.

Is one area harder than the other? I mean, should harder work areas have more nurses than others? Nurses are forced from their home units to fill the needs of other units. A kind of "borrowing from Peter to pay Paul" type theory. Sure, nursing is nursing, shouldn't be a problem, right? But if all your nursing career you've been a cardiac nurse and you put that cardiac nurse on an ortho floor, do you not think that cardiac nurse is going to feel overwhelmed and "thrown to the wolves"? she said realistically.

One of the hardest places I have rotated to has to be the stroke unit. Almost all of those patients are total care (they cannot move half their body because of a stroke, require help eating, need to be turned frequently so they don't get pressure ulcers, and even try to escape bed and accidentally fall because they forget they can't walk because of their stroke). Having seven to eight of these types of patients makes for a really, really hard shift. (The national recommendation is 3:1, with the 1 being a full RN.)

I worked on the cardiac floor the other week and had five patients (usually it's a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio) and I had a patient with a blood pressure that just wouldn't stay within the defined limits set by the doctor. She kept me so busy that I didn't have much time for other patients. This unit shouldn't be more than 4:1 ratio, yet we don't have the staff to tend to the units properly.

How can you not fault any of your colleagues from walking away? I mean, really, I asked incredulously. Im trying to make this too simple  and I apologize. But we need you to let the hospital know, to let the Trustees know, to let our legislators know   and then she told me a story 

Do you know how much this can eat at a person? Knowing you are entirely responsible for another life, but you don't have time for it? And to watch them decline because you were late on meds or because you missed something due to being overwhelmed. In 2015 we were at an 8:1 ratio. It was bad then, too.

It was after Erlanger dismissed the travel nurses and we didn't have LPN's... We only had one PCT (patient care tech) for the unit and she was busy in another room. It was later in the shift and I had finally gotten to sit down to chart; a patient called out for the bathroom and luckily for her, the PCT was too busy so I was forced to go into the room. I hadn't been there in a while honestly. I know, it's neglect on my part, but I had just discharged my fourth patient and admitted one, I was trying so hard to keep up.

The patient that had to go to the bathroom suddenly wasn't moving her left side. I called a rapid and she was taken to have a thrombectomy. She was lucky. I was lucky. I went home and cried that night. She could have been left paralyzed for life if I had not gone in there in time, if I hadn't heard the call light go off, or if I was still in another room doing an admission or discharge... it would have been my fault for not catching it. This was five years ago, and it still eats at me.

I know this happens to other nurses in different hospitals on different shifts in different units. Nurse shortage is not a new thing. I just find it shocking how Erlanger's nurse management has decided to handle it.

The nurse executives such as Jan, Ted, and Angie seem to have created a nurse witch hunt. They look for any opposing party and try to silence them. I heard that of the nurse directors on the med-surg floors, one is pretty vocal about her staffs' needs and the needs of patients, and the nurse leaders have been trying to dismiss her for quite some time. While I know I can't prove this, it has been talked about on several different units and I pray it's not true because this nurse director is incredible.

I have taken patients with her before she became director, and even after she became director. She has worked many night shifts when she first took her position because night shift was short, and she would still come in the following day to do her management duty. She has taken patients way before the nurse executives told her she HAD to. She advocates for her staff and for the patients. It would be a shame to watch these terrible nurse administrators push out another incredible nurse and leader.

So, we have an axis of three who have created utter pandemonium in Will Jacksons historic nine-month road to ruin. I dont have a problem with Dr. Jackson, but in the years I have been here, nothing can compare to how bad it is for every nurse in this hospital.

I don't want this information to scare off new nurses. We need nurses. We (nursing staff) are an incredibly tight network of people, and soon everyone in Chattanooga will see that as we begin to fight back against the leaders who don't support us.

I honestly believe if Ted, Angie, and Jan were cycled out, and the nursing voice could finally be heard (and acknowledged), we could go back to taking care of patients. I am proud of the voices that have spoken against the current situation we are in. I cannot wait until the entirety of the hospital, especially Ted, Angie, and Jan see that we are #Erlangerstrong and are a proud #Erlangernurse and we don't need or want them as our leaders anymore.

* * *

This from another email: What I don't get is why the hospitalist group is having to pay back their PTO they used over the past five years. Supposedly Erlanger 'overpaid' the hospitalist group for their PTO and because of this, they're requiring the doctors to pay it back, and the doctors suddenly have to decide if they want to do it in one lump sum or over a pay period, and this decision had to be made within a month of being told there was an 'error'. How is it that a five-year mistake only gets a one-month thought process time for doctors? You can expect to see a doctor shortage at Erlanger soon, too, at least in the Hospitalist department, because as far as I know, no other specialty or group is having to pay back anything. I promise. This has become an out-and-out circus and Will Jackson has been the CEO for what? Just nine months?

* * *

Erlanger spent millions, many millions, for a state of the art Epic computer system but something seems amiss. I have five personal medical providers who are each my trusted-and-true doctors at Erlanger. When I tried to send several some blood work results last week my emails were immediately returned as undeliverable. A day or two later I returned an appointment email to my orthopedic doctor, Mark Freeman, and it was immediately bounced back, undeliverable. Not long ago I sent Mark a copy of a book he might like. It was returned by the postal service marked Not known  Return to Sender. I need to see my blood specialist, hematologist Harsha Vardhana (who may be the kindest man I have ever known) and  lo and behold  same thing  undeliverable.

Do you think I have been blocked? I dont know if I can bear it. I am so over wrought, this shrine of patient care that would turn its somewhat childish back on me as an undeliverable in this time of unessentials. Hilary Clinton informed me some time ago I was a deplorable. I can handle that but an undeliverable? Oh mercy, I may just die! (a pun is a pun, even on the kindergarten playground). So, how do I get a thank you  and happily ever after to my wonderful healers? Through a florist cleverly concealed inside some bouquet? Ill come up with something and Ill make do.

Never expend your tears on those who already cry 

royexum@aol.com
Sharon Stone has stayed in top shape her entire life and the actress has no plans on changing that.

The 62-year-old Casino star looked slender and toned as she wore a bathing suit while sitting in an outdoor sofa by the swimming pool of her Beverly Hills mansion with a Pellegrino by her side.

The mother-of-three was chatting with a female friend and sat near her two dogs Joe and Bandit as she said she was enjoying a 'Sunday Fun day.'

At home: Sharon Stone looked slender and toned as she wore a bathing suit while sitting in an outdoor sofa by the swimming pool of her Beverly Hills mansion with her two dogs by her side

The blonde bombshell had on purple tinted sunglasses by Alain Afflelou Optico.

And the Total Recall star wore what appeared to be a one piece suit in green and blue as she sat with her knees up.

Next to her was a pal who looked toned in a blue bikini as they seemed to be having a catch up.

Talk to me: Next to the movie star of 40 years was a pal who looked toned in a blue bikini as they seemed to be having a catch up

'Thank you @afflelou_optico for the #purplehaze. (: @pricearana),' said Stone in her caption as she made sure to give a shot out to her sunglasses designer.

'SundayFunday with friends,' the cover girl noted as she named her dogs.

In May she posted photos to Instagram of her age-defying figure in a bikini while she lounged around her pool.

She had on a summery quilt-like top with matching bottoms, along with a necklace of cowrie shells.

Still got it: Stone looked more youthful than her 62 years in a series of bikini photos shared to her Instagram on Saturday as she lounged by her pool while quarantining

Sharon added some flair with a gold luxury wristwatch, and she blocked out the piercing sun with a pair of aviator sunglasses.

'Happy Memorial Day weekend. Thank you for Your Service. Stay Safe,' she wrote, addressing the caption from herself and her cute French Bulldog Bandit.

The 5ft9in Oscar nominee tried something cheekier in an earlier poolside photo.

She stood tall and revealed her trim figure while wearing a bizarre metal helmet that appeared to be inspired by the British rapper MF Doom, whose mask was in turn inspired by the Marvel comics villain Doctor Doom.

Sense of humor: She wore a skimpy quilt-like bikini, as well as a bizarre metal mask in one photo that seemed inspired by the British rapper MF Doom

Spa day: On Friday, she spent some quality time pampering her other French Bulldog Joe

'Keepin my head together,' she joked in the caption.

Two of Sharon's friends floated around in the pool in the picture, while Bandit followed close at her heels.

On Friday, she spent some quality time pampering her other French Bulldog Joe.

'Joe's getting his summer pedicure, and he decided to go with Chanel,' she deadpanned as she painted his claws a shade of gold.

Though nail polish isn't necessary for dogs and could be toxic if they lick it while wet, he didn't seem to mind as he snoozed peacefully in a follow-up photo.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

Exhale, here we go again another blog about Ghana. And this blog is inspired by a long Facebook thread I was involved in. In the said thread, the original poster was lamenting about the fact that women in Ghana are overlooked when it comes to guest speakers on panels. A male contributor suggested that women should organize their own talks. I agreed with him. And that is when the problem started. A young woman, Felicity, one of Ghanas new breed of feminists replied to me that what did I do after my resignation from my government appointment? She asked why I didnt form a shadow organization instead of resigning. We went back and forth, forth and back and sadly, the issue of females on talk panels got lost until I said, hey, lets focus on the issues.

You see the problem with Ghana? And why I say things will never workout?

First of all, we are not allowed to talk about the many challenges and problems faced by Ghanaians. If you do, you will be branded an enemy of the ruling government. So if you talk about corruption under an NDC government, that means you hate the NDC and are a staunch NPP. If you speak about the same corruption under NPP, it means you hate NPP and have been paid by NDC to make them look bad! How does a country develop when speaking about developmental issues leads to you being branded anti one party and pro the other?

The other reason I say Ghana will not work is because some Ghanaians like to shoot down ideas without offering an alternative. Ghanaians will shoot down what may or may not be a valid idea simply because they do not like the person who proposed it! Or Ghanaians will shoot down an idea because they are not thinkers and the idea that somebody thinks frightens them I guess. I call myself THE IDEAS WOMAN because I generate an idea a second. Ask my former colleagues at Lintas or anyone who has worked with me. Thats my strength. I think all the time and can generate idea after idea, effortlessly. Now, Im not saying all my ideas are good or feasible. But one of my pet peeves is people shooting down anyones idea without offering an alternative. Like the young feminist did in the thread that inspired this post. You see, instead of going on the personal and asking me as to why I didnt form a shadow cabinet, why didnt the young woman just say I dont think the idea of women doing it for themselves will work. I think we should do A, B, C. That is how we dialogue and find answers. But attacking people personally with comments such as when things werent working at the Tourism Development Company, did you set up a shadow body? and why did you need to remind us youre not a feminist shows the conversation no longer becomes issue based. What is wrong in saying I am not a feminist but I support women getting on the panel. Why should this statement be a big problem for this young woman? If someone says I am a vegetarian, but I think fish should be allowed at this dinner is that a bad thing? No. The person is merely giving you some background information about themselves. So if I say Im not a feminist, Im giving background information before proceeding with what I have to say. The personal attacks when discussing issues have to stop.

You see, some Ghanaians are full of so much hate and pull him/her down that they refuse to engage certain people on the issues. Some Ghanaians are full of envy and dislike someone so much that they relish the opportunity to insult them, rather than focus on the issue. I have spent far too much time with haters, fighting over my own views and suggestions. Does that even make sense? Im only using this example of what happened in the female guest speaker thread because it is the most recent and it inspired this blog. I am not necessarily saying Felicity insulted me in this instance. However, if she had not started her comment by going into my personal space, we would not have spent time going back and forth. All she had to do was say I dont agree with the suggestion and offer her idea. What she offered was you proposed an impractical solution and I wanted to demonstrate the impractical by using your personal situation as an example. Proposing that women create their own panels is not the solution. Women should be included in all nation building discussions. We cant create another Senior Ministry and we shouldnt have to. Yes, we all agree on that. That has been the cry all this time so Felicitys reply to my suggestion is hardly groundbreaking. Yet her friends and supporters will love and like her comments as if she has made a profound statement or offered workable solutions! Some will even go on to say ignore me! I thought the reason for the discussion was to find solutions as to HOW to get women on these panels. I didnt know the conversation was merely to regurgitate the same old cry! Hitting me with such a response is hardly the solution, is it? Felicity only came to knock down my ideas as impractical without offering another HOW idea. Saying women must be involved and we cant create another Senior Ministry is not a HOW to find answers!

According to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/impractical , impractical means not effective or reasonable, or (of people) not able to provide effective or simple solutions. Now, with that definition in mind, lets look at the ideas I generated whilst going back and forth with Felicity. Remember, these werent ideas I had given much thought to. They simply came to me during our argument so yes, maybe it can be refined if we are to give it a proper thought.

1. A talk panel to discuss HOW women can become involved. The theme is The Importance / Power of the Female Voice in Panels, A Practical Guide. There would be three speakers  Speaker 1 would talk about the importance and power of the female voice on panels; Speaker 2 would talk about HOW to get women on panels (Ideally Felicity should handle this topic because she is extremely vocal and passionate about this issue. It would be beneficial if Felicity were to give a talk on HOW to involve women where she shares several practical and do-able ideas. We are past saying women must be involved. We must share ideas and suggestions on HOW women are to be involved. And remember,women doing our own panels has been shot down as nonsense and not do-able so no need for any Speaker to come with that stupid suggestion). Speaker 3 would come with an impressive profile of about 30 Ghanaian women who can contribute in all areas of national development.

2. A quarterly panel organized by women in Ghanaian media where they invite women from all fields as guest speakers.

With the idea of women doing it for themselves, I believe what will happen is, whoever organizes panels for women only will have a database of solid and suitably qualified women from all fields. This database can then be made available to event organizers who currently claim the women are not there. Because the women are there. Ghana has the qualified women who can make a meaningful contribution. Now, if the men are not inviting to you to their panels, how long must you cry? Why cant you think of another way to gain entry? My idea may not work, but before you shoot it down, bring another option and dont get into personal attacks or insults! Stick to the issue at hand. And anyone who believes this idea is impractical needs to ask themselves why they think so and if they would still feel the same if someone else generated the idea

Ghana will only work when we encourage and engage in mature, non-insulting dialogue. So instead of going into a tirade over my resignation, Felicity could have simply offered her solution as to HOW to get women on panels. Saying things such as women should be included is not the solution! HOW does she propose women are included? When you tear down an idea, have an alternative one in place. So for example, someone may say ABC, wont work. Lets try XZY. Another person may also suggest FGH. Instead of knocking down ideas, bring yours on board. And maybe when everyone contributes, that is when Ghana will find solutions. So the solution to how to get women involved in panels may have come from taking A, adding Z and then adding G. But if you shoot down the person who suggests ABC without offering XYZ, all youre doing is killing visions, without offering a way out of the mess Ghana is in.

I am not saying the idea of women organizing their own talks is the best or only idea. What I am however saying is, instead of the constant crying, why cant we organize our own talk, as a way to let event organizers know that Ghana has the women? In these days when you can just organize a zoom chat, why do we feel we cant do our own events whilst fighting for the men to involve us? Wont the cries be stronger if the women say why are you ignoring us? We organize quarterly panels and can confidently tell you there are fully qualified female Doctors, Economists, Politicians, CEOs, etc. etc. etc. that can make a meaningful contribution to the national dialogue. Imagine how powerful the cry would be when supported with evidence and examples.

Ghana has a lot of problems. Some of us are naturally thinkers. Ideas come to us effortlessly. Not all are good or workable. But to shoot people down because you hate them and offer no better alternative will do more harm than good in Ghanas development. From now on now, think Ghana. Think solutions and think less of the messengers that bring the answers Ghana so desperately needs.There are loads of people who have brilliant ideas for Ghana. Dont shoot them down. Let all suggestions be heard and only shoot them down when you have a better alternative. Ghana can only work when you begin with ideas and suggestions!

But hey, these are just the reflections of an ordinary African woman.
Like its Latin American ally, Venezuela, Iran appears to be rebranding its crude oil destined for China in Malaysia to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

Data provided to Radio Farda by data intelligence firm Kpler indicates that Iran has suddenly increased oil exports to Malaysia since January. At the same time, official figures show a huge drop in Iranian oil exports to China in the first four months of 2020. This leads to suspicions that the oil destined for Malaysia actually ends up in China.

Iran has exported 2 million barrels of crude oil, worth between $60 to $70 million to Malaysia from January-April.

According to the same data Iran delivered another 7.1 million barrels in May as well, bringing the total oil shipments to Malaysia to 9.1 million or roughly 60,000 barrels per day.

Malaysia, however, has never been among traditional buyers of Iranian oil and the shipments are not reflected in the reports of the Malaysian Customs for this period.

This indicates that Iranian oil reaching Malaysia somehow changes ownership and send to another destination, possibly China.

In the first four months of 2019 Malaysia exported under 1.9 million tons of oil to China. However, the Chinese Customs statistics show that Malaysia has exported 6.2 million tons (equal to 377,000 barrels per day) to China in the four-month period in question. This is 3.3-fold increase compared with the same period in the previous year.

Last week in a special report Reuters said Venezuela, which is also sanctioned by the United States, is selling oil to China through Malaysia where the information on ownership and source are altered before shipment to make the oil's origin appear to be Malaysian.

Between July 1 and Dec. 31 2019, tankers delivered at least 18 shipments totaling 19.7 million barrels of rebranded Venezuelan crude  representing more than 5 percent of Venezuela's total exports in 2019 worth around $1 billion -- to Chinese ports.

China's 2019 imports of Venezuelan oil averaged 283,000 barrels a day according to data Reuters analyzed. But Chinese customs reported just 228,700 barrels a day coming from Venezuela. This means some Venezuelan oil reaching China was rebranded.

In the same manner, official statistics of the Chinese Customs indicate about 91,000 barrels of oil imports from Iran in the said four-month period while in the previous year this had been 561,000 barrels per day.

Before the reintroduction of U.S. sanctions in May 2018, Iran exported more than 2.5 million barrels of crude oil, but during January-May 2020 the volume plunged to about 200,000 b/d.
A deal between AstraZeneca and four European countries for Covid-19 vaccines involves doses being shared by European Union members on a pro rata basis based on population, a source at the French President's office said on Monday. The British drugmaker signed a contract with France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands at the weekend for up to 400 million doses of its potential vaccine. Governments have been scrambling to secure advance purchases of promising coronavirus immunisation treatments amid concerns within the EU that the bloc has not moved as fast as other regions or ...
Castrol India lost 3.04% to Rs 118.20 after the company's net profit fell 32.3% to Rs 125.20 crore on 29.5% decline in net sales to Rs 688 crore in Q1 March 2020 over Q1 March 2019.

Profit before tax stood fell 41.1% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 169.50 crore in Q1 CY20 from Rs 287.60 crore in Q1 CY19.

The company's profitability in the first quarter of the current year 2020 (CY20) was aided by lower total expenditure (down 25.7% YoY to Rs 515 crore) and lower current tax expense (down 56.6% YoY to Rs 45.10 crore). Depreciation costs, however, rose 37% to Rs 22.20 crore in Q1 CY20 over Q1 CY19.

Sandeep Sangwan, managing director, Castrol India, said: "The first quarter of 2020 has been unprecedented with an overall slowdown in the economy, liquidity crunch as well as the break-out of the global Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of which, the overall lubricant industry in the country has been hit by severe demand and supply disruptions.

We continue to work on numerous cost control actions, working capital management as well as efficiency programmes to drive margins and protect our finances. We renewed our long-term partnership with JCB, the largest off-road vehicle manufacturer in India.

Readying ourselves for a low carbon future, we entered into agreements for EV fluids with OEMs in India including MG Motors and Tata Motors, as well as to supply lubricants to various OEMs for their BS-VI compliant vehicles.

We continue to monitor the dynamic nature of the ongoing crisis. Our current strong liquidity position gives us confidence to be able to meet the near-term challenges."

Castrol India manufactures and markets automotive and industrial lubricants and specialty products. The company's products include lubricating oils, greases and brake fluids.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ben Whishaw is set to play the NHS junior doctor Adam Kay in a series based on his best-selling memoir.

The James Bond star, 39, has confirmed he will take on the role in a BBC comedy-drama based on the novel This Is Going To Hurt, which openly documents Kay's experience working in an NHS hospital.

It comes as the latest 007 entry No Time To Di saw its release date brought forward by two weeks, after it was originally pushed back by seven months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Exciting: James Bond star Ben Whishaw is set to play the NHS junior doctor Adam Kay in a series based on his best-selling memoir (pictured with Daniel Craig in 2015's Spectre)

Speaking about the role Ben - who plays Q in the 007 series - said he was 'proud' to take on the role of junior doctor Kay, after his 2017 novel became a worldwide bestseller.

He told The Mirror: 'Its an honest, hilarious, heart-breaking look at the great institution and the army of unsung heroes who work there under the most stressful conditions.'

Meanwhile Adam himself added: 'Ben is quite simply one of the finest actors our country has produced and a national treasure. Theres simply no one who could do a better job of playing  a much more handsome version of  me.

Exciting: The actor has confirmed he will take on the role in a BBC series based on the novel This Is Going To Hurt, which Kay (pictured) wrote about his experience on the NHS frontline

News of the series comes as the release date for the latest instalment in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, has been brought forward.

The long-awaited movie was originally scheduled for release in April, but the date was changed in light of the coronavirus pandemic, with a new date of November 25 being set back in March.

But now, the official Twitter account for the project has confirmed that its release date has been moved once again.

Coming VERY soon: News of the series comes as the release date for the latest instalment in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, has been brought forward

The tweet read: 'The return of old friends in NO TIME TO DIE. In cinemas 12th November UK, 20th November US!'

The upcoming movie will mark Daniel Craig's last-ever outing as the iconic character., which the actor insisted he was 'fine' about.

He said: 'I'm really... I'm OK. I don't think I would have been if I'd done the last film and that had been it. But this, I'm like... Let's go. Let's get on with it. I'm fine.'

The actor also insisted he isn't too worried about his post-Bond career.

Coming out: The long-awaited movie was originally scheduled for release in April, but the date was changed in light of the coronavirus pandemic, with a new date of November 25 being set back in March

On the horizon: But now, the official Twitter account for the project has confirmed that its release date has been moved once again

He said: 'I'm pretty sure I can play just about anything. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I can, or at least I can make a f**king good fist of it.'

Daniel was more involved in the writing of the new movie than he has been in the past, including having Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought on board to tweak the script.

Producers are also reportedly planning a spin-off based on the spy's recently-discovered daughter, penned by the Killing Eve' scribe Phoebe.

Sources claimed bosses have approached her to pen a franchise documenting how the offspring of 007 becomes an agent herself.

It comes following reports that Bond is set to to have daughter in the long-awaited film No Time To Die.

The tweet read: 'The return of old friends in NO TIME TO DIE. In cinemas 12th November UK, 20th November US!'

Plans: James Bond bosses are reportedly planning a spin-off based on the spy's recently-discovered daughter (Daniel Craig pictured in 2012's Skyfall)

A source told The Sunday Mirror: 'Bond bosses are very excited about 007 having a daughter and creating a new franchise around her.

'It is likely to feature Bond conflicted over having to train her up as an assassin combined with Waller-Bridge's trademark black humour, shown in Killing Eve.

'She may just offer ideas and co-produce as roles are yet to be decided, but bosses are keen to give her a big part in the film's production.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Universal Pictures and Phoebe Waller-Bridge for comment.

New series? Sources claimed bosses have approached Killing Eve's Phoebe Waller-Bridge to pen a franchise documenting how the offspring of 007 becomes an agent herself

Following the reports that James Bond will have a five-year-old daughter in the sequel No Time To Die, former star Britt Eklan admitted she doesn't believe 007 should be a dad.

The actress, 77, appeared in The Man With The Golden Gun opposite Roger Moore's iteration of the iconic spy in 1974, and said she didn't agree with the decision as 'everyone wants to be' him.

Britt explained: 'Well, I think that Bond should probably be a little more untouchable. He's a fantasy, Bond. Everyone wants to be Bond.'

Unhappy: Former star Britt Ekland admitted on Tuesday she doesn't believe 007 should be a dad

When asked if it ruined the fantasy, she added: 'I think so, I personally think so. Barbara [Broccoli, longtime producer of the Bond franchise] and Michael [G. Wilson, who is also a producer at EON Productions] know better than me.

'It would be wonderful if they turned back in time to the traditional, older bachelor.'

Bond will reportedly be a doting dad to Mathilde, his daughter with love interest Dr Madeleine Swann, played by French actress Lea Seydoux.

Thoughts: Of why she didn't like the new plot, Britt said: 'I think that Bond should probably be a little more untouchable. He's a fantasy. Everyone wants to be Bond' (pictured, Daniel Craig)

Candid: When asked if it ruined the fantasy, she added: 'I think so, I personally think so. Barbara [Broccoli, longtime producer of Bond films] and Michael [G. Wilson] know better than me'

Last week The Mail on Sunday confirmed rumours that the notorious womaniser spy is father to a five-year-old daughter in the forthcoming film No Time To Die.

The rumours emerged last week when call sheets  the daily schedules that tell actors where they are needed for filming  for the 150 million film, the 25th in the 'official' Bond series, went up for sale on online auction site eBay.

The schedule describes a scene shot in southern Italy last September, which featured Dr Swann alongside Lashana Lynch's Nomi  who this newspaper previously revealed will be the first black female 00 agent  and a child called Mathilde, played by five-year-old Lisa-Dorah Sonne.

Starring role: The actress appeared in The Man With The Golden Gun opposite Roger Moore's iteration of the iconic spy in 1974 (pictured)

Parents: Bond will be a doting dad to Mathilde, his daughter with love interest Dr Madeleine Swann, played by French actress Lea Seydoux (pictured)

'Scene #235', as the schedule calls it, details where 'Nomi pilots Madeleine and Mathilde to safety with the island in the background'.

Paparazzi photographs taken during filming show a young girl wearing blue dungarees with the actors and crew on the set, but it is not known if she is Mathilde.

A film insider last night said: 'Yes, it's true. Bond is a dad. Daniel wanted to make this Bond film the most surprising and entertaining yet.

'Daniel is older and his Bond is maturing and looking at life through the prism of fatherhood. But there's a lot more to it than that.'

Making a change: A film insider said: 'Yes, it's true. Bond is a dad. Daniel wanted to make this Bond film the most surprising and entertaining yet

Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge was brought in to rewrite the script after original director Danny Boyle was replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga.

The film is now packed with 'woke' references and the insider said making Bond a dad had 'opened up a whole avenue of powerful moments  and jokes', adding: 'It's the one thing fans would never expect.

'Bond has always managed to charm his way into the hearts and beds of hundreds of beautiful women, seemingly without any consequences.

'Making him a father opens up a whole new world in terms of drama and story development.'

New role: Allegra Shettini, who 'stood in' for Lisa-Dorah Sonne during a sequence on the new Bond film is pictured

Romance: No Time To Die is set five years after the last Bond film, Spectre, which saw the secret agent fall in love with Dr Swann, a French psychologist (pictured)

In the new film, which was due to open in April but was pushed back to November because of the coronavirus pandemic, Bond is shown enjoying retirement in Jamaica, having hung up his Walther PPK pistol in favour of a quiet life.

No Time To Die is set five years after the last Bond film, Spectre, which saw the secret agent fall in love with Dr Swann, a French psychologist. Spectre ends with Bond driving off with her into the sunset in his old Aston Martin DB5.

The insider said: 'Without giving too much away, the new film is filled with twists.

'Bond appears to be happy in his new domestic life but then, of course, he gets dragged back in to save the world.'

No Time To Die opens with new Bond villain, Safin, played by Oscar-winner Rami Malek, chasing a girl across an ice-covered lake in Norway.

Plot: No Time To Die opens with new Bond villain, Safin, played by Rami Malek (pictured), chasing a girl across an ice-covered lake in Norway who is believed to be Dr Swann

The scene is a 'flashback' of a young Madeleine Swann fleeing for her life. 'Daniel wants to tie up lots of loose ends in his final film.

'Everything is interwoven,' the insider said. 'Bond finding out he is a father is integral to the plot.'

Pictures have emerged of an Italian child, Allegra Shettini, who 'stood in' for Lisa-Dorah Sonne during a sequence.

She told a TV interviewer: 'I just had to sit on a rock and play with a stick.'

The new movie involves Bond saving the world from a biological pandemic. 'It's not quite Covid-19, but it's similar', said the insider. 'It's very timely.'
(Reuters) - First Majestic Silver Corp (FR.TO) has asked Canadas ambassador to Mexico to intervene in an escalating tax dispute with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors government, the Canadian miners chief executive said on Friday.

Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday that 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.

He did not mention First Majestic by name, but the miner last month said it had served notice to Mexicos government under its North American trade treaty obligations to begin talks to resolve taxation disputes.

Weve been trying to get somebody to the table to finally put this behind us, First Majestic CEO Keith Neumeyer told Reuters.

The miner wrote to Canadian ambassador Graeme Clark this week and is hoping to set up a meeting with Lopez Obrador, Neumeyer said.

The Vancouver-based company, which owns several mines in Mexico, disputes reassessments issued by Mexicos tax authority totaling $209.2 million, filings show.

Lopez Obrador has made cracking down on tax breaks a priority. Several 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.

Neumeyer said the company had proposed three settlement offers since 2018 before launching the trade challenge last month.

Each of the offers has been rebuffed, he said, declining to provide details.

The tax authority, Servicio de Administracion Tributaria, could not immediately be reached.
NEW HAVEN  Residents of the Wooster Square neighborhood, including two Italian-American cultural societies, have agreed that the statue of Christopher Columbus should be removed from the park because of the explorers record of slavery and genocide against Native Americans.

Leaders include representatives of the St. Andrew the Apostle Society, the St. Catello Society, Alder Ellen Cupo, D-8, and Vincent Mauro Jr., the Democratic Town Committee chairman.

They credited a petition submitted by Rhea McTiernan Huge, 16, a rising junior at Wilbur Cross High School and a neighborhood resident, for articulating the need to remove the statue.

Its really good because when I was younger I didnt realize the impact of having this statue in the park. Now I know its an important step to make the park a more-welcoming space. McTiernan Huge said.

We want this statue to become a source of conversation and learning and thats why we hope to find an appropriate place for it, said Frank Carrano, a Wooster Square historian who signed the petition. We are actively discussing possible placement of the statue in a university or museum setting where it can become a focal point for discussion and learning.

Almost 500 people had signed Huges petition by midday Monday. A separate similar petition circulated by Jacob Booth was signed by almost 1,500.

The statue, erected in 1892, is iconic for much of the 40-acre neighborhood east of downtown, particularly Italian Americans who rally at the statue each Columbus Day, celebrating their heritage in the city. But in recent years and days, Columbus, who sailed to the Caribbean in 1492, has become infamous for bringing imperialism, disease and racist violence to the New World.

In the midst of this historic moment, the most important thing each of us can do is listen, the group said in a statement. We should listen first and foremost to those people who have been personally impacted by systemic and historic racism in our country, and especially in our criminal justice system. We should listen broadly about their life experiences and treatment, and also more specifically about what steps must be taken to fully meet this moment so that we can build a better and fairer society.

The statue, which in recent years has been a target of vandalism, is a representation of injustice and as a reminder of the mistreatment of immigrants and people of color going back to the founding of our nation, said the group, which wants to replace Columbus with something that better reflects the values of the multiethnic community.

Carrano, who grew up on Wooster Square and serves as spokesman for the group, said he was proud that the coalition had come together quickly to decide that the statue no longer is appropriate in the park.

This was a choice that was made and a decision that was made and one that Im very proud of, said Carrano, who writes a monthly column about growing up in the neighborhood for the New Haven Register.

We didnt wait for someone to drag the statue down. We decided it should be removed, he said.

Carrano said that when Italians immigrated to New Haven, largely to work at Sargent and Co., the New Haven Clock Factory and other manufacturers, they didnt have a legacy in America so they focused on Columbus as a symbol of pride.

We realize now that it was a misplaced sense of pride because Columbus record is troubling, Carrano said. Were hoping there will be a suitable memorial of some kind that will truly represent the Italian-American experience in Wooster Square. ... Italian organizations feel strongly that, having occupied Wooster Square for 100 years, that we have enriched the neighborhood, the city because of that.

Mayor Justin Elicker also issued a statement praising the Italian community for taking proactive steps to remove the statue.

The Christopher Columbus statue for many Italians is a celebration of Italian heritage. But the statue of Christopher Columbus also represents a time of colonialism and atrocities committed. It is the right decision to remove the statue, Elicker said. After the statue is removed, I believe it is important that we, as a community, have a conversation about how to best honor the heritage of so many Italians who have made New Haven their home.

The decision to remove the statue came about quickly with discussions beginning at the end last week, a decision also influenced by heading off protests in Wooster Square, and for those who grew up in the neighborhood, protecting the statue itself from vandalism.

Mel Sanseverino, the treasurer of the St. Andrew the Apostle Society, said he had no issue with removing the statue as long as there is a replacement tribute to the history of the Italian American community that settled there more than a century ago.

Sanseverino wondered how that would be paid for and he hoped that a replacement is not forgotten.

Alder Anna Festa, D-10, whose parents immigrated from Italy, is also interested in a successor plan that honors the large Italian-American community that grew up there and the contributions they made to the city and beyond.

Aaron Goode, an officer in the Wooster Square Community Management Team, said the decision was  great testament to New Havens progressive character and strength as a community that the effort to remove the statue is being led by Italian American community leaders ...

I am kvelling (Yiddish for proud) to be a resident of a neighborhood with strong ethnic heritage and traditions that is also welcoming of evolution and change, Goode said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, whose now late mother, Luisa DeLauro, was the longest-serving alder ever in New Haven, and whose family has deep roots in the Wooster Square neighborhood, said in a statement that during the pandemic we have been talking about how to get back to normal, but we can hear in the chants for justice and the cries for equality, is that going back is not good enough.

This tectonic moment exposes so many wrongs, deep inequality, and racial wrongs, that as we fight the COVID-19 virus before us now, we must also fight the virus of injustice, DeLauro said. Here in our community, we have an opportunity to begin to sew new threads of healing and unity by addressing the concerns around the statue of Christopher Columbus in Wooster Square Park.

The congresswoman noted that Wooster Square has long been the heart of New Havens Italian American community.

And, we are proud of our rich ethnic history. The statue was there to remind all of us of the Italian American contribution to our city, she said. But, in telling the story of our families, we must not ignore the stories of others, whose families did not voyage for opportunity, but whose families suffered immense racial violence.

DeLauro said she supports the efforts of the Italian American leaders who proposed removing the statue and housing in a place where, should community members choose to visit, it can be used as an educational tool. I also strongly support the concept of a new statue that honors the contributions of Italian immigrants and the role that they have played in building our community and country.

Frank Gargano, who is president of the St. Andrews the Apostle Society, said he was informed of the decision by other leaders in the Italian community, and while he agreed to go along with it, it is a tough pill to swallow, as he compared the history he learned in school with the new research.

Jane Scarpellino, who grew up in the neighborhood and lives on nearby Wooster Street, said, Originally, I couldnt think about our neighborhood not having Columbus, although Im not a huge fan of his. It still defined our neighborhood and our park. But it needs to change because its a source of problems for our neighborhood.

Carrano said paint was thrown on the statue recently. Police cars have been stationed nearby in recent days. If its going to cause problems and result in a neighborhood being devalued because of the problems, then a solution needs to be found.

DeLauro noted that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. So, she said, for the love of our country and its peoplewe must not be silent. And, we must heed those who have spoken out. We need people to know that we are walking in their shoes, that we understand what is happening in their lives, even if it is not happening in ours.

Efforts to remove statues of historic racists have occurred throughout the nation and have even reached Europe. Over the weekend, the city of Middletown removed a statue of Columbus.
In a major development, India has demanded the return of the two reportedly arrested officials of the High Commission of India in Islamabad on Monday. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) which had summoned Pakistan's Charge d'affaires to India, has stated that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials, as per sources. Pakistan media have reported that the two junior officials have been arrested over the charge of hit-and-run in Islamabad, which had left a person injured, and are allegedly in ISI custody. Sources say that Pakistan has said it will release the officials after India's demarche.

MEA summons Pakistan's Charge d'affaires after 2 Indian High Commission staff go missing

India issues demarche to Pakistan

MEA sources report that the demarche to the Pakistan CDA made clear that The responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities. The Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately, report sources. The two staffers have been missing since 8:30 AM in the morning.

Two on-duty Indian High Commission staff members in Pakistan missing since last 2 hours

2 Indian High Commission staff go missing

Earlier in the day, two Indian High Commission staff members in Pakistan were reported to be missing since morning while on official work, as per sources at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan. The MEA has taken up the issue with the Pakistan authorities. Sources revealed that concern was raised after an Indian vehicle did not reach its destination in Pakistan, as two High Commission staff members were said to be in that vehicle.

This comes just days after Indian High Commission staff including India's Charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia were harassed by Pakistan ISI agents on their way home. The Pakistani intelligence service has also allegedly stationed multiple persons in cars and bikes outside the Indian diplomat's residence in an attempt to harass and intimidate him. Visuals of Paksitan agents tailing Ahluwalia's car have been accessed.

Day after being caught for espionage, Pakistan High Commission officials leave India

Pak officials apprehended for espionage

On May 30, two officials of the High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi were apprehended by Indian law enforcement agencies for indulging in espionage activities. The two officials identified as 42-year-old Abid Hussain Abid and 44-year-old Mohd. Tahir Khan were declared by the government as persona non grata and were made to leave the country within 24 hours. A third person, 36-year-old Javed Hussain, also a resident of Pakistan was allegedly involved in the espionage activity.

Coronavirus Live Updates: India's count at 332,424; Over 1 lakh samples tested in 24 hrs
Coronavirus may be triggering diabetes in previously healthy people, a team of international experts has warned.

New cases of the blood sugar condition have been repeatedly diagnosed in patients who have tested positive for the coronavirus, the group of 17 leading clinicians said in an open letter published on Friday.

They admit that it remains unclear how the two may be interlinked.

Research has previously shown that ACE-2  the protein to which the coronavirus appears to bind within the human body  is not only located in the lungs but also in organs involved in glucose metabolism including the pancreas, small intestine, liver and kidney.

Scientists hypothesise that, if the virus attaches to these organs, it may then cause multiple dysfunctions of glucose metabolism, leading to the onset of diabetes in some cases.

A global registry of new cases of diabetes in patients with Covid-19  named the CoviDiab Registry Project  has now been created, the experts said in their letter to The New England Journal of Medicine.

Francesco Rubino, professor of metabolic surgery at Kings College London and co-lead on the registry, said: We are of course trying to understand what situation is behind the observations.

Previous evidence has already suggested that the coronavirus can cause more severe complications in patients with pre-existing diabetes: approximately a quarter of people who have died with Covid-19 have also been reported to have had the blood sugar condition.

Prof Rubino said: Diabetes is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases and we are now realising the consequences of the inevitable clash between two pandemics.

Given the short period of human contact with this new coronavirus, the exact mechanism by which the virus influences glucose metabolism is still unclear and we dont know whether the acute manifestation of diabetes in these patients represents classic type 1, type 2 or possibly a new form of diabetes.

However, some experts urged caution over the perceived correlation.

Dr Riyaz Patel, associate professor of cardiology at University College London Hospital, said he was wary of what was currently only observational evidence of a link.

He said: The data may be confounded for a few reasons. For example, we know that any stress-inducing illness can cause blood sugar levels to temporarily rise and we see this for example with heart attacks.

He added: Also, people who are more likely to get very sick with Covid may be at risk of developing diabetes anyway, perhaps because they are overweight.
Nonktp wrote:

I would like an expert's explanations and approach to the answer of question 1 (assumption question)

Nonktp

BFR wrote:

The passage suggests that in the study mentioned for gathering information about security of land tenure reflects which of the following pairs of assumptions about Tawahka society?

suggest

inference

not

inference

keywords

security of land tenure

Tawahka society

BFR wrote:

A. The security of a household's land tenure depends on the strength of that household's kinship ties , and the duration of a household's residence in its village is an indication of the strength of that household's kinship ties .

Researchers also measured land-tenure security : in Tawahka society , kinship ties are a more important indicator of this than are legal property rights, so researchers measured it by a households duration of residence in its village .

measured [land-tenure security]

BFR wrote:

B. The ample availability of land makes security of land tenure unimportant , and the lack of a need for secure land tenure has made the concept of legal property rights unnecessary .

not

a more important indicator

legal property rights

More important

unimportant

BFR wrote:

C. The strength of a household's kinship ties is a more reliable indicator of that household's receptivity to new agricultural technologies than is its quantity of nonland wealth, and the duration of a household's residence in its village is a more reliable indicator of that household's security of land tenure than is the strength of its kinship ties .

anything

BFR wrote:

D. Security of land tenure based on kinship ties tends to make farmers more receptive to the use of improved plant varieties, and security of land tenure based on long duration of residence in a village tends to make farmers more receptive to the use of chemical herbicides .

[The researchers] found that longer residence correlated with more adoption of improved plant varieties but less adoption of chemical herbicides .

BFR wrote:

E. A household is more likely to be receptive to the concept of land tenure based on legal property rights if it has easy access to uncultivated land , and a household is more likely to uphold the tradition of land tenure based on kinship ties if it possesses a significant degree of nonland wealth .

only if

not

legal property rights

if p then q

inverse

if not p then not q

converse

if q then p

contrapositive

if not q then not p

Hello,. I would be happy to offer to offer some insights into my approach on this question. Before I jump into a passage, I typically scan the first question so that I can go into reading the passage with some sort of frame in mind, apart from main idea/authorial presence concerns. The question:First off, aorquestion doesgive you license to "read between the lines," as my students sometimes tell me. Although that interpretation may be accurate with other reading tasks, on the GMAT,means one of two things:1) What does the passage state, possibly in a slightly different manner (i.e. using synonyms for a few words)?2) What does the passage state, perhaps forcing you to cobble together information from one sentence or paragraph and information from another, when the two bits are not combined as such in the passage?Yeah, that is it. The closer you stick to the passage, the more questions you will answer correctly. Stick to theof the question stem, and match them to their counterparts in the passage, a simple yet highly effective strategy. Here, our keywords areand. Thus, we have to make sure our answer is accurate on both fronts. We cannot project any information from one key phrase onto the other. With that out of the way, on to our responses.Like just about anyone else, I hate long-winded answer choices. They present numerous opportunities to get sidetracked. But here, I cannot find anything to argue against. Why? Because the passage states in the penultimate sentence,In Tawahka Society, it is clear that kinship ties matter, in terms of land-tenure security. Furthermore, researchersby how long a household had established residence in its village. The answer choice and the line from the passage match, almost verbatim. What more could you want in an answer?Note the strong, judgmental language. Quite often, such answer choices take an idea too far, and this one is no different. The passage doesindicate that land-tenure security is unimportant. If it did, then what would be the point in the researchers studying land-tenure security? Rather, the passage tells us that another factor, namely kinship ties via duration of residence, isof land-tenure security than aredoes not suggest that the alternative isI will be honest and admit that I did not even untangle the first part before eliminating this answer choice based on the second part. The latter portion here is twisting words, and no such comparison between duration of residence and kinship ties is made in the passage. Again, the researchers used duration of residence and kinship ties in tandem to measure land-tenure security in Tawahka society. I like to say that if you can argue definitively againstin an answer choice, as long as you are keeping an eye on the passage, then that is enough to see off that answer. I will leave the former part for another time, perhaps. (The clock would have been ticking if I had not already eliminated the answer and moved on.)The last line of the passage presents information that flies in the face of this statement:If that does not seal the deal, then I am not sure how much more proof you need.These conditionals, which you can interpret as saying, are getting in the way here, not to mention that this is all pure speculation. The passage presents ways in which the Tawahka society operates, regarding the security of land tenure, byplacing an emphasis on. This answer kind of reminds me of the different cases in formal logic in which a statementcan be reinterpreted, sometimes with clearly incorrect conclusions, into the),), and). We do not need to waste our time sorting out what could be true when the passage tells us what is already going on.I hope that helps answer your question. Good luck with your studies.- Andrew
Trisha Goddard has revealed that she's been subjected to even more 'vile abuse' since Leigh Francis apologised over his blackface depiction of her on Bo' Selecta!

Earlier this month, comedian Leigh, 47, issued a grovelling apology over and said he was 'deeply sorry' over the way he depicted stars including Trisha, Michael Jackson and Craig David in the Channel 4 series.

However, presenter Trisha, 62, revealed on Monday's Good Morning Britain that Leigh's apology has resulted in a backlash against her.

Shocking: Trisha Goddard has revealed that she's been subjected to even more 'vile abuse' since Leigh Francis apologised over his blackface depiction of her on Bo' Selecta!

Joining a panel which discussed whether people are losing sight of the Black Lives Matter movement, Trisha explained to hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid how the noughties show affected her.

She said: 'I don't mind people joking about me, but it was the big lips the big nose of the character, and a lot of people said 'why didn't you say anything then', assuming I didn't.

'But to those people I would say, would it be ok if someone like Vanessa Feltz, who's unashamedly and proudly Jewish. If she was famous at the time as well, and still is, if they characterised Vanessa with a big hook nose going around saying 'oy vey' and counting money.

'Or someone like Gok Wan with Asian eyes working in a Chinese takeaway... they're all abhorrent. And I didn't realise until very recently how badly bullied my children were.

Sorry: Earlier this month, comedian Leigh, 47, issued a grovelling apology over and said he was 'deeply sorry' over the way he depicted stars including Trisha, Michale Jackson and Craig David in the Channel 4 series

She then went on to discuss the impact of Leigh's apology this month, admitting that she's been faced with a barrage of abuse since.

'Leigh chose to make an apology. And let me just say, since Leigh made that apology I have been subjected to even more abuse.

Piers and Susanna immediately shared their outrage, with Piers saying: 'That's absolutely disgusting. It's so disgusting.'

While Susanna said: 'Trisha, that's shocking' before going on to express her disbelief at that Trisha was targeted.

Speaking out: She said: 'I don't mind people joking about me, but it was the big lips the big nose of the character, and a lot of people said 'why didn't you say anything then', assuming I didn't.'

Trisha went on to say that people told her: 'You've ruined his career just because you can't take a joke, and there have been threats.'

The former Dancing On Ice star went on to say that though she felt 'hurt, distaste and disgust' at Leigh's action, there were other people that should take responsibility too.

She said: 'It's not just down to Leigh, someone commissioned it, the whole thing, I don't want it to be about Leigh, it's about systemic racism.'

Horrible: 'Leigh chose to make an apology. And let me just say, since Leigh made that apology I have been subjected to even more abuse'

Can't believe it: Piers and Susanna immediately shared their outrage, with Piers saying: 'That's absolutely disgusting. It's so disgusting'

She went on to praise the Celebrity Juice star for speaking to her daughter amid his portrayal of her mother, adding: 'Leigh sweetly talked to my daughter Billie for a very long time about his experience, he was horrified what she went through, he said as a father he feels so bad about this.'

Earlier this week Trisha revealed she felt 'sick' every time she saw Leigh Francis after the blackface depiction of her on his noughties Channel 4 show Bo' Selecta!.

The former chat show host spoke to BBC Newsnight on Thursday about how Leigh's caricature with 'the big lips' were 'all the things every black child has been bullied about'.

Trisha revealed she had avoided Leigh for many years at award ceremonies because his blackface impersonation of her was not only painful, but made her two daughters become a target for bullies.

Her say: Earlier this week Trisha revealed she felt 'sick' every time she saw Leigh Francis after the blackface depiction of her on his noughties Channel 4 show Bo' Selecta!

The Channel 4 series, which aired between 2002 and 2006, featured Francis, 47, portraying a series of celebrities; including Michael Jackson, Craig David and Trisha by wearing face masks to impersonate them.

Trisha said: 'I hated it. I have only recently discovered how bullied my children were in Norfolk over the character.

'Let me be clear on this, if the parody was just of me, that would have been one thing, but it was the big lips all the things that every black child has been bullied about.

Controversial: The Channel 4 series, which aired between 2002 and 2006, featured Francis portraying a series of celebrities; including Trisha

'I can laugh at myself, I've had people joke about me. But it was the racial over-the-top with the big lips, the big wide hips, the rice and peas.'

Trisha said the comedian was 'absolutely horrified' to learn how her daughters, Madison, 27, and Billie, 30, endured 'vicious bullying' from classmates due to the caricature portrayed on the show.

Trisha added she couldn't watch the show because she found it too upsetting.

'Leigh kind of knew because I know Craig David had an issue with his portrayal, he really did But that's for Craig to speak to,' Trisha said.

'But a couple of times I did bump into Leigh. My daughter reminded me, she was with me once I couldn't even talk to him I felt so sick.'

Protective: The former talk show host said the comedian was 'absolutely horrified' to learn how her daughters endured 'vicious bullying' due to the caricature (pictured in 2006)

Heartache: Leigh took to Instagram earlier this month amid the Black Lives Matter movement to say he was 'deeply sorry' for the way he impersonated black stars

'I felt sick': Trisha revealed she couldn't watch the show because she found it too upsetting

Leigh- best known for his alter-ego Keith Lemon- took to Instagram earlier this month amid the Black Lives Matter movement to say he was 'deeply sorry' for the way he impersonated stars such as Michael Jackson and Craig David on the show.

Trisha said: 'In his defence he had a long telephone conversation with my daughter who told her what she went through.

'She told him about the trolling, bullying, the viciousness as a direct result and he was horrified, being a father himself. He was absolutely horrified.'

Following Leigh's apology, Channel 4 have removed Bo Selecta! from their archives on 40D.

Trisha has now accepted his apology, while Billie thanked Leigh and said his declaration 'was 100 per cent the right thing to do'.

In light of awareness being raised in regards to the Black Lives Matters movement, Leigh tearfully admitted it made him rethink and said he simply 'didn't realise how offensive it was back then'.

In the video, the Celebrity Juice host said: 'My name's Leigh Francis. I play a character called Keith Lemon on television. It's been a weird few days, I've sat and thought about things and what I could post to help things.

Noughties show: The series featured Francis portraying a series of celebrities; including Michael Jackson (pictured)

'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.'

Leigh was among the 25m people who took part in Blackout Tuesday 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 a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis. His death has sparked days of demonstrations across the nation over police brutality against African-Americans.
Another Black Lives Matter protester has tested positive for coronavirus, sparking fears of second wave of the virus in Australia.

The young woman attended a rally along with thousands of other protesters in Melbourne last weekend.

The woman is the second protester from the rally to test positive for the deadly virus after a man in his 30s found out he had coronavirus last week.

Victorias Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said it was unlike unlikely the woman acquired the virus at the rally and it is unrelated to the first case.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Australian cities in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Pictured: A protest in Sydney on Tuesday

'For this individual the onset of their illness is a little bit unclear but was wearing personal protective equipment and took a great deal of care in keeping distance from others.'

The rallies around the country went ahead despite health officials urging residents to stay home.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the mass gatherings were putting the broader community's health at risk.

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.

Critics said the protesters put Aboriginal people at risk because they are more vulnerable to the deadly virus

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said protesters had prevented more restrictions being lifted as health officials wait two weeks to see if the demonstrations cause a spike in cases.

'By all means raise your issue. But by doing this, they have put the whole track to recovery at risk,' he told Sydney radio 2GB.

Deputy chief medical officer Professor Michael Kidd said it was too early to tell if the protests will cause a spike.

'The incubation period for COVID-19 is five to seven days, up to 14 days. So we will only start seeing new cases occurring if that transmission had occurred on the weekend over the days ahead,' he told ABC News this morning.

'We're continuing to be very cautious and obviously we need to see what happens over the next few days.'

Victoria recorded 12 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, seven are linked to family outbreak, two are from new outbreak linked to hospital patient, one is a protester, one is in hotel quarantine and one is under investigation.

St Dominics School in Broadmeadows was closed on Monday due to two of the positive cases from the family outbreak.

All students who attended the school on June 2 and 3 are being asked to get tested.
F-15 Eagle jet fighters, like that seen here, are also among the aircraft participating in Vigilant Ace. (Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times)

Pilot of US Air Force F-15 Fighter Jet Found Dead in North Sea

The pilot of a U.S. Air Force fighter jet that crashed off the UK coast Monday morning during a training mission has been found dead, the 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs confirmed in a news release.

The identity of the pilot will not be released until all next-of-kin notifications have been made, the release stated.

This is a tragic loss for the 48th Fighter Wing community, and our deepest condolences go out to the pilots family and the 493rd Fighter Squadron, Col. William L. Marshall, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing said during a video conference.

The pilot of the downed F-15C Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing has been located, and confirmed deceased. This is a tragic loss for the 48th Fighter Wing community, and our deepest condolences go out to the pilots family and the 493rd Fighter Squadron.https://t.co/GwCWFwImaS  RAF Lakenheath (@48FighterWing) June 15, 2020

The warplane crashed at about 9:40 a.m. (4:40 a.m. ET) and prompted a major search and rescue operation to retrieve the pilot in the North Sea, off the coast of Yorkshire. UK search teams helped to retrieve the pilot of the warplane, who crashed 74 nautical miles off the East Yorkshire coast.

We are extremely grateful for the timely response of our UK counterparts in the support of these recovery efforts, Marshall said.

The U.S. Air Force said the type of jet was an F-15C Eagle and lift-off was from the Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath Base, northeast of London.

On the same morning as the crash, RAF Lakenheath posted a photo on Twitter showing three F-15s in flight. The caption of the post reads, Ready to take on Monday.

RAF Lakenheath is the largest U.S. Air Force-operated base in England and the only U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) F-15 fighter wing. More than 4,000 U.S. service men and women are stationed there.

The area where the plane went down is often used by UK and U.S. military jets for training sessions. At the time of the incident, four military jets were deployed in the area for training, according to Sky News.

A U.S. military helicopter crashed on the coast of eastern England in 2014, killing all four crew on board.

Reuters contributed to this report.
The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts is defending its plan to have Carnival 2022 events on a limited basis.

This as the decision has been met with mixed reviews from stakeholders and members of the public.

In a release yesterday, the ministry said: To reiterate, the ministry has proposed a Taste of Carnival which would include specific types of Carnival activities for vaccinated persons only in safe-zone arrangements deemed to pose the least risk from a public health standpoint in the context of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Reliance Industries Limited (Reliance Industries) and Jio Platforms Limited (Jio Platforms), Indias leading digital services platform, announced today that global alternative asset firm TPG will invest  4,546.80 crore in Jio Platforms at an equity value of  4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of  5.16 lakh crore. The investment will translate into a 0.93% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis for TPG. With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised  102,432.45 crore from leading global technology investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, and TPG since April 22, 2020.

Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology platform focused on providing high-quality and affordable digital services across India, with more than 388 million subscribers. Jio Platforms has made significant investments across its digital ecosystem, powered by leading technologies spanning broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain.

Jio Platforms vision is to enable a Digital India for 1.3 billion people and businesses across the country, including small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers so that all of them can enjoy the fruits of inclusive growth. TPG is a leading global alternative asset firm founded in 1992 with more than $79 billion of assets under management across a wide range of asset classes, including private equity, growth equity, real estate and public equity. Over TPGs more than 25-year history, the firm has built an ecosystem made up of hundreds of portfolio companies and a value-added network of professionals, executives, and advisors around the world. Its investments in global technology companies include Airbnb, Uber, and Spotify, among others.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, Today, I am happy to welcome TPG as valued investors in our continued efforts towards digitally empowering the lives of Indians through the creation of a digital ecosystem. We have been impressed by TPGs track record of investing in global technology businesses which serve hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses, making the societies we live in better. Jim Coulter, Co-CEO TPG, said, We are excited to partner Reliance to invest in Jio. As an investor in growth, change, and innovation for over 25 years  and with a longstanding presence in India -- we are excited to play an early role in Jio's journey as they continue to transform and advance India's digital economy. Jio is a disruptive industry leader that is empowering small businesses and consumers across India by providing them with critical, high-quality digital services. The company is bringing unmatched potential and execution capabilities to the market, setting the tone for all technology companies to come.

TPG is making the investment from its TPG Capital Asia, TPG Growth, and TPG Tech Adjacencies (TTAD) funds. The transaction is subject to customary conditions precedent. Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels. Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co. acted as legal counsel for TPG.
Why Iran sees anti-corruption protests in Iraq as a threat to its influence in the neighbouring country, writes Salah Nasrawi

From the moment anti-government protests engulfed many parts of Iraq earlier this month, Iranian officials and media were quick to condemn the uprising as orchestrated by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Irans arch enemies.

The nation-wide protests that started on 1 October have rocked Iraq, killing more than 100 people and wounding thousands. They have reflected the Iraqis anger and frustration about what they see as government dysfunction and political cronyism.

Rampant government corruption, high unemployment, and the dismal state of public services and essential infrastructure have led to growing discontent in recent years, causing demonstrations and clashes with the security forces and leading to deaths, injuries and arrests.

The government has used force to quell the protests in the past, but in recent demonstrations the security forces response has been brutal. The vast majority of the casualties have been protesters who were shot by live rounds. Many were killed and wounded by shots to the head, neck and chest.

The exceptional ruthlessness with which the security forces have dealt with the protesters has sparked an outcry and raised questions about who is behind the brutal tactics that have led to many casualties.

Activists and human-rights advocates hold the security forces responsible for the bloodshed by using excessive force. They have also accused unidentified snipers who have fired from rooftops or infiltrated the demonstrations for most of the killings. Footage on social networks show men in uniform firing directly on the demonstrators.

The massacres have revived the memory of the cruelty of the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein, of whom many Iraqis still share stories of brutality, torture, fear and death.

In his first public statement about the demonstrations, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi accused the protesters of the destruction of property, deliberate attacks on the security forces, and undermining the countrys peace and stability.

But as the government has failed to stop the carnage against the protesters, many Iraqis have raised concerns about the role of the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF), the paramilitary organisation which groups together Iraqs Iran-backed Shia militias.

Civil-rights groups, activists and residents have shared videos that show members of these militias using force against the protesters and sometimes firing on protesters who appeared to be showing no hostility towards them.

Independent international media outlets have also affirmed the deployment of the snipers. On 17 October, Reuters reported that Iran-backed militias had been deployed in this months deadly protests and that many of their members had operated as snipers against the protesters.

Quoting Iraqi security officers, the British news agency said that it had confirmed evidence that the snipers were elements of Shia militias that were very close to the Iranians and reporting directly to their commander in the PMF.

One officer told Reuters that militiamen clad in black had shot protesters from rooftops in one Baghdad neighbourhood. A Reuters cameraman covering the unrest near Baghdads Tahrir Square also said he had seen at least one sniper on top of an under-construction building that overlooked the demonstrations.

Reuters said the fighters were directed by Abu Zainab Al-Lami, head of security for the Hashd, the Arabic name of the PMF, who has been tasked with quashing the protests. US intelligence reports described Al-Lami as a close ally of Iran charged with cracking down on opponents.

The deployment of the Shia Iran-backed militia fighters underscores Irans increasing power in Iraq and shows how the Islamic Republic exploits Iraqs chaotic politics to promote its interests.

Iran-backed militias have become a fixture in Iraq as a result of Tehrans rising influence. Though the Iraqi government claims that the militias working under the PMFs umbrella are part of its own armed forces, the militias retain their own command structures.

A spokesman for the Hashd denied that the groups had taken part in the crackdown. Iraqi Interior Ministry Spokesman Saad Maan blamed unnamed vicious shooters for the mass deaths and injuries.

Whether the PMF snipers acted on their own or under instructions from Abdul-Mahdi, officially commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces including the PMF, remains an open question.

Many Iraqis have connected the dots back to Iran and held up the militias role in the crackdown as evidence of what they see as an Iranian-orchestrated effort to foil the uprising by using rogue Shia militias that are directly answerable to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iranian leaders and media have waded into the crisis in Iraq by suggesting that the uprising was not home-made and have lambasted the demonstrators as foreign stooges.

The hardline Iranian Keyhan newspaper said the evidence pointed to the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel being involved in the protests.

Iran accused its foes of deliberately stirring up trouble at a time when Iranian pilgrims were heading to Iraq for the Arbaeen pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala, a major religious event maerkd on 19 October.

Since the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iran has been using these events to demonstrate its power in Iraq.

Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei added his weight to the reports and accused unnamed enemies of seeking to sow discord between Iran and Iraq.

Iran and Iraq are two nations whose hearts and souls are tied together through faith in God and love for the Imam Hussein and the progeny of the Prophet [Mohamed]. This bond will grow stronger day by day, he wrote on Twitter.

Such statements are increasingly deepening suspicions among many Iraqis of what they see as Irans encroaching control over their countrys affairs and Tehrans broader effort to undermine Iraqs sovereignty.

Although power outages, rising unemployment and rampant government corruption have led to growing discontent in recent years, many people are believed to have rebelled against the rising Iranian influence and the humiliation it produces.

Neither the state of governments dysfunction nor the louche behaviour of prominent politicians can long distract Iraqis from their greatest fear  of the strategy employed by Iran to expand its political, economic, security and ideological influence in their country.

Indeed, as Iran continues to push its roots deeper into Iraq, a culture of patriotism and national pride is shoring up resistance to Tehran and its proxies in the country.

Many protesters have voiced concerns that the Islamic Republic is making Iraqis foreigners in their own country and have shouted out slogans demanding that Iran get out of Iraq.

Noticeably, the protests have engulfed mainly Shia provinces where Iran has been using the militias it sponsors and their military and security roles to solidify its position as the protector of Iraqs Shia community.

Many Iraqis lament the dark path that the Iraqi-Iranian relationship is currently on and have voiced concerns that Persian Iran is imposing a political and cultural hegemony over the largely Arab-populated country.

In fact, many Iraqis believe that Iran is seeking to reshape Iraqs national identity as part of efforts to expand its cultural and religious influence in the country.

The Iraqis are awaiting the results of a probe ordered by Abdul-Mahdi after Iraqi grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani demanded an inquiry into the killings of the protesters.

There are increasing fears that the commission to investigate the deaths, which has delayed the publication of its results, may be trying to whitewash the militias involvement.

A report that extenuated the role of the militias in the violent crackdowns could fuel public anger as Iraqis prepare for a new round of protests this Friday.

More unrest will be the steepest challenge facing Irans influence in Iraq, as Tehran faces similar problems in Lebanon this week as protests continue in an uprising against a sectarian political system nourished by Iran through its Lebanese proxies.

The bottom line, therefore, is that Iran is now facing the staunchest resistance in Iraq it has seen in years and demands to dislodge its influence in Iraq. The crisis could be another defining moment for Irans ambitions in the Arab country.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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The Russian authorities have charged the president of the St. Petersburg-based Arctic Academy, Valery Mitko, with high treason in an ongoing spate of similar investigations targeting Russian academics.

Mitko's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, said on June 15 that the 78-year-old researcher had been under house arrest since February and his case was being investigated by the Federal Security Service (FSB).

Mitko is accused of transferring classified materials to China, Pavlov said, adding that his client had pleaded not guilty.

According to the lawyer, Mitko, who regularly traveled to China for teaching, had taken with him materials "exclusively related to his scientific and teaching activities."

Russian news agencies TASS and Interfax quoted unidentified sources as saying the scientist passed on information about hydroacoustic research and the detection of submarines.

On June 5, a court in St. Petersburg extended Mitko's house arrest until October 10. The scientist is barred from walking or communicating with others directly or via mail, the Internet, or telephone.

Treason charges against researchers and scientists have become a regular occurrence in Russia in recent years.

The news about Mitko comes four days after a Russian court granted early release to a 79-year-old former space researcher, Vladimir Lapygin, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2016 on a treason conviction and recognized as a political prisoner by the rights group Memorial.

Lapygin, who worked for a research branch of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, was also found guilty of handing classified materials to China, which he denied as well.

With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and RIA Novosti
The owners have set up pods. (PA Images)

A Glasgow bar owner has given us a peek into his post-lockdown social distancing plans, complete with Perspex pods to keep customers apart.

Restaurants, bars and pubs have been closed to the public since 23 March and a phased re-opening is expected from 4 July.

Still, stepping into a bar in July is going to feel very different to the pre-coronavirus landscape.

With pods separating customers, one-way signs and social distancing in place, bar owners will be adhering to strict measures when theyre allowed to re-open.

Hand sanitisers have been put in place, too. (PA Images)

Licensee of Ardnamurchan in Hope Street, Glasgow, Neil Douglas, has shared a peek into what his newly revamped bar will look like when the restrictions are lifted.

He has created 21 private dining and drinking spaces, all complying with the social distancing rules.

Read more: The UKs updated ruling on face masks

Each booth in the restaurant and bar is split up with Perspex screens, with screens even lining the bar for extra protection.

The floor is marked with a one-way system and infrared taps and toilet flushes will ensure customers can go to the toilet without having to touch anything.

Customers will still be able to walk in off the street and ask for a booking, but there will also be the option to pre-book online with a contactless payment system in place.

Is this the new normal? (PA Images)

Were fortunate to have a large venue.

Weve taken out a third of our seating to separate customers and the layout will work whether people have to maintain a one or two metre distance.

The private spaces work really well and people will be able to pre book the one they want, Douglas explains.

Having tried them out with my own children, I know theyre perfect for families  they give the kids a bit more space than usual and naturally encourage them to stay close to their table.

For those customers wanting to sit at the bar, theres a discrete Perspex screen to divide them from staff.

Read more: Emotional people more likely to stockpile toilet roll

Douglas, who also owns Basils in Newhaven, Edinburgh, hopes his venues will be some of the first to open when Scotland is given the go ahead.

Story continues

The staff at Ardnamurchan and Basils have all been furloughed and have been given online training already, helping them to acclimatise to this new normal. They will continue to receive training ahead of the official opening.

We got on the case and ordered quickly and Im glad we did as theres such a high demand it has taken more than a month to get the Perspex in.

Our aim is to keep all the character and ambience of the venues and maintain a great experience for customers while providing the safety measures that many will want.

Well be ready whenever the go-head to reopen comes, Douglas added.
Ukraine is among these countries, too

The Austrian government ordered to prolong the ban on hosting air flights from ten countries. This is mentioned in the decree by the Austrian Healthcare Ministry, Ukrinform reports.

"The ban on planes landing from 10 countries, which expired on June 14, is extended until June 30", reads the message.

The list of countries includes China, Iran, Belarus, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia and Ukraine. Italy's region of Lombardy is there as well.

The exceptions are made for flights that carry cargo or medicine-related flights. The restrictions do not concern transportation of seasonal workers employed in agrarian and forest sectors, or transportation of the staff who cares for the sick and elderly people.

On June 15, Austria resumes air connection with 40 cities. Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Wizzair will resume working.

Earlier, Ukraine's Ambassador in Austria claimed that the air traffic between the two countries would be restored after June 23.
Showa Denko has expanded production lines to produce vinyl ester resin (VE) and synthetic resin emulsion (EM) in the premises of Shanghai Showa Highpolymer Co., Ltd. (SSHP), a Chinese subsidiary of SDK, and has increased production of VE and EM there, aiming to expand the Showa Denko Group's functional resin business in China.

The market for electronic parts such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and touch panels has been expanding due to the progress in telecommunication technologies including 5th Generation mobile communication system. As a result, the demand for VE, which is used in the process to produce electronic parts including LCDs and touch panels, has been rapidly increasing in China. In addition, since VE has excellent corrosion resistance and chemical resistance, the demand for VE for use as corrosion-resistant inner lining material has also been increasing. This use includes inner lining for desulfurisation equipment increasingly introduced to thermal power plants to prevent air pollution, wastewater treatment equipment for electronic parts factories, garbage plants and storage tanks for chemicals.

In China, regulation against volatile organic compound (VOC) as an environmental protection policy started in 2015, and, since then, there has been strict regulation for use of paints and adhesives containing organic solvents. As a result, switching over to aqueous paints and aqueous adhesives utilising EM has been in progress, and therefore the demand for EM has been increasing. Responding to these movements, SHHP increased the capacities of its production lines to produce VE and EM to about twice as much as before.

The Showa Denko Group's Vision is to make itself a "KOSEIHA Company" (a group of KOSEIHA Businesses that can maintain profitability and stability at high levels over a long period) and "a top-level functional chemical manufacturer in the world." We will continue providing the growing Chinese market with products and services of high social value, thereby expanding our business in China and establishing our functional chemicals business as a KOSEIHA Business. -- Tradearabia News Service
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Sunny skies during the morning hours will become overcast in the afternoon. High 39F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 19F. SW winds shifting to NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - China's industrial production growth accelerated and retail sales decreased at a slower pace in May, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Monday. Industrial production grew 4.4 percent on a yearly basis in May, faster than the 3.9 percent increase logged in April. Economists had forecast a 5 percent rise. Retail sales dropped at a slower pace of 2.8 percent in May from last year, slower than the 7.5 percent decrease seen in April. Sales were forecast to fall 2 percent. During January to May, fixed asset investment decreased 6.3 percent from the same period of last year. Economists had forecast a 5.9 percent fall. The People's Bank of China injected CNY 200 billion funds into the financial system via medium-term lending facility at a rate of 2.95 percent, unchanged from previous operation. 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.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  A Manila court on Monday convicted online news organization Rappler's CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos Jr. in a cyber libel case filed by a businessman.

Rapplers lawyer Atty. Theodore Te said they will file an appeal against the ruling of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46, which sentenced Ressa and Santos to up to 6 years in jail.

Both accused were also ordered to pay the complainant, businessman Wilfredo Keng, 200,000 pesos for moral damages, and 200,000 for exemplary damages.

Te said the court allowed Ressa and Santos to remain free on bail, using the same bail they previously posted.

The court, in its 37-page decision, found no corporate liability on the part of Rappler Incorporated.

"This is a pivotal moment for the Philippines, and a pivotal moment not just for our democracy but for the idea of what a free press means," Ressa said in a news conference immediately after the conviction was handed down, her voice sometimes quivering with emotion.

She said Rappler, which has been under attack for four years with a string of other cases against it, is meant to be a cautionary tale, to make others afraid. She appealed to journalists and Filipinos not to be afraid to use their rights because "if you don't challenge a brazen move to try to roll back the rights guaranteed under the constitution, we will lose them.

Various media, human rights groups and lawmakers called out the conviction as an assault against press freedom and an attack against critics of the administration.

"This verdict is a sham and should be quashed," said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Regional Director, adding that "with this latest assault on independent media, the human rights record of the Philippines continues its free fall."

In a statement, Keng said the court's decision vindicated him, despite the damage already done.

"Today, with the judgment of conviction against Ressa and Santos promulgated by the Hon. Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa, I have been vindicated, at least, to the extent possible considering that the damage had already been done. Even today, when the truth should have set me free, Rapplers lies still resound after the bang of the gavel has faded away," he said.

Keng maintained he is innocent of the accusations against him and said his case has nothing to do with the government.

"This case is NOT a case of the government. I am a private citizen and this is a private suit. I filed my complaint prior to and independently of any case the Philippine Government may have filed against Ressa... This is not a fight against the Press Freedom, an institution I deeply respect and uphold.," added Keng.

He also said with his filing and winning the case assures Filipinos that "published falsehoods will not remain unchallenged and unchecked," but rather be dealt with by the law.

Meanwhile, Ryan Jan Cruz, Keng's lawyer, said they were pleased with the court's decision.

"Ikinatutuwa ng kliyente ko na nakamit niya ang katarungan na hindi niya nakamit sa Rappler at napilitan siyang hingin ito sa husgado," he said on CNN Philippines Balitaan.

[Translation: My client is happy that he was able to get the justice he did not get from Rappler and he was forced to seek this from the court.]

Cruz said his client was more concerned about the court deciding that Rappler made a mistake and was not responsible in its reporting, than over the damages awarded to him.

The charges against Ressa and Santos stem from a 2012 Rappler article which reported on Kengs alleged connection to illegal activities. Keng filed the complaint in 2017, nearly five years after the article was posted on Rapplers website.

The article was published by Rappler, without observing the ethical standards of journalism. It contained malicious imputations of crimes, with bad intentions, purposely to malign, dishonor and discredit my character and good reputation, the complaint read. Keng has also demanded 50 million in damages.

Rappler, however, said the story with Santos' byline only cited an intelligence report, as well as a 2002 news article which already reported on the same allegations.

In addition, the news organization maintained that Kengs side was published and that he was repeatedly asked for comment by the reporter. The businessman has said that Rappler, Ressa and Santos never attempted to obtain his side or to fact-check the baseless attacks against him.

READ: Rappler CEO calls arrest 'abuse of power'

While the story was initially published months before the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 was passed, the prosecution had argued that the article was republished on February 19, 2014.

But according to Rappler, there were no substantial modifications made to the story, as the update only involved correction of typographical errors. Te has also noted that the temporary restraining order on the cybercrime law was still in effect when the story was updated, hence, the republication principle should not apply.

Te earlier said they are ready to bring the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Records from the Office of Cyber Crime show there have been 13 earlier cyber libel convictions in the country, three of which involved journalists.
New Zealand has not reported any new cases of the novel coronavirus for 24 days.

All the COVID-19 cases in the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern-led country appear to have completely eradicated the COVID-19. On June 8, health officials in New Zealand reported that the final person known to have been infected by the novel coronavirus had recovered. Thus, the day marked the first time from late February that there had been no active cases of COVID-19 in the country.

However, the health officials cautioned that new cases could be imported into the country, which has closed its borders to everybody but citizens and residents, with some exceptions.

After the recovery of the last COVID-19 patient, PM Ardern said she was confident that New Zealand had halted the spread of the virus but it still must be prepared for more. We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort, she said at a news conference.

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

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

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said it was a pleasing development.

Having no active cases for the first time since February 28 is certainly a significant mark in our journey but as we've previously said, ongoing vigilance against COVID-19 will continue to be essential," Bloomfield said.

Experts say a number of factors have helped the nation of five million to wipe out the disease. Its isolated location in the South Pacific gave it a vital time to see how outbreaks spread in other countries, and PM Ardern acted decisively by imposing a strict lockdown early in New Zealand's outbreak.

Just over 1,500 people contracted the virus in New Zealand, including 22 who died.

The country lifted all social and economic restrictions, except border controls, after declaring it was free of the novel coronavirus.

(With inputs from PTI)

Follow our full coverage on COVID-19 here
As European countries emerge from their coronavirus lockdowns and lift travel restrictions to revive their tourist industries, the EU has been aiming to coordinate the border reopening among its 27 members. The bloc has recommended that the member states fully reopen their frontiers with each other on June 15, and many countries are planning to relax controls on that date. But the border reopenings have been far from harmoniously coordinated. - Early birds... and those that never closed - Italy, which has been among the world's hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe. Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe -- in many cases that list includes Sweden and the UK. Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13. Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries. Neither did tiny Luxembourg -- but quickly found all its neighbours closing their borders instead. - EU's mid-June plans - In line with the EU's plans to reopen borders in the bloc by mid-June, Belgium, France and Greece are lifting restrictions on Monday for travel within Europe. Paris, however, has specified it wants reciprocity and so may impose restrictions on those countries blocking travellers from France. Greece, on the other hand, has gone further, also allowing travellers from farther afield, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon. Germany is due to end land border checks on June 15, while the Dutch government has announced it would ease warnings against non-essential foreign travel from the same date. Austria, which has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours, will on June 16 lift travel restrictions with a total of 31 countries -- but has excluded Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The Czech Republic is also allowing free travel with a number of European countries from Monday, but restrictions are still in place with those deemed a risk due to their levels of coronavirus infections. - Hold outs - Spain will only lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with fellow EU countries. The land border with Portugal will however remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic. However, Spain's Balearic Islands will see an earlier contingent of foreign guests when they welcome 11,000 Germans from June 15 in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector. Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions. Meanwhile, others are lifting border controls, but are still doing so more gradually. Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights. burs-jza/jsk/har/bsp/je
On Friday night, like nearly every other weekend for the past month, the bars and nightclubs in downtown Scottsdale were packed.

Dance floors were jammed. Lines to get in stretched for blocks. And almost nobody wore masks or gloves.

When Gov. Doug Ducey lifted Arizona's stay-at-home order May 15, giving the green light for much of the state's economy to restart, he said residents had the right and responsibility to gauge the risks posed by the novel coronavirus and to act accordingly.

What an Arizonan decides to do is up to them, he said.

Gov. Doug Ducey speaks about protests and COVID-19 on June 4 at the Arizona Commerce Authority conference center in Phoenix. (Sean Logan / Associated Press)

Now, as confirmed cases of COVID-19 soar here, making Arizona a national hot spot for new infections, it's becoming clear that many residents chose to go back to life as normal as if nothing had changed.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the state's thriving bar and nightclub scene.

"When I see packed nightclubs, I'm deeply concerned," said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, who is one of a growing number of local officials in the state calling on Ducey to better regulate the industry.

"It sends this message that we're through this  that we've defeated it."

For a while, it appeared Arizona had done a good job of containing the virus.

While an outbreak on the Navajo Nation in the northeastern corner of Arizona caused alarm, the state as a whole reported an overall decline in new coronavirus cases last month.

That trend has reversed itself in recent weeks.

The state recorded 7,121 new cases between May 31 and June 6  a 54% increase over the previous week and the largest week-to-week increase since the pandemic began.

Arizona has also seen a spike in hospitalizations, with 1,400 people hospitalized on Friday, up from 755 a month earlier. ICU capacity in the state has passed 80%, according to the Department of Health Services.

Arizona is one of 22 states that have seen the number of new daily cases rise  which health experts say is likely a result of the end of stay-at-home orders.

Story continues

While officials in some places, including New York and Texas, have responded by threatening to renew lockdowns, Ducey is not considering additional shutdowns and says Arizona must stay the course.

"This virus is not going away," he said at a news conference last week. "This virus is something we need to learn to live with."

Ducey suggested the recent spike in new cases is due to more testing.

But data show that the percentage of positive tests has been rising sharply, from 5% in May to 13% in recent days.

"It's very alarming," said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Assn. and former state health director under Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. "Its squandering the sacrifices people made."

Humble believes a few adjustments, such as requiring Arizona residents to wear masks in public spaces, could help the state contain the pandemic. Another helpful change, he said, would be to better control activities in bars and clubs, including limiting capacity.

"Theres lots of layers of things we need to do to slow the spread of the virus, and thats one of them," he said.

Nightclubs are especially incompatible with social distancing. People go to bars for social interaction. Add alcohol to the mix, and even the best intentions can go out the window.

"Drunk people don't conduct themselves responsibly," said Sean Badger, who owns Bar Smith in Phoenix, which recently reopened.

He thinks the state allowed bars and clubs to open too soon but said he felt compelled to restart his own business when others did.

"We open tomorrow ... If you dont like it, call the governors office," he wrote on his bar's Facebook page. "He should have kept us all safe, but instead we move forward."

Arizona never technically gave bars and clubs the green light to reopen.

Customers cheer as Debbie Thompson, owner of the Horseshoe Cafe in Wickenburg, informs them May 1 that she is violating Arizona's stay-at-home order by allowing guest dining at her restaurant. (Matt York / Associated Press)

But after Ducey allowed restaurants to resume indoor dining on May 15, some bars found a loophole. Many started offering food, such as chips, which they said qualified them as restaurants.

Soon, images of bars teeming with partygoers began circulating on social media, and visitors from other states with stricter social distancing guidelines, including California, began flocking in.

In one video, boxer Floyd Mayweather is shown in a standing-room-only crowd at Scottsdale's International Boutique Nightclub.

Scottsdale Mayor Jim Lane reacted angrily on Twitter, saying the fact that people were flocking to bars was disturbing and showed a real lack of common sense and civic responsibility."

He met with bar owners, many of whom have erected plastic partitions between tables in an effort to stop transmission of the virus. Lane, a Republican, said the onus is also on patrons.

"We like to treat our citizens as adults and solicit their cooperation," he said.

Other local leaders say they would like to do more to regulate the industry but can't because of an executive order from Ducey that restricts mayors ability to set stricter social distancing guidelines than those at the state level.

"I'm frustrated that cities have been preempted," said Gallego, the Phoenix mayor, who is a Democrat.

In Maricopa County, where Phoenix and Scottsdale are located, 27% of cumulative coronavirus infections occurred in the last week, she said.

"What we're doing at the state level is not working right now."

She said she understands why people are eager to go to bars after months of having to stay at home.

Even for those who worry that it is too soon to be in public places, the allure of good music and cold drinks can be too much. For months, 28-year-old Lexie Palermo had been religious about social distancing. On Friday, she met up with a few friends for dinner, then planned to head home for yet another quiet night in. Instead, the group found itself drawn to Bevvy, one of two dozen bars located in downtown Scottsdale.

As she danced and drank icy Moscow mules, Palermo felt the sting of guilt. "Bad call," she said. "It is the one thing I swore I would never do."

Others felt no such shame.

"If youre at risk or youre old or youre sick, you need to stay home," said Austin, a young man who identified himself as a hedge fund manager and declined to give his last name.

"If youre healthy and young, you need to be out here spending money to help the economy."




Police have apologized to a black pastor from Woodstock, Virginia, who was arrested after he called police when a white family beat and cursed at him.

Leon McCray had confronted the family members when he found two of them dumping a refrigerator on his property in Edinburg on June 1.

Three more family members came and allegedly attacked McCray, who pulled out his concealed firearm to fend off the attackers.

But when cops arrived, they arrested the pastor on a charge for brandishing a weapon.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter on Friday dropped the charge after meeting with the McCray because the top cop says he found the pastor's arrest was 'certainly not appropriate,' according to a statement on Facebook.

The family members - Donny Salyers, 43, Dennis Salyers, 26, Farrah Salyers, 42, Christopher Sharp, 57, and Amanda Salyers, 26, face hate crimes and assault charges.

Leon McCray, a black pastor from Woodstock, Virginia, called police when a white family beat and cursed at him but was also arrested when cops arrived because he pulled out his concealed weapon to fend off the attackers.

The family members in the alleged attack on Pastor Leon McCray include Farrah Salyers (left), 42, and Dennis Salyers (right), 26

Three other family members accused in the alleged attack on Pastor Leon McCray are Christopher Sharp, 57, Donny Salyers, 43, and Amanda Salyers, 26

McCray, the pastor of Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International recalled the incident as 'a day that changed my life,' during his sermon Sunday, as he spoke of the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement.

The pastor said he confronted two of the family members after they dumped a refrigerator on his Edinburg property, but 'one of the individuals got in my face.'

The other returned with three more family members, he recalls.

'Now I got five people, three males and two females in my face attacking me verbally and physically and threatening to kill me,' he told his congregation, adding that he was told that his 'black life didn't matter.'

That's when he pulled out his gun to defend himself and the family members left, the pastor says.

'I took and felt compelled to pull my concealed weapon, legally concealed weapon, to save my life,' he says in the video of his sermon

He then called 911, but when as many as 10 cops arrived, he claimed they did not hear him out and took his weapon.

'I was not given an opportunity to speak,' says McCray.

Instead, the cops spoke with the family members and McCray was later arrested for brandishing the gun.

'Long story short, they came back to me and said we got to arrest you for brandishing a firearm. And I said what about the the trespassing and the assault?' says McCray in his recollection of the incident.

McCray (left), the pastor of Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International recalled the incident as 'a day that changed my life,' during his sermon Sunday, as he spoke of the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement

The arresting officer also was a cop the pastor knew for two decades in the community, McCray says. He says he was handcuffed and placed into a squad car as the family members continued yelling.

'They waving at me as I go down the road, now you think about this, how disturbing,' McCray says.

Sheriff Carter in his Facebook statement said he met the pastor and saw no reason to charge him for pulling out the gun.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter on Friday dropped the charge after meeting with the McCray because the top cop says he found the pastor's arrest was 'certainly not appropriate,' according to a statement on Facebook

'Mr. McCray met with me on Wednesday the 3rd of June, and after talking with him about the incident, it was apparent to me that the charge of brandishing was certainly not appropriate,' Carter says.

'Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing.'

'I met twice with the Shenandoah Commonwealths Attorney, and she has reviewed the case, and agreed with the assessment of the brandishing charge, in that she would drop this charge,' explained the sheriff in how he made his decision.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) -  Tue, June 16 2020

Balis The Slow, an establishment comprising suites, kitchen and bar and gallery in Canggu, announced that it would hold a billboard public exhibition featuring Amir Zaki, an American artist known for hybridized photographs using digital and analog technologies.

The exhibition, titled Flow through space, is slated to run from June 16 to July 16 in collaboration with wild&wolf. It will showcase Zakis iconic skatepark photographs across 18 billboards on Canggus infamous shortcut that was transformed into an art space courtesy of The Slow and wild&wolf.

The Slow founder George Gorrow explained that the initiators of the exhibition had decided to take a guerilla-style approach to the exhibition.

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By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Two officials of the Indian High Commission were arrested on Monday for their alleged involvement in a hit-and-run incident in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, according to media reports here.

A BMW car hit a pedestrian who was walking on the city's Embassy Road at around 8am and its occupants allegedly attempted to flee from the spot, Geo News reported, quoting some eyewitnesses.

The pedestrian was critically injured and shifted to a hospital for treatment.

The car was stopped by a huge crowd of people who handed over the two men to Islamabad Police, it said.

After they were arrested, police discovered that the two persons were officials of the Indian High Commission, it said.

The car was being driven irresponsibly and had gotten out of control due to over speeding.

The victim was walking on the footpath at the road when he was hit by the car, the channel reported, quoting eyewitnesses.

The Express Tribune newspaper identified the two Indian officials as Silvades Paul and Dawamu Brahamu.

It said local police officials have informed the Foreign Office (FO) of the incident.

So far neither the Pakistani officials nor the Indian High Commission issued any statement regarding the incident.

Earlier on Monday, India summoned the Pakistan charge d'affaires in New Delhi and lodged a strong protest to him over the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Accidents involving vehicles belonging to diplomatic missions have been frequent in recent years, Pakistani media reports said.

Earlier this year, a SUV belonging to the US Embassy drove into a car on a main artery of Islamabad, killing a woman and injuring five members of her family.

The police arrested the Pakistani driver of the US Embassy and registered a case against him.

Monday's incident comes two weeks after India expelled two Pakistan High Commission officials here on charges of espionage.

India had declared Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir as 'persona non grata' after they were found obtaining sensitive documents relating to movement of Indian Army troops from an Indian national, according to authorities here.

Following their expulsion, Pakistani agencies started harassing a number of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad including charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia.

Pakistan had downgraded diplomatic ties by expelling the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad following India's decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.
T-Mobile and Metro subscribers experiencing major outage in the US

Update 2: T-Mobile's official customer service account on Twitter has also confirmed the issues, and suggests using third-party calling apps as a temporary solution.

Our engineers are working to resolve a widespread routing issue affecting voice & text. Customers may experience longer care wait times. Please try third-party calling apps (FaceTime, WhatsApp, Signal) as a temp solution.  T-Mobile Help (@TMobileHelp) June 15, 2020

Update: T-Mobile's Neville Ray acknowledged the issue and confirms T-Mobile is working to resolve it.

Our engineers are working to resolve a voice and data issue that has been affecting customers around the country. Were sorry for the inconvenience and hope to have this fixed shortly.  Neville (@NevilleRay) June 15, 2020

Original story follows below:

As of around 1 PM Eastern time, T-Mobile customers have been experiencing outages in many parts of the US, more prominently in Southeast United States. According to Down Detector, the most reported outages were coming from Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, Houston, Jacksonville, and Brooklyn.

Source: Down Detector as of 3:25PM EST

As of 3:45PM EST, 58% of reports are "No Signal, 24% report "Phone" problems, and 17% report issues with "Mobile internet". Outage reports peaked at 3 PM EST with almost 114,000 outage reports collected.

As of 3:32 PM, comments are still trickling in, most reporting no signal on T-Mobile. Some users are reporting they are still able to make calls over Wi-Fi.

This is a developing story and well provide an update once T-Mobile announces a cause of the outage.

Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T users all seem to be experiencing outages at the same time that T-Mobile began, but T-Mobile sees a drastically higher number of reports.

Source
Markets were a sea of red today as investors grow increasingly worried over rising coronavirus infections in America. Lower oil prices and worse industrial production data from China also impacted market sentiment.

The FTSE 100 slumped by more than 2 per cent in morning trading but managed to recoup some losses as the day progressed, closing 0.7 per cent lower at 6,064.

The UK-focused FTSE 250, which had also started the day lower, managed to close in positive territory, rising nearly 12 points, or 0.07%, to 17,089.

The majority of shops in England reopened today three months after being forced to shut because of the coronavirus pandemic, with socially distanced queues forming before 7am.

In company news, BP said it will write off of up to $17.5billion (14billion) in the value of its assets after cutting its long-term oil price expectations by 30 per cent, as it expects the Covid-19 crisis to continue to impact the economy and demand for energy 'for a sustained period'.

Meanwhile, Metro Bank has confirmed it is in 'early stage' talks to buy RateSetter, one of UK's biggest peer-to-peer lenders after reports at the weekend.

And FTSE-100 listed Bunzl has joined a growing list of companies announcing its intention to pay back the money it received from the UK Government to furlough workers after seeing revenues rise during the coronavirus crisis.

Games Workshop, Ikea and Bellway have also pledged to return coronavirus funds to the Government.

The FTSE 100 closed down, but the FTSE 250 rebounded and managed to close slightly higher
Official data released on Tuesday is expected to show a record monthly rise in joblessness

The UK will be hit by three waves of unemployment as a result of the coronavirus crisis, experts have claimed, with official data on Tuesday expected to show a record monthly rise in joblessness.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will reflect the first wave of jobs lost since the lockdown began. Analysis by economic think tank the Resolution Foundation, predicts that the April data will show a record monthly rise in people out of work, up from the latest figure of 1.29 million in March.

The two previously biggest monthly rises in unemployment numbers were in April 2013 and March 2009, both of which saw increases of more than 220,000.

The average wages of those in work are also expected to fall significantly, with workers facing cuts in pay and hours as a result of the lockdown.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the economic think tank, said: "Last month the number of people claiming unemployment benefits rose by more than in any one month on record to a level not seen since before Tony Blair became prime minister.

"The broader-based measure of unemployment numbers due for release tomorrow is also likely to see a record-breaking rise.

"Remember, these increases come at a time when the Government's generous furlough scheme remains in place. As it is gradually withdrawn over the summer and autumn, we can expect rates of unemployment to rise considerably further."

A total of 8.9 million furloughed workers now have their wages paid by the state using the Job Retention Scheme.

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has extended the scheme until the end of October, although employers will need to start making National Insurance contributions from August before being required to pay part of the furlough money in the final two months of the scheme.

Businesses have warned that some will not be able to afford to do this, which could bring a second wave of redundancies in August, with a third expected once the scheme finally ends.

Story continues

Josh Hardie, the deputy director general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), said: "This is a generation-defining moment," adding that the hospitality, aviation and manufacturing industries will be most affected in terms of layoffs.

Nye Cominetti, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: "This morning we will get the official data on the scale of Britains job crisis  with huge increases in unemployment and falls in pay likely.

"These worrying signs reflect how quickly this crisis has come about, but policy makers should not just assume its effects will soon disappear. Further significant job losses will follow as the Job Retention Scheme that has supported nine million jobs is gradually phased out.

"A second wave of unemployment from furloughed workers is expected later this year as the Job Retention Scheme is phased out between August and the end of October. Policy will play a big role in determining how big or small that second unemployment surge is."

In April, the number of unemployment claims increased by the highest monthly rise on record to nearly 2.1 million.

UK Hospitality has said a third of hospitality businesses  30,000 or 40,000 companies, employing a million people between them  could start redundancy processes next week if there was no clarity from the Government on when venues can fully reopen. Many see cutting the two-metre social distancing rule as key to this.

It came as a new poll showed 55 per cent of workers in full-time employment are worried about their job prospects over the next 12 months. The poll of 2,000 people, by the Social Mobility Pledge, showed almost a third of respondents also fear they will have to accept a pay cut to keep their job.
Safaricom is officially bidding for one of the two mobile licences that Ethiopia will make available to foreign investors.

Speaking to business outlet The Standard, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa confirmed that the company had submitted an expression of interest to Ethiopias telecom authorities, confirming longstanding speculation among industry observers.

The Kenyan operator has enlisted two partners to aid its bid. Ndegwa declined to name either in his interview, although it likely has the support of its parent firm Vodacom.

The Ethiopia Communications Authority opened a consultation in April to establish guidelines around new companies entering the market. It is currently in the process of breaking up the longstanding monopoly of Ethio Telecom, the state carrier. To this end, it is planning to sell a 40% stake in the operator.

Interest in Ethiopia extends well beyond Safaricom and other companies associated with the Vodafone Group. Some of Africas largest telecom groups, including MTN and Orange, have expressed an interest in entering the Ethiopian market now that the government has opened the telecoms sector to foreign investment.

Orange is present in 18 markets across Africa. The groups CEO Stephane Richard recently told Les Echos that in addition to its stated interest in Ethiopia, the firm was open to expanding into other African markets including Nigeria and South Africa. He noted that the group had the resources to enact such a move within a timescale of less than a year.

The ECA has delayed its planned decision on awarding the new licences into next year due to the ongoing Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
5 Seconds of Summer's lead guitarist Michael Clifford has denied multiple allegations he 'inappropriately touched' underage fans while on tour.

On June 13, a Twitter user alleged that Michael, 24, had touched her 'chest, arms and sides' while 5SOS were performing at Tinley Park, Illinois, in 2013.

The anonymous user, who claims she was 14 at the time, wrote: 'Michael Clifford... slid into the audience - probably most would assume to enjoy the concert - and violated my safety and privacy.'

The individual has since retracted these claims, however.

'BEYOND untrue': 5 Seconds of Summer guitarist Michael Clifford, 24, (pictured) has denied allegations he 'inappropriately touched' underage fans while on tour

At the time, 5SOS were touring North America with One Direction as part of the British band's Take Me Home tour.

Also on June 13, another Twitter user alleged that 'MC' had reached up her mini skirt and 'kept saying disgusting things into her ear' at a 5SOS show.

The user claims she was 14 years old when the alleged incident occurred.

Allegation: On June 13, a Twitter user alleged that 'MC' had reached up her mini skirt and 'kept saying disgusting things into her ear' at a 5SOS show. The user claims she was 14 at the time

Michael has categorically denied these allegations, saying they are 'beyond untrue'.

'I am heartbroken to read these things that are being said  they are just BEYOND untrue,' he tweeted on June 15.

'I was never allowed in the crowd I only ever watched at front of house  and I would've never EVER done that. I would NEVER do anything like that,' he added.

'I am heartbroken': Michael has categorically denied these allegations, saying they are 'beyond untrue'

Explanation: In another tweet, Michael said it 'would've been logistically impossible for me to get through a crowd' at the height of 5SOS' boy band fame

In another tweet, Michael commented on a video of the 5SOS band members surrounded by fans in the audience.

'This is what life was like in 2013. Please understand it would've been logistically impossible for me to get through a crowd at a show I just played at! I'm not trying to be defensive I promise this is just so completely false,' he wrote.

In response to another Twitter user, Michael said of the allegations: 'I really just don't know what I can even say. People are asking me to explain but how can I explain something that I was never involved with in the first place?'

Denial: In response to another Twitter user, Michael said of the allegations: 'I really just don't know what I can even say'

Setting the record straight: Michael added, 'People are asking me to explain but how can I explain something that I was never involved with in the first place?'

'The band were never allowed into the crowd': Adam Wilkinson, who managed 5SOS at the time of the alleged incidents, jumped to Michael's defence

'I truly want to give you what youre asking from me but what more can I say?' he added.

Adam Wilkinson, who managed 5SOS at the time of the alleged incidents, jumped to Michael's defence, tweeting: 'I can confirm at all times that the band were never allowed into the crowd and were always escorted to front of house by security and/or management including myself.'

The girl who alleged Michael had touched her 'chest, arms and sides' at the 2013 show in Illinois has since retracted her claims.

Retraction: A girl who alleged Michael had touched her 'chest, arms and sides' at a 5SOS concert in Illinois in 2013 has since retracted her claims. On July 16, she tweeted that the man who touched her was not Michael Clifford, and that the actual offender 'is dead'

On July 16, she tweeted that the man who touched her was not Michael Clifford, and that the actual offender 'is dead'.

'Today, I found out I've been wrong for almost seven years. Today I found out that my offender is dead. My offender is NOT MICHAEL CLIFFORD,' she wrote.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Michael Clifford for comment.

Engaged: It comes after Michael announced his engagement to American model Crystal Leigh (right) in January 2019. The Australian musician proposed with a diamond ring at sunset while the couple were on holiday in Bali, Indonesia

It comes after Michael announced his engagement to American model Crystal Leigh in January 2019.

The Australian musician proposed with a diamond ring at sunset while the couple were on holiday in Bali, Indonesia.

Michael shared several photos of the moment he dropped down on one knee, writing in the caption: 'I was lucky enough to ask the love of my life to marry me.'

'In the last three years, she has helped evolve and shape who I am in ways I could never have imagined. I couldn't ask for anyone better to spend the rest of my life with. I love loving you, Crystal.'

The lovebirds first started dating in 2016 and have been together for four years.

Michael confirmed his relationship with Crystal in an Instagram post on New Year's Eve back in 2016.

Lovebirds: Michael and Crystal first started dating in 2016 and have been together four years

Sharing a video of the couple kissing in front of a fireworks display, the boy band member told fans: 'I know I'm late, but happy new year everyone. Especially to my love @crystalleigh for making 2016 infinitely better than I thought it would be.'

'Here's to much greener pastures in 2017, and much less awkward hand motions. (you know I'm bad at this),' he added.

Before meeting Crystal, Michael had previously dated actress Abigail Breslin.
The federal Depression-era New Deal initiative, which gave San Antonio its River Walk, Mission San Jose national park and other cherished icons, could be a template for rebuilding a San Antonio economy devastated by COVID-19.

As city and county leaders plot a course for spending an initial $115 million in combined federal funds by Dec. 30 on workforce development, Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Calvert has been talking up a vision for a long-term stimulus plan on the scale of the Works Progress Administration.

Obviously, Im talking about a stimulus. And thats what the WPA was, Calvert said. This crisis has exposed us in terms of the lack of preparation in healthcare, in education, in workforce training for the future.

And he has the support of other county leaders.

The WPA and other programs under President Franklin D. Roosevelt led to construction of dozens of large projects in San Antonio, as it did across the nation.

Calverts idea targets jobs and education in health care; construction of new or expanded hospitals and clinics, as well as senior and workforce housing; and Internet connectivity and technology. He views as secondary priorities: flood control, roads, construction and adaptation of buildings to support a post-pandemic economy, and agribusiness functions to maintain a steady food supply chain.

On ExpressNews.com: Officials urge caution as food courts, water parks reopen

While cautioning that San Antonio must remain nimble and reactive to an ever-changing employment landscape, Calvert said the community could reap a dual benefit of expanding its already robust bioscience industry to one capable of producing medical supplies now in high global demand, including federally approved coronavirus test kits and reagent chemicals used by labs.

The New Deal programs helped stimulate the U.S. economy during the Great Depression while the country was fighting World War II.

Our war spending, as well spending on the River Walk, is what got us out. So when I talk about spending the stimulus on the war against COVID, and spending it on infrastructure  healthcare and physical  the health care side is the new B-1 bomber, Calvert said.

The city and county are already developing workforce programs that would train about 15,000 people in anticipated growth areas such as health care, cyber security and information technology, providing a stipend and other support services.

But more than 120,000 workers in Bexar County have so far sought unemployment, and the future of the U.S. job market remains murky.

Thats why Calvert has begun comparing todays challenges with those of the Depression. His concept doesnt suggest throwing workers on large projects already under way, such as the county-funded San Pedro Creek Culture Park, or the public-private Alamo Plaza makeover.

Instead, it attempts to attack what he calls Bexar Countys weak underbelly  lack of education and training for skilled jobs, including robotic automation, which is likely to increase to minimize public health concerns.

Every era, you have to know what time it is. And I think the crisis is going to make legacy projects like linear parkways take a back seat to priorities that we have fallen short on, Calvert said.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff was the first to publicly acknowledge Calverts idea at a May 19 commissioners meeting.

Wolff even coined a phrase, Revive America, as a possible brand for such an initiative that could be funded with bonds, restructuring of debt or a future voter-approved sales tax initiative, to provide a local match to state and federal funds.

The county judge said hed rather invest than just dole out money with something similar to the New Deal initiatives that finally brought American back during the Roosevelt years.

From the federal level, instead of just looking for more giveaways, I think if we did plow it into a Revive America (program) - roads and streets and flood (control) and everything else, and get the federal government to spend money that is for long-term rather than just flooding a bunch more money downI think we could really rejuvenate this economy, Wolff said. But just throwing more money here and there, I dont think does much of anything.

From 1935 through 1943, the WPA put more than 8 million people to work, building roads, bridges, parks and buildings, using federal funds in coordination with state and local governments. Local WPA projects created or enhanced some of San Antonios most popular tourism and community gathering spaces, including the original section of the River Walk; restoration of Mission San Jose; Alamo Stadium; and features of the Alamo, the San Antonio Zoo and Brackenridge Park.

On ExpressNews.com: City panel approves plan for new park, defers action on zoo parking garage

Amid the restlessness of the COVID-19 crisis, others have suggested resurrecting those New Deal concepts. Scholars have published opinion pieces calling for a stimulus to creates digital technology jobs, and a New York legislator recently filed a Works Progress Administration-Pandemic Recovery bill that would authorize that states department of labor to train young workers in contact tracing, conservation and climate mitigation.

Local political consultant Laura Barberena said the FDR programs, intertwined with peoples memories of the end of the Second World War and economic prosperity that followed, have been a bit romanticized.

There are some economists who will argue that the New Deal didnt actually create any real jobs, but that its about what it did to public attitudes in driving the feeling of hope and aspiration, Barberena said. In this world of COVID, this is exactly what we need. We need hope and promise that things will get back to some sort of normalcy.

Calvert takes a more pragmatic approach, explaining his concept of a 21st century works program as sound economics, arithmetic and being responsive to the needs of the community.

His idea for new construction, or adaptation of existing buildings, seeks to provide hospitals and clinics in the countys southwest and northeast sectors, and housing for the silver tsunami of baby boomers who are retiring, as well as people with special needs and those who are going to fall on hard times because of the economy.

So you could really get a lot people employed into construction jobs paying around $14 or $15 an hour. That could be very stabilizing for a lot of families, Calvert said.

Besides housing, seniors also need more health care professionals to help them, he said.

We have a crisis in our nursing homes, and weve got too many seniors cohorting. We have to space these seniors out in terms of housing, Calvert said. This is going to become more and more acute.

University Health System, which is county-owned and run by its own board of managers, is building a new Womens and Childrens Hospital, set to open in 2022.

The tower has been years in the planning, to attract and retain highly trained children's specialists.

Since the pandemic began, UHS has been trying to adapt to a rising number of uninsured patients who have lost employment, and a tremendous increase in telehealth visits, said Leni Kirkman, UHS spokesperson.

The 103-year-old system also is studying ways it can prepare for timely responses to future public health crises, while staying true to its commitment to maintain and improve the health of the entire community, officials sais.

Ensuring communities have adequate hospital capacity, supplies and health care professionals to be able to ramp up quickly to care for large numbers of patients during a large-scale outbreak must be a top priority as we move into the future, Kirkman said.

We think it will be important to address this need for capacity in ways that not only make us better prepared for any potential surge of symptomatic patients, but that also consider the important health care needs of those who have chronic and acute medical problems unrelated to the outbreak.

That leaves the health system, already one of the largest employers in Bexar County with more than 7,000 people on its payroll, positioned as a potential force for stability in the current economic storm, Calvert said.

On ExpressNews.com: Discovery adds intrigue, challenge to creek project

There only are probably three sectors that we can be sure will maintain jobs: construction, IT and healthcare, he added.

In a high-profile election year, Barberena predicts job creation will be a front-of-mind issue for voters in November.

I think it went from not so important to absolutely important. Especially in minority communities that have been hit the hardest, she said.

But the key to the local recovery will be creation of well-paying jobs that are evenly placed geographically throughout the county, Barberena said.

Any kind of workforce development needs to be about how to create living-wage jobs. And living-wage jobs shouldnt be a partisan issue, she said. Were not going to recreate this local economy just so that we can have low-wage jobs again. We need to teach people real skills that get them out of poverty.

Scott Huddleston covers Bexar County government and the Alamo for the San Antonio Express-News. To read more from Scott, become a subscriber. shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
Villagers in rural Peru have freed eight technicians from broadband provider Gilat Peru who were held over fears they were installing 5G technology, which locals claim is responsible for the coronavirus, police said Saturday.

The eight-member maintenance crew had been held since Wednesday by villagers in Acobamba province, more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of the capital Lima,

"All of them have been released," Leni Palacios of Huancavelica police told AFP, adding that the workers said they were in good shape.

Palacios said the workers' release came after a meeting between locals and a commission made up of officials from the Ministry of Transport, the regional government and Gilat Peru.

Transport Ministry spokesman Jose Aguilar told RPP Radio that Peru has no 5G antennas, and that regardless, they are not linked to COVID-19.

Locals in Chopcca had told the repair crew they would not be allowed to leave until they took down existing antennas in Acobamba.

With 33 million people, Peru is the second-worst affected country in Latin America after Brazil, with more than 214,000 confirmed cases and over 6,000 deaths.

The province of Acobamba, which rises to nearly 4,000 meters above sea level, has one of the lowest infection rates in the country.
There's a wrinkle the solidarity of George Floyd protests in the Seattle Autonomous Zone since the black organizers have no confidence in white protestors who are with them.

In Seattle's self-proclaimed autonomous zone, it is not exactly unified as color protestors are not fully convinced that their Caucasian or white brothers in arms are not 100% in synch with the BLM cause. The scenes of the six blocks are festival-like, with selfies snapped amidst the turmoil and glorifying murals of those purportedly killed in police hands, reported by Fox News.

Tracy Stewart, an African-American mental health therapist told US Today, that someone is dead and why should it be the case for people to express on the street, most are not even sure why they are protesting in the first place.

She added that whites should be consistent and stay, not leave when the party ends because all the marching and protesting, is part of the process, and bailing out is not an option. Next up is supporting the next part of the process, which will involve the mayor and until the White House.

One of the difficulties of the Seattle Police Department to settle the occupation is the disorganized structure of the protestors who is the lynch-pin of the uncontrollable mob of looters and rioters that has occupied six blocks illegally. One of their most ambitious attempts is to change the name from Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) to Capitol Hill Organized (or Occupied) Protest (CHOP), confirmed in the Wall Street Journal.

Maurice Cola said in a Saturday video interview that was posted on Twitter surmised what most of the protestors might have in mind. Explaining that the mention of 'autonomy' in CHAZ or CHOP does not mean the six-blocks help by looters, and rioters want to stop being a part of the US.

Also read: Ex-Police Captain Shot Dead by Looters After Trying to Stop Them From Ransacking Pawnshop.

Last Friday countless protestors were moving from the CHAZ or CHOP to about 3 miles from the 6-block enclave. Their target was Madison Park Beach as a way to bring in the better off white community that has ignored their actions.

The marchers screamed to the residents to get into the streets and join their protests that has brought destruction to property. Another silent march was on the way from Judkins Park to Jefferson Park which was a far cry from the CHAZ enclave.

Jason Beverly one of the protest organizers said that BLM and act do not just speak. According to him, the affluent white people should step up for the BLM cause. Taking affirmative actions to help donate to African-American communities, but he added no response has been registered yet, mentioned in Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

He extorted that action is needed and decide to stand up for morals if nothing else.

Beverly explained that the police are against black and colored people. The white people should step in and start changes for their African-Americans compatriots and other nationals of colors who are just as oppressed.

He also mentioned other black people who were killed allegedly by the police.

Nikkita Oliver, Seattle Peoples Party leader, spoke in March demanding to defund the Seattle Police Department by 50 percent, more for other community-based organizations, and let the looting and rioting protestors be pardoned for their untoward action. The Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, joined them, last Friday.

It seems that black organizers are not 100% with White protestors as their sentiments are ignored by affluent whites.

Related article: Democrat's Pandora's Box: Will They Agree with George Floyd Sympathizers to Defund Police?

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Sitting in a hospital room, Jenneh Paye is hoping that she and her two-and-a-half-year-old son would be able to join their family in Liberia, thousands of miles away from this South Indian port city, very soon. Unable to fly back to their country due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the 26-year-old mother and her son Jin have been staying in the private Lisie Hospital for over two months since he recovered from a serious heart ailment following surgery.

They are hoping that the Indian government would extend a helping hand to enable their return home.

A hospital spokesman said Jin, who had been suffering from severe heart ailment since birth, was admitted to the hospital in the first week of March after being referred from a hospital at Monrovia for better medical care.

He underwent an open heart surgery on March 12.

Relieved over the improvement in Jin's health following the surgery, Jenneh was preparing to go back to Liberia on April 2 but the lockdown derailed their plan.

For latest updates on Coronavirus outbreak, click here

The spokesman said the boy was brought to Kerala for treatment after taking a loan pledging their property back home and now they are under financial stress due to the delay in their return trip.

It was on March 2 that Jenneh reached Kerala from Liberia along with her son for treatment of his heart condition.

Jin is the second child born to Peter and Jenneh and was diagnosed to have a hole in the heart within a few months.

He was not gaining weight adequately and he used to get recurrent respiratory infections and Jenneh knew he needed to undergo cardiac surgery for a complete recovery.

Peter and Jenneh managed to collect enough money to travel to India and get Jin operated though it meant working overtime, mortgaging their family house and giving up much other leisure in life.

"All went well according to plan when they came to Kochi. The aorto-pulmonary window in his heart was closed and the family's happiness knew no bounds when he had an uneventful recovery after the surgery.

All they wanted now was to travel back home...but then came the pandemic scare, travel restrictions and lockdown shattering all their dreams.

Jenneh and Jin could not travel back home as planned on April 2 and they are unsure when they can," he said. The little resources they had with them was planned for a month's stay and recovery and is drained completely, he said.

According to him,they are now being supported by the management of Lisie Hospital, which is taking care of their food and shelter along with some help from the Liberian Consulate and a few philanthropists.

In a video message released to the media, Jenneh appealed to the Indian government to facilitate their return home.

"I am Jenneh, I came from Liberia for my son's surgery.Now his surgery is over...we are being here for too long.

So we appeal to the government of India to please arrange means for us to go back home," she said.

Her husband, Peter, currently in Liberia, also sent a video message requesting the Indian government to facilitate their return trip.

"I am hoping that in few days government of India with good people will be able to bring my family back to Liberia," he said.

Peter also thanked the hospital authorities for providing good medical care to his son and safe stay of his family in Kochi.

The hospital spokesman said Jin is fully cured and his follow-up medical examination, if needed, can be done in Liberian hospitals.
Genstar Capital announced on Monday it has exited its remaining stake in specialty property insurer Palomar Holdings Inc. in La Jolla, Calif.

Genstar in 2014 partnered with current CEO Mac Armstrong to form Palomar, a new specialty insurance platform company that was funded with $75 million of equity capital from Genstar and the management team.

In the last six years, the company has expanded its geographic reach and product footprint. Genstar helped take the company public in April 2019 and since monetized its investment. Palomar announced the underwritten public offering of 5 million shares of the companys common stock earlier this year

Palomar is listed among the Californias top writers of earthquake insurance.

We have a strong focus on the insurance industry and our investment in Palomar demonstrates the power of pairing an extraordinary founder and leader with a compelling business strategy, Ryan Clark, president and managing director of Genstar, said in a statement. Macs vision and leadership of Palomar has brought the company from its founding less than seven years ago to over $2 billion in market capitalization in June 2020. We thank Mac for his partnership and look forward to following all of Palomars future success.

As part of the sale, Clark will step down as chairman of Palomars board of directors and will be succeeded by Armstrong. Richard Taketa, a current member of Palomars board and a member of Genstars Strategic advisory board, will become lead independent director.

Palomar Holdings subsidiaries include Palomar Specialty Insurance Co. and Palomar Specialty Reinsurance Company Bermuda Ltd.

Genstar Capital is a private equity firm that based in San Francisco. Genstar reports $19 billion of assets under management.

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Topics California
In a unanimous decision last week, the Minneapolis City Council announced their intention to "dismantle" the police department, pledging to fundamentally rethink the city's vision of a public safety apparatus. While few municipalities have gone as far as Minneapolis, virtually every city in the United States is reckoning with activists fighting to "defund the police."

What does that look like, exactly? For some on the left, "defund the police" takes the form of asking cities to lower the percentage of funds allocated to their local police department. In the Bay Area, the local police department's share of general funds ranges from city to city. In the story below, we dug into the budgets of 16 prominent Bay Area cities, hoping to provide context for readers curious about the local dynamics.

Before we jump in, there are a couple important caveats to make. Not every Bay Area city is on an equal playing field. Concord, for example, receives fire protection services from the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District. Because Concord doesn't have to fund its own fire department, its percentage of general fund revenues allocated to police is much higher than, say, Palo Alto, which has a fire department unto itself. Meanwhile, Berkeley funds its own health department, drawing over $17 million a year from the general fund to support its operations. In other words, each city is dealing with its own unique situation.

Nevertheless, these figures should provide a sense of the share of general fund allocated to police operations across the region from the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
Nepal-India relationship should not deteriorate over the current border row as the landlocked country is dependent on its southern neighbour for the essential items and it would be unwise to consider China as an "alternative", a leading Nepali economist said on Monday.

Commenting on Nepal's move to amend the Constitution for incorporating India's territory of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, Dr Posh Raj Pandey, the executive chairman of the South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), a consortium of South Asian NGOs, said that its economic impact will depend upon how India reacts.

Nepal is not only a landlocked country, but also India locked as it is surrounded by India from the three sides. The situation will be vulnerable. If India retaliates, it will have a huge economic impact on the country, said Pandey, who has been working on issues of international trade and economic development for over 20 years.

His remarks came as Nepal's ruling and Opposition political parties on Saturday voted in unison to amend the Constitution to update the national emblem by incorporating the controversial map incorporating Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in India's Uttarakhand.

India has described Nepal's move as "untenable."

Pandey said that the Nepal-India relations should not be allowed to damage and there is a need for early negotiations and a dialogue to resolve the issue at the earliest .

Nepal is dependent on India for the supply of essential goods, said the economist, who was one of the negotiators for Nepal's accession negotiation for the World Trade Organisation membership.

Our imports from India account for two-third whereas that from China is just 14 per cent, Pandey, a former member of the National Planning Commission, said, adding that China cannot be an alternative to India as far as the supply of essentials are concerned.

We have trading points from Mechi in the east to Mahakali in the west with India, but with the northern neighbour, we only have a few transit points and that also lack infrastructure, he said.

Pandey said that Nepal's nearest access to sea from the north is 4,000 kms, which is three times more than the one it is having from the Indian side in Kolkata.

So, our third country trade is being conducted mainly through the southern route, he said.

As far as our exports are concerned, India receives 60 per cent of our total exports whereas China receives only two per cent.

In remittances, we receive around 15 per cent of the total remittances from India and if we compare it with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it comes around 4-5 per cent, Pandey said.

However, Nepal is also one of the largest sources of remittances for India, he said.

According to a 2016 World Bank report, Nepal is on the tenth position in the list of countries sending remittances to India, which is on par with the US and Canada, he said.

According to the Nepal Rastra Bank, the country's central bank received a total of 304.97 billion Nepali rupees or USD 2.54 billion remittance in 2019.

India accounts for the 14.2 per cent remittances to Nepal, securing the second position after the Gulf countries.

Nepal has so far received 43.16 billion Nepali rupees (USD 356.69 million) remittance from India this year.

Reacting to Kathmandu's move, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Saturday "this artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues."

The India-Nepal bilateral ties came under fresh strain after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8.

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.

In 2015, India's relations with Nepal came under severe strain following the economic blockade.

Madhesis, mostly of Indian-origin, had launched a six-month-long agitation during K P Sharma Oli's premiership, from September 2015 to February last year, in which more than 50 people were killed.

The agitation crippled Nepal's economy as supplies from India were blocked.

Since then, China has been active in Nepal and has invested hugely, helping the landlocked country in laying new roads including connecting it to Tibet for the transportation of petroleum and other essential products, ostensibly to help Kathmandu cut dependence on India.

China is also planning to lay a strategic railway network connecting Kathmandu and Shigatse in Tibet where it would join an existing railway line to Lhasa, Tibet's capital. It has offered Nepal four ports for shipment of goods which rely heavily on India.

Nepal shares a border of over 1,850 km with Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Nepal enjoys a special significance in India's foreign policy due to its geographical, historical, cultural and economic linkages. The people of the two countries maintain close bonds through marriages and family ties, also known as 'Roti-Beti ka Rishta' (relation of food and family).

According to the official data, nearly eight million Nepalese live and work in India. The two countries also have solid defence and trade ties. About 32,000 Gorkha soldiers from Nepal are serving in the Indian Army.

Also Read: Delhi's coronavirus tally climbs by 10,000 in just six days; more than 41,000 cases reported

Also Read: Coronavirus: Record 11,929 cases, 325 deaths in a day; India's tally 3.32 lakh
(ANSAmed) - NAPLES, JUNE 15 - Satellites and artificial intelligence are being used to monitor the Mediterranean, find ships operated by migrant smugglers and discover illegal fishing activities. The initiative is part of the project ''Advanced Maritime Targets Recognition from SAR images exploiting target's micro motions and AI'', funded with 70,000 euros through the platform ''The Open Space Innovation'' of ESA (European Space Agency). The project will involve a team of Italian and foreign universities over the next three years, including the Universita Niccolo Cusano. The new technology will allow to monitor and identify vessels operating illegally in the Mediterranean to prevent, for example, excessive fishing or illegal immigration: ships operated by smugglers will be more easily detected by coast guards and the Navy.



The project involves, along with the online university, also the Universita Giustino Fortunato in Benevento, the defense ministry and the Scottish university of Strathclyde and consists in the ability to extract ''micro-motions'', or small vibrations produced for example by the engines of vessels and classify them through artificial intelligence techniques. Through an algorithm able to combine satellite radar images with artificial intelligence, it will be possible to detect the activities of vessels. The validation of algorithms will be based on real data from satellites Sentinel-1 of the Copernicus program managed by the European Community and ESA and the constellation Cosmo-SkyMed promoted and funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in collaboration with the defense ministry. The satellites are equipped with radars that are able to emit and receive radio wave impulses to create very detailed images of the observed surfaces. This type of radar can function everywhere and always, regardless of light and weather conditions. (ANSAmed)
Decades of fear and struggle culminated in joyful tears for Joanne Carrol on Monday

Since I first read it, I cant stop crying. Its so huge, said Carroll, a transgender woman and Lancaster County resident.

She was referring to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the civil rights law protecting workers from discrimination based on their sex also applies to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The ruling is especially significant in Pennsylvania, the only northeastern state lacking its own law against such discrimination.

In recent years, most major corporations have adopted policies against discriminating toward employees or job candidates based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. But people working for smaller companies lived with uncertainty and fear, Carroll said.

Amanda Arbour, executive director of the Central Pa. LGBT Center, said people had to worry whether a decision to come out, or a management change, could cost them their job or halt their progress at work.

Its important for people to be able to feel safe and protected, she said. There will always be bigotry. But now we have ways to file complaints and hold people accountable.

The ruling announced Monday applies to Title VII of the Civil Right Act. It extends the ban on discrimination based on sex and things such as race and religion to also include gender identity and sexual orientation.

The court voted 6-3, with the majority opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative appointed by President Donald Trump.

Trumps Department of Justice had argued that employers should be allowed to fire a transgender person.

According to CNN, Gorsuch wrote, An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Gene Barr, the CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, said the chamber supports the Supreme Courts decision.

He said its absolutely critical we have inclusion of all regarding work opportunities as well as things like housing.

The current situation across the country is redefining the need for inclusion and the need to work toward quality opportunities for all of our citizens, Barr said.
A seventh grader types on his personal computer during a cyber class at Peirce Middle School in West Chester, Pa., on Jan. 21, 2020. West Chester is launching a new cyber school program next year in an attempt to bring students back into the district from cyber charters, and coronavirus has pushed many other brick-and-mortar schools to offer digital education options as well. Read more

With the anticipated loss of revenue facing school districts due to COVID-19, now, more than ever, the Pennsylvania legislature must grab the bull by the horns and reform the way cyber charter schools are funded.

Cyber charters may be a great fit for some highly motivated, self-disciplined students, or those with very involved parents or guardians. But generally speaking, cyber students are not learning, and taxpayers are paying twice what they reasonably should, with the excess funds taken away from all of the other students remaining in a school district when a parent chooses to send their child to a cyber charter.

Our school districts have pivoted quickly to offer remote learning, are planning to expand and strengthen programs for the fall, and can offer everything cybers offer, plus closer personal attention, rigorous learning, and no break if students choose to return to in-person instruction.

And as far as quality goes, cyber charters certainly have a proven track record: a dismal one.

A June 2 paper from the highly respected Brookings Institution stated, We find the impact of attending a virtual charter on student achievement is uniformly and profoundly negative, and then went on to say that there is no evidence that virtual charter students improve in subsequent years.

 READ MORE: Cyber charters transformed my struggling kids. Why do Pa. politicians want to change my choice? | Opinion

In 2016, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the national charter lobbying group 50CAN released a report on cyber charters that found that overall, cyber students make no significant gains in math and less than half the gains in reading compared with their peers in traditional public schools.

A Stanford University CREDO Study in 2015 found that cyber students on average lost 72 days a year in reading and 180 days a year in math compared with students in traditional public schools.

From 2005 through 2012 under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, most Pennsylvania cybers never made adequate yearly progress. Following NCLB, for all five years (2013-2017) that Pennsylvanias School Performance Profile system was in place, not one cyber charter ever achieved a passing score of 70. Under Pennsylvanias current accountability system, the Future Ready PA Index, all 15 cyber charters that operated 2018-2019 have been identified for some level of support and improvement.

 READ MORE: Political Cartoon: Pa. cyber schools got their report card

Our taxpayers spend over $500 million on cyber charter tuition annually. Based on available data for the 2019-20 school year from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, tuition rates paid by school districts ranged from $7,409 to $21,602 per student, resulting in a statewide average of $12,604. Yet, most school districts offering cyberlearning options were spending $5,000 or less annually to educate students through their local online learning options. Special education cyber charter tuition ranged from $10,182 to $55,727 for an average of $27,607 per student across the state, while local school districts provided similar special ed online learning services for $7,000 or less per student.

Why is there more than a $7,000 excess cost for cyber tuition for regular education students and more than a $20,000 excess cost for cyber tuition for special education students when comparing district-run cyber programs with cyber charter programs?

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Why should taxpayers fund cybers at the same rate as brick-and-mortar charters when the cyber charters have none of the expenses associated with buildings? Ive spoken with several legislators from both parties who find this absurd and ridiculous. While districts statewide anticipate a $1 billion shortfall in local revenue for 2020-21, the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials (PASBO) estimates that charter and cyber tuition will increase by more than $200 million. Legislators could help by holding tuition level for the 2020-21 school year.

 READ MORE: When it comes to cyber charters, doing nothing is not an option | Editorial

After 20 years, it is well past time for the legislature to act on cyber charter school funding reform.

Lawrence A. Feinberg has been a school director in Haverford Township for 21 years and has been recognized as a strong advocate for public education at the county, state, and federal levels. Since 2010, he has curated a daily statewide PA Ed Policy Roundup targeted to school leaders, legislators, and members of the press. KeystoneStateEdCoalition@gmail.org
The U.S. Supreme Court declared on Monday that an employer who fires a worker merely for being gay or transgender violates the main federal job-discrimination law, in a decision with implications for school districts as employers and in legal battles over the rights of transgender students.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 6-3 majority in Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. (Case No. 17-1618) and two consolidated cases involving workers who alleged they were fired on the basis of being gay or transgender.

In Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964], Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employees sex when deciding to fire that employee, he wrote. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.

Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., in a dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, said the majority was trying to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous.

Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, Alito wrote. And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written.

Alito made multiple references to what the decision today might mean for interpreting Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars discrimination based on sex in federally funded educational programs.

In a separate dissent for himself, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said it was " appropriate to acknowledge the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans, who have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law.

Under the Constitutions separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congresss role, not this Courts, to amend Title VII, Kavanaugh said.

A longer version of this story appears here .
Did Obama sanction Russia to set up Michael Flynn? By Aaron Ames

On December 13, 2016, during an interview with Trevor Noah, then-President Barack Obama downplayed the extent to which Russia interfered in the presidential election: None of this should be a big surpriseRussia trying to influence our elections dates back to the Soviet Union. What they did hereis not a particularly fancy brand of espionage or propagandaWe were frankly more concernedto the possibilities oftampering, which we did not see evidence ofThe truth of the matter is that it was fairly routine stuff. The relatively benign role that Russia played in the election is substantiated by the fact that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent an assistant on December 5th to brief the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that, "In terms of favoring one candidate over another, you know, the evidence is a little bit unclear (see pg. 16-17). The evidence is unclear probably because the threat was never very serious. However, just two days later on December 15th, Obama promised to take action against Russia for its attempted interference. Then, on December 29th, Obama announces that the U.S. Government is sanctioning nine entities and individuals, shutting down two Russian compounds located in the U.S., and expelling 35 Russian intelligence operatives, all of which seems a bit aggressive for something that was fairly routine stuff. So, why the sudden change of heart? After all, Obama had received the intelligence report on Russian interference in October of 2016 and had remained relatively unconcerned through, at least, the middle of December. Interestingly, on December 14, 2016, just one day after the Obama interview with Trevor Noah and one day before his promise to take action against Russia, there are at least 10 separate requests from high ranking Obama officials to unmask Flynn. Additionally, there are another 17 requests to unmask Flynn on the very next day of December 15th, and five more requests on December 16th. What could have prompted so many unmasking requests for Michael Flynn in the middle of December? According to the testimony of James Clapper it was known that Mike Flynn was talking to Kislyak before the 29th of December (see pg. 54). In fact, James Comey testified that, we had an open counterintelligence investigation on Mr. Flynn, and it had been open since the summertime, and we were very close to closing it. So, in the summer of 2016, the FBI had opened an investigation into Flynn, which almost certainly provided them with a means to monitor his phone calls. This is why there was no need to unmask Flynn on that December 29th call. After Trump won the election the first known contact that Flynn has with Kislyak was on November 30, 2016, when Jared Kushner invites him to join a meeting with he and Kislyak (see Mueller report pg. 168). Coincidentally, this is the same date of the first unmasking request of Flynn, initiated by Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. If the FBI did not have a wiretap on Flynn himself, but were only able to listen in during a phone call, there would be need for a different method for collecting data from the in-person meeting between Kushner, Flynn, and Kislyak. Hence, an unmasking was necessary because it would need to be obtained through the monitoring of the foreign agent, Kislyak, which would automatically privatize any U.S. persons names. What seems to have gone unnoticed is that Samantha Power was serving a dual role as both Ambassador and member of Obamas National Security Council. Power further revealed in her testimony to Congress that her specific role on the NSC involved investigating Russian cybersecurity. While it has been reported that Power testified that she has no recollection of making anywhere near the total number of unmasking requests, it actually appears that she eventually admits that it was probably her own staff making many of those requests on her behalf due to her awesome responsibility to serve the President and others on the NSC (see pg. 101-104). Thus, at least one individual of Obamas inner security circle was keeping tabs on Flynns post-election contact with Sergey Kislyak. After this meeting, Jared Kushner testified that he, Flynn, and Bannon met with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in mid-December and that the Obama administration was informed and aware that a meeting was taking place (see pg. 8-11). Was this the meeting that prompted so many to unmask Flynn on December 14, 15, and 16th of 2016? It would be especially important to the Obama administration, considering that the UAE was one of the most significant critics of Obamas weak Middle East policy. Further, the UAE was actively petitioning the Trump administration immediately after his election in November to change this policy. It was no secret that UAE was opposed to Obamas Iran deal, which was considered the centerpiece of his legacy. And certainly Obama would not forget that Flynn had openly opposed many of his policies regarding the Middle East, especially criticizing the administrations position on Iran. Recall that Obama attempted to convince Trump to part ways with Flynn. As Lee Smith rightly points out, Of all the important things Obama could have discussed with him, the outgoing commander in chief wanted to talk about Michael Flynn. Flynn had also pushed for the more innovative software program, Palantir, for collecting intelligence. This program is capable of building comprehensive models of activity to detect suspicious anomalies and is the combination of every analytical tool you could ever dream of. Would this mean that such a system could also discover anomalies with unmasking requests and other abuses under Obama? If so, thats a serious uh-oh for the whole administration, which has regularly been accused of abusing intelligence data. The point is that Flynn was meeting with Russian and Middle Eastern diplomats and working on not only reversing the entirety of Obamas political tenure but also potentially uncovering all of the Obama era abuses of intelligence. If Obama had any concern for both his reputation and the advancement of his policies, these conversations would be of top priority. Hence, this is why so many people inside the Obama White House unmasked Flynn in the middle of December: They needed a plan to get rid of Flynn. But the FBIs investigation into Flynn hadnt discovered any wrongdoing. Strike One. And Trump was not going to heed Obamas warning to drop Flynn. Strike Two. Occams Razor would suggest that the reason why so many people on Obamas NSC and in top positions within his administration were unmasking Flynn is not, in spite of, but because of Obamas directive. Is it really reasonable to imagine that all of these unmaskings were taking place unbeknownst to Obama? How coincidental that so many under his tutelage should all decide to unmask the same person at the same time! This brings everything back to the December 29th sanctions imposed by Obama. Exactly one day later the intelligence community had been tasked to find out why Russia was not retaliating. There is already overwhelming evidence that both the FBI and Obamas inner circle were aware that Flynn was in regular communication with Kislyak. There is no reason to believe that Obama had not been informed of this, especially given all the unmasking requests and the FBI investigation into Flynn. Thus, if we can assume that Obama knew Flynn was in regular contact with Kislyak, we can assume the obvious, that Obama was very confident that Kislyak would call Flynn after he announced the Russian sanctions and expulsions. Take into account that the only charge leveled against Flynn during this call is that he requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond in a reciprocal manner. And this discussion only involved the expulsions, not the sanctions. How, in any scenario, this could be conceived as anything other than a sensible request is beyond explanation. The better question is why in the world Obama would have been angered that Russia didnt retaliate and escalate tensions? Why, after all, would Obama wait until only 21 days before the Trump administration is set to take over to issue such aggressive sanctions and expulsions? If Russia had retaliated even in-kind, it could have begun a tit-for-tat, that Obama could have further intensified only to leave the Trump administration in a very difficult position. Maybe this is why Obama was, in fact, so enraged that Flynn had requested Russia not escalate tensions. Indeed, so alarmed was Obama by such an appropriate request from Flynn that he convened a meeting with FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, DNI head James Clapper, Vice President Biden, Attorney General Sally Yates, and head National Security Advisor Susan Rice. And a specially-called meeting that includes all the biggest hitters in the White House and in the Intelligence communities could only mean that this was a very important and urgent meeting. While it is very difficult to believe Susan Rices memo that everything be done by the book, which was suspiciously written to herself 15 days after this meeting, it is important to note that this memo makes clear that the meeting was convened at Obamas directive. Indeed, that something should be done by the book admits that Obama was asking that something be done. Recall that this meeting came one day after the FBI was going to close the case on Flynn because he hadnt done anything wrong. It must be highlighted that even Flynns discussions with Kislyak were not alarming to the FBI because these type of diplomatic discussions are always happening with an incoming administration. But, on the afternoon of Jan. 4th, FBI agent Peter Strzok sent word to keep the case open at the directive of the 7th floor, meaning at the request of James Comey. But if Comey was truly plotting a nefarious set up against Michael Flynn, why would he wait until the day that the case is going to be closed to request it remain open? After all, the Kislyak call had occurred several days before this. This means that Comey had not officially decided to keep the Flynn case open until after Obama had requested to meet with him on Jan. 5th. The simplest explanation is that Obama, along with his NSC and White House staff, had requested that Comey keep the investigation open and further directed him to do so the following day. This is further corroborated by the fact that text messages between Peter Stzrok and Lisa Page on January 3rd indicate that Strzok and Bill Priestap were actually concerned that the FBI and intelligence communities were over sharing information with the White House, calling it all political and suggesting that they had partisan axes go grind. The irony is that the politically-biased Peter Strzok was deeply concerned that the White House was engaging in overtly political intelligence activity. And these complaints come one day before Strzok was told to reopen the Flynn case! This puts the burden on Obama rather than the FBI. Comey was not unaware of the actions of Flynn after the election, especially considering he made an unmasking request himself on December 15, 2016. So, even with such knowledge of Flynn, Comey admits in his own words that, I think I had authorized [The Flynn investigation] to be closed at theend of December, beginning of January. Even after having knowledge of the December 29th call, Comey still made no request to keep the case open until he was informed that Obama wanted to meet with him regarding Flynn. The question, then, is whether the mastermind behind the Flynn setup was stationed at the White House rather than the FBI or any other intelligence community. After all, it is mostly Obamas inner circle doing all of the unmasking. At the very least, it appears that Obama had much more to lose from Flynn becoming the National Security Advisor than anyone else. Lee Smith summarizes it well: Russiagate was not a hoaxRather, it was a purposeful extension of the Obama administrations Iran DealandObamas efforts to realign American interests with those of a terror stateIts not hard to see why the previous president went after Flynn: The retired generals determination to undo the Iran DealBut why Obama would choose the Islamic Republic as a partner and encourage tactics typically employed by third-world police states remain a mystery. This is Aaron Ames first contribution to Enter Stage Right.  2020 Aaron Ames Home
Australia's banks have been warned by the chair of Parliament's finance committee against backing new Chinese national security laws aimed at stamping out rebellion in Hong Kong.

And last Wednesday, Australian Karm Gilespie was sentenced to death in the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court for trying to smuggle 7.5 kilograms of ice out of China in 2013.

In this episode, China Correspondent Eryk Bagshaw and national editor Tory Maguire discuss what these developments mean for the Sino-Australian relationship.

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(Photo : REUTERS/Dylan Martinez) A demonstrator reacts infront of graffiti on a statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square during a Black Lives Matter protest in London, following the death of George Floyd who died in police custody in Minneapolis, London, Britain, June 7, 2020. (Photo : REUTERS/Toby Melville) People climb on the Winston Churchill statue in Westminster during a "Black Lives Matter" protest following the death of George Floyd who died in police custody in Minneapolis, London, Britain, June 3, 2020

Sir Winston Churchill, the former British Prime Minister and one of the most prominent figures of World War 2, was recently deleted on Google Search. The disappearance of Churchill's images on the search engine only took a few minutes.





However, it was said that Google might intentionally remove the picture, as statues of Churchill in the UK were being vandalized with the words "was a racist" in response to "Black Lives Matter" protests around the world.





Where's Winston Churchill?: Google Search accidentally deletes ex-British Prime Minister

On Sunday, June 14, Newsweek reported a missing picture on Google Search. It was an image of one of the most powerful British men in history, Winston Churchill.

Google has said that it was only a minor glitch. When they heard about the issue, the company immediately fixed the problem and returned Churchill's images to their database.

"We're aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google," the company said in a statement. "This was not purposeful and will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear."

Who is Winston Churchill?

Churchill was known for his time as the British prime minister who lead his country during its "darkest hour" in World War 2. He also became England's prime minister twice in a row. However, controversies regarding his beliefs and political stance were also criticized, even by his fellow British citizens.

The World War 2 general was tagged as "racist" by "Black Lives Matter" protesters in Parliament Square, London since last week.

According to author Shrabani Basu, who has written books about the British Empire, there are a lot of things that ordinary people don't know about Churchill. Basu argues that Churchill has "two sides," a good and a bad.

Aside from being cited as a hero during the war, Churchill was said to be part of the 1943 Bengal famine that killed at least three million people.

The "racist" reference, however, was based on the accusations that the official was in favor of the slavery system at the time. However, Churchill already explained his side and said that Black people have a "stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly-wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." Therefore, saying that no crimes were made against their rights.

For now, Google has already returned the images, but the protests continue.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) [India]: The Himachal Pradesh government has issued an order for additions and amendments in quarantine requirements, as per which migrant labourers arriving in the state can be sent directly to worksites and can start working immediately, subject to observing all due precautions related to COVID-19.

The order from the Point number i from the section "Quarantine Requirements" will be amended with the following: All persons coming from high caseload COVID-19 infected cities will be institutionally quarantined.

Only for compelling reasons such as cases of human distress, pregnancy, death in family, serious illness, persons above 65 years of age with co-morbities and parent(s) accompanied by children below 10 years may be permitted to be home quarantined, instead of institutional quarantine, for 14 days, subject to satisfaction of the concerned District Magistrate about satisfactory arrangements being available for such Home Quarantine.

The order read, "Point viii from the section of Quarantine Requirements will be replaced with the following: "The migrant labourers coming in the state can be sent directly to work site of the Orchardist/Agriculturist/Contractor/Project Proponents. The labour can start working at these sites immediately subject to observing all the due precautions including social distancing/isolation and constant monitoring for symptoms, as is being done for quarantined persons. The period of active surveillance shall however continue to be the same as per the period prescribed by the guidelines issued by the Department of Health and Family Welfare."

The following points will be added: Persons covered under SOPs issued dated May 23 for interstate movement of industrial workers, industrialists/factory owners, traders raw material suppliers, service providers, inspecting authorities will be exempted from the purview of Home Quarantine.

The persons visiting the state for bonafide purposes of trade, business, job, project, service purpose, commission agents etc with supporting documents and entering the state with valid permits/epass, and not coming from high COVID-19 cases load cities and other containment zones from the rest of the country will also be exempted from the purview of quarantine.

The management incharge or head of any NGO or any charitable organisation, which has branches in the state, and travels to the state in connection with its affairs or for an official meeting, for a short duration not exceeding 48 hours and don't mix with general masses, follows all social distancing and COVID-19 prevention protocols, norms does not organize any social/cultural or any other gathering of any sort, shall be exempt from quarantine requirement in the state.
JERSEYVILLE  A felony weapons charge against an Avon, Illinois resident was among several felony charges filed recently by the Jersey County States Attorneys Office.

Corbin K. McCabe, 43, of Avon, Illinois, was charged June 12 with unlawful possession of weapon by felon, a super Class 3 felony; and possession of firearm without requisite firearm owners ID card, a Class A misdemeanor.

According to court documents, on June 10 McCabe, who has a previous felony conviction that makes him ineligible to possess firearms, was found to be in possession of a European Arms Witness-P handgun.

Bail was set at $10,000.

In a separate filing, a Jerseyville man faces multiple felony charges stemming from an alleged burglary.

Ryan D. Wock, 38, of Jerseyville, was charged June 12 with Burglary without causing damage, and unlawful possession of methamphetamine, both Class 3 felonies; two counts of theft, both Class 4 felonies; and unlawful possession of hypodermic syringe or needle, a Class A misdemeanor.

According to court documents, on June 5 Wock brook in to a vehicle in the 100 block of State Street, Jerseyville, to commit theft. He is also accused of taking a wallet valued at approximately $500; and property including charging cables, a camera and approximately $120 in cash.

Wock was also found to be in possession of less than five grams of methamphetamine and multiple hypodermic syringes.

No bail was set.

Other felony charges recently filed by the Jersey County States Attorneys Office include:

 Jacob W. Foster, 30, of Grafton, was charged May 29 with residential burglary, a Class 1 felony; theft, a Class 4 felony; and criminal damage to property, a Class A misdemeanor. According to court documents, on May 30 Foster broke into a residence in the 17900 block of U.S. 67, Jerseyville and taking a number of items, including an urn containing the ashes of the victims mother. Other property was also damaged. Bail was set at $25,000.

 Jacob A Smith, 38, of Jerseyville, was charged June 5 with possession stolen title/certificate/plate, a Class 2 felony; obstructing justice, a Class 4 felony; and leaving the scene of an accident and driving while drivers license is suspended, both Class A misdemeanors.

According to court documents, on May 26 Smith was found to be in possession of a stolen license plate, and gave false information to a police officer. He also left the scene of an accident on Oak Rest Road, Jersey County, while driving with a suspended license. He was issued a notice to appear.
Last week, Delhiites took to social media to complain hospitals were full - Danish Siddiqui/Reuters

India will not reach its coronavirus peak until mid-November, according to researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as an overwhelmed Delhi plans to convert train carriages into isolation wards to cope with a surge in infections and a new lockdown looms for the badly-hit city of Chennai.

Last week, some public hospitals in Delhi hospitals were unable to admit coronavirus-positive patients as they had already run out of beds, despite fewer than 40,000 cases being recorded.

Indias capital only has 9,816 dedicated beds for coronavirus patients but its deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has warned 500,000 people will be infected by July 31.

The Indian Government has now stepped in and announced a plan to convert 500 train carriages into isolation wards in Delhi for around 8,000 people.

In Chennai and surrounding areas, a new lockdown will be imposed on Friday for 15 million people after a spike in cases.

The number of tests being carried out in Delhi will be doubled over the next two days, and a temporary 10,000-bed hospital is being built in the Radha Soami Satsang Beas Ashram.

India's public hospitals are some of the most underfunded and understaffed in the world - Rafiq Maqbool/AP

The Delhi government is also exploring the possibility of converting other large public places into treatment facilities.

India has the fourth-highest number of cases in the world - now over 332,000 - while the number of one-day infections surpassed 12,000 for the first time over the weekend.

Nearly 60 percent of Indias cases are found in seven densely-populated cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, with infections surging since a nationwide lockdown was lifted on June 1.

The predicted mid-November peak is also fueled by the ongoing movement of some 100 million migrant labourers from Indias cities, heading back to their homes in the rural periphery.

Some returning migrants are expected to take coronavirus with them to areas that had not been previously exposed.

Instead of the use of the word community transmission, we need to understand the extent of the spread of the disease. We are far from the peak, warned Dr. Nivedita Gupta, Chief Epidemiologist at the ICMR.

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After early weakness, crude oil prices moved higher on Monday as hopes about production cuts outweighed concerns about outlook for energy demand amid reports of spikes in coronavirus cases. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures settled at $37.12 a barrel, gaining $0.86 or about 2.4% for the session. Brent crude futures were moving up by about $0.95 or 2.5% at $39.74 a barrel. Oil prices recovered on reports the OPEC members and allies were complying well with their output reduction deal. The UAE energy minister has reportedly said that he is confident that those oil producers with poor compliance would meet their commitments. A panel from out of OPEC+, which has been assigned the task of monitoring members to see if they are complying with agreed cuts, is set to meet this week to take stock of the position. Among the positives for oil today was that China's oil throughput increased by over 8% in May compared with a year earlier. Still, disappointing industrial production and retail sales data from China and reports about a surge in new cases of coronavirus infections in the U.S., China and Japan limited oil's uptick. Several states in the U.S. reported a surge in new coronavirus infections following the reopening of businesses. Over 25,000 new U.S. cases were reported on Saturday alone as more states reported record new infections and hospitalizations. Beijing recorded a spate of new covid-19 cases in a major wholesale food market, raising worries about a second wave of coronavirus infections. Tokyo reported 47 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the highest since May 5, as the capital eases restrictions and readies to fully reopen the economy. 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.
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Royal Enfield is the only two-wheeler brand headquartered in India that has never done an acquisition. But, that could change as its parent company is said to be keeping a keen eye on opportunities coming its way.

Though the Eicher Motors-owned company never officially admitted to have participated in the race to buy Volkswagen-owned, race bike making company Ducati three years ago, media reports said that the niche bike maker was one amongst the bidders.

Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director - Eicher Motors, said, EML is not a very acquisitive kind of a company, it is not our core business model. Having said that, we always keep our eye and ears open and certainly that this time we will keep them even more open because there are more opportunities out there and we certainly process a lot of opportunities.

Lal was referring to the dip in company valuations throughout the world due to the impact of the coronavirus on operations. During the peak of the pandemic in Europe, TVS Motor Company bought business assets of UK-based 100-year-old bike brand Norton for Rs 153 crore in April.

Royal Enfield specialises in a very small sub-segment of the two-wheeler industry. The company wants to become the world-leader in the middle-weight bike segment (categorised as motorcycles having engines between 350cc-750cc). Over the years, it has tried experimenting with variations but the strategy did not deliver expected results.

For instance, Royal Enfields entry into the adventure segment with the Himalayan or with the modern retro (Cafe Racer) segment with the Continental GT 535 have produced lukewarm results. More than 65 percent of Royal Enfields volumes came from just one model Classic 350 as at the end of FY20. It has also phased out the 500cc engine option on each of its models such as Thunderbird, Classic and Bullet while only the 350cc remain.

The company remained committed to the middle-weight category of bikes with the launch of the 650 twins  Continental GT and Interceptor  done in November 2018. It is yet to have any new model launch (that is not a variant or upgrade) since then.

I believe we have an extremely high bar in terms of what we need to put our energies on. Anything that takes time and energy of the management, only if it makes a very strong and strategic sense, has an extremely strong bearing which can take our business to the next level will be considered. We are not into small acquisition, added Lal.

While Bajaj Auto was among the first Indian two-wheeler companies to buy stakes in an overseas two-wheeler maker KTM this was followed by Hero MotoCorp buying nearly half of US-based Erik Buell Racing.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan congratulated President Xi Jinping of the Peoples Republic of China on his birthday, the PMs Office told Armenpress.

The congratulatory message reads, in part:

Your Excellency,

Please accept my heartfelt wishes on the occasion of your birthday.

The cause of ensuring Chinese peoples wellbeing and the development of China has taken a steady course under your leadership. A brilliant example of this is the Chinese governments successful effort against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Armenia is eager to deepen the ongoing good relations with China. The implementation of those agreements reached during my visit to China in May, 2019, and the exchanges we had following our meeting over new areas of cooperation gave new impetus to the furtherance and expansion of our bilateral relations.

I am prepared to make joint efforts with you in order to promote the development of Armenian-Chinese cooperation to the benefit of our two countries and peoples.

I wish you robust health and ever new achievements, as well as happiness and wellbeing - to your family and relatives.
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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By Lin Yuan

On June 8, a US Navy Supply-class fast combat support ship participates in the 49th Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 2020) maritime-focused exercise, the premier maritime-focused exercise in the Baltic Region.

Recently, in the context of the continuous escalation of the Russian-European game and the constant conflict between the United States and its allies, NATOs 49th Baltic Operations,a high-profile multi-national maritime-focused exercise, has sparked widespread concern. Analysts pointed out that the NATO-related display of military strength will have a negative impact on the security situation in Europe in the future.

The exercise is different from previous ones.

The Baltic Operations (BALTOPS 2020) exercise, which is held on an annual basis, has been held since 1971 and was led by the US naval forces stationed in Europe. This year's exercise is scheduled to run from June 7 to 16, with more than 3,000 military personnel from 19 participating countries, including the US. Compared with past events, the 49th exercise has three major features:

First, it attaches great emphasis to coordination. It is the first time that the BALTOPS 2020 has been commanded by a command post located in Lisbon, Portugal, where NATO has a maritime headquarters. NATO claimed that the move aims to test the coordinated combat capabilities of the Command Center in Lisbon with the US Navys 6th Fleet Headquarters in Naples, NATO operations centers, and forces in the Baltic Sea.

Second,it highlights actual combat. This exercise starts from the basic conception of dealing with the strong enemy in a maritime operation, and mainly takes the subjects of air-defense, anti-submarine, and mine countermeasure operations.

Third, it tries to circumvent the COVID-19 epidemic. According to the US military's Stars and Stripes newspaper, in the previous exercises of this kind, the US Marines usually took landing ships to Lithuania and other countries to carry out amphibious assault training. The landing site was near Kaliningrad,the Russian exclave. Out of concerns about the possibility of contracting the COVID-19 caused pneumonia, the US Marine Corps has canceled the amphibious landing and assault drill during this exercise, marking the first of its kind in the BALTOPS.

Russia is paying close attention.

According to Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, commander of the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet, the BALTOPS-2020 would not pose a threat to any country, nor would it cause an escalation of tension between Russia and Europe. In this regard, the National Defense Management Center of the Russian Federation (NTSUOG) released news on June 8, saying that Russias Baltic Fleet would closely track the exercise.

First, it is to strengthen the defense. According to the Russian TASS report, Russias Western Military District said on June 5 that it had strengthened its defense forces facing the Baltic Sea Region. Second, it is to strengthen reconnaissance and surveillance. The RIA Novosti reported on June 8 that the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet is closely monitoring the movements of NATO's BALTOPS-2020. Then, it is to strengthen public pressure. First Deputy Chairman of the State Dumas Defense Committee Andrei Krasov noted that BALTOPS 2020 held near the Russian borderis very likely to target Russia, and the move taken by the NATO under the context of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world is apparently improper. Krasov pointed out that Russia is supposed to hold large-scale exercise in its territory and further strengthen military strength building in response to the NATO exercise.

European security is at stake.

At a time when the COVID-19 epidemic rages in Europe and Russia calls on NATO to suspend military exercises, NATO still chose to hold the 49th Baltic Operations exercise, highlighting the military blocs anxieties over Russias strategic threats and its attention to strengthen its combat readiness in Europe.

Looking to the future, member states of NATO in Europe will inevitably enhance their "cooperation and coordination" to increase their military strength and combat readiness,responding to the so-called Russian threats under the context of reducing US military presence in Europe and increasing US-European divergences.



When talking about the NATO 2030, a new initiative outlining the alliance's strategy over the next decade, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia's continuous military operations are the most important challenges facing NATO in the next decade, and NATO must thereby be "military and politically stronger". In the future, NATO may further increase its strategic containment of Russia and ensure its operational advantages over Russia employing advancing the deployment of troops, strengthening actual combat training, and promoting the building of integrated combat capabilities.

At the same time, Russia may take advantage of opportunities such as increased rift in transatlantic partners and numerous contradictions within NATO to strengthen its deterrence capacity building and front line military deployment against Europe while focusing on its strategic nuclear power and frontier military power building. While narrowing the gap between the conventional military strength of European NATO member states, Russia has continuously strengthened its strategic advantages and strived to gain an upper hand in bilateral strategic games and military confrontations. In the future, the military confrontation between Russia and NATO may become the norm. The risk of "accidental conflicts" between the two parties due to the display of military strength deserves close attention.
G ood Morning Britain viewers were shocked to see a presenter standing "in the middle of moving traffic" on Oxford Street.

Mark Heyes was reporting from the busy shopping street in central London on Monday morning as shops reopened for the first time since lockdown began in March.

Speaking to Lorraine Kelly, viewers were concerned for Mr Heyes' safety as a double-decker bus approached him from behind, appearing as though it was going to plough into the presenter.

However, the number 55 bus, heading from Oxford Circus to Walthamstow, was not going to hit Mr Heyes as he was, in fact, stood on a pavement, which was out of view.

But it didn't stop fans panicking that the presenter was going to get hurt by appearing to stand in the middle of two lanes of traffic.

One said: "Mark; you're standing in what looks like the middle of two lanes of moving traffic!"

Another person asked: "Is he just stood in the middle of the road?!!! "

A third said: "Standing in the middle of the road as you do."

Swarms of shoppers lined up along England's high streets this morning as non-essential retailers reopened.

Shutters were lifted after almost three months, as eager shop owners and staff urged customers to enjoy their first in-store spree of the year.

Shops reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease 1 /45 Shops reopen during Coronavirus lockdown ease Primark in Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn A member of staff prepares to open a branch of H&M in Canterbury, Kent, PA Primark in Birmingham PA NikeTown Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Primark in Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Shop staff in face masks give a round of applause to the first customers through the doors at the Fenwick store in Newcastle PA Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn A doorman in a face mask waits to welcome back customers to the Fenwick store in Northumberland Street, Newcastle PA People queue for outside shops in Canterbury, Ken PA People queue for outside shops in Canterbury, Kent PA Primark in Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn A customer dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) in line to shop at Primark, Birmingham PA Primark in Birmingham PA Primark in Birmingham PA NikeTown Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Selfridges Matt Writtle/Selfridges Selfridges Matt Writtle/Selfridges A Harrod's 'Green Man' welcomes customers back to Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London PA Customers wait outside Harrods store in Knightsbridge, London PA Primark in Birmingham PA Primark in Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Kathryn Stanczyszyn Kathryn Stanczyszyn/BBC People queue ahead of the opening of Primark in Leeds PA Selfridges Matt Writtle/Selfridges A customer dressed in personal protective equipment (PPE) in line to shop at Primark, Birmingham PA A customer carrying bags of shopping leaves Primark in Birmingham PA Primark Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Primark Oxford Street Jeremy Selwyn Shoppers in line outside John Lewis in Kingston PA Shops and businesses in Chelsea, West London prepare to re-open to customers Daniel Hambury REUTERS REUTERS REUTERS

Boris Johnson announced last month that shops in England could reopen from Monday as part of his "roadmap" to easing social distancing measures.

Early morning images showed queues of eager punters in London, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool and other cities waiting for big name retailers including Primark and NikeTown to open their doors.
(Newser)  Cops say two black men found hanged from trees in two separate incidents in Southern California took their own lives, but their families are pushing back on that, insisting neither one would've ended their lives that way. The New York Times reports that the body of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch, said to be homeless, was found in the early morning hours of May 31 near a city library in Victorville. A San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department rep says there didn't seem to be foul play involved. His family said in a weekend statement that a deputy who called to inform them of his death noted Harsch had used a USB cord to hang himself, then mentioned that COVID-19 had "hit people really hard," suggesting Harsch had been depressed, per the Daily Beast. His family calls that a "comfortable excuse," noting suicide "does not seem plausible" and that blood on his shirt still hasn't been explained.

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A police probe into his death is ongoing; his sister says she's conducting her own as well. "It doesn't sound right," she tells the Times, adding their family had been told an autopsy was done but that they weren't informed of the results. Meanwhile, about an hour away in Palmdale, in what the Cut notes as an "eerie resemblance" to Harsch's death, the body of 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found Wednesday hanged from a tree outside City Hall. His family similarly doubts the official explanation for his death as suicide; an autopsy hasn't yet been completed. The Daily Beast notes Palmdale officials had, as in Harsch's case, hinted Fuller was depressed about the virus. Both men's families, and others, remain skeptical. "No black man would hang himself in public like that," one local woman tells the Times. Per the Cut, some activists suspect the men were lynched, noting both the recent George Floyd protests and the location of the men's bodies in front of municipal buildings. (Read more hanging stories.)
EDWARDSVILLE  To do his best to stay out of the national spotlight on police brutality, Edwardsville Police Chief Jay Keeven said, We hire very good people, provide adequate support for them and we train them regularly.

A small group met with Keeven Wednesday to learn more about how the department hires and trains its officers.

Edwardsville NAACP President John Cunningham and Paul Pitts attended, along with Jamie Ball, director of equality opportunity access at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville Police Sergeant Matt Breihan and David Hayes, director of the Southern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission (SILEC).

Keeven discussed the first step  the hiring process. He said many people are surprised to discover he does not hire or fire his staff, a civilian board of police and fire commissioners is responsible for hiring, promoting, disciplining and terminating police and firefighters.

He said prospective recruits have to complete a multi-step process, starting with written and physical tests. They go through background checks that involve talking to family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, most anyone the subject is regularly in contact with; they must submit to a drug test; a psychological exam; and a polygraph test.

Keeven explained to the visitors what kinds of certified training his officers had to go through after they were hired. He said the state passed legislation in 2015 that makes their training more stringent than average. Hayes agreed, pointing to Ferguson and topics after that influenced the training courses, such as implicit bias, cultural competencies, civil and human rights and procedural justice.

Our departments training is two full 12-hour days, beyond anything the state or SILEC recommends, Keeven said.

Hayes said he thinks the other non-police officers in the group were enlightened on the amount of training Edwardsville does. He believes the citys police force is one of the higher trained groups in the region based on the amount of training they undergo annually.

Were the only state that does a systematic in-service training the same way, Hayes said. I think by the time I finished explaining how far advanced we are in Illinois, they didnt have many questions.

SILEC covers a seven-county area of southern Illinois  Randolph, Monroe, Washington, Clinton, St. Clair, Bond and Madison.

SILEC is like a training buffet, Keeven said. He explained that for $100 per sworn officer or about $5,000 annually, they can choose from 320 training courses in which to enroll.

Keeven said he has to balance those out taking courses with the departments regular staffing needs. Occasionally, patrol and other demands prevent him from sending as many officers to class as he would like.

Next, he talked about the departments use of force standards and how they differ from what the world saw in Minneapolis on May 25 with George Floyd.

One of the bigger topics they discuss almost daily is crisis intervention and its companion, de-escalation without arrests. Another everyday subject his officers face is those who are mentally ill. Another subset of calls involves what he calls people who are in a state of excited delirium. Other calls involve drug use, and not always illegal drugs.

Sometimes, a subject has had a bad reaction from prescription medication, or they mixed two medicines together that reacted poorly with each other, Keeven said.

Keeven added that 40 of his 43 officers are crisis trained. He said he planned to have two of the three remaining ones trained but the pandemic changed his plans.

Keeven said that Cunningham asked him how he gets the word out to the general public about his department, its policies and other related topics. Keeven replied usually through the media.

Cunningham suggested a Zoom meeting in listen mode with unlimited virtual attendance for at least an hour where people could submit questions to a moderator for Keeven to answer and talk to more to people without being filtered through the news media.

Keeven agreed and the meeting is tentatively set for June 25 at 6 p.m. More details about it will be released next week via a city press release.

Reach reporter Charles Bolinger at (618) 659-5735
The University of Wisconsin-Stout has been named one of the top U.S. public colleges offering plastics engineering programs by Plastics Today, a publication and site for plastics professionals.

UW-Stout is one of eight universities noted in the article for the polymer/plastics engineering programs.

Our plastics engineering program is well-recognized by the plastics field, said Wei Zheng, program director and associate professor in the plastics engineering program. Sixty students are enrolled in the program at UW-Stout and 18 first-year students started the program last fall, which is a higher number than in the past few years, Zheng said.

The program has a 100% employment rate and a $64,000 starting salary for 2018-2019, Zheng said. The program also offers applied curriculum, exceptional laboratory, strong industry collaboration and exclusive scholarships. This is the area that is in high demand particularly of the Midwest region. It is also a discipline that integrates math, science and engineering to solve practical problems. I encourage every student who is interested in designing and making plastics products and understanding plastics materials to join our program.

Gindy Neidermyer, interim dean of the College of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Management, said the ranking places UW-Stout on the list of top schools.

This means that our students are career-ready and according to our industry stakeholder views, our program is meeting our ultimate goal of preparing our graduates for their careers, Neidermyer said. We are working to share the news that plastics are a part of our future; affordable, dependable and flexible in engineering to meet the changing needs of our society. The plastics of the future are a part of maintaining a sustainable global environment when the engineering is well developed. Our society needs thoughtful engineers to design ways that allow plastics to live better with us in our world. Becoming a plastics engineer graduate from UW-Stout will create a new path for plastics to be a smarter part of our global future.

In the Plastics Today article, it is noted one of the hurdles in the misconception that manufacturing is dingy, dirty and sweaty. Smart manufacturing has changed that and those born between 1997 and 2012 are getting the message.

According to a survey conducted by Leading2Lean, young people today look more positively on manufacturing and are more inclined to consider it as a career than previous generations, the article noted.

Another handicap that is specific to the plastics industry is the vilification of plastics among the general population, the article stated. In a word, plastics technology is not cool, at best, and that can be a real hurdle when you are trying to interest young people in a career.

Zheng also noted the importance of plastics in peoples lives. Plastics have improved our lives in many ways that sometimes we take for granted, she noted. For example, plastics have advanced medical devices, developed lightweight automotive components, manufactured new materials for construction, apparel and many other aspects of our lives. At the same time, we are all aware of the environmental problem. I would like to advocate that there is really nothing wrong with plastics, if there is, it is with us since we did not take care of them properly afterward. And because of the problem, now we particularly need plastics engineering to figure out solutions.

The other universities that are part of the list include Auburn University; Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Pennsylvania State University Erie-Behrend College, Erie; University of Akron; University of Massachusetts-Lowell; University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg; and Western Washington University, Bellingham.

UW-Stout also was ranked No. 7 of 11 schools ranked by stateuniversity.com as most popular for polymer and plastics engineering majors.

UW-Stout is one of the two schools  the other is the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET for its plastics engineering program that is part of the Plastics Today article. ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental agency that accredits programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering and engineering technology.

Neidermyer said this accreditation will afford UW-Stout graduates a competitive edge in the job market. ABET accreditation is a sign of quality curriculum that has been continuously reviewed for delivery of the outcomes needed for the engineers of our future, she said.

UW-Stout offers a bachelors degree in plastics engineering. The university also offers bachelor degrees in computer and electrical engineering, engineering technology, manufacturing engineering, mechanical engineering and packaging.

Ten $1,500 scholarships and one $500 scholarship are available to incoming first-year UW-Stout plastics engineering students in the fall.

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President Akufo-Addo says despite the increase in the COVID-19 case count, the tracing, testing and treatment regime being pursued by government would eventually reduce the number of cases.

In a televised address Sunday night to apprise the nation on measures being adopted to curb the spread of the disease, he said though there was public anxiety on the increasing case count, available data indicates that the country was managing the pandemic rather well.

Explaining further, the President pointed out that the increase in numbers was as a result of the enhanced contact tracing and testing, which had in the past weeks brought to the fore the reality of the situation.

"We have to bear in mind, at all times, that the more people we test for the virus, the more people we are likely to discover as positive, and, thus, have the opportunity to isolate and treat them.

"If we do not test people for the virus, we will not find the persons who are positive, let alone isolate them from the population and treat them, and prevent them from spreading the virus," he said.

President Akufo-Addo also called attention to the fact that Ghana had carried out far more testing than any African country, stating that the enhanced policy of contact tracing being implemented by the government was more effective in the fight against COVID-19.

As at June 13, 2020, a total of 254, 331 test have been carried out, with positive case count of 11,964, a total of 4,258 recoveries, 7,652 active cases, and 54 recorded deaths, 13 persons severely ill, six in critically condition, with three three persons on ventilators.

He was emphatic with the ratio of positive cases to total tests conducted standing at 4.7%, "our scrutiny, in effect, must be on the number of active cases, i.e. people who remain on our books as still positive."

With Ghana's COVID-19 related deaths and severe cases being the lowest in Africa and the world, the President indicated that the country's ratio of positivity to deaths which stands at 0.4 per cent compared to that of Africa's 2.6 per cent and a global rate of 5.5 percent, shows that Ghana is performing well in managing the pandemic.

"I am relating all these figures not to engender any false, feel-good factor, but as statements of fact that must provide the context for us, when we examine our figures...If, indeed, we are to be guided by the data, then we must look at the data in all its ramifications, not just one particular aspect of them. That is the proper way to do justice to the data.

"I am, thus, in no way suggesting that we should let our guard down, and throw out of the window the efforts we have made in bringing us this far, where we have become a reference point for many in the handling of this pandemic.

The President called on all and sundry to observe the protocols that have been instituted to control the spread of the virus

"As we begin to ease the restrictions, we must be even more disciplined in our adherence to the personal hygiene and social distancing measures we have become accustomed to, we must keep fit, and we must continue to eat our local foods to boost our immune systems.

This is how we can prevent our health care services and our heroic health care workers from being overwhelmed due to an increase in demand for hospital care, he stated.

The President said Government, was monitoring the spread of the virus, and had established benchmarks of health outcomes "which define the mitigation measures that must be pursued to curb the spread of the disease, and enable us to reassess the easing of restrictions."

He cautioned residents of the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions, hotspots, and in the Western and Central Regions, where cases were increasing, to adhere strictly to the social distancing and enhanced hygiene protocols.

President Akufo-Addo cautioned that it was mandatory to wear face mask, and that people should not leave home without them.

"Leaving our homes without a face mask or face covering on is an offence. The Police have been instructed to enforce this directive, which is the subject of an Executive Instrument.

"Let me repeat: our survival is in our own hands. If we are lax and inattentive, we will continue to have serious challenges with the virus. If we are mindful and self-disciplined, we have it in us to defeat this pandemic, and help return our lives to normalcy.

"I appeal to each and every one of you for your help in this regard. Let us, together, rise to the occasion, and fulfill our common destiny. We can do it!, he said

GNA
Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine who was arrested for alleged spying in Moscow on Dec. 28, 2018, stands in a cage as he waits for a hearing in a court room in Moscow, Russia, on Aug. 23, 2019. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

American Sentenced to 16 Years in Russia on Spying Charges

MOSCOWA Russian court on June 15 sentenced an American businessman to 16 years in prison on spying charges, a sentence that he and his brother rejected as being political.

The Moscow City Court read out the conviction of Paul Whelan on charges of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony. The trial was held behind closed doors.

Whelan, who was arrested in Moscow in December 2018, has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up.

Speaking after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan denounced the secret trial in which no evidence was produced as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. He described Whelans conviction as a mockery of justice and demanded his immediate release.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan speaks to the media at the Moscow City Court building after the verdict announcement for American Paul Whelan in Moscow, Russia, on June 15, 2020. (Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

Whelans brother David said lawyers will appeal the verdict that he denounced as political, adding in a statement that the courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, the statement said. We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.

Paul Whelan in Iceland in a file photo. (Courtesy of the Whelan Family via AP)

Whelan, a 50-year-old corporate security executive and Marine Corps veteran from Novi, Michigan, was arrested outside a Moscow hotel. He was in Russia to attend a friends wedding at the time.

Whelan, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, denies the charges of spying for the United States that his lawyers said stem from a sting operation. Whelans lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about.

Whelan has publicly complained of poor prison conditions in Russia and has said his life is in danger. Last month, Whelan underwent surgery for a hernia.

By Vladimir Isachenkov
Finally, college-age people show more activation of the brains reward regions and are more likely to take risks when they are with their peers than when they are alone. There are no such effects of peers among people who are past their mid-20s.

Not all adolescents are risk-takers, of course, and not all adults are risk-averse. But its hard to think of an age during which risky behavior is more common and harder to deter than between 18 and 24, and people in this age group make up about three-fourths of full-time American undergraduates.

And, in case its been a long time since you were in college, let me remind you that there is no shortage of rewarding temptations, emotional arousal or unsupervised peer groups on the typical college campus. Its one of those perfect storms  people who are inclined to take risks in a setting that provides ample temptation to do so.

My pessimistic prediction is that the college and university reopening strategies under consideration will work for a few weeks before their effectiveness fizzles out. By then, many students will have become cavalier about wearing masks and sanitizing their hands. They will ignore social distancing guidelines when they want to hug old friends they run into on the way to class. They will venture out of their families and begin partying in their hallways with classmates from other clusters, and soon after, with those who live on other floors, in other dorms, or off campus. They will get drunk and hang out and hook up with people they dont know well. And infections on campus  not only among students, but among the adults who come into contact with them  will begin to increase.

At that point, college administrators will find themselves in a very dicey situation, with few good options.

I look forward to a time when we are able to return to campus and in-person teaching. But a thorough discussion of whether, when and how we reopen our colleges and universities must be informed by what developmental science has taught us about how adolescents and young adults think. As someone who is well-versed in this literature, I will ask to teach remotely for the time being.

Laurence Steinberg is a professor of psychology at Temple University and the author of Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Sitting across from me in a grungy Melbourne cafe five years ago was a rising star of the Labor Party. Our conversation turned to a notorious "branch stacker", coincidentally a factional ally of my cafe companion. "Hes not a branch stacker," the now federal parliamentarian said as a smile crept across their face. "We call them multiple recruitment specialists." We both laughed at what appeared to be a cute play on the old line that one persons terrorist was another persons freedom fighter. And so it is with branch stacking. For many Labor insiders the role of "multiple recruitment specialists" has been a running joke for decades. But with Adem Somyurek's sacking from Victoria's ministry on Monday, the party is now paying a price for its failure to crack down on membership rorts. So what is branch stacking? And why does it happen? Former minister Adem Somyurek. Credit:Jason South

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What is branch stacking and why is it a problem? The line between being adept at recruiting  a perfectly legitimate activity in politics  and being a branch stacker can often be blurry. Sometimes the reference to "stackers" can have racist undertones, impugning anyone who is active in politics from a non-Anglo-Celtic background. But at the heart of the problem is people having their memberships paid for by others and having them vote in particular ways to influence preselection ballots and the like. These types of practice are against Labor Party rules. For decades, branch stacking has been a problem in Labor. There have been numerous internal Labor Party reviews over the years, including from former prime minister Bob Hawke and former NSW premier Neville Wran.

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Other party luminaries such as the late former Victorian premier John Cain campaigned against the practice, while Bill Shorten, early in his time as federal leader, was a strong advocate of party reform. Nothing substantial came from all that and so the problem has persisted. Warlords such as the late George Seitz have used their numbers to manipulate preselections and party processes. In more recent times, Somyurek has emerged as a key figure in the internal workings of the party, as an investigation by The Age has so graphically shown. Why does it happen? One reason is that it is relatively easy. The days of political parties having large, engaged memberships are long gone. The major parties have been hollowed out and so the numbers of people needed to control a branch or influence preselections can be relatively small. One senior Labor source estimated two-thirds of the partys 16,000 members in Victoria may be "stacks". The Victorian Liberal Party, before the last state election, faced problems of its own after the mass recruitment of religious conservatives, in particular Mormons and evangelicals.

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The emphasis on fringe social issues among the new recruits no doubt contributed to perceptions of the Liberal Party  which lost in a landslide  being out of touch. Loading In Labor the factional system is far more formal than in the Liberal Party, with affiliated unions having an important say over preselections and policy. Two of the key interest groups in deciding these issues are warlords, who control numbers through stacking, and affiliated unions. Individual party members  due to both a lack of internal democracy and clout  rarely have much influence. This becomes a vicious cycle. Why join a party where you have little role or no influence? That, in turn, can further hollow out the party and its membership. How has paying for memberships become an issue? To control hundreds, or even thousands, of party members requires money  often tens of thousands of dollars a year to pay for party memberships. Thats where things get particularly murky. How former minister Somyurek paid for all the thousands of members he reportedly controlled is, so far, not entirely clear. It is almost certain he did not pay for them himself.

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In other branch stacking scandals, union-linked slush funds have often been used. Money might be raised from a fundraiser or from businesses and then diverted into an off-the-books slush fund or bank account that can be raided to pay for party memberships. Businesspeople, often from the same migrant community as the stacker, can also provide backing. It can create insidious and murky networks of patronage and power  and almost perfect conditions for the flourishing of corruption. Would new rules ensure genuine membership help? It is no doubt important but may not, in itself, be enough. Having a party more open to the views and wishes of ordinary members could encourage a more representative party and make it harder to manipulate and stack.

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The European Union and the U.K. government have decided to intensify Brexit talks over the coming weeks amid growing concerns that both sides might fail to reach a trade deal by the end of the year.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke with European officials Monday, discussing ways to give new impetus to the trade negotiations, which after four initial rounds have not made any significant progress. The U.K. stopped being a full member of the EU in January, but it's still in a transition phase so it can prepare for new trading rules with the rest of the EU.

The British government confirmed on Friday that it will not extend this transition and negotiating period beyond December. This means that pressure is growing on both sides to deliver a trade deal by October so it can be ratified and put in place for the new year.

"The EU is ready to intensify the talks, we are available 24/7. Let's inject fresh momentum into the negotiations," Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission  which negotiates on behalf of the 27 countries  said on Twitter just before a video call with the British prime minister on Monday.

A statement just after the talks said that parties had noted the U.K.'s decision not to request an extension and both sides agreed that new momentum was required in the talks. It also said that talks should include, if possible, finding an early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement.

So far, chief negotiators have complained about a lack of progress in the discussions, with the European Union blaming the British government for backtracking on previous commitments.

"We must now make progress on substance," Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, said last week. The main stumbling blocks are fisheries, state aid and checks on goods.

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There are now plans to host weekly negotiations focused on these issues instead of monthly calls. The new work schedule will also include some face-to-face meetings in smaller groups if the coronavirus guidelines allow.

The uncertainty is another headache for exporters on both sides of the English Channel at a time of severe financial difficulty due to the pandemic.

The Confederation of British Industry warned last week that the lack of a new trade deal by the end of the year would be a "major block to recovery."

EasyJet's CEO Johan Lundgren told CNBC Monday that it would be "enormously important" to see progress in these negotiations amid the economic uncertainty.
The chair of Parliament's finance committee has warned Australia's big banks against backing new Chinese national security legislation aimed at stamping out dissent in Hong Kong in order to keep their licences in the financial hub.

ANZ, National Australia Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and Macquarie all have a presence in the former British colony, which has been beset by more than a year of unrest over Beijing's clampdown on pro-democracy protesters. London-based multinationals HSBC, Swire Group and Jardine Matheson, which are heavily exposed to the market, backed the laws last week after pressure from Beijing.

HSBC has been heavily criticised for backing the new law on stifling dissent in Hong Kong. Credit:Bloomberg

Liberal senator James Paterson, who has been highly critical of the Chinese Communist Party, said Australian companies should be very wary about succumbing to pressure to back Beijing's push into the global financial hub.

"They risk serious brand damage at home if they do so," he said. "And once they start on that slippery slope they might find it hard to get off it.
The pollster added that about one third of Britons think their country has already left the E.U. As for the rest, it isnt currently the most salient issue, but I suspect the importance of it will gradually rise as we had towards that date.
With strict physical distancing and infection control guidelines, optometrists are returning to work with patient volumes reduced by 50 per cent, resulting in the loss of nearly two million comprehensive eye exams over the next 12 months.

"Optometrists can't reopen practices that have been financially devastated by COVID-19, only to provide OHIP-insured services at an even greater loss. If this happens, practices in both rural and urban communities will struggle to survive," said Dr. Sheldon Salaba, President of the Ontario Association of Optometrists. "It's time for Ontario's elected officials to open their eyes to a crisis that's about to become painfully visible for all to see."

COVID-19 has strained health care workers and decimated small businesses, and local optometrists are both. A recent survey reveals the devastating impact of the pandemic on optometry practices in Ontario, with 95 per cent reporting a revenue drop between 75 and 80 per cent since the forced closure of clinics in mid-March.

But even before the pandemic, Ontario's optometrists were in a far worse position than most other health care providers. After decades of neglect by previous governments, optometrists now subsidize more than half of the province's eye care system, at a cost of $173 million a year .

To ensure Ontarians receive care, optometrists will be referring patients to alternate providers, such as family doctors and hospitals. This situation risks putting a strain on the health system at the worst possible time.

"We are fighting not just for our survival, but for a long-term solution that protects patients and public health," added Dr. Salaba. "We ask the government to come to the table with a commitment to succeed where previous governments failed. Either cover the true cost of eye exams or give optometrists more flexibility in our billings. Optometrists are ready to adapt to ensure Ontarians get the accessible and quality eye care they deserve."

For more information and to add your voice to the growing number of Ontarians calling on government to work with optometrists, visit www.saveeyecare.ca.

About the Ontario Association of Optometrists

The Ontario Association of Optometrists (OAO) is the leading professional organization, representing over 1,700 optometrists. We are dedicated to helping our members provide the highest standard of eye health and vision care for Ontarians while driving the profession of optometry forward. For more information, visit optom.on.ca. Learn more about what optometrists can do for you here, or, find an optometrist near you.

Quick Facts

Due to strict physical distancing and infection control guidelines, patient volumes for optometry practices will be reduced by as much as 50%.

Nearly two million comprehensive eye exams will not be delivered over the next 12 months.

Ontario's optometrists subsidize eye care in Ontario , paying $173 million a year out of their own pockets.

optometrists subsidize eye care in , paying a year out of their own pockets. 95 per cent of optometrists saw revenues drop between 75 and 85 per cent since mid-March.

Quotes

"Optometrists are the front-line workers of the vision care system, and their services are at the heart of preventative screening for vision health in Ontario. With statistics showing that one in three Ontarians will encounter risk of vision loss by age 65, the government must work with optometrists to find a sustainable solution. The modernization plan includes properly supporting and expanding public coverage for routine eye exams; a crucial step in early detection of eye complications, avoiding irreversible vision loss."

Doug Earle, President and CEO, Fighting Blindness Canada

"With an aging population and increase in chronic sight-threatening disease, the need for optometrists will continue to grow. However, the recent spotlight on the poor economics of publicly funded eye care may pose a threat to access to care and the viability of the profession."

Dr. Stan Woo, Director, University of Waterloo School of Optometry and Vision Science

SOURCE Ontario Association of Optometrists

For further information: For more information or to book an interview, please contact: Brittany Blow, 905-826-3522 ext. 246, [email protected]

Related Links

www.eyecareoao.com


The worlds largest asset manager and a top superannuation fund are facing pressure to explain investments in a Chinese conglomerate set to destroy ancient Aboriginal artefacts at a coal mine in regional NSW.

China Shenhua Energy, the world's largest thermal coal miner, is planning to construct an open-cut mine next to the Liverpool plains near Gunnedah in the "food bowl" of the state.

The mine has been fiercely opposed by the site's traditional owners, the Gomeroi people, who fear it will lead to destruction of historic and culturally significant artefacts including grinding grooves showing markings of ancient warriors sharpening spears for battle, burial sites and sacred trees.

Gomeroi man Steve Talbott overlooks the land China Shenhua plans to turn into a mine. Credit:Dolly Talbott

Funds management giant BlackRock, which manages more than $10 trillion in assets including substantial amounts of Australian retirement savings and money for the Future Fund, has hundreds of millions dollars invested in China Shenhua Energy, records show.
New Okhla Industrial Development Authority  who would relate a place with such an unpoetic name with writers?

But novelist Vikram Seth lives in this same Noida, after all.

The legendary writer Qurratulain Hyder also spent her final years in this planned township in the all- encompassing National Capital Region.

And so did the eminent poet Gulzar Dehlvi. He died late last week but not before defeating the Covid-19 that he was infected with. He succumbed to cardiac arrest a few days after his healthy return from the hospital. He was 93.

There are many ways to celebrate a writers life. The superior one is of course to read his or her entire oeuvre; in Mr Delhivis case it would be his many ghazals, nazms and rubiyats. The other methodfar easieris to bathe into the writers genuine charisma. No doubt it was greatly to the late poets advantage that he was one of the most stylish men of our times. Far deep into his advanced years, Mr Dehlvifull name Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Dehlvi would continue to attend Delhis literary soirees where he always stood apart in his exquisite sherwani, the customary artificial rose pinned on his left chest. Born in Old Delhi, he was an impeccably mannered man who would gaze politely into the eyes of his devotees too nervous to mumble any coherent word in his presence, and make them feel the most important person to him at that moment. Mr Dehlvi would also often like to show what he called his secular locketseen vertically, the inscription in it would read as the Muslim Allah, and flipped horizontally, it resembled the Hindu Om.

On one occasion, a couple of years ago, this reporter observed him in all his archetypal elegance in a gathering in central Delhis Ghalib Academy. The seemingly routine rituals of Delhis centuries-old poetry customs that unfolded there were a mirror reflection of him precious but extremely fragile.

It was a winter evening and about time for poet Gulzar Dehlvi, who was seated cross-legged on the stage, to oblige the audience. A mushaira, or a meeting of Urdu poets, was about to begin. The poets were to read out their poems on the stage. A number of Delhis verse writers were present. They included Iqbal Firdausi, Munir Hamdam, Rauf Raza and Javed Niyazi. Each had a badge pinned on the chest, which said Poet. The only two women poets present were Iffat Zarreen and Shabnam Siddiqui.

A giant wax candle, or shama, was placed on the stage. In the old times, when there was no electricity, and hence no mike, Delhis nighttime poetry meetingsand they almost always took place during the nightswere held in the glow of a solitary candle. The room was said to remain immersed in darkness, while the flickering shama would be placed in front of the poet whose turn it was to read from his works.

The auditorium inside the 21st century Ghalib Academy, however, glowed in modern lighting. There was also a podium and a mike. But the tradition demanded the candle to burn continuously over the course of the evening. It was venerable Gulzar Dehlvis hard-earned privilege to ignite the flame. He got up and lit the candle with a... cigarette lighter (which somebody produced just on time)! The lighting of the shama was a signal to get on with the evenings agenda. The audience clapped. Mr Dehlvi returned to his central position on the stage and again sat down cross-leggedlooking as regal and frail as the era he represented.

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RTHK: US Supreme Court backs LGBT+ workplace rights

A US Supreme Court ruling protecting gay and trans people from discrimination at work was hailed on Monday as the most significant moment in the fight for LGBT+ rights in the United States since same-sex marriage was legalised in 2015.

In a 6-3 decision, the nation's top court decided gay and transgender people are protected under Title VII of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans workplace discrimination on the basis of sex, race, colour, national origin and religion.

"No trans people and no lesbian or gay people can ever be fired or discriminated against for being gay or transgender - thats the immutable law of the land now," said Vandy Beth Glenn, who was fired in 2007 when she came out as a trans woman.

"This is a win for all Americans, Glenn told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding she was in tears upon hearing of the courts ruling.

Currently more than half of LGBT+ Americans live in states without explicit workplace protections, according to US think tank Movement Advancement Project, meaning they could be fired or harassed for being gay or trans with little legal recourse.

Gerald Bostock, a Georgia man who lost his job as a child welfare services coordinator after joining a gay recreational softball team, said there were "truly no words to describe just how elated I am" after hearing of the ruling.

"When I was fired seven years ago, I was devastated," he said in a statement. "Today, we can go to work without the fear of being fired for who we are and who we love."

Bostock's case was one of three addressed in the court decision.

In the ruling, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote: "In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employee's sex when deciding to fire that employee.

"We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law."

The court's ruling comes days after the administration of President Donald Trump announced a rollback of guidance implemented under President Barack Obama to protect trans people from discrimination in healthcare.

"The Supreme Court's simple yet profound recognition that sex discrimination law protects LGBT employees is another important marker on the long path toward greater equality and justice for all," said Suzanne Goldberg of Columbia Law School's Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic.

Nicolas Talbott, a transgender man challenging a US ban on trans people serving in the military, also hailed the ruling.

"I know what it's like to be told I cant do a job Im qualified for just because Im transgender, he said in a statement. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
West-central Illinois counties reported no new COVID-19 cases Monday.

Morgan County has remained unchanged at 108 cases, with 41 patients being released from restrictions.

Morgan County currently has 34 tests pending, with 1,820 negative results returned, according to daily briefings by the Morgan County Department of Public Health, Jacksonville/Morgan County Emergency Management, Memorial Health System, Morgan County commissioners and the city of Jacksonville.

Total cases in other west-central Illinois counties as of Monday were: 10 in Brown County; 76 in Cass County; seven in Greene County; 45 in Macoupin County; 28 in Jersey County; 382 in Sangamon County; 13 in Schuyler County; and none in Scott County, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Statewide, 473 new confirmed cases of coronavirus disease, including 19 deaths, were reported.

The total as of Monday was 133,016 cases, including 6,326 deaths, in 101 counties in Illinois.
ABC News

Demonstrators gathered in Washington on Friday for the country's largest annual anti-abortion rally around the anniversary of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing the right to an abortion -- but this year, 49 years later, they march with the fate of Roe v. Wade more uncertain than ever. "We expect this year's March for Life to be historic with even higher levels of enthusiasm from participants," Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, told ABC News in a statement. "We are all hopeful that, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case before the Supreme Court, this year will bring us much closer to building the culture of life we have all marched for since Roe v. Wade was imposed on our nation nearly 50 years ago."
A common genetic marker in African Americans may predispose them to cardiac complications from COVID-19, and the use of therapies such as hydroxychloroquine may increase the risk - investigators urge caution in the journal Heart Rhythm

Philadelphia, June 15, 2020 - Nearly one out of every 10 African Americans has a genetic variant that puts them inherently at an increased risk for ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Writing in the journal Heart Rhythm, the official publication of the Heart Rhythm Society and the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier, investigators observe that along with socioeconomic and cultural factors, this genetic risk factor may contribute to the racial health disparities that have been documented in victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also note that the unwanted effects of therapies such as hydroxychloroquine may put African Americans with the variant at increased risk of drug-induced ventricular arrhythmias. Therefore, they urge particular caution.

"Without a definitive explanation for the increased COVID 19-related mortality rates observed among individuals of African descent, we need to consider all potential contributors, including the possibility of genetic predispositions," explained first author John R. Giudicessi, MD, PhD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine (Clinician-Investigator Training Program and Division of Heart Rhythm Services), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. "The African-specific p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A common ion channel variant is a reasonable place to start, as its proarrhythmic potential is awakened by risk factors observed in hospitalized COVID-19 patients - namely, hypoxemia, electrolyte abnormalities, and QT-prolonging drug use."

The investigators note that the proarrhythmic potential associated with p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A can be enhanced by drugs that can cause irregular heartbeat (QTc-prolonging medications), including some antiarrhythmic drugs but also, importantly, some antibiotics and antifungal medications.

Direct and/or indirect myocardial injury or stress has emerged as a prominent, prognostic feature in COVID-19. Acute myocardial injury in patients with COVID-19 may be caused by a direct SARS-CoV-2 myocardial infection; the exaggerated immune response known as the cytokine storm; or hypoxia, dangerously low levels of oxygen and high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. African American infants with the p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A variant are over-represented in sudden infant death syndrome, and mechanisms underlying hypoxia may be responsible. The profound hypoxia observed in many COVID-19 patients, raises reasonable concern that p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A could produce a similar, African-American susceptibility to ventricular arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death from the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Taken together, the data suggest that one in 13 African Americans may be at substantially increased risk for potentially lethal ventricular arrhythmia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether population-specific genetic risk factors are contributing to the spike in sudden deaths and racial health disparities observed in COVID-19 epicenters remains to be proven, and given the lack of banked DNA in these epicenters, the investigators question whether the speculation may even be testable.

"The genetic variant p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A, is a potentially proarrhythmic, sudden cardiac death marker for African Americans, and seeking its presence and respecting it is long overdue," asserted senior author and genetic cardiologist Michael J. Ackerman, MD, PhD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine (Division of Heart Rhythm Services), Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (Division of Pediatric Cardiology), and Windland Smith Rice Cardiovascular Genomics Laboratory, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.

As recent studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of sick, hospitalized COVID-19 patients, the authors advocate against its use in that setting. Nevertheless, if COVID-19-directed, QTc-prolonging agents such as hydroxychloroquine are to be used, the investigators recommend careful cardiac monitoring, preferably in a way that spares personal protective equipment.

The authors call for research into the link between p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A and rates of sudden death and COVID-19-related mortality, suggesting the use of existing DNA biobanks such as the United Kingdom Biobank, a study that investigates the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the development of disease, and the Jackson Heart Study, a large, community-based investigation into the causes of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. Point-of-care genetic testing for p.Ser1103Tyr-SCN5A should be investigated.

And finally, the authors recommend studies of medications that may better protect at-risk individuals, especially African Americans, in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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Since taking office in 2015, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf has pursued a radical deinstitutionalization agenda. His administrations Department of Human Services (DHS) has allied itself with various community-living advocacy organizations that, in tandem with allies in the academy, have sought to transform the states mental-health and disability-services system. These state and private actors have pushed for the transfer of people with disabilities out of residential institutions and into community-based settings, a move that they pursue with or without the consent of affected individuals or their guardians.

In 2017, the Wolf administration closed the Hamburg Center, a residential facility for adults with intellectual disabilities, and the civil unit of Norristown State Hospital for the severely mentally ill. In announcing the closures, the states then DHS secretary Ted Dallas made sure to repeat the slogans of the revolution: Individuals experience a better quality of life when they receive care and support in their homes and in their communities, when possible. Todays announcement means we are expanding opportunities for residents to live their lives to the fullest by returning to their homes and communities as contributing members of society.

Whether the guardians and individuals who were forcibly displaced agreed with Dallass assessment is left to our imagination. One woman told the Pennsylvania Post about how the closure of the Norristown civil unit affected her schizophrenic son, who spent eight years in the hospital before falling back into psychosis upon release: They called the police instead of taking him to the hospital. . . . He resisted arrest. He was sick. He was psychotic. They should have taken him straight to the hospital. No, they took him to regular jail, and they put a beehive over his head, and he banged his head in the jail all night long.

Wolf continued to pursue his deinstitutionalization agenda, and in 2019, his DHS announced the forcible closure of two residential facilities that house over 300 intellectually disabled Pennsylvanians. Families of the residents mobilized to oppose the closure and succeeded in getting a bill passed through both chambers of the state legislature that placed a moratorium on the closures. A staff member at one of the centers told National Review at the time that one of the intellectually disabled residents, upon hearing of the closure, wheeled himself to the administration building every day and cried. Wolf vetoed the bill, and both centers are still slated to close.

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The latest development in this ongoing disability revolution came when lawmakers in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill 1363, a bill of rights for individuals with intellectual disabilities. That bill, on its way to the Pennsylvania Senate, again imperils the most disabled members of the Commonwealth under the guise of civil rights.

Several passages in the bill are problematic for the severely and profoundly disabled. Two of the bills provisions take direct aim at the concept of guardianship for people with disabilities. (A guardian is most often a family member of the disabled individual.) The first is a statement of principle for all future disability policy (reproduced here with my emphasis):

Individuals with intellectual disabilities or autism and, if chosen by the individual, their families or legal guardians are instrumental decision makers regarding the services and supports the individuals receive and inform policies and programs which affect the lives of the individuals and their families.

The second discusses the provision of community-based services (again, with my emphasis):

If the individual so chooses, family members and legal guardians of an individual with intellectual disabilities or autism shall be involved in meetings regarding the planning for and arrangement of supports and services or other allowable services.

These passages raise an important question: How are we to know what a nonverbal or severely disabled individual chooses about the role of his guardian in the planning of his supports and services? There are means of nonverbal communication such as gestures and body language, but interpreting them is inherently subjective. More fundamentally, the language in the bill subverts the very purpose of guardianship: The court appoints a guardian for an individual precisely because it has judged that person to be partially or completely incapable of making life decisions independently.

If guardians are stripped of their role as decision-makers in the lives of persons who cant speak or have the functional capacity of a toddler, who will fill that void? Advocates, of course  a class of people who seem to have a ubiquitous footprint on all levels of the disability-services system. In my work with individuals with severe cognitive disabilities, I have seen firsthand how these ideological advocates  social workers, nonprofit employees, academics  attempt to put words in the mouths of individuals incapable of speech, words that so often seem to be consonant with their own utopian agenda and derogative of the will of parents or guardians.

Why has the abolition of guardianship been a longstanding fixture of radical disability politics? In the view of some advocacy organizations, guardians stifle the potential of their disabled loved ones by depriving them of an autonomous life and denying them the dignity of risk. While the implication that an agitator at a nonprofit is more solicitous of a disabled persons best interest than is that persons own guardian borders on calumny, one might sympathize with higher-functioning persons with disabilities who feel unduly restrained by their guardians. But thats the critical factor: The needs of a person with mild autism, say, are very different from those of an individual with the cognitive capacity of an infant. So often it is individuals in the higher-functioning category who push the inclusion agenda through their nonprofit advocacy shops, while those in the profoundly disabled category are left voiceless, subject to the whims of the minimally impaired voices who claim to speak for them.

Broadly speaking, there are two forms of residential services for individuals with disabilities  home- and community-based settings, such as group homes and apartments, for which one receives a home- and community-based services (HCBS) waiver under Medicaid, and institutional settings, like intermediate care facilities (ICFs). For decades, many social workers have avoided mentioning the other kind of services  campus-based institutions  when talking to families about their support options. This, combined with admissions freezes to state facilities and decades of litigation, has all but erased such settings from the popular imagination of disability services. Many families who ultimately discover that these facilities exist do so by accident, after their medically fragile or behaviorally challenged loved one fails to thrive in a group home on a cul-de-sac in a residential neighborhood, and they are left desperate for an alternative.

The Pennsylvania bill pushes community-based settings as the only legitimate form of disability services. This so-called disability bill of rights makes no mention of an individuals right to choose what type of setting he lives in, which might just be  perish the thought  a building dedicated to the care of the disabled, or what a very-online activist might decry as an institution. Instead, the only relevant language on that score says that, for people with disabilities, the opportunity to choose where they live in the community is affirmed (my emphasis).

The opportunity to choose a so-called institution is foreclosed on individuals and their families by their supposed moral betters in the legislature.

Further, this provision might be used in the courts to forcibly relocate those persons residing  by their own and their guardians volition  in institutions to a setting more consonant with the preferences of activists. If this is not what the legislators intended  and one suspects this is precisely what the anti-institutional advocates intended  they should amend the bill to include a provision specifying that ICFs and other campus-based settings are part of the continuum of care in Pennsylvania for those individuals who choose them.

In 1999 the Supreme Courts Olmstead vs. L.C. decision interpreted the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to residential settings. The Pennsylvania bill characterizes the ADA, in light of that decision, as an integration mandate. By integration mandate, the Pennsylvania legislature is drawing on shopworn advocacy language about the evils of so-called segregated settings for the disabled  campuses, farmsteads, and medical units. But in fact the majority in Olmstead spurned this interpretation of the ADA, rejecting the notion that community-based treatment be imposed on patients who do not desire it. The majority affirmed that the ADA is not reasonably read to impel States to phase out institutions, as Pennsylvania appears poised to do here.

The most vulnerable people in our society rely on these institutional settings. In 1995, Edward Walen, the father of a severely intellectually disabled adult son living comfortably in an institution, described disability activists as mesmerized by the mystique that all institutions are bad, that the buildings be razed, the earth bulldozed over and then salt poured on the grounds so it will never rise again. The Pennsylvania legislature should know better than to entrust the lives of its most vulnerable to the fads and fancies of the advocacy class.

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In theory, the advance paid on the signing of a book deal is just the beginning of a relationship between writer and publisher  a guaranteed sum in expectation of shared royalties down the line. And yet it can be both an authors lifeblood and a vote of confidence. Its also, according to a spreadsheet shared under the hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, often shockingly low, especially for writers of colour starting out. Among more than 2,500 writers who shared their information by Thursday, the median advance was $18,750 U.S.

The embarrassment of low advances is one reason they have usually been closely guarded  until now, with a push for transparency to expose disparities in the wake of worldwide protests over institutional racism.

Writers who shared their advances gave their reasoning on Twitter. LL McKinney, an author who created the #PublishingPaidMe hashtag last week, wrote about the not-so-secret secret of publishing in a thread.

It was short and to the point, McKinney said of the hashtag by phone. I like alliteration, so it was just one of those things that clicked together. It was for the people who would be using it, so its like the beginning of a sentence.

McKinney wanted advances to be the focus of the hashtag partly because theyre easy to tweet and to understand  and perhaps convert into action.

It was a culmination of frustration with publishing and people using the hashtag to amplify Black voices, she said. It took Black people being killed and protesting for this to happen.

McKinneys goal, she says, it to raise up voices of colour. This isnt about trying to take things away from people, she said. This is very much about, OK, this is how you value those stories, we want you to value our stories. Our stories are universal too. This is making sure that everybody is treated equally and fairly.

Novelist Lydia Kiesling felt that One persons discomfort over being paid a lot of money is insignificant compared with the pain of being underpaid or passed over due to systemic racism, and so she put her anxiety aside to post her advance on Twitter.

Kiesling, author of Golden State, expanded over email on the seemingly arbitrary nature of publishing, particularly how It seems that white writers are given chances to experiment, succeed and/or fail early in their careers far more often than other writers. Its particularly offensive that black writers and writers of colour who have won the highest accolades in this profession are not even significantly compensated by publishers after the fact.

Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay, also shared her advances. By phone, she said she hoped the movement could change minds.

Real change in reaction to a social media movement is something that you dont always see, Cha said. and I would be surprised if the Big 5 publishing conglomerates responded to it in a meaningful way.

Such change, she added, had to go beyond hashtags and short-term trends. These were the sentiments of author Reni Eddo-Lodge, among several authors (including Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates) climbing bestseller lists after the proliferation of antiracist reading lists.

Well, the numbers are in, Eddo-Lodge tweeted on Wednesday, the day her book Why Im No Longer Talking to White People About Race hit No. 1 on the U.K.s list. Im the first and only black woman to top Britains nonfiction book bestseller chart. She was dismayed the achievement resulted from tragic circumstances and called the belated milestone a horrible indictment of the publishing industry.

The debate over advances, meanwhile, focuses less on the ultimate success of a book than the bets placed on a writer in the early going  a gap most vividly illustrated in N.K. Jemisins revelation that she received only $25,000 for each book in her Broken Earth trilogy  all three of which have won Hugo Awards for best novel.

While passing along Jemisins denial of a request to speak to The Times, her publisher, Orbit Books, reissued a statement from Publisher Tim Holman that read, in part, I wholeheartedly support the right of black writers to demand equality in the compensation for their work ... . It has been a privilege to publish and promote such an extraordinary writer from the start of her novel-writing career. He added that their contract negotiations have been conducted in good faith and based on the circumstances at the time. And he emphasized the substantial royalty checks shes been receiving ever since her advance have been earned out.

Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins, fully supports the movement, but in an email he worried that the hashtag will just reinforce the publishing industrys and writers focus on big splashy advances  especially for debuts.

Walter didnt receive a six-figure advance until Beautiful Ruins, his seventh book. His eighth book earned him a $10,000 advance, right before Beautiful Ruins hit the bestseller list. He finds the emphasis on advances to be somewhat problematic.

It creates high, often unreasonable expectations and a sort of culture-of-buzz around an art form that isnt (or shouldnt be) about buzz but about quality, about patience and timelessness, about earning a readership, he said. Publishers pay out these big advances in the hopes of finding financial tent-poles like Hollywood, and the greatest thing about publishing ... is that it isnt Hollywood.

Ultimately, Walter thinks the focus on advances is just the beginning:

I hope that there will also be a commitment from publishers to develop young writers of colour too, beyond the big headline-screaming six- and seven-figure deals. A look at the bestseller list certainly gives some hope of that.

Kiese Laymon, the author of Heavy, joined in the movement after seeing Roxane Gays tweets.

I just think this is a time when we probably need to be talking honestly about economic disparities in addition to prison reform and prison abolition, he said by phone. He also wanted to stress that this movement should help writers of colour  and specifically Black writers  less established than he is.

As much as we can talk honestly about money, which is hard in this country, we just have to be courageous, so that people coming behind us dont have the same struggle, he said. A lot of us didnt know our deals were so bad, we were embarrassed to talk about them. This thing is to let people know, we dont have to be embarrassed when there are disparities between different groups.

He called for concrete changes, including real data collection: They need to run audits, they need to look at the kind of budgets that different kinds of books get. But ultimately to change publishing, the people that have the power have to change.

Discussions about diversifying publishing were brewing long before the protests and flared up particularly around the debate over Jeanine Cummins American Dirt, a novel featuring a Mexican woman and her family fleeing to the U.S., that many Latinos criticized as being inauthentic and filled with stereotypes. That novel earned Cummins, a white woman, a reported seven-figure advance.

In February, a group that formed in response, Dignidad Literaria, forced a meeting with Cummins publisher, Macmillan, after which the company committed to a series of steps aimed at increasing diversity within its ranks.

The Big 5 publishers have responded to the latest hashtag campaign to varying degrees. Some have pinned statements acknowledging the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter. Others have advertised the diversification of stories they chose to take on.

Penguin Random House tweeted a comprehensive thread outlining its plan of action.

Simon and Schusters Twitter account pinned a statement of solidarity in the wake of George Floyds death.

HarperCollins account also pinned a brief statement.

The first step in a plan toward reducing disparities in advances and beyond might be, as Laymon suggested, to compile some robust data. I dont think it shows the whole picture, McKinney says of the #PublishingPaidMe spreadsheet. I think if you were watching the hashtag from the start you might have a better idea. In fact, the document relies on data with its own diversity problem. As of Thursday, 70 per cent of the survey takers were white; only four per cent were Black.
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Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, has demanded the arrest and prosecution of soldiers who killed policemen during the arrest of Hamisu B...

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, has demanded the arrest and prosecution of soldiers who killed policemen during the arrest of Hamisu Bala, a suspected kidnap kingpin better known as Wadume, in Taraba state.





On August 6, 2019, policemen attached to the intelligence response team of the force, who arrested Wadume were shot dead by soldiers.





Three policemen and two civilians were killed during the incident, while five other police officers were injured.





One of the policemen killed in the incident was Felix Adolije, an assistant superintendent, who was described as one of the best among the team known for handling special crime cases across the country.





Although, a court had directed Tukur Buratai, chief of army staff, to produce for prosecution, the army officers involved in the incident, the order is yet to be complied with.





In a letter addressed to Abubakar Malami, minister of justice, on Monday, Falana demanded the immediate arrest and prosecution of 10 soldiers involved in the killing of the officers.





suspected killer-soldiers to face justice. Falana, who is the counsel to Adolijes family, said the army has refused to release thesuspected killer-soldiers to face justice.





The human rights lawyer said the 16-count charge bordering on terrorism, murder and kidnapping levelled against Wadume reinforces the need to prosecute the soldiers.





He said he would take other actions if Malami refuses to comply with his request.





who were indicted in the killing of the 3 policemen and 2 civilians as well as the kidnap of members of the public in Taraba State was turned down by the Army Authorities, the letter read. The request of the police investigation team to interrogate the 10 soldierswho were indicted in the killing of the 3 policemen and 2 civilians as well as the kidnap ofmembers of the public in Taraba State was turned down by the Army Authorities, the letter read.





suspected killer-soldiers to face justice. Thus, the trial of the other suspects has not commenced in Charge NO: FHC/ABJ/CR/30/2020: Inspector-General of Police v Hamisu Bala a.k.a. Wadume &19 Ors pending at the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja due to the refusal of the military oligarchy to release thesuspected killer-soldiers to face justice.





against the suspects. Instead of using your position as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation to ensure compliance with the court order in line with the provisions of section 287 of the Constitution of Nigeria your office took over the case from the police prosecutor, amended the charge and withdrew the caseagainst the suspects.





kidnapping pending in court against the 20 suspects you will agree with us that the withdrawal of the case against the alleged 10 killer-soldiers is not in consonance with section 174 of the Constitution which provides for the take over and withdrawal of pending criminal case in the public interest, the interest of justice and the need to prevent abuse of legal process. In view of the gravity of the 16-count charge of terrorism, murder andkidnapping pending in court against the 20 suspects you will agree with us that the withdrawal of the case against the alleged 10 killer-soldiers is not in consonance with section 174 of the Constitution which provides for the take over and withdrawal of pending criminal case in the public interest, the interest of justice and the need to prevent abuse of legal process.





so that they can be arraigned and tried in accordance with the law. Stemming from the foregoing, we hereby request immediate compliance with the valid and subsisting order of the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division by ensuring that the suspects who are at large are produced by the Chief of Army Staff or whoever has their custodyso that they can be arraigned and tried in accordance with the law.





Meanwhile, the army officers who killed the police officers and allegedly freed Wadume  who was rearrested  were attached to battalion 93, Takum, led by Tijani Balarabe, an army captain.





Other officers are David Isaiah, a staff sergeant; Ibrahim Mohammed, a sergeant; Bartholomew Obanye, a corporal; Mohammed Nura, a private; Okorozie Gideon, a lance corporal; Markus Michael and Nvenaweimoeimi Akpagra, both lance corporals; Abdullahi Adamu, a staff sergeant and Ebele Emmanuel, a staff sergeant.
They play love interests on Netflix's new hit show Outer Banks as John B. and Sarah Cameron.

And Chase Stokes officially confirmed he was dating his costar Madelyn Cline by going Instagram official on Sunday.

The actor, 27, shared two photos of a beach date with Cline, 22, as they enjoyed a bottle of wine.

Official: Chase Stokes officially confirmed he was dating his costar Madelyn Cline by going Instagram official on Sunday

'cats outta the bag,' Stokes captioned the the photos as the sun set over the ocean.

Cline responded with two comments saying 'I've fallen and I can't get up.'

She also referenced another character from their show, Topper, who played her character's ex-boyfriend, saying 'Topper is punching the air rn.'

In one photo he showed only the bottom portion of their legs, on a red and white blanket with containers of half-eaten take out food.

Revealed: 'cats outta the bag,' Stokes captioned the the photos as the sun set over the ocean

On and off screen: Stokes and Cline also play love interests as John B. and Sarah on Netflix's Outer Banks series

The second photo showed Cline with a large smile on her face, retrieving a bottle of wine from their bag.

They sparked romance rumors back in April when they revealed they were spending coronavirus quarantine together with some other co-stars.

Outer Banks' first season premiered on Netflix back in mid-April.

The thriller centers around Stoke's character who enlists his closest friends to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance and hunt for treasure.

Stokes plays the lead role of 'John B' in the mystery thriller set in the sleepy, beachy Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Jon Stewart talks about the Black Lives Matter protests, police reform and Trump, whom he likened to a malevolent Mr. Magoo, in a new interview.

Stewart promoted the June 26 release of the film Irresistible, which he directed and wrote, in a chat with The New York Times Magazine. The film centers around politics  a Democratic strategist (Steve Carell) helps a retired vet (Chris Cooper) run for mayor in a small, conservative Wisconsin town  and the former Daily Show host, of course, also waded into politics in the interview.

Jon Stewart says police officers are "enforcing segregation," explaining that they "patrol the border between the two Americas." (Photo: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Id like to say Im surprised by what happened to him, but Im not, Stewart said of George Floyd dying in police custody. This is a cycle, and I feel that in some ways, the issue is that were addressing the wrong problem. We continue to make this about the police  the how of it. How can they police? Is it about sensitivity and de-escalation training and community policing? All that can make for a less-egregious relationship between the police and people of color. But the how isnt as important as the why, which we never address.

Stewart went on to say the police are a reflection of a society. Theyre not a rogue alien organization that came down to torment the black community. And police are enforcing segregation, he continued. Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas. We have that so that the rest of us dont have to deal with it. Then that situation erupts, and we express our shock and indignation. But if we dont address the anguish of a people, the pain of being a people who built this country through forced labor  people say, Im tired of everything being about race. Well, imagine how [expletive] exhausting it is to live that.

Stewart called police brutality an organic offshoot of the dehumanization of those power structures.

He said, There are always going to be consequences of authority. When you give someone a badge and a gun, thats going to create its own issues, and theres no question that those issues can be addressed with greater accountability. It can be true that you can value and admire the contribution and sacrifice that it takes to be a law-enforcement officer or an emergency medical worker in this country and yet still feel that there should be standards and accountability. Both can be true. But I still believe that the root of this problem is the society that weve created that contains this schism, and we dont deal with it, because weve outsourced our accountability to the police.

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Stewart remains hopeful that this may lead to more accountability.

Look, every advancement toward equality has come with the spilling of blood, he said. Then, when thats over, a defensiveness from the group that had been doing the oppressing. Theres always this begrudging sense that black people are being granted something, when its white peoples lack of being able to live up to the defining words of the birth of the country that is the problem. Theres a lack of recognition of the difference in our system. Chris Rock used to do a great bit: No white person wants to change places with a black person. They dont even want to exchange places with me, and Im rich. Its true. Theres not a white person out there who would want to be treated like even a successful black person in this country. And if we dont address the why of that treatment, the how is just window dressing.

He went on to call out the protests over the coronavirus quarantine lockdowns in April.

You know, were in a bizarre time of quarantine, Stewart said. White people lasted six weeks and then stormed a state building, referencing the armed demonstrators who went to the capitol building in Michigan to demand the lockdown orders be lifted, with rifles, shouting: Give me liberty! This is causing economic distress! Im not going to wear a mask, because thats tyranny! Thats six weeks versus 400 years of quarantining a race of people.

He added, The policing is an issue, but its the least of it. We use the police as surrogates to quarantine these racial and economic inequalities so that we dont have to deal with them.

Stewart also talked Trumps handing of all of it. He said whats stood out to him amid the national turmoil the last few months is, That the Trump administration has not changed its practices. You would have thought that somebody would have mentioned to Trump the idea of rising to greatness. Instead its: Why dont I tweet out that Joe Scarborough killed people? Would that be good in a pandemic? I guess his behavior is understandable, because whats he going to run on, his record? Hes just going to pick at scabs.

Stewart described Trump as a man who has suffered no consequences. His is a recklessness born of experience. Hes like a malevolent Mr. Magoo, referring to the cartoon character whos old, rich and stubborn with poor eyesight. He always knows the I-beam is going to swing down and the building is going to collapse  but who cares, because hell walk out unscathed. Thats what he has learned.

He added that Trumps approach has worked for him his whole life. And noted that if you just get rid of Trump, that doesnt end this, referring to political discord.

Nonetheless, Stewart says he always remains hopeful about the future.

Because the view we get of the country is not accurate, he said. We get the artifice of it, the conflict of it. Im not naive. I dont think that true divisions and animosities and bigotry and prejudices dont exist. We see that every day. But fundamentally, we are a resilient and strong and resourceful nation... But our biggest problem as humans is ignorance, not malevolence. Ignorance is an entirely curable disease.

And how does one cure ignorance? Information and work, he replied. You need to talk to people. Ignorance is often cured by experience, by spending time with what you dont understand. But I honestly dont know. Well, you know what? I do know: In the same way that Trumps recklessness is born out of experience, so is my optimism, because good people outweigh [expletive] people. By a long shot.

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New satellite images reveal the boom in air travel over Europe today as hundreds of planes take to the skies in response to loosening coronavirus restrictions.

Live data recorded more than a thousand planes over the continent this afternoon - compared with just a few hundred at the height of the pandemic in April.

It came as passengers flocked to airports across Europe, including London Gatwick, Brussels and Duesseldorf, where they were met by staff informing them about the latest safety measures.

Meanwhile, easyJet began its first flights - starting with a morning service from Gatwick to Glasgow - with all customers required to wear masks and go without food and alcohol.

Countries including Germany and France have opened their borders, but Britain is still insisting on a 14-day quarantine for all arrivals, including those from countries with far lower infection rates.

 Slide me  Live data recorded more than a thousand planes over Europe this morning at around 10am, compared with just a few hundred at the same time during the height of the pandemic in April

Passengers at Brussels airport this morning, where people were wearing face masks to abide by new aviation safety requirements

Spain is allowing thousands of Germans to fly to the Balearic Islands from today in a trial run for resuming its tourist season, after Germany lifted its travel warning for the EU.

However, several countries including Greece are still excluding Britons because of the UK's high death rate while Swedes are similarly unpopular in many countries.

Which countries are allowing British visitors and which are not? AUSTRIA - Flights from UK remain banned, borders open to 31 countries from tomorrow but not Britain BELGIUM - Borders open with Britain from today BULGARIA - Britons subject to 14-day quarantine, unlike most EU countries DENMARK - Tourists only allowed from Iceland, Germany and Norway - notably not Britain or Sweden FRANCE - Arrivals from UK subject to 14-day quarantine because of Britain's own quarantine rules GERMANY - Britons no longer need reason for entry from today, all land borders now open GREECE - UK visitors excluded from resumption of tourist season starting today ITALY - Travel to and from Britain allowed since June 3 NETHERLANDS - Britons and Swedes remain banned SPAIN - Borders will open to EU countries and Britain on June 21 SWEDEN - Has never closed borders SWITZERLAND - Travel restrictions for EU and Britain lifted from today Advertisement

Britons are allowed into Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy but not Greece, the Netherlands or Austria and will have to quarantine in France, and the Foreign Office is still advising against unnecessary travel.

In addition, most of the continent is still closed to visitors from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas - although Greece is allowing some tourists from further afield.

France's borders are open for travel within Europe, but Paris is insisting on reciprocity - meaning a 14-day quarantine for British visitors.

The French government has criticised the 'uncoordinated fashion' in which Britain imposed the quarantine after initially saying that France would be exempt.

At present, the UK Foreign Office is still advising Britons against 'all non-essential international travel' in any case.

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders, French president Emmanuel Macron said it is time 'to turn the page of the first act of the crisis' and 'rediscover our taste for freedom'.

But he warned: 'This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard... the summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.'

Germany and Belgium among those opening their borders today in line with an EU directive to resume travel by mid-June.

All nine of Germany's land borders are open and the country is allowing flights from Italy, but not Spain until June 21. Some flights to London have continued all along and UK travellers are not banned.

Germany and the Netherlands have both lifted their warnings against non-essential foreign travel in Europe, although Germany is advising against travelling further afield until at least August 31.

Austria has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours and will lift travel restrictions for 31 countries tomorrow, but not including the UK or Sweden.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz are both planning to holiday in their homelands this year.

The skies above Europe at 9am on March 2, 2020 - before most of Europe went into lockdown - and the same view at 9am on April 2

Brussels Airport: Flight attendants wearing face masks sanitise their hands inside a plane at Brussels Airport this morning

Germany: A TUI flight attendant gives safety instructions to German tourists on the first flight from Duesseldorf to Mallorca in a Spanish tourism pilot project

EasyJet took to the skies again today for the first time since its planes were grounded on March 30 - with passengers facing a raft of new coronavirus safety measures including mandatory face masks and an alcohol ban.

Pictures from the first flight this morning showed a crowded service with no room for people to observe six-feet social distancing rules, prompting some Twitter users to complain it was 'absolute madness'.

However, the airline's boss Johan Lundgren said he would feel '100% safe' due to the steps it had taken to protect customers.

The plane, from London Gatwick to Glasgow, landed just after 8am, as easyJet resumed mainly domestic routes between British and European cities. There are two foreign routes from Belfast to Faro and Gatwick to Nice.

While borders across Europe are being opened, a hoped-for travel recovery in easyJet's home market has been put at risk by a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals. The airline has joined its rivals, British Airways and Ryanair, in a legal bid to have the new rules overturned.

EasyJet Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the Luton-based carrier has taken guidance from international regulators to develop an enhanced safety and hygiene regime for its resumption of flights on Monday.

Passengers and crew will be required to wear masks, aircraft will be regularly deep-cleaned and disinfection wipes and hand sanitiser will be made available.

EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic have banned alcohol on all flights to limit contact between passengers, while British Airways has suspended alcohol on short-haul trips.

EasyJet passengers will be limited to a glass of water, with food service also suspended.

Mr Lundgren said not operating a single flight in nearly three months has been 'devastating', and the airline is 'super excited' to resume.

He will travel on his first easyJet flight after the restart on Wednesday.

EasyJet's first flight took off from London Gatwick at 6.53am and arrived just after 8am. Pictured are passengers being greeted onto the plane at Gatwick

Passengers wearing face masks walk across the runway at Gatwick this morning to board easyJet's first flight to Glasgow

EasyJet takes to the skies for first time since March 30 as packed flight with no social-distancing leaves from Gatwick - but airline's boss insists he would feel '100% safe' now face masks are mandatory on board

EasyJet took to the skies again today for the first time since its planes were grounded on March 30 - with passengers facing a raft of new coronavirus safety measures including mandatory face masks and an alcohol ban.

Pictures from the first flight this morning showed a crowded service with no room for people to observe six-feet social distancing rules, prompting some Twitter users to complain it was 'absolute madness'.

However, the airline's boss Johan Lundgren said he would feel '100% safe' due to the steps it had taken to protect customers.

The plane, from London Gatwick to Glasgow, landed just after 8am, as easyJet resumed mainly domestic routes between British and European cities. There are two foreign routes from Belfast to Faro and Gatwick to Nice.

While borders across Europe are being opened, a hoped-for travel recovery in easyJet's home market has been put at risk by a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals. The airline has joined its rivals, British Airways and Ryanair, in a legal bid to have the new rules overturned.

As Britain edged towards normality today:

Secondary school pupils with GCSE and A-level exams next year returned to classes, although only a quarter could be on site at once due to social distancing;

Millions of commuters returned to work on trains, Tubes and buses - watched by 3,000 extra police and transport staff enforcing compulsory face mask rules;

Shoppers desperate to hit the high street formed huge socially distanced queues after dawn today as the majority of stores reopened;

Britain's coronavirus death toll inched up by just 36 yesterday - the lowest since before full lockdown in a promising signs the outbreak is improving;

Families' staycation plans are in chaos over a lack of safety advice that could sabotage the reopening of holiday sites in the first week of July;

A decision on the two-metre rule will take 'weeks', ministers warned today - despite warnings of mass redundancies unless it is eased within days;

World Health Organization director again warns the UK not to lift lockdown too fast until contact tracing system is 'robust' and ready to be 'aggressively' scaled up.

Pictures from first flight this morning, posted by Good Morning Britain's Travel Expert Simon Calder, showed a fairly crowded service with no room for people to observe six-feet social distancing rules

Some Twitter users complained that the busy flight from Gatwick to Glasgow was 'complete madness' - but others said it was up to individuals to decide the level of risk they were willing to take as the economy opened up

One Twitter user predicted a 'second wave' of coronavirus cases. Advocates of the Government's strategy would point to the need to boost a shattered economy

When will other airlines start flying again? Ryanair: Irish carrier will begin 1,000 flights a day from July 1 - representing 40% of its usual capacity. This will mean restarting operations from 90 percent of the airports it usually uses, including 20 in the UK. British Airways: Chief Executive Willie Walsh says that he expects a 'meaningful return to service' in July at the earliest, but did not reveal any more details. Jet2: It plans to restart flights and holidays from July 15. Tui: All flights and trips have been cancelled up to July 10. Customers due to travel before the end of August can also cancel or amend their booking without charge. Virgin Atlantic: Flights will resume from Heathrow to New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Shanghai on July 20. Wizz Air: The cut-price carrier began some of its services on May 1, and expects to reveal a larger list of routes on June 16. Advertisement

EasyJet Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the Luton-based carrier has taken guidance from international regulators to develop an enhanced safety and hygiene regime for its resumption of flights on Monday.

Passengers and crew will be required to wear masks, aircraft will be regularly deep-cleaned and disinfection wipes and hand sanitiser will be made available.

EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic have banned alcohol on all flights to limit contact between passengers, while British Airways has suspended alcohol on short-haul trips.

EasyJet passengers will be limited to a glass of water, with food service also suspended.

Mr Lundgren said not operating a single flight in nearly three months has been 'devastating', and the airline is 'super excited' to resume.

He will travel on his first easyJet flight after the restart on Wednesday.

With no revenues for months, airlines have been cutting costs to try to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

EasyJet said in May it was planning to cut 4,500 jobs, or 30% of its workforce. It has said Britain's quarantine could lead to even more cuts.

The airline is planning to ramp up services as the summer progresses and by August has said it will be flying about three-quarters of routes but at a much lower frequency than last year.

Capacity will be at about 30% of usual in the busy July to September season, easyJet said. Bigger rival Ryanair plans to be flying 40% of capacity by July.

EasyJet's boss has insisted he would 'feel 100% safe' on packed planes thanks to new safety measures.

Passengers arrive at Belfast International Airport this morning after arriving on one of easyJet's first flights of the coronavirus crisis

Captain David Morgan, Director of Flight Operations and Captain Kate McWilliams in the cockpit on easyJet's first flight from Gatwick to Glasgow today

Passengers boarding easyJet flight EZY883 before it took off from Gatwick bound for Glasgow

Passengers begin to board a domestic flight from a UK airport this morning as the carrier begins to resume a limited service

What British routes has easyJet now started flying? Belfast-Birmingham Belfast-Bristol Belfast-Edinburgh Belfast-Glasgow Belfast-London Gatwick Belfast-Liverpool Belfast-Newcastle Belfast-Faro Edinburgh-Belfast Edinburgh-London Gatwick Glasgow-Belfast Glasgow-London Gatwick Inverness-London Gatwick Isle of Man-London Gatwick Isle of Man-Liverpool London Gatwick-Belfast London Gatwick-Edinburgh London Gatwick-Glasgow London Gatwick-Inverness London Gatwick-Isle of Man London Gatwick-Nice Liverpool-Belfast Liverpool-Isle of Man Newcastle-Belfast Advertisement

Mr Lundgren said: 'The recommendations that we've implemented have been defined together with international regulators Easa (European Aviation Safety Agency), ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and also our own company's medical doctors and expertise.'

The Airbus A321neo  easyJet's largest aircraft  can seat 235 passengers.

Despite the 14-day quarantine policy and current travel restrictions imposed in the UK, Mr Lundgren said he believed summer holidays will be possible.

He went on: 'We would hope and would be really looking forward to restrictions being either lifted, or air bridges put in place where it made sense to do so, allowing UK customers as well as people in the rest of Europe to be able to go on a holiday.'

Air bridges would involve travellers arriving from countries where the risk of being infected by coronavirus is deemed to be low to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days.

EasyJet's initial schedule will involve mainly domestic flying in the UK and France.

EasyJet announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs as it does not expect demand to return to 2019 levels until 2023.

Ryanair intends to restore 40% of its flights from July 1, while British Airways is due to make a 'meaningful return' to service next month.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said he would feel '100% safe' travelling on an easyJet plane even if it was full
A two-year-old boy survived being shot in the head after the bullet missed a major artery by one millimetre.

The unnamed toddler's grandmother has spoken out after he was one of four people to be shot in Harlesden, North West London, on June 3.

Lillian Serunkuma, revealed her daughter was shot multiple times as she tried to protect the toddler.

Police and forensic teams carried out extensive work from the scene of a shooting in Harlesden on June 3, which left a two-year-old boy in a coma. He is slowly recovering after a bullet missed a major artery by one millimetre

A gunman shot at a car with four people inside in Harlesden, North West London earlier this month

Lillian Serunkuma, pictured at New Scotland Yard today, revealed her daughter was shot multiple times as she tried to protect the youngster

The two-year-old was rushed to hospital in a critical condition and doctors told his family that the bullet missed a crucial artery, which would have resulted in a fatal injury if damaged, by just 1mm.

Ms Serunkuma, whose 15-year-old son was stabbed to death outside his school gates in 2017, said: 'If you know the person responsible for this incident, you need to come forward and speak to the police.

'My grandson is two, he has never hurt anyone. The person who did this doesn't deserve your protection or friendship.

Police set up a cordon as they investigated the shooting in Harlesden, North West London

The gunman is believed to have shot at one man, before beginning to fire at a car with four more people inside, forensic teams carried out searches of the area following the incident

A 20 year-old-man arrested on suspicion of four counts of attempted murder has been released under investigation, while a 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder has been bailed

'The gunman could clearly see that a woman and child were present in the car, and fired towards them without any regard for their safety, seriously hurting them both.

'My daughter has never hurt anyone and didn't deserve to be shot multiple times protecting her child from harm.'

Detectives believe the attacker fired a handgun at a man, in his late teens, before shooting into a car containing the boy, his mother, another teenager, and two other children, before fleeing the scene on a motorbike.

Ms Serunkuma's daughter and the two men, who are both in their late teens, were also taken to hospital with gunshot wounds, which were described as not life-threatening or life-changing.

While police searched the area of the shooting, a two-year-old boy was in hospital fighting for his life after being shot in the head

The shooting took place in Energen Close, Harlesden, on the night of Wednesday, June 3

Scotland Yard's Detective Chief Inspector Pete Wallis said: 'I am pleased to say the little boy injured is now, thankfully, starting to show signs that his condition is beginning to improve.

'This is a very welcome development for everyone on the investigation team and of course his family.

'However, it must not be forgotten that this little boy was shot in an act of indiscriminate violence.'

Lillian's 15-year-old son Quamari Serunkuma-Barnes was stabbed to death outside his school gates in 2017

A 20 year-old-man arrested on suspicion of four counts of attempted murder has been released under investigation, while a 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder has been bailed.

Three other men, aged 29, 23 and 36, arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, have all been released under investigation.

DCI Wallis added: 'This little boy has spent more than a week fighting for his life and his family have been put through a great deal of trauma, so please, don't think anything you may have seen that night is unimportant.

'Your information could be a vital part of our investigation.'

Ms Serunkuma's son, Quamari Serunkuma-Barnes, was knifed three times in an attack outside Capital City Academy in Willesden, west London, on January 23 2017.

She branded his then 15-year-old killer's actions as 'pure evil' in a statement read at the Old Bailey as he was locked up for at least 14 years after being found guilty of murder.

She wrote: 'You never gave Quamari a second chance to defend himself.

'You took his life in a cold and malicious way.'
Tracking weak global cues, Indian markets started the week on a negative note on June 15 and the fall only extended as fears of a second wave of COVID-19 infections sent jitters across global markets.

The S&P BSE Sensex plunged more than 500 points towards the close but some last-minute buying helped the index close above 33,000. The Nifty50 also held onto its crucial support at 9,800 levels.

The Sensex ended the day 552 points down at 33,228 while the Nifty50 fell 159 points to close at 9,813.

"Indian markets opened the week on a negative note, in sync with the global markets, following a risk-off attitude among investors due to concerns regarding the spread of the virus in India and globally, Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services told Moneycontrol.

The infections are still high in India while there seems to be a resurgence of virus cases in China and the US. FII net inflows into equity were also negative over the previous two trading sessions, which could be a signal of reduced risk appetite. Our advice to investors remains to be cautious and stock specific."

Sectorally, selling pressure was seen in Bankex, realty, finance, capital goods and consumer durable sectors while some value buying was seen in energy and healthcare stocks.

Top Nifty gainers included Sun Pharma, HCL Technologies and RIL, which were up more than 1 percent.

Top Nifty losers included ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank.

Stocks & Sectors

Sectorally, the S&P BSE Energy index was up 0.9 percent followed by the S&P BSE Healthcare index that rose 0.26 percent.

Selling pressure was seen in the S&P BSE Bankex that fell 3.5 percent followed by the S&P BSE Realty index that slipped 3.04 percent. The S&P BSE Finance index was down 2.8 percent.

In the broader markets, the S&P BSE Midcap index was down 1.1 percent while the S&P BSE Smallcap index closed flat.

A volume spike of more than 100 percent % was seen in stocks like Divis Laboratories, BHEL, Lupin, Escorts, and Jindal Steel.

Long Buildup was seen in stocks like Cummins India, RIL, M&M, and Apollo Hospitals.

Short Buildup was seen in stocks like Page Industries, Kotak Bank, RBL Bank, and Divis Laboratories.

RIL, Vaibhav Global, Ruchi Soya, Lupin, Jubilant Life and Cadila HealthcareStocks were among the stocks that hit 52-week high.

Stocks in news

Reliance Industries hit a record high following two major Jio deals over the weekend and RIL's partly paid-up shares closing at Rs 700 against the listed price of Rs 685.

Tata Motors fell over 4 percent ahead of its Q4 results. The company is likely to report a loss in the Rs 2,500-3,000 crore range for the March quarter 2020 as COVID-19-led lockdown hit businesses.

Shares of AstraZeneca Pharma jumped 7 percent after it struck a deal with Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine.

BHEL stock was down over 7 percent after the company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 1,532.18 crore for the March quarter, mainly due to lower revenues and deferred taxes.

Aarti Industries share price tumbled nearly 6 percent after the company said its long-term contract with a global firm to supply agrochemicals worth Rs 4,000 crore was cancelled.

Technical View

The Nifty formed a bearish candle on the daily charts and faces resistance near the 5-day EMA.

Momentum indicator MACD is on the verge of giving a bearish crossover on the daily charts. The overall structure suggests that the index is likely to remain under pressure.

A fresh short position can be initiated below 9,726 with the near-term target at 9,544, say experts. On the other hand, 9,870-9,900 will act as an immediate resistance zone, Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Senior Technical Analyst, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas, said.

Disclaimers: 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.

Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.
On Friday night, June 12, an employee at a Wendys restaurant in South Atlanta calls 911. A 27-year-old man named Rayshard Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-through lane. Soon, two police officers respond. They and Mr. Brooks speak calmly and cordially for 41 minutes. That was it. But then in just 45 seconds, one of the officers fatally shoots Mr. Brooks as he is running away. [gunshots] How could a routine police response go so suddenly and horribly wrong? The Times examined witness videos, security footage, police body-cam and dash-cam videos. We synchronized and slowed down those videos so we can see and hear what unfolded. We reviewed police records, and procedures, and statements made by the officers involved. And we identified the critical moments and missteps that led to a young man losing his life. Its 10:41 p.m., eight minutes after the 911 call when Officer Devin Brosnan arrives at Wendys. He raps on Brookss car window and wakes him up. Brooks appears groggy and disoriented. [beeping] Brosnan, who joined the Atlanta Police Department last year, talks to Brooks and then requests an officer who can perform sobriety tests. At 10:55 p.m., Officer Garrett Rolfe arrives. [beeping] Rolfe joined the Atlanta Police Force in 2013, and is an experienced D.U.I. investigator. Rolfe has once been reprimanded for firing his service weapon, police records show. He takes charge of the investigation. Rolfe begins to question Brooks, who is confused about where he is. He seems to think hes six miles down the road near a Home Lodge Hotel. Theres another Wendys right beside it. At 11:02 p.m., Rolfe asks Brooks to get out of the car. Moments later, Brooks will also consent to a series of sobriety tests. Brooks is clearly inebriated. But hes compliant and friendly throughout this time. The officers are courteous. And Rolfe gives him clear and precise instructions. When Rolfe now asks Brooks if hell take a breathalyzer test, Brooks hesitates at first. Brooks offers to go to his sisters house. Why did Brooks want to resolve his situation without being arrested? According to court records, he was on probation for domestic violence and theft offenses. He was probably aware that a new arrest or conviction would almost certainly send him back to prison. The breathalyzer returns a blood alcohol reading of .108 percent, above the legal limit of .08 percent. Rolfe has little option now but to charge Brooks with D.U.I. Some policing experts told us he could have written a citation and drove Brooks home. Others said police are expected to show zero tolerance with drunken driving. For 41 minutes, Brooks and the officers have spoken calmly and respectfully. They even shared a few laughs. Now, Rolfe moves to arrest Brooks. And in 45 seconds, he will fatally shoot him. [gunshots] [yelling] Lets watch this back, and break down what happens. Rolfe has signaled or sought Brookss consent for every action to this point. But he moves to handcuff Brooks swiftly and without clearly telling him hes under arrest. This breaches D.U.I. arrest procedures. Brooks resists, and the three tumble to the ground. Brosnan draws his Taser   and pushes it into Brookss leg. Brooks grabs the Taser. Both officers body cameras fall to the ground. Brooks stands up and strikes Rolfe with an open hand. As Rolfe draws his Taser, Brooks fires a dart, hitting Brosnans arm. Rolfe fires the Taser twice  [yelling]  and hits Brookss body. We hear Rolfe using his Taser as he chases Brooks. This is a breach of police procedures. Rolfe passes the Taser to his left hand and reaches for his gun. Brooks looks behind and fires the Taser hes holding. We confirmed these Taser models with the Atlanta Police. Once theyre fired twice, they must be reloaded. So at this point, Brooks is unarmed. Rolfe drops his Taser, draws his handgun and fires three times at Brooks, who is 18 feet away and is trying to escape in a busy Wendys parking lot. [gunshots] Two bullets hit Brooks in the back, one piercing his heart. A third bullet hits this Chevrolet Trailblazer, which had three passengers in it. This photo from the Fulton County District Attorney shows the bullet hole. No one in the car was injured. Rolfe shouts at Brooks  ... and appears to kick him on the ground. This image, also provided by the Fulton County D.A., shows that moment more clearly. Officer Brosnan approaches and briefly stands on Brookss shoulder. [yelling] Meanwhile, witnesses denounce the shooting. The officers stand over Brooks for about a minute before Rolfe runs back to his vehicle to get his medical kit. Brosnan continues to stand by. Its over two minutes before Brooks receives medical assistance. Every fucking time! Rolfe administers CPR until emergency services take over. At 11:39 p.m., 15 minutes after hes shot, an ambulance takes Rayshard Brooks to a hospital where he is later announced dead. Was Rolfe justified in shooting a man holding a Taser, and who was trying to escape? Police procedures on the use of deadly force state that an officer must reasonably believe the suspect possesses a deadly weapon, and that the suspect poses an immediate threat of serious bodily injury to the officer or others. In a statement made through his lawyer, Officer Rolfe said he did use reasonable force because he heard a sound like a gunshot and fearing for his safety and the safety of others, he fired his weapon. The description of a gunshot doesnt square with what Rolfe told investigating police at the scene. And minutes before this, Rolfe appears to have been aware that Brooks fired the Taser twice. This and other evidence will be scrutinized in what has now become a homicide investigation. Rolfe has been charged on 11 counts, including felony murder, and both officers with aggravated assault.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:28:04|Editor: huaxia

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SUVA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Fijians have now been encouraged to experience local tourism products as part of the Fijian government's efforts to cope with the impact of COVID-19.

Tourism Fiji's CEO Matthew Stoeckel said on Monday that with the recently-launched "Love Our Locals Fiji" campaign, this is the first time Tourism Fiji is taking a domestic tourism initiative and its primary role is to encourage Fijians to experience the nation's tourism products.

The campaign has another goal that is to work with the operators to develop local family packages and products that encourage those that are able to stay in operation through this time to look at how they can best cater for the local market, he said, adding that there are more than 70 operators that have come onboard with this campaign and are giving special deals for locals.

They will initially be running this campaign for 12 months and are hoping to continue after their international visitors return.

Early this month, Fiji launched the "Love Our Locals Fiji" campaign, which was championed by Tourism Fiji with the full support of the Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport. It embraces the spirit of love through action in the face of an industry and Fijians that are hurting.

It takes inspiration from Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama's call to action over one year ago and asks Fijians to rally behind local restaurants, tour operators and hotels to show support for Fiji by supporting Fijian-Made products and holidaying here at home.

As the backbone of the Fijian economy, tourism is the most important industry which is the biggest foreign exchange earner.

Fourty percent of Fiji's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is dependent on tourism which employs around 150,000 people directly and indirectly.

The island nation has in recent years received more than 800,000 visitors per year. The Fijian government had also set a goal of developing the tourism industry to a 2.2 billion Fijian dollars (about 1 billion U.S. dollar) industry by 2021.

The COVID-19 has serious impact on Fiji's tourism, and with travel restrictions to stop the spread of the deadly virus, the industry, which has already laid off about 40,000 people, has been at a standstill for three months now.

According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics on Monday, provisional numbers show that Fiji's visitor arrivals for May this year totaled 709 compared to 73,169 for May 2019. Of the 709 visitors, 15 came by air while 694 came by sea. Enditem
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the country is emerging from the coronavirus crisis, but that the United States is struggling because it has a fragmented government system.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

In an interview on state television on Sunday, parts of which were reported before broadcast by news media, Putin said, We are working quite steadily and getting out of this situation with the coronavirus confidently, with minimal losses. In the US, this is not happening, he said, noting the central and regional governments work more closely in Russia.

I doubt that someone somewhere in the government or in the regions suddenly said: We will not do what the government says or the president says. We consider this inappropriate, Putin said.
The Queen And The Coup

Rating:

Great Paintings Of The World With Andrew Marr

Rating:

What a downright swizz. Two academics lured us into watching their lecture on Persian politics in the Fifties by promising that the Queen was somehow involved in plotting to overthrow the government in Tehran.

For almost an hour, Professors Rory Cormac and Richard Aldrich led viewers on, letting us believe that Her Majesty sent a secret message through diplomatic back channels, urging the young Shah of Iran to hold his nerve and let an uprising backed by Anglo-American money propel him to power.

This was the covert meddling of the Queen in the internal affairs of another country, crowed Prof Rory, emphasising: She has to do it covertly.

Two academics lured us into watching their lecture on Persian politics in the Fifties by promising that the Queen was somehow involved in plotting to overthrow the government in Tehran

It wasnt until the final few minutes of The Queen And the Coup (C4) that we discovered the mundane truth: a slightly garbled telegram from the Foreign Secretarys office had caused a spot of fluster in the corridors of Whitehall and Washington.

The minister, Anthony Eden, was on board the ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, heading for Canada (this was 1953, after all).

The Foreign Office informed the Americans they had received message from Eden from Queen Elizabeth expressing concern at latest developments re Shah.

Of course, from meant aboard. Innocently or not, the CIA chose to interpret this mistyped telex as a royal edict to pull their fingers out and get busy undermining a democratic regime . . . thus securing a motherlode of oil for the West, while simultaneously annoying the Kremlin quite a lot.

Thats making a misplaced preposition do quite a bit of dirty work. If the professors had wanted to be more straightforward, they could have announced at the beginning that what might seem to be regal malpractice was in fact ordinary skulduggery by the secret services.

But openness is rarely the best policy for spies or dons who are eager to be TV historians. Full disclosure from the start would probably have relegated this documentary to a late slot on the Yesterday channel.

The profs would have done better to tell us more about their lurid cast of characters. I especially wanted to hear about Ann Lambton, the niece of future prime minister Harold Macmillan: she looked like a games mistress but in fact was a daring Middle Eastern operator and wartime propaganda wizard. Sadly, she was dismissed in two sentences.

Andrew Marr didnt try to fool us with any double-crosses, in Great Paintings Of the World

The social charmer and opium addict Robert Zaehner, alias Doctor Z, also sounded fascinating.

Then there was Monty Woodhouse, Tory MP and gentleman spy. With that trio, the professors had the makings of a really good espionage tale, and they blew it.

Andrew Marr didnt try to fool us with any double-crosses, in Great Paintings Of the World (C5).

He simply wangled entry to the National Gallery after closing time, to admire Vincent van Goghs Sunflowers and tell us the artists life story. It was, in Marrs word, harrowing.

Theres little detail in this series, but plenty of broad brushstrokes on a big canvas. Marr, a keen amateur painter, pointed out a couple of the basics in Vincents technique, such as the thickness of the oil paint  but he sensibly didnt grab a palette knife and show us how its done.

He didnt dress up in a straw hat with a bandage over one ear either. Theres some presenters who would, you know.

Van Gogh was the patron saint of loneliness, we were told, which sounds like a line from a Johnny Cash song. This is art history with a populist twist.
The Nigerian Government has suspends the Aviation company which flew Naira Marley to Abuja indefinitely.

Hadi Sirika, Nigerias Minister of Aviation, said that Executive Jet Services, the airline company that flew musician, Afeez Fashola better known as Naira Marley, to Abuja for a concert despite Covid-19 restrictions in place has now been suspended indefinitely.

Sirika made the revelation during the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 daily briefing in Abuja today.

He said the flight was indeed approved but for a different reason, adding that the pilot provided false information and deceived the Nigerian Government.



Follow Us on Facebook  @LadunLiadi; Instagram  @LadunLiadi; Twitter  @LadunLiadi; Youtube  @LadunLiadiTV for updates
Sydney Water and consumer advocates have warned against flushing wet wipes down the toilet, after an appeal court ruled the consumer watchdog had not proven it was misleading for Kleenex products to be marketed as "flushable".

In a decision on Monday, the Full Court of the Federal Court upheld a decision that Kleenex had not engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct by claiming four types of Cottonelle "flushable cleansing cloths" were fit for flushing.

The ACCC took on Kimberly-Clark over its flushable cleansing cloths.

The products have been discontinued, but Kleenex now sells other "flushable" wipes.

Kleenex, owned by the US-headquartered Kimberly-Clark, marketed the "lightly moistened toilet tissue wipes" as flushable and capable of being "used with ... regular toilet paper".
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks to a crowd gathered for a march to defund the Minneapolis Police Department on June 6, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said Sunday she supported calls to dismantle and defund the Minneapolis Police Department.

"This is our opportunity as a city to come together and have the conversation of what public safety looks like," the Democratic lawmaker told CNN's Jake Tapper.

Omar said she expects the existing police force to be replaced, but it had to first be dismantled to allow a conversation to start.

The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to pursue a community-led system to replace the current police department.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, said Sunday she supported calls to defund and dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department following the police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd on May 25.

"You can't really reform a department that is rotten to the root, what you can do is rebuild," Omar told Jake Tapper during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."

Activists around the US have called for local law enforcement agencies to be defunded, dismantled, and rebuilt in another form following repeated instances at police brutality toward African Americans. The catalyst for the ongoing protests was the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who was killed after a white police officer was recorded kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes amid his calls that he couldn't breathe and after he lost consciousness.

That officer  Derek Chauvin  and three others have been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department and have faced charges for their involvement in Floyd's death, but protests have continued nationwide as activists call for broader reforms to US police forces.

"And so this is our opportunity as a city to come together and have the conversation of what public safety looks like," Omar continued. "Who enforces the most dangerous crimes that take place in our community? And just like San Francisco did, they're moving toward a process where there is a separation of the kind of crimes that solicit the help of officers and the kind of crimes that we should have someone else respond to."

Story continues

State of the Union (@CNNSotu) June 14, 2020

Not all have supported such proposals. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, for example, was booed by a group of protestors after he said he did not support the defunding of the police department. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president, has called for an increase in funding to reform police forces to reduce racism.

"Shame on you," protestors chanted toward the mayor. "Go home, Jacob, go home."

The Minneapolis City Council on Friday voted unanimously to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department. According to the resolution, the city council will begin a year-long process involving "every willing community member in Minneapolis" to create a new model for public safety in the city.

Omar said in advocating for dismantling the city police force, she was also advocating for some other model to replace it.

"Nobody is saying that the community is not going to be kept safe," she said. "Nobody is saying crime will not be investigated. No one is saying that we are not going to have proper response when community members are in danger."

She added: "What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore, and we can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place."

Read more:

Police have released bodycam footage showing the struggle before the fatal shooting of Black man Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police

Atlanta protesters set a Wendy's on fire after police fatally shot a Black man at the drive-thru

Atlanta police fatally shot a Black man outside a Wendy's after he fell asleep at the drive-thru, then later grabbed an officer's Taser

Atlanta's police chief resigned just 24 hours after police fatally shot a Black man outside a Wendy's

Read the original article on Insider
15.06.2020 LISTEN

Accra, Ghana  On Thursday 28 May 2020, WACSI organised its statutory first board meeting for the year. The meeting was organised online for the first time in the Institutes 12 years of existence.

It enabled the management of the Institute, led by its dynamic and visionary Executive Director, Nana Asantewa Afadzinu, to update the board on how WACSI is progressing to implement its activities while adapting to the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).

The board lauded the team for the good work and provided insights on how to stay robust during the pandemic and emerge stronger after the pandemic. The Executive Director of WACSI shared an update of the Institutes progress reports for the first quarter of the year and plans for the rest of the year.

We are working to achieve our objectives under the four key strategic areas in WACSIs 2018 to 2022 strategy; enabling environment for civil society, technology for development, civil society sustainability and women and youth leadership, she said.

Being the third year in the Institutes current strategy, the Executive Director explained that her team is being guided by the priorities outlined in the strategy. She said this has been vital in guiding WACSI to be responsive to the current needs of its civil society actors in West Africa. WACSI is on the right track in responding to the challenges facing civil society in West Africa today, she noted.

Unit heads explained that despite the outbreak of COVID-19, civil society actors from the region continue to show increased interest in WACSIs programmes. As of 31st March 2020, WACSIs programmes reached 219 participants from about 172 organisations, reflecting an increase in both the number of participants and the number of organisations for the same period last year (166 participants from 129 organisations), reported Franck Sombo, Head of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Unit at WACSI.

Over this period, participants benefited from different types of interventions, including trainings (139), convening (41) and workshops (36). This, the board found to be commendable given the global circumstances under which these were achieved. Big well done to the WACSI team for the good job done, said Mrs. Ayodeji Fajemirokun board chair of WACSI.

Together with other board members, Mrs. Fajemirokun expressed utmost satisfaction at staff continuous effort to realise the Institutes objectives despite the challenges posed by the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).

She said this board meeting is critical for WACSI given that it is being organised at a time when the degree of uncertainty posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on CSOs including WACSI is high. Board members used this meeting as an opportunity to provide timely and valuable insights that would shape a blissful path for the Institute in the remaining half of the year.

The decisions we will take will enable WACSI to know how to tread for the rest of the year and emerge stronger, she said.

The meeting was held online for the first time in the Institutes 12 year history. This was done in line with ongoing measures to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus in Ghana and West Africa.

Board members commended the staff at the Institute for the milestones achieved despite the unusual situation and the fact that some programmes had to be postponed while the mode of delivery of others had to become online as opposed to previously planned face to face engagements. WACSI has been innovative in responding to the capacity needs of CSOs across the region as it leverages on technology.

With the guidance of its board, the Institutes staff hope to continue to provide capacity development support to civil society actors, convene dialogues to address key issues on civil societys work and document knowledge on civil societys engagements to promote development in West Africa. These will enable civil society to remain relevant and capable of responding adequately to COVID-19 and beyond.

For more information on WACSI, contact [email protected]
France wants talks with NATO allies to discuss Turkey's increasingly "aggressive" and "unacceptable" role in Libya, a French presidential official said on Monday, underscoring increased tensions between Ankara and Paris.

The comments came after Turkey, which backs the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, cemented a foothold in the country helping repel an assault on Tripoli by the Libyan National Army (LNA) of commander Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Russia.

Paris has been accused of supporting Haftar politically, having previously provided him with military assistance to fight Islamist militants.

France denies backing Haftar, but has repeatedly pointed the finger at Turkey, while stopping short of castigating Haftar's allies.

Speaking to Reuters on Monday, a French presidential official accused NATO ally Turkey of violating a UN arms embargo and raising its naval presence off the coast of Libya.

"These interferences are becoming very problematic and despite our efforts, the situation is getting bogged down. This increasingly aggressive posture is not acceptable," the official said.

"Turkey is supposed to be a NATO partner so this cannot continue."

When asked what Paris had in mind, the official said there would be talks in the coming days with Turkey and other NATO partners to discuss the situation.

NATO defence ministers hold talks later this week.

Ties between Turkey and France are already strained on a number of issues ranging from Syria to oil exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month said France's support for Haftar had "really upset" him.

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WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Monday asked the Justice Department's internal watchdog to investigate the role of Attorney General William Barr in the forceful clearing of largely peaceful protesters ahead of a photo op by President Donald Trump at a church near the White House.

In a letter to Michael Horowitz, the department's inspector general, 21 senators called the episode "alarming" and asked for an immediate look at Barr's role in directing what they described as "the use of tear gas or a similar gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls, and batons . . . to suppress peaceful protesters around Lafayette Square" on June 1.

"This misuse of force is all the more alarming given that the Attorney General appears to have issued this order to allow President Trump to walk across the street from the White House for a political photo op in front of St. John's Church," the senators wrote. "Notably, Attorney General Barr was not only on the scene less than an hour before the use of force to clear peaceful protesters, but he also participated in President Trump's photo op, posing for pictures in front of the church."

The concerns expressed by the senators, led by led by Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, echoes those contained in a letter last week to Horowitz signed by more than 1,250 former Justice Department employees.

The Washington Post has reported that Barr personally ordered that the crowd of protesters be pushed back as part of a plan hatched earlier in the day. According to a Justice Department official, law enforcement authorities, including Barr, had decided to extend the security perimeter outside the White House after earlier demonstrations, over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis custody, turned violent.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the episode, Barr said he had asked that the perimeter be expanded but claimed he did not give the "tactical" order for federal law enforcement on the scene to move in.

Barr and other Trump administration officials have also insisted that the expansion of the perimeter around the White House was unrelated to Trump's photo op at the church, which took place less than an hour after the protesters were cleared from the area.

However, the accounts of more than a half-dozen officials from federal law enforcement, District of Columbia public safety agencies and the National Guard who were familiar with planning for protests outside the White House that day challenge that explanation, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Asked on Fox News last week whether he would do anything different in Lafayette Square, Barr responded, "Based on what I know now, no."

Last week, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apologized for appearing alongside Trump after federal officials forcibly removed protesters from the area, saying it gave the impression of military interference in domestic politics. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who also participated in the photo opportunity, has said he did not realize in advance what would be happening.

In their letter to Barr, the Democratic senators also ask Horowitz to investigate Barr and the Justice Department's role in deploying federal law enforcement "to seemingly suppress protests and intimidate protesters throughout the country who are peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights."

"In the wake of the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, Americans all across our country are calling for an end to police brutality and a transformation of systems that perpetuate injustice and inequality," the senators said. "In response, President Trump has vowed to 'dominate' the protesters. The Attorney General and his Justice Department appear to be following through on the President's vow."

The senators also expressed concerns that federal officers were deployed in "generic riot gear without displaying any identifying insignia" and reports that the Justice Department has expanded "covert surveillance" on protesters.

- - -

The Washington Post's Dalton Bennett and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said Monday he is ordering a major reduction in U.S. troop strength in Germany, a move widely criticized by members of his own party as a gift to Russia and a threat to U.S. national security.

Were putting the number down to 25,000 soldiers, Trump said at the White House.

The U.S. currently has about 34,500 troops in Germany  far fewer than during the Cold War, when Germany was the central focus of American and NATO efforts to deter invasion by the former Soviet Union. In recent decades, Germany has hosted key American military facilities and provided a transit point for troops deploying to and from the Middle East, including during years of conflict in Iraq.

Trump faulted Germany for failing to pay enough for its own defence, calling the long-time NATO ally delinquent.

Were protecting Germany and theyre delinquent. That doesnt make sense, the president said, referring to Germanys failure thus far to attain a goal set by all NATO members in 2014 to spend at least 2% of gross national product on defence by 2024. Germany says it hopes to reach 2% by 2031.

Until they pay, were removing our soldiers, a number of our soldiers, Trump said. His plan, however, did not sound fully defined.

When we get down to 25,000 well see where were going, he said.

Since his election in 2016, Trump has pushed for the 2% as a hard target, and he has repeatedly singled out Germany as a major offender, though many others are also below the goal.

In his White House remarks to reporters, Trump suggested his troop withdrawal decision was intended to punish Germany, noting that the presence of American troops is a boost to local economies.

Those are well-paid soldiers, he said. They live in Germany. They spend vast amounts of money in Germany. Everywhere around those bases is very prosperous for Germany. So Germany takes, and then on top of it they treat us very badly on trade.

In addition to the 34,500 U.S. troops in Germany, there also are approximately 17,500 Defence Department civilians.

The administration has contemplated a partial troop withdrawal from Germany since last year, and in recent weeks it became apparent that Trump was ready to move forward, although no decision had been announced.

The decision was not discussed in advance with Germany or other NATO members, and Congress was not officially informed  prompting a letter from 22 Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee urging a rethink.

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, Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas wrote in a letter to Trump with his colleagues. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed Trumps move as another favour to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, said last week that Trump appeared to be making a serious mistake.

Americas forward presence has never been more important than it is today, as our nation confronts the threats to freedom and security around the world posed by Vladimir Putins Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, Cheney said. Our presence abroad is critical to deterring these adversaries, bolstering alliances, maintaining peace through strength, and preserving American leadership. Withdrawing our forces and abandoning our allies would have grave consequences, emboldening our adversaries and making war more  not less  likely.

American facilities include Ramstein Air Base, a critical hub for operations in the Mideast and Africa and headquarters to the U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Africa; the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, which has saved the lives of countless Americans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the Stuttgart headquarters of both the U.S. European Command and the U.S. Africa Command. Theres also the Wiesbaden headquarters of U.S. Army Europe, the Spangdahlem F-16 fighter base and the Grafenwoehr Training Area, NATOs largest training facility in Europe.

Trump indicated last summer that he was thinking of moving some troops from Germany to Poland, telling Polands President Andrzej Duda during an Oval Office meeting, Germany is not living up to what theyre supposed to be doing with respect to NATO, and Poland is.

Duda has been trying to woo more American forces, even suggesting Poland would contribute over $2 billion to create a permanent U.S. base  which he said could be named Fort Trump. In the current plan, at least some Germany-based troops are expected to be shifted to Poland.

__

Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:39:35|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends the virtual opening ceremony of the 127th China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as Canton Fair, in Beijing, capital of China, June 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday urged efforts to achieve fruitful results from the 127th China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as Canton Fair, which is being held online.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when attending the event's virtual opening ceremony in Beijing.

He called for efforts to ensure the security of the industrial chain, maintain stability in foreign trade and investment, and promote cooperation for win-win results. Enditem
Now that millions of people around the world and Cuba are showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, following the death of African American George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, a fact forgotten or ignored by many has resurfaced, creating controversy among those who oppose Castroism.

On November 27, 2016, two days after the death of Fidel Castro, the BLM movement paid tribute to him in a statement in which it stated: "Although no leader is free from shortcomings, we must respond to right-wing rhetoric and defend El Comandante", ending in Spanish: "Fidel vive!" (Fidel lives!)

How does someone feel about this who has suffered repression by Cuba's State Security forces for expressing ideas contrary to the regime, or for their anti-racism activism  which, according to Castroism, does not exist in Cuba? Can one sympathize with the dictator's admirers?

DIARIO DE CUBA posed this question to five black Cuban activists and artists who have suffered different degrees of repression by the regime. All five said they support the movement's claims. "Only for what the name expresses... a totally valid and pertinent declaration, I must say that I agree with the movement's outreach and great activism," says Norberto Mesa Carbonell, leader of the Confraternity of Blackness (Cofradia de la Negritud).

Activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, founder of the San Isidro Movement, clarified that he stood in solidarity not just with BLM, but any organization, of any political tendency, that "defends basic human rights."

"The first right of every human being is the right to life," argued rapper and anti-racism activist Osvaldo Navarro, who supports the BLM because it demands respect for that right.

The myth that the Revolution eliminated discrimination and its impact on African-American anti-racist organizations

None of the Cubans interviewed for this report were aware of BLM's statements about Fidel Castro in 2016, but they can understand them.

Navarro believes that this is a movement that is left-leaning, and that we cannot lose sight of the fact that Fidel Castro, since the beginning of the Cuban Revolution, carried out a campaign to "convince and recruit, and forge alliances", which is why the Cuban government has had a great influence in academia and in African-American communities.

Mesa Carbonell, who also admired Castro for a long time, is hardly surprised by the BLM's homage to the deceased ruler, pointing out that many African-Americans remember how Fidel Castro articulated support for the Civil Rights Movement.

"He lent decisive support to the anti-apartheid cause; Nelson Mandela called him 'brother'; and he took young African-Americans to Cuba to study medicine," he explained. "I am not surprised that BLM has a more positive than negative view of Fidel Castro, a position where it coincides with much of current anti-racist activism in Cuba. The myth that the Revolution had eliminated racial discrimination resonated with many African-American anti-racist activist organizations."

Yanelys Nunez, an art historian and member of the San Isidro Movement, forced to seek political refuge in Spain due to the Cuban regime's oppression, agrees that the idealized image the BLM harbors of Castro is shared by most of the left, and various human rights groups, "but also of what the Revolution was, despite the fact that testimonies, documentaries (...) have revealed what is happening in Cuba."

Nunez notes that in many parts of the world people are still convinced that had it not been for "the continued aggression of the United States Government", the revolution would have turned out well. "This opinion does not surprise me, nor does it cause me to disparage what they do in the fight against racism. I simply send out a wake-up call. Whenever I communicate with other groups, I say it: 'you have to stop projecting that image, because in the end it is Cuban men and women who are suffering as a result.'"

For Juan Antonio Madrazo Luna, National Coordinator of the Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration (CIR), who endorses the demands of any American civil society organization "that protests against systemic racism and police violence in the United States", the position of Black Lives Matter in relation to Fidel Castro is no different than the position of figures like Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and activists like actor Danny Glover.

But Madrazo Luna does not attribute this only to the Cuban regime's propaganda. "For a long time Cubans on the other shore have been indifferent to the cause of the African-American political community, and this is the result of the racist notions of much of those making up the diaspora." In his opinion, this helps to explain the indifference of the Black Caucus Congress regarding the demands of anti-racist activism in Cuba, and why Cuban activists have not received the political entity's support.

Artist Otero Alcantara sees a similarity between the BLM's attitude towards Fidel Castro and those in Miami who admire Trump for supporting Cuban dissenters. "Americans say to you: 'How can you support Trump? Trump is crushing me.'"

They did not go out to demonstrate for communism, socialism, or capitalism

Regarding the possibility that expressions of support like the BLM's for Fidel Castro could be used to undermine support for the group in the Cuban and Cuban-American sphere, Mesa Carbonell states that the BLM's claims warrant solidarity for reasons of justice, which should not be determined by political motivations.

Osvaldo Navarro, however, does perceive this loss of support as possible, and reports having observed on social media, mainly Facebook, widely ranging opinions on this movement and the death of George Floyd. Madrazo, meanwhile, believes that what he has observed on the networks "in relation to the murder" of Floyd is "visceral racism."

Navarro calls on people not to forget the reason for their demands. "A human being was killed. In this case, one of African descent. Many people emerged to demonstrate, not just the BLM, and most of them peacefully, due to the death of a human being. They did not go out to demonstrate for communism, socialism, or capitalism."

Yanelys Nunez does not believe that the movement will lose support among Cuban activists because there are "many shared agendas" between activists on the island and the BLM. In her view, much can be achieved through dialogue and, by spotlighting the country's reality, the image that "the other person" has can change.

Do you want them to do that to you in your country?

Changing the BLM's perception of Fidel Castro (and that of many leftist organizations), and his revolution, can pose a challenge for the Afro-Cuban community. But Mesa Carbonell believes that a large portion of this community "is still pro-Fidel, and will not take any steps to encourage BLM to abandon its Castroist sympathies."

Otero Alcantara, meanwhile, although he states that Black Lives Matter and "all those who have a commitment to justice and the downtrodden on Earth" should publicly apologize to the Cuban people for burnishing Fidel Castro's image with their rhetoric, stresses that not engaging in dialogue with these people would generate "confrontation and the obtuse argument that 'you don't understand me, you are leftists and want to implement Communism in the United States'".

Otero Alcantara believes that Cubans of all races must strive to demonstrate that "in Cuba there was a man named Fidel Castro who was a dictator, and who had people shot."

The artist, who has suffered repression and been arrested, numerous times, for his opposition to Decree 349 (which seeks to ban independent art in Cuba) cites an example of his experience in Argentina, with "ultra-leftists".

"I said to them 'give it a rest, brother, because I can't handle this 60-year-old propaganda you have in your head. Read Article 349. Do you want them to do that to you in your country? This is what is being done to me in my country.' They would say to me 'damn, that's terrible'. When you point to the human part, there is no justification."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 22:34:45|Editor: huaxia

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TAIPEI, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Two people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Taiwan, breaking a period of 13 consecutive days with no new cases reported, the local epidemic monitoring agency said Monday.

A married couple contracted COVID-19 in late May when they stayed in Bangladesh, receiving treatment there, the agency said in a press release. The husband is in his 50s, while the wife is in her 40s.

Both of them tested negative for COVID-19 on June 2 in Bangladesh and returned to Taiwan via Malaysia on June 13, according to the agency.

However, after their arrival in Taiwan, they tested positive again.

The couple had no symptoms and wore face masks and protective suits during their flight, the agency said.

A total of 37 people had contact with them aboard the plane and have been quarantined in their residences.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan has risen to 445. Of these, 433 have recovered, while seven died. Enditem
WASHINGTON  It is not easy for prisoners to challenge their convictions in federal courts anywhere in the nation. But it is especially tough in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which hears appeals from Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Congress gave us a gate-keeping function, Judge Beverly B. Martin, who sits on the appeals court, wrote in a dissent last year. Weve used it to lock the gate and throw away the key.

Last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor added her voice to the criticism. The 11th Circuit is significantly out of step with other courts, she wrote after the Supreme Court turned down a petition asking it to consider the appeals courts practices.

What goes on in the 11th Circuit, Justice Sotomayor wrote, presents a troubling tableau indeed.

Justice Sotomayor and Judge Martin were focused on the appeals courts treatment of one kind of petition for habeas corpus, but Bernard E. Harcourt, a law professor at Columbia who has represented inmates before the 11th Circuit and has studied its work, said the problems there were more general.
Iran's VP Says US, Saudi, Israeli 'Plot' Reduced Oil Exports By 90 Percent

Radio Farda June 14, 2020

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Iranian Central Bank's headquarters in Tehran mid-day Sunday June 14 protesting about the losses they incurred as a result of a special rate of exchange the bank has devised for businesses.

The protesters blamed inherent "inefficiency and embezzlement" in the NIMA system [Persian acronym for Consolidated System of Forex Transactions] for their losses. The system was supposed to regulate transactions between Iranian importers and authorized money changing offices.

After a sharp fall in the value of Iran's rial, inMarch 2018 the Iranian banking system introduced at least three rates for foreign exchange based on the US dollar. The official rate of 42,00o rials per dollar, as well as the NIMA rate which is around 150,000 rials per US dollar and the free [black] market rate which fluctuates but currently is around 180,000 rials per dollar.

Several videos and pictures circulating on social media show protesters chanting slogans demanding the resignation of Abdolnasser Hemmati, the Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and the disbanding of the NIMA rate of exchange.

Meanwhile, reports from Tehran say security forces have been deployed to the part of Tehran where the CBI headquarters is located.

Some of the slogans chanted during the protests were "Hemmati, Resign! Resign!"; "You shut down factories and tied up our hands"; and "hard working workers have been victimized."

A tweet under alias Twitter handle @Jimi_r0 posted a picture of the protest and commented: "Who would have thought that inefficiency and embezzlement in the special rate system would cause losses to traders?" and added the hashtag Stock Exchange.

Another tweet by the Human Rights in Iran Organization @humanrightsir1 broke the news about the protest gathering with the hashtags Central Bank, Nationwide Protests, Protest, and Human Rights. This tweet explained that the protest took place because the bank refused to sell foreign currency at the special rate.

The Central Bank of Iran claims to have introduced the special rate (NIMA) in order to create a secure atmosphere for transactions between importers and authorized money changers.

There were reports about embezzlement in this system. The protesters on Sunday said that they have not received any foreign currency at the special rate although they have deposited the equivalent in Iranian currency rial several months ago.

Nevertheless, IRGC-linked news agency Tasnim and several conservative news websites defended Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati and said the gathering on Sunday was suspicious. Meanwhile, within an hour of the gathering, the Central bank released a new list of those who have received foreign currency at the official and NIMA rates.

Financial problems as well as widespread discrimination and corruption have led to many protest gatherings in various cities of Iran during the past two years.

Various groups of people such as farmers, workers, Bazaar traders and owners of small businesses have been among those who protested the situation but every time, security forces violently suppressed the protests and arrested some protesters.

Protests were against rising prices in January 2018 and against a sudden hike in the price of fuel in November 2019. More than 50 protesters were killed in 2018 and as many of 8,000 were arrested. In 2019, at many as 1,500 might have been killed based on a Reuters report, but the Iranian government rejects these figures.

Recently, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli said implicitly that some 200 to 225 protesters were killed in November 2019 and claimed only 80 percent of them were killed by security forces.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/ protesters-in-tehran-call-on-central-bank- governor-to-step-down/30670275.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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Police have detained a man and a woman suspected of poisoning 20 dogs and 10 cats in central Vietnam in one night.

In the early hours of Sunday, residents of Thanh Hoa Commune, Nhu Xuan District in Thanh Hoa Province found the bodies of dogs and cats scattered on the main street in their neighborhood.

Suspicious that the animals had been poisoned for stealing later, they informed the commune police and assisted the latter in watching out for further developments at the scene.

At around two the next morning, a man and a woman were caught red handed as they were collecting the dead dogs and cats in bags. The duo was traveling on one motorbike while they were ambushed by the police and residents.

The bodies of 30 dogs and cats killed by poisoning in Thanh Hoa Province in central Vietnam on June 14, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Lam Son.

Le Van Tuyen, the communes chairman, said the two suspects are residents of Hai Duong Province in northern Vietnam.

They have been handed over to the police department of Nhu Xuan District.

It has been confirmed that the dogs and cats had been poisoned.

Local authorities said residents have recently reported several instances of dogs and cats going missing.

Vietnam's dog and cat meat trade has received strong criticism from the international community and is not popular among the modern youths. Yet it just continues as there are no laws related to the killing, selling and eating of cat and dog meat in Vietnam. Stealing dogs are only a criminal offense when the dogs are worth more than VND2 million ($86).
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:12:41|Editor: huaxia

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-- The 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, kicked off online Monday in south China's Guangdong Province.

-- The 10-day online fair has attracted around 25,000 enterprises and hundreds of thousands of global buyers, with 1.8 million products exhibited.

-- The fair will provide around-the-clock services including online exhibitions, promotion, business docking and negotiations.

-- With the online exhibition, the Canton Fair is expected to showcase the country's production resumption progress, inject impetus into global trade and help with the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

by Xinhua writers Cui Enhui, Wang Pan, Zhou Qiang and Ding Le

GUANGZHOU, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, kicked off online Monday, a first for the decades-old trade fair, in south China's Guangdong Province.

As a major global trade event so far this year, the 10-day online fair has attracted around 25,000 enterprises and hundreds of thousands of global buyers, with 1.8 million products exhibited.

A staff member with Tencent designs the website for the 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, May 27, 2020. (Xinhua)

"Hosting the online Canton Fair highlights China's unswerving resolve and confidence in advancing foreign trade and opening-up," said Bai Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

With the online exhibition, the Canton Fair is expected to showcase the country's production resumption progress, inject impetus into global trade and help with the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts.

STRONG IMPETUS

SUMEC Group Corporation, based in Jiangsu Province, has participated in the Canton Fair for 42 consecutive years and developed from a simple foreign trade enterprise to a manufacturing service group focusing on trade and services, engineering contracting and investment and development.

Combo photo shows the Hall of Machinery on the 45th Canton Fair in 1979 (upper, taken by Li Yanming) and the Hall of Machinery & Equipment on the 124th Canton Fair on Oct. 15, 2018 (lower, taken by Liang Xu). (Xinhua)

"Thanks to the strong measures taken by the government against the epidemic, we fully resumed work in March," said Yang Yongqing, chairman of the company.

According to Yang, the imports and exports of SUMEC rose by 5.7 percent year on year in the first five months despite downward economic pressure.

Foreign trade growth has been reported in a number of Chinese provincial-level regions. China's exports rose by 1.4 percent year on year in yuan terms to 1.46 trillion yuan (about 206 billion U.S. dollars) in May, official data showed.

In the first five months, the foreign trade of goods dropped by 4.9 percent year on year to 11.54 trillion yuan, the same drop as during the January-April period.

For many exhibitors, the recovering Chinese economy provides the online Canton Fair with a solid foundation and the internationally recognized trade event is still an important platform for Chinese enterprises to stabilize orders, expand the market and maintain shares.

According to Ye Hua, an official with the Foreign Trade Division of the Commerce Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality, the Shenzhen trade delegation was allocated 2,808 virtual booths at the online fair, involving 1,112 companies.

"Overall, the number of booths is in short supply," Ye said.

The online exhibition not only increases the confidence of overseas buyers in the supply chain stability, but also provides support for the global resumption of work and production.

Guangdong Xinbao Electrical Appliances Holdings Co., Ltd., which has taken part in the fair for more than 20 years, brings 300 products to the online Canton Fair, with new products accounting for about 40 percent.

"We want to show that our company has the strength to guarantee production and innovation and we'll do our part to stabilize the industrial chain," said Zhang Yifei, director of the overseas marketing center of the company.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

As the epidemic continues to spread around the world, many international exhibitions were canceled. But China decided to host its oldest and largest trade fair entirely online, a major innovation for global trade.

The accelerated layout of new infrastructure such as 5G, big data and the Internet of Things in China over the past few years has also enabled the fair to embrace the internet, Bai said.

The fair will provide around-the-clock services including online exhibitions, promotion, business docking and negotiations, according to Li Jinqi, director general of the China Foreign Trade Center.

Staff members with Tencent prepare for the 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, June 12, 2020. (Photo by Li Xiangbo/Xinhua)

As the fair's technical service provider, tech giant Tencent adopted technical means including instant communication, online conferences and livestreaming to overcome barriers of time and space for participants.

"The online Canton Fair shows the comprehensive use of digital technology emerging in recent years," the firm's project leader Dong Kai said.

Xie Wei'en, chief operating officer of Guangzhou-based Light Magic Co., Ltd., has been leading a technical team to tailor online booths for a number of participating companies.

"The fair seems like a 'cloud experiment' with the participation of the whole society and the whole world. Its experience and shortcomings will become a new direction for us to promote new infrastructure," Xie said.

Exhibitors are also seizing the opportunity to accelerate their digital transformation.

Shen Zhen Mondial Technology Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of massagers, moved the livestreaming studio to its workshops to exhibit production lines 24 hours a day for buyers worldwide.

"This is an irresistible trend. We'll focus more on online sales in the future," said Chen Zixin, sales director of the company.

Participants rehearse for a livestreaming before the 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, June 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Hu Nayun)

Midea Group, a leading Chinese home appliance manufacturer, started to change its business model and promoted digital transformation four years ago.

Fang Hongbo, chairman of Midea Group, said comprehensive digitization and intelligence have become the strategic focus of the company.

"We will also explore new possibilities for China's intelligent manufacturing to go international through digitalization," Fang said.

Staff members with Midea Group prepare for the 127th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, June 10, 2020. (Xinhua)

"The 10-day fair is not only crucial for China's foreign trade, but also a rare technological experience and business exploration for the world," said Zhang Jiong, vice president of the Guangdong Cross-border E-commerce Industry Association.

(Chen Weiwei and Li Laifang also contributed to the story; video reporters: Huo Siying and Hu Nayun; video editor: Yang Zhixiang)
Ryan, a leading global tax services and software provider, announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Meridian Global Services to enhance its ability to deliver global value-added tax (VAT) determination solutions in SAP. The partnership will support Ryan's tax technology implementations for European Union businesses with a tax solution that provides fully compliant and automated tax processes in their SAP ECC 6.0 or S/4HANA systems.

Ryan can now utilise the Meridian VAT add-on for SAP, built into native SAP with no external software to interface, for new SAP implementations or within existing SAP landscapes. This VAT add-on is the only certified, native SAP tax solution for achieving automated tax determination and improving reporting, analytics, and control functionality. This partnership gives Ryan clients access to an expanded portfolio of technology to meet their evolving tax compliance needs.

"Meridian Global Services' VAT add-on for SAP is a perfect complement to Ryan's implementation services," said Jun Miyake, Ryan Tax Technology Principal. "As a result, Ryan will minimise tax compliance risk resulting from systemic weaknesses and manual workaround procedures, improving processes and efficiencies while reducing SAP system maintenance costs for clients with complex VAT flows."

"Ryan has a proven reputation in providing innovative tax technology services," said Adam Smith, Commercial Director Managed Services of Meridian Global Services. "Their expertise combined with Meridian's VAT add-on for SAP will eliminate the complexity involved in managing VAT determination within SAP."

"This partnership supports our European strategy of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our clients' people, processes, and systems by transforming their tax function into a best practices environment," said Jon C. Sweet, Ryan President of European and Asia-Pacific Operations. "Meridian Global Services and its VAT add-on for SAP perfectly fit this strategy, and we look forward to partnering together to add value and results for our mutual clients."

About Meridian Global Services

Meridian Global Services has provided international tax technology and VAT solutions to global businesses for more than 30 years. The company guides clients through the complexity of a global indirect tax compliance environment and helps them overcome indirect tax complexities at both the organisational and transactional level. Meridian is recognised as a market leader, and its tax technology solution is used by many of the world's largest companies. The Meridian SAP VAT add-on is certified by SAP for all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) versions up to and including S/4 Hana 1909. Meridian is an SAP Silver partner, and the VAT add-on is available via the SAP App Centre.

About Ryan

Ryan, an award-winning global tax services and software provider, is the largest Firm in the world dedicated exclusively to business taxes. The Firm provides an integrated suite of international tax services on a multijurisdictional basis, including tax recovery, consulting, advocacy, compliance, and technology services. Ryan is an eight-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognised as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multidisciplinary team of more than 2,800 professionals and associates serves over 16,000 clients in more than 50 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com/europe. "Ryan" and "Firm" refer to the global organisational network and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ryan International, each of which is a separate legal entity.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200614005010/en/

Contacts:

Tom Gray

Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Ryan

1.972.934.0022

tom.gray@ryan.com
CHATSWORTH, Calif.Adult industry mental health nonprofit Pineapple Support is taking Pride Month seriously and in June will host an LGBTQ+ support group and webinar as part of the celebration. Both are free for workers in the adult industry.

The two programs will cover the following topics.

Queering Sex Work: Navigating the Industry Within the LGBTQ+ Community:

This six-week support group for LGBTQ+ industry professionals will explore and discuss the role of a sex worker within a sexual identity. Beginning on Wednesday, June 24, the support group will also discuss moving with societal changes like COVID-19 and maintaining self-care physically and financially, as well as in relationships. The support group will be co-hosted by Andrew Pari and Julie Schiffman, LGBTQ+ and trauma therapists with experience serving the adult industry.

Pride From Inside: Staying True to You and Those Around You:

This webinar will focus on the ways we can build and create connections through different avenues within the LGBTQ+ community while addressing relational challenges and safety issues, whether online or in person. The hour-long webinar will be hosted by Samantha Willis, Julia Schiffman and Hayley Krenzke on Wednesday, June 17, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Human connection is foundational in our relationships, both in how we engage at work and in other parts of our lives, noted Leya Tanit, former British performer and founder of Pineapple Support. It becomes even more important with how we maintain pride in who we are and how we move with others. As part of Pride Month, we want to make sure the LGBTQ+ performers and industry professionals are supported."

Pineapple Support was founded by Tanit in early 2018, in response to losses in the adult industry from depression, addiction and other mental illnesses. The organization, which is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit in the United States and a registered charity in the UK, has so far connected more than one thousand adult performers to mental health services, including free and low-cost therapy, counseling and emotional support.

The six-week support group, "Queering Sex Work", will begin on Wednesday, June 24, from Noon-1 p.m. ET/9-10 a.m. PT. For more information and to sign up for the Queering Sex Work support group, click here.

The "Pride From Inside" webinar will take place on Wednesday, June 17, beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, and is scheduled to last one hour but may extend. For more information and to sign up for the "Pride From Inside" webinar, click here.
Vijay Rupani becomes 4th BJP chief minister to quit top post in 6 months

Rupanis soft-spoken image may have been his undoing, say observers

Vijay Rupani resigns: BJP legislature party likely to meet on Sunday to choose new CM

Bhupendra Patel to replace Vijay Rupani as chief minister of Gujarat

No plan to impose lockdown in Gujarat: Vijay Rupani

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, June 15: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani on Monday said that there are no plans to impose a lockdown in the state, even as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 23,544.

The coronavirus case count in Gujarat grew to 23,590 on Sunday after 511 new patients were found in the state, the state health department said.

As the virus claimed 29 more lives across the state, the death toll due to the pandemic reached 1,478, it said.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

There are 5,779 active cases in the state, of which 66 patients are in a critical condition, the department said.

The state has so far conducted tests on 2,88,565 samples, it added.

Gujarat's COVID-19 figures are as follows: Positive cases: 23,590, new cases: 511, deaths: 1,478, discharged: 16,333, active cases: 5,779 and people tested so far: 2,88,565.
RTHK: Pompeo 'prepares for Hawaii meeting'

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is planning to meet a Chinese delegation at a US military base in Hawaii this week to discuss bilateral ties that have soured deeply since the start of the year, sources familiar with the matter said.

In addition to their intensifying strategic rivalry, the world's top two economies have been at loggerheads in recent months over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic and China's move to impose new security legislation on Hong Kong.

Experts say relations have reached their lowest point in years, and in mid-May President Donald Trump even went so far as to suggest he could cut ties with Beijing.

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post newspaper cited an unidentified source as saying that Yang Jiechi, a state councilor and member of the Communist Party's powerful politburo, will represent the Chinese side for the meeting with Pompeo.

The meeting is expected to take place at Hawaii's Hickam Air Force base, said a diplomatic source, who did not want to be identified. Another source said Pompeo was expected to leave Washington on Tuesday for Hawaii, where the meeting would take place on Wednesday.

It would be Pompeo's first known contact with Yang since they spoke by telephone on April 15 to discuss the coronavirus.

The sources said the likely agenda included coronavirus response, arms control, trade, Hong Kong, North Korea and tit-for-tat moves against journalists.

The State Department and White House did not respond to requests for comment about the trip, first reported by Politico on Friday.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian declined to confirm the reports at a regular briefing on Monday, but said: "China and the US have maintained communication through diplomatic channels. If there is any further information, it will be released in a timely manner."

Pompeo has been forceful in his criticism of Beijing's handling of the coronavirus, which originated in China. He has said China could have prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths by being more transparent and accused it of refusing to share information.

Trump has initiated a process of eliminating special US treatment for Hong Kong to punish China for curbing freedoms there, but has stopped short of immediately ending privileges that have helped the territory remain a global financial centre. (Reuters)

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
More than two dozen wildfires are burning in the West from Montana to western Texas.

Some of the bigger one include the Bighorn Fire near Tucson, Arizona which covers 13,200 acres and 22% contained with evacuations in place.

Another fire in northern Arizona called the Mangum Fire is 24,000 acres and only 2% contained with no evacuations yet.

In Santa Barbara County, the Drum Fire is 600 acres and only 10% contained with some evacuations yesterday which have now been lifted.

Coastal California will see a break from hot and dry conditions as the marine layer sets in on Santa Barbara County.

Inland areas of the West, however, are a different story. Very dry conditions with gusty winds near 40 mph are expected from eastern California to Kansas today.

There are also nine western states that are in Red Flag Warnings this morning.

PHOTO: There are nine western states that are in Red Flag Warnings this morning. (ABC News)

In the East it is quite the opposite with very humid weather expected and lots of rain in the forecast.

A stationary front and a low pressure with it has been nearly stationary in the Southeast bringing lots of rain to the area.

The highest rainfall totals have been south of Charleston, South Carolina, where 4 to 5 inches of rain fell over the weekend.

In the Tampa Bay area, some places got up to 3 inches of rain in a matter of hours and that caused flooding overnight.

Over the next 48 to 72 hours, this coastal low pressure will begin to move north into North Carolina and eventually into Virginia by the middle and end of the week.

PHOTO: Over the next 48 to 72 hours, this coastal low pressure will begin to move north into North Carolina and eventually into Virginia by the middle and end of the week. (ABC News)

Rounds of heavy rain are expected in the Carolinas this week and into Virginia and the southern Mid-Atlantic with Flash flooding expected.

Copious amounts of rain is also forecast for the Carolinas and into southern Virginia this week.

Locally, some areas could see more than a half a foot of rain through Wednesday where Flash flooding is forecast.

PHOTO: Copious amounts of rain is also forecast for the Carolinas and into southern Virginia this week. Locally, some areas could see more than a half a foot of rain through Wednesday where Flash flooding is forecast. (ABC News)

Wildfire danger in the West, flooding rain in the East originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Sydney, Australia  Mon, June 15, 2020 11:30 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec05f0 2 World China-Australia,bilateral-spat,bilateral-relation,tension Free

An Australian man has been sentenced to death in China, authorities said on Saturday, a development that could further escalate tensions between the two countries.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to the man, without identifying him.

Australian and Chinese media have identified the man as Cam Gillespie, arrested seven years ago on charges of drug trafficking in southern China.

China's foreign ministry said on Sunday capital punishment was suitable for drug crimes that cause serious harm.

"China law stipulates that the law must be equally applied to everyone who commits a crime. China judicial institutions handle the cases of criminals of all nationalities according to the law," said the ministry in a faxed reply to Reuters.

Attempts to reach Gillespie's family were unsuccessful.

"We are deeply saddened to hear of the verdict made in his case," the Australian foreign affairs department said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

"Australia opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances for all people. We support the universal abolition of the death penalty and are committed to pursuing this goal through all the avenues available to us."

Cam Gillespie was arrested in 2013 with more than 7.5 kg (17 pounds) of methamphetamine in his check-in luggage while attempting to board an international flight from Baiyun Airport in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, according to several media reports.

Diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Canberra have worsened since Australia called for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the new coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

China has in recent weeks banned Australian beef imports and imposed tariffs on Australian barley. It has also urged Chinese tourists to avoid Australia.

The death sentence for drug smuggling is not uncommon in China, where executions are usually carried out by firing squad.

Last year, the country sentenced two Canadians to death for drug-related crimes following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou and said it was not worried in the slightest by mounting international concern over the verdict.
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When Leonid Shlykovs father, Sergei, died in Moscow hospital in May after 11 days on a ventilator, his death certificate listed coronavirus as an underlying condition but not official cause of death, according to AP.

Yes, he was suffering from impaired kidney function and diabetes, but if it hadnt been for COVID-19, he wouldve been alive, Leonid wrote on Facebook.

If we had known the real number of infections and deaths  it would have helped us make the decision to hospitalize (dad) earlier.

The way Russia counts fatalities during the coronavirus pandemic could be one reason why its official death toll of 6,829 is far below many other countries, even as it has reported 520,000 infections, behind only the United States and Brazil.

The paradox also has led to allegations by critics and Western media that Russian authorities might have falsified the numbers for political purposes to play down the scale of the outbreak. Even a top World Health Organization official said the low number of deaths in Russia certainly is unusual.

Russian authorities have bristled at the suggestions.

We have never manipulated the official statistics, said Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova.

Finding the true numbers during the pandemic is difficult, since countries count cases and deaths in different ways and testing for the virus is uneven.

AP

Still, several factors could contribute to Russias low virus mortality rate, including the way it counts deaths, a tendency among some officials to embellish statistics, its vast geography and the shorter life expectancy of its population.

An autopsy is mandatory in Russia in every confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19, with a determination on the cause of death made by a commission of specialists, said Dr. Natalia Belitchenko, a pathologist in the medical examiners office in the region around St. Petersburg.

She deals with coronavirus deaths almost daily, but said only about 20% of them have been attributed to COVID-19. In other cases, the virus was determined to be an underlying condition.

In the vast majority of cases, the pneumonia itself wouldnt have led to death, had the underlying conditions not flared up to a point of becoming fatal, she told The Associated Press.

Unlike Russia, some countries official death count includes those who had COVID-19 but died from other causes, said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program.

It will be important that the Russian authorities review the way in which death certification is done to reassure themselves that they are accurately certifying deaths in the appropriate way, he said.

Death counts vary around the world because countries underreported the number of COVID-19 deaths early on, said Ali Mokdad, professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. They ascribed virus deaths to other causes due to insufficient testing or initially only counted deaths in hospitals, he added.

AP

Some countries also are overcounting by including presumptive deaths  those who likely died of COVID-19 but were never tested for it, Mokdad said.

What sets Russia apart, however, is a habit of obscuring embarrassing truths," said Judy Twigg, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The way mortality data is recorded in Russia is affected by a Soviet-era tradition of setting future targets for improving public health through efforts to reduce mortality from certain reasons, such as alcoholism or tuberculosis.

Health officials shift the way they code causes of death in order to try to meet those targets, Twigg said.

Pathologists told AP there is pressure from hospital administrators to produce better-looking reports.

Requests and instructions to obscure certain causes of death in postmortems are an inevitable part of our job, said a pathologist in Siberia who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.

Data analysts say inconsistencies in Russias virus statistics suggest manipulation, such as regions reporting similar numbers of new cases for several days in a row, or the number of deaths in regional reports differing from those in federal reports.

I dont trust official statistics, and I believe I have reasons not to, Boris Ovchinnikov, director of the Moscow-based Data Insight research agency, told the AP. But we dont have any good alternative indicators for assessing the real situation.

The governor of the Lipetsk region in southwestern Russia was recorded telling subordinates last month that numbers need to be changed, otherwise our region will be judged poorly.

In the Altai region in southern Siberia, a task force posted a daily infection update containing the words for approval addressed to the provincial governor. It quickly erased the words after it was reported on social media.

AP

Unusual spikes in pneumonia deaths indicate possibility more virus deaths than officially reported by mid-May: St. Petersburg reported 694 pneumonia deaths, with 63 from coronavirus; the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan reported 657 pneumonia deaths and 29 from coronavirus.

Without doubt, there have been manipulations with statistics on the regional level, said Gleb Pavlovsky, an independent analyst and former Kremlin political consultant, adding that it seems they did it on their own initiative.

At the same time, he noted that a decrease in cases was a key factor for holding two big events on the Kremlin agenda that were postponed by the virus: a massive Red Square parade for the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II and a vote on constitutional amendments that could extend President Vladimir Putins rule until 2036.

Citing a slowdown in infections, Putin ordered the parade for June 24 and the vote for July 1. Most regions, including Moscow, also recently lifted tight lockdowns imposed in March even though daily numbers of new infections have remained high, hovering around 9,000.

In a bid to dispel claims of underreporting mortality, the government released updated statistics for April showing patients who died of other causes while testing positive for the virus, as well as those who tested negative but likely died of it.

If those were counted as coronavirus deaths, mortality would have been 60% higher than announced. Authorities insist they shouldnt be included in the official toll, but even if all extra deaths recently reported by federal and Moscow officials were added, it would still be under 11,000.

Russian officials credit early quarantine measures and quick expansion of hospital capacity that prevented the health care system from being overwhelmed. They also cite more than 14 million tests that helped spot asymptomatic cases that account for more than 40% of all recent infections in the country of 146.7 million.

Officials noted that infections in Russia peaked later than in Europe, and deaths are now climbing more quickly.

Experts say Russias statistical gaps may result from its outdated system of collecting mortality data: In many regions, a death certificate must be delivered by a relative to a local civil registry office. Many of those offices were closed or had limited hours due to coronavirus lockdowns.

So what were seeing now is insufficient data in many regions, said Alexei Raksha, an independent demographer.

He said data from civil registries he studied showed that some regions reported fewer deaths in April than in previous years. Deaths were five times lower in the southern republic of Ingushetia, while in Krasnodar, they fell by about 1,500 from the monthly average, a record low.

Some people just bury their relatives without going to the civil registration office, Raksha said.

Researchers expect most of these gaps to be filled in next year, when the Russian State Statistics Service issues its annual report.

Raksha said Russias few virus deaths could also be due to less-frequent travel across the vast country, its low population density and lower social mobility. He said because the country has a much lower life expectancy than the West, it has fewer elderly targets for the virus.


January 01, 2022, Saturday

Keeping the best interests of all the involved parties in mind, we are forced to postpone our film, said a tweet from official ...
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Incredible photographs have captured forty rival tribes battling to outdo each other's terrifying appearance at a festival in Papua New Guinea.

The images show the Chimbu tribesmen covered in black and white skeleton paint ready to strike fear into the opposing tribes.

Other photos depict the peculiar fashions of the Asaro tribe, also known as Mudmen, who dress up in mud and wear mud masks.

The fascinating images were taken by travel photographer, Trevor Cole who lives in Donegal, Ireland, when he visited the Paiya village. The tribes were at a festival called Sing Sing, where they danced and sang together.

Incredible images capture the Chimbu tribesmen covered in black and white skeleton paint ready to strike fear into the opposing tribes

Other photos depict the peculiar fashions of the Asaro tribe, also known as Mudmen, who dress up in mud and wear mud masks

The Chimbu (skeleton) tribe (left and right) have this tradition of painting themselves this way as a mode of psychological intimidation

'Mudmen and Skeleton men allowed us to photograph them whilst they adorned themselves with their traditional 'festival' attire,' Trevor said.

'The clay covered mud men with their ceramic heads and the stark black and white paint of the skeleton men.

'We watched the distinctive groups of Papuan tribes ready themselves with extraordinary feathers, woven loin cloths and hornbill beaks.

'They took it in turns to perform at the Sing Sing and photo opportunities abounded. We went early to watch some of the groups prepare themselves for the Sing Sing.

The fascinating images were taken by travel photographer, Trevor Cole who lives in Donegal, Ireland, when he visited the Paiya village

The tribes were at a festival called Sing Sing, where they danced and sang together. Pictured are a group of women playing instruments

'Mudmen and Skeleton (pictured) men allowed us to photograph them whilst they adorned themselves with their traditional 'festival' attire,' the photographer said

Left: one man at the festival had unusual markings on his back. Right: the masks have unusual designs like long or short ears going down to the chin of the masks or sticking up at the top, long joined eyebrows attached to the top of the ears, horns and mouth

One Wabag tribeswoman wore deep black eye makeup, a headdress, beads and foliage around her face for the famous festival event

'Watching them dress, apply body and facial paint, add feathers, animal skins, body oils and much more, was entrancing.

'The Mt Hagen Highland Show event itself is huge; over forty tribes parade, sing and dance in front of visitors. Tourism is small in Papua New Guinea, but it has immense value in keeping cultural traditions alive.

'The people are very amicable and welcoming. Possibly the easiest place I have been to take photos. They love to talk and relish attention.'

The Chimbu (skeleton) tribe have a tradition of painting themselves this way as a mode of psychological intimidation.

The Mudmen, also known as the Holosa, live nearby the village of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Legend has it that they were defeated by an enemy tribe and were forced to flee into the Asaro River.

'The people are very amicable and welcoming. Possibly the easiest place I have been to take photos. They love to talk and relish attention,' the photographer said. Pictured: a Papua New Guinea tribesman donning a hat

One Wigman tribesman donned a huge hat for the event. In the parade ground they sing, dance and drum; each tribal clan doing what they love

An intense shot of another Papua New Guinea tribesman with a cigarette in his mouth. The different tribes try to create the scariest costumes

Papuan tribesmen dancing at the Sing Sing festival. The fascinating images were taken by travel photographer, Trevor Cole who lives in Donegal, Ireland, when he visited the Paiya village

The Mudmen, also known as the Holosa, live nearby the village of Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Legend has it that they were defeated by an enemy tribe and were forced to flee into the Asaro River

A close-up profile shot of a Papua New Guinea tribesman. The different tribes try to outdo each other's terrifying appearance at the event

One of the Mudmen lifted his huge and heavy mask off at one point for a photograph. The Mudmen also have long talons attached to their hands

They waited until dusk before they tried to escape, and the enemy tribe saw them rising from the banks covered in mud and thought that they were spirits. Most of the tribes in Papua New Guinea are scared of spirits, so the enemy fled in fear, which helped the Asaro escape.

The masks have unusual designs like long or short ears going down to the chin of the masks or sticking up at the top, long joined eyebrows attached to the top of the ears, horns and mouth.

'Photography has to capture moments where there is interaction,' Trevor said.

'I want to know my subjects and the photograph to portray an emotion which suggests that it was a meaningful capture.

'On the second day of the show, this was a morning event and again we had the good fortune to see them preparing and adorning themselves.

'I don't think I have ever experienced people who are so willing to have their photographs taken. They are so amenable and easy to interact with, hopefully the images taken will reflect these characteristics.

'In the parade ground they sing, dance and drum; each tribal clan doing what they love. I walked freely from group to group relishing the opportunity to see one of the best tribal shows on earth.'
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The richly decorated 95-metre high cathedral, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, was built outside Moscow in less than two years.

Russia inaugurated on Sunday a huge new cathedral dedicated to its armed forces that had caused controversy over initial plans to decorate its interior with mosaics depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Soviet-era leader Joseph Stalin.

Russian Orthodox Church officials said last month neither would be depicted in the cathedral, Reuters said.

The richly decorated 95-metre high cathedral, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, was built in less than two years in a theme park about 55 kilometres (34 miles) from Moscow.

The cathedral had been scheduled to open its doors in May when Russia was also planning to hold a military parade, but both events were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At a ceremony attended by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and military and church officials, Patriarch Kirill, head of Russia's Orthodox Church, thanked Putin and Shoigu for helping to get the cathedral built.

During his two decades in power, Putin has forged close ties with the Orthodox Church.

Originally, the new cathedral was meant to include a mosaic of Putin and Shoigu demonstrating their support for Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Read alsoRFE/RL: Crimean court jails Jehovah's Witness for six years for 'extremist' activity

Another mosaic panel would have shown a group of women gathered in front of a sign reading "Crimea is ours."

The Church dropped the planned mosaics. The Kremlin said Putin felt it was too early to celebrate the accomplishments of Russia's current leadership.

Russian media also reported that one of the cathedral's mosaic panels was originally designed to show a portrait of Stalin, who is widely held responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, many in the Gulag labour camps.

The Orthodox Church and other religious groups suffered persecution during Stalin's three-decade rule in the atheistic Soviet Union.
Donald Trumps niece will reveal in a new book - set to be published just before the Republican National Convention - that she leaked tax returns showing his involvement in fraudulent schemes to the New York Times.

Mary Trumps new book reportedly sheds light on her involvement in the newspapers explosive 2018 investigation, which showed how the president used tax dodges and loopholes to reap at least $413m from his fathers business empire  in part by opening a sham corporation with his siblings to disguise the funds as gifts.

The book, titled Too Much and Never Enough, will also detail how the president and his father allegedly contributed to the death of his older brother, Fred Trump Jr, according to the Daily Beast. Fred Trump Jr was Mary Trumps father, and the once-heir apparent to the Trump empire.

Mr Trump told the Washington Post last year he regret having put pressure on his older brother to be a part of the family business, adding: That would be the biggest mistake  There was sort of a double pressure put on him.

The presidents older brother died in 1981 at the age of 42 from a heart attack. He suffered from alcoholism, and eventually left the family business to work at an airline.

The administration has routinely condemned revealing publications penned by those who either worked in or had access to the White House under Mr Trump. But with Too Much and Never Enough set to be published on 11 August, the book will become the first critical account of the presidents life and dealings published by a member of his own family.

Mary Trump sued the president and his siblings back in 2000 after they cut off medical coverage to her sick nephew, who was born 18 months earlier with a rare neurological disorder. The Trumps were engaged in a contentious battle over their estate at the time following the death of Fred Trump Sr.

In a rare interview she conducted at the time, Ms Trump said the president and siblings should have been ashamed of themselves for cutting off access to the medical coverage the patriarch of the family had provided in his will, adding: Im sure they are not.

The Daily Beast, which first reported on the books upcoming publication, also said it would feature conversation with the presidents sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired federal judge who has remained out of the public eye throughout Mr Trumps tenure in the Oval Office.

Ms Trumps new book will be published just weeks before the Republican National Convention, a critical moment for the presidents re-election as he appears to be in a challenging race against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democrat nominee.
Australia is threatening tougher laws against 'disrespectful' statue vandalism after two monuments to Captain James Cook were defaced by anti-racism protesters in Sydney.

Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales, called the vandalism 'un-Australian' and said 'the vast majority of us don't condone it' as she signalled she could press for harsher punishments.

'I wish it didn't come to this and I want to stress that it's only a very, very small percentage of the population that's engaging in this activity,' she said.

Cook and his men were the first Europeans to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770, opening the door to colonisation and a collapse in the indigenous population caused by massacres, disease and forced removal from their land.

A worker paints over graffiti on a Captain Cook statue in Sydney today after the second such act of vandalism amid recent anti-racism protests

This Cook statue in Sydney's Hyde Park was also vandalised, leading to two people being charged in Australia

Two women were charged with defacing a statue with spray paint in Sydney's Hyde Park over Saturday night.

Another statue was discovered spray painted in the eastern suburb of Randwick on Sunday morning in an unrelated protest, police said.

The worldwide anti-racism protests following the death of George Floyd in the US have led to the toppling of controversial statues around the world.

Australian PM Scott Morrison last week apologised for words he previously used to reject calls for his Sydney electoral district of Cook to be renamed.

Morrison apologised for saying Australia had been colonised with 'no slavery', after critics pointed out that tens of thousands of South Pacific islanders had been forced to labour on Australian sugar cane plantations in the 19th century.

In addition, indigenous Australian people were forced to work for wages that were never paid.

Morrison had said: 'Australia when it was founded as a settlement as New South Wales was on the basis that there would be no slavery. Yeah, sure it was a pretty brutal settlement... but there was no slavery in Australia.

'And so I think what we are seeing with some of these protests, they start on a fair point when they are raising issues about people's treatment in custody or things like that, fair issue, but now it's been taken over by other much more politically-driven, left-wing agendas which are seeking to take advantage of these opportunities to push their political causes.'

Captain James Cook (pictured) and his men were the first Europeans to reach the east coast of Australia in 1770, opening the door to colonisation and a collapse in the indigenous population caused by massacres, disease and forced removal from their land

The two suspects in the Hyde Park protest included 28-year-old Xiaoran Shi, a part-time employee of the minor Greens party.

Greens state lawmaker David Shoebridge, for whom Shi works, said he was aware of the allegations.

'They were not engaged in employment at the time of the incident which occurred well outside of work hours,' Shoebridge said in a statement.

Shi and her alleged accomplice, 27-year-old Charmaine Morrison-Mills, were released on bail yesterday.

The Topple the Racists website describes Cook, who charted the east coast of Australia 250 years ago, as 'a colonialist who murdered Maori people in their homeland'.

In Britain, Middlesbrough mayor Andy Preston said it would be a 'travesty' if statues of Cook were removed from display in places such as Great Ayton and Whitby.

Preston called on local politicians to say they would 'not support the whitewashing of Cook's name from the history books', arguing he was a 'hero'.

A statue of slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down in Bristol earlier this month while a Winston Churchill statue in London has been boarded up to protect it from similar public anger.

Belgium has removed a statue of King Leopold II, whose brutal colonial rule led to countless deaths in the Congo, while statues of Christopher Columbus have come under attack in the US.
In a letter, the cardinal calls on the faithful to seize the opportunity despite the tragic period. The coronavirus has changed the way people meet, whilst strengthening relations. We need "a new language" from the clergy to answer people's questions. Many religious and lay people and "different charisms" stand as examples.

Baghdad (AsiaNews)  Life "after the coronavirus" must resume "with more humanity and vigour" and faith must become "more mature and deeper, writes the Chaldean patriarch, Card Louis Raphael Sako, in a letter to the faithful.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers a chance for spiritual and moral growth so that there is no need to return "to the previous situation. Instead people should use this tragic time of lockdown, distancing and disrupted social life to rediscover a more authentic faith.

The world will not go back to what it was, the cardinal stresses in his message. Home isolation has changed our life, our vision, our projects, our relationships. This has "affected all of humanity and all religions. It has forced the closure of churches for Holy Week and Easter, as well as the probable cancellation by Saudi Arabia of pilgrimages "because of the coronavirus".

On the one hand, the pandemic has upturned how people meet each other by forcing world leaders to hold meetings via teleconferencing since they cannot travel. The Eastern Churches will do the same "if the situation persists, with a synod via streaming.

On the other, the health emergency has created a positive situation of human solidarity and strengthened relations. This is what we see in the dedication of doctors, priests, volunteers and support staff, who have put their lives in danger to provide needed things and treat people.

For the Chaldean primate people "have become more thoughtful, inclined to introspection; they are more critical and want reforms. They no longer accept that religion be imposed on them by law or pressure. Instead, they want it to come from inner persuasion and personal choice.

This change requires "a new language on the part of the clergy, one that can inspire wonder in the faithful who can thus "welcome the good news and desire to experience it, boosting the attractiveness of the Church and trust in her.

Priests, Card Sako notes, are not "supervisors nor employees, but fathers and shepherds" in contact with the faithful whose needs they know. Renewal must not be done [. . .] by playing on words on important topics, but by tackling them with great precision and clarity.

Speaking of those who claim that the COVID-19 pandemic is Gods punishment, the cardinal says that Such an idea goes against the central values of Christ's message, which emphasises that God is love, full of mercy and goodness.

For him, the pandemic is "an opportunity" to "get closer" and the strength of the Church lies in her ability to meet the challenges with courage and clarity rather than rely on "tradition" as if it were an absolute dogma.

We Christians, he goes on to say, must read the Beatitudes more deeply, not cursorily. The Beatitudes are a spiritual and living Magna Carta to overcome injustice, discrimination, pain, and bring about hoped-for change.

The Apostle Paul mentioned different charisms, writes Card Sako. There are "wonderful lay people who can take on great responsibilities in the Church, cooperating in her progress.

We have people like Chiara Lubich and Kiko Arguello, as well as prominent religious such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

In our East, we have Brother Nour, founder of the Faith and Light movement and NourSat, and Melhem Khalaf, founder of the Joy of Gift community.

In Iraq there is Imad Hasib, founder of the Love and Joy community; the late Alhan Nahhab, founder of Bethany; and two sisters, Khalida and Shmirayta of the House of Hope.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 17:40:23|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's National Press and Publication Administration has released a document, requiring strengthened regulation of online literature publishing.

Online literature publishers should support high-quality, innovative works and resist literary output with duplicated and homogeneous contents, said the administration in the document.

The administration stressed strictly regulating online literature publishing, and ordering a real-name registration system for literature writers. Enditem
South Korea Says Seoul, Pyongyang Should Honour Agreements

Sputnik News

03:17 GMT 14.06.2020

Tensions have escalated between the two countries recently, as the DPRK decided to cut all communication lines with its southern neighbour, dismayed by the South's inability to stop a North Korean defectors' campaign of sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets.

Both Seoul and Pyongyang should try to honour agreements reached between the two countries, South Korea's Unification Ministry said on Sunday.

"The South and the North should try to honour all inter-Korean agreements reached", the ministry said in a statement.

The DPRK, angered by Seoul's reluctance to stop a leafleting campaign by defectors in South Korea who have been sending balloons carrying pamphlets critical of Pyongyang across the border, has decided at a Central Committee meeting to start treating Seoul as an "enemy."

Pyongyang has also cut all communication lines, including military hotlines, with South Korea, saying it had nothing more to discuss with Seoul. On Monday, it left unanswered a regular liaison phone call from the South for the first time since the two Koreas established a joint liaison office after their historic summit in September 2018.

A Sputnik

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Srinagar, June 15 : A petition has been filed in the J&K High Court seeking a CBI probe into the killing of Ajay Pandita, the Kashmir Sarpanch, killed by terrorists in Anantnag on June 8.

The petition filed by a friend of Ajay Pandita says the "victim is a member of the minority Kashmiri Pandit community which has been persecuted in the Valley since 1989 till date. Even after 1989 and early 1990's, the Jammu and Kashmir police failed to act at that time and due to their inactiveness, no accused was prosecuted for the same." It says that Ajay Pandita in an interview to a local news channel on December 3, 2019 had said that he was not safe and had expressed threat to his life.

The petition mentions that Pandita's brother has claimed that he had asked for police security but the same was not provided to him by the UT administration.

"The applicant petitioner believes that if the investigation is done by the J&K police, then there is fair chance of botched up investigation and tempering with the evidence. There are strong grounds to believe that no trail and conviction has happened in any killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990's exodus. That the applicant petitioner prays that urgent CBI probe along with a judicial inquiry should be ordered by the High Court for securing justice to the victim's family and the Kashmiri Pandit community," the petition said.
In a previous article, I tried to confront the fact that Egypt is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, scientifically and technologically dependent.

We should design a strategy aimed at reversing this trend, and, more urgently, another one aiming at minimising the negative consequences of this state of affairs on our national security and well-being.

This starts with the following questions. Can we choose the country to which we are dependent? Can we avoid putting all our eggs in the same basket? Can we separate out different issues and different fields? Or would it be better to link certain issues to others? Can we exploit our economys size to gain leverage and improve conditions regarding the transfer of technology? Can we organise a competition between different bidders?

I will leave the answers to these questions to the experts, but in the meantime I have many things to say. In theory, of course, diversifying our options is a good idea.

In practice, it is not always possible, especially at present with the increasing competition between the great powers and the growing brutalisation of international relations. This is not only the fault of US President Donald Trump, as many other heads of states have contributed to it.

President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has tried to diversify Egypts options, especially after former US president Barack Obamas ill-considered moves, and he has achieved many notable successes.

Nevertheless, the West has remained our main partner since former president Anwar Al-Sadat switched sides in the 1970s and reversed our alliances.

We use US and European weapons and technology. We study in their universities. We cooperate with them on security issues. We speak their languages, read their newspapers, watch their films and look at their TV channels.

But is the West still a reliable partner? In fact, this question entails many different ones. It implies, first of all, that Western foreign policies, especially those of the Americans, lack consistency and are too easily reversed.

Second, it seems that we are witnessing a constant and perhaps irreversible decline in the West, especially in Europe.

Third, even if this downward spiral can be stopped, we still cannot be sure that China will not win the competition for world system leadership.

Western societies have also changed. In each, sharp polarisation opposes those who have benefited from globalisation and those who have suffered from it.

This polarisation has meant that in the United States it is now impossible to reach bi-partisan consensus on almost all the major issues. The consequences of this are all too clear: we can be considered to be a key ally for one administration and a liability for the next for no apparent reason.

Presidents Obama and Trump share some habits: they like mocking the Washington foreign-policy community, and they have tended to consider many of Americas traditional allies to be liabilities, not resources, too often allowing this to lead them to unilateralism. Of course, those who liked working with Obama now hate Trump and vice versa.

And the two presidents recipes have greatly differed even as their outcomes have not been brilliant, although it might be too early to tell.

I do not want to open old wounds here. Suffice it to say that our leaders have had some difficult times with the Western media and with US presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama over the past 24 years.

But the fact that our strategic and political alliance with Washington has survived those 24 years proves that our relationship and its mutual benefits are solid enough to withstand such storms.

Our relationship can withstand the antipathy that has sometimes existed between the leaders of our two countries.

Nevertheless, there are causes for concern. Washington has been increasingly prompt to use sanctions, even against its allies. Too often, it wants us to do things we simply cannot do. In general, it tends to consider all its allies to be free-riders.

It does not mind experimenting with things that obviously cannot work. Moreover, Egypt has many foes in Washington. Paradoxically, the fact that we are reliable means that few monitor what is happening in Egypt, as no unpleasant surprises are expected. This gives room to our enemies to spread false ideas about our role.

It is clear, however, that we need the relationship with the West. We need to address its critics, and we need to develop it without endangering our own sovereignty. We should propose our own ideas and initiatives. Above all, we should begin to ask whether we need a US with universalist and empire-like aspirations.

Should we prefer a power that uses offshore balancing? How should we deal with these two postures? We should be ready for some difficult times ahead, as many in the liberal camp want to punish us for not being as nice as they think they are.

The same thing goes for Europe, but with some caveats. First of all, Europe needs our help on migration, terrorism and trade. Like us, it does not like risky experiments, and it does not feel as safe as the US.

Geographically, it is more exposed, and financially its resources do not match those of the US. It cannot launch an invasion.

Strategically, Washington can claim it needs to be involved in the crises in the region. While I do not necessarily buy this, there is a case for such an argument. Europe cannot afford to ignore the Middle East either, and this fact has pros and cons. While it cannot toy with our future, it may be tempted by politics appeasing radical and aggressive fundamentalism.

In both cases, a lot will depend on a factor we cannot control: the future of the Wests relations with Turkey. The latters strategic importance is obvious, as it controls the gates to Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Central Asia. It has a powerful military, even if its abilities have sharply declined.

But it is also crystal clear that its leader is unreliable, perpetually changes alliances, and is prone to brutality. He has frequently manipulated and helped jihadists, and there is no sign that he will stop doing so. He is a master tactician, but his strategic thinking is cloudy. Above all, he has a propensity to interfere in the internal politics of any country that irritates the placid and patient Europeans.

Of course, many in Europe and the United States think they can develop close relations with both Egypt and Turkey. They think they do not need to pay attention to the Turkish leaders regional behaviour. But time will probably prove them wrong.

*The writer is a professor of international relations at the College de France and a visiting professor at Cairo University.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 5 September, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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New coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in record numbers swept through more U.S. states, including Florida and Texas, as most push ahead with reopening and President Donald Trump plans an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Alabama reported a record number of new cases for the fourth day in a row on Sunday. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina all had record numbers of new cases in the past three days, according to a Reuters tally.

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May. In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hot spots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 - the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks. Perhaps more troubling for health officials, many of these states are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69% to 77% of hospital beds are occupied, depending on the region. While Utah's governor announced last week that most counties there would pause their reopenings, most states are not considering a second shutdown as they face budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment. Many went ahead with reopenings before meeting government infection rate guidelines for doing so.

New York, the hardest hit state, has utilized health guidelines to instruct its reopening and continued to see all measures of infection drop - new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positive rates among those getting tested. However, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned New York City and Long Island officials on Sunday that their reopenings were at risk if they do not stop further large public gatherings that he said are threatening progress on curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

Cuomo said the state has received 25,000 complaints recently of violations of social distancing and other emergency requirements, mostly in Manhattan and the Hamptons, affluent beach communities on the east end of Long Island. "Yes, there is a very real possibility that we would roll back the reopening in those areas," he said at a briefing.

Fears that a second wave of infections is happening - or that states failed to curb their first wave - prompted health officials to plead with the public to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.Trump still plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March on Saturday in Tulsa, although those attending will have to agree not to hold the campaign responsible if they contract COVID-19.

About a third of the record new cases in the state came from Tulsa County, according to state data. The Tulsa Health Department on Friday said the outbreak was linked to indoor gatherings. Hospitalizations and the percent of tests coming back positive have been steady in the state.

"I have concerns about large groups of people gathering indoors for prolonged lengths of time. It is imperative that anyone who chooses to host or attend a gathering take the steps to stay safe," said Bruce Dart, the department's executive director, in a statement that advised people at gatherings to wear masks. Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.

Also read: US Presidential Elections 2020: Donald Trump to resume rallies from Oklahoma
WESTPORT  The Planning and Zoning Commission has denied a developers sewer extension request on Hiawatha Lane.

The unanimous decision comes as a response to First Selectman Jim Marpes request for a resolution after the proposal came before the Water Pollution Control Authority.

Over 40 emails were received from Westport residents and or their elected representatives, many of whom are potential beneficiaries of the proposed sewer extension, recommending the commission reject the proposal to extend the sewer, Planning and Zoning Chair Danielle Dobin said during the June 11 meeting.

The commission found the 1,600-foot sewer extension proposed by Summit Saugatuck LLC did not comply with the towns 2017 plan of conservation and development and was not required to address any health or environmental needs.

The negative report is the latest roadblock in Summits highly contested plan to bring a 187-unit housing complex to Hiawatha Lane.

The Water Pollution Control Authority had denied the sewer line extension proposal in 2003 and again in 2016 because the main pipe, which runs underneath the Saugatuck River, and Pump Station 2 were both in need of repairs at the time.

A similar proposal was also rejected by the Planning and Zoning Commission in 2017, with a court appeal by Summit sustained in 2018, before eventually being reversed by the Appellate Court. The Connecticut Supreme Court is now reviewing the Appellate Courts decision.

When reached for comment on whats next for Summit Saugatuck LLC, Tim Hollister, Summits attorney, said, next is the Board of Selectmen hearing on the sewer extension.

The Board of Selectmens next scheduled regular meeting is on June 24.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com
Government's stimulus measures turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Kishore Biyani, the father of India's modern retailing. Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s loan moratorium and the suspension of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) have come at just the right time for Biyani's Future group companies, saving him from a major debt crisis.

According to industry sources, Future Group's financials are under severe stress. "Only a quick sale can save his empire from defaulting on loans," says a Mumbai-based investment banker. Biyani is struggling to complete the sale of a major portion of his retail assets. To avoid defaults he needs to do it before August, when EMI moratorium ends. If he does not sell the assets, he will not be able to make loan repayments with interest that run into hundreds of crores, say banking sources.

Fortunately for Biyani, since IBC is suspended for a year, even if he defaults, lenders will not be able to recommend the companies for insolvency. Instead, the loans will have to be be restructured. "The banks will not be able to take the loan defaulting companies for insolvency during this period. It will force the bankers to restructure the loans of Future group companies," said the banker.

The government, in mid-May, exempted all Covid-related debt from the definition of default under the IBC and suspended any fresh initiation of insolvency for up to a year.

According to rating agency ICRA, the debt of Future Group's six listed firms increased to Rs 12,778 crore as of September 2019 from Rs 11,463 crore in March 2019.

Biyani's debt issues surfaced from mid-February when shares of his listed firms started crumbling. It triggered rating downgrades and lenders sought more promoter shares as collateral for his loans against shares. UBS and IDBI Trusteeship tried to invoke the pledged shares, but Biyani secured the interim relief from the Bombay High Court. The Supreme Court later dismissed the Special Leave Petition (SPL) filed by the UBS AG London Branch challenging the Bombay High Court ruling.

The pandemic has disrupted the operations of Future group companies. The group was completely dependent on cash flow of companies to pay off debts. The flagship company Future Retail had posted a consolidated profit of Rs 165 crore in the third quarter of last financial year.

Though Biyani will evade insolvency, defaults will affect the ratings of his companies as well as future fund raising plans. Lenders have sounded out Indian retail majors, including Reliance Retail, and private equity investors like Blackstone, Samara Capital and Aion Capital, for the sale of stake in the Future group businesses. They are also in talks with Premji Invest, owned by billionaire Azim Premji, and Amazon.

Premji Invest already owns about 6 per cent stake in Future Retail, while Amazon holds about 3.2 per cent. Blackstone holds 6 per cent stake in Future Lifestyle Fashions and owns $167 million worth non-convertible debentures (NCDs).

Reliance is reportedly interested in lifestyle and fashion business of Biyani. Even though Reliance insiders say they prefer to build brands through organic ways, unless it's acquisition of overseas brands, they haven't really shut the door on Biyani.

Meanwhile, banking sources say that Biyani's retailing model has stopped delivering the returns it used to. "He tried to revive Big Bazaar, Central and other brands; exited many businesses; and tried e-commerce. But nothing has worked," a banker said. Since he has many friends in the investor community, he may scrape through, another person said.

Future Retail's board has approved raising up to Rs 650 crore by issuing NCDs to pare debt. Biyani has given the mandate to the investment bank Ambit to find buyers for Future Supply Chain.

Also read: SBI's liquidity ratio at 143%: Either nobody wants money or bank doesn't want to lend

Also read:Reliance Industries' rights issue share debuts at Rs 690
The Bombay high court has granted anticipatory bail to a staff of the income tax department accused of conspiring with others who posed as officials and robbed more than Rs15 lakh and 20 mobile phones from an angadia courier.

Angadia couriers primarily ferry diamonds, gold ornaments and cash belonging to traders from one place to another. They mostly operate between Mumbai and various cities in Gujarat.

The multi-task staffer of the income tax department was accused of conspiring with outsiders, who posed as income tax officers and carried out a fake raid on the angadia courier.

Justice Bharati Dangre granted pre-arrest bail to the staffer, Jyotish Kumar Sinha, on Friday primarily because the other accused in the case have been granted bail by a sessions court and a substantial part of the of the money that was stolen has been recovered.

Police in Lokmanya Tilak Marg registered a first information report (FIR) in connection with the offence and booked Sinha along with some others, including an income tax officer and an informant of the department identified as Premchand Jaiswal.

According to the FIR, at about 5.30pm on December 2, 2019, seven to eight people barged into the couriers office, claiming they were income tax officers. They asked the firms employees to sit in a corner and took away their mobile phones. The gang escaped with the office with more than Rs15 lakh and about 20 mobile phones.

Soon after the fake raid, employees of the firm realised the members of the raiding party were not income tax officers and that they had been robbed, and one of them filed a complaint with police.

Assistant public prosecutor Veera Shinde opposed Sinhas pre-arrest bail plea, pointing out that CCTV footage collected during the investigation showed that the multi-task staffer was present near the building and was seen conversing with the main accused, Premchand Jaiswal, who was arrested. She also said that call data records showed Sinha was in touch with Jaiswal and income tax officer Gautam Mehta, also an accused in the crime.

The argument, however, failed to impress the judge, who noted that the Fir referred to seven to eight people barging into the courier companys office and described four of them by referring to their clothes and their physical appearance. However, no identification parade, which was imperative, was admittedly done, said the judge.
A Sudanese militia leader denied charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Darfur conflict in his first appearance before the International Criminal Court on Monday.

Ali Kushayb was formally told of the more than 50 charges against him as he appeared by videolink from a detention centre in The Hague due to coronavirus measures.

Kushayb, 70, turned himself in earlier this month in the Central African Republic after 13 years on the run stemming from allegations relating to the devastating conflict in the western Sudanese region.

Yes I was informed of them (the charges) but this is untrue they made me come here and I hope that I will get justice, said Kushayb, wearing a light grey suit and tie, and speaking in Arabic through an interpreter.

Judge Rosario Salvatore Aitala pointed out that Mondays hearing was not a trial, only a formality to confirm the identity of Kushayb, who is also known as Ali Muhammad Abdelrahman, and the charges against him.

This is not the hearing for presenting your defence, you will have opportunities to do that. This is only the hearing for the judge to be satisfied that you have been informed of the charges, the judge told Kushayb.

A court official took nearly half an hour to read out the list of 53 charges including murdering civilians, destroying and burning villages, rape, pillage and forcible displacement.

The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003 when ethnic African rebels who complained of systematic discrimination took up arms against the government of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir.

The state hit back with violence by the mostly Arab Janjaweed militias, a campaign that saw the ICC accuse Bashir of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The United Nations says the conflict killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades, was deposed in April 2019 following months of protests in Sudan, and is also wanted by the ICC.

Kushayb fled to the Central African Republic in February when the new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICCs investigation.
CLAIM: A Facebook post purports that zoo animals in Chicago were freed to protest against the killing of George Floyd.

VERDICT: The photos of the zoo animals on the street are old photos of incidents occurring in different countries and have been on the Internet since at least, 2014. They have no relation whatsoever with the George Floyd protests in America. Furthermore, the Chicago zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo, has debunked the claim and has assured that there have been no break-ins and all their animals are fully accounted for as safe.

Full text

Over the last week, the streets of the United States of America witnessed several protests, more than the coronavirus lockdown protests in April 2020. For ten consecutive nights, people across the country took to the streets to demand for justice and protest against racism and police brutalities with the theme Black Lives Matter, following the killing of an African-American man, George Floyd, by four white Minneapolis officers on 25 May 2020.

Beside the mass protests on streets of many cities across the nation, social media has also been a tool for the Black Lives Matter activism. It has, undeniably, also been a source of updates for the on-going protests. One of such perceived updates is a Facebook post which claims that people in Chicago have broken into the zoo and freed animals to join the protests. The post is accompanied with seven photos of a hippopotamus, tiger, kangaroo, lion, zebra on the street and two monkeys with two men.

Since it was posted on 1st June, has been shared by 626 other Facebook users.

Verification

The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago has confirmed that none of its animals has escaped, and all were safe, consequently refuting the claim.

The Lincoln Park Zoo made this statement in a Twitter post on June 1, 2020.

All animals at Lincoln Park Zoo are accounted for and safe. There were no break-ins, thefts or incidents last night. Images circulating, claiming to be of Lincoln Park Zoo animals out of their habitats, are false the statement read.

Additionally, none of Chicagos state publications and mainstream media, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, has reported on claims of Chicago protests pertaining to breaking into a zoo to let animals out to join street protests. The protests in Chicago, have generally been reported as peaceful.

The Photos Explained

Dubawa ran a Google image search on all seven photos of the animals and found the following:

1. The photo of the hippopotamus

Two news articles in the UK and in Spain, posted four years ago, on 5 May 2016, indicate that the photo of the hippopotamus has no relation with the Floyd protests. The hippopotamus was reported to have escaped from a visiting circus in Palos de la Frontera, in Spain. It was found and taken back to the circus.

2. The photo of the tiger

According to three articles in the US, here, here and here, which were posted three years ago, on 6 and 7 September 2017, the photo of the tiger is also an incident of an escaped circus tiger, Suzy, who escaped from a truck and was seen in Atlanta. The tiger was eventually gunned down.

3. The photo of the wallaby

The photo of the wallaby is also a stock photo, according to three articles, here, here, and here, which were posted two years ago, on 16 January 2018. The wallaby was seen hopping over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in Australia. It was subsequently captured by the police and taken back to custody.

4. The photo of the lion

This lion has featured in other false claims, most recently, it was purported to have been set loose by Russian President, Vladimir Putin to ensure Russian abide by lockdown directives. An article posted on 15 April 2016, shows that the photo of the lion is of an incident that happened in Johannesburg, South Africa. The lion, Columbus, was part of a film and the film company released him without getting approval to close roads in the city.

5. The photo of the zebra

According to a post from five years ago, the photo of the zebra was associated with a Louisville Purge incident, a story started by a teenagers tweet announcing a free-for-all violent-purge in the city of Louisville in the US. This story was later confirmed to be a hoax, according to articles here, and here, both posted six years ago, on 16 August 2014. Since the story was identified to be false, it is certain the photos of the zebra have no association with the story either. The photo, however, has been on the Internet since at least August 2014 and is not associated with the George Floyd protests.

While Google Image searches show that Twitter posts similarly make claims of the photo of the man in Chicago purported to be selling a monkey for 10K, and the photo of a man purported to have stolen a monkey named Curious George, to be from the Chicago protests, however, searches on TinEye here and here, do not show any other original appearances of such photos.

Conclusion

The claim that people have freed animals in Chicago to protest is false. All the photos of the zoo animals on the street are old photos of incidents occurring in different countries and have been on the Internet since at least, 2014. They have no relation whatsoever with the George Floyd protests in any American city. Furthermore, the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago has debunked the claim and has assured that there have been no break-ins and that all their animals have been accounted for as safe and under safe protection in the zoo.

===================

This article was first published on DUBAWA-GHANA

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TORONTO - All regions of Ontario except for Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex will be in Stage 2 of the province's phased reopening plan as of Friday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford gives his daily briefing in Toronto on Monday, June 15, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO - All regions of Ontario except for Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex will be in Stage 2 of the province's phased reopening plan as of Friday.

Most areas of the province were allowed to enter the second stage last Friday, except for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, some regions that border the United States and those with COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers.

Premier Doug Ford announced Monday that the regions that can join them this Friday are Durham, Haldimand-Norfolk, Halton, Hamilton, Lambton, Niagara and York.

"For the regions still remaining in Stage 1  Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex  we ask you, please be patient because we can't let our guard down," Ford said.

"But the good news is the public health trends across the province are going in the right direction."

The government is expected to provide another assessment of those regions' progress next Monday.

Toronto Mayor John Tory said he recognized that some residents may be impatient to move on to the next phase of the city's economic recovery, but the province's decision makes sense in light of the current data.

"We continue to focus on protecting health and saving lives and making sure that we don't have to lift restrictions only to have to rush to impose them again weeks later if the virus flares up again," he said. "I am confident that we are making progress and ... Stage 2 will come soon."

Ontario reported 181 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with the majority in Toronto and Peel Region.

Toronto added 85 new cases, Peel added 41, and all other regions reported fewer than 10 each, including many with no new cases.

Windsor-Essex reported seven new cases Monday and 26 the day before. Health Minister Christine Elliott said the region is "very close" to being able to open up, but noted that a number of people in the community, including health professionals, cross the United States border for work.

The total of 181 is the lowest number of new daily cases since late March. It brings the province to a total of 32,370, including 2,527 deaths  eight more than the previous day  and 27,213 resolved cases.

The number of people in hospital with COVID-19 dropped from 438 to 419, and the number of people on ventilators decreased as well, while intensive care rates remained stable.

Ontario completed 21,751 tests in the previous day, with Health Minister Christine Elliott noting that the falling number of new cases coincides with increased rates of testing, keeping the positivity rate at "all-time lows."

The number of long-term care homes with active COVID-19 outbreaks rose by two since Sunday, to 69.

According to the Ministry of Long-Term Care, 32 homes that had previous outbreaks declared resolved have re-entered outbreak situations.

That includes Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ont., where nearly half of the residents died due to COVID-19. The facility had been outbreak-free since mid-May.

Nearly 1,800 long-term care residents in Ontario have died amid outbreaks, according to data from the Ministry of Long-Term Care.

In London, Ont., the local health unit announced Monday that someone who attended a Black Lives Matter rally in the city on June 6 has tested positive for COVID-19. The person was wearing a mask, and was not symptomatic at the protest, nor have they developed any symptoms since, the Middlesex-London Health Unit said.

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Meanwhile, the tourism and culture minister announced Monday that she will embark on a provincewide tour to promote local tourism. The province is investing $13 million to encourage Ontarians to explore their own backyards, Lisa MacLeod said.

"By focusing our support through local marketing campaigns and staycations, we'll be ready to welcome the world back to Ontario when it is safe to do so," she said.

MacLeod estimated the sector in Ontario has taken a $20-billion hit.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called MacLeod's tourism tour another mixed message coming out of the government, which has urged Ontarians to continue avoiding non-essential travel.

"The last thing you need then is to have someone deciding they're going to travel Ontario at a time when people are being urged to be thoughtful about where they're going," she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
Kabul, Jun 15 (UNI) Two separate attacks have taken place in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, leaving one person dead and two others injured, a police source told Tolo News on Monday.

The first attack took place in the Minare village of Kandahar's Arghandab district and targeted a local police commander. The commander and his son were injured in the attack.

In the second attack, which took place in the second district of Kandahar city, a doctor was killed.
Travel bans that started with Covid-19 epidemic, forced the integration of technology and innovation in real estate sector. Visiting the properties through virtual tours and making transactions online have become the new normal. Moreover, use of cryptocurrencies in property purchases has become widespread.

Bitcoin Halving Boosts Property Sales

After reaching its second peak at $ 13,700 in June 2019, Bitcoin had fallen to $ 4,980 in mid-March 2020. The 3rd Halving that all cryptocurrency enthusiasts are eagerly awaiting, took place on 11 May 2020. With halving, as an attempt to create a supply balance in the market, Bitcoin's production speed is slowed down, and it is expected to be valued further as an investment tool. In the first week after halving, the Bitcoin value rose again to $ 10,000.

Bayram Tekce, Chairman of Antalya Homes, the leading real estate company in Turkey, has commented on new developments in the sector. He stated that the property sales with Bitcoin have accelerated and added: "With the effect of the increase in Bitcoin value after halving, investors made capitalization sales that are reflected as an increase in property sales."

Bayram Tekce, drew attention to the innovation in real estate, known as PropTech (Property Technology) and referred to a recent house sale; "In the sale of a villa in Antalya, we recorded visuals of the house with a drone and did an online viewing tour with the customer. Then, we brought the buyer and the seller together on an online meeting and finalized the negotiations. Antalya Homes brokered the payments with Bitcoin. This sale, worth of 1 million 250 thousand dollars, was the highest valued property sales ever made by Bitcoin in Turkey"

Bayram Tekce stated that Bitcoin can be converted into a property, but few real estate companies are able to do this. He said, "The Covid-19 pandemic is changing the whole life and way of doing business. It is important to keep up with the changing dynamics. Having the innovation as a corporate value, we continue to be the pioneer in the field of PropTech."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1179608/Antalya_Homes_Bitcoin.jpg

SOURCE Antalya Homes Real Estate Inc.

Related Links

https://www.antalyahomes.com


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President Akufo-Addo on Sunday confirmed that Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, the Health Minister, has contracted the COVID-19 virus in his line of duty.

He calls on Ghanaians to remember the country's Health Minister in their prayers for a speedy recovery.

Let us also wish our hardworking Minister for Health, Honourable Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, Member of Parliament (MP) for Dormaa Central, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty, and is a stable condition, President Akufo-Addo said in his 11th broadcast to the nation to give an update on the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures.

The President also extended his condolence to the family of the late Chief Executive of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, Anthony K.K Sam, who died on Friday, June 12, due to COVID-19 related illness.

Permit me to pay a brief tribute to the memory of an old and valiant colleague in the struggle of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and in the work of the Akufo-Addo Government, the Mayor of Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis, the Chief Executive of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly, Honourable K.K Sam, Egya Sam to me and many, whose efforts in enforcing social distancing protocols at the Sekondi and Takoradi markets were, recently, highly commended by me, and who sadly passed away on Friday, as a result of a COVID-related death.

There had been media reports over the weekend, amid controversies, about the diagnosis of the Health Minister and his hospitalisation at the University of Ghana Medical Center.

Likewise, the cause of death of Mr Sam had also become topical on some media platforms.

The President condemned the continued stigmatisation of patients who had recovered from the disease and called for an end to the practice.

He emphasised:" I remain concerned about the stigma associated with this disease. Stories of persons who have recovered from this disease, and being shunned by their own relatives and communities, are a source of considerable worry to me, because they undermine our efforts to fight it.

"There is nothing shameful about testing positive. We do not have to lose our sense of community because of this pandemic".

He, nonetheless, advised citizens to pay attention to their health and urged them to maintain healthy lifestyles and consume nutritious local meals, "When you begin to experience symptoms such as fever, persistent cough, bodily pains, loss of taste and smell, and difficulty in breathing, seek immediate medical attention at the nearest health facility," he cautioned.

"Government, through the Ghana Health Service, continues to monitor, on a daily basis, the spread of the virus, and has benchmarks of health outcomes, which define the mitigation measures that must be pursued to curb the spread of the disease, and enable us to reassess the easing of restrictions".

As of the midnight of Saturday, June 13, the President said, Ghana had recorded 11,964 confirmed cases, with 7, 652 of the cases being active.

There have been 54 deaths, while 4,258 patients have made a full recovery.

GNA
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Friday, June 19, to introduce Kathy Lueders, the newly selected associate administrator of the agency's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate.

To participate in the teleconference, media should contact Josh Finch at [email protected] by 10 a.m. Friday, June 19, to receive the dial-in information.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Prior to her appointment as the head of NASA's human spaceflight office, Lueders served as the program manager for the agency's Commercial Crew Program. Since 2014, she has worked with private industry to develop, test and fly next-generation American human space transportation systems to low-Earth orbit, including to the International Space Station.

For information about NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/index.html

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


- Section of Kenyans demanded that State House completely be sealed off for 14 days and only opened when every one tested negative after being quarantined

- Others claimed the virus gained entry into State House following meetings which President Uhuru has been holding with hundreds of leaders

- State House said both the president and the first family were safe from the virus but reminded Kenyans no one was immune to the disease

- As of Monday, June 15, Kenya had recorded 3,727 cases of COVID-19 after 133 more tested positive for the disease

Soon after news broke that four employees working at State House had been diagnosed with COVID-19, social media was awash with reactions to the development.

Section of netizens stated they were puzzled by the news while others claimed they had foreseen an outbreak of the virus at President Uhuru Kenyatta's official residence.

READ ALSO: Eastleigh: Robbers steal KSh 800K from businessman shortly after withdrawing it from bank

State House during June 1 Madaraka Day fete. Photo: State House Kenya.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Zedupex: KEMRI explores locally made herbal drug to treat COVID-19

Those who expressed concern said the Ministry of Health needed to swing into action and seal off State House for at least 14 days in a move to contain any health crisis that may emerge.

This, they said, would help medics identify more COVID-19 cases from State House staff who were tested on Thursday, June 11, and contact tracing.

READ ALSO: Anne Waiguru impeachment: Raila tells Kirinyaga governor to carry own cross

"Uhuru and his team and all who attended State House functions should go for quarantine, the rule applies to all, ama kama sio hivyo wafungue inchi ama tujifungulie (if they will not lock down State House, then they should open up the whole country for normal operations to resume). It's that simple," said a tweep identified as The Mnur Feruz.

A Facebook user identified as Dalmacious Machongo called for immediate halting of all political rallies and meetings at State House, suggesting the assemblages may have been the source of the infection.

On Monday, June 1, President Uhuru hosted about 50 leaders at State House for the 58th Madaraka Day celebrations.

READ ALSO: Wawindaji haramu wanaswa na 150kg za nyama pori ikiwamo ya twiga

The following day, Tuesday, June 2, some 212 MPs attended a Jubilee Party Parliamentary Group meeting that was chaired by Uhuru.

"There should be no political meetings during this pandemic. Uhuru meets MPs at State House to do changes in parliament. Coronavirus does not respect anyone," Machongo commented.

In a statement, State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena said the four officials who tested positive for the virus were receiving treatment at an isolation facility at the Kenyatta University hospital.

Dena assured that President Uhuru and his family were safe as they had tested negative for the virus.

"State House would like to inform Kenyans that the president and the first family are safe and free from COVID-19.

State House would also like to remind Kenyans that every person is at risk of contracting COVID-19. No one is immune to the disease," the statement read.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: Switch TV launches new program discussing pandemic's effects on Africans mental health

Here are other reactions from netizens:

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.

The university student hawking water and sweet potatoes to pay fees and feed the poor | Tuko TV.

Source: TUKO.co.ke
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.
South Africa: Pandemic emphasises young doctor's love for medicine

It is said that healthcare workers are at the forefront of the fight against the Coronavirus, however a young medical doctor is of the view that everyone, can make a difference in the fight against the Coronavirus.

The most important thing to remember is that you need not panic, you are the frontline of defence in this pandemic, says Dr Nokukhanya Khanyile.

Before you roll your eyes, as young people often do, the 28-year-old is urging citizens that the fight against the virus requires effort from all areas of society, including young people.

If you do all of the right things to keep safe, then medical professionals or essential workers have less of a chance of being exposed to the virus and because we are the last line of defence, we have a better chance of minimising the spread, says Khanyile.

Khanyile comments come as South Africa will commemorate Youth Day tomorrow at a time when the virus has changed the way we live our lives.

The month of June is used to commemorate Youth Month in South Africa. Youth Day in particular, pays tribute to the school pupils who lost their lives during the 16 June 1976 uprising, in Soweto.

This year and for the first time, Youth Month will not be celebrated with the youth gathered in large numbers due to the Coronavirus pandemic, which has resulted in the National Days being commemorated virtually.

Events on that fateful June 16, 1976 uprisings altered the socio-political landscape of South Africa, and in 2020, the current environment requires all of us to make the necessary changes while remaining cautious in order to beat the pandemic.

With the Coronavirus known to cause respiratory infections and spread primarily from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth, Khanyile told SAnews how the virus, has significantly altered her work environment.

Our entire approach towards patients with respiratory illnesses has changed. Our wards have had to be reallocated away from the age of our patients to low-risk and high-risk respiratory or non-respiratory cases, said Khanyile who matriculated in 2009.

We've also had to carry our own alcohol based sanitiser as well as wearing a surgical mask the entire work day which may include having only two masks for a full 24 hour call, she says.

Khanyile who studied medicine at the University of Witwatersrand where she obtained her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 2015.

Following the successful completion of her degree, the promising doctor cut her teeth at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg before heading to Sebokeng Hospital in 2018.

Dr Khanyile is now based at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital as a registrar in paediatric department.

As a result of the pandemic, some personal changes also had to be made.

Khanyile who traditionally wears eyeglasses, has had to trade in her sturdy eyeglasses for a pair of contact lenses.

It has been challenging for me as I wear spectacles and have had to change to wearing contacts as my spectacles mist with the mask, says Khanyile.

As part of the Coronavirus lockdown regulations, government has made it compulsory for all South Africans to wear cloth facemasks when out in public.

While change may be difficult, it came with an opportunity for the passionate doctor to continue to ply her trade.

At the initial start of the Coronavirus lockdown, only essential workers including health workers were permitted to work.

In addition to the restrictions on movement, government also implemented a ban on the sale of alcohol.

The ban helped to reduce hospital trauma cases related to alcohol consumption.

However, these stringent measures have since been eased with the sale of alcohol allowed from Mondays to Thursdays only.

The earlier, more stringent measures and less alcohol-related trauma cases, have allowed Khanyile more time to serve her patients.

The most rewarding part of my job has been the fact that I am able to help ill patients who need assistance more easily as hospitals are less busy with non-urgent or trauma-related complaints. I am able to spend more time understanding patient conditions and giving appropriate feedback, she says.

As a junior healthcare worker in the midst of a pandemic, Khanyile also highlighted the importance of arming herself with information.

Being a social media savvy doctor who uses her social media platforms to champion all health matters, Khanyile says this has been an asset to keeping abreast of developments on the invisible enemy.

The most impressive thing has been the constant communication via their [Gauteng provincial government] social media pages.

As a junior at work, it is sometimes difficult to get access to protocols or updated statistics as they are sometimes only send them to heads of department. Being able to keep up to date with the numbers of tests and cases using that platform helps keep me informed.

Dr Khanyile has urged youth that while the fight against the Coronavirus continues, young people must continue their studies in order to pursue their dreams.

It is up to us to learn as much as we can now from our leaders in order to make wise decisions when it is our time to make laws when we take their places. It may seem [like a long time from now] but we are stronger together than alone, said Dr Khanyile.

Youth Month 2020 is being celebrated virtually under the theme: Youth Power: Growing South Africa together in a period of COVID-19.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:11:34|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka has reached a COVID-19 patient recovery rate of over 68 percent, passing the global average recovery rate of 51.4 percent, the country's Health Promotion Bureau, quoted in local media reports said here Monday.

Till Monday afternoon, the total recovered patients in Sri Lanka had risen to 1,342 out of the total 1,895 patients detected to date. A majority of those recovered were navy officers who were infected with the virus, the government information department said.

Eleven deaths from the virus have been reported in the country.

Sri Lanka resumed economic activities late last month after being shut for nearly two months after the first local COVID-19 patient was detected in March.

Authorities however continue to impose a nationwide curfew from 12 midnight to 4 am daily to prevent the unnecessary gathering of people at nights.

Last week, a senior medical official from the Health Ministry told local media that Sri Lanka was not expected to witness a second wave of the COVID-19 as the virus was well contained within quarantine centers only. No public transmission of the virus had been reported since April 30.

A majority of the patients detected in recent weeks were local nationals who were repatriated from overseas, health ministry statistics showed. Enditem
Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 9:43PM

Image courtesy of Microsoft

As it tries to catch up with rival Zoom, Microsoft is bringing new features to its Teams app. The latest addition allows you to upload your image of choice as your background or select from one of the latest collections of background that's now available online. Microsoft previews some of these backgrounds over at this blog post. The company previously introduced blurring effects and some preset images for the background, but this new addition expands your options. Microsoft cautions that blurring effect or a custom image might not stop others from seeing sensitive information. The tech giant says they use a "highly trained" model to separate the user from the background. And that background effects are only available for scheduled meetings.

On top of introducing this feature, Microsoft now allows free users to schedule meetings and send out invites instead of resorting to the Meet Now option. Free users can also add live captions to their calls. And in honour of Pride Month, there will be Pride-themed images in its collection of custom Teams backgrounds coming on June 16.
Newsfrom Japan

Toyohashi, Aichi Pref., June 15 (Jiji Press)--The Toyohashi city government said Monday a rabies patient has died at a hospital in the central Japan city.

The foreign citizen in his 30s, who died on Saturday, developed symptoms of the deadly infectious disease after coming from the Philippines to Japan for work in February.

The city government disclosed the rabies patients foreign nationality, sex and age range after obtaining consent from his family.

According to the municipal government in Aichi Prefecture and other sources, the deceased, a resident of neighboring Shizuoka Prefecture, was bitten on the left ankle by a dog in the Southeast Asian country in last September or so but failed to go to see a doctor there.

Humans contract rabies from dogs and other animals, and there is no effective treatment for the disease.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
New Delhi (India), June 14 (ANI): Amid the ongoing dispute with China in eastern Ladakh over the Chinese military buildup, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is looking to complete the work on the 255 Km-long strategic Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road including eight bridges and its blacktopping at some of the stretches by the end of this year.



The use of the strategic road by the Indian security forces from Leh has helped in reducing the travel time between Leh and DBO to six hours. Earlier, the travel time between the two locations was significantly higher.

"We are planning that the work on the entire stretch should be complete by the end of this year which includes eight bridges of different sizes and blacktopping of the road at some of the stretches," government sources said here.

The sources said the labour workforce has started the movement towards the high altitude locations in Ladakh from Jharkhand after proper checks and screening by the local authorities for COVID-19.

The workforce in Jharkhand is considered to be the most suited for working in this hilly terrain as they adapt to the conditions there very well, they said.

The working window in the Eastern Ladakh sector is very narrow with only four to five months available due to the extreme cold conditions there.

The road has been in the making for over two decades now and a special focus was laid on it after the Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014. Northern Army Commanders, the Border Roads Organisation project chief engineers and commanders of the 81 Brigade looking after DBO have been working in close coordination in the last many years to ensure that the project was completed in time and the manner in which it remains an all-weather road.

The bridge connecting the Patrolling Point 14 in Galwan area with the territory across the Shyok river is also linked to the strategic road.

India and China are engaged in a standoff at multiple points along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh where the Chinese People's Liberation Army has amassed over 10,000 troops with its heavy artillery and armoured regiments on its side of the LAC.

India has also now matched the deployment done by the Chinese and after the talks between the two sides at the multiple levels, they have even disengaged and gone back from their positions by a couple of kilometres. (ANI)


In rural Tamil Nadu, a health sub-centre is the first institution from the primary health care system that anybody from the community would turn to,

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.

***

Arivazhagan and Mr M* are two truckers from Sornavur Keezhpathy village. Both of them drive to different cities, as the occasion or work demands. In the last week of April, both of them made one trip each to Koyambedu Wholesale Market in Chennai. They were part of the hundreds of truckers and essential workers who ended up in institutional quarantine for weeks after, due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the Koyembedu market. A cluster which sent administrators across northern Tamil Nadu into a tizzy. Koyembedu Market was eventually shut down, after major delays, on 5 May.

Arivazhagan returned from Koyembedu on 27 April and was shifted to a quarantine facility only 4 days after. He however tested negative. Mr M wasnt as lucky. He tested positive and was shifted to a COVID-19 isolation ward immediately after, where he stayed put for 14 days. Arivazhagan spent 10 days in a quarantine facility. Both of them have now finished their home quarantine as well. Arivazhagan has resumed driving loads to other cities, whereas Mr M doesnt want to do that in the near foreseeable future. Mr N* says the same to this reporter. Mr N tested positive after returning from Koyembedu and was isolated for 14 days. My wife was pregnant when I tested positive. She was also tested soon after, and thankfully, she tested negative, says Mr N. After he returned home, he hasnt stepped out much. I wont go back to Chennai ever again, at least not now, he tells me. Like most clusters, the one emanating from Koyembedu created a lot of fear among, and about truckers.

The Koyembedu cluster turned everything around for districts which were all doing well. From double digits, cases moved to triple digits within days. Cuddalore jumped from 26 to more than 200 in the first week of May. Similar was the case with adjoining districts. After weeks of stability, this blow caught many unawares. COVID Control Rooms started facing the heat, as this sudden escalation needed deeper, widespread tracing and mapping. Some from Koyembedu had returned without informing officials, others had skipped past checkposts. Panic was spreading in the villages about these Koyembedu returns. People were not presenting themselves voluntarily, because of this panic.

While those at the district headquarters can try and break their heads about how to keep track of every individual who returns, the ones who can actually do it are those at the village level.

One set are panchayat officials and the other, more important players are those working at Health Sub-Centres (HSCs). This is because a HSC is the first institution from the primary health care system that anybody from the community would turn to, for all medical purposes. This would be the first institution a symptomatic person would approach. And the institution which will have to keep track of how you are doing, till the virus leaves you. For example, when Arivazhagan returned from institutional quarantine facility, the village nurses from Sornavur HSC kept track of his progress by regularly visiting him and supplying him with zinc and iron supplements from time to time.

Tamil Nadu has 8682 such HSCs.

Why is the role of HSCs crucial, especially in the middle of a pandemic?

Across the districts that this reporter visited, all administrators, be it from the Revenue Department or from the Health Department, reiterated the importance of an effective HSC. Effectiveness isnt just a measure of facilities available at the HSC, it is also about the interpersonal relationships that healthcare workers from the HSC develop over the years in the areas that they are working in. These interpersonal relationships are crucial in taking the populace into confidence, while planning towards managing a pandemic. Tracking a pandemic is a major task, but that doesnt mean that those with other ailments or medical needs can be neglected. This is also where a HSC plays a crucial role. The role of a HSC is to make healthcare accessible to everybody, under all circumstances.

To understand how an HSC operates, here are some of the key players, explaining their duties themselves.

S Velankanni, 51

Village Health Nurse

I have worked here for 31 years. This HSC caters to 3,476 people, spread across 3 villages. After the lockdown was announced, we first planned on how to keep track of antenatal and postnatal mothers. We needed to ensure that they got their supplements on time, and we also had to plan for deliveries in the middle of a lockdown. After two ares within my HSC limits turned into containment zones, we told them not to travel out for anything. Instead, we went there to meet them and provide them with the supplements they needed. It would have been risky for them to step out.

Follow LIVE updates on the coronavirus outbreak here

Regular immunisation drives were obviously hit, but we figured out a plan around it. We would do only 15 children at at time, while taking all precautions necessary. We took at least half an hour with each child.

As far as COVID-19 is concerned, I moved to the HSC after the onset of the pandemic. I have been here for more than two months now, and I have visited my family only on a few occasions. This is to ensure that I am here at all times and can keep track of any emergency. The work marked out for us is to coordinate with officials from the panchayat and mark the houses with people who are quarantined. After this, monitor everyday for symptoms. We keep the communication channels open always. We are constantly talking to them, and reassuring those who are positive or under quarantine that they will be fine.

I know these villages like the back of my hand. The people here have known me for decades as well. They respect me. Developing this rapport is crucial, as people listen to me only because of this. So if I tell them that quarantine is good for them, even the most adamant of people will listen to me. We have had cases where people tore out quarantine stickers and refused to cooperate. Eventually, locals from the village also help us to make people see reason.

Harikrishnan, 46, Senthil Kumar, 47, Shankar, 47 and Pichai Muthu, 47

Formerly Domestic Breeding Checkers, now COVID workers

(Harikrishnan, representing the four)

Earlier, we used to survey our areas to keep a check on dengue breeding grounds. Now, we have two roles. One is to coordinate with the health inspectors and ensure that all containment zones are sanitised everyday. The second is to track people who are returning back to the village from outside the district. Our networks are widespread across the villages we work in. On an everyday basis, while we are sanitising containment zones and areas around the village, we keep a check on people who have returned. Even before many of them return back, we receive calls about it. This helps us visit the place immediately and mark it, if there is an individual who has returned from a red zone. Panchayat officials provide us lists, but more importantly, we are directly connected with the people. Many are also scared, so they themselves come to us with information.

More importantly, we make sure that the HSCs are fully sanitised as these are nodal points for all medical activities. Patients coming in need to be safe, as well as those who are working here. So, here at the HSC, sanitising activities are more intensive.

Dr Karthikeyan, 39

Medical Health Officer

While services at the primary healthcare level werent hit, one major problem has been that patients werent able to access tertiary services like they could before. Patients with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) travel for check ups or scans once every three to six months. This was affected during the lockdown.

Otherwise, our COVID-19 duties have been to carry out house-to-house surveys and check for ILI (influenza-like illness), particularly so in containment areas.

M Sankar, 55

Block Health Supervisor

I am regularly talking to those quarantined in institutional facilities from this block. Let me tell you, at times managing them is really difficult. Some of them would tell us to let them go as they were missing their wives and that their wives would take better care of them. One person even attempted to run away. At times they are soft, but they can get really frustrated and aggressive. We also lose our patience at times, but ultimately we have to communicate to them why they have been quarantined.

M Renuka, 56

Sector Health Nurse

Since our block is a Universal Health Coverage Block, we provide 12 services. These are antenatal and postnatal care, regular health monitoring of children under 5 and adolescents, family welfare services, treatment for minor ailments, mental health support, ENT and ophthalmology services, trauma care, geriatric care, tracking non-communicable diseases and palliative care. Catering to patients dependent on us for these services during the lockdown was a challenge, but we managed to pull through.

From March, we have been making regular announcements regarding COVID 19 across our HSC limits. Some are through recorded messages which we play across the village. We also travel across villages during surveys, and a lot of time during this is spent on answering queries related to COVID-19.

V Deepa, 27

Mid-level Health Provider

I keep track of all patients with non-communicable diseases. This includes those with heart disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune diseases and kidney conditions. During the COVID-19 lockdown, I had to ensure that all such patients received their medication. There are 156 such patients under me, and Ive been tracking their progress and supplying them with the requisite drugs from time to time. We home deliver these medicines.

I also refer people who display mental health problems. What I noticed during the COVID-19 lockdown is, though many were affected due to loss of income, what really was an issue was alcohol withdrawal. Initially it was very bad. Since Pondicherry is also close by, access to alcohol is very easy. A sudden stop set a lot of people into a frenzy. People tried selling illicit liquor here too. We had to intervene and get the police involved to stop it. We tried to educate people about the various instances where illicit liquor killed people in surrounding districts. It is not like they didnt know but this sudden unavailability seemed to have made people do all this. We told wives of many of these men to keep vigil. They have to or else theyll only suffer, if their husband drinks illicit liquor and dies.

K Gunavati, 32

Women Health Volunteer

My usual duty is to keep track of anybody showing symptoms of non-communicable diseases in our area. I do this by regular blood samples collection and testing. I also help Deepa (quoted above) refer mental health patients. I conduct a survey where I ask questions based on their work, sleeping habits and behaviour. Based on their responses or mannerisms, we refer them to the psychiatrists who visit every week.

I also counselled people to not let the lack of alcohol worry them during the lockdown. But what I noticed is after a month, many told me they were feeling better after they stopped consumption of alcohol or tobacco. They told me that coronavirus has made them forget alcohol.

*Names withheld to protect the identities of COVID-19 patients
Hetal Nathwani is the business development manager at Cytonn Investments. After completing her secondary school education, Hetal never attended college and instead studied at home and took exams virtually.

She has an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) certificate and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) level three candidate.

What motivated you to start learning on your own rather than go to class?

Initially, I had no choice. But once I started, studying at home became my preferred way of learning. I come from Bungoma and for a long time, there were no reputable courses offered by institutions of learning there. I always wanted to be a doctor, but after completing high school, I couldnt travel to Nairobi or any other place to study because I was fully involved in our family business. After four years of waiting for the right time to travel to Nairobi, I realised that there is no such thing as the right time. I did not want to give up on education, so I chose to study finance and investments from home.

How do you decide what course to take and where do you get the required resources?

I believe a lot in research, so before I decide what I want to do, I read and research as much as I can online, and also look for the best articles available on the internet. It is now much easier to get reading material compared to when I had just finished high school. We now have Google which makes it easier for you to learn and improve on what others have done.

What are the benefits of learning at home and would you encourage others to do it?

It allows you a great deal of flexibility since you can choose when and where you want to study, your learning style and your pace too. I also get satisfaction from knowing that I accomplished my tasks with minimal supervision. That feeling is addictive and I would definitely advise people to try learning on their own. It is not as hard as it sounds. All you need to do is set smart goals to guide you along, and be disciplined.

How did you get the much-sought after-work experience?

Going to school doesnt mean one has the required skills and experience. Formal education, in my opinion, is just proof that you can accomplish an objective. Having the necessary skill is a different issue altogether. Many employers are now increasingly realising this, and are using aptitude and psychometric tests to measure their potential employees mettle. Your capabilities will show in the entire application process  how you write your emails, how fast you respond and even how you carry yourself. I have been in thousands of recruitment interviews for interns at Cytonn, and I dont always look at the candidates CVs. I look at their personality and judge whether they are suitable for the position. You need to have the right attitude, be willing to learn and be ready to be corrected.

What is your role as a business development manager?

To grow the business on different fronts, including global fundraising and strategising on new business initiatives. My typical day involves a lot of communication, speaking to clients and heads of institutions, and holding training programmes. I also review investor presentations, training materials and analyse reports shared by my team.

You joined Cytonn Investments as an intern and rose to become a manager. What is your secret for success?

The trick is to adequately train those I work with. You cant go forward unless you train someone to do your job, so I take training seriously. I always strive to train my team members to be better than me in what they do. Once they get there, I know its time for me to move.

What do you love most about your job?

Its dynamic and flexible nature, and the fact that I am allowed to fail and move on.

What is your motivation in life?

I find my greatest motivation in God and my family. I have a strong support system in my husband and our families. My partner is a perfectionist who is always finding ways of improving himself, and I am trying to keep up with him. The unconditional love I have for my children is the reason I work so hard. I can never let them down.

What other interests are you pursuing outside your job?

I am still studying investment, although I am also considering studying law in future. This will help me get an all-round perspective when advising my clients in terms of conveyancing, estate planning and other investment laws. Outside my professional life, I enjoy cooking and I love experiencing nature as well as nurturing my spirituality.

What is your greatest achievement so far?

My efforts in developing other peoples careers. I am passionate about passing on the life lessons and skills that I have, whether to my children or to my colleagues at work.
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...
Three days after the state government told the Madras High Court that there would be no lockdown and threatened criminal action against people spreading such rumours, Tamil Nadu on Monday announced a lockdown from June 19 to 30 in its worst affected districts, after an expert panel warned the government that the state has hit its peak, but may hit another if strict measures arent followed immediately.

On Monday, a panel of 19 medical experts advising the Tamil Nadu government on the coronavirus pandemic met Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, senior ministers and bureaucrats at the secretariat for the fifth time since the lockdown began in March. Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO) Soumya Swaminathan also joined the hour-long meeting over video conference. The panel, which comprises Chennai-based National Institute of Epidemiology deputy director Dr Prabhdeep Kaur and Dr V Ramasubramanian, and infectious diseases expert at Chennais Apollo Hospitals among others, told the government that the spread of the infection in Tamil Nadu is at its peak now and the number of cases will gradually come down.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, panel members said that they warned that Tamil Nadu could have a second wave, as it has been observed in China, where at least 43 new cases of local transmission of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) were recorded in Beijing last week, after a gap of at least two months if the spread of the infection was not arrested through strict measures.

In the past three weeks, there has been an increase in the positivity rate of the infection in these four districts and in the last two weeks, there is a slight increase in deaths too, Kuganantham told Hindustan Times. To avoid an alarming situation we had to go ahead with this strategy. We need the support of the community to fight an epidemic or a pandemic. Else we have to press regulations. The panel has asked the government to increase testing and manpower and intensify containment and quarantine measures.

Following the meeting, Palaniswami held a cabinet meeting later in the day and announced another lockdown for Chennai and the three adjoining districts of Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram. Till June 15, these four district accounted for 83.69% of the states total caseload. Chennai alone accounts for 71.49% of all cases in the state.

Yet some experts believe that lockdown is not the only strategy that the government should follow. A lockdown only slows down the epidemic, said Dr Jacob John, retired professor and former director of the Indian Council of Medical Researchs Centre of Advanced Research in Virology. When HIV/AIDS broke out we didnt ban sex, we made sex safe. Similarly in this context social contact should be safe and protected and not totally prohibited. The government should make people participants by focusing on social and behavioral change. The virus spread is inevitable and the next wave will start in rural areas which will not be protected because Chennai is under lockdown.

In the new lockdown, flights and trains services will continue, but autos, taxis and rental cabs can only ply for essential services and medical emergencies in the four districts. Restaurants will now go back to serving takeaway food. Grocery shops and petrol pumps will be open only from 6am to 2pm. Taking a leaf out of Karnataka that in May had implemented total lockdown on Sundays, Tamil Nadu too will not have any relaxations on the two Sundays that fall within this 12-day lockdown period.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:39:30|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on April 22, 2020 shows the medical face masks donated by China Railway Group Limited at the stockhouse of Lao Health Ministry in Vientiane, capital of Laos. (Photo by Pan Longzhu/Xinhua)

Xi said he is deeply gratified to know that China's assistance has played a positive role in Laos' fight against the coronavirus disease. He also said he believes that with joint efforts of China and Laos as well as the international community, a final victory will surely be achieved in the battle against the pandemic.

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Laos in fighting the COVID-19 epidemic, said General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.

In a verbal message sent to Bounnhang Vorachith, general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and president of Laos, Xi said he believes that with joint efforts of China and Laos as well as the international community, a final victory will surely be achieved in the battle against the pandemic.

File photo shows Xi Jinping (R), general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, holding talks with Lao President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee, in Beijing, capital of China, April 30, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

Expressing his pleasure to receive a warm and friendly letter from Bounnhang, Xi said he is deeply gratified to know that China's assistance has played a positive role in Laos' fight against the coronavirus disease.

On behalf of the CPC and the Chinese government and people, Xi extended sincere congratulations to the Lao side on the initial victory the neighboring country has achieved in COVID-19 prevention and control under the strong leadership of the LPRP Central Committee headed by Bounnhang.

Xi said he attaches great importance to the development of relations between the two parties and countries, and stands ready to work with Bounnhang to push for sound implementation of the important consensuses the two sides have reached, and steadily carry forward the building of the China-Laos community with a shared future, so as to create more benefits for the two countries and their people.

Lao Minister of Health Bounkong Sihavong (2nd L) sees off the Chinese anti-epidemic medical expert team at the Wattay International Airport in Vientiane, Laos, April 12, 2020. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

In a letter of gratitude sent to Xi earlier on China's support for Laos' fight against COVID-19, Bounnhang noted that the CPC and the Chinese government, at the request of Laos and under Xi's instructions, swiftly sent a team of medical experts to Laos, and have provided a large amount of anti-epidemic supplies and therapeutic drugs, in order to help Laos contain the virus outbreak and treat the patients.

China's assistance, he added, fully reflects the time-honored close friendship and the brotherly and comradely relationship of cooperation and mutual assistance between the two parties, countries and peoples, vividly demonstrates the spirit of the Laos-China community with a shared future, and has made important contributions to Laos' effective response to the COVID-19 epidemic and protection of people's lives and health.

Representatives from Lao Ministry of Health and designated hospitals attend a video conference on COVID-19 prevention and control with medical experts from China's Shanghai in Vientiane, Laos, April 13, 2020. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

On behalf of the LPRP Central Committee, the Lao government and the Lao people of all ethnic groups, as well as in his own name, Bounnhang extended sincere gratitude and high respect to Xi and, through Xi, to the CPC Central Committee, the Chinese government and the brotherly Chinese people, who have for long attached great importance to, cared about and supported the revolutionary and construction causes undertaken by Laos' party, government and people of all ethnic groups.

He wished the brotherly Chinese people continuous and greater successes in advancing the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics and realizing China's two centenary goals under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core.

He also expressed his hope that the traditional Laos-China friendship, the long-standing and stable Laos-China comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation and the building of the Laos-China community with a shared future will continue to flourish and bring more tangible benefits to both peoples. 
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) is set to make significant inroads in Zongo communities across the country in the 2020 general elections.



Mr Abdul-Aziz Haruna Futa, NPP National Nasara Coordinator, said this would be achieved on the back of massive development projects which was transforming Zongo communities in the country.



Zongo communities, therefore, have no excuse but to overwhelmingly endorse the President for keeping faith with the people of Zongo and delivering on the promises he made them in the 2016 election.



He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) after a days training for Constituency Nasara Coordinators in the Ashanti Region as part of a campaign dubbed, We Care for You which is being implemented by Nasara across the 16 regions.



The campaign seeks to sensitize Zongo communities on the need to stay safe from the coronavirus disease by adopting hygienic lifestyles and observing all the safety protocols recommended by the World Health Organization.



Constituency Coordinators would supply personal protective equipment to residents of Zongo communities under the We Care for You Campaign which is being funded by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.



Mr Futa said the governing NPP has demonstrated its commitment to promoting the welfare of Zongo communities under the leadership of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.



When Allah gave him the opportunity to serve Ghana, the first thing he did for the Zongo community was to give us the Inner Cities and Zongo Development Ministry as well as the Zongo Development Fund, he said.



He said for the first time under the fourth republic, a Muslim from the Zongo community in the person of Justice Issifu Omoro Amadu Tanko had been appointed to the Supreme Court, saying former President Mahama who is a northerner himself overlooked him even when he qualified.



These coupled with massive infrastructural development in Zongos across the country, according to him, should attract huge votes for the NPP in December.



He said the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has over the years described President Akufo-Addo as anti-Zongo but he has demonstrated his commitment to bridging the development gap between Zongos and other parts of the country since assuming office in 2017.



Alhaji Saalim Bamaba, the Regional Nasara Coordinator, said the Nasara wing of NPP was determined to lead the party to victory by mobilizing the people of Zongos to show appreciation for the transformation of the communities.



If we are able to work very hard in these communities and maximize the votes of the President in the Zongo polling stations, by extension we are bringing back Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to the seat of government, he said.



He expressed optimism that the good works of the President would provide them good messages to convince the people of Zongo on the need to give the President a second term.

Source: GNA









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A competitive surfer and Instagram influencer has issued a warning after her Instagram account was hijacked by Turkish hackers who posted pornography to her followers.

Blaze Roberts, who has amassed more than 40,000 followers, works with brands and labels to make money by endorsing products to her legions of fans.

The 18-year-old Sydney surfer contacted Instagram to gain a blue tick on her profile as a public figure and later received an email to verify her account.

But the link was from an illegitimate source. Ms Roberts' email address was hacked and she was logged out of her Instagram account.

Blaze Roberts had her Instagram account hijacked by Turkish hackers who began posting pornography on her page

The hackers changed her username and began posting pornography to her followers, leading Ms Roberts to contact the social media platform.

'I kept messaging Instagram with screenshots and photos to try and send them the proof and they kept saying they didn't have enough proof and they didn't know what I was talking about,' she told A Current Affair.

Instagram uses a unique method of verifying accounts by asking users to send their security department a picture of themselves holding a piece of paper with the code they have given to the account.

Ms Roberts was able to change her password to regain access to her email. In her outbox she found pictures of a blonde woman and a bearded man holding up pieces of paper with the code on it.

The competitive surfer received an email from an illegitimate source that logged her out of her account

Ms Roberts found pictures of the hackers in her email outbox, who tried to verify her account

'For some reason Instagram didn't think it was concerning that three people had sent them different photos,' she said.

Ms Roberts believes the hackers are from Turkey because all the responses she has received back from Instagram head office have been in Turkish.

The translated responses from Instagram have not been helpful, with Ms Roberts saying the messages claim the account does not exist or has been deleted.

Ms Roberts said she is scared to think of how much of her information the hackers have access to.

'I don't know if I've ever sent my address to a friend, or if I've ever sent my bank details to someone I know, so the fact that they have access to that information is terrifying,' she said.

Hackers will often hijack social media accounts to demand a ransom from the account owner.

'There's either a ransom going to be asked for to get the account back, they're going to scam her followers by getting their information or asking them for money,' Technology Expert Trevor Long told the program.

'Or they might be posting things that are going to send her followers to other places.'
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Linkedin Katanga Johnson (Reuters) Washington  Mon, June 15, 2020 17:05 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdedb93a 2 Art & Culture mural,#BlackLivesMatter,Smithsonian,Racism,George-Floyd Free

Days into nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, demonstrators began to fill a tall fence in front of the White House with posters, flowers, paintings and photos in honor of black men, women and children who have lost their lives at the hands of police.

Placed on the recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, the tributes have created a spontaneous memorial that are now being collected for a more permanent home at the Smithsonian Institution.

Graffiti artists and mural painters have designed visuals on the site where many protesters congregate to begin nearly nightly demonstrations in Washington.

Memorials have also popped up in New York where muralists decorated the city's Chelsea neighborhood, as well as cities around the world, including Nairobi, Karachi and Berlin.

Block after block in Washington, office buildings and windows of upscale restaurants that normally cater to lobbyists and business executives have been sheathed in plywood to protect against the short-lived outbursts of arson and vandalism that struck the city's center earlier this month.

Levi Robinson, one of the many artists who got the call to design and paint atop the plywood, said he stumbled onto the idea of making his depiction of military medics.

"I decided to show black medics who serve in the military after speaking with some examples who were on site handing out water began to tell me their stories," said Robinson of his piece adorning a boarded-up exterior window of a restaurant on Black Lives Matter Plaza.

Read also: Afghan artists paint mural on blast wall in tribute to George Floyd

Aaron Bryant, a photography and social protest historian and curator at the African American History and Culture Museum, said unlike most of the protest artwork of the 1960s civil rights era, which were made by professional artists and graphic designers, this moment's artwork is different.

"Today, people are making signs by hand and running out of the door. There is more diversity in the signs you see," said Bryant, who is leading the team of curators collecting plywood murals, signs and objects such as gas canisters that might one day act as a portal to this moment in history. His museum is one of several making up the Smithsonian Institution on the National Mall in Washington.

"It's hard to talk about this moment's artwork with one common denominator, but what I see is this idea of humanity and community. People coming together to make positive, social change, messages that will last for generations."

The Washington-based P.A.I.N.T.S Institute, in partnership with the Downtown DC Business Improvement District, organized some 42 artists and volunteers, including Robinson, to design protestor-inspired murals on the Black Lives Matter Plaza, an expansion of similar furnishings in downtown Washington.

Foot traffic, thinned by a two-month coronavirus lockdown, can be spotted taking selfies with some of the roughly 27 murals depicting black faces wearing masks that read, "Let Us Breath" and "God is Love."

Once such first-time public mural artist, Jemn Napper, said she hopes her downtown Washington pieces ultimately help people realize that "even though we may have our differences, we can all play a part to come together and create change."
The UN nuclear watchdog's governing body began meeting on Monday as a row brews over Iran's refusal to allow access to two sites where nuclear activity may have occurred in the past.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expressed "serious concern" in a report earlier this month that Iran has been blocking inspections at the sites.

The Board of Governors, one of the agency's policy-making bodies, is expected to discuss the report during its meeting. If they pass a resolution critical of Iran, it would be the first of its kind since 2012.

Even though the two sites are not thought to be key to Iran's current activities, the agency says it needs to know if past activities going back almost two decades have been properly declared and all materials accounted for.

The report detailed efforts made by the agency's officials to get access to the locations.

Iran told the agency the report was a source of "deep regret and disappointment" and hinted the queries were based on "fabricated information" from "intelligence services".

Israel has previously claimed its intelligence services unearthed information on an alleged previous nuclear weapons programme in Iran.

Western states have voiced concern over Iran's denial of access to the sites, with the United States being particularly vocal.

In a statement to the Board of Governors opening this week's meeting, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi called on Iran "to cooperate immediately and fully with the Agency, including by providing prompt access to the locations specified by us".

Brink of collapse

The latest row over access comes as a landmark deal between Iran and world powers in 2015 continues to unravel.

Under the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran committed to curtailing its nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief and other benefits.

But the country has slowly abandoned its commitments in retaliation for US President Donald Trump's decision two years ago to renounce the deal and reimpose swingeing sanctions.

Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is now almost eight times the limit fixed in the accord, according to an IAEA assessment published earlier this month.

However, the level of enrichment is still far below what would be needed for a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA says it continues to have access to all the facilities needed to monitor Iran's current nuclear activity.

The latest tension will further complicate efforts by the deal's EU signatories -- the so-called E3 of France, Germany and Britain -- to keep the deal from collapsing.

Trump has called for the E3 to follow his lead and leave the deal.

Last month, the US said it was ending sanctions waivers for nations that remain in the Iran nuclear accord -- a move likely to have most impact on Russian firms working on Iran's nuclear programme.

The American move brought condemnation from the E3 and was branded "unlawful" by Tehran.

Iran is also concerned that the US is pushing for an extension to an international arms embargo against Tehran which is set to be progressively eased from October.

Last week Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged other UN Security Council members, especially veto-wielding China and Russia, to stand against the American "conspiracy".

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" " 70 competitors start off in the 2003 Transat 6.50 race. MARCEL MOCHET/AFP via Getty Images

Every odd year since 1977, sailors from around the world have gathered in France for an insanely arduous race  the Mini Transat 6.50. They hop into their Mini 6.50 yachts (tiny boats at a maximum of 21 feet or 6.5 meters long) and then head west as fast as they can, hoping to be the first to reach Le Marin Bay, Martinique, in the Caribbean, some 4,000 watery miles (6,437 kilometers) away. The race has two legs: France to the Canary Islands, and the Canary Islands to Martinique.

And the biggest catch? The 80-odd sailors must do this journey alone. But how do sailors complete an endurance race that lasts three to four weeks without sleeping more than 20 minutes at a time?

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That's the question behind a study conducted by researchers of the University of Bologna in Italy. Scientists wanted to better understand how sailors managed their sleep cycles, and whether certain people have inherent biological advantages that aid them during this physically demanding race. The results were published on May 4, 2020, in the journal Nature and Science of Sleep.

In the weeks leading up to the race, researchers asked 42 of the sailors to document their training and preparation. They also recorded crucial data like sleep quality, somnolence (desire for sleep) and their chronotype, which essentially means whether they're early morning types, night owls or somewhere in between.

Only half of sailors consciously prepared sleep strategies. "Expert skippers often make this choice," said professor Giuseppe Plazzi, study coordinator, in a statement. "Indeed, expert sailors with a track record of miles and miles of offshore sailing are more mindful of the importance of sleep management."

Of those with a strategy, more than half (52 percent) opted to sleep more before the race in hopes of "banking" sleep, knowing that they'd have to make serious withdrawals from that account soon. About one-quarter opted for polyphasic sleep instead, hoping that short catnaps throughout the day would get them through. Previous research conducted by "Seinfeld" says this may not always work.

The last 22 percent chose a gradual descent into sleep deprivation, with the idea that even though they'd be exhausted by the end, they could hold on for the finish line.

Chronotype data showed that about 40 percent of these extreme sailors were morning people, early to rise and early to bed. The other 60 percent were "hummingbirds," those who fall in the middle ground. There were zero night owls  who may be at a disadvantage in these types of endurance competitions, according to researchers. Sailors who were early birds were less likely to use a pre-race sleep management strategy than hummingbirds.

Regardless of their sleep strategies, the researchers found there were no real differences in arrival times for either leg of the race. (In case, you're wondering, the sailors use autopilot to keep their vessels on track while they take a nap.)

"Our next step will be to closely monitor sleep-wake cycles both during the training and during the race. In this way, we will be able to devise increasingly effective and precise sleep management strategies," said Plazzi.

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING It's a common misconception that people can "bank" sleep in advance. But for years, science has been telling us otherwise. No matter how you strategize, sleep deprivation causes steep decreases in mental and physical performance, no matter how much sleep people try to get before a long event.
New payment technologies

According to the latest data from the SBV, Vietnam currently has 88.5 million bank accounts. The SBVs payment system alone processes US$17 billion worth of transactions per day. In the first four months of 2020, payments via cards, the internet and mobile phones grew strongly relative to the same period in 2019, with domestic payments increasing by 26.2% in terms of transactions and 15.7% in terms of value via bank cards, surging by 3.2% and 45.7% via the internet, and expanding by 198.8% and 21.9%, respectively via mobile phones. The trend of payment methodology in the economy has shifted towards the use of non-cash methods, with payment methods for public services continuing to be expanded and widely implemented.

In addition, a recent VISA survey reported that Vietnamese consumers have reduced their use of cash due to an increase in digital payments through new payment technologies, such as contactless payments, mobile payments and e-commerce. According to the survey, 74% of consumers in Vietnam expected to enhance non-cash payments in the next 12 months. For the group of those carrying less cash, the main reason was the fact that more and more places now accept non-cash payments. At the same time, many people who have never made contactless payments voiced their interest in this method. Even some new forms, such as biometric payments (fingerprint and voice authentication) and digital banking, also drew the attention of more than 80% of the surveyed consumers.

However, it remains a big question whether non-cash payment methods will continue to be maintained and can replace the traditional form after the COVID-19 pandemic. General Director of the National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) Nguyen Quang Hung said he is not optimistic about COVID-19 being a boost to the market, but stated that during the recent period of social distancing, many people had the chance to try new payment methods. When the disease abates, they will see this as an alternative for cash, thus gradually changing their consumption habits and practices and increasing the use of non-cash payments in Vietnam.

Improving legal corridors

The recent changes in payment behavior have not only sparked a non-cash payment race between commercial banks but also between businesses and technology companies. According to a representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Trading Cooperative (Saigon Co.op), the company is targeting a non-cash payment rate of 30% at Co.opmart and Co.opXtra supermarkets as well as at Co.op Food and Co.op Smile stores over the next four or five years. Over recent years, Saigon Co.op has promoted communication on the benefits of non-cash shopping to consumers at more than 800 points of sale, through offering discounts and presenting gifts to users making purchases via cards, QR code scans or electronic wallets. In response to the Non-cash Day 2020, this June, Saigon Co.op will continue to cooperate with banks, intermediary payment organisations and e-wallets to launch many preferential programmes for customers at their Co.opmart, Co.opXtra and Co.op Food outlets across the country.

However, the efforts of enterprises are only effective when the State and functional agencies apply stronger solutions to promote non-cash payments. In particular, it is necessary to have a master development plan for POS and payment acceptance systems, as well as re-planning the providers of non-cash payment services, Marketing Director of Saigon Co.op Do Quoc Huy said.

According to Director of the SBVs Payment Department Pham Tien Dung, the legal framework for payment activities is continuing to be reviewed and supplemented, and creating more favourable conditions for non-cash payment development, including the SBVs Decision No. 711/QD-NHNN dated April 15, 2020 issuing an action plan for the implementation of the Prime Ministers Directive No. 01/CT-TTg dated January 14, 2020 on promoting the development of Vietnamese digital enterprises.

In addition, the SBV has delivered timely instructions concerning the exemption and reduction of payment service fees for customers, aiming to support residents and businesses affected by COVID-19, such as the prompt promulgation of Circular No. 04/2020/TT-NHNN dated March 31, 2020 amending and supplementing Circular No. 26/2013/TT-NHNN on reducing 50% of inter-bank payment transaction fees via the inter-bank e-payment system, effective from April 1 to December 31, 2020. At the same time, the SBV has issued a written request asking banks to lower money transfer fees through the system. Also, the SBV has twice directed Napas, commercial banks and foreign bank branches to exempt and reduce payment service fees. It is estimated that the total amount of payment service fees exempted and reduced by banks for customers until the end of 2020 will be more than VND1 trillion (US$42.96 million).

Promoting e-payments towards a cashless society is an inevitable development trend in the context of the Industrial Revolurion 4.0, creating a dual impact including accelerating economic growth and supporting the implementation of the comprehensive financial strategy through the universalisation of banking-financial services. SBV Deputy Governor Nguyen Thi Hong said that in the near future, the SBV will continue to build and supplement legal corridors for e-payment activities, thus meeting all requirements for new business models, products and services on the information technology platform, with a focus on digital banking and digital payments. In addition, the SBV will research and implement payment methods in rural, remote and isolated areas associated with the implementation of the national comprehensive financial strategy, as well as facilitating e-payments in Government and public service areas.

Up to now, about 50 banks have completed the connection of electronic tax payments with tax and customs agencies in 63 cities and provinces nationwide, with 95% of customs revenues implemented via banks and 99% of businesses registering to pay taxes online. Some 27 banks and 10 organisations have provided intermediary payment services for electricity bill collection, with nearly 90% of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN)s revenue from power sales collected through banks. In addition, 30 hospitals have been connected to deploy electronic fee payments, with some having 35% of their fee payment transactions conducted via non-cash methods.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:31:34|Editor: huaxia

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends the virtual opening ceremony of the 127th China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as Canton Fair, in Beijing, capital of China, June 15, 2020. (Xinhua/Zhang Ling)

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday urged efforts to achieve fruitful results from the 127th China Import and Export Fair, popularly known as Canton Fair, which is being held online.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when attending the event's virtual opening ceremony in Beijing.

He called for efforts to ensure the security of the industrial chain, maintain stability in foreign trade and investment, and promote cooperation for win-win results.

Li inspected online showrooms of enterprises.

The event was held online due to COVID-19. Despite the change, the 127th fair drew nearly 26,000 enterprises from home and abroad.

While visiting the showroom of China's home appliance giant Gree, Li said the online Canton Fair demonstrated the country's resolve to expand opening-up and jointly ensure the security of international industrial and supply chains.

Li also visited ergonomics product manufacturer Loctek. The Ningbo-based firm has tapped into international e-commerce to achieve export growth and is planning to expand its overseas warehouses.

The premier urged efforts to develop more overseas warehouse platforms to serve small and medium-sized enterprises, noting that developing international e-commerce can help firms survive and thrive amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his inspection, Li also highlighted China's commitment to further facilitating imports, increasing the inflow of readily marketable products, and sharing the opportunities presented by the huge domestic market with enterprises around the world.
Select will be available at your local Connecticut dispensary

WAKEFIELD, Mass., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf" or the "Company"), a leading multi-state cannabis operator in the United States, today announced it will expand its line of Select brand products into Connecticut. Select Elite Live cartridges will be available at local medical dispensaries across the state.

Select, which was acquired by Curaleaf in February 2020, is available in Oregon, California, Arizona and Nevada, and recently expanded to Colorado, Michigan, Maryland and Oklahoma. All Select products are formulated with strain-specific terpenes to enhance flavor. Curaleaf will expand its product line in the coming months across several states to include Select Elite Live cartridges, oil infused with freshly harvested live resin terpenes.

"We are committed to providing essential medicine to over 40,000 patients in Connecticut with consistent, high quality Select products," said Joe Bayern, President of Curaleaf. "We also commend state lawmakers for adding chronic pain and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome to its list of MMP qualifying conditions, and we look forward to providing quality medicine to current and future patients."

During the COVID-19 outbreak, cannabis businesses have been deemed an essential service in most states, including Connecticut. Curaleaf remains committed to serving patients with the products and service they rely on while implementing heightened safety and sanitation measures in all its facilities.

About Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf") is a leading vertically integrated multi-state cannabis operator with a mission to improve lives by providing clarity around cannabis and confidence around consumption. As a high-growth cannabis company known for quality, expertise and reliability, the company and its brands, Curaleaf and Select, provide industry-leading service, product selection and accessibility across the medical and adult-use markets. The company currently operates in 17 states with 57 dispensaries, 15 cultivation sites and 24 processing sites. Curaleaf employs over 2,200 people across the United States. For more information please visit www.curaleaf.com.

For more information please visit www.curaleaf.com.

INVESTOR CONTACT

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Dan Foley, VP, Finance and Investor Relations

[email protected]

MEDIA CONTACT

Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

Tracy Brady, VP Corporate Communications

[email protected]

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This media advisory contains forwardlooking statements and forwardlooking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forwardlooking statements or information. Generally, forward-looking statements and information may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", " expects" or, "proposed", "is expected", "intends", "anticipates", " or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases, or by the use of words or phrases which state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, or might occur or be achieved. More particularly and without limitation, this news release contains forwardlooking statements and information concerning the expansion of the Select brand of products into Connecticut. Such forward-looking statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the company with respect to the matter described in this new release. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which are based on current expectations as of the date of this release and subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors and Uncertainties" in the Company's latest annual information form filed September 23, 2019, which is available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as to the date of this press release and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this news release.

SOURCE Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:17:11|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish secondary school students have been increasingly preferring to learn the Chinese language for their future career, according to the China-Turkey Cultural Association based in Istanbul.

"The high school entrance exam will be held on June 20 across the country, and students are in a rush to make their preferences while considering their future careers," Mustafa Karsli, vice president of the association, told Xinhua on Monday.

In Karsli's view, most of the high school candidates in the country are very well informed that Asian countries are on the rise in the international arena.

"Therefore, they show great interest in schools that offer Asian languages education," he said.

Karsli observed that the interest among Turkish parents and students in the Chinese language started to grow when the Belt and Road Initiative was launched in 2013.

The Sehit Mehmet Guder Anatolian Religious High School on the European side of the city launched Chinese language courses this year with the assistance of the association and has already shown notable achievements.

"Its students started to speak Chinese within a very short period of time," Karsli noted.

He said they would reach a proficiency level at the time of their graduation that they can get an undergraduate education in China.

For Serdar Gulluer, an educational guidance counselor of the association, the most important factor behind the trend is the awareness of the parents and students on the importance of Asian languages.

"A significant number of parents are now giving advises to their friends and relatives to consider sending children to schools with Chinese language education," Gulluer said.

The association said it would continue to give the necessary support to other private and public schools across Istanbul, which consider launching Chinese courses. Enditem
Oregonians continued to protest this weekend by marching in the rain, chanting and tearing down statues associated with white supremacy and slavery. Its been over two weeks since the protests started, following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.

Eugene - Two pioneer statues were taken down on Saturday on the University of Oregons campus. The Register-Guard reports a small group of protesters knocked the statues off their pedestals. One was dragged to the university administration building.

Before the statues were toppled Saturday, some students had renewed calls for their removal against a backdrop of international protests against racism and police brutality. Posted by The Oregonian on Sunday, June 14, 2020

Pendleton - About 30 protesters marched through downtown Pendleton in a demonstration against police brutality Saturday afternoon, the East Oregonian reported. The march finished at city hall, where the crowd listened to speakers such as Nolan Bylenga, a 22-year-old senior at Portland State University who is running as the Democratic candidate for House District 58.

"As much as we want to hold police accountable and such, a big part is creating dialogue with people, such as police as well, Bylenga said in his speech.

A cold, rainy morning may have kept some would-be protesters at home on Saturday, but it didnt stop about 30 local... Posted by East Oregonian on Sunday, June 14, 2020

Seaside - About 70 people gathered for a two-hour Black Lives Matter rally Saturday in front of Seaside High School, the Seaside Signal reported.

Crowd turns out Saturday to support Black Lives Matter Posted by Seaside Signal on Sunday, June 14, 2020

Salem - Hundreds gathered to hear from speakers during a Black Lives Matter rally Saturday in front of the Oregon State Capitol, KATU reported.

"Weve been waiting for this type of movement. Weve been waiting for people to start listening so that we can start... Posted by KATU News on Saturday, June 13, 2020

La Center - Photos posted to Twitter showed a group of people gathered to march and protest police brutality Sunday in La Center, Washington. Some people carried signs with messages such as, SKIN COLOR SHOULDNT BE A DEATH SENTENCE," and, IF YOU ARE TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT RACISM, IMAGINE HOW TIRED PEOPLE ARE OF EXPERIENCING IT.

Bend - Dozens of people attended a Black Lives Matter sit-in protest Sunday at Drake Park. The group met, held up signs and listened to speakers talk about the change they want to see in Bend, KTVZ reported.

There arent a lot of black people that live here, attendee Maya Hopwood said. Its super important to show that we are here, we are a part of this community and we want our voice to uplifted and let people know that there is injustice happening in central Oregon.

Video: For a second week, a Black Lives Matter gathering was held today in Bend's Drake Park, with more speakers sharing... Posted by KTVZ - NewsChannel 21 on Sunday, June 14, 2020

Lebanon - Several hundred protesters gathered at Century Park and marched to the Gazebo at Academy Square where they listened to speakers Sunday in Lebanon, Oregon. Some people carried signs with messages such as, SILENCE IS VIOLENCE," and, 'MATTER' IS THE MINIMUM," Lebanon Express reported.

Prineville - Dozens of protesters attending a Black Lives Matter rally and counter-protesters gathered on opposite sides of Third Street in Prineville, Oregon. While the protest remained mainly peaceful, there were a few incidents and four arrests, KTVZ reported.

Dozens of Black Lives Matter protesters and counter-protesters gathered on either side of Third Street in downtown... Posted by KTVZ - NewsChannel 21 on Saturday, June 13, 2020

Portland - Protests continued both Saturday and Sunday in downtown Portland. On Saturday, there were marches, protests and rallies throughout the metro area, including marches through Hillsboro, Northeast and Southeast Portland. On Sunday, in addition to the main demonstration that took place downtown, the statue of Thomas Jefferson was pulled down at Jefferson High School and the words SLAVE OWNER were spray-painted on the base.

21 Portland protests on Saturday, June 13, 2020

- Madison Smalstig l msmalstig@oregonian.com l @madi_smals l

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15 June 2020 - The European Molecular Biology Laboratory has secured 6.8 million Euros funding from the European Commission to launch a unique training programme. The ARISE Programme will train and develop Europe's next generation leadership for research infrastructures in the life sciences.

Research infrastructures are increasingly important to research and development activity by providing access to the latest detection, imaging, computational and research techniques at scale. Maintaining and improving these infrastructures requires interdisciplinary skills bridging science, engineering, service provision and management, that are not usually provided by traditional training programmes in academia or industry.

"During the last years we noticed an increasing need to train more engineers, physicists and other technology experts to become research infrastructure scientists," says Rainer Pepperkok, Director of Scientific Core Facilities and Scientific Services. "Yet worldwide, to our best knowledge, there was no training programme to address it, with few specialists being trained at the interface of academia and industry."

The ARISE Programme

To address this problem, EMBL developed a unique new training programme for future research infrastructure scientists. Supported by a European Commission Marie Curie COFUND Programme grant of 6.8 million Euros and an EMBL investment of 5.9 million Euros, the Career Accelerator for Research Infrastructure Scientists (ARISE) Programme will train 62 Fellows over the next five years.

"Having received the European Commission's stamp of approval in the form of a COFUND grant, we hope that the ARISE Programme will be seen as a model for training of a research infrastructure scientists for European life sciences," adds Peer Bork, Head of the Structural and Computational Biology Unit at EMBL and ARISE Programme Director.

During their three-year fellowship experienced STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professionals will develop into future leaders in technology development and the operation of advanced life science research infrastructures in Europe. ARISE Fellows will work on a wide range of research and technology development in the different areas of expertise at EMBL and its 46 ARISE Programme partners. These include imaging, bioinformatics, data science and big data, structural biology, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and (bio)chemical engineering.

"After successfully finishing their training, we expect the ARISE Fellows to take positions as senior scientists or leaders in core facilities, research infrastructures or technology development groups across Europe," says Tanja Ninkovic, EMBL Project Manager. "These positions could be in academia, industry, health care and sectors we are not aware of today."

A unique European offering

With six sites in five European countries, state-of-the-art core facilities, research spanning the life sciences and international connections EMBL offers both the capacity and the capability to provide advanced training for many different types of research infrastructure scientists. Several engineering teams already support EMBL researchers in exploring new instrumental challenges and designing new instruments. EMBL has long-standing experience in training, having launched its international PhD programme in 1983. Nearly 250 pre- and postdoctoral fellows benefit from EMBL training each year.

The ARISE Fellows will be hosted by 39 participating groups at EMBL sites. All of them have a track record in developing new methods and technologies, and in providing scientific services. The EMBL Imaging Centre, currently under construction at EMBL Heidelberg, will also have a central role as technology platform for state-of-the-art microscopy. It will also allow scientists, together with world-leading industry partners, to develop new microscopy techniques.

The first call for applications will open in autumn 2020.

###

About EMBL

EMBL is Europe's flagship laboratory for the life sciences. We are an intergovernmental organisation established in 1974 and are supported by over 20 member states. EMBL performs fundamental research in molecular biology, studying the story of life. We offer services to the scientific community; train the next generation of scientists and strive to integrate the life sciences across Europe.

We are international, innovative and interdisciplinary. We are more than 1600 people, from over 80 countries, operating across six sites in Grenoble (France), Hamburg (Germany), Heidelberg (Germany), Cambridge (UK), Rome (Italy), and Barcelona (Spain). Our scientists work in independent groups and conduct research and offer services in all areas of molecular biology. Our research drives the development of new technology and methods in the life sciences. We work to transfer this knowledge for the benefit of society.

http://www.embl.org

About the project

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie grant agreement No 945405.
THE Deputy Mayor of Henley has offered to pay the parking fine given to a man as he was making a delivery to the towns food bank.

Keith Thompson had to pay 60 after he parked in one of the spaces reserved for permit holders opposite the d:two centre, where the Nomad food bank is based.

As reported in last weeks Henley Standard, Mr Thompson felt he should have been let off as he was on a charitable mission.

The town council, which employs London Parking Solutions to enforce the spaces, said it was sympathetic but couldnt let him off.

Now Councillor David Eggleton has offered to pay the fine.

He said: Parking enforcement is there for a reason and that is the most important thing. It is the same as parking on double yellow lines, whether you are donating to charity or not.

But I do feel sorry for the person that was trying to do a good deed. That is what I have been trying to do by going out and delivering things to people during the pandemic.

I would be prepared to pay for his parking ticket on those grounds. Without people like him and all the volunteers, there would be a lot of families out there who would be struggling to get through this pandemic, so I take my hat off to them.

I am doing the same thing by going out to vulnerable people as part of the covid-19 support group and I understand where he is coming from. He is just trying to help other people and then he becomes the victim.

Mr Thompson declined the offer, saying: It is very kind indeed but I couldnt possibly accept.

This is about the principle rather than the money. Id like to see the parking company, or the council, publicly state they accept my offer of donating another food box in lieu of paying the fine.

In fact, wouldnt it be great if this was offered by the council in all parking charge cases? The money would be much better used.

Id also love to know how much profit the parking company makes from each fine.

A council spokesman said: During this crisis, many of us have delivered food to food banks, or helped vulnerable family and friends, and we will have done so without parking illegally or inconsiderately.

In an emergency, such as a medical emergency or a breakdown, our contractor would, of course, not issue a ticket.

However, in this circumstance, there was no emergency and there was abundant parking just around the corner in both the Greys Road and Kings Road car parks.
Turkey, Russia and Iran were set to meet and discuss Syria after months of coronavirus related delays, but saw the meeting postponed again reports Alsouria Net.

On Sunday, Turkey was scheduled to host the foreign ministers of pro-Assad countries Russia and Iran, in their first face-to-face meeting after the coronavirus pandemic brought months of dormancy to political visits. But Ankara announced that the visit of Russias delegation had been postponed, just hours before it was set to begin.

As per the plan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu were meant to visit Turkey with the aim of holding consultations on some regional issues.

But on Sunday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that these meetings had been postponed.

The postponement comes amid new military developments in Idleb, where the Assad regime and Russia are committing violations in Jabal al-Zawiya, targeting the area with warplanes and artillery fire.

Idleb is subject to a March agreement between Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian president Vladimir Putin that stipulates a ceasefire and joint patrols along the Aleppo-Lattakia international highway.

In addition to developments in Idleb, Russian and Turkish officials were meant to discuss the Libyan file and military developments there, including military advances by the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord at the expense of Russian-backed forces led by Khalifa Haftar.

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.
New Delhi: BJP workers led by party leader Locket Chatterjee stage a demonstration to protest against a hike in school fee and charging of fee from parents in the COVID-19 lockdown period by private schools, near Bikash Bhavan in Kolkata on June 15, Image Source: IANS News

Kolkata: BJP workers stage a demonstration to protest against a hike in school fee and charging of fee from parents in the COVID-19 lockdown period by private schools, near Bikash Bhavan in Kolkata on June 15, 2020. (Photo: Kuntal Chakrabarty/IANS) Image Source: IANS News

Kolkata, June 15 : Hundreds of activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit of West Bengal, led by the party's Lok Sabha MP Locket Chatterjee, staged a sit-in demonstration protesting the hike in school fees in many private English medium schools.

The protest took place outside Vikash Bhawan in Kolkata's satellite township Salt Lake that houses the office of the West Bengal Education Department.

Armed with banners and placards, the BJP activists demanded the withdrawal of school fees for the last four months as all schools remained closed owing to the Covid-19 lockdown. They also submitted a deputation to the state education minister on the matter.

"Many private schools have increased fees during this lockdown. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already asked all school authorities not to increase fees but they have not paid any heed. The state education department is also sitting duck on the issue. It seems they have zero control over the private schools in the state," Chatterjee told mediapersons.

She said that many parents have already raised the issue in different schools but the authorities are not considering their demand.

"We want the state government to deal with the issue with a humane face. People are in dire crisis. Their income has gone down due to the Covid pandemic. How will they pay increased school fees especially when the school remained closed for the past four months," the BJP MP said, demanding immediate intervention of the CM and state education minister Partha Chatterjee into the matter.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan (Image: PTI)

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan took to Facebook on June 11 to condole with the death of a fellow party leader, PK Kunjananthan, who passed away that evening at a hospital in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram. Prima facie theres nothing wrong in it  except that Kunjananthan was a convict serving a life sentence for the brutal murder of TP Chandrasekharan, the leader of the breakaway Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP).

The Chief Minister hailing a murder convict has become a talking point in the state. On cue, several ministers representing the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), including Health Minister KK Shailaja, put up similar Facebook posts lionising the murder convict.

TP Chandrasekharans murder in 2012 was chilling by even the bloody standards of Keralas political killings and is an indelible blot over the CPI(M)s image, and further strengthens allegations that the CPI(M) is a law unto itself. Recently, Kerala Womens Commission Chairperson MC Josephine made a stunning statement that the ruling CPI(M) acts as a court and a police station with its internal mechanisms to investigate sexual abuse and murder charges against party leaders.

The CPI(M) State Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, a former home minister, was perhaps alluding to this when he claimed Kunjananthan was a victim of state terrorism during the United Democratic Front (UDF) rule. After all, the CPI(M)s internal commission had given a clean chit to Kunjananthan in the TP murder case, making a mockery of the criminal justice system.

Even if Balakrishnans statements could have been ignored, the way the Chief Minister went out of his way to extol the virtues of the murder convict has once again brought CPI(M)s Kannur brand of political killings back in focus. This is in stark contrast to the image-building exercise around the Chief Minister, even as the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government sniffs at a possibility of beating anti-incumbency at the assembly polls scheduled for 2021.

Vijayan has been fashioning his welfarist government in Kerala as the alternative to the Narendra Modi-led central government. Vijayans Kerala model is based on a robust health and educational infrastructure, the foundations of which go back decades, if not centuries. However, even as Vijayan reiterates in his speeches that this [model] is the alternative, his identity as the ringleader of the Kannur faction of the CPI(M) came to the fore yet again with his public exaltation of a murder convict.

Before becoming the Chief Minister in 2016, Vijayan was the CPI(M) state secretary for 17 long years, at the height of which the Left party saw a protracted power struggle between two factions within the party  one led by former Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan and the other led by Vijayan. In this struggle many small leaders became collateral damage, and Chandrasekharan was one such leader. He was aligned to the Achuthanandan faction and once he felt stymied in a party that was coming under the iron grip of Vijayan, he broke away and formed the RMP. Chandrasekharan also took with him a majority of party cadre and sympathisers in his local area.

As Chandrasekharan became a threat to the established order, even if it was limited to a pocket borough, Vijayan dubbed him a kulamkuthi or traitor. On May 4, 2012, Chandrasekharan was brutally hacked to death, with 51 cuts to his face, and his murder prompted many of the traditionally pro-Left commentators to speak out. Curiously, even after this, Vijayan continued to dub Chandrasekharan a kulamkuthi, in an extremely insensitive fashion.

Vijayans kind words towards murder convict must be seen in this backdrop and it resurrects many ghosts of a nearly-forgotten past. That is why, despite all the propaganda campaigns likening Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to a social democrat, it somehow doesnt cut ice. After all, the democratic deficit in the Kannur scheme of things is all too apparent.

In fact, Vijayans government is a departure from the previous Left governments in Kerala in that it is on a pragmatic approach when it comes to finance, capital, industrialisation and environmental clearances. Here the people-centric governance has moved to party-centric governance. While many older leaders see this as a Right-wing deviancy, there is no liberal approach to civil rights or democratic norms, with increasing centralisation of power in the government.

In fact, with this single act of glorification of a murder convict, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan might have rendered all the efforts to cast him in a new image to a nought, reminding the people of Kerala CPI(M)s not-so-democratic ways and the Kannur Model of politics.
(Natural News) As major cities begin picking up the pieces after days of destruction, the rioters and looters can rest easy knowing that they have a get-out-of-jail-free card waiting for them. Bail-out charities are suddenly flush with cash, especially the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), which has received an unprecedented level of donations from Hollywood stars including Justin Timberlake, Steve Carell, and Seth Rogen.

(Article by David Ng republished from Breitbart.com)

The revolution will be celebrified, thanks to aggressive Hollywood crowdsourcing.

The MFFs stated objective is simple  it raises donations that it uses to bail out suspected criminals from jail and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. The once-obscure group used to pull in a mere $110,000 a year in donations, according to public tax records. But since the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, it has raked in more than $20 million in less than a week.

MFFs sudden windfall raises questions about how the organization, which is led by a George Soros acolyte who is also a convicted drug offender, is actually spending its money. Are funds being used to bail out violent Antifa members? Will some of that cash find its way into the coffers of Democrat politicians or special interests?

The groups aggressive demands to defund the police are also garnering attention. MFF is encouraging donations to Reclaim the Block, which has called for government divestment from the Minneapolis police. Reclaim is receiving financial support from the Squad  Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

MFF has been suspected of harboring Antifa sympathies through its close collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild, a radical leftist organization that has been called Antifas unofficial legal arm. President Donald Trumps decision to classify Antifa as a domestic terror group could bring federal scrutiny to how MFF is using its money.

In the days since #BlackLivesMatter protests have swept the country, the MFF has become more brazen in its political rhetoric, including demands that Minnesota Gov. Tim Waltz (D) defund the police. It has also attracted support from prominent Democrat politicians  including several Joe Biden staffers.

MFF, which didnt respond to a request for comment, is legally restricted from giving money to political campaigns due to its 501(c)(3) non-profit status.

Were gonna need you @GovTimWalz to do better then vauge promises of change. Defund the Police. End Money Bail. Rebuild our small BIPOC owned businesses. https://t.co/HZkIgX2q3s  Minnesota Freedom Fund (@MNFreedomFund) May 30, 2020

Sen. Kamala Harris is encouraging people to donate money to MFF. At least 13 Joe Biden campaign staffers have also given money, which prompted a rebuke from President Trump. Biden has said he doesnt support defunding the police.

If youre able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota. https://t.co/t8LXowKIbw  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 1, 2020

In his tweet, President Trump implied that MFF is working to get anarchists out of jail, and probably more.

While MFF hasnt publicly supported Antifa, it coordinates its bail work with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), which does support Antifa.

The NLG recently defended the violent far-left group against President Trumps decision to label it as a domestic terrorist.

Trumps declaration that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization has no basis in fact or law and is merely an attempt to criminalize ordinary people who are exercising their right to protest, NLG said in a statement.

MFF partners with the NLG to set bail for suspected criminals. People who have been arrested and jailed during recent #BlackLivesMatter protests are being told to call the NLG, which will then contact the MFF to provide bail money.

Greg Lewin, board president of MFF, recently sent out a notice saying that the NLG knows to contact the MFF regarding bail.

Folks people have been arrested so let's please continue donating to @MNFreedomFund Re Greg Lewin from MN Freedom Fund If you need jail support/bails paid:

Legal Rights Ctr: 612-337-0030

AFTER HOURS

Nat'l Lawyers Guild: 612-444-2654 They know to connect to the Freedom Fund  Asma Nizami (@asmaresists) May 28, 2020

New York City Antifa has also advised its members to familiarize yourself with the numbers for the National Lawyers Guild.

stay smart. stay solid. never talk to a cop or a fed. nothing you say will help you and it can only harm others. familiarize yourself with the numbers for the national lawyers guild. if there isn't one near you, reach out and ask. we keep us safe.https://t.co/pwlpeJSrh2  New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) June 3, 2020

Both organizations have strong ties to anti-Trump billionaire George Soros.

MFF Executive Director Tonja Honsey was named a Soros Justice Fellow by the Open Society Foundations in 2019. Honsey is a convicted drug offender who was arrested during a meth lab bust in 2002. She has also served time for theft and check forgery. Since being freed, she has worked as a criminal justice reformer and has served on Minnesotas Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

The radical NLG has received funding from Soross Open Society and has partnered with Soros-backed organizations. The NLG has a history of hostility toward journalists looking into its ties to Antifa. Last week, its Portland, Oregon, chapter told investigative reporter Andy Ngo to fuck off when he said that the NLG operates as Antifas legal arm.

Those figures are expected to grow exponentially now that the fund is rolling in money. Hollywood celebrities have turned the group into a Twitter cause celebre as stars including Janelle Monae, Patton Oswalt, and Don Cheadle have all pledged to chip in.

Chrissy Teigen and her husband, the pop star John Legend, promised to donate $100,000 to various bail funds and then doubled their donation to $200,000.

MFFs bank account is so full that it has temporarily suspended further donations, asking people to donate to other charities, including Reclaim the Block, which supports the defunding of police

Founded in 2016, MFF has operated for most of its existence with a small crew of mostly young activists. Founder Simon Cecil was a student at the University of Minnesota when he received $10,000 in grants from the school to start the bail charity.

Bail funds have become a political rallying cry for the left in the short time since George Floyds death. ActBlue is hosting a fundraiser from the group Progressives Everywhere to assist a group of bail funds, including the MFF.

Progressives Everywhere said donations will be split evenly between 13 bail funds in order to assist low-income people, protestors and bystanders who have been unfairly arrested and must post high cash bails.

Read more at: Breitbart.com
MEA summons Pakistans charge d affaires to India

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: The Ministry of External Affairs has summoned Pakistan's charge 'd' affaires to India.

The move comes in the wake of two Indian officials at the High Commission in Islamabad going missing. Both officials who set out on work on Monday morning, did not reach their destination. Indian officials tell OneIndia that this is nothing but tit for tat action. The two staffers who went missing are posted at the Islamabad mission and had stepped out for some work.

Tensions have been mounting between the two countries since India expelled two Pakistan officials on charges of espionage. The two officials were identified as Abid Hussain and Mohammad Tahir Khan. India had also expelled a driver, Javed Hussain.

Tit for tat: ISI hand in disappearance of two Indian officials in Pakistan

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Sources tell OneIndia that this is clearly the handiwork of the ISI and is meant to avenge India's actions against its officials, who were caught trying to gather sensitive information about the movement of Indian troops.

The official also said that this action amounts to harassment and is aimed at obstructing the normal functioning of our officials. The officer also said that Pakistan is trying to take revenge and is looking to expel Indian officials from Islamabad. We are prepared for such action will react accordingly the officer also noted.

After India declared two Pakistani officials as persona non grata, Pakistan had accused India of torturing its officials. The charge was however rubbished by India. The officials had been caught red handed, officials say, but they were not subject to any torture.

Pakistan has just been making a ground, so that it can harass Indian officials in Islamabad.

India, it may be recalled had issued a demarche after the Pakistani officials were caught red handed trying to gather information against the Indian troops. India had investigated the matter and then asked the two officials to leave the country.
Photo: The Canadian Press A Canadian flag patch sits is shown on the shoulder of a member of the Canadian Armed Forces in Trenton, Ont., on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014. The Canadian Armed Forces is deploying military trainers back to Ukraine as it looks to restart some of the many missions and exercises temporarily suspended or scaled back because of COVID-19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg

The Canadian Armed Forces is deploying military trainers back to Ukraine as it looks to restart some of the many missions and exercises temporarily suspended or scaled back because of COVID-19.

Canada first deployed around 200 troops to Ukraine to train local forces in the basics of soldiering in 2015, but that mission and several others were suspended in early April as COVID-19 forced countries around the world into lockdown.

While a skeleton force of about 60 service members has been holding the fort for the past two months, Forces spokeswoman Capt. Leah Campbell said another 90 soldiers will soon join them with an eye to resuming the mission.

"Following a reassessment of the situation, including an analysis of force health protection measures and the risk posed by COVID-19, the decision was made to deploy another 90 of these members," Campbell said in an email on Sunday.

"These personnel will deploy in June 2020, and observe a 14-day isolation period on arrival in Ukraine. On completion of this isolation period, they will be prepared to resume their mission of supporting the Security Forces of Ukraine."

Another 50 troops will remain in Canada for now, she added, "and will deploy to engage in training as soon as conditions permit."

The decision to restart the Ukraine mission represents the latest move by the Armed Forces to resume some of the many activities that were suspended because of the pandemic.

Chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance has previously suggested that some training will recommence while promotions and summer postings are moving ahead in a limited fashion after months of the military being in lockdown.

There was no immediate word, however, on some of the other missions affected by COVID-19.

Those include the planned deployment of a warship and aircraft to help enforce sanctions against North Korea, the provision of a transport plane to United Nations' peacekeeping operations in Africa and the Canadian military mission in Iraq.

The military previously had several hundreds soldiers in Iraq, with half assigned to a NATO training mission in the south and the rest comprised of special forces helping Iraqi counterparts hunt down Islamic State militants in the north of the country.

Yet following a missile attack by Iran in January and then COVID-19, nearly all operations have been suspended and the number of troops in Iraq has been dramatically reduced. Canada currently has fewer than 100 soldiers in the country.

Discussions over the future of the international community's presence in Iraq are underway between Baghdad and Washington while there are reports of an uptick in the number of attacks perpetrated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The items which would be distributed to some four health facilities within the companys operational areas, namely Brakwaline Health Centre, Bogoso Health Centre, Himan Health Centre and Prestea Government Hospital.

The ladies say, are to augment the other donations the mother company has already done.

Their effort as ladies in their mining firm was to contribute their quota to support the government as Ghana wrestles with Covid-19.

Currently, in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality where their outfit operates, the cases of Covid-19 is recorded at 54.

Golden Star Resources Bogoso Prestea Limited (GSBPL) before this recorded cases had temporarily released a facility to the Prestea Health Directorate to be used as a holding centre for those suspected to have contracted the virus within the companys operational areas.

They have also provided more personal protective equipment (PPE) for the frontline health workers in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality.

Presenting the items at the Prestea Huni  Valley Municipal Assembly Friday June 12, 2020, the President of the Ladies Club at GSBPL Makki Rashida Iddrisu stated that, their donation was to replenish the consumables the health facilities got from the mother company.

This is in our own small way to complement what Golden Star the mother company has already done, she said.

Rashida Iddrisu further expressed that as mothers, we live in the communities and we know what is going on, we see the health facilities, we send our children there and we know how the facilities are. So we came together to contribute this to help the fight against Covid-19.

The Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Health Director Mr. Emmanuel Kofi Tamakloe who was elated to receive another consignment from a group within GSBPL thanked the Ladies Club and said these are some of the things the health facilities need in this fight against the disease. They are consumables and so we need more of them.

The preventive items presented were 48 gallons of liquid soap, 36 gallons of bleach and 20 gallons of hand sanitizer.
Pope Francis prays for the people of Libya, affected by violence and conflict, and calls on the international community to seek the path to peace.

By Vatican News

After his Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis turned his thoughts and prayers to the dramatic situation in Libya, which he said he is following with great apprehension and sorrow.

The Pope urged the international community and all those who have political and military responsibilities to recommence with conviction and resolve the search for a path towards an end to the violence, leading to peace, stability and unity in the country.

Pope Francis also prayed for the thousands of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons in Libya. He noted that the current health situation has aggravated the already precarious conditions in which they find themselves, making them more vulnerable to forms of exploitation and violence. There is cruelty, he said.

The Pope called on the international community to take their plight to heart, identifying pathways and providing means to provide them with the protection they need, a dignified condition and a future of hope.

Going off script, the Pope said that everyone is responsible. "No one can consider him or herself dispensed from this". He then asked everyone in the Square to pause in silent prayer for Libya.

World Blood Donor Day

Pope Francis then noted that today Marks world Blood Donor Day.

It is an opportunity, he said, "to encourage society to be in solidarity with and sensitive to those in need".

The pope then greeted the volunteers present and expressed his appreciation to all those who perform this "simple but very important act of helping others".
Thunderstorm with rain would occur over Uttar Pradeshs Bulandshahar and the adjoining areas during the next two hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a tweet on Monday noon.

According to the IMD, conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of East Madhya Pradesh and East Uttar Pradesh during the next 48 hours.

The IMD in its noon bulletin on Monday stated that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall is very likely to continue over Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Sikkim, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar during next 2-3 days.

Also read: Monsoon advances in Gujarat, heavy rain likely over next few days

15.06.2020 1320 IST; Thunderstorm with rain would occur over and adjoining areas of Bulandshahar during the next 2 hour. pic.twitter.com/ME0Za3MSHE  IMD Weather (@IMDWeather) June 15, 2020

Scattered heavy to very heavy falls and isolated extremely heavy falls over Konkan and Goa, isolated heavy to very heavy falls over interior Maharashtra, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim and Odisha and isolated heavy falls over central India and Bihar, Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal during next 2-3 days, the bulletin read.

After a brief spell of showers earlier this month, parts of northern India have been experiencing hot and humid weather conditions.

On Sunday, the mercury hovered close to 40 degrees Celsius in Delhi. The national capital was predicted to witness overcast conditions on Monday with the maximum and minimum temperatures expected to settle at 41 and 28 degrees Celsius respectively.

Punjab and Haryana are also witnessing hot and humid weather conditions while heatwave conditions prevailing in parts of Rajasthan despite heavy to moderate rains in eastern and western parts of the state till Sunday morning.

The Met department has said the progress of the monsoon has so far been normal and on the expected lines

(With inputs from PTI)
A new Covid-19 cluster has emerged at Xinfadi, the largest wholesale market in Beijing. After which, the Chinese authorities have declared martial law in the city of Baoding.

Chinese authorities have declared martial law in the city of Baoding in Hebei province, amid the new COVID-19 cluster at Xinfadi, the largest wholesale market in Beijing, local municipal authorities said on Monday. The epidemic response centre announced a hasty declaration of martial law and the launch of a wartime mechanism to prevent the spread of the epidemic in Baoding, the statement said.

According to the statement, a high degree of vigilance is required, given the fact that Baoding is located next to Beijing and there is an intense movement of goods and people between the cities. Baoding, with a population of over 11 million, is located 90 miles (nearly 145 kilometres) southwest of Beijing.

The authorities closed Xinfadi on Saturday after authorities discovered 46 asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers linked to the market following mass testing. Moreover, a lockdown was reimposed in the Fengtai district of the capital, where the market is located. The city authorities have said that all people who work at Xinfadi or visited the place since May 30 will take nucleic acid tests to detect if they are infected with COVID-19.

Also Read: Nepals Upper House endorses proposal seeking consideration to update countrys new map

Also Read: Imran Khans relationship with Pak Army on the rocks

A total of 79 people infected with COVID-19 are currently receiving treatment in Beijing hospitals. Prior to June 11, Beijing had not registered a single local case of coronavirus infection for 56 days. The current coronavirus pandemic started in China in December of last year. Initial reports indicated that the start of the COVID-19 epidemic in China was linked to a market in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province.

Also Read: Nepal border firing: India takes up killing of its national at border with Nepal govt

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azcentral.com and Republic Media (The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com) announced today that AB&R (American Barcode and RFID) has earned a spot on the list of 2020 azcentral.com Top Companies to Work for in Arizona for the sixth year in a row.

It is a testament to our team that we have been recognized as one of the Top Companies to Work for in Arizona for six consecutive years! says Mike Stryczek, President & CEO of AB&R. Our team exemplifies our corporate values daily through personal accountability, effective communication, company-wide empowerment, consistent integrity, and of course, joining in on the fun. AB&R has been an Arizona-based business for the past 40 years. Id like to thank our team for providing Amazing Customer Experiences and look forward to what we will achieve together!

This highly selective list is the result of anonymous and comprehensive employee surveys measuring culture, work environment, leadership, and employee pride and satisfaction, combined with rigorous evaluations of workplace practices, policies, perks and demographics.

[These top] companies were selected based on the results of a very high favorable employee survey scores averaging 90% overall survey results and an impressive 91% overall employee engagement. This level of performance for Arizona companies is about three times the national average when compared to Gallups recent reporting of US engagement at about 33% favorable, says Denise Gredler, Founder & CEO for BestCompaniesAZ. These winners should be very proud of their Top Companies status for this presents a powerful opportunity to attract and retain the very best talent.

The Top Companies" were published in a special supplement in the June 14, 2020 issue of The Arizona Republic, as well as online at azcentral.com and http://www.BestCompaniesAZ.com. These companies will also be honored at an awards breakfast reception later this year.

For complete details visit http://www.abr.com or topcompanies.azcentral.com.

About AB&R

AB&R (American Barcode and RFID) is the leader in IoT solutions. Supplying businesses across all industries with advanced technology to identify, track, and manage inventory and assets throughout the supply chain with the primary goal of making them better at what they do best. AB&R's solutions and services include product identification with high-performance printing and compliance labeling through real-time visibility and traceability, and the managed and professional services to support them all. With 40 years as a trusted expert in technical innovation, performance, and cost-effectiveness, AB&Rs solutions improve efficiency and productivity that transforms companies all around the world. https://www.abr.com/about-abr/who-we-are/

About Republic Media

Republic Media is a consultative media company that provides you with the means to deliver your message to the right audience in the most effective way. From online to print to direct mail, Republic Media encompasses an array of products including The Arizona Republic, azcentral.com, and La Voz. Since 1890, The Arizona Republic continues to be Arizona's most trusted and most read newspaper. http://www.republicmedia.com/about-us

About BestCompaniesAZ

BestCompaniesAZ is a marketing agency that specializes in employer branding. With more than 30 combined years of industry experience in public relations and human resources, BestCompaniesAZ elevates award-winning organizations through digital marketing, events, communication and award consultation services. For more information, visit BestCompaniesAZ.com.

About Best Companies Group

Best Companies Group is dedicated to establishing Best Places to Work programs to distinguish leaders in workplace excellence. As a research firm, BCG collects data about participating companies as well as employee feedback, analyzes that data, and produces a Best distinction that makes each recognized organization, the selected region (or industry) and the organizing partners proud. Best Companies Group identifies and recognizes places of employment that lead the way in defining the employee experience of the 21st century.

Additional Resources

Website | http://www.abr.com

Blog | https://www.abr.com/category/blog/

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-barcode-and-rfid/

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/user/TeamRFID

AB&R is a registered trademark of American Barcode and RFID, Inc. Any trade, product or service name referenced in this document using the name AB&R is a trademark and/or property of American Barcode and RFID, Inc.
The VIA Team during one of the online interactive sessions Vinitaly Academy Agile edition has made the impossible possible: making us feel part of the VIA Community during this difficult time. I was able to feel surrounded by fellow classmates, share my passion for Italian wine and feel close to the heart of Italy through my screen!

Italian wine does not stop and the same goes for Italian wine education: an agile format was designed for the 2020 edition of the Vinitaly International Academy certification course in Verona, its annual flagship edition. Being the Academys birthplace, Verona has always been the preferred location for students, and Vinitaly International wanted this edition to feel as special as previous ones. With a new updated format that combines live lectures and prerecorded warm-up sessions with onsite practical tastings, 60 international students participated in the best possible version of the Italian Wine Ambassador certification course.

At the beginning of 2020, due to the global health situation, Vinitaly International was faced with a new challenge: deliver the gold standard of Italian wine education, online. The VIA team quickly accepted the new landscape and  with support from the VIA Advisory Board and Chief Scientist Attilio Scienza  came up with an agile solution for wine students, splitting the Ambassador course into two modules.

The first module wrapped up on June 12, 2020, where theoretical lectures were delivered online. Access to e-sessions were made available to candidates all over the world at any given time. Faculty members Sarah Heller MW and Henry Davar IWE led the interactive sessions, giving students real time support and guidance. In addition, students were able to pre-watch a series of warm-up sessions to focus their studies. On the new approach, VIA Faculty Member Henry Davar observed: This month we made a pivot with our flagship Italian Wine Ambassador Certification Program. We premiered the agile edition of the course whats changed? Well, we continue our mission to offer the broadest, most in depth and most up to date Italian wine curriculum. We also made good in our commitment to expand our offerings, notable additions this month include new Masterclass sessions. When we premiered the course back in 2018 we started with 3 Masterclasses, today weve expanded to 7! These Masterclass sessions have been prerecorded so students have the flexibility to study on their own time and to review the materials as often as they wish. This has left us to expand our live-virtual sessions to dig deeper into the wine regions of Italy and their native grapes. Moreover, because Sarah and I alternate lectures it frees one of us up to address any questions that our students might have during the lesson without disturbing the flow of the lecture. This has made the course much more interactive as well.

The second part of the course will take place in Verona, Italy on November 19th to the 24th, 2020. In the new Agile format, tasting and recognizing the key grape varieties and wines will continue to be fundamental components in the VIA assessment. Therefore, the practical module will encompass two different types of activities: the intensive tasting section that will run on November 19th and 20th, and the participation portion, from November 21st to the 24th which will include field trips and events such as OperaWine and the wine2wine wine business forum.

Students benefit from the Agile version because of the more flexible schedule, there is more time to prepare for the final exam and there are extended warm up sessions. Fiona Chin, Business Manager at De Majestic Vines Singapore and VIA student, commented on the format saying: Vinitaly Academy Agile edition has made the impossible possible: making us feel part of the VIA Community during this difficult time. I was able to feel surrounded by fellow classmates, share my passion for Italian wine and feel close to the heart of Italy through my screen! I was completely blown away by the enthusiasm and knowledge shared by excellent Italian wine expert Henry Davar and Sarah Heller MW! Roddy Ropner, Japan based wine journalist, remarked: The extra detail around soils and history is very helpful. And the tag team format - especially answering questions without interrupting the flow of the lecture is great!

Italian wine profits from the Agile format too: the Verona flagship edition of the Italian Wine Ambassador Course keeps the conversation about Italian wine culture alive and happening, even during these challenging times. Vinitaly International Academy is proud to have been able to adapt; to find a solution for those students who hoped to continue in this field. This has also been beneficial for the evolution of the course itself, VIA has managed to build on an already great course, this edition as well as those to come will provide the best possible Italian wine education for wine lovers all over the world.

About: Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) aims to be the gold standard of Italian wine education. It offers a complete educational path with standardized courses that will teach professionals and educators to master the diversity of Italian wine in a rigorous, organized manner. VIAs main objective is to foster a global network of highly qualified professionals such as Italian Wine Ambassadors and Italian Wine Experts: in turn, they will support and promote Italian wine throughout the world. VIA was founded by Stevie Kim, Managing Director of Vinitaly International. The new VIA ecosystem avails of the guidance of Italian trade associations Federdoc, Federvini, Vignaioli Indipendenti FIVI, and Unione Italiana Vini as members of the Institutional Advisory Board. Italian vine genetics scholar, Prof. Attilio Scienza, oversees VIAs scientific and educational direction as the Chief Scientist. VIA Faculty Sarah Heller MW and Henry Davar teach the flagship Italian Wine Ambassador course. The following trade associations in the Italian wine industry have also joined as VIA Supporters: Italia del Vino; Italian Signature Wines Academy; Le Famiglie del Vino, Wi-Fi Wine from Irpinia, Consorzio di Tutela Vini del Trentino; Consorzio di Tutela Sicilia DOC; Franciacorta; Consorzio di Tutela Vini dAbruzzo. To date the VIA community comprises 215 certified Italian Wine Ambassadors and 15 Italian Wine Experts. Since its foundation in 2014, over 615 candidates from all over the world have taken VIAs courses.
Gaborone: Botswana is investigating the mysterious deaths of at least 154 elephants over two months in the northwest of the country, a wildlife official said on Monday, although poaching or poisoning has been ruled out.

"We are still awaiting results on the exact cause of death, Regional Wildlife Coordinator Dimakatso Ntshebe told Reuters. The carcasses were found intact, suggesting they were not poached. Further investigations have also ruled out poisoning by humans and anthrax, which sometimes hits wildlife in this part of Botswana.

Africa`s overall elephant population is declining due to poaching, but Botswana, home to almost a third of the continents elephants, has seen numbers grow to 130,000 from 80,000 in the late 1990s, owing to well-managed reserves.

However, they are seen as a growing nuisance by farmers, whose crops have been destroyed by elephants roaming the southern African country.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi last year lifted a five-year ban on big game hunting, imposed by previous president Ian Khama, but the hunting season failed to take off in April as global travel restrictions meant hunters from many coronavirus-hit countries could not enter Botswana.

Meanwhile, the Wildlife Department has undertaken an operation to relocate and dehorn all rhinos to tackle poaching in Botswana - mirroring efforts elsewhere in the region.

The Okavango Delta rhino population has been the hardest hit, with 25 reported poached between December and the beginning of May, government figures show, as poachers take advantage of the absence of safari tourists during the pandemic.

That compares with a total of 31 rhinos poached from October 2018 to December last year. "Both white rhino and black rhinos have been severely affected, necessitating the ... relocation of highly endangered black rhinos (and) intensification of surveillance," the Department said.
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Before a judge at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Kozielecs court-appointed attorney said the trucker of 20 years and father of three was merely trying to get to his place of work and not targeting protesters. There are no indications he his driving was political in nature, said Assistant Public Defender Drew Bruno.
What happened

Shares of GSX Techedu (NYSE:GOTU) reached all-time highs on Monday, surpassing $50 per share. As of 12:30 p.m. EDT, the stock was up 25%.

GSX Techedu stock is becoming a battle-ground stock. Short interest -- people betting against it -- is surging due to prominent fraud allegations. However, ever since GSX Techedu management started openly disputing these accusations, the stock has rallied nearly 60%, suggesting at least some investors find the explanations reasonable.

GSX data by YCharts

So what

Research firms Muddy Waters and Grizzly Research have both issued detailed reports on why they believe GSX Techedu is making up most of its revenue. There's some common threads between the unique research reports. First, the company allegedly doesn't have as many students as it claims as evidenced by login data. That would mean most of its revenue isn't real either. Second, items in Muddy Waters' report were corroborated by an unnamed, former company insider. Grizzly Research's report was similarly aided by anonymous industry insiders.

Both of these research firms published their reports with instructions on how to replicate some of their findings. However, Citron Research took a different approach to GSX Techedu. According to its Twitter account, it's making its case with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in hopes regulators will investigate.

Luckin Coffee was another popular Chinese growth stock with fraud allegations that were later substantiated. The freshness of Luckin stock's plummet coupled with three prominent short sellers coming out against GSX Techedu caused a surge in short interest for GSX stock. According to ShortSqueeze.com, there are currently 39.3 million shares sold short, up from 26 million before. That's a whopping 66% of the float -- the shares available for trading.

However, GSX Techedu has released three press releases, arguing their side of the story. Management addresses many of Muddy Waters' and Grizzly Research's allegations, providing an explanation for the issues. It's worth noting that since May 19, the day of GSX Techedu's first such press release, the stock has returned almost 60%. It suggests many investors believe the company.

So what does any of this have to do with today? It's speculation, but short sellers may be getting squeezed out, possibly even against their will. Short selling involves margin -- borrowing from your broker. If an investor's position loses enough money, brokers can require them to deposit more money in their account. If they don't, or can't, the broker can close a position at a loss before the loss gets bigger. It's possible that's what's happening with GSX Techedu stock today; short sellers are forced to close, sparking a short squeeze and exacerbating the issue.

Now what

Those who find the short case for GSX Techedu stock compelling need to understand that even the best theses, whether bull or bear, often take time to come to fruition. A good thesis will include solid reasoning, consider evidence to the contrary, and be willing to wait long term for it to play out.

July 9 is an upcoming date for investors to circle. The SEC is hosting a roundtable discussion on emerging markets, which include China. It's part of a movement for more scrutiny on foreign-based companies' listing on the U.S. markets. Topics discussed at that meeting could be an indication of where regulation is headed.
NEW MILFORD  The police department has identified the two men who drowned while swimming on the Housatonic River last week.

Alexander Osoria-Paredes, 21, and Luis Hernandez-Cuello, 24, both from Bronx, N.Y., were swimming with friends and family on Wednesday when they went under the water and were reported missing. They had been swimming by the Bulls Bridge power plant, which is in a part of the river with a strong current.

Our prayers go out to both of the families of the victims of this tragic accident, Lt. Lee Grabner said in a statement.

Dive teams from the New Milford, Brookfield and state police departments, as well as the Newtown Underwater Search and Rescue were able to find the two men during a search that spanned more than three days. New Milfords police helicopter and several surrounding fire departments also assisted.

The weather and current both made the search more challenging, and it even had to be called off on Thursday.

Osoria-Paredes was found Friday and Hernandez-Cuello was found Saturday.

The mens bodies were taken to the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for further investigation, but the circumstances surrounding the incident arent suspicious at this time, Grabner said.

In light of this tragic incident we would also remind everyone to be safe around all lakes, ponds and rivers, he said. And please swim only in designated areas or where there is a lifeguard and all children and non-swimmers should always wear a life jacked in and around any lakes, ponds and rivers.

A 25-year-old woman from Bronx, N.Y. drowned last August in the same part of the river.

This has been a popular gathering spot for years, sometimes having crowds of 130 or 140 people collected along the river bank, despite the signs posted.

The town already put jersey barriers at the turnoff by Gaylordsville Fire Department to try to prevent people from heading down to the river and swimming there. Last week, Mayor Pete Bass said additional safety measures are expected to be announced in the coming days.

At the time, he said he hadnt seen crowds like that yet this year, largely due to the weather.

kkoerting@newstimes.com
Adem Somyurek has been sacked

Victorian Labor MP Adem Somyurek has been sacked as a minister after he was secretly recorded calling a female colleague a 'stupid b****' and describing gay staff members as 'slimy little f***ers'.

In recordings aired on 60 Minutes last night, Mr Somyurek also claimed he was more powerful than Premier Daniel Andrews, saying: 'I'll be running the joint.'

The show's investigation also accused Mr Somyurek of recruiting party members to influence which candidates get chosen for elections, a practice know as 'branch stacking.'

Mr Andrews today sacked Mr Somyurek as the minister for local government and small business, referred the allegations against him to the police and moved to expel him from the Australian Labor Party.

'I have ended his career,' Mr Andrews said.

Mr Somyurek denied the branch stacking allegations, saying: 'I reject those and will be providing a rigorous defence during any party process.'

He admitted making inappropriate comments about a female colleague and young gay staffers.

Mr Somyurek claims he resigned but Mr Andrews said he sacked the minister at 9am.

'Mr Somyurek was not offered an opportunity to resign. He is not worthy of an opportunity to resign. He was sacked. And that is the fact of the matter,' Mr Andrews said.

'He offered no defence of his actions. It was not a meeting where I was having a debate or discussion with him. I was simply doing him the courtesy of informing him in person of the decisions that I had taken.

Adem Somyurek (centre) pictured at a meeting in May, 2019

What did Adem Somyurek say in secret recordings? On the Premier: 'F**** the Premier. Alright? That's what this is about. F*** the premier. I'll be just running the joint, like, it's who I say is going to be the f***ing premier' On female colleague Gabrielle Williams: 'I will f***ing force her out of the ministry, that f***ing stupid b****, when Andrews goes  She's a stupid, stupid moll. 'I'm going to f***ing knock her f***ing head off. She's a f***ing psycho b****.' On young Labor members: 'Real little f***ing slimy little f***ers, right  little passive aggressive f***ing gay kids' Advertisement

'The conduct is appalling and unacceptable and will not be tolerated and I have taken action to deal with that.'

The Premier said the first he heard of the allegations was when he watched 60 Minutes last night.

The programme claimed to reveal the upper house MP handed over thousands of dollars in cash and used parliamentary employees to create fake branch members and amass political influence within the Australian Labor Party.

Footage shows Mr Somyurek on April 13 withdrawing $2,000 in cash from an ATM, before handing it and dozens of party membership forms, to an adviser working for fellow Labor minister Marlene Kairouz, who then delivers the forms and cash to ALP head office.

The advisor reportedly carried out a similar cash drop-off earlier in the year.

'Well, if he (the advisor) gets caught on the street, he'd better not say he's doing f***ing this stuff,' Mr Somyurek is recorded saying after the April 13 drop.

Mr Somyurek was also allegedly recorded ordering people to forge signatures and create false statements, in which Labor branch members claim to have paid for their own memberships.

The MP said he will ask the police to investigate if he was recorded illegally.

Jaclyn Symes, Gabrielle Williams, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Melissa Horne and Adem Somyurek in 2018

Adem Somyurek pictured in May, 2019

What is branch stacking? Branch stacking involves recruiting or signing up members for a local branch of a political party for the purpose of influencing the outcome of internal preselections of candidates for federal and state parliament. Advertisement

He also talks about directing taxpayer-funded parliamentary employees, meant to be working for other MPs, to conduct party political operations.

In one recording, Mr Somyurek boasts of controlling two-thirds of the Labor party in Victoria.

'I'll be just running the joint,' Mr Somyurek says.

'It's who I say is going to be the f***ing premier.'

It is against Labor rules to pay for other people's memberships.

Party members are required to sign a form declaring they have paid for their own memberships.

In the recordings, Mr Somyurek also takes aim at his colleagues, including Ms Kairouz, who he describes as holding a 'meaningless' portfolio 'made up just to make it look like we're interested in the suburbs'.

He labels the Minister for Women and the Prevention of Family Violence Gabrielle Williams a 'stupid b****' whom he will 'f***ing force ... out of the ministry'.

Somyurek also describes these young staffers helping him as 'patronising and annoying', and 'real little f***ing slimy little f***ers, little passive-aggressive f***ing gay kids'.'
NIA arrests key aide of naxalites in Hyderabad

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested one person from Hyderabad, who played a key role in supporting and furthering the activities of the naxalites.

The arrested has been identified as Nalamasa Krishna, the vice president of the Telangana Praja Front. The case was originally registered by the Hyderabad police. The case is based on the seizure of incriminating documents and materials from the residence of Madilleti, the president of the TVV.

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NIA charges two in Bihar fake currency case

Investigations revealed that Krishna regularly visited the top leaders of the CPI (Maoists) in the Chhattisgarh forests and passed on their directions to Madilleti. He was also instrumental in directing the frontal organisations like the TPF, TVV and others to take up various agitations and activities as per the ideology of the CPI (Maoists).

Under the garb of agitations for the welfare of the people, he misused the democratic set up for their ulterior motive of strengthening of the CPI (Maoist), which is a banned organisation.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused turmoil throughout the retail industry.

A handful of retail companies that were deemed essential from the output have seen sales increase, but many chains and franchises have been left in shambles  even with online shopping sales rising.

Now, as nonessential retail stores get set to reopen in New Jersey, many popular companies are left to crawl out of a big financial hole after nearly three months of temporary closures and significant year-over-year decreases in sales.

Over the last few weeks, several major chains have announced permanent store closings or intentions to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Heres a look into the impact the coronavirus has had on the retail industry, which already was largely on the defense before the pandemic hit.

Amazon

Despite some bumps at first  it was notably difficult to secure a time slot for grocery service  Amazon has continued its online retail domination.

The company reported its first-quarter sales increased by 26% compared to 2019. There was such a big spike that Amazon wasnt able to keep up with the high volume of orders.

American Eagle Outfitters

The fashion brand suffered a $257.2 million loss for a 13-week period ending May 2, according to an SEC filing.

Store closures and aggressive inventory liquidation had a significant impact on our first-quarter financials, CEO Jay Schottenstein said in a statement.

Bath & Body Works

Bath & Body Works parent company, L Brands, saw total sales decline by 37%. The company, which did not pay April and May rent, said the drop in sales was impacted by temporary store closings.

L Brands announced that 51 stores in the U.S. and Canada will shutter this year.

Brooks Brothers

The 202 year-old clothing retailer is in talks with banks about raising financing for a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which could come as soon as July.

Burlington Coat Factory

The company announced its total sales decreased by 51% in the 13-week period ending May 2, compared to 2019.

All 402 stores closed March 22 due to the coronavirus. About 332 stores have since reopened, and the others plan to open this month, the statement said.

Costco

The retailer known to sell in bulk reported a 7.7% increase in sales ($120.19 billion) for a 39-week period ending May 31, compared to 2019 ($111.56 billion).

Dicks Sporting Goods

Kayla Renie | mrenie@mlive.com

Dicks announced in a statement its sales as of May 2 decreased by 30.6% compared to 2019.

The decrease was driven by temporary store closures, Dicks said. Its stores closed on March 18, but are now beginning to reopen.

Dillards

Total retail sales for the 13 weeks through May 2 decreased by 47% compared to 2019, the company announced in a statement.

Dillards aggressively discounted merchandise online in order to clear out inventory because of the temporary store closures.

GameStop

GameStop first experienced a bump in sales because of the coronavirus pandemic but announced it expects total global sales for the 13-week period ending May 2 to decrease by 33%-to-35% compared to 2019.

The company temporarily closed all 3,526 of its U.S. stores on March 22. As of June 1, about 85% of stores were offering curbside pickup or allowing limited capacity, according to the statement.

Gap

Gap Inc. reported first-quarter fiscal year sales dropped by 43%, due to temporary store closures. As of June 4, 55% of the companys U.S. stores are open.

Gap also operates Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta.

GNC

The nutrition supplement retailer announced in May it may have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to implement a restructuring plan."

Sales decreased by 10.1% in the first quarter compared to 2019.

Gordmans

Owner Stage Stores announced in May it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with liquidation sales planned for Gordmans as soon as stores reopen.

Stage Stores also owns Bealls, Goodys, Stage and Palais Royal stores.

JCPenney

JCPenney will permanently close 154 stores after filing for bankruptcy.

Liquidation sales for the first round of store closures are expected to begin this month and take 10-to-16 weeks to complete.

J.Crew

J.Crew filed for bankruptcy in May, and was the first major retailer to do so amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Its lenders will convert about $1.65 billion of the companys debt into equity. There are currently no plans to permanently close stores.

Kohls

Kohls reported a 43.5% decrease in sales for the fiscal quarter ending May 2, compared to 2019.

The company temporarily closed its stores in March, but as of June 5, about 80% reopened.

Macys

Macys expects a loss of up to $1.1 billion for the period ending May 2, compared to $203 million in 2019, according to its first-quarter preliminary results.

I am confident that we are taking the right steps to ensure that Macys, Inc. will emerge on the other side of this crisis a strong, resilient company and ready to serve our customers, CEO Jeff Gennette said in the report.

Neiman Marcus

High-end department store Neiman Marcus announced in May it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

There are currently no plans for Neiman Marcus to permanently close stores, but the company will continue to assess store closure decisions.

Neiman Marcus said it hopes to eliminate its approximate $4 billion of debt and emerge from bankruptcy this fall.

New York & Company

New York & Companys parent company, RTW Retailwinds, warned this month that it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The company has had store closures, furloughs, supply chain disruptions and terminations of certain corporate positions. RTW Retailwinds also said it has not paid April and May rent to landlords, and didnt make recent payments to many of its vendors.

The company believes without seeking protection under the bankruptcy laws it does not have ability to raise additional capital at this time, RTW Retailwinds said in an SEC filing.

Nordstrom

Nordstrom announced in May plans to permanently shutter 16 stores, including its Freehold Raceway Mall location.

Stores, including Nordstrom Rack locations, temporarily closed to the public on March 17 but have offered curbside-pickup. Select stores are now open.

Weve been investing in our digital and physical capabilities to keep pace with rapidly changing customer expectations," CEO Erik Nordstrom said in a statement. "The impact of COVID-19 is only accelerating the importance of these capabilities in serving customers.

Pier 1 Imports

Home decor retailer Pier 1 Imports announced it has received approval from bankruptcy court to shutter and liquidate all of its roughly 540 stores, including its e-commerce operations.

Pier 1 Imports plans for all store closings and liquidation sales to be concluded by the end of October.

The 58-year-old company said last month the pandemic prevented the retailer from securing a buyer after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. Pier 1s remaining assets, including intellectual property and e-commerce business, will also be sold through a court-supervised process on July 15.

Signet Jewelers

Signet Jewelers, the parent company of the brands Kay Jewelers, Piercing Pagoda and Zales, revealed in an earnings call that about 380 U.S. and Europe stores will permanently close.

Stores in declining malls will be impacted the most, and the company said at least 150 locations in the U.S. and 80 in Europe that have been temporarily closed due to the coronavirus will not reopen.

Brick-and-mortar sales declined by 44.7% due to the pandemic and the closures are an overall evaluation of our go-forward physical footprint," according to CFO Joan Holstein Hilson.

Starbucks

AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Coffee giant Starbucks announced it will close up to 400 company-operated stores over the next 18 months.

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.

Target

Target reported its first-quarter sales grew 10.8% compared to 2019 as a result of fewer, bigger shopping trips.

Its same-day digital and service sales (order pickup, drive-up and Shipt) grew by 278% in April.

Victorias Secret

Victorias Secret will permanently close about 250 stores in the U.S. and Canada this year.

L Brands, its parent company, said its closely evaluating all locations, especially more vulnerable centers for risk of closure."

Walmart

The discount retailer experienced a 10% increase in sales compared to 2019 for its first-quarter results, ending May 1.

Walmart said its e-commerce sales increased 74% in the United States.

Zara

Inditex, the parent company of fashion brand Zara, announced this week plans to close up to 1,200 stores worldwide by the end of 2021.

The closings will be stores at the end of their useful life and whose sales can be recovered in nearby stores and online," the company said.

Inditex said online sales surged amid the coronavirus pandemic, including a 95% increase in April.

24 Hour Fitness

Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will permanently close more than 130 gyms, including seven in New Jersey: Avenel, Hasbrouck Heights, Jersey City, Parsippany, Piscataway, Saddle Brook and Wayne.

The company says the bankruptcy filing is due to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That will leave just five 24 Hour Fitness gyms left in New Jersey, located in Englewood Cliffs, North Brunswick, Paramus, Ramsey and Springfield. All remain temporarily closed due to the coronavirus.

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Successful women are always under pressure to be relatable, vulnerable, and humble, writes Terry Prone

DAY 76

I found myself in a meeting with a man in the toilet (him, not me). Admittedly, at least 12 other people were in the meeting. But when youre about to make a presentation, its a little distracting to realise that, courtesy of Zoom, every participant can see a man sitting on the toilet with a hand basin to one side of him and a bath to the other.

The fact that hes fully dressed, the lid of the loo is under him rather than in any other position and a card table is in front of him suggests the bathroom is the only place wherein he can lock himself away and concentrate. Which he does. Fiercely. The rest of us concentrate equally fiercely on not seeing his surroundings.

DAY 77

Because I cant get Botox, the migraine aura is now a daily visitor. Plus. I have developed a Long John Silver limp. I need jabs for the two of them, plus an eye examination, because the Long John Silver impersonation extends to one of my eyes. Keeping myself functional is usually so scattered throughout the year that I dont notice it, but now I feel like a car with an audible knock. I am convinced my big end is in trouble.

DAY 78

Its not just your hair that goes white when you cocoon. Its your eyebrows. They require weekly dying. This week, I didnt glove up beforehand, on the basis that Im constantly handwashing, so any dye will be swept down the plug hole. Except when a client has a crisis, which in this case happened directly after the eyebrows were treated but before hand washing.

After the lengthy phonecall, I owned the most assertive eyebrows alive  and they were  and my hands were so black, it looked like I was auditioning to play Dick Van Dykes part in Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang.

DAY 78

Sharon Ni Bheolain gives an interview to the RTE Guide in which she says she doesnt buy in to the notion that she has to let journalists into her home, do photo shoots wearing fashionable clothes, and generally set out to be liked. Being loved, she tells the magazine, is not her priority. OK, she wants to be loved by the people she loves and a tiny number of friends and colleagues, but the wider populace? Not so much.

Ivan Yates, always ready to bark up the wrong tree, suggests on his programme that she owes it to the people who look at her reading the news to share a bit and not be  as she resentfully claims  portrayed as an ice queen because she wont play the fame game. Why its the wrong tree is that I suspect Ni Bheolain could, if she had to, produce an RTE contract that, listing out what is demanded of her, does not say much about doing fashion shoots and sharing her inadequacies (assuming she has any) with the general public through media.

Not only is she right but feminists from the 1960s and 70s like Gemma Hussey, Janet Martin, and Nell McCafferty must wonder about the fights they had to get women permitted to be newsreaders, pilots, and CEOs when they now see women at the top selling themselves as watery inadequates filled with anxiety, panic attacks, and weight problems.

Successful men are profiled, quite simply, as that: Successful men. They can be arrogant, rude, dogmatic, and argumentative. Successful women, on the other hand, are always under pressure to be relatable, vulnerable, and humble. Their theme song has to be that old Linda Ronstadt number, Poor, poor, pitiful me

We fought for equality. Not for a situation where a professional journalist has to publicly fight back against being mischaracterised because she refuses a myriad of media invitations to share her private life and her vulnerabilities.

DAY 79

Responding to the Taoiseachs invitation to join the conversation about statues, I suggest, for the third time in these pages, we remove William Smith OBrien from OConnell St, Dublin. This bloke was involved in a high-minded rebellion of breathtaking incompetence that achieved the sum total of nothing other than the transportation of himself and others. Neither his incompetence nor the fact that he didnt bother his lightly incarcerated arse to write to his wife and children from Van Diemens Land (Tasmania) is not a reason to knock him off his pedestal. He was a bit busy, you see, defiling the 13-year-old daughter of an official who had been exceptionally kind to him, until the police got wind of the sexual services being provided by the child and observed the two of them at it in the open air. Does nobody but me care that we give pride of place in our capital to a statue of a child molester?

DAY 80

I go shopping. For the first time in three months and at the wrong time. I absolutely refuse to join the 1012 ghetto, figuring that if I join the queue before 8am, that first clump of shoppers is not going to be that large, numerous or reckless.

A certain stateliness informs the progress of the procession when the doors click open. Inside, other than being constantly battered by announcements about how seriously the store is taking Covid-19 and how well-trained its staff are in preserving life and limb, nothing seems that different. The only staff I see is one woman in black with a suspicious face on her who is walking slowly around, hands clasped behind her, Montgomery-fashion. When our eyes meet, I smile at her and she SO doesnt smile back, staring me down like I was making an attempt to corrupt her and deflect her from her noble purpose. Maybe shed have smiled back if I had joined the ghetto of the elderly. Or maybe she takes her fight against the coronavirus so personally that until we all get vaccinated, shes going to smile at nobody.

When it comes to the checkout, my debit card is declined. I find another card that works and the cashier hands me the receipt with an air of having fought off a fraud. Maybe I should have joined the ghetto. The assumption is that all over 70s are really pleasant nice people. Harmless, really. Innocent, you know? The way we used to think the Greens were before they begin to emit greenhouse gasses at each other and settle down to being normal nasty politicians.

DAY 81

My company gets a sudden flurry of contacts from companies wanting diversity training. Not wanting to turn down business or anything, but the fact is that diversity training too often does two things: outsources a moral obligation, and reinforces what its supposed to kill off. Much better to develop a clear and actionable racism/equality policy, involving all staff in the process, apply it and regularly check  in safe anonymity  how its working.
Phuket Hotels Association, Hotel Resilient to launch COVID-READY Certification in Phuket

PHUKET: The Phuket Hotels Association has joined forces with Hotel Resilient to launch the COVID-READY Certification scheme, a new initiative to provide guidance, resources and tools to support the safe reopening of hotels and to help restore confidence in the islands hotel industry following COVID-19.

COVID-19tourism

By The Phuket News

Monday 15 June 2020, 03:42PM

Phuket Hotels Association President Anthony Lark (3rd left); Phuket Governor Phakaphong Tavipatana (4th left); and Vice Governor Supoj Rotreuang Na Nongkhai (4th right). Photo: Supplied

Hotel Resilient is the worlds only scientific benchmarking and certification body for disaster-risk management and climate change adaptation in the hospitality industry. It provides hotels and resorts with risk analytics, digital platforms and pragmatic tools for disaster and climate resilient planning, design and operations, noted a release announcing the launch today (June 15).

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Hotel Resilient highlighted disease outbreak as one of multiple hazards potentially impacting hotels. In the wake of the pandemic, Dr Trevor Girard, Director of Standards and Accreditation at Hotel Resilient, and his team of risk specialists have evaluated the scientific evidence, international guidelines and industry best practices to set new standards that cover all aspects of a hotels COVID-19 prevention and response strategy, the release added.

Travelers demand safety above all

The COVID-19 pandemic has spread to almost every country in the world, and its impact on the tourism industry has been tremendous. Due to travel bans and nation-wide shutdowns, hotel bookings have decreased drastically and many hotels have temporarily closed. Even when restrictions ease and travel bans are lifted, it will be some time before it is business as usual, noted the release.

For months if not years, travellers will be extra cautious with their travel plans, most likely preferring destinations with little to no COVID-19 cases. In terms of accommodation, hotels that can provide an extra level of protection against the virus will be in high demand, it added.

The new COVID-READY Certification scheme will provide assessment, guidance and support to our Phuket hotels as they prepare to reopen, commented Anthony Lark, President of the Phuket Hotels Association.

Member hotels can obtain this internationally recognised certification, which will showcase Phuket as a safe destination and provide reassurance that hotels are working together to ensure the protection of their guests, staff and the community. Health and safety has never been more important than now, as we prepare to reopen our doors, Mr Lark said.

Teaming up with Hotel Resilient marks the next major step in the associations efforts to work together in restoring confidence in Phuket, and helping hotels prepare to resume operations with enhanced hygiene practices. Dr Bijan Khazai, CEO of Hotel Resilient, and the Hotel Resilient team will work alongside the Phuket Hotels Association, member hotels, and local authorities to develop supporting tools and support hotels obtain international certification, the release explained.

The Hotel Resilient COVID-READY Certification scheme is aligned with the internationally recognised Hotel Resilient global standards on disaster risk management. It goes beyond hygiene and safety, addressing systemic and procedural changes to minimise risk and address various crisis management aspects, such as response planning, business continuity, and crisis communication with regard to COVID-19.

These new standards are supported by a user-friendly audit and task management software that allows hotels to prioritise areas where action is needed to improve their level of Covid-19 preparedness. In addition, interactive and engaging e-Learning courses are available on the platform, helping to bring hotel staff up-to-speed on the current COVID-19 pandemic threat and describing their roles in the COVID-READY standards, such as preventing transmission or responding to an infection, said the release.

The COVID-READY Certification scheme will make Phuket one of the first tourism destinations in the world to take a proactive approach to safety and hygiene preparedness, based on world-class standards. Once all 70+ Phuket Hotels Associations member properties are audited and certified, it will provide a safer environment for visitors, hotel staff and the Phuket community, explained Hotel Resilient CEO Dr Khazai.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 22:23:22|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of employees in Germany's important manufacturing sector declined by 1.8 percent in April year-on-year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Monday.

By the end of April, 5.6 million people worked in Germany's manufacturing companies with 50 or more employees, about 105,000 less than a year ago, according to the provisional results by Destatis.

German manufacturers of rubber and plastic products, in particular, recorded a strong decline of 4.2 percent in employees year-on-year.

Manufacturers of chemicals and chemical products, however, recorded a 1.5 percent growth in their workforce year-on-year.

According to Destatis, the total number of hours worked in April decreased by 16.9 percent year-on-year while total wages of the manufacturing sector amounted to 23.3 billion euros (26.2 billion U.S. dollars), 12.3 percent less than in April 2019.

"The effects of the COVID-19 crisis were evident in terms of hours worked in almost all sectors of the economy. The increase in short-time working was clearly noticeable here," Destatis noted. Enditem
Several states across the country saw record spikes in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations as many continue to reopen their economies.

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and South Carolina all saw record highs of coronavirus cases last week, while Alabama saw its fourth straight day of record cases on Sunday. Cases have also been on the rise in Texas and Louisiana.

More than 25,000 new cases were reported across the country on Saturday. State health officials have partly attributed the spikes to the Memorial Day gatherings that took place at the end of last month. The rising number of positive cases of the virus is affected by the increased availability of testing, but many states have also seen increased hospitalizations, a measure not influenced by increased testing.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah all had record hospitalizations due to the coronavirus as of Saturday.

President Trump plans to hold his first campaign rally in months in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday, a plan that has sparked concern among health officials. Tulsa has seen the number of coronavirus cases on the rise in recent days.

I think its an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic, Dr. Bruce Dart, the Tulsa City-County Health Departments director, told Tulsa World. Im concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and Im also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well.

Oregon and Utah are pausing their reopening processes as coronavirus cases spike within their borders, their governors announced Thursday.

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Karnataka Health Minister again flouts rules: This time seen without mask at wedding

India

oi-Briti Roy Barman

Bengaluru, June 15: It seems the Health Minister of Karnataka does not at all care for his health and put others' lives at risk too.

The time minister B Sriramulu was caught on camera without using face mask.

The minister was at the wedding ceremony of former minister Parameshwar Naik's son at Hagaribommanahalli in Davanagere on Sunday.

Karnataka travel rules: Travellers from Chennai, Delhi to undergo 3-day institutional quarantine

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Along with Sriramulu, several others were also seen without wearing the face mask, even the bride and groom were photographed without the face covering.

While the lockdown rules specifically prescribe that not more than 50 people shall be permitted at weddings, hundreds of people were present on this occasion.

Senior Congress leaders such as former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and ex-Deputy CM G Parameshwara attended the wedding without following social distancing norms.

This is not the first time that Sriramulu was himself found flouting the Union Health Ministry's guideline to prevent coronavirus spread.

Earlier on this month Sriramulu was seen taking part in a procession in Chitradurga, flouting social distancing norms at the event amid COVID19 pandemic.

Also, on April 29, the minister was seen meeting and greeting public in the same place when he was conducting a ration supply drive where many people gathered.

As the minister distributed ration supply kits, people stood in close quarters even without using masks.

Meanwhile, there are 7,000 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in Karnataka out of which 3,955 patients have been discharged while 86 casualties have been reported.
Israel's government approved June 14 $2.3 million in funding for the construction of a settlement in the Golan Heights named after US President Donald Trump. Part of the budget will be used by the Housing Ministry for planning, and the rest by the World Zionist Organization for building temporary structures. The next step after the Cabinets decision would be marketing land plots for construction.

Speaking at the beginning of the Cabinets weekly session, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "Today, we will begin practical steps in establishing the community of Ramat Trump [Trump Heights] in the Golan Heights, Israels sovereignty over which was recognized by President Trump." A statement issued by the Cabinet after the meeting noted, "The initiative to establish a new Golan Heights settlement to be named after President Donald Trump expresses gratitude for his work for the State of Israel and the Golan Heights."

The future Golan Heights village, located near Kela Alon in the western Golan Heights, will be developed on lands belonging to the small Bruchim settlement. Constructed in 1991, the hamlet Bruchim did not succeed in attracting many families. In fact, most of its original inhabitants left over the years. The government now hopes that rebranding the locality will bring new residents.

Welcoming Netanyahu at the White House shortly before the March 2019 elections in Israel, Trump recognized Israels 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights. With the Israeli prime minister by his side, Trump signed a proclamation granting US recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory  a dramatic shift from decades of US policy.

Shortly after the recognition, Netanyahu announced the establishment of the new settlement, in gratitude over Trumps move. In a special June 2019 session on the Golan Heights, the government affirmed the establishment of a new locality. A giant sign was unveiled that read Trump Heights" in large gold letters topped by the American and Israeli flags. In November 2019, a boarding school for underprivileged youths in Israel was inaugurated at the site, marking the first arrival of people to the Trump Heights settlement.

Netanyahus government would now like to see families moving in. When the boarding school was inaugurated, the authorities estimated that 20 families, both religious and secular, would move there in the summer of 2020. With the coronavirus still spreading in Israel, it is unclear how many families would actually arrive there in the coming months.
A US Embassy in South Korea gave support to the Black Lives Matter campaign by draping a huge banner across its building.

Posting on social media, the embassy in Seoul said it stood in "solidarity" with Americans "peacefully protesting to demand positive change".

Ambassador Harry Harris shared the post on Twitter and said: "USA is a free and diverse nation...from that diversity we gain our strength".

It is not the first time that the embassy has supported a social cause. In 2019, it made waves by flying a pride rainbow banner in support of the LGBTQ community, going against a direct order from the State Department.

A huge Black Lives Matter banner is seen below a LGBT pride flag at the US embassy in Seoul, South Korea / REUTERS

The US Embassy said: "The U.S. Embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change.

"Our #BlackLivesMatter banner shows our support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society."

Ambassador Harris retweeted the post and added: "I believe in what President JFK said on June 10, 1963 at American University: "If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity."

"USA is a free & diverse nation...from that diversity we gain our strength."

South Korean protesters joined thousands around the world campaigning for equality / AFP via Getty Images

Black Lives Matter protests are being held across the globe as part of campaigns focusing on social injustice following the death of George Floyd in police custody, but the banner is seen as a rare, open support for the protest by an appointee of President Donald Trump after the US president linked violent protests to thugs.

Ambassador Harris, a 40-year veteran of the US Navy who started in Seoul in 2018, has privately said that he is planning on exiting his position before the end of the year.
Sheehy Volkswagen of Springfield details its Sheehy Summer Sales Event. Pictured is the 2020 Volkswagen Jetta.

Those searching for a good deal on a new Volkswagen vehicle in Springfield, Virginia, will be thrilled to hear that Sheehy Volkswagen of Springfield is now offering its Sheehy Summer Sales Event. For a limited time, three new VW models will offer special deals for both buyers and lessees. The models included with the Sheehy Summer Sales Event include the 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport 2.0T S 4MOTION, 2020 Volkswagen Tiguan 2.0T S and the 2020 Volkswagen Jetta 1.4T S.

Customers interested in purchasing any of the mentioned VW vehicles will be happy to hear that each of these models are available for 0% APR for 72 months. Those that prefer to lease can enjoy the deals as follows:



Lease the 2020 VW Atlas Cross Sport 2.0T S 4MOTION for $299 per month for 39 months with $1,995 due at signing

Lease the 2020 VW Tiguan 2.0T S for $199 per month for 39 months with $1,995 due at signing

Lease the 2020 VW Jetta 1.4T S for $149 per month for 39 months with $1,995 due at signing

To receive any of these exciting offers, the customer must be approved by and finance through Volkswagen Credit. These offers are not eligible for any other Volkswagen models. Interested shoppers are encouraged to contact Sheehy Volkswagen of Springfield soon as each of these offers expire on July 6.

Sheehy Volkswagen of Springfield can be reached by dialing 844-773-3214 or by visiting its location at 6601 Backlick Road in Springfield, Va. Any customers intrigued to learn more about Sheehy Volkswagen of Springfield are encouraged to visit its website at http://www.sheehyspringfieldvw.com.
At June 22 RIC meet, India likely to raise border issue with China

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar is set to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on June 22 at a virtual meet of Russia-India-China.

The meet would be a crucial one as it comes in the wake of the tensions between the two nations along the Line of Actual Control. The meeting is an important one and comes in the wake of talks being held at the military level as well.

All eyes would be on this meet. Sources tell OneIndia, that the issue pertaining to the border tensions is likely to be raised by India. Talks are on at the military level and the diplomatic channels have already been opened up. Jaishankar is likely to raise the issue relating to the prevailing situation, the source also said.

India-China are properly handling border issue says Chinese official

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

While the June 6 talks of the Lt. Generals of both sides was fruitful and set the stage for further talks, there are still certain issues that need to be ironed out.

While China has raised the issue of the bridge constructed by India, the latter has spoken about the bunker of the People's Liberation Army. Moreover, the Chinese have refused to withdraw its troops from Finger 4 on the bank of the Pangong Tso lake and also demolish the bunker and a moat-like structure.

Meanwhile, India too has rejected China's demand to stop construction of a bridge over a rivulet. The bridge is under construction on one of the roads that India is building along the disputed boundary with China.

India has maintained during the talks with China that it is its sovereign right to do so. The Corps of Commanders of both sides are likely to meet again. Further diplomatic channels have also opened up and more meetings are likely soon.

Amidst the multiple intrusions, India has ramped up its military readiness along the Indo-China border.

The ramping up of the military readiness comes amidst both sides engaging with each other to diffuse tensions along the border areas. New Delhi says it is leaving nothing to chance and is keeping a close watch on the muscle flexing by China.

The forward border management of the Indian troops will be maintained from Ladakh to Arunachal as long as the PLA does not withdraw its forces from close to the Line of Actual Control, sources tell OneIndia.

Meanwhile, New Delhi has said peace on border with China is essential for ties to grow, India as said as the stand-off continues.

India-China standoff: Both sides continue engagement to sort out issues

While talks continue between both sides, China is yet to withdraw its soldiers, who had transgressed the disputed boundary on the bank of the Pangong Tso lake. New Delhi has said that peace is essential for further developments of the Indo-China bilateral relations.

Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, Anurag Srivastava said that the June 6 meeting between the senior military officers of both sides agreed to an early resolution of the dispute. He also referred to the guidance that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed to issue to the militaries of both sides, when the first informal summit was held in Wuhan, China.

India and China are continuing military and diplomatic engagements to peacefully resolve the situation at the earliest. Both sides want to ensure peace and tranquility in the border areas. This is essential for further development of the India-China bilateral relations, the MEA spokesperson also said.
Following the news of the death of Oluwatoyin Salau, the 19-year-old activist, Nigerians have identified with her.

Taking to Twitter, many Nigerians shared what the news meant to them as those who were abroad also shared their views.

Many pointed out that her death just shows how scary it is to be a black woman with a voice in the United States.

READ ALSO It Was A Beautiful Scene  Trump Reacts To George Floyds Protesters Getting Tear-gassed

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Oluwatoyin was first missing after she opened up about being sexually assaulted by a man before she was later found dead.

Here Are Some Reactions:

https://twitter.com/observhaitian/status/1272374087323652096?s=21

https://twitter.com/shariauna_/status/1272379024732499969?s=21

https://twitter.com/gaptoothginny/status/1272399969878597632?s=21

activist Oluwatoyin Salau was missing since June 6, after disturbing tweets detailing a sexual assault that had taken place that day. it has been reported that her body has been found. WHAT HAPPENED TO TOYIN? SAY HER NAME #JusticeforToyin pic.twitter.com/76PM2PJEjk  zo (@kurtzobain) June 15, 2020

Her name was Oluwatoyin Toyin Salau. She was just 19. She kept tweeting information about the man who assaulted her. She was ignored.

She pleaded for help.

She prayed. She went missing.

And now shes gone.@TallyPD failed her. #JusticeforToyin #RestInPower pic.twitter.com/e6uaXNc6Y5  Gaby Kitner (@del_kitner) June 15, 2020
Washington

The United States promised to reduce troops from Iraq over the coming months after talks with Baghdad, where lawmakers have pushed for their withdrawal. The two countries recognized that in light of significant progress towards eliminating the ISIS threat, over the coming months the US would continue reducing forces from Iraq, a joint statement said, without giving figures.

The United States reiterated that it does not seek nor request permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq, it said. Iraq, in turn, promised to protect bases housing US troops after a series of rocket attacks blamed on pro-Iranian paramilitary groups.

The two countries on Thursday held their first strategic dialogue in more than a decade, months after Iraqi lawmakers demanded that US forces withdraw in the wake of a US drone strike in Baghdad which killed a top general from neighbouring Iran. Relations have since stabilised under a new US-friendly Iraqi prime minister, Mustafa Kadhemi.
A rare sight will soon return to the campuses of Mohawk College and McMaster University: students.

A select number who were kept from wrapping-up studies in the spring due to the COVID-19 shutdown will be back starting in July.

The provinces education minister announced Wednesday that in-person classes and training at post-secondary institutions will be permitted, but only for those students completing programs in essential, front line, and high labour market demand areas, such as nursing, personal support workers, engineering, and other critical professions.

Students who were on the cusp of graduation in areas that are not part of this first phase will need to return in the fall, when classes will be held virtually, in-person or a hybrid format, depending on the institution.

The unusual summer school callback policy will have a much greater impact on Mohawk than McMaster.

At Mohawk, about 1,100 students in 22 program areas could qualify to return. Those who return in July and August will complete studies at either the Stoney Creek or Fennell Avenue campuses, with numbers staggered to limit the students on campus at any one time.

Mohawk spokesperson Bill Steinburg told The Spectator its unknown how many of these students will be positioned to take advantage of the opportunity; some may be working or have other commitments that will delay their return.

Mohawk announced last month that more than 70 per cent of its fall courses would be delivered remotely and through a virtual module due to COVID-19.

In a memorandum to faculty and staff, Alison Horton, vice-president academic, said the school has consulted with public health officials to establish protocols to ensure distancing and access to personal protective equipment on campus this summer.

She added that Mohawk employees not required to be on campus will continue to work from home, and access for workers and students who are not part of the first phase will only be granted upon request.

Mohawk president Ron McKerlie called it a promising step forward in the gradual reopening of our campuses. We are happy to welcome students back, in a safe and responsible manner, to help them complete their courses and prepare for bright careers.

About 170 students are affected at McMaster: 100 students in the School of Rehabilitation Science (programs include speech language pathology, occupational therapy and physiotherapy), and 70 students in the Bachelor of Science, Nursing accelerated program.

The nursing program typically runs through the summer and includes placements in hospitals, and these can now proceed to allow those students to graduate on time.

The rehabilitation science students will be invited on campus for a clinical skills boot camp in July, to learn hands-on skills that cannot be taught virtually.

McMaster spokesperson Wade Hemsworth told The Spectator that the universitys priority is ensuring the health and well-being of students, faculty and staff. Protocols will be in place to meet all public health requirements and create the safest teaching and learning environments possible.

McMaster recently announced that all of its classes for the fall semester would be moved online, with limited exceptions including some first-year health sciences classes and research labs.
You are here: China

The death toll from a Saturday tank truck blast in east China's Zhejiang province has risen to 20, local authorities said Monday.

As of 7 a.m., more than 170 injured people, including 24 seriously injured, were receiving medical treatment in hospitals.

The accident occurred at around 4:40 p.m. Saturday when a tank truck loaded with liquefied petroleum gas exploded near a village in the city of Wenling on a section of the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway.

A second blast soon followed. The explosions caused the collapse of nearby residential buildings and factory workshops.

The large-scale search and rescue work at the scene is generally completed.
A weekend ambush on a military convoy in central Mali left 24 soldiers dead and an unspecified number missing, the army said Monday, blaming the assault on jihadists.

In posts on social media, the army did not enumerate the missing but said eight soldiers escaped the attack on around a dozen vehicles Sunday at Bouka Were, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the border with Mauritania.

It was the latest in a string of assaults by jihadists who unleashed a revolt in northern Mali in 2012 that has spread to Burkina Faso and Niger despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops.

A senior military official said earlier that some of the vehicles were able to extricate themselves from the ambush, but that of the 64 troops who had been in the convoy, only about 20 were present at a roll call, the source said.

"A search is under way to determine the fate of soldiers who have been listed missing," he said on condition of anonymity.

Another military officer and an official in the nearby town of Diabaly, who also asked not to be named, confirmed his account.

The Islamist insurgency, mainly led by groups linked to Al-Qaeda or the so-called Islamic State group, has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Violence in recent months has engulfed central Mali, an ethnic mosaic where the state exercises little control and jihadist atrocities feed tit-for-tat assaults among rival communities.

The al-Qaeda-linked group Katiba Macina, led by an ethnic Fulani (Peul) called Amadou Koufa, is recruiting among the Fulani herding community, which has long been at odds with the Bambara and Dogon farming groups. These groups, in turn, have created their own "self-defence" organisations.

On Saturday, two Egyptian soldiers with the UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA were killed when their convoy came under attack in northwestern Mali, the United Nations said.

Keita under pressure

The violence has weakened the hand of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who is facing a rising clamour of protest and demands for political renewal.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in the capital Bamako on June 5 on the heels of demonstrations in May over the outcome of parliamentary elections, which the president won, as well as over coronavirus restrictions.

More protests have been scheduled for this Friday.

Keita, who has been in power since 2013 in the former French colony, on Sunday reached out to the coalition behind the protests, saying, "My door is open and my hand always extended."

After jihadist attacks surged in February, Keita broke with precedent to say that he was seeking to forge a dialogue with certain rebel leaders.

"The number of deaths in the Sahel is becoming exponential and it's time that certain paths be explored," he said in an interview with French media.

However, Keita said at the time of his announcement that he had not received a response from jihadist leaders, and indications have yet to emerge that any such dialogue has developed.
If you want clear evidence of branch stacking, you dont need hidden cameras and deep throat sources.

One of the most brazen accounts of this political dark art can be found in Malcolm Turnbulls recent memoir, A Bigger Picture, in which the former prime minister recounts without a hint of shame the way he stacked a preselection at the start of his parliamentary career.

When Mr Turnbull decided to run for the seat of Wentworth, there were about 750 local Liberal members. "And so, starting in the middle of 2003, began the great Wentworth branch-stacking drama," he wrote. By the time the preselection ballot was held, hed recruited about 1500 new members and his opponent Peter King just as many.

Malcolm Turnbull describes in his recently published memoir his branch stacking activities. Credit:Nic Walker

Mr Turnbull argues that he and his supporters followed the party rules of the day, ensuring that each new member paid their own membership fee. In this, his activities differ substantially from the allegations that have emerged against Adem Somyurek, an ALP factional chief accused of withdrawing $2000 in cash for the purpose of funding new members.
Aihik Sur By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: While several startups are offering many artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to the Telangana government, the latter is declining their offers because of the unavailability of big data, which is a must for these solutions to work.

Detecting COVID-19 using AI-powered X-rays was one of the solutions proposed by around three companies amid a delay in test results and shortage of testing kits, an IT Department official said. "Using AI and machine learning algorithms, these X-rays can identify the virus. The companies showcased their technology through videos," the official said. However, the availability of big data turned out to be a hindrance.

That is because the technology requires a huge chunk of data set for the AI to train itself to detect the cases. This is how it works: An X-ray usually shows formations in lungs, which can be associated with a larger number of respiratory problems such as pneumonia.

In COVID-19 patients, experts said, this formation is a hazy opacity that does not obscure underlying bronchial structures or pulmonary vessels. The conundrum lies in the fact that these anomalies are not exclusive to COVID-19 patients.

ALSO READ| Telangana citizens urge politicians to avoid mass gatherings amid COVID-19 pandemic

Thus, there is a need for big data, which will train the AI to fine-tune and detect Covid-19 patients correctly. As of now, different researchers have experimented and come up with results varying from 70 per cent to 90 per cent accuracy. However, they all claim in unison that their results would improve if they have access to larger data sets.

When asked regarding the availability of big data for such exercises, another senior official in the IT Department said, "We do not have such big data sets. We have told all the companies, who are offering AI-based solutions, that it would not be possible. We have also made it clear that they can pursue it for academic purposes, but cannot be put in practice."

Recently, Express reported that a few US-based companies used the States health data to predict containment areas and the spread of the infection. However, the data that was used was anonymised  without identification details. 237 new cases were recorded in Telangana on Sunday. The States Covid-19 tally has climbed to 4,974

ALSO READ| COVID-19: MLA Bajireddy Govardhan tests positive; second state lawmaker to contract virus

Three new COVID-19 casualties in State

Telangana recorded 237 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday. While three more patients died of the disease, 25 were discharged. As on Sunday, the total number of Covid-19 cases in Telangana climbed to 4,974, of which 2,377 are discharged cases, 185 are deaths and 2,412 active cases. Of the 237 new cases, 195 were recorded in the GHMC limits and some of the others in Medchal (10), Rangareddy (8), Sangareddy (5), and Mancherial (3) districts

Artificial Intelligence in COVID-19 times

Detecting Covid-19 using AI-powered X-rays one of the solutions proposed by 3 companies

Solution comes handy amid delay in test results, shortage of testing kits

Using AI and machine learning algorithms, the X-rays can identify the virus

How it works
Drug major Pfizer closed financial year 2019-20 with a 18.66 per cent growth in its net profit at Rs 509.13 crore, as compared to Rs 429.05 crore in the previous fiscal. The total revenue of the pharmaceutical company fell by 3.85 per cent to Rs 2,335.67 crore as against Rs 2,248.89 crore in the previous financial year 2018-19.

For the quarter ended March 31, 2020 (Q4 FY20), Pfizer posted 5.9 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 103 crore, compared to Rs 109.5 crore in the corresponding period last year. Revenue from operations declined by 6.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 502 crore during the March quarter of last fiscal.

The company's Earnings before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 28 per cent YoY to Rs 108.7 crore, while EBITDA margin fell by 660 basis points (bps) to 21.6 per cent in Q4 FY20.

During the year under review, the company divested rights and interests in two brands for a consideration of Rs 37 crore.

On COVID-19 crisis, Pfizer said the pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented challenge globally and to the pharmaceutical companies in particular, who have a responsibility towards public health. There has been no significant adverse operational impact on the company's supply chain during March 2020 due to the nationwide lockdown imposed by the Government of India in view of COVID-19, it added.

"In view of the continued uncertainties and its inability to predict the extend and duration of COVID-19 situation, the company currently is unable to predict any future impact on its business operations," Pfizer said.

The company further stated that it will continue to ensure supply of essential medicines and take steps to mitigate any risks associated with coronavirus pandemic.

Pfizer's board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 10 per equity share of Rs 10 each (100 per cent) for the financial year ended March 31, 2020. The dividend, if approved at the ensuing General Meeting of the company, will be paid on or before September 30, 2020.

Meanwhile, shares of Pfizer closed Monday's trade at Rs 4078.15, up 0.41 per cent, against previous closing price of Rs 4,061.55 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Xtalks Life Science Webinars

Join industry expert Dr. Wolfgang Seufert, Director Production III  Process Development, Bachem in a live session on Tuesday, July 7, 2020 at 10am EDT (3pm BST/UK, 4pm CEST, 11pm JST/Japan).

Bachem and Jitsubo CO., LTD. recently announced the signature of an exclusive Licensing Agreement for Jitsubos Molecular Hiving technology. Under the License agreement, Jitsubo will develop selected manufacturing processes using their Molecular Hiving technology and transfer these processes to Bachem. Bachem will further optimize, scale up and produce for commercial applications.

Molecular Hiving is a tag-assisted liquid-phase peptide synthesis technology developed by Professor Kazuhiro Chiba at Tokyo University of Technology and Agriculture. This technology uses a hydrophobic tag, which is applied in the same way as the resin for solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) processes.

The same standard Fmoc amino acid derivatives as for SPPS are applied for assembling the peptide chain. However, all couplings and cleavages of the Fmoc protecting group are performed in solution allowing for fast reactions and direct in-process controls, e.g. by HPLC. Excess reagents as well as coupling and cleavage related by-products are solely removed by aqueous extractions. Therefore, intermediate isolation of the tag-bound peptide and excessive washing steps are not required for Molecular Hiving technology.

In this webinar, the speaker will guide attendees through the individual steps for synthesis of peptides applying Molecular Hiving technology. Webinar attendees will learn about the scalability and the substantial advantages of this technology regarding efficiency and towards greener manufacturing, as solvent consumption and material requirements are significantly reduced compared to conventional SPPS processes. Molecular Hiving also allows the synthesis of peptides without the use of solvents and reagents which are carcinogenic, mutagenic, or toxic to reproduction (CMR substances).

For more information or to register for this event, visit Cost-Efficient and Green Manufacturing of Peptides Thanks to Molecular Hiving Technology.

ABOUT XTALKS

Xtalks, powered by Honeycomb Worldwide Inc., is a leading provider of educational webinars to the global life science, food and medical device community. Every year thousands of industry practitioners (from life science, food and medical device companies, private & academic research institutions, healthcare centers, etc.) turn to Xtalks for access to quality content. Xtalks helps Life Science professionals stay current with industry developments, trends and regulations. Xtalks webinars also provide perspectives on key issues from top industry thought leaders and service providers.

To learn more about Xtalks visit http://xtalks.com

For information about hosting a webinar visit http://xtalks.com/why-host-a-webinar/
Exports of vegetable and fruits fetched more than 1.5 billion USD in the first six months of the year, a year-on-year decline of 14.5 percent, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Consumers choose bunches of lychee (Photo: hanoimoi.com.vn)

China was the leading importer of Vietnams vegetable and fruit, holding a lions share of about 60.8 percent. However, exports of those products to the northern neighbour slipped 29.2 percent in value compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, exports to most other markets increased. Earnings from Thailand topped 57.8 million USD in the period, surging 244.1 percent, and from the Republic of Korea - 54.6 million USD, up 25.4 percent.

Shipments to Japan and the Netherlands picked up 26.4 percent and 28.3 percent to 46.2 million USD and 28 million USD, respectively.

Firms are advised to bolster exports of processed vegetable and fruits in the coming time. Exports of the items are projected to bounce back at years end as the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to be brought under control./.VNA

Fruit exporters eye Vietnamese market With a growing middle class and high GDP growth, Vietnam has become an ideal market for foreign fruit exporters, experts have said.
[June 15, 2020] Andy Stewart Named Chief Executive Officer at Evoque Data Center Solutions

DALLAS, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Evoque Data Center Solutions, one of the worlds 20 largest global colocation services companies, today announced the appointment of Andy Stewart as Chief Executive Officer, effective June 15, 2020.

Stewart has more than 15 years of senior management experience, including a decade of strategic development and execution. He has previously served as Chief Strategy Officer at TierPoint, where he was responsible for leading product development, technology strategy and mergers and acquisitions. He also has been an Executive Advisor at Thompson Street Capital Partners and a board member at BCM One, a leading managed technology solutions provider. Im incredibly excited for the opportunity to be joining Evoque as CEO, said Stewart. With a foundation of rock-solid data centers, a great set of enterprise clients, and Brookfields continued commitment, we will move aggressively to take advantage of the global opportunity for colocation and other IT services. Stewart replaces Tim Caulfield as CEO, who is stepping down after 18 months. Evoque has evolved over the past 18 months. What once was a business unit within AT& has now become a stand-alone company operating 31 data centers globally, said Caulfield. This is the appropriate time to bring someone in to lead the company through the next stage of development. Andy is joining Evoque to lead the next wave of mission-critical decisions and opportunities facing the company, he added.



During Caulfields tenure, Evoque was able to stabilize, retain the client base and build the shared service functions to support the international footprint and operations talent acquired from AT&T in 2018. Caulfield will remain with Evoque over the next several months, assisting Stewart during the transition. Stewart holds an MBA from Washington Universitys Olin School of Business, and a bachelors degree from Denison University.

About Evoque Data Center Solutions

Evoque Data Center Solutions, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is a colocation services company that owns and operates 31 data centers across 4 continents and 11 countries. Evoque Data Center Solutions offers clients a secure space in a highly available and redundant environment. The company supports a diversified base of colocation customers across multiple segments, including utilities, transport, energy, communications, healthcare, and technologies. Evoque Data Center Solutions is a portfolio company of Brookfield Infrastructure, a leading global infrastructure asset manager that owns and operates high-quality, long-life assets in the utilities, transport, energy and data infrastructure sectors across North and South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. For more information, please visit our website at www.evoquedcs.com . For more information:

Donna Henderson

Evoque Data Center Solutions

[email protected]

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Former Goa deputy chief minister Vijai Sardesai has said it was a "political mistake" on his part to support the Pramod Sawant-led state government after the demise of Manohar Parrikar in March last year.

Addressing a gathering at his Fatorda Assembly constituency in South Goa district on Sunday, the Goa Forward Party (GFP) chief apologised to people for the "mistake", and accused the BJP-led state government of being "inefficient, non-transparent and having no administrative accountability".

"We won't aid the establishment of such a government in future. For us, the BJP is finished after the death of Parrikar. We will never let the BJP rule this state in future," Sardesai said.

After the elections in 2017 for the 40-member state Assembly, the Congress emerged as the single largest party.

However, BJP veteran Parrikar, who was at that time the country's defence minister, returned to his home state Goa where he tied-up with the GFP, Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party and Independents to form a government under his leadership.

After Parrikar died last year, the GFP continued to support to the Pramod Sawant-led state government.

But, Sawant dropped Sardesai and two other GFP leaders from the state Cabinet in July last year after 10 Congress MLAs switched over to the ruling BJP.

"I would like to apologise to Goans for the major political mistake I have made in my career of not opting out of the government after the death of Parrikar. Today, Goans are suffering because of our mistake and we are ready to seek penance, Sardesai told the gathering.

Sardesai said in future his party will work in an inclusive way to help the state government in making good laws and legislations.

He also said the new party leadership must come from the grassroots, and added that a training institute would be started for young leaders.
OTTAWA - The Liberals are putting together a plan to extend one of the key COVID-19 benefits ahead of a parliamentary showdown on Wednesday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen during a news conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on Monday June 15, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

OTTAWA - The Liberals are putting together a plan to extend one of the key COVID-19 benefits ahead of a parliamentary showdown on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday he'll detail later this week how the Canada Emergency Response Benefit might be extended as millions of Canadians have almost maxed out how much they can claim.

"In the last few weeks, things have started to look up for a lot of people but that said, we also know that far too many Canadian are still struggling," Trudeau said Monday during his daily press conference outside his home.

"If you're having troubles finding a job you shouldn't also be worrying about whether you'll hit the limit of your CERB benefits. So right now we're working on a solution to extend the benefit for people who can't return to work yet."

Upwards of 8.4 million Canadians have applied for the $2,000-per-month benefit, according to the most recently available data.

But the program as currently structured only allows people to claim that support for 16 weeks.

The New Democrats said Monday that in the next couple of weeks, that means two million people will max out their benefits. A further six million will hit the ceiling a few weeks later.

If there's no plan to help them, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said Monday, his party won't back a spending bill due in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

That day, MPs are to debate the supplementary estimates, which outline about $87 billion in spending. Parliament has already signed off on the vast majority of those funds, but there is also $6 billion in new spending which must be approved in a vote.

Any vote on new government spending can be considered a confidence motion, so in theory the opposition parties could bring down the government if they refuse to support it.

The NDP want a plan to extend CERB in place, Singh said Monday.

"Right now that is a first and foremost step that needs to happen," he said.

"There's going to be millions of Canadians that have no support in just a couple of weeks and they need to know there's going to be help."

Singh said his aim, however, is not to topple the government but help Canadians.

"We're flexible with the response from the government, but we're firm on the fact that people need a concrete plan about how they will get help," he said.

The Liberal government tried last week to pass a bill that would change CERB as part of broader legislation that would have also expanded benefits for Canadians with disabilities.

The CERB-related elements were designed to address concerns the benefit was discouraging people from returning to work.

People would have seen their benefits cut off if they failed to return to work when it was "reasonable" to do so, and their employer asked them to come back, or if they were able to work but declined a reasonable job offer.

It would have also allowed people to make claims for a two-week period, rather than the current four weeks. That was intended to help Canadians facing short-term job loss or forced to take time off work to quarantine or care for someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

The bill failed to pass after none of the opposition parties would back it.

The NDP's issue was an element of the proposed legislation that would see Canadians who fraudulently claim the CERB being fined or sent to jail.

The Conservatives had a trio of asks on the table: allowing House of Commons committees more latitude in their work, the resumption of a special Commons committee on Canada-China relations and increased funding for the auditor general.

They have received commitments on none of them, so far.

"We remain hopeful that the Liberals will agree to fully fund the auditor general and that they will fix the gaps in their programs so that Canadians stop falling through the cracks," deputy House leader Chris Warkentin said in a statement.

Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Demand for the CERB has surpassed expectations, pushing its budget to $60 billion from $35 billion.

At the same time, however, many have come off the CERB and returned to work with employers taking advantage of a federal wage subsidy program that sees the government cover up to 75 per cent of wages.

The two programs act in concert with each other, Trudeau said Monday as he urged companies to hire people back using the subsidy.

"The CERB was designed to keep everyone at home and allow us to get through the initial wave of this pandemic. Now as we moved into the recovery phase we're seeing more and more companies take on the wage subsidy, which is a good thing," he said.

"But even with the economy reopening we know there are many jobs that aren't going to be coming back in the short term and that's why we're looking at continuing to help people who are on the CERB who can't find a job."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
Continuing his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre over the handling of coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday (June 15) used the quote of famous scientist Albert Einstein to criticise the nationwide lockdown imposed by the prime minister to curb the spread of the deadly virus in India.

This lock down proves that: The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. Albert Einstein, Gandhi tweeted.

This lock down proves that: The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.

Albert Einstein pic.twitter.com/XkykIxsYKI  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 15, 2020

The former Congress president also posted a graph along with his tweet which shows the state of the economy and the number of fatalities due to coronavirus in India at the start of March. The live graph then shows how economy has been battered during the lockdown period while the number of deaths has increased.

Notably, Rahul Gandhi has been relentlessly targeting the government over the COVID-19 crisis, accusing the government of failing to impose the lockdown properly and completely destroying the country's economy.

Rahul has been holding regular discussions with intellectuals and policy makers like former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, industrialist Rajiv Bajaj, dormer US diplomat Nicholas Burns, Harvard professor Ashish Jha and Swedish physician Johan Giesecke to hold discussions over the COVID-19 crisis.

Last week, Rahul launched an indirect attack on the government with an improvised version of Urdu poet Mirza Ghalibs creation. Everyone knows the reality of Seema (border) but to keep the heart happy, Shah-yad it is a good idea, Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh responded to Rahul Gandhi in the form of a poetic attack and tweeted, When there is a pain in the hand then we should get it treated, but what should one do when the hand is the pain itself.
The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, has announced changes to make Rent Supplement available more easily to victims of domestic violence. The Ministers announcement follows proposals from Safe Ireland for such assistance.

Under these changes, victims of domestic violence can get immediate access to Rent Supplement for a three month period to ensure that they are not prevented from leaving their home because of financial concerns.

The usual Rent Supplement means test will not apply for this three month period. The process will work based on referrals from Tusla-funded services; referrals from An Garda Siochana and the HSE will also be possible.

After the three-month period, a further three-month extension may be provided, subject to the usual Rent Supplement means assessment. After six months, if the tenant has a long term housing need, they can apply to their local housing authority for social housing supports and, if eligible, will be able to access HAP.

Minister Doherty said: The current restriction on movement and the increased confinement of many people to their homes has brought the issue of domestic abuse into stark relief. As a long-time advocate on behalf of those who suffer from such abuse, I am determined that no one should suffer additional trauma during the current health emergency.

For that reason, I am introducing a relaxation of the means-test normally required to qualify for Rent Supplement - support with deposit payments and rent costs - for an initial three months for victims of domestic violence. After three months, the individuals ongoing entitlement will be reviewed based on the normal means-test for the scheme.

An agreed protocol will be drawn up with TUSLA to enable services funded by the agency to make referrals to my Department for access to Rent Supplement for victims of domestic violence through a dedicated channel. My Department will also accept direct referrals through nominated contact points in An Garda Siochana and the HSE. I would like to pay particular tribute to Safe Ireland who worked with us and advised us on the best approach to take.

Welcoming todays announcement, Mary McDermott Co-CEO of Safe Ireland said:

Safe Ireland, a nationwide coalition of 38 member Domestic Sexual and Gender-Based Violence refuge and support services, welcomes Minister Dohertys swift and positive response to our call for the introduction of Domestic Violence Emergency Rent Supplement. This support will enable women and children fleeing violent partners to be sheltered quickly and safely regardless of their circumstances and directly addresses, in particular, the financial abuse which pervades many abusive relationships. We have worked positively with DEASP officials on operational details of this progressive social innovation

Garda statistics recently indicated that the number of calls for help relating to domestic violence increased 25 per cent this year while more than 100 people were charged in the last two weeks of May as part of a new crackdown on violence in the home.

Given the scale of the issue, Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan welcomed todays easing of access to Rent Supplement. He said:

This initiative, providing further vital support for those suffering from domestic violence during the Covid-19 pandemic, is very welcome. We recognised from the onset of the crisis that those impacted by this horrific crime would be particularly vulnerable given the enforced proximity of their abusers.

That's why An Garda Siochana launched the dedicated Operation Faoiseamh. We have also ensured all relevant services are maintained and prioritised. As part of this work my Department has provided over 196,000 in additional funding to community and voluntary groups to support their response to Covid-19. In addition we launched the #StillHere campaign to ensure all victims know support services are still there for them and I would just urge anyone suffering at this time to reach out to the Gardai and to the protection of the courts.
Oslo/London: China has halted imports from European salmon suppliers amid fears they might be linked to a coronavirus outbreak at a Beijing market, although experts say the fish itself is unlikely to carry the disease.

State-run newspapers reported the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at Beijing's Xinfadi market, the source of a cluster of infections that has sparked fears of a second wave of the pandemic in China.

Workers put on protective suits near the Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing. Credit:AP

The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves.

"We can't send any salmon to China now, the market is closed," Regin Jacobsen, CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost, told Reuters.
Children and adults march along South Fourth Street toward Jefferson Square Park in South Philadelphia during a Children's March for Justice on Saturday, June 13, 2020. Read more

As I drive around our city and region, I see something I was hoping to never see  the systematic boarding up of storefronts along our commercial corridors. Everywhere from West Philly to Chestnut Hill to Ocean City, N.J., wood over storefronts physically and figuratively separate business and property owners from their customers and community.

While it is obviously a reaction to the recent civil unrest, it is misguided and hurtful.

So, here is my message to my fellow business and property owners: Its time to tear down the plywood that divides us.

 READ MORE: Here's live coverage of what's happening June 15

I understand that each property owner has to make their own choice as to how to best protect their buildings and tenants. Some businesses were devastated by theft and looting. But my company, Philly Office Retail, went against the grain. We not only chose to not board up, we also spent the past 30 years taking down metal grates from our storefronts. My company owns commercial properties along business corridors in Mount Airy, Germantown, and West Philly, some of the hardest-hit areas in our city during the recent rioting and looting in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. But none of our tenants reported a significant amount of destruction or theft.

Sadly, Philadelphias commercial corridors are now not only blighted by unsightly metal grates but also board-ups. While many businesses have remained open to the public or recently reopened as Philadelphia and the surrounding counties moved to Gov. Tom Wolfs yellow phase, when covered with boards and grates, those businesses have become uninviting places to shop and do business. What kind of message does that send to the community? Not a good one.

Metal grates and board-ups over storefronts are a blight. They cheapen a business district, send word that the business corridor is dangerous and unsafe, and send a negative message to members of the community that they cannot be trusted.

That is why Philly Office Retail removed grates from more than 40 storefronts over the years. Metal grates out in front of stores have roots in similar unrest that took place in the 1960s. Mostly white property owners responded to turmoil in black communities by building mini fortresses to protect their stores. These unnecessary grates furthered divisions in our society. We must not be blind to this legacy and allow metal grates to be replaced by plywood.

 READ MORE: Thank you, Jeff Brown of ShopRite and the Pa. 30 Day Fund, for helping looted businesses | Jenice Armstrong

I am sympathetic to business and property owners who had their stores looted and destroyed. We should do everything possible to support their recovery and reopening, especially black-owned businesses that are historically disadvantaged. However, people are more important than property. Windows can be repaired and merchandise replaced.

Nothing can undo the damage done by sending a hostile message to an entire community. But thats exactly what boarded-up windows and metal grates communicate. Ultimately, the only way to prevent civil unrest is to address the long-standing, legitimate grievances. Removing metal grates and plywood should be a small part of that work.

Ken Weinstein is an active entrepreneur and real estate developer in the Philadelphia area. He serves as president of Philly Office Retail and cofounded the Mount Airy Business Improvement District and currently serves as its chair. ken@phillyofficeretail.com
As poor countries around the world struggle to beat back the coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases  ones that are readily prevented by vaccines

As poor countries around the world struggle to beat back the coronavirus, they are unintentionally contributing to fresh explosions of illness and death from other diseases  ones that are readily prevented by vaccines.

This spring, after the World Health Organisation and UNICEF warned that the pandemic could spread swiftly when children gathered for shots, many countries suspended their inoculation programmes. Even in countries that tried to keep them going, cargo flights with vaccine supplies were halted by the pandemic and health workers diverted to fight it.

Now, diphtheria is appearing in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Cholera is in South Sudan, Cameroon, Mozambique, Yemen and Bangladesh.

A mutated strain of poliovirus has been reported in more than 30 countries.

And measles is flaring around the globe, including in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria and Uzbekistan.

Of 29 countries that have suspended measles campaigns because of the pandemic, 18 are reporting outbreaks. An additional 13 countries are considering postponement. According to the Measles and Rubella Initiative, 178 million people are at risk of missing measles shots in 2020.

The risk now is an epidemic in a few months time that will kill more children than COVID, said Chibuzo Okonta, president of Doctors Without Borders in West and Central Africa.

As the pandemic lingers, the WHO and other international public health groups are now urging countries to carefully resume vaccination while contending with the coronavirus.

At stake is the future of a hard-fought, 20-year collaboration that has prevented 35 million deaths in 98 countries from vaccine-preventable diseases, and reduced mortality from them in children by 44 percent, according to a 2019 study by the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium, a group of public health scholars.

Immunisation is one of the most powerful and fundamental disease prevention tools in the history of public health, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, in a statement. Disruption to immunisation programs from the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to unwind decades of progress against vaccine-preventable diseases like measles.

But the obstacles to restarting are considerable. Vaccine supplies are hard to come by. Health care workers are increasingly working full time on COVID-19, the infection caused by the coronavirus. And a new wave of vaccine hesitancy is keeping parents from clinics.

Many countries have yet to be hit with the full force of the pandemic itself, which will further weaken their capabilities to handle outbreaks of other diseases.

We will have countries trying to recover from COVID and then facing measles. It would stretch their health systems further and have serious economic and humanitarian consequences, said Dr Robin Nandy, chief of immunisation for UNICEF, which supplies vaccines to 100 countries, reaching 45 percent of children under five.

The breakdown of vaccine delivery also has stark implications for protecting against the coronavirus itself.

At a global summit earlier this month, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a health partnership founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, announced it had received pledges of $8.8 billion for basic vaccines to children in poor and middle-income countries, and was beginning a drive to deliver COVID-19 vaccines, once they are available.

But as services collapse under the pandemic, they are the same ones that will be needed to send out a COVID vaccine, warned Dr Katherine OBrien, the WHOs director of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals, during a recent webinar on immunisation challenges.

Battling measles in Congo

Three healthcare workers with coolers full of vaccines and a support team of town criers and note-takers recently stepped into a motorised wooden canoe to set off down the wide Tshopo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Although measles was breaking out in all of the countrys 26 provinces, the pandemic had shut down many inoculation programs weeks earlier.

The crew in the canoe needed to strike a balance between preventing the transmission of a new virus that is starting to hit Africa hard, and stopping an old, known killer. But when the long, narrow canoe pulled in at riverside communities, the crews biggest challenge turned out not to be the mechanics of vaccinating children while observing the pandemics new safety strictures. Instead, the crew found themselves working hard just to persuade villagers to allow their children to be immunised at all.

Many parents were convinced that the team was lying about the vaccine  that it was not for measles but, secretly, an experimental coronavirus vaccine, for which they would be unwitting guinea pigs.

In April, French-speaking Africa had been outraged by a French television interview in which two researchers said coronavirus vaccines should be tested in Africa  a remark that reignited memories of a long history of such abuses. And in Congo, the virologist in charge of the coronavirus response said that the country had indeed agreed to take part in clinical vaccine trials this summer. Later, he clarified that any vaccine would not be tested in Congo until it had been tested elsewhere. But pernicious rumours had already spread.

The team cajoled parents as best they could. Although vaccinators throughout Tshopo ultimately immunised 16,000 children, 2,000 others eluded them.

This had been the year that Congo, the second-largest country in Africa, was to launch a national immunisation program. The urgency could not have been greater. The measles epidemic in the country, which started in 2018, has run on and on: Since January, there have been more than 60,000 cases and 800 deaths. Now, Ebola has again flared, in addition to tuberculosis and cholera, which regularly strike the country.

Vaccines exist for all these diseases, although they are not always available. In late 2018, the country began an immunisation initiative in nine provinces. It was a feat of coordination and initiative, and in 2019, the first full year, the percentage of fully immunised children jumped from 42 to 62 percent in Kinshasa, the capital.

This spring, as the program was being readied for its nationwide rollout, the coronavirus struck. Mass vaccination campaigns, which often mean summoning hundreds of children to sit close together in schoolyards and markets, seemed guaranteed to spread coronavirus. Even routine immunisation, which typically occurs in clinics, became untenable in many areas.

The countrys health authorities decided to allow vaccinations to continue in areas with measles but no coronavirus cases. But the pandemic froze international flights that would bring medical supplies, and several provinces began running out of vaccines for polio, measles and tuberculosis.

When immunisation supplies finally arrived in Kinshasa, they could not be moved around the country. Domestic flights had been suspended. Ground transport was not viable because of shoddy roads. Eventually, a UN peacekeeping mission ferried supplies on its planes.

Still, health workers, who had no masks, gloves or sanitising gel, worried about getting infected; many stopped working. Others were diverted to be trained for COVID.

The cumulative impact has been particularly dire for polio eradication  around 85,000 Congolese children have not received that vaccine.

But the disease that public health officials are most concerned about erupting is measles.

More contagious than COVID

Measles virus spreads easily by aerosol  tiny particles or droplets suspended in the air  and is far more contagious than the coronavirus, according to experts at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

If people walk into a room where a person with measles had been two hours ago and no one has been immunised, 100 percent of those people will get infected, said Dr Yvonne Maldonado, a paediatric infectious disease expert at Stanford University.

In poorer countries, the measles mortality rate for children under five ranges between three and six percent; conditions like malnutrition or an overcrowded refugee camp can increase the fatality rate. Children may succumb to complications such as pneumonia, encephalitis and severe diarrhoea.

In 2018, the most recent year for which data worldwide has been compiled, there were nearly 10 million estimated cases of measles and 142,300 related deaths. And global immunisation programmes were more robust then.

Before the coronavirus pandemic in Ethiopia, 91 percnet of children in the capital of Addis Ababa received their first measles vaccination during routine visits, while 29 percent in rural regions got them. (To prevent an outbreak of a highly infectious disease like measles, the optimum coverage is 95 percent or higher, with two doses of vaccine.) When the pandemic struck, the country suspended its April measles campaign. But the government continues to report many new cases.

Outbreak pathogens dont recognise borders, said OBrien of the WHO. Especially measles: Measles anywhere is measles everywhere.

Wealthier countries immunisation rates have also been plunging during the pandemic. Some American states report drops as steep as 70 percnet below the same period a year earlier, for measles and other diseases.

Once people start travelling again, the risk of infection will surge. It keeps me up at night, said Dr Stephen L Cochi, a senior advisor at the global immunisation division at the CDC. These vaccine-preventable diseases are just one plane ride away.

Starting again

After the WHO and its vaccine partners released the results of a survey last month showing that 80 million babies under a year old were at risk of missing routine immunisations, some countries, including Ethiopia, the Central African Republic and Nepal, began trying to restart their programs.

Uganda is now supplying health workers with motorbikes. In Brazil, some pharmacies are offering drive-by immunisation services. In the Indian state of Bihar, a 50-year-old healthcare worker learned to ride a bicycle in three days so she could take vaccines to far-flung families. UNICEF chartered a flight to deliver vaccines to seven African countries.

Cochi of the CDC, which provides technical and program support to more than 40 countries, said that whether such campaigns can be conducted during the pandemic is an open question. It will be fraught with limitations. Were talking low-income countries where social distancing is not a reality, not possible, he said, citing Brazilian favelas and migrant caravans.

He hopes that polio campaigns will resume swiftly, fearing that the pandemic could set back a global, decades-long effort to eradicate the disease.

Cochi is particularly worried about Pakistan and Afghanistan, where 61 cases of wild poliovirus Type 1 have been reported this year, and about Chad, Ghana, Ethiopia and Pakistan, where cases of Type 2 poliovirus, mutated from the oral vaccine, have appeared.

Thabani Maphosa, a managing director at Gavi, which partners with 73 countries to purchase vaccines, said that at least a half dozen of those countries say they cannot afford their usual share of vaccine costs because of the economic toll of the pandemic.

If the pandemic cleared within three months, Maphosa said, he believed the international community could catch up with immunisations over the next one-and-a-half years.

But our scenarios are not telling us that will happen, he added.

Jan Hoffman and Ruth Maclean c.2020 The New York Times Company
Deputy National Communications Director for the Convention Peoples Party [CPP], Benjamin Nsiah, has disclosed that only Convention Peoples Party(CPP) can save Ghanaians from incompetent governance of NPP and NDC in Ghanaian politics.

Benjamin Nsiah stressed that the duopoly of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the largest opposition party, National Democratic Congress (NDC) had not been helpful to the countrys growth and should end.

Whether it is the time of NDC or NPP, Ghanaians have always ended up gravitating towards the party with the more practical philosophy for the development of the country. A party like CPP, which at the moment is the only party which has demonstrated that it has the practical solutions to save Ghana, Benjamin Nsiah told Happy FM

However, the level of development of Ghana at the moment does not fit the ideal conditions for such a trickle-down effect to happen that is why Ghanaians need the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) to save Ghanaians.

According to him, the reason the NPP and NDC have failed to advance the development of Ghana anytime they were in power is that the ruling partys political philosophy does not respond to the needs of the country.

---Kingdomfmonline.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A judge set bond at $1 million for a man accused of killing a 15-year-old boy in a drive-by shooting in Clevelands Central neighborhood.

Aaren Washington, 24, of Cleveland Heights, is charged with aggravated murder in the March 30 killing of Amir Bradley, according to court records.

Washington waived his right to a preliminary hearing when he made his first appearance Monday in Cleveland Municipal Court. The case has been bound over to a grand jury.

The Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested Washington on Friday afternoon after tracking him to an apartment on Chardon Road near Chestnut Lane in Willoughby Hills, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release.

Washington is the second suspect charged in the killing. Tinisha Thomas, 44, is also charged with aggravated murder after investigators say she acted as a getaway driver after the shooting, court records say.

Amir died after being shot in the chest March 30 on Woodland Avenue near East 40th Street, in the Outhwaite Homes public housing complex, police said. A 16-year-old friend with him at the time was not hurt.

Surveillance video showed Thomas driving the shooter, alter identified as Washington, to the apartment complex. Washington got out of the car and fired several gunshots at the two teens, court records say.

Thomas picked up Washington and sped away after the shooting, according to court records.

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The Indian government on Monday summoned Pakistan's Charge d'affaires and lodged a strong protest to him over the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. It is suspected that the two staffers may have been picked up by Pakistani security agencies to frame them as spies, sources had earlier told CNN-News18.

Pakistani media reported the two Indian staffers were arrested by authorities for their alleged involvement in a "hit and run accident".

Officials sources in Delhi said Pakistan's Charge d'affaires Syed Hyder Shah was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and demarched on the reported arrest of the two officials as reported in the Pakistani media.

"The demarche to the Pakistan CDA made clear there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials. The responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities," said the sources. "The Pakistani side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately."

Sources said they have been now released and are back at the Indian mission.

According to information available so far, the two were CISF drivers who didn't reach their destination after stepping out for some work in the same vehicle around 8 am on Monday.

The Pakistani move is seen as tit-for-tat over the expulsion of two Pakistan high commission officials caught spying two weeks ago.

Several top Indian diplomats in Pakistan have since then been aggressively tailed over the last several days and India has even protested against the excessive surveillance.

Pakistan apparently is keen to "level the score" by expelling Indian officials on similar charges as those faced by its staff here, who were declared persona non grata. The last time India expelled a Pakistan official for espionage, Islamabad managed to restore parity in 3 days by doing the same to an Indian official.

India had on Friday registered a protest with Pakistan authorities in the form of a note verbale against the surveillance. The government has conveyed to Pakistan that the behaviour of its agencies violated Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and also the bilateral 1992 Code of Conduct which the 2 countries signed to provide diplomats immunity from hostilities in ties.

India had asked Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of the Indian high commission and its staff and to allow them to resume their activities in keeping with the Vienna Convention. Pakistan has said that activities have been curtailed keeping in mind the Coronavirus threat.
Di Maio to visit Turkey Wednesday for talks with Cavusoglu Tourism after COVID emergency, regional issues on agenda

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JUNE 15 - Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio on Wednesday will travel to Turkey ''at the invitation'' of his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish foreign ministry said, stressing that it will be the second visit by the Italian foreign policy chief.



''During the meetings - Ankara said in a note - bilateral relations between Turkey and Italy and Turkey's adhesion process to the EU will be discussed. Moreover, opinions will be exchanged on the current regional and international developments and on the fight against COVID-19''. Issues at the center of talks will include the reopening of flights and the resumption of tourism between the two countries after the peak of the coronavirus emergency. An exchange on the main regional issues, including Libya, is also expected. (ANSAmed)
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U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said on Monday that Russia's sentencing of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan to 16 years in jail for spying would harm relations between Moscow and Washington, the Interfax news agency reported.

Whelan's lawyer said after the verdict that his client had been told he would be part of a prisoner swap with a Russian national held in the United States, something the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had proposed on many occasions.

A Russian court found Whelan guilty of spying for the United States earlier on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in jail after a closed trial which U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque.

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A social media influencer has sparked outrage after filming a fitness workout for her followers just metres away from a religious ceremony on a beach in Bali.

The young blonde woman was spotted performing squats in a skimpy pink one-piece swimsuit above a dog while a friend filmed from behind.

Both women appeared to be unconcerned about a group of nearby Balinese locals dressed in traditional attire appearing to be preparing an elaborate Hindu offering.

A social influencer sparked online outrage for her risque workout on a Bali beach

Footage of the extraordinary clash of cultures believed to be on a beach in Canggu was shared to Instagram with the caption 'Ignorancers In The Wild'.

The post has been viewed over 30,000 times, with social media users accusing the blonde tourist of being insensitive and not showing respect to the Balinese locals.

'Is it that hard to respect a culture that open to everyone seriously,' one person commented.

Another added: The amount of disrespect....and f***s not given.'

A group of Balinese locals were preparing for a religious ceremony metres away

Other locals called for respect from foreigners on the island.

'Getting sick of this kind of bule (Indonesian for foreigners or whites),' one woman wrote.

Bali has slowly returned to normal in the last week with the reopening of restaurants and shopping centres, three months after the first case of coronavirus was recorded on the island.

Many beaches have 'unofficially' reopened by local communities.

Some beaches have reopened in Bali in June following strict coronavirus lockdowns. Pictured is a security guard patrolling a deserted beach in Kuta before restrictions were eased

The number of foreign tourists arriving in Indonesia plunged 60 per cent in March as the outbreak spread worldwide, prompting a ban on international visitors on the island, which remains in place.

As of June 15, 741 coronavirus cases have been recorded in Bali, including 474 recoveries and six deaths.

Authorities are hopeful of welcoming foreign tourists back to Bali from October.
Fisher-Price is celebrating its 90th anniversary this week by looking back at how some of its most iconic toys have changed over the years.

The company, which was started by East Aurora New York mayor Irving Price, Herman Fisher, and Helen Schelle in 1930 to provide a financial boost during the Great Depression, has gone on to sell countless early-childhood staples that are beloved from generation to generation.

But while many of their toys  like Little People Farm and Rock-A-Stack  have been favorites from children, their parents, and even their grandparents, several have seen changes over the years, and the brand is pulling old photos out of the archives to show how much they've evolved.

Anniversary: Fisher-Price is celebrating 90 years this week by looking back at how some of its most iconic toys have changed over the years (including the Jumperoo, pictured in 2003)

Updates: The Jumperoo has been around for decades and has seen numerous updates (pictured left in 2012 and right in 2016)

Classic: Fisher-Price also has several different versions of the set-up, including rainforest animals, woodland friends, and flowers (pictured: 2019)

Jumperoo

This baby range at Fisher-Price has played a key part in the brand's growth over the years.

The freestanding unit was created to allow babies to sit upright and see the world.

The earliest versions were fairly simple, with a frame, a cushioned seat, and a few locked-in toys to offer a multi-sensory experience for babies.

Over time, the colors have changed and more toys have been added  now not just built into the surface, but hanging around the baby's head.

Fisher-Price also has several different versions of the set-up, including rainforest animals, woodland friends, and flowers.

Colors: Since 1960, this classic has been a staple and pediatricians' offices (pictured left in 1960, right in its current form)

Rock-A-Stack

Since 1960, this classic has been a staple and pediatricians' offices.

It's mostly remained the same since it was first launched, made up of colorful stacked rings of different sizes which challenge hand/eye coordination.

The first version had six rings in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. In a later version, they added more rings, but soon simplified it down to five.

The most current version is back to the same original six colors, though the entire toy is considerably larger. There's also some added fun in the top ring, which has rattle beads inside.

This year, the Rock-A-Stack will be 100% recyclable and made from plant-based plastic as part of the company's move to fully recyclable toys across its portfolio.

To-date, over 52 million have been sold, and they continue to be a best-seller across the world.

Chatty: The Chatter Telephone has been the first phone of more than 27 million people since it was introduced in 1961 (pictured)

Update: The phone was briefly changed to a touchpad, but the redesign didn't last long

Popular: Its appearance in Toy Story 3 led to a resurgence in its popularity

Chatter Telephone

This has been the first phone of more than 27 million people since it was introduced in 1961.

The pull-along toy was originally called the Talk Back Telephone, but parents weren't keen on their kids taking it as permission to talk back to mom and dad  so it underwent an early name change.

Designers are also added the pull-along string during testing, after noticing that kids dragged it around by the receiver.

Otherwise, there have been only a few design tweaks over time.

'The design team did re-engineer it at one point putting a more modern touchpad on it, but it was rejected so we reverted back to the iconic rotary dial,' Mike Sullivan, Director of Global Brand Marketing at Fisher-Price, said.

Its appearance in Toy Story 3 led to a resurgence in its popularity.

Cool tunes! As time marches on, the way we play music changes  and the brand has kept kids up-to-date with the latest technology. In 1957, Fisher-Price had a toy radio

Cute: The radios were redesigned in the '70s and came in different colors

Put a record on! The 70s also brought a record players in different designs (pictured: 1975)

Aesthetic: While the record player from '75 was colorful, '79's version is brown and orange

Love that beat: In the '80s, the brand made a kiddie cassette player

Music Players

As time marches on, the way we play music changes  and the brand has kept kids up-to-date with the latest technology.

In 1957, Fisher-Price had a toy radio, followed by smaller versions in various colors in the 70s.

The 70s also brought a record players in different designs.

Though kids today may not encounter actual record players, they can still get toy versions from Fisher-Price. And with the aid of a 3D printer, families can now create their own records to play on the toy.

Flashback: Originally called the Play Family line when it was introduced in 1959, the Little People Farm got its name change by popular demand

Pictured in 1968, the barn had a more realistic shape

Long-lasting: The brand continued to upgrade the quality and materials over the years (pictured: 2012)

Modern day; This 2017 version even has a bell that rings

Little People Farm

Originally called the Play Family line when it was introduced in 1959, the Little People Farm got its name change by popular demand: Parents would ask toy stores for Fisher-Price's 'Little People' when it first came out.

In the early years, the characters couldn't be removed from their vehicle. Over time, that changed, and full-bodied characters were introduced.

The flagship Play Family Barn arrived in 1968, famous for the inclusion of a mechanical 'moo' sound that emanated when the barn door was opened.

The characters  who were based on friends and family of the designers  have had a contemporary makeover, too.

'There's a kid called Eddie in the Little People line-up who is holding a frog, wearing a rugby top and has a slingshot. That's pretty much a snapshot of my son when he was four years old,' said Patrick Murphy, Principal designer at Fisher-Price.

Wheel it: The Corn Popper debuted in 1957. This push (or pull-along) toy has seen tweaks over the decades, with the shape of the entire toy evolving and the colors becoming more vibrant

Corn Popper

The Corn Popper debuted in 1957.

This push (or pull-along) toy has seen tweaks over the decades, with the shape of the entire toy evolving and the colors becoming more vibrant.

The wheels have also been incorporated into the base so they're less likely to get caught on things.

Throwback: The cash register debuted in the '60s, and at the time, it was made mostly from wood.

Three years later, it was replaced by a plastic version with different coin denominations, and since then it has remained unaltered

Cash Register

The cash register debuted in the '60s, and at the time, it was made mostly from wood.

Three years later, it was replaced by a plastic version with different coin denominations, and since then it has remained unaltered.
Photo: (Photo : Photo by Life Matters from Pexels)

The Alpha Kappa Alpha remains true to its vision. They aim to build a better world for African Americans. They granted George Floyd's daughter and granddaughters with scholarships.

The scholarships will allow the girls of George Floyd to attend an HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) that they like.

The International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover, informed Floyd's family of the scholarships.

AKA aims to serve African Americans by advancing education and fighting social injustice. The organization believes that the scholarships will help the girls in achieving success.

READ ALSO: Officer Chauvin Charged for George Floyd's Death, Wife Files for Divorce And Wants Name Changed

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority's stand on the recent killings

The sorority opposes the killings of Black men and Black women like Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

The organization is also criticizing police brutality and systematic racism. They are working with several other African American Women groups.

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority has also called for police reform. They insisted that there should be a zero-tolerance approach when investigating police officers. That is when these officers kill unarmed individuals during an arrest.

Dr. Glover said that when Floyd died, his call for his mother is like a call for help to all women. Their appeal for reforms is their answer to Floyd's call.

Also, AKA has set up support for the family of George Floyd. That is by looking after George Floyd's daughter, Gianna, and his granddaughters, Taleiaha and Journi. They will receive full scholarships and aid.

READ ALSO: Mayor Bill de Blasio's Daughter Arrested in a George Floyd Protest in NYC

George Floyd's Daughter Receives Support From Other Groups and Individuals

Since the tragic death of George Floyd, celebrities and other influential individuals have expressed their support for his family. Celebrities have been showing their support through their respective social media accounts.

Specifically, Kanye West pledged support to Floyd's family. He has also set up a college fund for Gianna Floyd's tuition.

If Gianna wishes to attend the Texas Southern University in Houston, she may also do so for free. TSU's Board of Regents approved a fund for the scholarship of George Floyd's daughter.

TSU believes that education can be a powerful tool in having a successful life. That is why they chose to help Gianna through a scholarship.

Aside from these help for Gianna, a GoFundMe page has also been set up. This page is also for the daughter of George Floyd. As of writing, donors already surpassed the goal of $2,000,000. The page raised more than 2.1 million dollars.

In the GoFundMe page, Gianna and Roxie Washington expressed their gratitude to everyone who sent their support. A foundation is running under the name of George and Gianna Floyd.

Floyd's demise

George Floyd died in Minneapolis. His death became controversial when a video surfaced. It is of a police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes. Such action caused his death.

The video sparked the beginning of protests all over the United States.

Some of these protests became violent. However, Floyd's family is vocal about opposing these types of demonstrations.

READ ALSO: Teens Participate in "George Floyd Challenge": Police Investigates Posts, Treats Them As Hate Crime






A man who was reportedly suicidal and his two young daughters were rescued by a police officer who improvised a way to be lowered down to the ocean after the father drove his pickup truck off a seaside cliff. All three were transported to a hospital and were expected to survive.

Reports say the drivers wife called 911 early Saturday morning reporting that her husband was distraught and had taken off with their 2-year-old girls with plans to drive off the San Diego-Coronado Bridge. Police were able to trace the mans cellphone to Sunset Cliffs, but when an officer tried to approach the truck, the father sped off the end of the cliff.

The San Diego Union-Tribune details the rescue by Officer Jonathan Wiese, a 22-year San Diego Police Department veteran who heard the radio call that the truck had gone off the cliff and arrived to find the truck upside down and smashed on a rock in the water. He said he initially thought no one survived, but then he saw the motions of the father holding the two girls.

Thinking quickly, the K-9 officer stripped off his gun belt and vest and wrapped a 100-foot canine leash used for SWAT missions to his chest, giving the other end to arriving officers. They lowered him some 30 feet onto rocks, where Wiese jumped into the water and swam to the wreck. One girl was crying and holding on to her fathers neck, while the other appeared to be lifeless, he told the paper.

Using his Marine Corps training, Wiese, who still had his uniform and boots on, swam underneath the family and kept them above water as he pushed them to shore. He used a canvas bag so officers could hoist both girls up the cliff, with a helicopter later arriving to pull the father to safety.

The father suffered non-life-threatening injuries, while the most seriously injured daughter was in critical condition but was expected to survive, NBC San Diego reported.

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide:

Know that help is available. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is only a phone call away, at 1-800-273-8255. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, along with prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:00:57|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Department of State said on Monday that it was outraged by a Russian court's decision to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, who was sentenced to 16 years in jail earlier in the day.

"The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.

The Moscow City Court on Monday sentenced U.S. citizen Paul Whelan to 16 years in jail after finding him guilty of spying in Russia, local media reported.

Whelan's lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told reporters that after the appeal they will decide whether to request a pardon or an exchange for Russian nationals Konstantin Yaroshenko or Viktor Bout jailed in the United States.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday that Moscow has repeatedly offered options for prisoner swaps to Washington and its position now remains unchanged.

Whelan, 50, was detained in Moscow by the Russian Federal Security Service on suspicion of espionage on Dec. 28, 2018, although his family said he traveled to Moscow only to attend a friend's wedding.

Before his detention, Whelan was head of the security service of a U.S. firm producing automobile parts. He also has British, Irish and Canadian citizenships. Enditem
(STANBERRY, Mo.) The Tri-County Health Department announced Monday a seventh and eighth death due to COVID-19 in Gentry County.

The residents were women, one was in her 70s and the other in her 90s.

The Tri-County Health Department provides health services for Dekalb, Gentry, and Worth counties. According to county data, 66 people have tested positive, 18 have recovered, and eight people have died. About 6,600 people live in Gentry County. The county population spread out in the rural cities of Albany, Stanberry, and King City among others.

Gentry County has reported a total of 54 positive cases of COVID-19 and eight deaths, according to the Tri-County Health Department. Gentry Countys first death due to COVID-19 was a woman in her 90s, according to a May 26 press release on Tri-County's Facebook page.

All 8 deaths linked to Stanberry nursing home

Tri-County Administrator Lilli Parsons said Monday all eight deaths and about 40 of the 54 cases are linked to one facility in Stanberry but did not release the facilitys name. She added the home began "facility-wide testing" on May 21, shortly after the first positive case was identified on May 18.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released data on June 4, identifying Stanberry's Pine View Manor as the home of an outbreak. According to the CMS data at least 24 residents have tested positive, seven residents are suspected positive, and four residents have died. The nursing home also reported to the federal government that seven staff have tested positive and one staff member is suspected as a positive case.

The federal data is slated to be updated this week.

No epidemiological investigations into earlier May deaths

The two latest COVID-19 victims were elderly women and had only experienced mild symptoms, Parsons said.

"You have to remember that this is a very vulnerable population with underlying conditions," she said in response to questions about whether more Pine View Manor residents are at risk of becoming gravely ill.

KQ2 also asked whether there would be any epidemiological investigations into deaths at Pine View Manor that occurred prior to the facility-wide testing on May 18, Parsons replied, "Probably not".

She also said she does not believe the state requires epidemiological investigations in that circumstance.

Limited state data available

The CMS data goes beyond the state data, by disclosing the names, locations, cases, deaths, and targeted inspection reports for each nursing home.

In May, Missouri began collecting and publishing some information on COVID-19 cases in Congregate living facilities, meaning a facility where persons reside and share common spaces with other residents including nursing homes, assisted living facilities, dorms, and jails.

The State health department publishes a map of active cases at congregate living facilities. The map shows how many facilities, in each county, have at least one resident or staff member with an active case of COVID-19 at the time of reporting. The state does not disclose the facilitys name or the number of positive cases.

Missouri updated its reporting requirements for congregate facilities on May 18. The update requires nursing homes and facilities to report deaths to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services within 24-hours.

DHSS collects that data and publishes some of it for the public on its COVID-19 dashboard but it is far short of a complete picture of outbreaks at community living facilities.
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San Antonio police have identified the woman who was killed Saturday in a crash with a suspected drunk driver on the East Side.

Destiny Mary Rodriguez, 27, was driving her Mitsubishi sedan near Martin Luther King Blvd and South Walters around 5:30 p.m., when she was struck by a yellow Hummer at the intersection. She died at the scene.
Another round of tripartite negotiations is taking place on Monday, but Egypt will go to the UN Security Council to protect international peace and security if talks falter

Egypt will seek other options, including going to the United Nations Security Council, if Ethiopia remains intransigent during the new round of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) talks, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry stated on Monday in Cairo.

According to the Egyptian foreign ministry, Shoukry said at a lecture organised by the Egyptian Business Council for International Cooperation that Egypt has been committed to negotiating in good faith to reach a balanced and fair agreement to the GERD crisis in the past years for the best interest of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

"The latest round of negotiations will not yield positive results as long as Ethiopia is intransigent, in which case Egypt will have to look into other options, such as going to the UN Security Council to shoulder its responsibility in protecting international peace and security by stopping Ethiopia from taking a unilateral action that will negatively affect Egypts water rights."

Shoukrys statements came as the irrigation ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have started another round of online talks over GERD on Monday after failing to reach an agreement a few days ago.

Egypt and Sudan presented last month two memos to the Security Council, detailing the GERD situation from its onset and how both countries have concerns about the dam which Ethiopia said it plans to fill in early July in violation of earlier agreements.

Ethiopia hopes the massive $4.8 billion megaproject on the Blue Nile will allow it to become Africas largest power exporter.

But Egypt, which relies on the Blue Nile for 85 percent of its freshwater, fears the dam will diminish its water supply, which is already below scarcity level.

Egypt has a water share of around 570 cubic metres per person annually, well below the water scarcity level of 1,000 cubic metres per person per year. The figure is expected to drop further to 500 cubic metres by 2025.

On regional developments

During the lecture, Shoukry also discussed the global political, economic, and social challenges as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and tackled several regional issues, including developments in Palestine, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

He stressed Egypts rejection of unilateral actions by Israel to annex the West Bank, stating this may end opportunities to revive the peace process based on the two states solution as well as the Arab Peace initiative.

On Libya, Shoukry spoke about the Cairo Declaration initiative Egypt announced two weeks ago, saying it was in line with the current UN initiatives and agreements.

The initiative aims to ensure fair representation for Libyas three provinces, unifying its institutions, and the fair distribution of Libya's wealth, the Egyptian foreign minister said.

Shoukry asserted it is necessary to reach a comprehensive political settlement in Syria in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 to ensure the country's unity and the safety of its institutions.

Shoukry also stated the Yemen crisis needed a political solution and an end to foreign intervention.

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Asif Mehman - Trend:

An increase in the number of infected people as a result of softening the quarantine regime was an expected phenomenon in Azerbaijan, head of the working group of the Azerbaijani Management Union of Medical Territorial Units (TABIB) Vasif Aliyev said in an interview with Xezer TV channel, Trend reports.

The importance of maintaining social distance, the use of protective masks and personal hygiene rules was brought to the attention of citizens, head of the working group added.

"There are citizens who do not follow these rules, there are those who do not believe in coronavirus at all, Aliyev added. Some people are medicating themselves at home without medical supervision.

These people go to the hospital too late, and this complicates the work of doctors, the head of the working group said. If a person sees a doctor in time, then it will be easier to treat such a patient. The number of fatal cases will decrease.

There are enough hospitals in Azerbaijan, Aliyev said. The New Clinic has been commissioned. The modular hospitals have been built in a short period of time. In case of necessity, the coronavirus infected patients may be treated in private hospitals along with the state hospitals.

"At the same time, an uncontrolled increase in the number of infected people may result in a lack of beds for patients, Aliyev said. This problem is observed in European countries. Therefore, to maintain control over the situation, a decision was made to introduce the quarantine regime during the weekend."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:03:10|Editor: huaxia

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ROME, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Italy, along with some European partners, signed a contract with AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company for buying up to 400 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine, a top health official confirmed on Monday.

The contract with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical followed a deal agreed between Italy, Germany, France, and the Netherlands in the previous days in order to ensure the availability of the vaccine in the European markets, once ready.

"Italy has not yet purchased doses of the vaccine -- which are not yet available -- but rather signed a contract to keep supporting this scientific research," Italy's Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri told state-run RAI Radio 1.

"Presuming to have it ready for autumn may be premature, yet it (the vaccine) could arrive by the end of the year, or beginning of 2021," he added.

On Saturday, Health Minister Roberto Speranza anticipated the finalization of the deal with the three above-mentioned European Union (EU) partners, within a sort of "vaccination alliance" to financially support what was deemed as one of the most encouraging vaccine research -- the AstraZeneca's -- and thus to be ready for promptly purchasing the drug in a later phase.

"Along with Germany, France, and the Netherlands, I have just signed the first deal for the supply of up to 400 million doses of the most promising COVID-19 vaccine to be destined to the whole European population," Speranza wrote on Twitter and Facebook.

His comments were later republished in a ministry's statement on the same day.

"This potential vaccine stems from studies of the Oxford University, and it will involve relevant Italian entities in the phases of development and production," Speranza explained.

The minister added the commitment underneath the contract provided that the trial path, already in an advanced phase, would end in autumn, "with the distribution of the first tranche of doses by the end of the year."

In an interview to Rai 3 TV Agora broadcast on Monday, AstraZeneca Chief Executive Officer Lorenzo Wittum confirmed that clinical trials of the potential COVID-19 vaccine were going through the last phase.

"As long as we will not have the results of tests on human beings, which will occur in September, we will not be able to state this vaccine is effective," Wittum specified.

Yet, he added, they were "confident it would work ... All went well in the first phases (of the trial), and now we are testing it on some thousand volunteers to verify it effectively protects from the contagion."

As for the economic availability of the drug, once ready, the AstraZeneca CEO explained, the company has committed to producing some 2 billion doses with the aim of ensuring a "broad, fair, and unprofitable access during the pandemic."

"The costs for distributing the vaccine will be of few euros," he said. Enditem
Recalcitrant Chinese industrial trawler re-arrested in Ghana for repeated illegal fishing crimes

June 15,2020 | Source: GhanaWeb

A Chinese industrial trawler which was fined one million dollars for using under-size mesh nets and taking fish below minimum landing size has been re-arrested in Ghana for the same offence after failing to pay the fine.



The vessel, Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956, initially arrested in June 2019 for the said offence was issued with a fine of US$1 million by an out of court settlement committee, and an additional GHS 124,000 for the fish onboard the vessel in October 2019.



However, despite the owner's refusal to pay the fine, the vessel licence was renewed, and the trawler put to sea again, fishing in the waters of both Ghana and neighbouring Cote dIvoire.



On Saturday, May 30, the Marine Police arrested the vessel again for the same offences of using nets with a mesh size below the legal limit and undersized fish.



The vessel is being detained until Tuesday, June 16, when the case would be due to for court.



But according to the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working to protect the environment, such disregard for the law was enabled by lack of deterrent sanctions.



It also abhorred the decision by government officials in the full knowledge of such crimes to re-licence the vessel even when it had refused to pay the fine imposed.



These repeat offences show that the system of sanctions in Ghana is not having a deterrent effect, it said



Under international law, Ghana has a responsibility to establish and implement a system of deterrent sanctions that deprived offenders of the benefits flowing from their illegal fishing activities, it added



According to the EJF, the fact that the vessel was authorised by the Ghanaian authorities to fish in Cote d'Ivoire, despite its failure to pay a fine for serious illegal fishing offences, showed that Ghana's decisions on such cases had international implications.



Mr Steve Trent, Executive Director of EJF told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that it was vital to ensure that the vessel paid the full fines of both cases and that the outcome of this and other cases must be published on the Ministrys website.



Perpetrators cannot simply choose not to pay a fine and go back to the same criminal actions as before. That is not how justice works. To safeguard Ghanas food security, livelihoods and stability, the government must act to tackle this issue across the whole fleet, he stated.



He said the livelihoods and food security of millions of Ghanaians would be in danger if the government failed to crack down on such practices.

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Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
San Antonio officials have said they want to iron out issues surrounding police discipline at the bargaining table with the police officers union.

A group of organizers has a different idea  get rid of the table.

Decades ago, San Antonio voters gave police the right to bargain collectively over wages and working conditions. They also granted officers the ability to challenge firings and disciplinary action before arbitrators.

Though state laws authorize collective bargaining and arbitration for police, city voters had to approve in order for the laws to take effect at the local level.

Critics of those laws  including Police Chief William McManus  say they help explain why such a high percentage of SAPD officers fired for misconduct are able to win reinstatement through arbitration. By various estimates, about two-thirds of firings are reversed by arbitrators.

Theyre basically exempting themselves from responsibility, said Ojiyoma Martin, head of a new organization called Fix SAPD.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio police shouldnt have to handle every social ill, top city officials say

Fix SAPD  which Martin said has about 20 members  plans to begin gathering signatures for an effort to roll back collective bargaining and arbitration in San Antonio.

Its the latest idea for remaking police departments to emerge from nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, by a Minneapolis police officer last month.

Martins organization, formed about two weeks ago, doesnt have much time to get the repeal measures on the November ballot. To put both proposals in front of voters at that time, the group will need to gather about 98,000 signatures by Aug. 17.

The thinking goes that if voters granted bargaining and arbitration rights, they can take them away.

It is literally in our hands, Martin said.

But taking a hatchet to anything having to do with police is a tricky proposition in San Antonio, where police, firefighters and their unions have been overwhelmingly popular  and very good at turning out their supporters at the polls.

If you make the police the enemy, youre not going to win, veteran political strategist Christian Archer said. But if organizers craft a message aimed at passing reasonable reform, they may have a chance, he said.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg unveils agenda on police reforms, union contract

Martin  a 33-year-old mother of two who is a communications coordinator for a pediatric speech clinic  said she is banking on voters seeing how the unions ability to influence contract terms enables bad behavior on the force.

She pointed to an infamous example: McManus fired officer Matthew Luckhurst over a 2016 incident in which Luckhursts fellow officers accused him of trying to give a homeless man a sandwich filled with dog feces.

Three years later, an arbitrator overturned the firing because Luckhurst wasnt punished within 180 days of the incident. The contract says police supervisors cant discipline an officer for alleged misconduct if they find out about the incident more than 180 days after the fact.

Everyone can agree that if you feed a homeless man a feces sandwich, you should not be on the force whether you did it 180 days ago or 181 days ago, Martin said.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg, meeting with the Express-News editorial board on Friday, said he would support legislative changes at the state level to grant the department the ability to weed out bad officers.

But Nirenberg stopped short of saying San Antonio voters should repeal police collective bargaining. Instead, the mayor has called on the union to agree to abandon parts of its current contract that limit the citys ability to discipline bad officers. The contract expires in September 2021.

On the other side, District 2 Councilwoman Jada Andrews-Sullivan, the councils lone black member, has said voters should decide whether to strip the union of its collective bargaining rights.

If that happened, it is unclear how police officers wages and working conditions would be determined. In the days before collective bargaining, it was done through civil service regulation.

Getting rid of collective bargaining would have far-reaching consequences, said Mike Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association. The department would have less flexibility in hiring, promotions and boosting diversity in the ranks, Helle said.

Collective bargaining gives both sides the opportunity to work out disagreements over officer discipline and other matters, Helle said.

You dont destroy it because you have a misconception of how the system works, Helle said.

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
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:30:20|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Two officials in Beijing have been sacked after the city recently reported dozens of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases, the municipal authorities said Monday.

Zhou Yuqing, deputy head of the Fengtai district government, and Wang Hua, Party secretary of Huaxiang Township in Fengtai, were removed from their posts for misconduct in office during epidemic prevention and control.

Local authorities also ordered the removal of Zhang Yuelin from the post of general manager of the Xinfadi wholesale market of fruits, vegetables and meat in Fengtai, which most of the new confirmed cases were related to.

Beijing reported 36 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and six new asymptomatic cases on Sunday, according to the municipal health commission. Enditem
Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), an insurtech company that uses artificial intelligence to sell insurance to a largely younger crowd, has recently filed to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said in its filing that it is targeting a $100 million capital raise. According to the company's filing, the number of outstanding common shares after the IPO is based on roughly 43.9 million shares of the company's common stock outstanding as of March 31, which includes roughly 31.6 million shares of preferred stock that will automatically convert into common stock.

Prior to filing for an IPO, Lemonade was an up-and-coming startup based in New York that had attracted lots of capital from the private markets, including venture investors Softbank and General Catalyst. Going into the IPO, venture capitalists projected the company to be valued at more than $2 billion. Lemonade said it plans to use proceeds from the IPO for general corporate purposes, but also said it may use the capital to make an acquisition, or invest in other businesses, products, and services. Here's more about Lemonade.

Insurance as a subscription

At its core, Lemonade provides renters and homeowners insurance in the U.S., as well as select insurance products in Germany and the Netherlands. The standard renter pays a premium of nearly $150 annually, with the standard homeowner paying about $900 annually. Taking advantage of a popular business model, Lemonade allows customers to purchase insurance products as a subscription, starting for as little as $5 per month.

Lemonade is not just an insurance company, but also a public benefit corporation, meaning it is legally required to consider the social impact of its decisions on its stakeholders. As a result, Lemonade donates leftover funds from the premiums it collects to nonprofits selected by its customers. This may sound altruistic, but Lemonade believes it also discourages customers from embellishing claims, because every time they do, there is less money that can be donated.

Being an insurtech company, Lemonade leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to help its younger millennial customers make quick decisions. Bank of America may have Erica, its virtual financial assistant, but Lemonade has AI Maya, which helps onboard customers by collecting information, setting up customized coverage, creating insurance quotes, and handling secure payments. Lemonade claims that it only takes AI Maya two minutes to get customers set up with renters or homeowners insurance. Then Lemonade uses AI Jim to pay out insurance claims in as little as three seconds.

Lemonade claims that it will be much less volatile than other insurance companies because gross margins will be stable even in years when there are more claims. The company achieves this using a fixed-fee model. Lemonade transfers 75% of all its premiums to reinsurers, companies that provides financial protection to insurance companies (insurance for insurance companies). As a result, the reinsurers give Lemonade a commission of 25% for every dollar transferred to reinsurers, in addition to funding the claims ceded to them. That's money in the bank for Lemonade, which the company says will make it less sensitive to how claims come in during a given year.

A different approach for younger customers

Lemonade focuses on a young demographic, with roughly 70% of the its current customers under age 35. Roughly 90% of Lemonade's customers said they didn't switch from another insurance carrier, suggesting these could be first-time insurance buyers.

Getting millennials to purchase insurance is no small feat -- just ask healthcare insurers. Lemonade has been able to lure the younger crowd by using the savings it realizes from technology and offering premiums that can be 50% cheaper than its competitors. Customers have taken notice.

Lemonade cites a massive untapped market for its growth potential. Global property, casualty, and life insurance are a $5 trillion market, and these insurance categories make up 11% of U.S. GDP. The company says geographic expansion can also help it scale.

Net losses are surging -- but so is revenue

Lemonade is hitting the public markets after reporting a net loss of more than $108 million in 2019, up from a net loss of $53 million in 2018. The company says its fixed-fee model is partly to blame because it reduces volatility but does not maximize profitability. "Optimizing for profitability is important, but can wait," Lemonade said in its prospectus. "We aim to first grow fast and capture as much market share, mind share, and as large a geographical footprint as possible."

Still, not all is bad. Despite the losses, the company tripled revenue from 2018 to 2019, while only roughly doubling its spending on marketing and sales in that same period.

The company did spend $89 million alone on sales and marketing in 2019, more than the $67 million in revenue it made. But it believes that the lifetime value of its customers is much higher than the cost of acquiring them. Lemonade has a good track record of retaining customers, keeping 75% of year-one customers and 76% of year-two customers.

It's also had success at growing its customer base. Lemonade has more than doubled the number of customers using its platform from about 308,000 at the end of 2018 to more than 643,000 at the end of 2019. By the end of March, just three months later, customers had grown to more than 729,000.

Great prospects, but not without risk

I really like some of the fundamentals behind this business, and I think insurance is a huge market with plenty of room for disruption. I could no doubt see this business being successful. However, one thing to keep in mind is that Lemonade is your classic tech start-up with tons of venture backing, big name investors, a huge valuation, and not a dollar of profit. In these bumpy markets, start-ups are more risky now than ever before. If you can afford the risk and are patient, go ahead and invest.
While humans have three color cones in the retina sensitive to red, green and blue light, birds have a fourth color cone that can detect ultraviolet light. A research team led by Princeton's Mary Caswell Stoddard trained wild hummingbirds, like this male broad-tailed hummingbird, to perform a series of experiments that revealed that the tiny birds also see combination colors like ultraviolet+green and ultraviolet+red. The male's magenta throat feathers are likely perceived by birds as an ultraviolet+purple combination color. Credit: Noah Whiteman, taken at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory

To find food, dazzle mates, escape predators and navigate diverse terrain, birds rely on their excellent color vision.

"Humans are color-blind compared to birds and many other animals," said Mary Caswell Stoddard, an assistant professor in the Princeton University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Humans have three types of color-sensitive cones in their eyesattuned to red, green and blue lightbut birds have a fourth type, sensitive to ultraviolet light. "Not only does having a fourth color cone type extend the range of bird-visible colors into the UV, it potentially allows birds to perceive combination colors like ultraviolet+green and ultraviolet+redbut this has been hard to test," said Stoddard.

To investigate how birds perceive their colorful world, Stoddard and her research team established a new field system for exploring bird color vision in a natural setting. Working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Gothic, Colorado, the researchers trained wild broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) to participate in color vision experiments.

"Most detailed perceptual experiments on birds are performed in the lab, but we risk missing the bigger picture of how birds really use color vision in their daily lives," Stoddard said. "Hummingbirds are perfect for studying color vision in the wild. These sugar fiends have evolved to respond to flower colors that advertise a nectar reward, so they can learn color associations rapidly and with little training."

Stoddard's team was particularly interested in "nonspectral" color combinations, which involve hues from widely separated parts of the color spectrum, as opposed to blends of neighboring colors like teal (blue-green) or yellow (green-red). For humans, purple is the clearest example of a nonspectral color. Technically, purple is not in the rainbow: it arises when our blue (short-wave) and red (long-wave) cones are stimulated, but not green (medium-wave) cones.

While humans have just one nonspectral colorpurple, birds can theoretically see up to five: purple, ultraviolet+red, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+yellow and ultraviolet+purple.

Stoddard and her colleagues designed a series of experiments to test whether hummingbirds can see these nonspectral colors. Their results appear June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research team, which included scientists from Princeton, the University of British Columbia (UBC), Harvard University, University of Maryland and RMBL, performed outdoor experiments each summer for three years. First they built a pair of custom "bird vision" LED tubes programmed to display a broad range of colors, including nonspectral colors like ultraviolet+green. Next they performed experiments in an alpine meadow frequently visited by local broad-tailed hummingbirds, which breed at the high-altitude site.

While humans have three color cones in the retina sensitive to red, green and blue light, birds have a fourth color cone that can detect ultraviolet light. A research team led by Princeton's Mary Caswell Stoddard trained wild hummingbirds, like this male broad-tailed hummingbird, to perform a series of experiments that revealed that the tiny birds also see combination colors like ultraviolet+green and ultraviolet+red. The male's magenta throat feathers are likely perceived by birds as an ultraviolet+purple combination color. Credit: David Inouye, Department of Biology, University of Maryland-College Park

Each morning, the researchers rose before dawn and set up two feeders: one containing sugar water and the other plain water. Beside each feeder, they placed an LED tube. The tube beside the sugar water emitted one color, while the one next to the plain water emitted a different color. The researchers periodically swapped the positions of the rewarding and unrewarding tubes, so the birds could not simply use location to pinpoint a sweet treat. They also performed control experiments to ensure that the tiny birds were not using smell or another inadvertent cue to find the reward. Over the course of several hours, wild hummingbirds learned to visit the rewarding color. Using this setup, the researchers recorded over 6,000 feeder visits in a series of 19 experiments.

The experiments revealed that hummingbirds can see a variety of nonspectral colors, including purple, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+red and ultraviolet+yellow. For example, hummingbirds readily distinguished ultraviolet+green from pure ultraviolet or pure green, and they discriminated between two different mixtures of ultraviolet+red lightone redder, one less so.

"It was amazing to watch," said Harold Eyster, a UBC Ph.D. student and a co-author of the study. "The ultraviolet+green light and green light looked identical to us, but the hummingbirds kept correctly choosing the ultraviolet+green light associated with sugar water. Our experiments enabled us to get a sneak peek into what the world looks like to a hummingbird."

Even though hummingbirds can perceive nonspectral colors, appreciating how these colors appear to birds can be difficult. "It is impossible to really know how the birds perceive these colors. Is ultraviolet+red a mix of those colors, or an entirely new color? We can only speculate," said Ben Hogan, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton and a co-author of the study.

"To imagine an extra dimension of color visionthat is the thrill and challenge of studying how avian perception works," said Stoddard. "Fortunately, the hummingbirds reveal that they can see things we cannot."

"The colors that we see in the fields of wildflowers at our study site, the wildflower capital of Colorado, are stunning to us, but just imagine what those flowers look like to birds with that extra sensory dimension," said co-author David Inouye, who is affiliated with the University of Maryland and RMBL.

Finally, the research team analyzed a data set of 3,315 feather and plant colors. They discovered that birds likely perceive many of these colors as nonspectral, while humans do not. That said, the researchers emphasize that nonspectral colors are probably not particularly special relative to other colors. The wide variety of nonspectral colors available to birds is the result of their ancient four color-cone visual system.

"Tetrachromacyhaving four color cone typesevolved in early vertebrates," said Stoddard. "This color vision system is the norm for birds, many fish and reptiles, and it almost certainly existed in dinosaurs. We think the ability to perceive many nonspectral colors is not just a feat of hummingbirds but a widespread feature of animal color vision."

Explore further Mosaic evolution painted lorikeets a rainbow of color
She has been tending to her horses and enjoying being outdoors during lockdown.

And Summer Monteys-Fullam took the opportunity to get glammed up on Monday, as she slipped into skimpy red co-ords and posed for a sultry photoshoot.

The social media influencer, 25, cut a stylish figure in a red crop top, which highlighted her ample assets and was teamed with a matching mini skirt.

Wow! Summer Monteys-Fullam took the opportunity to get glammed up on Monday, a she slipped into skimpy red co-ords and posed for a sultry photoshoot

The barely-there ensemble highlighted Summer's sensational figure, while she boosted her petite frame with a pair of strappy heeled sandals.

The flame-haired beauty wore her locks in bouncy ringlets, and accentuated her pretty features with a typically glamorous coat of make-up.

She later stripped back her look and wore her locks up in a messy bun, while switching her mini skirt for a pair of denim hot pants.

Mini-me! Summer posed for the snap with her lookalike mother Sabina, who was wearing a simple grey vest top and sported a full pallet of make-up

Glam: The social media influencer, 25, cut a stylish figure in a red crop top, which highlighted her ample assets and was teamed with a matching mini skirt

Summer posed for the snap with her lookalike mother Sabina, who was wearing a simple grey vest top and sported a full pallet of make-up.

During lockdown, Summer has focused on caring for her horses, which helped cure her heartache after her bitter split with Paul Hollywood, 54.

Last month, Summer welcomed two foals; Rainbow and Storm, with the delighted star littering her Instagram with updates on her latest additions to the family.

Model: The barely-there ensemble highlighted Summer's sensational figure, while she boosted her petite frame with a pair of strappy heeled sandals

Smoking: The flame-haired beauty wore her fiery locks in bouncy ringlets, and accentuated her pretty features with a typically glamorous coat of make-up

Last month, the beauty made a thinly-veiled dig at her Bake Off judge ex after it was reported he has already moved his new lover into the house they shared in Kent.

Summer took to Instagram stories to share a snap of the view, which she accompanied with the track Savage by Megan Thee Stallion.

The lyrics appeared to be quite pointed: 'B***h, that's my trash, you the maid, so you bagged him, ah I'm a savage (yeah), Classy, bougie, ratchet (yeah); Sassy, moody, nasty (hey, hey, yeah)!

'Acting stupid, what's happening? B***h (whoa, whoa) What's happening? B***h (whoa, whoa). I'm a savage, yeah! Classy, bougie, ratchet, yeah!'

The post comes after friends of Paul's revealed his new girlfriend - pub landlady Melissa Spalding, 36 - is self-isolating with him in his 1 million farmhouse, just eight months after splitting from Summer.

Friends say she immediately accepted his invitation to relocate from the nearby Chequers pub in the village of Smarden where she lived, amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

Paul bought the Grade II-listed house last year for him and Summer to live in.

A friend told The Mail on Sunday: 'Paul and Melissa got together soon after his split from Summer and they are really happy together. Actually its looking like this one could very well last for Paul.'
Church of the Highlands Pastor Chris Hodges says hes cried buckets over race controversy

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Two weeks after he was accused of liking racially insensitive posts on social media, Pastor Chris Hodges of Church of the Highlands in Alabama told his congregation Sunday that he has cried buckets since then and is now a changed man since the controversy erupted.

Its hard to explain your own journey  I am not the same Chris Hodges I was two weeks ago. Do I have a long way to go? Yes, sir. But I can look you in the eye and say, Ive been tested, stripped, disciplined, broken. I cry two times a year, and usually with a movie, he said laughing uneasily in his message, titled "Becoming One."

I have buckets for days, buckets. I know its really been one of the most painful things Ive ever been through in my life and I know God is disciplining me, breaking me. A broken and a contrite heart is the pathway to the presence and anointing of God, he explained about the journey he has walked in the last two weeks, which involved conversations with four black leaders on his churchs pastoral staff.

Hodges message of repentance and the need for true racial reconciliation came days after the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District and the Birmingham Board of Education cut ties with Church of the Highlands, the largest church in Alabama, due to reports that he 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 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. Another post says, We all must do our part to defeat China Virus.

Hodges previously apologized to his predominantly white but racially diverse congregation but on Sunday, he argued that God was using the coronavirus pandemic as well as Floyds death to force America to confront its racism.

Being quarantined, he said, helped soften people to receive the message behind Floyds death.

God brought us to a stripping of ourselves. We were in our homes, we were going through a breaking. We lost things only to soften our hearts so that that event that took place in Minneapolis could be history making, Hodges said.

I think God is doing it to America. I think Hes done it to people that dont even know God. That were shaken and I really believe that God is doing something. Im so encouraged today. I truly believe the devil is going to be defeated and were going to see not only a healing from a disease but I dont think our land is ever going to be the same again. I truly believe were going to see lasting change, he said.

The Church of the Highlands founder said he interrupted his vacation to speak to his congregation because God spoke to him about preserving unity in the church.

He cited Ephesians 4:3-6, which says: Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

We all know theres not a lot of ones right now. Theres a lot  not just in America but across the world theres a lot of distinctive groups that have been formed or in peoples mind, different groups that, not a lot of one going on. And the Bible tells us, the church, tells me as a pastor, you need to make an effort to kind of bring back the ones. We gotta get back to one, Hodges said as he gingerly broached the issue of race and acknowledged his churchs own struggle to stay united.

One of the ironies of our experience that is happening not only in our nation but here at our own church is that for the last three months, I was leading with some others an effort to bring unity to the body of Christ through prayer in this thing called Unite 714. And while there was unity in leading unity around the world, I had allowed disunity to happen in my own back yard, own church, own city, own nation the world, he said. And the Lord said, No, no, no. You did it there but you need to do it here.

Hodges said his church will be working on initiatives to improve race relations, which will be posted on the churchs website over the coming months.

We do it for COVID-19, why cant we do it for racial reconciliation, he noted.

Ive grown, he continued, noting that he thinks Christians can become one in heart by choosing to learn, lament and love in order to overcome racism.

We gotta not let this moment pass us by and act like it didnt happen, he said. I have the first hope in my 56, almost 57 years that we could actually move the ball down the field in this racial reconciliation thing. I really, really do.
Mumbai: Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackerays father-in-law and Saamana editor Rashmi Thackerays father, Madhav Patankar (78), died on Monday early morning after a prolonged illness at a suburban hospital in Mumbai.

Patankar was admitted to the hospital over two weeks ago and died of old age-related ailments, including renal complications, according to a close aide of the CM.

His last rites were performed on Monday morning, he added.

Patankar ran a family business of chemical products and lived close to Matoshree, the family residence of the Thackerays, in Bandra (East),

Nationalist Congress Partys (NCP) member of Parliament (MP) Supriya Sule expressed grief over Patankars death.

Deeply saddened to hear about the demise of Shri Madhav Patankar, father of Mrs. Rashmi Uddhav Thackeray. My heartfelt condolences. May he rest in peace. My thoughts and prayers are with the Patankar and Thackeray family, she tweeted.

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Ignore President Donald J. Trump, whose latest tactic to mollify his base is to forbid the renaming of military installations that honor Confederate officials. Trump issued that defiant declaration after reports that top Pentagon brass were mulling a process for stripping the names of Confederate commanders.

The president and his reactionary constituency are losing this battle. Around the country, Confederate statues and insignia are being stripped from places of honor as business, political and cultural leaders belatedly recognize their odious symbolism.

As a black woman born and bred in the Deep South, I have spent decades pondering the stubborn staying power of the Lost Cause mythology, which transformed a treasonous war with a racist foundation into a virtuous rebellion against government oppression. That lie pervades history texts, cultural and political institutions, and public spaces  not only in the 11 states of the Old Confederacy, but also throughout the nation, which has been force-fed falsehoods about the causes and controversies that led to war.

Now, finally, more than a century and a half after the Civil War ended, the symbols of the Lost Cause mythology are giving way. The protesters who have taken to the streets in the wake of the murder of George Floyd have not yet managed to curb the excesses of violent police officers or blunt the insidious racism that permeates the criminal justice system, but they have nonetheless accomplished something significant: The Confederacy and its flags and markers and monuments are falling as they march.

Consider this: NASCAR  as explicit a representation of Southern good-ol-boy culture as there is  has now banned Confederate battle flags from its events. Thats near-miraculous. If youve ever watched a NASCAR race on TV, youve seen scores of flags sporting the St. Andrews cross-with-stars floating above the largely lily-white crowd.

The Confederate battle flag is as much a symbol of NASCAR as drivers with names like Earnhardt and Petty.

The statues of Confederate hate-mongers are also tumbling, no matter how fervently their defenders cry, Heritage, not hate! Tell that to my ancestors, who were enslaved  their children sold, their marriages violated, their backs scarred by the whip  for that heritage.

Oh, Ive heard the lie that slavery was not the reason those 11 states seceded. The war was fought over tariffs, Confederate defenders say, or states rights. States rights to do what? Enslave black people, of course.

In March 1861, Alexander Stevens, vice president of the Confederacy, laid out the reasons for secession in his infamous Cornerstone Speech, in which he argued that the new Confederate constitution was based on ideals that were the opposite of Thomas Jeffersons founding principles.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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, he said.

After the South was defeated  its great plantations in ruin, its great men destitute, its cities scarred  its white defenders sank into self-pity. So they set about creating a story that would make their racist war seem just, the deaths of their young men a noble sacrifice, their poverty another cruel blow by Yankee tyrants.

Most Confederate monuments were built not in the ashes of defeat but in the late 19th century, decades after the Civil War and just as the white South was embarking on a hundred years of Jim Crow.

Its long past time that the saints of the Lost Cause lose their esteemed places at the entrances to courthouses, in carefully tended public parks, even in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. And it makes no sense that U.S. military installations would honor men who embarked on treason against their country.

There are still those who are deeply invested in keeping their version of history in place, enshrined in monuments that glorify Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Bell Hood, among others. As recently as 2017, the Republican leaders of my home state of Alabama joined other Southern legislatures in passing laws to prohibit the removal of Confederate monuments.

They are coming down anyway. The Lost Cause is losing.

Email Cynthia Tucker at cynthia@cynthiatucker.com
The Speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, Abdulazeez Gafasa, says it has passed eight bills during the first legislative year of the 9th Assembly.

Mr Gafasa disclosed this at a news conference on Monday in Kano.

He listed the bills to include the Kano State 1991 Amendment Bill; Kano State Appropriation Amendment Bill, Kano State College of Nursing and Midwifery Bill 2019, and the Kano State Persons with Disability Amendment Bill 2019.

Others were Kano State Appropriation Bill 2019, and Kano State Education Development Support Bill 2019; the Kano State Emirate Council Amendment Bill 2020, and Kano State Audit Commission Bill 2019.

The speaker noted that seven bills pending before the House were under consideration, adding that the bills included the Kano State Drugs and Substance Abuse Management Bill 2019 and the Kano State Public Procurement Bill 2019.

Others were Kano State Public Finance Management Bill 2019; Kano State Revenue Administration Amendment Law 2019, Kano State Land Use Charge Amendment Law 2019, Kano State Free Compulsory Basic and Universal Education Bill 2019 and Kano State Entrepreneur and Skill Acquisition Center Bill 2019.

Mr Gafasa added that the House also passed 57 motions within the year under review.

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He explained that 35 of the motions were on infrastructure; 10 for health and five motions each for education and other sectors while two others on petitions.

During the 9th legislative year, we conducted a public hearing on the 2020 appropriation bill, the screening and confirmation of commissioners and members of the State Executive Council (SEC).

We also approved the 44 local government councils budget estimates for 2020; we approved the 2012 audited account report, approval of the N50 billion loan requested by the state government and so many other things, Mr Gafasa said.

(NAN)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:41:47|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Despite the economic slump caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the number of corporate insolvencies in Germany fell by 8.2 percent year-on-year to 8,900 cases in the first half of 2020, credit agency Creditreform announced on Monday.

"As a seismograph of economic development, the insolvency situation has thus decoupled itself from the actual situation of German companies," Creditreform noted.

The low number of insolvencies was due to governmental support measures during the COVID-19 crisis such as credits by the German development bank KfW, according to Creditreform.

As part of the state aid program, German companies can apply for funds from the special credit line provided by the government. Until last Friday, more than 61,000 applications for credits totaling more than 46.9 billion euros (52.8 billion U.S. dollars) had been received by KfW.

Creditor losses amounted to around 12.0 billion euros in the first half of the year, with each insolvency case costing creditors an average of more than 1.3 million euros, according to Creditreform. This was the highest figure in recent years and was linked to the increase in the number of major corporate bankruptcies.

"During the course of the financial crisis of 2008/2009 we also observed increasingly large firms filing for bankruptcy," said Steffen Mueller, head of the department of structural change and productivity and bankruptcy research unit at Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) last week.

Beyond economic crises, IWH noted that large companies were generally in a better position than small companies to avoid insolvency through a timely implementation of restructuring measures.

"Ultimately, the coronavirus crisis and the bankruptcies associated with it will be visible in increased job losses even if the bankruptcy numbers stay moderate," warned Mueller.

In order to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus crisis, the government had also temporarily suspended companies' duty to file for insolvency until the end of September. Creditreform warned that the number of insolvency proceedings would increase "considerably" once the suspension expired.

"Such a wave of insolvencies could only be averted if the companies affected were able to overcome the consequences of the crisis by that time and stabilize themselves again," Creditreform noted. Enditem
Carmaker PSA cuts back on transfer of Polish workers to French plant FILE PHOTO: Logo of French car manufacturer Peugeot is seen at the 33th Auto Zurich Car Show in Zurich

PARIS (Reuters) - France's PSA <PEUP.PA>, the maker of Peugeot cars, on Monday said it would only transfer a small group of Polish workers to help out in a French plant where production is being increased, following a backlash over the knock-on effect for local jobs.

Like rival auto firms, PSA is gradually cranking up its manufacturing capacity again following a shutdown caused by the coronavirus crisis.

But an initial plan to transfer salaried PSA workers from one of its Opel factories in Poland to work in France, rather than take on local temporary staff, who often pitch in at the plant, sparked criticism from unions and the French government.

PSA now planned to have a team of 2,000 in place at the Hordain factory made up of local workers, including temporary ones, while 5% of the total staff would be employees from other sites, including Poland, the carmaker said.

The CGT union put the number of Polish workers at 124, down from the 500 originally due to arrive for a stint in France.

France's economy is expected to shrink 11% this year, with big job losses following the pandemic and ensuing lockdown, heightening sensitivity over labour wrangling.

(Reporting by Sarah White; editing by David Evans)
Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Capital Drilling Limited (LON:CAPD) by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. I will be using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Capital Drilling

The model

We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 Levered FCF ($, Millions) US$6.95m US$14.0m US$15.0m US$15.0m US$15.0m US$15.1m US$15.1m US$15.3m US$15.4m US$15.6m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x2 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 0.37% Est @ 0.62% Est @ 0.8% Est @ 0.93% Est @ 1.01% Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 14% US$6.1 US$10.9 US$10.2 US$9.0 US$7.9 US$7.0 US$6.2 US$5.5 US$4.9 US$4.4

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$72m

Story continues

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 10-year government bond rate (1.2%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 14%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2029  (1 + g)  (r  g) = US$16m (1 + 1.2%)  14% 1.2%) = US$128m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$128m ( 1 + 14%)10= US$36m

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is US$108m. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK0.6, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.

LSE:CAPD Intrinsic value June 15th 2020

The assumptions

We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Capital Drilling as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 14%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.380. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.

Next Steps:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it shouldnt be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. For Capital Drilling, There are three relevant aspects you should further examine:

Risks: To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Capital Drilling . Future Earnings: How does CAPD's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every GB stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

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.
Press Release

June 15, 2020 Villanueva: Gov't must empower online sellers through skills training to become successful Senator Joel Villanueva has asked government agencies to provide the necessary interventions to raise the skills of online sellers by providing virtual trainings on essential and entrepreneurial skills to help their new ventures become successful enterprises. As the Bureau of Internal Revenue eased requirements to encourage online sellers to register due to mounting calls, Villanueva pointed out that empowering people to help them fend for themselves should be the government's priority while it continues to address the impact of COVID-19 in the country. "What the government must do is to provide enough online resources so that they can upgrade their entrepreneurial skills and be knowledgeable in proper handling and storage of food, and financial management, among others, to make their businesses sustainable," said Villanueva, who chairs the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resource Development. "Kung tutulungan natin sila sa pamamagitan ng pagbibigay ng training, hindi na po aasa ang ating mga kababayan sa ayuda. Mababawasan ang alalahanin ng gobyerno at mas madali nitong matutugunan ang iba pang aspeto ng problemang dulot ng pandemiko," the lawmaker added in a statement on Sunday. While self-employed individuals earning P250,000 and below are exempted from income tax, Villanueva pointed out that online sellers, especially those who do not have a background on bookkeeping, might need to tap someone familiar with the periodic filings, thus entailing additional administrative cost. In addition, while Villanueva welcomed the BIR's decision on Friday to waive the requirement on obtaining a mayor's permit to encourage registration of online sellers, they still need to register with either the Department of Trade and Industry for sole proprietors or the Securities and Exchange Commission for corporations. The lawmaker reiterated that the priority is to go after businesses which have long dodged its tax obligations to the government such as Philippine offshore gaming operations that owe at least P50 billion in taxes. Villanueva said that given the unemployment situation, people are resorting to the means available to them so they can survive. "In ordinary times, we agree that online sellers should immediately register with the BIR and pay the appropriate taxes. But right now, we have a pandemic and everyone is just trying to survive. We should encourage these online sellers so they can thrive and contribute to economic activities," Villanueva said.
FILE PHOTO: An empty road is seen in the city of Hallstatt

ZURICH (Reuters) - The Austrian government intends to make one-off payments to jobless people and boost spending on families with children as part of measures this year to cushion the blow from the coronavirus pandemic, its coalition leaders said.

Measures to be approved at a cabinet meeting next week include payments of 450 euros ($506) to the unemployed and 360 euros per child under 18, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Greens party leader Werner Kogler told broadcaster ORF in interviews aired on Saturday.

In addition, the government plans to cut the lowest income tax bracket to 20% from 25% and make the change retroactive to the start of this year.

Kurz said the coalition government of conservatives and Greens would have more to say about the costs of the measures when the meeting wraps up on Tuesday.

In May the government announced an aid package of up to 38 billion euros to keep companies and the economy afloat. On Friday it almost doubled the amount of debt it plans to issue this year to a record level.

Austria plans to cut value-added tax (VAT) for restaurants and the culture sector to 5% until the end of the year to help them cope with the fallout, the government said on Friday.

Austria has had nearly 17,000 confirmed cases of infection with the virus that causes respiratory disease COVID-19 and 677 reported deaths.

Austrian economic output will shrink by 7.2% this year if there is no second coronavirus wave in the autumn, but even a resurgence milder than the first outbreak would deepen that to 9.2%, the country's central bank said this month.

($1 = 0.8886 euros)

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Ros Russell)
Hyderabad: After facing flak for the lesser number of tests and that too only at the government facilities, the Telangana government on Monday (June 15) decided to fix COVID-19 treatment prices at private hospitals and labs. According to the state government order, the fixed rates for testing and treatment are given below.

All rates apply per person at private facilities:

1. For private Covid-19 testing: Rs 2,200

2. For isolation ward treatment: Rs 4,000

3. For treatment using ventilator: Rs 9,000

4. For treatment without ventilator: Rs 7.500

A separate government order (GO) will be issued soon and the names of private diagnostic centers and private hospitals which will be recognised by the state government.

Minister for Health and family welfare, Etala Rajender, said, "All the private facilities which we will be allowing will have to share all the details of every person's test results. The same goes for hospitals that will admit people for Covid-19. The rates are fixed and we will be monitoring it on everyday basis."

The state government has also decided to increase the number of tests in government facilities in Telangana, especially in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) which encompasses Hyderabad, Secunderabad, and the suburban areas where a large number of cases are being added every day after the lockdown was lifted.



Somesh Kumar, Chief Secretary, Telangana, said, "There is no reason for panic or getting scared. We will be increasing the number of tests because the lockdown has been lifted and a lot of people are coming out. And also the clear misconception and misinformation that the state government is not conducting enough tests."

The state government has also advised people to strictly follow the COVID-19 guidelines when in the house or stepping out.
COVID-19 pulls fishermen back to Bengal, Amphan forces them to reconsider

by Jayanta Basu

June 15,2020 | Source: DTE

If the lockdown to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) forced migrant fishermen to come back to West Bengal in India from coastal states, the impact from cyclone Amphan is forcing them to reconsider their decisions.



Close to 60 per cent of the nearly 40,000 migrant fishermen have either just returned to West Bengal or are in the process of returning.



Many, however, have begun to weigh options to go back to the fishing harbours in other states. Amphan has not just shrunk their employment opportunities in Bengal, but has also forced them to look for urgent money to help rebuild their damaged homes.



A large proportion of the migrant fishermen live within Kakdwip and adjoining Namkhana blocks  the areas affected the most in the Sundarbans, as cyclone Amphan had landfall close to the area.



Of the 2.4 million fishermen in West Bengal, two million work inlands in rivers and wetlands, while 400,000 are involved in trawler-driven marine fishery.



Fishermen primarily migrate to western coastal states like Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu on the east, as the fish catch dwindled in Bengal, according to specialists in the fisheries sector.



Fishermen stuck in coastal states and a few other western states wanted to come back after the lockdown was extended, as their income dried up, Pradip Chatterjee, convenor of the National Platform for Small Scale Fish Workers told Down To Earth.



We took up the issue with the respective governments, including West Bengal. They finally started to return through trains and buses, he said.



Chatterjee alleged the migrant fishermen are yet to get privileges mandated by the International Labour Organization (ILO).



The impact from cyclone Amphan did force fishermen into thinking of going back to the states they were working in, according to Chatterjee.



Most people had migrated because they did not get much work due to comparatively less fish catch for several reasons. Amphan has made their lives tougher, he said.



The fishing season continues for 10 months in coasts across the country, barring mid-April to mid-June in the east coast and June and July in the west coast to allow uninterrupted breeding among fishes.



In 2020, the ban was reduced by 15 days to accommodate losses accumulated during the lockdown period.



Amphan happened when many returned after several arguments with boat owners who were not keen to let them come back, said Milan Das, general secretary of the Dakhinbanga Motsojyibi Samity, a fishermens collective.



Amphan, however, changed the equation overnight and a few actually started to ask about the possibilities of returning even before reaching home, he added.



Gopal Das, a fisherman from Kakdwip, said he was ready to go back to Kerala before the next fishing season from August 1. I have more or less finalised my return with my boat owner and captain, said Das, who needs money to repair his damaged house.



Other fishermen, like Mithun Das and Ripon Das, are eager to go back, as the fish catch is much more in southern states, according to them.



The return of migrant fishermen is also important for fishing boat owners in most southern states, as there has been a shortage of workers.



Nearly 100,000 migrant workers work in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are mostly from Andhra Pradesh, followed by West Bengal.



Fishermen from Bengal are involved in ancillary work as well.



Milan Das said most fishermen in southern states earn through profit-sharing of their fish catch with boat owners and other crew, who are around nine in every boat. The share for fishermen comes to not less than Rs 15,000 per month on average.



We can send at least Rs 10,000 per month back home, which has improved our families standard of living, said one fisherman.



Not all fishermen, however, want to go back.



I have decided to work in my state and will not go back after all that has happened, said Abhiram Das, who claimed to have been beaten up in Kerala while leading a protest demanding arrangements for coming back to Bengal during the lockdown.



Such fishermen, however, are exceptions rather than the rule.

 Down To Earth 2020

Theme(s): Communities and Organisations.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:36:18|Editor: huaxia

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LOS ANGELES, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Lena Hernandez, a 56-year-old California resident who was caught on camera spewing anti-Asian hate speech at a young Asian woman on Wednesday, is being sought for questioning by the Torrance Police Department.

The victim, Sherry Berry, a young Filipino American California woman, was stretching and exercising at the City of Torrance's Wilson Park when accosted by the belligerent Hernandez.

"Get the (curse word) out of this world, get the (curse word) out of this state, go back to whatever (curse word) Asian country you belong in!" the woman with a Hispanic family name ranted.

"You're going to get your ass kicked by my family," she said, also threatening Berry with bodily harm.

Hundreds of people gathered at the park on Friday to denounce racism after the video went viral.

Torrance Chief of Police Eve R. Berg told a conference the suspect has been identified and the police have been "actively searching" for her at her Long Beach residence and other addresses she's linked to.

But so far the suspect has eluded arrest.

Torrance Mayor Pat Furey described Torrance as "a fully diverse community," where more than 80 languages are spoken, with an Asian and Pacific Islander population of between 30 and 40 percent, as well as a robust Asian-driven business community that includes more than 200 headquarters of Japanese businesses. The community also includes many Chinese and other Asian residents and companies.

Attorney Jessie Weiner told Xinhua that the actual words and the context would determine the degree to which the suspect can be prosecuted.

"If her speech were deemed as direct threats of immediate violence or put the listener of the speech in reasonable fear of such danger, then there is a very good possibility that Ms. Hernandez could be charged with assault," Weiner said.

But he also cautioned it can be hard to convict Hernandez due to the United States' unique freedom of speech protections under federal law.

Berg said the suspect had victimized other Asian residents, both verbally and physically.

At least one of those assaults was also caught on tape, where she can be heard threatening an Asian-American father and his young son with death.

"You know how many people can't stand you being here? We don't play games ... I play games where you get (curse word) to death!"

Hernandez also mocked the man, calling him "Chinaman."

Kayceelyn Salminao said last October in Del Amo Mall that the same woman had physically assaulted her when she tried to help an older custodian Hernandez was "hate berating."

Salminao said Hernandez had seized her by her ponytail and pounded her on the back of her head.

"It's been since October and this woman is still on the streets, harassing other humans?" asked Salminao, questioning a lack of a speedier police response.

Albert Y. Muratsuchi, a Democratic California State Assemblyman for the 66th District, which includes Torrance, believed the incident is part of a larger trend of increased hate crimes, citing over 1,700 nationwide anti-Asian hate incidents and crimes that have been reported to the "Stop AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Hate" group.

"This all started and spiked since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic," he said. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 15:43:24|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China continued to see a generally stable housing market in May, with home prices in 70 major cities showing mild month-on-month increases, official data showed Monday.

New home prices in four first-tier cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou -- rose by 0.7 percent month on month in May, 0.5 percentage points higher from one month earlier, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The country's second-tier cities saw a month-on-month increase of 0.6 percent in new home prices, up 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, while third-tier cities witnessed a month-on-month rise of 0.7 percent in new home prices, compared with a 0.6-percent increase reported in April.

Last month, prices of resold housing in first-tier cities edged up 1.1 percent month on month, unchanged from one month earlier.

In second- and third-tier cities, prices of resold housing increased by 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent from the previous month, respectively.

With the continuous resumption of production and living orders, the housing demand was further unleashed in May, said Kong Peng, a senior NBS statistician.

Monday's data also showed that commercial housing sales in terms of floor area totaled 487.03 million square meters in the first five months, down 12.3 percent year on year, narrowing by 7 percentage points from the January-April decline.

China's investment in property development inched down 0.3 percent year on year in the first five months, narrowing from the 3.3-percent decline during the January-April period.

Wen Bin, chief analyst at China Minsheng Bank, said the real estate market in major cities has witnessed a delayed pick-up as the housing supply and demand, which had been hit by COVID-19, were gradually unleashed recently.

With continuous improvement in major indicators including commercial housing sales, Wen predicted that the country's property investment growth would return to positive territory.

The overall impact of COVID-19 on the property market is almost over and market turnover for the year is still likely to reach the peak level seen in 2019, said Zhang Dawei, chief analyst with real estate agency Centaline Property.

Data in the first two weeks of this month had shown that the market sustained active operations in most cities, Zhang noted.

China has reiterated the principle that "houses are for living in, not speculation." While curbing housing price speculation, the country will also implement city-specific policies in the sector, according to this year's government work report. Enditem
Last minute sales of BS-IV vehicles across the country till March 31, the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court for phasing out these vehicles have come under the judicial scanner. On Monday, the top court was riled to note that while its earlier order (dated March 27) permitted registration of 1.09 lakh BS-IV vehicles sold till March 31, the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) produced a list of 2.25 lakh vehicles awaiting registration.

Spotting this surge, the bench of Justices Arun Mishra and S Abdul Nazeer said: There is clear cut violation of our order.Annexure A and B (filed by FADA) indicate that more than 2.25 lakh vehicles were awaiting registration as on March 31, 2020 whereas it exceeds the figure more than 1 lakh (1.05 lakh two-wheelers, 2250 cars and 2000 commercial vehicles) that we specified in the order (of March 27).

Fixing the next hearing on June 19, the bench sought details of the vehicles sold up to March 31, the date of sale along with category of vehicle sold, and also the details of sales made after lifting of the lockdown on May 3. The Court in its March 27 order, as an exception, allowed automobile dealers to sell 10% of the BS-IV idle stock lying with them throughout the country except in Delhi-NCR.

This order was passed keeping in mind the health of citizens; in a bid to curb air pollution the Court ordered phasing out of BS-IV vehicles and the rollout of BS-VI fuel-based engines from April 2020.

The Court also directed the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to provide details of BS-IV vehicles sold as on March 31, 2020 that were specified on the Governments E-vahan portal. The Court ordered the Centre to collect information on the sale of BS-IV vehicles after the lockdown ended from all regional transport offices (RTOs) throughout the country.

FADA submitted to the Court that the mismatch in sale figures came about as non-members of the association did not supply details of sales at the time when the Court passed the order on March 27. But the bench said that its order was binding on members and non-members alike. In fact, on March 27, the bench was informed that the unsold BS-IV inventory comprised of 7 lakh two-wheelers, 15,000 passenger cars and 12,000 commercial vehicles.

It appears that the order (of March 27) is being misused for the reasons best known to the respondents (FADA) and they have not filed affidavit in compliance of the order passed by this Court, said the bench, adding, Registration of vehicles which were to be sold out of 10 per cent cannot be made without the permission of this Court and without giving particulars as ordered by this Court.
Michel Otayek, an art historian and curator who stacked 997 cookies in the corner of his living room in Berlin, is holding online discussions of Gonzalez-Torress work; this week, he left hundreds of stickers around Berlin bearing the words, Would you take one? and the address of a website explaining the project.

Speaking over Skype, Mr. Otayek said he wanted the installation to create random encounters despite being shown in his home. Katrin Wittig, a friend of a friend of Mr. Otayek, saw his photos on Instagram and made her own fortune cookies from printed cotton. She sent some to Mr. Otayek because we all need a bit of fortune, she said. Those who contact Mr. Otayek will have to chance to ask him to open a cookie for them and read them their fortune, he said.

Gonzalez-Torress work lends itself to new stagings, Mr. Otayek said.

Some disagree. Mr. Basualdo said that while he finds the work super relevant, he turned down Ms. Rosens invitation to install it because doing so in a space where the public could not gain access to it detracted from its purpose.

Carolina A. Miranda, a writer for The Los Angeles Times, wrote last week that she too declined an invitation to take part. She dismissed the project as an insensitive publicity stunt in the midst of an economic and public-health crisis and of protests against racial injustice.

Inviting people to make the installation on their own dime, she wrote, was tone-deaf at best and foolhardy at worst.

Ms. Rosen said the gallery did not want to impose on people and that participants could buy the minimum number of fortune cookies for about $20. She observed that, since she developed the idea, the social context has shifted from strict lockdown to an eruption of outrage at the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.
The special cell of the Delhi Police has sent a notice to Zafarul Islam Khan, Chairperson of Delhi Minorities Commission asking him to join interrogation within two days, in connection with his instigating statement on social media, according to ANI.

Last month, the police had booked Khan for sedition charges, two days after he allegedly made provocative remarks in his social media posts.

A first information report (FIR) was registered against Khan under Indian Penal Code sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony).

Khan had apologized through his social media accounts, saying his tweet was ill-timed and insensitive and that it had pained some people but it was never his intention.

The FIR was filed on the complaint of a Vasant Kunj resident.

The Delhi government had issued a showcause notice to Khan last on May 8 or his alleged remarks on social media.

Khan was appointed chairperson of Delhi Minorities Commission by the AAP government in July 2017.
By PTI

LONDON: Hollywood star Brad Pitt has donated USD 1 million to racial justice organisation, Color of Change, in the wake of African-American man George Floyd's death in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US.

The news comes almost a week after it was reported that Pitt's former wife, actor Jennifer Aniston, has donated USD 1 million to the organisation after being "deeply affected" by Floyd's death.

"Brad is really involved with the charity because of Jen and said he would match her donation. He went to the protests this week and was at her home the day after. They are both very passionate and want to help as much as they can," a source told Mirror.uk.

Color of Change is the largest online racial justice organisation in the US, working towards ending "practices that unfairly hold black people back".
The sheriffs office did not release the name of the inmate pending appropriate notifications, but it said he was found unresponsive and hanging by a sheet in his cell during a security check shortly before 10 p.m. Saturday.
A photo and video exhibition featuring east Chinas Anhui province was launched on South Korean online platforms on June 13, offering a glimpse into the provinces natural environment, cultural heritage and folk customs.

Jointly hosted by the China Tourism Office in Seoul and the Department of Culture and Tourism of Anhui Province, the show displays 60 photos and videos on the official website of the office and social media platforms.

South Koreans are able to enjoy virtual trips to UNESCO heritage sites such as Huangshan Mountain, Hongcun and Xidi villages, and the Grand Canal. They may salivate as delicious Huizhou food are also presented.

Over 1 million people from South Korea traveled to Anhui In 2019. The country has grown to be the provinces largest tourist source, according to Chinaculture.org.




Syria's Leader Feels Pressure From US Sanctions Threat, Street Protests

By Edward Yeranian June 13, 2020

Five days of protests have shaken Syria's usually peaceful Druze enclave of Suweida, as rising prices and a falling domestic currency have pushed ordinary Syrians hurt by the crisis to vent their anger.

Amateur video has shown scores of people demonstrating and chanting against the government.

In Damascus, many shops and businesses reportedly have closed as exchange rates fluctuated wildly. Factories that produce pharmaceutical goods also have closed because of shortages of raw materials, while fuel shortages have forced the government to buy gasoline from Lebanon.

Atop these developments, new U.S. economic sanctions on people and businesses trading with the Syrian government are set to take effect June 17.

As the crisis intensified, President Bashar al-Assad replaced Prime Minister Imad Khamis on Thursday with Water Resources Minister Hussein Arnous.

Several factors  including a major economic crisis in neighboring Lebanon, U.S. economic sanctions on Syria's top regional ally, Iran, and an internal spat between Assad and his cousin and oligarch, Rami Makhlouf, have added to the decline of the Syrian pound.

Makhlouf has said on social media that he has not done anything improper in his business dealings as head of the Syrian mobile phone network Syriatel and insists he has been a top supporter of the government since 2011.

Syrian economic analyst Dr. Oussama al Qadi told Arab media the feud between Assad and his cousin had caused the Syrian pound to lose at least a third of its value. A government decision to outlaw black market sales of foreign currency, he said, also inflamed the crisis.

Joshua Landis, who heads the Middle East program at the University of Oklahoma, told VOA the unprecedented fall in the value of the Syrian pound has made almost everyone desperate.

'Tons of pressure'

"There is tremendous discontent in Syria today," he said. "Everybody I know in Syria is in desperate economic shape. There's tons of pressure, and these demonstrations are an expression of the pain that Syrians are feeling from the collapse of the Syrian pound."

Despite the desperation, Landis doubts the present crisis is going to cause the Assad government to fall, since he no longer sees any organized opposition inside the country.

"The opposition," he said, "is fragmented and has been driven out of the country," except for opponents in the Turkish-protected enclave of Idlib.

Landis also said the new U.S. sanctions on the Syrian government, "while being framed in humanitarian terms," are mostly aimed at hurting Russia and Iran "and depriving them of the fruits of their victory." U.S.-Syria coordinator James Jeffrey explained recently that his job is to make Syria "a quagmire" for Russia.

Khattar Abou Diab, who teaches political science at the University of Paris, told VOA that Assad's administration "has been seriously weakened" by the decline of the pound and that things are fast becoming "intolerable" for many people. He added that U.S. pressure on Lebanon might have contributed to the crisis.

Diab said Lebanon was Syria's economic lungs. More than $3 billion or $4 billion used to transit annually between Lebanon and Syria in various economic dealings.

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2020 / Majestic Gold Corp. ("Majestic" or the "Company") (TSXV:MJS) announces that it has cancelled intercorporate debt (the "Debt Cancellation") in the total aggregate amount of CAD$62,073,046 (the "Debt") owed to the Company by its 94% owned subsidiary, Sinogold Resources Holdings Group Co., Ltd. ("Sinogold"). Since Sinogold is a subsidiary of the Company, the Consolidated Statements of Financial Position of the Company do not present the intercompany loans as the loan receivable of the parent company is a loan payable of the subsidiary which offset and eliminate against each other on the Consolidated Statements of Financial Position with any currency exchange differences recorded to foreign exchange translation reserves on the Consolidated Statements of Changes in Equity. The Company has determined the Debt Cancellation will not have any material effect on the Company's business and affairs.

Sinogold is a related party to the Company because it is a subsidiary of the Company, but since it is 94% owned (instead of 100% owned), it is a "related party transaction" pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101-Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). Consequently, the Company is obligated to announce the Debt Cancellation under MI 61-101 which was formalized in an agreement between the Company and Sinogold dated June 4, 2020 pursuant to which the Company agreed to cancel the Debt in exchange for a mutual release between the companies, subject to approval of the directors of each of the companies, approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), and written approval of arm's length shareholders holding a total aggregate of at least 50% of the common shares of the Company in accordance with the policies of the Exchange.

The board of directors of the Company have unanimously approved of the proposed Debt Cancellation, which was also approved in writing by the arm's length shareholders holding at least 50% of the common shares of the Company. Likewise, the Company has also received conditional approval from the Exchange dated June 8, 2020 for approval of the Debt Cancellation. As a result of the Debt Cancellation, there is no change in the percentage ownership of the Company by anyone. The Company is disclosing the Debt Cancellation less than 21 days before the Debt Cancellation because there is no reason to wait longer to improve the Company's internal accounting. In addition, there has been no formal valuation in respect of the Company and the Debt Cancellation, which would be unnecessary for such an internal accounting matter. Under MI 61-101, the Debt Cancellation is exempt from formal valuation requirements under section 5.4 of MI 61-101 and the minority shareholder approval requirements under section 5.6 of MI 61-101 because pursuant to sections 5.5(e) and 5.7(c) of MI 61-101, it is a transaction supported by arm's length control persons.

About Majestic Gold Corp.

Currently focused mainly in China, Majestic Gold Corp. is a British Columbia based company engaged in commercial gold production at the Songjiagou Gold Mine in eastern Shandong Province, China and also has an option to acquire 51% ownership of a gold exploration project in Western Australia known as the Fair Adelaide East Project (the "FAE Project"). The FAE Project is located near Kalgoorie-Boulder City, Western Australia, 520 km northeast of Perth, Australia, and is comprised of 8 contiguous prospecting license tenements covering 1,321.82 hectares, and is further described in a current geological technical report dated February 21, 2020 prepared by SRK Consulting on behalf of Majestic and filed on SEDAR. Additional information on the Company and its projects is available under the Company's profile at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at www.majesticgold.com.

For further information, please contact:

Stephen Kenwood, P.Geo., President and CEO

Telephone: (604) 560-9060

Email: info@majesticgold.com

www.majesticgold.com

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of the word, "will" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially.

Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company. The Company cautions the reader that the above list of risk factors is not exhaustive. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws, or as otherwise may be disclosed in this news release. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Not for distribution to U.S. Newswire Services or for dissemination in the United States. Any failure to comply with this restriction may constitute a violation of U.S. securities laws.

SOURCE: Majestic Gold Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/593980/Majestic-Announces-Cancellation-of-Intercompany-Debt
Unilever Plc said on Monday it will invest 1 billion euros in a fund to invest in climate change projects and reduce to net zero greenhouse gas emissions from all its products by 2039, 11 years ahead of the Paris Agreement deadline. Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products company whose brands include Dove soap and Knorr soup, said it was responding to the "scale and urgency" of the climate change crisis. The fund will invest in projects including reforestation, water preservation and carbon sequestration over the next ten years, it said. The net zero emission ...
Shoppers hit the high street on Monday after months of lockdown. (Victoria Jones/PA)

As large parts of the British economy opened up again, increasing optimism for many, British investors felt far from happy as they worried that a second wave could hit the country.

In contrast to Prime Minister Boris Johnsons shopping trip at a shopping centre in east London on Sunday, Mondays markets plunged.

The FTSE 100 closed the day down 0.7%, or 40.48 points to 6,064.7, after earlier falling as low as 5,952.

Traders worried that an easing of lockdown might cause Covid-19 to start spreading around the UK and other countries.

Non-essential shops were allowed to open for the first time in nearly three months on Monday, causing some shoppers to queue outside Primark, and other stores.

Equity markets are under pressure today on the back of health fears.

A rise in the number of new Covid-19 cases from a few countries has sparked concerns that we could be in for a second wave of the virus, said CMC Markets analyst David Madden.

He added: At the back end of last week traders were already anxious about the health situation due to the number of rising cases in the US.

Over the weekend it was announced that a partial lockdown was imposed in Beijing, while Tokyo saw a jump in infections too.

In France, where President Emmanuel Macron declared a major lifting of lockdown on Sunday, the Cac 40 index fell by half a per cent.

In Germany the Dox dropped 0.3%.

Sterling gained 0.3% against the US dollar to 1.2554, but fell 0.1% to 1.1134 against the euro.

In company news, BP was among the losers on Londons top index after bosses revealed that the company could take a hit of up to 14 billion from a reduction in oil prices until 2050.

Shares dropped 2.2% on the news as chief executive Bernard Looney said it was a chance to continue his push towards reducing emissions.

Travis Perkins also closed the day in the red on the news that it would axe around 2,500 jobs.

The owner of Toolstation and Wickes said that it expects that the recession sparked by Covid-19 will last for two years, forcing it to close 165 stores.

Shares dropped 0.6%.

Shareholders in shipping centre owner Hammerson were lifted by the news that its chairman will quit, even as its sites opened non-essential stores for the first time in months.

David Tyler will be replaced in October at the latest.

His departure comes less than a month since chief executive David Atkins stepped down.

Shares rose 1.1%.

Shares in Metro Bank sunk by 5.3% after it confirmed talks to buy RateSetter, a peer-to-peer lender.

The bank said that nothing was certain, but it is in exclusive discussions with the firm.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Bunzl, up 185p to 2,069p, M&G, up 7.2p to 158.7p, Ashtead, up 56p to 2,417p, Hikma, up 54p to 2,359p, and Meggitt, up 6.6p to 296.6p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Fresnillo, down 46.6p to 747.6p, Barratt Developments, down 26.6p to 499.2p, easyJet, down 37.4p to 767.6p, IAG, down 10.8p to 264.7p, and Taylor Wimpey, down 5.7p to 145.8p.
Gaya: In a tragic development, at least seven people lost their lives while a dozen others others were injured after a truck hit two autorickshaws they were travelling in Bihar's Gaya district on Monday (June 15).

The incident took place on the GT Road near Bishunganj village under Amas police station in Gaya when the speeding truck coming from the opposite direction rammed into the autorickshaws with passengers inside.

The identities of the deceased are being ascertained, police said. Meanwhile, the injured were rushed to the Madanpur primary health centre of Aurangabad district and Amas primary health centre where they were provided medical treatment. According to police, the condition of some of them are stated to be in a critical state.

The police said the victims were returning to their village in two separate autorickshaws after attending a family function at Baluganj in Aurangabad district. The two auto-rickshaws were on their way to Gaya from Aurangabad.
TORRINGTON  A petition to remove Torringtons statue of Christopher Columbus started by the New England Peace Center and resident Michael Kaneb has gained more than 900 signatures since it was filed Saturday.

A petition countering Kanebs then was filed Sunday by Caitlin Ivain of Winsted, and to date has more than 1,000 signatures.

Kaneb, who with his wife Chelsea owns the Hummingbird Cafe on Main Street, said removing the Columbus statue is a way to show our extended human family that we acknowledge the immense, needless suffering caused by the horrific injustices perpetrated through European colonization, and that we are resolved to take action to fix what is broken in this country.

The statue was erected in 1980 at Columbus Square, just off East Main Street. The statue and park are part of the citys annual Italian Mayor of the Day celebration, which is held on Columbus Day. In 2019, the celebration honored longtime resident Albert Persechino.

But Kaneb said there are other ways to honor Italian Americans.

Italian Americans have made immense contributions to the city of Torrington, he said. The legacy of Columbus does not reflect their benevolent and hard working spirit.

Ivain, however, wrote, Save statues and preserve history for future generations. This statue was dedicated by local Italian American Organizations.

It has been prominently displayed for decades and it is a piece of Torringtons history, Ivain wrote. While some are calling for its removal in response to recent events in the United States, the removal of such a historical monument is not an appropriate response.

Kaneb said he has not received any response from city officials on removing the statue. At the moment (we) are trying to figure out the respectful and purposeful next step, he said.

The city of Middletown removed its Columbus statue June 14, according to a story in the Middletown Press. Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim said the statue, which was donated in the 1990s by several groups of local mostly Italian-American families, was slated for a temporary move. He also said residents had asked that it be removed. There also is a move on in New Haven to remove the Columbus statue from Wooster Square in that city.

I have received a large number of calls, emails, and texts in recent days from residents pointing out that statues of Columbus are being taken down in other places across the state and country, either temporarily or permanently, and that they would like to see Middletown do the same, he said, in a statement on that citys Facebook.  Many of the other statues were removed after being vandalized, which has not happened in Middletown in recent weeks, but has happened several times in the last few years.

For the last few years, statues honoring Confederate soldiers also have been taken down in states across the country. On June 11, CNN reported on June 11 that Columbus statues were being vandalized. (S)tatues of Christopher Columbus, another controversial figure in US history, are also being taken down. There have been three reports of Christopher Columbus statues being tampered with  one thrown into a lake, one beheaded, and another pulled to the ground.

Columbus has long been a contentious figure in history for his treatment of the Indigenous communities he encountered and for his role in the violent colonization at their expense, according to CNN. In recent years, many cities and states have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day, in recognition of the pain and terror caused by Columbus and other European explorers.

Kaneb said the statue doesnt pay proper tribute to Italian Americans.

Most of us wouldnt say that absolutely nothing beneficial came from European colonization, Kaneb said. It would be erroneous to assert that there is nothing beautiful about European cultures, or their co-evolution with other cultures through history.

Yet despite whatever good can be said to have come from European colonization, there are many elements of this history we must condemn as morally reprehensible: violent conquests, genocides, ethnocides, slavery, brutality, systemic racism, and cruel imperialism, Kaneb said.

By removing statues and memorials to Christopher Columbus we are not erasing our history. We are facing our history and embracing our history. This is a vital phase in our evolution as Americans, Kaneb said. Through symbolic actions, we can show our extended human family that we acknowledge the immense, needless suffering caused by the horrific injustices perpetrated through European colonization, and that we are resolved to take action to fix what is broken in this country.
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Aspiring parliamentary candidates of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their supporters have been advised to accept the outcome of the upcoming primaries in the interest of the party.

Mr Dan Nii Odarley France, Greater Accra Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, also cautioned supporters to maintain discipline after the contest and unite like a family with a common agenda.

Comport yourself and follow all the rules of the elections. Do not love an aspirant more than yourself. This must not divide the party. It is just a contest if you lose today it is not the end of the world you can contest the next time, he said.

By the 'close' Saturday there will be winners and losers. What we all need to understand is that despite the divergence of ideas, we are all working in the interest of the party.

Personally I lost a number of times before securing this position. We are one family so we need to work together at all times, he said.

Mr Odarley France said that it was only through togetherness and intensive campaigns that the re-election of the President Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo would occur for the NPP to continue its development agenda.

Speaking on primaries to be held at 20 constituencies in the Greater Accra Region, Mr Odarley France said, bearing in mind the COVID-19 pandemic precautionary protocols by the state, the constituencies have been decentralized to ensure that not more than 100 delegates congregated to vote.

Using Ablekuma Central as an instance, he said, the constituency had seven polling stations but due to decentralization the number would be increased to 10 stations.

Mr Odarley France said the party has put in place measures to ensure that all the protocols are observed to keep voters safe, adding that both the party and aspirants had enough personal protective equipment for the elections.

Regarding hotspots in the region, he said, the party was liaising with the security agencies to provide adequate security at all about three constituencies including Dome-Kwabenya and Ablekuma North to maintain peace and order.

The party, he said, had a committee working assiduously to protect and promote the welfare of sitting Members of Parliament, women aspirants as well as encouraging youth participation.

---GNA
Photo from Getty Images

SINGAPORE  A woman who met her boyfriend during Singapores partial lockdown after having disputes with her family was fined $5,000 on Monday (15 June).

Renukha Arumugam turned up at the void deck of her boyfriends residence and later attracted the attention of passersby as she began crying.

Her boyfriend was about to send her home in a taxi when a police officer approached the couple.

The 30-year-old Singaporean pleaded guilty to one count each of meeting a person outside of her household for a social purpose and for failing to wear a mask over her nose and mouth while at the entrance of the car park located at Blk 724, Clementi West Street 2.

Three charges of a similar nature - meeting her boyfriend for a social purpose in public on two different occasions - were taken into consideration for sentencing.

On 17 April, Renukha, who was drunk, had a dispute with her family members and decided to pay her boyfriend a visit as he did not pick up her calls. She went to his block in Clementi. Her boyfriend decided to meet her downstairs as he did not want her coming to his flat.

At the void deck, Renukha began tearfully relating her troubles, attracting the attention of passersby. As her boyfriend was aware of the restrictions on social gathering and of leaving residences, he decided to send Renukha back home. As the boyfriend stood waiting for a taxi, Renukha sat on a grass patch by the side of the road. Both were not wearing masks.

A policeman spotted the couple and approached them. Paramedics were later called to the scene, but Renukha was found to be healthy and not in need of assistance. She later put on a mask and handed another to her boyfriend.

For not wearing a mask, Renukhas boyfriend was issued a notice of composition. As Renukha had committed multiple breaches, she was later prosecuted in court.

Despite this incident, Renukha reoffended on 29 April. She called a male friend to discuss her family issues and purchase snacks. The two met at the void deck of Renukhas Jurong residence before heading to Giant Express shop near Jurong Green Community Club. The two then had a chat and bought snacks before Renukha headed home after about one and a half hours.

Story continues

Renukha, who was not represented, said in mitigation that her house had burned down and that her whole family was staying with her sister. She sought time to pay the fine and apologised for her offences.

On 7 April, Singapore began the circuit breaker period, a partial lockdown of the country, in order to pre-empt escalating COVID-19 infections.

For each breach of the the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020, she could have been 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

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Two challenges against the Queensland government's constitutional right to keep the state's borders closed amid the coronavirus crisis are set to return to the High Court.

Billionaire businessman Clive Palmer and a group of businesses and individuals named Travel Essence launched separate legal proceedings after the borders were closed in March.

Queensland's borders were closed in March at the height of the coronavirus crisis. Credit:Jason O'Brien/AAP

They are intent on forcing Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to reverse her government's decision to isolate the state, saying they want to limit the economic damage caused by keeping the borders shut.

The challenges are unlikely to be heard before the borders reopen, however.
Matt Alexander, who appeared on reality show Naked And Afraid, was arrested as he was accused of beating his girlfriend.

The 38-year-old former competitor on the Discovery Channel show was recently taken into custody by law enforcement in Louisiana on warrant for domestic battery and false imprisonment according to TMZ.

The arrest came after Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff's deputies spoke with his girlfriend about an alleged fight she and Matt had last Sunday.

Uh oh: Matt Alexander, who appeared on reality show Naked And Afraid in 2016, was arrested as he was accused of beating his girlfriend

Tough times: The 38-year-old former competitor on the Discovery Channel show was recently taken into custody by law enforcement in Louisiana on warrant for domestic battery and false imprisonment according to TMZ

The couple were driving down Interstate 10 when they began arguing and Alexander allegedly struck her in the face several times according to law enforcement.

The unidentified woman claimed to police that the reality show contestant had held her against her will in the car for 40 minutes before being able to escape.

According to TMZ, deputies who had spoke to the woman about the incident said that they saw bruises on her face and busted blood vessels in her left eye.

Not good: The couple were driving down Interstate 10 when they began arguing and Alexander allegedly struck her in the face several times according to law enforcement

The reality star was found at his home the very next day and was arrested.

Since being taken into custody, Alexander was released from jail after posting a $3,500 bond.

He had appeared on Naked And Afraid back in 2016 as he made it through three weeks in the jungle in the Philippines. Alexander was teamed with Karen Coffee.

Challenge: He had appeared on Naked And Afraid back in 2016 as he made it through three weeks in the jungle in the Philippines. Alexander was teamed with Karen Coffee

In his bio it had said that he spent all of his childhood in Jennings, Louisiana roaming the woods, hunting, and fishing.

He also spent most of his free time hunting hogs with his dogs as he helped out local farmers in hog removal.

Naked And Afraid chronicles the loves of two survivalists - one man, one woman - who meet for the first time and are given the task of surviving a stay in the wilderness naked for 21 days.

The reality competition show has had 11 seasons on Discovery.
In his sermon on Sunday morning following two weeks of controversy over his social media activity, Pastor Chris Hodges vowed to make progress on race relations.

I am not the same Chris Hodges I was two weeks ago, Hodges said. Do I have a long way to go? Yes, sir. But I can look you in the eye and say I have been tested, stripped, disciplined, broken.

Hodges came under fire when someone noticed he had been following Charlie Kirk, president of Turning Point USA, and liking posts by the controversial conservative commentator.

Not only a whole lot needs to be said, a whole lot needs to be done, Hodges said, to applause from a limited audience that was on hand to prepare for the possible reopening of in-person public worship services on June 21. The church has been video-streaming services only and not holding public in-person worship since March 10.

The social media controversy over Hodges resulted in the Birmingham Housing Authority and Birmingham Board of Education taking action against him, the church and the health clinic the church started.

On June 8, the Birmingham Housing Authority voted to ban the Church of the Highlands from providing volunteer services on Housing Authority property. Christ Health Center, which was founded by the church, had to stop doing free testing for COVID-19 that it had been doing at public housing communities in Birmingham.

On June 9, the Birmingham Board of Education voted to terminate its leases with the Church of the Highlands, which had been paying Birmingham City Schools $6,000 a week to rent the facilities at Parker and Woodlawn High Schools on Sunday mornings.

We all know what divides us, but what can bring us together? Hodges said.

Its really been one of the most painful things Ive been through, he said. I know God is disciplining me, breaking me. A broken and contrite heart is the pathway to the presence and the anointing of God. I think Gods doing it to America.

Hodges said he met with the four black campus pastors for the Church of the Highlands this past week.

You cant really get all that God has until something is stripped from you, until youre humbled, tested and disciplined, Hodges said.

I truly believe the devil is going to be defeated and were going to see not only a healing from a disease, but I dont think our land is ever going to be the same again. I truly believe were going to see lasting change.

He said the church will work on initiatives and changes to improve race relations and they will be posted on the churchs web site. We do it for COVID-19, why cant we do it for racial reconciliation, he said.

We dont have to look alike, we dont have to act alike, but we do have to have one heart, Hodges said. Unity is not uniformity. We dont have to be alike. We just have to love alike.

Church of the Highlands, founded in 2001 in a rented space at Mountain Brook High School, has spiraled out of Birminghams suburbs to become the largest church in Alabama. Before the coronavirus lockdown, more than 50,000 people attended weekly services at 22 branch campuses statewide, including in Anniston, Auburn, Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile Bay, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa, with one across the state line in Columbus, Ga.

Hodges said he met in the past week with the four black campus pastors of Church of the Highlands branches  Jamil Gilleylen of Woodlawn, Mychal Smith of Riverchase, Mayo Sowell of West Birmingham and Steven Winston of McCalla, along with their spouses.

Tell me what I dont know, he said. I want to grow. I want to learn. I want to hear.

He said he asked them what they thought he should be saying.

He said Courtney Winston, wife of Steven Winston, spoke up. Pastor Chris, we dont need you to say anything, she said, according to Hodges. We just needed you to feel it. We just needed you to be there.

Hodges asked the church to join him in the process of learn, lament and love.

We learn, we lament and then, only then, can we love, Hodges said. We live in a society that wants instant feedback. I beg everybody to slow down. Be quick to listen, slow to speak.

The church can help the nation change, he said.

America, Im crying out to you, learn, lament, and lets get each others backs again, Hodges said. Lets protect one another again.

He added, Weve got to not let this moment pass us by and act like it didnt happen.

Hodges compared racism to the Berlin Wall, which was torn down in 1989 after the fall of communism that had separated West Germany and East Germany. He said he proposed to his wife, Tammy, in Germany in 1986 when the wall still stood.

Tammy and her family were missionaries in Germany, Hodges said. We used to go to these border walls. We used to wave at the guards in the towers, the East German guards. Communism fell. But the wall was still up. One day a group of people, young people, got a little discouraged about, if this is not who we are anymore, then why is that still there? They got little pick-axes. It looked almost insurmountable to tear the whole thing down. They didnt worry about that. They just took out their own section of it. They did their part, until all of us brought it down.

Hodges said he has a piece of the Berlin wall that he had put in a box in 2001 and stored in his attic. Yesterday, I dug into the attic and pulled it out, he said. This is the newest thing on my desk. This is an actual piece of it.

He suggested taking the same approach to racism as the Berlin Wall.

While I may not be able to tear the whole thing down, I plan on doing my section of it, Hodges said.

Im asking you to do your section of it, he said. We cant get there if were not willing to change. We come together with one purpose, to change the world together.
Two 18-wheeler trucks were recently parked outside of the Christian Helping Hands food pantry on a recent Friday.

It might appear that the large load of food, a welcome sight, would take care of the need, but with the coronavirus pandemic and record unemployment posing ongoing challenges for many residents, the agencys director, Suzi Burns, has seen a continual stream of people seeking assistance.

We have felt a big surge from the number of families we normally serve each month, Burns said of CHH, which serves people in need in Pearland, Friendswood, Manvel and Brookside Village from its base at 3402 Swensen Drive.

Demand for help jumps

During March 2 through April 2, the pantry assisted more than 942 families or an estimated 3,752 people. Thats about a 35 percent to 40 percent increase in the number of families they were used to assisting. Recently, CHH has seen a slight downturn in requests for people coming for help, which Burns attributes to that more residents have returned to work and cant come by during working hours.

At the same time that demand for help was rising, the agency was losing volunteers because of safety concerns because of the pandemic.

We have a number of volunteers who have been with us since 1983 when we first opened. They are in their late 80s and early 90s and didnt get out while there was a severe risk, Burns said. I normally have about 100 volunteers but had to look elsewhere to get us some help.

More Information Christian Helping Hands What: The nonprofit group provides food to underserved families in Pearland, Friendswood, Brookside Village and Manvel. Where:3402 Swensen Drive at Old Alvin Road (across from Alexander Middle School) Hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday To donate or for more information: Call 281-485-9776 or email Christian Helping Hands at info@christianhelpinghands.org See More Collapse

The shortage left Burns scrambling for additional volunteers to fill slots during the four weekdays  Monday through Thursday  the pantry is open.

Publicity about the pantrys needs garnered more volunteers. But because of the demand for help, the agency had to trim back the normal interview process for prospective clients to obtaining just basic information.

Those needing food can visit the office, where a worker will assess specific needs.

Were not just a drive-through where you open your trunk and we put a box of groceries in there, Burns said. Instead, we cater to the individual family and their special needs, including gluten-free.

Senior adults who are over age 60 can receive a box of food every 30 days. For younger clients, a box is provided every two months except during the summer.

Now everyone has kids at home; so now we check to make sure we meet those needs, too, Burns said.

The agency is required to keep meticulous records to turn in to the Houston Food Bank, which is a food provider to CHH.

CHH is limited in how it can deal with the public.

We have a 16-space parking lot, and ours is not a drive-through type lot, Burns said.

How to donate

Most pantries will take just about anything, except food that has expired.

We can take donations of any kind, but preferably not bread. We already get plenty of that from several sources, Burns said.

In particular, the pantry needs soups, canned tuna, dry beans, rice, dried pasta like spaghetti and noodles.Donations are tax-deductible.

The preferred donation, however, is cash.

Thats definitely what we need. Then we can go out and buy what we need, Burns said, and the monetary donations we can stretch further.

When donors go to the grocery store to purchase canned goods to donate, it may cost them more than $1 for only two cans of food.

With the partnerships the Houston Food Bank has set up with grocery-supply companies, food manufacturers and meat plants that donate free food, that cost is much less because the food bank uses its funds mostly for transportation.

We tell our donors that $1 can purchase enough for three meals, said Adele Brady with the Houston agency.

Burns

said the agency is supported by about 26 area churches.

Occasionally, well have people drive up, stick their hand out of the window with an envelope with a cash donation, or unload their trunk with food, she said.

Burns said the agency remain focused on food now. With the Shepherds Nook in Friendswood closed right now, CHH no longer offers clothing vouchers.

We dont help with rent or utilities but will offer help with fans in the summer and heaters in the winter, she said.

For information on how to help, call 281-485-9776 or email Christian Helping Hands at info@christianhelpinghands.org

dtaylor@hcnonline.com
Delhi saw a dip in the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases after recording over 2,000 a day for three days in a row. The city reported 1,647 new cases on Monday, taking the total number of cases to date to 42,829.

Delhi recorded 73 deaths due to Covid-19 on Monday, taking the citys total toll to 1,400, according to data provided by the Delhi government in its daily bulletin. This puts Delhis case fatality rate at 3.2%.

The number of active casesor those still living with the infectionrose to 25,002 on Monday. Of these, there are 5,420 patients with severe symptoms, such as elevated respiratory rate of 30 or more (the normal is 12 to 20 breaths per minute) or oxygen saturation below 90% (the normal is 95% to 100%) admitted to hospitals.

The Delhi government data shows that 794 patients, or 3.17% of active cases, continue to be in the intensive care unit. Of these, 197 patients, or almost 0.8%, need ventilator support.

The Delhi government plans to augment its ventilator strength by 500 in the coming month, of which 200 ventilators are being provided by the centre. The government estimates the need for 1.5 lakh hospital beds by July-end.

Currently, 18,215 people are in home isolationthis accounts for almost 73% of those living with the infection.

With several laboratories in the city resuming testing for Covid-19, the number of tests a day has gone up in Delhi over the last two days, with 7,353 samples being tested as per June 14 data and 6,105 as per June 15 data. Last week, on average, 4,900 samples were being tested daily.

With the increase in the number of samples, the positivity rate has also started coming down. The positivity rate or percentage of people who tested positive among those testedstood at almost 27% on Monday. The highest positivity rate of almost 37% was recorded on June 13 when 2,134 people among the 5,776 tested turned out to be positive.

This just means that currently the numbers are on a rising trend and there is transmission happening in the community. There is no other way that the city could record so many cases every day. However, the increasing positivity rate could also be a result of the labs testing only those with symptoms. If you test only the people who are likely to have the infection, the positivity rate will, of course, be high, said Dr Shobha Broor, former head of the department of microbiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Mohalla Clinic doctor dies

A doctor working in a mohalla clinic in Najafgarh, Dr UC Ghosh, died of Covid-19 on Monday. He was 65.

He had started working at the clinic just three months back, after his wife died of cancer in March this year. He was lonely and depressed after his wife died. He had given up his practice to take care of his wife. The clinic came as a welcome respite to him. But, he was likely infected there, Dr BK Dey, 65, his family friend, who works in Maharshi Valmiki hospital, said.

Dr Ghosh was diabetic and hypertensive, according to a Delhi government official.

We have asked our senior doctors to not reopen the clinic as of now. However, there are still several volunteers who want to work there, the official said.

According to his friend, Dr Ghosh started losing his sense of taste and smell about 12 days ago and also felt lethargic. He would come home from the clinic and just go to bed. His daughter did not think too much of it, but maybe thats when he got the infection, Dey said.

Dr Ghosh started vomiting and developed a high-grade fever four days ago and had to be admitted to a hospital in Dwarka, where he lives. He was admitted to the ICU and was put on the ventilator a couple of days ago. His test came back positive yesterday, but by then his condition was already deteriorating, said Dr Dey, who continues to go to the hospital in the absence of a written directive asking those who are aged to stay at home.

Dr Ghosh is reportedly the second doctor who died of Covid-19 in the city so far. Earlier this month, Dr JN Pande, former head of the medicine department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences had succumbed to the disease.

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NYC-based Lemonade filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

Application has been made for listing the common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LMND.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Allen & Company LLC are acting as the managing bookrunners for the proposed offering. Barclays Capital Inc. is acting as a bookrunner. JMP Securities LLC, Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., William Blair & Company, L.L.C. and LionTree Advisors LLC are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering.

A Certified B-Corp, Lemonade offers homeowners and renters insurance in the United States, and contents and liability insurance in Germany and the Netherlands, through its full-stack insurance carriers. Powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics, the company replaces brokers with bots and machine learning, aiming for zero paperwork and instant everything. Lemonade is currently available for most of the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, and continues to expand globally. The company gives excess premiums to nonprofits selected by its community during its annual Giveback.

FinSMEs

15/06/2020
An Action Hero: Ayushmann Khurrana is now joined by Jaideep Ahlawat as they kickstart shoot in London
An Australian actor sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling is being used as a political pawn by the communist government, Barnaby Joyce claimed.

Karm Gilespie moved to Asia to 'go into business' with a Thai woman he fell in love with, friends have said, but was arrested in December 2013.

Chinese officials alleged he was busted at Hong Kong airport with 7.5kg of meth in his luggage, sentencing him to death on June 10 this year.

'I can't say definitely yes or no, I can only suspect,' Mr Joyce replied when asked whether the punishment was linked to a political dispute with Australia.

'And I suspect it is.

'They know our position on the death penalty, they know that we find it abhorrent.'

His impending death at the hands of a firing squad comes as relations with China hit an all-time low, amid a trade dispute sparking by the coronavirus pandemic.

The former actor (pictured) faces being killed by firing squad as punishment for alleged drug smuggling

Speaking on Sunrise on Monday, the Nationals MP went on to accuse China of not giving Mr Gilespie a fair trial.

'In China, their legal system has no resemblance to ours whatsoever.

'But obviously even on that, the fact that a person is going lose their life after what we would deem to be not even a proper trial, is obviously abhorrent.

'The fact that another person is going to be responsible for killing another person to try to prove that damage to other people is wrong, doesn't make sense to most people either.'

It comes amid increasing calls for the government to intervene and try to save the actor's life.

But trade minister Simon Birmingham has said the sentencing should not be linked to the ongoing friction between the countries.

'This is a reminder to all Australians ... that Australian laws don't apply overseas, that other countries have much harsher penalties, particularly in relation to matters such as drug trafficking,' the minister told Sky News on Sunday.

Barnaby Joyce (pictured) accused China of using the actor for politician gain during an increasingly tense stand-off with Australia

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, the state Mr Gilespie is from, has admitted there is little his state government can do to save the actor.

Most of Mr Gilespie's friends and family members had no idea where he had been for the past seven years until it was revealed last week he was languishing in a Chinese jail.

The now 56-year-old fell head over heals for a Thai woman before leaving his life in Australia behind to be with her, a friend has claimed.

He told his Facebook friends he was in a new relationship on July 20 2013, just months before his contact with his loved ones suddenly stopped.

American woman Jill Parris, who had been pen pals with Mr Gilespie since they were 13, said the last time she spoke to him in 2013 he was gushing about his new partner.

'I received a phone call from Karm and he was over the moon in love with a new woman, he was so excited about going on a business trip with to Thailand,' she wrote.

'I was reserved with my concerns as I didn't want to rain on his excitement-parade.'

Australian man Karm Gilespie (pictured) had not been heard of since December 2013

She said the phone call was mysterious and had worried her.

Over the phone Mr Gilespie told Ms Parris how 'fabulous, smart and wise' his new girlfriend was.

Ms Parris made her friend 'promise to get in touch' when he got to Thailand.

'The man never not called or wrote to me in the 38 past years of our lives... so when he didn't get back in touch I was immediately scared it was due to something beyond his control,' Ms Parris said.

'It just was not in his character to not communicate with me nor was he found anywhere on the internet.

'He vanished.'

Mr Gilespie had been married twice before running off to Asia to be with his new girlfriend.

His friend Roger Hamilton (left) posted a statement on Facebook telling how he had last seen Mr Gilespie (second from left) in 2013 at a financial forum (pictured), before he 'disappeared'

President Xi Jinping (pictured on May 22) has been accused of covering up the coronavirus pandemic when it broke out in late 2019

The second wife and his two children are believed to make up the small group who were informed about his arrest in 2013.

A government source told The Australian before Mr Gilespie's fate was made public, no family or friend had looked into it since he vanished.

Ms Parris said from her home in Stockton, California, that her pen pal was always searching for a better life.

Throughout high school he dreamed of being a professional AFL player before moving into acting, but after 20 years he grew tired of not being taken seriously.

Australian man Karm Gilespie (pictured) has been sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling, almost seven years after he was arrested

Mr Gilespie had a recurring role on popular 1990s drama Blue Heelers before moving into wealth and financial management in 2009.

The new career path led him to spend more time in Asia, away from his hometown in rural Victoria.

Friends expressed their shock at the news and told how they had been trying to fin him since 2013 without luck.

American entrepreneur Roger Hamilton posted a statement on Facebook telling how he had last seen Mr Gilespie in 2013 at a financial forum, before he 'disappeared'.

'This is a photo of Karm Gilespie (in the red shirt) graduating from our WD Masters 7 years ago. Soon after, Karm disappeared,' Mr Hamilton wrote.
Police were seen diving into the waters of Hyde Park's 40-acre lake The Serpentine today as they investigate a violent disorder incident that saw armed police charging toward Marble Arch station.

Officers are continuing their investigation into the incident, which was originally treated as a triple stabbing, when it happened on the evening of Saturday, May 30 - just as lockdown measures were eased.

Three men were rushed to hospital, where it was discovered they hadn't been stabbed, but had suffered minor injuries.

One of the men taken to hospital was arrested and bailed on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon.

Met Police frogmen were searching the waters of The Serpentine in Hyde Park today after three people were stabbed near the lake

Three men suffered minor stab injuries following the disorder on May 30. Just over two weeks later, police returned to the scene of the attack to search for evidence

The Marine Policing Unit parked up next to visitors who were enjoying views of the London park's 40-acre lake

A further five men were arrested, four for violent disorder, and another for possession of an offensive weapon. They all remain on bail.

Just over two weeks later, Met Police's Marine Unit, nicknamed the frogmen, returned to Hyde Park to search its waters today.

Officers were seen searching for evidence in The Serpentine - a 40-acre lake that dates back to the 18th century and stretches from the north to the south east of the park.

Met Police would not comment on what evidence it was searching for following the attack.

A spokesman for the force said: 'Officers were in Hyde Park today as part of an ongoing investigation into violent disorder on May 30.

'As its an ongoing investigation, were not going into any more detail at this stage.'

At the time of the incident, police officers were seen rushing across the road through lanes of cars after a stabbing outside Hyde Park.

Police parked up next to visitors in Hyde Park on Monday as they searched the water for evidence

Three men were stabbed near The Serpentine in Hyde Park on May 30, police were searching for evidence today but would not disclose exactly what they were searching for

Police in scubadiving gear, often referred to as frogmen, searched the lake's waters on Monday

Footage shows three armed police officers running towards Marble Arch station, followed another unarmed officer. Four people were arrested.

They had been called out at around 7.30pm along with London Ambulance Service, after officers were told of disorder the near The Serpentine.

Scotland Yard has since appealed for witnesses or anyone with video footage to call 101 quoting CAD 8150.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 06/15/2020



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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.
Australians anticipating a hefty refund on their tax return could be in for a rude shock this year, experts warn.

Tax return time is just around the corner, with the 2019-20 financial year ending on June 30.

This year's tax returns will be different due to the coronavirus lockdown, particularly for those taking the JobSeeker and JobKeeper government benefits.

Some of those recipients will be entitled to refunds, but others will find themselves owing money to the tax office.

Filling out this year's tax returns will be complicated and challenging process for many Australians due to the coronavirus pandemic (stock image)

'It could go either way,' H&R Block director of tax communications Mark Chapman told Daily Mail Australia.

'For those on JobKeeper, their employer should be deducting tax accordingly so there should be no nasty surprises.'

'Those who lost their jobs in the nine months prior to the pandemic, many may have had an over-reduction in tax so they will be eligible for a bigger refund.'

He warned lower income earners may get a shock, as their receipt of sizable government benefits may lift them above the tax-free threshold.

'Those on JobKeeper, who have received a pay rise as a result, will see a flow-on effect with a lower refund or even be left with a tax bill,' Mr Chapman said.

'It may also apply to part-time workers with multiple jobs.'

Some JobSeeker recipients expecting a higher than expected refund could be for a rude shock, depending on circumstances. Pictured are queues outside a Melbourne Centrelink

One of biggest mistakes people make when filling their tax returns is 'overassuming' how much the loss of wages will impact the refund they believe they're entitled to, according to Ben Johnston from Sydney accounting firm Willett Johnston Partners.

'If you've got no job at all, and you're relying on JobSeeker or JobKeeper, that benefit dilutes down as both of those payments are fully taxable  sure, you might not be earning on the same level as before, but you are still earning a taxable income,' Mr Johnston told news.com.au.

He said the government payments were the equivalent of having a second job that has not been taxed accordingly.

'Almost everyone on JobKeeper is going to be caught out on it,' Mr Johnston said.

Other variables such as low and middle income tax offsets and Medicare surcharge levy also need to be considered in each individual case.

Those wanting a quick refund are urged to ensure they have all the information before lodging

Experts also warn that the early birds who lodge a return on July 1 or soon after could be forced to amend their returns or be audited by the Australian Tax Office.

'A lot of people in financial distress will be looking to get their hands on their tax refund as fast as possible,' Mr Chapman told Daily Mail Australia.

'They just to make sure all the information needed is there in their return. Those on JobSeeker will be waiting on Centrelink, which may not come through until mid July.'

Mr Johnston added: 'People have got to be really careful that they dont get in too soon. The data matching is not reliable until the end of July, so you might want to get in quicker, but the ATO is still at the mercy of the banks, large corporations and health funds.'

Those with managed investment funds will need to wait up to four months after the end of financial year for all information they need to fill out their returns.

Australian working remotely from home during the pandemic are urged to take advantage of home-office based deductions.

'The best way is to calculate the cost of each item individually- which can include electricity, gas, water, cleaning of the home office, equipment, your mobile phone bill and home internet,' Mr Chapman said.

'For those who can't be bothered calculating every item, the simple guide of 80 cents per hour for every hour worked covers everything but won't give the best result.'

People are urged not to 'overassume' impact of job losses when filling out their tax return

Australians relying on the full $1080 tax offset announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison last year could also be for a nasty surprise.

Those on a taxable income under $126,000 will get some of the low and middle income tax offset, which ranges from the $255 base amount for those earning under $37,000 to the maximum $1,080 offset.

'The amount of the offset you are entitled to will depend on your individual circumstances, such as your income level and how much tax you have paid throughout the year,' the ATO website states.

'In other words, you might not be entitled to the full $1,080.'
OKCarz details a diversity of used Nissan models to help shoppers find the right vehicle. Pictured is the 2020 Nissan Altima.

Those in Central Florida looking for a quality used vehicle will find the help they need with OKCarz. Based out of central Florida, OKCarz is helping car shoppers by reviewing various Nissan models. Vehicles included with the review are the used Nissan Versa, Nissan Altima and Nissan Rogue.

The pre-owned Nissan Versa is an incredibly popular option among used car buyers. Its compact size and fantastic fuel economy caused demand for the Versa to skyrocket. Its comfortable interior and affordable pricing also make this sedan a top choice among new drivers and those on a budget. Interested customers that would like to learn more about the used Nissan Versa can do so here.

As the flagship of the Nissan lineup, the used Nissan Altima doesnt disappoint. This midsize sedan offers the perfect balance of power and space. Its sporty appearance and interior help provide a sporty feel and offer convenience to both the the driver and passengers. Advanced technologies and comfort amenities help add to the excitement. To learn more about the used Nissan Altima, explore its research page on the OKCarz website.

Lastly, the used Nissan Rogue is a strong contender for families of all sizes. This crossover offers space for up to five passengers and plenty of cargo. Packed with a diversity of luxuries such as innovative safety features, modern technologies and a strong powertrain, the pre-owned Nissan Rogue is a favorite. Read more about the used Nissan Rogue here.

OKCarz is located at 1200 W. Memorial Blvd. in Lakeland, Florida. The dealership also has multiple locations throughout central Florida, including Orlando, Tampa, St. Petersburg and West Bradenton. Shoppers are encouraged to contact the Lakeland location at 863-904-2125. Interested customers that would like to learn more about OKCarz should visit its website at http://www.okcarz.com.
Katarina Stefanovic recently made her debut on the Today show.

The Nine News reporter is based in Far North Queensland and last week was introduced by her cousin, Karl.

She joined Nine in late 2019 having previously worked as an executive producer at SKY News and as a reporter at 2GB in Sydney.

She becomes the fourth Stefanovic at Nine, following in the footsteps of cousins Karl, Peter and cameraman Tom.
Oscar Tarpey is in the prime of life. Aged just 21, he is looking forward to many years of good health and happiness.

Yet four weeks ago, the insurance worker from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, did something that could seriously jeopardise that.

He volunteered to risk his own life by signing up to clinical trials for a vaccine to prevent coronavirus, using a highly controversial method called the challenge study technique.

This involves injecting human guinea pigs with an experimental vaccine and then doing the unthinkable: deliberately infecting them (and 'challenging' their immune systems) with the lethal virus that has so far killed more than 40,000 people in the UK, to see if the jab can stop them becoming ill.

Four weeks ago Oscar Tarpey (pictured), 21, an insurance worker from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, volunteered to risk his own life by signing up to clinical trials for a vaccine to prevent coronavirus

None of the 100 or so Covid-19 vaccine trials under way globally is using the challenge study technique as it's considered too dangerous with this infection.

But some experts are calling on governments around the world to sanction it, as it could drastically reduce the time it takes to develop an effective vaccine. If challenge studies get the green light, it's possible they could run alongside any other vaccine trials.

'I know I could die,' says Oscar. 'But I feel like I have a moral obligation to try to help, especially if it speeds up the development of a vaccine that could help millions.'

Nearly 30,000 people from more than 100 countries  including 400 from the UK  have so far volunteered to take part in challenge studies, according to 1 Day Sooner, a website set up in April by New York-based lawyer Josh Morrison to create a database of volunteers ready and willing to put themselves in danger if the trials get the go-ahead. There's no financial incentive: the volunteers do it out of good will.

Normally, when a new vaccine is developed, scientists inoculate hundreds, sometimes thousands, of healthy participants, and then wait to see if they catch the virus in the community.

But as infections dwindle, the chances of a vaccinated volunteer coming into contact with someone who is infectious decline significantly, making it more difficult to test if the vaccine works.

Challenge studies could change all that. A volunteer would be immunised with one of the Covid-19 vaccines now being trialled. Then, some weeks later, in a secure hospital setting, they would be deliberately exposed to the virus, most likely by inserting samples into their nose or mouth.

It then becomes a waiting game to see if the volunteers develop a potentially life-threatening infection, or whether the vaccine keeps them safe as hoped.

Experts think any successful Covid-19 vaccine may be like the flu vaccine in that it may prevent infection in some people, while reducing the severity of the infection in others.

A challenge study is a gamble. But it means scientists may get results in days, rather than weeks or months.

Lawyer Jason Crowell (pictured), 42, who lives in London, has also decided to take part in the vaccine trials after losing a close friend to the coronavirus

'The great advantage of challenge studies is you are not dependent on the virus circulating naturally in the community,' says Professor Andrew Easton, a virologist at Warwick University. 'You know everybody involved has been exposed to the virus and most will become infected, so it will produce meaningful results much more quickly.'

Recently, drug firm AstraZeneca  which is making the vaccine being tested at Oxford University  announced plans to run major trials in Brazil, where Covid-19 infection rates are still soaring, because numbers affected in Europe are falling to the point where it is becoming difficult to study the vaccine's effectiveness. But that will still take time.

According to 1 Day Sooner, which is made up of individuals from law, science and research backgrounds, reducing the time it takes to get a vaccine into circulation by just one day could save 7,120 lives globally. Cutting it by one week would save 55,000 lives.

Challenge studies have been used for decades to develop treatments for other deadly diseases such as malaria, flu, typhoid and cholera.

But Covid-19 is a new and highly unpredictable enemy, so the common perception has been that the risks with this particular virus are simply too great.

But some leading experts disagree. Dr Adair Richards, an associate professor from Warwick University, who lectures on ethics in scientific research, has drawn up guidelines that, he says, pave the way for challenge studies.

Covid explainer: A guide to why the virus causes certain symptoms This week: Red eyes In about 3 per cent of people who catch coronavirus, one of the most obvious symptoms is conjunctivitis, or red eyes. This develops when virus particles from an infected person get into the eyes, for example from a sneeze or a cough. The virus irritates the conjunctiva, a thin, transparent membrane that covers the surface of the eye, causing it to become red and inflamed. From here, the virus is able to penetrate the bloodstream and circulate around the body. Other viruses, such as cold or flu, can also cause this type of conjunctivitis, that can last for up to three weeks. As this is caused by a virus there are no medicines for it, so treatment usually involves using a cold compress (cotton wool balls soaked in cooled boiled water), or taking an anti-inflammatory painkiller, such as ibuprofen. Bacterial conjunctivitis, on the other hand, causes sticky eyes and responds well to over-the-counter antibiotic drops or ointment. Advertisement

'Speeding up vaccine development even by a few weeks could result in saving many lives,' says Adair Richards. 'Even though we cannot guarantee that all the trial volunteers would survive, it may be still be ethical to infect them.'

His views are supported by a group of UK and U.S. scientists, who wrote a joint letter published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, calling for challenge studies to accelerate the vaccine search.

The letter said: 'Challenging volunteers with this live virus risks inducing severe disease, possibly even death. But we argue that such studies could reduce the global burden of coronavirus-related mortality and morbidity.'

Even the World Health Organisation has been promoting the controversial research.

But it states the risks must be kept to a minimum, by selecting only healthy, young adults (typically aged between 18 to 30) and called for trials to be held in 'specialised facilities', with access to intensive care. Oscar, who heard about the trials via a podcast, is adamant that: 'Nothing I read about Covid-19 challenge studies put me off.

'I talked to my mum and dad about my decision and they were obviously a little concerned but very understanding,' he adds. 'I fully understand the dangers. But I'm still prepared to do it when the challenge trials start.'

Lawyer Jason Crowell, 42, who lives in London, volunteered after losing a close friend to the virus.

'When I told my wife Cindy, I wanted to volunteer, her initial reaction was that I must be crazy but when we talked about it, she could see my reasons for doing so,' says the father of five.

Professor Easton believes the volunteers will be called upon: 'The impact of this virus is so severe that we could bypass some of the normal processes,' he says. 'We may well see challenge studies up and running soon in the UK.'

Any challenge tests must be approved first by an ethics board and the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA, which is responsible for regulating medicines, says human challenge trials 'can be helpful'.

However, a spokesperson added: 'The safety of participants is our top priority and any proposal to include a human infection would be considered on a benefit/ risk basis.'
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

Amid spike in cases, Maharashtra to reopen its schools from July

India

oi-Deepika S

Mumbai, June 15: Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Monday gave his nod for starting the academic year for students through digital and online platforms on a pilot project basis.

"The decision was taken in a video conference meeting with the state education minister. He has also agreed upon reopening schools in areas away from the cities that are COVID-19 free after taking adequate precautionary measures," the CMO said.

Unlock 1.0: When will schools reopen in India?

Chennai: Intense lockdown in Chennai from June 19th, no Sunday break | Oneindia News

The schools will be opened only in districts where no coronavirus cases have been found in a month, while in other areas 'online schools' will be functional.

A circular issued on Monday stated that "schools not located in red zone can commence classes of Standard 9, 10 and 12 from July 1" while "classes of 6th to 8th standards would begin from August".

"Though in some areas schools could not be opened, the process of teaching cannot be stopped. The use of digital technology to reach out with students should be adopted," it said.

"Classes of Standard 1 and 2 are exempted from online teaching. However, for remaining standards certain hours per week have been defined by the government. We are trying to use All India Radio (AIR) network as well to reach out to students with the curriculum," Gaikwad said.

Some of the teaching can be broadcast, she added. However, some teachers' and principals' unions have demanded that all school in the state open from August.
June 15, 2020, CLEVELAND: Cleveland Clinic researchers have developed the world's first risk prediction model for healthcare providers to forecast an individual patient's likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19 as well as their outcomes from the disease.

According a new study published in CHEST, the risk prediction model (called a nomogram) shows the relevance of age, race, gender, socioeconomic status, vaccination history and current medications in COVID-19 risk. The risk calculator is a new tool for healthcare providers to aid them in predicting patient risk and tailoring decision-making about care. It provides a more scientific approach to testing which is important for the healthcare community which has faced increased demand for testing and limited resources.

"The ability to accurately predict whether or not a patient is likely to test positive for COVID-19, as well as potential outcomes including disease severity and hospitalization, will be paramount in effectively managing our resources and triaging care," said Lara Jehi, M.D., Cleveland Clinic's Chief Research Information Officer and corresponding author on the study. "As we continue to battle this pandemic and prepare for a potential second wave, understanding a person's risk is the first step in potential care and treatment planning."

The nomogram, which has been deployed as a freely available online risk calculator at https://riskcalc.org/COVID19/ , was developed using data from nearly 12,000 patients enrolled in Cleveland Clinic's COVID-19 Registry, which includes all individuals tested at Cleveland Clinic for the disease, not just those that test positive.

Data scientists, including co-author on the study Michael Kattan, Ph.D., Chair of Lerner Research Institute's Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, used statistical algorithms to transform data from registry patients' electronic medical records into the first-of-its-kind nomogram.

This study revealed several novel insights into disease risk, including:

Patients who have received the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) and flu vaccine are less likely to test positive for COVID-19 than those who have not received the vaccinations.

Patients actively taking melatonin (over-the-counter sleep aid), carvedilol (high blood pressure and heart failure treatment) or paroxetine (anti-depressant) are less likely to test positive than patients not taking the drugs.

Patients of low socioeconomic status (as measured in this study by zip code) are more likely to test positive than patients of greater economic means.

Patients of Asian descent are less likely than Caucasian patients to test positive.

"Our findings corroborated several risk factors already reported in existing literature - including that being male and of advancing age both increase the likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19 - but we also put forth some new associations," said Dr. Jehi. "Further validation and research are needed into these initial insights but these correlations are extremely intriguing."

In a previous network medicine study led by Lerner Research Institute scientists, 16 drugs (including melatonin, carvedilol and paroxetine) and three drug combinations were identified as candidates for repurposing as potential COVID-19 treatments. While these findings suggest an association between taking these medications and reduced risk of testing positive for COVID-19, additional studies are needed to assess how these drugs may affect disease progression.

"The data suggest some interesting correlations but do not confer cause and effect," said Kattan. "For example, our data do not prove that melatonin reduces your risk of testing positive for COVID-19. There may be something else about patients who take melatonin that is indeed responsible for their apparent reduced risk, and we don't know what that is. Consumers should not change anything about their behavior based on our findings."

The nomogram, developed using data from patients tested at Cleveland Clinic for COVID-19 before April 2, 2020, showed good performance and reliability when used in a different geographic region (Florida) and over time (patients tested after April 2, 2020). This suggests that the patterns and predictors identified in the model are consistent across regions and communities and can be potentially adopted for clinical practice in healthcare systems across the country.

"This nomogram will bring precision medicine to the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to enable researchers and physicians to predict an individual's risk of testing positive," said Kattan. "Additionally, while testing solutions continue to be needed, it is so important to make sure we are responsibly and optimally dispatching our resources - including clinical personnel, personal protective equipment and hospital beds. Our risk prediction model stands to greatly assist hospital systems in this planning."

###

The COVID-19 research registry, which now has data from more than 23,000 patients, is being used to inform a variety of studies. Researchers from across the Cleveland Clinic enterprise are using the dynamic registry data in more than 140 COVID-19-related research projects in areas such as cancer, pediatrics and intensive care.

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation's best hospitals in its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey. Among Cleveland Clinic's 67,554 employees worldwide are more than 4,520 salaried physicians and researchers, and 17,000 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,026-bed health system that includes a 165-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 18 hospitals, more than 220 outpatient facilities, and locations in southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2019, there were 9.8 million total outpatient visits, 309,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 255,000 surgical cases throughout Cleveland Clinic's health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 185 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at twitter.com/CCforMedia and twitter.com/ClevelandClinic. News and resources available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.

Editor's Note: Cleveland Clinic News Service is available to provide broadcast-quality interviews and B-roll upon request.
Lujan Grisham was reacting to a story published Saturday by New Mexico In Depth and ProPublica revealing that Lovelace Womens Hospital had a secret policy for screening Native American women for coronavirus based on their appearance and home ZIP code, according to several clinicians who work there.

Described as racial profiling by medical ethicists, the policy resulted in some Native American women being separated from their newborns at birth as hospital staff waited for coronavirus test results, according to the clinicians.

These are significant, awful allegations and, if true, a disgusting and unforgivable violation of patient rights, Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, wrote. The state of New Mexico is investigating whether this constitutes a CMS violation and will unequivocally hold this hospital accountable.

CMS, or the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, regulates hospitals to ensure that all patients have access to medical care.

The 'pueblos list'

State Auditor Brian S. Colon also weighed in, with a Facebook post commenting that Lovelace has some additional explaining to do.

A Lovelace spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a voice message and email Saturday. In previous statements, Lovelace acknowledged screening patients by geographic area, but it said that such practices followed guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. It was not immediately clear whether the policy described by clinicians remained in place on Saturday.

The CDC doesnt mention geography in its COVID-19 guidelines for pregnant women. It specifies that pregnant patients should be treated as people under investigation for COVID-19 only if they exhibit symptoms or have had recent high-risk contact with COVID-19 patients.

Pull Quote Described as racial profiling by medical ethicists, the policy resulted in some Native American women being separated from their newborns at birth as hospital staff waited for coronavirus test results.

According to several Lovelace clinicians, when pregnant women showed up at the hospital who appeared to be Native American, staff members were instructed to compare the expectant mothers home ZIP code against a list of Indian reservation ZIP codes maintained by the hospital, known informally as the Pueblos List, a reference to New Mexicos Pueblo Indian tribes. If the pregnant womans ZIP code matched one on the list, she was designated as a person under investigation for COVID-19 and tested even if she did not have symptoms, the clinicians said.

Several Native American tribes in New Mexico have been hit hard by the coronavirus, recording some of the highest per capita rates of infection in the nation. But not all of the ZIP codes on the list are home to tribes with high prevalence of the disease.

Lovelace did not use rapid COVID-19 tests, so it took up to three days for results to come back. During that time, the hospital separated some asymptomatic mothers from their newborns as part of an effort to prevent transmission of the virus from mother to child. Other Albuquerque hospitals are using rapid tests and do not separate Native American mothers from newborn children.

Such separations deprive infants of close, immediate contact with their mothers that doctors recommend.

We had no knowledge of this practice happening, Tripp Stelnicki, Lujan Grishams communications director, said Saturday.

The state Health Department has contacted CMS to determine how to proceed, Stelnicki said.

The intent is to find out what ... is going on, Stelnicki said. And if indeed, if this has happened, it is extremely disturbing, and to rectify the position if there were CMS violations, those will be pursued.

__________________________________________
The sun is seen behind a crude oil pump jack in the Permian Basin in Loving County

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose more than 2% on Monday as signs that fuel demand was recovering, while OPEC+ members were complying with a production cut deal, outweighed fears that new coronavirus infections could further slow the global economy.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 86 cents, or 2.4%, to settle at $37.12 a barrel. Brent crude gained 99 cents, or 2.6%, to settle at $39.72 a barrel.

Prices rebounded from early losses after the energy minister of the United Arab Emirates voiced confidence that OPEC+ countries with poor compliance to agreed cuts would meet their commitments and reported signs oil demand was picking up.

"That seemed to take away some of the market's negativity," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst at Price Futures Group. "It's fear about the coronavirus versus the reality of what's happening on the ground."

An OPEC-led monitoring panel will meet Thursday to discuss whether countries have delivered their share of output reductions.

Iraq agreed with its major oil companies to cut crude production further in June, Iraqi officials working at the country's giant southern oilfields told Reuters on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia has also reduced the volume of July-loading crude it will supply to at least five buyers in Asia, sources said.

Also positive for prices, China's crude oil throughput in May rose 8.2% from a year earlier as independent refiners increased processing to meet the recovery in fuel demand following the easing of lockdowns.

U.S. oil output from seven major shale formations is expected to decline in July to the lowest since July 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Monday.

Still, fuel demand concerns have weighed on market sentiment. More than 25,000 new coronavirus cases were reported on Saturday in the United States, where more than 2 million people have been infected, about a quarter of the cases worldwide.

After nearly two months with no new infections, Beijing officials reported 79 coronavirus cases over the past four days, sparking fears of an outbreak in one of the world's most populous cities.

Story continues

Economic data from China suggested the world's second-biggest economy was struggling to get back on track. Industrial output in May expanded 4.4% from a year earlier, less than expected.

Germany's economic output will also fall further in the second quarter, its economy ministry said on Monday.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by David Gregorio and Nick Zieminski)
Seoul's Jongno District is foggy with particulate matter, also known as fine dust, on Mar. 18, 2020, when the PM10 concentration level recorded "bad," or between 81 and 150 micrometers per square meters. Yonhap



By Ko Dong-hwan



Graduate schools dedicated to studying airborne particulate matters open later this year, as the government and an environmental state researcher try to push forward a country often blanketed by clouds of fine dust all year around.



The Ministry of Environment and Korea Environmental Industry Technology Institute (KEITI), in a behind-the-curtain signing, have agreed to designate three local universities and introduce masters and doctoral programs as well as non-degree track programs dedicated to the issue, the ministry said on June 12.



The schools are Chung Ang University in Seoul, Hanseo University in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, and Pukyong National University in Busan.



Each school is in a different air quality monitoring region determined by the government last April. While Chung Ang is in the capital region covering Seoul, Incheon and 28 cities of Gyeonggi Province, Hanseo is in the central region for Daejeon, Sejong, North and South Chungcheong Provinces and North Jeolla Province. Pukyong is in the southeastern region covering Busan, Daegu, Ulsan and North and South Gyeongsang Provinces.



The schools signed the agreement with the ministry and KEITI on June 15, accepting state support funding of 600 million won ($496,000) for three years for each school. They began enrollments accepting 16 or more students for this year and will start the programs in September.



The government expects graduates of the programs will be of a significant use in resolving the pollution issues in local communities nationwide, as well as acting as a liaison between related firms and public companies.



Such a prospect is possible because the students, after learning about backtracking causes of PM10 and PM2.5 (particulate matter with micrometers of 10 and 2.5) and monitoring and modeling sources of the pollution, will "go straight to related industries following completion of their studies," according to the ministry.



The ministry's Air Quality Policy Division official Keum Han-seung said that to resolve the air pollution problems, "what is most urgent is educating an industry-wise future workforce to scrutinize and oversee the pollution's sources."


New Delhi: The emergence of China is giving sleepless nights to those nations which talk about global peace and brotherhood. The Asian superpower, which, of late, became the center of coronavirus that claimed the lives of millions across the world, is helping Pakistan, infamous for being the center of terror groups, to consolidate its nuclear arsenal. Together, both the nations have covered a long distance in the nuclear arms race, posing a threat to the global community with their nukes.

An international body tracking nuclear weapons has come out with startling revelations in its latest report on the current state of armaments, disarmament and international security. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday (June 15) launched the findings of SIPRI Yearbook 2020 and informed that Pakistan currently has 160 nuclear weapons, while China is in possession of 320 nukes.

China has built 30 new nuclear weapons in the last one year as in the year 2019, it had 290 nuclear weapons, while India is said to have a total of 150 nuclear weapons. The report, however, does not mention whether India's nuclear weapons have increased or decreased.

"China is in the middle of a significant modernisation of its nuclear arsenal. It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft," the report warned.

It further said, "India and Pakistan are slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, while North Korea continues to prioritise its military nuclear programme as a central element of its national security strategy."

The SIPRI Yearbook said that despite an overall decrease in the number of nuclear warheads, nuclear powers continue to modernise their arsenals, warning that tensions were rising and the outlook for arms control was "bleak".

"The nine nuclear-armed statesthe United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) together possessed an estimated 13400 nuclear weapons at the start of 2020. This marked a decrease from the 13865 nuclear weapons that the report estimated these states possessed at the beginning of 2019."

"Around 3720 of the nuclear weapons are currently deployed with operational forces and nearly 1800 of these are kept in a state of high operational alert," it said.

"The decrease in the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world in 2019 was largely due to the dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons by Russia and the USAwhich together still possess over 90 per cent of global nuclear weapons. The reductions in US and Russian strategic nuclear forces required by the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) were completed in 2018, and in 2019 the forces of both countries remained below the limits specified by the treaty," the report said.

According to the report, the New START will lapse in February 2021, unless both parties agree to prolong it. "However, discussions to extend New START or to negotiate a new treaty made no progress in 2019. This was due in part to the US administrations insistence that China must join any future nuclear arms reduction talkssomething that China has categorically ruled out," it said.

The SIPRI report also said that the availability of reliable information on the status of the nuclear arsenals and capabilities of the nuclear-armed states varies considerably.

"The USA has disclosed important information about its stockpile and nuclear capabilities but in 2019 the US administration ended the practice of publicly disclosing the size of the US stockpile," says Hans M Kristensen, Associate Senior Fellow with SIPRIs Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Non-proliferation Programme and Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

"The UK and France have also declared some information. Russia does not make publicly available a detailed breakdown of its forces counted under New START, even though it shares this information with the USA," it said.

"The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide little information about the status or size of their arsenals," it added.

"In these times of ever-increasing geopolitical tensions, the absence of adequate measures to monitor nuclear arsenals and to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials is a particularly worrying development," Shannon Kile, Director of SIPRI's Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation Programme, said.
WASHINGTON -- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is proud to announce the release of Generation Gulag, a 12-part documentary series produced by Coda Story and screened by Current Time for Russian-speaking audiences beginning on June 15. The series explores the Russian governments campaign to rewrite the history of the Gulag through the eyewitness testimony of survivors.

Generation Gulag documents a brutal chapter in Soviet history -- and recent attempts by Russian authorities to revise it. The series is an effort to defy propaganda and disinformation, so that Russians can know the truth about their country, said RFE/RL President Jamie Fly. He added, We are very pleased to collaborate with Coda Story on this project, since part of Current Times mission is to support Russias most independent and important voices, and to tell its most urgent stories.

The highly original series of short films features interviews and animated illustrations depicting survivors memories of the Gulag, the Soviet labor-camp system that imprisoned more than 28 million people -- an estimated 12 million for political reasons -- between 1918 and 1987. Today in Russia, state-run media, schools, museums, and government increasingly avoid discussions about the systems cost to human life, instead promoting what President Vladimir Putin has termed the countrys "heroic" past. By documenting survivors experiences, Generation Gulag seeks to defend against distortions and forgetting.

The series (available with English subtitles here) begins with the story of celebrated Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Azari Plisetsky, the younger brother of the late prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who lived in the Gulag as a young child. His father, Soviet diplomat Mikhail Plisetsky, was charged with espionage and executed in 1938.

Says Plisetsky, Everyone must know the truth about these terrifying repressions, about the genocide of our own people that happened during our lifetime. Especially the younger generation [M]any people try to forget about these wounds and avoid reopening them. But we must reopen them. There is absolutely no justification for what the country, the people, and families lived through.

Observing current efforts to glorify the Soviet period, survivor Galina Nelidova told Coda Story that she believes it is "shameful that people still dont know the whole truth.

Coda Story is an award-winning non-profit newsroom covering global crises which affect the world by providing context and continuity through character-driven narratives on the most pressing issues. It reports on disinformation, authoritarian technology, and the war on science. Generation Gulag is part of Coda Storys Rewriting History coverage, which tracks how distorting the past is serving regimes today.

Current Time is a 24/7 Russian-language digital and TV network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. In addition to reporting uncensored news, it is the largest provider of independent, Russian-language films, screening more than 100 yearly, many of which are not available on any other platform. It participates in more than 15 independent film festivals, and has supported such critically acclaimed films as Putins Witnesses, State Funeral, and The Earth Is Blue As An Orange.

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to more than 37 million people in 27 languages and 23 countries where media freedom is restricted, or where a professional press has not fully developed. Its videos were viewed over 3.6 billion times on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram/IGTV in FY2019. RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

----

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Joanna Levison in Prague (levisonj@rferl.org, +420.221.122.080)

Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948)
Los Angeles, June 15 : After music and fashion, rapper Kanye West is ready to explore the beauty and skincare industry.

According to TMZ, he has decided to expand his Yeezy clothing and sneaker line into beauty and skincare products, reports dailymail.co.uk.

The 43-year-old rapper-designer has filed legal documents for trademarks in make-up, face masks, nail polish, shaving cream, deodorant, aromatherapy pillows, amongst others.

His decision to get into the skincare industry puts him in line of competition with his wife Kim Kardashian and his sister-in-law Kylie Jenner -- who already have widely popular skincare brands.

The 21-time Grammy winner was last publicly spotted in Chicago earlier this month. He was seen attending a Black Lives Matter protest.

He has also announced that he has created a college fund for George Floyds six-year-old daughter Gianna, and donated $2 million to different charities.

The rapper's representative said that he has donated $2 million to charities associated with Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd. In addition, he has also pledged to cover legal costs for the Arbery and Taylor families. Arbery was fatally shot while on a jog in February, and Taylor was killed in her home by police in March.

He will also be aiding black-owned businesses with financial contributions in his hometown of Chicago.
An online meeting on Saturday provided further information on the unlawful surveillance operation against Julian Assange while he was a political refugee inside Ecuadors London embassy.

The spying, clearly orchestrated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was part of the witch-hunt that culminated in the WikiLeaks founders arrest by the British police in April last year. It underscores the illegality underpinning the British court proceedings for his extradition to the US, where Assange faces life imprisonment for exposing American war crimes.

The event was the latest Free the Truth meeting organised by British academic Deepa Driver, as part of the campaign for Assanges freedom. It was held in conjunction with the Dont Extradite Assange group and also broadcast live on Consortium News.

The meeting began with a pre-recorded message from Jennifer Robinson, one of Assanges lawyers, who noted that the surveillance of meetings between the WikiLeaks founder and his legal team was a violation of attorney-client privilege. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer repeated his warning that Assange has no prospect of a fair trial if he is dispatched to the US.

A discussion between Assange and lawyer Geoffrey Robertson illegally spied on by UC Global

Driver, chairing the meeting, extended solidarity to the mass international demonstrations sparked by the brutal US police murder of George Floyd. As the WSWS has noted, the same state institutions attacking protesters in the US and around the world have spearheaded the attempt to silence Assange, who helped expose military and other state violence. This shows the deep, ongoing relationship between the escalating assault on democratic rights, including press freedom, and attempts by governments to suppress mounting social and political opposition.

The subject of the meeting was prompted by revelations in a Grayzone article last month by Max Blumenthal, detailing the extensive connections between those spying on Assange and figures close to the US administration of President Donald Trump and the CIA.

At the meeting, Blumenthal outlined his findings, based in part on court documents in a Spanish legal case brought by Assange against security firm UC Global. Assange and his lawyers allege that UC Global, which was contracted by the Ecuadorian government to manage security at its London embassy, entered into a secret agreement with the CIA to surveil Assange.

Blumenthal explained that the deal was initiated in 2016, when UC Global director David Morales attended a security fair in Las Vegas. Morales allegedly met members of the security team of Las Vegas Sands, a casino and resort company owned by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who acted as a conduit for the US intelligence agencies.

Sheldon Adelson in 2010 (Wikimedia Commons)

Adelson is a prominent Republican donor and supporter of Trump. Documents unearthed by Blumenthal indicate that Las Vegas Sands has previously been used as a front for CIA operations, with American intelligence agents using its Macau casino to spy on and entrap Chinese officials from as early as 2010.

Citing testimony from former UC Global employees, Blumenthal revealed that Morales was recruited by Zohar Lahav, an Israeli-American who was Adelsons top bodyguard. Lahav worked under Brian Nagel, a former associate director of the US Secret Service who has received official commendations from the CIA. Nagel had earlier worked on the security details of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and with foreign protective services, underscoring his high-level government connections.

Further indicating the role of the US government in orchestrating the spying, the surveillance coincided with WikiLeaks exposure of global CIA hacking operations in early 2017. In February of that year, Morales travelled to Alexandria, Virginia, near the headquarters of the CIA.

Upon his return, he instructed UC Global staff to install hidden cameras and microphones in the embassy, and to collect the data of all Assanges visitors. He ordered that a live feed of the surveillance material be set up for our American friends. This would have enabled the US state to spy on Assanges preparations to defend himself from the US Espionage Act charges that he now faces.

UC Global was allegedly involved also in active measures aimed at destroying Assange.

As an example, Blumenthal explained that on December 20, 2017 Assange met with Rommy Vallejo, the head of Ecuadorian intelligence. The briefing was the final step in a plan for Assange to leave the embassy on Christmas Day, amid a diminished British police presence outside the building. Assange was to use protections contained in the Vienna Convention, by being appointed a diplomat of Ecuador or a sympathetic government, such as Serbia or Bolivia.

A day later, on December 21, the US Justice Department issued an international arrest warrant for Assange, scuttling the plan in a move clearly based on UC Global surveillance.

Blumenthal explained: Its important to detail what happened in December 2017, because this was the end of one chapter, where Julian could have actually left the embassy and this saga would have ended, but he didnt. It was precisely because of this spying operation.

Max Blumenthal speaking at the meeting

Blumenthal detailed other operations, including surveillance of Baltasar Garzon, the head of Assanges international legal team. Weeks after UC Global operatives followed him, Garzons Spanish office was burglarised by three hooded men on December 18, 2017. They appeared to be looking for documents. At roughly the same time, an Ecuadorian official was robbed at gunpoint as he was carrying papers relating to Assanges bid to leave the embassy.

Morales broached with his subordinates plans for embassy doors to be left open to enable Assange to be kidnapped, and discussed the possibility of poisoning the WikiLeaks founder. When Spanish police raided Morales house last year, they found two handguns without serial numbers.

Blumenthal said Morales had described himself as a true mercenary, making clear that he was carrying out the orders of his US backers. What had been revealed was a global criminal ring, obviously run by the CIA against lawyers, against journalists, completely subverting freedom of speech around the world, all to destroy a publisher who embarrassed them.

Former Ecuadorian diplomat Fidel Narvaez told the meeting that the important thing about Maxs investigation is that we are getting to the bigger criminals, to the masters of this whole thing. While Adelson was a medium-sized fish, the big fish in the operation were US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director in 2017, and other senior Trump administration officials.

Narvaez noted that the UC Global spying violated the rights, not only of Assange, but of dozens of lawyers, politicians, journalists and celebrities who visited the embassy. The company also played a central role in promulgating false claims that Assange was a difficult guest and clashed with embassy staff.

Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi explained that UC Global hacked into her own cell phone and work data when she had held meetings with Assange at the embassy. She placed its operations in the context of a protracted campaign by the US state, beginning in 2008, to destroy WikiLeaks by seeking to prevent it from securely communicating with sources.

Stefania Maurizi addressing the online event

During the event, Blumenthal commented that among the most significant aspects of his investigation was the muted response of the corporate press. No mainstream journalist dared to touch this story, he explained. That included the New York Times and Washington Post, whose own reporters had been spied on by UC Global in the embassy. Blumenthal noted that had the Russian government of Vladimir Putin conducted a similar spying operation, it would have been front-page news.

The media complicity in the persecution of Assange includes its silence on the dangers he faces in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison where he remains detained despite not having been convicted of any crime. Doctors have warned that Assange is particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic that has swept through British penitentiaries, as a result of medical conditions stemming from his decade-long persecution.

Investigative journalist John Pilger yesterday reported another aspect of the brutal treatment of Assange. He tweeted: Julian Assange is in solitary, denied visitors. He ordered a radio from the prison catalogue six months ago. A friend also ordered him a radio and the authorities returned it, unopened. Even the Beirut hostages Waite, Keenan and McCarthy listened to a radio. This is torture.
The Price of Democracy Is Free Speech for Our Opponents

Commentary

A number of Canadians seem to be having a problem with listening to people with whom they disagree.

Journalists at the National Post complained recently to their editors that a column by Rex Murphy in which he claimed that Canada was not a racist society was lazy, ignorant, and dehumanizing to black and indigenous people. They claimed that by publishing such a piece the newspaper made journalists of colour feel unwelcome. A two-hour town hall on racism at the National Post ensued.

In Edmonton, a professor of anthropology was fired from her administrative position because she believed in the reality of biological sex and questioned allowing transgender women in womens prisons. Apparently this made some students uncomfortable. An official of the University of Albertas Institute for Sexual minority Studies and Services claimed that the professors dismissal did not violate academic freedom, which apparently does not cover expressing such degrading opinions.

Lawyer Danielle Robitaille was forced to cancel a lecture at Wilfrid Laurier University, citing threats from student protestors who said her presence on campus could traumatize victims of sexual assault. Her crime was to have legally represented Jian Ghomeshi, who had been acquitted of such charges.

Canadian universities are famous for preventing the appearance of speakers whose ideas run against the predominant cultural current and who are opposed by student activists. If disruption is promised by these groups, administrators respond not by ensuring free speech but by demanding enormous security fees ($28,000 in one case)thus giving the protestors a hecklers veto.

There have been many more examples of such behaviour in North America over the past few years: speakers have been physically attacked, meetings have been disrupted, comedians charged with hate crimes, and people with divergent points of view on climate, sex, and race deplatformed and fired. When a historian reads about such episodes, he gets uneasy.

French revolutionaries who were granted the rights of a free press and unfettered discussion in the new constitution of 1789 were quick to deprive their opponents of those rights whenever their faction came to power. The 1793 Law of Suspects made it illegal to speak harshly of those in authority, to mislead opinion or corrupt the public conscience. Before long, those radicals were themselves executed for offending the sensibilities of the clique who ousted them.

During the years before the Nazi takeover, politics in Germany was often conducted by intimidation. Rival paramilitaries such as the Nazi Sturmabteilung, the communist Red-Front Fighters League, the Steel Helmets, and the Social Democrats Reichsbanner made it their business to beat up rival speakers, destroy their printing presses, and prevent the distribution of opposition material. When Hitler came to power in 1933, it didnt take long for free speech to be abolished altogether.

In communist countries such as Cuba, freedom is seen not as a way to foster open discussion or promote reform; one is free only to do or say what the ruling party deems to be in the interest of the country. In Tibet, a man who attempted to debate an official in a re-education campaign was sentence to three years of re-education through labour. Laotian communist officials arrested a young environmental activist who used Facebook to ask for help for flood victims. This contradicted the government line that all was well, and she was sentenced to five years imprisonment for spreading anti-state propaganda.

China forbids the discussion of events that occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and regulates the internet to ensure this happens, but that is the least of that countrys sins against freedom: their laogai slave-labour camps are full of political dissidents, and those who called for religious liberty.

Censorship in countries like Canada is most often used as a weapon by those who claim to be victimsthe cry-bully effect. Some racial or sexual minorities and their defenders accuse their opponents of fostering hate and since no decent person can support hatefulness, this technique paints their opponents as bigots whose views may be ignored or misrepresented by the media. Pressure groups demand that university campuses be safe spaces where they can be free from opinions which offend them.

Free speech is not just an abstract rightit is the way that a healthy society works out its problems. Information is power and we should not encourage its suppression by corporations, politicians, pressure groups, or people who claim to be made uncomfortable. As Nadine Strossen of the American Civil Liberties Union has shown in HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship, legislating against dissident opinions is ineffective at best and often counterproductive.

Controversial or minority ideas do not disappear simply because they are suppressed by bullies, mobs of the ultra-righteous, or government diktats, and a country that permits the silencing of diversity loses its claim to being a democracy.

Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
MASCOUTAH  Nearly 8,000 Farm Credit Illinois borrowers will receive their share of a $28 million cash patronage distribution this week.

This is FCIs second consecutive patronage payment and represents 37.1% of the associations 2019 net earnings. In January, FCIs Board of Directors declared a $28 million distribution after reviewing 2019 year-end financials and projecting capital and business needs for the coming year.

In a cooperative spirit demonstrating Member Economic Participation, patronage is distributed equitably based on the business value each borrower contributed to the cooperative in 2019.

All checks will arrive June 15-19 by mail. Cash patronage is a tribute to generations of farm family cooperative members. Together, FCI and farm families celebrate the legacy of disciplined management from borrowers and cooperative managers alike, which allows FCI to deliver additional cooperative value.

As a cooperative diligently managing its capital, FCI is well-positioned to provide $28 million of additional value to our farm family and agribusiness borrowers, says Eric Mosbey, FCI Board Chair. Cash patronage is a tangible and significant benefit of our cooperative structure.

Especially in these volatile economic times, unbudgeted revenue is welcomed by farm families, says Aaron Johnson, FCI President and CEO. The cooperative demonstrates its mission of Helping Farm Families Succeed through cash patronage.

Farm Credit Illinois is a farmer-owned and directed agricultural cooperative serving the southern 60 counties of Illinois with financing, crop insurance expertise and lending for rural life. Farm Credit Illinois manages a $4.5 billion loan portfolio, sells 1.36 million acres of crop insurance coverage and employs 230 staff based in the Mahomet headquarters and 14 regional office locations.
The government has rejected Marcus Rashfords emotional request that they reverse their decision not to extend a free school meals voucher system for low-income families.

In a letter published on Sunday, Manchester Uniteds Rashford recalled his own experiences of depending on free school meals as a child, and asked politicians to uphold the national voucher initiative that was introduced in March.

The scheme has allowed children in low-income families access to free meals despite the closure of schools amid the coronavirus crisis, but  despite Rashfords pleas  it has been confirmed that the system will cease to run when the school term ends.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: The PM understands the issues facing families across the UK, which is why last week the government announced an additional 63 million for local authorities to benefit families who are struggling to afford food and other basic essentials.

The PM will respond to Marcus Rashfords letter as soon as he can  [Rashford] has been using his profile in a positive way to highlight some very important issues.

Rashfords letter, which prompted an outpouring of support on social media, has received backing from the National Education Union  the largest union of teachers in the country. Their joint general secretary Kevin Courtney said the union fully supports Rashfords calls for free school meals to continue to be provided over the summer.

Rashford, 22, wrote: Food poverty in England is a pandemic that could span generations if we dont course correct now. Whilst 1.3 million children in England are registered for free school meals, one quarter of these children have not been given any support since the school closures were ordered.

This is not about politics; this is about humanity. Looking at ourselves in the mirror and feeling like we did everything we could to protect those who cant, for whatever reason or circumstance, protect themselves. Political affiliations aside, can we not all agree that no child should be going to bed hungry?

Rashford in action for United this season (Manchester United via Getty Images) (Manchester United via Getty Imag)

Rashford has also teamed up with FareShare, a food distribution charity that has been distributing three million meals to vulnerable people across the country each week during the pandemic. But the England striker said he recognised that campaign alone was not enough to make long-lasting changes around the nation.

The Government has taken a whatever it takes approach to the economy  Im asking you today to extend that same approach to protecting all vulnerable children across England, he wrote.

I encourage you to hear their pleas and find your humanity. Please reconsider the decision to cancel the food voucher scheme over the summer holiday period and guarantee the extension.

This is England in 2020 and this is an issue that needs urgent assistance. Please, while the eyes of the nation are on you, make the U-turn and make protecting the lives of some of our most vulnerable a top priority.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:15:44|Editor: huaxia

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GABORONE, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Botswana's Wildlife Department had embarked on an operation to relocate and dehorn all rhinos to tackle poaching in the country.

According to a statement issued by the department on Monday, the Okavango Delta rhino population had been hard hit with 56 animals reported poached as of May 4.

"Both white rhinos and black rhinos have been severely affected, necessitating the implementation of critical and impactful interventions to arrest the situation," read part of the statement.

In addition, the authorities said the measures include relocation of highly endangered black rhinos, intensification of surveillance and monitoring and dehorning of all rhinos.

"Dehorning entails removal of most of the rhino horn under the guidance of experienced veterinarians. The process is painless and is done as humanely and quickly as possible to limit stress on the animals," read the statement.

The department said the animals will then be monitored to ensure that they fully recover and go about their normal activities. Enditem
New Delhi:

The Maharashtra Navnirman Senas film wing, the Chitrapat Sena, on Friday issued a 48-hour ultimatum to all Pakistani artists to leave the country or else it will send them by force.



The MNS Chitrapat Sena's president Amey Khopkar has issued a statement, which says, We gave a 48 hour deadline to Pakistani actors and artists to leave India or MNS will push them out."



The MNSs diktat comes at a time when ties between India and Pakistan are particularly tense, after the attack by infiltrators in Uri, Kashmir, which left 18 Indian military personnel dead.



MNS has also threatened to block the release of Shah Rukh Khan starrer Raees and Ranbir and Aishwarya's next Aae Dil Hai Mushkil as the movies have Pakistani actors, Mahira Khan and Fawad Khan, respectively.



The MNS' strident anti-Pakistan stance is not new.

In January this year, the Raj Thackeray-headed political organisation had threatened to disrupt a proposed concert by ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali, if it was held in Mumbai. Ali's concert, which had incidentally been planned by the Nationalist Congress Party, and was scheduled for a month after the Pathankot terror attack, was finally cancelled.



In October 2015, the MNS had refused to allow the screening of Pakistani actress Mahira Khan's film Bin Roye in Maharashtra.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake has struck the East Coast of the North Island.

The quake hit 10km south-west of Te Kaha, near Gisborne at 5.29am.

It was at a depth of 28 kilometres.

Almost 1000 people reported feeling the quake, in the Whakatane area and as far south as Wellington.

On Monday afternoon, a number of people reported seeing a large cloud plume coming from White Island, near Whakatane.

A caller to the 0800 SUNLIVE news hotline believed the island was erupting.

Another SunLive reader messaged us on Facebook saying a friend of hers could see the island smoking from Papamoa.

There have been no official reports of the volcano erupting, but GeoNet says it remains in a state of elevated unrest.

Two weeks ago, scientists recorded a short-lived gas pulse that passed through the volcano from depth, says a statement on the GeoNet website.

"This gas pulse was accompanied by minor ground uplift in the vent area and is likely linked to a fresh batch of magma at shallow depth below the volcano." Read more here.

A photo of White Island taken at 1.30pm on Monday. Photo: Kathryn Qualye.

In response to reports that White Island was erupting on Monday, GeoNet says on some days in autumn and winter atmospheric conditions can make the steam plume rising from Whakaari/White Island look spectacular from the mainland.

"GNS Science can advise that there has not been an eruption in recent days, but a low level of volcanic activity has continued since December 2019."

The Volcanic Alert Level remains at Level 2 and the Aviation Colour Code at Yellow.

-Additional reporting by RNZ.
By AFP

KAMPAR: An Indonesian military fighter jet ploughed into a residential area in Sumatra on Monday, but the pilot ejected safely and there were no injuries on the ground, the air force said.

The one-seater Hawk 209 was returning from training manoeuvres when the pilot reported engine problems and ejected from the British-built plane, which then crashed into a group of empty houses, according to officials.

No one on the ground in Kampar regency was hurt, said Indonesian Air Force chief of staff Fadjar Prasetyo.

READ| US Air Force F-15 fighter jet crashes in North Sea

"There were three jets returning from exercises this morning and they were about to land when one of them crashed about two kilometres from the runway," he added.

An investigation would be carried out to determine the cause of the accident, Prasetyo said.

The incident comes in the same month that an army helicopter crashed during a training exercise on Java Island, killing four soldiers and leaving five others injured.
Assams Covid-19 tally crossed the 4,000-mark on Sunday after 106 new cases were detected. By Monday noon, the tally further increased to 4,159.

The states Covid-19 tally was 2,000 on June 4; it took just 10 days for the figure to double. Assam recorded its first Covid-19 case on March 31 and it took nearly two months to reach 1,000 cases on May 29.

While the graph for infections is rising sharply - around 200-250 new cases daily since June 4 - the recovery rate has also shown an upward trend. A total of 460 patients had recovered in the state on June 4. The figure was 1,961 on June 14.

The sharp rise has been attributed to return of nearly 2.5 lakh people to the state from other parts of the country. The migrants started arriving in Assam on May 4 when inter-state movement resumed.

I am expecting a further spike in cases in the next few days as nearly 25,000 more people are expected to reach the state by trains. Seventeen of these trains would come from Kerala and two from Karnataka, Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told journalists on Saturday.

Other states in the North-East have also recorded a spike, due to homecoming of returnees. Tripura, with 1,079 Covid-19 cases, has the second highest tally in the region followed by Manipur with 458 cases till Sunday. Nagaland has 168 cases, Mizoram 117, Arunachal Pradesh 91 and Meghalaya 44.

Guwahati could be under lockdown

While the number of Covid-19 cases in Assam is increasing rapidly, the government is more concerned about the states and the regions biggest city Guwahati where over two dozen cases without any travel or contact history have been detected till date.

The situation in Guwahati is a bit critical as we have 25 cases without any history. It is worrying and we have decided to increase our surveillance mechanism, Sarma said on Saturday.

From June 15, the state government has decided to conduct 50,000 tests till the end of the month to check possible community spread of the disease. Tests would be carried out at petrol pumps, loading, unloading and parking sites of trucks coming from outside, eateries on highways, weigh bridges etc.

We have a suspicion that most cases without history have some connection to these places frequented by truckers from outside the state. As per Centres guidelines, the truck drivers and attendants are not tested for Covid-19 and are allowed to leave without spending time in quarantine, said Sarma.

Residents who feel that they have some Covid-19 related symptoms can also visit 12 healthcare centres across the city and get themselves tested free of cost.

If we see the situation deteriorating and if we get a sizeable number of positive cases in the 50,000 tests residents of Guwahati will have to be ready for another lockdown. If we have to take tough decisions, we will not shy away from it, Sarma said.
Ive done it both ways. I used to be really friendly, I gave people credit, food. And then I did it like, Hi, thank you, bye. I dont want to know your name, I dont want you to know my name, said Inshashi. Sometimes it feels like the more someone knows about you, the easier it is to break into the store.
The foreigners may enter Ukraine if they are not the citizens of the countries with a significant spread of coronavirus infection and did not stay in the territory of such states in the past 14 days

June 15, all checkpoints for air traffic through the state border of Ukraine were opened, as the Internal Ministry of Ukraine reported.

According to the demands of the Regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine #477 dated June 12, 2020, the work of 15 checkpoints for air traffic was renewed. The shifts of the border guards started work in sufficient number to provide the admittance of persons out and to Ukraine, the message said.

Besides, Ukraine allowed the number of foreigners to enter the state if they are not the citizens of the countries with a significant spread of coronavirus infection and did not stay in the territory of such states in the past 14 days.

However, the border guard units did not receive the list of the states with a high spread of coronavirus.

Before the receiving of such a list, the foreigners who agreed for self-isolation with the use of electronic app Diy Vdoma will be admitted in the territory of Ukraine. To make a decision on the observation of the foreigners who did not agree on self-isolation, the border guards will inform the competent authorities, the message said.

Starting from June 15, the Ukrainians will be able to visit Albania and the U.S. without restrictions, the UK with 14-day quarantine and Turkey without restrictions but with testing.

Besides, the citizens of Ukraine will be able to visit Tunisia with testing after arrival starting from June 27. Cyprus, Montenegro, Georgia, and Greece will consider the possibility of opening the borders after the improvement of the epidemic situation in Ukraine from July 1.
Orange, Frances largest telecoms company, is considering moving into the South African telecoms market.

This is according to Orange CEO Stephane Richard, who spoke about the potential move to French newspaper Les Echos.

It could make sense for Orange to have a larger African geographic base than today and to be present in the large African economies of Nigeria and South Africa,  said Richard.

Richard envisions that if such a move were to be made, it would happen relatively quickly.

If one considers there are things to do, the time frame I am considering is rather a few months than a few years, Richard said.

The reason for Oranges consideration of such a move is that he believes Orange needs to be more aggressive in its strategy.

A crisis creates problems but also causes opportunities, said Richard.

Orange must put itself in the spirit of seizing these opportunities.

Richard declined to comment when asked specifically on possible interest in MTN Group.

Orange already has a presence in 18 countries in the Middle East and Africa market, and this market is its fastest-growing region.

Middle East and Africa IPO

In January 2020, Orange chose BNP Paribas SA and Morgan Stanley to advise it on a proposed initial public offering (IPO) of its Middle East and Africa business.

The listing, which was still at an early stage, was not set in stone, as Orange still had the opportunity to decide against pursuing it.

Orange said in a statement that it had placed all its Middle East and Africa activities into a separate entity to provide various options for growth.

An IPO was seen as a possible opportunity for said growth, and it appears that Orange continues to investigate other possible ways to grow within the Middle East and Africa region.

In 2018, Oranges Middle East and Africa business reported $1.8 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
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Linkedin Budi Sutrisno and Dhoni Setiawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 19:06 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee709a 1 National protests,Papuan-Lives-Matter,Papuan-students,demonstration,Balikpapan,treason,treason-case,East-Kalimantan,surabaya,Jayapura,Papua,Veronica-Koman Free

Protests took place simultaneously in several cities in Indonesia on Monday demanding that authorities drop all charges and release seven Papuan activists accused of treason at the Balikpapan District Court in East Kalimantan for their involvement in anti-racism protests in Jayapura, Papua last year.

In the capital city, dozens participated in a rally held in front of the Supreme Court building in Central Jakarta on Monday at around 1 p.m. The protestors were seen holding banners that read Free 7 Papuan political prisoners without conditions along with the hashtag #PapuanLivesMatter.

Based on The Jakarta Posts observation, dozens of security personnel from the National Police and some from the Indonesian Military (TNI) were deployed to the scene, occasionally warning demonstrators through megaphones to obey health protocols.

Video footage posted on the Indonesian Peoples Front for West Papua's (FRI-West Papua) Twitter account showed that newly released former political prisoners, including Surya Anta and Ariana Elopere, were also among the crowd.

Similar rallies took place in other cities including Balikpapan, Jayapura and Sorong in Papua, Bogor in West Java, Yogyakarta and Malang in East Java, Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman said.

The protests are carried out concurrently today because the judges in Balikpapan [district court] will hand down the verdicts on Wednesday, she told the Post.

Read also: Human Rights Watch urges authorities to free Papuan activists on trial for 2019 protests

The seven activists were involved in anti-racism protests in Jayapura in August last year following a racially charged incident involving Papuan university students living in a dormitory in Surabaya, East Java. The students were physically and verbally attacked by security personnel and members of local mass organizations, who accused them of refusing to celebrate Indonesias 74th Independence Day.

While the protests in Jayapura started out peacefully, they later turned violent, resulting in dozens of injuries and several buildings being damaged. The seven activists were arrested in Jayapura and were later moved to be tried in Balikpapan for security reasons.

The seven defendants in the trial in Balikpapan include Buchtar Tabuni, an executive of pro-Papuan independence group United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), as well as Agus Kossay and Stevanus Itlay of the National Committee of West Papua (KNPB).

They also include Jayapura University of Science and Technology (USTJ) student union head Alexander Gobai, Cenderawasih University student union head Ferry Gombo and USTJ students Irwanus Uropmabin and Hengki Hilapok.

Read also: UI students file amicus brief on behalf of Papuan protesters charged with treason

They have undergone judicial proceedings since January and have faced trials since February this year, including online trials since April amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Prosecutors are seeking between five and 17 years of prison for the seven activists.

On Friday, Papuan interfaith leaders issued a statement to President Joko Jokowi Widodo, urging him to release the defendants unconditionally, saying that the state must be able to distinguish between treason and reaction to racism.

The statement was issued by 26 leaders of different religious organizations that included Christian and Catholic confederations and the Papua chapters of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the Indonesian Buddhist Union and Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia.

They observed that the legal process against the defendants was not procedural, citing arbitrary arrests and alleged intimidation that occurred during arrest. The leaders also slammed law enforcement for allegedly failing to uphold the principle of presumption of innocence during the investigation as well as the transfer of the defendants outside Papua.

To uphold the truth and the values of justice in this country, we require that the state be present and play a serious role in resolving the problem of racism and upholding the law in a just and dignified manner, the statement read.
Heather Heston didnt have to search beyond her kitchen to find a home-based business she could operate successfully.

Ive always baked, said Heston, who lives in Madison Township. Its just a passion. Ill bake anything.

Even when a baking project proves to be complicated or time-consuming, Hestons enthusiasm doesnt cool down.

Seems like the more tedious, the more I enjoy it, she said.

For the past five years, the kitchen at Hestons house has served as her workshop for the business she calls Heathers Pure Delights.

As the owner and sole employee of Heathers Pure Delights, Heston specializes is hand-crafted, decorated sugar cookies for all occasions. But she also produces other traditional favorites, such as brownies and coffee cake.

In addition, Heathers Pure Delights recently began to expand its product line, after Heston secured her home-bakery license from the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

I started with edible cookie dough this year  thats been really popular so far, she said.

When Heston launched her business five years ago, she began operating under Ohios cottage-food laws. This law allows a person, in his or her home, to produce nonhazardous cottage foods that will be sold in ways approved by the state Agriculture Department. Nonhazardous cottage foods include baked goods that do not require refrigeration.

Sugar cookies fall under that category, Heston said. Its basically something once its made, it can sit out on your counter, and its going to take awhile before it goes bad.

A hazardous cottage food, on the other hand, is an edible item that needs to be refrigerated to be safe for consumption.

To receive a home-bakery license, Heston was required to meet a variety of certification standards, which included inspection and approval of her home kitchen by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Securing the home-bakery license not only provides Heathers Pure Delights with the opportunity to make a greater variety of baked goods, but it allows for the sale of products outside of Ohio.

In fact, since acquiring the license, Heathers Pure Delights has shipped some of delicacies to places like New York and the state of Washington.

So (out-of-state) sales are now starting to pick up for me, Heston said.

Locally, Heathers Pure Delights is a regular vendor at Madison Villages Outdoor Market, which takes place every Thursday night through Sept. 10. Hours are 6 to 8 p.m. for the general public, while shopping from 5 to 6 p.m. is reserved for the elderly and people with compromised immune systems, in compliance with Ohios COVID-19 guidelines.

In addition, sugar cookies, edible cookie dough and macarons  a type of sandwich cookie made with almond flour  now can be purchased at the GAR Horizons Farm Store on Route 6 in Hambden Township.

Heathers Pure Delights also has generated a good volume of sales through its Facebook page, word-of-mouth referrals and repeat business from satisfied customers.

Heston, who also teaches baking classes at various businesses in Lake and Ashtabula counties, said taste is a very important attribute for all of the baked goods she produces. She mentioned her custom-designed sugar cookies, as an example.

I like when somebody says to me, Oh, theyre too pretty to eat.' Heston said. But it really makes me happy when somebody says, Theyre too pretty to eat, but theyre the most delicious cookie Ive ever had.'

With the growing success and popularity of Heathers Pure Delights, Heston said making a transition from a home-based business to a formal storefront bakery is something thats crossed her mind.

Obviously, working from home, theres a lot less expenses than if you were in a storefront, Heston said. I guess its once the day comes when Im outgrowing this is when well start looking into a storefront. So as you can tell, Im not rushing into that, Im just taking it as it goes.

Heathers Pure Delights can be reached through its Facebook page or via email to heatherspuredelights@gmail.com.
The Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong says he became an MP after he helped about a 1000 Ghanaians within his constituency to travel to the United State of America.

Kennedy Agyapong became a Member of Parliament for the then Assin North constituency after winning the parliamentary elections in 2000, on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Following subsequent demarcation of constituencies in Ghana, the Assin Central constituency was created.

Kennedy Agyapong has since been the MP for Assin Central.

Recounting how he succeeded in entering Parliament on Citi TV's lifestyle variety show, Upside Down, Kennedy Agyapong said: I won election in 2000 because I took 1,000 people in Assin alone to America with the USA lottery.

About the source of his wealth

The Assin Central legislator on the show also denied perceptions that he made his wealth on the back of drugs.

He said he has never peddled drugs not to talk of making money from it.

According to him, the source of his wealth which many people struggle to fathom is a result of his active work in the 1980s processing amnesty documents for undocumented immigrants in the US.

In 1989, [US President] Ronald Reagan had introduced an amnesty program so I was fortunate to work with a lawyer. He is called Kwadwo Afram Asiedu. He recruited me and I started working with him. That is the cocaine money. That is where I made the money. I made a lot of money. We did about 2,500 applications and everybody paid $2,500. I did all the documentation and my boss, because he is a lawyer, will go and present the documents at the immigration [office]. Out of the $2,500, my boss will get $700 and I will get the rest and use some for the documentation. So when we finished, I had made a lot of money, he said.

Facilitating each documentation for $5,000, the outspoken member of the governing New Patriotic Party said, by the end of the program that year, he had made over $1 million including his personal savings.

When people don't know your background and they think that you are a drug dealer, it is so painful. To the second chance of my money A lot of Ghanaians had won the US lottery and they didn't know how to process it so I went back to America and this time another boss, Lawyer Fofie, I went there and told him that I have a connection in GhanaHe was interested in the cash right there. He took $500I bought the applications for $48,000, that's about 96 applications and brought it to Ghana.

About Upside Down

The 'Upside Down' show is a lifestyle variety show that seeks to entertain families and viewers with inspiring and compelling conversations.

It airs every Sunday on Citi TV at 7pm and repeats at 4pm on Monday as well as 2pm on Fridays.

Upside Down is hosted by Frema Adunyame and Ato Kwamina Essuman.

---citinewsroom
Paterson sees sinister motive in Sharkey trial

Defending the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mr L. L. Sharkey, against a charge of having uttered seditious words, Mr F. W. Paterson, Queensland Communist MLA, said he had to ask whether there was not a sinister motive behind the prosecution of a man for saying that the object of the Communist Party was to struggle for peace.

A jury convicted Mr Sharkey, but sentence was postponed pending the result of a challenge to a section of the Crimes Act in the High Court.

Appearing for Mr G. Burns in Queensland last week, Mr Paterson claimed that under the Commonwealth Constitution, the Commonwealth Parliament had no power to enact the section.

The High Court reserved its decision.

Mr Sharkey was released on bail. Mr Dovey, for the prosecution, claimed that the prosecution of Mr Sharkey was non-political and asked the jury not to be prejudiced by the fact that Mr Sharkey was a Communist.

He asserted that under our system of Government no man shall be improperly attacked because of his political views.

The courts, said Mr Dovey, were entitled to take notorious facts into consideration.

It was a notorious fact, he said, that in the recent war Britain and the Dominions had fought against Germany with a number of allies, among them the USSR.

Hostilities had ceased, but peace has not been signed.

It was also notorious that there had been very marked differences of opinion between responsible statesmen of the Western powers and those statesmen who directed the policy of Soviet Russia.

We are not here to discuss the rights or wrongs about help to Germany. That is not a matter which calls for discussion.

It is also notorious that a certain section of the community in Britain, France and Australia have feelings towards the Soviet Union not shared by other sections.

Communists were among the minority who had different views to the majority.

This did not constitute an offence.

This article originally appeared in Tribune June, 1949
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.




It starts with an image of the magazines tooth-deficient mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, looking worried amid stores displaying signs announcing that they have gone out of business. When readers fold the page in thirds, a new message is revealed: No More New Jaffee Fold-Ins. And the artists serene visage is seen floating above the cityscape.

I had two jobs all my life, Mr. Jaffee said. One of them was to make a living. The second one was to entertain. I hope to some extent that I succeeded.

Born in 1921, in Savannah, Ga., Mr. Jaffee met some of his future Mad co-conspirators in the 1930s, when they were students at the High School of Music and Art in New York.

He followed a circuitous path to finding like-minded artists. As young boys, Mr. Jaffee and his three brothers were taken by their mother, Mildred Jaffee, to her home city, Zarasai, Lithuania, for what became an extended visit. In 1933, Mr. Jaffees father brought Al and two of his brothers back to America for good. The family lived in Far Rockaway, N.Y. Mr. Jaffees youngest brother did not leave Lithuania until 1940, shortly before much of Zarasais Jewish population were killed in World War II. The losses included Mildred.
A move which will see some tertiary students still unable to attend in-person lectures next semester is causing some frustration for students, with calls for a reduction in fees to compensate.

The University of Waikato has opted against face-to-face lectures next semester, despite the country being in level 1, asking students to tune in from home, due to the existing cohort of students overseas.

Tutorials, workshops, seminars and lab classes will be open to face-to-face learning however and, in some cases recorded for online viewing.

One University of Waikato post-graduate student thinks it's ridiculous she's allowed to attend labs on campus, but not lectures.

"I can't see why they can't allow you to attend lectures and record it at the same time for those unable to make it, like international students..

"If other universities are able to do it, why can't Waikato? I'm paying thousands of dollars for subjects that, no matter how hard they try, won't be taught as well online as they would have been in person.

"I think the university should consider reducing the fees this coming semester to accommodate those who won't learn as well in this environment."

Stuff asked if the University of Waikato would reduce fees, but it is not something the university is considering.

Students at the University of Auckland, University of Otago, Victoria University of Wellington and some at Massey University will be able to take a seat in the theatre hall when in-person lectures return next semester.

A Tauranga Toi Ohomai student, who didn't want to be named, says she suffers from learning difficulties and found online learning incredibly challenging.

"Face-to-face learning is valuable. The little conversations you have in lectures have so much information attached to them.

"For the price of the study, online learning shouldn't be the only option. The fees need to be lower, we are paying for something that's not our doing.

Universities New Zealand chief executive Chris Whelan says it is up to individual universities whether they reduce student fees.

"We get that there are students where the on-campus experience is very important. It's a key part of what they were looking for when they paid their fees."

He says tertiary providers need to provide a dual-model delivery to assist students stuck offshore.

"This means online and in-person at the same time. For some universities, it's more effective, particularly while there is still some risk that we might see a resurgence of COVID-19, for universities simply to say online."

Since universities across the country closed the doors due to COVID-19, questions have been thrown-up around whether it is "absolutely critical for a student's academic success that they sit in a lecture and listen to someone speak to them".

But is the benefit of international students at the expense of New Zealand students?

University of Waikato Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Professor Robyn Longhurst says students may have family and work commitments or ill health that may affect them coming to class.

"International students are just one group who clearly won't be able to attend in person...we really did want those students to enrol with us and study remotely."

-Stuff/
Localised, a global ecommerce business, raised $6.5m in Series A funding.

The investment was made by BGF and entrepreneur Peter Jones.

The company intends to use the funds to continue its expansion into the worlds top 20 ecommerce markets, across Europe, Americas, Middle East and the rest of Asia, and innovate in areas such as localised merchandising, global pricing syndication and global CRM, while also growing into new verticals.

Led by Kris Green, CEO, Localised builds, designs, hosts, operates, markets and optimizes localised ecommerce experiences for brands in foreign markets. By producing entirely ecommerce sites in the worlds top markets in 20 days or less with just a product feed, the company helps fashion and lifestyle brands go global by being local, in all respects. The ecommerce sites are built on top of technology that orchestrates translation, local payments, local sizing, local pricing, local merchandising, local marketing, local customer service and more. All with no integration required. The company currently works with brands such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Everlane and Crate & Barrel, and helps them go to markets like Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan through country-specific ecommerce.

Localised is based in New York City, Toronto, London, Warsaw, Bucharest and Hong Kong.

FinSMEs

15/06/2020
In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that federal civil rights law protects LGBTQ+ workers from discrimination. The vote, which took place Monday, June 15, determined that gay, lesbian, and transgender workers should be protected by the language in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law prohibits employers from discriminating based on religion, race, national origin, and  in wording that was closely examined for this ruling  sex, The New York Times reports.

In the majority opinion, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote, In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There, in Title VII, Congress outlawed discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear, he continued. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Breaking News: In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court found that a 1964 civil rights law protects L.G.B.T. workers from discrimination https://t.co/J3q08ULoeX  The New York Times (@nytimes) June 15, 2020

The vote was split six to three, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Justices Gorsuch, Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The lawyers for the employers involved in the case  as well as the Trump administration  contended that sex discrimination in 1964 only had to do with biases against women or men, based on the common understanding of the term sex at the time. In the 60s, lawmakers wouldnt have been considering sexual orientation or gender identity, they argued. They opined that Congress should pass a new law if they wanted protections for LGBTQ+ workers.

Story continues

The Court was looking at two different sets of cases. One included two suits from two men who said theyd been fired because they were gay. The second case concerned a lawsuit from a transgender woman named Aimee Stephens, who said her employer let her go after she became open about her gender identity in the workplace.

About 11 million people in the U.S. identify as transgender, lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and 88% of them are employed, according to statistics from the The National LGBTQ Workers Center.

This case wasnt a matter of constitutional law; instead, it looked into statutory interpretation, or how courts can interpret and execute laws. That means the ruling wont necessarily safeguard workplace protections for LGBTQ+ folks in the future, Politico reports.

Still, many are seeing it as a crucial and noteworthy step towards general equity for the LGBTQ+ community. Todays decision is one of the courts most significant rulings ever with respect to the civil rights of gay and transgender individuals, Steve Vladeck, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, told CNN. [It] opens the door to a host of other challenges to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or transgender status on the ground that it, too, is impermissibly based upon sex.

Several politicians tweeted in support of the ruling. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, wrote: You should never have to fear losing your job simply because of who you are or who you love.

Todays decision is another step in our march toward equality for all. The Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect. But were not done. https://t.co/Bz4SMA9tgb  Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 15, 2020

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, tweeted: Todays decision is another step in our march toward equality for all. The Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect.

And although there are still battles to be fought when it comes to true equality for the LGBTQ+ community, many advocates are considering this ruling a firm and resounding win.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Black Pride Events Save LGBTQ+ Lives. Now What?

The Hidden Costs Of Starting A Family When Queer

What It's Like To Be Queer In 2020
Recently, Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo and his minions on the county freeholder board announced the members of a civilian oversight board that will provide advice on how to make accommodations more acceptable for the unnecessarily jailed immigrants that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining at the Essex County Correctional Facility.

Of course, this looks like progress. And, I dont question that the new appointees are dedicated to making sure that the detainees are jailed in a way that ensures that conditions are safe, sanitary, respectful and humane.

It seems to me, though, that the county is simply trying to do a better job of something that it shouldnt be doing in the first place. ICE detainees are not convicted criminals. They dont pose a threat to the community. If the county wants to treat them respectfully and humanely, it should end its hideous housing contract with ICE, and advocate for the detainees to be managed through an effective alternative-to-detention program.

The Trump administrations assault on immigration is central to President Donald Trumps xenophobic agenda, an agenda that does not reflect the values of Essex County citizens. Its not progress when the county commits to doing a more humane job of supporting that xenophobia.

John Willard, West Orange

Count on science deniers to light the way

Just when I thought the canaries were gone, I see that they have returned, and I cannot thank them enough.

The phrase canary in the coal mine initially referred to the small yellow birds that the miners would take with them down in the tunnels. Canaries are very sensitive to poisonous gases. If one died suddenly, the miners had a warning signal that it was time to leave. Basically, these birds were sacrificial creatures that saved the lives of countless people.

Today, the canaries are those people who reject science and opt to embrace political rhetoric, shout their defiance of reason and openly put themselves and others at risk. I thank them for beating the drum of ignorance and rising up to proclaim their right to self-annihilation.

As they infect themselves and like-minded people, they will serve as the canaries upon which science can gauge the overall picture of the COVID-19 pandemic, and better guide the rest of us in staying alive.

Charles Burke, Farmingdale

Keep diamond in the woods for N.J. students

It was sad to read Amanda Hoovers June 6 article, Rescue needed for beloved environmental experience called magical by kids, teachers, about Montclair State Universitys decision to close and stop funding the New Jersey School of Conservation (SOC).

SOC is a diamond in the woods of Sussex County. It has opened the eyes, hearts and brains of people of all ages to the wonders of our natural world. I participated in many classes there as a teacher and brought many students there over the last 30 years.

I saw my students have an aha moment of understanding during every single visit. I literally could see their stress and anxiety levels decrease. They forgot about their phones and wanted to be outdoors, learning in the woods of Stokes State Forest. I am not saying they all became scientists, but the SOC experience did change them. They became more open, kinder to each other and more cognizant of the natural bounty that surrounds them.

SOC was fundamental in my development as a teacher. I was not a science teacher, but I infiltrated nature into most of my lessons wherever I could.

In these troubled times, SOC is more relevant and more important than ever. All of us need it to continue its sacred mission of educating people about the wonders of our natural world.

Rowena McNulty, Byram Township

COVID-19 milestones show disrespect

Why does Gov. Phil Murphy insist on comparing the number of New Jersey deaths from COVID-19 to the deaths of those killed in World War II and, previously, the Vietnam War?

On June 13, Murphy noted that the COVID total had surpassed 12,565, the number of New Jersey residents who were killed in four years of World War II,].

These men and women went to war, and fought and died for freedom. Compare COVID-19 fatalities to deaths from cancer, heart disease or any other illnesses, but not to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in our wars.

Have some respect.

Chris Szczepanski, Somerset

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Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald speaks to the media at Leinster House in Dublin, after Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens finalised the text of a draft programme for government four months on from the election.

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald has accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fail of clinging to each other to stay in power.

It comes as Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan signed an agreement to form a coalition government more than four months on from Februarys inconclusive general election.

While Sinn Fein won the popular vote, it failed to form a left-wing government as it could not secure enough seats to form a majority in the Dail.

Ms McDonald said her partys historic win forced Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, in an act of desperation, to cling to each other in order to cling to power.

She added: To those who believed in a changed Ireland, to those who have been let down time and again by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael-led governments, I say this; I hear you, I see you and I stand with you.

Do not give up on change; the story is only beginning - @MaryLouMcDonald https://t.co/Xz4nEQUsOk pic.twitter.com/EFajQ5VLBU  Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) June 15, 2020

I know you are inpatient with change, I am also inpatient for change.

Many people are disappointed, indeed angry watching Fine Gael and Fianna Fail push back change.

Im not giving up because I believe that we are within touching distance of a better Ireland.

Fianna Fail and Fine Gael can delay change, but they cant stop it and they wont stop it.

Our job now is to keep the ship pointed in the right direction and to keep everyone who shares that vision on board.

We know the changing Ireland wont be easy, but nothing worth having comes easily, a new Ireland is worth having.

Its worth believing in, its worth working for, its worth all the effort.

Those who benefit from the status quo will now say that the story of change is over, dont listen to them because the story of change is only just beginning.

She claimed that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will fail to deliver on public health and affordable homes

The question isnt just what is written in a very long programme for government, the questions is whether or not you can trust Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to deliver change the evidently is required? she added.

The answer to that is no, we cant.
"Post Reports" is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you've come to expect from the newsroom of The Post - for your ears.

- - -

In this episode:

Robert Barnes walks through the Supreme Court decision that protects gay and transgender people from discrimination in the workplace. Karla Adam explains why minority and immigrant doctors are feeling the brunt of the coronavirus burden in Britain. And Eugene Scott describes how it feels to be a black journalist right now.
Nadiya Hussain has revealed that she experienced racism while interviewing for jobs as a teenager, and was told that she couldn't work as a hand model because of the colour of her skin.

The 35-year-old from Luton, who is best known for winning Great British Bake Off 2015, recalled on Instagram how she was rejected from a role modelling jewellery.

She said that as a teenager she was invited for an interview after spotting an advert in the newspaper, but when she arrived the panel of white recruiters had already made a decision that 'black hands don't sell jewellery'.

'The room went quiet, the room filled with white faces and white hands. The receptionist stumbled. I sat down while she called someone in. I was met by a women who came and greeted,' Nadiya explained.

'I figured it was my turn to show off my hands. She told me: "I'm sorry I didn't know you were black".

'The blood rushed to my face. I was so embarrassed, I was now a deep shade of burgundy,' Nadia recalled.

Nadiya Hussain (pictured), 35, from Luton, took to Instagram revealing the racial discrimination she experienced as a teenager

Bake Off star explained in a lengthy post that she was turned away from a modelling job because of the colour of her skin

The TV personality continued: 'I never really thought about my hands, till the colour of the skin that covered them stopped me from getting a job.

'When you are a teenager, already a little lost, words like this stick.'

Nadiya explained that the incident left her feeling embarrassed because she hadn't considered that her skin colour could prevent her from getting work.

Gushing about her later success, she continued: 'Fast forward to my 30s and now my hands are in my cookbooks and in cookery shows, even now I look at them and still I have a seed of doubt embedded telling me that people must be disgusted by the sight of my brown hands.'

Nadiya (pictured) admitted that despite her success, she continues to wonder if people are disgusted by her brown hands

Posting a photograph with her middle fingers up, she added: 'But as you can see from my second picture, you know how I feel about it now. I use my hands with pride and allow them to grace cookbooks and cookery shows, to hold my children's hands and stroke their little faces, to cook, to feed... to hold!

'I have since worked with Swarovski with these very hands, worn their jewellery with pride. When I worked with them they never knew the anxiety I felt at the thought of showcasing my hands, but I did it anyway.

'We need to start representing with our voices, with our eyes, with our thoughts, with our hearts and with our hands! I am taking ownership back with my hands.'

Nadiya's (pictured) Instagram post comes after her recent admission that she's experienced more racism in the past five years of working on TV

The mother-of-three who was raised by Bangladeshi parents, recently revealed that she's experienced more racism in the last five years of working on TV than at any other time in her life.

Nadiya received a stream of support from her 558,000 Instagram followers, as many admitted they've been inspired by her honest account.

One person wrote: 'I am so sorry that you've gone through this, but super proud of you! Colour can never stop you from succeeding in life. God bless you.'

'You are an amazing and inspiring person every day and every day we should be thankful for you and women like you, who despite going through awful things like that, still stand proud and show us the way!,' another said.

A third added: 'That's right you show them! You're entirely beautiful and I'm so glad you didn't allow this painful experience to stop you from moving forward. I think about my teen and how sensitive she is and I just can't believe how cruel people can be.'
The body of Robert Fuller was discovered last week at a park near City Hall. The county medical examiners office said the 24-year-old appeared to have died by suicide, prompting an outcry by his family members, who said he wasnt suicidal and community members who called for an independent investigation and autopsy.
Police must not be allowed to kill, their duty being to save life

Police killing in our country is almost a regular phenomenon -- the excuse being confrontation with dangerous criminals. A well-trained police force cannot justify killing. They are trained to catch criminals alive to put them on trial by the courts. A person who is killed is always innocent in the eye of law.







Because he has not been found guilty of a crime by a court.





As law enforcers for the protection of the people the police are seen as friends of the people.







Killing people using a common charge like terrorism is outrageous. This is an outright denial of human rights and a big crime. A court can only give a death sentence to an individual after a fair trial. This is the law in every civilized society.







Why police in our country often put people on crossfire and claim their acts were in self-defense are claims which should be unacceptable. This defence is for the untrained persons and not trained police officials.







In the USA and many other countries there is uprising against police brutality. The people irrespective of colour have united against the police so much that the demands are made to ban the police and defund them till police reforms are completed. People can rightly claim so because it is the people's money that is being used to keep the police well-fed and well-armed.





In the USA and other countries private individuals took the risk of recording brutal police acts on video camera thus exposing the abuse of power by the police. The police brutality and killings has been going on for ages in America and some other countries and the desperate anger has caused people to demand a rehaul of the police. The signs are bad for the police. Public awareness regarding crimes committed by police are high. In America public opinion has forced the immediate dismissal or suspension of police officers found to have committed such crimes. Court proceedings have started against them with no loss of time. It is a dangerous situation for the people and the police.

We say with sadness that our police are used politically so freely that the image of the police has become a serious concern for knowledgeable persons.





As a nation we do not, have the spine to protect our rights and choose our government because mainly of abuse of police power. This is shameful.





In no civilised country are the people so helpless because in those countries police are not controlled by politics of the government.





Our slavish mentality must be changed otherwise we shall never be free and incompetent and corrupt ones will corrupt others for their power and will treat people like the British did in colonial days.





If police are fair and independent minded the people in government will have to take people power seriously. We shall all live safely and freely.





In our country the abuse of police power is not limited to killing. It is the abuse of police power and corruption among police officials which are tolerated for political reasons.





If we cannot have police as law enforcers who are tough and independent there is no hope for our society to attain peace and order.





We can only say that police are no longer seen as people's friends yet the people go to them as there is no other place to go to for help of the law.





What is so disappointing is that there are so many good police officers of whom we should feel proud and hopeful. But perversely because they remain good and responsible these officers are often victims of discrimination.





We have to be together to be free and respectable. Let us understand the pitiable is condition we live in. The corrupt ones power and talk oppress good and innocent people because greed and corruption have the power of purchasing silence. As a result people's miseries have no bounds.





We need police to be strong, honest and independent -- otherwise we shall remain oppressed in the hands of thieves and looters. It is a disgrace that power can be abused to deny people their right to vote. Think of the image they have created for themselves.


UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has partnered with Twitter and young Ivorian artist OPlerou Grebet  known professionally as 'O'Plerou'  for the launch of the 2020 World Refugee Day emoji. The emoji, two hands linked together in the shape of a heart, symbolizes solidarity and diversity. OPlerou, who is on Forbes Africa's list of young talents under 30, spoke with UNHCRs Pauline Eluere.

You became known for creating 365 emojis representing elements of West African culture  one for every day of the year. Your work was featured on the BBC and on Al-Ajazeera. Were you surprised?

Yes, I was very surprised by all the attention. I designed these emojis to describe my everyday life in Cote dIvoire. I first created them for myself and my friends, but it ended up reaching way more people. My favorite emoji is Zaouli, which is both a traditional dance and a mask of the Guro people in Cote dIvoire.

Can you tell me about your childhood?

I was born and raised in Abidjan. I live with my dad and my brothers and sisters. My mum passed on a little while ago. I have three sisters and six brothers and I am the youngest of the family  and the only one to like graphic design! It can sound nice being the youngest, but I have always had to make an extra effort to be noticed.

What have you been doing during the lockdown?

Because of COVID, I have been studying at home for two months. I am going to obtain my Masters degree in graphic design this year. In my free time I have been learning 3D graphic design with Blender. I am creating traditional African clothing, jewellery and hairstyles for the characters of the SIMS, a life simulation video game published by Electronic Arts.

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou displays some of the emojis he has designed.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou develops his emojis as sketches on paper before he designs them on the computer.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou sketches the design of the World Refugee Day 2020 emoji on paper before he moves to the computer.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou works on the World Refugee Day 2020 emoji on his computer.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou puts the final touches on his emoji for World Refugee Day 2020.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou enjoys a traditional meal with a friend at a popular food joint in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

The World Refugee Day Twitter emoji as designed by Ivorian graphic designer O'Plerou.  Picture courtesy of O'Plerou

World Refugee Day is marked each year on 20 June. What does it mean to you to create this year's emoji?

Refugees are people like everyone else. Just because you find yourself in another country, it does not mean you are worth less. Friends of my parents are refugees. In 2010, there was a crisis in Cote dIvoire after the elections. Those who were close to the previous ruling party had to flee for their lives. So, this impacted people I know.

Can you describe the emoji that you have created?

It is two hands linked together in the shape of a heart. I wanted to create an emoji with different people that form an object. And I wanted to show diversity and solidarity.

Do you know that your emoji is going to be associated for 10 days on Twitter with the #WorldRefugeeDay hashtags in several languages?

Yes, I am really happy because it is the first time that I have created an emoji that will be linked to a hashtag. When I created the African symbols, I had in mind that they would be used as emojis. But in fact they are used as images and digital stickers. So this is my first real emoji.

Whats next for you?

Apart from what I am doing with the SIMS, I would like to recreate my Ivorian emojis in 3D. If all goes well and the coronavirus goes away, I would like to travel to discover other cultures and create emojis for them. I would like to go to Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa!

See also : UNHCR and Twitter launch 2020 World Refugee Day emoji created by Ivorian artist OPlerou
In the all-party meeting held in New Delhi on Monday, Union Home Minister has asked Delhi government will start conducting 18,000 COVID-19 tests per day by June 20. BJP's demand to waive off 50% charges on testing has also been approved by him.

The Union Home Minister has said that the Delhi government will start conducting 18,000 COVID-19 tests per day by June 20, according to Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta on Monday. Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said that by June 20, Delhi Govt will start conducting 18,000 COVID-19 testing per day and door to door tracing and mapping will be conducted in containment zones, Gupta told reporters here after the all-party meeting over the management of the pandemic in the national capital.

The all-party meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, over management of COVID-19 situation, at the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) concluded. Gupta also said that in the all-party meeting, BJP demanded that 50 percent charges should be waived off on testing. This demand has been approved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

He said that during the course of the meeting, Shah had urged all political parties to set aside their differences during this hour of crisis and come together to fight COVID-19. Representatives from BJP, Congress, AAP, among other parties and senior officials took part in the meeting held at the MHA today.

Also Read: Rajnath Singh at Uttarakhand Jan Samvad rally: All issues between India and Nepal will be resolved through dialogue

Also Read: Amit Shahs all-party meeting on Covid-19 situation in Delhi concludes

Shah had called the meeting after chairing one along with Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday in which Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were present. The meeting was also attended by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Health Secretary Preeti Sudan, Director AIIMS Dr Randeep Guleria and Members of NITI Aayog apart from other senior officers.

Also Read: Two Indian officials missing in Paks Islamabad, MEA takes up matter

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The Bangladeshi governments lifting of its COVID-19 lockdown in late May has seen a rapid spread of the deadly virus and record numbers of deaths recorded each day.

According to the latest official figures, there are 87,520 confirmed cases and 1,171 deaths and a desperate crisis in the healthcare system, which only has 1,000 intensive care beds for the countrys 162 million people.

Since May the number of burials of COVID-19 victims in the capital Dhaka has increased by a third and twofold in nearby Narayanganj district compared to the previous four months.

The Awami League government lifted its nationwide two-month lockdown on May 31 and, apart from educational institutes, gave the go-ahead for almost all business and government offices, public transport, as well as the garment and other manufacturing industries, to reopen.

However, according to the New Age, the back-to-work has led to serious increases in the infection rate. The newspaper reported that the infection rate between May 31 and June 8 rose by nearly 21 percent, compared to 15 percent up until May 30. It also reported that new cases between May 31 and June 8, stood at 23,896, compared to a total of 44,608 in the previous three months (between March 8 and May 30). For the same periods, the death toll was 320 compared to 610.

These figures, however, do not reflect the actual situation in Bangladesh, which has one of the lowest testing rates in the world. According to the Worldometer, the countrys testing rate is 2,683 tests per million population and well behind rates in India, Pakistan and Brazil, which are 3,670, 3,419 and 4,707 respectively.

The Awami League administration, which is totally committed to big business and international retailers, ignored warnings by medical experts who publicly opposed any lifting of the lockdown. It was a big mistake to go for reopening before the infection rate went into decline, said virologist Nazrul Islam, a former vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. He warned that the country would suffer the consequences.

The World Health Organisation has warned that any relaxation in lockdown measures was only possible if the positivity rate [percentage of positive cases out of those tested] stays below 5 percent for 14 days in a row. The New Age has reported, however, that the positivity rate was still about 20 percent when the lockdown was lifted. It also revealed that under a government revised official health protocol only those with severe [COVID-19] symptoms were being given hospital treatment.

The failure of garment industry employers to establish adequate coronavirus protective measures has seen rising numbers of workers infected with the deadly virus. Some 264 have tested positive according to a June 5 Daily Star article. Garments account for 84 percent of Bangladeshs $US40 billion annual export earnings.

In addition to domestic victims, over 840 Bangladeshi migrant workers, mainly in Saudi Arabia, the UK and the USA, have died of coronavirus. About 10 million Bangladeshi workers are employed in the Middle East and other regions with their remittances constituting over 5 percent of the countrys GDP. Over 13,700 workers are infected in Saudi Arabia out of about 2.2 million Bangladeshi workers in that country and about 5,000 are infected in Singapore out of 150,000 working there.

COVID-19 victim Md Rihan described the unsafe workers face: We live in a row of bunk beds in a room with 18 people. We sleep just a metre apart from each other. There are four rooms on our floor where we share toilets, showers, etc.

Last Monday, three Rohingya refugees were reported to have died of COVID-19, with the number of cases rising to 35. About one million Rohingya are being accommodated in grossly overcrowded refugee camps without proper medical facilities. At Coxs Bazar, where the camps are located, nearly 100 local people have been infected.

The pandemic has resulted in a rapid rise in unemployment among formal and informal sector workers. About 17,579 workers from 67 garment factories lost their jobs between April and May. According to the Bangladesh Economic Association, around 36 million workers lost their jobs during the lockdown, with the highest losses in the service, agriculture and manufacturing industry sectors.

Garment worker Sampa Akter told the US-based National Public Radio on June 5 that she previously worked as a sewing machine operator in Dhaka for 12 hours a day for $95 a month and also had to look after her disabled brother, her sister and their parents.

My factory was shut for six weeks. I fell behind on rent. I couldnt pay my brother's medical bills, she said. She was only paid 60 percent of her salary during the shutdown and her employer was contemplating a total closure of the plant.

Fearful of an explosion of workers strikes and protests, the governments Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments issued a circular on June 7, urging garment factory owners not to terminate workers.

The pandemic has worsened poverty in Bangladesh. The national poverty rate has climbed by nearly 11 percentfrom 24.3 percent of the population in 2016 to 35 percent in 2020according to the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a local think tank.

Lack of adequate healthcare facilities and other medical logistics has severely impacted health care workers as well as army and police personnel who are supposedly enforcing social distancing.

Last week the Bangladesh Medical Association revealed that at least three nurses and 33 doctors have died from COVID-19 and almost 3,170 medical personnel have tested positive. At least 6,826 police personnel have also been infected and 21 deaths recorded.

Like its counterparts around the world, the ruling elites in Bangladesh have used the pandemic to enrich themselves. In Bangladesh the government announced a massive $8.56 billion bailout package, or nearly 2.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product, for the garment industry. Only $595 million of this was spent on workers wages.

The government also plans to announce an $11.8 billion COVID-19 stimulus package in its budget for the next financial year which will be tabled on Wednesday. GDP growth, however, is expected to drop to between 2.0 and 3.0 percent from a previously projected 8.2 percent. The World Bank has decided to provide a $250 million loan which will see even more ruthless social attacks on the masses by the Awami League administration.
Russia's Foreign Ministry has declared two Czech diplomats personae non gratae in retaliation to a similar move by Prague several days ago.

The ministry said in a June 15 statement that the Czech ambassador to Russia, Vitezslav Pivonka, had been officially informed that the two Czech diplomats, whose identities were not disclosed, had been ordered to leave Russia along with their family members in two days.

"The ambassador was told that the move is a mirror response to the provocative action by a Prague official, which was undertaken without any grounds," the ministry's statement says.

On June 5, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said that his government had decided to expel the two staffers as a result of the so-called ricin affair, which he said turned out to be a fake incident sparked by an "internal struggle" between embassy staff.

The Russian Embassy called the expulsions an "unfriendly step" that showed Prague is not interested in normalizing already tense relations between the two countries.

The affair stems from Czech media reports that Andrei Konchakov, deputy director of the embassy's Russian Center for Science and Culture, brought ricin from Russia to Prague in mid-March that was meant to be used in a plot to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and two other senior municipal officials, Ondrej Kolar and Pavel Novotny.

Moscow at the time denied the reports as "fabrications."

The scandal broke out on April 26 when Respekt, a Czech investigative weekly, published a report quoting unnamed security sources as saying that a suspected Russian intelligence officer traveling on a diplomatic passport had arrived recently in Prague carrying the deadly toxin as part of an alleged poisoning plot.

Czech media last month identified the suspected Russian intelligence operative as Konchakov.

The three Czech officials -- Kolar, Hrib, and Novotny -- were given around-the-clock police protection at time.

All three have taken or supported actions that have angered the Kremlin, including the renaming of the square in front of the Russian Embassy after a slain former Kremlin critic and the removal of a statue of a Soviet-era general.

As possible payback, Moscow is suspected of having a role in a recent wave of cyberattacks in the Czech Republic.

Moscow, suspected in the 2018 poisoning in Britain of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a nerve agent, has said the alleged poisoning plot against the three Czechs was part of a "disinformation campaign" aimed at discrediting Russia and threatened "serious consequences" to Czech-Russian relations.

With reporting by RIA Novosti and TASS
Chongqing Deputy Mayor Sacked, Placed Under Investigation

An official who holds the dual position of deputy mayor and police chief of a major metropolis in China has been placed under investigation.

Chinas Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, a Communist Party anti-corruption organ, issued a brief statement on June 14, announcing that Deng Huilin, deputy mayor of Chinas megacity of Chongqing and chief of the citys Public Security Bureau (akin to police), is suspected of serious violations of law and Party discipline.

The vague charge is an oft-used euphemism for corruption.

Dengs name and photo have been removed from the leadership page on the Chongqing city governments website.

Dengs sacking would make him the fourth Chongqing police chief to be punished since Party leader Xi Jinping took power in 2012, after Wang Lijun, He Ting, and Zhu Minggu.

In 2012, Xi launched an anti-corruption campaign targeting his political rivalsnamely, those with ties or links to a faction loyal to former Party leader Jiang Zemin.

Career

Deng, 55, started his political career in central Chinas Hubei Province, where he became the deputy mayor of the city of Yichang in 2009. In the following year, he took on the additional positions as Party secretary of the citys Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC), as well as the chief of the citys security bureau.

In October 2014, he became deputy chief of Hubeis public security department. Then from June 2015 to July 2017, he worked in the anti-secession guidance and coordination office of the national PLAC.

The PLAC, once a powerful Party organ controlling Chinas entire security apparatus that was dominated by the Jiang faction, has seen its power weaken under Xi, though the commission still controls Chinas legal system.

Deng was a close aide to Meng Jianzhu, former Party secretary of the national PLAC. Meng is part of the Shanghai gang, a group of officials who owe their careers to Jiangs political patronage.

Deng moved to Chongqing in July 2017, becoming Party secretary of the citys police and deputy Party secretary of the municipal PLAC.

A month later, he took on the additional post of chief of the citys police. In January 2018, he was named Chongqings deputy mayor.

Human Rights Crimes

Many Chinese officials in Chongqing have been found guilty of corruption.

Dengs predecessor, He Ting, was removed from his posts and stripped of his Party membership after an investigation found him guilty of crimes including wasting public funds and abusing his power.

Sun Zhengcai, former party secretary of Chongqing, was sentenced to life in prison for corruption in May 2018.

In 2012, Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing police chief who once tried to defect to the citys U.S. consulate in Chengdu, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption.

Bo Xilai, Chongqings Party secretary from 2007 to 2012, was given a life sentence in 2013 for corruption.

Like Wang and Bo, Deng has been named by U.S.-based nonprofit organization the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) for his involvement in human rights crimes.

Former Party leader Jiang initiated a nationwide campaign to persecute the spiritual discipline Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) in July 1999, throwing practitioners in jails, brainwashing centers, and labor camps. Many officials earned political merit by aligning themselves with the Jiang faction and participating in the persecution campaign.

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, at least 4,000 adherents have been killed since then, and at least 27 died between January and May this year. The true figure is likely to be much higher.

According to WOIPFG, Deng was connected to the arrests of five Falun Gong adherents in Yichang in late 2013 by local police. Among the five was Hu Zongzhi, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering from the citys China Three Gorges University.

After his arrest, Hu was held at a local prison, where he was subjected to forced labor for more than 12 hours per day and forced to take unknown medications, according to Minghui.org, a website dedicated to the persecution of Falun Gong in China. In April 2014, he was sentenced to three years in prison for his faith.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:56:36|Editor: huaxia

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SUVA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- As Fiji grapples with the daily implication of COVID-19 in homes and communities, Minister for Social Welfare Mereseini Vuniwaqa said Monday that the impact of the pandemic is not the same on everyone as vulnerable groups like the elderly are at risk of being more severely impacted.

She made the comments as Fiji joined millions of people across the world in making a stand against the issue of Elder Abuse at homes and in communities here in the island nation.

"I wish to remind all Fijians, that culturally we have been taught to respect and honor our elders. No matter how tough the situation may be, there is absolutely no excuse for violence and abuse against our elderly. They have made significant contributions to who we are today and this must never be forgotten," she said.

"Elder abuse continues to be underestimated and ignored by our societies even though evidence is accumulating, to indicate that elder abuse is an important public health and societal problem and we must get together to put an end to it, " she said, adding that abuse of the elderly could cause permanent damages to their brittle bones.

She said many older people survive on limited income, so that the loss of even a small sum of money can have a significant impact. They may be isolated, lonely or troubled by illness, in which case they are more vulnerable as targets for fraudulent schemes. Although the extent of elder mistreatment is unknown, its social and moral significance is obvious and it demands a concerted response by each one on protecting the rights of older persons.

The United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution 66/127, designated June 15 as the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Enditem
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- During Senate testimony on May 19, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin assured legislators he had been transparent about how he was spending taxpayer dollars to support small businesses struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic  despite controversies that the well connected were often first in line for funding. Last Wednesday, Mnuchin returned to the Senate and reversed himself. He said he had decided not to release the names of recipients of Paycheck Protection Program money or how much theyve received.

At the same hearing last week, Jovita Carranza, the director of the Small Business Administration, said that 45% of PPP funds went to businesses in low-income areas. Its not clear how Carranza is defining low-income areas or whether what she said is even true because, again, she and Mnuchin arent disclosing enough public information to gauge their programs effectiveness.

Early last month, the SBAs inspector general released a report noting that of $659 billion that Congress has approved for PPP loans  which are meant to allow small businesses to keep workers on their payrolls instead of firing or furloughing them  about $425.8 billion had been disbursed. The inspector general pointed out that the legislation authorizing PPP funding mandated that the SBA prioritize lending to rural, minority and women-owned businesses, but  surprise, surprise  that didnt appear to have happened.

Why not? Because the SBA decided not to order private banks charged with disbursing the money to do so, according to the inspector general. And, his report noted, because SBA did not require demographic data to identify PPP borrowers in underserved markets, it is unlikely that SBA will be able to determine the loan volume to the intended prioritized markets.

Denise Ford Sawadogo, an African-American entrepreneur who founded the Montclair Brewery with her husband, Leo Sawadogo, in Montclair, N.J., almost two years ago knows what its like to be in an intended prioritized market  and to be passed over. She applied for PPP funds during the first round of loans approved on March 27 and didnt receive any. All those big connected companies got it, she told me. She managed to snare funds in the second round approved on April 24, and its helped her retain the four part-time and one full-time workers she and her husband employ. Without PPP, it would have been a real struggle to keep her doors open, she said.

Story continues

Ford Sawadogo said her local governments red tape has made it hard for her to maneuver through the crisis. Town planning rules have slowed down her ability to serve people on the sidewalk and other areas outside her small brewery, for example. I was like, Guys dont you know this is Covid-19 and weve been stripped bare, she said. They act like its business as usual.

But, she allowed, we have beer, and everyone loves beer. She also pointed out that her masters degree in business made her comfortable navigating the PPP application process, an advantage many of her counterparts dont enjoy. She also has employees. Most black-owned small businesses dont have payroll, she said. The PPP requires businesses to have employees, so sole proprietorships such as black-owned beauty salons were shut out. Ford Sawadogo is also operating in an affluent suburb. Across the Hudson River in New York, the challenges are even greater for black-owned businesses in low-income neighborhoods.

There definitely have been black-owned businesses that have difficulty getting PPP money because they lack the qualifications, said Regina Smith, executive director of the Harlem Business Alliance, an advisory organization for local African-American entrepreneurs. They either dont have enough employees or often dont have relationships with banks.

The White House and Treasury Department were broadly criticized for not making funds more accessible to small businesses owned by people of color after the first PPP round ran dry, and they convened meetings to try to avoid the same problems after the second round was approved. The government relaxed some of the requirements for how the funds could be used and made other adjustments so more businesses could qualify. PPP funding was also channeled to more nonbank financial institutions in communities of color. It had an effect.

Pat Stevenson, a former advertising executive, has been running a group of community newspapers in Harlem, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx through a holding company, Harlem Community Newspapers Inc., for 25 years. She also conducts networking events and publishes a newsletter for African-American women who are entrepreneurs. She said a number of black-owned businesses that she advised were able to get PPP funding during the second round after coming up empty the first time.

A large swath of her neighborhood businesses was still ineligible for PPP, however. There are a lot of people in our community like me. Restaurant owners and beauty shop owners who dont have payroll, she said. There are more than 100 of them. But they have rent and they have other overhead costs and they cant get PPP.

Black-owned small businesses have also been more heavily ravaged by the pandemic. A recent report by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the total number of black-owned businesses in the U.S. fell 41%, from 1.1 million in February to 640,000 in April, because of fallout from the coronavirus. The report, which relied on census data, said that about 22% of all small businesses nationally closed during that period. (Small-business closings in the Latino, Asian, and female-owned small business community were about 32%, 36% and 25%, respectively, according to the NBER.)

This exacerbated problems that already existed for black entrepreneurs. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit advocacy group, about 46% of white-owned businesses were able to get credit from a bank over the last five years  compared with just 23% for black-owned businesses. We have some businesses that have been open for decades and cant get revolving lines of credit, said Smith, of the Harlem Business Alliance. Its very systemic, and it holds our businesses back.

All of this raises a broader truth about PPP: Its not a long-term solution to what ails low-income communities of color (or, for that matter, low-income rural communities that are predominantly white).

To be sure, the national protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minneapolis has laid bare how severely  and uniquely  racism and abusive, oppressive policing have held back communities of color for generations. But for real, long-term change to arrive, which the coronavirus pandemic and the Floyd protests have also revealed, neighborhoods in need will also require better housing, health care, transportation, education and jobs. And that will demand sustained funding that doesnt take the shape of emergency stopgaps like PPP.

We know for a fact that that concentrated poverty and concentrated institutional decline have a profound impact on a persons life outcomes. We have to talk about community revitalization and economic growth, said John Lettieri, the president and chief executive of the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan research group that focuses on entrepreneurship and economic development. The scale of the resources weve brought to this battle have been significantly less than the size of the problem.

A pair of research reports EIG recently published are well worth reading. Relying on granular, community-based data going back decades, the reports detail the extent to which persistent geographic inequality defined the record-long economic expansion that has just come to an end. The reports give context and texture to the disturbing growth of high-poverty metropolitan neighborhoods between 1980 and 2018, and illustrate how those same entrenched neighborhoods have become barriers to economic development and personal liberation within major cities.

Persistent poverty, the reports note, highlights the need for place-focused targeting as policy makers continue to support small and new businesses while shielding communities from continued economic hardship. Continuing to ignore metropolitan neighborhoods that didnt benefit from decades of economic growth in the U.S. in the current downturn and through the next recovery would be public policy malpractice, the reports observe.

This has already surfaced in the data. While the White House helped lead a round of huzzahs that greeted improved jobs numbers in May  a bump that was most likely due in part to the benefits of PPP funding that went predominantly to white-owned businesses  it managed to ignore the fact that the jobs landscape had actually worsened for black workers in the same period. It would help matters if Mnuchin and others overseeing future aid bear the black community, and transparency, in mind as policy discussions continue. If they dont, they shouldnt expect the anger and resentment currently fueling mass protests across the country to simply evaporate.

Regina Smith, and her neighbors in Harlem, concur.

We really need black-owned institutions to work with black businesses if this is going to be meaningful, she said. Im sick of having these conversations about inclusion. How many blacks are working for tech companies? You cant have social equality if you dont have economic equality.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Timothy L. O'Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE  Gold Resource Corporation (NYSE American: GORO) (the Company) today announced the acquisition of the Golden Mile property located in the Bell Mining District, Mineral County, Nevada. The 9,334 acre property contains surface and near surface high-grade gold in two established mineralized zones. Historic third-party drill intercepts from Golden Mile include: 10.70 meters of 8.76 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from surface, 36.60 meters of 10.26 g/t gold from 15.20 meters downhole, and 6.10 meters of 46.53 g/t gold from 18.29 meters downhole. Golden Mile is an advanced exploration property with district-size potential for expansion of known mineralized zones and new discoveries. The property also adds considerably to the Companys prospective exploration land package by more than 51%. This fifth high-grade property solidifies the Companys Nevada Mining Unit as controlling a dominant land position in this region of the Walker Lane Mineral Belt. Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA. The Company has returned $114 million to its shareholders in consecutive monthly dividends since July 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends into physical gold and silver and take delivery.



Gold Resource Corporation - GORO:GORO Nevada Mining Unit

Golden Mile acquisition highlights include:

100% ownership

9,334 acre advanced high-grade gold exploration property

Two established mineralized zones

Open pit heap leach project potential

Surface and near surface high-grade gold drill intercepts*

Drill intercepts including 36.60 meters of 10.26 grams per tonne gold*

Proximity to Companys producing Isabella Pearl mine, 23 miles

Potential equipment and processing facility sharing with Isabella Pearl mine

Bottle roll tests indicate gold mineralization is amenable to cyanide leaching

451 unpatented lode mining claims; 5 patented mining claims

Acquisition boosts Nevada Mining Unit acreage by more than 51% (27,600)

Mining friendly jurisdiction, Nevada, U.S.A.

Story continues

*Third party drill intercepts

The Company acquired 100% interest in the Golden Mile property from two separate business entities for total consideration of US$650,000, consisting of US$550,000 cash and US$100,000 of Gold Resource Corporation shares. The sellers retained a net smelter return royalty (NSR) of 3% on future production from the property claims. The Company has the right to buy down 1% of the NSR on the claims for US$1,500,000.

The Golden Mile property covers an area of 9,334 acres consisting of 451 unpatented lode mining claims and 5 patented mining claims in central Nevadas Walker Lane Mineral Belt in Mineral county, Nevada. Two established mineralized zones have been drilled by previous operators on the property with the larger mineralized zone located within the 5 patented claims. The property is located approximately 23 miles east-southeast of the Companys producing Isabella Pearl mine (see map) and becomes the fifth property in the Companys Nevada Mining Unit. Gold Resource Corporations Nevada Mining Unit now controls approximately 27,600 acres of highly prospective exploration land in south central Nevadas Walker Lane Mineral Belt.

Mineralization at Golden Mile is intrusion related gold-copper exo- and endoskarn associated with massive replacements of carbonate rocks and shear hosted gold. Historical 1930s production records show gold along with minor copper and silver being produced from small open pits and shallow underground workings. More recently, third party drill intercept highlights include:

Hole # CMA89-7

36.60m of 10.26 g/t gold

incl. 9.10m of 34.89 g/t gold

16.70m of 6.04 g/t gold

incl. 3.00m of 29.75 g/t gold

Hole # GMC002

6.10m of 46.53 g/t gold

incl. 3.05m of 91.00 g/t gold

Hole # CMA89-14

10.70m of 8.76 g/t gold

incl. 1.50m of 38.06 g/t gold

(see additional drill highlight table below)

The Golden Mile property met the Companys acquisition criteria for numerous reasons including: high-grade gold drill results, low-cost open pit heap leach project potential, proximity to the Companys producing Isabella Pearl gold mine for operational synergies, large land package containing two advanced exploration target zones of gold mineralization, numerous additional exploration targets, preliminary metallurgical test work indicating cyanide leachability, 100% ownership and significantly strengthens the Companys Nevada Mining Unit land position.

Management plans to secure exploration drill permits and commence follow-up drill programs in the near future focusing on the two established mineralized zones, the Golden Mile zone and PS-SP zone, with the goal to delineate both into mineable open pit heap leach deposits. While the district-size potential has numerous exploration targets, at this point management will focus on the known mineralized zones with high probability resource delineation based on the past third-party drill results and historic preliminary resource estimates. With successful follow-up and delineation drilling, Golden Mile could become one of the next mines to be developed from the Nevada Mining Unit after the Isabella Pearl mine. During due diligence, the Company also commissioned preliminary metallurgical test work which included cyanide bottle-roll tests yielding results of 82% gold recovery, demonstrating that gold mineralization is amenable to cyanide leaching.

Mr. Barry Devlin, Vice President of Exploration, stated, We continue to evaluate numerous opportunities in Nevada, and are excited to have acquired the Golden Mile property within our Nevada Mining Units area of influence. This property not only demonstrates exceptional gold grades from prior third-party drill programs, such as six meters of 46 grams per tonne gold starting less than twenty meters below the surface, but its district scale hosts numerous targets beyond the two known zones of mineralization. Mineralization at Golden Mile also appears genetically related to a gold-bearing copper-iron skarn-forming event and may resemble gold rich skarns in the Battle Mountain District of Nevada, such as McCoy. We are looking forward to building on the exploration database and third-party preliminary resources on the Golden Mile property with a near-term goal of delineating at least two high-grade open pit gold deposits.

This acquisition of another near surface high-grade gold property substantially adds to our Nevada Mining Unit, strengthens our prospective land position and provides additional optionality for the Company in the future, stated Gold Resource Corporations CEO and President, Mr. Jason Reid. Our plan with this property, optimistically assuming successful delineation of the known mineralized zones into economic deposits, provides optionality which could include designing and permitting the Golden Mile as a project and process plant without an ADR facility which takes gold loaded carbon into gold dore. By only permitting a plant that takes gold to a loaded carbon stage and then hauling the carbon a short distance up the road to our Isabella Pearl mines ADR facility for dore production, we could save permitting time, engineering and construction costs and leverage our already permitted and operating ADR facility for plant longevity. In addition, with the largest known mineralized zone at Golden Mile on patented ground, permitting may take less time than otherwise expected.

Mr. Reid continued, While we are very excited about the district acquisition of the Golden Mile high-grade gold property, we are not taking our eye off the ball for exploration at our East Camp Douglas property and still plan to commence our first drill program this year as scheduled. We are currently drilling the Scarlet target located next to our operating Isabella Pearl mine. We have and continue to build what I believe to be the most exciting land position for high-grade gold exploration in this region of Nevada, and we are positioning to continue to be a Nevada gold producer for a very long time.

About GRC:

Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA. The Company targets low capital expenditure projects with potential for generating high returns on capital. The Company has returned $114 million back to its shareholders in consecutive monthly dividends since July 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends into physical gold and silver and take delivery. For more information, please visit GRCs website, located at www.goldresourcecorp.com, and read the Companys 10-K for an understanding of the risk factors involved.

Cautionary Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. When used in this press release, the words plan, target, "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the statements regarding Gold Resource Corporations strategy, future plans for production, future expenses and costs, future liquidity and capital resources, and estimates of mineralized material. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to Gold Resource Corporation on the date of this press release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this press release. In particular, the scope, duration, and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mining operations, Company employees, and supply chains, as well as the scope, duration and impact of government action aimed at mitigating the pandemic, may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Also, there can be no assurance that production will continue at any specific rate. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the Companys 10-K filed with the SEC.

Contacts:

Corporate Development

Greg Patterson

303-320-7708

www.goldresourcecorp.com

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:02:19|Editor: huaxia

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KUWAIT CITY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Kuwait on Monday reported 511 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 36,431 and the death toll to 298, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Currently, 8,602 patients are receiving treatment, including 184 in ICU, according to the statement.

The ministry also announced the recovery of 772 more patients, raising the total recoveries in the country to 27,531.

On May 31, Kuwait ended the full curfew and imposed a three-week partial curfew for a gradual return to normal life in the country.

On June 7, Kuwaiti Minister of State for Services Affairs and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Mubarak Al-Harees said that Kuwait plans to resume commercial flights in three stages.

On June 10, Kuwait decided to open mosques after nearly three months of closure, as part of government's measures to restore normal life.

Kuwait and China have been supporting each other and cooperating closely in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kuwait donated medical supplies worth 3 million U.S. dollars to China at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak, while China has been facilitating the procurement of medical supplies by Kuwait.

On April 27, a team of Chinese medical experts visited Kuwait to assist the Arab country's anti-coronavirus fight, through sharing with Kuwaiti counterparts their experiences and expertise in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. Enditem
This story was originally published by Undark and has been republished here with permission.

The now prophetic words could be found buried at the end of a research paper published in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews in October 2007: The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic animals in southern China, is a time bomb.

The warningmade nearly 13 years ago and more than four years after a worrying first wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed nearly 800 people globallywas among the earliest to predict the emergence of something like SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the current pandemic of COVID-19.

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Many other warnings would follow.

Indeed, evidence of a looming and more deadly coronavirus pandemic had been building for years, but experts who specialize in coronavirusesa large family of pathogens found especially in birds and mammals that can cross over from other mammals to humans and cause varying degrees of illnessstruggled to convince a broader audience of the risk. Dogged by skepticism and inconsistent funding, these coronavirus researchers say they were stymied from developing treatments and vaccines for SARSmany of which could have been helpful in the current crisis. Much about what we learned about SARS would have applied now, according to Michael Buchmeier, a virologist at the University of California, Irvine. The viruses are so similar.

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Those lessons, however, were long delayedin part because predicting the next pandemic is hard business, and support for infectious diseases preparedness was leaning elsewhere. Both SARS and its far deadlier coronavirus cousin, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), were understood to be threats. But other coronaviruses cause the common cold, and even the SARS and MERS outbreaks each burned out in less than a year. When those disease cases fell off, public health responders shifted to other viral emergencies such as Ebola and Zika, and coronavirus research funding dropped sharply.

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That left many investigators who had been working on therapies for SARS holding the bageven as laboratories around the world were reporting ominous findings: A number of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats, they had discovered, were only a few simple mutations away from being able to infect human cells.

Whether the world should have heeded the warnings of coronavirus specialists is, of course, a matter of hindsight. But to some experts whose business it is to hunt potential pathogens before they spillover into human populations, the many years spent not girding for a coronavirus outbreak were tragicallyand unnecessarilywasted.

We were out there on the ground after SARS working on coronaviruses with Chinese colleagues in collaboration, said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit group that took part in a larger, federally funded effort, called Predict, to hunt for new pandemic viruses in wildlife in 31 countries, including China. That effort was famously defunded last fall, just before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began.

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But we were the only group of Western scientists, Daszak added. How can we be the only people looking for these viruses when there was such a clear and present danger?

The coronavirus research community has always been small, friendly, and interactive. A cul-de-sac at the end of the road of virology, says Buchmeier, whos been studying coronaviruses since 1980. Scientists were drawn to the field by a shared fascination: Coronaviruses evolved strategies to protect themselves from genetic errors during replication that are unlike any other in the microbial world.

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They may induce lethal infections in certain animal species, particularly in cats and pigs. But their reputation in human medicine has long been one of being wimpy viruses that cause only mild disease, said Albert Osterhaus, founding director of the Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses, in Hanover, Germany. So, when SARS emerged in late 2002, he added, there was initially general disbelief among medical people that a coronavirus could be the basis of such a huge outbreak.

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As the epidemic spread, an influx of new researchers crowded the field. More grants were awarded and the funding started to climb. Everyone wanted to know where the virus had come from, said Ralph Baric, a microbiologist at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health. Initial findings pointed to wild civets and racoon dogs sold for meat and pelts, respectively, in Chinese markets. Later evidence began to implicate horseshoe bats as the original source of the infections. Some researchers whose careers before SARS were grounded in basic coronavirus biology began working on therapies and vaccinesand they made steady progress for several years.

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But after increasing from a low of 28 in 2002 to a peak of 103 in 2008, the number of grants funded by the National Institutes of Health for coronavirus research went into a tailspin. Also, the people went away, said Susan R. Weiss, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine. They rush in and they rush out.

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To be sure, some researchers working with larger, multi-investigator grants retained their support. Baric and his collaborator Mark Denison at Vanderbilt University, for instance, kept their funding and went on to repurpose remdesivir, originally developed to treat hepatitis C, but now the first approved drug for COVID-19 for emergency use.

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But according to Linda Saif, a virologist and mucosal immunologist at Ohio State University, in Wooster, the funding declines hobbled individual investigators who werent part of these larger consortia. Pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines and therapies scaled back on coronavirus research, too, and within just a few years after the SARS outbreak, public health funding agencies both in the United States and abroad no longer regarded coronaviruses as a high public health threat compared to other diseases, Saif wrote in an email to Undark.

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Saif herself had been studying the respiratory consequences of giving steroids to coronavirus-infected pigs, whose symptoms mirror those of SARS patients. After coronavirus was deemed not to be a significant human pathogen, it was very hard to get funding to keep going in that area, she said. Another similarly affected researcher was Brenda Hogue, a virologist at Arizona State University, in Tempe. Hogue had devoted her career to studying coronaviruses, focusing on the protein machinery that drives their assembly. After SARS, she and her colleagues turned part of their attention towards developing a vaccine. But when the funding dropped off in 2008, the vaccine went into limbo and we put our efforts into other directions, Hogue said.

Though support for coronavirus research spiked a bit with the MERS outbreak in 2012, the increase was short-lived. Since the outbreak was quickly contained, the disease didnt raise wider concerns, and grant opportunities declined further.

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Ironically, just as funding for drugs and vaccines was drying up, evidence that other coronavirus threats lurked in wildlife was only getting stronger. Scientists had for years been finding viral strains in bats and other animals that were genetically similar to the virus behind the SARS epidemic. But sequence data has its limits. To demonstrate that a virus is actually harmful to people, scientists need to isolate and culture the microbe and show it infects human cells in the lab. Coronaviruses initiate infections by using the spikey proteins jutting from their surfaces to bind with receptors on their target prey. And SARS-CoV uses its spike protein to bind with a specific receptor called ACE2, which normally helps to regulate blood pressure.

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Ten years would pass, however, before researchers could show there were other SARS-like viruses in nature that also bind with ACE2. The evidence came from a team based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was the first to isolate a SARS-like virus from horseshoe bats. Led by virologist Zheng-Li Shi, the Wuhan team reported in 2013 that this particular virus, called WIV1, binds with ACE2 in civet and human cells, and then replicates efficiently inside them. That was the red flag, Saif said. Earlier evidence suggested that direct contact with these bats could lead to viral spill over in humans. Now there was proof of that.

The bats had been trapped in a cave in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. At least seven other SARS-like strains were present in that same colony, leading the researchers to speculate that bat coronaviruses remain a substantial global threat to public health.

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In addition to culturing WIV1, the Wuhan team also sequenced two other SARS-like strains in bat feces, including one called SHC014. They didnt culture the microbe, but Baric and his colleagues did explore its infectious potential with an experiment: They created a hybrid microbe by attaching the spike protein from SHC014 to the genetic backbone of a SARS-like virus that was previously adapted to grow in mice. Called a chimeraan organism containing cells with more than one genotypethis lab-made microbe had no problem binding with ACE2 and infecting human cells. Barics research team concluded that like WIV1, any SARS-like viruses outfitted with the SHC014 spike could pose cross-species threats to people.

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Some conspiracy theories currently circulating allege that a chimera may have escaped from high-security labs at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and caused COVID-19and Baric acknowledged the risky nature of the research. In general, we dont know the transmissibility or virulence potential of any bat viruses or chimeras, Baric said in an email message. Hence its best to keep and work with them under biosafety level 3 laboratory conditions to maximize safety.

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Still, Baric points out that a chimera would display a genetic signature that says what it is. The adjoining parts of a chimera segregate discreetly in a logical pattern. A genetic analysis of the chimera produced in his lab, for instance, would come out to be mouse-adapted SARS everywhere but the spike, which is SHC014. Similar logical patterns are absent in SARS-CoV-2, indicating that the virus evolved naturally.

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Conspiracy theories aside, even as Baric and others were generating lab evidence that more SARS-like viruses were poised for human emergence, another outbreakin pigs, not peopleprovided another strong and recent signal: Some 25,000 piglets were killed by a coronavirus in Guangdong Province, China, starting in 2016. That virus, too, was found in horseshoe bats, and Buchmeier describes the outbreak as both a major cross-species spill-over and a warning shot that was never really picked up by the broader public health community.

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They called it an agricultural virus, he said, and didnt consider it as predictor of something that could happen in a human disease.

Buchmeier emphasizes that responders could have devoted more efforts to look for coronaviruses in animal markets following the outbreak in swine. But as fate would have it, funding trends were headed in precisely the opposite direction. Federal funding for the Predict surveillance program was terminated in September 2019, only months before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

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The EcoHealth Alliance, which had been part of the Predict effort, maintained its own collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology using funds supplied by the National Institutes of Health. But on April 24, the Trump administrationwhich is investigating whether SARS-CoV-2 escaped accidentally from the Wuhan Institute, an allegation thats been broadly discrediteddirected the NIH to cut off that support.

Then on May 12, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese government was responding in kind, by stalling international efforts to find the source of the [SARS-CoV-2] virus amid an escalating U.S. push to blame China for the pandemic.

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To disease experts, the bickering is a worryingperhaps even astonishingindicator that at least some global leaders still arent hearing what they have to say about the threat of coronaviruses, and Baric asserts that the ongoing pandemic exposes the need for better communication between countries, not less. That is absolutely key, he said. Critical information needs to be passed as quickly as possible.

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The same, many scientists argue, might be said for the dialogue between public health responders and microbiologists. Had new SARS-like viruses been met with the appropriate level of urgency, Ohio States Saif says, then the coronavirus community might have been farther along with approaches for defeating them, and SARS vaccines that were already tested for safety could have advanced to the next phases in clinical trials, including investigations of their capacity to protect against infection.

As it stands, coronavirus research is now spiking again with COVID-19. Congress approved nearly $1 billion for vaccine, anti-viral, and diagnostic research as part of the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which was authorized in March. Much of the money is going to the pharmaceutical companies developing these products, according to Saif. The National Institutes of Health is also busy channeling both its regularly appropriated funds along with emergency disbursements toward nearly $1.8 billion in COVID-19-related projects and programs, all under an accelerated protocol, according to NIHs deputy director for extramural research, who outlined the funding streams in a blog post in April.

To Osterhaus, this is both good news and a familiar scenario. Too often, he says, money follows infectious disease outbreaks instead of being out in front of them as a protective wall. Thats certainly true of the COVID-19 pandemic today, he said, suggesting that policy outcomes could have been different.

It would have been appropriate to take warnings from coronavirus researchers more seriously, he said. We could have better prepared.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to What Next on Apple Podcasts or listen below.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Coronavirus: Egypt to cautiously reopen to tourism on July 1 Hotel hospitality cut by 50%, flights strictly regulated

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, JUNE 15 - Flights to and from Egypt are scheduled to resume on July 1 as the tourism season will cautiously resume in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the official Mena news agency reports, quoting the Egyptian minister of civil aviation, Mohamed Manar.



The minister said connections will resume with countries that are also reopening airports within the next month. Hotels will also reopen although they will be forced to cut the number of guests by half to guarantee social distancing and security.



Operations at airports will resume gradually, added the minister. ''Airplanes will be completely sterilized and disinfected at each trip. The use of masks will be mandatory for passengers and crew. Disinfectants, gloves and masks will be provided aboard the flight'', he said.



Masks will also be mandatory at airports, along with social distancing, and passengers' temperatures will be taken.



Before boarding a flight, travelers will need to sign a statement regarding their contacts and state of health.



Passengers from countries listed as at risk by the World Health Organization (WHO) will need to bring with them the result of tests taken over the previous 48 hours. (ANSAmed).




Where is 'universal' value in Meiji Industrial Revolution site?





By Kim Jeong-yoon



In 2015, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee decided to inscribe the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining on the World Heritage List.



The sites encompass 23 industrial locations that Japan argues contributed to its rapid transformation from feudalism into a successful modern economy.



South Korea opposed the registration of the sites because the Japanese government romanticized the industrialization of the Meiji period and highlighted only the successful and glorious achievements, while ignoring the horrendous human rights abuses and war crimes committed at these sites.



Upon the heritage designation, the World Heritage Committee called on Japan to prepare an interpretative strategy that conveyed a full understanding of full history of each site.



The Japanese government agreed to the demand, responding that it would take appropriate actions to remember the victims of forced labor such as engaging in dialogue between concerned parties and establishing an information center.



Japan has been asked by UNESCO to submit a progress report on follow-up measures to the designation of the heritage sites, but it has constantly failed to acknowledge the forced nature of the mobilization of Korean labor and removed any mention of Korean victims of forced labor in both the first and second reports, submitted in December 2017 and in December 2019.



Tokyo also refused to accept South Korea's repeated requests for dialogue and unilaterally submitted the implementation reports to UNESCO without any consultation with the major concerned party.



The Japanese government dismissed the World Heritage Committee's recommendations and its own promises to carry out talks between the concerned parties and to acknowledge and commemorate forced labor victims.



UNESCO was founded to establish the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind as an intergovernmental instrument to build lasting peace, and its vision was born in response to the world wars and the accompanying human tragedies that occurred.



The World Heritage Convention adopted by UNESCO in 1972 identifies and protects places that are considered to be of "outstanding universal value." Thus, the designation as a World Heritage Site means that it is recognized as a heritage of mankind to be valued and protected by humanity and to be transmitted to present and future generations.



While the World Heritage sites are usually renowned for their positive values and beautiful images, there are heritages symbolizing mankind's cruelty, suffering and tragedies.



These "negative heritages," exemplified by Auschwitz Birkenau in Poland and Goree Island in Senegal, have been nominated as World Heritage sites to serve as reminders of the dark chapters in human history and warnings for the present and future generations not to repeat the same mistakes.



In the case of the "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution," however, the Japanese government set the period of the heritage from 1850 to 1910, in spite of the historical fact that the Meiji era extended from 1868 to 1912.



This selective periodization of the sites, although resulting in some of the significant industrial facilities to be excluded from the World Heritage, conveniently conceals Japan's uncomfortable history of forced labor and horrific human rights violations as well as Japan's successive wars of aggression, illegal occupation and its colonization of Korea.



The Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution, with mere praises on its industrial development but a complete cover-up of its negative history, neither embodies the "universal" value to be worthy of World Heritage status, nor concurs with the principles and spirit of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.



Taking advantage of the status, the Japanese government attempts to rewrite history in its favor and to transform the ruined remains into tourist attractions.



The outstanding "universal" value can only be realized when the heritage reveals its full history and acknowledges the dark aspects that need to be remembered and reflected on.



The Japanese government once again failed to deliver on its promised measures and refused to implement the recommendations of the World Heritage Committee; Tokyo has refused to unveil the full history of the sites in a holistic fashion, failed to acknowledge the negative history of issues that include forced labor, has neither commemorated nor apologized to the victims, and appears to not have learned any lessons from its shameful past.



UNESCO should remove the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution from the World Heritage List in accordance with Article 192 (b) of the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention.



The inscription of the sites not only insults the values of the World Heritage listing but undermines the principle of "the intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity" enshrined in the UNESCO Constitution.



There has been growing concern that politicization of the World Heritage Committee discolors the neutrality in decision-making.



UNESCO must take appropriate yet strict measures against Japan's actions which seriously compromise the credibility and procedure of World Heritage inscription, and thus, must restore the organization's integrity and promote a genuine culture of peace.





Kim Jeong-yoon is a researcher at the Cultural Heritage Restoration Foundation.


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Linkedin Paul Sandle and William Schomberg (Reuters) London, United Kingdom  Mon, June 15, 2020 12:00 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec26d4 2 World Britain,UK,coronavirus,coronavirus-restrictions,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-lockdown-easing,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

Britain is reviewing its two-meter social distancing rule ahead of the next stage of lockdown easing planned for July 4, when bars, restaurants and hairdressers could reopen in England, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.

Progress in tackling the coronavirus pandemic had created "room for maneuver" on the rule, which many employers have said will make it harder to get back up to speed, Johnson said at an east London shopping center preparing to reopen next week.

Britain has reported the third highest number of coronavirus deaths after the United States and Brazil, something critics of the government say reflects its response to the crisis.

Johnson's Conservative Party government, which says it has followed scientific advice in its handling of the pandemic, faces the difficult balancing act of reviving the economy without allowing a second wave of cases.

"We'll work closely with the scientists at all times and make the right decision on the basis of safety, health and stopping the disease," Johnson said.

The scale of Britain's slump was laid bare by data last week which showed output shrank by 25% over March and April.

As COVID-19 in the population fell to 1 in 1,600 or lower, the chances of catching the disease from an encounter of less than two meters had diminished, Johnson added.

"You start to build some more margin for maneuver," he said. "So we'll be keeping it under review for July 4th."

Finance Minister Rishi Sunak earlier told Sky News the review would involve economists as well as scientists so it could be looked at "in the round".

Lowering the distance people have to maintain from one another could provide an immediate benefit for badly-hit English pubs, with Sunak saying three quarters could reopen, rather than about one third with a two-meter rule.

Airlines have also warned of huge job losses because of the quarantine policy Britain introduced last week.

Sunak said the government could make changes to the 14-day quarantine for people coming into the country, such as the introduction of travel corridors with specific countries.

"The transport secretary is actively looking at options as we continue to make progress against the virus. We might be able to do more here as well," Sunak said.

Asked if he might cut value-added tax to spur spending, Sunak said it was something Britain had done previously.

"Before we have that conversation we need to actually reopen those sectors. There's no point in cutting VAT on a sector that is actually closed," he said.
In a powerful artistic response to the current Black Lives Matter protests, this week's issue of the New Yorker features an interactive cover that filmmaker/activist Ava DuVernay on Sunday called a "heartbreaker."

The top of the cover depicts the face of George Floyd, whose death beneath the knee of Minneapolis police last month has sparked global demonstrations. Look downward, and beneath the outline of Floyd's shoulders - face by face by symbol - is a representative timeline of violence against African Americans.

The art, titled "Say Their Names," includes black men and women whose deaths have made headlines in recent months and years, including David McAtee two weeks ago; icons of the civil rights movement; and, according to the magazine, visual representation of "the unnamed millions of black people enslaved in America."

"Say Their Names" was created by the acclaimed artist Kadir Nelson, whose previous New Yorker covers include "Art Connoisseurs" and "Heat Wave," and who in January won the Caldecott Medal for illustrating "The Undefeated."

Nelson described the cover as a "memorial to all of the African Americans who were and continue to be victimized by the long shadow cast by racism in America and around the globe."

Choosing a heavy palette of shadows and muted tones, Nelson said his "weighted portrait of George Floyd" includes 18 other "African American souls who were murdered by law enforcement officers, while providing a visual context of historical institutionalized racism and discrimination against African Americans."

Online, you can scroll across each face and read annotation.

"We all need to know this; we all have to know what black Americans are dealing with every single day," said New Yorker art editor Francoise Mouly.

"We must not turn away, as painful as it might be," she added. "It's only once we accept these murders are part of our shared history that we might be able to move towards a more just world."
Sydney, Australia, June 15, 2020 - (ABN Newswire) - On the 26th of February 2018, Cann Global Limited's (ASX:CGB.AX - News) medical Cannabis research division, Medical Cannabis Research Group Pty Ltd (MCRG) entered into a research agreement with Professor David (Dedi) Meiri and his team at the Technion, Israel's renowned university, to research the possibility of the use of cannabis in the treatment of autoimmune disease, specifically multiple sclerosis (MS).

See the following link to the announcement released by the Company at that time:

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20180226/pdf/43rxp6bh4v8lrk.pdf

The Technion's lab is widely considered to be the leading cannabis research lab globally and has the unique ability to comprehensively profile cannabinoid composition for a variety of cannabis strains and to purify single Phytocannabinoids (molecules synthesised by the cannabis plant) and create suspect profiles for examination in different studies.

Dr. Meiri explains that there are at least 144 unique Phytocannabinoids within the cannabis plant aside from the more commonly known THC and CBD compounds. Dr. Meiri and his team have developed new analytical tools to identify these 144 cannabinoids and have been working diligently to isolate and categorise these cannabinoids so that their therapeutic effects can be further understood.

During the research over the past two years, Dr. Meiri has already successfully identified a unique cannabis strain that in-vitro and in-vivo has shown to not only slow down the progression of MS but in some cases actually reverses the damage caused by the disease.

For further information see the information in the Appendix to this announcement and also please view the 'Webinar With Dr Dedi Meiri "Science Of The Plant"- Cannabis Research Now by following this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSCsTUqO-t4

(from minutes 18:20 to 20).

During the course of the research, the Technion has also established an in-vitro screening for various immune cells such as T cells (CD-4 cells) where it was found that different cannabis chemovars had different killing abilities on human CD4 cells. CFSE cell proliferation assays have shown that proliferating human CD4 cells were more sensitive to treatment with cannabis chemovars than resting-activated human CD4 T Cells. As a result, based on the latest progress report, the Technion has found a chemovar that can effectively kill CD4 T cells that have become destructive instead of productive. This process is essential to controlling harmful autoimmune responses.

Story continues

Please refer to Appendix 1 in link below for more details on the Research performed to date.

The Company is very encouraged with these results to date, and the possibility of a product being developed that may assist the millions of people suffering from this debilitating disease.

POTENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE RESULTS ON AUTOIMMUNE RESPONSES IN OTHER DISEASES

Based on the significance of the results to date on Medical Cannabis as a potential therapy for the malfunctioning of the immune system in multiple sclerosis which The Technion has successfully been investigating over the past two years, the research team has suggested that it is worth investigating if the same strain of cannabis may also be effective in helping patients avoid or recover from the serious harm a malfunctioning immune system may cause in other diseases.

The malfunction of the immune system where the immune system attacks the body instead of defending the body is the basis of auto-immune diseases including Multiple Sclerosis, (MS). "Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex disease with many different immune cells involved in its pathogenesis, and in particular Tcells as the most recognized cell type [...] Today we know that MS is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune, demyelinating and degenerative disease of the CNS." Dr Meiri believes it is worth researching if the same compounds already identified in our research to control the immune response in MS, may assist in blocking the progression of the attack on healthy tissues caused by harmful immune responses in other diseases.

As stated above, during the research performed for our Company on MS, the Technion has found a chemovar that can effectively kill CD4 T cells that have become destructive instead of productive.

As put forward by researchers in the scientific community, the stabilisation of CD4 T cells should be looked at as a potential therapy for controlling other diseases.

CD4 T cells play a central role in immune protection. Commonly known as helper cells, they carry out different roles, such as activating other immune cells, B-lymphocytes to produce antibodies and play a critical role in activating and regulating the immune reaction. However, in autoimmune diseases such as MS, and other diseases involving the immune response, the T cells can become the enemy causing the body to attack its own tissues.

The Company is currently in discussions with the Technion to prepare the parameters of new concurrent intended clinical trials to investigate how this particular Cannabis strain can have an impact on other patients whose immune system is causing damage to healthy cells. The Technion and Dr. Meiri have the capability, in conjunction with leading hospitals in Israel, to perform these necessary clinical trials over the coming months.

As Cannabis and the identified specific cannabis strains are already authorised to be given to patients in Israel under health care and physician prescription, it is important to note that clinical trials using whole Cannabis extracts are very different from traditional pharmaceutical clinical trials and do not require phase 1 of safety and toxicity. Phase 1 in clinical trials evaluate the drug's safety and toxicity at different dose levels which is not required when doing trials on natural cannabis products which have already been approved for use. Therefore, significant results on efficacy may be possible in relatively short periods of time.

This also means that a legal product can already be produced and distributed wherever cannabis can be legally prescribed.

The Company will inform the market once parameters of any clinical trials are finalised.

We believe this is a great opportunity for CGB to be part of further research which may be of significant benefit to global health. Scientists around the world have suggested different potential therapies to try to treat the immune system malfunction in auto immune diseases, but to date most suggested therapies have potential harmful side effect. The Company is proud to be backing up a clinical trial that will be focusing on a more natural compound which is proven to be safer to give to patients due to its extremely low levels of toxicity or side effects.

Since Dr. Meiri and his team have been exceedingly successful to date in their Medical Cannabis research, CGB hopes that the success of the research that the Technion is undertaking will continue for the benefit of both world health and added value for CGB's shareholders.

DR MEIRI COMMENTS:

"In parallel with working on the whole Cannabis extract for the clinical trials and the development of our product, we are also working on isolating specific Phytocannabinoids of the Cannabis strain that we have found to be the most effective in our research for MS treatment (which forms part of creating our IP) and further elucidating their mechanism of action.

"We believe that we will create strong Intellectual Property relating to cannabis-based treatments of MS, and we will have preclinical results from isolated molecules with a better understanding of the dosing and mechanism of action. This additional research in isolating the molecules from the whole strains should ready us for the next development stage of 'on shelf pharmaceutical grade products and an option to licence the molecules to the Veal' pharma industry.

"It is important to mention again that the clinical trials currently being planned with whole Cannabis extract for immediate therapeutic treatment, are very different from regular clinical trials and do not demand phase 1 of safety. We are sufficiently experienced to begin these trials quickly."

PNINA FELDMAN-EXECUTIVE CHAIRPERSON-SAYS:

"We were very excited to hear that the Israeli government has now approved Cannabis export. It means that if clinical trials are successful, this will allow CGB to facilitate the distribution of a Cannabis product as a potential remedy for MS and potentially other auto immune diseases in Australia and beyond. We are looking forward to the exciting times ahead and are thrilled to be a part of the ground-breaking research in the use of Medical Cannabis as a potential treatment for autoimmune diseases. Our research has provided us with consistent achievements along the way and we feel we are reaching our research goals quicker than initially anticipated.

"The Company is now actively seeking large pharmaceutical investors or companies to partner with us in developing and commercialising this research.

"We thank Professor Meiri and his team for their brilliant work and thank all the shareholders who have the confidence that despite difficult times we will achieve our goals."

To view additional EXPLANATORY NOTES, please visit:

https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/BSZU92WT



About Cann Global Limited:

Cann Global Limited's (ASX:CGB.AX - News) primary focus is to legally grow and cultivate hemp to research and develop medicinal cannabis products to service an increasing demand in the Australian and global markets.

Cann Global Ltd has a 100% shareholding in Medical Cannabis Ltd (MCL) and a management agreement with Medcan Australia Pty Ltd (Medcan) which operate a business cultivating, researching, developing and soon to be distributing medicinal cannabis products in Australia. Our Medical Cannabis division has been a key value driver for the Group.

The Group also retains an interest in its existing Bauxite Projects.

Contact:

Cann Global Limited

Neil Sweeney, Media and Investor Relations

T: +61-2-8379-1832

E: media@canngloballimited.com

WWW: www.canngloballimited.com



Source:

Cann Global Limited

Copyright (C) 2020 ABN Newswire. All rights reserved.
Authorities said Monday that the cause of death of Robert Fuller, who was found hanging from a tree in Palmdale, has been deferred pending further investigation as the state attorney general sends investigators to assist in determining whether the young Black man died by suicide or was the victim of foul play.

Sheriff's homicide investigators plan to survey the area for surveillance video, conduct a forensic analysis of the rope used in the man's death and research his medical history locally, as well as in Arizona and Nevada, where he had lived in the past, Capt. Kent Wegener said.

Investigators are also working to interview Fuller's case worker with the Department of Social Services, though they did not elaborate on why he had one, as well as his family and the witness who found him in the park.

"They're gonna stick to it til they get to the truth of what happened," Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a news briefing.

County Medical Examiner-Coroner Dr. Jonathan Lucas said investigators initially thought Fuller's death was consistent with a suicide, but "we felt it prudent to roll that back and continue to look deeper." Coroner's officials have ordered toxicology tests.

Meanwhile, Fuller's family is requesting an independent autopsy, said their attorney Jamon Hicks.

The briefing was scheduled amid continuing questions and controversy over whether the death of Fuller was caused by suicide  as law enforcement officials originally indicated  or if foul play was involved.

An FBI spokeswoman said Monday that the agency would monitor the Palmdale investigation, as well as the death of a second Black man under similar circumstances in Victorville.

"The FBI, U.S. attorney's office for the Central District of California and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division are actively reviewing the investigations into the hanging deaths of two African American men in the cities of Palmdale and Victorville to determine whether there are violations of federal law," she said.

Story continues

Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra announced that his office was sending independent investigators to Palmdale to review the sheriff's investigation and potentially conduct its own. He declined to say whether he believed local authorities were too quick to declare Fuller's death a suicide, but said he had been approached by "a number of leaders in the southern California area" about the death. He also declined to say whether the Victorville hanging would also be investigated.

Becerra announced the probe as he called for law enforcement agencies around the state to embrace a series of use-of-force reforms approved by the Legislature last year, and set to go into effect next year. He urged agencies to move more quickly in putting those measures in place, which include a new use-of-force standard that restricts when police can use deadly force from when it is "reasonable" to when it is "necessary."

Demonstrators and residents have called for an independent investigation, and elected officials representing the Antelope Valley have requested that Becerra investigate.

I take my commitment to transparency very seriously," Villanueva wrote Sunday on Twitter. "As such, I want to thank Attorney General Xavier Becerra ... for agreeing to monitor our investigation into the death of Robert Fuller."

The body of Fuller, 24, was found hanging from a tree in the 38300 block of 9th Street East early Wednesday.

While authorities originally said they suspected suicide, Fullers family and civic leaders pushed back, demanding an independent investigation and full autopsy.

We want to find out the truth on what really happened, Diamond Alexander, Fullers sister, said Saturday. Everything they told us is not right. We just want the truth. My brother was not suicidal. He was a survivor."

Villanueva also appeared at a virtual town hall for the Lancaster and Palmdale communities on Monday afternoon, where he and other executives fielded questions about Fuller's death. During that meeting, Wegener said that the tree where Fuller was found was "very easily climbable" and that the rope was secured by someone in the tree, not from the ground.

There was no chair found at the scene. Investigators recovered a phone, items in Fuller's pocket and a backpack he was wearing.

Lt. Kelly Yagerlener of the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroners office said Friday that a decision on the cause of Fullers death has been deferred pending an investigation. A full autopsy is planned.

Ahead of Villanueva's Monday news conference, a crowd of protesters  at times numbering about 70  rallied outside City Hall. Among them was Imani Martin.

"As a community, I think we should continue to show up, let the family know that were there for them, but also let law enforcement and the city government know that were not going to let this be brushed aside or forgotten about," the 23-year-old Lancaster resident said.

It's frustrating, she added, that residents had to push for a thorough investigation into Fuller's death.

Hundreds of demonstrators gather at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Palmdale Station on Saturday to demand answers in the death of Robert Fuller, a young Black man who was found hanging from a tree days earlier. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

"As government officials, youre supposed to be here for us, and it shouldnt take outcry for them to do what they were elected to do," she said.

Palmdale city officials also have said they now support an independent investigation.

We are all grieving the loss of this young man, and our hearts go out to his family and friends during this difficult time, Mayor Steve Hofbauer said in a statement. We also understand the communitys call for a full investigation into this death, and we are asking the same.

Fullers death came amid nationwide protests rebuking the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The case also brought to light the death of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch  a Black man who was found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, roughly 50 miles east of Palmdale.

While the investigation into his death is ongoing, "There were no indications at the scene that suggested foul play," according to San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Jodi Miller.

"The cause and manner of death are pending," she added Monday.

However, his family has said they were concerned it will be ruled a suicide to avoid further attention.

Times staff writers Laura Newberry, Richard Winton, Kevin Baxter, Benjamin Oreskes, Kiera Feldman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 02:10:21|Editor: huaxia

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SANAA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- A shipment of protective equipment for the Yemeni health workers to combat COVID-19 landed at Sanaa Airport on Sunday, health authorities said.

The shipment, carrying 18 tons of supplies, was delivered by the UNICEF to help curb the spread of COVID-19 in the war-ravaged country, the authorities said.

It was the third medical shipment by the UNICEF to Sanaa in nearly two weeks, they said.

Last month, the health authorities controlled by the Houthi rebels in the capital Sanaa announced the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in several provinces in northern Yemen, including Sanaa.

Meanwhile, the internationally-recognized government called on donors and relevant international humanitarian organizations to help Yemen in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since late 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi group seized much of the country's north and forced the Saudi-backed government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of Sanaa. Enditem
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Press Statement

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has again decried the failure of the

President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC)

administration to contain the incessant killings of vulnerable Nigerians

by insurgents and bandits in Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Borno, Kaduna,

Kogi, Taraba and other parts of the country.

The PDP is greatly hurt by the horror, anguish, agony, torture and

cruelty our compatriots are facing in the hands of bandits, insurgents

and kidnappers, following the failure of the APC administration to get

its acts together, tighten our security architecture and secure our

nation, despite the huge resources it claimed to have spent.

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Our party holds that the situation where marauders and insurgents, who

had been pushed to the fringes by the PDP administration, had resurged

under the APC, to the extent of occupying territories, ravaging

communities and killing our citizens with reckless abandon, raises a lot

of questions.

The PDP further notes that the frightening situation where bandits have

reportedly taken control of some parts of our nation and even grant

permission and consent to residents before they can conduct weddings,

naming ceremonies or operate their markets, is completely inexcusable.

It is even more lamentable that the bandits had become so emboldened by

the failure of the APC administration to the extent of holding Mr.

Presidents home state, Katsina, to ransom.

Our party invites Nigerians to note that the APC has failed to account

for the whereabouts of the political mercenaries it imported into our

country from neighboring countries, particularly from Chad and Niger

Republic, to participate in its campaigns during the build-up to the

2019 general elections.

Nigerians can recall that the PDP had cautioned on the perils of the

importation of unscreened aliens by the APC to involve in its

presidential election campaign rallies.

Our party had warned that such elements could be used to unleash acts of

violence, including banditry against Nigerians. The escalation of

banditry since the 2019 elections, therefore calls for a deep

soul-searching by the APC and its leaders.

Moreover, some APC governors are reported to have had contacts,

discussions and even negotiations with the bandits: a situation which

also demands that the APC and such governors come clean on links with

marauders.

Furthermore, Nigerians have observed the failure of the APC, as a party,

to raise a strong voice in giving its government, marching orders

against banditry. The APC had not taken any decisive action or proffered

any significant suggestion in the effort to secure our nation, beyond

lame condolence messages to victims of the attacks.

The PDP holds that the time has come for the APC to define its stand on

the issue of insecurity in Nigeria, particularly the call by

well-meaning Nigerians on President Buhari to rejig our nations top

security architecture and inject new blood into the system.

The PDP weeps for the victims of the mindless attacks and restates its

call on President Buhari to wake up from slumber and take conclusive

steps, beyond speeches, to flush the bandits out of our nation.

Signed:

Kola Ologbondiyan

National Publicity Secretary
On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver turned his attention to the increasingly widespread use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement. Heavily citing Kashmir Hills investigation of Clearview AI in the New York Times, Oliver explained how a then little-known company created a groundbreaking app where users can take a picture of a person, upload it, and cross-reference it against 3 billion images that the company has scraped from Facebook, Twitter, Venmo, and other websites.

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Since Hills investigation was published, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others have sent cease-and-desist letters to Clearview for violating the websites terms of service. Still, the company maintains that harvesting the personal information of millions for a secretive database is within the companys First Amendment rights. You might as well argue that you have an Eighth Amendment right to dress up rabbits like John Lennon, Oliver said. That Amendment does not cover what I think you think it does.

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Oliver also detailed the danger that facial recognition poses to the thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets in recent weeks. In the aftermath of the protests over the death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore police used facial recognition on social media photos to identify and target protesters, and Clearview has contracts with more than 600 law enforcement agencies. Still, theres some hope: Recent concern has prompted companies like Microsoft , IBM, and Amazon to stop selling facial recognition technologies to law enforcement (if only temporarily).

Oliver has another suggestion for people who want to express their outrage at companies like Clearview. The next time you feel the need to upload a photo, maybe  hold up a sign that says, These photos were taken unwillingly, and Id rather you not be looking at them. Or if that feels too complicated, just Fuck Clearview. That really does get the message across.
Human Rights Watch says penal code used to crack down on government critics including activists and journalists.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Iraqi authorities, including in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, to enact reforms to its laws, saying vaguely worded laws have been used to violate the rights of critics, including activists and journalists, to freedom of expression.

In a 42-page report published on Monday, the US-based rights group detailed a range of defamation and incitement cases at the end of the former governments term and during the new coronavirus pandemic, which were brought on by the Iraqi authorities against dissenting voices.

It called on the parliaments of Iraq and the Kurdish region of northern Iraq to replace criminal defamation articles in the Penal Code with civil defamation penalties and amend laws that limit free speech to comply with international law.

Iraqs current penal code, which dates back to 1969, includes several defamation crimes such as insulting the Arab community and government officials, regardless of whether the allegation is true or not.

While international human rights law allows for restrictions on freedom of expression to protect peoples reputations, human rights lawyers agree that restrictions must be necessary and implemented narrowly.

Given the mistrust between civil society and the media on the one hand and authorities on the other, Iraqs new government and Kurdish authorities should reform laws to bring them in line with international standards, said Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW in a statement.

Getting rid of vague provisions on insults and incitement would show that the authorities are committed to protecting free speech.

The report titled We might call you in at any time: Free speech under threat in Iraq, examined 33 cases involving 21 activists and 14 journalists who reportedly suffered attacks, 13 cases related to the support of protest activities over social media and seven cases involving coverage of government corruption on mainstream or social media.

One case detailed in the report was that of Haitham Sulaiman, a 48-year-old protest movement organiser who in a Facebook post on April 6 called on the governor of Muthana, a province in southern Iraq, to investigate corruption allegations in the state health department linked to the purchase of coronavirus masks.

He was arrested on April 10, beaten, and forced to sign a document stating that the United States had bankrolled the protest movement, the report stated.

#:          #_           .   .  @hrw_ar     #: https://t.co/jcBDkr3zIE pic.twitter.com/du1pvQsNZh     (@hrw_ar) June 15, 2020

HRW said the people interviewed for the report who had been criminally charged said they felt prosecutions had been used to intimidate critics of the government.

In addition to the crackdown on freedom of expression since the start of anti-government protests in October last year, the Iraqi government ordered the closure of eight television and four radio stations for several months over the alleged violation of media licensing rules.

Among those affected by the crackdown was Reuterss license, which was temporarily suspended in April over an article alleging the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country was far higher than official figures.

HRW raised concerns over guidelines used by the Communications and Media Commission (CMC), which was set up in 2014 to regulate the media during Iraqs fight against the ISIL (ISIS) armed group, which then controlled large swaths of the country. Although Iraq has largely overcome the threat of ISIL, the CMCs mandatory guidelines, which were updated and renamed in 2019, remain in place.
Editor's Note: This fact-check has been updated as indicated below.

On June 9, North Korea cut off all official and unofficial communication channels with South Korea, including the direct hotline between the Blue House (south) and the Forbidden City (north). The move was in response to the distribution of anti-North leaflets flown across the border in giant balloons by civilian activist groups.

The South Korean authorities connived at the hostile acts against the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] by the riff-raff, while trying to dodge heavy responsibility with nasty excuses, said the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Two days later, Ri Yong-Chul, a member of the North Korean Peoples Committee, explained the rationale for the DPRKs actions. His statement was published on Echo of Reunification, a North Korean radio channel, and it condemned the South Korean government for not being harsher with the anti-North groups.

The statement specifically took South Korean President Moon Jae-In to task:

[President Moon] seemed more humane than previous leaders when he raised both of his hands high at Pyongyang and Mount Baekdu. Having come into power as a result of citizen candle protests, we believed he would be different. But now we believe he is not only the same, but actually worse than his predecessors.

This statement is misleading.

Compared to President Moons most recent predecessors, Park Geun-Hye and Lee Myeong-Bak, the relationship between the two Koreas had seen significant improvement. In April 2018, Moon achieved the Panmunjom Declaration, in which he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un laid out a plan to reunite the Korean peninsula.

The two leaders met in person at Pyongyang to discuss the declaration. In addition, they climbed up Mount Baekdu together as a gesture of peace. This was the first such meeting since one in 2000 under President Kim Dae-Jung, who received a Nobel Peace Prize largely for his efforts to reconcile with the communist North.

Moon also helped arrange the three summits between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, the first time ever that meetings had taken place between leaders of the two countries. The summits, in Singapore, Vietnam, and the North-South Demilitarized Zone, initially raised hopes about the possibility of the denuclearization of North Korea, although the momentum has receded since the third meeting in June 2019.

By comparison, the North-South relationship was rocky at best under former presidents Park Geun-Hye and Lee Myeong-Bak.

Lee effectively abandoned Kim Dae-Jungs Sunshine Policy, which had eased some travel restrictions, as soon as he took office in 2010. His decision was prompted by the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan, a South Korean warship, believed to be North Koreas doing.

Park shut down Kaesong Industrial Park, a collaborative economic project between the two Koreas. North Korea carried out five nuclear missile tests and more provocative firings until an influence-peddling scandal entangled Park and she was impeached for abuse of power and removed from office in 2017. Moons election followed that year.

South Koreas response to the communications cut-off has been measured.

On June 10, the South Korean government announced that it would press charges against Fighters for a Free North Korea and Keun Saem, the two activist groups responsible for the flyers, for violating the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act and shared marine and airspace legislation.

Northbound leafleting  creates tensions between the South and North and endangers the lives and safety of citizens living near the border, said Unification Ministry Spokesman Yoh Sang-key during a briefing.

He added: The North-South hotline is crucial for communication and must be maintained under mutual agreement. We will continue to work toward maintaining peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula.

Anti-North leafleting has been a frequent issue. A report by the Unification Ministry estimates around 20 million leaflets have been flown across the border since 2010.

Although South Korea has on occasion sent police officers to restrain the activists, the Moon government had been less eager to fully ban leafleting, citing freedom of speech.

North Koreas drastic response to the flyers is seen as likely the result of built-up frustration over growing financial difficulties. Commerce with its biggest trading partner, China, plummeted after the North closed its border to protect against the coronavirus. South Korea has been unenthusiastic about helping North Korea deal with the U.S.-led economic and financial sanctions aimed at forcing denuclearization.

Pyongyang resumed missile test flights this year, provoking tension with the U.S. Regarding the latest communications shutdown, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told the South Korean Yonhap News: The United States is committed to engaging the DPRK in meaningful negotiations so that North Koreans can realize a brighter future.

North Korea fired back, saying that the United States should stay out of the Korean peninsula or face terrible things.

June 12 was the second anniversary of the first Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, while June 25 marks the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War in 1950.

Despite the Norths rhetoric, Moon has remained conciliatory. In a statement at a commemorative event Monday (June 15), he noted: Chairman Kims groundbreaking efforts to improve North-South relations and bemoaned not making more progress.

I also find it very unfortunate the North-U.S. and North-South relationships have not advanced as much as was hoped, he said.

Moon also asked citizens to adhere to North-South agreements and North Korea to not to shut the windows of communication.

Update: On June 16, North Korea used explosives to destroy a joint liaison office in the Kaesong Industrial Park, located north of the demilitarized zone between the countries. The facility had opened in 2018 a symbol of North-South cooperation but has been closed since January due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The explosion came after news reports of remarks Saturday by Kims younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, who said the building was useless and ought to be destroyed. North Korean state media again referenced leaflets distributed by defectors as reason for the destruction.

South Korea called the act very unfortunate, warning that all responsibilities lie within the North and any further provocations would result in strong countermeasures.
A businessman from Kerala based in Sharjah turned out to be a Good Samaritan as he chartered an aircraft to fly out 120 of his employees to Kochi after they had been stranded due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Besides his employees the Air Arabia special flight which landed at the Cochin international airport Sunday night, also carried 50 others who were desperately hunting for tickets after they lost their jobs in the United Arab Emirates.

Chairman of Elite group of industries R Hari Kumar said he also gave an option to his employees of taking up a job in the companys unit in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu if they did not want to return to the UAE.

One of the employees who returned in the chartered flight said they were also given one-month additional salary and gift packets.

Hari Kumar insists that he was only doing his job.

I only did my job. It is my duty to protect my employees who stood by me in thick and thin. The chartered flight is my simple way of thanking those who helped me in my successful journey, Kumar said on the phone from Sharjah.

Kumar, who is also a popular theatre artist, had gone to Saudi Arabia in search of a job 20 years ago he went on to become a successful businessman later.

His company deals in architectural and industrial applications and aluminum products and has about 1,200 employees in Persian Gulf countries. He hails from the coastal town Alappuzha.

A good business firm is like a family. All chip in for the growth of the firm. If employees are in trouble it is the duty of the firm to look after them. I will help send more stranded people to the country, he said.
An author has said the Queen will be keeping an eye on William and Kate. (Getty Images)

Prince William and his wife Kate are being watched very carefully by the Queen and Prince Philip because of previous mistakes of other young royals, according to an author.

Tom Quinn, who wrote Kensington Palace: An Intimate Memoir told a Channel 5 documentary that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would be watched because older royals are concerned about repetition of previous mistakes.

Quinn said: The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, will be watching very carefully, especially given that younger royals in the past have got things very badly wrong and they don't want that to happen again.

But he said the coronavirus pandemic had given the couple a chance to shine in a very modern way.

Read more: Queen's official birthday marked with new military ceremony at Windsor Castle

Its not completely clear which younger royals Quinn was referring to in the documentary, which touched on several aspects of Kate and Williams relationship, from early days to the coronavirus pandemic.

At one point Prince Edward was mentioned, because of the bad press he got after quitting the marines, but the documentary, called William and Kate: Too Good To Be True? also talked about Harrys decision to step back from royal duties.

Charless marriage with Diana breaking down was also discussed.

William had to be involved in the decision about Harry's desire to step back. (Getty Images)

Read more: Duchess of Cambridge issues rare video plea asking for more photo project entries

Speaking about the interview Harry did while in South Africa in which he said he and William were on different paths royal editor of the Daily Mail, Rebecca English said: I know William watched his interview with a mixture of shock and horror.

Harry was publicly airing his dirty linen and I know he debated long and hard about what to do.

Adding of the Sandringham summit, she said: Im not sure William had much choice in the matter, he is going to be king, even if it means the expense of his familial relationship.

Prince William, 37, and Kate, 38, have been widely praised for the work they have taken on during the lockdown and the way they have adapted to working from home.

Story continues

Read more: Prince William, Jonny Wilkinson, and Jamie Murray talk mental health as sport returns

They have turned their Royal Foundations focus to the mental health of those who are on the frontline of the response, including NHS workers, and have carried out numerous Zoom calls with people around the world.

William has continued his efforts in using sport to help tackle the stigma around mental health, while Kate has used her love of photography to create a lasting illustration of Britain during the pandemic.

Watch the latest episode from Yahoo UK's The Royal Story
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday met with the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, at the State House, Abuja.

Speaking to State House correspondents after the closed door meeting, Mr Adamu said he updated the president on sexual and gender-based violence across the country and the efforts of the police towards addressing the menace.

The IGP stated that the law enforcement agents have been dealing with all reported rape incidents and gender-based violence in the country.

Mr Adamu disclosed that the police had recorded about 717 rape incidents across the country between January and May 2020.

He revealed that 799 suspects had so far been arrested, 631 cases conclusively investigated and charged to court while 52 cases are still under investigation.

It has come to the public knowledge now that because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we have surge in cases of rape and gender-based violence.

These are cases that are now coming up but we want to let members of the public know that, rape and gender based violence has been there.

The law enforcement agents have been dealing with these cases, in most cases, members of the public are not aware of the actions that the law enforcement agents have been taking, he said.

Mr Adamu urged all Nigerians to speak up against cases of rape or any form of molestation, as the Force would continue to deal decisively with such cases promptly.

READ ALSO:

He said: I will call on every Nigerian that comes across any victim of sexual offences, rape or gender-based violence to quickly report to law enforcement agents because keeping quiet without reporting it, will give room for the perpetrators to continue to commit the offences.

It is a very wicked offence, it is wicked of an individual to engage in rape or defilement and there are a lot of reasons for that, some are doing it for ritual purposes and some are doing it because they sit within the family and they see the victims and have the urge to go into it. Such people should not be allowed to go scot free.

The Police boss said the government is going into partnership with all stakeholders within West Africa, to tackle the menace.

From now onward, national partnership with every stakeholder is what we are going into now and not only within the country but within the sub-region.

We have to partner with organizations that are involved in this. We know we have been working seriously with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other civil society organizations, he said.

(NAN)
Japan's deployment of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system will be put on hold due to the ballooning price tag and the logistics of rolling out the hardware, Defense Minister Taro Kono said Monday.

"When considering the costs and the time frame, we have no choice but to decide it was not logical" to keep the original schedule, Kono told reporters.

The U.S. State Department approved the sale of the system to Japan, which at the time had an estimated price tag of $2.15 billion. But a slew of problems has raised the estimated costs of operating it for 30 years to over $4 billion.

The project was seen as a symbol of the strengthening alliance between Japan and the U.S. Beyond the role it plays in countering the North Korean threat, President Donald Trump has also aggressively pushed American arms exports.

The ministry soon will submit a report to Japan's National Security Council and formally halt the program.

Japan currently has a two-tier approach to missile defense: a ship-based Aegis system that takes a first crack at shooting down missiles while they are in the so-called post-boost phase of flight, and a land-based Patriot system to destroy them when they are in the re-entry phase.

The plan was to create a three-tiered approach, where a land-based Aegis would shoot down any missiles missed by the ships. Aegis Ashore is also considered more effective if multiple missiles are launched at Japan.

It was also a response to the burden on the ship-based system. Japan's initial strategy was to rely solely on the ship-based defense, where eight Aegis-equipped vessels would rotate and defend against incoming missiles.

But the repeated missile launches by North Korea have exposed how much stress the ships undergo in keeping up the defense shield.

"My impression is that the U.S. government and industry were very surprised by this," Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Nikkei Asian Review. "If so, that is not the kind of surprise that makes for good alliance relations," the former National Security Council senior director for Asia under President George W. Bush said.

The blueprint of the Aegis Ashore deployment called for installing the land-based missile shield at one site in eastern Japan and another in the west as a deterrent against North Korean rocket attacks. The U.S.-developed system would be operational as early as 2025.

The original price tag was roughly 80 billion yen, or $745 million per site. Since the defense of Japan would require two locations, the overall cost was sold as around $1.5 billion.

That estimate quickly lost validity. After the cabinet approved the deployment in 2017, the cost went up to 100 billion yen per installation in the fiscal 2018 national budget. Billions of yen more were necessary to prepare the land for the buildings.
German giant will hold 75 percent equity in electric car alliance with JAC Motors Volkswagen AG is planning to increase its stake in its electric car partnership with JAC Motors from 50 percent to 75 percent, the German company said on Friday. The move will make Volkswagen the second foreign carmaker to have a controlling stake in a Chinese joint venture after BMW. The equity change in JAC Volkswagen is part of the company's 1 billion euro ($1.1 billion) deal signed on Friday in Beijing to acquire a 50-percent stake of Chinese partner JAC Motors' parent Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group Holdings. "By opening up the market, China is giving Volkswagen new business opportunities," said Volkswagen Group China CEO Stephan Woellenstein, referring to China's decision in 2018 to gradually lift the equity cap in the auto industry. Volkswagen said the deal with JAC will be closed before the end of this year. In a separate deal on the same day, it spent 1.1 billion euros to acquire a 26-percent stake in Gotion High-Tech Co, becoming the largest shareholder of China's No 3 battery maker. "These investments shape the character of Volkswagen in China, making it a more localized, more sustainability-focused mobility company," said Woellenstein. The two deals are the largest foreign investment in China's new energy vehicle market, which is the largest worldwide since 2015. Last year, sales of such vehicles totaled 1.2 million units in the country. Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess said: "The electric car segment is growing rapidly and offers a great deal of potential for JAC Volkswagen." JAC Volkswagen, which was established in 2017, is dedicated to producing and selling electric vehicles. Volkswagen said it will introduce five new models by 2025. JAC said in a regulatory filing on Friday that Volkswagen will also introduce models under its mainstream brands into the joint venture, which will have an annual capacity of 350,000 to 400,000 units by 2029. Volkswagen plans to produce around 30 new energy vehicle models in China by 2025 and sell 1.5 million units a year, with most of them pure electric ones.Besides JAC, it has joint ventures with SAIC Motor Corp and FAW Group, and both have built plants for electric vehicles as well. China is the largest market for the German carmaker that has brands like Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, accounting for around 40 percent of its global sales. Thomas Fang, a partner in the China office of global consulting firm Roland Berger, said Volkswagen's deals show the importance of the Chinese market."The Chinese market is huge, so leading carmakers will try to do more when opportunities emerge, like BMW did two years ago and now Volkswagen." China decided in 2018 to phase out the equity cap in the automotive industry. In the same year, BMW became the first international carmaker to acquire a majority stake in its car-making joint venture. As the world's largest car market, China is home to more than 260 million vehicles now, including 4 million new energy cars. There is still vast potential for further growth, as the number of vehicles per 1,000 people hovers around 185, while the figure in the US is around 800. China is expected to overtake the US in terms of total number of vehicles by the end of this year, said Cai Ronghua, a senior official at the National Development and Reform Commission, during a media briefing in April. Yale Zhang, managing director of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automotive Foresight, said Volkswagen's two deals are a farsighted move in a go game. He said the investments will prove to be a good bet when electric cars are more popular two or three years later. They will prove useful when Volkswagen has to face competition with Tesla, whose Chinamade electric cars are gaining in popularity as their prices are falling, he said. "They show Volkswagen's firm commitment to electrification, at least in China. The demand is here, so there comes investment," said Zhang. The arrival of international carmakers will also help improve the overall level of the new energy vehicle sector in China. "They are like reminders to Chinese players that if you do not work hard, there will be no place in the market," said Zhang.
The New York Police Department will disband its plain-clothes anti-crime unit that was involved in some of the city's most notorious shootings and reassign its 600 officers to tasks that include detective work and neighborhood policing.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea announced the move on Monday after his department has drawn scrutiny over the tactics used against protesters after the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

'When you look at the number of anti-crime officers that operate within New York City, and you look at a disproportionate, quite frankly, percentage of complaints and shootings - and they are doing exactly what was asked of them,' Shea said.

The head of one of the largest police unions in the city slammed the move, saying it will make New York less safe.

'Anti-Crimes mission was to protect New Yorkers by proactively preventing crime, especially gun violence,' Pat Lynch of the Police Benevolent Association said in a statement.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea (above) said his department would disband a plain-clothes, anti-crime unit

A plainclothes police officer detains and then releases a person alleged to have vandalized a store on May 31 in New York City

Last month, a member of the anti-crime unit was placed on modified leave after being filmed using a Taser to subdue a man while enforcing social distancing guidelines in the East Village of Manhattan

Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the move, tweeting: 'Your city hears you. Actions, not words.'

'Shooting and murders are both climbing steadily upward, but our city leaders have clearly decided that proactive policing isnt a priority anymore. They chose this strategy.

'They will have to reckon with the consequences.'

Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the move, tweeting: 'Your city hears you. Actions, not words.'

In recent weeks, officers with the anti-crime unit have been accused of excessive force.

In early May, a plain-clothes officer was placed on leave after video surfaced on social media showing him charging at bystanders on a Manhattan street with a Taser in his hand.

The officer was trying to enforce social distancing measures.

In March, officers were filmed violently arresting a man in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. Video of the arrest went viral, prompting criticism of the officers.

Shea said that the department decided on the reforms in the aftermath of weeks of unrest throughout the city.

Thankfully, here in New York City, angry demonstrations have turned peaceful, Shea said on Monday.

Thoughtful discussions about reform have emerged.

Shea added: 'This is a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city.

'I would consider this in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of "Stop, Question and Frisk"...I think it's time to more forward and change how we police in this city.

'We can do it with brains. We can do it with guile. We can move away from brute force.'

Shea said the move is 'not without risk' since anti-crime unit officers are often closest to criminals, according to WABC-TV.

The commissioner said it was possible that the move would result in fewer guns being taken off the streets.

But Shea added that the risk is 'squarely on my shoulders.'

The NYPD and police departments across the country have been on the defensive after the police-involved killing of Floyd and other black men and women ignited mass protests worldwide.

The death of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others have forced the American criminal justice system and its law enforcement agencies to re-examine its behavior toward African Americans.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday signed a package of major police reform bills including making disciplinary records public

The unveiling of the bills was attended by (left to right) Rev. Al Sharpton, Dr. Hazel N. Dukes, Valerie Bell, Gwen Carr, and NY State Sen. Andrea Stewart- Cousins. Bell and Carr are the mothers of Sean Bell and Eric Garner - two unarmed black Americans who died at the hands of New York cops

Activists supporting Black Lives Matter have even gone so far as to call for the abolition of police departments in favor of an alternative model of public safety.

As many as 40 New York City police officers could face either misconduct or criminal charges after several protesters complained that they were victims of excessive force by cops in recent weeks, according to The New York Times.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law on Friday a sweeping package of police accountability measures that received new backing following protests over Floyd's killing, including one allowing the release of officers' long-withheld disciplinary records.

The measures were approved earlier this week by the state's Democratic-led Legislature.

Some of the bills had been proposed in years past and failed to win approval, but lawmakers moved with new urgency in the wake of massive, nationwide demonstrations over Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

'Police reform is long overdue, and Mr. Floyd's murder is only the most recent murder,' Cuomo, a Democrat, said.

Cuomo was joined at the signing ceremony by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell, who was killed by an officer in 2006, and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who was killed by police in New York in 2014.

'It was a long time coming, but it came,' Carr said.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins thanks Carr and Bell 'for being brave and strong.'

'We are at a moment of reckoning. There is no doubt about it,' she said.

Meanwhile, members of the New York City Council said they would work to cut $1billion in New York Police Department spending for the next fiscal year.

The cuts would include overtime, headcount through attrition and shifting the department's responsibilities, according to a joint council statement.

The governor was praised by Rev. Al Sharpton over the move, who had joined Cuomo along with State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie at the unveiling of the historic bill

Sharpton and Cuomo at the 'historic' event. The package of bills, which the governor described as 'nation-leading' and 'aggressive', orders transparency of police records, bans chokeholds, bans false race-based 911 calls and makes the attorney general the independent prosecutor in killings of unarmed civilians by police

The proposed cut to the NYPD is about 15 per cent of the $6billion annual budget for department.

'Our budget must reflect the reality that policing needs fundamental reform. Over the last few weeks, we have seen an outpouring of New Yorkers demanding change from their leaders,' the statement said.

'It is our job to listen - and to act. We will not let this moment pass, and we will fight for the budget they deserve.'

The laws will ban police chokeholds, make it easier to sue people who call police on others without good reason, and set up a special prosecutor's office to investigate the deaths of people during and following encounters with police officers.

'These bills mean some substantive change, so that we won't be sitting here going over this after the next funeral and after the next situation,' Sharpton said.

NEW YORK'S POLICE REFORMS: The package of bills includes: A ban on chokeholds and use of the tactic being chargeable by up to 15 years in prison if it results in injury or death

A repeal of the 50-a meaning police officer records must be public

A ban on false race-based 911 calls

All state police officers must wear body cameras

Cops must report any time they fire their weapon in which a person could have been hit within six hours of the incident

The attorney general is made the independent prosecutor in killings of unarmed civilians by police The New York State Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative executive order: The order requires local governments and police agencies to develop and adopt plans to reform local police departments. Police forces must adopt a plan by April 1 2021 to be eligible for future state funding and show that they have: 1. Engaged stakeholders in a public and open process on policing strategies and tools 2. Presented a plan, by chief executive and head of the local police force, to the public for comment 3. After consideration of any comments, presented such plan to the local legislative body (council or legislature as appropriate) which has approved such plan (by either local law or resolution) 4. If such local government does not certify the plan, the police force may not be eligible to receive future state funding. Advertisement

Some bills, including body camera legislation, drew support from Republicans, who opposed legislation that repealed a state law long used to block the release of police disciplinary records over concerns about officers' privacy.

Eliminating the law, known as Section 50-a, would make complaints against officers, as well as transcripts and final dispositions of disciplinary proceedings, public for the first time in decades.

NYPD spokesperson Sgt. Jessica McRorie said the department 'will review the final version of the legislation and utilize it in a manner that ensures greater transparency and fairness.'

The state's approximately 500 police departments will all have to come up with plans to address everything from use of force to implicit bias awareness training by next April under an executive order that Cuomo said he will issue Friday.

The governor said New York is the first to come up with such a plan and warned that police departments who fail to do so will not receive state aid.

Lynch, the PBA chief, said in a news release that Cuomo and the legislative leaders 'have no business celebrating today.'

Lynch said police officers spend their days addressing the 'failures' of elected officials.

'Now, we won't even be able to do that,' he said.

'We will be permanently frozen, stripped of all resources and unable to do the job.'

Cuomo has 10 days to act on other bills passed by lawmakers this week, including legislation prohibiting police from using racial profiling and another bill ensuring that individuals under arrest or in policy custody receive attention for medical and mental health needs.

Lawmakers also passed a bill to require New York to collect and report the race and other demographic details of individuals who are charged.

The legislation says police departments must 'promptly report' to the state the death of any people who die in police custody and in an attempt to establish custody, and provide a demographic breakdown.

During this week's legislative debates, many lawmakers relayed their personal experiences with police.

On Friday, Stewart-Cousins, who is the first black woman to lead the state Senate, said her youngest son was once stopped and frisked when he was 18 and said he ended up with a fractured nose.

'Thank God I was able to bring him home,' she said.

'Every parent, every mother who looks like me understood that scary notion with our kids, with our husbands, with our brothers.'

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he's had 'not-so-positive' interactions with the police - from when he was young and even now as legislative leader.

'Growing up when you heard the stories of Anthony Baez and Sean Bell and Eric Garner, as a black man, I felt that could be me,' Heastie said.
HONG KONG, June 14, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - The GDR issuance of China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Pacific Insurance" or "the Company"), has attracted tremendous market attention as it makes progress on its London Stock Exchange listing. On June 13, China Pacific Insurance announced on three major platforms; the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange, that the prospectus of the Issuance (the "GDR Prospectus") was approved by the UK Financial Conduct Authority on 12 June 2020 (London time). Prior to this, the Company announced on 2 June that the GDR issuance was approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Company entered into a cornerstone investment agreement with Swiss Re Principal Investments Company Asia Pte. Ltd ("Swiss Re"). On 10 June, the Company announced the intention to float on the London Stock Exchange. Following the successful GDR issuance on London Stock Exchange, China Pacific Insurance will become the first Chinese insurance company to issue GDRs and the first A+H+G (Shanghai, Hong Kong, London) listed insurance company.



According to the related announcement, China Pacific Insurance intends to base offer no more than 102,873,300 GDRs, each of which represents 5 A-shares of the Company. In addition, the stabilisation manager can exercise the over-allotment option with no more than 10,287,300 additional GDRs, which do not exceed 10% of the base offering. The price range of the GDRs under the Issuance is preliminarily set between US$17.60 and US$19.00 per GDR. The offer period of the GDRs under the Issuance is from 12 June 2020 to 16 June 2020 (London time). Assuming the maximum number of GDRs of the proposed Issuance is achieved and the over-allotment option is fully exercised, the gross proceeds of the GDR Issuance will amount to between US$1.99 billion and US$2.15 billion. According to the regulatory rules, the GDRs issued cannot be converted into underlying A shares within 120 days from the date of listing.



The approval of the GDR Prospectus indicates that China Pacific Insurance's GDR issuance has entered into the final stage of the process. China Pacific Insurance believes that the issuance of GDRs will provide global investors with the opportunity to participate in the growth potential of China's booming insurance sector, which has increasingly been opening up in recent years. This Offering will broaden the Company's access to global capital market as well as further one of its core strategies, Transformation 2.0. According to the issuance plan stated in the announcement, China Pacific Insurance hopes the issuance of GDRs will expand its high-quality investors worldwide, diversify its shareholder structure and continue to enhance its corporate governance. The issuance price range is determined according to the Company's fundamentals and the evaluation of investors, the Shanghai-London Connect regulatory requirements, the domestic and foreign capital market conditions and the issuance risks.



Founded in 1991, China Pacific Insurance is going to celebrate its 30th Anniversary in 2021. As a leading insurance group in China with one of the most prestigious brands in the industry, China Pacific Insurance continues to showcase its outstanding performance. According to China Pacific Insurance's first quarter financial report for 2020, the Company achieved operating revenue of RMB138.211 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 3.8% and realized net profit attributable to equity holders of the Parent Company of RMB8.388 billion, up 53.1% on year-on-year basis. Recently, China Pacific Insurance published its 2019 annual dividend payment implementation announcement, which declared distribution of its annual cash dividend of 1.2 yuan (tax included) per share. According to professional research institutions, the China Pacific Insurance's GDR issuance is expected to improve the Company's corporate governance as well as help attract investors with potential strategic synergies or business cooperation. Meanwhile, the GDR listing will help the Company build an offshore US dollar fundraising platform and enhance the Company's international layout focusing on the insurance industry value chain. The listing will also introduce Swiss Re, who has a long-term cooperative relationship with China Pacific Insurance, as a cornerstone investor and create favourable conditions for building a stronger partnership between the two parties. With the UK regarded as the birthplace of the modern insurance industry, China Pacific Insurance is honoured to be listing in the London capital markets for its 30th anniversary. The Company is looking forward to a bright future and to impress the world with its continued market expansion.









Copyright 2020 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.





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San Antonio police are searching for the person suspected of shooting and killing a man on the North Side early Monday morning.

The victim, said to be in his 20s, and a female were sitting in a vehicle near the 1100 block of W. Ridgewood Court around 3 a.m., when a man with half of his face covered approached them and shot into the vehicle, police said. The woman said the shooter called the victim by name before firing.
"First and foremost, I would like to extend an apology on behalf of the District and the Board of School Directors to the student who was involved and to his family. They did not ask for this incident to occur, nor do they deserve the negative attention that it has brought." - school board President Tina Stoll


Harrison Ford was "almost killed" by actor Garrett Wang when he very nearly ran him over.

The 'Star Trek: Voyager' star has confessed to coming perilously close to "maiming" the iconic actor - who is best known for starring as Han Solo in the 'Star Wars' movies, which is often considered to be the rival franchise to 'Star Trek' among fans - when he was "speeding" around the parking lot at Paramount Studios after being late to an audition.

Recalling the close call, Garrett said: "I'm actually speeding around the [Paramount Studios] parking lot, and I come around this one bend, and this guy in a suit walks between two cars right in front of my car, so I slam on my brakes.

"You know when you almost have an accident; your heart is beating a thousand miles a minute? I lock eyes with this dude in the suit, and it's Harrison Ford! I look at him, and I go 'Oh my god! I almost killed Han Solo!' I would have been hated by nerds everywhere!"

Garrett - who played Ensign Harry Kim in 'Star Trek: Voyager' from 1995 to 2001 - later discovered Harrison was at the studios for a screening of the 1994 movie 'Clear and Present Danger', and couldn't believe he had almost "crippled" the iconic movie star.

Speaking on the 'Delta Flyers' podcast, the 51-year-old actor said: "I remember reading the Variety paper, our Hollywood trade paper, the next day, and on the front page was a photo that said 'Harrison Ford at Paramount Studios for the 'Clear and Present Danger' screening.' He was there for that, based on the Tom Clancy novel, wearing that same suit I almost maimed him in. He could have been a cripple, because of me."

Meanwhile, Harrison is no stranger to living dangerously, as last year he revealed he's keen to become a qualified skydiver.

The 77-year-old actor jumped out of plane in New Zealand because his teenage son Liam Flockhart "wanted to" and, although he was initially hesitant, the 'Indiana Jones' star really enjoyed falling to the ground while strapped to a parachute and would now like to take the training to become a solo skydiver.

He said: "[I was] strapped to the chest of a real skydiver. Next time, I want to leave that guy on the ground. He seemed like a very nice guy, but I want to take the training and then be able to do it myself."
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Berlin, Germany  Mon, June 15, 2020 11:00 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdebedf0 2 World Germany,coronavirus,tracing-COVID-19,coronavirus-prevention,COVID-19,COVID-19-tracing-app,virus-corona,SARS-CoV-2,novel-coronavirus,pandemic Free

Germany's smartphone app to trace coronavirus infections is ready to be launched this week, Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday.

After delays to ensure the bluetooth technology would work at the correct distance, the government says the app will be a vital tool to help avoid a second wave of infections.

"It's coming this week," Spahn told ARD television, but he declined to confirm German media reports that the app would be launched on Tuesday.

The app uses bluetooth short-range radio to detect and contact people at risk of infection by coronavirus and does not rely on a centralized database. Deutsche Telekom and software company SAP are involved.

Italy launched a similar app last week.

Spahn also urged people wishing to go on holiday after European border controls are eased on Monday to be careful and ask themselves whether their trip was necessary.

On Monday, Germany lifts its blanket travel warning for European Union nations and Britain, and will replace it with specific travel advice for individual countries and regions.

"We need the right balance," Spahn said, adding that recent outbreaks in Germany after mass gatherings and church services had caused a rapid spread of the virus.

Thanks to large-scale testing, a robust health system and lockdown measures introduced in mid-March, Germany has kept the number of deaths from COVID-19 relatively low compared to other countries despite a large number of cases.
The biggest refiners in Europe unveiled on Monday a pathway to reduce emissions in the transportation sector by scaling up the production of synthetic fuels to contribute to the European Unions 2050 climate neutrality goal.

FuelsEurope, the association of the biggest refiners in Europe which includes oil majors ExxonMobil, Phillips 66, Valero, Shell, BP, Eni, Equinor, and Total, among others, believes that synthetic fuels, or the so-called low-carbon liquid fuels (LCLF), could enable the climate neutrality in road transportation by 2050.

LCLF are sustainable fuels from non-petroleum origin with no or very limited carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions during their production and use, FuelsEurope said, as some of its memberssuch as Shellhave already said that they would look to cut not only emissions from their upstream operations, but also from the products they sell to customers.

The pathway to develop LCLF for road, maritime, and air transport to 2050 would need investments of between US$450 billion (400 billion euro) and US$731 billion (650 billion euro), according to FuelsEurope.

Major investments, in addition to those already deployed, could start in the next years, with first-of-a-kind plants at industrial scale potentially coming into operation at the latest by 2025, the association said.

Complementary to electrification and hydrogen technologies, low carbon liquid fuels will be essential throughout the energy transition and beyond 2050, ensuring security of supply, providing consumer choice and also building Europes industrial leadership, John Cooper, Director General of FuelsEurope, said in a statement.

In the most ambitious scenario, climate neutrality could be achieved for all remaining liquid fuel in road transport, with a 50% reduction in carbon intensity for EUs aviation and maritime sectors, Cooper said.

FuelsEurope acknowledges the fact that decarbonizing the transportation sector will take hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and a lot of collaboration among stakeholders.

We call on EU policymakers to establish a high-level dialogue with all relevant stakeholders as soon as possible. For the fuels industrys part, we are ready to take the lead, Cooper said.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
By PTI

MUMBAI: Heavy pre-monsoon showers in Maharashtra's Jalgaon district led to flooding of the ground floor of the COVID-19 hospital, forcing its staff to shift patients to upper floors in midnight, an official said on Sunday.

The city in north Maharashtra started receiving downpour on Saturday late night which continued for at least two hours, said an official from the Godavari Medical College where COVID-19 patients were being treated.

The patients were on the ground floor as many of them and their relatives are more than 50-year old, he said.

"There were some 12 patients on the ground floor. The same floor also has an emergency ward for accident patients. The late night showers caused flooding in the ground floor and within few hours, we were standing in knee deep water," recalled the official.

He said patients were shifted to upper floors while some machinery and equipment was left on the ground floor.

Former Jalgaon district guardian minister Girish Mahajan of the BJP described the situation as "horrible".

"Bureaucracy is clueless.

There is no planning, no proper person to lead from the front, and above all the state government has a little concern towards such issues," he said.

The official blamed construction of a highway near the hospital for the flooding.

"Since the height of the road is elevated, it created a slope towards the hospital," he claimed.

District guardian minister Gulabrao Patil also concurred with the view of the official.

"The ongoing four-laning work of the highway has led to water rushing towards the hospital. I have instructed officials to complete the work at the earliest so that similar situation does not arise again."
SKANEATELES  A new group called Skaneateles for Social Justice began organizing Sunday's Black Lives Matter protest just two weeks ago. On the day of the event, the crowd didnt stop growing until it was time to march.

From noon to 1 p.m., cars steadily filled up the the Austin Park parking lot and then spilled onto the grass as about 300 protesters gathered for a march through the Village of Skaneateles to the Clift Park gazebo. There, residents spoke about experiencing racism while visiting or growing up in Skaneateles, a predominantly white lakeside town.

Protests like the peaceful one in Skaneateles have ignited across the country in past weeks after a Minneapolis police officer fatally knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, for almost nine minutes in May.

Madie Rhoad, an organizer, said she expected Sunday's crowd to consist mostly of family, friends and anyone else who wanted to join. Then, over 500 people responded to the event on Facebook.

I wasnt expecting this many people. Its incredible just to see all these people coming together and supporting us, Rhoad said.

The other organizers, Lily Datz, Cecilia Marrinan, Channa Barnes, Zoe Osborne, Hope Glowacki and Lucas Rathgeb, were busy Sunday afternoon orchestrating donations to Syracuse Black Lives Matter and getting protesters lined up.

Osborne added that the original Facebook post describing the event racked up thousands of views.

Just looking out now, its kind of unreal, she said, gesturing to the people filing in minutes before the protest was set to begin.

The organizers were happy with the 30 people who were there at 12:30 p.m., half an hour before the event began. But Osborne said people from Auburn, Syracuse and Camillus kept coming.

Its kind of crazy. Were really grateful, she said.

A Skaneateles police vehicle cleared the way for protesters to walk through residential streets between Austin Park and the commercial shopping strip along Genesee Street and Skaneateles Lake.

Those at the front led chants of this is what democracy looks like and stand up, fight back as people looked on in support or displayed signs of their own from the sidewalks. Separate chants broke out toward the middle of the march.

The march concluded at Clift Park, where speeches were scheduled to take place at the gazebo. To begin the next portion of the demonstration, Westminster Manor Executive Director Rhoda Overstreet-Wilson sang the Negro National Anthem as she did for Auburns demonstration.

Judy Bryant, Harriet Tubmans great-great grandniece, addressed the crowd with some emotional impromptu remarks. She said her father built the gazebo they were speaking from.

My dad and my grandfather would be very pleased and very proud and very happy to see you today, she said, as the crowd stood and clapped.

Ednita Wright, a professor of human services and teacher education at Onondaga Community College, noted that Tubman could've passed through Skaneateles on her way to Canada from her Auburn home.

Her life and radical action are what has given me the courage to believe that these times of death and sadness will lead us closer to freedom, she said.

Wright, a Syracuse resident, said she gets nervous taking her mother out to eat in Skaneateles. They anticipate being scrutinized or hearing racist comments. She felt there were too many eyes watching her as she walked through the village.

I dont usually feel comfortable here. This is a different kind of day, she said.

Osborne felt lucky in some ways to grow up in Skaneateles. But she still suffered from a lack of racial diversity. The Drexel University student recalled her discomfort while learning about slavery in middle school as classmates made racist comments to her.

I never thought twice about how toxic and diminishing these comments truly were and I never saw how badly these comments attributed to how I saw myself moving forward, Osborne said.

Marrinan discussed how she left Skaneateles High School after ninth grade to attend St. Pauls Boarding School in New Hampshire.

There was a time I did not feel embraced here, she said.

At the boarding school, she found a more diverse student body, bonded with other black girls, joined clubs and was able to process the racism she experienced while in school in Skaneateles.

Marrinan said she was called the n-word at 6 years old and that classmates would wear clothes with the Confederate flag, post offensive things online and commit microaggressions targeted toward black people.

I could not grapple with why I felt so uncomfortable in a town that in my eyes was perfect, she said.

She said she was proud to march for the black people who died at the hands of racism, including Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Tamir Rice. She also stressed that she told her stories to urge action from her predominantly white community.

Our country is on fire and we must work collectively with all races in order to extinguish the flames, Marrinan said.

Staff writer Mary Catalfamo can be reached at (315) 282-2244 or mary.catalfamo@lee.net. Find her on Twitter @mrycatalfamo.

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As the nation debates defunding police, Harrisburg officials are considering shaking up its next budget to allow for public safety programs that better serve marginalized residents, Mayor Eric Papenfuse said Sunday.

The slogan defund police" chanted by protesters doesnt always mean abolishing police, but rather diverting some of the funding traditionally used for police to other programs that directly benefit residents in neighborhoods that dont often get investment.

The proposal has gained some traction across the nation in recent weeks after the death of George Floyd while in custody of Minneapolis police. Videos of some officers battering protesters while they were rallying against police brutality has amplified calls for new and different public safety models.

Advocates say additional training and body cameras havent prompted the change they want from police, so divesting funds from departments can help end the culture of punishment in the criminal justice system.

We dont always get a lot of feedback about our budget, Papenfuse told reporters Sunday at an anti-racism rally. But were going to talk about a lot of changes for the police budget this year.

The city allocates nearly $20 million annually to the police department, from its nearly $75 million general fund. Nearly $18 million that goes to police goes to pay personnel costs such as salaries and benefits.

The city has had difficulty in recent years keeping officer positions filled, so money from those vacancies could instead be used to hire social workers to embed in the police department, to take the lead on certain kinds of calls involving mental illness or substance abuse, the mayor said.

Another idea is to hire residents respected in the community who could act as violence interrupters in their neighborhoods to try to de-escalate conflicts, thwart violence before it happens and prevent retaliatory shootings.

The city also could invest more in programs at the school district, like establishing career pathways to become police officers and curriculum to support that.

Additional training for officers is another way the city could invest in police reform, Papenfuse said. The mayor didnt advocate for cutting police officer positions, which already have been reduced in recent years amid the citys financial crisis.

We want to spend money on the things the community wants to see, he said. The police budget already is relatively small, and nearly all personnel costs, so there isnt a lot of fat to trim.

Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse speaks at a Black Lives Matter rally in Harrisburg, Pa., June 14, 2020. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

But the mayor said the city could be willing to dip into its $25 million fund balance or find other ways to pay for important programs that could better reduce violence and serve residents.

We want to reform our priorities, he said, rather than doing the same thing and investing more and more in the same policing.

The mayor typically presents his budget proposal in November, and its followed by public meetings and a council vote in December.

Before the public budget process begins, Harrisburg leaders also are considering changes to policies that guide police behavior. For example:

Should Harrisburg police be allowed to shoot at drivers in moving vehicles if they believe their life is threatened by the vehicle?

Its a controversial policing tactic that is banned in many cities, but still allowed in Harrisburg under certain circumstances. A Harrisburg officer fatally shot a driver in Hall Manor for allegedly driving his car at an officer in 2018.

Should Harrisburg police be required to intervene if another officer is using excessive force? Thats not a policy currently adopted in the capital city.

Those were some of the questions posed by Papenfuse Sunday at the rally. He said the city is currently seeking feedback from residents about eight proposed police reforms circulating nationally, known as 8 Cant Wait.

The citys force already has policies addressing six of the reforms, but not a policy banning officers from shooting at moving vehicles, which has been deemed dangerous and ineffective by many experts.

The city also doesnt require the intervention of other officers who witness excessive force, although officers are encouraged to do so and the city has two recent examples of their officers independently reporting police misconduct.

A Harrisburg police officer was the one who tipped off the department when a vice sergeant was accused of stealing cash from the evidence locker in 2016; and Harrisburg officers were the ones to stop and turn in a Pennsylvania State Police trooper for kicking a handcuffed man in the face in 2015.

While Harrisburg has six of the recommended policies on the books, those six policies could still need to be strengthened or altered, Papenfuse said.

The other six recommended policies are:

Ban chokeholds and all other neck restraints

Require officers to de-escalate situations, where possible, by communicating with subjects, maintaining distance, and otherwise eliminating the need to use force.

Require officers to exhaust all other alternatives, including non-force and less lethal force options, prior to resorting to deadly force.

Establish a Force Continuum that restricts the most severe types of force to the most extreme situations and creates clear policy restrictions on the use of each police weapon and tactic.

Require officers to report each time they use force or threaten to use force against civilians. Comprehensive reporting includes requiring officers to report whenever they point a firearm at someone, in addition to all other types of force.

Require officers to give a verbal warning in all situations before using deadly force.

While the city requires officers to give a verbal warning, Papenfuse said city leaders are exploring whether the city require more of officers before they resort to deadly force.

City leaders also are considering whether to allow officers to continue to shoot at moving vehicles in some circumstances, since vehicles at times have been used to ram into protesters or other crowds. But do residents want to allow their officers this leeway? A man in the audience demanded to know Papenfuses position on this policy.

An outright ban is something we should consider, the mayor responded.

The city established an email address to collect thoughts, comments and concerns from residents about police policies.

Interested residents can send their comments to: 8cantwait@harrisburgpa.gov

READ: Meet 3 protesters from Harrisburgs Truth to Power rally

READ: Pa. keeps police misconduct records secret
Wholesale WKND! And Orchard Heights Cannabis and WKND! Wellness Products

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2020 / Weekend Unlimited Industries Inc. ("WKND!" or the "Company") (POT.CN)(WKULF)(0OS1.F) is pleased to announce record revenues of Cdn$376,104, earning record gross profits of Cdn$37,005, or 10%, for an increase of 1,138% in revenues compared to revenues of Cdn$30,387 and 22% gross profit in Q2 2020. These results reflect sales of WKND! and Orchard Heights branded cannabis products in Oklahoma and WKND! Wellness CBD and health products sold between April 1st, 2020 thru June 15th, 2020 in Q3 2020.

During the month of June to date WKND! Wellness products saw a 487% increase in month-over-month sales generating the Company a total of Cdn$286,051 in revenues, with cost of goods sold totalling Cdn$268,773, representing a gross profit Cdn$17,278, or 6%.

Additionally, revenues of WKND! and Orchard Heights branded cannabis products during April and May 2020, saw a 78% increase over Q2 giving the Company Cdn$41,359 in revenues, with cost of goods sold totalling Cdn$27,136, and a gross profit of Cdn$14,223, or 34%.

"This is a pinnacle moment for Weekend Unlimited that still has another two weeks to go in Q3. It is incredibly exciting to see these revenues and to be finally taking home profits. Being a Cannabis company with no debt, and products rapidly gaining in popularity, we are very optimistic leading into Q4." said Mr. Robert Payment, Weekend CFO.

"Despite the pandemic environment we are generating record numbers in both revenue and gross profit. After going to market with an initial strategy focused on high volume, low margin products that would give WKND! brands maximum exposure, the Company is now positioned to decrease cost of goods through high volume orders, while continuing to increase overall sales and gross profit." stated Mr. Chris Backus, WKND! President/CEO. "As our product lines and distribution continue to expand and our brands continue to gain awareness in the United States, we are well positioned to take advantage of the exciting US Cannabis and Wellness market."

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We encourage readers to visit www.wkndwellness.com to view our full line up WKND! Wellness brands and sign up to our Company newsletter.

The Company cautions that figures for revenue, expenses and margin generated from the sale of WKND! Cannabis and WKND! Wellness products 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 average exchange rate of 1.3926 for Q3 to date and 1.3449 for Q2.

About Weekend Unlimited Industries Inc.

Weekend Unlimited is a lifestyle-based recreational cannabis and CBD wellness company. We are developing and launching premium cannabis and CBD brands to deliver life's highs - any- time, anywhere. Our CBD products are available online and at a retailer near you. Weekend Unlimited is well-positioned to launch and scale the brands that will define cannabis and CBD. Learn more at www.weekendunlimited.com.

For further information, please contact:

Mr. Chris Backus, President & CEO, Director Telephone: 1(236) 317-2812

E-mail: IR@weekendunlimited.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 release.

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.

SOURCE: Weekend Unlimited Industries Inc.





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https://www.accesswire.com/593749/Weekend-Unlimited-Reports-Record-Revenues-of-Cdn376104-and-Gross-Profit-of-10-in-Q3-2020-to-Date-a-Revenue-Increase-of-1138-from-Q2




Germany will be the next big country to launch a COVID-19 contact tracing app. Health Minister Jens Spahn has confirmed that the app is coming this week, with reports suggesting that it might be ready as soon as June 16th. Like Italy and some other countries, its using a decentralized approach to data that might protect privacy better than the central methods of countries like Australia.

As elsewhere, the app is meant to supplement conventional contact tracing (where staff reach out to people who came close to COVID-19 victims). This ideally makes it easier to isolate exposed people and prevent a second wave of infections that could lead to overwhelmed hospitals and further lockdowns.

The country faces similar challenges, too. Contact tracing apps generally require large-scale adoption to be truly effective, and that doesnt always happen  Singapore is considering tracing devices for every resident after relatively low uptake of its app. And while Germanys system makes data theft and abuse more difficult, there are lingering concerns about technology that requires constant (if anonymous) Bluetooth interactions.

Still, a lot may ride on this app. Germany is poised to hold limited events like IFA as soon as September. If its going to go forward with these, it needs as much information as possible about potential outbreaks if its going to keep infections down and have visitors feel relatively safe.
A Toronto constable has been charged with breach of trust and theft after a Toronto Police Service radio was stolen, police said Monday.

Const. Ronald Joseph, an officer with 11 years with the Toronto police, faces one count each of breach of trust and theft over $5,000, following an investigation by the services professional standards unit.

According to Toronto police, a radio was stolen sometime between September 12 and October 7, 2019, prompting the internal investigation. Toronto police did not provide any further information.

Joseph, who was been suspended with pay as required by Ontarios Police Services Act, is scheduled to appear in court in September.
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Linkedin Rizki Fachriansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 18:55 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee56dd 1 National buzzers,buzzeRp,Bintang-Emon,social-media,Twitter,controversy,novel-baswedan,acid-attack Free

Comedian Bintang Emon, who recently gained popularity for his satirical video that questions the light sentence sought for Novel Baswedans alleged assailants, has become the subject of controversy on social media after several Twitter accounts purportedly belonging to so-called buzzers accused him of being a drug addict.

In a tweet posted by one such account, @Tiara61636212, Emon was said to have been a methamphetamine addict. The account further claimed Emon had turned to illegal drugs to maintain his performance as a stand-up comedian.

Photos of the comedian have also been posted on the social media platform along with the caption addicted to meth.

The account has been suspended at the time of writing.

Read also: Baffled by light sentences sought for Novel Baswedan's attackers, netizens turn to humor

Emon himself wrote on his official Twitter page, which has since been set to private, that he and his management team had been receiving anonymous emails.

The apparent attempts to discredit Emon seemed to have failed, however, as many other netizens have since tweeted in support of the young comedian. As of Monday afternoon, Bintang Emon has topped the national trending topics on Twitter.

Actor and fellow stand-up comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono wrote in a tweet that Emon had been attacked by the questionable accounts because he had done the right thing.

Sekarang Indonesia tau Bintang Emon melakukan hal yg benar karena fitnah oleh organisator akun2 ini mengungkap bhw mereka ada di posisi yg salah. pic.twitter.com/JGb11JRseG  Pandji Pragiwaksono (@pandji) June 15, 2020

Now Indonesia knows that Bintang Emon did the right thing because the allegations raised by the owners of these accounts reveal they are on the wrong side, @pandji tweeted on Monday, garnering nearly 30,000 retweets and 60,000 likes at the time of writing.

Twitter user @tapifanboyy called on fellow social media users to speak up in support of Emon amid the furor.

Bintang Emon adalah bentuk kebebasan, pemuda yang berani bersuara dengan nyata tentang hal hal yang dianggap suram di negeri ini.



Bintang Emon adalah kita, kita yang geram akan keadilan yang seolah timpang.



Kalian jangan cuek, beri dukungan untuk ikut menyuarakan keadilan. pic.twitter.com/oBMe6jIdiI  Bukan fakboy (@tapifanboyy) June 15, 2020

Bintang Emon represents freedom, a young man who dares to speak up about the [injustices] in this country. Bintang Emon is us  we who are sick of injustice, they tweeted.

Another user, @nichkuss, similarly conveyed his support for Emon.

My fav's comedian is attacked by buzzers for speaking up the truth. Seriously, the way how this government work is suck. And why can't just the government accept all of the criticize instead of making shitty tweets and hashtags 



I'll always stand for you, Bintang Emon pic.twitter.com/VrWoizYwuw  Nicolas Kusuma (@nichkuss) June 14, 2020

Ill always stand [with] you, Bintang Emon,

Meanwhile, other netizens have also attempted to clear unfavorable search results for Emon on the platform by tweeting his name multiple times alongside a string of positive adjectives such as talented, beautiful and precious.

Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) researcher Rivanlee Alexander told tempo.co that the controversy only went on to prove that there had been an active effort to silence dissenters in the country.

Although the perpetrators remain unknown, what they have done is an example of intimidation against freedom of expression, Rivanlee said.

In a short video that went viral over the weekend on Instagram, Emon poked fun at the prosecutors insistence that the defendants in Novels case  Chief Brig. Ronny Bugis and Brig. Rahmat Kadir  had accidentally thrown sulfuric acid at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators face in April 2017.

The skit was met with praise among fellow netizens and celebrities, with some lauding Emons decision to use his penchant for humor to speak up about the notoriously difficult case.

Novel himself also went on the record to say that he found Emons video amusing.

That boy is ingenious, he said on Saturday.
As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to swell around the country, Kim Kardashian is trying to use her platform for change and awareness.

Flashing some skin a cutout pink outfit, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star promoted a black owned fashion brand she is a big fan of.

The 39-year-old wrote in her caption, encouraging fans to look at the brand 'I wanted to tell you guys about a black owned brand that I love.'

Promoting: Kim Kardashian took to Instagram on Sunday to promote the black owned fashion brand, Jolie by Dia, she loves

She continued in her caption, writing: '@joliesaudiaa owns and designs all of the knit wear @jbdapparel. I love her stuff, check her out.'

Posing on a large white couch, she showed off her curves in the pink set, called Zenith, which retails on the brand's site for $275.

Her long-sleeve pink crop top featured a large cutout at her chest, flaunting her chest, and a short hem that revealed her toned abs.

The mini skirt also featured a cut out at her hip, she originally posted photos in the outfit two weeks ago on Instagram.

The set: Posing on a large white couch, she showed off her curves in the pink set, called Zenith, which retails on the brand's site for $275

Original post: Kim originally posted photos in the brand's set two weeks ago but did not shoutout the brand instead captioning the photos 'Hindsight's 2020'

She matched her accessories to the hue of the outfit, with dangling earrings, as she kept her hail in and braid made longer by accessories.

In the original posts she didn't tag the brand but simply captioned them 'Hindsights 2020.'

Kim does seem to be a big fan of the brand as she was also spotted in a top from the brand, Jolie by Dia, when attending Scott Disick's recent birthday party.

Accessories: Her long-sleeve pink crop top featured a large cutout at her chest, flaunting her chest, and a short hem that revealed her toned abs. The mini skirt also featured a cut out at her hip, she originally posted photos in the outfit two weeks ago on Instagram

For that occasion she wore a grey version of the brand's Ion top, that retails for $105.

She recently shared images from the celebration, that she said was the first gathering she attended since the coronavirus pandemic put Los Angeles on socially distancing measures.

She teamed the knit grey mini top with light-wash and high-waist denim jeans and open toe heels.

All pieces Kim has worn are sold out on the website and she was the feature image for the Zenith set.

Big fan: Kim does seem to be a big fan of the brand as she was also spotted in a top from the brand, Jolie by Dia, when attending Scott Disick's recent birthday party, wearing its $105 Ion top

Kim has been vocal on social media since the death of George Floyd in Minnesota police custody on Memorial Day, set off protests around the country, and has been donating to organizations.

Since Floyd's death the Black Lives Matter has grown and many are now focusing on buying from black owned businesses and hiring black employees.

She announced earlier this month about how her company her several companies will help after Floyd's death.

Kim shared to messages to Instagram with the details. 'We are donating,' the mogul wrote as she named of the list of organizations that will see her money including Black Lives Matter and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

This comes just as TMZ reported her husband Kanye West has donated $2M 'to the families and legal teams' fighting for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd.

Vocal: Kim has been vocal on social media since the death of George Floyd in Minnesota police custody on Memorial Day, set off protests around the country, and has been donating to organizations

His part: This comes just as TMZ reported her husband Kanye West has donated $2M 'to the families and legal teams' fighting for Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd

It was added the Stronger rapper is setting up a college fund for George's daughter Gianna, aged six.

And it was claimed the artist is giving money 'to several black-owned businesses in his hometown of Chicago.'

Kim's message began, 'SKIMS is a brand rooted in inclusivity and diversity.' The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star added, 'We stand in solidarity with the fight against systemic racism and are committed to supporting and participating in the shift hat needs to take place.'

The mother-of-four then said, 'We are donating across organizations focused on making change and fighting racial injustice.'

The cover girl listed off the organizations that will see her money.

Among them are NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Urban League, Color Of Change, and Black Lives Matter.

Kim then ended with: 'We hope you join us in taking action to make lasting change.'
Sonia Kruger is shocked by Mamamia's decision to drop her from their beauty podcast, You Beauty, a new report has claimed.

On Friday, the website informed followers the decision was based on Kruger's past comments relating to Muslim immigration, that some found to be 'deeply hurtful'.

And according to a report from The Daily Telegraph on Monday, the Big Brother host, 54, feels like she's been 'completely thrown under the bus'.

Shocked: Sonia Kruger (pictured) feels like she's been 'completely thrown under the bus' after being DROPPED from a popular podcast on Monday, a new report claims

'They knew about her comments years ago but still pursued her anyway just a few months ago. Now they suddenly decide to drop her, it makes no sense,' an alleged insider told the publication.

Daily Mail Australia have contacted Mamamia and Channel Seven for comment.

This comes after The Daily Telegraph reported on Friday that Sonia has been dropped from Mamamia's beauty podcast, You Beauty.

Administrators announced on Facebook that they have removed Sonia's episode this week on sensitive skin.

An alleged insider said: 'They knew about her comments years ago but still pursued her anyway just a few months ago. Now they suddenly decide to drop her, it makes no sense'

'We have made the decision to take down the episode of You Beauty featuring Sonia Kruger,' a Facebook post read.

'We want to thank you for your feedback and pointing out that Sonia's past views on topics including Muslim immigration were deeply hurtful to so many people.'

In February last year, a tribunal found Kruger vilified Muslims when she called for Australia to close its borders to followers of Islam because she 'didn't feel safe'.

Controversial: In February 2019, a tribunal found Kruger, 54, vilified Muslims when she called for Australia to close its borders to followers of Islam because she 'didn't feel safe'

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal delivered their decision almost three years after Kruger's explosive comments were made on the Today Show in July 2016.

The tribunal found Kruger's 'vilifying remarks' had the ability to 'encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population'.

Australian Muslim man Sam Ekermawi filed the complaint saying Channel Nine had vilified 'ethnic Muslim Australians'.
As usual, the court did not give reasons Monday for denying the cases, so it is only speculation whether it was the issue or the specific cases that the court was rejecting. The justices avoidance of such fraught topics, at least for now, allows the court to stay out of the political fray when its next term begins in the heat of the presidential election.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge issues a statement regarding a leaked report on Church governance in Australia, and calls for further consultation before the final version can be released.

By Vatican News

The President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has called a leaked report on Church governance an interim version and not the final report.

The report is entitled The Light from the Southern Cross: Promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia. The Bishops commissioned the 208-page report and handpicked 14 peopleincluding lay people, clergy, and international expertsto write it.

The report makes 86 recommendations for changes in the governance of the Catholic Church in Australia. They hit on issues such as subsidiarity, administration, synodality, dialogue, discernment, and leadership, as well as offering concrete suggestions for strengthening the role of the laity at parish and diocesan levels.

Terms of reference not fulfilled



In a statement released on 12 June, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the terms of reference set forth for the governance review have not yet been fulfilled.

He said those terms were set out in a letter he wrote in March 2019 to the Chair of the Implementation Advisory Group.

The letter, said Archbishop Coleridge, required the final report to be finalised in consultation with the Conference; and any matters pertaining to the Holy See, Plenary Council or other parties should be conveyed to them prior to publication.

The Bishops Conference also retained the right to decide upon the timing of publication.

Archbishop Coleridge said the Bishops had not finished consulting with the Holy See before the report was leaked on 1 June.

Report requires further reflection

Archbishop Coleridge said Australias Bishops are profoundly grateful for the report, but that they require more time to amend and clarify certain points.

When it was presented at the 7-14 May plenary meeting, he said, the Bishops had not had time to read and reflect upon the report in the way that it warrants.

So, they have been given until 17 July to provide feedback, which will be used to amend the governance report.

The final version will then be published in late July or early August. Catholics can then approach their local Bishop with feedback to help him in shaping his response.

The Bishops will decide upon their response to the report at their November plenary meeting.

Holy Spirit will have final say

Archbishop Coleridge said the Bishops Conference regards the governance report as an integral part of the Australian Churchs journey toward the Plenary Council, which should take place in late 2021 and mid-2022.

The Plenary Council, concluded Archbishop Coleridge, will determine the Churchs response to the report.

Given that the Council is the work of the Holy Spirit, he said, it is the Holy Spirit who will have the final say.
The Russian Federation wouldnt talk about releasing Paul until he was convicted, he told The Associated Press. "And so, now that that has happened, we hope that the U.S. government will speak to the Russian government. We will have to continue to treat it as a political case, which is what it is, and seek a political solution for his freedom.
Where I live, on eastern Long Island, summer begins on Memorial Day weekend and lasts until Labor Day. Were a place that has a lot of wealthy second-homeowners, but were also where city people come to escape and party. In March, many escaped New York Citys infection rates by waiting it out here, where theres more space, lovely beaches, and a little more luxury.

But as time passed, and the weather got nicer, locals and visitors alike got tired of the rules of quarantine. Lately, it has felt like lockdown doesnt exist at all. Walk out on the streets in the middle of the day and youre bound to see half the population without masks. Beaches are packed, rules are not fully being enforced, and the governor, Andrew Cuomo, recently called our area out as one of concern.

Citing 25,000 reopening violations between Manhattan and the Hamptons, Cuomo announced that he was willing to reverse opening procedures in the areas where people were failing to comply. I'm going to reverse it in those areas where those local governments did not comply with the law, he said during a press conference on Sunday. That is what is going to happen here. I am warning today, in a nice way, consequences of your actions.

Choosing to reopen  especially here, in the most infected state  was likely a mistake, and well see the full consequences of a lack of compliance down the road. But we are open now, meaning the onus is upon us. It is on us to decide whether a haircut is worth it, whether a trip to a bar is worth it, whether dining out frequently is worth it, whether failing to wear a mask in public is worth it. Things are not back to normal, and believing that they are is a tragedy waiting to unfold.

Part of the problem is that the federal government did not do enough to address the real crises faced by small businesses, particularly in the restaurant industry, and now restaurants are clamoring to open  and are possibly breaking some rules in the process  because not opening means ceding their survival to the virus. Its not really their fault. The president could have intervened on their behalf, and, in fact, numerous people called on him to distribute federal aid to the industry. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio called on Trump and Congress to bail out independently owned restaurants at one point  but they ultimately did nothing to help save a crippled segment of US business, despite the fact that this industry employs over 14 million Americans.

Opening restaurants is one thing. Failing to acknowledge, as a population, that the threat of a virus is still here, despite the warm weather, protests, and general distraction is entirely another. The predictions have not changed. We are likely still in the middle of the first wave of this pandemic, with a second wave waiting on the horizon. Opening the doors to life-as-usual, simply because waiting for life to begin again became painful and inconvenient, will cost us dearly in the end.

New York has struggled mightily since the pandemic began. Only recently were city residents able to part with the refrigerated trucks that housed human bodies, when morgues ran out of space for the dead. Thats the real cost of returning to normal life. Thats the consequence that Cuomo is describing to all of us, when he warns us to stay vigilant.

If we have to continue living inside for a long, miserable summer, then so be it. Compliance is not a punishment. Its a patriotic duty. Because this virus is not behind us  its not even close to behind us. And failing to take seriously this reality simply because it is inconvenient  and, yes, unpleasant  will only turn the hands of time backwards. We cannot afford a mistake of such magnitude.
Maria Ressa, the award-winning head of a Philippine online news site Rappler, talks to the media on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, in Manila, Philippines.

Associated Press/Bullit Marquez

A court in the Philippines has convicted Maria Ressa, the editor of the influential local news site Rappler Inc., of cyber libel, in a major blow to the country's eroding press freedom.

Rappler has provoked the ire of the Duterte administration for its fearless coverage and criticism of Duterte's war on drugs.

Ressa and a former Rappler writer-researcher named Reynaldo Santos Jr. face up to six years in prison under the country's cyber libel laws.

International rights groups have spoken out against the guilty verdict and have said that the move is aimed at shutting down criticism of the Duterte government.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A court in the Philippines has convicted a veteran journalist and outspoken critic of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte of cyber libel in a major blow to the country's eroding press freedom.

Maria Ressa, 56, is the editor of Rappler Inc., an influential online news website that has provoked the ire of the Duterte administration for its coverage. Ressa was also included in Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2018 as part of a collection of journalists praised for safeguarding the truth in their coverage.

According to ABS-CBN, a local TV network was effectively shut down by Duterte in May, Ressa and a former colleague face up to six years in prison. The allegations of cyber libel stem from a 2012 Rappler article that tied local businessman Wilfredo Keng to a former judge facing impeachment.

According to ABS-CBN, the Philippines passed its Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 months after the Rappler article mentioning Keng was written. After several years of back and forth between Keng and Rappler to have his name scrubbed from the article, Keng filed a complaint with the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation, accusing Ressa and Rappler of defamation.

According to The New York Times, the Philippines court on Monday local time declared that Rappler was not legally responsible in the cyber libel case, instead pinning blame on Ressa and a former Rappler writer-researcher named Reynaldo Santos Jr. According to The Guardian, they are entitled to bail and can appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Story continues

Ressa has denied the charges and said they were aimed at silencing critics of the Duterte administration.

"Corrupt, coerce, co-opt. You're with us or against us," she said in an interview with The Times last week. "If I'm convicted, then it's codified into law."

International rights groups have spoken out against the guilty verdict and have said that the move is aimed at shutting down criticism of the Duterte government.

"Today's conviction and sentencing of Maria Ressa of up to six years in jail is an outrageous crime against press freedom," Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalism's senior Southeast Asia representative, said in a statement.

"Although out on bail while she appeals the verdict, Ressa's wrongful conviction sends a message to all journalists that you could be next if you report critically on President Rodrigo Duterte's government."

The Press Freedom Defense Fund, which provides legal support for journalists and news organizations targeted for their coverage, condemned the move and said the decision was "not based on evidence," but rather based on "the government's fear of a free press."

"While Maria may be sent to prison, Filipinos find themselves increasingly imprisoned in a nation without access to fundamental rights," the statement said.

"Maria has inspired so many with her courage and integrity," the statement added. "Now with this unjust ruling, even more people will take note of her vigorous dedication to and defense of those values. President Duterte has sought to have her silenced and sidelined. Instead, he has brought a brighter light and broader support to her cause."

Read the original article on Business Insider
The movie Da 5 Bloods was recently released on the OTT platform Netflix and is already receiving major appreciation. The movie comes from the brains of Spike Lee, who is a celebrated director. The movie is set up on the backdrop of the Vietnam War, which makes one wonder, "is Da 5 Bloods based on a true story?"

ALSO READ | What Time Does 'Da 5 Bloods' Release On Netflix? Here's All You Need To Know About It

Is Da 5 Bloods a True Story?

The movie Da 5 Bloods traces the journey of Black veterans from the Vietnam War. As per a news source, the movie is not based on a true story, i.e. it does tell the story of a particular group of characters and people. Spike Lee was inspired to make a story on Black veterans whose story was never told before in front of the audience.

The news source talks about how the Vietnam war was going on simultaneously with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. These inspired the stunning scenes of the movie, including the one where the men come to know about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Spike Lee tries to trace the inner turmoil of the Black veterans in Da 5 Bloods. This inner turmoil is from the survivors guilt as they recover their leaders body. It also triggers their PTSD, as they go back to the place where they saw humanity at its worst. Their trauma then comes forward in the form of nightmares, panic attacks, and an allegiance to the MAGA campaign by President Trump.

ALSO READ | 'Da 5 Bloods' coming out at the right time: Spike Lee

'Da 5 Bloods' real story:

What Spike Lee tried to show is how there are devastating consequences of the Vietnam war on the psyche of black people. This has thus created confusion and injustice when it comes to their status and position in the community. It also shows how a war veteran never leaves the war in its true sense, and it's always alive in his mind.

ALSO READ | 'Black Panther 2' starring Chadwick Boseman to be the narrative transition of new MCU?

'Da 5 Bloods' cast:

The central four characters in the movie are Paul, Otis, Eddie and Melvin. Delroy Lindo plays the role of Paul, Norm Levis is seen as Eddie, Clarke Peters plays Otis and Isiah Whitlock Jr. is playing the role of Melvin. Chadwick Boseman is playing the role of Norman, the squad leader who did not survive the war. Jonathan Majors plays the role of Paul's concerned son David. Other than these names, the cast also includes Melanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser as Simon, Jasper Paakkonen as Seppo, Jean Reno, Veronica Ngo as Hanoi Hannah, Giancarlo Esposito, and Johnny Tri Nguyen.

ALSO READ | Chadwick Boseman's fans express concern over his drastic weight loss

Source: Snip from Da 5 Bloods Trailer

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.
25 years ago: Chechen rebels release hostages

Map of Russian Caucasus. Stavropol Krai, where the hostage crisis took places, borders Chechnya to the northwest.

On June 20, 1995, Chechen rebel gunmen released the last of more than 1,000 people held hostage for five days in the Russian city of Budyonnovsk and returned to Chechnya under an agreement negotiated with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. At least 120 people died during the governments siege of the hospital, most of them killed when Russian troops tried to storm the building.

The Chechen separatists, numbering about 75, entered the city of 100,000 in south Russia, about 70 miles from the border with Chechnya, on June 14. They attacked the city hall and several police stations, killing 20 police, then seized the citys main hospital, taking prisoner all the workers and patients. Under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, the terrorists were animated by Wahhabism, the extreme form of Islamic fundamentalism promoted around the world by US ally Saudi Arabia.

The standoff was eased after Chernomyrdin ordered a ceasefire in Chechnya, including an end to air strikes, and the opening of talks with representatives of the ousted Chechnya government of Dzhokhar M. Dudayev, who was driven out of power by the Russian invasion six months earlier. Chernomyrdin also agreed to give the rebels safe passage back to Grozny, in negotiations conducted by telephone and broadcast live throughout Russia on national television.

The bloodletting in Budyonnovsk marked the transplantation onto Russian soil of the brutality and barbarism of the invasion of Chechnya by the Yeltsin regime, which had no progressive response to the forces, that, backed by sections of world imperialism, sought the dismemberment of Russia years after the restoration of capitalism throughout the Soviet Union.

The hostage crisis set the stage for new political upheavals in Moscow. Russian President Boris Yeltsin was denounced in the media for going ahead with a trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia for the G-7 summit while the lives of more than 1,000 hostages were in the balance. The Russian parliament passed a vote of no confidence in the Chernomyrdin cabinet only a day after the crisis ended. The regime responded with stepped-up repression, rounding up 2,000 Chechens living in Moscow.

50 years ago: Soviet scientist released from imprisonment

Zhores Medvedev. Credit: RIA Novosti

Zhores Medvedev, a leading Soviet geneticist, was freed from his confinement in the Kaluga psychiatric hospital on June 17, 1970. He had been held in the asylum for drawing attention to serious problems in the development of scientific research in the Soviet Union. Medvedevs studies, which involved research into the aging process in plant life and agriculture, had put him into direct opposition with the Stalinist bureaucracy.

As he developed his work in genetics in the early 1960s Zhores Medvedev found that his research and findings disproved the official agriculture policy of the Soviet Union. Medvedevs work, which was based in the widely accepted body of work known as Mendelian inheritance, opposed the pseudoscientific ideas of Lysenkoism developed by Trofim Lysenko with the support of Joseph Stalin in the mid-1930s.

Lysenkoism was not a scientific theory but an attempt to defend the disastrous agricultural policy of Stalin. Lysenko made absurd claims that crops are self-sacrificing and that if they die it is to make room for more healthy crops.

Medvedev sought to expose this fraud for what it was and to set the record straight. In 1962 he wrote a history of Soviet genetics titled The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, in which he explained both Lysenkos scientific errors and that their origin came from the treachery of Stalinism.

The book was censored in the Soviet Union and was not allowed to be published. However, Medvedev was able to circulate his work among the Soviet scientific community. In 1969 the book was published in the United States, after which Medvedev was dismissed from his position as head of a biology laboratory.

In late May 1970, the police were sent to Medvedevs home to arrest him and commit him to a mental institution. They claimed that Medvedev was obsessed with disproving Lysenko and was mentally imbalanced.

The arrest provoked immediate opposition from scientists and academics in the Soviet Union and internationally, including physicists Andrei Sakharov, Pyotr Kapitsa and Igor Tamm and writers like Aleksandr Tvardovsky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Vladimir Dudintsev, among others. A petition for Medvedevs release emerged in the Soviet Academy of Sciences and calls for his freedom were issued from the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.

After his release, Medvedev continued his biological research and his criticisms of the damage done to science by the Stalinist bureaucracy. In 1972 he would accept a one-year position doing genetic research in London. Upon his departure from the Soviet Union, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and was forced to live the rest of his life in the United Kingdom.

Medvedev never ceased his work, publishing over 170 research papers in the course of his life. In London, he continued to warn of the potential dangers in the anti-scientific policy of the Soviet bureaucracy. Notably, he warned that Soviet nuclear power plants should be critically investigated by scientists, foreshadowing the 1986 disaster in Chernobyl.

Zhores Medvedev was the twin brother of Soviet historian Roy Medvedev.

See also: The fate of Soviet genetics

75 years ago: Japan on the brink of defeat in World War Two

Emperor Hirohito

This week in June 1945, the Japanese imperial government and the countrys emperor acknowledged that they were all but defeated in the Second World War. Amid military debacles throughout Southeast Asia, the collapse of their fascist allies in Italy and Germany, the imminence of the Soviet Red Armys entry into the Pacific war, and the growth of revolution throughout Asia, they floated the possibility of a surrender for the first time.

On June 18, Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki notified the Japanese Supreme Council that Emperor Hirohito intended to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible. Several days later, on June 22, a request from Hirohito was transmitted to the US government, declaring: I desire that concrete plans to end the war, unhampered by existing policy, be speedily studied and that efforts made to implement them.

Over the previous three months, Japanese cities had been levelled by an unprecedented US aerial assault. The bombings of Tokyo, Nagoya and other major cities had resulted in the destruction of an estimated one-seventh of urban Japanese settlements. Hundreds of thousands of civilians had been killed, in an onslaught that involved combustible munitions designed to ignite firestorms in densely-populated areas. Industrial capacity had been obliterated, ports destroyed, and the Japanese government was compelled to acknowledge that its air force was incapable of countering further sorties.

Plans for Japanese imperial conquests throughout the region also lay in tatters. Over the previous months, US troops had secured control of much of American imperialisms former colonial possessions in the Philippines. A week earlier, US soldiers had easily ousted remaining Japanese troops from Davao, capital of the southern island of Mindanao, ensuring US domination over the southern half of the strategically-important archipelago. Japanese detachments also suffered a series of setbacks at the hands of the Australian army in the Pacific and were cut off from supplies and reinforcements by defeats further to the north.

On June 22, the US army declared victory in the Battle of Okinawa, thereby establishing a redoubt for further operations against the rest of Japan, in addition to air bases on Taiwan and in the Pacific, along with superior naval battleships and carriers.

Dominant sections of the US ruling elite were uninterested in a negotiated peace with Japan, whose prospects were clearly finished, despite desperate kamikaze attacks and attempts at resistance. The American capitalist class intended to establish its supremacy in the post-war era, and to intimidate the masses throughout Asia and internationally, with a display of overwhelming military force. To that end, the conflict in the Pacific would conclude in August with US nuclear weapons being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a war crime of unprecedented dimensions.

100 years: Rioting between nationalists and loyalists in Northern Ireland

Belfast riots of 1920

On June 20, 1920, five people were killed in the northern Irish city of Derry and dozens seriously wounded during riots between nationalists, who opposed British legislation to separate the six counties of northern Ireland from the 26 counties in the south, and unionists who supported it.

Neighborhoods in Derry were occupied by armed groups from both sides, and stores were looted and burnt. Rioting and exchanges of gunfire between the two groups also occurred in the city of Belfast. In both cities, heavily armed British troops moved in to quell the fighting.

The Government of Ireland Act of 1920 passed by the British parliament sought to split Ireland into two distinct parts: a north with a Protestant majority and a south with a Catholic majority. Each part was to have distinct legislatures, and both would remain parts of the United Kingdom.

However, with the development of the Irish War of Independence, a guerrilla war between nationalists and the British army in the south, the southern 26 counties formed the Irish Free State in 1922.

The formation of the Free State, which allowed the six northern counties to remain a part of the United Kingdom, sparked the Irish Civil War, fought by two factions of the nationalist movement, one in support of accepting the settlement and one against it.

The partition of Ireland and the Irish working class along sectarian lines by British imperialism, with the acquiesce of the Irish bourgeoisie in the south, was to set the stage for conflict in Northern Ireland for most of the rest of the 20th century.
Press Release

June 15, 2020 Bong Go urges concerned agencies to strengthen efforts to assist LSIs and bring them home following strict health protocols Senator Christopher Lawrence "Bong" Go urged concerned government agencies to work together to assist Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs) who are finding ways to get home to their provinces amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. "Tulungan natin ang ating mga kababayan na naghahanap ng paraan makauwi. Bigyan natin sila ng maayos na sistema para hindi sila nakaabang lang sa mga transportation terminals. Alagaan rin natin sila, bigyan ng pagkain, maayos na masisilungan, at huwag hayaang magkumpol-kumpol para rin maiwasan ang lalong pagkalat ng sakit," Go appealed. Concerned over the condition of many LSIs, Go called on concerned government agencies to raise public awareness on other similar existing government initiatives that can help stranded Filipinos return home in a manner that will not risk spreading the disease to other communities. "Umaapela po ako sa mga ahensya ng gobyerno na ipaliwanag ang iba't ibang programa ng gobyerno na pwedeng makatulong sa mga gustong umuwi sa kanilang mga probinsya at kung ano ang proseso na kailangang sundin," he said. President Rodrigo Duterte previously directed all concerned agencies to help LSIs return home saying, "mga Pilipino ito, mga kababayan natin. Tanggapin ninyo and provide sequestration houses... dun sila i-quarantine. Hati tayo sa problema tutal hindi naman kami nagkulang. Whatever you need, we will provide. Kawawa naman. Tulungan ninyo ang mga Pilipino," said the President. In the meantime, Go's office recently extended aid to individuals stranded at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Frequency of flights of airline companies had been limited due to the COVID-19 outbreak. "I have talked to many of them. They are tired and frightened but also extremely grateful for the efforts of both the government and private individuals who helped so that they can return to their families," the Senator said. Go's office also sought assistance from the Pasay City local government which promptly sent tents and chairs that were used as temporary shelter by the stranded individuals near NAIA. His office staff coordinated with concerned agencies and an airline company to arrange a flight for 162 passengers bound for General Santos City and Davao City. The airline company required a minimum number of persons on board in order to fly. The staff also distributed meals and grocery packs to the stranded passengers while the Department of Social Welfare and Development gave additional assistance and financial aid through its applicable existing programs. Senator Go wished the travelers well in a personal call before their flight on June 12. He also emphasized the importance of proper coordination with receiving local government units. For example, General Santos City Mayor Ronnel Rivera had issued a certificate permitting the airline to land at the General Santos International Airport where 76 individuals bound for Davao City would be collected by the Davao City local government. All returning passengers underwent rapid testing for COVID-19 at the Villamor Air Base before being allowed to travel. They went through a second screening at the General Santos International Airport upon arrival and were made to observe the mandatory fourteen-day quarantine by their local government unit. Go's office has previously assisted other LSIs, including 45 LSIs who remained stuck in Cebu City for two months. More LSIs are waiting for their rescheduled flights and are temporarily sheltered at the Villamor Air Base Elementary School in Pasay City and at the Philippine Army Wellness Center in Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City. As a matter of protocol, they shall also undergo health screening procedures before they are transferred. "Maraming mga health screenings na ini-implementa para masiguradong walang dalang virus ang ating mga LSIs. Paalala lang po sa mga nag-iimplementa ng Hatid Tulong initiative na siguraduhin na bawat Pilipinong tinutulungan natin ay hindi magiging dahilan ng lalong pagkalat ng sakit," said Go, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography. "Kaya natin ito ginagawa para matulungan at mabigyan ang maraming Pilipinong LSIs ng pagkakataong makauwi dahil matagal na rin nilang hindi nakapiling ang kanilang mga pamilya. Karamihan dito nawalan pa ng mga trabaho," he continued. Not to be confused with the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa (BP2) program, Hatid Tulong is a government initiative implemented to help individuals, tourists, students and overseas Filipino workers left locally stranded by the outbreak return to their hometowns. This is a joint effort by concerned agencies, such as the Department of Transportation and its attached agencies, Department of Tourism, DSWD, and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, among others. "Para po sa kaalaman ng lahat, magkaibang programa ang Hatid Tulong at BP2. Ang Hatid Tulong po ay para sa mga Pilipinong stranded, hindi taga Maynila, at kailangan nang umuwi sa kanilang probinsya," Go explained. "Ang BP2 naman ay para sa mga residente ng Metro Manila na gustong bumalik na at magsimula ng bagong buhay sa kanilang mga probinsya pagkatapos ng health crisis na kinakaharap natin," he continued. In a recent pronouncement, BP2 Executive Director and National Housing Authority General Manager Marcelino Escalada Jr. said that the BP2 council decided to reschedule the subsequent rollouts of BP2 beneficiaries in order for government agencies to prioritize the Hatid Tulong program. "As a matter of strategy, we decided na suspend muna ang ating roll outs for the Balik Probinsya, Bagong Pag-asa to give way... Unahin natin [ang Hatid Tulong] kasi this was a very clear instruction from the President: unahin [at] pauwiin ang mga kababayan na stranded dito sa Maynila," Escalada said. "Pagdating ng panahon na tapos na itong mga problema ng stranded, the Balik Probinsya will now take the second phase already in the succeeding roll outs and simultaneous roll outs to all the provinces of their choice," Escalada added.
The COVID-19 pandemic emptied Lehigh Valley college dorms and dining halls swiftly and left students demanding refunds for hefty room and board bills.

Those fees tacked on top of tuition each year are a critical funding stream for many campuses annual operations. Lehigh Valley colleges and universities issued refunds in a variety of ways, some which angered families, who felt they were paltry.

With the fall semester quickly approaching, some local schools like Moravian College and Lehigh University have announced they plan to welcome students back this fall with special guidelines in place as they project multi-million budget deficits next year.

Only time will tell if students will experience a fairly normal semester, with the help of social distancing and mask wearing, or if a predicted second wave of infections will force instruction online again.

With families shelling out upwards of six figures for a four-year degree from some of the Lehigh Valleys colleges and universities, this uncertaintys left incoming freshman and current students hesitant to commit for the 2020-21 school year.

Some are taking gap years or waiting until the last possible moment to commit to a school. They arent alone.

Enrollment at four-year colleges and universities could decline by 20% next year, according to several student surveys conducted by SimpsonScarborough, an educational marketing and research firm. And this has massive financial implications for the nations four-year schools, which rely heavily on tuition and fees to stay afloat.

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. high school seniors who planned to attend a four-year school have changed their plans due to COVID-19. And 26% of current students in mid-April were unsure if they planned to return in the fall.

Some local schools were able to take a financial hit last semester, but faced with enrollment drops next school year Lehigh Valley schools wont be able to do so again come fall. Many are projecting massive funding shortfalls.

Lafayette College estimates its gap could be anywhere from $20 million to $60 million, if theres extended remote learning or a shutdown.

The pandemics impact on higher education is likely just beginning, but here is a look at how some of the regions schools have handled the virus thus far.

Lehigh University

There were about two months left in Lehighs semester when the school pivoted to virtual instruction. The university allowed students to choose whether theyd like a pro-rated credit or refund for housing, parking and dining plans.

At most schools, students pay varying costs based on the meal plan they select and where they live.

The majority of Lehigh students paid $7,080 for spring semester room and board. Lehigh keeps its dining and housing costs separate from the instruction budget, so it is a self-contained fund, according to a spokeswoman.

But students who rent off-campus houses, which tend to be much cheaper than the dorms, or live in the new SouthSide Commons dorms did not receive refunds.

Built on university land, but owned and managed by Greystar, SouthSide Commons is far from budget housing. Its high-end off-campus living with a reflective price tag -- a studio is almost $12,000 a year.

Greystar offers amenities not available on campus and in most off-campus housing, spokeswoman Lori Friedman said. She noted that Greystar does offer students an option to pay monthly rent versus an upfront lump payment.

We expect them to provide a high standard of care for our students because the building is on Lehigh property, Friedman said. We encourage anyone with questions to contact the Greystar management. I understand they are considering sublets if possible and may have other options as well.

Refunds hit smaller schools hit harder

Allentowns Cedar Crest College offered pro-rated room and meal charges based on the number of days left in the semester. The college also pro-rated the scholarships and aid itself awards.

This cost the school about $1.2 million, according to Cedar Crest. With an average class size of 15 students, Cedar Crest says it is positioned to return to in-person teaching this fall.

DeSales University in Center Valley also plans to reopen this fall. The school closed its residence halls over spring break and credited students 50% of their room and board charges for spring.

Allentowns Muhlenberg College expects to decide whether it will reopen mid-summer. It offered students a room and board refund based on a somewhat complex formula that takes into account unused meals and 50% of room charges and then is modified by the amount of grants and scholarships a student received.

Downtown Bethlehems Moravian College refunded students for their unused meal plans, but they did not refund housing costs.

Students who immediately moved out were refunded for the seven weeks they were unable to use their 16-week meal plan. The pro-rated refunds ranged from $70 to $1,479 depending on the plan.

When Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced March 19 that all colleges had to close their dorms by Saturday, Moravian had about 40 students still living on campus. But just because students moved out doesnt mean the residence halls stopped costing the college money.

For unused room usage, unlike meal plans, there are very few variable costs associated with operating our residence halls, which prevented us from offering refunds on housing, spokesman Michael Corr explained.

On average, students pay around $7,000 for room and board for the semester, he said.

All students who signed a room agreement for the spring received a $1,000 grant. Pell Grant students could also receive up to $300 in grants based on eligibility.

Moravian College began furloughing select employees May 4.

With a roughly $1.4 billion endowment, Lehigh University keeps its dining and housing budget self-contained. But many U.S. colleges and universities rely on these auxiliary fees to boost their operating revenue.

As a smaller, private liberal arts college, room and board revenue is a critical component of Moravians overall institutional budget, Corr said. The college and its seminary reported an $118 million endowment at the close of the 2018-19 school year.

Were not unique in this way, Corr said. Revenues that are generated through these auxiliary services help to fund institutional costs that would otherwise need to be covered through increased tuition costs.

Moravians 2019-20 tuition was $43,581. Auxiliary services in 2019 brought in $15.6 million and cost $10.9 million, per the colleges financial statements.

Moravian plans to bring students back to campus, with the caveat of no breaks to limit the potential of transmitting the virus. Fall break is canceled and students will not come back to campus after Thanksgiving break.

Lehigh University is employing a similar strategy with classes set to resume Aug. 24 and in-person instruction ending before Thanksgiving breaking. Large lectures will move online and mask wearing will be the norm.

Dont expect financial flexibility this fall

While Lehigh did refund pro-rated fees to students this spring, the university is projecting a $40 million budget gap in its next budget.

The virus is like the perfect higher ed storm. It hits colleges major revenue sources -- tuition, room and board -- but also forces schools to spend money on tweaks to safely reopen campuses in hopes of preventing a mass exodus of students. A struggling economy means less financial giving and market volatility hurts endowment returns.

The projected deficits under any imaginable scenario are dramatic, Lafayette College President Alison Bylerly said in a letter to staff. With tuition, room and board fees as the colleges primary source of revenue, a potential reduction of 10 to 30% in the number of enrolled students would create significant shortfalls, and both surveys and informal input indicate that many students may choose to sit out a semester or year if they feel the experience may be inevitably compromised.

This all means universities will likely see fewer paying students in the fall as well as more students needing financial aid.

To combat all of this, Lehigh is cutting merit-based raises for staff, its employee retirement match and furloughing employees, something it has not yet done.

Unfortunately, that is no longer possible, the university said in a message to staff June 1. We have begun to identify positions for which work cannot be done remotely, and will implement a limited number of furloughs beginning July 1.

President John D. Simon cut his salary by 20% while senior leadership and college deans will be cut by 10%. And vice presidents and deans have been asked to cut current budgets by 10%.

Currently, the endowment supports slightly more than 9% of Lehighs operating budget, student financial aid and a number of academic positions and programs. It is not simply a rainy day fund, Simon said in his letter.

Most of the endowment is restricted by the gift agreements with those donors, he wrote. "We have the responsibility to steward these resources, assure they support the intended efforts today, and continue to be a source for that support in the future. "

Eastons Lafayette College refunded or credited 50% of room and board charges due from students who lived in college housing and left campus before April 4.

All eligible students received a $1,000 minimum credit or check to help students confronting unexpected expenses due to the virus. The school did honor students full financial aid packages.

Our goal was to design an approach that is simple, equitable, and supportive of the varied needs of our students, the college said in a letter.

Lafayette hopes to release plans for the fall semester shortly, but it is already taking steps to shore up its projected budget hole, like cutting capital spending by $4.1 million and cutting budgets by 10%.

To avoid layoffs, Lafayette is implementing a progressive pay reduction -- between zero to 6% -- for employees earning $37,000 or more per year, suspending retirement matches and implementing a furlough program for select employees. President Alison Byerly is taking a 15% pay cut and the provost is taking a 10% salary reduction.

All of the pay cuts will save Lafayette about $9 million, only a fraction of the $40 million-plus projected hole.

There will also be major costs associated with creating an environment that supports physical distancing protocols, Byerly said. Our models show projected deficits ranging from $20 million at the low end, assuming that we are mostly open with nearly all of our students next year, to an upper end of $60 million in the event of extended remote learning or a complete shutdown.

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.
It will be a Bloomsday like no other as Joyceans around the globe swap plans to celebrate the festival in Dublin with an online version instead.

The Bloomsday festival, a celebration of James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses, normally sees thousands flock to the capital on June 16 each year.

Joyce fans dress up in Edwardian-style costumes and congregate in the city centre where they follow the route taken by Leopold Bloom on the same date in 1904.

Soap

However, due to Covid-19, most activities have been cancelled or moved online.

Sweny's pharmacy on Lincoln Place is a key location for Joyceans as in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom visits the chemist to buy face cream for his wife and buys a bar of soap for himself.

PJ Murphy, managing director of Sweny's, said the chemist will be open for those hoping to buy the special soap.

"We'll have two of our volunteers outside and they will allow maybe two or three people in," he said.

During lockdown, Sweny's began conducting book readings online through Zoom.

PJ said the virtual readings have become very popular with fans all over the globe.

Darina Gallagher, director of Bloomsday festival, said a great effort has been made to make sure Bloomsday is still marked despite the health crisis, a move that has been welcomed by Joyce fans.
The family of the Australian actor sentenced to death in China have urged friends to stop speculating on his circumstances, warning it could jeopardise his prospects of an appeal.

Karm Gilespie, an actor and motivational speaker, was sentenced to death by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court on Wednesday for carrying 7.5 kilograms of ice out of Guangzhou airport in 2013.

"Our family is very saddened by the situation," the Gilespie family said in a statement on Monday.

"We will not be making any public comment and ask that the media respects our privacy at this difficult time. We also request that friends and acquaintances of Karm refrain from speculating on his current circumstances, which we do not believe assists his case."
Alleged hit man charged with killing 4 in 'wanton, violent crimes,' says Philadelphia DA

An alleged contract killer has been charged with four counts of murder for killings that took place in 2018 and 2019, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office announced on Friday.

Steven Williams, 25, of Philadelphia, allegedly collected thousands of dollars as a contract killer, according to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

"His streak of wanton, violent crimes against our communities over the past two-plus years ends today, Krasner said in a statement released on Friday.

The killings took place in September 2018 and in February, March and May of 2019, according to court documents.

MORE: Rayshard Brooks went from telling Atlanta officer about visiting mother's grave to being fatally shot: Video

The district attorney's office said that three of the victims were shot and killed while sitting in or getting out of a car, and a fourth was shot and killed while sitting on a porch. The shootings all occurred in different sections of the city.

PHOTO: Steven Williams, 25, is pictured in this photo provided by the Philadelphia Police Department. (Philadelphia Police Department)

Williams is also accused of various weapons offenses, among other charges related to the murders.

He is currently being held in state prison for unrelated crimes, the office said.

PHOTO: Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner speaks during a news conference in Philadelphia, Nov. 21, 2019. (Matt Rourke/AP, FILE)

Krasner said that his office will proceed "as quickly as possible," despite most court functions being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

MORE: Escaped inmate accused of killing sheriff's deputy in Mississippi captured

Williams was denied bail, court records show. His next court appearance is currently being scheduled, the district attorney's office said.

The Defender Association of Philadelphia is representing Williams. ABC News was unable to reach his attorney.

Alleged hit man charged with killing 4 in 'wanton, violent crimes,' says Philadelphia DA originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Moscows move follows Czech expulsion of two Russian diplomats over their alleged involvement in poisoning plot hoax.

Russias foreign ministry has ordered two Czech diplomats to leave the country in a quid pro quo response to Pragues expulsion of Russian diplomats amid tensions rooted in differences over history.

The ministry said it summoned the Czech ambassador on Monday to announce the move, saying the two diplomats must leave Russia by Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the Czech government ordered two Russian diplomats to leave the country.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the nations spy agency had discovered that one of them had spread false information about a Russian assassin arriving to allegedly target Czech politicians.

The alleged assassination plot surfaced in April when a magazine reported that Czech intelligence services suspected that a Russian who arrived in Prague on a diplomatic passport was sent to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar with a potent toxin.

Kolar, Hrib and the mayor of Pragues Reporyje district, Pavel Novotny, all consequently received police protection.

Russias denial

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed the claims published in the magazine, saying the notion that Czech authorities spotted a Russian man equipped with ricin and let him through did not make sense.

The three politicians had been involved in actions that previously angered Russia.

In February, a Prague square in front of the Russian embassy was renamed after murdered Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, with Hrib unveiling the new nameplate.

In April, Kolars district removed a statue of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Konev, whose armies completed the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation.

The statues removal caused outrage in Russia, which has angrily lashed out at any attempts to diminish the nations decisive role in defeating the Nazis.

Novotny provoked Moscows ire with plans to build a monument to the soldiers of General Andrei Vlasovs army.

More than 300 of them died when they helped the Czech uprising against Nazi rule and contributed to Pragues liberation.

Their role is controversial for Russia, however, because they previously fought against the Red Army alongside Nazi troops.
Moscow, June 15 : The ongoing riots in the US show deep-rooted internal crises in this country, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview.

"What has happened (in the US) is the manifestation of some deep domestic crises," TASS News Agency quoted Putin as saying in the interview on Sunday where he added that this crisis had been observed for a long time since his US counterpart Donald Trump assumed office in 2017.

"When he won, and his victory was absolutely obvious and democratic, the defeated party invented all sort of bogus stories just to call into question his legitimacy," Putin said.

The Russian leader also said that the key problem of the US political system is the fact that "parties place their interests above those of people".

During the interview, he also said that Russia has always supported the black community's struggle for equal rights but was against violent demonstrations, reports Xinhua news agency.

Russia now has, and the Soviet Union in the past had, always backed "the fight of African-Americans" for their rights, Putin said.

If the struggle for natural rights, for legal rights, turns violent and brutal, then "I see nothing good for the country here. We have never supported that".

Mass protests and riots sparked in many US states and also in different parts of the world following the death of the unarmed African-American man, George Floyd.

He died in hospital after a police officer used a chokehold during his arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.

All four involved police officers were fired and charged.
As a result, many employers decided that it was worth aggressively litigating an area in which their responsibilities were ill defined, or trying to settle on favorable terms.

In a 2014 lawsuit by a Texas-based employee of Saks Fifth Avenue contending that she had been harassed and later fired because she was transgender, the company sought a dismissal by arguing that federal law did not ban discrimination based on gender identity, only to reverse course under pressure from civil rights groups and the Justice Department.

The pressure appeared to work, but it raised questions about what would happen at companies less susceptible to public pressure.

The arguments raised by Saks in that case, that transgender employees are not protected, it caused a firestorm for them because of the fact that they are a retailer that has a lot of policies favoring L.G.B.T.Q. people, said Jillian Weiss, a prominent employment discrimination lawyer who brought the case. They backed off that position. But now nobody is going to be able to take that position.

Ms. Weiss said she expected the decision on Monday to change her bargaining position in settlement talks with defendants who had said, Were not going to give you more because once the Supreme Court rules, then wed have to give you zero.

Ahead of the Supreme Court ruling, some 200 companies, including Google, Facebook, Hilton, Nike and the Walt Disney Company, signed a brief in support of the plaintiffs  making it one of the largest instances of employer support for employee plaintiffs in Supreme Court litigation, according to Tico Almeida, now at the law firm WilmerHale, who helped to write the brief.

Mr. Almeida said support for the brief was often propelled by advocacy by companies gay employees.

But while the cases in the Monday ruling involved relatively small employers  a skydiving company, a mortuary, a county government  many gay-rights proponents predicted that large employers could wind up as defendants in other cases.
Because of the pandemic, graduation at West Point was always going to be bizarre this year. Graduation has been bizarre everywhere. Some schools have staged drive-thru graduations. Others have gone online. But West Point was the only university that forced its graduates to return to campus, quarantine themselves for two weeks, and then sit for a ceremony that none of their friends or family could attend, all in order to watch a half-hour speech from the president. The heads of the Army had begged the president, Look, dont do this, says Slates Fred Kaplan. It wasnt the first time in recent weeks that leaders of the military spoke out against President Donald Trump. Kaplan, who writes Slates War Stories column, joined me on Mondays episode of What Next to discuss when the military turned on the president and how he lost their support. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Mary Harris: Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has come to regret one moment in particularwalking with the president through Lafayette Square on June 1 after federal officers used force to clear protesters. Hes apologized for that moment.

Fred Kaplan: He said, I should not have been there. This is a bigger deal than a lot of people who dont follow this sort of thing might realize. I cant think of a single other instance when any general officer has apologized for doing something where hes standing next to the president. Its a huge, huge thing. As is this whole string of events thats gone on in the past week involving officers, retired and in some cases active-duty, criticizing with various degrees of directness or obliqueness the president and his policies.

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Theres been some reporting about what led up to June 1 and the conversations that went on, because the idea of having the National Guard there was a kind of a compromise is my understanding. Is that your understanding, too?

Trump was allegedly telling his advisers that he wanted to flood Washington with 10,000 troops. We dont have 10,000 troops in all of Afghanistan now. There might not have been 10,000 protesters.

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How much latitude does the president have to send troops in?

There is this thing called the Insurrection Act, and its been amended and revised several times over the decades, giving the president wide latitude. On the one hand, nothing that Trump has done that people have spoken out against is really an unlawful order. On the other hand, there are principled military officers who looked at the situation and said, This is no insurrection. We should not be involved in this.

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When youre a military officer, one thing that is just pounded into your brain from the moment you put on your uniform is the primacy of civilian authority. But there is also a tradition, also pounded into your head, that youre taking an allegiance to the Constitution, not to any particular person. And what Trump has set himself up with is a tension between those two things.

Youve covered the military for years and years. What have you heard from military people?

Theres great discomfort among a lot of military people. Theyve never really had to face the potential tension between obeying lawful orders and answering to the Constitution.

The first person who spoke out was Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is really not the kind of guy who would put himself out there. Mullen is more of a company man. For him to write an article in the Atlantic saying, I can no longer keep my silence, is just a remarkable thing. And I think that finally got Jim Mattis, whos been silent for a year now after writing a blistering letter of resignation, to finally speak up. He skewered not just Trumps reaction to the protests but Trump personally, saying that weve had three years of immature leadership. This is wild. Hes a retired four-star Marine general. Weve never seen this kind of  revolt might be too strong a word, but lets say strong dissension.

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I think the thing that has endured about June 1 is all of the imagery where you see the protesters, sometimes journalists, being pushed back roughly. And then you see, well, what is it for? And its the president just standing in front of a church with a Bible. It was pretty impressive how within a week you had just a torrent of people coming out and pushing back on the imagery.

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It didnt even take a week. The people who actually run that church spoke out immediately. And then Defense Secretary Mark Esper called a press conference and said he does not agree that the Insurrection Act should be applied to what was going on in the streets of Washington. He sort of realized there are costs to his reputation and to what hes supposed to be doing here to giving complete, unblinking obedience to the guy who is running things right now.

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Im wondering if theres a charitable interpretation of what Esper and Milley did that night on June 1. Is there a way to see it as sort of the choosing the least evil?

I think thats right. I think these guys realized very quickly that their playing along with the total loyalty game had now gotten them into trouble. But whats remarkable is that they spoke out publicly about it. Nobody had done that without getting fired first.

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This instinct to assuage has been the modus operandi for the military for the past couple of years. Just try to keep things level.

A lot of people say, OK, guys, this is just a nightmare. But, you know, its a good thing Im here because if I werent here, things would be so much worse. So Ive got to stick around. Ive got to eat the crap he shovels my way sometimes to keep him happy. And Ill do what I can behind the scenes.

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It sounds like to you the difference now is not just the volume of people speaking out, though thats important, but its the fact that we have these people in positions of power who go into meetings with the president having press conferences and giving speeches where they reject what the presidents doing.

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Thats a brand-new thing. I think Milley must have done what he did knowing that he could be fired for it. Same thing with the secretary of defense. I think if Trump gets a second term, they will definitely be out of there. You know, hes been firing everybody else whos even been reported to be at odds with him.

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I guess I found myself wondering: What will happen next time? Are they going to resign over sending the National Guard in because they realize that was a mess last time?

They are thinking about it now, and Trump knows that theyre thinking about it now. Im not sure if there is going to be a next time.

These officers were there long before these tensions between obeying lawful orders from the commander in chief vs. following constitutional principles. And you have a commander in chief who doesnt care about those principles. I think now a lot of officers have thought that one through and know where they stand on it. Maybe Trump realizes that they know where they stand on it. And he doesnt want to push them any further. I think if there is a next time for something like this, there will be much stronger and even earlier pushback.

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.
Supporters of the Los Angeles Police Protective League gather at Los Angeles City Hall in 2014. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

It was a far cry from "defund the police," but the response was severe anyway. In 2019, Steve Fletcher, a first-term member of the Minneapolis City Council, decided to oppose a budget proposal to add more officers to the Police Department.

Business owners soon started calling Fletcher, who represents part of downtown, complaining of slow police responses to 911 calls about shoplifting. Store owners told Fletcher the officers who eventually responded had a message: "Wed love to help you with this, but our hands are tied by the council; talk to your council member," Fletcher said in an interview.

Fletcher suspected the hand of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, which supported the budget proposal. The federation, like many police unions, has been a vocal and formidable force in city politics. (The federation did not respond to requests for comment, and a police spokesman called Fletcher's allegation of a slowdown "false and emphatically untrue.")

But after a Minneapolis officer knelt on the neck of George Floyd for more than eight minutes, killing him  unleashing a national protest movement that has yielded criminal charges against him and the other three officers on the scene  the police union, like many others, has become a target for otherwise labor-friendly liberals like Fletcher who see them as major obstacles to reform.

Ive been a labor organizer and a union member whos gone on strike, so I have a deep history with the labor movement, was born into a labor family," Fletcher said. But when it comes to police unions, after his experience in Minneapolis, he now thinks "there need to be real constraints around what can be bargained."

Many activists have called for legal reforms to limit police collective-bargaining agreements and union-backed laws that limit transparency into misconduct or make it harder to fire officers for wrongdoing.

Some union contracts allow departments to erase disciplinary records, give officers access to investigative records before they are questioned or allow the officers to essentially prevent their departments from publicly releasing internal records  making it easier for officers to beat misconduct charges or to prevent the public from knowing about them.

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One University of Chicago Law School working paper from 2019 on newly unionized sheriff's deputies in Florida concluded that "collective bargaining rights led to about a 40% increase in violent incidents of misconduct among sheriffs offices."

The labor movement in the U.S. is facing questions about what its relationship should be with the hundreds of thousands of police officers who make up a major portion of unionized public-sector workers. The AFL-CIO has faced growing calls to disaffiliate from the International Union of Police Assns., and some liberal activists have started calling for Democratic politicians to reject campaign contributions from police unions.

"Even for people who have a deep long-standing genuine commitment to the labor movement ... theres a recognition that the power of unionization, the power of collective bargaining is being abused in indefensible ways by police unions," said Benjamin Sachs, a Harvard law professor and faculty director of the school's labor and work-life program, which will be studying potential legal reforms to collective bargaining by police.

Police officers are heavily unionized compared with many private-sector workers, and they have enjoyed generally high approval ratings from the public compared with other government services. Police unions can also be a big spending force in political campaigns, like in Los Angeles, giving them influence before they even reach the bargaining table.

Like many unions, police officers' leaders are unapologetic advocates for their members, often willing to wage bare-knuckle political fights, including during the recent wave of protests. But unlike many unions, police unions' members have the power to arrest and kill, and their central role in public safety gives them immense  and sometimes intimidating  leverage.

In New York City, the Sergeants Benevolent Assn. violated Twitter's rules when it tweeted private arrest-record information about Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter, Chiara, after she was arrested at a May 30 protest, adding, "How can the NYPD protect the city of NY from rioting anarchists when the Mayor's object throwing daughter is one of them?" (She had not been accused of throwing anything.) The account had also recently tussled with the city's health commissioner over a lack of masks for officers, at one point tweeting that she "has blood on her hands."

In Delaware County, Pa., the local police union posted a warning to potential critics on June 3: "If you choose to speak out against the police or our members, we will do everything in our power to not support your business." (The union later apologized for the comment.) One member was reportedly suspended from the Media Borough Police Department when he added, "Try us. We'll destroy you."

After the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said Tuesday it would no longer transport local police to anti-police-brutality protests, the officers' union, the San Francisco Police Officers Assn., shot back on Twitter, "Hey Muni, lose our number next time you need officers for fare evasion enforcement or removing problem passengers from your buses and trains."

Floyd's death became a breaking point for many labor supporters. As protests swelled in Seattle, the Martin Luther King Jr. County Labor Council, which represents more than 100,000 area union workers, passed a resolution demanding that its affiliated Seattle Police Officers Guild "become an anti-racist organization" and acknowledge "that racism is a structural problem in our society and in law enforcement" or risk a vote of expulsion.

"It is absolutely incumbent upon us to seek justice for Black workers and Black families in America, said Nicole Grant, the council's executive secretary-treasurer, "and we have to be able to have every union leader say 'Black lives matter' and back it up with their actions, and thats the moment were in."

But higher-ranking labor leaders, including some who are Black, have generally been reluctant to take on the calls for outright disaffiliation, instead preferring to work on reforms from the inside.

When it comes to police violence, "were disproportionately impacted," said April Sims, secretary treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, who is Black. But Sims believes every worker has the right to belong to a union. She adds, though, that "the police unions could do lot to move their institutions to becoming more anti-racist."

In a resolution adopted Tuesday by AFL-CIO's general board, the federation declared it would not disaffiliate from its police unions. "We believe the best way to use our influence on the issue of police brutality is to engage our police affiliates rather than isolate them," the resolution said, adding: "Disengagement breeds division, not unity. This is a moment to do what is hard and meaningful and uncomfortable. And that requires building a better labor movement from within."

The largest union representing police officers, the Fraternal Order of Police, which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, took umbrage at arguments that their collective-bargaining agreements fostered police brutality.

"A contract is a binding agreement between two parties who mutually agreed on the terms, not a mandate imposed by a labor union," its president, Patrick Yoes, said in a statement. "To suggest that law enforcement managers are forced into agreements with provisions they find unacceptable is at variance with common sense."

Which makes Minneapolis city officials' actions this week significant: The city has withdrawn from collective bargaining with its police union, whose officers have been working under an expired contract.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo announced "that he is taking an intentional pause from the contract negotiations with the Federation," police spokesman John Elder said by email Saturday. "They will be bringing in a national agency to review the contract to ensure it is serving those it is meant to be served by."

Fletcher thinks the move might violate labor laws requiring the city to bargain, but the position he supports  dismantling the existing Police Department and rethinking criminal justice in the city  would defang its police union. There's no such thing as a union without members, after all.

The right thing to do is to stop funding an institution that is causing our city a great deal of harm and does not seem to be reformable," Fletcher said.
The Contemplation of Justice statue of the Supreme Court in Washington on March 10, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Supreme Court Denies to Review Trump Admins Request to Strike Californias Sanctuary Law

The Supreme Court on June 15 rejected to hear the Trump administrations request to strike down several provisions of a California sanctuary law that limits the cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal immigration agents.

The Trump administration appealed to the high court after lower courts refused to enjoin several provisions of the California Values Act, or Senate Bill 54 (SB 54).

The top court decision to deny the administrations petition to review the case leaves in place a federal appeals court decision that upheld portions of the California law (pdf). The court didnt provide any reasons for the denial but noted that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the petition for review.

The administration had asked the courts to strike down SB 54 provisions (pdf) that prohibit state and local law enforcement officers from sharing information about an illegal immigrants release from custody, personal information, and physical description to immigration agents. The law also bars state and local officers from transferring these individuals to immigration agents unless in exempted circumstances such as under a court warrant.

The federal government argues that SB 54 concededly frustrate[s] and obstructs federal immigration enforcement, as it eliminates the opportunity for immigration agents to take illegal immigrants into custody prior to release.

In its argument, the federal government says the SB 54 provisions encroach on the federal governments right to set conditions under which illegal immigrants in the United States may be detained, released, and removed, adding that the federal government has absolute and exclusive power over immigration, naturalization, and deportation.

The supremacy of the national power in this area is made clear by the Constitution, was pointed out by the authors of The Federalist in 1787, and has been given continuous recognition by this Court, the petition stated.

Moreover, the U.S. government also argued that not striking down the SB 54 provisions has significant real-world consequences. The court of appeals had acknowledged that SB 54 requires federal officers to stake out a jail in order to try to make a public arrest, which presents risks to the arresting officer and the general public.

When officers are unable to arrest aliensoften criminal alienswho are in removal proceedings or have been ordered removed from the United States, those aliens instead return to the community, where criminal aliens are disproportionately likely to commit crimes, the government stated.

Illegal immigrants wait in a holding cell at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), processing center at the U.S. Federal Building in lower Manhattan on April 11, 2018. (John Moore/Getty Images)

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the SB 54 provisions in its decision in April 2019 (pdf). The three-judge panel rejected the governments arguments for striking down the provisions, ruling that the 10th amendment anti-commandeering doctrine applies. The doctrine prescribes that the federal government may not force states or local governments to enforce federal policies.

Along with SB 54, the lawsuit had also asked the court to grant a preliminary injunction for two other California laws. One law required employers to alert employees before federal immigration inspections, while the other imposes inspection requirements on facilities that hold civil immigration detainees. The lower courts held that those provisions were likely invalid, according to the petition.

In response to the Trump administrations petition, California officials argued that it wasnt necessary to review the lower courts decision because the federal law doesnt stop states from defining circumstances where state and local officials may use state resources to participate in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

They argued that SB 54 only limits cooperation with federal immigration officials and doesnt obstruct them in their work.

To be sure, petitioner would prefer that States and localities provide immigration authorities with any assistance requested by the federal government, they stated (pdf). But especially where Congress contemplated the possibility of voluntary state and local aid but did not purport to mandate it, a State does not intrude on federal prerogatives by volunteering help in some circumstances but not in others.

California officials also argued that the Trump administration would exceed its federal power if it prevents states from limiting state and local participation in federal immigration enforcement activities, citing principles from the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which says the federal government may not compel state officials to enforce or administer federal policies.

In another brief (pdf) on Jan. 2, the Trump administration disputed some of Californias arguments, saying that the states position misunderstands both federal immigration law and the Tenth Amendment.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request to comment.
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A family gathering on Sunday turned deadly after a child accidently drowned in the pool of a far South Side home, according to San Antonio police. The Bexar County Medical Examiner has identified the girl as 4-year-old Lina Arredondo.

The family was at a residence near the 10000 block of Divide Mount while the children played in the backyard pool. Witnesses told police family members were watching Arredondo as she played in the shallow wading pool next to the main pool, but at one point were alerted by another child that Arredondo was in the larger pool.
By Trend





Hazelnut harvest will exceed 50,000 tons in Georgia, Trend reports with reference to Georgian Hazelnut Growers Association.

More than 90 percent of the harvest will be exported, and the key markets will be Italy and Germany.

The association noted rapid development of the sector over the past few years. If the climatic conditions and amount of pests remain stable, the yield will reach 120,000 tons in four years.

The record in hazelnut yield was 60,000 tons in Georgia. In 2019, 35,000 tons of hazelnuts were exported from Georgia, which is twice as much as in 2018.

Meanwhile, sales and prices for Georgian hazelnuts will increase in 2020, according to the forecast of nuts exporters.

The index of export of Georgian hazelnuts in 2019 was the best over the past five years. The exporters named the situation in Turkey as the main reason. In particular, exporters note the early spread of Farosana stink bugs in Turkey, due to which manufacturers expect a decrease in yield by 30 percent.

According to the National Statistical Service of Georgia (Geostat), last year, export of hazelnuts in cash equivalent amounted to $67 million (an increase of 10.6 percent). This is the highest indicator since 2014.
Patna: Less than a week after his former manager reportedly committed suicided by jumping from a building in Mumbai, young Bollywood star Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead hanging from the ceiling of his apartment with police dubbing it as a case of suicide.



https://www.patnadaily.com/index.php/news/14770-family-members-in-patna-stunned-by-sushant-singh-rajput-s-suicide.html#sigProIde5984a6588 View the embedded image gallery online at:

Though no suicide note was found from the scene of suicide, police said medications generally used to battle depression were found from his room.

Born in Purnia and raised in Patna where he attended St. Karen's high School, Sushant studied engineering in Delhi University before dropping out of the college to pursue a career in acting.

As the news of Sushant's suicide spread nationwide thanks to the effect of social media, his father KK Singh, who lives alone in his house on Road #6 in Rajiv Nagar in Patna, was struggling to stay conscious as he kept slipping into a state of unconsciousness as relatives and loved ones tried to console him.

Family members said it was hard to believe Sushant had committed suicide as he was not the kind of person who would do a horrible thing like this.

Meanwhile crowd made up of fans and neighbors outside Sushant's Patna home, Usha Singh Niwas, continued to swell forcing the administration to bring in anti-riot squad just in case the situation got out of hand.

Youngest of the five siblings, all other being sisters, Sushant's brother-in-law, a senior police official in Haryana, arrived in Patna to manage the situation. Talking to the media, he said that he will take his father-in-law to Mumbai by a Monday flight to bring back the body of Sushant whose last rites will be performed in Patna.

Born on January 21, 1986 in Purnia, Sushant finished schooling from St. Karen's High School in Patna. He was placed 7th in the Delhi College of Engineering entrance exam and chose to join the Mechanical Engineering course. He, however, quit college after the third year and left for Mumbai to seek career in films and television.

His mother had passed away when Sushant was just a little boy.

His uncle said he did not believe Sushant committed suicide and sensing foul play, demanded a CBI enquiry into his sudden and shocking death.

"I don't trust the Maharashtra government so only a full CBI probe would bring facts to the surface," he said.

Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) chief and former MP Pappu Yadav was one of the many visitors who reached Sushant's house in Patna to console the grieving family members. He also sought a CBI probe in Sushant's alleged suicide death.
Security forces launched a massive search operation in the forests of Dachigam, located between Srinagar and Ganderbal districts, on Monday to trace militants believed to be in the area.

Officials said the operation involved troops from the armys Rashtriya Rifles, the special operations group of Jammu and Kashmir Police and CRPF. The security forces are combing the forests and hillocks of Dachigam wildlife sanctuary and nearby areas.

The security forces are also using electronic surveillance equipment and unmanned aerial vehicles to scan the area, officials said.

A senior police officer confirmed a combing operation was underway in the forests of Dachigam. Yes, its a general area domination operation launched by the forces, he said.

The troops started by searching for militants areas in the upper reaches of Dachigam and places close to the wildlife sanctuary. The forests and mountainous terrain of this area have been used in the past by militants to enter Srinagar and south Kashmir after coming in from Bandipore and Lolab areas.

Officials said the search operation is part of efforts to secure the areas along the route of the Amarnath Yatra, especially Ganderbal and Srinagar districts. This year, the pilgrimage will be held for a brief period from next month and a limited number of pilgrims will be allowed to trek to the Amarnath shrine via the Baltal route, considered the shortest but toughest route.

Local residents said search operations in Gandernal and the outskirts of the city could increase in coming days to secure the tracks and routes used by yatris. Besides, security forces have received intelligence inputs about the presence of militants in the area.

This is a usual operation to scan the forests and if there are any militants in Dachigam or adjoining areas and forests, they will be flushed out, an official privy to details said on condition of anonymity.
Joe Biden's search for a running mate has advanced to the next phase as his campaign conducts more extensive reviews of some prospects, including at least four African American women, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Among the candidates who have progressed to the point of more comprehensive vetting or have the potential to do so are senator Kamala Harris, representative Val Demings, former national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, all of whom are black. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is white, is also in that group, as is New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is Latina.

The pool of prospects remains fluid, and some close Biden allies suggested other contenders could also face the more intensive vetting process. The people describing the situation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive private conversations and an evolving search process.

The Biden campaign declined to comment. Mr Biden has vowed to choose a woman, and has repeatedly stressed that he wants a running mate who is simpatico with him.

The candidates who continue to be under consideration by the campaign reflect in part the growing prominence of African American women amid a national uproar over police violence and racism that has sparked protests around the country. These developments have added pressure on Mr Biden to select a black woman as his ticket mate.

I think that a ticket that is not reflective of the diversity of this country is a ticket that is doomed to fail, said representative Marcia Fudge, who said she has long felt Mr Biden should pick a black woman and feels even more so now.

Mr Biden's search is attracting even more attention than that of most candidates because at 77, he would be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. Beyond potential health issues, some Democrats believe that if elected, Mr Biden might not seek a second term, giving his vice president an early advantage in the race to become the next chief executive.

In a recent interview with CBS News, Mr Biden said the national upheaval of recent weeks has not affected his decision beyond placing a greater focus and urgency on the need to get someone who is totally simpatico with where I am.

But many Biden allies believe the protests have upended the calculations Mr Biden must make. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who was once seen by Biden allies as a leading candidate, has seen her stock fall recently in their eyes.

As outrage has grown over the killing of George Floyd, a black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as he cried out that he could not breathe, Ms Klobuchar's record as a local prosecutor has come under criticism from activists. They contend she was too tough on black and brown people and not hard enough on the police, contributing to systemic problems.

Senator Kamala Harris ran for the Democratic nomination against Biden before dropping out in December (Reuters)

Another variable is the pressure Mr Biden faces from some quarters of the party to give strong consideration to a Latina running mate. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto took herself out of the running last month, leaving Lujan Grisham as the most prominent Latina prospect.

Others who have been mentioned by Biden allies include senators Tammy Duckworth and Tammy Baldwin. Ms Duckworth is a Purple Heart recipient who lost both her legs in the Iraq War and is Asian American. Ms Baldwin hails from a crucial state Donald Trump won in 2016 and was the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.

She has an appeal that goes way beyond the obvious political candidate, said senator Richard Durbin of Duckworth. I believe they are taking her seriously. Mr Durbin has been in touch with Mr Biden and his associates.

Another Midwestern Democrat who has received at least some consideration is Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who Mr Biden has previously said was on the list.

The Biden campaign is expected to undertake a deep scrub of the backgrounds of its finalists, requesting documents and answers to personal questions. Those who have received close consideration in past years say the process was intense.

We got a 129-question survey to answer, said Julian Castro, a former Housing and Urban Development secretary, who was vetted by Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. You sit for hours with teams of lawyers to go over your personal, financial, political history.

Recommended New Lincoln Project election ad contrasts Trump and Eisenhower

Mr Biden has tasked a group of four allies - former senator Christopher J Dodd, representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and former White House counsel Cynthia Hogan - to spearhead his running mate selection process.

Of the group getting a closer look from the campaign, Ms Harris stands out for her experience on the national political stage. She is the only black woman in America who is currently either a US senator or a governor, and she ran for president against Mr Biden in the Democratic primaries.

Several top Biden allies said this past week that they increasingly view Ms Harris as the best fit to be Mr Biden's running mate. They believe the senator from California, a former state attorney general, could appeal to the party's activist wing as well as its professional class, helping Mr Biden meet a challenging moment of upheaval on race.

Ms Rice has never sought or held elective office, but she has the most extensive record of dealing with foreign governments and representing the United States on the world stage. She served as ambassador to the United Nations and national security adviser during the Obama administration. She has faced criticism, however, for her public comments about the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including two US diplomats, which she later acknowledged were not fully accurate.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms drew praise for her response to protests in Atlanta (AP)

Ms Demings has also emerged as an intriguing prospect to many Democrats. She hails from the nation's largest swing state and made history as the first female chief of the Orlando Police Department.

Representative Charlie Crist said Ms Demings has a tremendous background with the added importance of being from Florida. Mr Crist said he expressed his enthusiasm for Ms Demings on a recent call with Mr Dodd.

Still, the law enforcement backgrounds of Ms Harris and Ms Demings are likely to face public scrutiny and receive close attention from the campaign officials vetting them. In recent years, liberal activists have grown more sceptical of prosecutors and police, and the current protests have focused on law enforcement's treatment of African Americans.

Ms Bottoms, the Atlanta mayor, an early Biden endorser, has received national attention for her widely praised response to Floyd's killing and the resulting protests in her city.

Ms Warren, who like Ms Harris ran against Mr Biden in the primaries, developed a reputation during the race as an ideas candidate with detailed plans for advancing a liberal agenda, particularly on economic issues.

Some Democrats who have spoken with Mr Biden said they have not been given an indication that he is leaning towards any specific candidate. Mr Biden said at a 27 May virtual fundraiser that he hoped to name his vice-presidential pick around 1 August. We're in the process of deciding the basic cut - about whether or not they really want it. Are they comfortable? he said that day.

Former Georgia gubernatorial nominee and state House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who has shown strong interest in the job but has drawn scepticism from some Biden allies questioning her experience, said on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that she would answer if called, but I have not received any calls.

The former vice president has been guarded about discussing specific candidates in his public remarks, but he has occasionally revealed some details. He has previously disclosed that Ms Demings was under consideration and said that more than one African American woman was in the mix.

Mr Crist, a former Republican who was vetted by John McCain's campaign in 2008, said the experience can be gruelling.

It's like a no-stone-unturned kind of process, Mr Crist said. Which it should be.

The Washington Post
Topplers of the world disunite. You have nothing to lose but your brains.

Britain is now following the experience of the U.S. in removing or calling for removal of statues or monuments of individuals associated with slavery, or racial discrimination, or those regarded as imperialists or colonialists. No doubt the UK in the past pulled down statues and palaces of other civilizations. The question now arises whether history is being erased or truly evaluated. A document published on June 9, 2020 titled Topple the Racist includes a list of more than 100 statues and street names that should be taken down or changed. The topplers are ecumenical and afford a review of British history, economics, and geography. We are reminded of the suspects, James II, Charles II, Lord Mountbatten, Robert Clive, Francis Drake, Lord Kitchener, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Clyde (Colin Campbell) , Henry Dundas (Lord Melville), Francis Galton, General Redvers Buller, Sir Thomas Picton, and General James Neill, among others.

A few of the list can be examined. The offensive against Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College Oxford, has been continuing for some time and has been reinvigorated after the Black Lives Matter campaign in the U.S. with a Rhodes Must Fall demand. Rhodes was a British businessman, a mining magnate who founded De Beers, which controlled most of the worlds diamond mines which employed slave labor in Southern Africa. He was a colonialist who became prime minister of Cape Colony, now South Africa, whose policies were a forerunner of apartheid. But he was also a philanthropist who left money in his will to Oriel College. Most notably, the money has been used as a grant for a foundation for foreign scholars to come to Oxford. Though critics have argued the grant was based on the oppression of southern African people, Nelson Mandela said that though Rhodes legacy was controversial, he should still be remembered for his philanthropy.

Taking just American individuals, the list of the foreign visitors is memorable including three who became Supreme Court justices. Among present day U.S. personalities who benefited are Bill Clinton, Cory Booker, Susan Rice, Bobby Jindal, Rachel Maddow, Kris Kristofferson, and a number of members of Congress.

So far, Oriel has decided to keep the statue.

Action has taken place on some of those to be toppled. Among them are the statues of Robert Milligan, and Edward Colston.

Milligan was a Scottish merchant and slave owner who had two sugar plantations and 526 slaves in Jamaica. He tried to get a monopoly on the import into London of West Indian produce, He founded the West Indian Dock Company. His statue in East London was removed after recognizing the wishes of the community on June 9, 2020.

Colston was a merchant from Bristol who became involved in the slave trade in 1680 by his association with the Royal African Company of which he became deputy governor and which had a monopoly on English trade in African slaves. He helped organized transport of an estimated 84,000 Africans, of whom 19,000 died during passage. Bristol was once the most important British port for slave ships. Colston made his fortune in buying and selling slaves. However, he left most of his money to charities, and was the greatest benefactor of the city of Bristol. His name is on many of the streets and buildings in Bristol, on schools, hospitals, and churches. His statue in Bristol was torn down and thrown into the waterfront.

The calls for toppling have occasioned some surprises and mistakes. One concerned prime minister Sir Robert Peel, who was the son of a wealthy cotton manufacturer, also named Robert Peel. The topplers claim Sir Robert petitioned against the bill in 1806 to abolish the slave trade, but they are mistaken. It was his father who did so. Sir Roberts statue is likely to remain, even if the family fortune came from the work of slaves.

A second case concerns American-born Elihu Yale who was president of the East Indian Company settlement in Madras. He later became a diamond merchant and a judge who is said to have sentenced black criminals to flogging and enslavement. He was also a philanthropist. In 1718 a school in Connecticut was renamed Yale in his honor. In Britain, as a result of 2017 protests, a pub sign with his name was changed to show Yale together with a slave in chains.

Christopher Columbus has suffered a sad fate. He was decapitated on June 10. 2020 in Boston. However, his statue in Belgrave Square in central London was attacked but still stands.

Most surprising has been the defacing of the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in London. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put the case fairly. Though Winston sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable, he was a hero, and fully deserves his memorial. His statue is a permanent reminder of his achievement in saving the UK and the whole of Europe from a fascist and racist tyranny. It is a disgrace that the statue has to be protected and is boarded up.

Ant then there is William Gladstone, prime minister on four different occasions, whose family had slaves on plantations in the Caribbean, and who received a settlement of 90,000 pounds (9.5 million in todays money) as compensation for freed slaves. Gladstone is to be toppled because in his maiden speech in the House of Commons he had voted against a petition against slavery.

And there is Nelson, Admiral Horatio Nelson, so called white supremacist, in a bust on top of column in Trafalgar Square. How many of the topplers know that in the bas relief of his statue there is a figure of a black sailor carrying a gun to protect Nelson?

Reading the To Be Toppled list leaves one in a condition of moral bewilderment as to how to assess figures of the past who have been honored. Is history to be made by the winners or current protestors? The need is compelling for legitimate historical analysis to clarify the true history of personalities who have been admired.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct and clarify the relationship between ARC, its parent company and sibling corporations charged with price fixing and cartel behavior.

The parent company of the firm awarded a $7.2 billion contract for managing service members' household goods shipments -- a decision now being reconsidered by the Defense Department -- has a murky past that includes several of its subsidiaries pleading guilty to price-fixing in the U.S. and being charged with "criminal cartel conduct" last August in Australia.

American Roll-On Roll Off Carrier Group (ARC), the firm awarded the Pentagon's Global Household Goods contract on April 30, is the American subsidiary of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics ASA, also known as Wallenius Wilhelmsen Group, a Norwegian shipping company that also owns the former Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, a company that paid at least $98.9 million in fines in 2016 for conspiring to fix prices and rig international cargo bids in Baltimore and elsewhere in the U.S., as well as Eukor, a South Korean car carrier company charged in 2015 with price-fixing.

ARC, based in Parsippany, New Jersey, has been a contractor with the Department of Defense and Department of Transportation for 30 years, providing American-owned ships for carrying cargo, including military gear and service members' household goods.

Prior to 2017, ARC's investors included Wallenius Lines of Sweden and Wilh. Wilhelmsen ASA of Norway, another holding company with several subsidiaries that were under antitrust investigation.

ARC and its partner companies were awarded the DoD Global Household Goods Contract contract April 30, an agreement worth up to $20 billion over the next decade to manage the moves of more than 400,000 military personnel and families each year.

The company, which owns a fleet of cargo vessels, teamed with Deloitte and several van lines and moving companies, including the parent companies of United Van Lines, Mayflower Transit and Atlas Van Lines; Suddath; and the Pasha Group, to win the contract

On June 9, however, U.S. Transportation Command asked the Government Accountability Office for permission to take "corrective action" on the contract. The GAO oversees government contract protests and disputes.

TRANSCOM officials would not say why they decided to withdraw the contract award pending review, and declined to comment on ARC's ownership or say whether it factored into the decision.

TRANSCOM spokesman Dave Dunn said that if the GAO grants the review request, the command will go over the "entire evaluation record to include reviewing the reported allegations along with gathering additional facts."

"An interested party presented TRANSCOM with information that they believe should have been considered in the Global Household Goods Contract award decision. USTRANSCOM intends to take corrective action to consider this new information, gather facts and conduct a review of the award," Dunn said in a statement.

The Defense Department first considered outsourcing its household goods management system in 2018, following a disastrous year in which 10% of all service members who moved reported breakage, loss of items, damage and delivery delays of their household goods.

A DoD Inspector General report earlier this year found that 41% of shipments were not delivered on time.

Nearly 105,000 military families signed a petition on Change.org calling for system improvements.

The contract is designed to address these long-standing problems with scheduling, overseeing and monitoring household goods shipments.

After the award to ARC was announced, however, two of the three other companies vying for the contract filed bid protests: HomeSafe Alliance LLC and Connected Global Solutions LLC.

Neither company would comment on their protests or TRANSCOM's decision to review the award.

Under the original contract, ARC was to begin a nine-month IT and system turnover and prepare to manage worldwide household goods shipments by 2022.

The bid protests automatically delayed the handoff by 100 days, but with the ongoing review, the transition will remain on hold until a decision is made. Dunn said he expects the review to be "completed in the next several weeks."

The company, which transports millions of tons of cargo each year, has had a few notable incidents while shipping U.S. military gear and service members' household goods and cars.

In 2000, 166 vehicles, some belonging to the U.S. government, others privately owned by service members, were damaged aboard the motor vessel Faust when a tow truck broke loose of its tethers in heavy seas and rolled into nearby cars and a diesel fuel tank. A third party was later found liable for the damages, having been responsible for securing the lines.

In 2001, 21 vehicles were destroyed and another 150 were damaged in a fire on another of the company's ships. And in June 2015, a fire broke out on ARC's motor vessel Courage, carrying 461 service members' cars and 204 household goods shipments. An undisclosed number of automobiles sustained damage.

Industry officials and representatives for small moving companies said they found TRANSCOM's decision to select ARC puzzling, since its parent company is a foreign corporation and it partnered mainly with large van lines. Under the contract, a significant portion of the moves are to be handled by small businesses.

"It is no surprise that corrective measures are being taken," said a source familiar with the contracting process. "The protests associated with this contract all make note of ARC's foreign ownership, that ownership's criminal history and the company's inability to deliver on the needs of the military community or support small business subcontractors."

ARC responded to Military.com following the initial publication of this article to clarify its ownership. A previous version of the story stated that Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics -- the company charged across the globe with conspiring to rig bids and fix prices and, in August 2019, with criminal conduct for allegedly conspiring with two other shipping companies to control the pricing of vehicle shipments to Australia between 2011 and 2012 -- was its parent company.

Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics ASA is the parent company; Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics AS is a subsidiary, a Norwegian sibling of ARC. It was renamed in WWL ASA's corporate restructuring in 2017.

ARC spokesman Charles Diorio told Military.com that it was "unfortunate that well-documented facts relating to a 2016 agreement between WWL and the U.S. Department of Justice to settle allegations of anti-competitive behavior are being misinterpreted by parties with a vested interest to promulgate a false and misleading narrative about ARC."

"As an entirely separate U.S. company with separate U. S. citizen management, ARC was not a party to the 2016 U.S. Department of Justice case involving Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics AS (WWL), a Norwegian company, and has never been accused of any anti-competitive or criminal activities. ARC was never owned or otherwise controlled by WWL," Diorio said.

-- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.

Related: Military Families Making Summer PCS Moves Will Have to Follow
An electron micrograph of the measles virus. Credit: CDC/ Courtesy of Cynthia S. Goldsmith

Combating the resurgence of measles requires vigilant clinicians and sustained, high level vaccination coverage, because Australia is "an island in a sea of measles," according to the authors of Perspective published online today by the Medical Journal of Australia.

Measles is the most highly communicable human virus known. Compared with COVID-19, which has an R0 (the average number of secondary cases generated from a single case in a fully susceptible, freely mixing population) of between 2 and 3, measles has an R0 of between 9 and 18double that of smallpox and four times that of Ebola.

"It can therefore result in devastating and explosive outbreaks where immunity gaps exist," wrote the Perspective authors, led by David Durrheim, Professor of Public Health Medicine at the University of Newcastle, and Director of Health Protection, Hunter New England Population.

It is transmitted by respiratory droplets, and aerosolised particles can remain airborne for up to two hours, making infection possible well after a patient has left an enclosed space such as a clinic waiting room.

"Although the majority of patients recover from measles, up to one child in every thousand infected in wealthy countries will die, usually due to pneumonia or encephalitis," wrote the authors. "The immunosuppression caused by the measles infection may last months to years, and rare but devastating neurological complications include acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, measles inclusion body encephalitis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis."

In 2019, Australia had 285 confirmed measles cases, the highest number reported since 2014, the year that it was verified by the Regional Verification Commission for Measles Elimination in the Western Pacific to have eliminated measles.

"At the beginning of 2020, Samoa was in a state of emergency due to a measles outbreak," wrote Durrheim and colleagues.

"It resulted in over 5700 cases and over 80 deaths, the majority being in children under five years of age. There were concurrent outbreaks regionally, in New Zealand, Tonga, American Samoa and Fiji. Globally, there has been a massive resurgence of measles with over 360,000 cases reported to the World Health Organization between 1 January and 31 July 2019almost three times the number reported over the same period for 2018. We have also seen the re-establishment of endemic measles in some countries, such as the United Kingdom, where it was previously eliminated."

Durrheim and colleagues wrote that although the majority of measles cases occurred in underimmunised individuals there has been a "small but increasing" proportion of cases in adults reporting previous measles vaccination.

"At the time of elimination verification in Australia, the estimated efficacy of measles vaccine was 96.7% for one dose and 99.7% for two doses," they wrote.

"Thus, about one in 300 fully vaccinated people who are exposed to measles are vulnerable to "breakthrough" infection, resulting from either an inadequate response at the time of vaccination or waning of immunity over time." Vaccination remains the key control mechanism for measles. A population immunity of 95% is required to eliminate ongoing measles transmission. While childhood vaccination coverage in 2019 was above 90% for all Australian states and territories, few met the 95% target for measles.

"Measles virus is the ultimate opportunist and will capitalize on any gaps in immunity," Durrheim and colleagues concluded.

"National programs are important, but measles control cannot be achieved without effective local prevention and control measures, including diligent vaccination and prompt diagnosis by alert clinicians. With outbreaks occurring regionally, concerted effort is required to maintain Australia's elimination of measles and continue progress towards the goal of global measles eradication."

Explore further Annual reported measles incidence dropped from 2000 to 2018

More information: Kirsten M Williamson et al. Australia: an island in a sea of measles, Medical Journal of Australia (2020). Journal information: Medical Journal of Australia Kirsten M Williamson et al. Australia: an island in a sea of measles,(2020). DOI: 10.5694/mja2.50650

Provided by Medical Journal of Australia
President Moon Jae-in/Yonhap



By Do Je-hae



President Moon Jae-in has underlined the need for the two Koreas to return to dialogue and cooperation for the development of inter-Korean ties through the upholding of the spirit of the June 15 Declaration reached at the summit between former President Kim Dae-jung and the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.



Marking the 20th anniversary of the landmark agreement, Monday, Moon also called on current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to return to talks and halt the raising of tension on the Korean Peninsula.



This was the first response from Moon following a series of recent verbal threats from North Korean state media and key officials, including the North Korean leader's sister Kim Yo-jong. On Sunday, she hinted at military action in the near future, fueling concerns of heightened tension between the two Koreas.



"Chairman Kim Jong-un and I cannot backtrack on the promise of peace we made to the 80 million people of our two countries," Moon said during a weekly meeting with senior aides, Monday, according to press pool reports.






By IANS

JAMMU: Migrant Kashmiri Pandits on Monday rejected an inquiry ordered by the Jammu and Kashmir government into an alleged scam of Rs 2,340 crores involving relief funds meant for the migrant Pandit community.

In a statement on Monday, Satish Mahaldar, chairman of reconciliation, return and rehabilitation of Pandit community said: "We reject the inquiry committee set up by the J&K government to investigate the scam of Rs 2,340 crores. We had brought the scam to light on May 17 with documentary evidence to prove how political activists of the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party were getting monthly monetary benefits from the exchequer from the share meant for the members of the Kashmiri Pandit community."

"We had sought an investigation by the Central bureau of investigations (CBI) or the Anti-corruption bureau (ACB). Instead, the government has formed a committee that includes members who were involved in the process of enrolling the activists and disbursing relief to them.

"It seems the committee has been formed to cover up the scam. "We reiterate our demand for an independent inquiry since the amount involved is huge and the people have the right to know where the amount has gone," it said.

In the past also there have been reports of financial irregularities being committed in disbursing relief to migrant Pandits and even in the registration of families of migrants who live outside Kashmir.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:50:01|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Monday denounced what he called South Korea's "obedience" to the United States to freeze Iran's oil money.

"South Korea's blind obedience to the United States and it's move to use U.S. unilateral sanction pressures as an excuse are not acceptable," the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said.

"They have no right to block the Iranian nation's assets," said Mousavi at his weekly press conference.

Iran has taken necessary and legal measures to unblock the money, he said.

Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati said Wednesday that South Korean banks are "preventing" Iran from using billions of dollars of its oil money to buy food and medicines.

Iran has announced that South Korea was in arrears on payment of about 7 billion U.S. dollars for oil from Iran before the U.S. President Donald Trump's administration reimposed sanctions on Iran's oil industry in November 2018.

South Korea was the biggest client of Iranian gas condensate with 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) on top of 100,000 bpd of crude oil, but the country stopped the imports under U.S. pressures. Enditem
A four-alarm blaze damaged at least four buildings and forced 27 people from their homes Sunday afternoon in Paterson, officials said.

One of the homes on Butler Street was fully engulfed by flames around 2:30 p.m. There were no immediate reports of any serious injuries.

The American Red Cross was assisting 27 people in seven families with temporary lodging and other services, according to the organization. Firefighters from nearby Hawthorne assisted city crews at the fire scene, the department said.

More information was not immediately available.

Tower 2 has been requested into the city of Paterson directly to the scene of a 4th alarm fire. Paterson companies were... Posted by Hawthorne Fire Co#2 on Sunday, June 14, 2020

Paterson WF 168 Butler Fully Involved 2.5 Story Frame. 2nd Alarm now have three frames going. pic.twitter.com/mVxsNSOlGt  NorthJersey FireNews (@NJFires) June 14, 2020

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com.

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Ralph Caplan was the E.B. White of design writing. He disliked windy sentences and pompous cliches and was always ready to poke fun at orthodoxies. He said he wasnt sure he saw the point of a chair, since human beings could sit on pretty much anything except a cactus.

To Mr. Caplan, design wasnt really about objects, anyway, but about making things right, which is why to him the most emblematic and successful design of the 20th century was the sit-in  civil disobedience as perfected by the young civil rights activists at lunch counters in Montgomery, Ala., and elsewhere in the South.

Mr. Caplan, an essayist, professor, lecturer and consultant on design, died on June 4 at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 95. His wife, Judith Ramquist, said the cause was heart failure.

In 1957, Mr. Caplan was an out-of-work poetry major from a Pennsylvania steel town who had lost his job in New York when Bounty, the humor magazine he had worked for, folded (because, he said, it wasnt very funny). On a tip from a friend, he interviewed for a writing position at a magazine called Industrial Design, also known as I.D.
Hope Against Cancer is doubling the size of their Clinical Trials Facility at Leicesters Royal Infirmary - and are calling upon the people of Leicestershire and Rutland to help them do it.

Funding research is the only way to beat cancer, and Hope is at the forefront of giving people a better quality of life and a vastly higher chance of surviving the disease. The Hope for Life Appeal is well underway and is your chance to be part of a local movement against cancer - if you dont want to miss out, you need to get involved.

The Hope For Life Appeal is aiming to raise over 1.5 million to totally redevelop and extend the Hope Clinical Trials Facility. Every year, around 5,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in Leicestershire. Thanks to organisations like Hope, of this 5,000, more people than ever are surviving. Hope For Life is the next step in making sure the number of people surviving cancer continues to rise.

Hope Against Cancer would like to thank a number of very generous donors across the Leicestershire and Rutland community, which has already raised an impressive 1 million towards the 1.5 million goal. The Charity reached the million-pound mark recently with help from The Randal Charitable Foundation, following a generous donation of 101,000. The Loughborough-based Foundation has a clear, unwavering vision that is to save lives, help the socially disadvantaged and improve the quality of life for those in need in the UK and around the world.

Opened in 2012, the Hope Clinical Trials Facility is one of the countrys leading centers for cancer trials in the last few years.

Were really grateful to Hope Against Cancer for its continued support of the Facility and our research. It is the success of the center that has driven demand - and weve reached our full capacity as a result. Doubling the space at the Facility will mean we can offer many more patients further opportunities to take part in clinical trials, testing potential new drugs and treatments with the aim to extend lives, improve quality of life and, ultimately, improve outcomes for patients living with cancer today and in the future. Professor Anne Thomas, clinical lead for the Hope Clinical Trials Facility at the hospital, and Professor of Oncology at the University of Leicester

Despite the current challenges we are all facing due to COVID-19, the charity is making great headway with Phase 1, which is happening over at the University of Leicesters Robert Kilpatrick Clinical Sciences Building, located at the Leicester Royal Infirmary. It is here that much of the life-saving research takes place.

The objective for this space is to increase its capacity and to bring it to an excellent standard and an environment conducive to the researchers and the work which takes place here.

All main construction for phase 1 has now been completed. Phase 2 will happen at the Clinical Trials Facility and the charity and partners are being guided by the government as to when they can commence.

Research has shown that having clinical research in a hospital providing cancer treatment improves the overall standard of care for patients receiving treatment both in and out of clinical trials. This means a new facility could have a wider impact on all patients being treated for cancer across the system.

Hope is calling on people to start fundraising and help them achieve their fundraising target. In the past, local people have organised events, sporting challenges, competitions, bake sales, bike rides and a host of other activities to generate cash for the charitys life-saving work. It is of course a challenging time but the charity has been truly impressed at the innovative way in which their supporters have continued to fundraise.

Nigel Rose, Hopes CEO since 2013, is full of confidence that the people of our counties will be able to raise the required funds: If theres one area of the UK that can raise the money the Hope For Life Appeal is asking for, its the communities in Leicestershire and Rutland. Many peoples lives are affected by cancer, and its a testament to them that Hope is what it is today. The Hope For Life Appeal is the next step in our journey.

The money raised by Hopes supporters will not only go towards doubling the capacity of the Clinical Trials Facility but to purchasing new equipment and will be transformational for local cancer research in the future.

Historically, local citizens have always risen to the challenge to ensure Hope Against Cancer delivers its vital research. If youve been moved by the charitys ambition and need to get this done for local cancer patients, you can add your fundraising power to the Hope For Life Appeal by visiting Hopes social media pages here: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or donate through the Hope for Life Appeal website: https://hopeforlife.charity
In view of the pandemic, Portugal has introduced suitable health protocols to boost tourism. These include introducing new concepts to ensure adherence to the newly introduced norms of social distancing. This is one of the requirements identified to prevent the spread of the infection. The country has declared open its bathing season Saturday, and those who want to avail the opportunity must follow the laid down guidelines.

RTL Today says Portugal is going all out to woo tourists. It is determined to bring them back. Last year it had a record number of them, and it wants to maintain the trend.

Tourism is the mainstay of the country's economy. The government is serious and has already introduced a number of confidence-building measures to ensure hygiene. One of these is a "Clean & Safe" label. This is a step to guarantee that the establishment has taken necessary hygienic precautions so that there is no compromise on the subject of the safety of others. Already hundreds of establishments have applied for the unique label that will display its standard.

Tourism is important for Portugal

Coronavirus is a global health crisis, and it has applied brakes on the economic recovery of Portugal. Its GDP in the first quarter of 2020 has fallen considerably in comparison to the last three months of 2019.

This is as per a provisional estimate published Friday by the authorities. The tourist accommodation industry witnessed a decline in the number of guests with an obvious drop in turnover.

 Portugal readying itself for summer tourism https://t.co/wT1q9u2hiu pic.twitter.com/i6Lni1FjYk  FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) June 11, 2020

RTL Today describes some positives for the island of Madeira.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

The regional government has decided to put an end to the compulsory quarantine period for those arriving on the territory (Madeira and Porto Santo) from 1 July. To avail this advantage, prospective travelers must fill up a questionnaire indicating the result of the last COVID-19 test done. It must be done within a specified period before their arrival.

In case the test is to be done on-site, they can move about freely so long as they do not test positive. In case they do, they will face quarantine and repatriation as per rules. Therefore, the tourists, in their own interest, must ensure that they are free from infection.

Portugal relies on the UK for boosting tourism

According to The BBC, Augusto Santos Silva, the foreign minister of Portugal, has an apparent soft corner for the UK. He says an air bridge between the UK and Portugal could be a reality by the end of June. In the opinion of UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, it is possible to have air bridges to countries that have low rates of virus infection. It would be a relief to those arriving from specific places, and they would not need to self-isolate.

This would be applicable to countries with low COVID-19 infection rates. Incidentally, planned quarantine for arrivals is a necessary evil, and its objective is to check the onslaught of a second wave of the virus.

Portugal's foreign minister has said anyone in the UK thinking of going to Portugal this summer will be "most welcome" amid coronavirus. #bbcdn https://t.co/7Z4qTEtggU  BBC Debate Night (@bbcdebatenight) June 10, 2020

Travel quarantine is harmful to the tourism industry

The BBC adds that Santos Silva described any Travel quarantine as an enemy of tourism. However, he went along with the UK government's decision to enforce it on almost all arrivals to the UK from next Monday. He also indicated some restrictions on nightlife in Portuguese resorts, like people would not be allowed to congregate in groups at night.

Hotels and apartments would have to comply with standards set by the tourism board. COVID-19 has devastated the travel and tourism sectors, and they are waiting for revival.

The pandemic originated in China, and it has affected travel, crippled global tourism, and trade. Countries in Europe want to exploit the holiday season, and Greece has drawn up plans to open its doors to tourism soon.
KABUL -- Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has announced that it has decided to cease activities at the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul, following a deadly attack at the facilitys maternity wing last month, saying that similar "horrific" attacks may occur there in the future.



In a statement on June 15, the Geneva-based charity said 16 mothers were "systematically shot dead" during the May 12 attack, while an MSF midwife, two children aged 7 and 8, and six other people were also killed.



Afghan authorities have put the blame on the Taliban, which has denied involvement, while representatives of foreign governments pointed the finger at Afghanistans Islamic State (IS) affiliate.



"We were aware that our presence in Dasht-e-Barchi carried risks, but we just couldn't believe that someone would take advantage of the absolute vulnerability of women about to give birth to murder them and their babies," said Thierry Allafort-Duverger, MSF's director-general.



"Today, we have to accept reality: higher walls and thicker security doors won't prevent such horrific assaults from happening again," said Allafort-Duverger. "To remain would mean to factor in such loss of human lives as a parameter of our activity, and this is unthinkable."



MSF has been working in Dasht-e-Barchi in collaboration with the Afghan Ministry of Public Health since 2014, providing free-of-charge maternity and neonatal care.



A large population belonging to the mainly Shi'ite Hazara community lives in the area and has been targeted by IS militants in the past.



More than 70 staff and patients in MSF health-care programs have been killed in Afghanistan over the past 16 years, according to the aid organization.



MSF, which first started working in the country in 1980, continues to run medical programs in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Kandahar, Khost, and Kunduz.
The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Monday. This file is no longer being updated. Read Tuesdays coverage here.

9:07 p.m.: The latest numbers of confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 8 p.m. on June 15, as compiled by the Canadian Press:

There are 99,147 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada: Quebec: 54,054 confirmed (including 5,242 deaths, 22,213 resolved); Ontario: 32,370 confirmed (including 2,527 deaths, 27,213 resolved); Alberta: 7,453 confirmed (including 151 deaths, 6,862 resolved); British Columbia: 2,745 confirmed (including 168 deaths, 2,395 resolved); Nova Scotia: 1,061 confirmed (including 62 deaths, 996 resolved); Saskatchewan: 683 confirmed (including 13 deaths, 629 resolved); Manitoba: 293 confirmed (including 7 deaths, 292 resolved), 11 presumptive; Newfoundland and Labrador: 261 confirmed (including 3 deaths, 257 resolved); New Brunswick: 160 confirmed (including 2 deaths, 129 resolved); Prince Edward Island: 27 confirmed (including 27 resolved); and repatriated Canadians: 13 confirmed (including 13 resolved).

8:55 p.m.: The Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority, the provincial agency that governs Ontarios retirement homes, has issued an order to revoke the licence of Rosslyn Retirement Residence, the site of Hamiltons worst COVID-19 outbreak.

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, along with the Greycliff Manor retirement home in Niagara Falls. Brothers Aldo Martino and the late John Martino previously 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.

Fourteen residents of Rosslyn have died from the outbreak and more than 60 residents had to be hospitalized when the home was evacuated on May 15.

A Hamilton Spectator investigation last week revealed horrifying conditions and alleged mismanagement at the home. Former staff members and families of former residents of the Rosslyn made shocking allegations of chronic problems with rodent and bedbug infestations, understaffing, poor living conditions, and a lack of proper care for residents with dementia.

7:24 p.m.: After seeing fewer than 200 new COVID-19 cases for the first time in more than two months on Sunday, Ontarios regional health units reported a slight bump in cases Monday, according to the Stars latest count.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, the health units had reported a total of 34,231 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,582 deaths, up a total of 211 new cases in 24 hours  up 32 cases from the previous day. Before Sunday, the last day with fewer than 200 new reported cases was March 26, back in the early days of rapid case growth before the COVID-19 epidemic first peaked in the province.

As has been the case in recent weeks, the overwhelming majority of new COVID-19 infections in Ontario continue to occur in the GTA; just 62 of the 211 cases reported Monday came outside in the regions five health units. But the rate of new cases is also falling sharply in the Toronto area.

On Monday, Toronto Public Health reported fewer than 100 new cases for the fourth straight day. Before that streak, all but one of the previous 66 consecutive days had seen more than 100 reported infections.

Meanwhile, the 11 new fatal cases reported since Sunday evening is also in line with a downward trend that has seen the rate of deaths fall from a peak of 90 deaths in a single day, seen in early May.

Earlier Monday, the province reported that 419 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 104 in intensive care, of whom 69 are on a ventilator. Those numbers have also have fallen sharply since early May.

The province says its data is accurate to 4 p.m. the previous day.

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.

6:56 p.m.: Authorities in Beijing placed a swath of the city under lockdown Monday and tested tens of thousands of people as they rushed to contain a new coronavirus outbreak that marked an unnerving breach in Chinas capital.

President Xi Jinping had said from the outset that the crowded metropolis should be a fortress against the pandemic, and local officials have imposed strict measures to keep infections low. While the dozens of new cases there seem slight compared to the hundreds and even thousands of infections reported daily in other countries, the fresh outbreak has jolted China, prompting the government to fire local officials and reinstate some recently relaxed restrictions.

The city government said Monday it had tracked down 79 coronavirus infections over the previous four days, including 36 confirmed Sunday. Virtually all appeared ultimately traceable to the vast, bustling Xinfadi food market in the south of Beijing.

Later in the day, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, told a news conference that more than 100 cases have now been confirmed in the Beijing flare-up.

5:46 p.m.: Toronto Public Health reports 90 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, three more deaths and 117 more recoveries, making for a total of 1,337 known active cases  about half of all cases in Ontario.

The number of people hospitalized in Toronto with the virus has declined by seven in the last 24 hours, to 296.

5:07 p.m.: Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau says the government will look at how measures to revive the economy from its pandemic-induced freeze will impact women and men differently.

He also suggests that federal officials will consider how any changes to the COVID-19 economic safety net could affect racialized communities in Canada.

Morneau is working on a host of changes to the federal spending program that now costs about $153.7 billion, as restrictions rolled back to let companies and workers get back to business.

4:32 p.m. The government of Mexico wont send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19.

The Mexican ambassador to Canada says his government wants to know more about the circumstances around the death of the two men and whats being done to prevent similar tragic outcomes.

Juan Jose Gomez Camacho told The Canadian Press that means some 5,000 temporary foreign workers expected to arrive in Canada in the coming months are being held back, for now.

He says Mexico knows the labour is timed to arrive with farmers needs and the government will do its best to respect that.

But Gomez Camacho says his government wants to make sure Canada is doing its utmost to guard against future outbreaks.

He says an estimated 300 Mexicans working in Canada are currently infected with COVID-19.

4:21 p.m. The Ontario government is proposing all health units begin collecting race-based data on COVID-19.

The province announced the change today after saying earlier this month it was considering the move.

The health minister says the government has made the proposal after requests from community leaders and public health experts.

Christine Elliott says some groups may be at greater risk of COVID-19 infection, including racialized communities and those with lower incomes.

She says collecting the data will help guide decisions as the province works to stop the spread of the virus.

Some health units, including Ottawa, Toronto, Middlesex-London and Sudbury, have already been collecting such data.

4:05 p.m. For the fourth time in its history, the Oscars are being postponed. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC Television Network said Monday that the 93rd Academy Awards will now be held April 25, 2021, eight weeks later than originally planned because of the pandemics effects on the movie industry.The Academys Board of Governors also decided to extend the eligibility window beyond the calendar year to Feb. 28, 2021, for feature films, and delay the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures from December until April 30, 2021.

3:50 p.m. Mayor John Tory said he is releasing a report on seniors homes today. The report will result in changes to long-term care homes including extra precautions such as continued health screening of residents and staff, physical distancing remaining in place for communal dining, and new residents isolating for 14 days. City staff made 16 recommendations in the report comissioned by Tory earlier this year. City staff say it will cost $14 million to make changes at citys 10 long-term care homes that are home to about 2,600 Torontonians.

3:45 p.m. Mayor John Tory and city officials will provide an update on COVID-19 in Toronto at 3:45 p.m. A livestream of the news conference will be available on thestar.com.

2:47 p.m. Manitoba health officials are reporting no new COVID-19 cases, and have provided details of four recent infections.

The provinces chief public health officer, Dr. Brent Roussin, says a case announced Friday is a Winnipeg-area woman in her 30s, who had travelled from Ontario and self-isolated.

He says three cases reported over the weekend are Winnipeg-area men in their 20s and 30s, who were all close contacts of a previous case.

Roussin says he expects to see cases continue to crop up because the novel coronavirus is not going away any time soon.

With more people recovering, there remain five active cases in Manitoba.

The provincial government is planning to ease more restrictions on public gatherings and business openings later this month.

2:46 p.m. The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey continuing to rise on Monday, weeks after the country relaxed restrictions.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Monday reported 1,592 confirmed new infections over the previous 24 hours  30 more than Sundays figure.

Koca also reported 18 new deaths due to the coronavirus, bringing the total to 4,825. Turkey has recorded a total of 178,831 infections.

At the start of June, the government authorized cafes, restaurants, gyms, parks, beaches and museums to reopen and eased stay-at-home orders for the elderly and young. Turkeys media is rife with reports of people flouting social distancing rules and ignoring advice to wear masks in public places.

Koca tweeted: If we altogether abide by the mask + distance rule we can control the spread.

Meanwhile, Turkey began testing 150,000 of its citizens in all 81 provinces to determine how widely the coronavirus has spread among the population. Nationwide testing began on Monday, although pilot programs were already underway in some locations.

The sample population is being tested both with PCR tests that are used to detect antigens from viral infections and antibody tests.

2:35 p.m. New Brunswick is reporting three new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the province to 160.

The provinces chief medical officer of health says one case involves a person in their 20s from the Campbellton area.

The other two involve temporary foreign workers in the Moncton area  a person in their 20s and another in their 30s.

Dr. Jennifer Russell says both workers were in isolation at the time of their diagnosis and were tested 10 days after arriving in the province.

She also says New Brunswicks second death reported over the weekend was a person in their 80s with underlying health conditions.

That person was a patient at the Campbellton Regional Hospital and had been a resident at an adult residential facility in Atholville, N.B.

Russell says the case is one of 21 connected to the facility.

1:24 p.m. The region in northern Italy where the countrys COVID-19 outbreak began in February accounted for some 85 per cent of new cases in the 24-hour period ending on Monday.

According to data from the Health Ministry, Lombardy region registered 259 new cases out of the 303 for the entire nation since Sunday evening. All of Italys other regions had fewer than a dozen new cases, while several had none.

Italy has counted 237,290 COVID-19 cases since the and 34,371 deaths. The 26 deaths registered since Sunday is the lowest one-day number since early March, before the entire country went into lockdown to contain spread of infection.

Italy has been gradually removing lockdown restrictions, with movie houses and theatres able to reopen on Monday. But schools wont be back this academic year, with pupils expected back in classrooms sometime in September.

1:20 p.m. There were six more nursing home outbreaks of COVID-19 over the weekend, reversing a steady trend of declines even as the novel coronavirus loosens its grip on the province as a whole.

Figures released Monday by the Ministry of Health showed 69 outbreaks in Ontarios 626 long-term care homes, where the death toll rose by five to 1,792 residents from the previous day.

When nursing-home visits resume Thursday, families will not be able to visit loved ones in facilities with outbreaks, according to rules laid out last week by Premier Doug Ford.

Meanwhile, the number of active cases of COVID-19 across the province fell to 2,630 over the weekend as the number of recovered people who contracted the highly contagious virus outpaced new infections.

Almost 1,000 of those active cases are split between nursing-home residents and staff, down 600 from a week ago when there were 78 outbreaks in long-term care.

Since then, outbreaks have ended at a number of homes, including Camilla Care Community in Mississauga, where 68 people died, and Altamont Care Community, where 53 residents and a personal support worker died.

Read More from the Stars Rob Ferguson: Six new outbreaks of COVID-19 in Ontario nursing homes

1:04 p.m. All regions of Ontario except for Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex will be in Stage 2 of the provinces phased reopening plan as of Friday.

Most areas of the province were allowed to enter the second stage last Friday, except for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, some regions that border the United States and those with COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers.

Premier Doug Ford announced today that the regions that can join them this Friday are: Durham, Haldimand-Norfolk, Halton, Hamilton, Lambton, Niagara and York.

Read More from the Stars Queens Park Bureau Chief, Robert Benzie: Province easing COVID-19 restrictions in Durham, York and Hamilton, but Toronto and Peel will have to wait

Read More from the Stars Josh Rubin: Toronto businesses frustrated as neighbours open sooner: If this goes on another month, Ill probably have to close

1:00 p.m. Premier Doug Ford will give an update on Ontarios COVID-19 reopening plans at 1 p.m. A livestream of the news conference is available on thestar.com

12:33 p.m. Mayor John Tory announced that the City of Toronto is opening online registration for CafeTO. A simple online registration form and guidebook for the proposed program is now available at http://toronto.ca/cafeTO

12:16 p.m . The Liberals are putting together a plan to extend one of the key COVID-19 benefits ahead of a parliamentary showdown on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says hell detail later this week how the Canada Emergency Response Benefit may remain in place for people who still cant return to work.

Canadians were able to access the $2,000-a-month benefit for 16 weeks, and millions are about to hit the maximum number of weeks they can claim, but still dont have jobs.

The New Democrats say a plan to extend the CERB is a must for them to support a massive government spending proposal due in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

A vote on the spending plans, representing about $87 billion, is a confidence motion so in theory the opposition parties could bring down the government.

The NDPs Jagmeet Singh said earlier today he thinks negotiations between the parties will avert a potential non-confidence vote.

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12:11 a.m Ontario says it has not yet paid approximately 375,000 frontline health-care workers a promised pandemic pay premium.

A spokeswoman for the provinces health minister says the initiative is the largest of its kind in Canada and the funding will flow in very short order.

The government says it has provided written funding commitments to employers, and that will be followed by the flow of money.

Premier Doug Ford announced the premium in late April, calling it a way of recognizing the sacrifices essential workers make as they fight the spread of COVID-19.

It included a $4 hourly raise over the next four months and a monthly bonus of $250 if they work more than 100 hours in a month.

But unions representing hospital workers have said not everyone in the facilities are included, leading to low morale.

12:08 p.m COVID-19 cases continued to climb in a number of U.S. states over the weekend, threatening recent efforts to relax restrictions and revive businesses after months of lockdowns.

Texas and Florida, two of the most populous U.S. states, reported record numbers of new COVID-19 infections on Sunday. The recent surge in illnesses in those states and others, including Arizona and North Carolina, has led to concern among public-health officials that reopening the economy has come at the cost of spreading the new coronavirus.

Rising infection rates could jeopardize early efforts to revitalize the economy after a period of lockdowns, which were adopted in most states to stem the viruss spread but also crushed businesses large and small and sent unemployment soaring. The U.S. has nearly 2.1 million confirmed COVID-19 infections and more than 115,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

11:57 a.m Quebec is allowing indoor public gatherings of up to 50 people beginning June 22 and reducing physical distancing requirements for children 16 years and under to one metre.

Horacio Arruda, Quebecs director of public health, says that in some circumstances where people dont frequently circulate or speak to each other, such as in movie theatres, physical distancing will be reduced to 1.5 metres.

Gatherings inside private homes, however, are still restricted to 10 people from three different households.

Arruda said considering the low number of infections since schools opened in May, children 16 years and under will be able to keep a distance of one metre from one another, instead of two.

But they will need to keep a two-metre distance from adults, such as their teachers.

Also today, Quebec reported another 11 deaths attributed to COVID-19, for a total of 5,242, as well as 102 new cases of the novel coronavirus, for a total of 54,054.

11:40 a.m. A rural municipality in Nova Scotia will be testing a four-day work week for its employees over the next nine months.

The nine-month pilot project begins today in the Municipality of the District of Guysborough.

Chief administrative officer Barry Carroll says its the direct result of a reorganization that was necessary to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carroll says the change will see about 60 municipal employees work the same number of hours over a condensed work week, with either Monday or Friday off.

He says the move will allow municipal offices to stay open five days a week to serve the public, while giving employees flexibility and more time to deal with family life.

Carroll says the pilot project will be evaluated by the end of January and a decision will be made on whether to make the change permanent.

11:25 a.m. Ontarios regional health units are reporting their lowest sustained period of new COVID-19 cases in months as the rate of infections has fallen by more than half since the pandemics peak in the province, according to the Stars latest count.

Ontario saw an average of 246 cases reported each day last week, the lowest for any seven-day period since March and down nearly 60 per cent from an average of nearly 600 cases a day reported in mid-April.

And that rate is continuing to fall: As of 11 a.m. Monday, the health units had reported a total of 34,034 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,571 deaths  up a total of just 169 new cases since the same time Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, the 10 new fatal cases reported since Sunday morning is also in line with a downward trend that has seen the rate of deaths fall from a peak of 90 deaths in a single day, seen in early May.

Earlier Monday, the province reported that 419 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 104 in intensive care, of whom 69 are on a ventilator. Those numbers have also 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  2,527  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.

11:20 a.m. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says government looking into extending CERB for those who cannot yet return to work. Also the government has announced applications are open for its food surplus purchasing plan. Under the plan, Ottawa will aid farmers who have a surfeit of products and food banks and community groups seeing increased demand for assistance.

11:15 a.m.: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will speak to reporters about the COVID-19 pandemic. A livestream of the news conference is available at thestar.com.

11:15 a.m. Norway has suspended use of its smartphone app meant to track and trace coronavirus contagions after a public spat between health authorities and the information watchdog.

Geir Bukholm, an official at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said the decision Monday to delete data and halt any further information gathering from the app weakened the countrys preparedness should the infection rate increase. The app was being tested in three municipalities.

But the Norwegian Data Protection Agency said, amongst other things, that the low infection rate meant data gathering on the app could no longer be justified against privacy concerns.

Norway currently has between 50 and 100 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus, according to the NIPH. There are between 20 and 50 new cases each week.

Fearing a second wave or localized spread of the infection, the health directorate will argue in a meeting with the data watchdog on Friday that the technology should be turned back on.

11:10 a.m.

NAIROBI, KenyaKenyan President Uhuru Kenyattas office says four people who work at the presidential residence have tested positive for COVID-19.

Spokeswoman Kanze Dena says the four were found positive following a mass testing of staff on Thursday last week.

They have been admitted to the Kenyatta University Teaching Referral Hospital and their families are being tested.

Dena said the Kenyan president and his family are safe and free of the disease.

Kenya health ministry has announced it will start home care of asymptotic COVID-19 cases, as the countrys hospitals are becoming overwhelmed.

So far, 3,727 people have tested positive in Kenya and 104 have died in the country of 52 million, according to figures released Monday by Kenyas Ministry of Health.

LJUBLJANA, SloveniaAs borders open throughout Europe, Slovenia lifted travel restrictions with Italy on Monday, and two towns were particularly thrilled.

The mayors of Slovenias Nova Gorica and Italys Gorizia jointly removed a traffic sign that banned movement from one town to another during the lockdown period.

The two towns that lie on the two sides of the border are closely linked culturally and economically. The area was reunited after Slovenia joined the European Union in 2004 after the breakup of Yugoslavia.

The mayors say that the traffic signs that stopped people from crossing over during the outbreak will be placed in a local museum in Nova Gorica.

The Nova Gorica mayor Klemen Miklavcic says fences are not the instrument to solve our problems.

Gorizias mayor, Rodolfo Ziberna says my hope is that Europe can see the void it has created ... (which) was filled by the relationship between Nova Gorizia and Gorizia.

Slovenia opened borders with other neighbours before doing so with Italy, the European country that was hardest hit with the pandemic. An Alpine nation of some 2 million people, Slovenia has lowered the number of new cases to none or one or two daily.

BANGKOKThailands battered restaurant sector has two reasons to celebrate as the country further eased its restrictions Monday against the spread of COVID-19.

Bangkoks many eateries, which reopened in May after being shut down for more than a month, are now allowed to serve alcoholic drinks again, and there is no longer a curfew constraining late-night dining.

Restaurant owners whose slim profit margins made operating untenable without the sale of drinks are pleased, but still fearful that the new normal may not make their businesses sustainable. A slow comeback may force many to close for good.

MADRIDThe Spanish government is launching a 3.7-billion-euro ($4.1 billion) aid package to shore up its automobile manufacturing industry in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Details of the two-year package unveiled Monday include subsidies for the purchase of cars, plans to spur investment in the industry with the aim of producing more electric vehicles, and training for the workforce.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the package on Sunday but the government presented the details on Monday during an event joined by representatives of workers unions and the automotive industry.

Car sales dropped during the strict lockdown imposed by the government. Just as the country was trying to go back to work, Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Co. announced the closure of plants near Barcelona employing 3,000 people directly and more than 20,000 through suppliers. Central and regional authorities vowed to persuade Nissan to reverse the decision.

The car industry generates a tenth of the countrys GDP and nearly a fifth of its exports. Some 650,000 people work in the automobile manufacturing industry, according to official statistics.

BERLINGermanys official disease control institute is recommending resuming contact tracing for people who shared a flight with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19.

The Robert Koch Institute said Monday that the likely increase in air travel and the current low number of cases mean contact tracing for plane passengers should be resumed. The practice was suspended in mid-March as air travel came to a virtual standstill due to pandemic lockdowns around the world.

Border checks for most Europeans were dropped overnight in Germany and the government lifted its travel warning for much of the rest of Europe.

The Robert Koch Institute reported 192 new cases of COVID-19 in Germany on Monday, taking the total tally in the country to 186,461 since the start of the outbreak. At least 8,791 people with the virus have died in Germany.

BERLINThe German government is taking a 23% stake in a German company working on a potential vaccine for the coronavirus.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said Monday that the state-owned KfW development bank will buy 300 million euros ($337 million) in CureVac shares. He said the aim is to give CureVac financial security.

Altmaier stressed the governments desire to keep key companies in various sectors in Germany.

In March, Chancellor Angela Merkels chief of staff, Helge Braun, said that German officials had had very intensive contact with Curevac and that there had been thoughts of enticing it to the United States. He didnt elaborate on the nature of the U.S. interest.

THESSALONIKI, GreeceA line of cars roughly about 5 kilometres long formed on Monday morning at Bulgarias main border crossing with Greece, after Greece reopened its border to tourists.

Greece had announced it was reopening to visitors Monday, leading many to believe the border crossing would be open at midnight Sunday to Monday. Instead, the Promahonas crossing was due to reopen at noon, leading to a long backup of waiting cars.

Officials opened the border nearly an hour earlier due to the waiting travellers, and the line was easing shortly after midday, authorities said. Health officials were conducting randomized coronavirus tests on those entering, with roughly one person in every 15 checked.

Greeces border with North Macedonia remains closed to tourists and is only open to those for travel deemed essential, leaving the Bulgarian crossing as the only convenient alternative for tourists from the Balkans to drive into Greece.

The countrys two main airports  one in Athens and one in the northern city of Thessaloniki  also reopened to tourists Monday, while international flights to regional airports will restart on July 1._

MOSCOW  The number of coronavirus deaths in Russia has topped 7,000 as the nations caseload continues to increase steadily.

Russias anti-coronavirus task force reported Monday that the number of virus cases rose by 8,246 over the last 24 hours to reach a total of 537,210. Of those infected, 7,091 have died.

Russia has the worlds third-highest number of infections behind the United States and Brazil.

Russias way of counting coronavirus deaths has contributed to relatively low mortality  only the deaths directly caused by COVID-19 currently make the official count.

ATHENS, Greece  Greece is officially open to tourists as of Monday, with the first international flights expected into Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki where passengers will not face compulsory coronavirus tests.

Seasonal hotels and museums are also opening, as are gyms in the latest step in Greeces phased reopening of businesses. A ban on flights from Italy, Spain and the Netherlands has been lifted, although that on flights from Britain remains in place.

While some limited international flights had been allowed during Greeces coronavirus lockdown, imposed in March, all arriving passengers were subject to compulsory coronavirus tests and quarantine.

Greeces government imposed a strict lockdown early on in the countrys outbreak, a move credited with keeping deaths and serious illness from the virus low. The most recent official figures from Sunday show no daily coronavirus deaths in Greece for five days, with the total at 183 in this country of nearly 11 million people. Confirmed cases stand at 3,121.

The government is phasing Greeces reopening to tourists, with visitors able to fly into the capital and the second largest city of Thessaloniki as of Monday. Direct international flights to regional airports, including Greek islands, will begin on July 1. Visitors will be subject to random coronavirus tests.

Greeces economy is heavily dependent on tourism, which accounts for around 20% of gross domestic product, and the government has been keen to salvage what it can from the main summer season, particularly as Greece is still emerging from a decade-long financial crisis that led to three international bailouts and wiped out a quarter of the economy.

AMMAN, Jordan  Tens of thousands more children younger than 5 could die in the next six months in the Middle East and North Africa because of the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.N. agency for children said Monday.

Young children face growing risks because the virus disrupts their access to primary health care, including treatment for severe malnutrition, pneumonia and neonatal sepsis, Ted Chaiban, the regional director of UNICEF, told The Associated Press.

The agencys estimates are based on a May study by Johns Hopkins University which looked at the indirect effects of the pandemic on maternal and child mortality in low- and middle-income countries.

UNICEF presented forecasts for 10 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, with a combined population of 41 million children under 5.

If we continue to see populations not trusting the health system, not accessing the primary health care system, we could over the next six months see 51,000 more deaths of children under the age of 5, which represents a 40% increase on previous projections, he said.

In a best-case scenario, an additional 11,000 young children would die in the next six months because of the knock-on effects of the pandemic.

Particularly worrisome is the situation in Yemen, Sudan and Djibouti where health care systems were fragile even before the pandemic, he said.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization called on governments in the region to resume immunization campaigns and nutrition services and ensure access to primary health care centres.

11:06 a.m. Canadians are being offered a buffet of online videos, crafts and even a stop-motion animation app to celebrate Canada Day from home.

Federal officials are releasing the details of how July 1 will go down this year without the usual festivities on Parliament Hill anchoring cross-country parties.

Canadian Heritage, the department in charge of planning the Canada Day show, cancelled the in-person event this year due to public health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many of the online activities are now live, but videos with chef Ricardo Larrivee, former Olympic figure skater Kaetlyn Osmond and travel blogger Andrew Gunadie  better known as Gunnarolla  will be available at the end of the month.

Canadian Heritage says in a release that entertainment usually on the main stage set up on the lawn in front of the Centre Block will also go online this year.

Country singer Paul Brandt will headline the hour-long midday show that will also include a hat tip to the 40th anniversary of O Canada as the official national anthem.

The evening show will feature collaborations from various artists across the country.

Among the headliners for the two-hour evening show are singers Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne, Corneille and Sarah McLachlan, rapper Loud and bands Radio Radio and The Sheepdogs.

The shows will stream on the departments Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages, as well as on CBC and Radio-Canada. CPAC will also carry the noon show.

The evening show traditionally ends with a large fireworks display over Parliament Hill, but instead the online version will have a greatest hits montage.

Canadian Heritage is also promising a web app for digital fireworks, but says more details on that will be forthcoming.

10:15 a.m.

LONDONLong lines stretched along streets across England as shops selling items considered as nonessential during the coronavirus pandemic, such as sneakers and toys, welcomed customers on Monday for the first time since the U.K. was put into lockdown in late March.

Starved of the retail experience for the best part of three months, shoppers generally appeared to abide by the social distancing requirement to stay two meters ) apart as they awaited their turn to enter the stores.

Not everywhere, though  pushing and shoving was evident at the NikeTown store on Oxford Street, Londons world-famous shopping mecca, at its reopening.

For friends Dionne Sumner and Olivia Copeland, both 25, it was a far more orderly experience when they waited to get into their local budget clothes retailer Primark in Liverpool. Arriving at the store at 8:30 a.m., they queued for about 15 minutes before getting in.

This has been planned, weve been really missing it, Copeland said after spending more than 200 pounds ($250). It is nice to get back out, its better than being stuck in the house.

Mondays reopening of shops, from department stores to booksellers and electronic retailers, only applies to England. Scotland and Wales are taking a more tentative approach to the easing of the coronavirus restrictions. Northern Irelands stores reopened last week. England also saw zoos, safari parks and drive-in cinemas reopen on Monday.

9:45 a.m. Canadas main stock index plunged more than 200 points at the start of trading as a broad-based decline weighed on the Toronto market, while U.S. stock markets also sank lower.

The S&P/TSX composite index was down 240.47 points at 15,016.10.

In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 550.54 points at 25,055.00. The S&P 500 index was down 53.77 points at 2,987.54, while the Nasdaq composite was down 114.09 points at 9,474.72.

The Canadian dollar traded for 73.24 cents US compared with 73.55 cents US on Friday.

The July crude contract was down US$1.47 at US$34.79 per barrel and the July natural gas contract was down a penny at US$1.72 per mmBTU.

The August gold contract was down US$25.80 at US$1,711.50 an ounce and the July copper contract was down nearly five cents at US$2.55 a pound.

9:35 a.m. Cineplex Inc. is inching towards a gradual reopening of its Canadian theatres, starting with six locations in Alberta later this month.

Canadas largest movie exhibitor says it plans to begin showing movies in the province on June 26.

The company then hopes to reopen on July 3 in as many other markets across the country as government and health authorities allow, as COVID-19 restrictions begin to loosen.

The rollout will introduce a number of new measures, including reserved seating in all auditoriums to ensure physical distancing between moviegoers, and staggered showtimes to reduce congestion in theatre lobbies.

The company acknowledged that despite plans to reopen, it expects COVID-19 to have a prolonged negative impact on Cineplexs operations, and it has enacted layoffs, reduced capital spending and negotiated rent relief with landlords to help mitigate the financial hit.

Cineplex closed all of its 164 theatres nationwide in mid-March, around the same time film distributors largely put a stop to new titles.

9:30 a.m. Hertz Global Holdings Inc. warned prospective new stock investors theyre all but certain to be wiped out as the car renter proceeds with an improbable share sale in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings.

Equity holders will not see a recovery from any bankruptcy plan unless those with more senior claims, including bondholders, are paid in full, Hertz said in a prospectus Monday. That would require a significant and rapid and currently unanticipated improvement in business conditions, the company said.

Hertz shares traded down as much as 29 per cent before the start of regular trading, though the stock is still well above where it first traded after the company filed for Chapter 11. A bankruptcy court judge signed off on the equity sale last week after the company pledged to alert buyers about the potential they could be wiped out.

Jefferies LLC, which is leading the share offering, will get as much as 3 per cent of gross proceeds and as much as $200,000 for its lawyers, according to the filing. A lawyer for Hertz acknowledged during last weeks court hearing that the move to sell stock while in bankruptcy probably is unprecedented.

9:28 a.m. The Rogers family is making a $60-million donation to various charities across Canada to help those hurt financially by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Martha Rogers, chair of the Rogers Foundation, says all of the money will be donated this year so it can make an impact quickly as possible.

The money will go toward three broad areas including: helping to feed Canadians, aid to deal with homelessness and domestic crisis, and support for vulnerable children and young people.

Among the organizations receiving money will be Food Banks Canada, the Salvation Army, Womens Shelters Canada and the Childrens Aid Foundation.

The Rogers family wealth comes from Rogers Communications Inc., the massive cable and wireless company founded by Ted Rogers.

Edward Rogers, chairman of the company, says the Rogers family build is building on support from Rogers Communications for Food Banks of Canada, Big Brothers Big Sisters Canada, Womens Shelters Canada and PFLAG Canada.

9:25 a.m. A Toronto bike shop says it hopes a recent boom in sales during the COVID-19 pandemic is a sign of growing public support for cycling.

Batemans Bicycle Shop says it initially experienced a two-week slump as health measures meant to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus took effect, but theres been a complete reversal since then.

The companys president, Robert Bateman, says theyve seen a roughly 30 per cent increase in new customers and their work shop is booked solid.

Bateman says he hopes having more cyclists on the roads will spur growth in bike infrastructure.

Some city planners in Ontario say the renewed interest in cycling during the pandemic could spark long-term change in public attitudes towards bicycles as a means of transportation, as more people try it for the first time.

In Toronto, city council has approved 25 kilometres of temporary bike lanes to accommodate the increased demand during the health crisis, meaning a total of 40 kilometres of lanes are set to be built in 2020.

8:13 a.m. U.S. stock futures fell Monday as investors questioned whether fresh outbreaks of the coronavirus could hold back the global economic recovery.

Stock futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2 per cent, suggesting U.S. markets could open lower. In Europe, the pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 dropped 0.6 per cent. Stocks in Asia closed lower, with the Japanese Nikkei Stock Average down nearly 3.5 per cent.

Chinese authorities shut down parts of Beijing, after the capital recorded a record number of new coronavirus infections tied to a meat and vegetable market. A prolonged disruption could interrupt the countrys nascent economic recovery.

Several U.S. states including Arizona, Texas and Arkansas reported increased numbers of cases in the past week. Confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed 2 million last week, driven in part by surges in more than a dozen states.

The timeline for the virus is being extended. Its becoming clear that its a choice of allowing economies to open and take the public health hit, or lockdown countries and take the economic hit, said Edward Park, deputy chief investment officer at Brooks Macdonald, a London asset-management firm.

8:12 a.m. Indias home minister has offered 500 railway carriages for use as makeshift coronavirus hospital wards as the capital New Delhi struggles to contain a spike in cases.

Amit Shah, Indias second-most powerful politician after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was set to convene a meeting Monday with all major political parties represented on the deteriorating situation in the capital.

Delhi has about 9,000 beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients among public and private hospitals, but a state government panel of experts has said that Delhi will need at least 15,000 beds by the end of June.

Indias health ministry reported a jump of more than 11,000 new coronavirus infections nationwide for a third consecutive day, taking the total caseload to more than 332,000, including 9,520 deaths.

India is the fourth hardest-hit country by the pandemic in the world after the U.S., Russia and Brazil.

7:30 a.m. Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday threatened to reverse reopening in parts of the state that arent following or enforcing coronavirus safety rules. He said the state had received 25,000 reports of reopening violations, predominantly in Manhattan and the Hamptons, as New York City and the rest of the state reopen.

Lots of violations of social distancing, parties in the street, restaurants and bars ignoring laws, Mr. Cuomo said on Twitter. Enforce the law or there will be state action.

6:03 a.m. Paris is rediscovering itself, as its cafes and restaurants reopen for the first time since the fast-spreading coronavirus forced them to close their doors March 14.

Salut! said a masked manager to a pair of regular customers as they entered Les Favoris brasserie in southern Paris on Monday for their shot of morning espresso.

The surprise permission to reopen came from Frances president, in a televised address to the nation Sunday night.

We will rediscover ... the art of living, our taste for freedom, President Emmanuel Macron said, citing progress in fighting the virus. We will rediscover France.

Restaurants outside the Paris region opened earlier this month, and Paris cafes were allowed to serve people outside but not open their doors.

After three months of losses, some restaurateurs fear it will take a long time for business to come back. People got in the habit of no longer going to restaurants, chef Amandine Chaignot told Le Parisien newspaper.

5:50 a.m. China moved swiftly Monday to try to control a new outbreak of the coronavirus after 36 more cases were confirmed in Beijing.

People were lined up at hospitals and other facilities around the capital as authorities rushed to administer thousands of nucleic acid tests of people who worked at a major wholesale market, anyone who had visited it in the past two weeks or anyone who had come in contact with either group.

Authorities have confirmed 79 cases of the coronavirus over four days in what looks to be the largest outbreak since China largely stopped the epidemics spread at home more than two months ago. The new outbreak appears to have started in the Xinfadi market, Beijings largest wholesale food market, prompting inspections of fresh meat and seafood in the city and elsewhere in China.

We must continue to take decisive measures to defend against outside cases and internal resurgences, and mobilize all units to take responsibility, said Xu Hejian, the director of the Beijing government information office.

5 a.m. Ghanas president has announced that Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has contracted COVID-19 and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

In a state broadcast Sunday night, President Nana Akufo-Addo said the health minister had contracted the virus in his line of duty leading the West African nations fight against COVID-19.

Ghana has one of highest number of confirmed cases in Africa because of its robust testing, with more than 11,400 cases. Health authorities have reported 51 deaths.

5 a.m. Chiles government reached a deal with opposition lawmakers for a $12 billion stimulus package over the weekend as infections hit a record and the health minister quit.

The new measures will boost income for poor families and the unemployed, subsidize job creation and cut taxes for small and medium-sized companies, the government said.

The program will be financed through new debt, the drawing down of savings in the countrys sovereign wealth funds as well as the reallocation of budget spending.

The plan is very powerful and allows us to be optimistic about overcoming the crisis, Finance Minister Ignacio Briones said in a press conference Sunday. It also allows us to create a responsible fiscal framework for the medium term.

Even before the latest measures, the government of President Sebastian Pinera had announced stimulus measures worth about $17 billion, equivalent to about 7% of gross domestic product, to fight the crisis. Chilean economists expect the economy to contract 4.8% this year, according to the latest Central Bank survey, which would be the deepest slump in nearly four decades.

Health Minister Jaime Manalich resigned Saturday as Chiles coronavirus outbreak continued to get worse. The Health Ministry reported a record 6,938 new cases on Sunday, and 222 additional deaths. Chile has more coronavirus cases per capita than any country except Qatar and Bahrain.

Monday 4:21 a.m. BP Plc will make the biggest write down in a decade on the value of its business, as the British oil major predicts the coronavirus pandemic will hurt long-term demand and accelerate the shift to cleaner energy.

The company sees oil and gas being about 20 per cent to 30 per cent cheaper than before on average, and also expects the cost of carbon emissions to be more than twice as high.

In response, BP is undertaking a review of its projects that could result in some oil discoveries being left in the ground. This risk, of so-called stranded assets, is an issue of growing importance as the industry grapples with fundamental shifts in energy consumption trends.

Under its new Chief Executive Officer Bernard Looney, BP has been quicker than many of its peers to acknowledge and plan for these changes. Yet moves toward a more sustainable future bring financial pain today.

BPs latest actions will lead to non-cash impairment charges and write-offs in the second quarter, estimated to be in a range of $13 billion to $17.5 billion post-tax. They also renewed questions about the sustainability of its dividend.

Shares of the company fell 4.4 per cent to 308.7 pence as of 9:14 a.m. in London.

Monday 4 a.m. A key body the Liberals vowed to create to help resolve systemic inequities in Canadas housing system remains unstaffed, with delays in appointments chalked up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The national housing council and a related advocate were created, on paper, as part of the Liberal governments decade-long housing strategy that was put into law last year.

Applications closed in mid-October but the positions hadnt been filled by the time the pandemic struck Canada in mid-March.

An online notice from early April says the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. still hopes to establish the council this year, but suggests a delay due to COVID-19.

The notice said the federal government was focused on addressing this crisis given the uncertain and evolving circumstances related to COVID-19. The notice added that appointing the council remains a priority for the government.

Two months later and with the backdrop of promises by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to address systemic racism and inequities in Canada, appointments have not been made.

Sunday 5:53 p.m.: Swedens Prime Minister Stefan Lofven rejected criticism of the countrys COVID-19 strategy, amid accusations that the softer lockdown his government chose has resulted in one of the worlds highest mortality rates.

Weve followed the same main strategy as others, Lofven said in an interview on state broadcaster SVT on Sunday evening. Which in other words means keeping the contagion at levels that the health care system can handle.

Lofven said that its too early to draw any definitive conclusions about the success of our strategy, despite the high death rate. The number of COVID-related deaths now totals 4,874 in Sweden, dwarfing the 597 registered in neighboring Denmark and 242 in Norway.

Rather, Swedens excess mortality rate is normal for the time year, according to Lofven. He also said methods for tracking COVID mortality rates vary between countries.

The comments follow a week of mounting criticism leveled against Lofven, after the epidemiologist he entrusted with Swedens COVID-19 response acknowledged hed made mistakes. The development left many bewildered, and a key poll suggested Swedes are losing faith in their countrys efforts to fight the coronavirus.

Jimmie Akesson, leader of the populist Sweden Democrats, last week went as far as to compare the countrys high death rates to a massacre, in an interview with the Aftonbladet newspaper. Even so, a separate poll showed that Lofvens Social Democrats remain the most popular party among voters.

Rather than a failure of strategy, Lofven said increased testing has led to a spike in reported infection rates. But if you look at people in hospitals with COVID, the number is diminishing, as is the number of deaths, he said.

Sunday 5 p.m.: Ontarios regional health units are reporting their lowest single-day jump in new COVID-19 cases in 80 days and the fewest new fatal cases in a day since March 29, according to the Stars latest count.

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, the health units had reported a total of 34,020 confirmed and probable cases, including 2,571 deaths, up a total of just 179 new cases since Saturday evening  the first day with fewer than 200 since March 26, back in the early days of rapid case growth before the COVID-19 epidemic first peaked in the province.

The rate of new infections has fallen sharply this week. Since last Sunday, Ontario has seen an average of 246 cases reported each day, the lowest for any seven-day period since March.

As has been the case this month, the majority of new infections came in the GTA. The regions five health units saw a total of 142 new cases in 24 hours; the rest of Ontario reported 37.

But the slowdown is also being felt in the Toronto-area. On Sunday, Toronto Public Health once again reported fewer than 100 new cases, for the third straight day below that mark after more than three weeks above.

Meanwhile, the eight new fatal cases reported since Saturday evening was tied for the lowest total since March 29 (the health units have reported just eight deaths two other times since that date). The rate of deaths has down considerably from the peak rate of as many as 90 deaths in a day, seen in early May.

Earlier Sunday, the province reported that 438 patients are now hospitalized with COVID-19, including 103 in intensive care, of whom 77 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  2,519  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.

Sunday 1:44 p.m. Iran suffered its biggest daily death toll from the coronavirus since April 13, when the country first started to relax lockdown measures and reopen its economy, state TV reported.

So far, a total 187,427 people have been infected with the disease and 8,837 have died, Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a televised statement, adding that 107 deaths had been recorded in the past 24 hours, the highest number in nine weeks.
Late spring in Majorca two hundred years ago was marked by a major public health crisis. The plague had broken out in Son Servera in mid-May. Almost sixty per cent of the inhabitants of Son Servera were to die; the confinement of Son Servera was to last until the start of February 1821.

Of neighbouring and nearby municipalities, Arta was to be worst affected by a plague that has become the stuff of legend and which has therefore meant that 1820 is remembered for nothing else. And yet in June of that year, by which time more than 400 people had already been buried in quicklime (this was the number by the end of the first week of June), there were two significant occurrences that are otherwise overlooked.

The year before, Pedro Gonzalez Vallejo had been appointed the Bishop of Majorca. This was seemingly a direct appointment by the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, as there is no record of his nomination ever having been presented to the supreme council in Castile. The bishop would therefore have been identifiable with the absolutism of Ferdinand and the kings ongoing persecution of the liberals, but Pedro Gonzalez was a pragmatist, whose desire to maintain peace and harmony had previously meant that he had advised clergy and parishioners to accept obedience to Joseph Bonaparte after Napoleon had overthrown Ferdinand as king, which was a precursor to the Peninsular War.

The bishop was politically adept, and he needed to be. The upheaval in Spain, a pretty much constant state of affairs throughout the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, was to lead in 1820 to the Liberal Triennium, the three years of liberal government following the military uprising against Ferdinand. One of the acts of this progressive administration was to be an end to the Spanish Inquisition.

This wasnt the first time that the Inquisition had been abolished - Joseph Bonaparte had done so, as had the Cadiz Liberal Constitution of 1812 - and the definitive and final abolition wasnt to be until 1834, but as a mark of its declining influence, Bishop Gonzalez Vallejo, ever the pragmatist, called on the diocese to not only accept the liberal government but to also accept an end to the Inquisition. The bishop was to reinforce this message in a destructively symbolic manner. On the ninth of June, 1820, it was the bishop who demolished the first stone of the Inquisition building in Palmas Placa Major. It might be recalled that the steps that lead up to the Placa Major from Placa Weyler, now known as Costa del Teatre, were once the Costa de la Inquisicio. The Casa Negre, as the building was called, was finally completely demolished on the order of the town hall in 1823.

A week or so after the bishop had initiated the demolition, there was a development that was to have broad ramifications at an economic level. The captain general of Majorca, the Marquess de Coupigny, had refused to swear the new constitution of the liberals. He stepped down in March 1820 and was replaced by General Antonio Maria Peon. Supported by the liberal military on the island, he was to be part of a group who were favourable to reform. The civil authorities were also undergoing change. At Palma town hall, an administration under the Count of Amayans, a supporter of the absolutist Ferdinand, was removed, and on the 21st of the month, the liberal civil-military authorities announced that the gremis, the guilds, were to be abolished.

The guilds had existed since mediaeval times, as had the cofradias, the lay brotherhoods. The latter were primarily religious and social and were responsible for much of the caring of the sick. The guilds of craftsmen also had their religious connections in that they were, for example, entrusted with being like guardians of certain traditions with a religious connotation. One such was the Gremi de Cotoners, the Guild of Cottonmakers. In Barcelona in 1437, ownership of the cavallets (the dancers with horse figures around their waists) was ceded to the guild, which was to then export the tradition to Majorca some twenty years later.

The guilds and the brotherhoods effectively controlled economic and social life, with the guilds operating monopolies and, over time, coming to be representative of the elite. By the start of the nineteenth century, their power was waning, partly because their old privileges werent being defended by authorities to the extent that had once been the case and also because they failed to embrace new ways of working and new technologies. They were symptomatic of Spains equivalent of Frances Ancien Regime and thus resented by a liberal, more free market-minded bourgeoisie.

Like the Inquisition, it was to be a few years before the guilds were totally abolished in Spain (1836), but Majorca had been to the fore in starting the process and thereby establishing a system of free industry and commerce. The path wasnt exactly to be smooth, but two hundred years ago, events in Majorca, the plague aside, were the birth of something like a modern economy and society.
Jammu:

A woman allegedly threw acid on her constable husband with the help of her daughter, leaving him seriously injured, after finding out he married another woman in Bani town of Jammu's Kathua district.

Shamima Akhtar flung acid on Mohammed Din, her husband of 10 years, with the help of her daughter and two other individuals, Station House Officer (SHO) Bani, Suresh Gautam said.

Mohammed Din who is serving as a police constable suffered severe burn injuries in the attack, while Akhtar too was injured. "Both the accused and the victim were rushed to the sub district hospital Kathua from where the husband was rushed to Government Medical College (GMC) hospital in a critical condition," the SHO said.

A case has been registered against the woman who would be arrested after being discharged from the hospital, he said. The woman's daughter has also been booked. "A case has been registered and investigation initiated," the officer said.

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The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by the Trump administration to consider several California sanctuary laws that curb the ability of state and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The Supreme Courts decision not to hear the administrations challenge to three California laws leaves in place a ruling last year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law. Before that, a federal district court ruled in favor of the law.

The 2017 legislation bars California law enforcement in many cases from releasing personal information about an individual to federal authorities for immigration enforcement, including their home address, work address, and date of release from custody. State and local law enforcement also may not transfer an individual into the custody of federal immigration authorities unless a warrant is produced.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito expressed support for taking up the case.

President Trump said in 2018 that the California legislation provides safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on Earth, like MS-13 gang members, putting innocent men, women, and children at the mercy of these sadistic criminals.

Aliens are present and may remain in the United States only as provided for under the auspices of federal immigration law, Solicitor General Noel Francisco wrote in his appeal. It therefore is the United States, not California, that retains the right to set the conditions under which aliens in this country may be detained, released, and removed.

The courts rejection of the administrations appeal comes as the Supreme Court is expected to rule in the coming days on Trumps order to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows illegal immigrants brought to the country as children to remain and avoid deportation.

More from National Review
The drawn-out case against Maria Ressa and Rey Santos Jr has come to an end as the Manila court finds the two guilty of cyber libel charges, a verdict that could mean six years in prison. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) express disdain at the Duterte administration who have made repeated attempts to criminalise journalism and undermine democracy in the Philippines.

Rapplers chief executive officer and former Rappler writer Rey Santos Jr were convicted by judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa in the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC), sentencing Ressa and Santos to jail on June 15. The charges were filed by Wilfredo D Keng relating to a story published on the Rappler website in 2012 linking Keng to the impeachment of former chief justice Renato Corona. Although the court first heard the case in 2017, the National Bureau of Investigation dismissed the case because it was outside the statute of limitations. In 2018, the justice department made an exception, allowing the case to run.

Both Ressa and Santos are entitled to post-conviction bail as the conviction is appealable to the Supreme Court. The court ordered the two to pay PHP 200,000 (US 3,977) in moral damages and an additional PHP 200,000 in exemplary damages. The court found Rappler to have no liability in the libel case.

Ressa has faced repeated legal harassment from the Philippines government. Including the cyber-libel case, Ressa has 11 ongoing legal disputes, including another libel cases and two criminal cases alleging foreign ownership in Ressas companies and tax evasion. In 2018, Dutertes government revoked the operating license of Rappler, suggesting the company was American owned.

NUJPsaid: This is a dark day not only for independent Philippine media but for all Filipinos. The verdict basically kills freedom of speech and of the press. But we will not be cowed. We will continue to stand our ground against all attempts to suppressour freedoms.

The IFJ said: The courts judgement is a blow to democracy, journalism and freedom of expression around the world. The case against Ressa and Santos highlights the ongoing use of the rule of law by authoritarian governments to silence the media and hold politicians accountable. The Philippines must remember, democracy is held up by a fourth pillar, journalism; any attempt to prohibit freedom of expression undermines the democratic cohesion that once existed in the Philippines.
Forum eyes strengthening of Shanghai International Financial Center

By:Wu Qiong | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-06-15 08:43

More than 60 speakers will share ideas and exchange views at the upcoming 12th Lujiazui Forum in Shanghai.

To take place from June 18-19, the forum is themed Shanghai International Financial Center 2020: New Starting Point, New Mission, New Vision, and aims to sort out the experience, achievements and deficiencies when the city is making efforts to build itself into a global financial center and provide new ideas for future goals and development paths, said Xie Dong, director of the Shanghai Financial Work Bureau.

The forum has invited more than 60 speakers as guests to discuss financial topics including the global economic and financial situation, the RMB internationalization, the financial judiciary environment and the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and most of them have confirmed their participation.

An array of agreement signings and cooperative projects will also take place during the two-day event. The Shanghai government, for instance, will sign a joint plan with the Export-Import Bank of China to conduct cooperation in supporting foreign trade and foreign investment, manufacturing and strategic emerging industries, interconnected infrastructure construction, traditional infrastructure construction and the development of new infrastructure. The government will also sign a strategic cooperation agreement with the Bank of China, to strengthen bilateral cooperation in infrastructure construction, industrial development, asset management, and information exchange to seek mutual benefit and common development.
DECATUR  Police in Decatur are asking drivers to leave their car keys at home if they plan to celebrate July 4 with alcohol, marijuana or other drugs and warn increased patrols are already on the look-out for impaired motorists.

A news release from Decatur police Sgt. Steve Hagemeyer said the July 4 safety campaign actually got rolling on Monday. Hagemeyer said it will run through the early morning hours of July 6 to target the three summer weekends leading up to and after Independence Day.

Were asking all of our residents and visitors to celebrate Independence Day safely, added Hagemeyer. Its simple: If youre driving, dont drink, use marijuana or other drugs. Our officers will be working around the clock to keep impaired drivers off the road and enforce all other traffic laws.

The Decatur police effort is part of a DUI crackdown involving more than 200 police and sheriffs departments and the state police throughout Illinois. Its funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation using federal funds assigned for traffic safety.

Hagemeyer said partiers must designate a sober driver and hand them the car keys, or use a taxi, mass transit or ride-sharing to get around or go home. He urges people to stop anyone from driving they know is impaired, and to pull over and call 911 if they come across a driver who appears to be drunk. And he said seat belts are your best defense against an impaired driver.

The police action on driving under the influence comes in the wake of a June 1 Decatur collision that took the lives of four passengers and later saw the driver booked on a preliminary charge of DUI. Preliminary charges are subject to review by the state attorneys office.

Mug shots from the Herald & Review

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Regulatory News:

Europcar Mobility Group's (Paris:EUCAR) Annual General Meeting was held on June 12, 2019 at Group's Headquarters, 13 ter boulevard Berthier in Paris, under the chairmanship of Mr. Jean-Paul Bailly, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. The quorum was equal to 56.83%.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and in accordance with Order No. 2020 321 of March 25, 2020, the Shareholders' Meeting of the Company was exceptionally held without the physical presence of its shareholders, in closed session.

Shareholders were able to follow the proceedings of the Ordinary and Extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting from a distance, which were webcasted live and are also available in replay mode on the Company's website at the following address: https://investors.europcar-group.com/fr/financial-documentation/shareholders-meeting.

This unique moment of information for the Company's shareholders gave the opportunity to Caroline Parot, CEO, and Luc Peligry, CFO, to provide an update on the strategy, review the results for the year 2019 as well as the results for the first quarter of 2020, with a particular focus on how Europcar Mobility Group reacted to the sanitary crisis related to the COVID-19 pandemic as of March 2020.

A specific time was devoted to the Group's action plan, both in the short term post-sanitary crisis and in the medium term. In this context, Caroline Parot presented the actions planned throughout the network to support the Group's customers at the time of deconfinement, particularly during the summer period. These actions, designed to make customers' life easier while providing them with all the security they need, are aimed at supporting the demand for vehicle rentals. The Group has therefore worked on three areas: reinforced health and safety measures, flexible bookings and, lastly, offers adapted to a summer period during which air traffic will remain limited.

Caroline Parot said: "While travel restrictions are gradually being lifted, many of our customers are looking forward to going on holiday. As we hope to see them again soon in one of our agencies, we are taking special measures to provide a safe and seamless experience, adapted to their new travel needs and new ways of travelling. Flexibility in bookings, special long distance offers... we have thought of everything that will allow our customers to travel with peace of mind. This is an important part of our plan to restart our activities and our network is fully mobilized around these offers

In addition to these presentations, the General Meeting approved all thirty-five resolutions submitted to the vote. In particular, it approved the annual and consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2019.

The General Meeting also approved the appointment of Martine Gerow and Sophie Flak as members of the Supervisory Board.

The complete results of the votes on the resolutions are available in the investor section, "Financial Information", sub-heading "Shareholders' Meetings" of the Group's Investor Relations website: http://investors.europcar-group.com.

Investor Calendar:

H1 Results 2020 July 28, 2020 Q3 Results 2020 November 5, 2020

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

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200614005054/en/

Contacts:

Communication

Valerie Sauteret valerie.sauteret@europcar.com +33 6 72 93 31 05

Vincent Vevaud vincent.vevaud@europcar.com +33 6 43 64 21 49

Investor Relations

Caroline Cohen caroline.cohen@europcar.com

Publicis Consultants

camille.madec@publicisconsultants.com +33 7 86 42 95 15
The "Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry 2019-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report has determined the protective clothing market for life sciences industry in Europe to proliferate at a CAGR of 6.37% during the forecast period 2019-2028.

The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe together shape the market in this region.

Italy is one of the leading pharmaceutical markets in the world. The country's pharma industry has grown considerably over the recent years, considering the production, value-added investments, and trade. In the past few years, the number of drug consumers and the volume of consumption has also increased. The flourishing pharmaceutical industry, therefore, suggests a strong growth for the Italian protective clothing market for life sciences industry during the forecast period.

France has a robust healthcare infrastructure, with the government of the country providing a financial cover of up to 70% of the total healthcare expenditure. Owing to the stringent regulations regarding safety and security, doctors and other staff are required to mandatorily wear protective clothing, which is driving the demand for PPE. This, in turn, is driving the growth of the country's protective clothing market for life sciences industry.

In Germany, workers at medical device manufacturing companies and at medical diagnostic centers highly make use of protective clothing. The growth in these fields will continue to fuel the demand for PPE, thereby fueling the growth of the protective clothing market for life sciences industry.

Companies Mentioned

Dupont

Kimberly-Clark

Ansell Ltd

3M Company

Lakeland Inc

Bioclean (By Ansell)

Honeywell International Inc

Irudek Group

Berkshire Corporation

Kappler

Tronex International Inc.

Uvex Group

Lindstrm Group

WL Gore Associates Inc

VF Corporation



Key Topics Covered:

1. Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry Market Summary

2. Industry Outlook

2.1. Market Definition

2.2. Key Insights

2.2.1. Disposable Clothing Type to Dominate the Market

2.2.2. Cleanroom Clothing Holds Largest Market Share Amongst Applications

2.3. Porter's Five Force Analysis

2.3.1. Threat of New Entrants

2.3.2. Threat of Substitute

2.3.3. Bargaining Power of Suppliers

2.3.4. Bargaining Power of Buyers

2.3.5. Threat of Competitive Rivalry

2.4. Market Attractiveness Index

2.5. Vendor Scorecard

2.6. Value Chain Analysis

2.7. Market Drivers

2.7.1. Growing Demand from End-User

2.7.2. Huge Investments in R&D

2.7.3. Stringent Rules and Regulations

2.8. Market Restraints

2.8.1. High Cost of Protective Cloths

2.8.2. Surge in Outsourcing and Automation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

2.9. Market Opportunities

2.9.1. Growth in Biotechnology and Healthcare Spending

2.9.2. Increasing Demand from Emerging Economies

2.10. Market Challenges

2.10.1. Complexity in Manufacturing

2.10.2. Growing Price Competition in Generic Products and Evolving Market Trends

3. Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry Outlook by Type

3.1. Disposable

3.2. Reusable

4. Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry Outlook by Product

4.1. Suits/Coveralls

4.2. Gloves

4.3. Aprons

4.4. Facemasks and Hats

4.5. Protective Eyewear and Cleanroom Goggles

4.6. Footwear and Overshoes

4.7. Wipes

4.8. Others

5. Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry Outlook by Application

5.1. Cleanroom Clothing

5.1.1. Pharmaceutical

5.1.2. Biotechnology

5.1.3. Medical

5.2. Radiation Protection

5.3. Bacterial/Viral Protection

5.4. Chemical Protection

5.5. Others

6. Europe Protective Clothing Market for Life Sciences Industry Regional Outlook

6.1. United Kingdom

6.2. Germany

6.3. France

6.4. Spain

6.5. Italy

6.6. Russia

6.7. Rest of Europe

7. Competitive Landscape

8. Methodology Scope

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/yibglg

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005533/en/

Contacts:

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

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Wilkes is the highest ranked institution in Luzerne County and within the top 25 percent of independent institutions in the nation. Wilkes University is once again being recognized for its commitment to social mobility. In
Its no secret that we had that hateful, horrible event at the Jewel in River Forest, and to me, what an awesome opportunity to show people that River Forest is not defined by one person and we dont stand for that sort of hate, said Henek, adding that she wanted people to feel welcome in the village and not be afraid of how they will be treated. I saw this as We have to get as many people out as possible. We have to show people who River Foresters are, and thats why were out here.
The Milky Way above the Warkworth Observatory. Photo, Yusuf Qureshi (Instagram: wonder.graphy)

Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory will be home to the first practical course in space exploration in New Zealand, starting next month.

Students will have access to the countrys only radio telescope and will learn about the many projects it contributes to, including maintenance of GPS systems and mapping of the Milky Way galaxy.

They will gain practical knowledge about retrieving data from satellites or remote vehicles on other planets, as well as space flight, celestial mechanics and exploration of the solar system.

The course is part of a new major in Astronomy and Space Science that the Auckland University of Technology is offering for its Bachelor of Science degree.

Institute for Radio Astronomy and Space Research director, Professor Sergei Gulyaev, says New Zealand has entered the space race and Kiwis are ready for their careers to take flight.

For 10 years we have taught students the mathematical side of astronomy. Theyve studied the cosmos, and theyve asked what is the practical application, he says.

But now New Zealand goes to space through Rocket Lab and our observatory collaborates with NASA, the European Space Agency and SpaceX, so we have new opportunities.

The Warkworth observatory recently assisted in NASA and SpaceXs successful mission to launch astronauts to the international space station.

The radio telescope tracked their spacecraft, relaying telemetry data to Space X in Los Angeles, including rotation, pressure, astronaut vitals and a video feed.

Professor Gulyaev says it is possible that the Warkworth observatory will have a special role to play in getting the astronauts home safely. If the astronauts fly over New Zealand before landing in the Northern Hemisphere as planned, the Warkworth observatory will be the final station to observe it. The station will be responsible for tracking and relaying the astronauts landing location so that they can be safely retrieved by NASA.

In the Northern Hemisphere they have plenty of land and satellite dishes, but in the Southern Hemisphere there is a lot of open ocean. We are in a special position in New Zealand to be of assistance, Professor Gulyaev says.

More on the Warkworth Observatory.
Taiwan vows to protect fishermen's rights in disputed waters

by Emerson Lim

June 15,2020 | Source: Focus Taiwan

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) assured Taiwanese fishermen on Monday that their rights to fish in waters surrounding the disputed Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea will be protected.



The assurance was made in response to the concerns of local fishermen that their rights to fish in waters around the disputed islands will be affected, after Japanese media revealed a plan by a Japanese locality to change the islands' administrative designation to highlight its sovereignty over them.



MOFA reiterated that it has expressed "serious concerns" to the Japanese side over the plan.



"The government is trying its best to deal with the issue in the hope that it will be resolved soon and that the fishing rights of our fishermen will be protected," MOFA said.



However, MOFA implied that the plan to change the name of the islands' administrative district was aimed mainly at China, which also claims ownership over the Diaoyutai Islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese, and harasses Japanese fishermen, citing Ishigaki Mayor Nakayama Yoshitaka.



Ishigaki, a locality in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture, claims jurisdiction over the disputed islands.



According to Nakayama, a similar bill was passed in June 2018 but was never implemented, MOFA said.



The plan once again came to the fore due to local residents' dissatisfaction over the recent increase of cases in which Japanese fishing boats were being chased away by Chinese government vessels in the area, MOFA said.



The number of such cases reached 30 last year and 10 so far this year, the ministry added.



Ishigaki city council proposed earlier this month to chang the name of Senkaku Islands' administrative zone from Tonoshiro, which encompasses central parts of the city of Ishigaki, to Tonoshiro Senkaku, drawing protests from both Taiwan and China.



MOFA further said that Taiwan's government will take the necessary measures to defend its sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands and to prevent any "third party" -- believed to be referring to China -- from taking advantage of the situation.



In addition, MOFA said that although an annual meeting by Taiwan and Japan to resolve issues related to fishing rights was postponed this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, communications between the two sides have continued.



MOFA gave its assurances that the operations of Taiwanese fishermen in the Diaoyutai area will not be affected, as rules on fishing operations agreed upon by both sides in last year's meeting are still effective this year.



"Related government agencies will protect our fishermen's rights in accordance with the agreement and seek to realize a goal of marine resource-sharing," MOFA said.

Theme(s): Others.
Tyree Boyd-Pates, an L.A.-based historian and museum curator, has used digital advocacy to educate activists and their allies, including a set of "Freedom Papers" he has emailed out in the aftermath of George Floyd's death. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

Pastor Eddie Anderson was sensing a generational split among his fellow Black activists, and it frustrated him.

The minister had gathered with other church and community leaders on a recent weekday in a South L.A. church. He listened as the elders discussed with the chief of police and sheriff how to move forward after several days of protests across Los Angeles.

As the youngest person in the room, the 30-year-old appreciated the perspective shared by those decades older. But he felt that a discussion with law enforcement wasn't the best way to meet the moment. A key voice was missing at that meeting, he said.

"There were not young people in the room, and not young people given the mic to speak, and so we keep perpetuating the same systems," he said.

For the last two weeks, Black demonstrators, many in their teens, 20s and early 30s, have given voice to an ambitious new agenda for social change that goes beyond the demands of some previous generations of activists, Anderson suggested.

"People are telling you what they want. They want to defund police. They want to prosecute killer cops," said Anderson, who hosts Black Lives Matter meetings at McCarty Memorial Christian Church.

It's not a matter of disrespecting elders, Anderson said  more a question of whether it was the right call to gather with the heads of institutions that are mistrusted and under scrutiny.

"This is a Third Reconstruction moment," he said, alluding to two previous periods in which African Americans strove to combat white supremacy: the decade after the Civil War and the civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s. "So let's lean into the moment and not be so stuck to tradition that we stagnate the movement."

As demonstrations have erupted across the country in response to George Floyd's killing in police custody May 25, many Black Americans have reacted in ways that reflect overlapping, yet distinctive, generational experiences and perspectives.

Story continues

Black activism is not monolithic. But some differences among age groups, activists and community leaders say, have centered on younger protesters rejecting respectability politics  the idea that Black Americans should wear their Sunday best and adopt an attitude more mollifying than militant in order to gain equal rights  and challenging the belief that simply sitting at the table with those in power will effect change.

During the early years of the civil rights era, particularly in the Jim Crow South, Black demonstrators were instructed by their pastoral leadership to stick religiously to a script of nonviolent resistance, partly so as not to provoke additional brutalities from police and hostile whites. Rank-and-file members sometimes were even instructed what to wear at demonstrations. Actions were tightly disciplined, leadership was centralized, and organizational strategy flowed from the top down.

Those methods eventually helped secure passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Many of today's young Black activists say such tactics no longer work, particularly in dealing with unrelenting police brutality. They are not afraid to interrupt Police Commission meetings or show up on the doorstep of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey. Black Lives Matter organizers and other young activists have called for defunding the police, a Peoples Budget, prosecuting police and, more broadly, ending what they call state-sanctioned violence.

"The previous generation of community organizers that were responsible for successful policy changes used respectability as a strategy to disrupt the archetype of what a Black person would look like," said Tyree Boyd-Pates, 31, a public historian and museum curator based in Los Angeles. "This generation is not using tactics of respectability."

The current movement for Black lives, scholars assert, is more intersectional than any of its predecessors and includes more women in leadership roles, as well as members of the LGBTQ community. Black queer women, in particular, deserve the credit for the Black Lives Matter movement, Boyd-Pates said. Leadership is decentralized, rather than focused on a single charismatic figure.

Those generational differences reflect the different moments in which the activists were raised and came of age politically, said the Rev. Cornell William Brooks, professor of the practice of public leadership and social justice at Harvard University and former president of the NAACP.

"The young activists of the 60s were the infants and the toddlers of Brown vs. Board of Education, so they came into activism in the wake of a landmark legal decision, which validated the proposition that if you come to the table, you can bring about an affirmation of your humanity," he said. "If you came of age in the wake of Trayvon Martin, if you came of age in the midst of the term of the nation's first African American president, when there is rampant police brutality, there is a collective sense of frustration."

Some tactics have evolved naturally: Whereas Black civil rights activists a half-century ago relied on pamphlets and phone trees, and had their actions publicized and framed largely through white-controlled media and a limited number of Black outlets, organizers today quickly spread their message through social media. Videos of police brutality are posted with ease for all the world to see.

Other tactical changes mirror long-term societal shifts. Black Lives Matter is intentionally inclusive, expanding its focus to make room for LGBTQ members and female leaders, said Andra Gillespie, a scholar at Emory University whose research focuses on the political leadership of the post-civil rights generation.

"It in part rejects respectability politics because respectability won't save you," she said. "And if justice is truly just, it's true for everybody. That's the part that is different."

Longtime community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson holds a list of people who were killed or injured by Inglewood police in 2018. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

That shift toward inclusiveness marks one of the most important differences between the movements of the past and present, said Shamell Bell, a professor of African American studies at Dartmouth College.

Historically, social protest has reached a boiling point when Black men are brutalized and killed, but activists today are taking a more intersectional approach that pays equal attention to violence against women and the LGBTQ community, said Bell, an original member of Black Lives Matter who protested in 2014 in front of the L.A. Police Department headquarters over the fatal police shooting of Ezell Ford.

Today's activists also are moving away from "the talk," she added, referring to the cumbersome conversation that many Black parents have with their children  especially boys  about how to interact deferentially with police to avoid being harmed.

"We are telling our children these are the things happening in our society because of the color of your skin, because of white supremacy. We explain in these terms," she said. "Something Black Lives Matter has been saying for a long time is that all Black lives matter. That is where I see us moving."

Like many of his peers, Boyd-Pates, the museum curator, practices a form of activism that thrives online and focuses on digital community organizing. Earlier this month, he distributed an anti-racist tool kit called "Freedom Papers," which he sent to his social media network and their allies so they could better understand Black political education.

"Intergenerationally speaking, this generation has a set of tools in its tool kit  technology that wasnt available to the previous," he said. "The approach to challenging white supremacy is something that my generation is actively reimagining, envisioning what it could look like beyond the politics of respectability in order to be deemed more human."

To some older activists, their younger counterparts simply lack a plan for the future.

"We support the demonstrations and protests  it's not a put-down," said longtime community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. "But history has shown protests are going to end, people are going to run out of steam  and then what?"

His critique, he said, is not of young protesters' demands but a question of how they will follow through on them.

"You had about 100,000 people in Hollywood, but did you have voter registration tables there?" said Hutchinson, 72. "These are young people; they don't vote, as we know. Was there a list of things for people to do? Interacting, writing letters  were these things thought of?"

The structures and institutions may not work the way other activists would like, he added, "but it's all we have."

"It's like saying I'm not going to vote because it doesn't change anything," he said. "That's ridiculous."

Kaya Dantzler, 27, an organizer from South L.A. and a member of Black Lives Matter. She also heads the organization We Love Leimert. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

The Black activist community in L.A. is "very, very complex," said Kaya Dantzler, one of the leaders of We Love Leimert, a youth-led intergenerational group of organizers. Dantzler sees nuances of generation and ideology play out every day in Leimert Park, she said.

"You have folks who would describe themselves as anti-capitalism, and democratic socialists who are older but have a greater understanding of Black Lives Matter," the 27-year-old said. "Then you have really phenomenal groups in Black L.A. who are organizing from a nonabolitionist lens, who are using their knowledge of the current structure system."

Those people tend to be older community members, she said, who have been part of local institutions.

"They're not approaching activism from a lens of 'lets reconstruct the system' but more so we understand how it works, so let's alter it," she explained. "Then theres a cohort of younger organizers who are no longer really concerned with figuring out how to get a seat at the table; we are more concerned with constructing a new table."

Still, Dantzler said, older people like her grandparents believe that participating in protests "doesn't make any sense," she said, because they have seen it happen so many times before.

"Especially in L.A., they saw the '92 riots and that destroyed our communities, and so for them there is a lot of wariness in seeing people take to the streets in that way," she said. Then this month, Los Angeles officials said that they would explore cutting up to $150 million from the citys police budget as part of an effort to reinvest more dollars in communities of color.

"It didn't really seem like something that would be successful, but this last week has shown that it was," Dantzler said.

Eddie Anderson is the pastor of McCarty Memorial Christian Church in the West Adams district of L.A. Anderson, whose church hosts Black Lives Matter meetings, believes it is important for clergy to march alongside activists in a nonviolent but forceful manner. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)

At 71, the activist known as Akili likes to laugh about how he's the "dad" among his group  some 45 years older than many of his fellow Black Lives Matter organizers.

His journey with the group began in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black teenager shot by a white officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014. Mourning the loss of another Black life, Akili rented a van for a group of activists to drive to Missouri and join in demonstrations that had spilled into the suburbs and coursed through the veins of the nation.

A veteran organizer who has protested for four decades, he took the wheel for most of the nearly 2,000-mile trek and listened as the younger set in the car took turns navigating him.

"I got a chance to know a lot of them," said Akili, who goes by his last name only. "I see myself as a bridge between yesterday and today."

There is a perception, he added, that each generation of activists should follow the tactics of the previous one. He at times has to remind his contemporaries of the in-your-face tactics they themselves used in decades past, such as taking over university campuses to demand that they add Black studies departments.

Since the late 1960s, some activist groups such as the Black Panthers have combined an emphasis on the need for Black self-protection (including the use of armed citizens patrols) with community outreach and extensive social programs. The Black Power movement preached self-reliance and self-determination, arguing that the Black community should create its own social, economic and political power rather than looking to integrate into white society.

"Each generation will develop their own course and their own path," Akili said. "And what I have tried to do is make some connection between some of the things we did before, and what worked and didn't, and support them charting their own course."

People in his generation frequently tell him that "all we have to do is talk to white leaders and they will get it," Akili continued. Dialogue, he added, has become a buzzword  and sitting at the table has become a "fad" over the last 30 years.

He laughed, paraphrasing Malcolm X: "Just being at the table and not having a plate doesn't make you a diner. It means youre just sitting there."
At a time when lakhs of employees are constantly under the fear of receiving bad news from their employers and bosses at any moment, an NRI boss did the exact opposite by helping his employees reach their hometown after they were stranded in the UAE due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

R Hari Kumar, the Chairman of Elite group of industries and based in the city of Sharjah, UAE, recently booked an Air Arabia chartered flight to help 120 of his employees get to Kochi. The flight which landed at the Cochin International Airport last night was carrying another 50 passengers who had lost their jobs in the UAE.

 Airbus

That is not all, the Chairman also offered an alternative of taking up jobs in the company's Coimbatore unit to his employees who didnt wish to go back to UAE post the crisis. An HT report also claimed that the employees were given one-month additional salaries and gift packets before their departure.



Speaking about his gesture, Hari Kumar said that it was his way of expressing his gratitude to his employees. I only did my job. It is my duty to protect my employees who stood by me in thick and thin. The chartered flight is my simple way of thanking those who helped me in my successful journey.

 BCCL

Originally an Alappuzha resident from Kerala, Mr Kumar had gone to Saudi Arabia 20 years ago and became a successful businessman whose company deals in architectural and industrial applications and aluminium products.



A good business firm is like a family. All chip in for the growth of the firm. If employees are in trouble it is the duty of the firm to look after them. I will help send more stranded people to the country, he further added.

 BCCL

During these times of hopelessness, Mr Kumars gesture is giving hope to thousands of people that goodness exists even in the gloomiest of times.



His efforts of reuniting stranded families and offering them compensation is an example that every other organisation and boss should learn from.
The former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr. Stephen Opuni, who is standing trial for allegedly causing financial loss to the state, has appealed the decision of the trial judge to recuse himself on grounds of possible bias.



His lawyers have subsequently filed an application seeking to put the trial on hold pending the determination of the appeal at the Court of Appeal.



The Counsel for Dr. Opuni Samuel Codjoe, was expected to move the application last Friday, but the court was informed that he was incapacitated, for which reason he could not make it to court.



Alleged Bias



In March this year, the accused filed an application asking the judge, Justice Clemence Honyenuga, the then Court of Appeal judge (now Supreme Court judge) sitting with additional responsibility as the trial judge, to recuse himself from the trial for saying at a traditional programme where he was paramount chief that the current President had done well with the Free Senior High School programme which has bridged the education gap between the rich and the poor in the country.



The lawyer argued that the judge had openly campaigned for the President through his comments hence compromising his integrity to fairly hear the case before him which he said is political because of the interest, he claims, the current government has in it.



Mr. Codjoe claimed that Dr. Opunis trial had been elevated into a political context such that the political fortunes of the ruling government are linked to the case.



The application was opposed by the state represented by Evelyn Keelson, a Chief State Attorney, who said the criminal matter before the court was based on personal actions and conducts of Dr. Opuni which, she said, are criminalized under existing laws of Ghana.



She said the comments made by the trial judge, which Dr. Opuni complained of, has nothing to do with this trial as it has no bearing at all on the trial.



Justice Honyenuga dismissed the application, saying he was taken aback by Dr. Opunis decision to politicize his trial.



According to him, the case before the court is purely based on the charges preferred against the accused and has nothing to do with partisan politics as being alleged by the former CEO.



Appeal/Stay



Not satisfied with the decision of the judge to continue hearing the case, his lawyers have appealed the decision and are now trying to put the trial on hold until the appeal is determined.



The court was supposed to hear the application today, but his lawyer has written to the court that he is not feeling well.



Johnson Normesinu informed the court that Mr. Codjoe had suggested that the case be adjourned to July 8 but that was opposed by Stella Ohene Appiah, a Principal State Attorney, who said the date suggested was too far away.



She prayed the court to set a date within next week for the application to be moved by Mr. Codjoe or any of the lawyers of the legal team.



The case was adjourned to June 18 for the application to be moved.

Source: Daily Guide









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Egypt has adopted a vision to utilise state-owned assets, especially untapped ones, to serve as a real contributor to the countrys economic growth by attracting domestic, foreign, and regional investments in win-win deals.

The total untapped state-owned assets record 4,800 units according to the Egyptian cabinets data, while the total tapped assets in the country number over 1 million units.

In this regard, Egypt has adopted a vision focusing on three trajectories including the implementation of the initial public offering (IPO) program, launching a project for managing and exploiting state-owned assets, and establishing Egypts sovereign wealth fund, the first of its kind in the countrys history.

In 2018, the government announced the launching of the IPO program with the aim of expanding the ownership base, providing additional funds for Egyptian companies, luring more investments and optimising state-owned assets through offering extra shares of the already listed companies or offering companies shares for the first time on Egypts stock exchange.

The total amount of offered shares under the IPO program were estimated at EGP 80 billion approximately, and the market value of offered companies was around EGP 430 billion. Offered shares of companies were set to range between 15 percent and 30 percent unless public shares are lesser in value, according to the finance ministry.

Before the COVID-19 crisis, the program was scheduled to be completed over 24 to 30 months in an attempt to expand the ownership base, market capital and daily trading volume through offering the shares of 22 companies in seven sectors, including petroleum and refining services, petrochemicals, logistic services, financial services, real-estate, customer service and industry.

Egypt launched the first phase of the program in March 2019 through floating extra stake (4.5 percent) of the already listed Eastern Company for Tobacco on the EGX, and, before the COVID-19 crisis, was preparing to resume the offering of other companies listed in the phase.

After the COVID-19 crisis hit all stock markets around the world, including Egypt, the government decided to postpone the program until further notice, considering to set a new plan for the IPO program in accordance with the new developments in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.

For the state-owned assets and properties management project, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced in May that the government has completed the first phase of the project which included refining and establishing a database that contains all data and information regarding state-owned assets that are ready to attract investments.

The second phase is preparing the unified contract system, in addition to designing a mobile app that allows investors to recognise the available state-owned assets and properties that are ready to be exploited.

For the untapped assets and properties, Egypt inaugurated its sovereign fund under the name the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (TSFE) with the aim of attracting private investments to the Egyptian market, promoting and co-investing in state-owned assets to maximise their value and efficiency for the Egyptian economy with EGP 200 billion as capital.

According to the TSFE data, the fund is fully independent and its work is based on deep partnership and cooperation with the private sector, stemming from its key role in development and growth.

Since its inception in 2018, the fund inked three agreements, two of which aim to maximise investment in assets owned by the Ministry of the Public Business Sector and the National Investment Bank, while the third agreement was signed in June to improve the historic area of Bab El-Azab.

It also inked an agreement with the National Service Products Organisation which targets rehabilitating its untapped assets to be ready to receive investments.

Recently, Egypts sovereign fund placed 43rd among the 93 sovereign wealth funds globally in terms of asset size, in a set of rankings created by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute (SWFI).

It has also ranked eighth in the Arab region.

Egypts fund has total assets worth $11.959 billion, accounting for 0.14 percent of the total assets managed by all sovereign wealth funds globally, which have total assets of $8.229 trillion, according to SWFI.

However, the COVID-19 crisis has pushed the fund to rearrange its plans and priorities in accordance with the developments in the crisis.

In this regard, CEO of TSFE Ayman Soliman told Ahram Online that the fund has to adapt with the ongoing crisis through focusing on three main sectors in the coming period, including health, food and industry, as they are promising areas in the Egyptian economy that are qualified to attract investments.

In addition, Egypt is among the top three countries in Africa that enjoy a solid manufacturing infrastructure, which qualifies it to focus on industrial projects over the medium and long terms.

In the long run, Soliman said that the fund will work to boost strategic regional and international partnerships and explore commercial investment opportunities abroad.

Soliman also revealed that the fund targets EGP 50 billion in revenues from utilising untapped state-owned assets.

He also noted that financial technology (FinTech) and pharmaceutical manufacturing are among the new sectors to which the fund aims to expand its activities, especially with the increased roles that these sectors are playing during the ongoing crisis.

On 7 June, Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said unveiled new amendments to the Law 177 of 2018 that organises the funds work, which includes changing its name to the Sovereign Fund of Egypt for Investment and Development.

El-Said also noted that the fund plans to establish a number of sub-funds covering tourism, FinTech, infrastructure, digital transformation, and real-estate investment over the medium and long terms.

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As colleges in the Bay Area and across the country prepare for a fall term amid the coronavirus pandemic, faculty members wrestle with daunting challenges  including the health risks and logistical hurdles of potentially returning to the classroom.

Ramona Naddaff, associate professor of rhetoric at UC Berkeley, mostly contemplates how to turn her classes into an engaging online experience. Naddaff assumes she will teach remotely this fall, partly because she cannot wrap her mind around resuming in-person teaching.

Im still working out how I feel about being in public, and figuring out how one does that, she said. So figuring out being in the classroom? How would I lecture with a mask on? I dont think Im comfortable doing that to my students.

Many schools around the nation are forging ahead, with safety protocols. About 66% of U.S. colleges and universities are planning for in-person instruction, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Bay Area schools seem to be moving more cautiously. UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, who said last month that she expects a mix of in-person and remote instruction for the fall semester, will formally announce the schools plans this week. Early clues suggest Cal will tilt mostly toward online classes.

One department memo, obtained by The Chronicle, indicated the campus intends to keep classes with 25 or more students online. Even for those with fewer students, faculty members would need to request permission and justify teaching in person, including a plan for observing social-distancing guidelines.

Stanford publicly updated its fall strategy on June 3  including starting classes a week early, allowing only half the student population on campus each quarter and sending students home before Thanksgiving. St. Marys College in Moraga will also adjust its schedule to end classes before the start of peak flu season.

Cal State campuses such as San Francisco State, San Jose State and Cal State East Bay previously announced they will hold nearly all classes online in the fall.

One factor in all this is liability, according to Mitchell Stevens, associate professor of education at Stanford. Stevens referred to the large uncertainties about legal liability confronting colleges and universities as they ponder the 2020-21 academic year.

Can they be held accountable for viral transmissions on their campuses if they bring people back? Will they be indemnified? Stevens said. No one knows the answers to those questions, and they weigh very heavily on academic leaders.

Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors in Washington, D.C., said she worries about the role of finances as colleges decide whether and how to reopen campuses.

Its hard to know for sure, Schmid said, but its a concern that decisions are being driven by the bottom line and the revenue institutions make off dorms, dining facilities and various services for residential students.

Cal State schools and most California community colleges, which will stay online, are less dependent on the full-time residential experience than universities like Stanford and Cal  putting them at less of a disadvantage financially.

Schmid also said many faculty members nationwide have expressed frustration about schools not involving them in formulating plans for the fall, specifically on how to best deliver instruction.

But at Stanford, Tom Wasow, a longtime linguistics professor who now works with the Faculty Senate as academic secretary to the university, said that faculty preferences will be taken into account for how they teach. Wasow also said students will have the option of taking classes remotely if they prefer.

UC Berkeleys Oliver OReilly, a mechanical engineering professor and chair of the Academic Senate, said the schools faculty members similarly are involved in fall planning. OReilly indicated professors will decide on their method of instruction, in consultation with department chairs, deans and campus leaders.

COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

While there are faculty who are prepared to teach in person and are eager and enthusiastic about returning, he wrote in an email, others are not comfortable teaching in person either because they are or live with individuals who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, or have dependent care responsibilities.

One such person is lecturer Nadesan Permaul, a past president of the Cal alumni association who teaches one political science class and one rhetoric class. Permaul is 71, with a heart condition and diabetes.

Hes gone to the store only twice in the past three months (wearing a mask and gloves) and ventures out mostly for long walks away from crowds. Permaul, who plans to teach both his classes online, appreciates the Cal administration providing flexibility and the tools to work remotely.

I am concerned  and Im not risking it, he said. A lot of people are going back. For the sake of my own health and the health of my family, I am being cautious.

Permauls position reflects an underplayed element in the national debate about whether colleges should reopen campuses. Some university presidents, such as Purdues Mitch Daniels, have justified plans to return to in-person classes by citing high coronavirus recovery rates for 18- to 22-year-olds  though older professors are at more risk.

Laura Hamilton, chair of the sociology department at UC Merced, said her school has many faculty members older than 50, so shes fully aware the risks go through the roof if they begin interacting with students again.

UC Merced doesnt have a big party culture, Hamilton said. But schools that do could encounter problems, because on those campuses, assuming students are going to follow the protocol is ludicrous to me, she said. Theres zero chance.

And what do you do when a student shows up in class and refuses to wear a mask? Hamilton asked. I dont want to respond in a way to escalate the situation, but I also dont want to put myself at risk. Thats going to play out all across the country.

Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ronkroichick
South Africa needs a new governance model post-Covid-19

South Africas governance model, the way the country is run, is broken.

Without a new governance model, South Africa will be unable to overcome the Covid-19 health, social and economic crises; and the country is likely to plunge into economic chaos, social breakdown and rolling violent unrest. To save South Africa from such a frightening fate, a new governance model is urgently needed.

Heres 10 pillars that should be the foundations of a new post-Covid-19 governance model for South Africa.

Evidence-based policy must be a key pillar of the management strategy model of the country. This will make government policy more logical, credible and palatable, to wider constituencies. Over the past few years, government policy-making has often either been based on ideology, wishful thinking or being corrupted.

Merit must be principle of government operations. The talents of all South Africans, no matter their colour, ethnicity or political affiliation must be used to rebuild the economy.

Merit-based appointments to government positions and to structures that oversee Covid-19 economic restructuring are crucial. Crony, cadre and pork-barrel appointments to government structures has wreaked destruction since 1994, undermining public service delivery, wasting scarce public funds and destroying governments credibility. Government contracts must be awarded based on merit, fairness and value for money.

Commonsense must drive government decisions, actions and policies. Many government policies, decisions and actions over the past years have made little rational sense. This definitely have to change.

There has to be greater accountability from elected and public representatives. There has to be consequences for wrongdoing. People must be hold accountable for wrongdoing. The culture impunity must come to an end.

Accountability strengthens the credibility of government, and importantly motivate citizens to willingly comply with government directives. If citizens perceive there a lack of accountability among elected and public representatives accountability, citizens readily defy government injunctions.

There has to be partnerships between the public, private sector, civil society and communities to reconstruct the post-Covid-19 economy. The private sector and civil society are not the enemies of government to be in mortal combat with as many ANC leaders may misguidedly belief.

It is also a fallacy to think as many ANC members or others do, that the state can go it alone. The state simply lacks the capacity, resources and ideas to execute economic policies on its own. Partnerships not only bring goodwill, they bring skills, resources and wider-buying for policies, decisions and delivery.

Government must govern honestly. Without honesty, there can be no trust, the glue of effective partnerships, citizen compliance and willingness to behave public-spiritedly. This includes government communicating honestly to citizens, beyond the traditional faceless press statements, doublespeak and gobblygook, is crucial rally citizens behind government initiatives.

Entrepreneurship has to be heart of post-Covid-19 economy reconstruction. Entrepreneurs create new industries, new jobs and new wealth. They increase the size of economies. They fuel economic growth. They inspire a virtual cycle of others trying their hand at starting new businesses, new developments and new initiatives too. In South Africa, entrepreneurship will have to be promoted across society - within the state, private sector, civil society and communities.

Corruption has to be tackled with greater seriousness. No successful posti-Covid19 reconstruction is remotely possible with the government seen to tackling corruption, especially corrupt by untouchable politically connected ANC cadres, political capitalists and tenderpreneurs. Corruption that is not dealt destroys the credibility of government, trust and encourages corruption across society.

The rule of law is fundamental. The rule of law must apply to everyone equally. The rule of law cannot just be applied to ordinary citizens. The politically-connected cannot be exempted from the law as has been the case since the end of apartheid. Neither should there be untouchables, which appear to be above the law, such as minibus taxi drivers and bosses, gangsters and building hijackers.

The poor, vulnerable and marginalised must always be cared for, without this principle, there will be no post-Covid-19 economic reconstruction possible. The, country will go up in flames on the back of their. The Covid-19 crisis offers a fresh opportunity to fix South Africas broken governance model. Without fixing the broken governance model a new equitable, inclusive and peaceful society is not possible.

William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand; and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)

This is an edited extract from the Academic Review Paper, Priority Setting for Interventions in Pre-and Post-Pandemic Management: The Case of Covid-19, analysing Governments Covid-19 response. The report was done in partnership with the South African Technology Network (SATN) and National Scientists and Organisations.
Saudi Arabias oil giant Aramco has acquired 70 per cent of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) in four transactions for a combined investment of $69.1 billion, Zawya reports.

The deals posted on the Saudi Stock Exchange Tadawul, stressed that one SABIC share was priced at 123.39 riyal ($32.86).

The takeover has been on the pipeline since last year after Aramco signed with Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), for a majority shareholding in the petrochemicals company, Zawya notes. The payment will be done in part by four bonds issued by Aramco to the PIF.

SABIC manufactures petrochemicals including ethylene, ethylene dichloride, caustic soda, styrene monomer and methyl tertiary butyl ether. The company is the worlds fourth largest petrochemicals firm.
Grab Philippines together with the City government of Manila, has announced its partnership which aims to leverage on Grabs platform, and provide livelihood opportunities to thousands of Manilenos who have been greatly affected by the pandemic, thus helping them recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

L-R: Dr. Maria Sheilah Lacuna-Pangan, Manila Vice-Mayor; Hon. Francisco Moreno Domagoso, Manila Mayor; Brian Cu, Grab Philippines President

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grab has launched its GrabBayanihan program with the aim of helping Filipinos respond and recover from the pandemic. While GrabBayanihan has delivered protection and support to Filipinos during the early stages of the pandemic, Grab is again calling on the spirit of bayanihan  this time through local government partners across Metro Manila. At least 20,000 displaced workers and tricycle drivers, and 5,000 micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are expected to benefit from this socio-economic recovery initiative and will be able to bounce back from the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting off with the nations capital city, Grab will be providing livelihood opportunities to at least 2,000 tricycle drivers and displaced workers in the City of Manila, whereby they will be trained and onboarded as GrabFood and GrabExpress delivery-partners. Likewise, Grab will be providing market access to at least 500 of the greatly affected MSMEs in the city so that they may continue operating their businesses digitally through the Grab app.

We have always placed our faith in the hard work, dedication, and determination of the people of Manila most especially during these trying times. With responsible use of technology as well as our enduring partnership with the City of Manila, we hope to continue helping our kababayans who have been greatly affected by the pandemic get back on their feet through the many livelihood opportunities available on our Grab platform, said Brian Cu, Grab Philippines President.

This socio-economic recovery program is additive to the many milestone initiatives that Grab and the City of Manila have done in the past. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Grab has provided mobility solutions to the healthcare workers and front-liners of Manila through GrabWheels, also Grab has dedicated its app to the City of Manila to arm its residents with the latest information on COVID-19.

Under the GrabBayanihan Socio-economic recovery program, individuals who are interested in being part of Grabs Food or Express Delivery Fleet must be:



A resident of the City of Manila; At least eighteen (18) years up to fifty (50) years of age; Owns and knows how to operate a smartphone Owns and/or operates either of the following which can be used for delivery: a tricycle, a motorcycle, or a bicycle; In possession of a Drivers License issued by the Land Transportation Office, and is valid for at least 21 days before the expiration date. For motorcycle owners, they must present their registration documents such as: Official Receipt and Certificate of Registration; If the vehicle registration is not owned by the user, they must present any supporting documents as follows: Authorization Letter of the owner with Xerox Copy of valid ID with 3 specimen signatures, Notarized Deed of Sale and Reposition Certificate

Meanwhile, small business owners who wish to be part of the program must have the necessary business permits and other requirements issued by the City of Manila.

Interested parties are highly encouraged to prepare their documents and to visit their Public Employment Service Office (PESO) for an initial assessment.
Today, June 15, 1389, a pivotal military encounter between Islam and the West took place: the battle of Kosovo. In its wake, Islam became a dominant force in Eastern Europe, subjugating much of the Balkans 'til the early twentieth century. The story of that battle  and why Eastern Europe's modern-day descendants remain wary of the religion of Muhammad  follows:

As he lay dying in 1323, the Turkic founder of the Ottoman empire, Osman Bey  whose then small emirate was centered in westernmost Anatolia (or Asia Minor)  told his son and successor, Orhan, "to propagate Islam by yours arms" into Eastern Europe.

This his son zealously did; the traveler Ibn Batutua, who once met Orhan in Bursa, observed that, although the jihadi had captured some one hundred Byzantine fortresses, "he had never stayed for a whole month in any one town," because he "fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under siege." Christian cities fell like dominoes: Smyrna in 1329, Nicaea in 1331, and Nicomedia in 1337. By 1340, the whole of northwest Anatolia was under Turkic control. By now and to quote a European contemporary, "the foes of the cross, and the killers of the Christian people, that is, the Turks, [were] separated from Constantinople by a channel of three or four miles."

By 1354, the Ottoman Turks, under Orhan's son, Suleiman, managed to cross over the Dardanelles and into the abandoned fortress town of Gallipoli, thereby establishing their first foothold in Europe: "Where there were churches he destroyed them or converted them to mosques," writes an Ottoman chronicler: "Where there were bells, Suleiman broke them up and cast them into fires. Thus, in place of bells there were now muezzins."

Cleansed of all Christian "filth," Gallipoli became, as a later Ottoman bey boasted, "the Muslim throat that gulps down every Christian nation  that chokes and destroys the Christians." From this dilapidated but strategically situated fortress town, the Ottomans launched a campaign of terror throughout the countryside, always convinced they were doing God's work. "They live by the bow, the sword, and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil," explained Gregory Palamas, an Orthodox metropolitan who was taken captive in Gallipoli, adding, "[A]nd not only do they commit these crimes, but even  what an aberration  they believe that God approves them!"

After Orhan's death in 1360 and under his son Murad I  the first of his line to adopt the title "Sultan"  the westward jihad into the Balkans began in earnest and was unstoppable. By 1371, he had annexed portions of Bulgaria and Macedonia to his sultanate, which now so engulfed Constantinople that "a citizen could leave the empire simply by walking outside the city gates."

Unsurprisingly, then, when Prince Lazar of Serbia (b. 1330) defeated Murad's invading forces in 1387, "there was wild rejoicing among the Slavs of the Balkans. Serbians, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Wallachians, and Hungarians from the frontier provinces all rallied around Lazar as never before, in a determination to drive the Turks out of Europe."

Murad responded to this effrontery on June 15, 1389, in Kosovo. There, a Serbian-majority coalition augmented by Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian contingents  twelve thousand men under the leadership of Lazar  fought thirty thousand Ottomans under the leadership of the sultan himself. Despite the initial downpour of Turkic arrows, the Serbian heavy cavalry plummeted through the Ottoman frontlines and broke the left wing; the Ottoman right, under Murad's elder son Bayezid, reeled around and engulfed the Christians. The chaotic clash continued for hours.

On the night before battle, Murad had besought Allah "for the favour of dying for the true faith, the martyr's death." Sometime near the end of battle, his prayer was granted. According to tradition, Milos Obilic, a Serbian knight, offered to defect to the Ottomans on condition that, in view of his own high rank, he be permitted to submit before the sultan himself. They brought him before Murad and, after Milos knelt in false submission, he lunged at and plunged a dagger deep into the Muslim warlord's stomach (other sources say "with two thrusts which came out at his back"). The sultan's otherwise slow guards responded by hacking the Serb to pieces. Drenched in and spluttering out blood, Murad lived long enough to see his archenemy, the by now captured Lazar, brought before him, tortured, and beheaded. A small conciliation, it may have put a smile on the dying martyr's face.

Murad's son Bayezid instantly took charge: "His first act as Sultan, over his father's dead body, was to order the death, by strangulation with a bowstring, of his brother. This was Yaqub, his fellow-commander in the battle, who had won distinction in the field and popularity with his troops." Next, Bayezid brought the battle to a decisive end; he threw everything he had at the enemy, leading to the slaughter of every last Christian  but even more of his own men in the process.

So many birds flocked to and feasted on the vast field of carrion that posterity remembered Kosovo as the "Field of Blackbirds." Though essentially a draw  or at best a Pyrrhic victory for the Ottomans  the Serbs, with fewer men and resources to start with in comparison to the ascendant Muslim empire, felt the sting more.

In the years following the battle of Kosovo, the Ottoman war machine became unstoppable. The nations of the Balkans were conquered by the Muslims  after withstanding a millennium of jihads, Constantinople itself permanently fell to Islam in 1453  and they remained under Ottoman rule for centuries.

The collective memory of Eastern Europeans' not too distant experiences with and under Islam should never be underestimated when considering why they are significantly more wary of  if not downright hostile to  Islam and its migrants compared to their Western, liberal counterparts.

As Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban once explained:

We don't want to criticize France, Belgium, any other country, but we think all countries have a right to decide whether they want to have a large number of Muslims in their countries. If they want to live together with them, they can. We don't want to and I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see[.] ... I have to say that when it comes to living together with Muslim communities, we are the only ones who have experience because we had the possibility to go through that experience for 150 years.

Those years 1541 to 1699, when the Islamic Ottoman Empire occupied Hungary  are replete with the massacre, enslavement, and rape of Hungarians.

Note: The above account was excerpted from the author's recent book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim 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.
"With Minim, Airband ISP program partners have the opportunity to design the connectivity experience beyond the home edge. And make it great." - Gray Chynoweth, Minim CEO

Minim, the AI-driven managed Wi-Fi and security platform, today announces it has signed an agreement with Microsoft to deliver reliable and safe connectivity to rural communities as part of the Microsoft Airband Initiative. In the U.S. alone, 18 million individuals do not have access to broadband, according to the FCC. This problem has only been exacerbated by COVID-19 with increased reliance on home broadband.

In 2017, Microsoft launched the Airband Initiative, which aims to eliminate the rural broadband gap by bringing together privatesector capital investment in new technologies and rural broadband deployments with publicsector financial and regulatory support. By collaborating with Airband partners like Minim, the initiative enables broadband service providers to stretch their investments by delivering Wi-Fi services that reduce support costs and safeguard customer retention.

We are so pleased to join this important initiative, said Gray Chynoweth, CEO at Minim. We must close the digital divide to remove barriers to employment, education, and well-being for rural families. But access is only the beginning. With Minim, Airband ISP program partners have the opportunity to design the connectivity experience beyond the home edge. And make it great."

Minim is the only residential managed Wi-Fi and security Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that gives service providers the freedom of choice in equipment. A Made for MikroTik partner, Minim also supports Motorola, GL.iNet, ASUS, and TP-Link hardware on its platform. Minims applications for ISPs and subscribers are intuitive, powered by its proprietary 26-point fingerprinting technology. The Minim App available for white labeling grants subscribers a high degree of control and personalization with guided Wi-Fi system setup, self-care, parental controls, ad blocking, privacy settings, security checks, and more.

The broadband gap bars many rural communities from fully participating in the digital economy, including accessing telehealth services, learning remotely, and working from home, said Shelley McKinley, Microsoft Vice President of Technology and Corporate Responsibility. Were glad to work with Minim as part of our Airband Initiative as we work towards providing broadband access to people around the world."

To learn more about Minim for the Microsoft Airband Initiative program, visit http://www.minim.co/airband.

About Minim

Minim is a cloud Wi-Fi management platform that enables and secures a better connected home. Minim's Software as a Service (SaaS) helps operators increase revenue and reduce support costs by offering a premium managed Wi-Fi service to their subscribers via customer premise equipment of their choosing. Subscribers benefit from best-in-class customer support, an easy-to-use mobile app, parental controls, AI-powered network recommendations, and more. The company is now partnering with service providers and consumer device manufacturers who want to help make home connectivity as safe and reliable as drinking water. To learn more, visit https://www.minim.co.
The Christmas windows of the luxury food shop Petrossian in Paris on Dec. 27, 2019. (Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images)

Luxury Food Industry Turns Sour Amid Global Coronavirus Lockdowns

SINGAPORE/TOKYO/PARISGlobal demand for premium foods such as wagyu beef, bluefin tuna, and caviar has plunged as the coronavirus pandemic has left thousands of restaurants shuttered and many economies sliding into recession.

Because of strict lockdown measures to contain the outbreak ravages of global economic activity, the luxury food industry could be among the worst-hit, since it heavily relies on restaurants and top hotels for the demand for deluxe items from caviar to champagne.

While some gourmet food producers are tapping consumers directly to stay afloat, others have been forced to cut output as some products have lost nearly half their value since the start of the year.

Jean-Marie Barillere, co-chairman of champagne producers lobby CIVC in France, said he hoped people would celebrate the easing of lockdown with a bottle of champagne, but expected a difficult end to the year.

This is really a period that looks like wartime, he said.

Bookings data compiled by OpenTable, an online restaurant reservation service, showed a near 80 percent year-on-year decline in seated diners at restaurants in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and Mexico this year.

People are also less likely to consume luxury foods when stuck at home in the middle of a health crisis and worried about their financial situation, or under clinical social distancing measures as eateries reopen.

People will not want to taste a Chateau Petrus wine, a lobster or caviar under a bell jar, said Michel Berthommier, managing director of Caviar Perlita in southwestern France.

If you force people to eat in these conditions, they will prefer going to fast foods.

Deep Discounts

Premium foods were one of the worst-hit sectors worldwide, said Ole Houe, director of advisory services at agriculture brokerage IKON Commodities in Sydney. He said he did not expect a prompt recovery given many countries were in a recession.

Falling demand has already taken a toll on the prices of luxury items.

In Tokyo, the price of top-quality wagyu beef cuts has fallen about 30 percent from a year earlier, bluefin tunaconsidered the best in Japanhas dropped more than 40 percent over that period, while prices of the famed Earls melons from Shizuoka have slumped 30 percent.

Russias top sturgeon breeding companyRussian Caviar Housemeanwhile was offering a 30 percent discount for Beluga hybrid caviar.

Spring and summer are always low seasons for the caviar market, but if we compare this period with previous years, the sales in Russia are down 50 percent, said the firms owner, Alexander Novikov.

In France, caviar prices languished near historic lows, champagne sales tumbled, while foie gras producers have had to cut output to prop up prices.

Cifog, a foie gras producers group, said restaurants account for 40 percent of total foie gras sales.

Mid-March, it felt like the sky had fallen on us, said Florian Boucherie, who produces 2 tonnes of foie gras per year in France.

Oyster and razor clam fishermen from Cape Cod and other top fishing grounds have also had to curb catches as lockdowns upended global eating habits.

Going Downmarket

To plug the yawning gap left by eateries, many high-end food producers are attempting to reach consumers directly via e-commerce platforms.

Others are steering more produce onto supermarket shelves.

We are accelerating our supply of products into some of the worlds largest supermarkets, gourmet butchers and direct to consumers online, said Hugh Killen, chief executive of Australias largest listed beef producer, Australian Agricultural Company.

But some vendors say selling to supermarkets is far less profitable than selling to high-end restaurants.

In Japan, top sushi chefs pay 400,000 yen ($3,737.97) for 10kg of the best cuts of tuna compared to the 25,000 yen paid by supermarkets for 10kg of lower value cuts, said Yukitaka Yamaguchi, owner of Yamayuki tuna brokerage at Toyosu Market in Tokyo.

He said the best part of (the) tuna was usually sold first to high-end sushi restaurants but when these closed, the harakami had nowhere to go. They eventually started offering high-quality tuna to fish retailers and supermarkets.

For now, Yamaguchi has had to park plans to retire as he has accumulated debt during the pandemic.

I had planned to retire when I turn 60, but thats no longer possible, he said.

By Naveen Thukral & Yuka Obayashi
Barring any last minute change, the Deputy Governor of Ondo State, Hon. Agboola Ajayi will in a matter of days move from the ruling Al...





Barring any last minute change, the Deputy Governor of Ondo State, Hon. Agboola Ajayi will in a matter of days move from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to his erstwhile party, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.





The speculation that the Deputy Governor has been planning to contest against his boss, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu at the October 10, 2020, governorship polls came to fruition following secret meetings held over the weekend with some party leaders within both the APC and the PDP.





It was also gathered that some APC stalwarts in the State will be making the move with the deputy governor.





Notable among the stalwarts is Prince Sola Amodeni, a former cabinet member who was sacked by Akeredolu in 2019, alongside two others.

At one of the meetings held separately at one of the residence of a party chieftain in Ijapo Estate, Akure, Ondo State capital, Ajayi was said to have disclosed to the party leaders of his planned move to the PDP as he sought their support ahead of the move.





Recently there had been cold feud between the governor and his deputy, with the battle taken to the camps of both leaders.





The rift between them began shortly after the 2019 general elections following the alleged suspension of the governor from the party for alleged anti-party activities.





The deputy governor was accused to have been behind the purported suspension. He was said to have been confronted by the governor with evidences of his meetings with top members of the party in Abuja.





Also, when the governor was ill last year following his prolonged stay in Abuja for treatment, the camp of the governor alleged that the deputy governor had mounted pressure on the House of Assembly to activate the doctrine of necessity in order to make him the Acting Governor.





Giving details of the meeting held in Ijapo, a source who craved anonymity stated that Ajayis meeting with them was basically on the move to PDP as he is soliciting the support of his allies.





Edo elections: PDP ready to accept Obaseki after disqualification by APC commitee READ ALSO:Edo elections: PDP ready to accept Obaseki after disqualification by APC commitee

The deputy governor invited us to the meeting. He is actually looking for confidants that will make the move with him to PDP and some allies that will stay put in APC but will work underground for him.





He lamented during the meeting that APC is not a party which we all know ourselves. Akeredolu not being a partyman also contributes to the problems in the party in the state.





Agbo also told us in confidence that Olusola Oke spoke with him on his ambition but that he assured him that if APC gives him the ticket, he will work for him.





I think his ultimate aim at present is to ensure that Akeredolu is not re-elected, that he told us too.





He didnt come out straight to us of his plan to contest under the PDP but I think he hinted one of us that the PDP ticket is already within his grasp.





Meanwhile, there are indications that Ajayi might pair with Eyitayo Jegede, the PDP governorship candidate during the 2016 polls.





Reacting to development, the National Vice Chairman of PDP, South West, Eddy Olafeso stated that Ajayi was not yet to become member of the party. He noted that membership procedure is well stated in the partys constitution.





On his part, the Chief Press Secretary to the Deputy Governor, Babatope Okeowo described the purported move of his boss as speculations.





All these are speculations and we dont react to speculations. When it is time we will cross the bridge.





What I know is that he is the Deputy Governor of Ondo State and Deputy to Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, so any other speculations we dont react to it, Okeowo said.
The former police officer accused of terrorizing California during a series of rapes and killings nearly a half-century ago attributed to the Golden State Killer is expected to plead guilty this month in a deal that will spare him the death penalty, according to multiple sources.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., 74, is set to enter a guilty plea to 13 murders and kidnapping charges from as many rapes in a yet-to-be determined Sacramento County courtroom on June 29. The crimes occurred during the 1970s and '80s.

Many sources who were notified about the legal arrangement spoke on condition of anonymity because they were asked to not disclose the deal to the media. Nor are any legal motions outlining the plea deal required to be filed in court before June 29.

Sources said DeAngelo has also agreed to admit to scores of crimes for which he is not charged, including rapes, for which the statute of limitations has expired.

The agreement is a significant development in a criminal saga that could have lasted years longer if it had gone to trial but will now lack a public accounting of the evidence collected  and the missteps committed  by detectives over the course of the investigation.

"Its a step forward ... but its not what I was hoping for," said Kris Pedretti, one of the earliest victims, who was 15 when she was raped in 1976.

There are no criminal charges in connection with her attack, but Pedretti said she understands that DeAngelo is prepared to admit to her rape.

"I already know he raped me, that he was guilty," she said, "but my deeper feeling is, Why? What is so important that he does not want shown in trial that he is willing to do this? ... What is it that he doesnt want to be known?

Prosecutors had previously rebuffed DeAngelo's offer to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison. The COVID-19 pandemic played a role in persuading prosecutors to now agree, according to two of the sources.

Story continues

Most witnesses and victims in the case are elderly, and some of them are grappling with health problems. The logistics of how to arrange for their testimony, and provide defense lawyers with the ability to cross-examine those witnesses without exposing them to the coronavirus, were problematic, said one of the sources familiar with the decision.

District attorneys from the six counties prosecuting DeAngelo issued a statement Monday saying they have "a moral and ethical responsibility to consider any offer from the defense, given the massive scope of the case, the advanced age of many of the victims and witnesses, and our inherent obligations to the victims."

The statement did not address whether a settlement agreement had been reached and said prosecutors would have no additional comment until the June 29 court hearing.

Sgt. Damon Maurice stands near the Evans Ditch, a flood canal, which police think was used by the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr, to access homes in where he would break in and commit crimes. (TOMAS OVALLE / Tomas Ovalle)

Victims of some of the crimes in the case voiced both relief and pain at the outcome.

"It's pragmatic. This makes sense. It is efficient. It is cost-effective. It is ultimately where we were going to end," said Jennifer Carole, whose father, Lyman Smith, was among those killed.

But Carole has been in tears since learning there will be no chance to see DeAngelo face evidence against him in court. "So what is justice for that? Im sitting with that [question] every damn day," she said.

Others said they saw no realistic away around a compromise.

Ron Harrington, whose youngest brother, Keith, was bludgeoned to death alongside his wife, Patrice, in Dana Point in 1980, said the "Golden State Killer should be and will always be the poster child for the death penalty."

Still, he said he understood why prosecutors had agreed to a deal that would spare DeAngelo the possibility of execution but keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

"Both my brother and I are very, very supportive of life without parole," he said.

Harrington and his family have spent decades advocating for the death penalty and expansion of databases containing the DNA of criminals. With that came continued pain, he said.

The plea deal, Harrington said, "will give us as much closure as we can achieve."

Victor Hayes expressed frustration bordering on anger.

"I'm grateful he's been caught, but the fact of the matter is he's already lived a full life," said Hayes, who was 21 when he and his 17-year-old girlfriend were attacked while in bed one night in September 1977 in a suburb east of Sacramento.

A masked intruder bound and threatened to kill Hayes, then pulled his girlfriend into another room and raped her multiple times before fleeing.

At the time, DeAngelo was working full time as a police officer for the Northern California foothill town of Auburn, about half an hour away.

Auburn fired DeAngelo in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a hardware store. Months later, the Golden State Killer began a series of killings in Southern California.

Hayes said authorities need to explain how DeAngelo was able to elude detection for so long.

"I'm very frustrated.... Somebody needs to be held accountable," Hayes said.

DeAngelo is accused of crimes that extend from 1973 through 1986 across more than a dozen California counties, starting with early bedroom ransackings and a killing in Visalia. The attacks included a series of rapes and two more killings in the Sacramento and Bay Area regions, and then culminated in 10 more home invasion killings in Southern California.

Many of those targeted were couples. An investigation by The Times documented more than 106 victims who were bound, tortured, raped or killed.

For a decade after the last killing in 1986, police failed to link the crimes to a common attacker. The evolution of forensic DNA changed the case dramatically in 1996, when detectives first connected what had become known as the Original Night Stalker killings, and then in 2001, when DNA again provided links to Central California's East Area Rapist.

But detectives made no more progress until early 2017, when law enforcement realized they could use DNA recovered from old rape kits and search for relatives of the unknown killer on family tree genetic databases. In early 2018, a Northern California team including agents from the FBI and detectives from Sacramento and Contra Costa counties used the controversial familial search method to trace a genetic path to DeAngelo.

The genetic detective work behind DeAngelo's arrest created a novel approach to cold cases. Within a year, prosecutors across the United States announced rape and murder charges against scores of other individuals after detectives used the same technique.

But in most of those cases, the accused either agreed to plead guilty or was dead, so the methodology had not been tested in a high-stakes court case. Prosecutors, including Sacramento County's district attorney, have been developing guidelines for detectives on using public DNA databases while privacy advocates have raised concerns about police access to sensitive genetic information for the public at large.

Full details of the Golden State Killer investigation, and the police legwork that ensued after DeAngelo's April 24, 2018, arrest, have never been disclosed. DeAngelo had never been a suspect in the long-running cold case.

The massive criminal case has been problematic for both prosecution and defense teams.

The Sacramento County district attorney's office had told the court that a preliminary hearing to demonstrate there is enough evidence to bind the case over for trial could take months and involve more than 100 witnesses. The hearing was set to begin in August, but under the plea deal currently pending, DeAngelo would be sentenced on that date instead.
The Minister of Roads and Highways Kwesi Amoako Atta says the Bolgatanga-Bawku-Pulmakom road in the Upper East Region will be completed by the end of this year 2020.

The 109km stretch of road was awarded to a Brazilian contractor Queiroz Galvao in 2016 and was scheduled to be completed in 2019 but stalled due to financial constraints.

Although the contractor, Queiroz Galvao resumed active work in March 2020 after payment of some arrears by government, resident engineer, Peter Dagadu in an interview with Citi News said, they will complete work in 30 months thus spanning to 2022.

But during a working visit to the region, the minister Kwesi Amoako Atta insisted the road will be delivered by the end of 2020.

The Bolga-Bawku-Pulmakom Road is a very long stretch of road which is in the heart of every individual, every person in this region and, indeed, government. Government is so particular about this road. President Akufo-Addo's government is determined to fix this road by the end of 2020. Almost 40km is ready to be handed over any moment from now; completely sealed and road line markings done. A long stretch has also received prima seal and another very long stretch has also received double seal awaiting road line-markings. We still have some work to do on that road and I am very confident that the road would have finished by the end of the year.

The minister admitted there are challenges being faced by the contractor but assured that the ministry will intervene.

The contractor is facing a few challenges going through Bolga Township because of the obvious payment of compensation for certain structures that would be affected. In fact, we are going to work on that and those who need to be compensated will be compensated to pave the right of way for the contractor to continue to do his work uninterrupted.

Residents in the Bolgatanga township has over the years bemoaned the bad nature of roads in the town.

Most roads in the town are designed with all sizes of potholes.

Mr Amoako Atta assured residents that the Bolgatanga township roads will be fixed in a month.

Between Bolga Township and leaving the outskirts of Bolga, we have some challenges there. I have directed the Director of Urban Roads to do pothole patching around that area within the next one month and to put asphalt overlay on it. I want to assure the people of this region that within the first term of the President, the Bolga-Bawku-Pulmakom Road, which has had a checkered history, will be delivered.

Mr. Amoako Atta also visited ongoing works at the Tamne, Kulungugu and Balungu Bridges in the Garu, Pusiga and Bongo districts respectively where work was progressing steadily.

He was optimistic the five bridge projects in the region which are at various stages of completion will be fixed in due course to bring relief to residents and commuters.

He hinted that the Tamne bridge will be completed within two months for commissioning and be handed over for use.

 citinewsroom
The India Meterological Department (IMD) on Monday (June 15) said that rainfall in Mumbai and adjacent areas in last 24 hours indicates activity picked up after 1am towards Mumbai with maximum rainfall going above 50 mm at isolated places. The IMD said in a press release that moderate rain is expected in Thane and in west Mumbai.

On Sunday (June 14), the IMD had declared the onset of the southwest monsoon over Mumbai and the remaining parts of Maharashtra. Monsoon onset has been declared over Mumbai and remaining parts of Maharashtra on Sunday afternoon. Since the onset is within the range of three days of June 11, it will be classified as the normal onset for Mumbai, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, IMDs director-general, said.

The IMD has also predicted an orange alert for heavy to very heavy rain for Monday and Tuesday for Mumbai, Thane, Palghar and remaining districts of the west coast, parts of central Maharashtra, isolated areas of Vidarbha and Marathwada.

The IMD also said on Sunday that widespread to widespread rainfall is very likely to continue over Maharashtra, Gujarat, most parts of central and east India during next 4-5 days with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over Konkan and Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat.

"Conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of North Arabian Sea, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, remaining parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar and some parts of East Uttar Pradesh during next 48 hours," the IMD said on Sunday.

The IMD said that India has received over 31 per cent more rainfall so far this season. Of the four meteorological divisions, the south peninsula has received 20 per cent more rainfall; central India has 94 per cent more precipitation and northwest India has 19 per cent more rainfall.
Dan Gutlovics did a lot of virtual hand holding during the first days of the violent protests in Minneapolis and St. Paul following the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police on May 25.

Gutlovics, sales executive with Corporate Four Insurance Agency in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina, Minnesota, has commercial insurance clients with businesses in and near the area of Minneapolis that was heavily damaged by the rioting.

Businesses were vandalized and looted, and some were torched during riots that grew out of protests across the country following Floyds death.

Since the beginning of the ordeal, Ive probably filtered through gosh, 35, 40, phone calls from customers that were either concerned about what their policy and coverage was going to respond to if something happened, to customers calling in the beginning that have had damage, to customers following up with just concern about things in general. Its been very, very crazy around here, Gutlovics said.

His agency was not directly impacted by the violence but some of his customers businesses were. He said hes been pouring over his customers policies to make sure they have the correct coverages, trying to put them at ease, letting them know they have the proper coverage and letting them know that if they have damages a claim will be filed.

Its been a lot of just really trying to help people not have too much fear here in a time where theres a lot of fear, he said.

A Deadly Awakening

Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin and three other police officers were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department following the incident in which Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes while the prone, unarmed, handcuffed man exclaimed that he couldnt breathe. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder without intent, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The three officers who stood by and watched without attempting to restrain Chauvin have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Days of rioting followed Floyds death, not only in Minneapolis and St. Paul but in other cities and towns across the country. The extent of the property damage in the Twin Cities that resulted from the violent protests is still being assessed, but the Star Tribune reported on June 9 that the total cost of the damage could rise above $500 million. It is estimated that nearly 1,000 commercial properties were damaged or destroyed in Minneapolis and St. Paul, according to local news sources.

Damage costs from the recent rioting in the U.S. may rival the 1992 Los Angeles riots to become the most costly civil disorder in the countrys history, insurance experts say. The April and May 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles following the videotaped police beating of Rodney King caused $775 million in damages  or $1.42 billion in todays dollars, according to the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.).

In Minneapolis, the epicenter of the protests was in the Minneapolis Police Departments Third Precinct, the headquarters of which was torched and destroyed during the riots. Businesses along Lake Street were severely damaged or destroyed. The Midway region in St. Paul also suffered widespread destruction.

Brian Strub, assistant communications director for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, told Insurance Journal in an email that the department has not quantified or assessed damage, tallied claims, or made financial estimates or predictions of cost or loss. Local jurisdictions are continuing to conduct damage assessments.

He said the department is considering the possibility of issuing a data call to insurers regarding claims associated with the protests but that it is too soon to confirm whether that would happen.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce is working diligently to provide information and resources to affected business owners and residents on how to make insurance claims, Strub said.

The department also is in contact with officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul, other state or federal agencies, insurance companies and individual agents, chambers of commerce, neighborhood and other local groups and consumers impacted.

Coverage Issues

Gutlovics said after the first night of protests he got a call from one of his clients who owns a pizza restaurant, not on Lake Street but nearby. The owner had boarded up the restaurants windows but the protesters took the boards down, busted the windows, and ultimately ended up breaking in and looting the place, Gutlovics said.

He told his client initially not to try to clean up or make repairs because it appeared that there would be more uncertainty and unrest, and there was. There was no point in trying to clean up or fix something up at this point because we dont know whats going to happen, he said.

Another one of Gutlovics customers has a restaurant on Lake Street and they were also impacted that first night, he said. The next night, rioters came back and burned the same building down. Basically, its not a normal claim where youre like, Okay, lets get started here and get you back up and running. Its a situation where we dont know when this is going to stop, so theres no point in doing anything right now, except sit and wait and hopefully things calm down over the next couple of days, Gutlovics said.

So, his initial advice to impacted clients in the beginning days of the protests was to hold tight, board up and try to keep them from coming back and burning your place down.  It was a real different way of thinking than our normal claims process.

Damage from the protests in most cases will be a covered event for businesses and homeowners throughout the U.S. The types of claims that are anticipated include physical property damage to facilities, including glass, windows, doors, light fixtures, furniture and merchandise; as well as commercial and personal vehicles. Residential property loss claims are also possible, said Mark Friedlander, director of Corporate Communications for the I.I.I.

Gutlovics said most of the impacted businesses in his book have standard business owners policies or a package policy that provides coverage for property and liability.

His customers whose businesses suffered physical damage are going to be covered not only for property damage but because their properties were impacted physically, they will have met the trigger for loss of income as well.

Whats not so clear is what kind of coverage businesses that boarded up and shut down voluntarily in order to stave off losses will have, he said.

In addition, many businesses, including those with direct physical losses from the riots, were already closed or had limited business due to the civil authority-ordered shutdowns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Unfortunately, unless youve had a physical damage, which is the trigger for insurance, theyre not going to be able to collect under their insurance policy, Gutlovics said.

Around 40 percent of the nations small to medium sized businesses carry business interruption coverage, according to the I.I.I.s Friedlander. It would typically cover business income losses incurred as a result of a riot, civil commotion and vandalism. Even if the business was still shut down or operating at limited capacity due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, most insurers will determine income loss based on a 12-month assessment of the operations income, he said.

Gutlovics wondered, however, how the business owners and BI policies will apply in cases where there was a widespread curfew enforced due to the rioting but the actual physical damage to buildings was concentrated in a few areas.

Typically, civil authority coverage is applicable in cases where there might be a bomb threat or a big fire, for instance, where the government closes down the area and prevents customers from coming to that location, he said.

In the Lake Street district, there was evidence of physical damage to structures in that neighborhood. At this point, however, he said he wasnt sure if a widespread curfew in and of itself would trigger coverage for all businesses that were forced to shut down. Basically, it was a curfew that they put into place, right, that said everybody has to be shut down.  All the suburbs, everybody was subject to this. I dont think thats going to trigger civil authority coverage, but its still a little bit too early to tell how the adjusters are going to evaluate that, Gutlovics said.

The main message hes been getting from insurance carriers in response to the riot damage is that they are temporarily placing a moratorium on the binding or changing of coverage in the impacted areas. They are saying at this point in time, Were not allowing for any additional changes to policyholders in the affected area.'

The alarming civil unrest of late May and early June has sparked his clients interest in what exactly their policies cover, Gutlovics said. As a result, hes having a lot of conversations with customers about what coverages they have and whether they need to increase or modify their policies to better protect their business assets when the carriers regain their appetite for writing business in the impacted areas.

Kimberly Winter heads up the insurance recovery and counseling group at the law firm, Lathrop GPM LLP. Winter is based in Kansas City, but the firm has offices all over the U.S., including Minneapolis.

Business policies are not cookie cutter, Winter said. There are different forms and versions and people need to really look at their policies closely to understand what their coverage rights are.

For the business interruption trigger, some sort of direct physical loss is required. However, some courts have interpreted some of the nuanced policy language to mean that loss of use of that property is sufficient, in cases where a civil authority mandate forces a business to close.

A lot of insurance companies are denying coverage business interruption due to COVID-19 because they have virus exclusion or because theyre saying its not direct physical loss, which is debatable, Winter said.

The COVID-19 situation adds an extra wrinkle here because undoubtedly the insurance companies are just going to say, well, you wouldnt have had any business anyway, she said. A policyholder may get coverage for any physical property damage to [their] business arising out of the fallout from the protest but [insurers] may push back much harder about any type of business interruption because of the complication of the COVID-19 business interruption.

Agents, Winter said, can really help their customers by looking at all the policies that might apply and by not overlooking overlapping coverage. Its also important to make sure to put carriers on notice sooner rather than later, even if you dont have all the details about the damages.

There may be pretty quick deadlines to file a claim or you might lose your coverage. So thats important, she said.

Did Debate Over Business Income Insurance Just Get More Complicated? Business income claims due to riots and civil unrest could reflect revenue loss from virus-related shutdowns or receipt of funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. Riots in Wake of Floyds Death Could Become Most Costly Civil Disorder for Insurers While the industry expects a significant event, it is premature to determine the volume of property loss since it is an ongoing event.

Recovery Efforts

Not all businesses that have been impacted by the riots have the resources to adequately recover. Some are uninsured or underinsured.

Minneapolis Lake Street area is known traditionally as a community thats a little bit underserved [with] a lot of ethnic businesses and so forth there. And there is a concern that there are a number of businesses there that might not have had insurance or the proper insurance, Gutlovics said. Plus, a lot of them were struggling with already down businesses from COVID.  That is going to be a concern, I think, for the hardest-hit area here.

The good news at there are efforts being made by both private and public organizations to help the areas and the businesses impacted by the riots. For those that may not have proper insurance coverage, it does look like there are people out there that are anticipating this and have been trying to set up some fundraisers for them, Gutlovics said.

In a press conference held by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on June 1, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the city knew starting with COVID-19 that we were going to need to help businesses recover in some form from a fiscal standpoint after the economy began to reopen. Now, in addition to helping from a fiscal standpoint, we have entire corridors in Minneapolis where buildings have been destroyed. We need to have help to replace those buildings and get people back on track. I know that the governor and [Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter] are committed to helping provide that necessary support.

Businesses in these hard-hit areas are barber shops, grocery stores, mom and pop shops that are going to need substantial help  and I can say that we are committed to it, Frey said.

Frey has since announced that the newly created Minneapolis Forward: Community Now Coalition, which includes representatives of local business and community groups, would work with the residents and business owners of the impacted areas to make sure the recovery efforts accommodate the needs of their community.

Related:

Topics Carriers Agencies Claims Profit Loss Talent Law Enforcement Property Minnesota
Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Eun Sung-soo, right, speaks during a meeting with car and banking industry officials at the Korea Fuel-Tech Corporation's Pangyo office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. He said the government will stand surety for over 300 billion won ($247 million) borrowed by small and medium-sized auto parts makers that have faced difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. / Courtesy of FSC
The Morrison government will recalibrate fiscal policy, flagging limited spending outside essential services while promising to bring the budget out of the largest deficit in history through unprecedented levels of economic growth.

Revealing the economy would probably shrink by $100 billion this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government would be "extremely cautious" with spending as it embarked upon a five-year plan to boost growth.

Scott Morrison has committed to "recalibrate" fiscal policy as the government faces record deficits and public debt levels. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The budget was this year supposed to show its first surplus since 2007-08 but the virus has crushed revenues while the government has been forced into large extra expenditure to keep the economy afloat.

Private economists are tipping a deficit of up to $200 billion in 2020-21. The Parliamentary Budget Office this month said the virus would punch a $500 billion hole in government finances over the next decade.
Livingston and Pamelia Jeffers were dropped off by their grandson at the emergency department of Ajax Pickering Hospital the evening before Halloween two years ago. Pamelia had not been feeling well, and their housing situation was precarious.

Within hours, the elderly Black couple would find themselves handcuffed and held for mental health reasons, and Livingston taken down in an arrest in which police used grossly excessive use of force, their lawyers allege in a lawsuit filed last year.

The two Durham Regional Police officers in the case have already been cleared of wrongdoing for their use of force. In March, an investigators report on the case concluded one officer had been justified in punching and elbowing Livingston in the head  rendering him semi-conscious  because the now-70-year-old man had reached for the other officers gun; the officers erred only in not properly informing him of his rights, the report found.

On Monday, the couples lawyers called for a fresh investigation. The review of Livingstons complaint, completed by a civilian investigator with York Regional Police at the request of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director, did not investigate allegations the officer threatened and prevented witnesses from recording the arrest and did not consider a full version of events from key witnesses, lawyers Faisal Kutty and Kalim Khan said at a news conference.

In addition, the lawyers detail in a letter to the OIPRD, the investigators review did not examine key documents and did not consider what options, if any, the officers could have taken to de-escalate a mental health crisis.

Leaving a hospital should not be a dangerous activity even if you are elderly, Black and are suspected of suffering from mental health issues, wrote Khan and Kutty, an adjunct professor at Osgoode Law School, in the letter to the OIPRD, the civilian oversight body that oversees complaints against police.

The couple is not doing media interviews for this story, their lawyers said, citing an ongoing lawsuit filed last year against Durham police, the Durham Police Services Board and Lakeridge Health, the hospitals operator.

In a statement, the Durham Regional Police Service said it could not comment on the case because of the lawsuit and the couples request that the OIPRD review the first investigation. In a statement of defence filed in May, police denied all allegations made in the couples lawsuit and said if any damages were suffered, it was due to the negligent and intentional misconduct of Livingston.

In a statement, Lakeridge Health said it cant speak about the Jeffers case due to patient confidentiality. The hospital network said it strives to provide excellent patient care to all members of our community, regardless of whether they access Lakeridge Health through the emergency department, an inpatient admission or one of our community locations.

The hospital is committed to working with the communities we serve to promote a just and equitable environment for all members of our diverse community, including those who are most vulnerable, read the statement.

Late last week, the couples lawyers provided the Star with documents and other records of the case, including the investigators report and findings, medical records, video footage from the hospital and a bystander, transcript of audio from a police body camera, and lawsuit documents.

Livingstons interactions with the justice system have made headlines before: In 2008, he was convicted on charges of mischief and counselling murder for making posters that a judge found included a threat against the life of Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson. In 2012, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that conviction, saying no reasonable person could interpret the crude posters, which included the word murder on a page with the councillors name and face, as a call for harm.

At his trial, Livingston, a former heavyweight boxer born in Montserrat, testified he used the word murder because it meant a cry for help in his vernacular.

Livingston and Pamelia, 69, had been living in a Scarborough shelter shortly before they went to the hospital on Oct. 30, 2018. According to the medical records, Pamelia reported she had insomnia and had trouble sleeping at the shelter. She asked for a full physical and help with housing, and arrived at the hospital with luggage. She was triaged at 8:19 p.m.

According to the first investigators report, a doctor at the hospital believed Pamelia was acting delusional and paranoid; according to the medical records, she and her husband spoke of people trying to kill us.

After a long wait in the ER, the couple asked if they could go home and return to the psychiatric unit the next day. The doctor initially agreed, and they called their grandson to come get them.

According to the investigators report, a nurse later reassessed Pamelia and believed she should not go home. The nurse talked to the doctor, who decided Pamelia should be kept on a Form 1  an order that would let the hospital hold her overnight for a psychiatric assessment.

Sometime around midnight, the couple can be seen on CCTV footage leaving the hospital with the nurse in tow. According to the report, the nurse alerted security saying that Pamelia could not leave.

At this point, the investigators report said, the nurse reported Livingston became very angry, and she became afraid for her safety as he was yelling and very close to her.

Two Durham police constables who had been nearby then intervened and were told Pamelia was on the Form 1, meaning she should not leave.

Meanwhile, Livingston told them all he wanted to go home.

According to the investigators report, an officers body camera captured audio of the exchange. (The video was of no use because the camera became dislodged, the report said. The couples lawyers have asked for the video but have not yet received it).

They were trying to murder us, Livingston tells the officers. The other officer asks Livingston if he can talk to you over here? to which he replied, No.

The other officer says: This is going to go one of two ways, now take a deep breath, take a deep breath.

Livingston responds: Brother, brother, we do not want to stay inside here.

According to the report, Livingston then grabbed Pamelia by the hand and the officer put his hand on Livingstons left hand, telling him: You dont have a choice. The other officer then placed a hand on his right shoulder and a struggle began in which Livingston was separated from Pamelia and taken to the ground, with one of the officers on his back.

What are you f---ing doing? Livingston says in the transcript. Brother, let me go.

The other officer repeatedly tells Livingston to stop and, according to the investigators account, appeared to strike him in the head as the downed man yelled murder, murder, murder.

At some point, the first officer reported Livingston scratched him near the eyes, causing bleeding and, at the 2:40 mark of the transcript, that officer yells: Let go of my gun.

According to the investigators report, the other officer then delivered four elbow strikes to Livingstons head, believing this was a bodily harm or death situation. Ten seconds of transcript later, that officer is heard saying cuff him.

According to the report, the blows left Livingston semi-conscious and after he regained consciousness, the officer asked: Why were you fighting us, what was going on? How much sense did that make?

The officer then tells Livingston the outcome was what you get for fighting us. Stand up.

Meanwhile, Pamelia was also detained by hospital security and handcuffed on the ground.

Following the interaction, the couple was taken back inside the hospital and held on psychiatric orders for assessment. A doctor noted the injuries from Livingstons arrest (lacerations and bruising on the head) and that he appeared to be paranoid, and delusional. Pamelia was also assessed and kept overnight. They were discharged in the afternoon.

Following Livingstons complaint, the investigator concluded the officers use of force was reasonable and that there were grounds to arrest him because he had caused a disturbance, obstructed the officers in their lawful duties, breached the peace and within seconds assaulted one of the officers.

The investigator also dismissed a complaint of discreditable conduct against the officer who told Livingston thats what you get, finding the statement was reasonable in the heat of the moment.

The only complaint found to be substantiated was neglect of duty, for failing to inform Livingston of his right to speak to a lawyer.

Livingston was charged with assaulting police and trying to disarm a police officer.

Those charges were later dropped, the couples lawyers say.

In their letter to the OIPRD, the lawyers argue the oversight agency should review the investigation in the interest of justice.

The lawyers argue bystander video of the struggle does not show evidence of Livingston reaching for the officers gun. They also note that of eight witnesses interviewed, only one, a hospital staff member, reported seeing the man touch the gun; the lawyers say that witness had an obstructed view.

Kutty and Khan are asking the OIPRD to carry out a more thorough review to assess additional documents and interview eyewitnesses they say were ordered to delete video of the struggle. Those two witnesses were on hand for Mondays press conference. Both said it was police who ordered them to delete the videos.

The lawyers argue the investigators report does not address allegations that the witnesses were directed to stop recording the incident and to delete the videos. One complied while the other managed to send the video to someone else before deleting it. Neither witness was interviewed by the investigator.

The witnesss video, which the lawyers provided to the Star, begins after Livingston has already been taken to the ground. It shows both Durham officers struggling on top of him, one of whom appears to throw a punch at the downed man.

The video ends as the struggle continues. As it cuts out, Livingston can be heard yelling murder.

The hospital CCTV footage captures the arrest from a distance, with little detail visible. Pamelia can be seen dropping to the ground, with hospital staff at her side, including security guards.

The OIPRD has 30 days to respond to the couples letter and has the power conduct its own investigation.
Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images f

No justice, no peace. In an open letter to Kentuckys attorney general, Daniel Cameron, Beyonce urged him to use his power to bring criminal charges against the officers who shot and killed Breonna Taylor in her Louisville apartment earlier this year. The letter, posted on Beyonces official website on June 14, also urged the attorney general to commit to transparency in the investigation and prosecution of these officers criminal conduct and investigate the police departments response to Taylors murder, which occurred after the officers received a no-knock warrant.

Your office has both the power and the responsibility to bring justice to Breonna Taylor, and demonstrate the value of a Black womans life, she wrote in the letter. Dont let this case fall into the pattern of no action after a terrible tragedy. With every death of a Black person at the hands of the police, there are two real tragedies: The death itself, and the inaction and delays that follow it. This is your chance to end that pattern. Take swift and decisive action in charging the officers. The next months cannot look like the last three. Beyonce urged her fans to sign a coinciding petition, located at the bottom of the letter, to demand further justice for Taylor.

Last month, Bey also demanded justice for George Floyds death by a Minneapolis police officer, which spurred nationwide protests against police brutality and racism. We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. Were broken and were disgusted, she said in a video. We cannot normalize this pain. Im not only speaking to people of color. If youre white, black, brown, or anything in between, Im sure you feel hopeless about the racism going on in America right now. No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away.

Update, June 16: The office of Kentuckys attorney general confirmed to CNN that Beyonces letter has been received, but offered no further insight into the case. We are aware of the letter, a statement from the offices communications director read. As the letter makes requests related to the ongoing investigation involving the death of Ms. Breonna Taylor, we have no further comment. No further comment? To Beyonce? Thats new.
Editor's note: Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst. The article reflects the author's opinion and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

By Andrew Korybko

Twitter removed more than 170,000 accounts on June 12 that it claimed were spreading pro-Chinese "disinformation." The handles in question were reportedly mostly tweeting in Chinese and "spreading geopolitical narratives favorable to the Communist Party of China (CCP)," including about Hong Kong.

Reuters quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying as saying on the same day that "Twitter should shut down accounts that smear China if it wants to fight disinformation" since China is its biggest victim.

I wrote an article similar in spirit to her claims last week about how "Right-wing bots push anti-Chinese COVID-19 conspiracies," which cited The Guardian's piece about a relevant report on this topic from the Australia Institute's Center for Responsible Technology which discovered that accounts supportive of Trump and QAnon had been spreading conspiracy theories alleging that China is responsible for COVID-19. To the best of my knowledge, those accounts have yet to be removed from the platform.

Twitter's disinformation double standards towards the pro-Chinese accounts that it alleges are engaged in this activity and the anti-Chinese ones which the previously mentioned independent researchers confirmed beyond any credible doubt were actually doing this is proof that the company is waging information warfare. It should either have a free-for-all policy of allowing anyone to share anything on its platform or consistently implement the same policy of removing all accounts that are accused of spreading disinformation.

By not doing so, Twitter is tacitly supporting anti-Chinese disinformation activity by right-wing bots. This makes it a de facto instrument of information warfare against the country, which vindicates the authorities' decision to block access to it on the mainland.

A banner with the Twitter Inc. logo hangs outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, the U.S., November 6, 2013. /VCG

Company founder Jack Dorsey is openly critical of Trump and Twitter has been officially accused by the President of censoring one of his tweets, but that doesn't mean that they're against his government's policy of hostility towards China. In fact, they're arguably willing accomplices to it.

Twitter's double standard of removing the pro-Chinese accounts that it claimed were spreading disinformation while refusing to act upon the anti-Chinese ones that were proven to be doing the same can only be explained by its desire to ingratiate itself with the American security services. It can only be speculated what its intent in doing so may be, but one reasonable motivation might be that it wants them on their side so that they can support the company against Trump's campaign to crack down on it for their alleged censorship of his account.

Whatever is influencing Twitter's hypocritical policy in this respect, it's nevertheless extremely concerning that a private tech company is waging information warfare against a foreign country with which the U.S. is officially at peace. It's difficult to believe that its actions aren't at the very least passively supported by the U.S. government otherwise the state would have presumably censured it for such activities. Its failure to do so strongly suggests tacit endorsement of what Twitter's actions.

There's been a trend in international relations over the past few decades for states to formally or informally cooperate with non-state actors in pursuit of shared interests abroad in parallel with some of these same non-state actors practicing state-like activity.

For instance, the U.S. government controversially contracts some security responsibilities to private military companies, just like Twitter is nowadays assuming the role that was traditionally held by state actors in waging information warfare against China through its double standards.

Trump should make his position on this topic publicly known by clarifying whether he's in support of his tech nemesis advancing his government's strategic goals against China despite it allegedly censoring his account. If so, then the public deserves to know the U.S.' stance towards the broader issue of non-state actors carrying out state-like activities such as information warfare and whether that should necessitate some level of government oversight and/or regulation. It should also be investigated whether Twitter is being paid for these "services."

(Cover image: The Twitter Inc. logo is displayed on the company's preliminary prospectus in Washington, D.C., the U.S., October 28, 2013. /VCG)
An air passenger has been detained in China after allegedly attempting to smash open a plane window at 30,000 feet.

The 29-year-old woman had drunk two bottles of super-strength spirits on her own due to emotional stress before boarding the domestic flight, according to police.

One window cracked, and the Airbus A320 had to make an emergency landing as a result of the mid-flight fiasco.

A drunk passenger (pictured left) has been detained by police in China after she attempted to smash a plane window open (pictured right) while the plane was travelling in mid-air

The woman allegedly resorted to alcohol to deal with her relationship problems after being ditched by her partner.

Footage shows the flight attendants trying to comfort the crying woman, known by her surname Li, who suddenly started hitting the cabin window.

The incident was revealed by local police on Friday in a social media post.

According to the statement, Ms Li was travelling from Xining in north-western China to eastern Chinese city Yangcheng on May 25 with domestic carrier Loong Air.

The woman had drunk two 250-millilitre bottles of 'Bai Jiu' - a type of Chinese grain wine - before boarding the flight.

The traditional Chinese drink typically has an alcohol volume of between 35 to 60 per cent.

While the plane was travelling over 30,000 feet above the ground, the intoxicated traveller suddenly 'lost control of her emotion' and started punching the window next to her seat

Ms Li has been detained by Henan police for damaging public transportation. It remains unclear what type of punishment she would face. The picture shows Ms Li escorted by police

The picture released by Henan police shows Ms Li in a temporary cell after being detained

The cabin crew had to carry out an emergency landing about halfway into the five-hour journey after Ms Li 'suddenly 'lost control of her emotion' and started punching the window next to her seat.

An image released by police shows the damaged plane window with multiple cracks on the surface.

The plane safely touched down in Zhengzhou of Henan province. Police said no one was harmed during the process.

Ms Li has been detained on suspicion of damaging public transportation.

It remains unclear what type of punishment she would face, but such offence could result in a jail sentence between three to ten years, according to Chinese laws.
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi speaks at a meeting in Manila, the Philippines, January 9, 2020. Photo by Reuters/Willy Kurniawan.

Japan's Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Monday it was not true the government had decided to ease an entry ban for people from certain countries, including Vietnam.

The Yomiuri daily reported last week that Japan may restart business trips to and from Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam and Thailand in the next few months.

The government is examining ways to ease entry bans, taking into consideration various factors comprehensively, and would ease restrictions in stages if it decided to do so, Motegi told the parliament.

Motegi has agreed with his counterparts from Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand to discusss the possibility of re-allowing travel to those who need it, he said.

Japan currently has an entry ban in place for 111 countries and territories, , which was implemented to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected 213 countries and territories, and claimed nearly 436,000 lives. Japan has reported more than 17,000 infection cases and 925 deaths.

Vietnam has gone two months without community transmission caused by the virus. Of the 334 Covid-19 patients recorded in Vietnam, 323 have recovered.
The teaser trailer for Russell Brand's eagerly anticipated guest appearance on Neighbours has been released.

A short clip, shared by the long-running soap's Instagram account, gave a sneak peek of what to expect in the upcoming episode - which is set to air on Monday night.

Jarrod (played by Ryan Moloney) bumps into Russell at Harold's cafe, where he quizzes the British celebrity, 45, on what he was doing on Ramsay Street.

Scroll down for video

Exciting! The teaser trailer for Russell Brand's eagerly anticipated guest appearance on Neighbours has been released

'You're Russell Brand! What are you doing here?' Jarrod asks Russell while chowing down on a sweet treat.

Russell hilariously responds: 'Touring the world, spreading the message - life, love, limitless. I'm a writer and I enjoy festivities!'

The caption which accompanied the short video read: 'Sometimes you stop by Harold's for a coffee, other times you meet Russell Brand!

On brand! A short clip, shared by the long-running soap's Instagram account, gave a sneak peek of what to expect in the upcoming episode - which is set to air on Monday night

Funny! In the short clip, Jarrod (played by Ryan Moloney) bumps into Russell at Harold's cafe, where he quizzes the British celebrity, 45, on what he was doing on Ramsay Street

'Don't miss this epic cameo, tonight 6:30pm on @10peachau #Neighbours @russellbrand.'

Russell was in Australia earlier this year for his Recovery speaking tour and to film a cameo on Neighbours.

Neighbours executive producer Jason Herbison told the Herald Sun in March that they'd invited the actor to the set after learning he was a fan of the show.

Welcome to Ramsay Street! The British comedian will make the special appearance alongside Jarrod 'Toadfish' Rebecchi on Neighbours on Monday June 15

Just stopping by! Russell had filmed his cameo appearance while visiting Australia in March

'As it turned out, we were filming an upcoming storyline that gave an organic reason for him to pass through Ramsay Street and we're not just about his comedic talent - his literary genius plays a huge part,' Herbison said.

While filming in Melbourne, he took selfies with several cast members, including Tim Robards and April Rose Pengilly.

Neighbours airs weeknights at 6.30pm on 10 Peach
T he wife of an African-American man shot dead by police in Atlanta said "there is no justice" that can make up for the loss of her "best friend".

Rayshard Brooks, 27, was killed in an encounter with two white officers late on Friday, reigniting racial tensions and protests in Atlanta and prompting the police chief's resignation.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Mr Brooks' wife, Tomika Miller said his name will "forever be remembered".

"There's no justice that can make me feel happy about what's been done," she said.

"I can never get my husband - my best friend back. It's going to be a long time before I can heal."

Rayshard Brooks Protests - In pictures 1 /28 Rayshard Brooks Protests - In pictures People congregate outside a burned Wendys restaurant on the second day following the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in the restaurant parking lot AFP via Getty Images Ashley Dopson paints a picture of Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of the Wendy's AP "RIP Rayshard" is seen spray painted on the outside of a burned Wendys restaurant on the second day following the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in the restaurant parking lot AFP via Getty Images Protesters march from Atlanta Police Department headquarters to Wendy's AP A man holds a sign and a white rose in his fist while facing traffic outside a burned Wendys restaurant on the second day following the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks in the restaurant parking lot AFP via Getty Images People hold a rally at Wendy's on University Avenue in Atlanta AP Police use pepper spray to clear protesters who were attempting to block Interstate 75 in Atlanta AP A man is treated with milk from his own first aid backpack after being exposed to tear gas during a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks Reuters An Atlanta SWAT officer draws his weapon during a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks Reuters A rainbow shines at sunset beyond a burned Wendy's restaurant AP Police block a bridge after a day of marches Getty Images Eva Snow and Joseth Jett hug after Jett spray painted over the top of graffiti from the night before and painted RIP Rayshard. AP A group of protesters walks on a road after a night of protests during which a Wendy's restaurant was set ablaze overnight Getty Images A protester is detained after a few dozen marchers walked on a bridge blocked by police Getty Images A Wendy's is set on fire after the death of Rayshard Brooks Reuters People watch as a Wendy's burns down in Atlanta Reuters Protesters block University Avenue near the Atlanta Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was shot AP A memorial with roses and a sign is displayed near a sidewalk where Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by police AP Protestors block University Avenue outside the Wendy's fast food restaurant in Atlanta on Saturday AP Ashley Brooks speaks as protestors gather on University Ave near a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta. Georgia AP Protestors gather on University Ave near a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta. Georgia AP

The grieving mother urged demonstrators to keep protests peaceful to "keep his name positive."

Speaking about the protests she said: "Words can't explain how thankful I am. Even though I can't bring my husband back, his name will be forever remembered."

Mr Brooks' death follows three weeks of global Black Lives Matter demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd, an African American, in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Brooks' daughter Blessing was also present at the conference with her siblings Dream, Memory and Mekai.

Her father died on the day of her eighth birthday and she had been wearing her birthday dress waiting for him to take her skating before he died.

Tomika Miller and her children at the press conference (Sky News) / Sky

Mr Brooks' niece Chastity Evans said the family were "traumatised" by his death.

"Not only are we heartbroken - we are also angry," she said at the press conference.

"When does it stop? We're not only looking for justice, we're looking for change.

"Not only was he a good he a good Uncle that you could depend on, he also had the brightest smile, the biggest heart and he loved to dance since we were kids."

Mr Brooks' cousin Tiara Brooks added: "The only way to heal these wounds is through conviction and changes in the police department."

Rayshard Brooks was questioned by Atlanta police before he was shot dead / Atlanta police/Reuters

The family's attorney L. Chris Stewart told reporters that the protests against police brutality had just as much merit as the previous demonstrations for US politicians to end coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

He said: "We started seeing on the news a large amount of white Americans demanding change, coming out and rallying in the streets for Government to change laws.

"That is their right as Americans, and so why it so painful when African Americans step forward and demand change for police brutality?"

Mr Brooks' fatal encounter with police came after an employee of a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta phoned authorities to say that someone had fallen asleep in his car in the restaurant's drive-through lane.

A video released by Atlanta police, taken from the two officers' body cameras and a dashcam in their patrol car, showed officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan questioning Brooks for more than 40 minutes before he submitted to a breathalyser test.

Footage of Rayshard Brooks shooting released

After failing the test Brooks is seen breaking free from the officers as they try to handcuff him, before seizing a Taser and firing it it as he runs away. Officer Rolfe then fires his handgun three times, striking Brooks in the back.

The family's attorney suggested that it was dangerous for the Atlanta police to open fire in a "crowded car park" and showed journalists images of another vehicle that was hit by a stray bullet.

Mr Stewart said a man and his family had been in the car when it was hit by the bullet.

"It can't be justified," he said. "This type of empathy is gone. The first call was about a man who was sleeping in his car.

"Where is the empathy in just letting him walk home? That's what we're demanding - not just a change in laws and policy, but it's a mental change that is missing."

An autopsy conducted on Sunday showed that Mr Brooks died from blood loss and organ injuries caused by two gunshot wounds.

Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the fatal shots, had been sacked and officer Devin Brosnan was placed on desk duty.
Brianna Amingwa (left), environmental education supervisor, and Lamar Gore, manager of the John Heinz at the National Wildlife Refuge in Philadelphia on Friday. Read more

Brianna Amingwa and Lamar Gore stopped in mid-conversation when their ears caught a trill above the marshland at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum.

They quickly settled on the source: a warbling vireo, a tiny songbird with a big-throated sound that rises and dips as if asking the same question over and over.

While birding is a booming outdoor activity, Amingwa and Gore, both African American, fit into a much smaller slice of it that they hope grows.

The experience of black birders came to the forefront last month after a white woman called police on Christian Cooper, a black man who had asked her to leash her dog in New York Citys Central Park. Cooper was birding at the time.

While unrelated to his bird-watching, the experience motivated other black birders to unite and create an online community.

In response, a group of black scientists, including some with Philly roots, organized the first Black Birder Week, held May 31 to June 5. Within days, the group had 30,000 followers. Organizers encouraged participants to use the hashtag #BlackBirdersWeek to upload photos of birds they had spotted.

Amingwa, 27, an environmental education supervisor at Heinz Refuge, was one of the organizers of the national movement.

She said the goals were to make people aware there are black people actively involved in birding, as well as nature and science, and to start a conversation about what its like for non-white folks to go birding.

Gore, manager of the Heinz Refuge and a longtime birder, is a supporter of the movement. Hell be hosting a live Facebook conversation on the topic and other issues Monday at 1 p.m.

Heinz Refuge is within the Atlantic Flyway, a north-south migration route for birds. It is a prime East Coast viewing spot, typically filled with birders toting binoculars, tripods, and heavy, long camera lenses. The refuge boasts 90 species of nesting birds and more than 300 species overall, including bald eagles. Amingwas favorite bird to spot at the refuge is the yellow warbler. Its bright yellow with red streaks on the chest. I love the pop of color," she said.

After the incident with Christian Cooper in New York, "we had a huge dialogue in a group chat about how that made us all feel, Amingwa, of Drexel Hill, said. People have no idea those kinds of situations happen.

About 25 black birders across the country put together the weeklong social media event using the Twitter handle @BlackAFinSTEM.

I was shocked how quickly it grew from the first tweet, Amingwa said. There were folks from all over the world putting up tweets.

Historical discomfort

Black people who support environmental issues and enjoy the outdoors have a fraught history with being outside stemming from the Jim Crow-era when they could be harassed, or worse, if they ventured into woods or remote trails.

Amingwa, who has been birding since 2012, noted that there have always been black farmers, environmentalists, and hikers.

Thats a story that hasnt been told, she said.

 READ MORE: Why arent more black Americans going outdoors? Q&A with author Carolyn Finney

Reactions on trails toward black people can be overtly racist, but are mostly subtle, Amingwa and Gore say. They can range from a look of surprise at seeing a black person in an outdoor environment to deliberate actions to make them feel uncomfortable.

Its so subtle, Gore said. Its like, How did you get involved in this? Or, Oh, you went to that school? These are all subtle ways of saying, Its weird that youre here.

Birding organizations are mostly run and predominated by white people.

I told them Im not really accepted into this arena, Gore said of a conversation with one birding group.

He said some groups ask why more black people dont join. But he said the onus should be on the groups to reach out, not the other way around. Many black people wont join unless they know upfront they will be accepted, he said.

Things can escalate quickly

Corina Newsome, 27, who grew up in Germantown, was also one of the organizers of Black Birding Week. She is an ornithologist and graduate student at Georgia Southern University studying avian ecology.

All my family is in Philly and thats where I go home to for all the breaks and holidays, she said. While living in Germantown, she attended the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr.

My mom would take me and my sister to Chestnut Hill to get exposed to nature. Where I lived I wasnt in touch with the natural world. There wasnt a lot of greenspace, Newsome said.

In high school, she interned at the Philadelphia Zoo, where she learned about animal behavior.

She once took an ornithology course that required her to recognize 200 birds by sight and 75 by sound.

I got into it and really enjoyed it, Newsome said.

But her parents worried for her when she ventured outdoors alone.

That thing that happened to Christian is so familiar, Newsome said. We know things can escalate quickly and people assume you are doing something wrong because they are not used to seeing black people.

Newsome said people can mistake birding as creepy if someone is walking around a neighborhood with binoculars.

Adding blackness on top of that can make us feel particularly vulnerable, she said. Newsome noted that she has never been bothered, but her experiences as a light-skinned black woman are different than that of black men, she said.

Though some smaller birding groups have not always been welcoming, Newsome said the National Audubon Society has been.

There were way more supporters than naysayers, Newsome said.

A black birder livestream on the Audubon Societys Facebook page drew 200,000 viewers, she said.

For now, Newsome said the Black Birder Week organizers are discussing the possibility of forming a nonprofit and creating a permanent group.

All of us have professional expertise, she said. Some are mathematicians, scientists, or bird people like me. We want to draw young black people into the STEM field. But whats most important is for black people to see their own faces in the outdoor space.
The site of the troubled Geelong oil refinery has been earmarked for a major transformation that will include the construction of a new shipping terminal to import natural gas into Victoria and a solar farm.

As the 65-year-old refinery heads towards a loss of as much as $42.5 million in the first half of the year, down from an $18 million profit, Viva Energy unveiled an ambitious proposal to investors on Tuesday to turn the refinery site into an "energy hub" while retaining existing refining operations.

Viva Energy operates the Geelong oil refinery. Credit:Craig Sillitoe

The liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal planned for the site  to import gas from elsewhere in Australia and overseas  would be the second such project for Victoria, as AGL fights to gain environmental approval for a controversial floating gas-import facility in Western Port Bay.

Viva chief executive Scott Wyatt told The Age that diversifying the Geelong refinery's 235-hectare site to house new energy technologies would provide ongoing employment for the refinery's 700 workers and "potentially support the development of new jobs and skills in a key regional centre".
America can be proud of many things: our innovation, generosity and entrepreneurial spirit are unsurpassed. Yet when it comes to our nation understanding one of the greatest gifts ever given to humanitythe Biblewe're moving from dumb to dumber, and it's no laughing matter.
YEREVAN.  Parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan was questioned at the National Security Service (NSS) Investigation Department Sunday as part of a criminal case against former State Revenue Committee (SRC) chairman Gagik Khachatryan and several others. Tsarukyan's lawyer Emin Khachatryan stated about this in a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am on Monday.

"He was not been questioned in any of those three criminal cases that are launched [involving him]. Mr. Tsarukyan was questioned in the criminal case initiated against SRC ex-chairman Gagik Khachatryan, [businessman] Sedrak Arustamyan, and many others," Khachatryan said, in particular.

"Gagik Tsarukyan was questioned for the first time within the framework of that criminal case. I believe that there could be no contradictions in the testimonies, as Mr. Tsarukyan did not have valuable information for the investigation."

Referring to the statement by the members of the majority My Step faction in parliament that Tsarukyan had been aware of the mentioned criminal cases for a long time, the lawyer said. "Gagik Tsarukyan was not aware of the specific criminal cases. (). Gagik Tsarukyan found out about the existence of these criminal cases yesterdayearly in the morning the NSS employees visited his residence address and presented search warrants.

It is noteworthy that, according to the lawyer, the criminal case on vote buying was initiated back in February. "The criminal case on casinos was initiated on June 13, 2020; the criminal case on electoral fraud was initiated on February 1, 2020," he said

Asked what confiscated from Tsarukyan's mansion as a result of the search, the lawyer said: "In our opinion, there were no documents of any significance for the investigation, which they took. They took general notes about their business activities; they took his little son's computer. (...). For example, they took a USB flash drive with videos of family events.

Touching upon the issue of stripping Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary immunity, Emin Khachatryan said: "The information about the prosecutor's going to the National Assembly and submitting a [respective] petition is contradictory at the moment. I am not convinced that this is how things will turn out. Even if he goes, I can say that there is no legal basis to strip Mr. Tsarukyan of his [parliamentary] immunity. First of all, these initiated criminal cases are groundless because Gagik Tsarukyan has nothing to do with these criminal cases. 

To note, the NSS investigators on Sunday searched Gagik Tsarukyan's mansion and the enterprises belonging to him.

Then, the NSS issued statements on three criminal cases involving the PAP leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than 29 billion drams in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj communitywhere Gagik Tsarukyan residesof Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased, and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about 370 million drams were not transferred to Arinj's budget.
GETTY

The federal government says it is working on a solution to extend the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit (CERB) for the 8.4 million unique applicants relying on it. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not give details in a press conference Monday morning, but said there would be more to announce later this week. Before today, the July 4 end date was fast-approaching, prompting concerns for Canadians who may not have a job to return to post-pandemic or for the many workers who have had their hours significantly reduced.

This is not the only concern for the Canadian workforce. Last week, the federal government introduced Bill C-17, a draft federal bill to include additional COVID-19 measures, including amendments to the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), CERB, and the Income Tax Act. One of the amendments proposes to disqualify workers from CERB if they have refused a reasonable job offer or dont return to their job when it is reasonable to do so. Armine Yalnizyan, Canadian economist and Atkinson Fellow on the future of workers, says that this new legislation is punitive for low-income workers. The piece of legislation received first reading last week and failed to secure opposition support to fast-track it. The bill has been stalled as unanimous consent was needed from the opposition parties in a single day.

The way the draft legislation is phrased, all of the responsibilities and risks are placed on workers to return to work, Yalnizyan told Yahoo Finance Canada, Whether work is safe, whether they've got the supports in place to return to work  everythings on the worker. Theres no responsibility for the employer.

There are also no penalties to employers for not providing a safe work environment needed for a return to normal, which could include space to impose six-foot distancing measures, plexiglass guards, and the property protective gear to work with the public. Yalnizyan also criticized the labour-on-demand trend, where she says employers have significantly scaled back hours, paid rates considerably below pre-COVID levels, and created irregular work schedules.

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They're completely on demand labor. And the people that have the least control are the ones that always had the least control.

Yalnizyan added that the lack of certainty around employee hours makes it difficult to plan for things like childcare services and challenges like long commutes wouldnt justify a shorter working shift. If workers decide they cannot return to work for any reason, they are deemed to have quit and are not eligible for employment insurance (EI).

Many CERB criticisms were centred around employers struggling to find the workers they needed to get their businesses going again. Yalnizyan says the narrative puts much of the blame on workers and ignores businesses failure to provide a proper post-pandemic working environment.

We're not hearing any of the stories in the media about how employers have cut hours, made hours more erratic, have cut pay, or not providing safe workplaces, she said.

Another concern during the COVID-19 pandemic is the possibility of a second wave after the country emerges from lockdown, which economists say could have serious financial implications and public health impacts.

We are going to have less economic activity permanently, or at least for a very long time because of closures, said Yalnizyan, So, we will see a health crisis transform into a continued economic crisis, which will unleash a tsunami of insolvencies, both at the household and corporate level.

Yalnizyan warns that a lockdown lifted too hastily will prolong the financial downturn, presenting more challenges to households, businesses and governments. Companies that were able to survive during the pandemic may not be able to bear the brunt of a second wave, leading to more strain in the job market.

The immediate solution would be to extend CERBs eligibility and not to abruptly cut off the millions of Canadians who have been relying on it, according to Yalnizyan, who says it could make sense to extend the program two weeks at a time.

A lot of those people will not have jobs to go back to. Those businesses haven't opened up or can't open up fully, Yalnizyan said. But the bigger issue that COVID has revealed is our inadequate systems of income support for working age adults.

By this, she means that many working Canadians had no safety net to protect them from an economic downturn. EI was designed for workers with full-time nine-to-five jobs who found themselves temporarily unemployed, and welfare is meant for those who could not work for extended periods of time.

We don't have an income support program for people that can work, do work, but don't know how much work they have and have no control over their incomes, Yalnizyan said, And you don't want too big a portion of the labor market to be functioning that way and thats the direction we seem to be moving in.

Could CERB become basic income?

At the outset of the CERB program, many universal basic income advocates argued that the $2,000 monthly benefit could be extended to a guaranteed income. Yalnizyan says that shouldnt be the end game here.

CERB was designed to keep people at home so we could contain the contagion, she explained, It was designed to disincentivize work, but you don't want that over the long term.
In 2014, Zhang Juyue set up a cooperative in her hometown bringing local women together to make distinctive Qiang ethnic hand embroidery and sell it on the internet. [For China Daily]

The culture of an ethnic group is undergoing a revival that is also helping pull people from poverty.

When the 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake struck at 2.28 pm on May 12, 2008, sending ripples as far afield as Russia, Thailand and Taiwan, it was clear that any town or village not far from its epicenter was likely to be severely shaken and probably devastated as well.

One of those towns is about 150 kilometers northwest of Wenchuan in the mountainous Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan.

Only after days of frantic efforts to save lives could an accurate assessment of the quake's dreadful toll be made: nearly 87,000 people dead, 374,000 injured and nearly 18,000 missing, in addition, of course, to the thousands of buildings left in ruins.

Hidden in those raw figures is the devastation visited upon one of China's oldest ethnic groups, the Qiang. Not only did the quake literally decimate the Qiang, killing 20,000 of them, but it lay to waste precious Qiang culture, including hundreds of traditional buildings that were toppled and myriad cultural relics that were destroyed.

In 2014, Zhang Juyue set up a cooperative in her hometown bringing local women together to make distinctive Qiang ethnic hand embroidery and sell it on the internet. [For China Daily]

One of the 180,000 or so members of the Qiang ethnic group who survived was Zhang Juyue, 18 years old when the quake struck and a first-year student studying mechanical engineering at Chengdu Aeronautic Polytechnic.

The village in which Zhang was born and raised is in Xuecheng, an ancient town with a history that goes back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), which is home to the Qiang and Tibetan ethnic people, most of whom live in mountainous or hilly areas. These rich assets make Xuecheng, despite its remoteness, a big tourist draw.

"Luckily, my family were safe even if our house was destroyed," says Zhang, 30.

Zhang Juyue now works with about 120 Qiang women from 30 to 70 years old, who turn Qiang embroidery into items that fit contemporary life. [For China Daily]

The earthquake forced many Qiang ethnic people to leave the area to find work in cities, but Zhang eventually decided to take the journey in the opposite direction.

Five years after the earthquake and a few years after graduating from college, she quit her job as a public servant, and in 2014 she set up a cooperative in her hometown bringing local women together to make distinctive Qiang ethnic hand embroidery and sell it on the internet.

She named her online shop Xi Yue, meaning happiness. Though it was exactly this that her career change would bring her, when she made her decision it confounded many of her relatives and others in her hometown, many of whom have come to be believe that city life holds the promise of nirvana.

"Qiang ethnic people and embroidery are inextricably linked in their culture and throughout history, and I had been interested in the bright handcrafted Qiang cotton and silk works since when I was a child," Zhang says. "I was keen to let more people know about the great culture of the Qiang."

Zhang's mother is the leader of the village's women's federation and helped local women to sell their embroidery products.

Qiang ethnic people and embroidery are inextricably linked in their culture and throughout history. [For China Daily]

"The Qiang people have no written language, so the Qiang embroidery is carried forward only by hand and word of mouth," Zhang says.

With her online shop on Taobao and promoting the handcrafted embroidery products via social media platforms, Zhang steadily gained a following, especially among young buyers who like to put embroidered patterns to use in clothing, bags and accessories.

"Many Qiang women make embroidery for their own use and are unaware of how they can turn their handicrafts into commercial products," Zhang says. "Many of those who are, and who have never left their village see their products travel to different parts of the country and even throughout the world."

Having learned to do embroidery herself, she feels she can better present and explain products to customers. She also conducts workshops training local women so they can join the cooperative. She now works with about 120 Qiang women from 30 to 70 years old, who turn Qiang embroidery into items that fit contemporary life.

Zhang says she receives orders from all over China. The women of her cooperative produce every day based on the size and pattern of the embroidery products, and they can earn between 500 yuan ($70) and 3,000 yuan a month.

In addition to making embroidery products, villagers make a living by growing vegetables and raising livestock. The average income of the villagers is from 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan.

"Some disabled women cannot do farm work," Zhang says.

Zhang Juyue, 30, Qiang embroidery promoter. [For China Daily]

"The cooperative gives them the opportunity to make embroidery products and to make money from them. The good thing is that they don't have to leave their families to work in cities, and the income they earn gives them better lives."

Making traditional handicrafts has become a source of income for local women, but turning the art into products for modern consumption remains a key challenge for Zhang. She now runs eight shops, including four cooperative shops, across the country, to increase individual sales.

One of her most popular products is a cell phone case with flowery patterns inspired by the Qiang ethic group, such as rhododendrons, commonly seen in Zhang's village, and rhombus-shaped patches with thread of red, green and white, symbolizing passion for life, for nature and for good spirits.

Now Zhang, who gave birth to her first child five months ago, plans to take Qiang embroidery to primary and middle schools, aiming to raise awareness of Qiang traditional culture and to make Qiang embroidery sustainable.

(Source: China Daily)
One week after black lawmakers commandeered the rostrum in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives chamber to demand action on police reform, they will see their peaceful demonstration begin to pay off.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee will consider some bills that would make long-desired changes to policing and police practices.

If approved, as is expected, the legislation could be positioned for a vote by the full House before the one-month anniversary of May 25, the day George Floyd died after being pinned on a Minneapolis street under police officer Derek Chauvins knee, with it all captured on video for the world to see.

Then, later this week, the Senate Judiciary and Law and Justice committees will hold a two-day hearing to vet potential public safety reforms it might consider arising out of Floyds death and the subsequent protests it has sparked across the nation and world.

After years of seeing legislation to address the need for more police accountability and crackdown on police brutality languish, House Minority Whip Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, is calling it a new day and one that citizens, businesses, and corporations are seizing to force changes to address racial inequities.

Policing reform is a start and theres a lot we can get done there but I think its a new day in our commonwealth and quite honestly in our country with how we address the issues of those who are marginalized and I think more people are paying attention to that, he said. So I think its important as a legislative body that we recognize those things and address those things.

Rep. Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin County, who chairs the judiciary committee in the House, said the committee today will consider two bills that are expected to be amended to include other proposed police reforms.

Once through the committee, the legislation appears likely to be put to a vote by the full House the following week and can be sent to the Senate.

One of the bills the committee will consider is House Bill 1841. It closes a loophole in current law that allows former employers to withhold information on complaints or disciplinary actions involving an officer out of fear of civil liability.

It would require law enforcement agencies to make full disclosure of any current or former officers personnel files for hiring background checks without having to fear getting sued for sharing that information with another department looking to hire the officer.

An amendment, still being worked on at least as late as Friday afternoon, would create a database of officers who have demonstrated documented patterns of excessive use of force or other misconduct. It would be maintained by the Office of Attorney General and law enforcement agencies would be required to check it before hiring an officer.

This idea of a database has the support of several law enforcement organizations that are part of a coalition formed by Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The Pennsylvania State Troopers Association is among them.

Officers who engage in misconduct or use excessive force erode trust in law enforcement and make it harder for our communities to be and feel safe, the troopers association said in a news release. When they leave an agency, or retire in lieu of termination, that record needs to go with them. We stand united in calling for reform of the hiring process so that law enforcement agencies have the information to make informed decisions about the personnel they hire.

The other bill the committee will consider, House Bill 1910, would require training for police officers to recognize signs of child abuse and become mandated reporters of suspected abuse and neglect much like school teachers and others are. An amendment expected to be considered to that bill would require police officers to be tested for post-traumatic stress disorder every two years and within 30 days of any lethal use-of-force incident.

Whatever we do, we want to make sure its good and will actually work and very frankly, most police organizations are supportive of those kind of things as well, Kauffman said.

Les Neri, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Pennsylvania State Lodge, agreed that his organization is always pursuing ways to improve its profession and willing to consider common sense solutions to problems that may exist with policing in this state. But thats where it gets confusing for him, he said.

The Pennsylvania Legislature, some members of it, are reacting to situations and environments outside of Pennsylvania, Neri said. When anybody moves too fast to address problems they havent properly identified and solutions that havent been properly vetted, I think that makes it dangerous for everybody.

Still, he said they are reviewing the legislation under consideration in the House and look forward to offering some testimony at a Senate hearing to be held on Wednesday and Thursday that will evaluate potential reforms as well as review laws on the books for weaknesses and ways they could be improved.

Pennsylvania desperately needs constructive conversation about finding a balance in police and community relations and taking effective steps to deal with biases seen in the law, procedure, and attitudes that perpetuate the corrosive racial divide that diminishes the value and scope of freedom for everyone, said Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne County, who chairs the judiciary committee.

We do not want to simply run legislation so we can pat ourselves on the back nor do we want to stick our head in the sand, Sen. Pat Stefano, R-Westmoreland County, who chairs the law and justice committee.

Rather we want to engage in a thoughtful process. That means gathering information by bringing all sides together. Its an emotional and personal issue. We need to gather the evidence to take us from a thoughtful process to thoughtful legislation.

Sens. Art Haywood, D-Philadelphia, and Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington County, who chair the Criminal Justice Reform Caucus and are members of the judiciary committee, pledged to work in bipartisan fashion to address necessary policing reforms and restore the trust broken between police and communities by Floyds death.

All people should be treated with dignity and respect, Haywood said in a statement. It is time for police departments to provide proper training, use-of-force policies and de-escalation tactics. Black lives matter. Proper policing methods must be established to make appropriate recommendations.

We must begin to listen to each others experiences so that we can move forward together and stronger, Bartolotta said in the statement.

Even with the attention that police reform is getting in both chambers in an unusually expedited fashion, Harris and other House members , including retiring House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, are urging Gov. Tom Wolf to call a special session to give laser beam focus," as Harris said, on other police reform issues.

Theres power in my view to at least making that declaration that were going to come to the peoples house, the peoples senate and were only going to discuss this issue because it is of that great importance, Harris said.

While not on the House Judiciary Committees agenda for action on Monday, other police reforms Harris and other House Democratic members would like to see include establishing a mandatory, independent review process like the appointment of a special prosecutor for all officer-involved deaths.

A bill Harris himself will soon introduce would end the blanket qualified immunity for the use of unjustified or excessive force that results in serious bodily injury or death. Qualified immunity prevents government officials, including law enforcement, from being held personally liable for breaking the law.

"This prevents bad actors from being held accountable and leads to systemic abuse, which unevenly impacts black and brown communities in Pennsylvania, Harris said.

Other reform bills that have been offered would eliminate effectuating an arrest as a justification for an officers use of deadly force against a suspect, meaning a suspect couldnt be shot at simply because he is trying to escape, and banning the use of chokeholds or other pressure on an arrestees airways as a method of detention.

Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate said they think faster action can be taken outside a special session. Wolf, who has offered his own law enforcement reform agenda that includes many of the same ideas in play in the House, said he is willing to call for a special session if asked by a majority of members of both chambers.

To date, the Legislature has called 17 special sessions over the past 60 years to focus on public policy issues. Many of them have failed to be productive and filled with days where a chamber gavels in and immediately gavels out without taking action on any legislation.

Harris is optimistic that wouldnt be the case with this issue.

Leaders would be hard pressed to gavel in and gavel out on such an important issue, he said. It would be grave mistake in my mind.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is willing to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on the company's competitive practices, according to a letter sent to the committee on Sunday and later obtained by CNBC.

In the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times, Amazon said it was "committed to cooperating" with the committee's inquiry, including making Bezos "available to testify at a hearing" with other tech CEOs later this summer. Robert K. Kelner, an attorney from Covington & Burling, the law firm representing Amazon in the antitrust matter, sent the letter to the committee.

"Of course, we will need to resolve a number of questions regarding timing, format and outstanding document production issues, all necessarily framed by the extraordinary demands of the global pandemic," the letter states. "In addition, we think it bears emphasizing that other senior executives now run the businesses that are the actual subject of the Committee's investigation."

Amazon confirmed that it would make Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with other CEOs this summer. Kelner didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the letter, Kelner expressed concerns about the scope of the committee's questions, which he said "sought detailed information on an extraordinarily wide range of complex topics." Amazon has also raised concerns about the committee protecting documents with confidential information about its business, Kelner added.

"The testimony of CEOs and the production of internal documents is essential to complete this bipartisan investigation into the state of competition in the digital marketplace," House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline said in a statement. "The Antitrust Subcommittee will continue to use the tools at our disposal to ensure we gather whatever information is necessary for our work."

Cicilline is leading an investigation into Amazon and its tech peers that will culminate in a report about the health of competition in digital markets.

Last month, Amazon resisted demands for Bezos to appear before the committee, saying it would "make the appropriate executive available" for testimony. The committee in May called for Bezos to testify after Democratic leaders said they suspected Amazon of lying to Congress.

The committee also threatened to subpoena Bezos if he didn't comply.

Top Democrats on the committee said they suspected Amazon of lying to Congress over its private label strategy, after a recent Wall Street Journal report on the company's use of third-party seller data appeared to contradict an Amazon executive's previous testimony on its treatment of sellers.

The Journal investigation found Amazon employees used non-aggregated or easily identifiable data from third-party sellers to figure out which products to make on its own. The report was based on interviews with more than 20 former Amazon employees and documents reviewed by the Journal.

The report appeared to contradict testimony by Amazon's associate general counsel Nate Sutton at a July hearing, during which he denied that individual seller data is used to manipulate search algorithms to favor Amazon's own products, or in any other way to directly compete with merchants.

Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are the only two CEOs of the five biggest tech firms by market cap  Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook  who have never before testified in front of Congress. Amazon has faced scrutiny over the past year as lawmakers and regulators assess issues of privacy and dominance among tech companies.

Read the full story in The New York Times.

 CNBC's Lauren Feiner contributed to this report.
TORONTO, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - NEW WAVE HOLDINGS CORP. (the "Company" or "New Wave Holdings") (CSE: SPOR) (Frankfurt: 0XM2) (OTC: TRMND), is an investment issuer focused on emerging sectors including the psychedelic sector, is pleased to announce that it has brought on Dr. Dennis McKenna, Ph.D. to its Psychedelic Research Advisory Board ("Advisory Board").

Dr. Dennis McKenna is an internationally recognized expert in psychedelic medicine, an American ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacologist, lecturer and author. Dr. McKenna was formerly on the Editorial Board of Phytomedicine, International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology. He is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Hefter Research Institute and on the advisory board of non-profit organizations in the ethnobotany and botanical fields.

New Wave Holdings, through its investment in Anahit Therapeutics Ltd. ("Anahit"), is developing a series of medicinal mushroom products for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. The Company is focused on active psychedelic compounds as well as functional mushroom products with lines derived from lion's mane, Reishi, and cordyceps mushrooms.

The Company is also developing an IP portfolio focused on psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and ketamine derived treatments for neuropsychiatric diseases (addiction, depression, anxiety, PTSD).

"We are pleased to share that Dr. Dennis McKenna has agreed to play an integral role on the Psychedelic Research Advisory Board. He will support the Company's research and goals of developing and commercializing of psychedelic compound derived neuropsychiatric treatments," said Trumbull Fisher, President of New Wave Holdings.

Dr. McKenna will assist in the development an IP strategy, acting as a liaison to key industry players and providing introductions.

About Dr. Dennis McKenna, Ph.D.

Dennis McKenna's professional and personal interests are focused on the interdisciplinary study of ethnopharmacology and natural hallucinogens. He received his doctorate in 1984 from the University of British Columbia, where his research focused on ethnopharmacological investigations of Ayahuasca and oo-koo-he, two indigenous Amazonian psychedelic medicines. He completed post-doctoral studies at the Helicon Foundation in San Diego (1984-86), the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology at NIMH (1986-88) and the Department of Neurology at Stanford University (1988-1990). He worked at Shaman Pharmaceuticals as Director of Ethnopharmacology from 1990-93 and relocated to Minnesota in 1993 to join the Aveda Corporation as Senior Research Pharmacognosist.

Dr. McKenna taught courses in Ethnopharmacology, Botanical Medicines and Plants in Human Affairs in the Center for Spirituality and Healing at the University of Minnesota from 2001 to 2017. He is a founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute and serves on the advisory board of non-profit organizations in the fields of ethnobotany and botanical medicines. He was a key organizer and participant in the Hoasca Project, an international biomedical study of Ayahuasca used as a sacrament by the UDV, a syncretic religious group in Brazil. From 2004 to 2008, he was the Principal Investigator on a project funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute to investigate Amazonian ethnomedicines for the treatment of schizophrenia and cognitive deficits. In 2017, with the collaboration of many colleagues, he organized and presented a landmark symposium, the Ethnopharmacologic Search for Psychoactive Drugs: 50 years of Research. The conference commemorated the 50th anniversary of the original conference held in San Francisco in 1967. Synergetic Press published a limited edition of the Proceedings of both the 1967 and 2017 symposia as a double volume set in 2018.

In the spring of 2019, in collaboration with colleagues in Canada and the U.S., he incorporated a new non-profit, the McKenna Academy of Natural Philosophy. He emigrated to Canada in the spring of 2019 together with his wife Sheila, and now resides in Abbotsford, B.C.

ABOUT NEW WAVE HOLDINGS CORP.

New Wave Holdings Corp. (CSE: SPOR, FWB: 0XM2, OTC:TRMND) is an investment issuer focused on the burgeoning psychedelic and esports sectors. In the psychedelic sector, New Wave will focus on active psychedelic compounds, functional mushroom product lines, and develop an IP portfolio focusing on psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and ketamine derived treatments for neuropsychiatric diseases.

Investors interested in connecting with New Wave Holdings can learn more about the company and contact the team at http://newwavecorp.com

Media interested in interviews and more information may contact Brittany Whitmore at [email protected].

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The securities issued in connection with the Transaction and the Offering have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "1933 Act"), or under any state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold, directly or indirectly, or delivered within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons (as defined in Regulation S under the 1933 Act) absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy such securities in the United States.

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION DISCLAIMER

Certain statements contained in this news release may constitute forwardlooking information, including but not limited to, expansion of operations. Forwardlooking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "anticipate", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "intend", "should", and similar expressions. Forwardlooking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forwardlooking information. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in this forwardlooking information as a result of competitive factors and competition for investment opportunities, challenges relating to operations in international markets, transaction execution risk, changes to the Company's strategic growth plans, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forwardlooking information are reasonable based on current expectations and potential investment pipeline, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forwardlooking information should not be unduly relied upon. Any forwardlooking information contained in this news release represents the Company's expectations as of the date hereof and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forwardlooking information whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities legislation.

SOURCE New Wave Holdings Corp.
Musa Thomo is operations manager at Sparrow FET College, a social enterprise that specifically caters for the disenfranchised youth of South Africa.

Musa Thomo, operations manager, Sparrow FET College

Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.

Tell us a bit about what Sparrow FET College does and its roots.

What makes you most passionate about the work you do at the college?

What are some of the major strides the Sparrow FET College has made thus far in advancing youth empowerment in SA?

What are some of the most significant challenges for South Africa's youth? How do you believe we can overcome them?

How is the Sparrow FET College innovating in the face of the Covid-19 crisis in SA?

What to you is the significance of Youth Month in 2020?

Words you live by?

This #YouthMonth, we chat to Thomo to find out more about his work at Sparrow FET College, how the organisation is advancing youth empowerment in SA, and how we can address some of our most significant challenges, in particular, the current Covid-19 crisis.I was born in the mid-80s in a strict Zulu cultural background. I count myself blessed to still have both my parents alive, which I draw a lot of inspiration from. I hold a tertiary qualification in Public Relations Management and Communication, and I have worked within the education space for just over 10 years, giving me various skills within my line of work.Sparrow Schools Educational Trust was founded in 1989 by our general manager, Jackie Gallagher, with the idea to bring about some sort of a balance/equality within the then education system which didnt offer adequate support for children with learning disabilities.Sparrow FET College was then established in 2011 where we strive to improve the lives of learners and youth with learning difficulties by creating excellent educational opportunities tailored to their specific needs. We prepare the youth, who experience barriers to learning, for future employment. We do this through a comprehensive curriculum which includes learning support and training in vocational skills.Sparrow FET College, a social enterprise that caters specifically to the disenfranchised youth of South Africa, partners with industry to fund our programmes, ensuring that there is no training cost to the learners. All of our learners are assessed by an in-house psychometrist before entering the college to ensure that they are offered programmes that suit their interests and that they are capable of completing. Our classes are intentionally kept small so that we can offer our learners hands on support. Our Occupational Skills programmes have a maximum of 20 learners per class and our Soft Skills programmes have a maximum of 30 learners per class.My role as the operations manager at Sparrow FET College is to oversee the high-level HR duties at the college, and also create a space where staff can grow and thrive in order to best empower our students. My other duties include ensuring the smooth operation of the college through overseeing four other departments that are involved respectively in learner recruitment, training, job placement, and learner well-being.My job, which allows me to be in the midst of youth development, and the opportunity to transform ordinary youth into economically contributing citizens of the country, is what drives me and what I am most passionate about.As a social enterprise training model, Sparrow FET College continues to address the challenges in education, and the skills deficit in our country. This historic deficit has not been adequately resolved since independence and continues to cause widespread unemployment and poverty.Sparrow FET College is committed to continue providing youth, including persons with disabilities, the opportunity to gain access to a formal qualification and, hopefully, employment.Over two decades after South Africas first democratic election, the realities facing young people remain as troubling as ever due to issues such as crime, poverty, unequal educational opportunities, unemployment, and drug abuse. I believe that the root of many challenges faced by todays South African youth stems from the lack of quality in our education system.According to statistics, South Africa currently ranks 128th out of 137 countries for its quality of Maths and Science education. For me, improving our education system and offering better quality education (through institutions such as Sparrow FET College) is essential for breaking the cycle of poverty and liberating young people.The Covid-19 pandemic has forced training institutions like Sparrow FET College to re-look and improve our traditional methods of content delivery to a more user-friendly online platform. With the lockdown restrictions due to the Covid-19 crisis, and Sparrows commitment to reaching marginalised students, it has become apparent that our footprint must be broadened.Sparrow FET College is in a process of converting learning programmes to an online platform. The future is in information technology; online education and training is a solution to reach the youth.This year marks 44 years since the youth of 1976 stood up against the apartheid government and laid their lives fighting for freedom and the right to equal education. In 2020, the common enemy for the youth is different to that of 1976, in that today we are fighting against poverty, corruption, illiteracy, and unemployment, to mention a few. It is, therefore, fitting for the youth of today to equip themselves with education as a weapon to fight against this new enemy. It is only through education that we can combat poverty, illiteracy, corruption and unemployment.Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. (Henry Ford 1863  1947)
New Delhi: Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) is all set to announce the result of intermediate first and the second year in a few days. The students who appeared for these exams would be able to check their results after vising TSBIE's official websites- tsbie.cgg.gov.in, results.cgg.gov.in.

A total of 9.65 lakh students appeared in the intermediate exam this year in the state. Notably, the state government has decided not to conduct the pending SSC exam this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The students will get grades according to their performance in internal assessment.

For checking their intermediate result, students can also register them at the state government's mobile app--T App Folio--by posting their credentials including name, phone number, and other details.

Last year, the Telangana inter board result was announced on April 18. The results this year have been delayed in the wake of preventive measures taken by the state to contain the spread of coronavirus.

The students are required to secure at least 35 per cent marks in each subject and aggregate to clear these exams. Last year, a total of 58.2 per cent students had cleared the intermediate exam.

The Andhra Pradesh Board, BIEAP, however, declared the intermediate result on June 12. A total of 59 per cent students have passed the intermediate first year exams, while 63 per cent cleared the second year examination this year.
Hyderabad, June 15 : Telangana Governor, Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan on Monday interacted with eminent personalities and experts on combating Covid-19 pandemic.

She held the interaction from the Raj Bhavan, through video conferencing, to take stock of the present situation and explore the way forward.

"Construction suggestions to take forward to benefit public at large," she tweeted.

The participants in the video conference included former Union Health Secretary K. Sujatha Rao, former Director General of Police H.J. Dora, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Director Dr Rakesh Mishra, Apollo Group of Hospitals President, Dr Hariprasad and Indian Medical Association, Telanagana President, Dr Vijender Reddy, Telangana's first Covid patient to get plasma therapy, Vamsi Mohan, and US-based Covid-19 and kidney researcher, Dr Swaminathan.

The outcomes of the interaction will be documented and shared with the state government for consideration while planning effective containment of Covid-19, said a Raj Bhavan statement.

The Governor had last week visited the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) to show solidarity with the healthcare workers affected by Covid-19 while discharging their duties.

Soundararajan, herself a doctor, had told reporters after coming out of the hospital that she personally met medicos, nurses and paramedics who got infected and wished them a speedy recovery.

She had earlier voiced her concern over growing number of Covid-19 cases in the state.

There has been a surge in Covid-19 cases in Telangana in over last few days. On Sunday, it reported 237 cases, pushing the state's tally to 4,974.

The disease has so far claimed 185 lives.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a substantial correction on the Toronto Stock Exchange. At its worst, the S&P/TSX Composite Index fell by 34.34% from the beginning of 2020. In particular, one stock found itself in deeper trouble than the broader market during the same period.

As the novel coronavirus-fueled decline hit its worst, Canadian Natural Resources (TSX:CNQ)(NYSE:CNQ) went as low as 73.32% from its price at the start of the year.

After a rally in the markets during May, the surge saw CNQ recover by a substantial margin. At writing, the stock is trading for $24.25 per share, and it is up by more than 120% from its mid-March 2020 low.

Buy for a profit or ditch and cut losses?

Moving forward, the sudden surge makes it look like Canadian Natural Resources could be an excellent asset to help investors make some fast cash. The stock has climbed a lot, but it still has a long way to go before it can reach its former highs.

If you buy the stock at its current price, the conditions improve, and it reaches its pre-pandemic high, you could be in for a 40% profit, despite missing the bottom. But what if the stock does not reach values close to $41?

The current market rally might not be as excellent as it seems on the surface. There are chances that we might witness another decline in the stock market. According to experts, another 40% decline might be on its way soon. If that happens, CNQ investors might lose everything.

The oil market is volatile

If you have been an investor with interest in the oil sector, you are no stranger to the utter volatility in this industry. Due to a slew of reasons, energy producers in Canada, like CNQ, continue to face several challenges.

Currently, the pandemic is destroying the global demand for oil. People around the world are preferring to stay indoors, and there is no unnecessary travel. The demand for crude oil has fallen from 35 million barrels to 27 million barrels per day.

Before the pandemic even struck, the oil industry was already in a rut courtesy of a historic slump in oil prices caused by an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. While the two have reached a deal, the dwindling demand is keeping commodity prices the lowest they have been in a long time.

Story continues

Should you buy the stock?

Canadian Natural Resourcess profits directly rely on the price of oil. Any changes in value have a drastic impact on their revenues. Oil prices fell below the US$20-per-barrel mark at one point. However, things seem to be looking brighter for the industry, as economies gradually begin to open around the world.

CNQ lowered its cost base in the last few years. The business seems to be in a positive cash flow considering the latest environment. While there is slight positivity there, I do not think that we can see the company reach its pre-pandemic share prices soon.

Foolish takeaway

I dont think Canadian Natural Resources is a billionaire maker. I also do not think its the most terrible investment. The company has enough liquidity to keep it from hitting $0, but it does not have the kind of cash flow to make it soar. The company does not even have a say in dictating its future.

I would advise patience and caution with the stock.

The post This Oil Stock Dropped Over 70%: A Fantastic Buy or Terrible Bust? 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
Two Indian High Commission staff members in Pakistan are reported to be missing for the past two hours, while on official work, as per sources at the Indian High Commission in Pakistan. The Ministry of External Affairs has also been informed about the missing staff members in Pakistan and the matter has been taken up by the Indian authorities with the Pakistan authorities.

Sources revealed that concern was raised after an Indian vehicle did not reach its destination in Pakistan. Two of the High Commission staff members were said to be in that vehicle that went missing since morning on Monday.

"Two Indian High Commission staff members are missing since morning while on official work. The matter has been taken up with the Pakistani authorities," said official sources from Indian High Commission, Pakistan.

This comes just days after Indian High Commission staff including India's Charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia were harassed by Pakistan ISI agents on their way home.

Further details are awaited.

Indian Diplomat tailed by ISI

A week ago, the vehicle of India's Charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia was chased by an ISI member. The Pakistani intelligence service has also stationed multiple persons in cars and bikes outside the Indian diplomat's residence in an attempt to harass and intimidate him. This comes shortly after two Pakistan High Commission officials were apprehended in India for espionage and were declared 'persona non grata' by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Following this, the Delhi Police special cell is actively probing the case filed under the Official Secrets Act 1923 which largely deals with offences pertaining to spying, sabotage and related crimes.

Read: Pakistan Embassy Spies Booked Under Secrets Act; Delhi Cops To Probe Despite Their Return

Read: ISI Member Chases Indian Diplomat's Vehicle In Pak, Stations Spies Outside His Residence
A retired New York City surgeon was on an American Airlines flight to Los Angeles when he infected other passengers with the coronavirus, but health officials reportedly failed to tell them they were at risk.

The 69-year-old surgeon was on his way to Los Angeles on March 19 so he could move into dementia-care facility Silverado Beverly Place, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Just before his flight, the surgeon had been discharged from a hospital in New York City, where the coronavirus was rapidly spreading with about 3,700 confirmed cases at the time.

He was seated in first class and 49 other passengers and eight crew members were on board.

A retired New York City surgeon was on an American Airlines flight (file image) to Los Angeles when he infected other passengers with the coronavirus, but health officials reportedly failed to tell them they were at risk

The 69-year-old surgeon was on his way to Los Angeles on March 19 so he could move into dementia-care facility Silverado Beverly Place (pictured)

Once he arrived in Los Angeles, he was taken to Silverado where employees claim he wasn't immediately quarantined from other residents.

According to the Times, Brittany Bruner-Ringo, a nurse assigned to the surgeon, told her family and a colleague that the surgeon had a fever and a cough when he arrived, a claim that officials from Silverado have denied.

Redacted medical records obtained by Canyon-News, claim the resident showed 'no coughno (symptoms) of any respiratory diseases'.

Three other employees also said that the man was seen eating dinner in the company of other residents shortly after his arrival.

Another employee told the Times that when she told him he needed to stay in his room because of the pandemic, he replied: 'Yes, I know the situation. And I am really hot and I have it, and I need to go to the hospital.'

On March 20, the man was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with a 101.9 fever and a cough.

Brittany Bruner-Ringo n (pictured), a nurse assigned to the surgeon, told her family and a colleague that the surgeon had a fever and a cough when he arrived, a claim that officials from Silverado have denied. She died on April 20 from complications of COVID-19

He later tested positive for COVID-19. The surgeon recovered from COVID-19, but passengers and crew from that American Airlines flight were never notified, according to the Times.

It wasn't until 11 days after the surgeon tested positive that the county health department learned about his results.

The department told the Times that 'the contact information provided for the individual was incomplete and the investigator was not able to conduct an interview'. After 14 days, the county closed the case.

When Dr George Rutherford, the former state epidemiologist for California, learned that none of the passengers and crew had been contacted, he told the Times: 'Christ. Thats a problem.'

It's unclear why the passengers and crew members were never notified about being in close proximity of the surgeon on the flight.

By April 20, about 50 residents and staff at Silverado had tested positive for the virus.

That same day, Bruner-Ringo, 32, died in the intensive care unit at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

California currently has more than 152,000 confirmed coronavirus cases with 5,100 deaths.
Bayside mayor Clarke Martin said he expected a report would be brought to the council next week recommending it return to its duty and resume a heritage study it abandoned in 2018.

We have a duty under planning laws to protect heritage and without having completed a heritage study we are obviously a bit exposed, Cr Martin said.

A heritage study would have identified the best examples of the mid-century period, with a planning scheme amendment prepared to permanently protect them. This approach is taken by almost all other councils.

But Cr Martin told The Age last month the council had abandoned the study in 2018 after some residents hit out when told their houses would be put on an interim heritage overlay until the study was completed amid fears it would make renovating and selling their homes difficult and drive down property values.

As soon as the letters were put in letter boxes, all hell broke loose, Cr Martin said last month. It descended into a horrible situation, where people were literally yelling at each other in the streets.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday claimed to have cracked the Anamika Shukla case, arresting three men who got aspiring teachers jobs in government schools on fake documents.

The curious case involved teachers being recruited in state government schools on the basis of educational certificates of one woman -- Anamika Shukla. She had cleared the eligibility exam.

The fake Anamika Shuklas drew lakhs in salaries from multiple schools, a scam for which the state government drew flak from opposition leaders including Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Last week, police handed over the investigation to its Special Task Force (STF).

"Three persons, including the kingpin of the gang, were arrested by the STF from Gonda. They were identified as Pushpendra Singh alias Shushil of Mainpuri, Anand of Jaunpur and Ramnath of Kehri," an STF statement said.

Police recovered a licensed pistol and seven cartridges, mobile phones and some documents from them, it said.

Teachers got jobs in Anamika Shukla's name at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) in Allahabad, Amethi, Raebareli,Varanasi, Baghpat, Kasganj, Sahranpur, Ambedkar Nagar and Aligarh, according to earlier reports.

The probe found that the real Anamika Shukla of Gonda had applied for the post of a KGBV teacher in 2017 at Sultanpur, Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Basti and Lucknow. She got calls from Sultanpur, Jaunpur and Lucknow but due to her health she did not take the job.

But her documents were misused and teachers in several districts worked in her name, the STF said. "The real Anamika had lodged an FIR in this connection in Gonda on June 11," it said.

In Kasganj, a teacher called Priya worked as Anamika Shukla. She told police that she got the job with Pushpendra's help, the STF said. Pushpendra's name cropped up during the probe in other districts too.

Police then got a tip-off about his presence near the High Court building in Lucknow and he was arrested along with the two others.

During interrogation, Pushpendra said he got Anamika Shukla's documents from Anand in 2019. He then took Rs 2 lakh each from the candidates and got them appointment as teachers on fake documents.

The three men were handed over to Gonda police, where an FIR is registered and a detailed probe will continue, the STF said.

Last week, UP Minister for State for Basic Education Satish Dwivedi said the probe so far had revealed that same set of documents were used to draw Rs 12.24 lakh as salary from nine schools in several districts.

As the case surfaced in the media, at least one Anamika Shukla resigned but was arrested.

The real Anamika Shukla, who was jobless, was on Saturday appointed as an assistant teacher on ad hoc basis by a state-aided private school in Gonda.
The Modern Healthcare recognition program acknowledges clinicians working in the health care industry who their peers and an expert panel deem the most influential in demonstrating leadership and impact.

"This tremendous honor is a tribute to the expertise, dedication, and innovative spirit of our Permanente physicians and staff, who are committed to integrating the most sophisticated tools, systems and technology to deliver superior clinical outcomes, better and more convenient experiences and more value for our patients," said Dr. Isaacs. "This award also underscores the success we are having at TPMG and MAPMG in delivering on the Quadruple Aim of improved community health, better patient experience, lower costs and reduced clinician burnout."

TPMG and MAPMG are two of the most distinguished medical groups in the country; their nearly 11,000 physicians and 40,000 staff care for approximately 5.2 million Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The Permanente Federation is the national leadership and consulting organization for the eight Permanente Medical Groups (PMGs), which care for more than 12.4 million Kaiser Permanente members across the country.

Clinical leadership is needed now, more than ever, to champion evidence-based approaches that will mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and address the longstanding health inequities that have become even clearer as a result of the crisis. These include programs that address conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which are among the top underlying contributors to COVID-19 deaths.

Modern Healthcare highlighted the creative care-delivery models at Kaiser Permanente that Dr. Isaacs has advanced, including:

Total Joint Home Recovery and Surgical Home Recovery programs : Together, these programs garnered a prestigious innovation award in 2019 from the National Committee on Quality Assurance. Over 34 months, the percentage of total joint replacement patients at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California who recovered at home went from 12% to 82%, and after just 21 months, approximately 87% of other eligible surgical patients recovered at home. Patients reported greater satisfaction, and the average length of hospital stays for surgical patients fell by nearly 50%.

Together, these programs garnered a prestigious innovation award in 2019 from the National Committee on Quality Assurance. Over 34 months, the percentage of total joint replacement patients at Kaiser Permanente in who recovered at home went from 12% to 82%, and after just 21 months, approximately 87% of other eligible surgical patients recovered at home. Patients reported greater satisfaction, and the average length of hospital stays for surgical patients fell by nearly 50%. Use of predictive analytics: TPMG rolled out the innovative Advance Alert Monitor (AAM) program to all 21 Kaiser Permanente medical centers in Northern California in 2018  and in 2019 the program saved more than 200 lives.

TPMG rolled out the innovative Advance Alert Monitor (AAM) program to all 21 Kaiser Permanente medical centers in in 2018  and in 2019 the program saved more than 200 lives. Expansion of telehealth, including telepsychiatry: In 2019, approximately half of all "touches" between Kaiser Permanente patients and clinical care teams in Northern California were virtual  a figure that has grown to 80% this year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, approximately half of all "touches" between Kaiser Permanente patients and clinical care teams in were virtual  a figure that has grown to 80% this year during the COVID-19 pandemic. TPMG's Joy and Meaning in Medicine (JAMM) program: JAMM addresses physician burnout by helping clinicians reconnect to their meaning and purpose. Direct feedback from physicians prompted several meaningful JAMM-related improvements, including new performance measures to incentivize the reduction of clerical burden and new development offerings to equip leaders with the skills for collaborative leadership.

"Health care organizations are utilizing their greatest assets as they transform: their former front-line clinicians," said Aurora Aguilar, editor of Modern Healthcare. "Former and practicing physicians and nurses have taken the helms of health care providers across the country and improved quality of care, patient satisfaction and margins. Modern Healthcare congratulates the honorees and thanks them for their contributions to patient care."

The complete list of Modern Healthcare honorees and their profiles are available at ModernHealthcare.com/50MostInfluential.

To learn more about Permanente Medicine, visit permanente.org.

About the Permanente Medical Groups

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Fearful that New Orleans would run out of ventilators by early April as the number of COVID-19 patients rose by the hundreds, even thousands, per day, Louisiana officials set out to get every device they could find. At the time, that meant securing an additional 14,000.

Within days of President Donald Trump's urging states to get their own supplies because it would "be faster if they can get them directly," Louisiana sought only a fraction of them from the federal government and turned to private companies for the rest, having little confidence one supplier would give the state all it needed.

"If I knew for a fact that I could get all that I wanted from one vendor, I wouldn't be ordering from another," Gov. John Bel Edwards said March 31.

Louisiana set out to buy 9,000 from the private sector, where each device can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"Medtronic Ventilators  $88,000,000 for 2,000 ($43,500 a piece)!" Christina Dayries, a senior state official for homeland security and emergency preparedness, wrote March 27 to two colleagues about one type of high-acuity ventilator from medical device behemoth Medtronic, according to emails between Louisiana and Federal Emergency Management Agency officials on the state's pandemic response that KHN obtained through a public records request.

The total order for the ventilators and related accessories amounted to $88.2 million.

The ventilator price is 23% higher than the $35,383 average price Medtronic was offering for the same model last year, according to market analysis from ECRI Institute, a nonprofit research firm.

Laws prohibit price gouging on precious resources during times of emergency  such as gas prices during an oil shortage or water during a drought. But no such rules or laws applied as states like Louisiana  which got an $88.2 million quote while bracing for a deadly pandemic  scrambled to find essential medical equipment according to the laws of supply and demand.

One state health official said they didn't think there was "egregious price gouging" from manufacturers, but officials nonetheless had little choice but to pay what was asked. Louisiana also overshot orders out of fear that ventilators wouldn't arrive or that they would be sent elsewhere to a higher bidder.

Louisiana's hunt for thousands of ventilators underscores the crisis triggered by the federal government's lack of a coordinated response to the pandemic. It speaks to the "every man for himself" mentality promoted by the White House.

As Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and a senior adviser, said in a daily press briefing April 3: "The notion of the federal stockpile was, it's supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be states' stockpiles that they then use."

Officials from other states, including Washington, Michigan and Minnesota, said in interviews that they have also ordered millions of dollars' worth of ventilators from private companies even as the Trump administration snapped up thousands of its own to replenish the Strategic National Stockpile.

Against that backdrop, Dr. Rebekah Gee, CEO of Louisiana State University's Health Care Services Division and the state's former health secretary, said she spent weeks "chasing every rabbit hole" to secure ventilators at the peak of Louisiana's outbreak.

"The most important thing in a disaster is clear communication," she said.

"We found ourselves competing against not only other states but hospital systems and even the federal government," said Dr. Joseph Kanter, an emergency physician and assistant state health officer for the Louisiana Department of Health.

"The private sector can be a dizzying place," he added. "When it's life and death, there needs to be some measure of additional coordination."

In a statement, Medtronic said the Louisiana price was given before the company in April moved to single, flat prices under which every U.S. customer pays the same cost for a particular ventilator model and configuration. The company would not provide the figure, but said the prices are lower than before the pandemic.

Panic at the peak

At the peak of its ventilator use in early April, Louisiana had 571 patients on the devices and nearly 12,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases. Already more than 1,700 people had been hospitalized, and officials braced for hundreds more if the virus spread at the same pace.

In interviews, state officials and health care executives described harrowing situations where they not only shuffled ventilators between hospitals but also transferred patients to avoid maxing out capacity at any one place, with one person likening it to a "two-alarm fire."

Dr. Abdul Khan, medical director of the Ochsner Medical Center West Bank's ICU, recalled that they were down to "a handful" of ventilators when more were rerouted to them from other properties. The nonprofit health system, Louisiana's largest, had more than 200 patients statewide on ventilators at the peak, he said.

"If somebody got down to their last two or three vents at any one point and still had COVID patients on the floor that could go back, we got them some more vents," or sometimes a patient in need was moved to a hospital with a surplus, said Dr. John Heaton, president of clinical and system operations for LCMC Health, which has five hospitals in the New Orleans area. "We moved more patients than we moved ventilators."

Many hospitals are part of larger health systems, where management could more easily redistribute materials as needed, a cushion that doesn't exist everywhere.

Well before the pandemic, U.S. acute care hospitals had roughly 62,000 full-featured mechanical ventilators on hand, according to a 2009 American Hospital Association survey.

State officials said they never expected the federal stockpile to supply every state with all it needed, but the lack of coordination to route supplies to the most urgent hot spots and opaque communication compounded the problem.

In March, the stockpile contained 16,660 ventilators immediately available; the federal government has deployed 10,640 to localities nationwide since the start of the pandemic, according to an HHS spokesperson.

New York City's public health care system "balanced the load among our 11 hospitals by moving 599 patients from one hospital to another," said Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals. "We actually took transfers from several independent hospitals including St. Barnabas, Jamaica, Flushing and Brookdale when they got overwhelmed. Because they are independent hospitals they could not balance the load when things got hard."

In New Orleans, LCMC Health's Heaton said patients were taken in from other systems and vice versa. A hospital spokesperson said the arrangements included patient moves to Tulane Medical Center and East Jefferson General Hospital.

Washington state initially received 500 ventilators from the national stockpile but returned 462. Officials also bought roughly 920 ventilators from several companies for $23.5 million, with the price for each device ranging from $4,900 to $40,200. The most expensive one is the same Medtronic ventilator that Louisiana ordered, but Washington was charged a slightly lower price.

Only a fraction of Washington state's ventilators have been received and paid for. Multiple state officials also said they believed they would be reimbursed 75% of the cost under existing FEMA guidelines for the pandemic. A FEMA spokesperson did not respond to questions.

Overshooting the crisis

Preparedness often means building up an oversupply. Louisiana said in March it ordered 14,000 ventilators based on COVID case projections at the time. After the state closed schools and implemented a stay-at-home policy, the spread of the virus began to slow. The state canceled the Medtronic order, along with several others, once Louisiana's curve began flattening.

The state ended up receiving and paying for only about 400 ventilators from the private sector, said Kanter, at a maximum price of about $11,000 each. It received another 350 from the stockpile.

But now that states have begun to reopen their economies, many state officials and hospital administrators fear a reprise.

In mid-May, Louisiana began the first phase of reopening its economy, allowing gyms, hair salons, casinos and other businesses to reopen with limits on occupancy. Few in the state believe an outbreak on the same scale as two months ago will occur again because of its incremental relaxing of social distancing measures, yet concede that infections could rise. Arizona, Texas and North Carolina are among the states seeing a resurgence in cases and hospitalizations.

The Trump administration has taken steps to strengthen the government's response. They include invoking the Defense Production Act to force companies to manufacture ventilators and medical masks, and bolstering the Strategic National Stockpile. FEMA and the American Hospital Association recently established a limited program where hospitals can exchange ventilators if needed. Roughly 3,000 ventilators are available currently, but no hospital has requested one, according to an AHA spokesperson.

Still, burned once, officials are skeptical that supply will address their needs during another wave of COVID infections.

There are concerns about the quality of the machines hastily added to the national supply under federal contracts. Some device experts say some won't meet the needs of COVID patients.

Such is the case with the nearly 1,100 ventilators HHS ordered from Medtronic under a $9.1 million contract, a portable device that wasn't previously available in the United States. The model, which federal contract records identify as Medtronic's PB560 ventilator, is less sensitive than the PB980 version Louisiana officials initially ordered.

"This is basically the difference between the Volkswagen Beetle on the one side and a Formula One race car on the other side," said Dr. Marcus Schabacker, CEO of the ECRI Institute, of the two Medtronic models. "PB560 is probably not going to be sufficient to treat them."

An HHS spokesperson said the federal government has multiple ventilator contracts and diversifying "is good practice to ensure we have a sufficient supply of ventilators for use in this pandemic and future pandemics when and where needed." Medtronic said the PB560 and other models are suitable for institutional settings and a range of patients.

Medtronic said it expects to manufacture more than 1,000 ventilators a week by the end of June. The company is prioritizing production of its pricier PB980 model and the more portable PB560, saying they will "generally be produced in similar volumes."

Overall, HHS has entered into $2.9 billion worth of contracts with several companies  including Medtronic, GM, General Electric, Philips and Vyaire Medical  for nearly 200,000 ventilators by year's end, according to a review of HHS announcements and federal contract records. To date, 16,000 have been produced, according to an HHS spokesperson.

"If that's your Plan A, there's a risk that those ventilators, they may not all be usable, they may not be available in time, and so on and so forth," said Daniel Adelman, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who recently estimated that thousands of people could be saved if the U.S. adopted widespread ventilator sharing. "There should be a Plan B."

Others worry that even with an expanded stockpile, there is no plan to distribute them rationally. Without that, said Nezih Altay, a professor of operations management at DePaul University in Chicago: "The same mess, we'll see again."

Many states and hospital systems are preparing to go it alone.

"Sometimes waiting on the authorities to help you is not the best strategy," Heaton said. "You've gotta help yourself." In mid-March, LCMC Health bought 50 Medtronic PB980 ventilators at a cost of nearly $1.75 million, according to a hospital spokesperson.

In Minnesota, state officials bought 800 ventilators from Vyaire and Ventec for $9.5 million, according to a state spokesperson. The cost per device was between $11,308 and $12,392.

"We just made a decision," said Judy Seaberg, a health care system preparedness program manager for the Minnesota Department of Health. "We felt we needed to do this to have some assurance that we could meet the needs of our population."

KHN senior correspondent Christina Jewett contributed to this report.
TWO female employees of the Cebu Provincial Capitol were found positive for Covid-19.

Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia confirmed the matter during her regular press briefer held at the Capitol on Monday afternoon, June 15, 2020.

Aside from the two Capitol employees, around 269 new Covid-19 cases were also reported in Cebu Province on Monday.

Garcia said the two employees underwent a swab test last week and were found to be Covid-19-positive on Friday, June 12.

One of the two women worked under the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO).

Garcia refused to disclose what office the other employee was assigned in. Both are from Mandaue City, Garcia said.

The two are asymptomatic and are now in isolation.

Due to this, Garcia has ordered the distribution of steam inhalation kits and other health equipment in each department at the Capitol.

Garcia added that aside from those found positive at the Capitol, 269 of her constituents were also found infected with Covid-19 as of Monday.

Of the 269 new cases, 136 are asymptomatic, 84 are currently admitted in hospitals and 39 are in home isolation.

As of June 15, the Cebu Province has 426 Covid-19 cases with 37 deaths.

Mandaue City also reported 28 new Covid-19 cases on June 15.

According to the Mandaue City Public Information Office, all the new cases were from the community rather than the city jail.

The new cases came from the barangays of Opao (13), Banilad (five), Jagobiao (one), Tabok (one), Maguikay (one), Subangdaku (one) and Casili (six).

The personnel of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office have decontaminated the residences of the patients.

Mandaue City has a total of 445 Covid-19 cases with 95 recoveries and 12 deaths.

In Talisay City, eight new Covid-19 cases were reported on June 15.

In his official Facebook page, Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas Jr. said that of the eight new cases, three are health workers.

Talisay City now has 118 cases with 16 deaths.

In Lapu-Lapu City, 18 new cases were reported on June 15.

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In his Facebook page, Mayor Junard Chan reported that of the 18 new cases, eight are from Sitio Seaside, Brgy. Pusok.

Lapu-Lapu City now has 189 Covid-19 cases with 15 deaths.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) on June 15 reported an additional 490 confirmed cases of Covid-19 that brought the total count in the country to 26,420.

Of the total, 6,252 have recovered, including 298 that were reported in the last 24 hours.

Mortalities continued to increase, with the DOH reporting an additional 10 deaths, which raised the death toll to 1,098.

In its case bulletin, however, the agency noted that only four of these 10 deaths occurred in June, specifically three deaths on June 1 and one death on June 11. The rest occurred in the past months but were reported only in the last 24 hours.

Of the 490 additional cases reported on Monday, 348 were fresh cases and 142 were late cases.

Fresh cases refer to those whose test results were reported in the last three days while late cases refer to those that were reported at least four days ago.

Of the 348 fresh cases, 131 were from the National Capital Region (NCR), 79 from Central Visayas and 138 from other regions.

Among the late cases, 21 were from NCR, five from Central Visayas and 116 from other regions.

The DOH said that as of June 14, of the 18,888 active cases then, 2.1 percent were asymptomatic, 97.5 percent had mild symptoms, 0.3 percent (61 patients) had severe symptoms and 0.1 percent (17 patients) were critical. (ANV, KFD, NDT / JKV With a report from HDT / SunStar Philippines)
A Nigerian student was due to fly home on the day he stabbed a Sydney police officer in the arm while suffering a mental health episode.

Martins Noel Keyen, 25, was walking towards oncoming traffic in Marsfield, in Sydney's north, while experiencing a mental health episode on August 21, 2019.

Martins Noel Keyen, 25, stabbed an officer in the arm while experiencing a mental health episode. Credit:Facebook

Keyen was wheeling a black suitcase when Constable Flynn approached to get him off the road and onto the footpath. But Keyen continued to walk along the road, the statement of facts reads.

Keyen asked Constable Flynn if he was "coming at me", to which the officer replied: "Yes, I am coming at you. You need to get off the road."
Amazon says billionaire founder Jeff Bezos is willing to testify before Congress about potential violations of US antitrust law by big tech companies.

The company's attorney sent a letter on Monday to members of the House Judiciary Committee, saying Amazon had cooperated with the probe being carried out by a congressional panel.

'This includes making Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with the other CEOs this summer,' said the letter from Robert Kelner of Covington and Burling LLP.

The big four tech platforms - Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple Inc, Amazon and Facebook Inc - are under investigation by a House Judiciary Committee panel and the US Justice Department.

Amazon says billionaire founder Jeff Bezos is willing to testify before Congress about potential violations of US antitrust law by big tech companies

The Federal Trade Commission is probing Facebook and Amazon and US state attorneys general are looking at Facebook and Google.

Representative David Cicilline, chair of the committee's antitrust panel, said testimony from the CEOs was 'essential to complete this bipartisan investigation into the state of competition in the digital marketplace'.

'The Antitrust Subcommittee will continue to use the tools at our disposal to ensure we gather whatever information is necessary,' he said in a statement.

Kelner's letter said that Amazon and the committee would need to 'resolve a number of questions regarding timing, format, and outstanding document production issues, all necessarily framed by the extraordinary demands of the global pandemic'.

This would be the first time that Bezos has appeared before Congress, according to a source familiar with the company.

In early May, the committee demanded Bezos' testimony in the wake of a report that the online retailer uses data from third-party sellers to create competing products.

The big four tech platforms - Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple Inc, Amazon and Facebook Inc - are under investigation by a House Judiciary Committee panel and the US Justice Department

Amazon's associate general counsel, Nate Sutton, had denied under oath last July that Amazon used sensitive information from independent sellers to develop Amazon products.

The letter also noted that Amazon had given the committee's antitrust panel more than 225,000 pages of documents and notes that the committee has not given a 'binding commitment' that they would be confidential.

It comes as state officials in California and Washington are reviewing Amazon's business practices to determine whether the company is violating any laws with respect to the independent merchants that sell goods on its site.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that California is examining the retail giant's business practices, focusing partly on how Amazon treats independent sellers on its platform.

Also on Friday, The New York Times reported that state investigators in Washington are reviewing Amazon's handling of third-party sellers on its site.
Durham, NC - Results of a study released today in STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM) may point the way to a cure for a serious lung disease called silicosis that affects millions of workers worldwide. Silicosis results from years of breathing in dust microparticles of silica by workers in professions such as construction and sand blasting. The particles can eventually lead to inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue, which in turn makes it difficult to breathe and can result in death.

There currently is no cure for silicosis and once the damage is done it cannot be reversed. Treatment is focused on relieving symptoms and slowing down the progression of the disease, while the medical world searches for a permanent solution.

Among the more promising potential therapies are mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which can be programmed to become a variety of cell types depending on the conditions of the culture in which they are grown. Researchers have deliberated whether MSCs might be able to regenerate new lung cells to replace those damaged by the silica and, thus, provide a much-needed cure.

In the case of silicosis, however, MSCs have been more appreciated for their anti-inflammatory action. By minimizing lung inflammation caused by silica particles, MSC therapy potentially attenuates scarring and loss of pulmonary function. But when it comes to their efficacy in clinical trials, the results have been only modest at best.

"The reasons for this remain unclear, but one theory is that although MSCs are initially trapped in the narrow pulmonary capillaries after administration, they are cleared from the lungs within approximately 24 hours. This early clearance may explain why the MSCs' effects are often short-lasting or not sufficient to promote improvement in the damaged lung," said Patricia Rocco, M.D., Ph.D. She and Fernanda F. Cruz, M.D., Ph.D., both from the Laboratory of Pulmonary Investigation at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were senior authors on the paper published in SCTM.

Finding a way to retain the MSCs in the lungs long enough to realize a benefit was the aim of their investigation. In particular, the researchers wanted to learn whether magnetic targeting -- a technique already shown to improve homing and retention of stem cells in other types of target tissues -- might improve outcomes in MSC-treated silicotic mice.

They began by magnetizing MSCs (collected from mice) with superparamagnetic nanoparticles, consisting of an iron oxide (maghemite) core, coated by citrate anions. "Such nanoparticles have already been explored in targeted drug therapy and have as main advantages low toxicity to recipient cells and ease of magnetization; i.e., MSCs uptake such particles spontaneously after a 24-hour incubation period," said Luisa Silva, Ph.D., first author on the paper.

Next, the 24 mice in the study were initially divided into a control group of six and another group of 18 in which silicosis was induced. Fifteen days later, the silicotic mice were further randomized into three equal groups. One of these groups received an intravenous administration of saline; one group was treated with magnetized MSCs; and a third group was treated with magnetized MSCs, plus each animal had a pair of magnets attached to its chest (via tape) immediately after the MSC injection. The magnets were left in place for 48 hours.

"Upon removal of the magnets, we examined all the animals in all the groups and found that those implanted with magnets had a significantly larger amount of magnetized MSCs in their lungs," Dr. Cruz said.

In the second step of the study, the team analyzed the effects of magnetic targeting compared to treatment with non-magnetized MSCs. Seven days after the magnets were removed, the animals were assessed. Those treated with magnetized MSCs plus magnets showed significant reductions in static lung elastance, in resistive pressure and in granuloma area -- all signs of lung improvement -- while the mice in the other groups did not.

"This tells us that magnetic targeting may be a promising strategy for enhancing the beneficial effects of MSC-based cell therapies for silicosis and other chronic lung diseases," Dr. Rocco said.

"Occupational disease caused by breathing microscopic dust particles can cause irreversible lung damage," said Anthony Atala, MD, Editor-in-Chief of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. "The use of magnetic targeting allowed stem cells to be retained longer in the area of injury and resulted in faster recovery and decreased scar formation, highlighting the potential of this promising strategy for therapy."

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The full article, "Magnetic targeting increases mesenchymal stromal cell retention in lungs and enhances beneficial effects on pulmonary damage in experimental silicosis," can be accessed at https://stemcellsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/sctm.20-0004.

About STEM CELLS Translational Medicine: STEM CELLS Translational Medicine (SCTM), co-published by AlphaMed Press and Wiley, is a monthly peer-reviewed publication dedicated to significantly advancing the clinical utilization of stem cell molecular and cellular biology. By bridging stem cell research and clinical trials, SCTM will help move applications of these critical investigations closer to accepted best practices. SCTM is the official journal partner of Regenerative Medicine Foundation.

About AlphaMed Press: Established in 1983, AlphaMed Press with offices in Durham, NC, San Francisco, CA, and Belfast, Northern Ireland, publishes two other internationally renowned peer-reviewed journals: STEM CELLS (http://www.StemCells.com), celebrating its 38th year, is the world's first journal devoted to this fast paced field of research. The Oncologist (http://www.TheOncologist.com), also a monthly peer-reviewed publication, entering its 25th year, is devoted to community and hospital-based oncologists and physicians entrusted with cancer patient care. All three journals are premier periodicals with globally recognized editorial boards dedicated to advancing knowledge and education in their focused disciplines.

About Wiley: Wiley, a global company, helps people and organizations develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Our online scientific, technical, medical and scholarly journals, combined with our digital learning, assessment and certification solutions, help universities, learned societies, businesses, governments and individuals increase the academic and professional impact of their work. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to our stakeholders. The company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.

About Regenerative Medicine Foundation (RMF): The non-profit Regenerative Medicine Foundation fosters strategic collaborations to accelerate the development of regenerative medicine to improve health and deliver cures. RMF pursues its mission by producing its flagship World Stem Cell Summit, honouring leaders through the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Action Awards, and promoting educational initiatives.
ITHACA, N.Y. - In one of the largest educational field experiments ever conducted, a team co-led by a Cornell researcher found that promising interventions to help students complete online courses were not effective on a massive scale - suggesting that targeted solutions are needed to help students in different circumstances or locations.

Researchers tracked 250,000 students from nearly every country in 250 massive open online courses (MOOCs) over 2 1/2 years in the study, "Scaling Up Behavioral Science Interventions in Online Education," published June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Behavioral interventions are not a silver bullet," said Rene Kizilcec, assistant professor of information science and co-lead author.

"Earlier studies showed that short, light-touch interventions at the beginning of a few select courses can increase persistence and completion rates," he said. "But when scaled up to over 250 different courses and a quarter of a million students, the intervention effects were an order of magnitude smaller."

The study was co-led by Justin Reich of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Yeomans of Imperial College London. The research was conducted on the edX and Open edX platforms, and edX has engaged in work to make the data available to institutional researchers to advance educational science at scale.

The 250 courses the researchers studied came from Harvard University, MIT and Stanford University.

Failure to complete online courses is a well-known and long-standing obstacle to virtual learning, particularly among disadvantaged communities and in developing nations - where online education can be a key path to social advancement. The findings have added relevance with so much education around the world taking place online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"My advice to instructors is to understand and address the specific challenges in their learning environment," Kizilcec said. "If students have issues with their internet connection, you can't help them overcome them with a self-regulation intervention. But if students need to go to bed on time in order to be awake for a morning lecture, or they need to plan ahead for when to start working on homework in order to have it ready to hand in, then a brief self-regulation intervention can in fact help students overcome these obstacles."

Previous, smaller-scale research, performed by Kizilcec and his co-authors as well as other scholars, found that goal-setting interventions such as writing out a list of intentions at the start of the class improved students' course completion rates.

In this study, the researchers explored the effects of four interventions:

plan-making, where students are prompted to develop detailed plans for when, where, and how they complete coursework;

a related activity in which students reflect on the benefits and barriers of achieving their goal, and plan ahead about how to respond to challenges;

social accountability, where they pick someone to hold them accountable for their progress in the course, and plan when and what to tell them; and

value-relevance, where they write about how completing the course reflects and reinforces their most important values.

For the first three interventions, involving planning ahead, the researchers found that the approach was effective in boosting engagement for the first few weeks of the course, but the impact dwindled as the course progressed. The value-relevance intervention was effective in developing countries where student outcomes were significantly worse than others, but only in courses with a global achievement gap; in other courses, it actually had a negative impact in developing countries.

The researchers tested whether they could predict in which courses an achievement gap would occur, in order to decide where the intervention should be added, but found it extremely difficult to predict.

"Not knowing if it will help or hurt students in a given course is a big issue," he said.

The researchers attempted to use machine learning to predict which interventions might help which students, but found the algorithm was no better than assigning the same intervention to all students.

"It calls into question the potential of AI to provide personalized interventions to struggling students," Kizilcec said. "Approaches that focus on understanding what works best in individual environments and then tailoring interventions to those environments might be more effective."

The researchers said their findings suggest that future studies should be designed to consider and reveal the differences among students, in addition to studies assessing overall effects.

###

The paper was co-authored by Christopher Dann of Carnegie Mellon University, Emma Brunskill of Stanford University, Glenn Lopez and Dustin Tingley of Harvard, Selen Turkay of the Queensland University of Technology and Joseph J. Williams of the University of Toronto. The research was partly funded by the National Science Foundation, a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship and a Microsoft Faculty Fellowship.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 22:41:34|Editor: huaxia

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RIGA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing COVID-19 crisis will cause the Latvian government debt to widen to an estimated 52 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), but as growth resumes after the crisis, the debt should be brought back to the pre-crisis level in four to five years, Finance Minister Janis Reirs said on public radio Monday.

As an European Union (EU) member, Latvia is required to meet the so-called Maastricht criteria, which set the caps on government debt at 60 percent of GDP. To support its stumbling economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, Latvia has been borrowing extensively, but is determined not to let its debt grow beyond 52 percent.

The Finance Ministry's plan is to reduce government debt in the next four to five years so that it was in the range between 40 and 45 percent of GDP, Reirs said.

The minister indicated that by not slashing expenditure drastically during the crisis, the government prevented a precipitous drop in budget revenue, and that although in the first five months of this year the budget revenue fell 6 percent short of the target, it was "still better than we had expected."

The minister said that the Latvian economy is projected to recover in two to three years thanks to the support measures aimed at fuelling economic activity and that the faster the economy grows the sooner the debt will reduce.

Reirs also underlined that the government has no plans to revise budget expenditure this year.

The Latvian government has secured over 4 billion euros to shore up crisis-stricken businesses and support struggling residents. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Enditem
(Newser)  President Trump's campaign manager says there have been more than 1 million ticket requests for the rally Saturday in Tulsa. That's not going to work: The arena holds about 20,000. Brad Parscale, who announced the ticket news in a tweet, did not say how the campaign will decide who gets to go, but he did say everyone will receive hand sanitizer and a mask and have their temperature taken. Given the 95-degree forecast, Parscale said plenty of bottled water will also be available. It will be the president's first rally in three months, since the pandemic shutdown began, and Fox News reports the ticket demand is a Trump record. Not everyone is excited by the idea of a big crowd at this point in the coronavirus battle.

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The Democratic National Committee said Monday that the rally could be "extremely dangerous." Infections in the Tulsa area are on the increase, and the city's chief health official said he's worried about a large crowd gathering indoors, per Reuters. Other health officials have said the event could cause a major spreading of the coronavirus. Trump tweeted Monday that the "far left" news media is trying to "Covid Shame us" for holding a rally. "Won't work!" he said. People can decide for themselves if they want to attend, said Ronna McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. "People with underlying conditionstheyre not going to go to a rally like this," she said. (A Tulsa newspaper, in an editorial, asked Trump to stay away.)
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that India and Nepal share a devotional relationship and all the issues between both countries will be resolved through discussion and dialogue.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said that India not only shares a social, historical or cultural relation with neighbouring Nepal but also a devotional one, and added that all problems will be resolved through discussions between the two countries. Singh said this after the link road built by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) till Lipulekh, to facilitate the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, led to differences with the neighbouring country.

Earlier pilgrims used to go to Mansarovar, through the route of Nathula Pass. It was a longer route but now BRO has built a link road till Lipulekh. This has brought a new route to MansarovarIt is an 80 km long road, built in the Indian region, Singh said at the Uttarakhand Jan Samvad rally, being held through video conferencing.

Some misconception has arisen in Nepal regarding this road we will solve it through dialogue. But I would like to say that as far as Nepal is concerned, we not only have social, geographical, historical or cultural relations with them but also a devotional relation. India can never forget this, he added., he added. The Defence Minister also said that the two countries share a relation of roti-beti which cannot be broken by any power in the world.

Also Read: Amit Shahs all-party meeting on Covid-19 situation in Delhi concludes

Also Read: Two Indian officials missing in Paks Islamabad, MEA takes up matter

Earlier, Nepals Upper House of Parliament on Sunday endorsed a proposal to discuss the Constitution amendment bill to update the countrys map that incorporates parts of Indian territory. This came a day after the Lower House of its Parliament unanimously passed the constitution amendment bill to approve the new map, which includes Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

Meanwhile, during the course of the rally, Singh also praised the work done by the BJP-led Uttarakhand government in the past three years and said that all the promises made in its manifesto will be completed by the end of its term.

Also Read: Nepal border firing: Eyewitness narrate horrifying details, say 18-20 shots were fired over one hour

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Last week Ada Colau, the Podemos-backed Mayor of Barcelona, was booed when she tried to speak at a demonstration of Nissan autoworkers protesting the announced plant closures in the city. Union officials intervened to stop the outburst of working class anger against Podemos. This points to the explosive conflict emerging between the working class and the pseudo-left and the unions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and an upsurge of class struggle.

On Thursday, a group of 1,500 autoworkers demonstrated under the slogan Nissan will not close in the Montjuic neighborhood of central Barcelona. The closures threaten 3,000 jobs directly and 22,000 indirectly. The protest was the second in the same week, after more than 1,000 people marched through the center of Barcelona at night. Nissan workers fight against the closure is arousing enormous sympathy and solidarity.

The demonstration was the latest in a number of protests organized by the trade unions to wear down and finally suppress the indefinite strike called by the workers since the May 4. The Works Council, run by the Podemos-linked Workers Commissions (CC.OO) and pro-PSOE General Union of Labour (UGT) unions, are trying to sow illusions that negotiations with Nissan remain open, and that workers can obtain something from the bankrupt framework of their national negotiations with Nissan.

At the demonstration, union officials read a manifesto in Japanese addressed to Nissans president, Makoto Uchida, and another in French for the management of Renault, a partner of the auto alliance which will be in charge of managing the European market according to the new strategic direction of the company.

Uchida was criticized for putting people out of work in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which they said was not ethical or moral, urging him to reconsider the announced closure. The manifesto proposed to accept whatever attacks was necessary to remain open. We are competitive, we have shown it, and we are a flexible and highly qualified staff. We just need a firm commitment from the company you lead, said the union-drafted statement.

Reading the manifesto in French, Renault was asked not to allow Nissan to leave the European Union because, they assured, the network of factories created in the vicinity of the Free Trade Factory Zone in Barcelona works and with a bit of support you can get a very big return.

In its efforts to break any attempt of forging unity among workers, the unions consciously refused to make any appeal to Renault workers. Renault is planning to cut nearly 15,000 jobs worldwide, or about 8 percent of its work force, and pull out of China. In neighboring France, Renault has received a state-backed bailout of 5 billion in exchange for job attacks and wage cuts.

The union-organised demonstration was disrupted, however, when Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau tried to speak. She was one of the mayors attending, along with those of Montcada i Reixac and Sant Andreu de la Barca, where the factories are based. When she stood up to pick up the microphone, workers started booing her. They also chanted Janet resignation, rereferring to Janet Sanz, Deputy Mayor of Barcelona.

The anger with Colau and Sanz comes after both attacked the car industry, ostensibly for its polluting effects. Sanz went even further, suggesting that We must prevent the automotive sector from reactivating again and calling for the industrial reconversion of the sector.

Colau immediately gave back the microphone to the head of the Workers Council, trade union delegate Juan Carlos Vicente, who called for order. Comrades, comrades, this is not todays subject, today they have come to give us their support, and we have to respect it, he said. Afterwards, Colau made empty threats to Nissan, saying that if it went ahead, Barcelona would break all relations with Nissan.

Colau concluded: We are here not only to show our solidarity. I am not speaking only as mayor or as Barcelona en Comu [the local party affiliated to Podemos], I am speaking as a City Council that has spoken several times in favor of the struggle of Nissan workers.

The truth is that Colau is part of the unions orchestrated campaign to stifle social opposition by promoting illusions in talks with Nissan. Workers, however, are aware of Colaus anti-worker record.

Colau was a leading representative of what Podemos dubbed the Mayors of Change, after making her name as the spokesperson for the anti-evictions movement, Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), which developed after the collapse of Spains housing boom and the mass evictions that followed of those unable to pay their mortgages. She was elected in 2015 as Mayor Barcelona, backed by Podemos, and lost in the 2019 elections, only to be invested in power thanks to the support of other minority parties.

During her tenure, Colau has made a name for herself for attacking workers. She attacked Barcelonas public Metro system workers on strike for more job stability and pay rises, insisting it was not in the general public interest. When workers struck, Colau supported a legally mandated minimum service requirement to keep trains running, helping to ensure the strikes defeat. She has also sent Barcelonas police force to target migrants working as street vendors for dispersal, arrest, and possible deportation. Last May, as Covid-19 killed hundreds in Spain each day, Colau demanded an end to confinement measures: We want de-confinement as soon as possible, but we want to do it well, we do not want to wait long.

The Nissan workers anger reflects the growing left-wing opposition brewing in the working class against not only Colau, but against the Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government and its back-to-work order amid the pandemic, its austerity policies and its jailing of Catalan-nationalist political prisoners. Similar opposition is growing internationally, against Podemos left populist allies, whether the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Unsubmissive France (LFI) or the German Left Party. Everywhere, workers are coming into confrontation against these forces.

It substantiates the analysis made by the WSWS as to why forces like Anticapitalistas, a petty-bourgeois political tendency that helped found the Podemos party in Spain in 2014, have left the PSOE-Podemos government. They are being sent as a paid agent of the Spanish government to intervene on social media and in protests and strikes hostile to Podemos to spy on and strangle them.

Podemos Euro-parliamentarian Miguel Urban recently intervened in the Nissan struggle to channel the anger into illusions that the PSOE-Podemos government and the EU could avert Nissans actions. Urban drafted an appeal with the unions addressed to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Industry Minister Maria Reyes Maroto, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights Nicolas Schmit, stating: The Government must prohibit the dismissals in companies with benefits and compel the multinationals to return the millionaire aid and reuse that money for the conversion of production under criteria of social and environmental sustainability.

The concern of these forces is that, as explosive class struggles are breaking out internationally amid the ruling elites malign neglect of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects, rising confrontation will expose the bankruptcy of Podemos.

It points to the need to build a new political leadership in the working class irreconcilably opposed to pro-imperialist, petty-bourgeois groups like Podemos and all its hangers-on. The reactionary record of Podemos in all levels of power underscores that the decisive strategic question today is building the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) as the revolutionary leadership in the working class. This requires building sections of the ICFI in Spain and internationally, based on the colossal political experiences embodied in its history, to wage an uncompromising struggle against groups like Podemos.
(Photo : REUTERS/Daniel Becerril) Tanker trucks of Mexico state oil firm Pemex's are seen at Cadereyta refinery in Cadereyta, on the outskirts of Monterrey, Mexico January 23, 2019

A massive truck explosion happened over the weekend in Southeast China. A tanker truck carrying a liquified gas exploded, resulting in 189 injured and 18 deaths, as of Sunday, June 14.

After the truck exploded on the highway, another explosion occurred near the accident, resulting in more intense damage. The Chinese authorities now talk about limiting the transportation of dangerous products in public highways.

Massive China explosion: 18 deaths and 189 injured after truck exploded on highway

A tanker truck, carrying a huge amount of dangerous and flammable gas, exploded against nearby buildings and residential houses at Liangshan Village, close to the city of Wenling, in China.

On Saturday, June 13, the accident occurred. But as of today, June 14, the death tolls now increases to 18 while 189 people were injured due to the incident, ABC News reported.

Images from local Chinese authorities show how massive the damage was on buildings nearby the explosion.





Several debris, damaged buildings, and a 10-meter crack were on the highway after the said explosion. Firefighters were already deployed to control the fire all over the place.

What makes this explosion worse was when the exploded truck propelled towards a factory building, resulting in a second explosion, which caused more deaths and injuries.

Zhu Minglian, Wenling's deputy mayor, said that over 2,600 workers were inside the factory when the building exploded. The search-and-rescue team already deployed to look for any more survivors that could have stuck inside the damaged building.

One survivor said on ABC News that the explosion was too powerful that it shattered the windows of their homes.

According to local outlet Chongqing Daily via BBC, the company which owns the truck was already penalized for 11 times by authorities due to the health and safety failures of trucks.

Chinese authorities order monitoring on dangerous transported goods

Since the tanker truck carries a huge amount of flammable gas inside, Chinese authorities now want to monitor the transported goods all over the country strictly.

Anything that has harmful content transportation should be supervised, according to the State Council Work Safety Committee.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Hockenheim officials have warned that they cannot wait forever for Formula 1 to decide if the German venue will be added to the 2020 'corona calendar'.

Baku, Singapore and Suzuka have all now been officially cancelled, triggering F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn's plan to replace them with more European events.

Some of the potential replacement venues are not active F1 circuits, including Imola, Mugello, Hockenheim and Portimao's Algarve track in Portugal.

"We confirm that negotiations are underway with Formula 1," a spokesman for the Portuguese venue confirmed.

But Hockenheim chief Jorn Teske told DPA news agency that the former German GP venue cannot wait forever for F1 to decide.

"It is nothing new to say that the later a decision is made, the more difficult it becomes," he said.

Another circuit spokesman told RTL that it is currently "only speculation" that the European calendar for 2020 will be expanded.

"The same is true of whether a race would then take place at the Hockenheimring," the spokesman added.

Jochen Nerpel, another Hockenheim official, said: "Upon request, we will be happy to check the feasibility.

"But we cannot keep any unconfirmed dates for Formula 1 over a matter of several weeks," he added.

(GMM)
Our actions can accelerate situations. What we should be trying to do is de-escalate them, said Thomson, a past president of the Police Executive Research Forum who retired from the Camden job last year. The last thing we want is for the temperature to rise, and for situations to go from bad to worse because of our failed tactics.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:48:58|Editor: huaxia

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UNITED NATIONS, June 14 (Xinhua) -- More than 20 senior officials in the United Nations (UN) who are African or of African descent have put their names to a personal and hard-hitting statement, expressing their outrage at pervasive and systemic racism, UN News reported Sunday.

The signatories include high-profile heads of UN agencies, such as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Executive Director of the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS Winnie Byanyima, and Executive Director of the UN Population Fund Natalia Kanem.

The statement recalled the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.

Citing the "deep trauma and inter-generational suffering" that has resulted from racial injustice, particularly against people of African descent, the statement said it is time to go further than simply condemning acts of racism, which is "a global scourge that has been perpetuated over centuries," according to UN News.

The leaders called on the UN to "step up and act decisively to help end systemic racism against people of African descent and other minority groups," citing Article 1 of the UN Charter, which stipulates that the intergovernmental organization shall promote and encourage "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion."

The statement also called on the UN to "use its influence to once again remind us of the unfinished business of eradicating racism, and urge the community of nations to remove the stain of racism on humanity."

Acknowledging efforts by UN chief Antonio Guterres to address systemic racism at all levels, the authors of the statement noted that the organization must lead by example, with "an honest assessment of how we uphold the UN Charter within our institution."

The expression of solidarity with peaceful demonstrations is "well in keeping with our responsibilities and obligations as international civil servants to stand up and speak out against oppression," the officials said, adding "we share the core beliefs and the values and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations that do not leave us the option to keep silent."

The officials commit to harness their expertise, leadership and mandates to "address the root causes and structural changes that must be implemented if we are to bring an end to racism," they said in the piece. Enditem
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud and Senator Simon Birmingham during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on May 12, 2020. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images)

Aussie Trade Minister Avoids Linking Chinas Death Sentence to Bilateral Tensions Despite Canada Precedence

Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham does not want to link the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) death sentence of an Australian manhanded down 7 years after he was imprisonedto current bilateral tensions, despite the similarities to a previous case involving a Canadian man.

Australian man Karm Gilespie has been imprisoned in China since 2013 for smuggling drugs but was only sentenced to death by Guangzhou Intermediate Peoples Court on June 10.

A friend of Gilespie has posted messages on social media pleading his innocence. The friend, Roger Hamilton, alleges that Gilespie was set up, saying the drugs were found in luggage that was given to Gilespie as a gift from the Chinese investors he met with.

The timing of the death sentence has raised questions about whether it is connected to current trade tensions between Australia and China, which followed the federal governments push for an inquiry into the origins of the CCP virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.

Birmingham has attempted to play down these claims.

Asked in an interview with Sky News Kieron Gilbert whether he thought there was a link to bilateral tensions, Birmingham said: We shouldnt necessarily view it as such.

The trade minister said Australia condemns the death penalty in all circumstances across all countries.

Gilbert pointed out to Birmingham that the CCP held a retrial and sentenced a Canadian to death during tensions with China last year. There are some similarities here, he noted.

Birmingham replied: We should also note that China makes extensive use of the death penalty. Thats not something that Australia condones, but its a simple statement of fact.

Read More Canadian Gets Death Sentence in China as Tensions Over Arrest of Huawei Executive Continue

Last year Canadian Robert Schellenberg was convicted of methamphetamine smuggling. After four years of serving a 15-year prison sentence, he was sentenced to death after a hasty retrial.

His execution was seen as retribution for Canada arresting Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.

Read More Background Info on Huaweis CFO Meng Wanzhou Emerges As Her Arrest Draws Scrutiny

Contradicting Views on Retaliation Claims

Since the trade dispute between China and Australia began in April, ministers and members of Parliament have preferred to address issues that arise on its merits and avoid engaging in tit for tat politics.

Ministers have also avoided saying the Chinese regime is retaliating against Australias actions deemed detrimental to Beijings interests including calls for an inquiry into the origins of the CCP virus, and the recently announced foreign investment laws.

However, the Chinese state-owned media group Global Times, a vocal commentator on regime-related issues, has been outspoken in saying Beijings actions are in fact retaliatory in nature.

On June 9, the Global Times editorial board wrote: From its push for a U.S.-led inquiry into COVID-19, to its interference in the Hong Kong affair, and the upcoming overhaul of its foreign investment rules that are expected to tighten scrutiny over foreign investment, Australian politicians are demonstrating their antipathy toward China.

If Australia wants to retain the gain from its economic ties with China, it must make a real change to its current stance on China, or it will completely lose the benefits of Chinese consumers, the Global Times wrote. The tourism loss may be just a tip of iceberg in its loss of Chinese interest.

Chinas Judicial System Should be Severely Criticised: Former Chinese Judge

Birmingham has said that the Australian government will argue against the death penalty for 56-year-old Gilespie, but admitted the CCPs legal system is a challenge, saying: Its not our legal system, its not our justice system.

While Birmingham is hesitant to speak against the CCPs judicial system, a former Chinese Supreme Court judge has said that it should be severely criticised.

Xie Weidong was a Supreme Court judge in China for 10 years before stepping down in 2000. He spoke to The Epoch Times in 2019 and revealed the extent of corruption in the regimes legal systemincluding at times being told what ruling he should hand down before the trial.

Read More Toronto Resident and Former Chinese Supreme Court Judge Wants Chinas Justice System Exposed

Now a resident of Toronto, Xie was sponsored by his Canadian wife to become a permanent resident and was being pursued by the same justice system he once worked for.

I have a thorough understanding of the Chinese Communist Partys judicial system, and this system has very serious problems. I hope that the international community can know more about it, Xie told The Epoch Times.

Xie Weidongs ID while working as a Supreme Court judge in China. (Courtesy Xie Weidong)

In 2015, Xie learned that police in China requested Interpol place him on its red notice list  which is issued for fugitives. The Chinese police allege he was involved in corruption and accepting bribes while serving as a judge. This impeded his Canadian residency application.

An Interpol statement, a copy of which was seen by The Epoch Times, cited a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on the methods employed by Chinese authorities to force those on its wanted list to return to China. Interpol said that in Xies case they considered what HRW wrote about unjustified detentions, threats of collective punishments, restrictions of movements, and financial measures used against him.

In August 2019, Interpol told Xies U.S.-based lawyer that it had removed him from the list, saying there was a predominant political dimension to Chinas request. A Canadian court later found the claims by the CCP were not based on evidence. The immigration department eventually approved his application.

The sound and effective legal system in the West has protected my legitimate rights, Xie said. A sound legal system can correctly identify facts and effectively protect peoples legal rights because it only believes in evidence.

Xie said that his experience demonstrates the corruption of the CCPs justice system, saying: Such a judicial system should be severely criticised.

Gilespie has been given 10 days to appeal before executions are carried out. Birmingham acknowledged how distressing it must be for Gilespie and his loved ones.

 Our Government will continue to provide consular assistance to him and, of course, will continue to make representations, as we do right around the world, against the use of the death penalty, Birmingham said.

Gilespie was arrested with more than 7.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in his check-in luggage while attempting to board an international flight from Baiyun Airport in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou.

Epoch Times reporters Daniel Teng and Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this article.
An Emirates flight landed earlier today at Bahrain International Airport - marking the airline's resumption of flights carrying passengers to the kingdom.

The airline is set to operate seven weekly flights from Bahrain to Dubai utilising its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft to carry cargo as well as passengers travelling home or for essential purposes.

Customers can also connect safely and efficiently through Dubai to onward Emirates' destinations, including select cities in Asia Pacific and Europe or the Americas.

Travel restrictions remain in place in most countries, customers are reminded to check entry and exit requirements before their journeys, Emirates said.

Emirates flight EK839 will depart Dubai at 16:10 pm and arrive in Bahrain at 16:30 pm local time. EK840 will depart Bahrain at 17:50 pm local time and arrive in Dubai at 20:00 pm local time.

Flights to and from Bahrain will be available for booking on emirates.com or via travel agents.

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, said the airline.

Customers can find more information about Emirates' flights and current services at: http://emirates.com/wherewefly. -TradeArabia News Service
The suggestion of retroactive measures has caused major concern in the industry, with executives like Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg suggesting it would bankrupt the industry. In a similar vein, Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) CEO Sean Kevelighan (pictured) said that while the insurance industry recognizes the need for financial relief during these difficult times is severe, any attempts to make insurers retroactively responsible for a global pandemic puts the solvency of many insurers at risk.

Read next: Insurers offering $10.5 billion in rebates  but who is offering what?

According to the iii, auto, home and business insurers in the US saw their collective policyholders surplus  the cumulative value of their assets, minus its liabilities  drop to $770 billion from $847 billion in the first quarter of 2020. The surplus is meant to pay claims resulting from covered catastrophe events that cause direct physical damage to property, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires. When the surplus drops below $400 billion, thats when the economic situation is deemed critical, with many insurers at risk of insolvency.

$770 billion sounds like a large amount of money, but when you put it into context, US insurers have paid out $1.2 trillion in claims over the last three years. In comparison, that surplus can get diluted very quickly depending on the circumstances. Kevelighan told Insurance Business.

Insurance regulators require that insurance companies maintain a certain amount in surplus in order to continue to conduct business. By law, insurers must hold a portion of their assets as either cash or readily marketable securities so that they will be able to make good on their claims promptly. This is something insurers wont be able to abide by if theyre forced to take retroactive measures regarding business interruption coverage.

In the US, approximately 36% of small businesses add business interruption insurance on to their commercial property policy. According to iii analysis, if insurers were to go back and apply retroactive contracts with pandemic coverage for the 36% of small businesses who bought the business interruption add-on  something that Kevelighan claims would be unconstitutional to enforce  it would cost the industry about $150 billion a month.

Read next: Farmers Insurance denies business interruption claim the same day it was filed, faces lawsuit

Then, if you were actually to apply it to all business insurance policies, the cost could get up upwards of $400 billion a month, which means it would only take a matter of months to dilute the industry surplus [of $770 billion], and it would put systemic strain on the industry through bankruptcies, Kevelighan added. Whats dangerous and unfortunate there is that the surplus exists to pay for those covered claims that are happening and will happen. Whether its a fire, a tornado, or a hurricane  theyre the perils that premiums have been put into that surplus to pay for. If insurers are forced to dilute that surplus to cover something that wasnt underwritten for in the first place, theres a risk of taking precious money away from people when they need it to recover from catastrophes.

The iii recently launched an initiative called the Future of American Insurance & Reinsurance (FAIR) campaign, which aims to ensure fairness for all customers and safeguard the industrys long-standing role as a pillar of economic growth and stability. The FAIR campaign will serve as an educational resource for all stakeholders, including the public and policymakers, as people search for solutions to the countrys ongoing economic turmoil.

Insurance does a lot to keep the American economy moving now and always, and the reason for that is because people can take on more risk and go on and live their lives with the understanding that insurance will be there if something bad happens, said Kevelighan. When you take that away [possibly by diminishing the industrys surplus] that gets very dangerous for people, and it potentially gets dangerous from an economic growth perspective as well.
" " New Jersey prohibition director Colonel Ira Reeves (right) admonishes a Newark garage owner for advertising alcohol with the wrong kind of sign, circa 1927. He is handing the owner an acceptable sign, which specifies that the alcohol is denatured and for use in car radiators. FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images/HowStuffWorks

There aren't many nontoxic products in the world that somebody's taken extra effort to make toxic before they sell it to people, but denatured alcohol is one of those products.

Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is a really handy solvent  it can fuel small stoves, disinfect surfaces or preserve a fetal pig for who knows how long. But ethanol is also alcohol, which people like to drink. While the average alcoholic beverage contains between 5 to 40 percent alcohol, ethanol used as an antiseptic often contains between 60 and 90 percent alcohol. So, how do you keep people from drinking it? You denature it  make it smell and taste terrible, and also make it poisonous!

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Denatured alcohol, or methylated spirits, is just alcohol with some stuff added to it to make it bitter and dangerous to consume  primarily methanol, but also often isopropyl alcohol (which is dangerous to consume in any quantity), acetone, ketones and other toxic chemicals. Whatever substance is added to the alcohol to make it unpalatable, it probably also increases your risk of cancer, affects your nervous system and organs, and could possibly even kill you. Methanol can even be absorbed through the skin, which can cause some serious health effects like neurological damage, so don't try using it in your homemade perfumes! In some countries, denatured alcohol is dyed pale blue or purple as a warning not to drink it, but in the United States, denatured alcohol looks exactly like vodka.

" " This denatured alcohol poison label explicitly lays out the danger of a snort or two. HA! Designs-Artbyheather /Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Ethanol used for industrial purposes began to be denatured with methanol in the early 20th century so the companies making it could make it undrinkable, and therefore tax it at a lower rate than alcohol meant for consumption. During Prohibition even more toxic chemicals were added to make extra sure nobody would drink the stuff.

These days, denatured alcohol comes in different grades  some can be safely used in hand sanitizers and cosmetics, while other types used for heavy duty jobs like paint removal and pest control shouldn't even be touched. Rubbing alcohol, which is denatured isopropyl or ethyl alcohol that's more commonly used for medical purposes, is also toxic if ingested, even if it is safe to put it on your cuts and scrapes.

Now That's Interesting In 2007, New Zealand removed methanol from their denatured alcohol.
CLEVELAND, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Evergreen Podcasts is proud to launch the Medal of Honor podcast with support from the National Medal of Honor Museum. The short-form podcast (three minutes) will provide a quick narrative on one of the more than 3,500 men and women who have received the highest military honor in the United States. The stories of Medal of Honor recipients demonstrate bravery in combat at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty. The award serves as an inspiration to all Americans. The award is so much more than a military decoration; its significance reaches far beyond honoring individual bravery. The Medal of Honor is a beacon, one that serves not only to guide us but to unite us.

The Medal of Honor podcast will be hosted by Ken Harbaugh. Harbaugh is a former Navy pilot and the past president of Team Rubicon Global. He served as a commentator for National Public Radio, as host of the Crooked Media podcast, Reclaiming Patriotism , and as a guest fellow at Yale University. Ken's writing on service and citizenship has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and in the Yale Journal of International Law. He lives near Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife and three children, and is the co-author of Here Be Dragons.

"It's an incredible honor to be able to tell these stories of American heroes who rose to the challenge when duty called, often paying the ultimate sacrifice," revealed Ken Harbaugh, Host of Medal of Honor, "Now, more than ever, our nation needs examples of this kind of selflessness. The Medal of Honor Podcast celebrates America at its best."

"I can't think of a better time to launch the Medal of Honor podcast," noted Michael DeAloia, CEO of Evergreen Podcasts, "as our country is wrestling with what is honor and duty and how our beloved institutions, like the military, evolve in modern times."

Joe Daniels, President & CEO of The National Medal of Honor Museum was quoted as saying, "The National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation is honored to partner with Evergreen for the production of the Medal of Honor Podcast. As we work to build a permanent home in Arlington, Texas, for the treasured legacies and stories of Medal of Honor recipients, we welcome opportunities like this to educate Americans on the valor of those who received the Medal. We're on a mission to inspire America and hope this show inspires listeners to live the values of the Medal: courage and sacrifice, commitment and integrity, citizenship and patriotism."

Evergreen Podcasts was founded by Joan Dolan Andrews in January of 2017. During its first year of operation, Evergreen launched four podcasts with nearly 18,000 podcast downloads. The company now has 38 podcast programs and is on pace to deliver more than 5.0 million podcast downloads in 2020.

Podcasts published by Evergreen include Rebel Force Radio, The Chad & Cheese Podcast, Burn the Boats, The Talent Cast, This American President, Riffs on Riffs, Professional Book Nerds, Banking Transformed, Your Teen, Up2, and Wake Up Call. All podcasts produced and distributed by Evergreen Podcasts can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and other major podcast platforms.

Ken Harbaugh, host of Medal of Honor, is available for interviews on all media platforms including TV, radio, online media and newspapers. Contact information is below.

About Evergreen Podcasts

Evergreen Podcasts features a growing catalog of entertaining and informative podcasts, rooted in high creative values and production quality. Evergreen is a community where people think big, capturing the color and diversity of modern thinkers. From entrepreneurs and musicians to philosophers and artists, Evergreen is in the business of uniting audiences with boots-on-the-ground storytellers. Evergreen's talented creative team works with top brands and thought leaders to tell inspiring stories through branded content, original shows, and partner podcasts. Ask us how our comprehensive podcast production, creative marketing, and distribution solutions can help connect your brand to a broader audience. Website: Evergreenpodcasts.com

Press Contact:

Name: David Allen Moss

Email: [email protected]

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has hit out at the Centre over the rising fuel prices, which were hiked for the ninth straight day on Monday.

Middle class, poor pay for gifts crony capitalists get, he wrote on Twitter.

Middle class and the poor pay for the gifts the crony capitalists get. #___ pic.twitter.com/q69cqlF83Q  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 15, 2020

Oil companies raised petrol price by 48 paise per litre and diesel by 23 paise per litre on Monday morning. In nine hikes since June 7, cumulatively petrol prices have gone up by Rs 5 per litre and diesel by Rs 4.87 a litre, according to PTI.

In Delhi, petrol will now cost Rs 76.26 per litre and diesel Rs 74.26 a litre after the hike.

Rates have been increased across the country and vary from state to state depending on the incidence of local sales tax or VAT.

In the tweet, Rahul Gandhi also used a graph to show that fuel prices were low in May 2014 when the Congress-led UPA was in power despite high crude cost globally, but the NDA government raised the excise duty on petrol by 258.47 per cent and on diesel by 819.94 per cent as on June 15, 2020.

Earlier on Sunday, the Congress leader posted another tweet as he continued his attack on the Modi government, this time over the governments handling of the Covid-19 crisis. He used the famous scientist Albert Einsteins quote to criticise the nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19 pandemic.

This lock down proves that: The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. Albert Einstein, Gandhi said on Twitter.
- Paul Njoroge, Kenyan truck driver, said he had stopped his truck to find out how Samuel Wangware was doing only to find him dead inside his vehicle

- The sad incident was confirmed by Eriya Elepot, the Busia district police commander who said initial investigations indicated the deceased succumbed to natural causes

- He, however, said the police were working jointly with health officers in the region to establish the exact cause of death of the man who hailed from Mathira, Nyeri county

A Kenyan truck driver has died under unclear circumstances while awaiting clearance at the Uganda checkpoint.

The body of Samuel Kinywa Wangware, 35, was found inside the cabin of his truck at Busitema revenue checkpoint in Busia district by his colleague, Paul Njoroge.

READ ALSO: CJ David Maraga dismisses claims he was romantically involved with female judge

Trucks wait in a line on the road to enter Uganda in Malaba. There are concerns over the rising cases of truck drivers testing positive for COVID-19: Photo: The East African.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: 9 tantalising photos of all grown Machachari actress Joy

The sad incident was confirmed by Eriya Elepot, the Busia district police commander who said initial investigations indicated the deceased succumbed to natural causes.

He, however, said the police were working jointly with health officers in the region to establish the exact cause of death of the man who hailed from Mathira, Nyeri county.

Boda boda riders who were at the scene feared Wangware died of the novel coronavirus. Photo: CDC.

Source: UGC

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The commander cordoned off the area but was forced to wait for several hours for a team from the Busia District COVID-19 taskforce to arrive as they contemplated the cause of death.

Njoroge said he had stopped his truck to find out how Wangware was doing only to find him dead.

"I was heading to the Malaba border, saw his truck and stopped to greet him but unfortunately, I found him dead," he told the Daily Monitor.

The Busia one stop border post. Many drivers have complained of long queues as COVID-19 continues to bite. Photo: Construction Review.

Source: UGC

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Eyewitnesses including boda boda riders at the scene said the victim had complained he was unwell and had parked his truck( KAT 578T) at Busitema checkpoint while heading to Nairobi from Kampala.

"We are fearing coronavirus might have claimed the life of the driver,"Emmanuel Kibuguyi, a boda boda rider at the Busitema stage said.

Doctor Yusuf Lule, a member of the Busia district COVID-19 taskforce, said no coronavirus certificate was found in the deceased's truck.

READ ALSO: Raila Odinga tests negative for COVID-19

"We have not found any COVID-19 certificate with the deceased, but are going to get in touch with Malaba Port health officials to establish his COVID-19 status," Dr Lule said.

Cases of truck drivers testing positive have been on the increase along Kenyan borders with her neighbours prompting President Uhuru Kenyatta to close the Tanzania and Somalia borders.

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The Cardinal, head of the Maronite Church, confirms his support for the government called to "listen to the people" and "promote reforms". Some parties "create problems" to "distort" the ideals of the revolution. Unemployment reaches 35%, over 45% of people below the poverty line.

Beirut (AsiaNews / Agencies) - "We support the government that has only one purpose: to listen to the people and promote the reforms that everyone is asking for". In the homily for Sunday mass, celebrated yesterday, the Maronite patriarch Card Beshara Rai again addressed the political and economic crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which is gripping Lebanon. He did not spare attacks on some parties that "create problems" during street demonstrations in recent weeks, with the aim of "distorting the revolution" and its ideals.

The cardinal turned to political formations, inviting them to put a stop to the internal "rebellious" factions, before the nation "slips into sedition". The reference is to the clashes and violence of the last few days in which elements of confessional claims have emerged, especially in Beirut and Tripoli.

From Bkerke, the Maronite patriarch stressed that the Land of Cedars "is going through a difficult period" in its history, as they have not seen in the previous hundred years. The prelate lashed out against "partisans" who pursue personal logic, who "mock justice, prey on public funds, empty the state coffers, impoverish people and throw young people, hungry, into the street".

The collapse of the local currency, which hit historic lows last week since the protests began in October, has again sparked protests with hundreds of people in the streets in various cities, amid protests over the worst recession in decades. Added to this is the emergency situation generated by the new coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Hassan Diab has convened an emergency meeting of the executive to discuss the crisis by approving the engagement of dollars in the currency markets and the lowering of the value in the exchange rate.

However, this was not enough to quell popular anger with an unemployment that touched 35% of the active population and over 45% live below the poverty line according to data from the Ministry of Finance. The Cardinal said these elements have fueled a general mistrust between the population and the state. "Trust in democracy is great - added the Cardinal - but trust in the demonstrations of politicians and institutions is very weak".

Finally, the Maronite patriarch renewed the appeal to government officials to "feel the suffering" of the Lebanese who "are hungry and fear both the present and their future". In this context, the Church works to "renew the identity of the country, in anticipation of the centenary of Greater Lebanon".

* in the photo, some protesters stage the nation's "funeral"
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Discovery was made at al-Eifalon military camp where conscripts used to get trained under former ruler Omar al-Bashir.

Sudanese officials have announced the discovery of a mass grave southeast of the capital, Khartoum, suspected to contain the remains of conscripts who in 1998 tried escaping military service from a training camp.

A committee tasked with investigating the killings at al-Eifalon military camp found the mass grave in the past four days after hearing witness accounts, Tagelsir al-Hebr, public prosecutor, said on Monday without giving details on the number of bodies found.

The grave was exhumed and now the committee will continue to work with forensic authorities and examine the evidence, said Wael Ali Saeed, a member of the investigation committee.

A source in the investigators team told Reuters News Agency dozens of bodies had been found.

The al-Eifalon military camp was used for training new conscripts under the rule of former President Omar al-Bashir, who was removed by the army last year in the wake of months-long, pro-democracy protests.

200411093100844

The poorly trained and equipped conscripts were sent into the bush fighting against the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).

In 1998, a group of them were killed as they attempted to escape the base for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday. The students were also angry that they had been denied the time to spend with their families during the holiday, according to the prosecutor.

The Sudanese government said at the time that 55 young conscripts who fled the military base drowned when their overloaded boat capsized in the Blue Nile River.

However, opposition groups accused the government of carrying out the killings and reported a higher death toll of more than 100.

Many Sudanese families reported that their sons went missing and their remains were never found.

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, the political wing of the South Sudan army, won independence for the south in 2011 following a peace deal with al-Bashirs government in 2005.

Al-Bashir, who had seized power in a 1989 coup, was arrested in April 2019 when he was deposed by the army. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), facing charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed by pro-government forces in Darfur.

Sudans new governing authorities have yet to hand him over to the ICC for prosecution.
ADDIS ABABA  An expert on Sunday expressed concern over the rapidly growing trend of new COVID-19 positive cases across countries in Africa, with a few African countries accounting for the largest share of new COVID-19 cases.

Between June 2 and 10 African countries reported 43,812 new COVID-19 cases, registering a 29 percent increase in new cases reported compared to what was reported in the previous week, according to figures from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

Costantinos Bt. Costantinos, who served as a socioeconomic advisor to the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), told Xinhua on Sunday that the rapidly increasing new COVID-19 positive cases are extremely concerning.

Africa had been just recently accounting for a small fraction of the infections globally, but African countries have taken a disproportionate hit due to plummeting oil and commodity prices and weaker currencies, which ramp-up external debt servicing costs, the expert said.

Costantinos, however, stressed that as new COVID-19 positive cases surged across countries in Africa in recent weeks, the pandemic is presently taking its toll on both the health as well as the socioeconomic condition of Africas populous.

According to figures from the continental disease control and prevention agency that five African countries account for about 72 percent of the new COVID-19 cases reported last week. The five countries are South Africa accounting for 38 percent of total newly reported cases, Egypt with 21 percent, Nigeria with 5 percent, Cameroon with 4 percent, and Ghana with 4 percent.

It also said that some seven African countries have reported COVID-19 case fatality rates comparable to or higher than the global average case fatality rate of 5.8 percent.

As Africa experiences spike in terms of new COVID-19 cases, experts are calling for international solidarity and support to Africas fight against the infectious virus.

Its only through global partnerships, with collaboration, and with supporting each other that we will be able to combat this virus, said Antonio Pedro, Director of the UNECAs Sub-regional Office for Central Africa, in a recent interview with Xinhua.

The global solidarity against the COVID-19 is important because if we do not address the pandemic in Africa, it will affect the entire planet, Pedro affirmed.

The ECA director also stressed that the global solidarity against the COVID-19 goes beyond the short term imperative of curing people that have been affected and ensuring that people dont infect, but also building back better.

As of Sunday morning, the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases across the African continent surpassed 232,815 as the death toll from the pandemic also rose to 6,244, according to the Africa CDC.

Related
Eleven Vietnamese nationals heading to Australia by boat have been intercepted by authorities in Timor-Leste and placed in coronavirus quarantine.

The eight men and three women, accompanied by two Indonesian crewmen, were found on Jaco Island at Timor-Leste's eastern tip.

They stopped at the island after their boat ran into problems and they sought assistance and supplies.

A boatload of young Vietnamese bound for Australia landed in Timor-Leste on Friday. Credit:Screegrab/VIP.TV

Dr Aurelio Guterres, Timor-Leste's COVID-19 taskforce emergency response co-ordinator, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age the Vietnamese had been offered work on Australian farms by people smugglers.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A wild week for U.S. stock market indexes was accompanied by some eye-popping moves in individual listings, several of which were apparently driven by retail investors and lacked easy explanations other than exuberance. Some will be inclined to ignore this behavior, noting that, if not warranted, its consequences will be isolated and containable. While not ignoring it, regulators will end up taking a lassiez-faire attitude toward it primarily because their power and tools only go so far. Others, like me, will spend time thinking not only about the potential consequences, be it market functioning or distributional factors, but also the causes and their wider implications.

By now, and as illustrated by the Bloomberg article cited above, there is quite a list of individual stocks to choose from to indicate investor exuberance that could easily spill over into reckless risk-taking and speculation. My top pick is Hertz, which is going through a particularly rough time. (I know the iconic company well as a longtime customer.)

Its not hard to see why Hertz had to file for bankruptcy. With both travel and leisure activities derailed by the Covid-19 shock, its revenue declined suddenly and precipitously. With a cost structure that is inherently inflexible  for example, its not easy to get rid of the stock of cars in a deep recession or sublet airport locations to another rental company  and with its notably uncertain outlook curtailing the prospects for normal bank and capital market financing, Hertz opted for reorganization through the bankruptcy process.

Being at the bottom of the capital structure, Hertzs shares behaved as expected  at least initially. They traded in a relatively narrow range below $1, bottoming at around 50 cents after having started the year at $15.75. Then came astonishing moves and roller-coaster volatility.

The macro context was the retail-driven surge in equity markets fueled by what economists call adaptive expectations on the back of a historic rally, and what market participants refer to as fear of missing out and there is no alternative. The more micro context was a series of rotation trades  from stay home stocks to reopening ones, and from leaders to laggards. The result was a 10-fold jump in Hertz, together with several rather puzzling price moves in other less known companies.

Story continues

Thursdays sharp move in U.S. stocks, including single-day drops of 5% to 7% for the three main indexes, resulted in Hertz giving back almost two-thirds of its sudden surge. Then came the news that, equally surprised by the move in its shares, the company was asking its bankruptcy judge for permission to issue some $1 billion in new equity. Rather than react negatively to this new risk of dilution, the stock price rose 37% on Friday, buoyed by indication that a significant number of buyers would ignore the companys warning of a potentially worthless stock and look to place orders.

Some will be quick to dismiss this sort of wild stock market behavior based on one or more of the following arguments: Investors are free to do what they wish as long as the risks they are taking are made explicit both by the companies they are buying and the intermediaries involved; and the wisdom of crowds is likely to know better than any one individual.

Although regulators will be paying attention, they will feel forced to stand on the sideline because they cannot easily impact the underlying behavior. Their macro-prudential policy measures are not focused enough, even if they were willing to deploy them, and most of the more refined tools are equally challenged when it comes to excessive risk-taking by nonbanks. They may also be worried about being blamed for a disorderly premature burst of a market-dominant narrative that could then spill over to an already fragile real economy. Finally, and as noted just last Wednesday by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the central bank is not comfortable making judgments about financial bubbles, let alone seeking to deflate them  this as the vast majority of market participants and observers believe that the Feds repeated and, many feel, now highly predictable huge injections of liquidity have boosted asset prices, both directly and indirectly.

One result of all these interactions is the turbocharging of what, at the macro level, has been a notable disconnect of finance from the real economy. It places a big question mark on the important role that capital markets play in mobilizing and allocating capital efficiently and in sending price signals that impact broader resource allocation within the economy. It highlights the extent of capital impairment risk being taken in particular by the retail investor, whose healthy engagement is important not only to market functioning but also to broader buy-in by society for a market-based economic system. And it illustrates how years of exceptional central bank support for asset prices has led to an ever-expanding set of unintended consequences and collateral damage.

The big hope is that a broad-based, quick and durable increase in economic activity will better validate what, by many measures, is now markets blatantly excessive front-running of the economic realities and prospects. There is no way to know how long this hope will persist. But what should not be in doubt is the consequences of disappointment, especially as new health data cast more of a cloud over the notion of rapid full economic reopenings around the world: a shock to equity markets that would undermine not only their standing but also inadvertently contribute to lower economic growth, greater inequality, household economic insecurity and the credibility and effectiveness of important policy-making institutions.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Mohamed A. El-Erian is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the chief economic adviser at Allianz SE, the parent company of Pimco, where he served as CEO and co-CIO. He is president-elect of Queens' College, Cambridge, senior adviser at Gramercy and professor of practice at Wharton. His books include "The Only Game in Town" and "When Markets Collide."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Lehua Gray, a 32-year-old product manager in Austin, wants to risk her life for a coronavirus vaccine. A cloud of potentially deadly microbes would be spritzed up her nose - if she's allowed to a participate in what's called a human challenge trial.

It's built on a deceptively simple premise: Researchers inject healthy volunteers with an experimental vaccine and then expose them to a pathogen. If the vaccine prevents volunteers from getting sick, the study can accelerate development of a promising formula.

This approach has been used to test malaria and cholera vaccines - and now, in laboratories and conference rooms, preliminary discussions are unfolding about the feasibility of employing it in the quest to find a weapon against the novel coronavirus.

The obstacles are formidable. Infecting healthy people with a potentially lethal virus, with no treatment to save them from severe illness or death, raises some of the most fraught ethical, scientific and philosophical issues in the history of medicine. Exposure to pathogens in challenge trials is usually permitted only for diseases that aren't fatal or that have treatments available. No such assurances exist for the coronavirus, which has killed more than 425,000 people worldwide.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said in an interview that challenge trials are "on the table for discussion - not on the table to start designing a plan."

Large-scale trials of coronavirus vaccine candidates are slated to begin this summer and fall, but they involve more conventional approaches.

When Gray explains to her family her interest in potentially participating in a challenge trial, "it starts out being a conversation about FDA processes and ends up being a conversation about how I'm about to risk my life," she said.

Despite that risk, Gray and more than 28,000 other volunteers have joined a new online organization, 1Day Sooner, hoping that by placing themselves in the path of the virus, the pandemic will end sooner.

---

One of the first studies to endorse coronavirus challenge trials was published in March in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Rutgers University bioethics specialist Nir Eyal and his colleagues proposed using challenge trials to supplement or even supplant a Phase 3 trial, the lengthiest and final step in vaccine creation.

In a typical Phase 3 vaccine trial, which is required for Food and Drug Administration approval, thousands of participants receive an inoculation, either an experimental vaccine or a placebo. To test whether a vaccine prevents infection, researchers wait until subjects have been naturally exposed in their communities. This process can take six months or more. Even as pharmaceutical companies race to make a coronavirus inoculation, the wait may stretch a year or longer for a vaccine to reach the market.

As coronavirus cases decline in the regions hit hardest in the spring, some experts worry a traditional Phase 3 trial may take too long or not gather enough evidence to be conclusive. Because challenge trials guarantee exposure, these studies require as few as 100 subjects and can be completed in two or three months.

A challenge trial may not be able to bypass a Phase 3 trial or efficacy study but can help in other ways. "If you're looking at 100 vaccines, some of them might turn out be total busts," said Neal Dickert, a bioethics specialist at Emory University who has studied flu challenge trials. Using that approach with the coronavirus trial could help scientists shelve the busts sooner.

In the months since Eyal and his co-authors published their paper, support for challenge trials has grown among specialists in bioethics. Charles Weijer, a professor at Canada's Western University, said coronavirus challenge trials presented the hardest question he has faced in 24 years as a bioethics expert.

A paramount tenet of conducting human research, dating to the Nuremberg Code, is informed consent - in which people fully understand the risks and limitations of participating.

"Most ethicists agree there is an upper limit of risk," said Seema Shah, an ethics professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "It wouldn't be okay to sacrifice one individual for the benefit of many others."

When Weijer helped develop guidelines for challenge studies in 2015, a central idea was "that volunteers in human challenge studies in no circumstance will be exposed to diseases that are irreversible, incurable or possibly fatal," he said. Coronavirus trials violate that concept.

"It makes me very worried that in a covid-19 challenge study, should we go ahead, that odds are some people are going to be seriously injured and some people are going to die," Weijer said. "The question for me then is: What can we do to mitigate those risks?"

To answer that, the World Health Organization convened a panel of ethics experts and researchers from around the globe, including Weijer and Shah. They wrote a 19-page document explaining criteria for conducting these studies. The report emphasized informed consent, minimizing risk (people 18 to 30 have the lowest fatal infection rate, the authors noted) and the need for "strong scientific justification."

Careful site selection is also important. Drawing participants from communities where transmission is high may reduce the relative risk to volunteers because they would be more likely to catch the virus anyway - but this should not exploit populations vulnerable to the virus, ethics experts agreed. "This disease has obvious socioeconomic disparities and racial disparities that we have to be aware of in the context of doing things like challenge studies," Dickert said.

The WHO panel opened the door for challenge trials to proceed. "Well designed challenge studies might thus not only accelerate covid-19 vaccine development," they wrote, "but also make it more likely that the vaccines ultimately deployed are more effective."

Shah and another group recently published in the journal Science an ethical framework for coronavirus challenge trials. "Moral disagreements about upper limits to risk" exist, they wrote, but risks can be tempered by isolating subjects in inpatient facilities under careful observation.

Challenge trials have been compared with other selfless acts. There's a flaw in that thinking, Shah said. Firefighters and kidney donors can feel confident their altruism will benefit someone, she said. It's uncertain any clinical study will make a difference.

"The Ebola experience is one cautionary tale where there were these two massive trials that tried to determine whether vaccines worked," Shah said. These traditional vaccine trials "couldn't come to completion. They couldn't get an answer." A third trial worked: A "ring" vaccination, in which clusters of people who were friends or relatives of infected people received vaccines.

Shah said she is reasonably confident challenge trials will happen somewhere. "I don't know if they'll happen in the United States," she said.

---

In April, dozens of members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn urging them to consider implementing challenge trials.

The risk of death looms large. "If this went all wrong, and some healthy volunteer died as a result, that would be impossible to forgive ourselves," Collins, the NIH director, said.

Collins and other leaders of the U.S. vaccine effort wrote in Science in May that such experiments would have to be carefully considered by an independent panel of specialists in ethics, clinical trials and vaccines.

"Some vaccine makers have communicated to us that they would be interested if FDA let them do it," Eyal said, though he declined to name them.

Johnson & Johnson chief scientist Paul Stoffels said in an interview that the company was not currently considering challenge trials and was focused on a traditional large-scale trial slated to begin in mid-September.

"We don't think, at the moment, it will help in the speed to results," Stoffels said, noting that important scientific work would have to be done to develop a model for challenge experiments and a medication would have to exist to treat people who became ill.

But if countries are successful at controlling their outbreaks, it will pose an obstacle to vaccine researchers who in traditional trials give half the participants a dummy shot and depend on enough people becoming infected to see whether their vaccines are protective.

"If the disease gets to a very low level, maybe challenge studies will have to be considered," Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said at a briefing with other pharmaceutical executives.

Other manufacturers are apprehensive. Leaders from Moderna and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, two biotechnology companies with vaccines in early human trials, have said the risks of challenge studies outweigh the benefits.

A joint effort to develop a vaccine by Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline will not use human infection trials because "we have sufficient knowledge of the vaccine technology we're using, as it is based on a technology we are using for another vaccine," said Sanofi spokesman Nicolas Kressmann.

Pfizer is not considering challenge trials at this time, except in animal experiments, a spokeswoman said.

Some sponsors of influenza challenge trials, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are worried that if the covid-19 challenge trials proceed and people die, the field will suffer.

Another objection is the scientific interpretation. If young, healthy people who participate don't develop severe disease or have only mild illness, what would it mean? A sizable fraction of people - particularly those at low risk - who are infected do not develop severe disease or even symptoms.

"People we're really worried about - the elderly and with chronic diseases - would not be volunteering," Collins said. "And can you really extrapolate from saying this 22-year-old recruit from the military did fine, that 72-year-olds and people with [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] would do well and be protected?"

Kathleen Neuzil, director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is experienced running challenge trials involving potential vaccines for diseases that have treatments. "We've done them for malaria, influenza, shigella. What makes me personally cautious about doing them for SARS-CoV-2 is, at the moment, we don't have a rescue medication," Neuzil said, meaning a way to save an infected person's life.

If challenge trials were to proceed, she said, "this is going to take some very careful thought and very careful planning."

Challenge trials need to be run in facilities with extensive infection control, where participants may have to live for weeks under close supervision - explaining why many bioethics experts conclude challenge trial volunteers should be paid. Only a few organizations, such as NIH, operate these high-level biosecurity facilities.

Researchers will need to cultivate, at scale, the virus in a laboratory; one option is to use a weakened strain less likely to cause severe sickness. And after the virus is grown, scientists must determine the proper amounts to give volunteers.

---

Two months ago, Josh Morrison, a 34-year-old attorney and activist who represents kidney donors, read Eyal's paper. Inspired, he and friends founded a website called TheCovidChallenge.org. Sign-ups snowballed - by mid-May, as many as 1,500 new people were joining daily - and the organization was renamed 1Day Sooner.

1Day Sooner now employs Morrison and three other people. It has more than 28,000 volunteers and a German-language chapter in Austria. "Our job is advocating for or representing people. We want people to sign up," Morrison said.

The organization is collecting donations, which Morrison said will be used to pay for a $50,000 research survey on volunteers. The organization is also trying to hire a vendor to manufacture the microbe.

Most members of 1Day Sooner are young, but Morrison said some who have joined are in their 80s. Many have backgrounds in public health or science. Yet signing up with the organization is no guarantee members will get to participate in a challenge trial.

Volunteers say the trials could provide a sense of purpose in a time of chaos and helplessness.

"Being able to do something constructive and useful, that meant a lot to me," said Morrison, who in 2011 donated a kidney to a stranger. "The risks are very meaningful and significant, but also roughly on par with childbirth or kidney donation." The risk of death for kidney donors is about 1 in 3,000 people, which mirrors the coronavirus infection fatality ratio among people in China in their 20s.

Eyal, who has been in contact with 1Day Sooner, said he held the volunteers in high esteem. "They certainly can't be dismissed as people who misunderstood what this is about," he said. They "actually comprehend the risk and still want to participate."

There is little precedent for the creation of this organization - akin to a Screen Actors Guild for human subjects - let alone one established for study participants before studies exist.

Human subjects are often viewed as "people to worry about" or guinea pigs, Shah said. "So I have a lot of respect for the idea of bringing together research participants."

Gray said she draws motivation to participate in a challenge trial from her grandmother, who is vulnerable to respiratory disease because of lung problems. Gray's girlfriend and parents have been supportive. A close friend is not.

"Whenever she reads something about long-term damage, that's what she's worried about," Gray said. "It's possible that I wouldn't die, but I would have permanent lung scarring or something like that."

Gray said she was among the first 1,000 people to join after reading about the project on Facebook. "If I can save lives with very little risk to myself," she said, "I almost feel like: How could I not?"
Interventional radiologists participating in a collaborative house call model in rural Indiana helped reduce emergency department use by 77 percent and hospital readmissions by 50 percent for nearly 1,000 elderly homebound patients with chronic illnesses, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting on June 13.

The novel care model brings interventional radiology treatments into patients' homes to provide more value through in-home advanced specialty care, prevent common complications of chronic diseases, and avoid unnecessary emergency department visits and hospital admissions.

"Older homebound patients, including those in nursing home settings, have few resources available to receive specialty care and often delay care until preventable issues become urgent and acute," said Nazar Golewale, MD, lead author of the study and an interventional radiologist with Modern Vascular & Vein Center in Valparaiso, Indiana and the northwest Indiana area.

"By providing image-guided treatments in a patient's home, we are improving access to care that otherwise would need to be delivered in the hospital."

Dr. Golewale sees more than 900 of the practice's patients to diagnose and manage their conditions.

Through varieties of portable technology, he brings interventional radiology care into patients' homes that would normally be delivered in clinics, such as ultrasound-guided needle biopsy, paracentesis and thoracentesis, ultrasound-guided joint injections for pain, wound care, and drug infusions.

Payments for care are covered by Medicare reimbursement for homebound patients.

The care partnership was formed to overcome the difficulty of providing specialty care for chronically ill, homebound patients in Dr. Golewale's rural community.

As a result of the program, patient satisfaction scores increased from 17 percent to 84 percent from before and after implementation of the program. Primary care providers, including internists and nurse practitioners, recruited specialists based on the needs of the patients they serve.

In addition to interventional radiology, the house call practice includes providers in internal medicine, podiatry, laboratory services, and wound care.

Some specialty services are available at our local hospitals, but cost-effective ways of coordinating patients' transportation and visits remained a significant barrier to care." Nazar Golewale MD, Study Lead Author, Interventional Radiologist with Modern Vascular & Vein Center, Valparaiso

"By bringing the hospital care to the patient, we're eliminating these hurdles and providing timely, personalized care."
A multimillion-dollar flood prevention project in Ho Chi Minh City may fall behind its scheduled launch date in November if delays in the handover of cleared sites persist, according to the developer.

On Monday, leaders from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ho Chi Minh City administration inspected construction sites on Tan Thuan, Phu Xuan, Muong Chuoi, and Cay Kho floodgates.

The floodgates are part of a VND10 trillion (US$430 million) project to control tidal flooding with climate change taken into account.

The developer has mobilized around 1,200 workers and engineers to work around the clock to finish the project by October this year.

Nguyen Tam Tien, general director of Trung Nam Group, said on Sunday work on the project had been 78 percent complete.

Tien pointed out the tougest components of the project, including underwater constructions, had been finished. The remaining workload involves equipment installation.

Sluice gates have already been in place while flap valves are being installed in major sewers, according to the executive.

Trung Nam Group will prepare qualified technicians for technology transfer, he said.

Sluice gates that are part of a VND10 trillion ($430 million) tidal flood control project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam are seen in this photo taken on June 14, 2020. Photo: Duc Phu / Tuoi Tre

Another hurdle to the project involves site clearance, Tien said, noting that around a dozen households near the Muong Chuoi floodgate in the outlying district of Nha Be have yet to hand over their land to local authorities.

The investor has already transferred compensation fees for those households and organizations affected by the project to local authorities. If the site is handed over right this June, the project will be finished in October this year, Tien was quoted by Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) newspaper as saying.

The workload on the Cay Kho floodgate in the suburban district of Binh Chanh has been about 70 percent complete, due to delays in site clearance, he added.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep spoke highly of the investors efforts, and urged the municipal government to hand over cleared land in a timely fashion so the project would have been up and running by November this year.

Meanwhile, the citys vice-chairman Le Thanh Liem said the project would play a crucial role in coping with tidal flooding, so it has commanded special attention from local residents and authorities.

Liem asked district officials to settle site clearance issues as soon as possible to keep the project running on schedule.

Sluice gates that are part of a VND10 trillion ($430 million) tidal flood control project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam are seen in this photo taken on June 14, 2020. Photo: Duc Phu / Tuoi Tre

The project, whose work started in mid-2016, aims to control tidal flooding as a response to climate change.

It is expected to benefit around 6.5 million city dwellers in a 570-square-kilometer stretch of land on the right bank of the Saigon River and in downtown Ho Chi Minh City.

It will also help regulate water levels in city canals, improve local water drainage, and beautify the landscape of nearby areas.

To make room for the project, around 1,400 residents in urban Districts 1, 4, 7 and 8, as well as the outlying districts of Binh Chanh and Nha Be, have been forced to relocate.

The municipal administration has spent nearly VND26 trillion ($1.11 billion) worth of public and private funds on flood control projects over the past five years, according to the Center for Technical Infrastructure Management under the municipal Department of Construction.

At least 25 out of 36 heavily flooded sites have been handled during the five-year period, the center said, noting the number of such sites has dropped by 104 since 2008.

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Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday while addressing Uttarakhand Jan Samvad virtual rally spoke about the on-going situation of Indo-Nepal ties. He stated that "If there is any misunderstanding between India and Nepal, then we will sort it out through dialogue."

The Defence Minister further added that the relationship between India and Nepal is not ordinary. "No power can break it. No bitterness against Nepal can be formed in the mind of Indians. We will sit and sort it through," he added, opining that the relationship was a spiritual and religious one.

This comes amid the row over Nepal PM KP Sharma Oli approving Nepal's new map featuring the Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura, allegedly on the basis of the Sugauli Treaty of 1816 signed between Nepal and the then British Indian government and other relevant documents.

Read: India notes passage of Nepal's constitutional amendment for new map; terms it 'violative'

Read: Nepal's lower house passes bill to redraw map including Kalapani, Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura

Nepal incorporates Indian territories in the new map

On Saturday, Nepal's House of Representatives (Lower House), passed a constitutional amendment to include Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura in Nepal's official Map unanimously. The amendment of the same was introduced in the House on Tuesday. It was passed unanimously, as the KP Sharma Oli-led government enjoyed the support of the main opposition party Nepali Congress and Janata Samajwadi Party-Nepal in passing the new map. This move came just a day after the firing at the Indo-Nepal border in Bihar, which killed a labourer. According to the security forces, the firing took place due to a local issue that had cropped up recently. Following that, a discussion on the bill was also approved for Nepal's upper house.

Read: Nepal Parliament's session begins; likely to pass bill to redraw political map

Read: Subramanian Swamy analyses Nepal adding Indian area to its map, seeks foreign policy reset
Almost four months after a ghost ship ran aground in Ireland, the authorities are still trying to trace the owners. And it now looks like the Irish taxpayers are faced with a cleanup operation that could run into many millions of euros.

The 77-meter-long (approx. 250-foot) cargo ship Alta grounded on rocks off the County Cork coast in February this year after it was brought ashore by Storm Denis; the ship had been drifting across the Atlantic Ocean from Bermuda for more than a year.

This is one in a million, local lifeboat chief John Tattan told Irish Examiner.

The abandoned 77-meter-long (250-foot) ghost ship MV Alta is pictured stuck on rocks near the village of Ballycotton southeast of Cork in Southern Ireland on Feb. 18, 2020. (CATHAL NOONAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Tattan, who is the head of Ballycottons Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), said that he had never, ever seen anything abandoned like that before.

Since the grounding, the mystery of who owns the ship remains unresolvedleaving the Irish authorities with a giant headache over what to do. According to salvage expert Mark Hoddinott, removing the wreck could cost more than 10 million euros (US$11.3 million).

Speaking to the Irish broadcaster RTE, Hoddinott said: Whether the state would want to remove her just because she was an eyesore, I doubt. The cost of removing her would be quite considerable too5 million to 10 million euros, or I would say probably a bit higher. Is it really worth it? My own view would be, probably not.

Hoddinott added that because of the vessels age, the scrap value is low.

People look down on the abandoned ghost ship MV Alta, which drifted without a crew for more than a year before coming aground on Irelands south coast in high seas caused by Storm Dennis. (CATHAL NOONAN/AFP via Getty Images)

However, being left as a coastal eyesore to rust and be broken up by the waves is a prospect that is making local people bristle.

The tangled backstory to the ghost ship is a salutary reminder that the owners, whoever they may be, should always take responsibility. Their duty is to own the financial and environmental mess they create and bear responsibility for the lives of their crews.

What is transparent, according to the BBC, is that things started to go wrong for the crew of the Alta on passage from Greece to Haiti in September 2018. Due to unidentified problems, the ship lost power. It then began drifting for almost three weeks, about 1,300 miles southeast of Bermuda.

MV Alta ghost ship stuck on rocks near the village of Ballycotton southeast of Cork in Southern Ireland on Feb. 18, 2020. (CATHAL NOONAN/AFP via Getty Images)

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, which was monitoring the situation, they dropped emergency supplies by helicopter to the crew, who were down to just two days of food left on board. But the crews plight took another turn for the worse as a hurricane approached.

With the lives of the crew in peril on an unsteerable drifting ship, the U.S. Coastguard decided to evacuate the 10-strong crew to Puerto Rico. At the time, the Bermuda Coastguard confirmed the ship remained adrift, the BBC reported.

The aging vessel, with no crew on board, was left to the mercy of the seas and was not spotted again until September 2019. The United Kingdoms Royal Navy patrol ship HMS Protector found the Alta in the mid-Atlantic. After the Royal Navy confirmed that no one was aboard, the Navy ships Twitter account tweeted: Efforts may continue to recover her, but her future lies in the hands of others.

The abandoned 77-metre (250-foot) ghost ship MV Alta. (CATHAL NOONAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The hazard to shipping continued its wanderings, apparently unclaimed until Storm Dennis drove her onto the rocks in Ireland.

However, the Guardian reported that the 1976-built Alta had been flagged in Tanzania but had changed hands in 2017, the year before leaving Greece on her final voyage. After the crew was rescued at some point, the Guardian claimed the Alta was reportedly towed to Guyana and then hijacked.

Locals climb aboard the ghost ship MV Alta. (CATHAL NOONAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The already murky history of the Alta, then, deepens yet further. It is clear, though, that the owners appear to have abandoned the ships crew to their fate while apparently making zero effort to get the vessel repaired in the 20 days it was adrift.

Further, they thoroughly washed their hands off all responsibility to secure their ship and prevent it from becoming a potentially life-threatening hazard to shipping and the marine environment.
As I held a vibrating pod in each hand, and as my eyes rolled back and forth behind my eyelids in time to their pulsing, following the vibrations from left to right and back again, I thought about my grandmother  my nurturing figure, who had died when I was 18. I pictured her at the open kitchen window of her suburban bungalow, leaning toward the window screen to exhale cigarette smoke; the deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes and the clear plastic of her glasses; the smell of Vicks VapoRub and feel of her bony frame when we hugged. The pods pulsed. My eyes moved from side to side. I felt loved and safe. To my surprise, I felt stronger, too. In the time since, I have sometimes called up those sensory memories of my grandmother when Im upset, or when I feel in need of support. It always helps.

Resource installation is one way to cultivate resilience, but there are plenty of other methods and approaches too, many of which do not involve paying a therapist. Its not a trait thats hard-wired, and you have it or you dont, said Karen Reivich, the author of The Resilience Factor and the director of resilience and positive psychology training programs at the University of Pennsylvania. Nor is it that reservoir I had imagined, with a fixed, finite capacity. I define resilience as the ability to navigate adversity and to grow and thrive from challenges, Dr. Reivich added. And, she emphasized, it is an ability that can be learned.

So how do we learn? It is about small shifts in action and outlook. One critical step: Take meaningful action. Ask yourself, whats something I can do today, even if its small, she said, that reminds me that I am not helpless? During a lockdown, that could mean something as mundane as doing the dishes, imposing some order on your environment. Step two: Connect to others. Our social relationships can be a critical factor in building our resilience  which, of course, is part of what makes the restrictions in place to weather the coronavirus pandemic so hard. But, Dr. Reivich added, even if youre not physically present with them, knowing that there are people somewhere on this globe that are cheering for you, and that you can reach out to, is a driver of resilience.

Unlike the trauma from my car accidents, which took place entirely inside my head, the pandemic is both an external and an internal crisis. It is a disaster happening outside of us, all around us. Lucy Hone, the author of Resilient Grieving, is an expert on both the macro- and micro-level crisis. She has used her research into resilience to help her home city, Christchurch, New Zealand, through the aftermath of the devastating 2011 earthquake, but she has also been forced to apply that training in her own life, after the death of her young daughter in a car crash.

Dr. Hone notes that, while there is much that individuals can do to strengthen their own resilience, we are also products of the systems that surround us. Our capacity for resilience is nested within the environment and the systems within which we live, she said. Those systems can encompass access to health care and mental health supports during a crisis, paid time off, child care or the simple acts of support from our friends and loved ones (a meal dropped off, a joke told during a phone call). It can be tempting, she said, to emphasize the actions of the individual  but it is much easier to be resilient when you are not struggling alone with the challenges you face.

At the individual level, she invokes the Stockdale Paradox. Named for Vice Adm. James B. Stockdale, a long-term prisoner of war in Vietnam, it holds that surviving adversity means combining both optimism, or faith, that you will prevail over adversity with a bald, even brutal view of your current reality. So we hope for an improved future, while being honest about where we find ourselves; one without the other only leads to disappointment or despair.

Dr. Hone also suggests that we ask ourselves a question with each decision we make: Is this helping me or harming me? That third glass of wine: Does it help or harm? How about continuing to scroll through the news and social media? Going for a walk? The question is a simple framework within which to take better care of ourselves.
LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Loki Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology company developing next-generation cancer therapeutics that leverage childhood vaccination recall antigens, today announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), and the appointment of several prominent members, including Eileen O'Reilly, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Alan Forsythe, Ph.D., of Forsythe and Bear, LLC, a biostatistical consulting firm; and John McAuliffe, MD, Ph.D., F.A.C.S., and Jennifer Chuy, MD, both of Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Drs. O'Reilly, Forsythe, McAuliffe and Chuy will work closely with Loki's Founder and CEO Chris Bradley and principal scientist Claudia Gravekamp, Ph.D., to advance the development of the company's AWAKE platform, a potentially groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment that activates and redirects pre-existing memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to target and eliminate cancer cells.

"We are pleased to announce the launch of our SAB with the expertise of these inaugural members," said CEO Chris Bradley. "The SAB will provide critical guidance to Loki as we advance towards Phase 1 studies designed to confirm the clinical potential of our lead drug candidate derived from our AWAKE technology platform. Our SAB's medical, clinical trial and regulatory expertise will be instrumental in guiding Loki as we develop therapies that harness the power of memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to generate a powerful and immediate immune response to solid tumors and metastases."

Unique among immunotherapy approaches, Loki's AWAKE platform utilizes non-pathogenic microbes (attenuated Listeria monocytogenes) for the precise delivery of childhood vaccine recall antigens to tumor microenvironments and into tumor cells. Loki's lead program  AWAKE-LM-TT  capitalizes on the childhood vaccination for tetanus toxoid (TT) to trigger an immune response to solid tumors presenting the tetanus antigens.

SAB Members

Eileen O'Reilly, MD

Dr. O'Reilly is Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. O'Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple trials in pancreas cancer and has authored/co-authored more than 275 articles, editorials and book chapters.

Dr. O'Reilly received her medical degree at Trinity College (Dublin University) in Ireland. She completed her residency training in Ireland and fellowship training at MSK. Dr. O'Reilly's research and clinical activities focus primarily on pancreatic and hepatobiliary malignancies, and her research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for the treatment of pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection.

Dr. O'Reilly teaches and mentors junior faculty, oncology fellows, residents and medical/other students and has numerous teaching and other awards. She also chairs several prestigious medical committees.

Alan Forsythe, Ph.D.

Dr. Forsythe has extensive experience in drug development management and statistical consulting. He has served as Partner and President of Forsythe and Bear, LLC Biostatistical Consulting Firm since 2009 and as a member of the NIH/NCI Interoperability Workgroup in 2006. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Dr. Forsythe held roles of increasing responsibility from 1991-2005 at Amgen, Inc., including as Vice President of Corporate Biomedical Information. There, he held direct responsibility for the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Health Economics departments, and was responsible for planning, organizing and monitoring the implementation of new ways to increase profitability by shortening the time to get products to market around the world while improving the quality of the material presented to regulatory bodies for approval. He also had global oversight of long-range development plans for current and emerging Amgen products with respect to biometrics, epidemiology and health economics, and reviewed and approved all protocols for clinical studies, as well as proposed clinical publications and presentations.

Dr. Forsythe also previously served as Senior Vice President at Viratek, Inc., which is part of a $200 million pharmaceutical company, as Regional Director of Scientific Research at Southern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, as Adjunct Professor of Biomathematics at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical School and as Adjunct Professor of Preventive Medicine at University of Southern California (USC). He has helped author more than 100 publications.

John McAuliffe, MD, Ph.D., F.A.C.S.

Dr. McAuliffe is Associate Program Director General Surgery Residency, Attending Surgeon and Assistant Professor at Montefiore Medical Center and Site Director at Montefiore's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Since joining the Montefiore team in 2016, his clinical focus has been on endocrine, neuroendocrine, and pancreaticobiliary benign and malignant diseases.

Dr. McAuliffe's research focuses on tumor biology, dissemination, and therapeutics in pancreatic adenocarcinoma via tumor-associated macrophages. He is the principal investigator on research projects focusing on surgical education quality improvement. His work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and books and has been presented nationally. He is board certified in general surgery and complex general surgery oncology and is a member of numerous professional societies.

Dr. McAuliffe received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston and his MD from the McGovern Medical School in Houston. Dr. McAuliffe began his postgraduate training with a year-long fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, after which he trained at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital. While there, he completed an internship and residency in General Surgery, becoming Administrative Chief Resident in his final year. He then completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Jennifer Chuy, MD

Dr. Chuy is an Attending Physician in hematology and oncology at Montefiore Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a part of the division of gastrointestinal oncology and works closely with the multidisciplinary pancreatobiliary team. She has worked closely with scientists at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine on translational studies in pancreatic cancer funded by PANCAN. She is actively involved in the education of the medical oncology fellows.

She is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology, and completed an internal medicine residency and a hematology/oncology fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine after earning her medical degree at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

About Loki Therapeutics

Loki Therapeutics is an immuno oncology company that is developing a new generation of cancer therapeutics that efficiently deliver childhood recall antigens to tumor cells with genetically attenuated bacterial vectors. Loki's AWAKE technology platform offers a potentially groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment by activating and redirecting pre-existing memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to target and eliminate cancer cells. Key to AWAKE is its utilization of attenuated Listeria Monocytogenes for the precise delivery of recall antigens to tumor environments and into the tumor cell. Loki's lead development program  AWAKE-LM-TT  capitalizes on the childhood vaccination for tetanus toxoid (TT) to generate an immune response to solid tumors and metastases presenting the tetanus antigens. Loki is currently advancing AWAKE-LM-TT as a potential treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer, as well as metastatic ovarian cancer. Loki is also pursuing additional development programs based on other childhood vaccines, including polio (AWAKE-LM-PV) and mumps. For more information on Loki Therapeutics please visit www.lokitx.com.

Contacts

Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc.

Miriam Miller (Investors)

[email protected]

212-375-2694

Ingrid Mezo (Media)

[email protected]

646-604-5150

SOURCE Loki Therapeutics
A former U.S. Marine held in Russia on suspicion of spying was sentenced Monday to 16 years in jail, according to state media reports and the U.S. embassy in Moscow.

Paul Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in the Russian capital at the end of December 2018. He was accused of espionage, a charge he denies.

Whelan's defense said they would appeal the decision within 10 days, according to Russian news agency, Interfax.

"Today, #PaulWhelan was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia," Rebecca Ross, spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, tweeted attributing the remarks to the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John J. Sullivan.

"This secret trial in which no evidence was produced is an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms."

Ross subsequently tweeted that the ambassador has demanded that Whelan be released immediately and considers the conviction a mockery of justice.

"There was no evidence recited by the judge that justified the detention that he's already been subjected to, which is a year and a half," Sullivan told journalists outside the court, according to The Associated Press.

"I am disappointed, crestfallen, outraged at what I've just heard."

Spying charges carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years in Russia.

Image: Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine accused of espionage and arrested in Russia, listens to his lawyers while standing inside a defendants' cage during a hearing at a court in Moscow (Mladen Antonov / AFP - Getty Images)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday that the United States was outraged by the conviction after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses.

Pompeo said Whelans treatment at the hands of Russian authorities had been appalling.

Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends, Pompeo said.

Whelans brother, David Whelan, told MSNBC after his detention that he was in Russia to attend a wedding but never made it to the ceremony. He also said the family had learned Whelan had been detained from online news reports.

Story continues

Whelan has been detained in Russia for over 17 months. His trial has been closed to the public because Moscow says the case is classified.

In response to his brothers conviction and sentencing on Monday, David Whelan said the Russian legal system had been found guilty of injustice.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, he said in a statement.

We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.

Prior to the sentencing, David Whelan told NBC News on Sunday that his brother's detention had been particularly hard on his parents who are in their 80s.

The longer the sentence, and the longer that he actually spends in the, in Russian prison, the less likely he will see my parents, he told NBC News, ahead of the verdict.

Theyre obviously upset about that.

David Whelan also said that he was hopeful that a conviction would allow the U.S. and Russian governments to talk about his brother's release.

The condition of Whelan's health remains unclear after he was rushed to hospital last month for an emergency operation, according to his brother and the U.S. embassy.

David Whelan said his brother was taken to hospital for emergency hernia surgery after suffering from severe abdominal pain.

Ross, the Embassy spokeswoman, accused Russian authorities of waiting until his condition was life-threatening to provide him medical attention.

Weve repeatedly requested Paul be allowed an outside, English-speaking doctor, yet hes been denied necessary medical attention, she tweeted.

Pompeo also weighed in saying it was unacceptable for Whelan to be denied medical treatment until his condition became dire.

We demand Pauls release, Pompeo tweeted on May 30.
A man accused of racially abusing a BBC reporter as she prepared to go live on air will stand trial in September, a court heard today.

Russell Rawlingson, 50, allegedly targeted the TV and radio journalist in Leicester city centre on May 10, forcing her to abandon her planned on-air report.

Ms Kotecha was in Leicester reporting on Prime Minister Boris Johnsons statement on coronavirus restrictions and had lined up guests to interview about the pandemic lockdown.

Priya Jacob, a junior doctor who has recovered from coronavirus, was due to be interviewed live on BBC One when the broadcast was abandoned.

Rawlingson, from Glenfield Road in Leicester, is accused of using threatening, insulting, or abusive behaviour, specifically targeting Ms Kotecha based on her membership or presumed member of a particular racial group.

BBC presenter Sima Kotecha / BBC

Appearing at Leicester crown court this afternoon, Rawlingson denied the charge of causing racially aggravated alarm or distress.

Judge Martin Hurst released the defendant on bail until a trial, which is due to take place in the week of September 7.

Ms Kotecha, 40, the BBCs Midlands Correspondent who was recently in Italy covering the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, is expected to be a witness in the trial.

Todays hearing was largely conducted via Skype, with lawyers and journalists joining remotely while the judge, Rawlingson and court staff were physically at the court.
STAMFORD  Police say a city man nearly died after being stabbed in the abdomen during a fight over a woman at an alcohol fueled house party on Friday night.

Samuel Williams, 22, of Tresser Boulevard, was charged with first-degree assault and was released after posting a $15,000 court appearance bond.

His criminal defense attorney Mark Sherman said the investigation of the case is far from over. He said Williams is cooperating with police and is providing them with additional information about the incident.

This was self-defense from the moment the confrontation started, Sherman said.

Sgt. Sean Boeger said police were called to Castle Court where there was loud music and a fight in progress Friday night.

When they got there they found a Stamford man in his 20s who had been badly stabbed in the abdomen, Police said. The man was rushed to Stamford Hospital.

He almost died at the hospital and had a tremendous amount of internal bleeding. It was difficult to stop it and the hospital almost ran out of blood, but they were able to get the bleeding under control and stabilize him, Boeger said.

Witnesses have told investigators that there was a prior confrontation involving Williams, the man who was stabbed and that mans friend, followed by the incident in which the man was stabbed, Boeger said.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday rejected Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's remarks about the situation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and alleged that it was an attempt to divert attention from Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing a virtual Jan Samvad rally for Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said on Sunday that when people of PoK will want to be freed of Pakistan's occupation and be part of India, then this will lead to the fulfilment of Parliament's resolution that the region is an integral part of the country.

"Let's wait for what happens in future. There will be demand from PoK to be freed of Pakistan's occupation and to live with India. When this happens, then Parliament's resolution will also be fulfilled," Singh said.

Parliament has also earlier passed resolution that PoK is part of India.

Reacting to Singh's remarks, the Foreign Office said that his statement is "another desperate attempt to divert attention from Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5 and bifurcating it into two Union territories.

India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was its internal matter.
Jeremy Clarkson has urged people worried about the future of British food production post-Brexit to 'contact the government immediately'.

The TV presenter turned farmer has raised concerns that producers will soon be forced to compete with countries who farm to lower-standards.

This, coupled with the phasing out of the EU's Basic Payment Scheme, would leave 'thousands' of British farmers 'screwed'.

The former Top Gear presenter, a self-confessed 'inept townie', began filming his eight-part Amazon Prime series 'I Bought the Farm' in September 2019.

The series centres on the highs and lows of farming life on his 1000-acre farm near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

But in a new article for the Sunday Times, Clarkson highlighted how MPs recently rejected an Agriculture Bill amendment that would have protected British farmers and customers from low-quality imports.

He said the the 'fate of UK agriculture' was in the hands of 600 MPs 'whod broken off from home schooling to chip in with their ill-thought-out opinion'.

"This means that, soon, British farmers will be asked to compete on the world stage, with no financial help, while having both hands tied behind their backs by red tape," he wrote.

"Even now, I cannot sell a lamb I delivered and reared on my own farm in my own farm shop for less than youd pay for a New Zealand lamb in the supermarket.

"When the basic payment scheme for farmers is phased out, Ill be even more screwed. So will many thousands of others."

Clarkson went on to highlight the fact that the UK food self-sufficiency level is only 60 percent.

"If youre worried about that number getting any lower, you should contact the government immediately.

"Send your thoughts on a form, its the only language it seems to understand," he added.

It comes as the NFU's viral post-Brexit food standards petition nears 1 million signatures.

The petition, launched at the NFU Conference in February, demands that all food imports are produced to the same standards as the UK in the event of any post-Brexit trade deal.
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)

Gone With the Wind to Return to HBO With Contextual Introduction

When Gone With the Wind returns to HBOs streaming platform, it will include an introduction placing the film in its multiple historical contexts, according to a professor who says shes creating the introduction.

HBO Max removed the 1939 movie last week amid protests and riots sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis resident who died in police custody on Memorial Day.

HBO confirmed to The Epoch Times that the movie will return soon, though there is no set date yet.

Jacqueline Stewart, a professor at the University of Chicago, said in a new op-ed that when the film returns to HBO Max, it will include an introduction from her.

I will provide an introduction placing the film in its multiple historical contexts, she wrote.

While some activists have called for the permanent removal of the movies and others from the era, the professor argued it should remain in circulation, calling it a prime text for examining expressions of white supremacy in popular culture.

A mosaic depicting a scene from the film Gone with the Wind is shown on fencing surrounding the offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in Encino, Calif., in an Oct. 30, 2007, file photograph. (Fred Prouser/Reuters)

Gone With the Wind can serve as a teaching opportunity, Stewart said.

Right now, people are turning to movies for racial re-education, and the top-selling books on Amazon are about anti-racism and racial inequality. If people are really doing their homework, we may be poised to have our most informed, honest and productive national conversations yet about Black lives on screen and off, Stewart said.

HBO is owned by WarnerMedia. Bob Greenblatt, who heads the media company, said in a radio interview last week that pulling the film was sort of a no-brainer.

I dont regret taking it down for a second. I only wish we had put it up in the first place with the disclaimer. And we just didnt do that, he said.

HBO Max includes a number of films from the Turner Classic Movies library, but didnt include context that other classic movies have when played on television and at Turners film festival, the executive said.

Theyve talked about some of the racial stereotypes and some of issues with how the Civil War is portrayed, which is much more positive than focusing on slavery the darker side of that issue, he said. If it was on the linear network, it wouldnt need it because theyre often talking about these issues. We failed to put the disclaimer in there, which sets up the issue, basically the issues that this movie really brings up. So, we took it off and were going to bring it back with a proper context, and its what we should have done.
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It had been highly anticipated by fans, but has left critics crying foul.

The eagerly-awaited release of Artemis Fowl, an adaptation of the young adult fantasy book series shot in Northern Ireland, has been met with crushing disappointment.

Reviews have slated the 100m picture, which was filmed on location at Dunluce Castle, Co Antrim, and Whiterocks Beach in Portrush and debuted on Disney+ last week.

With the stunning local sights as the backdrop and Belfast-born actor and director Sir Kenneth Branagh at the helm, fans of the tween fantasy novels by Irish author Eoin Colfer (below) had high hopes for the production.

The consensus among critics is quite the opposite, however, with review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes rating it at only 10%.

The New York Times deemed the picture as "fowl, but far from fair", while others thought the child genius Artemis Fowl, played by Ferdia Shaw, was far too well-behaved for the "criminal mastermind" depicted in the books.

"The Artemis Fowl books were a radical series for young readers used to clear-cut heroes and villains, with a ruthless preteen protagonist who was undeniably the villain of the story," said Hoai-Tran Bui, a critic for slashfilm.com.

"The movie sands down the edges of Artemis Fowl that made its title character so unique."

Writing in Empire, Helen O'Hara concluded: "This fantasy desperately needed a little more magic."

While it does feature acclaimed actors, most notably Colin Farrell as the protagonist's father and Judi Dench as Commander Root, expert review website IGN deemed the characters unremarkable.

The publication said of the 95-minute picture: "An empty science-fantasy tale with forgettable characters and an uninspired story."

"The film throws a lot at you, but it doesn't give you any time to digest who the characters are or why you should care," wrote Time Out critic Philip De Semlyen.

"Artemis and his dad are thinly developed. Artemis is supposed to be a criminal mastermind but you never see him committing any crimes or doing anything particularly clever."

Defending the production, Branagh said in an interview that the Disney studio had been nervous regarding Artemis Fowl's dastardly behaviour. "The goal for us was to find a way, without sanitising the character, to (create) an origin story," he said.

"We had to take him from something just ahead of what Eoin delightfully described as an 11-year-old Bond villain and, in the first story, let him arrive at that."

De Semlyen agreed that the result was an example of studio meddling in the creative process, which he termed "death by executive".

Meanwhile, Sunday Times film critic Tom Shone gave it a weak two stars.

Film pundits waited for 20 years for the debut after it was originally sold to the now disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein along with Robert De Niro's Tribeca production company in 2000.

The eight-volume series set in Ireland, which sold over 25m copies, was then picked up by Walt Disney Studios in 2013.

Disney auditioned 12,000 boys across Ireland for the role of Artemis in 2017 before settling on Dublin teen Ferdia Shaw. Weinstein was removed from the project later that year and filming got under way in 2018.

Reviewers did praise the actor's performance alongside co-star Lara McDonnell, also from Ireland, but the Los Angeles Times said audiences will ultimately be disappointed.
A Philadelphia Family Court supervisor was fired Monday after video surfaced of him tearing down Black Lives Matter signs from a fence at a South Philadelphia park and saying he didnt care about black lives.

Michael Henkel, 61, of South Philadelphia, had worked as a writ-server supervisor. After video was shared widely on social media of him taking down the signs at Columbus Square, at 12th and Reed Streets, the First Judicial District terminated his job.

In the video, after a woman is heard yelling out to him, Black lives matter, Henkel responds, Not to me they dont.

The 34-second video posted on a womans Facebook page Sunday afternoon attracted more than 800 comments and 2,000 shares by noon Monday. The woman who posted the video could not be reached Monday. Her post was removed from public view early Monday afternoon.

The video was also shared on Instagram on the @nogunzone account.

In a statement Monday, Marty ORourke, a Family Court spokesperson, said Henkel is no longer an employee.

His termination was based on multiple violations of the state court systems Code of Conduct and its Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Policy, ORourke said.

ORourke said Henkel had no involvement with cases but did supervise employees. He did not immediately provide further details.

The court takes the incident very seriously and believes Mr. Henkels behavior as shown in the video is egregious and totally unacceptable for an employee of the courts, the First Judicial District said in a statement.

City payroll records show Henkel was hired in 1992 and had a $71,591 annual base salary. Henkel could not be reached for comment Monday.

In the video, a woman is heard telling Henkel that the signs that he was tearing down were not his property. He replied, occasionally using expletives, I know. Its the city. I pay for this.  Yeah, my taxes pay for this place, yep.

Added Henkel: So I can do whatever I want.  Im always around here, too.

Great. I live right here, the woman said, adding, Black lives matter!

To that, Henkel said: Not to me they dont.

Leslie Chapman, 42, who lives several blocks from the park, said Monday that one of the torn-down signs was hers. She said the signs were put on the fence as part of a Friday afternoon, kid-friendly march. The march was organized by Passyunk Square neighborhood leaders and the Philadelphia Student Union.

Chapmans cardboard sign, which had been tied to the parks metal fence with string, read, Black Lives Matter, and had a drawing of a rainbow on it.

Fridays march was racially diverse and peaceful, she said. Seeing the man on the video tear down the signs from the march ruined that beautiful memory, she said. Chapman said there are probably kids who made other signs and who walk by that park, and would have been excited to see their signs on the fence.

For that adult to take that away from children, its just really awful, she said. The kids probably had a lot of fun making those signs.

Chapman, who said she is half-black and half-white, said it just really stung when she heard Henkels remarks in the video.

She said her boyfriend walked by Columbus Square on Monday morning and saw that some of the torn-down signs were taped back onto the fence.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is holding an all-party meeting on the coronavirus crisis in Delhi.

Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar and Aap Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Kumar were among the political leaders who attended the meeting.

A day before the meeting, Kumar had said that Congress has been giving positive suggestions for tackling the deteriorating situation of pandemic in Delhi and will do so in the meeting with Shah.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Shah held several meetings on the coronavirus situation in Delhi on Sunday, first with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and others, and later with the mayors and top officials of municipal bodies.

He then announced a series of measures to contain the spread of the virus in the national capital. On Twitter, Shah said that a comprehensive health survey of every person would be conducted in the containment zones to check the spread of coronavirus.

Testing for the infection will be doubled in the next two days in the capital and tripled in six days, he added.

Shah had also directed immediate transfer of four IAS officers to assist Delhi Government in the management of Covid-19. Accordingly, two officers from Andaman and Nicobar and two from Arunachal Pradesh were reassigned to New Delhi.

Kejriwal later said that the meeting with Shah was very productive and decisions were taken jointly after detailed discussions on key topics.

In a statement, the Delhi government said that the Centre and the AAP dispensation has agreed on an immediate action plan to increase capacity of beds, increase testing and other important initiatives.
The president and five other board members of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) have resigned amid allegations of racism and violations of privacy.

Laurie Hertzel, who had served as president since 2019, announced over the weekend she was leaving the 24-member board.

Her departure came two days after another board member, Ugandan-American writer Hope Wabuke, posted redacted screenshots on Twitter of an email exchange that included correspondence from Hertzel and board member Carlin Romano.

The NBCC, based in New York City, had been crafting a response to the worldwide protests against police racism and violence.

Hope Wabuke, pictured, posted redacted screenshots on Twitter of an email exchange that included correspondence from Hertzel and fellow board member Carlin Romano

Wabuke shared a redacted email, later revealed to be from fellow board member Carlin Romano, in which he argued against a number of points in a proposed statement from the NBCC's response to the Black Live Matter movement

'As members of the NBCC board were trying to work out the wording of a statement in support of Black Lives Matter and against racism, especially in our own realm of publishing, private exchanges were made public on Twitter, which made it impossible to continue with this discussion in good faith,' Hertzel wrote.

'I, along with five of our board members resigned, though not in a coordinated fashion. I can only speak for myself when I say that such a breach of confidence precludes the sort of deliberations that are essential to the NBCCs mission as a critical organization.'

Romano, a former NBCC president, had raised objections in his email to the proposed statement from the NBCC board, notably that 'White gatekeepers' in publishing 'stifle black voices.'

Laurie Hertzel, pictured, had served as president of the NBCC since 2019 before announcing over the weekend she was leaving the 24-member board

Romano responded that many black writers had benefited from 'good-willed white editors and publishers' and that he had seen 'far more of white people helping black writers than of black people helping white writers.'

In the email that was shared on Twitter by Wabuke, Romano wrote responding to the organization's proposed statement reacting to the Black Lives Matter movement: 'Of American book publishing: "This is a system that is composed of institutions that operate with the full benefits of white supremacy and institutional racism," and "White gatekeeping stifles black voices at every level of our industry..."

'Absolute nonsense. Equating American book publishing with American police departments, as this claim suggests, is ridiculous. Many of the writers cited in the letter's own list would never have been published if not for ecumenical, good-willed white editors who fought for the publication of black writers,' he wrote.

Pictured: Carlin Romano, who sent an email listing his objections to the NBCC's proposed response to the Black Live Matter movement

Wabuke wrote on Twitter that she had been pushing for the NBCC to release a statement backing the Black Lives Matter movement, but has met consistent resistance

He continued to respond to other points in the letter, writing 'I do not admit any culpability. I do not see any erasure. And I don't think our prize lists are too white. The letter's own list completely refutes the claim of erasure.

'We currently have three African American members of the Board. What should the breakdown of the Board be in a country in which 13.4% of the population is African American?' he wrote, adding 'I resent the idea that whites in the book publishing and literary world are an oppositional force that needs to be assigned to re-education camps.'

Ge goes on to claim that he has 'probably' written more articles about Philadelphia's black literature in his 25 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer than 'anyone living, black or white' adding that in his time in publishing he has 'seen far more of white people helping black writers than of black people helping white writers.'

'Our lists should include the best book, period, regardless of author ethnicity,' Romano concludes.

In a tweet, Wabuke shared a series of screenshots of an email from Carlin Romano in which he critiqued the proposed response from the NBCC to the Black Lives Matter movement

Romano's email was used as one example by Wabuke of resistance she has been met with when trying to get the organization to release a supportive statement of the Black Lives Matter movement

Romano, whose name was redacted in Wabukes screenshot, confirmed to The Associated Press that he had written the email but otherwise declined comment. As of Sunday evening, he was still listed as a board member on the book critic website, bookcritics.org.

Wabuke also tweeted that she had resigned from the NBCC, and also said that she had been 'trying to get this organizating to put our a simple statement that says Black Lives Matter and racism is bad for one week now. The tactic has been DENY ATTACK DELAY DELAY DELAY DELAY DELAY and now THREATEN,' she wrote.

'It is not possible to change these organizations from within, and the backlash will be too dangerous for me to remain,' she wrote in a separate tweet.

In response to Romano's email, Wabuke shared a list of why she believed his response to be problematic, highlighting the issues she has faced within the organization

Like virtually every other major publishing institution, the NBCC is predominantly white.

It was founded in 1974, has hundreds of members nationwide and every March presents awards for categories ranging from fiction to best first book.

Winners this year included a diverse range of works, among them Edwidge Danticat's 'Everything Inside' for fiction, Chanel Miller's 'Know My Name' for autobiography and Morgan Parker's 'Magical Negro' for poetry.

Left: Morgan Parker's (pictured) 'Magical Negro' was one of this years' winners for poetry. Right: Haitian author Edwidge Danticat reads a passage from her book. She was one of this years' winners for her work of fiction - 'Everything Inside'

Chanel Miller's 'Know My Name' was also a winner this year in the autobiography category

The NBCC has not announced a replacement for Hertzel, and no board member is currently authorized to speak for the organization.

The falling out at the NBCC continues an industry reckoning that pre-dates the recent protests.

The year began with several board members of the Romance Writers of America leaving or being forced out because of criticism over its lack of diversity.

One of the year's best-selling novels, Jeanine Cummins' 'American Dirt,' was strongly criticized for offering a stereotypical portrait of Mexican immigrants. The publisher, Macmillan, has promised to hire and publish more Latinos.

Last week, two top officials at the Poetry Foundation resigned after more than 1,000 poets endorsed an opened letter calling for a boycott of the foundation's Poetry magazine unless the officials stepped down and the Chicago-based organization devoted 'significantly greater allocation of financial resources toward work which is explicitly anti-racist in nature'.
ATLANTA - Pleading through tears Monday, the family of a black man killed by Atlanta police outside a drive-thru demanded changes in the criminal justice system and called on protesters to refrain from violence amid heightened tensions across the U.S. three weeks after George Floyds death in Minneapolis.

An autopsy found that 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back late Friday by a white officer who was trying to arrest him at a fast food restaurant for being intoxicated behind the wheel of his car. Brooks tried to flee after wrestling with officers and grabbing a stun gun from one of them.

Not only are we hurt, we are angry, said Chassidy Evans, Brooks niece. When does it stop? Were not only pleading for justice. Were pleading for change.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced Monday that she was ordering changes to police use-of-force policies, including requiring that officers receive continuous training in how to deescalate situations and use those techniques before taking action that could be fatal. She said she also was requiring officers to intervene if they see a colleague using excessive force.

The mayor said that after Brooks shooting, it was clear Atlanta did not have another day, another minute, another hour to waste in changing police practices.

Other cities nationwide are taking similar steps, and packages of police reforms have been proposed or are emerging in Congress.

About 20 of Brooks children, siblings, cousins and other family members sobbed at a news conference as over 1,000 people gathered not far away at an NAACP-led protest outside the Georgia Capitol.

Floyds death May 25 after a white Minneapolis officer pressed his knee into the black mans neck touched off demonstrations and scattered violence across the U.S., and Brooks killing rekindled those protests in Atlanta. The Wendys restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned down over the weekend.

Evans said there was no reason for her uncle to be shot and killed like trash in the street for falling asleep in a drive-thru.

Rayshard has a family who loves him who would have gladly come and got him so he would be here with us today, she said.

Relatives described Brooks as a loving father of three daughters and a stepson who had a bright smile and a big heart and loved to dance. His oldest daughter learned her father was slain while celebrating her eighth birthday with cupcakes and friends, wearing a special dress as she waited for Brooks to take her skating, said Justin Miller, an attorney for the family.

Theres no justice that can ever make me feel happy about whats been done, said Tomika Miller, Brooks widow. I can never get my husband back. ... I can never tell my daughter hes coming to take you skating or for swimming lessons.

She asked those demonstrating to keep the protesting peaceful, saying: We want to keep his name positive and great.

Several Democratic lawmakers joined protesters and called for Georgia to pass reforms including the repeal of the states citizens arrest and stand-your-ground laws.

While some Republican leaders pushed back against swift action on some proposals, GOP House Speaker David Ralston endorsed rapid passage of a hate-crimes law, telling lawmakers that failure to act would be a stain on this state we can never wash away.

Morgan Dudley, 18, skipped work to join the demonstration after her job kept her from joining protests following Floyds death three weeks ago.

I was like, You know what? This is not a trend. This is an actual problem that were facing, said Dudley, who is black.

Officials nationwide are responding to calls for reform while protests persist. The New York City Police Department is disbanding the type of plainclothes anti-crime units that were involved in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner and have long been criticized for aggressive tactics, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday.

In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a panel of residents, activists and one police official will review the Police Departments policy on when officers can use force. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Mayor Tim Keller said he wants a new department of social workers and civilian professionals to provide another option when someone calls 911.

And New Jerseys attorney general ordered police to begin divulging names of officers who commit serious disciplinary violations.

In Congress, Republicans are on the brink of introducing a bill with restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices, while a Democratic proposal would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force encounters and ban chokeholds. The White House will announce its own executive actions Tuesday.

In the Atlanta shooting, Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the shots that killed Brooks, was fired, and the other officer at the scene, Devin Brosnan, was put on desk duty. Police Chief Erika Shields resigned.

Police released the officers disciplinary histories, which showed Rolfe received a written reprimand in 2017 for use of force with a firearm but provided no other details. Rolfe, who was hired in October 2013, also got a written reprimand in 2018 and an oral admonishment in 2014, both for vehicle crashes. A firearm discharge case from 2015 listed no conclusion.

Brosnan was hired last June and had no disciplinary history.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said he hopes to decide by midweek whether to charge the officers. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the investigation.

Police were called to the restaurant over complaints of a car blocking the drive-thru lane. An officer found Brooks asleep in the car.

Police video showed Brooks co-operating with the officers for more than 40 minutes until a breath test determined his blood-alcohol level was over the legal limit. When one of the officers moved to handcuff him, Brooks tried to run and the officers took him to the ground.

Brooks broke free and took off with a stun gun but was shot. Rolfe told authorities that Brooks fired the stun gun at him.

Asked why Brooks ran, family attorney L. Chris Stewart suggested that he may have feared for his life.

They put George Floyd in handcuffs and he was subsequently killed, Stewart said. So just getting put in handcuffs if youre African American doesnt mean, oh, youre going to get nicely taken to the back of a police car.

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writer Ben Nadler in Atlanta contributed to this report.
SHANGHAI, China, June 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On 11 June 2020, Viva BioInnovator (VBI) successfully held its 1st Demo Day e-congress. Among nearly 50 incubation portfolio companies from the VBI platform, 8 startup companies attended this event, namely Forkhead Bio Therapeutics, DTx Pharma, Epican Technology, Acelink Therapeutics, TechnoDerma, VersaPeutics, Arthrosi Therapeutics and Totient, covering numerous fields including hereditary nephropathy, gout, diabetes, dermatological diseases, spinal cord injuries and early diagnosis of oncology. Over 200 domestic and overseas top-tier investors, representatives of investment institutions, R&D representatives of pharmaceutical companies, etc. participated in the event and conducted in-depth communication with company founders in an interactive way online.

Dr. David Xu, the Chief Business Officer of Viva Biotech, said, 'Leveraging Viva Biotech's world-leading structure-based drug discovery platform, innovative equity-for-service (EFS) business model as well as a novel drug R&D partner team of nearly 30 experts, VBI's innovative drug investment has reached a certain scale. Innovation in biopharmaceutical field requires cooperation between various parties. As an open platform focusing on biopharmaceutical innovation, VBI upholds a compatible attitude and is willing to enter into in-depth cooperation and communication with VC/PE, biotech companies, colleges, research institutions and other complementary CRO service institutions, to help companies grow fast, together establishing a biopharmaceutical innovation ecosystem.'

Apart from the conventional guests speech session, investor representatives from Sequoia Capital, Kaitai Capital, WisdoMont Asset Management, LH Ventures, etc., who had invested in those invited incubated companies, were also invited to VBI Demo Day. The previous investors shared their investment logics in aspects of technical path, market prospects and competitive strengths of each project.

VBI has been maintaining close cooperation with global renowned institutes, incubation centers, domestic and overseas investment institutions and biopharmaceutical industry conferences. It reviews approximately 600 to 1,000 projects every year with a strict reviewing scheme, under which the pass rate is only 5%. As of the end of 2019, VBI has already incubated 46 projects in total. It will continue adhering to the concept of scale-up investment with an estimated total number of incubated companies of over 100 in the next year. During the previous year, VBI's incubated projects made good progress with R&D and financing. Among which, companies including QurALis Corporation, QureBio, DTx Pharma, VivaVision, etc. successfully completed financing, and Anji Pharmaceuticals, Dogma Therapeutics, ABM Therapeutics and Arthrosi Therapeutics made steady progress with clinical trials.

In the future, VBI will continue organizing Demo Day events regularly, aiming to provide founders of the incubated companies with a better platform for financing, communication and exhibition, and further enhance the innovative biopharmaceutical investment ecosystem which centers on Viva Biotech and creating more values for companies on the platform, endeavoring to realize a win-win circumstance.

Viva Biotech's mission is to become a cradle for innovative biotechnology companies around the world. Viva Biotech has developed a scalable business model combing the conventional cash-for-service (CFS) model and its unique equity-for-service (EFS) model. Under the CFS model, the Group provides structure-based drug discovery services to its biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide for their pre-clinical stage innovative drug development, covering the full spectrum of the customers' needs for early stage drug discovery, including target protein expression and structure research, hit screening, lead optimization and drug candidate determination. Viva Biotech also provides drug discovery and incubation services to biotechnology start-up companies with high potential under its EFS model. As of December 31, 2019, Viva Biotech had provided drug discovery services to 438 biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide, worked on over 1,200 independent drug targets, delivered over 13,700 independent protein structures, and incubated a total of 46 early stage R&D projects.

Viva BioInnovator ("VBI") is the core department of Viva Biotech's incubation and EFS business. VBI is solely dedicated to the exploration, investment and service for valuable biopharmaceutical innovation concepts in various indication fields worldwide, and high potential startups with innovative solutions to unmet clinical needs. Leveraging Viva Biotech's rich experience and technical advantage in the field of novel drug R&D, VBI will provide investment and gradually optimize post-investment value-added services including R&D, site and logistic support, industrial connection and investment and financing according to various demand in different stages of drug discovery and company development, to accelerate the transformation from 0 to 1 and commercialization of novel drug R&D.

SOURCE Viva Biotech
TEHRAN, Iran, June 15

Trend:

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has called on the government to have control over the economic effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus, and to take care of the low-income class - as priorities, Trend reports via IRNA.

"Although economists believe that the economic effects of COVID-19 are more lasting and harmful than the coronavirus itself, the government has been implementing special measures to prevent any serious damage done to people," said Rouhani during the meeting of the government's economic coordination headquarters.

Rouhani pointed out that the government didn't have major problems with supplying the low-income class with essential goods.

"Close monitoring and timely response to rising prices are of the most serious tasks for the government officials, producers and sellers, said Rouhani. Any negligence in this regard is unacceptable.

Rouhani stressed that the new 'negative psychological wave' should not be allowed to overshadow the living conditions of the people.

Referring to high prices of housing and home appliances in recent days, he said that with the policies proposed by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development and the Ministry of Industry to the government's economic headquarters, efforts will be made to manage the prices.

Rouhani added that accelerating implementation of large-scale national housing projects is among the effective measures to control the housing prices.

The president also called on the Central Bank to take the necessary steps to increase the share of housing construction credits and loans in order to strengthen supply and move on with the national housing project.
If you dont agree that black lives matter, you should stop reading now.

Conversely, if you believe blacks in America are victims of a deadly conspiracy of systemic police racism you may want to look away. The facts simply do not bear out that claim.

Yes, we have heard about a horrific series of black citizens killed by police. But over the years there have been many more white citizens killed by police.

Precise numbers are not known because, almost unbelievably, no one is keeping track! There is a federal law called the Death in Custody Reporting Act of 2013, but it has largely been ignored by both states, which are required to report such deaths, and the Justice Department tasked with compiling and analyzing the information.

To fill the void, in 2015, the Washington Post started keeping track of every on-duty police officer shooting. Lets look at last years figures.

There were 1,004 police-involved shootings in 2019. Of the 802 cases in which the race of the suspect was available, we see that 371 were white, 236 were black. Given that blacks make up only about 13% of the U.S. population, African Americans were disproportionally killed more often than Caucasians. Additionally, as the Posts data shows, black suspects were more likely to be armed with a deadly weapon at the time of the fatal incident.

As for the oft-repeated claim that police routinely target unarmed black men, this startling fact from the Posts 2019 tally: There were just 10 fatal cases involving a black citizen who carried no weapon. Make no mistake, one case is one too many, but 10 cases in a population of 330 million people is hardly a routine or systemic occurrence.

Now, lets drill down on those 10 fatal cases. It is undisputed that in five of them the perpetrator attacked the officer first  either during the commission of a crime or as they were being pursued on outstanding warrants. In another case the officer struggled with a mentally ill man suspected of burglary, and it was determined that his weapon discharged accidentally. That leaves four cases  and in two of those the officers were criminally charged. One policeman in Newark, New Jersey, is now charged with manslaughter, another in Ft. Worth, Texas, now faces trial for homicide.

Facts are facts. Street protesters who carry signs about black genocide or white terrorism in America are either grossly uninformed or lying for effect. Is there racism in the United States? Without a doubt, sad to say. But last year was the safest year for suspects  black or white  since the Washington Post started tracking police-involved shootings.

It was not, however, the safest for police. Forty-eight law enforcement officers were killed on the job last year.

It is high time and positively right for us to question deadly police actions and to demand more accountability from law enforcement. It is also way past time for all citizens  especially minorities  to demand an end to gratuitous police brutality. Police work for us, and we all should be treated with respect.

By the same token, protestors must come to grips with some harsh realities. The biggest threat to people of color does not come from police; it comes from criminal elements within their own communities.

Crime is generally intraracial. White killers overwhelmingly slay other whites and the same holds true in black society. FBI statistics from 2018 concluded when a murder victim was black, 88% of the time the culprit was also black.

The truth is, there are some black folk who do bad things. The sad truth is that their victims are most often other black people, Professor John Hudgins wrote recently in the Baltimore Sun. Hudgins, an African American professor of sociology at Choppin University, urges other blacks to look within to help end the violence.

We must realize that some black people are a much greater threat to other black people than the Ku Klux Klan or the White Citizens Councils, he wrote.

The scab that hid this nations racial tension has been torn off. We only heal if everyone accepts responsibility for their prejudices, admits their failures and marches forward in calm solidarity to bring this country together. Otherwise, welcome to the new normal.

www.DianeDimond.com; e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.com.
The wildfire season in the Southwest picked up plenty of steam in recent days as the calendar inches toward the official start of summer on June 20. In parts of Arizona and New Mexico, that season is already fully ablaze.

Wildfire worries in the Catalina Mountains ignited in the first week of June when lightning sparked the Bighorn Fire. The blaze, which has consumed 15,805 acres and is 40% contained as of Wednesday morning, has been fed steadily by dry, windy conditions.

"The topography is extremely challenging. These mountains are very rugged, very remote. There's not a lot of road access into them. So that all makes firefighting very challenging," Molly Hunter told AccuWeather on Tuesday. Hunter is the public information officer for the Bighorn Fire.

"Due to the fire, Catalina State Park and several popular trails in the area are closed ... The vegetation in the area is tinder-dry including tall grass, brush, dormant brush and hardwood slash," according to fire incident overview on InciWeb.

Among that vegetation has been the overgrowth of invasive buffel grass. Ben Wilder, director of Tumamoc Hill's Desert Laboratory, told Tucson.com that the highly flammable, non-native grass has spread to areas of the Catalina foothills that don't normally burn during wildfires.

However, Wilder also said a similar blaze could be much worse in future years if buffle grass growth isn't contained.

Going forward, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist David Samuhel said, the winds, along with a lack of rain, will continue to complicate situations for firefighting crews in the coming days.

"The strongest winds will occur during the afternoon and evening hours Wednesday," he said. "Gusts over 30 mph will hamper firefighting efforts. Along with the gusty winds will come low relative humidity."

Although temperatures will drop this week, compared to last week, no rain is expected any time soon, Samuhel said. AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Jack Boston added that winds are expected to pick up to 10-20 mph by Friday and Saturday in the Pima County area.

Story continues

However, there has been some good news in terms of weather conditions.

"We had a little bit higher "humidities," lower temperatures [Monday] night, so that allowed fire crews to conduct some burnout operations to sort of the northeast portion of the fire to kind of bolster some containment lines there," Hunter told AccuWeather on Tuesday.

More than 300 miles away in Greenlee County, Arizona, the Bringham Fire swelled to 15,398 acres on Monday after igniting on June 6. At only 5% contained, crews struggled with the blaze over the weekend as it tripled in size.

Elsewhere in southeastern Arizona, the Blue River Fire erupted over the weekend before crews made significant strides to curtail its spread. As of Tuesday morning, the blaze had burned 30,400 acres and was at 85% containment.

The largest blaze in the state is the Bush Fire, which is northeast of Phoenix. The fire has consumed more than 89,000 acres, making it the largest wildfire in the state. It is certain to expand even more with just 5% containment as of early Wednesday.

Smoke from the Bush Fire billowing high in the sky on June 15, 2020. (Photo/InciWeb)

Evacuations have been ordered in areas near the fire, including Tonto Basin, Punkin Center and Sunflower.

Farther north, near the Utah border, the Magnum Fire forced the closure of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, according to the National Park. At 47,561 acres burned, the fire is only 3% contained and has also forced a portion of Highway 89A to close as well.

The Arizona fires have burned over 230,000 total acres, but Boston said a cluster of smaller fires in northeastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado and northwestern Oklahoma is particularly concerning.

"These are in areas of severe to extreme drought with low relative humidity and gusty winds," Boston said of the blazes. "These could multiply and spread rapidly over the next few days with little, if any, prospects for any rainfall."

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
The 'changing' face of Irish politics looks very familiar this morning, but it is playing a new tune.

When Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin met in Government Buildings last night they maintained the social distance was greater than a century of political difference.

Eamon Ryan's presence merely ensured the hand of history had green fingers.

All three are pragmatic men, perhaps to a fault.

Varadkar didn't want to be in this scenario at all. In the days after the General Election, he mentally prepared himself and his surviving TDs for opposition. He even talked about how it would finally give him an opportunity to stop worrying about the country and start focusing on the Fine Gael party.

Martin fought the election on the basis that he wouldn't allow this day to come. He insisted the voters were "very clear" that they "want Fine Gael out of office". He has gone back on his promise but is anybody surprised?

As for Ryan, the Green Party leader is exactly where he hoped to be and yet ironically is the most 'embattled' of all.

If this government was to last until 2025, there is a very strong possibility that none of the three would be at the top table by then. For the first time ever, we could have three leadership races inside a coalition government.

Far from stability, they are offering us years of political games even if power does solidify their positions.

Catherine Martin is already plotting to oust Eamon Ryan before the work of government begins.

The Dublin-Rathdown TD is the most powerful woman in Irish politics right now. Her behind-the-scenes activities in the next week will decide whether two-thirds of Green members approve the programme for government.

If it falls, Ryan will have to resign. Should it pass, then many in the party may see her as a best 'enforcer' who can take on Martin and Varadkar when they inevitably try to row back on green elements of it.

By the time the Dail comes back from its summer recess, Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald will have taken over the mantle as Ireland's most powerful woman so Catherine Martin needs to use her window of opportunity wisely.

The Greens will get the climate action and transport portfolios in the new government with Ryan and Martin expected to take one each, regardless of the leadership battle. A third cabinet seat will most likely go to a first-time TD from outside the capital.

Micheal Martin will take over as Taoiseach in a cabinet that faces a serious gender issue. His 'Reservoir Dogs' march up Merrion Street yesterday saw him flanked by five men and just one woman.

Fianna Fail will get six cabinet seats. Bad blood will boil when the 'Mercs and perks' are handed out - but for obvious reasons that won't be until after the party has approved the final deal. There is already a well-organised lobby within the Fianna Fail parliamentary party that is set to campaign against the coalition and Martin doesn't need disappointed allies added to their ranks.

Sources say Fianna Fail will get housing and health - the two portfolios that crippled the last government in the run up to the General Election.

Martin's constituency colleague Michael McGrath (Cork South Central) is in line for a finance role while deputy leader Dara Calleary (Mayo) is guaranteed a big job. Thomas Byrne (Meath East) will be angling for a new higher education ministry. Barry Cowen (Laois/Offaly) will represent the midlands. And as the only woman on the negotiating team, Anne Rabbitte (Galway East) seems a shoo-in.

Then there will be a battle among the Dubs including Darragh O'Brien, Jack Chambers and Jim O'Callaghan.

No amount of 'super juniors' will keep everybody happy.

Varadkar has to worry about himself first. As Tanaiste he will want to keep himself in the spotlight but out of the firing line. Sources suggest he may take a new business ministry that would allow him be the one splashing the cash as the country tries to spend its way to a Covid recovery.

Simon Harris is being tipped for education and childcare, the two areas struggling to find their post-pandemic 'normal'. Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe will continue their high-profile work, while Heather Humphreys will survive but move office.

Fine Gael TDs expect Helen McEntee's star will rise at the expense of Josepha Madigan. And there is no saving Eoghan Murphy, Charlie Flanagan, Richard Bruton, Michael Creed, Joe McHugh or Michael Ring. That means Varadkar will have his own challenge to maintain unity.

Communication between the three leaders in the new coalition will be key. There will be a specific protocol in place for flagging day-to-day issues, big announcements and unforeseen controversies.

But they must also be very aware of the enemies within their own ranks.
JERSEY CITY, N.J., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, and network member firm Royal Alliance Associates today announced the recruitment of Peter Hatzakos. Mr. Hatzakos, a Holmdel, N.J.-based financial advisor with $90 million in total client assets, is joining through one of Royal Alliance's top independent producer groups, Affiliated Advisors, which is headed by Founder and President Rita Robbins, a pioneering leader in the Super-OSJ space and a well-known wealth management industry veteran.

In addition to Royal Alliance, Advisor Group also includes FSC Securities Corporation, Investacorp, KMS Financial Services, SagePoint Financial, Securities America, Securities Service Network, Triad Advisors and Woodbury Financial.

Mr. Hatzakos has served clients as a financial advisor for nearly two decades and specializes in financial planning, investment advisory services and retirement planning.

Mr. Hatzakos said, "I joined Royal Alliance after a rigorous diligence process because they were clearly best-positioned to support my business and my clients in the years ahead. As our industry evolves, I am confident that the support provided by Royal Alliance and Affiliated Advisors will help me stay ahead of the curve. I look forward to working with them to provide my clients with sounds solutions and grow my business."

Founded in 1994, Affiliated Advisors supports 85 financial professionals with total assets of more than $2.4 billion in 45 branch offices across eight states.

Ms. Robbins said, "We are truly delighted to welcome Peter to Affiliated Advisors. His drive, dedication and sincere passion for serving his clients mirrors our values. We are excited to empower his continued growth through our in-depth expertise, technology and platforms, just as we have for our other financial professionals. Our mission is to help advisors build the businesses of their dreams while serving their clients with integrity, creativity and compassion."

Dmitry Goldin, Royal Alliance President and CEO, said, "I could not be more gratified to welcome Peter Hatzakos to Royal Alliance, Advisor Group and Affiliated Advisors. We look forward to supporting him as he continues to move ahead in building his practice."

Jamie Price, Advisor Group President and CEO, concluded, "On behalf of the entire Advisor Group network, I congratulate Royal Alliance and Affiliated Advisors for bringing aboard a financial advisor with such a strong track record as Peter Hatzakos. We look forward to working with him and supporting his practice through our industry-leading applications, platforms, practice management services and expertise. As always, we stand ready to help our financial professionals succeed and achieve their businesses' full potential."

About Royal Alliance Associates

Royal Alliance Associates, Inc. is part of Advisor Group, the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, and a Registered Investment Advisor, member FINRA and SIPC. Royal Alliance has more than 3,600 affiliated independent financial advisors and is headquartered in Jersey City. It was founded in 1969 and employs a client driven approach focused on meeting the unique demands of businesses and individuals. For more information visit http://www.royalalliance.com.

About Advisor Group

Advisor Group, Inc. is the nation's largest network of independent wealth management firms, serving approximately 11,300 financial professionals and overseeing over $450 billion in client assets. The firm is mission-driven to support the strategic role that advisors can play in the lives of their clients. Securities and investment advisory services are offered through its affiliated broker-dealers: FSC Securities Corporation; Royal Alliance Associates, Inc.; SagePoint Financial, Inc.; Woodbury Financial Services, Inc.; Securities America, Inc.; Triad Advisors, LLC.; Investacorp, Inc.; KMS Financial Services, Inc.; and Securities Service Network, LLC, members FINRA and SIPC, and Registered Investment Advisers. Cultivating a spirit of entrepreneurship and independence, Advisor Group champions the enduring value of financial professionals and is committed to being in their corner every step of the way. For more information visit https://www.advisorgroup.com.

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Atlanta police have fired the white officer who shot and killed a black man Friday night after the suspect apparently grabbed the officer's taser and tried to escape avoiding arrest for alleged drunk driving. The department has also placed a second officer on administrative leave.

These actions come a day after Atlanta police chief Erika Shields resigned following another death of an African-American man in police custody, sparking a night of violent protests in Atlanta.

Police dash and body cam video shows 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks asleep in his car and blocking the drive-thru lane of a Wendy's fast-food restaurant. It took a few moments for officer Garrett Rolfe to waken the dozing Brooks.

The video shows the two having a cordial conversation, but Brooks didn't seem to know exactly what city he was in and thought he was at a Burger King instead of a Wendy's. At one point, Brooks told the officer "I know you're just doing your job." When Officer Devin Brosnan arrived, Brooks failed a breathalyzer, was handcuffed and appeared to resist arrest.

The officers wrestled him to the ground, demanded he stop fighting and warned Brooks that he was going to get tasered. Brooks apparently grabbed one of the officer's tasers and pointed it at the police as tried to run off. Rolfe opens fire at least three times and Brooks falls to the ground. Fellow officers attempt to comfort Rolfe as an emergency team tends to Brooks, who was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The shooting set off a day of protests in Atlanta Saturday which started peacefully but turned violent. Demonstrators tried to block an interstate highway and the Wendy's restaurant where Brooks was shot was burned to the ground. Thirty-six people were arrested, and police are looking for the suspect who started the Wendy's fire.
The extraordinary Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and racial injustice in more than 100 U.S. cities come on the heels of the 25th anniversary of South Africas historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

That commission was the pillar of South African Prime Minister Nelson Mandelas approach to healing a deeply divided nation after apartheid. Now, prompted by these protests as well as centuries of inequality for African American communities, some U.S. lawmakers are seeking the establishment of a truth commission here.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has drafted legislation for a U.S. Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. Lees legislation is ambitious and shows considerable promise. The commission would explore the effects of slavery, institutional racism, and discrimination against people of color, and how (U.S.) history impacts laws and policies today.

Does the U.S. need a commission? If so, what lessons can it learn from other countries experiences?

Truth commissions are temporary investigative bodies that attempt to uncover the facts about a pattern of past human rights abuse and its causes. Theyre usually created by the government to signal a break from the past and a message of never again. More than 60 truth commissions have been established worldwide, mostly in countries transitioning from armed conflict or dictatorship, but also in democracies such as Canada.

The U.S. has actually had several similar commissions. Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in 1980, which resulted in an official government apology and reparations to the survivors of Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II.

There have also been state-level truth commissions in Maine and Maryland (the latter investigating racial terror lynchings). There have been several local efforts to address racial injustice, including community-based truth commissions in Greensboro, N.C., and Charlottesville, Va., to investigate racially motivated incidents involving the Ku Klux Klan.

Given these historical precedents, it appears the U.S. is ripe for a national truth commission about the dark legacy of slavery and the past 400 years of racial inequality.

There are three important lessons about what such a process might look like.

First, the South Africa model is but one approach. Many types of truth commissions have been set up over the years, and not all have emphasized forgiveness and reconciliation. In fact, many truth commissions, such as those in Latin America, have prioritized other aims ranging from institutional reforms, to reparations, to supporting criminal cases, to clarifying the historical sources of violence.

The U.S. should consider the full range of options.

Second, if a truth commission is to be effective, it cant be imposed from above.

The commission must be designed to center the needs and priorities of survivors and their affected communities, or the entire process risks disappointing or even retraumatizing participants.

This is especially true if the commissions final recommendations are ignored or acted on slowly  a criticism that has befallen many commissions including South Africas.

If a U.S. truth commission is to be meaningful, it must begin by listening. It requires engaging African American civil society at the design stage and throughout the entire process. It needs to hear the demands of todays activists. It means being open to the possibility that a truly victim-centered approach might yield a very different model including reparations for descendants of slavery, or reforms to key institutions such as the police, rather than reconciliation.

Finally, political will matters.

The record of truth commissions is imperfect. Theyve been used instrumentally by governments of all stripes for political gain rather than to promote meaningful change.

Given the way the Trump administration has inflamed protests over the past few weeks, its unimaginable that it can lead a reconciliation process that would not become politicized. Given this reality, its plausible the truth should not come in the form of a national-level commission, but rather through grassroots, activist-led truth commissions that seek the change they want themselves. Another approach would be to work through congressional channels until the political will is there at the executive level.

Truth commissions are imperfect, but they can be an important beginning. Its time for the U.S. to begin the slow process of reckoning with its past and acknowledging how historical injustices continue to fuel structural and everyday violence today.

Adam Kochanski is a research fellow at Stanford Universitys Center for Human Rights and International Justice and a postdoctoral fellow at McGill Universitys Centre for International Peace and Security Studies in Montreal.
Noel Hupont, newly-appointed managing director and head of electrification for ABB Vietnam

What are some positive and negatives aspects of working in Vietnam compared to elsewhere?

My experience here in Vietnam has been very positive. From personal perspective, my family and I have enjoyed living here in Ho Chi Minh City, a very beautiful city. Vietnam is peaceful country with many beautiful landscapes. The country has young and hard working population, great vitality and a promising future.

From business perspective, I feel very fortunate to be in one of the best markets, in a very favorable moment of growth. My company has everything to succeed, the economy, the market, the technology and particularly a strong team here in Vietnam.

Digitalisation is not a new theme for ABB globally. How are Vietnamese operations supporting this shift and what are some of the innovations across the main business verticals here in Vietnam?

Vietnam is the place to be, to do business and especially with a company like ABB, where we can share our global experiences to local partners, suppliers, and customers. This is done with our new technologies in smart buildings and smart power to improve, thanks to digitalisation, energy management, asset management, and building automation for better productivity at a lower cost.

To name a few, in the pulp and paper industry, ABBs complete electrification and automation solution is helping Dohaco achieve energy efficiency and productivity goals. We also helped Viettel build its headquarters into a green and modern facility with our state-of-the-art building automation ABB i-bus KNX system.

Most recently, we have helped Tan Thang Cement incoporate the latest Industry 4.0 technology into their new plant with ABB Ability, ABBs a cross-industry digital offering, to integrate the entire plant system for efficient, safe operation and a reliable electrical supply for all processes.

In other manufacturing projects, ABB AbilityTM Energy Distribution Control System is helping our customers to get visibility of the entire electrical system to optimise energy efficiency and costs in Vietnam.

In the coming time, ABB will also collaborate with Ericsson to explore opportunities in creating wireless industrial automation powered via 5G networks in Vietnam.

ABBs innovative building solutions have transformed Viettels headquarters into a smarter and greener facility

How big are digitalisation prospects in Vietnam and what are the barriers in its adoption by industry and government agencies?

The government is really supporting Industry 4.0, and every day more and more industries understand what the benefits of digitalisation shifting are. Digitalisation is all about data and algorithms, and through this we start to have immediate benefits. This is the role of a company like ABB to promote those new technological trends to the market and to explain them all the benefits they can obtain.

Digitalisation is not a cost. It is an investment for industrial firms which may not be made in one move but step-by-step. Even though digitalisation will present costs, these investments bring value very quickly in the form of energy efficiency and productivity.

Apart from digitalisation, what are the areas driving your revenue growth in Vietnam?

The accelerating pace of urbanisation in Vietnam is presenting new business opportunities for ABB in helping government and city management to address challenges such as water leaks, environmental impacts, exceeding power consumption, and more.

These require new technology application to achieve sustainable development through reduced carbon emissions. New investment in more sustainable infrastructure such as electric vehicles, railroads, ports, airports, water, power, and energy will be our growing drivers in the coming year.

Besides that, Vietnams middle class is growing by around a million people per year. This means that the need for better living standards and services such as healthcare and diversified consumer demand are drivers for ABB in particular.

The need for technologies that ensure operation availability, energy efficiency, product quality, hygiene, and traceability are reliant on ABBs core business.

How does ABB see the advantages arising from the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) and what are ABBs preparations as international firms work to expand to and in Vietnam?

Vietnam has been receiving strong inflows of foreign direct investment thanks to its competitiveness to other countries in the region. I believe that EVFTA will be a catalyst for more investments into Vietnam from EU and for local business to expand their export markets.

ABB supports investors in every lifecycle of their business from the early phase such us initial design to building and commissioning, down to maintenance. We bring customers peace of mind from an established digital company that has know-how in industries, products, and solutions.

We have been helping customers for decades and have a huge number of connected services through our ABB AbilityTM digital plaform so taking these connected services and applying digital technologies and expertise can further help customer to achieve manufacturing goals and to maintain competitiveness in the market.

We have been focusing more in growing our teams and channel partner network as well as expanding our operation to serve our customers better.
All the 117 inmates of the Wa Central Prisons have tested negative for COVID-19.

The Assistant Director of Prisons, Mr Francis Selorm Hagbe, Upper West Regional Commander of the Ghana Prisons Service has stated.

He said their focus was now on prevention to which they had strengthened their response mechanisms to ensure the safety of all inmates and officers of the prison.

Mr Hagbe disclosed this while receiving a donation of food and non-food items from the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) presented by the Regional Minister, Dr Hafiz Bin Salih, to support the upkeep of inmates of the prison.

The Wa Central Prisons Commander said the donation would help them strengthen their response to COVID-19 while also improving on the welfare of the prisoners.

Emphasizing on the prevention, Mr Hagbe said physical contact with prisoners was not allowed when visitors come to visit.

He said church service and other social gatherings were all regulated to ensure there was no breach of the social gathering directive.

He said Veronica buckets had also been placed at vantage points inside the prison to ensure regular hand washing among inmates.

"We have also provided some vitamin C for inmates to take on daily basis to boost their immune systems", he said.

He said it was a must for all officers to wear nose mask, wash their hands and have their temperatures taken before being allowed to go inside the prisons.

Dr Bin Salih said the COVID-19 had brought extra burden in terms of care for the prisoners, hence the decision by the RCC to donate the items to help ease that burden.

The Regional Minister appealed to the general public to support management of the prisons to provide comfort to their unfortunate brothers.

The donation included mattresses; bags of rice and maize; gallons of cooking oil; packets of sugar and soap; Veronica buckets; and non-contact infrared thermometer.

GNA
A team of French medics has arrived in Armenia to help Armenian colleagues increasingly struggling to cope with the coronavirus crisis.

The seven doctors were greeted by Armenias Diaspora High Commissioner Zareh Sinanyan, Deputy Health Minister Anahit Avanesian and the French and U.S. ambassadors in Yerevan when they arrived at Zvartnots airport late on Sunday.

Sinanyans office said it has organized the emergency mission in close collaboration with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The doctors who had already undertaken the COVID-19 fight in France are in Armenia for the first time and will invest all their experience and knowledge in this crucial mission to save human lives, it said in a statement.

According to French Ambassador Jonathan Lacote, they will stay in Armenia for 10 days.

I want to thank all our partners for organizing their mission, Health Minister Arsen Torosian said on Monday. It will be really useful for us.

In a Facebook post, Torosian also said that the French medics have already gotten down to work at the intensive care units of three Yerevan-based hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Torosian confirmed that a similar medical team from Lithuania will arrive in Armenia in the coming days. The decision to send it was made by the Lithuanian government.

Torosian revealed that about 50 Russian doctors have also expressed a desire to work at the Armenian hospitals on the front lines of the coronavirus epidemic. He gave no dates for their arrival.

The minister made no mention of similar assistance that was offered by neighboring Georgia. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia said on Thursday that his government is discussing details of the proposed aid with the Armenian side.

Torosian warned on June 4 that Armenias healthcare system is now so overstretched that hospitals may soon be unable to admit all infected citizens in need of urgent treatment. He said afterwards that the health authorities will set up soon 350 new hospital beds to treat the increased number of people infected with the virus.

The minister insisted on June 11 that Armenian hospitals are still able to give life-saving treatment to all patients that are in a serious condition.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases registered in the country of about 3 million continued to grow rapidly over the weekend. The Armenian Ministry of Health said on Monday that they rose by 397 to 17,064 in the past day.

The ministry also reported the deaths of 19 more people infected with the disease. It said 16 of those deaths were primarily caused by the coronavirus. They were added to the official COVID-19 death toll which rose to 285.

According to the health authorities, 94 other infected people have died as a result of other, pre-existing diseases. Three of these fatalities were recorded on Sunday.

The number of new COVID-19 infections hit a new daily high of 723 on Friday.

With regard to the coronavirus we are not doing well, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian admitted on Saturday morning. He again complained that many Armenians are not practicing social distancing, wearing face masks in public and taking other precautions recommended by the authorities.

The Armenian government cited the high infection rates last week when it extended a coronavirus-related state of emergency in the country by another month, until July 13.

The state of emergency was declared on March 16. A few days later, the government issued stay-at-home orders and banned most types of business activity. It began relaxing those restrictions already in mid-April and lifted virtually all of them by May 10 despite the growing numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths.

Critics say that the government never properly enforced the lockdown and lifted it too soon. Some of them have called for a renewed lockdown. Pashinian and other senior government officials have opposed such a measure so far.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is coming under fire for her 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, after Kavanaugh dissented in Monday's landmark ruling affirming that federal anti-discrimination laws protect gay and transgender employees.

Collins, who faces a tough 2020 reelection bid, is among the most vocal Senate Republican supporters of LGBT rights. She is one of the lead sponsors of the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to other protected classes in federal law. After news of Monday's 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision was reported, she praised the ruling as "a major advancement for LGBTQ rights" and called for Congress to pass the Equality Act and amend the Civil Rights Act to "expressly prohibit" such discrimination.

But Democrats - including Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, Collins's likely general election opponent - skewered Collins on Monday for her vote to confirm Kavanaugh in light of his position on Monday's ruling.

"Judge Kavanaugh voted against banning companies from firing employees for being gay or transgender," Gideon said in a tweet. "It's clear that Senator Collins will continue to be a reliable vote for Trump's anti-LGBTQ+ nominees. Help us replace her in November."

Collins also faced criticism last year after the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to block a restrictive Louisiana abortion law. While Democrats hailed the decision, they pointed to Kavanaugh's dissent as a sign that he might be poised to side with conservatives in future rulings on abortion rights.

In October 2018, Collins delivered a 44-minute floor speech declaring her support for Kavanaugh. At the time, Collins, who supports abortion rights, said she did not think Kavanaugh would vote to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion. She also noted in her speech that Kavanaugh "described the Obergefell decision, which legalized same-gender marriages, as an important landmark precedent."

Quoting a previous decision, Kavanaugh wrote in his Monday dissent that the Supreme Court "has previously stated, and I fully agree, that gay and lesbian Americans 'cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.' "

But he argued that under the Constitution's separation of powers, it is "Congress's role, not this Court's," to amend Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination "because of sex."

"Our role is not to make or amend the law," he wrote. "As written, Title VII does not prohibit employment discrimination because of sexual orientation."

Collins's office pointed to the senator's record of voting to confirm not just Kavanaugh but all six Supreme Court nominees who have been considered during her time in the Senate.

Two of those justices - Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. - were nominated by President George W. Bush. Two others - Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan - were nominated by President Barack Obama. Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were nominated by President Donald Trump.

- - -

The Washington Post's Robert Barnes contributed to this report.
Unlock 1.0 has allowed reopening of places of worship in Delhi. But, the same continue to remain closed in some parts of NCR. This, however, hasnt been able to deter the determination of those who had been long away from their revered place of worship. As a result, quite a few residents of Gurugram and even Noida have been crossing the border to visit their religious place in Delhi.

In fact, some residents of NCR had been eagerly looking forward to visit their favourite holy sites, during the lockdown. I was wanting to visit the Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place for a long time. Just before the lockdown happened, I had vowed to visit this temple while praying for my grandmothers recovery after her recent knee surgery. After months, when I finally got a chance to fulfil my promise, how could crossing the border stop me, asks Nagarjuna Pratap Singh, a resident of Gurugrams DLF Phase 2, adding, The feeling of visiting a temple after months was surreal, and the journey across the two states was worth it!

Some Gurugram residents, who had been waiting eagerly to visit their place of worship during the holy month of Ramzan, have also travelled inter-state, braving the pandemic. We couldnt visit the mosque amid the lockdown; even on Eid we stayed indoors to follow the rules of social distancing. Therefore, we were hoping that mosques would open in Gurugram just like they have opened in Delhi. However, that didnt happen. Thats when I decided to travel to Old Delhis Fatehpuri mosque. Even though the long travel was a peril, and constant anxiety about the pandemic stressed me, the happiness of finally getting to be in the mosque and pray released all my stress, says Suhail Ahmed, who visited the mosque carrying a hand sanitiser and wore mask and gloves.

I look forward to the temples opening up in my city so that I dont have to travel so far.

 Geeta Sharma, a Noida resident

For many residents, the lockdown was a period wherein they engaged virtually with the almighty. However, for some that didnt work out to their satisfaction. I was hoping and waiting that in the first phase of Unlock, at least our neighbourhood temples and gurdwaras will open. But that didnt happen in my city, says Geeta Sharma, a resident of Sector 21, Noida. She adds that she spent the lockdown singing bhajans while staying connected digitally with her friends. But somehow that didnt make up for the feeling of attending a real aarti. Thats why I have been insisting on going to Delhi to visit the Kalkaji Temple, says Sharma adding, I look forward to the temples opening up in my city so that I dont have to travel so far.

Author tweets @FizzyBuddha

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NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Manufacturing companies are constantly looking for new ways to streamline their operations, increase the productivity and profitability of operations. They now seek to optimize one of their own most valuable assetsdata.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05914155/?utm_source=PRN



New data grows exponentially because of the increase in the level of networking and connectivity among people and machines/devices.Businesses also grapple with massive volumes of historical data.



Managing the complexity of both historical and new data, making sense of it, and translating it into critical business decisions can be daunting.Not all companies can analyze and extract insights from data.



Powerful and advanced manufacturing analytics can convert data into actionable insights and help manufacturers identify hidden bottlenecks or unprofitable production lines, improve decision making, and drive revenue. The benefits of leveraging manufacturing analytics are many: higher revenue, lower cost, higher customer satisfaction, increased production yield and throughput, improved product quality, and reduction in unplanned downtime. Predictive maintenance and supply chain optimization are two of the most important applications of manufacturing analytics. Manufacturing analytics is witnessing steady growth due to the growing focus on Industry 4.0 initiatives and continued recognition of the critical role of analytics. As the manufacturing industry is now focusing on ways to analyze, monitor, predict, contextualize, and visualize processes and asset performance, the number of companies to leverage new technologies and advanced manufacturing analytics solutions has increased. This research indicates that manufacturing analytics forms the basis for digital transformation initiatives of companies in the manufacturing industry and that current analytics solutions leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. The radar reveals the market positioning of companies in an industry by using their growth and innovation scores as highlighted in the radar methodology. The document presents competitive profiles of each of the companies in the radar, based on their strengths and opportunities, and provides a small discussion on their positioning. The analyst examines hundreds of companies in the industry and benchmarks them across 10 criteria on the radar where the leading companies in the industry are then positioned. Industry leaders on both the Growth and Innovation indices are recognized as best practice recipients. The companies we have included in this radar are Northwest Analytics, TrendMiner, SightMachine, Seeq, AspenTech, Falkonry, MachineMetrics, Tulip, Dassault Systemes, Element Analytics, and SensrTrx.



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A Bumpy Ride to Recovery

Oils Reach

Never the Same

(TNS)  The coronavirus pandemic forced a swift collapse of the economy, but the tentative recovery beginning to take shape is likely to stretch for months, if not years, as businesses, workers and consumers try to adapt to dramatic changes in economic and social life.In a matter of months, more than 30 million Americans lost jobs, including more than 2 million in Texas and 500,000 in Houston. The pace of job losses has slowed in recent weeks as businesses have reopened, employees have returned to work and consumers have ventured from their homes, but the economys path forward remains uncertain  perhaps more uncertain than it has ever been.Across every industry and employment sector, businesses face the question of not just when, but whether their customers will revert to normal behavior, or at least something resembling it. Restaurants wonder whether diners will feel comfortable entering their dining rooms retailers if consumers will feel safe again to browse.Commercial real estate firms are at risk if companies continue to keep large numbers of employees working at home and cut back on office space. Oil companies, trying to survive the second major supply glut and price crash in five years, could suffer from fewer commuters burning gasoline as well as fewer passengers booking flights to consume jet fuel.Many laid-off workers, particularly in front-line sectors such as retail, restaurants and hospitality, fear returning to work without jeopardizing their health. Employers wonder if they will.Workers are in a dilemma where, if they've been at home for some time unemployed, they are desperate to be able to go back to work, said Hany Khalil, the executive director of the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation. But there are deep concerns about whether their workplaces will be safe.It all makes a slow, painful recovery likely. On Wednesday, Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the recovery will likely take years. Millions of people remain out of work and national unemployment may top 9 percent by the end of the year  nearly triple the rate at the end of last year.In Houston, economists expect an even tougher time because of the regions dependence on oil and gas, which is reeling from the unprecedented plunge in demand and prices. As the energy industry goes, so, too, do the businesses and workers who provide goods and services to it.Many of jobs lost in energy and ancillary sectors, such as manufacturing, are not coming back, experts said. After the oil bust that lasted roughly from 2014 to 2016, the energy industry regained only about one-third of the tens of thousands of jobs it slashed in that downturn.The more challenging time is ahead, because some of the losses weve had are likely to last, said Peter Rodriguez, an economist and dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. The best-case scenario is a return to normal, but its unlikely.Recent data have suggested the beginnings of a recovery. The nation gained 2.5 million jobs in May, according to the Labor Department, and first-time jobless claims in Texas fell last week fell below 100,000 for the first time since March. A local business index showed that the decline in economic activity in Houston began to slow in May.Early in the crisis, economists and policy makers hoped for a v-shaped recovery  a sharp rebound after a sharp decline. Few expect that now. Economists doubt employers have finished slashing payrolls, believing some havent started yet.Part of it is the dynamics of a recession, which in this case began in February. Worried consumers spend less money when times are tough, and that leads to lower demand, less production and more layoffs, which further reduce consumer spending. The fear of contracting the coronavirus only intensifies the destructive cycle by keeping people at home and further depressing consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.Meagan Giddens, a mother of three in Cypress, has underlying health conditions that put her at particularly high risk of complications if she contracts COVID-19. Her elderly parents also live with her. As a result, she has rarely ventured out in recent months, relying mostly on grocery and other deliveries.That means shes not spending money on gasoline or car maintenance. Shes not stopping at stores to buy school supplies, clothes and occasional presents for her kids. Shes not taking them out to Towne Lake Boardwalk in Cypress, where they used to shop at the farmers market and lunch in one of the many restaurants.Making sure my kids have a normal life, or a healthy life, without exposing us to unnecessary risk, is going to be a difficult challenge, said Giddens. I can't control what other people do. But I can control my kids' exposure, my exposure, my parents' exposure.Ray Perryman, an economist in Waco, forecasts the Texas economy will lose about $134 billion in economic activity and more than 860,000 net jobs this year. He estimates it could take as long as five years for the state to return to the level of business activity before the coronavirus pandemic.The oil and gas industry faces another long, slow recovery as prices stay depressed. In Houston, the industry slashed 4,000 jobs in April alone, according to the Labor Department.The impact of low oil prices reaches beyond the energy. Retailers, restaurants and office buildings depend on the spending of oil companies and their employees, which rises and falls with crude prices.One in every three manufacturing jobs in Houston are tied to oil gas. Local manufacturers cut more than 17,000 jobs in April; employment in the sector fell its lowest since 2017, according to the Labor Department.When the oil industry emerges from yet another bust, it is expected to get smaller and leaner. Many of the lost jobs will never return as low prices drive oil and gas companies to become even more efficient by adopting automation and technologies to control oil field activities remotely, analysts said. That means fewer workers.It will also mean fewer opportunities. Janet Miranda, who graduated in May from the University of Houston, hoped to take her marketing degree to the energy industry, but quickly found entry-level jobs were frozen,Im exploring my options, Miranda said. I still have my heart set on energy, but you dont know long the recovery will take.There may not be a lot of options. Even health care, traditionally a steadily growing sector that offset some of oils volatility, has been rocked by the pandemics economic shockwaves.In April, Houstons health care and social assistance sector experienced its first year-over-year job losses in two decades, shedding nearly 33,000 jobs, or 10 percent of employment, from April 2019. Even with high demand for hospital workers who care for COVID-19 patients, job cuts by other providers more than offset those gains as elective surgeries were canceled and patients avoided dentists offices, primary care practices and specialists.Vivian Ho, a health economist at Rice University, said those pains are likely to continue as patients will remain wary to go to doctors offices for fear of contracting the virus. And with unemployment reaching record levels, fewer patients will be able to afford routine visits and elective procedures.An estimated 1.6 million Texans have lost employer-sponsored health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy think tank in San Francisco.Its going to be a double blow, Ho said. They lost a lot of patients because of fear, and theyre going to have some really sick patients that they have to take care of who cannot pay.Other industries that provide face-to-face interactions with customers also face staggering losses from what could be a lasting shift away from shopping, eating out and experiencing products in person, economists said.Restaurants will need to figure out how to service diners afraid of sitting too close to fellow patrons. Social distancing measures by their nature will reduce volumes in an industry that survives on tight margins.Even if fear of the virus abates, the losses in income from the recession could make people less likely to spend money dining out, according to economists. Its one of first expenses cut from a household budget.The pandemic, meanwhile, is accelerating trends that have buffeted retailers for years as home-bound customers turn to Amazon and other online sellers. Retailers that were struggling before the pandemic, such as the Houston department store chain Stage Stores, have plunged in bankruptcy.Local retailers cut 22,200 jobs in April from the same month in 2019, a 7 percent decline. Many of those jobs also are not coming back.We will never see retail employment at the level it was, said Jankowski, of the GHP. The sad part is (retail) provides employment for a large sector of the population.
The recent claim the state lacks a recall process for citizens to petition removal of a local public official, including a sheriff, from office is incorrect. The citizens of this state, including Rio Arriba County, retain enormous, unfettered, unequivocal constitutional powers to remove public officers in a quick and expeditious manner.

The New Mexico Constitution, Article X Section 9, allows for [a]n elected official of a county to be recalled by the voters of the county. A New Mexico sheriff, like any other local elected official, may be recalled for malfeasance or misfeasance in office or a violation of the oath of office. The grounds shall be based upon acts or failures to act occurring during the current term of the sheriff or other public office holder. Initially, a petition shall be presented to the district court of the county. If the court finds probable cause for a recall after an evidentiary hearing, a petition setting forth the improper or unlawful conduct may be circulated to the voters for signature. At least thirty-three and one-third percent of the number of persons who voted in the election for the office in the last preceding general election at which the office was voted upon must thereafter (have their signatures) presented to the county clerk.

In the case of Rio Arriba County, there were 9,709 votes cast for Rio Arriba County sheriff in 2018, according to the N.M. Secretary of States website. Thus, a recall petition must be signed by at least 2,916 voters in order for a recall election to be called.

Once the clerk verifies that the requisite number of signatures of registered voters appears on the petition, the question of recall of the official shall be placed on the ballot for a special election to be called and held within ninety days or the next occurring general election if that election is to be held within less than ninety days. If a simple majority approves of the recall, then the office is deemed vacant. That vacancy shall be filled in the manner provided by law for filing vacancies for that office.

Additionally, the district attorney must present the accusation to the court when the district attorney is presented with sworn evidence establishing failure, neglect or refusal to discharge the duties of the office, or failure, neglect or refusal to discharge any duty devolving upon the officer by virtue of his office or gross incompetency or gross negligence in discharging the duties of the office  Section 10-4-2 and 10-4-18 NMSA 1978. The sheriff must show not less than five days and no more than 15 days after issuance of a citation why he should not be suspended from office until the matters and things alleged in the accusation have been judicially determined. The claim theres no process to place a sheriff on administrative leave is incorrect. The claim the state lacks a recall process for citizens to petition to remove a public official from office is chimerical.

Finally, the New Mexico secretary of finance and administration may summarily suspend any official of any local public body in all cases where an audit conducted by the state auditor, or by personnel of his office, or by an independent auditor employed or approved by the state auditor reveals embezzlement, fraud or willful violation of the fiscal regulations of the department of finance and administration.

The taxpayers and voters of New Mexico are far from impotent when it comes to grossly incompetent or dishonest elected local officials. Government of, by and for the people is still in the citizens hands and hopefully always will be in New Mexico.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. A group of French doctors arrived in Armenia via a special flight to help the healthcare system to battle the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia said on Facebook.

This is the first such kind of an initiative on engaging foreign doctors which became a reality by the cooperation between our Office, USAID and the ministry of healthcare. Most of the doctors, who overcame the virus in France, visit Armenia for the first time and they are sure that they will invest all their experience and knowledge in the responsible mission to save human lives, the statement says.

The French doctors will work in the St. Gregory the Illuminator hospital, the Scientific Center for Traumatology and Orthopaedy and the infection department of the St. Mary medical center in coming days.

Recently Lithuania, Georgia and the World Health Organization (WHO) also expressed readiness to assist Armenia in fighting the COVID-19.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Continuing a string of significant peaceful marches across Staten Island in recent weeks, over 200 people descended on the NYPDs 121st Precinct in Graniteville on Sunday  marking the final borough precinct to receive a protest since the death of George Floyd.

Gathering in the Forest Avenue Plaza just before 2 p.m., protestors held signs bearing the message of the Black Lives Matter movement exactly one week after a monumental march held on the South Shore of Staten Island drew nearly 2,000 people.

The one mile march begins towards the 121st Precinct. pic.twitter.com/7nEsyEn8TQ  Joseph Ostapiuk (@OstapiukJ) June 14, 2020
Former acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney sold up to $550,000 in securities as the coronavirus was hitting the U.S. and President Trump was providing upbeat statements about the strength of the U.S. economy.

Mulvaney's trades, disclosed in a filing as he left the White House, comes as Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina is under investigation by the FBI for his own stock trades after attending a closed briefing on the coronavirus.

Mulvaney sold stock funds, including a fund comprised mostly of small companies, that got battered in the market downturn. The sales totaled between $215,000 and $550,000, since values are disclosed in broad ranges.

Former Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney sold between $215,000 and $550,000

Many of Mulvaney's holdings are in real estate, so the trades represent an overwhelming portion of his ownership of publicly traded companies, the DailyBeast reported.

Mulvaney sold up to $250,000 in American Beacon, up to $250,000 in a Columbia Funds Series growth fund, and up to $50,000 in Nuveen Investment Fund, a small cap value fund.

That same day, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity: 'So a lot of things are happening. Our economy is doing fantastically. We got hit with the coronavirus. And that was out of surprise. I started hearing about it very quietly a couple of months ago from China. And I said, wow, I hope that doesnt happen over here. They got a little bit more, little bit more, little bit bigger.'

'The consumer in the United States is unbelievably strong, stronger than ever before, I believe,' Trump added.

Trump also talked up the nation the day prior to his chief of staff's sale, saying the country was in 'great shape.'

'Our economy is doing fantastically,' President Donald Trump said the day Mulvaney made his stock sales

The sales were from stock funds that immediately got hammered by the coronavirus-influenced drop

The FBI told Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler it was no longer looking into her stock sales, which occurred after she attended a closed briefing. The appointed senator took heat over the sales from her GOP primary opponent

The sale came amid market turmoil over the coronavirus. Equities suffered steep drops the day after Mulvaney's transactions, but then recovered many of their losses.

There isn't evidence Mulvaney gained an advantage through non-public information  an allegation that shook up the Senate this spring.

The FBI last month told three senators who were under scrutiny for their stock sales that they were off the hook. Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), all had spoken to investigators about their transactions, which followed their attendance at a closed briefing on the coronavirus.

Burr continues to be the subject of an FBI and SEC probe for his sales, which he said were not based on inside information but what he saw on financial reporting coming out of Asia. He relinquished his chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee pending the probe. He also sought a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into it, and denies wrongdoing.

As acting chief of staff, Mulvaney would have had access to high-level information about developments on the health front as well as the financial markets.

Mulvaney was tested twice for the coronavirus, in February in March, and stayed off the president's trip to India as the pandemic was hitting.

In February, he told the conservative CPAC conference COVID-19 was 'not a death sentence.' He said the media was exaggerating it because they think 'this will bring down the president.'
Larry Klayman, who is representing former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in three federal lawsuits, has been suspended from practicing law for 90 days, Bloomberg Legal reported last week.

A founder of watchdog groups Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, Klayman was suspended by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The court said he "flagrantly violated" an ethics rule forbidding changing sides in a case and acted "vindictively" toward his earlier organization, according to the Bloomberg Law report.

The issues surrounding Klayman's suspension were not related to any cases in which he is representing Moore.

Klayman is the attorney of record in the $95 million lawsuit filed by Moore and his wife, Kayla, in 2018 against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. That lawsuit stemmed from Moores unwitting appearance on Cohens Showtime series in which Moore said he was duped into believing he was to receive an award for his longtime support of Israel.

Instead, Cohen in the episode posed as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert Col. Erran Morad, who was interviewing Moore when he mentioned a new piece of technology-- a device that detects a hormone from pedophile's sweat.

When he waved the wand-like device in Moore's direction, it sounded an alarm.

The joke was playing off allegations made against Moore during the 2017 Senate campaign in which a woman said she was sexually molested by Moore when she was 14 years old. Moore has repeatedly denied the allegations.

Klayman is also the attorney of record in a pair of lawsuits Moore filed in recent months relating to the Senate campaign.




Haiti - Politic : The Prime Minister visits works





On Friday, the Prime Minister, Mr. Joseph Jouthe, carried out a follow-up tour of several road infrastructure works being carried out in the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince.



Accompanied in particular by Ministers Nader Joiseus (Public Works), Abner Septembre (Environment) and Jean Nicolas Herve Pierre-Louis, Director General of Electricity of Haiti (EDH), Jouthe first went to Pernier 22, 26 and 40 to ascertain the degree of progress of a construction project of 40.22 km of road, the first phase of works of which is financed by the Treasury to the tune of 34 million Gourdes.



He took the opportunity to inspect other drainage works in the area as well as an already constructed pavement. The Head of Government undertook that the inhabitants of Pernier would no longer suffer the consequences of the slowness recorded in the execution of the works, which should be completed before the end of September 2020.



Subsequently, the Prime Minister went to Morne-a-Cabrit where he ordered the temporary cessation of the exploitation of the sand quarry, while waiting for the owners to obtain the necessary authorizations notably from the Ministry of Environment. For his part, Jean Nicolas Herve Pierre-Louis, explained the consequences of anarchic exploitation in quarries on the electrical installations of EDH.



At the end of the day, the Prime Minister went to Toussaint Louverture International Airport to assess the progress of certain renovations underway.



HL HaitiLibre


















A senior health official in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wants Donald Trump to delay a campaign rally scheduled for Saturday night there because he is concerned it will lead to a spike in coronavirus cases.

"A large indoor rally with 19-20,000 people is a huge risk factor today in Tulsa, Oklahoma," Tulsa City-County Health Department director Bruce Dart told the Tulsa World. "I want to make sure we can keep everyone in that building safe, including the president."

Mr Trump already delayed what will be his first official campaign rally since March by one day after an outcry of his original plan to hold the event on Friday. June 19 is also known as Juneteenth, which is recognised as a day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Mr Dart's concern comes after Tulsa County's seven-day average of coronavirus cases climbed from 24.9 on 7 June to 51.4 seven days later.

"I think it's an honour for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic. I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well," Mr Dart told the newspaper.

"COVID is here in Tulsa, it is transmitting very efficiently. I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isn't as large a concern as it is today," he added.

The Tulsa health official raised concerns because "people are not staying home now, they're out and about.

"I completely understand that, staying closed just wasn't feasible economically and from an emotional, physical perspective," Mr Dart added. "So if we're going to be out, we shouldn't be in enclosed spaces and we shouldn't have extended contact with other people because that's where the risk lies."

As Mr Dart sounds alarms, Mr Trump and his campaign manager are boasting about the event, making it less likely it will be moved. A campaign spokeswoman had not yet responded to a request for a reaction to Mr Dart's concerns.

"Almost One Million people request tickets for the Saturday Night Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma!" Mr Trump tweeted on Monday morning.

The population of Tulsa County is around 651,500. The Trump campaign has not released any data supporting the president's claim.

Mr Trump did not mention Mr Dart in another morning tweet in which he dug in on his plans to begin holding large campaign rallies even amid the ongoing pandemic.

"The Far Left Fake News Media, which had no Covid problem with the Rioters & Looters destroying Democrat run cities, is trying to Covid Shame us on our big Rallies. Won't work!" the president wrote.

Mr Trump's tweets came a day after his 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, bragged that the Tulsa rally had landed the re-election organisation its "biggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10x."

He also claimed in that Sunday tweet that the event had "passed 800,000 tickets."

"Saturday," he wrote, "is going to be amazing!"
Maharashtra Cyber, nodal agency for cyber security and cybercrime investigation for the state, has issued a warning against circulation of late Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput's 'disturbing' pictures on social media, who is suspected to have died by suicide at his Mumbai residence on Sunday.

The post mortem on Sushant's body has been conducted and reports will be released soon. The news of the actor's sudden demise shocked fans and industry colleagues who poured in tributes all day long on Sunday. Sushant was last seen in Netflix film Drive and his upcoming project Dil Bechara, a remake of Hollywood film The Fault in Our Stars, is currently in post production.

Read: 'Talk to Someone': After Sushant Singh Rajput's Death, Bollywood Calls for Better Mental Health Care

Meanwhile, Maharashtra cyber unit has strictly asked people to no circulate pictures of Sushant's dead body. "A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste (sic)," read a tweet on the unit's official handle.

It further read, "It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action (sic)," adding, "Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth (sic)."

A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri. Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste. (1/n) Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action. (2/n) Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth. (3/n) Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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[June 15, 2020] Mercato Partners Joins Series B Funding of Kalderos

SALT LAKE CITY, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mercato Partners today announced participation in the $28 million series B financing of Kalderos, led by Bain Capital Ventures. Mercato Partners led the initial $7 million series A funding of Kalderos in 2019. With the goal of eliminating noncompliance from drug discount coordination, Kalderos has built the only real-time, compliant, point-of-sale chargeback solution for the prescription drug market. Combining industry expertise, data science, and comprehensive, deep-data libraries, Kalderos identifies previously undetected errors, ensuring the right discounts are applied to the right transaction. "Industry figures highlight the level of waste in the drug discount marketplace, with $8.5B in non-compliant drug discount claims in 2018 alone," said Micah Litow, President and COO of Kalderos. "In an era of ever-rising healthcare expenses, these noncompliant drug discounts do not benefit the patients they are intended to help and are inconsistent with our need for a sustainable healthcare system. We help providers, payers and drug manufacturers spend more time improving patients' lives and less time addressing drug discount compliance. We are grateful our original investor, Mercato Partners, returned to support this series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures." Founded i 2016, Kalderos released its first SaaS platform that detects problems in the complex financial interplay between pharmacies, insurers, manufacturers and payers. Current customers include nearly half of the 15 largest drug manufacturers.



"Since our initial series A investment, we have been very pleased with the progress Kalderos has made executing its timely and compelling vision to eliminate noncompliance and inefficiency in the U.S. healthcare system," said Joe Kaiser, Director at Mercato Partners. "With this new round of funding, the excellent team at Kalderos will be able to grow their footprint to ensure drug discount programs finally work as intended on behalf of patients. The company's data-driven, objective approach to drug discount management has real momentum and is redefining how the business of healthcare performs." About Mercato Partners

Mercato Partners is a multi-practice growth firm providing both capital and guidance to founders and companies in a range of stages and a variety of industries ranging from technology firms to food and beverage operations to branded consumer companies. The experienced Mercato team of investors, analysts, and in-house performance operators combine forces with an extended network of advisors and service providers to accelerate growth and create lasting enterprise value. For more information, please visit www.mercatopartners.com .

About Kalderos

Kalderos combines industry expertise, design thinking and technology to target waste and to improve efficiency as the category leader in healthcare financial network management. Its initial SaaS product is the world's first drug discount management solution, which identifies, checks and resolves non-compliance. Using sophisticated models and machine learning processes, Kalderos detects inconsistencies overlooked by current methods, providing material benefits by eliminating waste. Based in Chicago, Kalderos was founded in 2016 by a team firmly rooted in the belief that it is essential to fix this problem in order to help patients and reduce inefficiencies. More information can be found at www.kalderos.com. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mercato-partners-joins-series-b-funding-of-kalderos-301076943.html SOURCE Mercato Partners

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ANKARA, Turkey (AP)  Turkeys jets carried out new cross-border airstrikes on Monday targeting Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

Turkey frequently conducts aerial attacks against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq.

The latest operation, codenamed Operation Claw-Eagle, hit suspected PKK targets in several regions in Iraq's north, including Sinjar, according to a tweet from the military, which claimed 81 PKK targets were struck, including shelters and caves.

The ministry said the jets took maximum care not to harms civilians and returned to their bases safely. There was no immediate statement from the PKK, which has waged a more than three-decade-old insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

There was also no immediate comment from Baghdad or northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The PKK is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. The conflict has led to the loss of tens of thousands lives since it started in 1984.
Recent polls have been brutal for President Trump. He trails Joe Biden by almost 10 points nationally and is behind in nearly every battleground state. His support among independents has fallen amid his handling of the recent protests. And women currently favor Biden over Trump by a margin bigger than in any presidential contest in modern history.

Yes, but: It's only June, and Trump's advisers point to several reasons for hope. Voters still trust him more than Biden to handle the economy. Biden has weaker support than Hillary Clinton did among Hispanic voters. And, as CNN's Harry Enten writes, Trump's supporters "are much more enthusiastic about voting for their candidate than Biden's supporters are voting for theirs."

Trump wants to run as the candidate of "law and order." But one reason Trump 2020 is not analogous to Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign  based on the same theme  is that Nixon wasn't president while he exploited fear of violence in American cities during that volatile year. Nixon was campaigning against a chaos for which voters could not conceivably hold him responsible.

Trump, however, leads a nation roiled by protests and bursts of looting and violence. Trump's aides say he needs to paint a picture of what a Biden presidency would look like. So, naturally, he grabs onto what he considers the most unappealing excesses of the left and tries to brand Biden with these images.

That's why Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller calls the Seattle Autonomous Zone a "Biden Zone." The message: "This is what all of our cities will look like if Joe Biden gets elected."

Trump is already road-testing a tactic that advisers plan to use on nearly every issue that arises between now and November. When Biden hits him on an issue, Trump has a go-to rejoinder: What did Biden do to fix that problem during his 36 years in the Senate and his eight years as vice president?

The message they're trying to convey to voters: You can't be a change candidate when you've been part of a failed Washington establishment for more than 40 years.

The Biden campaign's response: "As he exacerbates crisis after crisis, Trump has stepped on his own message so much that he no longer even has one," said Andrew Bates, Biden's director of rapid response.
Mahurangi residents are being urged to have their say on Auckland Councils Emergency Budget before the deadline for submissions passes at midnight on Friday, June 19.

Council is asking for comment on two scenarios of spending cuts, one if a 3.5 per cent rates increase was approved and the other for a 2.5 per cent increase.

Four councillors, including Rodney representative Greg Sayers, wanted a zero per cent increase option, but Mayor Phil Goff says this would be unacceptable.

We looked at it, but could not responsibly propose rate increases below 2.5 per cent because of the severe impacts that would have on Council services, new infrastructure, our debt levels and employment and business activity in Auckland, he said.

He said the scale of the financial challenge that Council faced, with a predicted revenue loss of over half a billion dollars due to Covid-19, meant that spending would need to be cut and capital projects delayed, even with the 3.5 per cent increase previously planned.

With a lower rate increase of 2.5 per cent, we would need to further reduce spending on Council services and further delay investment in transport, parks and community and town centre projects, he said.

Both options could mean serious cuts for spending in Rodney, including up to 20 per cent off the Local Boards discretionary budget and a proposal to reduce the road sealing budget by up to $1 million, which could jeopardise a new Auckland Transport, (AT) programme to improve local unsealed roads (MM Jun 3).

The paper was adopted at our May business meeting and only needs to be approved by the board of AT, Board deputy chair Beth Houlbrooke said. The governing body members may not be aware of this yet, so I think weve got a good case to argue it be put back in place, but we will need the support of submissions and our councillor if we have any chance of achieving this.

Other cuts potentially on the cards include road and footpath maintenance, parks and hall spending, pest eradication, Council services and opening hours, and the closure of two animal shelters.

The full Emergency Budget document can be read at akhaveyoursay.nz/emergency-budget or at any library or service centre. Feedback can be posted online at akhaveyoursay.nz/emergency-budget, emailed to akhaveyoursay@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz, dropped off at libraries or service centres, or posted to AK Have Your Say, Auckland Council, Freepost Authority 182382, Private Bag 92 300, Auckland 1142 by Friday, June 19.
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Since the police killing of George Floyd, companies across all industries have made statements to express support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Though all contained some semblance of support and were written to ensure audiences of righteous beliefs, many lacked accompanying actions to illustrate genuine intent for change.

In response, Tara Donaldson, editor in chief of Sourcing Journal, wrote: When the statements supporting the movement and disavowing racism are, more often than not, crafted by brands white ceos, reviewed by their white colleagues and blessed by a white h.r. or p.r. department, you will not get the message right.

Overnight activism, Donaldson pointed out, is not enough and it has become pivotal for companies to deliver more than a promise. So, what should you do? Experts say, more is more. Here, WWD asks leading experts how they have been advising companies to respond.

Elton Ndoma-Ogar, director of diversity and inclusion for the Americas and Asia at AlixPartners

Without question, the events of the last several months have placed a global spotlight on the social injustices toward the Black/African-American community. As companies grapple with the need to deliver on strategic objectives in an extremely difficult business environment, they must also place a focused effort on dismantling the long history of systemic racism and its impact on the Black community. To achieve meaningful results, the approach needs to be genuine.

Four specific actions that companies can take to make a difference:

1. Acknowledge that there is a problem. Leaders can no longer accept the perfectly logical explanations as to why the Black community has not been able to overcome the inequalities that exist both in society and business.

2. Listen to your Black employees and clients. Leaders must create a space where they truly listen to understand whats being stated. This means listening without formulating a pre-conceived solution.

3. Share your stories and make the interaction personal. Leaders will find the challenge insurmountable if they dont become increasingly aware of their own personal diversity journey and how it translates into building an inclusive culture.

4. Commit to change, beyond the current crisis. The true test of the leader and the organizations commitment to change, are the actions, processes and procedures that are sustainable and visible long after its no longer the top news story.

Story continues

Antony Karabus, chief executive officer at HRC Advisory

The events of the past weeks have come at the worst possible time for retailers as they have been working extremely hard to get stores ready and safe for customers to return to stores and are now trying to recover some of the losses of the last three months. The rioting, property damage, etc. are likely to give customers another reason to be nervous to return to stores especially on the streets.

However, this issue of unjust and unequal treatment of minorities in the country has been a reality and a simmering cauldron for as long as all of us can remember. We recommend that retailers limit public pronouncements to expressing support and solidarity with those communities that have been unjustly treated and now need to focus on protecting their property, ensure their employees are safe and compensated for the time they arent able to work as a result of their stores being closed due to the riots and damage and do everything they can to ensure a safe environment for their customers to return to their stores and then do what they can to reduce the unequal treatment in the communities in which they operate.

Dr. Laura Hamill, organizational psychologist, cofounder and chief science officer at Limeade, and author of Take Care.

Right now is a time where employers need to, first and foremost, focus inward  truly listen to employees and make sure employees feel cared for and supported. Communicate early and often  acknowledge what is going on and be as authentic and transparent as possible with your people.

Do people need time off or time to reflect? Create space for people to voice their concerns and seek help. Leaders should also solicit feedback via meaningful one-on-one conversations with employees  and then use this feedback to drive change and inform approaches. Reflect on where as a company you can do more. Recognize areas of strength and areas for growth across your companys diversity and inclusion efforts. People want to know what their company stands for.

From there, any external-facing communication should reflect whats happening internally. Make sure whatever you are saying on the outside is true and aligned with whats happening internally. The closer aligned these two elements are the more genuine it will be.

Robert Foehl, executive in residence for business law and ethics at Ohio Universitys online Masters of Business Administration program

A companys stance on a social issue must be calibrated with the companys expressed values. Those values serve as the companys guide star, especially during trying circumstances. Once that calibration has occurred, the company should communicate that stance publicly, making it clear that tangible actions supporting those words are forthcoming.

Companies must seek the guidance of their stakeholders  employees, customers, suppliers, owners and the communities that affect and are affected by the company. Such collaboration will bring differing perspectives, experiences and viewpoints, that should be heard, acknowledged and harmonized. The goal of this collaboration is a tangible action plan for the company that demonstrates its commitment to the stance taken on the social issue and its core values.

The company should communicate this action plan publicly and actuate it with appropriate resources and accountability mechanisms to ensure successful implementation. Finally, the results of implementing the plan should be evaluated by the company and its stakeholders. To help foster trust and accountability, the company should publish those results, along with any corresponding action plans in order to show a continuing commitment to the social issue and company values.

For More WWD Business News:

From Protests to Progress, the Next Step in Diversity

Customers Respond to How Brands React to Black Lives Matter Movement

Nationwide Protests vs. the Looting Narrative

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Portland Democrat Maxine Dexter was sworn into office Sunday to serve out the remaining months of Mitch Greenlicks term representing Northwest Portlands Oregon House District 33.

Dexter, who won the Democratic primary for the seat in May, faces Republican forestry consultant Dick Courter in the November general election to represent the overwhelmingly Democratic district. She took the oath of office in a private outdoor ceremony officiated by Oregon Supreme Court Justice Adrienne Nelson, according to a news release from the Oregon House Democrats.

There is tremendous work to be done," Dexter said in a written statement. "The ways and strategies of the past are unacceptable to perpetuate. In this crisis, there is incredible opportunity, a mandate, for change. I will be a fierce advocate for equity, guided by my core values of compassion and courage while serving the people of Oregon.

Dexter, one of two Oregon doctors who won Democratic legislative primaries this year, is a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Kaiser Permanente and a graduate of the program Emerge Oregon, which trains Democratic women to run for office.

Greenlick, who represented the district for 17 years, died in May at age 85. Dexter was chosen to serve out the remainder of Greenlicks term by the Washington County Commission and the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.

-- Hillary Borrud: hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud

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DETROIT (AP)  The head of the United Auto Workers will meet this month with the U.S. attorney in Detroit to discuss potential changes for the union following a wide-ranging corruption probe.

Matthew Schneider, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, has floated the idea of the government taking control of the union and has pushed for letting each member vote on its leadership.

The governments corruption probe has been embarrassing for the UAW. Ten union officials and a late officials spouse have pleaded guilty since 2017, including former President Gary Jones.

Some officials used union dues for golf, lodging and fancy meals, while others tapped cash from a Fiat Chrysler-UAW training center with approval from an FCA executive. Others took kickbacks from union contractors.

Dennis Williams, another former president, has not been charged but his California home was searched last summer.

In a joint statement Monday, the union and Schneider said current UAW President Rory Gamble will meet with Schneider June 30 in Detroit to start negotiations on changes for the union. Both men seek to work together to restore the trust and confidence of the UAW's membership in the union's ability to represent them, the statement said.

Schneider said he looks forward to working with Gamble to resolve some of the serious issues that the UAW has faced. The UAW's membership deserves our concerted push to bring about significant and important reforms, he said.

Currently the 400,000-member union elects its leadership by voting for delegates who attend a convention every four years. The UAW represents about 150,000 workers employed by Ford, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors, but it also includes casino workers, university graduate assistants and others.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

It is right that I dedicate this commentary to George Floyd, whose tragic end at the hands of a US policeman has seared the conscience of the world. He was the victim of unconcern  the unconcern of those who would use the power and authority of the public office to pursue an agenda of delusional inerrancy.

A delusion that could end in loss of life as in Georges individual case or threaten the peace and security of a whole country like what Jean Mensa, Ken Attafuah, and Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo are trying to do to our country with their new voter's register.

Such public servants may or may not be in uniform (like in Georges case) but what they all wear is the garb of I have the power and I will use it. That is how come that to Georges cry of I cant breathe, Derek Chauvin, the policeman, felt he should exert more brute force  his uniform, he felt, entitled him to choke life out of another human being. Adopting and adapting Georges cry as a metaphor is to me not a desecration of the brothers tragic and painful end, but a consecration in recognition of what he and others (and in a way all of us) represent: The victims of unconcern.

It is not a benign wind blowing across our land. On January 7 2017, it was a land at peace with itself that outgoing President John Dramani Mahama handed over to the victor(s) of Election 2016. With January 7 2021 in sight, I am not sure what the portends for peace are. The whirlwinds of discontent, tension, distrust and possible violence are becoming ever more menacing just as the intransigence of impunity, arrogance and the lack of concern are equally raising the stakes and drawing battle lines

The sounds of calls-to-arms fill the air and I am terrified. Voices are raising concern which are falling on the un-listening ears of those who took over a peaceful country from President Mahama almost four years ago. Problem is, time is drawing close for them to subject themselves to the kind of transparent peer review Mahama subjected himself to in Election 2016, but this lot are saying no and want to take it even before a vote has been cast. The main source of concern relates to how they can win an election with odds that do not allow anyone else the chance. And then there are the efforts of those who in the national interest have seen through it and want to thwart it.

On everyones tongue is one name: Jean Mensa, for those who regard her as an ally in their new register stratagem and the others who see in her nothing but a clear and present danger to our country. Concerns have been and continue to be expressed by patriotic individuals, groups, institutions and organizations spanning the entire gamut of the Ghanaian polity. One stands out as a very crucial message of concern: The call by our National House of Chiefs. No matter what we may think of them, they are the true reflection of our history, heritage, dignity, culture and traditions. The land now called Ghana was initially held in trust for all of us by their ancestors.

If there is one group of people whose concern must be taken serious, it is our traditional rulers, especially if it is as collective as their statement on the voters register... They have much to lose, unlike politicians who come and goTo treat them with contempt the way they have so far been treated on the issue is nothing but sacrilegious. And to think that the rather inarticulate general secretary of the governing political party can dare throw barbs at our chiefs  wow!!! They deserve better than the contempt of those whose only reason for such misbehavior is because like Derek Chauvin - the murderer in uniform, they feel their Office entitles them to keep pressing their knees on our necks even as we suffocate and cry out for the fresh air of fairness  the oxygen that allows democracy to thrive

So much has happened these past four years to vindicate President Mahamas watch. Theres one vindication, however, that, he must be praying, like a lot of us, never to come to pass: the suffocation of our peaceful homeland Ghana, the legacy he left behind in 2017.

The knees of unconcern keep pressing on the neck of our democracy. The cry is loud and clear. Our democracy cant breathe and our concerns matterSammy Gyamfis cartoon on this plaintive wail is most apposite
A former Labor party minister who served 11 years in prison for child sex crimes has been charged with 15 new offences.

Milton Orkopoulos, who served in New South Wales parliament from 1999 to 2006, was arrested at Silverwater jail on Monday morning.

Detectives from Lake Macquarie will allege Orkopoulos, 62, sexually assaulted two young boys who were known to him in the 1990s.

They first began investigating the allegations of sexual and indecent assault in January 2020.

Milton Orkopoulos (pictured leaving court on January 22 2020), who served in New South Wales parliament from 1999 to 2006, was arrested at Silverwater jail on Monday morning

Milton Orkopoulos pictured with his former staffer, Gillian Sneddon, who assisted police in his initial arrest back in 2008

Orkopoulos was charged with 15 offences in total, including five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a victim under 16 and five counts of aggravated indecent assault of victims under 16.

Three other charges relate to forcing a child under 14 to participate in prostitution.

In 2019, Orkopoulos walked free from prison on parole after spending 11 years behind bars for a string of charges relating to child abuse in 2008.

The former Swansea MP breached his parole twice - first when he created an Instagram account without prior approval and again when he used a phone belonging to a fellow resident at a Malabar halfway house.

The actions landed him back behind bars.

Orkopoulos will face Newcastle Court via video link on Tuesday.
The foundation wants to bring back tours and programs by spring 2021 and there are plans to expand its research capabilities, improve the technology and provide a unique space for public and private events. Much of the funding will be used to restore the 60,000-square-foot building and its three main domes, each with its own telescope.

Its in great shape for being 123 years old, said Ed Struble, who has been the director of building and grounds at Yerkes for nearly 30 years and is continuing that role with the foundation. Theres a lot of work were going to do to it, but I look at it as being in great shape. Im really impressed with the attitude of the people taking over because were just going to tighten up everything.

Members of the foundation bring years of experience in business, finance, fundraising and conservation efforts. Only its not just a local effort. The foundations plan is getting worldwide attention, which could help bolster funding for the restoration project, operational costs, the establishment of an endowment and the hiring of staff, including the current search for an executive director.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) joins fellow Democrats from the House and Senate to announce new legislation to end excessive use of force by police and make it easier to identify, track, and prosecute police misconduct at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on June 8, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Rep. Clyburn Opposes Defunding the Police

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a top Democrat in the House of Representatives, voiced his disapproval for efforts to defund the police, but said he envisions a change in policing.

I would simply say, as I have always said, nobody is going to defund the police, Clyburn, the House majority whip, said during an appearance June 14 on CNNs State of the Union.

We can restructure the police forces, restructure, reimagine policing. That is what we are going to do. The fact of the matter is, the police have a role to play. What we have got to do is make sure that their role is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in.

Calls to defund the police, or cut funding for police departments, have risen in some circles, but a number of top lawmakers from both parties said they dont approve of the efforts even as they support varying levels of law enforcement reform.

Clyburn, 79, said he didnt fear police when he was growing up, but now he does.

The fact of the matter is, this is a structure that has been developed that we have got to deconstruct. So, I wouldnt say defund. Deconstruct our policing, he said.

Democratic elected officials in Minneapolis, where a black man, George Floyd, died in police custody last month, are moving toward completely replacing the citys police department.

Police take back the streets at around midnight after firing copious amounts of tear gas to disperse protesters and rioters outside the Minneapolis Police 5th Precinct during the fourth night of protests and violence following the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 29, 2020. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks to a crowd gathered for a march to defund the Minneapolis Police Department in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 6, 2020. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

The Minneapolis City Council on June 12 passed a veto-proof resolution to pursue replacing its police department with a community-led public safety system.

In other areas, Democrats are cutting millions from police budgets, redirecting the funds to programs meant to boost minorities and the impoverished. Most Americans oppose defunding the police, according to polls.

Some Democrats in Congress do support the movement, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Asked who would carry out the work police officers traditionally do, such as investigating crimes, Omar said on the same CNN show that the newly approved resolution will engage the community on a one-year process of what happens as we go through the process of dismantling the department and starting anew.

This is our opportunity, you know, as a city, to come together, have the conversation of what public safety looks like, who enforces the most dangerous crimes that take place in our community, she said.

Dismantling the police department, Omar said, is the first step, as officials eye what funding priorities should look like as we reimagine a new way forward is what needs to happen.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
The Gospel of Christ Jesus compels us: Idaho church to remove Robert E. Lee from stained glass window

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An Idaho church has decided to remove Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a stained glass window in its sanctuary that also features George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

The leadership of the Cathedral of the Rockies, a United Methodist Church congregation located in Boise, announced the decision to change the window, which dates back to 1960, in a recently released statement.

The Gospel of Christ Jesus compels us and our Baptismal vows embolden us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, stated church leadership.

Our pastors and staff have spoken and speak against systemic racism, study to understand, and work with leaders of color to listen and learn.

The church board went on to note that they came to the decision following considerable prayer and deliberation, labeling the Lee image divisive and hurtful.

We believe this section of our window to be inconsistent with our current mission, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, they continued.

Further, such display is a barrier to our important work resisting evil, injustice, and oppression. Symbols of white supremacy do not belong in our sacred space.

The board conceded that there are people of goodwill who may disagree with our decision, but added that they hoped what unites us in Christ is greater than our differences.

The Rev. Duane Anders of the Cathedral told The Christian Post in an interview on Monday that the window was first created to help welcome southerners who moved to the area.

The only documentation we have from the committee that chose this in around 1958, explained Anders, said that it was a nod to inclusion for the southerners who had moved to Boise.

Anders noted that an oral tradition at the church said that another reason for the window was to showcase reconciliation.

It was a way to say in Christ we reconcile, he continued. So thats the oral tradition but we dont have that in print.

The plan at present is to just remove Lee from the image and to do so by the summer, with the stained glass company overseeing the project expected to begin within a couple of weeks.

The church will replace the Confederate military leader with an African-American figure still to be determined, with the change expected to be completed after about six weeks.

Regarding who will replace Lee, Anders told CP that popular names include Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, and Leontine T.C. Kelly, who was the first African-American female bishop in the United Methodist Church.

In recent years, the debate over Confederate monuments, flags, and names on both public and religious property has stirred passionate debate that has periodically resulted in violence.

In 2017, white supremacists came to Charlottesville, Virginia, in part to protest the possible removal of a Lee statue at Emancipation Park.

Amid the protest, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drove a car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing one and injuring more than a dozen others.

Weeks later, leadership of the Robert E. Lee Memorial Church of Lexington voted to change the congregation name to Grace Episcopal Church in light of the controversy.

In addition to planning on removing the Lee stained glass image, a satellite campus of the Boise church will hold a church service centered on repenting of racism this coming Sunday.
When it comes to protecting sensitive government information, airport security offers a compelling parallel. People need to travel, and they must be validated and inspected before boarding an aircraft. Similarly, agencies must establish communication between networks but without putting classified data at risk. Cross-domain solutions offer checks, much like airport security protocols, to allow secure data sharing between and within segmented networks. This helps agencies effectively and efficiently accomplish their missions.

Cross-domain solutions must meet increasingly rigorous compliance requirements, though. The Raise the Bar initiative, which was unveiled in late 2018 by the National Security Agencys National Cross Domain Strategy and Management Office, set a higher standard for cross-domain security beyond even the National Institute of Standards and Technologys Risk Management Framework controls. It also continues to evolve. Recent memos show that a move to hardware-based separation and solutions providing one-directional data flow, combined with cross-domain solutions, will be required by the end of 2021 for certain high-risk networks.

The building blocks

An effective and compliant cross-domain architecture between networks of different classification levels is made up of many pieces, similar to airport security. Together, they allow end users to collaborate when and where they need to, without onerous logistical barriers or putting critical information at risk.

When travelers arrive at the airport, they must pass through multiple security checks. This is very similar to the defense-in-depth practices for implementing cross-domain solutions that include firewalls, diodes and guards. At the airport, fliers must first check in with a Transportation Security Administration agent and present particular credentials, including a government-approved ID and a valid ticket. Similarly, firewalls, the first line of defense for most networks, monitor and control network traffic based on preset rules. Firewalls offer a very effective means of protecting the network, but it is a very high-level check.

For employees to successfully do their daily jobs, firewalls must be able to support a wide range of protocols for many applications: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, email, web browsing and more. Firewalls' biggest shortcoming is that the must support a wide range of communication traffic for an organization to effectively operate and can perform only a high-level check on the data.

When passengers walk through the security checkpoint, theyre subjected to a far more in-depth search. TSA agents inspect individuals and their belongings. If theyre accidentally carrying a pen knife or razor blade, for instance, agents detect that and remove it. Then, they either allow travelers to pass or decline their entry. Cross-domain guards work similarly. Unlike firewalls, which are all or nothing, guards utilize custom military-grade inspection routines, focusing on one protocol or dataset and looking at the data very carefully. Data can be completely rejected or sanitized to allow passage.

Guards follow extremely narrow criteria with regard to what is allowed through, but for a reason: to ensure the right data is being shared or transferred between boundaries. This permits the secure and seamless flow of information between multiple networks, be that machine-to-machine, person-to-machine or machine-to-person. Lets say an agency, due to security restrictions, uses "SneakerNet" -- a highly manual physical transfer process where data on CD-ROMs is walked from one system to another. With the implementation of a guard, the agency could automate the process of declassifying a large pool of documents and transfer them from a network with a secret classification to a public one through data inspection and sanitization.

Maintaining compliance for the future

Once travelers exit the departure area of an airport, they cannot come back in. This parallels the hardware-based security cited earlier. One-way transfers are enabled by diodes: a unidirectional transfer device enforced through hardware. Data is transmitted one way, much like a traditional TV remote control device where an infrared light goes to the TV receiver, but no data is ever transmitted back to the remote. Once again, Raise the Bar guidance will soon mandate the use of diodes when either the source or destination is a high-threat network, like the internet. When classified networks are talking to one another, on the other hand, a hardware-based solution will not be required. Unlike guards, diodes dont conduct a security check on what data is passed through.

The challenge with diodes is that one-way communication can impact data flows. The transfer has to be slowed down because there is no feedback as to whether the information has been received. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as companies like DigitalGlobe and Planet Labs are increasingly providing the government with images from their satellites. The agencies must ingest that data and bring it up to a higher classification level. While a diode offers guaranteed one-way data delivery, it cannot conduct an in-depth data inspection to ensure that the data is not malware, unlike a guard.

The bottom line

Its no secret that cyberattacks are an omnipresent threat for government agencies that must balance the need to isolate networks with the need for rapid communication between those networks, as is required for critical missions. If an airport only relied on one of the aforementioned protocols, it wouldnt be considered secure. Similarly, government agencies must layer various technologies -- firewalls, guards and diodes -- for the sake of security and compliance. This layering allows for the sharing of information between classification levels and the ingestion of data from high-threat networks without creating untenable, unnecessary risk.
This undated photo provided by the family of Robert Fuller via Najee Ali shows Robert Fuller, who was found dead Wednesday, June 10, 2020, hanging from a tree in Poncitlan Square, in Palmdale, Calif. (Courtesy of Robert Fuller Family via AP)

State and federal authorities will monitor the investigation into the death of a black man found hanging from a tree in southern California, officials said following large weekend protests.

The body of Robert Fuller was discovered last week at a park near City Hall in the city of Palmdale.

The county medical examiner and coroners office said the 24-year-old appeared to have died by suicide, prompting an outcry by his family who believed he was not suicidal and community members who called for an independent investigation and post-mortem.

The initial report appeared to be consistent with a suicide but we felt it prudent to roll that back and continue to look deeper, Dr Jonathan Lucas said at a news conference.

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Officials noted that investigators only found rope and a backpack in the park, and nothing to indicate foul play.

The state attorney generals office and the FBIs Civil Rights Division will oversee the investigation, which is being led by the Los Angeles County sheriffs homicide bureau, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said.

The coroners office has completed a post-mortem but is awaiting toxicology results, Dr Lucas said. Investigators are also looking at Mr Fullers medical history.

Homicide detectives also plan to analyse the rope and its knot, canvass the area for video footage, interview Mr Fullers social services case worker and speak to anyone who had recently interacted with him.

They are also seeking to meet his family, authorities said.

It is the right thing to do. https://t.co/CgxsWgyIc8  Scott Wilk (@ScottWilkCA) June 14, 2020

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched from the park near City Hall to the sheriffs station, many carrying signs that read Justice for Robert Fuller.

An online petition demanding an investigation has collected more than 200,000 signatures.

The city has issued a statement supporting an independent inquiry, and three elected officials  county supervisor Kathryn Barger, state senator Scott Wilk and assemblyman Tom Lackey  urged California attorney general Xavier Becerra to lead the probe.

Mr Fullers death came amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The case also brought to light the death of another black man who was found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city about 45 miles east of Palmdale.

San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department said foul play was not suspected in the death of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch, but his family said they were concerned it would be ruled a suicide to avoid further attention.

Mr Villanueva said his investigators will consult with San Bernardino detectives to see if there are any possible links between the deaths of the two men.
SARATOGA SPRINGS  Saratoga Hospital is joining a growing number of providers who are now offering antibody tests to determine if an individual was exposed to coronavirus.

The hospital announced Monday that it will be offering antibody testing at its outpatient laboratory locations, including Malta Med Emergent Care and the hospitals urgent care locations in Wilton and Queensbury.



Tests must be ordered by a health care provider. Results will be reported to patients in three to five days.



Antibody tests, also known as serology tests, are blood tests that look for proteins that have developed in response to specific infections  in this case, the COVID-19 illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

A positive test result means that a patient had COVID-19 and has since recovered from the illness.

Many are hopeful that COVID-19 antibodies will provide some level of protection against re-infection  as is the case with most other antibodies. But infectious disease experts and scientists studying the virus say its too soon to tell, and warn against viewing the presence of COVID-19 antibodies as a license to ignore social distancing and mask guidelines.

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We decided to offer this service after hearing from people in our community who feel it would be helpful to know their antibody status, either to provide some reassurance or help them make decisions about grocery shopping and other activities, said Jeffrey Methven, Saratoga Hospital executive vice president.



Antibody status also could help inform provider decisions about care for patients with compromised immune systems or chronic conditions, he added.



Test results may also be helpful to the broader community, the hospital contends. If enough people are tested, antibody status could offer insights on how widespread COVID-19 has been in the region. The tests can also identify potential donors for convalescent plasma therapy, which uses blood and antibodies from those who have recovered from COVID-19 to help patients who have the virus.



Individuals can take one of two routes to get an antibody test through Saratoga Hospital:



A provider order is required for antibody tests at all Saratoga Hospital outpatient lab locations. Patients who do not have an order can visit the Wilton or Queensbury urgent care locations during normal business hours, or Malta Med Emergent Care at any time of day for a screening to determine their eligibility.

Those who qualify will be tested. Patients will be charged a copay for the screening but not for the test.



All tests will be processed by Saratoga Hospital, which meets the latest U.S. Food and Drug Administration validation criteria, the hospital said.



For so many patients, the stress of the pandemic has been magnified by the questions and uncertainty surrounding testing and other protocols, Methven said. At a Saratoga Hospital facility, patients can get tested by an organization they know and trust  and can be confident in the accuracy of their results.
Nissan on Monday revealed a redesigned version of the Rogue, one of the most popular SUV vehicles in the country.

The 2021 Nissan Rogue is set to go on sale this fall, boasting improved safety systems and design inspired by the Nissan X-Motion concept vehicle, which debuted at the 2018 Detroit auto show.

It's the first redesign for the vehicle since 2014, which was a highly successful makeover that helped the Rogue surpass the Altima as Nissan's most popular model. The Rogue was the third-bestselling SUV in the country in 2019, trailing only the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CR-V, with sales of 350,447 vehicles, according to car buying site CarGurus.com.

"When considering its prior success, the new Rogue will be critical for Nissan and this refresh will likely help the brand gain total share as well as share in the ultra-competitive compact SUV segment," George Augustaitis, director of industry analytics at CarGurus, said in an email.

The bestseller in Nissan's lineup, the Rogue attracts a wide range of buyers. Featuring significant improvements in the back seat for the 2021 model, it's targeted particularly at millennials with kids.

"Although their primary focus is on the comfort and safety of their family, they really want to stand out in the crowd," said Jared Haslam, Nissan's vice president of product planning. "They really want the design to be stylish."

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The 2021 Nissan Rogue SUV is aimed at millennials with children.

With a more upright grill, a more horizontal hood and a back end that's more squared off, the Rogue aims for a "stronger stance and presence," Haslam said.

Nissan will no longer offer a version of the Rogue with a third row starting with the 2021 model year, Haslam said. The company will continue to offer the more compact Rogue Sport.

Story continues

The automaker is "always considering" an electric or hybrid version of the Rogue but won't offer one right now because it wants to keep the vehicle affordable, he said.

Nissan will release pricing details this fall. The 2020 Rogue ranges in price from about $25,300 to $33,000, according to car research site Edmunds.

Its features include:

Heated rear seats.

Pretension loaders on the seat belts in the back row, matching the safety feature that's been limited to the front row.

Nearly 90-degree rear door openings for ease of entry and exit.

Rear-door sunshades.

A nook behind the wheel arch in the trunk for easy transport of gallon milk jugs.

A redesigned chassis.

A 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine with 181 hp and 28 to 30 miles per gallon. It's the only powertrain option for the vehicle.

Updated ProPilot Assist system, which is optional and provides partially automated driving in highway lanes. It includes a longer camera range to enable smoother braking and steering assistance. The upgraded system can automatically handle bumper-to-bumper traffic with stops of up to 30 seconds without driver intervention, up from three seconds before. It offers traffic sign recognition to enable adjustments to new posted speed limits.

Nissan's "Safety Shield 360" system, which includes blind-spot warning, rear-cross traffic alert and high-beam assistance.

Five two-tone color options, in addition to normal single-color options.

The vehicle will be assembled at Nissan's plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, and a plant in Japan.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nissan Rogue redesigned: 2021 SUV gets makeover
by Sumon Corraya

Some priests and nuns from Bangladesh work abroad as missionaries; others will do the same in the future. Thirty years ago, the local Catholic Church needed the help of international missionary groups like PIME, the Xaverians, and the priests and nuns of the Holy Cross.

Dhaka (AsiaNews)  The Catholic Church in Bangladesh has been blessed recently with 21 new deacons, whilst three seminarians currently studying abroad will ordained in the near future.

Bangladesh is a Muslim majority country with a small Christian community. Catholics number around 390,000. The Major Seminary of the Holy Spirit in Banani (Dhaka) is the countrys only seminary and currently has 125 seminarians.

Some of the newly ordained deacons study at Holy Spirit Seminary. Six seminarians were ordained at the Holy Cross Scholasticate in Rampura (Dhaka). Other seminarians are from six other Dioceses.

In Bangladeshs history, this is the first time that 24 seminarians become deacons almost at once. For some priests, they come as blessings from the Almighty God.

Two of the seminarians ordained to the deaconate come from the Diocese of Barisal. Father Anol Terence D 'Costa, a priest in Barisal, took part in the training programme for deacons.

The Catholic Church seems blessed because young people are attending the seminary to become priests, he told AsiaNews. This is a good sign. The countrys religious vocation is good. We are very happy.

It seems that the contribution of parents, teachers, priests and nuns is also good. "Young people are getting a proper education from their family, priests and nuns; for this reason, they choose to join the religious life.

Father Anol notes that the ordination of deacons generally takes place every year at the Major Seminary of the Holy Spirit in Dhaka. But owing to the pandemic and the lockdown, this year it took place in the dioceses where the seminarians come from.

"Now the deacons will help the priests in their own diocese, in accordance with the directives of their bishops, said Father Anol. We are helping the needy during this coronavirus pandemic, and the deacons will be involved in this work, including family visits and pastoral care.

Some newly ordained deacons spoke about how they discovered their religious vocation and feelings. One of them, Lanard Rozario, hails from Tumilia, a parish in the Archdiocese of Dhaka.

My parents and relatives encouraged me to be a priest, he said. Their encouragement helped me decide to enter the seminary and today I have become a deacon and I am very happy. What I wished in life has come true, he added.

Deacon Richard Babu Halders story is similar. He hails from Narikelbari, a parish in the Diocese of Barisal. Speaking to AsiaNews, he said "I wanted to be a priest since childhood. Now I hope to become one as I reach the final stage. My mother and grandmother encouraged me a lot.

I looked at the holy life of a local priest, Father Sylvester, and was inspired to become a religious. Father Sylvester dedicated his life to Almighty God, as a servant of Jesus Christ, and so I shall work for all people of faith and take care of their spiritual life.

Seminarian Anil Ignatius Marandy was ordained deacon in the Diocese of Rajshahi. In addition to providing pastoral care in the parish, he wants to devote himself to prisoners, workers and children. Bishop Gervas Rozario of Rajshahi celebrated his ordination Mass.

As deacons you will have to be in the service of what falls within your responsibility, Bishop Rozario said in his homily. You will have to work according to what God needs. You dont need to make us happy; you must be faithful to God. The bishop expressed his best wishes to the newly ordained deacons.

The number of male religious vocations in the Catholic Church of Bangladesh is adequate. But in this super modern era of globalisation female vocations are on the decline.

Some priests and nuns from Bangladesh work abroad as missionaries. Others will do the same in the future.

Thirty years ago, the countrys Catholic Church received the help of several international missionary groups such as PIME, the Xaverians, and the priests and nuns of the Holy Cross. Few of the latter are left whilst local priests and nuns are now the majority.
She added ominously, "The right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army." Kim Yo-jong also advised the South not to underestimate her comments as mere saber-rattling.

In the statement she also warned the "useless" inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong will be "completely collapsed."

Ten days earlier she had issued a shrilly worded demand to stop South Korean activists from sending propaganda leaflets attached to helium balloons across the border.

In a statement, Kim Yo-jong said, "By exercising my power authorized by the supreme leader, our party and the state, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with enemy to decisively carry out the next action," according to the official [North] Korean Central News Agency.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister on Saturday threatened unspecified military action against South Korea in what appears to be an increasingly frantic bid for attention.

Cheong Wa Dae held an emergency meeting at midnight on Sunday, just three hours after the North released the statement. A Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson said the government "discussed the situation of the Korean Peninsula and response measures" but did not protest or say what the response will be.

The government earlier tried to appease the North by threatening to outlaw the leaflet campaign and prosecute activists, who are mostly North Korean defectors. But the performance failed to quell North Korea's rhetoric, suggesting that something else is behind its recent histrionics.

Some pundits believe the regime is simply looking for a distraction from dire economic woes amid international sanctions and the coronavirus lockdown.

Shin Beom-chul at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy suggested the North wants to "shift the blame on the U.S. for the failed nuclear negotiations and on South Korea for failing to play the role of mediator" to justify continuing with its nuclear program.

Some North Korean guard posts were spotted by South Korean intelligence taking out 14.5-mm anti-aircraft guns and using them for target practice. One intelligence source said they practiced assuming firing positions, which "appears to have been a warning that the North may shoot down balloons that fly over the border from the South."

U.S. President Donald Trump, confronted with the complete failure of his charm offensive toward Kim Jong-un, said it is not the responsibility of the U.S. to resolve foreign conflicts.

In a commencement speech to graduates of the West Point military academy, Trump said, "It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never heard of." Nor is it their job "to rebuild foreign nations, but to defend and defend strongly our nation from our foreign enemies," he added.
The female MP who was called a 'psycho b****' by former Labor minister Adem Somyurek has slammed his 'violent and mysogenistic' language.

Victoria's Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams said the type of language used against her was 'unacceptable' and 'must be called out'.

'No matter who you are, no one deserves to be threatened in this way,' she wrote.

Mr Somyurek was sacked as a minister and resigned from the party today after he was secretly recorded launching a foul-mouthed tirade against his factional rival which was aired on 60 Minutes last night.

He said: 'I will f***ing force her out of the ministry, that f***ing stupid bitch, when Andrews goes she's a stupid, stupid moll. 'I'm going to f***ing knock her f***ing head off. She's a f***ing psycho b****.'

Victoria's Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams (pictured) said the type of language used against her was 'unacceptable' and 'must be called out'

The MP has slammed the 'violent and mysogenistic' language used against her

Ms Williams said she was glad Mr Somyurek had been sacked and thanked colleagues for their support.

'I am very grateful for the support I have received from across the community overnight and commend the Premier's actions this morning,' she said.

'Today and every day, this government is working tirelessly to end violence against women and build a gender equal Victoria.'

Gabrielle Williams' statement in full Words matter. Violent, misogynistic language perpetuates the attitudes and behaviours that enable a culture of violence against women. Whether at home, in the street, at work or in the halls of Parliament, this language is unacceptable  when it does occur, it must be called out. No matter who you are, no one deserves to be threatened in this way. I am very grateful for the support I have received from across the community overnight and commend the Premier's actions this morning. Today and every day, this government is working tirelessly to end violence against women and build a gender equal Victoria. Last night was another reminder of how important this work is and how much work there is still left to do. Words spoken by one man will not derail this work. Advertisement

In the recordings aired last night, Mr Somyurek also claimed he was more powerful than Premier Daniel Andrews, saying: 'I'll be running the joint.'

The show's investigation also accused Mr Somyurek of recruiting party members to influence which candidates get chosen for elections, a practice know as 'branch stacking.'

Mr Andrews today sacked Mr Somyurek as the minister for local government and small business, referred the allegations against him to the police and moved to expel him from the Australian Labor Party before he resigned from it.

'I have ended his career,' Mr Andrews said.

Mr Somyurek denied the branch stacking allegations, saying: 'I reject those and will be providing a rigorous defence during any party process.'

He admitted making inappropriate comments about a female colleague and young gay staffers.

Mr Somyurek claims he resigned but Mr Andrews said he sacked the minister at 9am.

'Mr Somyurek was not offered an opportunity to resign. He is not worthy of an opportunity to resign. He was sacked. And that is the fact of the matter,' Mr Andrews said.

'He offered no defence of his actions. It was not a meeting where I was having a debate or discussion with him. I was simply doing him the courtesy of informing him in person of the decisions that I had taken.

Adem Somyurek (centre) pictured at a meeting in May, 2019

What did Adem Somyurek say in secret recordings? On the Premier: 'F**** the Premier. Alright? That's what this is about. F*** the premier. I'll be just running the joint, like, it's who I say is going to be the f***ing premier' On female colleague Gabrielle Williams: 'I will f***ing force her out of the ministry, that f***ing stupid bitch, when Andrews goes  She's a stupid, stupid moll. 'I'm going to f***ing knock her f***ing head off. She's a f***ing psycho b****.' On young Labor members: 'Real little f***ing slimy little f***ers, right  little passive aggressive f***ing gay kids' Advertisement

'The conduct is appalling and unacceptable and will not be tolerated and I have taken action to deal with that.'

The Premier said the first he heard of the allegations was when he watched 60 Minutes last night.

The programme claimed to reveal the upper house MP handed over thousands of dollars in cash and used parliamentary employees to create fake branch members and amass political influence within the Australian Labor Party.

Footage shows Mr Somyurek on April 13 withdrawing $2,000 in cash from an ATM, before handing it and dozens of party membership forms, to an adviser working for fellow Labor minister Marlene Kairouz, who then delivers the forms and cash to ALP head office.

The advisor reportedly carried out a similar cash drop-off earlier in the year.

'Well, if he (the advisor) gets caught on the street, he'd better not say he's doing f***ing this stuff,' Mr Somyurek is recorded saying after the April 13 drop.

Mr Somyurek was also allegedly recorded ordering people to forge signatures and create false statements, in which Labor branch members claim to have paid for their own memberships.

The MP said he will ask the police to investigate if he was recorded illegally.

Jaclyn Symes, Gabrielle Williams, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Melissa Horne and Adem Somyurek in 2018

Adem Somyurek pictured in May, 2019

What is branch stacking? Branch stacking involves recruiting or signing up members for a local branch of a political party for the purpose of influencing the outcome of internal preselections of candidates for federal and state parliament. Advertisement

He also talks about directing taxpayer-funded parliamentary employees, meant to be working for other MPs, to conduct party political operations.

In one recording, Mr Somyurek boasts of controlling two-thirds of the Labor party in Victoria.

'I'll be just running the joint,' Mr Somyurek says.

'It's who I say is going to be the f***ing premier.'

It is against Labor rules to pay for other people's memberships.

Party members are required to sign a form declaring they have paid for their own memberships.

In the recordings, Mr Somyurek also takes aim at his colleagues, including Ms Kairouz, who he describes as holding a 'meaningless' portfolio 'made up just to make it look like we're interested in the suburbs'.

Mr Somyurek also describes these young staffers helping him as 'patronising and annoying', and 'real little f***ing slimy little f***ers, little passive-aggressive f***ing gay kids'.
Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, Volta Regional Minister, has expressed worry over the low public response to Coronavirus preventive directives in the Ho Municipality.

He said the attitude of market folk especially, caused the virus to spread much faster and was contributing to the rising number of positive cases in the Region.

The Regional Minister said this when he met with the media ahead of a disinfection campaign of military and educational facilities in the Volta and Oti Regions by Zoomlion Ghana Limited.

The attitude over coronavirus in Ho is so bad and it is not surprising that our case count is rising so fast. We are just refusing to admit that we have a problem and that each one of us has a role to play in putting this virus under control.

Please intervene wherever you are and you will find out that protocols are not being observed, he stated.

Dr Letsa said the evasive nature of the virus made risk education key in fighting its spread, and appealed to teachers and parents to help the young identify everyday activities that would expose them to the virus.

A total of 2,654 basic schools, 100 senior high, and 20 tertiary facilities would be fumigated against viral pathogens and other disease-bearing organisms in the Volta and Oti Region, as part of a nationwide exercise powered by the Military High Command, and the Ghana Education Service.

All 55 military facilities comprising command, training and operation bases would also be disinfected during the 20-day exercise.

Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Baba Pantoa, Commanding Officer of the 66 Artillery Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces, said all must take up the responsibility of ensuring compliance, and said the Military would continue to offer the needed support.

Checks by the Ghana News Agency indicate that as of Saturday, June 13, Volta region had 263 COVID19 confirmed cases, 211 on treatment, 48 recoveries and four deaths.

---GNA
Credit: HBP

Within the partnering environment of the Human Brain Project, a Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship, researchers of the Politechnic University of Milan have developed a simplified neuronal model with potential to tackle the spinocerebellar ataxias diseasea success story of the integration of the partnering environment's scientific community in neuroscience and neurocomputing with the Human Brain Project.

The HBP Partnering Project CerebNEST, in collaboration with the researcher Prof. Egidio D'Angelo (University of Pavia, ItalyUNIPV), leader of the Data-driven Model Reconstruction and Refinement in the HBP Brain Simulation Platform, and his group, have published a joint paper in "Frontiers in Neuroinformatics." Their discoveries focus on the validation of a simplified neuron model for cerebellar Golgi cells. Simulations of realistic single neuron dynamics of the cerebellum have been implemented as a result of a strong synergy with neurophysiologists from UNIPV. This model will be used to investigate diseases linked to neuronal disorders. Alice Geminiani, main author of the publication and researcher at the CerebNEST project in the NearLab of the Politechnic University of Milan (Italy), explained to the SCOPE Project what this new simplified model entails.

The HBP Brain Simulation Platform (BSP) allows to conduct investigations that are not possible experimentally. How does it benefit your discoveries?

In the paper, we describe the development, optimization and validation of a simplified neuron model from the Generalized Leaky Integrate and Fire family. Despite being a point neuron model, the one we have developed is able to reproduce realistic spiking patterns depending on the input stimulus it receives; and the computational load of simulations is not increased (like it happens for the detailed multi-compartment neuron models). This is important for simulations of the cerebellar circuit, because it is known that cerebellar neurons exhibit multiple and complex spiking patterns that impact on network activity and learning. With the current work, we are able to simulate also realistic single neuron dynamics.

For the validation of the model, simulations of single neuron activity have been carried out in collaboration with the BSP. The model and the optimization/simulation tools and code developed in the paper are going to be integrated in the BSP in the following months, as an additional tool to be used by the community.

How are you solving that challenge for modern neuroscience with this simplified scale of neural models, as explained in the paper?

We proved that it is possible to summarize single neuron properties, including oscillations and resonance, in simplified models without compromising the computational load of simulations. This is a fundamental step for realistic multiscale models where not only network and learning are bioinspired, but also neuron responses. The integration of our neuron model into spiking neural networks reproducing the cerebellar microcircuit (which is ongoing) will allow to bridge the gap across scales, from neurons to motor behavior. Together with other simplified neuron models depending on the application, the one presented in this work could be applied to the simulations of other brain regions.

Which regions of the brain could you simulate with this neuron model?

For example the hippocampus, or the regions where neurons are supposed to generate oscillations, like some nuclei in the brainstem. This is facilitated by the fact that the NEST simulator was used to develop and test the model. Extending realistic single neuron dynamics to other regions (while keeping the limited computational load) is fundamental towards functional large-scale simulations of the whole brain. In fact, single neuron properties are supposed to impact on communication between brain areas and signal encoding.

What is the impact in the advancement of tackling some neurological diseases?

The possibility to simulate realistic single neuron dynamics in cerebellar large-scale models paves the way to increased realism of simulations and reliability of simulation outcomes, with impact on the prediction capability of models.

Explore further Using performance modeling for brain tissue simulations

More information: Alice Geminiani et al. Complex Dynamics in Simplified Neuronal Models: Reproducing Golgi Cell Electroresponsiveness, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics (2018). Alice Geminiani et al. Complex Dynamics in Simplified Neuronal Models: Reproducing Golgi Cell Electroresponsiveness,(2018). DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2018.00088
Theres a point in the 12-minute dash-cam video of Chief Allan Adams encounter with the RCMP late one night in Fort McMurray, Alta., that literally took my breath away.

Like a raging bull an officer appears out of nowhere, knocks Adam off his feet and smashes his face into the pavement.

Before that moment another officer had Adam by the arm. By the time Adam is beaten, handcuffed and confined in the back of a police cruiser there are at least eight cops on the scene.

All of this because Adams license plate had expired?

This is the same red-coated RCMP that stand tall on so many ceremonial occasions as a symbol of Canadian values? The same RCMP that have a legendary place in Canadian history, especially in Western Canada?

If they didnt have POLICE labels on their backs in that dash-cam video they would look like any other bunch of thugs out for a brawl.

I got stopped once in Calgary for an expired license plate. The police officer issued me an expensive ticket and I was sent on my way. I was annoyed (at myself mostly) but never once did it occur to me to be afraid of what that police officer might do to me.

But then I am not Indigenous or Black.

In March when Adam left a casino with his wife to return to his parked truck theres no question that he was angered just by the presence of an RCMP patrol car all aglow with flashing lights.

But rather than ignore his outburst, simply issue a ticket and drive away, the officers seem intent on escalating the situation. Was it because Adam is Indigenous? An easy target as far as they are concerned? Did they know he was a high profile Indigenous leader? Or did they think he was just another Indigenous guy that they could easily push around with no consequence?

Does this happen routinely in Fort McMurray?

Hopefully, these questions and others will be answered by the independent body (Alberta Serious Incident Response Team) that will look into the situation. Thankfully, the RCMP wont be investigating itself this time around.

Allan Adam is a controversial leader and has been for some time. Hes chief of the Athabasca-Chipewyan First Nation, a group of reserves north of and downstream from several oilsands operations. He has brought attention to the oilsands, the pollution, and the price paid by Indigenous communities by inviting celebrities such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jane Fonda, and Neil Young to see the damage for themselves.

But hes also been adamant about getting a share of the wealth created by the development of bitumen for the First Nations, who live with the environmental, health, and social consequences.

In 2018 he negotiated a participation agreement with Teck Resources, which was planning to develop an oilsands mine in the region but later pulled out.

If you know the history of the RCMP in the West and Allan Adams role in trying to create a better life for Indigenous people in northern Alberta, that dash-cam video couldnt be more symbolic of the relationship between the Mounties and Canadas Indigenous people.

Originally called the North West Mounted Police, the paramilitary force was established by Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and modelled after the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was the Brits way of keeping down the Irish.

Once the NWMP had made their way west on horseback and established forts and outposts in what is now Saskatchewan and Alberta they became the enforcers of federal government policies that restricted Indigenous people to reserves so as to clear land for settlers.

In 1885 the force played a key role in quashing an armed rebellion of Metis and Indigenous people in Saskatchewan. Metis Leader Louis Riel and other participants in the insurgency were subsequently hanged.

Later on it was often the RCMP who took kids from their families and delivered them to residential schools run by various Christian denominations.

Today, the Mounties police communities across the West and the North, including remote Indigenous communities where there isnt much recourse for anyone who objects to their use of authority.

In many ways the RCMP has become a living symbol of cruel colonialism. But unlike a statue of Christopher Columbus or that slave trader in Bristol, England they cant be easily dispatched.

Or, it would seem, easily changed for the better.

GS Gillian Steward is a Calgary-based writer and freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @GillianSteward

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:29:07|Editor: huaxia

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A first-grader returns to the No. 1 Shiyan Dongguang School in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, June 15, 2020. Students in their first and second grades of primary schools returned to school for this semester in Changchun on Monday, which means all primary and middle school students have resumed classes in the city. (Xinhua/Lin Hong)
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that although the newly-built road in Uttarakhand up to Lipu Lekh pass is very much under India's domain, his government is ready for dialogue with Nepal. He articulated that India believed in clearing up any "misunderstanding" in its relations with Nepal through dialogue.

"If there is any misunderstanding between India and Nepal, then we will sort it out through dialogue," he enunciated.

Speaking at BJP's 'Jan Samvad' virtual rally in Uttarakhand, Singh highlighted that the two nations have deep ties with each other.

He underscored that both the countries "are bound together by 'roti-beti' and no power in the world can break it."

Also Read: Army Chief talks about friendly ties with Nepal ahead of vote on new map by Nepalese parliament

"Our relations are not only historical and cultural, but also spiritual, and India can never forget it," he said, adding "how can relations between India and Nepal break."

Nepal's Parliament had on Saturday unanimously voted to amend the Constitution to update the country's new political map, laying claim over three strategically key areas along the border with it.

If the road built by India has caused any misunderstanding among the people of Nepal, then it will be sorted out through dialogue, the senior BJP leader said, asserting Indians could never have any bitterness about Nepal.

In his address, Singh said the Modi government had delivered on a host of promises like abrogation of Article 370 and prohibiting instant triple talaq.

Also Read: New map permanent but ready for dialogue with India, says Nepal foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali

The gap between politicians' promises and their work had caused a "crisis of credibility," but the Modi government has triumphed over it by delivering on the party's manifesto, he said.

The ties between India and Nepal 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 May 8.

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.

India sternly asked Nepal not to resort to any "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims after Kathmandu released the new map.

Also Read: India-China tension: Country will never compromise on 'national pride', says Rajnath Singh

Nepal's PM Oli has said that his government will seek a solution to the Kalapani issue through diplomatic efforts and dialogue on the basis of historical facts and documents.

India has been observing developments in Kathmandu but there has been no word on the developments.

He claimed that India built a Kali temple, created "an artificial Kali river" and "encroached the Nepalese territory through deploying the Army" in Kalapani. The river defines the border between the two countries.
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Two key U.S. senators are circulating a bipartisan draft bill that would reform how the Federal Aviation Administration certifies new aircraft in the wake of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people.

The measure seeks to eliminate the ability of aircraft makers like Boeing Co. to unduly influence the certification process and marks the most significant step toward reforms following the 2018 and 2019 crashes, which sparked calls to change how the FAA approves new airplanes.

The draft, which was completed this week and reviewed by Reuters, is authored by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican, and the top Democrat on the panel, Senator Maria Cantwell.

The FAA, Wickers office and Boeing declined to comment on the draft bill.

It aims to grant the FAA new power over the long-standing practice of delegating some certification tasks to aircraft manufacturer employees. It would give the agency authority to hire or remove Boeing employees conducting FAA certification tasks and allow the FAA to appoint safety advisers.

One congressional aide said the bill would put the FAA back in the drivers seat overseeing airplane certification.

Boeings best-selling plane has been grounded since March 2019 and the manufacturer faces an ongoing criminal probe and investigation by the Transportation Departments inspector general. The largest U.S. planemaker hopes to conduct a key certification test flight late this month as it works to resume flights.

The draft bill would require reforms aimed at preventing undue pressure or instances of perceived regulatory coziness or other failures to maintain independence between the FAA and Boeing employees conducting certification tasks.

It would also require regular audits and authorize $150 million over 10 years for new FAA training and to hire specialized personnel to develop technical standards for new technologies and operations.

Congress needs to make sure aviation safety in the United States is the strongest in the world, Cantwell said in a statement to Reuters. Strong technical aviation expertise on the ground cannot simply be ignored by senior management at the FAA.

The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on Wednesday with FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson to review agency oversight of aircraft certification. Aides hope to release a draft of the bill by then.

MORE OVERSIGHT

An October report by a panel of international air safety regulators raised significant questions over the certification process, finding the FAA had just 45 people in an office overseeing Boeings Organization Designation Authority and its 1,500 employees.

For the 737 MAX, the FAA initially delegated 40% of the certification tasks to Boeing, an amount that increased as the five-year review progressed. The panel said FAA involvement in the certification of Boeings MCAS flight control software, a key safety system faulted in both fatal crashes, would likely have resulted in design changes that would have improved safety.

The review also found signs of undue pressure on Boeing employees performing tasks for the FAA and said they should be able to speak without fear of reprisal.

The draft legislation would ensure no one could prohibit a Boeing employee from talking to the FAA and grant new whistleblower protections to workers at airplane and parts manufacturers. It would also require the FAA to create a new safety reporting system for employees to detail concerns anonymously.

PILOT BEHAVIOR

The draft bill also addresses concerns about human factors, saying the FAA must review and potentially modify existing assumptions on how pilots identity and respond to cockpit situations.

A federal review concluded Boeing underestimated the effect a malfunction of new automated software in the aircraft could have on pilots, who were dealing with a cacophony of alerts in both 737 MAX crashes.

When certifying a new aircraft type, the FAA must address the cumulative impact new technologies may have on pilot response, consult outside experts and notify other international regulators and encourage them to make evaluations.

The draft bill was shared with aviation associations, unions and family members of those killed in the fatal Boeing crashes, seeking their input.

Michael Stumo, who lost his daughter, Samya, in the second 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia, praised the draft but called for improvements to ensure the FAA is in charge, especially overseeing major hazardous and catastrophic systems like MCAS.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Tracy Rucinski; Editing by Dan Grebler and Chris Sanders)

Topics USA Aviation
European countries ease some border controls on Monday after coronavirus lockdowns, but Spain's continued closure, a patchwork of restrictions elsewhere and new ways of working mean pre-pandemic levels of travel are a long way off.

The Schengen area of 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland operates control-free crossings, but they have been mostly closed for three months to all but goods traffic and critical workers.

European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson urged Schengen members last week to lift internal border controls by Monday, to allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July.

The move could help salvage the part of the summer season for Europe's battered travel and tourism industry. With recreation and culture, the sector makes up almost 10% of the EU economy and an even bigger chunk in Mediterranean countries, some hit of which were hardest by the pandemic.

From Iceland to Greece, many restrictions for EU and Schengen visitors will ease on Monday, but it will not be a return to unfettered travel for the Schengen area's 420 million inhabitants.

Spain will allow no foreign tourists until June 21, with exceptions on some Spanish islands.

Elsewhere, the right to travel will depend on where you live and where you are going.

Greece will mandate quarantines for those arriving from a string of airports in eight EU countries. The Czech Republic has a traffic-light system, barring entry for tourists from 'orange' or 'red' countries such as Portugal and Sweden.

Denmark will allow in tourists from Iceland, Germany and Norway, but notably not Sweden, on condition they book at least six nights' accommodation.

Britain's mandatory two-week quarantine for visitors means Brits will face the same confinement in France.

Before the crisis, an average of 3.5 million people crossed an internal EU border every day, according to a European Parliament report last year, some 1.7 million of the commuting to work.

Many of the latter are now working from home, while continued restrictions and health concerns are expected to curb tourism and business travel.

At Brussels Airport, day one of the reopening will see around 60 flights operating, 10% of the normal 600.

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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Estoy encantada de que Peru haya elegido al Reino Unido para desarrollar este programa tan importante de reconstruccion de infraestructura vital. Estamos comprometidos a trabajar de la mano con la @AutoridadRCC para construir hospitales y colegios, (1/2)
Contributed photo

The state reported three new deaths from coronavirus Monday, setting a new low as Connecticut sees its infection rate decline.

Three fatalities is three too many but three is the least weve had since the start of this pandemic, Gov. Ned Lamont said during his daily briefing on the back lawn of the governors residence in Hartford.
Walczak also wants to hear from other people connected to the mystery.

There are people in Tucson who are alive who have important information, and I hope they reach out to us, he said. Its not too late, but five to 10 years down the road, I dont know how many (of these) people will be left.

Walczak insists his investigation extends well beyond a single jailhouse transcript. It involves thousands of pages of documents and interviews with people from Alaska to New Orleans and places in between.

Last fall, Walczak traveled to Tucson to visit the Spanish Trail Motel, Kon Tiki and other locations that crop up in the story.

He said he also found references to Tucsons best-known Polynesian restaurant in FBI records he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and in the Arizona Project files, a collection of documents unearthed by the University of Missouri-based nonproft group Investigative Reporters and Editors after the 1976 murder of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles.

Its crazy that this little desert tiki bar plays such a central role in the story, but it does, Walczak said.

Missing plane could settle all speculation
New Delhi:

Pakistan Army has made its operational plan ready in case of any surgical strike from Indian armed forces under its Cold Start Doctrine, according to a report in Pakistan news website.



A report in The News International claims that the Pakistan forces have selected targets in India for an immediate response in case of any military strike from Indian side.



The report further quoted Pakistani defence sources as saying, Pakistan is fully prepared to meet any military challenge from India. Our operational plan is ready, quid pro quo targets are finalised and forces have been dedicated. Pakistan would not digest any aggression from India."



Whether it is a Cold Start or hot pursuit, we are ready, The News International quoted another defence source as saying in its report.



He was responding on a question about Indias reported preparations to attack selected targets in Pakistan under the Cold Start war doctrine.



On Sept 21, the same Pakistani website had reported that India moved the units of Indian Army and Indian Air Force to forward air bases near Line of Control (LoC) to launch surgical strikes as part of its three-phased strategy.



Pakistan's decision to close airspace over the countrys northern areas and flights by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter planes was taken as a precautionary step on Wednesday, and fuelled rumours that the armed forces were preparing for a possible Indian attack.

The rumors of the possible Indian retaliation after the Uri terror attacks in Kashmir drove the stock market down in Karachi Stock Markets (KSE) when it opened on Thursday.

The small investors ran for cover and the Karachi stock markets fell by 1.41% on Thursday, wiping out gains netted in the month of September.

The panic selling was triggered by individual small investors, who usually generate the biggest volumes in the market,

The tensions between the nuclear-armed adversaries have soared recently after the Uri terror attacks.

Heavily armed terrorists had stormed the Army camp in Kashmir's Uri sector in the wee hours of September 18, killing 18 jawans and injuring 19 other personnel in the terror strike in which four militants were neutralised.



Battle reaches UNGA



In its sharpest attack on Pakistan, India on Thursday called it a "terrorist state" which carries out "war crimes" by using terrorism as an "instrument of state policy", after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif glorified Hizbul commander Burhan Wani at the United Nations.

India also strongly rejected Sharif's call for "a serious and sustained" bilateral dialogue "without any conditions", saying that Pakistan, which "seems to be run by a war machine rather than a government", wants talks with a "gun in its hand".

Strongly reacting to Sharif's remarks at the UN General Assembly session, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar described them as full of "threat, bluster and complete disregard of facts" as he said glorification of Wani by him at the world forum is an act of "self-incrimination" by Pakistan.

He said it is "shocking" that a leader of a nation can "glorify a self-declared self-advertised terrorist" at a forum such as the United Nations General Assembly.

Also Read | Who is India's NSA Ajit Doval and what is 'Doval Doctrine'?

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Germanys national carrier Lufthansa is exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to push through major restructuring. Like the economy as a whole, it is using it as an excuse to cut wages and massively cut jobs.

The cold-bloodedness of the Lufthansa Executive Boards approach is hard to beat. After air traffic collapsed in March and April, Lufthansa CEO Karsten Spohr threatened to declare voluntary insolvency if the German government did not agree to a billion-euro rescue package without having any influence on business operations. This would have given him a free hand to circumvent collective bargaining agreements and pension obligations and cut numerous jobs. The talk was of 10,000 to 20,000 jobs.

The decline in air traffic was used to justify further job cuts. At present, about 700 of the companys 763 aircraft are on the ground; 87,000 of its 135,000 employees are on short-time work and are being financed by the state. According to Spohr, 300 aircraft will remain parked next year, 200 in 2022, and about 100 aircraft after that date will not be needed.

The German government followed the companys demand and gave its blessing to a rescue package worth 9 billion. In the meantime, the Supervisory Board and the European Commission have also given their approval, and shareholders will decide on this at an extraordinary general meeting on June 25. Faced with the alternative of insolvency or accepting the rescue package, they are likely to agree. Nevertheless, the company and the trade unions are using the shareholders pending decision as a means of exerting pressure on the workforce.

The rescue package contains the same drastic cost reduction targets as insolvency. In addition to flying personnel, drastic savings can also be expected in administration and at the service subsidiaries Lufthansa Technik and Catering, Spohr announced. He wants to significantly reduce the unit costs compared to the level before the coronavirus crisis. The unit costs also include personnel assigned to each respective aircraft.

To convince shareholders to accept the rescue package, he needs all the trade unions involved in the company to approve the cuts before the shareholders meeting. The unions are seeking to outdo each other with their cuts proposals. Last Wednesday, UFO (flight attendants), Verdi (ground staff) and the Vereinigung Cockpit (pilots) unions met with Lufthansa management for a collective bargaining summit and discussed how a surplus of 26,000 jobs could be cut from the total workforce of about 138,000 employees.

The same day, UFO told its members that Lufthansa had concretized the expected surplus of employees and blackmailed them with the threat of still possible insolvency. A stated surplus of 26,000 jobs in the company cannot please anyone. The threat of insolvency remains if the rescue package is rejected by the shareholders.

Lufthansas Chief Human Resources Officer Michael Niggemann told the press after the summit, Without a significant reduction in personnel costs during the crisis, we will miss the chance of a better restart out of the crisis. UFO boss Daniel Flohr followed the same script. There was no alternative for a successful restart of the aviation industry.

Flohr told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that job cuts on this scale were not surprising, they were based on understandable calculations, and could be worked with. Specifically, he had offered a wage freeze and to extend the collective bargaining agreement at least until the end of the year, as well as the cancellation of various wage supplements. He was also thinking of the conversion of full-time jobs to part-time, or flexible retirement plans.

Avoiding compulsory redundancies was the exchange that employees need in return for savings, Flohr said in the press release. The union had served up proposals on a silver platter, but management had stuck to its negotiation target of 20 percent savings.

Verdi is also offering massive concessions. Its executive board member Christine Behle, who is also deputy chair of the Lufthansa supervisory board, gave assurances that the constant and sustainable safeguarding of Lufthansa has top priority for Verdi. As when Air Berlin was broken up, she is now also prepared to sacrifice the interests of the workforce to the profit interests of the shareholdersdespite hollow appeals to secure jobs.

The pilots union Vereinigung Cockpit even offered a salary cut of 45 percent, which, with some 5,000 pilots, would add up to savings of 350 million. This salary waiver could possibly last until 2022. Vereinigung Cockpit leader Markus Wahl appealed to shareholders to approve the rescue package in the interest of all stakeholders.

The union leaders falsely claim the employees are also stakeholders in the private company. Workers must firmly reject this lie. To the owners they are mere unit costs, not stakeholders. The trade unions seek to secure the companys profits through their socially acceptable personnel cuts (unit costs) and by suppressing any resistance within the workforce.

For years, the aviation industry has been fiercely competitive, and this is fought out on the backs of the employees. The crisis in aviation can only be resolved if it is organised not according to the drive for profits but according to the needs of the global population. What is necessary is an end to the anarchic dog-eat-dog policy pursued by the airlines through their expropriation and control by the workforcealso taking into account alternative transport systems and the need to protect the environment.

We call on aviation workers to join together to form action committees, independent of the trade unions, for the protection of all jobs. The WSWS will support them in this and in making contact with workers internationally.
Editor's Note: With so much market volatility, stay on top of daily news! Get caught up in minutes with our speedy summary of today's must-read news and expert opinions. Sign up here!

(Kitco News) -U.S. retail sales, central-bank meetings and a congressional appearance by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell are among the highlights on the economic calendar this week, said Brown Brothers Harriman. The liquidity story should remain positive for risk assets this week, with several major central banks likely to emphasize their dovish stances, BBH said. On the other hand, the economic data reported this week will likely be awful. The Bank of Japan is scheduled to meet Tuesday, then Thursday meetings include the Swiss National Bank, Norges Bank, and Bank of England, BBH pointed out. Also on Thursday, the European Central Bank will hold a targeted long-term refinancing operation. The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee already met last week, but with the media embargo over, this means a week with a heavy slate of Fed speakers, including semiannual congressional testimony by Powell on Tuesday and Wednesday, BBH pointed out. May retail sales Tuesday will be the U.S. data highlight for the week, BBH continued. Expectations are for overall sales to rebound 8% after the 16.4% selloff in April, while sales excluding autos are forecast to rise 5.3%.
Police rescued the billionaire founder of home-appliance giant Midea Group after an abduction attempt at his home over the weekend.

He Xiangjian, China's seventh-richest person, was held hostage by the would-be kidnappers, who were carrying explosive materials, according to the Economic Observer, a local newspaper. The attempt failed after He's son escaped and swam across a lake to raise the alarm, Forbes reported.

He has a net worth of about $US24 billion ($35 billion) according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Police in Foshan, a city in the southern Guangdong province, said they received a report at 5.30pm on Sunday that someone broke into an apartment in a residential community owned by Midea and threatened the homeowner's safety, according to a statement on their official WeChat account.
(Photo : REUTERS/Matthew Childs) A customer wearing a face mask uses hand sanitiser entering a Primark store as it is reopening following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, on Oxford Street in London, Britain, June 15, 2020. (Photo : REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi) Various N95 respiration masks at a laboratory of 3M, which has been contracted by the U.S. government to produce extra masks in response to the country's novel coronavirus outbreak, in Maplewood, Minnesota, U.S. March 4, 2020. Picture taken March 4, 2020.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams advised Americans to wear masks to protect themselves from COVID-19 and to achieve greater freedom amid the coronavirus pandemic.

According to a FOX report, Adams said that face masks do not prevent "freedom," but instead help the economy be up and running.





Face coverings  less asymptomatic viral spread  more places open, and sooner!



Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face covering! Some feel face coverings infringe on their freedom of choice- but if more wear them, well have MORE freedom to go out.Face coverings  less asymptomatic viral spread  more places open, and sooner!Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face covering! pic.twitter.com/3A4fW2qmN8  Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) June 14, 2020

"Some feel face coverings infringe on their freedom of choice- but if more wear them, we'll have MORE freedom to go out," Adams tweeted on Sunday, June 14, adding that wearing face masks reduces the asymptomatic viral spread and leads more places to reopen.

"Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face-covering!" he added.

The surgeon general's comment is far from his original statement in February that masks are "not effective" at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Instead, he advised people to stay home when they are sick and thoroughly wash their hands with soap and water.

However, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published new guidelines in April urging Americans to wear face masks while in public, Dr. Adams changed his tone.

Despite the new guidelines, hundreds of people oppose face mask-wearing policy and have even gone out to challenge it. Meanwhile, some stores have begun to turn away customers who are wearing masks. In a Kentucky convenience store, a signage saying, "No face masks allowed. Lower you masks or go somewhere else" was put up.

While protesters argue that the order is anti-American and curtails their freedom, the government upholds the policy to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

WHO study confirms wearing masks lowers the viral transmission

A World Health Organization-funded review and meta-analysis studied data from 172 studies from 16 countries and six continents, as reported by Forbes. According to the study, which was published in The Lancet, the risk of transmitting coronavirus is 17.4% more without a mask, while the number drops to 3.1% when wearing a face mask or an N95 respirator.

"Our findings continued to support the ideas not only that masks, in general, are associated with a large reduction in risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV but also that N95 or similar respirators might be associated with a larger degree of protection from viral infection than disposable medical masks or reusable multilayer (12-16-layer) cotton masks," the analysis wrote.

Also, keeping a social distance of three to six feet reduces the infection rate from 12.8% to 2.6%. The study also wrote that physical distancing primarily aims to prevent onward transmission and reduce the harmful effects of COVID-19. Thus, the review suggests the implementation of a physical distancing policy of at least one to two meters.

Medical experts said that coronavirus spreads via droplets from a COVID-19 patient's speech, sneeze, or cough, although an asymptomatic person may still transmit the disease.

"The use of a mask alone is insufficient to provide an adequate level of protection or source control, and other personal and community level measures should also be adopted to suppress transmission of respiratory viruses," the World Health Organization said.

Read also: COVID-19 News: Beijing Shuts Down Food Markets, Cancels School Resumption

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Whelan may be swapped for But or Yaroshenko jailed in US  lawyer

 Moskva city news agency, Sophia Sandurskaya

14:08 15/06/2020

MOSCOW, June 15 (RAPSI)  Former American marine Paul Whelan sentenced to 16 years in high-security prison for espionage against Russia may be exchanged for businessman Victor But or pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko serving jail sentences in the United States, Whelans attorney Vladimir Zherebenkov stated Monday.

The Foreign Intelligence and the Federal Security Service have been discussing the swap possibility since December, according to the lawyer.

On Monday, the Moscow City Court convicted Whelan of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years behind bars. The hearing was held behind closed doors. A prosecutor earlier demanded 18 years in prison for Whelan.

In late March, the Moscow City Court extended detention of Whelan until September 13.

Earlier, according to his defense, Whelan was found sane.

Whelan is a citizen of the U.S., Canada, Ireland and Great Britain. He is the chief safety officer of BorgWarner, an American worldwide automotive industry components and parts supplier. The foreigner was arrested in late 2018 during a spying mission, according to the Federal Security Service. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

The Foreign Ministry of Russia reported earlier that papers classified as state secret were seized from Whelan during his arrest on December 28. His lawyer confirmed this information.

According to Zherebenkov, his client came to Russia in December 2018 to attend the wedding of his acquaintance. He received a flash drive containing culturological information he was interested in, including photos and videos. However, there was no secret data on it, the attorney said.

Whelan was not able to use the USB-drive as he was arrested on December 2018, the lawyer added.
Rajasthan MLAs to stay put at hotel till RS polls

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Jaipur, June 15: Congress general secretary Avinash Pande said on Monday that the legislators who are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan would continue to stay together at a hotel till the Rajya Sabha election due to the alleged poaching threat from the BJP.

Pande said the legislators had been staying like a family and various, adding that brainstorming sessions and discussion on the future roadmap for the development of the state were being held at the hotel, where the legislators have been kept after discussion with them.

BJP set to add 9 more to its tally in Rajya Sabha

According to Pande, special operations group of the Rajasthan Police is investigating the alleged attempts to poach and destabilise the state government, and the report is likely to come soon.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Pande said the Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties had supported the government, which took the number to 125 (including 107 Congress MLAs) in the House of 200.

"It was decided that the legislators will stay together so that the BJP's attempts, which the party did in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, could not succeed in Rajasthan," he told reporters at the JW Marriott hotel in Jaipur. "We are staying like a family and this is a blessing in disguise."

Asked about the Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ramesh Meena's absence, Pande said the Sapotra MLA was away due to some "personal reasons", but he was in touch and would will follow the party directions.

Meanwhile, a letter written to Pande by an MLA Bharat Singh surfaced on Monday, in which the legislator had pointed out that most of the Rajya Sabha MPs "do not even recognise" the legislators, who elect them.

Singh alleged that the upper House MPs had nothing to do with anyone after the elections get over.

In the letter written on June 11, the former minister said senior leaders of the party were focusing on the Rajya Sabha elections with seriousness despite the fact that two seats were sure to be won by the party.

Rajya Sabha polls: Congress shifts 21 Gujarat MLAs to Rajasthan

He pointed out that Congress could win the Lok Sabha election, too, if the party leaders started working in the same manner.

Asked about it, Pande acknowledged that Singh had written the letter and expressed his sentiments in a "positive way".

On the cabinet expansion, Pande said discussion would be held at the right time.

Government chief whip Mahesh Joshi, who filed complaints alleging attempts to destabilise the state government said he would elaborate on it once his statement is recorded by the Special Operations Group of the police.

Sources said Joshi had handed over some evidence in connection with the attempts.

The MLAs were taken to a luxury resort last week for discussion on the June 19 Rajya Sabha election and later they were shifted to JW Marriott on Friday.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.

Elections to three Rajya Sabha seats will be held on July 19 for which the Congress has nominated K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi, while the BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.

In the assembly of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs and has the support of Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal, CPI(M) and the Bhartiya Tribal Party, taking the number of legislators on its side to 125.

The ruling Congress has more than enough majority to win two seats and the BJP, which has 72 MLAs and support of three Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLAs, has the numbers to comfortably win just one seat.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The coronavirus pandemic was an unwelcome surprise to thousands of Erasmus students. However, high levels of foreign language proficiency and intercultural competence can also be acquired at home. A recent study shows that self-motivation, strategy and reflection are the driving forces for honing such skills.

Every year hundreds of thousands of students take part in the world's largest mobility program, Erasmus+. This year, however, thousands had to return home early due to the coronavirus pandemic. As the situation in the coming winter term is still uncertain, the question arises whether a stay abroad is the only way to develop high levels of second language proficiency?

In a comprehensive study funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, Gianna Hessel, an applied linguist at the University of Graz, explored how foreign language skills, language learning motivation, and intercultural competence actually develop during and after an Erasmus stay.

The results of this study are now available. For the first time, a part of her investigation dealt with the initial nine months after the students' return. Hessel conducted the project as a longitudinal study in which more than one hundred participants were surveyed and tested at several points in time. The survey participants included a control group of Erasmus+ applicants who continued to pursue their studies at the home university. These aspects had not been explored in the context of Erasmus in the past, nor had studies involved students from such a wide range of disciplines, from the humanities and social sciences to engineering.

Self-motivation is key to successful language learning

Two important objectives of Erasmus+ are increased foreign language proficiency and intercultural awareness. Hessel was able to follow 81 German-speaking students during the return phase using a mix of methods, including questionnaires, multiple language tests, and interviews. All students came from German universities and had spent one or two semesters at a UK university. "Given that the English language learning backgrounds of German and Austrian students tend to be very similar, the results seem quite transferable," says Hessel.

A key finding of the post-return study: whilst the majority of returnees were able to maintain the acquired level of English proficiency during the first six months after their return, there was also no further improvement, "even though more than two thirds of the participants continued to speak English several times per week and read some of their academic course literature in English," says Hessel. Those students, however, who studied English as part of their degree course, e.g., English studies or teacher training, showed a tendency towards further progress during the return phase. Surprisingly perhaps, this was not related to the higher number of classes they attended that were taught in English.

"For most of them, self-motivation for language learning, another aspect I researched, was strongly linked to their future professional self-image. Achieving high levels of language proficiency and being perceived as highly competent speakers in their future profession were strong, immediate motives," says Hessel. High levels of self-motivation caused the students to strategically plan their language learning, and thus continue developing their skills at home.

Spending a semester abroad does not automatically improve students skills. As current research shows, such an improvement requires clear aims and strategies. Credit: Naassom Azevedo/unsplash

Actively promoting strategy, reflection and soft skills

The relevance of self-motivation for language learning success is also demonstrated by a comparison of the linguistic progress between the Erasmus students and the control group that continued to study at the home university. During the first three months, foreign language proficiency tended to increase significantly among Erasmus students, but gains slowed thereafter and tended to be no higher than in the control group in most cases. The likelihood of successfully maintaining English proficiency levels post-return increased with the level of overall proficiency and confidence in speaking achieved by the end of the stay abroad.

Hessel sees this as a challenge for universities to provide more support for students in terms of language development, especially after their return. "The belief that students will return from their stay abroad linguistically proficient and interculturally competent is another idealized notion that is also commonly found at universities," notes Hessel, who feels that we may still fail to realize that the development of foreign language proficiency and intercultural competence are lifelong learning processes. Realistic, confident assessments of one's own capabilities, reflection, practice, clear goals and strategies for improvement are key to improving language and intercultural competence.

Skills can be acquired at home

In terms of intercultural competence, Hessel explored how the students' self-perceived ability to interact with people belonging to other groups and their awareness of potentially culture-related differences in expectations and behaviors evolved. "Self-efficacy increased during the first three months of the stay abroad, but declined for the majority of students after their return. Intercultural competence is acquired only through a combination of experience and reflection. If there are no opportunities for guided reflection when students return to the home university, self-reflection tends to fall short and students are left with the experience only. This means that a lot of potential for transformative learning is left unused," says Gianna Hessel.

Interactions with people who have different "cultural backgrounds" (group affiliations) hold great potential for intercultural learning. Opportunities for engaging in such interactions should be actively pursued both at home and abroad, for example by engaging with people of different ages, different social or professional backgrounds, ideally accompanied by guided reflection. "The study shows that there is no reason for assuming that students should not be able to achieve very high levels of language proficiency and intercultural competence at their home university," Hessel states.

These are encouraging prospects, therefore, for all those unable to enjoy an Erasmus stay because of the coronavirus crisis or for other reasons.

Explore further How effective are language learning apps?

More information: Gianna Hessel. Study abroad and the Erasmus+ programme in Europe, Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education (2020). Gianna Hessel. Study abroad and the Erasmus+ programme in Europe,(2020). DOI: 10.1075/sar.19011.hes Gianna Hessel. The role of international student interactions in English as a lingua franca in L2 acquisition, L2 motivational development and intercultural learning during study abroad, Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching (2019). DOI: 10.14746/ssllt.2019.9.3.4 Gianna Hessel et al. What difference does it make?, Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education (2018). DOI: 10.1075/sar.16020.hes
While we continue to gather around our televisions and electronic devices, binging the latest films and television series on the suite of online streaming services, Midland Center for the Arts announces an opportunity to participate in a social experience around the Academy Award nominated film, Arrival. President and CEO Terri Trotter will lead the discussion alongside her daughter, Allie Trotter-Wright as the film explores the complexities and intersections of communication, trust and time with the overarching theme of a mothers love for her daughter and the gift of life itself.

When my family first saw this movie, we thoroughly enjoyed it, said Trotter. Im looking forward to starting a wider conversation around the themes in the film with friends and neighbors in our community, particularly alongside my daughter who brings me new perspectives continually!
Outdoor events are beginning to open again in the yellow counties in Pennsylvania, with Gov. Tom Wolf allowing for several new businesses and activities to resume.

The Spring Carlisle collector car show and flea market is one of them. And chief among the concerns of the organizers is how to balance reopening with maintaining the safety of their staff, vendors and guests in conditions that theyve never seen before.

Our company has been in existence since 1974, and this is the first time weve ever had to do something like this, said Mike Garland, public relations manager for Carlisle Events. So there was no blueprint. There was no plan, if you will, for how to act and react when something like this happens. But I think as a company weve made the best of it, and weve tried to do our part with working with those local businesses and community types that have involvement with the car show, as a way to get going in the right direction. And make sure that when things do finally open back up, were where we need to be.

READ MORE: Hersheys Chocolate World reopens with new coronavirus safeguards: Heres our first look

The event was originally scheduled for late April, then postponed to May before being postponed again to June 17-20. These backup dates are coming soon after June 12, when Cumberland County may be restored to green status under the governors reopening plan, which will luckily allow for more open operations.

At the time when we had identified June 17-20 [as our backup dates], we had no idea what red, yellow and green would look like, Garland said. Were certainly fortunate that we selected a time that fell after the green time frame.

However, the green status is not a license to return to business as usual. Gatherings of more than 250 people are not allowed under the green restrictions, and indoor businesses and venues must still operate at only 50 percent of their capacity.

Hundreds of guests typically attend the Carlisle Events shows, but Garland said that their venue is spread over 82 plus acres, 16 miles of paved roads, so theres plenty of opportunity for social distancing.

Theres plenty of opportunity for our guests to be respectful of one another and, essentially, avoid each other, Garland said. We are focused on making sure that numbers like that are not congregating in one particular area. The one benefit to a venue and an event like ours is that people are always moving. People are not stopping and standing in one place for a very long time. Whether theyre visiting a vendor, theyre looking at the parts, theyre buying the parts and theyre moving on.

READ MORE: Summer camps go socially distant, both online and in person, as the coronavirus continues

Those events that would require large groups to congregate for long periods, Garland said, are being canceled for this year. That includes canceling the burnout contest, the vendor dinner and the celebrity luncheon events.

A page of the Carlisle Events website is devoted to the new precautions theyve put in place, including touchless admission, requiring masks for visitors and vendors, one-way traffic enforced in indoor areas, distance restrictions on food court tables and either limiting or eliminating the use of grandstands.

We thought long and hard  these measures certainly didnt come overnight," Garland said, noting that Carlisle Events discussed the plan with local health officials and government leaders (though the organization declined to answer who specifically was consulted) as well as operating by the CDC and WHO guidelines. "What can we do to help our guests feel as comfortable as theyve always felt, but help take that risk out of the equation?

Carlisle Events is in early talks for digital partnerships, including with Awesome Joe Auctions, to restore some version of the auctions canceled already this year due to the coronavirus. But Garland said that for us, nothing can replace that in-person experience.

READ MORE: As wedding plans are devastated by the coronavirus, couples and professionals look for new options

People that are within that car show community, they want to see the cars up close, he said. They want to buy their parts from that person, direct. There are just some things we do at Carlisle Events that you cant do, or shouldnt, through an online event.

That said, Garland said that hes seen a mixed bag of reactions about their plans to reopen: some are itching to get back to enjoying these kinds of events, while others dont yet feel comfortable. He estimated that attendance numbers may be down from the usual number of visitors, but depending on the weather, still likely more than theyve seen during weekends with heavy rain.

For us a company, we cant argue with them on that, he said, regarding those that dont feel comfortable to attend yet. But regardless ... if you come to Spring Carlisle, know that we as a company are doing our best to make sure that you are safe and those around you are safe.

Garland also said that theres an aspect of personal responsibility and respect that plays into making this an enjoyable experience for everyone, and he hoped that all attendees would keep that in mind.

If You Go:

Spring Carlisle

7 a.m.-6 p.m. June 17-20 at 1000 Bryn Mawr Road, Carlisle. Cost: $12 for day pass, $35 for event pass; $7.75 per day and $26.25 for event pass in advance. Free for ages 12 and under. Info: www.carlisleevents.com/events
BOSTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Santander US announced today that it will close its offices and branches at noon on Friday, June 19, in recognition of the oldest national commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States.

"This year, Juneteenth is especially moving as our nation wrestles with inequities and injustices that have persisted throughout its history, with renewed urgency," said Santander US CEO Tim Wennes. "So, on Friday, we will close our doors and operations early to mark this important day and to provide each of us with an opportunity to reflect on what role we will play in making our country, community and company places where equality and justice prevail."

Santander US employees are encouraged to take this time to listen to what Black Americans are saying, to understand and appreciate what it must be like to suffer discrimination or injustice, to give time and/or financial support to organizations dedicated to bringing about real change, and to engage in meaningful conversations with friends, family and colleagues.

The early release is one of a number of actions Santander US is taking, in partnership with its Black Employee Network (BEN), to redouble its commitment to racial equality and justice. Santander US is conducting a thorough review of its business, people, philanthropic and community investment practices to ensure alignment with these goals.

Santander Holdings USA, Inc. (SHUSA) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Madrid-based Banco Santander, S.A. (NYSE: SAN) (Santander), a global banking group with more than 145 million customers in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. As the intermediate holding company for Santander's U.S. businesses, SHUSA is the parent organization of six financial companies with approximately 17,000 employees, 5.2 million customers and assets of approximately $150 billion as of March 31, 2020. These include Santander Bank, N.A., Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc. (NYSE: SC), Banco Santander International of Miami, Banco Santander Puerto Rico, Santander Securities LLC of Boston, Santander Investment Securities Inc. of New York, and several other subsidiaries.

Media Contacts:





Laurie Kight

Santander US

214-801-6455

[email protected]

Investor Relations:

Evan Black

Santander US Investor Relations

800-493-8219

[email protected]

SOURCE Santander Holdings USA, Inc.
Press Release

Paris La Defense, 15 June 2020

Albioma enters the SBF 120 index

Following the quarterly review of the Euronext Paris indices, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Indices decided to include Albioma in the SBF 120 and CAC Mid 60 indices. This decision will take effect as of 19 June 2020, after market close.

Inclusion in this benchmark index, which covers the 120 largest stocks on the Paris stock exchange in terms of market capitalisation and liquidity, represents a new milestone for Albioma, which will be able to benefit from the positive effects of increased visibility amongst the financial community.

Frederic Moyne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Albioma, declared: "We are very pleased to learn that we have been included in the SBF 120 benchmark index, which reflects investor interest in the energy transition strategy which the Group has followed for several years. The credibility of our trajectory, aiming for more than 80% renewable energy in our energy mix by 2023, the strength of our results and our profitability, our development prospects and the professionalism of our teams are recognised by the market. With a capitalisation of 1 billion, enjoying high growth and underpinned by high liquidity, we are changing our stock market status and thus giving the energy transition additional visibility. 

Next on the agenda: results for the first half 2020, on 27 July 2020 (after trading).

About Albioma Contacts An independent renewable energy producer, Albioma is committed to the energy transition thanks to biomass and photovoltaics.



Albioma operates in Overseas France, France metropolitan, Mauritius and Brazil. For 25 years, it has developed a unique partnership with the sugar industry to produce renewable energy from bagasse, the fibrous residue of sugar cane.



Albioma is the leading producer of photovoltaic energy in Overseas France, where the company builds and operates innovative projects with storage, Albioma has strengthened its position in mainland France. Investor

Julien Gauthier

+33 (0)1 47 76 67 00



Media

Charlotte Neuvy

+33 (0)1 47 76 66 65

presse@albioma.com Albioma shares are listed on NYSE EURONEXT PARIS (sub B) and eligible for the deferred settlement service (SRD) and PEA-PME plans (ISIN FR0000060402  ticker: ABIO).



The Group is also included in the Gaia-Index, an index for socially responsible midcaps. www.albioma.com





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A Taoiseach who led his party to its worst ever electoral performance, has got together with a pair of ministers from the government that led the country into a bailout, to form a new coalition. Hurrah!

Civil war politics is consigned to history as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael come together under a Green flag of truce. Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin and Eamon Ryan claim the positions are all to be sorted out later. Varadkar says they have agreed not to discuss portfolios until there is agreement on entering government. Its a likely tale when the details of the carve-up of the Taoiseachs office and the interaction of the other two leaders is already worked out.

In reality, these matters are to the forefront of thinking. Assuming the new Greenland government takes up office in a fortnights time, there will be winners and losers, plenty of bruised egos and enemies created.

Micheal Martin is the arch conciliator, and has deftly found solutions around awkward issues in his own party. Over the past decade, he has found himself leading, with his party reluctantly following or even pulling in the opposite direction. At times, he was a liberal leader of a conservative party, but he has found routes around problems. However, he will now be waiting to see if a figurehead for internal dissent emerges. Eamon O Cuiv has already fired the first shots opposing the coalition.

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After lording it over the Labour Party and looking down their noses at the Independents, Fine Gael will have to learn to get along with their coalition partners. Varadkars attitude will be key. Although hes voluntarily demoting himself as Taoiseach, he wont be a low-key Tanaiste. Varadkar will now have to sack ministers. He bottled it three years ago when he became Taoiseach, failing to put his own stamp on the Cabinet and largely leaving Enda Kennys ministers in place.

The Greens have got a programme for government that is heavy on their policies. Eamon Ryans leadership of the Green still has a question mark over it as there is a suggestion doing the rounds he may just stand aside and leave it to Catherine Martin. That assumes the members realise this is the best deal on offer.

Heres the winners and losers from the transition to Greenland:

THE COMEBACK KING

Not since Charlie Haughey emerged from his wilderness years in the 1970s after the Arms trial to become Taoiseach has a Fianna Fail comeback been so remarkable. Down but not out, Micheal Martin, the boxers son, has confounded the odds to lead his battered party back from the brink after the 2011 economic bailout to return to government and taking the top job in government.

THE PRAETORIAN GUARD

Dara Calleary, Michael McGrath and Barry Cowen are the leaders vanguard - so are guaranteed to be in the Cabinet. Their performances will determine who becomes the heir apparent as next Fianna Fail leader. The bad news is one of them will probably have to be Minister for Health, as the party was so enthusiastic to take on the troubled portfolio.

THE BLUE TROIKA

Leo Varadkar, Simon Coveney and Paschal Donohoe will continue to be Fine Gaels core leadership team. Although Varadkar has to move, there are strong arguments for leaving Coveney in Foreign Affairs given his grasp on Brexit and Donohoe in Finance, where he is touted to chair the eurozone finance ministers group. Besides, after giving up the Taoiseachs job, Fine Gael needs to hold on to the Finance portfolio to maintain its own economic credibility.

THE GREEN MACHINE

Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin are a must for two Green Party ministries. Theres a strong argument to pitch for climate change and transport to ensure implementation of their key policies. The favourites for the third Green ministry are Roderic OGorman and Neasa Hourigan. OGorman is a Ryan loyalist and Hourigan a coalition-sceptic. The Dublin-centric nature of the party is a problem though. The long-serving Malcolm Noonan can expect a junior ministry nod.

THE GLASS CEILING BREAKER

As Micheal Martin and his gang did their best Reservoir Dogs impression marching into Government Buildings at the weekend, there was notably only one woman in the group. Anne Rabbitte is in the circle of trust so shes on her way to Cabinet.

THE RESURRECTED

Gone is the calamitous Minister for Health who presided over a perennial trolley saga, the cervical screening scandal and the childrens hospital overspend. In his place has emerged a saintly figure who single-handedly defeated coronavirus with a never-ending stream of pithy soundbites. Simon Harris has gone from zero to hero. The Greystones Obama is back believing. Remember, Martin and Varadkar also had torrid terms as Health Minister.

THE BELTWAY BOYS

Dublin and the commuter belt needs a strong flagbearer for Micheal Martin. Darragh OBrien, Jack Chambers, Thomas Byrne, and even James Lawless are vying for two coveted Cabinet positions. OBrien is established in the housing brief, Byrne assertive in education, Chambers has taken his chance after being promoted following the Votegate saga and Lawless is the driver of the Higher Education Minister demand.

Jim OCallaghan seems to be unloved by his Martin but certainly cant be ruled out. Stephen Donnellys star seems to have waned in his leaders eyes.

THE DADS ARMY

Charlie Flanagan, Micheal Creed and Michael Ring are flagged to be on the way out of Cabinet as Varadkar has to cull his ranks. Whither Joe McHugh who has had a singularly unimpressive stint as Education Minister but is a Varadkar loyalist.

THE OLD DOG FOR THE HARD ROAD

A decade on from his failed leadership heave, Richard Bruton is being flagged as the experienced head to talk turkey with the Green Party. Bruton was called off the bench to break the deadlock on the 7pc carbon emissions demands. He has adopted that Michael Noonan elder statesman role. Another appropriate analogy would be a comparison with the late Seamus Brennan, who proved to be a valuable peacemaker with the Greens for Bertie Ahern in 2007.

THE SAFE PAIR OF HANDS

Heather Humphreys brings a dose of common sense to proceedings in her role in government and anything other than a Cabinet position would be a major shock. Also has the advantage of being from outside the capital.

THE YOUNG PRETENDERS

Helen McEntee is a real favourite of Varadkar, and Coveney and Hildegarde Naughten has found herself as a leading light on the west coast. However, Josepha Madigans meteoric rise seems to have floundered and a junior ministry beckons. Eoghan Murphy will become a junior minister.

THE UNDEFEATED SOLDIERS

Fianna Fail TDs who ground out the hard yards on the frontbench over the past decade now seem destined for disappointment with Willie ODea, Marc MacSharry, Niall Collins and among those left behind in the brave new world. Martin will have to be smart with his allocation of junior ministers to avoid creating angst. Niamh Smyth is in the hunt there too for a junior job.

The bad news is one of the Fianna Fail big guns now has to become Health Minister.
Political parties are embracing technology to reach out to their workers, and voters, in times of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. A report in this newspaper, on Monday, outlined how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been quick to adopt digital tools to launch a series of rallies over the past week. The aim of these rallies is to reach 25,000-50,000 people. Each rally involves meticulous planning, from regular calls with party workers on the ground to providing them basic technical training. The BJP was among the first parties to understand the power of social media and it is no surprise that it has now become the first party to innovate with mass e-rallies. The BJP is also using these rallies to push out its report card of how the government has dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic, at a time when there is growing criticism about its missteps in handling the health and economic crises. If the Opposition wants to put up a robust critique of the governments performance, it would do well to launch its own mass communication efforts.

But this is not just about a particular party. There is no doubt that in the new emerging normal, there will be a shift in the nature of political communication. Parties must adhere to norms of social distancing; they must be responsible and not put their workers  and voters  at risk by organising large rallies; and travel and mobility should be confined to essential activities. These methods of campaigning can also have the advantage of reducing costs for parties, and perhaps allow those without resources to organise huge rallies to participate in the political discourse. The advantages of the digital mode of political outreach should be leveraged.

But there are concerns. These campaigns are primarily top-down in nature. At live rallies, in smaller group discussions, and when leaders have to be on the ground, there is also a degree of bottom-up communication. Local workers and voters get a chance to convey their concerns, problems faced by their constituency, the social dynamics in a particular area, and outline their needs. It is important that digital communication is not just reduced to the political leadership telling people what it wants to convey, but also incorporates feedback from the ground. Otherwise, the already existing disconnect between voters on one hand, and political parties on the other, can deepen.
Not too long before people of PoK would want to be part of India: Rajnath Singh

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: India has reasserted its claim on Pakistan occupied Kashmir, a territory that is under the illegal occupation by Pakistan.

Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh asserted the claim, even as Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan accused New Delhi of igniting disputes with every neighbour. Singh said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government would never compromise on national pride.

Pak rejects Rajnath Singh's remarks about situation in PoK

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

He said that New Delhi was keen on resolving the stand off along the disputed boundary between India and China. He also said that Beijing too was keen on doing so.

Our government has successfully sent the message that Jammu and Kashmir's development is our priority. He also said that the Modi government's decision to abrogate Article 370 had paved the way for speeding up the development of Jammu and Kashmir.

Our effort would be to change its face so much that the people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir would feel envious.

They will wish that they are part of India, Singh also said. There will be a demand from PoK to be freed from Pakistan. The people would want to live with India. When this happens then the Parliament's resolution will also be fulfilled, the Defence Minister further added.

The comments by Singh come in the wake of Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi speaking about India's boundary dispute with China. "Perhaps with necessary introspection, the current Indian government would be less focused on igniting border disputes with every neighbour, behaving like an expansionist nation, and more focused on serving the poor, downtrodden and minorities of India better," Qureshi had said on Twitter.
Monday, June 15, 2020

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, there have been calls to defund law enforcement agencies across the United States. As a result, some voices are calling for the removal of School Resource Officers (SROs) and other law enforcement officers from schools across the country. Proponents of the change argue police officers in school increase fear and anxiety among students of color. They further claim these officers pose a greater risk to the safety of students, specifically students of color, than the risk of a school shooting.

Is there data that supports these claims? One study being touted as evidence of the impact police presence has on the attitudes of black students examined the effects of Operation Impact in New York. Oddly enough, the researchers found, "The findings for school-related attitudes show no evidence that Operation Impact influenced school-related attitudes". Another study explored the disciplinary actions and attendance in schools that received grant funding to hire SROs. The study found an increase in suspension rates and a decrease in student attendance rates at these sites, however, the research suggests the possibility of a correlation between these variables, not causation.

The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) issued a press-release on June 5th addressing the current calls to remove police from schools. They start by highlighting the training they offer teaching SROs about implicit bias, how to recognize it in themselves, and how to overcome it. They go on to provide their own evidence of the positive impact police have had in school safety including a decrease in juvenile arrests as well as incidents of averted school violence due to the actions of law enforcement.

Where does this bring us today? Districts and individual schools need to make evidence-based decisions reflecting the concerns of parents and the local community. Districts should identify how SROs can fill gaps in school safety while simultaneously supporting restorative justice programs. Data used to support their decision, whether in favor or against keeping officers in schools, should be local and site-specific.

Students, especially at the high school level, should be involved in the conversation as well, however, we must view their opinions through the lenses of ethical research. Per scientific standards, adolescents are the epitome of a vulnerable population as they are highly susceptible to researcher bias and external influencers. This is not to discount the voices of our students but rather to align evidence-based practices in school safety to the same standards of academic research.

SROs have played a critical role in preventing targeted attacks at schools and stopping active killer events over the past 20 years. However, there is always a need to improve training regarding implicit bias so we can leverage these officers to build relationships in our communities.
Australia will feature as one of six countries in a new UK-commissioned documentary series, 1000 Years Of History.

Channel 5 has commissioned three regional UK producers to each produce two, 120-minute episodes will tell the story of six countries  China, Russia, America, Australia, Scotland and Ireland  using archive, contemporary footage and expert analysis.

UK-based Middlechild (Dog Rescuers, Restoration Workshop) will examine Australia and America, while producers Lambent will tackle China and Russia, and Raise The Roof has been assigned to Scotland and Ireland.

Now more than ever its important to create progressive, flexible and nimble processes that benefit producers and also meet the creative and commercial needs of the channel, said Channel 5 commissioner Emma Westcott.

By establishing this new transparent and collaborative way of working, we envisage that these three like-minded independent companies will come up with something quite special for the 1000 years strand.

No Australian broadcaster has yet been announced.

Source: Deadline
At least 61 bodies have been recovered from the Mediterranean since a migrant boat capsized off Tunisia earlier this month, a judicial source said on Monday.

The boat was heading for Italys coast and sank off the Tunisian city of Sfax.

Officials had said the boat set sail around 10 days ago and that some bodies had been found starting late on Sunday off the Kerkennah Islands.

The majority of the deceased migrants came from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Sfax courts spokesman Murad al-Turki said.

It remains unclear how many were on the vessel.

READ ALSO:

The Tunisian coast has become a common launch point for thousands of migrants, including Tunisians, seeking a better life in Europe.

In May 2019, at least 70 migrants died after their boat sank off Sfax.

(NAN)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 12:10:32|Editor: huaxia

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Cuban caricaturist Aristides Hernandez stands on the balcony of his house in Havana, Cuba, June 13, 2020. The 56-year-old Cuban caricaturist Aristides Hernandez, popularly known as Ares, has won the grand prize at the Anti-Coronavirus International Cartoon Competition hosted online by China's Qing Jin Technology and Culture & Multimedia International Association. (Photo by Joaquin Hernandez/Xinhua)

by Yosley Carrero

HAVANA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- A 56-year-old Cuban caricaturist has won the grand prize at the Anti-Coronavirus International Cartoon Competition hosted online by China's Qing Jin Technology and Culture & Multimedia International Association.

The contest was held last Monday to pay tribute to doctors, nurses and other frontline workers striving to combat the pandemic worldwide.

Aristides Hernandez, popularly known as Ares, said he has won more than 150 international awards throughout his career, but none of them showed "cartoons to be an effective tool for tackling global challenges" as much as this one.

His winning entry, chosen from some 7,000 entries from 54 countries, portrays people's deep gratitude to doctors and nurses who put their lives on the line to battle the pandemic.

The award Ares received carries special significance for saluting medical workers' struggle against the pandemic, said Pedro de la Hoz, deputy president of Cuba's Union of Writers and Artists.

Hernandez learned cartooning skills during his study at a medical school in Havana. He continued to hone his craft while working as a rural doctor in Cuba's Sierra del Purial mountain range, some 900 km away from Havana, and as a psychiatrist at a hospital in the capital.

His cartoons have gained a following among locals who read his daily comic strips published by Cuban daily newspaper Juventud Rebelde.

"I drew iconic images of the world's religions and thanked medical personnel in different languages. I wanted to send a clear message on the importance of healthcare professionals in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic," Hernandez said.

The cartoonist, who lives in a colonial house in downtown Havana, has been working tirelessly in his third-floor studio with a view of a nearby neo-Gothic church.

Beyond depicting the daily life of Cubans during the health crisis, Hernandez's cartoons highlight social injustices across the globe. He is among the local artists who have condemned the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and the U.S.-involved armed conflicts in the world.

"I think cartoons can help explain the coronavirus pandemic and raise awareness about the necessity to maintain social distancing," said Hernandez.

"Psychiatry and cartooning have many things in common, because they are related to people's thinking, something that concerns me deeply," he added.

Cuba reported 10 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, taking its total to 2,248. The death toll stood at 84. Enditem
In the Mexican city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, thousands of workers at the maquiladora sweatshop plants have demonstrated to demand the release of Susana Prieto Terrazas, a labor lawyer who works with so-called independent unions.

The Tamaulipas state police arrested Prieto last Monday, June 8, as the lawyer, her daughter and husband left a restaurant in Matamoros. She is being held on trumped up charges of instigating an uprising and riot at a local labor court on March 10.

Despite our sharp political differences with Prieto, which we have presented in detail, the World Socialist Web Site unequivocally opposes her arrest and demands her immediate release. Her frame-up and detention is aimed at terrorizing the heroic workers of Matamoros and other sections of the working class, who have rebelled against the gangster-ridden Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) union and the homicidal back to work policy demanded by the giant transnational corporations and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (known as AMLO).

Within minutes of her arrest, which she livestreamed on Facebook, dozens of workers and supporters of Prieto took to the streets, organizing through social media, and protested peacefully outside of the police headquarters and municipal government building and then blocked the road to the airport.

An auto parts worker from Tridonex Cardone who was at the protest told the WSWS, Some claim she is being taken to the airport. We are here at the Ministerial [Police]. It seems like she is here since human rights officials walked in. It looks like they are moving her around to confuse people.

That evening, dozens blocked the federal interstate highway for several hours after Prieto was taken by police to the states capital Ciudad Victoria, 200 miles south. Tridonex workers explained they were confronted by National Guard troops.

In the context of the brutal killings carried out recently by the police in Mexico and internationally and the forced disappearances and death threats against demonstrators by police in Guadalajara, the Tridonex workers described the arrest and secret transfer of Prieto as a kidnapping. More protests were being planned over the weekend.

AMLO has given his tacit support for the arrest of Prieto even though she is a political supporter of the president and his Morena Party. AMLO said last Friday he knew about the arrest since the first day and gave instructions to check into the case. Far from demanding her release, however, the president claimed Prietos arrest was a local issue, providing the same green light he did after state police in Jalisco kidnapped dozens of youth in Guadalajara protesting against the police killings of George Floyd in the United States and Giovanni Lopez in Jalisco. It has to do with the Tamaulipas state government; its not a federal issue, just to clarify, AMLO declared.

In a press conference last Wednesday Tamaulipas general prosecutor, Irving Barrios Mojica, claimed the arrest was based on a lawsuit from the Number 6 Labor Conciliation Board in Matamoros. Barrios alleged that, on March 10, about 400 people, under the pretext of manifesting their right of assembly and protest, riotously disturbed the public order through the use of violence and threats to damage the facilities and employees and personnel inside the building, hoping to intimidate and force them to carry out functions without the corresponding and legal qualifications or requirements.

Prieto is being charged as the instigator of (1) threats, (2) uprising or riot, (3) coercion of individuals, and (4) offenses against public employees, citing specifically their physical and moral integrity.

Barrios said Prieto was moved to Ciudad Victoria on Monday because people were protesting in an intimidating and threatening way outside of the attorney generals office in Matamoros, where the lawsuit was filed.

After a 20-hour hearing on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was held remotely, a supervisory judge ruled that Prieto would be prosecuted. He added that Prieto would be held in detention at the Ciudad Victoria prison because the March 10 events were perpetrated with violence and she was allegedly a flight risk because she had residence outside the state and country. The authorities dismissed concerns regarding Prietos high-blood pressure, which makes her particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus that has already killed 11 prisoners in Mexico.

The protest on March 10 involved workers at Tridonex who were accompanied by supporters from other plants. It marked the peak of 14 months of protests and legal procedures to break from the corporate-controlled SITPME trade union, which belongs to the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). During this period workers have faced threats and physical attacks by the Tamaulipas police, federal troops and union thugs.

While a share of workers supported leaving the SITPME to join the Independent Union for Industry and Service Workers (SINTIS) founded and led largely by Prieto, she was not present at the March 10 event and no evidence has been made public of her direct involvement in the protest.

Tridonex workers told the WSWS their protest was driven by opposition to 14 years that [SITPME leader Jesus] Mendoza has been stealing our dues. The SITPME operates as a police arm of management to enforce poverty level wageswhich average $75 (1,675 pesos) per week for Tridonex workers. The bribed union officials suppress any opposition to mass layoffs and sweatshop working conditions while the labor courts rubberstamp the diktats of the corporations.

In January 2019, workers at Tridonex joined tens of thousands from almost every maquiladora across Matamoros in a wave of wildcat strikes, demanding that the companies stop recognizing and giving automatic dues to the CTM unions. On January 16, 2019, strikers voted on a statement carrying this demand. The Tamaulipas police and the CTM thugs attacked and threatened workers who were demonstrating peacefully while the company fired hundreds in reprisal. The struggle continued and reached a high point last March after the labor court refused to meet with the workers lawyer (not Prieto). On March 9, Tridonex workers carried out a wildcat strike to pressure the company and labor court to accept their demand to separate from the CTM-backed union.

A worker at the March 10 protest told the web site Rossy Conexion JM that workers were requesting that the court stop payments to Mendoza and accept our separation from the union, but the court refused, saying, We were supposedly violating their rights. He added, The only thing we wanted was for them to take the legal paperwork since they previously refused to do so three or four times. Instead, he said, the workers were threatened with elements of the military and State Police. Finally, shortly after 2 p.m. the court announced it would accept the papers.

The timing of the arrest is bound up with the AMLO governments efforts to satisfy the demands of Wall Street and the Trump administration to keep the Mexican supply chain flowing to the US auto, electronics and aviation and defense industries. There are more than 143,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Mexico and at least 16,872 deaths, and these numbers are widely considered gross underestimations. Hundreds of maquiladora workers in Baja California, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and other border states have died from the contagion. As in other countries the criminal indifference of the ruling class has also sparked a wave of strikes and protests by health care, manufacturing and other workers.

By arresting Prieto the Mexican authorities and trade union functionaries hope to stamp out this wave of opposition. Workers in Mexico and around the world must demand Prietos release and oppose this attack on the rights to freedom of speech, assembly and organization. To carry out this fight workers need new forms of working-class organization struggle, rank-and-file factory and workplace committees, which are independent of CTM, the AFL-CIO-backed independent unions and every faction of the trade union bureaucracy and political establishment. These committees must spearhead the fight for a powerful industrial and political counter-offensive by the working class across North America to defend health and safety and guarantee living wages for all workers and their families.
A health worker wearing a protective suit takes a swab test from a woman at Guangan Sport Centre for people who visited or live near the Xinfadi Market in Beijing, China. (Noel Celis/AFP)

The deadly contagion had been brought largely under control in China through strict lockdowns that were imposed early this year but have since been lifted.

But a fresh cluster linked to a wholesale food market in the capital has sparked widespread alarm and raised the spectre of a return to painful restrictions.

The National Health Commission (NHC) reported 57 new infections on Sunday, of which 36 were local transmissions in Beijing, all linked to the Xinfadi market.

Another two domestic infections were in northeastern Liaoning province and were close contacts of the Beijing cases.

The 19 other infections were among Chinese nationals returning from abroad.

Liaoning was among several provinces to advise residents against travelling to Beijing due to the new outbreak - along with cities such as nearby Tianjin and several in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing.

Some local authorities said people entering from Beijing would have to quarantine, state media reported.

In the capital, lockdowns have been imposed on a very small part of the city that includes 11 residential estates near the market which supplies most of the city's fresh produce.

Officials said on Sunday they planned to carry out virus tests on 46,000 residents in the area surrounding the market and had set up 24 testing stations.

Everyone who works at Xinfadi also has to undergo testing.

So far 10,881 people have been tested in the area with another eight cases diagnosed on Sunday. They were not included in the NHC's tally earlier in the day that covered the previous 24 hours.

"I went to Xinfadi market so I want to confirm that I am not infected," a 32-year-old woman surnamed Guo told AFP as she queued in scorching heat at a stadium waiting for a virus test.

"We were told that after the tests ... if it is positive, we will be taken directly to the hospital."

LOCKDOWNS AND CLOSURES

One of Sunday's new cases was a 56-year-old man who works as an airport bus driver and had visited the Xinfadi market in early June before later falling ill, state-run People's Daily reported.

The meat section of the huge, sprawling market was closed on Sunday and AFP reporters saw hundreds of police officers and security personnel plus dozens of paramilitary police blocking access.

Efforts to trace those who had visited the market have begun, with companies and neighbourhood communities messaging staff and residents across the city to ask about their recent movements.

A vegetable market adjacent to Xinfadi was open on Sunday and trucks were arriving to deliver or collect stock.

"Afraid? Not really" a delivery driver surnamed Zhang told AFP.

"But anyway I have no choice - I am part of the lowest class of society. So I have to keep working in order to make a living."

In nearby streets, residents were under lockdown and restaurants closed.

Some people used a wooden stepladder propped against the gated entrance to one community to pass supplies to loved ones.

A resident surnamed Chen told AFP he had made several trips with his car to the front gate of his compound to deliver food.

"As soon as I finish delivering the supplies to my family members, I will go upstairs to join them," he said.

"After that I won't be able to get out."

FOOD FEARS

COVID-19 first emerged late last year and one of the first clusters was from a market in the central city of Wuhan that sold wild animals for meat.

The latest outbreak in Beijing has turned the spotlight on the hygiene of the city's food supply chain.

State-run media reported that the virus was detected on chopping boards used to handle imported salmon, and that major supermarkets had removed the fish from their stocks.

Beijing authorities ordered a city-wide food safety inspection focusing on fresh and frozen meat, poultry and fish in supermarkets, warehouses and catering services.

One trader surnamed Sun, selling tomatoes and cherries at a central food market, told AFP there were fewer customers than normal.

"People are scared," he said.

City authorities have closed nine schools and kindergartens near Xinfadi, while sporting events and cross-provincial tour groups have been stopped.
Burma Police Officer Stabbed to Death in Myanmars Rakhine State

The location in front of a religious building in downtown Kyauktaw, Rakhine State, where Police Lieutenant Aung Min Zaw was killed on Saturday. / Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

SITTWE, Rakhine StateA police officer was stabbed to death in broad daylight in downtown Kyauktaw in Rakhine State on Saturday, township police confirmed to The Irrawaddy.

The victim, Police Lieutenant Aung Min Zaw of the Kyauktaw Township Police Force, was stabbed to death at around 3 p.m. on a road in front of a religious building downtown by two motorcycle riders, according to police.

He was in charge of the Criminal Records Office. It is said he was stabbed to death by two men and died on the spot, said a police officer on duty at Kyauktaw Township Police Station.

The brazen daylight attack in the downtown area reportedly left local residents afraid to go outside.

I heard about the incident. I did not see it. No one dared to go out of his house to see what happened. All the shops have closed, Lower House lawmaker U Oo Tun Win of Kyauktaw Township told The Irrawaddy.

The Irrawaddy was unable to contact Police Lieutenant Colonel Maung Maung Soe of Rakhine State Police Force for comment.

The incident follows the stabbing of a Myanmar army officer and the abduction a private in downtown Ponnagyun Township on Thursday. The Myanmar military blamed the Arakan Army (AA) for the incident, and a civilian was killed in a shooting by the Myanmar military at around noon that day.

The Myanmar military claimed soldiers providing security in the town were forced to shoot the civilian as he approached them too closely.

The relatives of the victim and local residents of Ponnagyun disputed the militarys claim, saying the 45-year-old victim was mentally ill and a frequent sight on the streets around the town.

In August last year, Kyauktaw Township police chief Police Major Saw Than Lwin was wounded in a knife attack at the township jetty. In another incident in September, a police sergeant responsible for jetty security was killed in a knife attack.

Murders and attacks on police and village administration officials have become frequent in Rakhine over the past few years, with some being killed at their homes and shops. None of the cases have been solved.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

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It has been two and a half years since astronomers in Hawaii discovered a strange, cigar-shaped object speeding through the solar system on a trajectory from far away and toward even farther away. Today Oumuamua, the Hawaiian term for scout, as the object was named, is now long gone, somewhere between the orbits of Saturn and Neptune and on its way to the Great Out There, but astronomers are still wondering and debating what it was.

The cosmic interloper was first thought to be an interstellar asteroid, a chunk of rock shed by another star system. Then astronomers decided it must be a comet, likewise flung loose from some faraway star and planetary system. Briefly they speculated that it could be an alien artifact, a derelict probe like the giant spaceship in Arthur C. Clarkes novel Rendezvous With Rama, or a fragment from a planetesimal that was ripped apart by a gravitational interaction or collision.

Now a pair of Yale astronomers have suggested that Oumuamua was neither an asteroid nor a comet. Rather, it was a cosmic iceberg: a chunk of frozen hydrogen.

Moreover, it was a primordial leftover, originating not from another planetary or star system at all but from a place and time where stars and planets didnt exist yet: the deep, dark core of an interstellar cloud, one of the galumphing assemblages of gas and dust that shadow the starry lanes of the Milky Way, and where stars are sometimes born.
Twenty-two-year-old O'Plerou Grebet visits the banks of Abidjan's lagoon frequently. Moving around the city requires crossing the water, and his observations during these journeys help him creatively.  UNHCR/Roberto Valussi

Geneva  UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has partnered with Twitter and 22-year-old Ivorian artist OPlerou for the launch of the 2020 World Refugee Day emoji. The emoji, two hands linked together in the shape of a heart, symbolizes solidarity and diversity.

World Refugee Day is marked on 20 June each year to celebrate the courage and resilience of the tens of millions of people forced to flee their homes due to war or persecution.

Twitter will activate the 2020 World Refugee Day emoji with the hashtags #WorldRefugeeDay, #RefugeeDay and #WithRefugees in 12 languages. The emoji is live until 23 June.

Twitters George Salama, Head of Public Policy, Government and Philanthropy for Middle East and North Africa, said: Twitter was created so that anyone, anywhere, can answer the question 'What's happening?' In doing so, it has become a place for global communities including journalists, human rights activists and citizens to connect on issues that matter, share information, and speak truth to power. On #WorldRefugeeDay, we are proud to continue our partnership with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, with the creation of this emoji, which aims to generate awareness through the power of the service, to demonstrate solidarity and to honour the resilience of refugees worldwide."

OPlerou, the emoji designer, is passionate about bringing attention to refugees around the world. Friends of his family had to flee Cote dIvoire during the 2010 political crisis. Refugees are people just like us, he said. Through my work, I try to showcase diversity so we can better understand each other and achieve greater solidarity.

OPlerou hit world headlines in 2019 after creating 365 emojis to portray the beauty of West African culture and combat negative stereotypes. He was named in Forbes Africa 30 Under 30 list of young men and women forging the continents future with creative and innovative ideas in the fields of business, art, technology and sports.

This years World Refugee Day comes at a time of increased forced displacement and against a backdrop of dramatic social change. The COVID-19 pandemic and recent anti-racism protests have underscored the need for a more inclusive and equitable world. UNHCR and its partners have been stepping up their efforts to protect millions of refugees and other forcibly displaced and stateless people.

This emoji is a visual expression of diversity, inclusion and solidarity  and the power of hope over fear, said Gisella Lomax, Head of Social Media at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Sharing it is just one way to show support for the worlds forcibly displaced people on World Refugee Day and beyond.

UNHCR and Twitter have collaborated on creative content on several occasions, including the World Refugee Day emoji and the innovative 2019 #KnitForRefugees campaign  an awareness and fundraising effort with a unique twist: creating the first-ever scarves made from retweets. The campaign wrapped up at the first Global Refugee Forum and won a Shorty Award in March this year.

Media Contacts:

UNHCR:

TWITTER:

Hashtags

#RefugeeDay #WorldRefugeeDay #WithRefugees #_ #Aveclesrefugies #JourneeDuRefugie #ConLosRefugiados #DiaDelRefugiado #DoItLuquluqu #Weltfluchtlingstag #ComOsRefugiados #HariPelarianSedunia #HariPengungsiSedunia # # # #DiaDosRefugiados # #GiornataMondialeDelRifugiato

Q&A with OPlerou

https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2020/6/5ee26da54/young-ivorian-artist-designs-2020-world-refugee-day-emoji.html

Link to photos of OPlerou:

https://media.unhcr.org/Share/kw3225d08r2t7402wn7faup01mfbl6r5
New York  A New York State Assembly race is heating up over a candidates online blog from more than 15 years ago.

The New York Daily News reports Emily Gallagher once pulled down her pants and mooned a couple that she saw having sex in Syracuse  and blogged about it on Livejournal in 2003. Gallagher, a Rochester native who was a 19-year-old student at Ithaca College at the time, said the incident happened while she was visiting friends in Syracuse.

Not only did I stare at people who were having sex in front of a window, but I remained even after they noticed me, she wrote. I waved, smiled, and when the girl flipped out I mooned her. Youd think i was on drugs ... but no!

Gallagher, now 36 and living in Brooklyns Greenpoint neighborhood, also reportedly wrote about throwing a homeless party in another Livejournal post that has circulated on social media.

Gallagher is running against longtime NYS Assemblyman Joe Lentol for District 50. As the June 23 primary approaches, she said that she remains focused on the issues.

Heres what Im going to talk about in the last week of this campaign:  advocating for renters, workers and small business owners  dismantling our racist criminal justice system  fighting for a just recovery, she wrote on Twitter. Heres what Im not going to talk about: my teenage livejournal.

Gallaghers campaign manager Andre Epstein accused Lentol, whos been a member of the state Legislature since 1973 and only faced one other primary challenger in 47 years, of using the blog posts of a teenage girl to smear her campaign.

Clearly Emilys message of fighting for every day, working-class New Yorkers is resonating and theyre getting desperate, Epstein told the Daily News.

A spokeswoman for Lentol said Gallagher should be ashamed of her history of denigrating the homeless and accused her of attempting to deflect and attack.

According to her campaign website, Gallagher moved to New York City after graduating college and began community activism by joining Neighbors Allied for Good Growth in Brooklyn. She unsuccessfully ran for Female District Leader in the 50th Assembly district in 2016, co-founded the Greenpoint Sexual Assault Task Force to reform NYPD protocols, and is a former member of Brooklyns Community Board 1.

Gallagher has been endorsed by progressive groups like New Kings Democrats and New York Communities for Change, as well as former gubernatorial candidates Cynthia Nixon, of Sex & the City fame, and Zephyr Teachout. Shes also received support on Twitter from Will & Grace actress Debra Messing and former Survivor contestant Eliza Orlins, a Syracuse University alumna whos running for District Attorney in Manhattan.

The attacks by incumbent Assemblyman Joe Lentol on an amazing, young woman challenging him are gross and desperate. It means shes winning. Everyone go follow @em4assembly and then VOTE FOR HER if youre in NYs 50th Assembly district (Greenpoint/Williamsburg/Clinton Hill), Orlins tweeted.

This is shameful, I cant believe @NYDailyNews even ran this. A complete smear attack against @em4assembly digging up her 2003 Live-journal blog posts.



This is why so many young women dont want to run for office. This shouldnt be what politics is about. https://t.co/0tK9zWghJN  Elizabeth Adams (@ElizabAdams) June 14, 2020

So proud to endorse @em4assembly -- a fearless neighborhood tenant & environmental organizer fighting to unseat a 47 yr incumbent funded heavily by Lyft.



Emily's powered by people not corporations. We need her to fight for gig workers & a just recovery!https://t.co/op86CuPl5Q  Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) June 12, 2020

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GREENBELT, Md., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States joined a lawsuit filed by Joseph, Greenwald & Laake, P.A. on behalf of a former Chief Compliance Officer and whistleblower against Utah-based medical device company, Merit Medical Systems, Inc. The False Claims Act (qui tam) complaint alleges fraud schemes involving unlawful kickbacks to physicians to induce their use of Merit's devices over those of its competitors.

The whistleblower, (or "Relator"), Dr. Charles Wolf, is a non-practicing medical doctor and an accredited healthcare compliance professional with over 20 years of experience. The complaint recounts how Dr. Wolf reported his concerns about the alleged fraud to Merit's management during his tenure as its Chief Compliance Officer, all to no avail. Unable to effect change from within, Dr. Wolf resigned from Merit and reported his information to the Department of Justice, which undertook a thorough investigation before deciding to intervene.

The lawsuit was made public on June 12, 2020, after the United States filed its notice of intervention and the Court unsealed the case. The federal government is expected to file its own complaint in intervention by July 13. In addition, 29 states are included in the lawsuit and will have an opportunity to join it also.

The complaint focuses on kickback allegations where Merit provided paid advertising for loyal Merit users and paid consulting fees in order to influence physicians to use Merit devices  which are expected to be included in the federal government's forthcoming complaint. The lawsuit alleges that Merit "paid for advertising for high-volume users of its medical devices and continues to pay consulting fees to high-use providers for little-to-no-work." Disguised as educational in nature, the suit claims that, instead, the money paid to physicians was meant to effect and "induce hospitals and physicians to purchase additional equipment, supplies and/or products from Merit."

Federal and state laws prohibit payments of any kind to physicians  including marketing dollars and consulting fees  to influence physician choice of medical devices. "Prosecuting these cases protects patients. When medical device companies pay something of value to induce physicians to use their devices to the exclusion of others, that can effect independent medical judgment and patient care," said Veronica Nannis, who, with her partner Jay Holland, represents the whistleblower in this case along with former Assistant United States Attorney, Timothy J. McInnis of McInnis Law.

Holland touted the four-year investigation performed by Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey. "The government's intervention here after a careful, detailed and thorough investigation underscores its goal of protecting patients, rooting out fraud and recouping tax dollars," said Holland.

The case is captioned U.S. ex rel. Wolf v. Merit Medical Systems, Inc., et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-01855-CCC-MF. The Relator is represented by a team of experienced whistleblower attorneys including Jay Holland and Veronica Nannis of Joseph, Greenwald & Laake and Tim McInnis of McInnis Law. The government's team is led by Chris Terranova, Trial Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, and Andrew A. Caffrey III, Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Health Care and Government Fraud Unit out of Newark, NJ.



Jay Holland is a partner at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake, and is Chair of the Firm's Labor, Employment and Qui Tam Departments. His False Claims Act cases have resulted in recoveries of over $600 Million for the United States. His recent publications include articles for The National Law Journal, Trial Magazine, D.C. Trial Lawyer, and the Maryland State Bar Association Employment Law Deskbook. He can be reached at [email protected] Veronica Nannis is a partner at Joseph, Greenwald & Laake and serves as the Chair of the Firm's Civil Litigation Department. She litigates qui tam cases and consumer class actions, typically involving kickbacks and other fraud. A Super Lawyer's Rising Star in DC and Maryland for several years, she was awarded the MAJ Trial Lawyer of the Year Award in 2011 with the team from Joseph, Greenwald & Laake. Past publications include those for Law 360, the ABA Health e-Source, and The Daily Record. She can be reached at [email protected]

Contact: Joseph Greenwald & Laake, P.A.

Veronica Nannis; [email protected]

Jay Holland; [email protected]

Phone: 301-220-2200

SOURCE Joseph Greenwald and Laake

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F rance has dropped border checks for most Europeans, raising hopes tourists will be able to visit the country for holidays this summer.

The move, which took effect on Monday, came as several European nations eased border controls in the wake of a decline in coronavirus cases across the continent following months of lockdown.

The reopening is a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere, however.

And with flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and many people facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose simply to stay home or explore their own countries this year.

So, here is what you need to know:

French President Emmanuel Macron has said it is time for France to 'rediscover' its freedom as the country eases lockdown measures / Reuters

When will France reopen to tourists?

France's move means travellers from most European Union member states will be able to enter the country without restrictions from today onwards.

Those arriving from Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Switzerland and the Vatican City will also be able to take advantage of the change.

The move came after Brussels asked EU governments to reboot free travel in the bloc from Monday.

European officials hope the lifting of internal border controls will allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July and resuscitate a tourism industry that flatlined during the lockdown.

Do visitors to France need to quarantine?

By way of reciprocity, travellers arriving from the United Kingdom will need to undergo quarantine for two weeks upon arrival in France.

Travellers from Spain will have to do the same until June 21, when Spanish authorities have said they will retract their own restrictions.

What has President Macron said?

Announcing France's reopening of borders during a televised address to the nation on Sunday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom.

But he warned: This doesnt mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard.  The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.

Mr Macron gave a televised address to the nation on Sunday evening / AFP via Getty Images

Europe has had more than two million of the worlds 7.9 million confirmed Covid-19 infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Still, the need to get Europes tourism industry up and running again is also urgent for countries such as Spain and Greece as the economic fallout of the crisis multiplies.

Is France still in lockdown?

Mr Macron said during his televised address that virtually all lockdown restrictions for bars, restaurants and cafes in France would end as of Monday as he announced a "first victory" against coronavirus.

All schoolchildren except for those in high schools will also be expected to return to class from June 22 as part of the push to restart public life.

Mr Macron said: "We will be able to rediscover the pleasure of being together, to get back to work fully but also to have fun, to cultivate ourselves.

We are going to rediscover part of our art of living, our taste for freedom. In short, we are going to find France whole again."

Only two of France's overseas territories - Mayotte and French Guiana - will have to continue to adhere to strict lockdown measures imposed back in March to fight Covid-19.

More than 29,000 people have died in France as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
An elderly couple were attacked by a female raider wielding an ashtray during a terrifying burglary at their Co Donegal home.

The couple, who are in their 70s, were at their home at Coolboy, Letterkenny, when they were attacked just after 7am yesterday.

A lone raider, understood to be a woman, entered the house and threatened the couple. During the robbery it is understood one of the couple was attacked with an ashtray.

The alleged assailant then escaped and the couple were able to call gardai.

A sum of cash and also some property was taken during the raid.

The couple were taken to nearby Letterkenny University Hospital after their ordeal.

It is understood they were treated for some cuts and severe shock.

They were released from hospital yesterday afternoon.

Gardai yesterday sealed off the house and carried out a full forensic examination of the area.

Other officers are carrying out house-to-house enquiries to see if any residents noticed anybody in the area before the robbery.

Gardai confirmed they are investigating a burglary in the area.

A spokesman said: "Gardai are investigating a burglary that occurred at a property in Coolboy, Letterkenny this morning, Sunday June 14, at approximately 7am."

A sum of cash and property was taken from the premises, he added, though no arrests have yet been made.

Local county councillor Gerry McMonagle, who is chairman of the Joint Policing Committee, said he was disgusted by the attack on the elderly couple and appealed to witnesses to come forward.

"I am horrified by this attack as are all of the local community," he said.

"It may have been early in the morning but it would have been bright.

"To break into somebody's home is bad enough but to beat and threaten them as well is just disgusting. There is absolutely no excuse for this, and especially during a pandemic.

"This poor couple will have to live with this ordeal for the rest of their lives now.

"I would appeal to anybody who may have been in this area, although it is remote, and who may have seen anything suspicious to contact gardai," he said.

Anybody with any information is asked to contact either Milford garda station or Letterkenny garda station.
TYSONS, Va., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PenFed Credit Union, the nation's second largest federal credit union, today announced the donation of nearly $100,000 of rent-free space in Woodbridge, Va. serving as the national headquarters of the Armed Services YMCA. PenFed supports Armed Services YMCA's mission of helping junior-enlisted military service members and their families thrive wherever the military sends them. PenFed is making the Armed Services YMCA national headquarters space rent-free through the end of 2020.

"PenFed is proud to support the Armed Services YMCA and we are honored to help positively impact the lives of service members and their families here in the National Capital Region," said PenFed Credit Union President/CEO and PenFed Foundation CEO James Schenck. "The Armed Services YMCA does tremendous work helping service members with the challenges they face while serving to ensure our nation's safety and freedoms. PenFed is committed to donating $2 million in 2020 to celebrate our 2 million member milestone by giving back to charities that support the communities where our members work and live."

PenFed has a strong legacy of being a military-friendly company. The credit union donates 2% of its annual net income to charitable organizations, with the majority going to military charities. The PenFed Foundation  PenFed's charitable arm  was created in 2001 and, since then, has provided more than $38.5 million in financial support to veterans, active-duty service members, families and caregivers.

"On behalf of the young men and women who serve our country and families, the Armed Services YMCA extends sincere thanks for PenFed's generous gift," said Armed Services YMCA CEO and retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. William French. "The donation of this space allows us to provide vital programs that promote military readiness by strengthening the families that stand behind our service members."

About PenFed Credit Union

Established in 1935, Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed) is America's second-largest federal credit union, serving over 2 million members worldwide with over $26 billion in assets. PenFed Credit Union offers market-leading certificates, checking, credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, auto loans, student loans, and a wide range of other financial services with members' interests always in mind. PenFed Credit Union is federally insured by the NCUA and is an Equal Housing Lender. To learn more about PenFed Credit Union, visit PenFed.org, like us on Facebook and follow us @PenFed on Twitter. Interested in working for PenFed? Check us out on LinkedIn. We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer.

SOURCE PenFed Credit Union

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After undergoing infertility treatment in order to have their first daughter, a British couple was gobsmacked to learn that they had conceived identical triplets naturally. The odds are roughly one in a million.

The couples three healthy baby boys were born on March 12, 2020, just days before the United Kingdoms lockdown restrictions came into effect. From the comfort of home, proud parents Lina Sapia, 35, and her husband, Fabio, 37, are now introducing their identical triplets to the world.

[L-R] The three identical triplets, Louis, Piero, and Remi. (Caters News) Lina and Fabio wanted to expand their family after the birth of their first child, Alba, now a toddler. We were trying for three years before we decided to have IVF with Alba, which was successful first time, the stay-at-home mom from Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, England, said according to Caters News.

The parents assumed that they would need to pursue further infertility treatments if they wanted to have more children. However, in September 2019, both were shocked and delighted to discover that Lina was pregnant.

I experienced a second miscarriage three months prior to discovering I was pregnant with triplets in September, Lisa explained, but I didnt get my hopes up as I feared it may happen again.

A week-6 scan further shocked the couple by revealing not one but three tiny heartbeats.

A week-6 scan revealing triplets. (Caters News)

Lina told her nurse that she felt slightly bigger than before moments before discovering that she was carrying more than one baby. We were in total shock, Lina recalled. Fabio, who is a risk analyst, was nervously laughing in the corner [] We felt like we had won the lottery.

Neither Lina nor Fabio have had multiple siblings in their family.

I felt anxious throughout the pregnancy as I feared something bad may happen, Lina admitted, and I couldnt deal with another miscarriage. But we had scans every two weeks to ensure everything was fine; it was incredible watching them grow.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, triplets are far less common than twins, and identical triplets are still rarer. The medical community has reached a vague consensus that identical triplets arise roughly once in every million pregnancies, but Dr. Victor Khouzami, Chairman of Obstetrics at Greater Baltimore Medical Center, told The Baltimore Sun, No one really knows.

Pregnancies involving multiples, however, have a higher known risk of complication, states Stanford Childrens Health, and nearly all higher-order multiplespregnancies involving three babies or moreare born prematurely.

Lina said, according to Caters News, that she found juggling childcare for her daughter, Alba, and the latter stages of pregnancy extremely tiring. However, she enjoyed a healthy pregnancy and made it to 32 weeks before going into labor to deliver her triplets.

She gave birth to three boys: Luis, who weighed 2 pounds 8 ounces (approx. 1. 13 kg), Piero, who weighed 3 pounds 6 ounces (approx. 1.53 kg), and Remi, who was born at 3 pounds 12 ounces (approx. 1.7 kg) at St. Peters Hospital in Chertsey, Surrey, on March 12. The boys were lucky to meet their grandparents before the United Kingdom went into lockdown in response to the spreading pandemic shortly thereafter.

The triplets were like superstars, Lina recalled, as many of the staff hadnt seen identical triplets before. However, their father wasnt allowed to meet the newborns for three weeks whilst they were in hospital due to the restrictions, Lina explained, only via FaceTime, which was difficult.

Lina with the three siblings: Louis, Piero, and Remi. (Caters News)

The savvy mom, wishing to differentiate between her identical babies as easily as possible, used velcro wristbands printed with each of the triplets initialsL, P, and Rto limit confusion. The wristbands are mainly for night feeds, Lina clarified, as there has been an occasion when one baby nearly got fed twice.

Lina and Fabio credited the hospitals NHS staff for being absolutely incredible throughout the duration of Linas pregnancy and in the aftermath of the birth amid lockdown restrictions. However, the grateful mom also identified a silver lining.

The identical triplets with their parents, Lina and Fabio, and older sister, Alba. (Caters News)

The lockdown has helped us form a bond and get into a routine with them, Lina said, adding that her daughter, Alba, adores her baby siblings. The toddler kisses each of her baby brothers every morning and once again before bed.

Lina and Fabio now chronicle family life on their Instagram page, aptly named Three Little Men & A Little Lady.
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A police reservist and two armed attackers were killed in a gunfight on Sunday in Kenya's northeast Mandera county near the border with Somalia, a security official said.

"They were killed during a shoot out," security official Jeremiah Kosoim told Reuters, adding that a young boy was also injured during the gunfight that erupted when militants were trying to destroy a telecommunications mast in the area.

He did not give further details about the attackers, but Somalia's Islamist group al Shabaab have often targeted security forces and strategic sites, such as telecommunications masts, in the area.

Al Shabaab has said it wants to put pressure on the Kenyan authorities to withdraw its troops from Somalia, where they are part of an African Union-mandated peacekeeping force.

The Islamist group is fighting to topple the federal government in Somalia, which has been mired in conflict for almost three decades.

(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Editing by Elias Biryabarema and Edmund Blair)
Mumbai, June 15 : The PepsiCo Foundation has committed to invest $3 million with the NGO 'WaterAid' to provide safe water access to agricultural communities and help women in high water-risk areas in West Bengal and Maharashtra.

In a statement, PepsiCo said that the programme aims to provide 2 lakh farmers and their families access to piped water supply for household use, increased water resources, and will establish community-managed water distribution systems in these communities.

It said that the investment is in line with the government's Jal Jeevan Mission which aims to provide functional household tap connections to every rural household by 2024.

In addition to the fresh infusion of $3 million, the PepsiCo Foundation also announced that they have helped more than 4.4 crore people gain access to safe water since 2006, far surpassing the company's goal to support 2.5 crore people worldwide by 2025.

"To achieve this, the PepsiCo Foundation has invested more than $46 million since 2005 as a founding partner or early investor in programmes with partners like Safe Water Network, Water.org, WaterAid and many other NGOs & multilateral agencies worldwide," it said.

Speaking on the water initiatives in India, Ahmed El Sheikh, President, PepsiCo India, said: "In India, we work on several programmes that focus on water replenishment, rainwater harvesting and water supply infrastructure. Our partnership with WaterAid helps us to achieve our goal to improve water security for communities in India." V.K. Madhavan, CEO, from WaterAid India, said that the effort to provide clean and safe water access to various communities across the globe demands people and organisations to collaborate and work together as one team.

"With the support of PepsiCo India and the additional grant, we look forward to creating a positive impact on the lives of many more people in vulnerable communities," Madhavan said.
Less than 24 hours after the embattled governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, met him in Port Harcourt, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has said that Mr Obaseki was disqualified by someone who does not have a certificate.

Obaseki was disqualified by someone who doesnt have a certificate, what an irony! Mr Wike tweeted on Monday afternoon from his personal Twitter handle @GovWike.

Mr Obaseki was on Friday disqualified by the APC from contesting the forthcoming governorship primary of the party in Edo State on grounds of alleged discrepancies on his certificates.

Mr Wike did not mention who he was referring to in his tweet.

Mr Obasekis disqualification, however, climaxed a protracted political battle with his predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole, who is the APC national chairman.

But Mr Oshiomhole was not a member of the committee that disqualified the governor.

Mr Wike is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), while Mr Obaseki is of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

There are speculations that the governor is planning to defect to PDP where he could fly the party flag in the September governorship election.

Mr Obaseki, shortly after meeting with Mr Wike on Sunday, also travelled to Uyo where he met with the Akwa Ibom governor, Udom Emmanuel, who is also a PDP member.

Mr Wikes tweet here could mean that he is ready to back Mr Obaseki in his next political moves.

Mr Wike, who is on his second term as Rivers governor, could very well be said to have experience in political battle, having successfully fought a fierce election battle against the APC to win re-election in 2019.

Apart from being one of the most influential governors in PDP, Mr Wike publicly said he funded the election of the Bayelsa governor, Douye Diri.

If Mr Obaseki secures Mr Wikes support, it could be a major boost for Mr Obaseki to clinch the PDP ticket and in the main election.
Qantas has confirmed it will exit its minority stake in the Vietnamese airline Jetstar Pacific and is expected to hand full control of the budget carrier over to co-owner Vietnam Airlines.

Gareth Evans, chief executive of Qantas' budget division Jetstar, said on Monday the group would offload its 30 per cent stake in Jetstar Pacific "in the coming months", pending regulatory approvals, so it can "focus on our other airlines".

Jetstar Pacific was established in 2007 but has been loss making for much of its history. Credit:James Alcock

"Weve been in discussions with Vietnam Airlines for some time about the challenges facing Jetstar Pacific, which have obviously intensified through the COVID crisis," Mr Evans said in a statement.

The pandemic has devastated airlines around the world, and forced Qantas to stand down the 27,000 of its 30,000 employees and consider wholesale changes to its business model.
Jurassic World: Dominion is set to resume filming in 'early-mid July' in the UK - and will be the first movie to get back to work following the COVID-19 industry shutdown.

The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise began shooting in Canada earlier this year, but was halted when the global health crisis forced the majority of movie and TV productions into dormancy.

The likes of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were sent home and plans to fly them to the UK - where much of the movie was set to be shot at Pinewood Studios outside London - were put on hold.

The park is (re)open: Jurassic World: Dominion is set to resume filming in 'early-mid July' in the UK - and will be the first movie to get back to work following the COVID-19 industry shutdown

In addition, returning Jurassic Park stars Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill were also stopped from joining them, having signed on to the sequel to appear as a trio for the first time since the original 1993 film.

But Universal have confirmed that pre-production will commence next week and that filming will re-start on July 6.

Speaking to Deadline, an exec from Universal said: 'The plan is for us to be shooting early-mid July.'

They also said that the production will be 'implementing rigorous safety protocols on-site' over the rest of June, in guidance with post-lockdown regulations.

Back in business: The likes of Chris Pratt [pictured] and Bryce Dallas Howard were sent home and plans to fly them to the UK - where much of the movie was set to be shot at Pinewood Studios outside London - were put on hold back in March

Shut down: The sixth film in the Jurassic Park franchise began shooting in Canada earlier this year, but was halted when the global health crisis forced the majority of movie and TV productions into dormancy

The question on everyone's lips: Will the Dilophosaurus finally return to the franchise in Dominion?

'Anyone with symptoms will be isolated immediately before being sent home,' the source went on. 'We want to make sure that we are going above and beyond the national protocols to create a safe environment.

'Cost isnt our main concern now: its safety.'

The executive added: 'We will take direction from our medical team, but were confident that with the staggered scheduling and zones of talent and crew, along with a system of contact tracing, we can move forward with limited delay in production.'

This will please fans of the franchise who are expecting Jurassic World: Dominion to hit cinemas on 11 June 2021.

'We have a T-Rex!' Returning Jurassic Park stars Laura Dern and Sam Neill were also stopped from getting to work [pictured with the late Richard Attenborough in the original 1993 film]

Speaking to Deadline, an exec from Universal said: 'The plan is for us to be shooting early-mid July... implementing rigorous safety protocols on-site'

Production has been delayed by around three months, with speculation rife that the sequel could face a late-summer release rather than an early-summer one.

The cast being flown out to the UK will also be required to undergo a two-week quarantine once arriving, before being allowed on set, as per the UK's current travel rules.

Sam Neill - who will reprise his Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III role of Dr Alan Grant - said last month that the sets were built 'ready and waiting' for things to resume.

'I should be going into Pinewood at 6AM,' he told The Guardian in May. 'All the sets are there, waiting. I cant wait to get back to it.'

Working from home: Director Colin Trevorrow has been working on editing footage already shot, from his home in the UK

Life finds a way: Sam Neill - who will reprise his Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III role of Dr Alan Grant - said last month that the sets were built 'ready and waiting' for things to resume

This follows the news that Mission: Impossible 7 will resume filming in September, after production was relocated by the coronavirus pandemic.

First assistant director Tommy Gormley said in early June that Paramount are hoping to restart work on the Tom Cruise blockbuster this autumn, and 'visit all the countries' they originally planned to film scenes.

Mission Impossible 7's release was set for July 2021 but has been pushed back to November 19, 2021.

The COVID-19 crisis forced the film to relocate from Venice to the UK, and eventually halt production indefinitely, prior to lockdown measures.

Screeching back: This follows the news that Mission: Impossible 7 will resume filming in September, after production was relocated by the coronavirus pandemic

They'll be back! First assistant director Tommy Gormley said in early June that Paramount are hoping to restart work on the Tom Cruise blockbuster this autumn, and 'visit all the countries' they originally planned to film scenes

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Tommy said: 'We hope to start shooting again in September.

'We were days from shooting in Venice  we were right at the epicentre when it all kicked off  so we had to shut down in Venice where we were four or five days from shooting.'

Tommy went onto hint that 'tens of thousands' of film industry staff needed to return to work, after almost all Hollywood films were put on hold as COVID-19 continued to spread.

He added: 'We have to do it safely and protect our colleagues, but it is definitely possible and we're working flat out to make it happen.'

The news comes as the latest instalment in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, had its release date brought forward at the weekend.

Forward-thinking: The latest instalment in the James Bond franchise, No Time To Die, has had its release date brought forward

Sooner than expected: The official Twitter account for the project has confirmed the news

The tweet read: 'The return of old friends in NO TIME TO DIE. In cinemas 12th November UK, 20th November US!'

The long-awaited movie was originally scheduled for release in April, but the date was changed in light of the pandemic, with a new date of November 25 being set back in March.

But now, the official Twitter account for the project has confirmed that its release date has been moved once again.

The tweet read: 'The return of old friends in NO TIME TO DIE. In cinemas 12th November UK, 20th November US!'
Intel is getting ready to launch a new security product that could dramatically reduce opportunities for hijacking. Called Intel Control-Flow Enforcement Technology (Intel CET), the product is designed to protect against the misuse of legitimate code through control-flow hijacking attacks. This technique is widely used in large classes of malware, and its been a challenge to mitigate the problem with software alone. Intel CET will offer CPU-level security capabilities from Intels upcoming mobile processer  code-named Tiger Lake  onwards.

As computer security has become more advanced, hackers have become more resourceful, increasingly finding ways to bypass protections  exploiting memory safety is one such way. Return Oriented Programming (also known as ROP) and Jump Oriented Programming (also known as JOP) in particular are popular with nefarious types. JOP or ROP attacks can be hard to detect or prevent because the attacker uses existing code running from executable memory in a creative way to change program behavior.

Intel CET

Intel CET offers software developers two main ways to help defend against control-flow hijacking malware: indirect branch tracking and shadow stack. Indirect branch tracking delivers indirect branch protection to defend against JOP attack methods, while shadow stack delivers return address protection to help defend against ROP attack methods. And again, its all built into the hardware, which means its better able to tackle threats at source than software.

Intel says that the product will eventually be available in future desktop and server platforms, but its already been working with Microsoft to integrate it with Windows 10. Microsofts upcoming support for Intel CET in Windows 10 will be called Hardware-enforced Stack Protection, and a preview of it is available today in Windows 10 Insider Previews.
The best part about reopening a restaurant?

For Five Spice Seafood manager Jayne Jablonski, its the chance to see people again.
Delhi High Court on Monday (June 15) issued notices to Delhi government, civic agencies and NDMA on a petition filed by an NGO 'Mokshda Paryavaran Evam Van Sanrakshan Samiti' and directed them to file reply before the next date of hearing on June 29.

MOKSHDA runs several "green crematoriums" in the national capital and other parts of the country and has offered its services to facilitate the cremation of those who died due to COVID-19.

The petition by NGO Mokshda Paryavaran Evam Van Suraksha Samiti has been filed through advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, wherein it has been stated that it has installed 19 green crematoriums in Delhi out of which six are at the Nigam Bodh ghat and can handle 24 cremations a day.

It said that it has moved the petition, offering its services after coming to know through news reports that the Delhi High Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the lack of facilities to cremate those who died of COVID-19.

Anguished by lack of facilities to cremate those who died due to COVID-19 and the bodies piling up in the mortuaries, the high court had on May 28 initiated on its own a PIL to deal with the issue, saying if this was the correct situation then it was "highly dissatisfactory".

Earlier, it was reported that the CNG furnaces were not functioning and bodies were returned. It said that there was a pile up of more than 100 such bodies in the mortuary of LNJP hospital of Delhi. The Delhi High Court had also sought a detailed status report from the Delhi government in this matter. The court had also directed that such incidents should not be repeated in the future.
Then-Atlanta Police Department officer Garrett Rolfe searches 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks in a Wendy's restaurant parking lot in a still image from the video body camera of officer Devin Bronsan in Atlanta, Ga., on June 12, 2020. (Atlanta Police Department via Reuters)

Medical Examiner Declares Rayshard Brooks Death a Homicide

The fatal shooting of a man by a police officer in Atlanta last week was a homicide, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiners Office.

The declaration was made in a report issued late Sunday.

Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot twice in the back, causing injuries to his organs and blood loss, the autopsy found. The wounds led to his death.

Explaining its determinations, the office says on its website that homicide means a death was caused by the actions of another person but doesnt necessarily mean murder.

After the medical examiner determines the manner of death to be a homicide, then law enforcement investigate that death to determine if there is probable cause to bring the criminal charge of murder against the person who caused the death. While all murders are homicides, not all homicides are murders, it states.

This screengrab taken from dashboard camera video provided by the Atlanta Police Department shows Rayshard Brooks, left, and Officer Garrett Rolfe pointing Tasers at one another, while Officer Devin Brosnan is seen getting up after a struggle among the three men in the parking lot of a Wendys restaurant in Atlanta, Ga., overnight June 13, 2020. (Atlanta Police Department via AP)

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said members of his staff witnessed the autopsy.

Because this is a homicide investigation, there are several technical requirements that must be met before we are able to reach a decision. That includes the confirmation of the ballistics involved and obtaining a preliminary report from the Medical Examiner, he said in a statement sent to news outlets.

During an appearance on CNN, Howard claimed that Brooks did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable.

It just seems like this is not the kind of conversation and incident that should have led to someones death, he added.

Brooks was tested for sobriety at a Wendys drive-through in Atlanta on Friday night. When police officers determined he was under the influence, they tried handcuffing him.

According to video footage captured at the scene, Brooks took a Taser from one of the officers and fired it at them as he ran away.

Former Atlanta Police Department officer Garrett Rolfe, who was fired after the shooting death of 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks, in an undated photograph released in Atlanta, Ga., June 14, 2020. (Atlanta Police Department via Reuters)

One officer shot at Brooks three times, striking him at least twice.

Brooks later died.

Police officials named Garrett Rolfe as the officer who fired the fatal shots and said he was fired. The other officer at the scene, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative duty.

Rolfe could face murder or manslaughter charges, Howard said during the television appearance.

Investigators are looking into whether Rolfe felt that Brooks presented imminent harm of death or some serious physical injury, he said.

Or the alternative is whether or not he fired the shot simply to capture him or some other reason, Howard added. If that shot was fired for some reason other than to save that officers life or to prevent injury to him or others, then that shooting is not justified under the law.

Howard said hed decide by Wednesday whether or not to charge Rolfe.

Two lawyers representing Brooks family, L. Chris Stewart and Justin Miller, said in a statement that one thing of extreme concern was the fact that he was shot in the back multiple times while fleeing.

A still image from video shows Rayshard Brooks speaking with Officer Garrett Rolfe as Rolfe writes notes during a field sobriety test in the parking lot of a Wendys restaurant in Atlanta, Ga., late June 12, 2020. (Atlanta Police Department via AP)

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said Saturday it was investigating the officer-involved shooting based on a request by the Atlanta Police Department.

Officers responded to the scene when they received a complaint of a man in a vehicle parked in the drive-through asleep, forcing other customers to drive around the vehicle, the bureau said. A field sobriety test was performed. When Brooks failed the test, officers tried arresting the man, with one of them deploying a Taser after Brooks resisted arrest.

Witnesses report that during the struggle the male subject grabbed and was in possession of the Taser. It has also been reported that the male subject was shot by an officer in the struggle over the Taser, the bureau said in a statement.

Brooks died after being rushed to a local hospital for surgery, officials said.

One of the officers received treatment for an injury sustained during the struggle and was later discharged from the hospital.

Information gleaned during the probe would be turned over to the Fulton County District Attorneys Office for review, GBI said.

In a statement later Saturday, the bureau said it obtained surveillance footage from Wendys and reviewed video posted on social media.

A woman uses her cell phone to document the damage to a burned Wendys restaurant in Atlanta, Ga., on June 14, 2020. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)

These new videos indicate that during a physical struggle with officers, Brooks obtained one of the officers Tasers and began to flee from the scene. Officers pursued Brooks on foot and during the chase, Brooks turned and pointed the Taser at the officer. The officer fired his weapon, striking Brooks, GBI said.

The fallout from the case included Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigning and rioters burning down the Wendys where the shooting occurred.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, told reporters over the weekend that she doesnt believe the deadly force used in the shooting was justified. Before the officer was fired, she called for his termination.

Shields made the decision herself to resign, according to Bottoms.

In a statement released by the police department, Shields said she served for over 20 years with fine men and women in the agency.

Out of a deep and abiding love for this City and this department, I offered to step aside as police chief. APD has my full support, and Mayor Bottoms has my support on the future direction of this department. I have faith in the Mayor, and it is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, she said.
L'Orange bleue is offering its expertise to businesses that want to sell their services, products or technologies to the Government of Quebec

QUEBEC CITY,, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ - Governments across the globe are now engaged in a never-ending search for medical supplies to combat the COVID-19 crisis within their borders. It's the same for the Government of Quebec, a province in Canada. Given the current situation, L'Orange bleue affaires publiques inc. would like to lend its expertise to businesses that want to participate in the province's public procurement process.

Quebec's health and social services network operates as a fully standalone entity that covers an impressive array of activities, with considerable resources and autonomy. The Government of Quebec buys goods and services totalling more than $5 billion annually. Quebec buys more than 40,000 unique products per year for its health and social services network alone.

"This crisis we're living is unprecedented. All levels of government are trying to get their hands on all kinds of supplies," said Mathieu Santerre, President of L'Orange bleue affaires publiques. "The Government of Quebec is looking for a lot of services, products and technologies that aren't available in the province, so non-Quebec businesses have an opportunity to take part in this fight against COVID-19. If you think your company is in a position to provide the Government of Quebec, we can help you tap into this new market."

The procurement process for the health and social services network in Quebec may seem complicated when you look at it from the outside. However, L'Orange bleue has amassed an impressive amount of expertise working in this area over the years. L'Orange bleue is the go-to partner for any business that wants to gain access to Government of Quebec contracts.

To learn about all the services L'Orange bleue affaires publiques offers, visit http://www.lorangebleue.biz/

L'Orange bleue affaires publiques inc.

L'Orange bleue affaires publiques inc. is a Quebec-based public relations firm whose mission is to set the standard for meticulousness, boldness, and integrity in its governmental and media relations and the public relations advice it gives its clients.

SOURCE L'Orange bleue affaires publiques inc.

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With President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla., less than a week away, health experts warned that the indoor venue and potentially large crowd could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk.

"I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event," Bruce Dart, director of the Tulsa city and county health department, told the Tulsa World. "And I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well."

The scheduled rally comes as new infections are trending upward in at least 21 states across the South and the West, prompting some governors to rethink reopening plans and renewing concerns that the country could be a long way from containing the pandemic. Alabama, Oregon and South Carolina are among the states with the biggest increases. Alabama saw a 92 percent increase in its seven-day average, while Oregon's seven-day average was up 83.8 percent and South Carolina's was up 60.3 percent.

POP SPEAKS: Gregg Popovich calls out Jerry Jones for 'hypocritical' past support of Trump

Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, warned that waves of infection could come "back and forth" for months.

Fauci said in an interview published Sunday that the coronavirus will linger in the country for months and that it will be about a year before things return to normal.

Fauci also told the British Telegraph newspaper it probably will be months before travelers from Britain and the European Union are allowed in the country and the real end of the crisis will only come with the development of a vaccine.

"I would hope to get to some degree of real normality within a year or so. But I don't think it's this winter or fall, we'll be seeing it for a bit more," he said, expecting the virus to go back and forth in the United States through a few cycles.

Fauci also noted that while the virus has been suppressed in major cities like New York, Chicago and New Orleans, cases are spreading elsewhere. "We're seeing several states, as they try to reopen and get back to normal, starting to see early indications (that) infections are higher than previously."

This spread will probably mean the bans on visitors from Britain, the European Union, China and Brazil will remain in place for the time being. "I don't think there's going to be an immediate pull back for those kinds of restrictions. My feeling, looking at what's going on with the infection rate, I think it's more likely measured in months rather than weeks," he said.

Fauci was, however, optimistic about the development of the vaccine, with several good candidates under development, that could be ready by the end of the year.

"We have potential vaccines making significant progress. We have maybe four or five," he said. "You can never guarantee success with a vaccine, that's foolish to do so, there's so many possibilities of things going wrong. (But) everything we have seen from early results, it's conceivable we get two or three vaccines that are successful."

The indoor venues and large crowds anticipated for Trump's rally Saturday in Tulsa and the Republican National Convention in August could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk, infectious-disease expert Michael T. Osterholm told Fox News.

Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" that chanting and shouting can help aerosolize the virus, exposing the thousands expected to attend both events.

"Would I want my loved ones in a setting like that? Absolutely not," Osterholm said. "And it wouldn't matter about politics, I wouldn't want them there."

The venue for Saturday's rally, the BOK Center, has a capacity to seat more than 19,000, but Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted Sunday that 800,000 have signed up.

When registering for tickets, attendees were required to acknowledge a disclaimer that they would not hold the Trump campaign or the venue liable if they got sick.

Osterholm said he also anticipated that the nationwide protests in the past few weeks over police brutality could increase the risk of transmission of the coronavirus, especially with police using tear gas and detained protesters being held in cramped jails. Several National Guard members in Washington and Nebraska have tested positive, but Osterholm warned that what happens in the next two weeks will be "telling," especially as many states also are reopening.

Osterholm added that it is nearly impossible to predict the impact of these large gatherings and reopenings.

"We're not driving this tiger, we're riding it," he said.

ASSESSING THE SPIKE: Doctor explains the spike in Texas COVID-19 hospitalizations

Even if cases continue to decline in the summer, Osterholm said the worry remains: Like influenza, the coronavirus could return with a vengeance in the fall.

Osterholm said the virus won't slow its spread until it has infected 60 percent to 70 percent of the country. He estimated that the coronavirus has infected about 5 percent.

As he cheered the reopening of the economy during an appearance on CNN, Larry Kudlow encouraged people to keep being smart about venturing out into the world.

"Social distancing guidelines must be observed," Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser, said Sunday. "Face-covering in key places must be observed."

But when asked whether that meant that Trump's supporters should don face masks at his upcoming rally, Kudlow demurred.

"Probably so," he said.

On Sunday, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., was asked on the same CNN program whether he would wear a mask to the rally. He said he "hadn't decided on that."

"You see actually very few masks in Oklahoma now," Lankford said. He added that his state was "far ahead of the rest of the country" in terms of having controlled the threat of the virus, even though cases in Tulsa and across the state have spiked in the past week.

- - -

The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
More than two weeks of protests have many cities rethinking the role of police in their communities, especially as deep cuts are expected to public health, education and the arts due to the coronavirus pandemic. Among the asks that have become prominent is the push to end public school contracts with police and get police officers out of schools. Activists are making clear that the police do not make African American children feel protected.

While this shift is encouraging, these considerations are long overdue. The reality is that this country has a long history of state-sanctioned violence against African American children that reveals the deadly stakes of inattention to the humanity of black children.

Like adults, black children also regularly experience deadly encounters with police and state-authority: Trayvon Martin (killed in 2012), Tamir Rice (killed in 2014) and Aiyana Jones (killed last month) were 17, 14 and 7 years old, respectively, when they were shot. Black children also are regularly physically assaulted by officers at schools; recently a video circulated showing a screaming 6-year-old girl aggressively handcuffed and removed from her classroom. There is also a school-to-prison pipeline for black children, as disproportionately harsh school-discipline and punishment are linked to juvenile offenses and black children are even tried as adults in criminal courts.

These issues and history should be central, not secondary to discussions of police violence. For over two centuries, the state has imposed violence against black children as a means of establishing and maintaining white supremacy. From slavery to Jim Crow, through the civil rights movement and today, African American children have been targeted in ways that suppress their present and future attainment of citizenship rights. The lack of awareness of this history has much to do with the way society fails to recognize black children as children.

The youngest person ever executed in the United States was a 12-year-old black girl. In 1786, Hannah Ocuish, a child of African and Native American descent, was sentenced to death in Connecticut. White townspeople accused her of murder after they discovered a white child maimed and dead. Ocuish initially denied murdering the young girl, but after mounting pressure tearfully confessed to the crime and was hanged. Death by execution based on a child's "confession" was just the start of America's state-sanctioned violence against black children.

During slavery, black children were treated as property and had no legal rights. When they resisted enslavement, they were punished harshly. Slave patrols, one of the earliest forms of organized policing, hunted fugitive and sometimes free African Americans including children and sentenced them to enslavement. Enslaved children who rebelled against enslavement were also executed, as was the case for James Guild (12), Jane Huff (15) and Rosanne Keen (16), three black children executed in New Jersey in the early 19th century.

On the other hand, white children were increasingly protected and viewed as appropriate beneficiaries of social reform. Early child welfare movements including the orphan movement, child-labor and prison reform movements actively excluded or subjugated African American children. White reformers denied admission to black children in juvenile reformatories in the early 19th century and if they were convicted of crimes, black children were sent to adult penitentiaries. Black children were sentenced for crimes of poverty including petty theft and vagrancy, and received disproportionately harsh sentences including life in prison.

Following the Civil War, white authorities not only treated and tried African American children as adults, but relied upon their criminalization to supplant the plantation hierarchy of the South. In the wake of emancipation, whites filled Southern prisons with African American adults and children, who were then leased out as cheap labor to private farms and corporations. As convict-laborers, black children endured deadly conditions of labor in fields and industrial camps. The recent discoveries of the bodies of convict laborers in Sugarland, Texas, who labored in the late 19th century include the heartbreaking reality that children as young as 14 toiled on the land, died and were buried in unmarked graves.

Teens, children and most shockingly infants were victims of lynchings by whites during the Jim Crow era. The lynch mob and the police often went hand in hand; lynching often followed arrests and included direct participation by police. As Ida B. Wells's diligent journalism revealed, these lynchings were a tool of maintaining white supremacy. In one of the most heinous cases, whites lynched Mary Turner, who was eight months pregnant at the time. While she was still alive and hanging by her feet, the white mob slit open her stomach, and stomped on the baby. Whites murdered black children with impunity.

African American children's mistreatment in the criminal justice system has often spurred and radicalized social movements. The Scottsboro boys, the execution of George Stinney Jr. - the youngest person ever executed by electric chair - and the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955 made clear the stakes of the civil rights movement. For black activists, it was not only about their children's civil rights to equal schooling and desegregation, it was also about their basic human rights to exist. Over 50 years later, the Central Park 5 - five black children and teens who were falsely accused and sentenced to 6 to 13 years for rape - proved that injustice endured in the criminal justice system by 1989. One of the boys, only 16 years old, was tried as an adult.

So it is apt that protesters are focusing now on defunding the police by removing them from schools, where they have long contributed to the centuries-long history of the criminalization of black children. Recognizing that black children have been targets of white supremacist violence and centering them in the movement for Black Lives can help ensure that black children's lives matter today.

- - -

Webster is assistant professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She specializes in 19th century African American history. Her book, "Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North," is forthcoming with University of North Carolina Press.
Trump is careful to pick his battles. Sticking to the June 19 date for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma was an unnecessary battle, so the rally is currently set for June 20, a date that even leftists can't challenge. Despite the date switch, it looks as if over 800,000 people have signed up to attend. Faced with that datum, the media have stepped up their efforts to try to reinstate Wuhan Virus fear.

When the Trump campaign announced that Trump's first post-lockdown rally would be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19, leftists, both within and outside the media, tried to shut down the rally by contending that the date chosen was racist because it coincided with "Juneteenth," a remembrance of the emancipation announcement in Texas in 1865. As a backup, they argued that the location was racist because, in 1921, local Democrats engaged in a horrific racist attack against Tulsa's black community.

Trump, who knows when to fight and when to walk away, didn't take the bait on this one. Instead, he simply announced that "out of respect" for Juneteenth, he was rescheduling the rally for June 20, an unexceptional date.

The media instantly switched over to complaining that the rally is going to create a new Wuhan Virus outbreak. The tone of the coverage, complete with "experts," is "we're all gonna die!"

Interestingly, the Health Department's message was much milder when it came to the Black Lives Matter protests:

The Tulsa Health Department said while it 100% supports everyone's right to gather for a peaceful protest, it does still encourage Tulsans to wear a mask, and try to keep their distance, even in crowded situations.

The media were apoplectic, with the AP leading the pack:

Trump will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma  a state that has seen relatively few COVID-19 cases. Yet the Tulsa City-County Health Department's director told the Tulsa World over the weekend that he wished the Trump campaign would move the date back because of a "significant increase in our case trends." "I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well," Dr. Bruce Dart told the newspaper. Other health experts also cite the danger of infection spreading among the crowd and sparking outbreaks when people return to their homes. The Trump campaign itself acknowledges the risk in a waiver attendees must agree to absolving them of any responsibility should people get sick.

Ordinary Trump-haters were equally outraged:

Trumps hatefest rally next Saturday in Tulsa is a perfect storm: scads of people, one of whom might be sick or not even have symptoms, spreading it on a vector level, indoors, with no ventilation, no masks, no social distancing. This kinda seems like mass murder in a way.  Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) June 15, 2020

At least one ran with a hypothetical of Trump catching the Wuhan Virus and dying:

How likely is it that Trump will contract COVID-19 at his June 20 rally in Tulsa? The Bok Center holds 19,000 people. Many of his supporters in the audience will be unmasked. If Trump dies from COVID-19, how will that impact the election?  J Whitfield Larrabee (@jwlarrabee) June 14, 2020

This all sounds very serious and important, right until you remember that the Wuhan Virus vanished entirely as a concern during the entire Black Lives Matter protests. Suddenly, civil rights (and electing a president is still a civil right) trumped virus concerns.

Given that it's true that even a stopped watch is right twice a day, perhaps the rally will boost the virus's spread a little. Only silly people, however, now take the media and the "experts" seriously when they talk about a virus  especially considering that just about everything they predicted or feared was wrong.

If thousands can gather in New York Citya hotbed for the virus, with ZERO social distancing, for Black Trans Lives with virtually ZERO media condemnation



Then President Trump should be able to hold rallies across the country without the press fearmongering



RT if you agree!  Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) June 15, 2020

So are all these people squawking again about the virus just yanking Trump's chain? No, they're really afraid, but it's not the virus that scares them. Instead, they're afraid of the enthusiasm for Trump:

Just passed 800,000 tickets. Biggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10x.



Saturday is going to be amazing! https://t.co/u2tQ812odW  Brad Parscale (@parscale) June 14, 2020

This enthusiasm, by the way, is for a venue that seats 20,000. And that data haul  whew!

Leftists are pointing out that Tulsa's population is only 392,000, implying that the 800,000 number is a fake. They're missing that the greater Tulsa area is home to 1,231,000 people. There are also many smaller communities out there that have people who would probably like to attend  and Oklahoma City, with a larger metro population of 1,396,000, is less than two hours away.

It turns out that for Democrats, there are scarier things than a virus  and two of those things are a vast Trump campaign database and a wildly energetic voter base.
Ambassador of Belarus A.Kalinin meets the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova

On June 5, 2020 the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Moldova, Anatoly Kalinin, was received by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Ion Chicu.

During the meeting, the parties noted the friendly and mutually beneficial nature of the Belarusian-Moldovan relations in the trade, economic, cultural, humanitarian and other fields.

A.Kalinin emphasized Belaruss further readiness to share its accumulated experience in the field of modernization of housing and communal services and elevator facilities, which may be in demand in Moldova in the formation of relevant social programs.

The interlocutors discussed the possibility of holding the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Belarusian-Moldavian Commission on trade and economic cooperation in Minsk in the near future, taking into account the current epidemiological situation.

As a result of the meeting, the sides reached an agreement to continue constructive cooperation in all areas of cooperation, including the implementation of joint cooperation projects in the field of industry, transport, especially the opening of direct railway communication between the capitals of the two states, road construction with the involvement of own and international financing.

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The U.S. Supreme Court did something Monday that Houston, after years of acrimonious fighting, could not: It declared in plain and unambiguous language that workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians as well as transgender residents is illegal.

In doing so, it lifted a burden from tens of thousands of Houstonians that never should have been theirs.

In a landmark 6-3 ruling written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, a President Trump appointee, the court declared that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex means it is illegal for employers to fire workers because of their sexual orientation or because they are transgender.

The statutes message for our cases is equally simple and momentous: An individuals homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions, Gorsuch wrote. Thats because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.

The ruling comes six years and a month after Houston City Council voted 11-4 to add LGBT residents to its anti-discrimination ordinance, a vote that should have allowed Houston to join other large, diverse and progressive cities in refusing to accept the casual oppression that so many of its residents, especially transgender individuals, confront daily. Instead, it prompted a furious backlash, a red herring campaign about bathrooms, and a referendum fueled by fear and misinformation that overrode the ordinance the following year.

Until Monday, Houston was a city where gay and transgender people were at unending risk of losing their livelihoods, their incomes and their dignity should an employer disapprove of their orientation or gender.

No more.

Were ecstatic to celebrate this monumental victory for our community, said Austin Ruiz, 25, communications director for Houstons GLBT Political Caucus, adding that the good news was especially welcome in light of a string of step backs, including last weeks rollback of federal health care protections for transgender men and women. Last Friday was also the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub killings in Orlando.

The decision is a step toward being treated with dignity in a nation that we reside in and contribute to and are a part of, said Houstons Emmett Schelling, 39, executive director for TENT, Transgender Education Network of Texas, a trans-led advocacy group.

Houston lawyer Mitchell Katine had been waiting for the decision since attending oral arguments in the case with his son. This case was so historic, he noted. When the decision came down Monday morning he was thrilled  and not just because of the outcome.

Its really nice to see an independent judiciary, said Katine, who was local counsel for the Houston plaintiffs in perhaps the biggest gay rights case in U.S. history, the 2003 Lawrence v Texas decision that struck down state anti-sodomy laws across America. This is what judges are supposed to be doing: interpreting the law without regard to politics.

Gorsuchs opinion is remarkable in two ways. First, for all its power, the decision is narrowly rendered. Gorsuch sidesteps the landmarks of gay rights litigation, and mentions just once each Lawrence and the 2015 gay marriage case, Obergefell v Hodges. Instead, he grounds his conclusion entirely on the meaning of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Sometimes small gestures can have unexpected consequences, he begins the 32-page opinion. Major initiatives practically guarantee them. In our time, few pieces of federal legislation rank in significance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The opinion also offers a peek inside the court dynamics: Time after time, Gorsuch restates the objections of the dissenting judges  both Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh wrote dissents, with Clarence Thomas joining Alitos  and then rebuts them, point by point.

In that way, legal scholars may well point to the decision in time as a fundamental turning point - a moment when two leading conservatives - Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts - broke with the increasingly isolated right wing of the court to stand up for essential civil rights. But predicting the legacy of court decisions is tricky business.

What is inarguable today is that those who once had reason to hide essential aspects of their identity for fear of losing their jobs can show up to work and declare, if they wish, exactly who they are.

Thats freedom itself, and its a glorious step forward in a time when such progress had seemed to be forever weighted down by partisan bickering.

Ruiz called the victory bittersweet, given how much is at stake in the Black Lives Matters movement.

Black trans women of color are still being killed; two trans women were killed last week, he said. I cant help but wonder how this protection might have changed their two stories. This is just one small piece in our fight for equality.

Houston should seize on Monday's momentum to find a way to protect LGBT people from more than workplace discrimination. Discrimination on the basis of sex in housing and other areas is already forbidden under local ordinance, and those protections should be extended to LGBT people, too. Not because the law requires it, but because fairness does.
LISBON, Portugal - A Colombian businessman linked to the Venezuelan government who is wanted in the United States could be extradited from the Cape Verde islands even though Washington and the West African country have no bilateral extradition treaty, according to Cape Verdes attorney general.

Attorney General Jose Landim says corruption suspect Alex Saab was arrested Friday night on the island of Sal when his plane stopped to refuel in the former Portuguese colony on the way to Iran.

Landim said there is reciprocity between Cape Verde and the U.S. under U.N. conventions on aspects of crime fighting, including corruption and money laundering, which could allow Saab to be extradited.

U.S. officials believe Saab holds many secrets about how Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, his family and top aides allegedly siphoned off millions of dollars in government contracts amid widespread hunger in the oil-rich nation.

Saab was detained on an Interpol warrant at Sal airport, Landim told Cape Verdes public broadcaster, RTCV, late Sunday.

He was set to appear before a judge who will decide on the next steps. The United States must now send a formal extradition request to Cape Verde, according to RTCV.

Officials at the Cape Verde attorney generals office couldnt be reached Monday.

Federal prosecutors in Miami indicted Saab and a business partner last year on money laundering charges connected to an alleged bribery scheme that pocketed more than $350 million from a low-income housing project for the Venezuelan government that was never built.

In private, U.S. officials have long described Saab as a front man for Maduro.

The Trump administration is increasingly going after top officials and business people connected to Maduro.

Venezuela on Saturday demanded Saabs release, calling his arrest an illegal act of aggression by the United States.

Landim said Cape Verdean authorities were obligated to detain Saab because the country is a member of Interpol, which issued the warrant.
June 6 marked the 10th anniversary of the death in police custody of Khaled Said, a young activist who was beaten to death by policemen outside an internet cafe in Alexandria for posting a video showing police officers dividing the spoils from a drug bust.

Images of Said's battered face went viral after they were published on the Facebook page We are all Khaled Said, created by Egyptian activists to bring attention to police brutality and other human rights abuses under Hosni Mubarak's regime. The haunting images provoked outrage among Egyptian social media users, fueling discontent that some months later would escalate into a full-scale mass uprising, forcing Mubarak to step down.

The two policemen responsible for Said's death were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison in a 2014 retrial that followed their appeal of an earlier seven-year sentence they were handed down in October 2011.

This year, the anniversary of Said's death passed without incident, save for a few online memorials published by some activists nostalgic for the brief period in 2011 during and immediately following the uprising when they had believed that democratic change was possible. Their hopes for a freer, more just society have since been dashed, thanks to a restrictive environment that since mid-2013 has seen the arrests and detentions of thousands of opposition figures and government critics, including many of the liberal activists who participated in the 2011 anti-government protests.

Journalists have also been targeted in what some rights groups like Amnesty International have described as an unprecedented crackdown on press freedom.

But the ongoing Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests against racism and police brutality that is reverberating across the globe and which, ironically, coincided with the anniversary of Said's death, have revived memories of the 2011 uprising, rekindling some of the activists' lost hopes for justice and equality in Egypt.

"Ten years ago today, Khaled Said was murdered in my hometown of Alexandria. It was a shocking case of police brutality that rocked Egypt," recalled one Twitter user, who added, "From the Nile to Minneapolis and back  may we all one day reach Tahrir." Tahrir in Arabic means "liberation," but it is also the name of the iconic square in downtown Cairo that was the epicenter of Egypt's mass protests calling for Bread, Freedom and Social Justice.

The anti-racism movement sparked by the killing in police custody of George Floyd, who was arrested over alleged forgery, has evoked mixed reactions in Egypt. Rather than highlight the demands of peaceful protesters for an end to racism and police brutality, Egypt's pro-government media has devoted its coverage almost entirely to the Donald Trump administration's heavy-handed approach to the protests.

"It is a pathetic attempt by the media to 'normalize' police excesses," Rasha El-Ibiary, assistant professor of political communication at Future University, told Al-Monitor. But the media narrative may also be intended as a warning to Egyptians: If police in the United States  a country that takes pride in upholding its democratic ideals  was using such repressive measures, just imagine what the Egyptian government's response would be if protests were to erupt in Egypt, a country ruled by a president whom Trump has described as his "favorite dictator."

TV talk show host Ahmed Moussa has gone a step further, pointing the finger at the "terrorist Muslim Brotherhood" that has been outlawed in Egypt since late 2013, alleging they were exploiting the protests to further their interests. "The United States has given the Muslim Brotherhood a safe haven; anywhere the terrorists go, there is chaos and anarchy," Moussa said in an episode of his show on the Sada El Balad channel.

Egyptian government supporters have largely turned a blind eye to the BLM protests, but some have tried to portray them as anarchic by sharing videos and Fox News accounts of violence, looting and vandalism.

Meanwhile, activists who took part in the Egyptian Revolution are watching the developments in the United States in awe and with a sense of deja vu, with some drawing parallels between the BLM protests and their own uprising.

Mona Seif, an activist who founded the No to Military Trials Campaign in the weeks after the 2011 uprising and whose brother Alaa Abdel Fattah remains imprisoned for his activism, told Al-Monitor, "The courageous defiance of unarmed civilians, protesters losing their eyes, the arrests, and the sense of global hope and solidarity that are pushing people forward remind us of a serious issue that connects us all: police brutality."

Bemused by the striking similarities between the ongoing US protests and their own uprising, some activists shared images and videos of the BLM protestors being tear-gassed, charred police cars and journalists being arrested while reporting from protest sites.

An image of a lone protester standing defiantly before rows of baton-wielding riot police was widely circulated  with a sarcastic caption that read "From America's Mohmed Mahmoud Street"  in reference to the street in downtown Cairo that was the scene of bloody clashes between protesters and security forces on January 28, 2011, otherwise known as the Friday of Rage.

Other social media users like Ramy Raoof, an Amnesty International researcher on privacy and digital safety, expressed solidarity with the anti-racism protestors, sharing tips on digital safety during protests.

A decade after the killing of Said, the relationship between the Egyptian public and the police remains uneasy and lacks trust. "This is largely due to the hundreds of cases of forced disappearances, in prisons and extrajudicial killings, documented by rights groups since mid-July 2013," said Seif.

Seeking to restore public confidence in an institution that for decades has perceived itself as being above the law, the Interior Ministry has reinstated public order with a marked increase in police patrols, and a number of officers have faced trial for abusing the power of their badges. But while police accountability for rights abuses is a far cry from the Mubarak days, the sentences handed down to convicted police officers have often fallen short of the justice hoped for by victims' families. Attempts to reform the police have also included incorporating female officers in special units created to combat sexual harassment.

The mainstream media has, meanwhile, painstakingly sought to polish the image of the police with in-depth coverage of their "heroic" role alongside the military in the ongoing Sinai war on terrorism and interviews with widows of martyred police officers.

It is telling perhaps that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has warned citizens against criticizing the police and the army, arguing that such criticism is "tantamount to treason.
One Indian Army Soldier Killed, Three Injured in Cross-Border Firefight in Kashmir

Sputnik News

05:54 GMT 14.06.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): India and Pakistan have been accusing each other of constant ceasefire violations across the Line of Control (LoC), a de-facto border dividing the two countries.

An army soldier was killed and three others were injured in a firefight with Pakistan in India's Jammu and Kashmir's Kerni sector along Poonch district of Line of Control.

According to sources, the heavy exchange of fire has been underway between the two arch-rivals since Saturday night in Kerni sector.

The soldier died while receiving treatment at the hospital and the other three remain in stable condition.

On Saturday, India accused Pakistan of violating their ceasefire 2,000 times in six months. Defence Spokesperson Lt Col Devender Anand said that there has been an "astonishing" spike in ceasefire violations since the change of the status of Indiaadministered Jammu and Kashmir.

"The 2020 figure for ceasefire violations is astonishing, in less than six months there have been more than 2,000 violations. If we compare with past years, there weren't as many violations throughout 2018" Anand said.

Last month, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry accused India of violating the ceasefire 957 times this year. India and Pakistan have been at odds over Jammu and Kashmir since gaining independence from British rule in 1947 and have fought several wars over the restive region.

 Sputnik

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A ritual for a pilgrim on a visit to the Ganga Sagar island -- such as feeding stray dogs and cows on the beach and in and around the Kapil Muni temple after taking a holy dip at the confluence of the Ganges river and the Bay of Bengal -- has come to a standstill since March 25, when nationwide lockdown restrictions were enforced to contain the spread of the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

Not a single pilgrim or tourist has visited the island since March 25, according to the South 24 Parganas district authorities, which have taken upon themselves to feed the vagabond animals.

Every day cooked food  mostly khichdi made of rice, dal, and potato  is being provided to around 250 dogs that live in and around the shrine complex and on the beach. Theyd have starved had we not fed them. The animals have depended on pilgrims for years for their daily sustenance, said Sudipta Mandal, block development officer (BDO), Sagar Island.

The Ganga Sagar mela, which is held on the island every year in mid-January, is the second-largest congregation of Hindu pilgrims in the country after the Kumbh Mela. Over 4.5 million pilgrims took the holy dip this year on Makar Sankranti.

Around 1,500 Hindu pilgrims from across the country used to visit the island daily. But that has stopped since the pandemic broke out in end-March.

Every day, at around 7.30am, the kitchen at the panchayat samitys guesthouse on the island comes alive, as at least four persons are engaged in preparing food.

In pre-Covid-19 times, the guesthouse would cater to pilgrims and tourists, who thronged the island.

Now, the kitchen is being used to prepare food for the days, who are fed twice a day  at around 10:30 and 7 pm. Unlike humans, who like their food to be served piping hot, dogs are used to cold food. So, weve to start our days early, said Milan Das, one of the kitchen supervisors.

Around 4kg of rice, 2kg of dal, and an equal quantity of potato are cooked twice a day to feed the local stray population. The food is then loaded on e-rickshaws in large containers and taken to the beach, where the dogs are served on paper plates and later collected and disposed of.

Initially, during the first week of the lockdown, the dogs were fed with dry food such as biscuits. Later, the district administration decided to serve cooked food to the dogs. The district authorities are bearing the cost to feed the stray animals, said Mandal.

The Sagar Island was one of the worst-hit areas when cyclone Amphan hit the Bengal coast on May 20 with a wind speed gusting up to185 kilometres (km) per hour.

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Bennett is the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Kentuckys Lexington Herald-Leader who shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her reporting at the Wall Street Journal. She also led a Pulitzer-winning investigation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as an editor at the Oregonian in Portland. (She is married to Donald Graham, the former publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post.)
Ten years on from the publication of the Saville report and David Cameron's apology, two women whose brothers were murdered on Bloody Sunday have recalled that historic day.

Jean Hegarty's 17-year-old brother Kevin McElhinney was shot dead as he crawled to safety near the entrance to the Rossvile Street flats.

Kay Duddy's brother Jackie Duddy, who was also 17, was shot as he ran from soldiers in the car park of the same building.

On this day 10 years ago, June 15, 2010, the women stood on the steps of the Guildhall in front of thousands of people and TV cameras from around the world and spoke about their beloved brothers, who had been totally exonerated by Lord Saville's report.

At 10am that morning two family members of each Bloody Sunday victim were allowed into the Guildhall to read the report in full.

Legal teams acting for the families had been permitted to view it four hours earlier and were able to guide them through the findings.

Mrs Hegarty remembers the 'huge elation' after reading the report but this was quickly followed by the horrible disappointment that Lord Saville found Bloody Sunday victim Gerald Donaghey, 17, was 'probably carrying nail bombs in his pocket', something his family have always refuted.

"That was like a punch in the gut," said Mrs Hegarty.

"The Donaghey family was very, very upset and the day was tinged by it.

"It brought us back down to earth really quickly.

"I was really angry. Why did he say 'probably'?

"He could just have said that they couldn't decide.

"His choice of words was so hurtful."

Last year, Soldier F was charged the murder of James Wray and William McKinney and the attempted murder of four other men Patrick O'Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and Michael Quinn

Mrs Hegarty said she is disappointed charges have not been brought over the 12 other murders.

"It's a bit of a sad milestone because we are 10 years on and nothing really has changed," she said.

"How much further forward are we really?

"All the death and injuries that were suffered and just one soldier is facing prosecution. It beggars belief."

In a televised speech to MPs in the House of Commons that was broadcast live to the Guildhall Square that day, Prime Minister David Cameron said "There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities.

"What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong."

Mrs Hegarty remembers being stunned.

"My chin just hit the floor.

"He apologised and he did come across like he meant it.

"It wasn't wishy washy."

Mrs Hegarty and her brothers and sister made two special trips that day - one to the cemetery to visit their brother's grave and one to the hospital to visit their father, Lawrence McElhinney.

He was the last surviving parent of a Bloody Sunday victim and died the following year.

"My father was a bit nonplussed to be honest," said Mrs Hegarty.

"He was a bit like 'sure, I already knew that'."

Derry novelist and dramatist Dave Duggan had been asked to help the families coordinate their public response to the findings of the Saville Report.

He had a long working history with them and had written a play about the Saville Inquiry called 'Scenes From an Inquiry' which has been digitally recorded for the Bloody Sunday Trust to mark the 10th anniversary of the publication of the Saville Report.

"I had a very good relationship with them all," he recalled.

"I found them all to be very fine people who were very politically aware and justice aware, but also very funny and generous.

"That generosity was a human characteristic of them all."

It was agreed that a representative of each of the Bloody Sunday families would speak on the steps of the Guildhall, following David Cameron's speech.

Mr Duggan suggested they use theatrical device called a litany, where every family would say their loved one's name and repeat that they were innocent.

Before the families stepped outside the Guildhall and into the glare of world's media, Mr Duggan gave them some final directions.

"I told them to keep it together and reminded them that millions of people would be watching this and that their grandchildren and great grandchildren would watch it some day," he said.

The family members stood in an arc and gave forward in groups of two to speak about their loved one.

Mrs Hegarty, who had bought a copy of the Widgery report years before, had planned to place it on a set of old fashioned weighing scales, with the Saville report on the other side, but her plans changed at the last minute.

"My weighing scales were in my car, which was in Glenfada Park," she recalled.

"It just came to me 'will I rip this [The Widgery Report] up?' she said.

The photographs of Mrs Hegarty tearing the report were to become one of the most iconic images of the day.

"It was a charged gesture," said Mr Duggan. "So theatrical and powerful."

"I remember sitting in Tinney's Bar afterwards and I said to my friend 'that is the best piece of theatre I have ever made' and he said 'But you've been nominated for an Oscar?' and I said 'that was a 107million times better'.

Kay Duddy read out her family's statement while clutching the handkerchief that was waved by Bishop Daly as he tried to clear a path for her dying brother as he was carried through the streets of the Bogside.

"After the report was announced we met Bishop Daly and that was so special to us," she said.

"It was a relief to him that Jackie's name had been cleared because he said all along that he was innocent.

"It's hard to believe that was 10 years ago because it has gone by in the blink of an eye.

"It was a very surreal day. It was one of those days where you just remember bits of it because a lot of it went over your head.

"A few days later I was flicking channels on the TV and David Cameron came on speaking in parliament about it and I just sat and cried like a baby."

Ms Duddy remembers the day the report was published was very sunny and said it felt like the sun was shining for the victims of Bloody Sunday and their loved ones.

"It felt like the sun was shining for us and that a big black cloud had been lifted from the families.

"It was nearly like a big blackcloud had been hanging over the whole city.

"The sad thing was that there is still a cloud over young Gerald Donaghey.

"If you read what Widgery said and what Saville said about him the two statements are almost the same verbatim, and it was so disappointing.

"His sister Mary was battling cancer at that time and she had fought her whole life to clear his name.

"They couldn't share in the enjoyment because there was still a cloud hanging over him."

Like Jean Hegarty, Kay Duddy feels her family has been let down by the justice system because no one is facing prosecution for her brother's murder.

"It has been very disappointing for most of the families, but we are very happy for the families that have got prosecutions.

"I hope and pray for those families that their journey doesn't go on too long."
As calls to defund law enforcement reach a fever pitch nationwide, New Mexico's largest city is answering concerns about its police department by forming an alternative.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller (D) announced Monday the formation of a new public safety department designed to relieve stress on the city's police. Instead of the police or fire departments responding to 911 calls related to inebriation, homelessness, addiction and mental health, the new division will deploy unarmed personnel made up of social workers, housing and homelessness specialists and violence prevention coordinators.

The department, called Albuquerque Community Safety, may be the first of its kind, experts say. A spokesperson for the mayor told The Washington Post the new department was partially the city's response to the "defund the police" movement.

"There is a huge portion of our community that doesn't necessarily want two officers showing up when they call about a situation with respect to behavioral and mental health," the mayor said in an interview Sunday. "So this is a new path forward for us that has been illuminated because of what we've learned during these times. Look, there's political will; there was not political will to make this huge of a step three weeks ago."

Albuquerque's plan for a new branch of public safety comes amid a nationwide movement to slash police department funding after George Floyd's in police custody in Minneapolis.

The national protests fueled by racial tensions spilled into the streets of Albuquerque, where black or African American people make up less than 3 percent of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

City leaders in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, have announced steps that would curtail law enforcement spending or diminish the police footprint in their cities. The Minneapolis City Council announced it was prepared to dismantle the police department altogether.

And, like Albuquerque, some cities have already put in place measures to disentangle armed law enforcement from substance abuse, mental health or homelessness issues. But the formation of a new public safety department is a new approach, according to Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a professor of history, race and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

"Defund the police" as a popular slogan for defunding, abolishing or divesting in police agencies represents a constellation of 50 organizations and millions of activists nationwide who should be a part of any solution a city proposes for it to count as meaningful change, he said.

"A department of public safety that sends out people who are not committed to sustaining life but are simply committed to not dispensing corporal punishment and arresting people seems to me to be a difference without distinction," he said.

During his announcement Monday, Keller said this isn't the first police reform he's implemented. In January, Albuquerque's municipal grounds security department partially took over public inebriation calls. More than a year ago, the city tasked mobile response teams with connecting the chronic homeless with resources.

In a meeting with his staff early Monday morning, Albuquerque Police Chief Mike Geier said his officers were "relieved" by the news that many of their calls would shift to the new community safety department.

"This is the solution" to overburdened police departments nationwide, Geier told The Washington Post. He said he's tired of his officers saying "there's nothing we can do."

"There's always something somebody can do," the chief said.

Keller's announcement of the new department comes as the police department for the Southwestern city of more than half a million faces federal oversight because of its problematic history with use of force.

Since 2014, a federal monitor has reviewed Albuquerque police operations after the city reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. A DOJ investigation the year prior revealed "a culture of aggression" that had resulted in rough arrests, dozens of police-involved shootings and costly lawsuits.

There have been at least 36 officer-involved shootings in Albuquerque since 2015, according to media reports and The Washington Post's officer-involved shooting database.

In its latest report last month, the Justice Department-appointed independent monitor found examples of command-level personnel who attempted to delay oversight processes until after remedial measures had expired and others who remain resolutely "counter-CASA," or court-approved settlement agreement. The monitor, James Ginger, said that those individuals are beginning to face pressure from others in the department, but "this pressure is neither uniform nor persistent," he wrote.

City staff will review the budgets for departments including the police to find "tens of millions of dollars" to fund the new agency, Chief Administrative Officer Sarita Nair told The Washington Post in an interview Sunday. Funding won't be taken from "core police work," the city said. The financial footprint of the police will be lessened gradually with this change.

Albuquerque spends more than $300 million on public safety, two-thirds of which makes up police department funding. Nair said the city has already identified about 10 percent of that budget that is devoted to non-enforcement activities.

Shaun Willoughby, the president of Albuquerque Police Officers' Association, said the police officers' union doesn't support taking funds from the police department, as it is already underfunded due to the coronavirus pandemic and costly federal oversight. The department has a shortage of about 400 officers.

"This isn't the agency to take from," Willoughby said of the police budget. "We can't rob Peter to pay Paul. I know it's a popular focal point but police departments across the country have been underfunded for years."

But the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, which has increasingly put pressure on Albuquerque city leaders to institute stricter police reforms in the wake of the DOJ investigation, says that budgetary changes are also necessary. Last week, ACLU director Peter Simonson told local news station KOAT 7 that defunding the police means reprioritizing and reallocating resources to unarmed professionals.

Barron Jones, ACLU-New Mexico policy strategist, told The Washington Post that success in Albuquerque looks like a police department that no longer escalates conflict, bringing armed officers to mental health crises or minor substance abuse violations.

A black man who was formerly incarcerated, Jones said he has been on the receiving end of APD violence himself.

"I have been on the ground in fear of my life, gasping for breath," he said. "This is real. It's personal for me."
The Minister of Trade and Consumer Protection has discuss measure that could be take by the Damascus Chamber of Commerce, to support the markets and less the effects of sanctions reports Alsouria Net.

Talal Barazi, Minister of Trade and Consumer Protection, visited the Damascus Chamber of Commerce. The President of the Chamber of Commerce, Ghassan Qalaa, said such a visit had not happened in half a century, as traders are the ones to take it upon themselves to visit the minister, and not the other way around.

According to Al-Watan, Qalaa said, Barazi has set a precedent. This is the first visit of its kind to the Damascus Chamber of Commerce in 47 years. Previously, the merchants were the one who visited [the minister].

The meeting between Barazi and the Damascus merchants comes with the aim of, looking at the reality of commercial markets and guaranteeing the flow of goods and price stability in a way that serves the country, merchants and citizens.

He added, I am mobilizing you, knowing that more than 50 or 60 of you are entrepreneurs, to bridge the gaps. I call on you so that today we can have the will to defy and remain steadfast through initiatives, and our pound will improve.

Barazi said, It is up to merchants to contribute to social responsibility, which starts with helping a few families and broadens to expand the workforce and employment. Merchants make a huge contribution to the economy and are looked upon with respect, including the smallest commercial store employing just two workers.

For their part, merchants announced the launch of initiatives, including lowering prices, and asked the government to extend opening hours permitted for stores to 10pm, after they were ordered to shut at 7pm due to coronavirus.

The Assad government has intensified meetings between ministers and businessmen in the past several days, aiming to rely on local production to face sanctions.

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.
China reported dozens of new coronavirus cases for the second consecutive day on Monday as a growing cluster of infections stoked fears of a second wave, while more borders were opened in Europe ahead of the summer holiday season.

Streams of people queued in a stadium as mass testing was carried out in Beijing, the capital of the country where the disease emerged late last year.

Health workers test people who visited or live near the Xinfadi Market in Beijing. By Noel Celis (AFP)

The pandemic is gathering pace in Latin America, and Iran and India have reported worrying increases in deaths and infections -- adding to concern over challenges the world will face in the long fight against COVID-19.

But for the moment news has been better in Europe, which has mostly seen caseloads fall steadily in recent weeks.

A supporter of the Brazilian president speaks to a soldier at a protest against a decision by Brasilia's governor to prevent crowds from attending Jair Bolsonaro's rallies. By Sergio LIMA (AFP)

Many countries are further lifting painful lockdowns that have saved lives, but have also devastated economies and wearied confined populations.

"Very few people have been infected... it's why I've chosen to travel to Santorini. Next week I'm going to Crete," Max Han, a young Chinese tourist, told AFP on the Greek island as he admired the sunset.

Journalists film as Swiss customs officers open a barrier on the Swiss-French border in Thonex. By Fabrice COFFRINI (AFP)

Greece is already allowing travellers from nations deemed low-risk, and on Monday it opened its borders to EU countries -- as did Germany, Belgium, France, with Austria to follow the next day.

China was the first country to implement extreme restrictions on movement early this year, forcing local transmission down to near-zero as the crisis walloped the rest of the world.

But on Monday Chinese health officials reported there have now been 75 cases of the respiratory illness in Beijing where the fresh cluster has been linked to a wholesale food market.

Indonesian doctors, nurses and volunteers conduct morning workouts along with patients with mild COVID-19 symptoms at a quarantine house in Tangerang. By ADEK BERRY (AFP)

More than 10,000 people there have already been tested, including workers at the Xinfadi market, local residents and anyone who visited it in recent weeks.

Officials have said they plan to test 46,000 people who live in the area, and a strict lockdown was extended across 21 neighbourhoods in the capital.

'Micro-outbreaks'

More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from COVID-19, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged by the crisis.

Many countries are further lifting painful lockdowns. By Apu GOMES (AFP)

The United States -- by far the hardest-hit country with more than 115,700 recorded fatalities -- on Monday reported its lowest 24-hour death toll since its infection rate peaked in mid-April.

President Donald Trump's administration has noted that some states have seen new flare-ups, but insists there will be no shutdown of the economy if a second full-blown wave arises.

People rest in front of the famous Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of nations) fountain in Moscow. By Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV (AFP)

The Middle East's worst-hit country, Iran, reported its own uptick on Sunday, recording more than 100 new virus deaths in a single day for the first time in two months.

And there have been two new outbreaks in Rome, with 109 infections including five deaths diagnosed at a hospital and 15 cases detected at a building inhabited by squatters.

"It means the virus hasn't lost its infectiousness, it isn't weakening... we shouldn't let down our guard," World Health Organization deputy director Ranieri Guerra told Italian journalists.

Knights of various orders march wearing face masks during the Corpus Christi procession at the cathedral in Barcelona. By Josep LAGO (AFP)

"Such micro-outbreaks were inevitable, but they are limited in time and space. And today we have the tools to intercept them and confine them."

Despite fears over fresh clusters, many countries are making moves towards semi-normality.

Egypt is set to welcome tourists to beach resorts in July, and Peru's Machu Picchu will also reopen next month, although it will sharply reduce the number of daily visitors.

And the English Premier League finally makes its long-awaited return this week following a three-month virus suspension.

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Noida, June 16 : At least 76 people tested positive for the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) on Monday in Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Buddh Nagar, taking the total number of infected cases in the district to 1,011, officials said.

Gautam Buddh Nagar Surveillance Officer Sunil Dohare said three persons including a 70-year-old man -- a resident of Sector 76, have died on Monday. Besides, a 42-year-old man of Nithari village, and a 29-year-old man of Sector 57, have also died.

"However, the Health Department is yet to ascertain whether they died of coronavirus," Dohra said.

Meanwhile, Alok Singh, Police Commissioner of Gautam Budh Nagar, visited a hospital to meet the Corona-infected police personnel undergoing treatment there.

He urged the doctors to provide the best possible treatment to the policemen. He also asked the infected police personnel to do Yoga-Pranayam regularly.

Health camps have been set up at 12 places in Gautam Buddh Nagar including Mamura, Nithari, Sarfabad, Harola, Sector 8, Sector 9, and Sector 10. A total 723 people have been screened at these places out of which 15 showed signs of fever. They have been admitted to hospitals.

A total of 1,011 infected cases have been reported in the district out of which 489 infected patients are under treatment. So far, 510 patients have returned to their homes after recovering.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Realme Philippines, the lifestyle partner of the youth, invites its fans and followers to rev up their artistic side and let imagination run wild in the #realmeDoodleChallenge to get a chance to win exclusive prizes.

Taking pride in being a brand for the youth, realme Philippines continues to be committed to coming up with ways in keeping the youth entertained and connected while staying safe at home. The doodle contest takes inspiration from the earlier works of the talented realme community members who have previously shared their creative doodles on the realme smartphone boxes. One of those that garnered much attention is a doodle inspired by the world-renowned Van Gogh masterpiece, Starry Night. Later on, realme Philippines decided that this would be a perfect avenue for the realme squad to showcase their artistry and creativity.

The #realmeDoodleChallenge aims to unleash the youths creative potential as they express themselves through fun and quirky doodles. To join, members of the realme Philippines Community are highly encouraged to let colors and creativity flow as they customize their own realme smartphone boxes. Participants must upload their creative entries on their Facebook account, with the hashtag #realmeDoodleChallenge included in the caption. All posts must be set in public. Two winners will be announced on June 15,2020 on the realme Philippines official Facebook page.
The army of Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) denounced in an official statement on Monday the dreadful acts that attempt to propagate hostility and hatred between the Libyan and Egyptian peoples, after the kidnapping and abuse of Egyptian workers in Libya.

The GNA said the criminal group depicted in the video abusing Egyptian workers were claiming to be part of the Volcano of Rage men in Misrata, and that they only aim to distort the image of the GNA and the cities of the Libyan revolution.

The GNA assured in its statement that the Volcano of Rage men will arrest those responsible for the incident.

The army stressed that the newspaper responsible for circulating the video is dubious and serves foreign agendas aiming at harming the Libyan people.

A video that has been recently circulated showed militias loyal to the GNA arresting and assaulting Egyptian workers in Libya.

The video caused outrage in Egypt, which prompted Egypts Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal and immigration minister Nabila Makram to promise that the country will take a stand at the right time against the incident.



Libya has been divided between two rival factions: an internationally recognised government based in the capital Tripoli and the Libyan National Army (LNA) of eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar. Egypt has been a prominent backer of Haftar in recent years.



Earlier this month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi announced a peace initiative to end the civil war in Libya that includes a cease and was endorsed by Haftar.

Meanwhile, spokesman of the LNA Ahmed Al-Mesmary apologised to the Egyptian people over the kidnapping and abuse of Egyptian workers in Libya, stressing that the perpetrators are militias supported by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The LNA spokesman said in a phone call on Monday with Sada Al-Balad TV Channel that the LNA was able to identify and locate the perpetrators.

According to Al-Mesmary, the video was shot at the headquarters of Al-Hazm militia in Misrata, calling the militia a very dangerous terrorist organisation.

Al-Mesmary said the Egyptians in the video are innocent workers with no ties to the Libyan domestic affairs, arguing that they are paying the price for the Egyptian stance towards the crisis in Libya.

According to Al-Mesmary, the incident depicted in the video resembles hundreds of documented crimes occurring in Libya that are being committed against both Libyan nationals and foreigners by militias supported by Erdogan.

We apologise to the Egyptian people and the Egyptian leadership for such awful acts that are not representative of Libyans or Libyan morals but of the militias supported by Erdogan, Al-Mesmary said.

The LNA spokesman said the army are not sure about the exact number of the kidnapped Egyptians, but that according to the video they number between 19 and 22.

All the militia loyal to Erdogan consider any libyan in East Libya and any Egyptian an enemy . . . they always threaten the LNA, the Egyptian army and Egypt, Al-Mesmary added.

In a statement on Sunday, the GNA interior ministry denounced the incident, calling it a criminal act.

The GNA said it is looking into the authenticity of the video and investigating the loyalty of the militia in it, promising that after the investigation, the perpetrators will be brought to justice.

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Lebanon PM says coup attempt fell apart after violent riots

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 8:29 AM

Lebanon's Prime Minister Hassan Diab has condemned the recent violent street protests, saying they were an attempt by opponents to overthrow his government and deepen a currency crisis in the debt-ridden country.

Diab made the remarks in a televised address late Saturday after demonstrations rocked the cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon on Thursday, with participants calling for the government's resignation.

Diab said his political opponents were stirring unrest in a bid to thwart the government's fight against corruption.

The unrest was "a programmed campaign organized by parties known by name and method of thinking that are not deterred from using any method to shatter the image of others," Diab said.

However, the Lebanese administration enjoys "a high percentage of citizens' confidence, which has disturbed many of those who bet on its failure" and try to pump "lies and rumors to prevent the government from removing the rubble under which the secrets of corruption disappear," he added.

Diab took office in January with Hezbollah's backing, putting an end to a nine-month political deadlock amid an economic crisis and nationwide protests against the nation's ruling class.

In his televised address Saturday, the Lebanese premier censured efforts to mount a "coup" against the government and manipulate the value of the Lebanese pound.

"The state and the people are being subjected to blackmail," Diab said as he vowed to defeat graft in the cash-strapped country.

"The coup attempt fell apart and all secret and public meetings and orders of internal and joint operations to stop discovering of corruption failed as well," he added.

Anti-government protests broke out in Lebanon on Thursday after a rapid devaluation of the national currency against the US dollar. The Lebanese pound has lost some 70 percent of its value over the past several months.

The crash in the Lebanese pound's value and subsequent unrest coincided with the unveiling of the biggest-ever US sanctions package against Iran, which also targets Lebanon.

The 115-page strategy document put together by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest Republican caucus in Congress, called for a halt of all US security assistance to Beirut, claiming that millions of dollars given to Lebanon were being used to aid Hezbollah.

The US gives about $160 million to the Lebanese armed forces each year.

The Republican document specifically calls for sanctions against Hezbollah allies, mentioning former foreign minister Gibran Bassil and incumbent Parliament speaker Nabih Berri by name.

Back in 2016, Saudi Arabia also declared that it was canceling $4 billion in aid to Beirut, $3 billion of which was earmarked for the Lebanese army.

Latest street rallies resembled those that broke out in Lebanon on October 17, 2019, when the government introduced a set of economic austerity measures.

Then prime minister Saad al-Hariri resigned almost two weeks later under pressure from protesters, touching off a period of political turmoil at a time of acute economic crisis.

In December 2019, Diab was tasked with forming the new administration and the following month, he managed to form a government after Hezbollah and its allies agreed on the new cabinet.

The downward political spiral for Hariri followed his humiliating saga in Saudi Arabia where he announced his surprise resignation in November 2017, apparently under the orders of Saudi rulers.

Hariri rescinded his withdrawal after returning to Lebanon, apparently putting himself on a collision course with his Saudi mentors, which culminated in his resignation amid violent riots.

According to a UN report, Hariri was verbally humiliated and beaten after being summoned to Riyadh in 2017. He was reportedly abducted and taken to the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton hotel where he was interrogated and subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment.

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The police on Monday arraigned two corps members in a Life Camp Magistrates Court for allegedly assaulting their co-tenant.

The police charged Phoebe George, 23, and Uzoma Chiwendu, 23, both corps members of Marcon Estate, Life Camp, Abuja, with joint act, assault and criminal intimidation.

The prosecution counsel, Peter Ejike, told the court that the complainant, Ajoke Ajondele of Marcon Estate, Life Camp Abuja, reported the matter at Life Camp Police Station, on June 2.

Mr Ejike alleged that on the said date, while the complainant was driving out of the house, the defendants grabbed and dragged her out of her car and began to assault her.

The prosecutor alleged that the defendants assaulted Ms Ajondele, causing her severe body injury, smashed her phone, destroyed her hair wig and wristwatch and threatened her, thereby putting her life in danger.

Mr Ejike alleged that the defendants had consistently assaulted the complainant and made life unbearable for her since she moved into the building.

He said during police investigation both defendants admitted to the assault.

The offence, he said, contravened the provisions of sections 79, 265 and 397 of the Penal Code Law.

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George and Chiwandu, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Magistrate, Chinyere Nwecheonwu, admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N100,000 each and one surety each in like sum.

Ms Nwecheonwu ordered that the sureties must have a means of livelihood, a valid identity card, fixed address and must live within the jurisdiction of the court.

She adjourned the matter until July 21, for hearing. (NAN)
V Nilesh By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Waking up belatedly, the Telangana government on Sunday announced a slew of measures for effective management of COVID-19. It appears to have realised that it is woefully wanting in measures needed to rein in the Coronavirus, following trenchant criticism of its policies which gave scope for the infection to spread far and wide.

Though the measures that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced, which includes extensive random testing  about 50,000 people in 30 constituencies in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Vikarabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts in a span of 10 days, allowing private hospitals to treat COVID-19 and diagnostic facilities to test the virus and fixing fee for the services, the sibling State of Andhra Pradesh, since the beginning, pulled out all stops in containing the spread of the virus.

ALSO READ| COVID-19: Private schools in Telangana may find social distancing an uphill task

The realisation seems to have dawned on the Telangana Chief Minister a little late following flak from several quarters that the State was under-testing.

The State's policy of not allowing private hospitals and diagnostic facilities to deal with the virus for fear of exploitation of the poor and the middle-class only added to the burden on the doctors and the other support staff deployed at Gandhi Hospital as it is the only COVID-19 designated hospital in the entire State.

This has, in fact, led to frayed tempers not only among doctors but also patients and their attendants. This has led to clashes at the hospital.

More recently, the attendants of a deceased patient beat up a doctor and in protest, doctors went on strike for nearly two days which only exacerbated the situation at Gandhi Hospital.

ALSO READ| COVID-19: Telangana MLA Bajireddy Govardhan tests positive; second state lawmaker to contract virus

Contrasting scenario

In contrast, Andhra Pradesh government went for extensive testing in the beginning of the pandemic to get to the bottom of the problem and deal with it rather than limiting tests to a few suspects and live in a make-believe world that Coronavirus was on the wane.

In Telangana, there were doubts about the actual number of COVID-19 patients as the State has tested less than 50,000 suspected cases but has recorded 4,737 positive cases as on June 13. In the case of Andhra Pradesh, even though the State has an almost equal number of cases recorded as on June 14 - 4,841 positive cases, it has conducted tests on over five lakh samples.

Though the tests were more, the toll was less in Andhra Pradesh but in Telangana, though tests were less, the toll was more which is a disconcerting symptom that the malaise has dug deep roots. Till June 14, Telangana recorded 185 deaths while Andhra Pradesh recorded only 84 deaths.

ALSO READ| Telangana citizens urge politicians to avoid mass gatherings amid COVID-19 pandemic

K Chandrasekhar Rao asks citizens to not panic during COVID-19 tests

The Telangana Chief Minister at his review meeting on Sunday appeared very serious and keen on testing the suspects extensively. He wanted the officials to go through the COVID-19 guidelines and accordingly fix the fee to be charged by private institutions for treatment of COVID-19.

He wanted officials to draft the services of private hospitals for taking up the massive exercise of testing of 50,000 patients. He wanted officials to offer home quarantine to those who test positive but have mild symptoms. The Chief Minister wanted the people not to panic since the officials would be out testing 50,000 people at one go. "This is only a precautionary measure," he said.

Andhra Pradesh pulled out all stops in containing virus

Though now the measures that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao announced, which includes extensive random testing -- about 50,000 people in 30 constituencies in Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Vikarabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts in a span of 10 days, allowing private hospitals to treat Covid-19 and diagnostic facilities to test the virus and fixing fee for the services, the sibling State of Andhra Pradesh, since the beginning, pulled out all stops in containing the spread of the virus.
OTTAWA - The Canadian Armed Forces is expected to share its plan for getting its Cyclone helicopters back in the air on Tuesday, even as military investigators continue to probe the cause of the deadly crash that forced the fleet to be temporarily grounded.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CF members and EDT Hercules personnel inspect recovered parts of the helicopter Stalker 22 during recovery operations for the aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea on May 31, 2020. Flight investigators have determined the military helicopter that crashed off the coast of Greece in April did not respond as the crew on board expected before going down into the Mediterranean Sea. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Department of National Defence, Cdr Robert Watt, *MANDATORY CREDIT*

OTTAWA - The Canadian Armed Forces is expected to share its plan for getting its Cyclone helicopters back in the air on Tuesday, even as military investigators continue to probe the cause of the deadly crash that forced the fleet to be temporarily grounded.

The Cyclone fleet has been subject to an "operational pause" since April, when the helicopter known as Stalker 22 crashed off the coast of Greece while preparing to land on a Canadian frigate in the Ionian Sea. All six military personnel on board were killed.

A preliminary investigation report released last week said without providing details that Stalker 22 did not respond as the crew expected prior to going into the water, and that investigators were now focusing on "aircraft systems and human factors."

While the Department of National Defence has confirmed the investigation continues, senior military officials were scheduled to provide an update Tuesday on the lifting of the operational pause and resumption of flights for the rest of the Cyclone fleet.

Royal Canadian Air force commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger said last week that the temporary ground would continue "until a risk assessment on the fleet can be conducted."

"With the co-operation of the directorate of flight safety, a team of airworthiness experts are working closely to develop a plan to methodically and safely return the fleet to operations," he said. "This is critical work and we will take the time to do it right."

The preliminary investigation report did not delve into the specific causes of Stalker 22's crash, but much of the discussion around the incident has focused on the Cyclone fleet's long and problem-plagued development before becoming operational in 2018.

That includes an incident in March 2017, when a software problem in the flight control system caused one of the helicopters to suddenly drop during a test flight. Officials have said the glitch that caused the "triple reset" was subsequently fixed.

That incident led to a nine-week operational pause. Even after it was lifted, some restrictions were placed on the helicopters forbidding crews from performing certain manoeuvres and operations before being eventually phased out.

It remains to be seen whether a similar approach will be taken this time around.

Another Cyclone had a "hard landing" on board the navy's interim support ship while deployed in the Pacific in February, 2019. The helicopter's manufacturer, Sikorsky Aircraft, is continuing to develop the aircraft's software to meet the military's full requirements.

That history had raised concerns about whether the cause of Stalker 22's crash is systemic across the rest of the Cyclone fleet. Sikorsky was to have built 28 fully functioning Cyclones by now, but has so far only provided 18.

The helicopters are typically deployed on board Canadian frigates and used for search and rescue, surveillance and anti-submarine warfare.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut Media

NORWALK  City police responded to another call for a self-inflicted shooting Thursday night, less than 6 hours after the first incident at a gun and archery range.

Around 6 p.m., a source familiar with the incident said a man died from a gunshot wound in the parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles on Main Avenue
Jacob Bellevue, 16, had wanted for weeks to join the protests that have been happening in Harrisburg against police practices that discriminate against black people.

But his parents, who are from Haiti, a country mired in poverty, corruption and violent unrest, were worried about him. They had seen videos of other protests in Harrisburg and across the nation that ended in violence and tear gas and suggested he fight for rights via online petitions.

Jacob, however, continued to press them to allow him to attend a protest. The Lower Paxton teen wanted his voice heard. He wanted to march in solidarity.

On Sunday, he finally attended his first protest in downtown Harrisburg, organized by community activist Kevin Maxson and the Black Lives Matter group.

I made the decision, Jacob said. I took it into my own hands and came.

Bellevues older sister attended with him, along with about 100 other people asking for dramatic police reforms. The two-hour event on the Capitol steps, which included a march to police headquarters and back, remained entirely peaceful. Many of the protesters wore masks to protect against the spread of COVID-19.

What spurred Jacob to action, he said, was his desire to see convictions for the Minneapolis officers involved in the death of George Floyd. He also wanted to show support for the movement to defund police departments, which doesnt mean abolishing them, but rather diverting some of the funding that used to support their activities to programs that directly benefit residents.

He also believes black communities are over-policed, meaning officers make more arrests there, disproportionately locking up black people.

Most of my life, Ive lived in fear, Jacob said. When Im with my parents, if we get pulled over by the police, I get really nervous.

Jacob said his fear stems from the deaths of unarmed black people in police custody and the fact that it keeps on happening, even as people across the nation are protesting against police.

Lyndsey Singleton attended the June 14, 2020 rally with her son PJ Williams.

For Lyndsey Singleton, Sundays rally was her fourth against police brutality and racism. The Enola woman had her 6-year-old son PJ in a carrier on her back.

This is my reason for being here, she said, pointing to her son. We talk about all of this. He made his own sign today. This is not okay. I dont want him to grow up in a world where hes scared of cops or where people look at him differently because of his skin color.

Singleton said she was disappointed that many legislators were not out protesting with residents, showing they are not for the community. People need to vote and hold them accountable.

They cant be our voice if they dont come out here and stand with us, she said.

Joshua Myers attended the June 14, 2020 rally with his wife Krystin Myers.

Joshua Myers of Hummelstown said the rally Sunday was his second. He helped to organized a protest in his hometown on Saturday, which was a first for the predominantly white-community, he said.

Myers grew up on 18th Street in Harrisburg and said he was the only white kid in his neighborhood, so he can relate to how black people may feel in a white-dominated world.

He wanted to open some eyes in Hummeltown to the problems faced by black people, but Myers said his efforts and protest Saturday prompted hundreds of hateful online comments toward him.

People were telling me to go back to Harrisburg, Myers said. I have lost some friends over this already. But Im not going to stop.

Myers said the protest in Hummelstown on Saturday drew about 450 people but didnt include the mayor or police chief, who ignored his invitations. The police department also would not assist them with closing down streets so they could march in the street, like Harrisburg police do for protests in the city, Myers said, so protesters marched on the sidewalk.

We did it on our own, he said. We had to work around them but we still did it. We all have to do something and be part of the solution.

Kevin Maxson speaks during Black Lives Matter rally and march stop in front of the police station in Harrisburg, Pa., June 14, 2020. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com

Protest organizer Kevin Maxson said he wanted protesters to think about whats next, and what protesters can do to enact real, lasting changes that would benefit people of color.

I still live in fear every day, he said. The police are called on my household at least once a week. They may say were looking in cars. They may say were gathering in front of my house. They may say we gotta be selling drugs. They may say were criminals. Were thugs. But my target never fades no matter how humble I am...no matter much good I do in my community. Im still a target. I dont want to live in fear no more.

Maxson advocated for people to focus on action, not just marches or comments on social media. He said people should consider working for corrupt systems that are currently failing black people to change it from the inside out.

Maxson also said residents should vote legislators out of office who dont have their best interests at heart.

Everyone wants to point the finger at law enforcement, he said. And you have a justifiable reason to. But you never question the people who set those policies in effect that they so enforce. How can you change anything if you dont change the narrative that gives them the ability to oppress a man of color, to shoot a man of color."

Living in fear is no way to live, Maxson said.

When you back something in fear in a corner what does it do, he said, It fights for its life. Maxson ended his remarks by reminding the crowd that We the people, possess the power. We need change.

READ: Pa. keeps police misconduct records secret
The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (Nasa) is in the final stage of preparation for one of its most crucial launches of 2020  the Perseverance rover mission to Mars. The spacecraft will be launched on July 30 as the Red Planet makes its closest approach to the Earth.

Part of an ongoing robotic exploration of the planet, this mission will last at least 687 days or one Martian year. The rover, with high-priority science goal to address key questions on the possibility of life on Mars, is being seen as the next big step ahead of the proposed future manned ...
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that employers cannot fire workers because they are gay or transgender  a major victory for LGBT rights that extends new protections to workers in Texas, one of 29 states without laws in place that already offer them.

The conservative Supreme Court ruling weighed whether the federal civil rights law barring sex discrimination against women also applied to LGBT workers.

The answer is clear, wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative member of the court appointed by President Donald Trump, in the 6-3 ruling. An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII.

A FIRST IN HARRIS COUNTY: Resolution recognizes June as Pride month

The high courts decision  perhaps the most significant LGBT ruling since the court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015  is especially important in Texas. Thats because there are no state laws on the books protecting LGBT workers, and Republicans in the GOP-dominated state Legislature have sought to dismantle local ordinances offering those protections.

Its a super significant ruling. Its a historic ruling, said Scott Schneider, an Austin-based attorney who teaches labor and employment law at Tulane University. If youd asked me a decade ago whether I thought this could happen or would happen, I would have said no.

Past efforts to offer the workplace protections to LGBT Texans have been blocked by the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, where there has long been precedent that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, Schneider said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which pushes protections for LGBT individuals, says that some 90 percent of transgender workers in Texas say they have been mistreated in the workplace. According to data from the University of California-Los Angeles, there are some 1.2 million LGBT individuals in Texas.

The three justices who dissented in the case, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas, said the ruling was an overreach, and that their peers on the Supreme Court made law, rather than interpreting it.

There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation, Alito wrote in the dissenting opinion. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive.

President Donald Trump, whose administration had argued that Title VII does not offer the protections the Supreme Court ruled it does, called the ruling very powerful and said we live with their decision.

LGBT advocacy groups and Texas Democrats  and even a few Texas Republican lawmakers  cheered Mondays ruling as a major victory.

Before today, you could be fired in Texas for being gay or transgender, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, tweeted. No more  A major victory for #LGBTQ+ and human rights  and a historic day for equality.

The Supreme Court got this one right, U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, a West Texas Republican, tweeted. You shouldn't discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

GAY MARRIAGE IN TEXAS: AG Ken Paxton sidesteps gay marriage case that conflicts with his beliefs

The ruling comes five years after voters in Houston shot down a local ordinance offering protections to LGBT individuals after a relentless campaign by conservative activists to convince voters it would allow men dressed as women, including sexual predators, to enter women's restrooms. Several Texas cities, including San Antonio, Austin and Dallas, have similar ordinances in place.

This victory is a watershed moment for the LGBTQ community in Texas and across America, which has been working for decades to secure basic protections from discrimination, Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, said in a statement. The courts decision will directly impact LGBTQ Texans and millions of people across the country and allow them to live their lives and take care of their families with respect and dignity.

Republicans in the Texas Legislature during the last session pushed a sweeping bill, backed by Gov. Greg Abbott, that would have barred cities from regulating employment policies, which advocates said would have undone local protections for LGBT workers. That effort failed.

Meanwhile a group of state lawmakers including two Republicans recently vowed to push legislation next year that would protect LGBT workers.

The ruling also follows a decision by 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last year against a Texas woman who claimed she was discriminated against by Phillips 66 when the oil company rescinded her job offer after the company realized she was transgender. A three-judge panel ruled in that case that the facts did not support her claims, and did not rule more broadly on whether transgender workers are protected by Title VII.

Mondays decision was a fairly lopsided one, with two of the high courts conservative justices  Gorsuch and John Roberts, the chief justice  siding with the liberals.

The ruling addressed several separate cases in which employers fired longtime employees because they were gay or transgender.

In one case, Clayton County, Ga., fired Gerald Bostock after he began playing in a gay recreational softball league. In another case, a skydiving company fired Donald Zarda after he mentioned to a customer that he was gay. And in a third case, a funeral home fired Aimee Stephens, who presented as a male when she was hired, after she told her bosses that she planned to live and work full-time as a woman.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Gorsuch  whose 2017 nomination to the court LGBT rights advocates strongly opposed  wrote in the opinion that Title VII clearly protects LGBT workers, as it makes it unlawful . . . for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual . . . because of such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

But Alito, Kavanaugh and Thomas disagreed.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous, Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written, he wrote. If every single living American had been surveyed in 1964, it would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual orientation  not to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time.

ben.wermund@chron.com
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has wished the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu a speedy recovery.



This has come as a shock to many as the Health Minister is said to have denied reports that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was receiving treatment at the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC).



The minister was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday (June 9, 2020) and is in a stable condition.



Sources indicate that the Minister contracted the virus after his wife and son were both admitted at the Intensive Care Unit of UGMC.



But his wife has denied reports that she has contracted the virus.



The Ministry of Health corroborated the information as checks suggest that Mr Kwaku Agyemang Manu has taken a few days off.



In his 11th update to the country on COVID-19, President Akufo-Addo said we wish our hardworking minister for health a speedy recovery. He contracted the virus in the line of his work and he is stable condition.



Ghanaians on social media have been reacting to this development, see some of the tweets below:





















The health minister is not a leader who leads by example.A whole health minister lying about coronavirus status??He must resign immediately .Wishing him speedy recovery though. https://t.co/iMHwwZ7THO







 Ghana Shwelemo (@CarlsonNile) June 14, 2020









If America & Uk no open border u figure say nana go open border? Health minister y3 ma wo speedy recovery pic.twitter.com/e65KH9K6yr







 CAPTAIN PLANET 4X4 (@captainplanetgh) June 14, 2020









I wish the health minister a speedy recovery.



He's done a very good job so far and needs our support.



The facility that is treating him is a very competent facility with the right human resources, COVID adaworoma.







 Kojo Akoto Boateng (@KojoAB) June 14, 2020









#4More4NanaToLieToUs#KickOutNana

Dis Npp Govt n Lies?Dis Npp Govt Is A Disgrace n It Seems Dis Virus Is Deadly,SoThe Health Minister Couldn't Coordinate The Lie Well With Akuffo Addo,Who Ended Up Exposing The Minister After He Claimed He Has Not Tested Positive n Just Resting pic.twitter.com/3WXQjUMB9D







 Big Daddy Cee (@BigDaddyCee7) June 14, 2020









Please when youre told to self isolate or quarantine, its for your own safety and others. No need to break it to prove youre tough.



Yes, Im talking to the MPs and staff who refuse to stay home.



Health minister has set a good example. Be like him.







  (@Bridget_Otoo) June 14, 2020









Fellow Ghanaians, Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has #COVID19 and is not "resting" in a hospital as has been suggested by some reports.



President Akufo-Addo said on Sunday, the minister who contracted the virus in the line of duty "is in a stable condition".#StaySafe pic.twitter.com/a5fjyTQGzq







 Israel Laryea (@TheIsraelLaryea) June 14, 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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[June 15, 2020] Anodos Completes Governance Review of $1.0b Dallas County Hospital District Retirement Income Plan

Anodos Advisors has completed the statutorily required Investment Practices and Performance Report for the Dallas County Hospital District Retirement Income Plan. The Plan has approximately $1.0b in assets and covers over 19,000 members. The Texas Government Code requires that an independent consultant "evaluate the appropriateness, adequacy and effectiveness of the retirement system's investment practices and performance and to make recommendations for improving the retirement system's investment policies, procedures and practices" (TGC 802.109). The independent report produced by Anodos included an evaluation of (1) the Plan's investment policy statement, (2) the process for determining target allocations, (3) the expected risk and return of the portfolio and its asset classes, (4) the future cash flo and liquidity needs of the Plan, (5) a review of investment fees, (6) board investment expertise and education, and (7) the selection, delegation and monitoring process for the investment managers, with particular emphasis on any "alternative" or "illiquid" managers.



Anodos worked closely with Callan LLC, the Plan's independent investment consultant. Joe Mayer, the plan's CIO, noted that the Anodos team produced the report in a comprehensive and professional manner consistent with the terms of their contract. Mr. Mayer said, "We look forward to working with the Anodos team in 2023 when the report will be updated." A copy of the report is publicly available upon request from the Texas Pension Review Board.

About Anodos: Anodos is a governance consulting firm that helps trustees establish, maintain and evaluate their internal fiduciary governance systems. The nimble team includes a trust attorney, a CFA charterholder and an ERM auditor. What makes Anodos unique is that it does not serve as an investment consultant or advisor, nor in any way manage the trust capital. Managing Partner Josh Yager noted, "We are truly independent and have no vested interest in the findings or recommendations that we arrive at." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005103/en/

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 18:26:17|Editor: huaxia

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VIENNA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' (OPEC) daily basket price stood at 35.06 U.S. dollars a barrel on Friday, compared with 36.55 dollars on Thursday, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations released on Monday.

Also known as the OPEC reference basket of crude oil, the OPEC basket, a weighted average of oil prices from different OPEC members around the world, is used as an important benchmark for crude oil prices. Enditem
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus A.Dapkiunas holds videoconference with the UN Resident Coordinator in Belarus

On June 5, 2020 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Andrei Dapkiunas, held a video conference with the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Belarus, Joanna Kazana-Wisniowiecki.

The interlocutors discussed in detail the priority areas for comprehensive cooperation between the Belarusian government and the UN agencies, and touched upon the implementation of international technical assistance projects in the field of sustainable development.

During the conversation, A.Dapkiunas and J.Kazana-Wisniowiecki paid special attention to the process of preparing the UN-Belarus Cooperation Framework for 2021-2025. The Deputy Minister and the Resident Coordinator noted the importance of full understanding by all participants the added value of the framework program as a practical tool for effective joint efforts of the state, international organizations and civil society aimed at the full and speedy achievement of sustainable development goals.

A.Dapkiunas and J.Kazana-Wisniowiecki positively evaluated the experience of implementing the National Human Rights Action Plan for 2016-2019. The interlocutors expressed interest in organizing national consultations of partners to prepare for the third cycle of the universal periodic review of human rights, which Belarus will pass in Geneva in November 2020, and in continuing joint work in the field of human rights.

The sides also exchanged views on holding joint events in Belarus on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, which is celebrated throughout 2020.

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YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan had a video talk with Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin on June 15, the ministry told Armenpress.

The sides discussed the current challenges caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic, as well as the opportunities to resist them. They exchanged views on the opportunities on solving current economic issues and expanding the Armenia-EU cooperation.

The officials expressed confidence that they will be able to overcome the current challenges with joint efforts, the difficulties that emerged in the economy, healthcare and social protection fields due to the pandemic.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Veteran actor Anupam Kher was in tears as he spoke of his bond with the late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, and exhorted people to spread love and compassion. The Mumbai Police have said that Sushant died by suicide on Sunday but they have not recovered any note. The actor was 34.

Anupam played Sushants father in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. The actor said in his message that their father-son relationship portrayed on- screen managed to build a bond between them off-screen as well. An emotional Kher recalled the times spent with Sushant during the movie shootings and explained him as a very positive, energetic person who was always curious and wanted to do more.

    .... ?....?   Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) June 14, 2020

In the 5.35 minute video, Kher requested people to spread love, positivity, and compassion. He asked people to extend a friendly hand and communicate more often as one would never know what the other person is going through. He also urged people to seek out the signs among friend and family and be there for them.

The untimely death of the versatile actor has sent shock waves among celebrities and his fans alike.Earlier actor Deepika Padukone, too, shared a written statement on Twitter addressing the importance of reaching out to somebody while battling mental health issues. Scores of actors from across the nation took it online to share their grief and sorrow with the untimely demise of the young actor.

(If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918)

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Communists have the only way to end depressions

Capitalism has been suffering from continual economic crises for more than 100 years, and Communists are the only people who have a solution to the suffering and misery of these economic crises.

Yet today Big Business spokesmen are peddling the big lie that Communists are to blame for the coming depression. Their lies are exposed by the facts of history.

The 1929 slump broke first in Poland, for instance, where a fascist dictatorship was rigidly suppressing the Communist Party.

And during the great Wall Street crash in 1929 there werent more than a few hundred Communists in America.

The truth is, capitalism had recurring crises, before there were Communists.

Europe had its first capitalist crisis in 1825, and there were two more before the Communist Manifesto was written in 1848.

Everywhere capitalism has developed there have been crises every ten or twelve years.

These were the crisis years:

1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1873, 1890, 1900, 1907 (1914-18the first world war), 1921, 1929.

In 1937 a crisis was staved off by preparations for the war of 1939-45.

This year  1949  we can see clear signs of the new crisis.

Could Communists be blamed for causing these crises, or the great depression of 1929-33? Of course not.

In 1929 the Australian Labor Party leaders explained that the crisis was due to the manipulations of bankers, and their plans to counter the crisis consisted of manipulating a ten per cent wage cut, through their beloved Arbitration Court.

So the workers carried the burden of that crisis.

Today, crisis has already hit America. There are five million registered unemployed, and between eight and nine million are on part time work.

It is a crisis of over-production, with more goods produced than the community can afford to buy. Can anyone seriously suggest that this over-production is a Communist plot?

It is capitalism  not the Communists  which creates crisis.

Crisis is inherent in the system which exploits wage labour. Wage labour produces a value greater than the amount it receives in wages, and so the masses of useful people  the producers  are unable to buy back all the commodities they create. Frederick Engels clearly describes what happens:

Trade comes to a standstill, the markets are glutted, the products lie in great masses, unsaleable, ready money disappears, credit vanishes, the factories are idle, food because they have produced too much food, bankruptcy follows bankruptcy, forced sale follows upon forced sale.

The stagnation lasts for years, both productive forces and products are squandered and destroyed on a large scale until the accumulated masses of commodities are at last disposed of, until production and exchange gradually begin to move again. By degrees the pace quickens; it becomes a trot; the industrial trot passes into a gallop; and the galley in turn passes into the mad onrush of a compete industrial, commercial, and speculative steeplechase, only to land again in the end, after the most breakneck jumps, in the ditch of a crash.

And so on again and again.

The struggle between the capitalists to dispose of their surplus product, to make profit, intensifies the crisis and leads to wars.

The so-called dollar crisis only reflects the fact that the American capitalists are selling more goods to Britain and Australia than they are prepared or able to buy in return.

Our country is being flooded with American surplus products while American workers walk the streets without wages to buy our goods in return. And consequently, we Australians face the closure of our factories and unemployment.

The capitalist class does not believe its own propaganda about Reds causing crises.

Speaking to businessmen at a Rotary Club function in Melbourne, Professor G. L. Wood said:

American industry, instead of being the worlds universal provider, would wilt and wither into unemployment, because there would not be sufficient solvent world customers.

He added: The world is enslaved to the Great Creditor. The standards of living of the white world are due to be ground into collapse in order to earn dollars.

The creditor is about to exact his pound of flesh and to drain the life of the country that saved Him [] (Melbourne Age, 21/07/1949).

So it is plain that it is not the Communists but the capitalists struggle for profit and more profit that is at the root of the growing crisis in Britain, America and Australia.

The capitalists are frantically trying to solve their problem of markets. They see two roads:

1. To slash the living standards of their workers in order to maintain profits (they fail to see that this only intensifies the crisis).

2. A war to re-divide the worlds markets.

But both these roads, they see, are barred by the organised working class, who resist lowered living standards and profits for war.

They see the working class being led by the Communist Party in a struggle for higher wages and lower prices at the expense of profits. They see a mighty peace movement calling halt to the drive to a new slaughter.

That is why lies are spread about the Communists.

That is why the Labor Party lieutenants of capitalism attack the only genuine workers party  the Communist Party.

They fear the policy of the Communists, who want to end capitalism with its recurring crises and wars. They fear the example of the countries where the workers are in power, led by the Communists  the Socialist Soviet Union and the Peoples Democracies of Eastern Europe.

There are no crises or unemployment in these countries, and the peoples interests are served by a resolute policy for lasting peace.

The Australian Communists do not want crises or war. They lead the workers in struggle against these twin evils. They lead the fight for Socialism which alone can end the cause of crises and guarantee rising living standards and lasting peace for all the useful people of our country and all other lands.

This article originally appeared in Tribune August, 1949
MANILA, Philippines - An award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president was convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 14/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, wearing a protective mask, enters a disinfection area before attending a court hearing at Manila Regional Trial Court, Philippines on Monday June 15, 2020. Ressa's verdict is expected to be announced Monday for a cyber libel case. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

MANILA, Philippines - An award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president was convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa of the online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling a wealthy businessman. The Rapplers story on May 29, 2012, cited an intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The sites lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

Rappler and both accused did not offer a scintilla of proof that they verified the imputations of various crimes in the disputed article upon the person of Keng, Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said in the 36-page ruling. They just simply published them as news in their online publication in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not.

The decision for me is devastating because it essentially says that Rappler, that we are wrong, Ressa said in a news conference after the ruling. Her voice cracking, she vowed that we will keep fighting and appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights and hold power to account.

The businessman, Wilfredo Keng, welcomed the ruling, which he said vindicated him and cleared his name which Ressa, with one click of a button, attempted to destroy.

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years but her lawyer, Theodore Te, said the jail terms and other penalties imposed could not be enforced unless all appeals were rejected. She posted bail for the case last year and will study possible appeals in the next 15 days, Te said.

Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, wearing a protective mask, waves to the media before attending a court hearing at Manila Regional Trial Court, Philippines on Monday June 15, 2020. Ressa's verdict is expected to be announced Monday for a cyber libel case. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country, said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, adding the verdict was a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.

President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Keng dismissed the allegations in the 2012 story as baseless and false and said Rappler refused to take down the story online and publish his side of the story. He provided government certifications in court to show that he has no criminal record and sought 50 million pesos ($1 million) in damages, but the court awarded a much smaller fine.

Rapplers lawyers said the story was based on an unspecified intelligence report and that Philippine penal law requires a libel complaint to be filed within one year. Keng filed his lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published.

A cybercrime law, which the Rappler journalists allegedly violated, was also enacted in September 2012 or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rapplers lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Rappler, however, acknowledged that it updated the story in February 2014 to correct a misspelled word but said it did not make any other changes. The Department of Justice, which brought the libel charges to court, contended that by updating the story, Rappler effectively republished the story online in 2014, an argument dismissed by the news sites lawyers.

The Department of Justice argued a complaint can be filed under the 2012 cybercrime law for up to 12 years, countering Rapplers argument that Kengs complaint was invalid due to being outside the one-year deadline for libel.

The Manila court upheld the 12-year period.

As Rapplers chief executive officer, Ressa faces seven other criminal complaints in relation to legal issues hounding her news agency, including an allegation that it violated a constitutional ban on media agencies receiving foreign investment funds.

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Ressa, who has worked for CNN and was one of Time magazines Persons of the Year in 2018, has accused the government of abusing its power and of using the law to muzzle dissent.

Many news outlets in the Philippines and beyond have criticized Dutertes policies, including his anti-drug campaign that has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead.

Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily, and ABS-CBN, the country's largest TV network which was shut down by the governments telecommunications regulator last month after its 25-year franchise expired. Congress has been hearing the networks request for a franchise renewal.

The shutdown has been criticized as it cut off a major source of information on the COVID-19 pandemic in a Southeast Asian hot spot of the disease.

___

Associated Press journalist Kiko Rosario in Bangkok contributed to this report.
SPRINGFIELD  Pastor Eli Serrano of the Restoration Worship Center will take part in a free virtual seminar, Religion & Culture: Its Impact on COVID-19, Thursday, June 25, from 2 to 3:30 p.m.

The event is sponsored by Baystate Health and Trinity Health Of New England, whose partners include Mercy Medical Center.

Coronavirus disease 2019 and its infectious nature has highlighted the roles of faith and culture during a pandemic, and how belief systems can impact containing and treating a disease that has had high rates of severity among certain populations.

Public health emergency regulations enacted to stop transmission of the respiratory virus have required individuals to stay at home and resulted in such changes as many worship services being held virtually for the first time, a cultural shift for many communities.

The 90-minute event will explore how religious, community and public health leaders can help people understand such regulations within their traditions and adjust to them for a positive impact.

Featured speaker is William L. Glover, senior pastor of Florida-based Mount Hermon Ministries who holds a doctorate in theology from Life Christian University.

Dr. Sarah Perez McAdoo, population health capstone director of the University of Massachusetts Medical SchoolBaystate, is also a participant. She is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and holds a masters degree from Harvard School of Public Health.

Register for the Zoom meeting online.
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Linkedin Arjun Poudel (The Kathmandu Post/Asia News Network) Kathmandu, Nepal  Mon, June 15, 2020 10:00 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdebbb30 2 World mental-health,coronavirus,coronavirus-restrictions,COVID-19-quarantine,COVID-19,pandemic,COVID-19-lockdown,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

On Saturday, 38-year-old Bhagwati attempted to kill herself at her home in Dolakha. Her children yelled for help. But by the time neighbors arrived, she was already unconscious. She was rushed to the district hospital, which referred her to Kathmandu as her condition was critical.

"She was brought to our hospital on Sunday morning," Dr Basudev Karki, a consultant psychiatrist at the Nepal Mental Hospital, told the Post. "Her condition remains critical."

Karki said Bhagwati had been under stress after her husband lost his job during the lockdown. The family was under pressure to repay their loan and Bhagwati was especially worried about being unable to provide for her children, according to relatives.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, enforced since March 24, are taking a toll on the mental health of people, triggering new issues while exacerbating existing ones, say public health experts.

In a number of cases, these issues culminate in people taking their own lives, they say.

During the first 74 days of the lockdown, 1,227 people (16.5 a day) across the country have ended their own lives compared to 5,785 (15.8 a day) in all of last year.

Doctors say the lockdown has brought changes to the lives of people as they live in fear of contracting COVID-19. People are interacting with each other far less than usual, many have lost their jobs, and are struggling to repay their loans. An overall increase in economic burden is leading to a rise in anxiety, stress and depression, they say.

This could be just the beginning as a lot of people are under a lot of stress, said Dr Kamal Gautam, executive director at the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, a mental health organization.

In some cases, even minor issues have had serious consequences.

Last week, a 12-year-old boy in Kirtipur attempted to kill himself following an argument with his father who was angry about him playing video games and watching television all the time, said doctors. The boy was rushed to the Nepal Mental Hospital.

"The boy was in a critical condition. Doctors had to admit him into intensive care for four days," said Karki, "He is recuperating now."

During high stress situations like pandemics, natural disasters, and wars, mental health problems are known to affect people, said Gautam. Cases of disorders such as depression, anxiety, psychosis and schizophrenia tend to increase significantly, sometimes at rates of three to five percent, he said.

The issue of mental health during the pandemic has come to the forefront not just in Nepal, but also around the world. The impact of the pandemic on peoples mental health is already extremely concerning, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general at the World Health Organization. Social isolation, fear of contagion and loss of family members is compounded by distress caused by loss of income and often employment.

The UN health agency said that COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to urgently increase investment in services for mental health or risk of a massive increase in mental health conditions in the coming months.

The lockdown, which until recently prohibited all public movement, only contributed to aggravating mental health as people with pre-existing conditions were unable to receive counselling or medication, as many mental health doctors have asked patients not to visit health facilities, unless in case of an emergency.

"This has meant that patients were unable to get new prescriptions and in most cases, pharmacies do not give out psychiatric medicine without a doctors prescription," said Gautam.

Government officials said that they were aware of the risks to mental health and were actively attempting to take countermeasures. Dr Phanindra Prasad Baral, chief of the mental health section at the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, said that the division has asked health facilities across the country to provide medicines for a minimum of 15 days to a month as patients are unable to visit health facilities frequently.

There are also a number of helplines, run by both governmental and non-governmental agencies, that provide mental health counseling over the phone.

The Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) suicide hotline (9840021600) and Patan Hospital crisis helpline for suicide prevention (9813476123) operate 24 hours. The Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (16600102005) provides helpline services between Monday to Friday from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm.
The bridge was different.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge was different.

Although named for a former Alabama U.S. senator and former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the 80-year-old steel arch carrying Route 80 across the Alabama River is an international symbol of sacred ground in the nations long battle against racism and injustice.

As such, most Selma residents, along with many others, long believed the bridge should not be renamedeven as some called for it to be recast in honor of U.S. John Lewis, D-Georgia, who famously helped lead marches in 1965 that included the Bloody Sunday march that became a seminal event in the civil rights struggles for equal voting rights.

Among them was Selma native U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat who represents Alabamas 7th Congressional District, which includes the Edmund Pettus Bridge as well as Birmingham and its historic legacy. In 2015, she publicly opposed renaming the bridge.

Times and tones are different now. Now, after nearly three weeks of protest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, killed by a Minneapolis police officer. The protests are inspiring the removal of symbols of the Confederacy throughout the nation and calls for sweeping police reforms and racial equity.

Theres a righteous irony there, sweet justice, that a bridge named after a man who inflamed hatred, racial hatred is now known worldwide as a symbol of equality and justice, Sewell told AL.com. What was meant for evil, God used it for good. I truly believed that I still believe that, but I also know this moment requires us to see things, do things through an anti-racist lens.

Its just a different time and we all have to evolve. I cant ask my colleagues to make a change in their views if Im not willing to look at all of mine.

Sewell said she now supports renaming the bridge to honor Lewis.

Clearly, that's the only person's name that should be on the bridge, she said.

Sewell is among Congressional Democrats working to pass the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, which would ban chokeholds, establish a national database to track police misconduct, prohibit certain no-knock warrants, end qualified immunity for police officers, making it easier to hold accountable officers accused of misconduct.

U.S. Senate Republicans are countering with a bill that is less specific on the use of force and wont likely eliminate qualified immunity.

If Im going to ask my colleagues to rethink their views on qualified immunity and excessive forcethe hard stuffeverything else has to be on the table.

My primary focus has to be on extending the rights of the living and not on transgressions of the past, she said. The cries we hear on the streets of this nation are for real changebold, transformational change. A lot of these [Confederate] statues all across the state of Alabama and the South were erected after Reconstruction to memorialize white Southern supremacy. Removing them, that to me, is low-hanging fruit is. It is an important step toward racial healing. We have to be prepared to do the easy stuff, so we can really make the transformational change that people are crying out for.

Theres no substitute, in this moment, for structural, transformational change.

Sewell said she has not yet shared her position with Lewis, 80, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last December. She did inform his chief of staff.

In January, a petition was launched supporting renaming the bridge for Lewis. It currently has 12,621 signatures.

Since then, COVID-19 has exposed long-standing racial inequities in the nations healthcare system; blacks are dying of the novel coronavirus at twice the rate of whites.

Then George Floyd died beneath the knee of an officer sworn to protect and serve.

I do believe this is a different moment in time, Sewell said. I havent been OK watching whats been going on. All my white colleagues have been calling me asking, Are you OK? Im not OK and its OK not to be OK. But it also requires us to figure out what we can do at this moment in time. Everybody has a role to play. Its uncomfortable to talk about racism, but it is the original sin of this nation and we have got to confront it.

This time requires unequivocal action, said Sewell. Sure, I can make the argument that the bridge is somehow different, but I want to remove that as an obstacle for true change in this unique time. The will of the people should prevail.

Changing the name of the bridge would require support from the Alabama state legislature and Gov. Kay Ivey.
The High Court has granted two landlords of Debenhams Irish stores permission to bring proceedings against the retailer's Irish arm.

The actions are designed to repudiate the leases of Debenhams stores that had been operated at Henry Street in Dublin and Patrick Street in Cork.

Permission to bring the proceedings were sought by Heritage ICAV, which is the landlord of the Henry Street property and Kilmaloda Ltd is the landlord of the Cork-based premises.

Both firms are linked to the Roche family.

Permission to bring the proceedings was required from the court because the Irish arm of the department store group is in liquidation.

The orders were granted by Ms Justice Niamh Hyland at the High Court on Monday.

Last April Debenhams Retail Ireland Ltd, which had operated 11 stores in the Republic of Ireland and had employed 1,500 people directly and indirectly, announced it was closing down and went into liquidation.

Arising out of that a number of landlords of the 11 premises launched proceedings.

Paul Coughlan Bl for the two landlords told the Court that the premises had been leased to the retailer's parent company Debenhams Plc, which went into administration in the UK in April.

The stores were then in turn subleased to the Irish arm Debenhams Retail Ireland Plc.

In both sets of proceedings counsel said that the landlords are seeking declarations that the leases have been terminated.

Counsel said that his clients are also seeking orders in relation to unpaid rent. The quarterly rent for Henry Street was 1.4m per quarter and 814,000 for the Cork-based store.

Counsel said that it is his client's intention to take back control of both premises and make them available for commercial use as soon as possible.

Counsel said that the joint liquidators to the company Kieran Wallace and Andrew O'Leary of KPMG were appointed as joint liquidators of the company, were taking a neutral view to the landlord's applications.

Debenhams decision to close its Irish stores permanently arose out of its UK-based parent's decision to enter administration and cease providing funding to its Irish subsidiary.

The Irish arm said it had been in financial difficulties for some time.

It incurred losses of over 40m in the years 2018 and 2019, and was being supported by its UK parent.

The company said that the closure of stores, and projected losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic left it with no option other than go into liquidation.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced he will establish a commission to look at racial equality in the UK, after two weeks of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson said the body would look at all aspects of inequality -- in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life. Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across the U.K. since Floyd died on May 25, demanding that Britain. confront its own history of imperialism and racial inequality.

Johnson said the new body would investigate discrimination in the education system, in health, in the criminal justice system, but gave few other details.

Opposition Labour Party lawmaker David Lammy, author of a 2017 report on Britains ethnic minorities and criminal justice, accused the Conservative government of stalling.

He said it feels like yet again in the U.K. we want figures, data, but we dont want action.  The time for review is over and the time for action is now.
For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here.

While the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the state's positivity rate is currently 4.5%, and well under the 8% threshold when the spread of the virus becomes worrisome.

About a week ago, following George Floyd protests, the rate was a little higher at 4.6%.

The positivity rate equals the number of people who have tested positive for the infection divided by the total number of tests administered. In early April when few tests were administered, the positivity rate was 40.8%. At the time, only those with severe symptoms were tested.

Newsom said hospitalization numbers are also encouraging and have remained fairly stable. Intensive Care Unit cases have been flat with an increase of 0% in the last two weeks.

"We have a state that is holding strong," said Newsom, pointing out that California isn't experiencing a dramatic drop because the state never saw a huge spike as states such as New York did.

In his first press briefing in over a week, the governor also provided updates on the state's preparedness. The state has 73,867 hospital beds and currently, 3,103 of those beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients. The state has an additional 52,745 surge beds on hold. There are also 11,652 ventilators available. The state is on track to administer more than 60,000 tests per day by the end of the month.

Offering an update on PPE, Newsom said the state has procured 175.5 million surgical masks, 1.4 million N-95 masks, 10.4 million gowns, 2.6 million gloves, and 20.1 million face shields. The gear is for health care workers as well as other essential workers including those who work in grocery stores.

Newsom encouraged residents to follow safety protocols, washing hands, physically distancing and wearing masks. He pointed to deadly second and third waves in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic as lessons in the importance of face coverings. The surges were in part the result of people thinking masks were no longer necessary.

"As we mix, as we reopen, inevitably we're going to see an increase in the total number of cases," Newsom said. "It's our capacity to address that that is so foundational, and to make sure we're prepared for spikes."

Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her: agraff@sfgate.com.
Bostons mayor has said he supports calls to either remove or change a statue which depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave who is crouched on his knees.

Mayor Marty Walsh has come under pressure this weekend to have the city haul away the monument after an online petition calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial in Park Square in downtown went viral.

As of Monday afternoon, more than 8,400 people signed the petition, which was started by a local resident from the neighborhood of Mission Hill.

The statue in the citys Park Square is a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington and depicts Lincoln with one hand raised above a kneeling man with broken shackles on his wrists.

Boston's mayor is considering whether to remove or recommission a statue, the Emancipation Memorial (seen above in downtown's Park Square), that depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a freed slave who is kneeling

Mayor Marty Walsh has come under pressure this weekend to have the city haul away the monument after an online petition calling for the removal of the Emancipation Memorial went viral

The statue is meant to show Lincoln freeing the man from slavery, but a petition against the statue says it 'instead represents us still beneath someone else.'

Ive been watching this man on his knees since I was a kid, the petitions author, Tony Bullock, wrote.

I would always ask myself "If he's free why is he still on his knees?"

No kid should have to ask themselves that question anymore.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (above) has indicated that he supports either removing or recommissioning the statue in favor of one that recognized equality

If you feel the same then sign the petition!

Bullock posted a video to Facebook calling on Walsh to tear down the statue of work with artists that can erect that black man so he can stand up on his two feetthen can be shaking hands.

Walshs office told Boston.com that the mayor is interested in recommissioning the statue in favor of one that sends a message of recognizing equality.

The statue was sculpted by Thomas Ball and erected in 1876 to pay homage to Lincoln, who is credited with ending the institution of slavery.

The freed slave depicted in the statue is modeled after Archer Alexander, a former slave.

The statue in Boston is a carbon copy of the same monument located in Lincoln Park in Washington, DC.

Since the May 25 death of George Floyd, cities and states across the country have faced calls from Black Lives Matter protesters to remove statues of figures from the Confederacy.

There have also been calls to do away with statues honoring some of the countrys early founders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

In Boston, the city removed a statue of Christopher Columbus, the famed Italian explorer who discovered America, after it was beheaded by vandals, WBZ-TV reported.

The city of Boston last week removed a beheaded statue of Christopher Columbus from a park near the predominantly Italian neighborhood of North End

Columbus, who is honored with a national holiday in the United States and other countries in the Americas, is a controversial figure who symbolizes historic injustices committed against indigenous populations by European settlers.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died in the custody of Minneapolis police after one of the officers, Derek Chauvin, who is white, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, cutting off his air supply.

Chauvin and three other officers have since been fired and criminally charged. Floyd's death touched off mass outrage worldwide.
Representative image

India on Monday summoned the Pakistan charge d'affaires and lodged a strong protest to him over the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

Pakistani media reported that two Indian staffers, who went missing on Monday morning, were arrested by Pakistani authorities for their alleged involvement in a "hit and run accident".

Official sources said the Pakistan charge d'affaires (CDA) was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs and a demarche was issued to him over the reported arrest of the two officials.

In the demarche, it was made clear to the Pakistani CDA that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials and the responsibility for their safety and security lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, they said.

The sources said the Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately.

In the morning, the two staffers in Islamabad went missing following which India took up the matter with the Pakistan Foreign Office.

The two staffers went out of the High Commission in a vehicle for official duty at around 8:30 Am (IST), but did not reach their destination, the sources said.

The incident comes two weeks after India expelled two Pakistan High Commission officials here on charges of espionage.

India had declared Abid Hussain and Muhammad Tahir as 'persona non grata' after they were found obtaining sensitive documents relating to movement of Indian Army troops from an Indian national, according to authorities here.

Following their expulsion, Pakistani agencies started harassing a number of Indian High Commission officials in Islamabad including charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia.

Ahluwalia's car was aggressively tailed by Pakistani agencies on at least two occasions following which India lodged a strong protest with the Pakistan Foreign Office.

After the expulsion of the two Pakistani officials, it was expected that Pakistan would also resort to a tit-for-tat response, going by similar episodes in the past.

India's expulsion of the two Pakistani officials and subsequent harassment of Indian High Commission staffers in Islamabad by Pakistani agencies came in the midst of frayed ties between the two countries over the reorganisation of Jammu and Kashmir by India.

Pakistan had downgraded diplomatic ties by expelling the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad following India's decision to withdraw special status of Jammu and Kashmir in August last year.
Whichever of the two bidders for Virgin Australia wins the auction it is apparent that they will try to recreate a version of the airline from its past, one that will be quite different to the Virgin that plunged into administration at the onset of the coronavirus.

It will nevertheless be familiar and has a very good chance of being, not just viable but highly profitable. We know that because Virgin has been there and done that before.

The race to save Virgin is down to two bidders. Credit:Rhett Wyman

The two private equity players left in the contest for Virgin  Bain and Cyrus Capital  have now both provided a broad outline of their strategy for the carrier: Bain nearly three weeks ago and Cyrus at the weekend. In broad outline they are strikingly similar.

They involve smaller fleets, focused on Virgins narrow-bodied Boeing 737s, stripping out the costs and complexity of flying the seven different aircraft types Virgin had in the fleet when it crashed.
The Central Region has recorded a total of three thousand one hundred and ninety-eight (3,198) teen pregnancies from January to May this year.



According to the Ghana Health Service (GHS), drivers, farmers and teachers continued to be the group of men who were impregnating the teens.



Madam Lydia Acquah, a Nutrition Officer at the Ekumfi District Health Directorate who revealed this described the situation as very pathetic and called for pragmatic measures to be put in place to tackle it.



She was addressing some youth groups in Ekumfi at a days step down engagement between youth groups and policymakers on policy development and implementation on youth participation in decision making at Ekumfi.



The event was organised by the National Youth Authority (NYA) in collaboration with the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) with funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).



Speaking on adolescent sexual reproductive health and its related issues, Madam Acquah revealed that the spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) was common among adolescents.



She said accessing health services was a problem for teen expectant mothers and adolescents with STIs due to the stigma attached to them.



She said the Ghana Health Service (GHS) established adolescent friendly clinics to specifically educate and respond to the reproductive health needs of the adolescent and to ensure they received adequate access to health services.



But surprisingly, she bemoaned, the adolescents were not patronising them.

This, she said could partly be the reason for the high teenage pregnancies in the Region.



Additionally, she indicated, sexual exploitation by some unscrupulous men, irresponsible parenting, misconceptions about family planning and lack of sex education and family planning had compounded the problem.



In the Ajumako Eyan Esiam District, where more than 237 teen pregnancies had been recorded, Mrs Esther Amankwah, Acting District Health Director underscored the need to assist and guide adolescents as they transitioned into adulthood.



She said adolescents were faced with several reproductive health challenges and that their inability to make the right choices could adversely destroy their future.



Mrs Amankwah cautioned the youth against drug abuse and said such risky behaviours could have lifelong consequences on their health, education and social lives.



ASP Doris Amewude, Deputy Central Regional DOVVSU Coordinator spoke about the role of the youth and other stakeholders in ending Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) and stressed that rape and defilement cases must not be settled at home.



She admonished the youth, especially the males to be mindful of the consequences of their actions and inactions and endeavour to control their sexual drive in order not to come into conflict with the law.



ASP Awewude encouraged the youth to help create awareness, be ambassadors and preach against SGBV in their respective communities.

Source: WHO









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 lay down flowers to mourn the death of a local protester, near the Pacific Place mall in Admiralty, Hong Kong, on June 15. 2020. (Song Bilung/The Epoch Times)

Hongkongers Mourn the One-Year Anniversary of Local Protesters Death

More than 1,000 Hongkongers, many wearing black with a white ribbon pinned to their clothes, paid tribute to the one-year anniversary of the first death in connection to a mass protest movement against Beijings encroachment.

They laid flowers at a makeshift memorial at Pacific Place, a shopping mall where Marco Leung Ling-kit, 35, fell to his death on June 15, 2019, after climbing to a scaffolding and unfurling a banner protesting the since-scrapped extradition bill. The proposal would have allowed individuals to be sent to mainland China for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts.

The tribute began at around 6 p.m. local time. Before it started, long lines had already formed as people waited their turn to lay down white flowers. Occasional shouts of Free Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times and Five Demands, Not One Less came from those queuing up, the latter referring to protest demands for universal suffrage, amnesty for arrested protesters, and more.

At about 6:15 p.m. local time, Hong Kong police warned that people shouldnt attend the unauthorized gathering at Pacific Place, and urged those already there to leave.

Police cars and riot police also patrolled areas near Pacific Place.

Despite the police warning, many Hongkongers took turns holding moments of silence before the makeshift memorial. One man went down on his knees, while others bowed solemnly.

Hongkongers also laid down yellow umbrellasa symbol of the pro-democracy movementalong with candles and personal notes. One umbrella had the words Free Hong Kong and [Hong Kong leader] Carrie Lam, Step Down written on it.

One note read: It has been one year. Hongkongers have never forgotten about you. We will continue to do the work of Liberate Kong Kong, Revolution of Our Times for you.

Another note read: He did not jump to his death. He was pushed to his death by a regime.

A man with a guitar played songs including Glory to Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of the protest movement.

Some memorial attendees were also carrying posters, including one with the words, The Heavens Will Destroy the Chinese Communist Party.

At close to 8:30 p.m. local time, Hong Kong police issued another statement, saying it would take appropriate measures to enforce the law depending on the situation at Pacific Place, and that too many people had gathered inside and outside of the mall. The police warned people to leave or risk being arrested.

Many continued to visit the memorial into the late evening, with a crowd outside the mall holding a candlelight vigil. Some staged a peaceful rally inside the shopping mall, as people flashed their cellphone lights while singing and shouting protest slogans.

At around 11:30 p.m. local time, riot police officers arrived at the scene and told people to leave the area.

Just before Leungs death, about 1 million locals took to the streets on June 9, 2019, against the extradition bill, marking the start of the protest movement. Days later, on June 12, more than 2 million again marched in downtown Hong Kong.

Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF), the organizer behind the mass marches and other major rallies last year, called on people to show up at Pacific Place to remember Leung.

One year ago, he wrote down the five demands. With his love for Hong Kong, he became the first victim of the movement. One year later, how Hongkongers inherit his will to persist in this revolution of our times will be what he has left behind for this world, the CHRF wrote on its Facebook page in the early hours on June 15.

Two other memorials were also held on the evening of June 15, one in Tin Shui Wai and the other in Tuen Mun, both located in the New Territories area near the border with mainland China. Police officers were spotted at the two locations.

The Hong Kong edition of The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
A garbage-collection shift in suburban California turned into a dramatic rescue site when one refuse worker spotted a home on fire.

On June 2, 2020, Patrick Bubba Lebow saw flames and hurried to the residence, kicked down the door, and saved the lives of the homes two elderly inhabitants. The Ceres, California, community is now praising the refuse worker for his heroic life-saving efforts.

The Ceres Fire Department reported on the incident in a Facebook post.

Shortly before 9am this morning, Ceres Fire Department was dispatched to a working structure fire [] Initial reports were that a vegetation fire spread into the residence, the department posted. Prior to our arrival, a Bertolotti Disposal employee alerted the occupants of the fire and helped them out of the house. Ceres Quint 18 arrived on scene first to find heavy smoke and fire from the house.

The firefighters performed an aggressive interior fire attack, the department said, successfully extinguishing the widespread fire before performing a search to confirm that all of the occupants had been relocated to a safe place.

Ceres Police were on scene assisting with crowd and traffic control, the fire department said. They added that American Medical Response was also on scene to treat one of the elderly occupants, both of whom were left displaced after the fire rendered their home uninhabitable.

Ceres Fire Chief Kevin Wise told FOX 40 that his team arrived to see heavy fire through the front and back of the residence. The chief said that Lebow felt the need to act when he saw that the residents needed help.

[Lebow] found a gentleman that was inside that looked possibly a little dazed and confused, Wise said. He helped that gentlemen [sic] out of the house. And then he knew that there was somebody else in the house.

Lebow went back inside the residence and soon located the elderly mans wife in the backyard. [He] helped her out of the house also, said Wise. Sadly, the elderly couples pet rabbit died in the fire.

After being moved to safety and after preliminary medical assessment, the displaced couple received a US$250 gift card from the California Fire Foundations SAVE Program to help with their immediate needs. The American Red Cross helped them find temporary accommodation.

Social media users, including the elderly couples next-door neighbors, granddaughter, and sister, left comments on the fire departments post praising both the refuse worker and the first responders who helped rescue the couple and extinguish the flames.

Great job CPD, wrote one person, adding a note of gratitude for Patrick Lebow in particular. Thank you to Bubba for saving the lives of the couple that live there. You are not only just the neighborhoods waste disposal person, but a hero.

Lebow, a humble hero, declined an on-camera interview with the news media. He told Fox 40 that he did what any loving human being would have done, and maintained that he was simply in the right place at the right time.

Wise, reflecting on the refuse workers quick-thinking rescue efforts, commented, Who knows what might have happened if it wasnt for his actions and taking it upon himself to do something about it. The results could have been devastating.

Three fire investigators were commissioned to determine the cause of the fire; at the time of writing, an official cause has not yet been reported.

Watch the video below:

(Video courtesy of Ceres Fire Department)
A Dublin man, who was on a ventilator for seven weeks, has returned home after winning a battle for his life against Covid-19.

When 64-year-old Tim O'Leary woke up from an induced coma in the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore, little did he know how drastically Ireland had changed in those seven weeks.

After contracting the coronavirus and pneumonia at the end of March, Tim was taken by ambulance to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown.

The following day, on March 30, he was transferred to Tullamore, Co Offaly, where he was placed on a ventilator and put in an induced coma for 43 days.

The Blanchardstown man said that he has no recollection of the toughest part of his encounter with the virus, and after "losing seven weeks" he was shocked with how the virus had taken hold in Ireland.

"I remember walking down our drive to get into the ambulance and I remember nothing until I got back into the regular ward 45-odd days later," he told the Irish Independent.

"Not a thing do I remember about it. I have no recollection. Forty-three days are gone out of my life. I didn't even know I was in Tullamore.

"My family took all the mental toll because I wasn't aware what was going on. They were. I was in a coma."

But even after leaving the intensive care unit (ICU), his recovery was still difficult.

"I am absolutely shocked with everything that happened. I was one of the lucky ones that survived. I could be buried," he said.

"I said to God one night 'take me if you want, I've had enough' but he didn't want me yet so I'm one of the lucky ones.

"I can't say enough about Tullamore. All of the staff there. The physios had to pull me back a few times. They will always be in my mind."

Read More

Mr O'Leary spent another 30 days recovering in Tullamore before he was eventually able to return home last Friday.

His wife Valerie said the hospital staff were "unbelievable", helping her and their two children Aiden (33) and Timothy (35) to talk to him over the phone while he was in a coma.

The staff, she said, even asked for information about the family so they could talk to Mr O'Leary about them while they were unable to attend the hospital.

Ms O'Leary said that while on the phone to her husband, she continuously told him that he had to get through the illness so that he could see his grandchildren.

"We were so worried," she said. "Tim's doctor down there is a marvellous man and I told him we wanted complete honesty and a few weeks in we were wondering would he ever come off the ventilator, is this the end of the line?

"We had the conversation about if Tim hit rock bottom and we agreed that he would throw the kitchen sink at him.

"It reached the stage in mid-April when he had reached that point and the doctor said if this doesn't work, I'm going to be ringing you to come down, he wouldn't have made it," she recalled.

"I couldn't go down while he was in ICU and that was awful but the staff were absolutely wonderful down there.

"They would put the phone to Tim's ear and we could all chat to him," she continued.

"Most of the time they would see a reaction, his head would move towards the phone. We were just reminding him of all the good things he has to come back to. The grandkids and maybe retiring now, all of the things any parent looks forwards to.

"I would just tell him he has to pull through. Tim is a great Dublin GAA man and he had battles out on the pitch so we knew he would battle through this as well."

Mr O'Leary has been told that he will make a full recovery, although it could take up to a year.

He said that he would have to retire from his role as manager for the St Brigid's junior hurling team.

He is also a taxi driver and believed he may have contracted the virus after picking up Italian passengers travelling over to Ireland for the cancelled rugby international. He is now considering retiring his taxi licence.

"I was very lucky," he concluded. "I'm going to take every opportunity in life from now on."
A cushion that has been taped on the covering of a statue of Winston Churchill in London.

BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

Google apologized after resolving an issue that caused photos of Winston Churchill to appear blank in some search results.

Users found that Churchill's portrait didn't appear in results for World War II leaders or UK Prime Ministers.

Google's Search Liaison Twitter account recognized the search engine error, saying it "was not purposeful" and that similar issues can happen when the website makes routine updates.

The issue came after the former UK prime minister's statue in London's Parliament Square was defaced during anti-racism protests and later covered with a protective barrier.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Google apologized early Sunday morning in response to user reports of Winston Churchill's photos missing from searches for UK Prime Ministers and World War II leaders.

Apparently, some users found that Churchill's photo was appearing blank in search results that appear at the top of the web page.

A screenshot that shows Churchill's missing photo.

Screenshot/Google Search

Google's Search Liaison Twitter account  which includes tweets from the company's "public liaison of search," Danny Sullivan  shares messages with followers about errors, news, and information related to the Google Search tool.

The Search Liaison account wrote that the team was aware of the missing image on Sunday and apologized for the error.

"This was not purposeful & will be resolved," the tweet read.

Google's Search Liaison went on to explain that information of Churchill's first term as UK Prime Minister from 1940 until 1945 didn't seem to appear in search results  but that this was not specific to Churchill, and it was an error that sometimes happens during an update.

"A similar thing happens with Wilson, MacDonald, and Baldwin," Google's Search Liaison said.

Story continues

The issues regarding Churchill's missing photo and select information were resolved, wrote Google's Search Liaison in a tweet on Sunday.

"Again, this was not purposeful," the account shared in a message. "Our apologies for the concerns caused."

At the time of writing, Churchill's portrait appears to be restored on the search engine.

A screenshot of the resolved Google Search showing Churchill's photo restored.

Screenshot/Google Search

The incident of Churchill's missing Google Search results came after a statue of the former prime minister in London's Parliament Square was defaced  among other monuments of historic figures  during recent anti-racism protests.

Officials have since created a barrier around Churchill's monument and covered it with what looks like a box to prevent further damage as protests continue in the UK and around the world.

People gather outside the boarded-up statue of Winston Churchill on June 13, 2020.

Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images

Churchill's granddaughter Emma Soames told the BBC in response to the monument's covering, she was "shocked" but understood why it was necessary.

Soames said that she thinks the statue of her grandfather may now be "safer" in a museum.

Read the original article on Insider
A labor union that represents toll booth workers plans to take legal action against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission after it unanimously voted to lay off nearly 500 employees despite a contract that assured employment through January 2022, according to Teamsters International Vice President-East William Hamilton.

This was nothing more than a premeditated hit, Hamilton said during a public hearing with the state Senate Transportation and Labor & Industry committees on Monday. The facts are we had an agreement. I sat in on the agreement when it was finalized.

Republicans and Democrats on the committees hammered members of the state turnpike commission with criticism over their decision, some accusing the commission of using the pandemic as a justifiable reason to make the last-minute transition to all-electronic tolling.

Turnpike employee contracts were ratified on May 19, which guaranteed that people would keep employment, health benefits, and tuition assistance through January 2022, the year the commission was planning to transition to a cashless system.

However, the commission voted unanimously on June 2 to terminate 492 toll workers, but those workers will still receive unemployment, health benefits, and tuition assistance provided by the turnpike through 2022.

Hamilton said legal actions will include filing charges against the commission for unfair labor practices, which he said will show the commission did not negotiate in good faith.

This is an unprecedented time for us with the organization, and had I seen that  absolutely I wish I would have not given those assurances, said turnpike CEO Mark Compton.

Compton said they decided to make the layoffs based on financial strains and measures to protect the health and safety of toll workers from being exposed to COVID019. He said toll booth workers can interact with up to 1,200 motorists an hour in cities like Philadelphia.

Senate Labor & Industry Committee Chairwoman Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington County, said based off of an email that was leaked from the turnpike commission that showed talking points for the June 2 meeting, this was a decision that was made prior to the meeting. Bartolotta, along with other members of the committees, were critical of the commissions motives to go all-electronic and skeptical that coronavirus was the only factor.

It seems to me that it was quite apparent, [from] the outside looking in, it was obvious that this was a perfect opportunity to go ahead and flip the switch to say we're going to just be fully automated, Bartolotta said. This is what we've been wanting to do. Let's just do it. Let's just do it now.

Members of the commission said the layoffs will save them $42 million this year and $65 million next year, which are net numbers after unemployment and health insurance is paid. Craig Shuey, the turnpikes chief operating officer, said the turnpike could see up to $400 million in losses for fiscal year 2021 because fewer motorists have been using the toll road amid Gov. Tom Wolfs stay-at-home orders and the states phased reopening of the economy.

Toll revenues have fallen by more than $100 million for the turnpikes fiscal year that ended May 31, amounting to a 36.4 percent drop in revenue from the prior year. From a traffic standpoint, turnpike business declined by an unprecedented 46%. The last time the turnpike had as few customers as it did during this past fiscal year was 35 years ago.

This graphic provided by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission shows the dropoff in turnpike business since COVID-19 pandemic began in the state.

Given the drop in traffic, especially commuter traffic, and the revenue reduction, Compton said the decision was made to go cashless to offset losses and improve safety.

Hamilton said the commission never discussed health and safety concerns with members of Teamsters, and they were not aware that layoffs were going to happen before they were announced on June 1. The General Assembly also was not aware of the decision, but Transportation Secretary Yassmin Gramien said they had conversations with Wolf before announcing the layoffs.

Shuey said during these two years, employees who were laid off can still apply for open positions within the commission and will be considered as internal applicants when bidding on positions. He also said outside of the approximately 50 open positions they have now, they are imposing a hiring freeze. Those laid off can also now collect up to $25,000 in severance, which was originally capped at $14,000.

Sen. Lindsey Wiliams, D-Allegheny County, pressed Compton as to why they did not have a conversation with the Teamsters before laying off employees. Compton said that they dont telegraph news of layoffs before an official decision.

Hamilton said the Teamsters have worked with other departments prior to mass layoffs.

Compton stated in his testimony the decision to layoff 492 employees was not one easily made. He said, The fact is, the world has been forever changed by the pandemic, which has had a greater impact than anyone expected.

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As it soars off the launch pad for the Artemis I missions, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket is powered by two solid rocket boosters.

Critical parts of the booster will soon head to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for the Artemis I launch. Specialized transporters move each of the 10 solid rocket motor segments from the Northrop Grumman facility in their Promontory Point, Utah, to a departure point where they will leave for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The cross-country journey is an important milestone toward the first launch of NASA's Artemis lunar program.

Exploration Ground Systems teams at Kennedy will begin processing the segments with the forward and aft parts of the booster previously assembled in the Booster Fabrication Facility on site at Kennedy. When the boosters arrive, they are moved into the Rotation, Processing and Surge Facility (RPSF) that in the past to processed shuttle booster segments. Initial stacking of the aft assembly will occur here, and then booster segments will be kept at the RPSF until stacking on the mobile launcher inside Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building.

NASA is working to land the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024. SLS, along with NASA's Orion spacecraft, the Human Landing System and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, are NASA's backbone for deep space exploration. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts and cargo to the Moon on a single mission.



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Toronto is a magnet for immigration, even for American critters with 50 teeth and a long, rat-like tail.

An opossum sighting in my yard is an almost nightly event lately, and I suspect Im far from the only one around here who is spotting the U.S. invaders in ever-growing numbers.

This is the Year of the Opossum around my house along the Scarborough Bluffs, after I put up a bird feeder given to me last Christmas and started sprinkling birdseed on the lawn for winged ground feeders.

The food is also eaten by squirrels and raccoons, which is OK with me, but I did not expect the parade of opossums that descend on our yard soon after nightfall.

Theyre such regular visitors that I got over being surprised by them months ago, but not my neighbour.

I was watching one nosh on birdseed about 9:30 p.m. a couple weeks ago, when it started out onto the sidewalk. I saw the silhouette of my neighbour on his porch across the street, so I called out to him to take a look.

The opossum turned around and headed back into my yard. My neighbour and I started to talk, with him telling me hed never before seen one.

While we chatted, two more came skittering out of my neighbours yard next door and loped across the street. The guy across the street was agog; he went from never seeing one to spotting three in a couple minutes.

I hear theyre vicious, he said.

It didnt seem like it to me, but since I knew almost nothing about them I decided to poke around online. I found a news story where the late Rob Ford, as mayor of Toronto, warned city council that they could be a bigger problem than raccoons and are vicious.

If Mayor Rob said theyre vicious, they probably arent. But to be sure, I asked Suzanne MacDonald, an animal behaviourist at York University, who recalled Fords warning and laughed about it.

Theyre not vicious at all, she said, noting that they roll over and pretend to be dead when facing a real threat, as well as emitting a foul smell like a rotting cadaver  hence the term playing possum.

They have no way to fend off predators so they play dead, she said, adding that theyre mostly nocturnal and incredibly gentle and shy, no threat to anyone.

MacDonald said that as the climate changed and became warmer, Virginia opossums, as they are officially known, pushed northward and spread into southern Ontario about 25 years ago.

There is no way to accurately estimate how many are in the GTA, she said, so I offered up numbers compiled by Toronto Animal Services about dead or sick and injured opossums.

In 2015, the city picked up 172 sick or injured opossums, along with 362 dead ones. By 2018, the sick/injured number had grown to 261, while dead opossums totalled 808.

MacDonald said those figures represent only a small fraction of the actual population, and that her guess is that Toronto is now home to many, many thousands of North Americas only marsupials.

They seem to be adapting quite well, even to our winters, she said, adding that theyre susceptible to frostbite.

She offered several reasons why we neednt be afraid of them and should roll out the welcome mat: They eat just about anything but unlike raccoons, theyre too dumb to figure out how to open a green bin.

They dont dig holes in yards, they temporarily inhabit burrows abandoned by other animals and are mostly singular and transient, so theyre unlikely to become permanent occupants of any property, she said.

Theyre scavengers, natures cleanup crew. Theyll eat thousands of ticks over a season and we really should be delighted to have them around. How can you not like an animal that eats ticks and road kill?

Id like to hear from readers who have had opossum encounters, and please send me photos, if youve got them.

Whats broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. Email jlakey@thestar.ca or follow @TOStarFixer on Twitter
Tourism companies have been complaining about the state of chaos at a new tourist wharf in the coastal city of Nha Trang in south-central Vietnam.

Located along the banks of the Quan Truong River in Vinh Truong Ward, the 400-meter-long Nha Trang tourist wharf is funded by Hon Mot Joint Stock Company and managed and operated by the Management Board of Nha Trang Bay as a replacement for the old Cau Da tourist wharf.

The new pier was put into operation on May 16, with three waiting areas that can house 300-500 travelers each and receive 10,000-12,000 arrivals a day.

At the moment, nearly 400 tourist boats and speedboats from the Cau Da tourist wharf, which closed on May 16, are anchored at the new tourist pier.

Fishing boats have also been using the same pier, making the space cramped.

The southeast monsoon winds create whirlpools at the mouth of the sea, making it difficult for boats to enter and leave the pier.

At low tide, the water there is not deep enough for some large boats to anchor.

Tourist and fishing boats are anchored at the new Nha Trang tourist pier in this undated photo. Photo: Minh Chien / Tuoi Tre

The Management Board of Nha Trang Bay said it is mobilizing fishermen to relocate their boats to create a clear and convenient way for the tourist boats and speedboats to dock at the new pier.

A new system of channeling the boats and speedboats entering and leaving the port is also underway.

Outside of the pier, space is an issue. Since the new piers launch, many street vendors have set up on the sidewalks of the path leading to the wharf for the illegal operations of their makeshift food and drink stands.

Regarding the sidewalk encroachment, Ngo Khac Thinh, deputy director of the Urban Management Department of Nha Trang City, said that his unit has cooperated with the Peoples Committee of Vinh Truong Ward, the citys police, and the Management Board of Nha Trang Bay to carry out a sidewalk inspection campaign at the new wharf.

The Urban Management Department will hand over the duty to the Peoples Committee of Vinh Truong Ward and the Management Board of Nha Trang Bay to prevent the sidewalks from being encroached upon again following the campaign.

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The security deal and maritime borders agreement signed between Fayez Al-Sarraj, head of the Presidency Council of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan triggered an outcry among the Libyan public. Libyan political actors decried the agreements as a flagrant surrender of Libyan will to a foreign power, and tantamount to grand treason. The agreements are tangible proof of how the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in Libya is serving as the instrument to promote neo-Ottoman sway over Libyan resources and to facilitate the realisation of Ankaras expansionist ambitions in North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

When announcing the security agreement with Turkey last Wednesday, 27 November, GNA Interior Minister Fathi Bashaga said that it had to do with fighting terrorism and illegal migration. That narrative was exposed for the lie it was by the Turkish president himself, who announced Saturday that his country had signed two memorandums of understanding with Libya, the first on military and security cooperation and the second regarding sovereignty over maritime zones in order to protect respective rights under international law. Bloomberg news cited Erdogan as saying that the Turkish parliament would ratify the agreement over the maritime boundaries in the coming days, strengthening Turkish influence in the Mediterranean.

GRAND TREASON: The Libyan House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Committee released a statement describing the agreements between Sarraj and the Turkish regime as grand treason. The purpose of that spurious agreement is to supply the militias and terrorist organisations under the GNA with drones, weapons, ammunition and Turkish military experts in flagrant defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and within full view of the UN Support Mission in Libya.

Describing the Turkish regime as an enemy and aggressor against the Libyan people and a backer of terrorist groups and militias, the House of Representatives condemned the alliance that Al-Sarraj and his unconstitutional Presidency Council struck with the Turkish regime as a threat to Libyan and Arab national security, and a threat to peace and security in the Mediterranean in general.

The statement added: Signing an agreement of this nature allows the Turkish regime, which sponsors terrorism, the militias and anarchy, to use our airspace and enter our regional waters without having to ask permission from Libya, and to build military bases.

The statement stressed that the parliament and its subsidiary bodies, including the General Command of the Libyan National Army, would not stand by idly as it watches a new episode in the conspiracy between the Erdogan regime and the Presidency Council which have allied with the militias and terrorist organisations against the security, safety and sovereignty of the state.

The Libyan House of Representatives, the only popularly elected governing body in Libya, regards Al-Sarrajs signature to any agreement with a foreign power as invalid and a violation of the jurisdiction of the House. Under Article 17 of the Constitutional Declaration remaining in effect, the House of Representatives is the sole body entitled to approve and ratify international agreements and treaties. Also, under Article 14 of the Skhirat Agreement, the Presidency Council is not empowered to conclude international agreements and treaties. The Libyan parliament, in its statement, called on the UN Security Council, the UN secretary general and the UN Security Councils Sanctions Committee to undertake their responsibilities to halt the dangerous escalation.

In like manner, the eastern based Libyan government formed by the elected parliament denounced the Tripoli-Ankara agreements as a cover Al-Sarraj has provided to facilitate Erdogans colonialist designs by giving him a foothold in Libya. It added that the purpose was also to obstruct the efforts of the LNA to uproot terrorism and militias from Tripoli.

The interim government affirms its complete and absolute rejection of these illegal agreements, which were concluded by persons unauthorised to do so under the provisions of Libyan law and judicial rulings, the government statement said. It called on the international community and the UN envoy to Libya to investigate Turkeys violations of UN Security Council resolutions through its provision of weapons to the unconstitutional GNA. It stressed that these weapons are then channelled into the hands of terrorists, thereby threatening international peace and security.

EMBROILING LIBYA IN EAST MEDITERRANEAN DISPUTES: By concluding this maritime and security agreements, Al-Sarraj is trying to embroil Libya in regional and international disputes, according to Libyan political analyst Jamal Shalouf. The only party that will benefit from this is Turkey whose neo-Ottoman colonialist ambitions target the entire Arab region. In remarks to Al-Ahram Weekly, Shalouf said, to understand this dilemma one only has to read Libya, Turkeys neighbour in the Mediterranean by the Turkish rear admiral Cihat Yayci which exposes Turkeys scheme to seize control of the eastern Mediterranean gas fields, which the author estimates are worth more than $3 trillion, and to prevent Greece and Greek Cyprus from sharing these resources with Egypt. It also threatens Italian and Maltese interests.

Shalouf fears that legal disputes between these countries could flare into a military confrontation and that Libya could be dragged into it because of Al-Sarrajs folly. He is also mystified by the silence with which this development has been greeted by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) which had forced the Sarraj government on Libya following the 2015 Skhirat Agreement. Shalouf urged the Libyan parliament to form a specialised legal team to study ways to enable Libya to avoid any legal consequences stemming from Al-Sarrajs signing of the agreements. He also appealed to the international community to act as quickly as possible to stop Al-Sarraj from toying with Libyas fate, to withdraw its recognition of him, and to bar those fools from representing Libya internationally and keep them from signing any international agreement and spending the Libyan peoples money on their extremely risky heresies.

TURKISH AMBITIONS: In the opinion of Libyan politician Nassif Al-Ferjani, Turkeys Erdogan is bent on harming Egypts interests in revenge for Egypts having obstructed his neo-Ottoman dreams by ousting his Muslim Brotherhood proxies from power in 2013. This is why Turkey is trying to seize control of the point close to the Egyptian coast, Al-Ferjani told the Weekly. He points to evidence of this in Yeni Safak, a Turkish daily close to Erdogans ruling party, which mentioned Al-Burdi in its reading of the maritime boundary agreement with Al-Sarraj. Al-Burdi is the closest coastal point to Egypt. It is located only 23 kilometres from Sallum. In 2009, Al-Burdi Hotel was opened. It was a Turkish funded project overseen by Ali Al-Sallabi, a Libyan Muslim Brotherhood figure, under the auspices of the Libya Al-Ghad (Libya of Tomorrow) Project. This was at the time when Al-Sallabi had struck up a friendship with Gaddafis son, Seif Al-Islam. The Turkish hotel had to cease operations and shut down when Turkeys destructive role in Libya since February 2011 became increasingly apparent.

Turkey has been cited as the most blatant violator of the UN Security Councils arms embargo to Libya. It has actively supported Al-Sarrajs government and the terrorist organisations and militias allied with it with money and heavy weaponry. Since the LNA launched Operation Flood of Dignity to liberate Tripoli from the terrorist organisations and militias that have held it hostage, the LNA has downed more than 30 Turkish drones and destroyed six Turkish military operation rooms in Tripoli, Misrata and Zuwara, according to multiple military communiques. On 18 November, LNA spokesman Ahmed Al-Mismari announced that LNA air forces had struck 19 Turkish tanks that had been unloaded from the Turkish civilian freighter Kosavak Rost at Misratas Iron and Steel Port.

Ankara publicly acknowledged its support for terrorist organisations and militias in Libya when Erdogan said that he was ready to sacrifice all his countrys resources to stop the LNA from liberating Tripoli.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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DHAKA, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Experts from a Chinese medical team have shared experiences with their Bangladeshi peers to assist them in better combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senior officials of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society conveyed gratitude and thanks to the Chinese government for sending the experts to Bangladesh.

The Chinese team visited hospitals and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka Saturday and gave advice on the prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bangladesh experts said smooth communication and information exchange between the two sides are very important, and they also showed a strong interest in traditional Chinese medicine.

The Chinese medical team arrived here on June 8 and will stay in Bangladesh for two weeks to support Bangladesh in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zhang Lifa, 76, a Chinese military veteran, died of coronavirus in February - Zhang Hai

When Zhang Hai checked his father into a hospital in Wuhan mid-January, he had no idea a novel coronavirus was sweeping through the city.

Chinese authorities had yet to sound the alarm, despite mounting evidence the virus was fatal and transmitting quickly  at least two were dead, and infections had spread abroad. But police pressured doctors to stay silent, and hospitals wouldnt allow extra protective gear, even as medical staff fell ill.

So Mr Zhang never imagined his father, a 76-year-old veteran, would be infected with Covid-19 at the hospital while having a thigh fracture repaired, and die within a week.

If the government didnt cover up the disease in the early stages, my father wouldnt have died, Mr Zhang, 50, told the Telegraph. I am furious... so many people lost their lives during this pandemic. What they did amounts to murder.

On Wednesday, Mr Zhang filed the first lawsuit in China against the government that seeks restitution for its cover-up of the pandemic, according to lawyers and documents reviewed by the Telegraph.

Hes demanding nearly 2 million yuan (215,000) from the authorities and the hospital to cover his late fathers government pension had he survived, the psychological toll on the family and funeral expenses, as well as an official apology.

The unprecedented lawsuit poses immense risk for Mr Zhang as it challenges the ruling Communist Partys official narrative, which denies a cover-up, glosses over missteps, and instead focuses on containment success.

China has used a selective timeline to defend against growing criticism over its lack of transparency in the pandemic, even as lawsuits seeking punitive damages from Beijing pile up across the globe, including in the US, India and Nigeria.

The case is very sensitive, so the court will probably give us a cold shoulder, Yang Zhanqing, Mr Zhangs lawyer, said from the US where he sought refuge after being detained in China for his work. At the same time, the court will notify the local government, and the authorities will coerce him to withdraw the lawsuit.

Story continues

Chinese authorities are working overtime to snuff out anger over its mishandling of the outbreak.

In Wuhan, ground zero of the pandemic, police have threatened to arrest people organising to file complaints if they meet in groups of five or more, said Chen Jiangang, a human rights lawyer trying to negotiate settlements for families of those who died.

The pressure comes from everywhere  not only from the police, but also the Communist Party neighbourhood committees, in the workplace, even relatives at home, he said.

One state-owned company employee was pressured by her manager to stop complaining to journalists that a hospital refused to issue a coronavirus diagnosis, even though she tested positive and needed a positive diagnosis to file an insurance claim. Her boss warned doing so was a political mistake, her lawyer told the Telegraph.

Others have been compelled by police and local party officials to abandon their pursuits for reparations. Lawyers in China have also been told to cease providing assistance.

If you show you are indignant or critical, they can immediately locate you and get information about your family and movements, including who you talked to and where you have been, said Mr Chen, who lives in the US after fleeing pressure and threats in China for his work. Theres 24-hour monitoring.

Most people acquiesced out of fear, but Mr Zhang continues to defy threats. His social media posts have been censored and police have made clear theyre watching him.

Police waved a printout of his comments in a group chat  since shut down by the authorities  with more than a hundred people hoping to seek reparations for relatives deaths, chiding him for meddling with anti-China forces, he said.

The Chinese government frequently blame dissidents for unpatriotic behaviour by siding with foreign forces, an argument that has gotten louder as countries call for an independent inquiry into coronavirus origins.

If we say anything, they accuse us of handing a knife to anti-China agents, said Mr Zhang. But theyre the ones wielding the knife, hurting me, so why am I not allowed to speak up?

His lawyer was so concerned for his safety that he immediately feared police had detained Mr Zhang after he stopped replying to messages for two hours the day after filing the lawsuit.

For now, a draconian mix of surveillance and the threat of consequences has kept social unrest at bay. Authorities have managed to rein in public anger that hit a peak when whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang died in February and government censors struggled to delete the surge of critical comments online.

Chinese soldiers wearing face masks in Beijing - ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

But in Wuhan, discontent continues to brew. Families remain angry with hospitals and quarantine facilities for not accepting patients and negligence, while others are upset at companies for mandating work and offering inadequate protective supplies.

A woman whose father-in-law died is quarrelling with quarantine facility staff for refusing to deliver medicine to him and failing to provide a health certificate that would allow the family to apply for reparations.

Protests have also sprung up. As quarantines lifted in April, dozens of shopkeepers at a mall demanded lower rents after being forced to shutter all year. Other residents were outraged at property management for high prices for groceries and home essentials during the lockdown. Last month, outrage flared after another doctor died from the coronavirus.

The pressure campaign could last decades  even now, Chinese authorities will detain people who lost relatives in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre when the military gunned down peaceful pro-democracy protesters, an event the government still wont acknowledge.

Despite the risks, Mr Zhang refuses to give up.

Many families have fallen silent under pressure, which I understand, he said. But I wont be gagged. If I am, my father will have died in vain, and that wouldnt do him justice.

Additional reporting by Lya Cai
Reliance Industries rights issue shares opened at Rs 690 per share in today's session on NSE against the base price of Rs 646. The stock hit an intraday high of Rs 710.65 and low of Rs 671.55.

On the BSE, it was trading at Rs 684.

The rights issue shares of Reliance Industries were listed on the stock markets under the name of RELIANCEPP, with an ISIN number of IN9002A01024

On June 11, the allotment of partly paid-up shares to the demat accounts of the shareholders was completed by RIL. "Effective from Monday, June 15, 2020, the new securities of Reliance Industries Ltd (Scrip Code: 890147) shall be listed and permitted to trade on the Exchange in the list of 'A' Group of Securities," BSE said.

The oil-to-telecom conglomerate's Rs 53,124 crore rights issue was India's largest-ever rights issue. The conglomerate ended the rights issue last week, which was subscribed 1.59 times, cumulating to an overall commitment of over Rs 84,000 crore.

In the partially paid rights entitlement (RE), RIL has offered existing shareholders equity shares in the ratio of 1:15, that is, one new share for 15 held at a discounted price of Rs 1,257.

RIL Rights Entitlement (RIL RE) closed on May 29 with a 7% premium over its intrinsic value, which is the difference between RIL share price and Rights issue price of Rs 1,257.

The base price of Rs 646 was derived by adding the first installment of Rs 314.25 and Rs 331.80, which is the difference between Friday's closing price and rights price i.e. Rs 1,588.80- Rs 1,257.

RIL intends to use three-fourth of proceeds from the rights issue for repaying some of its borrowings, as per the offer document filed with exchanges.

Meanwhile, the stake of RIL's promoter group has seen an increase after the closing of rights issue. The promoter group got 22.50 crore shares in the rights issue, taking the shareholding in the firm to 50.29 per cent, marginally higher than 50.07 per cent earlier, according to the June 11 exchange filing.

On the other hand, the public shareholding has slightly fallen from 49.93 per cent to 49.71 per cent after the rights issue, according to the data.

Meanwhile, RIL share price erased early gains and was trading 0.54% lower at Rs 1,580 on BSE.

RIL rights issue: Promoter group's stake in company rises to 50.29%

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Last Thursday, a Louisiana mom went haywire and killed her four children, including another adult in a murder-suicide. After the murderous rampage, she shot herself before the police arrived.

Those were the horrifying events at Parkview apartments located in Munroe. Police were appalled by the grisly scene of the crime, as reported by New Star.

According to Police Chief Reggie Brown, the woman who killed the four children and one adult was identified as Brittany Tucker, who shot everyone fatally till she turned the firearm on herself to commit suicide. A day later on Friday, the deaths were confirmed by police officials.

Murder-suicide in a quiet neighborhood

The crime occurred at the apartment building 19 in the complex, at 7:44 in the evening. Anteshia Logwood, 20 years old, was shot by the suicidal-murderer Brittany Tucker, who is also her next-door neighbor.

Her reasons for shooting her neighbor was not known, but Chief Reggie Brown said that the shooter snapped after asking her neighbor: 'What are you laughing at?' Longwood ignored this remark, which triggered Tucker who eventually shot her neighbor, according to Knoe.

Tucker then went to her own unit, apartment 159, where she and her children lived. Getting inside the unit, she shot all four children of hers till they were dead or died from their injuries. None of the children were alive when found by the police.

Other details, like what Longwood said or other circumstances were not known by the police. More of Chief Brown's revelations from the clues of the case is that Tucker had bought a handgun earlier. It was determined as the murder weapon used to kill the victims, including herself.

Also read: Deranged Woman Stabs 7-Year-Old Girl to Death While Playing in Park

The Tucker children were identified as Tremayne, aged 12, Trechelle, aged 8, Treasure, aged 5, and the youngest was Glory, who was just 5-months-old when shot. All the children had no chance, even a bit when authorities arrived.

Police arrived after getting called to the apartment complex, and they witnessed the disturbing crime scene. The whole family was found dead at the location. It was regrettable that none of the children were saved.

Probe is still on-going about Tucker family massacre

Investigators digging into the 'Tucker massacre' discovered from other witnesses that Brittany purchased a gun earlier, that was the weapon for the shooting. Authorities are yet to determine whether the gun was a legal purchase or not.

Police interviewed witnesses to ask what happened days before Brittany Tucker went haywire. They were not sure if Tucker was in the right frame of mind, according to US News.

They said she was not very normal with the gun in hand and was rather edgy. Brown said if the witnesses knew what to do, they would have intervened, after seeing the alarming signs from Tucker.

He added that the incident could have been avoided at all costs. They knew that something was wrong already. The record was obtained that Brittany Tucker has mental problems for a few years and was getting treatment for it.

Brown said experienced detectives at the scene Thursday night were disturbed and required some counseling to sort out the tragedy.

Related article: Two Sisters Stabbed to Death by Deranged Stranger in a London Park After Attending a Party

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Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, an honest look at President Biden's press conference.

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Actor Sushant Singh Rajput passed away on Sunday, June 14 by suicide. While the industry is mourning the loss of the actor, a family member revealed that Sushant was supposed to get married in November.

While talking to news channel India TV, Sushant's cousin revealed that he was to get married in November, and the family was preparing for the wedding and was going to visit Mumbai soon. While he didn't disclose the to-be-bride's name, he said that it was going to be a private wedding in Mumbai with family members and friends.

Sushant Singh Rajput was reportedly dating Rhea Chakraborty, while neither of them officially confirmed their relationship, the rumour mill had claimed that they were about to get married. The late actor's family members recently arrived in Mumbai from Patna, and are devastated. Relatives and neighbours are taking care of his father who had fallen unconscious after hearing the news. Sushant's sister and brother-in-law, along with close friends, are currently in Mumbai.

Sushant's body was reportedly taken to the Cooper Hospital in Mumbai to be tested for COVID-19. On Monday, after post-mortem, the police official ruled the late actor's death as a suicide. The officials also revealed that his body will be sent to JJ Hospital for analysis, and the case will further be investigated by the Crime Branch.

The police officials were called by the late actor's house help after discovering the actor's body. While they did not find a suicide note, the actor was reportedly suffering from depression and was getting treated for the same in the past a few months.

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Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM
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Bound by roti and beti, Singh on relations with Nepal

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: India will sort out the differences with Nepal through dialogue, Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh said.

He asserted that the road built by India till the Lipulekh Pass was very much within its territory. If the road built by India has caused any misunderstanding among the people of Nepal, then it would be sorted out through dialogue, Singh said at a virtual rally for Uttarakhand.

India and Nepal are both bound by roti and beti. No power in the world can break it, he also said. Our relations are not only historical and cultural, but spiritual as well, Singh further aded. How can relations between India and Nepal break, Singh further questioned.

Not too long before people of PoK would want to be part of India: Rajnath Singh

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

On Sunday, the upper house of the Nepalese parliament accepted the proposal to consider the bill to amend the country's Constitution to endorse the new map which included the territory claimed by India- Lipulekh Pass, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani.

This territorial claim has become an irritant for India's relations with Nepal. This would also give China the advantage as it has been competing with India for geopolitical influence over Nepal.

The developments come at a time, when India is holding talks amidst a tense stand off with China along the Line of Actual Control. India is also keeping a close watch on the developments with Nepal as it would also alter its standing at the SAARC.

Meanwhile, India has termed this development as untenable, the fact remains that the this development in Nepal remains a mere formality. India has said that this exercise would seal dialogue with Nepal.

While Nepal has been accusing India of not offering dialogue, a top official in New Delhi tells OneIndia that an offer for foreign secretary level talks and a video conference between the foreign secretaries was made. This was in fact made even before the amendment bill was tabled in Nepal.

However, Prime Minister of Nepal K P Oli seemed disinterested in the offer. The reasoning behind this can be best answered by him, but sources say that he could be either dancing to China's tune or indulging in posturing to suit his own political cause.

India says that despite the offer, Oli went ahead with the amendment bill. It is now entirely up to him whether he wants to reciprocate or not, the officer cited above also said.

On the contrary, India would not issue any harsh statements. It is more pertinent that we settle the issue rather than engage in a verbal duel with Nepal, officials say.

India has reminded Nepal about the friendly relations it shared and has repeatedly stated that on the map, it has made its position clear.

India is also closely watching the timing of the developments in Nepal. It comes close on the heels of the standoff with China. We suspect that there could be a Chinese role in this aggression with India, the official cited above said.

The approach by India has been more of a calm one. India has subtly reminded Nepal of the humanitarian and development assistance it had provided, including medicines to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our multi-faceted bilateral partnership has expanded and diversified in recent years with increased focus and enhanced humanitarian and development assistance by the Government of India and connectivity projects in Nepal," Anurag Srivastava, MEA spokesperson said.

Nepal had alleged that India had encroached upon its territory by deploying soldiers, building a temple and creating an artificial river.

Nepal's Prime Minister, K P Oli said that India had built a Kali Temple, created an artificial Kali river and deployed Indian Army personnel in order encroach upon the Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. He said that these earlier belonged to his country.

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Story first published: Monday, June 15, 2020, 17:02 [IST]
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell said last week that the central bank will continue to act forcefully, proactively and aggressively to sustain the economy, and plans to keep rates near zero until 2022.

The Feds dovish stance will be bullish for gold in the long-term, said Frank Holmes, CEO of U.S. Global Investors, who noted that a trillions more dollars will likely be printed before we see a full economic recovery.

Powell is making these very strong statements so that means theyre going to print, and I think youre going to see another couple of trillion dollars in the summer. Ive said this from day one, I think its going to take $10 trillion in the U.S. alone and thats forgetting what Europe is spending, theyre also on a huge binge of spending. Japan and China, and this is what makes gold a super attractive asset, Holmes told Kitco News.

On risk assets, Holmes said that although near-term volatility is expected, the longer-term trend is still up.

The President is focused on the stock market, and I think thats whats really important, he said.
The Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the PanAfrican Organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has launched today a report highlighting worrying trends for the media industry as a result of COVID-19 outbreak on the continent.

African journalism in the eye of the pandemic storm is the result of a survey conducted among FAJs members and to which 20 unions replied, representing 57% of its affiliates in Africa.

The reports shows that African governments programmes to respond to the economic impact of the pandemic have had a negative impact on the media sector and lacked proper support of media workers.

Unions point in particular at quarantine measures which have prevented journalists from doing their jobs by a failure to understand the reality of the profession. FESYTRAC of Congo Brazzaville said COVID19 had a negative impact in the media sector, as fundamental freedoms, the right to work, the free movement of persons and goods were restricted by the state of health emergency, curfew and population confinement.

The report shows that governments started by treating journalists as ordinary citizens without acknowledging their professional need. In Somalia, for instance, NUSOJ had to build a fullyfledged campaign to convince the Federal Government of Somalia to consider journalists as key workers. Similarly, in Morocco, the SNPM organised a strong lobby action in favor of public interest reporting about the coronavirus.

Respondents condemned the inertia of governments in supporting media workers. Over 50% of respondents said that their government had undertaken no specific effort to alleviate the physical impact of the virus on media workplaces. UJT of Chad described a government contingency plan including support for economic operators, social assistance to vulnerable groups but nothing on the press sector and SYNAPCCI of Ivory Coast The government has so far done nothing for the media sector, apart from a few masks and other hygiene equipment.

Seventy-five percent of respondents said governments guidelines on social distancing resulted in a major overhaul of the physical working conditions of journalists, from the reduction of journalists physical presence in newsrooms, to the increase of teleworking, the change of tools for conducting interviews and the wearing of protective equipment. South Sudan was the only country where journalists union UJOSS maintained that the government did not follow the WHO COVID19 rules and orders and that its only advice to citizens was to take care of themselves without proper quarantine measures, resulting in poor awareness of the pandemic.

Only 20% of governments have specifically addressed the crisis of news media. In the Ivory Coast, authorities announced a support fund which details remain unknown. In Senegal, the government doubled aid to the press from CFA Franc 700 million to 1.4 billion and announced a Special Fund to support businesses and the media sector. In Togo, the government increased aid to the press by 50% from CFA Franc 100 to 150 million, allocated to 180 press organs, eight television stations and 56 radio stations. The Kenyan government has announced the strongest stimulus so far by allocating $1 million to community media to keep them afloat.

The report warns that journalists have not benefited from this aid, except in Mozambique and Angola where executive decrees ensure journalists and media workers will not lose their jobs.

A broad range of large and mediumsized publishers and news outlets started implementing costsaving plans that consist of both paid and unpaid leave for significant numbers of staff and reduced salaries for others. Nearly 100% of respondents described this onslaught on jobs in the most graphic terms. Djibouti is described as the only country unaffected because of the state-owned model of all media.

Many media outlets have stopped publishing or reduced their coverage. In Chad, the UJT reports that the entire private press, which accounts for more than 90% of the media space, is taking the brunt of the crisisMany newspapers no longer appear or appear abruptly when an opportunity to go to print is offered to them; others even change their format from tabloid to A4 . In Sudan, newspapers no longer exist as 21 dailies have been suspended, reports SUJ.

In almost every country, freelance journalists have been left out from every negotiation and plan, the report says. In Ivory coast freelancers are on their own says SYNAPCCI and in Uganda, UJU says many freelancers were sent home without any pay, and are still stranded there without any money.

Journalists unions have tried to respond to the situation by delaying or suspending their activities, engaging with governments to ensure the survival of journalism, monitoring their members working conditions, and providing safety advisories and guidance on a whole range of issues from safety to ethics to labour rights. In many countries they obtained and distributed preventive equipment such as facemasks and hand sanitisers. In Kenya, the union KUJ successfully took two media companies to court to force them to treat the cuts in salaries they wanted to impose as debts agreeing that the companies should pay back once normality returns.

The report finally deplores the paralysis of media employers in proposing alternatives to save the press and calls on trade unions to lead the way in building campaigns to protect media workers and jobs.

Note to the press:

Journalists unions who replied to FAJ survey are: SJA  Angola; FESYTRAC  Congo Brazzaville; UJT  Chad; SPAD  Djibouti; GPU  Gambia; GJA  Ghana; SINJOTECS  Guinea Bissau; AJG  Guinea Conakry; SYNAPCCI  Ivory Coast; KUJ  Kenya; PUL  Liberia; UNIJOM  Mali; SNPM  Morocco; SNJMozambique; SYNPICSSenegal; NUSOJSomalia; SUJSudan; UJOSS South Sudan; UJIT  Togo; UJUUganda.
RIPON, Wisconsin, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Speed Queen, the global leader in vended commercial laundry, has redefined the customer experience with stores around the globe. Recently, the company claimed another milestone with the 700th Speed Queen-branded store opening in Orbassano, Italy.

"New investors and entrepreneurs continue to leverage the brand equity and our proven business model of Speed Queen-branded Laundromats to achieve exceptional return on investment," said Marco Treggiari, director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for Speed Queen-licensed stores. "With laundromats being considered 'essential' businesses and allowed to stay open during the current pandemic, the strength of our industry has shined, and we expect new investors to expand the store count."

Speed Queen Laundromats are now at work in 25 European countries and more than 465 cities. In addition, the 600 investors are further testament to the incredible value this business brings. Customers across Europe have linked the Speed Queen brand with the pinnacle of laundry experience, one that leverages speed, efficiency and technology to help them complete the laundry chore quickly.

With premium attributes such as large capacity machines, a customer-facing mobile app and rewards program and owner features, which include a digital marketing platform and business dashboard, Speed Queen has revolutionized the vended laundry experience for both owner and customer.

"As we slowly come out of quarantine, I expect additional customers to gravitate to the large capacity machines at Speed Queen Laundromats to make short work of laundering house linens that were used frequently during the confinement period," Treggiari said, adding that current inexpensive commercial spaces make now a perfect time to invest in a Speed Queen Laundromat.

For more information on Speed Queen and to learn more about opening a Speed Queen-branded store in your own market and to locate the Speed Queen closest to you, visit www.speedqueeninvestor.com

About Speed Queen - Speed Queen was established 1908 in Ripon, Wisconsin. Over the decades, Speed Queen has developed superior performance in results, reliability, support, and overall value, to become the world N1 in self-service laundry. Since 2014, Speed Queen has been the only laundry manufacturer in offering branded laundromats. By putting all its expertise at the service of the concept, Speed Queen teams guide the laundry owners during all their project to provide premium laundromats with outstanding performance and maximum user convenience. To learn more, visit www.speedqueeninvestor.com



Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1179865/Speed_Queen.jpg


Thousands join Birdhouse ballot to purchase limited-edition Redbreast Dream Cask Ruby Port Edition

Thousands of whiskey fans entered an online ballot to purchase the new limited-edition Redbreast Dream Cask Ruby Port Edition, produced by Irish Distillers at its world-renowned Midleton Distillery in Cork.

With just 912 bottles produced, a staggering 7,400 people signed up for a chance to purchase this years Dream Cask, launched through Redbreasts Birdhouse online members club to mark World Whiskey Day 2020. Bottle number one will be auctioned the Celtic Whiskey Shop in Dublin, with all proceeds going to Mary's Meals Ireland.

Billy Leighton, Master Blender at Irish Distillers, commented: This is the first year we have launched Redbreast Dream Cask through a ballot system to make it as fair as possible for whiskey lovers to try our dream creation.

The response has been phenomenal, with winners from a diverse range of countries; from Ireland, the UK, Germany and across Europe to Hong Kong, New Zealand, Japan and many more. While we wish every entrant could have the opportunity to taste this years Redbreast Dream Cask, were delighted that many successful Birdhouse members will soon be enjoying this exceptional whiskey.

The Birdhouse gives Irish whiskey fans exclusive access to limited edition releases, information on the Redbreast family, interviews from the Midleton Masters and bespoke Redbreast gifts. Redbreast Dream Cask Ruby Port Edition is the third release in a series of limited-edition Redbreast Irish whiskeys sold exclusively through The Birdhouse.

15 June 2020 -
The Nobel Prize medal awarded to Sir Robert Edwards  the inventor of in vitro fertilisation (IVF)  three years before his death could fetch 800,000 at auction.

The British scientist  along with his colleagues  pioneered in 1978 the procedure through which around eight million babies have now been born.

Sir Edwards was presented with the 18-carat green gold medal in 2010  with the award now having been put up for auction by his descendants.

Christie's will feature the item in their upcoming 'Eureka! Scientific Breakthroughs Of The 20th Century' online auction, to be held from June 24July 16.

The Nobel Prize medal (pictured) awarded to Sir Robert Edwards  the inventor of in vitro fertilisation (IVF)  three years before his death could fetch 800,000 at auction

Sir Robert Edwards (right, holding Louise Brown, the first IVF baby)  along with his colleagues Jean Purdy (centre) and Patrick Steptoe (left)  pioneered in 1978 the procedure through which around eight million babies have now been born

'Our father was delighted to be awarded the Nobel Prize recognising his team's research work over many years, which by then had helped millions of couples throughout the world overcome the burden of infertility,' Sir Robert's family said.

The first IVF baby  Louise Brown  was born to parents Lesley and John Brown on July 25, 1978, following a '20-year slog' to develop the procedure in the face of intense criticism of the concept.

On Sir Robert's death in 2013 at the age of 87, Louise Brown led the tributes, saying that the physiologist had brought 'happiness and joy' to millions.

Sir Robert realised as early as 1958 that fertilisation outside of the body might be used to help treat infertility.

He and his collaborators  embryologist Jean Purdy and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe  faced an uphill battle, however, receiving severe criticism from religious leaders, ethicists and the medical establishment, as well as some of the public.

In 1974, he came close to giving up his work  but was persuaded to continue by by Jean Purdy, as well as by the letters he received from couples struggling to conceive.

'This, for Robert Edwards, was a 20-year slog ending in what must have seemed [the] almost miraculous birth of Louise Brown,' Christie's specialist Sophie Hopkins told PA.

'A huge number of things ranged against him, from Conservative public opinion to religious leaders who spoke out against the development of IVF.'

'There was a relative lack of support from the British medical establishment.'

However, she added, Sir Robert had the 'tenacity and determination to overcome all the difficulties, all the criticism,' with the award of the Nobel Prize standing as 'testament to an amazing, very modest, but massively determined man.'

Private funding from a US heiress allowed the researchers to continue their work.

After the birth of Louise Brown, dubbed the first 'test tube baby', similar procedures followed in Australia and the US, before being used around the world.

Sir Robert (pictured here in his study at his Cambridge home) realised as early as 1958 that fertilisation outside of the body might be used to help treat infertility. He and his collaborators  embryologist Jean Purdy and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe  faced an uphill battle, however, receiving severe criticism from religious leaders, ethicists and the medical establishment, as well as some of the public

Sir Edwards was presented with the 18-carat green gold medal, pictured, in 2010  with the award now having been put up for auction by his descendants

Sir Robert (pictured here in 2005) and colleagues later went on to found the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridgeshire, where they continued to refine IVF technology and train specialists in the new field of medicine they had pioneered

Sir Robert and colleagues later went on to found the Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridgeshire, where they continued to refine IVF technology and train specialists in the new field of medicine they had pioneered.

By 1987, 1,000 babies had been born following IVF treatments at the clinic  a figure that accounted for around half of all the children born through IVF worldwide at that time.

Sir Robert was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of the achievement, as his two collaborators had died by the time it was presented.

The current auction record for a Nobel Prize Medal was set in 2014, when James Watson's medal for decoding DNA was sold for 4.8 million ($6.0 million).
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:53:32|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia's confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 3,521 after 176 new COVID-19 positive cases were confirmed, the Ethiopian Ministry of Health said on Monday.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health, in a statement issued on Monday, revealed that from the total of 5,636 medical tests that were conducted within the last 24-hours period, some 176 of them have been tested positive for COVID-19, eventually bringing the total number of cases in the country to 3,521 as of the stated period.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health further indicated that while 175 of the latest confirmed cases are Ethiopian nationals, one other confirmed case was said to be a foreign national. From the total 176 new cases, 116 of them are males while the remaining 60 are females, with an age range between five to 90 years old.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health also said that 620 patients who were tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered from the virus as of Monday, in which 75 of the patients recovered during the past 24-hours period.

The ministry also disclosed that three COVID-19 patients succumbed to the disease on Monday, eventually bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the East African country to 60.

Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous nation with about 107 million people, confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 13, and has so far conducted 181,349 COVID-19 medical tests.

The Ethiopian government has instituted a wide range of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. In April, the Ethiopian House of People's Representatives announced a five-month state of emergency to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country. Enditem
This is the moment a brave bus driver went to the rescue of an elderly woman when a mugger tried to snatch her bag.

Ex-soldier Karoly Zsolt Kis was driving by Ujgyor market in Miskolc, Hungary, when he spotted the woman with a walking stick trying to fend off the attacker.

Footage recorded by the bus surveillance cameras shows the driver, who served in Iraq, stopping the bus and leaping out of his cab.

Footage recorded by the bus surveillance cameras show the brave driver, Karoly Zsolt Kis, stopping to help the elderly woman in Miskolc, Hungary

Karoly then runs over and pushes the man off the victim.

The bus driver stands between the mugger and the victim until he runs away.

He looks through the trees on the side of the road to check the mugger is gone before ushering the pensioner towards his bus.

A mugger is trying to snatch an elderly woman's bag at the side of the road

The driver, who has served in Iraq, runs over and pushes the mugger off the victim

The elderly woman then boards his bus and it continues on its route.

Police have arrested a 27-year-old man following the incident which happened shortly before 9.30am on June 5.

The victim was not injured but she was shaken up by the incident, according to local reports.
Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development disagrees with demands to rename military bases after confederates, stressing that history should not be buried.

In a Fox Interview with Carson, he said that these bases were given the names of Confederate generals, as reconciliation soon after the Civil War. He stresses that changing them is erasing history, that history should not be hidden, and hiding it is neither a smart move, News Week reports

During the interview, Car made references to the bible calling it the greatest book written, stating that it does share many bad things, not only the rosy side of everything.

Furthermore, he said that those who are smart enough will cite history, to move forward and improve more, not the opposite. One more type of person will bury or redefine history in the process which will remain the same with no improvement, said the Jackson Press.

In an interview with ABC News, he tackled the issue diplomatically on the program as he gave his side of it.

He added that getting offended by everything will not be positive, disliking contents of history and other relevance, and later renaming them as is fit. Carson was keen to veer away from the issue of renaming military bases, in honor of Confederate generals tacitly. Next Carson made a connection with universities that are historically linked, he then impinged that if universities have such negative connotations. Then it should be changed following the logic.

Also read: Law and Order: President Trump Prioritizes Police Reform and Racism Later



Carson then made a brilliant point that reflects how indulgent the majority has become, saying that everything is getting to be nonsensical, especially now. His last statement was when will all the immaturity end and get to the real issues.

It cannot be denied that Carson follows President Trump's line of thinking, which is opposed and in contrast to other GOP senators lately. According to the Republican-dominated Armed Services Committee, a move to decide if the suggestion by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts that is renaming of bases after Confederate generals, will be passed.

To get more about the issue, Newsweek tried to reach Senator Elizabeth Warren and get her take on the statements of Carson and Trump. However, no response was issued by the concerned.

Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, one of the committee members said that all the names of US bases must those who defended the nation on Thursday. He added the timing was right, and the message is correct, confirmed by USA Today.

Another senator from the Republican Party, James Lankford agreed with the Dakota Senator,

Lankford added that he would prefer that schools should not be named after Confederates, and that includes military bases as well.

This move drew criticism from Trump who was opposed to any renaming of any military base. He responded to it in a tweet to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, mentioned by The Hill.

Related article: Donald Trump Thinks Shoving Incident Involving an Elderly is Politically Motivated, Set Up by Other Parties

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Blackouts that hit millions of Californians in 2019 could be doubly calamitous this year with tech giants Google, Twitter and Facebook among the many companies keeping offices closed until the fall or later in response to the global covid-19 pandemic.

If utilities cut power again, home offices set up during the pandemic could go dark and stay dark for days, and they'll have no corporate offices to flee to for power. In October 2019, more than 3 million people were affected by a series of rolling blackouts over more than a week as PG&E Corp. and Edison International tried to prevent live wires from sparking wildfires.

Call it a collision of crises. Blackouts could limit California's push to revive an economy largely paralyzed by stay-at-home orders this spring. The state, utilities and individual companies are all seeking ways to deal with blackouts before a wildfire season forecast to be worse than normal. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., for one, has "long contemplated this type of scenario," according to spokesman Adam Bauer.

The San Jose-based tech company is building in geographic redundancies, he said, with "the ability to shift work among distributed teams to maintain service to our customers and partners."

Neither Google, Twitter nor Facebook would comment on their plans. The state's utilities and government officials, though, have said they're working to minimize the threat.

California regulators last month adopted new shutoff rules that will require the companies to restore electricity within 24 hours after the weather clears, although the state's wind storms can last several days. PG&E, the state's largest utility, has set its own goal of 12 daylight hours after the winds ease, and has nearly doubled the number of helicopters it will use to look for downed lines.

Still, there are troublesome signs leading into this year's wildfire season. A year ago at this time, the state was drought free. Now, almost 50% of California is gripped by drought, with the driest areas occurring across the northern part of the state, according to a June 2 assessment by the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The result: an "above normal significant large fire potential," according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Already this year, more than 6,600 acres have been burned in the state. Small blazes are already cropping up on an almost daily basis

At the same time, the coronavirus has killed more than 4,900 people in California, forcing companies to allow employees to work at home, closing schools and restricting travel.

"The reality is Mother Nature hasn't changed her mind with respect to wildfires because of covid," said Don Daigler, director of business resiliency for Edison's Southern California Edison utility. "We still face the same fire risk as communities as we did last year."

"We're going to have people sheltered in place and without power," said Carl Guardino, chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group lobbying organization, which represents many of the region's biggest companies.

Guardino's own home lost electricity for 5 days last year, he said. He ended up moving his family into a hotel. he said. Now, though, even that solution is unlikely given the coronavirus shutdowns.

To be sure, many Californians have already turned to back-up power generators. Generac Holdings Inc. saw its sales in the state surge 300%, its chief executive officer told Bloomberg a month after the blackouts. And this spring, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group successfully lobbied state officials to let solar installers return to work months before many other businesses opened.

But solar panels with a battery to store the power can cost $30,000 to buy the hardware for a robust home system and have it installed, so it's not for everyone.

The utilities, whose use of intentional blackouts last year provoked fierce criticism, are aware of the issue. But they don't want the number of people working from home to affect their decision to shut off power, if weather conditions demand it.

Those conditions -- high winds, hot temperatures, low humidity and dry vegetation -- should still be the determining factors, the utilities say.

"The approach we take is different, but the calculus really hasn't changed," Edison's Daigler said. Instead, they're trying to reduce the need for shutoffs, and ensure that when they occur they are smaller and shorter than last year's.

"We want to reduce the impact of public safety power shutoffs on customers whether they are working from home or not," said Matt Pender, director of the community wildfire safety program at PG&E.

PG&E, which was forced into bankruptcy last year after its equipment sparked deadly fires, is installing switches and other devices to isolate power cuts, making them more targeted than last year's mass blackouts. The company has also secured mobile diesel generators that can be located at as many as 48 substations.

Both PG&E and Edison are also hardening their field equipment, running some lines underground and installing stronger poles. Edison, for example, is installing 600 miles of power lines with coating that prevents sparks when touched by tree branches.

PG&E estimates these steps should cut the number of customers affected in each potential blackout by one-third.

Both companies are also planning to open more pop-up community resource centers during blackouts to allow for more social distancing between people who show up to cool down and charge phones and other devices.

They'll send vans equipped with charging stations into darkened neighborhoods to help customers who don't go to the centers, potentially a large number of people at a time when gathering with strangers brings risks.

Some county governments, along with the city of San Jose, asked state utility regulators in April to impose new rules on the shutoff program. The commission, though, said the final decision should stay with the utilities.

"Based on these rules and standards, it is appropriate for the utilities to have the final say over shutting down power and for the CPUC to hold them accountable," spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said.
Some three months after COVID-19 was first detected in Tunisia, the prime minister says the country has won the battle against the deadly virus.

"Tunisia has won its fight against the coronavirus disease thanks to the country's national unity," Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh said in an interview with Tunisian channel Attasia, according to news agency Xinhua. We made efforts and we were able to achieve a victory.

Fakhfakh added that the country is due to reopen its land, sea and air borders on June 27. Visitors arriving in Tunisia will be required to quarantine in hotels for a period.

On Sunday, the Health Ministry reported two new infections, bringing the total number of cases countrywide to 1,096. The death toll remained at 49.

Tunisia has only an estimated 500 intensive care unit beds and officials warned the countrys health system would be unable to cope with a wider outbreak. But at just over 1,000 infections, Tunisia has reported a relatively low number of COVID-19 cases compared to its neighbors. Morocco, for example, has registered 8,838 infections and Algeria has confirmed 11,031.

After reporting its first case of the virus on March 2, Tunisia moved quickly to implement preventative measures. Authorities imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 22 and quarantined patients with mild symptoms in hotels and other designated facilities.

Amid a decline in new cases, Tunisia began easing restrictions in early May and by June 4 had reopened mosques, hotels and restaurants.
(Alliance News) - The following stocks are the leading risers and fallers within the main London indices on Monday.







FTSE 100 - WINNERS







Bunzl, up 6.5%. The distribution firm said it expects to report higher revenue for the first half of 2020 despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Bunzl is forecasting a 6% rise in revenue at actual and constant exchange rates for the six months ending June 30. Adjusting for the different number of trading days year-on-year, revenue is set to increase by around 5% at constant exchange rates due to a 2% rise in underlying revenue and a 3% contribution from recent acquisitions. As a consequence of an altered product mix sold in the period, including an increase in the proportion of imported own-brand product, the overall interim operating margin is set "to be modestly higher" versus the prior year, Bunzl said.







AstraZeneca, up 3.1%. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker struck a deal with Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine, as efforts to boost manufacturing capacity continue at pace. The alliance, which was forged by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands to speed up the production of a vaccine, is set to take delivery of the material being tested by the University of Oxford by the end of 2020. The agreement with AstraZeneca also aims to make the vaccine available to other European countries wishing to take part. The cost is expected to be offset by funding from the governments involved.







FTSE 100 - LOSERS







BP, down 3.7%. The oil major said it will record up to USD17.5 billion in exceptional charges for the second quarter of 2020 due to the recent oil price crash and weak demand. BP said it sees the prospect of the coronavirus pandemic having an enduring impact on the global economy, with the potential for weaker demand for energy for a "sustained period". BP has revised its long-term price assumptions, lowering them and extending the period covered to 2050 so that it is now consistent with its long-term target of becoming a net-zero company by 2050. BP said this will lead to non-cash impairment charges and write-offs in the second quarter ending June 30, estimated to be in an aggregate range of USD13 billion to USD17.5 billion post-tax. In addition, BP has revised investment appraisal long-term price assumptions which are now an average of around USD55 a barrel for Brent and USD2.90 per one million British thermal units of Henry Hub gas from 2021 to 2050. Peer Royal Dutch Shell 'A' and 'B' shares were down 0.8% and 0.9%, respectively, in a negative read-across.







FTSE 250 - WINNERS







Tritax Big Box REIT, up 1.9%. The warehouse property investor said it has obtained planning consent and exchanged contracts to pre-let its new Mega Box logistics building in Littlebrook, Dartford. The development, consisting of a 2.3 million square foot logistics building on 35.5 acres near London's M25 orbital motorway, has been pre-let to an undisclosed "world-leading on-line retailer" who is already a tenant of other Big Box assets. This pre-let, along with the planning consent, make up phase 2 and part of phase 3 of the development. Dartford Borough Council granted consent, which is subject to expiry of a six-week judicial review period and the meeting of some conditions.







FTSE 250 - LOSERS







TUI, down 3.5%. ODDO BHF cut the Anglo-German holiday operator to Reduce from Neutral.







OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - WINNERS







Best of the Best, up 39%. The competitions operator upped its final dividend on a strong financial 2020 performance and declared a GBP1.9 million special payout. For financial 2020, the London-based company's pretax profit fell 11% to GBP4.2 million from GBP4.7 million. Administrative costs to GBP6.3 million from GBP6.2 million. As well, in financial 2019, Best of the Best, which runs competitions online to win cars and other prizes, had recorded exceptional income of GBP4.6 million income from a VAT refund, which had been partly offset by an exceptional expense of GBP2.0 million. Revenue increased by 20% to GBP17.8 million from GBP14.8 million. Best of the Best declared a final dividend of 3.0 pence per share for financial 2020, up 50% from 2.0p paid a year ago. In addition, the company said it will return GBP1.9 million via a special payout, returning 20p each share, as company "continues to be profitable, cash generative and benefits from a robust balance sheet".







OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM - LOSERS







Evgen Pharma, down 15%. The drug developer posted a slightly widened annual loss due to slight increases in operating expenses and share-based compensation. Evgen reported a GBP3.2 million pretax loss for its year ended March 31, widened from GBP3.1 million the year before. This increase in loss resulted from a small rise in operating expenses to GBP3.00 million from GBP2.99 million as well as an increase in share based compensation to GBP168,000 from GBP135,000. Evgen is currently developing drug SFX-01 and has seen positive results from its Stem trial of SFX-01 in metastatic breast cancer, with five patients who participated in the trial treated with the drug for over one year experiencing no tumour progression. Less positively, the After Subarachnoid Haemorrhage trial of SFX-01 did not meet either its primary or secondary endpoints but the drug was well tolerated.







By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Newly diagnosed children, young adults with Type 1 diabetes preserve endogenous insulin production with anti-TNF drug

Teresa Quattrin, MD, UB Distinguished Professor, senior associate dean for research integration and attending pediatric endocrinologist at the Diabetes Center at UBMD Pediatrics and John R. Oishei Childrens Hospital.

In this study, both golimumab and placebo groups achieved good blood sugar control, but patients treated with golimumab achieved it with less insulin. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  In research led by a University at Buffalo pediatric endocrinologist, a drug called golimumab showed that it preserved beta-cell function in children and young adults with newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes, according to findings from a Phase 2 study.

The study also demonstrated that golimumab, an anti-tumor-necrosis-factor (TNF) therapy, reduced the amount of injected insulin required by children and young adults with newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes by preserving their ability to produce insulin on their own, called endogenous insulin. The World Without Disease Accelerator, through Janssen Research & Development, LLC, funded the study.

Golimumab, marketed as Simponi, is currently used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and other autoimmune conditions, however it is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.

The findings were presented on June 13 at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association by the lead investigator, Teresa Quattrin, MD, UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, senior associate dean for research integration in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB and attending pediatric endocrinologist at the Diabetes Center at UBMD Pediatrics and John R. Oishei Childrens Hospital.

This study shows that golimumab is a potential disease-modifying agent for newly diagnosed patients with Type 1 diabetes, said Quattrin. The main goal of the study was to see if golimumab could preserve beta-cell function in these newly diagnosed patients.

Measuring how well the pancreas is working

This was assessed by measuring the amount of C-peptide in patients blood during a four-hour mixed meal tolerance test. Because C-peptide reflects only insulin made by the body and not injected insulin, C-peptide levels reveal how well the pancreas is producing insulin.

Patients treated with golimumab had a higher C-peptide level at week 52 compared to placebo. This was statistically significant, thus the study met its primary goal, Quattrin said, in fact, 41.1% of participants receiving golimubab had an increase or less than 5% decrease in C-peptide compared to only 10.7% in the placebo group.

Good control with less insulin

Nearly 43% of those who received golimumab were in partial diabetes remission (also known as the honeymoon phase) versus 7.1% of those receiving placebo. The definition of partial remission was based on insulin dose and blood sugar control levels as indicated by hemoglobin A1C, a measurement of average blood sugar levels over three months.

Quattrin explained that a child with Type 1 diabetes requires about 1 unit of insulin per kilogram of body weight per day. That means that a child weighing about 65 pounds typically requires about 30 units of injected insulin per day once they are out of the partial remission period, about 3-6 months after diagnosis.

In this study, both golimumab and placebo groups achieved good blood sugar control, but patients treated with golimumab achieved it with less insulin, said Quattrin. During the 52 weeks, insulin dose increased only slightly for those on golimumab, 0.07 units per kilogram per day, versus 0.24 units per kilogram per day for those on placebo study. Moreover, in a post-hoc analysis, an analysis conducted after the conclusion of the clinical trial, those who were younger than 18 years had 36% fewer episodes where blood sugar was less than 54 mg per deciliter, designated by the American Diabetes Association as level 2 hypoglycemia, Quattrin said.

This is important clinically because low blood sugar reactions are dangerous and can even be fatal if untreated. Low blood sugars require immediate attention, often causing the child to be removed from class or recreation activities compromising quality of life.

The drug is self-administered as a subcutaneous injection every 2 weeks. No serious side effects related to the study drug, such as serious infections, were reported.

The randomized, controlled clinical trial was conducted at 27 centers throughout the U.S., including at the Diabetes Center at UBMD Pediatrics and Oishei Childrens Hospital in Buffalo. It involved 84 patients, aged 6 to 21 years, with two-thirds receiving golimumab and one-third receiving placebo starting within 100 days from diagnosis.

Throughout three decades as a leading researcher in pediatric endocrinology, Quattrin has been interested in finding ways to preserve beta-cell function in newly diagnosed patients with Type 1 diabetes.

The current study took place on the basis of positive findings in animal models, as well as Quattrins work with patients treated at the Diabetes Center at UBMD Pediatrics and Oishei Childrens Hospital. It confirms results published by her team in 2009 where in a randomized pilot study 10 patients received another TNF inhibitor and 8 received placebo starting within 28 days from diagnosis. The results of this small proof of concept study strongly suggested that this class of drugs might be able to preserve beta-cell function in newly diagnosed patients with Type 1 diabetes.

UB co-investigators in the clinical trial presented at the ADA are Lucy Mastrandrea, MD, PhD, Kathy Bethin, MD, PhD, Indrajit Majumdar, MD, John Buchlis, MD and Christine Albini, MD PhD. Quattrin noted that they were supported by an outstanding pediatric diabetes-endocrinology research team led by Amanda House.

Co-authors from other institutions include Michael J. Haller of the University of Florida; Andrea K. Steck of the University of Colorado ; Eric I. Felner of Emory University; and Yinglei Li, Yichuan Xia, Jocelyn H. Leu, Ramineh Zoka, Joseph A. Hedrick, Mark R. Rigby and Frank Vercruysse, all of Janssen Research & Development, LLC.
Pakistan's foreign office alleges Sigh's remarks were a 'desperate' attempt to divert attention from Jammu and Kashmir

Islamabad: Pakistan on Sunday rejected Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's remarks about the situation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and alleged that it was an attempt to divert attention from Jammu and Kashmir.

Addressing a virtual Jan Samvad rally for Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said on Sunday that when people of PoK will want to be freed of Pakistan's occupation and be part of India, then this will lead to the fulfilment of Parliament's resolution that the region is an integral part of the country.

"Let's wait for what happens in future. There will be demand from PoK to be freed of Pakistan's occupation and to live with India. When this happens, then Parliament's resolution will also be fulfilled," Singh said.

Parliament has also earlier passed resolution that PoK is part of India.

Reacting to Singh's remarks, the Foreign Office said that his statement is "another desperate attempt to divert attention from Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan has been unsuccessfully trying to drum up international support against India for withdrawing Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5 and bifurcating it into two Union territories.

India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was its internal matter.
Beijing is battling an explosive outbreak of the coronavirus, with health authorities reporting 36 new local infections in the city in one day  all linked to a food market.

As scientists try to track how the latest outbreak in Beijing emerged, the capital and neighbouring regions have stepped up emergency measures, including renewing lockdowns.

The capital has had 79 new local cases since last Thursday, all of which are linked to the Xinfadi wholesale market in the citys southwestern district of Fengtai.

Covering 112 hectares, the centre is the biggest of its kind in Asia and supplies food to northern provinces.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told Communist Party mouthpiece Peoples Daily on Monday afternoon that the situation was very serious.

Beijing is facing explosive and concentrated outbreaks even though the national epidemic has basically been blocked, Wu said.

The fact that it happened in Xinfadi, a large wholesale market, is a challenge in itself as we try to carry out epidemiological investigations.

Authorities have locked down 21 residential estates in Fengtai and the northern district of Haidian, which is also home to a big food market. Access to the areas is strictly controlled and mass coronavirus testing is under way.

The municipal government has asked people who have been to the Xinfadi market over the past 14 days to stay at home, while a press conference on Chinas economic development scheduled for Monday morning was abruptly cancelled.

On Sunday, Chinese Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan pledged firm and decisive measures to stop the spread.

Elsewhere, Baoding in the neighbouring province of Hebei reported a cluster of three patients and an asymptomatic case in one family. A 31-year-old seafood dealer at Xinfadi, his 53-year-old mother-in-law and six-year-old daughter all visited the market early this month and tested positive for the coronavirus. The mans 31-year-old pregnant wife also tested positive but had no symptoms. She visited two medical centres for maternity checks last week.

Story continues

Authorities in Chengdu, in southwestern Sichuan province, said a woman who flew into the city last Tuesday tested positive, as did her husband in Beijing.

The Liaoning provincial health authority said two close contacts of a confirmed patient in Beijing were confirmed to be infected on Saturday.

Administrations around the country have responded with preventive measures. Baoding said it would remain in wartime mode, while Liaoning in the north and Xiamen in Fujian province in the southeast have ordered that all people returning from some parts of Beijing isolate for 14 days. Daqing in Heilongjiang province in the northeast has demanded 21 days of isolation for travellers from Beijing.

The capital had not had a local case of Covid-19 transmission for 55 days until Thursday, when a man with no history of travel or contact with people returning to Beijing was diagnosed. Both the man and the second case, a meat inspector, visited Xinfadi in early June, putting the market on the radar. While the link was established quickly, it is still not known how the chain of infection started.

Salmon was feared initially to be the source after reports that the virus was detected on a chopping board used to cut fish at the market. But Wu said it might not be the case.

What we know for sure is that the source is definitely from Beijing and we are working on two possibilities, Wu said.

He said one possibility was that frozen seafood or meat handled by someone infected with Covid-19 was contaminated and then infected other people who came in contact. Another route might have been contamination of the area by an infected person sneezing or coughing.

We are still collecting samples from the market, and finding the coronavirus on a chopping board used to process salmon did not tell us much. There is no direct evidence that the salmon is the source of this outbreak, Wu said.

Tests taken from salmon vendors and the environment at the Jingshen Seafood Wholesale Market in the citys south, where the salmon was bought to be sold in Xinfadi, tested negative for the coronavirus.

Wu said the virus found in Xinfadi did not appear to resemble the strain prevalent in Beijing two months ago, but was more like the one in Europe, although it did not necessarily mean the virus was directly imported from Europe.

If strains in the US are analysed, most of them will be from Europe, so will those from Russia ... We need more information to make an assessment, Wu said.

Beijing Health Commission spokesman Xia Xiaojun said 76,499 samples from people in the affected areas were tested on Sunday, with 59 positive. Xia said some of those cases had already been included in the count of confirmed infections, while others were still waiting for diagnosis.

More than 6,000 of the Xinfadi markets workers  nearly 70 per cent  have been tested, with all results negative.

China also reported 10 more imported cases for Sunday, including four people in Sichuan province who had returned from Egypt, taking the national total of non-local cases to 92.

But Hong Kong importers and fishermen are not worried about the spread because the city did not import salmon from Beijing.

The major sources of salmon in Hong Kong are Norway, Canada, and to a lesser extent, Chile, Lee Choi-wah, chairman of the Hong Kong Chamber of Seafood Merchants, said.

Frozen and fresh salmon usually come to Hong Kong directly by ship and air, and dont come through mainland China.

Lee, who represents more than 100 importers in the industry, said he had not heard of plans to reduce salmon imports. Locals can make up their own minds and avoid eating salmon for a few days if they are really worried.

Cheung Siu-keung, chairman of the Hong Kong Fishermen Consortium, which represents about 90 per cent of fishermen in the city, agreed that the risk of transmission from stocks in Norway or Canada were small.

Most fishermen are out at sea for at least one and a half months each time they go on a fishing trip. They are practically self-isolated from the population, he said.

The Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Departments Centre for Food Safety said that as a precaution it had taken samples from imported and wholesale salmon at a number of places for testing.

A spokesman for the centre reminded food handlers that they should always make sure their hands were clean and they frequently cleaned and disinfected surfaces in food premises.

Health authorities in Macau said samples would be taken from all frozen seafood storage areas and checks carried out on frozen seafood imported in the past few months.

Meanwhile, anyone who has been to Beijing within the past 14 days will have to submit to a health check. Those who have visited high-risk areas, including the Xinfadi market, will have to spend 14 days in quarantine.

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison during a press conference at a residential building site in Googong on April 04, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. (Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images)

Australian States Push Ahead With Restriction Easing

Australias two biggest states have further detailed their path out of COVID-19 restrictions, as infrastructure projects designed to reinvigorate the economy get a federal boost.

Scott Morrison will on June 15 announce an extra $1.5 billion towards shovel-ready small priority projects around the country, including $500 million for road works.

The prime minister is expected to tell the CEDA State of the Nation summit fifteen major projects, worth more than $72 billion in public and private investment, will be accelerated.

They include the inland rail project between Melbourne and Brisbane, the Marinus underwater power cable between Tasmania and Victoria and South Australias Olympic Dam extension.

Emergency town water projects in NSW and road, rail and iron ore projects in Western Australia are also on the list.

In all, the projects are expected to generate 66,000 direct and indirect jobs.

It comes after NSW and Victoria announced at the weekend their plans to ease a tranche of restrictions.

NSW will scrap a 50-person limit at indoor venues, including pubs and restaurants, from July 1 and move to the one person per four square metres rule.

The states cap on funeral attendances has been lifted, effective immediately.

Health authorities are continuing to investigate how a teacher at a southern Sydney primary school contracted coronavirus.

Laguna Street Public School has been shut until June 24, with all of its students told to learn from home and self-isolate.

In Victoria, patrons will be able to drink in pubs and clubs without having to order a meal from next week.

The venues will be allowed to host up to 50 people, as will cafe and restaurants.

Meanwhile, border restrictions have altered in the Northern Territory, with interstate arrivals now allowed to quarantine for a fortnight at a place of their choice instead of government-run facilities.

Canberra
TDT Manama

A number of Permanent Representatives to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) praised the initiative of His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa concerning the International Day of Conscience, and its significance in evoking the importance of awareness in order to establish a culture of peace and tolerance and promote dialogue between cultures and civilizations.

They said the initiative comes at a time when the world needs to promote peace, inclusion, solidarity and understanding, in order to build a sustainable world. They affirmed that the great welcome of HRH the Prime Ministers initiative from members of UNESCOs Executive Councils Preparatory Committee, during its meeting last Friday, reflects large scale international appreciation of the efforts undertaken by the Kingdom in supporting global peace, security and stability.

They stressed that the committees endorsement of a recommendation to adopt in the councils next session a resolution on the International Day of Conscienceespecially in this hard time due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemicindicates the importance of this initiative at the international level.

They also emphasised that the initiative will contribute to the integration and inclusion of the principles of peace and conscience in education. They added it will focus the light on the existing links between peace, conscience and sustainable development, which was demonstrated by the consensus the Bahraini proposal received during the discussions of the preparatory group and the agreement of the attendees on the importance of the organisations endorsement of the Bahraini decision.

Moroccan Permanent Representative to UNESCO Ambassador Samir Al Dahr, the Arab Group president, affirmed that it is an initiative that underscores the principles of respect for human rights and fundamental freedom regardless of race, gender, language or religion.

He stressed that the Kingdom of Morocco will continue its efforts to adopt the draft resolution in the Executive Councils meeting unanimously, thanking Deputy Permanent Representative of Bahrain to UNESCO, Shaikha Wafa bint Abdullah Al Khalifa, for her commendable efforts to explain this initiative to the member states of the Executive Council.

He also thanked the representative of the Prime Ministers Court for attending the tele-meeting. Kuwaiti Permanent Representative to UNESCO, Dr. Adam Al Mulla, expressed sincerest congratulations to the Kingdom of Bahrain on the endorsement of the International Day of Conscience.

He stressed that the initiative of HRH the Prime Minister comes at a time the world is in dire need to promote peace, inclusion, solidarity and understanding. Egyptian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to UNESCO, Ehab Badawi, pointed out that the Egyptian delegation will continue during the upcoming period constructive coordination with the Bahraini delegation to UNESCO.

For his part, Permanent Representative of Mali to UNESCO, Ambassador Omar Kaita, affirmed that with the adoption of the International Day of Conscience, the world has full responsibility to mobilise its efforts continuously in order to achieve harmony, tolerance and peace.

Venezuelan Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Ambassador Hector Alejandro Rosales, noted that moving forward towards establishing human conscience as a source of ideas and thus humanitarian actions is an important matter. He added that it is necessary to build bridges of dialogue and friendship between peoples.
State Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore on Monday hit out at chief minister Jai Ram Thakur for his statement in which he claimed that state Congress had sent a bill of 12 crore to Congress high command on the pretext of Covid-19 and has challenged CM to publicise the bill.

While addressing a press conference at Rajiv Bhawan, Shimla, Rathore said that CM is trying to distract peoples attention from the issue. He should disclose that to whom the bill was sent and who had signed it.

He said that all Congress Block Presidents will be submitting a memorandum to the governor through their areas sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) seeking a probe into recent scams in the health department by a presiding high court judge. He also demanded the resignation of CM.

Rathore said that Congress will expose all corruption and scams of present BJP-led state government.

He also demanded state government make special arrangements for bringing labourers from Nepal during the apple season. The state government should constitute a committee and Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) buses should be sent to Nepal borders in order to bring labourers free of cost.

He said that the total collection of 13.51 lakh has been made in State Congresss Disaster Relief Fund and a cheque of the entire amount will be presented to legislator Dhani Ram Shandil on June 19. This amount will be used to purchase ventilators and other medical equipment and will be donated to Covid-19 dedicated hospitals such as Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital, Shimla, Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College and Hospital, Tanda and Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Hospital, Ner Chowk, Mandi.

He added that the state Congress has received a detailed report from the expert committee constituted by their party to revive the economy of the state and the report will be submitted to the CM.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.  LaToya Dixon, a mother of three from Lake Worth, Fla., has noticed a change in her children since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis last month.

Theyre usually upbeat, but now they keep their heads down. They seem nervous. They are watching the news and getting depressed.

I am paying attention to their silent language, said Dixon, 45, a Delray Beach school principal whose kids are 14, 17 and 20. They are forcing me to have conversations I didnt want to have.

For Dixon and other parents  Black, Caribbean, Hispanic and other racial minorities  the conversations concern the Rules, a list of actions to take when stopped by the police. Each family has its own, developed through lifetimes of trauma connected to racism, fear and daily injustices based on skin colour.

Michelle Garces of Hialeah has been adding to her list since Floyd was killed. A few days after his death, she went over the New Rules with her son, Julian, 22, who has a Black father and a Hispanic mother.

Besides being polite and asking the officer to call his supervisor, Garces now wants her son to pull his car over to a populated area, such as a gas station or a shopping centre, and send her his location through his phone. She also wants him to activate his phone camera.

Garces, who works as a nanny in Miami, said she wants the phone camera on for documentation in case her son gets hurt.

He usually says Im overprotective, Im exaggerating, said Garces, 47. But right now, hes really upset. The older hes getting, hes starting to see the world as it is.

Floyds death under a police officers knee, revealed in excruciating detail by a phone camera recording, is forcing difficult conversations in households across America.

In Black and Latino households, parents have been leading these discussions for years. They begin the dialogues when their children are little and escalate the seriousness of the heart-to-hearts as the kids enter adolescence and adulthood. Its an effort to prepare them for the difficulties that lie ahead as they pursue education and careers, and come into contact with people throughout their day who may have little tolerance for different skin colours.

Its impossible to shield them, said Santia Barr, who is Black and a mother of two from Coral Springs. Barr and her husband, Mark Sr., decided to raise their children, Mark Jr., 24, and ZyAire, 15, in a suburb considered safe. Mark Jr. graduated from a private Catholic high school in Fort Lauderdale, and ZyAire goes there now. Mark Jr. graduated from the University of Cincinnati.

This pedigree doesnt matter when it comes to racism and police stops, said their mother, an insurance agent. Barr has a list of precautions for the kids when theyre out of the house, including staying with relatives in Fort Lauderdale overnight rather than coming home late and risking a police encounter.

Despite growing up in a two-parent household and going to private schools, we still have to have that talk, Barr said. Its something you have to instill in them. They know if I am talking in this tone or have this look, they have to pay attention.

Mark Jr. said his parents sounded like a tape recorder, year after year. But as he gets older, he said he understands their nervousness about his whereabouts.

Im 24 and my mom is still on me when I leave the house. Do you have your paperwork? Keep both hands on the wheel and dont make any sudden movements if you get stopped.

Mark Barr said Broward law enforcement agencies have pulled him over about half a dozen times in the past two or three years. He said he has been asked questions that are clearly answered on his registration, such as who owns his car.

My attitude in those situations is, Lets get this over with, I just want to get home, he said. George Floyds death wasnt a shock for our community. Now you guys see what is really going on.

Parents of minority children want their kids to respect the police even though the kids fear them, said Wayne Barton, a retired Black police officer who runs the Wayne Barton Study Center, an academic and recreational centre focused on minorities in Boca Raton.

They were already scared, but the George Floyd incident has taken it to another level, Barton said.

Despite the recurring incidents, Barton said his advice to his charges, including 10 grandchildren, remains the same: Be deferential, even if the police are not courteous to you.

I talk to them every day about this, he said.

The details of these discussions will be moulded by the life experiences of the adults, who may have had numerous confrontations with the police or few, said Ronald Corbin, a Black social worker and a vice-president of mental health services at a Jewish family services centre in West Boca.

Theres a rule of thumb that the kids should be cautious, but the conversations depend on the viewpoint of the parents, he said. The topic may be the same, but the perspective may be different.

Gustavo Flores of Deerfield Beach finds himself agonizing over the future for his 15-year-old twin daughters, who are Black, whom he and his ex-wife adopted when they were a month old.

His daughters have seen him get pulled over twice by police as they sat in the back seat and he made the stops into teachable moments. Flores, 48, who is of Ecuadorean descent, made sure they noticed that he made clear to the officer he was reaching for his vehicle registration and not a weapon.

There is a real potential for them to be hurt, said Flores, an advertising agency art director. I want to prepare them, but I dont want to harden them.
As a medical consultant specializing in advising firms on how to best minimize coronavirus risk in the workplace, Houston-based FormulaMed dispenses with at least one long-held business tradition in the name of health and safety.

We dont hand out business cards, said Dr. Setul Patel, its founder and managing partner. Touchless is best.

Founded in 2013 as a side-consulting gig to Patels regular medical practice, FormulaMed in March pivoted its mission specifically towards advising firms on how to safely reopen or adjust their workplaces to best combat the potential spread of COVID-19.

For each of the approximately 15 clients FormulaMed has garnered within the past couple months, the firm has conducted all-hands lectures and question-and-answer sessions for all employees either in person or via Zoom videochat as well as meeting extensively with upper management to clearly articulate best practices.

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From there, the job gets more specialized, depending on the client. For 50-person law firm BoyarMiller, that meant eliminating potential viral hot spots within its 25,000-square-foot space by reorienting some of the office layout while developing company-wide protocols for when and where masks need to be worn at work. The law firm, which went full remote after Harris Countys first stay-at-home order, had Patel conduct an all-employee Zoom call on May 6 and reopened its offices on May 11. It continues to allow employees who wish to work from home to do so, according to BoyarMiller Chairman Chris Hanslik.

For municipal-bond financial specialist Masterson Advisors, which had scheduled a June 10 office reopening, the work has involved consulting on how employees of the 18-person firm conduct themselves with minimal risk at the extensive number of off-site meetings that are required.

At snack-maker Dishaka, the jobs a little more intensive, and has encompassed getting all 300 employees tested for COVID-19 and antibodies and devising protocols if a production shift needs to be shut down because of a positive test result. With the Stafford-based company deemed an essential business, it never had to cease operations and has continued to run its shifts 24 hours a day for five days a week.

I wanted a testing protocol put into place for the company, and within 24 hours, we felt like (Patel) had a gold-standard testing protocol, said Dishaka President Rashim Oberoi, whos known Patel for about four years through their membership with the Young Presidents Association. The biggest part was having a third party come in. It gave this level of assurance, and there was a huge amount of relief.

FormulaMed is working with companies in a Houston metropolitan area that has been less prone to the disease than much of the country, but still has a higher incidence compared to the rest of the state. As of June 11, nearly 16,000 people in Harris County had been diagnosed with coronavirus, while 400 people had died from the disease. By comparison, 82,983 Texans have been diagnosed with coronavirus, with 1,931 dying of it.

With little expectation that a vaccine will be ready before the end of the year, FormulaMed is attempting to take a layered approach to its consultation. From a medical standpoint, the lessons range from the now obvious - not touching ones face, wearing masks in public areas, keeping six feet of social distancing, properly washing hands - to the more obscure, such as the ierdea that touching a doorknob puts someone in what Patel calls a dirty space.

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Look, its a virus. Its not going away, its about learning to live with it, said Hanslik, who said no employee testing was conducted at his firm and estimated that about 60 percent of his workforce has returned to the office.

Theres also the societal aspect, which involves training upper management to eliminate greetings such as handshakes and high-fives in favor of a thumbs up signal.

Finally, theres the psychological effort of empathizing with employees who are scared to return to the office, eliminating misinformation and providing reassurance for a relatively safe working environment, all while factoring in that worker attitudes run the gamut.

We thought this would be easy. You buy hand sanitizers and masks, and put rules into place. Then we talked to employees, and it was a vast array of different opinions, said Julie Peak, a managing director at Masterson Advisors.

You cant separate traditional medicine from psychology. Its intermingled. In a pandemic, you have the perfect storm for things like anxiety, depression and substance abuse, added Dr. Mahtab Moradi, a FormulaMed managing partner whos practiced clinical psychology for almost two decades. This gives me a chance to be a key person, set culture and ensure mental health is recognized.

Still, despite what Patel and FormulaMeds clients said is a comprehensive approach, he recognized the fine line he and his clients have to walk when updating operational standards.

The first thing is health and safety. Second is making sure anxiety levels are controlled. The third is, how do we best help this company be productive, Patel said. Theres a negative connotation with productivity. If people are dying needlessly, thats bad. But if people are losing jobs and beating their spouses, thats bad too.

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FormulaMeds recent emphasis marks a shift in what Patel imagined for the company when he founded it seven years ago. He received his bachelors and medical degrees from the University of Virginia and his MBA from the University of Tennessee and named the company as a nod to his love of Formula 1 auto racing as well as a commitment to improving health care performance.

The original mission was to help companies develop health care programs that would reduce inefficiencies by emphasizing preventative behavior and enabling a broader use of virtual medical treatment.

Our incentives are all wrong. The more tests I order, the more I get paid, said Patel. What are the ethical standards? The incentives should be to make the population healthier.

Meanwhile, Patel has served as president of Girish Capital, an angel investor for medical-based startups, and last year began making good on a long-held goal to treat Native Americans on the Navajo Nation reservation one week out of every month.

FormulaMed is another in the ongoing effort by Patel to improve the U.S. health care system, which he calls abhorrent. It is a process that has be fraught with challenges.

He co-founded Neighbors Emergency Centers (later Neighbors Health) in 2007, and Patel helped grow the freestanding emergency center chain to more than 30 locations across three states. But falling health-insurance reimbursement levels and market saturation led to a 2018 Chapter 11 filing, during which the centers were either sold to various companies or shuttered.

Companies like Neighbors utilized a hybrid model where we had urgent cares and ERs in the same building, but the patient confusion and bureaucratic, cryptic nature of medical billing did not allow for widespread success, he said. Our goal is to complete the initial mission - to innovate health care and deliver a cost-effective experience bypassing all of the profit centers that surround health care that take away from our patients.

Going forward, Patel, who declined to disclose his consulting rates, believes FormulaMeds focus will be on COVID-19 for the next 12 to 18 months, and his companys clients concurred. Hanslik, who was introduced to Patel through a common friend, estimated that, with FormulaMeds help, hed be reevaluating his office protocol and conditions every 30 days.

Oberoi, who said hed begun casual conversations with Patel when COVIDs impact on China became publicly known, said Patel checks in with Dishakas human resources department on a weekly basis, while FormulaMed randomly tests about 10 percent of Dishakas workforce every week.

We found that itd make more sense to self-administer (tests) rather than to go through insurance, said Oberoi, adding that the longer-term impact of health care premium increases as well as the rates clinics charge to test made prospect of on-site testing relatively cheaper. It made more sense to do that than to tell our employees to get tested themselves.

Longer term, Patel plans to redirect FormulaMed back towards its original mission of comprehensive health programs, and hopes some of his current clients will switch gears with him.

When you see your colleagues fighting this, we came together and said, We have to help these folks now, said Patel. What were hoping to do is to build strategic relationships with employers, then pivot to taking care of them on a more comprehensive basis.
Attackers ambush convoy of military vehicles at Bouka Were, in the latest attack close to Mauritanian border.

Dozens of troops have either been killed or gone missing after attackers ambushed their convoy in central Mali, according to reports citing military sources.

About a dozen vehicles came under attack on Sunday at Bouka Were, some 100km (60 miles) from the Mauritanian border, a senior military official was quoted as saying by AFP news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some of the vehicles were able to extricate themselves from the ambush, but of the 64 troops who had been in the convoy, only about 20 were present at a roll call, the source said, adding that the precise number of dead was unknown.

A search is under way to determine the fate of soldiers who have been listed missing, he said.

Another military officer and an official in the nearby town of Diabaly, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed his account, according to AFP.

Later on Monday, army spokesman Colonel Diarran Kone told Reuters news agency: Twenty-four Mali army personnel died, eight survivors have been found.

On Sunday, the United Nations said gunmen killed two of its peacekeeping force in the northwest region.





In recent years, Mali has been facing a worsening security situation. What began as a localised revolt in the countrys north in 2012 soon spread to the centre of the country and then to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

The UN peacekeeping force, a French military intervention and military campaigns by national armies, have failed to stem the violence, which killed 4,000 people in the three countries last year and displaced hundreds of thousands.

The conflict has exacerbated ethnic tensions and local grievances over poverty and the absence of the state, giving rise to ethnic militias and bolstering support for armed groups, some of which are linked to al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) group.

Al Jazeeras Nicolas Haque, who has reported extensively on Mali, said there have been almost daily attacks on the countrys army in recent months, with hundreds of soldiers killed over the course of the year.

He added: The situation is getting even more unstable in Mali, not only the security situation in the countrys north and east but also in the capital, Bamako, where more protests are expected later this week.

Earlier in June, thousands of people pour onto the streets of Bamako to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, condemning what they described as the governments mishandling of the many crises plaguing the country.

The president made an announcement to the nation on Sunday, reaching out to the protesters and hell be leading discussions with the influential cleric whos behind the protests, Mahmoud Dicko, Haque said.

This is happening at a time when the UN Security Council is meeting to renew the mandate of the Malian peacekeeping force at the end of the month, he added.
Government Flags Boost to $72 Billion of Infrastructure to Pull Australia Through Recession

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will look to fast-track $72 billion worth of infrastructure projects to push Australia out of its CCP virus pandemic-induced recession.

In an address to the Committee for Economic Development Australia in Canberra on June 15, Morrison will call for all sectors of the economy to pull together, modernise the system, and kickstart economic growth for the country.

Our number one priority is getting people back into jobs, and they need to be real, productive jobs. Jobs that produce goods and services that people want, the prime minister is expected to tell the conference.

Morrison will say the government has already committed nearly $180 billion (US$122.9 billion) in infrastructure over the next decade. Half of that spend will be allocated in the next four years.

Another $1.5 billion will be allocated to kickstart immediate work on 15 priority projects identified by the states and territories.

As part of this package, $1 billion will be allocated to priority projects which are shovel-ready, with $500 million reserved specifically to target road safety works, according to the prime ministers speech released to AAP.

These shovel-ready projects include the inland rail project from Melbourne to Brisbane; the Marinus undersea electricity link between Tasmania and Victoria; the Olympic Dam extension in South Australia; emergency town water projects in New South Wales; and road, rail and iron ore projects in Western Australia.

Morrison says the projects will create 66,000 direct and indirect jobs and are worth $72 billion. More announcements on new projects are expected soon.

Two aspects of the JobMaker scheme will be addressed, including investment in infrastructure and major projects, as well as deregulation.

The JobMaker plan, announced last month, sees five working groups made up of government, unions, and business groups, coming together to review areas needing potential industrial relations reform.

The working groups will set their sights on awards, enterprise bargaining agreements, casual work, union and employer misconduct, and agreements covering new construction projects.

Workers at a construction site, Sydney, May 2, 2017. (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

Deregulation is also a priority, with Morrison calling on different sectors of the economy to work together.

All levels of government, business and the community must rethink how these systems can better contribute to our recovery from the pandemic, he will say.

We need to bring the same common sense and cooperation we showed fighting COVID-19 to unlocking infrastructure investment in the recovery.

According to Morrison, the states had already cut approval times.

Ive asked them all to lift their ambition further, and work with us through the national cabinet to make deregulation a focus of Australias economic recovery, he will say.

Cities and Urban Infrastructure Minister Alan Tudge echoed the prime ministers comments on the states, telling Channel Sevens Sunrise on June 15 they were 100 percent on board wanting to get these projects done fast.

Tudge is hoping to reduce assessment times for major projects.

So many of those larger scale projects can take three to four years before they actually get going, so we want to reduce that timeframe in half, he said.

The federal governments emphasis on the post-pandemic recovery has seen it roll out a suite of reforms to help streamline government decision making to boost Australias economic stocks including HomeBuilder, establishing the Coordination Commission, and the removal of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) for a permanent National Cabinet.

The Parliamentary Budget Office estimated on June 5 that government debt could blow out $620 billion (US$422 billion) by the end of the decade.
Speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18, Indian auto-giant Maruti Suzuki conveyed its resistance towards Indias move to increase tariffs on Chinese imports in the country. The company argued that Chinese imports were necessary for manufacturing vehicles and that vendors require it more than the manufacturers.

The move, according to the company, will impact Indian consumers and is not thought through. The Prime Minister has made has made doing business in India 'Infinitely Better', but FDI is still not coming. India hasnt been able to attract major manufacturing FDI over the last 70 years and policies in India have not been designed to promote competitiveness the company said.

Border standoff has led to rising popular call for boycott of Chinese goods. Already India was eyeing bizs leaving China post the tariff war with the US. How feasible is business without China? We ask RC Bhargava, Chairman of @Maruti_Corp pic.twitter.com/Bj2toxuJpO  CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) June 15, 2020

Speaking on the same note, home-grown two-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj conveyed its concern along the same lines stating that imports play a major role in strengthening the supply chain. According to the company, alloy wheels for motorcycles are major imports from China for two-wheelers and the reason to source it from China was because of more competitive pricing.

The decision to increase tariffs on imports comes in light of the turmoil between the two counties at the borders. The impact on business could severely disrupt existing and new technologies in the auto industries such as electric vehicles. As per the report by The Standing Committee on Commerce on Impact of Chinese Goods on Indian Industry in 2019 imports from China increased by USD 50 billion, exports increased by USD 2.5 billion. Trade with China constitutes more than 40% of Indias total trade deficit.

As India pushes for electric vehicles in the country, the development of such cars could see serious troubles with the recent decision. Close to 50 per cent of the cost of an electric vehicle is the cost of batteries. Out of the five largest battery manufacturers globally, two are Chinese in origin and operations. The other 3 have manufactured a considerable portion of their batteries in China or in association with Chinese counterparts.

While this brings into light just a tiny fraction of the problem, the blanket ban on Chinese products could have serious effects on the industry in the long-term.
Medical worker of Vietnamese descent in Canada succumbs to COVID-19

A 48-year-old medical worker of Vietnamese descent in Montreal, Canada has died after contracting COVID-19, vietnamplus.vn reported on Monday.

Thong Nguyen, who worked at Jean-Talon Hospital for 17 years, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on May 1 and self quarantined at home.

Due to serious effects caused by the virus, he was moved to the intensive care unit of CHUM, one of two key health care networks in Montreal, and passed away there.

In the middle of April, Vietnamese-Canadian ao Huy Hao, a professor at University of Sherbrooke's community health department, reportedly died of COVID-19, becoming the first doctor in Quebec to die in the pandemic.

He worked for the National Institute of Public Health in Quebec in 2016 and 2017. The institute is the leading unit in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 in Quebec.

As of June 14 (local time), Canada recorded more than 98,700 COVID-19 cases with more than 8,100 deaths.

Vietnam sees no locally-infected cases of COVID-19 for 60 days

No new COVID-19 infections were recorded in Vietnam overnight, from 6pm of June 14 to 6am of June 15, marking the 60th straight day without community transmission, said the national steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control.

So far, 334 infections have been reported in the country, including 194 imported cases which were quarantined upon their arrival.

As many as 323 patients, or 96.7 percent of the total, have recovered from the disease, and there are no deaths.

Among the remaining 11 still under treatment, one has tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, once and three at least twice.

The treatment sub-committee also reported that Patient 91, a British pilot and also the most severe case, continued to show improvement, but he still needs many more weeks to recover.

At present, 8,792 people are being kept in quarantine, including 96 in hospitals, 7,778 in other quarantine facilities and 918 at home.



Citizens show interest in post-COVID-19 social security policies

People facing difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic receive financial aid in Ha Nam province

Constituents in Hanoi and central Thua Thien-Hue province expressed their attention to post-COVID-19 social security policies after listening to opinions from legislators and Government members during a plenary discussion broadcast live on TV on June 13.

This debate was part of the ongoing ninth session of the 14th National Assembly in Hanoi.

Nguyen Huu Can, a 70-year-old retiree in Thuy Xuan ward of Thua Thien-Hues Hue city, said people nationwide are putting great trust in the Party and States leadership, especially the proactive and drastic response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, he noted, as the pandemic has caused numerous difficulties to socio-economic aspects, the Government needs to speed up public investment disbursement, especially for major and key projects, practice thrift, prevent wastefulness, and carry out timely policies on reducing taxes, extending tax payment deadlines, and supplying soft loans for businesses to help them resume operations.

Local authorities and all-level committees of the Vietnam Fatherland Front should keep a close watch on the provision of financial aid for people affected by the pandemic to prevent wrongdoings, Can said.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Duc Thuan, a resident in Vinh Ninh ward of Hue city, recommended the Government direct ministries and sectors to enhance monitoring and controlling prices of several essential goods such as pork and some other foodstuffs.

He also pointed out the need for the Government, ministries, sectors and localities to prioritise restoring production activities and creating jobs as the coronavirus pandemic has made many people unemployed while prices of some essential commodities have surged.

Commenting on recent moves by the Government, Pham Van Luong, a constituent in Bac Tu Liem district of Hanoi, said the solutions carried out to support people and businesses in the face of COVID-19 are comprehensive and drastic, concurrently fighting against the disease and sustaining growth.

They have boosted peoples confidence in a bright future, he added.

Also valuing the Governments measures, Do Toan, a resident in the Linh Dam urban area of Hanoi, voiced his hope that the Cabinet will implement as strong and effective solutions as in the COVID-19 combat so as to soon stabilise and boost socio-economic development.

Echoing the view, Quoc Huy, a voter in Hoang Liet ward of the capitals Hoang Mai district, said he hopes the Government will base on recommendations suggested by lawmakers at the June 13 sitting to implement suitable development solutions in the new context.

No new COVID-19 case on June 14

Vietnam reported no new case of COVID-19 during the day on June 14, marking 59 straight days without any community infection, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

The tally remains at 334, with 194 imported cases which were immediately quarantined after arrival. The number of patients given the all clear was 323, or 96.7 percent, with no fatalities so far.

More than 10,270 people are still under quarantined across the country, and 11 confirmed cases are receiving treatment. Among them, one has tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 once, ant three others negative at least twice.

COVID-19: More than 800 domestic helpers receive financial support

The aid package of over 1.6 billion VND (68,621 USD) is provided on June 12 to assist domestic helpers (Photo: jupviec.vn)

More than 800 women engaged by JupViec.vn - a firm providing domestic help services in Hanoi and HCM City - will benefit from an aid package of over 1.6 billion VND (68,621 USD) provided on June 12 to help them overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move comes via a cooperative effort between leading global payments and tech company Mastercard and CARE International in Vietnam.

Depending on their circumstances, each woman will receive a maximum of 3 million VND.

CARE International in Vietnam has carried out over 300 projects since 1989. Its long-term goal is supporting Vietnamese ethnic minority women in remote areas as well as vulnerable groups in urban areas.

China ready to join ASEAN to develop COVID-19 vaccine: Ambassador

China is ready to collaborate with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the research and development of vaccines against the COVID-19, Chinese Ambassador to ASEAN Deng Xi Jun said last week.

As reported by Xinhua, at a virtual press conference, the diplomat said the two sides have had a number of anti-pandemic cooperation since the outbreak of the pandemic in the region, pushing for regional consensus on a stronger collective response and, in the meantime, strengthening trade ties between the two sides.

There is great potential of cooperation between the bloc and China in the research, development and production of COVID-19 vaccine and China looks forward to cooperation in the area, he noted.

Founded in 1967, ASEAN comprises 10 countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

EU assists Cambodia in post-COVID-19 economic recovery

The European Union (EU), its member states and their financial institutions and agencies are mobilising 443 million EUR (503 million USD) in grants and loans to work with Cambodia in fighting COVID-19 and mitigating its socio-economic impacts.

The Phnom Penh Post cited the EUs press release as announcing that the bloc will work with Cambodia to support economic recovery and job creation. That includes strengthening key areas of the economy, public investment for economic development, energy efficiency and green recovery.

The announcement came as Minister of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation Vong Soth recently urged ASEAN ministers to immediately implement social protection programmes to help the poor and vulnerable in the ASEAN region amid the pandemic.

He said the Cambodian Government is committed to implementing existing social protection programmes in June like providing cash to poor families to ease the pressure on the vulnerable and poor during the pandemic.

He continued that the Government is paying more attention to children under the age of 15, people with disabilities, the elderly, and AIDS patients.

Earlier this month, the Cambodian Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training said about 110,000 workers of 344 factories and firms in the country have received unemployment benefits from an aid package of 2.4 million USD.

The ravaging COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to hundreds of thousands of workers in the garment and service sectors, especially tourism and hospitality, which use 620,000 workhands.

According to the World Bank, the coronavirus outbreak is putting at least 1.76 million jobs in Cambodia at risk, driving the countrys unemployment rate to nearly 20 percent.

Thailand: Night curfew to be lifted from June 15

The Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) approved ending the night curfew from June 15, according to local media.

The centre made the decision at its meeting on June 12. The meeting was presided over by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

The 11pm-to-3am curfew will be lifted from June 15 but the state of emergency in the country will continue, The Nation newspaper reported.

The centre decided to strictly control travel in and out of Thailand, as most of the COVID-19 patients in recent days were returnees from foreign countries,

The CCSA also said that some high-risk activities, such as the use of school buildings or some sports, will be relaxed in the fourth phase of the lockdown relaxation. Sale of alcoholic beverages will be allowed, as well as the holding of concerts. However, bars and pubs will remain closed in this next phase.

On June 10, the National Security Council had proposed the lifting of the nationwide night curfew for a 15-day trial period while maintaining the state of emergency.
The two junior officials of the Indian High Commission have been missing since this morning. The role of ISI has been suspected.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Monday summoned Pakistans Charge daffaires to India here after two officials of Indian High Commission in Islamabad went missing.

The Indian High Commission in Pakistan, earlier in the day, confirmed that two of its officials are missing and the matter has been taken up with Islamabad.

Two Indian High Commission officials are missing since morning while on official work. The matter has been taken up with the Pakistani authorities, Akhilesh Singh, First Secretary and spokesperson, Indian High Commission, Pakistan, told ANI.

Read also: Two Indian officials missing in Paks Islamabad, MEA takes up matter

Recently, ANI had reported how Pakistans spy agency ISI had been tailing and harassing Indian officials in Pakistan and also increased their presence around the Islamabad residence of Gaurav Ahluwalia, the acting High Commissioner of India to Pakistan.

The incident came days after two Pakistani officials at Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi were deported for espionage activities in India.

Read also: One dead, two injured after Nepal security personnel open fire on Indians

South Block is closely watching the developments, according to sources.

The Indian mission in Islamabad has also lodged a complaint with local authorities and taken up the matter with Pakistans Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Read also: India on Imran khan assistance offer: Our stimulus package larger than Pakistans GDP

This incident is likely to cause a further dip in the already tense India-Pakistan relations.

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OTTAWA - Sales of residential properties in May were up from a record low in April, but were still down 39.8 per cent from the same month last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported Monday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A real estate sold sign is shown in a Toronto west end neighbourhood May 17, 2020. The Canadian Real Estate Association says home sales in May regained some of the ground they lost in April, but remained down sharply compared with a year ago. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy

OTTAWA - Sales of residential properties in May were up from a record low in April, but were still down 39.8 per cent from the same month last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported Monday.

It was the weakest showing for the month of May since 1996, even after rising 56.9 per cent from April, when sales volume was the lowest on record, CREA said.

Like most sectors of the economy, the real estate industry was affected by the lockdowns put into effect from mid-March to battle the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The big picture is things are moving in the right direction but still have a long way to go," CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said in a statement.

He added that the number of homes sold has been steadily rising from mid-April through the first week of June.

The month-over-month sales increase came as the number of newly listed homes rose by a record 69 per cent in May compared with April.

Still, CREA said there were only 5.6 months of inventory for sale at the end of May, compared with nine months at the end of April.

The national average price for homes sold in May was $494,500, down 2.6 per cent from the same month last year.

Sherry Cooper, chief economist for Dominion Lending Centres, wrote in a commentary that the national number obscures the fact that there's a wide variation of regional pricing and the trends "appear to be converging on moderate positive pressure on prices."

People who remain employed despite the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to make their regular housing decisions, Cooper predicted, but added that the bigger concern is for people who permanently lose their jobs.

TD economist Rishi Sondhi wrote in a commentary that pent-up demand is likely to fuel additional gains for "at least" another few months.

"The big question is what happens after this initial burst," Sondhi added.

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TD's expectation is growth in sales and prices will "moderate" towards the latter part of 2020 and into 2021 as a result of slower population growth, a slow job recovery and tightening measures from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, Sondhi concluded.

Excluding the Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, two of Canadas most active and expensive housing markets, the average price was about $401,000.

"Generally speaking, since the COVID crisis began small declines in prices have been seen in British Columbia while declining trends already in place in Alberta have accelerated," CREA said.

"Across the rest of the Prairies, where sales have been doing comparatively much better against history than in much of the country, price trends have actually been stabilizing."

In Ontario, the year-over-year average price was up nearly 9.5 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area and the Hamilton-Burlington market, up 11.2 per cent in the Niagara region, and up 15.67 in Ottawa.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
Thanks to the presence of a cosmic lens, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope got a close-up look at PLCK G045.1+61.1, a starburst galaxy located approximately 12 billion light-years away in the constellation of Bootes.

PLCK G045.1+61.1 appears as multiple reddish dots near the center of the new image, Hubble astronomers said.

The galaxy is being gravitationally lensed by a cluster of closer galaxies that are also visible in this image.

Galaxy clusters contain thousands of galaxies of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Typically, they have a mass of about one million billion times the mass of the Sun and form over billions of years as smaller groups of galaxies slowly come together.

Albert Einstein predicted in his theory of general relativity that massive objects will deform the fabric of space itself.

When light passes one of these objects, such as a huge galaxy cluster, its path is changed slightly.

Called gravitational lensing, this effect is only visible in rare cases and only worlds best telescopes can observe the related phenomena.

Hubbles sensitivity and high resolution allow it to see faint and distant gravitational lenses that cannot be detected with ground-based telescopes whose images are blurred by the atmosphere of our planet.

From 2009 to 2013, ESAs Planck space observatory captured multiple all-sky surveys, the researchers said.

In the course of these surveys, with complementary observations by ESAs Herschel Space Observatory, Planck discovered some of the brightest gravitationally lensed high-redshift galaxies in the night sky.

It was during the study of these Planck-Herschel selected sources using Hubble that the optical starlight emitted from PLCK G045.1+61.1 was found.
Fifty-six years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for rabbis to join him for a demonstration in St. Augustine, Florida, to protest the towns inhumane racial segregation. Sixteen rabbis and one layman answered the call.

On the morning of June 18, 1964, in the midst of our organized prayer demonstration in the parking lot of the Monson Motor Lodge, surrounded by police, I witnessed an act of incomparable courage.

Five young people in bathing suits pulled into the parking lot, jumped from their car, dashed toward the motel pool and jumped into the water, determined to integrate the motel pool. Beside himself, the manager grabbed two-gallon jugs of acid and raced around pouring it into the water. The kids didnt move. Though neither the young people nor the manager knew that the acid dilutes in water, they did not move.

All the rabbis were arrested and locked up together in a small cell. At 3 a.m., illuminated by a single bulb, we composed our thoughts, sitting on the bare concrete floor. We had only the stub of a pencil and the blank side of a KKK poster.

We wrote: We came because we realized that injustice in St. Augustine, as anywhere else, diminishes the humanity of each of us. If St. Augustine is to be not only an ancient city, but also a great-hearted city, it will not happen until the raw hate, the ignorant prejudices, the unrecognized fears which now grip so many of its citizens, are exorcised from its soul.

Five decades later, across the country, the beaches, the restaurants, transportation and accommodations are integrated, but our souls are not.

My being is ripped. My heart is on fire. I grieve because progress is minuscule. Was it all in vain?

Another quote from our jail-time manifesto: We came because we could not stand silently by our brothers blood. We had done that too many times before. We have been vocal in our exhortation of others, but the idleness of our hands too often revealed an inner silence; silence at a time when silence has become the unpardonable sin of our time. We came in the hope that the God of us all would accept our small involvement as partial atonement for the many things we wish we had done before and often.

Both Leviticus and the Gospels scream to us: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. What has happened to us that were not hearing that exhortation.

Elie Weisel wrote, I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Silence is not an option.

Demonstrations are meaningful. But after a while the noise and news die down. Washington breathes a sigh of relief and moves on to something else. If change is to happen, we need a constant and determined will. Options abound. Write our elected officials and stay on their case.

Become active in civil rights groups such as our local Love Lives Here or the ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU, the Montana Innocence Project, the Montana Racial Equity Project, to name a few. Open up your checkbook. If we do nothing, we are complicit.

Michael Walzer, a classmate from Brandeis, recently wrote, Black Lives Matter will never win by itself; minorities need friends  even if the friendship is hard to ask for. Indeed, given American history, it should not be necessary to ask; the friends should come forward on their own. Yes, BLM should be recruiting organizational allies. More important, the rest of us should be volunteering.

It's time.

Rabbi Allen Secher lives in Whitefish.

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(Photo : SpaceX) (Photo : SatelliteInternet.com)

On Saturday, May 30, SpaceX launched a new rocket with two American astronauts together with NASA in the first space shuttle flight launched from US soil in nearly a decade. And while many may be familiar with SpaceX, it's founder Elon Musk, and their mission to make commercial space travel a possibility, the space company is also looking to share the internet to the world through Starlink.

Aside from exploring space travel, SpaceX is also currently developing a constellation of satellites to deliver internet worldwide under Starlink. Thanks to reusable launch rockets, these low-orbit satellites cost a fraction of the price of typical satellite launches, making it easier and more affordable to launch satellites at scale. According to SpaceX, the satellite internet system is designed to offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second.

Within the next year, Starlink expects to offer satellite internet to the entire planet, including remote locations where internet isn't currently available. The plan involves launching a vast constellation of mass-produced satellites into low-altitude orbit. The satellites will transmit internet signals to earth-based hubs, delivering superfast connection speeds. As of this month, 422 Starlink satellites have been launched.

Read Also: Hackers Can Hear Secret Conversations Just by Observing a Light Bulb's Vibrations





How will Starlink work, and how much will it cost?

SpaceX hasn't released pricing details yet for their internet service, but the company has continued to stress that pricing will be affordable. The orbiting satellite network will cover the globe, and communicate with each other via lasers, which reduces lag time and enables a speedier connection.

The satellites will be launched into much lower orbits than other satellites; this helps prevent a buildup of space junk, as dropping satellites will quickly burn up in the atmosphere. Low flying satellites also transmit data much more quickly.

Read Also: Facebook Claims Workplace Feature Prevents Bullying, But Employees Complain Over Regulating 'Unionize' Topic

At least 400 satellites need to be in place and operational before "minor" internet coverage can begin. Additional launches are expected every month this year, with the full constellation projected to be in place within a few years. Customers in the northern half of the US and Canada may be able to sign up for Starlink by late 2020. Starlink will be poised to offer internet service to most of the world by sometime in 2021.

Currently, SpaceX has rocket launches scheduled regularly from now into January 2023, but near-global service is expected to begin sometime during 2021.

What do people really think of SpaceX and Starlink?

The team at SatelliteInternet.com recently surveyed hundreds of Americans asking how much they really know about SpaceX, Starlink and Elon Musk to find out exactly how much people know about the private aerospace company.

Here are some of their key findings:

61% have heard of SpaceX, but only 30% have heard of Starlink.

45% think Starlink will be available only to people in off-grid areas. (It will be available nationwide.)

23% said they would leave their current ISP for Starlink while 77% said they wouldn't.

45% believe Starlink won't be cheaper than current satellite internet options.

54% don't believe Starlink will be any safer than other types of internet.

Additionally, over 70% of those surveyed underestimated Musk's net worth. Nearly a third of those surveyed said they believed Musk's net worth is as low as $3 billion, rather than his actual net worth of nearly $37 billion (and counting).

Read Also: PS5 Revealed! Sony Releases PS5 Console's Hardware Specifications

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A new report recently published states that global warming is turning the Mediterranean climate hotter, and climate change may be having negative impacts on agriculture and tourism in this region. (Photo : Pixabay)

A new report recently published states that global warming is turning the Mediterranean climate hotter, and climate change may be having negative impacts on agriculture and tourism in this region.

The latest case study released by consulting firm McKinsey and Company regarding climate risk has focused on the area of the Mediterranean and its economy and communities. It published its results on its website, entitled: "A Mediterranean basin without a Mediterranean climate?" showing global warming's possible consequences for living and working in this area.

The Mediterranean is the name of a sea found near Europe. A total of 23 countries comprise the region that is officially known as the Mediterranean. This sea serves as the division between Africa's northern border and Europe's southernmost countries. The countries that compose the Mediterranean region include Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, and Greece in the north; Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco in the south; and Syria, Turkey, Israel, and Lebanon in the east.

Author and McKinsey Sustainability Practice partner Hauke Engel said that in 30 years, many areas in the Mediterranean would experience an average of half-a-year droughts, including its agricultural lands. Hot days that are not conducive to beach holidays are also expected to increase, threatening the region's tourist industry. Days with temperatures over 37C are expected to double in Turkey, the northern part of Africa, and the southern part of Spain.

The authors chose the Mediterranean area for the report due to the area's susceptibility to extreme weather occurrences. It is among the areas with the highest risk of climate change. The authors say that more droughts will be felt in Portugal, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Greece. The Iberian Peninsula will experience more wildfires. Spain, Greece, and Morocco will experience severe water stress. The spread of diseases will increase. Agriculture, specifically wine production, may decline. It will likely be the end of the Mediterranean's signature climate.

Climate change may threaten hundreds of millions in the population as well as affect the economy with losses in the trillions of dollars. Engel says the challenge now is to integrate climate change as a significant factor in making decisions, creating mindsets, setting operating models, and other processes. He says that every key policy and the business decision has to be considered in the context of climate change.

According to climate science, only a zero net emission of greenhouse gases will stop future hazards in the environment. In the short term, adaptation should be on the list of urgent priorities. There can be a profit in agriculture through innovations like cooling shelters and crops that are resistant to droughts. It is also worth noting that investing in renewables generates more jobs than investing in fossil fuels.

According to Engel, environmental action also makes a good impact because it reduces further climate risk, which directly hurt economies. He reiterates that emission reduction does not necessarily mean the loss of economic gains. There are a lot of green investments that can create jobs and promote economic growth as effectively or even better than environmentally harmful or neutral investments can.
Federal Nationals MP Damian Drum is pushing the Morrison government to force Victoria to build a rail tunnel into the Melbourne CBD as part of an airport link, saying it would be "short sighted" not to build a tunnel as proposed by a superannuation consortium.

The Victorian and federal governments are likely to reject the multibillion-dollar proposal to build the link using a tunnel between Sunshine and the city in favour of a cheaper option using existing rail lines. The proposal from the AirRail consortium is being led by IFM Investors, which offered $7 billion as part of its proposal. The federal and state governments are funding $5 billion each for the airport rail project.

Nationals MP Damian Drum. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"I think it's ideology on [the Victorian government's] behalf," Mr Drum said, referring to the choice not to favour a tunnel built by the private consortium.

"I am still working as hard as I can to get the federal government to force the Victorian government into building a designated rail tunnel into the CBD," he said.
Facebook Criticised For Workplace Suppression Controls

Facebook has been marketing Workplace, an Intranet-style chat and office collaboration product, as having built-in labor union suppression tools. Workplace allows employees to see a stream of content similar to a news feed, with automatically generated trending topics based on what people are posting about.

Howerer, Workplace also has contols that allow administrators to remove and block certain trending topics and blocking certain words used among employees. This comes at a time when more and more Americans and Europeans are using Facebook to organise civil rights demonstrations and other protests in connection the the #BlackLivesMatter campaign.

A report by The Intercept investigative website claims that Worklplace allows businesses to censor certain words from employees from the office management platform and that, earlier this month, a Facebook employee lost his job after he tweeted about his co-workers not cooperating with him in connection with a Black Lives Matter protest within the company.

Workplace allows employees to see a stream of content similar to a news feed, with automatically generated trending topics based on what people are posting about. Companies use it to discuss projects, coordinate meetings, and share information. It strives to function as a digital office that in the context of the explosion in remote working is more important than ever. Companies use it to discuss projects, coordinate meetings, and share announcements. Facebook Workplace is currently used by major employers such as Walmart, as well as the Singapore government, Discovery Communications, Starbucks and even the Campbell Soup Corporation.

When numerous employees are are using Workplace to discuss a specific word, phrase, or topic which an employer might find objectionable, Workplace enables the employer to remove the topic from the trending list and the suggestion that Facebook is actively building tools designed to suppress labour organising has caused disquiet among Facebook employees.

With the continued growth of social media platforms, it was inevitable that employees would voice their complaints about work online. Employers may be inclined to discipline or even fire employees due to online postings critical of the workplace. If, however, those online postings constitute protected concerted activity, the US National Labor Relations Act may prevent employers from taking any disciplinary action. The fact that employees are using Facebook and other social media tools to discuss work does not alter the basic analysis of what does and does not constitute protected concerted activity.

Facebook has long been criticised for selectively regulating whats posted on its platforms, allowing paid ads to remain online no matter what.

Facebook has prided itself on promoting free speech on its platform and has even come under fire from employees who staged a virtual walkout to protest the companys decision not to flag an inflammatory post from President Donald Trump, in which the president appeared to endorse shooting in response to widespread looting and protests.



The unique sharing aspects of social media can raise surveillance issues and Facebook has been criticised for selectively regulating whats posted on its platforms, allowing paid ads to remain online. Their relaxed approach to potential political misinformation contrasts sharply with the powerful tools for employers to monitor and control discussions in the workplace.

University of Pennsylvania: The Intecept: Mashable: Fox Business News: EdExLive:

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The website devoted to helping local Vietnamese webmasters find the right tools to purchase has made a server speed checker available on the home page

LEBAR SQUARE, SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2020 / Bitcatcha has launched a website in the Vietnamese language to provide tools for webmasters. On the home page, the company has made a sophisticated speed checker. The importance of a dependable and fast hosting speed rate is undeniable. The unique tool on the home page allows for accurate measurement of the speed of the host. When the hosting speed is not meeting the users' demands, thousands of customers can be lost with all potential sales associated with those customers.

Two main factors affect the overall loading speed of a website. The first is the server speed, due to the web host. The second factor is the design of the website. It must have clean code, a functioning cache, plugins, and visual media operating correctly. Before being able to determine how fast the web hosting speed is, an accurate measurement is critical.

A fast website provides better user experience, more satisfied customers, a longer list of subscribers, more views, and more people sharing content. A fast website means more opportunities for sales, leading to more profit. Visitors to the website demand speed, but Google is also interested in fast websites.

Further details about the company are available at https://www.bitcatcha.vn/

The website also contains a number of helpful tips about how to rank the results obtained from the speed checker tool, plus tips for improving the speed. Google searches for the fastest loading sites and ranks them higher. The success of Google is partly because the search engine giant wants to bring a breakthrough experience to users. Google wants users to find the answers to their questions and to find them fast.

Once the speed has been measured and ranked, the next step is to take measures to improve its website. Several actions can be applied to improve the website loading speed. These include moving the server nearer to the customer; using dedicated hosting, cloud storage, or VPS; using the content distribution network, and activating 'Keep Alive.'

Story continues

Media Inquiries:

Company: Bitcatcha Inc

Address: 60 Paya Lebar Road #10-09 Paya Lebar Square, Singapore 409051

Email: admin@bitcatcha.com

SOURCE: Bitcatcha Inc





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/593892/Bitcatcha-Launches-Vietnam-Language-Site-With-Server-Speed-Checker-Tool




Contrary to some held perception that the Member of Parliament for Assin Central made his wealth on the back of drugs, Kennedy Agyapong says he has never peddled drugs not to talk of making money from it.



According to him, the source of his wealth which many people struggle to fathom is as a result of his active work in the 1980s processing amnesty documents for undocumented immigrants in the US.



He said in an interview on Citi TV that together with his boss at the time, Kwadwo Afram Asiedu, they processed 2,500 applications for $2,500 each.



In 1989, [US President] Ronald Reagan had introduced an amnesty program so I was fortunate to work with a lawyer. He is called Kwadwo Afram Asiedu. He recruited me and I started working with him. That is the cocaine money. That is where I made the money. I made a lot of money. We did about 2,500 applications and everybody paid $2,500. I did all the documentation and my boss, because he is a lawyer, will go and present the documents at the immigration [office]. Out of the $2,500, my boss will get $700 and I will get the rest and use some for the documentation. So when we finished, I had made a lot of money, he said.



He continued that after returning to Ghana, he took advantage of the US Visa Lottery program that was newly introduced at the time to process documents for interested Ghanaians wishing to travel to the US.



Facilitating each documentation for $5,000, the outspoken member of the governing New Patriotic Party said, by the end of the program that year, he had made over $1 million including his personal savings.



When people dont know your background and they think that you are a drug dealer, it is so painful. To the second chance of my money A lot of Ghanaians had won the US lottery and they didnt know how to process it so I went back to America and this time another boss, Lawyer Fofie, I went there and told him that I have a connection in GhanaHe was interested in the cash right there. He took $500I bought the applications for $48,000, thats about 96 applications and brought it to Ghana.



That is another cocaine. At that time, I was charging $5,000 each. And in 1996, September 30, that was the last day of the US lottery, after that program, I checked my account, what I have saved and I had $1,145,000. I felt so good.



Kennedy Agyapong said he has always told himself that he will be a millionaire by age 40.



I always said to myself that I am going to be a millionaire by age 40. I didnt know how I was going to make it but I was working, the legislator said.

Source: Daily Graphic









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Two officials working with the Indian High Commission in Pakistan are reported to be missing for the last few hours. One CISF driver and another official of the high commission are missing. South Block is watching developments on the case very closely and the matter has been taken up with the Pakistan foreign ministry, soon after the information was received.

Experts suspect foul play as this incident comes ten days after New Delhi expelled two Pakistani diplomats on espionage charges, according to the news agency IANS. According to the Military Intelligence Unit (MIU), these diplomats, Abid and Tahir used to target the officials of the Indian Amy. They used to befriend these officials and then used to get confidential information from these officials under the guise of friendship.

Several Indian diplomats have been monitored and chased aggressively in Islamabad over the last several days and Indian authorities have voiced their dissent against this excessive surveillance.

After the Delhi espionage case came to the fore, India's foremost diplomat Gaurav Ahluwalia was tailed by an ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) member. Not only this, ISI also increased its presence outside Ahluwalia's official residence.
Excellent weather provided residents in Gloucester County with an opportunity for a bit of bear watching over the weekend.

A black bear has been wending its way through woods and neighborhoods in South Jersey since last week, with onlookers posting the occasional photo of the animals journey.

The latest sighting came Monday morning, when police reported it was near West Deptford Park and Mid-Atlantic Industrial Park.

Please do not approach or agitate the bear, West Deptford police advised in a Facebook post.

Since last week, the animal has been spotted in Winslow Township in neighboring Camden County, Monroe, Franklin, Elk and Harrison townships, Glassboro and Clayton.

A neighborhood in Mantua Township awoke Sunday morning to the bear wandering through yards as emergency responders kept an eye on its movements.

A Deptford police officer snapped this photo of a black bear climbing a tree on Sunday.

Officials took to Facebook to provide occasional updates on the bears progress.

Police contacted state Fish & Wildlife and animal control officials, who advised leaving the animal alone unless it became aggressive.

By late Sunday morning, the bear was spotted heading from Mantua toward the Deptford Township and Wenonah borough.

After a sighting in Wenonah Cemetery, a Deptford police officer spotted it crossing Mantua Avenue into a wooded area backing up to the Pine Acres neighborhood.

At one point, the bear climbed a tree in the Oak Valley subdivision, where residents took photos as police kept everyone  including the bear  safe.

After a few more sightings, the animal was seen heading into a wooded area in the township Sunday afternoon.

Fish & Game referred to it as an urban bear that should eventually find its way into an area far from neighborhoods, according to a Deptford police spokesman.

The black bear population in New Jersey has grown since the 1980s, with confirmed sightings in all 21 counties, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Officials note that black bear attacks are extremely rare.

Some speculated that the animal seen in Gloucester County may have been displaced by a recent forest fire in the Winslow Wildlife Management Area, which sits on the border of Gloucester and Camden counties.

Anyone who spots an emergency situation involving a bear is asked to contact the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection at 1-877-927-6337.

A resident took this photo of a black bear that climbed a tree in Deptford Township on Sunday.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.
With President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla., less than a week away, health experts warned that the indoor venue and potentially large crowd could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk.

"I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event," Bruce Dart, director of the Tulsa city and county health department, told the Tulsa World. "And I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well."

The scheduled rally comes as new infections are trending upward in at least 21 states across the South and the West, prompting some governors to rethink reopening plans and renewing concerns that the country could be a long way from containing the pandemic. Alabama, Oregon and South Carolina are among the states with the biggest increases. Alabama saw a 92 percent increase in its seven-day average, while Oregon's seven-day average was up 83.8 percent and South Carolina's was up 60.3 percent.

Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, warned that waves of infection could come "back and forth" for months.

Fauci said in an interview published Sunday that the coronavirus will linger in the country for months and that it will be about a year before things return to normal.

Fauci also told the British Telegraph newspaper it probably will be months before travelers from Britain and the European Union are allowed in the country and the real end of the crisis will only come with the development of a vaccine.

"I would hope to get to some degree of real normality within a year or so. But I don't think it's this winter or fall, we'll be seeing it for a bit more," he said, expecting the virus to go back and forth in the United States through a few cycles.

Fauci also noted that while the virus has been suppressed in major cities like New York, Chicago and New Orleans, cases are spreading elsewhere. "We're seeing several states, as they try to reopen and get back to normal, starting to see early indications (that) infections are higher than previously."

This spread will probably mean the bans on visitors from Britain, the European Union, China and Brazil will remain in place for the time being. "I don't think there's going to be an immediate pull back for those kinds of restrictions. My feeling, looking at what's going on with the infection rate, I think it's more likely measured in months rather than weeks," he said.

Fauci was, however, optimistic about the development of the vaccine, with several good candidates under development, that could be ready by the end of the year.

"We have potential vaccines making significant progress. We have maybe four or five," he said. "You can never guarantee success with a vaccine, that's foolish to do so, there's so many possibilities of things going wrong. (But) everything we have seen from early results, it's conceivable we get two or three vaccines that are successful."

The indoor venues and large crowds anticipated for Trump's rally Saturday in Tulsa and the Republican National Convention in August could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk, infectious-disease expert Michael T. Osterholm told Fox News.

Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" that chanting and shouting can help aerosolize the virus, exposing the thousands expected to attend both events.

"Would I want my loved ones in a setting like that? Absolutely not," Osterholm said. "And it wouldn't matter about politics, I wouldn't want them there."

The venue for Saturday's rally, the BOK Center, has a capacity to seat more than 19,000, but Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted Sunday that 800,000 have signed up.

When registering for tickets, attendees were required to acknowledge a disclaimer that they would not hold the Trump campaign or the venue liable if they got sick.

Osterholm said he also anticipated that the nationwide protests in the past few weeks over police brutality could increase the risk of transmission of the coronavirus, especially with police using tear gas and detained protesters being held in cramped jails. Several National Guard members in Washington and Nebraska have tested positive, but Osterholm warned that what happens in the next two weeks will be "telling," especially as many states also are reopening.

Osterholm added that it is nearly impossible to predict the impact of these large gatherings and reopenings.

"We're not driving this tiger, we're riding it," he said.

Even if cases continue to decline in the summer, Osterholm said the worry remains: Like influenza, the coronavirus could return with a vengeance in the fall.

Osterholm said the virus won't slow its spread until it has infected 60 percent to 70 percent of the country. He estimated that the coronavirus has infected about 5 percent.

As he cheered the reopening of the economy during an appearance on CNN, Larry Kudlow encouraged people to keep being smart about venturing out into the world.

"Social distancing guidelines must be observed," Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser, said Sunday. "Face-covering in key places must be observed."

But when asked whether that meant that Trump's supporters should don face masks at his upcoming rally, Kudlow demurred.

"Probably so," he said.

On Sunday, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., was asked on the same CNN program whether he would wear a mask to the rally. He said he "hadn't decided on that."

"You see actually very few masks in Oklahoma now," Lankford said. He added that his state was "far ahead of the rest of the country" in terms of having controlled the threat of the virus, even though cases in Tulsa and across the state have spiked in the past week.

- - -

The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
Clashes Between Army, Protesters in Northern Lebanon Injure Nearly 80 People, Reports Suggest

Sputnik News

09:03 GMT 14.06.2020

BEIRUT (Sputnik) - Overnight clashes between protesters and army personnel in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli have left 76 people injured with 16 requiring hospital visits, state news agency NNA reported Sunday morning.

According to the agency, continuous unrest in Lebanon's second-largest city started when protesters began vandalizing stores and hurling what appeared to be Molotov cocktails at the government building, prompting the army to intervene.

The army had regained full control by Sunday morning but several facilities were destroyed, the agency reported.

Unrest across Lebanon returned earlier this week on the back of a plunging currency and a deteriorating economic situation.

The Lebanese pound fell to lows of 5,000 per one US dollar, after more than thirty years of being pegged at 1,500, sending prices soaring and increasing economic hardships on the citizens.

The large-scale anti-government movement in Lebanon began in October 2019 after the government hiked taxes in a desperate attempt to salvage the sliding economy.

The tax proposals have since been repealed but the protests against endemic corruption and mismanagement have continued with varying intensity.

 Sputnik

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Vice President Mike Pence plans to visit several Michigan businesses Thursday and deliver remarks at a steel manufacturer in Sterling Heights.

The White House announced Pences travel plans include lunch at Engine House, a bar and grill owned by two Detroit firefighters, followed by a tour of Chardam Gear Company. Pence is also scheduled to visit Casadei Structural Steel Inc. and deliver remarks before returning to Washington D.C.

America First Policies, a nonprofit group created to promote the policy agenda of President Donald Trumps re-election campaign, later announced Pence will participate in a noon roundtable at Casadei Structural Steel. A press release states the event is focused on policies driving economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and is part of the groups Great American Comeback Tour.

Pence spoke at a similar event held by America First Policies on June 12 in Pennsylvania.

Additional details about the vice presidents trip, including whether the stops will be open to the public, have not been released as of Monday. Pences visit to Michigan is organized by the White House instead of the presidents campaign, though Sterling Heights and the surrounding Macomb County are important battlegrounds for Trump in 2020.

Trumps re-election campaign has kept a tight focus on suburban communities north of Detroit. Pence held a rally in Troy during his last visit to Michigan in February.

Trump visited Sterling Heights in the final days of the 2016 presidential election. He later won the city by a 12 percentage point margin and flipped Macomb County, which had previously voted for Democrats in the previous two elections.

The presidents support in Macomb County helped him win Michigan by 10,704 votes, his closest margin of victory in any state and the closest result in Michigan electoral history.

Chardam Gear Co. is an aerospace components company that manufactures parts for military and commercial aircraft. The company has also worked on projects in the space industry, according to its website, including the Hubble Telescope.

Casadei Structural Steel operates an 88,000-square-foot fabrication facility, where workers manufacture materials for stairs, railways and platforms.

Thursdays events are the first time Pence has stopped in Michigan since positive cases of COVID-19 were confirmed. The schedule is similar to his last visit in February, when Pence traveled to the Michigan Farm Bureau Lansing Legislative Seminar, dropped in at a local restaurant in Lansing, then held a Keep America Great rally in Troy.

The former Indiana governor previously visited Saginaw, Holland and Portage in December 2019, and also spoke at the Michigan Republican Partys biennial leadership conference on Mackinac Island last summer.

Trump came to Michigan last month to tour Ford Motor Companys Rawsonville manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti Township. The presidents visit was an official White House event, but Michigan Democrats have since criticized Trump administration officials for allegedly using the program to promote the candidacy of U.S. Senate hopeful John James.

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Lavora Barnes said Pences visit is an attempt to spin Trumps failed record in a statement, blaming the president for the heavy toll the coronavirus inflicted on Michigans economy and residents in the Detroit area.

No amount of pandering and empty words can undo the damage done by Donald Trumps failures and Michigan voters will hold him accountable in November, Barnes said.

READ MORE:

Trump says U.S. economy is poised for epic comeback during Michigan visit

Trump declines to publicly don mask during tour of Michigan Ford plant

Trump visits Michigan amid coronavirus pandemic, historic flooding and economic downturn
This blog covers software patent news and issues with a particular focus on wireless, mobile devices (smartphones, tablet computers, connected cars) as well as select antitrust matters surrounding those devices.
For a century, Storcks Garage had been owned and operated by only two local families, the Aratas and the Storck-Pittsleys.

Its history, however, features a greater variety of stories.

Jeff Arata, who today owns Storcks with his brother, Anthony, said, While we dont have the exact date when Storcks opened, we do have a great poster from the late-1940s in our office. It states Storcks Garage is the oldest repair, service, shop in Napa.

A 1968 Napa Register article provides more historical information that helps to narrow down the time frame of the establishment of the business.

According to that article, Alex Storck left his job in Oakland as a mechanical drafting and sheet metal work high school instructor in 1919. He did so to begin his second career as a garage man, the Register wrote.

By 1920, he had purchased the vehicle repair, and servicing, portion of Frank H. Dailys local Buick and Cadillac dealership. At that time, this automotive care business was known as the Palace Garage.

In its earliest incarnation during the late 1800s and early 1900s, this Third Street business was known as the Palace Stables. It was also associated with the Palace Hotel that once stood across the street at Third Street and Soscol Avenue. (As an interesting historical side note, in 1866 Mary Arata was the first member of the Arata family to arrive in Napa County. She would marry Felix Borreo whose stone commercial building (now Stone Brewery) stood next to the Palace Stable and Garage.

Returning to Alex Storck, for eight years his garage was located along Third Street. However, in 1923, Storck had purchased the current garage location at First Street and California Boulevard. By the late 1920s, the automotive service business was relocated to its present-day site. The 1968 article added, Storck (had) erected (the) necessary buildings to conduct his garage business...

Yet, the building most local residents associate with Storcks Garage was constructed about a decade later. My dad, Jack Rogers, built that Storcks Garage building in 1937, Annie Rogers Schaefer recalled, He constructed it with Basilite blocks for fire safety. I double checked this information with my older siblings, Jerry Rogers and Patricia Rogers Modlin.

The wisdom of that construction material choice became evident about two decades later. In mid-July 1956, Anthony Arata said, the worst fire in what is now Napa City erupted at the neighboring Shell Oil warehouse. It started under one of the loading docks (around 2 p.m. on that hot summer day.) The local fire departments didnt have enough firefighting apparatus or manpower to put the fire out. So, a Travis Air Force Base air tanker dropped a load of fire retardant on the blaze, which was moving eastward towards Second Street and its many homes.

According to the Register, the blaze was finally under control around 7 p.m. The newspaper also stated the fire caused about $235,000 in damage.

Although Storcks lost a couple of auxiliary buildings, the main garage built by Rogers was relatively unscathed by the blaze. There still are visible scars from that fire, Jeff Arata said. The are primarily charred or scorched sections of the wood under the eaves.

A few years later, in 1960, Storcks daughter Hazel and her husband, Richard Dick Pittsley took over the operation of the garage. Less then two decades later, in 1976, they sold Storcks Garage to the Aratas.

Storcks Garage is located at 935 California Blvd., Napa. Their phone number is: 707-226-5259. Their email address is arataracing@sbcglobal.net. They are open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.




Haiti - FLASH : Delmas and Port-au-Prince most contaminated communes in the country





The Ministry of Public Health informs that 144 new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Haiti (last 48 hours : +224), for a total of 4,309 cases throughout the national territory (40.0% women and 60.0% 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 ).



Delmas totals 862 confirmed cases and Port-au-Prince 815 confirmed cases.



Deaths : 3 new deaths were recorded : 1 in the Artibonite and 2 in the GrandAnse, bringing the national total to 73.



Healings : 24 people healed (data unchanged since May 31)



Active cases : (less death and recovery) : 4.212 (+ 3.46%) +141 in 24 hours (last 48 hours: +218)



Number of suspected cases investigated since March 19 : 9,006 cases +518 in 24 hours (last 48 hours: +407)



All the details in our daily report of 11am



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31026-haiti-covid-19-daily-report-june-14-2020.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-31020-haiti-flash-generalized-increase-4-165-cases-70-dead.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30319-haiti-health-origin-of-the-first-2-cases-of-covid-19-in-haiti.html



S/ HaitiLibre


















The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has begun to officially acknowledge its activities in relation to the annexed Crimea, although the occupiers do not physically allow the Mission to enter the peninsula.

"Of course, we can't talk about real achievements yet. But the most important thing is that the Mission has started to officially acknowledge that it works with Crimea. Yes, it is not physically allowed [to enter the peninsula], but just six months ago the SMM leadership tried to avoid discussing Crimea. Thus, there is some political progress in this issue," Permanent Representative of Ukraine to International Organizations in Vienna Yevhen Tsymbaliuk said in a commentary to an Ukrinform own correspondent.

At a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in April, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Yasar Halit Cevik stated that the SMM was dealing with Crimea, working to the extent possible and collecting relevant material. In the future, this activity may result in a separate report on Crimea.

During the weekly meetings of the OSCE Permanent Council, the Ukrainian delegation regularly emphasizes the need to ensure the SMM's access to the Crimean peninsula which is temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation. These calls are increasingly supported by partner countries, notably the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, which also point to the need to extend the SMM's mandate to the entire territory of Ukraine, including Crimea.

"The Ukrainian delegation and our Western partners call for monitoring of the situation in Crimea. After all, UN human rights monitoring missions, in case of inability to enter the territory, conduct surveys of people who come from there, monitor the media, work with lawyers and human rights activists," the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to International Organizations in Vienna said.

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New Delhi:

A report on 'Child Online Protection in India' was released by UNICEF which helps in mapping the existing laws on safeguarding children from online exploitation, flags the lacunae in them and puts forward recommendations to ensure cyber safety.

According to the report, the surge in mobile and Internet use in India has brought 400 million people online. It adds that according to a survey conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India, school going children account for seven per cent of Internet users in the country.

As a result of "deep proliferation" of Internet, offline forms of crime and violence against children are finding new platforms in the online world, it says. "India is leading in Internet Communications Technology (ICT).

If you look at the annual growth of ICT in India, it is phenomenal. The question now is, how are we going to be able to tackle this exponential growth in ICT so that it can be conducive and works as an enabler of children's education and empowerment and also, protects them from violence and abuse, which are on the increase in India and internationally.

"We need more regulations and we also need all the stakeholders and duty-bearers such as parents and teachers to contribute to this. There is also a need to engage with the private sector to invent some of the protections," UNICEF Representative to India Louis-Georges Arsenault told PTI. Cyberbullying, cyberstalking, grooming, webcam sexual abuse, pornography are just some of the several forms of sexual abuse through Internet.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi, June 15 : In a rather bizarre move, the Delhi unit of the BJP has decided to start distributing 'Kadha' (a liquid made of herbal extracts) among residents of Delhi to fight COVID-19.

"Delhi BJP has started a campaign to distribute the decoction to the needy, so that people can be protected from coronavirus by boosting their immunity," said the Delhi BJP Chief Adesh Kumar Gupta on Monday.

He added that BJP cadres will distribute as much as 10 lakh bottles of 'kadha' along with sanitizers and face masks.

He announced that the Delhi BJP has also created a team of doctors that will work as a help desk and advise people. Meanwhile, cadres will carry on the campaign with social distancing norms, said Gupta.

Earlier in the day, Gupta said that he demanded that rates in private hospitals treating COVID-19 patients be fixed, during the all party meeting called by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who seems to have taken charge to salvage the rising corona tally in the national capital.

On Sunday, Shah held two meetings -- One, with Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, LG Anil Baijal and Health Minister followed by another meeting with all the Mayors to devise a municipal level strategy.

Earlier, the apex Court came down heavily both on the state and the Centre, calling the handling of the situation in Delhi as "horrendous, horrific, pathetic". As of Monday, there are a total of 41,182 COVID-19 cases in the national capital.
(TNS)  The Rock County, Minn., Sheriff's Office last week marked the launched of its new smartphone app, a tool designed to communicate with the public about local law enforcement activities."We're really excited to be launching it," said Sheriff Evan Verbrugge, explaining that cell phones are so universal these days, and users tend to prefer apps over search engines. As a result, it made sense to explore this avenue of communication.Verbrugge began work on this effort a year ago and decided to contract with TheSheriffApp.com, a company whose entire mission is to create apps for sheriffs' offices around the country. Rock County is the first in the state of Minnesota to use this service.Thanks to the app, "we can get sensitive or critical information out quickly," Verbrugge said.The app offers notifications about weather, criminal activity, crash alerts and even COVID-19. Users can lookup jail inmates and wanted lists, as well as submit anonymous tips about crime in Rock County. In the week since the app's debut, RCSO has already received a tip from a concerned citizen, Verbrugge said.The app also features a comments and feedback tab, where the public can report misconduct by sheriff's deputies  an important component, Verbrugge noted, given the nationwide concern about police behavior.The free app is available for download by searching "Rock Sheriff" in the app store on an iOS or Android device.
The national outpouring of anger and frustration triggered by the killing of George Floyd by police reveals an urgent need today: We need many more leaders who will bring people together.

President Donald Trumps brutal, racist words and actions in response to the resulting protests have tried to divide people even further than they already are, American against American. I commend Gov. Michelle Lujan Grishams efforts now, in welcome contrast, to begin a statewide community conversation about new policies to improve racial justice here in New Mexico. Thats how we make progress as the human race.

As the horrifying video showed, George Floyds life was taken from his family and his community in Minneapolis suddenly and without cause. Millions across the country and around the world mourn his tragic, senseless death. We recall other high-profile victims of similar police brutality such as Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland  all of whom were black  and the list of tragedies goes on. With countless other New Mexicans, I stand with all those who have taken to the streets to peacefully protest and raise determined voices against police brutality and racism. It is long overdue.

The systems of oppression that have existed for hundreds of years in America are still a reality in our communities. The brutalities happening every day extend far beyond the fatal police violence. Poverty that endures, underfunded public education, inequitable access to health care and poor environmental conditions experienced by black communities and other communities of color are other forms of systemic violence. While less visible in the news and the popular imagination, these daily injustices are devastating to the lives of people of color  blacks, Hispanics and Latinos, and indigenous people. It partly explains why George Floyds killing evoked such a powerful response worldwide.

What better time than the present to fight against these unfair and dehumanizing barriers lived daily by so many of our fellow Americans? Many, many of us across New Mexico and the United States are committed to working together to confront systemic injustice and inequality, and to push instead for policies that uphold decency, fairness and respect for human life.

There is a broad movement of historic proportions for change at work today. It may go far beyond simply reforming police tactics, although that is needed, too. Widespread racial discrimination in our society, and the likelihood that many police officers are more likely to mistreat black people than white people, cannot be denied. All of the officers engaged in this reprehensible behavior must be held accountable.

The federal policy of sending surplus military equipment  more suitable for a war zone like Kabul or Aleppo  to local police departments across New Mexico and America is a total failure.

We urgently need more funding for classrooms, housing, good jobs, public health, life opportunities and halting the march of climate Armageddon. Instead, there is always more unnecessary and ever-growing policing, high-tech surveillance of Americans, and tear gas and flash-bang bombs. People are tired of the inequity of it all, especially young people.

Lets recognize that all those protesting peacefully today actually are trying to save our country. They should be protected. The overwhelming majority of protesters are entirely peaceful, despite the medias obsession with focusing on violence and looting. I commend Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller and the Albuquerque Police Department for their restraint to date.

The governors initiative creating an Advisory Council for Racial Justice to end systemic racism in our state is the right approach for this extraordinary moment in time. All responsible people want to live in a world free of hate. Let the cynics roll their eyes, but we are serious. When the N.M. Legislature convenes on June 18 in Santa Fe in special session, we will begin the hard and necessary work of protecting our communities of color.
TDT Manama

The High Criminal Appeals Court upheld the jail sentence issued against a man accused of assaulting his sisters divorcee. The convicted brother had received one year in prison, although the court suspended the punishment for three years given that this was the first complaint recorded against him.

The victim reported to police officers that he was assaulted by the defendant as he was visiting his children at his ex-wifes familys house. He told the officers that he rang the bell, but nobody opened the door for him. Suddenly, the brother attacked him from behind and pulled on his clothes. I tried to defend myself but I fell down to the ground on my head, the victim told prosecutors.

Others attempted to intervene and turned the assailant away. I was later taken to the hospital and I received treatment. The fight caused permanent disability to the victims right foot, the medical report attac
The Associated Press

Survivors of COVID-19 are donating their blood plasma in droves in hopes it helps other patients recover from the coronavirus. And while the jurys still out, now scientists are testing if the donations might also prevent infection in the first place.

Thousands of coronavirus patients in hospitals around the world have been treated with so-called convalescent plasma  including more than 20,000 in the US  with little solid evidence so far that it makes a difference. One recent study from China was unclear while another from New York offered a hint of benefit.

We have glimmers of hope, said Dr Shmuel Shoham of Johns Hopkins University.

With more rigorous testing of plasma treatment underway, Shoham is launching a nationwide study asking the next logical question: Could giving survivors plasma right after a high-risk exposure to the virus stave off illness?

To tell, researchers at Hopkins and 15 other sites will recruit health workers, spouses of the sick and residents of nursing homes where someone just fell ill and theyre trying to nip it in the bud, Shoham said.

Its a strict study: The 150 volunteers will be randomly assigned to get either plasma from COVID-19 survivors that contain coronavirus-fighting antibodies or regular plasma like is used daily in hospitals, that was frozen prior to the pandemic. Scientists will track if theres a difference in who gets sick.

It if works, survivor plasma could have important ramifications until a vaccine arrives  raising the prospect of possibly protecting high-risk people with temporary immune-boosting infusions every so often.

Theyre a paramedic, theyre a police officer, theyre a poultry industry worker, theyre a submarine naval officer, Shoham ticked off. Can we blanket protect them?

The new coronavirus has infected more than 7 million people worldwide and killed more than 400,000, according to official tallies believed to be an underestimate. With no good treatments yet, researchers are frantically studying everything from drugs that tackle other viruses to survivor plasma  a century-old remedy used to fight infection before modern medicines came along.

The historical evidence is sketchy, but convalescent plasmas most famous use was during the 1918 flu pandemic, and reports suggest that recipients were less likely to die. Doctors still dust off the approach to tackle surprise outbreaks, like SARS, a cousin of COVID-19, in 2002 and the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, but even those recent uses lacked rigorous research.

When the body encounters a new germ, it makes proteins called antibodies that are specially targeted to fight the infection. The antibodies float in plasma  the yellowish, liquid part of blood.

Because it takes a few weeks for antibodies to form, the hope is that transfusing someone elses antibodies could help patients fight the virus before their own immune system kicks in. One donation is typically divided into two or three treatments. Donations also can be combined into a high-dose product; manufacturer Grifols is producing doses of that hyperimmune globulin for a study expected to start next month.

And as more people survive COVID-19, there are increasing calls for them to donate plasma so theres enough of a stockpile if it pans out. On Friday, US health officials notified doctors that it doesnt violate health privacy rules to track down prior COVID-19 patients and tell them about donation options.

Convalescent plasma seems safe to use, Dr Michael Joyner of the Mayo Clinic reported last month. His team tracked the first 5,000 plasma recipients in a Food and Drug Administration-sponsored program that helps hospitals use the experimental treatment, and found few serious side effects.

Does it help recovery?

A clue comes from the first 39 patients treated at New Yorks Mount Sinai Hospital. Researchers compared each plasma recipient to four other COVID-19 patients who didnt get plasma but were the same age, just as sick and being given the same amount of oxygen. People who received plasma before needing a ventilator were less likely to die than non-plasma recipients, said Dr Sean Liu, the studys lead author.

We really tried to target patients who were early in their course, preferably within the first one to two weeks of their disease, Liu said.

Being a doctor during this time, you just feel helpless, Liu added, stressing that more rigorous study was needed but he was glad to have tried this first-step research. Watching people die is, its heartbreaking. Its scary and its heartbreaking.

But the results of the first strictly controlled study were disappointing. Hospitals in the hard-hit Chinese city of Wuhan were comparing severely ill patients randomly assigned to receive plasma or regular care, but ran out of new patients when the virus waned.

With only half of the 200 planned patients enrolled, more plasma recipients survived but researchers couldnt tell if it was a real difference or coincidence, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week.

The real proof will come from ongoing, strict studies that compare patients assigned to get either survivor plasma or dummy treatment.

Further complicating the search for answers, COVID-19 survivors harbour widely varying levels of antibodies. And while researchers want to use what Hopkins Shoham calls the high-octane stuff, no one knows the best dose to test.

About 20 percent of recovered patients and donors have very strong immunity, estimated Dr Michele Donato of Hackensack University Medical Center, who is studying how long they retain that level of protection.

Those are the people researchers want to become repeat donors.

Its, I think, our job as humans to step forward and help in society, said Aubrie Cresswell, 24, of Bear, Delaware, who has donated three times and counting.

One donation was shipped to a hospitalized friend of a friend, and it brought me to tears. I was like, overwhelmed with it just because the family was really thankful.
Adams recently raised its landfill fee in anticipation of higher costs from its disposal provider.

North Berkshire Towns to See Hike in Solid Waste Rates



The solid waste district board held its meeting last week outside the Adams Visitors Center to comply with needed social distancing. ADAMS, Mass.  Members of the Northern Berkshire Solid Waste Management District are expected to see increases in their waste removal rates as the district negotiates a five-year contract with Casella Waste Management that includes prevailing wage.

The previous contract was for 10 years with Republic and was viewed by waste district Coordinator Linda Cernik as very town friendly.

"The contract was set with Republic but then Casella purchased [them]. That contract had been set for 10 years. I say it was like a gift, the towns were only charged a per ton fee, there was no pull fee. Now with the prevailing wage ... before drivers were given a sort of DPW rate. But then prevailing wage set in with the Teamsters a couple years ago. So that's a big factor," she explained to the board on Thursday. "Now the big change is every time a container gets removed it's a pull fee of $365 plus a per ton fee ($97). Every solid waste district is facing it."

Cernik and some of her colleagues went so far as to travel to Boston to appeal the prevailing wage measure with the state Department of Labor but were ultimately unsuccessful.

"We took so many steps to reduce the cost but prevailing wage is set. The Teamsters are sticking with it," Cernik said.

When Casella Waste Management purchased some assets of Republic Services in 2019, it included the Cheshire location, which handled waste for the district and other municipalities including Pittsfield.

Cernik said that while there are other local haulers, Casella is the only one that can handle the needs of large districts. Essentially the waste district was negotiating with only one provider.

"We anticipated an increase. There is not a lot of competition. There are smaller haulers who do a great job but to manage what we need, even just for our capital expenses for our containers ... . Each container is about $7,400 to purchase," she said.

Board member and former Williamstown Department of Public Works head Timothy Kaiser thought that given the circumstances, the contract was palatable.

"This is the product of there not really being any competition. I think we did as good as we could expect. It's going to be a shock to adjust to these prices but we all knew it was coming so  ." he said.

The effects of the rate increases are already being seen as the town of Adams at a recent Board of Selectmen meeting voted to increase its landfill sticker price from $50 to $75. The new price does include six bags, however, and the transfer station has added Thursday hours through mid-September.

The board voted to send the proposed contract to Kessler Consulting for final vetting. Kessler is the solid waste consulting firm the district contracted to help it through the renegotiation process. The district has worked for six months to get to this point and wanted to make sure members felt comfortable before deciding the district's future for the next five years.

There are a few special collections on tap for the summer but, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are subject to change:

 Lanesborough Town Hall will host a community paper shredding event Saturday, June 13, from 9 to noon. The event is open and free to all members of the district. Out-of-district residents can also participate but a donation is suggested.

 Adams will hold its annual bulky waste collection for residents at the old landfill garage on East Road from 8 to noon, Saturday, June 27. See the Adams will hold its annual bulky waste collection for residents at the old landfill garage on East Road from 8 to noon, Saturday, June 27. See the website for a list of acceptable items and prices. Because of COVID-19, residents will need to unload their own items and are asked to wear masks

 Adams will also host a districtwide event on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 9 to 1 for the collection of household hazardous waste. Advance registration is required because of limited capacity. See the Adams will also host a districtwide event on Saturday, Aug. 22, from 9 to 1 for the collection of household hazardous waste. Advance registration is required because of limited capacity. See the website for details.

Cernik shared some good news from the Green Team program. The environmental club sponsored by the Department of Environmental Protection aims to educate kids on waste reduction, pollution, and other environmental concerns. Cernik said the club at Hoosac Valley Middle and High School was one of only 20 across the commonwealth to be awarded a grand prize for their efforts.

The next meeting will be Thursday, July 9, at 4:30 p.m. at the Adams Visitor Center.
ABC NewsBy ADAM KELSEY, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- Stacey Abrams criticized the Trump administration's handling of race relations Sunday, saying the president, his campaign and a member of his cabinet were not "taking responsibility" for words and actions that she feels have alienated minority communities.



In an interview on ABC's This Week, Abrams was asked to respond to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos earlier on the show that the nation needs to "grow up" when it comes to the debate over the renaming of objects and institutions that offend some groups.



"I think that is a fairly infantile response, actually, to say that words don't have meanings, that dates don't have meanings, that dates don't have power," Abrams said.



The former Georgia House minority leader and the state's Democratic gubernatorial candidate in 2018, went on to highlight the administration's move Friday to rollback LGBT health care discrimination protections, noting that the action came on the fourth anniversary of the Pulse shooting that left 49 dead at an Orlando, Florida, gay nightclub. She also pointed to the Trump campaign's delayed decision to move an Oklahoma rally to avoid conflicting with the Juneteenth anniversary of the freeing of America's slaves and so soon after the anniversary of one of the most violent attacks on African Americans in U.S. history in Tulsa, where the rally will be held.



"So let's be very clear, this isn't about growing up," Abrams said. "It's about taking responsibility and having accountability for the actions that have been taken by this country, and by people acting on behalf of this country."



Stephanopoulos went on to ask Abrams about the Friday killing of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police in a Wendy's parking lot -- the latest in a series of deaths of unarmed African Americans at the hands of law enforcement, caught on camera, and one that has again led to demonstrations and the destruction of property.



"Activists are necessarily calling into question what's actually being done (to reform the actions of police)," Abrams responded. "And what I would say is that there is a legitimacy to this anger, there is a legitimacy to this outrage. A man was murdered because he was asleep in a drive-thru. And we know that this is not an isolated occurrence."



On that subject, Stephanopoulos pressed Abrams on her interpretation of the "defund the police" movement, which has divided liberal activists who take the slogan literally, and those who believe efforts should instead be focused on a broader push to reform law enforcement.



"Joe Biden said he is against defunding the police, but of course is for investing more in social services and other programs," Stephanopoulos said. "What does defunding the police mean to you, and is it necessary?"



"I think we're being drawn into this false choice idea. The reality is, we need two things: We need reformation of how police officers do their job, how law enforcement does its job," Abrams said. "But I also know that we have to have a transformation of how we view the role of law enforcement, how we view the construct of public safety, and how we invest, not only in the work that we need them to do to protect us, but the work we need to protect and build our communities."

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Diamond Alexander, center, sister of Robert Fuller, joined hundreds of demonstrators in Palmdale on Saturday calling for an independent investigation of her brother's death. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Two state officials have joined a Los Angeles County supervisor in calling on California Atty. Gen. Xavier Beccera to investigate the death of a young Black man found hanging from a tree in a park near Palmdale City Hall.

"``The attorney general, as the lead attorney and law enforcement official for the state of California, will lend additional expertise and oversight into this important investigation and provide the community with the answers they deserve," said L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who called for the independent inquiry along with state Sen. Scott Wilk of Santa Clarita and Assemblyman Tom Lackey of Palmdale, both Republicans.

Robert Fuller, 24, was found on the edge of a 2-acre courtyard known as Poncitlan Square early Wednesday.

The Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroners office initially labeled the death a suicide. Fullers family and civic leaders quickly pushed back, insisting that it be investigated as a homicide and demanding an independent probe and autopsy, something the city also has requested.

The City of Palmdale is joining the family and the communitys call for justice and we do support a full investigation into his death, the city said in a statement, contradicting previous assertions by both City Manager J.J. Murphy and Capt. Ron Shaffer of the L.A. County Sheriffs Department.

Nearly 2,000 people gathered in Palmdale on Saturday to demand answers about Fuller's death and to mourn the man who was described by family and friends as a peacemaker with a bright smile. He loved music, anime and video games, and mostly stayed to himself, they said.

This is really crazy to all of us, said Fullers sister, Diamond Alexander. We want to find out the truth of what really happened. Everything that theyve been telling us has not been right.

To be here, staring at this tree, it dont make no sense, Alexander added. My brother was not suicidal. My brother was a survivor.

Robert Fuller, the young Black man found hanging from a tree in Palmdale this week. (Courtesy Tommie Anderson)

On Saturday, Wilk tweeted that "transparency leads to accountability which leads to trust."

Story continues

"Robert Fullers family and our community cant have closure [without] a complete independent investigation," he wrote.

Fullers death has generated intense scrutiny amid a backdrop of nationwide protests set in motion by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the systemic racial injustices those deaths have come to represent.

The case brought to light the suspicious death of another Black man who was found hanging from a tree May 31 in Victorville, 50 miles from Palmdale. The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department said Saturday that foul play was not suspected in the death of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsch.

There were no indications at the scene that suggested foul play; however, the cause and manner of death are still pending, Sheriffs Department spokeswoman Jodi Miller told the Victor Valley News.

In a statement sent to the news outlet, Harschs family in Ohio said they find it hard to accept that his death was a suicide. They said Harsch had recent conversations with his children about seeing them soon and that he did not seem to be depressed to anyone who knew him.

The explanation of suicide does not seem plausible, the family wrote. There are many ways to die but considering the current racial tension, a Black man hanging himself from a tree definitely doesnt sit well with us right now."

Times staff writers Kevin Baxter and Deborah Netburn contributed to this report.
Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republican lawmakers are downplaying concerns that a Donald Trump indoor rally planned for Tulsa, Oklahoma, for next weekend could contribute to the spread Covid-19, amid an increase in cases in the city.

Related: Pandemic, what pandemic? Trump sees mass rallies as path to re-election

The Tulsa city-county health department director, Bruce Dart, said he worried the rally could be dangerous for attendees as well as the president.

I wish we could postpone this to a time when the virus isnt as large a concern as it is today, Dart told Tulsa World.

I think its an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic. Im concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and Im also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well.

Trump is set to travel to Oklahoma next Saturday, to stage his first rally since early March.

The event was moved from Friday to avoid a clash with Juneteenth, the day on which African Americans celebrate the end of slavery. The president had faced criticism for planning a rally on such a day in Tulsa, the scene in 1921 of the worst race massacre in US history.

James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, said on Sunday the rally did not need to be postponed because the increase in coronavirus cases is a little bit of a bump.

In fact it is too early to say if the increase is small and temporary.

Our deaths continue to decline and we encourage people that are high risk not to get involved in any location, whether that be a rally or other higher-risk locations, Lankford told ABCs This Week.

So, high-risk folks need to be able to step back and everybody needs to be able to take responsibility for their own health.

The White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said attendees at the rally must observe the safety guidelines.

The social distancing must be observed, Kudlow told CNNs State of the Union. Face coverings in key places must be observed.

Story continues

Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.

The Trump campaign is asking supporters to sign a waiver that makes clear the campaign is not responsible if anyone gets ill from crowding with thousands of others in an enclosed space.

There was a new high in daily increases for Oklahoma and Tulsa county on Saturday, while the rolling average of daily increases continues to rise. About the same number of people are being tested.

On Friday the Tulsa health department said the outbreak was linked to indoor gatherings. Hospitalizations and the percentage of tests coming back positive have been steady in the state.

Saturday also saw an increase in cases in Alabama, Florida and South Carolina, which reported a record number of new cases for the third day in a row, while Alaska did so for the first time in weeks. Arizona and Nevada reported a near-record number of new cases. Many state health officials partly attributed the increases to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May.

On Friday, the White House coronavirus taskforce member Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN the US would not necessarily see a second wave of Covid-19 infections, if you approach it in the proper way.

That, he said, meant people should maintain social distancing and continue to wear masks in public.

Related: Fauci says US might not see 'second wave' of Covid-19 cases

Nationally, there were more than 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since 2 May, in part due to a significant increase in testing. In Louisiana, one of the earlier virus hotspots, new cases were again on the rise with more than 1,200  the most in the state since 21 May.

The hospitalizations metric is not affected by increased testing. Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69% to 77% of hospital beds are occupied, depending on the region.

When you start to see increases in hospitalization, Fauci said on Friday, thats a surefire situation that youve got to pay close attention to.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:06:01|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's yuan funds, outstanding for foreign exchange, continued to decline in May, central bank data showed on Monday.

The funds stood at 21.18 trillion yuan (about 2.99 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of last month, down by 11.22 billion yuan from April, according to the People's Bank of China.

As the Chinese yuan is not freely convertible under the capital account, the central bank has to purchase foreign currency generated by a trade surplus and foreign investment in the country, adding funds to the money market. Such funds are an important indicator of cross-border foreign capital flows and domestic yuan liquidity.

The foreign exchange reserves expanded to 3.1017 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of May, from 3.0915 trillion dollars at the end of April, official data recently showed. Enditem
It's not surprising that Lee Min Ho is currently the most followed Korean actor on Instagram. His fantasy-romance series "The King: Eternal Monarch" recently concluded, and his fame augmented and reached across borders.

Suffice it to say that "The King: Eternal Monarch" helped in swelling up more his followers list on the photo-sharing app, that just one picture of him will reach 3 million hearts and engagements!

The drama started on April 17 and ended June 12. On the record, last April 3, Lee Min Ho had 12.6 million followers. But after one and a half months, his Instagram account recorded 15.9 million followers on June 5. These statistics were recorded a week before the finale of the drama.

Then, two days after the finale, the list inflated to 16.5 million followers, an increase of 3.9 million in less than two months!

Further, Lee Min Ho's official Facebook account has 17 million followers. There is no stopping, and it is growing from his fan base around the world.

As "The King: Eternal Monarch" took its final bow, ardent viewers admittedly can't move on, with many experiencing post-drama syndrome. This is why some netizens shared that they are resorting to re-watching it and his previous dramas. The followers also shared their hopes that their newfound ship - MinEun or LeeEul - will progress even after the show ended.

It will be recalled that the first half episodes of the drama series "The King: Eternal Monarch" encountered criticisms - from its production setting and commercialism - but this didn't stop the viewers from supporting the show.

Renowned screenwriter Kim Eun Sook made a different twist in the fantasy-romance series. The drama gained unexpectedly low ratings in Korea due to culture and the execution of the plot, but it earned continued popularity around neighboring Asian countries. Netflix broadcasts the series globally in Hongkong, Singapore, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Eventually, it ranked first on Netflix.

King Gon (Lee Min Ho) and Tae Eul (Kim Go Eun) didn't hit it off at first, but their slow-burn love story flowed just perfectly, making the viewers feel the romance come naturally.

We know you're missing these two, so let's take you back to your not-so-distant memory and watch the scene below.

Meanwhile, Woo Do Hwan's Instagram account (@wdohwan) also increased: he now has 2.8 million followers. Kim Go Eun's account (@ggonekim), on the other hand, has 3 million followers and counting.

It's only been a few days since "The King: Eternal Monarch" has ended, so, understandably, the viewers who watched the show from beginning to end are still hung up on it. And if you're one of them, you can also check out the cast members' previous dramas where they showcased their stellar acting skills. It's honestly fun discovering new sides of them through the screens.

Meanwhile, take into account that the Korean actor who previously has the most number of followers on Instagram is Lee Jong Suk. He has 15.9 million followers, and he is currently enlisted in the military.
German prosecutors have written to Madeleine McCann's parents to tell them she is dead.

They refused to disclose how they knew, insisting that any further information could jeopardise the inquiry into suspect Christian Brueckner.

Hans Christian Wolters, who is leading the case, yesterday said he could not share key evidence with Scotland Yard officers or police in Portugal.

'I sympathise with the parents but if we reveal more details to them it might jeopardise the investigation,' he said.

'We have concrete evidence that our suspect has killed Madeleine and this means she is dead. The parents have been told the German police have evidence that she is dead but we have not told them the details.'

German prosecutors have written to Gerry and Kate McCann (pictured), the parents of missing child Madeline (in photo), to say that she has died

The prosecutors refused to discuss how they knew this information as it could affect their investigation into main suspect Christian Brueckner (pictured)

He said that Kate and Gerry McCann, whose three-year-old daughter vanished on an Algarve holiday in 2007, had not responded to the letter.

'We of course really consider the fact that it is going to be very hard for the family when we tell them that we assume Madeleine is dead,' he added.

'But we can't say why she is dead  it is more important that we are successful and we are able to get the culprit as opposed to just putting our cards on the table and telling them why we think she might be.

'This is a murder case not a missing persons case. We have been quite clear throughout we are investigating a murder and we have the evidence for that.

'We can understand the pain of the parents  and they want relief  but it is better for them that we have a clear and successful conclusion to the case.

'To reveal too many details too early would hamper ongoing investigations.

'In Germany we are very reserved, I am not sure how it is in the UK, we keep everything to ourselves until we press charges.'

Christian Brueckner is the latest man to be linked with Madeline's disappearance after a long history of offences

Madeline (pictured) was three-years-old when she went missing whilst the McCanns were on holiday at Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007

Wolters added he is adamant that the contents of the letter will not be made public, alongside details of the investigation which have led authorities to be '99.9 per cent' certain Madeleine is dead.

The prosecutor also confirmed there is 'no forensic evidence' the child is dead, but there is 'concrete evidence' she has not survived her 13-year disappearance.

'Based on our investigation, 99.9 per cent of us believe she is dead,' he told the Der Westen newspaper.

13 YEARS OF HEARTACHE May 3, 2007 - Madeleine McCann disappears from her apartment in Praia da Luz. May 4 - Police do not set up effective searches or alert the Spanish border for 12 hours. A basic check of other guests is not done for 48 hours. May 30 - The McCanns meet the Pope in Rome during a series of trips around Europe and beyond to highlight the search. August - Sniffer dogs reportedly find blood traces in the McCanns' apartment. September 7 - The McCanns are made arguidos  official suspects. They were totally exonerated the following year. 2008 - Detective Goncalo Amaral falsely claims the McCanns hid Madeleine's body. 2011 - The Met Police launches Operation Grange and identify almost 200 new lines of inquiry. 2013 - The Met identifies 38 people 'of interest'. Portuguese detectives reopen the case. 2017 - A witness comes forward with the name of the German suspect, Christian Brueckner. The McCanns reveal they still buy gifts for Madeleine. June 3, 2020 - Police sensationally reveal that they are investigating a German sex offender. Brueckner's name emerges the following day. June 8 - German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters says he has evidence Madeleine is dead  but won't say what it is. June 15 - Mr Wolters says he has written to the McCanns telling them he has evidence their daughter is dead. Once again, he gives no details. Advertisement

'There is no forensic evidence. But there is concrete evidence that Maddie is dead. Our investigation has no doubts about this.

'Of course it would be easier for us if we could share our findings instead of always having to say, "We have something, but can't say what it is.''

'At the same time, there is a danger that witnesses could mix memories and reporting.'

'We as prosecutors therefore prefer to investigate in secret,' Wolters added.

Investigators are said to need information from the public before they can convict Brueckner in the case.

Wolters could not comment on whether or not such information has yet been obtained for 'investigative reasons.'

He said: 'The more witnesses read something in the media, the harder it becomes for us to know whether it is something experience-based or if the information comes from somewhere else.

'We must withhold information that we can use to verify possible testimony from witnesses.'

Rogerio Alves, a lawyer who represents the McCanns in Portugal, has been putting pressure on German investigators to reveal what evidence they have and demanded to know 'what is being done to solve the case'.

He accused the three police forces involved in the probe of 'keeping information for themselves' and called on them to be more transparent toward the family.

Mr Alves is hoping Portuguese detectives will tell him what evidence they have to 'support the reopening of the file here'.

He said: 'I want to find out if there are new leads for them to chase. I want to know what is being done. I intend to get answers on these matters this week.

'I don't know how strong the new evidence is so I don't know what the Portuguese prosecutor is going to do.'

According to Portuguese law, if the prosecutor has new information about a crime then the case should be reopened, he said.

Mr Alves described last week as a 'lost week' in the quest for justice for Madeleine's parents.

He was deeply critical of the infighting between the Germans and the Portuguese and called on them to 'stop the war of words'.

'What I hope is that everybody helps to find the truth instead of hiding information, or keeping information for themselves,' he said.

'This is not a competition between the police departments. We all have to go forwards to find the truth.

'Madeleine's parents don't want to know which police force thinks it is doing the best. They do not want a war of words.

'It is no use  this is a waste of time. All the police should be doing is trying to solve the case. I want to see full cooperation between the police forces.'

Kate and Gerry McCann have not responded to the letter, which did not contain any details of the information understood by the prosecutors

Scotland Yard and German police have received more than 1,000 calls since sex offender Brueckner, 43, was identified as a suspect in connection with Madeleine's disappearance from Praia da Luz in May 2007.

They believe the German drifter burgled holiday homes in the Algarve and on some occasions sexually assaulted women and girls inside the properties.

Public appeals for information have featured Brueckner's former farmhouse and another property in which he stayed, as well as a VW campervan and Jaguar car he owned.

Detectives are also trying to find the person who phoned him an hour before Madeleine disappeared, shortly before her fourth birthday.

Police say that Brueckner received the call near the McCanns' holiday apartment in the Ocean Club complex.

Mr Wolters played down the significance of the Jaguar despite Scotland Yard appealing for information about it.

He said the car was in Germany when Madeleine went missing and information about it was released only to jog memories. 'The vehicles are not of direct interest for the Madeleine case,' he said.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said: 'The McCanns simply will not comment on private correspondence, be that from the prosecutor, the police or indeed anyone else.

'Nor will they be giving a running commentary on their liaisons with the German authorities as the investigation moves forward.'

Detectives from Operation Grange  the 12million Scotland Yard probe into Madeleine's disappearance  insist it remains a missing person's inquiry.

Portuguese police prepare to search wells at prime suspect Christian Brueckner's Praia da Luz villa in hunt for Maddie McCann's body

By James Gant for MailOnline and Allan Hall in Berlin

Portuguese police are preparing to search wells at Christian Brueckner's Praia da Luz villa in the hunt for Madeleine McCann's body.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007.

The building has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to.

It comes as her parents Kate and Gerry may 'be told within days how their daughter died'.

Brueckner's lawyers have said he will not answer questions on Maddie until he sees proof he was involved.

He may also be in the clear over missing German child Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007 and has become a focus point

It comes after Brueckner's lawyers revealed he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved

The Judicial Police was yesterday considering searching the abandoned shafts in Praia da Luz for Madeleine's body, according to Portuguese newspaper Sol.

Officers earlier this month were understood to be looking to dig up land around two houses Brueckner lived in while in Praia da Luz.

The other building sits on a hill above the resort, about 11 minutes away from the Ocean Club the McCanns were staying.

A Portuguese source told the Sun: 'Judicial Police have confirmed they have been approached by German authorities in connection with the case and they will undoubtedly be prepared to carry out fresh searches in the hope of giving the McCanns closure.

'The obvious focus would be around the hillside former farm building and another property nearby with links to him.'

Brueckner's rented home has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to

Kate and Gerry reportedly face being told within days how their daughter died as their Portuguese lawyer is set to meet with senior police.

German detectives say they have one piece of evidence that proves the child is dead.

They have not told the McCanns but have shared it with Portuguese police.

It was described it as 'significant' and 'very important'.

The lawyer for the family from Leicestershire, Rogerio Alves, will meet them within days to find out more.

He is said to be hoping they will unveil the evidence they have on Brueckner.

The suspect's lawyers said he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved.

Friedrich Fulscher told the Times: 'Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings.

'It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime. No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.'

And in another potential boost for Brueckner, he may be in the clear over the disappearance of five-year-old Inga in Germany five years ago.

It was widely reported that Brueckner was in the same area at the time. The Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether there are new investigative leads.

But according to respected German news magazine FOCUS, investigators currently have no clues as to Brueckner's culpability.

Inga vanished on May 2, 2015, after travelling with her family near Uchtspringe in Saxony-Anhalt.

At around 7 pm, she ran into the nearby forest to collect firewood for a barbecue - and has not been seen since.

In the furore surrounding serial sex criminal Brueckner and the suspicions he is responsible for Maddie's death, he was linked to Inga's vanishing.

FOCUS said: 'Now the relatives of the girl and large sections of the public are asking themselves: were the traces of Christian B. really be intensively enough at that time? Or may investigators have overlooked something crucial? Did they let go too soon?.

'The fact is that the current findings in the Maddie case have further strengthened the efforts of the competent public prosecutor's office in Stendal to investigate the Inga case.

'But prosecutor Thomas Kramer confirmed to FOCUS Online there is 'no concrete suspicion, no hot streak.

'His Mobile phone was not logged into the crime scene area. We have no concrete evidence that he was in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene on the day of the crime.'

The prosecutor said Christian B had already been investigated 'comprehensively and intensively'.

Bruekner may be in the clear regarding another missing toddler called Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015

After Inga's disappearance, the Stendal investigators had examined all sex offenders who were eligible candidates for the crime.

On July 23, 2015, a so-called trace file was created for Christian Brueckner, based on information from the Braunschweig police.

Brueckner lived in Braunschweig at the time and owned a dilapidated building in the district of Borde in Saxony-Anhalt.

During a search in another case in 2016, investigators found six USB sticks and two phone chip cards there.

Prosecutor Kramer said: 'The evaluation led to the seizure of a large number of child pornography files, but they had no connection to Inga.'

It is also known he had a minor car accident on the A2 autobahn near Helmstedt the day before Inga's disappearance.

Prosecutor Kramer told FOCUS Online: 'The accident in a parking lot happened on the route between Braunschweig and Christian B.'s property in Neuwegersleben. According to our findings, it is unrelated to the disappearance of Inga.'

The crime scene is about 60 miles to the northeast of the crash site.

Kramer told FOCUS Online prosecutors will continue their efforts to resolve the Inga case. He rejected Inga's family's criticism of the investigation.

It emerged yesterday an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine disappeared has formed part of German inquiries.

Portuguese police have been asked to send on details of the 2005 assault, Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor heading the investigation, confirmed.

The request from German authorities follows their suspicions Brueckner could be responsible for other assaults.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out. Pictured is the apartment block Maddie went missing from in 2007

The previous attack on a British holidaymaker was revealed by Met Police officers in 2014 after they joined the worldwide search for the youngster.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out.

Police said there were 18 similar cases along the Algarve coast over a six-year period that could possibly be linked.

Many were classified as 'near misses' after parents returned home to disturb the intruder.

The attacker was said to have a deep tan and stale smell, leading investigator to believe he could be a bin man.

Many of the incidents took place early in the morning after refuse collections had been completed.

The attack on the 10-year-old was not widely publicised and only came to light after an appeal by Met Police officers.

It comes after German prosecutors admitted last week that Madeleine could still be alive.

In comments which could ignite fresh hopes for her parents Kate and Gerry, prosecutor Hans Wolters said there was no forensic evidence to say she is dead.

Madeleine McCann could still be alive, according to the German prosecutor Hans Wolters (left) who previously suggested she was likely to be dead. Pictured right: Paedophile Christian Brueckner, who is suspected of kidnapping Madeleine

This was despite officials saying they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner.

German prosecutors had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is.

But speaking to the Mirror, Mr Wolters said: 'Because there is no forensic evidence there may be a little bit of hope.

'We don't want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be possible.

'I am surprised the fact we say or I say Madeleine is dead is so important for the British people.'

The prosecutor added in Germany it is 'normal' to assume a murder has taken place in similar cases.

This was despite officials repeatedly saying that they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner

German prosectuors, who are investigating Brueckner for links to Madeleine's 2007 disappearance, had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is. Pictured: Portuguese police at the the Praia da Luz resort from where Maddie disappeared

Brueckner is currently in prison in Kiel, northern Germany, for drugs offences and is appealing a conviction for rape from last year over a 2005 attack.

Mr Wolters also admitted his previous assertion Madeleine may have been 'killed quickly' was only 'personal opinion and speculation'.

He said he came to the opinion 'without facts' based on experience of previous kidnapping cases.

Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know he was a sex offender.

At the time of Madeline's disappearance, the German was living in the Praia da Luz area.

But his criminal past in Germany was not known to detectives searching for Madeleine.

While all sex offenders in the Algarve region came under suspicion and were interviewed, 43-year-old Brueckner was not among them.

It comes after news emerged that Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know that he was a convicted sex offender.

Kate and Gerry McCann continue to hope that their daughter is alive

Though Brueckner had two convictions for theft and disobedience since arriving in Portugal in 1998, he was not on the radar of those searching for the youngster.

His name was included in a file sent to British police in 2011 - but only because he was a foreigner who had been jailed and not because he was linked to a sex crime.

It was not until Brueckner 'confessed' to a friend in a bar in Germany that he knew about Madeleine's disappearance that he became the prime suspect.

German prosecutors are convinced he killed the child but admitted they do not have enough evidence to charge him with murder.

Portuguese media said EU countries did not routinely share information on all criminals in the 1990s.

Brueckner was convicted of molesting a six-year-old girl in a playground in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1994 when he was just 17.

He left Germany for the Algarve after serving part of a two-year youth sentence for the crime. But that conviction was unknown to police on the McCann case in 2007.
Law-enforcement authorities on Monday asked the Armenian parliament to allow them to arrest Gagik Tsarukian, a wealthy businessman leading its largest opposition group, on charges which he and his allies reject as politically motivated.

Parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan said he received a relevant motion from Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian and included it on the agenda of a National Assembly session scheduled for Tuesday.

In the motion publicized by his office, Davtian claimed that Tsarukian created and led an organized group that bought more than 17,000 votes for his Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) during parliamentary elections held in April 2017.

The chief prosecutor said the vote bribes were handed out to residents of the Gegharkunik province. Each of them received 10,000 drams ($21), he said, adding that the National Security Service (NSS) has collected documents and testimony corroborating these accusations.

Davtian made no mention of two other Tsarukian-related criminal cases opened by the NSS. The security service accused companies owned by the leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) of large-scale fraud after raiding his villa outside Yerevan on Sunday. It then interrogated him for more than eight hours.

In a written statement issued several hours before the announcement of the authorities decision to seek his arrest, Tsarukian again denounced the crackdown as government retribution for his demands for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. He stood by his claims that Pashinians government has mishandled Armenias worsening coronavirus crisis and failed to mitigate its severe socioeconomic consequences.

Instead of solving problems and doing difficult but real work, the authorities are terrorizing their opponents, he said.

I am prepared for any scenario, the BHK leader added, alluding to his possible arrest. I am appealing to my fellow citizens: dont get depressed, everything will be fine, and we will overcome this crisis even if the authorities and Nikol Pashinian personally do everything to aggravate the situation.

Tsarukian met with BHK parliamentarians earlier in the day. One of them, Arman Abovian, told RFE/RLs Armenian service that the tycoon was in very high spirits.

Another senior BHK figure, Naira Zohrabian, claimed in the morning that the authorities have made a political decision to lift Tsarukians parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Prosecutor-General Artur Davtian still has a chance not to execute the political order, she said.

Davtians spokesman, Gor Abrahamian, countered that Tsarukian cannot be prosecuted for political reasons.

Pashinian and senior representatives of his My Step bloc also denied any political motives behind the crackdown. Some of them posted on their Facebook pages supposedly confidential details of the criminal investigations which they said substantiate the NSS allegations.

Tsarukians party was officially in opposition to then President Serzh Sarkisian when it ran for the parliament in the April 2017 elections. One year later, it backed the Velvet Revolution that toppled Sarkisian, 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 controls 88 parliament seats, putting it in a position to give the green to Tsarukians arrest and prosecution.
Xfinity driver Kyle Weatherman raced in a pro-police version of his car at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, Saturday - days after NASCARs only black driver, Bubba Wallace, unveiled a Black Live Matter themed car.

Weatherman debuted the ThinBlueLine version of his No. 47 Chevrolet, which included a Blue Lives Matter flag across the hood and #BackTheBlue along the rear panels and back bumper.

His racing team Mike Harmon Racing says the design was made in honor of law enforcement officers and first responders.

The cars new paint job comes after Wallace unveiled a Black Live Matter themed version of his No. 43 car, also a Chevy, ahead of a race at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.

Wallace was showing his support for the BLM movement, which has called for an end to systematic racism and police brutality after the cop-related slaying of George Floyd on Memorial Day.

Kyle Weatherman raced in a pro-police version of his car in a tribute to law enforcement officers and first responders at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida, Saturday

Weathermans ThinBlueLine version of his car is pictured being rolled out on to the track

Weatherman's new paint scheme includes a Blue Lives Matter flag across the hood and #BackTheBlue along the rear panels and back bumper

The Blue Lives Matter movement followed Black Lives Matter, with people showing support for police.

But the pro-police cause also has met resistance, being labeled by critics for being dismissive of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Weatherman tweeted an explanation for why he was racing with the new paint scheme, which doesn't mention Blue Lives Matter specifically.

'RACEDAY here in Miami have something special on the car this weekend,' he wrote before hitting the track.

'A lot going on in the world right now and I wanted to express that most first responders are good people. My uncle is a firefighter and he would do anything to help save lives. please repost LOVE everyone,' wrote the 22-year-old racer.

Weatherman tweeted an explanation for why he was racing with the new paint scheme, which doesn't mention Blue Lives Matter specifically

Weatherman's tweet says there his uncle is a firefighter and that 'he would do anything to help save lives'

The new look for Weatherman's car did draw some reactions from racing fans online.

Twitter user David Ragan pointed out to Weatherman that some people were 'choosing sides'.

Cant we choose the good on both sides?? I support the black men and women of this country and also support all first responders. Good luck Kyle! We will be watching. twitter.com/KyleWeatherman' wrote Ragan.

Weatherman responded to the fan, saying, 'Thanks David. I absolutely I support the black men and women of this country and also support all first responders also. LOVE EVERYONE.'

Weatherman responded to a fan who had pointed out that some people were 'choosing sides'

Wallace, 26, unveiled his car after calling for a ban on confederate flags at NASCAR events and donning an 'I Can't Breathe' shirt at a June 7 race in Atlanta.

He said he was excited about the opportunity to run a Black Lives Matter themed car at Martinsville Speedway, in an interview posted on the Richard Petty Motorsports Twitter page.

'This statement that we have right here that we're about to make, running this race car on live television on Fox, I think it's going to speak volumes to what I stand for, but also what the initiative and what NASCAR, and the whole sport, is trying to push.'

The car design features the phrase 'compassion, love, understanding,' on the hood.

Wallace unveiled his car after calling for a ban on confederate flags at NASCAR events and donning an 'I Can't Breathe' shirt at a June 7 race in Atlanta

He said he was excited about the opportunity to run a Black Lives Matter themed car at Martinsville Speedway, in an interview posted on the Richard Petty Motorsports Twitter page

Monday Wallace told CNN that NASCAR should prohibit fans from bringing confederate flags to races - a long tradition for a sport that's rooted in the south and has come to symbolize the region.

'No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race,' the Alabama native said. 'So it starts with Confederate flags. Get them out of here. They have no place for them.'

Wallace again wore his 'I Can't Breathe' t-shirt as he got behind the wheel of his Black Lives Matter-themed Chevrolet Wednesday night just hours after the organization officially banned the Confederate flag from its races and properties.

While the Confederate flag remains a symbol of southern pride to some, its history is inextricably linked with slavery and the racist motivations behind the secession of the southern states in 1860.
Hyderabad, June 15 : Telangana Governor, Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan on Monday interacted with experts on combating the Covid-19 pandemic and they suggested a rational testing policy be evolved based on the local conditions, rather than strictly adhering to the broad guidelines of the ICMR.

The suggestion is significant as the state government has been coming under criticism from various quarters for not conducting adequate number of tests. The government has been maintaining that it is strictly going by the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The Governor's interaction is also seen as significant as she is reportedly in favour of increasing the number of tests. Soundararajan, a doctor herself, is also understood to be unhappy with the state government's response to her requests for information on Covid-19 situation while the government is also reportedly not pleased with her visit to a hospital last week.

A statement from Raj Bhavan listed out the suggestions that emerged during the interaction the Governor had with experts and eminent persons through video conference.

Most of the suggestions are similar to the directions given or observations made by the High Court and the demands raised by the opposition parties.

The participants in the video conference included former Union Health Secretary K. Sujatha Rao, former Director General of Police H.J. Dora, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Director Dr Rakesh Mishra, Apollo Group of Hospitals President, Dr Hariprasad and Indian Medical Association, Telanagana, President, Dr Vijender Reddy, Telangana's first Covid patient to get plasma therapy, Vamsi Mohan, and US-based Covid-19 and kidney researcher, Dr Swaminathan.

The experts favoured an epidemiological spread-based testing and effective tracing.

Death cases which have symptoms of Covid-19 may be tested to facilitate isolation of family members and to know the epidemiological spread of disease, they added.

"Since lockdown is not an affordable option for a prolonged period, the only strategy that can be adopted is test, trace and treat," they said.

The experts called for ramping up the conduct of tests to cover all asymptomatic cases in the identified red zones and hotspots and conducting antibody tests to understand community spread.

They suggested pool testing in the hotspots, deployment of more mobile and drive-through testing laboratories and proactive and aggressive conduct of RT-PCR tests.

They also underlined the need to safeguard the frontline warriors and called for stringent action against those attacking doctors and paramedical staff.

The experts also suggested that all journalists on the field be tested "as they are the potential spreaders of infection and they are more likely to get infected, because they travel a lot and meet many people because of the nature of their work".

The experts also mooted different protocols of treatment of Covid-19 patients, depending on the severity of illness. They also called for planning for plasma therapy.

The outcomes of the interaction will be documented and shared with the state government for consideration while planning effective containment of Covid-19, said an earlier statement from the Raj Bhavan.

The Governor had last week visited the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) to show solidarity with the healthcare workers affected by Covid-19 while discharging their duties.

She had told reporters after coming out of the hospital that she personally met medicos, nurses and paramedics who got infected and wished them a speedy recovery. The Governor has also expressed concern at the rising number of cases.

There has been a surge in Covid-19 cases in Telangana in the last few days. On Monday, the tally crossed the 5,000 mark.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
[June 15, 2020] American Water's Homeowner Services and American Water Charitable Foundation provide $25,000 in Local COVID-19 Relief Donations

American Water's Homeowner Services division announces $25,000 in donations to two Illinois organizations on behalf of the American Water Charitable Foundation's community-focused COVID-19 Response Fund. TriCity Family Services and the United Way of Metro Chicago-Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund, will each receive $12,500 to support the critical needs of communities most impacted by the pandemic. "During these challenging times, Homeowner Services is committed to supporting the health, safety and well-being of its neighbors and communities," said Eric Palm, President, Homeowner Services. "We are proud that the American Water Charitable Foundation is able to offer assistance to both organizations through the COVID-19 response fund, which will provide essential support, services and resources to residents and homeowners in our Nicor Home Solutions footprint." TriCity Family Services is a human service agency serving community members and organizations of Central Kane County. The agency is dedicated to strengthening people and building community by delivering quality, affordable counseling, youth crisis intervention, prevention, and early intervention services that promote sound mental health and effective family functioning. United Way of Metro Chicago serves the Chicago metropolitan area, including all of Cook and DuPage counties. The organization, in collaboration with the City of Chicago and The Chicago Community Trust recently launched the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund to unite the funds raised by Chicago's philanthropies, corporations and individuals tobe disbursed to nonprofit organizations across the region and provide resources to community-based organizations.



Homeowner Services' protection programs continue to be an optional resource for individuals and families spending more time at home, placing additional stress and usage on their systems and vital lines. The unexpected - protected. About Homeowner Services

American Water's Homeowner Services division offers affordable protection programs across several subsidiaries, including Pivotal Home Solutions, Nicor Home Solutions, and American Water Resources, among others. These programs protect homes and homeowners from top to bottom, inside and out, including water and sewer lines, plumbing and electrical systems, HVAC maintenance and installation, and appliance repairs. Homeowner Services' businesses are 1.5 million customers strong thanks to relationships with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Orlando Utilities Commission and NiSource, reaching 43 states and Washington, D.C. The customer-facing businesses within Homeowner Services have A+ ratings from the Better Business Bureau. More information about Homeowner Services' product and service offerings can be found at yourhomesolutions.com and awrusa.com. About American Water With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 6,800 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to 15 million people in 46 states. American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to make sure we keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com and follow American Water on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. About the American Water Charitable Foundation The American Water Charitable Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides a formal way to demonstrate the company's ongoing commitment to being a good neighbor, citizen, and contributor to the communities where American Water and its employees live, work and operate. The Foundation helps support American Water employee-identified nonprofit endeavors. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005438/en/

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Tan Zhixiang, 54, is witnessing the rising popularity of Liuyang Xiabu cloth, an intangible cultural heritage that originated in Liuyang City, central China's Hunan Province.

The cloth, made of ramie known as "Chinese grass," was exported to Japan and other countries as a hot commodity as early as the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). More than 100,000 bolts of the cloth were sold overseas each year in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, the cloth's production has declined due to its complex processing and other drawbacks. "More than 60 manufacturing processes are needed to make high-quality Xiabu cloth," said Tan. A lot of craftspeople who made the cloth, including Tan's wife, chose to find other jobs with higher pay.

As an inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage, Tan never gave up his dream of restoring the cloth's past popularity. Born into a family of cloth makers, he started to study the technique at the age of 12 and was also the family's fifth-generation cultural heritage inheritor.

"Every family in my hometown used the cloth especially in summer because it was breathable," said Lu Songyuan, who followed Tan to study how to make the cloth. "We should bring the cloth back into people's daily lives."

Lu spent more than a year studying the cloth and founded a company to promote it. He also designed bags, clothing and other products featuring the cloth.

In 2018, the company's products were exhibited at a fair in Paris. Yi Hongbo, a designer from Liuyang, also brought the cloth to New York's international fashion week. Now the cloth and related products have been sold to Japan, France and other countries worldwide.

Tan provided raw ramie materials to nearly 200 villagers, including some from poverty-stricken households, and organized them to process the cloth, helping them increase their income.

"As an intangible cultural heritage, the cloth reflects profound culture and wisdom," said Lu. "We hope to make the cloth a popular product by improving the quality of raw materials, refining the process and optimizing the design."
PHILADELPHIA--The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced that 22 early-career researchers have been selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. These talented scientists will receive four years of funding to invest in foundational research to pursue scientific breakthroughs and advance human health.

"Pew is proud to support these promising researchers as they conduct world-class research to address biomedicine's most complex questions," said Rebecca W. Rimel, Pew's president and CEO. "They join a group of distinguished scientists who have worked for decades to advance science and protect public health."

The 2020 class of scholars--all of whom hold assistant professor positions--are new members of a vibrant community of more than 1,000 scientists who have received awards from Pew since 1985. Current scholars meet annually to share their research and exchange perspectives across diverse health disciplines.

"As all researchers know, science's work is never truly done. By leveraging findings and investigating new ways to solve problems, this year's class will continue the legacy of countless Pew scholars before them," said Craig C. Mello, Ph.D., a 1995 Pew scholar, 2006 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, and chair of the national advisory committee for the scholars program. "I'm confident that these scholars will help push scientific boundaries."

The 2020 scholars were chosen from 191 applicants nominated by leading academic institutions and researchers across the United States. This year's class includes scientists exploring why female mammals age differently than males, how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease, and the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Five members of the 2020 class, who were selected for their commitment to investigating health challenges relating to the brain as it ages, will receive awards with support from the Kathryn W. Davis Peace by Pieces Fund.

The 2020 Pew scholars in the biomedical sciences are:

Michael Baym, Ph.D.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Baym will study how bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics.

Berenice Benayoun, Ph.D.

University of Southern California

Dr. Benayoun will explore why female mammals age differently than males.

Shelby Blythe, Ph.D.

Northwestern University

Dr. Blythe will identify the factors that initiate the wave of gene activation in the earliest moments of embryonic development.

Xiaolu (Lulu) Cambronne, Ph.D.

University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Cambronne will explore how cells compartmentalize metabolites that have distinct regulatory roles in different cellular locations.

Carlos Carmona-Fontaine, Ph.D.

New York University

Dr. Carmona-Fontaine will explore how cancer cells coordinate their metastatic spread.

Juan Du, Ph.D.

Van Andel Research Institute

Dr. Du will investigate the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Daria Esterhazy, Ph.D.

The University of Chicago

Dr. Esterhazy will explore how intestinal infections can trigger an immune reaction in the pancreas.

Gilad D. Evrony, M.D., Ph.D.

New York University Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Evrony will develop single-cell technologies for constructing a "family tree" of human brain cells.

Sarah Keane, Ph.D.

University of Michigan

Dr. Keane will explore how the structural configurations of large RNA precursors control the production of smaller regulatory RNA molecules.

Meghan Koch, Ph.D.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Koch will explore how maternal antibodies promote early childhood growth and health.

Evan Macosko, M.D., Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Macosko will develop genomic technologies to discover pathological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

Sonya Neal, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego

Dr. Neal will examine the quality control mechanism that allows cells to clear away potentially toxic misfolded proteins.

Lauren O'Connell, Ph.D.

Stanford University

Dr. O'Connell will identify the neural circuits that prompt infants to cry when hungry.

Lauren Orefice, Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Orefice will explore how changes in sensory input from the skin and gastrointestinal tract can influence brain development in people with autism spectrum disorders.

Eunyong Park, Ph.D.

University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Park will demonstrate the mechanism of biogenesis and quality control of mitochondria.

Benjamin Parker, Ph.D.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Dr. Parker wills use the pea aphid insect and its microbial partners as basic research organisms to study host-microbe symbiosis, or the biological interaction between host and microbe.

Seth Shipman, Ph.D.

Gladstone Institutes

Dr. Shipman will develop a novel method for introducing engineered DNA sequences into living cells.

Nicholas Steinmetz, Ph.D.

University of Washington

Dr. Steinmetz will explore how different brain regions cooperate to make decisions.

Samuel H. Sternberg, Ph.D.

Columbia University

Dr. Sternberg will explore the development of a CRISPR-Cas system with enhanced efficiency and safety.

Christoph Thaiss, Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Thaiss will investigate how immune cells contribute to tissue maintenance, and how loss of this housekeeping function exacerbates disease.

Andrew Wang, M.D., Ph.D.

Yale University

Dr. Wang will explore how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease.

Jeffrey Woodruff, Ph.D.

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. Woodruff will explore how mammalian egg cells maintain their quality even after decades spent awaiting fertilization.

###

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Learn more at pewtrusts.org.
A newlywed has been slammed as 'tone-deaf' 'ignorant' and 'stupid' after posing with a 'Brides Lives Matter' sign at her wedding.

A photo of the anonymous woman, believed to be from the US, was shared to the subreddit r/weddingshaming and where users branded her 'racist' and 'insensitive' for belittling the Black Lives Matter movement.





The post comes amid protests against racial injustice across the world, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

A photo of the anonymous woman, believed to be from the US, was shared to the subreddit r/weddingshaming and crossposted to the Facebook group ' that's it I'm wedding shaming' where users branded her 'racist' and 'insensitive' for belittling the Black Lives Matter movement

'I think this very well may be the worst thing Ive ever seen on this sub' said one Reddit user.

'Oh yes... they can be tone-deaf and extremely self-centred' added another.

'I wonder if that means she'll make her guests risk Covid infection!' comment a third.

'Someone "designed" this. Someone printed it. Someone set it up . The bride stood next to it. Someone took the picture. It means between two and five people thought this was a good idea. I don't want to live in the same world as them,' a fourth argued.

'Oh god, finally someone is standing up for that oppressed group in society, the brides, who have to live their lives in fear every single day. Thank god for this one brave soul, speaking up for the lives of brides everywhere!' joked a fifth.

Reddit users were shocked by the 'insensitivity' and 'ignorance' of the bride for posing with the sign

The post was shared in Facebook group, that's it I'm wedding shaming, where users were equally angry at the sign.

'Imagine not just having a wedding during covid but posting that, UGH!' wrote one.

'I HATE this person' added another, while a third commentd: 'OMG, NOT OKAY!'

The post was shared in Facebook group, that's it I'm wedding shaming, where users were equally angry at the sign

The Black Lives Matter movement was started in 2012 when George Zimmerman was acquitted for murder after fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, 17, after he went to his local shop to buy Skittles.

Marches against racial justice have taken off across the world since unarmed black man George Floyd, 46, died in Minnesota after white police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes, while he lay handcuffed on the ground.

Protesters have not only demanded justice for Floyd, but they've called for justice for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and most recently Rayshard Brooks.

Demonstrators have also marched for Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead by a white man in Georgia in February.

Floyd was laid to rest last Tuesday in Houston, Texas, just days before the world witnessed another black man die at the hands of police.

Brooks was shot dead by an officer in the parking lot of a Wendy's in Atlanta on Friday night
Uzbekistan will reopen its borders to some air travellers from June 15 with quarantine procedures depending on their country of origin, the Central Asian nations government said, Trend reports citing Reuters.

The borders, closed since March, will reopen for diplomats, their family members, investors and medical tourists, as well as Uzbeks leaving the country for study or medical treatment, the cabinet said in a statement.

Depending on where they are coming from, visitors will be either quarantined, placed under observation at home, or just let in; the latter will apply to those arriving from China, Japan, South Korea and Israel.

The former Soviet republic has confirmed 4,966 COVID-19 cases with 19 deaths.
By Trend





The number of Turkish citizens looking for job in Azerbaijan from January through May 2020 has significantly increased, Turkish Employment Agency (??KUR) told Trend on June 15.

In the reporting period, the number of Turkish citizens visiting Azerbaijan to find work through ??KUR surged by 11.7 times compared to the same period in 2019.

From January through May of current year, 100 Turkish citizens visited Azerbaijan through ??KUR.

In general, 4.288 Turkish citizens went abroad via ??KUR during the reporting period, which is 50.2 percent less compared to the same period in 2019.

In May 2020, 41,235 citizens were provided with jobs through this agency in Turkey.

Some 35.6 percent of the total number of employed citizens accounted for women and 64.4 percent for men.

In May 2020, 97.1 percent of the total number of citizens provided with jobs accounted for the private sector, ??KUR said.

The number of unemployed in Turkey in the reporting month amounted to over 3.5 million people, 48.4 percent of which are women, and 51.6 percent are men.
By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) - The coronavirus outbreak has prompted a significant increase in news consumption but the economic turmoil is forcing news businesses to accelerate their move to digital, The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism said.

The coronavirus lockdowns prompted a global rise in viewing of television and online news though concerns about misinformation remain high, with Facebook and WhatsApp seen as the main channels for spreading so called "fake news".

The broader picture is that the outbreak is accelerating the trends wrought by the technological revolution, including the rise of smartphones as an interface of news consumption, The Reuters Institute said in its annual Digital News Report (www.digitalnewsreport.org).

"The headline is that we see an accelerated move to digital media and mobile media and various kinds of platforms," Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute, said by telephone.

"This is accompanied by a continued decline in trust in news and growing concerns over misinformation, in particular on social media and from some politicians."

The biggest increase in concern over media misinformation was in Hong Kong - where anti-government protesters have opposed attempts by China to tighten its control of the former British colony.

The business of news remains bleak. Media across the world are cutting staff to cope with a dramatic fall in advertising revenue.

But a ray of hope may be that increasing numbers of people are willing to pay for news online, though that may also increase informational inequality as many cannot afford top quality journalism.

And a "winner takes all" process can be seen: Around half of those that subscribe to any online or combined package in the United States use the New York Times or the Washington Post, the Reuters Institute found.

A similar trend can be seen in the United Kingdom with The Times or the Telegraph.

Story continues

And for those predicting the dominance of video news, the Reuters Institute found that in a number of countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and South Korea, people under 35 preferred to read rather than watch news online.

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is a research centre at the University of Oxford that tracks media trends. The Thomson Reuters Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Thomson Reuters, funds the Reuters Institute.

(Editing by Stephen Addison)
A car seized by Garda investigating the kidnapping of Quinn Industrial Holdings businessman Kevin Lunney was destroyed by fire after a short circuit set it alight while in police custody, it has emerged.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that a police probe found a short circuit in a piece of electrical equipment had sparked the fire, which also destroyed several other vehicles being held for Irish police at a Carrickmacross facility.

The police report emerged during proceedings at Dublin's Special Criminal Court after a barrister representing one of the men charged in relation to Mr Lunney's kidnapping asked for information about the incident in which the vehicle was destroyed.

Mr Lunney (50) was abducted from near his home in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, on September 17.

The father-of-six had his leg broken, was slashed with a utility knife and doused in bleach during his ordeal.

He had the letters QIH cut into his chest and was dumped by the side of a road in Co Cavan.

The incident was one of the most serious in a years-long campaign of intimidation of staff and targeting of businesses previously owned by ex-billionaire Sean Quinn.

Luke O'Reilly (66), from Mullahoran Lower, Kilcogy, Co Cavan; Darren Redmond (25), from Caledon Road, East Wall, Dublin; Alan O'Brien (39), of Shelmalier Road, East Wall, Dublin; and a fourth defendant who cannot be named for legal reasons are charged with the false imprisonment and assault causing serious harm of Mr Lunney at Drumbrade, Ballinagh, Co Cavan, on September 17 last year.
Meanwhile, CPD is operating under a consent decree  a wide-ranging 2019 court order aimed at overhauling the department. It mandated various changes to use of force tactics and mandated the study of more potential reforms. In fact, the court order says that every two years, the department will do a comprehensive review of its use of force policies to make sure they meet the requirements of the consent decree, the law and best practices.
We all know that in most relationships, one partner usually has a stronger personality. When we see the members of the royal family, we often forget that behind closed doors, their marriages are typical in so many ways. Usually, when royals make appearances, we are seeing them in a different light, and they dont really share the personal details of their relationships.

For the past few years, all eyes have been on Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. They are one of the most intriguing couples in the entire British royal family, and their huge fan base is always interested in everything that they do.

Unlike Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the Sussexes have made many changes since they got married, and the one thing that is not always clear is how or why they arrived at a certain decision. The couple likely has serious discussions in private, but many fans are still left wondering  is Meghan or Prince Harry the dominant partner?

A marriage that was truly meant to be

Prince Harry dated quite a few people over the years, there is certainly no doubt about that. Although he had more than one serious girlfriend, it almost seemed as if he would never be ready to settle down.

When Prince Harry met American actress Meghan, however, things changed for the better. Soon after it was announced that the two were in a serious relationship, the entire world was on the edge of their seats, just waiting for Meghan to step out with a sparkling ring on her finger.

It was obvious to anyone who saw them just how in love they really were. Finally, in November 2017, fans were delighted to learn that Prince Harry had proposed to Meghan.

A few months later, in May 2018, the couple officially became husband and wife, and according to Marie Claire, their relationship is still going strong.

Coming from two different backgrounds

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle | Samir Hussein/WireImage

RELATED: Prince William Is Right to Worry About Prince Harry and Meghan Markles Safety

As we know, Prince Harry and Meghan grew up in what seems like completely different worlds. He was born into the royal family and has never known anything different.

Meghan, on the other hand, was raised in sunny LA, California, and didnt grow up in the public eye as her husband did. According to Insider, her life changed drastically after marrying into the royal family, and the changes may not have exactly been what she had anticipated.

While Meghans future husband spent his entire life living in a lavish palace, traveling the world, and experiencing royal life to the fullest, she was thousands of miles away, and although her parents were divorced, she had a pretty typical life that millions of people can relate to. Meghan had a close relationship with her parents, attended an all-girls Catholic high school, and then went off to college before landing her big break on the legal drama Suits.

Is Meghan Markle or Prince Harry the dominant partner?

Chances are that Meghan never dreamed that she would one day marry a handsome prince and become one of the most sought after women in the entire world. When she met Prince Harry, the two of them were instantly smitten with one another, and they quickly realized just how special their relationship was.

So, is Meghan or Prince Harry the more dominant partner in their marriage? Well, according to Newsweek, Meghan may be a little more dominant than her husband, although we seem to think that they play equal roles.

While an expert feels that body language shows that Meghan has a stronger personality, we have to say that the duke and duchess have a shared companionship and complement each other perfectly.
James Juanillo chalked 'Black Lives Matter' on his own wall  and was accused of illegal action by someone who assumed he didn't live there: AP

A San Francisco woman who questioned a man writing Black Lives Matter on his own home has apologised for assuming he did not live there and calling the police on him.

I want to apologise directly to Mr Juanillo, Ms Alexander said in a statement. There are not enough words to describe how truly sorry I am for being disrespectful to him last Tuesday when I made the decision to question him about what he was doing in front of his home. I should have minded my own business.

In the video, shot by James Juanillo on his phone, Ms Alexander is seen asking Mr Juanillo, who is Filipino, whether he lives in the house, saying that he is defacing private property as he uses chalk to write words on his wall.

Mr Juanillo in turn asks the couple whether they know the person who lives in the house, and Ms Alexander claims she does. (The owner of the building, from whom Mr Juanillo rents his residence, has since said he has never met her.)

She tells Mr Juanillo that while the signs themselves are acceptable, this is not the way to do it, and that he is breaking the law. At the end of their tense exchange, he challenges her to call the police, and she says she will.

As she walks away, Mr Juanillo  who refers to Ms Alexander as Karen  says and that is why Black Lives Matter.

The police were reportedly called, only for the attending officer to leave after recognising Mr Juanillo as a familiar resident.

Speaking to local media, Mr Juanillo described what Ms Alexander did as an everyday variety of racism. Its polite racism, its respectable racism  respectfully sir, I dont think you belong here at all.

A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall. Karen lies and says she knows that I dont live in my own house, because she knows the person who lives here. #blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/rOpHvKVwgP  Jaimetoons (@jaimetoons) June 12, 2020

Ms Alexander, who is the founder and CEO of a cosmetics company, has seen distributors cut ties with her in the wake of the incident.

In her statement, she said that the time since the video went viral has taught me that my actions were those of someone who is not aware of the damage being caused by being ignorant and naive to racial inequalities. When I watch the video I am shocked and sad that I behaved the way I did, she says.

I am taking a hard look at the meaning behind white privilege and am committed to growing from this experience. I would love to have coffee with Mr Juanillo in our neighbourhood so I can apologise in person and share a dialogue where I can continue to learn and grow and be a better person.
San Francisco's Mayor London Breed is setting up her city's social workers for potential bloodshed, offering a series of "reforms" that even her former police commissioner calls "pure political pandering." Social workers, people she thinks are her allies in her need to politically punish cops, may pay a horrendous price in blood for her panicky P.R.

Joe Vazquez of CBS San Francisco reports:

San Francisco police will no longer be called to settle disputes between neighbors, or to handle homeless people, or any non-criminal cases, according to a new plan announced by Mayor London Breed. But not everybody thinks it's a good idea. "This is pure political pandering," said Joe Alioto-Veronese, a former San Francisco Police Commissioner. Alioto-Veronese said the SFPD is already underfunded and understaffed and that the concept of contracting social workers has its limits, as evidenced by the homeless crisis.



S.F. mayor London Breed in 2018.

Photo credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen.

Jazz Shaw of Hot Air points out what is obvious to anyone who has watched the now canceled TV series Cops:

When it comes to "disputes between neighbors," there are far too many situations where even the most capable social worker is going to be completely out of their depth. By the time somebody feels the need to dial 911, matters have generally gone far beyond the point of Bill and Hank arguing over which weedkiller works best on dandelions. If an argument has come to blows and shows the possibility of escalating to weapons of any sort, you need someone in uniform on the scene who is trained in how to properly and physically break up the altercation and deescalate the situation until cooler heads prevail. Very often, just the sight of a police car and some uniformed officers will be enough to end the disturbance. But if some civilian in normal street clothes shows up and tries to interfere, they may very well wind up with a punch in the nose themselves. When it comes to the city's homeless encampments, there are already social workers out there on a regular basis trying to help those who are willing to accept assistance. You generally only see the police getting involved when some of them are breaking the law and/or becoming violent. Some of them are also dealing with mental health or addiction problems, making the potential for violence an ever-present concern. Social workers are wonderful for certain situations, but sometimes you simply need the strong arm of the law.

A reader who has experience as a social worker writes:

Situations are far more uncertain and complex than the left would have us believe. You can't isolate various kinds of calls for police help into neat and tidy boxes. And a social worker will only become another burden for the police when some homeless person or dispute between neighbors gets complicated because of mental illness, drugs, craziness, weapons, etc., so now the cop will not only have to deal with the person in question, but will have to take care of the social worker or whatever other person that gets sent out with them. And if they don't go in teams (which would be a logistical nightmare to schedule), and the non-cop goes out alone, good luck to them.
Jennifer Charlera, 19, a college student, has self-quarantined in her familys apartment in Harlem since March. She said it was difficult to balance respect for social-distancing rules with the desire to see friends and relatives after many weeks of isolation.

She said she had recently begun to get together  outdoors, with masks  with friends who themselves had quarantined at home. Family outings have included walking homemade dinners to relatives, to eat together outside.

Ive gotten more lenient now, she said. I go out more than I did in March and April.

On Sunday, Mr. Cuomo said that the state had been deluged with around 25,000 complaints about businesses that were in violation of the reopening plan. He warned that bars and restaurants could lose their liquor licenses if they failed to comply, noted that State Liquor Authority inspectors had been dispatched to problem areas and said that he had called several establishments himself.

But he emphasized it was ultimately up to local governments to enforce the states reopening policies, and he publicly urged mayors and county executives to target establishments that were found to be flouting rules.

They dont want to enforce them because theyre not popular, Mr. Cuomo said on Monday. Nobody wants to go to a bar and say, You guys have to wear a mask. You guys are violating social distancing. I get it, but they have to do their job.

A spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, the governors fellow Democrat and frequent rival, took issue with Mr. Cuomos remarks, saying in a statement that city employees had worked over the weekend to disperse large groups, distribute face coverings and help business owners keep patrons at an appropriate distance from one another.

We must balance safety with peoples need to reopen their businesses, the statement said. These businesses are allowed to be open per the governors guidelines, and we dont believe imprisoning people or taking away their livelihood is the answer.
Election 2020 Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Run in Myanmars General Election

President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at an NLD event in Naypyitaw. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Myanmars President U Win Myint and State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) are among those who will run in Novembers general election.

The NLD took office in 2016 after beating the then-ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, which mostly consists of former army officers, in the 2015 electoral landslide.

In the previous election, U Win Myint was elected for the Lower House in Yangons Tamwe Township and is planning to recontest the seat in November, according to U Thein Myint, an NLD lawmaker in the township. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will also contest her Lower House Kawhmu Township seat, which she won in 2015, according to U Kyaw Htwe, an NLD Upper House lawmaker who represents the township.

Besides the two leaders, ethnic Chin Vice President U Henry Van Thio and almost all of state and regional chief ministers also applied for candidacy with the NLD to recontest their seats, party members told The Irrawaddy.

It is uncertain if Mandalay Region chief minister and NLD vice-chairman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who is receiving cancer treatment, will run again due to his health condition. But The Irrawaddy has learned that the township candidate selection committee has put his name on the nominees list that is being forwarded to the partys regional committee to proceed for candidate selection.

In a recent interview with The Irrawaddy, Dr. Zaw Myint Maung said he will remain in politics as long as he is healthy enough to contest the election if he is assigned the candidacy by the party leadership.

Despite recent news that Yangon Chief Minister U Phyo Min Thein will not run due to poor health, he was selected as the first choice by the NLD in Hlegu Township on Yangons outskirts to run in the election, according to an NLD lawmaker Daw Myat Malar Tun from the township. U Phyo Min Thein won the township seat in 2015.

The NLD accepted candidacy applications from party members early this month. Executive committees for each township party chapter, together with community elders, made first and second choice among the applications for a place. The list of nominees was then sent to the regional and state chapters, then to the central selection committee and finally to the central executive committee (CEC). The CEC will make the final decision.

According to Chin State members, U Henry Van Thio also applied to contest his native town of Htantalan. The 62-year-old joined the NLD in 2015 and contested the election that year. He won an Upper House seat and was then appointed as one of the two vice presidents in March 2016. The other vice president is appointed by the military.

Nearly 100 political parties will contest the 2020 general election. The military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party has told the media that the partys chairman, U Than Htay, and its other leaders will run in the election.

You may also like these stories:

Myanmars Ethnic Parties Dismiss NLDs Ethnic Affairs Committee as Pre-Election Ploy

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Four Mahurangi locals featured in the Queens Birthday honours list. They were:

Clare Wells, Waipu.

Queens Service Order (QSO)  for services to early childhood education.

A driver of quality early childhood education for more than 40 years, Clare Wells is currently a board member of the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand and Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand. She is the former chief executive of New Zealand Kindergartens. Ms Wells has campaigned for universal access to quality early childhood education services, a progressive teaching workforce and partnership with government to support the growth of community-based services. Ms Wells was instrumental in the development of the first early learning strategic plan in the early 2000s.

David Ling, Mangawhai

Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM)  for services to the publishing industry.

David Ling is a publisher of New Zealand fiction and Maori literature, including the works of Witi Ihimaera, Paul Moon, Maurice Shadbolt, James McNeish, Michael King, Fiona Kidman, Janet Frame and Tessa Duder. He was a director of general and educational publishing companies for nearly 20 years before establishing David Ling Publishing in 1992. Mr Ling is an active member of the Publishers Association of New Zealand, previously serving as a Councillor of the Association from 1998 to 2011, and was made an Honorary Life Member in 2011. Mr Ling is a supporter of workshops and festivals that encourage new writing and illustration. He is a former member of the New Zealand Post Book Awards and Childrens Book Awards management committees.

Donald McKay, Maungaturoto

Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM)  for services to seniors and the community.

Donald McKay served as chair of the Maungaturoto Community Charitable Trust (MCCT) for 30 years and remains a board member after stepping down as chair. The MCCT focuses on support for seniors. Under Mr McKays leadership, the MCCT has established a 14-bed rest home, 14 low-priced rental units, 14 further discounted housing units and numerous rooms for doctors and other health professionals at low-cost. More recently he has been a key driver for the establishment of a 14-bed dementia facility. Mr McKay has also volunteered for his local Lions Club in Northland, where he has organised numerous working bees, community events and fundraisers.

Roger Williams, Warkworth

Queens Service Medal (QSM)  for services to conservation

As a civil engineer, Mr Williams designed and led the building of a 16-metre high viewing tower at the Maungatautari Ecological Island Reserve and has designed and built walkways, boardwalks, bridges and cycleways in various local parks and nature reserves around the Warkworth area, including the Tawharanui Regional Park, Kowhai Park, the Cement Works Walkway, and Matheson Bay Kohuroa Track. At Parry Kauri Park, Mr Williams designed and built Kauri Dieback Forest Hygiene Stations as a prototype for other at-risk areas. He has been a member of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society for more than 40 years and in recent years has run their local weeding and planting teams.
Prosecutors attempting to prove Bradley Edwards is the Claremont serial killer have labelled a decision to not test a crucial left thumbnail clipping for DNA for more than a decade as the proverbial pot of gold.

The clipping was taken from murder victim Ciara Glennon during her post-mortem in April 1997 after her body was discovered in bushland north of Perth 19 days after she vanished from a night out with friends.

Bradley Edwards has denied murdering Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon. Credit:Stephen Kiprillis

The nail was transferred to a UK forensic lab in 2008, where a new method of testing called low copy number testing had recently been developed to enable minute amounts of DNA to be detected.

The fingernail was chosen after investigators trying to solve the murders of Sarah Spiers, Jane Rimmer and Ms Glennon in Perth realised two of Ms Glennons fingernail clippings had not been swabbed during more primitive DNA testing carried out in 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2004.
As quarantine measures in the UK begin to loosen, adults living on their own are not permitted to join another household to form a "support bubble."

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the declaration but was only implemented on June 13.

Pre-COVID-19 pandemic, dating would mean that 2 people on a first encounter will explore where they see their future going. Dating in the time of the outbreak has imposed a different dealbreaker: social distancing measures, according to SFGate.

The purpose of the announcement is to relieve loneliness among single adults living alone during the quarantine. A single-adult household can visit or live with a multi-person home to form a "support bubble" under the imposed measure, reported Inquirer.

Governments already promote monogamy through tax structures and other measures. Their purpose is also to underscore couples' integrity due to a shared goal: mitigating the transmission of the novel coronavirus.

The "support bubble," as labeled by the British prime minister, is the world's most recent dating trend -- or so a number of public health enthusiasts would like it to be.

The people involved in the bubble are not required to observe social distancing when meeting in one of the houses.

According to Johnson, "We would want to make sure that people who have been suffering from loneliness, and have been unable to see their families for a long time, the rest of their families, are able to do that."

Slated to start on Saturday, single-adult households in the UK are permitted to form a "support bubble" with another home, the prime minister announced.

Also Read: Hugs from Parents Can Help Calm Infants, New Study Says

"Support bubbles must be exclusive, meaning you can't switch the household you are in a bubble with or connect with multiple," he added.

As per the report, aside from the new measure underscoring the situation of isolated adults, it is applicable to grandparents living on their own. They are permitted to be involved in a bubble with their grandchildren's household.

"All those in a support bubble will be able to act as if they live in the same household, meaning they can spend time together inside each others' homes and do not need to stay two meters apart," Johnson stated.

The policy involves single people, single parents, and elderly people.

Single people are permitted, in a relationship or not, to be involved in bubbles together so long as one of them reside in their own household.

The released measure is not applicable to any person asked to self-isolate until the end of the month.

"Singletons can hook up at last!" the front page of "Metro" newspaper's Thursday issue proudly declared.

Canada though was the ahead to have implemented the measure. In early May, a number of Canadian jurisdictions have permitted 2 separate houses to pair up in "double bubbles." Unfortunately, some people felt left out.

"It is emphatically not designed for people who don't qualify to start meeting inside other people's homes, because that remains against the law," Johnson emphasized.

If a participant of the "support bubble" ended up exhibiting coronavirus symptoms, all those involved in the 2 households would be imposed the earlier precautions to alleviate the spread of the virus including self-quarantine.

Related Article: COVID-19 Lab-Made? Norway Scientist Claims Its Origin is Not Natural

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We believe we have found the perfect leader to build on our growth as an institution, said Rickson. A scholar in the areas of educational leadership, cultural diversity and leadership, marketing and enrollment management, and the future of work, Dr. Johnson is a renowned thought leader."

Western New England Universitys Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the unanimous appointment of Dr. Robert E. Johnson as the institutions sixth President, according to Chairman of the Board of Trustees Kenneth M. Rickson. Dr. Johnson succeeds Dr. Anthony S. Caprio, who has served as Western New England Universitys President with distinction for more than 24 yearsthe longest presidential tenure in the history of the University.

We believe we have found the perfect leader to build on our growth as an institution as we chart a course for Western New Englands second century, said Rickson. A scholar in the areas of educational leadership, cultural diversity and leadership, marketing and enrollment management, and the future of work, Dr. Johnson is a renowned thought leader who speaks and writes about the Future of Work, the Agile Mind, the Agile University, and innovating for social impact.

Johnson currently serves as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Building on the leadership and legacy of Dr. Caprio is humbling and an honor, he said. His transformation and elevation of Western New England University for 24 years is historic. I look forward to engaging with the campus community to create a shared ambition in writing its next chapter in this extraordinary time, and navigating through this global pandemic and social unrest with a sense of humanity and civility.

Johnsons 30-year leadership career spans non-profit colleges and universities in the Northeast and Midwest, including public, private, urban, rural, small and large institutions with enrollments from 2,000 to more than 25,000 students. Prior to becoming chancellor at UMass Dartmouth, he served as president of Becker College in Worcester from 2010 to 2017. He has held leadership positions with Sinclair College, the University of Dayton, Oakland University, and Central State University (Ohio). His career reflects several firsts  not only as an African-American leader, but also as the youngest person to hold senior administrative roles.

Johnsons tenure at UMass Dartmouth resulted in a number of significant accomplishments, including leading the region to create a framework for the blue economy, which will be an ecosystem to drive job creation, economic development and entrepreneurship, launching a $188 million construction and renovation project for new housing and dining, and the renovation of its Science and Engineering building. Also securing the largest single research grant in the history of the university from the Office of Naval Research for $4.6 are among the many milestones during his tenure.

As President of Becker College from 2010 to 2017, Johnson led enrollment growth for seven consecutive years by 23%, increased degrees awarded by 53%, and graduation rate by 29%. His innovative leadership elevated the reputation of the digital games program, ranked third in the world by The Princeton Review, and #1 in New England. He also helped create the first bachelors degree in the U.S. in global citizenship. The U.S. Department of Economic Development designated the college as one of 60 schools as a University Center. Creating the Agile Mindset positioned its curriculum with a unique niche in the higher education landscape.

The Agile Mindset, which provides students the skillset and mindset to create new value with essential human skills to meet the demands of the future, will be critical to the academy in a post Covid-19 world, according to Johnson. I look forward to working with our community to evolve the paradigm for the higher education industry that steeps our students with a sense of humanity, grounding them in the liberal arts with an entrepreneurial spirit that spurs innovation and transforms the world.

Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick appointed Dr. Johnson to the Mass Tech Collaborative and Governor Charlie Baker appointed him to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education and the Hate Crimes Task Force and the Black Advisory Council.

A native of Detroit, Dr. Johnson was inspired to pursue a life of education for the social good by his uncle who was a classmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Touro University International, formerly a division of Touro College, New York, NY; a Masters degree in Education Administration from the University of Cincinnati; a Bachelors degree in Economics from Morehouse College in Atlanta; and a Certificate in Applied Neuroscience from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Dr. Johnson will begin his new role as President of Western New England University on August 15.

Having just celebrated its Centennial, Western New England University is a private, independent, coeducational institution. Located on an attractive 215-acre suburban campus in Springfield, Massachusetts, Western New England serves 3,825 students, including 2,580 full-time undergraduate students. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs are offered through Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the School of Law.

Editors note: All of the Universitys news releases are available online at http://www.wne.edu/news.
Just about everything else has opened up across practically all of China. Even live theater has reopened, with customers allowed to occupy every other seat as part of social distancing. In Shanghai, a play has just opened that celebrates how people in Wuhan carried on everyday life as the coronavirus epidemic started there and was then eventually brought under control.

Malls around the world rely to some extent on cinemas to draw people out of their homes, with the hope that they will stay after the movies to dine or go shopping. But regulatory peculiarities have made Chinese shopping malls especially reliant on cinemas to generate foot traffic.

Shopping malls in the United States and Europe often cover many acres in suburban locations where land is fairly cheap. Visitors frequently arrive by car. People may come and go from cinemas without ever walking past or through another business at the same mall.

But China has stringent regulations to limit low-rise urban sprawl. Car ownership is also far less widespread. So shopping malls need to be tall and close to mass transit.

Malls in China typically occupy five to nine floors of a tall building. Cinemas are often on the top floor of the mall. Moviegoers pass many shops and restaurants, ascending and descending a seemingly interminable series of escalators.

A study four years ago by the RET China Commercial Real Estate Research Center found that more than half of the people who went to movies at a shopping mall in China bought food and drinks at the mall. More than 40 percent of moviegoers also went shopping, the study found.

Shopping malls and the stores inside are not the only businesses that are hurting these days because of the closure of cinemas.
Participants in the Mount Greylock Collective Community Discussion talk about race and society and issues that affect the Northern Berkshire communities of Lanesborough and Williamstown.

Mount Greylock Forum Opens Conversation on Racial Equity

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  Difficult conversations about race across racial lines are important.

But so are conversations that are not about race.

Pittsfield author and motivational speaker Ty Allan Jackson made that point last week during a virtual community conversation hosted by the Mount Greylock Regional School District.

"I think there has to continuously be consistency of having people of color coming in [to the schools] to talk -- and not just solely about diverse issues," Jackson said. "I think a big problem we have in a lot of our communities is that there isn't a lot of representation of people of color in the first place. I think we need to look around us and say: How many educators do we have that are of color? How many administrators do we have of color? How many police do we have of color?

"When you don't have the consistency of having a diverse population when someone diverse comes in, it becomes jarring. It becomes a big deal."

Conversations about racial justice have been a very big deal nationally and locally in the last couple of weeks.

At the national level, the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while being restrained by police sparked angry protests from coast to coast. In the northwest corner of Berkshire County, a well-circulated post on Facebook from a local black family challenged the notion that reputedly progressive Williamstown is a "safe space" for people of color.

"We are scared for our physical safety," the June 3 post read, in part. "Yes, here in Williamstown."

During last week's webinar, Jackson echoed that sentiment.

"I think our objective here is realizing that, yes, we are in our small part of the world, but we're part of the world," he said. "We can't pretend that we're isolated just because our population looks a certain way. You're going to continuously have people of color coming into our community, and we're constantly going to have our white children going out of our community.

"I think our objective here is to build young, strong, open-minded citizens so that when they go out into the world they are reflecting our community in a way that we should be proud of. Let us not think that because our community is small and white that it's going to stay that way. It will not."

The conversation was hosted by the school district included representatives from the schools, the member towns, their police forces and community partners like Jackson and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts professors Kerry Nicoll, Nichole Porther and Chali Nondo.

Mount Greylock's event came on the heels of the virtual " Coffee with a Cop " hosted by the Williamstown Police Department two weeks ago and Black Lives Matter demonstration , and was followed by a half-hour conversation by the Williamstown Select Board about the issue of racial justice and how it impacts lives in the town of 7,700.

"I will say this, as Jane Patton, private citizen of Williamstown," the Select Board chair said at last Monday evening's meeting. "To the men, women and children of color, I see you in Williamstown and everywhere I go. To those who discriminate and choose to use racist language and exhibit racist behavior, I see you, and I will act immediately in whatever form or fashion necessary, to stop what's happening.

"To those who want to educate me and others, I see you. And I'm committing to listening and learning and becoming part of the solution. Unfortunately, racism has permeated every pore of our society, and anyone who thinks there is no racism in Williamstown has their head buried in the sand."

Nicholl wants to be part of that education.

"I love Williamstown," said Nicholl, a professor of social work at MCLA who has a child at Williamstown Elementary School. "I've been here for six years. We are very happy to be raising our child here. But I don't think it's possible to say in any city or town in the United States that racism is not a problem.

"I don't think it means we are a town full of intentionally racist people, but I do think we need to acknowledge that we live in a country, in a society that has racism deeply ingrained in our institutions and our history and that we, as a community, are a part of that."

Sometimes, that reality becomes painfully apparent.

"I can tell you as the parent of two black boys, it's triggering just to see police cars driving around, knowing what they have seen in the media and reports," said Porther, who teaches biology at MCLA and served as a moderator for Monday's conversation.

"Racism is a pandemic, just like we have recognized that coronavirus, which has been categorized as a pandemic," said Chali, a professor of business administration. "Racism is something that is systemic. It is in every area of society. We can think of schools. We can think of hospitals. We can think of police stations. In every corner of where we live, there is some form of racism.

"As a dad, as a black person and as a parent of two black kids, these are issues that we have confronted. In one way or another, we have encountered some form of racism."

Since the conversation was hosted by the schools, there was an emphasis on what steps the district's schools are taking to confront the pandemic of racism.

Porther asked specifically how the Lanesobrough and Williamstown public schools are addressing incidents of racist language when they arise on campus.

"We have a restorative-based practice rubric that we use to analyze the actions that happened," Lanesborough Elementary School Principal Nolan Pratt said. "We come up with a way to respond that creates a conversation that brings the students back together to create a stronger community, a learning environment about what was said, what it means, how it's interpreted, how it affects the students."

Proactively, Lanesborough and Williamstown have implemented the Second Step and Choose to Be Nice curriculums, but Pratt wants to go further, he said.

"The school psychologist and I have been looking at an anti-racist curriculum to put in for the next school year," he said.

Mount Greylock Principal Mary MacDonald said education does not end when students matriculate up to the middle school.

"We have a variety of programming that we bring in that's external, but we also are trying to embed much of the teaching in courses," she said. "The English department has had a review of its texts and has incorporated and is looking to incorporate more texts by under-represented, specifically black, authors and address experiences by under-represented groups. And the library, in tandem, has done the same review of texts. If we take a look at the shift of the primary text list students are looking at now in 7 through 12 versus what was happening four or five years ago, we see a more diversified selection.

"Separately from that, there are history courses that specifically address inequity and often, in the design of the class, teachers are able to bring in current issues. Just this week, I've been talking to teachers about, How are you addressing George Floyd's death, and how are you making connections back to your curriculum and how are you allowing students to explore and ask questions and look to find answers?' "

No one on the webinar claimed to have all the answers. But town and school officials remain committed to continuing the conversation.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 07:24:49|Editor: huaxia

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A member of a Chinese medical expert team shares his experience on fighting against the COVID-19 during a meeting at the Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 13, 2020. A medical expert team sent by the Chinese government arrived Dhaka on June 8 to support Bangladesh's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Chinese medical experts will provide consultations of pandemic control, patients treatment and laboratory tests, and guide and train Bangladeshi medical professionals. (Xinhua)
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The number of freelancers claiming to have gone wholly unpaid for their work for LOfficiel continues to grow and legal action is looming.

As WWD reported last month, there are dozens of LOfficiel freelancers, including writers, photographers and stylists, who claim that work they did last year and even the year before has gone unpaid. The numbers of those willing in recent weeks to admit that they were never paid for work they did for the French publisher has grown so much that legal action is now being taken, WWD has learned. A lawyer has been retained by certain unpaid freelancers in London, for a planned class action that includes people seeking payment in the U.S., Paris and Italy. It will also likely include freelancers for Jalouse magazine, who have also gone unpaid. The Jalou family owns LOfficiel as well as Jalouse. Separately, the National Writers Union is planning to take legal action for the at least a dozen LOfficiel freelancers its been representing over nonpayment.

A representative of LOfficiel could not be reached for comment.

One unpaid freelancer, photographer Luc Coiffait, last week started a petition on Change.org titled Pay your freelancers LOfficiel! The petition has close to 600 signatures and Coiffait said hes received numerous contacts from unpaid freelancers with invoices totaling near $50,000.

We are aiming to bring all types of freelancers together in one case, as this goes much further than just writers, Coiffait said. We have heard from photographers, stylists, designers, production companies, freelance employees of LOfficiel titles, and even current LOfficiel Paris employees.

In addition to being paid, Coiffait said the group wants a public apology and an admission of wrongdoing on the part of LOfficiel leadership, including chief executive officer Benjamin Eymere, part of the Jalou family, and deputy ceo Maria Cecilia Andretta.

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It is alleged LOfficiel since late 2018 has largely ignored freelancers who begin requesting payment after the typical three month period for freelancer payment, according to a number of freelancers who have dealt with the company. While initial e-mails to senior editors and even executives are met with claims that they will be paid soon, follow ups get no response.

When WWD spoke last month with Eymere, he did not deny that many freelancers for his publications have gone unpaid for completed work, many for more than a year.

To him, this is par for the course, as he explained: In any business, theres often a delay in payment for an invoice, it also depends on the reality of the execution of the job. Eymere also cited the coronavirus pandemic as causing a delay in what he said was an ongoing process of addressing each invoice.

With the coronavirus pandemic, certainly there has been a disruption to media revenues based on advertising, but LOfficiels issues of nonpayment far predate the pandemic, according to freelancers.

Eymere also attempted to blame the lack of payment to freelancers on changes in leadership at the magazine over the last year or so, as well as on having issues in about 30 countries and the logistical hurdle that what he counted as 1,500 freelance assignments a year represents. The Jalou family only directly controls six editions of LOfficiel, including the U.S., France, Italy and Switzerland, each of which have freelancers claiming theyve gone unpaid for work.

In response to the pandemic, LOfficiel has also decided to drastically reduce its level of print, Eymere said, with most titles going from 10 a year to four and all mens titles going from eight to two. All licensed editions are expected to reduce frequency as well at Eymeres urging. This also means a major reduction in freelance work, with sources claiming that LOfficiel has actually cut the use of all freelancers for the time being.

While Eymere insists that LOfficiels business future is bright, an inability to pay freelancers is not a good sign of a publications financial health. LOfficiel is backed in the U.S. by Global Emerging Markets, or GEM, an investment group run and founded by Christopher Brown. LOfficiel in the U.S. operates out of the GEM offices in New York. When Stefano Tonchi joined LOfficiel earlier this year in a new global role, Eymere said the company had gotten new investment from GEM and he planned to expand with three new directly operated titles.

As for payment to freelancers, late last year the NWU is said to have reached terms on repayment to freelancers in installments, because LOfficiel could not afford to pay freelancers what they are owed in one lump sum. The magazine pulled out of the agreement as soon as the coronavirus began having an effect on business. No freelancers were ever paid.

Now, the company is said to be planning to offer individual freelancers payment in two installments, in what Coiffait sees as little more than an attempt to undercut a group legal action, like a class action lawsuit. Remember their silence?, Coiffat said in an update to the petition. Now they want to suddenly get in touch days after seeing this petition.

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M ens fashion magazine GQ today signed a deal with the property developer revamping Britain's Tin Pan Alley to display interviews on its vast screens.

The Outernet, at the corner of Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, will see vast floor-to-ceiling LED advertising screens built within a huge cube. The development also features an overhaul of musical instruments mecca Denmark Street and a 2,000 capacity music venue below ground.

The exact content GQ will display has not been decided but is likely to include the magazines typical online content  from video interviews to tech reviews  projected. GQ will also sponsor a studio to host interviews and debates and product testing areas.

Distanced: Philip OFerrall and Dylan Jones

The delayed Outernet project, originally due to open this year, will now debut in early 2021. The scheme will feature 50 high-end apartments, offices, a boutique hotel and a restaurant and aim to draw on the areas musical heritage, which includes formative periods in David Bowie and the Sex Pistols careers.

It will also host two smaller venues including the relaunched 12-Bar Club  the venues are expected to host everything from gigs to movie premieres to product launches.

The result of 14 years work and 116 acquisitions by property developer Laurence Kirschel and his company Consolidated Developments.

Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of GQ, said: Nothing like Outernet has ever existed before and so to partner with them is exhilarating and with pretty much limitless opportunity.

Philip OFerrall, the chief executive of Outernet Global, said Outernets scale, location and technology have no equal and we think that this collaboration will bear that out.

Outernet intends for the London site to be the guinea pig for a string of similar international developments.
ExxonMobil discussed potential investments with the Vietnamese prime minister

In a phone call with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday (June 11, 2020), Irtiza Sayyed, president of ExxonMobil LNG Market Development Inc., said that this company wants to seize investment opportunities in the Vietnamese energy sector.

So the US' largest publicly-traded international oil and gas company set eyes on a series of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ports and warehouses and refining and petrochemicals operations in the northern city of Haiphong. The 4,000MW plant could go on stream sometime in 2025-2030.

A series of LNG-fuelled plant in the Mekong Delta province of Long An will be developed at the capacity of 3,000MW. LNG will be sourced from its operation in the US and other countries.

Welcoming the plan of ExxonMobil, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc highlighted that Vietnam is one of the countries that released COVID-19 control measures at an early stage and is now looking to turn its lead into breakthrough development.

Vietnam's energy demand is large  and is constantly mounting. Besides, importing LNG from the US will contribute to balancing the trade between Vietnam and the US, according to the Vietnamese government.
The pilot of the US Air Force F15C fighter aircraft that crashed off the north-east coast of England has been found dead.

The USAF jet, from the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, crashed at around 9.40am on Monday while on a routine training exercise.

In a statement this evening, RAF Lakenheath said the pilot had been found and 'confirmed deceased'.

The cause of the crash is not known. Fears had been growing for the pilot after rescue crews found a wreckage in the North Sea.

The plane had been taking part in a four-jet formation off Flamborough Head, near Bridlington, East Yorkshire, before it crashed.

A huge search and rescue mission was launched for the single-seater jet, and recovery efforts were today underway to drag the aircraft out of the water.

The name of the pilot will not be released until his family have been informed, RAF Lakenheath said.

'This is a tragic loss for the 48th Fighter Wing community, and our deepest condolences go out to the pilot's family and the 493rd Fighter Squadron,' a spokesman said.

The aircraft had been taking part in a formation drill off Flamborough Head and a rescue mission had been launched for the pilot. Pictured: An F-15 coming into land at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk today

In a video statement, Colonel Will Marshall, Commander of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath, had said the cause of the crash was 'unknown'.

He said: 'Search-and-rescue efforts are currently under way, but the pilot of the aircraft is still missing.

'We will provide updates as they become available while prioritising respect and consideration for the pilot's family.' He said they were hopeful the pilot will be found.

A statement from RAF Lakenheath added: 'At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board.

'The cause of the crash as well as the status of the pilot are unknown at this time and UK Search and Rescue have been called to support.'

Two RNLI lifeboats and a helicopter were heading to the crash site - 74 nautical miles off the coast - as three US Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers circled above.

Earlier today RAF Lakenheath shared pictures of three warplanes with the caption: 'Ready to take on Monday like #weareliberty.

F-15C Eagle: The 21 million US tactical fighter capable of reaching 1,650mph that has never been shot down in combat The F-15C Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing, in 1972. It entered service in 1976 and is among the most successful fighter jets in production today, with no losses in aerial combat. The aircraft is predominantly used by the US Air Force as well as the air forces of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Japan. Each model costs around 21million ($28million) and the aircraft has been modified and improved over the years with different variants now used around the world, including the faster F-15E Strike Eagle. As of 2017, the aircraft is being produced in different variants with production set to end in 2022. At a glance: Crew: One pilot Length: 63ft 9ins (19.43m) Wingspan: 42ft 10ins (13.05m) Height: 18ft 6ins (5.63m) Max takeoff weight: 68,000lbs (30,845kg) Engines: 2 Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-100 or 220 afterburning turbofans Max speed: Mach 2.5+ (1,650mph) Max altitude: 65,000ft (20,000m) Armament: One 20mm (0.787in) M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel Rotary cannon, four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, four AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, eight AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles Advertisement

HM Coastguard said in a statement: 'HM Coastguard is coordinating the response after reports were received of an aeroplane going down into the sea 74 nautical miles off Flamborough Head.

'The HM Coastguard helicopter from Humberside has been sent along with Bridlington and Scarborough RNLI lifeboats.

'Following a Mayday broadcast by HM Coastguard, other vessels nearby are heading to the area. It's believed the aircraft had one person on board.'

Flying was suspended at RAF Lakenheath following news of the crash.

Fire engines were seen on the runway at the base at midday as they waited for the other planes to return from the mission.

One of the planes was later seen landing, reportedly with a cracked canopy.

Earlier today RAF Lakenheath shared pictures of three warplanes with the caption: 'Ready to take on Monday like #weareliberty.'

The F-15C Eagle, a single-seater air defence fighter, is a model of jet that has been used by the US Air Force since 1979.

RAF spokesman Martin Tinworth said the aircraft has an 'exceptional flight safety record'.

RAF Lakenheath is the 'largest US Air Force-operated base in England and the only US air forces in Europe F15 fighter wing', its website said.

The 48th Fighter Wing, which has operated from the base since 1960, has more than 4,500 'active-duty military members'.

Its mission statement is to 'provide worldwide responsive combat air power and support'.

In October 2014, an F15D fighter jet based at RAF Lakenheath crashed in fields near Spalding in Lincolnshire.

The pilot ejected safely, suffering only minor injuries, and no-one on the ground was hurt.

A US Air Force investigation found that the crash was caused by the 'angle of attack' of the aircraft and 'imperfections' in the assembly of the jet's nose cap.

In October 2015, US pilot Major Taj Sareen died when his F-18 Hornet jet crashed on farmland near RAF Lakenheath.

A subsequent investigation found the 34-year-old did not report problems with his aircraft before take-off.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:40:00|Editor: huaxia

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YANGON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Investment capital of over 4.10 billion U.S. dollars from permitted foreign enterprises have entered Myanmar in eight months of present fiscal year (FY) 2019-2020 stating in October, according to figures issued by the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA) on Monday.

The Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) gave the go-ahead to 178 foreign investment enterprises from Oct. 1, 2019 to May 31 of this FY.

During the period, power sector attracted most investment capital with over 1.67 billion U.S. dollars, followed by real estate and manufacturing sectors.

From FY 1988-89 to FY 2019-20, the MIC gave the nod to 2,015 foreign enterprises, with investment capital of over 85.9 billion U.S. dollars.

Power sector took 26.60 percent of foreign investment, followed by oil and gas sector with 26.51 percent and manufacturing with 14.11 percent, respectively.

Singapore, China and Thailand are top leading investors in Myanmar.

Regionally, the Yangon region attracts 60 percent of investment from both home and abroad, followed by Mandalay region with 30 percent and the rest flowed into other regions and states.

The new Myanmar Companies Law, which was enforced in August 2018, provides tax exemption and relief to investors depending on the development of the regions and states, allowing investors in far-flung areas to enjoy tax breaks of up to seven years. Enditem
South Africa: Deputy Minister tests positive for COVID-19

Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Nkosi Phathekile Holomisa has tested positive for Coronavirus.

Government has expressed wishes of a speedy recovery to the Deputy Minister.

"Holomisa has our full support and we are looking forward to his full recovery in order for him to continue serving the people of South Africa with great valour and dedication," Minister in the Presidency, Jackson Mthembu, said on Saturday.

The Deputy Minister is self-isolating at his residence and taking all the necessary precautions towards a full recovery.

All direct contacts of Nkosi Holomisa will be traced and they will be informed to quarantine.

The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) said Holomisa is in good spirits and he is determined to defeat the virus, which has affected thousands of South Africans thus far.

As the world has been grappling with this global pandemic over the past few months, Coronavirus has demonstrated that it does not have barriers for any section of society and that any person can be infected, Mthembu said.

Government has reiterated its call for South Africans to take precaution and adhere to preventative measures.

These include wearing a mask, social distancing, and regularly and thoroughly cleaning hands with soap or a sanitiser that contains 70% alcohol.

People should also avoid crowded places and seek medical attention when they have symptoms of a fever, cough and difficulties in breathing.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Health insurers are hoping to boost value of private health cover for young people amid concerns the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic will have Australians reconsidering whether policies are affordable.

The private health insurance sector has been fighting to assert its relevance even prior to the pandemic with the most recent data from the Australian Prudential and Regulatory Authority showing close to 10,000 fewer Australians had private health insurance by the end of March compared with the previous quarter. The largest fall in policies was among those aged 30-34.

Funds are focused on showing younger Australians the broader value of insurance policies as tough economic conditions hit.

The boss of health insurer Nib Mark Fitzgibbon has said funds must improve the value of private cover for young people.

"The challenge for us as an industry [is] to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and offer more relevant value for younger people," Mr Fitzgibbon said.
Is there Karnataka weekend lockdowns or night curfew? Here's what minister has to say

Karnataka to rope in pvt hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients, to fix rates: Minister

India

pti-PTI

Bengaluru, June 15: Karnataka Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar on Monday said private hospitals would be roped in to treat COVID-19 patients in the state and rates fixed for everything, from testing to treatment.

"...the private hospitals that will treat COVID-19 patients...for them rates will be fixed, it will be uniform across the state. Maybe there will be some variation for Bengaluru, but for the entire state, a uniform rate structure will be fixed," Sudhakar said.

Chennai: Intense lockdown in Chennai from June 19th, no Sunday break | Oneindia News

Speaking to reporters here, he said private nursing homes and corporate hospitals, especially those that have a large number of beds, will have to set up isolation wards and come forward to treat coronavirus patients in the days to come.

"Efforts are on in this direction and instructions will be issued in this regard soon by the government. The government alone cannot provide treatment. Private and government sectors both will have to join hands and make efforts to control coronavirus," he added.

Sudhakar was speaking after attending the meeting of senior Ministers and officials, chaired by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, to discuss the increasing COVID-19 cases in the state and in Bengaluru.

Stressing that rates would be fixed for everything, from testing to treatment, he said the government would not allow anyone to indulge in 'extortion' at this time of crisis and would take 'merciless action' against such people.

"At the meeting today, it was decided that private hospitals should also provide treatment. So we will discuss with the central government and ICMR, we will see what rates to be fixed, also regarding getting grants for this under Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka scheme, because private wont treat freely for the poor, and government will have to pitch in to bare cost," he added.

Karnataka travel rules: Travellers from Chennai, Delhi to undergo 3-day institutional quarantine

Stating that going forward, the government alone cannot manage everything, he said government, private and all citizens have to join hands to fight the virus and save lives.

"Our health is in our hands. If we don't safeguard our health, can the government keep watch on every individual?" he asked in response to a question about incidences of not following guidelines and adhering to social distancing norms.

Sudhakar also requested the media to exercise restraint while telecasting news relating to COVID and see to it that it leads to fear mongering among people.
A Russian court sentenced on Monday American businessman Paul Whelan to 16 years in prison on spying charges, the AP reports.

The state of play: Whelan, a 50-year-old corporate security executive and Marine Corps veteran, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018. He and his brother, David, argue the charge is political and that he was set up.

Whelan is an American citizen who also holds British, Canadian and Irish passports.

His lawyer has said he was framed in a sting operation and was unknowingly handed a flash drive that contained classified information.

After Whelan's sentence was read, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said prosecutors produced no evidence of Whelan's guilt and denounced the trial as a violation of human rights and international legal norms.

What they're saying: "The courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process," David Whelan said in a statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 01:14:07|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Two police officers and one civilian were injured in an exchange of gunfire in the southwest of Moscow on Monday, the Russian capital's police said in a statement.

"Today, in the area of house 156 on Leninsky Avenue, traffic police officers stopped a taxi for violating the rules of the road. A passing citizen fired at the police officers allegedly from a traumatic weapon, as a result of which the two policemen were injured," it said in a statement.

The wounded policemen used service firearms to shoot at the attacker, injuring him and having him detained, the statement said.

Currently, a group of investigators and policemen are working at the scene of the incident, establishing its circumstances, it added.

The Russian Investigative Committee said in a separate statement it had opened a criminal case on the grounds of an encroachment on the life of law enforcement officers. Enditem
New Delhi, June 15 : From holding meetings with Delhi Mayors to formulating strategy down to the municipal level to directing Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev to ensure installation of CCTV cameras in all corona wards in each Covid-19 designated hospitals in the city, the Union Home Minister has emerged as the 'Shah' of Delhi, someone who has taken the charge to salvage the situation in wake of the rising pandemic tally that none less than the Supreme Court has described as "horrendous, horrific, pathetic".

The optics of Amit Shah going to LNJP - a Delhi government-run hospital and reviewing the situation and reacting with the medical staff is impossible to not being compared to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who seems to have willingly taken a backseat, faced with the unprecedented situation.

However, installing CCTVs was not the only directive Shah gave to Delhi Chief Secretary - someone who reports to the Delhi government. He also instructed for psycho-social counselling of doctors and nurses engaged in treatment of patients infected with the virus. Shah's instructions were minute and forward looking.

He also directed the Delhi Chief Secretary that back-ups for canteens should also be established, so that in case, there is an infection in one canteen, patients can continue to get food without disruption.

Shah's choice to visit LNJP is also significant. The hospital recently invited negative publicity after several videos shot in its premises purportedly showed patients' bodies lying on the floor in wards. The videos also showed some elderly patients left unattended even as they cried for help. Even the apex court has taken strong note of media reports, lashing out at the Kejriwal government.

Just before that visit, Shah announced on Monday that coronavirus testing will be made available to all in Delhi, after he met an all-party delegation at his North Block office. This comes despite an all-party meeting that was convened by Lt Governor Anil Baijal, technically the head of Delhi.

Already feeling the political heat, the Congress made it worse for the Aam Aadmi Party when Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar asked: "The question that needs to be asked is why did Arvind Kejriwal not take the initiative like the ones taken by the LG and the Union Home Minister." Coming out of the all party meeting, Delhi's ruling party's representative, parliamentarian Sanjay Singh merely told reporters: "During the all-party meeting, it has been decided that the number of 1,900 beds in state government hospitals, 2,000 beds in Central government hospitals and 1.078 beds in private hospitals will be increased for Covid-19 patients." A day before, Sunday was not a time of leisure either for the man who is increasingly appearing to have taken Delhi's charge in his hand. Shah's Sunday was action packed with back to back meetings. First it was with Chief Minister Kejriwal, LG Baijal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan among others. Sources say that the meeting was to identify what is the current situation of the pandemic in the national capital. He attached six Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers to the Delhi government to assist in Covid-19 management.

Next, Shah held another meeting on Sunday evening with all Delhi Mayors to devise a strategy that goes down to the municipality level. AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria was also present on Sunday.

While the Delhi government is run by the AAP, the MCDs are governed by the BJP. Shah's twin meetings on Sunday were a clear signal - get over with politics, time to join hands. On Monday, that signal was articulated more comprehensively when Shah tweeted: "The Modi government is determined to prevent the coronavirus infection in Delhi. To stop the spread of the virus, testing will be doubled in the next two days and after six days the testing will be increased three-fold. Subsequently, after a few days, every polling station in the containment zones will be covered for testing." But that hasn't stopped the obvious political potshots. BJP's General Secretary (Organisation) B.L. Santosh and someone who technically is number two after party chief J.P. Nadda, within the organisation tweeted: "Home Minister @AmitShah visits LNJP Hospital , Delhi to review operations & preparedness. Till to date the Delhi CM @ArvindKejriwal did not find time to visit to hospitals . Governance is never a priority for anarchists." Whether governance is a priority for Kejriwal or not is a matter of political debate. However, what is not is how the Delhi Chief Minister relinquished the authority to Amit Shah who has now stepped in and cracked whip in the last 48 hours to get the spiralling pandemic situation in the national capital under control.
Pakistan's anti-graft body on Sunday announced to approach the Interpol to bring back Opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif's son from the UK to try him in a money laundering case.

An official of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) said on Sunday that the agency would also request the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK to provide all possible assistance in deportation of Suleman Shehbaz as per law.

"The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided in principle to bring back accused Suleman Shehbaz from the UK through Interpol as he has been declared a proclaimed offender in money laundering case," the official told PTI.

Even though there is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK, the NAB expressed hope that with the help of the Interpol and the NCA, it will manage to bring Suleman back to face the money laundering case against him.

The Accountability Court in Lahore in October last year had issued arrest warrants against Suleman after NAB declared him a proclaimed offender in a money laundering/illegal assets case.

The NAB alleged that assets worth rupees 3.3 billion had been identified so far as illegally accumulated by Suleman, his elder brother Hamza and their father Shehbaz, who is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and younger brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

"The whole Shehbaz family committed massive money laundering in the name of foreign remittances and loans. Hamza received benefits from different family members, including Suleman and sister Rabia, under the garb of gifts," it said.

NAB investigation conducted so far revealed that Suleman and Rabia received foreign remittances in their bank accounts, which were found to be fictitious.

Hamza has been in jail for the last one year in money laundering and income beyond means case.

Reacting to the NAB's decision, PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said, "the truth of the NAB-Niazi alliance is no secret anymore and it's truth (is) known within and outside Pakistan. PML-N, it's leadership, and the Sharif family have braved the world's worst political victimisation by this unholy alliance with resilience and answered every question asked by this vengeful team, with bravery, and evidence."

She said despite rigorous witch-hunt and non-stop persecution and a barrage of accusations for over two years, the NAB-Niazi alliance had not been able to file a single reference against Shehbaz Sharif, Hamza and Suleman.

"Whenever the courts asked for proof, the NAB-Niazi alliance always ran away and could not prove any corruption accusation. Where is the actual file and the proofs of the case of money laundering being alleged against Suleman Shehbaz. The same practice was adopted against Ishaq Dar (former finance minister) and in the end the government had to bite dust and got nothing but embarrassment and shame," Aurangzeb said.

The PML-N spokesperson said these cases against the opposition parties were unilateral, illegal and contrary to the letter and spirit of justice.
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the removal of Marilyn Amobi as the managing director of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, days after PREMIUM TIMES reported her continued violation of Nigerias code of conduct for public officials.

The Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, announced the removal of the controversial official on Monday evening.

The minister, in a press statement, said the removal was approved by President Buhari. He also announced the companys General Counsel and Secretary, Nnaemeka Eweluka, as the new substantive boss of NBET with immediate effect.

The minister said Ms Amobi would proceed on terminal leave. She was supposed to end her four-year tenure in August, having been appointed in August 2016.

The new NBET boss, the minister said, comes to the position with over 20 years experience, spanning private practice academics, and power sector. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitration, the minister added.

Running private business illegally

PREMIUM TIMES had on June 10 exposed how Ms Amobi continued to run a private firm, ESL Economics and Management Limited, registered in the United Kingdom, while being a public officer in Nigeria in violation of the countrys code of conduct for public officials.

She also continued to run a foreign account in violation of Nigerias law.

Top administration officials said our report angered President Buhari who immediately ordered her removal.

Ms Amobi was first appointed to head NBET in 2016 by Mr Buhari. First suspended by the minister last December, she was reinstated by the president in January this year.

Lawless

Nigerias constitution prescribes code of conduct for public officers, including those in public companies, such as NBET.

The code of conducts stipulates that public officers shall not engage or participate in the management or running of any private business except it is farming.

By implication, when one takes public office in Nigeria, they are expected to formally resign from the management or directorship of a private company in which they are involved even if such belongs to them.

NBET is a wholly-owned Nigerian government company incorporated in 2010 in line with the Electric Power Sector Act, 2005.

In the power industry, it is the manager and administrator of the electricity pool.

It has been covering the market shortfall using public funds to shore up the revenue of the electricity generation companies to prevent the collapse of the system. In 2018, N701 billion was released for this purpose from the Central Bank of Nigeria for the 2017-2019 period.

Available records show Ms Amobi still holds active participation in the running of the ESL, registered both in the UK and Nigeria.

Several management and accounting filings accessed by PREMIUM TIMES show she is the sole signatory for the company in the UK. Two of such filings were as recent as October and November 2019, years after her appointment to head NBET.

This means Ms Amobi also controls a foreign account, another breach of Nigerias law on conduct for public officers.

Amobi lied

Ms Amobi during the weekend distributed a statement trying to deny our report. She said her company had become inactive and thus she was not running it.

The sacked official lied. According to records the UK authorities hold and which PREMIUM TIMES still accessed before this publication, ESL, with company number 06413894, still holds an active business status and Ms Amobis running of the company remains active.

Also, several accounting filings, including yearly balance sheets, including the latest submitted in 2019, were signed by Ms Amobi as the director.

Ms Amobi wholly owns ESL, which she registered in 2007 in London. But she did not withdraw from the running of the company as a director, after her appointment into public office in Nigeria as the countrys law requires.

She said she had resigned from the Nigerian version of ESL. PREMIUM TIMES cannot verify this claim immediately though records suggest her claim is wrong.

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However, we can authoritatively report that she remains active running the private firm, ESL, in the UK and the firm is not inactive contrary to her claim.

Controversial stint

Ms Amobis sack on Monday ended a controversial stint at NBET. She was variously accused of abuses, including misuse of funds and maladministration.

On December 24, Ms Amobi was suspended by the power minister, Mr Mamman, who claimed that the move was in continuation of the governments effort to reorganise and sanitise the Federal Ministry of Power and its affiliate agencies.

Consequently, a five-member investigative committee was constituted to probe the myriad complaints leveled against Ms Amobi.

The suspension, last December, of Ms Amobi came after PREMIUM TIMES reported how she instigated the arrest and detention for several hours of nine top officials of the bulk trader by the State Security Services (SSS, also called DSS). The embattled MD had been accused of abuse and intimidation of employees in recent time, with concerns over workplace safety and teamwork among staff members.

But in January, Mr Buhari curiously overruled the minister, reinstating Ms Amobi despite indictments by anti-graft agencies, EFCC and ICPC.

Apart from the two main anti-graft agencies, EFCC and ICPC, Nigerias auditor-general also found Ms Amobi culpable of maladministration.

Earlier in February 2019, PREMIUM TIMES reported how Ms Amobi controversially paid at least N2 billion to two power generating companies and made controversial payments to law firms and other consultants.

Documents obtained by Leaks NG  a coalition of Nigerian newsrooms and civil society groups  revealed that Ms Amobi, was also involved in a series of alleged corrupt acts such as subversion of board approvals and infraction of procurement laws. She had denied all the allegations.
The Kerala government has said people planning to visit the state cannot stay beyond a week as it issued several guidelines, including registering themselves on the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) portal and getting an entry pass.

They shall provide the details of local itinerary along with the purpose of visit and local accommodation and contact person. Any deviations from this, during the visit, shall be informed to the authorities with valid reasons, the state government said.

Kerala has reported 2,461 cases of Covid-19 and out of which 1,340 are active one. Twenty people have succumbed to the disease in the state till date.

Here are standard operating procedure (SOP) and health advisory issued by Kerala:

* Travellers should register on the covid19jagratha portal and obtain entry pass for their visit

* Concerned district collectors will approve the short visit after verifying the details

* The local contact persons/company/firm/sponsor shall also be responsible for the short visit of the person

* They shall go directly to the hotel/place of stay without halting at any places in between the place of arrival and place of stay.

* They shall not meet anyone or visit any places other than the purpose for which they got permission. They shall not visit any hospital or public places.

* They should refrain from coming in contact with elderly (above 60) people with children below 10 years

* Students who come for attending an examination or for other academic purposes shall not go out of their rooms for any purpose other than the approved one

* During their stay in Kerala, the traveller should follow all Covid-19 advisories and precautions including social distancing, frequent hand washing and wearing face masks

* Travellers should carry hand sanitiser and an extra face mask white travelling

* Room service or online food delivery facility should be sought for their sustenance.

* They should not extend their stay in Kerala without obtaining prior permission from Government authorities concerned

* They should contact DISHA helpline 1056 they develop any symptoms of fever, sore throat, cough, breathlessness and diarrhoea even if mild. They should not come out of their room without the permission of local public health authority.

* If they develop any symptoms, even if mild, they shall be moved to Covid-19 treatment centres and they need to undergo testing and based on the result further management shall be offered.

* If the traveller tests positive within 14 days after return from the state, they shall inform the control room at once

* If the traveller fails to follow any of these conditions, they should undergo 14 days institutional or paid quarantine.
MOSCOW (AP)  Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered two Czech diplomats to leave the country in a quid pro quo response to Prague's expulsion of Russian diplomats amid tensions rooted in differences over history.

The ministry said it summoned the Czech ambassador Monday to announce the move, saying the two diplomats must leave Russia by Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the Czech government ordered two Russian diplomats to leave the country. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the nation's spy agency has discovered that one of them had spread false information about a Russian assassin arriving to allegedly target Czech politicians.

The alleged assassination plot surfaced in April when a magazine reported that Czech intelligence services suspected that a Russian who arrived in Prague on a diplomatic passport was sent to poison Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib and Prague 6 district mayor Ondrej Kolar with a potent toxin.

Kolar, Hrib and the mayor of Pragues Reporyje district, Pavel Novotny, all consequently received police protection.

Moscow has dismissed the allegation as baseless. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ridiculed the claims published in the magazine, saying the notion that Czech authorities spotted a Russian man equipped with ricin and let him through didnt make sense.

The three politicians had been involved in actions that previously angered Russia.

In February, a Prague square in front of the Russian Embassy was renamed after slain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, with Hrib unveiling the new nameplate.

In April, Kolars district removed a statue of Soviet World War II commander Ivan Konev, whose armies completed the liberation of Prague from Nazi occupation. The statues removal caused outrage in Russia, which has angrily lashed out at any attempts to diminish the nations decisive role in defeating the Nazis.

Novotny provoked Moscows ire with plans to build a monument to the soldiers of Gen. Andrei Vlasovs army. Over 300 of them died when they helped the Czech uprising against Nazi rule and contributed to Pragues liberation. Their role is controversial for Russia, however, because they previously fought against the Red Army alongside Nazi troops.
Tragedy struck at Garki general hospital on Sunday as a 3-months old baby died after falling from the first floor of the hospital.

Speaking with newsmen after the terrible incident, a security guard at the hospital narrated thus:

A woman along with two others were on the top floor, rushing to the emergency ward, when the baby she was carrying, slipped from her grip and fell to the ground floor. The babys neck got broken in the process and died.

Read Also: Lagos Accredits 3 Private Hospitals For Management Of COVID-19 Treatment

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The Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Adamu Onu, refused to give details of what happened when he was contacted for comment.

When asked if the matter was reported to the police, the MD said patients were entitled to their privacy and he would not divulge any information to this newspaper.

He said, An incident happened in the hospital but it is not something I will like to divulge for the patient confidentiality reasons. I cannot go beyond what I am telling you at the moment. I cannot say anything beyond what I have said.

The Police Public Relations Officer, FCT Command, Anjuguri Manza, said he had not heard about the report, adding that it was likely that no report was lodged in any police station.

I dont think this case has been reported to the police. Ask the hospital if they reported the matter to the nearest police station, Manza said.

https://punchng.com/baby-falls-from-abuja-hospitals-top-floor-dies/?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday directed officials to prepare guidelines for private hospitals and labs to conduct Covid tests and offer treatment. The charges will be in line with Covid-19 guidelines.

He directed officials to conduct tests to about 50,000 people in 30 Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Vikarabad, Medchal and Sangareddy districts in 10 days. He asked officials to use the services of private labs and hospitals.

He told officials that they should finalise the guidelines for private labs and hospitals and offer home quarantine for those who tested positive but have no serious symptoms.

He was speaking at a meeting with health minister Etala Rajendar and senior officials to review the Covid-19 situation.

The Assembly constituencies where the tests will be conducted are: Uppal, LB Nagar, Maheswaram, Ibrahimpatnam, Rajendranagar, Serilingampally, Chevella, Pargi, Vikarabad, Tandur, Medchal, Malkajgiri, Qutbullahpur, Kukatpally, Malakpet, Amberpet, Musheerabad, Khairatabad, Jubilee Hills, Sanathnagar, Nampally, Karawan, Goshamahal, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Yakutpura, Bahadurpura, Secunderabad, Secunderabad Cantonment and Patancheru.

He reiterated that the government was ready to offer treatment to Coronavirus positive patients whatever may their number and sufficient number of test kits, PPE kits, ventilators and ICU beds masks are available with the government.
An earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter Scale struck 83 km northwest (NW) of Gujarat's Rajkot at 12:57 pm on Monday (June 15), according to National Center for Seismology.

Tremors were also felt in Bhachau region of Kutch. It is learnt that tremors were felt twice within five minutes leaving the residents in a state of panic with many rushing out of their homes to save their lives. The first tremor was felt at 12:57 pm and it was of 4.6 magnitude, while the second tremor was felt at 1 pm and it measured 3.6 on Richter Scale. The epicentre of both these quakes were near Bhachau.

This is the second earthquake to struck Rajkot in less than 24 hours. An earthquake measuring 5.8 magnitudes on the Richter Scale struck 122 km north-northwest of Rajkot, Gujarat at 8:13 pm on Sunday.

Gujarat has witnessed three major earthquakes in the past with the most devastating in 2001, another in Anjar in 1956 and the third in 1918 in the Rann of Kutch. As per reports, the earthquake that struck Gujarat on January 26, 2001, measured 6.9 on the Richter scale and lasted for a little over 100 seconds.
New Delhi:

Baloch leader Brahamdagh Bugtis application seeking political asylum in India was today received by the Home Ministry which is examining it. We have received Bugtis application for political asylum and it is under examination, a Home Ministry official said.

Bugti had applied for asylum in Indian consulate in Geneva three days ago and the application was subsequently forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs, which in turn sent it to the Home Ministry.

India does not have a comprehensive asylum policy. As per the United Nations, there are at least 6,480 asylum seekers in India but the government does not recognise them.

The situation is so complex that the officials in the Home Ministry are digging through 1959 records to check the process.

In 1959, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his followers were granted asylum by the Jawaharlal Nehru government.

Ultimately, it is a political decision at the highest level but we need to follow the process for the requisite paperwork, the official said.

Even the term refugee is not mentioned in any domestic law. India has not signed the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention on the Status of Refugees, or its 1967 Protocol that stipulates the rights and services host states must provide refugees.

Bugti is President and founder of Baloch Republican Party. He is the grandson of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baloch nationalist leader killed by the Pakistani army in 2006.

Pakistan government had blamed India for helping Bugti flee Pakistan to Geneva in 2010 via Afghanistan.

If granted asylum, Bugti could be given a long-term visa to be renewed every year.

Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has been living in India since 1994 under long-term visa renewable every year.

The other scenario is that he will get registration certificate based on which he can travel anywhere in the world using it as a travel document, the official said.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Fathers have a profound impact on our lives, there can be no doubt about that. Whether it is through the example that they set or their protective, nurturing behaviour. The values that they instil in us remain until we can pass them on to our own children. On the occasion of Fathers Day let us honour some of the most iconic father figures in literature.

Atticus Finch

Atticus and Jean Louise discussing her reading. (To Kill a Mockingbird (Movie Adaptation) )

The father to the protagonist of To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, serves as a perfect example of what we want from a father figure. He is equal parts stoic and caring in his interaction with his children, always mindful of their doings but never overbearing. As a single father, we get to read about some of his struggle as well, especially when he must make the choice between what is right and what is easy. Atticus nature is described in great detail throughout the book and it must not come as a surprise to anyone that he remains the topmost father figure in literature.

Don Vito Corleone

The Godfather written by Mario Puzo is perhaps the greatest book ever written about the mafia. Don Corleone story starts with the death of his own father and his journey to New York where he successfully establishes his criminal empire. He runs both his crime and actual family with an iron fist, yet his affection is never lacking. As cold and calculating as the Don might be, his attachment to his children and the importance he placed in the power of family are what earn him a place as one of the best father figures.

Hans Hubermann

Movie Grab (The Book Thief (Movie Adaptation))

mThe Book Thief written by Markus Zusak, give us one of the best representations of adoptive fathers. Hans Hubermann is portrayed as a gentle and loving character who facilitates Liesels love for books by teaching her how to read. Offering her a much-needed escape from her current reality of World War II. His character is in sharp contrast to that of the atmosphere of the war, Hubermann is able to provide Liesel with strong morality and virtue in a world that has none.

Mr Bennet

Movie Grab (Pride and Prejudice (Movie Adaption))

It can not be easy taking care of five daughters and keeping your sanity and sense of humour through it all. The character of Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen, is that of a flawed man but just enough to make him appear human and not a bad father. Mr Bennet does not push his daughters into marriage to further his own goals rather he allows them space to figure it out for themselves. His understanding and patience when it came to his daughters sets an example that was far ahead of its times.

Arthur Weasely

A still from the movie. (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,(Movie adaptation))

The father of 7 children in the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling might not be the most manly of father figures on this list but his hard work and dedication for his family is remarkable. When it came to protecting his family and fighting for whats right, Arthur Weasely was first in line. He is certainly powerful in his own right. His fun loving, soft and often excitable nature make him a character worthy of mention.

Bilbo Baggins

Movie still. (The Lord of the Rings (movie adaptation))

Though not technically a father, Bilbo Baggins from J.R.R. Tolkiens Middle Kingdom fantasy serves as yet another good example of the benefits of a positive male role model. He encourages Frodos curious nature and shares with tales of his adventures and exploits. Samwise Gamgee also takes on Bilbo as a father figure as he is the one to teach Sam his letter and introduces him to the world of elves and dragons.

King Lear

Sir Anthony Hopkins and Florence Pugh in an adaptation of King Lear.

Though technically the character and story of King Lear is written by Shakespeare as a tragic one, it still revolves completely around him being a father. Looking to distribute his kingdom, the King attempts to test the affection of his daughters and it all goes downhill from there. Due to him disowning his youngest daughters, the rest betray and shun him. Perhaps not the most honourable of characters, King Lears motivation and life lies in the love of his daughters.

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The continuing increase in prisoner numbers is mounting pressure on available cell space, services and escorts, the countrys top prison chief has warned.

Caron McCaffrey said that as well as ongoing rises in the number of people being sent to prison to serve sentences, there has been a sharp increase in those being jailed awaiting trial.

And given the seriousness of the charges many of these face  including for gangland offences  they are being detained for longer, adding to the pressure on space.

This growth in remand cases reflects the success of the gardai in bringing charges against members of the Kinahan crime cartel, including for murder, conspiracy to murder and firearms charges.

The Irish Prison Service Annual Report 2019 also shows that after a dramatic reduction in the number of people being sent to prison for failing to pay court fines since 2015, the trend was reversed last year and the number almost doubled.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan said he noted the rise in committals, including the increase in those being given sentences of less than a year, and said it highlights the potential of further expanding structured release programmes  an issue he would pursue with the new Judicial Council.

Key figures in the report show:

There were 8,939 committals to prison in 2019, an 11% (+868) increase on 2018 (8,071)

The daily average number of people in prison in 2019 was 3,971, compared to 3,893 in 2018 (+2%) and 3,680 in 2017 (+8%)

There was a 3% rise in female prisoners on an average day in 2019 and a 2% increase in male inmates

Remand prisoner numbers rose to 707 in 2019, up from 677 in 2018 and 584 in 2017

There were 490 committals in respect of immigration issues involving 477 detainees (+18% on 2018)

The statistics also show there were 860 committals for the non-payment of a court-ordered fine, which represents an 90% increase (+405) over 2018. Of this 77% were male and 23% were female.

This represents a reversal of the dramatic reduction in fine committals  plummeting from almost 9,883 in 2015 to 455 in 2018  a cut of 95%.

Ms McCaffrey, director-general of the IPS said that they had warned in 2018 of significant increases in prison numbers over a short period of time.

She said these increases were sustained in 2019, which she warned was putting pressure on the system in a number of areas, including prisoner accommodation, the provision of services and the volume of prisoner escorts.

She said while the daily average prisoner number was 3,904 in January 2019, it had reached a high of 4,068 in August.

She said 76% of all committals under sentence in 2019 were for sentences of 12 months or less in 2019, up 2% on 2018.

Ms McCaffrey said that as the countrys only remand facility Cloverhill Prison had a bed capacity of 431, that over 270 had to be put in with sentenced prisoners in other jails.

A further recent feature of remand prisoners is the increasing seriousness of the criminal charges they face, she said

Many of these remand prisoners are required to be detained for much longer periods than was previously the case for remand prisoners, with increasing numbers of them requiring imprisonment at higher levels of security.

The report said that the average annual cost of an available, staffed prison space during the calendar year 2019 was 75,349, a 2% increase on the 2018 cost of 73,802. This was mainly put down to an increase in staffing costs.

Commenting on the report, Minister Flanagan said: I am very conscious of the increasing numbers in custody over recent years, and in particular the rise in offenders committed to sentences of less than 12 months.

These statistics underline the potential benefits and scope to extend the use of community service orders, which oblige an offender - if assessed as suitable - to address their offending behaviour by carrying out unpaid work in the community.

This is something which I would hope the newly established Judicial Council might consider through its Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee. In relation to Covid-19, the Minister noted that no prisoner had been infected with the virus and that the IPS had been internationally recognised for its work in controlling its spread.

He said the IPS had now shared their experience with other countries through the submission of a paper to the World Health Organisation on its approach to the outbreak.

The Minister said that in line with the Government Roadmap, that the IPS has started to assess the ability of each prison to plan for the resumption of some family visits with appropriate safeguards in place.

He added: The Irish Prison Service is committed to reintroducing physical visits as soon as it is safe to do so. While no date has been agreed, we all fully understand how important contact with family is.

"Arrangements that will be put in place have yet to be finalised, but our colleagues in the IPS will provide further information, and a date for the gradual recommencement of visits, to prisoners and their families in the coming weeks.

He said the IPS will provide further updates on the measures that will be put in place to ensure that visiting a prison will be safe for prisoners, families, staff and other service providers, once those physical visits recommence.

- You can read the full report here
[June 15, 2020] Glytec's Glucommander Software Combined with Continuous Glucose Monitoring Enables Patients with Diabetes to Improve Time in Range by More than 25% in Only Four Weeks

Glytec, the only provider of insulin management software across the continuum of care, today published the first proof-of-concept study that combines data from continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems with FDA-cleared software to titrate basal-bolus insulin injection therapy. Results of the study, presented at the American Diabetes Association's 80th annual Scientific Sessions, showed a 26% increase in time in range for participants living with diabetes - an improvement from 48% at baseline to 74% after only four weeks of care. The study evaluated 25 adults who used the Abbott Freestyle Libre CGM system and Abbott LibreLink app on their mobile phone. Patient data was provided to Glytec's Glucommander software - the only cloud-based, FDA-cleared solution for outpatient basal-bolus insulin titration. All participants met the criteria of living with Type 2 diabetes, reporting A1C levels > 8.0%, and owning a smartphone capable of running the LibreLink app. The four-week study began with a nurse educator helping participants set up the Abbott Freestyle Libre 14-day CGM system while collecting baseline data. Participants came to the Atlanta Diabetes Associates office every two weeks for CGM sensor changes, and insulin titration was done during these visits or by phone on the weeks not requiring visits. To obtain updated doses, nurse educators reviewed participant CGM data, remotely generated dose updates from Glucommander, examined the recommendation and passed it on to the patient. No intervention by the licensed provider was necessary. "Many people with type 2 diabetes who have to administer multiple daily injections struggle to reach and maintain a target blood glucose level. But this study shows promising evidence that combining CGM data with titration software could significantly improve the ability for patients to reach a target range uicker than ever before with minimal intervention from their physician," said Bruce Bode, MD, FACE, diabetes specialist at Atlanta Diabetes Associates, Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and Glytec co-founder. "This study will pave the way for potential innovations that can improve the health and lifestyle of millions of people living with diabetes. And in a post-COVID world, removing the need for multiple in-person visits is an enormous benefit for high-risk patients living with diabetes."



Without a combined CGM and Glucommander approach, individuals living with diabetes in the outpatient setting rely on finger pricks and meters to measure blood glucose levels. Patients using these methods traditionally visit their provider every few months to adjust insulin dosing based on historical data, and can go years without achieving their optimal dosing regimen. "This study suggests there is a simplified approach to blood glucose management that provides immediate results and relieves the burden on patients and providers," said John Clarke, RN, CDCES, R&D, Clinical Support at Glytec. "CGM removes the need for painful finger pricks and provides a vast amount of data for Glucommander to create personalized insulin doses. Without the need for provider intervention, patients experience better outcomes and quality of life while doctors can focus their time and resources on high priority cases."

For more information and to review the full study, visit: https://glytecsystems.com/evidence/evaluating-the-impact-of-glucommander-on-improvement-in-time-in-range-tir-in-type-2-diabetes-using-continuous-glucose-monitoring About Glytec Glytec is the insulin management software company for healthcare providers focused on improving the quality and cost of care. Its FDA-cleared titration software and proprietary algorithms power the only solution capable of delivering personalized diabetes treatment recommendations across the continuum of care, from hospital to home. With ongoing support from its team of doctors, nurses and technologists headquartered outside of Boston, Glytec improves outcomes and controls costs for the large population of patients requiring insulin treatment - including those with and without a diagnosis of diabetes. For more information, follow Glytec on Twitter (News - Alert) (@Glytec) or LinkedIn, or visit www.GlytecSystems.com. ECO #0831-A View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005168/en/

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The blowout and fire at the Baghjan oil field in Assams Tinsukia district has not only caused economic losses, which are yet to be estimated but serious environmental damage too. Inhabitants of neighbouring villages have fled and many have been evacuated. About 7,000 people have been put up in relief camps. Two firefighters have lost their lives. The oil well is close to the Dibru Saikhova national park and the Maguri-Motapung wetlands. According to reports, the wetlands, which host a number of bird and fish species, have been completely destroyed. A large number of fish, dolphins and birds have already been found dead. The national park will be affected by the after-effects of the blowout and fire with chemicals settling in on it. It is estimated that it will take years for the park and wetlands to be restored to their earlier state.

Lack of necessary oversight of the operations and negligence by officials have been cited as reasons for the occurrence of the mishap and its mismanagement. The gas leak occurred in a well on May 27. It is surprising that the Oil India Limited (OIL) did not have the technical expertise to handle the leak. It sought the help of foreign experts but by the time they arrived, it was late. While containment efforts were going on, the Baghjan well caught fire. Though it has now been brought under control, it will take some weeks for full restoration of normalcy. There have been similar mishaps in the past at other locations in Assam where oil exploration has been actively done for decades. Some of them were brought under control only after weeks and they too caused much damage and losses. It is surprising that OIL did not have the required technical expertise to handle the blowout and the fire.

The cause of the mishap has not been determined and will be known after an investigation which is underway. Two officials have been suspended for negligence and dereliction of duty. While individual responsibility has to be fixed for the mishap, the entire OIL establishment should be held accountable for the environmental damage. The danger of locating industrial units close to environmentally sensitive areas without safeguards has again been underlined by the mishap. Even when mishaps happen and cause environmental damage, no compensation is usually paid. The processes and procedures for that are complicated and often do not work. In many cases, compensation is not possible, as in the case of the national park and the wetlands.
Jay Pharoah.

Rich Polk/Getty

Comedian Jay Pharoah has posted a video on Instagram showing security surveillance footage of him being detained by Los Angeles police.

The former "Saturday Night Live" cast member said he was told he was detained because he fit the description of a suspect the police were looking for.

Pharoah said he was handcuffed and that one officer put a knee on his neck.

"It wasn't as long as George Floyd, but I know how that feels," he said.

The Los Angeles Police department spokesperson Drake Madison told Insider on Monday that, "The person in the Instagram post was detained as a possible suspect of a crime. It was determined to be the wrong suspect and he was let go. The incident is being investigated."

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Jay Pharoah posted a video on Instagram Friday saying that he was stopped by Los Angeles police in February and one officer kneeled on the comic's neck.

The Instagram post includes security surveillance footage that appears to show four officers approached Pharoah with guns drawn as he's jogging.

In the post, Pharoah said: "They tell me to get on the ground, spread my arms out. They put me in cuffs, the officer took his knee, put it on my neck. It wasn't as long as George Floyd, but I know how that feels."

Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for over eight minutes. An independent autopsy found that Floyd's cause of death was "asphyxia due to compression of the neck and back." Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. The three other Minneapolis police officers who had a role in the killing have been arrested and face criminal charges.

Pharoah said the officers told him that he "fit the description of a black man in this area with gray sweatpants on and a gray shirt." He said they apologized to him and went on their way after they had to head off to another call.

Story continues

"I literally could've been George Floyd," Pharoah, who is was known for his impersonations including former President Barack Obama on "SNL," said. "We as a country can't breathe anymore, and we are tired. We are sick and we are tired of it."

The Los Angeles Police department spokesperson Drake Madison told Insider on Monday that, "The person in the Instagram post was detained as a possible suspect of a crime. It was determined to be the wrong suspect and he was let go. The incident is being investigated."

Madison told USA Today that the "LAPD has provided Pharoah with a document to file a misconduct complaint."

Insider reached out to Pharoah's team and have not heard back at the time of this post.

Read the original article on Insider
Spain will reopen its frontiers with EU countries on 21 June, earlier than originally announced.

Prime minister Pedro Sanchez informed regional presidents in their weekly Sunday morning meeting of a series of new dates on the country's journey into a new normal.

The government, under pressure from the European Commission, has recitifed and brought forward the opening of frontiers originally set for 1 July.

This will allow tourism to help kickstart the recovery of the country's economy, albeit under the shadow of possible new outbreaks of the virus. It shows the great dilemma of this crisis: finding the balance between health and GDP.

Sanchez warned that the "threat of the pandemic is not over", but described the government's plan to ease lockdown as a "success". "The figures are better than I imagined," said the prime minister.

The borders with Portugal will remain closed until 1 July, however, at the request of the neighbouring government.

The British Embassy in Madrid announced in a Tweet on Monday that the Spanish government had confirmed that the UK is included in the group of countries to which border relaxations on 21 June will apply.

With regard to the arrival of tourists from third countries outside the Schengen area, a "list of safe countries" is to be drawn up. Three criteria will be taken into account: the state of the epidemic in that country, reciprocity and health controls. This system will start to operate on 1 July.

The arrival of overseas tourists reopens the debate over the threat of imported cases of the illness. The government said it was sure that new outbreaks would be detected, but at the same time had confidence in the health service's abilty to detect cases early.
Reuters

The Chinese Beidou navigation network will be complete this month when its final satellite goes into orbit, giving China greater independence from US-owned GPS and heating up competition in a sector long dominated by the United States.

The idea to develop Beidou, or the Big Dipper in Chinese, took shape in the 1990s as the military sought to reduce reliance on the Global Positioning System (GPS) run by the US Air Force.

When the first Beidou satellites were launched in 2000, coverage was limited to China. As the use of mobile devices expanded, China in 2003 tried to join the Galileo satellite navigation project proposed by the European Union but later pulled out to focus on Beidou.

In the age of the iPhone, the second generation of Beidou satellites went operational in 2012, covering the Asia-Pacific.

China began deploying the third generation of satellites aimed at global coverage in 2015.

The 35th and final Beidou-3 satellite will be launched this month - the day has yet to be announced - meaning Beidou has more satellites in its system than GPSs 31, and more than Galileo and Russias GLONASS.

With an estimated investment of $10 billion, Beidou keeps the communications network of the Chinese military secure, avoiding the risk of disruption to GPS in the extreme event of a conflict.

Weapons targeting and guidance also improves. When complete, Beidous location services are accurate down to 10 cm in the Asia-Pacific, compared with GPSs 30-cm range.

Beidou was obviously designed a few decades after GPS, so it has had the benefit of learning from the GPS experience, said Andrew Dempster, director of the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research.

It has some signals that have higher bandwidth, giving better accuracy. It has fewer orbit planes for the satellites, making constellation maintenance easier.

Space Silk Road

Beidou-related services such as port traffic monitoring and disaster mitigation have been exported to about 120 countries, state media reported.

Many of those countries are involved in the Belt and Road initiative, spearheaded by President Xi Jinping to create a modern-day Silk Road of trade and investment.

In a 2019 report, the US congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that China promoted launch services, satellites and Beidou under its Space Silk Road to deepen reliance on China for space-based services, potentially at the expense of US influence.

Thailand and Pakistan were the first foreign countries to sign up for Beidous services, in 2013.

Within China, more than 70 percent of mobile phones were Beidou-enabled as of 2019, state media reported, including models made by Huawei [HWT.UL], Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo and Samsung.

Millions of taxis, buses and trucks were also able to receive Beidou signals.

Chinas satellite navigation sector may top 400 billion yuan ($57 billion) in value this year, state media said.

Ahead of the Beidou-3 completion, satellite-related shares have soared.

Beijing BDStar Navigation Co, which makes chips that receive Beidou signals, has surged 34.4 percent this year.
Cancer testing plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic and is yet to recover to normal levels, prompting fears that thousands of Australians could be missing the window for early diagnosis.

Nationally representative figures from major private pathology labs reveal there was 56 per cent less tissue testing in early April than the February average, while cervical cancer screening tests were down 71 per cent and blood tests for prostate cancer were down 58 per cent.

Kirby Lane waited until she had her two children before having surgery to remove her risk of ovarian cancer. Credit:Lee Ilfield

BreastScreen Australia temporarily paused screening in April, and over the past few months, large numbers of people have avoided their GP or delayed following up on referrals because of the risk of COVID-19.

By the end of May, pathology testing had started to recover but was still lower than usual. In the week starting May 25, tissue testing was down 17 per cent, cervical cancer screening tests were down 28 per cent, and prostate cancer blood tests were down 14 per cent, compared with the February average.


The International Space Station will be outfitted with a new toilet later this fall. The current commode is based on 1990s technology used on the Space Shuttle. From Space.com:



It can be clunky to use, particularly for women, and it is "sensitive to crew alignment on the seat," sometimes resulting in messes, according to [a new NASA review of the waste management system].





So NASA has tried to keep the aspects that have gotten positive reviews while trimming mass and volume and making some design changes, like adjusting the shape of the seat and replacing the apparatus that compresses the waste.





Another change mimics a feature of the toilet on the Russian side of the space station, where astronauts simply hook their feet into toe bars, rather than the thigh bars used on the American equivalent to anchor the astronaut in the microgravity environment.
If you are a Canadian citizen who has been out of work due to the ongoing health crisis, you might already be receiving Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments from the government.

When you are out of work, any penny you can get counts. In many cases, the CERB payments are higher than Employment Insurance (EI). Receiving the $2,000 per month CERB money can be fantastic if you meet the eligibility criteria to receive the payments.

However, if you are not eligible, the story might be quite different. If you did not pay a lot of attention to your CERB application and applied for the fund without being eligible for it, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) might ask you to pay back the CERB money by the next tax season.

Quick rollout of CERB

The Canadian government wanted to make sure that citizens can receive aid as quickly as possible. To ensure that the rollout of CERB payments was rapid, the CRA was inclined to approve applications without stringent checks on the eligibility of applicants.

The CRA opted to go for a faster distribution rather than let the most vulnerable Canadians slip through the cracks. This was a necessary measure to ensure that those who need the money the most do not have to wait too long before they get it.

The problem with distributing payments so fast was that many people who were not eligible for the fund also attained these funds from the CRA.

The CRA is aware

The CRA is aware of several cases where ineligible individuals have received, or are continuing to collect CERB payments. There was a case in which a family of three received a total of $12,000 in CERB money in one day. This error might have been possible if each member of the family was receiving two separate CERB payments.

The CRA is keeping track of situations like this, announcing that it would conduct follow-ups with people who received the money in error. While the CRA has not explicitly stated that it would take back the funds, we can be sure that this is not a situation you want to be in with the agency.

Story continues

Are you eligible?

You have to make sure that you are entirely eligible to receive the payments before you apply for CERB. Here are a few of the crucial requirements you have to meet to qualify for the emergency funds:

You must have earned at least $5,000 in the last 12 months.

You cant have earned more than $1,000 in the last two weeks.

You cant be receiving EI benefits.

You cant be receiving small business dividends in the last two weeks.

You cant have been rehired under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) program.

If you fail to meet any of these requirements, it makes you ineligible to receive the funds.

Play it safe

If you are not entirely sure about your eligibility to receive the money, it could be a better idea to avoid CERB altogether and create a way to support yourself through the pandemic financially. An ideal way to make money is to invest in dividend-paying stocks like Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS)(NYSE:FTS) and store the shares in a Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA).

When turbulence hits the markets, Fortis is an ideal asset to target. It is a utility stock that is always considered to be a defensive investment due to its stable dividends and lower volatility compared to the broader market. Fortis can retain most of its income even during periods of economic uncertainty due to the essential nature of its operations.

Storing the stock in your TFSA can help your overall wealth grow due to capital gains. The stock also pays its shareholders dividends that grow as cash in the account.

Foolish takeaway

Any earnings from investments in your TFSA can grow tax-free. Creating a TFSA portfolio of dividend-paying stocks can help you secure a means of substantial passive income.

At writing, Fortis is trading for $50.46 per share with a 3.79% dividend yield. It could be the perfect stock to begin building a dividend-income TFSA portfolio to see you through this crisis.

The post Watch Out! The CRA Can Take Back Your $2,000 CERB appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

More reading

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
Abdominal suturing tests show that the Switch facilitates the use of 'small-bites' technique for sustainable abdominal wall closure, preventing incisional hernia

Study in The Lancet 1 by investigators from Erasmus MC Rotterdam showing 'small bites' should become the standard closure technique for midline incisions

Single patient use Switch device allows for higher precision 'small-bites' suturing of layered abdominal structures, twice as fast as the conventional technique

Laparotomies closed with classical big-bites technique develop a hernia in 5-35% and even up to 69% 2 in high risk patient groups

69% Cost savings of using the Switch with small-bite approach could lead to up to $2 billion per year in the US alone

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mellon Medical, a Dutch MedTech company focusing on the introduction of single handed surgical suturing devices, today announced the signing of an agreement with (medical) technology and systems designer Demcon of Enschede, The Netherlands, to further advance the Switch towards market introduction. The Switch is a (single patient use) precision surgical suturing device for abdominal wall closure, ideal for enabling the 'small bites' technique. This will reduce the risk of complications such as post-surgery incisional hernia, resulting in improved patient outcome and a substantial reduction of healthcare costs.

Along with this agreement Demcon will become a new shareholder in Mellon, contributing to the  4 million in new development funds together with existing shareholders BGV (BioGeneration Ventures), OostNL, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company), David Pyott and Thuja Capital.

Laparatomies: high risk and high health costs

Laparotomies involve large incisions through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity - procedures such as visceral, gynecological, aortic vascular, or urological surgery. In the US, 4-5 million laparotomies are done annually. The current practice is the big-bites technique using the classical suturing tools. Clinical studies have shown that big-bites techniques relate to a high occurrence of incisional hernia of up to 35% and even up to 69% in high risk patients, reducing the patients' quality of life. This also has a major impact on healthcare costs. In US alone, more than 400.000 repairs are done annually, costing more than $4 billion. And still, repair of incisional hernia has a high failure rate of over 30%, even with the use of surgical mesh. Using the Switch with small-bite technique would lead to cost savings of up to $2 billion per year in the US alone.

Lancet Study and preliminary abdominal suturing test in ErasmusMC leading in focus on abdominal small bite approach

A large Dutch investigator funded double blind, multicentre, randomized controlled trial, at surgical and gynecological departments in ten hospitals in the Netherlands, published in The Lancet in 2015, clearly showed that the small bites suture technique is more effective than the traditional large bites technique for prevention of incisional hernia. Therefore, it should become the standard closure technique for midline incisions. Tests with the prototype were done in November 2019 at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, by two experienced surgeons. Their feedback was that the Switch's straight needle for fascia is preferable to a curved needle and that it resulted in more regular suturing patterns. In addition, the surgeons experienced the design ergonomic and easy to use.

Prof. dr. Hans Jeekel, MD/PhD, Full Professor, Erasmus MC, and co-investigator and -author of The Lancet article, commenting on the opportunities of the newly developed suturing device for abdominal wall closing:

"The use of small bites significantly reduces the occurrence of incisional hernias. Therefore, it is essential that the small-bites technique would be used by any surgeon who closes the abdomen after surgery. And if that technique can be accelerated and facilitated with a device, that could be very important."

Jan Benschop, CEO of Mellon Medical, commenting on this new direction of the company, said:

"By working with medical specialists, and the new collaboration with the renowned and highly skilled medical technology designer Demcon, being also one of our key new investors, and ergonomic experts in the development of the Switch, Mellon will be able to reinvent suturing, bringing innovative suturing technology into the 21st century. Our mission is to improve medical procedures by providing the best possible tools. We believe our innovative platform suturing technology will improve patient outcome and reduce overall healthcare costs."

Conventional suturing versus The Switch

Classical suturing is a complex process and takes a long time to learn. Focus is on getting control over the needle. Surgeons using conventional suturing techniques need many coordinated motions using both hands in order to place a single suture. On average, 30% of the operation time is spent on suturing.

Mellon has managed to reinvent the technique of suturing. The Switch can be operated by lightly pinching the double-action buttons with thumb and index finger of one hand. The other hand is free to present the tissue to be sutured. This technique greatly improves the precision and efficiency of the suturing process, as surgeons no longer need to switch the needle between instruments and focus on getting control over the needle.

In the Switch, the needle is always secured in one of the two jaws. The predictable linear path followed by the straight needle causes less motion friction, resulting in a high-quality connection of the tissue layers.

FDA approval and CE mark

Mellon expects market introduction of the Switch - which has been successfully tested by experienced surgeons in the Rotterdam Erasmus Medical Centre - in about 3 years, once final development and the FDA approval process have been completed. The CE mark process runs parallel to the FDA approval procedure, but is expected to be completed after market introduction.

The annual worldwide sutures and suturing devices market size is estimated over $3 billion by 2023.

About Mellon

Mellon Medical was founded with the objective of developing a new medical device that enables more efficient and effective suturing of both tubular and layered structures. Having long been aware of the complexity of suturing such tissue through many years of surgical practice, the founders strongly believed that suturing with one hand could improve the procedure and therefore patient outcome.

Mellon's Switch was designed to accomplish the most accurate suturing in half the time. Its main competitor is classical suturing, done with a needle holder and forceps, as both techniques use a suture thread to ligate the tissue.

Thanks to Mellon's patent portfolio, consisting of four patent applications, the company has effectively protected both its current technology, as well as their possible future diversification, allowing for scalability of Mellon's product offering.

Following a Series A and now B funding round, investors Thuja Capital, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company) and OostNL (Eastern Netherlands Private Equity Company) joined as shareholders as early as May 2013. The first innovation loan was granted by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in 2014. In September 2017 a new financing round of  6 million was closed with BGV (BioGeneration Ventures), personal investor David Pyott, and existing shareholders. These existing shareholders, as well as development partner Demcon, participated in the current series B financing round.

Visit www.mellonmedical.com

References:

1 Deerenberg et al, Small bites versus large bites for closure of abdominal midline incisions (STITCH): a double-blind, multicentre, randomized controlled trial, The Lancet July 16, 2015

2 F. E. Muysoms et al, European Hernia Society guidelines on the closure of abdominal wall incisions, Hernia, 25 January 2015

For further inquiries, please contact:

Mellon Medical

Jan Benschop, CEO

The Hague, the Netherlands

E-mail: benschop@mellonmedical.com

LifeSpring LifeSciences Communication

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Leon Melens

Mob: +31 (0)6-538-16427

E-mail: lmelens@lifespring.nl

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190665/Mellon_Logo.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190667/Mellon_Switch.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190669/Mellon_Switch_1.jpg




More than 100 movie theaters had been forced to pull The King of Staten Island from their schedules and refund pre-purchased tickets after it was revealed Universal executives accidentally booked venues to screen it by mistake.

Director Judd Apatow clarified that the motion picture starring Pete Davidson would only be available to stream at home, tweeting: 'THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND IS ONLY OPENING ON VOD FRIDAY. IT IS NOT OPENING IN THEATERS.'

After a fan tweeted him listings for West Bend Cinema last Wednesday, Apatow replied: 'It won't be playing there. It is a mistake. It is only on VOD.'

Many of the theaters were drive-ins, enabling social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 100 movie theaters had been forced to pull King of Staten Island from their schedules after it was revealed Universal executives accidentally booked venues to screen the new film by mistake. The film stars Pete Davidson (center)

Director Judd Apatow clarified that the motion picture starring Pete Davidson would only be available to stream at home

Shortly after Apatow's tweet, the Warwick Drive-In in New York had to apologize.

'Sorry to inform everyone that The King of Staten Island has been cancelled. We are replacing it with The Hunt [R] at 8:50 which will play with Bad Boys for Life [R] at 10:50,' Warwick Drive-In wrote on Facebook.

'Refunds will be issued to those who purchased tickets on our website for The King of Staten Island/ Bad Boys for Life combo. If you want The Hunt/Bad Boys show, go back to our website, click on Tickets and go from there. Sorry!'

Last Friday, Rustic Tri View Drive In in Rhode Island was still trying to rectify the issue. It appeared they were unable to sell tickets to the movies replacing The King of Staten Island until they had refunded customers for Davidson's flick.

Many also expressed confusion over what movies were playing.

'We are still working on refunds and exchanges for the previous film King of Staten Island in order to release online sales for Aquaslash & Infamous. We will have some tickets available at the gate for purchase. Sorry for the inconvenience,' The venue posted on Facebook.

Shortly after Apatow's tweet last week, the Warwick Drive-In in New York had to apologize

Last Friday, Rustic Tri View Drive In in Rhode Island was unable to sell tickets to the movies replacing The King of Staten Island until they had refunded customers for Davidson's flick

The Fair Oaks Drive-In Theatre in upstate New York was instead screening old movies Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.

The King of Staten Island is semi-autobiographical for Saturday Night Live star Davidson. It's based on life after his firefighter father died in the 9/11 terrorists attacks.

While at the time of filming it was intended for theater release, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the course of movie releases and filming.

But some venues were under the impression the film would be available on the big screen and the small screen simultaneously.

One theater owner told Variety that Universal execs had already riled them up by asking for a split on ticket profits despite the film also being available ondemand. 'They wanted 2019 terms in 2020 conditions,' the independent theater owner said. 'This is a new landscape.'

Another theater owner claimed to Variety about the news last week: 'There was no explanation. They changed their mind.'

The King of Staten Island is semi-autobiographical for Saturday Night Live star Davidson. It's based on life after his firefighter father died in the 9/11 terrorists attacks

A cinema operator said the last-minute panic caused a huge inconvenience last week: 'This caused a considerable amount of ill will with customers who bought tickets online showing up for the Thursday 7 p.m. show.'

They all spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Universal announced the Davidson film would forgo a movie theatre release back in April.

Around that time Universal's Trolls World Tour grossed $100 million in three weeks of streaming and things have looked unsteady for the future of movie theaters.

It prompted AMC's CEO and president Adam Aron to write NBCUniversal's CEO Jeff Shell calling a proposal to release simultaneously in theaters and on-demand 'unacceptable'.

'Universal is breaking the business model and dealings between our two companies,' Variety reported Aron wrote, threatening a ban. A Universal spokesperson said the comments were misconstrued.
When US police flooded the streets around the country to confront protesters two weeks ago, for many it appeared like the army had deployed, with camouflage uniforms and combat gear, heavily armored anti-mine vehicles, and high-powered assault weapons.

That's not by accident. For years the US Defense Department has been handing its surplus equipment over for free to police departments - and the departments, large and small, have revelled in it.

Critics say it has been part of the overall militarization of the police, and helped fuel mass nationwide demonstrations against police abuse and deadly tactics that began after the May 25 killing of a handcuffed African American, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer.

Scroll down for video.

Detroit police, wearing riot gear, line up next to an armored vehicle in preparation to enforce a curfew following a rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Detroit, Michigan

Police in riot gear are seen on an armored vehicle during nationwide unrest following the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Long Beach, California

A heavily armored police vehicle rolls through the streets of Philadelphia at the end of last month

Police received $210M worth of military equipment in 2019 Military equipment given to police by the Department of Defense tripled last year, in a sign of the increasing militarization of American law enforcement, a DailyMail.com investigation has revealed. Data from the Department of Defense (DoD) lists more than $210 million of gear including armored vehicles, rifles and smoke grenade launchers sent to police forces last year - three times the $71 million worth of equipment obtained by cops from the department in 2018. The data also shows a huge spike in the number of items obtained by police from the military, from 25,950 in 2018 to 182,005 last year, which is seven times higher. And figures for just the first quarter of 2020 already show $60 million of military equipment, setting this year's haul to be the most valuable since 2014. Studies show police militarization leads to more killings by cops, and researchers say the true numbers of military items going to police departments could be much higher, as other army gear purchases by police are not tracked by the federal government. Advertisement

As soon as protests began in Minneapolis, the city's troubled police department rolled out armored vehicles appearing more suited to Middle East battlefields.

Other large cities have them too, but also small towns.

In 2013 police in Flathead County, Montana, which has 90,000 residents nestled near the scenic Glacier National Park, received a landmine-resistant armored vehicle, one year after taking delivery of a military transport.

The 10-person (two only part-time) police department in Ada, Oklahoma, population 16,000, got their mine-resistant armored car in July 2019, after stockpiling 34 M-16 assault rifles over the years.

In a country where many people have their own guns and where schools have suffered mass shootings, even local education districts are taking advantage of the Pentagon's handouts.

The 47 primary and secondary schools of the Bay District in Panama City, Florida acquired no less than 27 assault rifles and two mine-resistant armored vehicles in 2012 and 2013.

The '1033' Pentagon surplus program has existed for years.

Since 1997, the US military has distributed used and new equipment ranging from handguns to helicopters to armored vehicles, worth around $8.6 billion, to more than 8,000 federal, tribal and local police forces, according to the US Congress.

In 2015 President Barack Obama severely limited the program, but his successor Donald Trump restored it in 2017.

That year alone, some 500 million pieces of military equipment were transferred to the country's police services under the 1033 program.

But the recent anti-police protests have recharged efforts to stop it.

The data also shows a huge spike in the number of items obtained by police from the military, from 25,950 in 2018 to 182,005 last year, which is seven times higher

Data from the Department of Defense (DoD) lists more than $210 million of gear including armored vehicles, rifles and smoke grenade launchers sent to police forces last year - three times the $71 million worth of equipment obtained by cops from the department in 2018

A Miami Police officer watches protesters from the turret of an armored vehicle during a rally in response to the recent death of George Floyd in Miami, Florida

Army or police? Los Angeles police aboard an armored car in 2019

This week around 200 lawmakers in Congress, mostly Democrats, sponsored a bill, the 'Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act', to again reel in the program.

The bill, in the House of Representatives, would strictly limit the transfer of guns, ammunition, grenades, explosives, certain kinds of vehicles, and drones and other aircraft designed for the battlefield.

A parallel bill is being prepared in the Senate, pushed by Democrat Brian Schatz, who has fought against over-arming the police for years.

'It is clear that many police departments are being outfitted as if they are going to war, and it is not working in terms of maintaining the peace,' Schatz told The New York Times.

Cottage Grove Police Department, near Minneapolis where Floyd was killed, picked up a $705,000 mine-resistant vehicle on March 10

Police officers dressed like soldiers ride an armored vehicle on U.S. Highway 101 as they search for a suspect California last week

Police officers keep watch during a protest on May 28, 2020 in St. Paul, Minnesota

Minnesota State Police officers in front of an armored sheriff's vehicle on May 31, 2020 in Minneapolis, during a protest against police brutality after the killing of George Floyd days earlier

'Just because the Department of Defense has excess weaponry doesn't mean it will be put to good use.'

Schatz and Republican Senator Rand Paul attempted to push through a similar law in 2014, after the first publication of details of the 1033 program, amid the riots over police brutality against African-Americans in Ferguson, Missouri.

The protests and riots that broke out over the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown were met by police officers carrying assault rifles and driving armored cars they got from the Pentagon.
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found here
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:06:58|Editor: huaxia

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KIGALI, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda reported the highest single-day spike of 41 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, taking the total to 582, as a cluster of cases in the western district of Rusizi continue to cause new infections, the Health Ministry said.

Rwanda has also reported 332 recoveries and two deaths, the ministry said in a daily situation update.

The cluster of cases in Rusizi, which borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), are largely found in cross-border drivers, traders and returnees who entered Rwanda, Director-General of Rwanda Biomedical Center Sabin Nsanzimana told Xinhua.

Additionally, the eastern Rwandan town of Rusumo, bordering Tanzania, is another entry point for imported cases into the country. Patients at the Rusumo border post, Rwanda's only border post with Tanzania, are largely cross-border truck drivers and their contacts, Nsanzimana said.

"Rusizi cluster and Rusumo continue to drive (up the number of) new cases; heightened vigilance is required everywhere," the Health Ministry said in a communique. Enditem
What mysteries lie beyond the cosmos? Are we alone in the universe or are there other life forms just waiting to be discovered? It is precisely that childlike inquisitiveness that has contributed to the development of science and its discoveries.

Especially in the questioning of the existence of extraterrestrial life, Area 51 in particular. One by one, conspiracy theories were published and released as to how the U.S. government is keeping its existence a secret.

So imagine when a couple of astronomers discover fast radio bursts (FRBs) that would blow their minds forever.

Shannon Hall, a writer for the Quanta magazine begins detailing the extraordinary find on the morning of April 28 that would change everything.

According to the article, a newly built radio telescope was monitoring the skies of British Columbia when it captured a flash of light. After all, one of its duties was to search for fast radio bursts (FRBs or short-lived pulses of radio waves) which last no longer than a millisecond, it would however always come in blips from very distant galaxies.

But the thing is, hundreds of bursts had been spotted by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), since July 2018. Paul Scholz, an astronomer at the University of Toronto and a CHIME team member described the phenomenon like a Christmas tree, lighting up the telescope as it triggered around 93 antennas of the telescope.

An ordinary burst might be seen by two to five of the instrument's antennas.

Based on a section of Time Now News, one study pointed out that the The study says a mysterious fast radio burst signal came from a dwarf galaxy that is three billion light-years away which appears to be transmitting signals that reach the Earth every 157 days after a series of "fast radio bursts" were detected for 90 days then stopped for a period of 67 days

Read Also: Hackers Blackmail NASA with Ransomeware: DopplePaymer Uses 2,583 Encrypted Servers and Workstations as Hostage

Faulty Reading due to a Technical Issue?

Accoring to Popular Science, the finding still remains unconfirmed because of the possibility of telescope maintainance and fierce competition for observing time. Because the repeater had been switched on during their 120-hour observation of the FRBs, it may have thrown off their results. In order to ensure what they found was correct, they will need to conduct follow-up observations.

"There's definitely something interesting going on here, everyone can agree on that," says Kelly Gourdji, a radio astronomer at the University of Amsterdam who was not involved with this research. "But we're going to have to look to the larger data sets to confirm and to refine."

Is it the Work of Aliens?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said in a recent statement: "The signals are a sign of energetic events that are on the extreme scale of the cosmos. Even a highly intelligent species would be very unlikely to produce energies like this. And there is no detectable pattern so far that would suggest there's a sentient hand at play." This was from an article in USA Today.

It is believed to have been caused by a magnetar blasting out a flare of energy, often in the form of electron and positron pairs.

Read Also: Elon Musk Provides Insight Into Pictures of Ice-Filled Mars' Crater Circulating the Internet
Arlene Phillips attends the Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018. (John Phillips/John Phillips/Getty Images)

Arlene Phillips has commented on rumours Strictly Come Dancing is to include a same-sex dance couple on the next series of the show.

The choreographer, a former judge on the show, said the idea of same-sex couples is not offensive and shouldnt be made a fuss of.

Rumours arose recently after a source reportedly told The Sun that show bosses were considering a same-gender coupling after rival show Dancing On Ice had Steps star Ian Watkins skating with professional Matt Evers.

Read more: The return of Dancing On Ice: It will happen, promises Christopher Dean

Now 77-year-old Phillips, who was replaced on the show by former winner Alesha Dixon, has urged the show to go ahead with plans.

Speaking to The Sun, she said: I feel absolutely you could have male, male, female, female partners, and it shouldnt be made a fuss of.

They are not making a decision to do a defined male or female role. They are dancing together. And I think we should all, let it happen.

Craig Revel Hallwood, Arlene Phillips and Len Goodman during the final dress rehearsal for the first tour of Strictly Come Dancing Live! at the SECC in Finnieston, Glasgow. (Michael Boyd  PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

Dance has to readily move forward and its not an offensive thing.

She also pointed out how same-sex partners in the world of ballroom dancing is not a new idea, as she had often worked with same-sex pairings.

She also created a routine for Anton Du Beke and Judge Rob Rinder for a Grenfell Tower fundraiser.

Phillips left Strictly unexpectedly before the 2009 series and revealed last month she had launched an investigation relating to her dismissal.

Read more: Penny Lancaster: Rod joked he had 'lost' his wife when I was on Strictly

Speaking on the Sods Law podcast, she said: I've got the Freedom of Information and looking at the chaotic way that led up to it was shocking. Most is redacted.

There's some information there and even that's chaotic, let alone what was redacted from the report.

However, she told The Sun she has now decided not to pursue the investigation as there are more important issues in the world, saying the coronavirus pandemic had put it into perspective.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday removed a major obstacle to the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a long-delayed and multibillion-dollar project meant to carry natural gas through some of the most mountainous scenery in central Virginia.

The court ruled that the U.S. Forest Service has authority to grant the pipeline right of way under the Appalachian Trail in the George Washington National Forest.

The 7 to 2 opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline begins in West Virginia and would cross Virginia before completing its 600-mile path in North Carolina.

It has been delayed as builders contend with a host of setbacks handed down by federal courts. None is more crucial than the question of whether the pipeline may cross under the Appalachian Trial.

Judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit threw out a Forest Service permit in December 2018, saying federal law prohibits any agency from approving a pipeline on "lands in the National Park System." That includes the trail, the judges said.

The pipeline's builders, led by Dominion Energy, appealed to the high court, saying the ruling could create an impenetrable wall along the trail's course, which runs from Georgia to Maine.

"Simply put, there is no basis in any federal statute to conclude that Congress intended to convert the Appalachian Trail into a 2,200-mile barrier separating critical natural resources from the Eastern Seaboard," the company told the court.

The plaintiffs note that existing pipelines cross the trail at 34 locations.

The Trump administration weighed in on behalf of the project, arguing that even though the National Park Service administers the trail, the land beneath it is controlled by the Forest Service.

Environmentalists opposing the construction argued that no pipeline has been granted a right of way across the trail on federal land since it became part of the park system. Other crossings are on private or state lands or on easements that predate federal ownership.

Trying to separate the land from the trail is an "elusively metaphysical distinction" that "contradicts the government's own long-standing approach to administering the trail," the groups told the court in their briefs.

Thomas said the land the Appalachian Trail crosses still is under control of an agency that can approve the right of way.

"The lands that the trail crosses are still 'federal lands' and the Forest Service may grant a pipeline right of way through them - just as it granted a right of way for the trail," Thomas wrote.

"Sometimes a complicated regulatory scheme may cause us to miss the forest for the trees," he wrote. "But at bottom, these cases boil down to a simple proposition: A trail is a trail, and land is land."

Sotomayor said the decision was "inconsistent with the language of three statutes, long-standing agency practice, and common sense."

The Park Service is in charge of the land the trail traverses, and federal law does not permit pipelines "across such federally owned lands. Only Congress, not this court, should change that mandate," she wrote.

Environmental groups condemned the decision.

"This is not a viable project," D.J. Gerken, program director of the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in a statement after the decision was announced.

"It is still missing many required authorizations. . . . It's time for these developers to move on and reinvest the billions of dollars planned for this boondoggle into the renewable energy that Virginia and North Carolina customers want and deserve."

Kelly Martin, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign said the "decision is just plugging . . . one hole on a sinking ship. . . . The fracked gas [in the] Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a dirty, dangerous threat to our health, climate and communities, and nothing about the ruling changes our intention to fight it."

Ann Nallo, a spokeswoman for the pipeline and Dominion Energy, backed the ruling.

"Today's decision is an affirmation for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and communities across our region that are depending on it for jobs, economic growth and clean energy," she said in a statement.

"We look forward to resolving the remaining project permits," she said. "For decades, more than 50 other pipelines have safely crossed the Trail without disturbing its public use. . . . The pipeline will be installed hundreds of feet below the surface. . . . There will be no construction activity on or near the Trail itself."

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, also hailed the ruling, saying it "will help put back to work thousands of men and women."

The controversial project has drawn national attention from environmentalists, including former vice president Al Gore. Approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2017, the pipeline initially was projected to cost about $5 billion but has ballooned in price with multiple delays.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, filed a brief on behalf of the project's opponents, arguing that the pipeline threatens "several of Virginia's most cherished places."

Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit threw out a state permit for a compressor station in a historic African American community in Buckingham County, Va., saying the builders failed to consider whether the facility needed to move the gas along its way would unduly harm a minority group.

And the lower-court ruling on the Appalachian Trail crossing had three other elements that are not part of the appeal to the high court. Those judges also said the permit didn't comply with mandatory standards for protecting soil, water and wildlife; that the agency didn't take a hard enough look at landslide and erosion risk; and that the Forest Service rejected alternate routes without fully analyzing them.

The consolidated cases at the Supreme Court are U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Assn. and Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC v. Cowpasture River Preservation Assn.

- - -

The Washington Post's Gregory S. Schneider and Michael E. Ruane contributed to this report.
The letter portrays Warren (D-Mass.) as the best prepared prospect to serve as president and one uniquely capable of helping Biden politically in the November election. It asserts that he is already strong among nonwhite voters but could use help winning over disaffected voters who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the primary  even as some of them have soured on Warren.
Omjasvin MD By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Of the 369 COVID-19 containment zones in Chennai, 37 have been active for more than a month, giving a tough time for officials trying to contain the spread there.

As per the new classification, if a containment zone does not have positive cases for at least 14 days, then it can be denotified. Earlier, till May 18, the denotification criteria used to be 28 days.

As per the data, Royapuram alone has eight hotspots which have been active for more than a month. Officials said that containing the spread in the slums here is a huge challenge.

The spread has been intense in areas like Pudumanaikuppam in Royapuram since May as the neighbourhood is congested, an official with Royapuram zone said.

Raman Street and Pidariyar Kovil Street, which are just 1 kilometre away, have had close to 100 cases so far. Similarly, the neighbouring zone, Tondiarpet, which has 1951 active cases, has three containment zones active for more than a month.

Solaiappan Street, which is about three kilometres long, has been a containment zone since May 13. This street is very long to monitor. There are several markets here that people keep stepping out to. Even a nursing home was temporarily sealed here for treating COVID patients, an official with the zone said.

Worse, one containment zone in Nerkundram and another in Ambatturs Padi Kuppam have been active since the last week of April. Padikuppam was one of the prime hotspots associated with the Koyambedu market cluster.

Cases came up in large numbers in Padi Kuppam during contact tracing of the Koyambedu cluster. Slums are rampant here and there have been about 100 cases here so far, an official with the Ambattur zone said.

On the brighter side, a few zones in South Chennai did not have any active containment zones going beyond a month. They are Zone 8 (Anna Nagar), Zone 10 (Kodambakkam), Zone 15 (Sholinganallur).

GCCs Health Department officials attribute the better containment strategies implemented in South Chennai to the vast geographical area and lower population density.

People dont live close to each other and apartments are more here. So, people were able to quarantine themselves without much discomfort, a top health department official said.

The official added that the 37 containment zones active for more than a month would be the top priority for the corporation. To narrow down on hotspots, the civic body has set up fever clinics for early assessment.

On Sunday, 203 fever clinics were set up across the city and 10,541 people attended. 392 people with Influenza Like Illnesses were sent for tests.

The focus was clearly more on Royapuram, as 65 camps were conducted there and 199 ILI cases were picked up from the 3048 people who attended.

The teams have begun fever camps and door-to-door screening, with focus on the worst affected hotspot. This will show results soon, given that theres going to be a lockdown too, the official said.
A U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagle crashed into the North Sea off the coast of England during a routine training exercise on Monday, June 15.

A spokesperson for the 48th Fighter Wing confirmed the crash in a statement to Business Insider. The cause of the pilot's crash and condition at this time is currently unknown.

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] Texas Police Officer Dies in Plane Crash After Responding to a Bogus 911 Call

Where did it crash?

The US Air Force said in a statement that the F-15C Eagle crashed at about 9:40 a.m. The plane was in Suffolk from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, it added.

The UK Search and Rescue have been called in to assist the crashed aircraft and assist in searching for the crash site, Fox News reported.

The F-15C was part of the 48th Fighter Wing located 70 miles northeast of London, based at the UK's Royal Air Force Lakenheath.

The 48th Fighter Wing had earlier posted a photo of three jets in the air on Twitter Monday.

As part of a four-jet formation, the aircraft had been flying. BBC News Defense correspondent, Jonathan Beale, tweeted the plane incident.

There were sightings of two more fighter jets over Skegness at lunchtime, with one apparently in trouble, and dumping fuel. Since then, three Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers have been seen surrounding the crash site.

RAF spokesman Martin Tinworth said the plane had an "exceptional record of flight safety," The Telegraph reported.

The F15C, a single-seater air defense fighter, is a jet model used by the United States Air Force since 1979.

According to its Facebook page, the 48th Fighter Wing has played a crucial role in counter-terrorism operations and flying combat missions. It also provides fighting support for both Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

RAF Lakenheath is the biggest in the U.S. Base operated by Air Force in England, which is home to at least 4,000 military personnel.

The 48th Fighter Wing is the only F-15 fighter wing of USAF based in Europe. During World War Two, Lakenheath was used exclusively by the RAF. It was abandoned at the end of the war as an operational base.

DailyMail said a U.S. military helicopter crashed off the east coast of England in 2014, killing all four crew on board.

ALSO READ: [BREAKING] Pakistani Plane Crashes in a Residential Area, Carrying Over 100 On-Board

Other departments on its way for search and rescue operations

Defense and Security reporter Alistair Bunkall of Sky News said the area where the plane came down is being used for training missions by U.K. and U.S. military jets.

He added that, at the time of the incident, he understood four military jets were in the air.

After receiving reports that a plane had gone down 74 nautical miles off Flamborough Head into the sea, the Coastguard said it was coordinating the response.

A helicopter was sent to the scene along with RNLI lifeboats from Bridlington and Scarborough.

The Coastguard said other vessels are almost heading to the scene after a Mayday broadcast.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
A 19-year-old woman has been beheaded by her husband after running away just two days into their forced marriage.

The 23-year-old man, who is also his wife's cousin, handed himself into the Valiasr police station in Abadan, southwestern Iran, at around 10.30pm on Sunday, while holding a bloody knife.

He told officers that he had beheaded his wife due to her 'infidelity' and had left her decapitated body by the Bahar 56 area next to the Bahmanshir River, reports Iran International TV.

The police said in a statement that: 'A young bride ran away from home with another man two days after the wedding a year ago.

A 19-year-old woman (pictured) has been beheaded by her husband after running away just two days into their forced marriage

'The young groom searched for his wife for a year until he found her in Mashhad (600 miles away) and gave himself to her under the pretext that he had forgiven her.'

During the interrogation, he reportedly told the police that she was born in 2001 and was his cousin, and also informed the police that he had removed his wife's head at the 'right time'.

According to Iranian law a man can kill his wife without punishment if he catches her with another man, but the young woman's attempt to leave her husband has led to local media reports citing her as the 'runaway bride'.

The so-called honour killing took place in the Khuzestan province of Iran, which is known to have a problem with honour killings.

According to social pathologists, many men who commit honour killings suffer from physical and mental illnesses and consider their wives and daughters to be part of their property.

The man beheaded his wife, believed to be his cousin, and left her decapitated body by the Bahar 56 area next to the Bahmanshir River

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the former Chief Justice of Khuzestan Province, considers the occurrence of honour killings to be a serious problem in Khuzestan province

Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the former Chief Justice of Khuzestan Province, considers the occurrence of honour killings to be a serious problem in the province.

He stated that the roots of honour killings in Khuzestan have been 'institutionalised' and said: 'Local custom allows these killings to take place, and the perpetrators of these killings are by no means fugitives.

'Also, unfortunately, honour killings take place in this province in a very tragic way, and the victims' family does not normally demand the punishment of the murderer.'

The news comes as the Iranian Guardian Council approved a bill to protect minors, after the law's delay was blamed for the murder of Romina Ashrafi, who was killed last month by her father.

The news comes as the Iranian Guardian Council approved a bill to protect minors. Pictured: spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abassali Kadkhodaei

Following initial outcry over Romina's death, the Iranian top body responded by denying negligence and implying that honour killings would not be prevented by the law.

The spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abassali Kadkhodaei said: 'A single law cannot solve problems of this kind, which has cultural, social and sometimes economic roots,'.

Editor of Iran International Sadeq Saba said: 'The latest murder of the 19-year-old woman in Khuzestan, demonstrates that there are not enough protections in place for women across Iran.'

He added: 'Although the regime denies that it is to blame for the number of honour killings in Iran, more must be done to protect vulnerable women in forced marriages.'
Nepal-India relationship should not deteriorate over the border row as the landlocked country is dependent on its southern neighbour for all the essential items and it would be unwise to consider China as an "alternative", a leading Nepali economist said on Monday.

Commenting on Nepal's move to amend the Constitution for incorporating India's territory of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, Dr Posh Raj Pandey, the executive chairman of the South Asia Watch on Trade Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), a consortium of South Asian NGOs, said that its economic impact will depend upon how India reacts.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 05:18:16|Editor: huaxia

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Combo photo shows the close-up shots of Malcolm Harsch (L) and Robert Fuller widely circulated on the Internet in recent days. (Xinhua)

"Two Black men were found hanging from trees in California in the last 2 weeks... Authorities are calling them suicides. What Black man do you know who hangs himself from a tree? These are lynchings. Not 'modern day lynchings,' old school ones," tweeted Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles.

LOS ANGELES, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Authorities are investigating two separate hanging deaths of African American men in Southern California as "Black Lives Matter" protests continue to spread across the United States.

City and county officials have called for an independent investigation into the death of Robert Fuller, 24, who was found hanging from a tree early Wednesday near the city hall of Palmdale, Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.

Protesters marched from the site of Fuller's death to the Sheriff's Department station to demand an investigation.

Undated web photo shows 24-year-old African American Robert Fuller in jubilant mood. (Xinhua)

The Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroner's office initially called the death a suicide. Fuller's family and civic leaders quickly pushed back, insisting that it be investigated as a homicide and demanding an independent probe and autopsy. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger also requested that California Attorney General Xavier Becerra conduct an independent investigation into Fuller's death, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Fuller is the second African American man whose body was found hanging in a tree in Southern California in less than two weeks.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said the investigation into the death of Malcolm Harsch, 38, is ongoing, reported the newspaper.

Undated web photo shows 38-year-old African American Malcolm Harsch in a vehicle. (Xinhua)

Harsch's body was found on May 31 near the Victorville City Library.

The County Sheriff's Department said Saturday that foul play was not suspected in the death of Harsch. But in a statement to a Southern California news outlet, the Victor Valley News, Harsch's family said they find it hard to accept his death was a suicide, noting that Harsch had recent conversations with his children about seeing them soon and that he did not seem to be depressed to anyone who knew him.

"Two Black men were found hanging from trees in California in the last 2 weeks... Authorities are calling them suicides. What Black man do you know who hangs himself from a tree? These are lynchings. Not 'modern day lynchings,' old school ones," tweeted Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles on Sunday. 
Atlee, the young filmmaker is on a high with the success of his last outing Bigil. Recently, it was reported that Atlee might join hands with Thalapathy Vijay once again, for the actor's 66th outing in Tamil cinema. However, the sources close to the hitmaker are now suggesting a different story.

If the latest reports are to be believed, Atlee is not directing Vijay but is joining hands with talented actor Jayam Ravi for his next directorial venture. As per the reports, the young filmmaker recently narrated a story idea to Ravi and the actor totally loved it. The sources suggest that Atlee has already kickstarted the pre-production of the project.

The Bigil director is expected to make an official announcement on his upcoming Jayam Ravi starrer in a couple of weeks if things go as planned. The movie will be bankrolled by one of the leading production banners of the Tamil film industry. The team is yet to finalise the title, female lead, and rest of the star cast of the project.

Atlee has earlier associated with Thalapathy Vijay for the blockbuster films Theri, Mersal, and Bigil, which were released in 2016, 2017, and 2019, respectively. Vijay-Atlee duo has been considered as one of the most successful actor-director duos of the contemporary Tamil cinema. Even though the duo is not joining hands right now, they might reunite for a new project mostly by next year.

Along with his Tamil directorial career, Atlee is also planning to make his Bollywood debut very soon with a Shah Rukh Khan starrer. If the reports are to be believed, the actor has narrated a couple of ideas to the Badshah of Bollywood, including the remake of his blockbuster outing Theri. The Shah Rukh Khan-Atlee project might be bankrolled by Karan Johar, for Dharma Productions.

Also Read:

Dhanush-Mithran Jawahar Project: Here's A Major Update!

Malavika Mohanan Reveals How She Bagged Master; Says The Vijay Starrer Happened Because Of Petta!
REMOTE meetings are still throwing up issues for Henley town councillors.

At recent meeting of the planning committee, which took place on the Zoom service, Councillor Donna Crook apologised to colleagues when they were interrupted by Binky, her terrier cross, barking in the background.

Councillor Crook tells me: Shes quite a little madam. I was fidgeting quite noticeably in the last full council meeting because I was trying to keep her entertained off camera.
In a historic victory for gay and transgender rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity  discrimination currently allowed by laws in 27 states.

In a 6-3 decision, the court said the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars employers with 15 employees or more from discriminating on the basis of sex, requires them to treat male and female employees equally regardless of their sexuality or biological gender at birth  regardless of whether they are gay or lesbian, straight or transgender.

The ruling was not widely expected from a court with a conservative majority. Even more surprising was the identity of the author: Justice Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of President Trump.

An individuals homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions, Gorsuch wrote. Thats because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.

Though members of Congress who passed the Civil Rights Act may not have intended to apply it to gay, lesbian or transgender workers, Gorsuch said, the wording of the 1964 law explicitly requires equal treatment of individuals regardless of gender.

If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employees sex when deciding to discharge the employee  put differently, if changing the employees sex would have yielded a different choice by the employer  a statutory violation has occurred, Gorsuch said.

He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. In an opinion joined by Thomas, Alito accused the majority of legislating from the bench and called its reasoning preposterous.

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

If every single living American had been surveyed in 1964, it would have been hard to find any who thought that discrimination because of sex meant discrimination because of sexual orientation  not to mention gender identity, a concept that was essentially unknown at the time, Alito said.

In 1964 homosexuality was thought to be a mental disorder, and homosexual conduct was regarded as morally culpable and worthy of punishment, Alito said. While those views are generally rejected today, he said, they show that the federal law was not intended to cover gays or lesbians.

In a separate dissent, Kavanaugh, Trumps other appointee, acknowledged that the ruling was an important victory for the gay-rights community but said it misinterpreted the law.

Millions of gay and lesbian Americans have worked hard for many decades to achieve equal treatment in fact and in law, Kavanaugh wrote. Under the Constitutions separation of powers, however, I believe that it was Congresss role, not this courts, to amend the law.

The decision comes five years after the court ruled that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry their chosen partner, and seven years after the justices allowed same-sex marriages in California. But as gay-rights advocates observed at the time, under those rulings a gay or lesbian employee could be legally married on Sunday and, in many states, fired from work on Monday.

For the first time in the countrys history, LGBTQ people in all 50 states are guaranteed the protection of the law when it comes to hiring, firing and their terms of employment, said Nan Aron, president of the civil rights group Alliance for Justice.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the ruling brings the country in line with what has long been California law. Californias Democratic senators, Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, both praised the decision, and Feinstein called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on legislation that would add the same protections against discrimination to laws on health care, education and housing.

On the other side, Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, said the ruling was an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy.

The court had ruled in 1989 that a worker could not be fired for not conforming to male or female stereotypes in appearance or behavior, but Mondays ruling was its first ever on transgender rights. Gorsuch said he reached his conclusion because the law treats employees as individuals, not as members of groups.

An employer who fires a woman, Hannah, because she is insufficiently feminine and also fires a man, Bob, for being insufficiently masculine may treat men and women as groups more or less equally, he said. But in both cases the employer fires an individual in part because of sex.

The court ruled in the cases of Gerald Bostock, a gay man fired as a child welfare worker for a county in Georgia; Donald Zarda, a gay man fired as a skydiving instructor in New York; and Aimee Stephens, a funeral home worker in Michigan who was fired after coming out as transgender. Zarda died in a skydiving accident in 2014, and Stephens died last month. Their estates took up their lawsuits.

Today, we can go to work without the fear of being fired for who we are and who we love, Bostock said in a statement released by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group.

The case was limited to employment disputes and left other issues unresolved. Gorsuch, in the majority opinion, noted that the court was not addressing disputes over school restrooms and locker rooms for transgender students or claims that equal treatment would violate an employers religious rights.

Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press

The justices are due to rule shortly on Trump administration rules that would allow employers to deny contraceptive coverage to employees for religious or moral reasons. But Mondays ruling could doom another recent administration rule that would let employers deny health coverage, under the Affordable Care Act, to gay, lesbian or transgender employees. That law also prohibits discrimination based on sex.

Another unresolved issue is the administrations nearly total ban on transgender military service, covered by laws separate from those regulating private employers.

There are still a lot of questions the court left open for the future, said Luke Boso, a University of San Francisco constitutional law professor. But he said the court likes to stay close to where public opinion is, and polls indicate majorities in favor of equal treatment for LGBTQ persons.

Matt Coles, a law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco, recalled a 1979 ruling by the federal appeals court in San Francisco that said it was obvious sex discrimination laws did not apply to lesbians or gays. In the current case, he said, lower courts, and Mondays Supreme Court majority, found it equally obvious that the laws applied more broadly.

What changed, I think, is the social understanding of who gay people are, who LGBT people are, Coles said.

The Supreme Court case is Bostock vs. Clayton County, 17-1618.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
Photo credit: Varjo

From Popular Mechanics

Varjo, a virtual reality company based in Helsinki, Finland, has designed a VR training program for astronauts planning to take flight aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.

The goal is for astronauts on the first crewed Starliner mission to have hundreds of hours of training under their belt, before ever leaving the Earth's atmosphere.

Through the VR system, astronauts can prepare for pre-launch, docking, and landing all in one place.

Boeing will hold its second Orbital Flight Test for its CST-100 Starliner sometime this fall, following last year's attempt, which failed due to software errors. And even though Starliner's first crewed launch won't happen until 2021, the astronauts who will one day fly to the International Space Station (ISS) in the crew capsule are already hard at work training for pre-launch, docking, and landingall in virtual reality.

In a press release, Boeing announced the members of Starliner's crew are using a new VR system to train right from their offices, without always having to rely on physical simulators the size of flight decks. Eventually, the goal is to integrate the VR system into Boeing's overall training network, so that flight controllers in Mission Control can use either VR or the physical simulator to practice alongside the headset-clad astronauts.

VR isn't all that new for astronauts, as NASA has used the technology for space walk preparation in the past. However, the new VR training system is the first full-scale program that allows astronauts to test every part of a mission in one place. While Boeing isn't looking to replace its two existing fixed simulators, it sees the VR system as a nice complement.

Varjo, a VR company based in Helsinki, Finland, developed the system, working with Boeing engineers to integrate it into their existing training software. It consists of Boeing-tailored laptops and hand controllers, plus custom Varjo headsets, which the company claims has "human-eye resolution."

Story continues

Photo credit: Boeing

Working with Varjo, the Boeing team could finally recreate a series of display panels in the capsule, which show important flight data, like the velocity and trajectory of the aircraft as it moves through space. That includes two screens, each about the size of an iPad.

These screens were too grainy to read with earlier VR headsets, but with 60 pixels per degree in the center of the field of view, astronauts could see the details in the Varjo headset without having to move closer to the simulated screen. That's important, because getting too close to the display panels means obscuring the view of your hands in VRwhich could take away from the astronauts' ability to get the full experience of pressing the right buttons and switches, establishing some important muscle memory.

"This one feels like youre there. You really get the presence of being in the environment, Connie Miller, a programmer with Boeing Houston, who coordinated the system development, said in the release.

Miller and spaceflight training software engineer Jim May have been thinking about ways to incorporate VR into spaceflight training since 2017, according to a Varjo blog post. Before joining forces with Varjo, Boeing developers in Australia had already begun work modeling the Starliner console with Unreal Engine, a 3D-modeling platform that Epic Games initially created for a first-person shooter game.

Photo credit: Boeing

Soon, the Starliner crew will be able to simulate and work through dangerous potential scenarios to build up their decision-making abilities and response times, which should mean a safer spaceflight in real life. The final software tweaks are underway, according to Varjo, and crews should see the headsets in the coming weeks.



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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 12:17:48|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish warplanes launched an airstrike operation against some Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq Sunday night, local media reported on Monday, citing the Turkish Defense Ministry.

The airstrike, coded the Claw-Eagle Operation, targeted a stronghold of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants near the Iranian border and some bases in other areas, the ministry said.

"The PKK and other terrorist elements" are attacking Turkish outposts and bases "every day" and threatening the security of the people of Turkey and its border, it said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for over 30 years, which has caused the death of more than 40,000 people.

Turkey has long been conducting operations against the PKK group in southeastern Turkey and in northern Iraq where the group has hideouts. These operations had been intensified in the past few months. Enditem
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15 June 2020

Travel in the middle of a global pandemic presents challenges, with each activity carrying its own level of risk for coronavirus.

Joseph Khabbaza, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Cleveland Clinic, said some of the biggest questions he's getting relate to travel activities.

Khabbaza, who treats coronavirus patients, said the primary path of transmission is contacts with respiratory droplets produced by infected people. Face masks, physical distancing, frequent hand-washing and cleaning and disinfecting of surfaces have become standard across the travel sector.

"Every industry has interventions in place to make things safer," he said.
Vietnam has puts high hopes on EVFTA, but the COVID-19 pandemic may make the path to realize its benefits a bumpy one.

The news that EVFTA may be ratified and take effect in July did not cheer up Nguyen Liem as Covid-19 severely hit woodwork enterprises, including Lam Viet JSC, where Liem is director.





Vietnams economy returned to a new normal after the social distancing policy was lifted, but woodwork export markets remain frozen.



We have just regained 30-40 percent of the production capacity, Liem said.



If the distributors with 200-300 shops in Europe and America do not returned to normal business, our production activities cannot run as usual, he explained.

Vietnam has puts high hopes on EVFTA, but the COVID-19 pandemic may make the path to realize its benefits a bumpy one.

Asked about EVFTA, Liem said the FTA only helps cut tariff and wont be able to stimulate demand, which is nearly zero in the companys major export markets.



In the most optimistic scenario, if other countries can contain the epidemic, Liem predicted that it would take foreign wooden furniture shops at least 6-7 months to consume all the inventories and products at ports.



Only after they sell the inventories will they think of placing new orders with us, Liem said.



Do Xuan Lap, director of Tien Dat Furniture Corporation, said EVFTA wont help enterprises at this moment. To be able to enjoy the preferential tariff, enterprises will have to standardize the production process and cut the import value in products by 20-25 percent.



At present, enterprises have to import many kinds of materials from China, Malaysia and Indonesia. It will take enterprises time to reduce the import content in the products.



The footwear industry is in the same situation as its exports target the US and EU markets.



According to Diep Thanh Kiet, deputy chair of the Vietnam Leather, Footwear and Handbag Association (Lefaso), the exports in May dropped by half compared with the last year as the major exporters are still struggling to fight the epidemic.



Kiet said EVFTA will be brought into play only when Vietnamese and EU economies are strong. Enterprises cannot get benefits from the agreement if the EU is still busy struggling with the epidemic.



Nguyen Thi Thu Trang from VCCI, said Vietnams export depends on two factors  the purchasing power of the global market and the level of competition with major rivals, including China, Philippines, Myanmar and Bangladesh.



Meanwhile, demand remains very weak because of the pandemic. In Q1 2020, Vietnam had advantages over its rivals which were in economic stagnation because of Covid-19. However, in Q2, its exports also slid because of weak demand from the US and Europe.

Thanh Lich

Vietnam hopes to earn tens of billions of USD from EVFTA implementation Vietnam will be able to reap fruit from the EVFTA if it can improve the legal framework and enhance implementation capability.
Creative's Questionnaire is an interview series where artists, writers, filmmakers, and other creatives talk about their work, the challenges that they face, and their inspirations.

Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  Some people would say photojournalism is dying because of the rise of social media, says award-winning photojournalist Ezra Acayan. But in these uncertain times, when abuses are being done left and right and fake news is everywhere, I think this job is important now more than ever.

We [photojournalists] are the eyes of the public, literally. We shed light onto what needs to be seen, we give voice to those who need to be heard, he adds.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the country, Acayan, who works with Getty Images, has been one of those eyes of the public, revealing the impact of both the disease and the governments attempts at curbing it. His photos show the plight of our frontliners as they contend with the rising number of cases and the dearth of medical supplies and facilities; the struggle for daily wage earners to keep afloat amid government restrictions of non-essential work and public transportation; and the myriad of ways everyday life has changed over the past few months.

Before the pandemic, Acayan covered Dutertes drug war  his photos a painful reminder of the killings and the families left behind in its wake. Along with several other Reuters journalists, he was awarded a special merit at the Human Rights Press Awards in 2017 for his reporting on the war on drugs, and his work has been exhibited in the Universal Periodic Review of the Philippines at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva for two years straight. Together with fellow photojournalist Raffy Lerma and the Nights Watch collective, he was also featured in a National Geographic documentary called The Nightcrawlers, an expose of Dutertes drug war.

When asked how he mentally prepares for the kind of work he does, Acayan says that on top of having undergone stress and trauma training for journalists in the past, he also reminds himself that we are allowed to be vulnerable with the images we see, or the stories we hear. We are humans too, and I think in this work that vulnerability can also be our strength.

He adds, I think the best storytelling comes from those who can empathize with their subjects.

CNN Philippines Life spoke to Ezra Acayan about his experiences covering the COVID-19 pandemic, the biggest challenges faced by photojournalists, and what hes learned on the job. The interview has been edited for clarity.

What do you think are the essential traits of a creative person, especially in your field?

My editor would always ask me before [I go] out to cover a story, What visuals would the story produce? At the end of the day, photography is a visual tool. Before we even take that first picture, a lot of research goes into working on a story. In fast-paced news stories, we think a lot about logistics, while in more in-depth stories, we think about the individual images to build a cohesive and nuanced narrative. The question we always ask ourselves is, What does it take to put myself in a situation to shoot important pictures?

What is the core philosophy that guides your work?

To side with the truth, no matter how one-sided that truth is.

Tell me about your experience shooting daily life amid the pandemic. What have been some of the most unforgettable experiences?

The most unforgettable definitely is photographing inside a COVID-19 ward of a hospital. I had to wear a full PPE (personal protective equipment) suit like the health workers, and at the particular hospital I covered (National Kidney and Transplant Institute), the COVID-19 ward was outside in the parking lot where patients were treated inside tents. You would be sweating buckets if you wore a PPE inside an airconditioned room, but the health workers at NKTI work outside exposed to the scorching sun or the pouring rain. I had a full-face respirator on, and after just a few hours an eighth of the mask was already flooded with my sweat. Most of the time, I couldnt focus on my work, and I was just standing there trying my best not to pass out. But these health workers had to wear these suits in straight 12-hour shifts. They werent allowed to eat, drink water, or go to the restroom during this time, and they had to endure this while making crucial life-saving decisions. The experience gave me a newfound respect for our medical frontliners.

How has the pandemic changed the way you work? In what ways have you had to adapt to the situation?

The one important thing to always keep in mind, and I guess the same goes for everyone, is to think that you do have the virus. In our work, it is always important to ask ourselves: what measures should we take so that we dont infect our families and our subjects? When wearing PPEs, my mindset has never been to protect myself, but to protect the people around me.

Do you have a mentor? Do you think it's important to have one?

My editor at Getty Images, Laurence Tan, always provides important and easy to understand advice and feedback. I consider many of my colleagues as mentors, and would always ask feedback when I need to edit a body of work. A colleague once reminded me that a photographer is always the worst editor of his work.

What skills do you wish you had?

I wish I could write better. I do a bit of writing for my work but I always run out of words especially when trying to describe an extraordinary experience or fleeting and intimate moments that I couldnt capture. I guess Id also like to be a more sensitive photographer.

What do you think are the biggest challenges faced by people in your field today? How do you overcome them?

Lack of budgets and netizen-sourced journalism has forced a lot of photojournalists out of work. I think this is not something that photojournalists can overcome themselves; here in the Philippines alone, I work with a lot of skilled colleagues who work five times harder than me. Publications and newsrooms must (re)discover the importance of investing and supporting quality visuals and storytelling, rather than making use of amateur work, paying meager salary and benefits of their photographers, or, God forbid, using handouts. If you look at the publications that are thriving out there today (TIME, National Geographic, The New York Times, Washington Post, etc.), one thing they have in common are consistently strong visuals and nuanced storytelling.

What myth(s) about your field of work would you like to debunk?

Ninety-five percent of the time it isnt as exciting as it looks. A lot of it is just waiting, or sitting in front of your laptop researching stories and writing pitches.

What have you learned from work that you've applied to other areas of your life?

I can definitely say that the camera has made me a better person. It has made me more understanding of our society, and how we should reach out and help one another. I cant imagine the person I wouldve become if I hadnt held my first camera 12 years ago.

***

More of Ezra Acayan's photographs on his Instagram account.
Photo credit: Dave J Hogan - Getty Images

From ELLE

Angelina Jolie has long used her platform to draw attention to global injustice. In a new and rare interview, Jolie candidly spoke to Harper's Bazaar UK about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected her worldview, along with how she and her six children have coped with the anxiety of living with this crisis.

Jolie was first asked whether being in lockdown has caused her to reevaluate what's important to her. Jolie said:

I was fortunate years ago to travel with the UN to frontlines around the world and put into perspective what really matters. Having six children, I am reminded daily of what is most important. But after almost two decades of international work, this pandemic and this moment in America has made me rethink the needs and suffering within my own country. I am focusing both globally and domestically; they are of course linked. There are more than 70 million people who have had to flee their homes worldwide because of war and persecutionand there is racism and discrimination in America. A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter [Zahara, Jolie's 15-year-old daughter she adopted from Ethiopia when Zahara was six months old]or any other man, woman or child in our country based on skin coloris intolerable. We need to progress beyond sympathy and good intentions to laws and policies that actually address structural racism and impunity. Ending abuses in policing is just the start. It goes far beyond that, to all aspects of society, from our education system to our politics.

Jolie was then asked what advice she has for teaching children about issues surrounding racism. Jolie responded simply: 'To listen to those who are being oppressed and never assume to know.'

The actress touched on how she and her family have coped with anxious thoughts toward the end of the discussion. Jolie focuses on her children...and their many pets: 'Like most parents, I focus on staying calm so my children dont feel anxiety from me on top of all they are worrying about,' she said. 'I put all my energy into them. During the lockdown, Viviennes bunny passed away during a surgery, and we adopted two sweet little ones who are disabled. They need to be in pairs. They are so gentle and it has helped to focus on their care with her at this time. And on the dogs, and snake and lizard'

Story continues

You can read her full interview here.





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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:13:25|Editor: huaxia

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KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's natural rubber production rose 0.3 percent month on month to 34,616 tonnes in April, official data showed Monday.

The Malaysian Statistics Department said in a statement that the natural rubber grew 2 percent on yearly basis.

However, Malaysia's natural rubber exports fell 10.2 percent month on month to 40,596 tonnes in April.

China remains the primary natural rubber export destination with a share of 48.9 percent of the total exports.

Gloves were the highest exports item, surging 11.6 percent month on month to 1984.4 million ringgit in April.

Driven by high demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia's glove exports to the United States surged 295.8 percent month on month to 97,905 tonnes.

China and Germany were also among the key gloves markets, accounted for 28.8 percent and 9.9 percent of total gloves exports respectively.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's natural rubber stocks increased by 0.5 percent month on month to 321,214 tonnes in April. Enditem
A year ago, you took the office of President of the country thanks to the unique level of support from Ukrainian citizens. You came into politics without any political or governing experience.

I think today you will agree that for the citizens of Ukraine and, I hope, for you, neither of these circumstances is a reason to discard responsibility for what is happening in the country.

This is a huge responsibility that fell on your shoulders in not the simplest moment in both Ukrainian and world history. But history does not take into account the difficulties and disclaimers. It remembers and honors those who coped with the challenges one faced. You cannot give it a script and force it take an extra double.

But I am far from encouraging you to think about your place and role in history. The citizens of Ukraine have called you to the position of the President so that you respond to the challenges you are facing today. I believe that the discussion on solving these problems concerns all Ukrainians, and therefore it should take place in the public spotlight.

The first challenge, which Poroshenko was unable to respond to at the time (the Ukrainian people elected him President for this very purpose), is ending the armed conflict in Donbas and establishing peace in Ukraine.

Today, military servicemen and civilians continue to die and get injured in Donbas. This armed conflict is holding back the development of our country, and 70% of Ukrainians call it a key problem.

The time is inevitably approaching when you will have to answer the question: What has the President achieved in establishing the peace in eastern Ukraine? And you will be surprised how few people, who are puffing up their cheeks today and talk about IDPs representing uncontrolled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Budapest format without Russia and other speculative achievements of Ukrainian diplomacy, will be with you then. There is one real tool for establishing peace - the Minsk agreements. They must be fulfilled. Of course, it is difficult. And the national radicals are absolutely against it. But I hope and sincerely believe that you are not the President of the national radicals, like the former head of state. To solve this problem, you will need strength, support and help, which you will definitely receive, acting in the interests of Ukrainian citizens. All you need is the willingness to act and the determination you need to show.

The second challenge is the tariffs for housing and utility services. They are simply unaffordable for Ukrainians today. Tariffs are inflated and numbers are picked out of the nose. For some traders, tariffs have become a source of enrichment, but for millions of our fellow citizens it is a cause of poverty, it is just robbery of the people. Numerous IMF initiatives aimed at tightening the tariff strangulation only convince people of this. Ukrainians remember well and can easily compare that gas used to cost more, but they paid less.

It is not easy to change this situation. It is the President who thinks of his people who is obliged to fight a numerous gang of tricksters and looters, oligarchs, corrupt officials and international moneylenders who continue profiting from the growing poverty of Ukrainians. You should not be afraid of those who robbed the country under Poroshenko and continue to do so today, because they are robbing you as well, even if you do not notice it yet.

The third challenge is to stop forced Ukrainization. You are a Russian-speaking person so do not make an effort and pretend to be someone else. Do not take the lead from the professional patriots, otherwise you will end up in the same boat with them, and they can do nothing except shouting about the alleged love for Ukraine, their political validity period is short, and, even in their own environment only those of them who stick to certain international grants are held in respect. Protect Russian and minority languages. You will earn respect of the people, gratitude of Russian-speaking citizens and representatives of other nationalities, and objective assessments of foreign partners. In the question of language, in my opinion, you have the strongest legacy of the actor's past - the willingness to play a role and participate in other people's scripts. And what was your strength and demonstration of talent is becoming a weakness today. It happens.

The President must accept the reality in which he exists - the Ukraine you learned about, perhaps even more than you wanted, its problems and difficulties, desires and expectations. But this will inevitably have to be done if you want to build Ukraine, instead of pretending that you are building it, to improve people's lives, instead of carry out reforms.

If you want to make Ukraine a successful country, then you should start with yourself. And to be successful as the President it does not mean to follow the path of concentrating the power, as Yushchenko, Yanukovych and Poroshenko did.

The success of the President primarily depends on building a strong and professional team. And you can only count on those who know how to work, professionally prepared for this and want to achieve the desired result for the country.

Chairman of the Political Council

Opposition Platform - For Life Party

Viktor Medvedchuk
A mural with black hearts and more than 100 colorful handprints now covers the plywood over the front windows of the Pizitz Food Hall in downtown Birmingham.

In early June, the staff at the Pizitz put out a call for a community art project, inviting the public to place handprints on the buildings temporary walls, leaving a mark with a color of their choice.

We wanted to do something that was more community focused and get the community to come down and help just bring some beauty to downtown, said Mindy Rohr, marketing manager for the Pizitz. To bring some light, some love. Thats where the hearts come from.

Rohr and Catherine Holcomb, who manages the residential side of the Pizitz, wanted to design a project that was collaborative but also easy to complete before the buildings food hall officially reopened to allow customers to dine on the premises. They also wanted to pay tribute to the buildings location.

30 Mural day at the Pizitz Building

A vision of hearts and hands coming together, since people talk about the Pizitz being the heart of downtown, said Rohr.

Inspired by some of the murals around the city, she recruited artist Jessica Davis to paint the black hearts. Davis designed and painted the red hearts for a collaborative mural on 1st Avenue South. Located near Rotary Trail, the mural is a depiction of 99 hearts for Birminghams 99 neighborhoods.

Artist Jessica Davis stands in front of the 99 hearts for 99 neighborhoods mural on 1st Ave North. Davis, also known by her artist name Ill Art Peace, designed and painted the hearts. (Courtesy, Jessica Davis)

To facilitate the large scale project, Rohr also reached out to Meghan McCollum, the founder of Blank Space Bham, an organization that develops public art projects for urban spaces.

Blank Space was already in the process of completing a mural on a wall of the parking deck across the street from the Pizitz on Second Avenue. For that project, BHM Artist Collective, REV Birmingham, and Blank Space organized a team of 18 artists to paint a collaborative mural with supportive messages for workers on the front lines of battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

An artist from Bham Artists Collective works on a section of a mural on the parking deck at 2nd Ave North. For the mural, artists in the collective design their own portions. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

An artist from Bham Arts Collective works on a portion of the mural on 2nd Ave. South (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

For the mural at the Pizitz, McCollum tapped a network of volunteer artists to draw outlines and paint the plywood with primer. The morning of Sunday, June 7, Pizitz staff, volunteers and artists set up tables outside of the building with bottles of brightly colored acrylic paint.

They placed buckets of water near the tables and under a tent for guests to wash their hands. Cautious to help people protect themselves and others amid the pandemic, the volunteers set out boxes of complimentary masks.

From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., visitors came to place their handprints on the plywood wall. Some already knew about the mural. Others learned about the project through word of mouth or social media. Still, others saw the crowd gathered in front of the building and decided to join in.

That afternoon, volunteers squirted dollops of paint into hands and walked around with bottles of soap, ready to give a spritz to painters who were ready to rise their hands. Children giggled as they pressed their palms onto the wall. Nearby, onlookers took photos and cars honked in support as they drove by.

A volunteer helps a young girl at the paint table in front of the Pizitz on June 7, 2020. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

Two girls press their palms together during a mural day at The Pizitz building. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

Hundreds gathered on Sunday, June 7 to place their handprints on the wall of the Pizitz for a community mural project. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

I think its bringing a lot of people together when its a good time that we needed, said Shweta, one of the volunteers, who preferred not to give her last name. Its bringing a lot of smiles to faces even though a lot of the smiles have been covered up with a mask.

Windows around downtown Birmingham have been boarded up since June 1 after an otherwise peaceful protest to remove the Confederate monument in Linn Park devolved into an ugly aftermath as the crowd split up and groups wreaked havoc downtown, breaking windows and vandalizing property.

Murals have popped up across the city as people paint over the boarded up windows, turning the plywood into art. That Sunday, around the same time a few blocks away, volunteers spent hours painting Bham Strong. Be safe. Be Well. over the plywood at the Alabama Theatre.

Along 3rd Ave. North ner the Alabama Theatre. Artists have made downtown Birmingham look a little brighter after painting colorful murals on plywood after the protests. Here's a look at some of the art work. (Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com).Joe Songer | jsonger@al.com

Public art projects are ripe for fostering social commentary, and the core of Blank Spaces mission is steeped in the transformative power of public art.

Street art is always an opportunity to intervene in our spaces, said McCollum. As people and our places, we can see ourselves reflected in them.

Through the citys community art projects, says McCollum, people have an opportunity to shape what Birmingham is and take control of that narrative. And projects like the mural at the Pizitz are a chance to show solidarity.

(left to right) Jessica Davis, Shweta, Meghan McCollum, Carey Fountain, and Jonathan Evans (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

Artists Mikala Buwalda ,Becky Delgado, and Lydia Walker placed their handprints on the mural at the Pizitz earlier that Sunday, then returned later during the day. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

Art is an opportunity to put our voice physically on the streets of our home. And I always think of it as, when someone asks where youre from, theyre also asking who you are.

Street art, at its root, should be accessible -- either to create or to view. And projects that involve the community should set a level playing field. In this case, McCollum says creating that field means making room for people who are overwhelmed by current events and dont know what to do right now.

And they feel paralyzed in their activism. This (art) is simple, this is approachable. And thats what street art is. Its accessible. You dont have any pre-qualifiers. You can just come to the space as you are and do your part, said McCollum. And weve seen itty bittys and the elderly and people of all abilities come out. So I think its about creating access, which really is about echoing the movement of whats happening now.

A little girl puts her handprint on the mural at the Pizitz on Sunday, June 7, 2020. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

On Saturday, June 6, the Pizitz had posted an Instagram photo of the buildings newly primed plywood with large black hearts and the message  I believe in you, Birmingham. Its a quote from the buildings founder Louis Pizitz, who died in 1959. With the post, organizers invited community members to participate in the mural project the following day.

It is a beautiful thing when we can all come together and show our support for peace and equality, the post said.

However, some commenters considered the use of Pizitzs quote to promote unity to be tone deaf, especially as the city grapples with its history after the removal of the Confederate monument in Linn Park and the groundswell of protests around the Birmingham area demanding justice for George Floyd and past black victims of police brutality.

Great work, but didnt the Pizitz not allow black patrons in its early days? Seems kinda weird to want to use this movement and moment to wash your hands of the segregation that Mr. Pizitz called for, wrote @tkbpodcast.

Please acknowledge that this quote is in extremely poor taste, as this man was one of the biggest segregation influencers of his time, @sufiatortilla commented.

In the 1960s, the Pizitz, like many of the buildings downtown, was segregated. In the spring of 1963 civil rights leaders led sit-ins at major downtown retailers. Rather than serve black patrons, store managers at the Pizitz, S.H. Kress, Woolworths and Britts closed their counters and dining areas. Debilitating pressure from economic boycotts eventually caused retailers to coordinate desegregation efforts. Down the line, the stores would designate days to remove markers of segregation. The colored and white signs on drinking fountains were removed first. Lunch counters and restaurants came weeks later.

Some of the citys residents would like to see more accountability from some of the murals and community street art projects emerging in the city.

Birmingham native Carmen Mays says clamoring to decorate the plywood comes across as a rush to evade unpacking the context and nuance around the protests, especially as speakers at demonstrations in Birmingham note the citys prevalence as the battleground of the civil rights movement.

What it is to me is avoidant, said Mays. Theres this notion that we have to move past it. As opposed to sitting with the grief of not only George Floyds murder. But (also) Ahmaud Arberys, and Breonna Taylors.

The day after the mural at the Pizitz was complete, Mays detailed her thoughts about some of the citys new street art on Twitter.

Community art that dont require reckoning arent helpful. Community art that dont challenge participants have no more effect than mass produced wallpaper, she tweeted in a thread. Your art needs to punch folks in the face & spark a reformation. We dont need beautiful backdrops for our deaths.

Mays says she hasnt traveled downtown to see the murals; shes trying to follow recommendations to stay home as much as possible to limit the spread of COVID-19. But she has seen photos of the art, including the mural at the Pizitz, on social media.

Mays, who has a Masters of Public Administration from UAB and is the founder of Elevators, an organization focused on building business opportunities for people of color in the creative industries, would have liked for the Pizitz to create a project or use a description that was more cognizant of its place in the citys history.

Being from Birmingham, where black people have had a very violent relationship with space-- public spaces in general -- it just has always shaped how I viewed a lot of things, said Mays.

I just wanted to call attention to the cycle that usually happens when we move so quickly past things, she added. And its really an effort for white people to not feel anything. And no, you need to feel something. You need to let it sit in your spirit.

To Mays, feel-good public art projects need to come with solid statements that assert a stance on equality or indicate work to engage the community.

We dont need an amen corner. We need people actively doing things in a very active, anti-racist way, said Mays.

People are using art to just skip a step in the grieving process and saying, We need unity. No, we dont need unity. We need to grieve and reflect so we can make better decisions going forward.

***

Jessica Davis says the emergence of the new street art is a chance for black artists to shape the narrative of the city and put Birminghams history into the context of current events.

Ive done portraits from the civil rights movement. Those are our heroes, really. Because, without them doing (what they did) we wouldnt have what we have now," she said. Davis recalled a portrait she did of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth as part of Birminghams contribution to For Freedoms, a massive public art project designed to spark a national conversation about art and politics.

Jessica Davis designed and painted the hearts on the mural at the Pizitz building. Especially in times like this, art activism is its own thing. And art has the ability to bring people together and reveal messages that people didnt even think about," said Davis. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

And especially to be a black creative right now and inspire something at the Pizitz. Its a big deal, said Davis. Especially in times like this, art activism is its own thing. And art has the ability to bring people together and reveal messages that people didnt even think about, said Davis, who also recently completed a mural on Second Avenue near a law firm.

We did justice scales. Its important to show how much is a black life worth right now?' And it really speaks to whats going on, said Davis.

Some black families who visited the Pizitz mural that Sunday used the community art project as a visual aid to help with tough conversations about racism and police violence.

Neshelle and Melvin Vance learned about the project at the Pizitz earlier that day from a group of artists who were working on another mural downtown. Their children, Arianna,10, Melo, 4, and 7-month-old August wore T-shirts with the message My Life Matters. Neshelle had asked Melvin to design the shirts for the youngsters to teach them about recent events.

We wanted it to be personal. Of course its in support of Black Lives Matter. It means that their lives matter too. Theyre black and they matter too, said Melvin.

The Vance family smiles for a photo in front of the mural at the Pizitz building. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

We wanted them to be a part of this history, said Neshelle as she took a photograph of Arianna and Melo near their handprints on the mural. This is going to be in the history books. Were having to teach them so young. But they need to know.

One thing that we try to make sure that they know is that there is more love than hate. But unfortunately, there are people in this world who see us differently. And so, we take it slow with our son, because hes just 4. He cant comprehend it all. But with my daughter, we just want her to be aware that some people look at us differently and its unfortunate, she added.  And, you know, we have to make sure we are careful and we respect police, but we also are aware of the times.

The Vances dont want to instill fear in their children, but they do want them to be mindful -- mindful that some people in the world wont like them because of the color of their skin, but also mindful that the world isnt only full of hate.

Theyve eased their way into conversations about race and history with Arianna, who goes to Oak Mountain Elementary School.

In that area, there isnt the black history that I would like her to hear about, said Melvin. Not in that school system.

The couple plans to bring her to downtown Birmingham more often to show her the buildings and explain the events of the past few weeks.

With everything going on in the world, right now, we want to make sure that were teaching her whats going on, said Melvin.

"My dad made it, actually. He makes a lot of shirts," said 10 year-old Arianna Vance. "It just kind of symbols 'Black Lives Matter.' But it says 'My Life Matters.' Yeah, I really like it. Its pretty inspiring actually." Arianna loved the colors of the handprints on the mural. "Its actually really pretty. The people who made this are pretty talented.

I just think its a beautiful thing. It promotes unity in the city," said Melvin Vance. "I know these guys are the ones that actually did it. Its just a wonderful thing that theyre doing. "

Through their talks with their daughter, Melvin and Neshelle also want to show their daughter that everybody is equal -- and they say projects like the mural at the Pizitz can help with that.

Just looking around, you see not only just blacks out here. You see white. You see all ethnicities out here. I think its a beautiful thing. I think its one of the things that the city can do to bring all of us together, said Melvin. Just showing some unification in all the madness thats going on right now. Its a beautiful thing. It really is."

Abijah and Kenneth Cunningham have been trying to get their son Kaleb ready for the challenges hell face as a teenager and, eventually, a young black man.

No matter how much education. No matter all the things we teach him. (Saying) Yes maam, No maam, doing right and wrong. We still have to prepare him for whats to come in the world, said Abijah.

She says her son, at only 10 years old, still doesnt understand why there are people who hate him because of the color of his skin. The couple says that, in addition to explaining history to their son, they have incorporated lessons about social change.

We just wanted to show him that you cant be silent. You have to open up and talk and change will come, said Kenneth.

Kenneth Cunningham watches as his daughter, wife, and son pose for a photograph after putting their handprints on the wall of the Pizitz. (Shauna Stuart for AL.com)

Kenneth and Abijah Cunningham have had talks with their children, Kaleb, 10, and Addison, 7, about race and the world. Kaleb says his parents have spoken to him about the death of George Floyd. It hurt me very much. And like, when I saw what happened, I just started to cry," Kaleb told Al.com " And I said to God, why does this have to happen? And what does does racism have to be a thing."

Theyd spoken to Kaleb about the removal of the Confederate monument, but they hadnt yet gone into detail.

Thats the point of being out here today, said Kenneth To put a visual with the conversation (and) kind of bring everything together.

Through their talks, theyve seen their two children, Kaleb and 7-year-old Addison, gain a gradual understanding of the race and the world.

You can see how the world is changing and protesting for Black Lives Matter," said Abijah. Yes, everybody matters. But right now, we need them to understand that we matter as well.
Electric vehicle charging network Evie Networks boss Chris Mills is hoping its tie-up with the $7 billion fuel giant Ampol is the first step in helping service stations make the transition from petrol bowsers to charging stations.

Backed by coal baron Trevor St Baker, Evie is working with newly rebranded Ampol on a pilot program to install charging stations at six locations. It is part of Evies goal to roll out a network of 42 electric vehicle charging stations across Australia's east coast and Mr Mills said the partnership offers a glimpse of the infrastructure that will be needed to cater to the influx of electric vehicles on Australian roads.

Chris Mills, chief executive of Evie Networks, at the opening of an electric vehicle charging station in Avenil.

"It's a disruptive technology as far as the petrol industry is concerned," he said.

"The petrol retailers are all looking at this and trying to understand what it might mean for them and partnering with us gives [Ampol] insight into what are the behaviours of an electric vehicle driver. There's a natural win-win."
CHICAGO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ocient , a Data Analytics Solutions (DAS) company that is building ultra-large-scale relational database software and software-as-a-service for the worlds largest datasets, announced today that it has raised an additional $15 million on top of the $10 million it announced in March 2018. This investment, led by Chicago-based OCA Ventures and with participation by In-Q-Tel, Inc. , will support continued research and development, recruiting, business development and sales efforts.



Co-founded in March 2016 by Chris Gladwin, Joseph Jablonski and George Kondiles, Ocient will transform how organizations analyze immense amounts of data with unmatched price/performance levels.

The Ocient DAS can hold quadrillions of rows of data, ingress billions of rows per second, and filter and compute trillions of rows per second. Deployed on industry-standard hardware or the public cloud, it is built for organizations where NoSQL databases and Hadoop fall short of their needs for:

Complex SQL and intra-database machine learning on multi-petabyte scale-out datasets.

Interactive query response time and second to sub-second data latency.

Mission critical insights that currently are only aspirational due to cost and performance limitations.

By fundamentally rethinking database architecture, the Ocient DAS has achieved performance levels that are orders of magnitude better than competitive products and runs on modern commodity hardware utilizing massively parallel processing on large core-count systems:

Benchmarks at five to 1,000 times faster  and typically around 50 times faster  than high-performance alternatives like Presto.

1,000 times faster than leading MPP, NoSQL and Hadoop-based databases when querying a large dataset (with same hardware, queries and data).

Analytics that once took one hour now take 10 seconds or less.

The exponential growth of data will make todays big data solutions woefully inadequate for organizations analytics needs in the not-too-distant future, said Gladwin. Ocient is purpose-built for gaining insights in interactive time from the data tsunami every enterprise is tackling not just now, but for many years into the future.

OCA Ventures, which led the round, was the first institutional investor in Gladwins prior startup, Cleversafe, a leading developer of object storage software and systems. After achieving successful market adoption, Cleversafe would eventually sell to IBM for over $1.3 billion in 2015.

As an early stage venture investor, OCA Ventures is committed to backing brilliant innovators as they commercialize upon dramatic marketplace opportunities. Entrepreneurs are central to OCA Ventures investment philosophy, and we are thrilled to partner again with Chris, Joe and George, said OCA Ventures Founding Managing Partner, Jim Dugan, who joined Ocients Board of Directors. Chris experience helping organizations cost-effectively and reliably store ultra large data provides Ocient a unique vantage point for understanding how organizations are struggling to actively analyze massive data sets.

Also participating in the funding round is In-Q-Tel, the strategic investor to the U.S. Intelligence and National Security community.

Steve Bowsher, Managing General Partner and Executive Vice President at In-Q-Tel, said, In-Q-Tel is looking forward to partnering with Ocient in order to support the needs of our Intelligence and National Security partners.

Team and Advisory Board Additions

So far in 2020, Ocient has hired 15 employees and nine interns, bringing its employee count to over 50, with plans to more than double its headcount over the next year. The company also announced additions to its management team and advisory board.

Management Team

Kumar Abhijeet, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Prior, spent 11 years at Cleversafe/IBM. At Cleversafe, he grew the company from pre-revenue through its sale to IBM and held various sales leadership positions within IBMs Cloud Object Storage business.





Andrew Baptist, Vice President of Engineering Prior, spent 12 years at Cleversafe/IBM. At Cleversafe, he led the research team as Vice President of Technology and was Distinguished Engineer at IBM after the Cleversafe acquisition.





Bill McCarthy, Chief Operating Officer Prior, spent 10 years with ShopperTrak, an analytics vendor leveraging IoT and servicing the retail industry, where he served as GM Americas, CEO EMEA and CTO. Previously, Bill served as VP of Technology then COO at ShopLocal.



Advisory Board

Rebecca Taft, Staff Engineer at Cockroach Labs Member of the SQL query optimizer team. Prior, she was a graduate student at MIT, where she worked with Michael Stonebraker researching distributed database elasticity and multi-tenancy.





Wilfried Schobeiri, Chief Technology and Chief Product Officer at MediaMath Leads development of MediaMaths digital marketing platform, which powers the operations of thousands of marketers.





Craig Mohan, Chief Growth Officer at Trading Technologies Prior, served as CME Groups Managing Director of Market Technology and Data Services.



Rebecca, Wil and Craig are joined by an existing group of Sales & Marketing and Technology Advisory Board members that include:



Boris Glavic, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Illinois Institute of Technology

Aaron Elmore, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Chicago

Michael Franklin, Liew Family Chair of Computer Science at University of Chicago

Jennie Rogers, Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Northwestern University

Rob Gatto, Founder, Ureeka

Rob Grzywinski, Engineering, Ureeka

Masao Konomi, President, Konomi, Inc.

Fran Landolf, Founder & Principal of Core Consulting

Marc Price, Global CTO, Matrixx Software

Piers Nash, CEO & Founder, Sympatic Inc.

Harper Reed, Technologist & CTO, Obama 2012 campaign

Taylor Rhodes, CEO at Applied Systems, prior CEO at SMS Assist and Rackspace

About Ocient

Ocient is building database and analytics software and services to enable rapid analysis of the worlds largest datasets. To learn more about Ocient, please visit http://www.ocient.com/ .

Media Contact: Josh Inglis, josh@propllr.com , 312.504.7677

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/234c7f2e-26e2-483e-af2f-af09c41ca95b
TORONTO, June 12, 2020 /CNW/ - The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) today announced the winners of the 2020 CVCA Awards, sponsored by HarbourVest Partners Canada, ahead of the association's annual Invest Canada '20 conference taking place digitally this year.

CVCA's most distinguished honour, the Deal of the Year recognition went to:

The private equity group of Toronto -headquartered Brookfield Asset Management won the 2020 Private Equity (PE) Deal of the Year award for its investment in Markham -based BGIS

-headquartered won the 2020 Private Equity (PE) Deal of the Year award for its investment in -based Toronto -based Information Venture Partners (IVP) won the 2020 Venture Capital (VC) Deal of the Year award for its investment in St. John's -based Verafin Inc.

For general partners operating on the global stage, CVCA's new Global Dealmaker award went to:

Toronto -based Imperial Capital won the new 2020 PE Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in Norristown, Pennsylvania -headquartered MRO Corporation

-based won the new 2020 PE Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in -headquartered Toronto -based EnerTech Capital won the new 2020 VC Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in Livonia, Michigan -headquartered Ushr, Inc.

In recognition for community leadership:

Laura Lenz , Partner, OMERS Ventures is the recipient of the 2020 Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award

CVCA's regional impact awards:

"Winners of the 2020 CVCA Awards have proven vision and innovation are alive and well in the Canadian private capital industry" said Kim Furlong, CEO, Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association. "This list of companies exemplifies how venture capital and private equity is present in every sector and helping fuel the economy of the future."

"It's a pleasure to see so many people and organizations in private capital from across a variety of industries and geographies working hard and setting new standards," said Beth Maliakkal, Chief Financial Officer, Imperial Capital and Chair, CVCA Awards Committee. "On behalf of the 2020 CVCA Awards committee, congratulations on this incredible recognition."

2020 PE Deal of the Year Award

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a leading global alternative asset manager with over $515 billion of assets under management across real estate, infrastructure, renewable power, private equity and credit. Brookfield owns and operates long-life assets and businesses, many of which form the backbone of the global economy. Brookfield's private equity group has won the 2020 Private Equity (PE) Deal of the Year award for its investment in Markham-based BGIS.

BGIS is a provider of real estate management services, including facilities management, project delivery services, energy and sustainability solutions, building performance management, workplace advisory and management, and real estate services. Brookfield originally invested into BGIS in April 2015. With Brookfield's investment, BGIS was able to expand geographically, expand their product offering and execute on accretive tuck-ins. Brookfield sold stake in BGIS to CCMP Capital Advisors on May 31, 2019.

Read more about this deal here.

2020 VC Deal of the Year Award

Information Venture Partners (IVP) is a team of experienced venture capital investors that focuses Seed and Series-A companies in B2B FinTech and Enterprise SaaS. Information Venture Partners has won the 2020 Venture Capital (VC) Deal of the Year award for its investment in St. John's-based Verafin Inc.

Verafin provides the industry's leading Financial Crime Management platform, providing a cloud-based cross-institutional software platform for Fraud Detection and Management, BSA/AML Compliance and Management, High-Risk Customer Management and Secure 314(b) Information Sharing. Almost 3000 banks and credit unions use Verafin to effectively fight financial crime and comply with regulations. IVP originally invested into Verafin in August 2009, contributing to strong growth and profitability.

Read more about this deal here.

2020 PE Global Dealmaker Award

Founded in 1989, Torontobased Imperial Capital is a leading lower middle market private equity firm focused on North American opportunities to build or acquire growthoriented platform investments in targeted industry niches within healthcare, business, and consumer services industries. Imperial Capital has won the new 2020 PE Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in Norristown, Pennsylvania-headquartered MRO Corporation. The PE Global Dealmaker Award is new in 2020 and was created to recognize outstanding realized investment returns on a global PE investment.

MRO Corporation provides a suite of Protected Health Information (PHI) disclosure management services comprised of release of information, government and commercial payer audit management and accounting of disclosures. Imperial Capital originally invested in MRO Corp. in September 2014. The investment fueled organic growth, acquisitions of small local competitors and increased market share from the industry's largest competitor.

Read more about this deal here.

2020 VC Global Dealmaker Award

Founded in 1996, EnerTech Capital is a private investment firm focused on empowering energy innovation within the technology and mobility space. They invest in mid-stage companies that offer products or services that dramatically improve the profitability of producing or consuming energy. EnerTech Capital has won the new 2020 VC Global Dealmaker Award for its investment in Canadian spin-out Ushr, Inc., now headquartered in Detroit. The VC Global Dealmaker Award is new in 2020 and was created to recognize outstanding realized investment returns on a global VC investment.

Ushr offers automotive manufacturers the most accurate, comprehensive, and advanced high-definition map technology available on the market today. Having mapped the entire U.S. and Canada controlled access highway network with under four inches deviation, Ushr's platform provides the most accurate long and medium-distance sensing systems to enable autonomous vehicles (AVs) to safely navigate roadways. EnerTech Capital originally invested in Ushr in June 2017.

Read more about this deal here.

2020 Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award

Laura Lenz, Partner, OMERS Ventures, is the recipient of the 2020 Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award for driving awareness and support for families and those directly impacted by pediatric stroke. Ms. Lenz is the founder of the Canadian Pediatric Stroke Support Association (CPSSA). In addition to supporting Canada's economic productivity, the Ted Anderson Community Leadership Award recipient also fosters strong corporate social responsibility as a foundation for building solid vibrant communities. The award recognizes the commitment of time and effort to an organization or cause over several years.

For nine years Ms. Lenz was the co-chair of the CPSSA, building it from the ground up while still forging a successful career as a venture investor. She has built a community of more than 500 families who are caring for children who have had a stroke.

Read more about Ms. Lenz community work here.

PE Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Western Canada

Founded in 1989, PFM Capital is Saskatchewan's largest private equity investment firm with over $800 million in assets under management across several funds. Based in Regina, PFM's niche focus allows investors to benefit from the Prairies' economic strengths by taking advantage of the firm's established local contact network and long-term track record. PFM Capital Inc. has won the 2020 PE Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Western Canada for its investment in Calgary-headquartered Steel Reef Infrastructure Corp. (SRIC).

Steel Reef is a privately held mid-stream company targeting strategic small to mid sized infrastructure investments in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. Steel Reef is focused on partnering with upstream Exploration and Production companies by purchasing or constructing their infrastructure to allow their capital expenditures to be focused on the drill bit.

Since PFM Capital's investment in March 2013:

SRIC grew their team from 6 people to 114. They have created approximately 107 jobs in the last 5 years.

SRIC has spent over $475M since inception, primarily in Alberta and Saskatchewan , directly impacting these economies.

since inception, primarily in and , directly impacting these economies. 1 out of 5 or 20% women as executive officers

Read more about the community impact of this investment here.

VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Ontario

FACIT is a commercialization venture firm that builds companies with entrepreneurs to accelerate oncology innovation, with a portfolio that has attracted over $850 million in investment to Ontario. Blending industry experience, capital and the unsurpassed clinician-scientist network of its strategic partner the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), FACIT capitalizes on the province's investment in research and healthcare to the benefit of the local economy and patients worldwide. FACIT has won the 2020 VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Ontario, for its deal involving Propellon Therapeutics' blood cancer drug candidate.

Propellon was created by FACIT in 2016 and is focused on developing a portfolio of first-in-class WDR5-targeted anti-cancer therapies. Since its inception and to date, FACIT has invested $37.2M of its Ontario-First capital into Ontario oncology innovations, with an additional $5.6M in grant-based funding provided to very early stage innovative projects. In turn, these innovations have attracted more than $850M in follow-on investment (leverage ratio 1:20).

As part of the US$1B partnership between Propellon, Triphase Accelerator and US pharma giant Celgene (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company), FACIT negotiated a deal to have maximum impact on Ontario:

Drug discovery and development jobs will stay in Ontario

Clinical trials will be run in many sites in Ontario

Industrial manufacturing within Ontario

One of the largest oncology licensing transactions for a preclinical asset in Canadian history and worldwide academia

Read more about the community impact of this investment here.

VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Western Canada

Lumira Ventures is Canada's leading and most active healthcare venture capital firm. Lumira invests in best-in-class North American companies developing innovative therapeutics and medical technologies whose products offer transformative improvements to patient health outcomes and provide meaningful reductions to the overall cost of healthcare delivery. Lumira Ventures has won the 2020 VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Western Canada for their investment in Victoria, BC-headquartered Aurinia Pharmaceuticals.

Aurinia Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapies to treat targeted patient populations that are suffering from serious diseases with a high unmet medical need. The company is currently developing Voclosporin, an investigational drug, for the potential treatment of Lupus Nephritis, Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis, and Dry Eye Syndrome.

Since Lumira's investment, Aurinia has also contributed to regional economic impact:

Has created 42 high quality employment opportunities and higher than market average wages in a sector that pays 2.5x in the US compared with other sectors.

Aurinia has:

Women on Executive Team: 2 or 14%; Visible Minorities on Executive Team: 1 or 7%; Women on Board of Directors: 1 or 13%

Read more about the community impact of this investment here.

VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Eastern Canada

Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (CDPQ) is a long-term institutional investor that manages funds primarily for public and parapublic pension and insurance plans. As at December 31, 2019, it held CAD 340.1 billion in net assets. As one of the largest pension funds in Canada, CDPQ invests globally in financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. CDPQ has won the 2020 VC Private Capital Regional Impact Award for Eastern Canada for their investment in Montreal-based Lightspeed POS.

Montreal-headquarted Lightspeed POS provides a point of sale platform with a simple way to build, manage and grow their retail, restaurant, or eCommerce business, and create a best-in-class customer experience. Since their investment in 2015, Lightspeed has employed an additional 700 people.

Read more about the community impact of this investment here.

About the CVCA

Our vision

A thriving Canadian economy driven by private capital

Our Mission

CVCA's mission is to help our members fuel the economy of the future by growing the businesses of today. We do this by supporting and connecting a vibrant private capital industry with advocacy, research, and education.

CVCA is also the nation's ultimate resource for data on Canadian private capital investments. Please visit: http://www.cvca.ca.

SOURCE CVCA - Canada's Venture Capital & Private Equity Association

For further information: For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: Jon Jackson, Head of Communications, 416-553-1142 (cell), [email protected]; Izadella Sta Romana, Marketing and Brand Coordinator, 647-228-9244, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.cvca.ca


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered a watershed victory for LGBT rights, ruling that a landmark federal law forbidding workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

The 6-3 ruling represented the biggest moment for LGBT rights in the United States since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. In the new ruling, the justices decided that gay and transgender people are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex as well as race, color, national origin and religion.

Workplace bias against gay and transgender employees has remained legal in much of the country, with 28 U.S. states lacking comprehensive measures against employment discrimination. The rulings  in two gay rights cases from Georgia and New York and a transgender rights case from Michigan  recognize new worker protections in federal law.

The ruling was authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017. Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, along with the courts four liberal justices, joined Gorsuchs opinion. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the ruling.

Trumps administration had opposed the LGBT workers in the litigation.

The legal fight focused on the definition of sex in Title VII. The plaintiffs, along with civil rights groups and many large companies, had argued that discriminating against gay and transgender workers was inherently based on their sex and consequently was illegal.

Trumps administration and employers accused of discrimination in the cases argued that Congress did not intend for Title VII to protect gay and transgender people when it passed the law.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex, Gorsuch wrote in the ruling. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

The court ruled in two consolidated cases about gay people who have said they were fired due to their sexual orientation. One involved a former county child welfare services coordinator from Georgia named Gerald Bostock. The other involved a New York skydiving instructor named Donald Zarda who died after the litigation began, with the matter then pursued by his estate.

The court also ruled in a case that involved a transgender funeral director named Aimee Stephens fired by a Detroit funeral home after revealing plans to transition from male to female. Stephens died in May. Stephens wife Donna is now representing the estate.

Trumps Justice Department reversed the governments position taken under Democratic former President Barack Obama that Title VII covered sexual orientation and gender identity.

Strongly supported by evangelical Christian voters, Trump has taken actions that have undermined gay and transgender rights since taking office in 2017.

Trumps administration last week issued a rule that would lift anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in healthcare.

His administration also has backed the right of certain businesses to refuse to serve gay people on the basis of religious objections to gay marriage, banned most transgender service members from the military and rescinded protections on bathroom access for transgender students in public schools.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

The ruling: Bostock v. Clayton County

Topics USA New York
WAUKEGAN (AP)  Marcos Luis Montano of Waukegan, 91, held his Purple Heart medal at Veterans Memorial Plaza for the first time last month.

During an outdoor presentation on May 31, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider delivered the Purple Heart, along with four other military awards, to replace the medals missing from Montanos time serving his country. Montano, a former Waukegan 1st ward alderman, had never seen the awards, his family said.

I wanted to cry for him, said his daughter Darlene Montano of Waukegan. This was really, truly the first time he received those medals in his mind. The Purple Heart medal was apparently stolen from Montano during the Korean War while he was recuperating in a hospital in Osaka, Japan. Montano, who was serving in the U.S. Army, was wounded on July 18, 1952. He had leg and arm shrapnel injuries and has scars, his daughter said. While recovering in the hospital, Montano said his Purple Heart award was hand-delivered, and he asked that it be placed in a nightstand drawer.

I was conked out, lets put it that way, I was feeling pain, Montano said. Further recalling that memory, The general asked me how I was feeling and I said, Im not feeling too good, I think I have some kind of infection or something. I think I had a little fever, he said, blaming his sickness that day from five or six days prior to also falling into a dirty puddle and being exposed to pollution.

Montano said he hadnt had a bath in six or seven days, and told the general.

He (the general) looked around and he said, Give this man a bath.

And I got one great big bath, Montano said, chuckling.

The Purple Heart, awarded to those killed or wounded while serving, was believed to be snatched by someone, possibly another hospital patient.

I didnt feel good but what can you do? Marcos Montano said. I didnt feel good at all and I told people around there, but there was nothing they could do because these medals are only given once. Thats what they said, the veteran said. Montano served first in the United States Navy, starting active duty on May 1, 1948.

With the rank of seaman apprentice, he was honorably discharged from the United States Navy on Feb. 7, 1950. For this naval service time, he earned the China Service Medal, according to a discharge document.

Montano then entered active service in the U.S. Army on Oct. 10, 1951 and was honorably discharged, released from active military duty on Sept. 30, 1953 and transferred to the Army Reserve to complete eight years of service. These release documents state Montano earned the Korean Service Medal with three bronze stars, the United Nations Service Medal, Combat Infantry Badge, and the Purple Heart.

We only knew of them because it was in military documents, Darlene Montano said.

She reached out to Schneiders office to request her fathers medals and military awards and was delighted to see the Purple Heart replacement included among them, she said. The presentation was supposed to be a surprise for the veteran, but COVID-19 caused the ceremony to be moved to May 30 and the veteran found out.

Ive always wanted to have him recognized for what he did, his daughter said.

Schneider and Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham stood with Montano in front of the large raised flag sculpture on the plaza to make the presentation. In addition to the Purple Heart, he received the United Nations Service Medal, the Korean Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge 1st Award.

Were coming through an incredibly difficult time and what better inspiration could we possibly imagine than a hero of the Korean War, serving our nation, and coming back and serving his community and being able to reunite him with the medals he earned in his service to our country. It is just a reminder to all of us that each of us has our own way to serve, Schneider said. Today, were recognizing a true hero.

Montano, who was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, held a variety of jobs during his civilian time, his daughter said. In 1951, he was a spray painter for a Kenosha, Wisconsin company. A former businessman in the 1970s, Montano was appointed for two years to be Waukegan 1st Ward alderman in the late 1960s, his daughter said. Cunningham was also a Waukegan 1st ward alderman.

For him to serve his country, and lets emphasize being a man of color, Puerto Rican, and then being able to come back and jump back in to be in public service, for Waukegan, that is the pride of Waukegan, Cunningham said. Everyone knows the Montano family.

In 1957, Montano was pivotal in the incorporation of the Puerto Rican Society of Waukegan, a membership club for events and social gatherings, his daughter said. The Puerto Rican Society Credit Union was then established in 1965 by Montano, she said. That was all my dads doing. his daughter said.

Im very proud to be his grandson, said Eduardo Rodriguez-Montano of Waukegan who attended the Saturday ceremony and took photos of his grandfather with family and well-wishers.

Cunningham said Marcos Montano will receive the City of Waukegans Waukegan Proud award this month.

Mr. Montano has earned our Waukegan Proud award because he is the perfect example of having the love for our country and serving in the United States Army during the Korean War, Cunningham said.

About serving in the military, I feel great about that, Marcos Montano said. I feel great about my service.
Mistakes of 2021 being repeated; unnecessary medication, tests should be avoided: Doctors tells Centre

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

Sushant Singh Rajput was under depression: Mumbai police

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Mumbai, Jun 15: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on Sunday, was battling depression, police said on Monday. Meanwhile, forensics team has arrived at his residence in Mumbai. The actor had committed suicide at his residence yesterday.

According to the police official, Mumbai Police found out during the probe that the 34-year-old actor was under medication for depression.

Missing Indian High Commission staff in Pakistan: Efforts on to trace the two | Oneindia News

Sushant Singh Rajput suicide: Maha Police ask netizens not to post pictures of actor's dead body

No suicide note was found from the spot, the official added. Mumbai Police as well as the crime branch officials visited his rented flat on Sunday, but nothing suspicious was found. Rajput had been living with two cooks and a house help.

The medical report in the case is awaited.
President Muhammadu Buhari has condoled with the family of Sikiru Osinowo, the Lagos east senator who died Monday at 64.

Mr Osinowo, on Monday, died from complications that arose from undisclosed ailments.

The first-term senator popularly known as Pepper was described by the president as one who pushed to advance this administrations objective of building a better and prosperous Nigeria.

The President affirms that the senators commitment to meet the needs of his community as a four-time member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, a spokesperson of the president, Garba Shehu, said in a statement. Devotion to national development as well as insightful contributions at the floor of the Senate would be fondly remembered and missed.

On his part, Senate President Ahmad Lawan expressed shock and sadness over the death of Mr Osinowo, who was also the chairman, Senate committee on industries.

The pains of Senator Osinowos untimely departure will be felt by his Distinguished colleagues and the National Assembly in general, Mr Lawan wrote on his Twitter wall.

I condole with his family, friends, political associates and also the government and people of Lagos State over the loss.

Also, House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila in a statement released by his aide, Lanre Lasisi, said his engagements with the late senator were usually an attempt to better the lives of Lagosians.

Senator Bayo Osinowos death is a painful loss to Lagosians. Here was a man who dedicated himself to the service of his people. He was always at the forefront of delivering the dividends of democracy to the electorate.

As a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly for many years, he endeared himself to his constituents through different laudable projects. And as a Senator from June last year until his demise, Senator Osinowo was already proving his mettle.

Tinubu mourns deceased

Mr Tinubu, in a statement issued on Monday night, said the sudden, unexpected passing deeply hurt him and Lagosians.

Mr Osinowo represented Kosofe Constituency 1 in the Lagos State House of Assembly while Mr Tinubu was serving a second term as Lagos State Governor.

Speaking of his ties with the deceased, he noted that Mr Osinowo was more than a close friend and political associate.

Over the years he became like a family member and brother in so many ways. Bayo and I have come a long way, dating back to our days in the pro-democracy struggles. We both enlisted in the Social Democratic Party where he served so well as the Youth Chairman of that party during the Third Republic and later in the Alliance for Democracy in 1998 after the restoration of democracy.

According to him, Mr Osinowo contributed immensely for the return of democracy in 1999.

Bayos contributions to the return of democracy were significant and enduring. As a prominent political figure in Lagos, he served with dedication, passion and concern for the common man.

In the Lagos State House of Assembly, where he was a four-time member from 2003 to 2019 representing Kosofe Constituency 1, he was more than a member of that House. He provided leadership. He was a stabilising figure. He worked hard and tirelessly to make Lagos a better place.

He cared for all Lagosians. His election in 2019 to represent Lagos East in the Senate demonstrated not only his immense political skills but also the affection the people have for him and his popularity, Mr Tinubu said.

Osinowos Education

Until he died, Mr Osinowo held a Diploma in Building Technology at the Instituto per Geometri, Rome, Italy, where he also studied Italian Language.

His Masters degree was in Mass Communication from the Urbaniana University in Rome, Italy.

He was married with three children, two of whom are medical doctors.

At the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries in 2019, he polled 247,743 votes to defeat the then incumbent senator, Gbenga Ashafa, who got 20,385 votes for the Lagos East senatorial district ticket for the 2019 National Assembly elections.
Mercedes-Benz plant in Sindelfingen, Germany. (Andreas Gebert/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The coronavirus pandemic, which shattered supply chains and forced automotive manufacturers to close their plants for weeks, caused passenger car production in Germany to tank in the first five months of 2020.

Now sluggish demand and slow recovery in global markets is likely to puts tens of thousands of job in the sector at risk in Germany.

According to the German Automotive Industry Association, only 1.18 million cars were produced between January and May this year, a drop of 44%, or nearly a million vehicles from the same period in 2019.

The last time German car production numbers hit such a low was in 1976. Ferdinand Dudenhoffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Germany, says his rather optimistic forecast shows a decline in car production in Germany by 26% to 3.4 million for 2020.

Dudenhoffer, who also heads the Institute for Customer Insight at the University of St Gallen does expect production to pick up in the second half of the year, largely driven by better exports to China and the United States.

However, the export markets of Europe, Africa and South America, where more than half of German car production has been exported in recent years, will remain extremely difficult.

The automotive expert predicts that the production levels will remain stunted, as key markets wont recover for several years  and this could mean the loss of 100,000 jobs in the automotive and supplier industries over the next three-to-four years.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Berlin unveils 130bn package to reboot German economy

Since the car market in Europe will also be very difficult in the next few years, it must be assumed that most of these jobs wont be filled in the future, Dudenhoffer told Yahoo Finance UK. An important reason is the relocation of production facilities to Asia and Eastern Europe due to better cost conditions, and in Asia due to the significantly growing market.

He is critical of the German governments recent stimulus package for automotive industry, which employs around 800,000 people.

Story continues

Earlier this month the coalition government in Berlin decided against a cash-for-clunkers programme to stimulate sales, agreeing instead to increase buyer subsidies for clean energy cars, but not for internal-combustion engine vehicles.

The market for electric vehicles, which is heavily subsidised, is a niche market with at most 10% of the overall market, Dudenhoffer notes.

Liquidity support and prolonged short-time work schemes are measures that delay death but do not bring the solution, he said. The solution is consumers who buy products that can be produced today.

With the so-called stimulus package, we are only falling deeper into the crisis, because debt will increase without stimulus.
Hollyoaks star Lysette Anthony has quit Twitter after facing backlash amid the show's racism row.

The actress, 56, who plays Marnie Nightingale, was branded 'actual trash' by Rachel Adedeji, 28, who quit the soap following accusations of 'behind-the-scenes' racism.

Lysette deactivated her profile after her former co-star Charlie Clapham, 28, shared a screenshot of a text allegedly from her hitting out at cast members who supported Rachel.

Upset: Hollyoaks star Lysette Anthony has quit Twitter after facing backlash amid the show's racism row

In the messages, Lysette appeared to claim stars who supported Rachel were 'traitors,' before adding: 'Sorry but we're not going to have a job to come back to if this stuff keeps being disseminated.'

Charlie - who played Freddie Roscoe on Hollyoaks from 2013 to 2017 - shared the series of messages which appeared to be discussing Rachel's decision to speak out about her experience on the soap on Saturday.

Rachel has accused the show of 'behind-the-scenes' racism after criticising their response to the recent furore over the Black Lives Matter movement, leading soap bosses to apologise and announce a plan to 'stamp out discrimination.'

In the messages, Lysette - who joined the soap in 2016 - wrote: 'Well, to be fair they both have that embittered, traitor vibe going on.

Row: The actress, 56, who plays Marnie Nightgale, was called 'actual trash' by Rachel Adedeji, 28, who quit the soap following accusations of 'behind-the-scenes' racism

Drama: Ex-Hollyoaks star Charlie Clapham shared a Whatsapp exchange in which Lysette appeared to make the comments relating to Rachel's recent claims

Fury: Equally furious at Lysette's comments, Rachel responded to Charlie's tweet with a GIF of someone throwing rubbish into a bin

'Sorry but we're not going to have a job to come back to if this stuff keeps being disseminated.'

Re-posting the messages Charlie angrily posted: 'Dear @chezLysette if supporting a former castmate, whilst she speaks of being racially discriminated against, makes me a traitor... then so be it.

'As for embittered, you're currently finishing (finished) where I started out. Salty much? - Best, CC/FR.'

Equally furious at Lysette's comments, Rachel responded to Charlie's tweet with a GIF of someone throwing rubbish into a bin.

She wrote: '@chezLysette you are actual trash.. Charlie, you are a King and a true ally!! Love you my bro! X x.'

Fuming: Charlie shared the messages with a tweet slamming Lysette's comments, which was quickly supported by Rachel and several other stars (pictured in May 2016)

Departing: Last week, Rachel confirmed that she had quit Hollyoaks after four years on the soap. She filmed her exit scenes before the country was placed in lockdown

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Lysette Anthony for comment. Representatives for Hollyoaks and Adedeji declined to comment.

Last week, Rachel confirmed she had quit Hollyoaks after four years on the soap, with bosses announcing her final scenes will air later this year.

The former X Factor star filmed her exit earlier this year before filming was halted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Rachel made the decision to leave the show last year, with a Hollyoaks spokesman saying the show was 'saddened' by her departure.

The announcement came one day after Hollyoaks also released a statement in response to Rachel's accusations of racism while working on the show.

Bosses detailed they were 'deeply shocked and saddened' by issues detailed by Rachel, and stated the soap has a 'zero tolerance on racism or any form of discrimination.'

The show detailed a series of steps they have launched in order to 'stamp out discrimination.'

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 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, noting it wasn't progressive after 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.

Racism: The statement comes after Rachel slammed the show's response to the recent furore over the Black Lives Matter movement, detailing racist incidents she says happened backstage

This prompted Rachel to talk about her own experience of racism.

The soap star said she was 'disappointed' and directly called the show out over racist incidents she says happened during her time on Hollyoaks.

Actress Mandip Gill, who played Phoebe McQueen 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.'

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 also took to Twitter and Instagram on Sunday to implore her former colleagues to put forth a more concerted effort

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.

Lysette was previously an outspoken critic of disgraced ex-film producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, 68.

The former movie mogul was convicted of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act in January.

Lysette, one of Weinstein's many accusers, said at the time in an interview with Channel 4 News: 'This is someone who has no respect for human beings. I still maintain that this is not about sex, it's nothing to do with sex.

'It's about the worst form of destruction and humiliation and feeding this desperate need for power.

'To own up to the horror I've carried for all of these years was not a minor thing. I'm proud I've done something important.'
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Linkedin Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia  Mon, June 15, 2020 15:20 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded4599 4 Inforial Free

Indonesias state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have opened a new chapter of good corporate governance (GCG) with state-owned lender Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) being named among the Top 3 Indonesian Publicly Listed Companies (PLCs) and the ASEAN Class Threshold by the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard (ACGS).

The ACGS is an instrument for assessing publicly listed companies with respect to implementing GCG in ASEAN countries.

Since the early 2000s, the government has initiated a change in SOEs, starting from restructuring, privatization, making SOEs profitable and establishing holding companies for SOEs.

According to Pandhu Yuanjaya, a lecturer at Universitas Negeri Yogyakartas Public Administration School, the SOEs Ministerial Decision No Per.01/MBU/2011 on the implementation of GCG should encourage the SOEs to implement GCG. However, most SOEs have yet to implement it properly.

In 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), along with the Financial Services Authority (OJK), launched the new G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance (CG) in Jakarta following a G20 conference in Ankara, Turkey.

The new GCG G20/OECD principles, an expanded version of the previous ones, provide recommendations for national policymakers on the rights of shareholders, executive remuneration, financial information disclosure, behavior of institutional investors and how the market stock mechanism should function.

According to the OJK (ojk.co.id), GCG is an important element for investment and financing through the capital market and a key to spurring long-term economic growth.

GCG OECD principles have been recognized as a global standard on GCG and are expected to help policymakers evaluate and increase GCG frameworks to promote financing through the capital market and boost long-term investment.

GCG OECD principles complement the GCG principles that the OJK has implemented. GCG plays a crucial role in spurring the players of financial services to carry out their business activities based on principles of transparency, accountability, responsibility, fairness and independence to gain trust from investors and other stakeholders.

The internationally recognized GCG/OECD principles cover effective CG frameworks; the rights and just treatment of shareholders and key functions of ownership; institutional investors; capital market; the role of stakeholders in the CG; transparency and information openness; and responsibilities of the board of directors and board of commissioners.

BRI corporate secretary Amam Sukriyanto said the achievement proved SOEs were increasingly assessed in terms of their performance. This could not be separated from the strong commitment BRIs Board of Commissioners and Board of Directors had made in implementing GCG principles in all aspects of the organization. The corporate performance that is apt to show positive and sustainable growth cannot be separated from BRIs commitment to prudent risk management and the implementation of GCG based on international best practices, which has led to BRI being named one of the three best publicly listed companies in Indonesia, Amam said.

ACGSs evaluation of 100 publicly listed companies with the largest market capitalization in the ASEAN countries is assigned independently by the Domestic Ranking Body (DRB), in which for Indonesia, DRB is represented by the OJK.

The ACGS assessment covers the rights of shareholders, the equal treatment of shareholders, the role of stakeholders, disclosure and transparency and the responsibility of the Board of Directors and the Board of Commissioners.

The achievement is definitely a plus point for the company with a vision to becoming the most valuable bank in Southeast Asia and home to the best talent, Amam concluded.

For further information on Bank Rakyat Indonesia, please visit www.bri.co.id.
African fishers organization calls for plans for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries

June 15,2020 | Source: CAOPA

The African Confederation of Artisanal Fisheries Professional Organizations (CAOPA) has called on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and its members to support efforts for the establishment of National Action Plans for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, rooted in the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines).



The call was made by Gaoussou Gueye, President of CAOPA, on 11 June, in the context of the World Oceans Day (8 June).



CAOPA brings together professional organizations from the maritime and continental small-scale fisheries of 24 African countries from West Africa, North Africa, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean Federation of Artisanal Fishers (FPAOI).



CAOPA welcomes the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, in which the General Assembly proclaims the year 2022 as the "International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture".



With regard to the preparations for this World Oceans Day celebration, organizations such as CAOPA have an important role to play, in partnership with our States. In this context, CAOPA has two areas of work. In the first place, CAOPA facilitates consultation among professionals to set up a single small-scale fisheries organization at the national level. This national organization must be composed of the men and women who depend on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods.



Such organization must operate in an independent, democratic and transparent manner, and consider equal representation of women, as women are present at all stages of the small-scale fisheries value chain in Africa.



Secondly, CAOPA is committed to promoting the development -- in a transparent, participatory and gender-sensitive manner -- of National Action Plans for sustainable small-scale fisheries.



At the pan-African level, CAOPA is making this commitment within the framework of the African Union's Fisheries and Aquaculture Policies Reform Strategy in Africa, via the Non-State Actors Platform.



At the country level, in collaboration with FAO, national workshops were held in 2018 in Guinea, Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire. In these three countries, the government is setting up a committee for the development of a National Action Plan for sustainable small-scale fisheries, which will enable professionals to identify their own needs. A platform bringing together the different Ministries involved -- fisheries, environment, education, health, etc. -- has been set up, so that the best answers to the needs expressed are provided.



CAOPA calls on FAO and its members to support these efforts for the establishment of National Action Plans for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, rooted in the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries (SSF Guidelines).
LONDON  A United States Air Force pilot was killed on Monday when a fighter jet crashed during a routine training flight off the northeast coast of England, the Air Force said.

A British search and rescue team found wreckage from the downed jet on Monday afternoon and, a few hours later, discovered the pilots body. The search was complicated throughout much of the day by poor weather and visibility, a U.S. military official said.

The jet, a U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagle, was stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, a military base in Suffolk, in eastern England. It crashed in the North Sea around 9:40 a.m. as it flew in a four-plane formation drill.

It is with a very heavy heart that I confirm the pilot of the downed F-15C Eagle has been located and confirmed deceased, Col. Will Marshall, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing, said in a video statement. This is a tragic loss for the 48th Fighter Wing community, and our deepest condolences go out to the pilots family and the 493rd Fighter Squadron.
VALPARAISO  Porter County election officials ironed out election problems Friday, including separating three sets of twins.

Those twins had names so similar the computer merged them, apparently thinking it was human error. The twins were allowed to cast provisional ballots, which were then allowed to be counted Friday.

Another unusual situation was when a mother sent her daughters absentee ballot by mistake, a problem caught when her daughter showed up in person to vote on election day. Only one ballot was counted, the guiding principle for the county Board of Elections and Voter Registration as it waded through a series of unusual situations encountered during the primary.

Three poll workers recruited at the last minute  they were trained the day before the election  voted at the precinct where they were working. But that meant their ballots reflected the wrong legislative races, among other issues. Those voters were reluctantly rejected.

I hate to penalize any poll workers, board member Jeff Chidester said.

Some other ballots were complicated because of the school referendum in Union Township.
MIDDLETOWN  With a roar of engines and the blasting of sirens from its police escort, the Cruise Night on Main Street left the parking lot of NAPA Auto Parts on Sunday, and cruised into a live stream of the annual event.

Organized by the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce and rebranded this year as Start Your Engines to Sunday Funday, this was the 23rd year of the cruise night, an event that usually draws thousands to Main Street. But the chamber decided to reformat the fundraiser this year, because the COVID-19 outbreak made it impossible to hold a large-scale event downtown.

Officials decided a cruise through the city would be the perfect way to hold some version of the event, and use it to pay homage to the front-line workers and first responders who have battled the coronavirus. As in previous years, the cruise raises money for youth programs in the city.

The parade assembled at the NAPA store on Newfield Street, where volunteers collected individual donations from all the participants. The line of vehicles snaked around the stores parking lot, and spilled over into a lot next door, before someone yelled start your engines!

The cars and trucks roared into life, and left with one of their police escorts, a 1991 Crown Victoria police car owned and driven by Middletown Officer Jay Bodell, leading the procession.

The parade followed a 3.8-mile route from Newfield Street down through Main Street, as participants honked their horns along the way at the site of first responders and front-line workers, including the fire and police departments, and medical personnel at Middlesex Hospital, where the procession ended.

The parade included vintage hot-rods, brightly painted antique trucks, antique police cars, an ambulance from the 1930s, complete with a skeleton patient in the back, as well as classic cars such as Chevy Malibus and Pontiac Firebirds.

Organizers said they were pleased with the turnout and thrilled with the overall enthusiasm of everyone who took part.

I think this has been a spectacular turnout on a spectacular day, said Johanna Bond, chamber vice president. Were just so very excited about it.

Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce President Larry McHugh said he hopes the cruise will raise between $12,000 and $15,000 in donations.

Besides the $10 individual contributions from car enthusiasts, other sponsors and donors included NAPA, the Downtown Business District, iHeartMedia, Eli Cannons Tap Room, Liberty Bank, Middlesex Health, The Flood Law Firm, the states Department of Children and Families, The Garage Guys Car Club, The Eastern Chapter Over the Hill Gang Car Club, and Connecticut Military Car Club.

Some of the programs the fundraiser will benefit include the Hal Kaplan Middletown Mentor, Middletown Recreation, and the Middletown Summer Youth Employment programs.

This has been such a success and so outstanding, and it speaks volumes about the chamber and the city, said City Councilor Phil Pessina.

We normally dont do a cruise, but we decided to try something different this year, and its just been fantastic, said event chairman Joe Santaniello.

A video of the live stream of the event is available on the chambers Facebook feed at facebook.com/mdsxchamber.
One Seth Alowin Attoh, a businessman accused of defrauding three persons of GH22,500.00 under the pretext of securing them Bulgarian visas but failed has appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.

Attoh charged with three counts of defrauding by false pretences, pleaded not guilty.

The court presided over by Mrs. Afia Owusuaa Appiah admitted Attoh to bail in the sum of GH25,000.00 with two sureties to reappear on July 14.

The case of prosecution was that Attoh operates a firm at Hansonic, near Dansoman, Accra.

Prosecution said in March 2018, Attoh informed the complainants Nii Agyei Laryea, David Cudjoe Boakye, a driver and Gloria Osei a trader that his company had been contracted to organize trips around the world.

Based on that, prosecution said the complainants expressed interest hence, Laryea on March 2018, paid GH9,500.00 to Attoh.

The Prosecution said later Boakye and Gloria also paid GH8,000.00 and GH5,000.00 respectively to Attoh to procure them the Bulgarian visas.

The prosecution said Attoh after collecting the money was unable to secure the visas, so the complainants reported the matter to the Police and Attoh was arrested.

GNA
On June 14, the US witnessed a record number of new cases of the novel coronavirus and hospitalizations as several states including Texas and Florida reopened. As many as 25,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported across the US, the highest single-day tally recorded on June 14 since May 2. In Louisiana, the cases surged to 1200, highest since May 21, while states such as Alabama with over 888 cases, Florida with 2,016 new cases and Arizona with over 1,500 cases marked a record high tally for the third day in a row.

As per reports, US state health officials partly attributed the gatherings to the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May. Further, the surge in the hospitalization was attributed to the increased testing over the past six weeks by the health authorities. While in South Carolina, nearly 69% to 77% of hospital beds were occupied by the COVID-19 patients, Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah also witnessed a huge surge in the influx of coronavirus patients.

Read: Peru Reports 4,383 New Coronavirus Cases And 190 More Deaths In 24 Hours

Read: Nepal Records 425 New Coronavirus Cases, COVID-19 Tally Rises To 5,760

President Donald Trump plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March this week in Tulsa which is expected to attend by many campaigners that further raises fears of coronavirus transmission. In opposition to Trumps hasty lifting of the coronavirus restrictions, while the cases surmount, more than 120 restaurants in Atlanta state in the US refused to open businesses, as per local media reports. Restaurant owners in Atlanta and Savannah that operate more than 120 restaurants said that they were against the state law that allowed the dining rooms to resume operations. Additionally, Utah's governor announced last week that most of the state shall consider pausing its reopening, considering the spike in the new cases of the virus, as per local reports.

Please continue to practice social distancing and good hygiene. I also strongly urge Utahns to use face coverings. This is an easy, low-cost practice that will help us return to normal.  Gov. Gary Herbert (@GovHerbert) June 11, 2020

Fauci warns crowd dangerous and risky

Earlier, in an interview on US national television, Anthony Fauci, Americas top infectious disease expert, said on June 12 that his advice for people is to stay away from large crowds as it could be dangerous and risky amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Fauci referred to President Donald Trumps campaign rallies, as well as the anti-trump demonstrations, partially hinting at the nationwide social unrest related to the Black Lives Matter. In his televised address, Fauci insisted that people must wear protective masks while assembling in the rallies, especially as these crowds involved chanting and yelling.

Read: Putin On US Protests, Fight Against Coronavirus

Read: Coronavirus Horror For Sea-farers Continues; 40,000 Cruise Ship Workers Still Trapped

(Image Credit: AP)
ALBANY  More than 50 Child Victims Act lawsuits were filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Monday, alleging abuse by dozens of clerics as far back as 1957.

The cases mark the latest round of abuse complaints after courts temporarily closed during the coronavirus pandemic, blocking non-essential filings for about two months. The lawsuits allege abuse as recently as 1994 in parishes across the Capital Region and also target 20 previously unidentified clerics or diocese employees.

A handful detail new allegations against individuals already labeled by the church as "credibly accused" of molesting children.

The diocese faces more than 100 cases lodged under the Child Victims Act, which last August opened a one-year "look-back" period allowing survivors to file previously time-barred cases against individuals who had allegedly sexually abused them as children. As courts shut down during the pandemic, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order prolonging the window to January 2021.

The state Legislature last month passed a bill that would extend the retroactive period to August 2021, a proposal that awaits Cuomo's signature. More than 2,200 cases have been filed under the act so far, according to state court data.

Fifty-two cases were filed Monday by two law firms  Manhattan-based Jeff Anderson & Associates and Guilderland's LaFave, Wein & Frament  that have represented several other Child Victims Act plaintiffs statewide. The complaints represent about one third of all CVA cases filed in the state Supreme Court in Albany County.

"These are people who have finally been given a voice after years of having been silenced," said attorney Cynthia LaFave.

The most recent allegation claims that Father Charles A. Gaffigan abused an unnamed child who was approximately 6 to 8 years old, from 1992 to 1994, while he attended the Church Of Holy Infancy in Lake Luzerne in Warren County. Gaffigan died in 2015, according to his obituary.

The oldest allegations are detailed in a complaint accusing Father Ignatius Rossi of "unpermitted sexual contact" from 1957 to 1960 against an unnamed student at St. Anthony Padua Church in Troy, when the child was 11 to 14 years old. Rossi died in 1989.

Other allegations are similar, listing vague abuse accusations against adults who taught or served as religious leaders in the Capital Region decades ago. There are some repeat offenders named in the complaints, including some individuals who have been placed on the Albany Diocese's list of "credibly accused" clergy.

Three of the complaints filed Monday name former priest Gary Mercure, who was sent to prison in Massachusetts in 2011 for raping two altar boys in the 1980s. He faces at least two decades behind bars.

Two lawsuits allege abuse by former priest Dozia Wilson in the 1980s and claim that diocese leaders knew of accusations against him as early as 1976  but decided to send him to Boston instead of removing him from the ministry. He was dismissed from the Archdiocese of Boston in 1979 after facing additional accusations, and then returned to Albany before being expelled in 1991. Wilson, whose whereabouts are unknown, could not be reached for comment.

"The diocese takes all allegations of sexual abuse seriously," Albany Diocese spokeswoman Mary DeTurris Poust said, adding that the diocese has not yet been served with the lawsuits. "Behind every claim is a suffering person who needs our compassion and assistance."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Albany Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who is also temporarily leading the scandal-plagued Buffalo Diocese, "remains committed to providing assistance to survivors while allegations are being investigated and beyond," she said. Before the coronavirus shut down religious gatherings, Scharfenberger held several special services for survivors of abuse.

Both LaFave and attorney Jeff Anderson said they have not received discovery materials from the Albany Diocese on cases they had already filed but attributed some of the delay to the pandemic. The diocese has otherwise been cooperative in the litigation, they said.

"While we are critical of the past practices employed by the Catholic diocese in Albany ... the way they are being handled presently, there is no criticism," Anderson said, adding: "We have confidence that the Catholic bishop in Albany and the lawyers have taken this with the gravity it deserves."

A 53rd case filed Monday, but not included in the package lodged by Anderson and LaFave, alleges Father Joseph Keffer abused a group of four or five young boys while they attended Sunday school at St. Mary's in Waterford in the early 1980s. According to the complaint, Keffer interacted with the group  including the anonymous plaintiff, then about 7 or 8 years old  while helping select children to serve as alter boys.

He allegedly led the boys to a back room, where he told them to line up and put their heads down before fondling their genitals. The petition claims the priest told the plaintiff that "if he told anyone about what was happening, that God would punish him."

Keffer died in 2005, according to his obituary.


By Tong Kim





North Korea's strategic offensive against the South is back in full swing, cutting off ties and threatening to take military retaliation because of the scattering of leaflets by two defector groups in the South, for "insulting and defaming the absolute prestige and the great dignity" of its leader Kim Jong-un.







A week of strong statements by various North Korean officials and clamorous angry rallies to protest the leaflet dissemination culminated in an ultimatum issued June 13 by Kim Yo-jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party and sister of Kim Jong-un. She is now acting as the second most powerful person in the Kim dynasty.







Her warning: "It is high time to surely break with the South. By exercising my power authorized by the Supreme Leader, I gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with the enemy to decisively carry out the next action  a tragic scene of the useless North-South Joint Liaison Office completely collapsed would be seen  the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army."







It is not clear what sort of military action Pyongyang will launch, but it is clear that they have launched an all-out psychological offensive against the South, effectively turning the state of inter-Korean relations back into a vicious cycle of confrontation. Pyongyang warns Seoul to stay out of the nuclear issue and U.S.-North Korea relations.







There are indications that the North is going through tough economic hardship, getting worse amid COVID-19, and suffering from the biting impact of sanctions imposed for its nuclear missile development program. For the North, confrontation with the South may serve a dual goal: distraction from internal problems and solidarity of the people in support of the leadership.







On June 4, Kim Yo-jong fired the first shot at the South with the warning that the North would take phased actions, including "complete withdrawal from the Gaeseong Industrial Park, the shutdown of the North-South joint liaison office, and the scrapping of the North-South military agreement."







On June 5, a spokesman of the United Front Department announced that Kim Yo-jong, as the person who was "looking after the affairs of the South", gave instructions "to start examining the technical implementation of the content mentioned in her earlier statement."







On June 9, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim Yo-jong and Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Party Central Committee, decided to regard the South as "the enemy," and "to completely cut off all the communication and liaison lines between the North and the South."







On June 12, on the second anniversary of the first North Korea-U.S. summit, Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon, complaining about no progress in improvement of relations with Washington, declared, "Never again will we provide the U.S. chief executive with another package to be used for (his) achievements without receiving any returns."







He underscored that the Seventh Central Military Commission in May "discussed the national strategy for nuclear development in conformity with the prevailing internal and external situation and on further bolstering the national nuclear war deterrent to cope with the U.S. unabated threats of nuclear war."







Also on June 12, Jang Kum-chol, director of the United Front Department of the Central Committee, said, "From now, time will be, indeed, regretful and painful for the South Korean authorities." He showed no confidence in the ability or willingness of the South Korean government to stop the spreading of leaflets.







The North gets angry about leaflets that carry a direct attack on its leader  calling him a "nuclear maniac" or a "hypocrite." Some relevant statements include: "We will never barter the dignity of our supreme leadership for anything, but defend it at the cost of our lives." In Kim Yo Jong's words, the issue is related to "the absolute prestige of our Supreme Leader representing our country and its great dignity."







The North seems to be frustrated with the few material gains from improving relations with Seoul. Pyongyang has said it's fed up with Seoul's "lip service" that cannot deliver without U.S. approval. Even without the leaflet incident, it seemed to have given up the idea of inter-Korean cooperation.







South Korea is a sovereign democracy that allows for freedom of expression, and the government cannot do anything without the proper legal basis. Any leaflet dissemination aimed at bringing down the regime in the North may do more harm than good for the preservation of peace. Perhaps, the safety of human life should prevail over the freedom of expression in the current security environment on the Korean peninsula.







) is a visiting professor with the University of North Korean Studies, a visiting scholar with Korea University, a fellow at the Institute of Corean-American Studies, and a columnist for The Korea Times.







Tong Kim ( tong.kim8@yahoo.com
Press Release

Nokia expands 5G ReefShark chipset portfolio with Broadcom collaboration

Companies to focus on the development of silicon technology, expanding range of ReefShark chipsets

15 June 2020

Espoo, Finland - Nokia and Broadcom today announced that they are collaborating on the development of advanced semiconductor technologies, including new custom system-on-chip (SoC) processors, which will be integrated into Nokia's "5G Powered by ReefShark" portfolio. The collaboration further expands the range of Nokia ReefShark chipsets available for 5G solutions and will improve both the system performance and energy footprint of 5G networks.

The two companies will work to develop new custom system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, which utilize Nokia's wireless technology and Broadcom's expertise in application-specific integrated circuit ASIC technologies. The added performance brought by custom silicon solutions is crucial in realizing the capabilities and benefits of 5G and delivering on its requirements. While collaborating with Broadcom, Nokia continues to further expand its silicon capabilities and improve the penetration of ReefShark solutions in its AirScale radio access portfolio.

These new chipsets are designed to be deployed in several building blocks of Nokia's AirScale radio access solution. By deploying ReefShark-based products, operators will benefit from a reduction in size and power consumption, while also seeing a boost to capacity and overall performance with a lower total cost of ownership.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia, said: "This important collaboration highlights our continued commitment to developing our "5G Powered by ReefShark" chipset portfolio and ensures that our 5G solutions deliver a best-in-class performance to our customers. We are delighted to bring Broadcom's silicon technology leadership and best-in-class ASIC capability to the table, allowing us to deliver a high performance and serve our customers' needs as the demand for 5G services increases."

Frank Ostojic, SVP and General Manager of ASIC Products Division at Broadcom, said: "We are excited to partner with Nokia to develop and deploy highly integrated custom silicon solutions for 5G infrastructure. Nokia and Broadcom's collaboration accelerates silicon innovation and enables operators and end users to realize the unprecedented benefits of 5G."

Resources:

Web page: Nokia ReefShark (https://www.nokia.com/networks/technologies/reefshark/)

About Broadcom

Broadcom Inc.

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.
Officials from the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) called a march and rally for Equality and Justice for All on June 11, which attracted 2,000 teachers, parents and students. While those who attended were sincerely motivated by opposition to police killings, racism and deteriorating public schools, district officials called the event to conceal the role of the Democratic Party in the decades-long assault on public education, which is now being escalated.

Like the marches in Detroit and other cities against the police murder of George Floyd the school district rally brought out educators and supporters of all races and ethnic groups. Marchers carried signs like DPSCD Matters and "G.E.O.R.G.E.: Give Everyone Opportunity, Respect, Government Equality," Prioritize school funding: Books not bullets. A white schoolteacher carried a sign listing the names of murdered black children and youth, including Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin and Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and asking, Are my students next?

Detroit schools rally

School officials are well aware that they will confront immense opposition from educators as they rush to reopen the schools in September amid the pandemic, slash jobs and services and divert even more money to school privatizers. The speakers at the rally, including District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, blamed the chronic underfunding of the Detroit public schools on systemic racism.

In fact, the Detroit schools, like others around the state, have been systematically starved of funding by both the Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, both corporate controlled parties have handed over billions in tax cuts to the auto companies, Detroit Medical Center, DTE Energy, Comerica Bank and billionaires like Dan Gilbert and the Ilitch family.

Vitti, whose salary is $321,000, went out of his way to make it clear that the rally was not about equality. He told the crowd, If were going to talk about Black Lives Matter in education, its got to be about not equality, its about equity. Our kids dont need the sameour kids need more.

School Superintendent Nikolai Vitti (Source: Detroit Public Schools Community District)

DPSCD Executive Board member Ridgeley Hudson suggested that the impoverishment of Detroit schools was result of the white suburbs. We want the same education that students in Bloomfield [Hills] havethat students in Dearborn have...that students in Grosse Pointe have, and we wont stop until we get it!"

In reality, budget cuts have hit every Michigan district, even Bloomfield Hills, which is predominantly middle class, with a median income of over $200,000. Dearborn, a largely working-class school districtwith a median income of $44,560receives $200 less than Detroit in per-pupil spending, according to a Michigan Department of Education report on the 2018-2019 school year published in February. Tellingly, Taylor, just downriver from Detroit, which has a racial makeup of 86 percent white and nine percent African American, receives $4,489 in per pupil funding, or almost 60 percent less than Detroit.

Singing off the same racially divisive song sheet, the day prior at a Philadelphia rally called by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Democratic Party Councilwoman Kendra Brooks proclaimed, We are worthy of the same building conditions like they have in Lower Merion and Doylestown, referring to suburbs of Philadelphia. Echoing the same refrain was Philadelphia School District superintendent William E. Hite who has overseen successive waves of school closures and attacks on educators.

Misha Stallworth, a Detroit school board member, proclaimed, "If you know the history of this country, you know that our institutions of education have been one of the primary spaces that have perpetuated white supremacy and anti-black racism."

To paint the public schools as a battleground of seething racial warfare is a reactionary lie aimed at pitting white, black and immigrant teachers, parents and students against each other in a fratricidal struggle over dwindling resources. The mass teachers strikes since early 2018, beginning with the wildcat strikes in West Virginia, demonstrate that every section of educators, no matter what their color or ethnicity, are involved in a common struggle, not against white supremacy, but the supremacy of the banks and giant corporations that have looted public education, pensions and other essential social needs.

Historically, it was only the struggle to unify the working class, led by socialists in the 1930s, that enabled workers, including European immigrants and largely illiterate blacks and whites who migrated to Detroit from Appalachia and the Deep South, to win the right to public education for their children. Between 1900 and 1970, the percentage of high school graduates in the US rose from under 10 percent to 86 percent. Even with problems of persistent racial segregation, by the mid-1960s, the Detroit school system was considered one of the best in the nation and the earnings of its teachers set the standard for US educators.

The historic reversal of the public schools was not the product of a racial but a class war, overseen to a great extent by black mayors and city officials who were installed into power following the urban uprising in Detroit in 1967. Over the next half century, the automakers shut down hundreds of plants, eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs and turned Detroit, which once had the highest per capita income in America, into the nations poorest big city.

During the 2013-14 bankruptcy restructuring of Detroit and the dismantling of the public school system in 2016, Barack Obama, the first African American president, used Detroit as ground zero for a pro-corporate school reform of funneling public assets into the for-profit charter school industry. The conditions for children in Detroit and around the country deteriorated under an African American president who defended Wall Street just as ruthlessly as his white counterparts.

Despite the efforts to promote identity politics, teachers are motivated by class issues. Many protesters connected the epidemic of police violence with decades of political reaction, lies, and social inequality.

Donna, a school social worker with 26 years in the district, said, "We have so many issues to deal with children here in Detroit. They are giving out computers for online learning but if I need something to eat, I'm going to pawn it to make ends meet. The school officials act like we can ignore poverty, 'You need to teach them,' they say. But how can children learn if they are hungry, if their water was turned off, if their clothing is torn and dirty, if their parents and grandparents are dying from COVID-19?

Donna and Azariah

"Racism is real and I've witnessed it. But the class issues are never addressed. The powers-that-be don't care what color or gender you are, they just want to keep the money flowing into their bank accounts. To frame the issue solely as race, and for all the politicians and business leaders to say we're all coming together to address this, it's like putting a clean sheet over the top of a bed that's really nasty. They are covering up the fact that the entire institution is broken.

The social worker continued, "They've cut Detroit schools for decades. Schools are short-staffed. There aren't enough social workers. They are getting rid of experienced staff who have expertise in dealing with the problems of children and parents and bringing in new grads in order to pay them less."

Sharon, a long-time high school social studies teacher in Detroit, told the WSWS, "The protests are about more than the killing of George Floyd. They are erupting all over the world. There has been class warfare waged against the working class for decades. I tell my students that when I graduated from Cody High School in the early 1980s, the schools were not dilapidated. We still had arts and music, and teachers' pay was still the best in the metro area.

"Education has been under attack by both parties and it has hit teachers and students of all races. Now they are trying to force teachers and other workers back to work while the pandemic is still raging, and they want to slash school funding and jobs while handing trillions to the rich.

"These are class, not racial issues," Sharon, who is African American, said. "The craziest thing that I ever heard is that blacks have had to fight alone. What about John Brown and the Abolitionists? What about the poor whites in the South who joined with black sharecroppers? What about the labor and civil rights movement? Now we are seeing the biggest multi-racial movement in history, and it is the working class internationally that is coming forward."

With the pandemic raging and unprecedented budget cuts looming, educators are now being thrust into an existential struggle in defense of public education. To take forward this fight they must reject the racialist politics of the Democrats and their pseudo-left supporters and build new organizations of struggle, independent of the pro-capitalist unions, to prepare a counter-offensive to defend public education. This will require a frontal assault on the entrenched wealth and power of the corporate elite, which have used the pandemic to enrich themselves even further.
When the leaders of IDEA Public Schools gathered last December to vote on an eight-year lease for a private jet, the charter networks then-board chair, David Guerra, thought of the nearly $15-million deal in business terms.

As president and CEO of International Bank of Commerce, Guerra and his team had used six corporate jets to grow the multibillion-dollar companys business beyond its Laredo-area headquarters. The same premise would hold true for IDEA, he reasoned, as the charter school network based in the Rio Grande Valley rapidly expanded across Texas, Louisiana and Florida.

We cannot fulfill our commitment to such a large geographic area without having this type of transportation, the retired banking chief told IDEAs governing board in December.

IDEA board members unanimously approved the lease, but reversed the decision two weeks later after charter school opponents and some of the networks supporters denounced the aircraft as an irresponsible extravagance.

The episode triggered a wave of headlines, oversight changes and soul-searching at the states largest charter school, which now is grappling with how to maintain its corporate-like culture while abiding by some more-traditional expectations about how public school districts should be run, IDEA leaders said last week.

The upheaval comes as IDEA, which operated 92 schools in Texas last year, begins its expansion in the Houston area. The network plans to open its first two Houston campuses in August, then add eight more over the next five years. Each campus will house two separate schools serving students in grades prekindergarten through 12.

Beyond the charter jet lease, IDEA has drawn scrutiny in the past several months for multiple financial practices: spending hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on tickets and luxury boxes at San Antonios AT&T Center; making business deals with members of IDEAs leadership and their relatives; and reaching a separation agreement with co-founder and CEO Tom Torkelson that will net him $900,000 following his resignation in May.

IDEA officials do not appear to have violated any laws, and the charters leaders have defended each practice at various points.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Why IDEA chose to lease a jet  and ultimately eversed course

Still, IDEAs governing board announced several reforms last month. They include banning private air travel, curbing executive benefits, ending business deals with leaders and family members, and requiring additional spending approvals from the governing board and chief financial officer.

We dont want to have execution thats just like a traditional school district, because we want to have innovation and take some risks and be more aggressive, IDEA Board Chair Al Lopez said. But after 20 years of policies and practices helped us get to the point were at, we felt like we were at an inflection point.

The stakes are high not just for IDEA, but the entire charter school movement.

Charter critics

Advocates for traditional public schools have seized on IDEAs spending as an example of lax oversight of charters, which largely are funded by taxpayers. Texas American Federation of Teachers leaders blasted IDEA officials for the jet lease, accusing them of flying adults around the state instead of directly funding classroom programs. State Rep. Terry Canales, D-Edinburg, deemed IDEAs practices nonsense that absolutely underscores the problem.

Charter governing board members are not elected by voters, though their operations are mostly held to the same financial accountability and governance laws.

IDEA has operated outside the public eye with little transparency while still receiving taxpayer dollars  and it shows, said Patti Everitt, an education policy and research consultant who monitors Texas charter school operations. IDEA cant have it both ways.

IDEAs 51,000 students are spread across five regions in Texas, stretching from El Paso to Fort Worth to the Rio Grande Valley. The network serves mostly lower-income and Hispanic students who score better on standardized tests and get into college at higher rates than their peers.

The charters leaders credit IDEAs success, in part, to a culture that borrows from the business, nonprofit and higher education worlds. The organization employs a regimented, highly centralized model that emphasizes student and employee performance data.

On HoustonChronicle.com: IDEA arrives in Houston with high scores and plenty of skeptics

Critics, however, argue the network indirectly screens out children with greater academic and behavioral needs by emphasizing advanced-level courses, inflating the organizations results. As an example, they note IDEAs enrollment of students with disabilities totaled 5.4 percent in 2018-19, compared to 9.6 percent in other Texas public schools.

Still, IDEA schools remain in high demand, helping fuel the networks ambitious approach to expansion. IDEA added more more students in the past five years than any other Texas charter operators, and it plans to hit 100,000 students across the southern United States by 2022-23.

Along the way, IDEAs governing board largely empowered Torkelson and fellow co-founder JoAnn Gama, who served as superintendent and president, to execute their unique, aggressive plans. Tax records show the board rewarded them and other executives with well above-average compensation in 2018-19: $817,395 for Torkelson, $507,887 for CFO Wyatt Truscheit, $482,930 for Gama, and at least $250,000 for six other employees.

Ive always kind of thought of our board more like a corporate board, longtime IDEA board member Michael Rhodes, who stepped down from his position earlier this year, told the Houston Chronicle in January. Traditional school boards that Ive seen, theyre getting down in the minutiae and spending hours talking about the skirt lengths of cheerleaders, and thats not what we do.

That approach, however, ultimately resulted in spending practices that brought unflattering attention to IDEA and charter schools across the country.

On HoustonChronicle.com: IDEA co-founder getting $900,000 payout following resignation

In addition to teachers union leaders ridiculing the charter jet lease, some of IDEAs donors  whose contributions to the network have grown substantially in the past three years  grew frustrated, Lopez said. Notably, Torkelsons separation agreement specifies the two sides reached a deal, in part, to preserve needed philanthropy.

Reform plans

Lopez said IDEAs governing board has taken the criticism to heart.

Beyond the immediate changes and resignation of Torkelson  who was replaced by Gama  IDEAs governing board continues to work with governance and leadership advisers from Nygren Consulting. IDEA leaders also are considering more board reforms, such as increasing the number of public meetings and establishing term limits.

You hate to see anyone make mistakes like this, but its encouraging to see them take some clear steps to change, said Emily Sass, a policy director for the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, which generally supports charter school expansion.

Their focus on improvement in all areas seems to pervade the organization, and it helps them to be a school thats able to focus on moving the needle where it counts, which is students.

Everitt, though, said the reforms do not address the underlying state laws and structures that created the conditions for IDEA to spend improperly.

Importantly, public school districts are governed by democratically elected representatives who are accountable to voters and live in the community they serve, Everitt said. IDEA is governed by self-selected board members of a private organization and may live hundreds of miles from the students they serve.

IDEA leaders, chastened by the past several months, plan to move with more awareness of outside perceptions about their practices, Lopez said. He noted Gama will not receive a pay increase after becoming CEO, and said board members have met nine times this year instead of quarterly.

At the same time, IDEA wants to remain an entrepreneurial disruptor, he said, which will continue to ruffle feathers in education.

We may make more mistakes along the way, Lopez said. I hope not, but I think were on a good path.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com
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Linkedin Galih Gumelar (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020

Three political parties that control a small number of seats in the House of Representatives have objected to a plan to increase the legislative threshold for the 2024 elections, arguing that it would undermine the countrys democracy.

Major parties in the House are seeking to raise the requirement to acquire seats in the House from 4 percent of the national vote to 7 percent, in a draft bill dated May 6 to revise the 2017 General Elections Law. The proposal was reportedly first drafted by the Golkar Party, which received the third most votes in the 2019 elections with 12.31 percent, and the NasDem Party, which came fifth with 9.05 percent of the vote.

The Democratic Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN) and the United Development Party (PPP)  the three parties at risk of losing representation in the House in 2024 if a higher threshold is introduced  demand the threshold be maintained at 4 percent.

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Infosys Ltd is quoting at Rs 690.45, down 0.23% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The stock tumbled 6.77% in last one year as compared to a 16.13% slide in NIFTY and a 11.36% fall in the Nifty IT index.

Infosys Ltd dropped for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 690.45, down 0.23% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 1.84% on the day, quoting at 9789.05. The Sensex is at 33128.44, down 1.93%.Infosys Ltd has gained around 4% in last one month.Meanwhile, Nifty IT index of which Infosys Ltd is a constituent, has increased around 8.04% in last one month and is currently quoting at 14402.75, down 0.12% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 43.34 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 100.38 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark June futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 688.75, down 0.26% on the day. Infosys Ltd tumbled 6.77% in last one year as compared to a 16.13% slide in NIFTY and a 11.36% fall in the Nifty IT index.

The PE of the stock is 19.14 based on TTM earnings ending March 20.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lucknow, June 15 : Madhya Pradesh Governor Lalji Tandon remains in the ICU of a private hospital. "He is undergoing intensive treatment," said Medanta Hospital Director Dr Rakesh Kapoor, here on Monday.

Tandon, 85, was admitted to the hospital on Saturday after he complained of fever and urinary problems. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited the hospital and inquired about his health on Sunday.

Tandon has been kept under supervision of doctors and his condition is said to be improving. He tested Covid-19 negative at the time of admission.
Police officials, fire authorities and the National Forensic Service officials inspect the scene of a fire at a warehouse construction site in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, May 6. / Yonhap



By Jun Ji-hye



A fire at a warehouse construction site in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, in April was caused by sparks from welding equipment that ignited nearby flammable materials, police said Monday, noting that welding activities there were carried out without proper safety measures.



The fire broke out at the structure, which had four stories and two additional underground levels, on April 29, killing 38 workers and injuring 10 others.



Police unveiled the findings during their announcement of the interim results of the investigation.



Police said they have reached a tentative conclusion that the fire started on the second basement level after sparks from welding activities shot up and ignited the urethane foam that covered the ceiling.



There was a high number of casualties because those in charge of the construction project put in more workers than initially planned in a bid to shorten the construction period, and additionally blocked fire escape routes to prevent condensation within the structure.



Police have carried out forensic examinations of the scene jointly with seven other institutes including the National Forensic Service, Korea Electrical Safety Corp., Korea Gas Safety Corp. and the Ministry of Employment and Labor.



Police said workers at the construction site did the welding operation without proper safety measures such as installing a cover that would have prevented the sparks.



Those in charge of the construction also failed to offer proper training on fire prevention and evacuation for staff.



Police requested arrest warrants for nine people in charge of the construction, including three from a builder and three from subcontractors.



"We confirmed that the construction site had not complied with safety regulations such as securing fire escape routes and installing fire extinguishing tools," a police official said. "We applied for extended detention warrants for nine people as we determined that they were more at fault than others."



The official added that police will continue their investigation to find out whether those in charge of the construction committed other illegal acts.


By Express News Service

SAMBALPUR: Two persons died and another sustained critical injuries in a bear attack at Taal village under Badbahal range in Rairakhol Forest Division on Sunday. The bear also died of injuries sustained in the fight. The deceased were identified as Cheru Munda (55) and Krushna Munda (48) of Baniabandha village.

The injured person, Siddheswar Munda (40), was first rushed to Rairakhol hospital and later shifted to VIMSAR, Burla. Sources said five persons including Cheru, Krushna and Siddheswar had gone to Taal forest to collect honey. They encountered a bear, who had also come to the spot for honey, and were attacked. While Siddheswar managed to escape with injuries, the animal killed Cheru and Krushna on the spot. The other two persons, Subal Munda and Suban Munda, climbed a tree and managed to save themselves from the animal. The bear also sustained injuries in the fight and died. On being informed, forest officials rushed to the spot and seized the bodies.
You dont get to be 100 years old by accident. The YMCA is gone now and only the YWCA is here. We came up on the shoulders of other women. We dont want to let it go. This is the best kept secret in Gary, Jones said.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Manila, Philippines  Mon, June 15, 2020 15:15 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded3f7e 2 SE Asia Maria-Ressa,Philippines,journalists,Rodrigo-Duterte,freedom-of-expression,freedom-of-speech,press-freedom Free

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, convicted Monday in a controversial libel case, has become a symbol of the fight for press freedom in an era of strongmen leaders.

Media advocates say the critical reporting from her news site Rappler has unleashed a grinding series of criminal charges, two arrests and a deluge of online threats against her.

Monday saw likely the most serious trouble to date, a conviction on a cyber libel case that could send her to prison if her appeals of the judgment are rejected.

Yet through this Ressa, 56, has remained based in the Philippines and continued to speak out against the government of Rodrigo Duterte despite the risks.

"I'm not a sole reporter," Ressa told AFP in an interview last week. "My job is to hold up the ceiling, it has been for a while... so that our folks can continue working."

Ressa's position at the head of the site meant getting, by her own estimate, up to 90 abusive messages per hour online at one point toward the end of 2016.

The threats came in the months after Duterte took power and launched his narcotics crackdown that has killed thousands.

Rappler was among the domestic and foreign outlets that published shocking images of the killing and questioned its legal basis.

But Ressa's arrests wouldn't come until early 2019.

The first was in February and was over the libel case, then a second one less than two months later on allegations Rappler violated laws barring foreign ownership of media.

'Malevolent mark' of Duterte

Due to the string of libel and tax cases against her and Rappler, Ressa says she had to post bail eight times in the span of about three months.

She had already been named a Time Person of the Year in 2018 for her work, but the arrests further grew her international profile and drew more attention to her case.

It was an entirely new set of threats for Ressa, who was a veteran of conflict zones before co-founding Rappler.

"I began as a reporter in 1986 and I have worked in so many countries around the world, I have been shot at and threatened but never this kind of death by a thousand cuts," Ressa said Monday after the verdict.

As CNN's former bureau chief in Manila and Jakarta, Ressa specialized in terrorism where she tracked the links between global networks like Al-Qaeda and militants in Southeast Asia.

The Princeton graduate, who holds both American and Filipino citizenship, later returned to the Philippines to serve as news chief at the nation's top broadcaster ABS-CBN.

In 2012 Rappler was launched, which brought together multimedia reporting and social media to offer an edgy take on Philippine current events.

However that website has had to fight for survival as Duterte's government has accused it of violating a constitutional ban on foreign ownership in securing funding, as well as libel and tax evasion.

Duterte has attacked Rappler by name, calling it a "fake news outlet", over a story about one of his closest aides.

Though the government has said that it has nothing to do with any of the cases against her, press freedom advocates disagree.

"This sentence [in the libel case] bears the malevolent mark of President Duterte and his desire, by targeting Rappler and the figure of Maria Ressa, to eliminate all criticism whatever the cost," said Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
It was back to work for Victoria Beckham on Monday, as she proudly announced her London clothing store was open.

After Boris Johnson relaxed coronavirus lockdown rules to allow non-essential shops to open from June 15, Victoria Beckham followed thousands of other stores across the country by reopening.

The star's store on Dover Street has had a facelift too, decorated with a rainbow tribute to Pride Month.

Back in business: It was back to work for Victoria Beckham on Monday, as she proudly announced her London clothing store was open

'So excited to reopen 36 Dover Street today with our beautiful Pride windows (and social distancing measures in place) x VB,' Victoria shared on Instagram alongside photos of her store.

Alongside a rainbow, a quote on the window reads: 'Let's be kind to one another, today and every day.'

Victoria was previously criticised at the beginning of lockdown for furloughing staff working for her fashion line, later reversing the decision.

It seems the Spice Girl turned designer has struggled to get much work done at home during lockdown, as she admitted her daughter has taken over her office.

Open! After Boris Johnson relaxed coronavirus lockdown rules to allow non-essential shops to open, Victoria Beckham followed thousands of other stores across the country by reopening

The 46-year-old fashion designer has lost her usual homeworking space at her Oxfordshire abode during the coronavirus pandemic as eight-year-old Harper prefers to do her school work there, leaving the rest of the household to find a spot elsewhere in the home.

Victoria - who also has some Brooklyn, 21, Romeo, 17, and Cruz, 15, with husband David - told Guardian Weekend magazine:: 'Harper's taken over my office. She's trying to do all her schoolwork and, well, she's kind of decided that's her space now.

'So I'm downstairs... we're all dotted around the house, me and David and the boys, trying to work, trying to get schoolwork done. There's often someone holding a laptop up to a window, trying to get reception.'

Step inside: The star's store on Dover Street has had a facelift too, decorated with a rainbow tribute to Pride as Victoria showed off in Instagram photos

School comes first:It seems the Spice Girl turned designer has struggled to get much work donw at home during lockdown, as she admitted her daughter has taken over her office

While Victoria has been opting for comfortable clothes during lockdown, she hasn't let her standards slip too far. She said: 'I'd love to say my lockdown look has been all about a vintage kaftan, but that's not the case. I still get up early and exercise every day, then I dress for work and for comfort. A pair of old jeans, a T-shirt or a jumper.

'I'm not quite at the elasticated waistband stage yet - I still want to feel good about myself.

'We've been going out on country walks every day, so the only shoes I wear are an old pair of trainers. It's so nice just to do things with the family and not think too much about getting dressed. So, definitely no heels.'

However, the brunette beauty admitted one of the things she has missed is getting dressed up to go out. She told Guardian Weekend magazine: 'I do miss getting dressed.

'A nice pub lunch with family and friends, a few glasses of wine. I'm really grateful for the family time, but I'm ready to be a little bit sociable now.'
A Democratic Senate challenger in Georgia gets a boost.

National Democrats are lining up behind the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, who is running for Senate in Georgia in hopes of ousting Kelly Loeffler, a Republican incumbent who is under pressure from within her party and has faced scrutiny over her wealth.

On Monday morning, Mr. Warnock announced endorsements from five former presidential candidates: Senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Michael Bennet of Colorado, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

Georgia families deserve someone in the U.S. Senate who will expand their access to health care, fight for working people, and combat voter suppression, Ms. Harris said in a statement provided by the campaign. Raphael speaks truth to power about our countrys dark history of discrimination and Im proud to endorse him in this campaign.

Georgia is taking an increasing role in the national psyche of Democrats. The state has two open Senate seats and a changing demographic landscape that could be helpful to Democrats, but long lines during last weeks primary elections again raised questions about ballot access and voting rights.
Attorney-General Christian Porter during Question Time in the House of Representatives at Parliament House on May 13, 2020 in Canberra, Australia. (Sam Mooy/Getty Images)

Australian Senate Debates Strengthening Child Sexual Abuse Laws

While Senate debates the proposed bill, multiple child sexual abuse offenders are brought to justice

The Australian Senate resumed debate on June 11 on the Coalition governments landmark bill to amend laws relating to sexual crimes against children. Attorney-General Christian Porter has called for the Labor Party to change its stance and support the tough new reforms.

The bill proposes a swathe of reforms intended to fix loopholes in the law that, for example, saw 28 percent of convicted federal child sex offenders spend only one day in jail in the 2018-19 financial yeara figure that jumped to 39 percent this last year.

Sexual crimes against children destroy lives, Porter said in a statement on June 11.

The depraved individuals who prey on these most vulnerable members of our community for their own sexual gratification or financial gain, are too often the subject of short jail terms and are released into the community without any supervision, said Porter, referring to an average 18-month jail sentence under the current law.

In the statement, Porter noted that this fell short of community expectations on penalties for such crimes.

The attorney-general said that as well as introducing mandatory minimum sentences, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 2019 includes a new maximum life penalty for the most serious Commonwealth offences and a presumption against bail to help keep offenders in custody while they face trial.

To date, Labor has not supported these initiatives, said Porter in the statement.

Porter noted that Labor once previously supported legislation introducing mandatory sentences for people smugglers during the failed Labor-Greens alliance government in 2010, and expressed his hope that cracking down on child sex offenders should now also warrant Labors support.

Greens Party Candidate Charged with Child Sex Offences

An Australian Greens Party candidate, 57-year-old Sydney man Jonathan Doig, faced court on June 10 and was granted bail, for allegedly paying to direct and view the live abuse of a child in the Philippines online.

According to an Australian Federal Police (AFP) press release on June 10, the offender was uncovered by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre that provided intelligence to the AFP about the details of a payment from a New South Wales resident to a known child exploitation facilitator in the Phillippines.

During a search of the mans home police seized a number of electronic devices including a mobile phone, two laptops, and a hard drive for forensic examination.

Tasmanian Jailed for Less Than 2 Years for Child Abuse and Bestiality Material

A 20-year-old Tasmanian man was jailed on June 15 after he repeatedly obtained, accessed, and transmitted child abuse material and bestiality material, according to the AFP.

The man was sentenced by the Hobart Supreme Court to 20 months imprisonment2 months longer than the average short jail term that the proposed bill aims to correct. His imprisonment comes with a non-parole period of 10 months.

The Tasmanian Joint Anti-Child Abuse Exploitation Team arrested and charged the man on Dec. 19, 2019, following a 10-month investigation.

Former Teacher Released on Bail After Pleading Guilty

A 31-year-old Queensland man and former teacher pleaded guilty on June 12 to a number of child sexual abuse offences following an investigation by the AFP.

It was alleged the man had been sending indecent images and videos to female students under the age of 16 in the UK, as well as engaging with them in sexualised chat. The two students made formal complaints to UK authorities, who reached out to Australian authorities for assistance.

A search warrant was executed on Jan. 29, 2019, with the assistance of NSW police child exploitation unit and AFP. Authorities seized a number of electronic devices from the mans Bella Vista home in Sydney.

He was later released on strict bail and suspended from the NSW Department of Education.

The AFP laid additional charges on the man following a review of all evidence. He pleaded guilty to three charges. The matter is adjourned until Aug. 18, 2020.

Sydney Man Charged for Possession of Extreme Child Abuse Material

A 68-year-old Lakemba man faced court on June 12 over allegations he transmitted the most serious category of child abuse material online, the AFP announced in a media release.

The AFP investigation was launched following a report from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States. The report alleged an Australian internet user had uploaded abuse images involving children, categorised as involving torture and sexual abuse.

Authorities searched the mans property on June 11 and seized a number of devices, which they allege contained child abuse material. It will be alleged the man obtained the child abuse material from the dark web.

AFP Commander ACCCE and Child Protection Operations Jamie Strauss said: In homes across Sydney, we unfortunately have people who are seeking to view the most depraved acts of abuse committed against children.

We will not stop in our pursuit to bring this type of offending from the anonymity of the online world and before the courts.

Federal Government Determined to Reform the Law to Protect Children

Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton spoke about the proposed bill in Parliament on June 10, saying: The governments been determined for a long time under the Prime Ministers leadership to make sure that we can reform the laws wherever theyre needed so that our policing agencies can protect children.

He said the Australian Federal Police and AUSTRAC were detecting more and more people using the dark web and encrypted devices who deserve to be caught and punished.

While admitting the means of committing the crimes are sophisticated, Dutton said police were now able to understand what it is going on and his department would continue to work with the policing agencies to combat child abuse.

I am determined to make sure we can protect Australian children, and I know were supported in that task by all Australians, said Dutton.

Labor Votes Against the Bill then Backtracks

Labor, the Greens, Centre Alliance, and independent Senator Jackie Lambie opposed minimum sentences using what MPs called a procedural trick.

Their decision prompted swift criticism from Senator Mathias Cormann, who said on Tuesday: The legislation that weve put forward, was entirely appropriate  about 39 percent of child sex offenders dont do any time in jail.

Following the decision, the prime minister told Parliament his government would not negotiate on laws meant to protect children, saying they would send the bill back to the Senate time and time again.

We are proudwe stand up for kids, especially the most vulnerable and defenceless, Morrison said.

Labor later backtracked and indicated it would not oppose the amendments when the bill makes its way back to the Senate.

Epoch Times reporter Caden Pearson contributed to this article.
Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets in New Zealand as of June 13 to express solidarity with the death of the African American citizen George Floyd who succumbed to the white officers chokehold in a brutal act of racial prejudice in Minnesota, US. Chanting Black Lives Matter and I cant breathe", protesters marched against the police along city streets and kneeling with raised fists in Aotea Square, in the center of the city, before moving on to the US consulate, as seen in the footages released on air.

Protesters assembled in Christchurch amid the downpours and in Wellington, the nations capital, with placards yelling slogans, demanding justice. At night, a huge crowd gathered outside the parliament building reflecting on the history of police violence against Indigenous people in Australia and New Zealand. In the footages, demonstrators can be seen taking out rallies and vigils to have their voices heard against the racial profiling and white supremacist ideology forgetting social distancing, while still wearing their protective masks.

You would think this is in America, its not. This is Queen St, Auckland City. New Zealand stands with #BlackLivesMatter  pic.twitter.com/KrIK9VLruh  SICK & TIRED (@princetrisy) June 1, 2020

THIS! Literally just brought me to tears. This is so beautiful. Our Polynesian Brothers and Sisters doing their traditional Haka for Black Lives Matter in New Zealand. The world is coming together and it is so beautiful. #blacklivesmatter #georgefloyd #breonnataylor #ahmadarbery pic.twitter.com/8zLNeQJCmr  Melany Centeno (@_NotISaidTheCat) June 1, 2020

Read: More Global Protests Emerge Over Racism, Police Actions

Read: Buffalo Teen Who Cleaned Up After Protests Gets Job Offer

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was heard saying in a live-streamed address, while I utterly understand why people had marched, New Zealand had social distancing rules in place to protect peoples health  and the June 1 marches were a clear breach of them.

If we had one person, one person in that crowd, just think what could happen there because weve seen it before, I understand the strength of feeling and I understand the sentiment and I understand that sense of urgency that everyone felt. But my job is to look after the countrys health as wellPM Jacinda Ardern

Organized by a group of people of colour from New Zealands African community, the march sought to peacefully demonstrate and give speeches at overcrowded Aotea Square, as can be seen in one of the footage. A crowd between 2,000 and 4,000 people marched flouting the health safety protocols as the police officers stood behind the designated barricades to manage the crowd while being more tolerant.

Impassioned speeches delivered

One of the organizers of the event, Mahlete Tekeste, delivered a speech on racial inequality, saying that George Floyd's killing was state-sanctioned murder of a black man, another iteration of the same culture and pattern thats pervaded the US from the very beginning.

Black Lives Matter

Auckland

NZ pic.twitter.com/pLTBnChbdg  He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata. (@VishOnAMish) June 1, 2020

Read: Hundreds Rally In Support Of US Anti Racist Protests

Read: 100 Arrests At Violent Right-wing Protests Branded racist Thuggery By UK PM

(Images Credit: AP)
- The recent attack by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno state has been condemned by the United Nations

- The UN in a statement by its humanitarian said it is saddened by the attacks in Monguno and Nganzai local government areas of the state

- The aid agency stated that it was shocked by the attack which destroyed a major humanitarian facility

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The recent attack by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno state has been condemned by the United Nations.

This Day reported that the UN in a statement by its humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, said it is saddened by the attacks in Monguno and Nganzai local government areas of the state in which several civilians were killed.

The UN noted that it was shocked by the attack which destroyed a major humanitarian facility.

The recent attack by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno state has been condemned by the United Nations. Photo credits: Daily Trust

Source: UGC

It noted that such constant attacks by the insurgents impede the ability of aid workers to stay and deliver assistance to the people that are in need.

Meanwhile, John Campbell, a former U.S ambassador to Nigeria and an expert on the country's council of foreign relations, has said Boko Haram looms large in Nigeria.

Campbell made the assertion in a piece he wrote on the council of foreign relations website on Thursday, June 11.

According to him, even amid the pandemic, all Boko Haram factions have rejected the notion of a truce with the Nigerian government, which they see as an agency of evil. Jihadi rhetoric portrays the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, as Gods punishment of their enemies.

There is no credible information about the presence of the virus among jihadis themselves.

He went on to write that Nigerian security services are struggling with a general breakdown of law and order in the country.

In another report, the ongoing war against insurgency has recorded another groundbreaking boost as Nigerian troops repelled an attack by Boko Haram/ISWAP elements in Borno state.

The troops of Sector 3 and Air Task Force Operation LAFIYA DOLE inflicted heavy casualties against the insurgents as they attempted to breach Munguno Town on Saturday, June 13.

The coordinator Defence Media Operations (DM)), Major General John Enenche, in a statement on Sunday, June 14, disclosed that the soldiers neutralized 20 terrorists while 4 of their gun trucks were destroyed.

According to the statement, the gallant troops who had yet another fierce encounter with some Boko Haram/ISWAP marauders also captured some of the terrorists and their equipment.

The Armed Forces hailed the ground troops and the Air Task Force for the professionalism they exhibited during the operation.

Still on security, a popular political activist, Shehu Sani, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari for saying bandits and insurgents were taking advantage of the COVID-19 restrictions to attack people.

The former Senator in a statement on Friday, June 12, said the government must own up to its inability to protect the lives of people.

He said the recent killings in parts of the north were due to evident government failures.

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Can Nigerian Soldiers really not deal with Boko Haram fighters?| Legit TV

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T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint all received spikes in reported outages beginning at around midday eastern time on Monday.

Customers of the major carriers took to Twitter to complain that despite having full bars, they had no cell service. The outages did not appear to be complete outages though, as some users claiming to live in the same city using the same carriers reported different results.

Despite customers calling in from across the country, it appears the outage may be linked specifically to a problem occurring on T-Mobile's network, as the other carriers are denying massive issues on their networks.

At 4.18pm, T-Mobile's president of technology, Neville Ray, tweeted out an acknowledgement of the problem and told customers it was being examined.

"Our engineers are working to resolve a voice and data issue that has been affecting customers around the country. We're sorry for the inconvenience and hope to have this fixed shortly," he wrote.

Many T-Mobile customers called for refunds or an application of phone credit to their accounts as compensation for the disruption to their service. One user, going by the name Middlemontana, said the company could not be susceptible to widespread outages if it intended to be a major carrier.

"It's 2020 a major outage like this nationwide simply cannot occur. You are essentially a utility company. If you don't have redundancy you aren't prepared to be the major data provider for the US with 5G," the user said.

Mike Murphy, editor of tech news outlet Protocol, originally reported that the outage might be limited solely to T-Mobile and theorised as to why the other companies were receiving outage calls from their customers.

"Interesting update: I've just been told that *one network* (appears to be TMO, waiting for confirmation) is having an issue, but because other people are calling people on that network, they think the issue is on their end, which is why downdetector looks like this," he wrote.

According to Down Detector, a website that monitors cell service and website outages, the carriers have collectively received more than 112,000 reports of outages today, with the majority - more than 100,000 - coming from T-Mobile customers. New York City, Texas, Florida, Georgia and California all reported significant outages.
The Bombay High Court on Monday refused to accept the reservations raised against booking of middle seats in the flights. The court was hearing a plea filed by Air India pilot Deven Kanani, who said the middle seats of all international and domestic flights should be kept vacant amid ongoing virus spread. The division bench observed that the air carriers can book middle seats in flights, but after complying with guidelines of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on measures to prevent coronavirus spread, news agency PTI reported.

"We are of the prima facie view that the safety and health of passengers on board the aircraft qua (with regard to) COVID-19 virus is adequately taken care of even if the middle seat of the aircraft is not kept vacant on account of passenger load and seat capacity," the court said.

On May 31, DGCA had said that the airlines should try to keep the middle seat vacant. However, if the seats have been booked, the passenger shall be provided with a wraparound gown in addition to the mask and face shield, it had said in its circular.

The court in its order also said it has not seen any material to show wrongdoing on part of the Air India and Air India Express or violating circulars issued by the DGCA on March 23 and endangering the lives of passengers travelling back to India from abroad in the Vande Bharat flights.

Upon disembarkment, thermal screening of all passengers is again carried out and they are thereafter compulsorily placed under institutional quarantine for seven to 14 days. It is not established till date that any passenger, who tested positive, has been infected on board an aircraft, the court added.

The court observed that even in the case of the middle seat being vacant, the person occupying the window seat, while getting out to go to the washroom and thereafter returning to the seat, is likely to touch the person sitting on the aisle seat.

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June 15 : Actor Akshay Kumar amid lockdown has been quite positive and full of life. He has been actively providing help to those affected by the coronavirus lockdown. Now as we have entered the first phase of unlocking, Akshay deems that even a common person can be a COVID-19 warrior. The Houseful 4 actor emphasizing on the same shared a few courses of action the people should follow.

Akshay said, As we have entered the first phase of unlocking, cases are increasing. Many offices have started. But, if you have an option to work from home, please stay on it, rather than going out. And in case if it is too mandatory to go to the office, please cover your nose and mouth. I have seen many people just cover their mouths and not the nose. And many of them just cover their nose and not the mouth. This is not correct, we should cover both and also wash our hands continuously. Try not to step out of the home to buy basic products. We have an option to order online, utilize it.

The most important thing, sanitize everything as much as you can. Help the people who are under privilege. Trust the authorities, follow the rules, and do possibly you can do it. As I have mentioned before also, we have to live with this corona. We have to live like how we use to live with cold and cough. We should not think as much, neither get scared of it. In fact, we should think that coronavirus is just a common thing. If we get scared our immunity level will get weak. Just keep moving ahead, he added.

Akshay Kumar launches an online health care system for Nashik City Police to track their health

Meanwhile, on the work front, Akshay Kumar was busy shooting for his next film Bachchan Pandey before the outbreak of coronavirus forced the industry to stop work. The actor an interesting line-up of release, such as Rohit Shetty's Sooryavanshi, Bachchan Pandey, Laxmmi Bomb and Bell Bottom.
BETHLEHEM - Local residents will be able to weigh in Wednesday night on National Grid's plans to build a $15 million substation in Delmar on land near Eagle Elementary and the high school.

The town of Bethlehem's zoning board scheduled a public hearing for the project at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. The public can participate remotely during a Zoom conference call set up by the town. Participants should join the Zoom call between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. that day to participate using a link on the town's website.

National Grid has said the new substation, which would be located on land the utility owns on Van Dyke Road, is needed to keep up with housing growth in the town, as well as to supply additional power to the Vista Technology Campus in Slingerlands, although that reason appears to have been minimized by National Grid lately in its last presentations to the town.

The zoning board is questioning whether or not there is a real need to supply more power to Vista, which has failed to attract any technology tenants. The one tech company ever to commit to the business park is Monolith Solar, which fell into financial trouble last year and stopped work on a new $5 million headquarters at Vista. The steel shell of the project is all that remains for now.

The zoning board has submitted a number of questions to National Grid that center on the Vista tech park, which has retail and doctors offices that were supposed to serve the tech tenants that were envisioned.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"Is the demand for electricity growing in Delmar/Bethlehem given the failure of Vista to attract tenants and the declining school populations to justify the facility as proposed in size and capacity?" the zoning board asked.

National Grid last pitched the substation plan to the town back in 2015 when a group of parents from Eagle Elementary organized to oppose the project due to their concerns about the potential health impacts of the electromagnetic field produced by the substation.

National Grid has said the substation poses no health risk and the electromagnetic field would stop at the property line.
All we need to know now is whether Fine Gael and Fianna Fail really can move on from 90-plus years of bitter rivalry. And can a second time around and more militant Green Party come on board and stay the course again this time?

Of course, those two questions assume the three party memberships - especially the Greens - will endorse whatever deal comes out of the five weeks of negotiations we've had so far.

That brings us back to the most basic post-negotiation move in any walk of life - if you do a deal, you must sell that deal.

This almost-made coalition has been far too long in coming to this point: 128 days and still counting, in fact.

If a deal is finalised today, we can expect another fortnight for members' voting before we are at a point when a Taoiseach is elected, the final 11 senators are nominated and the work of running the country can finally begin with a new government.

June 26 - Friday week - was cited as the deadline for completing the membership votes with, all going well, a Taoiseach and Government to follow a fortnight tomorrow on June 30.

There would be a certain symmetry to the date of June 26. It's the day soon-no-longer-to-be-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is due to announce the timeline for the de facto ending of the Covid-19 lockdown in a speeded-up process.

The leader who locked us down would be the one to remove the padlocks.

This is undoubtedly the bones of a good deal for the Green Party. Its strengths should help Eamon Ryan to sell it and even get the required two-thirds majority of the 2,500 or so party members. They will be voting by postal ballot after a virtual conference of members via internet and phone contact.

All paid-up members who have been in the party more than six months will be entitled to vote. There have been ongoing tensions about how the deed will be done.

But the Green Party's history around achieving this two-thirds majority is a mixed one. In June 2007, it was handsomely achieved when eight out of 10 members endorsed the coalition with Fianna Fail.

And even after two years and four months of coalition attrition, in October 2009, a similar level of party members endorsed a renewed coalition deal with Fianna Fail. It has not, however, all been plain sailing.

In the run-in to the June 2008 referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty, they failed by two votes to cross the two-thirds bar for reversing their long-standing anti-EU stance. And ahead of a re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum in October 2009, the members again voted by just on two-thirds to endorse it.

So, two-thirds is, and always will be, a very high bar to cross.

But with apologies to the 19th-century US children's author Susan Coolidge, everybody was still last night puzzling the riddle of "What Catie Does Next?"

Would Catherine Martin, the Green Party deputy leader cum leadership contender, who opposed the very idea of coalition talks and then led her party in those very talks, wholeheartedly support this proposed deal?

Logic would say Ms Martin should support a deal she spent five weeks questing for along with other Green Party colleagues. But, with an eye on the leadership election next month, she could see other colleagues reject the deal while she gave it a less enthusiastic endorsement.

That is called a political shilling each-way bet. It would be a dangerous gambit for Ms Martin, for the Green Party and for the country writ large, as it would again raise questions about the Green membership delivering the required two-thirds majority. But politics is sometimes like that.

The Green Party has stolen more than its share of limelight throughout this process and especially since the three-party coalition talks began in earnest on May 14. This, combined with the nation's inevitable fixation with the coronavirus and all its fallout, still risks obscuring a major piece of history.

In other times, we would hailing an end to Civil War politics.

Since this State's foundation, either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael has headed every government. It has always been hard to distinguish policy differences between them and the distinction often amounted to questions of emphasis and cultural particularities.

But the two big beasts of Irish politics have had many hot and heavy contests with an at times visceral dislike for one another. Now veterans of such contests are being asked to forget all that and share power.

It is wrong to think that this Fianna Fail-Fine Gael power-sharing process will not be without its issues. Witness their spat about raising the pension age right through these talks for example.

But there is a sense within both parties that the head will overrule the heart in these matters. The urgent need for government will help and being seen to be responsible is another goad.

Micheal Martin emerging as Taoiseach will help smooth things in Fianna Fail. Leo Varadkar appears capable of holding off Fine Gael pressures to go for an early election and avail of that coronavirus management poll ratings boost.

In practice, both party's heavy-hitters have been collaborating via Confidence and Supply for the past four years. They should be able to keep things between the ditches - but it could be noisy at times as each leader has only so many cabinet seats to placate their people.

But these are details for the future. Right now, we need this slowest political bicycle race to Government Buildings to conclude.

Thus the imminent deal must be sold so that work can start.
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Nearly six decades ago, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited Albany on June 16, 1961, Americans were risking their lives to fight for justice and racial equality, and times were fraught with conflict.

The Freedom Riders were braving violence from police and white protesters in their bid to end segregation at bus terminals. Just two years later, more than 200,000 people would participate in the March on Washington, famous in part as the occasion for King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

As Paul Grondahl writes, Wilborn Temple in Albany was packed with listeners eager to hear the 32-year-old preacher from Atlanta during his appearance in the Capital Region.

"If America is to remain a first-class nation, she can no longer afford to have second-class citizens," King told the audience, according to Times Union and Knickerbocker News archives.

Solomon Dees spoke to Grondahl in 2015 about his experience as a member of King's audience that day.

"He had a drive and a presence that was different from other preachers I'd heard," said Dees, a resident of Menands.

"There was a lot of racial tension in Albany in those years and that was the mood here when Rev. King visited," Dees said.

At the urging of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, King would return to the Capital Region on Oct. 9, 1961, to address a capacity crowd of 1,200 in the gymnasium of Linton High School at the opening session of the Schenectady Freedom Forum.

Through the years since his visit, King has been honored by the Capital Region for his leadership and legacy.
Mumbai, June 15 : A day after upcoming Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput hanged himself, the police have started an all-encompassing probe into the suicide from various angles, even as his last rites were performed here on Monday.

Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh reiterated the police version that that the autopsy report has confirmed that Rajput committed suicide by hanging himself.

"However, there are media reports that he allegedly suffered from clinical depression because of professional rivalry. Mumbai Police will probe this angle too," Deshmukh said.

Late on Sunday, an autopsy was conducted on his body at the Dr. R.N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital, the report of which was received on Monday.

"The provision post-mortem report has cited asphyxia as the cause of death," Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abhishek Trimukhe, told mediapersons, even as the police tentatively ruled out any possibility of a foul play.

The police have also quizzed Rajput's friends Rhea Chakravarty and Mahesh Shetty on the incident, and some more persons are likely to be queried, sources said.

"As we are all deeply pained and shocked to hear about Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely demise, so is Mahesh Shetty. He has lost a brother, a very dear friend and is still coming to terms with the shock and reality and is completely heartbroken. We, his team, request the media and all of you, on his behalf, to please give him some privacy and let him grieve for his loss," said Shetty's team in a social media post.

As part of the probe, separate teams from the Bandra Police Station, the Crime Branch-CID and the Forensic Department visited Rajput's Bandra flat.

Earlier on Monday morning, Rajput's family reached Mumbai from Patna, visited his home in Bandra and later claimed his body.

It was subsequently taken for the funeral at the Vile Parle Crematorium amid heavy rains with a large number of mediapersons, police and a few fans present.

It may be recalled that on Sunday, Rajput, 34, ended his life by hanging himself in the bedroom of his home and was found by his domestic help who alerted the police.

As the news of the suicide spread, Bollywood and thousands of his fans were plunged into grief amid widespread speculation of the reasons hurtling him to resort to the ultimate step.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
The mass protests convulsing Americas cities have now produced demands that city police forces be defunded, even disbanded.

A veto-proof majority of Minneapolis city council now supports the drastic move. When the citys mayor, a liberal Democrat, balked at the demand, boos rained down on him from an angry crowd of activists and forced him to slink away.

Black Lives Matter declares police shutdowns essential to address the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in handcuffs with a white Minneapolis policeman kneeling on his neck.

Three other officers on the scene did nothing to intervene, as video indicates.

The four officers have been fired and arrested, the kneeling officer charged with second degree murder.

Now America nervously awaits the disposition of the case. Legally complicating factors remain for a trial to sort out, including Floyds violent felony record and autopsy findings that he had a cardiovascular condition, had fentanyl in his system and had recently taken methamphetamines.

This is no shoo-in for the prosecution, says one prominent Minnesota defense attorney. There are lots of lines prosecutors have to connect. If you raise questions about even one, you could raise reasonable doubts.

Its frightening to contemplate the additional convulsions our cities, already in steep decline, will be subjected to if prosecutors ultimately are unable to deliver the guilty verdicts theyve promised riled-up crowds in the streets.

Meanwhile, we are left to ponder whether law enforcements indifference to the lives of blacks has indeed caused race relations to plunge to desperate levels. Have things come to such a pass that citizens are now better off to be left without police protection  or left to provide their own?

Among the tumult and shouting, the reassuring but largely ignored answer seems to be: No.

There is surely a pressing, ongoing need to improve race relations, to review police procedures and to hold abusive police officers accountable to the full extent of the law. There is little if any opposition to that proposition.

Racial animosity, on the other hand, is not a coin with just a single side, as divisive chants by some protesters have shown. Still, the stark difference in way blacks and whites assess the status of race relations is itself a cause for concern, even alarm.

There remains, meanwhile, a fundamental question the protest rhetoric is drowning out: What are the pertinent facts regarding blacks and police?

The long-available data and studies indicate, thankfully, that its a statistically rare event for a black person to die in interactions with police.

Highly publicized cases indicating otherwise  though emotionally wrenching in individual, human terms  are the exceptions that prove the rule.

A study by researchers from Rutgers U., U. of Washington (St. Louis) and U. of Michigan concluded that blacks, lamentably, are 2.5 times more likely to die in confrontations with police than whites are. Even so, however, the studys own data show fatal outcomes in blacks interactions with police to be vanishingly rare.

Here are some key but seldom-cited numbers:

 About 1,000 suspects of all colors annually die in encounters with police. That is a fractional 0.0001 of the 10 million arrests police make annually.

 Actually, more whites than blacks or Latinos die in fatal interactions with police, typically shootings. Where race could be determined, here were the fatality figures for 2019: whites 370; blacks 235 and Latinos 158. And here were the fatality figures for 2018: whites 399; blacks 209 and Latinos 148.

 While the death rate for blacks in encounters with police is significantly higher than the death rate for whites, the rate in any case is minuscule: blacks, 30 per million population; Latinos, 23 per million; whites, 12 per million and other minorities, 4 per million.

A grotesque history of racism lurks behind todays controversy. This history unfortunately inclines rhetoric to be expressed in such exaggerated terms as California Congresswoman Karen Bass, a Democrat and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, recently did when she declared that theres an open hunting season on black folks.

The data simply dont support the assertion, or anything remotely approaching it.

Another major study, this one by researchers at U. of Maryland and Washington State U., ruled out racial prejudice as the most significant factor in fatal minority encounters with police.

The study declared that, in fact, racial disparity vanished or reversed when violent crime was factored into the equation.

This study was published in the highly regarded Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It was aided by data from the left-leaning Washington Post and Guardian. The co-author of the study, Joseph Cesario, said:

We found that the race of the officer doesnt matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot. In fact, our findings show no support that black citizens are more likely to have been shot by white police. He continued: We found that violent crime rates are the driving force behind fatal shootings.

The research suggests, the study added, that the best way to understand police shootings is not racial bias of the police officer; (but) rather, by exposure to police officers through crime.

The vast majority  between 90 and 95 percent  of the civilians shot by officers were actually attacking police or other citizens when they were shot, according to the study.

Coauthor Cesario added this perspective: If you live in a county that has a lot of white people committing crimes, white people are more likely to be shot. If you live in a county that has a lot of black people committing crimes, black people are likely to be shot.

He had one further observation: The data show that its not the racial bias on behalf of white officers relative to black officers when it comes to fatal shootings  and thats the good news.

The bad news, he adds, is that internal policy changes such as diversifying police forces may not reduce shootings of minorities. Only shared economic opportunity and an accompanying reduction in crime are likely to achieve that objective, the study seems to imply.

If, however, such research is to be rejected in favor of the conclusion that police forces are inclined to be abusive toward minorities and that authorities are inclined to do nothing about it, then we are left with the challenge of explaining how such an intolerable state of affairs came about.

How did such supposed indifference, or even hostility, toward blacks evolve, proliferate and persist in cities long overwhelmingly dominated by liberal Democratic Party leadership  by a leadership that congratulates itself at every turn for being attuned to minority sensitivities?

Protest-shaken cities like New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Minneapolis are hardly conservative Republican strongholds.

These bastions of single-party monopoly have long had strong minority representation at the local levers of power  in the mayors offices, in the police chiefs and public safety directors offices and in the city councils.

The ranks of police departments are now, nationally, one-quarter minority  12 percent African American, 12 percent Latino. The George Floyd case reflects the diversity trend. Two of the four officers arrested in the death are minorities themselves, one Asian (Hmong-American), the other African American.

In any event, the regrettable reality remains that far more blacks perish at the hands of other blacks than at the hands of police. Far more. In Chicago  a wall-to-wall, solidly one-party Democratic city  authorities are literally hard-pressed on some weekends to keep up with the body count of mostly black and Latino homicide victims.

The homicide toll on one recent Chicago weekend night was an astounding, shameful, Baghdad-like 18  as usual minorities, with none of the killings involving police. Such carnage, however, draws no attention from an Al Sharpton or a Colin Kaepernick and their retinues of TV crews.

The Civil Rights movement once instilled hope and perseverance and appealed to unity with the line inspired by St. Paul, Keep the Faith. That sentiment today is scorned by some of the more rancorous elements in the streets as so much Uncle Tom, cracker hogwash.

In 2018, there were nearly 3,000 black victims of homicide nationwide, and nine out of every 10 of those deaths were inflicted by black offenders, not police. (FBI data.) Black Lives Matter has evinced little interest in such numbers.

Sociologists tell us these black-on-black homicide numbers themselves reflect racial inequality, reflect the toxic impact of insidious socio-economic factors. And that very well may be true. Nevertheless, the plain fact remains that such fatalities far, far exceed police-involved shootings.

If blacks are at serious risk due to police ranks compromised by racial bigotry, this surely would be reflected by a growing indifference, or even hostility, of whites to improved race relations. Yet major polling reveals no such trend.

The Gallup Poll reported in 2001 that only around one-third of whites were somewhat or very concerned that blacks were receiving fair treatment. By 2019, the figure had risen to nearly one-half.

Meanwhile, in a Pew Research Foundation poll, fully 70 percent of whites were found to have come around to the view that, yes, their race gives them a lot, or at least some, advantage.

Also, a solid majority of whites (56 percent) now agrees that the legacy of slavery significantly affects the economic and social status of African Americans.

Such numbers hardly seem to reflect, as one protesting academic recently put it, a prairie fire of raging, endemic racism spreading across America or, as Black Lives Matter suggests, a burgeoning, South Africa-style, apartheid-era white supremacy.

Excepting fringe incidents, such as the small group of cretins in New Jersey who mocked the Floyd death, condemnation of the Minneapolis incident has been bipartisan and virtually universal. White political figures from the President on down to village board members have unequivocally condemned the death and urged the prosecution of the police involved in it.

For sure we are a long way from the Promised Land of racial brotherhood that Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of. But certainly there is no socially condoned and legally protected racism today such as prevailed back when, say, the Democratic Party politically ruled the South and as Dixiecrats wielded outsized clout in Congress.

None of this makes a case for smug satisfaction with the status quo.

Theres always an imperative for progress. Progressives are right about this much: A nation that choses not to advance is surely doomed to regress in every way, shape and form.

But on the whole, looking at the actual facts, the news regarding race relations in America is reassuring  certainly not entirely, but to a significant extent. In Kings words  and before him the words of abolitionist clergyman Theodore Parker  the arc the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Alas, however, the reassuring news doesnt coincide with certain political agendas today. Therefore, its not likely to get much, if any, attention. And that blind spot is more likely to lead to division than to continuing, if sometimes faltering, progress  and this largely to the disadvantage of African Americans.
By Express News Service

TUMAKURU: A Dalit farmer was attacked allegedly by a gang of caste Hindus at Tippapura village in Madhugiri taluk as they were angry about the man getting a borewell drilled. The farmer had taken some large amount of water late last night.

65-year-old Hanumantharayappa's hands and legs were fractured in the attack and was shifted to the district general hospital here. "They beat me with wooden logs and metal rods", he alleged in a statement to the police at the hospital.

The Midigeshi police have booked the accused Narasimhamurthy, former Gram Panchayath president, and his younger brother Ashwath. "They were jealous that the new borewell will drain the water from their borewells on the land adjacent to the victim's", a source said.

The police have also taken a counter-complaint from the accused and filed an FIR against the victim and his family members.
Mayor Ted Wheeler wants to overhaul Portlands civilian oversight of police, plainly acknowledging that the confusing system doesnt have any real teeth.

The structure we have right now isnt pleasing anybody, isnt doing what we want and it doesnt have the publics trust, he said last week.
Many countries in Europe are opening borders, allowing travel from the EU, Britain and the rest of Europe's usually passport-free Schengen travel area, as they take a big step toward the new normal, said a report.

Tourists from the US, Asia, Latin American and the Middle East will just have to wait, for now, said a report in The Economic Times

Border checks in some places have already wound down. Italy opened its borders on June 3 and towns on the German-Polish border celebrated early Saturday as Poland opened the gates. At midnight, the mayors of Goerlitz, Germany and Zgorzelec, Poland cut through chains on a makeshift fence that had divided the towns.

Germany, like France and others, has lifted remaining border checks and scrapped a requirement that arrivals must prove they have a good reason to enter. It also is easing a worldwide warning against nonessential travel to exempt European countries - except, probably, Finland, Norway and Spain, where travel restrictions remain, and Sweden, where the level of new coronavirus infections is deemed too high, the report said.

Austria is opening up Tuesday to European neighbors except Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Britain - and keeping a travel warning for Italy's worst-hit region of Lombardy. France is asking people from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks.

Denmark is opening up only for tourists from Germany, Norway and Iceland - and only if they can prove that they're staying for at least six nights. Norway also is keeping shut its long border with Sweden.

Spain will open its borders to members of the EUs Schengen Zone and the UK on June 21. The border was originally due to remain closed until July 1.

The Greek government has extended its ban on UK travellers until June 30. The country, which is due to reopen to international tourism on June 15, was initially due to welcome people from the UK, the report said.
A security guard tasked with opening a retail park for the first time in three months found the key wouldn't turn in the padlock in hilarious footage broadcast live on BBC Breakfast.

Bosses at the Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet near Ellesmere Port had planned to reopen the outdoor shopping centre this morning as Britain's coronavirus lockdown eased to allow non-essential shops to open for business.

But as BBC reporter Sean Farrington prepared to declare the outlet open, a security guard charged with unlocking the gate to the car park found the key wouldn't turn in the lock.

In the clip, Mr Farrington says 'there is the moment...' before realising the security guard is struggling to release a padlock on the gate.

'No pressure, you've got to find the right key haven't you,' he says as the worker continues to frantically try different keys on live television.

A bumbling security guard tried to reopen the Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet near Ellesmere Port live on BBC Breakfast - only to discover the key wouldn't turn in the lock

The security guard attempts to unlock the car park with another set of keys before rushing off to consult with a colleague in the background.

Soon, after the reporter stalls for time, BBC presenter Dan Walker pipes up from the studio and says 'I've got to ask you about key-gate, what is happening there?

'Has the person with the key now gone off to find the real key?'

'Yes, this has been escalated,' Mr Farrington replies as Mr Walker and his co-host Sally Nugent laugh, 'they're all pretty calm though because this is actually earlier than a lot of them were expecting to have to open.'

As the journalist speaks, the camera pans back around to the two security personnel who are frantically sifting through keys to find the correct one.

In a tweet posted after the broadcast, Mr Farrington revealed the security guard had the right key all along 'but the padlock was stiff!'

In the hilarious clip, the security guard attempts to use a few different keys before rushing off to consult with a colleague in the background

As reporter Sean Farrington stalls for time, the camera pans back around to show two security personnel who are frantically sifting through keys to find the correct one

He also confirmed the designer outlet did eventually open for customers, posting a video of lines of cars entering the car park.

Dozens of social media users took to Twitter to comment on the hilarious blunder, with one writing: 'Imagine people are queuing to finally get into Cheshire Oaks live on TV and they can't find the right key to open the gate.'

Another said: 'Cheshire Oaks Retail Park - when you cant find the key to let the hoard of shoppers in. Very funny'.

'You had one job to do and that was to open the gate @CheshireOaks and you messed that up live on TV,' added a third.

Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet, the largest outlet in the UK with more than 140 stores, has been closed to shoppers since lockdown measures were announced in March.

In a tweet posted after the broadcast, Mr Farrington revealed the security guard had the right key all along 'but the padlock was stiff!'

Dozens of social media users took to Twitter to comment on the hilarious blunder, with one writing: 'Imagine people are queuing to finally get into Cheshire Oaks live on TV and they can't find the right key to open the gate'

But Britain today took a large leap out of lockdown as non-essential shops opened for business in England.

Shoppers desperate to hit the high street formed huge socially distanced queues after dawn today as the majority of stores reopened this morning.

Stores including Zara, John Lewis and Debenhams have slashed prices by as much as 70 per cent in a bid to lure shoppers back.

Desperate fashion chains are sitting on as much as 15billion of unsold stock they are keen to shift with the largest queues appearing to be outside Primark in Birmingham, Marble Arch, London, and Doncaster this morning. In Liverpool, their store opened 45 minutes early for browsing at 7.15am because hundreds had turned up.

Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet (pictured), the largest outlet in the UK with more than 140 stores, has been closed to shoppers since lockdown measures were announced in March

The Government is also considering an emergency cut to VAT and a relaxation of Sunday trading laws to lure more people from home to the shops.

Shops will offer hand sanitiser stations and many will enforce infection control by quarantining unbought items for 72 hours after they have been handled. Staff in high-vis jackets and PPE will ensure shoppers are kept two metres apart, browsing and handling items will be discouraged and there will be a plea not to use cash. There will also be limits on the numbers allowed through the door, which means queues are likely.

Most till staff will be behind glass or plastic screens to protect them from anyone who may have coronavirus.

Boris Johnson has urged the country to return to the high street and 'shop with confidence' when non-essential stores reopen today with huge price cuts.

The Prime Minister said he was 'very optimistic' that the lifting of restrictions would help the economy bounce back from three months of coronavirus lockdown.
Micheal Meyers and undergraduate classmates were looking for Foraminifera for a project from ancient clams on 2006 when Meyers noticed glass spheres which 13 years later, he discovered as microtektite. (Photo : Wikimedia Commons)

Some things are just worth the wait. His curiosity after 13 years finally paid off.

Micheal Meyers, an assistant professor of Earth systems science at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology in Pennsylvania, discovered microtektites from ancient clams sample that they collected for a project as an undergraduate student.

When the explosive impact of an extraterrestrial object is hurled into the atmosphere, particles called microtektites are formed. These particles then cool and crystallizes then fall back to the earth.

According to Meyers, in 2006, he and his fellow undergraduate students searched a Sarasota County quarry in the Pinecrest beds in Southern Florida for fist-sized time capsules of ancient environments.

The students meticulously collected fossils from the walls of the quarry. Fossil clams were opened, and the sediments were strained through very fine sieves. The group is looking for benthic foraminifera, the single-celled organisms with shells taking a different shape depending on the environment it is from.

Foraminifera provides a snapshot of their habitat 3 million years ago, the age where the beds were deposited.

Aside from foraminifera, Meyers noticed the little glass spheres which were of the same size as the foraminifera. "They really stood out," Meyer revealed. Compared to lumpy, potato-shaped sand grains, the glass spheres were tiny, perfect spheres, he added. At that time, however, no one knew what it was.

To satisfy his curiosity, Meyers collected 84 samples and processed them in the lab. He also emailed several experts to inquire about the spheres, but no one knew what they were, Meyers said.

Two weeks after the discovery, the glass spheres were tested by X-ray spectroscopy. The finding, however, only indicated that it is "silica-rich."

Colleagues would regularly check on his spheres. He would also find his way through various laboratory equipment so he could get some free analyses done on the sphere.

In 2018, he had a breakthrough: in his free time, he studied the elemental makeup and physical features of the spheres. This led him to infer that these are microtektites. He was also able to run the sample through a more sensitive X-ray spectroscopic analysis, which indicated that the mysterious spheres were microtektites.

But, the mystery does not end there.

The researchers intend to date the microtektites, but they guess that it is somewhere around 2 to 3 million years old.

These particular microtektites have high sodium content, which is not the norm for microtektites. Microtektites are composed of silica, which generally does not contain sodium. When these microtektites were formed is still unknown.

Salt is highly volatile and boils when but into the atmosphere at high speed. The sodium content in the indicates that the impact probably created a large reserve of rock salt or ocean, which points something close to Florida. The microtektites may be from meteor impacts near Florida Platform, Meyer said.

Unfortunately, the quarry where they collected the clams is now part of a real estate development; thus, there is no way to collect more samples.
Did Delhi Police misuse Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code to harass people while enforcing the lockdown?

Thats what the departments own vigilance cell seems to think according to a circular issued.

In the circular, a copy of which has been seen by HT, the cell asks all station house officers to scrutinize arrests made or to be made under Section 188 (the technical phrasing is disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and to exercise provisions of the section judiciously.

The lockdown lasted 68 days and ended on May 31 although some restrictions still continue.

Delhi police data accessed by HT shows that between March 23 and June 8, Delhi police registered 25,679 cases under section 188 . At least 25,000 people were also arrested in the same period and released on bail.

The data also shows that in the same period, police detained 3,97,836 people for violating lockdown under section 65 of the Delhi Police act (the technical phrasing is persons bound to comply with the reasonable directions of police officer) and impounded 41,021 vehicles.

A police officer, who asked not to be named, said offences under section 188, in the current context, may lead to six months of imprisonment or Rs 1,000 fine or both.

In the circular dated May 28, the joint commissioner of police, vigilance, said that many complaints have been received against police officials regarding misuse of section 188 during enforcement of lockdown guidelines. It has further been observed that section 188 is being misused sometimes as a tool for unnecessary harassment.

The circular adds that the commissioner of police has taken a serious view of this and directed that all station house officers shall scrutinize all arrests made or to be made in the FIRs registered under section 188 and ensure that the provision for arrest are exercised judiciously.

Delhi police spokesperson, deputy commissioner of police MS Randhawa said the station house officers have been asked to monitor the situation at their level and ensure zero harassment to the public.

The police did not share the number of total complaints received against policemen misusing section 188 of the IPC.

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Tata Motors has swung to one of the steepest quarterly losses since the December quarter of 2018-19. To ride out the turmoil caused by Covid-19 disruptions in its Indian as well as UK subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover Automotive, the firm said it would review its business to save Rs 15,000 crore for the consolidated entity in FY20-21.

The company, which is in the process of spinning off its domestic passenger vehicle business into a wholly-owned subsidiary, also said it was looking for a strategic partner and was in talks with automakers for the same. The company took a write-down of ...
By Peter Nurse

Investing.com - European stock markets are set to open sharply lower Monday, as a jump in reported Covid-19 cases in Asia over the weekend prompted fears of a second wave of infections and the potential economic damage this could cause.

At 2 AM ET (0600 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 3% lower. France's CAC 40 futures were down 3.3%, while the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 2.1%.

China reported a new outbreak in Beijings Xinfadi wholesale food market over the weekend, prompting its closure as well as the locking down of nearby housing districts.

In Japan, Tokyo also reported Sunday its highest number of new cases in around a month, with the majority of cases traced back to recently re-opened nightclubs and bars.

This all followed a spike in cases in the United States, where more than 25,000 new cases were reported on Saturday.

"Any new outbreak will be looked at very, very cautiously by investors. The market is putting into perspective that the COVID-19 issue has not been resolved yet. It's a reality check," said James McGlew, analyst at stockbroker Argonaut, reported by Reuters.

Stock markets had benefited from a strong rally since late March, fueled by central bank and fiscal stimulus and optimism as countries gradually lifted their lockdown policies put in place to curb the spread of the virus.

Economic data out of China earlier Monday did little to improve the mood, with industrial output rising only 4.4% in May from a year ago, while analysts had forecast a gain of 5.0%, and retail sales falling a deeper-than-expected 2.8%.

Back in Europe, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday in a bid to revive stalled talks on post-Brexit ties. So far there hasnt been much progress on a free-trade agreement and theres not much time left to extend the end-2020 deadline for a deal.

In corporate news, BP (LON:BP) said it it expects to take up to $17.5 billion of charges in its second-quarter earnings to reflect what it expects will be the "enduring" effects of the pandemic, in the form of lower oil prices.

Story continues

Elsewhere, easyJet (LON:EZJ) aircraft will fly Monday for the first time since March 30, as the British carrier resumes a small number of mainly domestic flights after weeks of lockdown. Movie theater operator Cineworld will also be in focus after it pulled out of its deal to buy Cineplex, a move that will ease concerns about its debt levels.

Oil prices slumped Monday, extending losses from last week, as new coronavirus infections hit China and the United States, potentially hitting the already fragile recovery in fuel demand.

The oil benchmarks fell about 8% last week, their first weekly declines since April.

At 2 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 4.9% lower at $34.50 a barrel. The international benchmark Brent contract fell 3.4% to $37.40.

Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.6% to $1,726.25/oz, while EUR/USD traded at 1.1237, down 0.2%.

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KALAMAZOO, MI  Six miles east of downtown Kalamazoo sits Morrow Dam, the largest dam in the county.

Standing 26-feet tall, the hydroelectric power dams concrete walls and mechanical equipment serve a dual purpose: generating millions of hours of clean energy and, during periods of intense rain, keeping countless gallons of water from rushing into the Kalamazoo River.
Amid the rising tension between the US and China, US Department of State quoting President Donald Trump on Sunday (June 14) said that Washington wants an open and constructive relationship with Beijing but achieving that relationship requires the US to vigorously defend its national interests.

The US Department of State also accused the Chinese goverment of continually violating its promises to the US and many other nations.

Few days go, it was reported that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is planning to travel to Hawaii to hold talks with some senior Chinese government officials. Sources claimed that Pompeo is planning the visit quietly but the date of the meeting is still unknown. Notably, Pompeo has been openly criticising Beijing on several issues including Chinas development in Hong Kong to its handling of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

The relations between the US and China have touched a new low with President Trump even threatening to cut off Washington's ties with China. In May, Pompeo had claimed that China had the power to reduce the number of casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic but the country failed to provide information about the novel coronavirus outbreak in time. Pompeo had also accused China of failing to share the entire information on COVID-19 with the global community.

As Black Lives Matter protests erupted across the US after the death of black man George Floyd in police custody, Pompeo accused the Chinese Communist Party of callous exploitation to justify its authoritarian denial of basic human dignity exposes its colours yet again. On June 6, Pompeo called the Chinese propaganda as laughable over the turn of events in America. Pompeo launched a direct attack on China by saying that when a church burns in China, the attack is almost certainly directed by the Chinese Communist Party, whereas in the US if a similar incident happens, the arsonists are punished by the government.
PHILADELPHIA, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued by Heffler Claims Group regarding the IHG InterContinental Hotels Group Settlement.

A Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit involving malware intrusions that affected certain Inter-Continental Hotels Corporation and InterContinental Hotels Group Resources, Inc. ("IHG")-branded hotel, restaurant and bar locations between August 1, 2016 through December 29, 2016 (the "Data Security Incidents"). The affected hotel brands include InterContinential, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza, Staybridge Suites, and Hotel Indigo. The specific locations and time frames during which the IHG-branded hotel, restaurant, and bar locations were affected by the Data Security Incidents are available at www.IHGdatasecuritysettlement.com.

Who is Included?

You are included in the Settlement if you reside in the United States and used a credit or debit card at the front desk of an affected hotel location or to make or attempt to make a purchase at an affected restaurant or bar location identified at the website www.IHGdatasecuritysettlement.com during the period in which that hotel, restaurant or bar was affected by the Data Security Incidents.

What can I get from the Settlement?

The Settlement provides for payments to people who submit valid claims for documented out-of-pocket expenses of up to $250 that either of the Data Security Incidents was a contributing factor to the expense being incurred, and for reimbursement of documented fraudulent and unauthorized losses of up to $3,500 that were more likely than not caused by the Data Security Incidents. The total payments to the class are capped at $1,550,000.

How do I get a Payment?

The only way to qualify for a payment is to submit a valid Claim Form online or postmarked no later than September 12, 2020. You can file a claim online at www.IHGdatasecuritysettlement.com or call 1-833-913-4210 to request that a Claim Form be mailed to you.

What are my Rights?

Do Nothing : If you do nothing, you will remain in the Settlement Class, but you will not be eligible for benefits, and you will be bound by the decisions of the Court and give up your rights to sue IHG for the claims resolved by this Settlement.

Object to the Settlement : You can stay in the Settlement Class and object to the Settlement for any reason. Objections must be filed with the Clerk of Court for the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by August 12, 2020.

Exclude Yourself : If you do not want to be legally bound by the Settlement and wish to retain the right to sue IHG, you must request to be excluded by August 12, 2020. Detailed instructions on how to object or exclude yourself can be found at www.IHGdatasecuritysettlement.com.

On September 2, 2020, the Court will hold a Final Fairness Hearing to determine whether to approve the Settlement, Class Counsel's request for attorneys' fees and reasonable costs and expenses of $550,000, and an Incentive Award of $1,500 for each of the Representative Plaintiffs. The final approval motion and motion for attorneys' fees and reasonable costs and expenses will be posted on the Settlement website after they are filed. You or your lawyer may attend the hearing at your own cost, but you do not have to.

This is only a summary. For additional information including the Claim Form, the Settlement Agreement, how to file an objection, and Frequently Asked Questions call 1-833-913-4210 or visit www.IHGdatasecuritysettlement.com.

SOURCE Heffler Claims Group
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Linkedin Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15 2020

Works of art are indeed best viewed at some distance, but the virtual museum tour we currently have because of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been a satisfying alternative to enjoying each of a collections pieces.

In Jakarta, several museums run by the city administration, such as the Taman Prasasti (Memorial Stone or Inscription Park) Museum, the Maritime Museum, the Textile Museum and the Betawi Cultural Village, have started to open their doors to the public with some restrictions applied.

Overall, Jakarta has over 70 museums, including private-owned or managed by other government institutions.

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A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Index of turnover in industry 2021, November

Published: 15 June 2020

Turnover in industry decreased by 10.4 per cent in April

According to Statistics Finland, working day adjusted turnover in industry (TOL BCD) decreased in April by 10.4 per cent year-on-year. Among the main industries, turnover decreased most in the chemical industry, by 22.7 per cent from one year ago, which was influenced by the drop in the price of oil in addition to the exceptional situation caused by the coronavirus. Seasonally adjusted turnover in industry (TOL BCD) fell by 3.0 per cent compared with March.

Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing (BCD), % (TOL 2008)

The exceptional situation caused by the coronavirus had an effect in April on the turnover of manufacturing not only in the chemical industry but also in other main industries. Turnover in the textile, clothing and leather industry was 14.8 per cent lower and in the forest industry 14.3 per lower than in April one year earlier. The turnover of electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply declined by 12.2 per cent and that of the food industry by 9.2 per cent from one year back. The turnover of the metal industry went down by 4.6 per cent and that of the electrical and electronics industry by 3.6 per cent. Turnover grew slightly only in mining and quarrying, by 0.3 per cent from one year ago.

Annual change in working day adjusted turnover in manufacturing by industry, April 2020, % (TOL 2008)

Export turnover decreased most in the forest industry in March

Among the main industries, export turnover adjusted for working days decreased in March most in the forest industry, by 22.5 per cent, and in the chemical industry, by 16.9 per cent from one year ago. In addition, export turnover in the textiles, clothing and leather industry was 9.0 per cent lower than one year ago. In contrast, the export turnover of mining and quarrying increased most in March, by 11.4 per cent year-on-year. Export turnover also grew in the industry of mining and quarrying, by 6.9 per cent, in the food industry, by 3.9 per cent, and in the electrical and electronics industry, by 2.8 per cent year-on-year.

Annual change in working day adjusted export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing by industry, March 2020, % (TOL 2008)

Among the main industries, turnover in Finland decreased most in March in the textile, clothing and leather industry, by 12.0 per cent, and in the chemical industry, by 11.8 per cent from the previous year. In turn, the domestic turnover of the electrical and electronics industry grew by 3.5 per cent and that of the food industry by 3.2 per cent.

Trend series of turnover, export turnover and domestic turnover in manufacturing (BC), January 2007 to March-April 2020, % (TOL 2008)

The index of turnover in industry describes enterprises whose main industry is manufacturing. The calculation of the indices is based on the Tax Administrations self-assessed tax data which are supplemented with data obtained with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The monthly turnovers of manufacturing enterprises can vary considerably, especially in the metal industries. The variation is mainly due to invoicing practices. The final invoice for major machinery deliveries and projects may be recorded in the sales of one month, even if the delivery had required the work of several months or years.

The factors caused by the variation in the number of weekdays are taken into account in adjustment for working days. This means taking into consideration the lengths of months, different weekdays and holidays. In addition, seasonal variation is eliminated from seasonally adjusted series, on account of which it makes sense to compare observations of two successive months as well.

In terms of turnover, data for the latest month are preliminary and are released at a delay of around six weeks. The data may become significantly revised particularly on more detailed industry levels in coming months. Export turnover and domestic turnover are, for the time being, still released at a delay of two and a half months.

Source: Index of turnover in industry 2020, April, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Maija Sappinen 029 551 3348, Heli Suonio 029 551 2481, myynti.teollisuus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko

Publication in pdf-format (341.4 kB)

Updated 15.6.2020

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Index of turnover in industry [e-publication].

ISSN=1798-596X. April 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 22.1.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tlv/2020/04/tlv_2020_04_2020-06-15_tie_001_en.html
Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely death on Sunday shook the Indian film industry. Director Nitesh Tiwari, who worked with the actor in his 2019 film Chhichhore, expressed shock and grief over the news of his colleague's demise.

Read: 'Talk to Someone': After Sushant Singh Rajput's Death, Bollywood Calls for Better Mental Health Care

Talking to Mumbai Mirror, the director said, "The news that Sushant is no more is shocking. Yes, shocking would be the correct word to describe it as he was a person full of energy and enthusiasm. He wanted to do so many things, had so many plans, so when you hear one fine day that this person is no more, its hard to believe. I had to call a few friends to check if the speculation was true. Turned out it was a sad reality. And that made it even more shocking."

The director said he knew Sushant even before they collaborated on Chhichhore through common friends. The two had met on a few occasions earlier before they started working on the project, and had grown close during the filming. Calling him like a younger brother to his director wife Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and himself, Nitesh further said, "He was so full of life and excited about the projects he was doing. He wanted to launch some things. We exchanged messages around 10 days ago. It was just a casual chat; he enquired about Ashwiny and our kids and I asked him how he was doing. He shared that he was learning coding and I told him that my son, Aaradhya, was learning it too. As always, we ended our chat saying, 'Keep in touch'."

Read: Sushant Singh Rajput's Police Officer Brother-in-law Suspects Foul Play, Seeks a Thorough Probe

Sushant was reportedly battling depression over the past few months and undergoing treatment for the same. His social media posts from the past couple of months reveal that he even tried yoga and meditation to battle his state of mind. The actor's body was found at his Bandra residence on Sunday. It is suspected that he died by suicide.

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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Social distancing is an important component of healthy travel on public transportation," said CTA President Dorval Carter, in a statement. And it is my goal is to put as much information as possible into the hands of our customers, so that they can make informed travel decisions that help us all achieve proper social distancing."
It wouldnt have been Darien High Schools Class of 2020 without even their very last day of celebrations getting a surprise change.

Thursdays celebrations, including a morning car parade drive-through and diploma disbursement throughout the day was changed after rain was predicted.
Adria Barros de Oliveira, Lucas Antunes Tambara, Fabio Malatesta, Fredrik Sturesson, Jan Andersson, Martin Ronnback, Fredrik Johansson, and Sandi Habinc  Cobham Gaisler AB

www.gaisler.com

Abstract



The GRSCRUB is an external Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) configuration supervisor developed by Cobham Gaisler as an Intellectual Property (IP) core. The GRSCRUB IP features different capabilities, such as programming and scrubbing, which prevents the accumulation of errors in the configuration memory of SRAM-based FPGAs. The GRSCRUB IP is currently compatible with the Xilinx Kintex UltraScale and Virtex-5 FPGA families. This white paper describes the GRSCRUB IP functionalities and evaluates the system by emulating faults in the target FPGA. Two evaluation designs are used: a static design and a design based on a LEON3FT processor core. The results demonstrate the GRSCRUB IP capability in correcting all faults injected in the FPGA configuration memory. In addition, in the case of the LEON3FT-based design, the GRSCRUB IP scrubbing operation allows uninterrupted software execution in the presence of correctable errors in the FPGA configuration memory by preventing the error build-up.

Index Terms

Scrubbing, GRSCRUB, GR716B, FPGA, UltraScale, Soft-error, SEE, Fault injection.

I. INTRODUCTION

DEVICES operating in the space environment are vulnerable to ionizing particles that may affect the system and provoke errors. Even the space-grade Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) are susceptible to Single Event Effects (SEE) that may affect not only the user data but also the configuration memory of the device. Single Event Upsets (SEU) in the FPGA configuration memory may lead to persistent errors in the system, changing the architectural implementation of the design. Scrubbing is a well-known technique responsible for coping with errors in the configuration memory and avoiding their build-up.

Scrubbing can be defined as internal when the scrubber engine is embedded in the target FPGA being monitored, and external when the scrubber controller is located externally to the target FPGA in a different component. The literature presents several scrubbing implementations that mainly differ in the error detection, power consumption, resource usage, and correction speed [1-3]. The Xilinx Soft Error Mitigation Intellectual Property (SEM-IP) [4] is an internal scrubbing core compatible with most of Xilinx FPGAs. The SEM-IP main advantage is the high-speed for single error detection and correction. As demonstrated in [5], internal scrubbers are susceptible to get locked and have the correction capability compromised due to faults in the scrubber interface or multiple errors in the configuration memory. In this context, external scrubbers may provide higher robustness and the ability to deal with multiple errors.

The Cobham Gaislers GRSCRUB IP core is an external FPGA configuration supervisor that features programming and scrubbing capabilities, which prevents the accumulation of errors in the configuration memory of SRAM-based FPGAs. The GRSCRUB IP targets soft errors affecting the FPGA configuration memory, and it is able to detect and correct single and multiple errors. However, one must notice that the GRSCRUB IP does not avoid bit-flips from happening or its effects on the design, as well as other scrubbers. Therefore, additional mitigation techniques at design level are recommended to decrease the number of single points of failure in the system and increase the fault masking. Table I presents a comparison between the GRSCRUB IP and the SEM-IP.

The GRSCRUB IP is currently compatible with the Kintex UltraScale and Virtex-5 Xilinx FPGA families. It accesses the FPGA configuration memory externally through the SelectMap (SMAP) interface, which provides better performance in comparison with JTAG, due to the parallel data access. The GRSCRUB is part of the Cobham Gaislers IP library (GRLIB) [6]. Moreover, the GRSCRUB IP will be integrated into the next version of the GR716 Microcontroller (GR716B), which is a mixed-signal fault-tolerant microcontroller Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) based on the LEON3FT SPARC V8 processor.

TABLE I: GRSCRUB AND SEM-IP COMPARISON

GRSCRUB SEM-IP [4] Type of scrubbing External Internal FPGA programming Yes No Single error detection Yes Yes Single error correction Yes Yes Multiple errors detection Yes Yes Multiple errors correction Yes No Advantages Robustness; MBU correction; multifunction High correction speed

This white paper presents the GRSCRUB IP features and its distinct scrubbing execution modes. The scrubbing capability is evaluated under fault injection by emulation, targeting a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA. The results show that the GRSCRUB IP is able to correct all faults injected in the FPGA configuration memory. In addition, the tests in a LEON3FTbased design demonstrate that the GRSCRUB IP scrubbing operation allows uninterrupted software execution in the presence of correctable errors in the FPGA configuration memory by preventing the error build-up.

II. SOFT ERROR MITIGATION IN SRAM-BASED FPGAS

Radiation-induced soft errors are errors provoked by ionized particles that affect the system without damaging the device permanently. SRAM-based FPGAs are particularly susceptible to soft errors due to the memory elements used to configure the design logic and architecture. SEUs affecting such elements may lead to persistent errors in the system, changing the architectural implementation of the design. Single Events Transients (SET) are transient pulses that propagate through the combinational logic and may be captured by a memory cell, changing the storage data. Soft errors can also directly affect the memory data, registers, and flip-flops, and cause Silent Data Corruptions (SDC), which are incorrect results outputs. The Single Event Functional Interrupt (SEFI) occurs when a soft error affects the control logic or a state register and leads to hangs or crashes in the design.

In this context, applications that demand a high level of reliability, such as space applications, require fault mitigation methods to cope with the radiation-induced effects. The GRSCRUB IP aims to maintain the FPGA configuration memory consistent by repairing the logic and correcting bitflips, avoiding the accumulation of faults. The GRSCRUB IP targets soft errors affecting the only FPGA configuration memory. The memory elements that store dynamic data, such as Block RAMs (BRAM), distributed memory, and Flip-Flops (FF), are not protected by the IP. Moreover, the GRSCRUB IP does not avoid bit-flips from happening or its effects on the design, but it detects and corrects the configuration errors. One can combine the GRSCRUB IP with additional mitigation techniques at the design level to increase the overall system reliability.

Soft errors affecting the dynamic elements can be mitigated by applying fault tolerance techniques such as redundancy or Error Correction Code (ECC). Triplicating logic is an efficient method to cope with the effects of single faults in the design. Additional user level techniques can also be applied to deal with SDCs. Moreover, a periodic reset may be required to reestablish the system state and restore the initial state of flipflops. Since SEFIs may also affect internal control elements of the FPGA or the configuration interface, a complete power cycle might be required to restore the system.

Fig. 1. GRSCRUB IP system block diagram.

III. GRSCRUB - FPGA CONFIGURATION SUPERVISOR

A. Xilinx FPGAs architecture

The architecture of Xilinx FPGAs is divided into frames. Each frame contains data divided into 32-bit words. The GRSCRUB IP works with frames related to the FPGA configuration memory, which includes Configurable Logic Blocks (CLB), input and output (I/O) interconnections, and clock lines. As described in the previous section, GRSCRUB IP verifies the static data in the configuration memory only, and the dynamic memory elements are not protected.

B. GRSCRUB IP system setup

Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of a GRSCRUB-based system, which can be the GR716B Microcontroller or a design implemented in a flash-based FPGA, integrated with the target FPGA. The configuration memory of the target FPGA is accessed externally through the slave SelectMap configuration interface. The GRSCRUB IP can access SelectMap through all the supported bus widths (i.e., 8-, 16-, or 32-bit). The slave SelectMap clock is provided externally by the system in which the GRSCRUB IP is embedded. The GRSCRUB IP is a multiple clock domain design, which includes the internal system clock, and the SelectMap clock used for synchronization.

The GRSCRUB IP accesses through an AMBA AHB or AXI4 bus, a memory that stores the golden configuration bitstream and the mask data of the design implemented in the target FPGA (Golden memory). The golden bitstream is used both to configure the FPGA at start-up and to repair the configuration memory in the event of soft errors. The mask data information is provided by the synthesis tool and contains a description of all dynamic bits in the design. During data verification in the scrubbing operation, the GRSCRUB IP does not verify the dynamic bits in the frames, and the mask data is used to mask only these specific bits.

C. GRSCRUB IP operation modes

The GRSCRUB IP implements five operation modes:

Idle mode: the IP is in idle waiting for an operation command. Programming mode: the IP programs the configuration bitstream into the target FPGA. Scrubbing mode: the IP executes a scrubbing operation. As described further, two scrubbing methods are supported: blind and readback scrubbing. The IP can be configured to scrub the entire FPGA configuration memory or just selected frames. Mapping mode: the IP identifies and maps the frame addressing of the target FPGA. The frame addressing defines the frames positioning in the target FPGA, required for any scrubbing operation. Only frames that refer to configuration blocks are mapped, i.e., the memory block frames are not considered. The frame addresses are saved in the Golden memory and are accessed by the IP in scrubbing mode during reading and writing operations. Golden Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) mode: the IP computes the golden CRC codes for the current frame data of the target FPGA configuration memory. The CRC code can be selected as a data check in the readback scrubbing mode. A CRC code is computed to each frame of the configuration memory, and it is verified against the golden CRC copy.

The GRSCRUB IP scrubbing operation mode supports both blind and readback scrubbing methods. In the blind scrubbing mode, the GRSCRUB IP rewrites the configuration frames without any data verification. The blind scrubbing can be performed periodically, continually refreshing the configuration data. In the readback scrubbing mode, the GRSCRUB IP verifies the integrity of each frame of the FPGA configuration memory, and then, in the event of errors, rewrites the frame with the correct data read from the Golden memory. Differently from the blind scrubbing, the readback mode allows detecting errors and correcting the frame only if necessary. The readback can also be executed periodically.

The error detection can be performed through CRC verification or by comparing a frame bit-by-bit against its golden version stored in the Golden memory. The latter option is defined as Full Frame Check (FFC). The CRC is an error detection code that applies redundancy to check inconsistencies. A standard 32-bit CRC (CRC32C) algorithm is computed for each FPGA frame, and it is compared to the golden code saved in the Golden memory. The CRC and FFC data verifications do not check the masked bits. Each data verification method can be configured to be enabled or not.

D. GRSCRUB IP additional features

The configuration interface of the target FPGA can also be affected by soft errors, which may lead to catastrophic results during the scrubbing operation. For instance, in case the FPGA Frame Address Register (FAR) is affected by an SEU during a blind scrubbing execution and its value changes to another valid address, all the subsequent frames would be overwritten wrongly, compromising the entire design. In [7], the authors observed high-current events in Xilinx FPGAs due to SEEs affecting the configuration interface, which led the blind scrubbing to write multiples frames in incorrect addresses.

In order to avoid such events, the GRSCRUB IP verifies the integrity of the configuration interface of the target FPGA before each new scrubbing execution. The verification is performed by reading a specific frame and checking its address. If the returned address matches the expected one, the interface is considered stable and, therefore, the scrubbing cycle starts. Otherwise, an error is reported. In addition, setting up the configuration interface for each scrubbed frame could be a safer approach instead of configuring all frames at once. For instance, writing one frame at a time during blind scrubbing avoids overwritten the entire memory in case of errors in the FAR register. Both blind and readback scrubbing can be configured to enable or disable such features.

Fig. 2. GRSCRUB IP experimental setup.

TABLE II: RESOURCE USAGE OF GRSCRUB IP IMPLEMENTED IN THE XCKU040 FPGA

LUT FF Carry DSP BRAM 4,550 2,678 117 5 1

IV. EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION SETUP

The GRSCRUB IP test setup consists of a host FPGA embedding the GRSCRUB IP in a system similar to the one presented in Fig. 1, and the Device Under Test (DUT), which is the target FPGA under evaluation, a Xilinx UltraScale FPGA. Fig. 2 presents the block diagram of the experimental setup.

A. Test controller

A Xilinx KCU105 evaluation board [8] is used as the test controller. The board features a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale XCKU040 FPGA, in which the GRSCRUB IP and a fault injection engine are implemented. Table II presents the resource usage of the GRSCRUB IP embedded in the XCKU040 FPGA.

The fault injection engine is controlled via UART and is responsible for emulating upsets in the configuration memory of the target FPGA. It also uses the SelectMap interface to access the configuration frames and flip bits, one at time. The target frame and target bit inside the frame are selected randomly. The injection engine reads the selected frame, flips the target bit, and then rewrites the frame to the FPGA. Since both GRSCRUB IP and injector uses the SelectMap interface to access the FPGA configuration memory, only one can be enabled at a time.

Besides the GRSCRUB IP and the fault injection system, the test controller design also contains other IP cores from the GRLIB IP library [6], such as AHB bus, DDR3 memory controller, Debug Support Unit (DSU), Ethernet, and UART. In this setup, the GRSCRUB IP is controlled through Ethernet using the Cobham Gaislers GRMON3 debug monitor [9] that configures the IP to execute the operation modes presented in Section III.

Two FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) breakout boards are used to allow the communication between the test controller and the DUT board. The SelectMap signals from the target FPGA are accessed and controlled via the FMC cards.

The test controller frequency is 100 MHz, and the provided SelectMap clock is 10 MHz. The maximum SelectMap clock frequency depends on the system setup. Due to the cabling to connect both boards and long signal paths, the SelectMap frequency is restricted in the experimental setup. Higher speeds can be achieved in a system integrating the target FPGA and GRSCRUB IP on the same board.

The fault injection campaigns aim first to evaluate the GRSCRUB IP and test the scrubbing functionality, and second to ensure that the IP operates transparently in dynamic designs. In all test campaigns, the GRSCRUB IP programs the target FPGA, and then the test controller starts the execution. For each injection run, one or more random faults are injected in the configuration memory of the target FPGA. In sequence, the GRSCRUB IP is released to scrub the faulty bits. At the end of the scrubbing execution, the configuration memory is verified to check if all bits were corrected. After that, a new injection run starts, and the loop is repeated.

B. Target FPGA  Xilinx Kintex UltraScale XCKU060

An AlphaData ADM-SDEV-BASE development kit [10] embedding a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA (XCKU060-1- FFVA1517I industrial part, equivalent to the XQRKU060- CNA1509 space-grade part) is the adopted target FPGA. An FMC card is also attached to the board, providing access to the JTAG interface. The JTAG connection is used to control the software execution when required.

Two test designs were implemented for the evaluation experiments, as described below:

Static design: the design does not implement any dynamic function, and therefore most of the configuration bitstream is empty. The functionality of the design is not evaluated since the goal is only to validate the GRSCRUB IP features. The fault injection targets all FPGA configuration frames, and the IP also monitors the entire configuration memory.

LEON3FT-based design: the design implements a LEON3FT processor core. In addition to the LEON3FT processor, the design also contains other IP cores from GRLIB [6], such as DSU, fault-tolerant SRAM module, AHB bus, JTAG, and UART. The 16 KB Instruction and Data L1 caches and the processor Register File (RF) are implemented in BRAMs and are protected by Error Detection And Correction (EDAC). The LEON3FT runs a test software that monitors and tests the Integer Unit (IU) of the processor. The software is controlled using the GRMON3 via JTAG. The floorplanning of the design is constrained to a specific area, and both fault injection and GRSCRUB IP only target this area.

The resource usage of Static and LEON3FT designs implemented in the target FPGA are presented in Table III.

TABLE III: RESOURCE USAGE OF STATIC AND LEON3FT DESIGNS IMPLEMENTED IN THE XCKU060 FPGA

Design LUT FF Carry DSP BRAM Static 23 521 3 0 0 LEON3FT 8,852 6,016 43 4 53

V. EVALUATION RESULTS

Tables IV present the fault injection results for the Static design implemented in the target FPGA. The blind, readback FFC, and readback CRC scrubbing modes of the GRSCRUB IP were evaluated. Single or multiple random faults were injected per run, and then the GRSCRUB IP scrubbing mode was enabled to correct the faults. In all tests, the GRSCRUB IP was able to detect and correct all injected faults.

The tests with the LEON3FT-based design implemented in the target FPGA demonstrated that 99.6% of the software runs were successful. The software executed continuously while single random faults were injected in the target FPGA. After each injection, the GRSCRUB IP readback FFC scrubbing was enabled to clear the bit-flip. A total of 11,399 faults were injected, and the GRSCRUB IP was able to correct all injected faults. The large amount of injected faults not leading to errors in the target design confirms that the GRSCRUB IP scrubbing operation allows uninterrupted software execution in the presence of correctable faults in the FPGA configuration memory by preventing the error build-up. The software errors presented refer to critical points of failure related to nonprotected modules in the target FPGA design (the literature usually refers to such bits as "critical bits") that lead to errors before the GRSCRUB IP be able to correct the fault. One must notice that such software errors are application-dependent, i.e., different software benchmarks may lead to different results. In this context, the GRSCRUB IP minimizes the latency of single points of failure in the system, but it does not avoid errors happening and neither their effects on the design. Additional mitigation techniques at the design level are recommended to decrease the number of single points of failure and increase the fault masking.

TABLE IV: FAULT INJECTION RESULTS FOR STATIC DESIGN AND GRSCRUB IP IN DIFFERENT SCRUBBING MODES

GRSCRUB IP Scrubbing # Inj. faults per run # Total runs # Total faults corrected Blind 1 2,000 2,000 Blind 10 15,735 157,350 Readback FFC 10 12,086 120,860 Readback CRC 10 7,220 72,200

VI. CONCLUSION

The Cobham Gaislers GRSCRUB IP is an FPGA configuration supervisor that features programming and scrubbing capabilities. The GRSCRUB IP will be included in the new version of the Cobham Gaislers GR716B Microcontroller, and it is also available as an IP core in the GRLIB. Fault injection tests targeting a Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA demonstrated the GRSCRUB IP capability to correct all injected faults in the FPGA configuration memory. Tests in a LEON3FT design confirms that the GRSCRUB IP scrubbing operation allows uninterrupted software execution in the presence of correctable errors in the FPGA configuration memory by preventing the error build-up. The GRSCRUB IP reduces the persistent effects of errors in critical points of failure. However, the impact on the design is not mitigated. Therefore, additional mitigation techniques at the design level are recommended for that and to increase the fault masking.

REFERENCES

[1] J. Heiner et al., Fault Tolerant ICAP Controller for High-Reliable Internal Scrubbing, 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference, Big Sky, MT, 2008, pp. 1-10.

[2] F. Brosser et al., Assessing scrubbing techniques for Xilinx SRAMbased FPGAs in space applications, 2014 International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), Shanghai, 2014, pp. 296-299.

[3] A. Stoddard et al., A Hybrid Approach to FPGA Configuration Scrubbing, in IEEE TNS, vol 64, no 1, pp 497-503, Jan 2017.

[4] Xilinx, Soft Error Mitigation Controller, v4.1 LogiCORE IP Product Guide, Vivado Design Suite, PG036, Apr. 2018.

[5] M. Berg et al., Effectiveness of Internal Versus External SEU Scrubbing Mitigation Strategies in a Xilinx FPGA: Design, Test, and Analysis, in IEEE TNS, vol. 55, no. 4, pp. 2259-2266, Aug. 2008.

[6] C. Gaisler, GRLIB IP Core Users Manual, Version 2020.1, Mar. 2020.

[7] D. S. Lee et al., An Analysis of High-Current Events Observed on Xilinx 7-Series and Ultrascale Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, IEEE Rad. Effects Data Workshop (REDW), Portland, OR, USA, 2016, pp. 1-5.

[8] Xilinx, KCU105 Board User Guide, UG917 (v1.10), Feb 2019.

[9] C. Gaisler, GRMON3 User's Manual, GRMON3-UM (Version 3.2.2), Mar. 2020.

[10] AlphaData, ADM-SDEV-BASE/XCKU060 User Manual, V1.4, 2020.

If you wish to download a copy of this white paper, click here






Princess Sofia of Sweden has given royal fans a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her wedding day to Prince Carl Philip.

The royal, 35, celebrated her fifth anniversary over the weekend and shared a collection of photographs from her big day to mark the occasion.

Posting to her official Instagram account, which she shares with her husband, 41, Sofia revealed a series of sweet snaps - including one of her kissing her groom and another showcasing her elegant bridal gown.

Princess Sofia of Sweden has given royal fans a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her wedding day to Prince Carl Philip (pictured together)

The royal, 35, celebrated her fifth anniversary over the weekend and shared a collection of photographs (pictured) from her big day to mark the occasion

She shared the images with the caption: 'Sometimes every person comes to a decisive choice; a choice that determines one's future and is about who one is and above all, who one wants to be.

'And often it takes courage. Courage not to choose the easy path just because it is easy, without courage to stay on the hard road because it's right.'

The royal couple, who share two children together, Prince Alexander, 4, and Prince Gabriel, 2, added: 'Today we are celebrating our five-year wedding anniversary.'

Posting to her official Instagram account, Sofia revealed a series of sweet snaps - including one of her husband getting dressed for the event (above)

The stunning photographs reveal intimate and private moments from the big day, such as Sofia taking a selfie with her father Erik (pictured)

The stunning photographs reveal intimate and private moments from the big day, such as Sofia taking a selfie with her father Erik and Carl Philip getting dressed ahead of the ceremony.

They also show details of the table decorations, including an impressive floral display and delicious-looking ice cream dessert.

Royal enthusiasts were delighted with the new images, with one follower writing: 'Happy 5th wedding anniversary! The most beautiful photos, thank you for sharing these with us!'

The royal couple, who share two children together, Prince Alexander, 4, and Prince Gabriel, 2, captioned the images (above): 'Today we are celebrating our five-year wedding anniversary.'

The glamorous couple tied the knot on 13 June 2015 in the royal palace's chapel (pictured), with the bride wearing a couture lace wedding dress created by local designer Ida Sjostedt

Sofia's gown was made in three shades of white and her beautiful train was hand-cut and hand stitched. Pictured: The wedding programme, left, and the floral arrangement, right

The glamorous couple tied the knot on 13 June 2015 in the royal palace's chapel, with the bride wearing a couture lace wedding dress created by local designer Ida Sjostedt.

Her gown was made in three shades of white and her beautiful train was hand-cut and hand stitched.

The elegant bridal look was completed with an embroidered veil and delicate tiara adorned with diamonds and emeralds.

Before marrying the prince, Sofia was a model and reality TV contestant. The pair dated for five years before walking down the aisle and live together in the upmarket Djurgarden district of Stockholm.

Carl Philip is the second child of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says despite the increase in the COVID-19 case count, the tracing, testing and treatment regime being pursued by government would eventually reduce the number of cases.



In a televised address Sunday night to apprise the nation on measures being adopted to curb the spread of the disease, he said though there was public anxiety on the increasing case count, available data indicates that the country was managing the pandemic rather well.



Explaining further, the President pointed out that the increase in numbers was as a result of the enhanced contact tracing and testing, which had in the past weeks brought to the fore the reality of the situation.



"We have to bear in mind, at all times, that the more people we test for the virus, the more people we are likely to discover as positive, and, thus, have the opportunity to isolate and treat them.



"If we do not test people for the virus, we will not find the persons who are positive, let alone isolate them from the population and treat them, and prevent them from spreading the virus," he said.



President Akufo-Addo also called attention to the fact that Ghana had carried out far more testing than any African country, stating that the enhanced policy of contact tracing being implemented by the government was more effective in the fight against COVID-19.



As at June 13, 2020, a total of 254, 331 test have been carried out, with positive case count of 11,964, a total of 4,258 recoveries, 7,652 active cases, and 54 recorded deaths, 13 persons severely ill, six in critically condition, with three three persons on ventilators.



He was emphatic with the ratio of positive cases to total tests conducted standing at 4.7%, "our scrutiny, in effect, must be on the number of active cases, i.e. people who remain on our books as still positive."



With Ghana's COVID-19 related deaths and severe cases being the lowest in Africa and the world, the President indicated that the country's ratio of positivity to deaths which stands at 0.4 per cent compared to that of Africa's 2.6 per cent and a global rate of 5.5 percent, shows that Ghana is performing well in managing the pandemic.



"I am relating all these figures not to engender any false, feel-good factor, but as statements of fact that must provide the context for us, when we examine our figures...If, indeed, we are to be guided by the data, then we must look at the data in all its ramifications, not just one particular aspect of them. That is the proper way to do justice to the data.



"I am, thus, in no way suggesting that we should let our guard down, and throw out of the window the efforts we have made in bringing us this far, where we have become a reference point for many in the handling of this pandemic.



The President called on all and sundry to observe the protocols that have been instituted to control the spread of the virus



"As we begin to ease the restrictions, we must be even more disciplined in our adherence to the personal hygiene and social distancing measures we have become accustomed to, we must keep fit, and we must continue to eat our local foods to boost our immune systems.



This is how we can prevent our health care services and our heroic health care workers from being overwhelmed due to an increase in demand for hospital care, he stated.



The President said Government, was monitoring the spread of the virus, and had established benchmarks of health outcomes "which define the mitigation measures that must be pursued to curb the spread of the disease, and enable us to reassess the easing of restrictions."



He cautioned residents of the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions, hotspots, and in the Western and Central Regions, where cases were increasing, to adhere strictly to the social distancing and enhanced hygiene protocols.



President Akufo-Addo cautioned that it was mandatory to wear face mask, and that people should not leave home without them.



"Leaving our homes without a face mask or face covering on is an offence. The Police have been instructed to enforce this directive, which is the subject of an Executive Instrument.



"Let me repeat: our survival is in our own hands. If we are lax and inattentive, we will continue to have serious challenges with the virus. If we are mindful and self-disciplined, we have it in us to defeat this pandemic, and help return our lives to normalcy.



"I appeal to each and every one of you for your help in this regard. Let us, together, rise to the occasion, and fulfill our common destiny. We can do it!, he said

Source: GNA









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The coronavirus tally climbed by over 10,000 and breached the 40,000 mark in just six days in Delhi. The cases grew with an average of over 1,600 new cases on a daily basis, a sharp spike from the 79 days it took to reach the 10,000 mark.

It took eight days for the number of cases to rise from 20,000 to 30,000 in Delhi, while it took 13 days for the tally to progress from 10,000 to 20,000. According to the analysis of the Delhi government data, the number of cases crossed the 30,000 mark on June 9 and it crossed the 40,000 mark on June 14. ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: India ...
The Trump administration is launching what could turn out to be the biggest attack in a century against the giants of America's meat industry, which already faced an uproar over employee treatment during the pandemic.

The Justice Department is bringing criminal charges in the poultry industry just as it opens a formal probe of beef companies. Regulators are also scrutinizing potential price manipulation, and on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are clamoring for a crackdown.

The threat from Washington is casting further spotlight on the industry after coronavirus outbreaks saw thousands of workers get sick, forcing plants to shutter. President Donald Trump in early May said he'd have the Justice Department look into beef prices, which more than doubled in about a month.

The timing of the moves is interesting given that farmers have long complained about the dominance of just a handful of companies in beef and poultry markets, but antitrust enforcers haven't before taken significant action against the companies. The heightened scrutiny comes less than five months ahead of November's presidential election. Action by either the Justice Department or the Department of Agriculture could shore up U.S. farmers, a key Trump constituency that's been battered by his trade war with China.

"The market's been broken for a long time, and the pandemic has just made it worse. Meatpackers are making record profits, and the ranchers are going out of business," said Ben Gotschall, the interim executive director for the Organization for Competitive Markets, an advocacy group that opposes consolidation in agriculture. "Whatever Trump's motivation might be, if he does the right thing you have to take it. I hope it's more than just lip service."

At issue is whether meat behemoths are thwarting competition in violation of antitrust laws. Prosecutors at the Justice Department this month said executives at two chicken producers, including the second biggest in the U.S. -- Pilgrim's Pride -- illegally conspired to fix prices, and they hinted at additional charges in the industry.

The department is also setting its sights on beef companies in a separate antitrust investigation, issuing subpoenas to the four biggest producers -- Tyson Foods, JBS, Cargill and National Beef. They control more than two-thirds of all U.S. beef processing.

Cargill and Tyson declined to comment on the probes and livestock pricing. National Beef didn't respond to emails seeking comment. JBS, which also owns Pilgrim's Pride, didn't respond.

The power of the meatpackers today echoes the early 20th century when the industry was dominated by a handful of companies known as the "beef trust." A report by the Federal Trade Commission in 1919 found the five biggest companies, controlling about 82% of cattle slaughter, monopolized the market and crushed competition. The findings helped lead to an antitrust settlement against the industry in 1920 aimed at protecting competition.

If the Justice Department finds evidence in its current investigation that meatpackers are violating the antitrust laws, it can sue the companies to stop the conduct or negotiate a settlement like it did in its probe a century ago, when the companies agreed to restrictions such as not owning stockyards or retail meat businesses. The investigation could also be closed without action, which the department did earlier this year when it abandoned a probe into automakers over an emissions agreement with California.

Criminal investigations like the one involving chicken processors carry higher stakes -- executives can go to jail and companies can be criminally fined.

---

Meat company shares have underperformed in the wake of the probes and the scrutiny of the industry. Since March 31, Tyson's stock is up a little more than 7%, while Pilgrim's Pride is little changed. Sao Paulo-based JBS rose about 8% in Brazilian trading. The S&P 500 Index has jumped about 18% this quarter.

Tyson, America's top meat producer, said it's cooperating in the chicken price-fixing probe with the Justice Department's antitrust division through its leniency program, which allows companies that report misconduct to avoid charges in exchange for cooperation. The company has declined to comment on how long it has been working with the Justice Department and whether it's also cooperating in the beef probe.

Jayson Penn, the now-CEO of chicken giant Pilgrim's Pride who faces as many as 10 years in prison in the chicken probe, entered a not-guilty plea June 4 in Colorado federal court.

It's not just the Justice Department taking action.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are also raising alarm bells. Last month, 19 senators, many from agriculture states, asked the Justice Department to look into whether the companies are suppressing prices paid for cattle. They warned that market conditions could lead to "widespread collapse" of the ranching industry and open the door to meatpackers acquiring cattle operations.

Lawmakers also are pushing federal officials to ease regulations on meat processing, which could help reduce costs and lower the bar for new smaller entrants into the industry. Legislation has been proposed that would allow, for example, meat plants that are inspected by state officials to sell products across state lines.

"We've not seen this kind of attention since the early 1900s," said Bill Bullard, the chief executive officer of R-CALF USA, a trade association for ranchers that says the big packing companies are hurting cattle producers. "We're in a precarious position now that necessitates congressional intervention."

Meat plant shutdowns in April and May sparked shortages at grocery stores and even Wendy's dropped burgers from some menus. Though it was just about a dozen plant closures, producers have such a stranglehold on output that it leaves few remedies when even a handful of facilities are down.

The shutdown of a single large beef processing plant can result in the loss of more than 10 million servings of beef in a single day, the White House said in a statement outlining Trump's late April executive order directing meatpackers to keep facilities running.

In total U.S. commercial cattle slaughter, the top four companies in 2018 had market share of 71%, up from 57% in 1987, according to Steve Kay, editor of the trade publication Cattle Buyers Weekly.

The total number of livestock slaughtering plants has plummeted about 70% since 1967, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Given the high concentration of meat and poultry processors in a relatively small number of large facilities, closure of any of these plants could disrupt our food supply and detrimentally impact our hardworking farmers and ranchers," the White House statement said.

Modern scrutiny of the industry isn't new. During the Clinton administration, the same concerns about concentration and prices paid to ranchers sparked a Justice Department inquiry. Department officials visited rural areas to get the message out that they were looking for evidence of anticompetitive conduct, said David Turetsky, who was a deputy in the antitrust division at the time. Ultimately, they didn't find enough to bring a case.

"In industries that are as highly concentrated at this one, it's not surprising at all to see concerns," said Turetsky, now at the University at Albany.

---

It's not clear what conduct the Justice Department is focused on now in the beef investigation. A class-action lawsuit brought by R-CALF and the National Farmers Union last year accuses the companies of colluding to reduce the volume of cattle purchased for slaughter in order to drive down prices.

Ranchers' woes grew more acute in the pandemic as slaughter plants shuttered. They grappled with low prices for cattle, while meat prices paid by consumers at the supermarket spiked.

Wholesale beef more than doubled from early April to mid-May. Prices have now quickly come back down from the peak, but are still about 10% higher since the start of the year even as shutdowns for restaurants meant a loss of demand. Meanwhile, most-active cattle futures traded in Chicago have lost 24% in 2020. Data tracking meatpacker margins soared.

A similar situation happened last year when a major Tyson plant in Kansas saw a production stoppage after a fire.

Still, margins don't tell the whole story, said Jayson Lusk, head of the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University. They are a simple calculation of the spread between animal costs and meat prices and don't necessarily reflect actual company profits.

"In one case, a plant burned down. In the other case, it's workers getting sick. Packers, at least, are not completely in control," Lusk said. "What happens in both of these cases is that it's quite clear that livestock producers are worse off. Whether the processors are worse off is hard to tell -- we can't see their costs."

Most cattle are sold to meatpackers through longer-term contracts, rather than on the spot market. Ranchers complain that this structure reduces transparency and gives the packing companies a mechanism to pressure prices. That's because the cash market helps to underpin terms in the contracts. So by reducing their purchases on the spot market, where trading is thin, the companies can drive down the price paid through contracts, according to the class-action complaint.

---

Legislation introduced last month by a bipartisan group of senators from rural states would require meatpackers to buy a minimum of half their weekly volume on the spot market.

The flip-side of consolidation in the market is larger, more efficient facilities that operate with lower costs, which in turn means cheaper prices for consumers, said Glynn Tonsor, a professor in the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.

Those efficiencies also benefit ranchers who sell to the plants, Tonsor said. With lower costs, the meatpackers can pay more for cattle than they would otherwise. But the bargaining position of ranchers depends on the supply of cattle relative to processing capacity. When supply is low, they're in a better position than when it's high, he said.

Tonsor said it's a mistake to assume that a less concentrated market with more competitors would necessarily mean a more resilient food-supply network in the U.S. that is less prone to bottlenecks caused by plant shutdowns.

"What we know with certainty is the efficiencies we have due to economies of scale would be gone," he said.

Yet antitrust enforcement today is undergoing a rethink. Economists and lawyers are questioning whether there's been too much focus on how mergers affect prices paid by consumers and not enough on prices paid to sellers. The buying power of companies is rightly getting more attention today, and the Justice Department should be scrutinizing the issue in the meatpacking industry, said Michael Kades, the director of markets and competition policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

"Agriculture in general is an area where there is lot of market power to the detriment of consumers on one side and small producers and farmers on the other," he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his sister Kim Yo Jong attend a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Peace House at the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, South Korea, on April 27, 2018.(Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters/File Photo)

North Korea Announces Retaliatory Measures Against South Korea

North Koreas communist regime again threatened South Korea through state-run media, saying on Monday that it will take retaliatory measures against Seoul.

It came about a week after Pyongyangs state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced that the North would cut off communication channels with South Korea. At the same time, dictator Kim Jong Uns younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned that she gave an instruction to the arms of the department in charge of the affairs with the enemy to decisively carry out the next action.

The official national propaganda newspaper of North Korea, the Rodong Sinmun, condemned South Korea for its weakness and incompetence and threatened to retaliate against South Korean aid groups sending balloons and other means to distribute leaflets to people inside North Korea, which exercises total control over all media and information.

We have already made a conclusion that there is no need for us to sit face to face with the South Korean authorities and discuss things with them any longer. What is left for us is to make them pay dearly for their heinous crimes, Rodong Sinmun wrote. We have decided to take a series of retaliatory actions to punish the betrayers and human scum.

The propaganda outlet said the joint liaison office between North and South Korea, which held the direct phone line between the two countries, would be destroyed. It did not elaborate.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) cuts a tape, watched by his sister Kim Yo Jong, during his visit to a fertilizer factory in Sunchon, near Pyongyang, North Korea, in this May 1, 2020, photo provided by North Korean state media. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

As was declared, the north-south joint liaison office will come into destruction and the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to our army, the propaganda paper said. Our invincible revolutionary armed forces will take a resolute action to take avenge on the enemies in order to allay the surging indignation of our people.

North and South Korea are still technically at war, decades after the Korean War ended in the early 1950s. No peace treaty was ever signed, and the two countries are separated by the heavily guarded Korean Demilitarized Zone.

Over the weekend, following bellicose statements from the isolated regime, South Korean leaders held an emergency meeting.

South Koreas national security director, Chung Eui-yong, held a meeting with ministers and generals on Sunday. And the countrys Unification Ministry said Pyongyang should honor past agreements, Reuters reported.

The South and the North should try to honor all inter-Korean agreements reached, the ministry said in a statement to the Reuters news agency. The government is taking the current situation seriously.

The Ministry of Defense noted that it is taking the current situation gravely and watching any moves made by North Koreas military, according to South Koreas Yonhap News Agency. It said it has maintained a readiness in preparation against all situations.

About a decade ago, North Korea fired a torpedo at a South Korean vessel, killing 46 sailors. Weeks later, the regime shelled a border island, killing several more. Over the years, North Korea has test-fired rockets into the Pacific Ocean, drawing international condemnation.
Two second hand clothes dealers who allegedly attacked a man and robbed him of his mobile phone and a bag containing drivers license and other valuable documents have appeared before an Accra Circuit Court.



Benjamin Asante aka Ballack and Alfred Dadson aka Bullshit, aka Konzor are alleged to have robbed their victim at CP Roundabout at Achimota and dragged him into the Achimota Forest Reserve.



Charged with conspiracy to commit crime and robbery, the two accused denied the charges.

The court presided over by Mrs. Afia Owusua Appiah admitted Asante and Dadson to bail in the sum of GH20,000.00 each with two sureties each who are to be in gainful employment.

They are to reappear on July 27.



Prosecuting, Chief inspector William Boateng narrated that the complainant Benjamin Quansah is self-employed and resides at Bortianor in Accra.



According to Chief Inspector Boateng, the two also reside at Kasoa in the Central Region.

Prosecution said in recent times, the Achimota School Police have been receiving numerous reports of robbery activities at CP roundabout and its environs.



The Prosecution said on July 27, last year, at about 1955 hours, the complainant was walking around the CP Roundabout, near the Achimota Forest Reserve when the two accused attacked him and dragged him on the pavement blocks there into the Achimota Forest Reserve.



Prosecution said the accused collected the victims Samsung J5 Prime mobile phone and injured the complainants left thumb.



The prosecution said the complainant rushed to the Achimota School Police station and reported the matter.



According to prosecution on that same night, a Police Patrol managed to arrest the accused a few meters away from the crime scene and brought them to the station.



Chief Inspector Boateng said the complainant on seeing the two accused identified them at the Police Station as his attackers.



Prosecution said in the accused, in their cautioned statements denied the offence but investigations discovered that Asante resides at Kasoa Opeikuma whiles Dadson resides at Kasoa Breku in the Central Region and both have been operating as robbers at the CP Roundabout and Achimota areas.



He said when the Police visited the crime scene they retrieved the complainants medicated glasses and torn silver necklace.

Source: GNA









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More than 1,000 people turned out on Monday in defiance of a ban on public gatherings to mark the first anniversary of the death of Hong Kong protester Marco Leung Ling-kit.



Video footage posted to Twitter from the city showed hundreds of people lining up to lay flowers at a makeshift shrine to Leung outside the Pacific Place shopping mall in Admiralty.



Despite a strong police presence outside, a crowd of several hundred also gathered inside the mall, singing the anthem of the pro-democracy movement, "Glory to Hong Kong."



"In spite of the repression, still quite a few brave citizens are gathered at Pacific Place, Admiralty, to remember Marco Leung's fall on June 15 last year," activist and writer Kong Tsung-gan wrote on his Twitter account.



"It was for many a moment of reckoning, of realizing how serious the #HK freedom struggle had become & the sacrifice required."



Small shrines and public expressions of grief were seen elsewhere in the city, photographs showed.



A chalk drawing in Mei Foo showed the yellow raincoat the 34-year-old Leung was wearing when he died, which became an early symbol of the anti-extradition movement.



"We remember Leung Ling-kit, an anti-extradition protestor who fell to his death from a building this day last year while hanging a protest banner," Hong Kong Twitter user Sophie Mak tweeted.



Political prosecutions



Pro-democracy leaders facing trial on charges of "illegal assembly" during the protest movement stood in silence for three minutes to honor Leung's memory before entering the court building.



Meanwhile, protesters handed out white ribbons, a traditional mourning color, to passersby to mark Leung's death in Tsuen Wan.



Leung fell to his death on June 15, 2019 after unfurling a banner that read: "Completely Withdraw the China Extradition Bill. We Were Not Rioting. Release the Students and the Injured."



The ruling Chinese Communist Party and the Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly described mass protests that have rocked Hong Kong since June 2019 as "riots," caused by "foreign interference" in the city.



'Unchallengeable law'



Beijing recently announced last month it will impose a draconian anti-subversion and sedition law on Hong Kong, enabling its feared state security police to enforce the new legislation.



Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, said on Monday that the new law would be "unchallengeable," and that Beijing reserved the right to supervise and handle certain cases directly.



Lee Cheuk-yan said the prosecution of pro-democracy figures shows that Hong Kong is already seeing mass political prosecutions.



"This trial is a political prosecution, the purpose of which is to warn the people of Hong Kong that they will get prosecuted ... if they come out onto the streets," Lee said.



"But our position is clear ... they may oppose it, but we have a constitutional right to protest."



Reported by Lau Siu-fung and Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

TURKPAs Commission on Environment and Natural Resources held a videoconference on June 15 dedicated to the protection of water resources and land during the COVID-19 pandemic, Trend reports.

The online meeting consisted of two sessions entitled Protection of water resources and land during the COVID-19 pandemic and Discussion of the model of the bill on the efficient use of energy resources and energy efficiency.

While opening the meeting, Chairman of the Health Committee of the Azerbaijani parliament, academician Ahliman Amiraslanov congratulated the Azerbaijani people on the National Salvation Day, which is celebrated on June 15 and which is associated with the name of Azerbaijani national leader Heydar Aliyev.

Amiraslanov stressed that this date is of great importance for Azerbaijan.

Then the academician spoke about the measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The measures taken by TURKPAs member-states in connection with the protection of water resources and land during the pandemic were discussed during the event. The participants exchanged views on the laws of the countries and mechanisms of international cooperation on this issue.

Along with the parliamentarians of TURKPAs member-states and Uzbekistan, representatives of the relevant ministries and departments of the member-states and experts of international organizations attended the meeting.
Forest Officials in Maharashtra have recovered the carcasses of three tigers, one adult and two cubs from the Tadoba Andhari National Park in Chandrapur district. The decomposed bodies were found close to each other on Sunday afternoon near a water reservoir in Moharli range of buffer zone of Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR).

BCCL

Forest officials believe that the two young ones are the cubs of the adult tigress which was found dead on June 10 and are searching for a third cub that is missing. Officials suspect that there was some foul play in the deaths as the bodies of two langars were also found in the area.

The bodies of two sub-adult tiger cubs, approximately about one-year-old, and two langurs were found in a highly decomposed state near Sitarampet Talao on Sunday. All bodies were lying close to each other. Chances of poisoning cant be ruled out, CCF and field director, TATR, NR Pravin said.

AFP/ REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE

Officials believe that the tigers were not killed by poachers as the bodies were found without any parts missing. They suspect that someone could have poisoned the water in the small water reservoir resulting in the death of the tigers and the langurs.

Earlier this year there was a similar incident in neighbouring Goa, where four tigers, a mother, and three cubs were found dead in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary. An investigation into the deaths revealed that the four had died of poisoning, which was an act of revenge after the big cats killed some cattle belonging to a village within the reserve.

BCCL

The death of the three tigers comes at a time when questions are being asked about the increase in the number of big cats getting killed. Last week the government had rejected the claim that tiger deaths are increasing in the country and asserted that their population is on the rise at six percent annually.

National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, stated that tigers have been brought back from the brink to an assured path of recovery. The authority said that the facts are evident from the findings of the quadrennial All India Tiger Estimation conducted in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018.

BCCL

These results have shown a healthy annual growth rate of tigers at 6%, which offsets natural losses and keeps tigers at the habitats carrying capacity level, in the Indian context, it stated. The NTCA said that from 2012 to 2019, the average tiger deaths per year in the country hovered around 94, which is balanced by the annual increase as highlighted by this robust growth rate.
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(Kitco News) Have you seen the latest heist movie about $200,000 worth of gold bars being left on a commuter train? Wait a second: that is actually what happened in a beautiful lakeside Swiss city of Lucerne. And eight months later, no one has come forward to claim the bullion.

The gold bars worth $191,000 (182,000 Swiss francs) were found on a train headed from the Swiss city of St. Gallen to Lucerne last October, local media reported on June 2. They were simply left on the train in an unidentified parcel.

The parcel was eventually discovered by a train worker and there are currently no known crime connections to the gold bars, CTV News cited Simon Kopp, the information officer for the public prosecutors office of Lucerne, as saying.

Based on the value, the loot would weigh around 7.6 pounds.

Intensive investigations reportedly followed the find, but local authorities failed to track down the owner of the bullion, according to local reports.

Now, the authorities are seeking the publics help in identifying the individual who left the gold.

The gold bars have been confiscated by the prosecutors office, which still leaves the rightful owner with up to five years to claim the gold by proving ownership.

So far, no ones claimed the bullion.
The research is part of activities to analyze public opinion on the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences. Credit: The European Commission's science and knowledge service

Using Google search data, a Joint Research Centre team has created a set of indicators to analyze how the worries of EU citizens change as the coronavirus pandemic evolves.

The research focuses on Google searches related to three key domains: health, economy and social isolation.

"The research is part of JRC work to track public opinion on the pandemic and its consequences. It supports the EU efforts that aim to mitigate the effects of the crisis by providing timely insights about the concerns of EU citizens during the pandemic and in its aftermath," said JRC researcher Marco Colagrossi.

From the fear of the virus to economic concerns

The on-going analysis shows that at the start of the crisis, health-related searches increased in the whole EU as Europeans began looking for COVID-19 symptoms as well as methods to protect themselves.

In the four largest EU countries- Germany, Italy, France and Spain, health-related worries about the virus began declining shortly after governments imposed lockdown measures.

The JRC scientists see this as a possible sign that citizens felt less exposed to the disease as they were confined to their homes.

Shortly after, economic-related concerns increased, with searches for unemployment benefits and fears of layoffs growing by 35% and 70% respectively from the pre-pandemic period.

Just as EU citizens' economic worries peaked, the European Commission mobilized all of its resources to protect lives and livelihoods through the SURE program, including a 100 billion solidarity instrument to help workers keep their incomes and help businesses stay afloat.

"Our analysis shows that that the adoption of SURE to mitigate unemployment risks came just in the right time, at the moment when unemployment and economic losses were at their highest," Marco said.

As from March, EU citizens started to look for tools to cope with the lockdown measures, prolonged social isolation and smart working.

As countries started lifting the lockdown measures, the focus of health-related searches shifted from mental-health to physical health. EU citizens were looking for ways to do physical exercise and improve their nutrition.

Searches linked to financial relief, measures to help overcome economic difficulties and state aid has remained as high as during the peak of the pandemic.

Tourism-related searches are slowly increasing again

In March when the health-related searches were at their highest, there was little interest among European citizens towards holidays.

In May, as governments began lifting the travel restrictions, searches related to travel and tourism were on the rise for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

The early evidence suggests that the economic consequences of the pandemic will not be the same for all tourism sectors.

The volume of searches on Booking.com and Airbnb is at a three-year low. However, whereas the search volumes on Booking.com and camping sites is rapidly recovering, the same does not apply to Airbnb.

Flight searches remain particularly low, although there have been weak signs of recovery.

In April, the volume of flight searches was three to four times smaller compared to searches in April 2019.

Although there are now signs of slow recovery, the trend does not suggest that airline companies will be back at the 2019 levels any time soon.

Explore further Worries about catching COVID-19 stay low as lockdown eases

More information: The weekly updates tracking EU Citizens' concerns using Google search data are published on the The weekly updates tracking EU Citizens' concerns using Google search data are published on the Knowledge4policy (K4P) website
To be successful, political parties need to be big tents. They need to include a large cross section of voters capable of winning elections.

But to be broadly appealing, parties also need to know who to eject from the tent. And throughout history weve seen that parties can improve their standing if they have the courage to draw a moral line against those who harbor malice toward others.

Thats where the Texas Republican Party is now. Two weeks ago, GOP county chairs of Bexar, Comal, Nueces and Harrison counties shared vile conspiracy theories on social media that alleged George Floyds death was staged and financed by billionaire George Soros to undermine African American support for President Donald Trump.

Appropriately, the posts drew quick condemnation from top statewide GOP officials, most notably Gov. Greg Abbott who, through a spokesman, said these comments are disgusting and have no place in the Republican Party or in public discourse.

The very next day, the Harris County GOP chair-elect announced he would not take office in the midst of a furor over a posting of a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quote  Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere  on a background with a banana.
A July 3 fireworks display planned at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial would be ill advised because of the abnormally dry conditions and risk of summer wildfires, a fire expert said.

The event could attract as many as 7,500 people, and President Donald Trump said he plans to attend.

Bill Gabbert, the former fire management officer for Mount Rushmore and six other national parks in the region, said shooting fireworks over the extremely flammable ponderosa pine forest should not be done.

Burning debris, the burning embers and unexploded shells fall into a ponderosa pine forest and ponderosa pine is extremely flammable, said Gabbert.

The Black Hills fell 30% to 50% short of moisture compared to the long-term precipitation average for the region in April and May, the Rapid City Journal reported. Long-range forecasts for June indicate that hotter and drier-than-average conditions will continue until July.

The U.S. Drought Monitor recently labeled nearly all of southwestern South Dakota, including most of the Black Hills, as abnormally dry.

The fireworks display at Mount Rushmore to celebrate Independence Day has not happened since 2009, when it was ended because of fire danger after a pine beetle infestation.

The National Park Service, which manages the memorial, has determined that launching fireworks at Mount Rushmore would pose only a slight fire risk.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noems communications director, Ian Fury, said the park service has taken several precautions, including performing an environmental assessment and conducting a large controlled burn within the memorials borders in April.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan participated in the online session of the Council of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, the Speaker said on Facebook.

I participated in the remote session of the CSTO PA Council. During the session I touched upon Azerbaijans provocative actions during the coronavirus pandemic.

The fight against the pandemic should become an opportunity for reconciliation of peoples. I think we all support this opinion of the UN Secretary-General.

Nevertheless, despite the call by the UN Secretary-General and the global humanitarian crisis which we are fighting against, Azerbaijan these days is not refusing from its policy of provocations and opening a shot against the civilian population.

Such kind of actions are impermissible, and I expect their condemnation in order to keep stability in the region, the Speaker said.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
[June 15, 2020] Coding Dojo Works With MIT Bootcamps to Deliver Revolutionary Coding and Innovation Bootcamp

BELLEVUE, Wash., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Coding Dojo , a leading technology education company, today announces a collaboration with MIT Bootcamps , a division of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on accelerated learning programs. The two organizations are bringing their programs together to launch the Coding and Innovation Bootcamp , which teaches core innovation principles and technical skills so entrepreneurs can make their ideas a reality. Enrollment is now open for the 10-week program, which is slated to start on September 14, 2020. First, students will attend an intensive three-week online bootcamp led by MIT instructors. There they will learn entrepreneurial problem discovery and problem solving, foundations for building a superior solution and the business model to deliver that solution.



"The Coding and Innovation Bootcamp offers an opportunity to learn core innovation principles from MIT Bootcamps and coding from Coding Dojo, a unique learning experience and deep dive into what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur," said MIT Bootcamps Director Vimala Palaniswamy. "From ideation to customer discovery, we will teach you how to think like an entrepreneur." Then, students will have a short break before attending a six-week online Coding Dojo bootcamp. During this computer programming crash course, students will learn web and software development fundamentals including HTML, CSS, and basic JavaScript, as well as the full Python programming stack.

"This joint program brings together world-class business, innovation, and coding curriculum to deliver the ultimate educational experience for modern entrepreneurs," said Coding Dojo CEO Richard Wang . "We're honored to work with such a prestigious institution to offer this innovative program." This collaboration marks Coding Dojo's first major university joint bootcamp and is the 40th program launched by MIT Bootcamps. Once it is safe to do so in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, both organizations aim to launch an onsite version of the Coding and Innovation Bootcamp where students will attend the MIT Bootcamp in Cambridge, MA and Coding Dojo in Seattle, WA. About Coding Dojo

Coding Dojo is a leading technology education company that offers a three-full-stack computer programming bootcamp, as well as courses on Data Science and other emerging technologies. The innovative curriculum and Learning Management System are designed to train students to become self-sufficient developers, regardless of their technical background. Learn more at www.codingdojo.com . View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/coding-dojo-works-with-mit-bootcamps-to-deliver-revolutionary-coding-and-innovation-bootcamp-301075284.html SOURCE Coding Dojo

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Paul Whelan, a former Marine and U.S. citizen, was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor by a Russian court on Monday.

Whelan, speaking from behind a glass screen as the verdict was read, held up a sign that said the whole case was a sham trial. This is slimy, greasy, rubbish Russian politics  nothing more, nothing less, Whelan yelled to reporters in the courtroom.

Russias Federal Security Service in Moscow detained Whelan in late December 2018 while he was visiting for a friends wedding. While Whelans lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov has argued Whelan was unknowingly given a flash drive containing state secrets, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Whelan was caught red-handed.

Speculation has grown that Russia plans to use Whelan as a bargaining chip for potential prisoner exchanges. Following the conviction, Zherebenkov revealed that Paul expected this decision because even when he was detained, he was told that he would be exchanged. U.S. officials have been outspoken about the case and Whelans treatment in captivity, during which he was only able to speak to his family after 16 months, and had to undergo an emergency operation without English-speaking doctors for an inguinal hernia.

It is unacceptable that Paul Whelan has been denied necessary medical treatment until his condition became dire, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on May 30. We demand Pauls release.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan told reporters after the verdict that he agreed with Whelans assessment of the case, calling it a mockery of justice.

Is this an impediment? Absolutely, Sullivan added on how the case had impacted the relationship between Moscow and Washington, describing the current situation as a low ebb.

More from National Review
Ambassador of Belarus I.Leshcheny meets the Chairman of International Affairs Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic

On June 4, 2020 the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Slovak Republic, Igor Leshchenya, met with the Chairman of International Affairs Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, Juraj Blanar.

During the meeting, the exchange of views on the state and prospects for the development of Belarusian-Slovak relations took place.

The interlocutors noted the achieved results of bilateral cooperation, including an active dialogue at the level of governments and ministries, exchange of visits of business delegations, interaction between regions and public organizations, work on joint projects in the field of trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.

The development of interparliamentary relations is an essential part of this process. Last year, the President of the National Council of the Slovak Republic paid for the first time an official visit to Belarus, the Slovak delegations of the parliamentary friendship group with Belarus met twice with their colleagues in Minsk.

The necessity not only to maintain, but also to develop the achieved results was noted.

In particular, in this context I.Leshchenya informed that a Working group on cooperation with the Parliament of the Slovak Republic had been created in the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus.

Taking into account the 75th anniversary of the Victory over fascism celebrated this year, the sides focused on the topic of preserving the memory of the tragedy of the Second World War, the feat of Soviet Warriors Liberators. The interlocutors expressed a common opinion that the memory of the victory over fascism is what should not divide, but unite Belarusians and Slovaks in particular, and all the peoples of Europe as a whole.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 13:25:19|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Two primary schools were closed on Monday in Melbourne, Australia, after some students tested positive for COVID-19.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) confirmed in a statement on Monday that two students at St Dominic's School in Broadmeadows were infected with COVID-19 and one of them was infectious when attending school.

"Testing will be undertaken for students and teachers who were at the school from 26 May to 3 June," it said.

In response, the school will be closed for three days to enable contact tracing and deep cleaning.

Pakenham Springs Primary School was also shut down on Monday after two students from the same family contracted COVID-19.

The school required all students and staff who have attended the school to remain at home while contact tracing is underway.

Meanwhile, Sydney's Laguna Street Public School announced to stop on-site learning after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19.

Victoria state recorded 12 new COVID-19 cases Sunday. All the positive cases among students were linked to an extended family outbreak in Melbourne's northern and southeastern suburbs.

Another outbreak was identified with two new cases linked to a patient of Monash Health. One of the new cases is a healthcare worker. The health service is racing to contact all staff and patients who may have been close contacts of the healthcare worker.

In addition, a young woman who attended Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne on June 6 also tested positive for the virus.

The source of infection is still under investigation, but at this stage there are no links to the previous case who attended the protest.

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton urged anyone who attended the march to remain vigilant and should isolate at home and get tested if symptoms develop. Enditem
British drugmaker, AstraZeneca AZN announced that it will supply 400 million doses of its potential coronavirus vaccine, which it is developing with Oxford University, to some European countries. It has signed an agreement with Europes Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), a group formed by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. If the vaccine is successfully developed, it will supply these doses for which deliveries will begin by the end of the year,

AstraZeneca shares have risen 3.2% so far this year against the industrys decrease of 5.1%.

AstraZeneca has an agreement with Oxford University for the global development and distribution of the latters potential recombinant adenovirus vaccine, now known as AZD1222, to prevent COVID-19. AZD1222 is currently being evaluated in a phase II/III study, which began last month. Data from the study, being conducted on 10,000 volunteers, is expected to be released shortly. If the data is successful, late-stage studies with 30,000 participants are expected to begin in a number of countries.

Last month, AstraZeneca received more than $1billion in funding from BARDA to help produce the vaccine. AstraZeneca has signed a number of supply deals across the world to support access to the vaccine. It recently secured agreements to supply at least 400 million doses to the United States and United Kingdom.

Earlier this month, AstraZeneca announced agreements worth $750 million with Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi the Vaccine Alliance to produce and supply 300 million doses of the vaccine. The two organizations are backed by Bill and Melinda Gates. It expects to begin delivery of the vaccine before the end of 2020. AstraZeneca also reached a deal with the Serum Institute of India (SII) to supply one billion doses of the vaccine to India and other low and middle-income countries. AstraZeneca has committed to provide 400 million doses to SII before the end of the year.

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These supply deals will require it to produce 2 billion doses of the vaccine, if it is successfully developed.

AstraZeneca is working to expand its manufacturing capacity for the vaccines and said it is open to collaborating with other companies to improve access to the same.

AstraZeneca is one of the dozen companies developing a vaccine for the deadly coronavirus disease. Of these, J&J JNJ, Moderna MRNA, Novavax, Pfizer PFE and its Germany-based partner BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford University and Inovio Pharmaceuticals have initiated human/clinical studies on a coronavirus vaccine. Infact, Moderna expects to initiate a pivotal phase III study in July.

Infact, per a New York Times report, published this month, AstraZeneca is one of the five companies, which the Trump administration has identified as part of the Operation Warp Speed (OWS) initiative to rapidly develop a vaccine for COVID-19. The other four companies are Moderna, J&J, Merck and Pfizer. The report mentioned that the five companies will get extra federal funds, help to run their clinical studies and manufacturing assistance

Separately, AstraZenecas marketed drug Calquence is being evaluated in the CALAVI study to see its effect on the exaggerated immune response (cytokine storm) of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 infection. Farxiga is also being studied in the DARE-19 phase III study as a treatment for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who have pre-existing health conditions like diabetes or chronic kidney disease and are at risk of developing serious complications such as organ failure.

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As many as 276,000 New Jersey residents, most of them low-income, could miss out on their coronavirus stimulus payments, according to a study by a progressive research group.

The group includes residents who will not get their stimulus checks automatically because they didnt file income tax returns for 2018 or 2019, or did not get Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Veterans Affairs or Railroad Retirement payments.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said those individuals could be leaving $287 million on the table, and called on state officials to work to make sure they apply for the $1,200 payments included in the $2 trillion stimulus law known as the CARES Act.

They have until Oct. 15 to file a request with the Internal Revenue Service.

They include very low-income families with children, low-income adults who not raising kids at home, and people who have not worked in a long time.

This report underscores just how vulnerable communities of color and low-income families have been throughout this global pandemic," said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action, an advocacy group.

The CBPP said most of those in danger of missing out on their stimulus payments already are known to state officials because they already receive assistance under Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, still referred to as food stamps.

Indeed, two-thirds of the 276,000 New Jerseyans in danger of missing their stimulus payments, or 186,000, receive Medicaid or SNAP benefits, the study said.

Well be working to make as many SNAP and Medicaid recipients as possible aware that they need to apply for the payments, said Tom Hester, a spokesman for the state Department of Human Services.

Without state help, too many low-income families will not get the payments theyre entitled to, said Brandon McKoy, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a progressive research group.

We are living through a historic economic downturn with unprecedented job loss, yet the federal governments flawed plan to provide very low-income households with relief will leave far too many families behind," he said.

That help cant come soon enough, said Sara Cullinane, director of Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant advocacy group.

As we approach the 100 day mark from when the Governor Murphy declared a state of emergency, hundreds of thousands of families are now three months behind on rent and face homelessness, inability to pay for medication or food," she said.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at kpricemueller@njadvancemedia.com.
Mayor Jim Kenney has had to revise his budget proposal for next year twice since the coronavirus pandemic began due to plummeting tax collections. Read more

The hole in the city budget caused by the economic downturn resulting from the coronavirus pandemic will be $100 million deeper than expected and could require new tax increases or service cuts, Mayor Jim Kenneys administration announced Monday.

The revised projection is primarily due to worse-than-expected declines in the realty transfer and sales taxes, Budget Director Marisa Waxman said. The administration now expects the virus will cost the city $749 million in lost tax collections during the fiscal year beginning July 1, the deadline for Kenney and City Council to enact a budget.

This just makes it harder for us to do a number of things that the people of Philadelphia have told us that they want to see, said Jim Engler, Kenneys chief of staff.

The revised revenue estimate decreases the legal limit for how much money can be spent in next years budget, but the administration did not publicly reveal how it would prefer to make up the difference. Engler said the administration is in talks with Council members over how to plug the hole, either through additional cuts or new tax or fee increases. The city is also lobbying the federal government for additional aid, he said.

The new belt-tightening plan will include savings from changes to the Philadelphia Police Department budget. Kenney last week said that in light of the protests sparked by George Floyds death, the administration would abandon its proposal to increase the departments budget by $19 million for the coming year.

Some Council members have called for cuts to the department, not just a freeze in its budget. Kenney, however, has said he hopes to avoid funding reductions that would require police officers or firefighters to be laid off.

The administration has previously said it plans to lay off about 400 other workers, a mix of part-time and full-time employees.

The second revision to the citys projections for how much money it will collect next year came after watching some taxes generate less revenue in recent months than had been expected after the administration in May began planning for cuts due to the pandemic.

As we watched the collections come in, the activity was even less than our downwardly revised estimate was projecting, Waxman said.

City revenue from the realty transfer tax is now projected to produce $25 million less this year than the administration estimated in May. Philadelphia collects 3.278% of the value of every property sold in the city, while the state applies a separate 1% levy.

The sales tax is also falling behind expectations, and the city now projects taking in $32 million less from it this year. The city applies a 2% levy to taxable purchases, while an additional 6% goes to the state.

The $100 million revision does not mean the city will have to find that exact amount in additional cuts or tax increases. The administrations most recent projection for next years budget plan included an $87 million fund balance, which is the amount of money appropriators leave unspent.

While the city is only legally required to pass a balanced budget, meaning it could leave no fund balance, government finance experts caution against leaving no cushion. The Government Finance Officers Association, for instance, recommends cities leave 17% of their project revenues unspent to provide a safety net for unexpected expenses or revenue shortfalls, both of which are possible next year given the unpredictable impact the pandemic continues to have on the economy.

Kenneys first budget proposal for next year, delivered to Council in early March just before the pandemic took hold in Philadelphia, included a $316 million fund balance, which would have amounted to 6% of spending. The $5.2 billion plan had no tax increases and proposed new funding for programs, including street sweeping and Community College of Philadelphia scholarships.

After the pandemic forced him to shut down all but essential businesses and government services on March 16, revenues began to plummet, and Kenney on May 1 unveiled a new $4.9 billion plan addressing the then-$649 million projected budget hole by tapping reserves; eliminating funding for some arts programs; and increasing levies such as the wage tax for suburban commuters and the portion of the real estate tax that funds the School District.

After Council members objected to the proposed real estate tax hike, Kenney abandoned that plan, saying recently approved state funding for schools made the increase unnecessary. The administration is still pursuing hikes in the nonresident wage tax and the parking tax.
A major Garda alert will be put in place for the release of a teenager who stabbed innocent Lorcan O'Reilly to death and is due to walk free from prison in the coming days.

The 19-year-old, who has close links to convicted gangland murderer 'Fat' Freddie Thompson, has been serving the closing months of his sentence with Thompson in Ireland's highest security prison in Portlaoise.

Since being sentenced to six years, with 18 months suspended, for the knife killing in February 2017, the teen was first detained at the Oberstown facility for juveniles before being moved to the Kinahan cartel wing in Mountjoy Prison in November, 2018, when he turned 18.

"He has had a few disciplinary scrapes while in the prison system but nothing major," a jail insider said last night.

Gardai are expected to draw up a special policing plan ahead of his release later this month because it is expected to increase tensions in the south inner city.

"He will be closely monitored by gardai but they are also hoping that he will interact with the probation services and perhaps finalise his education," a senior source told the Irish Independent.

"He is young enough to be at a crossroads in his life - if he wants to make a change. A number of his local associates in the Kinahan cartel such as Liam Brannigan, Nathan Foley and of course Freddie [Thompson] are now locked up serving lengthy sentences so this may be a chance for him to turn his life around without being under their influence.

"However, there is no guarantee that he can turn his life around and there are serious concerns about him being back on the streets.

"After all he is a very lucky boy that he is not serving a life sentence for the murder of Lorcan O'Reilly," the source explained.

The killer cannot be named for legal reasons as he was aged just 14 when he stabbed Mr O'Reilly (21) to death in the south inner city. The innocent victim was killed after stopping a fight.

After killing Mr O'Reilly, he fled the country with his mentor Thompson but eventually returned and presented himself to gardai.

He was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Senior members of the deadly Kinahan cartel were involved in a brutal campaign of intimidation against witnesses against the teenager who was convicted of the fatal stabbing of Mr O'Reilly at the Oliver Bond flats in Dublin during the early hours of November 1, 2015.

The teenage killer was classified by gardai as a "foot-soldier" in the deadly cartel and has been on the radar of detectives since primary school.

A number of witnesses to the stabbing were given detailed security advice by gardai and others had to move away from their south inner city homes because of the threats.

In the build-up to his proposed murder trial, it emerged that potential witnesses were warned they would "get a bullet in the head" if they testified against the teenager.

Gardai said at the time that they were aware of the "constant threats" that had been issued in a number of south inner city pubs over the previous weeks and detectives "monitored the situation".

Gardai from Kevin Street and Kilmainham garda stations investigated the sinister death threats but no one made an official statement against the Kinahan-linked gangsters who carried out the campaign of terror.

The violent teenager was rapidly identified in the case and it quickly became clear this juvenile criminal has close links to the Kinahan cartel.

However, he became a figure of hate to some associates of tragic Mr O'Reilly and was hospitalised after he was given a severe beating in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2016.

A number of youths attacked the then 15-year-old in Dublin's south inner city shortly after 4am on New Year's Day, 2015, and the teenager suffered a number of serious kicks and punches to the head.
The Federal Government has said it gave approval for the flight that flew in controversial musician, Azeez Fashola, also known as Naira Marley from Lagos to Abuja.

The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika disclosed this at the daily Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Monday.

He, however, explained that the flight was meant to fly in a justice, Adefope Okojie, from Lagos to Abuja and back to Lagos for essential purposes and not the musician.

Naira Marley, 26, had on Saturday, performed at a concert in Abuja despite the interstate travel ban and social distancing rules aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19.

An ex-Big Brother Naija housemate, Kim Oprah, was the anchor of the event which took place Jabi Lake Mall. The mall has since been sealed by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA).

The concert was put together by Play Network Africa, Traffic Bar, ElCarnival, and was sponsored by Glenfiddich.

This development has sparked outrage on social media with many comparing their actions to that of Nollywood actress, Funke Akindele, who was on April 6, arrested and fined for hosting a party in her Lekki home in violation of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Flight approval

Mr Sirika said the flight was approved because it considered judiciary as part of essential services.

The brief today is for the unfortunate flight that was approved by civil aviation to come into Abuja and the passengers or content of that flight conducted a concert.

Well, we approved a flight but certainly not for any musician. The flight, from the application, was to convey Honourable Justice Adefope Okojie from Lagos to Abuja and back to Lagos for an official assignment.

READ ALSO:

In this challenging time, in our wisdom, we considered the judiciary to be part of the essential service to be delivered. Having to move the Hon. Justice from Lagos to Abuja was in order. The approval was given for the 14th of June, 2020. However, we do give them a leeway of 24 hours sometimes due to operational reasons, he said.

He did not elaborate on whether the judge was eventually conveyed to Abuja as approved.

He also did not state if the federal government will sanction the musician, who was also mentioned as one of those who attended Mrs Akindeles party then.

Suspension

Mr Sirika, however, announced the suspension of the operation of Executive Jets Service indefinitely following violation of the approval it was granted.

He said the captain who operated the flight would be sanctioned for misleading the control tower.

Mr Sirika also said: The operation is a clear violation of our approval to which we take very seriously and it seems this is becoming a norm. Perhaps, this is the second time. So, Executive Air Services operations are hereby suspended indefinitely. We will also fine them maximally according to the law.

The captain of the flight will also be sanctioned for giving wrong information to the control tower and also appropriately in accordance with our law, he said.

He noted that the agency will continue to level up to its responsibility for keeping everyone safe.

It seems also that people are not tired of trying our resolve. Well, we are also not tired of rising up to the challenge and living up to our own responsibility for keeping every one of us safe, he said.
WWE wrestler and actor John Cena paid a tribute to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput on Instagram on Monday. Sushant was found dead at his Bandra residence on Sunday. Cena shared a black-and-white photo of Sushant but didnt comment.

Sushants fans also shared their tributes to the actor on Cenas post. Many wrote RIP or Rest In Peace Sushant as they mourned his untimely death. On Sunday, police confirmed death by suicide. Police found Sushant Singh Rajputs body at his residence Sunday afternoon, Mumbai police spokesman Pranaya Ashok said. Sushant, known for his numerous hits on the big and small screens including Pavitra Rishta, MS Dhoni An Untold Story and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, passed away just a few days after the shock death of his former manager Disha Salian.

It pains us to share that Sushant Singh Rajput is no longer with us, Rajputs management team said in a statement. We request his fans to keep him in their thoughts and celebrate his life, and his work like they have done so far.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan tweeted alongside a selfie with Rajput, He loved me so much...I will miss him so much. His energy, enthusiasm and his full happy smile. May Allah bless his soul and my condolences to his near and dear ones. This is extremely sad....and so shocking!!

His energy, enthusiasm and his full happy smile. Akshay Kumar wrote on Twitter that he was shocked and speechless. Other actors like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, and Sonu Sood, among many others too expressed grief on the actors untimely demise.

While it is being reported that the 34 years old actor died of suicide, police are investigating the case. No suicide note has been found so far.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

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The five protesters were stopped before they could leave the Quai Branly Museum with the artwork. They were detained for questioning, and the Paris prosecutors office opened an investigation into group theft of objects of cultural heritage.  Washington Post (AP)
Explainer: Europe steps up tech battle vs. coronavirus with German app FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Walldorf

By Douglas Busvine

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany on Tuesday becomes the latest European country to launch a smartphone app that seeks to break the chain of coronavirus infection by tracking encounters between people and issuing a warning should one of them test positive.

A growing number of countries in the region have opted to use Bluetooth short-range radio to measure the risk of exposure, after concluding that tracking people's movements using location data would be intrusive.

European Union member states hope soon to agree a common approach for an international 'roaming' feature that could help revive travel and tourism.

WHAT'S THE STORY SO FAR?

Since there is no cure for COVID-19, governments have turned to technology to create a sort of digital 'herd immunity' against the flu-like disease.

After initial efforts misfired, Apple <AAPL.O> and Alphabet's Google <GOOGL.O> - whose iOS and Android operating systems run 99% of the world's smartphones - developed a standard that logs contacts securely on devices.

Germany joins a growing list of European countries - led by Switzerland, Italy, Poland and Latvia - to create Bluetooth apps based on this decentralized approach.

HOW DOES THE GERMAN APP WORK?

Germany's Covid-Warn-App, developed by SAP <SAPG.DE> and Deutsche Telekom <DTEGn.DE>, will be available for download on Monday night from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Once the app is installed it will typically show a 'green', or safe, status.

Should the user spend more than 15 minutes within two meters of another app holder who later tests positive for COVID-19, they would receive a notification advising them to seek medical advice.

WHAT ARE THE SECURITY FEATURES?

The Bluetooth exchanges logged securely on devices are encrypted and pseudonyms are used, so the identity of the other person is not known.

In another security feature, positive test results would be uploaded by the German app using a QR code from the lab.

Story continues

Other phones scan the system and, if one finds a so-called infected key in its log, the holder receives an exposure notification. No data is stored centrally, making it impossible to reconstruct an individual's relationships.

SOUNDS COMPLICATED - WILL IT WORK?

The design of Bluetooth-based apps represents a trade-off between usefulness and privacy. It is not possible, for example, to pinpoint the exact time and place of risk events from the app alone.

Protecting privacy, though, is a key selling point for the German app, which is voluntary and will need to be adopted by a large share of the population to be useful.

Norway on Monday halted its COVID-19 app after the country's data protection watchdog objected to the app's collection of location data as disproportionate to the task, and called for a Bluetooth-only approach.

Germany's app is intended to complement, not replace, existing contact tracing efforts that rely on interviewing people who fall ill with COVID-19 and calling people they have met.

Where the app can come in useful is in public settings - such as a train trip or bus ride - where people don't know each other. Its speed is also a plus as COVID-19 can be spread by people who have yet to develop symptoms.

WHAT ABOUT FOREIGN TRAVEL?

Although the apps are national, the idea is that they should be able to 'talk' to each other. Such interoperability would make it possible to monitor infection risks when people travel between countries.

EU member states have already agreed on broad guidelines for interoperability, and are close to backing the creation of a central gateway to handle data traffic between the apps based on the Google-Apple standard, sources say.

(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Mark Potter)
NPP National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye, also called Nana B has called on parents of final year students not to panic as their wards return to school.



He urged the parents to have confidence in President Nana Akufo-Addo and not pay attention to alarmists discrediting the President's measures to secure the safety of the students and the teaching and non-teaching staff of the various schools.



President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his 11th update on COVID-19, directed final year students at the tertiary level to resume school on Monday, June 15, 2020, whereas those at SHS and JHS resume on 22nd and 29th June respectively.



From tomorrow, Monday, 15th June, the last batch of institutions in this phased approach, our educational institutions, will begin to re-open, with final year students in our tertiary colleges and universities returning to school to prepare for and take their exit examinations. As has been stated, final year Senior High School (SHS 3) students, together with SHS 2 Gold Track students, will resume on 22nd June; and final-year Junior High School (JHS 3) students, the week after, on 29th June. The decision to include our schools in phase one of the easing of restrictions was taken advisedly''.



He further outlined his government's measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 as the students return to school stating ''a total of six hundred thousand (600,000) face masks has been distributed to the tertiary institutions. This is to enable every student, teaching and non-teaching staff to have three (3) reusable face masks. In addition to this, one thousand seven hundred (1,700) Veronica buckets, two hundred thousand (200,000) litres of hand sanitizer, three thousand, four hundred (3,400) litres of liquid soap, and nine hundred (900) thermometer guns have been distributed, with the transportation and delivery of these items being overseen by the special logistics team of the Government Committee, chaired by the sagacious, experienced politician, the Senior Minister, Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, that is supervising the re-opening of the schools''.



This notwithstanding, critics like PPP stalwart Nana Ofori Owusu have argued that the reopening of the schools may expose the students to the pandemic disease, hence endangering their lives.



The criticisms about the President's ease of restrictions on schools have given cause for parents of the school children to fear.



Nana B has urged critics to join the crusade to educate the masses about the disease and stop spreading fear and panic.



''This is not the time to put fear in the parents. I think we have to rather encourage the parents to adhere to the laid-down rules . . . We shouldn't discourage the parents. We should not cause fear and panic'," he told host Kwami Sefa Kayi on 'Kokrokoo' on Peace FM.





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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The Maharashtra cyber police urged people to delete the posts with images of Sushant Singh Rajput's body doing the rounds on social media

The Maharashtra Cyber Police Department reminded social media users that circulating the pictures of Sushant Singh Rajputs body post his death can invite legal action. The agency responsible for cybersecurity and cybercrime investigation in Maharashtra asked netizens to not share such pictures. To those who already have, they urged to delete the posts.

As per Asian News International, a post mortem has been conducted and further details of the autopsy report are awaited. The post mortem was conducted at Mumbai's Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital.

In a Twitter thread, the official Twitter account of the cyber police department put this message after pictures of the late actor started doing the rounds on Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and other social media platforms.

The police referred to this as a disturbing trend made in bad taste. They further reminded internet users that the circulation of such pictures was against legal guidelines and court directions, and were hence, liable to invite legal action.

In a final third tweet, they asked people to delete the photos, if they had already shared them.

Check out the posts

A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri. Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste. (1/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action. (2/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth. (3/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

The cybercrime unit of Maharashtra police had earlier issued a notice under Section 149 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) to social media users who had posted offensive/ abusive/ defamatory/ malicious posts on the internet.

We've observed that certain users are using social media platforms for posting offensive / abusive / defamatory / malicious posts. Maharashtra Cyber Police Dept., the nodal agency for cyber crime investigation in Maharashtra hereby issues a notice under Section 149 of CRPC (1/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) May 20, 2020

The police had clearly informed then, stating that circulation of such offensive posts was an offense under the Information Technology Act, IPC and other laws of the land.

to all such users posting offensive messages to refrain from doing so as it is an offense under Information Technology Act, IPC and other laws of the land. Any user found violating the provisions of the said laws will have to face strict penal action. (2/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) May 20, 2020

Popular Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead at his Mumbai residence on Sunday. He died of suicide at the age of 34. The actor was going to be seen next in Dil Bechara, the Hindi remake of Hollywood movie The Fault in our Stars.

*

A collection of Suicide prevention helpline numbers are available here. Please reach out if you or anyone you know is in need of support. The All-India helpline number is: 022 2754 6669
Ali Kushayb, 70, turned himself in CAR after 13 years on the run from allegations related to the conflict in Sudan.

A Sudanese militia leader has denied charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Darfur conflict in his first appearance before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday.

Ali Kushayb was formally told of the more than 50 charges against him as he appeared by video link from a detention centre in The Hague because of coronavirus measures.

Kushayb, 70, turned himself in earlier this month in the Central African Republic after 13 years on the run stemming from allegations relating to the devastating conflict in the western Sudanese region.

Yes I was informed of [the charges] but this is untrue  They made me come here and I hope that I will get justice, said Kushayb, wearing a light grey suit and tie, and speaking in Arabic through an interpreter.

Judge Rosario Salvatore Aitala pointed out that Mondays hearing was not a trial, only a formality to confirm the identity of Kushayb, who is also known as Ali Muhammad Abdelrahman, and the charges against him.





This is not the hearing for presenting your defence, you will have opportunities to do that. This is only the hearing for the judge to be satisfied that you have been informed of the charges, the judge told Kushayb.

A court official took nearly half an hour to read out the list of 53 charges including murdering civilians, destroying and burning villages, rape, pillage and forcible displacement.

The Darfur conflict broke out in 2003 when ethnic African rebels who complained of systematic discrimination took up arms against the government of longtime President Omar al-Bashir.

The state hit back with violence by pro-government Janjaweed fighters in a campaign that saw the ICC accuse al-Bashir of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

The United Nations says the conflict killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

Weighing evidence

According to prosecutors, Kushayb was a top commander of the Janjaweed militias that led attacks on towns and villages, and is implicated in more than 300 murders and the forcing of 40,000 mainly Fur civilians from their homes.

Abdelrahman Omar said his familys properties were looted by militia leader Ali Kushaybs forces [AFP]

The United States said killings in Darfur amounted to a genocide. The ICC has not accused Kushayb of that crime.

The judge on Monday set a so-called confirmation of charges hearing on December 7 this year. At that hearing, the court will weigh if there is enough evidence to support the prosecution charges and proceed to trial.

Al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist for three decades, was deposed in April 2019 following months of protests and is also wanted by the ICC.

Kushayb fled to the Central African Republic in February when the new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICCs investigation.

In Sudan, Gibreel Hassabu, a lawyer at the Khartoum-based Darfur Bar Association, said Kushaybs arrest was a sign that justice will be delivered to the Darfur people. He added the case could pressure the trinational government to quickly hand over to The Hague al-Bashir and two other suspects wanted by the ICC who have been imprisoned in Khartoum.

Kushaybs trial is a starting point to bring justice to the victims. His arrest restored hope that the government could go forward and hand over other wanted including al-Bashir to The Hague, he said.
Its a curious sight to come upon while walking the Appalachian Trail in Cumberland County: a tiny, ancient cemetery, nearly consumed by trees, brush and earth.

Many a hiker has surely stepped inside the pitted iron fence and lichen-encrusted stone wall and wondered:

How long since anyone was buried here? Why this seemingly disconnected spot? Must it remain forever? What does the law say?

Local historians know this: its the Chambers Farm Cemetery, named after a family who once owned the land. They also tell of a related mystery: somewhere nearby is a cemetery for slaves who once lived on the property.

That cemetery is just gone. We have no idea where it is on the property. There is no record of it, says Lindsay Varner of the Cumberland County Historical Society.

Its existence is known from memories of people now dead, including a decades-old story of a farmer unearthing remains.

The Chambers Farm Cemetery, on land bordered by Old Stonehouse Road and Appalachian Drive between Mechanicsburg and Carlisle, is one of many family cemeteries that once dotted the region before community cemeteries became the norm.

Many are lost  built upon, overgrown, sunken into the earth or forgotten. Theres no official record to compare the original total to the number known today.

Thats something, in terms of research, I would love to work on, Varner says.

Interest in genealogy has led to rediscovery of some old cemeteries and spurred searches for others.

People often come to the historical society looking for clues to locations of burial spots of long-gone relatives, Varner says.

There are family members constantly looking for cemeteries that no longer exist, she says.

Rediscovery of a cemetery sometimes begins with a clue, such as someone finding a headstone that had been repurposed as a paving or foundation stone, according to Varner.

Varner knows of assorted old cemeteries in Cumberland County that nearly vanished. Some have been rescued through efforts such as a Boy Scout working on an Eagle badge.

Carmen James remembers looking out her window in Mount Holly Springs and seeing a funeral procession when she was a little girl in the early 1950s.

The mourners were headed for a cemetery near the historic Mount Tabor Church, which served a local African American community. James has additional hazy memories of a burial spot where people would sometimes sit and relax.

Eventually the cemetery became overgrown and its exact location forgotten. Recently, James and others launched an effort to find it. Using chainsaws, weed whackers, rakes and shovels, they cleared a spot, which turned out to be the wrong one.

They tried a different spot and last year uncovered a rusty metal tag marking the grave of Betty Johnson, who died in 1952 or 1953 likely the funeral James remembers from her childhood.

In February, James and others from the Mount Holly area and beyond continued clearing the site. They were in contact with Dickinson College students who planned to use ground-penetrating radar to find and map other graves. The coronavirus pandemic put the effort on hold, however.

Old cemeteries have great historical value, providing evidence of things including old settlements, cultural and religious practices and genealogy, according to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

MORE: Harrisburg-area high schools 2020 graduates: Photos from community portrait session

They can give people a sense of the land and place where their ancestors lived, according to Varner. When no photo of a long-dead ancestor exists, a photo of a gravestone can illustrate a family tree.

Yet old cemeteries are governed by a patchwork of laws, some more than a century old, which can be confusing and sometimes fail to protect them. One Pennsylvania law, for example, dictates a process for when churches, municipalities or associations want to redevelop a cemetery site. But it doesnt fully address what should happen when the cemetery sits on land owned by a farmer or a developer with no connection to people buried there.

Another law falls short of requiring private owners to preserve a cemetery on their property, allowing removal of headstones or graves if granted permission from descendants and a court.

In short, there is no blanket protection for all historic cemeteries, says Bryan Van Sweden of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office.

The Chambers Farm Cemetery on the Appalachian Trail contains about 20 graves, with the newest dating to 1898, according to copies of records housed in the state library in Harrisburg and supplied by Varner.

A road once led to the cemetery, according to an 1849 record.

Its now owned by the National Park Service, which came into possession of it about 30 years ago when it acquired land for the Appalachian Trail, according to Mike Bowman, a board member of the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club. Before that, the trail had followed public roads in Cumberland County.

The club has tried to maintain the cemetery. But its a challenge for the volunteer organization responsible for tasks such as sawing up fallen trees, trimming brush, digging drainage trenches and filling mud holes along 17 miles of trail.

The situation was better a few years ago when a Mechanicsburg Area School District teacher used the cemetery as an educational project, with students doing physical upkeep and researching the cemetery, Bowman says.

The group obtained a grant it planned to use toward more substantial renovations, he says.

But getting federal permission proved to be a long, frustrating process, and the teacher has since left the district, according to Bowman.

It has fallen back. Its looking pretty crummy out there right now, he says.

Overall trail maintenance was on hold this spring because of the coronavirus shutdown. Bowman says he hopes to soon spend a few hours removing brush and weeds at the cemetery.

Varner says the cemetery also needs work to address problems including badly sunken headstones and graves.

Bowman says he regularly sees long-distance hikers set down their packs and venture inside.

First-timers almost always stop and walk around, he says.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A crash in Tompkinsville Sunday night left a family of nine people injured, including seven children, the NYPD said.

The incident involved a Ram minivan, which crashed into a dead end near the intersection of Victory Boulevard and Minthorne Street just after 8:30 p.m., according to police.

Two of the children, whose ages are currently not available, were initially taken to Staten Island University Hospital in Ocean Breeze in critical condition, the NYPD said; however, they are now considered to be in stable condition.

The driver of the vehicle, a 36-year-old male, along with a 34-year-old female, a 17-year-old male, a 13-year-old male, an 11-year-old male and two 10-year-olds were transported to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton in stable condition, according to police.

None of the occupants were wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, police said.

The crash drew a large NYPD and FDNY response, and a badly damaged Ram 1500 minivan could be seen with its airbags deployed against a wall adjacent to the Staten Island Railway.

The 36-year-old driver of the vehicle was taken into custody following the incident for driving with an expired license, police said. Further information on the driver was not immediately available.
Professor Sergei Gulyaey at the 30-metre satellite dish in Warkworth, which was provided to the Astronomical Observatory by Spark in 2010.

Preventing the collapse of modern technological civilisation and looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence is all in a days work for the Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory.

Among its many projects is a collaboration with Harvard University to map our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

The Milky Way contains 200 billion stars and is shaped like a disc with four extending spiral arms.

The Earth is located on the periphery of the galaxy between two of the arms.

Conventional telescopes that observe visible light cannot see beyond the centre of the galaxy.

However, Warkworths 30-metre dish radio telescope can pick up radio waves that penetrate through gas and space dust, providing a clearer picture.

For the collaboration with Harvard, the Warkworth telescope will be observing microwaves emitted by the formation of new stars within the spiral arms, known as methanol masers.

The data the observatory collects will be used to more accurately calculate the distance between the Earth and the spiral arms, assisting in creating a 3D map of the galaxy.

Professor Sergei Gulyaev says acquiring this knowledge could be a matter of survival for the human species.

If a star exploded in a supernova near Earth, and we were caught unaware, that would be it for us.

The gamma rays would destroy the Earths ionosphere and end all civilisation.

The Warkworth observatory is also part of an international network of telescopes that observe the radio emissions of super massive black holes, known as quasars.

By observing the exact and unchanging location of quasars, observatories across the world can create an accurate frame of reference to observe the rotation of the Earth.

The Earth routinely wobbles on its axis because of its swirling molten metal core and this causes aberrations in its rotation and tilt.

It is important to monitor the Earths rotation because it affects any navigational device that uses global positioning systems (GPS), including cars, ships and planes.

If a driverless car uses GPS to navigate, it might be able to drive on the left side of the road today. But if tomorrow the Earth slows down its rotation, then the GPS could send the car into oncoming traffic, Professor Gulyaev says.

The radio telescope network is used to provide corrections to global positioning systems to prevent this type of error occurring.

The Warkworth telescope has also been trying to solve one of the universes oldest mysteries concerning the source of sudden bright bursts of radio waves.

Imagine a super bright flash that for a thousandth of a second is so powerful it outshines the whole galaxy.

Professor Gulyaev says one of the prevailing hypotheses has been that the radio bursts come from an extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Thanks, in part, to the work at the Warkworth Observatory, the source of the radio burst has been tracked to a Magnetar star.

A Magnetar is a small but highly dense rotating neutron star that emits an extremely powerful magnetic field.

Professor Gulyaev says extra-terrestrial intelligence still cant be completely ruled out as a reason for these and other radio bursts, especially bursts that come from beyond the galaxy.
A university lecturer with special needs has won a discrimination claim after she was overworked by her former employers which led to severe anxiety.

Elizabeth Aylott, 50, successfully sued BPP university, a private organisation in London, for disability discrimination and constructive unfair dismissal.

Mrs Aylott suffers from Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) which went undiagnosed until after she had resigned from the role in April 2019, while she was also signed off by doctors for anxiety and depression whilst working at BPP.

Elizabeth Aylott (not pictured), a former lecturer at BPP university in London (pictured) has won a disability discrimination case against the organisation after she was overworked and denied medical support despite suffering from anxiety and depression during her time there.

Despite her disability, London Central Employment Tribunal heard Mrs Aylott's boss, Juliette Wagner, describe her as 'mad as a box of frogs but a good worker'.

Judge Timothy Adkin described the comment as 'inappropriate and unprofessional'.

Mrs Aylott, who specialises in HR and employment law, began working at the private university in 2009, but her employers failed to notice several warnings of the lecturer's struggles.

The mother-of-two became a widow two years after joining the organisation, while she also lost her father and saw her son become seriously ill during her time working at the company.

Despite these personal hardships, Mrs Aylott was often asked to work up to 60 hours a week and even was forced to work Bank Holidays.

The tribunal heard her former boss, Juliette Wagner (pictured) describe her as 'mad as a box of frogs' despite her condition. Mrs Aylott (not pictured) also lost her partner and father whilst she was working at the private university in London

Her request to have her referred with a medical professional was rejected by another boss, Steven Shaw, as he claimed her stress was 'her perception' and that working long hours like this was 'normal'.

As the work mounted up, the lecturer began to have suicidal thoughts and was driven to drink - she was in need of three glasses of wine to help her sleep after work, before drinking four or five gin and tonics to 'self-medicate'.

Mrs Aylott said: 'I believe I was treated differently because my issue was a mental health issue... I was relying on alcohol to support me.'

Judge Adkin, who said Mrs Aylott should have been referred to Occupational Health, added: 'The claimant said that she had suffered a breakdown, felt overloaded and could no longer cope.

'She mentioned being a widow and raising two children. Mr Shaw suggested that her feelings of stress were based on her perception.

Mrs Aylcott won her case at the London Central Employment Tribunal (pictured) and a remedy case in July will determine how much compensation she will earn

'Mr Shaw was plainly of the view that managers working in excess of contractual hours was "normal".

'He also seemed to be of the view that the claimant was experienced enough to manage her workload.'

BPP University specialises in law and business amongst other fields such as technology, banking, dentistry and nursing.

The extent of Mrs Aylott's compensation will be determined at a remedy hearing in July.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15



By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan, along with other Central Asian countries and European Union have discussed countering the spread of COVID-19, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.

The mentioned topic was discussed during an online meeting between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central Asian countries and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles was held on June 12, 2020.

The parties discussed issues related to the consolidation of efforts aimed at countering the spread of coronavirus infection.

Thus, the parties considered the prospects for cooperation between the EU and the countries of the Central Asian region in the context of implementing the EU Strategy for Central Asia.

Turkmenistan's initiatives in the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other multilateral formats were pointed out, the report says.

The parties discussed issues of maintaining peace and security in the region, in particular, further practical steps to establish stability in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Turkmenistan, along with other Central Asian countries reviewed the actions taken by the ministries of agriculture to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on food security on May 19, 2020.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Tuesday, June 16th, 2020 (12:01 am) - Score 4,030

The UK Department for Education and ISP BT have today announced that they will provide in-need families with six months of free access to the their network of WiFi access points, which extends to 5.5 million hotspots across the country. Its not quite the free broadband that some have been clamouring for (here), but its welcome.

The announcement follows a new proposal by a group of cross-party MPs, which is seeking to tackle the current COVID-19 fuelled education crisis by calling for up to 1.3 million school children (i.e. those eligible for free school meals) to gain free broadband in order to help them learn. The group claims that around 700,000 children have been left stuck in a digital divide and are allegedly unable to complete any school work due to a lack of adequate internet connectivity at home.

At present BT runs several thousand premium WiFi hotspots across the country and, on top of that, their fixed home broadband subscribers also share out a WiFi hotspot from their HomeHub and SmartHub routers using FON technology (this has been enabled by default since 2009 but customers can opt-out).

Under the new scheme  launching today  BT will offer those who are most in need access to these hotspots via a voucher-code system, which will provide kids with the ability to access the internet on up to 3 devices at a time, for six months. As this is only intended for education then BTs vouchers will only allow access with comprehensive content filtering (this is normal for education services).

Marc Allera, CEO of BTs Consumer division, said: Supporting childrens education in these difficult times is a major priority for BT. Through our Skills for Tomorrow programme, we already have a whole raft of fun and engaging online resources to help children learn at home. Offering up our Wi-fi hotspots estate will ensure that thousands more children will ultimately be able to keep up with their important digital learning and online schoolwork for the rest of term and over the Summer holidays as well as into the Autumn.

Nick Gibb, School Standards Minister, said: The Government will do everything possible to make sure no child, whatever their background, falls behind as a result of coronavirus. We have committed over 100 million to support pupils with remote education, including to provide laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers to disadvantaged children and young people, and this initiative will build on that work. High quality internet access will continue to play an important role for children and families as we work towards pupils returning to schools in September, and I am hugely grateful to BT for their support in delivering this scheme.

The DfE also confirmed that it has already provided over 50,000 4G based mobile broadband routers to children in secondary school with a social worker or care leavers and children in year 10 without access to the internet.

At the same time BT is also announcing direct support for a number of key initiatives, offering access to the BT Wi-Fi network as a pilot for the DfE scheme. These are:

 Schools Home Support has partnered with Raspberry Pi via the Bloomfield Trust to quickly provide devices for learning at home to the families they support that dont have them. These will now come with Wi-fi connectivity for 6 months.  Kids Outs Kids In initiative to support families who are self-isolating in womens refuges after escaping domestic violence.  Barnardos support for vulnerable children and young people who may be locked down in homes where they suffer from digital poverty and so do not have any access to fixed internet at present.

Otherwise BT will fund the free Wi-Fi voucher scheme itself, while distribution is being handled directly by the DfE, which will issue families with the necessary voucher usernames and passwords. Local Authorities and Academy Trusts will now be invited to request vouchers, working with their schools to identify those children who are most in need (more info. can be got by emailing COVID.TECHNOLOGY@education.gov.uk).

However, while BTs offer is welcome, it should be said that FON hotspots only have access to a small portion of customer bandwidth and thus they tend to be fairly slow. Likewise related WiFi signals can be quite weak, unless youre sitting almost right outside the window of a BT connected neighbour. In that sense it will be interesting to see whether or not this idea sees any significant take-up.

Sadly BT has rarely ever released any information on the use of their FON service, so weve no idea how popular it is (i.e. when faster premium non-FON BT hotspots are excluded).
(This story has been updated to reflect that the Michigan Supreme Court denied to hear an appeal after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Heather Jarrell Roe was allowed to be on the ballot for Ypsilanti Township clerk and that Supreme Court Clerk Larry Royster said this decision can be seen as an affirmation of the appeals court ruling.)

YPSILANTI TWP., MI - The ballot for Ypsilanti Townships August primary election is now finalized after weeks of court rulings on candidates eligibility.

The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday, June 12, denied to review a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling that Heather Jarrell Roe, an Ypsilanti Township trustee, correctly filed her paperwork to run for township clerk in the Aug. 4 primary.

Washtenaw County Circuit Court Judge Carol Kuhnke ruled on May 27 that Jarrell Roe; Monica Ross-Williams, who was running for treasurer, and William Sinkule, who was running for parks commissioner, should be removed from the ballot because mismatching signature and notarization dates on their affidavits of identity made their filing paperwork invalid. Township Supervisor Brenda Stumbo and Treasurer Larry Doe requested the court intervention.

Jarrell Roe appealed Kuhnkes decision and, after the Court of Appeals reversed that decision on June 5, lawyers for Stumbo and Doe requested a review from the state Supreme Court, which said the electoral eligibility questions should not be reviewed by this court, according to the order certified by Supreme Court Clerk Larry Royster, who indicated to MLive on June 15 that the decision can be seen as an affirmation on the Court of Appeals ruling.

Appeals court reverses Ypsilanti Township election decision, finding trustee can remain in clerk election

In the Court of Appeals majority opinion, judges said that Michigan election and Secretary of State laws do not mention that notarization date and signature date should match and the affidavits are not defective.

Although the Secretary of State may advise a candidate to date the (affidavit of identity) at the time of signing, we cannot conclude that the Secretary of State may create an impediment to the ballot by imposing a date requirement not sanctioned by the legislature or necessary to the establishment of a proper and valid affidavit, judges Mark Boonstra and Jane Beckering wrote in their June 5 ruling.

Judge Jane Markey, however, disagreed with the reversal. In her dissent, she notes that an affidavit generally must be signed and affirmed by a notary public. Jarrell Roes form became defective simply because her signature date and the notarization date did not match.

Michigan clerks prepare for the worst as coronavirus looms over 2020 elections

Both Jarrell Roe and Township Clerk Karen Lovejoy Roe submitted additional statements at the county circuit court hearing that the notarizations had occurred in person on the notarization dates, and the different signature dates were mistakes. Judges in both courts did not include the statements in their decisions, according to the opinions.

Ross-Williams and Sinkule did not appeal the county courts decision, according to the Washtenaw County Clerks Office. Ross-Williams, a current township trustee, is now running as a write-in candidate for clerk and faces Jarrell Roe in the primary election.

Read more from The Ann Arbor News:

University of Michigan regent, wife give $30-million gift toward diabetes therapies

Ypsilanti man killed in shooting outside Burger King, police say

How should sheriffs office respond to deputy punching Ypsilanti Township woman, survey asks
The chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has been tasked to lead Western New England University in the 2020s.

Robert E. Johnson was introduced as the institutions sixth president, ending a search that trustees said was vigorous and which received widespread national interest despite the obstacles of the coronavirus pandemic. Johnson will succeeds Anthony S. Caprio, whose 24-year tenure was the longest in the institutions 101-year history.

We believe we have found the perfect leader to build on our growth as an institution as we chart a course for Western New Englands second century. A scholar in the areas of educational leadership, cultural diversity and leadership, marketing and enrollment management, and the future of work, Dr. Johnson is a renowned thought leader who speaks and writes about the future of work, the agile mind, the agile university, and innovating for social impact, trustees chairman Kenneth Rickson said

Building on the leadership and legacy of Dr. Caprio is humbling and an honor. His transformation and elevation of Western New England University for 24 years is historic,'' Johnson said.

"I look forward to engaging with the campus community to create a shared ambition in writing its next chapter in this extraordinary time, and navigating through this global pandemic and social unrest with a sense of humanity and civility.

He will begin his new duties on August 15. Caprios tenure was marked by physical and academic expansion of Western New England and was highlighted by the former colleges attainment of university status in 2011.

The Springfield university has announced its plans to reopen campus under strict health and safety guidelines in the fall.

Johnsons 30-year career has taken him to colleges and universities in the Northeast and Midwest, including public, private, urban, rural, small and large institutions. Enrollments at these institutions has ranged from 2,000 to more than 25,000 students.

He served as president of Becker College in Worcester from 2010 to 2017, and has served at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, the University of Dayton, Oakland (Michigan) University, and Central State University in Ohio. He has been a groundbreaking African-American administrative leader throughout his career.

Johnsons tenure at UMass Dartmouth saw a transformation of the campus. He led the creation a framework for the blue economy, which will be an ecosystem to drive job creation, economic development and entrepreneurship, and oversaw the launching of a $188 million construction and renovation project for new housing and dining, and the renovation of its Science and Engineering building.

A $4.6 million grant from the Office of Naval Research for $4.6 was the largest in the universitys history.

As Becker College president, Johnson led enrollment growth for seven consecutive years and increased enrollment by 23%. Degrees increased by 53%, and graduation rose by 29%.

The schools digital games program was ranked third in the world by The Princeton Review, and first in New England. Johnson also helped create the first bachelors degree in the United States in global citizenship.

The U.S. Department of Economic Development designated the college as one of 60 as a University Center. Creating the Agile Mindset positioned its curriculum with a unique niche in the higher education landscape.

The Agile Mindset, which provides students the skillset and mindset to create new value with essential human skills to meet the demands of the future, will be critical to the academy in a post Covid-19 world. I look forward to working with our community to evolve the paradigm for the higher education industry that steeps our students with a sense of humanity, grounding them in the liberal arts with an entrepreneurial spirit that spurs innovation and transforms the world, Johnson said.

Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick appointed Dr. Johnson to the Mass Tech Collaborative, and Governor Charlie Baker appointed him to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education and the Hate Crimes Task Force and the Black Advisory Council.

Johnson was inspired to pursue a life of education for the social good by his uncle, who was a classmate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Originally from Detroit, Michigan Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Touro University International in, New York, a Masters degree in education administration from the University of Cincinnati, a bachelors degree in economics from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Certificate in Applied Neuroscience from MIT Sloan School of Management.
[June 15, 2020] Nanox Signs $48 Million Agreement in Russia and Belarus For Nanox.ARC Medical Imaging Services

NANO-X IMAGING LTD (www.nanox.vision) ("Nanox" or the "Company"), a medical imaging technology company, announces it has entered into exclusive distribution agreements for the introduction of Nanox's medical imaging services in Russia and Belarus with local distribution partners (the "Distribution Partners"). The Nanox System will offer a range of medical imaging services, from 2D X-ray to 3D Tomosynthesis computed tomography and are aimed to be deployed in rural areas for maximum patients' outreach. The services are planned to be operated on a pay-per-scan business model at affordable prices for communities of varying socio-economic status. According to the agreements, subject to regulatory approval and acceptance test clearance, the Distribution Partners will commit to Nanox a combined minimum annual service fee of approximately $48 million over a 3-year term. The service commitment is to be backed by a standby letter of credit in favor of Nanox. The parties will collaborate on the deployment and operation of 600 Nanox Systems comprised of the Nanox.ARC and the Nanox.CLOUD to provide medical imaging services across Russia and Belarus. "Nanox is rapidly advancing in contracted deployments of its medical imaging infrastructure on a global basis," says Ran Poliakine, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nanox. "we plan to reach maximum global coverage over the next 5 years reaching the farthest regions in countries where the population has no access to medical imaging. Our partners in Russiaand Belarus share our vision and I am looking forward to our mutual road ahead."



About Nanox:

Nanox, founded by the serial entrepreneur Ran Poliakine, is an Israeli corporation that is developing a commercial-grade digital X-ray source designed to be used in real-world medical imaging applications. Nanox believes that its novel technology could significantly reduce the costs of medical imaging systems and plans to seek collaborations with world-leading healthcare organizations and companies to provide affordable, early detection imaging service for all. For more information, please visit www.nanox.vision. Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements that are not historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. Such statements include, but are not limited to, any statements relating to the initiation, timing, progress and results of Nanox's research and development, manufacturing and commercialization activities with respect to its X-ray source technology and the Nanox.Arc. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "can," "might," "believe," "may," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "plan," "should," "could," "expect," "predict," "potential," or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on information Nanox has when those statements are made or management's good faith belief as of that time with respect to future events, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to differ materially from those expressed in or suggested by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated include: risks related to Nanox's ability to develop [and produce a working prototype of the Nanox.Arc]; Nanox's ability to successfully demonstrate the feasibility of its technology for commercial applications; Nanox's expectations regarding the necessity of, timing of filing for, and receipt and maintenance of, regulatory clearances or approvals regarding its X-ray source technology and the Nanox.Arc from regulatory agencies worldwide and its ongoing compliance with applicable quality standards and regulatory requirements; Nanox's ability to enter into and maintain commercially reasonable arrangements with third-party manufacturers and suppliers to manufacture the Nanox.Arc; the market acceptance of the Nanox.Arc and the proposed pay-per-scan business model; Nanox's expectations regarding collaborations with third-parties and their potential benefits; and Nanox's ability to conduct business globally, among others. Except as required by law, Nanox undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements after the date of this press release to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in Nanox's expectations. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005361/en/

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As part of Chinas strategy to clamp down the year-long pro-democracy protests and impose the national security law in Hong Kong, Beijing has now accused the activists of brainwashing the young students. Recently, Taiwans local media quoted an article published by Chinas Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, wherein the spokesperson accused the Hong Kongs political party Demosisto and its members of manipulating young students into launching school strikes against the national security law.

The spokesperson also scoffed at the current educational climate in Hong Kong while claiming that the schools are deviating from one country, two systems principle. Secretary-General of Demosisto, Joshua Wong, was quoted as saying that the increasing demonisation of Hongkongers stemming from the Chinese authorities is being done to please the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress, set to convene on June 18.

Chairman of the Civic Party, Alan Leong, who has been accused of encouraging the violent demonstrations in the article, has said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to find a scapegoat for the turbulence in Hong Kong.

It blames the education system, foreign interference, and Hong Kong independence, but it will never blame itself, he added.

Also Read: Hong Kong fears oblivion under Chinese dominion

The controversial legislation has sparked fears about the autonomy of Hong Kong with many saying the move will undermine the one country, two systems principle. The South China Morning Post reported last week that three volunteers have been arrested for carrying out class boycotts in tandem with general strikes over it. The vote which was earlier planned on Sunday has been postponed until June 20. It is being co-organised by the Hong Kong Secondary School Action Platform, Demosisto and more than 20 labour unions linked to the anti-government movement.

A spokesperson for Hong Kong Secondary School Action Platform said that organisers would not be afraid and hold together. The three volunteers of the platform were setting up booths to promote the referendum when the police arrested them on Friday night, according to Isaac Cheng Ka-long. He said that one female volunteer was injured in the operation. China has faced criticism over the national security law which is being dubbed in conflict with the Sino-British joint declaration.

The agreement on the question of Hong Kong was signed in Beijing on December 19, 1984, by the Prime Ministers of China and Britain, Zhao Ziyang and Margaret Thatcher. The two governments agreed that China would reassume control of Hong Kong from July 1, 1997. The main body of the treaty has eight articles and three annexes and it states that Chinas basic policies regarding Hong Kong will remain unchanged for 50 years, including the promise that the city would retain a high degree of autonomy.

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.  Oluwatoyin Salau, a 19-year-old protester who begged for justice in the wake of Black lives lost, has died.

Police and her family confirmed the death Monday morning.

Salau was found dead Saturday night after she went missing more than a week ago, on June 6, family members told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Salau was one of two homicide victims discovered Saturday night in southeast Tallahassee, a couple miles from where she was last seen at a library.

Victoria "Vicki" Sims, 75, who also had been reported missing, was the second victim. She was a retired state worker and grandmother well-known for her volunteerism and work in local Democratic politics.The latest: Man arrested in deaths of activist Oluwatoyin Salau and volunteer Vicki Sims

Police identified the suspect as Aaron Glee Jr, 49, who had been arrested twice recently for violent offenses.

However, investigators have not released a motive or any other details about what led to the double homicide.

There is no justice that can be served that will replace my sisters life, her brother, Oluwaseyi Salau said.

Aaron Glee Jr.

The last time Danaya Hemphill saw her friend was the day before she went missing. They were at a Friday afternoon protest.

"We were all together one minute and the next minute our friend was gone," Hemphill said.

Hemphill felt a heavy unease in the days after her friend was reported missing.

"I had a feeling that we were not going to find Toyin alive," said Hemphill, 22.

At each demonstration, Salau had been reciting the names of Black people killed, such as Tony McDade of Tallahassee and George Floyd of Minneapolis.

I dont want their names gone in vain," Salau said during one protest in front of the Tallahassee Police Department last month.

"I had a feeling that we were not going to find Toyin alive," said Hemphill, 22.

Hemphill didn't think her friend's name would join that list.

Story continues

"Toyin was very passionate," said Hemphill. "She was very vocal she was very loving, very spiritual, very caring.

"She was like a light in a dark room. That was Toyin."

Though she went missing June 6, newly surfaced surveillance footage shows on Wednesday, June 10, Salau walked into Big Easy Snowballs in Tallahassee, according to owner of the ice cream shop. She asked to use the restroom.

That was the last known day she was seen alive.

"I dont know what in the world happened to Toyin," said Hemphill.

'She kept crying'

In the hours before Salau went missing, she tweeted she had just been sexually assaulted.

The afternoon she went missing, Salau tweeted a man molested her that morning around Park Avenue and Richview Road. She said the man offered to give her a ride back to a church where she had sought "refuge" because of "unjust living conditions."

"He came disguised as a man of God and ended up picking me up from nearby Saxon Street," she tweeted. "I trusted the holy spirit to keep me safe."

Salau said she called police after the assault happened. She did not specify the church where she had been staying.

Several people replied to her on Twitter offering help and asking whether she was OK. She never responded.

Her close friends say that wasn't the only time she was molested

Salau was also molested a few days before she went missing, Hemphill and two other friends said. They met up with Salau at the church where she'd been seeking refuge.

"That Thursday she went with me to the church, she talked to a lawyer, she spent a while there," said friend Ashley Loray. "She kept crying."

Along with police officers, Salau and friends went to the house where she'd escaped from near Florida A&M to gather her belongings. She'd been a victim of sex trafficking in that house multiple times, her friends say.

A disoriented and sobbing Salau shuffled into the house with her friends and scooped up her belongings.

"I personally feel like they could have investigated and gotten DNA." said Loray. "That's where they failed her. She could still be alive."

The cop told Loray they would need to gather more evidence on the assault.

That night, she slept in Hemphill's bed.

Glee arrested twice before murders

Glee was arrested May 29 on a charge of aggravated battery after an officer stopped at a light spotted him kicking a woman in the stomach, according to police reports.

The victim in that case was neither Sims nor Salau.

The woman told police she and Glee had been drinking alcohol together and were walking down the sidewalk when he propositioned her for sex.

"She told him no so Glee became angry, shoved (her) to the ground and began kicking her in the abdomen," the police report says.

Online Leon County Court records show a misdemeanor battery charge filed against him June 6. However, those reports were not immediately available.

Glee was arrested last year on a charge of possession of marijuana. However, prosecutors dropped it, according to court records.

Follow reporter Nada Hassanein on Twitter @nhassanein_.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Oluwatoyin Salau: Florida protester found dead in Tallahassee
PrintedKicks is a family-owned, proudly American online apparel retailer and supplier of conservative and patriotic gear.

PrintedKicks, the family-owned, proudly American online apparel retailer and supplier of conservative and patriotic gear, including hats, masks face covers, polos, shirts, tumblers, mugs, flags, shoes and more, announced today it is offering 20% off its Limited Edition Patriotic hats just in time for 4th of July celebrations. The USA-owned online retailer, known for its America-first values, supports more than 150 families through its employee workforce and suppliers. PrintedKicks is committed to making products in the USA as much as possible, while all of its apparel and accessory printing and embroidery is done in Michigan. The company believes in producing and supplying the highest quality products for Americans.

In keeping with their philosophy of supporting American communities by keeping jobs in America as much as possible, PrintedKicks has partnered with several local charities. Its most recent partnership is with Delivering with Dignity, a charitable organization that provides safe, healthy and free food delivery to Las Vegas area residents who are experiencing financial hardship and are most vulnerable to COVID-19. Helping fellow hard-working Americans who may be experiencing a time of need is one of the companys core values.

Moving forward into summer 2020, PrintedKicks is excited to not only serve its local community in need, but also honor and exceed the expectations of its loyal customers nationwide. The company has improved its backup supply chain and capacity moving towards even faster service and shipping of its high quality, conservative-friendly products. This improved efficiency will greatly benefit customers as they head out to 4th of July celebrations and other upcoming patriotic events this election year.

Visit https://www.printedkicks.com/ to make a purchase or learn more. For all the latest PrintedKicks news and promotions, follow them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/printedkicks/

About Printed Kicks

Nevada-based Printed Kicks is a family-owned, proudly American business with suppliers in California and Michigan. The companys founders and its employees are close to those who are on the front lines, including nurses, police officers, fire fighters, military personnel and all those who work daily to keep us safe and healthy. Giving back to American communities is a cornerstone of the companys philosophy and donations are frequently made to various charities. It strives to provide products which are made in the USA and is always searching for additional American suppliers to support the U.S. economy.

Media Contact

Printed Kicks Customer Service

info (at) printedkicks.com

Tel. 833-875-4257


Summer fruit pie (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

The week in food news:





Pies for Justice

Gather for Good, a community event group co-founded by pastry chef Zoe Nathan, is hosting a virtual bake sale and fundraiser on Juneteenth (June 19). Among the more than 30 participating restaurants and bakers are Valerie Confections, the Rose, n/naka, Ronan, A.O.C., All Time, Sherry Yard and Isa Fabro. 100% of proceeds from the sale will benefit the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and social justice organization the Gathering for Justice.

More info: andgatherforgood.com/piesforjustice

Muffin Can Stop Us

Muffin Can Stop Us is now open in Glendale for breakfast and lunch. The appropriately named takeout shop sells several varieties of English muffin sandwiches, including versions topped with smoked salmon and cucumber-dill spread, peanut butter marshmallow fluff and strawberry jam, or feta cheese and Armnenian sujuk, a spicy cured beef sausage.

1017 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, (818) 550-1755, muffincanstopus.com

Fabbys modern Mexican

Alejandro Guzman, a sous chef at Le Comptoir in Koreatown, has launched Fabbys, a takeout dinner series named for his mother that features dishes such as pipian rojo with chicken, black beans with avocado leaf, manchego Caesar salad and ricotta flan. The four-course menu sells for $35 per person on the reservation platform Tock and can be picked up at Cassell's Hamburgers DTLA on Fridays and Saturdays.

More info: exploretock.com/fabbys

Din Tai Fung closes

The original U.S. location of Din Tai Fung in Arcadia, open since 2000, has closed. The international Taiwanese dumpling chain announced the closure on Instagram citing the current economic climate. A larger branch of Din Tai Fung, inside the Westfield Santa Anita half a mile north of the original, remains open, as do branches in Glendale, Century City and Torrance.

Guerrilla Tacos in Japan

Wes Avila, chef-owner of Guerrilla Tacos, will open a cocktail bar and taco lounge called Piopiko next month at the Ace Hotel Kyoto. The restaurants menu includes brisket taquitos with avocado salsa and cheddar, togarashi-dusted fried fish tacos made with heirloom masa tortillas, and a self-referential spin on the Mexican American-Okinawan dish takoraisu (taco rice).

Story continues

Bombet steps down

Stephane Bombet of Bombet Hospitality Group is no longer involved with restaurants Nics on Beverly, Ms. Chi and Faith & Flower. The move came after a photo of the restaurateur wearing blackface at a 2011 Halloween party was posted to Eater L.A. last week. Bombet had served as operations manager at Nics and was a co-owner at Faith & Flower; he was a minority partner in Ms Chi.

Disneyland reopening

Disneyland announced this week that it will begin reopening in stages starting next month. Downtown Disney will open with reduced capacity on July 9, followed by California Adventure and Disneyland on July 17. The park has been closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 12.

Grubhubs new owner

Dutch food delivery company Just Eat has agreed to purchase U.S.-based delivery giant Grubhub for $7.3 billion. According to the companies, the merger will create the largest online food delivery outlet outside of China.

Starbucks to downsize

National coffee chain Starbucks announced this week that it plans to close up to 400 stores in the U.S. and Canada over the next 18 months, a decision influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also said that, to meet shifts in consumer behavior, it plans to open 300 stores that specialize in pickup and takeout.
The government is trying to contain future outbreaks by physically tracking people and calling them. That wont work when it comes to containment. If were going to contain this Coronavirus, we need to physically track people using technology.

The data analytics startup, COVEX 2020, has released the first AI analysis that looks into how the George Floyd protests across the country will likely impact COVID-19 infection rates over the following weeks.

The data analysis used public data from John Hopkins University and proprietary machine learning from COVEX 2020 to project where infection rates will likely be on June 23rd. The analysis, which took place on June 10th, suggests a grim outlook for New York City, Chicago, Washington, DC, Los Angeles and Atlanta.

The analysis suggests New York City will see a 5.5 percent increase in infection rates starting on June 23rd, or an additional 14,496 new cases. In comparison, the 10-days leading up to the analysis showed infection rates were steadily slowing with a rate increase of less than 2 percent.

The data analysis also suggests Los Angeles will see the largest infection rate increase of the major protest cities. LAs projected infection growth will be 8.46 percent on June 23rd - followed by Chicago at 8.22 percent; Washington, DC at 7.99 percent and Atlanta at 6.95 percent.

The CEO of COVEX2020, Christopher Malter, said the data analysis was intended to showcase how AI and analytics can help health officials contain the Coronavirus until a vaccine is created.

The government is trying to contain future outbreaks by physically tracking people and calling them. That wont work when it comes to containment, said Malter. If were going to contain this Coronavirus, we need to physically track people using technology. The AI is here and ready to use. Right now, theres no way to alert those protesters if they were in close proximity to people who were carrying COVID-19. But using this enterprise software, we can know and communicate to these potential carriers faster than physically calling them up.

Current government plans call for hiring 100,000-300,000 workers to physically track patients who tested positive at a cost of $65,000/year per worker.

A Closer Look at Future COVID-19 Cases

New York City was beginning to plateau in cases before the protests started, but by the end of June, there are projected to be 277,889 confirmed cases.

Los Angeles is slightly more manageable with a projected 80,595 confirmed cases by the end of June.

Washington DCs confirmed cases are projected to be 13,122 total cases.

Chicagos Cook County is projected to have 107,796 total cases by June 24th and 143,461 total cases by July 22nd.

States with the Highest Projected Number of Cases on June 24th

New York - 480,189 (an increase of over 110,000)

New Jersey- 216,142 (an increase of over 55,000)

California- 151,832 (an increase of nearly 40,000)

Illinois- 166,243 (an increase of 46,000)

Massachusetts- 137,594 (an increase of 40,000)

Malter said their data analytics team is now in the process of studying how socio economics, race and neighborhoods play a role in determining who is more or less likely to test positive for COVID-19.

On the surface, weve already observed a relationship that resembles the digital divide, said Malter. Our team is digging deeper but it appears factors like access to high speed Internet appears to be a predictive indicator to your chances of testing positive or negative to COVID-19. Weve already observed how predominant neighborhoods of color are more likely to have higher cases of COVID-19 infections. Our data is also suggesting that its not just limited to race but also income and Internet connectivity.

ABOUT COVEX 2020

COVEX 2020 is an AI company dedicated to developing real time enterprise solutions connecting customers with end users through smart technology. COVEX 2020 has formed partnerships with Stanford and Oxford University, RWJ Barnabas Medical Center, Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Fintel Labs.

Media Contact

Mark Macias

mmm@maciaspr.com

646-770-0541
[June 15, 2020] Seelos Therapeutics to Host Key Opinion Leader Call to Discuss Phase I Data and Upcoming Trial Design for SLS-002

NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. (SEEL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapies for central nervous system disorders and rare diseases, today announced that it will host a key opinion leader (KOL) call to provide updates regarding data from the Phase I study of SLS-002 on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Seelos will also provide an overview of the design for Seelos next study of SLS-002 for Acute Suicidal Ideation and Behavior (ASIB) in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) during the call.

The call will feature a discussion with Michael E. Thase, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Dr. Thase is an active clinical investigator whose research focuses on mood disorders and will be available to answer questions at the conclusion of this call. Raj Mehra, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Seelos Therapeutics, Inc., will also be on the call to answer any questions regarding the Phase I data and the proposed trial design for Seelos lead candidate, Intranasal Racemic Ketamine (SLS-002) for ASIB in patients with MDD. This call will be moderated by Mario Nacinovich, MSc, a member of the adjunct faculty at Boston University. Mr. Nacinovich is the founding editor of the Journal of Communication in Healthcare. He is currently a show host on Reach MD and recently launched an additional program on NRN, "Stealth on Health". Dial-in and Webcast Information

Domestic: 1-877-407-0789

International: 1-201-689-8562

Conference ID: 13704973

Webcast: Click Here for Webcast Michael E. Thase, MD is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and obtained his medical degree at the Ohio State University in 1979. He served as an intern, resident, and fellow at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic before joining the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1983 as an assistant professor of psychiatry. Since then, he has fulfilled many roles at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Thase has directed the Depression Treatment and Research Program at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic since its inception in 1987 and is now the chief of adult academic psychiatry. A fellow of the American Psyhiatric Association, Dr. Thase has received numerous honors in his field, including the Marie Eldredge Award from the American Psychiatric Association. He is also a member of many professional and scientific societies, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the Society for Psychotherapy Research. He has co-authored more than 340 scientific articles and book chapters, as well as seven books. His published articles are featured in various journals, including Archives of General Psychiatry, the American Journal of Psychiatry, and the British Journal of Psychiatry. He is the editor-in-chief of Psychopharmacology Bulletin. A consultant and lecturer, Dr. Thase remains active in the community by giving numerous presentations at state hospitals. He also presents seminars for community hospitals and the Office of Education and Regional Programming.



About Seelos Therapeutics

Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and advancement of novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs for the benefit of patients with central nervous system (CNS) disorders and other rare diseases. The Company's robust portfolio includes several late-stage clinical assets targeting indications including Acute Suicidal Ideation and Behavior (ASIB) in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Sanfilippo syndrome, Parkinsons Disease, other psychiatric and movement disorders plus orphan diseases. For more information, please visit our website: http://seelostherapeutics.com , the content of which is not incorporated herein by reference.

Forward Looking Statements Statements made in this press release, which are not historical in nature, constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, among others, those regarding the timing for the release of data from the Phase I study of SLS-002 and the overview of the proposed design for Seelos next study of SLS-002 for Acute Suicidal Ideation and Behavior (ASIB) in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). These statements are based on Seelos' current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Risks associated to Seelos' business include, but are not limited to, the risk of not successfully executing its preclinical and clinical studies and not gaining marketing approvals for its product candidates, the risks associated with the implementation of a new business strategy, the risks related to raising capital to fund its development plans and ongoing operations, risks related to Seelos current stock price, risks related to the global impact of COVID-19, as well as other factors expressed in Seelos' periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we do not know whether our expectations will prove correct. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, even if subsequently made available by us on our website or otherwise. We do not undertake any obligation to update, amend or clarify these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. Contact Information:

Anthony Marciano

Head of Corporate Communications

Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. (SEEL)

300 Park Ave., 12th Fl

New York, NY 10022

(646) 293-2136

[email protected]

https://seelostherapeutics.com/

https://twitter.com/seelostx

https://www.linkedin.com/company/seelos

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Sushant Singh Rajput wished to reach for the stars.

On the big screen, Singh's career was studded with memorable performances in Kai Po Che!, Shuddh Desi Romance, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Chhichhore.

Off-screen, Singh "time-travelled" through his Meade telescope which he used to visit the Saturn rings, Jupiter moons, and on the days of clear skies, even the Andromeda Galaxy. The latter also found a mention in his now-widely circulated 50 dreams to-do list.

Going Up the spiral.  Dream 30/50 Explore Andromeda through a powerful telescope. #livingmydreams #lovingmydreams pic.twitter.com/sAOIYHI62W  Sushant Singh Rajput (@itsSSR) October 4, 2019

On Sunday, the actor was found dead in his Bandra residence in Mumbai. His sudden departure was condoled by his peers and fans and his death opened up the conversation around mental health and depression - something that is stigmatized in our society.

Also Read: Stop Using 'Commits Suicide' When Reporting on Sushant Singh's Death. It Implies Criminality

The mournful moment was also used by his followers to celebrate his fascination for astrophysics.

Some of #SushantSinghRajput s Insta posts. These clearly illustrate his fascination for space science and physics. He was definitely different from other actors with a very high IQ. pic.twitter.com/vO5E1ijgxP  Shraddha Sethi (@ShraddhaSethi1) June 14, 2020

Remembering Singh, actor Manoj Bajpayee said, "What I automatically recall about Sushant is his how much interested he had about everything in life. He was always curious to learn about everything -- the unknown, space, about quantum physics, about acting, about filmmaking."

This was very well documented across his social media and Mumbai residence. In an interview with Asian Paints dated 2018, Singh took his fans on a tour of his apartment. His walls were complete with the iconic moon landing photograph, phases of the moon, space missions. The actor even got himself a uniform made during his visit to NASA. Caricatures of space shuttles decked on his table.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput's Suicide Makes Hush-Hush Conversation on Depression Loud on Social Media

While his academic and engineering prowess cannot be discounted for, he reportedly secured All India Rank of 7 in Delhi College of Engineering Entrance Examination back in 2003, the actor dreamt of becoming an astronaut but later settled for acting.

"I always wanted to be an astronaut. Then I talked myself into becoming a pilot. Then I said, 'okay, engineer'. Then I was confused so I thought let's be an actor and be everything," he said during Asian Paints interview.

Singh also dreamed of helping kids learn space. His Instagram account, intentionally or otherwise, propelled that wish.

In one of his Insta posts, Singh also expressed his fascination in computer gaming and how he was learning codes.

His social media posts were "unorthodox" for a Bollywood actor but equally loved by his fans and followers.

In one of his Twitter posts, Singh also shared the "Pale Blue Dot", a photograph of Earth which was snapped by NASA's Voyager 1 back on February 14, 1990. Clicked at a distance of 6 billion kilometers from the sun, an image that would inspire American astronomer, scientist and science popularizer Carl Sagan's book title: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us," Sagan famously wrote in his book.

"Its humbling to think that all of human history has taken place on that wonderful pale blue, fragile dot," Singh captioned his tweet.

An image of the earth  taken from the probe Voyager 1  as it was leaving the solar system from about 6 billion kilometres away. Its humbling to think that all of human history has taken place on that wonderful pale blue, fragile dot. Good morning.  pic.twitter.com/VKMD2Mq54X  Sushant Singh Rajput (@itsSSR) September 29, 2019

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) will be launching the Dream to Travel Festival, an online event that brings together travel trade businesses worldwide to learn, network, and celebrate the power of travel during these challenging times.

The virtual event, unifying the travel trade through the infinite possibilities of the digital experience, will run for four weeks across time, space and borders from June 22-July 17.

During these challenging times for the travel and tourism industry, we didnt want to launch just another virtual event but a platform to truly engage, inspire, and spark ideas that address some of the challenges and issues we are facing today, said PATA CEO Dr. Mario Hardy. The festival provides a platform for the travel trade community to gain new insights, meet experts and peers, and showcase and browse products from all over the Asia Pacific region and beyond. In addition, we wanted to adapt the idea of networking in a fun and engaging manner through live experiences and virtual hangouts. This is the perfect opportunity for our industry to come together and work towards a more responsible and stronger travel and tourism industry.

The Dream to Travel Festival will welcome both B2B and travel trade industry stakeholders to attend on a complimentary basis, and comprises three key elements:

1. Dream to Travel Forums

Get a front-row seat of the latest updates from both public and private sectors of tourism. Be inspired by influential speakers.

2. Digital Showroom and Community Hub

Connect with the travel trade worldwide, browse or showcase the latest products, and access Festival links and recordings.

3. Live Experiences, Virtual Hangouts & Giveaways

Where theres a will, theres a way. Re-think how cultural exchange and meet-ups can be adapted for a virtual, socially distanced world.

The schedule of events will be similar to a festival calendar rather than a full-day event, with games and activities included to provide the opportunity to network, socialise and have fun. Each week of the festival is dedicated to a specific theme (Trust, Courage, Wellbeing and Infinite Possibilities) and to a specific destination. PATA is excited to be working with destination partners the Macao Government Tourism Office, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), and Tourism Malaysia. The fourth destination will be announced shortly.

Access to the Dream to Travel Festival is free for all. Interested participants simply need to register for their Attendee Pass to join the event app, receive updates and attend the event in June.

Register for this complimentary webinar at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_W_1Xg3skTEiar6r0yh2seg. Access to the webinar is open to both PATA members, non-members and all interested parties. - TradeArabia News Service
United Airlines on Monday said it's using its frequent flyer program to back a new $5 billion loan, as the carrier seeks to shore up liquidity as the coronavirus weighs on demand.

By the end of the third quarter, United expects to have $17 billion in available liquidity, thanks to an anticipated $4.5 billion federal loan under the coronavirus rescue package and the $5 billion term loan facility secured by its MileagePlus program.

The airline expects to slow its cash burn from $40 million a day on average in the second quarter to $30 million a day in the third quarter. United's new CEO, Scott Kirby, who took the helm on May 20, told investors earlier that month that the airline entered the second quarter burning about $50 million a day.

American Airlines said last week that an uptick in demand is helping ease its cash burn. The carrier's daily cash burn is down to $40 million a day.

United's stock was down 7.7% in midmorning trading Monday against broader selling in the market. Shares of United, which has a market value of $10.6 billion, have fallen 58% so far this year.
Around 10:50 p.m., some protesters began telling others in the crowd to leave or back off. A young woman who had been helping lead the protest had been taken into custody early in the confrontation, and several others now told the crowd that they wanted to de-escalate as part of negotiations to have the woman released. About two-thirds of the group left.
[June 15, 2020] Orchid Insurance Announces New Partnership with Specialty Lines Startup CrossCover

Orchid Underwriters Agency, LLC ("Orchid Insurance"), among the largest independent managing general underwriters focusing on catastrophe-exposed residential and commercial lines properties, launched CrossCover Insurance Services ("CrossCover"). Formed in partnership with Scott Hanson, a veteran property insurance executive, CrossCover is a new MGU that will underwrite middle-market commercial properties for wholesale broker clients beginning early next year, announced Brad Emmons, President and Chief Executive Officer at Orchid Insurance. Scott Hanson, President of CrossCover, who most recently held dual responsibilities as Chief Underwriting Officer and Chief Capacity Officer at AmRisc said, "Carriers now expect transparency of underwriting and accurate, timely portfolio metrics from MGUs. Orchid will provide us this with its existing portfolio tools and cutting-edge infrastructure. We believe that the current market loss results reflect an excessive focus on CAT-driven accounts, at the exclusion of other profitable E&S business, as well as an over-dependency on CAT modeling results. We are hiring occupancy class experts to write both non-CAT as well as CAT accounts that consider modeling results in combination with their class expertise, and knowledge of the risk. In this way, we not only expect to deliver a diverse portfolio, but also achieve top-in-class loss results." Emmons said both Orchid Insurance and CrossCove Insurance share a similar culture based on integrity, teamwork, and resiliency, which is critical in any relationship.



"Culture is a powerful indicator of success," said Emmons. "Because both Orchid and CrossCover share a common purpose, vision, and values, I could not be more excited about establishing a relationship that I believe will ensure mutual performance and prosperity." About Orchid

Founded in 1998 and based in Vero Beach, FL, Orchid Insurance (orchidinsurance.com) provides specialty insurance products for homeowners and businesses throughout the United States, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean. A variety of products offer customers a single, comprehensive solution for both personal and commercial property insurance including Wind and Wind-Only, General Liability, Primary and Excess Flood, Earthquake, Builder's Risk, and others. Orchid Insurance is a First Choice of agents who value superior process, policy and pricing options, high-quality system technologies, expertise in the E&S market with coastal-exposed risks, and extensive knowledge of coastal CAT-exposed market areas in the East and Gulf Coast states. Orchid Insurance only represents well-known A.M. Best Rated carriers. In 2018 private equity group TowerBrook Capital Partners made a majority investment in Orchid. About TowerBrook TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P., an international investment management firm with more than $12.4 billion assets under management, is based in New York and London. The firm focuses on investing in North American and European companies through private equity and structured opportunities strategies, allowing it to access a range of opportunities throughout the cycle. TowerBrook's private equity strategy primarily pursues control-oriented investments in large and mid-market companies, principally on a proprietary basis and often in situations characterized by complexity. TowerBrook's structured opportunities strategy leverages the firm's expertise to invest in opportunities that fall outside the investment parameters of its private equity strategy including structured equity and structured assets. www.towerbrook.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005421/en/

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KYIV -- Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says that only 20 percent of the country's armed forces were combat-efficient when Russia annexed Crimea following the toppling of Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in early 2014.



Poroshenko told the Kyiv Court of Appeals on June 15 during his testimony at a hearing into an appeal by Yanukovych against his high-treason conviction that the Ukrainian Army at the time of the invasion was extremely weak, a state Poroshenko blamed on Yanukovych.



"The army did not have enough gasoline, batteries, clothes, bulletproof vests," Poroshenko said, adding that Yanukovych bears full responsibility for the situation in 2014.



Yanukovych's lawyers filed the appeal challenging a Kyiv court's January 24 decision to sentence the former leader in absentia to 13 years in prison on a high-treason charge.



In early February, they also filed a lawsuit against the State Bureau of Investigation, alleging crimes by government officials, including judges who took part in trials against Yanukovych.



Yanukovych has called the sentence "illegal" and denied guilt in several other probes launched against him after he fled Ukraine for Moscow in late-February 2014 in the wake of deadly pro-European rallies known as the Euromaidan, during which more than 100 protesters were killed.



Weeks after Yanukovych's flight to Russia, Moscow seized and illegally annexed Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and fomented unrest and backed separatists in Ukraines eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, where some 13,200 people have been killed in the ensuing conflict since April 2014.
A California judge has sided with Republican legislators who said Gov. Gavin Newsom overstepped his powers with dozens of emergency orders during the coronavirus crisis that changed everything from how public meetings are conducted to when tenants can be evicted.

Sutter County Superior Court Judge Perry Parker only halted one of the orders, involving the November election, but ordered Newsom to refrain from new orders that might be interpreted as usurping the Legislatures responsibilities.

The judge appeared to adopt without changes a proposed order submitted to him by GOP Assemblymen James Gallagher and Kevin Kiley, who challenged the election order.

Parker barred Newsom from further exercising any legislative powers in violation of the California Constitution and applicable statute, specifically from unilaterally amending, altering, or changing existing statutory law or making new statutory law. He scheduled a hearing for June 26 to consider issuing a preliminary injunction.

This is a victory for separation of powers, the lawmakers said in a joint statement. The governor has continued to brazenly legislate by fiat without public input and without the deliberative process provided by the Legislature. Today the judicial branch finally gave him the check that was needed and that the Constitution requires.

The state attorney generals office referred questions to the governors office because he is their client in the case.

Newsom spokesman Jesse Melgar said in a statement that, We are disappointed in this initial ruling and look forward to the opportunity to brief the Court on the issues.

Newsom broadly and repeatedly used his executive and emergency authority during the first weeks of the pandemic to virtually shut down the state and its economy. Hes had the backing of federal and state courts that have blocked previous challenges to his efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, said Parkers order appears to block executive orders that would suspend or alter statutory law or further exercise legislative powers.'

There can of course be disagreements about what that means in the context of particular executive orders, he said.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, said the judges order says only that the governor cannot issue orders that violate the law.

The paragraph in the order is vague, but I think it clearly does not forbid all executive orders, just those that are unconstitutional or violate statutes, he said.

Lawmakers of both political parties have criticized Newsom, a Democrat, for not sufficiently including them in his sweeping declarations and budget decisions since the pandemic began. The governor has issued more than 40 executive orders, according to a court filing by Gallagher.

They include halting evictions, delaying late fees for paying taxes or renewing drivers licenses, allowing grocery stores to once again hand out single-use bags for free  even allowing couples to be married by video or teleconference, with marriage licenses and certificates digitally signed and sent by email.

They are in a 28-page list submitted by Kiley of Newsoms orders that alter existing state laws.

They also include allowing local and state governments to hold public telephone meetings instead of meeting in person; extending deadlines for various businesses to pay fees, file reports or renew licenses; suspending rules intended to protect patients medical privacy; suspending deadlines and instructional requirements for local school districts; and suspending election deadlines and procedures.

Parkers broad language forbidding future orders was at the end of a five-paragraph ruling specifically halting a June 3 executive order requiring county election officials to establish hundreds of locations around the state where voters can cast ballots in person in the November election.

Parker temporarily blocked that order, calling it an impermissible use of legislative powers in violation of the California Constitution and the laws of the State of California.

Newsom previously had ordered officials to send every registered voter a mail-in ballot for the election as one of many responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans from President Donald Trump on down have criticized that move as allowing for potential voter fraud, but Parkers ruling did not address that earlier order.

Separately, however, the conservative group Judicial Watch said it has filed a motion in its own federal lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction against Newoms order that ballots be sent to every voter.

State lawmakers, meanwhile, are advancing their own bills that would direct counties to send mail-in ballots to every registered voter. The Assemblymens lawsuit notes that they have been back in session since May 4, including when Newsom issued the elections order, despite having suspended the legislative session at the start of the pandemic.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics California Legislation
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:39:46|Editor: huaxia

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DAR ES SALAAM, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian authorities on Monday ordered the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA) to launch a nationwide crackdown on oil marketing companies' hoarding fuel after prices of the commodity dropped early this month.

"Any oil marketing company found hoarding fuel will be fined not less than 100 million Tanzanian shillings (about 43,000 U.S. dollars)," warned the Minister for Energy, Medard Kalemani when he addressed a news conference in the capital Dodoma.

Kalemani said most of the oil marketing firms selling fuel in the country have decided to stash the commodity after the retail and wholesale prices for the petroleum products imported through the Dar es Salaam port for June dropped compared to prices recorded in May.

"The oil marketing companies have stashed fuel that was imported in June waiting for prices of the commodity to go up," said the minister.

"I am giving seven days for the oil marketing companies that have stashed fuel to stop the malpractice before they face the full force of the law," he said, adding that oil marketing firms in Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha, Dodoma and Mbeya were notorious for hoarding fuel waiting for prices to be hiked.

Currently, he said the country has 389.6 million liters of diesel, petrol, kerosene and jet fuel that could last for the next three months.

The utility regulator attributed the fall in prices due to the global trends that have largely affected oil prices at the world market. Enditem
LONDON (Reuters) - "That's not what we do!"

Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez heard the words ring out during chaotic scenes in London on Saturday, when mostly peaceful anti-racist demonstrations turned into violent scuffles with counter-protesters in the area.

Then he saw the man who had uttered them - a black protester emerging from the melee carrying an injured white man in a 'fireman's lift' over his shoulder.

The picture he took has gone viral on social media and featured in news bulletins, capturing a moment of high drama that jars with the broader narrative - of anti-racist and far-right protesters fighting each other.

"I saw a skirmish and someone falling to the ground," Martinez recalled of the moment near Waterloo Bridge, in central London, as he covered anti-racism protests that have flared up in the city.

The two men then appeared through the crowd.

"The crowd parted right in front of me. I was in the right place at right time, and incredibly lucky from that point of view. He came towards me walking briskly."

Martinez said the man being carried had injuries to his face, and Reuters journalists at the scene said he had been beaten in a skirmish with anti-racism protesters.

Some people in the crowd shouted out that the assault victim was a member of the far-right.

Reuters was not able to identify the victim or his political leanings. Police said they were aware of the incident and the photograph, but made no further comment when Reuters asked for details of the men's identity and what happened.

Protests have erupted across British cities and around the world after a black man, George Floyd, died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

In some cases they have sparked counter-demonstrations by people who do not agree with all of their aims and methods, and these have included people from far-right groups.

British media identified the black man as Patrick Hutchinson, a personal trainer. On his social media account, he wrote: "We saved a life today".

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Reuters spoke to the partner of Hutchinson's best friend, who confirmed it was him. Hutchinson did not reply to calls to his mobile phone.

He told British Channel 4 News on Sunday it was a "scary" scene. "It was pretty hectic, it was almost like a stampede.

"...The guys went in there, they sort of put a little cordon around him to stop him receiving any more physical harm. His life was under threat.

"So I just went under, scooped him up and put him on my shoulders and sort of started marching towards the police with him whilst all the guys were surrounding me and protecting me and the guy I had on my shoulder."

In a statement on Sunday police said 113 people had been arrested over the weekend and 23 officers were injured in the violence, none of them seriously.

The reaction on social media to the picture and events it portrayed has been largely positive.

"Amid all the ugliness, a beautiful moment of humanity," wrote British journalist Piers Morgan in a Tweet accompanying the photograph.

Martinez, a veteran photographer who is Reuters' picture editor for the United Kingdom and Ireland, said the protests in London on Saturday had been fluid and unpredictable.

After witnessing sporadic, minor clashes between demonstrators and police in Trafalgar Square, Martinez said he switched attention to nearby Waterloo Bridge, where several hundred anti-racism protesters had gathered.

"They took over the whole of the bridge," he said. "There was a traffic jam going from south to north, but the vibe was good - cars were honking and people were celebrating."

The mood quickly turned ugly when they encountered a group of counter-protesters and clashes broke out, Martinez said.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Paul Sandle and Mike Collett-White; Writing by Mike Collett-White)
MANILA, Philippines  The Social Security System (SSS) is extending its contribution payment deadline to June 30 to accommodate more members who wish to settle their dues.

The deadline was supposed to be Monday (June 15).

Regular employers may proceed to remit their employees contribution covering the months of February, March and April.

Meanwhile, household employers, voluntary, self-employed and non-working spouse members may remit their pending contributions for the first quarter of 2020.

The SSS main office in Diliman, Quezon City expressed concern over the influx of members going to their branches which resulted in a breach of government-imposed health protocols such as physical distancing.

READ: SSS offices overcrowded by members to beat June 15 contribution deadline

Apart from health concerns, the branch can only accommodate 250 members a day due to limited manpower.

Thus, the agency encourages members to process their transactions online through its website https://www.sss.gov.ph/.

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The post SSS extends contribution payment deadline to June 30 appeared first on UNTV News.
If the fashion industry thought lockdown represented a peculiarly 21st-century kind of Armageddon, it is rapidly revising its idea of what Armageddon looks like. Three months of closed stores, tanking share prices and the decimation of household names, must seem like tractable logistical problems compared with the moral quagmire many brands now find themselves in, as first-person accusations of racism and detailed records of systemic failure to deal with institutionalised prejudices rain down on them like toxic bullets.

Anna Wintour is one of many in the fashion industry facing criticism. Credit:Invision

On Wednesday, it was the turn of Anna Wintour to issue an apology for lack of diversity at American Vogue, after she came under pressure from previous employees of colour. "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," she wrote.

That probably won't be the clean line Wintour hoped for. Shelby Ivey Christie, who worked as a media planner at US Vogue in 2016 and tweeted that her time at the glossy was "the most challenging and miserable" of her career, appears not to have been an isolated case. (There are plenty of white employees who had a miserable time there, too, but that doesn't exonerate a flawed, discriminatory culture).

A mea culpa from Wintour, a woman who, in her 30 years at the top of Vogue, has fastidiously positioned herself on the "right" side of history  featuring Michelle Obama on her cover three times  feels big. The questions and whistle-blowing aren't going away any time soon, particularly as race discrimination doesn't seem confined to older generations.
The UK Coastguard launched a search and rescue operation Monday to find the pilot of a US fighter jet that crashed during a training mission in the North Sea.

The US Air Force said the F-15C Eagle went down after taking off from the RAF Lakenheath base near the town of Mildenhall in eastern England.

The base is home to the 48th Fighter Wing, which has operated from there since 1960 and has more than 4,500 active-duty military members.

"A US Air Force F-15C Eagle crashed at approximately 0940 (0840 GMT) today (Monday) in the North Sea," said USAF Captain Miranda T. Simmons, from RAF Lakenheath.

"The cause of the crash, as well as the status of the pilot, are unknown at this time, and UK Search and Rescue have been called to support."

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said it was coordinating the response.

"The HM Coastguard helicopter from Humberside has been sent along with Bridlington and Scarborough RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboats," it said in a statement.

"Following a Mayday broadcast by HM Coastguard, other vessels nearby are heading to the area," it said, adding that the plane went down 74 nautical miles (137 kilometres) off the East Yorkshire coast.

Citing a flight tracker website, Sky News television said the plane had circled in the area before disappearing.

Manufactured by Boeing, the single-seater F-15C entered US Air Force service in 1979, according to Janes security and defence group.

A total of 211 of the 409 aircraft produced are in service today.

Royal Air Force spokesman Martin Tinworth said the aircraft has an "exceptional flight safety record".

A US F-18 fighter jet crashed near the town of Ely, in eastern England, in October 2015, killing the pilot, after taking off from RAF Lakenheath.

The previous October, an F-15 from the base crashed into a field but the pilot ejected safely. In January that year, four airmen were killed when a US helicopter crashed during a low-flying training exercise.
As New Jersey reopens, many consumers are hoping they can still rent a home at the Shore.

Pent up demand from the coronavirus shutdown means you might have trouble making the reservations you want. That, in turn, might lead you to jump on a deal, even if it sounds too good to be true.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, summer house rental scams were all too common.

We spoke with Adam Levin, a former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and founder of CyberScout, an identity theft protection and cybersecurity firm, about some tips so consumers wont fall for a summer rental scam.

Q. What changes with the coronavirus pandemic?

A. Due to Covid-19, people are looking to maintain social distance and avoid crowded hotels and swimming pools. This is going to increase the demand for private short-term rental properties, which will also increase the odds of being scammed, especially when it comes to overbooking the same property.

Know the cleaning policy. Rental services like Airbnb have created new cleaning guidelines for hosts. To avoid being scammed out of money after your stay, discuss if there will be an additional cost for cleaning services before securing a rental.

Q. Will the pandemic make people quicker to jump on a too good to be true deal?

A. People are eager to get away after sheltering-in-place  which some people consider being under house arrest  for so long due to the pandemic. This is a vulnerability that scammers will take advantage of. They also know that millions of Americans have seen their salaries cut, are on furlough or are out of work and even those who can afford to do something are looking for bargain deals on vacation rentals. Look out for super cheap rates for premium vacation properties. Below-market rent can be a sign of a scam.

These people will post an extremely inviting offer online and then tell everyone who responds, You better move quickly. Lots of people are interested and some are offering more than I asked for. In an effort to help you lock the deal, they ask for personal identifying information and a credit or debit card number. You bite. They then vanish with your information and use it to their benefit. You dont have to be a detective to do a little background research on a reservation service youre about to use  especially before you provide payment information.

Q. Weve heard about rental scams in which someone purports to be a landlord but has no interest in the house they say they can rent. What research should a renter do?

A. Ask specific questions about the property that a landlord should know the answer to. Some home-rental websites have their own vetting processes and offer guarantees that will protect you in case of fraud. Check before you click.

If possible, drive by or visit the rental property before signing any contracts.

Check for reviews online. Look to see if previous renters are sharing consistent experiences (good or bad) in their reviews  and be alert for fake ones.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Confirm the address is real. Doing a quick Google search can provide you with public information about the property and its owner. Google Maps can provide a satellite image of the property.

If youre looking for properties using sites like Airbnb or VRBO, do not go off the site to conduct business. Dont wire money unless you have confirmed (the items above) have precise wiring instructions which you confirm at the time of wiring. Dont pay with a prepaid or gift card for a vacation rental. Once the scammer collects the money, it is almost impossible to get it back.

If youre working with a real estate agent, ask for their license number and request references (and make sure to check both of these).

Q. What other related scams are we seeing?

A. Because you dont want to be the unwitting star of your own reality show, check the inside of your rental property for hidden cameras. Turn off all the lights in each room and shine a flashlight. Your phone's will do. Look for light glinting off a camera lens. If you discover any, cover them with a Post-It or piece of tape. Also, avoid talking about personal or financial information  you never know who may be listening.

Q. Whats the fake menu scam?

A. You arrive at your rental house, youre famished and you find take-out menus that were either slipped under your door, or strategically placed in the house by an accomplice. Unfortunately, the number on that menu is fake  it belongs to a scam artist who is all too eager to take your order while stealing your credit card information. An hour passes, your hunger is off the charts and your patience  as well as your available credit  has been drained. You were dinner.

Q. What about using WiFi in a rental house?

Dont automatically trust the rentals WiFi and make sure the WiFi is password protected before using. Never visit your email or financial services accounts on public computers or free WiFi systems. Both could be swarming with identity thieves armed with malware thatll steal your passwords and hijack your email and financial information or lock-up your device unless you are willing to pay ransom in bitcoin.

Q. What else should our readers know?

Use a credit card instead of a debit card. A debit card is the gateway to your bank account. While the protections on many debit cards are good, many are not as good as those on credit cards. Use credit cards when traveling instead because with a credit card its their money, with a debit card, its your money.

Never provide payment information to anyone without making sure youre on the right site, and whoever youre working with is in a position to provide what theyve offered to you, whether thats an equipment rental, an excursion or anything else vacation related.

Q. Any final tips?

A. If youre not going away this summer, you might be looking for a summer job. There are scammers targeting high school and college-age students looking for summer employment opportunities. Never provide sensitive information on job websites or to anyone claiming to offer summer employment without doing some research. You can figure this out by doing an online search or making a few phone calls. Use your head when providing personally identifiable information to an employer.

When kids are offered a job, they provide their information for tax purposes, including their Social Security number, and then never hear back. The reason: The only job was a robbery. Their identity is stolen, and because young adults often lack credit monitoring experience, it takes a long time for them to realize their creditworthiness has been botched by this fake opportunity.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
Black Americans have been called by many names in the United States. African-American, Negro, colored and the unutterable slur that rhymes with bigger. In recent weeks, as protests against police brutality and racism have flooded the streets and social media, another more inclusive term has been ascribed to the population: BIPOC.

The acronym stands for black, Indigenous and people of color. Though it is now ubiquitous in some corners of Twitter and Instagram, the earliest reference The New York Times could find on social media was a 2013 tweet.

As a phrase, people of color dates back centuries  it was first cited in The Oxford English Dictionary, with the British spelling colour, in 1796  and is often abbreviated as POC. The other two letters, for black and Indigenous, were included in the acronym to account for the erasure of black people with darker skin and Native American people, according to Cynthia Frisby, a professor of strategic communication at the Missouri School of Journalism.

The black and Indigenous was added to kind of make sure that it was inclusive, Ms. Frisby said. I think the major purpose of that was for including voices that hadnt originally been heard that they wanted to include in the narrative, darker skin, blacks and Indigenous groups, so that they could make sure that all the skin shades are being represented.
CAIRO - Sudanese authorities have found a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of dozens of student conscripts who were shot or beaten to death in 1998 after trying to flee a military camp, the countrys top prosecutor said Monday.

Taj al-Ser Ali al-Hebr told reporters that his office has launched an investigation and that some suspects from the government of toppled President Omar al-Bashir have fled the country. He did not provide further details.

The conscripts had tried to escape the Ailafoon military camp, some 15 miles (25 kilometres) southeast of the capital, Khartoum, after their commanders refused to allow them to go home to celebrate a major Muslim holiday.

The Sudanese opposition at that time, known as the National Democratic Alliance, said soldiers shot and beat to death 74 student conscripts, and at least 55 others drowned when their boat capsized on the Blue Nile while they were trying to escape. In total, at least 261 recruits tried to escape the camp, it said.

Al-Bashirs government said 31 people died.

The National Democratic Alliance said the bodies of 12 students were handed over to their families and 117 others were buried in a mass grave on April 6, 1998. It said autopsies showed that the students had been beaten with sticks and shot.

Al-Bashirs government was believed to have forcibly conscripted men from streets and markets for training to fight an insurgency in South Sudan, which gained independence more than a decade later, in 2011.

In his press conference, al-Hebr said 40 people would be tried over the Islamist-backed coup that brought al-Bashir to power in 1989. He did not name them or detail the charges.

The military removed al-Bashir from power in April 2019 amid mass protests against his long rule, which had been marked by civil wars, sanctions and isolation. Leading an alliance of the military and Islamist hard-liners, al-Bashir kept an iron grip on power and brutally suppressed any opposition while monopolizing the economy through allied businessmen.

The International Criminal Court has charged al-Bashir with genocide and crimes against humanity linked to the 2003-2004 conflict in Darfur. He is currently imprisoned in Khartoum, and in December a Sudanese court convicted him of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum-security lockup.

The military has thus far refused to hand him over to the ICC for prosecution on the more serious charges.

An alleged Sudanese militia leader charged with more than 50 crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur meanwhile appeared Monday before a judge at the International Criminal Court for the first time since his transfer to the court last week.

Ali Mohammed Ali Abdul Rahman Ali, known as Ali Kushayb, said the charges were untrue.
Seemingly innocuous transactions by Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne have taken on a whole new meaning considering mainland Chinas expansionism.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has called on Champagne to explain to the House of Commons how his $1.2-million loan from the Bank of China  one of the largest commercial banks directly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party  will not compromise his integrity.

The sum represents Champagnes two mortgages for separate London homes. Multiple observers have pointed to Chinese money as a major factor pushing domestic buyers out of the housing market over the last few years.
MANILA, Philippines (AP)  An award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president was convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa of the online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling a wealthy businessman. The Rapplers story on May 29, 2012, cited an intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The sites lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

Rappler and both accused did not offer a scintilla of proof that they verified the imputations of various crimes in the disputed article upon the person of Keng, Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said in the 36-page ruling. They just simply published them as news in their online publication in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not.

The decision for me is devastating because it essentially says that Rappler, that we are wrong, Ressa said in a news conference after the ruling. Her voice cracking, she vowed that we will keep fighting and appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights and hold power to account.

The businessman, Wilfredo Keng, welcomed the ruling, which he said vindicated him and cleared his name which Ressa, with one click of a button, attempted to destroy.

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years but her lawyer, Theodore Te, said the jail terms and other penalties imposed could not be enforced unless all appeals were rejected. She posted bail for the case last year and will study possible appeals in the next 15 days, Te said.

The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country, said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, adding the verdict was a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.

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President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Keng dismissed the allegations in the 2012 story as baseless and false and said Rappler refused to take down the story online and publish his side of the story. He provided government certifications in court to show that he has no criminal record and sought 50 million pesos ($1 million) in damages, but the court awarded a much smaller fine.

Rapplers lawyers said the story was based on an unspecified intelligence report and that Philippine penal law requires a libel complaint to be filed within one year. Keng filed his lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published.

A cybercrime law, which the Rappler journalists allegedly violated, was also enacted in September 2012 or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rapplers lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Rappler, however, acknowledged that it updated the story in February 2014 to correct a misspelled word but said it did not make any other changes. The Department of Justice, which brought the libel charges to court, contended that by updating the story, Rappler effectively republished the story online in 2014, an argument dismissed by the news sites lawyers.

The Department of Justice argued a complaint can be filed under the 2012 cybercrime law for up to 12 years, countering Rapplers argument that Kengs complaint was invalid due to being outside the one-year deadline for libel.

The Manila court upheld the 12-year period.

As Rapplers chief executive officer, Ressa faces seven other criminal complaints in relation to legal issues hounding her news agency, including an allegation that it violated a constitutional ban on media agencies receiving foreign investment funds.

Ressa, who has worked for CNN and was one of Time magazines Persons of the Year in 2018, has accused the government of abusing its power and of using the law to muzzle dissent.

Many news outlets in the Philippines and beyond have criticized Dutertes policies, including his anti-drug campaign that has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead.

Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily, and ABS-CBN, the country's largest TV network which was shut down by the governments telecommunications regulator last month after its 25-year franchise expired. Congress has been hearing the networks request for a franchise renewal.

The shutdown has been criticized as it cut off a major source of information on the COVID-19 pandemic in a Southeast Asian hot spot of the disease.

___

Associated Press journalist Kiko Rosario in Bangkok contributed to this report.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Tehran, Iran  Mon, June 15, 2020 08:21 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeb0447 2 World Iran,virus-corona,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,COVID-19-death-toll,SARS-CoV-2,pandemic,novel-coronavirus Free

Iran on Sunday reported over 100 new deaths in a single day from the novel coronavirus, for the first time in two months.

In televised remarks, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari announced 107 Covid-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising the overall toll to 8,837.

"It was very painful for us to announce the triple-digit figure," said Lari.

"This is an unpredictable and wild virus and may surprise us at any time," she added, urging Iranians to observe health protocols.

Iran last recorded triple-digit daily fatalities on April 13, with 111 dead.

Lari also announced 2,472 new cases confirmed in the past day, bringing the total infection caseload to 187,427, with over 148,000 recoveries.

There has been skepticism at home and abroad about Iran's official COVID-19 figures, with concerns the real toll could be much higher.

Iran has struggled to contain what has become the Middle East's deadliest outbreak of the illness since it reported its first cases in the Shiite holy city of Qom in February.

But since April it has gradually lifted restrictions to ease the intense pressures on its sanctions-hit economy.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday reproached citizens for failing to observe measures designed to rein in the virus.

Official figures have shown a rising trajectory in new confirmed cases since early May, which the government has attributed to increased testing rather than a worsening caseload.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:28:48|Editor: huaxia

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PHNOM PENH, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 115 Cambodians, stranded in Malaysia since April after flights were canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic, will return home on Tuesday, Cambodian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Koy Kuong said on Monday.

Kuong said in a press release that Malaysia airlines agreed to arrange a commercial flight for them after subsequent negotiations between the Cambodian Embassy to Malaysia and the airline company.

"The MH762 flight carrying them will depart Kuala Lumpur on June 16, 2020 at 16:30 (Malaysian time) and is scheduled to arrive in capital Phnom Penh at 17:25 (Cambodian time) on the same day," he said.

Besides the stranded migrant workers, there will be another 104 Cambodians aboard the same flight, he added.

Under the kingdom's health measures, the returning Cambodians will be required to undergo lab tests for the COVID-19 upon their arrivals and then, they must be quarantined for 14 days before being allowed to reunite with their families.

According to Kuong, the MH762 flight will then fly back to Kuala Lumpur from Phnom Penh with a total of 164 Malaysian passengers. Enditem
Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers state, says Edo state governor, Godwin Obaseki, was disqualified by someone who doesnt have a certificate.

Obaseki had paid a visit to the Rivers state governor at the government house in Port Harcourt a day ago.

There are speculations that the Edo governor might move to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  after he was disqualified by the All Progressives Congress (APC) screening committee disqualified Obaseki from the June 22 governorship primary election on Friday.

Meanwhile, Osagie Ize-Iyanmu, who reportedly had the backing of Adams Oshiomhole, the national chairman of the party, was cleared.

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According to Oshiomhole, the national working committee (NWC) of the APC discovered contradictions in the governors National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and higher school certificates.

Read Also: Obaseki Disqualified From APC Primary

Wike while speaking via Twitter described Obasekis disqualification as an irony and lambasted the Nigerias governors forum for its silence.

Obaseki was disqualified by someone who doesnt have a certificate. What an irony! the governor said.
The endless evening pandemic walks have become a time to think, often about unintended consequences. Of late Ive been walking in the old Metro Toronto municipality of York, from around Weston Road and St. Clair Avenue, north and west to Eglinton Avenue and beyond.

York has one of Torontos most interesting landscapes, both artificial and natural. A place of hills, valleys, look-offs and secret sidewalk staircases. Its also got a fantastic range of housing types too. A jumble. How a city maybe ought to be.

Just south of where Alliance Avenue and Humber Boulevard connect is open space that is a cross between a vacant lot and a park. Footpaths lead to Lavender Creek, a watercourse mostly buried, but here free and almost natural. Nearby it empties into Black Creek, channelized in concrete.

When not flooded after a big rain its possible to walk west along the lower channel. The creek water, a little smelly, flows on by. The angled concrete banks sometimes mark high water levels with a line like the ring around a dirty bathtub. Lush green grass sprouts in between the concrete expansion joints at regular intervals, like the wild hair on a Muppets head.

At first glance its a harsh landscape. One hundred or more years ago it was common to bury creeks, polluted as they were. Hide the problem rather than solve it. By the heroic and muscular mid-century years, channelizing was in vogue, taking command of nature by forcing it into straight, orderly, tidy lines. Nature doesnt always like that.

Straight lines and concrete actually speed up the water, causing problems and destruction downstream. Its something we wouldnt do now, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has renaturalized some.

Still, on these sometimes sultry evenings, people sit alongside the concrete creek as if theyre Parisians on the River Seine in Georges Seurats A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte painting. Only true romantics should frequent Black Creek.

An arched tunnel under Jane Street allows both creek and romantic through to where a drop in elevation creates an artificial waterfall before continuing into Smythe Park, Conn Smythes former gravel and sand pit operation, he of Toronto Maple Leafs fame. Now semi-naturalized with swampy wetlands, its home to many dozens of ducks.

Industrial landscapes made beautiful, past mistakes sometimes corrected.

Also nearby, upstream along Black Creek, is St. Oscar Romero Catholic High School, a massive campus-like place, half built in the 1970s concrete brutalism style, half 1990s post-modernism. Around it is more loose landscape that could be empty lot or parkland. A city of Toronto sign reads York Stadium Park, but theres not much stadium here, just a big playing field with slightly unkempt grass. A footpath from the school leads uphill to an alleyway that runs along the edge of the park and behind Cayuga and Avon Avenues.

There, behind the long, sloping backyards, are tall green metal posts. A clue. Look closer and a sticker reads, Caution  Combustible Landfill Gas Vents. Ah ha! This explains so much. Back by the York Stadium sign are more green posts, unnoticed before but impossible to miss now. They change the identity of this landscape: this was a landfill.

Back home, online archives and historic aerial photos reveal this area was, like so many other ravines in Toronto, used as a local dump. Covered over in the 1950s, the dump was allowed too close to houses. Porter Avenue, now just one block long, once extended further west to where the school is now, complete with homes later torn down.

Theres more to this story, though.

In 1965, Lee Charles Capeling lit a match in the garage behind his house at 36 Avon Ave., and, filled with methane, it exploded. Called a human torch by newspapers of the day, he later sold the house. In 1969 the new owner, Floris Gertsen, started his car and the garage blew up again, even though the municipality said the problem had been solved. Documents from a 1973 lawsuit, Gertsen et al. v. Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto et al., lay out the fascinating details.

More recently, in 2017, students at Oscar Romero protested being prohibited from playing on the old York Stadium field. Out of an abundance of caution due to it being built on a landfill that vents explosive gases and is is pitted with hidden holes and sudden dips, they were kept away.

On these long COVID walks I think about unintended consequences a lot as Ontario rapidly reopens from a lockdown that was never too tight to begin with. Things we thought were fine once are not in hindsight. New COVID cases are blessedly going down, but second waves are popping up elsewhere.

Keep all of this in mind as we, possibly recklessly, go head first into the next few weeks, and keep doing whatever youve been doing to finally flatten the curve.

Shawn Micallef is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @shawnmicallef
US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaks at her weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 11, 2020. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

House GOPers Say Pelosi Has No Plan to Bring House Back Safely as Rest of US Returns to Work

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has no plan to bring the lower chamber of Congress back to work in the nations capital until 2021, according to Republicans on the committee that administers the House of Representatives.

As an overwhelming majority of the country, including Washington, D.C., has moved into phased physical re-openings, the Houses operating status has not changed, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee, told Pelosi in a June 12 letter obtained by The Epoch Times.

Also signing the letter with Davis were Reps. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) and Mark Walker (R-N.C.), the other Republicans on the administration panel, which is chaired by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.).

The numerous congressional district offices that have reopened throughout the country have done so with little to no support because of failure to provide support in real time, the letter continues.

Furthermore, a transparent plan with clear guidance, timelines, and benchmarks to support a transition to phased reopening has not been made available to offices.

This has resulted in unnecessary confusion and led many to conclude that House Democrats have no plans of physically showing up to do their job for the remainder of this Congress.

The current Congress, the 116th since it first convened under the Constitution in 1789, will likely end its official work in late December, but wont officially conclude until Jan. 3, 2021. The 117th Congress will convene the same day.

A spokesman for Davis said his office hasnt received a response from Pelosi. A spokesman for Pelosi declined to comment to The Epoch Times about the letter, instead deferring the request to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), whose office manages the floor schedule.

Hoyer answers to Pelosi, who as speaker has the final authority to control House proceedings.

The three Republicans told Pelosi they know of no official plan to make the hundreds of offices and support facilities in the Cannon, Longworth, and Rayburn House Office Buildings safe from the CCP virus.

Most House members have Capitol Hill office suites, which consist of three large rooms in which anywhere from 15 to 18 staff members work, as well as varying numbers of offices and staff members working in their home districts.

In addition to the Congressional Budget Office, Library of Congress, and Government Accountability Office staffs and offices, there are also multiple other support staffs that work preparing food, delivering mail, managing parking facilities, overseeing media services, and a host of other activities required to keep the House functioning.

The Capitol Police have continued working throughout the current session of Congress despite the absence of most members and staffers.

Davis, Walker, and Loudermilk said in their letter to Pelosi: The House must now play catch up to establish specific occupancy recommendations; retrofit and reconfigure spaces; support implementing health monitoring programs, including some level of testing; establish service level agreements for House support offerings and making common-sense adjustments, like the acceptance of digital signatures for routine transactions; provide reopening guidelines for House facilities, such as daycare, fitness centers, and others; adjust business processes for events and visitors; and provide adequate support for committee activities.

In the limited time remaining in the 116th Congress, there are many important issues that Congress needs to address. We should not be wasting time by making it more difficult for members to do their jobs and should catch up with the rest of the country in a safe physical reopening of the House of Representatives.

We therefore ask that you immediately expedite the roll-out of support assistance to offices, making it possible for staff and members to work in a safe environment.

Statewide lockdowns that began in March saw all but the most essential businesses close, and employees, including the more than 20,000 who work for Congress, begin working from home.

The 100 members of the U.S. Senate and 435 House members also stayed away from the Capitol complex for more than six weeks. The Republican-led Senate returned May 4, but Pelosi hasnt committed to a specific date on which she plans to bring the full House back into session in the chamber on a permanent basis.

Meanwhile, congressional committees have held remote hearings with witnesses and members participating via teleconference, and the House was returned temporarily to vote on Pelosis $3 trillion Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES) economic recovery package and a proposal to allow House members to vote by proxy.

House Republicans led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have sued in federal court claiming the proxy voting process adopted by House Democrats violates the Constitutions requirement that House members be physically present in the chamber to vote.

Contact Mark Tapscott at Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
The Macallan website will now serve as a virtual gathering place for passionate whisky lovers and curious fans alike to discover and shop the brand's extensive range of premium single malt Scotch whiskies without leaving its website. Gift shopping is now easier than ever, whether exploring The Macallan Gift Guide to pick out the perfect Father's Day gift, adding to a personal collection, or celebrating a life milestone - TheMacallan.com provides consumers with a more convenient and seamless shopping experience.

In honor of this launch and during these unprecedented times where the hospitality industry is struggling more than ever, The Macallan is dedicated to providing support to the James Beard Foundation Open for Good campaign which supports the rebuilding of a thriving independent restaurant industry through programs, education and financial resources. In addition, Edrington, The Macallan's parent company, has also shown their ongoing gratitude and appreciation for the hospitality community by donating to the USBG Bartender Emergency Assistance Fund as they too strive to be another trusted resource for the bar industry in times as uncertain as these.

Starting today through July, just in time for Father's Day, consumers will receive free shipping on all orders and the equivalent of 30% of proceeds from purchases made on TheMacallan.com will be donated to the James Beard Foundation's Open for Good campaign.

"With the launch of The Macallan E-Boutique, we have created an online destination for consumers to explore the world of The Macallan like never before. The innovative technology from Thirstie Inc., allows The E-Boutique to provide educational touchpoints, immersive technology and an accessible and shoppable experience all in a singular place," said Samantha Leotta, The Macallan Americas Brand Director. "We look forward to launching this new platform while showing gratitude and support to our friends in the hospitality industry through our partnership with the James Beard Foundation."

Through Thirstie Inc. API technology, The Macallan is the first whisky brand to connect shoppers with hundreds of local retailers granting them access to all of the inventory available for shipping or same-day delivery in their area. Thirstie has provided The Macallan a fully-compliant option to optimize their e-commerce experience. By partnering with Thirstie to make the website e-commerce enabled, The Macallan is now receiving valuable attribution and behavioral data, ensuring a more optimized marketing and customer-acquisition spend in the future.

"Thirstie is thrilled to be partnering with an extraordinary brand like The Macallan, and the incredibly passionate consumer base that comes with them," said Thirstie CEO Devaraj Southworth. "By making The Macallan products available for purchase via their own website, Thirstie is uniquely-positioned to provide the brand with an even clearer understanding of that passionate consumer base."

As of June 15, 2020, The Macallan E-Boutique is fully operational and available to consumers at https://bit.ly/themacallaneboutique

For further information, please contact: [email protected]

About The Macallan

Founded in 1824, The Macallan is one of the worlds' most admired and awarded single malt whiskies. The reputation of The Macallan is based on a product of outstanding quality and distinctive character. An obsession with excellence has been the hallmark of The Macallan since its founding, by Alexander Reid, on a plateau above the river Spey in north-east Scotland.

In May 2018, The Macallan unveiled its new 140 million distillery and visitor experience on its Speyside estate, increasing investment in whisky, warehousing and in The Macallan's signature sherry-seasoned oak casks. The striking contemporary architecture, cut into the slope of the land, takes its cues from ancient Scottish hills. It stands nearby Easter Elchies House, the Highland Manor built in 1700 which has been The Macallan's spiritual home since 1824. The new distillery marks an important milestone, recognizing the significant journey of The Macallan since 1824 and marking an exciting new chapter in the evolution of the luxury single malt."

www.themacallan.com

 2020 The Macallan Distillers Limited, The Macallan  Scotch Whisky, Imported by Edrington Americas, New York, NY. PLEASE DRINK RESPONSIBLY.

About Thirstie

Thirstie, a New York based e-commerce company, is the leading technology and logistics solution provider for beverage alcohol brands, founded by Devaraj Southworth and Maxim Razmakhin in 2014. Thirstie helps brands to power consumer on-line transactions within an industry three-tier system complaint platform through a robust API and expansive retail network. The Thirstie platform also provides brands with transparency into all data, consumer insights analytics and ROI to improve performance marketing. For more information about Thirstie, please visit thirstie.com.

SOURCE The Macallan

Related Links

http://www.themacallan.com


(Natural News) Authorities have warned that states are being hit with unemployment-benefit fraud amounting to billions of lost dollars. This comes amid historically high levels of jobless claims related to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In a large-scale scam erupting in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic, imposters are filing claims for unemployment benefits, using the names and personal information of people who have not filed claims, Seena Gressin, an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), said in a statement on Wednesday.

State unemployment offices, including those in North Dakota, Maine and Pennsylvania, have raised alarms, saying that theyve detected a surge in cases of unemployment fraud, largely tied to identity theft.

Increase in jobless claims leads to an increase in fraud

The economic fallout from pandemic-driven lockdowns has caused a record 40 million Americans to file for jobless claims since mid-March. This surge in claims, however, has also left state unemployment systems more vulnerable to fraud during the pandemic.

A large portion of that will be pocketed by fraudsters instead of going to legitimate workers, said Labor Department inspector general Scott Dahl during a briefing with the House Subcommittee on Government Operations on Monday. According to Dahl, at least $26 billion in unemployment insurance could be lost during the pandemic.

Unemployment claims fraud isnt new. Based on Labor Department estimates, about 10 percent of unemployment payments made in 2019 were improper  that is, payments that shouldnt have been made, or were paid at an incorrect amount or to an ineligible recipient  while only 3 percent were fraudulent.

Dahl said that the larger amount of federal money flowing into the unemployment system in response to the economic downturn could mean that the share of improper payments this year could be higher. In April, the Treasury sent out more than $48 billion in unemployment payments. This figure is three times the amount paid during the monthly peak of the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.

The Labor Department states that unemployment fraud can take many forms. An example of this type of fraud is identity theft, where a fraudster uses personal information from a legitimately unemployed recipient to claim those benefits for themselves. Other forms include when a recipient is knowingly submitting false information or knowingly continuing to collect benefits when ineligible.

According to Dahl, an example of a case that officials were investigating involved the identities of more than three dozen healthcare workers being stolen. Fraudsters allegedly used the stolen identities to file bogus unemployment claims in multiple states.

Bad implementation of new federal program aiding fraudsters

The way some states have implemented a new federal program to process unemployment claims from independent contractors and self-employed people has also made it easier for criminals to commit fraud, according to the Department of Labors Office of the Inspector General.

Elliot Lewis, assistant inspector general at the Labor Department, pointed out that some states do not require workers who filed jobless claims under the new program to provide evidence of their wages, such as a pay stub.

According to Lewis, due to the lack of this wage requirement, the new program for independent contractors presents substantial risks of the likelihood of loss of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Oklahoma also opened itself up to further fraud when it suspended employer notification of unemployment claims to fast track the delivery of payments during the pandemic. According to David Ostrow, an Oklahoma state official involved in investigating the fraud, eliminating employer notification meant that the state was paying people who werent eligible for benefits.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Secret Service issued a memo last month after state unemployment systems were targeted by a Nigerian fraud ring. Washington was the hardest-hit state, according to the memo, however, there was evidence that attacks had also occurred in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Wyoming.

It is extremely likely every state is vulnerable to this scheme and will be targeted if they have not been already, said the Secret Service memo. It stated that the tactics resembled attempts to file fraudulent income tax returns, something that states and the Internal Revenue Service have faced for years.

Fraudsters using unknowing mules to launder stolen claims money

According to the Secret Service, the fraudsters and scammers were using hundreds, if not thousands, of intermediaries, or mules, to help launder the stolen money out of the country. In some cases, these intermediaries may not even be aware that theyre involved in money laundering. In addition, local and national banks, as well as credit unions, have also been targets.

Scammers may try to use you to move stolen money. If you help them, you could be what law enforcement calls a money mule, said Lisa Weintraub Schifferle, an FTC attorney.

You could even get into legal trouble for helping a scammer move stolen money, she added.

According to the FTC, people usually find out about fraudulent claims made in their name when they receive a notification from their state unemployment office or their place of work that theyve allegedly applied for benefits.

When this happens, Gressin said that this means that someone is trying to exploit a persons confidential personal information, including their Social Security number.

Other people can fall prey to something known as a money mule scam. In this scenario, the fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits are sent not to the scammers account, but to the victims. The scammer will then try to contact the victim to try to get them to transfer the money. This can expose victims to legal liability.

Keep up with all the latest fallout from the coronavirus outbreak at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

WSJ.com
United Auto Workers (UAW) acting president Rory Gamble speaks to Reuters from his office in Southfield, Michigan,

(Reuters) - United Auto Workers (UAW) President Rory Gamble will meet Matthew Schneider, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, at the end of the month in Detroit to begin negotiations for reforming the union, UAW said on Monday.

"This meeting is the first step in a joint effort by U.S. Attorney Schneider and President Gamble to put into place mechanisms and protections to eliminate corruption and to ensure that it does not return," UAW said in a statement.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 13:31:45|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will join a videoconference with European Union (EU) leaders on Monday to push for progress in determining post-Brexit relations with the bloc, while officials in Brussels expect little breakthrough, media reported.

Johnson, his chief Brexit negotiator David Frost, and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove are due to hold "high-level talks" with President of the European Council Charles Michael, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and President of the European Parliament David Sassoli.

Johnson will tell the EU leaders that the Brexit talks must be concluded by autumn "at the latest," because the public and businesses affected by Brexit need certainty, British press The Telegraph reported Sunday.

At the teleconference, the prime minister will also demand a "high-quality Free Trade Agreement" that is "consistent with others the EU has agreed, as part of a balanced overall outcome," according to the Express newspaper.

Meanwhile, Brussels has warned that it would not brush aside the bloc's economic interests in a bid for a deal.

One senior EU official told British media that Monday's meeting was simply scheduled in the withdrawal agreement, "so it is happening but no one expects much."

Michel Barnier, EU chief negotiator for Brexit, has said that while he is open to some compromises, any deal must be reached in the overall long-term political and economic interest of the EU. Last week, he accused Britain of "looking to maintain the benefits of being a member state" in the bloc.

Britain and the EU concluded their fourth round of talks last week, during which they made no progress on the most difficult areas where differences of principle are most acute, notably on fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field.

Friday, Gove tweeted that "I formally confirmed the UK will not extend the transition period and the moment for extension has now passed. On 1 January 2021 we will take back control and regain our political and economic independence."

Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31 but is still following EU rules during the 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 on laws imposed by Brussels. Enditem
Two Midland students have been named to the dean's honor roll for the spring 2020 semester at Lawrence Technological University.

To be named to the honor roll a student must maintain at least a 3.5 grade point average for the term.
Monday, June 15th, 2020 (8:37 am) - Score 1,711

A cross-party group of MPs will this week reportedly propose a new bill, which seeks to help solve the current COVID-19 (Coronavirus) induced education crisis by requiring that up to 1.3 million school children (i.e. those eligible for free school meals) are also equipped with free broadband connectivity to help them learn.

According to The Guardian and Huffpost, around 700,000 children have been left stuck in a digital divide and are allegedly unable to complete any school work due to a lack of internet connectivity at home (this may be stretching things a bit since pens and paper do still exist). The new bill, which is to be proposed by Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, seeks to help solve this with the gift of free broadband.

The UK Governments Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has already attempted to help tackle this once by pledging to spend 100m on a new scheme (here); this aimed to provide 230,000 computers (laptops, tablets etc.) and 4G based mobile broadband routers to disadvantaged children across England (e.g. those who receive support from a social worker and care leavers).

Unfortunately the aforementioned scheme has suffered delays and, judging by our own inbox (quite a few parents have asked ISPreview for help and were just as stumped), many parents have been left confused and uncertain about how they access the support. As we understand it the distribution was supposed to be handled by schools and other education related organisations, but a lot of those are still waiting for some movement.

On top of that the scheme only mentioned 4G broadband routers, but not whether they would include service provision (judging by some reports, they wont).

Siobhain McDonagh MP said: The lockdown has exposed the digital divide in our society, with schools across the country reporting struggling families who do not have internet access at home. Those children who cant access the same resources as their classmates will find themselves even further behind when they finally return. Some may never catch up. This policy isnt a silver bullet and cant replace months of missed education. But it would make an immediate, tangible difference to families right across our country.

A number of key questions here remain unanswered, not least with respect to whether these problems are caused by issues of affordability or broadband availability (some will probably be both, but not all). The very latest independent data from Thinkbroadband states that fixed superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connections are available to 96.73% of UK premises and only 1.46% are unable to access speeds of 10Mbps+.

Meanwhile 4G mobile coverage is much harder to pin down due to the variable nature of the signal and its environment. Likewise we have to consider the difficulty of even knowing what kind of mobile broadband speed may be viable in any given area. Ofcoms most recent coverage report (here) found that 97% of outdoor premises should be covered by all operators, but this falls to 67% for geographic coverage (although EE alone can reach around 91%).

Clearly some work still needs to be done on the detail and then theres the question of supply (i.e. if you seek to provide free broadband then what kind of service would that be and who will supply it?), which is in turn likely to raise more complicated questions around fairness of distribution and funding. No doubt the Government would rather the industry paid but, given the scale and current COVID-19 pressures, that might not be realistic.

Meanwhile the Department for Education has responded by pledging to do whatever we can to make sure no child, whatever their background, falls behind as a result of coronavirus. The new bill, once proposed, appears to have the backing of quite a few cross-party MPs including people like former PM Tony Blair, ministers from other parties (inc. the government) and various childrens charities.
By Linda So

WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - As police confront protesters across the United States, they're turning to rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas and other weapons meant to minimize fatalities.

But some are using a weapon that has potential to kill: the Taser. When those encounters have turned fatal, black people make up a disproportionate share of those who die, according to a Reuters analysis.

Reuters documented 1,081 cases through the end of 2018 in which people died after being shocked by police with a Taser, the vast majority of them after 2000. At least 32% of those who died were black, and at least 29% were white. African-Americans make up 14% of the U.S. population, and non-Hispanic whites 60%. (To explore the Reuters database of deaths involving police and Tasers, click here: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-taser-database/ ) These racial disparities in Taser deaths are horrifying but unsurprising," said Carl Takei, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union. Police violence is a leading cause of death for black people in America, in large part because over-policing of black and brown communities results in unnecessary police contacts and unnecessary use of force.

In 13% of the deaths identified in police reports, autopsies or other records as involving people of Hispanic ethnicity, Reuters was unable to document race. The race of the person who died was also unknown in the remaining 26% of the cases.

The deaths illustrate a challenge for U.S. law enforcement at a time when protests over police killings have thrown a spotlight on their tactics. Tasers, which deliver a pulsed electrical current meant to give police several seconds to restrain a subject, have been nearly universally embraced since the early 2000s as a less lethal alternative to firearms. About 94% of Americas roughly 18,000 police agencies now issue Tasers.

Tasers drew fresh attention over the weekend after the Friday night death of Rayshard Brooks. A police officer shot the 27-year-old with his handgun after Brooks ran away with an officer's Taser and pointed it at police following a scuffle, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. A lawyer for the Brooks family, L. Chris Stewart, said Brooks wielding of the Taser didnt justify his shooting, noting that police routinely argue in court that the devices are non-lethal weapons.

In a series of reports https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/usa-taser in 2017, however, Reuters identified more than a thousand cases since 2000 in which people died after being shocked by police with the weapons, typically in combination with other forms of force.

Story continues

Most independent researchers who have studied Tasers say deaths are rare when they are used properly. But the Reuters investigation found that many police officers are not trained properly on the risks, and the weapons are often misused. Tasers fire a pair of barbed darts that deliver a paralyzing electrical charge or can be pressed directly against the body  the drive stun mode  causing intense pain.

Some recent examples of Taser misuse highlight the risks and confusion surrounding the weapon.

On May 30, during nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, two college students, Taniyah Pilgrim, 20, and Messiah Young, 22, had gone out to get food and were stuck in traffic due to the demonstrations in Atlanta.

In a confrontation with police caught on bodycam video, one officer repeatedly struck the driver's side window with a baton as a second officer stunned Pilgrim with a Taser. A third officer used a Taser on Young, as the police dragged the black students out of the car.

Video footage of the officers shocking them drew criticism around the country. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields apologized at a news conference the next day. How we behaved as an agency, as individuals was unacceptable, she said. Young was treated in the hospital and required stitches. Shields resigned on Saturday after the Brooks killing.

After the May 30 incident, one officer wrote in a police report that he used his Taser because he was unsure whether the students were armed. The Tasers manufacturer, Axon Enterprise Inc, warns in guidelines distributed to police departments that the weapon should not be used on people who are driving or restrained. And law enforcement experts say Tasers generally shouldn't be used on anyone who is already immobilized, such as in a car.

Six police officers involved in the incident -- five of them black, one white -- were charged for using excessive force. Four have been fired. Two have sued the mayor and police chief seeking their jobs back. An attorney representing the two officers says he believes the firings were politically motivated.

The question police should be asking is not: Can I use the Taser? but Should I? said Michael Leonesio, a retired police officer who ran the Oakland Police Departments Taser program and has served as an expert witness in wrongful death lawsuits against Axon. This is a dangerous weapon, Leonesio said. The more its used, the more people are going to die.

Axon says its weapons are not risk-free but are safer than batons, fists, tackles and impact munitions. Any loss of life is a tragedy regardless of the circumstance, which is why we remain committed to developing technology and training to protect both officers and the community, the company said in an email to Reuters.

TASE HIS ASS

On a hot July day in 2017, Eurie Martin, 58, wanted a drink of water. After walking more than 12 miles to visit relatives for his birthday, he stopped to ask a homeowner for water in Deepstep, a town of about 130 people in central Georgia. The homeowner refused and called police to check out Martin, a black man, according to the district attorney.

Martin was walking on the side of the road when a Washington County Sheriffs deputy arrived and tried to speak with him. Martin, who suffered from schizophrenia, ignored him and kept walking. The deputy called for backup.

The officers said Martin got defensive and clinched his fists, ignoring commands to place his hands behind his back, the district attorney said. One deputy told another to Tase his ass, according to the officers dashboard camera video.

When the deputy fired the Taser, Martin fell to the ground, removed the Taser prong from his arm, and walked away. A third deputy arrived and fired his stun gun at Martins back, causing him to fall.

The deputies surrounded Martin as he lay face down, applying the weight of their bodies and deployed their Tasers 15 times. Martin could be heard crying out in pain saying, they killing me. He died of cardiac arrhythmia during police restraint, according to an autopsy.

He was a victim of walking while black, said Mawuli Davis, an attorney representing Martins family. The deputies, who were fired after they were indicted, said they followed their training on use of the stun gun.

Last November, a judge granted the three deputies  all white - immunity from prosecution just weeks before they were to go trial on murder charges in Martins death.

In its guidelines distributed to police departments, Axon warns against using multiple Tasers at the same time. Law enforcement experts say repeated applications and continuous use of stun guns can increase the risk of death and should be avoided.

The sheriffs office declined to respond to multiple requests for comment.

The judge ruled the deputies acted in self-defense and that their use of the Taser was justified and reasonable under the circumstances. Citing Georgias Stand Your Ground Law, the judge wrote all people have the right to use reasonable force to protect themselves against death or great bodily injury.

The district attorney appealed the ruling, and the case is scheduled to be heard before the state Supreme Court in August. If the high court overturns the lower courts ruling, the murder charges against the deputies will be reinstated.

Martin died for daring to ask for a drink of water in the Georgia sun, said his sister Helen Gilbert. Every person of common sense knows he did nothing to deserve his death. I will not rest until this long walk to justice is complete."

SCRUTINY

Deaths involving Tasers typically draw little public scrutiny  no government agency tracks how often theyre used or how many of those deployments prove fatal. Coroners and medical examiners use varying standards to assess a Tasers role in a death. And there are no uniform national standards governing police use of Tasers.

Late in 2009, as evidence of cardiac risks from Tasers mounted, the manufacturer made a crucial change: It warned police to avoid firing its stun guns electrified darts at a persons chest.

But on March 3 in Tacoma, Washington, that warning wasnt heeded.

Newly released video and audio recordings show Tacoma police officers using a Taser and beating a black man as he shouted, I cant breathe -- similar to George Floyds desperate cry when a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed a knee into his neck on May 25.

Police said they found Manuel Ellis, 33, trying to open doors of unoccupied cars and that he attacked a police vehicle and two officers. An attorney for his family said he was walking home from a convenience store when the confrontation with police took place.

Police handcuffed Ellis and bound his legs with a canvas strap after firing a Taser into his chest, according to an autopsy report. He lost consciousness, and efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. An autopsy listed his cause of death as respiratory arrest due to hypoxia as a result of physical restraint.

His death sparked protests in Tacoma on June 5 after video of the incident surfaced. The governor called for a new investigation, and the citys mayor demanded the four officers involved be fired and prosecuted. Two officers are white, one is black and the other is Asian. They have been placed on administrative leave, but have not been charged.

One of the officers, Christopher Burbank, declined to comment. Attempts by Reuters to reach the other three were unsuccessful. The Tacoma Police Department said it was cooperating with county and state investigators. (Additional reporting by Grant Smith. Editing by Jason Szep)
The deaths of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks are among those that have sparked outrage among citizens calling out racial injustice. The protests spread not only in the United States but also around the world, taking officials and public servants by storm and forcing them to take another look at their laws and regulations.

An act of kindness

In London, a black man was seen carrying a white man in the middle of an angry crowd protesting against police brutality on African-American citizens, as reported by CNN.

The black man, Patrick Hutchinson, said that the act was made to avoid a catastrophe, where he added that he did not want the aim of the protests to be lost in a single moment of violence.

Hutchinson told reporters that his real aim was to avoid a catastrophe and immediately, the narrative became "Black Lives Matters, Youngsters Kill Protesters," He said that was the message they wanted to steer away from.

The man, Hutchinson said, was initially lying on the ground curled up in a fetal position while protesters stood around him.

With no knowledge of the white man's intention in being in the area, whether he was an anti-protester or held a grudge, Hutchinson attempted to get him to safety.

On Saturday, after the violence thinned down, authorities arrested more than 100 people in London when far-right groups focused their attacks on BLM movements.

Hutchinson explained that he, along with his friends, formed a protective ring around the injured man, and he proceeded to carry him on his shoulder. As they were walking towards the police, some people were still trying to deal blows to the victim.

"I am carrying him; my friends are protecting myself and the man on my shoulder. He was still receiving blows, you can feel people trying to hit him," Hutchinson added. He also noted that when he got to the officers, he put the man down and the police thanked him for the good that he did.

Also Read: Rayshard Brooks Video Shows Events Leading to Fatal Shooting By Atlanta Police Officers

Reaching across the globe

The Black Lives Matter movement had extended its reach to Tokyo, Japan, where thousands of protesters marched together in the capital on Sunday. The crowd gathered to call out racism and police violence and to spread awareness of the seemingly ignored racial discrimination in the country.

According to the Japan Times, there were more than 3,500 protesters present in the demonstration who marched from Yoyogi Park and eventually making their way through Shibuya's scramble crossing. The protesters could be seen holding signs that state racism is the actual pandemic and that enough is enough.

The main organizer and founder of the movement in Tokyo, 19-year-old Sierra Todd, said they stood in solidarity with the protesters in the United States. She also stated that their goal is to have the march pave a way into opening up discussions about racism in Japan.

Todd hopes that she can change the perspective of black people in Japan by conducting demonstrations and creating a diverse community of individuals and make themselves more visible to the world.

The youth added that most people who have not experienced criticisms or demonization would not be able to sympathize with the victims. However, she urges everyone to take small steps in learning about the problems and talking with other people about their experiences and what they are feeling.

Reforming the current system

The death of Brooks and Floyd have sparked officials to re-assess allowing police officers to use deadly force during arrests. The movements have challenged long-standing policies that have enabled officers to neglect responsibility in incidents that have resulted in deaths, as reported by The New York Times.

Amid the surge of protests against police brutality, the guiding principles that have stood in place for years are starting to fall apart piece by piece at a rapid rate, says police and legal experts.

A law professor at the University of South Carolina, Seth Stoughton, said that in the past two weeks, he had witnessed more reforms of force laws being conducted than ever before.

George Washinton University law professor, Cynthia Lee, notes that while reforming the current system might not hold all the answers, it could help shift the culture into a better direction. She hopes that officers become more careful when dealing with tense situations and see suspects as human beings and not enemies.

Related Article: George Floyd New Video Shows Cops Ignoring By-Standers' Pleas to Let Floyd Live

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mumbai, June 15 : Clix Capital Services has approached Lakshmi Vilas Bank for a potential investment in the bank.

In a regulatory filing, Lakshmi Vilas Bank on Monday said that it has received a preliminary, non-binding letter from the potential investor and its Board of Directors have considered it for further processing.

"The bank routinely evaluates capital raising options and proposals which are in its best interest. The Bank has received preliminary, non-binding letter of intent (LoI) from M/s Clix Capital Services Private Limited & Clix Finance India Private Limited dated June 12, 2020, which the Board of Directors of the Bank has considered for further processing in their meeting held today (15th June 2020)," it said.

It said that under the non-binding LoI, the proposed transaction is subject to completion of due diligence, which the bank and the intending parties will be carrying out and will be subject to regulatory and other customary approvals.

"In the event, the discussions between the contracting parties in relation to the proposed transactions are successful and definitive agreements are executed, we will make appropriate disclosures as required under the provisions of applicable law," the filing added.

The bank in the past couple of years has faced liquidity and asset quality issues and has been looking for prospective investors and buyers. It had come up with a merger plan with Indiabulls Housing Finance last year but it was not approved by the Reserve Bank of India.
MBABANE  With the race on for the application for licences or permits for the production of cannabis for medicinal purposes and scientific use, 10 companies and individuals have shown interest.

The companies and associations are both local and international, with some coming from as far as Israel and the United States of America.



The companies made their presentations before the select committee, which was tasked with considering the amendment of the Opium and Habit Forming Drugs (Amendment) Bill No.6 of 2020, which was chaired by Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo.



Some of the companies were against the legalisation of cannabis, but supported the licensing for medicinal cannabis, while others requested that cannabis be used for recreational purposes in the country.

The MPs are divided on the Bill, in the sense that some feel it will take the business away from emaSwati because of the high costs involved in production, while others are of the view that the companies be allowed to operate in order to revive the economy.



Proposed



The select committee has proposed that companies, which are granted licences, should have a minimum of at least 33 per cent representation or shareholding being emaSwati.

The Bill is piloted by the Minister of Health, Lizzie Nkosi, who reported that her ministry, over the last couple of months, had experienced a surge in the amount of applications for licences and permits for the production of cannabis for medicinal and scientific use under the Opium and Habit Forming Drugs Act of 1922.



The minister informed the committee that in anticipating significant economic and medical benefits from the use of cannabis for medicinal and research purposes, the ministry had therefore embarked on working towards an enabling legislative and regulatory environment, with the aim of preventing the diversion of cannabis into the illicit market while also safeguarding the health of the nation.

Meanwhile, a majority of the companies that want to be issued with licences to grow dagga claim that this will benefit Eswatini both medically and clinically.



For example, one of the companies SwAurora Organic Healthcare Products (Pty) Ltd, has claimed that the total investment the project would bring into the country was about E1.4 billion, which would be about US$80 million through the Eswatini Medical Cannabis (The Sacred Herb) Project.

Most of the 10 companies and individuals, if not all, are registered or preparing to be registered in Eswatini under the Companies Act.

SwAurora further informed the committee that various universities had already indicated willingness to assist the University of Eswatini in research and the benefit to UNESWA would be monetary, as research funding would be made available.



Specialists



Lecturers and students will be able to work with specialists from other countries, thus creating a true Swazi footprint in the industry, reads the report in part.

The company further stated that they had made an offer to purchase land at E35 million, which was part of their funding. It stated that medical cannabis was an emerging market and therefore its demand was enormous.

According to the companys research, the market value was currently estimated at US$340 billion, inclusive of legal and illegal cannabis. It was further stated that SwAurora alone would create 300 new direct job opportunities for emaSwati and that the secondary and tertiary spinoffs would be enormous.



Another company which appeared before the committee was Nisela Farms (Pty) Ltd, which stated that it had access to 200 hectares of virgin land and would want to phase out the growing of sugar cane in favour of hemp.

Nisela Farms reported that it was currently sitting on E150 million contracts and awaiting licensing. It submitted that hemp had the potential of fetching E16 million profit in four months, while sugar cane would only give E10 000 per hectare.



They stated that the figures presented were based on market research. Another liSwati owned association called 10 000 Eswatini informed the committee that it could create about 60 to 100 000 jobs in Eswatini, especially in the rural areas.

The company which was represented by Sifiso Maseko said it was in the process of being registered and stated that it intended to register once the restrictions of growing cannabis in the country were lifted and departments were operational.

They stated that if given the hemp licence, they could realistically provide employment and skills training.

The immediate area we can start with would be in the clothing and textile industry for the supply of personal protective equipment, infant clothes, diapers and sanitary pads, the report reads.



Construction



They further stated that they would also be making construction materials, beauty products and animal feed, which were also substantial market sectors that could not only serve the countrys internal needs, but pave the way for supplying export markets to neighbouring States, the rest of Africa and into Europe and Asia.

Meanwhile, S.Can (Pty) Limited stated that it was an Eswatini owned company established solely for educating, advocating and implementing of responsible and professional commercial opportunities related to hemp and the cannabis industry in the country as well as laterally and vertically expanding into essential oils.



The company, according to the report, is represented by Musa Dlamini, who is the legal advisor.

The company stated that there could be potential export to South Africa for personal use, which could basically mean that the only legal option was to purchase non-medical cannabis from Eswatini.



If the kingdom is to regulate the non-medical cannabis market with better prices and quality cannabis than the South African black market has to offer and even the recently regulated market space, then the law will match the maximum allowed amount for possession of cannabis to that of the proposed South African law (600 grams), allowing anyone to freely cross the border with his personal cannabis with copying some key elements from Uruguay legalisation models, reads the report.

S.Can further submitted that the country could also prosper from taxation of cannabis, which would fund food and social programmes in the country.
FLINT, MI -- The annual Fourth of July Music Around Town Concert and fireworks celebration at Atwood Stadium have been canceled.

The Flint Institute of Music and the Flint Downtown Development Authority announced the cancellation, citing Gov. Gretchen Whitmers current executive order that restricts outdoor gatherings to 250 or less. The order also states clear guidelines must be made at events to maintaining proper social distancing in order to continue mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Flint fireworks light up the night sky on Fourth of July

The concert has attracted thousands of participants in the past few years, according to a Flint Institute of Music news release.

In light of these current public health and safety precautions the concert cannot be presented as planned, Flint Institute of Music President and CEO Rodney Lontine said.FIM and our friends at the Flint DDA are committed to keeping everyone safe."

The institute of music and Downtown Development Authority are looking into holding a concert later in the year if restrictions limiting outdoor gatherings of larger groups are lifted and other safety measures can be met, Lontine said.

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:

Coronavirus nearly killed her. Today, the Flint mayor welcomed her home.

Free coronavirus testing site opens at Mott Community College

Monday, June 15: Latest developments on coronavirus in Michigan

Halo Burger in downtown Flint to reopen Monday

Nearly 45,000 have recovered from coronavirus in Michigan
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:12:05|Editor: huaxia

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FAIZABAD, Afghanistan, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) waged an anti-drug operation and destroyed a heroin laboratory in northern Badakhshan province on Monday, the provincial police confirmed.

The CNPA carried the raid in Mughulti village of Darrahim district Monday morning. The special police arrested one suspect and shifted 46 kg of opium, a heroin processing device, a power generator to the provincial CNPA station, the police said in a statement.

The illegal lab, along with 24 empty barrels, five plastic basins and a gas cylinder, was destroyed at the site following the raid, the statement read.

The destruction of the lab was a heavy blow for insurgents and anti-government militants as they have been using profits from the illegal drugs to fund insurgency, the statement noted.

Much of the world's opium poppy is cultivated in the militancy-hit country, particularly in western and southern parts of the country, where government security forces have little presence. Enditem
By PTI

SINGAPORE: A Singapore court on Monday imposed a fine of over USD 1,400 on an Indian student for attending a gathering at a rented apartment, in violation of the country's "circuit breaker" rules enforced to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Bhullar Jasteena, 23, pleaded guilty to the offence under the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act.

For committing the offence under the Act, first-time offenders can be jailed for up to six months and fined up to SGD 10,000 (USD 7,163). Repeat offenders can be jailed for up to a year and fined up to SGD 20,000 (USD 14,326).

Jasteena was among the 10 Indian students who had gathered at the apartment on Kim Keat Road on May 5, during the COVID-19 "circuit breaker" period when it was illegal in the country to have guests at one's household or to meet other people for social purposes.

Earlier this month, nine of the students had pleaded guilty to similar charges and penalties ranging between SGD 2,500 (USD 1,782) and SGD 4,500 (USD 3,208) were imposed on them.

The court imposed a fine of SGD 2,000 (USD 1,433) on Jasteena, The Straits Times reported.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Stephanie Koh said Avinash Kaur, 27, Navdeep Singh, 20, and Sajandeep Singh, 21, were living in the three-bedroom rented apartment.

On May 5, Navdeep and Sajandeep invited six of their male friends. Kaur also invited Jasteena to the unit so that they could study together. She arrived at around 11:30 am and remained in Kaur's room.

The court was told that the police were alerted about an altercation at the unit by an unidentified person. When the police arrived at the spot at around 1 pm, they found the offenders there. The court documents did not reveal details about the tiff.

DPP Koh told the court that even though Jasteena spent only 80 minutes in the unit, her visit did not have an "agreed end time" and would likely have continued had the police not gone there.

The DPP also said that Jasteena had met Kaur for a "frivolous and completely unnecessary purpose in blatant disregard of the social distancing measures that the rest of society has taken pains to comply with". Navdeep and Sajandeep were each fined SGD 4,500 (USD 3,208).

Their guests, Arpit Kumar, 27, Karmjit Singh, 20, Mohammed Imran Pasha, 26, Sharma Lukesh, 21, Vijay Kumar, 20, and Waseem Akram, 33, were each fined SGD 2,500 (USD 1,782). Kaur was fined SGD 3,500 (USD 2,496).

In another incident, a 30-year old Singaporean woman of Indian-origin was fined SGD 5,000 (USD 3,581) for several offences, including leaving her house twice to meet her boyfriend during the COVID-19 "circuit breaker" period.

Renukha Arumugam was fined on Monday after being charged with five counts under the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020, the Channel News Asia reported.

The charges are meeting individuals not from her household for a social purpose, two counts of leaving her house without a reasonable excuse and one count of not wearing a mask properly when outside.

According to the charge sheet, Renukha left her house on three occasions: twice to meet her boyfriend and a third time to meet a friend.

She was also accused of not wearing her mask over her nose and mouth at the entrance of a car park while meeting her boyfriend.

The "circuit-breaker" period began on April 7 as part of which all non-essential work places were closed and residents were barred from leaving their house except to buy food and groceries or to exercise alone in the neighbourhood.

It ended on June 2. Businesses that operate in settings with low transmission risks were allowed to reopen.

Full hairdressing services, motor vehicle servicing, air conditioning servicing, printing, basic pet services and education bookshops and limited school activities have been allowed to resume as part of phase-1 of the reopening.

According to the health ministry, there are 40,818 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Singapore.
O ne of the West Ends most enduring celebrity restaurants Le Caprice - famously Princess Dianas favourite bolthole - is shutting its Art Deco dining room in St Jamess for good, the Evening Standard can reveal.

The restaurant, tucked discreetly behind the Ritz Hotel, first opened in 1947, but had its heyday in the Eighties after a glitzy refurbishment and relaunch.

Its A-list regulars included Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Margaret  many of whom were celebrated in David Bailey portraits on the wall - as well as Diana, who always sat at the same corner table.

It was also where novelist Jeffrey Archer chose to eat his first meal of freedom after release from prison in 2003.

Lord Jeffrey Archer and his wife Mary were regulars / Dave Benett/Getty Images for Le

The restaurant  owned by dining and clubs tycoon Richard Caring since 2005  is set to reopen in another location after the lease expires, although no deal for a new premises has yet been signed.

A spokesperson for Caprice Holdings said: Le Caprice has occupied the current site for 38 years and now the lease is coming to an end.

The iconic restaurant within the London dining scene will be reborn at a new location currently under negotiation.

We thank our clientele for their loyalty and support over the years and assure them that they will be as excited as us with the new plans for this historic brand.

Caprice Holdings has also closed Rivington in Greenwich as Caring looks to cut costs in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Le Caprice was Princess Diana's favourite bolthole

The hospitality industry has suffered huge falls in customer numbers as the pandemic has swept through Europe, causing the mass closures of pubs, restaurants and cafes.

Caring yesterday launched a blistering attack on the government, warning that Prime Minister Boris Johnsons weakness and indecision on reopening restaurants, pubs and cafes will cost more than two million workers their jobs.

He claimed the Prime Minister was killing the country by failing to outline when hospitality venues could reopen and whether they would have to abide by the two-metre social distancing rule.

He believes that once state aid measures such as the furlough scheme are withdrawn as many as 60 per cent of the four million-strong hospitality workforce could be laid off and restaurants, cafes and bars shuttered for good.

Johnson has indicated that hospitality businesses might be allowed to reopen on July 4.

Caring also owns 34, Sexy Fish, J Sheekey, the Ivy, Scotts and a number of private members clubs dotted across London.
(Reuters) -

Here's what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Surge in cases puts Beijing on alert

Several districts of the Chinese capital put up security checkpoints, closed schools and ordered people to be tested for the novel coronavirus on Monday after an unexpected spike of cases linked to the biggest wholesale food market in Asia.

After nearly two months with no new infections, Beijing officials have reported 79 cases over the past four days, the city's biggest cluster of infections since February.

"The containment efforts have rapidly entered into a war-time mode," senior city government official Xu Ying told a news conference.

Xu said 7,200 neighbourhoods and nearly 100,000 epidemic-control workers had entered the "battlefield".

(Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.)

Reality check for markets?

Fears that a second wave of COVID-19 infections is under way sent jitters across global markets with stocks and oil under pressure, while investors bought into safe havens such as German government debt.

Markets are pricing a too-optimistic recovery, in my opinion, and there could be a reality check coming rather sooner than later, said Stephane Ekolo, an equity strategist at TFS Derivatives in London.

The retreats follows a global rally since late March, fuelled by central bank and fiscal stimulus and optimism about countries gradually lifting lockdowns.

In Europe, a cross-border dash for cigarettes and scratch cards

European nations eased border controls after three months of lockdown, but Spain's continued closure, a patchwork of quarantine rules and remote-working mean pre-crisis travel levels are a way off.

Greek airports allowed more international flights as the country sought to salvage its summer, German tourists flocking to neighbouring Denmark caused an 8-km (5-mile) queue and Italians popped into France to buy lottery scratch cards.

Story continues

In the Belgian village of Macquenoise, tabac stores did brisk trade as French citizens streamed across the border to buy cheaper tobacco after suffering higher prices at home since mid-March.

Its worth the effort, said Nadege Caplain, making an early-morning 200-km round trip to buy cigarettes for her and her family.

(GRAPHIC-Tracking and explaining the new coronavirus https://tmsnrt.rs/2GVwIyw)

From crowded tubes to pedal power in London

The crowded daily commute in London has long been a source of misery for millions. But getting to work will be even more of a challenge following lockdown.

London authorities are adding new routes for cyclists and pedestrians, bicycle sales are soaring and boat operators are considering increasing their services on the River Thames.

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, London faced increased competition for the title of Europes most important financial centre from cities such as Paris and Frankfurt because it has quit the European Union.

Forty years of public policy about transport has gone into reverse, said Tony Travers of London School of Economics. This is a big existential issue for cities.

Whipped for breaking quarantine

Peruvian peasant brigades, who battled leftist rebel groups decades ago, are now doling out rough justice in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus in the Andean country, which has the region's second-highest number of cases after Brazil.

The elected community militias, who in normal times address cases such as infidelity and theft of chickens, or go after badly behaved mayors, judges and other officials, say they now use lashes to punish those breaking quarantine.

"According to the crime, you can punish with lashes," Aladino Fernandez, the president of a group in the northern highland region of Cajamarca, told Reuters by telephone.

(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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
The Cabinet of Ministers has said that a drop of Ukraine's GDP in 2020 could be up to 8% compared to 2019, according to the updated government action plan.

"Ukraine is traditionally more vulnerable to economic shocks, and therefore could feel a more significant impact: GDP may fall by 4-8% compared with 2019," the government said in the document posted on its website.

The macroeconomic forecast of the Ministry for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture, which is used for the 2020 national budget indicators, provides for the economy to fall by 4.8% this year, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects GDP to plunge to 8.2%.
Sydney, June 15 : Australian police were investigating a second case of vandalism on a statue of British explorer Captain James Cook on Monday, following a spate of similar attacks worldwide.

Over the weekend, a statue of Cook in Sydney's Hyde Park was spray painted with the words, "no pride in genocide", while a second statue several kilometres away in the suburb of Randwick was also defaced, reports Xinhua news agency.

Cook has become a divisive figure as one of the first British explorers to land in Australia, charting much of the country's east coast and paving the way for colonization soon after.

The monument in Randwick was emblazoned with the word "sovereignty" -- which is associated with the political push for Indigenous self determination and ownership of parts of Australia.

Two women have been charged over the first incident, having been apprehended nearby at around 4 a.m. local time carrying black masks and spray paint.

Investigations were continuing into the second case.

Historical monuments in the UK and US have been targeted recently as part of Black Lives Matter protesters, with several being torn down, including images of men who worked in the slave trade.

Significant efforts have been made in the UK to protect a statue of war-time leader Winston Churchill, with the monument being encased in steel to stop potential vandalism.

In Australia, calls have repeatedly been made in recent years for statues of colonial-era settlers to be removed due to their emotional impact on First Nations People whose ancestors suffered due to the arrival of Europeans.
An Estonian hitman, who was jailed for his role in a Kinahan cartel murder plot and who is wanted over the murder of a Lithuanian pop star's lover, will challenge a bid to extradite him in October.

Imre Arakas (62) was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder James Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. He is currently serving his sentence in a segregated block in Portlaoise Prison.

Lithuanian authorities suspect that ex-wrestler Arakas was allegedly part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder a man who had an affair with famous Lithuanian pop star Vita Jakutiene.

Lithuanian police are seeking the surrender of Arakas, whose a last address in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, to face charges, which include a count of murder as well as firearms and conspiracy-related charges in relation to the shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius. There is also another warrant for the sole charge of criminal damage.

Arakas was arrested by gardai in a holding cell at the Criminal Courts of Justice building in Dublin in February 2018, on foot of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Lithuanian authorities.

However, Arakas was jailed by the non-jury Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to murder Mr Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. He was contracted by the Kinahan crime gang to assassinate Mr Gately and had boasted to his associates in coded text messages that he would take out his target with "one shot to the head".

Today Monday, June 15, Ms Aoife O'Leary BL, responding for Arakas, told Mr Justice Paul Burns that additional information from the Lithuanian authorities had been sought and received, that affidavits had been filed in respect of her client and that two other men had now been charged in Lithuania.

Arakas, a former freedom fighter who was previously part of a movement to separate Estonia from the former USSR, was joined by video-link from Portlaoise Prison for the brief hearing.

Mr Justice Paul Burns fixed 9 October for the hearing with the matter in for mention on 20 July to resolve any outstanding matters.

Passing sentence at the Special Criminal Court in 2018, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Arakas had agreed to the "vital role" of pulling the trigger for financial gain and he was prepared to offer his "own detail" on how the murder of Mr Gately was to be performed. The Estonian separatist told his associates in a text message that he would take out his target with "one shot to the head". The judge said the married father-of-two was "ready, willing and able" in his dedicated role.

Arakas had travelled to Ireland from Alicante in Spain on April 3, 2017 for the purpose of killing Mr Gately. The foreign national, who is in poor health, has been in custody in Ireland since April 2017.

Ms O'Leary told the court today (Monday) that her client's sentence is due to expire in October 2029 and that she would be seeking a senior counsel in the case, as it was a "very significant matter of murder, firearms and criminal damage".

Arakas appeared by video-link but expressed a desire to be present in the court for his extradition hearing.

Sworn, written statements are to be submitted by 10 September with the applicant, the State, given two weeks to reply.
Press Release

June 15, 2020 Senator Cynthia Villar on Call of Agriculture Stakeholders for Senate to Investigate Alleged Overpriced Fertilizer Contract of DA "I will look into the issue but I have to file a Senate Resolution first in order to schedule an inquiry or investigation. Congress is in recess right now and will resume on the third week of July. So I would have to wait till then. "For the meantime, the agri groups and farmers can bring their concern or complaints to the State Prosecutor at the Department of Justice (DoJ)". "Once the Senate opens, we will of course, look at all the sides to this issue. We have to ensure that the funds made available by the government to help our countrymen cope with the ongoing pandemic are being used for their intended purpose and beneficiaries, particularly the farmers. "
UK insurer Liverpool Victoria has attracted interest from rivals including Phoenix Group Holdings and private equity firm Cinven Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter.

Fellow mutual insurer Royal London, Utmost Life and Pensions and European Insurance Consolidation Group are also among potential suitors, the people said, asking not to be identified as discussions arent public. LV= is working with financial services specialist Fenchurch Advisory to explore options including a full or partial sale, they said.

Bids were submitted this week for the company, which could be valued at 500 million pounds ($631 million) to 1 billion pounds, according to the people. LV= may also decide against selling and opt to redistribute capital and pursue organic growth, one of the people said.

Representatives for LV=, Cinven, Phoenix, Royal London and EICG declined to comment. Representatives for Fenchurch and Utmost did not respond to requests for comment. Sky News previously reported on a possible sale.

Any sale by LV= would continue a strong run of dealmaking in the insurance sector despite the broader slump in mergers and acquisitions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The value of insurance M&A is up 26% over the last 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Helping to drive the trend has been the purchase of closed life insurance policies in Europe by private equity firms and other consolidators. Allianz SE and Assicurazioni Generali SpA are among those gearing up to sell billions of euros in life assets.

For Cinven, a deal for LV= would allow it to add to a suite of insurance investments that includes life-market consolidators Eurovita in Italy and Viridium Group in Germany.

LV= was founded in 1843 to provide an affordable way for people to cover the cost of funerals. It expanded into a company offering a range of insurance, investment and pension products to around 1.3 million customers. In 2019, LV= sold the remainder of its its general insurance business to Allianz. It appointed Zurich Insurance Groups Mark Hartigan as chief executive officer in December.

With assistance from David Hellier.

Related:

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Carriers
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Easing lockdowns around the world present an opportunity to go back to the drawing board for many economies. In Asia, densely packed urban centers are a good place to start. The trick for planners will be to minimize disease outbreaks without quashing the promise of employment that has made cities a magnet. By 2025, the world will have 37 megacities  defined as having at least 10 million people  and as many as 20 of them will be in Asia. Two-thirds of the regions population will be living in urban areas by 2050, compared with 20% in 1970, according to the Asian Development Bank. Bustling metropolises have become a symbol of rapid growth across the continent, which has reached a level of urbanization in less than a century that took more than twice as long in other parts of the world.

For decades, this transition was a one-way ticket to economic boom. With the coronavirus outbreak, however, weve seen cities become hotbeds of infection, where vast concentrations of wealth can become a liability when businesses grind to a halt. But while de-clogging seems like a good idea on paper, is it desirable or even feasible? Working remotely from the suburbs sounds great if you live in a congested downtown district, confined to four walls and a small bathroom with screaming kids. The reality in many rural areas, however, is poor infrastructure, subpar schools and scarce medical clinics, not to mention limited delivery options.

In Indonesia, officials are getting cold feet about the construction of a new capital, which was intended to take the strain off overcrowded and sinking Jakarta. While I had reservations about the prospect of creating a city from scratch, the government was correct in identifying a problem. Spreading some wealth beyond the island of Java would be welcome, too. Sadly, the vision is being subordinated to the emergency of the day, just when an alternative is needed most. President Joko Widodo says there are better ways to spend $34 billion. Indonesia cant print rupiah indefinitely and no politician wants to be accused of erecting new digs for lawmakers while millions slip back into poverty.

Story continues

In the Philippines, meanwhile, the coronavirus has given fresh life to proposals for thinning out Manila, one of the most heavily populated cities on earth and the countrys virus epicenter. President Rodrigo Duterte is offering to pay people to leave the area, which generates about one-third of gross domestic product. Yet skeptics of his Back to the Province program point to the centuries-old centralization of power in the capital  Imperial Manila, Duterte calls it  and shrug. People have preferred to emigrate rather than leave the city, which has made the Philippines a global hub for the export of labor, as Ive written. Unless centers of capital and government are prepared to surrender control to regions, along with taxation authority, the boonies just aren't going to be attractive enough.

Liew Ching Tong, a Malaysian senator and, until March, deputy minister for defense, has an idea along those lines. In a presentation last month to the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a think-tank in Kuala Lumpur, Liew proposed significant reforms to local government financing: Give Malaysias 13 states the ability to share income-tax power with the national administration. Right now, the provinces are largely dependent on grants from the central government and often need its approval before borrowing. Their only meaningful ability to generate revenue is from land sales and natural resources, which tend to exacerbate environmental degradation.

This federal-state dynamic puts local projects at the mercy of political winds from Kuala Lumpur. In the state of Penang, for example, anticipated bond sales are intended to fund an overhaul of public transportation. The proposal  approved by the last coalition government, which dissolved three months ago  is now in jeopardy of being revoked, says Tricia Yeoh of IDEAS. Only by empowering states to control their finances can they develop good infrastructure and support the high living standards that will attract the best and brightest.

The good news for city dwellers is that the coronavirus has opened the door for some creative urban planning. In Singapore, the head of the Housing & Development Board, which created the city-states signature high-rise public housing, recently discussed dividing the country into relatively self-sufficient regions to help contain viral outbreaks down the road. Future HDB dwellings should have drone parking zones in place of car spaces, given the critical role of delivery services during this outbreak, Chief Executive Officer Cheong Koon Hean told a forum on June 3.

Asias megacities wont disappear, nor should they. But if weve learned anything from the coronavirus, its the danger of concentrating too much human capital in one physical location. Thats why Asians of the future need to have desirable alternatives, which means finding the right incentives, not just telling people to pack their bags and head to the hills. Cities have been fun places to live for the regions burgeoning middle class. To keep urban areas prosperous and healthy, though, the hinterland needs to be revitalized, too.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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On June 15, Ukraine, resumes international scheduled passenger flights after a few months of coronavirus quarantine break.

As reported, on June 12, at an extraordinary Governments meeting, a decision was approved to resume the operation of checkpoints at Ukrainian airports, as well as to allow foreign citizens to cross the border.

"The prerogative to open borders will remain for countries with developed tourism and favorable epidemiological situation. We gradually open sky, but the safety and protection of our citizens remain a priority, said Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Vladyslav Kryklii.

According to the official, Ukrainians will be able to fly without restrictions on border to Albania and the United States, with 14-day quarantine - to the UK, without restrictions on border and with testing upon arrival - to Turkey. Starting from June 27, Ukrainian citizens will be able to fly to Tunisia with testing upon arrival. Such countries as Cyprus, Montenegro, Georgia, and Greece will consider opening borders after the epidemic situation in Ukraine improves from July 1.

According to Pavlo Riabikin, CEO of Boryspil International Airport State Enterprise, 15 flights are scheduled at the airport on the day of opening of international air services. And although most of them will be domestic, flights to the UK, European countries on pre-announced flights, which previously had the evacuation status, are planned.

As reported, on March 12, the Government introduced the quarantine in Ukraine to counteract the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus infection. In particular, trading establishments were closed except groceries, pharmacies, gas stations, and banks. The operation of subway in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro, municipal, intercity, and interregional road, rail, and air transport services were suspended. On March 28, Ukraine completely closed its border for scheduled passenger services, including air services.

Currently, the adaptive quarantine is in force in Ukraine until June 22.

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KYODO NEWS - Jun 15, 2020 - 19:04 | All, World, Coronavirus, Japan

Japan will ease travel restrictions imposed to keep the novel coronavirus pandemic in check, starting with flights to Vietnam on a limited basis later this month, government sources said Monday.

A chartered flight is being arranged to fly around 250 Japanese businesspeople, the sources said, adding they will be exempt from quarantine upon arrival in Vietnam and when they return to Japan on condition that they test negative for the coronavirus.

The plan comes as Japan is in talks to resume travel with Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand and Thailand, where the coronavirus is under control and there is a relatively low risk of importing infections.

Vietnam has not allowed entry or issued visas to foreign nationals since late March, with some exceptions including for diplomats.

Japan added Vietnam to its entry ban list in late April and the Japanese Foreign Ministry has issued a Level 3 travel advisory for the country urging nationals to avoid going there. Both countries mandate two-week quarantine periods for all arrivals.

But under the new scheme, travelers between the countries will be exempt from these restrictions if they take polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, tests prior to departure and upon arrival, and test negative both times, the sources said. They will also have to submit itineraries detailing the hotels they are staying at and places they intend to visit.

Businesspeople such as executives will be given priority, with students and then tourists set to follow.

Other countries on Japan's entry ban list, including China, South Korea and the United States, may be taken off later depending on the situation, the sources said.
In 1974 when a severe outbreak of Murray Valley encephalitis occurred in northern Victoria, killing several people and leaving many others severely damaged, Noreen was able to confirm the diagnosis by isolating the virus in embryonated eggs.

When the results were analysed they showed a wide discrepancy in the sensitivity and specificity of the assays being employed and considerable variations in the results being reported by different laboratories. This led to certain assays being preferred and a demand for regular quality assurance panels, which Noreens laboratory provided for many years.

With the help of Joc Forsyth, of the microbiological diagnostic unit at the University of Melbourne, Noreen assembled a panel of sera which was distributed, under code, to every laboratory in Victoria performing the test.

As the number of suppliers proliferated and the tests begun to be performed in general laboratories, sometimes by people without specialist training, concerns arose about the reliability of the results being generated.

She was the first person in Australia to isolate rubella virus in cell culture and to establish a sensitive assay for antibodies. Because of the serious effects that rubella infection could have on the unborn foetus, this assay became widely used for screening pregnant women and for diagnosing suspicious rashes, creating a new market for industry.

Despite these achievements Noreens most important contribution was probably in the field of viral hepatitis. In the early 1970s when Ron Lucas, Ian Gust and Jacov Kaldor began their studies of the epidemiology and natural history of these diseases using sera collected from the hundreds of patients admitted to Fairfield every year, the techniques available for detecting viral antigens and antibodies were relatively crude and insensitive.

Impressed by the impact that radioimmunoassays were having in the management of patients with endocrinological disease, with the help of Colin Johnsons team at Prince Henrys Hospital, Noreen developed a radio immunoprecipitation assay for hepatitis B antibodies which enabled the group to study the epidemiology, mode of spread and natural history of this infection in Australia, South-East Asia and the western Pacific. Later, the same approach was used for detection of total and class specific antibodies to hepatitis A with similar outcomes.

Perhaps her most lasting achievement came about by coincidence. When Ian Gust undertook a sabbatical year at the National Institutes of Health in 1976 he asked Noreen to select faecal samples from patients with community acquired HA that could be used to infect marmosets to determine whether there were any differences in Australian and American strains of the virus.

Noreen chose samples from a family outbreak in an unsewered outer suburb. By chance one of these contained a high titre of virus which enabled the NIH team to isolate the virus in cell culture, attenuate it by repeated passage and characterise the molecular basis for the attenuation. After demonstrating that the attenuated virus could protect marmosets and chimpanzees against challenge with wild HAV, NIH licensed the strain to Glaxo Smith Kline where it became the basis of the worlds first licensed hepatitis A vaccine, which has been now administered to hundreds of millions of people with dramatic effect.

Although often prickly, Noreen was a generous mentor to two generations of scientists and physicians, who both respected and were terrified of her. Known as Auntie Nor and having no family of her own, Noreen was particularly generous to young colleagues especially those coming from overseas or interstate for whom she supplied encouragement, the use of her home in Reservoir and later Research, sometimes supporting them financially until they found their feet.
As New Mexico strives to develop renewable energy, massive transmission lines could soon tower over pristine plains and cut across the central Rio Grande in areas considered critical for migrating birds and other wildlife.

One project, the Western Spirit Transmission Line, is scheduled to break ground this fall, slicing through desert vistas in Socorro and Valencia counties and crossing the river near Bosque, south of Belen. Another, the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project, could soon follow the Western Spirit line if the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approves it.

Together, the two projects could potentially free up more than 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy near Corona in Lincoln County, where Pattern Energy wants to build massive wind farms to transport clean power from the states gusty eastern plains to western markets.

But the prospect of towering electric pylons dotting the dessert countryside and bridging the Rio Grande smack in the flight path of tens of thousands of migratory birds that nest and roost there has riled local communities into action. Conservation groups, in particular, are pushing developers to bury transmission lines under the river, both to protect wildlife and to mitigate the projects impact on tourism, which provides critical income for the local economy.

Protect Our Rio Grande member Gina Dello Russo, a riparian ecologist who worked with the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 27 years before retiring in 2012, said state officials and energy developers must work with local communities on a strategic plan for transmission projects that safeguards natural, cultural and economic resources as New Mexico works to build a carbon-free electric grid.

We need to look in depth at how these projects impact the state, Dello Russo said. We need a comprehensive, statewide plan that looks at river crossings in detail and considers possible alternatives, because the Rio Grande is a critical artery.  No one is against clean, alternative energy, but we need to make sure its done right so that we dont lose the things we treasure about our state in the process.

Cecilia Rosacker of the Rio Grande Agricultural Land Trust called the river New Mexicos No. 1 resource, sustaining humans and wildlife for generations. Today, it stands as a critical and endangered continental migratory corridor for some 400 species of birds that travel back and forth annually from a dozen U.S. states to winter, feed and nest along the rivers banks and surrounding areas.

The Rio Grande is an iconic river in the Southwest and its threatened in so many ways, Rosacker said. People and wildlife depend on it, and both people and wildlife will be significantly impacted by these huge transmission projects.

Fraught from the start

The SunZia project has been especially contentious since it was first proposed in 2006 as a 520-mile, high-voltage line that could carry up to 4.5 gigawatts of wind energy from central New Mexico to Arizona for export to western markets. It encompasses about 320 miles in New Mexico, beginning near Corona, running east to the river, and then cutting due south after crossing the Rio Grande.

The lines east-west segment is at the heart of the controversy. The BLM approved right of way permits to cross federal lands there in 2015, but the process was bogged down for years by U.S. Department of Defense opposition to a 45-mile section that would transverse the northern extension area of White Sands Missile Range  a call-up zone where ranchers and others are often evacuated for testing exercises.

That conflict was resolved when SunZia developers agreed to bury five miles of line in the extension area.

But the project still needs state right-of-way approvals. It hit a major snag in September 2018, when the Public Regulation Commission rejected SunZias application for line-location permits, reflecting intense opposition from conservation groups, private landowners and Socorro County officials.

Conservationists were especially concerned by BLM approval to cross the Rio Grande at Escondida, just north of Socorro, which the BLM chose as the shortest crossing point.

The line would run through a narrow passage between two refuges  Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge to the north and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to the south. In addition, the Ladd S. Gordon Waterfowl Complex lies further north of Sevilleta near Bernardo.

SunZia developers regrouped after the PRC rejection to consider alternatives that could reduce opposition. As a result, in March, project leaders asked the BLM to amend the federal right of way for the east-west segment, reopening the BLMs National Environmental Protection Act, or NEPA, process to consider moving that whole section of line further north outside White Sands northern extension zone and beyond both Sevilleta and Ladd S. Gordon to cross the river near Bosque, south of Belen.

The exact route wont become clear until the new NEPA process begins in a few months. But SunZia says it would generally parallel the east-west route being pursued by the Western Spirit Transmission Line, a separate project that would carry about 800 MW of wind energy from the Corona area westward to California.

Parallel project

Private company Pattern Development is building the Western Spirit project in partnership with the states Renewable Energy Transmission Authority, a quasi-governmental entity the Legislature created in 2007 to help finance and build transmission systems to tap into central and eastern New Mexicos vast wind generation potential. RETA owns the rights to Western Spirit, although Public Service Company of New Mexico will acquire the line once its built.

Pattern is developing a huge complex of wind farms near Corona that could generate 3 GW or more of wind energy for transport over both Western Spirit and SunZia.

Unlike SunZia, however, Western Spirit is basically a done deal, with all federal and state permits in hand and plans to begin construction this fall, said Johnny Casana, Patterns senior manager for U.S. political and regulatory affairs.

The project is on track, Casana told the Journal. Were months away from breaking ground, and were not anticipating anything that would derail our timeline to begin commercial operations in 2021.

Only a handful of agreements with private landowners must still be negotiated, said RETA Executive Director Fernando Martinez.

We have agreements in place for right of ways on more than 400 of the 433 land parcels along the Western Spirit route, Martinez said.

Coming to the table

SunZias potential re-alignment closer to Western Spirit could dissipate some opposition. The Socorro County Commission, for example, voted 3-2 on May 12 to retract a previous, unanimous vote last year to oppose SunZia.

The developers have also reached out to conservation groups and others to discuss issues, including a meeting in February in Santa Fe hosted by the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, and an online conversation in May.

Were engaging with environmental groups, said SunZia New Mexico Executive Director John Ryan. We have much better outreach with them now, and the dialogue has been good.

Conservation groups say SunZias outreach is an improvement from years past, when few, if any, direct conversations took place. But SunZias proposal to move the transmission line further north wont resolve their concerns about impacts along the Rio Grande, nor opposition by many landowners to massive towers that could reach 175 feet, said Friends of the Bosque Treasurer Mary Ruff.

Thats equivalent to an 18-story building, Ruff said. And SunZia is planning to build two transmission lines that will run parallel to each other, with about 1,000 feet between towers on each line.

Each high-voltage line could carry 1,500 MW of AC, or alternating current, with an option for one of them to carry 3,000 MW of DC, or direct current. That would potentially offer 4.5 GW of transmission capacity, although SunZia has not yet decided if it will exercise the 3,000 MW DC option, Ryan said.

Flight path key

The big issue is SunZias river crossing, which will directly impact migrating birds no matter where its located in the mid-Rio Grande region, said Cecilia Rosacker of the Agricultural Land Trust.

Weve partnered with numerous land conservation groups, local agencies and landowners to protect the entire central Rio Grande, Rosacker said. Weve invested $10 million in grants and matching funds in recent years to develop conservation easements in four different counties, including Sandoval, Bernalillo, Valencia and Socorro.

Wintering migratory birds travel up and down the entire area, including sandhill cranes, geese, ducks and raptors. Many will inevitably fly into SunZia lines, potentially converting the river crossings into a snare that could regularly kill and maim birds, said Friends of the Bosque Executive Director Deb Caldwell.

These are historic roosts for the birds, Caldwell said. The cranes fly 30 miles or more a day throughout the area. They feed at Ladd S. Gordon at Bernardo or at Bosque del Apache, and they fly back and forth.

SunZia has considered various mitigation measures for the overhead lines, such as placing night and day reflective diverters on lines to scare birds away and creating new foraging zones away from transmission infrastructure.

Diverters may help, but birds will still be killed and they wont change their feeding, nesting and roosting patterns, Caldwell said.

You cant just change ingrained patterns of bird behavior, Caldwell said. Theyve been migrating through these areas for hundreds of years. They wont just move away from the towers by building a new corn field for them.

Hopes to bury

The conservation groups say burying the transmission lines underground at river crossings is the only effective way to mitigate the danger to migratory birds.

Thats an emerging strategy for large renewable projects in other states, such as Direct Connect Development Companys newly-proposed SOO Green Transmission Line, a $2.5 billion project to carry 2,100 MW of clean power through 350 miles of buried lines running from Mason City, Iowa, to Chicago.

SunZia resisted the underground option in the past, but its now open to analyzing the possibility through the NEPA process.

That will be up to the BLM, but were talking with (environmental groups) about all these issues, Ryan told the Journal in May.

Beyond burying the transmission lines, conservation groups are calling for development of a statewide strategy to manage transmission projects going forward as New Mexico works to convert the grid to carbon-free generation. Thats critical, because a lot more electric infrastructure will be needed to transport clean power from remote rural zones to urban centers and communities.

RETA is working with many world class developers interested in implementing new projects in New Mexico, Martinez said. There are more projects coming down the pike beyond SunZia and Western Spirit.

Study forthcoming

RETA received a state appropriation in 2019 to conduct a comprehensive New Mexico transmission study that will be released this month. Conservation groups hope it will propose new development strategies that embrace broad public input on projects, while also considering the full scope of impacts on New Mexico communities.

That includes economic losses for local communities that depend on tourism connected to migratory birds, said Sandra Noll of Protect Our Rio Grande.

New Mexico is ranked as the fifth most-visited state for birding, according to the research group Headwaters Economics, with some 200,000 annual visitors just at Bosque del Apache. Nearly 13% of jobs in Socorro County are related to birding tourism.

We need strategic models that consider the total costs of transmission development and that doesnt damage our economy, Noll said. We can be a leader in renewable energy, but we also need to lead in how to do it right without damaging things that make New Mexico special. It cant be an either/or proposition.
At a Smithfield Foods meat plant in South Dakota about a third of employees have not shown up to work.

That's according to the workers' union. A labor rep told Reuters the missing staff are either quarantined or too afraid to return after a severe outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

And it's not an isolated case - Tyson Foods was was forced to briefly shut its Storm Lake, Iowa plant in May as worker absences crippled its slaughter operations.

Absenteeism is running high at meat plants - even after President Donald Trump in late April signed an executive order to keep plants running.

But more than a dozen workers, union leaders and advocates told Reuters that many employees still fear getting sick.

And while worker absences vary by plant, and exact data is not available, some employees' unwillingness to return poses a challenge to an industry still struggling to get back to normal levels.

Inside these facilities, hundreds and sometimes thousands of staff work shoulder-to-shoulder to get meat ready for American supermarkets.

Daily pork production was down by as much as 45% in late April when about 20 factories closed due to outbreaks.

With plants now reopening in response to Trump's order - production has rebounded but remains down from before the pandemic, leading to higher prices at the store.

In May - outbreaks tightened supplies and contributed to a roughly 40% surge in prices.
Gov. John Bel Edwards on June 12 vetoed eight bills passed by Louisiana lawmakers in their recently ended regular session, including the business lobbys top priority, a measure to scale back damage claims against insurance companies in car accident lawsuits.

In rejecting the sweeping changes to Louisianas civil litigation system, the Democratic governor said the bill by Republican Sen. Kirk Talbot of River Ridge didnt contain a commitment that it would lower insurance rates as its supporters promised.

It is important to note that not a single insurance company testified in committee that (the bill) would actually reduce rates, Edwards wrote in his veto message, released Friday evening. Further, the rate reduction provision in the bill is permissive, rather than mandatory, and actually allows for rate increases if the insurers are able to demonstrate one would be needed.

GOP lawmakers are trying to pass a similar measure in the Legislatures ongoing special session, and Edwards said hes willing to continue negotiations.

I remain willing to work with anyone operating in good faith to reach a compromise, Edwards wrote.

Edwards also scrapped bills that would have given lawmakers more oversight of state contracts and would have enacted new restrictions on TV, radio and billboard ads from lawyers promising big paydays by suing businesses.

He jettisoned a measure that would have expanded an existing law barring entrance to any place deemed critical infrastructure, such as chemical plants, power plants, water treatment facilities, ports and pipelines. The bill by Republican Rep. Jerome Zee Zeringue of Houma would have added floodgates and pump stations to that list  and would have toughened the penalties during states of emergency, requiring a mandatory minimum three-year prison sentence for anyone convicted.

At the Louisiana Capitol, the veto drawing the most interest involved the so-called tort reform bill changing the system for handling car wreck lawsuits, a measure championed by business groups.

The measure would have forced jury trials more frequently, so that lawyers would have to argue damage claims to more people than a single judge; capped certain damages that can be awarded; limited when insurance companies can be sued directly; and increased the time accident victims can file lawsuits to give more time for settlement negotiations. It also would have allowed information about whether someone was wearing a seatbelt as evidence in litigation.

Supporters of the measure said it will lower Louisianas car insurance rates, which are the nations second-highest, by making it less lucrative to sue over car accidents.

But in the flurry of final rewrites to the legislation amid negotiations with the Edwards administration, lawmakers added language that could cause even larger damage awards in some of those lawsuits. Republican lawmakers who backed the proposal urged Edwards to sign the bill and work with lawmakers on the language fix.

The governors veto of Sen. Talbots (bill), the bill to reduce frivolous lawsuits and insurance rates, was not unexpected, but make no mistake, leaving this special session without legislation signed into law to address the insurance crisis is not a feasible option. Everyone knows the insurance affordability and availability problem is very real, Stephen Waguespack, president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said in a statement.

Opponents of the package of civil litigation system changes, largely lawyers and Democrats, argued the measure would keep people from getting money needed to cover their medical bills and could increase costs for courts.

Bill backers worry that Edwards wont sign any version of the bill because his allies and campaign contributors include personal injury lawyers.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Auto Louisiana
In street protests, statements, sermons and webinars, US Muslims have rallied against racism and discussed reforms.

In the wake of George Floyds death in police custody, dozens of Muslim organisations in the United States have come together to call for reform to policing practices and to support Black-led organisations.

The victimization of unarmed Black Muslims has a long and troubling history, said a coalition statement signed by more than 90 civil rights, advocacy, community and faith organisations and released on Monday. As American Muslims, we will draw on our diversity, our strength, and our resilience to demand these reforms because Black lives matter.

Proposed changes include prohibiting racial profiling and manoeuvers that restrict the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain, such as chokeholds; making it legally easier for prosecutors to hold law enforcement accountable; and redirecting police funding into community health, education, employment and housing programs.

The statement also calls for the establishment of a federal standard that use of force be reserved as a last resort, only when absolutely necessary and after exhausting all reasonable options.

These demands are a floor for our groups and not a ceiling. Some would call for much more, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, one of the statements co-conveners.

Were also urging all American Muslims to call their members of Congress right now and to demand a stronger response from them.

Today, 95 America Muslim groups issued a joint statement affirming that #BlackLivesMatter and calling for concrete action to end anti-Black police violence: https://t.co/esLm1rFf4a  Muslim Advocates (@MuslimAdvocates) June 15, 2020

Like members of other faith groups, many Muslims in the US have joined in the outrage unleashed after Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck.

Groups from multiple denominations across faiths have publicly called for action against racism and aligned with the goals of peaceful demonstrators.

In street protests, statements, sermons and webinars, US Muslims have rallied against racism and discussed reforms.

Muslim American organizations are committed to advocating at all levels to put an end to excessive use of force which has led to the murders of countless Black Americans, said Iman Awad, legislative director of Emgage Action, one of the statements signatories. Our message is that we will continue to fight but most importantly uplift the work being done by our Black leaders.

Muslims in America are ethnically and racially diverse and Floyds death has also reinvigorated conversations about the treatment and representation of Black Muslims in their own faith communities.

Imam Suleiman Hamed, the leader of the Atlanta Masjid of Al Islam mosque, walks through the mosque, in Atlanta, Georgia. [File: Branden Camp/AP Photo]

Im hopeful and heartened by the number and diversity of groups that have signed on, said Kameelah Rashad, president of Muslim Wellness Foundation, also a co-convener. That says to me that theres at least recognition that we as a whole can no longer separate Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, surveillance, and violence. People are reconciling with the notion that means our struggles are intertwined.

Now, she said, is the time for action.

Its vital that non-Black Muslims develop a respect for the resilience and resistance of Black people.

The statement said: Black people are often marginalized within the broader Muslim community. And when they fall victim to police violence, non-Black Muslims are too often silent, which leads to complicity.





Moving forward, American Muslim communities must make space for Black-led organisations, Awad said.

Also, we must commit to having leadership positions which reflect the diversity of our faith community, she said. We cannot be successful until we have all voices represented at all levels within our organizational structures and our communities must do better.

The statement said the demands represent only a down payment on needed reforms.

If this deep-seated discrimination cannot be done away with through reform, then these systems will need to be abolished and re-imagined entirely, the statement said.
People rest in front of the famous Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of nations) fountain in the All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VDNKh), a trade show and amusement park in Moscow, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus. (Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP)

He contrasted the situations in the two countries, saying in Russia, "We are exiting the coronavirus situation steadily with minimal losses, God willing, in the States it isn't happening that way."

Russia on Sunday confirmed 8,835 new virus cases, taking the total to 528,964, the third highest in the world.

Regions are gradually lifting lockdown restrictions and Moscow has reopened non-essential shops and hairdressers.

The United States has the world's largest number of cases by far at 2.07 million.

Putin told state television the coronavirus pandemic had exposed "deep-seated internal crises" in the US.

He criticised a lack of strong leadership on the virus situation, saying that "the (US) president says we need to do such-and-such but the governors somewhere tell him where to go."

"I think the problem is that group interests, party interests are put higher than the interests of the whole of society and the interests of the people," he said.

QUESTIONS OVER UNDER-REPORTING DEATHS

In Russia, however, he argued, the government and regional leaders work "as one team" and do not differ from the official line.

"I doubt anyone in the government or the regions would say 'we're not going to do what the government says, what the president says, we think it's wrong,'" Putin said of the virus strategy.

When the northern Caucasus region of Dagestan suffered particularly hard from the virus, "the whole country rallied to help", he said.

Russia has so far reported 6,948 COVID-19 fatalities, a fraction of the US total of 115,436 deaths, although critics have suggested that the remarkably low number could be down to under-reporting.

Russia has now begun giving fuller information on deaths, including cases where coronavirus appeared to be the cause but was not detected by tests, as well as cases where the virus was confirmed but not considered the main cause of death.

Using this new method, Russia on Saturday published official figures for virus deaths in April of 2,712, more than twice the figure of 1,152 previously reported by the task force.

This represents a death rate of 2.6 percent among those infected, while officials said the death rate for May and early June would be higher.

INEQUALITY A 'LONG-STANDING' US PROBLEM

Putin also criticised anti-racism protests in the United States for sparking crowd violence, in his first comments on the issue.

"If this fight for natural rights, legal rights, turns into mayhem and rioting, I see nothing good for the country," the Russian leader said in his televised broadcast.

He stressed he supported black Americans' struggle for equality, calling this "a longstanding problem of the United States".

"We always in the USSR and in modern Russia had a lot of sympathy for the struggle of African-Americans for their natural rights," he insisted.

But Putin added that "when - even after crimes are committed - this takes on elements of radical nationalism and extremism, nothing good will come of this."

Putin also described the protests as a sign of "deep-seated internal crises" in the United States, linking the unrest to the coronavirus pandemic, which he said "has shone a spotlight on general problems".

He said he nevertheless expected that the "fundamental basis of American democracy will allow the country to escape this series of crisis events".

The interview was billed as Putin's first since the start of the pandemic, but it is not clear when it was recorded.
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI), a leading renewable energy producer in North America, today announced the financial closing of the Sigurd Solar project, securing both construction debt and tax equity financing. Sigurd Solar is an 80-megawatt solar facility located just outside the town of Sigurd in Sevier County, Utah.

"The COVID-19 crisis made this a particularly challenging environment to close an acquisition, financing, and tax equity investment," said David Zwillinger, CEO of DESRI. "We are grateful for the ongoing support of our partners at HSBC, Societe Generale, City National Bank, and M&T, who worked tirelessly to close this transaction in spite of unprecedented headwinds. DESRI is pleased to start construction on its fourth utility-scale solar project in Utah and bring high quality jobs to Sevier County."

The project commenced construction in late 2019, and is expected to both employ over 300 people and create significant tax revenue for Sevier County over the project life.

"We look forward to having DESRI in our county," said Commissioner Garth Ogden of Sevier County, "and working with them to establish the renewable energy industry in Sevier County."

DESRI acquired the project in early 2020 from an affiliate of Oakwood Construction Services, which DESRI has also retained to provide engineering, procurement, and construction services. The project is expected to reach commercial operation in the first half of 2021, and will sell energy to PacifiCorp through a 25-year power purchase agreement and support Facebook's operations in the area with new solar power.

The facility is expected to generate enough clean energy to power approximately 18,500 homes each year, according to metrics provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, SOLV, Inc. will provide ongoing operations and maintenance services to the facility.

A syndicate of lenders including HSBC, Societe Generale, and City National Bank are providing construction and term loan financing, alongside a commitment for tax equity financing from M&T.

"HSBC was delighted to lead the financing for the Sigurd solar project, which closed during a particularly challenging market backdrop", said James Wright, Managing Director of HSBC Bank USA. "HSBC is committed to sustainable financing, and we are focusing on deals that increase investment in clean energy while also supporting the post-COVID global economic recovery."



"Clean energy is an integral part of our investment banking platform here at SG," said Eric Kim, Director of SG Americas Securities. "As such, we are grateful to have been given an opportunity to both finance the Sigurd Solar project and to support DESRI, a premier developer in the renewables market."

"City National Bank is committed to supporting an environmentally sustainable future," said Craig Robb, Managing Director, Power Project Finance, at City National Bank. "We are pleased to be involved with the financing of the Sigurd Solar project and working with the DESRI team through the development and eventual operation of this facility."

"We are thrilled to partner again with DESRI on the Sigurd project. Sigurd reflects M&T's continued commitment to the renewable energy sector and a clean energy future," said Eric Heintz, Director of Energy Finance at M&T. "It is a privilege to work with a dedicated, thoughtful, and experienced sponsor team such as DESRI."

About D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments

D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) and its affiliates acquire, own, and manage long-term contracted renewable energy assets in North America. DESRI's portfolio of renewable energy projects currently includes 42 wind and solar projects that represent more than 2,400 MW of aggregate capacity. DESRI is a member of the D. E. Shaw group, a global investment and technology development firm with more than $50 billion in investment and committed capital as of April 1, 2020, and offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Please visit www.deshaw.com for more information about the D. E. Shaw group.

This press release is provided for the reader's information only and does not constitute investment advice or convey an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities or other financial products.

Please also note that this press release has not been updated since its dateline for any information contained in it that may have changed, including any beliefs and/or opinions. In addition, no assurances can be given that any aims, assumptions, expectations, and/or goals described in this release will be realized or that the activities or any performance described herein did or will continue at all or in the same manner as at the time of the press release.

Contact: The D. E. Shaw group

(212) 403-8119

[email protected]

SOURCE D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments

Related Links

http://www.deshaw.com


Actor Koena Mitra, in a statement slamming producer Karan Johar, has said that his opinion cant define whether a person is successful or not. She was referring to the criticism Karan has drawn for his comments on actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death, where hed admitted to not being there for the actor, who died by suicide on Sunday after a battle with depression.

Karan Johar does not have the license of this industry, she told The Times of India. It is shown as if he presents or rejects something then it is the ultimate thing. But no, the industry is an ocean and we are tiny little drops in it. He is also a drop in it. No one can decide who works and who should be rejected.

Koena said that she was dejected when she read about how Sushant was treated by the industry. Sushant was such a bright guy, good looking actor and he succeeded with good films. Despite that I read a statement that he was treated like an outsider, not invited at parties and weddings, she said.

Also Watch | Sushant Singh Rajput funeral: Kriti Sanon, Shraddha Kapoor, others attend

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs fault is that he believed those who called him worthless, says Kangana Ranaut in passionate video

Sushant had previously said that it is important for people to appreciate his work, because he does not have a godfather in the industry to rely upon. In his social media note, Karan, whod worked with Sushant in the recent Netflix film Drive, had written, I blame myself for not being in touch with you for the past year..... I have felt at times like you may have needed people to share your life with...but somehow I never followed up on that feeling...will never make that mistake again...we live in very energetic and noisy but still very isolated times ...some of us succumb to these silences and go within...we need to not just make relationships but also constantly nurture them He has been accused by many on social media of having mocked Sushant on his chat show, Koffee with Karan.

Koena continued, A lot of people have experienced this, he is not the first one. The film industry will not treat you like family till the time your family doesnt belong to the industry or if you are not a camp follower. Its pretty sad. Hes not the first one and there are many such Sushants in our industry. I would never call him a coward, no one knows what he was going through. No one has the right to call him weak, quitter and that he couldnt handle it. Maybe he was very angry and knew that it was of no help of showing his anger.

Further calling out Bollywood hypocrisy, Koena added, Those writing essays mourning his death used to mock him because he was a TV star. There is a discrimination we have in our industry. If you are from the fashion industry, models cant do anything, if you are from the TV industry, they say you dont have a standard, are not of the same category. Imagine the kind of rejection, discrimination John Abraham, Sushmita, Priyanka had to face. I am happy to see them do so well now. A couple of years back a lot of people were behind Priyanka Chopra, trying to finish her. But she was smart enough, she moved out of this mess and has started doing so well.

Also read: Bollywood is not a family: Gulshan Devaiah reacts to industry turning its back on Sushant Singh Rajput

Sushants last rites were performed at the Vile Parle crematorium on Monday. The actor was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

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Shelley Davies waits for her delivery at Plants and Friends./Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate

LATEST, June 15, 7:00 p.m. San Mateo County health officer Dr. Scott Morrow believes his county can completely avoid a second wave of coronavirus infections if individuals wear face coverings in public and try to keep six feet of distance when engaging with individuals outside of their households.

In a letter to the community published Monday night, Morrow notes that internal modeling projects the county could see a second wave of infections in August, but Morrow believes those projections do not have to become a reality.

"You all are now the most important variable in how our future will develop," he writes. "Follow the key behaviors well, including extensive use of facial coverings, and that will bode well for all of us. Dont, and our future will be dim. As to a second wave in August, the existence of such a wave and its severity is entirely up to you. I believe we can completely avoid a second wave if everyone does their part."

Morrow also provided additional information on school reopenings, his county's plans to attain a regional variance from the state and additional recommended behaviors.

Click here to read the full note.

June 15 5 p.m. Here's a rundown of new coronavirus cases and deaths in Bay Area counties. These details will be updated as more information becomes available.

San Francisco reported 24 new cases and one new death Monday morning, bringing its death toll 46 to and case total to 2,952.

San Mateo announced 41 new cases, bringing its case total to 2,594. The death toll remains 99.

Alameda reported 53 new cases to increase its total to 4,373. The death toll remains 112.

Contra Costa reported 24 new cases to increase its total to 1,983. The death toll remains 44.

Marin reported 11 new cases to increase its total to 725. The death toll remains 17.

Napa reported seven new cases to increase its total to 190. The death toll remains three.

Santa Clara reported 34 new cases to increase its total to 3,230. The death toll remains 151.

Solano reported 28 new cases to increase its total to 685. The death toll remains 23.

June 15, 4:10 p.m. Three additional Bay Area 24 Hour Fitness locations will close permanently after the company filed for bankruptcy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Gym locations in Morgan Hill, Vallejo and Fairfield's Solano Mall are now listed along with the original 10 Bay Area locations slated to close.

Nationally, 100 locations are closing, leaving 300 in operation.

June 15, 2:45 p.m. While the number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday that the state's positivity rate is currently 4.5%, and well under the 8% threshold when the spread of the virus becomes worrisome.

About a week ago, following George Floyd protests, the rate was a little higher at 4.6%.

Click here to read more.

June 15, 1:30 p.m. The city of Berkeley is preparing to reopen indoor retail, outdoor dining, religious services and outdoor fitness classes on Friday.

Berkeley has its own health jurisdiction but appears poised to soften its shelter-in-place order to bring the city in line with the rest of Alameda County, which will also relax restrictions Friday.

Increased activities means that there will be increased spread of the virus, and we will continue to see more cases and potentially deaths, said city health officer Dr. Lisa B. Hernandez. Every person and every organization must take steps to limit the spread of COVID-19 inside their homes, workplaces and when outside those sites as well.

June 15, noon San Francisco moved into a new phase of reopening Monday with several additional sectors of the economy given the green light to resume.

Here's a look at what can open today with safety protocols in place:

--Indoor retail (malls require approved plans)

--All manufacturing, warehouse and logistics with no limit on the number of on-site personnel subject to social distancing

--Non-emergency medical appointments

--All private indoor household services like cooks and house cleaners

--Offices (anyone who can telework must continue to do so except as needed on-site for operations)

--Summer camps with stable groups of up to 12

Small outdoor gatherings (up to 12 people), including religious services and ceremonies

Outdoor fitness with social distancing

Professional sports and other entertainment for broadcast but with no in-person spectators, under approved plans

Outdoor dining opened in the city on Friday.

For more details on modifications to the order and what's open in San Francisco, go to SF.gov.

S.F. Mayor London Breed reminded residents that amid the new openings, it's important to follow safety protocols.

"Our success depends on each person doing their part and taking precautions," Breed tweeted. "It's on us to support local and small businesses that have been significantly impacted. But as we do, let's all be mindful and follow public health recommendations to stay safe and healthy."

June 15, 10:30 a.m. Important news if you own a car: Parking enforcement for street cleaning resumes today in San Francisco.

Those cars parked on a block during a time designated for street sweeping may be fined $79.

June 15, 7:15 a.m. With retail opening for indoor shopping in San Francisco Monday, shopping malls in the city are welcoming back customers.

Downtown on Market and Fifth streets, Westfield San Francisco Centre is reopening with hand-sanitizing stations and new hours, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Shoppers are required to wear masks in the mall and when entering stores. The number of people allowed into the mall and shops will be limited to ensure physical distancing.

Stonestown Mall is also opening with similar safety protocol in place. The Japan Center Malls remain closed.

June 15, 6:55 a.m. Safari West, a 400-acre private wildlife preserve and breeding facility 12 miles north of Santa Rosa in unincorporated Sonoma County, is set to reopen to the public June 20, having been shut down since the county's first shelter-in-place order of March 17.

The preserve, which first opened to the public in 1993, will make concessions to the COVID-19 coronavirus, including requiring social distancing, installing plastic or Plexiglass dividers and guards as appropriate and adopting enhanced cleaning procedures.

Along with the regular tours of the property using the safari trucks, there are safari truck charters and other special activities, including summer camps. Reservations are needed for all visitors.

The coronavirus isn't the first outside force that has closed Safari West. Most recently, the Tubbs Fire, which threatened the entire preserve in 2017. The fire burned some vegetation on the preserve as well as some equipment, but no animals or humans were harmed.

June 15, 6:30 a.m. The San Jose Public Library is announcing its new contactless service that allows library members to place requests and borrow physical items from the library's catalog.

The library's last day of operations was on March 16 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, members have not had access to physical items from the library.

The launch for the new Express Pickup service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at the Edenvale Branch Library.

To ensure the well-being of library staff and customers, this will be an outdoor service that requires the practice of social distancing. In addition, all library materials will be quarantined for three days before released to the public.

SJPL Express Pickup will be available Monday-Saturday from 1-6 p.m. at several library locations. For more information, people can visit sjpl.org/ExpressPickup.

Bay City News contributed to this story.

Coronavirus in the greater Bay Area: A county-by-county snapshot

ALAMEDA COUNTY: 4,373 confirmed cases, 112 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail and manufacturing

For more information on Alameda County, visit the public health department website.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY: 1,983 confirmed cases, 44 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail and manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, outdoor dining, swimming pools, outdoor religious services.

For more information on Contra Costa County, visit the public health department website.

LAKE COUNTY: 32 confirmed cases

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls and schools

For information on Lake County, visit the public health department website.

MARIN COUNTY: 725 confirmed cases, 17 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail and manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, outdoor dining, outdoor religious services.

Fore more information on Marin County, visit the public health department website.

MONTEREY COUNTY: 995 confirmed cases, 12 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls and schools

For more information on Monterey County, visit the public health department website.

NAPA COUNTY: 190 cases, 3 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls, schools and hair salons

For more information on Napa County, visit the public health department website.

SAN BENITO COUNTY: 125 confirmed cases, 2 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls and schools

For more information on San Benito County, visit the public health department website.

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY: 2,952 confirmed cases, 46 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail and manufacturing, outdoor dining

For more information on San Francisco County, visit the public health department website.

SAN MATEO COUNTY: 2,594 confirmed cases, 99 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail and manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, outdoor dining, swimming pools, outdoor religious services.

For more information on San Mateo County, visit the public health department website.

SANTA CLARA COUNTY: 3,230 confirmed cases, 151 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities; retail and manufacturing, pet grooming, outdoor dining

Fore more information on Santa Clara County, visit the public health department website.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY: 257 confirmed cases, 2 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls and schools

For more information on Santa Cruz County, visit the public health department website.

SOLANO COUNTY: 685 confirmed cases, 23 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: All "low-risk" businesses that can comply with physical distancing guidelines; received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls, schools, and hair salons

For more information on Solano County, visit the public health department website.

SONOMA COUNTY: 758 confirmed cases, 4 deaths

What's open beyond essential businesses: Outdoor businesses and activities, retail, manufacturing, car washes, pet groomers, outdoor museums, offices where telework is not possible, received state approval to open dine-in restaurants, shopping malls, schools, and hair salons.

For more information on Sonoma County, visit the public health department website.



CORONAVIRUS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Here are answers to your most frequently asked questions about coronavirus

Here are all the San Francisco restaurants reopening outdoor patio seating

Sweden's 'herd immunity' experiment backfires

How long will it take to gauge the impact of George Floyd protests on coronavirus spread?

WHEN WILL THE BAY AREA REOPEN?

What's open and closed in California?

These California counties reopened a month ago. Here's what happened.

Newsom details 4 stages to reopen California businesses
NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure has launched Vidyasaarathi Career Tests to help students across age groups choose the career best suited for their future.

There are three different career tests which are hosted on NSDL e-Governances Vidyasaarathi portal  Aptitude Test, Personality Test, and Interest Test. The online tests are designed in a way to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the individual and then provide them with insights that will help them make a suitable career choice. To provide more detailed and reliable insights, the age groups for these tests have been categorized into three groups  6-11 years, 12-17 years and 18 years & above.

NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd.s MD and CEO, Mr. Gagan Rai said, We have developed the three tests keeping in mind the needs of our students. The initiative is to help students find their interests and aptitude, match it to their personality type and help them choose a career path of their choice. COVID-19 has extensively impacted the student community and these tests will address a lot of doubts that the students have with respect to their career decisions in these uncertain times.

Aptitude test measures the aptitude or talent of an individual to identify the job befitting their skillset. This test is popular in the student and counselling community as it helps a student in identifying their objective skills and sets the first filter in the pool of career opportunities.

Personality test is a popular yet unique assessment as it evaluates the needs and wants of the applicant from the surroundings to map the personality into four temperaments  Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals.

Interest test will ask students to rank various activities as per their rate of interest and identify them as realists, thinkers, creators, helpers, persuaders and organizers.

The tests are designed with simplicity for easy comprehension. Each test will cost Rs. 299 to applicants and will help in narrowing down fields by identifying vital traits that an applicant possesses.
ISLAMABAD __ Pakistans upward spiral of new virus infections neared 145,000 Monday amid warnings from political leaders that the numbers could double by the end of June and were likely to hit a stunning 1.2 million by the end of July if Pakistans 220 million people continue to flout basic precautions like mask wearing.

Planning and Development Minister Asad Umer, who also heads the governments COVID-19 command center, warned that the virus will rampage through Pakistan unless there is a change in our attitude toward the virus, that ends the relentless refusal of most in Pakistan to social distance and wear masks in public.

Still he defended Pakistans easing on lockdown restrictions saying the countrys economy would collapse under the burden of a total shutdown. Pakistan has stepped back on some easing of restrictions, closing markets on the weekend and extending closures of large wedding halls, restaurants, gymnasiums and large gatherings.

Pakistans doctors have pleaded for stricter lock downs saying the struggling health care system is already straining under the escalating numbers of infections. On Monday. Pakistan reached 2,729 deaths since mid March..

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HERES WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

 Russias low virus death toll still raises questions in West.

 China, Korea, Egypt report rise in virus cases as curbs ease.

 Europe opens its borders to Europeans, but not Americans, Asians.

 Thai entrepreneur connects Michelin bistros to those in need.

 Bars are being allowed to reopen in party-loving New Orleans after a long shutdown prompted by coronavirus fears.

 Workers who agreed to live at a Georgia nursing home to keep residents safe from the coronavirus are back with loved ones.

 Major League Baseball appears headed to its shortest season since the 1870s.

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Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

___

HERES WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING TODAY:

Story continues

HONG KONG  Hong Kong Disneyland will re-open June 18, as the city looks to gradually restart its economy amid a dwindling of coronavirus infections.

Hong Kong Disneyland, which has been closed since January due to the coronavirus pandemic, will reopen with limited visitor capacity. It will also introduce social distancing measures in restaurants, rides and other facilities, while suspending activities that require close interaction such as photo sessions with Disney characters, the park said in a press release Monday.

Visitors to the park will also be asked to wear masks, as well as fill out health declaration forms and have their temperature taken upon arrival.

It is the second Disney-branded theme park to re-open globally, following Shanghai Disneyland which opened its doors to guests last month.

Hong Kongs social distancing measures, which prohibits gatherings of more than eight individuals and limits the capacity of restaurants and eateries, are currently in place until June 18. The city has reported 1,110 cases of coronavirus infections so far, with four deaths.

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BEIJING  China has reported 49 new confirmed coronavirus cases as the capital Beijing re-instituted measures to contain a new outbreak.

Of the new cases, 36 were reported Monday in Beijing, traced to a wholesale market that supplies much of the citys meat and vegetables.

Ten of the other cases were brought from outside the country and three were found in Hebei province just outside Beijing. The National Health Commission reported 177 people in treatment for COVID-19, while 115 were in isolation and under monitoring for showing signs of the illness or having tested positive without giving off symptoms.

China has reported a total of 4,634 deaths from the virus among 83,181 confirmed cases.

Beijing has closed the Xinfadi market, ordered testing of all its workers and is requiring anyone who traveled there to self-isolate for two weeks.

The new cases reported over the weekend mark Chinas highest daily total of coronavirus cases in two months, prompting Beijing to suspend the restart of some classes and reverse the relaxation of some social isolation measures.

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ACCRA, Ghana  Ghanas president has announced that Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has contracted COVID-19 and is undergoing treatment at a hospital.

In a state broadcast Sunday night, President Nana Akufo-Addo said the health minister had contracted the virus in his line of duty leading the West African nations fight against COVID-19.

Ghana has one of highest number of confirmed cases in Africa because of its robust testing, with more than 11,400 cases. Health authorities have reported 51 deaths.

News of the health ministers illness further fueled worries as Ghanas universities prepared to reopen Monday so students in their final year of study can take exams.

If the health minister is contracting the disease, what is the guarantee that my son will be safe? said Peter Owusu, who son studies at the University of Cape Coast.

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NEW YORK -- Upset by rampant violations of New Yorks pandemic-fighting restrictions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is threatening to reinstate closings in areas where local governments fail to enforce the rules.

Manhattan and Long Islands tony Hamptons were singled out Sunday as problem areas by Cuomo, who cited 25,000 complaints statewide of reopening violations. The large gatherings, social-distancing violations and lax face-covering enforcement endanger the states fragile progress in the fight against the coronavirus, Cuomo said, adding that many complaints involve bars and restaurants.

We are not kidding around with this. Youre talking about jeopardizing peoples lives, Cuomo said at his daily briefing.

The warning comes a day after the Democractic governor reacted sternly to a short Twitter video from New York City of young people enjoying a warm day packed tightly on a city street, many without masks.

New York officials are trying to avoid the fate of states seeing a surge in new cases after reopening. New Yorks coronavirus-related hospitalizations are declining and the state recorded 23 deaths Saturday, the lowest one-day coronavirus death toll since the early days of the crisis.

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MOSCOW  Russian President Vladimir Putin says the country is emerging from the coronavirus crisis, but that the United States is struggling because it has a fragmented government system.

In an interview on state television Sunday, parts of which were reported before broadcast by news media, Putin said we are working quite steadily and getting out of this situation with the coronavirus confidently, with minimal losses.

In the U.S., this is not happening, he said, noting the central and regional governments work more closely in Russia. I doubt that someone somewhere in the government or in the regions suddenly said: We will not do what the government says or the president says. We consider this inappropriate, Putin said.

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LIMA, Peru  Archbishop Carlos Castillo on Sunday looked out over a cathedral full of faces  none of them now alive.

The cleric had his church filled with more than 5,000 portraits of those who have died in the pandemic that is burning across Peru and South America as a whole, using his broadcast homily to criticize a health system he said is based on egotism and on business and not on mercy and solidarity with the people.

COVID-19 has taken at least 6,400 lives in the nation of some 32 million people  a toll second only to that of Brazil within South America.

Hundred of them have died without receiving help from the health system, and many families have faced financial ruin due to the cost of trying to care for the ill. The nation as a whole faces a projected economic contraction of 12% this year, and Castillo called for solidarity with the poor.

An even harder moment is coming, he said. It would be terrible if in the times to come we have thousands of these photos  but dead of hunger.

Church workers spent days filling the pews with images of coronavirus victims, and when the 84 pews were filled, the archbishop ordered thousands of photos more attached to the base of the columns that rise to the arched ceiling.

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PARIS  President Emmanuel Macron announced that France is fully reopening its economy, including all restaurants, to accelerate the countrys recovery after virus crisis.

Macron said restaurants in the Paris region will be allowed to open indoor seating starting on Monday. Until then, only outdoor seating was permitted.

Restaurants in other French regions have already reopened.

From June 22, all nursery schools, primary schools and junior high schools will be open and mandatory for all students  instead of classes capped to small groups and many children staying at home.

Macron also confirmed that the second round of local elections that have been interrupted by the virus lockdown will take place on June 28.

We must relaunch our economy, Macron said.

France is reopening its borders with other European countries at midnight and will start allowing visitors from other continents on July 1st.

The country, which has reported at least 29,398 deaths from the virus in hospitals and nursing homes, has been under strict lockdown from March 17 to May 11, before gradually easing restrictions.

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LONDON  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered a review of the governments two-meter (6.5-feet) social distancing rule, saying the falling number of coronavirus cases gives the government more margin for manoeuvre in easing the guideline.

Johnson said that probably fewer than one in 1,000 people now have the virus, and the chance of coming in contact with someone whos infected are increasingly remote.

Treasury chief Rishi Sunak said that officials will be drawing on advice on the issue from economists as well as the governments scientific and medical advisers.

Conservative lawmakers and businesses have been putting increasing pressure on the government to ease the two-metre rule, arguing that it will make it extremely difficult for many pubs and restaurants to operate.

They say that the government in the U.K. can follow other countries and ask people to socially distance at one meter or 1.5 meters.

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MILAN  Italy added 44 deaths from coronavirus on Sunday, with nearly half of those in hardest-hit Lombardy.

While most Italian regions counted fewer than 10 new confirmed cases in the last 24 hours, with eight regions at zero, Lombardys count remained stuck in the triple digits, numbering 244, according to the civil protection agency.

The next highest number was in neighboring Piedmont, at 30. As of Sunday, more than a month after a gradual easing of lockdown started and nearly two weeks since regional borders opened, the number of people currently positive for the virus is 26,274 -- with 3,800 being treated in the hospital.

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ATHENS, Greece  Greece has announced zero new fatalities for the fifth consecutive day, the longest such run since mid-March.

Thus, fatalities remain at 183, while nine new confirmed cases over the past 24 hours have pushed the total to 3,121.

Thirteen patients remain hooked up to ventilators, while 116 have exited intensive care units, authorities said Sunday.

On Monday, Greece is opening a second airport to international traffic, in Thessaloniki, the countrys second-largest city, part of an attempt to ease into the tourist season. Depending on the country of origin, arriving passengers will either be tested at random or will follow the existing protocol, which mandates that all aboard an arriving flight be tested.

Flights will be allowed only from European Union countries, at least until June 30. But while routes from France, Italy and the Netherlands to Athens will resume Monday, the ban remains in Thessaloniki.

Also, land travel with Bulgaria, the only neighboring country that is also an EU member, will be permitted from Monday.

Greeces museums reopen Monday, after a three-month shutdown. Masks, social distancing and limits to groups will be enforced.

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ANKARA, Turkey  Turkey is moving away from the target, the countrys health minister warned Sunday as the daily number of new coronavirus cases rose above 1,500 following the relaxation of restrictions.

Fahrettin Koca tweeted that 1,562 new cases were recorded over the previous 24 hours, the highest daily figure since June 3.

Reporting 1,330 recoveries, he said: Our number of recovered patients fell below the number of new cases. The need for intensive care and respiratory equipment is rising.

Koca also reported 15 deaths due to coronavirus, taking the total since the first case on March 11 to 4,807. Turkey has recorded a total of 178,239 coronavirus cases.

At the start of June, the government authorized cafes, restaurants, gyms, parks, beaches and museums to reopen and eased stay-at-home orders for the elderly and young.

A weekend curfew that was due to be implemented last week was canceled, ending the series of part-time lockdowns in place since April.

Koca called for people to switch to a period of controlled social life from Monday to halt the rise in cases.

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CAIRO  Egypt says it will resume international flights starting July 1 with countries that will open its airports.

Minister of Civil Aviation Mohammed Manar told a news conference on Sunday that all of the countrys airports will be reopened allowing travelers around the world to return to parts of the country less hard-hit by the coronavirus.

Antiquities and Tourism Minister Khaled el-Anany also says the government will open three provinces to tourists starting July 1.

Those include the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, home to the major resort and beach destination of Sharm el Sheikh, the Red Sea resort areas of Hurghada and Marsa Alam, as well as Marsa Matrouh, on the Mediterranean coast.

The government hopes to draw tourists to popular yet remote attractions that have been spared the ravages of the virus.

The decision comes even as the pandemic surges in the Arab worlds most populous country, which has at least 1,484 deaths among 42,980 confirmed cases.

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PARIS  France is opening its borders with other European countries at midnight for the first time since shutting them amid virus fears three months ago, and will start opening up to visitors from other continents July 1.

Its among several European countries opening borders first thing Monday  though its not clear how many Europeans are ready to travel again.

The French government has urged fellow EU members to coordinate their border rules, and is sticking to calendar recommendations from the European Commission last week.

Given the favorable evolution of the health situation in France and in Europe, the French government said in a statement its opening its borders to all arrivals from the EU and countries in the border-free Schengen zone Monday.

People arriving from inside Europe wont need to undergo quarantine. But France will apply different rules to visitors from Spain and Britain because those countries established different reopening schedules.

France will gradually allow visitors from outside Europe starting July 1, based on the virus situation in countries of origin.

The French government promised to ease entry for foreign students in particular ahead of the new academic year.

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SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador  El Salvadors president says that a stringent quarantine imposed to fight COVID-19 has legally expired and a gradual reopening of the economy will begin Tuesday.

The Central American nations Supreme Court ruled that the strict measures decreed by President Nayib Bukele were unconstitutional and Bukele said Saturday night that he is going to veto the alternative restrictions passed Friday by the National Assembly.

As a result, he acknowledged, by law the regions most restrictive legal lockdown has ended, though he asked citizens to continue in quarantine voluntarily until Tuesday, when phased measures to reactivate economic life would begin.

Under Bukeles stay-at-home decrees, violators were sent to government-run containment centers for month-long stays. He had resisted loosening the orders, arguing that the countrys medical system could be quickly overwhelmed, resulting in much greater loss of life.

Health Minister Francisco Alabi said that the nations health system is already strained, with 90 of its 105 available intensive care beds already occupied. He said he expected to see an increase in COVID-19 cases with the end of restrictions.

The country of nearly 6.5 million people has reported 3,603 confirmed cases of the disease, with 72 deaths.
The Robinhood application is displayed in the App Store on an Apple Inc. iPhone in an arranged photograph taken in Washington, D.C.

Robinhood investors piled into equities at the perfect time to cash in on stocks' epic rally, according to Societe Generale.

The Wall Street firm sorted through data from Robintrack, a third party aggregate of Robinhood trading data, and found that the Silicon-Valley stock trading app's clients nailed the market bottom. Robinhood users total holdings increased in March, exactly when stocks bottomed and started their stunning trek upward.

"For all the mocking of Robinhood investors, their timing back into the market looks impeccable, with a significant pick-up in holdings as equity markets bottomed in mid-March," Societe General global quantitative research analyst Andrew Lapthorne told clients.

Retail investors have sometimes been derided as the so-called dumb money, chided for their lack of sophistication compared to Wall Street pros. Experienced investors have been bewildered by the behavior of retail investors in recent weeks as the newbies poured money into stocks most affected by the global pandemic, like airlines and cruise lines. In particular, criticism has increased surrounding those trading on millennial favored stock trading app Robinhood, where not only have the number of clients and trades ballooned, but where investors make "nonsensical trades," such as buying bankrupt companies and penny stocks like Hertz or J.C. Penney.
PHOENIX, Ariz. -- June 15, 2020 -- Could remnants of DNA from a now extinct human subspecies known as the Denisovans help boost the immune functions of modern humans?

An international study co-led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, and published in the scientific journal PLOS Genetics, represents the first characterizations of genes in the DNA of healthy individuals from geographically and genetically distinct populations in Indonesia.

Scientists studied genomic diversity among 116 individuals from three Indonesian populations: the Mentawai on the west coast of Sumatra; the Sumba in central Indonesia; and the Korowai, a group of hunter-gatherers from the western side of the isle of New Guinea.

The Korowai are of particular interest, as their DNA holds the world's last remaining significant remnants of genetic code -- as much as 5% -- from a cousin of modern humans called the Denisovans, the study says. Like the better-known Neanderthals of Europe, the Denisovans of Asia also are an extinct human subspecies who lived tens of thousands of years ago. And just as Neanderthals passed on certain immune properties to those of European ancestry, the Denisovans may have passed on protective immune genes to their southeast Asian decedents.

"Genome sequencing efforts have mainly focused on populations of European descent," said Dr. Heini Natri, a TGen postdoctoral fellow and one of the lead authors of the study. "Most of the world is deeply understudied. As we move further into the age of personalized and genomic medicine, understanding how genetics drives disease-risk across diverse populations is crucially important."

Why study Indonesia?

Spread across more than 17,000 islands between mainland Asia and Australia, Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago. Geographically as large as the U.S. or Europe, Indonesia's 273 million inhabitants make it the world's fourth most populous nation, after China, India and the U.S. And yet, Indonesia has been largely excluded from the genomics sequencing boom of the past decade, and there previously have been no analyses of diversity in gene regulation in either Indonesia or the other island nations of southeast Asia.

"This lack of information from Indonesia is alarming as it is an epicenter of infectious disease diversity, such as malaria and other emerging tropical diseases," Dr. Natri said. "Immune pressure from infectious diseases are responsible for some of the strongest selective forces on humans throughout our species' evolutionary history, and Indonesia offers unique advantages for studying responses to these diseases."

Because of Indonesia's island environment, its many isolated villages and the relatively low population density on most of its nearly 6,000 inhabited islands, the study suggests there is low genetic diversity among those who live on each island, and even in each village, but also high genetic diversity among people from island to island, "making it a near unique study system for examining gene-by-environment interactions," the study said.

Scientists focus on immune properties of ancient human DNA

Dr. Nicholas Banovich, an Assistant Professor in TGen's Integrated Cancer Genomics Division, a human geneticist, and a senior author of this PLOS Genetics paper, said the study's results highlight genes involved in the function of immune cells. This suggests a potentially adaptive response to local environmental pressures, including pressures from various tropical diseases.

"One of the unique aspects of Indonesia is individuals on the island of New Guinea have high remnants of DNA from one of our extinct ancestors, the Denisovans," Dr. Banovich said. "We found these remnants of ancient DNA are driving changes in genes involved in immune function. This study demonstrates the power of including understudied populations in an effort to increase the overall understanding of human genetics."

The international team is continuing its study, integrating more genetic data, exploring patterns of local ancestry and how archaic human genes are imbedded in modern-day populations.

"We are now attempting to pinpoint individual genetic changes -- in particular, those that are carried over in these remnant DNA fragments from Denisovans -- which regulate how much or how little a gene is turned on, and how these genetic changes may shape immune response," Dr. Natri said.

###

This study -- led jointly by researchers at TGen, the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Massey University in New Zealand -- was published May 26 in PLOS Genetics.

Other institutions contributing to this study -- Genome-wide DNA methylation and gene expression patterns reflect genetic ancestry and environmental differences across the Indonesian archipelago -- include: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, Jakarta, Indonesia; the Santa Fe Institute; Vienna Complexity Science Hub; and the Stockholm Resilience Center.

About TGen, an affiliate of City of Hope

Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is a Phoenix, Arizona-based non-profit organization dedicated to conducting groundbreaking research with life-changing results. TGen is affiliated with City of Hope, a world-renowned independent research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases: http://www.cityofhope.org. This precision medicine affiliation enables both institutes to complement each other in research and patient care, with City of Hope providing a significant clinical setting to advance scientific discoveries made by TGen. TGen is focused on helping patients with neurological disorders, cancer, diabetes and infectious diseases through cutting-edge translational research (the process of rapidly moving research toward patient benefit). TGen physicians and scientists work to unravel the genetic components of both common and complex rare diseases in adults and children. Working with collaborators in the scientific and medical communities worldwide, TGen makes a substantial contribution to help our patients through efficiency and effectiveness of the translational process. For more information, visit: http://www.tgen.org. Follow TGen on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter @TGen.

Media Contact:

Steve Yozwiak

TGen Senior Science Writer

602-343-8704

syozwiak@tgen.org
As a part of the 'Vande Bharat' Mission, Air India's special evacuation flight carrying 178 passengers, including six infants took off from Qatar for Kerala's Kannur on Monday. Taking to Twitter, the Indian Embassy in Qatar stated that it is the 31st flight from Doha under the repatriation exercise to bring the stranded Indian nationals back home.

IX- 1774 took off from HIA for Kannur a short while ago with 178 passengers and 6 infants. This was the 31st flight from Doha under #Vandebharat, bringing the total number of repatriated passengers go 5262, plus 151 infants. @DrSJaishankar @MOS_MEA @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/mFlyfj39sc  India in Qatar (@IndEmbDoha) June 14, 2020

Read: Vande Bharat Mission: Air India to operate 10 additional flights between India and USA

The third phase of the 'Vande Bharat Mission' is a part of the largest repatriation exercise in the world that intends to bring back over two lakh stranded Indian nationals from across the world amid the COVID-19 lockdown. While the third phase started from June 10 and will go on till July 1, the bookings for the same began on June 5. The schedule for the phase has 356 flights, including return services and domestic connections.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava on June 11 stated that the Vande Bharat Mission has repatriated a total of 1,65,375 people back to India so far. Srivastava added that 29,034 migrant workers have also returned.

Read: Vande Bharat Mission: Cancer patient in Singapore united with mother in Tiruchirappalli

Earlier phases of 'Vande Bharat' Mission

In a major relief for Indians stranded abroad, the Centre had announced that their travel will be arranged via aircraft and naval ships in a phased manner. The first phase of the mission was set for 7 days starting from May 7 to rescue stranded Indians from over 11 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, Singapore, and the US. It brought back around 15,000 Indians back home.

In the second phase of the mission, the Indian government had said to bring back stranded Indians from around 31 countries from May 16 to 22. However, the government extended the date for the second phase till June 13. More countries were added in the second phase including Finland, South Korea, Belgium, New Zealand, Netherlands, Kenya, Mauritius, Spain, Myanmar, Maldives, Egypt, and Sri Lanka. The second phase brought back nearly 30,000 Indian nationals till May 29.

Read: Vande Bharat Mission: INS Shardul arrives reaches Gujarat with 233 Indians from Iran

Read: Vande Bharat Mission: Ministry of External Affairs says over 1.65 lakh people repatriated
Canadas government has been perhaps surprisingly ready to help the countrys ailing oil industry. Interest-only loans, backstopping loans that troubled companies cant pay have been among the steps taken so far. But they may not be enough. Canadas oil industry has arguably suffered more than its peers across its southern border or even most producers around the world. Already cheap because of pipeline troubles, Canadian oil slumped to new lows amid the oil price war and the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year. While it has since improved in line with the international benchmarks, it hasnt improved enough for the comfort of the local extractive industry. And it may drag banks down with it.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Canadas largest banks reported an almost two-fold increase in impaired energy loans over their second quarter due to the oil price plunge and the pandemic. The increase amounted to more than US$1.47 billion (C$2 billion). Whats more, according to the report the countrys top six lenders had boosted their new lending to energy companies jumped by as much as 23 percent during that same quarter.

Canadian banks energy exposure risks are increasing, with oil in a freefall and Canadian oil producers fighting to survive, as cash burn accelerates and liquidity dwindles, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst said in April when banks and companies were both bracing for this years renegotiation of borrowing bases amid the price plunge. According to Paul Gulberg, if just a tenth of the loans that Canadian banks had on their books at that time went bad, the lenders could lose a collective US$4.40 billion (C$6 billion).

No wonder then that the government is helping. If energy companies fail, they will weigh on banks balance sheets when they are already heavy enough: Canadas top banks have set aside billions to protect themselves from loan impairments, and as elsewhere, they took the respective blow to their earnings.

Yet banks were happy to lend to oil companies before the price slump blow struck. In February, Bloomberg reported that the six biggest banks in the country had increased their loans to the energy industry by 59 percent over the last five years. That was despite their growing investment in clean energy projects and despite the governments increasing pressure on oil companies for their role in climate change.

Related: Hydrogen Fuel Economy Is Finally Going Mainstream

So how have Canadian oil companies been faring in the meantime? Not so well, which is hardly surprising given they were already in dire straits before Saudi Arabia declared a price war on Russia and before the coronavirus turned from a regional epidemic into a global pandemic that crippled demand for oil across the globe.

Like their U.S. peers, Canadian drillers and oil sands miners were forced to cut production to prop up prices, and now Reuters is reporting that they have also started shelving investments in clean energy, to the tune of US$1.47 billion (C$2 billion) so far. And its not the small players cutting, its the top ones, as they grapple with crisis-caused losses. Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources, and Suncor have collectively cut some $1.32 billion in green investments, Reuters noted.

In total, Canadian oil firms have cut more than $7.5 billion in spending since the start of the crisis, according to Bloomberg. Whats more, they need between $20 and $30 billion in fresh liquidity to weather said crisis, according to calculations by the Alberta government. There is no way local banks would boost their exposure that much, so the federal government is stepping in with the no-interest loans and backstopping mechanism for existing credit.

Related: Asian Oil Markets Tighten After Saudi Aramco Cuts Supply



We recognize that the next period of time  months, potentially years  is going to be tough in the oil sector, said the chief executive of the Business Development Bank of Canada, which started offering oil companies debt convertible into equity earlier this year. The debt scheme will be available for four years, which means nobody expects the industry to rebound anytime soon.

All in all, things are not looking good, not for the oil industry. In addition to the price shock and the demand slump, Canadian oil sands companies specifically have to contend with higher breakevens because their production costs are higher than those of conventional oil. And there is little hope that demand will improve quickly and robustly enough despite the lifting of lockdowns. This means bankruptcies and defaulting loans.

Currently, the share of energy lending on Canadian banks books is about 5 percent. This is not a whole lot given they lend a lot more to the real estate and financial services sectors. Besides, not all Canadian oil companies will default on their loans or go bankrupt, of course. But if this state of affairs in the industry persists, banks may become much less willing to keep lending to oil companies at the current rate. They may decide to start shrinking their exposure to the troubled industry. And this will become one more problem for that industry to struggle with.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
India has on Tuesday reached out to the Philippines at a time when both the nations are finding themselves at the receiving end of aggression by China.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the Philippines a vital partner of India in the Indo-Pacific region, as he spoke to the South East Asian nations President Rodrigo Duterte over phone.

Modi spoke to Duterte on a day Manila completed construction of a beaching ramp and announced its plan to repair a runway on the Thitu Island, which is a part of the Spratly Islands archipelago in the South China Sea  currently under control of the Philippines, but claimed by China. Manila on April 23 last protested against Beijings decision to create two new districts to administer the islands on South China Sea.

Chinas move was intended to strengthen its territorial claim on the islands in the disputed waters in the South China Sea and to negate that of the Philippines and the other South East Asian nations.

Tension along the disputed boundary between India and China in eastern Ladakh also escalated recently. The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) deployed a large number of soldiers close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC)  the de facto boundary between India and China  on the northern bank of the Pangong Tso lake. The PLA soldiers also transgressed the LAC into the areas claimed by India.

Modi and Duterte on Tuesday shared satisfaction at the progress seen in recent years in all aspects of the bilateral relationship, including defence cooperation. Prime Minister emphasised that India saw the Philippines as a vital partner in the Indo-Pacific Region, according to a press-release issued by the Ministry of External Affairs.

The two leaders discussed the steps being taken by the two governments to address the challenges arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

They expressed appreciation for the cooperation extended to ensure the welfare of their citizens in each other's territory, as also for their repatriation home, during the ongoing health crisis. Duterte also appreciated the steps taken by India to maintain supply of essential pharmaceutical products to his country.

Modi assured Duterte of India's commitment to support the Philippines in its fight against the pandemic and stressed that India's well-established capacity for manufacturing affordable pharmaceutical products, including for an eventual vaccine once it is found, would continue to be deployed for the benefit of entire humanity.
For years parents, teachers and students have questioned why police are in schools, Taylor, a freshman progressive alderman, said in a news release. The trauma and harm that was done by this practice can never be erased. The money we spend on CPD in CPS can be used for a nurse, counselor, and real restorative justice programs that our students will need once returning to school.
Franklin Templeton received an interest payment of Rs 102.7 crore from Vodafone Ideas bonds, held in the segregated portfolios of the fund houses debt schemes. If you hold the units of these segregated portfolios, here is how you will be repaid.

Has Vodafone cleared all its dues to Franklin Templeton?

Not yet. Vodafone owed Templeton an interest payment that was due on June 12, 2020 and the last portion of interest plus principal on July 10, 2020  the bonds maturity date. Vodafone has paid just the June 12 interest to fund houses.

There are six debt funds with segregated portfolios that hold instruments issued by Vodafone. All these segregated portfolios will now pay, in part, the amount they just received to all their unitholders. For example, Franklin India Credit Risk Fund Segregated Portfolio 1 has received Rs 1.82 crore towards payment of interest on the bond which will mature on July 10, 2020.

After the bond matures, the interest due from June 12 to July 9 and the principal are expected to be paid by the issuer. This amount will differ from scheme to scheme. The amount due to Franklin India Credit Risk Funds segregated portfolio 1 is Rs 23.95 crore, out of which Rs 1.82 crore is received as mentioned earlier.

How much will you be paid?

Of the amount it got last week, Templeton will pay you and simultaneously extinguish units. For instance, of the total sum that Vodafone owes, it has now paid the fund house Rs 1.82 crore. That works out to 7.58 per cent. In other words, 7.58 percent of your segregated units will be extinguished.

Next, the fund house has calculated the unit price of each segregated unit across schemes and plans, to ensure that the sum gets divided equitably. Franklin Templeton has calculated this figure (across growth and dividend plans) and has communicated to all its unitholders via email. Multiply this number by the number of units you hold, and you get the amount due to you.

The fund house has fixed June 19, 2020 as the record date for the payment.

How are segregated units taxed?

If you held your investments in the original scheme for less than three years, you need to pay a short-term capital gains tax. But if you have remained invested in the units of original scheme, more than three years ago, you have to pay a long-term capital gains tax. These taxes are to be paid only if you made gains.

To calculate your gains on your segregated units, you need to ascertain the acquisition cost of the segregated unit.

When will you get the payments in your bank accounts?

For units held in physical/statement of account mode, the partial payment of the outstanding unitholding as on June 12, 2020 will be extinguished and will be distributed to unitholders by June 17, 2020.

For units held in demat mode, the partial payment of outstanding unitholding as on June 19, 2020 (i.e., the record date) will be extinguished and will be distributed immediately after the record date. NRI unitholders will also receive their payment on the same date, after deduction of TDS, as applicable.

Should you apply to the fund house or is this automatic?

You do not need to do anything to get your dues. The fund house will credit the amount to your registered bank account. If there is no registered bank account in your folio, then the fund house will send you a cheque.
Tim O'Leary is back at home with wife Valerie after several weeks on a ventilator

A Dublin man who spent six weeks on a ventilator has returned home after winning a battle for his life with Covid-19.

When 64-year-old taxi driver Tim O'Leary woke up from an induced coma after 43 days, he had no idea how drastically Ireland - and the world - had changed.

After contracting coronavirus and whooping pneumonia at the end of March, he was taken by ambulance to Blanchardstown Hospital.

The following day, March 30, he was transferred to Tullamore Hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator and put in an induced coma.

Mr O'Leary, from Blanchardstown, said he has no recollection of the toughest part of his battle with the virus, and after "losing several weeks", he was shocked by how the virus had taken hold in Ireland.

Recollection

"I remember walking down our drive to get into the ambulance and I remember nothing until I got back into the regular ward 45 days later," he told the Herald.

"Not a thing do I remember about it. I have no recollection - 43 days are gone out of my life.

"I didn't even know I was in Tullamore.

"My family took all the mental toll because I wasn't aware what was going on. They were, but I was in a coma."

Mr O'Leary said there were times when he was in recovery after leaving intensive care when he was not sure if he could continue with his battle.

"I'm absolutely shocked with everything that happened. I was one of the lucky ones that survived," he said.

"I said to God one night, 'Take me if you want, I've had enough', but he didn't want me yet, so I'm one of the lucky ones.

"I can't say enough about Tullamore and the staff there.

"The physios had to pull me back a few times. They'll always be in my mind."

Mr O'Leary spent 30 days recuperating in Tullamore before he was eventually able to return home on Friday.

His wife, Valerie, said the hospital staff were "unbelievable", helping her and the couple's two sons, Aiden (33) and Timothy (35), to talk to Mr O'Leary on the phone while he was in a coma.

The staff, she said, asked for information about the family so they could also talk to him about them while they were unable to visit the hospital.

Ms O'Leary said that while on the phone to her husband, she continually told him he had to pull through so he could see the two grandchildren both his sons are expecting this summer.

"We were so worried," she said. "Tim's doctor down there is a marvellous man, and I told him we wanted complete honesty. A few weeks in, we were wondering would he ever come off the ventilator, was this the end of the line?

"We had the conversation about if Tim hit rock bottom, and we agreed he should throw the kitchen sink at him.

"It reached the stage in mid-April when he had reached that point, and the doctor said that if this doesn't work, I'm going to be ringing you to come down, he wouldn't have made it.

"I couldn't go down while he was in ICU, and that was awful, but the staff were absolutely wonderful.

"They would put the phone to Tim's ear and we could all chat to him.

"Most time, they would see a reaction, his head would move towards the phone.

Retire

"We were just reminding him of all the good things he had to come back to - the grandkids and maybe retiring now, all of the things any parent looks forwards to. I would just tell him he has to pull through.

"Tim is a great Dublin GAA man and he had battles out on the pitch, so we knew he would battle through this as well."

Mr O'Leary has been told he will make a full recovery, but it could take up to a year.

He said he will have to retire from his role as manager of the St Brigid's junior hurling team, and is considering giving up his taxi licence.

He feels he may have picked up the virus from Italian passengers he picked up who were in Dublin for the cancelled rugby international.

"I was very lucky," he said. "I'm going to take every opportunity in life from now on."
BP sign

BP's decision to slash its long-term forecast for oil and gas prices will put renewed pressure on the dividend to shareholders, analysts said.

The move, which will force the oil giant to take writedowns of up to $17.5bn (13.9bn) in its second quarter results, will also push BP's debt up to painfully high levels, said Luke Parker at Wood Mackenzie.

BP previously estimated that the average price for a barrel of crude would be $70 over the next 30 years. It has cut that to an average of $55  more than 30pc lower than its previous forecast.

The announcement has once again raised the spectre of BP slashing its dividend, following in the footsteps of rival Shell.

Some shareholders have been calling for BP to cut its chunky payouts to investors as Covid-19 decimates demand for oil and accelerates the move towards renewable energy.

"Greater urgency to pay down debt will put further pressure on the dividend," said Mr Parker. "Of course, under BPs latest price assumptions, cash generation will be less than previously anticipated."

Multi-billion dollar writedowns would push the company's gearing ratio  net debt as a percentage of its total capital  to an "uncomfortably high" 45pc, he said.

BP will need a much more robust balance sheet to achieve its plans of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050  a goal its new chief executive Bernard Looney set out to investors in February.

Biraj Borkhataria, an analyst at RBC, said: "This makes maintaining the dividend more challenging."

Shares fell 2.8pc in afternoon trading.

Mr Looney is expected to elaborate on his strategy to reduce BPs reliance on fossil fuels later this year.

The company said the pandemic would speed up the move away from fossil fuels and towards a lower-carbon economy.

We have reset our price outlook to reflect that impact and the likelihood of greater efforts to build back better towards a Paris-consistent world, Mr Looney said, in reference to the 2015 Paris climate agreement that set out the necessary steps to avoid catastrophe.

Story continues

Brent is about $38 a barrel, having fallen as low as $16 in April as billions of people were ordered to shelter at home to curb the spread of Covid-19.

As demand for oil sinks, many environmental campaigners, politicians and economists are calling for a "green" revolution.

They believe that the pandemic represents an opportunity for a huge stimulus to ignite the renewables industry and begin the phasing out of fossil fuels. Such a move would help Britain hit its target of being net zero by 2050.

BP also said on Monday that it had sharply increased the price it believes it will be forced to pay governments for its carbon dioxide emissions.

Previously, it estimated being required to pay $40 per tonne of CO2 but that has more than doubled to $100, as more governments argue that higher taxes are the only way to stop the use of environmentally damaging fossil fuels.

Last week BP said it would axe more than 10,000 jobs this year in response to low oil prices and the groups shift towards clean energy.

"In the longer term, this is about BPs strategic shift away from oil and gas," Mr Parker said.

"While that will be a multi-decade affair, BP is already getting to grips with the idea that its upstream assets are worth less than it believed as recently as six months ago. Indeed, some of them are worth nothing."
Fashions largest luxury conglomerates, LVMH and Kering, as well as Chanel and Hermes, essentially determine their own destiny. They are their own ecosystems complete with production facilities and boutiques. Its the rest of the fashion industry  those with big footprints and tiny ones  thats linked, and when one element is squeezed, everyone feels the pain. Indeed, it was designer brands foolhardy attempt to mimic the steady volume of merchandise produced by fast fashion companies such as H&M, the Gap and Zara that helped put them on such a nonsensical, destructive course. A $900 shirt is not throwaway fashion; no one needs to replace it every 12 weeks.
Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard left Counting On in 2017, and ever since, theyve been slowly working to make changes to their lives that will separate them from Duggars strict upbringing. Even those who criticize the show have had a hard time hating on Duggar for how hard shes trying to live a normal life. And when Duggar revealed one item in her sons room, people were surprised by what they saw.

Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard | D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra

Jill Duggar and Derick Dillard reportedly had a falling out with her family

When Counting On first premiered in 2015 as a result of the fallout from Josh Duggars sexual abuse case, Duggar and Dillard were the stars of the show. Duggar was the oldest married child at the time, so the show focused mostly on her and her younger sister, Jessa Duggar.

After a few seasons, though, Duggars husband reportedly became frustrated with the way Jim Bob handled the family finances. Though fans didnt know it at the time, Dillard later revealed that he and Duggar left the show because Jim Bob was unfair with handling the money. Since then, Duggar and Dillard reportedly havent been on the best terms with her family.

Duggar has been trying to raise her kids to be a bit more mainstream

Duggar and Dillard have two sons, Israel and Samuel, and at first, fans thought theyd have a huge family. However, in time, people realized that they probably wont have any more kids (though its unclear). Now, Duggar is doing her best to raise her boys a bit more conventionally than she was raised. She recently enrolled her older son in public school  something she was always taught not to do growing up. Its unclear if shes purposely defying her parents, wants a better life for her sons, or if theres another reason behind her choices.

RELATED: Counting On: Jill Duggar Has Changed  And Fans Are Loving 2020 Jill

People were shocked to see Duggars bookshelf for her kids

Duggar recently posted a photo of her kids bookshelf in an Instagram story, and fans couldnt believe the book choices. They took to Reddit to discuss the childrens books, none of which seemed to have any religious undertones. Stories such as Peppa Pig and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie made the shelf, which are books that most children in the U.S. read. And, interestingly, there were two books (including the mouse book) that were written in Spanish.

I figured it was because they lived in Central America for a bit but still pretty cool, one user said of the Spanish books. Are any of those books Jesus-y? Im surprised they dont even have like a kids Bible or something there, someone else wrote. Theres even a Daniel Tiger book. Thats fromgaspPBS, another person added.

Fans were shocked to see the selection on Duggars bookshelf. | Jill Dillard via Instagram

RELATED: Jill Duggar Proudly Stated Shes No Longer a Slave to Fear, and Her Followers Have Mixed Feelings

Fans are hoping shell continue to move toward a more mainstream lifestyle

Though Reddit users tend to criticize the Duggar family as a whole, theyve recently become fans of Duggars willingness to raise her boys differently. And many people hope shell continue to break out of her sheltered life and offer her sons a bigger picture of the world. After all, the couple did live in Central America for some time, so theyve at least explored somewhere beyond their Arkansas roots. A few changes can go a long way, and it looks like Duggar and Dillard are on the path of giving their sons a totally different life.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Supreme Court on Monday passed up several challenges to federal and state gun control laws, over the dissent of two conservative justices.

Gun rights advocates had hoped the court would expand the constitutional right to keep and bear arms beyond the home.

Instead, the justices left in place restrictions on the right to carry weapons in public in Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey. They also declined to review Massachusetts ban on some semi-automatic firearms and large-capacity ammunition magazines, a California handgun control law and a half-century-old federal law banning interstate handgun sales.

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a dissent in the courts denial of a New Jersey residents appeal seeking the right to carry a gun in public for self-defense. Rather than take on the constitutional issue, Thomas wrote, the Court simply looks the other way.

Related Content
(Newser)  The president and five other board members of the National Book Critics Circle have resigned amid allegations of racism and violations of privacy, the AP reports. Laurie Hertzel, who had served as president since 2019, announced over the weekend she was leaving the 24-member board. Her departure came two days after another board member, Ugandan-American writer Hope Wabuke, posted redacted screenshots on Twitter of an email exchange that included correspondence from Hertzel and board member Carlin Romano. The NBCC had been crafting a response to the worldwide protests against police racism and violence. Romano, a former NBCC president, had raised objections in his email to the proposed statement, notably that White gatekeepers in publishing stifle black voices. Romano responded that many black writers had benefited from good-willed white editors and publishers and that he had seen far more of white people helping black writers than of black people helping white writers.

story continues below

As members of the NBCC board were trying to work out the wording of a statement in support of Black Lives Matter and against racism, especially in our own realm of publishing, private exchanges were made public on Twitter, which made it impossible to continue with this discussion in good faith, Hertzel wrote. I, along with five of our board members resigned, though not in a coordinated fashion. I can only speak for myself when I say that such a breach of confidence precludes the sort of deliberations that are essential to the NBCCs mission as a critical organization. Wabuke also tweeted that she had resigned from the NBCC. It is not possible to change these organizations from within, and the backlash will be too dangerous for me to remain, she wrote. Like virtually every other major publishing institution, the NBCC is predominantly white. (Click for more on the "industry reckoning" that includes this flap and others.)
File image

Srinivas Kantheti

A couple of WhatsApp group that I am a part of should be renamed the China Problem group. Ninety percent of discussions is on how China hijacked the world economy, how they do not deserve to do so, how all politicians have let us down, how they are stealing all intellectual property and how we are doomed if we do not stop downloading Tiktok.

All true. And no, this article is not about disagreeing with this narrative. This article is not about the fact that an average Chinese student in the US beats the hell of all other students (including Indians) in terms of hours she works and the only disadvantage she has is that her English is not good enough, but she is getting there.

No, this article is not about the fact that the people of China worked their butts off while Italians holidayed and French wanted a four-day workweek. No, this article is not about the fact that one cannot hire a decent machinist or a forger in India because all of them are sitting in call centres answering questions from technically-challenged Americans. Of course, I agree and support the view that China and its people do not deserve the place they have reached (I dont want to be trolled). After all, they are intellectual property (IP) thieves and do not take four-week holidays. They should be punished.

So what is this article about? This is about an industry where China has been beaten by India. It has been shown that its not the government, neither the people; its really the companies that compete. And as far as India is concerned the people responsible for the demise of manufacturing in the county are these companies.

In 1983, I graduated out of a Mumbai engineering college considered to be one of the best. Irrespective of the branch that you studiedmechanical, electrical, civil, production, textile80 percent of the graduates became coders for the software industry.

In 2000, I was at Bajaj Auto as Human Resources (HR) head (after working 15 years in technical capacity), and I was off to conduct campus interviews to hire 100 engineers who would design and build world-class motorcycles. On day 5, I was in Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), Mumbai and all other regional engineering colleges (RECs). I ended up hiring ten people from 15 colleges. In every college I was told by the training and placement officer (TPO) that technology companies get preference in hiring. I asked, were designing and building an engine not technology? No, thats manufacturing, I was told. Writing COBOL code for a bank in New York by a software company employee is technology. May be the Chinese forced us into this thinking.

The following year I wrote to all colleges. I want to be day 0 in your campus. I will give three times salary of the so called best technology company, but only if I am day 0. Hiring 100 engineers at three times salary was no problem for me as compared to say TCS, which had to hire 2,000 bodies. They could never match that salary.

And thats how Bajaj Auto built its research and developmentbatch by batch. Making designing and manufacturing of motorcycles sexy and paying for it. The selection ratio was 1:15. Most of the IITs, RECs, and VJTIs had toppers who were absolutely useless. They could not draw a Carnot cycle, could not tell the difference between a diesel and petrol engine. Give them an elevation and plan they could not draw the side view. Most of them were focusing on writing code. But we found gems, we found guys who were passionate and knowledgeable but could not express in English. I started conducting interviews in Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and so on.

There was another company using the same approachTVS Motor Company. Based in south India, they also built a great R&D department.

In 2005, Chinese motorcycles attacked India with products which were 30 percent cheaper. Many dealers started selling them. Press predicted demise of Indian manufacturers. But within six months they went broke. Their quality was no match to Indian motorcycles. They never came back again.

Bajaj then started attacking them in Africa. Africans had two choices: buy expensive Japanese motorcycles or cheap Chinese ones. Chinese motorcycles used to come in a box. You bought the box and took it to a mechanic and he would assemble it.

In Nigeria motorcycles are used as taxis. So no one is going to pay you a dime more than the basic requirement. In such a market Bajaj launched its fully assembled motorcycle. It was priced more than the Chinese models but less than the Japanese ones. The company set up dealerships, service centres, trained mechanics and developed a relationship with the taxi riders. Today Bajaj is a market leader. TVS is number two. The Chinese have been driven out.

You can see videos of the love that the okada (taxi) drivers have for Bajaj bikes. Country after country in Africa and in South America Indians companies captured the market driving their Chinese counterparts out.

In 2018 India became the largest manufacturer of two wheelers in the world (producing twice more than China). Indian companies have started buying out European brands. The market leader of motorcycles in Europe is not BMW, its KTM, which is part-owned by Bajaj. China is slipping fast not only in the manufacturing of bikes, but also in the manufacturing of components. Indian suppliers are beating them hands down. Between three Indian companiesHero, Bajaj and TVSIndia today dominates the world motorcycle market.

Why was this not done in TVs, computers, mobile phones, pharmaceuticals and other industries? Its the same country, same labour laws, same infrastructure, but not the same entrepreneurs. Indian businessmen are characterised by a myopic visionits both, short-term outlook as well as geographically limited. Of course, the government also does not help.

So who is responsible for the Chinese dominancethe government, people or the corporates?

I think its all the three. When even ITI-trained turners and fitters refuse to work in a shop floor, when a stock broker is paid more than an engineer, when typing code is mistaken for technology, when governments refuse to amend antique labour and land laws, when corporates think local and not global, and finally when you, yes you the reader, will not send your son or daughter to work on the shop floor, each one of these factors is as responsible for the Chinese dominance as their ethical corruption. We have been looted because we left our doors and windows open.

No, this article is not supporting the Chinese. How dare they work so hard? And how dare they obey a communist government? We should stop buying all their goods and we will make everything in our country. But we will work nine to five with a three-day weekend. We will overcome. One day.

The author is the Managing Director of WheelsEMI
Eight people, including five of a family, have died and 18 others were injured on Monday morning, when the two auto-rickshaws they were travelling in collided head-on with a speeding truck on the Grand Truck (GT) Road near Vishunganj village under the Amas police station of Bihars Gaya district.

Seven accident victims were from the Rengania village under the Amas police station and were returning from Aurangabad districts Deo police station area by the two auto-rickshaws after attending a pre-wedding tilak ceremony in the family.

The accident occurred at around 7.05am, when the speeding truck tried to overtake a pick-up van and collided with the auto-rickshaws that were coming from the opposite direction, the police said.

All the vehicles were at high speed because of thin traffic in the early morning.

The police and the rescue personnel struggled to pull out the injured passengers from the mangled vehicles, while the victims bodies were torn into pieces. The body parts were scattered at the accident site.

Six victims died on the accident spot, while two others succumbed to their injuries later, the police added.

The injured were admitted to Sherghati sub-divisional hospital, Madanpur primary health centre and Amas primary health centre, and many of them are battling for their lives.

Gaya civil surgeon Brajesh Kumar Singh said 15 of the injured have been referred to Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital in Gaya town for better treatment.

Shyam Sundar, an eyewitness, who called an emergency ambulance and also informed the police, said: It was like a cloud burst. Ive never seen such an accident. Both the auto-rickshaws crumbled like plastic boxes and blood was splattered all over the accident spot.

Rajiv Mishra, senior superintendent of police (SSP), Gaya, rushed to the spot along with other police personnel after he was informed about the accident.

A preliminary inquiry has revealed that the truck driver is responsible for the accident, as he was driving at a high speed, said Anil Kumar Singh, station house officer (SHO), Amas police station.

The victims were returning after attending the tilak ceremony of the daughters of Mohan Rikishiyan, a resident of Aurangabad district, the SHO added.

Locals protested Gaya district administrations failure to address the high number of accidents that regularly occur in the area because of a blind spot. They also blocked the movement of vehicles on the GT Road and demanded adequate compensation from the state government for the next of the kin of the accident victims.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has offered his condolences for the accident victims and also instructed the officials to ensure the best possible healthcare services for all the injured.

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Vancouver, British Columbia and Johannesburg, South Africa--(Newsfile Corp. - June 15, 2020) - Platinum Group Metals Ltd. (TSX: PTM) (NYSE American: PLG) ("Platinum Group" or the "Company") reports that this morning Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. ("Implats") has given formal notice that it does not intend to exercise its option to purchase and earn into a 50.01% interest in the Waterberg Project. Implats stated that "notwithstanding the positive progress achieved on the Call Period Program to date, and the strategic alignment between the Waterberg asset and Implats stated portfolio objectives, the unprecedented events brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated Implats management and Board to re-evaluate the impact of the increased economic uncertainty on Implats' strategy and risk appetite across the Group in the short, medium and long term".

Implats indicates that work on a 55 Million Rand Call Period Program, funded by them, has made positive progress, and will continue to be funded by them to completion in August. They also indicate they intend to continue discussions in good faith on potential smelter off-take arrangements for the project. Implats is a 15% shareholder in Waterberg JV Resources Pty Ltd. ("Waterberg JV Co."), the project joint venture company. Implats reiterated their support of both the Waterberg project and the JV Partners and plans to remain an active participant, including funding of their share of costs, subject to future considerations. Implats will not receive credit at the joint venture level for the funded 55 million Rand budget as set out in the joint venture agreements.

Platinum Group holds a 50.2% interest in Waterberg JV Co. directly and indirectly and is the manager of the project. Under the joint venture agreements Implats had until 90 days after the grant of a Mining Right to decide on their option. The Company has recently received interest in the Waterberg Project for funding and strategic off-take from other interested parties. These discussions will continue while the Call Period Program and mining right application work are ongoing.

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The Company announced a non-brokered private placement on June 2, 2020. Closing of this private placement has been postponed as a result of this news from Implats.

About Platinum Group Metals Ltd. and Waterberg Project

Platinum Group Metals Ltd. is the operator of the Waterberg Project, a bulk underground palladium, platinum, gold and rhodium ("PGM") deposit located in South Africa. An Independent Definitive Feasibility Study for the Waterberg Project was approved by Waterberg JV Co. on December 5, 2019.

The Waterberg Project was discovered by Platinum Group and is being jointly advanced with the shareholders of Waterberg JV Co., being Platinum Group, Implats, Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, Hanwa Co. Ltd. and Mnombo Wethu Consultants (Pty) Ltd. ("Mnombo").

On behalf of the Board of

Platinum Group Metals Ltd.

R. Michael Jones

President and CEO

For further information contact:

R. Michael Jones, President

or Kris Begic, VP, Corporate Development

Platinum Group Metals Ltd., Vancouver

Tel: (604) 899-5450 / Toll Free: (866) 899-5450

www.platinumgroupmetals.net

Disclosure

The Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE American have not reviewed and do not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this news release, which has been prepared by management.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic and related measures taken by government create uncertainty and have had, and may continue to have, an adverse impact on many aspects of the Company's business, including employee health, workforce productivity and availability, travel restrictions, contractor availability, supply availability, the Company's ability to maintain its controls and procedures regarding financial and disclosure matters and the availability of capital and insurance and the costs thereof, some of which, individually or when aggregated with other impacts, may be material to the Company.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws and forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. securities laws (collectively "forward-looking statements"). Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, plans, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. All statements that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, without limitation, statements regarding Implats' non-exercise of its purchase and development option for Waterberg JV Co., potential smelter off-take arrangements for the project, continued funding and completion of the Call Period Budget, potential alternative project funding and strategic off-take arrangements, and the Company's private placement. Although the Company believes any forward-looking statements in this press release are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations and assumptions in such statements will prove to be correct.

The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company 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 possible adverse impacts due the global outbreak of COVID-19 (as described above), the Company's inability to generate sufficient cash flow or raise sufficient additional capital to make payment on its indebtedness, and to comply with the terms of such indebtedness; additional financing requirements; the 2019 Sprott Facility is, and any new indebtedness may be, secured and the Company has pledged its shares of Platinum Group Metals (RSA) Proprietary Limited ("PTM RSA"), and PTM RSA has pledged its shares of Waterberg JV Co. to Sprott, under the 2019 Sprott Facility, which potentially could result in the loss of the Company's interest in PTM RSA and the Waterberg Project in the event of a default under the 2019 Sprott Facility or any new secured indebtedness; the Company's history of losses and negative cash flow; the Company's ability to continue as a going concern; the Company's properties may not be brought into a state of commercial production; uncertainty of estimated production, development plans and cost estimates for the Waterberg Project; discrepancies between actual and estimated mineral reserves and mineral resources, between actual and estimated development and operating costs, between actual and estimated metallurgical recoveries and between estimated and actual production; fluctuations in the relative values of the U.S. Dollar, the Rand and the Canadian Dollar; volatility in metals prices; the uncertainty of alternative funding sources for Waterberg JV Co.; the Company may become subject to the U.S. Investment Company Act; the failure of the Company or the other shareholders to fund their pro rata share of funding obligations for the Waterberg Project; any disputes or disagreements with the other shareholders of Waterberg JV Co. or Mnombo; the ability of the Company to retain its key management employees and skilled and experienced personnel; conflicts of interest; litigation or other administrative proceedings brought against the Company; actual or alleged breaches of governance processes or instances of fraud, bribery or corruption; exploration, development and mining risks and the inherently dangerous nature of the mining industry, and the risk of inadequate insurance or inability to obtain insurance to cover these risks and other risks and uncertainties; property and mineral title risks including defective title to mineral claims or property; changes in national and local government legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in Canada and South Africa; equipment shortages and the ability of the Company to acquire necessary access rights and infrastructure for its mineral properties; environmental regulations and the ability to obtain and maintain necessary permits, including environmental authorizations and water use licences; extreme competition in the mineral exploration industry; delays in obtaining, or a failure to obtain, permits necessary for current or future operations or failures to comply with the terms of such permits; risks of doing business in South Africa, including but not limited to, labour, economic and political instability and potential changes to and failures to comply with legislation; the Company's common shares may be delisted from the NYSE American or the Toronto Stock Exchange if it cannot maintain compliance with the applicable listing requirements; and other risk factors described in the Company's most recent Form 20-F annual report, annual information form and other filings with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") and Canadian securities regulators, which may be viewed at www.sec.gov and www.sedar.com, respectively. Proposed changes in the mineral law in South Africa if implemented as proposed would have a material adverse effect on the Company's business and potential interest in projects. 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.

Estimates of mineralization and other technical information included herein have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101. The definitions of proven and probable reserves used in NI 43-101 differ from the definitions in SEC Industry Guide 7. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, mineralization may not be classified as a "reserve" unless the mineralization can be economically and legally extracted or produced at the time the "reserve" determination is made. As a result, the reserves reported by the Company in accordance with NI 43-101 may not qualify as "reserves" under SEC Industry Guide 7. In addition, the terms "mineral resource", "measured mineral resource", "indicated mineral resource" and "inferred mineral resource" are defined in and required to be disclosed by NI 43-101; however, these terms are not defined terms under SEC Industry Guide 7 and historically have not been permitted to be used in reports and registration statements filed with the SEC pursuant to SEC Industry Guide 7. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any part or all of the mineral deposits in these categories will ever be converted into reserves. In particular, "inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and great uncertainty as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an "inferred mineral resource" will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Disclosure of "contained ounces" in a resource is permitted disclosure under NI 43-101; however, SEC Industry Guide 7 normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute "reserves" by SEC Industry Guide 7 standards as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit measures. Accordingly, descriptions of the Company's mineral deposits in this press release may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements of SEC Industry Guide 7.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57905
This will be The American Road -- a new bypass connecting Israel's Jewish settlements to the north and south of Jerusalem.

Israeli officials say the ring road will benefit all of the city's residents.

But critics say it's yet another obstacle to Palestinian hopes to make their future capital in East Jerusalem, through which the road runs.

Rasem Obeidat is on the land protection committee of Jabal al-Mukabar, a Palestinian neighborhood The American Road will run through.

"This (the American Road) will eliminate the (Palestinian state) project and the possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state; it will separate Jerusalem from the northern and southern West Bank."

Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem -- after capturing it along with the West Bank and Gaza strip in 1967 -- has never won international recognition.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank too, and world criticism is growing.

Israel Gantz, the leader of a settler council north of Jerusalem, says Palestinian as well as Israeli residents of Jerusalem will benefit from the road.

"Also, a Jerusalem resident who wants to get from Har Homa to the northern part of the city and doesnt want to pass through the traffic jams can use and be helped by this road to avoid traffic. Its necessary. Its found in any big city -- ring roads that surround the city so you dont have to cross through the city. Thats the rationale behind this road."

A bridge under construction towers over the rural landscape and shows the scale of The American Road.

This is Hagit Ofran, head of an Israeli settlement watchdog with the NGO Peace Now:

"The Eastern Ring Road that we are seeing behind me is a road that is meant to connect settlements from south West Bank, to the settlements of north West Bank and to make them bigger and stronger. As you know, roads are like the pipelines of the livelihood of the settlements and this is going to be a boost for settlements all around the West Bank.

The American Road, named after a narrow old road in Jerusalem, is expected to cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars in total.
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government and the Islamist Taliban group have agreed that Doha will be the venue for the first meeting in their peace talks, both sides said on Sunday.

The talks, known as the intra-Afghan dialogue, will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after years of fighting.

No date has been announced for the meeting, but it is expected to take place after the two sides settle differences on the release by the Afghan government of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, which could be as soon as the end of next week.

"The first intra-Afghan meeting will happen in Doha," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Reuters, adding that the Islamist group was ready to hold intra-Afghan talks within a week of the release of 5,000 prisoners.

The Afghan government has released 3,000 Taliban prisoners so far under an agreement signed between the United States and the insurgent group in February.

That deal outlined a roadmap for withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan and peace talks to end the 19-year war.

The government wants talks to begin as soon as possible but has issues with the release of a few hundred high-profile Taliban prisoners, a senior government official told Reuters.

The official said the government had offered an alternative prisoner release list to the Taliban.

The spokesman for the Afghan Presidential Palace, Sediq Sediqqi, said on Twitter that Doha had been agreed as the venue for the first talks but said no permanent venue had been agreed.

The Qatari capital was the venue for signing the deal between the United States and Taliban. The insurgent group has had a political office in Doha since 2013.

(Reporting Orooj Hakimi and Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Edmund Blair)
By contrast, the agency took 23,118 migrants into custody last month and 16,966 in April.

The GAO report said that as part of the additional funding to respond to the significant rise in aliens at the Southwest border, Congress approved two line items: $112 million specifically for consumables and medical care and $708 million for establishing and operating migrant care and processing facilities.

Some of the money did go to the proper use, the GAO said, pointing to the purchase of defibrillators, masks, gloves, hygiene products, baby supplies and more as items that clearly relate to medical care.

Other purchases, such as vehicles, might qualify if they were for medical transport, the GAO said.

But many of the other purchases clearly fell outside the intent of the allocation, the GAO report said. Those included all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and other vehicles used for routine Border Patrol activities; support for an agencywide vaccine program; printers; cameras; speakers; and more.
Talk to your local center about eligibility guidelines. In most states you have to be 17 years old and above; with parental consent, some states allow donors to be 16. You must weigh at least 110 pounds. There are no standing upper age limits.

[LIVE UPDATES Read our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here.]

Dr. Claudia Cohn, director of the Blood Bank Laboratory at the University of Minnesota and chief medical officer of A.A.B.B., said in an interview earlier this year that normally, older Americans are the countrys best donors.

They give a disproportionate amount of blood, Dr. Cohn said. Even though we think their risk is very low, we want to protect them if they want to be careful about going out.

That means centers are asking younger people to step up and donate more than they usually do.

Can you get coronavirus by donating blood?

This is not a blood-borne disease, that is clear, Dr. Cohn said. Blood itself is safe. Coronaviruses in general dont seem to be blood transmissible, as evidence from earlier outbreaks of SARS and MERS has shown.

How are blood centers ensuring donor safety?

We completely understand people are hesitant, said Dr. Pampee Young, chief medical officer of biomedical services at the American Red Cross, earlier this year. We want to reassure the public that were handling this with an abundance of caution.

Red Cross blood centers have ramped up ordinary procedures, with staff members masked, gloved and conducting extra temperature checks, on both themselves and donors. All surfaces are repeatedly wiped down and donors are spaced six feet apart.

With centers taking extra measures to eliminate risk, its safer than going to the store, Dr. Cohn said.
GREENWICH  The Retired Mens Association of Greenwich is back with its weekly speaker series after taking off the past three months due to the coronavirus crisis.

But there will be one big change: Instead of gathering at the First Presbyterian Church for the talks, members can listen in from the comfort of their own homes via Zoom.

For years, the RMA has featured writers, doctors and experts in a wide variety of fields as well as local, state and national officials at its free weekly meetings.

The talk will begin at 11 a.m. Wednesday with Larry Kantor, a former managing director and global head of research for Barclays. He will talk about the economic fallout from the coronavirus and the economic issues as the state of Connecticut continues to slowly reopen.

Kantor, a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and the CBS Evening News, will be making his fifth speech before the RMA. The organization praised him for his clear, concise and comprehensible views on national issues from an economists perspective.

His speech will be called The Economy, Financial Markets and the Pandemic: Where Do We Go From Here?

Kantor is currently an operating partner at the private equity firm Atlas Merchant Capital.

Preregistration is required by sending an email to info@greenwichrma.org. The link for the Zoom will go live at 11 a.m. on Wednesday at https://bit.ly/30IBj21.

The RMA has not hosted a speaker since March. According to its leadership, the RMA plans to hold its speakers series via Zoom for the rest of the year.

On June 24, the RMA will feature Ed Miller, dean of the medical faculty at Johns Hopkins University. He was CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine from 1997 to 2012 and will speak about the past and future of medical schools and the nations health care system.

Past speaker videos and more information can be found at greenwichrma.org/.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.com
Opinion Column



A doorstep prayer for an outpouring of the Spirit A doorstep prayer for an outpouring of the Spirit

Rev Nigel Fox has replaced clapping with praying for his community on his doorstep on Thursday evenings.

One of the things produced during these recent weeks of lockdown has been a stronger appreciation of our stalwart health and care workers. It has been expressed in the various fundraising efforts of ordinary folk whove become a new celebrity (albeit temporary) and in the widespread practice of the clap for carers. Many of us may have been involved in that.



With some 95% involvement where I live, it was a local community highlight each week. It became a blessing for us as well as an expression of our appreciation for others, in terms of a simple check on one another as we experienced togetherness at a distance.



But the organisers wanted the communal clap to finish on May 28. As I awoke that morning, pondering this tenth and final expression of our appreciation and hoping that might be translated tangibly in their future remunerations, I also felt a strange prompt  to pray, and to replace those few minutes of clap for carers with a regular Thurs 8pm doorstep "Pray for an Outpouring" of Holy Spirit to see the love of Jesus permeate our local communities.



The concept was simple enough: stand on the front doorstep and simply pray awhile for that much needed outpouring. So I duly contacted numerous friends, groups and prayerful organisations with the idea, wondering if other Christians might take to their doorstep to pray.



Although the response, so far, has been a little muted, I decided to stand at my front doorstep just a couple of minutes before 8pm on June 4. No-one else came out to clap and the whole atmosphere was strangely still. It seemed so amazingly primed for praying into. I found myself openly praying for the blessing of my neighbours and the wider community, as well as the carers. I duly prayed for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit over the neighbourhood, the city, the region, the nation and beyond.



Since then, I have pondered how this Pentecostal season has already witnessed some extraordinary events, as if further signs of a major spiritual shift. Encouraged, I shall pray on my doorstep again this coming Thursday evening. You may wish to do much the same.







Rev Nigel Fox is a retired Methodist Minister from Norwich.











The views carried here are those of the author, not of Network Norwich and Norfolk, and are intended to stimulate constructive debate between website users.
Looking to resolve the dispute over Chinese military buildup India and China are holding talks at the Brigade Commander and Battalion Commander level in Eastern Ladakh in Galwan valley area and Hot Springs.

Army sources said there has been disengagement between Indian and Chinese troops at more locations where they had been in standoff positions for last many weeks now.

"There has been limited disengagement of troops at more locations due to the continuous rounds of talks going on between the two sides," they said.

Sources said that after the June 6 talks between Military commanders followed by other rounds of talks, there has not been any considerable build-up activity by both sides and Chinese aggressive behaviour has also been toned down, they said.

No incident of any face-off between the troops of the two sides has been reported after the talks started between the two armies, sources said.

At the military commanders' talks between the two Armies, they had agreed to hold parleys at the Patrolling point 14 (Galwan area), Patrolling point 15 and Hot Springs area.

The Chinese Army had earlier pulled back its troops from the Galwan valley, PP-15 and Hot Springs in Eastern Ladakh area by 2 to 2.5 kilometres, they said.

The Indian side has also brought back some of its troops and vehicles from these areas.

Sources said talks are being held on these points at the Battalion commander level on these locations and they have had hotline talks with their counterparts.

The initial talks were being held in those areas. The Chinese activities had started in Eastern Ladakh from this location only, they said.
President Emmanuel Macron proclaims that France has won its "first victory" against coronavirus.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a number of coronavirus restrictions are being lifted.

Cafes and restaurants are reopening across France and travel to other European countries will be allowed.

People will also be able to visit family members in retirement homes, which have been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Germany, Belgium, Croatia and Switzerland are fully reopening borders with EU countries on Monday.

Travellers from the UK will be able to visit these four countries without quarantine or restrictions upon arrival, though they still face quarantine on return to the UK.

Meanwhile, UK and Spanish travellers to France are being asked to go into two-week quarantine upon arrival there.

What do the changes mean for France?

More than 29,400 people have died of coronavirus in France, and the country has had almost 194,000 confirmed cases - although the number of new cases has slowed markedly in recent days.

President Macron first imposed a strict lockdown on 17 March. These remained in place until 11 May, when the country began to cautiously ease restrictions.

In a televised address on Sunday, Mr Macron said France had won its "first victory" but he warned the virus could return.

"As soon as tomorrow, we will be able to turn the page on this first chapter across all our territory," he said.

Restaurants, hotels and cafes were allowed to reopen in many parts of France earlier this month - provided distancing rules were observed.

Mr Macron confirmed that from Monday, this would also happen in the Paris region, which recorded the highest number of cases in the country.

He also said that schools would reopen from 22 June - except for high schools.

However, the president added, "this does not mean that the virus has gone and that we can completely drop our guard. The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other and we will need to watch the evolution of the epidemic to be prepared in case it comes back with renewed strength."

Mr Macron also confirmed that the second round of municipal elections, originally scheduled for March, would go ahead on 28 June.

But, he added, mass gatherings would need to remain "tightly controlled" because they were "the main occasions for spreading the virus".

All of mainland France will now be in the "green zone" virus alert level while the overseas territories of Mayotte and French Guiana will remain at the "orange" alert level. Both territories still have high numbers of cases, which are threatening to overwhelm their hospital systems.

What is the situation elsewhere in Europe?

The European Commission encouraged the lifting of all internal border restrictions from Monday but only a small number of nations announced they would reopen.

In Germany, Belgium, Croatia and Switzerland, which is not an EU member but is part of the Schengen free travel area, traffic police and officials enforcing the coronavirus restrictions are no longer present.

The Czech Republic is allowing unrestricted travel to and from 26 states but is still banning people from Belgium, Portugal, Sweden and the UK.

Greece has opened its borders and is allowing travellers from farther afield such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea to enter.

Italy already reopened its borders on 3 June as did Poland, which opened to EU travellers on 13 June.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the country would allow free travel with EU countries from 21 June, except for Portugal. However, Spain is allowing German tourists to visit its Balearic Islands from Monday as part of a pilot scheme to boost its tourism sector.

Its border with Portugal remains closed until 1 July.

Austria will lift its restrictions on 16 June, but a ban on travellers from Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK remains in place.

Sweden and Luxembourg never closed their borders. BBC
Action Against Hunger Is One of Few NGOs Treating COVID-19 Patients in Somalia

New York, NY, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via NGO Wire) Action Against Hunger, a global humanitarian and development organization, has been awarded $500,000 from the Center for Disaster Philanthropys (CDP) COVID-19 Response Fund to provide immediate relief for nearly 300,000 people in East Africa affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant prioritizes Somalia, where Action Against Hunger is one of the few remaining international organizations addressing the pandemic. In the countrys capital of Mogadishu, a city of 2.5 million, Action Against Hunger is supporting the only quarantine hospital, which has just 25 ICU beds for severe COVID-19 cases. Hospital staff are temporarily living in the facility to meet rising needs and to minimize the risk of returning home to infect their families with COVID-19. CDP funding will also help Action Against Hunger to establish two new COVID-19 treatment centers and to support existing health systems.

The situation in Somalia is grave, and we are grateful that the Center for Disaster Philanthropy is stepping up to provide life-saving support when it is so urgently needed, said Ahmed Khalif, Action Against Hungers Somalia Country Director. Most of the humanitarian actors have withdrawn their staff from Somalia and other donors have warned that they cannot provide assistance. Somalias limited facilities are already cracking under the pressure. The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities.

Many private medical providers in Somalia are turning away suspected COVID-19 cases due to a lack of capacity and fear of the virus. In a recent survey of an East African coalition of NGOs, 94.4% reported delaying or canceling surge deployments of personnel in the face of COVID-19, and 66.7% have withdrawn staff from countries they serve, most frequently from South Sudan, Somalia, and others topping the list of U.N. concerns about a potential hunger pandemic.

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COVID-19 could be especially devastating in Somalia, a country reeling from years of severe food insecurity, conflict, drought, and floods, and now facing record-breaking swarms of locusts that are compounding already dangerously high malnutrition rates. According to the United Nations, 5.4 million people in Somalia do not have enough food to eat and only half the population has basic access to water  making it nearly impossible to follow hygiene practices, such as handwashing to prevent the pandemics spread. Hunger rates in Somalia will be further impacted by COVID-19s secondary effects including disruptions of livelihoods, trade, and supply chains and funding gaps in the countrys national budget.

To close this gap, Action Against Hunger will use CDP funds to rapidly scale up health, water, hygiene, and food security programs in Somalia and in communities across East Africa that have a weak healthcare infrastructure, both in terms of human resources and basic supplies.

We rapidly mobilized our COVID-19 Response Fund to help address the most pressing needs of the communities especially vulnerable to the pandemic, and its hard to imagine a more urgent scenario than what the people of Somalia now face, said Patricia McIlreavy, president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. We are proud to support Action Against Hunger and advance our goal to minimize the effects of this pandemic and the natural disasters that are worsening its impact. Together, we hope to promote a thoughtful, equitable and responsible recovery for all.

Action Against Hunger takes a localized approach in all its programs, working closely with Ministries of Health, local healthcare staff, and community groups such as farmers cooperatives and womens groups. It will use the funds to reach more people with water and hygiene programs, and to provide staff with training, personal protective equipment, and other necessary medical supplies.

# # #

Action Against Hunger is the worlds hunger specialist and a nonprofit leader in a global movement that aims to end life-threatening hunger for good. For 41 years, the humanitarian organization has innovated better ways to treat and prevent hunger. It serves more than 21 million people annually across nearly 50 countries and earned a 4-star Charity Navigator rating for its 14th consecutive year.

Center for Disaster Philanthropys mission is to leverage the power of philanthropy to mobilize a full range of resources that strengthen the ability of communities to withstand disasters and recover equitably when they occur. CDP manages domestic and international Disaster Funds on behalf of corporations, foundations and individuals through targeted, holistic and localized grantmaking. For more information, visit: http://disasterphilanthropy.org.



Contact:



Shayna Samuels

718-541-4785

ssamuels@purposecollaborative.com






Rappler CEO has been targeted by Dutertes administration for the news websites coverage of the deadly war on drugs.

Filipino journalist Maria Ressa is no stranger to working as a foreign correspondent under repressive regimes, in Indonesia under Suharto and in China under Deng Xiaoping, but now, in her native Philippines, under President Rodrigo Duterte, she faces one of her toughest tests ever.

We are at the precipice between a democracy and a dictatorship. This is it, Ressa, head of the news website Rappler, told Al Jazeera as she prepared for the verdict on Monday of a cyber libel case filed against her  the first of at least eight charges she is facing since Duterte came to power in 2016.

At a time when the Philippines is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic as well as widespread unhappiness with a new anti-terror bill that Duterte championed through Congress and the forced shutdown of the countrys biggest TV network, the need to hold the line on press freedom and keep the government accountable has become even more urgent, she said.

If we lose these battles, then the Philippines will fundamentally change, she told Al Jazeera.

The verdict on the cyber libel case is due at 8:30am (00:30 GMT). Ressa said she is trying to be mentally prepared so that whatever happens, nothing will be a surprise or a shock.





The cyber libel case against Ressa and her publication stems from a 2017 complaint by a businessman over a Rappler story published in 2012, before the cybercrime law existed. The businessman said he had been defamed when he was linked to the then-Supreme Court chief justice, who was later removed from office through impeachment.

The libel complaint was dismissed in 2018, but the National Bureau of Investigation reversed the decision and recommended to the justice ministry that Ressa and the reporter, Reynaldo Santos Jr, be prosecuted. Prosecutors said they were only following the law.

Around the same time, Duterte had sought to close Rappler for alleged foreign ownership and tax evasion  allegations the news organisation denied.

Rappler had earned Dutertes ire for its relentless reporting on Dutertes so-called war on drugs, a signature policy that has left thousands of people dead. It also exposed a pro-Duterte network circulating alleged fake news on social media.

Weaponising the law

A cyber libel conviction in the Philippines carries a possible imprisonment of six years or more. But it is a bailable offence, allowing those who have been convicted to remain out of jail while the case is under appeal.

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said the government should stop weaponising the law against Ressa and other journalists and media organisations in the country.

Ressa, centre, with her lawyer, Theodore Te, leave a court in Manila in December after attending a trial on the cyber libel charge filed against her and her organisation, Rappler [File: Mark R Cristino/EPA]

NUJP hopes the court will see this case for what it is, part of this vindictive governments ruthless campaign to silence or intimidate independent and critical Philippine media.

In addition to Rappler, Duterte has seemingly also targeted and forced the closure of ABS-CBN, the largest media company in the Philippines, while the owners of the countrys largest newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer, were forced to sell the publication to a Duterte ally after publishing news reports and editorials critical of the mounting deaths in the war on drugs.

Absurd case

Carlos Conde, of Human Rights Watch in the Philippines, said the case against Rappler should never have been filed to begin with.

The absurdity of this particular case against Maria Ressa  prosecutors deemed the story in question republished after Rappler corrected one word that was misspelled  suggests the desperation of those behind it to silence her and Rappler, Conde said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

While the article in question had been published in 2012, a spelling correction had been made to one word in 2014, something the prosecutors dubbed a republication of the article.

Rapplers defence team had also argued that libel complaints had to be filed within one year under the law, whereas the businessmans complaint had come in 2017. In response, the justice ministry ruled that the cybercrime law fell under the Republic Act which extended the offence period to 12 years instead of one.





By exploiting an absurd technicality the governments case against Ressa illustrates the lengths the regime would go, to go after its perceived enemies, Conde added.

Ressa, for her part, said the Duterte administration should not be so defensive when journalists point out weaknesses that could be made better.

The former CNN correspondent added that she remains confident the Philippine media will weather the threats, adding that history is on the side of the journalists, on the side of our constitution.

A matter of principle

Since being targeted by the Philippine government and subjected to several arrests, Ressa, who was named as a 2018 Time Magazine Person of the Year, has travelled extensively. But she said it never crossed her mind not to return to the Philippines.

I am not just one reporter, and even then, its a matter of principle for me, she said. I run Rappler. I helped create this organisation. So, it wasnt a choice. Because in the end, I am not about to let the government pound me into silence.

The case has become a rallying point for media freedom advocates.

Shawn Crispin, Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement to Al Jazeera that the Philippines has a chance to restore a modicum of press freedom by acquitting Ressa.





Her conviction and imprisonment would be a disaster for Philippine press freedom and democracy, Crispin said, adding that if Ressa is jailed, Duterte will be viewed as public enemy number one by press freedom and rights advocacy groups worldwide.

A judiciary insider told Al Jazeera that proving malice, a requirement for conviction, is difficult, as it is a state of mind, and that Ressa, Santos, and Rappler would probably be cleared. On the rare occasion that guilt is proven, the court usually imposes a fine instead of a jail term, the source said.

Ressa said that, given the current political climate in the country, she is not confident of anythingbut I am hopeful.

At this point, she said, there is only one way to deal with the cases thrown against her, and that is to deal with my fear.

I embrace my fear.
A raft of EU nations reopened their borders to fellow Europeans on Monday after months of coronavirus curbs, but China was battling a new outbreak that has stoked fears of a second wave.

As caseloads have declined in recent weeks across many parts of Europe, governments have been keen to ease painful lockdowns that have saved lives but devastated economies and wearied confined populations.

Belgium, France, Germany, Greece and Ukraine were among those lifting border restrictions on Monday, while shops and outdoor attractions in England were set to welcome their first customers since March and in Paris cafes and restaurants were allowed to fully reopen.

"We're desperate about tourists, we need them and we want them. If we don't have the people, how will we survive," says Michalis Drosos, who works in a souvenir shop in Fira, capital of the Greek island of Santorini.

Aa new cluster of coronavirus cases has been linked to Xinfadi market in south Beijing. By NOEL CELIS (AFP)

However, the pandemic is gathering pace in Latin America, and Iran and India have reported worrying increases in deaths and infections -- adding to concern over challenges the world will face in the long fight against COVID-19.

China, where the virus emerged late last year, was the first country to implement extreme restrictions on movement early this year, forcing local transmission down to near-zero as the crisis hammered the rest of the world.

But health officials on Monday reported 75 cases of the respiratory illness in Beijing where the fresh cluster has been linked to a wholesale food market.

Streams of people queued in a Beijing stadium as mass testing was carried out, and a strict lockdown was extended across 21 Beijing neighbourhoods.

US reports lowest daily toll

More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from COVID-19, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged by the crisis.

The United States -- by far the hardest-hit country with more than 115,700 recorded fatalities -- on Sunday reported its lowest 24-hour death toll since its infection rate peaked in mid-April.

Geneva's landmark fountain, known as "Jet d'Eau", was restarted after months of being shut off. By Fabrice COFFRINI (AFP/File)

President Donald Trump's administration has noted that some states have seen new flare-ups, but insists there will be no shutdown of the economy even if a new wave arises.

But stock markets tumbled again on Monday on fears that an upsurge of infections could put the brakes on the easing of lockdowns and dash hopes of economic recovery.

'Micro-outbreaks inevitable '

The Middle East's worst-hit country, Iran, reported an uptick on Sunday, recording more than 100 new virus deaths in a single day for the first time in two months.

Surging infections in India have highlighted the precarious state of its healthcare system, and more than 1,000 new cases are being reported each day in the capital alone.

Chart showing how fast COVID-19 deaths have risen in selected countries. By John SAEKI (AFP)

Mortuaries in New Delhi are overflowing with bodies and cemeteries and crematorium staff say they cannot keep up with the backlog of victims.

There have also been two new outbreaks in Rome, with 109 infections including five deaths diagnosed at a hospital and 15 cases detected at a building inhabited by squatters.

"It means the virus hasn't lost its infectiousness, it isn't weakening... we shouldn't let down our guard," World Health Organization deputy director Ranieri Guerra told journalists.

"Such micro-outbreaks were inevitable, but they are limited in time and space. And today we have the tools to intercept them and confine them."

'It's going to be a party'

Despite fears over fresh clusters, many countries are making moves towards semi-normality.

More than 5,000 portraits of Peruvian victims of COVID-19 are displayed in Lima's cathedral. By Ernesto BENAVIDES (AFP/File)

In Paris, restaurant and cafe owners were cheering after the government said they could once again open their dining rooms, three months after being shut to blunt the coronavirus outbreak.

Until now, restaurants in and around the capital could only serve clients on outdoor terraces, even though eateries in the rest of the country opened fully earlier this month.

"It's going to be a party," Stephane Manigold, owner of four Paris restaurants, including the two-starred Maison Rostang, told AFP.

In England, thousands of non-essential retailers such as bookshops and electronics outlets will be welcoming their first customers since halting in-store business in late March.

Drive-in cinemas, safari parks and the outdoor parts of zoos will also be able to reopen, while places of worship are also set to swing open their doors again for individual prayer.

Egypt says it will open its doors for tourists to beach resorts in July, and Peru's Machu Picchu will also reopen next month, although it will sharply reduce the number of daily visitors.

And top-level football continues its return in Europe with the English Premier League making its long-awaited comeback this week, days after Spain's La Liga.

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Hiu Kit David Chong is expected to plead guilty in an admissions fraud case after admitting he falsified applicants' admissions packets. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)

A former USC admissions official accused of accepting thousands of dollars in payments to ensure graduate-school admission for unqualified international students is expected to plead guilty Monday to a federal fraud charge.

Hiu Kit David Chong admitted in his April plea agreement that he falsified applicants' admission packets with doctored college transcripts, phony letters of recommendation and fraudulent personal statements.

Chong, a 36-year-old Arcadia resident, agreed to plead guilty by video conference to a single wire fraud count, a felony carrying a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars. Chong, who was assistant director of USC's Office of Graduate Admissions from September 2008 to March 2016, told Chinese nationals he could assist them in obtaining admission into a graduate degree program at the university, according to his plea agreement. He furthered the scheme by operating a now-defunct Monterey Park academic consulting company, prosecutors said.

From February 2015 to December 2018, Chong solicited and received payments  ranging from $8,000 to $12,000  from unqualified international students or from others who were acting on behalf of the unqualified students.

The defendant purchased phony college transcripts purporting to be from Chinese universities and instructed his supplier to create transcripts to show falsely inflated grade point averages, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Chong admitted he submitted the phony documents in the students' USC application packets, including fraudulent letters of recommendation and fabricated personal statements purportedly written by the applicants, prosecutors said.

He also offered to research how to arrange for a surrogate test taker to take the English as a Foreign Language exam, the results of which USC would consider when making decisions regarding admissions applications, according to court documents. In his plea agreement, Chong admitted concealing from the university that the applicants paid him to facilitate their admission.

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Chong also admitted to helping three unqualified international students gain admission to USC using phony application materials. Chong said he was paid $38,000 from international students and people he believed were working with international students, including an undercover law enforcement official. He also received additional payments from other international students as part of the scheme, resulting in profits of $40,000, federal prosecutors said.

USC issued a statement in April saying the university cooperated with the federal investigation.

Chong concealed these actions from the university and continued engaging in them for two and a half years after he left USC, according to the university.
To make it easier for patients to reach out to hospitals that are dedicated to treating Covid-19 cases, the Delhi government has added phone numbers of all 105 hospitals featured on its Delhi Corona app. When a patient clicks on the name of the hospital where beds are available, its phone number, along with its location on a map, will pop up.

The hospitals have also been colour-coded red, yellow and green depending on the availability of beds, with red denoting hospitals with very few beds available and green denoting hospitals with an adequate number of beds.

On Sunday evening, 56 hospitals were green, while 25 were yellow and 27 were red.

Currently, there are 9,647 beds available for the treatment of Covid-19 patients in Delhi and the government is looking to increasing this number to around 15,000 by June 20. By the end of next month, the Delhi government is looking to expand the number of Covid-19 beds to 1.5 lakh, including those in makeshift hospitals at stadiums and banquet halls

Earlier this week, when HT had called up hospitals to check on the availability of beds for Covid-19 patients, ascertaining the exact number of beds available had proved to be difficult.

The government had launched the Delhi Corona app in the beginning of the month to provide real-time information on availability of beds for the treatment of Covid-19 in hospitals across the city. Days after launching the app, the government had also ordered the hospitals to ensure real-time updating on the app.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anonna Dutt Anonna Dutt is a health reporter at Hindustan Times. She reports on Delhi governments health policies, hospitals in Delhi, and health-related feature stories. ...view detail
Ma-Yi Theater Company, in partnership with Aye Defy and HowlRound, will present a live reading of Diana Oh's My H8 Letter To The Gr8 American Theatre, on June 16 and 17 at 8pm, with a rebroadcast on June 18 at 3pm and 8pm.

First presented as a reading at the Public Theater in July 2019, the is written, directed, and composed by Oh, who also stars. Ryan J. Haddad, Timothy Hall, Kevin Hourigan, Nessa Norich, Matt Park, Michael Puzzo, Alysia Reiner, TL Thompson, Joshua Young, and David Zheng round out the company.

"Why Now? Because, I ran out of patience waiting for someone else to do this play," Oh said in a statement. "Because I know it's honest - and for some it's too honest, and too painful, and too uncomfortable. And for that reason, the play sat. This play, however, is comforting to those who can relate to what it is in the play: this is about repairing damage. This is about transparency and honesty as the way to build a balanced relationship that is no longer oppressive, silencing, and damaging."

The creative team includes Sarah Shin (assistant director) Maria-Christina "MC" Oliveras (technical operator), Annie Middleton (creative producing partner to Diana Oh), Erica Huang (sound coordinator), and Cristina Sison (stage manager).

My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre was developed in the 2017-2019 Public Theater's Emerging Writers Group. Each performance will be followed by a party on Zoom.

Click here for more information.
DUBLIN, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Semiconductor Manufacturers (GLOBAL) - Industry Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Global Semiconductor Manufacturers Analysis 2020 provides a detailed overview of the global semiconductor manufacturers market and delivers a comprehensive individual analysis on the top 280 companies, including Texas Instruments Inc, Texas Instruments Singapore (PTE) Ltd and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation.



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LIMERICK woman Aine Fay is leading an Irish charitys efforts to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in poverty-stricken South Sudan  which has one of the weakest health systems in the world.

The veteran humanitarian, originally from Bedford Row, manages a team of over 400 staff in the east-African nation as Country Director with Irish aid organisation Concern Worldwide, who she has worked with since 1983.

They are spreading the message to extremely poor and remote communities about the dangers of Covid-19 and how they can prevent its spread  while also providing hand washing stations and distributing food and other essential items.

Aine said the vast majority of the population are dependent on labouring and other occupations that provide a daily wage  which they need to buy food for survival. The choice between going hungry - or even dying of hunger - and feeling sick from COVID is somewhat a Hobsons choice, where they either take what food they can get or have none at all, she said.

Aine and her colleagues were already busy treating children suffering from malnutrition and providing temporary shelter in displacement camps for people fleeing war and hunger when the pandemic struck.

The needs in South Sudan were already vast, with over 3.7 million people displaced due to civil war.

It was estimated that before the pandemic, 6.1 million people (59 per cent of the population) did not have sufficient access to food.

While COVID-19 cases are currently low compared to Ireland (as of June 4 they have 1,317 cases and fourteen deaths), the arrival of new testing kits has resulted in a sharp rise in confirmed cases and it is feared there may be many going undetected.

The numbers are growing rapidly, said Aine, who previously worked for Concern in countries like Bangladesh, Uganda (after the Rwandan genocide in 1994), Haiti, Afghanistan and Ethiopia.

The difficulty in contexts such as the ones that Concern works in is that social distancing and isolation is a difficult concept for many.

Camps do not have the space to allow for this at any level that would minimise the spread.

In addition, health facilities are already either very weak or indeed non-existent to allow for any sort of treatment or isolation for severe cases.

Despite this, we want to ensure that families continue to have access to medical treatment for the diseases that are widespread in South Sudan  such malaria, upper respiratory infections, and other treatable diseases.

Concern is working with health facilities to ensure that they have good hygiene and social distancing practices in place to prevent the spread of the virus.

South Sudan currently has just 82 intensive care unit beds, four ventilators and one laboratory that is able to test for COVID-19 in the capital city, Juba.

While plans are underway to increase this number, there are very few intensive care options for those living outside Juba.

The government is seeking assistance to provide more isolation centres for those who need it, and in Unity State in the north of the country, where Concern has programmes, the charity is providing water and sanitation facilities for an isolation centre located there.

Aine said the country also lacks an adequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The country is very short of PPEs that would help protect front line workers and this will be a major problem as the number of people testing positive grows.

Concerns work is concentrating on continuing to disseminate messages to the communities on how to mitigate the impact of the virus.

We are encouraging social distancing at events such as training of community members and distributing food and other items that are part of Concerns work. We are also ensuring that there is a means to practice good hand-washing.

Concern Worldwide has launched an emergency appeal for donations, which can be made on their website at Concern.net. Donations to this appeal will help its teams in 23 countries, like South Sudan, continue their life-saving work.
The Karnataka government on Monday extended compulsory institutional quarantine to those coming in from Delhi and Tamil Nadu. Earlier, it was limited to just Maharashtra.

People from the two states, Delhi and Tamil Nadu, will have to undergo institutional quarantine for a period of three days followed by 11 days of home quarantine, while those from Maharashtra will have to undergo compulsory one week institutional quarantine followed by one week of home quarantine. For people coming from states other than these three, it is two weeks of home quarantine.

This and several other decisions were taken at a review meeting chaired by chief minister BS Yediyurappa, following concerns over increase in Covid-19 cases in the state.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Karnataka CM pointed out that of the 7,000 Covid-19 positive cases registered in the state till Sunday evening 4,386 were returnees from Maharashtra and an additional 1,340 were those in contact with them. Those who had come from overseas, only 216 were tested Covid-19 positive.

Transmission is not happening because of movement within the state but because of people returning from other states and therefore we have to take these measures to contain it, he added.

Yediyurappa also claimed that the state was doing significantly better than the national average. He said while the states mortality rate was 1.2 per cent, the national average was 2.8 per cent. He also said that Karnataka had a recovery rate of 56.6 per cent against the national average of 51 per cent.

Responding to a question on reimposition of the lockdown, the CM said if anything he would appeal to the PM for further relaxations. He said that strict enforcement would be done regarding social distancing, wearing of masks and use of sanitisers to maintain hygiene. He also said that for those caught not wearing masks for a first time offence, they would be fined Rs 200.

As on Monday, the state had recorded 7,213 cases with 4,135 recoveries, 88 deaths and 2,987 active cases with Yadgiri, Kalburgi, Bangalore Urban and Raichuru accounting for bulk of the active cases.
Update, June 14 at 4:18 p.m.: Lisa Alexander has issued an apology to James Juanillo."I did not realize at the time that my actions were racist and have learned a painful lesson," she wrote in a statement shared by ABC7 on Sunday. Read more here.

---

Lisa Alexander, a skin care CEO from San Francisco, is coming under fire after a video posted to Twitter shows her confronting a man for writing "Black Lives Matter" on his front retaining wall. Alexander alleged he did not own the property.

The video was uploaded to Twitter by user @jaimetoons  later identified as San Francisco resident James Juanillo by social media intelligence agency Storyful  on Thursday, and has since racked up over seven million views.

"A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a #BLM chalk message on my own front retaining wall," Juanillo tweeted. "'Karen' lies and says she knows that I dont live in my own house, because she knows the person who lives here."

For those unfamiliar with the "Karen" meme, Dictionary.com defines the term as "a mocking slang term for an entitled, obnoxious, middle-aged white woman.... often asking to speak to retail and restaurant managers to voice complaints or make demands, and being a nagging, often divorced mother from Generation X."

In the video, Alexander and another person identified only as "Robert" can be seen asking Juanillo if he owns the property he's writing the message on.

Juanillo says, "If I did live here and it was my property, this would be absolutely fine? And you don't know if I live here or if this is my property?"

Alexander is then dared to call the police, with Juanillo stating he "would be more than happy to talk to them." He later told Storyful, "The police came and recognized me immediately as a resident of the house and left without getting out of their patrol car. I didnt even show them my ID."

After the video went viral, individuals on Nextdoor identified the woman as Lisa Alexander of Pacific Heights. Alexander is the founder of LA FACE, an independent skin care line that described itself on its now-removed website as an "anti-aging luxury natural and organic VEGAN skincare line [that] is extremely effective for all skin types."

A Twitter account under the name of "Lisa C. Alexander" has since tweeted, and deleted the following message seemingly acknowledging Juanillo owns the property: I asked if he lived there because if he had said yes then everything would have been fine as it was his property. Being a good neighbor is important where everyone takes care of each other. It is too bad he took it in a different direction.

The fallout has been swift. The "Lisa C. Alexander" Twitter account has since been deleted, as has the LA FACE website. Birchbox, a distributor of the LA FACE line, announced via Twitter it has "officially cut ties with" Alexander.

"We condemn the actions of Lisa Alexander," Birchbox tweeted. "We have not worked with LA FACE for several years & as a result of the CEOs actions today have officially cut ties with them. Weve removed their products from our website & will not be working with them in the future."

Juanillo also noted that he wrote the message in removable chalk.

"When did chalk art become 'defacing' property?" he tweeted. "Cause then I got some kindergarteners outside committing all kinds of crime right now that Karen can heroically bust!"

Eric Ting is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting
ALBANY  While the ruling by the Supreme Court on Monday protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination in the workplace is a landmark decision, LGBTQ community leaders say theres still more work to be done.

Its a watershed moment, with everything else going on, its 50 years in the making, said Libby Post, a political consultant and LGBTQ activist in the Capital Region. There is still a lot for us to do. We cant sit back on laurels, which is something people tend to do when you have a big victory like this.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBTQ workers.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous, Alito wrote in the dissent. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.' 

Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.

Sen. Brad Hoylman, New Yorks only openly gay state Senator, applauded the decision, noting how discriminating against LGBTQ Americans was always morally wrong.

Until this morning, federal law said I couldve been fired from a job simply for mentioning my husband David to a colleague, Hoylman said in an emailed statement. Thats exactly what happened to three plaintiffs in this case, including New Yorker Donald Zarda, who came forward to fight for equal rights after experiencing outrageous discrimination in the workplace.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs, including a Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip.

Zarda, who died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014, lost his job after he tried to put at ease a woman with whom he jumping by explaining that he was gay. The job required him to strap himself tightly to clients for tandem jumps from an airplane. The school fired Zarda after the womans boyfriend called to complain.

Albany resident Alana Klein, who identifies as a non-binary transgender woman, said the ruling is a huge step for equality.

Klein said shes had her own experiences with discrimination in the workplace, including being written up for productivity and fired a month after coming out at a job she had worked at for 4  years. At another job, she said she had casually mentioned her hormone replacement therapy to another coworker and was called into the office by management.

The outcome of Monday's Supreme Court decision is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBTQ workers across the country because most states did not previously protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBTQ people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

The CSEA, the state's largest labor union, noted that the ruling is a major step forward for workers without union contracts.

"So many workers throughout the country are not so fortunate as our CSEA members to have union contracts that protect them from discrimination on the job," said Chantalise DeMarco, the union's statewide LGBTQ Committee chair. "This is an important victory for them, but we must remain ever vigilant that the rights of all of our LGBTQ+ workers are protected on and off the job."

The courts ruling comes as President Donald J. Trump dismantled protections for the LGBTQ community in accessing health care. Trump announced Friday that the federal government is rolling back Obama-era health care protections for people who are transgender. The rule will impact transgender patients' ability to fight against discrimination by doctors, medical facilities and health insurance providers.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

There will be a case and it will come up to the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States), and they will have no other choice, I think, to rule on the side of the community, Post said. And if you cant discriminate on employment, what allows you to discriminate based on healthcare?

While the ruling from a conservative slate of justices is a milestone, Klein and others in the LGBTQ community say theres far more work to be done.

I still hear and see comments from people who are on the outside looking in that act like the fight for LGBTQ+ rights is over because of marriage equality, Klein said. Far from it.

She noted that the LGBTQ community still struggles with discriminatory practices in adoption and parental rights, health care, and housing. Conversion therapy, the scientifically discredited practice of attempting to change someone's sexual orientation, is still permitted in many states, Klein added.

Hoylman also said the fight for equal rights must continue.

New York has some of the nations strongest anti-discrimination laws, but LGBTQ New Yorkers  in particular, black trans women  continue to face discrimination in housing, employment and the criminal justice system, he said.

Hoylman is pushing for the passage of a bill repealing a loitering law known as walking while trans due to the way police officers can stop transgender women of color and arrest them for baseless reasons like walking down the street in certain clothing.

U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Cold Spring Democrat and New York's first openly gay member of Congress, also stressed more must be done in a Tweet on Monday.

This is a historic day: a conservative-majority SCOTUS has affirmed LGBTQ employment protections, Maloney said. But our work is not done. Its time to pass the Equality Act and ban all forms of anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Linkedin Novan Iman Santosa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15 2020

Student officers at the Indonesian Air Force Staff and Command College (Seskoau) participated in a science and technology event recently to learn about the latest advancements taking place at defense companies in the country and abroad.

The event was held via video conferences at Srutasala Hall on the Seskoau campus in Lembang, West Java, on Wednesday and Thursday under strict health protocol that included body temperature checks for students and physical distancing.

Seskoau commander Air Commodore Samsul Rizal said that, through the virtual event, the student officers were to be presented with information and the transfer of technology, while cooperation with various stakeholders would be increased.

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June 15 (Reuters) - Santander Holdings USA Inc, a unit of Madrid-based Banco Santander S.A., said on Monday it would close its offices and branches at noon on June 19, to commemorate 'Juneteenth', or the end of slavery in the United States.

June 19 commemorates the U.S. abolition of slavery by President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which was belatedly announced in the state of Texas on June 19, 1865, after the end of the Civil War.

"This year, Juneteenth is especially moving as our nation wrestles with inequities and injustices that have persisted throughout its history, with renewed urgency," Santander Holdings Chief Executive Officer Tim Wennes said in a statement.

Santander joins others in corporate America such as Alphabet Inc's Google, Jack Dorsey-owned Twitter Inc and Square Inc in recognizing Juneteenth.

The death of African American George Floyd in police custody late last month has triggered widespread protests against racism and police brutality, while also reigniting the debate on diversity and inclusion among corporate companies. (Reporting by C Nivedita; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Asserting that the road built by India till Lipulekh Pass is very much in its territory, defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that his government believed in sorting out the "misunderstanding" in relations with Nepal through dialogue.

In a virtual rally for Uttarakhand, Singh underscored the deep ties between the two countries, saying they were bound together by "roti and beti", and no power in the world can break it.

"Our rations are not only historical and cultural, but also spiritual, and India can never forget it," he said. "How can relations between India and Nepal break!"

Nepal's Parliament had on Saturday unanimously voted to amend the Constitution to update the country's new political map, laying claim over three strategically key areas along the border with it.

If the road built by India has caused any misunderstanding among the people of Nepal, then it will be sorted out through dialogue, the senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader said, asserting Indians could never have any bitterness about Nepal.

In his address, Singh said the Modi government had delivered on a host of promises like abrogation of Article 370 and prohibiting instant triple talaq.

Gap between politicians' promises and their work had caused a "crisis of credibility", but the Modi government has triumphed over it by delivering on the party's manifesto, he said.
Russia and Turkey postponed talks on Libya due to discord over the Ankara-backed Tripoli government's push to retake the key coastal city of Sirte from eastern forces, a Turkish official said on Monday.

With Turkish military support, Libya's internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) has advanced for weeks against Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA), which is backed by Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Heavy clashes have emerged as the GNA has laid siege to LNA-held Sirte, close to major energy export terminals on the Mediterranean seaboard.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not make the trip to Istanbul on Sunday for a scheduled meeting with his counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, but the Turkish official said background talks were continuing at expert level.

"A result was supposed to come out (of the meetings), but that stage could not be reached. There are issues where the two countries are on opposing sides," the Turkish official said on condition of anonymity.

"One of the main issues for the postponement of the Lavrov visit is the (GNA's) plan for an operation into Sirte...which has emerged as a target."

The Kremlin did not comment. Russia's foreign ministry said on Sunday it was pursuing a "prompt ceasefire" and that Lavrov would reschedule the meeting. Cavusoglu said on Monday the postponement was unrelated to any issues on "core principles".

The United Nations said last week the warring sides had begun new ceasefire talks in Libya after GNA forces repelled a protracted LNA assault on the capital Tripoli.

Sirte, about halfway between GNA-held Tripoli and LNA-held Benghazi, is the closest city to Libya's main energy export terminals. Haftar's forces seized the city in January and the conflict's new front line has emerged just to the west.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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MOGADISHU  The Barawe District Commissioner, Sheikh Umar, has commended the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) Engineers under African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) for their quick response to improve the poor roads in Barawe.

Barawe, which is situated approximately 207 Km Southwest of the capital Mogadishu, is the area of responsibility of Ugandas 29th Battle Group (BG XXIX)) to Somalia with the Battle Group Headquarters located in Embresso.

Just like many parts of Somalia, Barawe was gravely ravaged by floods in the wake of the recent heavy rains in the country. The roads in Barawe and other parts of Somalia were affected, thus making transport very difficult. One journeying from Barawe to Somalia required a whole days travel or more to Mogadishu.

In response to this situation, Ugandas BG XXIXs Engineers under the command of Maj. Eng. Oyonge have, in the last 48 hours when the floods started in Barawe, conducted emergency road repairs and drainage fixing in the critically affected areas to enable normal flow of traffic in the sensitive routes. Maj Oyonge said the works are still ongoing to ensure ease of access in and out of Barawe.

Barawe has been considerably affected by unabated floods over the past two days. We have so far made a smooth progress towards addressing the problem with the intention to accomplish the work as soon as possible to ease transport of both people and vehicles. The road works is entirely being done by the AMISOM UPDF Engineers, he said.

Sheikh Umar was impressed by the quick response and the quality of works being done by the Ugandan AMISOM Engineers.

On behalf of the government, I want to thank AMISOM troops for the good and timely road works they are doing here in Barawe.

He said adding that, I also thank them for their support and sacrifice to the people of Somalia. We sincerely appreciate and hail you for all your efforts rendered to us since 2007 when Somalias security situation was very wanting.

Sheikh Umar reiterated the commitment of Somalias Government and the community in working with AMISOM to achieve lasting peace for socio-economic transformation in the country.

The District Commissioner further observed that the AMISOM Force in Barawe not only came in to share in the security challenge of the local people but also appropriately responded in sensitizing the community on COVID-19 pandemic and are now fully engaged in mitigating the effects of the floods.

This is true Pan-Africanism, he said.

The BG XXIX Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Officer, Capt Obed Mbarebaki noted that the activities in Barawe are enshrined in the UPDF pro-people ideology.

In that line, the Battle Group Public Information Officer, Capt. Geoffrey Sande reiterated that UPDF is not only focused on the security of the people in Somalia but also the enabling conditions for socio-economic transformation in the country.

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An internal email trail reportedly supports former boss Carlos Ghosn's claim that Nissan orchestrated his ouster. The leaked emails have been corroborated by sources familiar with their contents, Bloomberg reports.

Emails going back to February 2018, a year before his arrest, allegedly describe a deliberate and multi-pronged effort  a "methodical campaign," Bloomberg said  to remove Ghosn from the company and in so doing, put Nissan in position to negotiate a more favorable relationship with alliance partner Renault.

The initial effort was apparently triggered by Ghosn's announcement in 2018 that he wanted to further intertwine Renault and Nissan, eventually to the point where their integration would be irreversible. Former Ghosn aide Hari Nada, who would appear as the whistleblower figure who outed Ghosn for his alleged financial misconduct, allegedly suggested to a Nissan senior manager that company executives should move to "neutralize his initiatives before its too late."

Nada would later recommend the termination of the agreement governing the Renault-Nissan Alliance. This would have granted Nissan broader freedom to purchase stake in Renault (or even ultimately take it over entirely), and reduce the French automaker's influence over Nissan's ability to choose its own executives.

The next day, Ghosn was arrested at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on charges of financial misconduct, including personal use of company money and under-reporting of income.

Ghosn, who was released and re-arrested multiple times, fled Japan illegally in January, taking refuge in his former home of Lebanon. Since, Japanese authorities have pushed for his arrest but have been foiled by the lack of an extradition agreement between the two countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:40:19|Editor: huaxia

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KIEV, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of 31,810 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 901 deaths were reported in Ukraine on Monday, while 14,253 patients have recovered, the country's health ministry said.

In the past 24 hours, 10,236 tests were performed in Ukraine, and 656 were positive.

Besides, 2,350 children and 5,537 health workers have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the beginning of the outbreak.

In the past five days, Ukraine saw a rapid increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases.

Health Minister Maxym Stepanov on Monday said Ukraine would not reopen theaters starting from June 15. He appealed to citizens to follow the recommendations of the Ministry of Health, such as wearing masks, using antiseptics and maintaining social distance.

"I want to emphasize once again: We have a growing number of hospitalized people and a growing number of people with pneumonia. All this is a direct consequence of the abolition of quarantine by people who confused the mitigation and abolition of quarantine," Stepanov said during a briefing on Monday.

On May 20, the Ukrainian government introduced adaptive quarantine starting from May 22 until June 22. Enditem
Mumbai, June 15 : WWE champion and Hollywood actor John Cena offered his condolences and paid tribute to actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who committed suicide on Sunday.

Cena took to Instagram to post a monochrome image of the late star and shared his grief. In the picture, Sushant is seen striking an intense pose.

His tradition of not having any captions with the pictures continued with the picture of Sushant.

Cena's Instagram bio reads: "Welcome to my Instagram. These images will be posted without explanation, for your interpretation. Enjoy." This is not the first time that Cena has posted a picture of a Bollywood celebrity. Previously, he paid a tribute to late Bollywood legends Rishi Kapoor and Irrfan Khan on social media. During "Bigg Boss 13", he had taken to Instagram to post a picture of season contestant, model Asim Riaz.

Sushant was found hanging in his Bandra residence on Sunday morning by his domestic help. He was reportedly battling depression over the past few months and undergoing treatment for the same. His social media posts from the past couple of months reveal that he even tried yoga and meditation to battle his state of mind.

The actor hailed from Bihar and was educated in Patna and New Delhi, before shifting to Mumbai.

After establishing himself on the small screen with "Pavitra Rishta", he transitioned to the big screen with film "Kai Po Che!". He went on to do projects including "Shuddh Desi Romance", the biopic "M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story", "Kedarnath" and "Chhichore", among several others.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Pamela Nga is a full-time Human Resource student and part-time network marketer studying in Cameroon. She is fueled by the passion for the development of her community and the African continent. She considers herself as a Pan-African eager to build on her business administration knowledge. She has a hunger for knowledge and was inspired by the African history classes during high school.

Pamela Ngu, creator of Mindful Entrepreneur (M.E) podcast

Can you tell us a bit about M.E(Mindful Entrepreneur)?

When, how and why did you get started?

What is the core function of M.E(Mindful Entrepreneur)? M.E aims to motivate and educate young Africans on entrepreneurships in Africa.

What are some of the obstacles you've had to overcome since starting out?

What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs? Investing in Africa is worth it! Whatever you wish for in your community, create it! There is enough space for diversity and creativity in our communities. We need more entrepreneurs.

What has been your proudest achievement thus far?

What does the future of entrepreneurship look like to you?

What would you like to see changed in the African startup landscape?

What do you believe are the traits an entrepreneur needs in order to succeed? To me, a successful entrepreneur is someone that has faith, confidence and is action driven.

Where would you like to see M.E(Mindful Entrepreneur) in the next 12 months?

This led her to study early African revolutionists such as Thomas Sankara and read books on early African writers such as Chinua Achebe. This planted a seed in her to want to see a better Africa and strongly believes this can be done by empowering the further development of entrepreneurship.Pamela believes that business is another way to propagate the Pan-African spirit. As a result, she started the Mindful Entrepreneur (M.E) podcast.She shares more about her passion project...Mindful Entrepreneur (M.E) is a Pan-African Podcast Channel aimed at empowering and educating young Africans to become entrepreneurs that their various community need. On the M.E channel, we talk about topics such as financial literacy, essentials for a successful business and the importance of young Africans to invest whole-heartedly in their own communities and Africa as a whole.I started the podcast because I really had a passion to inform and motivate Africans to invest in their own countries in order for our continent to become what we all desire it to be. I was motivated by the fact that in my community there were not many businesses available that provided our basic needs and that was owned by Africans.Even though many youths are educated and travel abroad every year, many of them could actually become invaluable entrepreneurs and change the economy. But many either lacked the information on how to go about it and the motivation so I wanted to provide that platform for them.So, after a conversation with a friend, I did some research and decided to record my first episode on my phone and launched it on the Anchor App with the first episode on 14 May 2020.When I started I did not really know how I was going to market it to get people to listen. Thanks to some family members and friends, they helped me share the information and I also created an Instagram page and I also post on my own Facebook Page. All this has led to an increase in the number of plays.Hopefully, with the help of Bizcommunity, more people will listen and get motivated.The reviews people have sent me after listening to my episodes have really made me proud and motivated me to keep going.In Africa, for the youth, I hope to see more African-owned businesses in our various communities providing a variety of services and products to the market especially more digital-related services.On a governmental level, I hope to see more countries investing in improving internet infrastructure, loans for startups and other subventions. I hope to see a more convenient environment that will encourage Africans to be proud of becoming an entrepreneur at home.Generally, I believe that there are a number of aspects to change. But I would like to stress on the education of startup owners because I believe the psychological aspect of the owner is one key aspect that does not get enough attention when it comes to entrepreneurship.Firstly, I would like startup owners to become more professional in their business, providing better quality products and services to their market. This can be through getting the proper education on the service or product provided or working with the right people that are competent in that field.Added to that, startup owners should spend time on market research in order to produce a service that their target audience needs or could adapt to. In addition, they should always seek to improve their products.You need to have faith in God because there are going to be hard times along the way and it may seem impossible, but a higher being will make a way, so you need him by your side. You need to have strong faith or a belief in a higher being.You need to have confidence in yourself and your team. You need to also believe that you are great and that whatever you do or create will change lives. Personal development is important to get where you need to be.You need to be action-driven. You have to be someone that does not postpone activities or ideas due to fear but one that does what one plans to do, one that gets the job done. A successful entrepreneur is someone that seeks solutions when a problem arises and doesnt run away from them. When youre action-driven you increase your productivity and efficiency as an entrepreneur.My deepest desire to have the M.E podcast influence and motivate young Africans all over the world. I aspire to see the M.E platform expand by providing a space for our listeners to interact more with me on our blog or website.Added to that, I desire to have a recording studio for my podcast channel in order to accommodate more speakers on the platform and guests. I would also like to build a team that can help me take my vision forward.
Tim Fischer/Midland Reporter-Telegram

The following is the petition started by Bruce Carter to keep the name of Robert E. Lee High School in Midland.

We, the undersigned, believe that Robert E, Lee High School should retain its present name. Our reasons:

(1) We believe that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man, an abolitionist, a patriot that only fought on the side of the Confederacy because he refused to take up arms against his native state Virginia. His military record prior to the Civil War alone would more than make him worthy of the honor of having schools named in his honor.

(2) Generations of Robert E. Lee High School graduates have accomplishments and honors linked to the school - all of which would be erased and forgotten if the school got a new name.

(3) There are graduates that use their high school graduation as a reference for potential employment - based on the excellent education they have received. They deserve better than to have "no such school found" on background checks by potential employers.

(4) The name change is nothing more than misguided white guilt that will do nothing in broad scheme of racial relations in this country. We do not believe that re-naming the school after a divisive leftist will do anything to improve race relations. In fact, the backlash it creates may do more harm than good.

We oppose any name change for Robert E. Lee High School.
Morale was so low among the ranks loyal to Libyas recognised government, a clutch of fighters secretly planned on deserting the battlefield if they were forced to take on the Russians.

The highly-trained mercenaries  hired to support renegade general Khalifa Haftar in his bid to take Tripoli  had emerged from the snarl of Libyas latest war as the most feared force.

For the malaise of Tripoli fighters, better acquainted with shooting Kalashnikovs in flip flops, the lethal accuracy of the Russians was terrifying. Their sniping capability had become legendary among the rank-and-file.

So when the orders came to march south on the enemy positions, a group of fighters huddled together to discuss how they might escape.

The target was Tarhuna, a crumbling one-street town 60km south of the capital Tripoli. With two tiny airstrips, the little-known backwater had morphed into a vital supply line for Haftar since he launched his offensive last April to take the capital from the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).

If the town fell, the renegade general would lose his last foothold in west Libya and the GNA would likely win the war.

The problem was Moscows mercenaries in the way.

We were planning on running away. We were very afraid of the Russians because of their target accuracy. They are incredibly professional in using artillery, one government fighter admitted, with embarrassment.

Libya's faultlines (The Independent)

Our main goal was staying alive. It is hard to articulate the fear.

But before the GNA fighters had even left Tripoli, footage was circulating online showing what appeared to be Russian combatants in trucks and cargo planes retreating from the frontlines.

When the fighters finally arrived in Tarhuna the mercenaries had melted away.

That was the beginning of the collapse of Haftars house of cards, said one GNA military official in Tripoli about Haftars loss of the town on 5 June.

It was the main factor that led to Haftars forces withdrawal from the other places, he added.

Haftars Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), now beating a hasty retreat hundreds of kilometres down the coast from Tripoli, deny any foreign fighters exist among its ranks. In interviews with The Independent, its commanders have repeatedly dismissed these allegations as propaganda and lies spread by the GNA and terrorists.

But UN investigators believe at least 1,200 Russians were hired by shadowy Russian private military companies like Wagner to help Haftar win his war against the GNA.

What caused hundreds of them to withdraw at such a crucial moment is the talk of the town back in Tripoli. Rumours abound of a last-minute deal struck between Ankara and Moscow to allow the mercenaries to exit the frontline unscathed, preventing a potentially deadly confrontation between the two world powers.

Given the impact on the morale of Haftars soldiers, the withdrawal made us feel for sure there was a deal, said one Syrian mercenary with the GNA.

All the resistance we faced on all fronts vanished in one night.

The concluding episode of Haftars disastrous attempt to take Tripoli is an illuminating snapshot of how mercenaries have steered victories and defeats in the latest chapter of Libyas messy civil war.

With wealthy foreign patrons and thousands of soldiers-for-hire deployed on both sides, what was once skirmishes between squabbling fiefdoms of militias has morphed into the worlds newest proxy war.

It has altered the landscape of the country forever and set world super powers including Turkey, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates, against each other.

As one senior diplomat, involved in trying to enforce the UNs arms embargo, put it: Libya is the new Syria  but this time on Europes doorstep.

A month-long investigation by The Independent into this murky mercenary underworld shows a labyrinth of recruitment stretching from Moscow to Damascus from Idlib to Istanbul.

Interviews with western diplomats briefed on an ongoing UN probe into arms embargo violations, US military officials, Syrian and Libyan combatants, as well as over a dozen interviews with people across both countries, show the utilisation of the poorest Syrians at the heart of it.

Hired to fight on both sides in Libya, Syrians are once again battling each other  but this time over someone elses war-wrecked capital thousands of kilometres from home.

April is the cruellest month

Last Spring, things in Libya were looking up.

The UN had scheduled a peace conference in the countrys stunning desert city of Ghadames.

The latest bouts of fighting had shuddered to a halt. In January of that year, police officers from the countrys rival governments had even met in Benghazi to discuss cooperation.

But in April, just days before the peace talks were due to start, the veneer of progress came crashing down. Backed by Emirati air power and later Russian boots on the ground, Haftar launched his ill-fated offensive to oust the Turkish-supported government from Tripoli.

Haftar, nominally linked to a rival administration in the east, has long rejected the GNA as being puppeted by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, which he and his foreign backers, including Egypt and the UAE, deem to be terrorists.

The GNA, which is recognised by the UN but guarded by brigades of often unsavoury militias, has the support of countries including Turkey and Italy. It regards Haftar as a war criminal who would be king.

Increasingly alarmed, the UN has repeatedly and futilely warned that the flood of fighters and weaponry into Libya violates a UN arms embargo. The UNs acting Libya envoy last month pleaded with the Security Council to stop a massive influx of weaponry, equipment and mercenaries.

It is hard to keep up with the tapestry of foreign operatives fighting for scraps of the country that has limped through multiple conflicts over the nine years since Muammar Gaddafi was killed next to a storm drain.

Territory is not measured in metres-squared but in footholds of influence across the region that can be played off each other. For the mercenary companies  like Russias infamous Wagner group  Libya is a seemingly bottomless purse.

Haftar started the war on Tripoli in April 2019 with the upper hand, making quick gains with powerful Wing Loong II drones, fighter jets and Pantsir defence systems that western diplomats believe were provided by the UAE and later Russia. Both countries repeatedly deny any allegations of involvement in the war.

On the ground the generals forces were swelled by an injection of mercenaries, which a UN-commissioned probe says included some 1,200 Russian mercenaries and up to 2,000 Syrian fighters recruited from regime areas of Syria. (The Independents own investigation put the number of Syrians at closer to 800).

International diplomats briefed on the UN investigation told The Independent an additional contingent of over 2,000 Sudanese fighters, many of whom arrived during a surge of recruitment in November, also gave Haftar an edge.

But the tide turned with Turkeys formal entry into the foray that was approved by the Turkish parliament in January despite it being a violation of the arms embargo.

Libyas messy civil war in pictures Show all 33 1 /33 Libyas messy civil war in pictures Libyas messy civil war in pictures A picture taken on April 11, 2019, shows fighters loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar imprisoned by forces from the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) waves from a crater reportedly caused by an air strike west of the city of Aziziah, some 60 kilometres southwest of the capital Tripoli, on April 14, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA get into position during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar south of the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on April 25, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Libyans, some wearing yellow vests, wave national flags and chant slogans during a demonstration against Khalifa Haftar in Tripoli's Martyrs' Square on April 26, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures African migrants who fled battle zones in Libya gather at a detention center in Zawiya, west of the capital Tripoli, on April 27, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA load a cannon during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA carries a bullet belt as he and fellow fighters hold a position during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA stands on a rooftop as smoke rises in the distance during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, in Espiaa, about 25 miles south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on April 29, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (L) and Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya and Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA) of Libya, Fayez al-Sarraj stand to attention during a welcoming ceremony upon Farraj's arrival for their meeting on May 7, 2019 in Rome AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA gesture near the frontline during clashes against forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, on May 21, 2019 in the Salah al-Din area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA fire a heavy machine gun on May 21, 2019 in the Salah al-Din area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires a heavy machine gun as a press photographer take pictures of the scene during clashes against forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, on May 25, 2019, in the Airport Road Area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires a heavy machine gun on June 1, 2019, in al-Sawani area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA take a rest near their weapons in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli during clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar, on June 19, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Migrants stand and walk outside at a detention centre used by the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) in the capital Tripoli's suburb of Tajoura on July 3, 2019, following an air strike on a nearby building that left dozens killed the previous night AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA open tank fire from their position in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, on June 13, 2019 AFP/Getty Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA open fire from their position in the al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on June 13, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A picture taken in Tripoli on June 29, 2019, shows fighters loyal to the GNA displaying Chinese-made shells bearing the markings of the United Arab Emirates (unseen on this side of the box), which were reportedly seized from forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar in Gharyan, 60 miles south of Tripoli. The United States said it was looking into a report that American anti-tank missiles were found by forces loyal to Libya's unity government at a captured rebel base AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA fires his gun during clashes in the capital Tripoli's suburb of Ain Zara, on September 7, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Libyans check the site of an air strike in which three children were killed and others wounded on the southern outskirts of the capital Tripoli on October 14, 2019 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Khalifa Haftar leaves after talks with Greek Foreign Minister in Athens, on January 17, 2020, days ahead of a peace conference in Berlin. The talks came as world powers stepped up efforts for a lasting ceasefire AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter with Libya's GNA fires rockets from a position near the town of Garabulli toward the city of Tarhuna, southwest of the capital Tripoli, held by the forces of Khalifa Haftar, on April 19, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A resident walks amidst the rubble of a building that was damaged when forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar shelled the residential neighbourhood of Znatah in Tripoli, held by the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), on May 1, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Smoke fumes rise above buildings in the Libyan capital Tripoli, during reported shelling by Khalifa Haftar's forces, on May 9, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A GNA fighter stands next to a destroyed car following bombardment earlier in the day in the residential Bab Bin Ghashir neighbourhood of Libya's capital Tripoli, on May 9, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Group Captain Muhammad Qanunu, military spokesperson of the Government of National Accord (GNA) forces, stands by a partially disassembled MiG 23 aircraft, after seizing Al-Watiya airbase, southwest of the capital Tripoli, on May 18, 2020 AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Forces loyal to Libya's GNA parade a Russian-made Pantsir air defense system truck in the capital Tripoli on May 20, 2020, after its capture at al-Watiya airbase from forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA are pictured near the frontline during clashes against forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, on June 1, 2019, in al-Sawani area, south of the Libyan capital Tripoli AFP/Getty Libyas messy civil war in pictures People pose for a group picture as they celebrate in the town of Tarhuna on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces from rival forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA stand outside a technical (pickup truck mounted with turret) at Tripoli International Airport, on the southern outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli on June 4, 2020, after the complex was taken over by pro-GNA forces following clashes with rival forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures Fighters loyal to the GNA stand atop a tank in the town of Tarhuna, about 65 kilometres southeast of the capital Tripoli on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces. The GNA said that it was back in full control of Tarhouna, the last stronghold of the forces of Khalifa Haftar AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A fighter loyal to the GNA poses for a picture in the town of Tarhuna on June 5, 2020, after the area was taken over by pro-GNA forces from rival forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar. The UN-recognised government had announced the day before that they were also in full control of the capital Tripoli and its surroundings AFP via Getty Images Libyas messy civil war in pictures A member of security forces affiliated with the GNA's Interior Ministry points at the reported site of a mass grave in the town of Tarhuna on June 11, 2020. The United Nations mission to Libya on June 11 voiced "horror" over the reported discovery of at least eight mass graves in an area evacuated by Khalifa Haftar's forces. "UNSMIL notes with horror reports on the discovery of at least eight mass graves in past days, the majority of them in Tarhuna," the UN mission said in a statement on Twitter AFP via Getty Images

One of the things Turkey did by officially intervening in Libya is upgrade the weaponry. Its like they fast-forwarded Libya a new generation, Oded Berkowitz, deputy chief intelligence officer at Max Security, told The Independent.

Ankara not only deployed a few hundred of its own forces, but sent Bayraktar TB2 drones, Korkut air defence systems and  according to western military observers  at least three Gabya-class frigates, creating a vital air defence bubble protecting Tripoli and neighbouring Misrata.

At the same time, UN investigators estimate that Ankara recruited as many as 3,000 of its Turkish-backed Syrian combatants for Libyas frontline.

Syrian fighters in Libya, however, told The Independent that the true number was closer to 6,000, due to a surge in recruitment over the last two months.

Even the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in March did not slow the transfer of troops.

Sources on Syrias border with Turkey told The Independent hundreds of Syrian fighters had crossed over, ready to be deployed to Tripoli this week. Although with the collapse of Haftars strongholds, that may not be necessary now.

On Haftars side, The Independent was able to confirm a surge in recruitment of pro-regime Syrian mercenaries up until at least mid-May.

Down in the southern desert of Murzuq, along the main smuggling routes from Libyas porous border desert with Sudan, Libyan residents told The Independent Sudanese fighters in pick-up trucks were tearing their way through the desert to the front lines.

There is regular movement since the borders are basically open. We have one car, or two, each week crossing the borders, said one man called Mohamed.

A long way from home

Sitting hunched over his phone amid the pock-marked moonscapes of the Tripoli frontline, Abu Ahmed admitted Turkeys Syrian mercenaries are miserable.

Some are so desperate to go home, they shot themselves in the legs so they can get airlifted out, the battle ravaged ex-rebel said.

Some are so desperate to go home, they shot themselves in the legs so they can get airlifted out Syrian mercenary in Libya

Like most of the Syrians he knows, the 27-year-old says he only agreed to fight in Libya because he assumed it was easy to catch a migrant boat to Europe. It turns out its not, he added bitterly. All of the Syrians here for a long time advise: dont trust anyone and just try to get home.

After years fighting with rebel factions against Syrian regime forces, Abu Ahmed joined the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army last year as it spearheaded Ankaras incursion into Kurdish-held northern Syria.

He was first deployed to Tripoli on the GNA side in February 2020. Over the last month of messaging The Independent his mood has gone from bad to worse.

He described how the Syrians unruly behaviour  including looting, and stealing weapons  has angered several Libyan brigades, worried about the optics of foreigners fighting their battles. He recalled how one Syrian friend captured a Syrian on the rival side, painting a poignant vignette of the pointlessness of it all.

Here in Libya they treat us like if we were a sack of money. The Libyans hate us and dont trust us at all. We just want to go home, he continued.

Abu Ahmeds story echoes thousands of other Syrians caught up in the regions proxy wars. He was just 17 and working in his parents shop when the Syria civil war broke out in 2011. He never finished secondary school and so nine years later, to survive, he fights for whoever will pay the most.

That ended up being the GNA, which, with Turkish support, was promising $2,000 a month for four months: a considerable pay rise from his monthly salary of 500 Turkish lira ($70) fighting Turkeys offensives in northern Syria.

In fact Ankara entrusted top commanders of the Turkish-backed Syrian brigades with their recruitment drive. According to multiple fighters in Libya and civilians in northwest Syria the likes of Fehim Isa, who leads Sultan Murad brigade and Abu Amsha, from Suleiman Shah, have done lucrative stints in Libya with their men.

A GNA fighter fires a heavy machine gun at rival forces south of the captial (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

The journey from northeast Syria to Tripoli takes roughly one week. Abu Ahmed described crossing the Hawar Kilis border point, boarding military aircraft from the southern Turkish town of Gaziantep to Istanbul and then flying commercial onwards to west Libya.

Another GNA fighter, who was among the first dispatched in January and is back in Syria, told The Independent the Syrians he was fighting alongside were quickly disillusioned. Even the money promised was not that good.

Omar (not his real name) explains $200 of their monthly salary is siphoned off to their brigade. The situation in Libya is like in Syria, we fight without any planning, Omar added, describing mutinies among the Syrian factions, absent battle strategies and frosty welcomes from disgruntled Libyan militiamen.

Some Syrians were so depressed they threatened that if they werent sent home theyd kill anyone standing in their face.

He said the Syrians cannot escape home by themselves as it requires transiting through Turkey and so the approval of their commanders.

This disgruntlement began to filter back through the ranks to Syria. A well-placed international diplomat told The Independent the GNA was originally promised up to 9000 fighters but had recruiting challenges.

Map of recruitment in Syria (The Independent)

Back in Syria, one man from Afrin, a town on the Syria-Turkey border, said that recruiters, finding it increasingly hard to sign up fighters, targeted civilians. He was approached to help recruit from IDP camps.

I was offered 200$ for each civilian I could recruit to Libya. It is difficult getting fighters who want to go to Libya, he told The Independent.

Fighting to feed yourself

Despite these difficulties, by May, Haftar would realise he was losing the war.

In the weeks before, it was already apparent that Turkeys fraught recruitment efforts were translating into military successes. With GNA forces recapturing territory, Haftars international backers also looked to Syria to plug a manpower shortfall.

Libyas eastern administration linked to Haftar even opened an embassy in Damascus in March, announcing they would fight Turkey-backed militant groups together with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

And so, as Abu Ahmed was busy signing up in Idlib near Turkeys border in February, hundreds of kilometres south in the regime-held areas of Douma, Daraa and Suweida, Kremlin-linked private military companies sent recruiters to villages to convince young men to join Haftars side.

UN experts, investigating arms embargo violations, believe that between 1 January and 10 March there were 33 Cham Wings flights from Damascus to Benghazi, likely transporting Syrian mercenaries. (The Syrian airline was sanctioned by the US in 2016 for providing financial support to the Assad regime and transporting Syrian troops.)

The same UN probe said in January this year Russian recruiters were first sent to Douma offering $800 a month. With little pick up, the salaries promised were increased to over $1000 and recruiters moved to a small pocket in Suweida, a centre of Syrias Druze religious minority.

In March, recruiters shifted their focus to Daraa, a region close to Syrias border with Jordan. There, according to three people whose friends and family were approached to sign up, they started tapping into brigades of reconciled ex-rebels that made up a special branch of the Fifth Assault Corps one of the premier Russian-backed formations in Syria.

These young men were easier to convince. Ex-rebels who pledge allegiance to Assad typically earn less than $30 a month as regime soldiers.

They are often harassed by regime security forces who are distrustful of them and so impose harsh restrictions on the jobs they can secure and their movement.

Omran Musalmah, a Syrian activist from Daraa, who is in close contact with villages targeted by the recruitment drive, said Wagner-organised recruiters not only promised to pay the reconciled fighters $1,200 a month, but to stop that harassment.

They were told the mission would be securing oil fields and Russian facilities. If they agreed, the security forces would stop the abuse against them, Musalmah said.

But when they reached the training camps in Homs they learned they were going to fight with Haftar against the government in Tripoli. Most went home.

By April, the story repeated itself in Quneitra, an area close to the border with Israel. There Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Syria expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who spoke to community members, said the men signed up because their families were going hungry.

This is only happening because of immense need, Tsurkov told The Independent.

They have no alternatives.

As Haftars offensive began to stall his recruiters ramped up their efforts.

By June, he lost the strategic Wattiya airbase, at least nine multimillion-dollar defence systems and Tarhuna, his chief re-supply line.

In the weeks prior, Russian recruiters trawled Syrias southern Hama countryside, areas of neighbouring Homs, as well as the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, according to local sources.

GNA forces parade a captured Russian-made air defence system in Tripoli (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

The process was fraught. In southern Hama, residents of villages told The Independent it took a month to convince anyone to sign up.

A hundred eventually made it to Khmeimim, [Russias main airbase in Syria] on 8 May ready to be deployed to Libya days later, said one man, whose family still lives in the area. He asked to remain anonymous.

The Independent was told by multiple sources they likely boarded a 11 May Cham Wings flight from Khmeimim airbase in Latakia to east Libya.

Maritime observer Yoruk Isik, who tracks Cham Wings flights between the two countries using open source software, watched that particular flight with interest.

He told The Independent it was one of the first and only times Cham Wings had left a transponder along that route. The planes usually vanish from tracking apps above Benghazi.

But this time the plane quietly descended on Khadim  an east Libyan base UN investigators claim was set up by the UAE . Its an odd destination for a commercial airline.

Little is known about exactly where the fighters end up. Diplomats briefed on the UN investigation said as soon as they board planes, after a final phone call back home, their mobiles are confiscated.

On arrival, they are issued burner phones  with no access to the internet  so they can communicate with each other but not with the outside world.

Moscows mercenary men

On Haftars bases across Libya, disagreements are notoriously frequent.

The problem is, one international military observer said, the general has limited foreign advisers that he rarely listens to.

It didnt help that he and his staff do not understand modern warfare, the official added. Tensions between his command and Wagner have reportedly soared.

Russian mercenaries first emerged in east Libya in 2018 repairing military vehicles. Most, including UN investigators, point the finger at Wagner  nicknamed Russias Blackwater.

But Neil Hauer, an independent expert on the group, said Wagner is actually a catchall phrase for a number of nebulous arms-length private military companies that have emerged over the last few years with ties to Russias Ministry of Defence.

Wagner was created in 2014 during Russias war in Ukraine and first deployed in Syria two years later. But it had its wings clipped in February 2018 after a messy shoot-out with American forces in Syria upset the Kremlin, according to Hauer and international diplomats.

And so, UN investigators said alongside Wagner multiple smaller private military companies were deployed to Libya.

Whoever is responsible for the recruitment of Russian combatants, they first appeared on the west Libya frontlines in September, according to international diplomats.

Russian identity cards and personal items, apparently left behind during a retreat, were discovered in the battlefields around Tripoli.

At some point the Russia military deployed its own forces to Libya, possibly in advisory roles.

Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar in Athens in January (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

A BBC investigation found that the first Russian commissioned officer died in Libya in February. The 27-year-old soldier was later buried in his Russian hometown in a heavily policed funeral.

The Russian defence ministry did not reply to a request from The Independent for comment.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has vehemently denied the accusations that Russia is funnelling fighters and equipment to Libya. When asked in January about Wagner, he replied that if there are Russians in Libya, they do not represent the Russian state.

But as one western diplomat put it, it is safer to deploy a group like Wagner than the military, it is a lot of strategy for not many roubles.

That was echoed by US Africa Command, which confirmed to The Independent Russia has flown a mix of 14 MiG-29 fighters and Su-24 fighter-bombers to Jufrah, Haftars main airbase in central Libya.

A spokesperson said Washington believes that Russia was employing Wagner in Libya as part of a Kremlin strategy to expand its influence across the Mediterranean and the African continent.

Russia employs state-sponsored [mercenaries] in at least 16 African countries to obfuscate Moscows direct role and to afford plausible deniability, the spokesperson added.

Whos paying the bills?

Back in Tripoli, speculation about the Russian mercenary salaries is rife.

They must get a huge amount, one GNA fighter wrote on WhatsApp. Otherwise why would they agree to fight?

A three-month contract in Libya for all the fighters is estimated to cost nearly $175m, according to UN investigators. No one believes Haftar can finance that on his own.

Some allege Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is nicknamed Putins chef for his Kremlin catering contracts, is the shadowy financier of Wagner.

Turkeys president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, meanwhile, has accused Abu Dhabi of bankrolling the enterprise in a fiery speech where he dismissed Haftar as a desert lord.

UN investigators have long accused the Emirates of providing material support to Haftars forces. As early as 2017 a panel of experts report said the UAE had sent drones, planes, attack helicopters and armoured vehicles to Libya, stationing them at Khadim, an airbase Abu Dhabi built up.

The UAE authorities did not respond to The Independents request for comment on Libya. But the Emirates have repeatedly denied funnelling weapons to Libya and maintain they are supporting a peaceful political solution to the crisis. Last week they once again rejected claims by the GNA they were involved in Haftars military operations.

There were, however, Dubai links to a botched attempt last year by Haftar to hire western mercenaries, including five Brits.

Giuseppe Conte and Fayez al-Sarraj in Rome last year (AFP/Getty) (AFP via Getty Images)

A recent confidential UN probe found that, in the middle of the battle for Tripoli, Haftar paid a team of 20 foreign mercenaries, upwards of $120,000 to create a marine strike force to prevent Turkish-supplied weapons reaching the GNA.

The western soldiers-of-fortune arrived in Libya last June but fell out with Haftar and fled the country by boat just days after they arrived.

Two diplomats briefed on the probe said two Dubai-based companies were named as allegedly masterminding the deals. Both companies denied their involvement in a statement to The Independent.

The future

Whoever is footing the bills, Haftars stunning defeat has dealt a crushing blow to his foreign backers who are scrabbling to renegotiate their positions.

They are quickly realising it is not that easy. Throwing some contractors into the mix will not see Haftar sweep to victory, said analyst Hauer.

Egypt, which had taken a back seat in Libya, appeared to return to the ring hosting one-sided peace talks in Cairo last weekend. There Haftar agreed to a unilateral ceasefire provided  ironically  the GNA sends its foreign mercenaries home.

This was roundly rejected by the recognised government who instead declared a new offensive to take Sirte and Jufrah airbase, over 500km southeast of Tripoli.

As bloody battles have raged in Sirte, videos have appeared online this week allegedly showing Egyptian military build up along its border with Libya, which some have read as a warning sign to the GNA to back down.

Throwing some contractors into the mix will not see Haftar sweep to victory Neil Hauer, expert on Wagner

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Clingendael Institute, said that under the alleged deal between Ankara and Moscow, Sirte was not supposed to be taken by force. West Libyan forces have marched too far east.

Cairo is under tremendous pressure on the part of the UAE and to some extent Saudi Arabia to take a firmer stand, he added.

Cairo, reportedly unhappy about the Tripoli offensive in the first place, is likely waiting for the outcome of the rumoured Turkey-Russia deal.

That may be determined by movement of forces on the ground. Officials within the GNAs interior ministry told The Independent they would not stop until they had taken Sirte and Jufrah and were even mulling marching on the Haftar-held oil crescent too.

The UN has said that the warring parties had agreed to restart ceasefire talks but ongoing fighting undermines that.

Trapped in the middle are the mercenaries. Fresh Syrian recruits for the GNAs new offensive are due to land early this week, according to multiple sources.

Syria was killing me, Libya was the only way out Syrian mercenary

Abu Ahmeds fighting contract, however, is due to end in the coming days.

Over the last month he has come full circle and is now debating whether to stay in Libya where there are better chances of finding a job than in Syria, ravaged by a crushing financial crisis. It is also easier and cheaper to get to Europe from Libyan shores.

Syria was killing me, I needed to leave in any way possible but had no chances. Libya was the only way out, he says his voice thick with regret.

My only thought about coming here was that I could make some money and cross the sea to Italy which I still want to do.

Europe is my only hope.



Read the first part of the Soldiers of Misfortune series here: Libyas beleaguered general Haftar swindled out of millions by western mercenaries and businessmen
Police have been accused of double standards in dealing with rallies after failing to issue a single fine at a gathering to 'protect' Belfast's cenotaph.

A week earlier up to 70 people were penalised for breaches of coronavirus regulations at anti-racism protests in Londonderry and Belfast.

A Policing Board member last night accused the PSNI of inconsistency.

However, a senior officer said evidence gathered at Saturday's protest was being examined and those who attended could still face prosecution.

Several hundred people stood outside City Hall on Saturday afternoon following an appeal from a group calling itself the Northern Ireland Cenotaph Protection Group (NICPG). It has called for war memorials to be protected amid attacks on statues of historical figures across Britain.

Expand Close An anti-racism protester in Belfast on Saturday, June 6 Liam McBurney/RAZORPIX / Facebook

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Whatsapp An anti-racism protester in Belfast on Saturday, June 6

In an earlier statement, the NICPG said it was "not a protest or political movement", adding: "We are there to protect and defend only, not to inflame the situation."

Former Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen and ex-Belfast councillor Jolene Bunting - who has been linked to the far-Right group but has always denied being a member - were in attendance.

Several of those taking part wore British military uniforms, while Union and Ulster flags were draped over the railings of City Hall.

Many participants wore masks but social distancing guidelines were reportedly not followed by everyone at the event.

The PSNI said no fines were issued during the NICPG gathering.

Expand Close Blathnaid ODonnell and her mum Helen, who were both issued with fines for attending the BLM event in Derry / Facebook

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Whatsapp Blathnaid ODonnell and her mum Helen, who were both issued with fines for attending the BLM event in Derry

That prompted comparisons with the previous weekend, when between 60 and 70 fines were issued to Black Lives Matter protesters in Belfast and Derry.

Unlike Britain, no monuments or statues have been targeted during anti-racism protests here.

Blathnaid O'Donnell, a Black Lives Matter protester, was fined at a rally in Derry on June 6, but has vowed not to pay up.

Last night she said the PSNI's approach at the weekend had "strengthened" her determination to have the fine dropped.

"This is more proof as to why we shouldn't be paying the fine.

Expand Close Jayda Fransen (right) and Jolene Bunting on Saturday Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jayda Fransen (right) and Jolene Bunting on Saturday

"They (the PSNI) are picking and choosing who receives fines," she told the Belfast Telegraph.

Alliance MLA John Blair, who sits on the Policing Board, said the PSNI has questions to answer over what he said appeared to be "differing responses".

He said the PSNI needed to show a more consistent approach.

"The PSNI has a challenging job and receives support from the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, including Alliance, in its role of upholding the rule of law," he said.

"But accountability is a vital part of modern policing here and questions need to be asked about the seemingly different approaches to these two protests.

"People should not be gathering in large groups in the midst of a pandemic.

"They are putting into risk not only their own lives, but the lives of others.

"However, the PSNI needs to apply a consistent approach to all such protests or else they risk damaging the community confidence in the organisation, particularly from ethnic minority members of our society."

Ciaran Moynagh, a solicitor with Belfast legal firm Phoenix Law, which is supporting Black Lives Matter protesters who have been fined, said he will be asking the PSNI to explain its handling of the gathering.

"We are raising this with (them) to seek answers on how strategies can differ," he tweeted yesterday.

However, the PSNI has strongly defended officers' response to the weekend protest.

Assistant Chief Constable Barbara Gray said that the force had been faced with a "very different environment" from those at the Black Lives Matter protests.

"I was faced with a situation involving many different groups of people, at a wide variety of locations across Northern Ireland, demonstrating about a number of different causes," she said.

"I understand that these are difficult times for many communities and my focus was very much on public safety.

"I was extremely mindful that this was the first weekend businesses were able to open across Northern Ireland and anticipated large numbers of shoppers and members of the public would be in the area.

"Information we received indicated that people from a number of different groups would be present in the area.

"These challenges presented a very different environment to that of the protests last week (June 6).

"To be consistent across such a range of issues (on Saturday) we maintained our approach of engaging, explaining and encouraging.

"Enforcement will be considered following the substantial evidence gathering operation that was in place to record any potential offending."

She added: "While no fines or community resolution notices were issued (on Saturday) at the City Hall (or in any other location), all evidence gathered will be reviewed to detect offences and we will work with our partners in the Public Prosecution Service to bring offenders to justice."
Banjul, Gambia (PANA) - Scores of human rights activists have staged an anti-racism protest along the streets of Banjul over the weekend to express their anger against police brutality in the US, PANA reported here on Monday
Authorities in the Chinese capital have locked down a wholesale produce market amid a fresh wave of coronavirus cases.



Beijing health authorities confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in the capital after testing a total of 76,499 people, state news agency Xinhua reported. The World Health Organization (WHO) put the number of new, confirmed cases in the city at more than 100.



Beijing municipal health commission spokesman Gao Xiaojun said the authorities are pushing ahead with a city-wide testing program, with 193 test sites already in place.



"Most of the newly-reported indigenous cases in Beijing were related to the now-closed Xinfadi market," Xinhua reported.



Thousands of people living near the wholesale market have been tested, while traders and customers have also been traced and tested, it said.



Of the 59 new confirmed cases, six were asymptomatic and 36 were transmitted within Beijing, bringing the cumulative total of domestically transmitted cases to 499.



Beijing-based journalist Chen Hongtao said Xinfadi is the city's biggest wholesale farm produce market.



"It serves the whole of Beijing, with at least 80 percent of the cereals, oils and foodstuffs and agricultural produce coming from there," Chen said. "Some hotels, guesthouses and work canteens buy their supplies direct from there."



"A lot of Beijing residents like to get up really early and go there to buy their produce on public transport," he said.



"It's also a public transportation hub, so it's hard to imagine just how many people pass through there in the space of 14 days: hundreds of thousands, so that means they will need to test more than a million people."



Market area under lockdown



A Beijing resident who gave only her surname Song said the entire area around Xinfadi has now been placed under lockdown.



"Everywhere close to Xinfadi has been closed off; it's surrounded by troops," Song said.



"Everyone who worked there has been ordered to self-isolate and to report for testing," she said. "Employers are offering to reimburse people 200 yuan [towards the cost of testing]."



"The whole of Mentougou district used to buy their produce at Xinfadi, so how many people was that? One person from Xinfadi went to Songyuli Market, and they shut down Songyuli Market, and everyone there went to get tested the day before yesterday," she said.



An official who answered the phone at the Beijing health commission on Monday said the testing program wasn't mandatory, but that people would be contacted via a tracing app.



"If you work [at Xinfadi], or if big data finds that you are a close contact person, you will be contacted and told that you must go for a nucleic acid test," the official said.



Banned from discussion



Rui Hong, a former senior official with the Chinese Red Cross, said the authorities have muzzled medical staff since the scandal surrounding the treatment of whistleblowing doctors during the outbreak in Wuhan at the beginning of the year.



"All of my friends and colleagues who are doctors are banned from talking about [coronavirus cases] or giving interviews," Rui said.



She said the authorities are keen to emphasize cases that have been imported from Europe, and play down the extent of local transmission.



"Every time, they look for an excuse, for example that it was found in fish imported from Europe," she said.



The WHO on Monday warned countries to stay on alert for a possible resurgence of COVID-19 infections, and said the Beijing outbreak was cause for concern.



"Even in countries that have demonstrated the ability to suppress transmission, countries must stay alert to the possibility of resurgence," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference.



"Last week, China reported a new cluster of cases in Beijing, after more than 50 days without a case in that city. More than 100 cases have now been confirmed.



"The origin and extent of the outbreak are being investigated."



Response closely tracked



Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's COVID-19 technical lead, said she hadn't received notification of any deaths so far from the Beijing outbreak.



WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said the health body is tracking the response of the Chinese authorities "very closely."



"A cluster like this is a concern and it needs to be investigated and controlled, and that is exactly what the Chinese authorities are doing," he said.



The novel coronavirus has killed at least 433,000 people and infected more than 7.9 million since it first emerged in China last December, Agence France-Presse cited figures from official sources as saying.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wong Siu-san and Sing Man for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
The simplest way to get rid of such problems is to have fewer and lower GST rates.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is in the news again. And for the wrong reasons.

The Karnataka Bench of the Authority of Advance Ruling (AAR) has clarified that wheat or maida parotta (you might call it a parontha, a parantha or something else for that matter) is not a roti because it needs to be heated for human consumption. Given that, the GST on it should be 18 percent and not 5 percent as is the case with rotis.

In an order running into nine pages, the AAR finally said that a parotta is not khakhra, chapatti or roti. Also, khakhra, chapatti or roti are completely cooked preparations and do not require further processing for human consumption and hence, they are ready to eat food preparations.

On the other hand, a parotta available in the ambient or frozen form with a shelf life of three to seven days required further processing for human consumption. In this case, further processing refers to heating the parotta on a pan or a tawa, before it can be eaten. (Yes, you read that right).

But if its a question of heating the parotta before eating it, I wonder why the AAR left the question of heating the readymade rotis (like the readymade parottas) out of the equation. Also, I like my khakhra with a little bit of finely chopped onions and tomatoes on top. And given that the khakhra that I buy needs to be further processed before I can eat it. So, shouldnt that attract a higher GST rate as well? (Okay, in case you didnt get it, that was a joke).

The question is, why was this classification necessary? The parotta was not categorised as a product under the goods and services tax. If it had been categorised as something similar to roti/chapatti/khakhra and did not require any further processing for human consumption, the GST on it would have worked out to 5%. But given that it did not fulfil the required conditions, the GST on it will be 18 percent.

But is that the real problem here? Clearly not.

That some part of the government spent time in the 21st century deciding that a parotta is not a roti or a chapatti or khakhra for that matter and putting out a nine-page order on it, actually tells us how screwed up the Goods and Services Tax, actually is. (Oh, and when will government departments get over with their habit of uploading a scanned PDF and not a simple PDF?).

This requirement to clearly categorise products comes from the fact that the GST has many different rates (0 percent, 0.25 percent, 3 percent, 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent, 28 percent and higher depending on different kinds of cess (a tax on a tax)). This keeps creating problems because everything cannot be put on paper and taxes and common sense dont always go together.

A few years back, the Congress leader Veerappa Moily had asked: For example, is Kitkat a chocolate or a biscuit? Is coconut oil considered as hair oil or cooking oil? Interestingly, chocolates and other food preparation containing cocoa, attract a GST of 18%. But this does not apply to the humble Bengali sweet, the Sandesh, even if it contains chocolate.

In fact, the importance of this issue can be seen from the fact that the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Excise, needed to issue a separate FAQ in order to address it. As the FAQ goes: What is the GST rate on chocolate Sandesh Bengali misti? The answer is, Sandesh, whether or not containing chocolate, attract 5% GST.

This tells us that all across India, chocolate is a luxury, and given that, it is taxed at a significantly higher rate. Nevertheless, in Bengal, it is a necessity. This is not to complain again the Sandesh, but just to show how ridiculous the regulations actually are.

All this brings me back to my MBA days where we had discussed a very interesting sales tax case on whether coconut oil sold as hair oil could be categorised as edible oil for sales tax purposes. The contention of the company selling the hair oil was that the oil that it sold was pure coconut oil and that it was edible oil. This arose primarily because coconut oil sold as hair oil attracted a higher rate of sales tax in comparison to edible coconut oil.

The company had initially won the case, which was subsequently challenged by the state government. I really dont know what finally came of it. But thats not the point here. The point is that even two decades later, we are still dealing with the same problems in our governance system.

The roti versus parotta is the coconut edible oil versus coconut hair oil of 2020. Indeed, thats very sad.

The simplest way to get rid of such problems is to have fewer and lower GST rates. If that happens all these categorisation issues wont arise. But it would make the bureaucrats and the overall system dealing with the GST, less arbitrary. In any system which is less arbitrary, the chances of corruption come down dramatically. And that being the case, I think I have already answered why such a system wont come into being.

Also, the more complicated any system is, the more employment it creates on the face of it. It creates direct employment in the form of bureaucrats who supposedly manage the system and it creates indirect employment in the form of agents/brokers etc., who help the common folk navigate the system. And what is more important in a country like India, cracking down on some random petty corruption or creating employment? Do I even need to answer that?

On a more serious note, a simple tax system encourages economic activity, which creates jobs. Given that, these jobs are never created we dont count them as jobs lost. Indeed, thats the unseen effect of this. The vice-versa is not true.

Interestingly, The Hindu reports, that in Mumbai the parottas have been categorised to be in the 5 percent GST category unlike the 18% category in Karanataka. So, dear reader, the next time you are travelling from Mumbai to Bengaluru, do take across a few packets of parottas for the family.

The writer is the author of Bad Money.
Maharashtra is all set to begin the academic session from July, beginning with senior classes. However, schools will be opened only in districts where no coronavirus cases have been found in a month, while in other areas 'online schools' will be functional.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and attended by School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad and officials.

"Physical schools can begin in July after following all due diligence. We have specifically instructed district administration that schools to be opened only in places where cases haven't been found for a month. Also, senior grades to begin first," Gaikwad told News18, adding that in Vidarbha online schools will start from June 26.

According to the circular issued by the government, classes 9, 10 and 12 will resume session from July, while classes for 11th standard will be decided once the admission procedure is completed after class 10 boards results are declared.

Students from classes 6 to 8 will join school in August, for those studying in classes 3 to 5, schools will open in September. The government has asked the school management committees to take a decision on resumption of sessions for children studying in classes 1 and 2.

Gaikwad said the government will use TV platform for education, while taking efforts to rope in Doordarshan and radio for the purpose. "SOPs approved today will be issued in a few days. We don't encourage online classes for pre-primary, for 1st and 2nd grade," Gaikwad said.

"Though in some areas schools could not be opened, the process of teaching cannot be stopped. The use of digital technology to reach out with students should be adopted," the circular said.

"Classes of Standard 1 and 2 are exempted from online teaching. However, for remaining standards certain hours per week have been defined by the government. We are trying to use All India Radio (AIR) network as well to reach out to students with the curriculum," Gaikwad said, adding some of the teaching can be broadcast.

However, some teachers' and principals' unions have demanded that all school in the state open from August.

She later put out a tweet stating the chief minister has approved the resumption of the academic session through online/digital medium from June 15.
Two Indian High Commission officials have gone missing since Monday (June 15) morning while on official work in Islamabad. The matter has been taken up with the Pakistani authorities. Sources said that the two officials have been missing for over two hours and Indian side has registered an official complaint in this matter.

It is learnt that both the Indian High Commission staffers were CISF drivers and they went missing at around 8:30 am while they were out on duty in Islamabad.

The development comes a few days after India had expelled two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi after they were caught red-handed for spying against India. The two Pakistani officials worked in the visa section of the High Commission in New Delhi.

On May 31, the Indian authorities had nabbed two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi's Karol Bagh while they were trying to source a sensitive document. For this act of espionage, India had declared them as persona non grata and both were sent back to Islamabad on June 1.

It is alleged that the two had assumed fake Indian identities. The authorities had also recovered a fake Aadhaar card by the name of Nasir Gotam, resident of Geeta colony from them. Also, two Apple iPhone and Rs 15,000 in cash was recovered by the authorities.

The two officials, Abdi Hussain Abid, aged 42 and Tahir Khan, aged 44 had come in a Pakistani diplomatic car. After probe it was revealed that the Pakistan High Commission was in the process of selling the car.

In 2016, India had declared one Pakistani High Commission official Mehmood Akhtar as persona non grata after he was apprehended by Indian law enforcement authorities while receiving sensitive documents.

According to Indian government in a statement made in the Parliament on December 2016, during his interrogation, Akhtar revealed that he belonged to Baloch Regiment of Pakistan Army and joined Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) on deputation. He was posted at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi since September 2013.

The then Pakistan High Commissioner was summoned by the Foreign Secretary with India registering a strong protest on the activities of Mehmood Akhtar. In a bid to level the score, Pakistan had declared an Assistant Personnel and Welfare Officer in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad Surjeet Singh as persona non grata.
Sipping a gin and tonic on a flight is a ritual enjoyed by many heading off on holiday.

But with concerns over the spread of coronavirus, EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic have decided to ban alcohol during all flights to limit contact between passengers and crew, while British Airways has suspended it from short-haul trips.

EasyJet, which resumes flights today, say their in-flight drinks will be limited to a glass of water, which passengers will have to request from cabin crew. Food service has also been temporarily suspended.

Three airlines - EasyJet, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways - have said they will not serve alcohol on certain flights this summer to limit the amount of contact between passengers on board the aircraft

Virgin Atlantic will also stop selling beers, wines, spirits and cocktails when long-haul flights resume on 20 July and has simplified its on-board dining options, with economy passengers served three course meals in pre-prepared boxes.

As a result of the alcohol ban, passengers in Virgin Atlantics premium upper class cabins will no longer be served complimentary champagne as they board the plane.

British Airways has also banned alcohol from its short-haul economy flights, with refreshments limited to a complimentary bottle of water with biscuits, pretzels or crisps. Alcohol will be offered on long-haul flights and in business class, however.

The nations flag carrier has unveiled an enhanced temporary catering proposition which will see meals served in boxes from Tuesday, including in first-class cabins.

BA, EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic say all the measures are temporary and will be kept under review.

The alcohol ban marks a significant change from pre-pandemic times, when drink deals were heavily marketed by some airlines through nightclub-style promotions.

It will also be seen as an attempt to address long-standing concerns over incidents of drink-fuelled air rage causing flights to be diverted. It is feared such incidents will cause unnecessary interactions between passengers and crew, exacerbating the spread of the virus.

Alcohol has been served on flights since the late forties and became hugely popular in the golden era of flying in the fifties, sixties and seventies, a time which conjures images of glamorous air stewardesses serving cocktails to sharply dresses businessmen shrouded in cigar smoke.

British Airways has banned alcohol from its short-haul economy flights. Alcohol will be offered on long-haul flights and in business class, however

Under UK law, it has long been illegal for passengers to drink their own alcohol on board.

Earlier this week, the Department for Transport published guidance to airlines on how to make flights Covid-secure in future.

It advises passengers to wear face-coverings while travelling, and to remain seated as much as possible during flights.

It says airlines should clean aircraft extensively and increase the availability of handwashing and hand sanitiser, while limiting interactions between crew and passengers as much as possible.
Four European countries, including France on Saturday, have signed a pre-order for millions of Covid-19 vaccines with the British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.

Designed to provide for all EU members, the doses would be available at the end of 2020 if the group's current trials prove successful.

"AstraZeneca has reached an agreement with Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), spearheaded by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, to supply up to 400 million doses of the University of Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine, with deliveries starting by the end of 2020," a company statement said online.

The idea is to cover the needs of all EU member states within an "inclusive alliance" based on "discussions with pharmaceutical laboratories," according to a joint statement signed by health and economy ministers on Saturday.

"This agreement will ensure that hundreds of millions of Europeans have access to Oxford University's vaccine following approval," Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca's Chief Executive Officer said.

"With our European supply chain due to begin production soon, we hope to make the vaccine available widely and rapidly."

The four signatories will pay the entire bill, a sum which has not been made public, and vaccines will be distributed to states according to population size.

The pre-order was signed under a mandate put forward by the European Commission on Friday stating that deals could be signed with other pharmaceutical companies in the race to find a vaccine.

French health minister Olivier Veran said on Saturday that further negotiations with other laboratories could be envisaged, "to reduce the dependence on one single project."

Promising results

The initial results of 'project AZD1222' against the Sars-CoV-2 (Covid-19) in collaboration with Oxford University have been promising so far, and have been tested on some 10,000 volunteer patients in the United Kingdom, Brazil and the United States, where the virus is still very active.

"The vaccine is based on a viral transmission," AstraZeneca France president Olivier Nataf told France Info on Sunday.

"We take an inactive virus and change its genetic code in order to insert a genetic code which will allow it to produce a coronavirus protein. In producing this protein, the patient will develop an immune response against Covid-19."

French research body Inserm has been piloting a test project to better understand this protein labelled Spike.

The initial results of the trials are to be published soon, says Olivier Nataf, with the possibility of results in the autumn.

2 per dose

AstraZeneca, the result of a merger between the Swedish group Astra and the British group Zeneca in 1999, says it will not make a profit from the production of the vaccine and will "maintain the cost at approximately 2 euros per dose," according to Nataf.

At this stage the company says its maximum capacity for manufacturing is two billion doses, but it is aware that total success may not be possible in the short term.

"AstraZeneca recognises that the vaccine may not work but is committed to progressing the clinical programme with speed and scaling up manufacturing at risk," it said in its statement.

The laboratory has also signed deals with funds supported by Bill Gates, as well as the American government, which is putting up 1.2 billion dollars towards the project.
HONOLULU, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- DRFortress , the largest carrier-neutral data center and cloud marketplace operating in Hawaii, announces today that it has launched a major expansion project to its existing data center campus in Honolulu. The strategic expansion is driven by a surge in customer demand for connectivity, cloud and CDN services throughout Hawaii and the Pacific.

DRFortress will add 130 cabinets to its existing data center infrastructure, creating a total of more than 600 cabinets for lease and a space of 55,000 square feet. Upon completion, DRFortress will expand on its role as the largest data center in Hawaii, providing exponentially more immediately available space, power and environmental controls than any other local supplier.

As Hawaii's premier data center and digital hub, DRFortress has seen accelerated customer demand for its proven data center, cloud and IT services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The additional data center capacity is designed to accommodate the new growth and requirements for DRFortress' current telecommunications partners and global cloud providers that are pivoting to an edge strategy for the next wave of 5G technologies.

"As a proven data center partner serving Hawaii for over 14 years, our customers and partners rely on our ability to meet their growing demands for colocation and cloud services," states Fred Rodi, President and Founder of DRFortress. "This represents our third significant expansion in Hawaii and we are proud to offer our world-class facility at competitive rates."

The expansion is expected to be completed and ready for service in Q4 of 2020.

To learn more about DRFortress go to www.drfortress.com .

About DRFortress

DRFortress is the largest and the only carrier-neutral data center and cloud marketplace operating in Hawaii. For 14 years, our company has been meeting the data center needs of Hawaii's enterprises, content companies, system integrators, carriers, wireless service providers, cable companies and ISPs. DRFortress provides customers customized high-end, resilient, reliable, environmental-friendly, next-generation solutions to meet their data-intensive business requirements, enabling them to focus on their core business. As Hawaii's Digital Hub and largest business network, DRFortress houses the densest concentration of IP carriers and networks in Hawaii and is the only commercial Internet Exchange in the state to provide flexibility, cost-efficiency and scalability for customers. Our world-class data center facility is located well outside the island's extended flood and tsunami zones, ensuring your mission-critical data and systems are well-protected and your business' IT operations are uninterrupted during an emergency or natural disaster. For more information, please visit www.drfortress.com .

Media Contact

Jaymie Scotto & Associates (JSA)

+1 866.695.3629 ext. 11

[email protected]

SOURCE DRFortress

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Five days after a video emerged of a 60-year-old woman in Odishas Nuapara district pulling her centenarian mother on a charpoy to a bank to withdraw her money under Jan Dhan Yojana, the Utkal Grameen Bank suspended the banks manager on Monday on the direction of the state government.

The State Bank of India (SBI), which is the largest stakeholder in Utkal Grameen Bank, suspended manager Ajit Pradhan of Bargaon branch.

While the Branch Manager did not have any intention of harassment, the unfortunate developments have resulted out of a communication gap resulting in a display of inhuman and insensitive approach in the banks treatment of senior citizens. Utkal Grameen Bank regrets the whole incident and the matter is being looked into for necessary action, said a statement from the SBI.

On June 10, the video of 60-year-old Punjimati Dei dragging her bed-ridden mother Labhe Baghel to the Baragaon branch of Utkal Grameen Bank had gone viral on social media. On June 9, Dei had gone to the bank to withdraw 1,500 that was deposited in accounts of women under Jan Dhan scheme to help the poor tide over the Covid-19 crisis under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan package.

The branch manager had reportedly asked the woman that unless her mother comes by herself, the money cant be given. The next day, the 60-year-old woman dragged her mother on a charpoy to the bank.
As a part of the evacuation process amid the COVID-19 lockdown, as many as 2,188 stranded Indian nationals have been evacuated from the Maldives so far with four rounds of the evacuation via sea. Taking to Twitter, the High Commission of India in the Maldives shared a video of the achievements.

During Round One, a total of 698 passengers were evacuated from the Maldives by INS Jalashwa on May 8. In the second round, as many as 202 Indian stranded nationals were evacuated by INS Magar on May 10. In round three, a total of 588 people were evacuated by INS Jalashwa on May 15, while during the fourth round, a total of 700 stranded Indians have been evacuated from the Maldives by INS Jalashwa on June 5.

Read: Operation Samudra Setu: INS Shardul commences evacuation of Indian nationals from Iran

Read: Op Samudra Setu brings home nearly 700 Indians from Sri Lanka

'Operation Samudra Setu'

Earlier last month, the Indian Navy in an official statement had said that three Naval warships have sailed out to bring back Indian citizens from Maldives and United Arab Emirates (UAE) who are stranded due to Coronavirus pandemic. These warships include INS Jalashwa, INS Magar, and INS Shardul and these will return to Kochi. The INS Magar and INS Shardul are Southern Naval Command ships, while INS Jalashwa is from Eastern Naval Command.

The Centre is also operating flights to repatriate stranded Indians across the globe.

Read: Operation Samudra Setu: INS Jalashwa arrives in Colombo to bring back stranded Indians

Read: INS Jalashwa returns 698 Indians to Kochi from Male; Defence Minister hails Armed Forces
Classes for standards IX, X in schools located in non-red zone areas and junior college for XII would begin in Maharashtra from July 1, the state government said on Monday.

Classes of 6th to 8th standards would begin from August, as per the government.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and attended by School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad and officials.

A circular issued on Monday stated that "schools not located in red zone can commence classes of Standard 9, 10 and 12 from July 1" while "classes of 6th to 8th standards would begin from August".

"Though in some areas schools could not be opened, the process of teaching cannot be stopped. The use of digital technology to reach out with students should be adopted," it said.

"Classes of Standard 1 and 2 are exempted from online teaching. However, for remaining standards certain hours per week have been defined by the government. We are trying to use All India Radio network as well to reach out to students with the curriculum," Gaikwad said.

Some of the teaching can be broadcast, she added.

However, some teachers' and principals' unions have demanded that all school in the state open from August.
The landscape of Michigans auto insurance market will look a lot different next month.

Come July, drivers will have to wrap their heads around major updates to the states auto insurance policies, which were ushered into law last year as part of a compromise between the Republican-led legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Jennifer Mackinday is a Warriors Speak spokesperson for Wounded Warrior Project. She is also an award-winning author, military caregiver for her brother, Spc. James W. Smith, U.S. Army Retired, and the proud mother of a United States Marine.

The COVID-19 global pandemic is a historic crisis with lasting impact. As the world strives to overcome the outbreak's subsequent effects, a close eye is aimed at communities identified to be at greater risk. In the United States, veterans are one of those groups facing different challenges -- such as reinforced isolation stemming from self-quarantine, and exposure anxiety as the country begins to open up again.

Still, adversity yields opportunities.

It is easy to be pessimistic during a crisis, but we have a responsibility to our nation's wounded warriors and caregivers to grow from these difficult experiences. Despite the suffering this pandemic has caused, I have witnessed the grit of our resilience.

VSOs Took Quick Steps

Veteran service organizations (VSOs) reacted quickly to ensure wounded warriors and their caregivers received valuable programs, tools, and resources while in quarantine. The Elizabeth Dole Foundation had planned to roll out a community-based program this spring to caregivers across the country. Due to physical distancing, the foundation quickly adapted the program and launched Caregiver Community Connection (C3), a web-based series designed to empower, equip, and engage America's military and veteran caregivers online. Powered by Wounded Warrior Project (WWP), C3 highlights virtual community resources available to military caregivers and their families.

Like the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, WWP transitioned programs and services from face-to-face to virtual delivery of programs and services to reach warriors and their families in the comfort of their own homes, including coffee chats, yoga and meditation classes, cooking classes, fitness training and more. In this time of great need, WWP also sent medical supplies to injured veterans and their caregivers enrolled in WWP's Independence Program, which serves our nation's most severely wounded warriors. Equipping these warriors and their caregivers with masks and sanitizer will help them continue to take precautions against infection while receiving care in their homes.

In response to the pandemic's economic devastation, WWP created an emergency relief fund for warriors in financial distress due to the loss of household income. WWP's commitment was for $10 million -- but because of additional donations, the organization distributed checks totaling more than $11 million to more than 11,000 warriors and their families.

Process Improvements

The urgencies of this pandemic forced improved processes in veteran care. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) released a variety of apps like VA Health Video Connect and VA Health Chat. These apps allow warriors to connect directly with their health care teams and mitigate COVID-19 exposure.

Easier access to health care has been a heavy focus in the veteran community. Many warriors already deal with burdens tied to their service-connected injuries when traveling to seek in-person care at VA medical centers and clinics. These telehealth improvements eliminate unnecessary travel and exposure to health risks, decrease appointment wait times, shrink long lines at walk-in clinics, and help break through the monotony of ever-changing appointments.

Advancements in telehealth services can help usher in a new era of how warriors and caregivers can experience the VA health care system.

A New Reality

Warriors such as my brother, who are considered high-risk in this pandemic, need extra support and rely on caregivers for help in their daily lives. I was once reluctant about using telehealth because I had concerns about the quality of care and in-person appointments provided my brother with the opportunity to connect with other warriors and our community.

Through this pandemic, we have innovated and stretched technology to connect and maintain meaningful relationships. In his everyday life, there are things my brother is unable to do with his veteran friends -- outings and activities he can't fully participate in due to his injury limitations. Now, my brother connects with his friends more through these virtual components that give him the luxury of being included.

The truth is that warriors who have severe injuries are connecting more now than ever because face-to-face barriers have been eliminated. I believe these offerings will add color and happiness to the lives of our nation's warriors and caregivers as we move into a world blended with in-person and virtual connections.

Time saved is a valuable resource for warriors and caregivers. Spare time can be designated for self-care, minimizing unnecessary stressors and triggers. Revamped telehealth and at-home virtual offerings are returning families to traditions long since put on the backburners of our fast-paced lives. Now, these traditions are centerstage, whether at the family supper table or in the heart of a more personal community as warriors connect with family and neighbors from a distance.

It is true: we will never be the same. Our new reality serves as a litmus test of our resilience. Therefore, it becomes even more paramount that we take these valuable lessons learned and continue to grow innovative offerings that are more thoughtful, engaging, and safe for our warriors. This pandemic forced a transformation in veteran care, and we have an opportunity to catapult into greatness.

-- The opinions expressed in this op-ed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Military.com. If you would like to submit your own commentary, please send your article to opinions@military.com for consideration.
Bitcoin bounced off the lows of the day after sliding below $9,000 for the first time since May amid a renewal in global risk aversion. The largest cryptocurrency tumbled as much as 5.1 percent Monday and recovered to about $9,270 as of late morning, according to consolidated pricing data from Bloomberg. For the first time since the end of April, the token dipped below its 50-day moving average, a level that's considered a point of resistance for some traders. Bitcoin has flirted with $10,000 since May, failing to sustain a rally above that after the closely watched "halving" industry event that reduced the amount of the cryptocurrency earned by so-called miners that process transactions.
A placard depicting three inter-Korean summits in 2000, 2007 and 2018 is hung outside a meeting room at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday, the 20th anniversary of a "joint declaration on peace" announced at the first-ever inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000, between then-President Kim Dae-jung and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who are depicted on the left. In the middle is former President Roh Moo-hyun and the late Kim Jong-il, and on the right is President Moon Jae-in and current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Yonhap.



Liberal lawmakers pursue peace treaty amid escalating threats from N. Korea



By Jung Da-min



More than 170 liberal lawmakers have called for a declaration to end the Korean War.



The timing of this move has raised controversy, as North Korea has been increasing its vitriol toward the South with threats of military action.



The two Koreas remain technically at war as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Its three signatories were the U.S.-led United Nations Command, China and North Korea, while South Korea boycotted it.



Rep. Kim Kyung-hyup of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and 173 other lawmakers, not only of the DPK but also other minor liberal parties and independent lawmakers, jointly submitted the resolution, Monday, the 20th anniversary of the first-ever inter-Korean summit.



In the resolution, they urged the two Koreas, the U.S. and China to declare the end of the war and start discussions on signing a peace treaty. They also called on Pyongyang and Washington to work on denuclearization talks, the leaders of the two Koreas to carry out their agreements reached at their summits, and the two Koreas to cooperate on health issues amid the COVID-19 pandemic.



Declaring the end of the war has been considered one of the solutions toward peace on the Korean Peninsula, with leaders of the two Koreas pledging efforts for it during the Panmunjeom Declaration in April 2018.



"A declaration ending the Korean War will work as a positive signal for the security of the regime, which North Korea wants, and facilitate talks on denuclearization," Rep. Kim said in a briefing at the National Assembly. "We need to pursue it to achieve denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula."



The country's conservative main opposition United Future Party (UFP), however, strongly criticized the resolution, saying this was not the right time to seek it as the North is increasing its threats against the South over propaganda leaflets and other issues.



"Who would disagree with the idea of ending the war on the peninsula?" But this is the situation in which North Korea ignores the agreements it had reached earlier with the South and consistently threatens military provocation," UFP spokesman Rep. Bae June-young said in a statement.



"It will be a responsible ruling party and government that disclose to the nervous people how they will cope with the situation."



Independent lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun, an international relations expert, said the liberal lawmakers' resolution would threaten the presence of United States Forces Korea (USFK) which is stationed here to prevent the North from reinvading the South.



"The declaration of the end of the war would mean the international community officially recognizes the North, a rogue state, as a normal state," he wrote on Facebook, Sunday. He said it also means the North would be accepted as a nuclear state by the U.S., China and the international society.



"This will change the diplomatic circumstances surrounding the peninsula: the goal of the North's complete denuclearization will be gone and the North, as an official nuclear state, partnering with the South, will demand withdrawal of the USFK."
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said there was no plan on any further lockdown in the Capital, dismissing speculation about reimposition of restrictions in the light of a severe spike in Covid-19 cases in Delhi.

Many people are speculating whether another lockdown is being planned in Delhi. There are no such plans, Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, soon after senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Sanjay Singh and Pankaj Gupta attended an all-party meeting chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah to discuss strategies to fight Covid.

According to Mondays health bulletin, Delhi recorded 1,647 new Covid cases and 73 more deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative total to 42,829 and 1,400 respectively.

Last week, Delhis health minister Satyendar Jain had dismissed as rumours all speculation about Delhi witnessing another lockdown from June 15. The Centre had also said there was no plan to reintroduce restrictions.

On June 1, the Delhi government had relaxed lockdown norms, allowing markets and industrial areas in the city to operate all day and reducing curfew timings.

On June 8, the government allowed shopping malls, restaurants and religious places to reopen.
New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea speaks at a news conference at the The House of The Lord Church in Brooklyn, June 3, 2020. The commissioner announced on Monday, June 15, that he was disbanding the anti-crime unit, a plainclothes team of hundreds of officers that targeted violent crime and was involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings. (Demetrius Freeman/The New York Times)
WASHINGTON (AP)  Driven by a swift-moving national debate, Senate Republicans are on the brink of introducing an extensive package of policing changes with new restrictions on police chokeholds and other practices as Congress rushes to respond to mass demonstrations over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans.

It's a sudden shift of GOP priorities with President Donald Trump signaling support. The White House is set to announce its own executive actions on law enforcement procedures in a matter of days, a crush of activity that shows how quickly police violence and racial prejudice are transforming national politics.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opened the chamber Monday declaring that Senate Republicans are developing a serious proposal to reform law enforcement."

While the emerging GOP package isn't as extensive as the sweeping Democratic proposal, which is headed for a House vote next week, it is perhaps the most far-reaching proposed changes to policing procedures from the party long aligned with a "law and order approach. Confronted with a groundswell of public unrest over police violence, in cities large and small nationwide, even the most conservative senators are joining the effort.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole African American Republican in the Senate, has been crafting the package set to roll out Wednesday. He said the chokehold, in particular, is a policy whose time has come and gone.

Over the weekend, the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks by a white officer in Atlanta led to a renewed public outcry, more street protests and the police chiefs swift resignation.

Democrats have said the GOP package doesnt go far enough to match the outpouring of support for reforms. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer warned Republicans not to settle for minor changes.

Now is the time to seek bold and broad-scale change, not change around the margins, Schumer said Monday.

With the political debate fluid, it is unclear whether the parties will be able to find common ground. The proposals share many similar provisions but take different approaches to address some of the issues. Neither bill goes as far as some activists want in their push to defund the police by fully revamping departments.

The debate is changing almost daily, complicated by the fall election, with the Senate Republican majority at risk. McConnell, who is also up for reelection in November is backing the GOP effort after the death of Breonna Taylor when police entered her home in Lousiville. It's a dynamic political environment in the aftermath of the killing of black Americans and the outpouring of protests and Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have overwhelmingly altered the national conversation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider policing issues at a hearing on Tuesday.

Central to the Republican package would be the creation of a national database of police use-of-force incidents, a way to improve transparency so law enforcement officers cannot transfer from one department to another without public oversight of their record. The Democrats have a similar provision.

The GOP bill would encourage police body cameras and include a long-stalled effort to make lynching a federal hate crime.

Additionally, the Republican package is expected to restrict the use of chokeholds by withholding certain federal funds to jurisdictions that continue to allow the practice, according to a Senate Republican unauthorized to discuss the pending bill and granted anonymity.

While chokeholds have become a symbol of police brutality  and a ban is included in the Democrats' bill  the maneuver is already banned in many departments. Police nationwide are far more likely to kill someone by shooting.

Yet, the Republican bill does not go as far as the Democratic proposal, particularly on the the issue of qualified immunity," which aims to enable those injured by law enforcement personnel to sue for damages. The White House has said that is a line too far. As an alternative, Scott has suggested a decertification process for officers involved in misconduct.

Still, Democrats signaled a willingness to look at the Republican approach for areas of common ground.

"Nothing is a non-starter," said Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House's third-ranking Democrat, on a conference call with reporters.

Democrats face criticism over activists calls to defund the police, and party leaders in Congress have distanced themselves from that approach. The defund movement describes a range of options, from dismantling departments to shifting policing resources to other community services. The Democratic bill does not go that far, but would instead provide grant money to departments that want to consider new ways of policing.

Nobody is going to defund the police, Clyburn said Sunday. We can restructure the police forces, restructure, reimagine policing. That is what we are going to do.

Leading civil rights groups have backed the Democratic bill but it's unclear if the Republican proposal will be extensive enough to gain broad support.

At the same time, the large police union, the influential Fraternal Order of Police, said in a statement it is working with Congress and the White House on the proposals, having provided feedback on the Democratic bill and substantial input on the emerging GOP package from Scott.

The House Judiciary Committee is set to consider the Democrats bill on Wednesday ahead of next weeks scheduled House vote.
A sign marks the German border to Poland hours after Polish authorities reopened the border on 13 June. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

After months of coronavirus lockdown, the reopening of borders between countries in the European Union will help boost Germanys export-dependent economy as it tries to emerge from the crisis, according to the president of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK).

The opening of the European borders can also provide stimulus worldwide  so that international trade can get going again and secure prosperity and jobs in Germany, DIHK president Eric Schweitzer told the Funke Media Group on Monday.

Schweitzer noted that if the German economy is to gather speed again, demand for German products and services needs to ramp up again globally.

The opening of the EU borders from Monday can therefore act as a second stimulus package for the German economy, and without costing the state a single cent, said Schweitzer.

The German government Germany announced a 130bn (116bn, $146bn) financial stimulus package on 4 June to help boost economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. The recovery package represents nearly 4% of Germanys GDP, and follows a first aid package of 750bn in March.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Berlin unveils 130bn package to reboot German economy

Many European Union member states are opening their borders from this week. Germany has now lifted border checks on travellers from most other EU countries.

France today opened its borders to people from within the EU, and Spain will be open to EU tourists from 21 June  good news for the thousands of Germans poised to take summer vacations in popular islands like Mallorca.

The EU home affairs commissioner last week urged member countries to open their borders as soon as possible, and the EU Commission says travel bans on entrants from non-EU countries should be gradually eased from the end of June.

However, Schweitzer pointed out that travel warnings still exist for 160 other countries  including important trading partners the US, China, and Russia  and demanded that trade should be made possible without having to undergo quarantine on arrival in other countries.

The world economy doesn't work only with video conferences, Schweitzer said. In the export business in particular, it is important to transport goods and goods, to look business partners in the eye when negotiating new orders, or to install a new machine on site.
New claims that Georgia's election technology may have failed to count thousands of legitimate votes sent in by mail is adding fuel to Democrats' outrage over a disastrous primary they say disenfranchised many African American voters.

Officials and activists spotted the issues in four counties and warn others could have been affected. They may have been caused by poorly calibrated software for scanning mail ballots that failed to recognize when voters indicated their choice with an X or a check mark rather than completely blacking out an oval - though some election experts are urging a full review before drawing any conclusions about the systems, which have worked effectively in other states.

Republicans are pointing to the Georgia election debacle as evidence states should back off plans to expand mail voting in November. That runs counter to the advice of most election security experts who say voting by mail probably is the safest and most secure way to ensure people can cast ballots during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats, meanwhile, are calling for more money for states to make sure they're prepared for the surge and to mitigate any technical issues that came up in the primaries

It's a disturbing preview of how technical problems, bad preparation and partisan rancor could combine to wreak havoc in November - especially in Georgia and other hotly contested states in the presidential contest.

They represent a small number of votes so far, but experts fear they could indicate there are more ballots that went uncounted but were never flagged - and in far more counties, the Associated Press's Frank Bajak reports. The scanners are part of a statewide voting system Georgia purchased for $120 million last year after a judge ordered the state to replace an outdated paperless system.

"The fact that it is in multiple counties tells me that it's probably systemic," said Richard DeMillo, a Georgia Tech computer scientist who works extensively on voting security. He's urging broader audits to identify such votes.

Yet Georgia voting implementation manager Gabriel Sterling told Bajak he had seen no evidence of the issue. "These are activists who have an ax to grind," he said.

The issue was first highlighted by the voting security advocacy group Coalition for Good Governance, which has filed several lawsuits against the state in an effort to force it to switch to hand-marked paper ballots, which many security advocates say offer the best protection against hacking.

The previous problems, which were concentrated in heavily African American counties in and around Atlanta, included mail ballots that voters requested but didn't arrive in time and a crush of in-person voting at a reduced number of polling sites.

Polling sites also suffered from a dearth of poll workers capable of showing up during the pandemic, many of whom did not know how to operate the state's complex new voting machines.

In a troubling sign for November, Democrats and Republicans have drawn starkly different lessons from the problems.

Republican National Committee press secretary Mandi Merritt described the debacle to the Washington Examiner as evidence states should scale back plans to increase voting by mail in November, despite concerns that may be the safest way to vote during the pandemic.

"The fumbled response in Georgia yesterday and the voting disasters we've seen across the country are exactly why the RNC is fighting back against the Democrats' assault on the integrity of our elections process," Merritt said. "States just don't have the experience to switch to a universal vote-by-mail system when the election is merely months away."

In fact, there are no states that plan to move to universal mail voting that don't offer it already. But some mail voting advocates have expressed concerns that states with low mail-voting rates won't be able to handle the levels of increase they might see during the pandemic.

President Donald Trump has attacked mail voting by claiming without evidence that it leads to widespread fraud but has not cited any logistical concerns. He also voted by mail himself in Florida this year.

Senate Democrats are pushing for an additional $3.6 billion in the next coronavirus stimulus bill to ensure states can all offer effective mail voting and safe in-person voting in November even if the pandemic is still raging.

But they're unlikely to win support from Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The first coronavirus stimulus included $400 million for elections.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office has launched an investigation into what went wrong during the primary, but also tried to focus blame on county officials. That has drawn fire from Democrats and many election security experts who say the buck should stop with his office.

Georgia politician Stacey Abrams, D, who narrowly lost the 2018 governor's race to Republican Brian Kemp, called the primary "an unmitigated disaster." Abrams has been listed as a possible vice-presidential candidate for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Her organization Fair Fight focuses on election access and voter suppression.
On Friday evening, Attorney General Dana Nessel, along with Director of the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services Anita Fox, and 98th District state representative candidate Sarah Schulz came together for a virtual town hall to discuss the rights of homeowners regarding insurance.

Schulz, who was among Midland residents affected by the flood, fielded questions from individuals that were submitted prior to the meeting. While out in the community, she had heard stories of people who had lost everything and either had no flood insurance or had trouble receiving settlements.

"People are desperate. They don't understand FEMA or what it means and they're thinking of walking away from the community and we don't want that to happen," Schulz said.

According to a poll taken toward the beginning of the meeting, attendees were from Midland, Sanford, Gladwin and other areas whose residences were flooded, but the buildings were not in the 100-year floodplain. A majority of the viewers had their claims denied by insurance companies.

The first portion of the town hall focused on inquiries related to insurance claims, which were answered by Fox. The initial question focused on what avenues people could take if their claims were denied. Fox cited several sources for assistance, including the DIFS hotline (877-999-6442) and floodsmart.gov. She advised working with an insurance agent with a claim or going straight to the insurance company to understand the denial. Above all, clients should get claim denials in writing so they may have a sturdy case built for them.

"Insurance policies are a contract. You should read your contract and understand what it is," Fox said.

Answering a follow-up question regarding policy language regarding the causes of floods - manmade or natural - Fox recommended asking an agent to explain the policy language to navigate any loopholes in the contract.

"You just got to be sure they're looking at the right language," she said.

People also need to avoid using language that misrepresents their situation when filing a claim, as it may lead to insurance fraud, which at the least can cost someone their policy, according to Fox.

Another resident explained how their insurance and their home equity loan was denied because their house was gutted and asked how to get banks to cooperate. Fox once again referred them to the DIFS hotline before pointing them down other methods of obtaining general assistance including Michigan 211, United Way and the American Red Cross.

For those who didn't have flood insurance to begin with, Fox recommended that they shop around for other insurance companies or reach out to mortgage companies, banks and credit unions.

"They have the same interest in protecting your home and keeping it safe," Fox said.

Schulz then turned the conversation toward the cause of the flood, the dams and their owners, Boyce Hydro. Nessel addressed the main question of why Boyce Hydro has ownership of the four dams after decades of neglect. Nessel explained how the company has proved several times that it was not capable of safely maintaining and operating the dams. She further stated that the dam failures and subsequent flooding will be used as a learning tool to do better in the future. She commented how the state should have had greater oversight and had regulations to prevent this disaster from occurring.

Earlier this week, the Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit against Boyce Hydro. Nessel assured listeners that the state will try to keep the public updated on what is happening. She also stated that the main priority is to ensure the communities affected by the flooding are safe from such an event in the future.

"The great thing about lawsuits is that everything is in writing. None of this is done in secret," said Nessel. "In terms of the lawsuit, we're going to be as transparent as possible."
The Brihanmumbai Ganesh Murtikar Sangh, an umbrella association of more than 700 idol makers in Mumbai, has instructed sculptors to not make idols taller than five feet for mandals, and limit the height of household idols to two feet, instead of the conventional two-and-a-half feet.

Idol makers said transporting larger idols will be difficult owing to the lack of enough manpower, as they have not received any directions on how many people will be allowed to gather for the celebrations owing to the coronavirus outbreak.

Some members from the association have raised concerns over the non-allotment of space by the civic body to set up their stalls. Until last year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) would issue permissions three months prior to the festival to sculptors to make Ganpati idols at designated footpaths and other public spaces.

We met the police commissioner and he expressed his concerns over idol makers facing losses this year owing to the lockdown. As of now, we have asked our members to restrict the height of the Ganpati idols. We are also instructing them to make idols of clay so that devotees can carry out immersions at home if outdoor provisions cannot be made owing to the outbreak, said Gajanan Tondwalkar, president of the association.

Tondwalkar added that they got clearance to bring five containers of shadu clay from Gujarat only last week.

Though we have finally got shadu (clay), we dont have workers nor do we have colours to paint the idols. Also, if the orders come like they did in the past years at the last moment, I doubt if we will be able to meet the demand. All these years, we would make additional idols, but this year due to the lockdown, we have limited number of idols, said Rupesh Narvekar, who owns Om Morya Chitra Mandal workshop at Chembur. Though they had started making idols for this years celebrations, the lockdown has delayed their work. We now make idols at home as we cant go to the workshop due to the lockdown. Despite working from home, these idols will not dry soon due to monsoon, he said.

Some communities have decided to even postpone celebrations at their home, but many are keen on holding the celebrations with limited family members.

Each year, around 11,000 large idols and 1.6 lakh household idols are made in the city using Plaster of Paris (PoP), while 75 large idols and 40,000 household idols are made from clay. Around 250 paper idols are made for the 11-day festival.
This spooky question always comes to mind when Christians talk about this in Bible studies and groups, and for these reasons, it is not talked about that often. What does the Bible tell us about demons and what power do they have on human beings? Let us study this very deeply as we analyze the capability of demons and how we can rebuke them.

Capacity of Demons

There are several verses that demonstrate the power of demons that is written in the Bible. The first one would be Mark 5:8,11,13 as it is written,

For He had said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit! Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; So He gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

In this verse, we can see Jesus demanding the demons away from the human being, and then they entered the herd of animals and swine. The herd and the swine then rushed to the steep bank and then were drowned int the sea.

Another verse in the Bible that shows the capacity of demons is Luke 8:2, as it is written, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out.

This verse is an example of many demons manifesting in one victim. In this verse, we can see that seven demons came out from Mary Magdalene. The verse shows that there can be heaps of demons going inside a human body.

This verse is evidence that demons can control both humans and animals. However, the most important thing reflected in this verse is that Jesus Christ can control demons and demand from them because he is the son of God, after all. He has power over all beings including demons. Another Bible verse demonstrating the capacity of demons is found in Matthew 17:15-18,

Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him. Jesus answered, You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to Me. And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

In this verse, we can see Jesus rebuking the demon out from the body of a child who was shivering. The demon has influenced the child, causing strange behavior. In Acts 19:13-16, as it is written,

I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit said to them in reply, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you? Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

We can see here that demons harm unbelievers, too. In this verse, the demon did not recognize them but rather recognize Paul and of course, the Lord Jesus Christ. In this verse, we can see the power of the Lord Jesus Christ over demons because the demons are even afraid of His name alone. We can see this further in Acts 19:13-16,

Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you? Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

Physical and Mental Afflictions by Demons

The Bible also tells us about the different physical and mental illnesses and afflictions that demons may inflict on us. In Matthew 9:33, the verse shows the influence of demons on the ability of a man to talk. It is written, And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.

In Luke 13:11, the verse shows the influence of demons on the ability of a woman to walk, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.

And in Luke 13:16, Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?

In Matthew 12:22, the verse shows the influence of demons on the ability of a man to see. Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see.

And lastly, in Mark 5:4,5, the verse shows the influence of demons on the ability of a man to think well, For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.

In this verse, we can see that the demons inflicted the disease of mental illness on the human being and thus, he was chained in hand and foot. He also becomes very strong.

A Word of Caution

Although demons can influence our minds and physical beings, there are diseases that are not influenced by demons. Most of the time, diseases are influenced by bacteria and viruses, genetics, and simply by the human condition.

The power of demons is very evident in Scripture. They can influence the physical and mental capacity of a human being. They can also influence animals. Demons are plenty and walk everywhere on the earth, and they can both harm believers and unbelievers.

Nevertheless, Jesus Christ has power over demons. He can demand demons to veer away from us in an instant. That is why it is important that we follow Jesus Christ and believe and be faithful to Him so that we can easily rebuke demons if they come near us.

iStock/Getty Images Plus/Gun2becontinued

Glory Dy has been a content creator for more than 10 years. She lives in a quiet suburb with her family and four cats.
Which college a student chooses to attend is a major decision that can affect the rest of their life. What students want to study, what they can afford to pay, and cultural fit can all influence their choice.Throughout the process, students have all sorts of vague information, but providing them with data specific to them can help them make smarter college decisions. In fact, many students and families are already using specified data through school report cards to help them pick a high school before they even look at colleges.Even some of North Carolina's largest school districts , like Union County Public Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, have started using data resources.And now, advances in how high schools use college data can help students pick a well-matched college for themselves. As K-12 school report cards become standard practice, college counseling may have to change to meet student expectations for how a specific school will benefit them in the long run.Some students are indeed lucky enough to access detailed information about their school. One district in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is capitalizing on data to support students as they choose a college. College counseling there includes software that combines student information with data from past graduates and how they performed at a specific college. College counselors can show soon-to-be graduates where students like themselves have succeeded and where they would be more likely to earn a degree.With that information, students can see which colleges students had trouble in who had similar preparation. Or it can show which colleges are better for them in a particular major than generalized data might show.Chattanooga isn't the only place where counselors have taken to using personalized data, but it remains a rare practice. Data analysis can change the tide for students who are at risk of not graduating from college. A good match between students and colleges can help them persist through their studies and graduate. The challenge for schools is to give students relevant data, instead of overwhelming them with too much data.Schools can also use niche software to provide students with data. Naviance , for example, can provide data on a senior's college application, acceptance rates, and persistence and graduation data. If a school or district has a higher-level subscription to Naviance, they can access even more personalized data.An estimate from 2017 stated that roughly 40 percent of high schoolers have access to Naviance, but it is unclear how many of them know about it or use Naviance in applying to college. Software like Naviance can be a simple way for districts to help students take advantage of useful data.In fact, a 2019 Harvard study on Naviance found that students changed where they applied for college when they see previous students' admission data.The data in the study was not personalized, but it did show students their likelihood of getting admitted into colleges based on their GPA and standardized test scores, which helps them see where they stand compared to other students.In some parts of the country, students already use data, but to choose a high school instead of a college. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires state departments of education to develop school and district report cards to make comparing them easier. The report cards must include demographic, performance, and financial data for each district and state. Families can then use that data to make a well-informed decision about schools while including their personal preferences for less-countable qualities. High-quality report cards bring a host of information to families so they can compare schools side-by-side.Colleges are also taking the initiative to use data to analyze their enrollment trends and students to meet their own goals. In late 2019, The Washington Post found that 44 public and private universities have worked with outside consulting companies to gather data on prospective students. One way they did it was by working with a company like Capture Higher Ed, which places tracking software on their website to gauge student interest. The tracking software tells the college information what pages someone visits and for how long they view it. Colleges then use that data to prioritize recruitment and marketing efforts.However, those tactics may not help connect soon-to-be graduates to their best-fit college. There are also efforts to use data to benefit students once they are in college , but it's important to make sure students attend a fitting college in the first place.Using data isn't an idea that only policymakers and colleges like, either. The school report cards, for instance, are popular among families. In Ohio, whose report cards are particularly easy to use, a survey found that parents value the report cards and use them to know how their child's school is performing. It also found that 91 percent of parents were particularly interested in how the school's students were prepared for post-graduation success.Parents want to know that their child's school will prepare them for whatever is next, and while high schools prepare students for college, colleges have the unique responsibility to prepare students for the workforce. As parents and students get used to seeing school report cards and use them to track school performance, they may start to expect it during the college search, too.In fact, the U.S. Department of Education's higher education scorecards provide students with information like average starting salaries and average debt payment per month, divided by major, at private and public colleges alike. Though not perfect, that specific data could help a student decide between two schools based on salary and debt-two real consequences of their college choice.However, one major difference between college data and school report cards is that college data doesn't take into account student demographics.In school report cards, students can see how similar students performed at a particular school. College data could be misleading if different groups of students have a wide range of results in, for example, returning to campus for the second year of school. Students need to know the benefits of particular colleges for particular students, as well as the risks.As the same families who can access data-rich school report cards see their children enter high school in the coming years, the expectation from families may build pressure to improve college-level scorecards. That could make data analysis the key to helping students succeed in college.
Its the question hanging over the countrys collective head as businesses look toward reopening plans . . . When will Americans feel comfortable patronizing us?

Perhaps that question really means, When will business return to a semblance of normal?

Thats important to dairy farmers, because at least 50% of all dairy products are sold in restaurants.

Consumer confidence is key to where were going, said Steven Kyle, Cornell University economist, on the June 10 DairyLivestream. That episode also featured Cornells Andy Novakovic and USDA Chief Economist Rob Johansson to discuss how consumers and dairy farmers will continue to navigate this pandemic economy. The waters are uncharted, and no one truly knows when more regular buying patterns may pick back up.

Its clear, though, that those consumer dollars are whats needed to rebuild so many industries.

Lets remember, Kyle said, consumer spending is something close to 70% of gross domestic product (GDP) overall. So whether consumers are in a good mood makes a huge difference as to whether theyll spend money or they wont.

Milk prices, especially, survive on a knifes edge and can be pushed off either direction with changes in supply or demand.

Restaurants will continue to hurt

Those food service establishments that normally buy about half of the dairy products in this country were down in sales as much as 80% at their lowest point of the past few months. Although sales in some place are slowly climbing back up, the numbers are still low.

Attendees of the June 10 DairyLivestream were asked when they will feel comfortable dining in a restaurant again. Just over half reported theyll likely wait at least another month  17% of viewers said it will be at least six months before they walk into a restaurant.

For better or worse, those attitudes could certainly change. I suspect a lot of people are wavering between several of those categories, depending what the headline of the day is, Kyle commented.

Building demand back up

The pandemic has spotlighted cracks in the supply-side of the market, Novakovic mentioned, as food manufacturing equipment lacked repurposing ability and workers fell ill. Simultaneously, though, there have also been those demand problems.

Even though retail sales of dairy shot up in early weeks by as much as 60% in some places, that was not enough to cover the sales lost in food service  everywhere from McDonalds to the most high-end restaurant uses a healthy amount of cheese or butter, at the minimum.

Stimulus payments to Americans have been of little help, because theyre really functioning as disaster payments. Kyle pointed out that stimulus payments are only useful if recipients are willing to go out and spend them.

It will be a slow pickup, no matter when it begins, because consumers remain cautious. Were all in sort of a wait-and-see attitude, Kyle emphasized.

An ongoing series of events

DairyLivestream will air twice each month for the remainder of this year. The next broadcast will be on Wednesday, June 24 at 11 a.m. CST. Each episode is designed for panelists to answer over 30 minutes of audience questions. If you havent joined a DairyLivestream broadcast yet, register here. Registering once registers you for all future events.

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.

(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2020

June 11, 2020
The riot, or as some put it " the rebellion," that followed George Floyd's death in Minneapolis has raised an important question: Is it possible for a police force dedicated to public order to carry out their duties when working with communities who see them as an invading army and respond with appropriate hostility?

The no-go zones of Europe are areas in which the police do not set foot unless compelled by extraordinary circumstances, usually in the case of fire, when they escort firefighters. Unlike the nascent areas like CHAZ in the U.S., these areas are defined by the central government. They are settled predominantly by immigrants or children of immigrants. For all practical purposes, order has been turned over, both officially by the government, to the local imams and neighborhood gangs. Most of the people are unemployed, deriving their income from government support or the drug trade. The rates of murder and other crimes are high. They have almost no identification with the national culture, little interest in education or in finding qualifications for employment. The mere presence of police is defined as a racist provocation and days of rioting, looting, and arson can follow an unwanted police incursion.The police respond in kind by acting, of necessity, as if they were an invading army. The conditions in places like Molenbeek in Brussels or St-Denis in Paris have been well depicted in television series like The Spiral or films like La Haine. There are 751 no-go zones in France alone.

The residents of these areas profit from their hatred of the police, the fire-fighters, and the whole French culture. They are given government-supported housing and living allowances, as well as special programs to aid what few wish for: employment. The students who remain in school are given special admission preference to prestigious schools like the Ecole Normale Superieure and Sciences Po. During the recent Wuhan virus lockdown, ordinary French citizens were subjected to arrest and draconian fines while the citizens of the no-go zones were let free to do what they wanted without hindrance. On important holidays, car arsons are a common feature of the celebrations and rarely result in arrests or punishment. For decades now, journalists have described the burning of cars and property as playful.

In the United States the interiors of large cities where people are now rioting are dangerous places. The murder rate is high especially among blacks. The police, white or black, do not feel that they share a common culture with the residents and are made to feel like an occupying army. It is true that some members of the police are there because they wish to dominate, control and hurt the people they serve, but these are few. Most police come from families that value order, religion, and the ritual expression of obedience to shared values, and they are appalled by the conditions of inner-city disorder.

Police assigned to the dangerous areas of inner cities are very much like the soldiers I treated when they returned from active duty in Iraq. Many of these soldiers had PTSD, both from the dangers they had to endure, and from the loss of friends in their units. They had trained themselves to respond rapidly and decisively based on small signs. They had to act under a high state of excitement which made "nuanced" response difficult. Although the two situations are different in that the Iraqis were trying to kill the American soldiers, and the people in inner-city urban areas rarely try to kill the police (that is, before the Black Live Matter era), both soldier and police in the inner cities have to operate in a dangerous environment.

However the psychiatric effects of policing a population that does not wish to be policed and those of soldiers in active combat are the same. High rates of PTSD, depression, alcohol, drug abuse, and suicide are common to both. It is bound to get worse among the police as they are now defined as the racist enemy of black men.

The relationship between residents and police in urban centers can be contrasted to police and personal relationships in the integrated neighborhood in which I live. My neighbors are about 60% black, 30% white and the remainder descendants of Spanish speakers. All homes have well-kept tree-shaded lawns with carefully tended flower-beds. The residents pick up any trash that might escape the collectors, bins are stowed out of sight the evening after collection. Cars are usually parked in their garages or driveways and not on the street. The neighborhood blog contains no complaint about the police. The police, black and white, share the cultural values of the residents. They work well together.

During the recent reign of the Wuhan virus the neighborhood self-walkers and dog walkers did not wear masks but when we met another coming from opposite directions, one would take the street and the other the sidewalk. We smiled (an important social gesture that is unavailable when someone wears a mask), greeted each other, and sometimes stayed and talked at a respectful distance. We solved the problem of the virus as respectful citizens should: by civil convention. Obviously, there was no rioting or destruction on our streets or nearby shopping center.

This is not to praise our neighborhood but to say that policing may not be possible when the police are perceived as a racist occupying army as The Nation headline suggests "There is only one possible conclusion: White America likes its killer cops. If we believe that all our police, white and black, are infected with the gangrene of institutional racism, then the only solution might be a variant of no-go zones for our inner cities, where police, at least white police, can or should never go.

The cultural values of the police favor order, reasonable obedience to the law, and maintenance of property and public space. These are not the values of many in the inner cities, and in fact are actively discouraged by the leaders of the protest. Instead these middle-class values are now perceived as "racist" or "evidence of white domination". If this state of affairs remains, we can only solve the problem of institutional racism by recognizing the elephant in the room and admitting that communities should have only those police who share their values.

Perhaps these no-go zones which would result from efforts to defund the police should simply banish white policemen and have only black police, but the numbers of black police that have been attacked suggest that this is not so. These communities might believe that the black police have been infected with the institutional racism of their white comrades. The plight of these police who suffer from the inherent racism of middle-class values need to be relocated to the suburbs and rural small towns. The federal government should aid with the relocation of the ousted police and supplement the lower wages that are paid by small towns and cities across the nation.

The mayors and city council people of these cities that wish to exist as a police free zone should be able to reconfigure the tax resources which formerly went to the police in any way they want to. Perhaps Black Lives Matter, the Southern Poverty Law Center or the faculties or Harvard, Yale and very woke colleges such as Williams can aid them in establishing criteria for recruitment of acting police and the rules for engagement to be used by those police. Do they protect property or people? The New York Times does not think destruction of property is violence, nor does the Nation which writes

Refusing to incorporate acts of destruction into the political imaginary of protest deprives these acts of their political power. It deprives the movement of a source of material strength. And, perhaps most importantly, it ignores what many protesters are saying with both bricks and words: that the wealth contained in these looted stores is slavery money. So when we take it back or we burn it down, yeah. Were getting back whats ours.

Author's note: That justification of property destruction is highly reminiscent of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, a pogrom against Jews carried out by SA paramilitary forces and civilians throughout Nazi Germany on November 9-10, 1938. The German authorities looked on without intervening. I was a few months shy of 6 years old at the time. I wonder if I have seen in these past several weeks a repeat of Kristallnacht with a different target.

Businesses wishing to remain in the no-go zones or the no-go city would have to be given subventions to pay the higher rates of property insurance that would be demanded. They would also have to guarantee protection of firefighters if the city's firefighters were to be used. However, the residents of these areas might like to provide their own certified non-racist firefighters.

People who live in these now to be city-wide no-go zones and who share the same middle-class aspirations as my black, white and Latino neighbors, would be left in an urban hell, victim to criminals and the "police" their neighbors have chosen. The recent spike in gun violence and murder in Chicago and Philadelphia illustrates the real dangers of interfering with the police. But these good people apparently, are only a small sacrifice to gain a community-approved police force which could also control the voting apparatus and expression of political belief.

The author, a retired psychiatrist, can be reached at akfalco@aol.com

Image credit: Fox News Tucker Carlson via shareable YouTube screen shot
At least 17 states across the US have seen COVID-19 infections surge in the last week as record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations continue to sweep through the likes of Florida, Texas and Alabama.

Several of the states, mostly in the South, have seen an increase in new cases since Memorial Day as health officials warn of a potential surge in new coronavirus infections as states push ahead with reopening.

Alabama reported a record number of new cases for the fourth day in a row - more than 1,000 cases were reported in a day on Sunday alone - the first time thats happened since the start of the pandemic.

Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina all had record numbers of new cases in the past three days.

In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hot spots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 - the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

In total, more than 115,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19 and more than two million have been infected.

At least 17 states across the US have seen COVID-19 infections surge in the last week as record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations continue to sweep through the likes of Florida, Texas and Alabama

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May. Others say the increase in cases is due to more robust testing.

Experts have for weeks been raising concerns that the reopening of the US economy could lead to a fresh wave of infections.

Many of the states that have seen increases in cases are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing and perhaps more troubling for health officials.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69 percent to 77 percent of hospital beds are occupied in various regions.

While Utah's governor announced last week that most counties there would pause their reopenings, most states are not considering a second shutdown as they face budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment.

Many went ahead with reopenings before meeting government infection rate guidelines for doing so.

New York, the hardest hit state, has utilized health guidelines to instruct its reopening and continued to see all measures of infection drop - new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positive rates among those getting tested.

ALABAMA CASES: Alabama reported a record number of new cases for the fourth day in a row on Sunday

TEXAS CASES: Cases have been on the rise in Texas since the Memorial Day weekend. Texas has been at the forefront of states' efforts to reopen their economies

FLORIDA CASES: The number of infections have spiked in Florida throughout June and has had record numbers of new cases in the past three days

However, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned New York City and Long Island officials on Sunday that their reopenings were at risk if they do not stop further large public gatherings that he said are threatening progress on curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

Cuomo said the state has received 25,000 complaints recently of violations of social distancing and other emergency requirements, mostly in Manhattan and the Hamptons, affluent beach communities on the east end of Long Island.

Fears that a second wave of infections is happening - or that states failed to curb their first wave - has prompted health officials to plead with the public to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.

It comes as President Donald Trump still plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma - although those attending will have to agree not to hold the campaign responsible if they contract COVID-19.

About a third of the record new cases in the state came from Tulsa County, according to state data.

The Tulsa Health Department on Friday said the outbreak was linked to indoor gatherings. Hospitalizations and the percent of tests coming back positive have been steady in the state.

'I have concerns about large groups of people gathering indoors for prolonged lengths of time. It is imperative that anyone who chooses to host or attend a gathering take the steps to stay safe,' said Bruce Dart, the department's executive director.

Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.

NORTH CAROLINA HOSPITALIZATIONS: North Carolina had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday

ARIZONA HOSPITALIZATIONS: Arizona has continued to have record hospitalizations for coronavirus in the past few days

TEXAS HOSPITALIZATIONS: The number of people being admitted to hospital in Texas for COVID-19 continues to increase

ARKANSAS HOSPITALIZATIONS: Arkansas had a record number of patients enter the hospital over the week to be treated for coronavirus

It comes after Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the US, cautioned last week that the 'blips' of rising coronavirus hospitalizations being reported by some states could get out of control if robust contact tracing regimes are not put in place.

He said the US was bound to see infections increase as restrictions on economic activity were lifted.

'But when you start seeing more hospitalizations, that's a sure fire sign that you're in a situation where you're going in the wrong direction,' Fauci told CNN.

Fauci said increased hospitalizations was a worrying trend and a sign that 'maybe we need to slow down a little' on reopenings.

A handful of states and cities have now paused or slowed reopenings due to increases in cases.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said she would put county applications to reopen on hold after the state reported a record daily rise in new coronavirus cases on Thursday.

'This is essentially a statewide 'yellow light,' it's time to press pause for one week before any further reopening,' Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert on Friday ordered most of the state to halt reopening while it investigated a jump in cases.

'I don't want to go forward and then take a step backward,' Herbert said of the order that remains in effect until June 26.
This could be an infamous boogeyman story about "Ukrainian nationalists "partaking in and even almost "supervising" protests.

Taking advantage of the raging protests in the U.S. and the EU, Russia is preparing another move to compromise Ukraine in the eyes of international community.

Against exposures of Russian involvement in all major destabilizing efforts, from cyber-penetration of Bundestag websites in Germany and coronavirus hospitals in the Czech Republic to fueling violence and looting at U.S. protests, Russians are now trying to offer a false trail to shift suspicions away from themselves, the Information Resistance OSINT group reports.

This false trail, obviously, could be an infamous boogeyman story about "Ukrainian nationalists "partaking in and even almost "supervising" protests.

Online resources of the unrecognized "republics" in Eastern Ukraine, are massively spinning a claim that Ukrainians with combat experience are allegedly set to be deployed to support protests on foreign soil.

Read also"Foreign adversaries" targeting U.S. over ongoing unrest  media

It's not the first time Russian propaganda is playing a game by this plot. Last year, photos were span across social networks and media outlets of Ukrainians who allegedly took an active part in the protests in Hong Kong.

"Having seized from the fallen Soviet Union the baton of global chaos architect, Russia exploits any destabilizing events happening on foreign soil," the report reads. "Also, Russia shifts on others the blame for fueling unrest, just like Russian media did when they accused Ukraine of 'exporting the Maidan' to the rest of the world."

Four Ukrainians, covered with unequivocal tattoos and sporting peculiar T-shirts with the inscription in Ukrainian "Who is behind the murder of Katia Handziuk" (the activist whose brutal murder for anti-corruption efforts sparked outrage among activists and drove some to the streets to protest government inaction) then starred in Russian media reports.

Chinese Ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui then claimed "reliable" data on the "Ukrainian trace in the Hong Kong protests, accusing the Ukrainians of sharing their "experience" with Hong Kong protesters. It was the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine who had to issue explanations over the stunt done by just four Ukrainian nationals.

Today, now that NATO has just included Ukraine in the Enhanced Opportunity Partnership, another campaign could be launched to compromise Kyiv in the eyes of international community.

"Cameras are just waiting to capture at the protest rallies in the U.S. and the EU some young people with peculiar tattoos or distinctive T-shirts with Ukrainian inscriptions looting stores or just being part of the violent crowds. So if anyone wants to tar Ukraine, this is the perfect opportunity amid global public focus on the ongoing rallies across Western democracies," the report reads.

Read alsoJournalist debunks fake report alleging Ukrainian fighters took part in Libya hostilities

These actors could be both aware and oblivious of being exploited by Russia. "Most of the times though those who are being manipulated tend to remain blind to what's really happening," the author wrote.

"Also, it can also be that there'll be no need to send anyone anywhere as Russian assets from among all sorts of ultra-radicals and neo-Nazi scum could simply use in their act some distinctive objects attributed to Ukraine or simply put pseudo-Ukrainian graffiti on some walls  like Russian Wagner PMC troops clumsily did as they were retreating from a Libyan town," the report concludes.
Dublin-listed pharma services company Open Orphan has had the results of a clinical trial published in one of the worlds oldest and best known medical journals, The Lancet.

The first trial of AGS-v, a first-in-class "mosquito saliva vaccine" in humans indicated that the vaccine is safe and induces a strong immune response in healthy volunteers.

These positive findings suggest that AGS-v is now ready to advance to Phase II, a statement from Open Orphan, which owns a 49pc stake of Imutex  the company developing the treatment  said.

The treatment is designed as a transformational vaccine, the first ever mosquito synthetic saliva vaccine designed in to protect against mosquito-borne diseases carried in the saliva such as Zika, Malaria, and Dengue Fever.

In the study published in The Lancet, NIAID scientists describe the results of the Phase 1 trial of the vaccine as "encouraging and worthy of further study".

Cathal Friel, chairman of Open Orphan, said: "We are delighted with the results of this very important and successful trial of Imutex's universal vaccine for mosquito-borne diseases.

This further confirms and reinforces our belief that our 49pc shareholding in Imutex has a lot of unrealised potential value and we look forward to working closely with Gregory Stoloff and his team in SEEK to see how we can commercialise and monetise the true value of Imutex over the coming months."
Asian Development Bank calls for sustainable Blue Economy to save our oceans

by Sally Ho

June 15,2020 | Source: green queen

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has called on Asia to begin focusing on building a new sustainable blue economy. The regions development bank says that in order to preserve livelihoods and the planet, the continent must begin preserving the marine ecosystem and move away from the current ocean economy that exploits natural resources. It has proposed several financial initiatives to assist with the transition.



ADB says that immediate action must be taken against the current ocean economy that relies on destructive fishing and pollution practices. Instead, a new blue economy must be built, defined by the bank as the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth. It is characterised by a balance between livelihoods and marine ecosystem health.



Billions of people in Asia-Pacific  particularly poorer nations and vulnerable coastline communities  depend on healthy ocean ecosystems for their incomes, food and health. Due to climate change, pollution, destructive fishing and rapid coastal urbanisation, the productivity of our oceans has become increasingly threatened.



According to ADBs 2019 ocean report, over 60% of the 8 million tonnes of ocean plastic waste comes from Asia, along with agricultural toxic pollutants and untreated wastewater. Meanwhile, global heating is causing rising sea levels, flooding and acidification, and unless immediate action is taken, we are looking at 90% of coral reefs disappearing and loss of all fish stocks within decades time.



In order to transition to a more sustainable blue economy, ADB announced several financial initiatives amounting to US$5 million over the next five years. These include blue bonds that will invest in coastal pollution projects, circular economy, green ports and marine renewable energy in order to generate new jobs and stimulate sustainable economic growth in ocean-dependent Asian communities.



ADB will also launch sustainability-linked loans to provide finance with the achievement of environmental targets, ocean risk insurance, and payments for ecosystem services (PES), which monetises the benefits of marine management and protection.



The action plan is also to ensure that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14  Ensuring the livelihoods, health, resiliency, and food security  of billions of people in the region, are met, said the bank in a statement.



Earlier this year, ADB launched a new venture platform to support and invest in startups in Asia offering tech-forward impact solutions to contribute to ocean protection and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Called ADB Ventures, the US$50 million inaugural investment fund under ADB Ventures has a 17-year fund life, and will specifically target early stage and growth stage cleantech, agriculture technology and health technology businesses that are working on climate and gender innovations.



With sustainability and awareness about ocean pollution reaching all-time highs in Asia, other funds are too looking to divert finances to address environmental crises. In December 2019, the Circulate Capital Ocean Fund (CCOF) was launched by Singapore-based Circulate Capital and is dedicated to alleviate the net financing gap of between US$28 to US$40 for each tonne of plastic waste to be collected and recycled across the five biggest ocean polluters in the world  China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

 Ekowarehouse Limited 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Theme(s): Others.
President Donald Trump blamed a rise in coronavirus cases on the increased testing being done, saying if it stopped, 'we'd have very few cases, if any.'

'If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any,' Trump said at a roundtable discussion on the health of America's seniors at the White House.

At least 17 states across the U.S. - mostly across the South - have seen COVID-19 infections surge in the last week as states begin the reopening process.

Six states have seen infection rises of more than 50% compared with the previous week, including Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Alabama, South Carolina and Hawaii.

Across the U.S 13 states have seen jumps of between 10% and 50%, including California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkanas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Alaska.

States where coronavirus infections remained steady when compared with the previous week include Washington, Utah, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia, Maine and Rhode Island.

States where levels fell by between 10% and 50% include Idaho, Colorado, Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Vancouver, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Maryland.

President Trump blamed a rise in coronavirus cases on increased testing

No states saw falls of more than 50% when compared with the previous week.

These President Trump argued that 'testing a double edged sword' that makes the country 'look bad' but is 'good to have.'

'Our testing is so much bigger and more advanced than any other country (we have done a great job on this!) that it shows more cases. Without testing, or weak testing, we would be showing almost no cases. Testing is a double edged sword - Makes us look bad, but good to have!!!,' he tweeted Monday morning.

At least 17 states across the U.S. - mostly across the South - have seen COVID-19 infections surge in the last week as states begin the reopening process

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina all had record numbers of new cases in the past three days.

Trump will hold a campaign rally, his first since March, in Tulsa on Saturday.

The president dismissed concerns, saying one of the reasons Tulsa was chosen was because of the governor's work combatting the coronavirus.

'Oklahoma is at a very low number. They have done really fantastic work,' he said.

In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hot spots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 - the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

In total, more than 115,000 Americans have now died of COVID-19 and two million have been infected.

President Trump has pushed states to reopen and restart their economies. He is banking his reelection campaign on having a strong economy.

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May. Others say the increase in cases is due to more robust testing.

Experts have for weeks been raising concerns that the reopening of the U.S. economy could lead to a fresh wave of infections.

Many of the states that have seen increases in cases are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing and perhaps more troubling for health officials.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69 percent to 77 percent of hospital beds are occupied in various regions.

Vice President Mike Pence said the number of hospitalizations are down.

Where we saw coronavirus positive cases six weeks ago over 30,000 now, Pence said, saying it is down to roughly 20,000 new cases a day. As I said, the positivity rate remains flat. Hospitalizations for coronavirus are declining all over the country.

It comes after Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the US, cautioned last week that the 'blips' of rising coronavirus hospitalizations being reported by some states could get out of control if robust contact tracing regimes are not put in place.

He said the US was bound to see infections increase as restrictions on economic activity were lifted.

'But when you start seeing more hospitalizations, that's a sure fire sign that you're in a situation where you're going in the wrong direction,' Fauci told CNN.

Fauci said increased hospitalizations was a worrying trend and a sign that 'maybe we need to slow down a little' on reopenings.

He also told ABC News the best way of spreading the coronavirus was to avoid congregating in large groups.

The 'best way that you can avoid -- either acquiring or transmitting infection -- is to avoid crowded places, to wear a mask whenever you're outside. And if you can do both, avoid the congregation of people and do the mask, that's great,' he told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on the 'Powerhouse Politics' podcast.

'If you're going to be in a situation where -- beyond your control there's a lot of people around you -- make sure you wear a mask,' he advised.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also weighed in on Friday, telling reporters that large gatherings that involve shouting, chanting or singing should 'strongly encourage' attendees to use cloth masks.

But the officials noted this was not directed specifically at any of President Trump's events or the protests - it was just general advice.

'They are not regulations, they are not commands, but they are recommendations or even suggestions ... to be able to have a gathering that will keep people as safe as possible,' said Jay Butler, the CDC's deputy director for Infectious Diseases.

At least 17 states across the US have seen COVID-19 infections surge in the last week as record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations continue to sweep through the likes of Florida , Texas and Alabama

A handful of states and cities have now paused or slowed reopenings due to increases in cases.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown said she would put county applications to reopen on hold after the state reported a record daily rise in new coronavirus cases on Thursday.

'This is essentially a statewide 'yellow light,' it's time to press pause for one week before any further reopening,' Brown, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Utah's Republican Governor Gary Herbert on Friday ordered most of the state to halt reopening while it investigated a jump in cases.

'I don't want to go forward and then take a step backward,' Herbert said of the order that remains in effect until June 26.
Army delegations from India and China on Monday held discussions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh to break the stalemate that began with a confrontation between rival patrols near Pangong Tso lake on the night of May 5-6, two senior officers said on the condition of anonymity.

The talks took place at two locations along the LAC - brigadier-ranked officers met in the Galwan area and Colonel-ranked officers in Hot Springs - as part of continuing efforts to resolve the standoff, said the first officer cited above.

The talks were positive and frank. As long as talks are happening, we are moving towards a solution, said the second officer cited above.

Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane last week said disengagement of Indian and Chinese forces was taking place in a phased manner along the LAC where the situation was under control.

India and China are continuing diplomatic and military engagements for an early resolution of the standoff between border troops, the external affairs ministry said last week.

Naravane said on Saturday he was hopeful that perceived differences between India and China would be put to rest through the continued dialogue.

Army delegations, led by major general-ranked officers, met for the fifth time last week in eastern Ladakh to resolve the standoff.

Limited disengagement of forces at Galwan Valley, Patrolling Point 15 and Hot Springs began after a meeting between Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, commander of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Major General Liu Lin, commander of the Peoples Liberation Army in the South Xinjiang region, on June 6.

India is now focused 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 faceoff.

Last months violent confrontations between Indian and Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh and north Sikkim triggered a military build up on both sides of the LAC that stretched from Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, as reported by Hindustan Times on Friday.

The Chinese build up began immediately after clashes between border troops in Ladakh and Sikkim on May 5-6 and May 9, respectively, and took place before the June 6 meeting between Lieutenant General Singh and his Chinese counterpart.
Parliament on Thursday, June 04, 2020, passed the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) Bill, 2019, after the third reading in the house of Parliament.



The passage of the Bill is significant and an important landmark in the history of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG).



According to a statement from CIMG copied to the Ghana News Agency, CIMG has been pursuing the Bill for the last two decades, starting from the administration of Former President John Agyekum Kufuor.



The Bill, it said, has therefore, gone through all subsequent administrations without any success until now.



As part of the procedure for the Bill to become Law, Parliament is expected to transmit the approved Bill to the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his assent to become operational after Gazette notification, the statement said.



Dr Daniel Kasser Tee, the National President of CIMG, said: the eventual passage of the Bill brings a huge relief to marketers, as CIMG will now have the requisite legal backing to set standards for the practice of marketing and regulate the practice of the marketing profession in Ghana.



The Bill also empowers CIMG to provide education and training, and conduct professional examinations locally, thereby, saving the nation huge sums of foreign exchange through the payment of membership dues and examination fees to external marketing bodies.



It is now our turn to demonstrate how beneficial the passage of this Bill is to professional marketers, student marketers and mother Ghana. We, therefore, eagerly await the signing into Law of this approved Bill by H. E. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the statement said.



Mr Kwabena Akuamoah Agyekum, the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of CIMG, according to the statement, expressed excitement at the news saying the Governing Council, Management and Staff of CIMG were equally elated.



He paid tribute to the President of the Republic, his cabinet members, members of the cabinet select committee, Parliament, the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Chairman and members of the Select Committee on Education as well as the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, whose untiring efforts contributed to the passage of the Bill.



Mr Agyekum called on all members of the CIMG, to contribute their quota, by putting all hands on deck to deepen the practice of marketing in ways that would positively impact businesses, households and the Ghanaian society at large.



The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) is a Marketing professional body established in 1981 with the aim to lead in the development of world class marketing professionals and practitioners for the effective practice of the profession in Ghana.



It is also, the aim of the Institute to promote the interest of both individual and corporate members through various interventions; the provision of marketing professional advice and services to corporate bodies and the promotion of marketing excellence through the institution of the CIMG Annual Marketing Performance Awards.

Source: GNA









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Embattled industries across Australia have called for the $70 billion JobKeeper scheme to stay in place, warning many companies are likely to go under if it's stopped.

Scott Morrison has signalled the coronavirus job retention scheme will be wound back in September, warning that the country could become 'addicted' to handouts.

The scheme pays workers $1,500-a-fortnight so their employers can keep at work despite a substantial drop in business thanks to COVID-19 restrictions.

But extending the scheme could put spending on vital services, including schools and hospitals, at risk, the government has warned.

The $70 billion wage subsidy scheme is costing taxpayers $20 billion every month, providing $1,500-a-fortnight to workers who might otherwise be laid off.

A cyclist rides past a Flight Centre in Brisbane on May 1 (pictured) with the tourism hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic

Mr Morrison insisted 'it is not a wise or responsible course' to keep the emergency measure in place, revealing the economy is expected to shrink by $100 billion this year.

He explained it would take at least two years for the economy to fully recover from the crisis, which saw thousands of businesses shut their doors for months.

The tourism, retail and hospitality industry called for the payments to be extended on Monday, warning the government they wouldn't survive.

International borders are still closed, meaning no foreign tourists are entering Australia, and social distancing rules means many businesses are doing less trade.

National Australia Bank chief economist Alan Oster said the government would need to maintain JobKeeper to struggling sectors, like international tourism, universities and commercial property.

'You can't just turn it off,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'There are large chunks that will basically still be almost dead by the time you get to the end of September.'

A woman poses in front of Sydney's Opera House (pictured), but the country has suffered a huge drop in tourist numbers thanks to the travel bans

The MCA Cafe (pictured on June 12) in Sydney was one of the many venues forced to shut during the pandemic

Business leaders said it doesn't necessarily mean JobKeeper itself needs to stay in place, but any kind of scheme to help keep employees at work.

John Hart, the tourism chair at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the scheme had to be extended for the embattled sector.

'The answer has to be in tightly targeting any form of program such as JobKeeper to exactly where theyre necessary,' Mr Hart told the Australian.

'September is too early for those sectors of the economy that are 100 per cent internationally driven.'

Restaurant & Catering Australia chief executive Wes Lambert said JobKeeper payments should not stop until at least the end of the year.

People are seen queuing outside a Centrelink office on April 20 in Melbourne (pictured) during the COVID-19 crisis

A closed sign is seen in a shopfront in Sydney's Newtown on May 7 (pictured) after thousands of businesses were forced to close

The industry will continue to suffer with low margins thanks to a decline in footfall, he said.

The government has hinted it will bring in more targeted economic packages for the worst affected industries, including tourism, once the current schemes end.

But speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia conference, Mr Morrison said the government 'must be extremely cautious about our expenditure'.

Government spending has been at record levels during the coronavirus pandemic.

'There will always be a case made for spending more and for spending longer, and there are plenty who are happy to make that case,' Mr Morrison said on Monday.

'Such a path is dangerous and will prejudice medium and longer term capacity to deliver on core essential services like health, hospitals, schools, education, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, our social security supports.

Some hospitality leaders said they worry a customer limit may not be financially viable (pictured, a worker wearing a face mask in Melbourne on May 9)

'Over-extending on the fiscal supports puts those longer term and medium-term supportive services at risk.

'Neither excessive austerity nor higher taxes are the path that our government will pursue.

'We will pursue growth and responsible budget management that ensures that governments live within their means and guarantee the essentials Australians rely on.'

Australia's unemployment rate has surged to a five-year high following the COVID-19 business closures, with many more people not counted in the official statistics.

The jobless rate soared from 5.2 per cent in March, before the coronavirus shutdowns of non-essential businesses, to 6.2 per cent in April.

Shoppers are seen on Sydney's Pitt Street on May 29 (pictured) with retailers suffering a huge drop in footfall
The Crown: Part Fourteen By Michael Moriarty

Prince Phillip, upon learning of Anthony Blunts treachery and astounding treason for 15 years, is appalled at the idea of letting the venomous snake that hides behind classic paintings go free, instead of executing him for cold and deliberate betrayal of his own nations freedom and safety?! The Queen is scheduled to give a tribute to Blunt as the Royal Familys art historian. She decides to say nothing about these recent disclosures and chooses to almost choke on her words as she says them. Now I, as a former student, while studying theater in the London Academy of Dramatic Art, am further upset by the legendary duplicity of the British intellect. The smug certainty, with which they look down on those they consider their lessors; and, in this instance, hurl their treasonous approval of blatantly horrible, undeniably immoral decisions by the Queen and her government?! It is considered, within their almost suicidal intellects, the worldly, the sophisticated thing to do. I dont think this series recently late Lord Winston Churchill would agree. Why? He was, thank God, tastelessly half American. The ease with which British actors play these multi-layered, poly-phrenic personalities is, in no small measure, due to the history of their ruling class.

Plus, the pitiless microscope with which their greatest literary giant, William Shakespeare, examined and microscopically picked them apart. Most unexpectedly and painfully, His Royal Highness, Duke of Snowden, steps into his own, rather painful and mildly suicidal trap, when he calls Anthony Blunt to his presence for a tongue-lashing. Following Phillips indictment of Blunt, Blunt reminds the Prince of the Princes friendship with the late and indisputably suicidal Stephen Ward and the increasingly scandalous but hidden photographs of the Princes goings on. If not checkmate?! Check! The concluding and printed remarks upon the television screen: Anthony Blunt was offered complete immunity from prosecution. He continued as surveyor of the Queens Pictures until his retirement in 1972 We find no problem with rushing away from the seamy double standards of this episode to the next offering in the third series of The Crown. Next, in Margaretology, we find ourselves with the two sisters, Elizabeth and Margaret, as children, discussing the news that Elizabeth is preparing herself to sit upon The Throne of England! Here Margaret echoes what weve already heard: she is far more prepared to assume the crown than her sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth, in her youth, assumes she can hand the crown to her sister Margaret, and agrees to Margarets request that she be Queen instead of Elizabeth. Margaret, now much older, and, with Helen Bonham Carter portraying the elder Margaret brilliantly, prepares her lipstick most efficiently before boarding a plane with her husband Tony. Queen Elizabeth arrives at the airport to say goodbye to her sister and brother-in-law. The Queen offers the two of them much unwanted advice but does it anyway because she knows they need it. On the plane, Margaret complains about the Queens advice to the two of them. Tony concurs, It was a little clumsy! But she means well. The two of us are complicated. She and I are complicated, echoes Margaret. We North American readers, meanwhile, are only beginning to comprehend the increasing and suicidal tendencies arising in a once, anciently, merry-old England! Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@shaw.ca. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home
BETHLEHEM - Stewart's Shops is planning to rebuild its Delmar store on Delaware Avenue and Elm Avenue near Bethlehem Central High School.

The existing store building would be demolished to make way for gas pumps, while the All State Insurance office next door would be acquired and demolished to make way for a new, 3,975 square-foot store.

The current Elm Avenue Stewart's is one of the smaller stores in the area and doesn't sell gas currently like the Valero station across the street.

The plan has yet to be presented to the town, although an application was sent to the town's Development Planning Committee, which vets projects before they go before the zoning or planning board.

The plan would have room for many more cars. and the added space would allow Stewart's to expand its prepared food offerings. The store is especially popular due to its location near the high school.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Stewart's has a second store north of the Elm Avenue store on Delaware Avenue that recently was redeveloped to make it larger and with parking for the Albany County Rail Trail.

Stewart's has been remodeling or rebuilding or moving its smallest stores to make way for more gas sales and prepared food inside its stores at the same time that Cumberland Farms has been building large new stores in the region was vast amounts of prepared food options.
SOLNA, Sweden, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 17, 2020, it was announced that Loomis, through the wholly owned subsidiary Loomis Sverige AB, entered into an agreement to acquire 100 percent of Nokas Vardehantering AB. The transaction was subject to ownership approval by the Swedish Financial Authority.

The approval has now been obtained and the acquisition was completed June 15, 2020.

CONTACT:

Kristian Ackeby

CFO

Mobile: +46-70-569-69-98

Email: [email protected]

Anders Haker

Chief Investor Relations Officer

Mobile: +1-281-795 -580

Email: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/loomis-ab/r/loomis-completes-the-acquisition-of-nokas-vardehantering-in-sweden,c3134380

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/51/3134380/1264346.pdf Loomis completes the acquisition of Nokas Vardehantering in Sweden

SOURCE Loomis AB
INLA hitman Frankie 'Studs' Lanigan has been linked to the killings of three innocent civilians in the months before the 1994 republican and loyalist ceasefires.

The 56-year-old, who will find out later this week how long he has to spend in prison for the murder of John Knocker, is said to have played a direct role in the deaths of Samuel Rock, John Murphy and Jack Smyth. All three were gunned down by the INLA between 1993 and 1994.

Expand Close John Knocker - murdered in 1998 outside Exit 15 nightclub Dungannon. / Facebook

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At the time Lanigan, along with Gino Gallagher who was killed during an internal INLA feud, was the terror gang's main assassin in Belfast.

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Barber turned hitman Lanigan confessed to his role as a gunman in a statement provided to a Dublin court prior to his extradition back to Belfast to stand trial for the 1998 murder of Knocker outside a Dungannon nightclub.

What he was careful not to admit to were the specifics of the shootings in which he was involved.

However, both security and republican sources have linked him directly to the Rock, Murphy and Smyth murders either as the main or back-up gunman.

In his signed Dublin court affidavit, Lanigan revealed: "Most of my friends who were active INLA members were reluctant to do operations without me, asking 'Will Frankie be there?'

"I was starting to burn out from the pace of things. I wore body armour every day and could not live a normal life."

Expand Close Samuel Rock Killed by the INLA 1993 / Facebook

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Innocent Samuel Rock, who is known to have been Lanigan's first victim, was gunned down outside his Rosewood Street home in north Belfast in January 1993.

The INLA targeted the 30-year-old having mistook him for a member of Johnny Adair's UDA gang. Samuel had bought a car from a prominent loyalist several weeks before.

Six months later Lanigan, alongside Gino Gallagher, is believed to have helped murder Catholic ex-RUC officer John Murphy (38) at the York Hotel on Botanic Avenue in the university area of the city.

Two gunmen, neither of them wearing masks, forced their way inside past security staff. Lanigan is suspected of holding the doormen at rifle-point while Gallagher sought out and killed Murphy, shooting him three times.

His third target is understood to have been Jack Smyth, a 23-year-old bouncer who was shot dead at Bob Cratchit's bar at the Russell Court complex on the Lisburn Road where the hitman occasionally socialised.

Again, it was two INLA gunmen who ran into the packed premises in February 1994 with one giving cover with a shotgun, while his Halloween mask-wearing co-killer hunted down his victim.

In the weeks leading up to the killing, Smyth - a well-known bodybuilder from the Shankill Road - had been warned he was under threat.

In a telephone call to his workplace, an anonymous male referred to him as both 'John' and 'Jack', adding to suspicions that Lanigan, who sometimes drank in Bob Cratchit's, was involved.

A former detective, who arrested Lanigan on several occasions, described him as one of Northern Ireland's most ruthless killers.

He told Sunday Life: "Lanigan showed absolutely no emotion during questioning.

"The streets of Northern Ireland are a lot safer with Frankie Lanigan behind bars.

"The families of those he murdered in the 1990s should take some comfort from the fact that he will likely die in prison."

It was after killing John Knocker in 1998 that Lanigan fled across the border living under a new identity and working as a barber until his arrest in 2013. He was extradited back to Northern Ireland in 2018 and convicted of the Knocker murder last month.

There are suspicions that while living in the south Lanigan operated as a hitman for hire, with the family of drug dealer Kevin McAlorum accusing him of shooting dead their relative in 2004.

At a pre-sentence hearing at Belfast Crown Court last Monday a prosecution lawyer recommended he receives a minimum 20-year jail sentence. Lanigan's defence team are pushing for a 12-year term, with Mr Justice Horner set to decide tomorrow. The judge was told how the killer shot Knocker twice after losing a fist fight to the 22-year-old. Humiliated, he took a Browning 9mm from a car and chased after his victim blasting him in the head.

Mr Justice Horner branded the murder "an appalling act of barbarous inhumanity".

Despite being found guilty of murder Lanigan is adamant he was not the gunman who murdered Knocker. He admits to being at the scene but denies firing the fatal shots, telling Irish detectives after his arrest: "In May 1998 I was attacked outside the Glengannon Hotel and, arising from that, John Knocker lost his life."

When sentencing Lanigan, Mr Justice Horner will also take into consideration his previous criminal record that includes a 10-year jail term for conspiracy to murder police officers in the 1980s.

In signed court papers he admits joining the Provisional IRA aged 17 and then the INLA aged 19.

Referring to his role in numerous gun attacks, Lanigan added: "During my teens and arising from my political outlook, I came into regular contact with Her Majesty's security forces."

He fell out with the INLA in the mid-1990s and was kneecapped on the orders of his former friend Gino Gallagher.

This led to Lanigan siding with a rival INLA faction during a 1996 internal feud that claimed six lives including that of Gallagher.

Fearing arrest over the Knocker murder and with his side losing the bloody INLA dispute, he fled south to start a new life in Dublin as barber 'Ciaran McCrory'.

cbarnes@sundaylife.co.uk
Farmer Wants a Wife is known as Australian TV's most successful dating show when it comes to matching couples.

But it looks like the upcoming season on Channel Seven will include plenty of drama in addition to the typical love stories.

In a new trailer released on Sunday, two women are shown at breaking point as they fight over their affections for handsome farmer Alex.

First look: A new trailer for Channel Seven's Farmer Wants a Wife teases a bizarre love triangle involving two women and a farmer named Alex

'When Alex walked in, his blue eyes just lit up the world,' a blonde woman says in a piece-to-camera.

But the trailer then teases an awkward love triangle with a brunette, who also has a keen eye for the hunky farmer.

'I felt an immediate connection,' the dark-haired woman says, as she flicks her hair in a flirty manner. 'Suddenly, I was like this giggling schoolgirl!'

'I felt an immediate connection': A blonde and a brunette wage war for the affections of Alex

However, it doesn't take long for the drama to ramp up, with both women breaking down over their growing feelings for Alex.

'If you want to be with me then you fight for me!' the blonde tells her suitor, as she bursts into tears.

Farmer Alex is then forced to make a decision about whom to choose.

Decisions! Alex, one of the star farmers this season, is forced to choose between two women

Elsewhere in the trailer, Alex is shown asking his father for advice.

'When you get that fuzzy feeling, your heart will tell you,' the older man tells his son.

Farmer Wants a Wife will premiere on Channel Seven in July
Canada:

Open:

Horseshoe Resort:

Sugarloaf NB:

Bromont:

Fernie Alpine Resort:

Panorama Mountain Resort:

Mount Washington:

Revelstoke:

Kicking Horse:

Sun Peaks:

Opening:

Whistler:

Mont-Sainte-Anne:

Big White:

Silverstar:

Closed:

Coast Gravity Park

Blue Mountain

Canada Olympic Park

USA:

Open:

Highland:

Mountain Creek:

Tamarack:

Windrock:

Bryce Resort:

Angel Fire:

Snow Summit:

Silver Mountain Bike Park:

Blue Mountain:

Thunder Mountain Downhill park:

Whitefish Mountain Resort:

Powderhorn mountain resort:

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort:

Grand Targhee:

Big Sky:

Trestle Bike Park:

Deer Valley:

Snowmass:

Mammoth Mountain:

Opening:

Snowshoe:

Northstar:

Closed:

Steamboat Springs:

UK:

Open:

Windhill Bike Park // Rogate:

Havoc Bike park:

Descend Bike Park:

Chicksands:

Opening:

Flyup417:

Nevis Range:

Bike Park Wales:

Revolution Bike Park:

Black Mountain:

Dyfi Bike Park:

Antur Stiniog:

Cwmcarn:

Llandegla:

Closed:

Glentress:

Innerleithen:

AE Forest:

Farmer Johns:

Leeds Urban Bike Park:

France:

Open:

La Bresse:

Evo - Digne:

Montclar bike park:

Alpe d'Huez:

Les Orres:

Chatel Bike Park:

Les Arcs:

Les Deux Alpes:

Opening:

Les Gets:

Spain:

Open:

La sorrera:

Pure riding:

La fenasosa:

4 riders bikepark:

Opening:

La Molina:

Italy:

Open:

Mottolino Bike Park Livigno:

Caldirola:

Mt Alpet:

St-Gree:

Prato Nevoso:

Amiata Freeride Bike Resort:

Opening:

Bike Park Val di Sole:

Bike Park Ponte di Legno Tonale:

Pila:

Switzerland:

Open:

Bikepark Champery-Morgins:

Davos:

Lenzerheide:

Swiss Bike Park in Oberried:

Chaumont:

Verbier:

Crans Montana:

Dorenaz:

Bike Park Thunersee

Alpen Bike Park:

Kandersteg:

Zermat:

Biel:

Flims-Laax:

Bellwald Bike Park:

Opening:

Leysin:

La Berra:

Austria:

Open:

Leogang:

Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis:

Planai-Schladming:

Saalbach Bike Park:

Bikepark Semmering:

Germany:

Open:

Winterberg:

Bischofsmais/Geikopf:

Bad Wildbad:

Hahnenklee:

Lenggries:

Todtnau:

New Zealand:

Open:

Skyline Queenstown // Skyline Rotorua:

Christchurch Adventure Park:

With social distancing guidelines being relaxed around the world we have gathered together all the important information on when bike parks will be opening their gates for riders. Check out the list below and we will be updating this page with more news when we have it.Horseshoe Resort is open to riders with lift access currently running from Thursday to Monday.Sugarloaf NB is open for riders.Bromont is open for riding.Fernie Alpine Resort reopened on June 27.Panorama Mountain Resort opened on June 27 for riding from Wednesday to Sunday.Mount Washington re-opened for riding on June 27.Revelstoke opened to riders on June 26.Kicking Horse is now open.Sun Peaks is currently re-opened on June 26.Whisler is aiming to reopen on June 29.Currently, the XC trails are open to the public with lift-accessed trails expected to be open from June 26 with social distancing measures put in place.Big White is currently aiming to re-open on July 10.Silverstar is currently set to re-open on July 9Highland reopened on May 28 with a series of measures in place to protect riders and member of staff. They are as follows:- You will need a mask to visit the park!- If you are not a season pass holder, you must reserve a day pass online in advance.- When you arrive at the mountain, check-in at the Welcome Center. Cones are placed outside the building and there are stickers on the ground inside to keep visitors six feet apart. We will be asking all riders the standard COVID-19 screening questions set forth by the State of NH. In order to minimize contact, staff will also be asking you to put your wristband on yourself.- We will be implementing social distancing guidelines in the lift line. Distancing markers are placed six feet apart, so you know where to stand.- Groups who travel to the mountain together (presumably riders who have been quarantining together) will be able to ride the lift together. Our staff will not be pairing people together. It is your responsibility to stay within your group.Mountain Creek reopened on June 6 with a series of measures in place to protect riders and member of staff. They are as follows:- If you are feeling sick or have been exposed to someone in your household who is feeling sick or has recently tested positive for COVID-19  Please stay home. The trails will be waiting for you when you are feeling better and it is safe for you to visit.- To better allow for social distancing, we will be limiting the amount of daily Lift Tickets we will be selling. All ticket and rental purchases must be made online in advance of your visit.- There will be no onsite sales for Lift Tickets or Bike Rentals at this time.- The Red Tail parking lot and driveway will remain closed for all guest parking and drop off. All guests should enter the resort on the Cobblestone Village side at the Mountain Creek marquee sign.- Upon arrival, please check in with our staff in the booth at the entrance to the Cobblestone Parking Lot to pick up your tickets and passes. No ticket or pass pickup will be offered at the Red Tail Lodge.- When parking please try to leave at least one open space between you and the next vehicle. When at your vehicle, please try to maintain social distance and keep your socializing only to the group that you came with. There will be a time for parking lot hangs and drinks shared after a good day of riding, but that time is not now.- Please dont Dirty Jersey and whatever trash you bring with you, please take home with you. That includes your riding buddies.- Face coverings will be required for all guests in the base area and when not riding on your bike. A full-face helmet does not count as a face covering. Regardless of what your personal beliefs are on the use of masks there will be no exceptions to this rule. Our masks keep you safe. Your masks keep us safe.- Restrooms will be available at the Red Tail Lodge. Please enter through the Biergarten entrance on the side of the lodge and maintain social distancing. Please know that we have staffed a dedicated restroom attendant to keep up on the cleaning and sanitization of our restrooms in accordance with current COVID-19 best practices.- Limited curbside repair and retail services will be offered at the Red Tail Lodge. Broke something or forgot something? See our staff in front of the Red Tail Lodge for assistance.- Rentals will be available for advanced online reservation starting on Saturday June 6. Rental bikes and pads will be thoroughly sanitized after each guest use.- Lessons will not be available at this time. We are currently working on our plans and protocols to safely be able to offer lessons and hope to be adding those in the coming weeks.- We will be limiting any high touch areas for the time being, this includes water jugs and rider seating areas at the lift. Please be prepared to be self-sufficient during your time at the park.- At this time please note that no Bike Wash will be offered for guest use. A clean bike is a fast bike, but a dirty bike is a safe bike.- Please maintain strict social distancing during your time with us at the park. Only congregate with the guests you arrived with, minimize your stopped time on trails and keep all high fives at least 6 feet apart.- While waiting at the lift, please follow all posted signage, requirements and maintain at least 6 feet of distance between you and the next group of guests while waiting to load the lift.- Masks must be worn while waiting to load the lift. No exceptions.- We will be limiting the loading of the Cabriolet Gondola to only one biker or family group per cabin. Party Cabs will just have to wait.- Keep your hands to yourself. Gondola cabins will be sanitized at the top of the mountain after each ride, but for your safety and that of your fellow riders please try to limit the number of surfaces you touch in the cabin.- Have a plan in advance. Please limit the amount of time you spend at the top of the mountain and mid-mountain trail hubs. Have a plan of where you want to go in advance.- We encourage riders to only ride with those other riders who arrived with them. Please maintain social distancing on the trails and at any trail merges or hubs. Rider spacing of at least 20 feet is recommended for maximum safety.- See an injury or if you are injured yourself... Call EMS at 973-864-8888- Ride within your limits and ability level and always follow the Mountain Bike Rider Responsibility CodeTamarack reopened on May 28 with a series of measures in place to protect riders and member of staff. They are as follows:- Guests will be advised to practice physical distancing by standing at least 6 feet away from other groups of people not riding the lift with them and while standing in lines. There will be a maximum of two guests allowed on each chair- Hand sanitizer dispenser stations will be placed at each lift.The park returned to normal operation May 2ndBryce Resort re-opened on June 15Angle Fire opened on May 29 with a series of precautions in place to protect staff and riders.- Wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your face.- Stay home if you are not feeling well, or are sneezing, coughing or have a fever.- Utilize masks, gloves and hand sanitizer when enjoying public spaces.- Practice social distancing, and stay 6ft away from those not in your household.Snow Summit opened on June 12Silver Mountain Bike Park is open to riders.Blue Mountain is back open for riding.Thunder Mountain Downhill park reopened on May 30.Whitefish Mountain Resort opened June 6.Powderhorn mountain resort has reopened.Jackson Hole Mountain Resort opened on June 20.Grand Targhee is open for riding.Big Sky re-opened on June 26Trestle Bike Park opened on June 27 with a series of precautions in place to protect staff and riders.Deer Valley is now open for riding.Snowmass opened to riders on June 21Mammoth Mountain reopened on June 26.Snowshoe re-opens on July 2.Northstar is aiming to reopen on July 10.Windhill Bike Park // Rogate reopened on June 6 with a series of measures in place to protect riders and member of staff. They are as follows:- Limited numbers on site - Visitors will need to pre-purchase a day pass as only limited numbers will be allowed per site per day. We are working on the ability for registered members to do this but it wont be operational until we have a confirmed opening date. There will be a provision for Full and Site members to have the cost of pre-purchased day passes refunded on arrival. As numbers will be restricted Full and Site members pre-booking and then not turning up would be an unacceptable outcome.- If you arrive having not pre-purchased one of the limited day passes you will not be able to ride - no exceptions even if youve made a 500 mile round trip having first made sure your vision is OK by visiting a local beauty spot.- Unaccompanied minors (under 14) will not be admitted even if they have purchased a ticket - the parks are not to be seen by parents as an alternative to home schooling.- As much as the B1KEPARKS are a third place outside of Home and Work/School please during this first period of phased opening please only visit to ride as opposed to hang out  So during this phase please only Arrive, Ride, Depart. Obviously that is not to say you must been a state of perpetual motion but getting dropped off for the day and spending most of it socialising is not reasonable behaviour in the current climate.- If you are worried that your eyesight has been impaired due to the virus, neither our trails or the drive here are the places to check how well its working, stay home and recuperate until you have fulfilled the quarantine required.- Maintain social distancing if queuing on session push ups, fire roads or anywhere else.- Riders to ride full runs or if seasoning trail only from designated session points.- Ride within yourselves, a constant stream of emergency vehicle to sites is likely to see us closed down again.besides do you really want to be in an A&E department where contagion risks higher and the staff are already massively under-resourced.Havoc Bike park is open but just for members.Descend Bike Park is open to riders.Chicksands has reopened for riders.The 417 Bike Park will reopen on the 11th July for push/ride up option only Thursday - Sunday. pre-booking onlyNevis Range is hoping to open to riders on July 15 with social distancing restrictions in place.Bike Park Wales is planning to reopen on July 6.Revolution Bike Park is planning to reopen on July 6.Black Mountain is planning to reopen on July 6.Dyfi Bike Park is planning to reopen on July 6.Antur Stiniog is planning to reopen on July 6.Cwmcarn is planning to reopen on July 6.Llandegla is planning to reopen on July 6.La Bresse reopened on June 6. Although some tracks and facilities remain closed.Is now open to riders.Montclar bike park has reopened for riders.Alpe d'Huez reopened on June 20Les Orres reopened on June 20.Chatel Bike Park is now fully open after previous restrictions to riding.Les Arcs opened for riders on June 27Les Deux Alpes is now fully open after previous only being open for weekends.Les Gets is currently open during weekends with a full opening on June 30La sorrera is open for riding.Pure riding has reopened.La fenasosa is now open.4 riders bikepark opened June 20.La Molina is planning to open late June.The Mottolino bikepark re-opened on June 13Caldirola is open for the summer seasonMt Alpet is open to ridersSt-Gree has reopenedPrato Nevoso is now open.Amiata Freeride Bike Resort reopened on June 20.Bike Park Val di Sole is opening from August 1 until August 23 due to maintenance.Bike Park Ponte di Legno Tonale will be open from July 4 until September 6Currently, Pila is open on weekends (13/14 and 20/21 June). Starting from 27 June the telecabine, the chairlift of Chamole, rentals and adventure park will be open every day until September 7.Bikepark Champery-Morgins reopened on June 11Davos is now open to riders.Lenzerheide reopened on June 6Swiss Bike Park in Oberried is now open to riders.Chaumont is now open to riders.Verbier reopened on June 6.Crans Montana reopened on June 11.Dorenaz is now open to riders.Bike Park Thunersee is now open.Alpen Bike Park reopened on June 6Kandersteg reopened on June 6Zermat is now open to riders.Biel is now open to riders.Flims-Laax is now open to riders.Bellwald Bike Park opened for riders on June 20.Leysin re-opens on June 27La Berra is set to reopen on July 1Leogang reopened on May 29 with a series of rules and precautions in place to protect riders and staff. They are as follows:- Mouth and nose protection must be worn when queuing as well as during the entire cable car ride- Keep a sufficient distance- Do not leave mouth-nose protection in the cable car- Discard used handkerchiefs and masks- Care must be taken for ventilation during the cable car ride- Disinfectant dispensers are installed at all stations and in the cash desk area. Our employees are also equipped with the necessary protection.Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis is now open to the public.Planai-Schladming reopened from June 11 to 14. A full opening will begin on June 20Is now open to riders for the summer.Bikepark Semmering re-opened on June 19Winterberg is now open to riders.Bischofsmais/Geikopf has reopened.Bad Wildbad is now open to riders.Hahnenklee is now open to riders.Lenggries has reopened.Todtnau is open.Skyline Queenstown and Skyline Rotorua are currently open but with reduced hours. They are also following rules and precaution to stop the spread of the virus. They are as follows:- You will not be asked to share a cabin with others. Guests and staff can choose to ride a Gondola cabin by themselves or with their respective bubbles.- We have deployed complimentary hand sanitiser stations for guests and staff at pay stations and key locations around the complex.- Visual reminders on the importance of practising good hygiene are displayed in key areas such as bathrooms and staff rooms.- We have increased the frequency and extent of our cleaning schedules.Christchurch Adventure Park is now open Wednesday to Sunday, but you must follow distancing guidelines
First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has congratulated the people of Azerbaijan on the occasion of the National Salvation Day.

In a post on her official Instagram account Mehriban Aliyeva says: Dear fellow countrymen, I congratulate and extend my best wishes to each of you on the occasion of the National Salvation Day. May peace and tranquility always reign in our Motherland! May Azerbaijan`s independence, our people`s freedom will be eternal! I wish each of you the best of health and happiness!"








Cure HHT, the only patient advocacy organization in the world funding research, awareness and education for the rare genetic disease HHT for patients, their families and the medical/scientific community issues COVID-19 cautions to HHT Patients, and works to increase Awareness of HHT for Global Awareness Day June 23rd 2020.

Most Common Symptom is Frequent Nose Bleeds

Ninety percent of people with HHT (Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia) are unaware they have the rare disease that affects an estimated 1.4 million people of all races and backgrounds globally. This genetic disorder of the blood vessels affects 1 in 5,000 people, and is as common as Cystic Fibrosis, yet receives far less funding for research. HHT creates abnormalities in blood vessels, called telangiectasias, which are fragile and susceptible to rupture and bleeding, and untreated may result in lung and brain hemorrhage, stroke, heart failure and death. The most common symptom of HHT is frequent and severe nose bleeds, often dismissed. One HHT diagnosis means there is a whole family of potentially affected people spanning generations. There is, as yet, no cure, but existing treatments can be effective if HHT is diagnosed early.

Cure HHT, a non-profit organization headquartered in Maryland, is the only patient advocacy organization in the world funding research, awareness and education for HHT patients, their families and the medical/scientific community. Since its first HHT Center of Excellence was opened at the Yale University School of Medicine in 1991, Cure HHT has dramatically expanded awareness, diagnosis and access to quality healthcare for HHT patients, and now has 26 Centers of Excellence operating in the United States and Canada headed by leading HHT physicians and specialists. https://curehht.org

HHTs blood vessel abnormalities, especially in the lungs, pose an added risk for individuals affected by COVID-19. It can also impact those HHT patients receiving medications that increase the risk for blood clot formation complications, referred to as COVID coagulopathy, with an incidence reported to be as high as 27%.

Throughout the month of June, and especially on Global Awareness Day June 23rd, Cure HHT encourages wider Awareness of the disease so that more people will be diagnosed in a timely way, and receive treatment before their situation becomes dire. This is a huge part of our mission, comments Cure HHT Executive Director, Marianne S. Clancy. Awareness of HHT is the basis of everything that we do. It is critical to alerting hundreds of thousands of people globally that they may have this disease, and may be passing it on to their children. From that Awareness comes increased diagnosis, improved treatments and more funding for research to find a cure.

In addition to hosting the only international scientific conferences on HHT, Cure HHT provides seed grants for research, education for health care professionals, and advocacy for increased funding which it has helped leverage through the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), the NIH (National Institutes of Health, the DOD (Department of Defense) and other sources.

This year, Cure HHT received a two-year capacity-building grant from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiatives Rare As One Project to develop a patient-led research network, which will accelerate its mission to find new treatments and a cure for the disease. Founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015, CZI is a new kind of philanthropy thats leveraging technology to help solve some of the worlds toughest challenges.

Also, Cure HHT has launched an expanded and revamped online Resource Library which is a free, centralized hub for patient and medical provider information. The user-friendly Resource Library offers separate gateways for Patients and Providers, and facilitates the search for critical information with a Quick Topic Access button leading viewers to information on a wide range of topics including genetics, mental health, pregnancy and womens issues, and the impact of the disease on the brain, heart, liver, lungs and more. Users can seamlessly navigate between topic areas, or use the improved search to locate the specific information they are seeking. It is the most comprehensive free online source of information on HHT in the world.

Editors Notes:


The Estonian Centre for Defence Investment is purchasing new universal Volvo FMX container trucks which are cost-effective and will increase Estonian defence capabilities.

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Volvo MFX container carrier in military version (Picture source: Volvo Trucks/Pro Lift OU)

The vehicles are manufactured in Sweden, but all accessories and the superstructure have been designed and installed in Estonia by Volvo Trucks Estonia in cooperation with the Estonian company Pro Lift OU. As a tailor-made solution, they have developed and manufactured a military device that can be used to operate both hook-lift swap bodies and shipping containers.

Minister of Defence Juri Luik expressed his satisfaction with the increase in Estonias military capabilities. With these container trucks, it is possible to transport essentially everything needed by the Estonian Defence Forces, and in exceptionally large quantities  up to 65 tonnes, said Luik. He added that satisfaction is always greater when it comes to procuring high-quality military equipment or supplies. Through international cooperation, Estonia is strengthening its defence relations with close partners while also contributing to the Estonian economy in the current crisis, said Luik.

Our goal is to provide the Estonian Defence Forces with durable and high-quality vehicles, which would not only help to increase defence capabilities but also be as cost-effective as possible throughout the vehicle's life cycle, said Toomas Kalda, Head of the Vehicle Category at the Centre for Defence Investment.

The Volvo FMX model is characterised by a strong frame, durable front end and excellent driving comfort, allowing the truck to move efficiently even under difficult conditions. The superstructures of the trucks can be combined with each other and they are compatible with the equipment currently being used in the Defence Forces.

The delivered Volvo trucks will mostly be entering service with the Combat Service Support Battalion of the 2nd Infantry Brigade, and the Logistics Battalion of the Support Command. The framework agreement was signed in August of last year, and the total volume of the agreement is approximately EUR 6.9 million. The first two vehicles were delivered to the Estonian Defence Forces in February of this year, which allowed for the vehicles to be exhibited at the independence day parade, and the last delivery is planned for the last quarter of this year.

Maria Karlstrom, Managing Director of Volvo Trucks Estonia, noted that Volvo has been a long-term partner of the Estonian Defence Forces. The country can be considered an informed customer in this field, a so-called smart customer, one who knows exactly what it needs and why. The Volvo FMX is a high-quality, reliable and durable truck, she added.
The logo of Ssangyong Motor is seen on its Korando during the 2019 Seoul Motor Show in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, on March 28, 2019. REUTERS-Yonhap



By Nam Hyun-woo



With Mahindra & Mahindra clarifying its intention to unload its stake in the ailing SsangYong Motor, the Indian automaker is drawing criticism for how it has communicated its reasoning.



Earlier, Mahindra said it would seek new investors for the South Korean automaker in which it has a 75 percent stake.



While announcing this, Mahindra claimed "SsangYong and other international subsidiaries have driven a significant reduction in profits," as SsangYong and Genze, an electric scooter unit of Mahindra, together constituted around 80 percent of the total losses from the company's international subsidiaries.



Though this has been interpreted as "blaming" SsangYong for failing to make profits despite Mahindra's previous investments, industry officials said the money wasn't enough for SsangYong to see sustainable growth.



Mahindra purchased its stake in SsangYong for 520 billion won in 2011, rescuing the company from near-insolvency. The company repeatedly said its investment in SsangYong represented a commitment to work together with the South Korean automaker in terms of mapping out future business strategies. Mahindra spent 130 billion won on the company through rights issuances up until April.



Given developing a new vehicle requires an average 200 billion won, according to industry officials, it's still questionable whether Mahindra acted "fully responsibly" as the largest stakeholder in SsangYong to help the company overcome its spiraling losses, industry officials said.



Mahindra's decision on SsangYong could deal a blow to the economic partnership between South Korea and India, as well, because the Indian government has been paying keen attention to the relationship between the two firms.



A ranking official in the Indian government also expressed his candid worries over Korea Times stories questioning Mahindra's intentions with SsangYong, which the official said "do no good for the two countries' economic partnership."



Under the Moon Jae-in administration's initiatives to gradually diversify South Korea's diplomacy and trade beyond traditional partners, President Moon is moving toward India and ASEAN bloc countries in an effort to level up business ties there.



However, Mahindra's blaming of SsangYong and a drastic pull-out could hamper the efforts of Moon and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expand the two countries' economic partnerships.



"It is at Mahindra's full discretion to decide what to do with its subsidiary, but it is also true that many SsangYong employees are disappointed with Mahindra, given SsangYong has a painful history of controversial ownership by China's Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.," an industry official said.



In 2004, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., which is now SAIC Motor, acquired a 49 percent stake in SsangYong, but gave up on the stake just five years later.


PLEASANTON, Calif., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Providence Medical Technology, Inc., a medical device innovator focused on improving surgical outcomes of the cervical spine, announced initiation of enrollment in a human clinical Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study evaluating the safety and effectiveness of its Posterior Cervical Stabilization System (PCSS) in patients with 3-level degenerative disc disease. The first case was performed by Dr. Pierce Nunley, MD, Director of the Spine Institute of Louisiana in Shreveport, Louisiana.

PCSS is a unique surgical implant system composed of non-segmental instrumentation with integrated screw fixation intended to provide immobilization and stabilization of spinal segments. PCSS achieves bilateral facet fixation at each level by spanning the interspace with points of fixation at each end of the construct.

The FUSE clinical study is a prospective, multi-center, randomized, controlled study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Providence's PCSS as an adjunct to tissue-sparing posterior cervical fusion with CORUS Spinal System used in combination with anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) for the treatment of multi-level cervical degenerative disease. The study is designed to demonstrate that Circumferential Cervical Fusion (CCF) achieves superior clinical outcomes versus ACDF for the treatment of 3-level cervical degenerative disc disease.

PCSS is a unique surgical implant system composed of non-segmental instrumentation with integrated screw fixation intended to provide immobilization and stabilization of spinal segments. PCSS achieves bilateral facet fixation at each level by spanning the interspace with points of fixation at each end of the construct.

Providence CEO & Co-founder, Jeff Smith, explained the importance of the FUSE Study: "Our purpose at Providence is to improve clinical outcomes for high-risk patients and prevent surgical failures of the cervical spine. Although ACDF has proven to be safe and effective for most 1 and 2-level surgeries, approximately 80,000 cervical fusion patients require revision surgery annually in the United States. Certain risk factors such as multi-level disease, nicotine use, and diabetes increase rates of complications, pseudarthrosis, and surgical revision. Circumferential stabilization is the standard of care in lumbar fusion but is rarely performed in the cervical spine due to limitations of existing product offerings. We believe the combination of anterior and posterior cervical fusion with PCSS addresses a significant unmet need and are on a mission to establish CCF as the standard of care for high-risk patients. The FUSE Study is an important next step towards that goal, and we are grateful for the support and dedication of our clinical investigators."

"There are many unanswered questions regarding the best technique for performing a 3-level cervical fusion and weighing the risks and benefits of anterior versus circumferential fusion is challenging," noted Dr. Pierce Nunley of the Spine Institute of Louisiana. "This is the first high-quality study to help determine these answers. I am grateful to play a role in this important research and for Providence's commitment to support and fund this project that will ultimately improve patient care."

The FUSE study's primary endpoint is superiority in fusion success in Circumferential Cervical Fusion (CCF) compared to anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) at 12 months. The target population consists of patients with 3-level cervical disease, including those with risk factors for nonunion such as a history of smoking and advanced age (65+) who have typically been excluded from fusion clinical studies. The control group will receive an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) with allograft bone and a metal plate. The investigational group will receive a Circumferential Cervical Fusion (CCF) consisting of an ACDF with allograft and plate as well as a posterior cervical fusion using Providence's PCSS.

About Providence Medical Technology, Inc.

Providence Medical Technology, Inc. is a privately held medical device company focused on innovative and tissue-sparing surgical solutions for cervical spine surgery. Its purpose is to improve clinical outcomes for high-risk patients and prevent surgical failures of the cervical spine. Its mission is to establish Circumferential Cervical Fusion (CCF) as the standard of care for high-risk patients. The Company has pioneered a proprietary approach to posterior cervical fusion and has developed surgical instrumentation and implants that address the unmet clinical need of, and offer unique benefits to, the $2 billion worldwide cervical spine market.

The Providence family of products includes the CORUS Spinal System, CAVUX intervertebral implants, ALLY bone and facet screws, and ENTRUS Allograft Bone. All implants and instruments are sterile-packaged and single-use to maximize perioperative efficiency and ensure consistent quality and performance.

For more information, please visit providencemt.com/pcss and fusestudy.com.

SOURCE Providence Medical Technology

Related Links

http://www.providencemt.com


Congress general secretary Avinash Pande said on Monday that the legislators who are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan would continue to stay together at a hotel till the Rajya Sabha election due to the alleged poaching threat from the BJP.

Pande said the legislators had been staying like a family and various, adding that brainstorming sessions and discussion on the future roadmap for the development of the state were being held at the hotel, where the legislators have been kept after discussion with them.

According to Pande, special operations group of the Rajasthan Police is investigating the alleged attempts to poach and destabilise the state government, and the report is likely to come soon.

Pande said the Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties had supported the government, which took the number to 125 (including 107 Congress MLAs) in the House of 200.

It was decided that the legislators will stay together so that the BJPs attempts, which the party did in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, could not succeed in Rajasthan, he told reporters at the JW Marriott hotel in Jaipur. We are staying like a family and this is a blessing in disguise. Asked about the Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ramesh Meenas absence, Pande said the Sapotra MLA was away due to some personal reasons, but he was in touch and would will follow the party directions.

Meanwhile, a letter written to Pande by a MLA Bharat Singh surfaced on Monday, in which the legislator had pointed out that most of the Rajya Sabha MPs do not even recognise the legislators, who elect them.

Singh alleged that the upper House MPs had nothing to do with anyone after the elections get over.

In the letter written on June 11, the former minister said senior leaders of the party were focusing on the Rajya Sabha elections with seriousness despite the fact that two seats were sure to be won by the party.

He pointed out that the Congress could win the Lok Sabha election, too, if the party leaders started working in the same manner.

Asked about it, Pande acknowledged that Singh had written the letter and expressed his sentiments in a positive way.

On the cabinet expansion, Pande said discussion would be held at the right time.

Government chief whip Mahesh Joshi, who filed complaints alleging attempts to destabilise the state government said he would elaborate on it once his statement is recorded by the Special Operations Group of the police.

Sources said Joshi had handed over some evidence in connection with the attempts.

The MLAs were taken to a luxury resort last week for discussion on the June 19 Rajya Sabha election and later they were shifted to JW Marriott on Friday.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.

Elections to three Rajya Sabha seats will be held on July 19 for which the Congress has nominated K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi, while the BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.

In the assembly of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs and has the support of Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal, CPI(M) and the Bhartiya Tribal Party, taking the number of legislators on its side to 125.

The ruling Congress has more than enough majority to win two seats and the BJP, which has 72 MLAs and support of three Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLAs, has the numbers to comfortably win just one seat. PTI SDA HMB
Scientists have claimed that even consuming alcohol within weekly 'low-risk' guidelines can harm one's health  and even cause hospitalisation or death.

The researchers from Canada warned that moderate drinkers are not 'insulated from harm'  and that they account for significant numbers of alcohol-related issues.

For example, their investigation found that 50 per cent of cancer deaths resulting from alcohol use in British Columbia occurred among moderate drinkers.

Furthermore, 38 per cent of all alcohol-attributable deaths there were experienced by either people drinking below the weekly limit, or among former drinkers.

Based on their findings, the researchers have suggested that the majority of countries should tighten their recommendations around alcohol  the UK included.

Guidelines, they said, should match those of the Netherlands  where one is first encouraged not to drink and then to keep such under one glass per day if one does.

Scientists have claimed that even consuming alcohol within weekly 'low-risk' guidelines can harm one's health  and even cause hospitalisation or death (stock image)

'Don't drink or, if you do, drink no more than one drink per day,' said paper author and Adam Sherk of the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.

When it comes to alcohol, people should err on the side of caution, the population health researcher added, noting: 'When it comes to alcohol use, less is better.'

In their study, Dr Sherk and colleagues used an open-access model dubbed 'InterMAHP'  'International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies'  which can evaluate alcohol-related harms on national and regional scales or by demographic.

The team focused on alcohol consumption practices in British Columbia during 2014, analysing anonymised data from three sources.

These were substance use surveys, hospital data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and mortality data from Statistics Canada.

According to the guidelines published by the Canadian government, low-risk drinking constitutes no more than 10 drinks per week for women and 15 for men  where one 'drink' is equal to 12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine or 1.5 oz. of liquor.

These recommendations are slightly more 'generous' than in most high-income countries. In the UK, for example, low-risk drinking is classified as 6 pints of beer spread out over the week  whereas Canada's guidelines would allow 9 pints.

'Don't drink or, if you do, drink no more than one drink per day,' said paper author and Adam Sherk of the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. When it comes to alcohol, people should err on the side of caution, the population health researcher added, noting: 'When it comes to alcohol use, less is better'

Based on their findings, the team concluded that many countries' low-risk drinking guidelines are too high, Canada in particular.

Instead, nations should lower their guidelines to match the Netherlands', they said  where technically, continuing the comparison, no more than 5.6 pints of beer are recommended on a weekly basis, although they also encourage total abstinence.

The team did find one benefit of moderate drinking, however  for women, such appears to be associated with a lower risk of diabetes, heart attack and stroke.

'This protective effect did not appear to hold for men, who experienced harm at all drinking levels,' the researchers wrote.

The full findings of the study were published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol & Drugs.
The National Working Committee (NWC) of All Progressive Congress (APC), led by its National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, on Monday met behind closed doors with the Chief of Staff to the president, Ibrahim Gambari, at the State House, Abuja.

The agenda of the meeting was unknown to journalists as at the time of filing this report.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the partys National Vice Chairman (North West), Inuwa Abdulkadir and the National Treasurer, Adamu Panda, were among members of the NWC who accompanied Mr Oshiomhole to the meeting.

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It would be recalled that the APC Screening Committee had last week disqualified the incumbent Edo Governor, Godwin Obaseki, from participating in the forthcoming Edo APC gubernatorial primaries.

Mr Obaseki, had in a statement vowed not to challenge his disqualification by the party, accusing Mr Oshiomhole as the brain behind the disqualification.

The Edo APC primary election has been fixed for June 22.

(NAN)
A 25-year-old woman has accused the owner of a hosiery waste godown of raping her in front of her two minor sons at his workplace on the Grewal Colony Road here on June 7. The accused has been identified as Mohammad Furkan of Mohalla Guru Gobind Singh Nagar, Tibba Road.

In her complaint to the police, the woman, a resident of Baba Namdev Colony on the Tibba Road, said her husband was a daily wager. After lockdown was imposed in the region due to coronavirus outbreak, her husband was not getting any work and they were on the verge of starvation, she added.

She said, I could not see my children sleeping hungry every night. So, I decided to start begging to feed my family . On June 7, I went out for begging along with my two sons, aged 8 and 5, for begging. When I was going door to door, I happened to reach the godown of the accused.

The woman added, The owner of the godown asked me and my children to come inside and offered water to us. After drinking water, I fell unconscious. Perhaps, the accused had mixed some sedatives in her glass.

After some time, when I gathered consciousness, I found myself raped and my children crying and sitting beside me. When I objected to what had happened, the accused offered to give me 7,000 and threatened me not to tell anyone about the incident and leave the city. I then left the godown with my children.

I reached home and told everything to my husband. Finally, we decided to lodge a complaint with the police on Sunday, she added.

Sub-inspector Daljit Singh, SHO at the Tibba police station, said a case under sections 376 (rape) and 328 (causing hurt by means of poison, etc., with intent to commit an offence) of the IPC has been lodged against the accused, identified as Mohammad Furkan of Mohalla Guru Gobind Singh Nagar, Tibba Road, and initiated investigation. A hunt is on for his arrest, he added.
Employees of a funeral parlour carry the coffin of a COVID-19 victim into a vehicle, outside the Carlos Van Buren Hospital in Valparaiso. (AFP)

Santiago: Chile's new health minister announced Sunday that the country's official death toll will include suspected cases, which could double the current figure.

Enrique Paris also said that quarantine measures in the Santiago metropolitan region would be extended "at least through June" after Chile recorded nearly 7,000 new cases in the last 24 hours.

The Chilean government will add "the probable deaths" from the coronavirus to the epidemiological report that is published twice a week, Paris, a pediatrician and toxicologist, told a press conference.

Later Sunday, in an interview with the newspaper La Tercera, Paris said that "in June comes the worst, I think. Or very bad."

"The first two weeks of July, I think we're going to keep the numbers up," he said. "I think that only in August, God willing, will we see the efforts of the quarantine rewarded, if people comply with them."

Paris took office Saturday after his predecessor Jaime Manalich resigned amid controversy over Chile's official coronavirus death toll.

The government has said publicly that the crisis has claimed more than 3,000 lives since the first case emerged in Chile on March 3.

However, a report published Saturday by an investigative journalism organization called CIPER revealed that Chile had informed the World Health Organization (WHO) that the death toll was actually more than 5,000.

Sunday's official report added 6,938 new infections and 222 deaths, bringing the total to 174,293 infected and 3,323 dead.

Infections have risen steadily in Chile even though it began taking emergency measures in February -- including widespread testing and the closure of borders and schools -- making it one of the first Latin American countries to do so.

The capital Santiago and its seven million people were placed under lockdown more than a month ago. They were joined on Friday by the cities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar.

Nearly half of Chile's population of 18 million is now under strict confinement.

The country initially had imposed selective quarantines on areas with high incidence of the coronavirus.

But many poorer Chileans continued going to work -- out of economic necessity -- and a sharp resurgence in mid-May forced the government to order a strict lockdown.
Congress leader Milind Deora spoke about his experience with depression and suggested ways to handle mental illness as the country grappled with news of the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

The 34-year-old actor was found dead at his Mumbai home by domestic help, who alerted the police. Rajput had dropped out from an engineering college to start a career in Bollywood and delivered several hit films over the past decade.

Deora, who became a Union minister when he was 32 years old, spoke about his battle with mental health issues on social media platform Twitter, which saw an outpouring of grief as Rajputs colleagues from the film industry paid heartfelt tributes to the late actor.

My own experience with suicidal thoughts, first as a teen & even as an MP, taught me to live with the blues. Sharing 5 effective coping tools Milind Deora had tweeted on Sunday.

Among the young politicians suggestions for handling the blues was talking to people as he said, you are more loved than you know.

He also recommended overcoming the stigma of mental health and seeking professional help and said: depression transcends age, gender, economic strata or success.

Were in a constant struggle with our inner demons. Never give in to them, was his third coping tool.

Life is beautiful. Dont get caught up in the rat race. Choose music, food, travel, reading, your work & loved ones. Do what makes you happy. Choose life, the 43-year-old Deora added.

His last and most important advice was to love yourself for who you are.

Deoras post was retweeted 2,500 times and liked by more than 13,000 users as many gave a shout out to the politician for speaking up on a public platform.

(Please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist if you need support or know someone who does. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918)
Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  With life lately moving in ways unlike what we're used to, its safe to say well be experiencing June  and our National Independence Day on the 12th  a little differently this year.

While large gatherings and fireworks are currently not the best options, we can still celebrate our country and what we stand for in small, meaningful ways, like championing original stories that encapsulate who Filipinos are, while also delivering universal themes and messages. If youre looking to celebrate the occasion in the comfort of your own home, you might be interested in doing so by catching up on must-see titles Philippine cinema has to offer  or, if youve already seen them before, watching them unfold all over again. Initially hard to find (some just disappeared after their theatrical or festival runs), these movies have been made accessible to more audiences thanks to different streaming platforms. No more ticketing or scheduling problems; theyre finally available with just a tap.

Here are nine Filipino movies that are available for on-demand viewing right now, or within the month.

Screencap from QUANTUM FILMS/YOUTUBE

Badil (Chito S. Rono, 2013)

Cast: Jhong Hilario, Nikki Gil, Dick Israel

Set in a barangay in Samar a day before the local elections, Badil centers around a young man who learns about the dark side of grassroots politicking when hes forced to take over his barangay captain fathers duties for a mayoral candidate. In this world of vote-buying and skewed priorities, he learns, as the audience does, what our so-called democracy entails.

Stream it on: iWant

Screencap from iFLIX

Aliwan Paradise (Mike De Leon, 1992)

Cast: Raul Arellano, Melissa De Leon, Johnny Delgado, Julio Diaz

An entry in the anthology film Southern Winds, which also includes entries from Indonesia, Japan, and Thailand, Aliwan Paradise is a black comedy set in a semi-futuristic version of the Philippines, where the ability to entertain is as valuable as any qualified job skill. The 27-minute short borrows characters from Lino Brockas Maynila, sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag and is a damning critique of poverty porn, variety shows, and oppressive systems.

Stream it on: iFlix

Screencap from VYAC PRODUCTIONS/YOUTUBE

The Dance of Two Left Feet (Alvin Yapan, 2011)

Cast: Jean Garcia, Rocco Nacino, Paulo Avelino

Wanting to impress his literature teacher who also teaches dance, a young man named Marlon enlists another boy in class  Dennis, their teachers dance assistant  to show him some moves in private lessons. Their sessions result in a deeper friendship, but things grow a little bit more complicated Marlon begins to develop feelings for Dennis and both boys are cast as leads for a dance performance.

Stream it on: GagaOOLala

Screencap from iFLIX

A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino (Lamberto V. Avellana, 1965)

Cast: Daisy Hontiveros-Avellana, Naty Crame-Rogers, Vic Silayan, Conrad Parham

Based on the play by Nick Joaquin, A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino is set in mid-20th century Old Manila and explores the dynamics of high society from the point of view of sisters Candida and Paula Marasigan, as well as their father, a reclusive painter experiencing a creative block who refuses to sell his sought-after self-portrait to help the family make ends meet. When Paula elopes with their boarder Tony, tensions rise and the conflict within the family is brought further to light.

Stream it on: YouTube

Screencap from TBA STUDIOS/YOUTUBE

Women of the Weeping River (Sheron Dayoc, 2016)

Cast: Laila Ulao, Sharifa Pearlsia Ali-Dans, Taha Daranda

In a remote Muslim community, two women are caught in the crossfire as a generations-long blood feud between their families worsens, and they reflect on their experiences in hopes of putting an end to it once and for all. With an all-Muslim cast from Western Mindanao, Women of the Weeping River won Best Picture at the 2016 QCinema International Film Festival.

Stream it on: YouTube

Photo from THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG/FACEBOOK

The Search for Weng Weng (Andrew Leavold, 2013)

Cast: Celso Ad. Castillo, Tikoy Aguiluz, Tilman Baumgartel

Director Andrew Leavold sifts through Filipino B-movie history in his quest to investigate just who the actor Weng Weng was, beyond his James Bond-esque action comedies and renown as the shortest leading man in cinema history at 83 cm. The documentary includes interviews with personalities who worked with and knew the actor, including comedy legend Dolphy, as well as Weng Wengs relatives.

Stream it on: Tubi

Photo from TBA STUDIOS

Smaller and Smaller Circles (Raya Martin, 2017)

Cast: Sid Lucero, Nonie Buencamino

When murders of young boys in Payatas begin to pile up, a trail that leads to a possible serial killer, two Jesuit priests are tasked to help solve the mystery through tedious and unforgiving crime scene investigation, criminal profiling, and forensic analysis, while having to deal with apathy and corruption from the government and the Church.

Stream it on: YouTube

Photo from LOLA IGNA/FACEBOOK

Lola Igna (Eduardo W. Roy Jr., 2019)

Cast: Angie Ferro, Yves Flores, Meryll Soriano, Maria Isabel Lopez, Royce Cabrera

The title character of the multi-awarded Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino entry Lola Igna is an elderly woman who finds her life changed in a myriad of ways when her family and the people around her realize that she might just have a chance at beating the world record for oldest grandmother alive.

Stream it on: Netflix

Photo from CINEMALAYA/FACEBOOK

Pamilya Ordinaryo (Eduardo Roy Jr., 2017)

Cast: Ronwaldo Martin, Hasmine Kilip, Maria Isabel Lopez, Sue Prado, Ruby Ruiz, Raymon Lee,

In this award-winning Cinemalaya entry, a pair of teenagers struggle to make a living as pickpockets in the heart of Manila. When their one-month-old baby is kidnapped, they resort to drastic measures to get the child back.

Stream it on: Netflix (starting June 26)
Ian Taylor, the trader who helped shape the modern oil market by transforming a small Dutch fuel merchant called Vitol Group into one of the worlds biggest commodity houses, has died.

It is with great sadness that Vitol today announces the death of its chairman and former CEO, Ian Taylor, from pneumonia, following a long battle with illness, the company said in a statement. He was 64.

An Oxford-educated Briton with Scottish family roots, Taylor joined Vitol from Royal Dutch Shell in 1985 and took over as chief executive officer a decade later. Despite the occasional brush with scandal, Vitol grew at a rate few in Silicon Valley could match under his watch, increasing net income from $22.9m in 1995 to a record $2.28bn in 2009.

Mixing an easy charm with a relentless business mind, Taylor struck lucrative deals with governments, national oil companies, refiners and producers to transform Vitol into a global player. Today, operations range from trading floors in London, Singapore and Houston, through storage tanks in the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates, to filling stations in Australia.

You need to have relationships, Taylor told Bloomberg News in 2016.

Vitol plays a crucial role in energy markets, buying, selling, blending and transporting crude oil and fuel around the world. In more than half a century, the company has never suffered an annual loss. It earnt $1.5bn in 2017, the last full-year Taylor served as CEO. Battling cancer, he moved to the role of chairman in 2018, when one of his longtime lieutenants Russell Hardy took over.

Ian was an exceptional man. He combined energy and a determination to succeed with humility, humour and humanity, Hardy said in the statement. He challenged all of us to be the best we could be. We owe him a great deal.

Success brought rewards for Taylor and Vitols other employees, who are also the firms shareholders. Over the last decade during his tenure as CEO its 350 top employees received a total of more than $10 bn in payouts, according to corporate fillings.

Along with Glencores CEO Ivan Glasenberg and Trafiguras late co-founder and former chairman and CEO Claude Dauphin, Taylor is widely regarded as a pioneer of global commodities trading. He started at Shell in 1978, where he learned oil trading through stints in Singapore and Caracas.

Ian was one of the last of the pioneers that helped transform the oil trading industry. He will be missed, Glasenberg, said.

Taylor refused to follow Glencores path and become a public company, keeping the firm private despite numerous conversations over the years about an initial public offering, or selling the business to others  at one point a buyout by now-defunct trader Enron was discussed.

Amid Vitols soaring growth and profits, Taylor remained at the front line of the firms day to day operations. In the midst of Libyas civil war, Taylor and another top executive, Chris Bake, flew into Benghazi in 2011 to personally negotiate a deal to supply fuel to rebels fighting against the 42-year dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Vitol would be paid in crude oil.

The agreed Libya deal went awry within days as Gaddafis forces blew up a key pipeline. Still, Vitol and Taylor kept up their end of the bargain and were eventually repaid in full.

It was a deal which, to be honest, got much larger than it should have, Taylor said.

The head of Trafigura Group, Jeremy Weir, said Taylor was a formidable figure in the modern commodities trading industry, and central to the establishment of Vitol as a success.

He was also widely liked and admired as a human being, and will be sorely missed by those who knew him and worked alongside him, Weir said.

As CEO, Taylor suffered the most damaging hit to his reputation in 2007 after allegations Vitol paid about $13m in surcharges to the regime of Saddam Hussein to secure oil shipments. An investigation led by Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, exposed a world of illicit payments, secret bank accounts, and diplomats for hire. Vitol pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of New York.

We did a settlement to protect our own staff, Taylor said, suggesting that without the deal, US prosecutors could have charged individual traders.

Beyond his role in global commodities trading, Taylor is credited with saving and rejuvenating the industry that produces the fabric tweed on the remote Scottish island of Harris. He was well known in the UK as a philanthropist to the arts  opera and ballet were a particular passion  and had been a major donor to the ruling Conservative party. As a pro-European, he was firmly on the remain side of the Brexit debate.

He was an iconic figure and a man not afraid to go where others wouldnt, following a long British tradition, said Jorge Montepeque, a veteran oil market executive.

Ian Taylor, oil trader, born 7 February 1956, died 8 June 2020

 Bloomberg
Zayda Falcon had been in a line of cars carrying graduating seniors like her to the Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center entrance for nearly two hours when she hopped out, was cheered as her name was read over a loudspeaker, and posed with her principal against a wall of balloons as her mother fired a confetti cannon through her sunroof.

And that was that, her mother, Margarita Falcon, said as her daughter climbed back into the car.

Yeah, Zayda said, her voice falling. Then she perked up -- Mommy, Im right here! Zayda Alexis Falcon, Zayda said, underlining her name in a printed program with a pink thumbnail. I made it. I made it.

Those 90 seconds were the closest Zayda Falcon has come to closure on her high school career, after Houston Independent School District decided in May that the coronavirus would prevent its campuses from hosting in-person graduation ceremonies for its 11,000 graduates.

Shortly after announcing the decision, HISD Superintendent Grenita Lathan acknowledged other districts were continuing with ceremonies, but said concerns about participants safety and about whether efforts to enforce social distancing would spur confrontations contributed to the decision. A district spokeswoman declined comment Sunday.

Instead, families from all 44 high schools could tune at 1 p.m. Sunday to see pre-recorded messages from Lathan, HISD trustees, their principals, and their schools valedictorian and salutatorian, then see a slideshow of seniors photos as their names were said aloud.

By any measure, what youve missed is significant, and when you remember this time in your life it will feel bittersweet, Lathan said, noting that students had left school without saying goodbye to their friends or teachers and had missed prom and traditional commencements. But when you think back, I also want you to remember that the class of 2020 is the class that persevered in the most daunting of circumstances.

Dont focus on what youve lost, she added. Focus on what youve gained: Adaptability, perseverance and strength.

Margarita Falcon, who gathered 2,860 names on an online petition calling on HISD to hold in-person commencements, had to drag Zayda in front of the computer to watch; afterward, the graduate called it a waste of time.

Zayda had not coasted through school carefree. Diagnosed at age 8 with a chronic kidney disease, she had experienced chemotherapy, a transplant, the loss of that transplant, and years of dialysis. Her condition cost her the first semester of her freshman year, forcing her to take extra credits to catch up.

Its huge for any student, especially when youre in a low-income, one-parent household, Margarita Falcon said. For my daughter, its a humongous thing for her to be able to graduate. Theres just been so many odds against her for her to get to this day, so for her to get here and HISD to say, No, this is all you can have, its very disappointing.

And so Margarita Falcon was determined to celebrate her daughters achievement: She stood on the sidewalk outside the school for 15 minutes to take a picture of the school digital sign when it finally cycled through to show her daughters name in red text: Congratulations Zayda Alexis Falcon, Class of 2020.

She parked on the shoulder of Interstate 45 southbound to take pictures of Zayda in her graduation cap with the Be Someone railroad trestle in the background.

She watched outside the school fence when the campuses held seniors-only celebrations on June 5, featuring a video with Mayor Sylvester Turner, Astros shortstop Carlos Correa, gymnast Simone Biles, and other celebrities. At Sam Houston, the students stood in the parking lot without chairs and had popsicles and water; It was kind of like a 5th grade ceremony, Zayda said.

Since COVID happened, she said, our year just got blown away, basically.

Margarita Falcon hopes a graduation party she is planning for Zayda at a rental hall that is waiving its fee for high school seniors - and which will feature a substitute commencement segment  will help provide closure.

Some families made the most of the virtual commencements.

David Gebhardt, a Milby High School alum whose daughter Destinee Espinosa graduated this year, cheered with family as loud as we would have had she walked across a stage while watching the video Sunday afternoon.

Considering whats going on right now, the fact that they even tried to do anything at all, I commend them for that, he said. Could the production quality have been better? Possibly. But they may have had a short time.

Gebhardt had been impressed, too, by the commencement-lite effort the school organized at its June 5 celebration to let the kids feel a little bit of this moment. Graduates crossed a decorated stage as their names were called, and social media was full of pictures of smiling young people in blue gowns amid spaced-out white chairs.

Destinee Espinosa said she did appreciate the opportunity to cross the stage June 5, and said it was nice to see her classmates in the virtual commencement Sunday.

But Espinosa, who plans to attend the Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Services near Spring once she can attend classes in person, said she still feels the district could have accomplished in-person ceremonies, as others did.

Were still pretty bummed out about everything, she said of her friends. Today we were all texting each other  we cant fully accept the fact that were graduated because everything they did, it just doesnt give us that feeling. The time taken off from school feels like its just a long break and at the end of it Ill have to go back to school. But then it hits me Im done.

The hardship has spurred some communities to get creative.

Milby alums Victoria Tunchez and Alyssa Perez organized an Adopt a Senior effort that resulted in 150 of the schools seniors being sent gifts from community members.

And parents of Waltrip High School seniors are organizing a July celebration at a private venue near the school with an entry fee covering the senior and two guests; about 50 of the schools 380 seniors have signed up, said co-organizer Tirsa Gonzales.

Gonzales, too, watched through the school fence as her son, Noah, participated in Waltrips June 5 celebration.

But Noah Gonzales, who did not watch Sundays virtual ceremony, felt the June 5 event not only failed to bring closure but also suggested the district could have done more - especially given that few students wore masks or observed social distancing, the exact situation the district had hoped to avoid by moving commencements online.

They definitely could have moved forward with a formal graduation ceremony for seniors all over HISD, no doubt about it, said Gonzales, who plans to enlist in the Army this fall. It seems like they dont want to put effort in.

mike.morris@chron.com
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The Tokyo Smoke store at 21 Bloor St. E. (Provided)

A downtown Toronto cannabis store is featuring works by famed British street artist Banksy and American pop art icon Andy Warhol.

The Tokyo Smoke location at 21 Bloor St. E is owned by Toronto-based filmmaker Rob Heydon.

The art from Heydons private collection will include never-before-seen in Canada pieces by Banksy, as wells some of the artists most celebrated works. The store will also feature pieces from other disruptive artists, including Andy Warhol, as part of a permanent exhibit.

In these strange times, it felt fitting to allow customers to browse, shop and learn about cannabis while enjoying some art, while waiting patiently as we practise social distancing, Heydon stated in a news release on Monday.

Tokyo Smoke, a brand owned by cannabis giant Canopy Growth (WEED.TO)(CGC), currently has five stores open throughout the city.

This new location is steps from one of Torontos poshest shopping districts, dubbed the Mink Mile for its concentration of luxury brands like Hermes and Prada. Cannabis retailer Fire & Flower (FAF.TO) has been renting pricy retail space on the same stretch of Bloor Street for a store that has yet to open due to regulatory delays.

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.
An unprecedented firing by Nepal Armed Police Force on Indians took place on Friday, in which one Indian died.

India has taken up with Nepal Government, the June 12 killing of an Indian citizen by Nepalese border guard forces at the international border near Bihars Sitamarhi district, sources said. India has taken up the matter with Nepal Government of the killing of an Indian citizen at Indo-Nepal border, the sources said.

An unprecedented incident of firing on Indians by Nepal Armed Police Force took place on Friday morning , in which one Indian died. A total of three persons have suffered injuries. Another person named Vikesh Yadav succumbed to his injuries. Two others who were injured have been identified as Umesh Ram and Uday Thakur, Director General of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), which patrols the India-Nepal border, had told ANI.

The firing incident comes amid tension between India and Nepal after Kathmandu recently passed an amendment to include in the constitution a new map which showed Indian areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura as part of its territory. New Delhi has said that the updated map is not based on historical facts and evidence.

Also Read: Amit Shah to chair all-party meeting to review Covid-19 situation in Delhi today

Also Read: Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao decides to test 50,000 people for Covid-19 in and around Hyderabad in next 10 days

India termed the claims by Nepal as artificial enlargement not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable.

Also Read: PM Modi on Sushant Singh Rajputs death: Bright young actor gone too soon

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
After months of coronavirus quarantine, many Massachusetts residents are looking to take a break from the pandemic. Fortunately, there are plenty of options across the state to get out and see some nature while practicing social distancing.

Book rentals, cabins, hotels homes for your weekend getaways via Tripadvisor, VRBO, Airbnb

While Cape Cod is the obvious destination for the summer months, crowding at beaches and trails is an issue. But fear not, there are plenty of options across Massachusetts for hiking and nice cabin stays.

Here are 10 great options for hikes, trails parks and waterfalls across the state:

1. Mount Greylock State Reservation - North Adams/Lanesborough, Massachusetts

Mount Greylock has long been known as the highest point in Massachusetts. But more recently, it was named as an important location in the Harry Potter books. In 2016, author J.K. Rowling revealed that the Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (the American equivalent of Hogwarts) was at the summit of the mountain.

There are multiple options for long - but rarely steep - hikes up the mountain. But if youre looking to avoid it, there is an option to drive to the summit.

Sheep Barn on the Greylock Valley Estate (Airbnb)

Where to stay: Sheep Barn on the Greylock Valley Estate

(New Ashford, Massachusetts | 6 guests  3 bedrooms  3 beds  2 baths | $185/night)

You cant visit an actual wizarding school on Mount Greylock, but you can in a completely renovated sheep barn.

Check out more listings near Mount Greylock here

2. Keystone Arch Bridges Trail - Chester, Massachusetts

The Keystone Arches (Greg Saulmon | The Republican)

The Keystone Arch Bridges can be found by heading down, unsurprisingly, the Keystone Arch Bridges Trail in Chester (also marked as the "KAB Trail). Visitors can see the bridges via a 2.5-mile gravel trail that starts just outside of Chester (its technically in Middlefield, Mass.) The trail is a moderate walk that features multiple bridges along the way. Note: The trailhead does not have a ton of parking and is primarily maintained by volunteers.

Tentrr Signature - Glamping in Hephzibah (Airbnb)

Where to stay: Tentrr Signature - Glamping in Hephzibah

(Chester, Massachusetts | 4 guests  1 bedroom  1 bed  1 bath | $133/night)

If youre for something more outdoors-y and flashy, this is a colorful glamping option that does not have electricity or WiFi.

Check out more listings near the Keystone Arch Bridge here

3. Bash Bish Falls State Park - Mt. Washington, Massachusetts

Bash Bish Falls (MassLive Photo)

Located right over the New York border, Bash Bish Falls is perhaps the most scenic and famous waterfall in Massachusetts. Its even easily accessible by car. The only problem is that its a long drive for many on the Eastern end of the state. Additionally, crowds do tend to build up during the summer months.

The Ancram A - Renovated Mid-Century Modern Cabin (Airbnb)

Where to stay: The Ancram A - Renovated Mid-Century Modern Cabin

(Ancram, New York | 6 guests  3 bedrooms  3 beds  1 bath | $198/night)

This property is actually in New York. But if youre making the drive out to a place like Bash Bish, its usually worth finding some place a little extra special to stay. This unique A-frame cabin is a good start.

Check out more listings near Bash Bish Falls here

4. Tannery Falls - Savoy, Mass.

Theres a wide selection of waterfalls across the state of Massachusetts, most of which are located out in Western Mass. If youre looking to take a long drive to see some fireworks, there are plenty of options that fit the billing, such a Tannery Falls in Savoy.

NOTE: Gunn Brooke Falls was previously included at the point in the list. However, the waterfalls are located on private property.

Newly-built contemporary home near the 5 Colleges (Airbnb)

Where to stay: The Ancram A - Renovated Mid-Century Modern Cabin

(Sunderland, Massachusetts | 6 guests  3 bedrooms  4 beds  3.5 baths | $450/night)

If youre looking for something flashy and colorful, this new property in Sunderland features some of the most dynamic architecture youll see in the area -- as well as some sleek, modern interior designs.

Check out more listings near Sunderland here

5. Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail - Wellfleet, Massachusetts

The Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail in Wellfleet (Greg Saulmon | The Republican)

While most of the Cape is going to be crowded in the summer, you can find a bit of a respite if you head further down. Wellfleet is one of the more underrated towns and features some scenic areas away from the crowded beaches, like this 1.2-mile loop through the woods and over boardwalks.

Magical barn on 8 acres in National Seashore (Airbnb)

Where to stay: The Ancram A - Renovated Mid-Century Modern Cabin

(Wellfleet, Massachusetts | 4 guests  2 bedrooms  3 beds  1 bath | $150/night)

The barn element isnt a throwaway. This property is surrounded by a small organic farm and is close to a number of secret beaches and walking trails.

Check out more listings near Wellfleet here

6. Monument Mountain - Great Barrington, Massachusetts

The view from Monument Mountain in Great Barrington, Mass. (Nick O'Malley, MassLive)

Great Barrington is out of the way, but its one of the most underrated towns to visit in the state, featuring a number of fantastic dining and ice cream options (when theyre not affected by a pandemic). Monument Mountain is well known as an attraction for artists and writers. Its famous for being the place where literary greats Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne once met. The hikes range from a gradual 1.5-mile trail to a steeper 0.7-mile trail. Fortunately, the trailhead for the mountain is right off the road, so you can go from parking to mountain climbing in just a few moments.

Berkshire Mountain retreat with Urban luxuries (Airbnb)

Where to stay: Berkshire Mountain retreat with Urban luxuries

(Lee, Massachusetts | 8 guests  2 bedrooms  4 beds  2 baths | $281/night)

Lee is up the road from Great Barrington, but is right where you get off the Mass. Pike to head there, making it a great stopping point for any trip out there. This property is a chic combination of rustic barn-like exterior with a lofty modern interior.

Check out more listings near Great Barrington here

7. Purgatory Chasm State Reservation - Sutton, Massachusetts

Purgatory Chasm (Flickr Creative Commons/Amanda)

A bit of a Central Massachusetts hidden gem, Purgatory Chasm is a spectacle of geology thats easy to get to from anywhere in the state. Located right off Route 146 with a short walk to the rocky showcase itself and a varied network of light trails, Purgatory Chasm is one of the best day trip spots in the middle of the state.

Private Island Retreat In State Forest (Airbnb)

Where to stay: Private Island Retreat In State Forest

(Douglas, Massachusetts | 8 guests  2 bedrooms  5 beds  1 bath | $245/night)

Sutton isnt far enough to merit an overnight stay for most folks in Eastern and Central Massachusetts, however you could use the trip as an excuse to practice the ultimate social distancing by renting this cabin on a private island in Douglas. The rental includes two cabins on a 7-acre private property on Dodd Island in the Whitin Reservoir. It also includes a 12-foot rowboat to get you over to the island.

(One important note: There is no flush toilet)

Check out more listings near Purgatory Chasm here

8. Mount Sugarloaf - South Deerfield, Massachusetts

The view from atop Mount Sugarloaf (MassLive Photo)

Known for its scenic views of the Connecticut River from its observation deck, Mount Sugarloaf features a big parking lot (so youre not crammed in with other visitors getting out of their cars) and a solid day hike up in South Deerfield.

Modern farmhouse close to Montague Retreat Center (Airbnb)

Where to stay: The Ancram A - Renovated Mid-Century Modern Cabin

(Montague, Massachusetts | 8 guests  3 bedrooms  6 beds  2 bath | $200/night)

This property is a little more out of the way over in Montague, which is one of the more scenic towns in Western Massachusetts, featuring fun little landmarks like the Montague Book Mill. This fully restored farmhouse dates back to 1880.

Check out more listings near South Deerfield here

9. Mount Holyoke Summit House - Hadley, Massachusetts

The Mount Holyoke Summit House (MassLive Photo)

The Summit House can be reached via a 1.9-mile out-and-back trail in Skinner State Park. Taylors Notch Trail is a moderate hike that will take you to the top. You can also reach the summit via a paved road.

Sunlit Amherst Cabin Cozy and Clean (Airbnb)

Where to stay: Sunlit Amherst Cabin Cozy and Clean

(Amherst, Massachusetts | 2 guests  1 bedroom  2 beds  1 bath | $149/night)

Unlike most properties on this list, this is an offshoot of another property. However, the log cabin-type apartment is a guest suite with private access.

Check out more listings near South Hadley here

10. Tyringham Cobble - Tyringham, Massachusetts

The Tyringham Cobble used to be Shaker farmland. Now its a 206-acre property run by the Trustees of Reservations featuring orchards, trails and scenic vistas including two sections of the Appalachian Trail.

"Formerly, the cottage was sculptor Henry Hudson Kitson's summer studio on the Santarella Estate."

Where to stay: Silo Studio Cottage

(Tyringham, Massachusetts | 2 guests  1 bedroom  1 bed  1 bath | $225/night)

Related Content:
(Natural News) The canceling of Christopher Columbus and Robert E. Lee is just not enough. The leftist mob now wants to also tear down the statues and memory of Thomas Jefferson and even George Washington, Americas first president, simply because these individuals were white and, according to the history books, owned slaves.

During a recent segment on the fake news laughingstock network, CNNs Angela Rye called for the statues of Washington, Jefferson, and many others to be taken down in order to appease her feelings of oppression over what these rock formations supposedly represent.

The cable channel contributor went on a verbal tirade about how her ancestors could have been owned by Washington or Jefferson, which is why the likenesses of these two men must come down immediately.

American history is not all glorious, Rye whined from her comfy chair in CNNs climate-controlled studio. George Washington was a slave owner. We need to call slave owners out for what they are. Whether we think they were protecting American freedom or not, he wasnt protecting my freedoms.

To me, I dont care if its a George Washington statue or Thomas Jefferson  they all need to come down, she added.

Believe it or not, Rye was arguing with John Avlon, editor of the far-left Daily Beast news outlet, who contends that Washington specifically had devoted his entire life to trying to unify the nation. Rye disagrees and wants the entirety of American history to be blotted out if doing so will make her feel happier and less angry about everything.

Listen below as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about the threat of these new untouchables who are going around destroying monuments, statues, and other relics of American history without consequence:

Rabid leftists fueling victim mentality among blacks

The ironic thing about Ryes total disrespect for American history is that she would not even be allowed to say such things, let alone on national cable television, if it were not for the freedom that she claims she was never afforded.

If Washington was truly the tyrant that Rye seems to think he was, in other words, then the foundation never would have been laid for black people like Rye to ever appear on TV stations like CNN spouting nonsense about how their freedoms supposedly do not exist.

It is just more leftist ungratefulness and shortsightedness on display within the ranks of the America-hating mob, which somehow is unable to see that everyone today is afforded the same equal rights and opportunities  or the same uniform slavery under the control of the global central banking cartel, depending on how you look at it.

Either way, Rye is no worse off than the rest of us, and is actually enjoying a high degree of black privilege that allows her to grandstand about how all of America should be stripped of its history in order to make her feel better about herself. If the tables were turned and it was a white person spouting on CNN how black history should be abolished, that individual would be lynched by the leftist mob faster than the mainstream media buried the Jeffrey Epstein story.

These people seek to deconstruct our culture based on their simplistic moralizing, wrote one RealClearPolitics commenter in response to Ryes rant.

George Washington is simply a white male slave-owner to them, I guess. What will be left in their wake, should they succeed? Tribalism and civil war, is my guess. They dont understand the culture they despise, and they are incapable of building anything out of the wreckage they will leave behind.

To keep up with the latest news about leftist ire over Americas history, be sure to check out Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

RealClearPolitics.com

NaturalNews.com
A recent complaint against York University has surfaced in which a Black employee alleges she was made to use a lesser title than non-Black people who did the job, assigned menial tasks and punished for complaining.

Lydia Dosu, an administrative staffer at York Universitys Glendon College at Lawrence and Bayview, says she faced discrimination, harassment and reprisal at work in a complaint filed at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario last year.

None of the allegations have been adjudicated before the tribunal.

Her allegations come on the heels of accusations of racism by a Black professor against the university filed to the tribunal in June 2018. Aime Avolonto alleged discrimination, harassment and reprisals for speaking out against his treatment over four years. He also complained about an external investigator York retained. Avolonto told the Star those complaints have yet to be heard.

Dosu accuses a white professor, Marie-Elaine Lebel, of discriminating against her and belittling her. She accuses the university of creating an environment that enabled her harassment, and failing to address Lebels actions. She also complains about the conduct of the external investigator and accuses him of insinuating that she was having an affair with Avolonto.

In written filings, Lebel denies all allegations. She writes that two Black colleagues  Dosu and Avolonto  are friends and Dosus allegations are a form of reprisal for her previous harassment complaint against Avolonto.

Lebel writes in her response that Dosu frequently made significant errors, breached confidentiality in at least one instance, ignored instructions and refused to do her assigned work.

Dosus reply to the tribunal says Lebel didnt respond when she sought advice, and thus she couldnt complete many duties.

Dosu writes in her complaint that her increasingly toxic work environment left her with anxiety and frequent panic attacks. To cope, she says, she began working with her door closed, an action that yielded further criticism and gossip. Lebel denies in her response that Dosu was subjected to further criticism and gossip.

York denies all the allegations in its response to the tribunal, and asks the tribunal to dismiss Dosus complaint.

The deeply troubling acts of anti-Black racism that we have seen in the past weeks serve as an important reminder that we all have a responsibility to build more equitable and inclusive communities, York spokesperson Yanni Dagonas said by email. York University takes this obligation seriously and will continue to bring forward initiatives, programs and education that help create a more equal university experience for all.

Professor Lebel told the Star the investigation process is confidential and I therefore cannot comment on the specifics.

Dosu told the Star: I dont want to make any comment at all regarding this.

She is seeking compensation of $25,000, and an order directing the university to reinstate her in a position commensurate with her qualifications and experience.

No mediation or hearings have been held yet. The tribunal said the matter is currently in queue to be scheduled for mediation.

The account that follows is compiled from documents filed at the tribunal.

Dosu was officially listed as the departmental secretary at Glendons Language Training Centre for Studies in French, known as FSL, and the only Black person on the administrative staff. Her complaints stem from this job, which she is not currently doing. She is also the administrative secretary for the linguistics program at Glendon, and has been since 2016.

According to the complaint filed in April 2019, Dosus predecessor at the language training centre was a work-study student who was not Black and used the email signature FSL Centre Assistant, a signature Dosu adopted when she took the job in February 2014.

In April 2015, the complaint says, the director of administration asked her to change her email signature to Department Secretary.

I was shocked by this direction, Dosu writes in her complaint. This title not only reflected a lower position in the administrative hierarchy, but it was also an out-of-date designation that had all but become obsolete.

Although I had more experience than my predecessor  and I performed all of the tasks that she had performed, I was still not permitted to use the FSL Centre Assistant title.

A few months later, in December 2015, a new director, Professor Marie-Elaine Lebel, was assigned to the Centre. The new director, Dosu says, rarely assigned me any substantive or meaningful work. Instead, Dosu says, Lebel assigned her menial tasks and failed to recognize her 17 years of service with York University.

In a response filed with the tribunal in December 2019, Lebel calls Dosus allegations untimely and completely without merit. She challenges Dosus use of the term meaningful work and says all work performed in the course of (Dosus) employment is meaningful. 

Dosu writes: I felt isolated and overlooked, especially when other faculty of the centre and students began to follow suit and failed to come to me for queries and tasks.

Two of her colleagues confided in Professor Avolonto that they were getting work that should have been assigned to Dosu, she writes.

According to Dosu, Avolonto sent Lebel an email in September 2016 addressing the concerns of the two women. After that, she alleges, Lebel began assigning her work, but by May 2017, she had begun deliberately ignoring me in the common spaces at work, publicly commenting that I was incapable of doing my job, ignoring my work-related emails and subjecting me to heightened surveillance.

Lebel responds that Dosus attitude toward her changed completely after professor Avolonto sent Lebel that email. She writes that Dosu stopped looking at her in the eye and became unco-operative.

Dosu writes: At no time was I unco-operative.

By September 2017, Dosu says she filed a formal complaint of discrimination and harassment to the interim vice-president academic and provost, Lisa Philipps, saying she had become a target of harassment.

She also asked that her complaint be dealt with by Roger Beaudry, an external investigator York had retained.

As an example of the tension in their relationship, Dosu writes that when her brother died shortly after, Lebel did not send condolences. Lebel writes that while she did not respond to the email by Dosu about her brothers death, she had provided condolences to (Dosu) in relation to the death of a different relative shortly before.

By March 2018, Dosu filed a second complaint with Philipps. She told the university she did not wish to be moved to a new department but simply wanted a solution and for the harassment to end.

But a month later, she says, the university told her she was being relieved of her duties at FSL until June 30, 2018, while her concerns were being investigated. She was still working at the linguistic program. York University, she writes, took swift and immediate action to remove me from my position in the (FSL) and treated me as though I were the problem. This, she alleges, made it complicit in the harassment.

Dosu did not go back in June 2018, but that September she noticed in an email that the person who had taken over her duties  also not Black  used the email signature Administrative Assistant, a title, she writes, that is far more respected than the Department Secretary title I was directed to use.

The university spokesperson told the Star that Dosus title as department secretary is a unionized position since 2011. The people in her role before and after were in contract positions, but their titles were governed by the terms and conditions set out in the collective agreement.

The spokesperson said York plans to provide a robust and detailed defence of its assertion that it tried to reinstate her in her position. Dosu denies this.

Lebel and Avolonto lodged complaints and countercomplaints before Dosus filing of the case.

Lebel says in her filing that she had made complaints of gender-based discrimination and personal harassment against the Black professor, Avolonto. Avolonto denies the harassment and said the complaints are motivated by racial discrimination, she writes.

Lebel writes that Avolonto and Dosu are friends, and that Dosus allegations began shortly after Lebel first filed a complaint against Avolonto. Dosus behaviour changed significantly, she writes.

Dosu says in her reply she had no knowledge of the complaint Lebel made against Avolonto.

Dosus complaint has a segment dedicated to concerns about the conduct of Roger Beaudry, the external investigator hired by York to probe complaints. Beaudrys conduct is also the subject of a complaint to the tribunal by Avolonto.

There seems to be confusion around Beaudrys role at the university.

Avolonto said in his complaint that he had sought the external investigation.

Lebels filing says Beaudry was contracted to investigate complaints against Avolonto, and it is investigating allegations that Dosu helped or was used by Avolonto in his harassment of others, including Lebel.

Dosu writes she believed Beaudry was retained to investigate the workplace arising from the complaint by Avolonto.

York told the Star complaints were made under the Universitys Workplace Harassment Prevention Program involving members of the Glendon community, and the external investigator was appointed to investigate those complaints.

Dosu first saw Beaudry in September 2017. She writes that he conveyed his disinterest and appeared irritated.

Dosu says in her complaint she met Beaudry again several times. I often left the investigation sessions feeling scared, sad and intimidated. At the end of a session in July 2018, Mr. Beaudry commented that Professor Lebel could not be racist because her partner identified as Black, and her child was mixed-race.

At the next meeting, she says, Beaudry inappropriately disclosed to me that he used to be married to an Indian or coloured woman. 

Dosu says she wrote Beaudry in February 2019, outlining his offensive comments.

She says he responded by denying commenting on Lebels inability to be racist but saying he had simply asked Dosu if she was aware of Lebels relationships. Mr. Beaudry further explained that he had disclosed his own relationships with people of colour to reassure me that he too had personal experience of discrimination against racial minorities. 

Beaudry is not Black.

Beaudry told the Star in an email: I am not at liberty to comment on any particular investigation. But as general information he said he could not have told anyone that someone cannot be racist because they have a racialized partner. That is not the law and I am aware of the law, he said.

He also said he does sometimes discuss his family in an investigation but never in a way that is inappropriate.

I became upset when Mr. Beaudry asked me inappropriate questions regarding professor Avolonto, Dosu writes to the tribunal in her January reply. He told her people were telling him that she and Avolonto were co-ordinating with each other, she writes. Mr. Beaudry then insinuated that Professor Avolonto and I were sleeping together.

It is normal in investigations for the investigator to ask each of the parties what their relationship is with other parties and with significant witnesses, Beaudry said by email. This is because the answers can impact issues in the investigation, including credibility. But, I have never in any investigation  implied that two of the parties were sleeping together.

Anybody that says I have  is misrepresenting facts, he said.

Dosu notes that the situation continues to adversely impact my ability to secure equal treatment in and derive equal benefit from my employment relative to other employees who are not Black.

She lists various impacts of working in this poisoned work environment in the complaint. Those include being deprived of work, stability and advancement opportunities, suffering mental anguish and an acute and prolonged injury to my sense of dignity, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth.
Assam government on Monday asked a group of scientists to conduct a study on the tremors being felt at Baghjan in Tinsukia district, where a natural gas well of Oil India Limited (OIL) caught fire on June 9, two weeks after it started releasing gas and oil condensate following a blow-out.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal met scientists of Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati (IIT-G) and CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology (CSIR-NEIST) and asked them to conduct the study on emergency basis and submit a report so that the government can take appropriate steps.

During a visit to the site along with union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday, Sonowal had promised that a study would be done to probe the reasons for the tremors.

Since June 9 when the well caught fire, residents of Baghjan and Natun Rongagora villages which are close to the site, have been complaining of repeated tremors. Some houses have also developed cracks due to the tremors.

We started experiencing tremors from Wednesday, a day after the well caught fire. That night the tremors lasted for nearly 10-12 hours and walls of several houses got cracked, said Hiren Senapati, president of eco-development committee of Natun Rongagora.

The tremors have been happening intermittently now. Nearly 80% of our villagers are staying in relief camps, the rest who were in their homes are scared to live there because of the tremors, which could be around 5 on the Richter scale, he added.

Authorities at OIL have also asked CSIR-NESIT to carry out a study of the induced seismicity (tremors and quakes caused by human activity including oil and gas operations) in Baghjan and neighbouring areas because of the blow out.

Five broadband seismographs will be deployed by CSIR-NESIT at five sites for data to be recorded for 7-10 days. Locations have been identified and preliminary civil work for deployment of the instruments is in progress, said a release issued by OIL on Monday.

It is possible that some tremors had happened in the area close to the well, which witnessed a blow out and subsequently caught fire. From a scientific point of view, we are very keen to look at what are these tremors and analyse its impact, said G Narahari Sastry, director, NEIST.

Meanwhile, work continued at the well site to control the fire and plug the blow out. OIL had earlier said that the process could take about 4 weeks.
Celebrations may be in order for The North West Company Inc. (TSE:NWC) shareholders, with the analysts delivering a significant upgrade to their statutory estimates for the company. The analysts have sharply increased their revenue numbers, with a view that North West will make substantially more sales than they'd previously expected. The market seems to be pricing in some improvement in the business too, with the stock up 5.5% over the past week, closing at CA$27.91. Could this big upgrade push the stock even higher?

Following this upgrade, North West's five analysts are forecasting 2021 revenues to be CA$2.2b, approximately in line with the last 12 months. Before the latest update, the analysts were foreseeing CA$2.0b of revenue in 2021. The consensus has definitely become more optimistic, showing a solid increase in revenue forecasts.

See our latest analysis for North West

TSX:NWC Past and Future Earnings June 15th 2020

The consensus price target rose 8.6% to CA$30.40, with the analysts clearly more optimistic about North West's prospects following this update. There's another way to think about price targets though, and that's to look at the range of price targets put forward by analysts, because a wide range of estimates could suggest a diverse view on possible outcomes for the business. There are some variant perceptions on North West, with the most bullish analyst valuing it at CA$32.00 and the most bearish at CA$30.00 per share. Still, with such a tight range of estimates, it suggests the analysts have a pretty good idea of what they think the company is worth.

Another way we can view these estimates is in the context of the bigger picture, such as how the forecasts stack up against past performance, and whether forecasts are more or less bullish relative to other companies in the industry. It's pretty clear that there is an expectation that North West's revenue growth will slow down substantially, with revenues next year expected to grow 0.2%, compared to a historical growth rate of 4.5% over the past five years. Compare this against other companies (with analyst forecasts) in the industry, which are in aggregate expected to see revenue growth of 1.1% next year. Factoring in the forecast slowdown in growth, it seems obvious that North West is also expected to grow slower than other industry participants.

Story continues

The Bottom Line

The most important thing to take away from this upgrade is that analysts lifted their revenue estimates for this year. They're also anticipating slower revenue growth than the wider market. There was also a nice increase in the price target, with analysts apparently feeling that the intrinsic value of the business is improving. Given that analysts appear to be expecting substantial improvement in the sales pipeline, now could be the right time to take another look at North West.

Looking to learn more? At least one of North West's five analysts has provided estimates out to 2023, which can be seen for free on our platform here.

Another thing to consider is whether management and directors have been buying or selling stock recently. We provide an overview of all open market stock trades for the last twelve months on our platform, here.

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.
Hyderabad, June 15 : A Covid-19 test in a private hospital in Telangana will cost Rs 2,200 and treatment between Rs 4,000 and Rs 9,000 a day, according to a government announcement, here on Monday.

"Treatment in general isolation ward will cost Rs 4,000 a day and in the intensive care unit (ICU) without ventilator Rs 7,500. Those on ventilator can be charged Rs 9,000 per day," said Health Minister E. Rajender.

The hospitals will be free to charge separately for anti-viral drugs administered to a patient. Some anti-viral injections cost Rs 40,000-50,000, the Minister pointed out.

A day after permitting private hospitals and laboratories to conduct Covid-19 tests and provide treatment, the government framed the guidelines and set the charges to prevent 'exploitation'.

The private hospitals and diagnostic centres have also been warned of strict action over violation of guidelines and attempt to exploit the situation.

He said private hospitals and labs, which had obtained the Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) approval, could conduct Covid-19 tests on people reporting Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) symptoms.

"The test can be done as per doctor's advice and only if the person has any symptom. Tests shouldn't be conducted if the person is asymptomatic," he said.

If a person tests positive and needs hospitalisation, the hospitals will have to charge him as per the rates set by the government.

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar said while free testing and treatment would continue in government hospitals, those who wanted to get tests and treatment done in private hospitals were free to approach them. "The government has framed the guidelines and fixed the rates to prevent exploitation," he said.

He said people were undergoing Covid-19 treatment in 10-12 private hospitals, here and added, there were reports that they were being charged exorbitantly.

Under the guidelines, the private hospitals will have to provide information about the patients to the government to help it take containment measures in their areas.

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Sunday said private hospitals and labs could conduct Covid-19 tests. The move came a few days after the Telangana High Court asked the government to allow it to those who could afford services at private hospitals.

The chief Secretary said as per the Chief Minister's decision, 50,000 Covid-19 tests would be conducted in 30 Assembly constituencies in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits and surrounding districts in 7-10 days.

He said an action plan had been finalised and tests would begin on Tuesday. They will be conducted in containment zones. The families that earlier reported positive cases and the high risk groups will be covered.

Stating that there are some misinformation about tests, Kumar said there was nothing to worry about them. Two phases of random tests by the ICMR had proved that there was no community spread in the state, he added.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Out of all the unlikable people in Power, many fans hated Tariq St. Patrick the most. They classified him as a rich spoiled kid who deserved a butt whooping and didnt understand why he would kill his father. Some went as far as to call his storyline unbelievable because they dont think wealthy kids have any desire to sell drugs or become gangsters.

Showrunner and creator Courtney Kemp refuted those critics in an Instagram Live as she explained why Tariqs storyline was believable.

Michael Rainey Jr., Curtis 50 Cent Jackson, and Courtney A. Kemp | Brad Barket

Tariq St. Patrick in Power

The oldest St. Patrick child, and only son, was introduced to viewers as a smart teenager asking his father for help with his Spanish homework. However, in the third season, he unknowingly became involved with his fathers former drug mentor, Kanan Stark (Curtis 50 Cent Jackson), who Ghost (Omari Hardwick) sent to prison.

Kanan initially planned on killing his now-rivals son but spared him after Tariq claimed he also hated his father. Instead, Kanan used Tariq to rob his affluent classmates and later kidnapped the teenager for ransom under Jukeboxs (Anika Noni Rose) orders.

After attempting to stop an assault at another robbery Tariq participated in, he fled and attended a school dance where corrupt cop Raymond Jones (Marcus Callender) came looking for him.

New Trailer: Tariq is ready to put in work



July 1st #POWER pic.twitter.com/T2Se8wbcgt  50Centnewsfeed (@50centnewsfeed) June 17, 2018

RELATED: Power: Omari Hardwick Still Thinks Ghost Was a Better Parent to Tariq

Instead, Raina (Donshea Hopkins), his twin sister, confronted him, and the officer murdered her, with Tariq watching from behind a building. The teenager then found Ray Ray and killed him before following his parents commands to turn on Kanan.

Set on becoming a drug dealer, the teenager began selling at his boarding school, resulting in his expulsion. Tariq then helped his godfather Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora) kill their lawyer who was hiding out at their penthouse and faked his kidnapping to extort $2 million from his dad.

After Ghost announced his bid as the next lieutenant governor of New York, he wanted his son to confess to the murder of Ray Ray. However, Tariq refused. Therefore, Ghost threatened that he would turn his son in as well as his mother, so Tariq shot and killed his father.

Fans criticized Tariq St. Patrick

Throughout the series, many fans didnt appreciate how Tariq behaved and didnt think his actions made sense as a rich spoiled kid. Raina, his twin sister, was a fan-favorite on the show, and viewers hated Tariq for watching his sister take a bullet meant for him and then lie to his parents about what happened.

Additionally, Tariq lied about hanging out with Kanan, helped Dre Coleman (Rotimi) when he was plotting against their family, and extorted his dad and Tommy only to get played himself, leaving empty-handed.

Tariq might be the main character in the spin off.. and guess what?! Im not watching it. #PowerStarz #Power pic.twitter.com/5TsKxfTL3f  FE (@CallMe__Fe) January 19, 2020

RELATED: Why Power Fans Are Tired Of Tariq St. Patrick and Do Not Want Him Leading a Spin-Off Series

Many viewers thought he deserved a butt whooping and didnt understand how he went from a seemingly innocent kid to murdering his father in cold blood.

Fans began sending Michael Rainey Jr., the actor who portrays Tariq, hate mail, and still flood his Instagram comments with rude remarks for his characters actions. Therefore, they were not happy to hear Tariq would return for the upcoming spinoff, Power Book II: Ghost.

Courtney Kemp addresses Tariq St. Patrick storyline criticism

In an Instagram Live, a follower criticized Tariqs storyline as they felt it was unbelievable because rich kids dont want to be thugs. Showrunner and creator Courtney Kemp explained she knew several wealthy kids growing up, and they all wanted to be thugs who listened to the hardest rap music.

She defended Tariqs storyline, explaining, trying to feel down when one feels displaced is a huge thing. Additionally, Kemp noted that Tariq desired to rebel against his parents, and he knew his father wanted him to be a perfect straight-A student.

RELATED: Power: Creator Courtney Kemp Explains Why Ghost Didnt Go to Jail in the End

Therefore, he didnt have to know what Ghost was to act out the way he did. The teenager also didnt do it by himself as he ended up going down that path due to Kanans influence. Kemp ended by saying she understands if viewers hate Tariq, but thinks its bulls**t for people to call the characters storyline unbelievable.
Hummingbirds can spot at least eight colours that are invisible to humans, a study has found.

Humans have three types of light-sensitive cone in their eyes, enabling them to see red, green and blue. But birds have a fourth - ultraviolet - revealing colours we can't even imagine.

The difference means that while man can only see the 'nonspectral' colour purple, formed from blue+red, birds can make this out alongside ultraviolet+red, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+yellow, ultraviolet+purple and many others.

To test how the birds perceive this vivid world, scientists set up two feeders in the Rocky mountains, Colorado, next to LED lights that displayed either visible or ultraviolet colours that appeared to be identical.

One feeder was filled with sugary water and the second with plain water.

Over several hours, hummingbird visitors quickly learned which contained the meal, revealing they could distinguish colours invisible to the human eye.

The scientists found hummingbirds were able to distinguish between colours that looked identical to humans - by using a fourth cone in their eyes that can detect UV light

Humans lack this fourth cone - leaving them only able to see red, green and blue light

'It was amazing to watch,' said Harold Eyster, study co-author and PhD student at the University of British Columbia.

'The ultraviolet+green light and green light looked identical to us, but the hummingbirds kept correctly choosing the ultraviolet+green light associated with sugar water.'

Co-author David Inouye, from the University of Maryland, added: 'The colours that we see in the fields of wildflowers at our study site, the wildflower capital of Colorado, are stunning to us.

'But just imagine what those flowers look like to birds with that extra sensory dimension.'

The scientists found the birds could identify at least eight different colours humans couldn't see, and were able to distinguish between different intensities of ultraviolet light.

This means that theoretically they are able to see many many more colours than humans.

We can already see many different intensities of colours, as shown by paint charts used when we consider re-decorating a bathroom or bedroom. But these are likely to become infinitely more complex when an additional layer is added.

The experiments took place at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado. The scientists wanted to do the experiment in the wild in order to get a 'bigger picture'

Could dinosaurs see more colours than humans? Artists impression of an Allosaurus As ancestors of birds, it seems likely that dinosaurs were also able to see ultraviolet light - and more colours than humans. A study published in Science from the University of Bonn, Germany, said that the close genetic relationship between the two meant dinosaurs would also have had a fourth cone for detecting the light. And a second study published this year by scientists at the University of Nottingham, found dinosaurs may have glowed in the dark under ultraviolet light - further suggesting it was visible to them. 'We already think of dinosaurs as very showy, flamboyant animals, decked out with amazing crests, frills, horns and other structures, palaeontologist Darren Naish told Metro.co.uk. 'Plus we have good reason for thinking that they had excellent colour vision. Any ideas about photo-luminescence would mean that they were even showier, even gaudier than we'd thought.' Advertisement

The scientists went to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory every summer for three years to perform the experiment.

They chose this wild habitat as it would provide a 'bigger picture' than a lab-based experiment, and it was a site where the broad-tailed hummingbird (Selasphorus platycerus) breeds.

Hummingbirds were chosen as they have evolved to respond to the unique cues from flowers in order to find their main source of food - nectar.

During the experiments, scientists rose before dawn every morning to set up the feeders before watching the birds - recording more than 6,000 visits in a series of 19 experiments.

To ensure their results were accurate, the scientists also periodically swapped the positions of the rewarding and unrewarding tubes, so the birds couldn't rely on location.

They also performed a control experiment to ensure hummingbirds weren't using smell or a separate cue.

But each time, the birds learnt to visit the rewarding colour.

To further test their results, the researchers analysed a set of 3,315 feathers and plant colours. They found that birds saw many of these colours as nonspectral, while humans do not.

However, the team cautioned the wide variety is not unique to hummingbirds - and is certainly present in fish, reptiles, other birds - and was possibly used by dinosaurs.

'Tetrachromacy - having four colour cone types - evolved in early vertebrates', said assistant professor at Princeton University Mary Stoddard, lead author in the study.

'This colour vision system is the norm for birds, many fish and reptiles, and it almost certainly existed in dinosaurs.

'We think the ability to perceive many nonspectral colours is not just a feat of hummingbirds but a widespread feature of animal colour vision.'

The study also included scientists from Harvard University. It was published in the journal National Academy of Sciences.
WASHINGTON - The top two editors at Voice of America resigned Monday, amid White House criticism of the government-funded but editorially independent news agency and as a new overseer loyal to President Donald Trump was about to take office.

It wasn't immediately clear why VOA Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara submitted their resignations. In a memo to staff on Monday, they jointly wrote, "It is time for us to leave," but cited no specific reason other than the arrival of Michael Pack, a Trump appointee who will head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Pack is an ally of Stephen Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist.

They added, "As the Senate-confirmed C.E.O., [Pack] has the right to replace us with his own VOA leadership."

Their departure comes amid concerns within the agency that the Trump administration is seeking to exert greater control over what and how VOA reports.

The organization's relationship with the Trump administration was already fraught, but over the weekend, a new rift developed. After news emerged that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had instructed its communications staff to deny interviews to VOA reporters - a policy prompted by the White House's criticism of the agency - Bennett issued a strongly worded statement condemning the policy.

"Efforts such as those outlined in the CDC memo can result in the kind of chilling effect on our journalism that we regularly see in the markets we broadcast to that have no free press," she wrote.

The White House in April launched an extraordinary public attack on VOA, accusing it of promoting Chinese government propaganda in its reporting on the coronavirus outbreak. It also said VOA advanced the views of regimes of countries hostile toward the United States, such as Iran.

Bennett defended the agency's independence then, citing numerous news reports that debunked the Chinese government's claims about its handling of the virus outbreak and its false statements about American involvement.

In fact, China's government has at times branded VOA's reporting American propaganda and has ordered the expulsion of VOA journalists.

According to documents obtained by the Knight First Amendment Institute, internal guidance at the CDC specifically cited VOA host Greta Van Susteren, the former cable news host. "NOTE: as a rule, do not send up requests for Greta Van [Susteren] or anyone affiliated with Voice of America," the warning stated.

Earlier this month, the Senate confirmed Pack, a conservative filmmaker and Trump's pick to run the agency that oversees VOA.

Trump has publicly praised Pack, but his nomination had been held up in the Senate for more than two years, with Democrats raising questions about alleged financial improprieties in his nonprofit film production company. He won confirmation even though his company is still under investigation by the D.C. attorney general's office.

In addition to attacking the agency on the White House's official blog, Trump, in a private lunch with Senate Republicans last month, pushed for lawmakers to advance Pack's nomination, calling Voice of America the "voice of the Soviet Union" and "communists."

People at VOA saw the White House's attack on VOA as part of an effort to jump-start Pack's nomination.

VOA, with 1,100 journalists and an annual budget of $250 million, is one of the world's largest news operations. It was founded in 1942 to tell "America's story" and to counter Nazi propaganda.

It produces audio, TV and digital news in 47 languages, distributing them around the world, particularly in countries where authoritarian governments suppress independent media. Although funded by Congress, it is officially independent of the U.S. government in its reporting.

Bennett is the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Lexington Herald-Leader who shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for her reporting at the Wall Street Journal. She also led a Pulitzer-winning investigation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as an editor at the Oregonian in Portland. (She is married to Donald Graham, the former publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post.)

Sugawara formerly worked as a reporter and editor at The Post. They began working at VOA in 2016, remaking the agency's reporting operations and technology.

No successors have been named.
New Delhi, June 15 : Two Indian High Commission staff in Pakistan capital Islamabad went missing under mysterious circumstances early Monday and remain untraceable, sources said.

India has since taken up the matter with Pakistani authorities to ensure their safety.

"Two Central Industrial Security Force drivers had gone out for duty in a vehicle but did not reach their destination. Since then they are missing," the sources said.

"There has been no word from the Pakistan officials on the missing staff's whereabouts so far," they added.

It comes just days after India's Charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia was chased and intimidated in Islamabad by motorcycle-borne persons suspected to be from the Inter-Services Intelligence on June 4.

The harassment of Indian High Commission officials and obstruction in the discharge of their normal functioning was thereafter taken up through established diplomatic channels.

Ahluwalia and other Indian High Commission officials have been chased and harassed in Pakistan following India's expulsion of two Pakistan Embassy officials in Delhi after they were caught red-handed for espionage.

Thereafter, Pakistan has been trying a tit-for-tat action, targeting to expel Indian High Commission officials from the country for one reason or another.

Amid all this, the Indian High Commission is finding it difficult to ensure normal functioning. The Indian diplomats and consular officials are facing aggressive tailing and surveillance.

Last Friday, India registered its protest through a note verbale to Pakistan authorities and asked Islamabad to ensure the safety and security of the Indian High Commission and its staff and to allow them to resume their activities in keeping with the Vienna Convention.

India told Pakistan that the behaviour of its agencies violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and also the bilateral 1992 Code of Conduct signed to provide diplomats immunity from hostilities in ties.

On May 31, in New Delhi, India declared two Pakistan High Commission officials as persona non grata on charges of espionage and ordered them to leave the country within 24 hours.

Also Pakistan Charge de'affairs was issued a demarche in which a strong protest was lodged over the activities of these two officials against India's security.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has given the green light for seven more regions in the province would move into stage two of Ontarios reopening plan this Friday. All regions except Toronto, Peel and Windsor-Essex would then have launched into a post-lockdown world.

The Star has looked at what entering the second phase of reopening will look like. Its a long road ahead, with a lot of unknowns  but weve tried to clarify some pressing questions.

This resource will be updated as new questions and their answers arise.

Can I go to my cottage this week? An epidemiologist explains how to stay safe as Ontario starts to reopen

Can you travel to a city that has reopened? In short: yes, but you probably shouldnt.

While the Ontario government is encouraging people to avoid all non-essential travel, there are currently no restrictions barring travel into phase-two regions.

Everyone should be smart about this, said Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Stage-one people should stay put and, if they choose not to, they should perhaps expect not a warm welcome among businesses that are in stage two.

Whos responsible if I catch COVID-19 at a restaurant or other private business? A lawyer answers

The shelves are stocked, the tables are set and your doors are about to swing open to the public for the first time in months.

But are you liable if someone becomes infected with COVID-19 on your premises?

Its a big question, and I think the short and the long answer is yes,  said George Wray, a lawyer and partner with Borden Ladner Gervais.

How to create a COVID-19 social circle. Read this before you bubble

Ontarios public health advice has evolved, allowing for social circles that permit people to come into direct contact with  yes, actually touch  a small group of predetermined family members or friends.

The province has also given the green light to social gatherings of up to 10 people.

Social circles can include no more than 10 people.

The people in them can be any age and what they do outside the bubble, such as frontline healthcare, doesnt impact whether that person can join a bubble.

Do I have to go back to work as COVID-19 lockdowns end? A lawyer explains

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.
Learning from South Africa: reconstructing rainfall seasonality in Australia

Examining old vegetation sediments to learn about shifting weather patterns and climate change.

South Africa has distinct summer and winter rainfall zones. Cape Town experiences cold, wet winters, while the interior of the country is very dry during May-August.

The same is true in Australia. Regions in the southwest, western south east Australia, and western Tasmania are similar to Cape Town with winter rainfall, while the northern part of the country has summer rainfall. These patterns determine the vegetation of each region and have impacts on economic sectors including tourism, energy production and agriculture.

Which season an area receives most of its rainfall in is determined by very large-scale climate systems. In large parts of the Southern Hemisphere, the dominant force behind winter rainfall is the Westerly wind system. This system affects the climate in the southern part of the southern hemisphere. The specific area affected varies over time, as its tightly connected with other climate systems and affected by the extent of ice in Antarctica.

The Westerly wind system is shifting under climate change, and has been argued to be responsible for the Cape Town drought and drought in southwest Australia. Across the southern Hemisphere, there is consensus that the Westerly wind system has migrated further equatorward, and back, within the last 20,000 years. The exact position of the winter rainfall zone would vary considerably depending on the location of this system.

Understanding these changes helps us to determine how much these westerly-related climate systems might change under climate change.

What Australian pollen told us

The local vegetation adapts to climate changes. By examining their relative proportions in old sediments, we can infer past changes in rainfall seasons.

This is done by separating the pollen from the sediments and then identifying the different species present. Each sediment sample, which also contains pollen, is dated. This means if theres any change in the relative proportions of the species, we can tell when this change happened. This is something that has been done in South Africa since the mid-1960s.

Specifically, researchers have looked at the relationship between the grass family and the daisy family going back thousands of years. More recently, researchers have calculated the ratio of this relationship and defined how strong it must be for an area to be determined to receive mainly winter rainfall, mainly summer rainfall, or a combination of the two.

Understanding rainfall patterns is important because the past magnitude of fluctuations in strength and extent of the Westerly wind system informs projections for the impact of climate warming.

Our research aimed to determine whether this South African approach could be used elsewhere. We applied it to an existing database of Australian pollen samples.

Having access to such a large database, we decided to calculate this ratio for all samples going back to the height of the last ice age, some 35,000 years ago. There have been great changes in climate during this time, which should be reflected in the ratio, if it is successful in reproducing known contemporary rainfall zone boundaries, and can therefore provide information on the rainfall seasonality of a given location at a specific point in the past.

The results of the pollen ratio show that the periods in Australias history when there was most change in rainfall seasonality compared to today was about 6 to 7,000 years ago, about 15 to 17,000 years ago, about 20 to 22,000 years ago and about 31 to 33,000 years ago. All these periods have been pointed out as periods of significant climatic change by other researchers.

Going forward

This means that the South African ratio can be used on Australian records to infer rainfall seasonality in the past. Which is valuable to other researchers in Australia, not only as a new approach to inferring seasonality from pollen records, but also as independent support of their own studies and conclusions.

This allows for rainfall seasonality to be reconstructed, when previously studies would only reconstruct total moisture availability and temperature. It provides a more holistic understanding of past climates, and a better framework to understand past environments.

Our results also highlighted several periods when the westerlies appear to have either weakened or moved further south, supporting conclusions from previous studies in South Africa and South America. This is important because the westerlies are a hemispheric scale climate system, and corroborating evidence across the three continents allows for a more detailed understanding of the dynamics of the westerly system and associated climatic changes. This helps us to understand likely future shifts in the distribution of winter rainfall under climate change.

With this approach having been proved to work outside South Africa, the next step is to apply it to South American pollen records. This will give us a more complete picture of climatic changes across the Southern Hemisphere as a whole during the late Quaternary.

Annika Herbert, Postdoctoral Researcher in palaeoclimatology, University of the Witwatersrand and Jennifer Fitchett, Associate Professor of Physical Geography, University of the Witwatersrand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Oregon State University will expand its coronavirus testing to Newport, after an outbreak at a seafood processing plant infected 125 people in the community of 10,000.

The outbreak at Pacific Seafood is currently the largest workplace outbreak in the state outside of the Oregon State Penitentiary.

Lincoln County health officials have been overwhelmed by the outbreak, seeking assistance from neighboring counties, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Oregon Coast Community College to find enough contract tracers. The outbreak has touched almost every aspect of life in the small community of Newport.

Oregon State began its COVID-19 testing project in Corvallis in late April and expanded to Bend in May. Crews go door to door, giving nasal-swab test kits to a predetermined, representative set of households in order to understand how prevalent the virus is in the community. The project has tested more than 1,200 people so far.

Oregon State researchers will work with Lincoln County Health & Human Services to test Newport residents.

Kaety Jacobson, chair of the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners, said the countys partnership with Oregon State will help the community face the coronavirus pandemic.

Additional data is critical to plan and adapt to this pandemic and any future health crisis that our coastal communities may face, Jacobson said in a written statement.

The county only had 15 cases at the beginning of June but has reached over 200 cases since, according to state reports.

Oregon States testing in Newport will take place June 20-21. They have not said whether they plan to return after that.

-- Celina Tebor

ctebor@oregonian.com

@CelinaTebor
The process of soliciting for peoples input into the proposed constitutional amendments should be stopped and only proceeded with after the country shifts to level one stage of the national lockdown, which is the period which prevailed before the outbreak of coronavirus and before a state of disaster was declared by government in March. If Parliament, Chokuda and Ziyambi intend to proceed with the public hearings in the midst of the current health pandemic, they must ensure that all precautions are taken to prevent and contain the disease at such public gatherings.
At the last nationally televised debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, both presidential candidates declared that they would nominate a woman as their vice presidential running mates. Biden also proclaimed that the first chance hed get to appoint a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, hed pick a black woman, adding Its about time.

This wrongheaded political gesture by the presumptive Democratic nominee should not sit well with the American electorate. The sole criterion for selection should be the best person available.

When the office first came into existence in 1789, the vice president was the person who received the second most votes in the Electoral College. But in the 1800 election there was a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, which culminated in selection of the president by the House of Representatives. To prevent such an event from happening again, the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution, creating the current system where electors cast a separate ballot for the vice presidency.

Ultimately, it was thus the people, through their elected representatives, who made the decision.

That choice was not one to be taken lightly. The vice president would automatically assume the presidency if the president died, resigned or was impeached and removed from office. Over the years no fewer than nine vice presidents have ascended in this way: eight after a president died (John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson) and one (Gerald Ford) after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.

In addition, the vice president serves as the president of the Senate and may choose to cast a tiebreaking vote on decisions made by the Senate. Vice presidents have exercised this latter power to varying extents over the years.

But Biden has left no wiggle room.

In his premature victory celebration he said there are women in this country who, right now, are capable of being president. Hes certainly right about that  the obvious candidates being Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Even Hillary Clinton remains a possibility, if only in her own mind (I never say never).

The consequences of preselecting a Supreme Court justice on the basis of race or gender are somewhat more weighty. The original court had only six members and heard few cases. Its power and prestige grew substantially under Chief Justice John Marshall, when it established the power of judicial review over acts of Congress and specified itself as the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution in what was perhaps the first landmark decision, Marbury v. Madison.

For the past several decades the court has become increasingly politicized. Clerks hired by each of the justices are often given considerable leeway in drafting opinions. This hiring trend has served to reinforce the impression that the court is a kind of super-legislature that responds to ideological arguments rather than a legal institution responding to concerns grounded in the rule of law.

Although it is a unique presidential prerogative to appoint justices to the court, such decisions should not be made without concern for the tenor of the times, and the temperament of the populace.

Even in the wake of recent events over the past two weeks, for Biden to short-circuit that process  by either naming a running mate or suggesting a Supreme Court nominee based on race or gender  is little more than shortsighted political expedience.

Kenneth Lasson is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Email klasson@ubalt.edu.

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YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. There cannot be a political decision to file a motion on stripping Prosperous Armenia party leader, MP Gagik Tsarukyan of immunity, Advisor to the Prosecutor General of Armenia Gor Abrahamyan said on Facebook.

We once again repeat: there cannot be a political decision to file a motion to strip any lawmaker, including Gagik Tsarukyan of immunity.

Such decisions are made exclusively within the frames of criminal proceedings, given to what extent the Prosecutor General approves the evidences collected during the investigation as sufficient or insufficient in terms of the merits of such a motion. Therefore, the attempts to politicize the exclusively criminal proceedings are nonsense. If there are legal grounds to file a motion to the Parliament on such a matter, the Prosecutors Office will inform the public, he said.

On June 14 leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan was taken to the National Security Service for questioning. He stayed there until 23:30. Tsarukyans supporters organized a rally outside the NSS demanding to stop the actions against the lawmaker.

Earlier the NSS issued a statement according to which a company, that is included Gagik Tsarukyans Multi Group Concern, has caused tens of billions of drams in damage to the state.

In another statement, the NSS said it revealed numerous cases on giving bribes to voters by the Prosperous Armenia party members, as well as candidates to vote in favor of the party during the April 2, 2017 parliamentary elections.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
The United States is in discussions with Brazils government over providing funding to help the countrys operators purchase 5G network equipment from Ericsson and Nokia rather than Chinese rivals.

In an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, US ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman said that state-run investment bank The US International Development Finance Corporation would offer financial support to Brazilian operators if they chose not to use cheaper network equipment from Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE.

The US IDFC was created under the Trump administration in late 2018 as a response to Chinas international Development Bank operations. It invests in critical infrastructure, energy, healthcare and technology to further US interests overseas.

Chapman described the issue as a matter of national security and noted that choosing Nokia and Ericssons equipment would allow Brazilian operators to "protect data and intellectual property, as well as sensitive information of nations". He added that similar talks were underway in other countries.

The US has long called for its allies to shun Chinese-made network equipment on the grounds of national security. Huawei has been a particular focus on the campaign, although the Chinese vendor denies that its equipment can be used for espionage purposes and few governments have responded decisively to pressure from the US.

Huawei has been present in Brazil for over 20 years, and all four of the countrys major operators  Claro, Oi, Telefonica Brasil SA and TIM Participacoes  have carried out successful 5G trials using its equipment. The vendor is working with all of these operators to modernise their networks as Brazils 5G spectrum auction approaches.

The US campaign has done little to deter the Chinese firm from strengthening its presence in Brazil. In August 2019, Huawei stated that it aimed to establish a second manufacturing plant in Sao Paulo state via an $800 million investment.

However, the US influence may be felt within Brazils government, with President Jair Bolsonaro recently reported as saying that the countrys 5G plans would be based not just on economics, but on foreign policy and security concerns.
The Union health ministry on Sunday relaxed the guidelines on handing over the bodies of suspected Covid-19 cases to relatives for cremation. The people wont have to wait for laboratory confirmation of the infection to get the body.

This came after Union home minister Amit Shah held a meeting with Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and officials of the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) on Sunday. Union health minister Harsh Vardhan was also present in the meeting.

In a letter issued by #DGHS to #Delhi Govt, guidelines on handing over of #dead bodies of suspect #COVID19 cases to relatives for #cremation have been relaxed to ensure that families do not need to wait until the result of lab report, Vardhan tweeted.

In a letter issued by #DGHS to #Delhi Govt, guidelines on handing over of #dead bodies of suspect #COVID19 cases to relatives for #cremation have been relaxed to ensure that families do not need to wait until the result of lab report@LtGovDelhi @MoHFW_INDIA @PMOIndia @BJP4Delhi pic.twitter.com/douArbG7j6  Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) June 14, 2020

Please refer to the issue raised regarding deaths of suspect Covid-19 patients and bodies not being handed over to the relatives pending confirmation of test report by hospitals, said the letter signed by Directorate General of Health Services Dr Rajiv Garg.

I would like to clarify that the dead bodies of such suspected Covid-19 cases should be handed over to their relatives immediately and laboratory confirmation of Covid should not be awaited, the letter addressed to Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev further said.

Vardhan also posted an official order according to which three teams have been constituted by the Centre to inspect Delhi hospitals to guide them on clinical management of Covid-19 cases.

Shah, meanwhile, also held a second meeting with mayors and commissioners of Delhis three municipal corporations.

The meetings come amidst a wave of cases in the national capital. Delhi recorded 2,224 cases on Sunday, the third consecutive day it has seen more than 2,000 new infections.

It ended Sunday with 41,182 infections (24,032 of them active) and 1,327 deaths. From Monday (June 8) to Sunday, the city has registered 12,246 cases. In the previous week (June 1-7), it recorded 9,092 cases. The number of containment zones in the city, meanwhile, rose from 147 on June 1 to 219 on Sunday.
Bowing out: Private equity baron Jon Moulton

Private equity baron Jon Moulton has, for years, been one of the titans of the industry. But he has become a major casualty of the coronavirus crisis, and is de-listing his two Better Capital funds.

His second fund, launched in 2012, has been troubled for years and has plumbed disastrous new depths during lockdown.

Since the pandemic struck, two of the companies owned by the 2012 fund have gone bust. That fund, and a separate one launched in 2009 that has performed rather better, are being de-listed from the stock market.

And, after 40 years in the industry, Moulton thinks it's finally time for him to pack in private equity.

He will certainly not be quitting while he is ahead. Unfortunately for him and his backers in the 2012 vehicle, it has made large losses. In its most recent full-year accounts, the 2012 fund reported a total decline in the value of its net assets of nearly 52 per cent including payouts to shareholders.

Even Better Capital's chairman, Richard Crowder has repeatedly described the state of affairs as 'frustrating'. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, Moulton says he has had enough.

'I won't be launching a new private equity fund  I'm damn near 70,' says the 69-year-old.

He has had a long, roller-coaster of a career, which has won him admirers but also vicious personal criticism.

In 2014 he was excoriated after City Link, a firm owned by Better Capital, collapsed on Christmas Eve. Another famous name, fashion firm Jaeger, also came to grief after five years of ownership by a Moulton fund, collapsing into administration in 2017.

More recently, he had a bit part in the Neil Woodford affair. In his four decades in the business, he has set up two of his own firms. He launched Better Capital after falling out with colleagues at Alchemy Partners, saying he was going to do the same thing again, only better. It didn't quite turn out that way.

The last few months have thrown out new and harrowing challenges, not least trying to organise the administration of two firms, including double-glazing business Everest, over Zoom.

Business fell off a cliff for Everest after it was forced to down tools due to the lockdown in March. What had been a strong start to the year in terms of customer orders rapidly turned into a disaster. The company couldn't borrow a significant amount of money under Government lending schemes because its performance last year wasn't strong enough.

Better Capital put Everest through administration to shake off creditors, and bought it back for a much-reduced price.

It is now the last company left in the 2012 fund. Office supplies firm Spicers-Office Team Group was put into administration last month, and bits of it were sold. Moulton admitted that overall, Better Capital's equity investment in the business had been rendered completely worthless.

'Do I wish I'd never started the second fund? I think that would still be a fair statement. It's definitely been one of the less successful parts of my career, to put it mildly,' he says.

The whole fund has been a nightmare. He points to Airbus supplier Northern Aerospace, which Better Capital eventually sold to a Chinese conglomerate, as another investment where the firm only just scraped its money back. And then there was the car-crash investment in courier firm City Link, which earned Moulton the nickname 'Grinch' when it went under over the festive season and a tabloid newspaper ran a picture of him with a set of devil horns on his head.

He admits: 'There were all kinds of different mistakes made in the fund. A degree of unluckiness in one or two, but generally poor selection, poor industries  when you look back at it you wonder why we really did that.'

Moulton, who is chairman of the stock exchange in Guernsey, where he lives, has also faced criticism over the implosion of Woodford's investment empire last year. Some theorised that Woodford had used his connections with Moulton  the two have co-invested in several companies  to gain access to the Guernsey exchange where he listed some of his stakes in unquoted companies.

But Moulton says he has 'barely ever spoken' to Woodford.

'I was never approached by Woodford regarding the listings of companies on the Guernsey stock exchange.'

Now he plans to keep his head down, investing his own wealth through his family office  one of his top investments is in London-listed litigation funder Manolete Partners. 'We've made a fortune on that. We own about 26 per cent which didn't cost us very much.' The company is now worth around 240m.

Better's worst investments: Jon Moulton had to put courier firm City Link and fashion business Jaeger (inset) into administration

His interest in medical science has also kept him busy during the pandemic. This stems from his early days as a 'very sickly child' in Stoke-on-Trent, during which time he was plagued with illnesses including tuberculosis, aplastic anaemia and amoebic dysentery.

It prompted him to set up a charitable foundation which is now helping fund more than 100 clinical trials.

One of them is the Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Imperial College London. Moulton is hopeful that if trials go well, a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year.

He was on holiday in Botswana when the virus struck and only just managed to get back to South Africa, by way of a helicopter and medical aircraft, in time for a flight home.

He feels lucky to have evaded the virus so far.

Before he and his wife Pauline made their way down to Botswana, they were on a cruise of the Nile in Egypt, where they subsequently learned a passenger had tested positive. On the next boat along, 40 out of 50 passengers caught the virus.

Guernsey has begun to ease lockdown after recording no new cases in more than a month.

'We're in a relatively privileged position,' he says. 'The weather's been gorgeous, we've got a nice house here, I can walk along the clifftops and look at the sea. Worse things happen to you.'

That aside, his outlook for the UK's future is somewhat bleak.

'The whole economy's going to come out of this back where it was 25 years ago,' he says.

He is due to give evidence tomorrow to MPs on the Treasury committee about the economic impact of the virus.

He has mixed views on the Government's response to the pandemic so far.

Over the long term, the piles of debt, which many companies have taken on, will become a problem.

Lenders have already provided 35billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus loans to 830,000 businesses, and Moulton adds: 'If the Government's not careful we'll see a tremendous wall of insolvencies.'

Private equity firms will have a role to play in helping some of these companies restructure, he adds. But that will be a battle he'll be watching from the sidelines.
Charity says it fears being target of another attack after May raid on Dasht-e-Barchi facility that left dozens dead.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) has announced its decision to cease operations and withdraw from a hospital in Afghanistans capital, where gunmen last month killed at least 24 people  including mothers and young children  in an attack on a maternity ward that shocked the country.

MSF said in a statement on Monday it was deeply concerned that its staff and patients could be the target of another attack after the raid on Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul on May 12.

Attackers stormed the facility in a brazen daylight assault that triggered international outrage. There was no claim of responsibility.

The decision comes with the understanding that while no information has emerged about the perpetrators or motive of the assault, mothers, babies and health staff were its deliberate target and similar attacks may repeat in the future, MSF said, describing its move as necessary but painful.





Sixteen of those killed were women  15 mothers and an MSF midwife  who were systematically shot dead in a raid that lasted hours, said MSF, which ran the maternity ward.

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The facility was one of MSFs biggest projects worldwide and was home to almost 16,000 deliveries in 2019 alone, the group said.

We were aware that our presence in Dasht-e-Barchi carried risks, said Thierry Allafort-Duverger, MSFs general director. But we just couldnt believe that someone would take advantage of the absolute vulnerability of women about to give birth to exterminate them and their babies.

He added: Today, we have to accept reality.

Higher walls and thicker security doors wont prevent such horrific assaults from happening again. To remain would mean to factor such loss of human lives as [part of the equation] for our activities, and this is unconceivable.

The hospital is in an impoverished neighbourhood of the capital largely dominated by the Shia Hazara community, and its closure is expected to affect more than a million people, according to MSF.

More than 70 MSF personnel and patients admitted into MSF healthcare programmes have been killed in Afghanistan over the past 16 years, it said.

In October 2015, an MSF hospital in the northern province of Kunduz was destroyed by a US air raid in which 42 people were killed.
Japan News-Yomiuri photo

TOKYO - The lifting of Tokyo's business suspension requests amid the spread of the coronavirus entered "phase three" on Friday, and for the first time in about two months, almost all industries are able to operate. While keeping an eye on the possibility of a resurgence of infections, a "new way of life" has begun.

"Cheers!" At Sherlock, a bar in Ginza, Tokyo, two regular customers and four mask-wearing bartenders celebrated their reunion Friday evening with glasses of champagne.
The turmoil that roiled the National Book Critics Circle, one of publishing's pre-eminent awards bodies and institutions, last week continued throughout the weekend and into Monday morning as concerns over matters of race and privacy continue to split the organization's board of directors. As of Monday morning, at least 13 members have resigned from the typically 24-member board.

The situation at the NBCC began last Thursday, following a week-long attempt by a working committee of board members to draft a statement in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and in support of writers and critics of color. Before the statement was approved, Ugandan American poet, essayist, and writer Hope Wabuke, who had led the effort to draft the statement, resigned from the board. In a series of tweets, Wabuke explained her decision and revealed a series of internal emails pertaining to the discussion around the drafting of the statement.

The first of those emails, sent by former NBCC president and current v-p of grants Carlin Romano the night before the working group's statement was to be finalized, questioned, and in some cases rejected, the presence of white supremacy, institutional racism, erasure of BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) authors, and white gatekeeping in the publishing community. Later emails, including one sent by thenNBCC president Laurie Hertzel thanking Romano for his comments, were also released in the thread.

"I resign from @bookcritics because racism," Wabuke tweeted. "It is not possible to change these organizations from within, and the backlash will be too dangerous for me to remain." Wabuke did not respond to requests for additional comment by press time.

Wabuke's decision to leak the internal documents effectively split the NBCC board. Not long after, five additional members of the board resigned: Hertzel, Victoria Chang, John McWhorter, Connie Ogle, and Katherine A. Powers. NBCC board members who spoke to PW on conditions of anonymity said that of those five, four, including Hertzel, did so in response to what they saw as Wabuke's violation of NBCC board policy, which prohibits the discussion of internal board matters publicly. Other board members, such as former L.A. Times books editor Carolyn Kellogg and the NBCC's v-p of membership, Richard Z. Santos, publicly supported Wabuke in her decision on Twitter.

Later on Thursday, a working committee comprised of board members at the NBCC released the statement it had drafted, as finalized on June 10, before Romano voiced his disagreement with certain of its premises. The statement released Thursday makes several pledges, including: the establishment of a diversity and inclusion committee, to be headed by a NBCC board member who will be named v-p of diversity and inclusion at the board's next meeting; the establishment of a social justice initiative through that committee, with "the goal of exploring how best to create immediate and ongoing support of people, communities and organizations that are affected by police violence and systemic racism, centering black and brown voices, headed by NBCC board member Ismail Muhammad"; conducting a survey of NBCC members to compile and release membership demographic information and working with Richard Santos to diversity the group's membership; and more.

A change in direction

Since the release of that statement, the situation has only gotten more complex. According to NBCC board members who spoke to PW on condition of anonymity, following the resignations, one of the board members who resigned still had access to the organization's website, and used that access to remove the names of the six board members who had resigned by that point from the site. On Saturday, Hertzel's resignation, which had previously been sent to the board, was sent in an email to NBCC membership via the organization's official newsletter and with NBCC letterhead.

"As members of the NBCC board were trying to work out the wording of a statement in support of Black Lives Matter and against racism, especially in our own realm of publishing, private exchanges were made public on Twitter, which made it impossible to continue with this discussion in good faith," Hertzel wrote. "I can only speak for myself when I say that such a breach of confidence precludes the sort of deliberations that are essential to the NBCC's mission as a critical organization."

Hertzel told PW she did not send her resignation letter to the membership on board stationery but, rather, that someone on the board "someone sent it to the full membership within minutes" of her emailing it to the board. As of time of publication, the NBCC continues to operate without a president.

Asked by PW if she believed Wabuke's decision to make the internal emails public represented a graver threat to the NBCC and its mission than the contents of the leaked emails, Hertzel replied: "This was part of a lengthy ongoing confidential board discussion, conducted by email. It was my job to keep the conversation on track and listen to everyone, even when they said things I disagree with. The leaked emails represented a tiny fraction of the discussion we were having about a very important document, our anti-racist statement, and were published on social media even as that discussion was continuing." She added: "There are individual actors and personal histories at play, which I'm not at liberty to discuss. But finally, this is all so much bigger than those individuals, and we shouldn't let them distract us from ensuring that diverse voices are included and acknowledged in the literary world."

On Sunday, an extraordinary email sent to NBCC membership and signed "the NBCC Board of Directors" briefly outlined the events of the past week and included a copy of the organization's bylaws. (Previously, the bylaws were unavailable to rank-and-file NBCC members, according to members and former members of the NBCC board; only one mention of the bylaws is made on the NBCC's website, on the page explaining to members how to join the board.) Acknowledging that the board had "received many messages from current members asking about the available next steps," the email effectively instructed its membership on how it could remove a sitting board member, presumably referring to Romano.

"In response to specific questions about how to remove a sitting Board Member, please consult Article IV, Section 10. You will see that Regular Members are authorized to call a special meeting and an election to remove a Board Member," the email read. According to the organization's bylaws, the removal of a sitting board member by the board is prohibited, effectively tying the board's hands in circumstances such as these.

In comments to PW, Romano said that "a rump section of the Board, without consulting with the whole Board, has sent out a statement to the membership tonight. I haven't received it despite being an NBCC member as well as a Board member." An NBCC board member said that that email was drafted by Santos, the NBCC's membership director, and sent in the board's name.

The NBCC's next board meeting is scheduled for June 17 at which the board "will discuss our next steps as an organization and will be putting into action the concrete steps outlined in our Anti-Racism Pledge" in addition to settling on a date and time for a virtual open house for members "to discuss issues of tolerance and racial justice," according to the June 14 email. At this point, however, the question is whether any board members will remain to hold that meeting.

An ideological battle

As of Monday morning, at least another seven board members have resigned from the board: Charles Finch, Megan Labrise, and Muhammad all resigned on Sunday, with Muhammad's resignation leaving the proposed social justice initiative without a leader. Kellogg, Jessica Loudis, v-p of tech David Varno (disclosure: Varno is PW's fiction reviews editor), and one further former member, who requested anonymity, all resigned on Monday.

The members were not united in their reasons for resigning, or in making those reasons public. Some, according to NBCC board members, resigned over the sending of Herzel's that email. Others resigned in support of Wabuke, or in opposition to Romano. Still others did not give a reason for their resignation.

"I've remained on [the board] this long and stayed silent in public because I and the other people who have been working with Hope are still trying to execute the plans that we set forth in the statement and we're trying to salvage what we couldbut I don't want to be seen as co-signing Laurie's message," Muhammad told PW following his resignation on Sunday. "I think it's important that people, instead of resigning membership, keep in mind that members are people who vote for the board. I want to encourage people to vote against some of the key points I saw in Carlin's email for sure. I want people on the board who don't think the way Carlin thinks."

In a statement explaining her resignation, Kellogg wrote that Hertzel attempted to "dissolve the board" following Wabuke's tweets, adding that "the board was unable to be transparent about what was happening" over the course of last week, leading outside observers to believe that "the exodus was in support of Hope when it was in opposition to her." (Hertzel disputed Kellogg's characterization, saying she "did suggest that the board be dissolved because I didn't see any way forward," but "Carolyn said no. And that was where the matter was left," adding: "I don't even know how I might attempt to dissolve the board.")

Romano, Kellogg said, "has threatened to sue the organization and shouted down a new board member on a Zoom call. He has refused to resign." (Romano confirmed that he "alerted the Board I might sue it if I'm voted off the Board in violation of our bylaws and commitment to free discussion," but denied shouting down the new board member, saying: "We talked over each other at one point. That happens with almost everyone on the Board at some point.")

Varno, in his statement, said that the NBCC's "system of confidentiality has failed the organization. Let the board speak confidentially about books and debate their varied opinions before working toward a consensus that can be shared publicly. But when it comes to matters of needed systemic change, so that the boardroom of the NBCC might become a more welcoming place for the views of BIPOC, not simply their presence, those discussions must happen out in the open."

In her resignation email, Loudis wrote: "To be clear, I am not doing so because of Carlin's letter, which I strongly disagreed with, but because it is abundantly clear that the NBCC lacks the institutional culture or capability to facilitate civil discourse within respectful boundaries. I do not believe free speech extends to the right to bully and dismiss one's colleagues; nor do I think this kind of behavior should be tolerated."

Romano, responding to the criticism, reiterates that his email on Wednesday night came late because he had "refrained from commenting because I didn't want to distract the drafters from their mission, and felt I was out of step with them on some issues. I also made clear that I had no problem with the statement being sent out over the Board's name, if the Board voted for it, even if I disagreed with some of its assertions."

In response to Wabuke's tweets saying his email exhibited "racism and anti-blackness," Romano asserted: "I'm not racist and I'm not anti-black. Quite the contrary. I just don't check my mind at the door when people used to operating in echo chambers make false claims." He added: "A few Board members in recent years have sought to turn the Board, for decades committed to fair-minded judging of books from every political stripe, into a 'No Free Thought' zone, an ideologically biased tool for their own politics. In my opinion, they oppose true critical discussion. Good riddance to any of them who resignthe NBCC will be healthier without them. I'll attempt to stay on the Board, despite concerted opposition, in the hope that I can help NBCC return to its earlier, better self."

The reckoning at NBCC is part of an industry-wide response to the lack of diversity in the book business that has been brewing for some time, but boiled over earlier this year in a similar manner at the Romance Writers of America and in very public discourse over the publication of Jeanine Cummins's controversial American Dirt. These issues returned to the forefront of book business conversation over the past few weeks, following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the protests that have erupted around the country and world in response to police violence and racial discrimination against black people. Last week, book workers across the business stepped off the job for a day as part of a collective action protesting racism, while an open letter signed by more than 1,800 people criticizing how the Poetry Foundation is run has resulted in the organization's staff and board pledging significant change.

This article has been updated for clarity and with further information.
Three powerful keynotes from internationally recognized entrepreneurs during June 24-26

PHILIPSBURG:--- From June 24-26, 2020 Produce Wealth Revolution Agency (PWR Agency) will be hosting its first virtual summit, Islandpreneur Live 2020. This three (3) day virtual summit is designed to provide inspiration, best practices, and relevant information to empower Caribbean-based entrepreneurs to achieve business success digitally and become more resilient.

Over the past few months, to maintain physical distancing protocols and remain functional, all sectors of society offered virtual and digital services. Many people, not able to go outside due to 24-hour curfews, turned to the digital world to improve skills and supplement pay cuts or minimize the effects of unemployment. Still, there have been challenges with internet connectivity and receiving online payments.

Ideal for start-ups, freelancers, growth businesses, and social innovators, Islandpreneur Live 2020 focuses on how to achieve success digitally, through digital entrepreneurship and addresses some of these challenges. This complimentary regional virtual event offers topics such as leveraging international markets, intellectual property, ideation, pivoting to digital, acceleration, raising capital, systems led leadership, digital payments, and finance will be shared by top-level global experts. These experts represent the following organizations such as the Florida Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association, IP Exchange Caribbean, Innovate Today, CX Pay, Minubia, The Business Connection, Altus, Curacao Tech Meetups, D & I Business Support Services, Antonio Media, Becomeablogger.com, Discover Montserrat, Island Impact, Beyond Capital Markets, Dutch Caribbean Securities Exchange, Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten and Global Entrepreneurship Network.



Attendees gain a better understanding of the mindset required to navigate these challenging times and succeed, adequately utilize best practices used to create products and services, and then accelerate growth, discover possible solutions to overcome associated challenges, and learn from different perspectives on the digital revolution and economic resilience. Unlike many other events, Islandpreneur Live 2020 has three keynotes during June 24-26. These keynote speakers are globally recognized and offer unique insights into creating a resilient future.

Leslie Samuel is one of the keynote speakers. Originally from St. Maarten, Leslie is the man behind Become A Blogger. This company equips people all over the world to change the world by creating authority blogs. Leslie is the head of training for Social Media Examiner, the largest social media resource and publication in the world. A former professor of Anatomy, Leslie has a unique way of breaking down complex concepts into actionable easy to understand steps. Featured in notable publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine and Fast Company, is a regular TV guest on Fox 35, and speaks all over the world on social media and building online success to live a life of impact.

Natasha Chatlein is originally from Curacao and is based in Silicon Valley for the past decade. Armed with a deep network, Natasha has been a Silicon Valley insider since 2007 in a variety of roles, from a software engineer at Microsoft to Innovation Advisor for European companies, investors, and governments. She has organized and/or co-founded several boot camps and missions to Silicon Valley. She founded BrainCoral Labs to leverage her network in bridging Silicon Valley and the Caribbean to raise the innovation and entrepreneurship quotient of the region.

Jeff Hoffman has been part of several well-known successful startups, including Priceline.com/Booking.com and uBid.com to name a few. Jeff is a founding board member of The Unreasonable Group whose startup companies have operations in 185 countries and have raised over $4 billion in funding. He is also a bestselling author, Hollywood film producer, a producer of a Grammy-winning jazz album, and executive producer of an Emmy Award-winning television show. An international award-winning global entrepreneur and proven CEO featured on CNN, Time, and the Wallstreet Journal, Jeff is the Chairman of Global Entrepreneurship Network, which works with entrepreneurs in 180 countries.

Registration for Islandpreneur Live 2020 is required to get a complimentary all-access pass to the event during June 24-26. Organizers are grateful to all speakers and collaborative partners such as the Central Bank of Curacao and Sint Maarten, Optimize Curacao, Kerai Kreative, and TELEM Group of Companies for making this possible.

Entrepreneurs around the world are welcome to register. To do so, go to www.islandpreneur.com. For inquiries, kindly email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or WhatsApp +1-721-523-1842.
The police on Sunday lodged an FIR against eight identified and 150 unidentified people for allegedly being part of a mob that attacked and killed a murder accused and burnt four houses of his relatives in Giridih districts Pipratand village, Jharkhand.

The incident took place on June 13 when a mob of over 150, armed with traditional weapons, attacked the house of Suresh Marandi, reportedly a member of banned left wing extremist (LWE) group CPI-ML and absconding murder accused, and set it to fire.

The mob took hold of Marandi while he was trying to escape. They also burnt three other houses of Marandis relatives who were also accused in the murder case. However, the police managed to rescue seven people.

DSP Neeraj Kumar Singh, who was camping in the village, under Pirtand police station, said, Heavy numbers of police force and CRPF personnel have been deployed in the region. The situation is completely under control now. Ashok Prasad, officer in-charge of Pirtand police station, said, An FIR has been registered in Marandis lynching case. Strict action will be taken.

He added that for the safety of Marandis family, they have been kept at the Bisunpur Panchayat Bhawan. We are keeping a strict vigil on the movement of villagers to prevent any further attack on Marandis relatives residing in the village, Prasad said. Five accused allegedly involved in Kishkus murder have been arrested and sent to jail.

An eerie silence prevailed in village even after 36 hours of the incident even as forces took out flag march in the village on Sunday morning.

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After days of negotiations, EU members are due to finalise the list of some 15 countries, including Australia, Canada, Thailand, Japan and others, whose citizens will be free to enter the bloc starting on July 1

Can I go on holiday to Spain? Will I face quarantine? Have the museums and restaurants re-opened yet?

From Monday, as European Union member states accelerate the reopening of their frontiers, tourists' questions will be answered by an official European Union website.

On "Re-open EU" or reopen.europa.eu, travellers can enter the name of the country they hope to visit and find out what the rules are in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown.

The site is available in 24 languages so far covers only the 27 European Union member states -- there is no information for Britain nor the four non-EU members of the Schengen travel zone.

A resident of France, for example, can consult the site to find out that high speed rail links to Luxembourg are being restored progressively and are at 60 percent of normal.

If he or she wants to go to Austria a face mask is required on the train, and before flying home to France he or she will need to provide a statement of honour that they have no coronavirus symptoms.

The site and an eventual app will be updated as the situation evolves.

Most EU countries reopened their internal borders within the block on Monday, but social distancing rules vary widely across the bloc and some members continue to restrict arrivals from high-risk areas.
A north London shopkeeper who came to the UK for a better life today spoke of his terror after a hammer-wielding thug vandalised his coffee kiosk.

Paramalingam Mathievanan had challenged a man urinating in the street near his kiosk in South Harrow Market when the suspect become threatening and abusive.

Minutes later he returned and smashed the windows of the shop with a hammer, swinging the weapon at Mr Mathievanan before fleeing on a bicycle.

Detectives are appealing for information about the attack on June 6 after footage of the incident was shared widely on social media.

Mr Mathievanan, 43, who fled Sri Lanka 20 years ago to escape the countrys bloody civil war, said he had moved to London to save my life.

But today he told the Standard: "I don't feel safe here anymore.I came to the UK for peace. Nothing like this has ever happened to me."

Recalling what happened after he asked the man not to urinate near his shop, the father-of-three said: "The man said 'I will be back in two minutes with a hammer and smash your window'.

"A customer came along, so I was making a coffee, and then I heard a shout - one window was smashed and then the other as well.

The video footage shows a bald white man in a puffer jacket approach the kiosk and smash the window in front of a terrified customer.

Mr Mathievanan said: "I went outside to confront him and he showed me the hammer. I tried to get my phone to take a picture but he got on a bike and left.

"If he had hit me, I would have died. It was a strong hit when he hit the window."

The incident, which caused 300 of damage, has left Mr Mathievanan shaken. He said: "If somebody makes a banging noise, my heart goes crazy."

But the businessman, who moved to South Harrow in 2005 and opened Coogi Kaap in June last year, said he has been blown away by the support from the local community.

He said: "People have been giving me 5 or 10 to help pay for the repairs - I've got 35 so far, that really helps.

"I'm still at the shop every day, even though the windows are boarded up. I don't want to disappoint my customers.

"I'm looking to buy better glass. It's a small coffee shop, so I was lucky - I was making a coffee at the time, but if I was by the window, it would have gone right in my face when he smashed it."

Scotland Yard said no arrests have been made and an investigation is ongoing.
Katherine Firkin is an Australian journalist now working for CBS in New York. Her first crime novel, Sticks and Stones, is published by Bantam.

The Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island

Enid Blyton

It feels like a cliche for a crime writer to point to The Famous Five series as inspiration, but I couldn't leave it off my list. Like so many before me, I have Enid Blyton to thank for my love of reading, and the adventures of Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy unquestionably ignited my passion for mysteries. As an important side note, I also have this series to thank for my love of ginger beer.

Katherine Firkin had her view of Scandi noir changed by Camilla Lackberg's The Ice Princess. Credit:

The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster

There's probably little I can say about this gem of a book that hasn't already been said, but if there's one childhood story that provided me lessons for life, it's this one. I have the happiest memories of Dad reading this as a bedtime story to my sister and me, and its words pop into my head often: "You'll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort." Have wiser words been written?
Chippewa Nature Center, 400 S. Badour Road in Midland, announced upcoming events for the next two weeks.

Walk Midland takes place at 6 p.m. Wednesdays, June 17 through Aug. 5. Chippewa Nature Center is the Wednesday location for Walk Midland, a City of Midland Parks and Recreation program in partnership with MidMichigan Health, Chippewa Nature Center and Greater Midland Corporate Wellness. Walkers, please bring your own writing utensil for check-in and practice social distancing with those outside your household. Participants will be registered for a grand prize trip for two to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island over Labor Day weekend. Visit cityofmidlandmi.gov/692/Walk-Midland-Program for additional walking locations and times.

Join Camp Director Steve Frisbee for a CNC Story Hour Host for a Facebook Live Story Hour at 11 a.m. Thursday, June 18. He will share a story or two along with backyard, nature-themed ideas for play, crafts and outdoor explorations for children ages 3 to 9. Visit www.facebook.com/cncmidland.

There will be a Facebook Live Turtle Time at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 20. Check in on Facebook anytime during the program to visit CNCs Eastern Box Turtle and learn about other Michigan turtles. If you can't catch it live, check it out later on from CNC's Facebook page.

CNC will host Celebrating the Summer Solstice from 2 to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 20. The Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year. Families can drop in anytime between 2 to 7 p.m. to celebrate the first day of summer along the River Trail with a variety of summer-related, self-guided activities. Please remember to enjoy activities while keeping a 6-foot distance from people outside your household.

Insect Exploration at Sylvan Solace Preserve will take place from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 23. Reserve a spot to explore the fields and woods of Sylvan Solace Preserve in search of insects. Participants will look under logs, underground and on leaves and flowers for bugs, slugs and other creatures. Bug boxes, nets, spoons and field guides will be brought along to aid the investigation. Meet CNC's Victoria Zablocki and Michelle Fournier at Chippewa Watershed Conservancys Sylvan Solace Preserve at 4 W. Pickard Road, Mount Pleasant. Spots are limited so reserve one today by calling 989-772-5777.

Family Yoga: Meadow will take place from 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 30. There's a natural connection between nature and yoga. CNC and Well-Bean are teaming up to provide a program that blends yoga, nature, education, cooperative games, breathing and relaxation. This fun and interactive program is designed to bring families together to nurture relationships and an appreciation of the outdoors. Pre-registration required. These themed classes will be held at the Homestead Farm and distancing with those outside your household will be practiced. Event will be cancelled in case of inclement weather (light drizzle is okay). Families should bring a towel or yoga mat for each family member.

CNC trails are open. CNC has 19 miles of trails open dawn-to-dark open daily for walking. CNC is committed to providing an opportunity for healthy outdoor recreation, solace seeking, restorative time in nature and exploration for all ages during this challenging time. Currently all CNC trails remain open. CNC is asking everyone to maintain a 6-foot distance from people outside your household while enjoying the trails. CNC encourages you to explore Self-Guided Resources at www.chippewanaturecenter.org and www.facebook.com/cncmidland.

 Processed by Victoria Ritter, vritter@mdn.net
Meredosia village board members have put the final phase of a tax increment financing district into place.

The special district was established in 1999 with the hope of seeing 75 houses built.

Because of the closing of plants in the village and other developments, though, the plan fell short and only five houses were constructed.

Board members have approved leaving the final details to Village Attorney Allen Yow.

Mayor David Werries said all the taxing bodies have responded to notices except for John Wood Community College so the distribution of funds from the district can be finalized.

The village will receive $72,000. The Meredosia-Chambersburg School District will receive $50,000 and the Meredosia Fire Department will receive $5,000.

A tax increment financing district, commonly called a TIF District, is one that is designed to spur redevelopment and community-improvement projects.

Village trustees are also proceeding with plans to seek an Illinois Department of Natural Resources Boat Access Development Grant to help replace the south boat ramp. The ramp will cost about $200,000 to replace and the grant will reimburse 100% of developmental projects. The village must stress the pleasure, emergency and commercial uses in the grant application.

Letters of support have been received from the Meredosia Fire Department, Jacksonville/Morgan County Dive Team, Davis Fish Market, Naples Boat Club, state Sen. Steve McClure, state Rep. Noreen Hammond and Congressman Darin LaHood.

Board members also approved a fair housing resolution that is a requirement for eligibility.

In other business, the board members decided there will be no villagewide yard sales this year. Werries said people can organize their own if they choose. The villagewide cleanup has also been postponed.

Board member Eric Taylor said he was concerned that those mowing the cemetery are leaving grass on the headstones. Board member John Petri said he will will speak to employees about it.
Global PC brand Acer on Monday unveiled affordable Acer Veriton N series business PC powered by latest Intel Dual Core/Quad-Core processors paired with 4GB RAM (expandable upto 8GB) at a starting price of Rs 9,999 in India. The new Veriton N series comes with Microsoft Windows 10, better wireless connectivity along with security and manageability features.

"To address the immediate task of keeping the workforce functional with minimum losses in productivity, Acer India launched this product that is enterprise-ready and delivers a more responsive and fast computing experience," Sudhir Goel, Chief of Commercial Business Group, Acer India said in a statement.

The PCs support up to two displays to maximize productivity, and 6 USB ports with at least 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 for high-speed data transfer and best-in-class connectivity.
ALBANY, New York, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The presence of a growth-oriented construction industry is conducive to the growth of the global 3D printing sector. Use of 3D printing in the construction industry has helped in expediting the processes of on-site construction, whilst offering several cost benefits to project owners and managers. The rate of urbanization in the current times has supplanted all previous marks, creating new inlets for growth and expansion within the global 3D printing in construction market. The construction industry receives voluminous investments from leading entities such as governments, angel investors, and stakeholders. This factor has helped in the adoption of 3D printing technologies that would otherwise have been unaffordable for the constructions sector. Considering the factors mentioned above, the global 3D printing in construction market is slated to clock in humongous revenues over the times to follow.

It is projected that the global 3D printing in construction market would reach a value of US$ 280 Mn by 2027, rising up from a value of US$ 29 Mn in 2019. The CAGR of this market is calculated at a whopping 33% for the forecast period between 2019 and 2027. A large share of the global 3D printing in construction market is held by the commercial and industrial sectors. The residential sector still relies on the use of manual labour across construction sites.

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Need for Meeting Project Timelines

Several construction projects approved by the government come with a set timeline. The government provides funds based on the seriousness of the project managers to follow the right timeline for the project. Use of manual labour to manoeuvre construction projects could result in unanticipated delays. Therefore, the construction industry has become inclined towards the use of 3D printing technologies. The precision and accuracy offered by 3D printing technologies has played a crucial role in market expansion.

Several construction projects have been approved across the developed and developing countries. Several of these projects function in real-time where the project managers keep a close check on the construction activities. Use of 3D printing technology helps in achieving the aforementioned feat by offering key insights to the managers. The quest of the developed countries to renovate old buildings or reconstruct them after demolition has also played a crucial role in popularising 3D printing in construction. The time taken to accomplish a large construction project through 3D printing is much lesser than the time taken when manual labour is deployed. It is important to acknowledge the worth of 3D printing technologies when multiple projects run across an area with limited resources.

Gather core insights about the growth of the 3D Printing in Construction Market (Printing Method: Extrusion, Powder Bonding, and Others; Material Type: Concrete, Metal, Composite, Plastic, and Others; Printing Type: Full Building and Modular Components of Building; and End User: Buildings [Residential and Commercial & Industrial] and Infrastructure) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2019 - 2027 at: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/3d-printing-construction-market.html

Global 3D Printing in Construction Market: Growth Drivers

The cost benefits served by 3D printing technologies have captivated the attention of construction companies.

Unavailability of enough manual labour to expedite large construction projects has shifted focus towards other technologies such as 3D printing.

The precision and accuracy of 3D printing technology offers greater safety and resilience to the structures.

Several organizations for construction review have recommended the use of 3D printing technology for state-sponsored construction projects.

Analyze mechanical mine clearance system 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 3D Printing in Construction Market: Key Companies

Contour Crafting Corporation

COBOD International A/S

CyBe Construction

Yingchuang Building Technique ( Shanghai ) Co. Ltd. (WinSun)

) Co. Ltd. (WinSun) MUDBOTS 3D CONCRETE PRINTING

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Global 3D Printing in Construction Market: Segmentation

3D Printing in Construction Market, by Printing Method

Extrusion

Powder Bonding

Others

3D Printing in Construction Market, by Material Type

Concrete

Metal

Composite

Plastic

Others

3D Printing in Construction Market, Printing Type

Full Building

Modular Components of Building

3D Printing in Construction Market, by End User

Buildings (Residential and Commercial & Industrial)

Infrastructure

3D Printing in Construction Market, by Region

North America

U.S.



Canada



Rest of North America

Europe

U.K.



Italy



France



Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific (APAC)

Japan



China



India



Rest of APAC

Middle East & Africa (MEA)

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 Electronics & Semiconductors Industry :

SAP Digital Services Ecosystem Market  The global SAP digital services ecosystem market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 7.9% during the forecast period. According to the report, the global market would continue to be influenced by a range of macroeconomic and market-specific factors, such as increasing complexity of customer, sales and other operational data of SMEs as well as large enterprises.

Photonic Integrated Circuits (PIC) Market  The global photonic integrated circuits market is expected to reach a value of ~ US$ 3.3 Bn by 2027, expanding at a CAGR of ~ 23% from 2019 to 2027. According to the report, the global PIC market would continue to be influenced by a range of macroeconomic and market-specific factors during the forecast period.

Oil Condition Monitoring Services Market  The global oil condition monitoring services market is witnessing significant advancements and innovations. Due to this, the market is expected to expand at a significant rate during the forecast period. The growing importance of extending the operational life of critical assets is another factor boosting the global oil condition monitoring services market. Oil condition monitoring services are employed in various applications such as engines, turbines, and hydraulic systems

Semiconductor Wafer Cleaning Equipment Market  The global market for semiconductor wafer cleaning equipment is projected to rise at a 7.7% CAGR from 2019 to 2027. In 2019, rising from a valuation of US$ 5.11 bn, the market is likely to be of worth US$ 7.28 bn by the end of 2027." Based on equipment, the market was led by the rotary wafer etching systems segment in 2018 owing to the rising use of wafer cleaning and processing devices in the production of several smart gadgets.

Gain access to Market Ngage , an AI-powered, real-time business intelligence that goes beyond the archaic research solutions to solve the complex strategy challenges that organizations face today. With over 15,000+ global and country-wise reports across 50,000+ application areas, Market Ngage is your tool for research on-the-go. From tracking new investment avenues to keeping a track of your competitor's moves, Market Ngage provides you with all the essential information to up your strategic game. Power your business with Market Ngage's actionable insights and remove the guesswork in making colossal decisions.

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Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez heard the words ring out during chaotic scenes in London on Saturday, when mostly peaceful anti-racist demonstrations turned into violent scuffles with counter-protesters in the area.

Then he saw the man who had uttered them - a black protester emerging from the melee carrying an injured white man in a 'fireman's lift' over his shoulder.

The picture he took has gone viral on social media and featured in news bulletins, capturing a moment of high drama that jars with the broader narrative - of anti-racist and far-right protesters fighting each other.

"I saw a skirmish and someone falling to the ground," Martinez recalled of the moment near Waterloo Bridge, in central London, as he covered anti-racism protests that have flared up in the city.

The two men then appeared through the crowd.

"The crowd parted right in front of me. I was in the right place at right time, and incredibly lucky from that point of view. He came towards me walking briskly."

Martinez said the man being carried had injuries to his face, and Reuters journalists at the scene said he had been beaten in a skirmish with anti-racism protesters.

Some people in the crowd shouted out that the assault victim was a member of the far-right.

Reuters was not able to identify the victim or his political leanings. Police said they were aware of the incident and the photograph, but made no further comment when Reuters asked for details of the men's identity and what happened.

Protests have erupted across British cities and around the world after a black man, George Floyd, died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

In some cases they have sparked counter-demonstrations by people who do not agree with all of their aims and methods, and these have included people from far-right groups.

British media identified the black man as Patrick Hutchinson, a personal trainer. On his social media account, he wrote: "We saved a life today".

Reuters spoke to the partner of Hutchinson's best friend, who confirmed it was him. Hutchinson did not reply to calls to his mobile phone.

He told British Channel 4 News on Sunday it was a "scary" scene. "It was pretty hectic, it was almost like a stampede.

"...The guys went in there, they sort of put a little cordon around him to stop him receiving any more physical harm. His life was under threat.

"So I just went under, scooped him up and put him on my shoulders and sort of started marching towards the police with him whilst all the guys were surrounding me and protecting me and the guy I had on my shoulder."

In a statement on Sunday police said 113 people had been arrested over the weekend and 23 officers were injured in the violence, none of them seriously.

The reaction on social media to the picture and events it portrayed has been largely positive.

"Amid all the ugliness, a beautiful moment of humanity," wrote British journalist Piers Morgan in a Tweet accompanying the photograph.

Martinez, a veteran photographer who is Reuters' picture editor for the United Kingdom and Ireland, said the protests in London on Saturday had been fluid and unpredictable.

After witnessing sporadic, minor clashes between demonstrators and police in Trafalgar Square, Martinez said he switched attention to nearby Waterloo Bridge, where several hundred anti-racism protesters had gathered.

"They took over the whole of the bridge," he said. "There was a traffic jam going from south to north, but the vibe was good - cars were honking and people were celebrating."

The mood quickly turned ugly when they encountered a group of counter-protesters and clashes broke out, Martinez said.
THE LATEST: After decades in the shadows, Joseph DeAngelo confesses he is the Golden State Killer

---

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., the man prosecutors say is the prolific and ruthless Golden State Killer, will reportedly plead guilty to 88 charges in exchange for life in prison Monday, the Sacramento Bee reported.

DeAngelo, 74, is facing the death penalty if convicted in the murders of 13 individuals in five California counties. But sources told The Bee that DeAngelo  barring a change due to his "unpredictable nature"  will plead guilty at a hearing on June 29 in order to receive life in prison instead. If he does so, a sentencing hearing in August will hand down life without the possibility of parole.

The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. and will be available to stream on YouTube (when the streaming video goes live, it will also be added to this page). Prosecutors from each county are expected to read off the 88 charges, and DeAngelo will have to say "guilty" to each one in turn.

He is currently facing over two dozen charges in the Sacramento Superior Court, which means some 60 more charges would be added. The Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist, is suspected in the violent rapes of over 50 women from 1975-86. DeAngelo has already been charged in the murders of Brian and Katie Maggiore, Lyman and Charlene Smith, Keith and Patrice Harrington, Manuela Witthuhn, Janelle Cruz, Claude Snelling, Robert Offerman, Debra Manning, Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez. Investigators believe he is linked to crime scenes around the state, which likely explains the additional charges.

Capital punishment is currently suspended in California due to a 2019 executive order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The order put a moratorium on executions for the duration of Newsom's governorship. In order to fully repeal the death penalty, state voters would have to weigh in. Given DeAngelo's age and the death penalty moratorium, it's highly unlikely he would ever be executed by the state. But the plea bargain would allow for an expedited legal process, something both DeAngelo's public defenders and the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office have previously pushed for. Taking the enormous case to trial would result in one of the state's largest-ever criminal prosecutions.

Death penalty trials are long and arduous. Prosecutors told The Bee they have 150 witnesses, many in their 80s or older, and the trial alone could take 10 weeks, not counting any appeals.

In March, CBS13 reported the Sacramento County public defender's office sent a letter to victims and their families saying they were seeking a way to shorten the process.

"Criminal cases often take many years to resolve by trial," the letter obtained by CBS13 reads. "The trial process is often very stressful for victims and their families. This particular case is exceedingly complex due to the number of charged crimes and the diverse locations of the charged crimes. We would like to reach a resolution of the case that avoids a trial, satisfies all parties and provides a more immediate resolution of the case."

Investigators believe the former California police officer may have raped over 50 women. The crime spree, which spanned Sacramento, Contra Costa, Orange, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties, created panic in the Sacramento area as dozens of women were victimized.

The Golden State Killer was known for creating violating, personal connections to victims, including telling one woman he had seen her at the lake. It's hard to know if the killer really had links to his victims, however. He broke into victims' homes before he attacked, giving him ample access to family photos, letters and other identifying details.

The terror did not end with rape, however. In some cases, the rapist called his victims afterward. One woman, at the request of police, kept her phone number for years in the hopes the attacker would call and reveal identifying information.

Decades after the last case went cold, investigators announced DNA led them to a break in the case. Detectives say they submitted the killer's DNA to an open-source genealogy website called GEDmatch, where it found a match with a relative who also used the service. Detectives were then able to narrow their list of suspects, eventually arresting DeAngelo, who once worked as a police officer in Auburn and Exeter.

DeAngelo has been incarcerated in the Sacramento County Main Jail since his arrest in April 2018.

Katie Dowd is the SFGATE managing editor. Email her: katie.dowd@sfgate.com | Twitter: @katiedowd
LIMERICK councillors are set to sign off on a 1.5m bonanza for communities right across the city. New community centres, parks, road improvements and a Muslim graveyard are set to be given the green light, after metropolitan district councillors decided on a number of key schemes across the city.

Fifteen separate projects are set to take off, with Fine Gael councillor Dan McSweeney praising his fellow members for their commitment and leadership.

Some 200,000 has been allocated to kick off two community centres  one in Patrickswell, the other to serve the areas of Raheen, Dooradoyle and Mungret, with these neighbourhoods crying out for a facility like this for years.

Playgrounds are set for Caherdavin and Corbally, with a community park also planned for Castleconnell.

A total of 150,000 is to be set aside for a major upgrade to the playground in the Peoples Park in the city centre, while 50,000 has been pledged to deliver a Muslim graveyard in the City West constituency.

Cllr McSweeney, who is set to be named deputy metropolitan chairman this morning, has welcomed the provision of a community centre for his home place.

He said: Patrickswell has seen additional housing constructed over the last number of months housing young families and unfortunately no plans for additional facilities have been put in place. The need for a purpose built community centre in Patrickswell will prove transformational for the village and it has a great opportunity to grow over the coming years in relation to attracting tourists passing by.

Elsewhere in the metropolitan district, 100,000 is being put in place for the construction of footpaths around Garryowen green, while the same amount is being spent in Ballynanty for improvements to the public realm.

Safety measures will be put in place around the school in Roxboro, while footpaths will be extended at Milford Grange, Kilbane and Castletroy Heights.

100,000 is in place for improvements to the Baggott Estate.

Councillors will rubber-stamp the proposals this Monday.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 11:26:04|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- A decision on charges against a police officer who shot dead an African American on Friday in Atlanta in U.S. Georgia State could be made by midweek, local media reported Sunday.

"There are several technical requirements that must be met before we are able to reach a decision," Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said in a statement released on Sunday, adding he hopes that he could be able to announce the decision by "midweek."

Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old African American man, was shot dead after local police were dispatched to respond to complaints that he was asleep in the drive-thru of a fast-food restaurant.

Police said they tried to take Brooks into custody after he failed a sobriety test, which led to a struggle between Brooks and the other officers. Police claimed that Brooks, while resisting, grabbed an officer's Taser and ran off with it.

Footage capturing the scene from the restaurant's parking lot showed that Brooks turned around and appeared to point the stun gun at the police officers before being shot.

Howard's statement said that they "are still experiencing some difficulty in obtaining all of the body cam and dash cam footage from the Atlanta Police Department."

Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields stepped down on Saturday after the shooting incident.

The incident came after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, in police custody, has sparked massive protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and across the rest of the nation and various parts of the world. Enditem
A lawsuit over construction of the downtown police headquarters was back in court Monday with lawyers for the city fighting for access to documents seized in a now-closed RCMP investigation.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A lawsuit over construction of the downtown police headquarters was back in court Monday with lawyers for the city fighting for access to documents seized in a now-closed RCMP investigation.

The city alleges Caspian Construction and 26 other business and individual defendants, including former Winnipeg CAO Phil Sheegl, conspired and schemed to inflate the cost of the beleaguered construction project for their own benefit.

A five-year RCMP investigation into the case wrapped up last December with no charges laid.

Caspian and other defendants are opposing the citys motion for access to the documents, arguing many of them are protected by solicitor-client privilege.

"It is up to the city to show why they should be able to forge through and rifle through these solicitor-client privilege documents," Caspian lawyer Jeff Baigre told Queens Bench Justice Glenn Joyal.

City of Winnipeg lawyer Michael Finlayson said its not enough to have "a lawyers name somewhere" to claim privilege, while at the same time giving the city no indication for which specific documents they claim privilege protection is to apply.

"Its totally inappropriate to just throw a smokescreen in everyones face," Finlayson said. "Its ridiculous that they should hijack, stall or impede the motion that the city is making here."

Baigre told Joyal disclosure of the appropriate documents can be made during the course of the regular discovery process.

"The citys actions at this early stage is overwrought," Baigre said. "We will disclose documents that are relevant in accordance with the rules."

Finlayson countered that early disclosure is essential in the case, given the scope and complexity of the allegations.

"Im going to need expert advice on which documents are material and how they are interrelated before I examine anyone on behalf of Caspian and any of the other defendants for discovery," he said. "It is absolutely crucial that we get early discovery and production of the documents."

Joyal reserved his decision.

The city budgeted $135 million to convert the former Canada Post office and mail-sorting plant into its new downtown headquarters. By the time the project was completed, the cost had soared to $214 million.

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The lawsuit alleges the scheme to defraud the city, by filing fraudulent or inflated quotes, was concocted before the request for proposal for the project was even issued.

Other named defendants in the lawsuit include Caspian president Armik Babakhanians, office manager Pamela Anderson, Mountain Construction president Paul LaMontagne and Ottawa-based GRC Architects.

Last week, Joyal agreed to sever proceedings against Sheegl, after his lawyer argued the allegations involving Sheegl are separate from the allegations that form the substance of the citys lawsuit.

The severance decision means that the case against Sheegl will be heard separately from the other 26 defendants.

Lawyer Robert Tapper argued any involvement Sheegl had with the project ended when he signed Caspian to the contract.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca
Kochi, June 15 : Even though the hustle and bustle and camaraderie one associates with movie-making was missing, the shooting of Malayalam film 'Tsunami' resumed here on Monday amid strict adherence to health protocol amid the coronavirus crisis.

According to the new health guidelines to be observed during film shoots, only indoor shooting is permitted but the total number of unit hands should not exceed 50. Wearing of masks by all is a must.

The shooting of the movie helmed by popular father-son duo of Lal and Lal (Jr) began in February 2020 but was interrupted by the nationwide lockdown in March.

The movie is directed by Lal (Jr), while his father -- a veteran actor, producer, and director -- is handling the script. Lead actor Aju Varghese, Innocent, Balu Varghese, and Mukesh are among the movie's cast.

"We thought to wait a little more to resume shooting, but were forced to start again due to certain reasons. We are following the government's Covid protocols. Though 50 people are allowed for indoor shooting, we have lesser numbers. We never ever thought that film shootings would be like this some day," Lal said.

Varghese admitted to fear about coronavirus among unit people, but maintained that life has to go on.

"Yes, we are worried, but we have to now live with it. Till we come before the camera, we are using masks. Things are tough, but now all will have to get used to this also," said Varghese.

The director appeared in a pragmatic mood and said there were lots of limitations to work with masks. "But the beauty of it all is that we have all got back to work," he remarked.
Myanmar & COVID-19 In Myanmar, Concerns Mount Over COVID-19 Cases Among Illegal Returnees From Bangladesh

A Myanmar Border Guard policeman stands sentry at a fence on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border in northern Rakhine State. / The Irrawaddy

The detection of six COVID-19 cases among people returning illegally to Myanmars Rakhine State from coronavirus-hit Coxs Bazar in neighboring Bangladesh has raised concerns that the deadly virus could spread unchecked if there are unreported cases among undocumented returnees.

As of Monday morning, Myanmars coronavirus tally stood at 262 cases with six deaths since the first positive patient was reported in late March.

Five of the six COVID-19 patientsfour Rohingya and one Hinduare returnees from Coxs Bazar, which had 1,301 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of June 13. Only the latest patient, a Rohingya whose positive status was reported on Monday, was not from the camps. The cases were reported in the border townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw in Myanmars Rakhine State, which borders Bangladesh, over a 12-day period from June 4-15.

All six patients are now being treated at local hospitals, and are in stable condition, according to a government statement.

Looking beyond the detection of positive cases among returnees, however, a grim possibility emerges.

According to local lawmakers, health officials, district administrators and residents, those who have recently returned from Bangladesh did not undergo mandatory health checks and quarantines, as official repatriation centers on the Myanmar side have been closed since the countrys first COVID-19 case was reported in late March.

More than 700,000 Rohingya people and some Hindus fled to neighboring Bangladesh in late 2017 during the Myanmar militarys clearance operations in the area following attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) on government security outposts in northern Rakhine. Those who fled took shelter in sprawling refugee camps in Coxs Bazar.

In 2018, the Myanmar government, in accordance with an agreement reached with the Bangladeshi government on the repatriation of Rohingya, opened two reception centersone in Taungpyo Letwei for those returning over the land border, and one in Nga Khura for those returning by boat. However, following the arrival of the coronavirus in the country in March, Myanmar closed its border entry checkpoints and suspended the repatriation process, so any border crossings since then have been illegal.

Despite the border closure, more than 80 people illegally entered Maungdaw from refugee camps in Coxs Bazar from late March to June 5, according to Maungdaw District Administrative Official U Soe Aung.

Adding to the concerns of the government and local people, the returnees went straight back to their villages, and were not quarantined or tested for the coronavirus until other neighbors or village heads noticed their arrival and informed health authorities. By that time, they had already spent at least one or two days in their homes, raising concerns that those who later tested positive had spread the deadly virus.

The potential consequences are even more severe in cases where the arrival of returnees has gone unnoticed or unreported.

The seriousness of the situation became more apparent when the Myanmar governments top committee tasked with controlling the spread of the disease warned on May 10 that there have been cases where people have entered at border crossings that do not have official reception centers. It said this not only hampered efforts to prevent, control and treat COVID-19, but actually contributed to the spread of the disease.

If anyone enters Myanmar through any unauthorized entry point from a foreign country, and if such person has been accepted with the knowledge that such person has entered the country illegally, it is hereby notified that legal action would be taken in accordance with prevailing laws, reads a statement issued by the COVID-19 Prevention, Control and Treatment Committee.

The warning was echoed by the countrys State Counselor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who said in an announcement on her Facebook on Saturday that, those who come into the country illegally, those who receive them knowingly, and those who cover up will be dealt with strictly and severely according to the law.

Local concerns

Maungdaw District Administrative Official U Soe Aung told The Irrawaddy that all of the more than 80 people who entered Myanmar from Bangladesh between late March and June 5 were quarantined. He said, however, that it was not possible to perform swab tests on all of them, so only those who showed COVID-19 symptoms were tested. All tested negative.

However, according to the administrator, since May 31 swab tests have been conducted on everyone at quarantine centers. Among these, a Rohingya man tested positive on June 4. By that time some returnees had gone home after completing their 21-day quarantines. Over the next two weeks through June 15, five more cases were reported among returnees.

According to Dr. Soe Win Paing, the deputy director of the Rakhine State Public Health Department, the five cases from June 4 to June 11 had a total of 142 close contacts, all of whom tested negative.

For the latest case on Monday [June 15], 19 contacts so far have been detected, and they are now quarantined, he told The Irrawaddy on the same day.

However, the detection of coronavirus-positive patients in Maungdaw and Buthidaung has locals worried, with some even calling for full lockdowns, because those who tested positive for COVID-19 crossed the border on their own and initially stayed with relatives before being sent to quarantine.

We are seriously concerned for our towns, as Maungdaw and Buthidaung are very close, and now we have the first COVID-19 case in Buthidaung, said U Oung Thaung Shwe, the Lower House lawmaker for Buthidaung Township.

The government needed to step in and strictly control the situation, he told The Irrawaddy on Friday, adding that the authorities should have placed a lockdown order on Maungdaw when the first case was reported last week. Preventative measures should be introduced at the earliest.

The lawmaker stressed that the COVID-19 patient in Buthidaung is among eight quarantined, but there could be dozens of others in the community whose arrival has not been reported to health officials.

U Kyaw Thet Naing, a secretary of the Maungdaw Township Karuna social organization, said residents were alarmed by the jump in the number of positive cases last week.

Some of those who tested positive traveled to various villages before being placed under quarantine. If it becomes widespread, not only one race, but the whole population of the township is in danger, he said.

As a local who frequently visits Muslim communities in Maungdaw, U Tun Myint Oo said public awareness about COVID-19 was lacking in Muslim villages, where many people appeared to be unaware of how dangerous the disease is. He discovered that some Rohingya believed they had been forced into quarantine because they couldnt pay money to the authorities.

Its a misconception stemming from the fact that they are so used to paying money to the authorities to ensure their survival. Thats why the Muslims should be provided with health education through their respective elders or religious leaders, he said.

However, U Mahmud, a resident of Italian Rohingya village in Maungdaw, told The Irrawaddy that information related to COVID-19, such as the importance of frequent handwashing, and the highly infectious nature of the disease, are announced over loudspeakers in his village in three languages: Rakhine, Burmese and Chittagonian, a language spoken by many Rohingya.

When health officials came to issue announcements, villagers who understand Burmese translated it into our language, he said.

According to the Maungdaw District Administrative Office, local authorities began provided information on the virus and promoting health awareness in late March, on the orders of the governments central COVID-19 committee.

We have urged residents to follow the public health advice, as the disease can infect anyone, regardless of race or religion, said administrator U Soe Aung.

Harsher punishments

As Maungdaws 271-kilometer-long border with Bangladesh is marked by waterways as well as land boundaries, deterring illegal entry poses a challenge for authorities.

Many creeks and streams in the area lack any kind of security presence, and are easily crossed. Barbed wire is not always a sufficient deterrent, and in many places the boundary can be easily crossed on foot.

Even where there are border fences, returnees enter by either destroying or climbing over the fences, said U Soe Aung.

The administrator expressed hope that the recent warnings by the governments National-Level Central Committee for Prevention, Control and Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 2019, which threaten legal action against those who undertake or assist illegal border crossings, would act as a deterrent. The announcement outlaws returning via any unauthorized entry point from a foreign country, and also punishes anyone who welcomes returnees knowing that they entered the country illegally.

In the past, such action was just aimed at returnees. Now with the inclusion of anyone who accepts them, it is more forceful, he explained.

Asked about legal action against illegal returnees, U Soe Aung said the cases would likely be filed at the court soon, following the governments official warning.

He said the returnees will likely be charged under the countrys Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases Law or the Natural Disaster Management Law, or other laws prohibiting acts affecting public health, such as negligent or malignant acts likely to spread infectious diseases endangering life, as proscribed in articles 269 and 270 of the Penal Code.

A district-level directive was made public in early April, making it mandatory for anyone who returns from abroad to report to local authorities and health officials. We clearly announced that violators would be charged under those laws.

If found guilty, violators face imprisonment for one month to two years, depending on which law they are charged under.

Meanwhile, in Shwe Zar, a Rohingya village in Maungdaw, the fear is palpable after two people who returned from camps tested positive for COVID-19 last Wednesday.

One of the villagers, Raju, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that all of the patients contacts had been sent to Hla Phoe Khaung quarantine center. The local health department has disinfected the whole village twice, on Friday and Sunday.

We are concerned. We hope those who tested positive will get well after being treated, he said.

You may also like these stories:

India Has Low COVID-19 Death Rate But Concerns Rise About Migrants on the Move

Illegal Entry to Myanmar Amid COVID-19 Will Lead to Legal Action: State Counselor Warns

COVID-19 Under Control If Myanmar Keeps Current Measures: Health Minister
A school in Melbourne's south-east has been closed after two children tested positive to coronavirus.

Staff and pupils at Pakenham Springs Primary School were told to stay home on Monday while the school is extensively cleaned and contact tracing is undertaken.

A primary school in Melbourne's south-east has been shut down after two children returned positive coronavirus tests. Credit:Glen McCurtayne

In an email sent to parents, seen by Nine News, acting principal Renee Cotterell confirmed the two infected children were from the same family and that the school was working with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

"I understand this news may be concerning," Ms Cotterell wrote. "I want to assure you we are strictly following the public health advice of DHHS to ensure the safety of all staff and students."
French police officers staged a rally near the Eiffel Tower last night to bemoan a lack of support from the government after ministers banned the use of chokeholds and vowed to stamp out racism in the police.

France has seen a wave of protests against racism and police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis - reviving anger over the death of Adama Traore, a 24-year-old black man who died in French police custody in 2016.

But police say they are being unfairly labelled as racist because of a few extremist officers, saying they are under-equipped to deal with violent suspects.

Last night President Emmanuel Macron vowed to be 'uncompromising' about racism but said the police 'deserve public support' - and announced that statues of controversial public figures would not be taken down.

Meanwhile, Macron's far-right rival Marine Le Pen said this morning that 'I do not believe there is racial discrimination in our country'.

Police officers wearing masks stage a rally near the Eiffel Tower last night to protest against reforms including a ban on the chokehold arrest

President Emmanuel Macron addressed the nation last night (pictured) and said controversial statues would not be taken down

An anti-racism rally in Paris attracted nearly 15,000 people on Saturday as the Floyd protests turn their attention to France's own tensions between police and minorities.

Human Rights Watch has accused French police of carrying out 'abusive and discriminatory' checks on black and Arab men.

Saturday's march was led by Assa Traore, the sister of Adama Traore who died in custody in 2016 in circumstances that remain under investigation.

'We are are all demanding the same thing - fair justice for everyone,' Assa Traore told the crowd.

Police said 21 people were arrested after Saturday's rally ended in violent clashes.

The government has responded to the protests by banning the use of chokeholds and vowing to stamp out racism among police.

In addition, investigations were recently opened into racist comments in private Facebook and WhatsApp groups.

But those steps have now angered police unions, who say the allegations of white supremacy are unjustified.

Police officers gather in front of the Eiffel Tower last night to bemoan a lack of support from the French government

Assa Traore, the sister of Adama Traore who died in French police custody in 2016, raises her arm at a protest in Paris on Saturday

Protesters in the Place de la Republique on Saturday in a demonstration which ended in clashes and arrests

Marine Le Pen denies racial discrimination exists in France French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has claimed there is no racial discrimination in France. 'I do not believe that there is racial discrimination in our country,' she told radio network RTL this morning. Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally, accused the government of using an 'ethnic, racial lens to consider discrimination, and not a social lens'. She also accused politicians of proposing 'a deadly vision for the Republic, because it is anti-republican'. The 51-year-old was the runner-up in the 2017 presidential election, beating the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties to reach the second round but losing heavily to Macron. She is expected to run again in 2022, setting up a possible rematch with Mcaron. Advertisement

The police protest near the Eiffel Tower last night drew criticism from Assa Traore, who said she was 'ashamed of the French police'.

'In the whole world, the only country where police officers demonstrate to keep their permission to kill is France,' she said.

Several hundred police staged a second night of demonstrations in Paris after Macron's address.

'We are not at all reassured by the speech tonight, on the contrary,' an officer demonstrating near the Eiffel Tower said.

The previous night, several dozen police officers parked their police cars by the Arc de Triomphe and flashed their lights.

In his speech to the nation on Sunday, Macron acknowledged that someone's 'address, name, color of skin' can reduce their chances of succeeding in France.

'We will be uncompromising against racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination. New decisions for equality will be taken,' he said.

'It is necessary to unite around Republican patriotism. We are a nation where everyone - whatever their origin and religion - can find their place.

'Is this true everywhere and for everyone? No,' he admitted.

However, Macron defended the under-fire police and said they 'deserve public support and the recognition of the nation for their work'.

'Without Republican order, there cannot be security or freedom,' he said.

Macron's far-right rival Marine Le Pen (pictured) said this morning that 'I do not believe there is racial discrimination in our country'

The president also rejected calls to take down statues after a series of controversial monuments were toppled on both sides of the Atlantic.

'The Republic will not wipe away any trace or any name from its history. It will not forget any of its works,' Macron said.

'It will not take down any of its statues but lucidly look at our history and our memory together.'

He said this was especially important in Africa, where French colonial rule in several countries left a legacy that remains a subject of anger to this day.

Together, France and Africa need to find a 'present and a future that is possible on both sides of the Mediterranean', he said.

Meanwhile far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who was thrashed by Macron in the second round of the 2017 presidential election, has rejected claims of racism altogether.

Speaking to RTL this morning, she said: 'I do not believe that there is racial discrimination in our country.'
All that is solid melts into the air ...

The coronavirus pandemic appears to be causing mayhem to the capitalist system, which has shown signs of crumbling for a couple of decades at least. Perhaps this is the last straw? Its certainly proving to be the case in the US, where this final straw is compounded by the protests of another rancid act of police brutality in the form of extrajudicial murder of George Floyd.

However, the lack of solidarity with the Black community by Trump is not the only sign of his racism recently. The lack of action by the abominable US President to the pandemic is also a racist act. The majority of the poor in the US  the Black and Hispanic communities  are more susceptible to the coronavirus than those slightly (and a lot) wealthier, and yet, Trump chooses to ignore it.

I wonder if hes ignoring the backlash? Obviously not, having brought the National Guard in quickly. How much longer do the governments representing capitalist ideologies around the world think they can continue to govern people who are being deprived of a living wage? Working people are finding that the system of deliberately high unemployment is forcing them to either accept lower wages or face the sack because there will always be someone wanting to replace them.

This is how capitalism works: in order to compete with other companies, costs must constantly be reduced, and no matter how much workers produce value for the bosses, they are expected to do so on constantly reduced wages.

Suddenly, with this pandemic, the rigid economic ideologies etched into the capitalist system have had to be reassessed. After years of tightening our belts, and our government cutting funds to essential services in order to bring in a budget surplus, our Australian Prime Minister has seen the need for massive stimulus packages  from $17.6 billion, through $66 billion to $130 billion. Welfare recipients received a lump sum $750 from the first package, then small businesses got cash payments up to $100,000.

But the biggest surprise was the doubling of the JobSeeker (previously Newstart) payment. How do we interpret this? Previously, $279.50 per week was easily justified for the dole bludgers, but was inconceivable for all those middle-class workers whose jobs succumbed to the COVID-related shutdowns! The PM will find it politically impossible to reduce JobSeeker/Newstart back to $279.50 in the event of defeating the virus. The economy will need to be stimulated to bring about a recovery.

Has Scott Morrison realised (unlike Donald Trump) that there can only be a minimum amount of time a government can expect to keep its citizens in poverty before something gives? Is Morrisons Coalition government restoring the welfare state? Takes me back to WW2 when John Curtins Labor government spent huge amounts to boost production for the war effort, which ended unemployment, and then post-war continued to spend for reconstruction, providing people most of the welfare state seen today. That governmental over-spending produced a vibrant society which lasted until the neoliberal putsch of the 80s.

We now see that all the government spiel about bad budget deficits contributing to government debt meant cutting funding to essential services, (such as building new hospitals and schools, etc.) was pie in the sky. Artificial caps have also been kept on all kinds of essential public spending, such as housing, social security, and infrastructure. Public housing stocks have been sold off, and public assets sold. And who suffers the consequences? The poor, the homeless and vulnerable. We should be ashamed of the high number of homeless in this rich country! But we now realise that governments can borrow as much as they need. Whereas what our governments dereliction of its duty to its people has led to is private debt at more than 200 per cent of Australias GDP (an increase of eighty-five per cent since the 90s, putting Australians amongst the twenty highest in the world), while in actual fact government debt here has never reached even half of GDP.

Australian treasurers have been telling us how well Australia has weathered the 2008 financial crisis, which caused severe hardship globally. But now we have been hit with a double-whammy  devastating fires in the Eastern States and the pandemic. Alone, one of the two would have been damaging to the Australian economy, but following on so quickly, have dealt a death blow to the system of capital in the country. Its tempting to blame the capitalist system for all the above: the blind greed of the banks in 2007-8; the constant denial of climate change and its effects by our fossil-fuel loving government, and the inevitability of a deadly virus emerging from the industrial type of farming which capitalism and its industrialisation of agriculture create.

We are living in a new global economy, very different from the post-WW2 benign welfare state, and this is leading to a painful restructuring in which the working class is experiencing widespread insecurity. Hence the increasing distrust world-wide with the electorates flailing around looking for experts  even messiahs  to lead it out of this mess. Progressively, we are realising that all these so-called experts have no idea what theyre doing. The ruling elite are incapable of leading us: most of the common people have more sense in their little finger than the current leaders of the Western world, because the common people try to live their lives for the betterment of each other, not for what theyre putting in their own pockets.

Although I digress here, the prime example of complete non-sense was how the IMF dealt with the Greek crisis, by putting pressure on Greece to repay its debt whilst simultaneously ruining its economy with impossible austerity measures. A great example of shooting oneself in the foot as what they ensured was that Greeces debt would never be repaid.

This brings me to wonder what Australians can expect post-pandemic with the current leaders in Canberra. We have obviously reached the stage of late capitalisms death throes, but what is there to take its place? Will the coronavirus pandemic prove lethal to this governments neoliberal ideology? It certainly has cut a vicious swathe through it. No doubt the ALP are breathing a sigh of relief they lost the election.

It would be a fantasy to believe that the humane measures adopted by Scott Morrison to save lives, such as housing the homeless and actually allowing people enough money to live on, will remain his priority once this pandemic has passed. Morrison has been quoted as saying Business as usual when it comes to the policy frameworks that we had prior to the election and will be doing everything necessary to get the economy back on track.

We are already hearing rumblings from Frydenberg of a recession. Soon well be hearing how there is no money to support the poorest amongst us. No doubt phrases like pulling in our belts, living within our means, etc. will come to pass. This government will be keen to re-introduce some of the most extreme pro-business measures into legislation, especially the Ensuring Integrity Bill. We can be sure that the working class will be expected to pay for this, and we need to be prepared to fight every inch of the way. ACTU please note!

Class division will remain and the gap of inequality grow ever wider, while Dutton brings in ever more odious bills under the pretence of security in order to prevent any dissent. Morrisons dramatic return to a welfare state in order to cushion the economic effects of COVID-19 will disappear in a puff of smoke. Already were hearing his PR rhetoric with regard to JobMaker. He plans to get everyone back in the room. To bring people together. I seem to remember Hawke saying something similar in the 80s in order to get the trade unions to co-operate with the government to survive the severe capitalist-driven economic crisis then. The present government does not have Hawkes charisma or subtlety. It will continue its blatant attacks on unions and slashing of corporate taxes while cutting funding to essential services.

If weve learnt anything from history it is not to repeat it. Post-COVID-19 we face high unemployment and increased insecurity and this government will press ahead with its employer-friendly, neoliberal ideas to divide and force the workforce to compete for jobs. Using the excuse of the huge debt it inherited in order to bail out and save the country from the pandemic and economy, it will continue to flout its responsibilities and further neglect its duty to build the infrastructure necessary for Australias future. Our liberty and future prosperity are in peril if we continue to place our faith in an ideology that has proved unable to respond to the carnivalised merry-go-round of global capitalism.

It will be mesmerising to observe the effects of COVID-19 on what have been the previously rigid economic ideologies of our government. So long as were not mesmerised into thinking that our present leaders have our well-being at the forefront of their recovery plans. Now is the time for our trade unions to gird their loins.
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UB announces plans for fall semester

This decision will preserve our mission as a place-based, public research institution, while providing us needed flexibility to continue caring for our campus community and providing the best possible educational experience for our students. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  The University at Buffalo is planning to return to campus this fall, offering educational and research programs under a modified in-person format.

The plan, which centers on a mix of in-person instruction and online courses, will allow UB to deliver an excellent and impactful university experience while protecting the health and safety of the campus community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

UB is the largest institution in the State University of New York system and one of only two SUNY schools to be a member of the Association of American Universities, composed of the nations leading research universities.

UBs plans for the fall were announced today in a university-wide email from UB President Satish K. Tripathi and UB Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs A. Scott Weber.

This decision will preserve our mission as a place-based, public research institution, while providing us needed flexibility to continue caring for our campus community and providing the best possible educational experience for our students, Tripathi and Weber wrote.

All determinations about the fall semester and a phased return of employees will align with Governor Andrew M. Cuomos guidelines for reopening the state, including Western New Yorks progress pursuant to the states four-phased regional benchmarks.

UB leaders will provide additional details to students, faculty, staff and members of the community as plans for the fall semester are finalized and health guidelines and protocols are implemented in response to the pandemic.

Several university committees formed by Tripathi and composed of over 180 faculty, staff, students and senior administrators are continually monitoring the situation to determine how the university will continue to deliver excellent educational and research programs while protecting the health and safety of the campus community.

The following are additional details of the plan:
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington on May 4, 2020. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

US Supreme Court Declines to Hear Gun Rights Cases

WASHINGTONThe U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 declined to take up a series of new cases seeking to expand gun rights.

The court rejected a total of 10 different cases that had piled up at the court in recent months. Two justices, conservatives Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, said they would have heard one of the cases, a dispute from New Jersey over that states concealed carry gun permits.

In the New Jersey case, the justices left in place a lower court ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging the states law mandating that people who want to carry handguns in public must show they have a special reason before they can get a permit.

Thousands of gun rights advocates attend a rally organized by The Virginia Citizens Defense League on Capitol Square near the state capital building in Richmond, Va., on Jan. 20, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Other cases the court declined to take up included challenges to assault weapon bans in Massachusetts and Cook County, Illinois, a jurisdiction that includes Chicago. The court also turned down cases similar to the New Jersey dispute from Massachusetts and Maryland.

Gun rights activists take part in a rally in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 20, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The high courts action comes on the heels of its April 27 decision to dismiss a National Rifle Association-backed challenge to now-repealed New York City restrictions on handgun owners transporting their firearms outside the home.

The move sidestepped a major ruling over the scope of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The New York case was the first gun rights dispute the court had heard in almost a decade, with gun control activists fearful the court will further expand the right to bear arms.

The decision by the justices not to take up any of the 10 other cases shows that the court, which has a 5-4 conservative majority, remains hesitant about wading into gun rights issues.

By Lawrence Hurley & Andrew Chung
T he Government today came under renewed pressure to give tourists confidence to come to London for shopping, as non-essential stores began reopening across Britain.

As PM Boris Johnson urged shoppers to hit the High Street to restart the economy, leading figures said tempting big-spending overseas shoppers back to the capital would be crucial.

Michael Ward, managing director of Harrods, told the Standard: For most retailers, the storm is far from over, despite the positive steps we are beginning to take. It is vital for so many industries that international visitors are able to travel into London.

Retail businesses have adapted quickly and introduced vast new measures to protect people, but our economy thrives on the support of those who travel here to live, work and invest. The Government must ensure that the capital remains accessible and attractive to international visitors.

The Knightsbridge department store, a magnet for wealthy tourists, reopened today after its first closure in 170 years with a one-way system in place.

Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of the New West End Company representing 600 businesses in central London, called for a swift relaxation on the Governments 14-day self-isolation rule for international travellers. He said: Were not expecting tourists in London straight away but visitors from some of our biggest markets  the US, Middle East and China  book months in advance so were talking about tourism for next year. If they see a quarantine, they wont book.

Fortnum & Mason boss Ewan Venters is less concerned about the short term picture. He said the absence of overseas shoppers was "not necessarily a problem if the country is going to be encouraged to do more staycationing. I believe one of the key messages that needs to be getting out is that this is a perfect time to support your country and the economy by spending money in the UK. The department store re-opened its non-food stores today.

Non-essential stores could reopen today for the first time since March 20. Tyrrell expected West End footfall was to be low  despite long queues outside budget fashion chain Primark and crowd at NikeTown on Oxford Street this morning  and most retailers were hoping for a calm reopening to test distancing policies. It will feel more like a leisurely Sunday afternoon rather than the West End were used to, he said.

On Bond Street, shoppers were given sanitising packs on entering while some jewellers were using ultraviolet boxes that can decontaminate items.

Retailers expect pent-up demand to spur an early sales surge this week but trading levels in autumn and leading up to the crucial Christmas period will be key to gauging consumer spending.

HMV owner Doug Putman told the BBC: If sales are down 10, 20, 50% what do retailers do because if you have the same cost structure but sales are down even 20% it makes some businesses unviable. We are being very hesitant, it is going to be a tough year.


Photo credit: Genevieve Hudson / Design: Temi Oyelola

From Oprah Magazine

In OprahMag.com's series Coming Out, LGBTQ change-makers reflect on their journey toward self-acceptance. While it's beautiful to bravely share your identity with the world, choosing to do so is entirely up to youperiod.

Genevieve Hudson is the author of Boys of Alabama as well as Pretend We Live Here: Stories, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist. In this personal essay, Hudson shares their story of growing up in Alabama and the one summer in Charleston, South Carolina when they discovered a queer community that opened a door they didnt know existed.



Photo credit: .

In May 2009, I graduated from college in Charleston, South Carolina. Tradition was important at my Southern liberal arts school, and the spring commencement ceremony called on each graduating student to carry red roses and wear either a white dress or a white dinner jacket in place of a cap and gown.

My boyfriend was not graduatinghe was younger than I wasbut we got ready together in my creaking, pastel-yellow college house. The open windows let in the hot spring air, the screens in place to keep Palmetto bugs from scuttling inside. He stood before me in a getup I admired: a skinny linen tie with floral accents and a lavender shirt. I was in a high-waisted white dress, hemmed in lace. Turquoise studs in my ears, my long hair was pulled back in a braid. Looking back, Im in awe that I ever felt comfortable walking in public wearing something so feminine. Today, I would be wearing my boyfriends corduroy trousers with his tweed coat.

We arrived at the ceremony which took place outside, under a canopy of live oak trees and Spanish moss. The graduating seniors stood adorned in virginal white before one of the colleges most distinct buildings. We all played into the gendered dress code, except Lou, whom I had known since freshman year. An activist and artist, Lou was not wearing a dress like the rest of us women, but instead, white American Apparel jeans, a white oxford button up, and two-toned cowboy boots. She carried red paper roses. I felt unsettled watching her cross the yard; I knew she was queer, and a deep, and unexamined desire turned over inside of me. After commencement, the graduates walked back into the city under a 19th century arch that bore the Greek inscription, Know Thyself. That was what these last four years of school were supposed to do for ususher us back out into the world filled with self-knowledge. I was to know myself. But something told me I didnt yet.

Story continues

I grew up in a college town in Alabama. I know now that there must have been queer people living there, but to young me, they were invisible. It was not safe to be openly gay at that time, in the town where I grew up. The absence of representation, to my child self, felt like an absence of existence. I was searching for reflections of myself, but I didnt know what that looked like yet. I just hoped Id know it when I saw it.

When I left Alabama for Charleston, a coastal town eight hours away, I felt like I was leaving for the big city. At 18, my first visit to Charleston had seemed cosmopolitanthe wide, bustling streets shared by cars, horse-drawn carriages, and bike taxis. The freedom of walkability. At night, people shrieked down the sidewalks and out of bars into dark alleys overgrown with ivy. In the mornings, the air smelled like spilled whiskey and the salt water that had blown in on the wind to wash it all clean. I saw punk kids clad in all black with chunky metal bike locks flung over their shoulders. The city had cafes that served vegetarian food and coffee shops that roasted their own beans. Things were happening in Charleston, and if I was there, things would happen to me, too.

When I arrived, my life expandedbut I was not greeted with boundless possibility. What I had overlooked as a young person magnetized by the citys charm were the deep roots of conservatism that bound this town to a specific set of ethics and traditions. Like many cities in the south, Charleston attracted liberals and progressives from the rest of the state...but they were the exception, not the rule. Charleston was fancy, with a preference for boat shoes, pearl necklaces, preppy collar shirts, and a certain brand of Christianity that believed in traditional marriage and traditional gender roles. This ideal left little space for questions.

My college boyfriend had big, kind eyes, and we were part of a community of activist straight couples that protested plastic water bottles, participated in collective trash pickups at the coast on the weekends, and ate vegan potlucks under magnolia trees. It was more than I could have imagined when I lived in Alabama, and I felt selfish to feel unsatisfied, to admit that something seemed to be missing from my life.

By the time I saw Lou walk at graduation, I had already begun to question my sexuality. During my last semester at school, I had taken my first feminist studies class and discovered two books that changed everythingShe Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir, and The Diary of Anais Nin. Both of the female narrators in these books were in relationships with men, like me. But what I encountered were passages of desire pointed at other women. Thats the thing I remember most about those books today, the queerness in their pages. I broke out into a cold sweat while reading outside on the library lawn, looking around, sure I was being exposed. As I gathered my things, I felt a sudden need for privacy; something was happening. A seed had been planted, and as I stepped down the streets thick with wisteria blooms, I knew I was walking away from one life and toward another.

After graduation, my boyfriend went out of town, and I was left with my thoughts, a stack of gender studies books, and six seasons of The L Word streaming on Netflix. Primed by this new queer syllabus, I said it to myself: Im bisexual. A small step toward the middle. Not a lesbian. Not queer. Those words felt too certain, too scary, at the time. I needed a safer definition that I could ease into. I had never even kissed a woman.

My boyfriend was my best friend. We raced bicycles through town, built a climbing wall in his bedroom, wrote Shakespeare papers in the library side by side, and spent many nights laying in the grass outside, dreaming of where our lives would lead us. I could tell him anything, and now I had to tell him thisbecause what was shaking loose inside of me felt too big to hold on my own. But I did not want to imagine life without him. It might be a phase, I told him. But I had to find out. By choosing myself, I was losing the closest person to me.

To compound the pain, the circle of friends we shared did not understand the new life I was stepping into. I had hurt someone they cared about, and for whatexperimentation? They turned away. Soon after we broke up, I ran into a group of our friends at a dive bar in town. My boyfriend was not with them; he was sad, and at home alone. I had yet to work up the courage to directly come out to anyone besides him, but these friends had heard the news. Our run-in at the bar was proof to them that I was happy, maybe even dating a woman already, getting on with life.

I remember one of them coming up to me in a dark corner, his body looming, shaking his head in disgust. He had seen me laughing. How could you? is what his face said, lip curled in anger. I saw another shared friend at a party later that week. The two of us skipped out on the crowd and went walking through the midnight streets. Under a row of skinny palm trees, I stumbled through telling her about my crushes on women. I couldnt find the right words. Couldnt produce an explanation. I wanted to apologize for being different. She listened quietly and nodded. No, she said. She had never felt that way. She didnt quite understand, but I could tell she wanted to.

The weeks after I came out to him were some of the loneliest of my life. But Charleston summer had begun, and I felt hopeful. And Lou, it turned out, was not the only queer person in town. In the middle of an ordinary afternoon, while ordering an iced coffee, I met a woman who wanted to kiss me. She named my bicycle Mango and called me Boy. She bought us matching outfits at the thrift store to wear to a flamboyant party that promised to be full of camp. I felt I had stepped into a moment from The L Word; my life was becoming one of the lesbian scenes Id been streaming alone in bed. She took me to eat nachos with other gay people.

Yet it wasnt the new woman who changed meour fling was fleeting. It was the community she brought me into that summer that led to my real transformation. That was when I befriended a gay painter and my future best friend, who was always writing Tanka poems and pulling tarot cards and spending late nights in his studio on campus. And the lesbian couple at the center of it all, who seemed impossibly happy and impossibly cool; suddenly, their happiness felt accessible to me, too. There was the sculpture major and radical punk, whose dank basement apartment became like a haven, a place to sprawl out on the rug and hear the latest gay gossip and learn about whatever cause had fired her up. And there was the young vegan chef who I practiced yoga with, the person who could put me into stitches of laughter quicker than anyone.



A void opened in my life when I came out. My conversations with old friends felt awkward and stilted, as if something had been wedged between us. But these new friends were experts in the experience of coming out. They had done it, and they knew how to help me navigate this new terrain. They showed me what my queer future could be. Their lives told me a story, and I wanted to live in that story with them. I was not alone. They showed me the power of community, especially for marginalized communities in conservative placesand that made me brave.

I practiced telling the people around me I was dating women. Each time I had to say itto my mom, to my dad, to old friends who had only known me dating boysI felt tongue-tied and shy, nervous that I would be rejected. But I had a roadmap now, friends for the journey.

I entered that summer questioning and open to experience. But by the time August arrived, I was different, transformed in the profound way that comes from stepping into your power and taking a risk to be yourself. Seeing queerness allowed me to recognize it in myself. It allowed me to be found. Perhaps the most profound thing about my new friendships was not the representation they offered, but the respite. They gave me a place to sit down for the first time, my place set at the table, where I could truly feel like myself.

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FLINT TWP, MI  The man shot and killed last week in his Flint Township home has been identified by police.

Officers with the Flint Township Police Department responded around 12:40 a.m. Friday, June 12 to the 3000 block of Walton Avenue, off Ballenger Highway, for a report of a shooting.

Deshan Polk, 28, was shot while inside his home. He was pronounced deceased at the scene.

Investigators are attempting to identify an individual who entered the home wearing dark clothing and a mask and fired several rounds that hit Polk.

Flint Township man killed by masked suspect, police say

The Michigan State Police Bridgeport Crime Lab assisted officers at the scene.

Anyone that may have witnessed the shooting or has additional information is urged to contact Detective Lacey Lopez at 810-600-3250 or report a tip anonymously to Crime Stoppers of Flint & Genesee County at 1-800-422-JAIL (5245), on the P3 Tips app, or online at crimestoppersoffint.com.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Apex healthcare industry body NATHEALTH on Monday said it has urged the Delhi government to mandate the hospitals to publish their treatment charges for COVID-19 in a bid to improve transparency.

In a representation to Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Kumar Jain on 'COVID Package Pricing', NATHEALTH also recommended the appointment of an ombudsman at zonal level to inspect the complaints of overcharging.

"NATHEALTH has urged the government to continue to push for a higher level of transparency by mandating hospitals to publish their treatment charges," NATHEALTH said in a statement.

The representation highlights the unprecedented challenges being faced by private healthcare providers in COVID-19 treatment, it added.

"Pricing is a factor of quality of infrastructure, level of services, medical protocol followed, brands of medicines used, skill and salaries of doctors and staff and more importantly the medical outcomes," NATHEALTH said.

The focus of treatment protocols in COVID-19 times has undergone a significant shift and hospitals need to equally ensure that healthcare workers are not infected while treating patients and hospitals themselves don't become hotspots, it added.

This responsibility has thus led to increase in cost of care, both for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients , the statement said.

The private hospitals under NATHEALTH have said they fully support the need for transparency of pricing to ensure that patients are not overcharged.

Equally, there is a necessity of being viable, ensuring no compromise in the quality of care and more importantly no risk to healthcare professionals, it added.
Breakout star Lauren Daigle has been making huge waves in the contemporary Christian music scene lately. You dont have like Christian music to be able to appreciate her raw talent, emotional lyrics, and beautiful voice. Shes so popular that even Selena Gomez has voiced her adoration of her.

But sometimes, behind the success lies a tragedy. Often, people face challenging times, but theyre able to use that as fodder to create incredible things and make the world a more beautiful place.

Daigle is one of those people. Read on to learn more about the heartbreaking time that she went through when she was young that pushed her into being the musical success and inspiration to millions that she is today.

Who is Lauren Daigle?

Lauren Daigle | Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

RELATED: Selena Gomez Loves Lauren Daigle and The Feeling Is Mutual

Daigle grew up in Louisiana, the roots of which can be seen in both her bluesy tracks and her faith. She started singing at a young age, and her father convinced her to try out for popular singing competition American Idol when she was only 17 years old.

Although she was the recipient of a golden ticket and made it through an impressive amount of rounds on the show, she was eventually sent home. However, that was far from the end of Daigles musical journey.

Three years after coming home from American Idol, Daigle released a contemporary Christian single called Light of the World that got her noticed and well-established in the Christian music scene.

A full-length album followed, and the rest, they say, is history. Daigles second album even won her a Grammy award for Best Contemporary Christian Music album, and her single You Say crossed over into mainstream success.

Selena Gomezs kind words about her music got Daigles name even more out there into mainstream media and brought her the fame and success that she enjoys today.

A devastating illness contributed to Daigles talent and success

When she was 15 years old, just two years before she first auditioned for American Idol, Daigle was diagnosed with cytomegalovirus, a virus related to chickenpox and mononucleosis.

For two whole years, Daigle had to spend her life isolated from the world in order to protect her health and body, which her already compromised immune system wouldnt be able to protect.

During this tragedy, Daigles mother had an idea. Knowing that her dear daughter had loved to sing since she was a child, and not wanting her to become depressed, she signed Daigle up for voice lessons. During this time period is when Daigle really was able to polish her singing voice to the point where it was good enough to be featured on national television.

It became my healing. From that space, thats where those songs come from. I feel like that experience, I could live a lifetime off of just those two years, Daigle said in this YouTube video told a radio show.

Whats next for Daigle?

RELATED: How Christian Singer Lauren Daigle Accidentally Became a Grammy-Winning Pop Sensation

Daigle has reached enormous success since her American Idol days. On top of winning a Grammy for her album, she won another for her song, You Say, which reached No.1 on the Billboard Top 100 for Adult Contemporary. Its clear that her popularity expands past the Christian music scene.

Her achievements dont stop at the Grammys: shes also been recognized at the American Music Awards and the Billboard Music Awards. Although shes already won a Grammy at such a young age, Daigle is headed for bigger and better things.

Daigles team announced in 2019 that she would be going on her first world arena tour in 2020, since shed spent 2019 selling out almost every venue shed performed in.

Unfortunately, because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, her tour has been postponed until 2021.
Under a $4 million agreement, University Health System will process COVID-19 tests for patients across Texas.

Hospital officials said this week that its lab is running up to 1,500 coronavirus samples per day on two new automated systems manufactured by Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company Roche.

The Bexar County-owned hospital ordered two cobas 6800 testing systems in March to analyze nucleic acids extracted from nasal swabs from patients. Each system costs about $350,000, and one of the machines has arrived to date, UHS spokesperson Shelley Kofler said.

Mark Greenberg for University Health System

Roches test was the first commercially available one that was granted emergency approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The system compares the samples against sequences found in coronavirus strains, including SARS-CoV-2, which spread in December from Wuhan, China, infecting more than 7.4 million people so far across the globe.

On ExpressNews.com: Get the latest update on coronavirus and a tracking map of U.S. cases

Specimens collected from numerous locations throughout the state will be consolidated in Austin, and then shipped to University Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center.

University expects to produce test results within 24 hours, said Stephanie Whitehead, director of the hospitals pathology services, in an statement.

Mark Greenberg for University Health System

During a global pandemic, the availability of accurate mass testing enables us to provide proper care and medically respond, which is vital to control the spread, she said.

After the completion of 40,000 tests, the contract can be renewed as needed by the state.

Laura Garcia covers the health care industry in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Laura, become a subscriber. laura.garcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @Reporter_Laura
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 18:50:03|Editor: huaxia

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TEHRAN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Iran's confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 189,876 on Monday after an overnight registration of 2,449 new infections, official IRNA news agency reported.

At his daily briefing, Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said out of the new cases in the past 24 hours, 842 have been hospitalized.

The pandemic has so far claimed the lives of 8,950 people in Iran, up by 113 in the past 24 hours.

Besides, 150,590 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals while 2,765 remain in critical condition.

According to Lari, 1,269,194 lab tests for COVID-19 have been carried out in Iran as of Monday.

She said the provinces of Khuzestan, West Azarbaijan, Hormozgan, Kordestan, and Sistan and Baluchestan are in the high-risk "red" condition, while the number of hospitalized patients is increasing in the provinces of Tehran, Khorasan Razavi and Bushehr.

The Iranian health official urged all people regardless of age to honor social distancing and wear face masks in public places.

Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19.

Iran and China have offered mutual help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

In mid-February, at the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak in China, Iran lit up the Tehran Azadi (Liberty) Tower to show its solidarity with China, and donated 3 million masks to China.

In return, China has delivered several shipments of medical supplies to Iran. On Feb. 29, a five-member Chinese medical team visited Iran for a month-long mission to help Iran fight the pandemic. Enditem
A niece of President Trump will divulge a series of damaging stories about him in an upcoming book, the first time that the president could be forced to grapple with unflattering revelations by a member of his own family.

The niece, Mary Trump, will release the book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the Worlds Most Dangerous Man, on July 28, according to Ms. Trumps publisher, Simon & Schuster. The Daily Beast first reported on the book on Sunday.

In the book, Ms. Trump, 55, will say she was a primary source for The New York Timess coverage of Mr. Trumps finances and provided the newspaper with confidential tax documents. A spokeswoman for The Times declined to comment on Sunday. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Three journalists from The Times received the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting last year for their work providing an unprecedented look at the Trump familys finances and contradicting Mr. Trumps image as a self-made billionaire.
The Wawa at 22nd and South Streets, where new wipes dispensers have been installed near its food ordering kiosks. Read more

Wawas food ordering touchscreens have become a familiar part of life in Philadelphia, with customers taking turns to tap the devices and order hoagies.

But could the coronavirus doom the touchscreen kiosks that were widely adopted by Wawa, banks, airports, and retail stores?

There is this underlying emotional, physical reaction now to touching stuff, said Munir Mandviwalla, a Temple professor of management information systems. The longer this goes on, the more I think people will be afraid of touching things.

Still, industry leaders and experts say the touchscreens arent going away. Instead, they will likely become just one option for consumers to order food or check out items. Companies are encouraging customers to use mobile devices to make contactless purchases, while software developers are designing systems that can be controlled by voice or gesture. Meanwhile, businesses are deploying a low-tech solution to make consumers comfortable: free disinfecting wipes.

Wawa is installing wipe dispensers near touchscreens and sanitizing surfaces at least hourly, spokesperson Lori Bruce said. Wawa is also experimenting with curbside ordering, she said, which was launched last week in two stores, at Center Square in Whitpain Township and Ewing Township, N.J. The convenience store chain has seen its volume of mobile orders double recently, Bruce said.

Mobile ordering is picking up considerably, said Alex Baloga, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, a trade group that represents more than 800 supermarket and convenience store operators. [Stores] are expanding their apps to allow for that mobile ordering. They're encouraging delivery. They're partnering with those third-party services. So, it's really an all-inclusive, all-encompassing approach.

 READ MORE: Will we ever work in the company office again?

Shoppers are increasingly paying without touching terminals, cash, or credit cards. In April, Mastercard said it saw a 40% jump in contactless payments during the first quarter of this year. That includes tap-to-pay and mobile pay, in which customers hold devices near card readers.

Although the pandemic has made Americans leery of high-touch surfaces  from door handles to elevator buttons  the coronavirus spreads primarily through close person-to-person contact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kiosks are one way to limit customers interaction with other people, said Craig Allen Keefner, manager of the Kiosk Manufacturers Association, based in Denver.

I think probably the key thing is that person-to-person interaction is being minimized, he said. There's all these different input delivery mechanisms, but the one thing in common is that they eliminate the people.

For example, kiosk software developers are designing terminals that can be controlled by gestures using built-in cameras, or on mobile devices by scanning a code shown on touchscreens, Keefner said. Developers are redesigning interfaces to require fewer touches to complete transactions, too.

In a post-COVID world, the need for touchless technology, even in self-service, is increasing, said Brian Whitney, vice president of sales at Appetize, a point-of-sale software developer that lists the Philadelphia Eagles as one of its clients. We are focused on new technologies to make it easier for customers to use self-service, including ways for them to use it in a touchless environment.

Voice technology is another possibility, with consumers increasingly inviting Alexa, Siri, and other virtual assistants into their homes. There are still limitations to the technology, especially in crowded spaces, experts said. But voice-controlled displays were starting to catch on at medical facilities before the pandemic because theyre environments that are ripe for the transfer of viruses, said Sean Matthews, CEO of Visix, an Atlanta-based digital signage software company.

Visix, which has a sales office in Malvern, released software in May that lets digital signs, such as mall directory maps, respond to voice commands. In announcing the product, the company noted the recent concern about germ transmission.

This certainly accelerates its adoption, Matthews said of the pandemic. He said clients have shown interest in voice-controlled interactive maps and room-booking systems since the coronavirus swept through the country.

 READ MORE: People didnt wait for coronavirus shutdowns to stop spending. And reopening the economy doesnt reopen their wallets.

At Philadelphia International Airport, airlines and other partners have introduced mobile apps that let travelers avoid kiosks for certain tasks, such as in-app boarding passes, said Heather Redfern, an airport spokesperson.

American Airlines, which accounts for nearly 70% of the airports traffic, said it regularly cleans kiosks and has turned off some of the devices to make more space between customers, company spokesperson Andrew Trull said. The airline is exploring technology improvements, including to its mobile app, to make it a touchless experience, he added.

But experts said touchscreens are unlikely to disappear from stores, even though companies may be less inclined to invest in kiosks in the short term. Concerns over touching surfaces could be solved by basic precautions, such as regularly washing your hands.

Looking at the CDC guides, surface contamination risk for transmission is relatively low, said Paul Benda, senior vice president of risk and cyber security policy at the American Bankers Association. Dont be afraid of your ATM.
T he managing director of Harrods struck an upbeat tone ahead of the luxury department store reopening on June 15, but said the government must ensure London remains accessible to international visitors.

Harrods is among the scores of upmarket retailers, including Mulberry and Tiffany, that today open their doors for the first time since stores were ordered to shut in March for the Covid-19 lockdown.

Companies have all been working on plans to promote social distancing in stores, and most have new and heightened health and safety measures they are implementing.

Michael Ward, the managing director of Harrods, which is introducing footfall monitoring technology to limit capacity in-store, told the Evening Standard: The considerable new measures we have introduced will enable customers to shop safely at Harrods, without any compromise on experience, product or service.

PA

He added: Whilst the challenges of the last few months continue to impact us all enormously, at Harrods we are looking to the future with optimism. We have a new season to share, innovative plans in the pipeline, and we are excited to serve and support our community once more.

However, Ward cautioned there will be difficulties ahead for the sector: For most retailers, the storm is far from over, despite the positive steps we are beginning to take.

There are concerns from a number of retailers and restaurant owners about less spending from tourists, with travel restrictions and quarantine rules potentially deterring some shoppers.

Ward said it is vital for many industries that international visitors are able to travel into London.

Harrods through the years (1900s-1970s) - In pictures 1 /37 Harrods through the years (1900s-1970s) - In pictures 1906 Harrods department store on Knightsbridge, London, from Montpelier Street. Getty Images circa 1910 The provision department of Harrods Getty Images 1914 John Henry Taylor joins other golfing champions in instructing customers at Harrods store, London, in the correct method of addressing the ball. John H Taylor won the British Open five times (1894-5, 1900, 1909 and 1913) Getty Images 1925 A doorman stands at the entrance to Harrods, the famous London department store in Knightsbridge Getty Images circa 1928 Shopping for hats in a department store, possibly Harrods of London, during their Great Summer Sale Getty Images circa 1924 A view down the Brompton Road with the famous department store, 'Harrods' on the left hand side Getty Images 1925 Goods for sale in the meat and poultry department of Harrods Getty Images 1925 The Ladies' Club in Harrods department store, London with armchairs and occasional tables Getty Images 1925 The counters and displays in the men's wear department of Harrods Getty Images circa 1925 A shop assistant prepares a window dummy for display in a department store, possibly Harrods Getty Images circa 1925 A display of sheer nylons in a shop window, possibly Harrods of London, during their Great Summer Sale Getty Images circa 1928 Textiles on display in a department store, possibly Harrods of London, during their Great Summer Sale Getty Images circa 1928 A passer-by window shops for lingerie at a department store, possibly Harrods of London Getty Images 1933 Electrical gadgets on sale at Harrods Getty Images 1935 The front of Harrods all lit up on a wet evening advertising their 'Wonderful Toy Fair' Getty Images 1935 A fashion assistant ftting a hat to a customer at Harrods department store Getty Images 1937 Eager shoppers fighting over the bargain hats on offer at the Harrods winter sale Getty Images circa 1938 An open packet of Harrods tea leaves next to a freshly brewed cup Getty Images 1941 Young visitors to Harrods Christmas display Getty Images 1954 A woman in a fur-trimmed coat pauses to consult the floor guide at Harrods Getty Images 1955 A lady wearing a winter dress from Harrods department store, London, with a dark motif on the skirt Getty Images 1956 Madeleine Duke playing with a toy car and monkey driver at Harrods, London Getty Images 1962 A fine selection of foods in a Harrods hamper including dates, pickles, game pate and plum pudding. Getty Images 1963 American actress Anne Bancroft (1931 - 2005) with director Jack Clayton in the white goods department of Harrod's, London, to film a scene for 'The Pumpkin Eater' Getty Images 1969 English pianist, composer and conductor Alberto Semprini (1908 - 1990) playing a decorated piano at Harrods Getty Images 1971 A little boy examines a display at Harrods showing the new decimal coinage which was introduced on 15th February Getty Images 1978 A potential client admires Dave Prowse who works in the keep-fit department of Harrods. He also plays the role of Darth Vader in Star Wars. Getty Images 1977 Shoppers struggling in the china department of Harrods on the first day of the sale Getty Images

He said: Retail businesses have adapted quickly and introduced vast new measures to protect people, but our economy thrives on the support of those who travel here to live, work and invest. The government must ensure that the capital remains accessible and attractive to international visitors.

Scores of upmarket retailers are reopening in London today, including Mulberry.

The bag maker plans to have 30 stores and concessions ready to serve customers this week in the UK and Ireland, of those 19 open today. All of its sites here are expected to be trading by June 29.

A spokesman for Mulberry said: Our stores will implement a capacity limit and adhere to social distancing and all our staff have been provided with gloves and masks, as well as hand sanitiser. No cash payments will be taken but contactless payment methods will be available. Customers can also book a personal appointment, either in-store or as a virtual consultation.
New Delhi: In what could bring cheers to lakhs of EPFO subscribers, the provident fund body has launched a multi-location claim settlement facility by allowing EPFO offices to settle online claims from any of its regional offices, across the country.

All types of online claims provident fund, pension, partial withdrawal and claims and transfer claims can be processed under this initiative.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment on Monday said that the first batch of multi-location claims under this project was settled for Gurugram Region on June 10, 2020. The claims of employees pertaining to the regional office of Gurugram Region were settled by EPFO staff deployed in Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Jalandhar offices. After settlement the payment was made from the Gurugram office to the bank account of the individual member.

COVID-19 crisis has affected 135 regional offices of EPFO with different levels of severity depending on their location. It was observed that though many offices in Mumbai, Thane, Haryana and Chennai zones operate with even less then skeletal staff on account of COVID-19 Pandemic, but there has been a disproportionate increase in claim receipt due to recently introduced COVID-19 advance. Consequently, claim pendency in these offices rose to higher levels leading to delay in claim settlement cycle while other offices, working with 50% workforce and with the help of recently introduced auto settlement mode could bring the claim settlement period down to 3 days for COVID-19 advances, the ministry statement said.

The multi-location claim settlement facility allows offices with lesser workload to share the burden of offices that have accumulated a higher level of pendency, due to COVID-19 restrictions. It enables fast-tracking of settlement process through most appropriate engagement of EPFOs workforce in all its regional offices across the country.
A Russian historian charged with murdering and dismembering his student lover has refused to enter a plea and announced that he has changed lawyers as his trial resumed on June 15 in the city of St. Petersburg.

In answering a question from Judge Yulia Maksimenko about whether he was pleading guilty, Oleg Sokolov said he would like "to answer this question after the accusing side presents all of its evidence."

During an investigation of the case, Sokolov admitted to killing and dismembering his lover, 24-year-old postgraduate student Anastasia Yeshchenko, a crime that has captivated Russia's second-largest city.

Sokolov also said at the trial on June 15 that he decided to change his lawyers, after which the trial was adjourned until June 22.

The high-profile case has been adjourned or postponed several times in recent months for various reasons, including restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

The 63-year-old historian was detained on November 9 after being pulled out of the Moika River with a backpack containing the body parts of a young woman. Investigators later found the woman's head in his apartment.

A flamboyant academic who regularly dressed in Napoleonic-era costumes and took part in battle reenactments, Sokolov was once awarded France's Order of Legion d'Honneur for his research into Napoleon.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A cultural revolution is sweeping across Great Britain and the United States. Toppling statues of slave owners, protesters are demanding moral reparations  an acknowledgement that slavery and imperialism underpinned the wealth and power of two of the worlds most prominent countries, condemning millions of people with darker skins to generations of poverty and indignity.

The iconoclasts have shifted much public opinion in their favor, as can be witnessed in the truly incredible (if also slightly absurd) scene of Democratic lawmakers in Kente stoles kneeling in solidarity with victims of racist violence. A range of individuals and institutions have come out vigorously in favor of racial justice; those found in violation of it are being named and shamed.

But a deeper, longer and harder battle is only just beginning  over the new national identity the U.S. and U.K. need, especially as they seek to emerge from the ruins of a devastating pandemic.

Donald Trump is too obviously the reductio ad absurdum of a besieged white supremacism in an irreversibly diverse society. Simultaneously, the British cult of Winston Churchill has reached a risible culmination in the figure of his flailing understudy: Boris Johnson.

Just as the self-evident truths of slave-owners no longer persuade a large number of people in the U.S., a sentimental attachment to empire and to fantasies of resurrecting British glory and power wont survive the ineptitude of a Tory government that seems to know only how to get Brexit done  and not even that.

As they search for a post-racial, post-imperial identity, the U.S. and Britain would be wise to take lessons from their implacable enemy in two world wars: Germany.

For while white supremacists unfurled swastika banners and chanted blood and soil and Jews will not replace us in Charlottesville, Virginia, and British politicians and journalists spread falsehoods about immigrants en route to Brexit, Germany hosted a welcome culture for more than one million refugees  what Susan Neiman in her timely book Learning from the Germans calls the largest and broadest social movement in Germany since the war.

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Germany's most successful postwar far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), rose to subvert this German consensus. But it has failed repeatedly to broaden its small base and, presently afflicted by a civil war and a muddled coronavirus strategy, is being pushed back to the margins. Moreover, AfDs attempts to deny or minimize the countrys Nazi past have served to consolidate anti-racist sentiment in the country.

This broad and consistent recoiling from ethnic-racial supremacists confirms that Germany has achieved a high, if not perfect, degree of immunity to the kind of toxic politics that have ravaged Anglo-America in recent years.

This didnt happen overnight. Neiman, a philosopher of Jewish origin who grew up in the segregationist American South and has long lived in Berlin, writes that it took decades of hard work before those who committed what are arguably the greatest crimes in history could acknowledge those crimes, and begin to atone for them.

De-Nazification, demanded initially by West Germanys American occupiers, was only partly accomplished. U.S. intelligence operatives found many Nazi criminals useful in the cold war against Soviet communism  indeed, the student revolt of the 1960s in Germany was largely provoked by a postwar dispensation in which government officials, industrialists, bankers and professors of the Nazi era managed to retain their influence.

Many Germans saw themselves as victims, too. Still, over the decades, a strong culture of remembrance and commemoration flourished both inside and outside classrooms. Big and small monuments to the victims of Nazi crimes went up across the country, ranging from the Holocaust memorial in Berlin to stumbling stones in a local street that record the names and the dates of birth and deportation of the people who once lived there.

In 1970, many older Germans recoiled at the sight of German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling before the memorial to the Warsaw ghetto in apology to the world for Nazi crimes. But the image was extraordinarily potent. In retrospect, it announced a society and culture that was being steadily renewed by moral introspection and historical inquiry.

Contrast this with Anglo-American attitudes  for instance, the left-leaning British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declaring on a trip to East Africa in 2005 that the days of Britain having to apologize for its colonial past are over. (Never mind that Britain never apologized).

A German-style reckoning with the past couldn't come sooner in Anglo-America. For unrepentant racial supremacism, as represented by the rants of Trump and Foxs Tucker Carlson, can only deepen the political and socio-economic impasse that Britain and the U.S. find themselves in.

Those in thrall to racial, national and imperialist myths will no doubt see weakness in any admission of crimes in their societys long past. Yet it seems irrefutable now, as Germany towers, morally as well as politically and economically, over its old Anglo-American rivals, that the willingness to confront shameful history is ultimately a source of great strength.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Pankaj Mishra is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, and Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

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2020 Bloomberg L.P.
MERIDEN  As communities across the country place a greater amount of scrutiny on policing tactics, city councilors are looking into establishing an independent civilian board that would review use-of-force complaints against the police department.

Residents have approached councilors in recent weeks about creating an independent review body, the purpose of which would be to add some level of transparency to the review and follow-up of the use of force, Council Majority Leader David Lowell said in introducing the idea during a virtual meeting this past week.

Lowell emphasized the effort to form an independent board isnt an indictment on the department.

The men and women of our police department do a fantastic job. This is in no way against the police department and all the good they do in Meriden, he said.

The proposed review board is still in the early approval stage, and the council has asked its Public Safety Committee to first research possible legal parameters that could limit the bodys authority. After the committees research is completed, councilors then want to assign a study group to examine whether a review board is needed in Meriden, and if so, make recommendations for the makeup and scope of the body.

The city announced the hiring of a new police chief Roberto Rosado, currently Willimantic police chief, on Friday. Hes scheduled to start July 1.

Outgoing Police Chief Jeffry Cossette, retiring at the end of the month, attended the virtual meeting this past week and told councilors that an oversight board could conflict with language in the City Charter and police union contract.

The charter, Cossette said, gives the exclusive right of discipline to the chief of police, while the union contract clearly indicates the authority given to the chief to fire and discipline officers. The union contract also stipulates those powers are not subject to delegation in whole or in part.

The council can form any type of committee that they want, Cossette said, but as far as having any authority, theres these two documents that have to be changed before any authority is granted to them.

Corporation Counsel Mike Quinn told councilors that assigning a study group to look at the issue would be an excellent way to vet out what the city wants and what do we need to get there.

I think that, if there was a cohesive plan presented, that at least gives the union something to think about in terms of a contract negotiation, Quinn said. It also gives everyone else something to think about to the extent that a charter revision will be necessary.

Public Safety Committee Chairman Michael Cardona doesnt want to go down the path of revising the charter or union contact because hes worried it could lead to costly litigation. Hed rather lobby state lawmakers to pass legislation making it easier for cities like Meriden to establish police accountability bodies, one of the issues the legislature is expected to take up in an upcoming special session.

The powers of police review bodies in other communities vary greatly, Lowell said, with some holding subpoena power over police and others wielding less authority. Cardona said he doesnt want to form a review body with no teeth just as window dressing.

If theres so many limitations that theyre not able to do something substantive  Id hate to have just window dressing come out of this, Cardona said.

Even if a police review board in Meriden isnt given disciplinary powers, Cardona thinks there still could be room for compromise. Lowell, for example, envisions the body reviewing the findings of the departments internal use-of-force investigation and then making a recommendation to the chief in the event of a use-of-force complaint.

If thats what it comes to, Id prefer the transparency, Cardona said. But my concern is lets say they find something that raised red flags  what purpose would this committee serve if they just see these red flags and can do nothing about it? So maybe theres room there to add recommendations to the chief for final action.

The police union president did not return a request for comment. Lowell, the chief operating officer of Hunters Ambulance, said officers hes spoken with have had mixed feelings about the idea of a review board, with some welcoming the opportunity to publicly validate their actions and others worrying it may further complicate an already difficult job.

Cardona believes the police department already does a good job of holding officers accountable. But regardless, bringing use-of-force investigations into the public light and allowing the public to see the facts for themselves could benefit both officers and the public.

I dont anticipate that there will be some huge uncovering of stuff that we find, Cardona said. What I envision is just another level of transparency.

He compared the implementation of the review board to body cameras.

There was a lot of apprehension initially from police officers about having body cams, but now that we established them, they and the public both see it as in the interest of everyone  because for good police officers that follow policy, body cameras help justify the actions that they took, he said.

Current process and example

Department policy requires officers to submit use-of-force reports each time they use force in the line of duty. Those reports, along with other relevant materials like body camera footage, are then reviewed internally to determine whether policies were followed. Those internal reviews and their findings are usually not made available to the general public, though in recent incidents in which use of force has been captured on videos circulated on social media, the department has put out a statement addressing the incident.

Most recently, police issued a statement after a video circulated showing a male officer forcibly removing a female driver from her vehicle during a May 22 traffic stop after the driver was uncooperative and ignored several verbal commands to exit the vehicle. After the driver is removed, officers are seen placing their knees on the drivers shoulder blades as she physically resists being handcuffed while lying face down on the street.

An internal review by police concluded that the incident was within the parameters set by our agency, police said in the statement. Police noted the driver actively resisted arrest and the officer attempted numerous times to de-escalate the incident and afford the suspect many opportunities to comply with lawful requests.

Police did not say in the statement why an officer initially stopped the driver, Jessenia Gonzalez, in front of the police station and a police spokesman did not return an inquiry about the incident for this story.

According to the incident report, released by the city in response to a Freedom of Information request from the Record-Journal, the arresting officer noticed Gonzalez, 33, driving through a red light at the intersection of Colony and Church streets at a high rate of speed while the officer was driving into work to start his patrol shift.

While on shift, the officer again noticed the same car he witnessed driving through the red light was double-parked in front of 53 W. Main St. with its hazard lights on, according to the incident report.

The officer pulled up behind Gonzalezs white Ford Focus, activated his emergency lights, and asked Gonzalez for her license, registration, and proof of insurance. Gonzalez stated she did not have her license and that all her paperwork was at her residence at 303 Bradley Ave. Gonzalez asked the officer why he stopped her and he explained she was double-parked, according to the report.

Gonzalez provided the officer with her last name but refused to disclose her first name, stating that she didnt do anything wrong and that she legally doesnt have to give me her identification, the report reads. The officer told Gonzalez she had committed a traffic violation and was required to produce identification. She continued to argue, and the officer told Gonzalez to exit her vehicle. After Gonzalez ignored several verbal commands to step out, the officer grabbed her by her left forearm and wrist and used a soft escort technique to pull her out from the vehicle and onto her stomach as Gonzalez physically resisted, the incident report reads.

The report states that officers later learned that Gonzalez, a Meriden resident for several years, was the registered owner of the Ford Focus but that her Pennsylvania registration had expired in March.

Gonzalez complained of body pain while in custody and requested an ambulance, the report states. She asked to speak with the arresting officer and asked him why she was arrested. According to the report, the officer explained that she refused to identify herself and comply with commands.

Gonzalez admitted that she had committed the aforementioned traffic violations but was adamant that, as a citizen, she was not required to identify herself, the report states.

The Record-Journal has an outstanding Freedom of Information request for body camera footage and internal review documents from the incident.

Councilors interviewed said the use-of-force video didnt factor into their decision to explore a review board and they felt comfortable with the departments explanation of the incident. Cardona said he doesnt know the circumstances around the arrest but said the video showed officers ceasing the use of force once the driver was in custody.

It was nothing like what was seen with the Floyd case where they just sat there over the person despite having control of the situation, Cardona said.

Lowell agreed that this is a good example of how a use-of-force review board could help bring the facts of an incident to light, bringing about transparency that could benefit both officers and the public.

Use-of-force policies

Deputy Chief Timothy Topulos this week penned a letter to the community explaining some of Meridens use-of-force policies in response to concerns about policing tactics following the death of George Floyd.

I would like to assure our citizens that the Meriden Police Department has enacted state-accredited policies and procedures that not only reflect best practices in law enforcement, but are in line with the recommendations in the #8cantwait Campaign, Topulos wrote.

He was referring to a national campaign, 8 Cant Wait, that calls on police departments to immediately enact eight policies that were shown in a 2016 nationwide study to correlate with fewer police-involved killings per capita. The eight policies, which Topulus spelled out in his letter, include: a ban on chokeholds and strangleholds; a ban on shooting at moving vehicles; a requirement that officers try to de-escalate a situation before shooting; a requirement that officers exhaust all alternatives before shooting; a requirement that officers warn a suspect before shooting when feasible; a requirement that bystander officers step in if a fellow officer is using excessive force and formally report such incidents to supervisors; a requirement that officers report and document all uses of force; and a use of force continuum that departments set to govern what weapons or levels of resistance to use.

According to Topulos letter, the department has had each of those requirements in its use-of-force procedures, reviewed by officers annually, since January 2017.

Council resolution

The City Councils use-of-force review board proposal was one of several items discussed during a meeting Wednesday as part of a sweeping resolution aimed at promoting racial equality.

Councilors spent nearly two hours going through many of the items and discussing them before eventually deciding the proposals, which some councilors wanted to adopt at a meeting nine days prior, hadnt yet been fleshed out enough and werent ready for a vote.

Mayor Kevin Scarpati in particular took issue throughout the meeting with what he said was a lack of details and specifics for the items. One of the proposals, for instance, is to have councilors and the mayor take a new oath of office with an explicit commitment to promoting racial equality. Scarpati said it was impossible to vote on a new oath without first seeing the language.

We the People Party Councilor Bob Williams proposed tabling all the items until a new police chief can give input. The motion to table got support from Republicans Dan Brunet and Michael Carabetta but failed 9-3 along party lines.

Councilors eventually voted to have each of the nine action items studied further over the next three months by council subcommittees. The three items related to the police department were referred to the Public Safety Committee and three items related to employee hiring and training were sent to the Personnel Committee.

The remaining three items that didnt have a logical committee assignment will be taken up by a special ad hoc committee comprised of councilors not on either personnel or public safety.

Lowell initially wanted to have one of those miscellaneous items, the new oath proposal, hashed out during closed-door leadership meetings held amongst himself, Scarpati, the city manager, and minority caucus leader. But he recanted after Scarpati reminded him during the meeting of a pending lawsuit that originated from a Freedom of Information complaint filed by the Record-Journal in 2016. That lawsuit is before the State Supreme Court

Each committee will be given three months to study the items and report back to the council with recommendations prior to the councils Sept. 8 meeting. With a month-long approval process ahead and many members of the public eager for concrete changes in the wake of Floyds killing, Democrat Nicole Tomassetti encouraged the public to not feel beaten down. The council, Tomassetti said, did the right thing by sending the items to a committee.

While maybe this meeting didnt go exactly how we all planned, she said, and it was probably frustrating at times, I want the public to know and I want all of you to know that we really did do the right thing here, and its the first step that matters the most because once you take that first step, you know, we move forward.

mzabierek@record-journal.com203-317-2279Twitter: @MatthewZabierek
F rance stepped up pressure on Boris Johnson today over Brexit, saying that he will not get a trade deal unless he gives ground on the touchstone British red lines of fishing and the level playing field to prevent unfair competition.

We are ready either for an agreement or for a no-deal, said Nathalie Loiseau, a former minister for European affairs who is one of Emmanuel Macrons senior allies. And we are getting prepared more actively to a no-deal considering the circumstances.

Ms Loiseau spoke out ahead of this afternoons attempt to revive the stalled UK-EU talks when the Prime Minister will speak by video phone with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and other senior figures.

Britain is pressing for weekly meetings, including face-to-face negotiations, to inject new momentum into the flagging process covering trade and a range of other issues.

Both sides are committed to an intensified timetable with just six months left before Britain is due to exit the blocs single market rules. Ms Loiseau, now an MEP and tipped to become a French commissioner, said the onus was on Mr Johnson to make concessions and have a real negotiation.

We are waiting for Boris Johnson to get committed into the negotiations and to tell us if he really wants an agreement, she told Radio 4s Today.

So far there has been statements and positions repeated, but not something that looks like a real negotiation.

She also called for progress towards infrastructure, meaning border controls between Northern Ireland and the British mainland, which Mr Johnson has claimed are not necessary. Trade talks stalled a fortnight ago amid accusations from the EU side that Mr Johnson was backtracking on commitments to fair competition rules arbitrated by the EU.

Britain said the EU was trying to force the UK into concessions that went far beyond the usual requirements of a free trade deal. Key sticking points include fisheries, where the EU wants UK waters to remain in their common fisheries policy, and a failure to agree on rules to continue smooth trade in goods without tariffs or long tailbacks of trucks being subjected to extra checks.

On Friday the EU formally accepted that the UK would not seek any extension to the transition period, which allows Britain continued access to the EU single market while talks continue.

Mr Johnson is tell Ms von der Leyen today that the talks need to be "swiftly concluded" in order to provide the public and business with certainty.

He will insist the UK still wants to strike an "ambitious" free trade agreement and make clear that he is ready to start trading on World Trade Organisation rules from January 1 if a deal cannot be reached.

Also taking part in the call will be European Council president Charles Michel and president of the European Parliament David Sassoli.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove and the UK's chief negotiator, David Frost, will be with Mr Johnson.

It will be followed by a series of weekly talks, starting on June 29, for five weeks to look at detailed technical issues.

It is hoped that they will include face-to-face meetings after both sides acknowledged that the remote discussions  due to the coronavirus  have gone as far as they can.
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Mexico, India and Pakistan are among the countries that have hit record numbers of new coronavirus cases in recent days, as drastic regulations that kept streets empty and people apart are lifted. Its a similar story in U.S. states like Texas, Florida and California. In Beijing, a cluster of cases linked to a wholesale market has caused alarm over the weekend.

Should that mean a return to lockdowns? U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says no. Reality will be less categorical.

Take Pakistan. Official numbers have soared so dramatically that now roughly one in five of those tested are infected, a worrying indication of both spread and inadequate testing volumes. An already-fragile health system is overwhelmed and running out of beds. The country is now registering well over 6,000 new cases a day, compared with less than 1,000 before restrictions began to ease in May. Its moving so fast, in fact, that the World Health Organization took the usual step of recommending officials reimpose shelter-in-place orders. Mindful of the financial realities of a crumbling economy, though, the global body suggests restrictions be applied two-weeks-on, two-weeks-off.

Its an unorthodox compromise. Its also just the sort of option many more countries will have to consider as they try to contain fresh waves of infection and keep fraying economies ticking over, with a vaccine not yet on the horizon.

A handful of European countries do appear to be returning to a semblance of normality relatively smoothly. For much of the world, though, it was never going to be a clean switch from lockdown back to pre-pandemic life. That doesnt mean that we can dismiss offhand the option of fresh restrictions if cases surge and hospital admissions need to be kept down, no matter what Mnuchin says. Officials in the Houston area, for example, said last week they would consider reimposing stay-at-home orders to deal with a situation described as out of hand.

Story continues

Each time they're imposed, strict, all-out lockdowns become more difficult, especially in emerging markets already badly damaged. Capital Economics estimates that real gross domestic product in South Asia, for example, will be as much as 9% smaller by the end of 2022, compared with virus-free estimates.

But can flexible alternatives, of the sort the WHO proposes, work in practice?

Consider again Pakistan, which has yet to act on the UN bodys advice. There, the obstacles to making even a blunt on-off lockdown work are both clear and instructive  extreme versions of what other governments will need to tackle as they consider more pliable approaches second time around.

First, Islamabad has insufficient testing, detecting and contact tracing, meaning it isnt gathering the data needed to make adequate policy choices and keep clusters under control. Just as serious is public distrust in government and official warnings, compounded by a lack of cooperation from religious authorities. As with misinformation around polio, the consequences are dire.

To get the best economic and social outcome requires trust, clarity and plentiful data. Absent these, the governments proposed alternative to lockdown  smart selective tactics, shuttering hotspots  are even more unrealistic than the WHOs proposal. And of course, neither the lack of testing nor distrust of authority are currently unique to Pakistan.None of this means that adapted lockdowns, as the WHO describes, arent a credible suppression option.

Bhramar Mukherjee at the University of Michigan, who has been modeling the outbreak in India, points out that flexible, second-wave lockdowns arent just necessary but may be desirable, in an environment where its simply impossible to wait for zero cases before reopening, much less to reach Icelands testing levels. Thats especially true if, as with India, the initial restrictions were early and draconian.

Mukherjee, who has also worked on the dramatic state-level differences in India, suggests a potentially more workable alternative to the WHOs cycle. She points to Punjab, a relative success story among provinces, which has imposed weekend lockdowns  easier to apply and run over a long period, and with less economic impact. Places like Mumbai, which now has more cases than Wuhan at its peak, and Delhi, where the health system is under severe pressure, may need to follow suit.

Lockdowns are no panacea, especially when governments fail to utilize the time to prepare, or return to normal too swiftly. They are also not the only way to control the virus: Simple remedies like promoting cleanliness and restricting large gatherings can help, as in Mumbais sprawling Dharavi slum. Lockdowns are also, in their more malleable version, one of few tools in the global kit to tackle a pandemic that may yet drag on for months.

Unfortunately, best execution requires data and trust. That means the states that need it most, like Pakistan, are those least able to deliver.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court cancelled the parole of Sahara Chief Subrata Roy and two other group directors on September 23. Further, the court ordered them to surrender to custody within a week, while terminating the "interim arrangements" of granting parole to them.

The apex court, earlier in the day, was infuriated due to some alleged intemperate remarks of Sahara counsel and senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, and had cancelled "all interim arrangements" granting parole to Roy and Sahara directors Ashok Roy Choudhary and Ravi Shankar Dubey, and ordered that they be taken into custody.

However later, the apex court granted a week to embattled Roy, whose other senior counsel Kapil Sibal rushed to the court for damage control. Deploring the manner in which Dhawan addressed the court earlier, the bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur said "there are some senior advocates who are disrespectful to the court" and play with its dignity.

The bench, which also comprised Justices A R Dave and A K Sikri, then went on to cancel all interim arrangements granting parole to Roy and the others, forcing Sibal to swing into action by distancing themselves from Dhawan's remarks and apologising through another senior counsel Narendra Hooda.

The bench which had fixed the fresh plea of Roy seeking modification of the court's order on October 3, later advanced the date of hearing to September 28 instead. "At the request of the counsel for the contemnors, post again on Monday October 3, 2016 at 2 PM. In the meantime, the interim arrangement made by this Court shall stand terminated.

The contemnors are given one week's time to surrender back to custody," the initial order of the court said.The subsequent order said: "At the request of Kapil Sibal, senior counsel appearing for the Saharas/contemnors, post I.A. No..... of 2016 for modification of this Court's order of even date on Wednesday i.e. September 28, 2016 at 3.30 PM."

Sibal, who was down with fever, appeared and tendered an unconditional apology to the bench for Dhawan's remarks and assured the bench that this will never be repeated. In the afternoon, after Sibal apologised, the Chief Justice, who was sitting in a different combination of judges, said "the court does not have problem with anyone, but there has to be some respect for the chair and the institution."

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Japan share market finished session lower on Monday, 15 June 2020, as fears of a resurgence in the coronavirus pandemic sent investors scurrying for safe-havens. Also, the U. S. dollar slipped against the yen as virus fears weighed on investor sentiment.

At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average stumbled 774.53 points, or 3.47%, to 21,530.95. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange tumbled 39.90 points, or 2.54%, at 1,530.78.

Investors chose to play safe at the start of the week on renewed concerns over a second wave of infections as clusters of new infections were reported in the US and China, while the number of new cases increased in Tokyo. On Sunday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government reported a surge in new infections to 47, the largest number since a state of emergency was lifted on May 25.

Shares of aviation companies slid on fears over a resurgence of the virus epidemic, with Japan Airlines and ANA Holdings were lower in between 1% to 3%.

Shares of Sanrio declined after the operator of the Hello Kitty franchise reported a 95 percent dive in the company's net profit for fiscal ended March 2019 as the pandemic forced its theme parks and other outlets to temporarily close.

CURRENCY: The Japanese yen traded at 107.16 per dollar following a strengthening from levels above 108 last week.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Education is a hot topic this Legislative session. Here's what bills we're watching.

Here are some of the hot-button education bills were tracking at the Argus Leader. Check back each day to see where they stand as we update.
Kate and Gerry McCann could be given key information about how Madeleine died 'within days' as their Portuguese lawyer is set to meet with senior police.

German detectives say they have one piece of evidence that proves Madeleine died after she vanished from the Portuguese holiday resort of Praia da Luz in 2007.

Police have not told the McCanns why they dubbed the investigation a murder hunt rather than a missing person inquiry, but have shared the evidence with Portuguese police who said it was 'significant' and 'very important'.

The family's lawyer, Rogerio Alves, will meet them within days to find out more, The Sun reports.

He is hoping they will unveil the evidence they have on prime suspect Christian Brueckner, sources said.

Kate and Gerry McCann could be given key information about how Madeleine died 'within days' as their Portuguese lawyer is set to meet with senior police

German police, being assisted by Scotland Yard, are currently investigating convicted rapist Brueckner over Madeleine's disappearance.

It was today revealed that Portuguese police will search wells at Brueckner's Praia da Luz villa in the hunt for her body.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007.

The building has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to.

Brueckner's lawyers have said he will not answer questions on Maddie until he sees proof he was involved.

He may also be in the clear over missing German child Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007 and has become a focus point

It comes after Brueckner's lawyers revealed he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved

The Judicial Police was yesterday considering searching the abandoned shafts in Praia da Luz for Madeleine's body, according to Portuguese newspaper Sol.

Officers earlier this month were understood to be looking to dig up land around two houses Brueckner lived in while in Praia da Luz.

The other building sits on a hill above the resort, about 11 minutes away from the Ocean Club the McCanns were staying.

A Portuguese source told the Sun: 'Judicial Police have confirmed they have been approached by German authorities in connection with the case and they will undoubtedly be prepared to carry out fresh searches in the hope of giving the McCanns closure.

'The obvious focus would be around the hillside former farm building and another property nearby with links to him.'

Brueckner's rented home has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to

The suspect's lawyers said he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved.

Friedrich Fulscher told the Times: 'Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings.

'It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime. No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.'

And in another potential boost for Brueckner, he may be in the clear over the disappearance of five-year-old Inga in Germany five years ago.

It was widely reported that Brueckner was in the same area at the time. The Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether there are new investigative leads.

But according to respected German news magazine FOCUS, investigators currently have no clues as to Brueckner's culpability.

Inga vanished on May 2, 2015, after travelling with her family near Uchtspringe in Saxony-Anhalt.

At around 7 pm, she ran into the nearby forest to collect firewood for a barbecue - and has not been seen since.

In the furore surrounding serial sex criminal Brueckner and the suspicions he is responsible for Maddie's death, he was linked to Inga's vanishing.

FOCUS said: 'Now the relatives of the girl and large sections of the public are asking themselves: were the traces of Christian B. really be intensively enough at that time? Or may investigators have overlooked something crucial? Did they let go too soon?.

'The fact is that the current findings in the Maddie case have further strengthened the efforts of the competent public prosecutor's office in Stendal to investigate the Inga case.

'But prosecutor Thomas Kramer confirmed to FOCUS Online there is 'no concrete suspicion, no hot streak.

'His Mobile phone was not logged into the crime scene area. We have no concrete evidence that he was in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene on the day of the crime.'

The prosecutor said Christian B had already been investigated 'comprehensively and intensively'.

Bruekner may be in the clear regarding another missing child called Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015

After Inga's disappearance, the Stendal investigators had examined all sex offenders who were eligible candidates for the crime.

On July 23, 2015, a so-called trace file was created for Christian Brueckner, based on information from the Braunschweig police.

Brueckner lived in Braunschweig at the time and owned a dilapidated building in the district of Borde in Saxony-Anhalt.

During a search in another case in 2016, investigators found six USB sticks and two phone chip cards there.

Prosecutor Kramer said: 'The evaluation led to the seizure of a large number of child pornography files, but they had no connection to Inga.'

It is also known he had a minor car accident on the A2 autobahn near Helmstedt the day before Inga's disappearance.

Prosecutor Kramer told FOCUS Online: 'The accident in a parking lot happened on the route between Braunschweig and Christian B.'s property in Neuwegersleben. According to our findings, it is unrelated to the disappearance of Inga.'

The crime scene is about 60 miles to the northeast of the crash site.

Kramer told FOCUS Online prosecutors will continue their efforts to resolve the Inga case. He rejected Inga's family's criticism of the investigation.

It emerged yesterday an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine disappeared has formed part of German inquiries.

Portuguese police have been asked to send on details of the 2005 assault, Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor heading the investigation, confirmed.

The request from German authorities follows their suspicions Brueckner could be responsible for other assaults.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out. Pictured is the apartment block Maddie went missing from in 2007

The previous attack on a British holidaymaker was revealed by Met Police officers in 2014 after they joined the worldwide search for the youngster.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out.

Police said there were 18 similar cases along the Algarve coast over a six-year period that could possibly be linked.

Many were classified as 'near misses' after parents returned home to disturb the intruder.

The attacker was said to have a deep tan and stale smell, leading investigator to believe he could be a bin man.

Many of the incidents took place early in the morning after refuse collections had been completed.

The attack on the 10-year-old was not widely publicised and only came to light after an appeal by Met Police officers.

It comes after German prosecutors admitted last week that Madeleine could still be alive.

In comments which could ignite fresh hopes for her parents Kate and Gerry, prosecutor Hans Wolters said there was no forensic evidence to say she is dead.

Madeleine McCann could still be alive, according to the German prosecutor Hans Wolters (left) who previously suggested she was likely to be dead. Pictured right: Paedophile Christian Brueckner, who is suspected of kidnapping Madeleine

This was despite officials saying they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner.

German prosecutors had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is.

But speaking to the Mirror, Mr Wolters said: 'Because there is no forensic evidence there may be a little bit of hope.

'We don't want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be possible.

'I am surprised the fact we say or I say Madeleine is dead is so important for the British people.'

The prosecutor added in Germany it is 'normal' to assume a murder has taken place in similar cases.

Brueckner is currently in prison in Kiel, northern Germany, for drugs offences and is appealing a conviction for rape from last year over a 2005 attack.

Mr Wolters also admitted his previous assertion Madeleine may have been 'killed quickly' was only 'personal opinion and speculation'.

In comments which could ignite fresh hopes for Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry that their daughter may be alive, Mr Wolters said there was no forensic evidence to say she is dead

This was despite officials repeatedly saying that they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner

He said he came to the opinion 'without facts' based on experience of previous kidnapping cases.

Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know he was a sex offender.

At the time of Madeline's disappearance, the German was living in the Praia da Luz area.

But his criminal past in Germany was not known to detectives searching for Madeleine.

While all sex offenders in the Algarve region came under suspicion and were interviewed, 43-year-old Brueckner was not among them.

Though Brueckner had two convictions for theft and disobedience since arriving in Portugal in 1998, he was not on the radar of those searching for the youngster.

His name was included in a file sent to British police in 2011 - but only because he was a foreigner who had been jailed and not because he was linked to a sex crime.

It was not until Brueckner 'confessed' to a friend in a bar in Germany that he knew about Madeleine's disappearance that he became the prime suspect.

German prosecutors are convinced he killed the child but admitted they do not have enough evidence to charge him with murder.

German prosectuors, who are investigating Brueckner for links to Madeleine's 2007 disappearance, had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is. Pictured: Portuguese police at the the Praia da Luz resort from where Maddie disappeared

It comes after news emerged that Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know that he was a convicted sex offender.

Kate and Gerry McCann continue to hope that their daughter is alive

Portuguese media said EU countries did not routinely share information on all criminals in the 1990s.

Brueckner was convicted of molesting a six-year-old girl in a playground in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1994 when he was just 17.

He left Germany for the Algarve after serving part of a two-year youth sentence for the crime. But that conviction was unknown to police on the McCann case in 2007.
Police guard a statue of British explorer James Cook as protesters gather in Sydney, to support US protests over the death of George Floyd. (Rick Rycroft/AP)

An Australian state government leader said on Monday she was considering tougher laws to protect monuments after two statues of British explorer James Cook were vandalised in Sydney.

Two women were charged with defacing a statue with spray paint in downtown Hyde Park over Saturday night.

Another statue was discovered spray painted in the eastern suburb of Randwick on Sunday morning in an unrelated attack, police said.

Cities around the world are taking steps to remove statues that represent cultural or racial oppression.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would consider toughening laws to deter future vandalism.

I wish it didnt come to this and I want to stress that its only a very, very small percentage of the population thats engaging in this activity, the vast majority of us dont condone it, we think its disrespectful, its un-Australian, she told reporters.

Expand Close Protesters carry an Aboriginal flag as they walk past a statue of British explorer James Cook (Rick Rycroft/AP) / Facebook

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Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week apologised for words he previously used to reject calls for his Sydney electoral district of Cook to be renamed.

Cook came ashore in the district in 1770 in what was to become the site of the first British colony in Australia.

Morrison apologised for saying Australia has been colonised without slavery after critics pointed out that tens of thousands of South Pacific islanders had been forced to labour on Australian sugar cane plantations in the 19th century and Australian indigenous people had been forced to work for wages that were never paid.

A part-time employee of the minor Greens party, Xiaoran Shi, 28, and her alleged accomplice Charmaine Morrison-Mills, 27, were released on bail from a Sydney court on Sunday on charges of damaging property and possessing a graffiti implement over the Hyde Park statue.

Greens state lawmaker David Shoebridge, for whom Shi works, said he was aware of the allegations.

They were not engaged in employment at the time of the incident which occurred well outside of work hours, Mr Shoebridge said in a statement.
In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and MSMEs, spoke on a range of issues from woes of MSMEs, scrappage policy, electric vehicles to dealing with COVID-19 outbreak.

Here's the full transcript of the interview:

Q: Welcome to a special conversation with Nitin Gadkari, Honorable Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Micro Small and Medium Enterprises. First of all, I would like to ask you what is the progress of the three lakh crore credit guarantee package that was announced as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat package for the MSME industry because the MSME industry is still facing problems. Banks are also reluctant to lend to MSMEs. What feedback have you got?

A:My feedback is good. Particularly in Nagpur a delegation of the Chamber of Commerce met me and thanked me. Now, the bank manager is coming to the industrialists and they are helping them. We have already started the web portal - CHAMPIONS. Whenever there is a problem as far as the government policy is concerned, my humble suggestion to them kindly put it on the web portal and we will resolve the issue. Prime Minister has also appointed a committee under the Chairmanship of Rajnath Singh to take the review of complete package. So, I feel that as a government, we will take the responsibility to implement it.

Q: Many MSMEs have told us that banks have actually asked them to clear outstanding loans before any new loan can be sanctioned from the freshly announced package. have you got any particular feedback on this aspect?

A: My suggestion is they should approach us and post their grievances on the portal. We will go into the details of every individual case and then take the decision.

Q: Another problem MSMEs are facing outstanding dues from public sector undertakings. Now, there is a rule that all PSUs have to clear MSME dues within 45 days. Is that being adhered to?

A: Actually, frankly speaking, you understand what exactly this problem is. There are dues of MSME with central government, central government ministries, and public undertaking belongs to Bharat Sarkar. That is Part A.

Part B is state government, state government ministers and their undertakings. And part C deals with major industries. So, actually the Indian government side Prime Minister has taken a decision, Finance Minister has also conducted a review meeting and already issued order.

Now regarding state government, I have requested all Chief Ministers that please conduct review of all these cases and kindly issue the order to respective ministries and undertakings. Regarding major industries, I had interactions with many their representatives in my review conferences and requested them that they give first priority to MSMEs.

In the Samadhan portal, we have received the complaints and out of which some problems have been solved. We are also trying to find out some mechanism for that. We are in the process of that with the help of a bank. We can raise the money of that dues payment on the name of the company's raw material supply. But it is in the process. So, there are a lot of things we are trying.

Presently a lot of people are expecting that we should take some hard decisions regarding the payments. But this is not the appropriate time. After there is improvement in the situation, we can think about it. But presently, everyone is in problem and we need to find out an integrated approach and that is exactly the policy which government is now implementing. So, this is not the time for taking any harsh and hard decisions.

Q: So what could these hard decisions be as far as PSU payments are concerned?

A: Well, we are not taking the decision. So, what is the point of discussion on this? Okay, it will be only after this period. There are a lot of suggestions from the MSME sector, from the different stakeholders - Finance Ministry, Law Ministry and MSME Ministry. We have already started a dialogue on this issue. When the situation will improve, we will take the decision.

Q: That's right. What would be the total amount of outstanding dues from PSU to MSMEs as of now? Can you give us a ballpark figure?

A: I don't have exact figures but approximately it is Rs 5 lakh crore. For three criteria, some people are politically misinterpreted, actually when I declare it from Bharat Sarkar, Bharat Sarkar undertaking and ministries, then state governments, state government undertakings and their ministers then private industry. I am confident and I am very positive about it that MSMEs will get their payments and we will resolve the issue.

There are some disputes and we need to find out some ways to address them. After this coronavirus period, we will find out some long-term resolutions.

Q: So, just to understand, about Rs 5 lakh crore is the total amount outstanding.

A: It is not official, again I am telling you. Unofficially, I take the report from MSMEs. Presently in India, there are approximately 6 crore 50 lakh MSMEs. In the road construction segment also, there are plenty contactors. They are also registered MSMEs. So, at NHAI, we have taken a decision that when we terminate any contracts and we are supposed to view whatever the construction has been executed by the contractor, we will take all the list of creditors, particularly of MSMEs and will issue payments to the small MSMEs first. This is the policy that we will follow.

So, there are various types of problems - irrigation, road construction, railway, then ports, everywhere there are small companies involved. We are very positive about resolving this issue.

Q: Another issue which MSMEs have pointed out is the outstanding GST refunds, which amounts to around Rs 18,000 crore. I understand you have taken it up with the Finance Minister. What is the progress on that?

A: I don't know the exact amount but the Finance Ministry and GST authorities have taken cognizance and are making some schedule fort hat people are getting their refunds.

Q: To what extent has the unlocking taking place among MSME. Is it safe to say that about 50 percent of MSMEs have resumed normal operations?

A: Not 50 percent as far as the feedback I have received. According to my knowledge, 70-80 percent of MSMEs have already started oprations.

Q: In full capacity?

A: Not full capacity. Some of them, their speed is is increasing day by day. Some of the hair-cutting saloons, malls, restaurants, wellness centres, beauty parlours are also registered under MSMEs. Some of them are finding ways out on how to start. But that is equally important because employment of many people depend on these activities and we need to find out a way for that.

Q: One of the biggest problems that MSMEs are facing while resuming operations is the availability of labour and we have seen people going back and walking hundreds of kilometres back to their villages. Has the process of labour coming back to MSMEs to work started?

A: Actually frankly speaking, when I listen about this problem in the media, there is an apprehension in the minds of people that our whole industry is dependent on migrant labourers. That is not the fact. It is in the range of 10 to 20 percent of migrant labourers. The situation is changing and they are now ready to come again back to rejoin work. For that purpose, we need coordination between the two district collectors and take preventive measures.

One of the important thing is that wearing a mask is mandatory. Maintain the distance between two person more than one meter and third use of sanitiser every time. So, we had to take the preventive measures regarding the health of the labourers.

Q: And what about highway construction activity? To what extent has highway construction activity started?

A: More than 80 percent has started. There is no problem.

Q: And there is no shortage of labour there also?

A: Already labourers are coming and what I'm telling you is that the entire labourforce is not made up of migrant labourers. Highway construction is a mechanised process. So you need drivers for trucks, rollers, etc. I have got the information that somewhere they are paying more money for getting all this technical and skilled manpower because their rates are comparatively high. But those who are coming from different states, their wages are comparatively less. It may be a problem but presently all are looking forward to restart work. There is positivity in their attitude and approach and lot of work has already started.

Q: Due to lockdown, to what extent has highway construction got affected? What is the kind of time overruns you are looking at?

A: Already we have given special packages to all contractors regarding this period and we are already supporting them. I feel that for this period, we need to help them. We have discussed the situation with Secretary, NHAI Chairman and there is no problem.

They have now resumed their activities and are moving very fast and they are trying to now increase the speed of construction.

Q: And what would be the average pace of highway construction now? About how many kilometres of highways are we constructing now?

A: It is difficult for me to tell you because before March 8, it was 29-30 kilometre per day. But now, April, May and June, there have been a lot of difficulties. Probably these three months because of coronavirus and then rainy season there will be problems. So, we are not expecting too much speed in the six months. But the next six months after rainy season, we will get good results and again we will maintain the same record of the previous year or even more than that if we keep trying.

Q: So, what is the target that you are setting after six months?

A: My target is already set up for 40 kilometres per day.

Q: And you think we can achieve that after October?

A: God knows. I will try my level best for that and that is only promise I can make.

Q: Also there were few very iconic projects that you had started, for instance, the New Delhi-Mumbai expressway. To what extent will it get delayed?

A: Actually the land acquisition is completed. Out of 62, 32 contracts have already been awarded and others are in process. We will try to maintain the same schedule and increase the speed of construction.

Q: Also there are a lot of challenges related to the HAM (Hybrid Annuity Model) model. Is the government going to rethink on it because last time the total project commissioning was about 28 percent. So, this time, do you think that a fewer projects will be given under this model?

A. That is not a problem. Problem is with the financial institution. Actually they are also under stress. When the contractor does not get payment month after month, how can they work on the site? That is the problem. We are actually trying part of some PPP project on BOT mode.

Then we are also trying for making an EPC mode and now we are developing the land across the road. So now on the EPC mode we can complete the project. The banks are ready to finance.

Just 8 or 10 days before, we have got sanction from a foreign bank also for infrastructure. So now is a time for NHAI because it has triple-A rating by the world class institution. So I'm confident that we can get support of foreign banks, ADB, World Bank, KfW, etc.

So, first time we are trying hard to get foreign investment. The most important thing in Indian economy is now that is my feeling that we need to increase liquidity and without liquidity, we cannot accelerate the wheel of economy. Now, our budget size of Rs 200 lakh crore, out of which Rs 20 lakh crore is already given. Economic experts feel that there will be budgetary shortage of Rs 10 lakh crore in state and central levels. So, we need more liquidity.

Today I had a video conference with the industry representatives from Dubai. I requested them to invest in Indian MSMEs. We are giving special ratings for those who are having good turnovers, good GST record and good tax records. On the basis of that, we will fix up the rating and if we can invest in such type of MSME, our idea is there will be MSME stock exchange like a national stock exchange. It can be a good opportunity for foreign investors to get good returns from it.

Foreign investment is going to be helpful for the economy of our country. It is going to increase the liquidity in the market, which is going to create more employment potential.

Q: You talked about creating an MSME stock exchange. Is it going to be within the BSE-NSE framework or is it going to be separate?

A: It is not a separate stock exchange. Our experts are working on this thing. Now I am going to call a meeting of all concerning stock exchanges and in due course, we will take the decision. An idea is that MSME we have 50, 000 crore and we will add first at least up to 15 percent equity in the MSME and then MSME will go to capital market. They will get equity and in the 2-3 years, our Rs 10 share will increase by 3-4 times and we will sell the equity. We will give that equity to other MSMEs. This is the idea we are now discussing this.

Q: One big tending policy that has remained unresolved since the last several years and which you always wanted to do is the scrappage policy. When does it see the light of the day?

A: We are now in position to take a decision. We are expecting some support from Finance Ministry, state finance ministries and from manufacturers. But two years after trying our level best, we are not getting much concession from them. So we have decided now that we are going to formulate the policy and declare it as early as possible.

Q: Do you think there is a lobby working against scrappage policy within the automobile industry?

A: I don't feel so.

Q: The other question that I wanted to ask you is on electric vehicles. You had once set a deadline of 2030. Is there are change there?

A: I never set any type of roadmap and any type of date or limit. It is a natural spreading of e-vehicles. Now, TVS, Bajaj have electric bikes and scooters in India. You don't need to make any date for that as it is cost-effective, pollution-free and indigenous and people are going to take it. I will give you an example. In some of the corporations, they are running buses.

In Nagpur, we have ethanol buses - air-conditioned and good quality. Our rate is Rs 78 per kilometre. Then electric bus, the tender is coming in Pune is Rs 50 per kilometre. So, it is cost-effective. Even the corporations can reduce the ticket rates and they can offer air-conditioned buses. It is going to resolve the problem of air pollution also.

The only problem is price. The capital cost is on a higher side but the fuel cost is very negligible. It is the choice of the people. Suppose if you have a car and spending Rs 6,000 per month on your diesel or petrol vehicle. When you take electric car, your per year expense is Rs 1,000. If you want to take it, you are going to take it.

Q: The big challenge in electric car obviously is their charging infrastructure but I would assume that we have come a long way once the public transport mostly

A: Now new technology has come in. You can charge your car in your house.

Q: The Prime Minister has also talked about turning infra in the manufacturing hotspot and there is a lot of talk going around that lot of companies are moving out of China, including in the medium and small industries space. Have you been receiving any queries from companies?

A: Yes, there is a very positive response. We know the whole world economic situation. Majority countries now don't want to deal with China and India has got its own strength. We have young talented manpower, raw materials and technology. Our labour cost is comparatively very cheaper and so now we are now promoting foreign investment and we are getting good response. It is an opportunity for the industry for upgradation of the technology and to get foreign investment I am confident that we will get good response.

Q: Two of Indias biggest markets from a consumption point of view - Delhi and Mumbai - are suffering the worst due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When do you see things getting better?

A: I am not a scientist. So, I cannot predict. But it is true that Delhi and Mumbai are facing serious problems. Delhi is the capital of India and Mumbai is the commercial capital of India. It is really, really very important for Indian economy to resolve the problems but it is not in our hand. The whole world is facing the problem because of COVID-19. Now, the only option is we should get a vaccine. The whole world is working towards that and I am confident in due course, we will get the vaccine. Our scientists, health ministry, research institutes in India and scientists are all working hard and I am positive that within a month, we will get a solution.

But when the vaccine is not there, people of the country have to live with coronavirus. We need to understand art of living with coronavirus to protect ourselves. There is no any other option and no shortcut. The ground reality is that we have to take the preventive measures. Lastly, I will tell you one thing. When I discuss with the people, there is negativity and fear. We need to create positivity and bring back self-confidence. Otherwise, the negativity and fear is going to create lot of problem.

So all stakeholders - media, government, political parties -this is a national problem. We are facing a very acute and complicated problem and we should think above caste, religion, creed and politics. For the national interest, we need to increase the self-confidence of our citizens and then only we can win the war against coronavirus and at at the same time, we will 100 percent win the economic war and fulfil the dream of Prime Minister to make India a 5 trillion economy.

Follow our coverage of the coronavirus crisis here
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to fall at the open on Monday amid ongoing fears about a second wave of coronavirus infections.

The FTSE 100 was called to open 83 points lower at 6,022.



CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "The number of new Covid-19 cases dominated the headlines at the back end of last week and it is likely to be at the forefront of traders' minds this week."



He pointed to the fact that a partial lockdown was reintroduced in Beijing over the weekend on account of a jump in new Covid-19 cases.



"It is believed the cases were linked to a food market. The coronavirus is also an issue for Tokyo as the Japanese capital reported 47 new cases - its highest level in over one month. According to Reuters, several US states, such as Florida, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina, all posted an increase in new cases, so dealers will be monitoring the health situation."



Investors will also be mulling the latest data out of China, which showed that fixed asset investment fell 6.3% in May versus a consensus estimate for a 5.9% decline and a 10.3% drop in April.



Industrial production rose 4.4%, up from a 3.9% rise the month before but below consensus expectations for a 5% increase. Retail sales fell 2.8% in May, which was an improvement on the 7.5% slump seen the month before and better than expectations of a 2% rise.



"The figures point to an economy that is experiencing a slow bounce back, so traders will probably take the view that western economies will also undergo a similar situation. Stocks in Asia are in the red," said Madden.



In corporate news, international distribution group Bunzl said it planned to repay employee-related government support packages and bring forward the settlement of tax deferrals after as increased deliveries of food and medical products during the coronavirus pandemic drove higher first half revenues.



The company said revenue was expected to increase by approximately 6% at both actual and constant exchange rates.



AstraZeneca inked a deal with for European countries to provide its Covid-19 vaccine, if successful, starting from the end of 2020.



The deal was signed with the Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), which is led by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, for the supply of as many as 400.0m doses.



BP said it expected to take $13bn - $17.5bn in impairment charges and exploration write-offs in the second quarter after it cut long term oil and gas price assumptions based on the likely enduring impact of Covid-19 and weaker demand for a sustained period.
Current measures in place to support prison officers experiencing workplace-related stress will be subject to a review launched by the Justice Minister.

The announcement by Naomi Long comes after a sanction against a prison officer who took time off work for mental health reasons was lifted last month.

The issue was first highlighted by Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie in this newspaper.

Mr Beattie criticised the decision to give the officer suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder a written warning for absence.

He said the warder had taken time off for stress, but was given the punishment after a return to work interview.

The UUP justice spokesman welcomed the decision by the authorities to rescind the warning, but added: "If ministers are not willing to fight for their workforce then who is?"

More than 200 prison officers have received warnings about work absence in recent years, according to figures provided to Mr Beattie.

According to a breakdown of written warnings issued in the past three years by the Department of Finance, which is responsible for employment issues involving staff, out of a total of 349 warnings to civil servants, 203 related to prison officers, the BBC reported.

The figures prompted Mr Beattie to claim they were "disproportionately high". The Department of Justice had previously said the issue was "sensitive and challenging".

The Justice Minister said the commissioned review will examine if more can be done to address the issues faced by prison officers.

"I am acutely aware of the challenging and unique role played by prison officers in Northern Ireland," she said.

"They do outstanding work day and daily, which is why on each of my visits to our prisons I took the time to speak to them about how they were feeling and about what support was available to them."

Mrs Long stressed that as well as engaging with prison governors and the service's director general, she had "listened carefully" to Mr Beattie and fellow MLA Chris Lyttle, who earlier this year welcomed a health and wellbeing review for services provided to ex-prison officers.

Emphasising that the service has initiatives such as the Prisonswell Programme to "support, prevent, assist and inform front line officers", it is important to know if more can be done, she added.

"Consequently, it is my intention to commission a focused review of the support mechanisms and procedures the Prison Service has in place to ascertain if there is more we could or should be doing to help our front line staff," she said. "I recognise that it is important that we take appropriate action whilst balancing the need to exercise a rigorous, sensitive and proportionate approach to reducing sick absence.

"The NI Prison Service has changed greatly in recent years and positive relationships between staff and those in their care has been at the heart of that.

"Prison services in other jurisdictions are now looking at Northern Ireland as an exemplar of best practice.

"Recent inspection reports speak for themselves, with our prisons now assessed as much safer places and a reduction in the number of assaults on staff and in self-harm incidents.

"Just this week the inspection report published in relation to Hydebank Wood Secure College and Women's Prison reflected on 'the remarkable change' that has taken place there.

"I want again to pay tribute to all Prison Service staff for what they have achieved. I very much value their work and I want to, through this review, ensure they are receiving the support they need."
Sushant Singh Rajput has given us some amazing films in Bollywood from Kai Po Che to Chhichhore and his on-screen performances have shown us the immense talent that he had in him. The actor was recently found dead in his Mumbai home and his fans along with film fraternity and family members were shattered after hearing the heartbreaking news. This is an unbearable loss for the industry and no-one was expecting this to happen.

Like the shadow

I am

and

I am not...

~ Jalaluddin Rumi  pic.twitter.com/Ejj1X6LSyV  Sushant Singh Rajput (@itsSSR) October 26, 2019

His performance in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story won hearts of the whole nation and all of us have re-watched many times.

Recently, his former teacher Seema Singh remembered him and said, He had set an example for (students) to dream bigger and fetch impossible. Its a never compensating loss to us. Delhi Technological University is also organizing an online prayer meeting for him for the peace of his soul.

A day to live a big big dream !

What a wonderful day :)  pic.twitter.com/6dZbxOztZv  Sushant Singh Rajput (@itsSSR) October 11, 2019

People who interacted with him and his fans started sharing the actors favourite moments and fondest memories on Twitter. The memories included old tweets, photos, videos that were associated with him.

Here we go-

I remember how I contacted #SushantSinghRajput during the Kerala floods 2018 to ask him to send more cleaning supplies. I had just moved from the camp and found out that he was helping us a lot. Such a kind soul he was. #RIP  Arya (@RantingDosa) June 14, 2020

Rest in peace Sushant, you've left us too early. You were a talented, brave and self-made actor; and having you in the movies was a treat. I'm writing this down for it to register in my mind, but I'm not sure it ever will. I hope you find peace up there, buddy. pic.twitter.com/vOzzH4Ftxq  d mD (@MundaKamaal) June 14, 2020

Sushant was a fighter. It takes courage to quit engineering course in a primier college that too after topping the entrance test. He had no support system and still he managed to get hit movies. He was from my generation, from my city from my age group. Feels like a personal loss  Rahul Raj (@bhak_sala) June 14, 2020

Pavitra Rishta was one of my moms favorite show. We used to watch it together and i was so happy to see a guy from a tv serial making a huge appearance in a movie and that time it was a big deal. R.I.P Sushant Singh Rajput ! You will be missed !  Sagar Rathore (@SagarRathore_) June 14, 2020

A wishlist that made me love Sushant for how sorted he was in life



Here is his famous list of dreams. The man was just so brilliant and uniquely curious and intelligent. Truly the smartest in bollywood.



Rest in peace #SushantSinghRajput pic.twitter.com/THn07ppQXY  Dr Pooja Tripathi (@Pooja_Tripathii) June 14, 2020

I grew up watching him from this age when he played role of Manav in Pavitra Rishta.Gone too soon #SushantSinghRajput...RIP pic.twitter.com/0LkvX5yMM7  Ashita jauhari (@AshitaJauhari) June 14, 2020

Never ever thought that this would ever happen.#SushantSinghRajput was an amazing actor and have done such a great roles in Bollywood movies which will always be remembered.#ripsushant pic.twitter.com/lVkaehnsJe  Sidharth Narang (@sidharth4yu) June 14, 2020

Shashi Tharoor also tweeted remembering Sushant Singh Rajput, Deeply shocked &saddened by the news of #SushantSinghRajput's untimely &tragic passing. Aside from his talented acting, he was a kind-hearted man who donated Rs 1.25 crores to the CM's relief fund during the Kerala floods. May his loved ones find the strength to bear this loss.

Check out the post-

Deeply shocked &saddened by the news of #SushantSinghRajput's untimely &tragic passing. Aside from his talented acting, he was a kind-hearted man who donated Rs 1.25 crores to the CM's relief fund during the Kerala floods. May his loved ones find the strength to bear this loss.  Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 14, 2020

One of his childhood dream was to be a pilot & fly a plane! He had shared this video with so much enthusiasm...



RIP #SushantSinghRajput pic.twitter.com/sTCIY1mDeg  Abdullah Ali (@abdullahaly99) June 15, 2020

You are an inspiration for thousands of boys. You have given hope that from simple background you can still make it big. #ripsushant pic.twitter.com/uhNawgJpzl  Madan Gowri (@madan3) June 14, 2020

Gone too soon my friend, gone just too soon. You were one of the most well read and curios human being I have had the honor to know. #ripsushant pic.twitter.com/zD0Z2wdm9q  Dr. Karan Jani (@AstroKPJ) June 14, 2020

We hope that he rests in peace and also well keep on remembering him for the great work that he has done in the industry. His films will always be instilled in our fondest memories and his fans will cherish his extraordinary performances forever.
Murphy Windmill

Location: Southwest corner of Golden Gate Park (near 48th Avenue and Lincoln Way)



Erected: 1907-08

A gift to the city from banker Samuel G. Murphy, the now-restored Murphy Windmill was the largest in the world when it was built. Able to pump 40,000 gallons of well water a day for park irrigation, its purpose was to save the city from the exorbitant costs that the private Spring Valley Water Company charged.

The Murphy Windmill, sometimes called the South Windmill, had a moment of fame when it appeared in a 1915 Charlie Chaplin movie, The Jitney Elopement.

Electric pumps replaced the windmill's reason for existence fairly quickly. The structure fell into great disrepair in the decades after World War II, and may have spent more decades without its massive spars and sails than with them. A long campaign to restore the Murphy Windmill ended in 2012, and today the blades can often been seen turning in the face of breezes from the Pacific.

From The Making of Golden Gate Park, The Growing Years: 1906-1950, Raymond H. Clary, 1987:



The Dutch windmill that had been built near Ocean Beach in 1902 was so popular with the Park Commission that they decided to build another one at the southwest corner of the park. Samuel G. Murphy, a local banker, came forward with $20,000 for the new mill. At a meeting of the Park Commission on June 7, 1907, the members voted to name the new windmill the 'Samuel G. Murphy Windmill,' and a local engineer by the name of Stutt was employed to prepare plans for the new mill at a fee of $300. On August 4, 1907, the plans were approved, and Superintendent McLaren was ordered to begin the construction at once. He was also instructed to estimate the cost of creating a lake that would serve as an irrigation reservoir when the new windmill was built. When McLaren reported that the lake could be built for $9,513, the commissioners ordered that the work be done as soon as the weather permitted. Not until April 11, 1908, were the windmill and reservoir completed. On that day Mayor Taylor and his wife, John McLaren and the park commissioners gathered to see the new windmill turn its sails for the first time. The structure pumped from the wells beneath it to the new lake a mile away on Middle Drive. In keeping with ongoing political practice, the lake was named after the president of the commission and became Metson Lake.



According to the [San Francisco] Examiner, the windmill had cost $22,000. The Pacific Lumber Company donated the two spars for the windmill. These spars were 2 feet square at the hub and 8 inches square at the tip. They were 114 feet long, and each was cut from a single log.



W.J. Dingee, the former commissioner, donated 1,500 tons of concrete for the mill and Louis Sloss donated the copper dome.



The Dutch Windmill, built in 1902, had been covered with cedar shingles, but the Murphy Mill was covered with slate shingles. It is interesting to note that former Commissioner W.J. Dingee owned or controlled most of the slate mines in California.

And more on the windmill from Mr. Clary's excellent book:



Superintendent (Julius) Girod reported in October [1944] that one of the spars of the Murphy Windmill was in such a state of dry rot it was in danger of falling. If it fell, it would probably destroy the entire structure. He estimated that the removal would cost $800, and the board decided to petition the mayor for monies from the emergency fund to remove the spar.



The following month, the mayor approved the request. A contract was awarded to J. Philip Murphy Company to do the work on the Murphy Windmill for $750.

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WASHINGTON  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch is a profoundly conservative jurist and one of two appointments President Donald Trump has made to the Supreme Court that Republicans expected would fundamentally shape it to their liking for a generation.

But Monday, Gorsuch, 52, led the way on one of the most sweeping gay rights rulings in the courts history, protecting gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination and confounding those who thought he would be a reliable bulwark against such positions.

Gorsuch took the place of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016 but whose seat was kept open by Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, until President Barack Obama had left the White House. Trump then made Gorsuch his first appointment to the court less than two weeks after his inauguration.

Scalia left a legacy as one of the courts most fiercely conservative members, and while more courteous and mild mannered than his predecessor, Gorsuch has largely echoed his legal philosophy from the bench.

Until now.

ALSO Two conservatives join liberals in Supreme Court ruling to protect LGBTQ workers

Gorsuch led a 6-3 majority in declaring that gay and transgender workers are protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex. His ruling was joined not by his usual conservative allies but by the courts four liberals and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

In Title VII, Congress adopted broad language making it illegal for an employer to rely on an employees sex when deciding to fire that employee, Gorsuch wrote for the majority. We do not hesitate to recognize today a necessary consequence of that legislative choice: An employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.

Gorsuch has repeatedly said he is a staunch believer in textualism, in which judges look only at the written words of a statute rather than the intent of the lawmakers who wrote them. In Mondays opinion, he said the words of the Civil Right Act were clear.

When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, its no contest, Gorsuch wrote in the opening paragraphs of his opinion. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

His conclusion: An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. And therefore, he said, the employer is in violation of the Civil Rights Act and the law.

In writing the opinion, Gorsuch assumed the role of his mentor, former Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who played a pivotal role in many of the biggest gay rights cases of the past quarter-century and was the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

When Kennedy retired in 2018, gay rights advocates said they feared that the court was less likely to support their cause. Instead his former clerk wrote an opinion that was immediately hailed by gay and transgender rights groups as a landmark victory.

Demand Justice, a liberal group that fought against Gorsuchs confirmation, praised the ruling even as it expressed doubts about whether he would continue to be an ally in the future.

This historic decision is a massive victory for L.G.B.T.Q.+ activists whove built a movement so strong that not even John Roberts or Neil Gorsuch could ignore it, Brian Fallon, the groups executive director, said in a statement. Unfortunately, hoping and praying that Roberts and Gorsuch will consistently do the right thing is not a winning strategy for securing our civil rights over the coming decades.

Conservative legal scholars  who were instrumental in persuading Trump to select Gorsuch and lobbied heavily for his confirmation  denounced his opinion, calling it a travesty for conservative legal thought.

Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said the opinion represented the hijacking of textualism and wrote on Twitter that Gorsuch was betraying the legacy of the justice whose seat he holds.

Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards, Severino said, adding: You cant redefine the meaning of words themselves and still be doing textualism. This is an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy.

Severino and the leaders of other conservative legal organizations, including the Federalist Society, had eagerly supported Trumps choice of Gorsuch to replace Scalia, describing him at the time as a jurist with rock-solid conservative credentials.

Gorsuch had been appointed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver by President George W. Bush in 2006. He served on that court until Trump elevated him 11 years later.

Like most members of the Supreme Court, Gorsuch is a product of Ivy League schools, earning a degree at Columbia University and attending law school at Harvard University. He is also deeply familiar with the nations capital, having worked for a decade in the city as a Justice Department lawyer and a member of a prominent law firm. His mother worked as a high-level official in the Reagan administration.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Atlanta

One minute, Rayshard Brooks was chatting cooperatively with Atlanta police, saying he'd had a couple of drinks to celebrate his daughter's birthday and agreeing to a breath test. The next, they were wrestling on the ground and grappling over a Taser before Brooks took the weapon and ran.

Seconds later, three gunshots sounded and Brooks fell mortally wounded.

Atlanta police video released Sunday showing a seemingly routine sobriety check outside a Wendy's restaurant that quickly spun out of control, ending in gunfire. The killing of the 27-year-old black man in an encounter with two white officers late Friday rekindled fiery protests in Atlanta and prompted the police chief's resignation.

Police said Sunday the department terminated Officer Garrett Rolfe, who fired the fatal shots, and officer Devin Brosnan was placed on administrative duty. Rolfe had worked for the department since October 2013, and Brosnan since September 2018.

Meanwhile, authorities announced a $10,000 reward for information finding those responsible for setting fire to the Wendy's restaurant at the shooting scene. Flames gutted the restaurant late Saturday after demonstrations grew turbulent. The protests prompted 36 arrests.

More than 100 people, some sporting umbrellas and rain gear after on-and-off rain, protested peacefully at the site Sunday evening. Police blocked some side streets, slowing traffic in the area as people held up signs.

The two officers' body cameras and the dash-mounted cameras in their patrol cars showed they spent more than 40 minutes peacefully questioning Brooks. The fighting erupted when they tried to handcuff Brooks.

Andy Harvey, chief of police of Ennis, Texas, who has written books and developed training on community policing, said such moments can turn in a split second.

"The moment you put your hands on someone is when someone will decide whether to comply or resist," Harvey said. "That's what happened in Atlanta."

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation will present the findings of its investigation to prosecutors. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said in a statement Sunday he hopes to reach a decision by midweek on whether to bring charges against the officers.

The officers were called late Friday over complaints of a car blocking the restaurant's drive-thru lane. Brosnan arrived first and found Brooks alone in the car, apparently asleep. Brooks agreed to move the car, showed his license, and Rolfe arrived minutes later to conduct a sobriety check.

"I know you're just doing your job," Brooks says on video after consenting to a breath test. He mentions celebrating his daughter's birthday and says: "I just had a few drinks, that's all."

Rolfe doesn't tell Brooks the results though his body camera recorded a digital readout of 0.108  higher than the 0.08-gram blood alcohol content considered too intoxicated to drive in Georgia.

"All right, I think you've had too much to drink to be driving," Rolfe tells Brooks. "Put your hands behind your back."

The video shows each officer take hold of one of Brooks' wrists as Rolfe tries to handcuff him. Brooks tries to run and the officers take him to the ground.

"Stop fighting!" one officers yells.

One of the dash cameras recorded the brawl. As Brooks fights to stand, Brosnan presses a Taser to his leg and threatens to stun him. Brooks grabs the Taser and pulls it away. He struggles to his feet, the Taser in his hand, and starts running.

Rolfe fires his Taser and a yelp can be heard above the weapon's electric crackle. Rolfe runs after Brooks, and seconds later three gunshots sound.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Both officers' body cameras were knocked to the ground in the struggle, and none of the four police cameras captured the shooting. Footage released from a Wendy's security camera showed Brooks turn and point an object in his hand at one of the officers, who was steps behind him. The officer draws his gun and fires.

"As I pursued him, he turned and started firing the Taser at me," Rolfe told a supervisor after the shooting in a videotaped conversation. "...He definitely did shoot it at me at least once."

GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles said Sunday she could not confirm whether Brooks fired the Taser.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Saturday she doesn't believe the shooting was justified. Police Chief Erika Shields, who joined the department as a beat officer in 1995, resigned.

Brooks' death inflamed raw emotions in Atlanta and across the U.S. following the May 25 police custody killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Some public officials questioned whether shooting of Brooks was as clearly an abuse as Floyd's death after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee to his neck.

"The question is when the suspect turned to fire the Taser, what should the officer have done?" U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, said on CBS' "Face The Nation." Scott, the Senate's only black Republican, said Brooks's death "is certainly a far less clear one than the ones that we saw with George Floyd and several other ones."

Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic lawmaker who gained national prominence while running for governor in 2018, said "there's a legitimacy to this outrage" over Brooks' death.

L. Chris Stewart, a Brooks family attorney, said the officer who shot him should be charged for "an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder."

Stewart said that Brooks, a father of four, on Friday had celebrated the eighth birthday of one of his daughters.
An Australian blogger has been praised for deeply honest reflection on her marriage.

Taking to her Instagram, blogger known as 'HouseOfHoods' wrote about the struggles of her marriage, the stress of parenting and the fear she has lost the passionin her relationship.

"I miss us. Remember when it was just you and me? Before the endless bills, long work hours and the kids." her post began.

"Its hard for me sometimes to look at you and not cry. I never thought we would be that couple. I never thought I would be that women. Somedays its like we are just room mates who occasionally have sex."

"We barely talk and when we do its about overdue electricity bills, its me usually nagging you do to something , its usually us talking about the children.

Its funny, I still get excited when you walk through the door even if your not smiling.

I ask you the same questions when you get in, how was work? What did you do ? And you just shrug your shoulders. Is this actually us? The thing I thought we would never become."

"I never thought I would be the nagging wife, the wife who wears the same clothes 3 days in a row , the one without any makeup on or dress sense , the one that yells more than talks."



"Maybe its me, maybe Ive changed so much I changed us. I worry somedays you stick around for our children, I dont even know how you can love someone so grouchy and uptight. All I know is that I really love you and I always will. I also love our kids."

"But we really need to find each other again . Our passion , the thing that brought us to each other. The reason why we decided to create four beautiful creatures together.

I hope in 30 years time we can sit back together and reminisce about the harder times, the endless debt and long hours trying to settle the children. I hope we can stick together and see this out."

The response online was incredibly supportive, with many praising her for opening up.

"Relationships cannot always be perfect, its a real balance, I hope he reads this." one person wrote.

"This is very beautiful." simply wrote another.

You can read the blog entry in its entirety in the Instagram post below...
Id gotten hit a few times, but that was just part of the territory, he said. You feel like you want to get up and clobber them  but you dont.

Jorgenson was shipped with 1,035 POWs to Japan in August 1944 on one of the notorious hell ships, the Noto Maru. They were crammed into a hot cargo hold with no room to sit. They were given only a little rice and water each day. An open vat in the middle of the room was a communal toilet.

There were no fights. Just a lot of congestion and smells, Jorgenson said.

Once in Japan, he was among about 900 POWs sent to the Hanawa prison camp in the mountains of northern Japan to work as slave laborers in the Mitsubishi copper mines. Twenty-seven of them died.

Jorgenson was one of only two of the POWs still living in 2015, when Mitsubishi officials delivered a formal apology to the POWs in Los Angeles.
The top brass of the Pakistan Army is displeased with Prime Minister Imran Khans handling of the COVID-19 crisis and confronted the Pak governments failure in dealing with the pandemic - as if it is not in the unofficial custodian of the latter's decision making.

According to Wajid Shamsul Hasan, a former Pakistani diplomat and journalist, the total failure of Imran Khan government's anti-COVID-19 policies justifies that Generals should take control of the situation in Pakistan. However, there is no official declaration of martial law in the country.

READ | Pak's Coronavirus Cases Could Reach Up To 12 Lakh By July End: Minister

"Until last induction of officers up to the rank of Lt. Generals in the civilian cadre, there are now more than a dozen former and current military officials in prominent government posts such as running the state-owned PIA, the power regulator and the National Institute of Health, which is leading the country's pandemic response. Three of those appointments happened in the last two months," ANI quoted Hasan as saying.

He believes that Imran Khan has failed to decide what is best for combating Coronavirus, as the government did not feel the need to impose a complete lockdown even as positive cases multiplied. With COVID-19 deaths nearing 3000 mark, the Prime Minister has now introduced a smart lockdown in places where the surge is more severe.

READ | Centre Working To Stop Water Of India's Share Into Pakistan: Nitin Gadkari

WHO warns Pakistan of dire consequences

Seeing that the situation in Pakistan has become more threatening, the World Health Organization warned the country of dire consequences. In its latest directive, WHO has asked Pakistan to implement "intermittent" lockdowns to counter the surge in coronavirus cases.

Ever since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Pakistan, PM Imran Khan has been emphasising against lockdown measures arguing the impoverished country could not afford massive unemployment due to it. Four provinces have ordered a patchwork of closures, and last week Khan said most of these restrictions too, would be lifted.

READ | COVID-19: Pakistan Records Highest Single-day Increase, Tally At 1,39,230

"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 Dr Yasmin Rashid, recommending an intermittent lockdown cycle of two weeks on and two weeks off.

WHO believes that 25 percent of tests in Pakistan have resulted positive for COVID-19, indicating high levels of infection in the general population. Several hospitals across the country say they have reached the capacity, and some are turning Coronavirus patients away.

Pakistan has reported 132,405 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, including 2,551 deaths since its first case emerged on February 26.

READ | Pakistan TV Anchors' In-show Juice-drinking Goes Viral; Advertising Format Gets Trolled

(With ANI inputs)
B rits lined up to see the worlds biggest container ship as it arrived in the UK for the first time.

HMM Algeciras finished its journey from China to Essex on Sunday  via South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

The 1,312ft (400m) long and 200ft (61m) wide ship is delivering a variety of goods at DP World London Gateway in Thurrock.

Preparations began more than six months ago, with the Port of London Authority modelling its arrival on a simulator to ensure it could be carried out safely.

HMM Algeciras: The world's largest container ship 1 /9 HMM Algeciras: The world's largest container ship HMM Algeciras, the world's largest container ship, passes Canvey Island, as she heads to DP World London Gateway port in Tilbury, Essex, towards the end of her maiden voyage to the UK PA At 400 metres, the vessel is longer than The Shard is tall and 61 metres wide PA Her arrival on the Thames concluded a journey from China, via South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium PA PA The vessel is dubbed a Megamax-24 (MGX-24) on account of the 24 container bays, 24 deck rows and the 24-container stack height of 12 boxes in the holds and up to 12 on deck PA PA PA

HMM Algeciras will depart on Monday, carrying UK exports on her return journey to China via Singapore.

Peter Livey, managing director for Britain at shipping company HMM, which owns the vessel, described its maiden voyage as a major milestone.

Residents lined the shore to watch the ship / PA

He said: Ships of this size give us the capacity and flexibility to get our customers goods to the right place at the right time.

DP World UK chief executive Ernst Schulze said the commitment of his staff has been critical to London Gateway remaining open throughout the coronavirus lockdown.




Lanifibranor met the primary endpoint with a statistically significant reduction of the Steatosis Activity Fibrosis score (SAF), which combines assessments of hepatocellular inflammation and ballooning, with no worsening of fibrosis in the Intention To Treat (ITT 1 ) and Per Protocol populations (PP 2 )



) and Per Protocol populations (PP ) Lanifibranor also met key secondary endpoints including NASH resolution with no worsening of fibrosis 3 and improvement of liver fibrosis with no worsening of NASH 4 in both ITT and PP populations



and improvement of liver fibrosis with no worsening of NASH in both ITT and PP populations Lanifibranor is the first drug candidate to achieve statistically significant effects on NASH resolution with no worsening of fibrosis and improvement of fibrosis with no worsening of NASH, the FDA and EMA primary endpoints relevant for seeking accelerated approval during future Phase III clinical development



Lanifibranor continued to show a favorable tolerability profile



Positive topline results support Inventiva's decision to move forward with the clinical development of lanifibranor and enter into pivotal Phase III development





Trial results to be presented during conference calls in French at 7:30 am CET and in English at 2:00 pm CET on June 16, 2020



Daix (France), June 15, 2020 - Inventiva (Euronext: IVA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral small molecule therapies for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) and other diseases with significant unmet medical need, today announced positive topline results from the Phase IIb NATIVE (NAsh Trial to Validate IVA337 Efficacy) clinical trial evaluating lanifibranor for the treatment of NASH.

In this 24-week clinical trial, lanifibranor, an orally-available small molecule and the only pan-PPAR agonist5 currently in clinical development for the treatment of NASH, met the primary endpoint in the ITT population at the dose of 1200mg/day with a statistically significant (p = 0.004) decrease of at least two points in the SAF activity score6 (combining hepatocellular inflammation and ballooning), compared to baseline, with no worsening of fibrosis. 49% of patients in the lanifibranor 1200mg/day dose group achieved the primary endpoint compared to 27% in the placebo arm.

Lanifibranor also met multiple key secondary endpoints including:

Resolution of NASH with no worsening of fibrosis in both dose groups (800mg/day and 1200mg/day)

Improvement of fibrosis by at least one stage 7 with no worsening of NASH at the 1200mg/day dose group

with no worsening of NASH at the 1200mg/day dose group NASH resolution and improvement of fibrosis in both dose groups (800mg/day and 1200mg/day)

Statistically significant results were also obtained in both dose groups (800mg/day and 1200mg/day) on:

Decrease of insulin, fasting glucose and glycated haemoglobin (HB1AC) in patients with type 2 diabetes

Decrease in triglycerides

Increase in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL)

Decrease in liver enzymes (ALT, AST and GGT)



With these results, lanifibranor is the first drug candidate to achieve statistically significant results on the two Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicine Agency (EMA) primary endpoints8 relevant for seeking accelerated approval during Phase III clinical development.







Primary and key secondary endpoints Intention to Treat Population

(ITT) Per Protocol Population

(PP) Placebo

(N = 81) Lanifibranor Placebo

(N = 62) Lanifibranor 800mg

(N = 83) 1200mg

(N = 83) 800mg

(N = 63) 1200mg

(N = 69) Primary

endpoint Decrease of =2 points of SAF activity score(1) 27%



41%

P=0.061 49%

P=0.004* 34%



51%

P=0.058 55%

P=0.015* Secondary endpoints Resolution of NASH and no worsening of fibrosis(2) 19%



33%

P=0.043* 45%

P<0.001* 23%



40%

P=0.039* 49%

P=0.002* Resolution of NASH and no worsening of fibrosis(2) in F2/F3 patients(3) 9%



34%

P=0.011* 44%

P<0.001* 11%



40%

P=0.016* 51%

P<0.001* Improvement of fibrosis by at least one stage and no worsening of NASH (4) 24%



28%

P=0.53 42%

P=0.011* 29%



32%

P=0.75 46%

P=0.04* Resolution of NASH and improvement of fibrosis (5) 7%



21%

P=0.017* 31%

P<0.001* 10%



24%

P=0.036* 33%

P=0.001* Decrease of = 2 points of NAS score (6) (NAFLD activity score) and no worsening of fibrosis 32%



52%

P=0.01* 64%

P<0.001* 40%



62%

P=0.02* 71%

P<0.001*

* Statistically significant in accordance to the statistical analysis plan (SAP)

1.Response is defined as a decrease from baseline to week 24 of at least 2 points of the SAF Activity score (SAF-A) with no worsening of the CRN Fibrosis score (CRN-F). No worsening means that score remains stable or decreases.

2.Resolution of NASH with no worsening of fibrosis at week 24: CRN-I = 0 or 1 (CRN-Inflammation), CRN-B = 0 (CRN-Ballooning) and no worsening of CRN-F from baseline.

3.Includes 188 patients in the ITT population and 149 in the Per Protocol population.

4.Improvement of liver fibrosis = 1 stage and no worsening of NASH at week 24: Improvement of CRN-F = 1 stage and no increase of CRN-S, CRN-I or CRN-B

5.Resolution of NASH and improvement of fibrosis at week 24: CRN-I = 0 or 1, CRN-B = 0 and an improvement of CRN-F = 1 stage.

6. NAS score is a commonly accepted, semi-quantitative evaluation of biopsy results that assesses the severity of steatosis, inflammation and ballooning in the liver.



Prof. Sven Francque, M.D., Ph.D. from Antwerp University Hospital and co-principal investigator of the Phase IIb NATIVE clinical trial, said: "The topline results delivered by lanifibranor, the only pan-PPAR agonist currently in clinical development in NASH, are extremely encouraging, especially given the short treatment period of only six months. The results observed within such a short timeframe suggest that extended treatment could even lead to further improvements in liver health. Supported by these positive trial results in NASH resolution and fibrosis reduction, lanifibranor is positioned as a promising drug candidate in NASH and we look forward to its pivotal Phase III development."

Prof. Manal Abdelmalek, M.D., M.P.H. from Duke University and co-principal investigator of the Phase IIb NATIVE clinical trial, added: "These are very exciting results which compare very favourably with those of other oral molecules currently in development for NASH. Lanifibranor, to my knowledge, is the first drug candidate that has been able to achieve statistically significant results on both FDA and EMA regulatory endpoints relevant for accelerated approval - NASH resolution and improvement of fibrosis. I am extremely encouraged by the results and the rapid onset of action observed with lanifibranor, with statistically significant results achieved on both NASH resolution and improvement of fibrosis after only six months of treatment. With the many challenges surrounding drug development for the treatment of NASH, it is great to have lanifibranor achieve these positive results."

Pierre Broqua, CSO and cofounder of Inventiva, stated: "First of all, I would like to extend my deepest thank you to patients, caregivers, investigators, advisors and our team for their continued confidence, relentless dedication and strong commitment throughout this trial. We are all thrilled by these topline results, especially since, there is no approved treatment in NASH to date despite very significant medical needs. During this trial, lanifibranor met both the trial's primary and key secondary endpoints, which we credit to its differentiated mechanism of action. Given this was a global trial where lanifibranor met both FDA and EMA regulatory endpoints in only six months of treatment, we are optimistic about the potential of our drug candidate in a Phase III pivotal clinical trial."



Safety and tolerability

Lanifibranor showed an overall favorable tolerability profile, consistent with observations from previous clinical trials. There were three discontinuations due to adverse events (AE) in each group. The AEs were generally mild to moderate in severity. There were 13 serious adverse events (SAE), three in the placebo arm, three in the 800mg/day dose group and seven in the 1200mg/day dose group. After excluding biopsy-related SAE, there were three SAE in the placebo group, two in the 800mg/day dose group and four in the 1200mg/day dose group.

Consistent with known insulin sensitizing pharmacology, a modest mean weight increase from baseline of 2.4 kg (2.6%) at the 800mg/day dose and 2.7 kg (3.1%) at the 1200mg/day dose was observed. A total of 14 patients reported peripheral edema, two in the placebo group, five in the 800mg/day dose group and seven in the 1200mg/day dose group. All of them except one were of mild intensity. There were only two patients with treatment-related peripheral edema in each lanifibranor treatment arms. There was no treatment discontinuation due to edema.

Patients reporting treatment-emergent Serious AE (SAE)

N (%) Placebo

(N = 81) Lanifibranor

800mg

(N = 83) Lanifibranor

1200mg

(N = 83) Total 3 (3.7%) 3 (3.6%) 7 (8.4%) Treatment-Emergent Serious AE linked to biopsy procedure: - Post-procedural haematoma/haemorrhage - 1 (1.2%) 1 (1.2%) - Post-procedural pain - - 1 (1.2%) - Pneumobilia (post-procedural) - - 1 (1.2%) Other Treatment-Emergent Serious AE: - Wrist fracture 1 (1.2%) - - - Angina unstable - - 1 (1.2%) - Cardiac failure 1 (1.2%) - - - Gastroenteritis - - 1 (1.2%) - Pyelonephritis - - 1 (1.2%) - Pancreatitis - 1 (1.2%) - - Undifferentiated connective tissue disease - 1 (1.2%) - - Urticaria 1 (1.2%) - - - Foot operation - - 1 (1.2%)

Next steps

Following today's publication of positive topline results, Inventiva has decided to move forward with the clinical development of lanifibranor for the treatment of NASH and enter into pivotal Phase III development. To this end, the Company plans to finalize the relevant trial design and meet with regulatory authorities (FDA and EMA). Inventiva plans to present the Phase IIb NATIVE clinical trial results at the upcoming Liver Meeting of the AASLD (American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases), taking place from November 13 to November 16, 2020.

Conference calls and webcasts

A conference call in French will be held tomorrow, June 16, 2020at7:30 am (CET). To join the conference call, please use the code 4982708 after dialing one of the following numbers:

France: +33 (0) 1 70 70 07 81

Belgium: +32 (0) 2 793 3847

Germany: +49 (0) 69 2222 2625

Netherlands: +31 (0) 20 795 6614

Switzerland: +41 (0) 44 580 7145

United Kingdom: +44 (0) 2071 928 338

United States: +1 646-741-3167

The presentation accompanying this conference call will be available on Inventiva's website from 7:30 am.



A conference call in English will be held tomorrow, June 16, 2020at2:00 pm (CET). To join the conference call, please use the code 4785925 after dialing one of the following numbers:

France: +33 (0) 1 70 70 07 81

Belgium: +32 (0) 2 793 3847

Germany: +49 (0) 69 2222 2625

Netherlands: +31 (0) 20 795 6614

Switzerland: +41 (0) 44 580 7145

United Kingdom: +44 (0) 2071 928 338

United States: +1 646-741-3167

The presentation accompanying this conference call will be available on Inventiva's website from 7:30 am.

A replay of both conference calls and the presentation will be available on Inventiva's website after the events at: http://inventivapharma.com/investors/investor-presentations/ .







About lanifibranor

Lanifibranor, Inventiva's lead product candidate, is an orally-available small molecule that acts to induce anti-fibrotic, anti-inflammatory and beneficial vascular and metabolic changes in the body by activating all three peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) isoforms, which are well-characterized nuclear receptor proteins that regulate gene expression. Lanifibranor is a PPAR agonist that is designed to target all three PPAR isoforms in a moderately potent manner, with a well-balanced activation of PPARa and PPARd, and a partial activation of PPAR?. While there are other PPAR agonists that target only one or two PPAR isoforms for activation, lanifibranor is the only pan-PPAR agonist in clinical development. Inventiva believes that lanifibranor's moderate and balanced pan-PPAR binding profile contributes to the favorable tolerability profile that has been observed in clinical trials and pre-clinical studies to date.



About the NATIVE Phase IIb trial

The NATIVE (NAsh Trial to Validate IVA337 Efficacy) clinical trial is a 24-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase IIb clinical trial evaluating lanifibranor for the treatment of patients with NASH. The main purpose of the trial is to assess the efficacy of lanifibranor in improving liver inflammation and ballooning, the two histological markers included in the definition of the regulatory endpoint of NASH resolution. To be considered for inclusion, patients were required to have: a diagnosis of NASH confirmed by liver biopsy; a cumulative score of inflammation and ballooning (as measured using the SAF scoring system) of three or four out of four, indicating the presence of moderate to severe inflammation and ballooning; a steatosis score greater than or equal to one, indicating the presence of moderate to severe steatosis; and a fibrosis score less than four, indicating the absence of cirrhosis. The primary endpoint of the trial is a reduction in the combined inflammation and ballooning score of two points compared to baseline, with no worsening fibrosis, as measured by the SAF score. Secondary endpoints include NASH resolution, improvements in each of the steatosis, inflammation, ballooning and fibrosis scores from baseline as measured using the SAF score, improvements in various other fibrosis measures, improvements in several metabolic markers, improvements in steatosis, inflammation and ballooning as measured using the NAS score (NAFLD activity score), and safety.

The trial randomized 247 patients with NASH in 71 sites in Australia, Canada, Europe, Mauritius and the United States.



About Inventiva

Inventiva is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of oral small molecule therapies for the treatment of NASH, MPS and other diseases with significant unmet medical need.

Leveraging its expertise and experience in the domain of compounds targeting nuclear receptors, transcription factors and epigenetic modulation, Inventiva is currently advancing two clinical candidates, as well as a deep pipeline of earlier stage programs.

Lanifibranor, its lead product candidate, is being developed for the treatment of patients with NASH, a common and progressive chronic liver disease for which there are currently no approved therapies.

Inventiva is also developing odiparcil, a second clinical stage asset, for the treatment of patients with MPS, a group of rare genetic disorders. A Phase Ib/II clinical trial in children with MPS VI is currently under preparation following the release of positive results of the Phase IIa clinical trial in adult MPS VI patients at the end of 2019.

In parallel, Inventiva is in the process of selecting an oncology development candidate for its Hippo signalling pathway program. Furthermore, the Company has established a strategic collaboration with AbbVie in the area of autoimmune diseases. AbbVie has started the clinical development of ABBV-157, a drug candidate for the treatment of moderate to severe psoriasis resulting from its collaboration with Inventiva. This collaboration enables Inventiva to receive milestone payments upon the achievement of pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory and commercial milestones, in addition to royalties on any approved products resulting from the collaboration.

The Company has a scientific team of approximately 70 people with deep expertise in the fields of biology, medicinal and computational chemistry, pharmacokinetics and pharmacology, as well as in clinical development. It also owns an extensive library of approximately 240,000 pharmacologically relevant molecules, approximately 60% of which are proprietary, as well as a wholly-owned research and development facility.

Inventiva is a public company listed on compartment C of the regulated market of Euronext Paris



Contacts

Inventiva

Frederic Cren

Chairman & CEO

info@inventivapharma.com

+33 3 80 44 75 00

Brunswick Group

Yannick Tetzlaff / Tristan Roquet Montegon /

Aude Lepreux

Media relations

inventiva@brunswickgroup.com

+33 1 53 96 83 83

Westwicke, an ICR Company?

Patricia L. Bank

Investor relations

patti.bank@westwicke.com

+1 415 513 1284



Important Notice



This press release contains forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates with respect to Inventiva's clinical trials, clinical trial data releases, clinical development plans and anticipated future activities of Inventiva. Certain of these statements, forecasts and estimates can be recognized by the use of words such as, without limitation, "believes", "anticipates", "expects", "intends", "plans", "seeks", "estimates", "may", "will" and "continue" and similar expressions. Such statements are not historical facts but rather are statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management's beliefs. These statements reflect such views and assumptions prevailing as of the date of the statements and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause future results, performance or future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Actual events are difficult to predict and may depend upon factors that are beyond Inventiva's control. There can be no guarantees with respect to pipeline product candidates that the clinical trial results will be available on their anticipated timeline, that future clinical trials will be initiated as anticipated, or that candidates will receive the necessary regulatory approvals. Therefore, actual results may turn out to be materially different from the anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements, forecasts and estimates.Given these uncertainties, no representations are made as to the accuracy or fairness of such forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates. Furthermore, forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates only speak as of the date of this press release.Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any of these forward-looking statements.

Please refer to the Universal Reference Document filed with the Autorite des Marches Financiers on February 7, 2020 under n D.20-0038 for additional information in relation to such factors, risks and uncertainties.

Except as required by law, Inventiva has no intention and is under no obligation to update or review the forward-looking statements referred to above. Consequently, Inventiva accepts no liability for any consequences arising from the use of any of the above statements.







1 ITT: includes all patients randomized in the trial.

2 PP: includes all patients with paired biopsies and without deviation impacting efficacy assessment.

3NASH resolution and no worsening of fibrosis defined as CRN Lobular inflammation score equal to 0 or 1 and CRN Hepatocyte ballooning score equal to 0 and no worsening of the CRN-Fibrosis score.

4Improvement of liver fibrosis with no worsening of NASH defined as improvement of CRN-Fibrosis score = 1 stage and no increase of CRN-Steatosis score and no increase of CRN-Inflammation score and no increase of CRN-Ballooning score.

5 A pan-PPAR agonist is a molecule designed to activate all three peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) isoforms (PPARa, PPARd, PPAR?), which are well-characterized nuclear receptor proteins that regulate gene expression.

6 Steatosis, Activity and Fibrosis score, which is a commonly accepted, semi-quantitative evluation of liver biopsy results.

7 Improvement in hepatic fibrosis = 1 stage with no increase in NASH at week 24: Improvement in CRN-F = 1 stage with no increase in CRN-S, CRN-I or CRN-B

8 NASH resolution with no worsening of fibrosis and improvement of fibrosis with no worsening of NASH.

Attachment
There is a possibility that Formula 1 will race this year on the Portuguese circuit Portimao. Currently the circuit is in talks with Liberty Media, the Formula 1 and FIA to organize a race. There is a chance that after the race at Monza in September, Formula 1 will stay in Europe for a bit, because several Asian races have been cancelled. In any case, Max Verstappen seems to like racing on that circuit.

Testing in GT3

In January Verstappen drove on the circuit for the first time. He did this in a two-day private test in a GT3 car. Recently Verstappen talked about this via a social broadcast with Antonio Felix da Costa and his opinion about the circuit is now relevant again, as the circuit is being discussed with a view to Formula 1.

Verstappen said: "Its still a great track, I really loved driving it. It was the first time I was there. The only difference is that Verstappen drove in bad weather in January. "Two days I was there and for one-and-a-half days I was driving in the wet."

Should this circuit end up on the calendar for sometime later in September, chances are pretty good that the weather will be a lot better. It remains to be seen if it will come that far, as there are a lot of other circuits in the running as well. Nevertheless, the track in Portugal can count on the approval of the Dutch driver.
Approved 2019 Financial Statements

Increased Number of Members of the Board of Directors from Seven to Nine

Marco Caneva, Alessandro Musella and Pasquale Junior Natuzzi Appointed as Directors

NATUZZI FILED ITS ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 20-F WITH THE SEC

Natuzzi S.p.A. (NYSE: NTZ1) ("Natuzzi" or the "Company") announced today that it held its annual general shareholders' meeting on June 12, 2020 (the "Annual General Meeting"), in accordance with Decree n. 18 of March 17, 2020 extending, due to circumstances related to the novel coronavirus ("COVID-19") outbreak, the deadline for the Company to hold a shareholders' meeting to approve its financial statements from 120 days to 180 days after the end of the applicable financial year.

At the Annual General Meeting, the shareholders approved the Company's stand-alone financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 and acknowledged the approval of the 2019 consolidated financial statements of the Natuzzi Group by the Company's Board of Directors at a meeting held on May 22, 2020.

The shareholders also appointed Mr. Marco Caneva as a non-executive member of the Board of Directors, replacing Mr. Ernesto Greco who had resigned from office. The Company would like to thank Mr. Greco for his contribution during his office.

Finally, the shareholders approved an increase in the number of the members of the Board of Directors from seven to nine and appointed Mr. Alessandro Musella as a non-executive director and Mr. Pasquale Junior Natuzzi as a director. The term of office of the three directors appointed at the shareholders' meeting of June 12, 2020 will expire simultaneously with the term of office of the other members of the Board of Directors.

The Company also announced that it filed today its annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019 (the "Annual Report") with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). As previously reported by the Company in its Form 6-K filed with the SEC on March 30, 2020 and as reported in the Annual Report, the Company relied on the relief provided by SEC's Order under Section 36 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 Granting Exemptions From Specified Provisions of the Exchange Act and Certain Rules Thereunder dated March 4, 2020 (Release No. 34-88318) (as modified on March 25, 2020 by Release No. 34-88465), extending the Annual Report filing deadline to 45 days after April 30, 2020. The Annual Report is available on the Company's website within the Investor Relations page (http://natuzzigroup.com/en-EN/ir/investors.html) under the "SEC Filings" section. The Company's shareholders can request a hard copy of the Annual Report, which includes the audited consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, free of charge by contacting the Company at investor_relations@natuzzi.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT CONCERNING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements set forth in this press release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements. Additional information about potential factors that could affect the Company's business and financial results is included in the Company's filings with the SEC, including the Company's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this press release.

About Natuzzi S.p.A.

Founded in 1959 by Pasquale Natuzzi, Natuzzi S.p.A. is Italy's largest furniture house and one of the most important global players in the furniture industry with an extensive manufacturing footprint and a global retail network. Natuzzi is the European lifestyle best-known brand in the upholstered furnishings sector worldwide (Brand Awareness Monitoring Report Ipsos 2018) and has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since May 13, 1993. Always committed to social responsibility and environmental sustainability, Natuzzi S.p.A. is ISO 9001 and 14001 certified (Quality and Environment), OHSAS 18001 certified (Safety on the Workplace) and FSC certified (Forest Stewardship Council).

1 The Company is noncompliant with quantitative/qualitative continued NYSE listing standards (see https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:NTZ). For further information, please see the press release issued by the Company on April 25, 2020.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005441/en/

Contacts:

NATUZZI INVESTOR RELATIONS

Piero Direnzo tel. +39.080.8820.812 pdirenzo@natuzzi.com

NATUZZI CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

Vito Basile (Press Office) tel. +39.080.8820.676 vbasile@natuzzi.com
Bipartisan Senate Dozen Demand Answers on Zooms Suspension of Accounts Commemorating Tiananmen Square Massacre

A bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators are demanding answers from Zoom Video Communications CEO Eric Yuan on his firms recent bowing to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) censorship demands.

Zoom issued a statement June 12 saying it suspended three accounts, including one in Hong Kong and two in the United States, following CCP requests in May, apparently in connection with video conferences commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The company said it subsequently reinstated the three accounts and will no longer suspend accounts when requested by the CCP, but the 12 senators, led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) want more answers.

Your company has admitted that it did so at the request of the Chinese government to comply with the laws of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), because some of the participants resided inside the PRC, the senators said in their June 12 letter to Yuan.

Zoom also shut down the account of Hong Kong activist Lee Cheuk-yan, potentially for a similar reason. The PRC Government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will go to great lengths to censor and disrupt activities they believe undermine their leadership and control of China.

Such topics include the Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, and more. Not content to silence those within their borders, the CCP frequently reaches abroad to target those who would speak up about the partys abuses.

In the past two years, American companies such as the NBA, Apple, and United Airlines have found themselves under immense pressure to submit to CCP demands for extraterritorial censorship, in exchange for the continued ability to do business within the PRC.

In addition to Rubio and Wyden, the signers include Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Democrat signers include Sens. Christopher Murphy of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

The senators asked Yuan to respond to eight questions concerning the heart of the relationship between the San Jose, California-based video conferencing firm and the CCP:

What PRC laws did Zoom determine it was in compliance with when deciding to terminate the accounts of U.S.-based human rights activists Zhou Fengsuo and Wang Dan? Please identify the specific sections of the specific laws.

Why did Zoom terminate the accounts of Hong Kong-based labor activist Lee Cheukyan? Please describe the internal process that resulted in this decision.

Specifically, which PRC or CCP organizations or officials made the requests to terminate the above accounts? What actions did Zoom take to push back?

How many accounts has Zoom closed outside of the PRC in order to comply with PRC law, or in deference to the perceived political sensibilities of the PRC government or the CCP?

Does Zoom routinely share data with the PRC government, and, if so, what kind of data does it share?

What other requests have those or any other PRC, CCP, or affiliated organizations or officials made of Zoom related to access to account information, communications, or otherwise infringing upon the privacy of Zoom users inside of the United States? If such requests have been made, which state or party organizations specifically made those requests?

Does Zoom have CCP branches or committees within the companys PRC offices? If so, how many, and who are the branch or committee secretaries?

Do any of the PRC-domiciled companies to which Zoom contracts its engineering work have internal CCP branches or committees? If so, how many, and who are the branch or committee secretaries?

Among the most sensitive of the eight questions are whether Zoom shares data with the Chinese government and if Zoom subcontractors have internal CCP entities within them.

The former question is especially dangerous for Yuan, as the U.S. government may already know the answer. Misleading the senators could pose legal jeopardy.

A Zoom spokesman who asked not to be named told The Epoch Times on June 15, We appreciate the outreach we have received from various elected officials and look forward to engaging with them.

The senators letter concluded by noting that Zoom must be transparent and not allow foreign governments, such as the PRC government, to dictate the terms of usage.

Yuan was asked about the issue earlier this month by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

Contact Mark Tapscott at Mark.Tapscott@epochtimes.nyc
Joyces Dublin of 1904 recreated, celebrating Bloomsday

By:Wu Qiong | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-06-15 14:59

Davy Byrnes Pub, Swenys Pharmacy, Number 7 Eccles Street... These are scenes in the masterpiece novel Ulysses by Irish novelist James Joyce, and typical of Dublin in 1904.

On June 13, the Consulate General of Ireland in Shanghai hosted a reception on the rooftop terrace of the House of Roosevelt on the Bund. Inspired by the enthusiasm for James Joyce in China, the Consulate gathered Irish and Chinese friends for Bloomsday.

(People pose for a photo in vintage Edwardian costumes and props)

Bloomsday is Irelands second largest traditional celebration after St. Patricks Day and is celebrated by literature lovers around the world. This year has seen Shanghai at the forefront of the global Bloomsday festivities, as the largest and most ambitious public-facing event organized by Irelands overseas mission network anywhere in the world. The rooftop terrace of the House of Roosevelt was transformed into Joyces Dublin of 1904, with a number of interactive representations of key locations from the text. In vintage Edwardian costumes and props, guests were also treated to Irish food and drink, as well as a selection of readings from Ulysses.

Mr. Eoin OLeary, ambassador of Ireland to China, appeared in Shanghai for the celebration. As he said, Ireland has around 5 million people, but the country has a long history of emigration. So different from St. Patricks Day, Bloomsday in his eyes is more about celebrating Irelands historical connections with the rest of the world.

Speaking of COVID-19 which is still causing havoc around the world, the Ambassador related the current situation to James Joyces life which was constantly disrupted. Joyce was living all over Europe during the 1st and 2nd World War, and he was used to unforeseen events forcing him to move. What COVID-19 tells us is we cannot take normal for granted. It is a reminder to all of us that life is not totally predictable, said Eoin OLeary.

(Eoin OLeary, ambassador of Ireland to China)

For Steven, who read an excerpt of the book to the audience and has been living in Shanghai for nearly 20 years, this was his third year to participate in the Bloomsday celebration. In the previous years, people celebrated the festival on a cruise boat to enjoy the Huangpu River. This year, the venue was changed to the terrace of the House of Roosevelt, but people could still enjoy the Bund view. This reminds him of Ulysses which is a vivid depiction of peoples lives along the River Liffey in Dublin.

(Steven, right, reads an excerpt from Ulysses)

People were well dressed for the festival and outfitted themselves with bow ties, canes, fake beards, and Irish straw hats. Amy, a vintage fashion lover, made her way to Shanghai from Hangzhou with her friends to join in the celebration. Attracted by Celtic legends since she was a child, Amy is fond of the traditional culture of Ireland. As a travel blogger, she has been invited to take a trip in Ireland. She also likes to use social media to promote the island nation to more people and tell stories of Irish writers like W. B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.

The interest in Joyce amongst Chinese students, academics and the wider public is truly remarkable. It is therefore entirely fitting that Shanghai will be at the very heart of this years Bloomsday celebrations, said consul general of Ireland in Shanghai, Ms. Therese Healy. As even Dublin itself will experience much more muted festivities this year due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, all eyes now turn to Shanghai, a city so rooted in culture, for our most exciting and elaborate celebration of Joyce since the Consulate opened 20 years ago. I will remember this day forever.
Want to beat the New Orleans heat with a frozen drink or snowball? These seven places will help you cool off  and work up a buzz, if that's w
On the evening of June 10, in the midst of an impromptu desecration festival in Portsmouth, Virginia, the statue of a Confederate soldier was yanked off its pedestal and crowned the unfortunate Chris Green, who stood underneath.

Green, now in a medically induced coma, coded twice on the way to the hospital. He may not survive. Erasing the past is a dangerous business. It has been since the communists got involved in rewriting history a century ago.

As it happens, George Floyd died exactly 100 years and 40 days after Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter were shot to death in a payroll robbery in Braintree, Massachusetts. These men have little in common with Floyd save that none of them deserved to die and that their respective deaths set off worldwide demonstrations orchestrated out of the very same playbook.

In the 1920s, communists had to erase some immediate history  namely, the fact that a pair of Italian anarchists murdered Berardelli and Parmenter in cold blood. The evidence that the anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, killed the pair was overwhelming. They were convicted soon after the murders.

In 1924, as the appeals process wore on, Sacco and Vanzetti caught a break of sorts. Lenin died, and Stalin replaced him. Always the realist, Stalin had no illusions that the Soviet P.R. arm, the Comintern, could inspire an American revolution. He focused his American efforts instead on defamation.

With Stalin's blessing, the Comintern set out to find a case that would undermine the idea of America, which at the time held great sway throughout the world. America was widely perceived as the land of opportunity, the ever beckoning home of the free and the brave. For the Soviet experiment to prevail, the American experiment had to yield. The world had to see America through fresh, unblinking eyes, not as the great melting pot, but as a simmering stew of xenophobic injustice.

In 1925, the Comintern came looking for Sacco and Vanzetti, glass slipper in hand. Almost immediately, "spontaneous" protests sprung up throughout the world. Europe's great squares filled with sobbing, shouting protesters, declaiming the innocence of the immigrant martyrs and denouncing the vile injustice of their persecutors. These protesters donated hundreds of thousands dollars to the cause, almost none of which found its way to the real Defense Committee.

In America, the Comintern created theater and allowed the actors to find their way to the parts. The casting call for the Sacco and Vanzetti protests attracted a who's who of literary leading lights. Prominent American authors Upton Sinclair, Katherine Ann Porter, John Dos Passos, and Edna St. Vincent Millay not only protested the seeming injustice, but also created literary works around it. Scores more picketed, protested, or signed petitions. International luminaries joined in as well. George Bernard Shaw and Albert Einstein wrote letters on behalf of the anarchists. French Nobel Prizewinner Romain Rolland sent a telegram to the Massachusetts governor.

As the August 1927 execution date approached, the Comintern went to work. Its Berlin office arranged for material declaring the pair's innocence to be reprinted and distributed throughout the world. Protest movements swelled in major American cities and European capitals. On the night before the execution, five thousand militants roamed the streets of Geneva savaging everything from cars to movies that smelled of America.

On the night of the execution, August 22, an outpouring of rage and grief swept the world and left common sense buried in its wake. The French communist daily Humanite published an extra edition with one word on the front cover, "Assassines."

Reacting to the news that the pair had, yes, been "assassinated," crowds swarmed through the streets of Paris on the way to the American embassy, ripping out lampposts and smashing windows. Only the tanks that ringed the embassy stopped them

In London, masses of people surged around Buckingham Palace, shouting and singing "The Red Flag." Germany, meanwhile, witnessed a series of demonstrations and torchlight parades more intense than any the volatile Weimar Republic had yet seen. A half-dozen German demonstrators were killed during the course of them.

The Comintern had pulled all the right strings in this international puppet show. True, Sacco and Vanzetti were executed, but it had never been its job to save them. In her memoir, The Never-Ending Wrong, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the pair's execution, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Katherine Ann Porter relates how she first came to understand this.

As the final hours ticked down, Porter had been standing vigil with others artists and writers in Boston. Ever the innocent liberal, Porter approached her group leader, a "fanatical little woman" and a dogmatic communist, and expressed her hope that Sacco and Vanzetti could still be saved. The response of this female comrade is noteworthy largely for its candor:

"Saved," she said, "who wants them saved? What earthly good would they do us alive?"

In George Floyd, our neo-communists found their own Sacco and Vanzetti, but much better. As a black American, his death had much more frightening moral power. It was caught on camera. The offending officer was white. In 2020, these were all essential variables. Had any of three other officers at the scene  two Asians and a black American  been the one kneeling on Floyd's neck, the story would never have left the twin cities.

The puppeteers were shrewd this time. They passed on the Georgia shooting of Ahmaud Arbery a month earlier, as it lacked the elements of high drama. Floyd made for a much more appealing victim, the most appealing since Rodney King, but the Rodney King riots, destructive as they were, never left Los Angeles.

No, the response to this one was planned. I would love to know who green-lit the decision to go worldwide with George Floyd. As with Sacco and Vanzetti, scores of people have been hurt and killed in the demonstrations on Floyd's behalf, the unlucky Chris Green just one of many. As with Sacco and Vanzetti, too, many donations have not gone where the donors intended.

Unlike with Sacco and Vanzetti, however, the Floyd protests will keep on killing. After Ferguson, the police withdrawal from active policing resulted in literally thousands of black deaths]. This time, the withdrawal will result in many thousands more.

For the organizers, it's all good. They don't care about the collateral damage. They didn't even care about George Floyd. After all, what earthly good would George have done them alive?

Jack Cashill's newest book, Unmasking Obama, is available for pre-order at Amazon.
Almost three months after being grounded by coronavirus, easyJet returned to the skies above Northern Ireland yesterday.

After a long hibernation, the reawakening of the aviation industry, it seems, will be a slow and steady process.

Swathes of empty spaces remained in the main car park at Belfast International Airport yesterday. Travellers came, one by one, every few minutes.

An early morning flight to Liverpool already away from the terminal, Bristol was the next destination, but waiting outside the main entrance as an airport shuttle bus pulled up, there was no-one getting off.

Digital advertising screens showcase Northern Ireland to no visitors yet. Throw something in one of the bins along the front of the terminal and you will break the cobwebs that have gathered.

Lying idle, the engines in the easyJet livery have been burning up to 5m a day.

And while the financial side of things will be important to the company, it is the individual stories of people desperate to travel again that help hit home what we have been missing.

Linda Henry from Lisburn was dropping off her daughter Philippa Haire, taking her chance to get back to Plymouth where she is at university.

But while attendance at educational institutions may have ceased, there has been a more pressing need for Philippa to travel. "I have to get back this week," she said. "I have a part-time job which I need to keep to help pay for university life. My furlough from that has ended.

"But this is all very surreal. There's no-one around."

Despite the lack of passengers arriving, her face mask goes on.

"From what we know there's no specific social distancing measures for the flight as long as you're wearing a mask," said mum Linda. "It's the only flight to Bristol so she had to take it."

Also arriving, Allan and Jenny Kuhn, from Belfast, are off to visit their daughter Lucy, who lives in Sidmouth along the Devon coastline. For them the chance to fly again is a great relief.

"Our daughter hasn't been well and needs our help," said Allan. "This is the first chance we've had to get over to visit her and lend a hand. But we're comfortable. Northern Ireland seems to have the virus well under control. The airport is ready to deal with passengers and we've waited a long time to be able to do this.

"I know you can't see under the face mask, but we're both smiling today."

Later in the afternoon, the return flight from Bristol lands and again there are tales of lives resuming.

For Claire Brown there was the chance to finally find her new family home in Northern Ireland.

"We've been living in Devon but we're moving back here," she said, arriving with her husband and daughter. "Once estate agents reopened, our house sold very quickly and now we have to find somewhere to live here.

"It feels great to finally be on the move. The flight was comfortable, no issues, plenty of announcements. It was all very smooth."

Karen Jones landed to see parents Jim and Maureen Hunter from Coleraine for the first time since Christmas.

"It was all very well done," she said, finally removing a face mask after arriving from her home in Bath. "It was a good time to travel, plenty of space on board and enough empty seats so we could all stay well apart."

The big challenge will come as more people begin travelling again in an industry under no illusions that there is still a tough task ahead to recover.

For now Graham Keddie, managing director at Belfast International Airport, said he was delighted to finally be opening the doors to passenger flights. "We have been working hard behind the scenes to prepare the terminal and implement new hygiene and safety measures for the health and wellbeing of all passengers and staff," he explained.

"Today we should have 22,000-plus going through the terminal and we should be lucky to have 700 or 800," he said, and he still has no idea how quarantine measures will be enforced.

The majority of easyJet's flights in June will be on domestic routes, flying around 45% of its Belfast routes in July and 90% in August, although with fewer flights.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has connected the U.S.' handling of the coronavirus crisis with the widespread civil unrest and anti-racism protests in the country, according to Russian media reports.

Putin said the Covid-19 pandemic had "shone a spotlight" on issues in the country, adding that the protests for racial equality and against police brutality were the result of an internal crisis. However, he criticized scenes of destruction and looting seen during some protests.

"What has happened (in the U.S.) is the manifestation of some deep domestic crises," Putin said, according to Tass news agency, which covered an interview with the president on state-run TV channel Rossiya-1 TV on Sunday.

Putin reportedly linked the U.S.' handling of the coronavirus crisis with the protests that were sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis in May. The U.S. is the worst-hit country in the world by Covid-19, with over 2 million reported cases and nearly 116,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

"It shows there are problems," Putin said, according to comments from the interview also reported by the Moscow Times newspaper. "Things connected to the fight with the coronavirus have shone a spotlight on general problems."

"If this fight for natural rights, legal rights, turns into mayhem and rioting, I see nothing good for the country," he said. "We always in the U.S.S.R. and in modern Russia had a lot of sympathy for the struggle of African-Americans for their natural rights," he added.

However, the president added that, "when  even after crimes are committed  this takes on elements of radical nationalism and extremism, nothing good will come of this."

The comments come despite Russia often refusing to comment on the domestic affairs of foreign powers, saying it does not want to interfere. Putin repeated that position in the broadcast, noting that he usually tries to "comment carefully or not to comment at all what is happening in other countries."

Last week, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNBC that Russia, a country with its own poor human rights record, was "concerned" about human rights abuses around the world, and including the U.S.

Russia is the third worst-hit country in terms of coronavirus cases, having passed the 500,000 case mark last week. To date, it has recorded over 528,000 cases but just under 7,000 deaths. The low death toll has prompted questions over its accuracy, although Russia has insisted to CNBC that it is not concealing a larger number of fatalities.

During the interview with Rossiya-1 on Sunday, Putin reportedly contrasted the virus situation in the U.S. and Russia, saying that while "we are exiting the coronavirus situation steadily with minimal losses, God willing, in the States it isn't happening that way."
The city of Beverly Hills has banned nighttime gatherings of more than 10 people in residential streets or public areas after two large protests that disrupted the tranquillity.

City Manager George Chave issued the proclamation on Saturday after a second protest by the group Occupy in a residential neighbourhood that began on Friday night and lasted into early on Saturday.

It included bullhorns and amplified music during hours in which people would ordinarily be asleep.

Before the incident on Friday, on 30 May there was widespread violence and property damage by people taking advantage of the protests concerning the tragic death of George Floyd, the proclamation says.

Stores on Rodeo Drive were vandalised and some were looted during unrest that day. Those looting stores appeared to be separate from the Black Lives Matter protesters who organised the gathering, CBS LA reported.

The new rules apply between 9pm and 8am to any assembly defined as any meeting, demonstration, picket line, rally, gathering, or group of ten or more persons, or vehicles, or a combination thereof, having common purpose, design, or goal.

Silent assembly is exempt from the order, such as a candlelight vigil.

Gatherings on private property are also exempt, and as the proclamation applies only to residential areas, it does not include the citys business district.

The incident on Friday night saw the Beverly Hills Police Department use tear gas and sponge-tipped projectiles on protesters when they left Santa Monica Boulevard and turned onto a residential street.

Multiple protesters were injured when police moved to disperse them, despite complying with the order, Los Angeles Magazine vividly reports.

The police department said in a statement that protesters trespassed on private property, threw objects and pointed a laser at officers.

The Occupy protestors continued to aggress the officers and began to assault officers by pointing lasers in their faces and eyes, a crime in California, said a spokesperson for the department. BHPD directed sponge projectiles towards protestors using lasers and those throwing objects at officers.

No arrests were made.
The bodies of four missing fishermen who were involved in a collision between a fishing boat and a ship off Haiphong have been brought ashore.

A ship carrying bodies of four fishermen docks at Haiphong's port on Sunday.

The four fishermen are all from Hau Loc District, central Thanh Hoa Province.

A fishing boat collided with the Annie Gas 09 Ship at 9.30am on June 9 around Haiphong.

Seven fishermen were thrown from the boat.

After the incident, two fishermen were rescued, and one body was found. Four others were missing.

The Vietnam Coast Guard Command instructed the Coast Guard Region 1 to mobilise CSB 8003 Ship from Region 1s Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre to search for the four missing crew members.

The search was challenging due to heavy rain and rough sea caused by Nuri  the first typhoon to affect Vietnam this year.

The bodies of the four fishermen were found at 5.10pm on Sunday.

Annie Gas 09 Ship, which is owned by Nhat Viet Transportation Corporation in HCM City, was travelling from Vung Tau to Haiphong when the incident occurred.  VNS
24 Hour Fitness has announced that 12 of its Houston-area health clubs have closed and is asking members to switch to one of its remaining locations.

24 Hour Fitness Worldwide Inc. has filed for bankruptcy, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Parent company San Ramon, unable to keep up with debt payments amid the coronavirus pandemic, will permanently close about 130 gyms, including 12 in Houston.

SAFETY MEASURES: Humble, Kingwood gyms reopen with new rules in place

If it were not for COVID-19 and its devastating effects, we would not be filing for Chapter 11, said CEO Tony Ueber in a statement. With that said, we intend to use the process to strengthen the future of 24 Hour Fitness for our team and club members, as well as our stakeholders.

During a Chapter 11 filing on Monday the company said it had secured approximately $250 million in financing from its creditors to resume business at around 300 locations, most of which will reopen by the end of this month. Its debt totals about $1.4 billion plus lease obligations.

The company temporarily closed its more than 400 gyms on March 16 and introduced a virtual fitness experience on YouTube. It is not charging membership fees while locations are temporarily closed.

The $100 billion fitness industry has been left struggling during the pandemic, with many people having turned to at-home equipment.

Golds Gym filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 5 and has permanently closed about 30 of its 700 gyms, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Here are the Houston locations that are set to shutter, according to the gyms website:

Atascocita

7068 FM-1960 East Humble, TX 77346

Bingle

12708 Northwest Freeway Houston, TX 77092

Friendswood

130 West Parkwood Avenue Friendswood, TX 77546

Fry Road & Saums Rd

19734 Saums Road Houston, TX 77084

Highway 249 (Compaq)

21614 Tomball Parkway Houston, TX 77070

Houston FM 1960

4425 FM 1960 West Houston, TX 77068

Katy

1550 S. Mason Road Katy, TX 77450

League City

2765 Gulf Freeway South League City, TX 77573

Pasadena East

5946 Fairmont Parkway Pasadena, TX 77505

Richmond

5721 Westheimer Road Houston, TX 77057

Spring-Cypress

25632 Highway 290 Cypress, TX 77429

West Woodlands

10860 Kuykendahl Road The Woodlands, TX 77381
A mouse model and previous studies suggest that genetic intervention in SHANK3-related ASD may be most effective earlier in development

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A mouse study by Craig Powell, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues suggests that early genetic rescue may be a potential therapy in autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. Powell looked at one gene called SHANK3, whose alteration is seen in about 0.5 percent of ASD patients.

The study is published in eNeuro and was highlighted on the ASD news site Spectrum. Powell is professor and chair of the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and also heads the UAB Civitan International Research Center. The UAB researcher has a longstanding focus on autism, intellectual disability and cognitive dysfunction.

The SHANK3 gene product acts in the brain as a postsynaptic scaffolding protein. A synapse is a gap between two nerve cells where a signal is passed from one nerve to the other. A human brain may have more than 100 trillion synapses in its neuronal circuitry.

Powell and colleagues previously showed that mice deficient in SHANK3 protein have behavioral abnormalities, including repetitive grooming and deficits in social interaction, locomotor activity and rearing. Rearing is standing on hind legs to investigate the surroundings. Some of these behaviors are reminiscent of ASD in humans, which is characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication, restricted interests, and repetitive behaviors.

Powell's lab and other labs, including that of Guoping Feng, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have sought mouse models where a SHANK3 deficit could be reversed early or later in life, to see if that reversal removed some of the behavioral deficits. Powell says his and Feng's labs used different experimental approaches, and their two studies are complementary.

Powell's lab used genetic tools to construct mice that had a stop signal inserted into one or both genes for SHANK3, creating heterozygous or homozygous mice for the mutation they call ShankE13. The activation of another inserted gene called Cre-recombinase can excise that stop signal, restoring full function of the mutated SHANK3 gene.

In Feng's mouse model, the SHANK3 gene was activated when the mice were given tamoxifen, which leads to some toxicity, including weight loss. In the Powell mouse model, the Cre-recombinase was negatively controlled by the antibiotic doxycycline; as long as mice were fed doxycycline, the Cre-recombinase was supposed to be shut off. When the doxycycline is stopped, the SHANK3 gene should be restored. Another genetic tool in the mouse model was supposed to limit reactivation of the SHANK3 gene to the striatum and cerebellum of the brain.

The plan was to activate the Cre-recombinase at different ages and test those mice for changes in ASD-like behaviors.

This elegant approach had two problems, the researchers learned. First, there was more widespread rescue of the SHANK3 gene in the brain than expected, including in the cortex. Second, the doxycycline control was "leaky," allowing expression of the Cre-recombinase even as the mice were fed the antibiotic. Thus, Powell and colleagues were only able to look at the effect of early developmental genetic reversal of ShankE13, occurring about embryonic day 18.

Still, as Powell told Spectrum, "It is important to publish experiments that do not work out exactly as planned."

In a wide variety of behavioral tests, the researchers found that early genetic restoration of SHANK3 rescued a variety of behaviors that included repetitive grooming and social, locomotor and rearing deficits.

The social tests included the amount of social interaction with another mouse; social recognition memory, where a test mouse was introduced to another mouse, and then reintroduced three days later; and social novelty exploration, which compares the amount of time spent with a novel caged mouse versus an inanimate object.

The locomotor tests included placing mice in a novel cage with minimal bedding and measuring how much they freely explored over two hours. In a different series of tests, the mice -- as expected -- showed no changes in anxiety-related behaviors. That lack of change in anxiety in mutant and rescued mice had also been shown in previous work.

"Overall," Powell said, "our studies suggest early genetic rescue as a potential genetic therapy for ASD-like behaviors in ASD associated with SHANK3 deletion or mutation. Taken together with previously published studies, genetic intervention in SHANK3-related ASD may be most effective earlier in development."

###

Co-authors with Powell for the study, "Early restoration of Shank3 expression in Shank3 knockout mice prevents core ASD-like behavioural phenotypes," are Thomas C. Jaramillo, Jeremy M. Reimers, Christine O. Escamilla and Shunan Liu, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; and Zhong Xuan, UAB Department of Neurobiology.

Powell moved to UAB from the Southwestern Medical Center in 2018. At UAB, Powell holds the Virginia B. Spencer Endowed Professorship in Neuroscience.

Support came from National Institutes of Health grants HD069560 and HD069560-S1, Autism Speaks, an Autism Science Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship, The Hartwell Foundation, gifts from Clay Heighten and Debra Caudy, and BRAINS for Autism.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, is willing to testify before a House antitrust investigation into the market power of major tech companies alongside other chief executives, a lawyer for Amazon wrote to lawmakers.

Amazon had earlier resisted making him available to the House Judiciary Committee, the group overseeing the antitrust investigation, prompting lawmakers to threaten to legally compel Bezos to testify.

The world's richest person is likely to be queried about claims that Amazon boxes out small businesses, abuses its power and mistreats warehouse workers. Credit:Bloomberg

The panel is likely to question Bezos, the world's richest person, about claims that Amazon boxes out small businesses, abuses its power and mistreats warehouse workers. If he testifies before the committee, it will be Bezos' first appearance before Congress.

The chief executives of the other companies under investigation by lawmakers  Apple, Facebook and Google  have all testified at various points in recent years on other matters. The House Judiciary Committee has been pushing for them to return to testify in front of its investigation, too.
MIDLAND, MI - Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sent a 50-page letter to President Donald Trump Monday, June 15, formally requesting that he declare mid-Michigans recent devastating flooding a federal major disaster.

The collapse of the Edenville Dam in Midland County after heavy rainfall on May 19, as well as heavy rains throughout the region, caused flooding damage to the area. As of Monday, the flooding has cost residents more than $190 million in losses as well as $55 million in response costs and damage to public infrastructure, according to a Whitmer news release.

Last months flooding and dam failures upended the lives of thousands of Michigan families and business owners at a time when we were just beginning to reopen our economy following weeks of working to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Whitmer said in the release. This natural disaster, coupled with a global health pandemic, has created enormous stress and emotional trauma for these residents, and they need the federal governments help to begin rebuilding their lives.

FEMA issued a federal emergency declaration for the floods Thursday, May 21. A major disaster declaration would expand the federal resources available to the region and allow federal reimbursement for certain expenses.

This 500-year disaster has impacted everyone from homeowners and renters to businesses and farmers throughout mid-Michigan," Whitmer said in the release. I urge the federal government to provide the resources necessary to ensure they dont suffer financial hardships for years as they attempt to repair and restore their damaged homes and businesses."

U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, voiced support for Whitmers request.

The devastation caused by this historic flooding destroyed homes and upended the lives of so many residents, Moolenaar said in a news release. These residents need assistance that goes beyond what local and state government can provide, and I hope that the federal government will quickly approve the request so additional resources will be available for those in need."

At Whitmers direction, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is designing an investigation into the dam failures and the states approach to dam safety. The state is also suing Edenville Dam owner Boyce Hydro to recoup damage costs.

Read the full text of Whitmers letter below.

Read more:

Edenville Dam didnt meet state standards at time of collapse, report says

Michigan sues Edenville Dam owner, seeks flooding damage compensation

Legislators call for independent investigation of Midland dam disaster

Gov. Whitmer calls for state investigation into Midland County dam failures

Feds warned years ago Edenville Dam couldnt handle a historic flood

Whitmer will soon request federal major disaster declaration for mid-Michigan floods
Beneficiaries of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mines Teberebie Vegetable Project in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality of the Western Region have lauded the mining company for the initiative,



Describing the project as successful, the farmers testified that it has boosted their income levels and also improved their livelihoods.



The Teberebie Vegetable Cooperative Project is part of other initiatives Iduapriem Mine is undertaking to respond to the increasing unemployment situation within its host communities.



The first phase which began in January 2018, involved 14 farmers, who cultivated vegetables including cabbage, green pepper, lettuce, carrot, cucumber among others and watermelon on an eight-acre land.



The next phase of the project will be expanded to cover 20 community farmers who are expected to cultivate vegetables on a 20-acre land.



A beneficiary, Mr Moses Hagor, expressed his gratitude for the mines support and urged the company to extend the project to cover many other farmers to boost their income levels in the Tarkwa -Nsuaem Municipality.



For me this project has really been a blessing. I have been able to build a house from the sales I made. Mr Hagor revealed.



At a brief ceremony on Tuesday, to present GH40,000 being proceeds from sale of vegetables to the farmers, the Senior Manager  Sustainability of Iduapriem Mine, Mr Stephen Adjei, congratulated the farmers for the hard work and unrelenting effort in ensuring the success of the first phase of the project.



Knowing the challenges that you faced in the beginning, I am extremely happy to see you succeed in this project. Indeed, I have no doubt that if you demonstrate the same zeal and commitment in the next phase, another remarkable success would be chalked. he noted.



Speaking on behalf of the community, the Chief of Teberebie, Nana Kojo Minnah II, thanked Iduapriem Mine for the project and assured management of their unflinching support and cooperation.



He, however, advised the beneficiaries to invest their money wisely, work harder than before and trumpet their success stories particularly to the youth.



The Municipal Agriculture Officer of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), Mr Karol Senker, pledged his outfits readiness to partner Iduapriem Mine for such initiatives as they were in line with the governments Planting for Food and Jobs Agenda.



He indicated that the MOFA would continue to provide the technical assistance and support to ensure the successful implementation of the full project cycle.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Solon schools are conducting an investigation into a former teacher, after new allegations of inappropriate contact between the former teacher and a student.

In a letter sent on June 7 to families, officials noted the district heard the allegations in recent days. The school district is looking to speak to affected individuals and connect them with the appropriate places to report the alleged abuse, whether that be the state or the Solon Police Department.

The district will also take written statements that can be placed into the former teachers personnel file, upon request.

Read the full letter at the bottom of this post.

Solons police department is conducting an investigation into a former high school teacher, Lt. Jamey Hofmann wrote in an email.

The investigation will be quite lengthy and it will be several months before any charges, if warranted, are filed, Hofmann wrote.

There were past allegations raised more than two years ago while the same teacher was in the classroom, according to the districts letter.

The district promptly investigated the allegations and fulfilled its responsibilities by reporting to the proper state and local authorities, it reads. These reports are confidential. During the investigation, the teacher was removed from the classroom and direct contact with students. The actions taken at that time were solely focused on ensuring student safety.

The district urged anyone with information to come forward and share it with the school district and the police.

Read the full letter below:

Dear Solon Schools Families,

In recent days we have learned about new allegations of inappropriate contact between a former teacher and student. These allegations are deeply troubling. School should be a safe space and we take seriously our responsibility to students physical and emotional well-being. Teachers and educators hold positions of trust with their students.

Late last week, the district became aware of additional allegations involving the same former teacher. The district intends to speak with the affected individuals concerning the allegations about inappropriate contact with a teacher when they were enrolled in the district and obtain additional information, including written statements that could be placed in the former teachers personnel files if those individuals so request. The district will advise them to contact the Ohio Department of Education, which licenses educators, if they believe they have information that would be relevant to any ongoing investigations and recommend that they contact the Solon Police Department. The district will assist them in making these connections in any way they desire.

It is the districts practice to thoroughly investigate all allegations brought to its attention and to report any knowledge or reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect under Ohio law, as appropriate. When allegations were raised more than two years ago involving the teacher in question, the district promptly investigated the allegations and fulfilled its responsibilities by reporting to the proper state and local authorities. These reports are confidential. During the investigation, the teacher was removed from the classroom and direct contact with students. The actions taken at that time were solely focused on ensuring student safety.

As we continue to learn more in real time  just as many of you are from public postings on social media platforms  we pledge to work with and connect any former students who bring these matters to our attention to the proper authorities. If other students have material information to share, we encourage them to contact the school district and law enforcement immediately. The Solon Police Department Detective Bureau can be reached at 440-337-1465.

We value the partnership we have with students and families. We understand that relationship is based on trust. If you or your child ever experiences or hears of a concerning situation it is imperative that you share the information with us immediately. Students can always either speak with district administrators or utilize the districts Safe School Helpline (1-800-418- 6423, ext. 359, or text TIPS to 66746), which has been in place for more than a decade to promote school safety and provide students, parents and staff members the opportunity to report inappropriate or illegal activity. Although we say it all the time, we really do mean that if you see something, say something. The district is committed to promptly investigating complaints and taking appropriate responsive action based upon the outcome of those investigations.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:06:47|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday said Turkey and Russia would continue to work together for a lasting cease-fire in Libya.

Speaking alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at a press conference in Istanbul, Cavusoglu said there are no disagreements between Turkey and Russia on the core principles regarding the issue of Libya.

The planned visit of Russian foreign and defense ministers to Turkey on Sunday with a focus on Libya was postponed to a later date, the Turkish Foreign Ministry had announced without providing further details.

"We decided that it would be more beneficial to continue the talks with Russia at a technical level, especially for the cease-fire to be permanent," Cavusoglu added. "After all issues would be clear, we have to come together at the ministerial level."

He also noted that the cease-fire in Libya couldn't be unilateral, and it wouldn't be realistic to make decisions without considering the views of the Libyans.

The North African country has been torn by a raging civil war, between the Government of National Accord based in the capital Tripoli and the Libyan National Army and its allies based in the east.

Meanwhile, Zarif said Turkey and Iran have been working to reopen their border and resume flights after they were suspended more than three months ago due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In his speech, the Iranian minister also denounced the United States for tightening its sanctions to damage the Iranian economy during the pandemic. Enditem
Cynthia Ritchie has created a political storm after accusing opposition politicians of raping her back in 2011.

Last month marked the ninth year since US forces conducted the deadly raid on the compound of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. Bin Ladens whereabouts had been confirmed by DNA tests done under the guise of a fake anti-polio campaign run by local health officials in 2011.

At the time, American Cynthia Ritchie worked for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) provinces health ministry, which collected the samples from Abbottabad. Ritchie, who started coming to the region two years prior to the raid, says her presence in the KPKs health ministry at the time was a coincidence.

Her apparent free access to the countrys remote tribal region and, by her own admission, tacit support by the security forces, have raised eyebrows in Pakistan, where foreign journalists often face hurdles in reporting.

A foreign correspondent who was expelled from Pakistan told Al Jazeera: Tribal areas were out of bounds without permissions, and Balochistan even harder. The military could be sensitive (about criticism), of course, but they had nothing like the kind of clout they have now.

Ritchie says she is investigating a political group called the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) for anti-state activities. The PTM has been campaigning against human rights violations conducted by the military against ethnic Pashtuns in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

Ritchie, who says she is not a journalist, has shared her photos with uniformed security officers on her social media accounts, but has denied working for or being hired by any security agency inside or outside Pakistan.

Pakistans local media reports have said the military also denied any links to Ritchie.

But these are not the reasons why Ritchie, a graduate of Louisiana State University, is at the centre of a massive controversy in Pakistan.

Allegations of rape

Ritchie, who has lived in Pakistan on and off since 2009, has a powerful outreach among the countrys social media users with her videos focusing on the culture and people of Pakistan getting millions of hits.

Last week, the blogger was the topic of conversation on Pakistani media after she accused former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of ordering the rape of the women with whom her husband, former President Asif Ali Zardari, had an affair.

This echos stories of what BB used to do when her husband cheated. She"d have the guards rape the women. Why do women condone this rape culture? Why aren't the men ever held accountable? Where is the justice system? To Pakistan's youth: please reject this backward thinking! https://t.co/Xr3xTNzAVq  Cynthia D. Ritchie (@CynthiaDRitchie) May 28, 2020

She told Al Jazeera she has all the required evidence to back up her claims, which local political analysts have dubbed bizarre. She has yet to share the apparent evidence to substantiate her claims.

The ensuing outrage from millions of Bhutto supporters resulted in one female senator of the main opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) writing letters to authorities accusing Ritchie of willfully leaking private and photo-shopped photographs, private information, personal and tampered documents without authorisation and exploiting them in public using her social media, abusing cyberspace and violating PECA [the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act] laws with a malicious intention to harm, humiliate, pressurise and blackmail personalities targeted by her.

After formal complaints were filed against her, Ritchie uploaded a video accusing former Interior Minister Rehman Malik of rape. She also accused politicians from Bhuttos PPP party, including former Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, of inappropriate physical conduct.

I have also experienced great horrors in this country. I also reported this and communicated this with the US embassy several days after the event. I was stunned, I was shocked; I reported it to an individual and the US embassy has these details, she told Al Jazeera.

Their response was less than adequate. And let me tell you why I believe it was less than adequate  because of one word: f****** politics, politics! They did not want to disrupt what was going on in the country. So my rape was kept quiet, and I was offered to go home.

The US embassy in Pakistan says it cannot comment on a private citizen unaffiliated with the US government due to privacy considerations, but added that it provides appropriate services and support to all Americans in Pakistan.

Ritchie says all the incidents date back to 2011 when she began working for current Prime Minister Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

But she has finally mustered up the courage to go public. I understand that it can be confusing for a lot of people. Those who have endured abuse dont always come forward straight away, she told Al Jazeera.

She has described former Minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin as a skirt chaser.

Politicians named in her allegations, including former ministers Malik, Gilani and Shahbuddin, have denied the allegations. They have sent multiple legal notices to Ritchie and asked the government that she should be prevented from leaving the country.

Family sources of the politicians say Ritchies antics reek of a campaign to divert attention from current issues and malign opposition politicians.

Mudslinging campaigns are often effective because they never reach legal proceedings but successfully create confusion about the character of the accused, regardless of them having any involvement in what they are accused of, one family member told Al Jazeera.

Divert attention

Politicians from the PPP say there is a campaign against them for authoring an amendment to the constitution in 2010, which curtailed presidential power to dissolve governments and ensured autonomy to the provinces.

The opposition has accused the Khan government and the powerful military of using Ritchie to divert attention from the governments failure to address the economic crisis and prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

In 13+ years what has the 18th amendment achieved for people of Sindh?#PPP used to be a Federalist, forward-looking party under Bhutto. Zardari has turned PPP into an ethno-fascist racist mafia like PTM. I've been to Thar, if PPP can't run a desert PPP can't run a country.  Cynthia D. Ritchie (@CynthiaDRitchie) June 3, 2020

But Ritchie did confirm reports that she had accepted an amount of $2,500 from the former interior minister after her alleged rape in 2011.

191231074935004

I know how that looks  Nobody bothered to ask me what I did with the money. Yes, I was financially strapped, but there were also young children and faculty members at the National Health Institute who were very kind to me. I had that money converted to local currency and gave it to people who were struggling more than I was.

The story must be told in a sense that if myself as a strong woman, as an American woman who has defended other people, if this can happen to me, what is happening to the local women, she said, becoming emotional describing her ordeal.

I know what its like to be violated as a woman  you know I can play the woman card, the Christian card, the American card, whatever, but I dont want to do that.

But analysts have raised the question as to why Ritchie has not filed the case in the Pakistani court rather than airing her accusations on Twitter. Several others have questioned her motive as all the accusations are against leaders from the opposition PPP.

Ritchie says she plans to stay in Pakistan and approach the court.
Hours after Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush went on national TV to warn protesters to keep their hands off the Alamo, fellow statewide elected Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took to social media to blast Bushs management of the San Antonio icon.

Nobody has put the @OfficialAlamo at more risk than @georgepbush with the outrageous reimagining plan, lousy management, lack of transparency and moving the cenotaph, Patrick said on Twitter.

That post came about 4 hours after Bush went on the Fox News Channel to say the state has responded to elevated threats from Antifa with more guards to protect the Alamo. Downtown has seen nearly nightly protests calling out police brutality since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis three weeks ago.

We responded in kind with a show of force to send a very clear message that you dont mess with Texas and you dont mess with the Alamo, Bush told Fox and Friends host Brian Kilmeade.

Patrick took it as an opening to once again to publicly criticize Bush, who has increasingly been the target of Patricks jabs. Bushs agency is responsible for overseeing the redesign of Alamo Plaza. Patricks antagonism toward Bush has grown since an October 2019 article in the National Review, a conservative publication, in which Bush is discussed as being ready to run for either governor or lieutenant governor in the future.

While he wouldnt challenge current Governor (Greg) Abbott or Lieutenant Governor Patrick, if an opening presents itself he would absolutely consider serving Texans in a higher role. When that moment arises, hes ready, Bush adviser J. R. Hernandez is quoted by the publication saying.

Abbott, Patrick and Bush are all up for re-election next in 2022.

In 2018, Bush, who turned 44 in April, won his second term running the GLO by winning 53.7 percent of the vote  the second-highest percentage among the 8 statewide Republican officeholders who won re-election that year. Patrick, who turned 70 in April, won 51.3 percent of the vote in his re-election.

In March, the 184th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, Patrick faulted Bush for the $450 million restoration being badly off track and Patrick threatened to take the authority to manage the Alamo out from the General Land Office.

If the General Land Office cannot handle this important job, and to date it does not appear it can, I will recommend we identify another entity to provide oversight, Patrick said then.

A key bone of contention for critics of the Alamo Plaza redesign is the proposed moving of the six-story monolithic Cenotaph. There has been a plan to move that monument about 500 feet south to make way for a public-private project to build a museum and convert Alamo Plaza into a more space, free of traffic and the Cenotaph. The monument honoring the fallen Alamo defenders sits at the north end of the plaza, where it was dedicated in 1940 as part of the Texas centennial.

Design experts and scholars have long argued that the Cenotaph depicting David Crockett and other defenders carved by Italian-born sculptor Pompeo Coppini is out of scale and context with the mission-era Alamo church and Long Barrack.

It has all made Bush a target of some Alamo enthusiasts who dont want the monument moved.

In December, Bush took to social media to blast false rumors that he was secretly wanting to build a statue of Mexican General Santa Anna near the Alamo.

The idea that I would EVER place a statue of Santa Anna at the Alamo is patently false. Enough is enough. This is an outright lie, and is quite frankly, flat out racist, Bush said in a statement.

Bush questioned if he was targeted for the criticism because of his parents.

One must ask themselves, why am I being accused of honoring the murderous dictator Santa Anna? Bush wrote. Is it because my mother (now a naturalized citizen) is from Mexico? I was born in Houston, my wife is from San Angelo, and my boys were born  you guessed it  here in Texas.

That triggered another rebuke from Patrick who put out a statement accusing Bush of calling everyone who disagrees with the direction of the Alamo restoration project a racist.

Recently, the GLO Commissioner and a member of his staff have derided anyone who disagrees with the Alamo redesign as a small vocal minority who are liars and racists, Patrick said in a written statement. This is offensive and inaccurate. The 31 members of the Texas Senate represent over 28 million Texans. They are not a vocal minority  nor are they liars or racists.

Bush fired back: To twist my words and put out a statement saying that I called Honorable State Senators and anyone who opposes me racist is wrong. It is a very dangerous mistake for an elected official with his power to make.
Standardbred horseman Roy Wayne Estes, 80, of New Holland, Pennsylvania, passed away on Monday, June 8, 2020, at Lancaster General Hospital after a short illness.

He was born in Wellsville, Mo., to the late Herbert R. and Viola F. (Bunch) Estes Champion.

He was preceded in death by a very special friend, Anna. He is survived by his brother, Gary (Mary); nephews, Gary II and Shane (Amy); niece, Kimberly; and cousin, Jack Bunch.

Roy loved to train and race Standardbreds. His racing took him many places around the country, which eventually led him to Pennsylvania. Prior to his racing career, he was an industrial arts teacher for many years in Ohio where he grew up and started his love for Quarter Horses and Standardbreds.

When he moved to Pennsylvania, he got in touch with the John and Ada Blank family of New Holland, and for the past 18 years he was like family to them. He also did taxi driving and made many friends over the years. John, Mark, and Wilma Sue, whom he loved as his own and shared their love and interest for horses, were always willing to lend a helping hand. Arie Elaine and Matthew also helped Roy train and care for his horses for a number of years at Ginger Tree Farms.

Roy will always be missed and remembered by many Amish friends: Chris Blank, husband of Kathryn Stoltzfus, and their children, Lillian, Melissa, Aleah, Kayla, and Jerimiah; Arie Elaine, wife of Allen Stoltzfus, and their children, Bethlyn, Matthias, Adrian, Jared, Gloria, Ethan, and Gabriel; Matthew, husband of Katelyn Leaman; and Michael, husband of Karlee Thomas.

A private celebration of life will be held at the convenience of the family.

To send a condolence, please visit Roys memorial page at www.CremationPA.com.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Roy Estes

(USTA)
Michaela Coel in her HBO series "I May Destroy You." (Laura Radford/HBO)

HBOs I May Destroy You is a flippant, fun, young British comedy set in the Millennial flats, clubs and bars of London  or so it seems.

Angelenos may see Insecure parallels in this group of Black girlfriends trying to find their way in impossibly confusing times. They too have a fiercely independent sense of style, speak in social media-isms and are accompanied by a killer soundtrack.

But by episode two, which airs Sunday night on HBO, the 12-part series evolves into a full-blown mystery that revolves around solving what happened during a blackout night of drinking. And it's anything but frivolous. Sexual assault, questions about consent, and double standards of justice around race and gender are just a few of the fraught areas where "I May Destroy You" dares to tread.

The half-hour series written and produced by Chewing Gums Michaela Coel follows gregarious, eccentric writer Arabella (played by Coel) and her inner circle as they navigate careers, relationships, casual hook ups and their own identity in an overpriced city that sees itself as more progressive than it really is.

Michaela Coel in "I May Destroy You." Credit: HBO (HBO)

But their friendships take a sharp turn when Arabella decides to take a break from her writing (which shell do anything to avoid) and meet up with mates for a drink. The night is a blur, and she wakes up the next morning bruised, disoriented, wondering what the hell happened.

Plagued by flashbacks that Arabella initially believes to be nightmares, she begins to realize she was drugged and raped, possibly by a friend or his acquaintances. To help put the pieces together, she relies on her close confidants Terry (Weruche Opia) and Kwame (Paapa Essiedu). Uber tracking, cellphone data and gum shoe investigation also play a part in reconstructing the chain of life-changing events.

Questions abound, but Arabellas emotional journey is the real story here. Shes plagued by guilt, shame, fear and anger, all of which prove obstacles and then motivators in her quest for accountability and truth. And its a harrowing journey.

Story continues

Arabella, after all, is a creative, independent force, full of snarky, sharp wit and replete with cotton-candy pink hair. Shes not a victim. Shes a smart, savvy feminist who should have seen this coming, right? Wrong. Common ideas about the weakness and vulnerability of sexual assault victims are explored and debunked early on in this series through her personal plight.

Incredibly, I May Destroy You still manages to laugh, and get laughs, thanks to Coels undeniable knack for finding comedy in the darkest places. Its a brave effort that dares to pair humor with intense, difficult subject matter. The result is a series thats as intimate and authentic as it is topical and necessary.

Coel, 32, said the idea behind the BBC series was pulled from her own experience while she was writing the second installation of Chewing Gum. She took a break from work, went out to meet a friend and lost consciousness after someone slipped a drug in her drink. Like Arabella, she subsequently experienced flashbacks, deep emotional grief and eventually recalled she was sexually assaulted. It took 2 1/2 years to write her story.

HBO recognized tackling the issue of rape and recovery, a half-hour episode a time, on TV no less, required more. The digital content series Gathering the Pieces was launched to help further the discussion.

Hard as this material may be, I May Destroy You wont destroy viewers. The series is also whimsical and charming, reflecting the personality of its star, a survivor with a tale to tell.

I May Destroy You

Where: HBO



When: 9 p.m. Monday



Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)
U.S. troops in South Korea have been barred from displaying the Confederate flag on bases or bumper stickers in the latest move by the military to prevent racial division in the force.

In a Twitter post Monday, Army Gen. Robert B. "Abe" Abrams, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said the Confederate battle flag "has the power to inflame racial division. We cannot have that division among us."

Read next: US F-15 Crashes into North Sea

Effective immediately, he stated, "The Confederate Battle Flag or its depiction within USFK installation workplaces, common-access areas, public areas, building exteriors, personal clothing or vehicle bumper stickers is NOT authorized.

"The Confederate Battle Flag does not represent the values of U.S. forces assigned to serve in the Republic of Korea," he added. "While I acknowledge some might view it as a symbol of regional pride, many others in our force see it as a painful reminder of hate, bigotry, treason and a devaluation of humanity."

Abrams authorized commanders to remove displays of the flag wherever they might be on USFK installations.

The ban follows similar action by the Marine Corps against display of the battle flag and comes amid growing tensions between the Pentagon's top leadership and the White House over bases named for Confederate figures, including Gen. Robert E. Lee.

In announcing a ban on the display of the Confederate battle flag April 23, Gen. David Berger, the Marine commandant, said he was "mindful of the feelings of pain and rejection of those who inherited the cultural memory and present effects of the scourge of slavery in our country."

Abrams' order also applies to the families of U.S. troops, retirees, contractors, Defense Department civilians and South Korean civilians working on bases, and "any other persons with access to USFK installations."

The order does not apply to display of the battle flag where it is depicted but not the main focus of an event, such as in artistic, historical or educational displays on the Civil War.

It also does not apply to the display of state flags that incorporate the Confederate battle flag, often called the "Stars and Bars," featuring a red field with a blue "X" dotted by 13 white stars.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

Related: Army Is Latest Service to Consider Confederate Flag Ban
Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a member of Joe Biden's Public Health Advisory Committee, has gone full Adam Schiff with an opinion piece in the New York Times that plays out a scenario where President Trump rushes a COVID-19 vaccine to market in an attempt to boost his polling in the election:

Oct. 23, 2020, 3 p.m., at a hastily convened news conference, President Trump announces that the Food and Drug Administration has just issued an Emergency Use Authorization for a coronavirus vaccine. Mr. Trump declares victory over Covid-19, demands that all businesses reopen immediately and predicts a rapid economic recovery. Given how this president has behaved, this incredibly dangerous scenario is not far-fetched. In a desperate search for a political boost, he could release a coronavirus vaccine before it had been thoroughly tested and shown to be safe and effective.

There is so much wishful thinking packed into this little piece of fiction that it's hard to figure out where to begin.

First, it assumes that Trump is behind in the polls come October 23 and that the polls, which predicted Hillary in a landslide about that time four years ago, are more accurate this go-around.

Next, it seems to indicate that we will still be locked down and in economic turmoil five months from now. Apparently, Dr. Zeke is in Biden's bunker, playing gin rummy with the presidential hopeful, and is blind to what is happening in the real world. Record hiring and rebounding stock markets are not indicators that the world will be in a long-term recession come October  at least not the United States.

If there is a second resurgence and the Democrat governors shut down their states (the red states will certainly not shut down again), the Democrats will have other problems. At the same time, most people will be clamoring for a vaccine, side-effects or none.

Emanuel goes on to speculate that "[o]ne highly unlikely possibility is that recruitment of volunteers in a coronavirus 'hot spot' would be so rapid that it would allow for an adequate assessment of the vaccine's safety and effectiveness very quickly. There is another scenario that is far more ominous: Three months after the N.I.H. trials begin in July  so, mid-October  studies reveal many patients are developing high levels of antibodies to the coronavirus without severe side effects."

Now, I'm no scientist or expert, but I fail to see how these two outcomes are "ominous." Biden's health adviser seems to think so. It does make sense to test the virus on the most vulnerable first, and if the results show high levels of antibodies with no severe side-effects, I think Trump should be up on the pulpit, singing hallelujah!

Dr. Zoltar points out that there are over a hundred companies and researchers spending billions of dollars working on a vaccine. This isn't an accident and was something Trump promoted heavily early on, although Emanuel fails to give him credit. He admits that "the F.D.A. could issue an Emergency Use Authorization for one or more vaccines. These authorizations only require that the F.D.A. finds it 'reasonable to believe' that a vaccine 'may be effective' in preventing a life-threatening disease for it to be put on the market, without being formally licensed." But he goes on to liken such an announcement to President G.W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" proclamation.

Emanuel is correct when he says antibodies may not mean that any vaccine is effective at preventing infection; it is only a good indicator that it might work. But Dr. Zeke gives Trump an out in case it doesn't work as promised  "[i]ndeed, about half of the vaccines for other diseases that work and are on the market actually lack clear immunological correlates for protection." It is unclear why he thinks this common outcome would be bad in such dire circumstances. A hundred million people are immunized each year for influenza and millions still go to hospitals, and tens of thousands still die each year, but I'm sure he's the first to recommend getting a flu shot.

In a final salvo, the Biden political operative masquerading as an expert panders to his leftist audience by claiming, "Thousands of Americans have already died as Donald Trump has perpetually postponed effective public health interventions and made poor therapeutic recommendations." This argument is heads you lose, tails I win. If he postpones a vaccine release until it is proven 100% effective and safe, he's responsible for thousands more deaths. If he rushes it to market, he's putting thousands at risk even if it works.

Even if it seems like a political stunt, I'm all for this kind of "October surprise."
As I write this, I feel incredibly sad. After months of relentless reporting about COVID-19, the news took a startling turn. And not a good one.

Videos surfaced of an African-American man, George Floyd, who died as a result of excessive force exerted by a white police officer while several other officers stood by without any attempt to intervene. They did not have their hands physically on Mr. Floyd, but the videos show no attempt to help as he pleaded, I cant breathe!

For any person to die in this way is beyond excuse, unjustifiable. If theres any way it could be even more tragic, its that Mr. Floyd, according to multiple reports, had extricated himself from a troubled past and was actively striving to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

So many words have already been said and written about this  reasonable and inflammatory. But perhaps it might help to consider what the Scriptures and Jesus have to say about racism and prejudice.

In the Old Testament, we see that God very specifically wanted the people of Israel  His chosen people  to remain separate from other peoples. The Lords purpose was not to discriminate, but to ensure those He had chosen remained faithful to Him as the one true God, and not be influenced to worship false deities of other nations or stray from the laws He had established.

Discussion of ethnicity in the New Testament takes on a very different perspective. Its often overlooked when we read and discuss the stories, but the parable of the Good Samaritan and the account of Jesus encounter with the woman at a well in Samaria both have racial or ethnic elements to them. The Samaritans were a people group despised by the Jews; interaction with them was a social taboo. So Jesus very intentional association with and reference to Samaritans was radical for His day.

Most of us are familiar with the story about the Good Samaritan. In this parable, a man on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho is beaten by robbers and left for dead. A Jewish priest traveling the same road, and then a Levite, pass the man by without stopping to offer aid, but a Samaritan does stop to help by attending to the mans wounds and then finding an inn where he can stay while he recovers.

When I read this account and try to apply it to the present day, I envision a known racist as the victim. A clergyman and then a politician pass by, ignoring the injured individuals plight. But then an African-American comes by, takes pity on the person, calls for emergency assistance and then finds a place for him to receive care until he is well again. Can you see the irony  and the extreme example of mercy demonstrated by the black man?

We also have the account of Jesus meeting with a woman of disrepute going to a well to draw water at midday, when she could avoid the accusatory glances of other women. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar. Jacobs well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink? (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans) (John 4:4-42).

Jesus proceeded to shift the conversation to living water, how this women with a painful past could experience new life through Him, the promised Messiah. When she excitedly ran back to her town to tell about this incredible stranger, many went to see Him and also became believers.

Again, Jesus actions were radical, unprecedented for those times. He broke every cultural guideline of the day, but paid no heed to the womans ethnicity, nor her immoral background. He perceived her only a person deserving of unconditional love and compassion, someone who needed some truly Good News to break into her broken existence.

We find that after Jesus ascension to heaven, His followers continued the example He had shown of disregarding cultural barriers. In Acts 8:25 it says, When they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages. The Samaritans hadnt suddenly been welcomed into the Jewish family, yet the disciples knew they needed to hear the truth of Jesus Christ as much as anyone.

Lastly, I think of what the Paul the apostle wrote, saying that in Gods sight, there is no distinction of race, gender, class or ethnicity: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

Some progress has been made in the realm of race relations in recent decades. But much more remains to be made. I firmly believe the ultimate answer is not in the writing and enactment of more laws, or the establishment of more regulations, but in the changing of hearts. And that is only possible through the transforming life and power of Jesus Christ.

Im thankful for my African-American friends. We enjoy each others company, and I believe we have learned from one another. More than anything, we share a bond in Christ that transcends any differences of color or culture. I pray  in the most literal sense  that through Him, the walls of hate, prejudice, distrust and suspicion can finally be torn down.



* * *
[June 15, 2020] 7 Hills Pharma Highlights Cell Adhesion as Key to Improving Effectiveness of Covid-19 Vaccines and Immuno-Oncology Drugs At BIO Digital 2020 Online Conference

HOUSTON, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 7 Hills Pharma, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on the development of drugs for treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, highlighted its integrin platform technology for improving immunotherapies in a video presentation at BIO Digital 2020 featuring President and CEO Upendra Marathi.

Dr. Marathi described how the companys first-in-class, small molecule integrin activators promote cell adhesion, which is an essential element in generating antigen-specific immune responses. The orally administered compounds act as systemic adjuvants to augment the effectiveness of vaccines, such as those in development for Covid-19 and immune-oncology drugs. Preclinical studies also have shown the immune stimulants have a positive safety profile. Here is a link to the 7 Hills Pharma BIO igital 2020 video.



We have this really remarkable set of small molecules that stabilize cell-cell interactions required for dialing up the immune system and locking in the power of any immunotherapy, Marathi explained. The reason integrin-mediated cell adhesion is so important is if you dont get the cell-cell interaction to increase the residence time with an antigen presenting cell or a T cell you will get poor responses to immune-oncology drugs as well as conventional vaccinations, he added.

7 Hills Pharmas Covid-19 vaccine program specifically addresses at-risk older people. We expect our cell adhesion agents will greatly enhance the efficacy of emerging vaccines against this coronavirus, Dr. Marathi said. Although this approach is potentially applicable for all ages, older subjects have lower immune responses to vaccines, in general, and may respond particularly well. In addition to the Covid-19 program, 7 Hills Pharma is targeting its immune stimulating adjuvants for use with influenza vaccines and PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors for treatment of solid tumor cancers. The company is studying additional uses for its integrin activators, including potentially increasing the effectiveness of umbilical cord blood transplants for treatment of blood cancers. About 7 Hills Pharma

7 Hills Pharma is focused on the development of novel and cost-efficient immunomodulatory agents that leverage well-known integrin biology to drive and enhance essential steps in the immune cycle. The companys lead programs are designed to improve the effectiveness of immuno-oncology therapies including checkpoint inhibitors, vaccines, and cord blood transplantation in the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases. For more information, visit http://www.7hillspharma.com Media Contacts:

Robert Williams

[email protected]

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]
David Eason has been accused of striking a man across the neck with a handgun and threatening to take his life, as details emerge from his confrontation with Jenelle Evans' friends last week.

James Spivey, the alleged victim and friend of Jenelle, claims Eason told him 'I will blow your f***ing brains out', and used a Springfield gun to hit him across the back of his neck, according to the arrest warrant obtained by TMZ.

How exactly the scuffle transpired remains unclear in the arrest warrant, but the outcome led to Jenelle splitting from her husband.

Mugshot: David Eason has been accused of striking a man across the neck with a handgun and threatening to take his life, as details emerge from his confrontation with Jenelle Evans' friends last week (pictured in his mugshot following the scuffle)

Eason, 31, was arrested Friday and charged with 'communicating threats' and 'assault with a deadly weapon' following a scuffle with two of Jenelle's male friends.

Eason was taken to Columbus County Detention Center in Whiteville, North Carolina on Friday evening, where he was later released on an 'unsecured bond' and given a July 6 court date, as reported by In Touch.

In a statement shared to Celebernation, Jenelle, 28, admitted to being shaken up over the altercation and revealed plans to 'move on' from her husband.

'I'm shaking and saddened by this, its time for me to move on from this relationship and find happiness for my kids and myself elsewhere.'

Arrested: Evans' husband David Eason has been arrested and charged with 'communicating threats' and 'assault with a deadly weapon' following a scuffle with two of his wife's male friends

She continued: 'I'm upset how everything ended up and wish the situation was taken in a more serious manner, I didn't agree with the unsecured bond.'

Jenelle also addressed the incident via Facebook on Saturday.

'I just want to let the public, tabloids, and my fans know that IM OK, IM SAFE AND SO ARE THE KIDS,' wrote Evans.

'I'm going to take a few days out to myself to gather my thoughts and focus on what's going on so I won't be on social media much.

Statement: 'I just want to let the public, tabloids, and my fans know that IM OK, IM SAFE AND SO ARE THE KIDS,' wrote Evans in a Facebook post addressing the incident on Saturday

Break: 'I love you all for the support that you all have shown me and I'll be stronger and better than ever soon,' concluded the 28-year-old Teen Mom 2 alum

'I love you all for the support that you all have shown me and I'll be stronger and better than ever soon,' concluded the Teen Mom 2 alum.

According to Celebernation, the event that led to Eason's shocking arrest occurred at the couple's home in North Carolina at an undisclosed date.

Jenelle had allegedly arrived to the home in the company of two male friends as she attempted to 'collect some of her belongings.'

The outlet alleged that David had gotten into a 'heated argument with one of the men over his truck keys' being misplaced, which eventually led to him striking one of the men with a pistol.

Eventually, David learned that 'neither Jenelle nor any of the men were in possession of the keys' and after some searching he was able to locate them, himself.

Moving on: In a statement shared to Celebernation, Jenelle admitted to being shaken up over the altercation and plans to 'move on' from her relationship with David; Eason and Evans pictured in 2019

After the incident, Jenelle and the two men filed a police report.

Jenelle - who married David in 2017 - also 'plans to file a restraining order on Monday.'

The now estranged couple endured a brief split in 2019 after Eason callously killed their family dog following an alleged biting incident.

But Jenelle and David decided to give their rocky relationship a second chance and got back together in March of this year.

The pair share three-year-old daughter Ensley, but each have children from prior relationships.

Jenelle has two sons, 10-year-old son Jace, who she shares with ex boyfriend Andrew Lewis and five-year-old Kaiser, who she shares with ex Nathan Griffin.

As for David, he has a 12-year-old daughter named Maryssa.
A view shows a Buffalo Police vehicle parked in front of the city hall before a protest against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Niagara Square, in Buffalo, U.S., June 5, 2020.

REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario

City officials in Buffalo, New York, have called on state Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the 2008 firing of a Black Buffalo Police Officer who stopped another officer from choking a suspect during an arrest.

The officer who attempted to use the chokehold was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison a decade later for his use of excessive force against four Black teenagers.

Cariol Horne, the fired officer, has since become an activist against police brutality.

The Buffalo Police Department made headlines earlier this month when two officers shoved a 75-year-old man to the ground on video.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Officials on the Buffalo, New York, City Council have asked the New York attorney general to investigate the 2008 firing of a Black police officer who said she was terminated after she intervened to stop another officer's use of a chokehold during an arrest.

In 2008, Cariol Horne was fired from the Buffalo Police Department following her actions in a 2006 incident that involved her stopping a white police officer from using a chokehold on a suspect while making an arrest, according to NBC News.

According to City & State New York, Horne in 2006 jumped on the back of fellow officer Gregory Kwiatkowski, who is white, who was using a chokehold on a Black suspect.

Horne was fired after the arbitration process determined she put the lives of other police officers, including the officer who attempted to use a chokehold, in danger, according to WGRZ. Horne, who was an officer with BPD for 19 years was terminated one year before she was eligible to receive her pension, according to NBC.

Since her firing more than a decade ago, Horne has become an activist for police reform and has attempted to pass legislation in the state of New York that would protect officers who intervene to prevent other cops from using excessive force, NBC News reported.

Story continues

"Now with so much attention being on the present and what some officers have done negatively, it is very difficult for some people to move forward if we have not repaired the past," Darius Pridgen, the president of the Buffalo Common Council, told WGRZ.

He added: "If she did what she did 13 years ago, if she did it today, how would it be viewed? And I think it would be viewed a lot differently."

In 2018, Kwiatkowski, the officer whom Horne stopped from using a chokehold, was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison for use of excessive force against four Black teenagers, according to NBC News.

Neither the BPD nor the office of the New York Attorney General Letitia James immediately returned Insider's request for comment on Sunday.

The Buffalo Police Department made headlines earlier this month when two of its officers were caught on video pushing a 75-year-old man to the ground during a protest on June 4. Dozens of other officers watched and marched past the man as he laid on the ground, bleeding from his head.

A lawyer for Martin Gugino, the man pushed to the ground, said he suffered a brain injury following the fall, according to NBC News. Buffalo officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalaski, 32 and 39 respectively, have pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree assault. Both McCabe and Torgalaski have been suspended without pay.

In response to their suspension, some 57 Buffalo Police Officers responded by resigning from the police force's emergency response team.

"Fifty-seven resigned in disgust because of the treatment of two of their members, who were simply executing orders," said John Evans, the police union president, told the Investigative Post.

Some cities and states around the country have announced the probation of neck restraints and chokeholds amid nationwide protest following the police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis. A white police officer was recorded for more than eight minutes holding his knee to Floyd's neck even though he said he couldn't breathe and eventually lost consciousness.

Read more:

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar supports calls to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department: 'you can't really reform a department that is rotten to the root'

Police officers stigmatize seeking help for mental-health issues. It could be damaging for the communities they're supposed to serve and protect.

A white couple called the police on a man for stenciling 'Black Lives Matter' in chalk on his own property

Police have released bodycam footage showing the struggle before the fatal shooting of Black man Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police

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(Natural News) Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a possible cure for COVID-19 was prohibited in France on May 27 because of a recent study published on May 22 by The Lancet. The study cast doubts on the safety of the drug, which it says has no positive effects on the health of patients who swallowed it after being infected by the Chinese coronavirus. It also claimed that mortality of hospitalized patients went up from over 9 percent of the control group to 23 percent of patients receiving the drug in combination with a macrolide antibiotic.

(Article by Jeanne Smits republished from LifeSiteNews.com)

Despite many issues surrounding the data collected for the study, their use and the company that did the statistical work, Surgisphere, both the World Health Organization and France reacted immediately. WHO stopped a study of the drug and it took French Health Minister Olivier Veran only one day after the publication by The Lancet to ask the French High Council for Public Health (HCSP) to decide whether hydroxychloroquine should continue to be allowed to be prescribed in hospitals to COVID-19 patients. HCSP came back with its answer on May 26: all prescriptions in this context should be stopped, it said.

Serious doubts had immediately been cast on the validity of the Lancet study in various countries, leading to the medical journals publishing of an Expression of concern on June 3.

The World Health Organization has since decided to resume its study. No such thing has happened yet in France where one of the worlds top specialists on infectious diseases, Prof. Didier Raoult, has been targeted by Veran as irresponsible and fking things up in repeated attacks against his promoting hydroxychloroquine with azithromycine as a treatment for COVID-19.

Prof. Raoult of Marseille said the Chinese coronavirus game was up on February 25

This is just the latest step in a strange sequence of events that had its climax in February, just before the coronavirus pandemic went into full swing in Europe. It was at that point that Pr Didier Raoult of the Marseille special university hospital unit for in infectious diseases, IHU Mediterranee Infection, announced that a Chinese study had shown that 500 mg of hydroxychloroquine taken for 10 days when prescribed as soon as patients were tested positive had spectacular results against the virus.

It should have been no surprise, since that same drug had been found to be effective against SARS-CoV-1 (the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome linked to a coronavirus outbreak in 2003). In his video dated February 25, Raoult smilingly explained that the new Chinese coronavirus had been beaten, not by a vaccine that will take years to develop, but by a well-known drug that has been prescribed for various conditions for decades, and that COVID-19 is probably the easiest respiratory infection of all to treat.

But that is not what happened. Instead, in France Raoult was ridiculed despite his status as a world-famous specialist of infectious disease. And in many countries, treating COVID-19 patients with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine was discouraged by health authorities, and in many cases was even severely restricted.

Why was hydroxychloroquine severely restricted in many countries?

Why? This is a difficult question to answer if one is prepared to believe that public health authorities and political leaders actually have the publics best interests in mind, be it with the recommendations given to COVID-19 patients, or with their decision to stop the world and totally disrupt its economic equilibrium through a lockdown aimed not at isolating those who are contagious, but at keeping healthy people from the streets and preventing them from worshipping, earning their living, travelling, and so on.

The situation and its developments in France, including a number of facts that appear hard to explain as well as the frank hostility with which Prof. Didier Raoult was treated, indeed raise serious questions about the motivations of our civic leaders.

Similar scenarios played out in the US, Germany, Netherlands and elsewhere. In several countries, prescription of hydroxychloroquine is only officially permitted when a stage of severe pulmonary infection has been reached  a point at which the treatment is known not to be effective.

Over-the-counter sales of safe HCQ were banned in France in January

When Raoult announced game over for the Chinese coronavirus on February 25, it came to public attention that hydroxychloroquine, a safer and better tolerated derivate of chloroquine which is itself a pharmaceutical drug derived from quinine, was no longer available over-the-counter in France since January 13, following a regulation published by delegation for Health Minister Agnes Buzyn by the General Director of Health, Jerome Salomon.

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), known as Plaquenil in France, was developed in Germany roughly at the same time as chloroquine in the 1930s and has been efficiently used as an anti-malaria drug since then until resistant forms of malaria appeared. It is currently used to treat lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Doctors have more than 80 years experience with prescribing this cheap molecule that was never considered to be a dangerous medication  until the beginning of this year.

The surprising inscription of HCQ on the list of poisonous substances, only dispensable with a prescription. only weeks before the coronavirus was identified as having entered into France, led many to wonder whether the move had been deliberate in this context.

It was underscored in particular that Buzyns husband, Yves Levy, until recently head of the INSERM (National Institute for health and medical research) was a member of the French delegation present at the opening of the Wuhan P4 high security laboratory that conducts research on dangerous viruses, and that he also had a personal axe to grind against Didier Raoult who was one of the first to complain about a conflict of interests when Buzyn was named Health Minister and became supervisor of the INSERM  and of her own husband. These accusations were brushed aside by the mainstream press.

Questions regarding favoritism for some drug companies and a strange readiness to promote other experimental treatments, such as Remdesivir by the American laboratory Gilead, were also raised. This led,  according to Raoult  to the publication of at least one questionable scientific paper. The treatment would cost about 1 US dollar per day while hydroxychloroquine costs 0.08 US dollars per day. A New England Journal of Medicine study financed by Gilead, said Raoult, only proved that Remdesivir has dangerous side effects that led Gilead to stop treatment of 8 percent of patients involved. In total, 60 percent of patients experienced side effects, and 23 percent serious side effects. No comparative data was available that would have allowed to assess the efficiency of the drug, said Raoult.

Remdesivir was approved for emergency use on hospitalized COVID-19 patients by the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 1, and Japan also authorized it on May 8, with positive comments and without special warnings.

The FDA authorized emergency use of hydroxychloroquine on hospitalized COVID-19 patients on March 28, though not in combination with azithromycine as recommended by Raoult, and only using products obtained from the Strategic National Stockpile. The FDAs explanation of the authorization came with a warning that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have not been shown to be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID-19.

What was known ahead of the pandemics outbreak?

Buzyn  under whose express authority the January 13 regulation restricting sales of HSQ was signed  abruptly left the Health Ministry in mid-March in order (unsuccessfully) to campaign on behalf of the presidential party La Republique en Marche for the post of mayor of Paris, LREMs previous candidate having been obliged to step down because of a sex tape he had sent a female journalist he was having an affair with: her boyfriend, a Russian contemporary artist, published it on social media.

The fact that Buzyn was forced to step down from her post as Health Minister in the middle of a major health crisis in order to run for the municipal elections also seemed strange.

In a tearful interview with Le Monde on March 16, depressed at leaving her post as Health Minister and worried about municipal elections that were to take place despite the epidemic, only one day before lock-down, Buzyn stated that she had warned President Emmanuel Macron about the dangerousness of the new coronavirus in China as early as January 11 weeks before it became public news.

This was put forward on social media as proof that HCQ was restricted because of its possible efficiency against the novel coronavirus.

The same mainstream press ridiculed those suggestions. Fact-checkers remarked that the decree bore the date of January 13, but that the publication was the result of a several month long process that had been initiated before the epidemic started in Wuhan, China. In fact, the French health security agency, ANSES, had been asked it to qualify HCQ as a poisonous, prescription-only drug in the course of October 8, 2019, two months before the novel coronavirus made its appearance. It agreed to do so on November 12.

Is this conclusive? While it cannot be affirmed that the COVID-19 episode was known of beforehand or planned ahead, international organizations and superpowers were clearly expecting a coronavirus pandemic to occur sooner or later.

In fact, globalists have said such a pandemic would be a useful step toward their goal. In 2009, Jacques Attali, counselor of nearly all recent French presidents and mentor of president Emmanuel Macron, openly described a worldwide pandemic as an opportunity  thanks to fear of dying  to advance towards world government, with a world police and a world tax system. He published those comments in LExpress, a left of center weekly, on March 3, 2009.

On October 18, Event 201 took place in New York. The high-level pandemic exercise was hosted by the Johns Hopkins Centre for health security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It was of course a fictional exercise, but it showed how these institutions were then promoting a global, supra-national response. The fictional pandemic in the exercise took 65 million lives. COVID-19 is said to have claimed 379,941 victims worldwide as of June 3, with deaths occurring following a characteristic bell-shaped curve that is presently in its descending phase.

Read more at: LifeSiteNews.com
(Natural News) Beijing is exploiting the ongoing political and social unrest across America as part of a concerted effort to deflect scrutiny regarding its own spotty record of human rights abuses, according to experts.

Our foreign adversaries are going to take advantage of this crisis to sow discord and to try and damage our democracy, U.S. national security adviser Robert OBrien said in an interview with ABC, in reference to Chinese diplomats who have doubled their online activity in order to lob criticism on Washingtons handling of the ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd, an African American who was killed by a white police officer.

One such move involved Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, who, on May 30, mocked a tweet posted by the U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus that decried Beijings decision to jam a national security law into Hong Kongs governing document.

Hua quoted Ortagus tweet with the words I cant breathe ? the last words Floyd said right before he died. The tweet, which is still up on Huas account, has racked well over 9,000 retweets and 46,000 likes as of this writing.

According to Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society Center for U.S.-China Relations, Beijing wants to paint a chaotic and problematic picture of America to make China look good ? especially after the pushback its government received during the Hong Kong protests.

I think the Chinese Communist propaganda apparatus is very grateful to have some burning cities in the United States right now, having had to suffer and feel deeply humiliated by the specter of Hong Kong being in a state of chaos, Schell said.

Aside from Chinese authorities, Chinese state-run media have also amplified calls against the U.S., with Chinese tabloid Global Times noting in an editorial that the U.S. is an inherently hypocritical country, with officials fond of applying double standards when it comes to dissent ? a direct reference to the U.S.s conflicting support for Hong Kongs demonstrators and its heavy-handed attempts at pushing back on protestors on American soil.

One should not impose on others what he himself does not desire, Global Times editor Hu Xijin said in the editorial.

In a series of tweets, Hu also mocked U.S. officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, by rephrasing the latters description of the Hong Kong protests as a beautiful sight to behold.

The 'beautiful sight' difined by US politicians has eventually extended from Hong Kong to the US. Now they can witness it by their home windows. I want to ask Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Pompeo: Should Beijing support protests in the US, like you glorified rioters in Hong Kong? pic.twitter.com/tvg0kyK8j0  Hu Xijin  (@HuXijin_GT) May 30, 2020

Zhao Lijian of the Chinese Foreign Ministry repeated this talking point at a news conference, noting that double standards were typical of Washington.

Why does the U.S. refer to those Hong Kong independence and black-clad rioters as heroes and fighters but label its people protesting against racial discrimination as thugs? Zhao stated.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam also parroted Hus talking point, telling reporters Tuesday that the George Floyd protests in America are an example of a double standard, noting that while U.S. officials, are very concerned about their own national security, they opted to look at Hong Kongs security situation through tinted glasses.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has rejected Beijings accusations, noting that the demonstrations in Hong Kong and the George Floyd protests cannot be equated with each other.

These are completely different, Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News, Sunday, stressing that the U.S. has the rule of law, which China does not have.

We have the rule of law. We have decent Americans all across this country who are troubled by what happened, and they have the opportunity to speak freely about thatThe Chinese Communist Party prevents that kind of freedom of expression, stated Pompeo, who also met with some survivors of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre on the eve of its 30th anniversary.

According to Helle Dale, a senior fellow for public diplomacy at Washington-based conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, the crisis currently unfolding across America is a propaganda gift to Beijing who, without missing a beat, immediately seized upon the ongoing riots in a bid to highlight American hypocrisy and its alleged double standards.

Beijing has also ramped up its efforts to portray itself as a beacon of tolerance, with Hua posting a supposed message of solidarity with the George Floyd protesters on Twitter.

All lives matter. We stand firmly with our African friends. We strongly oppose all forms of racial discrimination and inflammatory expressions of racism and hatred, Hua said.

Dale, in an interview with The Epoch Times, said the tweet was nothing but opportunistic, and also hypocritical, noting that Chinas Communist Party also has its own extensive list of human rights abuses against ethnic and religious minorities, specifically the Uighurs, Tibetans and the followers of the Falun Gong movement.

Visit CivilWar.news for the latest updates on the ongoing civil unrest in the United States.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Politico.com

NPR.org

GlobalTimes.cn

VOANews.com

State.gov

SCMP.com
After more than three months of closure, the border between Italy and Slovenia was re-opened on Monday for regular traffic.

Since the pandemic outbreak was declared in early March in Italy, Slovenian officials closed this very busy Schengen border post, which was a lifeline for companies and people from both sides.

The mayors of the neighboring towns of Gorizia in Italy and the Slovenian Nova Gorica on Monday symbolically removed a traffic sign that banned pedestrian traffic from one country to another, while workers removed the border fence that was preventing the passage of traffic.

According to Slovenian officials, road signs that banned traffic during the pandemic will all be placed in the Nova Gorica museum, so future generations can re-visit the events of the coronavirus pandemic of this year.

Since 2004, travel at this border had been unrestricted as both Slovenia and Italy are members of the Schengen agreement, which allows uninterrupted travel across many countries of the European Union.
New Delhi: The Crime Branch of Delhi police on Monday (June 15) filed its charge sheet in the murder case of a property dealer Parvez, who was killed during the Delhi riots. Pervez was found in an injured condition during North-East Delhi's North Gonda area during the riots. He was brutally injured in the violence and was rushed to GTB Hospital where he died.

Delhi Police had arrested 16 people in this case and the charge sheet was filed today against all the accused.

Parvez also had a .32 bore pistol and 25 cartridges, out of which the Crime Branch recovered only 13 cartridges but failed to recover his pistol. The police, however, is yet to recover the weapon used to kill him.

The police has filed its charge sheet in the case. The investigation, however, is going on in the case.

In February this year, the northeastern parts of the national capital were rocked by communal violence that claimed at least 53 lives and injured many people.

Earlier on June 1, Delhi Police had filed a 1,030-page charge sheet against suspended AAP councilor Tahir Hussain and 14 others in a Karkardooma court in connection with the riots that took place in Chand Bagh area of northeast Delhi.

The court is expected to take up the charge sheet for consideration on June 16.

Tahir Hussain was alleged in the charge sheet to have organised the violence in the region for which he spent around Rs 1.30 crore. The brother of Tahir Hussain, along with 15 others, has also been named as accused in the Delhi riots cases.

Tahir Hussain is also alleged to have met Umar Khalid and Khalid Saifi and others who had participated in the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) ahead of the Delhi violence.
An early morning explosion that heavily damaged a bar and some homes near downtown Houston on June 12 was intentionally caused, according to the Houston Fire Department.

Arson investigators did not provide other information on the cause of the blast, saying the case was still under investigation.

No one was injured in the explosion that happened shortly before 5 a.m. at Bar 5015 near the Houston Museum District.

Investigators believe no one was inside the building at the time of the blast.

Corri Babineaux, 37, who lives next to the bar, said the explosion was so strong it knocked her out of bed.

I thought a bomb had been dropped. Thats how loud it was, said Babineaux, who woke up to blown out windows and glass on her floors.

Paul Dorman, 43, who also lives next to the bar, said the blast caused quite extensive damage to the back of his house, including broken windows and cracked brick.

Firefighters who first arrived at the scene found several small fires that were quickly extinguished, said Houston Fire Department Assistant Chief Alfredo Martinez.

The explosion shattered a wooden deck at the bar and sent debris onto the street.

The cause of the blast was still being determined, Martinez said.

The fire department was being assisted in its investigation by Houston police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Homeowners
North Korea announced on Friday that it saw little reason to maintain personal relations between our Supreme Leadership, in other words, Kim Jong Un, and the U.S. President.

The statement, issued by Foreign Minister Ri Son Gwon on the second anniversary of the historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, came immediately after the North threatened the U.S. with terrible things and hinted it would disrupt the November elections.

Moreover, Pyongyang at the same time launched a rhetorical barrage against the friendly South Korean government of President Moon Jae-in and cut off communications with Seoul.

After months of quiet, Kim Jong Un is starting a new round of provocations. Why?

Brendan Smialowski/Getty

One explanation is that Kim is concerned the Trump administration, which has not vigorously enforced sanctions for more than two years, signaled it is about to up the pressure. Late last month, the U.S. Justice Department obtained indictments of 28 North Koreans and five Chinese individuals for running money-laundering operations in China, Russia, Libya, and Thailand.

Kim Jong Un Is MIA. His Sister Is on the Attack.

As Bruce Bechtol of Angelo State University in Texas told The Daily Beast, these charges so far have had little effect on Pyongyangs extensive smuggling operations, but the next step, stiff fines or sanctions on the indicted parties, could cut deep into the Norths illicit money-making activities. Bechtol, the author most recently of North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa, says these foreign activities are extensive and crucial for funding Kim family rule.

In any event, sanctions relief is particularly important now because the coronavirus has almost certainly forced the North Korean economy into a deep contraction, as it has done in neighboring China.

The disease came at a particularly bad time because Kim is especially vulnerable to a downturn. There are fast-rising expectations in the North.

Kim Jong Un has repeatedly promised prosperity, and people expect him to deliver, especially in the wake of his three high-profile meetings with President Trump and four with Moon Jae-in. Prosperity, however, depends in large measure on the repeal of U.N. and U.S. barriers to trade and investment. The major failure for Kim Jong Un is that sanctions have not been lifted, David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told me.

Story continues

Kim had enjoyed a free ride for two years. The North Korean despot was quickly developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and did not suffer new sanctions pressure.

Trump, during this period, issued sunny statements that the North did not pose a nuclear threat to America because of his personal relationship with Kim. Kim kept the illusion going by sending what the American president called beautiful letters to the White House.

As Maxwell, who served five tours of duty in South Korea with the U.S. Army, told The Daily Beast, the foreign ministers blast shows the regime no longer appreciates President Trumps unconventional, experimental, top-down, pen-pal diplomacy.

American diplomacy a la Trump was not effective in getting the North Koreans to give up their dangerous weaponsWashingtons stated objectivebut the U.S. leader was nonetheless unnerving a regime that always needs an external enemy.

If there was any consistent theme to Pyongyangs actions in recent days, it was the intent to create enemies. On Saturday, Kim Yo Jong, the increasingly powerful sister of the North Korean supremo, threatened military action against Seoul, calling the South, as she did on Tuesday, an enemy. That word is striking because Moon since inauguration in 2017 had been promoting polices that were extremely friendly to Kim rule.

Paradoxically, Pyongyang has appeared to be most comfortable with hardline conservative governments in the South. The Kim regime, on the other hand, had trouble dealing with the two overtly friendly progressives, Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo-hyun.

Pyongyang feared Kims Sunshine and Rohs Peace and Prosperity policies as fundamentally threatening. As North Korea watcher Selig Harrison once noted, these strategies in the eyes of North Korea were still viewed as attempts at subversion but were more dangerous because they were more subtle.

Similarly, Kim Jong Un probably viewed Trump as a mortal threat, especially when the American president showed him the four-minute video in Singapore of the prosperous future Washington wanted for the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, as the North calls itself. Three generations of the Kim family have ruled their miserable state by keeping people poor and therefore in no position to revolt.

The foreign ministers statement denigrating the personal ties with Trump was made by a relatively low-level official, leaving room for more senior figures to walk it back. Kim probably thinks that Trump, running for re-election, will have to give him what he wants to avoid a breakdown in relations.

That may be overplaying his hand, something Kim did in Hanoi in February of last year when he tried what Maxwell calls North Koreas long con, getting almost-complete sanctions relief for giving up little of its weapons programs.

Fortunately for the North Korean leader, the Trump administration is willing to talk to him anytime, as the State Department suggested in comments to Yonhap News Agency on Thursday. Unfortunately for Kim, however, Trump has not been inclined to make fundamental concessions, something especially evident in the failed Hanoi talks,

Kim can continue to try to intimidate Trumporchestrated wrath is what Donald Kirk aptly calls itbut if he fails he will have damaged links with the only power that can give him what he needs.

Kim probably realizes hes in a fix. He needs, for regime survival, both foreign enemies and foreign cash. Getting one undermines the possibility of obtaining the other.

Therefore, the threat of breaking off personal relations with the American leader is high-risk for Kim, and it is not clear the North Korean at this moment is holding any high cards.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Jaipur, June 15 : It's a double whammy for the Congress party in Rajasthan as a state minister has been missing from resort politics since the last five days while the party is busy trying to put up a united face for the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled for June 19.

To add to its worries, a Congress MLA recently shot off a letter to All India Congress Committee general secretary Avinash Pandey questioning the necessity of opting for resort politics for two seats which he says the party will win in all circumstances.

In his letter, Singh said "We are sure to win two seats in Rajya Sabha. Never seen the entire party working unitedly for Rajya Sabha ever before. If we follow the same attitude for Lok Sabha polls, we shall deliver the best results in party's favour however what generally happens is exactly the opposite," he commented, adding, "No one will ever connect with each other after the election. The candidate who comes as winner in the polls will not be knowing those MLAs who had made him win the elections." Singh requested the party officials to consider what he had said.

Singh's letter has gone viral at a time when the party is struggling to reconcile the 'missing' status of its state minister Ramesh Meena who has not attended any of the meetings the party has been organising in the private resort where all its MLAs are camping to prevent their poaching.

Meena is known to be a supporter of deputy CM Sachin Pilot and has been vocal against Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot's style of working many times before.

While party officials were discussing his absence in whispers for the first two days, the fact came into the open when Congress observer TS Singh spoke to the media and said that Singh should have attended the meetings at the resort. "He has some responsibilities as state minister. However, we have sent his report to the party high command," he added.

Congress and independent MLAs are camping in a private resort in Jaipur after Gehlot accused the BJP of indulging in horse-trading to topple the Congress government in the state.

BJP state president Satish Poonia, on the other hand, rubbished all allegations by the Congress and said that the party is battling factionalism from within and is constantly blaming the BJP to hide its failures.

For the three vacant seats in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress has fielded two candidates, AICC general secretary in-charge of organisation KC Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi while the BJP has also fielded two candidates -- Rajendra Gehlot and Omkarsingh Lakhawat -- making sure that there won't be a unanimous win for the Rajya Sabha contestants.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 16:48 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded9b99 4 Lifestyle Uniqlo-Indonesia,Gramedia,Metro-Department-Store,M-Bloc-Space,shopping-mall,Museum,Museum-MACAN,Uniqlo Free

Several public places in Jakarta have reopened as the capital city enters the transition phase of the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) this month.

Starting Monday, 80 shopping malls across Jakarta opened their doors to visitors, including Emporium Pluit Mall in North Jakarta, Central Park in West Jakarta and Central Jakarta's Senayan City and Grand Indonesia.

Similar to the other establishments, Senayan City claimed to have implemented COVID-19 preventive measures for its visitors, including by putting physical distancing markings on all escalators and elevators.

Weve installed a touchless elevator button tool so that visitors will only need to wave their hands [to operate it], Senayan City's leasing and marketing communications general manager Jaclyn Halim told kompas.com.

The malls are reportedly also limiting their operational hours from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the number of visitors by 50 percent.

Despite the reopening, a number of tenants will remain closed, such as movie theaters, fitness centers, karaoke lounges and kids playground and learning centers.

Other than malls, below are the leisure businesses that have announced their opening starting Monday:

Uniqlo

According to a statement, the giant fashion retailer gradually resumed operations in several shopping centers on Monday, which include Paris Van Java Mall in West Java, Lippo Mall Puri in West Jakarta, Grand Indonesia and Aeon Mall BSD City in Banten. Both visitors and staff are required to wear face masks, maintain physical distancing, have their body temperatures checked and use cashless payment. The Japanese brand will also limit the number of visitors allowed to enter its outlets.

Metro

Metro Department Stores have also begun operations, including at Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta, Plaza Senayan in Central Jakarta, Gandaria City in South Jakarta, Puri Indah Mall in West Jakarta, Taman Anggrek Mall in West Jakarta and Trans Studio Mall in Bandung, West Java.

Gramedia

The bookstore chain has reopened its outlets in various cities across Indonesia, namely Jakarta, Jayapura in Papua, Ternate in North Maluku, Medan in North Sumatra, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, Denpasar in Bali, Palu in Central Sulawesi and Surakarta in Central Java, among others. Visitors will be required to wear face masks, touch the products only when necessary, apply hand sanitizer when entering and exiting the area, maintain a minimum distance of 1 meter from each other and use cashless payments. Each store will also limit the number of customers by 50 percent of normal capacity.

Grameds, untuk info terbaru mengenai Gramedia mana yang sudah buka atau masih tutup sementara, bisa cek di link berikut ya :https://t.co/Dd7l1iH32g



  Gramedia Store (@gramedia) June 5, 2020

M Bloc Space

This community space in South Jakarta has also reopened for business. Among the outlets now welcoming visitors are Padang To Go, Mr. Roastman, Mbok Ndoro, Katong, Tjikini, Tokyo Skip Jack, Mata Lokal, .TEMU, Chickro, UnionWell, Suwe Ora Jamu, Connectoon, Demajors Record Store, Rumah Lestari and _Oeang. Eesthetic clinic Beyoutiful and indoor venue M Bloc Live House are still closed.

The general operational hours are from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., with the exception of _Oeang, which operates from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. All tenants will limit the number of visitors by 50 percent.

Those who wish to visit M Bloc Space should make an online reservation via Loket.com to get e-vouchers that will be scanned when they enter the area based on their selected dates. Children below 5 years, pregnant women and people over 60 years old will not be permitted to enter.

Visitors and staff are required to wear face masks and bring their own praying equipment, such as sajadah (prayer mats) and mukena (head-to-toe womans prayer gowns); and groups should be no larger than five people.

Museums

Since June 8, numerous museums in Jakarta have reopened with health protocols, including the Jakarta History Museum in West Jakarta, Taman Prasasti Museum in Central Jakarta, Maritime Museum in North Jakarta and Puppet Museum (Museum Wayang) in West Jakarta.

However, the National Museum of Indonesia in Central Jakarta is still closed, meanwhile the National Gallery of Indonesia in Central Jakarta will open on Tuesday.

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (MACAN) in West Jakarta is said to reopen in mid-July and is currently preparing new health protocols for visitors, including maintaining a 1.5 meter distance, having their temperatures checked, minimalizing physical contact and practicing standard operating procedures for immersive art installations, such as Yayoi Kusamas Infinity Room.

People are encouraged to reserve online prior to their visit and Museum MACAN will implement a quota of 50 people per slot. The interval between each slot will be used to disinfect the area. (wir/kes)
NORTH PERTH  A 26-year-old Cambridge man has been charged with racing after he was caught allegedly driving 135 km/h in an 80 zone.

Perth County OPP stopped the driver at about 1 a.m. Friday on Perth Line 86.

The man was handed a seven-day driving suspension and seven-day vehicle impoundment. He is scheduled to appear in Stratford court at a later date.

Anyone with information regarding this incident can contact the OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or online at www.opp.ca/reporting. Anonymous calls can be made to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
A swan and her three cygnets are believed to have been killed by teenagers armed with catapults.

An online post to a community page said: We have had some awful reports of teenagers with catapults attacking swans.

One witness advised us that they killed three cygnets and a mother swan last night. They may have killed others as well.

A swan and three cygnets (not pictured) were killed after teenagers used catapults to harm them. A Facebook page called 'The Only Way is Crickdale' for Wiltshire residents informed social media of the incident.

This is awful news. A cash reward has been offered for information that leads to a conviction.

The post was originally put up on Facebook page The Only Way Is Cricklade  for residents of the Wiltshire town.

It was later shared more than 1,700 times. Hundreds of people commented on the Facebook page, describing the incident as heartbreaking and sickening.

Amy Slater wrote: Absolutely disgusted at the people who share this world with us. This is so upsetting!

Victoria Keville said: In these sad times it is such a joy to see these beautiful birds with their young.

This is a criminal offence and the law needs to come down on those responsible. This is not acceptable  its murder.
MUSCATINE  Last Friday, June 12, a Muscatine graduating senior was honored with Career Signing Day ceremony at Carpenters Local 1260 union hall in Iowa City.

I was always into hands-on stuff, said Jordon Whitworth. I thought (carpentry) would be a good career choice.

Whitworth was recently hired by the Weitz Company, a general contractor located in Eastern Iowa. Because he is not 18 yet, he will begin working with the company in September after his birthday.

Throughout high school, Whitworth has taken classes such as shop and welding to learn about the carpentry field. While his high school graduation was postponed until July due to the current pandemic, Whitworth was able to enjoy Fridays ceremony with his family and new boss at his side.

It was pretty cool seeing all the people and my boss there, Whitworth said. Everyone was pretty happy for me, I thought that was pretty cool. He said working for a big company was a bit intimidating. But I feel like itll be fine.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:57:57|Editor: huaxia

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (2nd L) takes part in a videoconference with European Union (EU) chiefs in London, Britain, on June 15, 2020. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday held video talks with EU chiefs, with both sides calling for a new momentum in the search for an agreement before the end of this year when the Brexit transition period ends. In a joint statement published after the online summit between Johnson and President of the European Council Charles Michel, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, the two sides said they noted Britain's decision not to request any extension to the transition period. (Andrew Parsons/No 10 Downing Street/Handout via Xinhua)

LONDON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday held video talks with European Union (EU) chiefs, with both sides calling for a new momentum in the search for an agreement before the end of this year when the Brexit transition period ends.

In a joint statement published after the online summit between Johnson and President of the European Council Charles Michel, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, the two sides said they noted Britain's decision not to request any extension to the transition period.

The transition period will therefore end on Dec. 31, 2020, in line with the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement, said the statement.

Britain on Friday formally ruled out the possibility of an extended post-Brexit transition period.

However, the two sides agreed that new momentum was required.

"They supported the plans agreed by Chief Negotiators to intensify the talks in July and to create the most conducive conditions for concluding and ratifying a deal before the end of 2020," said the statement.

"This should include, if possible, finding an early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement," said the statement.

Ahead of Monday's talks, Von der Leyen said the EU was ready to intensify talks, and was available 24/7.

"The Parties underlined their intention to work hard to deliver a relationship, which would work in the interests of the citizens of the Union and of the United Kingdom. They also confirmed their commitment to the full and timely implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement," said the joint statement.

The video summit followed four rounds of negotiations between Britain and the EU during past few months, which saw little progress made on major stumbling blocks such as fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field.

Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31 but is still following EU rules during the 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. Enditem
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 12

By Nargiz Ismayilova  Trend:

Azerbaijan's State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources (SAARES) is implementing a new pilot program within a project on alternative energy supply to remote settlements, villages and areas in 2020, Deputy Chairman of the State Agency Jamil Malikov told Trend.

According to him, through SAARES in some regions of the country, technology for using thermal pumps for providing the settlements with hot water, heating of houses has already been tested.

"At the same time, gas stoves working on liquefied natural gas can be also used," he added.

One of the most important spheres of activity of the Agency this year is the establishment of alternative energy supply in remote settlements, villages and areas. For this purpose, the agency chose 12 pilot projects to be implemented in villages of the country's Lankaran, Guba, Sheki-Zagatala and Samukh-Shamkir regions. Within the projects, SAARES develops proposals on the possibility of using alternative energy sources.

Presently, Azerbaijan is taking sequential steps to develop alternative energy. In this regard, negotiations are underway with foreign companies and investors, including companies from China, the UAE, the US and the EU.

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Follow the author on Twitter:@IsmailovaNargis
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- To Clevelands LGBTQ community, the reaction to the U.S. Supreme Courts Title VII ruling Monday is mixed.

The high court found 6-3 that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination because of sex, includes gay and transgender employees, including 500,000 Ohioans, according to Equality Ohio.

But the decision does not expand protection under the law, said Eliana Turan, director of development at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland.

Title VII was already protecting LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination, and several lower courts had affirmed that legal standing, Turan said.

Its part of a larger war against the LGBTQ community by our own government, she said. We are angry right now, and we are going to keep fighting.

In the decision, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, appointed by President Trump, spoke for a 6-3 majority.

Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Tom Falcone of PFLAG Cleveland, an advocacy and support group for LGBTQ people and their families, saw the ruling as a victory that will help the transgender community.

Its exciting, said Falcone, president of PFLAGs advisory board. Its an affirmation that Title VII applies in general aspects of life.

Many states dont have non-discrimination laws, so a federal ruling makes workplace protection universal, Falcone said. Its especially meaningful that the Supreme Court ruling comes during Pride Month.

This allows us to be who we are, Falcone said.

Other organizations and individuals also weighed in with reactions to the Supreme Court ruling.

Alana Jochum, executive director of Columbus-based Equality Ohio, nonprofit organization that advocates for full equality for the LGBTQ community, said in a statement that LGBTQ Ohioans also need protection against discrimination in housing, stores and hotels.

We applaud todays decision, but we know that black LGBTQ people will continue to face disproportionate discrimination and violence throughout their lives, Jochum said. This decision will not change that, and we must continue to change hearts and minds to implement our ideals.

Cleveland City Council called the ruling landmark, saying that discrimination based on race, religion or sexual orientation or presentation should not occur in Cleveland or elsewhere in the United States.

The Supreme Courts decision is an affirmation of what America stands for, equal justice and equal opportunity for all, said Council President Kevin J. Kelley.

Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish commended the Supreme Courts ruling in a statement. As we confront discrimination in all areas of our society, this ruling helps clear the way for gay and transgender workers to feel more secure, knowing that they have legal protections from being harassed or fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation."

The League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland applauded the ruling in a tweet, saying The landmark ruling will extend protections to millions of workers nationwide and is a defeat for the Trump administration.

Federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and trangender workers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.



The landmark ruling will extend protections to millions of workers nationwide and is a defeat for the Trump administrationhttps://t.co/w052BN6WWc  LWVGreaterCleveland (@LWVGrCleveland) June 15, 2020

Dr. Akram Boutros, CEO of the MetroHealth System, tweeted, This is beautiful news at a time when there seems to be so little. Kindness, understanding and love always win.
Pictured left to right: Cody Meyers, North Texas Food Bank Major Gift Officer; Jessie Swendig, Neighborhood Credit Union Vice President, Marketing & Communications. We would not be able to present this check to the food bank if it werent for everyone coming together and caring just as deeply about the community we call home.

On June 10, 2020, Neighborhood Credit Union donated $37,505 to the North Texas Food Bank with the help of over 100 donors.

The donations made to the North Texas Food Bank will help those who are experiencing hardship due to the pandemic, COVID-19. Since early March, many in the community have found themselves in a situation that requires help. With unemployment hitting record highs, millions have turned to food banks, who in response became overwhelmed. That is why Neighborhood Credit Union made a pledge to match donations dollar for dollar, up to $25,000. Thanks to a 3-month long campaign and over 100 donors, the credit union presented North Texas Food Bank with $37,505.

I am beyond thankful for everyone who donated to our fundraiser. Whether you donated $5 or $100, every dollar counts for our fellow Texans during this difficult time, says Neighborhood Credit Union CEO & President, Chet Kimmell. We would not be able to present this check to the food bank if it werent for everyone coming together and caring just as deeply about the community we call home.

With an average of 1 in 6 North Texans experiencing food insecurity, donations are vitally important to the food bank industry. For every $1 donated the North Texas Food Bank can produce three nutritious meals for children, families, and seniors in need. In total, Neighborhood Credit Union and 100+ donors have now provided over 112,515 meals for the North Texas community.

With over 800,000 people in our service area suffering from food insecurity, and with the impact of the coronavirus, we are currently working tirelessly to provide food assistance to those in need, says North Texas Food Bank Major Gifts Officer, Cody Meyers. Donations like this make it possible for us to continue doing our job in providing filling and nutritious food for those who need it most. During times like this, its so touching to see the support from the community and companies that actively want to help. In dark times, moments like this shine bright.

About the North Texas Food Bank

The North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) is a top-ranked nonprofit hunger-relief organization operating a state-of-the-art volunteer and distribution center in Plano, the Perot Family Campus. Last year, the Food Bank worked hard in partnership with member agencies from our Feeding Network to provide access to almost 77 million nutritious meals across a diverse 13-county service area  this means more than 200,000 meals per day for hungry children, seniors, and families. But the need for hunger relief in North Texas is complex and in order to meet the need, the NTFB is working to increase our food distribution efforts. Our goal is to provide access to 92 million nutritious meals annually by 2025. NTFB is a member of Feeding America, a national hunger-relief organization.

About Neighborhood Credit Union

Since 1930, Neighborhood Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial organization serving Dallas, Denton, and Ellis counties, as well as the City of Arlington. With branches in Dallas, Richardson, Arlington, Mesquite, Duncanville, Waxahachie, Lancaster, Grand Prairie, Coppell, and Highland Village, and assets topping $815 million, Neighborhood Credit Union has a membership of 55,000 and continues to welcome new members daily. Keep up with all Neighborhood Credit Unions updates during COVID-19 on our website. For more information, call (214) 748-9393 or visit https://www.myncu.com.
The inter-Korean liaison office only opened in September 2018 after an inter-Korean summit in the truce village of Panmunjom stands empty amid North Korean threats to demolish it.

The liaison office was opened in a refurbished building in the Kaesong Industrial Complex at a cost of some W9.7 billion to the South Korean government, which only had an authorized budget of W86 million (US$1=W1,204).

But no business of any significance has been conducted there since North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump failed in February last year.

The North Koreans boycotted all meetings, but officials went to work every day until they were evacuated on Jan. 30 due to the coronavirus epidemic.

They agreed to maintain contact through telephone calls twice a day, but the North stopped answering the phone last week after announcing it was severing all cross-border communication lines.
Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited (MEIL), a city-based infra major is foraying into the defence equipment manufacturing sector and as part of that, it is setting up a facility here with an investment outlay of Rs 500 crore.

The company has obtained necessary permissions to manufacture weapons, vehicles, ancillaries and arms and equipment for the defence sector, a press release from the company said on Monday.

"To produce weapons, vehicles, ancillaries and arms, MEIL has applied for permission under Defence procurement policy 2020 which is a part of the Make in India initiative. After careful examination of MEIL's capabilities under various government stipulations, the government of India issued the approvals. MEIL group will set up a manufacturing unit with a capital outlay of Rs 500 crore at various stages," it said.

MEIL had begun its journey with the construction and infrastructure sector and expanded its wings into oil and gas, power, solar power, aviation sectors and is now entering defence equipment production.

MEIL group company IComm Tele Limited is already contributing to the national defence institutions in science and technology fields.

IComm is also engaged in the power distribution and transmission and solar power sector.

The company is already developing and supplying advanced communication radios, jammers, EW shelters, antennas, electronic warfare containers, wind profiles and radars.

India's first mobile virology lab to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic was developed and launched in April by IComm.

"With the necessary approvals in place, Megha group is setting up most modern manufacturing facilities to produce various cutting-edge defence equipment indigenously at our upcoming new facility at Hyderabad. I am happy that Megha group is fulfilling Hon'ble Prime Minister's vision and dream of make in India initiative," Srinivas Bommareddy, President, MEIL, said.

MEIL's upcoming defence manufacturing unit will produce ancillaries to the combat vehicles, light combat vehicles, armoured engineer recovery vehicles, armoured recovery vehicles.

This unit will also produce soldiers carrying vehicles (APC), infantry combat vehicles (ICV), armed multi-purpose vehicles, mine-laying vehicles, bridge laying vehicles, all- terrain light combat vehicles (ACTV).

This unit will manufacture missiles, multi-barrel rocket launchers, machine guns, rockets, cannons and equipment to missiles, it added.
New Delhi:

Chinese telecom giant Huawei has partnered with electronics contract manufacturer Flextronics for making Honor smartphones in India starting with three million units from next month, besides creating 10,500 jobs.

"The investment in electronics manufacturing, which was around Rs 11,000 crore, has risen to Rs 1.24 lakh crore. It isa great sense of satisfaction, as indicated to me, this(Huawei) will be 40th manufacturing unit in the country," IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said while innaugurating the Huawei-Flex Chennai manufacturing facility from here.

Huawei will start making its Honor series phones at the manufacturing plant of Flextronics from October 1. "Today we announce the start of manufacturing of our Honorphones in India with Flextronics. This underlines our long term committment for India. Spectrum auction is coming and we will like to commit to Indian industry that we will make available all out latest technology product including 4G, 4Gplus and 5G products," Huawei India Chief Executive Officer Jay Chen said.

He said that Huawei is the third-largest smartphone maker after Apple and Samsung. "We have partnered with Flextronics who work with us globally to make our Honor series smartphones in the country. Initially we have tied up for 3 million units and will scale up as per demand. This project will create 3,000 direct employment opportunity at Huawei and 6,000 indirect jobs," P Sanjeev, Vice President Sales (India Business Head for Huawei& honor Consumer Business).

He said that hiring of 3,000 people will be completed by the end of this year, taking Huawei's direct workforce toaround 12,000 in India. Flextronics will hire an additional 1,500 people to workon the Huawei project.

"We have capacity to make 10 million phones in India. Wewill scale up production as per requirement of Huawei. Flextronics will hire 1,500 people dedicated for servicing Huawei smartphones," Jeff Reece, President, Networking Solutions, Flextronics said.

Reece said that Flextronics will provide after-sales services, shipping of phones to retailers and reverse logistics when devices from customers for repairing needs to be picked up.

"We will set up 45 experience centres for Huawei initially," Reece said. Sanjeev said that Huawei has tied up with 350 distributorsto sell smartphones from over 50,000 retail counters in the country covering all the districts.

"We have been aggressively competing in India. Now I can say we are ready in all aspects for giving massive push to our business in India. We believe India will overtake US as the second largest smartphone market in 2017. If we have to grow our rank globally, we need to focus on India," Sanjeev said. Huawei will sell both Huawei and Honor phones through offline channel partners.

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19k government grant to help combat fraudsters as people reveal all on social media

MOST people will have revealed their mother's maiden name or perhaps the name of their first school or pet to verify their identity when applying online for credit. This is known as your Personal Identifiable Information (PII). Alarmingly, this same information has become increasingly available for online fraudsters to view as people share their entire lives through their social media profiles and posts.

Now, a cybersecurity researcher from the University of Huddersfield has secured government funding to create and develop a product that will educate people about the risk of posting such personal information online and teach them how they can make their PII more secure.

Abigail McAlpine is a researcher from the University's Secure Societies Institute and is currently in her final year of PhD study. She has been awarded 19,000 by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to take part in the Cybersecurity Academic Start-up Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) with a project entitled, SocialSPI - Training the Public about Sensitive Personal Information on Social Media.

Through Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Network, the annual start-up accelerator programme, now in its fourth year, is designed to help academic teams from across the UK commercialise their ideas for cybersecurity products or services. The programme will provide researchers, like Abigail McAlpine, with all of the expertise and knowledge they need to develop an original idea into a commercial end product.

The year-long programme will be delivered via specialist training, workshops, briefings and bootcamps and is set to culminate in February 2021 with a 'Demo Day' where the teams will showcase their prototypes to potential investors and industry.

For her PhD, Abigail McAlpine has conducted in-depth research on personal data protection and end-user understanding of the way their personal information is collected, shared, stored and used on social networking services (SNS). She discovered key areas where the public are not appropriately informed about interacting on social media and that some are completely unaware of the possible dangers that could arise.

"What parents can potentially post on social media not only leaves themselves vulnerable but can unintentionally put their children at risk too," she said.

By sharing too much personal information online, she believes parents are making it even easier for criminals and online fraudsters to discover their child's Personal Identifiable Information. This PII can then be used against the child to breach online security checks or to even commit identity fraud, usually for financial gain, as soon as they turn 18 years of age.

Through accessing CyberASAP's help and expertise throughout the programme, the Huddersfield researcher hopes to create a commercialised end product that will educate the public via an interactive training platform. It will also introduce them to social engineering concepts and the Open Source Intelligence Tools (OSINT) that could leave end users vulnerable to future threats.

"If all goes well, the course will teach life-long cybersecurity skills as well as an understanding of how social media platforms collect, store, share and use personal data and how PII can be abused," she added.

"This will enable the course trainees to make more informed choices about their own social media use and they will be encouraged to pass on the knowledge to friends and family, including their children, who will in turn pass it on to society at large."

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This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Some things are universal. If you're going to start a war, make sure you're also the one who finishes it. To be ill-prepared for any reason is dumb and just prolongs a war, yielding pointless loss of life. In the history of the world, wars have been prolonged and lost for many, many stupid reasons.

Things like ignorance, hubris, and incompetence come to mind.

"You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might wish you have." (Department of Defense)

Racism is all three of those things. Especially when a leader is about to send thousands  or even tens of thousands  of his most loyal troops into a situation they can't possibly win because that leader thinks victory is assured just because he's white. Or Chinese. Or Japanese. So, let's be honest with ourselves: The most spectacular examples of military leadership did not belong to any one race.

As a matter of fact, if there's any one person who can claim dominance over all other military minds, you don't have to worry about race for two reasons. First, because he killed nearly everyone. Second, because he had sex with all the survivors and most of us are related to him anyway.

When a country goes to war, it needs to come prepared to earn that win. No army, weak or obsolete, is going to just let anyone roll all over them because the invader thinks they're genetically or racially superior. Yet, in the history of warfare, it happens over and over again.

1. Battle of Isandlwana

The British had been in Africa for a long time and were pretty good at subduing natives by 1879. Experience taught them that small groups of European forces with superior technology could outgun native warriors, even if they were outnumbered.

It turns out there was a diminishing rate of return to that theory.

British forces in South Africa prepared to invade Zulu with less than 1800 redcoats and colonial troops, a few field guns, and some rockets. They made zero effort at preparing defensive positions. The British didn't even bother to scout or recon where the opposing Zulu force was. If they had, they would have known much sooner that their camp was surrounded by 20,000 Zulu Impi.

The Impi slaughtered the British  they just absolutely creamed them. Though the redcoats fought fiercely, 20,000 is a hard number to beat. Despite a British victory later at Roarke's Drift, their invasion of Zululand fell apart. The worst part is that British High Commissioner for Southern Africa didn't even have to invade. He just wanted to depose the elected government and federalize South Africa. No one authorized his invasion. He just thought so little of the Zulus that he figured it must be an easy task.

But the British had to finish what they started. The second time the British invaded Zululand (because of course they did), they brought more men and technology to win a decisive victory.

2. The Battle of Adwa

Italian forays into colonizing Africa didn't always go according to plan. When carving up Africa for colonization, the other European powers seemed to leave the most difficult areas to subdue for Italy. The Italian army had to subjugate modern-day Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. How do you think that went?

In another example of "we're white so we must be better" thinking, the Italians  who barely got themselves together as country in 1861  tried to exploit Ethiopia, an already rich, complex, and advanced society. Italy tried to misinterpret a treaty signed with Ethiopia to subdue it as a client state, but Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II wasn't having any of it. So, the Italians invaded from Italian-controlled Ethiopia.

After a year of fighting, they made it deep into Ethiopian territory. But as both armies began to struggle to feed themselves, the Italian government wanted a break in the stalemate. Instead of an orderly retreat, the Italians decided to attack, considering 17,000 Italians with old guns versus more than 100,000 Ethiopian troops would be less embarrassing than having retreat before Ethiopians.

Well, the Italians mostly died  but they didn't have to. The Ethiopians not only had significantly more manpower, they weren't exactly armed with spears either. They also had rifles. And cavalry. And more of everything on their home turf. The Italian invasion was just a bad idea from the start.

The Italians were pretty much annihilated at Adwa, with more than 10,000 killed, captured, or wounded. For Ethiopia, it guaranteed their independence from European meddling or subjugation, forcing Italy to recognize Ethiopia as such  at least, until Mussolini came to call with airplanes and chemical weapons.

3. The Russo-Japanese War

At the turn of the 20th Century, Japan and Russia were in direct competition for dominance over Korea and Chinese Manchuria. Russia was expanding the Trans-Siberian Railway to reach its eastern shores, and did so through China, eventually expanding to the city of Port Arthur  which the Japanese thought they'd won in a previous war with China. Both Russia and Japan became convinced a war was coming. Because it was.

For some reason (racism), the Russians didn't seem worried. They were far away from any kind of reinforcement and the Japanese had an advantage in manpower and proximity. But the "yellow monkeys," as they were portrayed in Russian press, gave the Russian military zero pause. The Czar and his advisors were sure Russia would win any war with an Asian country. Japan repeatedly attempted to negotiate with the Russians but to no avail. War was easily averted, but the Czar was sure Japan wouldn't attack.

Since Russia had advisors with Menelik II in Ethiopia, you'd think they'd be wary of racist overconfidence, but you'd be wrong. Because Japan attacked.

When Japan attacks, they do it in a big way. They attacked the Russian Far East Fleet and bottled it up at Port Arthur, destroying it with land-based artillery. Japan then captured all of Korea in two months. They then moved into Manchuria as the Russians fell back, waiting for land reinforcements via the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Russian Baltic Fleet, which pretty much had to circumnavigate the globe to get to the war.

Neither was put to good use. Russia lost 90,000 troops when the Japanese captured the Manchurian capital at Mukden. And the Baltic Sea Fleet (now called the 2nd Pacific Fleet) was annihilated by the Japanese on its way through the Tsushima Strait.

4. World War II in the Pacific

Well, just as the Russians proved they learned nothing about racism by watching Menelik trounce the Italians, the Japanese learned nothing about racism from their victory over Russia.

By 1937, the Japanese were coming out of the Great Depression, well before the rest of the world. Coupled with significant military victories against China, Russia, and in World War I, Japan was riding pretty high. But this isn't the start of the Japanese superiority complex. The country actually tried to have a race equality declaration written into the League of Nations.

But we all know how well the League of Nations turned out.

The Japanese became contemptuous of white Americans and Europeans and saw themselves as a superior race. The inferior white races were considered soft and weak in comparison. When Japanese officials were met with racism while visiting foreign countries, it only exacerbated the issue.

They saw whites as overly individualistic, a society that would crumble at the first sign that it needed to unify or die. Japan soon came to believe its divine role was to be the champion of Asians and to liberate the colonies of the Western powers. Their view of themselves as a superior race was so extreme, it would weigh heavily on the Asian peoples they "liberated."

But before any of that happened...

December 7, 1941

The fact is that American citizens didn't really want the U.S. to go to war with Japan. But Japan needed raw materials to continue their campaign in Asia. So, when the United States cut them off of American oil and scrap metal, there was only one way to go about getting it.

Just kidding. There were many ways Japan could maintain its expansion in Asia without bombing Pearl Harbor or going to war with Europe, but it opted to bomb the Americans, who had the only fleet that could stop the Japanese Navy, and then take oil and rubber from the British and Dutch colonies in Asia. The Japanese thought if they destroyed the U.S. fleet, then America would just give up and let them have it.

That's how weak-willed the Japanese thought Americans were. That line Admiral Yamamoto supposedly said about waking a sleeping giant? He never said that. But Japan found out pretty quickly about these guys called "U.S. Marines."

Japan's leadership knew they couldn't win a long war against the U.S., but it was their racial bias that led them to believe the Americans would just give up after Pearl Harbor. They had led themselves to believe Japan was invincible so much that losing the war came as a shock and surprise to most of the Japanese people.

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New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal speaks during a news conference in December. New Jersey is suing over big GOP donor's role in federal crackdown on online gambling. (Tim Tai/Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS). Read more

New Jersey law enforcement agencies must begin disclosing the names of officers who commit serious disciplinary violations, and the state police will publicly release 20 years of troopers infractions, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal said Monday.

In past years, officers subject to discipline have typically not been publicly identified unless they have been criminally charged. But according to Grewals order, every state, county, and local law enforcement agency will now be required to publish an annual list of officers who were fired, demoted, or suspended for more than five days due to a disciplinary violation. The first list is to be be published by the end of this year.

In doing so, New Jersey will join about a dozen states that make police disciplinary records available in cases involving serious violations that result in suspensions or other punishments. In many other states, including Pennsylvania, such records are not available to the public.

Today, we end the practice of protecting the few to the detriment of the many," Grewal said in a statement. "Today, we recommit ourselves to building a culture of transparency and accountability in law enforcement.

The move follows efforts by advocates in recent weeks  since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police stirred national outrage and protests  to push for greater transparency in how police departments handle internal records. On Monday, Pennsylvania lawmakers advanced bills that would create a database with information on disciplinary actions, performance evaluations, and attendance records that agencies would consult as part of a background check.

Citing Floyds death, Grewal had announced this month that the state would update its guidelines governing the use of force by police for the first time in two decades. And in December, his office announced measures aimed at improving transparency in police departments, including more quickly making available surveillance video from crimes involving police, and tracking statewide data on use-of-force incidents.

 READ MORE: N.J. to overhaul police use-of-force guidelines, attorney general says

Mondays order also permits law enforcement agencies to identify officers who have committed violations in the past. Grewals office said the New Jersey State Police plans to next month publish a list of all state troopers who have committed major disciplinary violations over the last 20 years.

Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemens Benevolent Association, the states largest police union, said his group supports cracking down on officers who abuse their power. But the order does not account for the widespread differences in disciplinary actions from department to department, he said, meaning that the law could expose some officers to public scrutiny for violations related to late attendance, abuse of sick time, or other infractions he characterized as employee-employer issues.

What could be a one-day suspension at one department could be a five-day somewhere else, he said. These police chiefs are all over the map, theyre not using the same rule book. That makes this, to me, potentially very intrusive."

He said the associations lawyers would review the order to ensure that officers rights are protected.

Other than cases that result in criminal charges against the officer, the only times when police internal affairs records have been released in New Jersey are in cases that reach the state Civil Service Commission or the Office of Administrative Law on appeal.

Earlier this month, in announcing plans to overhaul New Jerseys use-of-force guidelines, Grewal also said he wants to require a statewide licensing program for all officers. A week later, prosecutors in Camden County charged Woodlynne Officer Ryan Dubiel with simple assault for pepper-spraying two people without provocation. Dubiel had worked in nine departments before Woodlynne  highlighting, Grewal said then, the need to enforce standards across the profession.
On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stripped hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by Trump, of its emergency use authorization for treating coronavirus patients.

It comes after Dr Gary Brisbow, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority's medical countermeasure programs requested the FDA revoke the controversial drug's status.

Already, the FDA had issued a warning about the use of the drug outside clinical trials or hospitals, due to its potential to cause dangerous heart side effects, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommended its use be isolated to trials.

Earlier this month, a study linking the drug to a higher risk of death in COVID-19 patients was retracted from the medical journal The Lancet, reigniting debates over the drug and its safety.

But the FDA cites new data from a clinical trial as evidence that the drug does not help coronavirus patients recover, and may pose risks that outweigh its potential benefits.

Because hydroxychloroquine has long been approved for treating other conditions - malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis - it could still be used 'off-label' and clinical trials may continue.

Still, the FDA's decision to revoke its emergency approval status comes as a blow to President Trump - who has been conspicuously quieter about the drug in recent weeks - and to at least one hope for a coronavirus treatment.

FDA officials have stripped hydroxychloroquine of its emergency approval status for treating coronavirus after reviewing new evidence from a Chinese study that suggests the drug is unlikely to have antiviral effects or ease symptoms

'FDA has concluded that, based on this new information and other information discussed in the attached memorandum, it is no longer reasonable to believe that oral formulations of HCQ [hydroxychloroquine] and CQ [chloroquine] may be effective in treating COVID-19, nor is it reasonable to believe that the known and potential benefits of these products outweigh their known and potential risks,' wrote chief scientist, Dr Denise Hinton, in the Monday letter.

The FDA primarily pointed to the results of a clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine performed at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Results from the study of 150 patients, published in the BMJ, showed no signs that patients treated with hydroxychloroquine fared any better than those who did not get the drug at any point over the 28-day trial period.

Researchers stopped the study short as a result of its dismal results.

The study was the nail in the coffin for the FDA's stance on hydroxychloroquine.

When the FDA issued its emergency use authorization (EUA) for hydroxychloroquine on March 28, the decision was met with excitement from President Trump and skepticism from much of the medical community.

FDA officials pointed tepidly to limited evidence that the drug might help stem the replication of coronavirus and ease symptoms.

Since then, a flurry of studies have returned very mixed results, mostly based on small data samples.

Several of these studies were stopped short, either because the drug was showing little benefit, or due to high rates of cardiac complications in the patients.

Critics suspected that the FDA's quick decision was in response to political pressure from the Trump administration, a claim that agency head Dr Stephen Hahn has vehemently denied.

President Trump promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine for treating coronavirus and took it himself in the hopes it would prevent infection, but has grown quiet about the drug in recent weeks (file)

It comes after three authors of a momentous study that claimed that hydroxychloroquine raised the risks of death for coronavirus patients treated with the controversial malaria drug have retracted their research.

The retraction was published in the Lancet on Thursday, and comes just two days after the medical journal posted an 'expression of concern.'

Along with the publication, more than 120 prominent scientists raised questions about the data used in the study, which was sourced from a database run by a private company, Surgisphere.

On the heels of that research's May publication, international trials of the drug were halted - but the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Wednesday it would restart the hydroxychloroquine arm of its international SOLIDARITY trial.

And President Donald Trump himself continued to take the drug he dubbed a 'game-changer' in the hopes it would prevent infection.

The research, led by Dr Mandeep Mehra of Harvard Medical School, Dr Amit Patel of the University of Utah and Dr Frank Ruschitzka of the University Hospital Zurich, has been under outside review.

But Surgisphere - founded by study co-author, Dr Sapan Desai, whose name was conspicuously absent from the retraction letter - refused to transfer its data to the auditors, citing patient privacy. As a result, the review was cut short and the study was retracted.

'We can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources,' the three authors wrote to The Lancet in their retraction.

Even before the study was retracted from The Lancet, hydroxychloroquine was a controversial subject, politicized in part by President Donald Trump's references to the drug as a 'game-changer' and a 'gift from God.'

The study's lead author, Dr Mehra, is a cardiovascular surgeon and registered Republican.

Dr Mehra said in a personal statement shared with DailyMail.com that he found Surgisphere through a co-author and personally reviewed the company's data, but admitted that in hindsight, his review was perhaps not thorough enough.

The study authors published a retraction of their research on June 4, less than a month after the original article was published. They revealed that their data could not be reviewed and apologized for any 'embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused'

'I did not do enough to ensure that the data source was appropriate for this use. For that, and for all the disruptionsboth directly and indirectlyI am truly sorry,' he said in the statement.

Results from Vote With Me suggest that Dr Patel, an adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Utah may be a registered Democrat.

Editors at the NEJM published an 'expression of concern' Tuesday that echoed that written by the editors of the Lancet. The NEJM, too, was suspicious of the data from Surgisphere.

More than 120 top scientists and doctors had criticized the study in an open letter to the journal, flagging 10 major flaws.

The Lancet then admitted there are 'serious questions' that need to be answered about the data - but did not reveal what those question were - in a public statement.

But scientists say the move was too late and that the 'harm was already done', as the race for a cure to halt the virus that has ravaged the world continues.

However, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday that the hydroxychloroquine arms of its international SOLIDARITY trial of potential coronavirus treatments would resume.
Just before 6 a.m. customers lined up outside of Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City waiting to get a seat -- something that hasnt happened since Gov. Phil Murphy limited restaurants to take out and delivery to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Beer Hall partner Scott Cronick was cheered by more than 20 customers as he served the first legal beer to be consumed on-premise in three months.

The beer poured was Dogfish Head's Hazy Ripple and was downed in less than one minute by Bob McClain of Egg Harbor City.

Im ready for round two, he said with a smile as he sat at a yellow picnic table with his girlfriend Liz Buhl. They were the first in line as customers and businesses celebrate the return of outdoor dining as the state enters the second stage of reopening.

We just wanted to be the first beer that could be poured on-premise again, said partner Mark Callazzo about the early morning event that also featured $5 mimosas, Bloody Marys and breakfast sandwiches.

"We needed to get out after coronavirus," said Buhl, who was excited to get a Bloody Mary and a pork roll breakfast sandwich.

Other customers were giddy with excitement as servers went from table to table taking food and drink orders. Seats around the lit fire pit filled up quickly by those looking to take the chill out of the early morning air.

Michelle Tomko, of Atlantic City, takes a sip of beer at Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, Monday, June 15, 2020. The Beer Hall celebrated the reopening of outdoor dining with a 6 a.m. beer pour. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Atlantic City resident and comedian Michelle Tomko took up one of the fire pit seats as she sipped on a dark beer and talked with her friends. She said she woke up at 4:30 a.m. for some reason "being menopause or just excitement" and felt ready for a beer.

"All the beers were $5 so I just said give me one of the most expensive darks you have," she said with a hearty laugh. "Just to get one over on Scott Cronick."

By 6:30 a.m. most of the approximately 20 tables that are scattered around the outside area of the Beer Hall were taken. Each table is allowed to seat eight customers, as required under the reopening rules. Theoretically we could fit 160 people while still maintaining all the distance requirements, said Callazzo.

Callazzo added that they were not allowing customers to stand because they have the tablespace so that will be their way to control social distancing. Customers must wear a mask upon entering and moving about, but once seated they are free to go without a mask.

Al Olivero, of Egg Harbor Township, finishes his beer at Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City, Monday, June 15, 2020. The Beer Hall celebrated the reopening of outdoor dining with a 6 a.m. beer pour. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Al Olivero, of Egg Harbor Township, was one of two people sitting at the outside bar at 6:20 a.m. The musician said he doesn't usually come to Atlantic City unless he is getting paid but this morning was the exception.

"I think that this is proof that people are just dying to get out," said Cronick. "Outside presents the perfect circumstance for dining right now, it makes people feel at ease."

The most important thing restaurants can do is to make people feel comfortable and safe, he said. "If you can do that they're gonna come out. If you don't do that they're gonna notice immediately and you won't see them again."

Cronick said the customers have been pleasant and that they understand if the food and drinks don't come out right away as the staff tries to get back into the groove after three months away.

Kimmy Maccafferi, manager of Tennessee Avenue Beer Hall in Atlantic City serves customers, Monday, June 15, 2020. The Beer Hall celebrated the reopening of outdoor dining with a 6 a.m. beer pour. Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

"They're just happy to be sitting here eating, drinking and out of their house," he said.

"Free at last, free at last," Susan Van Rossum, of Cape May Court House said as she talked with friends. They ordered food and drinks while enjoying the excitement of outdoor dining again.

I hope the governor sees that we can prove that we can do this right and then another couple weeks we can open inside, Cronick said. Once the temperatures begin to climb hes concerned that some people might not want to sit under the sweltering sun.

Let people make their choice at this point and hopefully in a couple weeks we can have everything open.

Tennessee Beer Hall in Atlantic City celebrates the reopening of outdoor dining with a 6 a.m. beer pour, Monday, June 15, 2020.Tim Hawk | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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NSW contact tracers are investigating how a man in his 20s picked up the COVID-19 virus, the third community acquired infection without a known source to be detected in the state in as many days.

On the same day that NSW Health declared the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at western Sydney's Newmarch House over, NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said the recent cases of community transmission, after 15 days without one, were a warning the virus is still circulating undetected.

A coronavirus test is performed at St Vincents Hospital. Credit:Louise Kennerley

The man in his 20s, from the Illawarra, was one of three new COVID-19 cases recorded in NSW in the 24 hours to 8pm Sunday night, taking the states total to 3131. The other two cases were returning travellers in hotel quarantine who would have contracted the virus overseas, NSW Health records show.

In Victoria, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton confirmed a second protester - a young woman - tested positive for the virus after attending the Black Lives Matter rally on June 6. Professor Sutton said it was unlikely the woman contracted the virus - or infected others - at the rally since she had only noticed symptoms in recent days and had worn a mask to the gathering.
Former Vice President Joe Biden has a problem winning over Latino voters, and the effort to resolve it has been impossible to miss with just four months remaining until early voting starts.

Joe Biden still has time to make up the enthusiasm gap, said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic political strategist from Tyler who was a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders national campaign.

But Biden definitely has work to do, Rocha said.

Biden lost the Latino vote badly to Sanders in early primary states such as Nevada and California, and President Donald Trumps re-election campaign has been aggressive in its own outreach efforts, convinced that Trump can do better with Latinos in 2020 than he did four years ago.

That two-pronged problem can be seen in polling. While a recent nationwide Quinnipiac University poll showed Biden beating Trump among Latinos, his numbers were way down from Hillary Clintons four years ago when she faced Trump. Biden led Trump in the May poll among Latinos 45 percent to 38 percent. But four years ago at a similar point in the presidential campaign, Clinton was leading Trump 65 percent to 18 percent among Latino voters.

IN-DEPTH: Why Trump v. Biden will likely be closest presidential race Texas has seen in decades

Bidens proposals for addressing college debt and health care for the poor are not as far-reaching as those of Sanders, which is part of his problem, Democratic strategists say.

And Latinos still associate Biden with the Secure Communities program that generated the bulk of the 2.3 million deportations during the Obama administration, mostly targeting undocumented immigrants who landed in jail for nonviolent crimes. The White House discontinued it in 2014.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has insisted that Biden is already doing a lot of the right things to address Latino voters, who he says will be firmly on Bidens side when fall rolls around.

He knows he has to do more, Perez said.

Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was more blunt in an interview with Politico last month, saying Bidens campaign had demonstrated little or no activity in the Hispanic community at that point.

The objective isnt to win the Hispanic vote  (Biden will) do that  but to keep it above 65 percent and to maximize Latino turnout, Richardson, who is Latino, told Politico. If we go to 58 or 57 percent with Hispanics, were in trouble.

Real commitment

By November, there are expected to be 32 million Latinos nationwide eligible to vote in the presidential race, according to the Pew Research Center. And the big majority of those potential voters are in just five states  Texas, California, Florida, Arizona and New York. About 30 percent of the eligible voters in Texas are Latino.

The emphasis on appealing to Latinos and energizing them for the presidential election was on display early this month in Texas during the state Democratic Partys virtual convention. Just minutes into the six-day online event, listeners were reminded that in 2018 more than 800,000 new Latino voters flooded the polls in Texas and were a key reason why Democrat Beto ORourke came within 3 percentage points of beating Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Minutes later, Perez centered his speech on what he said was how poorly Latinos are doing under Trump, pointing to high uninsured rates in Texas and nationwide unemployment for Hispanics that has climbed to 17.6 percent during the coronavirus-sparked recession, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It has more than tripled under Donald Trump, Perez said.

Trump has also pointed to unemployment rates, which dipped below 4 percent for Hispanics last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

JUNE 11 SPEECH: In Dallas, Trump champions decent Americans being labeled as racists

The next day, Biden was hailing a new endorsement from Julian Castro and pledging to work with him on criminal justice reforms that the former San Antonio mayor championed before dropping out of the presidential race.

Im proud to endorse him, and Im convinced he can get real reform done, Castro said in response.

But that relationship has been slow to develop, though Castro served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the final 2 years of President Barack Obamas administration. Biden was vice president.

Castro dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary at the beginning of the year and endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren for president. Even after Warren dropped out, Castro waited until this month to give Biden a full-throated endorsement.

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is expanding its outreach to Hispanic communities in Texas with volunteers who are trained to engage and register voters.

Trump Victory and the Latinos for Trump coalition have built a permanent infrastructure in Texas hosting events in English and Spanish and recruiting thousands of Latino volunteers who are empowered and have the tools to deliver the White House and help elect Republicans up and down the ballot in November. Trump Victory Hispanic Outreach spokesperson Andres Malave said.

Rocha, the Democratic strategist, said that if Bidens going to regain his footing with Hispanic voters in key battleground states, its going to take a genuine effort and not token lip service that so many campaigns offer.

It takes a real commitment and a financial investment to make it happen, Rocha said.

He said that in the Sanders campaign, the national staff had Latino voices with enough clout to influence the campaign budget. He said they made an effort to hire Latino-owned firms and consultants to get the message to the communities they were targeting.

More woke white consultants are not going to solve our problem, Rocha said.

Biden: Too long

Biden has brought on high-level advisers including Cristobal Alex, a former president of the Latino Victory Fund, who serves as Bidens senior adviser for issues involving Hispanic voters. More recently, he brought on Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, as a senior adviser to help with Latino outreach.

Rocha said Biden must address the aggressive immigration policies that led to Obama being tagged as the deporter in chief.

Biden in February started laying the groundwork for that, using an interview with Univisions Jorge Ramos to issue his strongest words of regret.

We took far too long to get it right, Biden said then. I think it was a big mistake. Took too long to get it right.

But theres much more to reaching out to Latinos than just talking immigration reform, Rocha said. He said studying the data shows that Latino voters skew younger than the rest of general election voters.

That makes those younger voters more attuned to the lack of health care coverage, college affordability and criminal justice reform  topics Sanders focused on early.

Biden addressed those concerns June 6, focusing a third of his 678-word speech at the Texas Democratic Convention on Hispanic voters.

Theres no question Latino communities are important to this state and to the country, Biden said. Youre a major reason for our economic growth. Youre a major reason why Texas is now a swing state.

Biden blasted Trump and blamed his rhetoric and policies for hurting Latinos across the nation.

Donald Trumps anti-Latino agenda has targeted Latinos with dire consequences, he said. Whether its his attacks on health care, a meaningless wall or children being ripped from the arms of their mothers.

We saw the results last August in El Paso, as El Paso was targeted by a hateful attack, Biden said, referencing the man accused of killing 23 in a Walmart parking lot.

Protecting Dreamers

Biden later shifted to talking about his commitment to protecting so-called Dreamers  people brought illegally into the nation as children by their parents and who have lived the bulk of their lives here. If elected, Biden said, on day one I will introduce an immigration reform.

As Biden scouts for a running mate, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the only Latina governor in the nation, is reportedly on the short list with other contenders. Biden has committed publicly to picking a woman for vice president.

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat, said that as the campaign season heats up, she has no doubt Biden is going to win big with Latinos. Early voting in Texas starts Oct. 19.

In Latino communities, I think Joe Biden already has a lot of energy, Garcia said. We can always bring it up a notch and put it into overdrive. And I think that is what its going to take.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has accentuated its support to 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 GHC300,000.



The supply would 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 the support to complement the work of the Government of Ghana, Ms Rukia Yacoub, WFP Representative and Country Director, said in a release copied to the Ghana News Agency.



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, she said.



Ms Yacoub said the specialized nutritious foods are made of blended cereals and soy flour, mixed with extra minerals and vitamins adding 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, she said.



Ms Yacoub said nutrition is a key area of work for the WFP, which supports the Ghana Health Service to implement programmes in the Northern and Ashanti regions; and this is helping to prevent stunting among children and micronutrient deficiencies such as anaemia among pregnant and nursing mothers, and adolescent girls.



She said WFP has prioritised nutrition support under its COVID-19 response plan, as well as provided handwashing stations in all the participating health centres, retailer shops and supported the Ghana Health Service to include COVID-19 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.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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Along with this agreement Demcon will become a new shareholder in Mellon, contributing to the  4 million in new development funds together with existing shareholders BGV (BioGeneration Ventures), OostNL, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company), David Pyott and Thuja Capital.

Laparatomies: high risk and high health costs

Laparotomies involve large incisions through the abdominal wall to gain access into the abdominal cavity - procedures such as visceral, gynecological, aortic vascular, or urological surgery. In the US, 4-5 million laparotomies are done annually. The current practice is the big-bites technique using the classical suturing tools. Clinical studies have shown that big-bites techniques relate to a high occurrence of incisional hernia of up to 35% and even up to 69% in high risk patients, reducing the patients' quality of life. This also has a major impact on healthcare costs. In US alone, more than 400.000 repairs are done annually, costing more than $4 billion. And still, repair of incisional hernia has a high failure rate of over 30%, even with the use of surgical mesh. Using the Switch with small-bite technique would lead to cost savings of up to $2 billion per year in the US alone.

Lancet Study and preliminary abdominal suturing test in ErasmusMC leading in focus on abdominal small bite approach

A large Dutch investigator funded double blind, multicentre, randomized controlled trial, at surgical and gynecological departments in ten hospitals in the Netherlands, published in The Lancet in 2015, clearly showed that the small bites suture technique is more effective than the traditional large bites technique for prevention of incisional hernia. Therefore, it should become the standard closure technique for midline incisions. Tests with the prototype were done in November 2019 at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, by two experienced surgeons. Their feedback was that the Switch's straight needle for fascia is preferable to a curved needle and that it resulted in more regular suturing patterns. In addition, the surgeons experienced the design ergonomic and easy to use.

Prof. dr. Hans Jeekel, MD/PhD, Full Professor, Erasmus MC, and co-investigator and -author of The Lancet article, commenting on the opportunities of the newly developed suturing device for abdominal wall closing:

"The use of small bites significantly reduces the occurrence of incisional hernias. Therefore, it is essential that the small-bites technique would be used by any surgeon who closes the abdomen after surgery. And if that technique can be accelerated and facilitated with a device, that could be very important."

Jan Benschop, CEO of Mellon Medical, commenting on this new direction of the company, said:

"By working with medical specialists, and the new collaboration with the renowned and highly skilled medical technology designer Demcon, being also one of our key new investors, and ergonomic experts in the development of the Switch, Mellon will be able to reinvent suturing, bringing innovative suturing technology into the 21st century. Our mission is to improve medical procedures by providing the best possible tools. We believe our innovative platform suturing technology will improve patient outcome and reduce overall healthcare costs."

Conventional suturing versus The Switch

Classical suturing is a complex process and takes a long time to learn. Focus is on getting control over the needle. Surgeons using conventional suturing techniques need many coordinated motions using both hands in order to place a single suture. On average, 30% of the operation time is spent on suturing.

Mellon has managed to reinvent the technique of suturing. The Switch can be operated by lightly pinching the double-action buttons with thumb and index finger of one hand. The other hand is free to present the tissue to be sutured. This technique greatly improves the precision and efficiency of the suturing process, as surgeons no longer need to switch the needle between instruments and focus on getting control over the needle.

In the Switch, the needle is always secured in one of the two jaws. The predictable linear path followed by the straight needle causes less motion friction, resulting in a high-quality connection of the tissue layers.

FDA approval and CE mark

Mellon expects market introduction of the Switch  which has been successfully tested by experienced surgeons in the Rotterdam Erasmus Medical Centre  in about 3 years, once final development and the FDA approval process have been completed. The CE mark process runs parallel to the FDA approval procedure, but is expected to be completed after market introduction.

The annual worldwide sutures and suturing devices market size is estimated over $3 billion by 2023.

About Mellon

Mellon Medical was founded with the objective of developing a new medical device that enables more efficient and effective suturing of both tubular and layered structures. Having long been aware of the complexity of suturing such tissue through many years of surgical practice, the founders strongly believed that suturing with one hand could improve the procedure and therefore patient outcome.

Mellon's Switch was designed to accomplish the most accurate suturing in half the time. Its main competitor is classical suturing, done with a needle holder and forceps, as both techniques use a suture thread to ligate the tissue.

Thanks to Mellon's patent portfolio, consisting of four patent applications, the company has effectively protected both its current technology, as well as their possible future diversification, allowing for scalability of Mellon's product offering.

Following a Series A and now B funding round, investors Thuja Capital, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (Brabant Development Company) and OostNL (Eastern Netherlands Private Equity Company) joined as shareholders as early as May 2013. The first innovation loan was granted by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency in 2014. In September 2017 a new financing round of  6 million was closed with BGV (BioGeneration Ventures), personal investor David Pyott, and existing shareholders. These existing shareholders, as well as development partner Demcon, participated in the current series B financing round.

Visit www.mellonmedical.com

References:

1 Deerenberg et al, Small bites versus large bites for closure of abdominal midline incisions (STITCH): a double-blind, multicentre, randomized controlled trial, The Lancet July 16, 2015

2 F. E. Muysoms et al, European Hernia Society guidelines on the closure of abdominal wall incisions, Hernia, 25 January 2015

For further inquiries, please contact:

Mellon Medical

Jan Benschop, CEO

The Hague, the Netherlands

E-mail: [email protected]

LifeSpring LifeSciences Communication

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Leon Melens

Mob: +31 (0)6-538-16427

E-mail: [email protected]



SOURCE Mellon
A press conference by the family of Rayshard Brooks ended abruptly in Atlanta as relatives were overcome with grief, three days after the 27-year-old black man was shot and killed Friday night by a white police officer after a tussle in the parking lot of a Wendys restaurant.

Before it happened to us, I could only guess at what you felt, said Gymaco Brooks, one of Rayshard Brookss cousins, who was among about two dozen family members who had gathered to speak to the media Monday. But if you ask how this black man was, look at your children when you see them laugh  that innocence, that joy, that pureness of soul  and you had a glimpse of what we lost. You have a glimpse of what it feels like.

As he spoke, several members of the family walked away from the microphones in tears. Another cousin pointed at reporters and said, I want you all to know, you took my cousin away from me. He was led away in tears, and the remaining family members followed, leaving L. Chris Stewart, their lawyer, at the podium.

Im really not sure what else America needs to see, Stewart said, calling Brookss death a rerun of George Floyd.

He added: Sadly, Im probably gonna be back here in a few months with another case.

Gymaco Brooks at a press conference Monday about the killing of his cousin Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. (Dustin Chambers/Getty Images)

Brooks is the latest in a string of African-Americans, many of them young men, killed by police or vigilantes in confrontations recorded on video.

His death sparked demonstrations in Atlanta on Saturday night, the resignation of the citys police chief and the firing of one of the officers involved.

Georgia authorities said the incident began late Friday night when they responded to a complaint that a man  later identified as Brooks  was asleep in an Atlanta Wendys drive-through.

Police said he failed a sobriety test. After he reportedly offered to leave his car and walk home, Brooks allegedly resisted arrest, grabbed a Taser from an officer and ran. According to a statement from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Brooks pointed the Taser at an officer, identified as Garrett Rolfe, who opened fire and fatally shot him in the back. Rolfe was fired. The other responding officer, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative leave.

Story continues

The Fulton County medical examiners office ruled Brookss death a homicide, and said he died as a result of two gunshot wounds.

Stewart said those who wonder why Brooks resisted arrest need look no further than George Floyd.

A screengrab taken from body camera video provided by the Atlanta Police Department showing Rayshard Brooks speaking with Officer Garrett Rolfe in the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant late Friday. (Atlanta Police Department via AP)

Why would he resist while they were trying to put him in handcuffs? Well, they put George Floyd in handcuffs, and he was subsequently killed, Stewart said. So just getting put in handcuffs if youre African-American doesnt mean youre going to get nicely taken to the back of a police car. So, watching this video of George Floyd over and over again, [Brookss] reaction may have been, Im not getting put in handcuffs.

Stewart said police should have allowed Brooks to walk home when he offered to, instead of attempting to arrest him.

One of our biggest fears became our reality, said Chastity Evans, Brookss niece. Not only did we lose another black unarmed male, this time it landed on our front doorstep.

Floyd died on May 25 after being pinned to the ground by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis officer who was seen in a video kneeling on Floyds neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder. Three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting Chauvin.

Tomika Miller, the wife of Rayshard Brooks, holds their daughter during a press conference in Atlanta on Monday. (Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Floyds death sparked worldwide protests, a few of which were marred by looting and violence. On Saturday night, protesters in Atlanta gathered at the Wendys where Brooks died, and the fast food restaurant was set on fire.

Before the abrupt end to the press conference, Brookss widow, Tomika Miller, urged protesters to demonstrate peacefully.

That would be wonderful, because we want to keep his name positive, she said.

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[June 15, 2020] AVPN Virtual Conference 2020 Charting an Action Plan towards a Resilient Asia

SINGAPORE, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The 8th AVPN Conference closed on Friday, a historic meeting bringing together 7500 delegates from over 100 countries and 156 speakers virtually to leverage the power of networks and co-create solutions for an impactful, sustainable and more resilient society over the next decade. Senior leaders from the private and the public sector are seeing businesses pivot from profit supremacy to a stakeholders-first approach. To reflect the burgeoning social investment opportunities in Indonesia, next year's annual conference will be held in Bali, supported by the Indonesian government. 7500 delegates from more than 100 countries joined the 8th AVPN Conference between 8-12 June, making it the largest social investing conference in Asia. Delegates represented the corporate, investment, philanthropic and public sectors, as well as development institutions, social enterprises and NGOs. With 44 sessions addressing current social and environmental priorities such as climate action, gender equality, health and education, the 5-day virtual conference provided a multi-stakeholder platform for decision-makers to lay the groundwork on how to build a more resilient and sustainable world. The conference hosted more 156 speakers, including Jacqueline Loh, Deputy Managing Director for Markets and Development, Monetary Authority of Singapore; Angela Tanoesoedibjo, Vice Minister of Tourism & Creative Economy, Indonesia; Julie-Ann Guivarra, Australia's Ambassador for Gender Equality; Robin Hu, Sustainability & Stewardship Temasek International; Ai Hua On, Company Group Chair, Asia Pacific, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals; Manolo Arroyo, Chief Marketing Officer, President of the Asia Pacific group, The Coca-Cola Company; Leong Cheung, Executive Director of Charities & Community, The Hong Kong Jockey Club; Wendy Cromwell, Vice Chair, Wellington Management; Iqbal Dhaliwal, Global Executive Director, J-PAL; Sandra Breka, Member of the Board of Management, Robert Bosch Stiftung; Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder & CEO, Acumen. Now is the time to "Build Back Better" "This is not the time to reduce social spending", stated Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO and Chairperson of AVPN in her opening remarks. She further emphasized on the more-than-ever crucial role of social investors: "We are all social investors now. We can no longer think about impact as just "giving back" or "doing good". The new normal must be that social and environmental priorities are interconnected with economic progress for resilient ecosystems to be less vulnerable in times of uncertainty." Jacqueline Loh, Deputy Managing Director for Markets and Development at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, pointed in her keynote address towards the importance of strong engagement between governments and the private sector, as well as the unique opportunity to create systemic change: "The pandemic provides a prime opportunity for countries to "build back better". It is important now, more than ever, that countries not only rebuild their economies and preserve jobs, but also in the process, intentionally build a more sustainable new economy. Public-private partnerships will be key to achieving this." Multi-sector collaboration needed to enable sustainable development A common thread throughout the week was the call to place multi-stakeholder collaboration at the centre stage. For businesses and investors, this signifies integrating impact and purpose across their value chains and portfolios. To unlock more local private capital towards impact, however, one of the key barriers is te lack of an enabling environment to simplify this complex process. "There are many different roles to play. But one thing is clear: governments and the private sector need to enhance collaboration, in order to shift policy and practice towards inclusive and equitable sustainability," says Niall O'Connor, Asia Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute.



Private philanthropists play an equally important ecosystem-building role in augmenting government efforts through catalytic first-loss capital to encourage traditionally low-risk investors to mobilise resources towards impact. "Collaboration is key," said Tim Hanstad, CEO, Chandler Foundation. "While Government and Marketplaces are the key drivers of prosperity, social investors can have greater impact through collaboration with organizations on the frontlines that are working closely with governments. Together we can go upstream to address some of the biggest challenges of our time including inequality and climate change." The Conference's spotlight on scaling access to quality education demonstrated the need for philanthropy to pilot good practices, while local governments scale proven concepts. "The Yidan Prize Foundation promotes research for excellence and ideas by recognising outstanding education developments. This is a necessary lever for education systems to construct new knowledge and innovative solutions that can grapple with the complexities of tomorrow", says Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at OECD and Head of the judging panel of the Yidan Prize, the world's largest education prize that seeks to prepare learners with competencies that are critical for an increasingly complex, volatile and ambiguous world. Voices from leading entrepreneurs on the ground also pointed out that if the lives of end-beneficiaries have not improved despite meeting other supporting targets, the system has not improved.

Working at the nexus of socio-environmental challenges is key to systemic change Yet, the complexity and scale of these challenges makes risk-adversed capital providers stay away from driving systems change. Astute funders and resource providers additionally warned against the risk of over-allocating resources to the pandemic at the expense of investing in systems change that is imperative to protecting against future, likely larger threats. Time and again, the panellists emphasised that challenges in the 21st century can only be systemically addressed if organisations plan and work at the nexus of multi-dimensional issues. A clear example was demonstrated in growing efforts to build a low-carbon and climate-resilient environment in Asia through financing solutions and infrastructure that support clean energy, community development, healthcare, and water and sanitation. Sustainable finance builds resilience against volatile economic conditions Sustainable finance has reached a turning point as ESG funds have been outperforming their conventional counterparts despite the market downturn. "Many countries that are suffering the impact of this pandemic would have been better served by adopting a sustainable finance approach beforehand," says Jose Vinals, Group Chairman, Standard Chartered PLC. "We must realise the value of allocating capital to these basic needs, as it's not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do." While speakers gave clear evidence that investor demand for sustainable investing has increased across all asset classes and markets, they were calling for respective regulatory frameworks to create a more enabling environment for sustainable investment to flourish. AVPN 2021 in Indonesia to move closer to the needs on the ground In partnership with the Ministry of Tourism & Creative Economy of Indonesia, the AVPN Conference 2021 will be held in Bali, Indonesia from 14-18 June 2021. The partnership is a testament to the importance of collaboration between government and social investors to forge a path towards an inclusive recovery and resilient future. Angela Tanoesoedibjo, Vice Minister of Tourism & Creative Economy, said, "We are thrilled to have AVPN 2021 in Indonesia. The country offers endless potential for investments in the social impact space and we are looking forward to collaborating and exploring opportunities with AVPN's ecosystem to drive capital towards impact." AVPN Inaugural Constellations Laureates  Forming a blueprint for replication In line with the conference topic The Power of Networks AVPN launched its first challenge to identify outstanding social investment collaborations that are addressing complex issues in Asia. The five Laureates were announced during the conference: Better Investment for Stunting Alleviation (BISA) assists the government of Indonesia to implement nutrition policies and utilise government funding to eliminate systemic stunting. Partners include The Power of Nutrition, Nutrition International, DFAT and Asia Philanthropy Circle.

assists the government of to implement nutrition policies and utilise government funding to eliminate systemic stunting. Partners include The Power of Nutrition, Nutrition International, DFAT and Asia Philanthropy Circle. The Quality Education India Development Impact Bond (DIB) is the world's largest education development bond which seeks to improve learning outcomes for primary school children in marginalised communities in India . The more than 15 partners include The British Asian Trust and UBS Optimus Foundation.

is the world's largest education development bond which seeks to improve learning outcomes for primary school children in marginalised communities in . The more than 15 partners include The British Asian Trust and UBS Optimus Foundation. The initiative to integrate AI into India's Public Health supports the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in rolling out the National Digital Health Blueprint, which will relieve the pressure on public healthcare services. Partners include the International Innovation Corps, and The Rockefeller Foundation.

supports the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in rolling out the National Digital Health Blueprint, which will relieve the pressure on public healthcare services. Partners include the International Innovation Corps, and The Rockefeller Foundation. The Future Right Skills Network empowers more than 100,000 youth in India every year with foundational employability skills by leveraging digital technologies. Partners include Accenture, CISCO, and Quest Alliance.

empowers more than 100,000 youth in every year with foundational employability skills by leveraging digital technologies. Partners include Accenture, CISCO, and Quest Alliance. INSPIRASI improves school leadership in medium and low performing primary schools in Indonesia . The partnership, led by Tanoto Foundation, Djarum Foundation, and Triputra Agro Persada, also works with philanthropists, corporates, academics and policymakers. Learn more about the Constellations Laureates here . AVPN was able to produce this first of its kind convening, entirely remote in only a few weeks thanks to its diversified skills portfolio and strong collaboration with its members. The support of its partners, including Chandler Foundation, Yidan Prize Foundation, Stockholm Environment Institute, Standard Chartered, Ford Foundation, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, WOCAN, Credit Suisse, Wellington, Lui Che Woo Prize, The Climate Pledge, City Developments Limited, Investing in Women, The United Nations Development Programme, and BRACE  all of whom made it possible to open up the event to a truly global audience. To watch the recordings or read the session highlights of the conference, please visit https://conference.avpn.asia/agenda-2020/ About AVPN As the only comprehensive funders' network in Asia, AVPN is a leading ecosystem builder for the social investment sector with 600+ members globally. AVPN's mission is to catalyse the movement toward a more strategic, collaborative and outcome focused approach to social investing, ensuring that resources are deployed as effectively as possible to address key social challenges facing Asia today and in the future. For more information, please visit www.avpn.asia Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20200615/2830631-1LOGO SOURCE AVPN

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:58:28|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- With a resurgence in measles cases in neighbouring countries, Australia requires a greater number of vaccinations and clinical vigilance to avoid a domestic outbreak, local health experts warned on Monday.

In a paper published in the Medical journal of Australia, they revealed that Australia's vaccination rates are below what would be required to stop transmission in the community.

Measles is the most highly communicable human virus known to man, many times more likely to be transferred between people than COVID-19, and other diseases before it.

Recently, measles has made an unwelcome comeback in some parts of the globe, with over 360,000 cases reported to the World Health Organisation between 1 January and 31 July 2019 -- three times that of the same period of 2018.

Earlier this year, the Pacific Island nation of Samoa declared a state of emergency due to a measles outbreak in which it recorded over 5,700 cases and more than 80 deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of 5.

During that time there were also smaller outbreaks in New Zealand, Tonga, American Samoa and Fiji.

"With outbreaks occurring regionally, concerted effort is required to maintain Australia's elimination of measles and continue progress towards the goal of global measles eradication," said the report, led by David Durrheim from the University of Newcastle.

Although there is an available vaccine, gaps have begun to appear in some western countries including Australia where people are turning away from getting their children immunised, citing scientifically unfounded health concerns.

According to the report, vaccination remains the best control for measles, with a population immunity of 95 percent required to eliminate ongoing transmission within a population.

However, while childhood vaccination in 2019 was above 90 percent for all Australian states and territories, few met the required 95 percent.

"Measles virus is the ultimate opportunist and will capitalise on any gaps in immunity," the report said.

"National programs are important, but measles control cannot be achieved without effective local prevention and control measures, including diligent vaccination and prompt diagnosis by alert clinicians." Enditem
Global exhibits join nightlife festival

By:Wu Qiong | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-06-15 08:45

With the annual China International Import Expo (CIIE) being less than 200 days away, some of the import fair exhibitors have taken the opportunity of the first Shanghai Nightlife Festival to showcase their highlights of the 3rd CIIE in advance. More than fifty CIIE participating enterprises have discounted their products, availing more consumers of the chance of buying imported goods. The enterprises are from the United States, Germany, Australia, Japan and some other countries and regions.

While displaying their items, they are also matchmaking with potential buyers and trade partners. To answer the call of boosting the nightlife economy, at the inaugural CIIE fair on June 6 (the first day of the Shanghai Nightlife Festival), Forestlee Corporation, a Japanese company specializing in exporting high-quality Japanese food, brought its star products: two models of special A Hokkaido Rice. The original price is 158 yuan/two kilograms. This time, we have lowered it to 69 yuan, said Tang Lei, deputy director of the East China region Sales Department of Forestlee Corporation.

Dozens of packets were sold out within two hours, he added. According to Tang, Forestlee Corporation has participated in CIIE for two consecutive years. The market response has instilled much confidence in the companys plan of expanding in the Chinese market.

For this years CIIE, Tang said the company had already signed an agreement of participation. Apart from overseas exhibitors, local enterprises also took advantage of the CIIE fair during the Shanghai Nightlife Festival to sell their products and seek partners. At the Vcleanse booth, the company staff members were busy introducing their healthy products. Last year during the 2019 CIIE, Vcleanse served many exhibitors and visitors with its fruit and vegetable juice drinks. We hope to continue our service at this years CIIE, said a company spokesperson. Despite the coronavirus, the CIIE will still be held on time this year. At present, the signed exhibition area for the third CIIE has expanded 90 percent more than its planned exhibition area.
Average price of imported gas 19% down in May

11:40, 15.06.20 3575

The average price of imported gas was US$122.55 per 1,000 cubic meters in April 2020.
Ex-training participants in JICA training are now confronting the COVID-19 pandemic in their respective countries. The knowledge and experience gained from the training in Japan have inevitably evolved into on-site actions in a variety of ways, including the implementation of accurate PCR testing, leading the way in effective hospital case management and supportive care to patients with COVID-19 infections. Furthermore, the ex-participants network in developing countries is enabling them to share their knowledge and experiences across borders via online.



This article is the first in a five-issue series, which introduces ex-participants of JICA training programs who are active in their home countries. We start by featuring an ex-participant who is at the forefront of measures against infectious diseases at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR). The institution was established about 40 years ago with Japans cooperation in the West African country of Ghana and has a long history of cooperation with Japan.



Pursuing PCR testing, day and night



As of June 11, the number of people infected with COVID-19 in Ghana reached 10,201 (48 deaths), and tension is growing. Under this situation, the implementation of appropriate PCR testing is one of the most important issues, as is the case with Japan. Of the 229,093 COVID-19 PCR tests carried out to date (as of June 4), approximately 80% have been implemented by the NMIMR. Constructed in 1979 with the cooperation of Japan, it plays a central role in fighting infectious diseases in Ghana and beyond.



Christopher Zaab-Yen Abana is currently working in 24-hour work shifts as an assistant researcher at the NMIMR for PCR testing. He was a participant in Strengthening laboratory techniques and surveillance system for global control of HIV and related infectious diseases, implemented by JICA Tokyo in collaboration with National Institute of Infectious Diseases in 2019. The main objective of this training was for participants to acquire the knowledge and laboratory skills required for diagnosing infectious diseases.



Among the lessons learned in the training, Mr. Abana says that the 5SSort (Seiri), Set (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu) and Sustain (Shitsuke)Kaizen approach, which was developed in Japanese industry aiming to improve the working environment and quality management, is helping to advance the efficiency of the current testing process.



Sort allows appropriate classification of specimens suspected of being infected early in the PCR test, and accurate results can be obtained. Standardize is an important indicator of how specimens are handled in the laboratory. Currently, with thousands of specimens being carried out every day, he reassuringly commented, I will continue to do my job by making use of what I have learned in the training program, such as 5S Kaizen, in order to make the flow from the receipt of specimens to testing more efficient, as well as in molecular genetic testing techniques.



For Japan, 5S Kaizen is routine. However, in many developing countries, the spirit and working approach as prescribed in 5S Kaizen has not been thoroughly implemented. The introduction of 5S Kaizen in PCR testing not only improves the efficiency of the process but also provides incalculable effectiveness in measures such as the implementation of precise testing and the prevention of infection in laboratories.



NMIMR: the hub for infectious disease control and research in West Africa



In addition to research on infectious diseases, the NMIMR is also strengthening testing systems in Ghana at a national level by providing guidance and technical support on test methods at other medical institutions in the country. NMIMR Director, Professor Abraham Annan, says, Without the NMIMR Advanced Research Laboratory for Infectious Diseases (where testing for COVID-19 infections is being carried out), we would not have been able to grasp the infection situation in Ghana as much as we can do now. The Laboratory is performing a vital role.



Professor William Ampofo, Head of the NMIMR Virology Department, which is responsible for PCR testing, frequently appears on television to inform the public of the status of the COVID-19 infection. He also focuses on activities for public awareness to prevent the disease, such as providing easy-to-understand explanations of the state of testing and testing methods in Ghana.



Professor Ampofo plays a central role in the COVID-19 multi-level task force team led by the Ghanaian President. He has previously studied at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and is currently working with JICA on The Project for Surveillance and Laboratory Support for Emerging Pathogens of Public Health Importance.



To date, approximately 50 people from the NMIMR have participated in JICA training. The ex-participants are the leading members of JICA projects and research implemented at the NMIMR. Their presence is a considerable force.



As of May 15, the COVID-19 infection has been confirmed in 54 African countries, and the number of infected persons is forecasted to increase further in West Africa at a regional level. Through JICA's Third Country Training Program (TCTP), the NMIMR provides guidance on the testing of COVID-19 in nine neighboring countries (Ghana, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Liberia). It is expected to continue to play a leading role in the fight against infectious diseases in the region.









Source: ica.go.j









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CHENNAI: A mistake repeated more than once is a decision, wrote celebrated Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho. A visit these days to the nerve centre of Chennais fish trade, the Kasimedu harbour, would throw up a natural question: Arent we on the brink of repeating a costly mistake?

As the first rays of morning sun hit Kasimedu on Sunday, thousands of people from far and wide of the city flocked to the busy fishing centre. Soon, social distancing went for a toss and it was impossible to come out of the market without rubbing against at least a dozen others.

As if to add some background effect, loud speakers from police vehicles ceremoniously warned people about the threat of the coronavirus, and the need for maintaining social distance.

With Chennai alone accounting for over 30,000 cases, a repeat of the Koyambedu chapter could prove disastrous.

Ban remains on paper

It was after foreseeing the possibility of crowding at Kasimedu, the State on June 6 announced a ban on retail sale of fish at the wharf area of the harbour.

The ban, however, remains only on paper. A police official who was on duty at the harbour on Sunday morning said, Patrol vehicles are deployed and several sleuths are involved in spreading awareness about distancing. The fishermen also continuously shout at people. But no one seems to take notice.

Meanwhile, fishermen attributed crowding to closure of smaller fish markets. They said people from as far as Tambaram and Avadi came to Kasimedu. The crowd has burgeoned after the two-month fishing ban came to an end on June 1.

When the government announced the ban on retail fish sales at wharf area, the fishermen were told to shift to the temporary stalls set up on the northern side of the harbour.

A Soundar, a member of the Kasimedu Fishermen Association told The New Indian Express,

The 200 stalls promised by the government are still under construction. We fear that there wont be any decrease in the flow of people if the local markets are not opened across the city.

Earlier, when only retail vendors used to buy fish after auctions, there used to be lesser people, said Soundar.

We have requested the government to open local markets as soon as possible to save fishermen and their families from contracting the virus. We are scared that Kasimedu might become next Koyambedu, he said.

When contacted, G S Sameeran, Director of the Fisheries Department, said the crowd has reduced in recent days and even the wholesale auctioning is conducted in small batches.

The crowd has drastically reduced since start of the month. We have set up temporary retail stalls North of the harbour. The permanent retail stall are under construction and will be over this month, he said.

However, fishermen said the makeshift stalls had inadequate space and thats why they were yet to shift to the new place. They added that they have sought larger space from the government.

Fishing yet to gain pace

Even two weeks after the fishing ban came to an end, the fishermen are unable to meet the high demand thanks to lack of workforce.

Several boats at Kasimedu are unable to venture into sea as their workers have returned home during the lockdown.

Since the demand is high, the price of fish has gone up in the last few days.
Filmmaker Ava DuVernay joined the call to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama  dedicated to a dead Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader  to honor civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.

The petition to rename the bridge was created by political strategist Michael Starr Hopkins, who told NBC News Monday that the idea came to him as he was watching the 2014 film Selma on his couch after days of protesting.

I was kind of taking an evening to just relax and watch some movies, and as I was watching 'Selma' I realized we wait far too often until people are gone to honor them, Hopkins said.

Lewis, who sustained serious injuries on the bridge in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, was a perfect example of someone who should be honored while they are living, Hopkins said.

Coretta Scott King,John Lewis, (AP file)

On March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, the peaceful protesters who marched across the bridge were attacked by state troopers with tear gas and clubs. Lewis suffered a skull fracture and was one of dozens of demonstrators who were hospitalized following the attack.

The bridge is named after Alabama native Edmund Pettus, a Confederate general in the Civil War whose family profited from slavery in the South, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Pettus settled in Selma after the war, where he became a U.S. senator and a Grand Dragon in the KKK.

While hes still here, it would be the perfect time for Lewis to see Pettus name taken down and his name put there, Hopkins said.

DuVernay, who directed Selma, tweeted Saturday that she had signed the petition and urged others to do the same.

It is named after a KKK grand wizard and confederate warlord, Hopkins said. Edmund Pettus Bridge should be the John Lewis Bridge. Named for a hero. Not a murderer. Join this call. Its past due.

The petition has gained more than 99,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon and is asking for 150,000 total signatures to be sent to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. Iveys office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

Story continues

The deadly arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 reignited conversations about the longstanding racial inequalities in the country, leading to weeks of protests and marches to disrupt systemic racism in institutions that have marginalized Black Americans. The focus on racial justice has also been paired with a renewed call to take down monuments and dedications to Confederate generals.

Arguments to keep the monuments up for the sake of history feel disingenuous, Hopkins said.

You dont see monuments to Nazis in Germany, you dont see monuments to Mussolini in Italy, Hopkins said. Theres no reason African Americans should have to see monuments to people like Edmund Pettus.

As an African American man, Hopkins said he feels heard for the first time when he expresses his feelings about these issues. The sustained protests and calls for change in the wake of Floyd's death have given him renewed faith in people.

Though he acknowledges change will not end with the renaming of a bridge, Hopkins said it was a push in the right direction.

We are walking in the footsteps of giants and those giants are people like John Lewis, Hopkins said.
We publish information about wines grown from certified organic or Biodynamic vineyards that are generally made with sulfites (which are usually added in small amounts to preserve the wine).





That includes these certification types:





ORGANIC WINE CERTIFICATIONS





 Made with Organic Grapes





Vineyards: certified organic

Vinification : less than 100 ppm of sulfites (i.e. a normal range)

Winery: certified organic facility

Labeling : front or back label





 Ingredients: Organic Grapes





Vineyards : certified organic

Vinification: up to 350 ppm of sulfites (same as for any non organic wine)

Labeling: back label only





BIODYNAMIC CERTIFICATIONS





 Biodynamic Wine





Vineyards : certified biodynamic

Yeasts : native

Vinification : less than 100 ppm of sulfites; no additives of any kind

Winery: certified biodynamic facility

Labeling: front or back label; Demeter logo may appear





 Made with Biodynamic Grapes





Vineyards : certified biodynamic

Yeasts : native or organic

Vinification: less than 100 ppm of sulfites; limited number of additives permitted

Winery: certified biodynamic facility

Labeling: front or back





Note : unlike organically grown wines, for which there is a category called "Ingredients: Organic Grapes," wines sourced from biodynamic grapes may not make any biodynamic claim on the bottle label. Bottle labeling is reserved for Demeter certified wines only.





SULFITES IN CONTEXT





According to U.C. Davis, t he average among all wines in the U.S. (as well as globally) is 80 ppm.





WHAT THE USDA CALLS ORGANIC WINES





Unlike any other nation, the U.S. oddly imposes a no sulfite restriction on wines in order for them to be called Organic Wine. These wines are also called NSA or NAS wines (which stands for "No Sulfites Added" or "No Added Sulfites.")





From the above description, one can see that there are in fact three types of organically grown wines:





1. Organic Wine (less than 15% of all organically grown wine)

2. Made with Organic Grapes

3. Ingredients: Organic Grapes





The vast majority of wines from organic grapes are labeled Made with Organic Grapes, Ingredients: Organic Grapes or are blended with nonorganic grapes and unlabeled.





Fine winemakers do not generally make wine without sulfites and a number of large wine retailers like BevMo do not sell wine in the category of "USDA Organic Wine."





With rare exceptions, this blog does not cover what the USDA calls "Organic Wine."





We are hopeful that the USDA will revise the categorization of organically grown wines and make NSA or NAS wines a category of their own.





This would put the U.S. in accord with the rest of the world, where "Organic Wine" means a wine from certified grapes made within limits on sulfites (generally under 100-150 ppm).




Most judges who retire never engage with public issues.

But Justice Suresh was so sensitive to injustice that even after retirement, he remained a judge at heart.

At the same time, he had moved far away from the rarified world of judges; he strove to be the voice of the people.

Jyoti Punwani remembers Justice Hosbet Suresh who passed into the ages on Thursday.

IMAGE: Justice Hosbet Suresh.

Few people have the honour of being loved and respected at the same time. Even fewer would be loved and respected by a spectrum of people, both peers and juniors.

Retired Justice Hosbet Suresh, who passed away suddenly on Thursday night aged 91, was one of those rare personalities.

Justice Suresh retired as a high court judge in July 1991, and the very same year, became part of a fact-finding mission organised by the Indian People's Human Rights Tribunal to investigate the riots that broke out in Karnataka over the decision of the Cauveri Water Tribunal.

From then till almost the end of his life, the retired judge was part of similar fact-finding missions organized by human rights groups, travelling with them to remote places.

Nirbhay Bano Andolan activist and lawyer Shakil Ahmed recalls an Adivasi village where the fact-finding team used bricks to make a makeshift Western-style toilet for the judge who because of his age, had a problem squatting.

"He didn't grumble at that; in fact, he never demanded special treatment," recalls Ahmed. "We would often wonder whether a retired judge would agree to come to certain places, but every time we called him, he would respond with a warmth that floored us. He never asked whether the meeting would be well-attended or not."

Dalit rights activist Yogesh Kamble remembers how the judge accepted his request to address his slum at Ambedkar Nagar, Elphinstone Road, central Mumbai, on how to deal with builders appointed by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority.

At another meeting in a slum in Wadala, north central Mumbai, Justice Suresh was to release a fact-finding report on police harassment of a slum activist. After the police dismantled the stage set up by the Nirbhay Bano Andolan, recalls Ahmed, the judge climbed up on a stool and addressed the frightened slum dwellers gathered there.

No wonder the judge wasn't exactly the police's favourite.

In October 2018, Maharashtra Additional Commissioner of Police Shivaji Pawar, the officer handling the Bhima Koregaon case, in response to a question in court, told the court that he would arrest Justice Suresh if he found any evidence against him.

The retired judge was then the president of the Indian Association of People's Lawyers. Advocates Sudha Bharadwaj and Arun Ferreira, both arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case, are members of the IAPL.

That veiled threat didn't faze the then 89 year old. For one, he didn't think of himself as old.

"After he turned 80, we would hesitate to call him," recalls Ahmed. "But he would turn around and say: 'Just tell me where to come, don't think of my age'."

Secondly, he was, as retired Chief Justice of the Delhi high court A P Shah says, "completely fearless."

"The charm of his personality was that he never minced words, at the same time he was such a compassionate human being," recalls Justice Shah.

Justice Shah recalls Justice Suresh's hard-hitting address to a conclave of sitting and retired judges where he criticised many judgments of the Bombay high court authored by some of the judges in the audience.

"He spoke like one of us, like a human rights activist. Which retired judge does that?" asks advocate Mahrukh Adenwala, member of the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights.

"Because he had been a judge, his words carried so much weight," Adenwala points out, "but he never ever used his stature to pull rank. His fact-finding reports had the mark of a judge, infused with his unique pro-people legal perspective; they remain documents worthy of study."

"We often felt we were using him, by calling him again and again for fact-finding missions, or to address press conferences," adds Adenwala ruefully, "but we just could not find anyone of his stature who would take a stand against injustice the way he did."

It wasn't only after his retirement that Justice Suresh became a fighter for people's rights. As a judge too, recalls Justice Shah, he was humane.

"He was a judge in the Bombay high court only for five years, but he left a memorable legacy," says Justice Shah.

"Any member of the Bar preferred to appear in his court: he was not just hard-working and quick to understand issues, but also very equitable."

Senior advocate Yusuf Muchhala, who shared office chambers with Justice Suresh for 37 years, echoes that.

"As a judge of the city civil court, he was known for his sense of justice and total impartiality in dealing with the issue, irrespective of which lawyer was appearing. All of us loved to appear before him because we were sure of getting justice," says Muchhala.

"Also, no one could tamper with the board in his court; he managed matters himself, and ensured no lawyer was left wondering whether his matter was going to come up that day," recalls Muchhala.

It wasn't just his individual qualities that Justice Suresh brought to the Bench; he tried to change things there too.

As a budding lawyer in 1989, Pradeep Mandhyan remembers Justice Suresh calling a meeting of the high court bar to discuss ways to cut the delays that are the hallmark of our judicial system.

"The Bar agreed with him, but finally said that the measures he suggested were beyond their control; the State had to step in," recalls Mandhyan, who made a presentation at the meeting.

For Mandhyan, the retired judge was an inspiration. "Often we in CPDR felt like giving up on a certain issue because it was going nowhere. But then we would think of him; even at his age, he never gave up."

As in office, so out of it, Justice Suresh stood out.

"Most judges who retire never engage with public issues. But Suresh was so sensitive to injustice that even after retirement, he remained a judge at heart. At the same time, he had moved far away from the rarified world of judges; he strove to be the voice of the people," says Muchhala.

"Justice Suresh is one of the few giants on whose shoulders stands the current civil liberties movement," says Justice Shah. "He was inspired by Justice V R Krishna Iyer, and the contribution of both of them to the poor and marginalized and to human rights is immeasurable."

Production: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
The bodies of two missing women found in Florida included 19-year-old Oluwatoyin Salau, who disappeared shortly after tweeting about being molested.

Tallahassee Police said she was found on Saturday night along with 75-year-old Victoria Sims, and that their deaths were being treated as homicides.

A 49-year-old man, Aaron Glee Jr, has been taken into custody and the investigation has been turned over to the violent crime unit.

Ms Salau had joined Black Lives Matter protests in the past few weeks, reciting the name of George Floyd and other black people killed by law enforcements to seek justice for their deaths.

"I don't want their names gone in vain," she said during a protest in front of Tallahassee Police Department in May.

In the hours before going missing from the area of Orange Avenue and Wahnish Way on 6 June, Ms Salau made multiple tweets recounting a sexual assault by someone "disguised as a man of God".

"Anyways I was molested in Tallahassee, Florida by a black man this morning at 5:30 on Richview and Park Ave. The man offered to give me a ride to find someplace to sleep and recollect my belongings from a church I refuged to a couple days back to escape unjust living conditions," Ms Salau tweeted.

"When we arrived at his house he offered me a shower and I thanked him and shower and he gave me a change of clothes. He exposed himself to me by peeing with the bathroom open obviously knowing I was out of it. I told him about a sexual assault situation that happened..."

She also tweeted about a separate situation where another man tried to force her into sexual acts before harassing her for days.

"Before I realized what happened to me I looked over and his clothes were completely off. Once I saw he was asleep I escaped from the house and started walking from Richview Road to anywhere else," she wrote.

As part of their investigations into a missing person report, Tallahassee police arrived at a house on Monday Road at around 9.15pm on Saturday.

A missing person alert reportedly went out at 8.57pm after Ms Sims was last seen on Blair Stone Road, near Monday Road, driving a Toyota Camry.

"During the course of the investigation, two deceased people were located in the area," police said in a statement.

Ms Sims was reportedly a retired Department of Elder Affairs employee and community volunteer, with the AARP saying in a statement that she worked tirelessly to improve the lives of others.

"The AARP family of volunteers and staff has suffered a grievous loss," said David Bruns, an AARP spokesman.
Shibu BS By

Express News Service

KOCHI: After a gap of 100 days, the call of lights, camera, action is finally reverberating in Mollywood again. The shooting of the movie Tsunami got off the floor on Monday in Kochi, the film hub of Kerala.

Adhering strictly to the COVID-19 protocol issued by the state government, the shooting resumed at the French Toast Cafe on Chittoor Road. Actors Aju Varghese and Balu Varghese performed in front of the camera, as instructed by director Lal and his son Jean-Paul Lal. The father-son duo is jointly directing the movie for which Alex J Pulickal is cranking the camera.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the crew usually consisted of 100 to 120 members. However, as per new safety norms, the total number of people present on a set is restricted to a maximum of 50.

Actors Aju Varghese and Balu Varghese at the sets of Tsunami.

Accordingly, we have reduced the number of people in each department. Instead of 16, the unit members are now reduced to eight while only four people are there in the crane section. The art department too has four members while production boys, from the earlier 10, have been restricted to five, said Aneesh Perumbilavu, the production controller for Tsunami.

He said the direction department has restructured the shooting chart to ensure the total number of artists does not exceed the limit set by the government.

As outdoor shooting is not allowed due to the pandemic, some scenes were reworked to shoot indoors, he added.

More films are expected to roll in the coming days, which is a good sign for the industry. However, the production controllers feel that it may be easy for small and medium budgeted movies to keep rolling amid restrictions, but it will not be the same for superstar/big-budget movies.

If the theme demands outdoor shooting and the presence of a crowd, we cannot go ahead at this juncture, said senior production controller Aroma Mohan.

Meanwhile, sources close to the superstars of Malayalam -- Mammootty and Mohanlal - said they are yet to take a call on resuming shooting. Mammootty, whose movies One and the Priest are completed, is planning to come back by the end of the year with the fifth part of his evergreen CBI film series. Mohanlal will be coming up with a sequel to his blockbuster Drishyam.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has again pressed Iran to provide inspectors with access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material.



IAEA Director General Mariano Grossi told reporters in Vienna on June 15 that for more than four months Iran has denied the agency access to two locations, and that for almost a year it has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify our questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.



He called on Iran to cooperate immediately and said he has made the case with high-level Iranian officials.



We need this cooperation," Grossi said. "I regret that at this point we have this disagreement.



Even though the two sites are not thought to be key to Iran's current activities, the agency says it needs to know if past activities going back almost two decades have been properly declared and all materials accounted for.



Iran maintains that the IAEA has no legal basis to inspect the sites. Activities at the two sites and a third are thought to have been from the early 2000s, before Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

'No Legal Ambiguities'



Grossi rejected Iran's view that the request for access was without legal merit, saying there are "no legal ambiguities."



Grossi has previously demanded that Iran stop blocking its investigation into the sites. He said in March that Iran should cooperate immediately and fully with the agency.



A report released earlier this month provided details about Iran blocking access to the sites. The report also said Iran has continued enriching uranium far beyond the limits set by its 2015 pact with major powers.



The IAEA said in the report that it had determined that one site had undergone extensive sanitization and leveling in 2003 and 2004 and there would be no verification value in inspecting it.



It said Iran has blocked access to the other two locations, one of which was partially demolished in 2004 and the other at which the agency observed activities consistent with efforts to sanitize the facility from July 2019 onward.



Iran told the agency that the report was a source of "deep regret and disappointment" and hinted that the queries were based on "fabricated information" from "intelligence services."



Israel has previously claimed its intelligence services unearthed information on an alleged previous nuclear weapons program in Iran.



Western countries have voiced concern over Iran's denial of access to the sites, with the United States being particularly vocal.

Washington unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear pact two years ago.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
Beverly Hills issued an emergency order that banned gatherings of more than 10 people in residential areas at night 'to preserve the peace and tranquility' of neighborhoods amid protests.

The City of Beverly Hills made the announcement on Saturday in a statement released to residents.

'To preserve the peace and tranquility of residential neighborhoods, effective tonight and until further notice, no more than 10 people shall gather in an assembly in a public right of way in a residential area between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m,' they wrote.

The orders applies to any group of 10 or more found on public streets, sidewalks or other public places 'if those 10 people have a common purpose or goal.'

The City of Beverly Hills announced that groups more than 10 people are banned from gathering at night to 'preserve the peace and tranquility' amid protests

However, silent assemblies like candlelight vigils and gatherings on private property are exempt from the emergency order.

Residents who flout the order will be subject to arrest.

The City of Beverly Hills issued the emergency order after a group called 'OCCUPY' held a nighttime protest with bullhorns and loud music in residential neighborhoods on June 12, according to the press release.

It also said Beverly Hills was 'subjected to widespread acts of violence and property damage by people who were taking advantage of the protests concerning the tragic death of George Floyd.'

Crowds of protesters descended into Beverly Hills on June 6 (pictured) to protest over the death of George Floyd and police brutality

Dozens of Black Lives Matter protests have been held across California, with at least two taking place in the ritzy Beverly Hills

Pictured: : Protesters participate in the Hollywood talent agencies march to support Black Lives Matter protests on June 6

George Floyd, 46, was an African-American man who died in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Disturbing cell phone footage showed a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes while he pleaded 'I can't breathe!' He later died.

Protests have broken out in cities across the United States, with thousands of people taking to the streets to fight against police brutality and racism.

Protests erupted all over California, with several of them defying specific county orders of gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

George Floyd (pictured) was an African-American man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Memorial Day

Los Angeles County, which includes Beverly Hills, ordered that large gatherings outside the home are only allowed with family members.

Residents are still expected to practice social distancing and wear face masks when interacting with others until further notice.

On May 30, Beverly Hills was struck with property damage and looting after a peaceful protest was held in the city earlier that day.

Thousands of demonstrators flooded Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive that day carrying signs like 'Eat the rich' and 'George Floyd did not deserve to be murdered'.

Footage captured that night showed people breaking into the closed Alexander McQueen store and making off with merchandise.

Dozens of luxury brand stores along Beverly HIll's Rodeo Drive, including Michael Kors (pictured), were damaged on May 30 after a protest

Pictured: a protester spray painted the phrase 'BLM' (Black Lives Matter) outside the Beverly Hills' Cartier store where another wrote 'blood diamonds'

A California resident protesting in Beverly Hills on May 30 crossed out the Dolce & Gabbana sign to write 'Living Hell' instead

Thousands of demonstrators flooded Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive on May 30 carrying signs like 'Eat the rich' and 'George Floyd did not deserve to be murdered'

Pictured: Workers board up high end stores on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills preparing for another night of unrest Aftermath of Black Lives Matter protests in Los Angeles

Gown and Out, the high-end boutique store featured on Amazon Prime's eponymous reality series, was trashed by looters, as well.

Owners Pol Atteu and Patrik Simpson told TMZ that they had just re-stocked their luxury gown shop, Pol Atteu Couture, when looters started wreaking havoc in Beverly Hills.

The pair estimated that over 100 dresses were looted, 'including custom wedding dresses waiting to be shipped to brides and some gowns intended for the Daytime Emmys.'

Pol actually hand sews all of their incredible creations and Patrik told TMZ that he will now have 'hours of work ahead of him' in order to replenish the stolen stock.

In response to the damage, Beverly Hills imposed an earlier curfew than the rest of Los Angeles County at the time.

Stolen: The gowns were hand-sewn by designer Pol and included 'custom wedding dresses waiting to be shipped to brides and some gowns intended for the Daytime Emmys'

Pictured: the damage inside Gown and Out in Beverly Hills after residents damaged the store

Pictured: a protester sits near the Beverly Hills sign with the phrase 'We Comin' 4 your $$' spray painted

In other parts of Los Angeles. protests at the time became so volatile that Mayor Eric Garcetti called for the California National Guard to be deployed to the city and enacted a curfew.

'This is no longer a protest. This is destruction. This is vandalism,' Garcetti said.

'The vast majority of people taking to the streets are doing it peacefully, powerfully, and with reverence for the sacred cause theyre fighting for. This curfew is in place to protect their safety  and the safety of all who live and work in our city.'

Photos showed police cruisers on fire, protesters being subdued with pepper spray by authorities and several clashes between officers and civilians.

More than 500 people involved in the Los Angeles protests were arrested that weekend.

Despite the increase of law enforcement, Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations continue to be held across California.

A photo taken with a drone shows people painting an 'All Black Lives Matter' mural on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California

The painting was made to honor black LGBTQ community members during the 50th anniversary of the first Pride celebration

A march for the Black LGBTQ+ community called All Black Lives Matter took place on Sunday along Hollywood Boulevard.

The phrase 'All Black Lives Matter' were painted in a rainbow of colors near the famous TCL Chinese and Dolby theaters on Saturday.

The painting was made to honor black LGBTQ community members during the 50th anniversary of the first Pride celebration.

The demonstrators were also honoring Tony McDade, a black transgender man killed by Tallahassee, Florida police on May 27.

'The protest is in direct response to racial injustice, systemic racism and all forms of oppression,' the events website states.

'The LGBTQ+ community must extend its support to unite against oppression, police brutality, racism, transphobia, and the many other disparities disproportionately impacting the Black community.'
As New Jersey reopens, many consumers are hoping they can still rent a home at the Shore.

Pent up demand from the coronavirus shutdown means you might have trouble making the reservations you want. That, in turn, might lead you to jump on a deal, even if it sounds too good to be true.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, summer house rental scams were all too common.

We spoke with Adam Levin, a former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs and founder of CyberScout, an identity theft protection and cybersecurity firm, about some tips so consumers wont fall for a summer rental scam.

Q. What changes with the coronavirus pandemic?

A. Due to Covid-19, people are looking to maintain social distance and avoid crowded hotels and swimming pools. This is going to increase the demand for private short-term rental properties, which will also increase the odds of being scammed, especially when it comes to overbooking the same property.

Know the cleaning policy. Rental services like Airbnb have created new cleaning guidelines for hosts. To avoid being scammed out of money after your stay, discuss if there will be an additional cost for cleaning services before securing a rental.

Q. Will the pandemic make people quicker to jump on a too good to be true deal?

A. People are eager to get away after sheltering-in-place  which some people consider being under house arrest  for so long due to the pandemic. This is a vulnerability that scammers will take advantage of. They also know that millions of Americans have seen their salaries cut, are on furlough or are out of work and even those who can afford to do something are looking for bargain deals on vacation rentals. Look out for super cheap rates for premium vacation properties. Below-market rent can be a sign of a scam.

These people will post an extremely inviting offer online and then tell everyone who responds, You better move quickly. Lots of people are interested and some are offering more than I asked for. In an effort to help you lock the deal, they ask for personal identifying information and a credit or debit card number. You bite. They then vanish with your information and use it to their benefit. You dont have to be a detective to do a little background research on a reservation service youre about to use  especially before you provide payment information.

Q. Weve heard about rental scams in which someone purports to be a landlord but has no interest in the house they say they can rent. What research should a renter do?

A. Ask specific questions about the property that a landlord should know the answer to. Some home-rental websites have their own vetting processes and offer guarantees that will protect you in case of fraud. Check before you click.

If possible, drive by or visit the rental property before signing any contracts.

Check for reviews online. Look to see if previous renters are sharing consistent experiences (good or bad) in their reviews  and be alert for fake ones.

CORONAVIRUS RESOURCES: Live map tracker | Newsletter | Homepage

Confirm the address is real. Doing a quick Google search can provide you with public information about the property and its owner. Google Maps can provide a satellite image of the property.

If youre looking for properties using sites like Airbnb or VRBO, do not go off the site to conduct business. Dont wire money unless you have confirmed (the items above) have precise wiring instructions which you confirm at the time of wiring. Dont pay with a prepaid or gift card for a vacation rental. Once the scammer collects the money, it is almost impossible to get it back.

If youre working with a real estate agent, ask for their license number and request references (and make sure to check both of these).

Q. What other related scams are we seeing?

A. Because you dont want to be the unwitting star of your own reality show, check the inside of your rental property for hidden cameras. Turn off all the lights in each room and shine a flashlight. Your phone's will do. Look for light glinting off a camera lens. If you discover any, cover them with a Post-It or piece of tape. Also, avoid talking about personal or financial information  you never know who may be listening.

Q. Whats the fake menu scam?

A. You arrive at your rental house, youre famished and you find take-out menus that were either slipped under your door, or strategically placed in the house by an accomplice. Unfortunately, the number on that menu is fake  it belongs to a scam artist who is all too eager to take your order while stealing your credit card information. An hour passes, your hunger is off the charts and your patience  as well as your available credit  has been drained. You were dinner.

Q. What about using WiFi in a rental house?

Dont automatically trust the rentals WiFi and make sure the WiFi is password protected before using. Never visit your email or financial services accounts on public computers or free WiFi systems. Both could be swarming with identity thieves armed with malware thatll steal your passwords and hijack your email and financial information or lock-up your device unless you are willing to pay ransom in bitcoin.

Q. What else should our readers know?

Use a credit card instead of a debit card. A debit card is the gateway to your bank account. While the protections on many debit cards are good, many are not as good as those on credit cards. Use credit cards when traveling instead because with a credit card its their money, with a debit card, its your money.

Never provide payment information to anyone without making sure youre on the right site, and whoever youre working with is in a position to provide what theyve offered to you, whether thats an equipment rental, an excursion or anything else vacation related.

Q. Any final tips?

A. If youre not going away this summer, you might be looking for a summer job. There are scammers targeting high school and college-age students looking for summer employment opportunities. Never provide sensitive information on job websites or to anyone claiming to offer summer employment without doing some research. You can figure this out by doing an online search or making a few phone calls. Use your head when providing personally identifiable information to an employer.

When kids are offered a job, they provide their information for tax purposes, including their Social Security number, and then never hear back. The reason: The only job was a robbery. Their identity is stolen, and because young adults often lack credit monitoring experience, it takes a long time for them to realize their creditworthiness has been botched by this fake opportunity.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
The Google Pixel 5 will arrive later than expected as well, it seems. This information comes from John Prosser, a well-known tipster. It also follows the information regarding Pixel 4a he released shortly before this.

The Google Pixel 4a will still launch on July 13, it seems, but it wont become available until late October. Mr. Prosser says that the Black variant of the Pixel 4a is now set to arrive on October 22.

The Google Pixel 5 will also arrive later than expected

That is considerably later than the original release date in early August. In any case, the Pixel 5 will go down a similar path, it seems. Mr. Prosser did not say when will the Pixel 5 arrive, but he did not that the Pixel 5 will also be pushed back.

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At this point, we can only guess what will happen. The Pixel 5 was originally supposed to arrive in October, but several reports claimed that it will be delayed.

The global health crisis managed to affect pretty much everyone, and Google is no exception. That seems to be the major reason why the Pixel 5 got delayed. Initially, rumors have been suggesting that the device may launch in November or December.

Well, this information from Jon Prosser makes us wonder if it will arrive this year at all. It would be quite a problem for Google if the device ends up arriving in 2021 with its current chips included.

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The Pixel 5 is rumored to include the Snapdragon 765G on the inside, and the same goes for the Pixel 5 XL. Do note those are just rumors for now, but it seems like Google has no plans to utilize the Snapdragon 865 this year.

Including the Snapdragon 765G inside both devices would make it possible for the company to lower the price tag. The Snapdragon 865 is quite expensive, and it comes with a mandatory 5G modem.

On the other hand, it would be quite odd to see the Pixel 5 series without a flagship processor. Perhaps Google is planning to launch another, higher-end Pixel phone? Well, well see.

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The Pixel 5 series will hopefully arrive in Q4 2020

In any case, if the Pixel 5 series arrives in 2021, even though if it happens in January, that would mess up the companys plans. Were still expecting the devices to launch in Q4 this year, but dont know when exactly.

A recent rumor even suggested that the Pixel 4a may be a part of the Pixel 5 series. That information is quite sketchy, at this point, so take it with a grain of salt.

In any case, the Google Pixel 5 will arrive later than expected, but hopefully in October or November. Were waiting for more information to surface.
Startups

Online food delivery service Swiggy now also drops groceries at doorsteps, so does cab aggregator Uber, which along with rival Ola, is offering emergency rides to hospitals as well. Scooter-hailing firms are cutting down their fleets by selling vehicles or giving them on a long lease.

The Indian startup space is going through a churn, or a reawakening if you will.

The rules of business dictate that a companys objective is to make money in exchange for a good or a service but in the last few years, startups were doing anything but that. Amid deep discounting, free orders and large fundraises, profitability was a long-term goal at best and invisible at worst for these companies busy spending money to attract customers.

But the coronavirus outbreak that has wrecked the economy has sent them scurrying to the drawing board to do what businesses have done for centuries: make money.

Even for Indias unicorns--firms valued at a billion dollars or morerecent decisions are aimed at making their businesses viable or at least slash losses.

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

Swiggys move to deliver groceries and liquor is an attempt to better utilise its fleet of riders as the food-delivery business takes a hit. Though allowed back, Ola and Uber have struggled to see the business pick up as people prefer to stay home, worried over rising coronavirus infections. They are exploring alternative revenue streams. Uber has found it in delivering groceries and parcels.

The move into newer business verticals is driven by firm goals and is not yet another experiment, which many startups indulged in when investor money was more easily available.

Last week, Swiggys rival Zomato shut down its grocery delivery arm barely two months into business to refocus on areas where gross margins are sustainable. Zomato, however, is delivering liquor in some parts of the country.

The revenue models in food delivery are not sustainable. No wonder most of them are trying alternate businesses. The commission charged by these companies from restaurants is already very high. If they cannot make money from food delivery, can they ever make money? Maybe these alternate business channels will help, said an industry executive, requesting anonymity.

Cloud kitchens, or delivering food from low-rent kitchen spaces, with no dine-in option, was another such trend. However, Swiggy, logistics firm Shadowfax and hotel chain Oyo have either closed cloud kitchen verticals, fired employees, or reduced operations to a fraction of original.

Follow our LIVE blog for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic

Most startups are focusing on their core revenue-making activity. Those who are exploring new lines are doing so because their current business is not making money.

While the stress continues due to the pandemic, startups are rejigging their business strategies, verticals and are trying to revive innovation to earn money and maintain revenue streams. They will also need to do this to maintain investor appeal for funding at some point in time, said Dipti Lavya Swain, partner at law firm HSA Legal.

Down to brass tacks

Their new-found priorities are also evident in the metrics the startups are now chasing. From vanity metrics such as gross merchandise value, the number of downloads and transaction volume, which can often be misleading, most are now looking at cash burn, revenue growth and customer retention.

Companies are now focused on economics and have realised that the days of discount-fuelled selling is over. During the lockdown, we have seen companies reduce discounts and even start charging for delivery in some cases, said Ankur Pahwa, partner and consumer internet leader at EY. Building sustainable businesses and focusing on unit economics will be the new reality.

Customers willingness to pay for value-added services will aid their attempt to increase revenue. Consumer behaviour is adapting to digital-first services and the fact that some of these services, like early delivery and orders of lower value, may come with delivery costs. This behaviour will likely benefit these companies, Pahwa added.

Over the years, several startups have begun to resemble big businesses but without their financial muscle. These companies hire the best talent, match their salaries with those paid by MNCs and have large offices in prime commercial areas. This way of life, also generally funded by investor money, is being revisited.

A fresh graduate from a top Indian Institute of Technology got a Rs 30 lakh offer from a Bengaluru-based startup in February but the company yanked it after the pandemic broke.

Startups have almost become as big as large corporates, without the strong revenue models of the traditional companies. Startups have hired very aggressively in the past. Founders should take this opportunity to rethink their strategies around hiring and team building, an industry executive said, requesting anonymity.

Many consumer-internet firms have built asset-heavy businesses, the antithesis of an internet-driven firm, which seeks high valuations and growth based on lean models and little physical assets.

More startups are now going asset-light since servicing debt is becoming a challenge for companies with low cash flows. Scooter rental firms Bounce and Vogo and bike-hailing firm Rapido are selling off their vehicles and renting them out on long-term lease.

For most consumer-internet firms, anything less than doubling their user base every few months, or every year, was frowned upon by them and their investors.

Swiggy, for example, tripled its revenue to Rs 1,128 crore but also saw losses rise six times in a year to Rs 2,367 crore in FY19. Similar stories played out with most companies valued between $100 million and $5 billion.

On the other hand, the startups that grew at 30 percent a year while making money may survive in the long run but they will never hog headlines or got the large funding rounds. The coronavirus has pushed many such firms into a survival mode with modest expectations. Their primary goal is to outlast the pandemic.

Funding, the final frontier

Most, if not all, of the recent decisions taken by startups to be lean stem from the reality that unlimited fundraising may no longer be possible. Early-stage companies are seeing large investors go slow on new firms. They are reserving cash mostly for their own portfolio companies.

Venture funds have classified their portfolios broadly into three categories startups that cannot get fresh funding and the future is unclear; companies that will be able to pull through with some booster funds and those that have either benefited due to the viral outbreak or are in a strong financial position, say sources.

Investors also say that while some of these calls-- on not funding firms or giving a lower valuationwere driven by the pandemic, many of these decisions had been coming for a while now.

It is the extent of cutbacks that took some investors by surprise. VCs (venture capitalists) have become like private equity funds. They are asking companies to focus on making money, surviving the pandemic, and are propagating general conservatism, generally rare among VCs, a banker advising on technology deals said, requesting anonymity.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: A 28-year-old man, who returned from Qatar, committed suicide at a quarantine facility in Madhapur after an argument with his fiancee, police said.

According to the Madhapur police, David Tharun Kumar, from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, was to marry a woman from his hometown as soon as he returned to India. He pursued polytechnic at Visakhapatnam and moved to Qatar a few years ago where he worked for a private company.

Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, David took a flight back home and landed at the RGIA on June 10. As per the governments COVID-19 guidelines for foreign returnees, he checked into a quarantine facility at a private hotel near the Madhapur police station for the mandatory seven-day period. But late on June 12, the hotel staff found him hanging in the room and alerted the police.

Inquiry revealed that David and his fiancee used to frequently fight as he could not return home due to the pandemic. Even after arriving in Hyderabad, when she asked him to come home soon, he told her that he would have to complete the seven-day quarantine. On Friday too, the duo had an argument after the woman said David was not making time for her, the police said. Upset over this, he took the extreme step.
KYODO NEWS - Jun 15, 2020 - 15:35 | All, Japan

A Tokyo exhibit introducing UNESCO World Heritage sites related to Japan's industrial revolution opened Monday, drawing a backlash from South Korea for failing to show that Koreans had been coerced to work at some of the sites during World War II.

The information center on the "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution" held an opening ceremony in late March but had been closed to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. It opened its doors to the public on a reservation-only basis and to limit the number of guests.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry in the afternoon summoned Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Koji Tomita to lodge a protest, accusing Japan of failing to honor Korean victims of forced labor at the exhibit.

A ministry spokesman released a statement expressing "deep regret" over Japan not honoring its promise to help the public understand why many people from the Korean Peninsula were forced to serve the country under brutal conditions.

"We cannot but feel very worried and disappointed that we cannot see any kind of effort to commemorate the victims in any part of the exhibit," the spokesman said in the statement.

Although the exhibit on the sites, mostly in southwestern Japan and added to the UNESCO list in 2015, includes descriptions of Korean labor, it incorporates testimonies from second-generation Korean-Japanese residents claiming there was no discriminatory treatment of Korean workers there.

South Korean news media were also critical of the exhibit, with much of their ire directed at the display for the Hashima Coal Mine in Nagasaki, known as "Battleship Island" because of its shape.

Guests can learn about the experiences of former residents. Accounts of Hashima residents include the late second-generation Korean-Japanese Fumio Suzuki, who spent his childhood years on the island and said he never heard of Koreans subjected to slave labor.

According to the Chosun Ilbo, a major South Korean daily, the exhibitions deny the reality of forced labor under harsh conditions and threaten to "exacerbate an already fraught relation" between South Korea and Japan.

The liberal Hankyoreh newspaper likewise reported the exhibits as a "distortion" of history.

The exhibit is comprised of panels and large screens which illustrate Japan's rapid industrialization of the country from the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century.

The display for the Hashima Coal Mine includes digitally archived documents indicating the existence of workers from the Korean Peninsula, who were drafted to the island during World War II, as well as records of a bonus salary paid to a Taiwanese laborer.

A total of 23 sites spanning eight prefectures were added to the World Cultural Heritage list under "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining."

South Korea had initially opposed adding the Japanese sites to the World Heritage list, saying Koreans had been forced to work at seven of the sites when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945.

However, it withdrew its complaint on condition that Japan appropriately provides information about labor conditions at the sites.

Related coverage:

South Korea court may rule on Japan firm asset sale in Aug. at earliest

South Korea to resume WTO complaint over Japan's export curbs
A 32-year-old Palmer Township man, who had been drinking through the evening, beat a woman late Friday night while she was holding her son then drove off and threatened to kill himself and police in an ensuing phone call to the victim that was overheard by an officer, court papers say.

Jose Gasper Rosario, of the 2300 block of Guyton St., was found by Pennsylvania State Police after crashing into traffic cones on Route 33 and then arrested by Palmer police, court papers say. He smelled of alcohol, police said.

He was arraigned on video early Saturday from Central Booking at Northampton County Prison before District Judge Richard Yetter III on charges of simple assault, harassment, endangering the welfare of children, terroristic threats and DUI, records show. Bail was set at $20,000 but options were given for PreTrial Services to allow a 10% option or unsecured bail, records show. Rosario was released on Saturday after posting an unspecified bond, records show.

Rosario and the woman were arguing when he chased her through the house, then punched her in the face and head while she held the child, police said. She was left bruised with a bloody nose, police said.

Rosario then took his Glock 17 and left in a white 2011 Subaru, police said. Court papers dont say if the gun was recovered. He admitted the argument but added he didnt know how the woman was hurt, police said.

He was taken to the Easton DUI center before arraignment, court papers say. As a condition of bail, he may not have contact with the victim, court papers say,

Township police were initially called just before 10 p.m.

Rosarios preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. June 23 in District Judge Jacqueline Taschners court in the township.

Court papers dont list an attorney for Rosario.

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.
VIENNA, June 15 (Reuters) - Austria's new stimulus package that will be finalised at a special cabinet meeting on Monday and Tuesday amounts to around 14 billion euros ($16 billion) so far, Finance Minister Gernot Bluemel told ORF radio on Monday.

"The conclave's measures that have been made public so far will amount to a volume of roughly 14 billion euros, and more will come. We have not finished the conclave, it is only beginning now," Bluemel said, referring to the meeting that is beginning on Monday afternoon.

($1 = 0.8887 euros) (Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Tom Hogue)
At a time when the right-wing leaders of Israel are contemplating annexing further parts of the Palestinian occupied territories, a referenced and documented white paper has been produced and published by the prestigious Amman-based think tank Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, documenting Arab presence in Jerusalem for over three millennia and specifying the Hashemite custodianship of Christian and Muslim holy sites in the city.

The Arabs were the first inhabitants of Palestine in history, including in Jerusalem, the 108-page paper begins. It references archaeological records where Jerusalem is mentioned by name in the Amarna Correspondence, a series of diplomatic letters between Canaanite city-state kings and their Egyptian overlords during the 14th-century B.C. It shows pictures of cuneiform tablets that were uncovered in Egypt in the late 19th century.

Mahdi Abdulhadi, founder and director of the Jerusalem-based PASSIA think tank, told Al-Monitor that the content of the paper represents a knowledge brief that genuinely reflects the reality in a scientific way, articulating the historic narrative that the streets and quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem have witnessed. He said, This paper is the legal and legitimate umbrella reflecting what the Hashemites have been entrusted with since the Arab Renaissance till today in a way that ensures the national Palestinian narrative with the Arab and international one in protecting the citys Arab identity.

The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, an Islamic nongovernmental institute, has been headed since 2000 by Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, the personal envoy and special adviser to Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The paper moves from archaeological discoveries to biblical records, quoting Genesis 10:1-20 that shows the Arabs, Hamites, Canaanites and Jebusites were the original inhabitants of the land of Palestine, including the area of Jerusalem. Canaanites and Jebusites were there long before (at least 2,000 years before) the Jews, and even long before Judaism was revealed.

While the focused biblical references are valuable in debunking various attempts to use religious text to deny Arab connections to the city, not everyone was excited about using the Bible to authenticate connectivity.

Bernard Sabella, an elected member of the Palestinian legislature representing Jerusalems Palestinian Christians, told Al-Monitor that the historic documents in the paper reflect the popular religious and official Palestinian position in support of the custodian role of the Hashemites. The importance of this paper is that it comes at a time that the Israelis are doing their utmost to change the status quo in Jerusalem with special emphasis on Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif.

Sabella said that the paper debunks Israeli claims questioning the support of Christian leaders to the Jordanian Hashemites in guaranteeing the status quo in the holy city.

Former Palestinian ambassador to France Hind Khoury told Al-Monitor that while she is a strong supporter of the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem, she is not a big fan of using biblical texts for documenting the history of Jerusalem. Biblical books are books of faith to the believers, and archaeologists including Israelis have shown contradictions between events in religious texts and the documented history of our region.

Khoury is concerned that religious groups, especially Christian Zionists, have been using biblical texts for their own purposes to justify support for the occupation and annexation. I am always worried about the danger of mixing between religion and politics. This has been the way that Zionists and their supporters have gone because it is easy to use religion to prove any point of view.

The Jewish presence in Jerusalem is also not ignored. The word Jew is mentioned 65 times in the paper and the term Jewish is referred in document 34 times. The paper dedicates a section to the Jewish presence between 1000 B.C. and 600 B.C. talking about the Prophet-King David who conquered Jerusalem, which became the capital of his kingdom. The paper also talks about Jerusalem as a mixed Jewish city in the period 539 B.C.-37 B.C.

The white paper acknowledges that the religious demographics of Jerusalem changed dramatically in the 20th century. In 1947, the citys population was 33,600 Arabs and 2,400 Jews.

Yonatan Mizrachi, CEO of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli nongovernmental organization working to defend cultural heritage rights and to protect ancient sites, told Al-Monitor, While the historic timeline looks fine to me, I disagree that Arabs have been here before the time of King David. I don't think that Canaanites are the Arabs ancestors.

As to the history of Jerusalem by religions, the authors of the paper state that Jews have been there for about 3,000 years, Christians have been there for about 2,000 years and Muslims have been there for about 1,400 years. However, Islam has been dominant in Jerusalem for 1,210 out of the last 1,388 years. This is more than the period of Jewish domination over the last 3,020 years (953 years) or Christian domination over the last 2,000 years (417 years).

In summary, the white paper argues that contrary to the misperception that Islam is a stranger to Jerusalem, Islam has been dominant in Jerusalem for longer in total than either Christianity or Judaism, despite being the youngest of the three religions.

Reverend David Rihani, deputy chair of the Jordan Evangelical Council and the head of the Assemblies of God Churches in Jordan, told Al-Monitor that the role of Hashemites to Jerusalem is well known and appreciated by all Arab Christians. We strongly support and endorse the Hashemite custodianship and have been impressed by the high level of interest and support His Majesty the King has shown to Jerusalems Christian as well as Muslim sites.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque/Haram Al-Sharif  and by extension the whole ancient city of Jerusalem  is one of Islams three holy sites. The paper refutes the often-repeated argument by those who claim that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Islamic holy book. According to the classical commentaries on the Quran, "the city," "the land," "the Holy Land," "the Mount," "the Temple" and "the Olive" all refer to Jerusalem, or places in Jerusalem, the paper states.
The white man who was filmed with 'San Francisco Karen' confronting a Filipino man while he painted a Black Lives Matter slogan onto a wall in front of his home has been fired by the investment bank he worked for.

Robert Larkins was fired by Raymond James on Monday after being identified as the man in the video with Lisa Alexander.

The pair confronted James Juanillo, who was painting a Black Lives Matter stencil onto the partition wall in front of the home he rents with his husband and five of their friends.

Larkins and James Alexander told him he was acting illegally, claimed the home wasn't his property and that they knew the owner.

She has since apologized, saying she had no business intervening. Birch Box, a popular beauty subscription service, has dumped her line of cosmetics, LA Face.

On Monday, Raymond James announced in a statement that it had fired Larkins.

Scroll down for video

Robert Larkins with Lisa Alexander at a San Francisco society event

Robert Larkins (left) has been fired by the investment bank he worked for after this video of him and his partner Lisa Alexander accusing a Filipino man of vandalism because he was painting a BLM slogan on his own home, went viral

'After an investigation into the circumstances of a video alleging racism by one of our associates, we have concluded that the actions of he and his partner were inconsistent with our values, and the associate is no longer employed with Raymond James,' the company said.

Larkins was the Managing Director and the Western Region Manager for Raymond James' public finance practice

Larkins has not yet made a statement.

The pair were filmed approaching Juanillo outside the home - which is worth an estimated $13million - and telling him not to spray paint the wall, claiming he was acting illegally.

'Is this your property?

'I'm asking you if this is your property,' Alexander said while Larkins filmed her with his cellphone.

'Why are you asking?' Juanillo replied.

Larkins chimed in: 'Because it's private property.

'So are you defacing private property or is this your home?

'You're free to express your opinions but not on people's property.'

Juanillo did not tell the pair that he lived inside and had done since 2005.

'But if I lived here and it were my property it would be fine?' he said, prompting the pair to nod.

He then said: 'And you don't know if I live here or if this is my property.'

Larkins and Alexander shot back: 'We actually do know.

'That's why we're asking.' He said: 'Oh really? Because you live here?'

James Juanillo posted the video of the encounter on Friday which has been retweeted more than 159,000 times. He claimed Alexander lied and said she knew who lived in his home during the encounter which happened Tuesday

Juanillo had chalked Black Lives Matter onto the wall in front of his house

Make up designer Lisa Alexander stopped on the street to approach a man who she believed was writing on private property. James Juanillo recorded the interaction in which he was berated by Alexander and a white man named Robert as they claimed he didn't own his house

Alexander shot back: 'No, because we know the person who does live here.'

She and Larkins then walked off. The video emerged afterwards.

Neither of the building's owners say they know either Alexander or Larkins.

Brad Gilbertson, one of the owners, told ABC: 'She just claimed she knew the owner of the house. She doesn't know me. I thought she was out of line.'

In her apology, Alexander said: 'I want to apologize directly to Mr. Juanillo.

'There are not enough words to describe how truly sorry I am for being disrespectful to him last Tuesday when I made the decision to question him about what he was doing in front of his home.

'I should have minded my own business.'

It is the latest in a string of racially charged incidents across America in which white people have wrongly accused black people of crimes and in some instances, called the police on them.
The state Senate on Monday passed a bill, named for a Penn State student who died in 2017 after a night of heavy drinking and hazing at his fraternity, imposing harsher penalties on people found guilty of hazing.

If passed by the Assembly and signed by the governor, the bill would classify hazing that results in bodily injury as a crime of the fourth degree or third degree if the bodily injury is serious, according to the bill.

Additionally, any student, fraternal organization or higher education institution that knowingly or recklessly promotes or facilitates a person to commit an act of hazing or aggravated hazing would be subject to fines of $5,000 to $15,000 and may be forced to forfeit any proceeds or property connected to the hazing activity.

The bill (S84) also specifies that hazing includes forcing someone to consume any food, liquid, alcoholic liquid, drug or other substance which subjects the other person to a risk of emotional or physical harm.

It would, however, provide protections for someone who seeks out help for a victim of hazing, such as calling 911 and staying by the victims side until help arrives.

The Senate passed the bill 39-0 on Monday.

More than half of all students are hazed at some point during their college career, state Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr., R-Union, said in a statement. We wont allow this culture of humiliation and violence to continue in New Jersey. Our legislation sends a clear message: if you engage in hazing, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The bill is named for Timothy J. Piazza, a Pennsylvania State University student from New Jersey who died from a fall after a night of drinking and hazing at the fraternity he was pledging.

Piazza grew up Readington Township in Hunterdon County. He died in February 2017 after a bid ceremony at Beta Theta Pi. Piazza fell down the stairs, and nearly 12 hours passed before anyone called for help.

His father, James Piazza, told state lawmakers last year that stiffer penalties and legislation making it easier to prosecute hazing as a crime are necessary to deter fraternities, sororities and other groups from hazing.

Hazing always is a planned event. It always has intent to it," he said. "These are not things that happen just by happenstance. These are things that are well orchestrated and planned. And the individuals that are perpetrating, that are carrying them out, are taking other students lives in their hands, he said.

Under the bill, public and private colleges are required to adopt and enforce anti-hazing policies that prohibit students participating in organizations recognized by the school from engaging in hazing. Universities could impose fines, revoke charters, suspend or expel students, or withholding diplomas or transcripts.

Public k-12 school boards would be required to do the same, with punishments including withholding diplomas or transcripts, shutting down student organizations, or suspensions and expulsions, according to the bill.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com.
Thousands of protesters marched to New York City's Brooklyn Museum on Sunday to support black transgender Americans.

Why it matters: The deaths of two black transgender women in recent days that are being investigated as homicides have prompted calls to tackle transphobia, per CBS News. Black trans women are "particularly vulnerable because they face multiple kinds of discrimination," Beverly Tillery from the LGBTQ+ nonprofit NYC Anti-Violence Project told Time Magazine on Friday.

A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted.

"Not only are members of this community trans, but they are also black, women and often poor. All of the discrimination results in people often living lives that are just more vulnerable to violence. You have a job that is more tenuous, you live in places that are more tenuous ... people look at you and they dont care about your existence and they dont value your life."

 Excerpt from Tillery's comments to Time

Transgender people, as part of the LGBTQ+ community, are facing multiple legal challenges from the Trump administration to weaken protections against workplace and health care discrimination, per Axios' Orion Rummler.

On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services finalized a rule to reverse protections for transgender people established under the Affordable Care Act.

Details: Among the speakers at the Brooklyn event were the family of Layleen Polanco  a transgender woman whose death in custody on Rikers Island last year triggered an outcry from LGBTQ+ activists and bail reform advocates, per NBC News.

Polanco was "arrested last April on misdemeanor assault charges and held on $500 bail dating back to a 2017 prostitution charge," NBC reports.

Polanco's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit after surveillance camera footage showed guards spent some 90 minutes trying to wake her up before calling for help.

Of note: Violence was the cause of at least 26 deaths of transgender or gender non-conforming people in the U.S. in 2019, most of whom were black transgender women, per Human Rights Watch

Days before the demonstration, police launched separate homicide investigations into the deaths of two black women  Riah Milton in Ohio and Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells in Philadelphia.

Go deeper: HHS rolls back Obama-era transgender health care protections
PPP Stalwart, Nana Ofori Owusu has chided the Health Minister, Hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu for concealing his COVID-19 status after contracting the disease.



The Minister reportedly receiving treatment at the University of Ghana Hospital, Legon, but before the truth was established by the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; an aide to Hon. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu is said to have denied reports that the Minister has been infected by the virus.



The President, delivering his 11th update on COVID-19 on Sunday, June 14, 2020, confirmed the Minister's health status revealing he has tested positive for the novel Coronavirus and wished him speedy recovery.



"Let us also wish our hardworking Minister for Health, Hon Kwaku Agyemang Manu, MP for Dormaa Central Constituency, a speedy recovery from the virus which he contracted in the line of duty but in a stable condition'', he stated.



Addressing the issue on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Nana Ofori Owusu wondered why the Health Minister would shy from disclosing his COVID-19 status saying ''it makes mockery of all the things that the President has directed us to do and gives strength to the stigmatization. We need consistency and oneness of voice in this situation''.



Considering the position of Hon. Agyeman Manu as the country's Health Minister and the fact that he has been admonishing the citizens against stigmatization, Nana Ofori expected him to have set a good example.



''The mismessaging makes all of us panic the more. Because why would the Minister of Health who gives us statistics and calms us down cannot tell us he has contracted the disease and is undergoing treatment, and therefore will be okay?'' he questioned.



He therefore called on the nation's leaders to stop hiding their status from the public so as to give them hope that it is not gloomy to contract the disease ''because our leader has been infected and he has told us and is going through the process for speedy recovery while we also pray for him. But if you won't tell us and you say you left your house to go to the hospital, it gives room to all of us to panic the more''.







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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In the ministerial conference room meeting, Ms Kairouz tells the "flying squad" that they need to help share the factional workload with her staffer. "It wont be difficult to get where... [my staffer is]," Ms Kairouz tells the parliamentary employees about their new roles. "Because its hard for [him]  young baby, hes got family responsibilities and hes my chief-of-staff. Weve got really difficult stakeholders, and then youve got our own stakeholders that weve got to manage  our moderate Labor ones  so we need someone to." Premier Daniel Andrews sacked Mr Somyurek from the cabinet on Monday over his part in the "industrial-scale" branch stacking operation and because of misogynistic and homophobic comments directed at Labor ministers and staff, caught on recordings obtained by The Age and 60 minutes.

But he stood by Ms Kairouz  Mr Somyureks factional ally  saying she assured him that she had not acted inappropriately. "[Ms Kairouz] confirmed for me, if you need a quote, here is the quote: Ive acted appropriately at all times. Ive asked the minister whether shes acted appropriately at all times; she has guaranteed me that she has," Mr Andrews said yesterday morning. In another meeting with the Somyurek "flying squad" earlier this year, Ms Kairouz is recorded saying the Socialist Left faction are "all white" and do not "support women of ethnic backgrounds". Ms Kairouz is of Lebanese heritage. She then complains that even white male politicians in her own Right faction, such as Parliamentary Secretary for Schools Tim Richardson, would not be suspected of branch stacking if they used white people to inflate membership numbers.

Marlene Kairouz and Premier Daniel Andrews in 2018. Credit:AAP "Ill give you an example, if Tim Richardson was able to recruit, and hes a good friend of ours, I dont know why he is not here ... if he goes out and recruits 10 people in the Labor Party they will probably fly him around the country and say ... good on him," Ms Kairouz said. Loading "But if I recruit my sister, my brother, my mum and my dad, Im a stacker. We just got to call it out for the Left as well because they are stackers as well." There is no evidence in the recordings that Mr Richardson actually engaged in branch stacking. Mr Somyurek replies: "If you go to a Left caucus meeting youll think you are at the Ku Klux Klan," before describing former upper house MP Gavin Jennings as "the chief klansman". Mr Jennings, who was regarded as Mr Andrews right-hand man, resigned from Parliament in March before the scandal was revealed. There is no suggestion Mr Jennings is involved in any impropriety and it is understood he is appalled by Mr Somyurek's comments and conduct.

A source close to Mr Jennings said the accusation he was racist was bizzare as he had spent years championing progressive causes, especially in indigenous affairs. His last political act was to introduce a redress scheme for members of the stolen generation. In the same flying squad meeting, senior ALP operative Garth Head offers advice about how to conceal branch stacking by taking out advertisements in local papers calling for new members. "Who gives a stuff if no one responds. It is great cover for the people you are bringing in," Mr Head tells Ms Kairouz and Mr Somyurek. The recordings show Ms Kairouz offered to make a parliamentary employee in Ms Kairouzs office available to work on memberships operations.

When asked by members of Mr Somyureks "flying squad" if the employee can help out with factional activities on Thursday or Friday, Ms Kairouz said: "Yeah, absolutely." Loading In the ministerial conference room meeting, Ms Kairouz is also recorded describing how her office is tirelessly checking branch member forms, a seeming reference to how taxpayer-funded staffers are engaging in party political behaviour. Parliamentary laws outlaw the use of taxpayer-funded staffers to perform a party-specific activity. "I think what you need to do in the short term very quickly  my office has done this already and they are doing it as part of [ALP member] renewals," she says.
The Shannon Group has expressed disappointment with the decision by United Airlines not to resume its seasonal daily service between Shannon Airport and New York/Newark.

Commenting on the closure a spokesperson for Shannon Group said: United Airlines has been a long-standing customer of Shannon Airport for 22 years. In that time their popular New York/ Newark service has provided important air connectivity for people and businesses in the Mid-West and along the west coast of Ireland.

We are disappointed with the decision by United which shows the severity of the devastation in the global aviation sector caused by the Covid-19 crisis. It is widely acknowledged that transatlantic services in particular would be severely impacted and that a recovery would be slow.

The strong passenger numbers that used the airlines New York/Newark service at Shannon, proves the vibrant market there is for transatlantic flights in and out of this region. We will continue to work with them and all our airline partners as they work to re-establish their broader route network and would be hopeful of seeing a return of Uniteds Newark service as soon as possible.

We are pleased that American Airlines, Delta and Aer Lingus have indicated that they will resume their transatlantic services from Shannon in 2021.

However, the ability of our region to rebuild in the aftermath of the pandemic is reliant on having a strong airport and It once again highlights the vital need for a strong Government support package to kick-start recovery.

Meanwhile Sinn Fein TD for Limerick City Maurice Quinlivan today called on the caretaker Government to outline what steps they will be taking to ensure Shannon Airport remains viable.

He warned that the situation is critical as, without urgent government support, the airport will struggle to compete in what is becoming an increasingly difficult market. Immediate intervention is now needed.

Speaking today, DeputyQuinlivan said;This announcement by United Airlines is bad news for consumers, for Shannon Airport and for the mid-west. This follows on Aer Lingus terrible treatment of the Mid-West region and its staff with none of their flights departing from Shannon during the COVID-19 crisis.

United Airlines entry to the market saw more competition in the transatlantic market, resulting in more competitive fares for Irish consumers.

The loss of this airlines services is a real shame, and it will result in thousands of less visitors arriving into the mid-west when flights resume."
An Alabama dry cleaners must pay back waged to resolve a labor complaint, the U.S. Department of Labors Wage and Hour Division announced.

Copeland Cleaners, Inc., a Huntsville-based dry cleaners, will pay $15,385 in wages to 29 employees.

Employers must pay employees the wages they have earned for the hours they have worked. This payment must occur on a workers scheduled payday and not when it is convenient for the employer, said Wage and Hour Division District Director Kenneth Stripling. The U.S. Department of Labor is committed to educating employers and improving compliance with federal wage laws in an effort to protect American workers and level the playing field for law-abiding employers.

WHD said Copeland, which operates as Copeland Cleaners and Wilson Cleaners missed payroll and failed to pay its employees on time.

Update: Copeland Cleaners is not affiliated with Copeland Classic Cleaners in Hartselle. The Department of Labor listed the Hartselle location on its news release.
The writer, an author, former diplomat and is in politics.

Union home minister and former party president Amit Shah held a virtual rally in Bihar

The whole world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic. India is now among the worst affected countries. The number of infections is rising alarmingly. The fatality rates are creeping up.

Hospital infrastructure is under great stress, and in some cases in danger of collapse.

There are reports of crematoriums unable to keep pace with the bodies being brought in. Millions of the urban poor have been displaced. They are living on the brink of survival. The economy has taken a battering.

Production has shrunk, demand has collapsed, exports have plummeted, significant sectors like hospitality and tourism are still closed, unemployment has spiralled to unbelievable heights, supply lines are destroyed, and millions of commercial establishments are close to closure. India is in the grip of a crisis like never before.

In such a grave situation, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Partys proclivity to carry on with politics as usual, as though everything is still hunky-dory, strikes an extremely jarring note.

Union home minister and former party president Amit Shah held a virtual rally in Bihar, which is the next state that will go for Assembly polls. As per reports, some 72,000 LED TVs were installed all over Bihar to facilitate his outreach.

This at a time when millions of the urban poor have returned to Bihar in abject conditions, the state is woefully short of funds, its infrastructure to cope with this influx is pathetically inadequate, the disease is spreading, and misery abounds.

One would have thought that the home minister of the country would eschew partisan politics for the moment and focus on what can be done to ameliorate the situation for those most in need.

The same abrasive approach is seen for West Bengal too. It is true that the state will have elections in April next year, soon after Bihar, and the BJP, as the principal Opposition party, wants desperately to win.

But there is almost a year until then, and there will be a right time for the political slugfest to commence. But the BJP is a party in a political hurry.

It does not wish to postpone its electoral appetite. It does not want to defer its desire to trounce its political opponents immediately.

Irrespective of the magnitude of the crisis gripping the country, it wants to attack chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her ruling Trinamul Congress party, and blow the bugle for electoral battle.

If media reports are to be believed, the same inclination for acrimonious politics, and the same obliviousness to national concerns beyond transient politics, can be seen in the shenanigans going on for the Rajya Sabha elections in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

What kind of priorities does this behaviour display?

A great many people believe that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should, at this critical juncture, take the lead to build a national consensus, set aside partisan politics, make an appeal for unity and harmony, over-arch political differences, and emerge as a catalytic icon for an India robustly united in fighting the worst crisis the country has faced since 1947.

Is this too much to expect? Must we always, in the face of a crisis, squabble among ourselves?

If the ruling party were to take the lead, the Opposition would, I believe, follow. In any case, there is no Opposition worth its name at a pan-India level; individual non-BJP CMs in states are so besieged by the pandemic, that they have little time or energy accept to somehow keep their head above the rising water line of the virus.

In fact, if anything, the largest Opposition party, the Congress, has been remarkably reticent. J

ust imagine, if the Congress was in power, and the BJP were in Opposition, how stridently the BJP would have agitated against the suffering and tribulations of the millions of the urban poor trekking their way home over hundreds of miles, without money, food, or even safe drinking water. Sometimes, our ancient wisdom best illustrates what is happening today.

In the Panchatantra, there is the story of a snake, carrying a frog in its mouth. Even in the face of this imminent threat, the frog seeks to catch a nearby insect. The snake is the terrible threat posed by the coronavirus. The frog is, metaphorically, our nation trying to set itself free.

And the attempt of the frog to catch the insect is akin to the attempt by political parties in India to play acrimonious electoral politics even now, in spite of the imminent larger threat that looms ahead. Apart from the obsession with electoral gain, there is another game afoot.

The Central government appears to be selectively and relentlessly targeting states with non-BJP governments for the manner in which they are handling the pandemic.

With its friendly media in tow, a great deal of misguided energy is being expended in extracting political dividends from the travails faced by such states.

Constructive criticism, from any quarter, is always welcome, but this game of one-upmanship makes a mockery of the need for national unity to face a disease that recognises no difference between the political colour of governments at the state or the centre.

It is now time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to rise above the political fray and make an open appeal for national unity to fight the crisis that the nation is facing. There will be a time when the cacophony of democratic politics can resume.

Until then, both the BJP and the Opposition parties must call a truce and stop pretending that it is business as usual. India must rise unitedly to face the unprecedented challenge that the pandemic poses.

The writer is an author, diplomat and is in politics
[June 15, 2020] Avira Report: Majority of Americans Say They Won't Use COVID Contact Tracing Apps

SAN JOSE, California, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study has revealed that 71% of Americans won't download a COVID contact tracing app, citing people don't trust the technology to protect their digital privacy. The research, commissioned by Avira, was compiled from a June survey; the full report can be read at: https://www.avira.com/en/covid-contact-tracing-app-report. Other key findings from the report include: Americans are twice as likely to trust contact tracing technology provided by Big Tech to keep their data private over government-run apps.

People age 25-44 rank COVID tracing apps as a bigger digital privacy threat than identity theft or cybercrime.

The least-likely age group to use the apps are those most susceptible to the virus: 88% of people 55+ said they do not intend to download.

Government + Healthcare workers are the least likely to download COVID contact tracing apps, with 84% reporting they do not intend to download.

Roughly 40% of Americans said no organization should have access to COVID contact tracing app data; if daa must be shared, people are most comfortable giving access directly to hospitals, followed by Google/Apple and then their state government.

Over 75% of Americans believe their digital privacy is at risk if COVID contact tracing app data is stored centrally so government and authorities can access the data.



Travis Witteveen , CEO of Avira. "Furthermore, most Americans reported they currently trust Big Tech over the government; for the success of this important venture, the technology experts should lead the charge on COVID contact tracing apps." About Avira

Avira provides a consumer-focused portfolio of security and privacy solutions for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, home networks, and smart devices (IoT). All Avira features are available as licensed SDKs and APIs. Working together, Avira and its partners protect more than 500 million devices globally. Avira solutions consistently achieve best-in-class results from independent security tests. Avira is a privately held company headquartered near Lake Constance, Germany, with additional offices in the EU, the United States, and Asia. For more information about Avira visit www.avira.com. Infographic - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190716/Avira_COVID_Survey_1_Infographic.jpg

Infographic - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190717/Avira_COVID_Survey_2_Infographic.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190718/Avira_Logo.jpg View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avira-report-majority-of-americans-say-they-wont-use-covid-contact-tracing-apps-301076848.html SOURCE Avira

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Ghanaians stranded in the United Kingdom (UK) as a result of the closure of borders have decried the stringent conditions placed on their return to Ghana.

Reports coming from London, UK, indicate that a large number of Ghanaians are wondering how they could meet the conditions set out by the Ghana High Commission requiring that they bear the cost of travel and quarantine.

Documents from the High Commission reveal that each person is to bear the cost of travel on KLM and the cost of staying in 2 to 4-star hotels ranging from GHC500.00 to GHC600.00 with the total amount paid directly to selected hotels prior to travel.

All passengers are also to note that they will cover the cost of the mandatory 14-day quarantine with a possible extension to 21 days depending on individual cases. The cost of the quarantine as indicated below PER NIGHT MUST be paid directly to a selected hotel before passengers are allowed to travel, a notice from the High Commission demanded.

The Mission is requiring that they pay this before the scheduled flight slated for Friday, June 17, 2020.

This has triggered reactions from the affected persons who think the conditions would eventually deter them from taking advantage of the opportunity to return home.

A stranded Ghanaian, who decided to speak on condition of anonymity, noted, that, most of us came here for some specific reasons including visit, meetings or conferences; how can we raise this huge amount to return home, having been left to our fate in a foreign land for some months now?

Per the costs, one is to make available a minimum of GHC7,000.00 for 14 days of quarantine in addition to the airfare. This could go higher if they need to stay longer.

Those with return tickets on KLM or Air France are allowed to use those tickets at no extra cost. However, those who went to the UK with other airlines are to buy fresh tickets.

We know of many hotels with lower fares that can be used for this exercise so we wonder how government could go for only the high cost ones. We could be made to choose from some of them to reduce the burden, though the current ones are subsidized, one of them complained.

We are not against paying for our air ticket, we are not against being quarantined, we are saying, let us self-quarantined or better still offer other hotels which charge lesser than these 3 hotels. Besides, even here in the UK, there are decent hotels that cost less than 50 pounds per night, another retorted.

According to some of them, they contacted officers at the Ghana High Commission in London, who claim they had no hand in the arrangements since they were acting on the instructions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, thus couldnt do anything about the rates.

The stranded Ghanaians also raised issues over stigmatization, especially considering how the process is being carried out. The erroneous impression is being created that those who return from outside are carriers of the disease. Something must be done about it to save us from being ostracized by our families and neighbors when we return home.

A large number of Ghanaians are currently stranded in several countries as a result of the closure of borders due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Efforts are being made to repatriate some of them but the conditions for the exercise are deterring many of them.
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Ghana has considered plans to introduce blood plasma as part of treatment options for those infected with the virus.

Under the initiative, Covid-19 patients with moderate and severe conditions would be given the plasma transfusion from recovered patients, to aid their recovery.

As a result, the National Blood Service (NBS) is beginning the collection of blood plasma from recovered patients for onward transfusion to yet-to-be recovered patients.

The NBS is working very closely with the Ministry of Health, Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Covid-19 treatment team to prepare convalescence plasma (CP) from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 for transfusion, as an empirical treatment to patients with severe or life-threatening Covid-19 infection, said Dr. Justina Kordai Ansah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NBS.

Speaking on the sidelines during the commemoration of the World Blood Donor Day on June 14, under the theme: Safe Blood Saves Lives, Dr. Ansah said the move is based on the fact that patients who recover from diseases like Ebola and Covid-19, appear to have robust immune response to the infection.

Antibodies in the plasma of recovered patients can be transfused to other Covid-19 patients to aid their recovery from the infection  once there is no vaccine this is the best line of treatment, she explained.

Dr. Ansah added that the method is being used in other countries like Mauritius and said people are recovering.

She said the NBS is hoping to start the collection as soon as funds are released by the Ministry of Health for the purchase of consumables.

We have the plasma forensics machine; we have the protocols; and approval from FDA, we are waiting on the Health Ministry to provide funding for consumables, she said.

In this regard, Dr. Ansah encouraged recovered Covid-19 patients to step forward and donate blood to save the lives of other patients in critical condition.

At the moment we have the list of those who have recovered and we want people who have recovered to come forward when we call so that they can be part of this process.

Once we start that, people who have moderate or sever Covid-19 can be treated with the plasma, she said.

Daily Guide
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and spread across the nation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval to a plethora of quickly devised tests based on a small number of lab studies. However, top medical experts believe it is time to determine just how accurate they are.

The mass approval was made after FDA was criticized for delaying new tests amid the crisis. Criticism mounted following the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's failure to produce and distribute test kits to multiple states.

In recent weeks, preliminary studies found potential problems with some of the tests, including one used by the White House, the Associated Press News reported. Faulty test results could contribute to flare-ups of the disease as states slowly reopen, leading scientists to demand better evidence of the test's accuracy.

False Positives

The World Link reported a case of a false positive involving a patient at the Bay Area Hospital. The unnamed patient tested positive despite not having a history of exposure or many symptoms associated with COVID-19.

The result surprised healthcare officials, prompting them to order another test using a rapid test kit that detects the virus within 13 minutes or less. The second test, which came out within an hour of the first test, came back negative.

The doctors at the Bay Area Hospital ordered a third test to confirm the negative result. The third test was sent to the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory where the testing equipment had a higher sensitivity rate than the Abbott rapid testing machine used by the hospital.

While the test took longer to process, the hospital announced in a press release that the patient was negative for the coronavirus.

Stricter Regulations

In May, the U.S. FDA imposed stricter regulations on antibody tests to reduce unreliable test offerings in the market. The federal agency now required antibody test makers to seek an emergency use authorization to market their tests, the Wall Street Journal reported.

To get the necessary authorization, the test would have to be 90 percent sensitive to be able to detect antibodies, and 95 percent specific to identify the absence.

However, even with tests that hit those criteria, the chance for false positives can still outmatch true positives if the community infection rate is too low.

For example, a test that is 90 percent sensitive would still pick up 10 false negatives when used to test 100 people.

Health experts fear false positives would cause a person to become less cautious because they believe they have immunity to the virus.

Antibody tests work by gauging the presence of disease-fighting bodies that stay after a patient has been exposed to the virus. Many of the antibody tests came from China and other countries in Asia.

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'The redrawing of the map with the inclusion of Kalapani area by Nepal and endorsement from the House of Representatives shows the KP Oli government's move to gain cheap popularity in the name of nationalism'

'There are reports that the move was designed after receiving signals from Beijing. If so, it is unfortunate'

Nepal and India have no option other than holding talks to find a permanent solution to the border dispute amidst a rift in the country's leadership and its move to gain "cheap popularity" in the name of nationalism could backfire on the land-locked Himalayan nation, experts and senior journalists in Kathmandu said on Sunday.

Nepal's ruling and opposition political parties on Saturday voted in unison to amend the Constitution to update the national emblem by incorporating the controversial map incorporating Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in India's Uttrakhand, a move described by New Delhi as "untenable."

Reacting to Kathmandu's move, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Saturday that "this artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues."

"The redrawing of the map with the inclusion of Kalapani area by Nepal and endorsement from the House of Representatives shows the KP Oli government's move to gain cheap popularity in the name of nationalism, which could be counterproductive," said senior journalist and Aarthik daily editor Pralhad Rijal.

Rijal warned that the Oli government's move has created a dispute over the land between Nepal and India, and its repercussions could be costly.

"There are reports that the move was designed after receiving signals from Beijing. If so, it is unfortunate," he said, apparently referring to the growing involvement of cash-rich China in Nepal's political and economic spheres.

He said Prime Minister Oli's recent move can also be analysed in the wake of the growing power tussle between him and his rival within the ruling Nepal Communist Party, chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.

"The prime minister had to prove himself more nationalist to maintain his hegemony within the party," he said.

The Oli government is also facing criticism from various quarters over its response to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of people in different cities have been staging protests for the past few days after the government repeatedly overplayed its role in the fight against COVID-19 that has infected 5,760 people and killed 19 people.

The majority of the COVID-19 fatalities in the country have been confirmed posthumously, The Kathmandu Post reported.

Noting that Nepal was dependent on India for 75 per cent of the imports to fulfill its daily necessities, Rijal said, "It seems that the government might not have thought about its long term implications."

"Therefore, the situation may turn adverse for our economic well being if the relations worsen. We can learn lessons from the blockade from the south half a decade back, when China could not be much helpful. China can do nothing other than speak some sweet words, as the Northern neighbour cannot be a substitute to India so far as our economy is concerned," he emphasised.

Political analyst and senior advocate Dinesh Tripathi said there was no option for both countries other than holding a dialogue and seeking political settlement of the problems.

"We need broad based and intense negotiations for resolving the issue and Nepal needs to show matured diplomacy," he said.

After the endorsement of the new map by the Parliament, a deficit of trust has occurred in the bilateral relations and track two diplomacy is required to adopt confidence building measures, Tripathi said.

"We should try to reach out to people in India who are friendly and our well-wishers to bring the Indian government to the negotiating table," he said.

Atul K Thakur, a political analyst, wrote in The Kathmandu Post that the failure of both sides to find common ground through diplomatic talks is worrisome.

"The immaturity the top leadership has shown by engaging in ruminations and exchanging distasteful is undesirable. Such immaturity doesn't help anyone one but those who feed on public resources and harm public interest knowingly or unknowingly," he wrote.

"The establishments in India and Nepal should repose faith in strong bilateral relations and sit at the negotiation table. Considering the sensitivity of the matter no space should be given to it on the streets of Kathmandu or the studios of ailing TV newsrooms in India, he noted.

Brigadier General (retd) of the Nepal Army Prem Singh Basnyat, however, differed with other experts and said, "India not respecting Nepal's territorial integrity and sovereignty has been the root cause to spoil the age-old friendly relations between the two countries."

He emphasised that India should maintain the relation with Nepal in a true friendly and neighbourly spirit.

"India would do itself more favour if it considered respecting the sovereignty of Nepal, sitting for talks to settle the border disputes and honoring the age-old Nepal-India relations," he wrote in an article in the Republica newspaper.

The India-Nepal bilateral ties came under strain after defence minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8.

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.
A video of two news anchors of a Pakistan-based news channel has surfaced on social media. The video begins with both anchors taking a sip of the juice and promoting the brand. They even elaborated on the offers that come with the juice. The anchors added that people can win free mobile data on purchasing it.

The clip seems to have left netizens in splits. Many wrote funny comments on a Twitter post containing the video.

2-in-1. Abb Takk news anchors sell juice during bulletin. pic.twitter.com/yn5nRDePEH Naila Inayat   (@nailainayat) June 13, 2020

Reacting to the video, one user said, Why did they say ,Welcome back ... ?!! ..the ad break just continued... and gave an official tone to the product, while others referred to the news bulletin as juicy.

Quite juicy news bulletin  Pramod Kumar Singh (@SinghPramod2784) June 13, 2020

Another netizen said what the anchors would do if they have to promote a toilet paper brand.

What will they do if they have to do a toilet paper ad Pankaj Gulati (@panky101) June 13, 2020

Citing the anchors comment in which they asked people to scratch the code on the juice pack, a user put out a video of a bear scratching his back against a tree.

A doctor and columnist named Mohammad Taqi, expressing his views on the incident said, The bipolar world we live in: anchors peddling nestle while the news ticker underneath records morbidity and mortality from COVID19 in KP.
New Delhi: Amid an unabated rise in coronavirus cases in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a consultation with chief ministers on Tuesday (June 16) and Wednesday (June 17) on ways to check the spread of the virus as India exits the lockdown. The PM is expected to seek suggestions from the Chief Ministers and draw up a common strategy in deciding the future course of action to deal with the strategy.

The two-day virtual meet comes against the backdrop of a rising number of coronavirus cases in the country. This would be the PM Modi' sixth round of consultation with the chief ministers, the last being on May 11.

On Tuesday afternoon, Modi will hold a video-conference with Chief Ministers, Lieutenant Governors and administrators of 21 states and Union territories. These include Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, the northeastern states, and some Union Territories.

A day later on Wednesday, PM Modi will interact with Chief Ministers of 15 states, some bring worst-hit by the infection, and the LG of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday. These include high caseload states like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh.

Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired an all-party meet over surge in coronavirus cases in the national capital. The meet was attended by AAP MP Sanjay Singh and members of BJP, Congress, BSP and SP.

India saw a jump of over 11,000 novel coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, taking the total number of infections to over 3.32 lakh, while the toll rose to 9,520 with 325 more deaths.
[June 15, 2020]

SOTIO to Present New Preclinical Data on IL-15 Superagonist, SO-C101, at the 2020 AACR Virtual Annual Meeting II

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SOTIO, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company and Cytune Pharma, both owned by PPF Group, announced that they will present new preclinical data on SO-C101, an IL-15 superagonist currently being studied in a Phase 1 trial for the treatment of advanced solid tumors, in a virtual poster presentation at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting II being held from June 22-24, 2020.



Poster presentation details

Poster title: SO-C101 displays strong anti-tumor effect in TC-1 and TRAMP-C2 tumor mice and in combinatio with PD-1 blockade prevents tumor development in a NK and CD8+ T cells dependent manner Abstract: 6686 / 2 Session: Session PO.IM02.20 - Immunomodulatory Agents and Interventions 3 Date/Time: Monday, June 22, 2020, 9:00 a.m.  6:00 p.m. EDT







Cytune Pharma is responsible for the clinical development of SO-C101, SOTIO is sponsor of the Phase 1 clinical trial.

Company contact: Media contact: Richard Kapsa

Head of Communication

T: (+420) 224 174 448

M: (+420) 603 280 971

[email protected]

Kirsten Frazer, Ph.D.

LifeSci Communications

T: +1 646-863-0222

[email protected]



About SOTIO

SOTIO is shaping the future of cancer immunotherapies by translating compelling science into patient benefit. SOTIOs robust clinical pipeline includes a differentiated superagonist of the attractive immuno-oncology target IL-15, a platform to streamline personalized active immune cell therapies and a new generation of potent and stable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). SOTIO is a member of the PPF Group. For more information, please visit the companys website at www.sotio.com .

SOTIO is a registered trademark of SOTIO a.s. in selected countries.
After weeks of euphoric buying, volatility has made its way back to Wall Street. COVID-19 continues to take a heavy toll on the stock market, with a slew of new infections in the U.S. and China sending the stock market on a downward spiral.

However, some stocks are holding up better than others. Small-caps have been charging forward, with the Russell 2000 outpacing the broader market since hitting a low point on March 23.

Bearing this in mind, we used the TipRanks database to locate three small-cap companies that combine that positive niche position with a low cost of entry. These stocks will cost less than $8 per share to buy into, and offer potential growth of 40% or better.

Ceco Environmental (CECE)

Well start with Ceco, an industrial company focused on air purification systems. The company offers equipment and solutions for air scrubbing tech, dampers and diverters, industrial ventilation, and silencers to customers around the world. Cecos products are used in the oil and gas, power, battery manufacturing, and wastewater industries, among others.

Ceco finished 2019 on a positive note, with $67.7 million in bookings and a backlog of $216.6 million. These numbers bode well for the companys future, and have helped it to maintain profitability during the corona pandemic. In Q1, Cecos 15-cent EPS beat the forecast by 36% even as revenues missed expectations.

Looking ahead, the company is expected to show continued growth in Q2, with revenue reaching as high as $86 million. The forecast for the full year 2020 is for over $358 million on the top line.

Roth Capital analyst Gerry Sweeney sees CECEs story as a simple one, about a company that does things right and is poised to benefit from that: The COVID impact remains tough to gauge, but after several years of operational refinement, a solid balance sheet and mix of short, medium & long cycle businesses, CECE is prepared for the tide to recede.

To this end, Sweeney says "CECE looks attractive for a small cap industrial platform company." The analyst rates the stock a Buy along with a $9.00 price target, which implies a healthy 54% upside. (To watch Sweeneys track record, click here)

Story continues

Overall, Wall Street agrees with Sweeney on Ceco. The companys Strong Buy consensus rating based on a unanimous 5 Buys, all set in the past few weeks. The average price target of $9.20 suggests a premium of 56% from the current share price of $6.02. (See Ceco stock analysis on TipRanks)

Aspen Aerogels (ASPN)

Next up on our list is Aspen Aerogels, a leader in the industrial insulation market. Aspens products offer high-performance thermal insulation, flexible enough for uses across a range of industries. The company specializes in aerogel insulation, designing, developing, and manufacturing its full line of products.

Aspen was hit hard by corona, as the economic shutdowns strangled the need for insulations. The share price lost over 50% in the initial market fall, and has not truly recovered.

At the same time, with many states moving to reopen their economies, Aspen is preparing for a potential surge in demand. Its important to note here that the company beat expectations in Q1 even as it lost 13 cents per share; forecast had been for a 23-cent loss. The Q2 outlook is a 20-cent loss; Aspen believes it can clear that bar, too.

Craid-Hallum analyst Eric Stine writes that Aspen is well-positioned for the resumption of economic activity, with a solid balance sheet and pent-up demand offering the prospect of customers lined up through 2H20 into 2021.

While not surprising that it withdrew its 2020 guidance given the unprecedented level of uncertainty in the market, we continue to believe that ASPNs value proposition and foundation remains strong and its core maintenance business resilient Aspen Aerogels should see meaningful multi-year growth given a disruptive product offering with a compelling value proposition, blue-chip customer list, [and] low penetration (~4%) of the massive $3B energy insulation market, Stine noted.

Stines $12 price target is in line with his upbeat outlook, indicating an impressive potential for 65% growth in the coming year and fully supporting his Buy rating. (To watch Stines track record, click here)

Once again, the Streets aggregate view is also bullish. The unanimous analyst consensus of Strong Buy is based on 4 reviews, and the $10.25 average price target implies an upside of 41%. (See Aspen stock analysis on TipRanks)

Kaleyra (KLR)

Last but not least is Kaleyra, a cloud computing company that offers communications platforms and tools on the popular SaaS model. Products include SMS and voice calling, along with communications data insights and global contact numbers.

In the second half of 2019, KLRs earnings turned positive, but the COVID-19 epidemic brought that to a halt. The European operations are based in Milan, Italy  and northern Italy was particularly hard-hit by the virus. That outweighed the advantages of cloud-based communications systems in a telecommuting environment, and KLR reported a steep net loss in Q1. EPS came in at negative 35 cents.

Kaleyra proved itself relevant in the crisis, however. The company made available a free texting service for Italys emergency medical services. The system allowed medical providers to keep in contact with each other and with potential patients while maintaining physical distance.

For investors, however, probably the most important number here is 21%. That is the companys year-over-year revenue growth. The top line reached $33.6 million in the first quarter, even with the epidemic.

Northlands 5-star analyst Michael Latimore covers KLR shares, and he was impressed enough by the company to assign a Buy rating. His $17 price target shows the extent of his confidence  it suggests a whopping 193% upside potential. (To watch Latimores track record, click here)

In his comments, Latimore acknowledges that Kaleyra suffered disproportionately from COVID-19. Yet, the analyst went on to tick a list of pros: Posted 21% growth despite CV19 issues in March. Has 0% customer churn among largest accounts, and 80% of revenue comes from customers that have been with KLR for over one year. Volumes improving in Italy over past few weeks. Ecommerce related services are up. Won new customers, such as the Red Cross.

This ticker, being new to the stock market, only has 3 analyst reviews on record  but all three agree that this is a stock to buy, making the analyst consensus a unanimous Strong Buy rating. Shares are priced at $5.75, and the average target of $12.83 implies an upside of 121%. (See Kaleyra's stock-price forecast on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for small-cap stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
Sinn Fein MLA Deirdre Hargey has announced she is temporarily stepping aside from her role as Communities Minister for health reasons.

In a statement, the South Belfast representative said she has been admitted to hospital and will be undergoing surgery in the coming days, which will require time to recover from.

Former Executive minister Caral Ni Chuilin is to fill the position until Ms Hargey's return.

Ms Hargey was co-opted to the Assembly to replace Mairtin O Muilleoir in December last year and was installed as Communities Minister following the reformation of the Executive in January.

The former Lord Mayor of Belfast said she has informed the First and Deputy First Ministers of the news, as well as Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald.

"Due to illness I have been admitted to hospital, and am to undergo surgery in the coming days, which will require time to properly recover," she said.

In light of these exceptional personal circumstances I am unable in the short term to discharge my ministerial duties, or participate fully in the Executive Committee.

"I have also written to Joint Heads of Government Michelle O'Neill and Arlene Foster to inform them of my decision to stand aside from my ministerial post.

"I look forward to being able to resume ministerial responsibilities in a number of weeks following my treatment and recovery."

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill wished her colleague well in her recovery and thanked her for the "excellent work" she has done to date.

"I look forward to her returning to that post on her recovery and hope she will be back behind her desk as soon as possible," she added.

I am appointing Caral Ni Chuilin as Minister for Communities on a temporary basis until Deirdre Hargey's return.

"I wish Caral well and know that she will bring a wealth of experience, determination and dedication to the post."
Something like this has been long overdue from BP,'' said Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, arguing that its dividend is unsustainable. "Having seen its sector peer Royal Dutch Shell bite the bullet and cut its dividend a few weeks ago, it would appear that BP is likely to have to follow suit, if it wants to reduce its already high debt levels and shore up its balance sheet for the new challenges ahead.''


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Black and female principal candidates more likely to experience delayed and denied promotions

WASHINGTON, June 15--Black and female assistant principals are systematically delayed and denied promotion to principal, compared to their White or male counterparts, despite having equivalent qualifications and more experience on average, according to a new study. The findings were published in June in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed, open access journal of the American Educational Research Association.

* VIDEO: Watch study coauthors Sarah Guthery and Lauren Bailes discuss study findings and implications (https:/ / www. youtube. com/ watch?v= 5O4EzZSZBsI )

For their study, authors Lauren Bailes at the University of Delaware and Sarah Guthery at Texas A&M University-Commerce assessed the probability of and time to promotion for 4,689 assistant principals in Texas from 2001 to 2017, using data from the Texas Education Agency. The authors identified assistant principals serving in their first year and analyzed their progress to promotion, if it occurred. While principal promotion processes vary by district, assistant principals in the study had earned a master's degree and acquired a principal's license, which are the minimal credentials needed to qualify for promotion to principal in Texas.

Bailes and Guthery found that after holding education, experience, school level, and school location constant, Black assistant principals were 18 percent less likely to be promoted than White candidates who were equally qualified. When the Black candidates were promoted, their average time to promotion was 5.27 years, while the average wait time for their White peers was 4.67 years, leaving a 0.6-year gap attributable to race.

The authors found a difference in promotion by gender when they looked specifically at high school principalships. While women comprised half of high school assistant principals--and nearly two-thirds of all assistant principals--in Texas, women were 5 to 7 percent less likely to be promoted into high school principalships than men. As women gained more years of experience as assistant principals, their likelihood of promotion, in fact, decreased relative to their male peers. Women who did become high school principals waited longer, spending 5.62 years as an assistant principal versus 4.94 years for men, leaving a 0.68-year gender gap.

"Even though more diversity in the teacher and principal workforce has been shown to improve teacher retention and student outcomes, our findings indicate that there are still systematic race- and gender-based inequities within the profession," said Guthery, an assistant professor of education at Texas A&M University-Commerce. "This is despite a teacher corps that is overwhelmingly female and becoming more racially diverse."

While prior research has identified gaps in promotions at the top levels of education leadership, such as principals and superintendents, Bailes and Guthery identified inequities much earlier in the education leadership pipeline by focusing on time to and probability of promotions once an individual has self-selected into the leadership track.

The authors found that women and Blacks had more years of experience even before becoming assistant principals. Men who became high school assistant principals had 1.25 years less experience on average than women who entered high school principalships. In elementary and middle schools, the gender gap was even larger, mounting to 1.62 years.

"At every point of promotion, the pool of candidates is whiter and more male, especially compared to the teacher workforce," said Guthery. "We find that diversity exists in the pipeline, but the pipeline tends to squeeze out women and Blacks much earlier than studies of school leadership usually capture."

Bailes and Guthery also examined the differences between women's promotions across elementary, middle, and high schools to identify the ways in which women are promoted within education careers. They found that even when women worked as assistant principals in high schools for a longer time and had more career experience than their male counterparts, they were more likely to be promoted to principal in elementary schools than in high schools. This had implications for their future opportunities in higher levels of leadership, according to the authors.

"Because a high school principalship is so often viewed as requisite for district leadership, women who lead elementary schools are less likely to be tapped for superintendencies and other district leadership positions," said Bailes, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware.

The authors note that considering the enormous influence that principals exert on teachers and students, the systematic non-promotion of Black principal candidates imposes consequences for Black teachers and students throughout the entire school system.

"Because principals and district leaders are more likely to identify educators of their own race for promotion, the underrepresentation of minority groups is likely to ripple throughout schools and districts," said Bailes. "Prior research also shows that hiring more Black principals can help close the achievement gaps between White and non-White students nationally."

According to the authors, the patterns of disparities in leadership identified in their study suggest that state and district policymakers should consider establishing metrics of success within their school systems that rate equity in promotion for equivalently qualified individuals who aspire to school leadership.

"Administrators, such as principals and district leaders, need to identify and actively nurture diversity in all levels of leadership," Bailes said. "It is crucial that districts monitor inequities in their promotion practices."

###

About AERA

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Italian universities admit refugee students Protocol foreign ministry, UNHCR, Caritas, Valdensians, Gandhi

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 15 - Eleven Italian universities are joining forces to launch university 'corridors' to offer to refugee students coming from countries at war or affected by calamities the opportunity of continuing to pursue their studies in Italy, UNHCR announced in a statement.



The UN Refugee Agency signed a protocol with the universities, the foreign ministry, Italian Catholic charity Caritas, the Valdensian community and the Gandhi Cahrity. The project, which is a continuation of a pilot project that kicked off in 2019 with the participation of two universities and six students, will involve 20 refugee students who are currently in Ethiopia. They will be supported to pursue a two-year university degree and integrate in campus life.



The project, called University Corridors for Refugees (UNI-CO-RE), involves the universities of L'Aquila, Bologna, Cagliari, Florence, Milan, Padua, Perugia, Pisa, Sassari, Iuav in Venice and Luiss in Rome. ''Too many refugees in the world don't have access to education'', said Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR representative for Italy, the Holy See and San Marino.



''The situation is dramatic for higher education: only 3% are able to access against a global average of 37%. Thanks to the work of the universities involved, projects like UNI-CO-RE not only allow refugees to reach Italy safely but also to develop their talent, contributing to the local community and giving once again hope to millions of children and youths who are currently in exile due to war and persecution''.



Students will be selected based on merit, through a public competition and by committees of experts selected by each university. By 2030, UNHCR pursues the objective of reaching an enrollment rate of 15% in higher education programs for refugees in host and third countries also by widening safe access pathways that take into consideration specific needs and legitimate aspirations of refugees. (ANSAmed)
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Fancy a glass of Nosecco?

The alcohol-free sparkling wine might not be to everyones taste, but its catchy name caused a fight between a French group and the Italian producers of Prosecco. The outcome could have implications for companies looking to ride the trend toward alcohol-free alternatives to traditional drinks and vegan offerings that strive to look and taste like meat and dairy products.

While familiar packaged-food brands, such as Kraft macaroni and cheese and Nestles Hot Pockets, enjoyed a revival during the pandemic, the long-term prospects remain brighter for products that are perceived as healthier. Just look at the rise of the vegan sausage roll sold at Greggs Plc. Its arrival prompted the U.K. baker to upgrade its profit forecasts several times in 2019.

In fact, with the unprecedented focus on health precipitated by the novel coronavirus outbreak, the opportunities for categories such as fake meat, fish and eggs may be even bigger.

What happens in the Nosecco case could be a lesson for the upstarts.

Nosecco has been sold in the U.K. since 2017, and Les Grands Chais de France, the countrys largest independent wine producer responsible for J.P. Chenet and Chemin des Papes wines, wanted to establish a trademark for it. It was challenged in 2018 by a consortium representing the northeast Italian region where Prosecco is produced, which said the name brought to mind the Italian wine, which is protected by European rules on origin.

The French company argued the name was never meant to rival Prosecco in the U.K. Instead, it was chosen to capture the drinks alcohol-free quality while playing on the fact that it wasnt sec, or dry, like the Italian wine, but rather sweet.

But the U.K.s Intellectual Property Office found in favor of the Italian producers, deciding that in the minds of consumers the name Nosecco evoked the hugely popular Prosecco. There was a serious risk, it said, that consumers would believe the drink was in fact non-alcoholic Prosecco. Les Grands Chais de France is now appealing the decision in the High Court.

Story continues

The company is not alone in facing delicate marketing issues when it comes to new food categories. It has long been debated whether dairy alternatives can be classed as milk. In Sweden, thats culminated in a milk war between the countrys dairy industry and Oatly, a Swedish manufacturer of oat milk. Theres no clear winner, but the skirmish doesnt seem to have done Oatly any harm: Oat milk is hot around the world right now. In what could be a challenge to the rise of meat substitutes, some U.S. states, including Arkansas and Mississippi, have sought to restrict the use of terms such as burgers and dogs. (Mississippi now allows plant-based food makers to use some terms so long as they carry modifiers such as meat-free.)

Naming battles will likely crop up between competing alternative-food makers, too. Just last week, Nestle SA, the worlds biggest food company, said it would rename its Incredible plant-based patties as the Sensational burger. The move came after a Dutch court upheld an injunction filed by Impossible Foods Inc., citing a trademark infringement. Nestle said it will appeal the ruling.

What is clear is that producers of everything from lupin burgers to non-alcoholic gin must work hard to stand out. While there is huge growth to be had, the competition will be stiff. Traditional food companies and brewers are piling in, too. Drinks giant Diageo Plc last year acquired a majority stake in Seedlip, the non-alcoholic spirit maker.

There is no doubt that Nosecco was a stroke of marketing genius. But it has ended up in a protracted legal wrangle. Amid the shifting landscape for alternatives, producers will need to be innovative and creative with their branding. The Vegetarian Butcher, the meat-substitute maker acquired by Unilever Plc in December 2018, is perhaps a good example.

Its not always easy to get the message across that a dish or drink is a vegan or non-alcoholic version of an old favorite, and in an appealing way, but marketers will need to dig deep. Otherwise, as Nosecco has shown, they could have a fight on their hands, and thats not very appetizing for anyone.

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

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During the nearly two weeks since authorities charged at peaceful protesters to push them from D.C. streets  about 30 minutes before President Trump walked through the area for a photo op  his aides, the attorney general and federal law enforcement officials have sought to shield the president from political fallout with a simple defense: One scene, they say, had nothing to do with the other.

The notion that the street-clearing offensive around Lafayette Square was already planned, and separate from Trumps decision to visit a nearby church, has emerged as the administrations central explanation.

However, the accounts of more than a half-dozen officials from federal law enforcement, D.C. public safety agencies and the National Guard who were familiar with planning for protests outside the White House that day challenge that explanation. The officials say they had no warning that U.S. Park Police, the agency that commanded the operation, planned to move the perimeter  and protesters  before a 7 p.m. citywide curfew, or that force would be used. (Washington Post)

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Texas records its highest number of COVID-19 hospitalizations so far in outbreak (CBS News)

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After the tragic death of Sushant Singh Rajput, many public personalities are being vocal about their battles with depression and mental illness, and are providing support to others who may be going through the same things. Deepika Padukone finds this new social media movement heartening.

Comedian and actor Danish Sait recently took to his Twitter handle to share his struggles with depression. Deepika replied to his series of tweets by writing that she is heartened to see him come out and share his experience with mental illness.

Danish tweeted, "My 3rd year through therapy and anti depressants, I don't sleep at night without taking my cipralex tablet. Depression doesn't look like anything, it makes you feel like nothing from within. Hard to describe, harder to understand. Doctors / professionals have been my only hope."

My 3rd year through therapy and anti depressants, I dont sleep at night without taking my cipralex tablet. Depression doesnt look like anything, it makes you feel like nothing from within. Hard to describe, harder to understand. Doctors / professionals have been my only hope.  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

To this, Deepika replied, "It is extremely heartening to see soo many of you coming out and sharing your experience with mental illness."

ALSO READ: After Sushant Singh Rajput's Death, Shamita Shetty Opens Up On Battling Depression

In another tweet, she added, "However,I would recommend not naming the medication you are on and/or the specifics of the dosage.Simply because: -it is not a one rule fits all. - the information could potentially be misused."

However,I would recommend not naming the medication you are on and/or the specifics of the dosage.Simply because:

-it is not a one rule fits all.

- the information could potentially be misused. https://t.co/uDDjoZgvNb  Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) June 15, 2020

In light of Sushant's death by suicide, Deepika had written that one is not alone in their battles. As a person who has a lived experience with mental illness, she wrote that she cannot stress enough on the importance of reaching out. "There is hope," she added.

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput's Kedarnath Co-Star Sara Ali Khan, And Others Condole His Death

Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM
Bengaluru, June 15 : Domestic returnees and rising infections in contacts of earlier Covid cases continued to pummel Karnataka pandemic burden, with 213 new infections raising the state's tally to 7,213, an official said on Monday.

"New cases reported from Sunday 5 p.m. to Monday 5 p.m. 213," said a health official.

Like every day, domestic returnees were the highest among the new cases, accounting for 103 or 48 per cent of the cases.

Returnees with Maharashtra travel history constituted 85 or 83 per cent of all the returnees.

There were also 23 cases with international travel history to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Meanwhile, contacts of earlier cases turning positive are showing an upward trend with 60 such examples.

On Monday, cases spiked in Kalaburagi, Bengaluru Urban, Dharwad, Dakshina Kannada, Raichur, Yadgir, Bidar and Ballari.

Among the new cases, Kalaburagi contributed 48, followed by Bengaluru Urban (35), Dharwad (34), Dakshina Kannada (23), Raichur (18), Yadgir (13), Bidar (11), Ballari (10), Koppal (4), Vijayapura, Bagalkote and Shivamogga (3 each), Udupi, Haveri, and Ramnagar (2 each) and Hassan and Davangere (1 each).

Twenty-four patients are suffering from influenza like illness (ILI) and four from severe acute respiratory infection (SARI).

Meanwhile, two patients succumbed to the virus, a 65-year-old man from Dharwad and a 75-year-old woman from Bengaluru Urban.

Among the new cases, 130 are males and 83 females, including 14 children below the age of 10 years.

Of the total cases, 4,135 patients have been discharged, 88 have died while 56 are admitted to the ICUs.

On a positive note, in the last 24 hours, 180 patients were cured and discharged, continuing the trend of rising discharges.

However, the number of patients in ICUs has risen from 16 to 56.

On Monday, the health department tested 5,362 samples, out of which 4,738 turned negative, a drastic reduction in the number of tests which usually used to average around 10,000 per day.

In total, 4.40 lakh samples have been tested, of which 4.32 lakh have returned negative.

Currently, Yadgir is leading the state's Covid-19 burden with 516 active cases, followed by Kalaburagi (475), Bengaluru Urban (362) Raichur (310) and Udupi (291), among others.

Bengaluru Urban has accounted for 33 deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (10), Dakshina Kannada (7) and Bidar, Vijayapura, and Davangere (6 each), among others.
Landlords and tenants have a peculiar relationship. However, this one landlord from Karnataka took things to a whole different level.

Going by the video that has surfaced on social media, a landlord allegedly opened fire and threatened his tenants to vacate his property. Reason? It was after a heated altercation over non-payment of rent. The incident reportedly took place in Belgaum district of Karnataka.

The incident took place in Chikodi taluk of the district allegedly over the fact that the tenants were not able to pay the rent since April due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The landlord apparently asked the tenants to either pay him rent money or vacate the property. Before he took the drastic step of opening fire on them, he deducted some amount from the security deposit they had paid him. He asked the tenants to pay the remaining amount.

YouTube

After the tenants were unable to pay up, the owner turned impatient and after a heated argument fired several rounds in the air to scare them off. The tenants recorded the entire incident.

Apparently, the landlord claimed that the tenants attacked him first.

YouTube

A case has been registered against both parties by the local police. According to the landlord, the tenants attacked him with a sickle and he fired the gunshots in self-defence. He further added that he had reduced the deposit and the tenants had promised him that they would pay the remaining amount by May-end.
Team: Patrick Mulhare, of University Hospital Waterford, Dr Denise OMeara, of WIT; and Dr Lee Coffey, of BioEnz Technologies. Photo: Patrick Browne

A team of Waterford scientists is working on a ground-breaking Covid-19 test which will allow for highly accurate virus sample results within just 30 minutes.

The fastest laboratory test for Covid-19 currently requires a two-hour time span for results - and is only available in a select number of hospitals.

A virus test which can deliver accurate, reliable results after just 30 minutes has been described as a potential "game-changer" in the battle against the pandemic.

The team from Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), BioEnz Technologies and University Hospital Waterford (UHW) have secured major funding to fine-tune a virus test to a 30-minute turn-around time.

Such speedy test results will transform the capabilities of the Irish healthcare system in handling the virus - and dramatically reduce the number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals having to go into precautionary self-isolation measures, stripping the health service of vital resources.

The IDA, Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland have confirmed funding of 118,000 to support the Waterford venture.

BioEnz founder Dr Lee Coffey is leading the project which aims to fine-tune a precise test for Covid-19. "The most reliable Covid-19 tests use a technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR," Dr Coffey said.

"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."

The Waterford team now aims to reduce the time needed for an accurate result by 75pc.

"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."

BioEnz will work with the pathology department at UHW under Patrick Mulhare and WIT researchers Dr Orla O'Donovan, Dr David O'Neill, Dr Denise O'Meara and Dr Andrew Harrington.
gettyimagesbank



By Jun Ji-hye



The government is bracing for a second wave of COVID-19 cases in Seoul and the metropolitan area as sporadic infection clusters continue to occur in the densely populated region, the health authorities said Monday.



Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo said 26 out of 27 infection clusters that have emerged since May have occurred in the capital, the nearby city of Incheon and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province.



The cases include those traced to nightclubs in Seoul's Itaewon, and a Coupang logistics center in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province.



"Group transmissions in Seoul and the metropolitan area have become more serious, and concern is mounting regarding a second wave of COVID-19 in the region," Park said during a government meeting on responses to the coronavirus pandemic.



Most recently, Richway, a Seoul-based multi-level marketing company selling health food supplements, has emerged as a new hotbed for the spread of the contagious disease, with the number of cases linked to the firm reaching 169 as of noon Monday.



An infection cluster that broke out at the firm has spread to at least eight other groups, including a Protestant church attended by Chinese immigrants and a call center operated by an investment company in the capital.






The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court (HC) on Monday passed a slew of directives to protect and preserve the 113-hectare Lonar Crater Lake in Buldhana, after it turned pink, owing to a rise in the PH (acidity) and salinity levels of lake water, was reported earlier this month.

During a special sitting on Monday, the HC directed four senior lawyers, including senior advocate CS Kaptan (counsel for petitioner Anand Parchure), state pollution control boards standing counsel Ravi Sanyal and amicus curiae Ashutosh Dharmadhikari, to visit the crater and submit a status report.

The state forest department in its report informed that the samples of the lake water were collected with the help of microbiologists and sent to the Pune-based Agarkar Institute and the Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering and Research Institute (NEERI). The division bench of justice Sunil Shukre and justice Anil Kilor then directed the experts from NEERI to examine the findings on glass surface on the Lonar Crater Lake and submit its report within four weeks. Agarkar Institute was also asked to submit its report.

The bench also directed the irrigation department to collect the water from the lake on a regular basis as well as from the nearby dam at the upper level and make it available for an explanation for comparative analysis to arrive at the conclusion.

Apart from these bodies, the public works department as well as the Buldhana collector were directed to file a report about the possible alternate site for the Lonar-Kinhi Road passing through the ecologically-sensitive zone. If a possible site cannot be found, the court directed the two authorities to take all necessary precautions.

As far as the non-functioning of a nearby sewage water treatment plant and the delay in shifting of 400 tenements and slum dwellers from the area is concerned, the court directed the departments concerned to expeditiously look into the two issues and submit a report on the same. HC directed the police and administration to take necessary action against open defecation with the help of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The bench also directed PWD to hand over the rest house building in a protected zone to the forest department as early as possible.

The shortage of water supply faced by the Lonar Municipal Council and residents owing to the old supply line was also highlighted before the bench and the council was directed to submit a fresh proposal to Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhikaran within the next 10 days.

HC in previous instances, based on several petitions, issued a number of directions to sort out all difficulties in protecting the lake. However, owing to the sudden colour change, questions were raised over the steps taken for the preservation, prompting the court to convene the special sitting.

The 77.69-hectare lake area is a part of the Lonar sanctuary that expands over 3.66 sqkm. It is famous as the worlds largest basaltic impact crater.
A real estate agent has been slammed for sending a laughing emoji in response to a potential buyer's offer for a multi million-dollar property in Sydney.

In a text message exchange shared on Reddit, the agent asked the potential buyer to give him an offer he could 'work with' for the property.

The buyer responded with an offer of $2.6million dollars and a 14-day settlement period, only to be told by the agent the figure was laughable and 'wouldn't fly'.

'I just sold (another property) for about $2.7million, on 695 square metres,' the agent replied, adding insult with a second laughing emoji.

A Sydney bidder was told by their real estate agent their offer of $2.6million 'wouldn't fly' and was sent a series of laughing emojis

The bidder politely replied that while the emoji didn't offend them, it might insult other customers.

'I don't mind the laughing emoji but others may not appreciate it. Thanks anyway. Good luck,' he wrote.

'No disrespect intended,' the agent replied.

'An escort rejecting your mother's credit card has more professionalism than this. Keep it up Sydney Real Estate!' the prospective home buyer wrote online alongside a screenshot of the text exchange posted online.

The texts were shared to Reddit with another user saying their real estate agent had used their open home to throw themself a birthday party

The post was flooded with stories of other shocking behaviour from other real estate agents.

One person said their real estate agent used their open home to throw himself a birthday party.

'He posted on Facebook 'Hey guys, come on down this open house, it's my birthday, let's party!' the person wrote.

'I confronted him about what in the f**k he was doing, 'Aw, I was just having some fun'. Are there any real estate agents who aren't unprofessional f**kwits?'

'Same thing happened to us bidding on a house. It was listed for "offers over $610k" and we offered $615k over the phone. The agent just laughed,' another said.

'A toddler pretending to be a real estate agent would do a better job than this,' one said.
Long queues outside Penneys on Mary Street in Dublin on Friday (Cate McCurry/PA)

Shopping centres have reopened and people are allowed to visit their loved ones in nursing homes and residential care facilities as lockdown measures continue to ease.

The Government had originally not envisaged reopening shopping centres until August 10 but it has been brought forward as coronavirus has been suppressed in recent weeks.

Last Monday, all retail shops reopened, with hundreds turning up to queue at major retailers such as Ikea and Zara.

Shopping centre owners have been given time to modify the inside of the buildings to ensure there can be safe social distancing.

Seating and dining areas will be removed to lessen dwell time among shoppers while people will be advised not to browse for long periods of time.

To enforce social distancing, there will be limits on the number of customers allowed into stores.

People will be allowed to visit nursing homes and residential care facilities following a ban on non-essential visits since early March.

Sage Advocacy, which campaigns for vulnerable people and patients, said people are counting down the minutes to see their loved ones again.

Executive director of Sage Advocacy Mervyn Taylor said many families had suffered heartbreak and loss during the pandemic.

He said: We also recognise how difficult it has been for nursing staff, carers and all workers in care homes and residential care facilities.

Expand Close Marcela Benetti, a cleaner at one of the temporary public toilet facilities installed by Dublin City Council, on streets in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Marcela Benetti, a cleaner at one of the temporary public toilet facilities installed by Dublin City Council, on streets in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

We need to learn important lessons from the impact of Covid-19 and acknowledge that it is time to integrate private nursing homes into the wider framework of health and social care and ensure that there are clear responsibilities for clinical and infection control oversight of all congregated care facilities for older people.

People have been advised to ring ahead before they visit a nursing home and to wear a face covering and gloves, and visits should not last more than half an hour.

The Government has also launched a public information campaign on wearing face coverings.

They are not mandatory but people have been advised to wear them on public transport, in enclosed spaces and when visiting older people.

On Sunday, it was reported that one more person with Covid-19 died in Ireland, bringing the overall death toll to 1,706.

A further eight cases were confirmed, bringing the total number of cases to 25,303.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Moscow, Russia  Mon, June 15, 2020 07:47 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeace85 2 World Russia,US-Russia,Vladimir-Putin,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-infection,pandemic,SARS-CoV-2,virus-corona,novel-coronavirus Free

President Vladimir Putin said in a televised interview Sunday that Russia had been more successful in dealing with the coronavirus than the United States.

He contrasted the situations in the two countries, saying in Russia, "We are exiting the coronavirus situation steadily with minimal losses, God willing, in the States it isn't happening that way."

Russia on Sunday confirmed 8,835 new virus cases, taking the total to 528,964, the third highest in the world.

Regions are gradually lifting lockdown restrictions and Moscow has reopened non-essential shops and hairdressers.

The United States has the world's largest number of cases by far at 2.07 million.

Putin told state television the coronavirus pandemic had exposed "deep-seated internal crises" in the US.

He criticized a lack of strong leadership on the virus situation, saying that "the [US] president says we need to do such-and-such but the governors somewhere tell him where to go."

"I think the problem is that group interests, party interests are put higher than the interests of the whole of society and the interests of the people," he said.

Questions over under-reporting deaths

In Russia, however, he argued, the government and regional leaders work "as one team" and do not differ from the official line.

"I doubt anyone in the government or the regions would say 'we're not going to do what the government says, what the president says, we think it's wrong,'" Putin said of the virus strategy.

When the northern Caucasus region of Dagestan suffered particularly hard from the virus, "the whole country rallied to help", he said.

Russia has so far reported 6,948 COVID-19 fatalities, a fraction of the US total of 115,436 deaths, although critics have suggested that the remarkably low number could be down to under-reporting.

Russia has now begun giving fuller information on deaths, including cases where coronavirus appeared to be the cause but was not detected by tests, as well as cases where the virus was confirmed but not considered the main cause of death.

Using this new method, Russia on Saturday published official figures for virus deaths in April of 2,712, more than twice the figure of 1,152 previously reported by the task force.

This represents a death rate of 2.6 percent among those infected, while officials said the death rate for May and early June would be higher.

Inequality a 'long-standing' US problem

Putin also criticized anti-racism protests in the United States for sparking crowd violence, in his first comments on the issue.

"If this fight for natural rights, legal rights, turns into mayhem and rioting, I see nothing good for the country," the Russian leader said in his televised broadcast.

He stressed he supported black Americans' struggle for equality, calling this "a longstanding problem of the United States".

"We always in the USSR and in modern Russia had a lot of sympathy for the struggle of African-Americans for their natural rights," he insisted.

But Putin added that "when -- even after crimes are committed -- this takes on elements of radical nationalism and extremism, nothing good will come of this."

Putin also described the protests as a sign of "deep-seated internal crises" in the United States, linking the unrest to the coronavirus pandemic, which he said "has shone a spotlight on general problems".

He said he nevertheless expected that the "fundamental basis of American democracy will allow the country to escape this series of crisis events".

The interview was billed as Putin's first since the start of the pandemic, but it is not clear when it was recorded.
Philip Russell Archibald, 29, allegedly ran a steroid distribution ring that spanned across north Texas

A north Texas bodybuilder - who has been tied publicly with the anti-government Boogaloo movement and used his social media accounts to advocate vigilante 'guerrilla warfare' against the National Guardsman  has been charged with conspiring to sell steroids.

Philip Russell Archibald, 29, of Lancaster, a self-proclaimed bodybuilder and personal trainer, allegedly ran a steroid distribution ring that spanned across north Texas.

In March 2019, agents discovered Archibald's fingerprints on a zip-lock baggie filled with steroids, which his co-conspirator Danielle Bocanegra, 30, sold to an undercover officer for $900.

They later tracked several packages of steroids sent via the US Postal Service to Ms. Bocanegra's residence to several USPS kiosks used by Archibald.

Last July, agents followed Archibald from his residence to a local post office, where he allegedly mailed a priority mail flat rate box.

Members of the National guard gather as people demonstrate during a protest against the Minnesota arrest of George Floyd, who later died in police custody, in Dallas, Texas on June 1. Prosecutors claim he used his social media accounts to advocate vigilante 'guerrilla warfare' against National Guardsman

Prosecutors claimed in a recent social media post he claimed to be 'hunting Antifa' and threatened to 'kill' looters amid Black Lives Matter protests. An Instagram post appears to show him supporting the Black Lives Matter movement

In one Instagram post, Archibald (third from right) stands near a man holding a 'Boogaloo for Floyd' sign. It's followed by the acronym 'ACAB (All Cops Are B*****ds)'

Pursuant to a federal search warrant, the agents seized the parcel and sent the contents to the USPIS Forensic Laboratory, which identified 64 red capsules containing known steroid compound, oxandralone.

It's unclear where the investigation led from there but this year on June 8, agents searched Archibald's home, where they claim to have found steroids and multiple firearms.

Prosecutors said at a detention hearing that he is threat to the public, noting a recent Facebook post where he allegedly claimed to be 'hunting Antifa' and threatened to 'kill' looters amid Black Lives Matter protests.

His Instagram posts express an attitude of anti-police brutality and in one post he says we need to normalize seeing armed black people.

In a video posted to his Instagram profile he compared the protests to his own protesting for the economy to be reopened after lockdowns.

He said while they were fighting to be 'essential', black people were fighting to be essential.

His Instagram posts express an attitude of anti-police brutality and in one post he says we need to normalize seeing armed black people. In a video posted to his Instagram profile he compared the protests to his own protesting for the economy to be reopened after lockdowns

The Court granted the government's motion and ordered that Archibald be detained pending trial.

'Drug trafficking and violence go hand in hand. Whether we are talking about Mexican Cartels and methamphetamine or illegal steroids and vigilantes, all pose a real threat to the safety and security of our Nation,' stated Steven S. Whipple, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Houston Division.

'DEA, along with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, remain especially focused on bringing to justice those drug traffickers who use, or threaten to use violence in any way or for any purpose.

Both he and his alleged co-conspirator face up to 10 years in federal prison.
EAST HAVEN  The Hagaman Memorial Library, 227 Main St., will start the second stage of its reopening on Monday, Library Director Bruce George said.

The library building will remain closed to the public during the second stage, but will reopen its outside book drop boxes for the return of library materials, offer curbside pickup of library materials and offer curbside service for the photocopying and faxing of essential documents, George said

The librarys public service hours for answering telephone calls and curbside services will be:

Monday: 1:30-5 p.m.

Tuesday: 1:30-8 p.m.

Wednesday: 1:30-8 p.m.

Thursday: 1:30-8 p.m.

Friday: 1:30-5 p.m.

The reopening of the outside book drop boxes in the second stage will end the curbside return of materials offered at the back public entrance of the library building during the first stage of the librarys reopening. Library patrons now will be able to return all library materials to the outside book drop boxes, which will be open 24 hours.

Beginning in the second stage, library patrons will be able to reserve items for check-out. Patrons also will be able to reserve items owned by the Hagaman Memorial Library by using the online card catalog with their library accounts, or by calling the library at 203-468-3890.

Once the requested items are processed, patrons will be notified and will receive an appointment to pick up the materials during curbside service hours. Patrons will pick up materials in a designated area of the parking lot. Curbside pickups will be entirely contactless for the safety of patrons and library staff.

Curbside materials are checked out for three weeks and may be renewed online through patron online accounts, or by calling the library. Patrons renewing items can do so if no one else has requested them, and if the renewal limit has not been reached on materials.

All materials are to be returned to the outside drop boxes. All returned library materials will be quarantined for 72 hours. Only after the quarantine period will materials be checked in.

Returned library materials will still appear on patron accounts until after the 72 hour quarantine time is up, at which time the materials will be checked in and taken off patron accounts. There will not be overdue fines charged on returned materials during the months of June.

With the second stage of reopening, library patrons can call the library to schedule curbside service for the photocopying or faxing of essential documents. The cost of photocopying will be $.25 for black and white copies, and $.50 for color copies. The cost of faxing is $1.50 for the first page and $1 per page after the first page.

While the library is working through stages of reopening, its website (www.hagamanlibrary.org) has a variety of resources with eBooks, eAudiobooks, and other digital resources such as periodicals and research databases. In addition, library staff is providing additional online services including virtual programming for all ages and the librarys website can be checked for virtual programming.

Call the library at 203-468-3890, or check the librarys website for updates on the librarys reopening.

CORRECTION: Because of incorrect information provided by the Hagaman Memorial Library, an earlier version of this story contained an incorrect phone number for the library. The correct number is 203-468-3890.
This reaction is caused by the decision of the Czech Republic to declare two Russian diplomats, involved in a scandal surrounding an assassination attempt on Czech politicians, persona non grata

Following the declaration of two Russian diplomats persona non grata by the Czech Republic, Russia told the Czech ambassador to Moscow that it would do the same against two Czech diplomats, Reuters reports with reference to RIA news agency.

These are the "mirror measures" that have been recently announced by the press secretary of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.

"The most important thing is that it will not only be a reciprocal mirror or symmetrical measures but of course it will be taken into account in building the course towards this state," Zakharova said.

As we reported earlier, according to Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babis, expelled Russian diplomats were the authors of a fictional story about the planned poisoning of Czech politicians with a deadly poison - ricin.

"Data from the Information Security Service clearly indicate that the whole story arose as a result of an internal struggle at the Russian Embassy in Prague, and one of them (diplomat - ed.) sent targeted information about the planned attack on Czech politicians to the BIS," he said.

Babis noted that the situation complicated relations between the two countries.
As per the state governments instructions, Covid-19 positive patients showing mild symptoms can undergo home isolation instead of getting admitted in hospitals.

Divisional commissioner Deepak Mhaisekar in a press conference on Monday said, Residents having mild symptoms can take treatment at home, but those showing serious symptoms like high fever should need to immediately contact a medical officer.

Mhaisekar said that the state government had issued the guidelines for home isolation for those patients who have separate room along with individual toilet facility.

The coronavirus positive person should need to stay in his room only. The utensils used by him should be cleaned by soap. Even the cloths and all equipment utilised by the positive resident should need to be cleaned properly.

The caretaker should need to ensure that the positive patient has not contracted any serious symptoms related to Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The used mask should be destroyed properly.

Earlier, the Pune municipal commissioner said that as there are enough bed facility in Pune, they are hoping for institutional quarantine. But as the state government issued the circular for it, now administration is allowing to do home isolation facility, but the person should need to give affidavit for it.
When the instructor asked him to describe his life in two words, Walter Enriquez chose carefully: fear and violence. He had spent decades as a policeman in Peru during the bloodiest days of armed conflict between government forces and guerrilla fighters that killed nearly 70,000 people. But he said that nothing could have prepared him for the extreme isolation and loneliness that come with quarantine. Having lost a handful of his friends and neighbors to the coronavirus pandemic, the 75-year-old retiree has turned toward art therapy programs offered by the Queens Museum to improve his mental health.

We cannot go outside and enjoy our lives like before, Mr. Enriquez said in Spanish, translated by his daughter. But art helps us capture the past and relive positive experiences to get through pain and sadness.

Every Thursday, he waits patiently at the computer for class to begin. For 30 minutes, he fidgets with the colored pencils, pens and papers at the desk inside his daughters apartment in Richmond Hill, Queens. And with those tools he creates scenes from his life based on prompts from his instructor: portraits of his mother and friends; images of Goyaesque, nightmarish demons representing disease that when rendered on paper feel less threatening.
GRANTS PASS, Ore., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Grants Pass Downs will kick off its summer racing season tomorrow, Tuesday, June 16. The 8-race opening day program will feature the Shady Cove Stakes, with a full field of 10 thoroughbreds competing for a purse of $12,000 at a distance of five furlongs. The meet will boast more than 80 races scheduled over nine dates  June 16, 17, 23, 24, 30 and July 1, 6, 7 and 8  with $60,000 available in purses each day. Post time is set for 4:00 p.m.

Lighting was installed this spring to facilitate twilight racing, and the track was widened to support bigger fields. Thanks to a grant from the Oregon Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (OTOBA), Grants Pass Downs was also able to complete a number of other safety-focused projects including the installation of a new retaining wall, fencing, breakaway distance markers and additional sand to improve the track surface. The stall area was also expanded to accommodate up to 450 horses to meet growing demand. Those stalls are now nearly full as hundreds of horsemen and women from around Oregon and across the West have come to Grants Pass to participate in the meet.

"The uncertainty of these times hasn't dampened any of the enthusiasm we've felt from our partners in the racing community since commercial racing came to Grants Pass last year," said John Everly, racing secretary at Grants Pass Downs. "Demand remains very high, and even with the addition of more stalls in the barn area and fields expanding from eight to 10 horses with the widened track and an expanded starting gate, races should be pretty full throughout the meet."

In accordance with current Oregon state health guidelines amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the meet will be held without fans in attendance. Racing fans unable to attend due to the current public health guidelines are encouraged to watch and wager at TVG.com and other advance-deposit wagering (ADW) websites, as well as at participating off-track betting (OTB) locations around the state. Grants Pass Downs has also expanded its wagering menu and will offer two new bets during the Summer Meeta fifty cent Jackpot Pick Five with a $5,000 guaranteed pool and a 15% takeout rate, and a one dollar early Pick Four. For a list of participating ADW sites and OTB locations, visit https://gpdowns.com/wagering/.

"The health and safety of our athletes, staff, partners and guests is our highest priority, and we have put new protocols in place to ensure a safe, fun environment for all as we resume racing operations," said Rod Lowe, director of racing and chief operating officer at Grants Pass Downs. "We'll be encouraging the use of masks or face coverings by all guests. Additionally, hand sanitizer stations have been set up in high traffic areas throughout the premises, and social distancing reminders  like signage and floor markings  have been posted throughout the premises."

Grants Pass Downs will allow a maximum of 250 nonessential people on site on racing days, including owners and their guests, sponsors and corporate partners, and members of the media.

ABOUT GRANTS PASS DOWNS

Located at the Josephine County Fairgrounds, Grants Pass Downs has hosted live pari-mutuel horse racing since 1968 and is now home to the largest race meet in the state of Oregon. More information about Grants Pass Downs can be found at www.gpdowns.com.

Media Contact:

Ryan Asbury, Finn Partners

[email protected]

(626) 487-2561

SOURCE Grants Pass Downs

Related Links

https://gpdowns.com


If there's one book that should be required reading for all, it is Martin Luther King's 'Strength To Love'.

Published in 1963 - the defining year of the civil rights movement - it's a masterpiece manifesto on the power of love, tolerance, forgiveness and reconciliation.

The truth, he says, is found neither in the thesis nor in the antithesis, but in the synthesis which reconciles the two. In other words, listening to the opposing view and finding common ground is the way towards resolving conflict.

He advocates "tough-minded tender- heartedness" as a key strategy of non- violence, the "third way" open to activists in the quest for freedom.

"Non-violent resistance combines tough-mindedness and tender-heartedness: avoiding the complacency and do-nothingness of the soft-minded, and the violence, bitterness and corroding hatred of the hard-hearted."

His words resonate louder than ever today.

I'm re-reading MLK, as civil unrest rips through cities across the USA, sparked by the asphyxiation of George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose last breath was squeezed out of him under the knee of a cop.

Peaceful protesters hope this national tragedy can be an opportunity for change, yet their vital call for racial justice in America threatens to be drowned out by riots and violence.

Sincere campaigners are muffled by the loudhailer voice of the online mob, the public shamers and the prigs, more concerned with their own moral superiority and with slurring others than progress.

They want to shout down and alienate, not invite in and enlighten.

Their aim is not equality, but a reversal of power. An eye for an eye - leaving everyone blind.

Their "common enemy" form of identity politics is a warped inverse of King's "common humanity" brand, which made him the most successful civil rights leader in history, a martyr who died for his cause.

Where is King's legacy now? Why has his message been lost? We have forgotten his wisdom: "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

Or his warning that if we succumb to the temptation of violence in the struggle for freedom, we will leave behind a "long and desolate night or bitterness, a never-ending reign of chaos".

Instead, his quote that seems most prescient now is: "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

It rightly describes the Pharisee elements clinging on the coat-tails of the Black Lives Matter movement, threatening to derail its fundamental aim, which is of the utmost importance.

The modern-day Pharisees - who also hijack feminist and gay rights issues - want rewards for being hyper-woke, but really their intention is to label, shame and punish.

They are watchful virtue-signallers, obsessed with pointing out the sins of others. They are judgemental and do not believe in forgiveness or redemption.

Theirs is a pathological dualism: they see humanity itself as divided between the unimpeachably good and the irredeemably evil. You are oppressed or oppressor. Impact is all, intent counts for nothing.

The cause is demeaned by sanctimonious keyboard warriors such as those harassing Ellen DeGeneres for using the phrase "people of colour" when she expressed support for BLM on Twitter. "Say black and open your purse" they sneered, demanding absolute purity.

What's the purpose? Enmity?

Another bullying tactic to silence and control is shrieking at others on social media as "racist". Dismayed at the rioting? You're not a pacifist, you're a racist. Call out the phony virtue-signalling? You're not astute, you're racist.

It's too powerful a word to be relativised into meaningless.

It's counter-productive - and certainly wouldn't challenge prejudices. As MLK's confidante Andrew Young said recently: "You don't help an alcoholic by constantly calling him a drunk."

American academic and author John McWhorter understands the damage it wreaks. "Woke anti-racism" is a new religion, he believes, and "social media shaming is tantamount to the excommunication of the heretic".

"The focus has morphed from a pragmatic mission to change minds into a witch hunt driven by the personal benefits of virtue signalling. It's a dead end."

British cultural commentator Ayishat Akanbi says the problem with wokeness is that it replaced compassion with moral superiority.

"A big element is shaming people, which is not the goal of any social movement. Compassion is paramount to any form of progress," she says.

"We have a lot more in common together than we do apart. What is radical is understanding each other. Arguing isn't radical - it's very conformist actually."

Don't fall into the trap of conflating the Pharisees' meddling with the integrity of the Black Lives Matter campaign. For those honest about the path to progress, all roads lead to Martin Luther King.

A basic principle of sociology is that identity politics divides, instead of unites. The more we point out differences, the more separate we become.

When I feel despondent about how far we now seem from King's vision, I remember his favourite proverb: "Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. No one was there."
Volunteers care for Imani Williams, center, after she was pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets during a protest June 1 at the White House. (Kay Brandon)

Her mothers phone number has faded from her arm. Imani Williams wrote it there in black Sharpie on June 1, before heading to the White House to protest George Floyds killing.



Her eyes are no longer swollen from the pepper spray law enforcement agents used on the largely peaceful crowd.

But the deep bruise on her left hip had not gone away more than a week later. Its where the 22-year-old from Fresno was struck by a nonlethal round fired by officers in riot gear who were clearing the way for President Trump to walk to St. Johns Episcopal Church so he could be photographed holding a Bible and looking stern.

In the aftermath of the Washington, D.C., protest, Trump and his staff denied that authorities used tear gas to drive the crowd out of Lafayette Park.

No tear gas was used, and no rubber bullets were used, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters two days later.

FAKE NEWS! the president tweeted.

A protester helps wash out Imani Williams' eyes after she was pepper-sprayed. (Kay Brandon)

Williams wants you to know what happened on that day. She wants you to know about the clouds of gas, the sting of the baton, the thud of the rubber bullet against her body, how fast her heart beat as police horses bore down.

And she doesnt want the world to forget that the president advocated using force against his own citizens as they demonstrated against racism and police brutality in the nations capital.

With each passing day, that second wish, at least, seems closer to coming true.

On Thursday, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was wrong to have joined the president on his controversial walk through Lafayette Square and that his presence in uniform undermined the principle of an apolitical military.

Just hours later, three women who protested June 1 at the White House filed suit in federal court against the president and his administration, alleging that law enforcement action to disperse the protesters violated their constitutional rights.

"Our president has made it scary for me to be Black in this country," plaintiff Radiya Buchanan, 27, said in an interview, "to be a Muslim in this country, to be a woman in this country, a sister to Black men, a daughter to a Black man."

Story continues

A day earlier, more than 1,250 alumni of the U.S. Department of Justice wrote a letter decrying Atty. Gen. William Barrs possible role" in ordering the protest to be suppressed. Federal authorities in riot gear, they wrote, reportedly fired rubber bullets, chemical gas, smoke canisters and stun grenades at peaceful protesters, and otherwise used excessive force, physically injuring many people.

Those included Williams, who came to Washington from Californias conservative heartland to attend Howard University. Today, shes a barista, a bartender and a poet, out of work since March, when the novel coronavirus shut the country down.

I went out Monday, not just for me and my family, but for everyone who could not go out because of COVID, she said. To stay on Instagram all day and repost things I agree with, that wasnt enough.

Williams learned about racism in her hometown as the child of a Black father and white mother. And she learned about activism at her mothers knee; Stacy Williams is a longtime Fresno community organizer who was involved in protests after video of a white high school cheerleader in blackface went viral in 2019.

Asked about growing up in the heart of the Central Valley, Williams laughed.

Oh, Fresno, she sighed, then told a story about going to the grocery store when she was 8 with her mother and two brothers, who were 5 and 10. The family had moved to Fresno from nearby Merced a year earlier.

Her mother, she said, had always taught them to behave, not to touch anything on the shelves, to stay close, hold on to the cart. On that day, 15 years ago, they were walking down a grocery aisle when an older white woman approached them.

She stopped and looked at us. All she said was, Ugh, this is disgusting. She walked away, Williams recounted. Me and my brothers were very confused. I looked at my mom and said, What happened? She said, She was jealous that you are beautiful.

My mom raised me to be a Black woman, Williams said. I didnt know I was mixed race until Fresno. We were the only Black people in that grocery store, a Vons. It was always the little things, in the grocery store or even at school, being the only Black person in class.  Im the only Black barista in my coffee shop.

Williams is named for the seventh principle of Kwanzaa, faith. She still lives near Howard University. On June 1, she grabbed her camera and backpack and headed to the White House at about 1:30 p.m. The protest was calm and peaceful, she said. There were kids and dogs, prayers and chanting.

At around 6:30 or so, she said, the law enforcement presence grew. She saw a row of police officers on horses. Behind them was a row of officers in riot gear, the pepper spray and rubber bullet shooters. A flash bomb went off, then another. After the third, she said, they charged us.

I tried to go to my right, away from the horses, Williams said. Thats when I got hit on my left side with a baton, on my chest.  I yelled Dont touch me! Thats when two pepper-spray bullets hit my left eye. I screamed, I got hit. I was trying to run into the crowd to get help.

Other protesters offered first aid. Some had jugs of milk and spray bottles of baking soda and water to wash chemicals out of burning eyes. As Williams turned, holding her left eye, she said, she got shot with what she described as two rubber bullets and another pepper-spray projectile.

It was the worst feeling in the world, she said. I honestly didnt think I was going to see after that. Someone said, Get down on your knees. Were going to wash you up.

It took almost half an hour to rinse Williams eyes, she said, in part because they had to keep moving as law enforcement agents swarmed.

She had run into a friend, a 30-year-old photographer and security guard named Kay Brandon, as the melee progressed. She handed him her phone and camera. She showed him her arm where shed written her mothers phone number. She asked him to call home for her.

Brandon had just returned that afternoon from Minneapolis, where Floyd died with a white police officers knee on his neck, the epicenter of the national unrest. Brandon had documented the protests and their aftermath, the burned buildings, smoke and heat still rising from the rubble. And there he was, in the middle of it again.

Straight chaos is how he described the capital that afternoon, tear gas everywhere, protesters shot with rubber bullets.

Williams, he said, was visibly shaken. She was going through it. She had a white powder substance on her clothing where the impact of the tear gas hit her. Her left eye was swollen. She was having an anxiety attack.

But as Brandon and another protester helped calm the injured woman, the volume of screams around them rose. He grabbed his camera and said, We gotta go. The National Guard began clearing them away, he said, for the president to take a picture. It was all chaos.

When Stacy Williams fear for her daughter wore off, anger quickly replaced it. Shed seen video of the protest, footage of her daughters eyes being washed clean of pepper spray, photos of the perfect red circle on her daughters hip from the impact of a rubber bullet.

And then she heard the administrations early response to law enforcement behavior at the presidents front door.

I see her wounds. Someone called me and said, I have your daughter, but shes been hit, and were washing out her eyes, Stacy Williams said in an interview. You go through all that, and then you see the president and press secretary say nothing like that happened.

Its infuriating. The truth has to be told.
The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience will advance research and the science of treatment for Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders

LAS VEGAS - June 15, 2020 - The UNLV department of brain health has formally launched the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience, offering hope through scientific discovery for patients who are suffering from Alzheimer's, dementia and other brain and neurological diseases.

The Center is the latest in a series of milestones from the department of brain health and the School of Integrated Health Sciences to better understand how a healthy brain functions, to improve care and treatment of people with brain diseases, and to identify mechanisms of brain disorders. The Center will drive research, track the progress of clinical trials around the world, and provide learning opportunities in the science of developing treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

"The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience will advance the science of brain health in tangible ways to transform the lives of millions of people affected by neurodegenerative diseases today and into the future," said Ronald. T. Brown, dean of the School of Integrated Health Sciences.

The Center will be led by UNLV research professor Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, who previously served as founding director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research at UCLA and founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. Dr. Cummings is a renowned clinical trials and Alzheimer's expert. He has published nearly 800 scientific papers and 44 books devoted to Alzheimer's, clinical trials, and treatment development.

"The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience will allow our programs at UNLV to be in the forefront of learning how to get more and better treatments to patients faster. We are building the foundation for cures," said Dr. Cummings.

At the heart of the Center is its clinical trial observatory. This unique scientific platform is dedicated to tracking most Alzheimer's disease clinical trials throughout the world, acquiring data from the successes and failures of each trial, enabling researchers to learn how to improve trials and accelerate drug development.

"The observatory will strengthen the science of treatment development and systematically reveal how to make trials better, faster, and cheaper," said Dr. Cummings. "Application of these lessons will accelerate treatments to dramatically improve people's lives."

The Center is made possible thanks to a $6 million pledge from philanthropist Joy Chambers-Grundy and the late Reg Grundy. Mr. Grundy was a successful and well-loved Australian entrepreneur best known for his many television productions, which remain popular with audiences throughout the country.

"My darling late husband, Reg, and I have always been drawn to support this wonderful cause that aims to end the suffering for so many people," said Joy Chambers-Grundy. "Our fervent hope is that scientists across the world can collaborate with Dr. Cummings and other top researchers at UNLV to find treatments for brain disorders and help people thrive in their daily lives."

The Chambers-Grundy gift also supports an endowed chair for Dr. Jefferson Kinney, professor and chair of the UNLV department of brain health and an endowed professorship for Dr. Cummings. The center was formally approved by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents at its June meeting.

###

The UNLV department of brain health was launched by the School of Integrated Health Sciences in 2019 to advance research, education, and practice to benefit brain health and the care and treatment of people with brain disorders. The department's faculty specialize in basic and clinical research in neurodegenerative disease, neuropsychology, and occupational therapy.
Long live international peace!: Sharkey in dock

Long live international peace! were the last words of the Communist Party General Secretary Lance Sharkey before being sentenced to the maximum period of three years jail for sedition at Darlinghurst court on Monday.

A rustle of astonishment and anger swept the crowded court as Judge Dwyer pronounced sentence.

The leader of the Australian militant workers, who all his life has fought for world peace and for the advancement of the working-class, was then led away to the Labor Governments jail.

He will be released from it as the result of a mighty campaign in which not merely every worker and every democrat but every fair-minded man and woman will join.

In his address to the judge, before sentence, Mr Sharkey said that there had not been many previous convictions for sedition in Australia.

The first case was that brought against Peter Lalor, leader of the Eureka rebellion; the others were against Hugh Mahon (a member of the Federal Labor Party, for a statement in connection with the Irish war of independence) and the late Percy Brookfield.

Singled out

Mr Sharkey added that a large number of Communist Party spokesmen in different parts of the world had made statements somewhat similar to his at the time he made it.

I am the only one to be prosecuted, he said.

As to the question of fascism referred to in his alleged statement Mr Sharkey said: It is true that there is no open Fascist movement in Australia today but such things can develop and it was such a development I had in mind.

I certainly believe it would have been much better for the German people and the world had they themselves suppressed the Fascist movement in its early stages.

Hypothetical question

Explaining his reference to Soviet Russia Mr Sharkey said:

I would like to make it clear that it is no part of the outlook or the program of the Communist Party to expect Soviet troops come to Australia to establish Communism.

That has been dealt with by the great founder of the Communist movement such men as Marx, Engels and Lenin  and they are very clear and definite.

They said that one nation, where the Socialists were victorious, could not by force impose Socialism on another nation; that in endeavouring to do so they would create conditions that would undermine their own Socialism

So I said to McGarry it was a hypothetical question and I did not see a great deal of point in discussing it in this manner.

Fight for peace

We see any social changes as being the work of the Australian people.

We have no policy or program which calls for the coming to Australia of Russian troops.

Mr Sharkey said he regarded the most important part of his interview as that in which he said the task of the Communist Party was to take a leading part in the fight for international peace.

So far as the Communist Party was concerned the all important thing was that it should do everything in its power to stop war.

The Communist Party gets very few opportunities to put its view in the daily press and I felt that, if I could get that part of my message over, it would satisfy me.

I have no feeling of guilt for what I did.

Long live International peace!

Judges comments

Judge Dwyer said sedition was a crime aimed directly at the community.

You, Sharkey, have spoken words calculated and intended to incite disaffection and to promote feelings of illwill and hostility as between different classes of persons in this country and so to prejudice the peace, order and good Government of the Commonwealth.

Your words were very obviously spoken in anticipation of wide publicity being given them and under conditions apt to create the greatest possible mischief.

You claim to have spoken on behalf of the Communist Party, and your claim to do so has never been questioned. Neither were your words spoken casually or by way of foolish indiscretion or hot headed temperamental harangue.

On the contrary they were the result of a deliberate pre-determination to effect a malign and traitorous purpose.

Attacks [CPA]

That purpose was to present and recommend a policy involving disloyalty to Australia so as to excite disaffection.

The very proviso introduced by you in a cunning but futile attempt to protect yourself from deserved punishment is to my mind manifestly indicative of those guilty and treasonable motives from which you spoke.

Sedition, it has been said, is a crime allied to that of treason and it frequently precedes treason by a short interval.

Maximum penalty

Over the Communist Party and its seditious or treasonable conspiracies I have neither jurisdiction nor power and it is to the appropriate authorities that I perforce must leave the task of adequately safe-guarding the community in that regard.

Mr Justice Dwyer said he would impose the maximum sentence allowed by the law, three years imprisonment.

He concluded Remove the prisoner!

Clean record

Earlier two detectives gave evidence that Mr Sharkey had no previous conviction. One of them had known him for ten years, but knew nothing detrimental to his character apart from the present proceedings. A large number of workers gave three cheers for Mr Sharkey as he entered the court.

This article originally appeared in Tribune October, 1949
'Path to Profitability' strategy delivers 92% year-over-year revenue growth,

building a robust platform for sustainable profitability and accelerated growth in 2020.

DENVER, June 15, 2020 /CNW/ - Dixie Brands Inc. ("Dixie" or "the Company") (CSE: DIXI.U) (OTCQX: DXBRF) (Frankfurt: 0QV), one of the cannabis industry's leading consumer packaged goods ("CPG") companies, today announced its 2019 financial results. All figures are stated in U.S. dollars.

"2019 was a challenging year for the cannabis industry in many ways, and I couldn't be more proud of the way the Dixie team has responded with the roll-out of our 'Path to Profitability' strategy." said Chuck Smith, President and CEO Dixie Brands. "In Q3 2019, we introduced a roadmap to becoming a self-sustaining business before the end of 2020 and that strategy has delivered immediate and impressive results, with material cost management driving dramatic improvements to the bottom line while continuing to fuel top line revenue growth. The solidification of our commercial base will provide an exceptional platform for accelerated growth in 2020."

2019 Financial Highlights

Revenue increased 92% to $11,096,959 in 2019, compared to $5,791,451 in 2018. Revenue growth was driven by sustained presence, increased dispensary penetration and brand recognition in established markets, increasing traction in the key California market, continued growth in Michigan, and the introduction of new product offering.

Gross profit of $4,532,261 in 2019 was up 50% from $3,017,902 a year earlier due to higher revenue. As a percentage of revenue, the gross margin for the twelve months ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 was 41% and 52%, respectively due to inventory adjustments, renegotiated contracts and the upfront cost of scaling production to meet the increased demand in new markets, California , Michigan and Oklahoma , specifically. The Company expects a compression in margins as new markets open, with margins ultimately expected to improve as efficiencies and economies of scale are realized.

and 2018 was 41% and 52%, respectively due to inventory adjustments, renegotiated contracts and the upfront cost of scaling production to meet the increased demand in new markets, , and , specifically. The Company expects a compression in margins as new markets open, with margins ultimately expected to improve as efficiencies and economies of scale are realized. Net loss attributed to the Company in 2019 was $20,140,089 compared to the 2018 loss of $20,293,058. $7,927,787 of the total loss for the year is attributed to non-cash expenses related to depreciation, bad debt, amortization and the issuance of stock and stock options to key management and third-party consultants. A quarter-over-quarter comparison demonstrates the impact of the 'Path to Profitability Strategy' introduced in Q3 2019 with a quarterly net loss of approximately $6.6M in Q1 reduced to approximately $1.9M in Q4 with no loss of sales efficiency or momentum.

of the total loss for the year is attributed to non-cash expenses related to depreciation, bad debt, amortization and the issuance of stock and stock options to key management and third-party consultants. A quarter-over-quarter comparison demonstrates the impact of the 'Path to Profitability Strategy' introduced in Q3 2019 with a quarterly net loss of approximately in Q1 reduced to approximately in Q4 with no loss of sales efficiency or momentum. Dixie had $892,312 of cash and $2,600,000 in Notes Payable at December 31, 2019. The lower cash balance reflected the cost of funding operations.

"2019 was a watershed year for Dixie Brands, it's first full year as a public company in an industry facing multiple headwinds and an increasingly challenging capital market." said Chuck Smith, President and CEO Dixie Brands. "Despite those challenges, the company demonstrated incredible resilience and agility, achieving multiple milestones on its path to building a sustainable platform for long-term stable growth for our shareholders."

2019 Operating Highlights

Finalized a binding agreement with Herbal Enterprises LLC, an affiliate of the AriZona Beverages brand. Considering the emerging and evolving nature of the cannabis industry, this partnership is a testament to Dixie Brands' unparalleled heritage in formulating, producing and commercializing cannabis-infused brands and products. A collection of THC-infused branded products is expected to be launched in the second half of 2020.

Confirmed expansion into the Oklahoma medical marijuana market through a manufacturing and licensing agreement with the stated goal of launching products in market early Q1 2020. Oklahoma is one of the country's fastest growing legal cannabis markets, the sixth state in Dixie's growing U.S. footprint and the second new market opened in 2019.

Dixie subsidiary, AcesoHemp, secured a patent for scientific breakthrough in cannabinoid delivery from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent entitled, 'Cannabinoid Emulsion Product and Process for Making the Same', encompasses a broad set of popular formats and formulations providing for the delivery of cannabinoids, along with nutrients, supplements and vitamins in effervescent powder and/or aqueous liquid forms.

AcesoHemp also secured a number of regional distribution agreements to complement its national partnership with Palko Services to drive retail presence of its line of broad-spectrum cannabidiol (CBD)-infused powder sachets, balms and dissolvable tablets with products available on shelves in approximately 3,000 retail stores.

Dixie Brands was announced as an MJBizDaily Finalist for the US Market Leader  Infused Products award.

Increased Colorado licensing revenue by 116% in 2019 compared to 2018 through organic consumer driven demand demonstrating strong brand health and consumer recognition of our well-established brands.

Increased license revenue in the critical California market by 643% in 2019 compared to 2018 via increased dispensary penetration, brand awareness and consumer driven sales velocity. Dixie's award-winning gummy is fueling that increase, driving into the top 15 gummy brands list.

Consumer demand continued to outstrip supply in Michigan. Optimization efforts in production increased capacity to support phenomenal demand as this key market saw a significant expansion in December 2019 with the transition to recreational sales.

Outlook and Subsequent Events

Dixie Brands made significant investments through the first three quarters of 2019 in order to establish the critical foundation for long term growth based on clearly defined priorities including establishing a strong leadership team and driving geographic expansion. Industry headwinds increased through the year due to changing capital requirements prioritizing increased attention to profitability and positive cash flow over rapid expansion, so in Q3 the company shifted focus to ensure the platform would become self-sustaining by Q4 2020. The introduction of the 'Road to Profitability' strategy and the accompanying revised approach to capital allocation had an immediate impact clearly demonstrated in the full year results. Revenue growth of 43% for Q4 2019 vs Q4 2018 was underpinned by material cost management driving a 79% reduction in total operating loss over the same period, a trend Dixie's management fully expects to continue into Q1 2020.

In order to solidify Dixie's platform for long-term, stable growth for our shareholders, the company has continued to explore capital markets and strategic partnership options with the goal of building on the solid foundations established through 2019 and funding accelerated revenue growth for 2020 and beyond. To that end, Dixie engaged in exploratory discussions with various cannabis companies in the United States and Canada. During those discussions, and after careful consideration by Dixie's management, it became increasingly apparent that a business combination with BR Brands, LLC ("BR Brands") was in the best interest of shareholders and Dixie, and the proposed merger was announced on March 9, 2020.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, BR Brands will combine operations with Dixie by assuming the publicly traded platform via a reverse takeover. This transaction, expected to be completed early in the third quarter of 2020, will create one of the cannabis industry's leading CPG platforms, strengthening the balance sheet of the combined entity and expected to drive upside synergies as well as operational efficiencies, providing long-term, stable growth for shareholders and a best-in-class product portfolio for consumers across the globe.

The combined company establishes one of the cannabis industry's most comprehensive 'house of brands' anchored by two of the most iconic consumer franchises in the market, Dixie and Mary's. The portfolio also boasts two emerging Californian brands in Rebel Coast and Defonce, a deep CBD program including the Aceso and Therabis brands, and the strategic partnership with Herbal Enterprises, LLC, an affiliate of the AriZona Beverages brand. An unrivaled leadership team with deep CPG, financial and capital market experience will guide one of the largest installed manufacturing and distribution footprints for infused products in the cannabis industry with an addressable regulated market spanning 12 U.S. states and territories.

"The challenges of the current cannabis related capital markets have guided Dixie to look for a strategic partner in order to solidify a platform we can leverage for long-term, stable growth for our shareholders. This strategic combination brings two of the most trusted and iconic brands together on one of the broadest manufacturing and distribution platforms in the industry," said Chuck Smith, President and CEO of Dixie. "We are very pleased with the fundamentals of the deal as they will strengthen our balance sheet by decreasing debt, improving our cash position, and providing opportunities to enhance revenue growth and capture greater margin."

Annual Meeting

Management invites investors to participate in a conference call to discuss, among other things, the Company's 2019 financial results at the annual shareholders' meeting scheduled for July 14.

The Company has filed its complete 2019 financial statements and management discussion and analysis at www.sedar.com.

ABOUT DIXIE BRANDS INC.

Dixie Brands Inc. is leading the CPG cannabis industry by championing freedom of choice for consumers around the world. Through its licensed partners, Dixie has been perfecting the art and science of creating award-winning THC and CBD-infused products for nearly a decade. A true multi-state operator currently in California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan and Nevada, Dixie is set to expand internationally, including Canada and Latin America. Dixie's relentless commitment to product innovation from fun to functional has earned the brand a place as one of the industry's most recognized consumer brands. Dixie's portfolio features over 100 products across more than 15 different product categories representing the industry's finest edibles, beverages, tinctures, topicals and connoisseur grade extractions, as well as world-class CBD-infused wellness products and pet supplements. To find out more about Dixie's innovative products, visit www.dixiebrands.com.

CAUTION REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

The information provided in this press release may contain "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, made by the Company (or its predecessors) that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements preceded by, followed by or that include words such as "may", "will", "would", "could", "should", "believes", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "expects", "plans", "intends", "anticipates", "targeted", "continues", "forecasts", "designed", "goal", or the negative of those words or other similar or comparable words. Forward-looking statements may relate to future financial conditions, results of operations, plans, objectives, performance or business developments. These statements speak only as at the date they are made and are based on information currently available and on current expectations and assumptions concerning future events, which are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from that which was expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to: (i) the regulation of the medical and recreational marijuana industry in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and other countries in which the Company may carry on its business; (ii) the ability of the Company to obtain meaningful consumer acceptance and a successful market for its products on a national and international basis at competitive prices; (iii) the ability of the Company to develop and maintain an effective sales network; (iv) the success of the Company in forecasting demand for its products or services; (v) the ability of the Company to maintain pricing and thereby maintain adequate profit margins; (vi) the ability of the Company to achieve adequate intellectual property protection; (vii) the availability of financing opportunities, risks associated with economic conditions, dependence on management and conflicts of interest; and (viii) other risks described from time to time in documents filed by the Company with securities regulatory authorities, including the Company's annual information form dated June 21, 2019.

The forward-looking statements contained herein are based on certain key expectations and assumptions, including the expected filing date of the Annual Filings. With respect to the forward-looking statements contained herein, although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements as no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks, including the risks described above. Consequently, all forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by such cautionary statements and there can be no assurance that the anticipated results or developments will actually be realized or, even if realized, that they will have the expected consequences to or effects on the Company. The cautionary statements contained or referred to herein should be considered in connection with any subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements that the Company and/or persons acting on the Company's behalf may issue.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release.

SOURCE Dixie Brands, Inc.

For further information: please contact: Media & Investor Inquiries, Andrew Floor, Dixie Brands Inc, [email protected] / 707-294-8392

Related Links

http://dixieelixirs.com


The president of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) Seamus Lahart has said that teachers want to return to school and will return when it is safe to do so.

His unions members want to engage with their students, but only when it is safe, he told RTE radios Today with Sarah McInerney show.

The TUI has met with the Department of Education 21 times since schools were closed, he said and will continue to work with the department over the summer to discuss the possibilities of a return to school in September.

However, Mr Lahart pointed out that schools are a workplace and he could not see how physical distancing guidelines could be ignored in a classroom setting if they were still in operation elsewhere.

We want to return to work  professionally, responsibly and safely. We will listen and take advice from the health authorities.

Mr Lahart said that if the health authorities say it is safe to return to a classroom with 30 pupils, then they will do so.

Since schools closed, teachers had continued to deliver classes remotely, they had assisted in organising an alternative Junior Cert and in assessing the Leaving Cert, he said, adding: We have done our best for students. If there is a bespoke solution as had been mentioned by the Minister last week, that would enable teachers and pupils to return safely to school then he would like to hear about it, he said.

When asked if the government were to decide it was more important for children to return to school than to observe physical distancing, would teachers return to work, Mr Lahart said he could not see how physical distancing guidelines could be ignored in the classroom, but that the union would see what the best international advice was and the experience in other countries where schools had reopened.

We are available to discuss the safest way to get back to school. We want to do it and will do it when it is safe to do so.

Earlier on the same programme Eamonn Donnelly, head of the health and welfare division of the Forsa trade union warned about the lack of staff available to work at the planned special education summer camps.

There simply were not enough staff available to take on this block of work, he said as the HSE begins to reboot the health service.

This was not a case of saying that it could not be done, but details would need to be ironed out, he said. They are going to need to look at capacity. That realisation needs to happen quickly. Mr Donnelly said that the mechanism was there to carry out short term recruitment. An immediate discussion needed to be held within the next day or two if the summer camps were to commence in July as announced.
Kaiser Permanentes computer system, which serves 4.5 million members in Northern California, was down for five hours on Sunday, limiting how patients could connect to doctors during a health crisis.

Members experienced intermittent errors while attempting to access features on the website and mobile app, but were still able to communicate with representatives by phone, a spokesman said. The company did not explain what caused the outage.

Doctors and nurses had access to all of the information they needed to care for our members, the spokesman said. Our emergency departments and medical facilities were not affected by the website outage - they are open and are safe places to receive care.

The outage in the midst of a pandemic concerned Kaiser member Sky Stanfield, who lives in San Francisco. She called Kaisers 24-hour advice hotline at 1 a.m. Sunday when she was in so much back pain she couldnt sleep and was unable to book a telemedicine appointment on her app.

The nurse on the line told her the computer system was down and Stanfield could either wait for Kaiser to make her an appointment when it was working again or go to the emergency room  which she didnt need or want to do.

In normal times it would be terrible, but especially in the situation of a pandemic, where you dont want someone to go out and interact and pay fees associated with emergency visits, Stanfield said.

The situation was unchanged when Stanfield called again at 8:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. and she almost went to the emergency room because of her pain. Just before noon, she was able to book an appointment through her app and get a doctor to prescribe her pain medication.

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.

There should be a backup plan to get medical care when the system fails, Stanfield said.

Mallory Moench is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@mallorymoench
OTTAWA, ON, June 15, 2020 /CNW/ - The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today launched the $50 million Surplus Food Rescue Program. The program aims to move surplus food commodities such as potatoes and other possible horticulture, fish and seafood, and meat through the food system as efficiently as possible to help vulnerable Canadians.

COVID-19 caused significant disruptions to areas of Canada's food system, as it forced the near closure of the restaurant and hospitality industry in Canada and the United States. Some producers across Canada are left with surpluses of quality food, while increased demand from grocery stores alone is not expected to clear the inventory before it spoils. At the same time, the pandemic has increased the demand for food from food banks and other food security organizations in communities across Canada.

The Surplus Food Rescue Program has two core objectives:



Provide assistance to organizations serving vulnerable populations to acquire and process surplus commodities and food that would otherwise be lost or destroyed and distribute them to populations in need.

Connect surplus food commodities to vulnerable populations to avoid food waste.

The program aims to ensure the surplus food reaches vulnerable populations in Canada through the purchase, processing, transportation and redistribution of surplus food. The program is designed to rescue surplus food that may be fresh, frozen inventory or in need of further processing due to its highly perishable nature.

Eligible applicants include for-profit and not-for-profit organizations (industry groups, processors, distributors, food serving agencies, regional and municipal governments and agencies (can include schools or school boards) that can demonstrate an ability to handle the full logistical requirements for acquiring, processing, transporting and ensuring shelf-life stability of surplus commodities and delivery to organizations serving vulnerable populations.

Information on the application process is available through the Surplus Food Rescue Program.

Quotes

"The Government of Canada is working around the clock to respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 on farmers, agri-food businesses and all Canadians. The pandemic has caused significant fluctuations in food demand and supply, resulting in surplus food across our country. We are working hard to help manage and redirect this surplus food to those who need it during this difficult time."

- The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

"The women and men in our fish and seafood sector have worked incredibly hard throughout this pandemic to keep Canadians fed. Nobody wants to see food go to waste, and thanks to this new program, we're helping the industry redistribute surplus products to vulnerable, local communities where it can make a real difference in someone's life. This is a win-win situation."

- The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard

"A safe and reliable food supply in remote and Northern communities is critical, not only in a pandemic, but every day. The current crisis has placed increased demand on food suppliers and food banks all across the country. Combined with our increased support through Nutrition North Canada, the Surplus Food Rescue Program will help ensure communities in the North continue to have access to healthy and affordable food during this challenging time."

- The Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern Affairs

Quick facts

Applications are being accepted until July 15 beginning immediately.

beginning immediately. In ongoing consultations with industry and government stakeholders, the program is designed to address urgent, high volume, highly perishable surplus products falling under horticulture, meat and fish and seafood. Priority consideration for surplus commodities that have immediate risk of loss will be determined first.

This announcement builds on the measures we have introduced to keep Canada's agri-workforce strong, including:

agri-workforce strong, including: Over $77 million in funding for the Emergency Processing Fund (EPF), whose objectives include helping companies implement changes to safeguard the health and safety of workers and their families.

in funding for the Emergency Processing Fund (EPF), whose objectives include helping companies implement changes to safeguard the health and safety of workers and their families.

$100 million for food banks and local food organizations to help Canadians experiencing food insecurity.

for food banks and local food organizations to help Canadians experiencing food insecurity.

$25 million through Nutrition North to ensure food security for Canada's most vulnerable

through Nutrition North to ensure food security for most vulnerable

Travel exemptions for all temporary foreign workers, including seasonal agricultural workers and fish/seafood workers.



$50 million in funding for the Mandatory Isolation Support Program for Temporary Foreign Workers to help the farming, fish harvesting, and food production and processing sectors cover the incremental costs associated with the mandatory 14-day isolation period imposed under the Quarantine Act on temporary foreign workers upon entering Canada .

Associated links

Follow us on Twitter: @AAFC_Canada

Like us on Facebook: CanadianAgriculture

BACKGROUNDER

The Surplus Food Rescue Program is a $50 million initiative which will help to support Canada's food system, food processors, and food producers, and distributors to help ensure food availability for all Canadians.

Funding will be used to help manage and redirect existing surpluses to organizations addressing food insecurity and ensure that these surplus products are not wasted.

COVID-19 and Surplus Food

The impacts of COVID-19 have resulted in the disruptions to areas of Canada's food system, as it forced the near closure of the restaurant and hospitality industry in Canada and the United States. Some producers across Canada are left with surpluses of quality food, while increased demand from grocery stores alone is not expects to clear the inventory before it spoils.

Another impact of the pandemic is an increase in demand for food from food banks and other food security organizations in communities across Canada.

The Surplus Food Rescue Program will help to address these imbalances by providing new funding for the repurposing and redistribution of surplus food to vulnerable Canadians.

The Program

In ongoing consultations with industry and government stakeholders, the program is designed to address urgent, high volume, highly perishable surplus products falling under horticulture, meat and fish and seafood.

The program will ensure that the food needs of vulnerable populations in Canada will be addressed, positive relationships with community food providers will be maintained, and efforts to reduce food waste will be supported.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will administer an inclusive and challenge-based approach for non-profit and for-profit organizations in order to ensure coordination and efficiency within the complex supply chain partnerships from wholesalers, distributors, processors to food service agencies.

Priority consideration for surplus commodities that have immediate risk of loss will be determined first. For example, potatoes and some aquaculture products need immediate processing or will be lost or destroyed.

The Surplus Food Rescue Program will award contributions to organizations (industry groups, processors, distributors, food serving agencies, regional and municipal governments and agencies (can include schools or school boards) who:

can acquire and move the most surplus product (must identify amount to be moved)

use the most cost-effective approach (for acquiring food (acquiring product at or below the cost of production or through donations as applicable)

use the most cost-effective approach for processing (only process if cannot be distributed otherwise) and at minimal cost

are most efficient, from wholesale purchase to food serving agencies (drawing down on surplus quickly)

can make sure food reaches the most vulnerable and remote communities, especially northern communities (target of up to 10 per cent for all food under the program)

have partnerships already established along the supply chain including food serving agencies

Applicants must demonstrate an ability to handle the full logistical requirements for acquiring, processing, transporting and ensuring shelf-life stability of surplus commodities with a target to make available of up 10 per cent of surplus food under the program to the northern communities.

Surplus commodities may be fresh or need to be processed and packaged into shelf-stable products for storage or distribution to vulnerable populations

All surplus commodities are to be donated once processed (surplus food is not to be resold)

Priority consideration will be given to surplus commodities that have immediate risk of loss due to high perishability

The Food Policy for Canada

The Surplus Food Rescue Program is an emergency measure that the government has created in response to the COVID-19 crisis, which also meets the objectives identified in the Food Policy for Canada.

The Food Policy for Canada seeks to create a healthier and more sustainable food system in Canada; one that builds on the Government's ambitious agenda to support the growth of Canada's farmers and food businesses.

Responsible for one in eight jobs across the country, Canada's food sector is a powerhouse of the economy, particularly in rural communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a lot of pressure on our food system. Now more than ever many vulnerable Canadians are not able to reliably access sufficient amounts of food.

In addition, before the pandemic, it was estimated that more than 11 million metric tons of food are wasted every year  worth nearly $50 billion. The pressures of the pandemic have added to this.

SOURCE Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

For further information: Jean-Sebastien Comeau, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, [email protected], 343-549-2326; Media Relations, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, 613-773-7972, 1-866-345-7972, [email protected]

Related Links

www.agr.gc.ca


A Sudanese militia leader appeared before the International Criminal Court on Monday, after 13 years on the run, to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the bloody conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur from 2003 to 2004.

The expected trial of the militia leader, identified in court documents as Ali Kushayb, is the first to address the destruction of several hundred villages and the mass killings of civilians as Sudans armed forces and government-backed militias crushed a rebellion that over the past two decades has taken an estimated 300,000 lives.

Fatou Bensouda, the courts chief prosecutor, called Mr. Kushaybs detention pivotal at the U.N. Security Council last week in discussing the courts pursuit of justice for victims of the Darfur conflict and stressed the courts unwavering commitment to them.

There should be no escape from justice for perpetrators of the worlds most serious crimes under international law, she said.
Medical personnel protest in Paris - AP Photo/Michel Euler

France's coronavirus epidemic has sparked an explosion of interest in la collapsologie - a Gallic take on the end of the world  with a rising number of converts seeking advice on how to prepare for the impending demise of civilisation as we know it.

The movement, which even Frances prime minister Edouard Philippe, has confessed gnaws at me more than people think, is based on the assumption that climate change, declining resources and the extinction of species is driving the world to its destruction at an alarming rate.

The bulk of its ranks come from left-leaning urbanites with at least one university degree. Inspired by the American author and academic Jared Diamonds 2005 bestseller Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, "collapsology" had already captured the French imagination prior to the pandemic; some 65 per cent said they believe civilisation could go under in the coming years, according to a recent poll. The UK figure was 56 per cent.

But since France went into nationwide confinement, requests to join Facebook groups and training courses have rocketed as collapsologists claim the pandemic is a clear sign that the thermo-industrial era is in its death throes.

French climate activists hold inverted portraits of French President Emmanuel Macron during a Climate Change protest in front of the Eiffel Tower, calling for greater action among COP25 leaders to address climate change, in Paris - REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

One of its high priests, Yves Cochet, a former French environment minister who gave up city life for rural self-sufficiency in Brittany with a horse and cart for transport, had predicted collapse to commence by 2030. Well, well, its happening even faster than we thought, he told Le Monde, adding that he had expected the first stage to be a petrol crisis or climate event.

Lots of people were in denial, said Loic Steffan, an economist and author of Dont Be Scared of Collapse, whose Facebook page "The happy collapso gained 5,000 new members during confinement to approach 30,000 in total. Denial is a classic first phase in a process collapsologists call "metanoia", or "finally believing in what one already knew", he told France Info. With Covid, the realisation that our societies are fragile brutally is coming to the fore. A tiny virus is able to bring the world to its knees, the hyper-connectedness of the world poses a problem mental protection strategies are starting to crumble, he claimed.

Story continues

Covid-19 doesnt herald the total collapse of the state and rule of law but rather a dress rehearsal, a sort of stress-test that has allowed us to see what worked or not, he said. Unlike survivalists, who want to run for the hills, collapsologists believe in helping each other to improve group resilience. Its the same starting point but not the same response. The collapsologist wants to save society. The survivalist is an individualist, said Mr Steffan, a self-professed optimist.

A growing number of French urban dwellers are now seeking to settle in the countryside. Frederique Porquet will next month leave the Val dOise near Paris for the country with her husband and daughters in order to be ready and not depend on supermarkets given what happened for a month at the start of the epidemic, because whats for sure, we saw it with our own eyes, it was everyone for themselves.

Demand to learn how to become a collapsologist is also rising, according to Remi Richart, an IT expert who has been living a self-sufficient, low-carbon life with his wife and three children in the rural Cantal for 10 years. They have a pedal-driven washing machine and solar oven. Their course teaching resilience without depending on a society on the brink is already full this summer and the phone doesnt stop ringing. Lots of people are in a hurry, he told Le Figaro.

However, not everyone accepts the view that coronavirus is the start of impending collapse. The coronavirus crisis, however tragic, has perhaps shined a light not on the fragility of modern societies, but on their capacity to resist, wrote Laurent Joffrin, editor of Liberation. While hugely stressed, health systems and economies have not imploded and the crisis could accelerate the need to enact a faster ecological transition, he said.

In other words, as Tintin said in The Shooting Star: The end of the world has been postponed!
According to Trans Mountain, a fitting on a small pipe connected to the main pipeline failed, which led to the spill.

Trans Mountain also said, in a statement, that the spill was confined to the pump station and that no waterways were impacted. The company gave assurances that clean-up of the spill is underway and that the recovered oil will be delivered to an approved facility for disposal. Trans Mountain also mentioned that it has permanent groundwater monitoring in place at the site, as well as air monitoring.

Last month, major insurance companies Lloyds, Zurich, and Munich Re were criticized for providing liability insurance coverage to the Trans Mountain Pipeline by the environmental group Unfriend Coal. While they are not the only insurers of the pipeline, the three companies are the projects biggest insurers.

Read more: Lloyds, Munich Re, Zurich come under fire for supporting tar sands pipeline

Of the $508 million of total liability insurance cover the pipeline has, insurers in the Lloyds market have underwritten $460 million. Zurich is responsible for $8 million of cover, while Munich Re (through its Canadian subsidiary, Temple Insurance) provides $250 million of cover.
A 21-year-old woman has died after a boat accident involving four people near the steel dam in Milan.

Rock Island County Coroner Brian Gustafson confirmed the death late Sunday.

Battalion Chief Terry Smith, of Rock Island Fire Department, said his crew assisted at the accident that happened shortly before 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

When they (the boaters) called us, they said they were at the steel dam in Rock Island, at 11th and 50th Avenue, near Vandruff Island (an island that splits the Rock River,) he said.

The boat actually was on the south side of the river dam, and had gone over the steel dam in Milan. There are two dams in the area, Smith said.

Four people were in the water, with two clinging to the boat.

One person was taken to UnityPoint Trinity-Rock Island in critical condition, another had minor injuries and one had no visible injuries, Smith said.

Responders could not reach the 21-year-old woman.

The Department of Natural Resources will manage the investigation, Smith said. All four people were wearing life jackets.
US FDA revokes use of Hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus, says 'unlikely to be effective'

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, June 15: US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday revoked emergency authorisation of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, saying they are "unlikely to be effective".

After reviewing new information from large clinical trials the agency now believes that the suggested dosing regimens "are unlikely to produce an antiviral effect," FDA chief scientist Denise Hinton said in a letter announcing the decision.

Chennai: Intense lockdown in Chennai from June 19th, no Sunday break | Oneindia News

The agency noted that because of heart issues and other side effects in patients taking the medications, the existing and potential benefits of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine no longer outweigh the risks associated with its use.

The Food and Drug Administration's decision came weeks after President Donald Trump called hydroxychloroquine a "game-changer" drug in the fight against the COVID-19 in America, the world's worst-hit nation by the pandemic.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said its decision is based on new information, including clinical trial data results, that have led it to conclude that the drugs may not be effective to treat COVID-19 and that its potential benefits for such use do not outweigh its known and potential risks.

According to AP, FDA, citing reports of heart complications, said the drugs pose a greater risk to patients than any potential benefits.

The drugs can cause heart rhythm problems, severely low blood pressure and muscle or nerve damage.

FDA chief scientist Denise Hinton, in a letter dated June 15 to Gary Disbrow of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said as of the date of this letter, the oral formulations of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and (chloroquine) CQ are no longer authorised by the FDA to treat COVID-19.

On March 28, FDA had issued emergency use authorization (EUA) for use of oral formulations of chloroquine phosphate (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine sulfate (HCQ) to be distributed from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS).

Hinton said that FDA now believes that the suggested dosing regimens for CQ and HCQ are unlikely to produce an antiviral effect.

"Earlier observations of decreased viral shedding with HCQ or CQ treatment have not been consistently replicated and recent data from a randomised controlled trial assessing probability of negative conversion showed no difference between HCQ and standard of care alone," he said.

Current US treatment guidelines do not recommend the use of CQ or HCQ in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 outside of a clinical trial, and the NIH guidelines now recommend against such use outside of a clinical trial, the FDA said.

"Recent data from a large randomised controlled trial showed no evidence of benefit for mortality or other outcomes such as hospital length of stay or need for mechanical ventilation of HCQ treatment in hospitalised patients with COVID-19," the letter said.

Hinton said that while HCQ, that has been distributed from SNS, is no longer authorised under the EUA to treat hospitalised patients for COVID-19, FDA

Hydroxychloroquine is one of the oldest and best-known anti-malarial drugs. US President Donald Trump had called hydroxychloroquine a "game-changer" drug in the fight against COVID-19.

At Trump's request, India in April allowed the export of 50 million HCQ tablets to treat COVID-19 patients in America.

Trump had on May 18 disclosed that he was taking hydroxychloroquine daily to ward off the deadly coronavirus. Defending the drug, he had said that hydroxychloroquine was a "line of defence" against the coronavirus.

"It is a very powerful drug I guess but it doesn't harm you and so I thought as a frontline defence, possibly it would be good, and I have had no impact from it," Trump had said, adding that the antimalaria drug has received tremendous reviews from doctors all over the world.

According to the Johns Hopkins University data, US has over 2.1 million COVID-19 cases with more than 115,000 deaths.
[June 15, 2020] McPherson College Announces "Wheels of Change: How the Automobile Shaped Our Lives"

McPherson College, the only college in America offering a four-year bachelor's degree program in automotive restoration technology, announces the launch of a webinar series called "Wheels of Change: How the Car Automobile Shaped Our Lives." This six-week summer series focuses on the people, innovations, and the art that helped shape the automotive industry and will feature car-world insiders from around the country. The first webinar is June 25 at 12 p.m. CDT (News - Alert), with the topic, Four Epic Road Trips that Upended the World. Space is limited, so each week's webinar will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. Online registration is on the college website. McPherson College's automotive restoration program started in 1976 and has become a nationally recognized and award-winning leader in automotive education. The program offers students experience outside of the classroom at some of the most prestigious car events, with 85% of students participating in internships at museums, private collections, and shops across the United States and Germany over the past five years. These institutions include Hagerty, Mercedes-Benz Classic Center, Rad Rides by Troy, and RM Sotheby's, among others. "Wheels of Change will spotlight our college's uniqueness as a leader in the auto industry, while providing participants dynamic conversation with special guests," said Amanda Gutierrez, vice president for automotive restoration at McPherson College. "Professor Yohn is well-known for his knowledgeable, engaging, and fun instruction on the evolution f the automobile and its impact on our social and cultural development."



Yohn, chair of McPherson College's Department of History and Politics, will serve as host and instructor for the six webinars. For more than 20 years, Professor Yohn has taught courses on the social history of the automobile at McPherson College and has led student study trips to Europe and South America. His next teaching adventure is a "Cars and Castles" tour of Europe. "Everyone knows that automobiles completely changed how we live life, but not too many people realize just how many areas of our lives were revolutionized by four wheels and an engine," said Yohn. "And thanks to our alumni and McPherson's extensive industry connections, we will have expert guests from all parts of the industry help me unpack it all."

"Wheels of Change" will cover a wide variety of topics, including how the automobile liberated women, the creation of mega auto corporations, and how the former General Motors (News - Alert) executive Harley Earl revolutionized and democratized automotive designs. The full schedule can be found here. About McPherson College: Automotive Restoration McPherson College is a four-year liberal arts college, with a 27-acre campus set in McPherson, Kansas. McPherson College offers over 30 areas of study including pre-professional programs and the unique option to create a student-designed major allowing students to combine select courses throughout the curriculum to meet their specific personal and professional goals. Learn more about McPherson College here: https://www.mcpherson.edu/. The McPherson College Automotive Restoration program began in 1976 and has evolved into the only award-winning four-year bachelor's degree program for automotive restoration technology in the country. The program offers student experience outside of the classroom at some of the most prestigious car events in the United States, like Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, where the program was featured in a spotlight on Fox Business. The college also has a growing alumni base who work in all facets of the car collecting world including Hagerty, Mercedes-Benz Classic Center, Historic Vehicle Association, RM Sotheby's, in their own shops, at museums, and private collections. Learn more about the program here: https://www.mcpherson.edu/programs/auto-restoration/. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005780/en/

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AVON, Ohio -- Many assisted living communities have memory care centers today. One with a cutting-edge, high-tech component is being built in Avon.

The Ganzhorn Suites, headquartered in the Columbus area, will be using Momentum Healthwares technology for memory care facilities.

Through small tracking devices and smartphones, our staff will know where each resident is at all times. We can even program the system to alert staff to resident-specific needs and behaviors, according to Ganzhorn Director of Marketing Deborah Taylor.

The company maintains that they are setting a new standard for memory care.

Momentum Healthware, headquartered in Canada, is a healthcare technology company with offices across Canada and the United States, as well as with their partners in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

The company offers care management software, standardized assessment management software and a smart, wireless nurse call system with real-time location tracking.

The Ganzhorn Suites Corp. is a developer and operator of highly specialized memory care and assisted living communities. It will be building the Avon facility on Health Campus Boulevard, next to the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital.

This new location will offer comprehensive, advanced memory care services and personalized enrichment programming for people living with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia in the Cleveland area, Taylor said.

Added Eleanor Alvarez, CEO of The Ganzhorn Suites, There are many things that distinguish our care model from other memory care communities."

For instance, our commitment to exceptional staffing sets new standards for memory care. Our staffing levels are nearly twice the number found in typical memory care centers. We also provide a team of Certified Dementia Practitioners (CDP), she said.

There is also a design component incorporated into the suites, utilizing state-of-the-art safety and monitoring technologies in its 64 private suites, which are split into four households. Each household can hold 16 residents.

The Ganzhorn Suites of Avon is expected to open in the spring of 2021. For more information, visit www.ganzhorn.com.

To see the Ganzhorn Suites Virtual Tour, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVR-n-RGYg&feature=youtube.

Read more from the Sun Sentinel.
Shocking footage shows a young boy luckily escape after a huge bucket of water smashes through the ceiling.

He is playing on his computer just before the roof collapses and the room is flooded in Ben Tre, Vietnam.

The container lands right next to his chair as metal roofing and water crashes down.

The boy is playing on his computer minutes before a huge bucket smashes through the ceiling at his home in Ben Tre, Vietnam

His family come to the room and look around at the destruction caused by the collapsed roof.

No one was injured after the incident around 4.15pm on June 7.

In Vietnam, water reservoirs weighing up to a tonne each are built on top of houses and apartment buildings for daily use.

The water lands just inches away from where the boy is sitting as he makes a lucky escape

The boy turns away from his computer and looks at the destruction caused by the water

They can sometimes fall down due to rusty stands or other malfunctions.

A dog is relaxing on the ground outside the room. It jumps up and runs about shortly before the roof collapses while the boy continues playing his game.

Social media users claimed the dog realised the danger before it happened.

One commented: 'The dog realised the danger so early!'

Another said: 'The dog knew something was about to go down.'

A third said: 'Wow, just happy no one was hurt. This could have gone wrong very easily.'
Borders opened up across Europe on Monday after three months of coronavirus closures that began chaotically in March. But many restrictions persist, its unclear how keen Europeans will be to travel this summer and the continent is still closed to Americans, Asians and other international tourists.

Border checks for most Europeans were dropped overnight in Germany, France and elsewhere, nearly two weeks after Italy opened its frontiers. The European Unions 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, arent expected to start opening to visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly later.

Announcing Mondays reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said its time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom.

But he warned: This doesnt mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard. ... The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.

That caution is widespread after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths in Europe. The region has had more than 2 million of the worlds 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

We have got the pandemic under control, (but) the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said as he announced he was bringing forward Spains opening to European travelers by 10 days to June 21. The threat is still real. The virus is still out there.

Even so, social distancing was in short supply as Londons Oxford Street shops reopened and Paris bistros like Cafe Des Anges welcomed back regular customers. Crowds jammed the entrance to Londons Niketown store despite efforts by employees to have an orderly line.

Its very hard to get people who are sitting at the bar to respect social distancing, said cafe manager Virgile Grunberg. People have missed this, because they come in every morning before work, have a little coffee and a discussion, so of course its part of Paris.

The need to get Europes tourism industry up and running again is urgent, especially for Mediterranean nations like Spain, Italy and Greece as the economic fallout of the crisis mushrooms.

A lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged.

On Monday, Greece welcomed the first international flights whose passengers didnt face compulsory COVID-19 tests to Athens and Thessaloniki. Direct international flights to regional Greek airports, including on its sun-kissed islands, will begin on July 1. Visitors will be subject to random virus testing.

In a trial run, Spain on Monday allowed the first of thousands of Germans to fly to its Balearic Islands  waiving its 14-day quarantine. The idea is to test out best practices in the coronavirus era.

This pilot program will help us learn a lot for what lies ahead, Sanchez said. We want our country, which is already known as a world-class tourist destination, to be recognized as also a secure destination.

Martin Hofman was delighted as he boarded the first flight from Duesseldorf to the island of Mallorca  a destination that mainland Spaniards cant even visit yet.

His holiday couldnt be postponed and to stay in Germany was not an option for us, he said. We are totally happy that we can get out.

Europes reopening isnt a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, uncoordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles.

Still, its a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere. Norway and Denmark, for example, are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a relatively high per capita death rate. Other nations also have travel restrictions for Swedes.

In an interview with state broadcaster SVT, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven rejected that idea that Swedens strategy had failed, citing a continuing decline in hospitalizations and fatalities. While the rate of new infections has increased, officials say that reflects a long-delayed increase in testing.

German drivers queued up in long lines Monday to cross into Denmark, which is letting in German visitors but only those who booked accommodations for at least six nights.

Britain, which left the EU in January but remains closely aligned with the bloc until the end of this year, only last week imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for most arrivals, horrifying its tourism and aviation industries. As a result, France is asking people from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks and several other nations are not letting British tourists in during the first wave of reopenings.

With flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and millions facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose to vacation at home.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz are both planning to vacation in their homelands this year.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

You can go abroad for your holiday again, Foreign Minister Stef Blok said. But it wont be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.
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MILAN  Communication can be a minefield.

Observers have weighed in on how to avoid pitfalls and on ways to be reactive  and proactive  as a number of fashion brands have recently come under fire despite posting their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and their stance against racism and discrimination.

Celine was called out for rarely casting Black models and accused of performative activism on social media, while Virgil Abloh issued an apology for his comments on looters as protests were taking place to condemn the killing of George Floyd, following accusations that the creative director of mens wear at Louis Vuitton and founder of Off-White was not showing enough support to those demonstrating against police brutality.

Meanwhile, Salvatore Ferragamo was taken to task by 13 Reasons Why actor Tommy Dorfman, who had photographed a campaign for the Florence-based company earlier this year and attended the brands womens show in September. He alleged that the people who run this company are racist, transphobic and are not body-positive. They will say But we have cast Black people and trans people which is true, but only by force of handAnd they fail to treat them equally.

The actors claims were made in a series of Instagram Stories in which Dorfman shared Ferragamos Black Lives Matter post, which showed four womens arms linked and a quote by Nelson Mandela. Dorfman and social media have criticized Ferragamos image for the light to medium skin tones represented.

We were surprised by Tommy Dorfmans assertions, a Ferragamo spokesperson told WWD, adding that the company had no evidence of Dorfmans claims. We have always been a very inclusive company.

Ferragamos casting of models has been diverse for years, on and off the runway, including the transgender activist Dara Allen for the Vara campaign photographed by Dorfman.

A market source close to Ferragamo said the company is trying to understand where these accusations come from as they clash with the Ferragamo familys values.

Story continues

Alessandro Maria Ferreri, chief executive officer and owner of The Style Gate consulting firm, said every time there is a battle for civil rights, there may be someone who will raise their voice loudly, but the tone is raised so that the voice is heard. When the suffering has been so much and nobody listens, you tend to raise your voice. For this reason, a fashion company must understand the scope of what is happening, and accept a louder voice, even if it seems louder than necessary.

Ferreri praised Gucci and Pradas decision to set up diversity and inclusivity councils to prevent situations, rather than having to manage them each time. We hope that in the future these wont even be necessary, that we have metabolized certain values and they become automatic. But its better for a company to admit its not ready to face certain issues and that it is gearing up to be ready. There is a need for enormous flexibility, patience and civic sense to have a general picture of the situation, so that certain values will be finally internalized.

Serge Carreira, lecturer in fashion and luxury at Sciences Po, said when a brand is criticized by a former collaborator, the effect is even more damaging.

Indirectly, there is a perception that this personality has an almost intimate knowledge of the house due to their former relationship, he said. If that personality breaks with the brand or criticizes it, the message can have a bigger effect on the perception of the values of that house.

In the best case scenario, the brand can establish a dialogue with its critic, as LOreal did with Munroe Bergdorf, the Black transgender model who criticized the French cosmetics giant for sacking her in 2017 after she spoke out about white supremacy and racism. After speaking with Delphine Viguier, global brand president of LOreal Paris, Bergdorf said she was resuming her relationship with the company, which has invited her to join its U.K. diversity and inclusion advisory board.

Its about finding a common action that allows both the house to reaffirm its values, convictions and commitments, and the personality to be faithful to their public message and their identity, Carreira said.

He cited the example of Hermes, which revealed in 2015 it would tighten requirements for suppliers of crocodile skins after British actress Jane Birkin called for the crocodile leather skin handbag style named in her honor to be rechristened until fairer treatments of the animals were put into practice.

I think dialogue is always the best solution, rather than hasty reactions on both sides, he said. Silence can be interpreted as tacit agreement, which would then require some kind of action or apology.

When a house does make a mistake, an apology is just the first step toward making amends. Once youve been called out, that information is out there, he said. Its unrealistic to think that its just going to go away, which is why its necessary to follow up an apology or a dialogue with concrete actions.

An image and crisis management consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said companies and their management must take responsibility, always, and take immediate action. The response must never be bland, whatever the message and must be strongly identified with the corporate values of the brand. The message inside and outside the company must be identical. A diversity and inclusivity council should by now be part of any company  a given  she contended, for daily discussions on these themes.

A marketing expert who also asked not to be identified admitted the issue was very delicate. When there is a strong social statement that has been brewing for a long time, and in this case is accelerated by the pandemic, customers expect brands to take a stance on issues that are relevant globally, which can range from the #BLM movement to sustainability and attention to the environment, for example.

Consumers expect ethics and brand transparency and so many companies have included these topics in their communication. But these must be scrupulously defined, in line with the values promoted and followed over time, embraced until the end, in an assured and proud way, aligned with the brands positioning, history, purpose and values. Once the strategy has been activated, you must be able to sustain it.

Reacting to critical situations is key, she contended. To stay silent does not smooth the problem. In addition, the responses must be carefully and consistently examined. We have seen many brands responding to negative reactions and making matters worse.

One way to respond is to bring to light past initiatives that can discredit the accusations, in a soft way, without shouting messages, for example pointing to previous collaborations supporting diversity and sustainability.

She also emphasized that underestimating critics just because they come from social media is a great risk given the resonance and how integrated these tools are in our reality today.

To be sure, getting into a war of words with a critical influencer is probably the least productive response, concurred Carreira.

It risks amplifying the negative impact on the brand, he said. If on the other hand the personality is criticizing the brand just to participate in a current debate, its slightly different. In that case, its more about setting the record straight.

Still, he advises brands to tread lightly when dealing with critical perceptions of their actions. This is a time to question accepted opinions and behaviors that may directly or indirectly offend a community, and to understand how you can become more conscious of this and to have a more inclusive and diverse approach, he said.

While the raft of recent controversies may make some brands hesitant to work with outspoken influencers, it will encourage others to align themselves with public personalities who reflect the concerns of their generation, Carreira said.

In order to take this approach, a house has to be coherent and consistent in its convictions and its commitments, he said. It shows the profile of influencers themselves is changing. Its no longer just about lifestyle. They reflect the concerns of young people today, who appreciate fashion, beauty, luxury, brands and creativity, but who are extremely critical and have strong convictions regarding current events.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 02:02:00|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on June 15, 2020 in Vienna, Austria, shows Zhang Kejian (C, on the screens), director of China Atomic Energy Authority, speaks during an IAEA Board of Governors online meeting. China is willing to share its experience in developing nuclear energy with other member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), particularly developing countries, said Zhang Kejian at theIAEA Board of Governors meeting on Monday. (Dean Calma/IAEA/Handout via Xinhua)

VIENNA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China is willing to share its experience in developing nuclear energy with other member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), particularly developing countries, said a Chinese delegate at an IAEA Board of Governors meeting on Monday.

China has received 25 overseas students from 14 member states in Africa, Asia and Latin America for master's and doctoral studies under its Atomic Energy Scholarship since its launch two years ago, as a significant contribution to nurturing nuclear professionals in developing countries, said Zhang Kejian, director of China Atomic Energy Authority at the online meeting.

He announced that China will offer 10 opportunities each year for master's studies under the IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Program, which welcomes female candidates devoted to nuclear science and technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to energy production and consumption in all countries, said Zhang, proposing that the IAEA bring together relevant member states to evaluate the role of nuclear energy in addressing the pandemic, for which China is ready to share its experiences.

He said that the application of nuclear technology has proved its merits in China's efforts to combat the coronavirus, noting that the irradiation technology, for example, has effectively relieved the shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE).
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe says that there has been "a lot of great work" done, but that agreement has not yet been reached as government talks looked set to go into Monday.

Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens are said to be apart on taxation, pensions and the Occupied Territories Bill.

Speaking as he left Government Buildings last nigth, Mr Donohoe said that progress had been made on a number of issues, but said that there would be an update on Monday.

"There is a lot of work going on. A few matters are in the process of being worked on."

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said that the negotiating teams were "nearly there".

"A lot of people are working long hours to put the document together and we should be in a position to sign off on it tomorrow [Monday]."

Mr Martin said that the deal was a "significant departure in terms of where Ireland is going and of the type of society we will have in the future".

Mr Donohoe also said that he was happy with the broad outline of the programme.

"I'm satisfied that a number of issues that are really important to my own party and vital for the country are in the programme for government.

"We have such challenges in our country in climate, housing and health. But I believe that when this work is concluded we could have a government and party members will be able to consider and vote on the programme."

Mr Donohoe said that "some progress" had been made by the party's leaders following th day's talks and that he was confident that a government would be agreed before the end of the month.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said that there is "a lot of really good Green things in the document", but said that "you have to go out and do it - doing it is the real key".

Mr Ryan said that the Green negotiation team had "done a great job".

He said that the "T's need to be crossed" but that there had been agreement on the financial strategy.

"It's an investment and stimulus approach. It won't be easy because we're in a downturn."

Mr Ryan said there are "a lot of moving parts" but he was confident agreement will be reached. He said that Green Party members had to "make their own judgement" on the document.

"This is a time of opportunity for the Green movement. But some of the issues we got agreement on give us a chance to affect real change."
Meatpacking plants in Minnesota and elsewhere that were epicenters of COVID-19 outbreaks a month ago are getting back to normal, but the disruption caused by the virus is still being felt by farmers and consumers.

Closures and production slowdowns at slaughterhouses exposed a chokepoint in the nations food supply. With output nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, farmers are contending with too many animals and ultralow prices for them. Shoppers, on the other hand, are facing meat prices that are substantially higher than before.

Pork prices nationwide were 18.5% higher the week ending May 31 than in the same week a year ago, according to market research firm Nielsen. Beef prices were 23% higher and chicken prices 11%.

President Donald Trump on April 28 ordered government agencies to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations, leading processors to reopen plants though often with fewer workers and reduced output. At one point in early May, hog slaughter was running at less than 60% capacity in the U.S. because of virus-related closings.

Last I saw we were at 88% capacity, which is much better than a month ago, Dave Preisler, director of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association, said this week. We didnt add any more to the backup last week.

The JBS USA plant in Worthington, the largest pork processor in Minnesota, is now operating at 90% capacity after being closed for more than two weeks in April and May, when nearly half of its 2,000 workers contracted COVID-19. At least three plant employees have died of the disease.

The Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., which endured a large-scale outbreak about a week before the JBS plant, has made substantial progress toward normalized production, a spokesman said. He declined to be more specific.

The two plants together account for nearly 10% of the nations pork processing capacity and are key destinations for many of the hogs raised by farmers in Minnesota.

The shutdowns have undercut hog farmers  first by eliminating demand for pork at restaurants and cafeterias and then by tearing through slaughterhouses.

With the supply of hogs outstripping demand because of the production disruption, the amount that farmers are paid for hogs remains well below the cost of raising them.

Lean hog is selling for about 48 cents per pound thanks to continued low demand from restaurants. Farmers need that to be above 60 cents per pound to break even, Preisler said.

The federal governments coronavirus programs will pay hog farmers $17 per pig they sold this year through the middle of April, and another payment for any inventory in late April and May. That helps, Preisler said, but it doesnt solve the crisis.

It does not come close to getting people to break even, he said.

The nations pork processors kill about 500,000 pigs a day. And when they didnt, barns in farms began to get backed up with animals that were supposed to have been taken away. As they continued to gain weight, they became too large for processor to handle. As a result, farmers had to resort to killing animals without turning them into food.

Preisler estimated close to 300,000 hogs have been euthanized in Minnesota. Sites were set up in Minnesota for farmers to dump dead hogs, where they are ground into compost.

At one of those, a pit near Round Lake close to Worthington, hog carcasses are fed into a wood-chipper and mixed with mulch for compost.

Greg Suskovic, the veterinarian running the disposal program for the states Board of Animal Health, said 8,720 hog carcasses have been disposed of near Round Lake. At a similar site in Le Sueur County, 9,558 hogs and 9,100 turkeys have been disposed.

Preisler said one bright spot in all this is the ingenuity of farmers in finding ways to give away their hogs. He didnt have an exact number, but said tens of thousands of Minnesota hogs have been saved from euthanization. Some were sold at sale barns, others to hunters who can butcher an animal. Smaller processing plants have also ramped up production.

Thats really a testament to the fact that farmers really did not want to put animals down, and they were inventive, Preisler said.
On Sunday, June 21, Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI) is inviting households, neighbours and communities to join them for Irelands biggest street dance and Dance4DSI to help raise vital funds to continue and improve upon their growing online services to support children and adults with Down syndrome and their families throughout Ireland.

The Covid-19 crisis has adversely affected all face to face services provided by DSI and as a result, the way in which these services are provided has had to change dramatically.

No matter where you live across the country, Dance4DSI is the way to reconnect with your neighbours at a safe distance and dancing is a fantastic way to make you feel good.

Dance4DSI will take place at 3pm on June 21, coinciding with the summer solstice.

The number 21 also carries a special meaning as Down syndrome occurs when there is one extra copy of chromosome 21 in cells in the body.

DSI are encouraging everyone to get involved by donating what they can through downsydrome.ie. Then share photos or video on social media of their family and neighbours dancing in the street to their favourite summer song, using the hashtag #Dance4DSI.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of DSIs regular fundraising activities have been unable to go ahead and funds are urgently needed in order to provide vital online support services in areas including speech and language and early development.

When COVID-19 hit, DSI had to adapt quickly to ensure that their members receive the vital support they need. Olive Buckeridge, Early Years Specialist with Down Syndrome Ireland has now been providing essential services through Zoom to families across the country.

Adrian and Aoife Doherty from Ballina in Co Mayo whose three-year-old son Louis has Down syndrome, have experienced first-hand the benefits of DSIs online services.

Adrian and Aoife have been learning how to teach Louis Lamh through online Zoom calls with Olive Buckeridge at DSI. Lamh is a manual sign system used by children and adults with intellectual disability and communication needs in Ireland.

Commenting on the benefits, Adrian said, The online supports provided by DSI have been fantastic. As a family, were learning so much and its great that Olive is using Lamh. Weve learnt more in the past five weeks through Olives Zoom calls than in the three years of early intervention  or lack of early intervention prior to joining DSI.

Deirdre Saul, Interim CEO of Down Syndrome Ireland is urging the public to come together while still respecting and adhering to social distancing guidelines. "We are extremely grateful for the fantastic support we have received from the public in recent months and that support really does make a difference to the lives of so many children and adults with Down syndrome, and of course their families, in Ireland. I hope as many people, neighbours and communities as possible can join us for Dance4DSI on Sunday, June 21 and were looking forward to seeing lots of videos and photos shared across social media.

Deirdre stressed, We urge everyone to remember social distancing at all times but ultimately this is about having some fun in your community.

For further information about Dance4DSI and the work of Down Syndrome Ireland please visit downsyndrome.ie
HELSINKI , June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Trevian Asset Management Oy is expanding its business to residential real estate. Kim Sars, LL.M., has been appointed Director of the business area to be established, and a member of the management team: "We are currently looking for projects that are seeking funding."

Prior to joining Trevian on June 1, 2020, Kim Sars has worked at LocalTapiola Group for 14 years. Since 2014, he has served as CEO of alternative funds and before that as Real Estate Fund Director. The maximum value of the managed assets was EUR 1.8 billion.

"For me, building is part of development of society, and it needs to be diverse in terms of services. The development of meeting places, especially for young people, is not only important, but also a prerequisite for the development of creativity. There are a lot of one person households today, so small apartments are needed. There is also a need for a denser structure - living close to each other. I don't prefer sleeping suburbs; they lack village-likeness and community. Residents' satisfaction is also important for investors. COVID-19 proved again that people want to meet each other whenever possible, and preferably outside their own kitchen. Cities could help meet these needs, for example by providing more relaxed conditions for building smaller homes and easing parking space requirements," says Kim Sars.

"With the new business area, Trevian wants to be involved in developing new residential areas. No way of implementation really limits us; we can build for rent or sale. New values can also be introduced into rental housing, for example green values, e.g. by using geothermal energy. Even if the apartments to build were small, their quality can be high. We are building such a rental housing portfolio for either investors or Trevian as a residential fund. We are most interested in construction projects seeking a partner to provide financing. Our dream and goal would be to implement projects that can be described with `city' and `green', Sars continues.

Our own construction sets us apart from others who buy ready-made properties. Building requires the know-how we have. The projects are longer-lasting, and this makes cost and quality maintenance important, as well as local presence. This results in more profitable investments. International investors in particular require the partner to be able to make customized solutions."

Trevian Asset Management Oy is a Finnish investment and asset management company specializing in commercial properties. The company was established in 2012 and is owned by its key personnel. The company produces actively managed real estate equity funds and asset management services optimized for its customers. The services are focused especially for institutional real estate investors, banks and other professional investors. Trevian's assets under management near 1.0B.

Additional information

Kim Sars

Business Director

Trevian Asset Management

+358-40-501-9981

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/trevian/r/kim-sars-to-head-trevian-s-new-residential-real-estate-business,c3134493

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Ukrainian economy may drop 8% this year  Cabinet outlook

22:30, 15.06.20 923

The negative impact of the pandemic on the Ukrainian economy is amplified by the onset of a global economic recession.
A bankrupt businessman who murdered his ex-wife, stuffed her corpse into a suitcase and dumped it in a river has failed in an appeal against his conviction.

Singaporean native Ah Ping Ban, 69, killed Annabelle Chen, 58, whose half-naked body was found by a pair of fishermen inside a suitcase floating in Perth's Swan River in July 2016.

Ban was convicted of her murder in September 2018, and was sentenced to life behind bars with a non-parole period of 20 years.

Their daughter Tiffany Yiting Wan was cleared of murder but convicted of being an accessory and was sentenced to four years and 10 months in jail.

Ban argued several grounds in his appeal, including documents regarding Ms Chen's wealthy estate, which showed his daughter was the sole beneficiary, not being raised at trial.

Tiffany Wan (pictured, left) with her father Ah Ping Ban (right), who was convicted of murdering Annabelle Chen, Wan's mother

He further argued that the trial judge had failed to adequately direct the jury that it was open to them to find both of the accused not guilty.

On Monday, two Court of Appeal judges dismissed his challenge, while a third dissented, saying he would set aside Ban's conviction and order a new trial.

At the trial, Ban and Wan blamed each other in a 'cut-throat' defence.

Two fishermen found Ms Chen's body days after she was murdered but the identity of the body remained a mystery for two months until Wan reported her missing.

Ms Chen was found in 2016, two days after she was killed in her Mosman Park home, southwest of Perth.

A post-mortem found her face had been struck 25 times with a blunt object, leaving her with a fractured skull.

Annabelle Chen (pictured)was beaten around the head and dumped in a suitcase in the Swan River in North Fremantle

Divers scoured the scene after the body was recovered at Swan River (pictured) in North Fremantle

Justice Joseph McGrath said the murder was 'a brutal attack', saying Ban had shown 'callous indifference' to the corpse of his ex-wife, ABC reports.

After killing her, he stuffed her body into a blue suitcase and transported it to Swan River, where he disposed of it.

He filled the suitcase with ceramic tiles to ensure that it sunk. The court heard that his glasses fell off during the dumping and were later recovered by divers.

Covering for her father, Wan told police a false story about the last time she had seen her mother.

She said the last time she saw her mother alive was when she walked out of her home and got into a car that was driven away by an Asian-looking man.

But she stopped covering for her father in early 2018, when she was charged with murder alongside Ban.

Ms Chen's body was found stuffed in a blue suitcase (pictured), floating in Fremantle's Swan River

Ah Ping Ban and his daughter Tiffany Yiting Wan (pictured together) were jailed over the murder of Annabelle Chen

WA Supreme Court heard she offered to plead guilty to being an accessory to the murder, but her offer was declined by the state.

The pair blamed each other, testifying in the WA Supreme Court that the other was responsible for the murder.

In a tearful August testimony, she claimed her father had beaten Ms Chen across the face with an iron paperweight in a heated argument over money.

While she denied she had any involvement in the killing, Wan did admit she had sent messages to her mother in the months after her death to distract police.

She said she covered for her father because she idolised and loved him.

In retaliation, Ban told the court that his daughter confided she had killed Ms Chen during a fight in her bedroom over her upcoming university graduation ceremony.

By the time Wan did graduate, her mother was already dead.

Judge McGrath admitted that Ban would not have much quality of life should he successfully apply for parole in 2036, but said he showed no remorse for the killing.

He would be 87 years-old should he be released from prison.
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Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said Jammu & Kashmir will witness a radical change in terms of development over the next five years and that people of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) will be envious and will seek to live with India. The day it happens, our unanimous resolution of Parliament will also be fulfilled, he said at a virtual rally focussed on Jammu & Kashmir.

Singh was referring to the February 1994 resolution that said the entire erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, including PoK, are Indias integral part and asked Pakistan vacate the areas of the region it has occupied through aggression.

Singh called Constitutions Article 370, which was nullified last year , an old stain.

Singh said the weather has changed and Pakistan is feeling the heat. Our channels are now showing temperatures of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit [PoK]. ...Therefore, there is now more mischief but our security forces and agencies are giving them a befitting reply. Terrorists are being killed in large numbers...

In its response, the Pakistan Foreign Office rejected Singhs remarks about the situation in J&K, while it described the Article 370 move as illegal and unilateral and said subsequent steps showed that the primary motivation remains the disempowerment and disenfranchisement of the Kashmiri people

Pakistan alleged that Singhs statements were a desperate attempt to divert attention and accused India of human rights violations.

Singh also questioned arch-rival Congresss discreet silence over the nullification of Article 370.

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said, At this juncture, defence minister rather than narrating poetry should explain the reality of 75% jump in Incursion by China at LAC and why till date China has not retreated from Pangong Tso.

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South Africa's president says it has been a 'dark and shameful week' for his country following a surge in violence against women.

Cyril Ramaphosa's remarks come after several shocking incidents, including one woman who was eight months pregnant and found stabbed and hanging from a tree.

The violence has been linked to the lifting of restrictions on the sale of alcohol as lockdown was eased.

'It is a dark and shameful week for us as a nation. Criminals have descended to even greater depths of cruelty and callousness. It simply cannot continue,' President Ramaphosa said in a statement.

Tshegofatso Pule, 28, was found stabbed through the chest and hanged from a tree on the outskirts of Johannesburg last week, four days after going missing

'We note with disgust that at a time when the country is facing the gravest of threats from the pandemic, violent men are taking advantage of the eased restrictions on movement to attack women and children.'

He also noted that South Africa had among the highest levels of domestic violence in the world, and that as much as 51 per cent of South African women have experienced violence at the hands of someone with whom they are in a relationship.

Tshegofatso Pule, 28, went missing two weeks ago after arguing with her boyfriend at his apartment on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa (pictured) says it has been a 'dark and shameful week' for his country following a surge in violence against women

But her family say she never came home and after four days of searching a member of the public found her body hanging from a tree on Monday.

Police say she had been stabbed once through the left breast, and have launched a murder investigation.

The killing has sparked outrage on social media, with the hashtag 'justicefortshego' trending as the news spread.

In other violent incidents, Naledi Phangindawo, 25, was stabbed to death in Mossel Bay nine days ago.

Those using the hashtag #JusticeforNaledi want the suspect, who is now in police custody, to be denied bail. He is believed to be her partner.

The president said another young woman had been dumped under a tree in Johannesburg's Soweto township on Friday.

Police later named her as Sanele Mfaba, sparking another hashtag that began trending on Saturday - #JusticeforSanelisiwe - calling for more to be done to protect women.

For two months South Africa had one of the world's toughest lockdowns. It was said that the alcohol ban would limit domestic abuse and ease pressure on hospitals.

Bheki Cele, the police minister, linked rising crime to the partial lifting of alcohol sales on June 1.

Relatives say Ms Pule had gone to stay with her boyfriend the night she vanished but went missing after the pair argued. He has not been seen since

The president added in his statement: 'Gender-based violence thrives in a climate of silence. With our silence, by looking the other way because we believe it is a personal or family matter, we become complicit in this most insidious of crimes.'

'The manner in which these defenceless women were killed points to an unconscionable level of barbarism and lack of humanity,'

Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's minister for women said: '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.'

A woman is killed every three hours in South Africa, according to police statistics - a rate five times the world average.
Duane Foster and a gospel choir in a 2018 performance of "Antigone in Ferguson" at the Harlem Stage in New York City. (All Arts)

Past and present collide in Antigone in Ferguson, created in response to the 2014 killing of African American teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

This mix of theater and gospel music developed by Theater of War Productions repurposes Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy  about a grieving woman who is forbidden by royal edict from burying her brother, who lies dead on a nearby battlefield  for an exploration of social justice and racial inequality.

All Arts, an online platform from PBS station WNET, presents a 2018 film of the production recorded at the Harlem Stage in New York City with a cast that includes Obie Award winner Eisa Davis (Passing Strange), The Good Wife actor Chris Noth and Michael Brown's former high school music and drama teacher, Duane Foster.

The play can be streamed for free and on demand at allarts.org and pbs.org.

Looking for other ways to engage with culture while the coronavirus crisis keeps you mostly at home? We'll continue to share picks for streaming concerts, online musicals, virtual art exhibitions and more. Here's this weekend's list, all times Pacific.

Sanctuary: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection



The California African American Museum offers highlights from the current exhibition (closed by COVID-19) exploring themes of refuge and safety. Also included: short clips of featured artists Adia Millett, Janna Ireland, April Bey and Carla Jay Harris discussing their artworks. Available anytime. Free. caamuseum.org

One World. One Idyllwild.



Idyllwild Arts Academy presents a 24-hour fundraiser featuring performances by student musicians, dancers and other performers from all over the globe, plus appearances by famous alumni including artist Shepard Fairey, American Idol finalist Casey Abrams and journalist Celeste Headlee. Noon Saturday to noon Sunday. Free; donations accepted. idyllwildarts.org

"ink"



The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi streams a 2019 performance of the closing segment of choreographer Camille A. Brown's dance theater trilogy exploring African American identity. Available on demand through Wednesday. Free. facebook.com

Story continues

The Tempest for Our Time



Company members from Shakespeare by the Sea, Shakespeare Napa Valley, Prague Shakespeare Company and others take part in a live online performance of the Bard's fantasy-drama about a banished duke turned wizard on a magical isle. 11 a.m. Saturday. Pay what you can. thestreamingtheatre.wixsite.com and twitch.tv/thestreamingtheatre

Hotel at the End of the Universe



The Leigh Purtill Ballet Company in La Canada Flintridge hosts a watch party for this fantastical dance fable. 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Free. youtube.com

Sea Chanteys and Maritime Music



This monthly celebration normally held at New York Citys South Street Seaport Museum continues online using Zoom. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. Free. Register to receive the link via email at seaportmuseum.org

Citizen: An American Lyric



L.A.s Fountain Theatre reunites cast members from the original 2015 production for a live reading of Stephen Sachs adaptation of poet Claudia Rankines award-winning exploration of racism in the United States. 5 p.m. Sunday. Free. facebook.com/TheFountainTheatre, youtube.com/FountainTheatre, zoom.us (zoom ID 959 8241 0639) and on Twitter @fountaintheatre

Lady Day at Emersons Bar & Grill



Audra McDonald took home one of her six Tony Awards for her portrayal of legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday in this tune-filled bio-musical. Available anytime beginning Sunday. $8.99 a month, with a seven-day free trial. broadwayhd.com

June Is Bustin in All Over



Broadway veterans perform in this livestream concert presented by the cabaret series Kritzerland Upstairs at Vitellos to benefit the Group Rep Theatre in North Hollywood. 5 p.m. Sunday. Free; donations accepted. facebook.com/KritzerlandUpstairsatVitellos and youtube.com

Our recurring coronavirus-era recommendations are indexed in the same place arts event listings (sigh) used to post.
Thanh Hoa is the first to stage an investment promotion conference since the COVID-19 lockdown

In the afternoon on June 12, Thanh Hoa People's Committee, in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), held an investment promotion conference with the attendance of 750 representatives, including Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh and Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Vu Dai Thang.

Thanh Hoa is the first province of the country to organise such a conference after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on major sectors like the industry, urban infrastructure, industrial zones, tourism, agriculture, and health.

Nguyen Dinh Xung, chairman of Thanh Hoa People's Committee affirmed the "two accompaniments" and "three commitments", including: accompanying investors to research and select investment locations; and accompanying them in overcoming administrative procedures. When investors make their decision, the province will make three commitments related to the process of land clearance, development of infrastructure, and supporting them to resolve difficulties.

At the conference, under the witness of Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh, 34 projects received investment certificates, in-principle approval, and signed MoUs with the total investment capital of $15 billion. 19 of these projects valued at $2.5 billion received investment certificates and in-principle approval and 15 ones valued at $12.5 billion signed MoUs.

Thanh Hoa is one of the biggest provinces in terms of area and population, in addition to its natural endowments like seas, mountains, delta, midland, and border areas, yielding advantages related to position, infrastructure, land, tourism, and human resources.

Deputy Minister Vu Dai Thang highly appreciated the efforts of Thanh Hoa in the past time, which have already turned its advantages and potential to socio-economic development.

Notably, the 106,000-hectare Nghi Son Economic Zone along with special incentives has become a driving force of the provincial and North-Central regional socio-economic development. This economic zone has already lured over 200 projects with the total investment of $20 billion from domestic and foreign investors. Total foreign direct investment (FDI) into Nghi Son (59 projects and $13.3 billion) captures nearly 50 per cent of the total number of projects and 90 per cent of total investment capital of the province.

"Numerous FDI projects have already been put into operation and have been yielding benefits like the country's second-largest FDI project Nghi Son refinery and petrochemical complex, Nghi Son 1 thermal power plant, which contribute significantly to the provincial budget and improving Thanh Hoa's position to become the eighth-largest economy of the country," MPI deputy minister said.

The provincial competitiveness index of Thanh Hoa has accelerated remarkably to the 24th, improving 31 steps compared to 2006, and seven steps compared to 2016.

At the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh said that the province should continue improving, focusing on reforming administrative procedures, developing e-government, going toward a transparent business climate.

The deputy prime minister also asked investors and businesses to implement the MoU and their investment commitments, and build a long-term business plan in Thanh Hoa. "I hope that more investors would decide to invest into the province to benefit themselves and Thanh Hoa," said Truong Hoa Binh.

Earlier, in 2017, Thanh Hoa in collaboration with the MPI organised an investment promotion conference to award certificates to 31 projects, in-principle approvals, and MoUs with the total investment of around $6.35 billion.

As of date, six projects have been put into operation, 16 ones have been built, and three ones are making detailed planning. So 93.6 per cent of the total capital that was committed at the conference has been disbursed as of date.
One of the most prominent journalists in the Philippines has been found guilty of cyber libel and could face up to six years in prison in a case that was held up as symbolic of the fight for press freedom in the country.

Maria Ressa, an award-winning former CNN journalist who founded and edited the popular online news website Rappler, was convicted over a 2012 article about a powerful businessman.

Ressa has emerged as one of the leading voices criticising the brutal policies of the countrys authoritarian president, Rodrigo Duterte, since he came to power in 2016, and Mr Duterte has picked out Rappler for criticism on a number of occasions, calling it a fake news outlet.

The libel case was brought against Ressa and Rappler reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr by businessman Wilfredo Keng. Rappler had published a news story on 29 May 2012 that linked Mr Keng to illegal activities including corruption, drug dealing, human trafficking and murder.

The article cited an unspecified intelligence report as its source, but Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said in a 36-page ruling that Rappler had failed to present the report or a scintilla of proof that they verified [its] imputations to the court.

Mr Keng has always denied the allegations. He welcomed the ruling on Monday, and said that it vindicated him and cleared his name, which Ressa, with one click of a button, attempted to destroy.

When convicting Ressa and her reporter, the judge said the case was not an attack on the freedom of the press in the Philippines, and that the exercise of a freedom should and must be used with due regard to the freedom of others.

She also declared that the Duterte government had had no influence on the case.

Ressa has been granted bail for 15 days, pending an appeal. If she does not appeal, then she will receive sentencing and could face up to six years in prison.

Named one of Time magazines persons of the year in 2018, she has consistently accused the government of using legal cases to try and silence Rappler, which has maintained a particular focus on the excesses of Mr Dutertes anti-drugs campaign, during which police have killed thousands of people.

Rappler and its staff have faced a total of 11 different legal proceedings since Mr Duterte came to power, including accusations of tax evasion and receiving foreign funding.

Ressa told a news conference after her conviction that the verdict was devastating and said Philippine press freedom and democracy were facing death by a thousand cuts.

Were at the precipice; if we fall over were no longer a democracy, she said. We will keep fighting, she added, and appealed to other journalists and Filipinos to carry on holding power to account.

The fact that a case could even be brought against Rappler over the May 2012 article essentially came down to a minor technicality. The cybercrime law under which Ressa and Santos Jr were convicted was only passed in September 2012  four months after the story in question was published online.

Lawyers for Rappler said the law could not be applied retroactively, and also argued that the Philippine legal system requires a libel complaint to be filed within one year of the alleged offence. Mr Keng lodged his complaint in 2017.

However, the Department of Justice argued that a small update to the story in February 2014, which Rappler said was to correct a typo in one word and with no other changes, meant that it came under the remit of the new law.

The court accepted this, and that because the case was brought under the cybercrime law and not the traditional libel law, complaints could be accepted up to 12 years after the alleged offence.

International rights groups condemned the verdict on Monday, with Human Rights Watchs Phil Robertson calling it a a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippine democracy.

The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country, he said.

Ressa, who is a dual US-Filipino citizen, was represented by a legal team that included the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Ms Clooney called the conviction an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines.

I hope that the appeals court will set the record straight in this case. And that the United States will take action to protect their citizen and the values of their constitution, she said in a statement. American politicians have previously criticised what they called harassment of the press.

Amnesty International called the verdict a sham and said that it should be quashed. With this latest assault on independent media, the human rights record of the Philippines continues its free fall, said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnestys Asia-Pacific regional director.

Mr Duterte has not just hit out at Rappler in his public statements, with the president going after other critical media including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily, and ABS-CBN, the countrys largest TV network.

ABS-CBN, which had criticised Mr Duterte, had to stop broadcasts last month after its licence was not renewed by the governments telecommunications regulator. The networks case for renewal is currently being heard in the Philippine parliament.

This year, the World Press Freedom index saw the Philippines slip two places, to 136th out of 180 countries.
Visiting Torun, birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus, in 2004 By Mark Wegierski

The venerable city of Torun is located within easy driving distance of Ciechocinek, the spa and resort town at which I was mostly staying, in the summer of 2004. Torun is known especially for its very well-preserved medieval Old Town, which includes the historic medieval walls of the city. One of the citys tourist slogans is Gotyk na dotyk which can be loosely translated as  where the Gothic comes alive. Staying mostly at Ciechocinek, I was frequently driven in to Torun when my female relative travelled there. The Main Square of the Old Town is especially lovely, with its magnificent Gothic City Hall, in front of which stands the statue of Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikolaj Kopernik) the famous Polish astronomer who was born in the town in 1473. The house in which he was born still stands, and is now a museum. There is a frequently cited verse in Polish about Nicolaus Copernicus, which, in approximate translation, says: He stopped the Sun, he moved the Earth, the Polish nation gave him birth. Copernicus challenged the received ideas of his day (which claimed that the Sun revolved around the Earth), and advanced a carefully elaborated and documented thesis that the Earth moves around the Sun. The Copernican theory is the grounding of all subsequent astronomical science. Its possible to argue that the atmosphere of reflective tolerance and liberty that existed in Renaissance Poland under the humane Jagiellonian Kings  in marked contrast to most other European countries of that time -- contributed to his willingness to enunciate those views. It takes tremendous intellect, courage and fortitude to be among the very first to arrive at and advance highly unconventional views, especially those that could result in severe censure and punishment (as seen in the later Trial of Galileo). Torun also has the very well-regarded Nicolaus Copernicus University (Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika) (UMK). Among the universitys more prominent scholars is Miroslaw Supruniuk, the head of the extensive Polish Emigration Archive (Archiwum Emigracji). The Polish Emigration Archive has, indeed, received a Turzanski Foundation award, for its contributions to documentation of the Polish-Canadian community. The awards of the Turzanski Foundation were the only major literary and cultural prizes of the Polish-Canadian community. They had been instituted as a result of a helpful individual initiative  but are no longer awarded. There are also some very exclusive shops in the Main Square of Torun and the surrounding cobblestone streets, including an especially elegant boutique mall that has been built into one of the Old Towns oldest burgher-houses. Also to be recommended is the very finely stocked eMPiK (a magazine, book, and music store) in the Old Town area. In my searching for different Polish popular periodicals, I was guided by the general principle that if a certain publication could not be found in a popular outlet like the eMPiK, then its profile in the country was very low, indeed. Nevertheless, I was able to find in that eMPiK a number of periodicals I had never seen or heard of before, such as the Wroclaw-based Opcja na Prawo (The Option on the Right). The Old Town area also has a mini-multiplex cinema, as well as a fairly good planetarium. There are some prominent antique shops that are full of items that are usually far more interesting than anything to be found in Canada. There are also a number of elegant jewelry stores, and fashion and perfume boutiques, on the streets around the Main Square. Most of those streets are now reserved for pedestrians only, so a highly pleasant and unhurried feeling is created. As far as dining in the Old Town area of Torun, I could recommend the restaurant of the Gromada hotel (a smaller hotel). I had some very tasty meals there in the Old Polish cuisine style, such as clear beet-soup with meat-filled pastry on the side (barszcz z pasztecikiem), as well as pork cutlets with spicy roasted potatoes and salad on the side. The town of Nieszawa, which is about 10 kilometers to the south-east of Ciechocinek, is known especially for its church, which dates back to the fifteenth century, and has a unique set of frescoes. At most times of the year, it is a brief, pleasant drive to Nieszawa along a two-lane, properly-paved road surrounded by the green countryside, usually with very little traffic. I recall a private reception at the Mayors ranch-style house in Nieszawa, where I drank champagne and nibbled on canapes, while looking at the Vistula below, and the verdant forests across the river, in the sun of the late afternoon. I had been invited to celebrate the imminent appearance of an article of mine in a smaller U.S. cultural and political affairs magazine in which I had tried to appear for at least fifteen years. I had written the article right on the trip on a laptop computer, and submitted it through the Internet. That article about my trip to Poland and Nieszawa had been the breakthrough piece for me with that magazine. (An earlier version of this article has appeared in Polonez: Canadian-Polish News (16-30 September 2007), p. 13.)



Mark Wegierski is a Toronto-based writer and historical researcher. Home
CONTACT: Pamela D. Wilson 303-810-1816

Email: Inquiry_For_Pamela@pameladwilson.com

Golden, Colorado  June 15, 2020

The Caring Generation Radio Program Self Care for Caregivers

Golden CO- Caregiving expert Pamela D. Wilson hosts The Caring Generation radio program for caregivers and aging adults this coming Wednesday, June 17, on the Bold Brave Media Network. The program airs live at 9 p.m. EST. The Caring Generation aired initially from 2009 to 2011 on 630 KHOW-AM in Denver, Colorado.

On this radio program for caregivers and aging adults, Wilson talks about self-care for caregivers and the benefits of online caregiver support groups. This caregiving radio program discusses the potential warning signs for caregivers to encourage self-care as the result of watching the health of elderly parents decline. In other situations, caregivers express concern about having the insight of caring for an elderly parent and losing patience or being unkind when they are struggling to remain positive.

Wilson discusses belief systems by caregivers that can result in imbalances in caregiving relationships. What behaviorslike being negative or being closed-minded can caregivers unlearn? Caregiving stress is real and has significant effects on the emotional and physical well-being of caregivers. By learning to become resilient to change, caregivers can begin to participate in self-care activities.

Antibiotic Use in the Elderly

Wilson's guest for this program Dr. Christopher Crnich who is a faculty member in the Division of Infectious Disease within the Department of Medicine at the University of WisconsinMadison. He is also the chief of medicine and the hospital epidemiologist at the William S Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital and the assistant director of infection control at UW Health.

Dr. Crnich specializes in infectious diseases, and his research focuses on healthcare-associated infections among vulnerable elderly patients. On this caregiving radio show, Dr. Crnich will be answering questions about antibiotic use in nursing homes where many elderly reside. According to research, nearly 75% of antibiotics prescribed in nursing homes is inappropriate. Join the program to learn why.

Elder Care Workplace Solutions

Thirty percent of the workforce is caring for elderly parents Being devoted to the care of loved ones affects the personal and work lives of caregivers. Online education and support programs are a way that the workplace can provide eldercare solutions for caregivers working onsite and remotely. More information about onsite and online video conferencing, keynote speaking events, and online education and support are available on Wilson's website.

Join Pamela on The Caring Generation to learn the answers to these and other questions about living with elderly parents. The Caring Generation radio program airs live at 6 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Mountain, 8 p.m. Central, and 9 p.m. Eastern every Wednesday night. Replays of the weekly programs are available in podcast format with transcripts on Pamela's website and all major podcast sites. More information about her online course, Taking Care of Elderly Parents: Stay At Home, provided through corporations for working caregivers is available on her website.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:25:07|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday called on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to find a breakthrough together through dialogue, according to the presidential Blue House.

"I know well about Chairman Kim Jong Un's determination and efforts to change the Korean Peninsula situations in an epoch-making way. I also feel very sorry that progress hasn't been made in the DPRK-U.S. and the inter-Korean relations as expected," Moon told a meeting with his senior aides.

"It is high time that the South and the North go to find a breakthrough together. The time has come that (the two Koreas) would no longer sit and wait for improved conditions," said Moon.

Moon said he wished to actively find and put into practice the projects that the two Koreas can choose and push for on their own, vowing to continue efforts to gain consent from the international community.

He expressed his anticipation that the DPRK would open its door for dialogue and put ideas together.

Moon's comment came after Kim Yo Jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and younger sister of top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement Saturday night that she had given instructions for decisive action to be taken.

"If I drop a hint of our next plan the South Korean authorities are anxious about, the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army," She said, adding that the army "will determine something for cooling down our people's resentment and surely carry it out."

The DPRK has repeatedly lashed out at South Korea since last week in protest against anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent by defectors and activists across the border. Pyongyang has also closed its joint liaison office and cut off all communication lines with the South.

Moon said South Korea and the DPRK should go step by step towards peace and reconciliation, albeit slow-footedly, noting that the agreements, reached by the current leaders of the two Koreas, must be implemented sincerely.

He vowed to make constant efforts for the implementation of the inter-Korean agreements regardless of any change in political situations, calling for Pyongyang to resolve any inconvenient and difficult issues through communications and cooperation with Seoul while refraining from returning to an era of confrontation.

Denuclearization talks between the DPRK and the United States have stalled since the second summit between the DPRK leader and U.S. President Donald Trump ended with no agreement in February 2019 at the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

The South Korean president in April offered to the DPRK to resume inter-Korean cooperation by jointly tackling the COVID-19 outbreak. Enditem
A Liberal Party senator has caused outrage by apparently comparing Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to the American cop accused of murdering George Floyd.

In an interview on Sky News last week, Senator Amanda Stoker said Queensland's state border should be removed immediately to rescue tourism businesses.

But her choice of words sparked controversy after she said Ms Palaszczuk was the 'knee on the throat' of businesses.

'She is absolutely choking our economy by having these borders shut,' Senator Stoker said.

'She is the knee on the throat of the businesses of Queensland, stopping them from breathing.'

The comments came as anti-racism protests erupted across the West following the death of African-American security guard George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Mr Floyd was allegedly held down with a knee to his neck by white policeman Derek Chauvin for eight minutes and 46 seconds before he died.

Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder.

Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt said the comments were a 'new low' for the Liberal National Party.

'Who uses the words of a dying man to score a political point,' he said.

Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker during Senate Question Time in the Senate chamber at Parliament House

Senator Stoker declined to comment on whether she referenced the death of Mr Floyd deliberately.

She told Daily Mail Australia: 'This is nothing but a shallow attempt to use outrage to distract from the mess that Labor is facing today [after the sacking of Victorian Labor minister Adem Somyurek].

'It's the Queensland Premier who should apologise to the many business owners who've lost their livelihoods, and the thousands of staff who've lost their jobs in circumstances where these border closures have gone on way too long.

'It's choking the Queensland economy, and it has got to stop.'

On Friday the Queensland government announced that its borders would come down on 10 July.
Of the six speakers Monday, only Rock Island Mayor Mike Thoms had spoken directly to the governor, and that was last week. His response, along with everybody else, was that his goal is to open up faster. Nobody would like it more than him.

Thoms feels like Q-C leaders are getting the point across, and Pritzker understands, but is against it for now.

His answer is we are playing with science, and so we are talking to the health officials and using their advice," Thoms said.

Still, Pryce Boeye, president and CEO with Hungry Hobo, has seen the difference first hand. His six Iowa stores are up 24 percent, while his six Illinois stores, are down 7%. We have a tough time keeping up with the businesses in Iowa at this point. With the numbers I laid out there, our Illinois stores are still suffering as a result.

He says Illinois sales could be like Iowas if Illinois opened up fully.

Absolutely, he said. I just know how many times I have gone over to Iowa, so I am sure other folks are doing it as well. I know that if these are the numbers in my business, that there are some others that are not even as fortunate as that."
DALLAS, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Bottle Rocket made a bold commitment to its employees, the Dallas community and the world by launching what the company is calling the Juneteenth Movement. This movement is intended to bring together businesses in Dallas and beyond to put a voice and actionable change behind the racial injustice that plagues our nation.

The company is taking a stance against inequality and asking others to join them in their fight. Both in recognition of the oldest known celebration honoring the end of slavery in the United States (Juneteenth) and in support of the change we need in today's world, Bottle Rocket openly invites all businesses to join together and commit to greater awareness, meaningful reflection and deeper empathy not just on Juneteenth, but every day of the year.

"As Juneteenth approaches, we felt there was no better time to stand up and make a bold statement about what we have chosen to do as an organization that firmly believes in diversity, inclusion and racial equality for everyone," says Calvin Carter, Bottle Rocket's Founder and CEO. "We are not treating this like another day off, but instead taking action to truly bring about change both here in Dallas and hopefully everywhere. We must fight the natural inertia that surrounds this topic and seek to be better and more aware humans each and every day."

Bottle Rocket has designated this Friday, June 19th as a company-wide day of reflection, learning and action for its 250 employees in Dallas and invites other organizations to do the same. The company has created a starter pack of ideas and resources for reflection, learning and action that can help any company or organization quickly organize and join the movement. The company has also created an advisory board that is committed to inclusion, condemning racial injustice and standing up against inequality.

"This is a call to arms of sorts. By joining together, we can do so much more than we can alone," says Joslin Sansom, SVP of Client Success at Bottle Rocket. "I am personally passionate about ensuring that we commit beyond just this moment in time and take action now and on a continual basis. We must start openly advocating for what is just and this invitation to join us is one small step in the right direction."

Carter adds, "We have gathered a large number of suggested activities in each of the three categories of reflection, learning and action. We gladly give all of these things to anyone willing to listen to us. We certainly don't have all of the answers, but what we have is a passion for change and a playbook to share. I personally invite you to join us and the countless others that are committed to learning together, broadening the conversation and taking action. We know what we can do on our own, but if we all work together, we can do so much more."

To join the movement and receive the starter pack of ideas that Bottle Rocket has prepared, please visit www.bottlerocketstudios.com/juneteenth. It includes everything you will need to have your company or organization join the movement.

About Bottle Rocket

Bottle Rocket is a digital experience consultancy that provides strategy, product, design and technology services that drive business results and exceed customer expectations. Bottle Rocket is a strategic partner within the worldwide WPP network. To learn more, visit bottlerocketstudios.com or drop us a note at [email protected].

Press contacts

Jana Boone, [email protected]

Holly Kinsell, [email protected]

SOURCE Bottle Rocket
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 14)  The country may face stringent protocols in dealing with the international financial community that may affect business, transactions and even the countrys creditworthiness if it fails to pass the Anti-Terrorism Bill, a government watchdog cautioned at the weekend.

The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) said Saturday the measure must be enacted soon to prevent the countrys classification in the so-called gray list of the Paris-based global dirty money watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The FATF carries out increased monitoring of countries on the gray list, including an assessment on the progress to achieve goals against money laundering. While gray-list classification is not as negative as the blacklist, countries on the list may still face sanctions from institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and experience adverse effects on trade.

If any or all of the proposed amendments are not passed and not implemented within the observation period, the country will be included in the FATF ICRG gray list, which will publicly identify the Philippines as a risk to the international financial system for having strategic deficiencies in its [anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing] framework, the AMLC said in a statement.

The ICRG refers to the International Cooperation Review Group that looks into what it calls high-risk jurisdictions and recommends actions to address such risks.

"The Philippines inclusion in the gray list will result to an additional layer of scrutiny from regulators and financial institutions, thereby increasing the cost of doing business; delaying the processing of transactions; and blocking the countrys road to an A credit rating," the AMLC said.

The AMLC pointed out "non-negotiable provisions" in the Anti-Terrorism Bill that would make make the country compliant with international standards.

In particular, these are Section 3 (b) on the definition of a designated person, Section 11 (a, b, and c) on the unlawful acts of foreign terrorists, Section 25 on the designation of terrorist individuals, groups of persons, organizations, or associations, and Section 34 on the AMLCs authority to investigate, inquire into, and examine bank deposits, Section 35 on the AMLCs authority to freeze.

In addition, these items should be retained: Section 37 on safe harbor for any person acting on good faith when implementing targeted financial sanctions, and Section 45 (i) on the function of the Anti-Terrorism Council to take action on relevant resolutions issued by the United Nations Security Council.

The AMLC said FATF pointed out shortcomings in the countrys laws to counter money laundering and terrorism. It added the global watchdogs recommendations were earlier proposed as amendments to the Human Security Act, and now incorporated in the Anti-Terrorism Bill that is pending enactment.

The council said the country must prove its resolve to stamp out dirty money deals that, among others, fund terrorist acts, beyond enacting stricter laws as the global financial community will assess strict compliance with international standards.

The country must also demonstrate effective implementation of these amendments before the observation period ends in February 2021, the AMLC said. With the early passage of the (Anti-Terrorism Bill), the Philippines will be given a very good opportunity to implement the same and demonstrate progress in fulfilling our international commitments.

The controversial bill, which allows warrantless arrest and detention of suspected terrorists for up to 24 days, is up for the Presidents signature. President Rodrigo Duterte has 30 days from June 9 to either sign or veto the bill before it lapses into law. The certified measure will repeal the Human Security Act of 2007.

The Department of Justice is expected to submit to Malacanang the results of its review on the bill by June 17.

Meanwhile, thousands of Filipinos have protested against the measure, citing amendments that may be prone to human rights violations.
Amid an unabated rise in coronavirus cases in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a fresh round of consultations with chief ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday on ways to check the spread of the virus as India exits the lockdown.

On Tuesday afternoon, Modi will hold a video-conference with chief ministers, Lt governors and administrators of 21 states and Union territories.

These include Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, the northeastern states and some UTs.

For latest updates on Coronavirus outbreak, click here

The prime minister will interact with chief ministers of 15 states and the LG of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

These include high case load states like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The two-day virtual meet comes against the backdrop of a rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.

India saw a jump of over 11,000 novel coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, taking the total number of infections to over 3.32 lakh, while the toll rose to 9,520 with 325 more deaths.

Under "Unlock 1", several relaxations have been made for public and businesses to ensure that economic activities hit by the lockdown gather momentum.

Ahead of his meeting with chief ministers, the prime minister had on Saturday reviewed the steps being taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in areas with high case load and the road map for effective management of the situation.

Modi had suggested that the home minister and the health minister convene an emergency meeting with the Delhi Lt governor and chief minister and other officials to plan a "coordinated and comprehensive response" to handle the challenge posed by rising cases of COVID-19 in Delhi.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on June 15

The meets suggested by the prime minister took place on Sunday.

This would be the prime minister's sixth round of consultation with the chief ministers, the last being on May 11.

Home Minister Amit Shah spoke with all the chief ministers over telephone in the last week of May, just before lockdown-4 was to end.
The State's pension age will not be pushed up to 67 next year under the proposed programme for government, Fianna Fail's finance spokesman Micheal McGrath has said.

This has previously been resisted by Fine Gael, who called for it to be increased in line with a long-running strategy aimed at reducing State pension costs with a transition payment for people until they reach 67.

The State's pension age, which is currently 66 and was due to be increased to 67 next year and 68 in 2028, has been one of the key roadblocks in the government formation talks.

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However, Mr McGrath said progress has been made during the talks that will ensure the pension age will not rise next year.

He told RTE's Morning Ireland: "The final details will will be confirmed once the document is published but this has been an issue of considerable debate right through the election campaign, and indeed since, and it is an important issue for our party over the course of the negotiations.

"We are satisfied with the shape of what is being agreed which will ensure that the pension age is not going to increase next year."

The leaders have agreed to set up a commission on pensions which will examine a new auto-enrolment system and the contributions people will be expected to make in order to receive a State pension.

"There will be a commission on pensions to conduct a thorough examination of the issue and to make recommendations to government," he said.

"It will be open to government to consider those recommendations and to make further decisions to ensure that our system is sustainable, that there will be pensions there for people who are paying PRSI contributions into the future and indeed those who rely on the non contributory pension as well."

Mr McGrath added that there are outstanding "complex issues" that need to be discussed, saying: "We have to take into account the fact that there are many people who have contracts of employment that required them to retire, in some cases at the age of 65, and others in the case of 66.

"But the plan pension age increase next year will not proceed pending the work of that commission and any subsequent government decision in relation to its recommendation."

Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill later told RTE's Today with Sarah McInerney that the State's pension age is "still something that the leaders are discussing."

The leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green party are continuing talks this morning after failing to sign off on the programme following hours of discussions on Sunday.

The three leaders are to discuss how the new government will operate, including issues like the communications between the parties.

Independent.ie understands that the majority of the proposed programme for government has been agreed and is expected to be signed off on today.
President Trump will come to Mobile next month to campaign for Tommy Tuberville for the U.S. Senate, CNN reported.

The Trump campaign has not announced the trip, but CNN attributed the report to two sources familiar with the plan.

Tuberville faces Jeff Sessions in the July 14 runoff for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat Sessions left to accept the presidents appointment as attorney general.

The winner faces Sen. Doug Jones, a Democrat, in November.

Sessions responded to this mornings story on Twitter, saying that Alabamians wont be told who to vote for. Sessions also said Trumps time would be better spent in swing states he needs to win for reelection than in Alabama, which he is expected to carry easily.

The people of Alabama will not be told who to vote for by anyone in Washington. As recent experience demonstrates, in Alabama we make our own decisions on who will represent us in the US Senate. Its always a good day when the President of the United States visits Alabama.  Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) June 15, 2020

Five years ago, it was Sessions who introduced Trump in Mobile for a rally at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. During another Trump visit to Alabama, in February 2016, Sessions became the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump.

Sessions worked in Trumps campaign and accepted his appointment as attorney general. Trump turned on Sessions when Sessions recused himself from the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election.

Trump eventually fired Sessions because of the disagreement. Sessions has defended his decision to recuse, saying that he had no choice because he had been part of the Trump campaign.

Related: Jeff Sessions goes on defensive about recusal. Pundits say he should pivot.

Trump announced his endorsement of Tuberville in March.
Australians aren't too keen on returning to their local gym - and it's not because they are lazy.

Fitness centres in New South Wales reopened on Saturday with coronavirus social distancing measures in place.

Despite being closed for three months, only 12 per cent of exercise-focused Australians indicated they would return to their local gym straight away, a survey commissioned by Reactive Fitness found.

The poll of 528 gym regulars was taken in the first week of June, before the NSW government allowed fitness clubs to reopen with social distancing and hygiene measures in place.

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Australians aren't too keen on returning to their local gym - and it's not because they are lazy. Fitness centres in New South Wales reopened on Saturday with social distancing measures in place. Pictured is the reopened Fitness First at Hornsby in Sydney's north on June 13, 2020

Just 64 respondents answered 'yes' when asked if they would be returning to their gym straight away as a resounding 88 per cent, or 464 of them, said 'no'.

Catalina Levitt, a personal trainer based at Bondi Junction in Sydney's east, said the COVID-19 pandemic had seen people develop home-based exercise regimens.

'It's taken on a whole new life as a feature of post-pandemic exercising,' she said.

Some gyms are strictly enforcing coronavirus hygiene measures with Fitness First at Hornsby in Sydney's north reopening on Saturday with a punching bag wrapped in yellow crime scene-style tape.

'In line with social distancing recommendations, this equipment is not available for us,' a red cardboard sign said.

Alternate exercise machines were also covered in yellow, crime-scene style tape to ensure customers maintained their distance.

Foam mats were no longer available and drinking water bubblers were taped up.

Lounges and coffee tables at the front were also removed, to comply with hygiene standards, as bins filled up with disinfectant wipes.

Catalina Levitt, a personal trainer based at Bondi Junction in Sydney's east, said the COVID-19 pandemic had seen people develop home-based exercise regimens

Benches were also removed from the change room, with circle signs on the floor telling customers where to stand.

Showering was still permitted and customers were allowed to use lockers, with every second one intentionally locked to maintain social distancing.

'For your health and safety, every alternate locker has been closed,' it said.

Fitness First Australia general manager David Aitchison acknowledged the COVID-19 measures would change the way gyms operated.

'We are conscious that in keeping our clubs safe and healthy for everyone, returning to the gym will feel a little different,' he said.

Fitness First is offering members 50 per cent off in the weeks after reopening and they will be given the option of extending their membership freeze.

In the United States, Gold's Gym has filed for bankruptcy but it remains to be seen whether Australian fitness clubs would be in the same financial stress, considering they were eligible for $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidies from the federal government.

Some gyms are strictly enforcing coronavirus hygiene measures with Fitness First at Hornsby in Sydney's north reopening on Saturday with a punching bag wrapped in yellow crime scene tape.
President Donald Trump has promised that there will be a coronavirus vaccine before the year is out. But public health experts are growing increasingly worried that the White House will pressure regulators to approve the first vaccine candidate to show promise  without proof that it provides effective, reliable protection against the virus.

Drugmakers and health agencies have already begun rewriting the rules of vaccine research, launching candidates into clinical trials at record speed in search of a pandemic-ending shot. Data on the vaccines safety is already trickling in. But no candidate is yet ready for the final step of the development process: a months-long trial in tens of thousands of volunteers to prove once and for all whether the shot works.

That tight timing, coupled with the high-pressure political environment, has experts concerned that the Food and Drug Administration could grant emergency-use authorization to one or more vaccines before clinical trials have definitively determined whether they can prevent infection. Taking that step also could make millions of doses available outside of clinical trials, making it hard to enroll enough people in the trials to get the data ultimately needed to show the vaccine works. It could also squeeze other  potentially better  candidates out of the market.

If you give an emergency use authorization, youre likely going to make it hard to assess all these vaccines and to assess the thing we really care about: Are they effective in preventing infection? Thats the key, said Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at University of Pennsylvania and health adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The governments top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, says that if the number of coronavirus infections is still high in the fall, when several leading vaccine candidates are set to begin the final stage of testing, an emergency use authorization might not be necessary. Under that scenario, he said, scientists could get an answer quickly from randomized, controlled trials.

Story continues

It is likely that we will have an answer by the end of this calendar year, early December or beginning of 2021, Fauci said. Having said that, there is no guarantee that we are going to get a vaccine that works: Thats the big unknown.

But that might not be fast enough for Trump, whos fighting for reelection and eager to fulfill his promise to make a shot available to all Americans by the end of the year. After weeks of Trump promoting the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment, the FDA moved in March to authorize emergency use of the medicine despite scant evidence. Recent trial results suggest the drug has no benefit for coronavirus patients, and on Monday the FDA revoked the authorization, saying it was now clear that the drug had no effect.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn denied that political pressure has influenced his agency's coronavirus response. Under no circumstances will the FDA allow political pressure to affect our decision-making and, importantly, that has not occurred on my watch," he told POLITICO. "We continue to take this very seriously. But the hydroxychloroquine saga looms large.

Public confidence in the FDA has really been eroded because of the EUA on hydroxychloroquine and then the mess that theyve made with serology tests, said Nicole Lurie, an assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS during the Obama administration. Theyve already got two strikes against them. The risk of the Trump administration eroding public confidence in our science agencies is just huge.

The effects of such political calculus could extend beyond the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 112,000 in the United States so far, by reducing the publics confidence in vaccination overall. Already, a quarter of Americans say they have little to no interest in receiving a coronavirus vaccine, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published last month. Roughly 36 percent of respondents said they would be less willing to take it if the president, who in the past has openly questioned the need for any vaccines, declared it safe.

The fastest vaccine ever developed, for mumps, took four years. Many experimental vaccines show promise in early human trials, which look at a shots safety and whether it prompts an immune response, but a significant chunk go on to flunk the broad final study of effectiveness known as a phase three trial. Patients may produce antibodies in response to a dose of an experimental vaccine, but those are not always strong enough to protect against a disease.

Scores of potential shots to prevent HIV have fizzled in trials, for example, after producing antibodies that the virus can still evade. SARS-CoV-2 is a markedly different virus, but no vaccine for a coronavirus has ever been approved.

You dont know whether the immune response is predictive of protection. The only way to do that is to do an efficacy trial, said Paul Offit, a University of Pennsylvania immunologist who co-developed a vaccine for rotavirus. Efficacy trials, also known as phase three studies, typically enroll tens of thousands of people and take months to produce answers.

Offit and Emanuel penned an editorial in the New York Times last week expressing concern that Trump could hastily authorize a coronavirus vaccine as a so-called October surprise. (Michael Caputo, HHS assistant secretary for public affairs, called it a "lurid Resistance fantasy" and accused the pair of "discrediting President Trumps historic COVID response.")

Despite the pitfalls of drug development, manufacturers of potential coronavirus vaccines are pushing to accelerate the development timeline. Rather than beginning with preliminary studies in animals, companies are conducting the tests concurrently with early human trials  which regulators have allowed because of the urgency of the situation.

Manufacturers are also merging clinical trials, which are typically done in three phases, and moving swiftly from one stage to another. Johnson & Johnson will begin testing its vaccine in people next month, in a study that will combine a phase one safety trial and a phase two efficacy trial. The company plans to start the final phase of testing, a phase three trial, by September.

Another vaccine, made by Moderna Therapeutics, is heading into final human trials in July. And a candidate from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is hot on its heels. A dozen more candidates are progressing through laboratory tests and early studies in people.

But those trials can only be accelerated so much. Moderna plans to enroll 30,000 people in its phase three studies, Fauci said  and signing them all up could take the rest of the year.

Scientists are also now considering sometimes controversial methods, such as vaccinating healthy volunteers and then exposing them to the virus to see whether the vaccine works. That approach, known as a human challenge study, would need to be authorized by the FDA and overseen by an ethics committee.

Human challenge studies are tricky because scientists need to expose volunteers to just the right amount of the virus  too much, and the vaccine could fail; too little, and the vaccines effectiveness could be overstated. But this type of study could fill in crucial data gaps if the U.S. outbreak shrinks before the first candidate vaccines enter phase three trials in the fall.

Its on the table. I hope we wont have to use it, said Fauci, noting that the method would not necessarily save time. We are making challenge doses. Were not saying were going to use them.

A pharmacist gives a volunteer the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential Covid-19 vaccine developed by Moderna.

The stakes of getting any coronavirus vaccine right are momentous  not just because of the toll the pandemic has already exacted, but because anti-vaccine sentiment has grown in recent years. Childhood vaccination rates in New Jersey, for instance, have steadily fallen over the past several years as a growing number of parents sought religious exemptions for their children. The rate plummeted further this spring as the coronavirus spread and even pro-vaccine families stayed home.

Nationwide, pediatric vaccinations fell 42 percent this spring compared to a year earlier, in large part because of coronavirus lockdowns, according to research by the Epic Health Research Network. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio last month called the decline shocking and troubling and urged families to get vaccinated.

There is a genuine concern, and a very understandable concern, from the vast majority of Americans on Are we moving too quickly on this coronavirus vaccine? said Erica DeWald, director of advocacy at Vaccinate Your Family. We need to do a better job of breaking down for people just what were accelerating.

DeWald said terminology like Operation Warp Speed, the name of the government task force to accelerate vaccine production, could leave consumers feeling like manufacturers barreled through safeguards even if that is not the case. I am very confident that the correct checks and balances are in place, she said.

Vaccine experts largely agree that manufacturers have reworked the development process to move at the necessary pandemic speed, and that should be enough as long as vast phase three trials are not short circuited by an early call of success.

The administration will be tempted, because were coming up on an election, to reach their hand into Warp Speed bucket and say heres two or three vaccines that look pretty good, Offit said.


Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:52:34|Editor: huaxia

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ADDIS ABABA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent surpassed 242,105 as of Monday afternoon, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC in its latest update said the death toll from the pandemic also rose to 6,464 as of Monday afternoon, according to the Africa CDC.

The continental disease control and prevention agency, which noted that the virus had spread into 54 African countries, said that some 109,977 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent.

Amid the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the African continent, the highly affected African countries include South Africa, Egypt, Djibouti, Morocco, and Nigeria, it was noted.

The Africa CDC also said that the Southern Africa region is now the most affected area across the continent in terms of positive COVID-19 cases, overtaking the Northern Africa region. Enditem
TROY  A man drowned Sunday while swimming in the Poestenkill Gorge, Troy police said.

Around 5:20 p.m., police responded to reports of a man swimming in an unauthorized area, after he had gone underwater and had not resurfaced.

Troy police officers and firefighters responded to the scene but couldn't find the victim. State police divers later responded and helped locate the man and pull him from the water.

Authorities did not immediately identify the man as they worked to notify family members, but police said he was a young adult, about 18 to 25 years old. At least one friend had accompanied the victim to the park and stayed on scene as emergency responders searched for him.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

Similar incidents have taken place in the gorge in recent years. In 2017, a 25-year-old man fell into the water while hiking and drowned; a year prior, a 16-year-old boy died after slipping from a cliff. In 2014, a 27-year-old father of three drowned in the gorge while hiking with his girlfriend.

Just weeks ago, Troy police had cautioned park visitors to stay away from restricted and potentially dangerous areas near the water.
Dairy giant Vinamilk, which set up a Hi-Cafe outlet in Ho Chi Minh City last year, plans to expand it into a chain.

The companys board recently sought shareholders permission to add nine new businesses to its portfolio, including beverage and food sales. It plans to open more Hi-Cafe outlets starting this year.

Hi-Cafe will come up against local brands Highlands Coffee, The Coffee House, Phuc Long, and Trung Nguyen, and foreign brand Starbucks, which together have hundreds of stores across the country.

Vinamilk, which has more than half of Vietnams dairy market, reported a 5.7 percent growth in revenues last year to VND59.6 trillion ($2.5 billion). Its pre-tax profit rose 1.6 percent to VND13 trillion ($558 million).
Ed Westwick has left Gossip Girl beside themselves with frustration after he hinted he had news about the show - which is set to be rebooted.

The actor, 32, took to Instagram on Sunday to share a cryptic post with his 7.1m followers teasing some kind of announcement 'at 1PM'.

Fans of the show believed he meant 1PM US time, but nothing happened. Others felt it could mean 1PM UK time, given that he is a British actor.

Anti-climax! Ed Westwick has left Gossip Girl beside themselves with frustration after he hinted he had news about the show - which is set to be rebooted

However, the star threw further confusion into the mix when he set an Instagram countdown on his Stories - which ran out on Monday morning.

Fans across the planet stayed up to eagerly await the end of the countdown to see what the news was, but were met with nothing but silence from the actor.

This led to a flurry of furious comments from Ed's followers.

'Im so confused! one person posted, as the counter ran out.

Time's up! The actor, 32, took to Instagram on Sunday to share a cryptic post with his 7.1m fans teasing some kind of announcement 'at 1PM' with a countdown clock

'So am!' another replied, as another demanded: 'Wheres the announcement bro?'

'I swear this better not be a scam I was so excited WTF?' another remarked.

'NOTHING HAPPENED!' screeched someone else, as another added: 'He JOKING with us!'

'I dont get it?????' another wrote, followed by: 'That is SO unfair. Why would he do that to us?'

Debating what side of the Atlantic the 1PM time referred to, someone posted: 'Im so confused did I miss it - is England time or...?'

'But he posted a story with a timer...' another reasoned.

Foreign fans stayed up for the end of the countdown, left raging at the anticlimax.

'I got up early just for YOU!' one indignant follower posted. 'C'mon now buddy, Im losing my beauty sleep!' another wrote.

'Im f**king waiting. I cant sleep!' another posted.

Some did some digging and discovered that Ed - who played bad boy Chuck Bass on the original show, which aired from 2007-2012 and is set to be rebooted in 2021 - is flogging COVID-19 face masks online.

Savvy fans discovered the masks featured the infamous 'xoxo' saying on it, in the same font as Ed's cryptic social media posts.

Fuming! Fans across the planet were met with nothing but silence from the actor

This led to mass disappointment, with many worrying that the 'news' was simply that he is selling Gossip Girl-themed masks.

His original post read: 'Got a little something for you... Tomorrow 1pm.. Hint....xoxo.'

It also included a black box with 'xoxo' written in pink letters - the same pink letters that appear on his Chuck Bass-themed masks.

Late last month, HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly revealed to Vulture that the reboot of Gossip Girl would be delayed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

'They hadnt even started production yet; they were in pre-production and ready to roll,' Reilly said at the time.

Prior to the delay, fans were expecting the series to be released later in 2020.

The new series will be set eight years after the original ended and will explore how social media surveillance and New York City have changed.

The reboot will see Doctor Sleep's Emily Alyn Lind as the main character Audrey, with Kristen Bell returning to narrate as Gossip Girl.

The cast also includes Eli Brown, Adam Chanler-Berat, Thomas Doherty, Jonathan Fernandez, Tavi Gevinson, Jason Gotay, Zion Moreno and Whitney Peak.

Oh dear! Savvy fans discovered the masks featured the infamous 'xoxo' saying on it, in the same font as Ed's cryptic social media posts

What a let down! This led to mass disappointment, with many worrying that the 'news' was simply that he is selling Gossip Girl-themed masks

Hint hint: His cryptic post included the 'xoxo' that Gossip Girl narrator Kristen Bell said in the show's opening titles

Time to wait: HBO Max Chief Content Officer Kevin Reilly announced a Gossip Girl reboot was delayed until 2021; Leighton Meester and Westwick in a publicity still for Gossip Girl

Though Bell will be returning in the narration role, Ed said it was unlikely he or any of the other original cast members would return for the reboot in an interview with Hollywood News in May.

Asked if he would like to make an appearance, the actor mused: 'Absolutely I would, but I dont know that they want us!

'I dont know anything about this reboot except from what you guys have read... Im not sure how our characters would fit in.

'Im so lucky to have known those people, to have played that role and to have been in New York City and doing that. Are you kidding me, Id go back in a heartbeat, but I dont think its going to happen.'

Changes: The new series will take place eight years after the original ended and explores changes in social media and New York City; Chace Crawford, Blake Lively and Westwick in a still from Gossip Girl
Guwahati, June 15 : In one of the largest seizures of arms and ammunition in recent times, security forces led by the Indian Army during a 12-day-long search operation recovered a big cache of firearms of various calibers and explosives from Assam's Chirang district along the India-Bhutan borders, defence sources said on Monday.

In a separate development, the Army, Assam Rifles and the state security forces in joint operations apprehended three United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) and two National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) militants and recovered arms and ammunition from their possession.

Defence spokesman Lt. Col. P. Khongsai said that acting on intelligence inputs, a unit of the Red Horns Division of the Indian Army conducted a joint operation along with Assam Police, SSB and COBRA battalion in the forested area of Lal Patthar in Chirang district in northern Assam.

"The search for 12 days yielded recovery of a huge cache of firearms including grenades, explosives, RPG and mortar bombs. The operation has resulted in the second biggest unearthing of arms in the area in recent times. The recovery has been beneficial in ensuring peace in the region," Khongsai said.

The recovery also goes a long way in maintaining peace, keeping in mind the upcoming Bodo Territorial Council elections in the area.

Khongsai said that Assam Rifles troopers under the command of the Army in an operation apprehended three cadres of ULFA (I) near the Chasa village in Tirap District of Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday.

"It is suspected that the ULFA (I) cadres were on the lookout to reach areas of eastern Assam for carrying out subversive activities. The troops recovered two foreign made point 32mm Pistols, three magazines, 39 live rounds of ammunition and three pairs of ULFA (I) formation signs during the operation," he added.

In the third development, Army soldiers in a joint operation with Assam Police apprehended two cadres of NSCN (IM) near Ledo in Tinsukia District of eastern Assam on Sunday. A foreign made 9-mm pistol, one point 22 pistol, 10 live rounds of ammunition and Rs 10,000 in cash were recovered from the NSCN (IM) insurgents.
CHICAGO, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions, the service partner of choice for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) of healthcare technology worldwide, announces the appointment of James Nestel, PE, as Chief Executive Officer for Americas and Asia Pacific. Nestel comes from Hitachi Healthcare Americas, North American division of Hitachi Limited's Healthcare Business Unit where he was Director of Operations.

Current CEO Christoph Sitzer led Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions (Americas, Asia Pacific) through significant growth since joining the company in 2006.

"While stepping away from a company and team that I am passionate about is not an easy decision, it is the right time to 'pass on the reins' and Jim is the ideal candidate," Sitzer said. "He brings deep OEM expertise and a proven track record of building teams nationally and internationally, but above all, we believe Jim will be a good fit for our people and our culture."

"I have worked with Christoph and the team at Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions for over a decade and am honored to join the company and support its mission to Make Healthcare Work," said CEO Nestel. "This is an exciting time in the industry. Our customers count on us to provide expertise in supply chain management, they rely on us for innovation, and they expect the highest level of quality. We are well positioned to deliver on that and so much more. This is an outstanding organization and together with the team, I look forward to driving future expansion and success."

Nestel joined Hitachi Healthcare Americas in 2005 as Manager of Site Planning & Mechanical Installations. He was promoted to Manager Service Operations before being named Director of Operations where he was instrumental in accelerating growth, expanding technical capabilities, leading multiple business units and elevating quality across the organization. Additionally, over the past five years Nestel has chaired the Medical Imaging Technology Alliance (MITA) Service Committee where he championed the value of quality medical equipment service.

Nestel has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Case Western Reserve University, holds an MBA from Weatherhead School of Management and is a licensed Professional Engineer. He and his family live in Ohio.

"The growth of the company in Americas and Asia Pacific is a credit to Christoph's vision, leadership and team," said Stefan Ulrich, CEO of Simon Hegele Group. "We are very pleased to welcome Jim as the new CEO. He brings more than 20 years of leadership, technical skills and broad industry experience in manufacturing, logistics, distribution and service to the role. I look forward to working with him to further develop existing customer relationships, inspire new partnerships, and expand Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions further."

About Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions (Americas, Asia Pacific)

Headquartered in Chicago with locations in the United States, Mexico, and Australia, Simon Hegele Healthcare Solutions and GMED Healthcare Solutions deliver the industry's most comprehensive service portfolio that includes high-level logistical and technical solutions for original equipment manufacturers of medical devices on a global level. The companies are part of Simon Hegele Group, founded in 1920 with 50 locations worldwide and 2,500 employees. For more information, follow on LinkedIn or visit www.simonhegele.com.

Media Contact

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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trumps campaign manager warned in late spring that his juggernaut political operation  the Death Star, he called it  was about to start pressing FIRE for the first time.

What followed was a massive investment in television and online advertising designed to demonstrate the true might of Trumps reelection team. The Republicans campaign poured nearly $24 million into paid advertising focused largely on six battleground states in the seven-week period from the last week in April through the first week of June, according to spending data obtained by The Associated Press.

The Death Star attack did not have the intended effect.

Some recent polls suggest a dip in Trumps standing and a majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. And nearly two months after Trump first unleashed his advertising tsunami, there are signs that his inability to demonstrate consistent leadership through multiple national crises has neutralized one of the best advertising campaigns money can buy.

Its frustrating, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, said of the presidents inconsistent messaging, while praising the policies the Trump administration enacted before the pandemic shut down the economy.

Thats the part thats frustrating. Its headed back in the right direction, but then every once in a while the message gets off track from the good things that he and his team are doing, Walker continued in an interview.

Advertising alone will not determine Trumps reelection, especially given that Trump and Biden are extremely well-known, and therefore, less susceptible to traditional persuasion campaigns. Still, paid advertising remains one of the most powerful tools available to political campaigns. And this springs investment is just a taste of whats to come over the next 20 weeks.

Trump has almost unlimited resources to reach persuadable voters on their televisions, phones and computers. He reported more than $250 million in the bank at the end of April combined with the Republican National Committee and joint entities.

Last week, he launched another $10 million advertising blitz designed to highlight better-than-expected recent job numbers.

Trump campaign officials say its a mistake to take the performance of the campaign ad buys over the last month as predictive for the future. The campaign, they said, is only just starting to emerge from a coronavirus-induced freeze that dominated public attention, and theyve spent only a fraction of their record-breaking war chest. They said they are seeing more public responsiveness to their anti-Biden message by the day, as more voters tune into the general election matchup.

A lot of Americans know of Joe Biden but not very many know about Joe Biden, said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. Right now, in most voters minds he is essentially the generic Democrat. Were going to change that.

It remains to be seen how effective the Trump campaigns sophisticated advertising operation can be in the face of his own turbulent governing style and his constant stream of attention-grabbing social media posts. The president continues to struggle to lead the nation through the pandemic, the related economic fallout and sweeping civil unrest.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez fired a shot of his own at Trumps Death Star.

Trumps campaign is on a death spiral, Perez told The Associated Press. Hes on a death spiral because at every turn hes made the wrong choices. Hes dividing America, not uniting America.

Democrats acknowledge that Trump has a well-funded political operation that should not be taken lightly, yet they are generally pleased with the state of the race.

By all accounts, Biden has an early advantage despite not yet spending a dollar on television advertising for the general election. The former vice-president has begun to ramp up his online advertising, however. Bidens campaign spent almost $5 million on online advertising in the first week of June alone, although much of it was aimed at attracting donations as opposed to persuading voters to support him.

It seems to be working.

Biden announced on Monday that he raised $80.8 million last month alone working with the Democratic National Committee. In addition to the focus on online donations, his campaign has benefited from the broad surge of donations to progressive groups during the recent period of civil unrest.

Meanwhile, the advertising spending data shows that Trump has focused the vast majority of his paid media campaign on six states over the last seven weeks: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trumps team has periodically raised the possibility of winning Democratic-leaning states like Minnesota, New Mexico and even Oregon, but the advertising numbers tell the story of a campaign decidedly on the defensive.

So far, at least, Trumps campaign is only spending money in states he won four years ago.

Florida tops the list. The president spent almost $5.6 million on television and online advertising in Florida between April 26 and June 6, according to data shared with the AP. Over the same period, he spent $3.7 million in Wisconsin, $3.1 million in Pennsylvania, $2.3 million in North Carolina, $1.7 million in Michigan and $1.1 million in Arizona. The campaign also spent another $6.3 million on national cable advertising.

While advertising is significant, Walker suggested that Trumps fate is tied more directly to the health of the nation.

When you get stability both in the economy and just overall stability, youre going to start to see the presidents numbers get closer to where they were a couple months ago, which was still very tight, Walker said. I dont think anything is going to be a slam dunk.

___

Peoples reported from Montclair, New Jersey. Miller reported from Washington.
The Chubby Cherub in Belfast city centre is preparing to reopen. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill during the daily media broadcast in the Long Gallery at Parliament Buildings, Stormont on Monday. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Pubs, restaurants and hotels are to open in Northern Ireland at the start of July in a major stride out of lockdown, it has been confirmed.

It comes after meetings between Stormont ministers on Monday.

From June 26, caravan parks, camp sites and self-contained tourist accommodation will be able to reopen.

A week later on July 3, hotels, restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, pubs and bars will be able to welcome customers back.

Pubs and bars opening on that date will have to primarily function as restaurants and offer substantial meals.

Stormont Economy minister Diane Dodds made the announcement about the hospitality sector on a visit to a Belfast restaurant.

"This is a good day for the Northern Ireland economy," she said.

First Minister Arlene Foster, speaking at the daily Covid-19 Executive briefing, said that Northern Ireland was in a "much better place today" than at the start of the pandemic. However, she stressed that the reopening of hospitality will only go ahead if the spread of Covid-19 continues to be contained.

Mrs Foster said the that Executive is considering a "graduated approach" to extending the bubble concept.

This will see two full households being able to interact. The Executive hopes to announce a date for this in the coming weeks.

The DUP leader said that the definition of keyworker is going to be extended to cover those in the manufacturing and construction sectors to enable workers to go back to work.

Mrs Foster also announced that a working group for the reopening of worship has been established and will have its first meeting on Wednesday.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill said that the Executive will meet again on Thursday to discuss further relaxations of the lockdown. She said she hoped to have "further good news" for when hairdressers and barbers can reopen.

Meanwhile, there have been no new deaths due to coronavirus in Northern Ireland, the Department of Health confirmed.

Four people also tested positive for the virus out of 702 tested. Five people are in intensive care with the virus.

Read More

Our live blog below will bring you updates throughout the day
The ongoing strike action by Nigerian doctors may lead to loss of lives, the Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, has said.

The doctors under the aegis of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) on Monday announced their decision to embark on an indefinite strike amidst increasing cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

Resident doctors are certified doctors undergoing residency to become consultants. They make up a large bulk of doctors in Nigerias tertiary hospitals.

The NARD, in a communique issued at the end of its virtual extraordinary National Executive Council Meeting, noted the non-payment of allowances and inadequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as part of reasons for embarking on the industrial action.

Health workers, being the first respondents to patients, have continued to be at risk of exposure to COVID-19 virus.

Although health workers have been advised to use full PPE before attending to patients, many do not have access to these equipment.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, earlier said the centre is distributing enough PPE to health workers who are frontliners in the fight against COVID-19.

As of June 2, about 812 health workers had tested positive for COVID-19 in Nigeria.

Rattled minister

Mr Ehanire while responding to questions at the daily Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing on Monday urged the doctors to show empathy by calling off the strike.

Today we had a meeting with the House Committee Chairman on Health. NARD were also in attendance. At that meeting, they had not yet declared their position on the strike.

I also did request that this is not the time to go on strike; not when we have a very difficult situation on our hands.

I requested them to show enough empathy to know that we will continue to work on their demand and they should not down their tools because the lives that may be lost in that process are not replaceable, he said.

Although he noted that some of the issues raised are not new, he said they will all be attended to.

But we are very certain that the issues that were raised will be attended to, even though some of them are not very new and some of them date back to few years ago.

Some of them have nothing to do with COVID-19, but have to do with residency training programmes. They are all being attended to. There are series of demands and some of them are not current, he said.

PPE

The minister said issues surrounding PPE have been addressed.

The ones concerned with personal protective equipment for example, concerning COVID-19, have been dealt with.

We have supplied all the personal protective equipment to states and to teaching hospitals and that one is off the table, he said.
Buymie, a Dublin, Ireland-based same-day grocery delivery company, raised an extra 5.8m in new funding.

Wheatsheaf Group, the food and agriculture investment arm of the Grosvenor Estate, joined as a new investor with participation from existing shareholders Act Venture Capital, Sure Valley Ventures, Haatch Ventures, HBAN, as well as Keith Weed, former Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Unilever, and Scott Weavers Wright former Managing Director of Morrisons.com.

The company, which has raised 8m in total funding, intends to use the capital for rapid expansion across the UK and Ireland, first in Bristol with 15 other UK cities currently being considered, and focus on its mission of reducing the environmental impact of grocery shopping. Initiatives include limiting the use of secondary plastic packaging, reducing private car journeys, as well as designing incentive programmes to help facilitate a switch to electric vehicles.

Founded in 2016 by serial entrepreneur Devan Hughes (CEO), and Art Sokhikyan (CTO), Buymie is a same-day grocery delivery company focused on reducing the environmental impact of grocery shopping. The company works closely with retail partners including Lidl and The Co-op to help provide a unique same-day concierge delivery service to their customers. Its flagship partnership with Lidl has enabled value-conscious consumers in Ireland to access same day grocery delivery. Buymie has just launched in the UK. The service is initially available in the Bristol metropolitan area in partnership with The Co-op and other UK retailers. The company has operations in the UK, Ireland and Armenia.

FinSMEs

15/06/2020
England saw a further easing of lockdown measures on Monday, almost three months after restrictions were first introduced in March.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier this month announced a further relaxation of the rules in England, many of which came into force on 15 June.

Decisions on easing lockdown in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are being made by the devolved administrations in those countries.

Heres everything you need to know about the changes.

Can I go to the shops?

Some non-essential shops will resume business on 15 June for the first time since a nationwide lockdown was announced on 23 March.

These include high street retailers and department stores, including book shops, indoor markets and shops selling clothes.

Restaurants, pubs and hairdressers will remain closed until at least July, although they can continue to operate delivery and takeaway services.

Across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland, shops opened last week. Both the Scottish and Welsh governments are yet to confirm when non-essential stores can start trading again.

Full list of reopened shops:

Fashion shops

Charity shops

Betting shops

Tailors, dress fitters and fashion designers

Auction houses

Antique stores

Retail art galleries

Photography studios

Gift shops and retail spaces in theatres, museums, libraries, heritage sites and tourism sites

Mobile phone stores

Indoor markets

Craft fairs

Similar types of retail

Recommended Beijing coronavirus cases jump

Do I have to wear a face covering on public transport?

People in England are being encouraged to avoid public transport where possible.

However, some people have no other option than to use a bus or train to get to work.

It is now compulsory for everyone in England travelling on rail, bus and boat to wear a face covering  this excludes school transport, taxis and private hire vehicles.

Those not wearing a face covering may be refused access to services or receive a 100 fine.

There are exceptions for people with certain health conditions, disabled people and children under the age of 11.

The compulsory rules do not apply in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland  but their governments recommend that people cover their faces in places where social distancing is difficult, including on public transport.

Are schools open?

Some primary school pupils went back to school earlier this month (PA)

Secondary schools in England can open for students in years 10 and 12, but only around of 25 per cent of eligible pupils will be allowed in the classroom at any one time due to the two-metre social distancing rules.

Some primary pupils  years one and six  are already back in school, having returned on 1 June.

However, the government was last week forced to abandon its pledge to get all primary school pupils back in lessons before the end of the summer.

Schools in Northern Ireland remained closed, with provisional plans to get pupils back in September.

Schools in Wales also remain shut although the government has said that all pupils will be able to return for limited periods during the week from 29 June  but only a third of students would be allowed into school at any time.

The Scottish government has said schools will reopen in August.

Can I stay over at someone elses house?

People in England and Northern Ireland who live alone are allowed to form a support bubble with another household.

This means that people who have spent almost three months in solitude under lockdown rules will now be able to visit another household, containing any number of people, freely.

They will also be entitled to stay overnight and vice versa.

The new rule only applies to people who live alone and to single parents who live only with children under the age of 18.

In Scotland, the government is considering the idea, while the Welsh government is reviewing the next steps out of lockdown

Can I visit the zoo or outdoor cinema?

Recommended Zoos in England can reopen next week as Boris Johnson eases lockdown

The government last week said that people will be allowed to visit zoos, safari parks and outdoor cinemas from 15 June.

Announcing the move, Boris Johnson said the attractions could open so long as they followed social distancing guidelines.

All reopening zoos, safari parks and outdoor cinemas must ensure that amenities such as cafes comply with social distancing measures to help limit the spread of Covid-19.

In Scotland, zoos cant reopen until 15 July while the government in Wales has said attractions will only open when its safe to do so.
Many in San Antonios gay and transgender communities envision a vastly changed workplace now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that its illegal to fire or discriminate against someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity

This is a sweeping vindication for LGBTQ workers, said Eduardo Juarez, a local civil rights attorney and former head of the National LGBT Bar Association. This is a watershed decision that will have an impact nationally but of course also here in Texas and San Antonio. Its the law of the land now.

The ruling that a landmark civil rights law protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination had special meaning for County Court-at-Law No. 13 Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez, the first openly gay person elected to the bench in Bexar County.

Im overloaded, Gonzalez said. Im overwhelmed. (LGBTQ people) are finally getting the protection they should have been entitled to in the first place.

Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News / Staff photographer

After she went on the bench in January 2019, Gonzalez displayed in her courtroom a rainbow flag  representing equality, self-acceptance and pride for gay people  alongside the U.S. and Texas flags.

A local attorney complained to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, and the panel issued a formal warning to Gonzalez, saying the flag created the appearance of partisan bias and would have to be removed. She is appealing.

On ExpressNews.com: Supreme Court rules employers cant discriminate against gay or transgender workers

Mondays Supreme Court decision involved Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans employment discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex. The judges were asked to determine whether the prohibition against sex discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

The vote was 6 to 3, with an appointee of President Donald Trump, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing the majority opinion. Gorsuch joined Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the courts liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in the historic decision.

Juarez said Gorsuch and Roberts are textualists, adherents of a conservative approach that emphasizes adherence to the legal meaning of the text, as opposed to the legislative history of an issue or cultural factors.

From the textualist standpoint, its hard to argue that Title VIIs reference to sex doesnt apply to gay, lesbian and transgender people, Juarez said.

But we all know that a law doesnt always change peoples hearts and minds, he said. Thats why we need the protection of the law.

Graciela Sanchez, head of the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, which has been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ rights in San Antonio for decades, said Mondays decision may be even more important than the high courts marriage equality ruling five years ago, which held that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to wed.

Not everyone wants to get married, but just about everyone needs to work, Sanchez said. She, too, noted how significant it is that Gorsuch and Roberts joined the majority.

Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

As time passes, as people learn a little bit more about family members coming out, learn about LGBT people struggling or committing suicide, hearts and minds change, she said. They become more progressive.

On ExpressNews.com: Hundreds march for black LGBTQ rights

Big change for Texans

Equality Texas, a statewide group that advocates for the LGBTQ population, said the ruling will directly improve the lives of nearly 1 million LGBTQ Texans and 11.5 million gay, lesbian and bisexual people and 1.5 million transgender people living in the United States.

But it noted that black LGBTQ people remain at risk, especially black transgender women.

This victory is a watershed moment for the LGBTQ community in Texas and across America, which has been working for decades to secure basic protections from discrimination, said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas. But black LGBTQ people will still face disproportionate discrimination across their lives  including in employment. Our laws need to remedy systemic racism and inequality.

The group plans to lobby the Legislature in 2021 to pass a broad nondiscrimination bill that would extend protections for LGBTQ people to areas such as housing, public accommodations and the retail sector.

Lawrence Morales II, an attorney in private practice who handles job discrimination and unlawful firing cases in San Antonio, said he expects to see a flurry of such cases from LGBTQ clients, now that the Supreme Court has declared them a protected class.

We get calls every week from (gay or transgender) people who said they were fired or harassed or lost wages because of discrimination, and we had to tell them it wasnt certain if they could go to court to claim that, he said. Now they will have their day in court, just as those who are discriminated against on the basis of race, national origin and all the other protected classes.

Melissa Ochoa, president of the San Antonio LGBT Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement: Now it is possible, in all 50 states, for a member of the LGBTQ community to get married on Sunday and remain employed on Monday.

Ochoa noted that the decision is a significant one for Texas, which is a so-called at-will state.

This means employees can be fired for no reason at all, just not for an illegal reason, she said.

Judge Gonzalez sees a connection between Mondays ruling and the nationwide protests over police use of force and racial inequality sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

These are immutable characteristics, she said, referring to race, sexual orientation and gender identity. We are as God made us. We were born this way. I think the Supreme Court should have done this in 2015, when we got marriage equality. Not being protected at work can cause a lot of anxiety and limits a persons ability to plan for the future.

Gonzalez said shell be watching to see how other groups  such as Texas faith-based adoption agencies that refuse to place children with LGBTQ parents  react to the ruling.

I expect them to keep acting from what they see as their God-anointed beliefs, she said. It will be interesting to see how the religious right reacts, but I expect them to keep fighting. Religion is a strong motivator.

The peace centers Sanchez pointed out that the courts 1973 Roe v. Wade decision  ostensibly settled law legalizing abortion  is still furiously contested in parts of the country.

But for now, the work discrimination issued is settled. There will be no more appeals to the highest court in the land.

Gonzalez said shes not too surprised that Gorsuch and Roberts joined the liberal wing of the court in the LGBTQ ruling.

Once judges are appointed and insulated from having to play the political game, their true traits come out, she said. More often than not, they apply the law appropriately and stop reacting to political or social pressures.

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. To read more from Melissa , become a subscriber. mstoeltje@express-news.net | Twitter: @mstoeltje
A recent case report from the researchers at the University of Sao Paulo, published in the journal CLINICS, shows how newborns can also be infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and develop serious symptoms, even though the most likely route of infection in such cases is still not completely clear.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, can present with a spectrum of clinical manifestations  ranging from mild infection of the upper respiratory tract to severe pneumonitis, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and even death.

However, we are still not familiarized with the repercussions of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnant women and newborns, as there is little scientific evidence to date. Initial case reports of infected infants have revealed mild symptoms and stable vital signs, with favorable clinical outcomes.

Several studies suggest the possibility of vertical transmission of the virus (either in the intrapartal or peripartal period), but none of them have confirmed this. In any case, SARS-CoV-2 was not found in the placenta, amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood, or breast milk.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that infants (i.e., less than 12 months of age) may be at increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease in comparison with older children; nonetheless, the data on clinical outlook and disease severity among neonates is sparse and based mostly on case reports or case series.

A research group from the Pediatric Department and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit within the Clinical Hospital of the University of Sao Paulo Medical School recently published an interesting case report describing neonatal SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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 at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID

A newborn with episodes of hyperthermia and mild respiratory distress

The patient in this article was a male infant of a 37-year-old mother, born vaginally without any prenatal complications. The mother's amniotic membranes had ruptured eleven hours before the delivery.

Shortly after birth, this neonate presented with early respiratory distress, which improved significantly after receiving oxygen inhalations within the first twelve hours of life. Additionally, the chest X-ray showed a fracture of the left collarbone without pulmonary involvement.

More specifically, at 11 days of age, this newborn had two episodes of hyperthermia (i.e., abnormally high body temperature) and mild respiratory distress. Molecular assessment of nasal and oropharyngeal swabs by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) yielded a positive result for SARS-CoV-2.

At 13 days of age, the infant was transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and did not have respiratory symptoms anymore; however, pulmonary ultrasonography revealed changes compatible with bilateral involvement of lung tissue. Overall, disease progression was good, akin to other described cases in the literature.

Horizontal transmission as a likely route

A variety of clinical manifestations following SARS-CoV-2 infection in newborns is still under intense study. Until now, finding the virus in biological materials has not been sufficient to corroborate its vertical transmission.

Although case reports like these indicate a postnatal acquisition of COVID-19, horizontal transmission seems to be the most plausible route of infection in this case, perhaps through contact with an asymptomatic virus carrier.

CDC explains that the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to neonates is assumed to occur predominantly through respiratory droplets in the postnatal period, when newborns are heavily exposed to mothers, visitors, other caregivers, or healthcare personnel with COVID-19.

Diagnostic criteria and challenges

According to the medical literature, the criteria for COVID-19 diagnosis among neonates are as follows: thermal instability, respiratory distress, feeding difficulties, hypoactivity, alterations of chest X-rays, COVID-19 diagnosis in a relative/caregiver, as well as intimate contact with individuals confirmed or suspected of having COVID-19.

The newborn, in this case report fulfilled only two of the aforementioned criteria: temperature instability and mild respiratory distress. Alongside the variable clinical presentation of COVID-19 (especially in this group), it has to be emphasized how many neonates present with signs and symptoms that overlap with typical diseases for such a young age.

"The biggest challenge is to recognize the characteristics of COVID-19 among other manifestations of neonatal diseases and to choose the most appropriate treatment for the patients", caution study authors.

In conclusion, CDC recommends testing for all neonates that are born to women with suspected or confirmed COVID-19  regardless of whether there are signs of infection in the newborn. All neonates with suspected or confirmed disease (or even ongoing exposure) necessitate close follow-up after discharge.
Iowans are amazing. The level of civic engagement among our citizens is unrivaled. We proved that once again when voters turned out in record numbers to cast their ballots in the June primary election. Despite an ongoing pandemic and civil unrest across the state, Iowans were determined to make their voices heard the best way possible: by voting.

More than 520,000 votes were cast in the June primary, shattering the existing record of 449,490, set in 1994. Despite unprecedented obstacles, it was a smooth and secure election. The credit goes to Iowa voters, poll workers and county auditors. I am so proud of everyone who participated and the people behind the scenes in all 99 counties that made it happen.

This election was a terrific example of counties, state agencies and the federal government working together to ensure Iowans could vote safely. Congress and President Trump made funds available through the Cares Act that allowed us to provide personal protective equipment and other resources to the counties. Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management and the Iowa National Guard delivered masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer so Iowans could vote safely at the polls.

County auditors exuded grace while under extreme pressure and worked to find creative solutions for unprecedented problems. Poll workers ushered voters through the process on Election Day while minimizing the risk of spreading COVID-19.

This summer marks the centennial anniversary of women gaining the long overdue right to vote with the ratification passage of the 19th Amendment. More than anyone else, Iowan Carrie Chapman Catt deserves credit for its passage. The record turnout in this primary election was great tribute to her legacy.

Although Election Day is over, our work is not complete. Every county will conduct post-election audits in randomly selected precincts to help ensure the accuracy of the vote. That is one of many protections we put in place to protect Iowas elections. We believe in making it easy to vote, but hard to cheat.

Thank you to everyone involved for pulling off a record-breaking election during a state health emergency.

Paul Pate, a Republican, is Iowa secretary of state.

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Sushant Singh Rajput's family, including his father and other relatives, have left from Patna to attend the actor's last rites in Mumbai.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajputs father, BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo who is also a relative of the actor and other family members left from Patna for Mumbai to perform the last rites of the actor. The BJP MLA said if required an investigation will be ordered in the demise of the actor.

We are leaving for Mumbai now. The last rites will be performed there. We still cant believe that he is no more. If needed, we will ask for investigation as well, MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo told reporters outside Sushants residence in Patna, Bihar.

The actor allegedly committed suicide at his Bandra residence by hanging himself in Mumbai on Sunday, the police said.

We are leaving for Mumbai now. The last rites will be performed there. We still can't believe that he is no more. If needed, we will ask for investigation as well: Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo, BJP MLA and a relative of #SushantSinghRajput, in Patna. https://t.co/Z39UvMfLOj pic.twitter.com/OCFF4bwzUo  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajputs maternal uncle seeks police investigation on cause of death, says there seems to be a conspiracy

Also read: PM Modi on Sushant Singh Rajputs death: Bright young actor gone too soon

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide at his Bandra residence by hanging himself in Mumbai on Sunday, Additional Commissioner of Police Dr Manoj Sharma confirmed.

However, no suicide note has been recovered from Rajputs residence, as per the police. Further investigation is underway.

Several Bollywood celebrities, sportspersons and politicians from across the board expressed their shock and grief over Rajputs demise.

Also Read: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput commits suicide at his residence

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BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 14

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 14, 6,087 tests were conducted to detect new cases of infection.

In accordance with the data, in general, 381,846 tests were conducted throughout the country.
Egypts Health Minister Hala Zayed and French Ambassador to Egypt Stephane Romatet have signed an agreement where France will provide Egypt with 15 million for the ministry to purchase medical supplies and protective equipment amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Minister of International Cooperation Rania Al-Mashat announced in a statement on Monday.

According to the agreement, Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) will provide the sum in light of the fruitful cooperation between Egypt and international development partners, Al-Mashat added.

The agreement emphasises the close and profound ties between the two countries in all sectors, especially in healthcare, which constitutes a priority for Egypts government amid the ongoing crisis.

Minister Zayed praised Frances support of the Egyptian health sector, highlighting the ongoing cooperation in the project to modernise hospitals intensive care units in the governorates of Port Said, Daqahlia, Sharqia, Ismailia, and Suez.

For his part, Romatet said the new agreement reflects Frances support of Egypt amid the global crisis.

Egypts cooperation portfolio with France recorded 1 billion by the end of 2019 in transportation, electricity, housing, healthcare, agriculture, and the environment.

The MoU on strategic partnership in social and economic development, which lasts from 2019 till 2023, that has been inked between Egypt and the FDA provides approximately 1 billion.

Egypts Ministry of International Cooperation signed on Sunday an agreement contract with AFD to finance a project to renovate the Cairo Metros first line.

The agreement was inked by Minister Al-Mashat and AFD Country Director Fabio Grazi under Egypts multilateral cooperation framework among development partners, which brings together the AFD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The project aims to renovate and modernise the 44km north-south Cairo Metro line, which intersects with Line 2 and Line 3.

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Venture Catalysts, Indias first, largest and pioneering integrated incubator and accelerator platform, has recently invested in Gabbardeals, an omnichannel O2O platform for mobile phones and accessories. The latest funding will allow Gabbardeals to ramp up its operations, expand services and forge new partnerships.

Founded by industry expert & serial entrepreneur Niraj Raka, and co-founded by seasoned professional Poonam Gugale and Piyush Raka, Gabbardeals is committed to transforming the billion-dollar unorganized mobile retail space. The company works on a unique phygital (physical + digital) model that combines the advantages of both offline and online retail, creating a win-win situation for all players  brand, retailer and consumer. The USP of Gabbardeals is that it synergizes offline and online retail to offer fast, seamless delivery of products while bringing down the customer acquisition cost for retailers.

Sharing his insights, Niraj Raka, Founder and CEO, Gabbardeals, commented, When customers purchase a phone from an e-commerce platform, it takes at least 24 hours for the phone to get delivered. Taking into account the supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the delivery can even get delayed by a few days. Through Gabbardeals, however, customers will get their hands on the brand new phone within two hours. We have made this possible by bridging the gap between online and offline retailers. This way Gabbardeals helps e-commerce platforms to cut down their logistics costs and offline stores to acquire a larger customer base. Bhavesh Solanki who has joined Gabbardeals will be targeting 10000+ Mobile phone sellers to sell on our platform.

Talking about the investment, he added, We now have the cash runaway to scale our operations, develop technology and achieve sustainable growth.

Speaking on the investment, Dr Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts, said, Within a short span of time, Gabbardeals has emerged as a promising player in the mobile retail space. Their omnichannel approach has proven to be effective and profitable, which gives them a winning advantage. This is besides the fact that all the co-founders of Gabbardeals are dynamic leaders and have shown exceptional growth in their own capacities. We are confident that it will fulfil its vision of becoming the fastest-growing omnichannel platform for mobile phones in India and globally.

Speaking on the occasion, lead investor Tharun Dhariwal of Dhariwal Group, said, "Brands and Customers are discovering channel for Online and Offline with regards to Price and Service respectively. Gabbardeals will be connecting chain through O2O model with the traditional retailers. We are confident on the growth of Gabbardeals with many hands joining together for the fortune of our nation. Standalone shops will be getting a new life in the current E-commerce industry. During this COVID-19 pandemic situation, Gabbardeals is the only hope to provide support many small/medium retailers to double their business."

Aalesh Avlani - Partner, Samyakth Capital said,  After speaking to a lot of mobile retailers in the market we realized that these retailers struggle with customer acquisition costs & a lack of technology. Gabbardeals has perfectly positioned itself to be a blend of traditional retail and ecommerce by empowering these mobile retailers address these challenges. The Asset-light business model of Gabbardeals will allow them to scale with minimal burn and help them focus on being profitable at a unit-economic level, a theme that has been made more prevalent post the COVID-19 pandemic

With a widespread presence spanning across India, Gabbardeals has already established a strong footprint in both metros and small towns. So far, it has tied up with 30+ mobile phone franchise stores. Gabbardeals has sold 26,000+ mobile phones and 17,000+ accessories, registering a gross merchandise volume (GMV) of over Rs 50 crore.
Quarantine easing: Belarus' Belavia resumes flights to Ukraine

12:55, 15.06.20 1855

The Minsk-Kyiv flight arrived at 09:35 Kyiv time on Monday.
Police officers wearing face masks are seen outside an entrance of the Xinfadi wholesale market, which has been closed for business after new coronavirus infections were detected, in Beijing

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Kate Kelland

OSLO/LONDON (Reuters) - China has halted imports from European salmon suppliers amid fears they might be linked to a coronavirus outbreak at a Beijing market, although experts say the fish itself is unlikely to carry the disease.

State-run newspapers reported the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at Beijing's Xinfadi market, the source of a cluster of infections that has sparked fears of a second wave of the pandemic in China.

The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves.

"We can't send any salmon to China now, the market is closed," Regin Jacobsen, CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost, told Reuters.

"We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified," said Stein Martinsen, head of sales and marketing at Norway Royal Salmon.

Genetic traces of the virus from the Beijing market outbreak suggested it could have come from Europe.

Keith Neal, an emeritus professor of the epidemiology of infectious diseases at Britain's University of Nottingham, said any link to salmon was likely the result of cross contamination.

"Markets can be crowded places, so like in Wuhan, (they) help fuel spread," he said, referring to the Chinese city where the virus originated.

Neal said finding a link to Europe was not surprising, given the global spread of the virus.

"China gave the world this virus and it was always very likely to give it back to them. Finding a strain prevalent in Europe probably reflects people returning to China after travelling to Europe," he said.

Norway's Food Safety Authority said there was no evidence fish could be infected.

Shares in Norway Royal Salmon, Faroe Islands-based Bakkafrost and Norway's Mowi and Salmar were down 3-5% at 1225 GMT.

Both Bakkafrost and Norway Royal Salmon said employees had been tested for the virus, and none had tested positive.

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China accounts for about 5% of global salmon demand, according to Bakkafrost.

Order cancellations were limited to China and had not affected other markets, said the Norwegian Seafood Council, a marketing firm.

(Additional reporting by Victoria Klesty, writing by Terje Solsvik; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)
When the sixth and final extension to Spains state of alarm was approved, meaning that the emergency measures implemented to deal with the coronavirus would be in place until June 21, the ball was passed to the court of the regions that were moving into Phase 3, the final deescalation stage. It is the regional governments in this final part of the process that will decide on whether or not to permit movement between them, provided they agree with each other. Once they have taken charge, some of these administrations  that were urging the central government to speed things up while it had control of their powers  have slammed on the brakes, with fears over new infections and spikes of the coronavirus prompting them to limit mobility to provinces within the same region, despite the fact that in Phase 3  in which 70% of the population finds itself from today  movement could have been negotiated between provinces.

This situation will come to an end next Sunday, when the final extension to the state of alarm ends and Spaniards will be able to move freely across the entire territory. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced yesterday that borders will also be reopened to European Union and Schengen-area countries, apart from Portugal, and the two-week quarantine requirement will be scrapped.

Galicia, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Castilla y Leon, Murcia, Navarre and the Basque Country have decided to delay the opening of nighttime bars and nightclubs

Meanwhile, the plans that some regions had with regard to movement  a Cantabrian corridor between Navarre and Galicia had been mooted, for example  have been put on hold after a new outbreak in the Basque Country. The regional premier of Cantabria, Miguel Angel Revilla, announced on Sunday that he would lift the state of alarm, as he has the powers to do under Phase 3 of the deescalation plan, in order to bring forward the possibility of movement between neighboring regions before the weekend. He will, however, have to reach an agreement to do so with his neighbors beforehand.

The majority of the regional governments do not want to get ahead of themselves and have announced that they will wait until the whole of Spain is in the so-called new normality. Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the regional premier of Galicia, which is the only region in Spain to leave Phase 3 today and see the state of alarm lifted, on Saturday called for a public health law that allows for mobility between territories with a pandemic situation to be prohibited if the number of contagions is high.

What can happen now  apart from in the seven territories in Phase 2, which are the Madrid region, Barcelona and its metropolitan area, the healthcare area of Lleida and the provinces of Salamanca, Avila, Segovia and Soria  is movement between provinces in the same region. Limits only remain in Castilla-La Mancha, which has divided the region into two: citizens in the provinces that entered this stage a week ago (Guadalajara and Cuenca) can move between the two, but those that are doing so today (Toledo, Ciudad Real and Albacete) will not be able to cross provincial lines until next week.

Above all else, the different speeds that each region is adopting in this asymmetrical Phase 3 are reflected in nightlife, one of the controversial points of this last phase before the so-called new normality. The central government has gone no further than proposing a framework, which consists of opening these premises with a third of their usual capacity and with no dance floors. Galicia, the Canary Islands, Andalusia, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Castilla y Leon, Murcia, Navarre and the Basque Country have decided to delay the opening of nighttime bars and nightclubs on the basis that they could be a focal point for infections. They dont want to repeat what happened in South Korea, where an outbreak in nightclubs in May forced the adoption of new strict measures and a delay to the reopening of schools. They have taken this decision despite generalized protests in the sector, which views the measures as discriminatory, given that the public can enter cafes and restaurants.

The restrictions on movement will come to an end next Sunday, when the final extension to the state of alarm ends

The rest of the regions in Phase 3 will permit nightlife activities to restart with the restrictions proposed by the government, except Extremadura, which while having decided to keep its nightclubs closed in this last phase and continue to prohibit movement between provinces, from today will allow its citizens to move between Caceres and Badajoz, as well as opening nighttime venues at 50% of capacity.

Beyond mobility and nightlife, the differences that the regions have introduced in Phase 3 are subtle. While timetables for physical exercise have been lifted, Castilla-La Mancha and the Basque Country have decided to maintain a priority time for seniors and vulnerable groups. There are also small variations with regard to the capacity of businesses: the general rule is to open at 50% but Aragon, for example, has extended this to 75%, as well as allowing the use of common and recreational areas in shopping malls. The Basque Country has set capacity at 60%, as well as in cultural spaces such as libraries, museums, exhibition centers and cinemas, where the general rule is also 50%.

All of these conditions and the restrictions for the seven territories in Phase 2 will last for less than a week. From June 21, the new normality will come into force, which will see some restrictions remain, such as the obligation to use masks when a safe distance of 1.5 meters cannot be respected. The regions will continue to have the last word on many issues, such as capacity. The Galician regional government will from today maintain a capacity limit of 75%, as a general rule. What it wont be able to do, however, is limit mobility, something that can only be done after the state of alarm is lifted in areas where there are new outbreaks.

English version by Simon Hunter.
"After completing the 'Alone, Together' performance at the Arena Pula it occurred to me that with such beautiful locations nearby there is a fantastic opportunity to play my favorite repertoire in these extraordinary settings. Not just one but a whole series of unique performances! It means so much to me to be able to connect with so many of you; even though I may be playing alone, we can still share that experience together. And the Krka waterfalls performance has a special significance for me as this one will go out on my birthday! Come and join me and help me celebrate  Alone, Together."  HAUSER
San Francisco deserves a lot of credit for its quick actions that limited the number of coronavirus infections and COVID-19 deaths.

There have been fewer than 50 deaths from COVID-19 in San Francisco, according to its public health website. Each of those deaths is a tragedy.

Still, the number of cases and deaths has dropped dramatically in the past month. The citys data demonstrate that it successfully has prevented a severe pandemic from becoming worse, and that our current public health status is manageable.

Whats looming is the next crisis  an economic crisis that has and will continue to strike a second blow to many citizens who comprise a significant portion of the service jobs that are currently banned. Its time for San Francisco to reopen its hotels and prevent some of this damage.

Reopening San Franciscos hotels doesnt mean the end of physical distancing, required face coverings and other preventive measures. Hotels are well prepared to take all of these precautions because we know guests will expect as much.

In April, the California Hotel and Lodging Association developed and implemented a guide to cleanliness and safety as well as a self-certification process to help hotels throughout the state prepare for reopening. Weve added property-specific plans customized for individual hotels that include employee trainings, appropriate signage, regulatory forms and other resources.

With guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Public Health Department, hotels are well positioned to provide employees and guests a clean and safe experience.

Our hotels have been extraordinary partners for both San Francisco and the entire state, providing more than 145,000 rooms for COVID-19 response that sheltered first responders, hospital workers and vulnerable populations  including those living without shelter. We have yet to experience any cluster outbreaks. As such, its highly unlikely that individual travelers would present an increased risk  especially since meetings and group conferences have been canceled at hotels.

But since mid-March, San Francisco hotels have been closed for anything but essential services. This means more than 15,000 employees have been without work. Thats three months without income or on unemployment.

San Francisco plans to keep hotels closed at least through mid-August, which would be half a year without business. It will be an economic miracle for all hotels to survive that long.

Why does San Francisco believe hotels are a problem?

Fifty-one of 58 California counties reopened hotels on June 12. All but Sutter, Imperial and the Bay Area counties have not reopened. Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties  each with large municipalities  have allowed hotels to reopen, providing desperately needed income to service employees and tax revenues to city coffers that are bone dry.

So, why is it that San Francisco used its own data to close San Francisco, but now is unwilling to follow the same data source that suggest its OK to reopen without putting their residents at risk?

One more thing. The longer San Francisco waits to reopen its tourism industry, the bigger disadvantage it will have with other tourism, convention and business markets that already are open.

San Francisco hotels are ready, prepared and safe. City officials, please follow your own data and let us reopen.

Lynn Mohrfeld is president and chief executive officer of the California Hotel and Lodging Association.
WARNING  DISTRESSING CONTENT: A man has wrangled in a five-metre python but not before the enormous serpent put up a fight.

Mike Kimmel, owner of Martin County Trapping & Wildlife Rescue, went to Floridas Everglades last week to capture a Burmese python.

In Florida, the species is considered invasive as it eats indigenous animals. Burmese pythons also arent native to Florida with most coming from South East Asia.

Mike Kimmel with an enormous Burmese python. Source: Facebook/ Martin County Trapping & Wildlife Rescue

Mr Kimmel went in search of an invasive man eater on June 7, but realised she wasnt coming without a fight after finding one in a swamp.

I noticed her almost immediately as soon as we crossed paths, I could barely contain my excitement, he wrote on Facebook.

She definitely was not afraid of me and started to slowly cruise through the vegetation as I carefully walked next to her trying to gauge exactly how large she was because of all the grass and weeds it was hard to tell but I could tell she was an absolute monster.

Mr Kimmel wrote she was tangled in vegetation making her capture difficult and described the snake as 68kg of solid muscle.

I knew going for her head first would be the easiest and safest capture method but I couldnt turn down the chance to grab her by the tail and dance with the devil herself, he wrote.

As soon as I grabbed a hold of her I sealed my fate. No turning back now, she was coming for me.

She immediately started to battle it out, taking strikes and pulling me into some tall grass with her, making it difficult to dodge her strikes. She was able to successfully get a bite on me.

Mr Kimmels arm was punctured by her fangs piercing an artery and hitting some nerves, but the pair continued to tussle.

The python prepares to lash out at Mr Kimmel. Source: YouTube/Python Cowboy

After losing about a gallon of blood I was able to tire her out and get her under control, he wrote.

Story continues

I then used a snake bag I had on my waist to tourniquet my arm because I was getting worried about how much blood I was losing, better safe than sorry.

I then had to drag all 150lbs (68kg) of her alive, working to control my breathing so I didnt pass out from blood loss and the extreme heat that day, I would have been screwed.

Once Mr Kimmel got the snake to his boat he euthanised her.

It hasnt officially been measured, but Mr Kimmel claims the snake was five metres long and included a photo of it draped over his shoulders.

People were shocked by the pythons sheer size.

Oh my God, it is huge, one woman wrote.

Another woman called it a monster.

This gives me nightmares, a third woman wrote.

While the snake is large its not the longest captured on record in Florida.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the largest recorded capture was 5.8 metres.

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.
A Russian court found former US marine Paul Whelan guilty of spying for the United States on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in jail, a move the US ambassador to Moscow called an egregious violation of human rights that would harm ties.

Whelan, who holds US, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by agents from Russias Federal Security Service in a Moscow hotel room on December 28, 2018.

Russia says Whelan, 50, was caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information. Whelan, who pleaded not guilty, said he was set up in a sting and had thought the drive, given to him by a Russian acquaintance, contained holiday photos.

US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan told reporters after the verdict that no evidence had been produced to prove Whelan's guilt and demanded he be released immediately.

"His conviction is a mockery of justice," said Sullivan.

He said the ruling would not have "a good influence" on already poor ties between Moscow and Washington, but that dialogue would continue.

Calling for the immediate release of Whelan, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict US citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses."

Vladimir Zherebenkov, Whelan's lawyer, said his client had been told when detained that he would be part of a prisoner swap with a Russian national held in the United States.

When asked about such an idea, the Russian Foreign Ministry told the RIA news agency it had proposed prisoner swaps to the United States many times but gave no further details.

Moscow has repeatedly called on Washington to secure the release of two Russian nationals - convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot serving 20 years in the United States for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the country.

Zherebenkov said Whelan had no objection to the idea of formally asking Russia to pardon him, something that if granted could secure his release.

Whelan will serve his sentence in a maximum security prison, Moscow's city court said. His trial was closed because authorities said it involved the discussion of state secrets.

State prosecutors, who accused Whelan of having at least the rank of a US military intelligence colonel, had asked the court to sentence Whelan to 18 years in a maximum security prison.
The vaccines - still in clinical trials - would be for all EU member states

A deal between AstraZeneca and France over potential COVID-19 vaccines involves doses being split between countries on a pro-rata basis based on population, a source at the French President's office said on Monday.

The British drugmaker signed a contract with European governments at the weekend to supply the region with up to 400 million doses of its potential vaccine.

It was the first contract signed by Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), a group formed by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to secure vaccine doses for all member states as soon as possible.

"The principle of the deal is that the vaccines will be distributed pro rata, based on population," the source at the French president's office said. "What we've asked for and what has been agreed is for production to take place in Europe."

France hopes to strike similar deals with other pharmaceuticals companies soon, the source added.

The vaccines - still in clinical trials - would be for all EU member states.

Governments have been scrambling to secure advance purchases of promising coronavirus immunisation treatments amid concerns within the EU that the bloc has not moved fast enough compared with other regions or countries.

In France, Sanofi's call in May for a more collaborative European effort in the hunt for a vaccine sparked a backlash, especially after the French drugmaker's CEO said doses produced in the United States, which had rapidly rolled out funding for research, would go to U.S. patients first.

Sanofi Chief Executive Paul Hudson later tempered his comments, emphasising that any coronavirus vaccine would reach all parts of the world.

Macron is due to visit a Sanofi Pasteur vaccine plant in France on Tuesday and will announce commitments on treatments and manufacturing capacities alongside the company, the source at the President's office said.

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Nearly three months into Britains coronavirus pandemic and death and infection rates are falling steadily.

Elsewhere in the world, in countries that are some weeks ahead of us and where lockdown restrictions have been eased, there are as yet few signs of a dreaded second wave  although it is early days.

Now some scientists are suggesting  tentatively to be sure  that this strain of the coronavirus may be following a path beaten by other pathogens, whereby the murderous intruder evolves into a house-guest that lives peaceably inside us.

Data collected by the World Health Organization shows how the epicentre of the pandemic has changed since the virus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December, with the Americas (yellow) recording the most daily cases

Figures also show how Brazil and the US are the two nations being hardest hit by the virus, and shows a couple of nations  including New Zealand  have gone days without a case

Three months into lockdown in Britain (pictured) and the number of deaths and daily cases are beginning to fall

Daily deaths from coronavirus remain low in the UK, with just 38 recorded on Monday meaning the total sits at 41,736 overall

Early evidence for this positive development comes from northern Italy which suffered the full force of the pandemic weeks before it hit us.

Late last month, Professor Matteo Bassetti, the head of infectious diseases at San Martino hospital in Genoa, told journalists: The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today.

'The majority of patients [seen] during March and April were very sick with acute respiratory distress syndrome, shock, multiple organ failure.

The majority died in the first days after admission. We no longer see these types of patients.

'Is this because the virus lost some viral potency? he asked. I dont know.

A positive sign in the European fight against coronavirus: Italian mayor of Gorizia (left) reopens the border with Slovenia in the north of Italy - one of the areas most devastated by the virus. It comes as Italian scientist say the virus is weakening

His observation is supported by an analysis of local death rates by Professor Lamberto Manzoli, an epidemiologist at northern Italys Ferrara University.

His results suggest that from March to April, mortality from Covid-19 across all ages fell by more than half.

Professor Manzolis paper has not yet been published in a reputable scientific journal and so has not been subject to peer review.

Scientists are still on a steep learning curve with this novel virus, but other observations feed into this theory.

In China, as far as we know, there have been localised spikes  including the current outbreak associated with a market in Beijing  but no widespread surge.

In France, Spain and Italy, where some semblance of normal life began two to three weeks ago, both new infections and deaths remain low.

In European countries such as France (pictured), a sense of normal life has returned with the number of cases and deaths remaining low

A similar apparent fall in lethality has been reported in America. Lee Riley, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, told the science publication Elemental that data from New York hints at an improvement in recoveries.

Every time a virus passes from one person to another it goes through mutations, he says.

These can accumulate and the virulence of the virus can ultimately lessen. Its in the nature of these viruses to get tired after a while.

While the world must hope and pray that the virulence is waning, there are some caveats, including two other possible explanations for the drop in deaths.

The first is that treatment has vastly improved as doctors have acquired experience of managing Covid-19.

Indeed, Prof Manzoli acknowledges that clinical protocols seem more effective now. In the early days, clinicians waited until the condition worsened before giving drugs and ventilation  the Chinese protocol. Now they start early, he says.

Alternatively, the virus might simply have infected and killed the most vulnerable first, with more resilient patients surviving.

UK experts are dubious, arguing that the genetics of the disease have not changed. Dr Oscar MacLean, a bioinformatician at Glasgow Universitys Institute for Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation, argues: Weve seen no evidence of widespread [reduction in its lethality].

UK scientists remain sceptical, however, with regards to the debate surrounding the reduction in the virus' lethality

He adds: The golden rule is that viruses tend to evolve over time to become less pathogenic, but that doesnt happen over a matter of a few months. Its more a matter of years.

Viruses can evolve to a point where they can indeed help their hosts (human or animal), establishing a symbiotic relationship from which both species benefit.

This may be the optimum state for the pathogen which has one purpose  to reproduce itself and infect new individuals and it can better achieve this if it does not kill its host (one reason why the Ebola virus outbreaks, with a 50 per cent fatality rate, tend to burn out).

Dr Frank Ryan, a British evolutionary biologist and author of Virolution, about the powerful role of viruses in evolution, calls the beneficial relationship aggressive symbiosis.

The herpes virus, for example, has developed symbiosis with the squirrel monkey, passing harmlessly from mother to baby.

If a rival species such as marmosets invades squirrel-monkey territory, the virus infects the challenger to devastating effect.

It is in the squirrel monkeys interest not to purge the virus, so its immune system views it as friend rather than intruder.

Perhaps this type of jungle immune system helps wild bats.

In fact, some ecologists have speculated on whether Covid-19 might be bats acquired defence against humans destroying their habitats and eating them.

Could we even ultimately develop a mutually beneficial relationship with coronavirus?

We know that nearly 10 per cent of the human genome comprises genetic material from viruses that invaded us in the past and this borrowed viral DNA does vital work  ranging from enabling us to digest starchy foods to, ironically, helping us to fight infections.

Conversely, the Covid-19 virus might never bring anything useful to the human genetic table.

But three months on, even the slightest hint that it is in retreat  and for whatever reason  is something to hold on to.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been adjusting to post-royal life in Los Angeles since relocating from British Columbia back in March. The two announced their royal exit in January, and they officially stepped down in March.

Now, theyre raising their son, Archie, as a private citizen in the United States. But he might not be allowed to leave if something ever happened to Harry and Meghans marriage.

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and Archie | Reuters/Toby Melville/Pool

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the royal family for several reasons

When Harry and Meghan returned to the royal family after their six-week hiatus over the holidays, many thought it would be back to business as usual. However, the two made a drastic decision: They would be stepping down from their roles as senior royals. While they initially hoped to continue to serve the queen in some capacity, it was quickly realized that they would not be able to achieve financial independence this way, so they left altogether.

Harry and Meghan had battled a great deal with the press when they started dating. The tabloids were ruthless toward Meghan, and it took a toll on her. There were rumors that Harry and Meghan had had a falling out with Prince William and Kate Middleton, too, and its likely that both problems played a role in their royal exit.

Harry and Meghan wanted to give Archie a more private life

Besides the drama between the tabloids and other royals, Meghan and Harry were thinking of their son when they removed themselves from the family. When Archie Harrison was born last year, the Sussexes decided not to give him a royal title. Harry had always wished hed been raised outside of the spotlight, and sources close to the couple said they hoped to give Archie a more private life.

Harry and Meghan welcomed Archie in May 2019 | Dominic Lipinski/AFP via Getty Images

RELATED: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Reportedly Stunned William and Kate With This Insensitive Move

Moving to the U.S. allows Meghan and Harry to escape the British press (well, hopefully) and give Archie a sense of normalcy that he wouldnt have if hed remained a part of the royal family.

Archie might be required to remain in the U.S. if the two ever divorced

It appears Meghan and Harry dont plan on leaving the U.S. any time soon, but if something ever went wrong in their marriage, Archie might not be allowed to move back to the U.K. According to royal expert Lady Colin Campbell, Archie would have to receive the OK from both parents to move back to the U.K., per a law that requires kids to remain in the country they were raised in until they are 18.

RELATED: Prince Harry is Leaning on Prince William As the Two Are Back On Speaking Terms, Source Claims

If anybodys marital home is in England and they get divorced or separated, the child is required to remain in England The same applies in America, Lady Campbell told Express. Its due to something called The Hague Convention, which was enacted in 1983. That means that once Meghan moved Harry and the baby to America And there is a separation and/or divorce, unless Meghan agrees to the baby coming back to live in England, the baby is trapped in America until he is 18.

Princess Dianas psychic once suggested Harry and Meghans relationship wouldnt last

Though Harry and Meghan seem to have a rock solid relationship, not everyone is convinced. Simone Simmons, Princess Dianas former psychic, once said she predicts the couples relationship wont last more than three years. Though its not enough to go on, Simmons was correct about her baby prediction for the two, so its possible she is onto something. For now though, Harry and Meghan have settled in nicely to their new lives in the U.S.
Student in China Dies at School, Parents Forbidden to Investigate

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Location: Nantong City, Jiangsu Province

Date: Late May, 2020

A student died after falling from a school building at the Three Star Elementary School of Nantong City, Jiangsu Province. However, school authorities refused to provide any consultation to his grieving parents.

The childs family and relatives were holding a funeral wreath when they tried to enter the school to find out what exactly had happened. But numerous school guards and police in black uniforms quickly intercepted them.

Video content:

Family member 1: The kid has died but they wont let us in. Everything was fine with him in the morning when he came to school. Now, he is gone, but we cannot enter the school (to investigate). Several family members are here. Why forbid us to enter after such a big accident!

Family member 2:

You are police officers, and you are also public servants for the people. Do you really choose to turn a deaf ear to the incident? 

Family member 3:

How many hours have passed? No one came to talk or explain to us. How many hours? We are his family and we are forbidden to enter the school. Everyone, come take a look at our situation.

The childs mother cried tragically next to the childs body.

I want my child back! He was doing fine earlier today, but all of a sudden his life ended! And no one has explained to us what had happened. My pitiful child!
Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday hes directing funding to support services for those with intellectual disabilities and autism in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The governor said he plans to direct $260 million in federal CARES Act funding to support those with intellectual disabilities and autism.

We are committed to providing the highest level of care possible, even in a pandemic like this one, Wolf said.

Wolf held a press conference Monday with Secretary of Human Services Teresa Miller to outline the aid.

You can watch it here.

June 15 COVID-19 Announcement Please join us as we talk about improving life for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities and autism. Posted by Governor Tom Wolf on Monday, June 15, 2020

Agencies serving those with intellectual disabilities and autism have been hit hard hit by the pandemic. Some service providers are running out of money, advocates said. Some have had to pay staffers more in overtime and spend more on protective gear. Some workers are quitting because they are wary of the risks of working during the pandemic, advocates said.

Miller said about 35,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities receive services at home or in community-based programs.

This pandemic has altered all of our lives in a way we truly couldnt anticipate, Miller said.

Mark Davis, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Advocacy and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disability, had been urging Wolf and lawmakers to act. Agencies serving adults with disabilities rely almost entirely on the state for funding.

The aid comes at a critical time for agencies that were on the brink of closing, Davis said Monday afternoon.

We were in a world of hurt, David said Monday. So this is a big deal for us.

The American Network of Community Options and Resources conducted a nationwide survey of agencies serving those with disabilities to gauge the financial toll of the pandemic. The report found two out of three providers have had to cut programs or services and more than half are paying more in overtime.

A survey of Pennsylvania-based providers found that some said they only had enough cash on hand to support operations for a few days.

Across Pennsylvania, more than 50,000 direct support professionals work with individuals with disabilities. Some help with running errands for those with more independence, while some professionals provide round-the-clock assistance with meals and showers. Even in the pandemic, these professionals work very closely with their clients.

In the midst of a pandemic, this work is life-sustaining and heroic, Miller said. She thanked direct support professionals for their tireless and selfless work.

Miller said those with disabilities remain a vulnerable population, partly because they sometimes have other health complications.

Agencies serving those with disabilities continue to struggle with a high vacancy rate. Those direct support professionals who have stayed on the job have done so even at risk of contracting the virus in order to serve those in need.

Our people are putting their lives on the line every day so were really grateful for this funding," Davis said.

How the money is spent

The Wolf administration said the aid would be distributed as follows:

$90 million to providers of residential, respite, and shift nursing services;

$80 million to providers of Community Participation Support services for 120 days of retainer payments, covering operations from March through June; and,

$90 million to providers of in-home and community, supported and small group employment, companion, and transportation trip services for 120 days of retainer payments, covering operations from March through June.

Miller said the pandemic has seriously disrupted many providers of services for those with disabilities.

The funding will help this vital network continue after what we know has been a difficult past three months," Miller said.

Miller said the money would start going out today and providers need to use the funds by Nov. 30. She said the human services department would track to ensure the money is used properly.

Providers of services for intellectual disabilities and autism had previously asked for $89 million a month in additional state aid to cover their higher costs related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Statewide, more than 79,000 have been diagnosed with the coronavirus and 6,243 deaths have been tied to COVID-19, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Other topics

Wolf also fielded other questions at the press conference.

The governor was asked about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the civil rights law protecting workers from discrimination based on their sex also applies to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The ruling is especially significant in Pennsylvania, which lacks its own law against such discrimination.

We still have work to do in non-discrimination in Pennsylvania, Wolf said.

The governor was asked about calling a special session on police reform. He said a special session can focus heightened attention on an issue but lawmakers could simply gavel in a special session and adjourn it. He noted lawmakers are working on police reform issues and urged them to get it done.

They can move very quickly, Wolf said.

More from PennLive

Out of money and out of time: Pa. agencies serving those with disabilities face financial crisis

Theyre the front lines'; Staff care for adults with disabilities amid pandemic, funding challenges
A Lancaster man accused of sexually abusing four girls at his Kenyan orphanage between 2013 and 2017 has pleaded guilty to four counts against him, according to U.S. Attorney William McSwain.

Gregory Dow, 61, created the Dow Family Childrens Home back in 2008 when he and his family traveled to the Republic of Kenya to start an orphanage, according to the statement from McSwains office. The orphanage was established in Bomet County, and Dow claimed he was a Christian missionary who cared for the children and asked them to call him Dad."

The home was open until September 2017, when Kenyan authorities suspected that Dow was sexually abusing children in his care, McSwains office said. Dow fled back to Lancaster when the allegations came to light.

The FBI then investigated the allegations, determining that he had sexually abused at least four girls between October 2013 and September 2017, according to McSwains office. Two of the girls were as young as 11 when the assaults began.

The investigation found that Dows wife brought the girls to a medical clinic to have birth control devices implanted into their arms in order for Dow to continue abusing the girls without fear of impregnating them, according to McSwains office.

Dow was charged with these crimes in July of 2019, and on Monday, Dow pleaded guilty to the four counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in a foreign place, in front of U.S. District Court Judge Edward G. Smith.

Gregory Dow hid behind his supposed faith on the other side of the world, hoping no one in the U.S. would know or care about the children he abused. He was wrong, said U.S. Attorney McSwain. Holding those accountable who sexually abuse children, no matter where their crimes occur, will continue to be a top priority of my Office and the entire Department of Justice.

Read more on PennLive:
Spring ISD students showed up to Planet Ford Stadium this weekend in caps, gowns and masks as they walked the stage to collect their high school diplomas, graduating during the coronavirus pandemic.

The district held outdoor graduations for all five of their high schools Friday, Saturday and Sunday taking various precautions to prevent the spread of the virus, including wearing masks, spacing out seats across the field and providing lots of hand sanitizer.

Celebrating graduates during pandemic: Spring ISD holds virtual graduation for class of 2020

Each ceremony ran a similar program with remarks from the principal of each school and Superintendent Rodney Watson, followed by each student walking across the stage to take their diploma.

Spring High School Principal Diaka Melendez said the seniors graduating cared deeply about the nation and represent whats best about the Spring community and the country.

The fact were able to gather here today is truly a blessing, Melendez said. Its been worth it to bring our lion family together after so many months apart.

Students finished the school year online after Spring ISD canceled in-person classes in March to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in greater Houston.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas schools will look different come August. Heres how.

Melendez said she was honored to share that her schools seniors had met the criteria to graduate.

They have earned the right, the honor and the privilege to be members of the 2020 graduating class of Spring High School, she said.

Watson congratulated graduates, and said he is more certain than ever the class of 2020 has what it takes to be successful.

You have made it to this point despite some real trials, Watson said. As your superintendent and as a parent, I cant change your experience, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these challenges have strengthened and empowered you to grow and lead future generations.

Watson said Spring ISD and the world needs the class of 2020 to develop their voice, intelligence, and depth of purpose now more than ever.

We need you to be bold leaders, in ways large and small, to help guide our Spring ISD community, our nation and the world into a future that lives out our Spring ISD core values of valuing diversity and treating everyone with dignity and respect, he said.

paul.wedding@hcnonline.com
ROME - The Vatican has released from detention an Italian businessman accused of extortion and fraud in a London real estate venture that to date has cost the Vatican more than 350 million euros (nearly $400 million), much of it donations from the faithful.

The Vatican said in a statement Monday that Gianluigi Torzi, who was jailed in the barracks of the Vatican gendarmes on June 6, was granted provisional release after he wrote a lengthy memorandum for prosecutors about his role in the deal.

Via his lawyers, Torzi has denied fleecing the Holy See and said the Vatican investigation is the fruit of a gross misunderstanding.

The scandal is the latest to embarrass the Holy See and draw attention to both its financial mismanagement and its criminal justice system, which has been faulted in the past by evaluators for the Council of Europe.

The problems date from 2014, when the Vatican entered into a real estate venture by investing over $200 million in a fund run by another Italian businessman, Raffaele Mincione. The deal gave the Holy See 45% of the luxury building at 60 Sloane Ave. in Londons Chelsea neighbourhood.

The money came from the secretariat of states asset portfolio, which is funded in large part by the Peters Pence donations of Catholics around the world for the pope to use for charity and Vatican expenses.

One of Minciones companies had purchased the building in December 2012 for 129 million pounds, the Vatican said in a June 6 summary of the Vaticans case against Torzi.

The Holy See decided in November 2018 to exit the fund, end its relationship with Mincione and buy out the remainder of the building. It did so after determining that the mortgage was too onerous and that Mincione was losing money for the Vatican in some of the funds other investments, according to the summary.

At that point, an official in the secretariat of state introduced the Vatican to Torzi, a broker who was considered necessary to negotiate the exit deal with Mincione and buy out the remaining shares of the building, Vatican News said.

According to the report, the deal called for the Vatican to pay Mincione another 40 million euros to gain ownership of the property. The Vatican then entered into a framework agreement with Torzi, shifting ownership of the property to his fund.

The report said the Vatican received 30,000 non-voting shares of the fund. It said the Vatican was unaware that Torzi then modified the fund to add another 1,000 voting shares that he controlled.

The basis of the prosecutors case against Torzi appears to be the allegation that he defrauded the Vatican by hoodwinking the Holy See about taking control of the property.

But the Nov. 22, 2018, share purchase agreement, signed by the Vaticans Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, appears to undermine the prosecutors position. It contains explicit clauses giving Torzi operative and strategic power to manage and develop the property as the Vaticans fiduciary, with reference to his 1,000 voting shares.

The Vatican said Torzi then demanded a fee of 15 million euros for his services to exit the deal. The Vatican paid the fee, given the contract Perlasca had signed.

All told, the Vatican said it had put some 350 million euros into the property.

Torzi remains the only person arrested in the investigation, which began a year ago. Six Vatican officials have been placed under investigation, but to date none has been charged.

The Council of Europes Moneyval evaluators have in past years faulted Vatican prosecutors for failing to bring any money laundering cases to trial. The Vatican was due for another periodic review by Moneyval this spring but the visit was postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made doing business in India 'infinitely better', but foreign direct investment (FDI) is still not coming in, Maruti Suzuki Chairman Ravindra Chandra Bhargava said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

He said India has not been able to attract major manufacturing FDI over the last 70 years, adding that policies in the country have not been designed to promote competitiveness.

Bhargava said calls for boycotting Chinese products were an emotional reaction to the ongoing standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between the two countries. These calls were not thought through, he added.

According to him, raising tariffs on Chinese imports will hurt Indian consumers as affordability is a big issue in India.

Bhargava said that while Maruti Suzuki, as a company, does not need to import from China, the automakers vendors need to as Chinese imports are necessary for manufacturing vehicles. We need to ask why India has not been able to manufacture all components in India, he said.

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

Talking about the auto giant's return to normalcy following the nationwide lockdown meant to curb the novel coronavirus pandemic, Bhargava said the company was not anywhere near 100 percent utilisation due to the stringent safety measures in place.

However, he added that most outlets, except for 300-400, had opened.
Chinese Billionaire Freed by Police After Being Held Hostage, Reports Say

BEIJINGThe billionaire founder of the worlds biggest appliance manufacturer, Midea Group, was rescued by police after being taken hostage by intruders in his home in southern China, news reports said on June 15.

Police received a call June 14 that intruders had broken into a home in Foshan city, Guangzhou Province, near Hong Kong, the Foshan police department said on its social media account. It said five suspects were arrested early on June 15.

While the police statement identified the victim only by the surname He, the business news magazine Caixin, the newspaper Beijing News, and other outlets said it was He Xiangjian, Mideas 78-year-old founder.

Midea thanked police in a statement on its social media account, but gave no confirmation that He was involved. Phone calls to Mideas press office werent answered; a man who answered the phone at the Foshan police headquarters said he couldnt talk about the case.

The police statement said the crime occurred at the Junlan Life Village, which Caixin said is a neighborhood of villas built by Midea.

He is Chinas fourth-wealthiest person, with a net worth of 180 billion yuan ($25 billion), according to Hurun Report, which tracks the countrys wealthy.

Midea reported 2019 revenue of 280 billion yuan ($32.9 billion); its 200 subsidiaries include Kuka, a German producer of robotics technology.

Mideas takeover of Kuka in 2016 was a wake-up call for Germany that made it realize the need for protecting its strategic assets, prompting European Union officials to call for tighter restrictions on Chinese merger and acquisition deals.

Midea grew out of a workshop set up in 1968 by He and other residents of Beijiao, a village that now is part of Foshan.

He stepped down from operations of the company in 2012, but has a seat on the board of directors. His son, He Jianfeng, also is a director.

The Epoch Times contributed to this report.
An alleged pedophile who is accused of raping a six-year-old girl more than a hundred times is facing 2,750 years behind bars.

David McCutcheon, 36, could be handed the sentence if he is convicted of the 220 charges laid against him.

McCutcheon was arrested last Wednesday in Cottage Grove, Oregon and faces 70 counts of rape, 40 counts of sodomy and 110 counts of criminal mistreatment relating to the alleged abuse of a girl beginning when she was six years old.

David McCutcheon, 36, (pictured) could be sentenced to 2,750 years behind bars if he is convicted of the 220 charges laid against him

The 36-year-old reportedly confessed to the allegations made against him to police last Monday.

He was interviewed by detectives from Eugine for two days before being passed over to Cottage Grove investigators following a May 26 report.

He is being held at Lane County Jail.

In the state of Oregon, rape carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years while sodomy carries a mandatory minimum sentence of over 8 years, which increases to 25 years if the victim is under the age of 12.

If the judge chooses to make McCutcheon serve his prison time consecutively, he could face 70 counts of first-degree rape, which is 1,750 years, in addition to 40 counts of sodomy, which would add another thousand years.

If given a consecutive prison sentence, McCutcheon faces a longer punishment than serial rapist Billy Joe Godfrey, who was given 35 life sentences to be served consecutively, the equivalent of 1050 years in 2015.

Godfrey plead guilty to sexually abusing two children between 1995 and 1999. The children were between the ages of eight and 13 at the time of the assaults.

McCutcheon's next court appearance is scheduled for July 16.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 21:05:02|Editor: huaxia

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CHENGDU, June 15 (Xinhua) -- More than a decade ago, Loden, a herdsman in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, sold all 50 of his family's yaks to treat his wife, and the family became penniless.

However, things began to turn around after the family in Kahui Village, a pastoral village sitting at the foot of snow mountains in Litang County, was identified as a poverty-stricken household in 2014.

Loden received a notebook from the local government to record his poverty reduction goals and progress achieved.

The cadres in his village often came to his home to encourage him not to lose heart. They introduced poverty alleviation policies to him and taught him to apply for project funds.

Nibuzim, a doctor from the People's Hospital of Litang County, also paired up with Loden's family, helping them get access to medical resources and visiting their home regularly to check on the wife's health.

Meanwhile, Kahui Village developed a collective economy and set up a pasture through self-financing by villagers and government subsidies in October 2014. Loden and his fellow villagers can raise yaks and goats, grow grass or run hot spring villas there, and receive dividends from the collective economy.

"Life will get better if you work hard," he said with confidence.

Loden's notebook has witnessed the life changes of his family over the years. It recorded the annual per capita income of the family of eight people gradually climbing to 7,122.5 yuan (about 1,005 U.S. dollars) in 2019 from 3,017 yuan in 2015, when they got rid of poverty.

Such notebooks can be found in every poverty-stricken household in Loden's village as well, recording the improvement of local life, medical and educational conditions.

Now, Loden's family has more than 40 yaks and is allotted some 127 hectares of pasture. They also bought a new motorcycle.

Kahui Village plans to further transform the pasture and hot spring villas to root out the long-standing poverty of the village through cultural tourism, ecological agriculture and animal husbandry.

Earlier this year, Loden's little grandson injured his pinky finger, but was initially unable to seek medical treatment due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

After learning this, Nibuzim offered to help the anxious family contact the hospital and send the child there for treatment.

"Although we have been lifted out of poverty, the people who assisted us still care about us so much," Loden said. Enditem
London, June 15 : Long queues were reported outside shops in England on Monday as COVID-19 rules were relaxed after a three month lockdown.

All shops in England were now allowed to open, although retailers have had to introduce strict safety measures, the BBC reported.

Queues were seen outside Primark shops in London and Birmingham ahead of their 8 a.m. opening time.

The fashion retailer chain, which like other clothing shops has been closed since March 23, does not offer online shopping meaning customers can only buy in the store.

In Manchester, people waited for almost an hour for some shops. Big queues formed outside Primark, TK Maxx and Foot Locker.

Retailers are required to introduce plastic screens at the tills and floor markings to keep shoppers two metres apart - -measures that are already a regular fixture in supermarkets.

Other measures will include pleas not to touch items unless customers intend to purchase them and decontaminating shopping baskets after each use.

Retailers are promising there will be plenty of sanitiser on hand for customers.

Toilets will remain closed in Primark's shops but facilities in other stores, including John Lewis and Selfridges, will be open, said the BBC report.

Although food shops, pharmacies, banks and other essential retailers have stayed open, vast swathes of the High Street, from bookshops to clothes outlets, have been closed since March 23.

Some other retailers selling products classed as essential - such as DIY, furniture and bicycles - have also been reopening.

Furniture giant Ikea opened 19 of its stores across England and Northern Ireland recently, prompting long queues.

Many stores are encouraging customers to make purchases by contact-less card payments.

London's West End, which includes Oxford Street, is expecting about 80 per cent fewer visitors when it reopens on Monday.

In Northern Ireland, non-essential shops reopened on June 5, but there is still no date for Wales and Scotland.

In England, pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, hotels and cinemas will not be allowed to open their doors until July 4 at the earliest - and even then, only if they can meet social distancing measures.
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This story is being reported by KPCC/LAist reporter Josie Huang and visual journalist Chava Sanchez.

The All Black Lives Matter rally is underway, with protesters marching from Hollywood to West Hollywood -- the traditional nexus for L.A.'s gay community and the annual L.A. Pride celebration.

Salina Es Titties wore a dress covered in the names of trans folks who have been killed in 2020 at the All Black Lives Matter protest on June 14, 2020. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

.@NeverendingNina on being trans. I represent a population that gets killed every day. Think about your privilege.... pic.twitter.com/fc0gdfPGpL  Josie Huang (@josie_huang) June 14, 2020

The event has a dual purpose: to honor the lives of Black queer and trans people who have been killed by the police; and to drum up support for Black Lives Matter's demands to defund the police and prosecute more officers.

A protesters holds a sign at the All Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 14, 2020. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

Im out photographing in Hollywood today at the All Black Lives Matter Pride March with @josie_huang. Thousands march in the streets to protest police brutality and honor Tony Mcdade. @LAist pic.twitter.com/LUrGPN6bd5  Jose Salvador (@chavatweets1) June 14, 2020

The event was created after the organization behind L.A. Pride, Christoper Street West, attempted to hold a rally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. But that event was canceled after Christoper Street West was criticized for not consulting with black gay leaders outside its own organization.

Protesters at the All Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 14, 2020. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

Protesters at the All Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 14, 2020. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)

A protester at the All Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 14, 2020. (Chava Sanchez/LAist)
WOODSTOCK, Va. - A sheriff has apologized to a black pastor who described being arrested when he called 911 on a group of white people who threatened to kill him after trying to dump a refrigerator on his property in Virginia.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter made the apology to Leon K. McCray Sr. of Woodstock Friday, announcing hate crime and assault charges against the five people involved and saying a weapons charge against the pastor would be dropped.

McCray described the events leading to his arrest in a sermon to parishioners at Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International.

He said he was visiting an apartment he owns in Edinburg on June 1 when he noticed a man and a woman dragging a refrigerator from another property into his dumpster, and they became irate when he asked them to leave.

McCray said they threatened him and returned with three more people, attacking him physically, saying they dont give a darn about my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, and telling him they would kill him.

McCray said they backed up when he drew his legal concealed weapon to save his life, giving him enough time to call 911. Arriving deputies then took his gun while talking with the five, who continued threatening him and yelling racist epithets at him.

The deputies wouldnt let him tell his side, he said; instead, he was handcuffed in front of the mob, for brandishing the handgun, and driven away while the group stood with other deputies, waving at him as he went down the road.

McCray said the deputies rushed to judgment, disarming a black male brandishing a gun against five white individuals despite his second Amendment right to defend myself against five attackers that tried to take my life. The arrest would not be tolerated if I was white, he added.

This was indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life, McCray said. Im a pastor, a decorated 24-year Air Force master sergeant veteran, no criminal record.

Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held without bond.

Sheriff Carter sat down with McCray two days after the incident. He said four of the five were already charged with assault or trespassing, but after hearing from the pastor, he initiated a review that led to additional charges against all five. Carter said he also urged a prosecutor to drop the weapons charge against McCray.

As I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing, Carter said.

Also, two sheriffs office supervisors have been placed on unpaid administrative leave while the investigation continues, Carter said.

Attorney Bradley G. Pollock, representing Sharp, told The Washington Post that his client and Amanda Salyers assumed they had permission to dump the refrigerator in McCrays dumpster, and returned it to their own property after McCray confronted them.

The Post didnt report any response by Pollock to the hate crime allegations, and lawyers for the other Salyers either declined to comment or didnt respond.

I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that I and the sheriffs office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our black community, the sheriff said.
Publishing staff working on JK Rowlings latest book threatened to down tools yesterday in protest at her views on gender.

The Harry Potter author, 54, has endured a storm of protest since expressing deep concerns about transgender activism in an essay last week in which she also described being a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Those criticising her have included movie stars she helped make famous.

It led to headlines such as Bonfire of JK Rowling as the multi-million-pound empire she created threatened to turn against her.

Yesterday morning at publishing house Hachette, several of those involved in Miss Rowlings new childrens book, The Ickabog, are said to have staged their own rebellion during a heated meeting. One source said: Staff in the childrens department at Hachette announced they were no longer prepared to work on the book.

The Harry Potter author, 54, has endured a storm of protest since expressing deep concerns about transgender activism in an essay last week in which she also described being a victim of domestic violence and sexual assault

JK Rowling with first husband Jorge Arantes in 1999. She detailed why she has become embroiled in a bitter row on Twitter with campaigners who seek greater rights for men and women changing gender, referring to her experience of domestic abuse during her first marriage to Jorge Arantes

JK Rowling pictured with Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in 2001

THE VERY WOKE PUBLISHING HOUSE JK ROWLING WORKED HER MAGIC ON AFTER HARRY POTTER JK Rowling published all seven of her Harry Potter novels - as well as spinoffs - with British publishing house Bloomsbury. But she broke away from the London-based company when she launched her foray into books for adults and screenplays. Her first book targeted at adults, The Casual Vacancy, was published with Little, Brown Book Group. Her Cormoran Strike series, which she wrote under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, was also published with the group - as was the screenplay for global phenomenon Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Little, Brown Book Group are owned by Hachette, one of several publishers involved in Miss Rowlings new childrens book The Ickabog. The group has published a wide variety of feminist literature over the years, including a children's book titled 'Feminist Baby! He's a Feminist Too!' The group - whose staff have threatened to down tools in protest at Rowling's views on gender - have also published a book simply titled Woke by Titania McGrath. Rowling has been an undoubted success for Little, Brown Book Group - and therefore Hachette. The Casual Vacancy was a huge hit. The book sold 125,000 copies in its first week. The first novel in her Cormoran Strike series, The Cuckoos Calling, was heaped with praise by critics before the real author was unmasked. When Rowling was unveiled, sales skyrocketed by an eye-watering 156,866% in just one day. The book sold 17,662 copies in six days in 2013. The script of global smash-hit play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child sold more than 680,000 in three days after it too was published by the group. The figures smashed the record for the biggest single-week sale of any title this decade. Advertisement

They said they were opposed to her comments and wanted to show support for the trans lobby. These staff are all very woke, mainly in their twenties and early thirties, and apparently it is an issue they feel very strongly about.

Another insider said: It was a handful of staff, and they are entitled to their views. If they were being asked to edit a book on domestic abuse, and they were a survivor of domestic abuse, of course they would never be forced to work on it. But this is a childrens fairy tale. It is not the end of the world. They will all be having chats with their managers.

Hachette is the parent company of Virago Press, a London-based company who publish women's writing and feminist books. Notable published authors include Maya Angelou, Beatrix Campbell and Angela Carter.

The first two chapters of The Ickabog, which were released online in May, had five million views in its first 24 hours, with visitors from more than 50 countries visiting The Ickabog website, Miss Rowling's representatives have said.

Last night Hachette issued a statement backing Miss Rowlings right to express herself. It said: We are proud to publish JK Rowlings childrens fairy tale The Ickabog. Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. Thats why we never comment on our authors personal views and we respect our employees right to hold a different view.

We will never make our employees work on a book whose content they find upsetting for personal reasons, but we draw a distinction between that and refusing to work on a book because they disagree with an authors views outside their writing, which runs contrary to our belief in free speech.

It is not the first time Hachette has faced a mutiny.

Staff at the firms New York office staged a walkout in March in protest at its decision to publish Woody Allens autobiography.

The 84-year-old filmmaker has been accused by his daughter Dylan Farrow of molesting her in the early 1990s, claims he denies.

It has been a tumultuous few days for Miss Rowling since she posted a 3,600-word essay on her website about the pressures young people face to transition to another gender.

She even claimed she might have become a man  to turn myself into the son my father had openly said hed have preferred  if she had been subjected to similar pressures when she was a teenager.

The Harry Potter author, 54, has endured a storm of protest since expressing deep concerns about transgender activism

JK Rowling in 2002 with Emma Watson and Bonnie Wright, who have decided to add fuel to the fire hours after the author's statement

'Heartbroken' editor of world's biggest Harry Potter fan site urges people to stop buying JK Rowling's books The editor of the world's biggest Harry Potter fan site has urged supporters to stop buying JK Rowling's books and films over the author's 'transphobia' row. Ms Rowling has faced an intense backlash since she took issue with an online article about 'people who menstruate' last week - including from actors starring in the movie adaptations of her novels, such as Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Then it emerged that a school in West Sussex dropped its plans to name a house after the author, telling parents Ms Rowling was 'no longer an appropriate role model for our community'. Melissa Anelli, who runs The Leaky Couldron site, has encouraged people not to buy her products, as she pointed her 28,000 followers to another post from a Harry Potter podcast, which offered 'a guide to cancelling' the author. Advertisement

She detailed why she has become embroiled in a bitter row on Twitter with campaigners who seek greater rights for men and women changing gender, referring to her experience of domestic abuse during her first marriage to Jorge Arantes.

Her essay drew widespread support but also stinging criticism from Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, who is worth 87million, Emma Watson, worth 52million and Rupert Grint, worth 40million. They issued statements in support of transgender people, pointedly not backing Miss Rowling.

Miss Rowling wrote The Ickabog more than a decade ago. She put the script in her attic but brought it out during the lockdown, posting daily instalments online. It will be published in November, with Miss Rowling, who is worth 795million, giving her royalties to help those affected by coronavirus.

Hachette UK boss David Shelley is an Oxford graduate lauded as one of the UKs most influential gay executives. He is credited with making the publisher more inclusive and diverse.

A friend of Miss Rowling was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying: She knows the commercial partners would rather she didnt say anything, but her publishers recognise she has a right to speak her mind.

Daniel Radcliffe lashes out at JK Rowling over her comments about transgender people and apologises to Harry Potter fans if her remarks have 'tarnished or diminished' their love of her books

Daniel Radcliffe slammed Harry Potter author JK Rowling over her comments about transgender people.

The actor, 30, felt compelled to make a statement about the acclaimed novelist, after 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?'

In response, Radcliffe hit out at the author who made him famous, saying: 'To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you'.

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Taking a stand: Daniel Radcliffe has slammed Harry Potter author JK Rowling over her comments about transgender people

Radcliffe wrote: 'Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I'.

He continued: 'I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between JK Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what's important right now.

'While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment.'

Radcliffe, 30, released his statement via The Trevor Project last Monday.

Taking a stand: He has made a statement about Rowling, after she tweeted about an article entitled 'Creating a more equal post COVID-19 world for people who menstruate'

Daniel Radcliffe released a statement with The Trevor Project, an American non-profit organization founded in 1998 focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth

The Trevor Project is an American non-profit organization founded in 1998 focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth.

'According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity...

'It's clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm,' Radcliffe said.

He went on to share resources for trans allies, as he admitted: 'I am still learning how to be a better ally.'

DANIEL RADCLIFFE RESPONDS TO J.K. ROWLING'S TWEETS ON GENDER IDENTITY By Daniel Radcliffe I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between J.K. Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what's important right now. While Jo is unquestionably responsible for the course my life has taken, as someone who has been honored to work with and continues to contribute to The Trevor Project for the last decade, and just as a human being, I feel compelled to say something at this moment. Transgender women are women. Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional health care associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo or I. According to The Trevor Project, 78% of transgender and nonbinary youth reported being the subject of discrimination due to their gender identity. It's clear that we need to do more to support transgender and nonbinary people, not invalidate their identities, and not cause further harm. I am still learning how to be a better ally, so if you want to join me in learning more about transgender and nonbinary identities check out The Trevor Project's Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Youth. It's an introductory educational resource that covers a wide range of topics, including the differences between sex and gender, and shares best practices on how to support transgender and nonbinary people. To all the people who now feel that their experience of the books has been tarnished or diminished, I am deeply sorry for the pain these comments have caused you. I really hope that you don't entirely lose what was valuable in these stories to you. If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything; if they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups; if you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life  then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred. And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much. Love always, Dan Advertisement

Discussing: JK Rowling went on an extraordinary rant on Twitter last week

Radcliffe also reached out to loyal Harry Potter fans: 'If these books taught you that love is the strongest force in the universe, capable of overcoming anything...

'If they taught you that strength is found in diversity, and that dogmatic ideas of pureness lead to the oppression of vulnerable groups...

'If you believe that a particular character is trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid, or that they are gay or bisexual; if you found anything in these stories that resonated with you and helped you at any time in your life  then that is between you and the book that you read, and it is sacred.

'And in my opinion nobody can touch that. It means to you what it means to you and I hope that these comments will not taint that too much.'

Not important: He wrote: 'I realize that certain press outlets will probably want to paint this as in-fighting between JK Rowling and myself, but that is really not what this is about, nor is it what's important right now' (pictured in July, 2011)

He starred as the titular wizard in all eight of the Harry Potter movies, originating the role at the age of 11 in 2000's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The British writer followed up 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.

Hogwarts alum: He starred as the titular wizard in all eight of the Harry Potter movies, originating the role at the age of 11 in 2000's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

'I respect every trans person's right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them.

'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.

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.'

Van Ness, who identifies as non-binary, responded to the author: 'Trans women are women. Trans Black people & trans non-Black people are discriminated against every single day. They're dying. We're fighting for Black people & trans people and you're doing this?'

Tegan and Sara issued an ultimatum to their followers: 'If you are a TERF and following us, please f*** off and unfollow us.'

Mara Wilson called Rowling out further: 'How did she manage to have a victim complex about all of this?'

Anthony Rapp used the opportunity to promote GLAAD and some organizations that support Black trans people.

He wrote: 'Amplifying this. Amazing and horrifying that a hugely powerful, super rich white lady chose to double- and triple- and quadruple-punch down on the #Trans community.'

Mary Lambert responded to Rowling: 'What the actual f***??? This is so disgraceful, @jk_rowling. Of all the hills to die on, and for what reason? Trans women are women and they are fighting for their lives. When you push this trans exclusionary agenda, you make their lives infinitely more difficult. Shame on you.'

A representative for Rowling declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com.

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...

Re-think: Elsewhere, Jonathan Ross backtracked on his comments about J.K. Rowling, after he defended the Harry Potter novelist's remarks about transgender people [pictured in 2015]

'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.
RSA Global, a digital freight forwarding and logistics service provider headquartered in Dubai with extensive presence in India, has partnered with Jusda Supply Chain, a part of Foxconn Technology Group and the worlds leading end-to-end supply chain management platform company, to operate multiple air cargo flights from India to the US transporting Covid-19 related essential pharmaceutical goods.

The first flight, operated by air carrier National Airlines delivering pharmaceutical products, departed seamlessly from India on June 11, 2020.

India is the third largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the world by volume supplying 20% of global exports of generic drugs with the US being one of its biggest markets. As the US has been dramatically hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and consequently been facing bottlenecks in essential Covid-19 related supplies, India has been increasingly sending pharmaceutical supplies to the US supporting the countrys pharma industry during those difficult times.

With a global wide network comprising more than 155 locations, a warehouse footprint of 2 million sq m, and an extensive presence across India, Jusda Indias strength lies in providing end-to-end supply chain solutions and air cargo services for diverse industries including the pharma industry. Combined with the fact that the India-US trade lane is one of Jusdas main operating routes, the company has the required expertise to handle sensitive COVID-19 pharma shipments to the US professionally, said the statement.

RSA Global, founded in 2009 in the UAE, has been actively building its global network through various technology platforms. Today, the logistics service provider operates more than 500,000 sq m of warehousing and open yard space and is able to offer air and sea freight services in over 90 countries. In 2018, RSA Global entered the Indian market and has been developing cargo export services together with its various partners.

Given Jusdas wide presence in India and extensive experience in air cargo shipments, we are confident that we found the right partner to deliver high quality air cargo services from India to the world, supporting the pharma and other industries, said Abhishek Ajay Shah, CEO & CO-Founder of RSA Global.

As part of Jusda's growth strategy in the Middle East & Africa region, we are looking to work with strong local partners such as RSA Global. We are delighted to collaborate with RSA Global and leverage the strategic location of Dubai to build international freight, multi-modal distribution, and cross border e-commerce services into the Mena region, said Saurabh Goyal, General Manager of Jusda India. -TradeArabia News Service
First Minister says Friday announcement will be cautious and not a return to the pre pandemic normal

This article is old - Published: Monday, Jun 15th, 2020

There will not be an immediate return to the pre-pandemic normal the First Minister warned today as he indicated that further easing of the lockdown measures in Wales will take place later this week.

Speaking at todays Welsh Government daily briefing Mark Drakeford said the spread of the virus continues to slow down thanks to the actions everyone in Wales has taken.

He noted that the current situation differs to back in March when cases of coronavirus were increasing rapidly and the risk of meeting someone with a disease was rising, while now it continues to fall.

The first minister also indicated that there will further changes made at this weeks review of the the current lockdown restrictions  with reference made in particular to non-essential shops and a further relaxation of more outdoor activities.

Three weeks ago at the last review Mr Drakeford urged Welsh businesses and local authorities to use the time wisely to help prepare for reopening.

Any changes to the current measures will be announced by the Welsh Government on Friday.

However Mr Drakeford warned that Wales will continue to take a cautious approach when making a decision on taking the next steps.

He said: We continue on our gradual path to relaxing the coronavirus restrictions.

And as we do so, it is very important to explain that this will not be a return to the pre pandemic normal.

While the virus has receded and fewer people are becoming ill, Coronavirus has not gone away. It continues to be present in Wales, and there is still a risk that we will face a second wave of illness later this year.

That is why we will continue to need to take precautions and measures to prevent the spread of the virus as restrictions are lifted.

Mr Drakeford added: We have also seen the sobering experience from some countries where restrictions have had to be reintroduced, because lockdown has led to cases of the virus increasing.

Here in Wales we will use that evidence from around the world as part of our effort to help ease the restrictions carefully, while keeping Wales safe. We will go on working with businesses, with schools, with public services and with you as we find ways to open more and to do more, by always striving to keep us safe.

However the first minister was challenged over the cautious approach being taken in Wales compared to over the border, where today non-essential retail in England has reopened.

Places such as Cheshire Oaks, Liverpool and Chester have all long queues and as shoppers return for the first time since the end of March.

The Welsh Government has also faced pressure from the Welsh Conservatives to protect Welsh jobs and save businesses here from going bust by reopening shops across Wales.

Asked if the Welsh economy is falling behind England, Mr Drakeford said a a stop start reopening of the economy in which we have to clamp down on things again, because Coronavirus is out of control would be much worse for the economy.

He said: Im very grateful to all those people in the sector, who have worked with us over these three weeks, making sure that we are able to provide advice to the sector so that it can prepare for that moment, and the sector in Wales will be well prepared if we are in a position to give the go ahead on Friday

We are keen, of course, to see the economy reopen here in Wales, but to do so in a way that puts public health first, because that is the best way for our economy as well.

That is why we are doing things in the careful sequence way that we are doing things in Wales.

Full details of the next easing of lockdown measures in Wales will be announced by the Welsh Government on Friday at lunchtime.

You can view the full briefing from today on the below video:
While much of the country experiences civil unrest, some look to the American flag as a representation of the nations values and promises. On Sunday, approximately 40 people gathered at the Beaumont Elks Lodge 311 to recognize Flag Day.

Its a real scary time, said Jean Hottmann, Beaumont Elks Lodge 311 Past District Deputy Grand Exalted Ruler. I feel like there is so much unrest right now. It stands for our freedom and what we represent. Its like our United States emblem.

At the start of the 30-minute presentation, members of the local Boy Scouts Troupe 122 carried in flags that once represented the United States from the Pine Tree flag, which was used by the Continental Army in 1775, to the current American flag, which features 13 stripes representing the 13 original colonies and 50 stars - one for each state.

The lodge has celebrated Flag Day for more than 100 years, Hottmann said. The day commemorates the day the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution June 14, 1777 to adopt the flag, which featured 13 stripes and 13 stars. The flag changed three more times as the country added states before Hawaii and Alaska became states in 1959.

Hottmann said she was particularly pleased to see the Boy Scouts in attendance.

Im very proud of them, she said. Its part of their learning. I think so many people dont know the history. The young ones are showing interest by being scouts.

Hottmann read a standard response as part of Elks Lodge Flag Day celebration.

This is the heritage of the people of the United States and it has been repurchased by each succeeding generation and must be re-won again and again and again until the end of time, lest it too shall pass like the ancient empires of Greece and Rome. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance

Stacie Worthy watched on as her 16-year-old grandson carried one of the eight flags.

This symbolizes America and what we were founded on, she said. It was really interesting to see all of these flags and the history behind each one. I knew a little bit, but seeing it all right there was pretty cool.

Ella Johnston-Leger, also a Beaumont Elks Lodge 311 Past District Deputy Grand Exalted Ruler, said the flag is synonymous with the countrys beliefs.

That flag is what the country is all about, she said. That flag is a symbol of a unique way of how we run our government. Were very young and it is impressive that we are still able to do it. With everything that is happening in the nation and the world, it makes you think about how strong we need to be together under our flag.

chris.moore@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/chris_moore09
South Africas Department of Mineral Resources and Energy took another step in starting a new nuclear-power program.

The department issued a request for information for goods and services involved in such a program. Submissions close on Sept. 15, according to the document.

South Africa said last month that it plans to expand nuclear capacity within the next five years. The country currently has a single nuclear plant.

A drive for additional facilities largely faded after the ruling party forced Jacob Zuma to step down as president in 2018.

Additional plants were widely considered unaffordable, and the nations economic slump has further dented the governments ability to pay for them.
MOSCOW  Migrant workers from Central Asia, shrugging off the risk of coronavirus infection, have gathered in groups each day outside their countries embassies in Moscow, banging on doors and fences and shouting for officials to come out and tell them when they can finally get on a charter flight home.

With regular flights canceled, charters offer the only feasible way out for the more than five million migrant workers from former Soviet republics now stranded in Russia as a result of the pandemic, with many living in increasingly dire circumstances.

While Russia has been battered by the virus, with the third most cases in the world after the United States and Brazil, the crisis has hit migrant workers especially hard, as they were the first to lose their jobs and often the last to receive medical help.

Many have no money for food and, once infected with the coronavirus, have been left in crowded dorms to fight the disease by themselves. Many would like to return to their countries.
Greenleaf Vegetable Estate has been crowned the winner of the Livingfields AgriChallenge.



The grand finale of the Livingfields AgriChallenge came off on Saturday, June 13, 2020, with an exciting climax.

3 Farms placed second while PAHA Veggie Farms and DJK Farms placed third and fourth respectively.



Team members of Greenleaf Vegetable Estate benefitted from GHS100,000 worth of prizes comprising of a cash amount of GHS 20,000 and GHS 80,000 inputs packages (hybrid seeds, fertilizer and Crop Protection Products).



They will also enjoy a fully-paid trip to BASF Agricultural Solutions, Ludwigshafen, Germany.



For placing second, members of 3 Farms are benefited from GHS60,000 worth of prizes which includes a cash prize of GHS10,000 and input packages for production. They will also enjoy a fully-paid trip to Pannar, Greytown, South Africa.



Members of PAHA Veggie Farms also benefited from a prize value of GHS25,000 comprising a cash prize of GHS 5,000 and input package support to undertake the production for placing third.



The team will also enjoy a weekend hangout at Royal Senchi Hotel and Resort, Akosombo, Ghana.



The last team, DJK Farms, is also getting input package support of GHS15,000 and a visit to the Royal Senchi Hotel and Resort, Akosombo, Ghana for a weekend vacation.



About Livingfields AgriChallenge



Livingfields AgriChallenge, is an initiative of RMG Ghana Ltd, aimed at making agribusiness attractive as an employment avenue for young graduates by creating pre-started farm environments and land rental facilities for them to walk in and start a farming venture.



This is based on the belief that Ghanas self-sufficiency in food production lies in the hands of the vibrant young educated Ghanaian.



The 5-year project received the first cohort of trainees in June 2019 to begin the Challenge.



Trainees have undergone a variety of theme-based challenges geared towards equipping them for the world of works; agronomic training, fieldwork, business development, fun activities.



Each activity or challenge was graded based on the output or objectives of each challenge.



The grand finale witnessed an aggregation of all the scores.



The event had trainees report on their entire stay at the Livingfields to the judges and faculty.

Companies formed



Trainees in the various teams planned to formalize their groups into companies, under the Registrar Generals Department.



The proposed team companies were PAHA Veggie Farms, 3 Farms, DJK Farms, and Greenleaf Vegetable Estate.

The groups planned to present their final pitches for funding after exiting the Livingfields.



Livingfields will continue to provide the needed support the upcoming companies will need in order to succeed in the agribusiness space.



Livingfields AgriChallenge directed by Nicholas Big Ghun Nartey was hosted by Jessica Janet Martey and Jay Kojo Daasebre. The show was produced by PB Studios Africa with Citi TV and UTV being media partners.



The show was also supported and partnered by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), RMG Commodities, Glofert, Eden Tree, BASF, Pannar, Ransboat & Company Ltd, Win Investment, COA Graphix, Della Patternz, Integrity Commodities, Royal Senchi Hotel and Resort and Fidelity Bank.

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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A court in the Philippines has convicted Maria Ressa, chief of the news site Rappler, of cyber libel in a trial that has been closely watched because of its implications for press freedom in the country.

Driving the news: Ressa and co-defendant Reynaldo Santos Jr were sentenced to between six months to six years in prison, but were granted bail pending appeals that could ultimately come before the supreme court. Ressa and Rappler have drawn the ire of strongman President Rodrigo Duterte for their critical coverage.

Details: The case stemmed from a May 2012 article written by Santos Jr about a businessman with links to the government.

The law used against Ressa was passed months later, in September 2012. It was not until 5 years later that the case was filed.

That would be beyond the one-year window for ordinary libel claims, but that limit is not mentioned in the newer cybercrime law.

The Philippine justice department also argued that since the article was updated in 2014  to correct a minor typographical error  it would be covered by the law.

Rappler is facing at least 11 additional government investigations and legal cases.

What to watch: This is also a test case for the cyber libel law, which could ultimately be applied to anything posted online  not just from media outlets.

The big picture: A major broadcaster was recently pulled off the air in the Philippines, in a further erosion media independence under Duterte.

Go deeper:

Editor's note: The author is a journalist for Rappler. She is currently in the U.S., and at Axios, on a fellowship program.
Turkey has launched a wave of airstrikes against Kurdish militants in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, part of an ongoing campaign to destroy and degrade the group that has been battling the Turkish army on and off for Kurdish self-rule since 1984.

Turkey's Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that terror hideouts where attacks against our country, our people, our police stations, our bases were planned and carried out had been razed to the ground hours after Turkish jets bombed 81 separate targets.

Our planes are bringing the caves down on the terrorists' head, he said. The Defense Ministry shared images of the operation on Twitter.

The airstrikes targeting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the area spanning the Yazidi-dominated Mount Sinjar to the west and the Qandil mountains to the east was the biggest such Turkish operation since 2015. Dozens of US-made fighter jets, locally manufactured drones and mid-air refueling and airborne communication aircraft were deployed in Operation Claw-Eagle that was launched late last night and supervised by Akar.

The pro-PKK Firat news agency said the strikes had targeted a UN-assisted refugee camp in Makhmour lying 50 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) that is home to more than 10,000 ethnic Kurds fleeing violence in Turkey since the 1990s. PKK-affiliated militias are stationed nearby.

The PKK said it had suffered no casualties and vowed to respond in the strongest possible manner to all attacks on our forces.

Bedran Pirani, co-mayor of Makhmour Camp municipality, told the Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw news outlet that the airstrike lasted a full hour from 12:10 to 1:10 a.m. local time. He said several children had fallen unconscious and had been rushed to the hospital. Pirani also said the airstrikes had caused massive material damage to the camps periphery. He did not elaborate.

A group of local leaders from Qandil, Makhmour and Sinjar are due to hold a joint press conference for the international press tomorrow.

In Sinjar, where the Islamic State unleashed its genocidal slaughter of the Yazidis in 2014, Turkey conducted extensive airstrikes targeting more than 30 locations of the Sinjar Resistance Units, a local militia that has cordial ties with the PKK.

Murad Ismael, executive director of the global Yazidi organization Yazda, told Al-Monitor in emailed comments, The airstrikes caused emotional distress among the public, especially among the more than 7,000 internally displaced Yazidi inhabitants of the Sardashte camp on top of the mountain, which is located only one to two kilometers away from the targeted location of Chilmera. He went on, While there were, thank God, no casualties among civilians, such attacks are hindering all efforts for displaced Yazidis to return to their homes, while terrorizing civilians.

Ismael said the Iraqi government should either respond militarily against Turkey or take the necessary steps at the United Nations to hold Turkey accountable. He continued, Sinjar is an Iraqi district, sharing no border with Turkey. If Turkey has security concerns over Sinjar, it must discuss them with Iraqi authorities, not terrify a population still recovering from genocide. Sinjar poses no threat to Turkey.

Iraqs Defense Ministry condemned the strikes today, saying they were violation of Iraqi sovereignty, but the language of the statement was mild. We call on Turkey to halt these violations and avoid repeating them and respect the bilateral relations between the two countries, it said.

Ankara shows no signs of heeding Baghdads calls, chief among them to withdraw several hundred Turkish special forces who have been based in Bashiqa near Mosul since December 2015.

Its military and intelligence presence in Iraqi Kurdistan  despite occasional tut-tutting from KRG leaders  continues to grow. Its believed to have around 20 bases of varying sizes in the region and since last year Turkish ground troops have been deploying in Kharkurk, where the Turkish, Iraqi and Iranian borders converge.

The Turkish army has pursued the PKK in northern Iraq for decades, both on the ground and from the air, causing the mass displacement of civilians, including a dwindling number of Christians in the border areas with Turkey. The PKK settled in the Qandil mountains separating Iraq and Iran in the early 1990s, benefitting from the vacuum left by Iraqi Kurdish forces who moved out at the end of the first Persian Gulf war when the United States established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

Turkeys attacks against Sinjar are more recent and have grown increasingly lethal as Turkey refines its homegrown drone technology, honing in on what it describes as high-value PKK targets within Turkey as well.

Turkey says that Sinjar serves as a critical conduit for PKK cadres moving between their headquarters in Qandil on the Iranian border and northeast Syria, where the US-backed Kurdish administration is composed of numerous Syrian Kurds who are either currently or were at one time associated with the PKK.

PKK sources told Al-Monitor that on Saturday, Turkish planes struck mountains in the Ahmedi region east of Dohuk where veteran PKK commander Murat Karayilan is based.

The war has escalated since a two-and-a-half-year cease-fire between Ankara and the rebels broke down together with potentially game-changing peace talks in the summer of 2015, with both sides blaming the other.

Berkay Mandiraci, who monitors the conflict for the International Crisis Group, said the air raids have intensified since April 2019. Nearly 70% of all PKK fatalities confirmed by the ICG in 2020 occurred in northern Iraq, he told Al-Monitor. It also recorded more than 140 seasoned PKK fatalities since July 2015.

It is too early to judge whether these strikes could usher in a new phase in Turkeys PKK conflict, which in the last three years has remained relatively contained in terms of the number of deaths, Mandiraci added.

On the political front, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government simultaneously unleashed a ferocious campaign to hobble the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), detaining and prosecuting thousands of its members and sympathizers, including democratically elected lawmakers and mayors. This was after the HDP won seats in the Turkish Parliament for the first time in 2015, denying the AKP a majority, another first.

At the same time, Turkey has carried its war to northeast Syria, where it invaded the Kurdish-majority city of Afrin in January 2018. It gobbled a further chunk between the towns of Ras al-Ain and Tell Abyad in an assault greenlighted by the Donald Trump administration in October last year.

At no time has the Turkish governments crackdown on the Kurdish people been as wide and as comprehensive as it is today, said Giran Ozcan, the HDPs Washington representative. Kurdish elected members of parliament, mayors and journalists are being imprisoned, and Kurds in Syria and Iraq are being bombed, Ozcan told Al-Monitor via WhatsApp. I see myself as a moderate Kurd looking for a modest solution to the Kurdish problem. With each passing day, I am finding it more difficult to stay committed to this position.

Ozcan reckons the current attack in Iraqi Kurdistan is connected to the Justice and Democracy March launched by the HDP in Turkey today. HDP lawmakers and supporters set off from Edirne in the far west of the country, where former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas has been imprisoned since October 2016 on thinly supported terrorism charges, and from Hakkari in the far east, where HDP lawmaker Leyla Guven was elected to the parliament, only to be stripped of her seat along with another HDP parliamentarian on June 4.

The march, which is meant to culminate in the capital Ankara on June 20, got off to a stormy start as police erected barricades and fired rubber bullets and tear gas on a group headed from Silivri to Edirne. At least 10 people were detained.

In the city of Van near the Iranian border, police laid siege to HDP headquarters. As Al-Monitor went to press, there were reports of mass detentions and of lawmakers being struck by police. HDP co-chair Mithat Sincar was reportedly among those targeted by police, the Mezopotamya news agency reported.

Hishyar Ozsoy, an HDP lawmaker from Bingol, told Al-Monitor there was no doubt that the airstrikes in Iraqi Kurdistan and the HDPs march are connected. Ozsoy noted that Turkeys recent economic troubles have been made significantly worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering the AKP increasingly desperate. They are melting like ice cream in recent opinion polls, he said, adding, Bombing [Sinjar] doesnt help fill empty stomachs in Istanbul. (Recent opinion polls show support for Erdogan and the AKP is dropping.) History has shown, this isnt a fight they can ever win and can only be resolved through peaceful negotiations, Ozsoy concluded.
US retail giant Walmart has teamed up with Shopify to expand its online marketplace of third-party sellers

Walmart said Monday it was teaming up with e-commerce platform Shopify to expand its online marketplace in a ramped-up challenge to Amazon for third-party sellers.

The deal allows the estimated one million US businesses using Shopify's platform to sell on Walmart.com without any listing fees.

"As we launch this integration with Shopify, we are focused on US-based small and medium businesses whose assortment complements ours and have a track record of exceeding customers' expectations," said Jeff Clementz, vice president of Walmart Marketplace.

"We're excited to be able offer customers an expanded assortment while also giving small businesses access to the surging traffic on Walmart.com."

The move could boost Walmart's efforts to compete with Amazon, whose own marketplace of third-party sellers makes up more than half of the sales of the e-commerce leader.

It also comes with Amazon facing antitrust scrutiny in the US and other markets over allegations that it improperly used data from third-party sellers to boost sales of its own products.

Shopify said the deal was the first time Walmart has partnered with a commerce platform allowing small to medium-sized businesses to sell through its online marketplace.

"Shopify's new Walmart channel will enable our merchants to get their products in front of these high-intent, loyal buyers from one of the world's largest retailers, helping them expand their reach and drive sales," said a statement from the Canadian-based firm.

"Starting today, Shopify merchants across the US will be able to apply to sell through Walmart.com. If approved, they'll be able to connect their Shopify store to their Walmart Seller Account, enabling them to quickly and easily sync their product catalog and create product listings on Walmart.com."

Shopify said its sellers will not pay to list products on Walmart.com, giving only a referral fee after a sale.

The two firms said they expected the deal to add some 1,200 new Shopify sellers to Walmart's marketplace by the end of the year.

Walmart recently ended its separate e-commerce site Jet.com to concentrate on sales through its own brand.

"Growing our Marketplace is a strategic priority, and we are going to be smart as we grow," Clementz said.

The deal comes amid surging online sales during the pandemic by Amazon and others. Walmart said its own e-commerce sales were up 74 percent in the past quarter.

Explore further Walmart makes improvements to third-party marketplace

 2020 AFP
Australian supermodel Gemma Ward has announced the birth of her third child.

The 32-year-old welcomed a little girl with partner David Letts.

Gemma, who has walked for the likes of Vera Wang and covered Vogue throughout her illustrious career, shared the news on Instagram on Monday and revealed her daughter's sweet name.

Supermodel Gemma Ward announced the birth of her third child with partner David Letts on Instagram on Monday and revealed their newborn daughter's sweet name

'Little Kirra we all love you so much,' Gemma wrote online, underneath some gorgeous black and white shots of the baby with her family.

'Thank you for blessing us with your spirit. 13.6.20,' Gemma finished.

Underneath the post, Gemma was flooded with well wishes from fans and friends.

New addition: Gemma and David called their tiny tot Kirra

Precious: 'Little Kirra we all love you so much,' Gemma wrote online, underneath some gorgeous black and white shots of the baby with her family

Adding to their brood: In January, Gemma announced she was expecting her third child with David

Well wishes: Australian model Nicole Trunfio congratulated her, saying: 'Congratulations my love. Welcome to the world angel Kirra!'

Australian model Nicole Trunfio congratulated her, saying: 'Congratulations my love. Welcome to the world angel Kirra!'

She added: 'Can't wait to meet you! Sending you guys all of our love!'

In January, Gemma announced she was expecting her third child with David.

At the time, she shared a picture of her blossoming bump while at the beach in the idyllic Byron Bay.

'Expecting a baby girl this year to round out our little gang,' she captioned the image.

Oh baby! At the time, she shared a picture of her blossoming bump while at the beach in the idyllic Byron Bay

Gemma and David are already parents to a six-year-old daughter, Naia, and a three-year-old son, Jet.

In an interview with Vogue Australia in July last year, Gemma spoke about balancing her modelling career with motherhood.

'I think it's all about teamwork. You have to make sure everyone is on board and obviously the kids come first, but work is pretty important too when you have an obligation to provide for them,' she said.
South Africa: Employers urged to declare workers for UIF benefits

As the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) begins to follow the trail of the money that has been disbursed since April 2020 to aid contributors during the lockdown, Employment and Labour Minister, Thulas Nxesi, has appealed to companies to do the right thing and declare workers who still need to be paid.

About R3.2 billion from the first round of Unemployment Insurance Fund claim payments remains in abeyance since April as beneficiary details from employers remain outstanding. The amount is expected to soften the impact of the COVID-19 on 725 791 workers represented by 123 977 employers.

Nxesi has now appealed with companies to declare workers who still need to be paid.

The Minister in a statement on Monday said the Fund has now begun following the trail of the money that has been disbursed since April 2020 to aid its contributors during the lockdown.

In as much as some companies have re-opened as a result of the risk-adjusted strategy, which has seen the country move to level 3 of the lockdown, we acknowledge that there are still people who would find the injection from the UIF helpful and making a huge difference. There are still a number of companies that are either still closed or in dire straits, and we hope those workers are not left destitute.

As government, we have committed to ensuring that the worst effects of the pandemic are mitigated through making available a basket of services and other interventions. The UIF has been exemplary in rising to the occasion and helping make the difference, said the Minister.

The Minister said May payments are already at R3.2 billion and have benefitted 782 602 workers, represented by 57 260 employers.

However, the department said even in this round, 85 049 workers, who would have benefitted from R356 million in payments, have still not received the money, as the details submitted by employers are missing.

It is tempting to think of this appeal as counter-intuitive, in the sense that we would be wanting to save money because it is clear that the demands on the UIF, going forward, are going to be massive. But we move from the point that its important that workers are not disadvantaged and as such, we appeal for the details so that the Fund can help those who need the money or for whom this may be the only source of funds, the Minister said.

Since April, the Fund has disbursed more than R21 billion, benefitting 3 609 161 workers, represented by 314 454 employers.

Last week, the Fund appointed auditors to follow the money trail and already, there are indications that some people and companies have allegedly taken advantage of the help being advanced to workers and are seeking to enrich themselves.

It is alleged that there are companies that have not paid the workers what is due to them. We are aware of some ccompanies allegedly loaning employees the money and that is not legal.

"We are also aware of other companies that are allegedly paying part of the money and not the full amount, as well as companies using the money for something else other than the intended purpose. If this all these allegations are true, we appeal to companies to do the right thing still," said Nxesi.

He has also appealed to companies to ensure that they are compliant with the UI Act, adding that the Fund has made payments even in cases where companies are not fully compliant because it did not want to disadvantage workers.

There are many cases where companies have not declared workers or have not contributed for employees. We will be raising debt against those companies and they must know that they need to pay back with interest and other penalties owed to the UIF.

"It is in all our interest to do the right thing. Even without being compliant, we have done the right thing and still paid them the COVID-19 relief and they also have to do the right thing, said Nxesi.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
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At the latest Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences Zoom Board meeting on June 15, the Governors finally voted on a date for the Oscars 2021 telecast. Its April 25, eight weeks back from the old date, February 28.

Monday morning, the governors (who total 54, representing 17 branches) weighed in fresh and hashed things out. With a date change comes an extended eligibility period (to February 28), to give a wider swath of films (many of them independent) a chance to finish production and reach audiences.

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Before making the decision the Academy checked in with the Los Angeles Department of Health, which advised them to push back as long as possible, as well as studios and distributors, paying heed to what they needed as they struggle to get back up and running.

With a two-month extension, studios will have extra time to finish their movies and postpone release dates without sacrificing their chances at Oscar contention. Ridley Scott, for example, is prepping to virtually direct the last few weeks of shooting in Ireland on The Last Duel (Twentieth Century/Disney) starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, which was interrupted March 13. He has edited one hour of the period adventure after four weeks filming in France, and was trying to finish in time for a December 25 release date. (When the actors will be willing to turn up is another question.)

ABC had been prepared to make the change. Now Hollywood studios, specialty distributors, documentary producers, and shortsmakers, among others, can plan accordingly. And dates for the various Guild awards and the Golden Globes could also back up. (Its fluid, wrote one Hollywood Foreign Press Association member in an email.)

With so many uncertainties, the change seemed inevitable. While there are precedents for changing the Oscar date  the Oscars were delayed in 1938 (the 50-year flood in Los Angeles), 1968 (the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), and 1981 (the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan)  nothing like the 2020 pandemic has ever happened to Hollywood. Even during the 1918 Spanish Flu, Hollywood production continued and most theaters remained open.

Story continues

The film industry is on its knees, with some theaters around the country slowly reopening, and others closed as COVID spikes alarm theater owners and public officials alike, amid speculation about a second wave even as the first one continues to crest.

The summer movie schedule is in flux, with Christopher Nolans Tenet moving back two weeks to July 31, and Disneys live-action Mulan poised as the first big-studio wide release on July 24. Even now, that could change; its also unknown how many theaters will open by then.

Many 2020 films were pushed back to 2021, which should see plenty of releases during a shorter 10-month eligibility window. But as one Oscar campaigner likes to point out, you only need 10.

Most Oscar seasons are comprised of movies that opened after Labor Day weekend, which marks the start of the fall season. But festivals from Venice and Telluride to Toronto and New York dont know what form their annual events will take this year. Big titles like David Finchers biopic Mank starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman, may thrive without a fall festival launch (Netflix has not committed to sending its films to festivals), but smaller, less pedigreed titles, that need discovery from media and audiences, could fail to build buzz and attention to become must-sees.

Theres another possibility with the Academy date shift: the festivals themselves can move back as well, allowing for safety concerns as well as finished titles to catch up with them.

The Academy has also changed its Oscar submission deadlines and awards calendar. General entry categories: January 15, 2021. Specialty categories: December 1, 2020. Oscar shortlist voting: from February 1 through February 5. Nomination voting: March 5 through March 10. Nominations announcement: March 15. Final voting: April 15 through April 20.

Canceled is Novembers usual annual Governors Awards, which has presented honorary Oscars for 11 years at a Hollywood & Highland gala packed with Academy contenders. More information about a possible new date is forthcoming.

The Academy has also postponed the June 20, 2020 Scientific and Technical Awards presentation, which will presumably also find a new berth on the revised awards calendar.

Inevitably it seems, the Governors pushed back yet again the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which was planning to open on December 14, 2020, but will now be unveiled on April 17, ahead of the April 25 Oscars, and then to the public on April 30.

At the June 11 meeting, the Academy did optimistically commit, for the 94th Oscars in 2022, to a full 10 Best Picture nominees, in order to give some breathing room to next years potential Best Picture nominees. (This may not prove a permanent rule change.)

In a move to ensure that Academy voting members have a chance to see all eligible movies, the Academy is making its award-season Screening Room, the streaming site for Academy members, available year-round, starting with the 94th Academy Awards. The Screening Room will stream movies to members throughout the year, with availability during the quarter they are released. The goal is to broaden each films exposure and level the playing field. The 2021 Oscars marks the last year DVD screeners will be sent to members.

With the impending date change, as well as permitting some streaming titles to compete, the Academy is clearly leaning in to helping filmmakers get what they need. This could benefit lower-budget films with more time to play in theaters, especially since campaign overspending may not play during this Oscar season.

Expect something far more stripped-back and frugal. One huge change that actors are already confronting as they conduct Zoom interviews in their homes, is that the old culture of celebrity may undergo a radical change. Time to revisit that old red carpet glam frivolity.

Revised Oscar Calendar below:

Monday, February 1, 2021

Preliminary voting begins

Friday, February 5, 2021

Preliminary voting ends

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Oscar Shortlists Announcement

Friday, March 5, 2021

Nominations voting begins

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Nominations voting ends

Monday, March 15, 2021

Oscar Nominations Announcement

Thursday April 15, 2021

Oscar Nominees Luncheon

Thursday April 15, 2021

Finals voting begins

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Museum Gala

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Finals voting ends

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Oscars

Friday, April 30, 2021

Museum Public Opening

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A large crowd gathered in Dongan Hills on Sunday for the opening of New York Assembly candidate Marko Kepis campaign office launch.

More than 150 people, including a pair of former elected officials, attended the launch for Kepi, who is facing off against former Richmond County Assistant District Attorney Michael Tannousis in the June 23 primary.

All of Staten Islands Republican elected officials, including Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn) whose seat the two are running for, have lent their support to Tannousis. Malliotakis will vacate the seat at the end of the year as part of her congressional run.

The energy is in our court, were going full through June 23, and were going to win this race, Kepi said. At the end of the day, its not about endorsements and logos. Its about those that have the boots on the ground, those who are really active, and those who fight for the community. Those are who I have on my side.

Former Rep. Michael Grimm, former Brooklyn State Senator Marty Golden, and Malliotakis congressional primary opponent Joe Caldarera were among the crowd gathered outside the office at the corner of Hylan Boulevard and Cromwell Avenue.

The campaign rally also served as a Flag Day celebration, and to announce Kepis reception of the Presidents Volunteer Service Award, which President George W. Bush established in 2003 to recognize individuals serving their communities.

Former Congressman Michael Grimm, Republican activist from Brooklyn Anthony Testaverde, Assembly candidate Marko Kepi, former Brooklyn State Senator Marty Golden, and Republican activist from Brooklyn John Quaglione pose for a photo outside Kepi's campaign office launch on Sunday, June 14, 2020. (Staten Island Advance/ Paul Liotta)

According to the awards website, the program is led by the Corporation for National and Community Service and managed in partnership with the non-profit organization Points of Light. It allows certifying organizations, such as civic associations and businesses to recognize exceptional volunteers.

Kepis award included a letter from President Donald Trump. The presidents son, Donald Trump Jr., and his attorney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have voiced their support for Kepis primary opponent.

Giuliani gave a full endorsement of Tannousis on Tuesday, and Trump Jr. took to Twitter in April to criticize Kepi for his criticism of former acting Director of National Intelligence and Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell.

Im told that Mikes republican primary opponent just called for the president to fire Ric Grenell, the presidents son wrote. Sounds like (the Republican Party of New York) made the right call endorsing Mike in this race.

Both the Brooklyn and Staten Island Republican Parties have endorsed Tannousis. Kepi has received the backing of the New York City Republicans organization, which is not officially associated with the party.

After Trump Jr. tweeted his support for Tannousis, Kepi would not confirm to the Advance whether he called on Grenell to resign, but did criticize his words regarding peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.

"First of all, no one is more supportive of President Trump than I am and as a U.S. Marine I would give my life to protect my Commander in Chief. That being said, I know too many families who lost loved ones in the Kosovan war with Serbia and never want to see anything like that again, Kepi said.

Ambassador Grenells rhetoric regarding Serbia is dangerous, but more importantly, all of our US employees and diplomats should be focussed on this pandemic and providing relief to the American people as I am in Staten Island and Brooklyn, not stoking the flames of war abroad - we have enough on our plates, he continued.

Grenell, who has since stepped down as acting DNI and ambassador to Germany, remains a special envoy leading Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations despite criticism, including from the Democratic leaders of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, that the U.S. approach has been biased against Kosovo, which has presented itself as a staunch American ally.

Kepi, who emigrated from Albania at the age of 10, is active in the international Albanian community. Kosovo has a more-than 90 percent ethnic Albanian population and declared independence from Serbia in 2008, about 10 years after NATO bombing drove Serbian forces out of the country, according to Reuters.

Golden left office at the end of 2018 after losing a close election to Democrat Andrew Gounardes. A small part of that Brooklyn senatorial district is congruous with the Assembly district Kepi is running for.

Golden said that for the five years Kepi worked for his office the U.S. Marine was one of his leading staffers on constituent issues. He worked with people on subjects

He was one of my top guys. He was on the front line, Golden said of Kepi, who calls Grant City home. If you needed something done, hes like a dog with a bone. He would go out there and get it done.

Whoever wins the June 23 primary will face off against Democrat Brandon Patterson, who is chief of staff to State Sen. Diane Savino, in the November general election.
Growing up, Marie-Pier never really dwelled on her identity.

The youngest of three girls never looked much like her father or two sisters, but the difference wasn't so great that the Gatineau, Que., native ever thought to question where she'd come from, or how she'd been conceived.

That all changed last fall when Marie-Pier's mother Louise saw a news report that stunned her. In it, a young woman whose identity was concealed except for her dark hair said she was fertility doctor Norman Barwin's biological daughter.

"It got me thinking," Louise said in a French-language interview with Radio-Canada. CBC has agreed not to use the family's surname to protect their privacy.

Louise and her husband, who had had a vasectomy, longed for a third child. Fearing their youngest would be perceived as different from their other two children, they told no one when they decided to turn to a sperm bank, with help from Barwin.

It was a secret Louise kept until January, when she finally decided to tell Marie-Pier she had been conceived through artificial insemination.

"At the time, I said it didn't change anything," Marie-Pier told Radio-Canada. "Then it sunk in that my father is not my biological father, and it was a shock to learn that."

Louise grew convinced that Barwin was Marie-Pier's biological father.

"It was something I felt. You can't explain it," she said.

A few weeks later, they got confirmation of Marie-Pier's paternity through a test organized by the law firm heading up the class-action lawsuit. Marie-Pier is now Barwin's 16th biological child to join the class action against the man who's become known as the "Baby God" of artificial insemination.

CBC

Last year, Barwin was found to have committed professional misconduct by using his own sperm to inseminate several patients, and using the wrong sperm with many others. Barwin pleaded no contest to the allegations through his lawyer. His medical licence was revoked and he was ordered to pay a fine.

Story continues

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the class action say there are now 91 children who were conceived using the wrong sperm, including Barwin's. Some of those newly discovered "Barwin babies" are from the Gatineau area.

'There's got to be others'

The woman Louise had seen being interviewed on television is Tracy-Lee Prescott, who has now agreed to reveal her identity for the first time.

Prescott, 38, said she felt compelled to do that first anonymous media interview last year to let Quebecers know who Barwin is.

Supplied

While the stories of Barwin's babies have received enormous media attention in the rest of Canada, Prescott maintains that in Quebec the story is less well-known, and fears there may be others like her who don't know who their biological father is.

"We're everywhere. I was the only one in Gatineau, but I told myself there's got to be others. Of course it is not right what he did. People like me have the right to know," she said.

Prescott said she always knew she was conceived with the help of a sperm donor. When allegations against her mother's fertility doctor started to multiply, she also had a DNA test organized through the law firm representing the growing class action, and became one of the first Quebecers to join.

The woman who launched the suit in 2016 is Rebecca Dixon.

Michel Aspirot/CBC

Dixon discovered through DNA testing four years ago that Barwin is her father, and said she doesn't know how many more half-siblings she may have.

"I expect that maybe in 20 years someone will take a DNA test on Ancestry or 23andMe and we will find others," Dixon said.

Dixon has been the subject of numerous English-language media reports, but she, too, believes the message hasn't reached Quebec.

"There haven't been as many stories in the Quebec media or in French, so I think there are people who haven't heard about this yet," she told Radio-Canada in an interview.

Quebecers sent to Barwin for insemination

Before 2018, there were no fertility clinics in the Outaouais region. Western Quebec couples often went to Ottawa, and Barwin, for artificial insemination.

Still, the CISSS de l'Outaouais, the region's public health authority, told Radio-Canada there is no reference to Barwin in its archives, and the president of the Association of General Practitioners of Western Quebec, Dr. Marcel Guilbault, wrote in an email that he does not know of any Outaouais doctors who used Barwin's services.

CBC

However one doctor, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed he referred patients to Barwin in the 1980s. He said at the time, very few doctors practised this type of fertility treatment, and patients generally wanted to stay in the region rather than travel to Montreal for insemination.

Instead, they were often referred to Barwin.

16 known biological children

According to the lawsuit, there are now 16 known Barwin babies. Dixon said nine live in Ontario, three in British Columbia and four in Quebec. Two of them, both Quebecers, have only come forward to join the lawsuit since January.

"I didn't expect to find two more people in the same month, four years after I started this whole experience. That tells me that we may find others in Quebec," Dixon said.

CBC

A third Quebec-based plaintiff who did not want to be interviewed told Radio-Canada they believe there are likely other parents of Barwin babies in Gatineau.

The class action has not yet been certified, and the allegations against Barwin have not been proven in court.

Barwin's lawyer declined Radio-Canada's request for an interview, or to answer questions sent by email.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Peter Cronyn of the firm Nelligan O'Brien Payne, said he hopes to reach a negotiated settlement.

"The class action is to allow for compensation, but we also want to create a vehicle to allow people to come forward and get the answers that they are looking for," Cronyn said.

Michel Aspirot/CBC

Meanwhile, Marie-Pier is adjusting to her new reality.

"It's important to know your identity  your genes  to really know where you come from. I'm glad my parents told me, because it's part of me," she said.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has launched a website to track what it terms as failed promises of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.

The website, www.nppfailedpromises.com, according to the party, is to help Ghanaians fact-check the promises of the government.

The website presents detailed accounts and lists all the promises it has tracked the government to have made in its manifesto and those it has made after coming into power.

Making the presentation at the briefing, the immediate past Deputy Minister of Education Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said a total of 631 promises were found in the 2016 NPP Manifesto but only 86 of them were found to have been delivered.

He said the NDC relied on credible documents and data to arrive at its conclusion and it is far less than the 78% of the NPP projected itself to have achieved.

We have discovered that the 631 promises that we listed, after thorough analysis, combing through documents, what theyve told us in Parliament, ladies and gentleman, it will shock you to realize that only 86 out of this 631 promise that has been delivered. So the percentage achieved is 14%, not 78%, he said.

Government launches promises websites

In February 2020, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government unveiled a website to solely monitor its manifesto promises and track the successes it has chalked.

The website, www.delivery.gov.gh, provides the status report of the NPP's 2016 manifesto promises also gives data on the gains made by the government so far, three years after assuming power.

Dr. Bawumia reiterated that government has achieved 78% of its promises contrary to the 72% reported by some policy think tanks, although no matrix or indices were given to back the claims other than the graphs that were projected at the town hall meeting.

In all, we made 388 promises in our manifesto. The most recent validation exercise at the end of January 2019 shows that we had delivered or are delivering on 303 (78% of the promises), Dr. Bawumia said at the time.

 citinewsroom
TORONTO - When someone broke into her car earlier this month, Meenakshi Mannoe knew the potential consequences of calling police.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Police keep an eye protesters during a demonstration calling for justice for the death of George Floyd and all victims of police brutality, in Montreal on June 7, 2020. When someone broke into her car earlier this month, Meenakshi Mannoe considered calling police. The Vancouver resident weighed several questions: Would she get her belongings back? Was it even worth the hassle? And the tipping point: What good would it ultimately do? The weekend killing of Rodney Levi near Metepenagiag, N.B., -- the second Indigenous person to die at the hands of police in that province in less than a month -- has only intensified calls to defund the police as a part of a holistic approach to re-define public safety and how it's achieved. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

TORONTO - When someone broke into her car earlier this month, Meenakshi Mannoe knew the potential consequences of calling police.

The Vancouver resident weighed several questions: Would she get her belongings back? Was it even worth the hassle? And the tipping point: What good would it ultimately do?

Ultimately, Mannoe believed it wasn't a big deal  she could easily replace her lost portable speaker and first aid kit, and she questioned the impact of calling the cops on someone desperate enough to take them.

"Is it an inconvenience? Absolutely. But I don't want to contribute to the over-criminalization of folks, or hyper-policing when I know that people are doing things just to get by, just to survive."

The decision was an easy one for Mannoe, well-versed in the myriad systemic forces that underlie day-to-day struggles of many as a campaign staffer with Pivot Legal Society, which examines police accountability, drug policy, homelessness, and sex workers' rights.

But they're questions she says we're increasingly facing as anger-fuelled protests draw fresh scrutiny over the prevalence of police brutality and systemic racism facing Black and Indigenous people.

The weekend killing of Rodney Levi near Metepenagiag, N.B.,  the second Indigenous person to die at the hands of an officer in that province in less than a month  has only intensified calls to defund the police as a part of a holistic approach to re-define public safety and how it's achieved.

"From Indigenous communities we regularly hear the sentiment that people feel over-policed and under-protected," Mannoe said last week, before Levi's death.

"I think this is a vital moment to really reframe what justice looks like and to heed calls from our courts like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (national inquiry) and really look at: How do we create culturally safe and responsive Indigenous-led crisis intervention?"

The defund movement doesn't mean abolishing police  although there are calls for that, too  but rather is an acknowledgment that law enforcement has ballooned to encompass far-ranging responsibilities it's incapable of addressing, says Toronto city councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, who will introduce a motion later this month to cut Toronto's police budget by 10 per cent.

"In some ways, we have set them up to fail," says Wong-Tam, noting calls often involve people in the throes of a mental health crisis or substance abuse.

"Asking police officers to be the social worker that shows up on the doorstep armed with guns and pepper spray, I just don't think that has given us always the best outcome."

Levi was killed Friday night after RCMP say they responded to a complaint about an "unwanted person" at a home near Metepenagiag, about 30 kilometres west of Miramichi. Officers say they were confronted by a man carrying knives, and tried to subdue him with a stun gun. Levi was ultimately shot by an officer and declared dead in hospital.

Since then, Chief Bill Ward of the Metepenagiag Mi'kmaq Nation has said Levi was an invited guest at the home, where he had planned to seek guidance from a church minister.

Then there are the deaths of Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman in Edmundston, N.B., who was shot by police who had come to perform a wellness check, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a Black woman who fell from her Toronto balcony after family members called police to her home.

The circumstances around each case have not been disclosed and are being examined by independent police investigation agencies. But experts say they highlight the myriad ways racial bias and mental-health stigma can make any police interaction dangerously fraught.

Especially for someone who is Black, Indigenous or a person of colour, the very presence of an armed officer could aggravate an already delicate situation, says the James R. Johnston chair in Black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University.

"When you have experiences, for example, in Toronto where Black men are 20 times more likely to be harmed or killed by police than (white) people, then yes, of course we're going to be anxious," says OmiSoore Dryden.

"And, you know, we don't all teach our children, 'Go to police,' that they will help them if they're lost or whatever," said Dryden. "We know not to do that."

Dryden says the very inception of policing was rooted in protecting property, which further institutionalized racism by enforcing slavery.

"It meant in the creation of this country, that those Black people fleeing slavery were captured and returned into slavery and those Black people who were freed were often trafficked into slavery, even though they weren't slaves," she says.

"For many that uniform is a symbol of harm and abuse and fear. It is not a symbol for care and kindness and support."

Just like the rest of society, police officers are vulnerable to conscious and unconscious biases that can cloud their judgment, says Jennifer Lavoie, an associate professor in criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University.

"That becomes problematic when you're a police officer and you have implicit biases that involve perceptions of threat or aggression or violence that are attached to specific populations such as BIPOC populations," says Lavoie.

"When you're approaching and providing services to a person they're more than their mental health crisis. It's important to approach that person holistically."

Nevertheless, calling 911 is the only option most people have when faced with a public safety crisis, even when someone is clearly in mental distress, Lavoie says.

Most cities have a patchwork of additional services that can respond to some emergency calls, but they are inconsistent and not always 24-hours, she notes.

Lavoie would like to see more funding for crisis intervention teams that many police services have across the country.

In Toronto, they're known as Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams, or MCIT, and involve a mental health nurse and a specially trained police officer. But they respond only if it's clear a weapon is not involved or if first-responding officers deems it safe for a nurse to arrive. Citizens also cannot call MCIT directly.

Wong-Tam says they are also overwhelmed by demand, noting the force receives roughly 30,000 calls a year related to mental health but that the MCIT only respond to about 6,000 calls a year.

Hamilton's Crisis Outreach and Support Team, known as COAST, includes a mobile team of a mental health professional and a plain-clothes police officer in an unmarked car, but it, too, is not 24-hours.

"There is a period of time where they're not available, and if they're on call, there's only so many units that are available," Lavoie says.

In Vancouver, Car 87 teams a police constable with a registered nurse or a registered psychiatric nurse to provide on-site assessments. Meanwhile, nurses can also help callers to a crisis line and triage situations to Car 87, ambulance or police.

As part of her research, Lavoie says she's developed a 40-hour training program being tested with Durham Region police in Ontario that uses scenario-based exercises with actors who portray "authentic mental health crises."

"That's the only way to really, I think, train officers on how to respond to a person in mental health crisis."

Former Ottawa cop-turned-professor Greg Brown, of Carleton University's department of law & legal studies, says police training includes just a cursory overview of mental health conditions but that more robust education isn't the answer.

He'd like to see a portion of police funds reallocated to some sort of social services department within the force that could respond to such calls, but he'd also like to see "more use-of-force training, so they can perform more professionally."

He says most police services dedicate 10 to 12 hours a year towards firearms and hand-to-hand fighting skills.

"We have police officers that are rusty at use-of-force and then you have an incident where they have to use force and they don't perform properly," he says.

"And then people wonder, 'Why? Why does that officer behave like that? Aren't they trained?' And the answer is, 'Not really.'"

Wong-Tam would like to see funds diverted to affordable housing, career counselling, skills training, recreation youth programs and mental-health crisis support. She says a 10 per cent budget cut in Toronto would yield $122 million.

Mannoe agrees that addressing society's myriad inequalities would do more to reduce police interactions to begin with, but so, too, would a broader understanding of systemic forces that affect police and society's ability to hold them accountable.

"I think people are looking for this kind of big alternative system that's going to replace police but really it's just (about) turning our minds towards compassion for people who are in a bad place."

 With files from Adina Bresge

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said Meenakshi Mannoe considered calling the police. In fact, she knew she did not want to call the police.
Kozhikode:

The shadow of Uri terror attack looms large over the BJP National Council meeting which started on Friday with party leaders asserting that there can be no development without security.



As top party leaders arrived at a picturesque resort, the venue of the first day of the three-day exercise in this Malabar town with its president Amit Shah chairing key meetings, they said the nation expects them to articulate the prevailing mood in the country.



This party belong to the people and recognises the mood of the people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognises the mood of the people. We are waiting and the whole country is waiting to hear him, BJP spokesperson Shahmawaz Hussain told reporters.



While the partys garib kalyan (welfare of poor) agenda will remain a key theme in the meeting of over 1,700 delegates being held in the birth centenary year of its ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay, there is acknowledgement that it will have to address the concerns, especially of its cadres and nationalist constituency, in view of the terror attack.



When we talk of development, security is important. There cannot be development without security, its National Secretary Sidharth Nath Singh said.



The result will be there, the desired result will be there on Pakistan, he said when asked what action the government will take against Pakistan.



18 soldiers were killed when Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists attacked a highly-guarded army camp in Uri in Kashmir on Sunday morning, drawing outrage in the country. The Prime Minister said that those behind the depicable act will not go unpunished.



The incident has also triggered a diplomatic dust-up with both India and Pakistan hitting out at each other including at the UN General Assembly.

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MONTREALQuebec will allow indoor public gatherings of up to 50 people beginning June 22, and is reducing the physical distancing requirement for children 16 years and under to one metre, the provinces director of public health announced Monday.

Horacio Arruda said that in some indoor locations where people are sitting and dont need to circulate other than to enter or leave, such as movie theatres, physical distancing will be reduced to 1.5 metres.

Other places where people will be allowed to maintain a 1.5-metre distance include junior colleges, universities and venues for shows.

Restaurants, however, will need to keep the two-metre rule when they reopen in the Montreal area next week, because their patrons tend to speak while facing one another, which increases the risk of transmitting the novel coronavirus through droplets, Arruda said.

Bars will remain closed. Dr. Richard Masse of the public health department said Monday people often lower their guard when they go out specifically to drink.

After a certain time in a bar, people tend to take less precautions, he said alongside Arruda in Montreal, pointing to a case in South Korea where one person with COVID-19 infected many others in several bars.

Thats why we are not ready to open bars. Eventually, it will come.

Gatherings inside private homes are still restricted to 10 people from a maximum of three households. Such gatherings were permitted as of Monday across most of Quebec. In the Montreal area, up to 10 people will be allowed to gather inside homes beginning next Monday, June 22.

Masse said the government is considering increasing indoor public gatherings to a maximum of 250 people by mid-July, but we arent prepared to go higher than that.

Arruda said that considering the low number of infections since schools opened in May, it has been decided that starting June 22, the two-metre guideline for physical distancing can be reduced to one metre for children.

The numbers are very encouraging right now, Arruda told reporters. Not a single child who has been infected has gotten seriously ill. Its more like a flu or a cold.

Children under 16, however, will still need to keep a two-metre distance from adults, such as their teachers, Arruda said. The government is planning on announcing more details for schools on Tuesday. And Arruda hinted the physical distancing directives could be removed altogether for young children.

Despite the new directives, the government continues to miss its daily testing targets. Authorities havent conducted more than 10,000 tests in one day since June 5; the governments target was 14,000 daily tests.

Arruda said he didnt know if health authorities will be able to meet that target anymore, given the low rate of community transmission in the province, including in Montreal. The city reported 27 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday.

But Masse said whats important is that the province maintain the residual capacity to test 14,000 per day if and when transmissions pick up again. Well need that surge capacity when outbreaks occur.

Quebec on Monday reported another 11 deaths attributed to COVID-19, for a total of 5,242, as well as 102 new cases for a total of 54,054.

Hospitalizations increased by two, for a total of 771, including 82 people in intensive care  a reduction of 3.

Also Monday, Quebecs ambitious plan to train 10,000 people to become orderlies in the provinces long-term care homes by mid-September got underway.

The province is paying successful candidates $760 per week while they undergo 12 weeks of training. If they complete the program, the full-time orderly jobs will pay $26 an hour, up to $49,000 a year.

Quebecs long-term care homes have been hard hit by COVID-19 and had faced chronic labour shortages for years before the pandemic hit. More than 64 per cent of COVID-19 linked deaths in the province have occurred in long-term care homes.

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Regulatory News:

Press release Brussels, 15 June 2020

Pernod Ricard (Paris:RI) renews its partnership with the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) to promote responsible alcohol consumption and combat binge drinking among students in Europe. The goal of this partnership is twofold: raise awareness about responsible alcohol consumption and reduce alcohol-related harm during student parties. As a proof of its success, over the past eleven years the Responsible Party program has been implemented in 38 countries and raised awareness of more than 450,000 students. As part of its S&R roadmap 2030, 'Good times from Good Place,' the Group announced last year its ambition to expand the program around the world with the objective of reaching 1 million students by 2030.

The success of the Responsible Party is due in part to a peer-to-peer approach. Student ambassadors organise engaging activities during parties to provide young people with concrete advice on responsible drinking. At Responsible Party events, food and water are distributed, and messages about the effects of alcohol on health are presented in a fun way. As current sanitary measures around the globe prevent traditional Responsible Party events, the digital campaign 'Sharing Good Vibes' offers an effective channel to convey the right prevention message to a highly connected population.

'Sharing Good Vibes' digital campaign

Launched in early April on Instagram and Facebook, SharingGoodVibes aims to provide young adults with positive messages and stories around solidarity and conviviality whilst raising awareness around a responsible lifestyle. The campaign seeks to inspire young adults to share uplifting stories whilst reminding them to stay safe, convivial and responsible. Over the past 2 months the campaign has been extended outside Europe to Latin America and Africa, via the internet. The first digital activation on the 9May reached more than 102,000 people.

15 June: Sharing Good Vibes all week to promote a responsible lifestyle

Responsible Party will unveil during the week of 15 June a series of video interviews on different channels. Several speakers such as Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO of Pernod Ricard, Kostis Giannidis, President of ESN, DJ Licious and other influencers and ambassadors for a responsible lifestyle will share their views on responsible drinking. Both partners believe that partnership and empowerment are key to prevention. This has been confirmed by an independent scientific research conducted in 2017: 88.8% of the students consider Responsible Party as a useful prevention program.

For Alexandre Ricard, Chairman CEO of Pernod Ricard, "Renewing our partnership with Erasmus is for me a critical milestone on our journey to promote responsible consumption. Given the circumstances, we are not able to celebrate them as we should, but I'm confident that the creative digital alternatives developed together with Erasmus will manage to spread responsible behaviour and lifestyle in a fun and convivial way."

Kostis Giannidis, President of ESN, adds, "Through the Responsible Party programme ESN and Pernod Ricard has supported more than 450,000 young adults. Especially now, in times of crisis and physical distancing, this partnership is vital to ensure the health and wellbeing of young people. The 'Sharing Good Vibes' campaign in the context of the Responsible Party programme aims to spread positive messages and solidarity among young people. The Responsible Party is a great example of how business and the civil sector can contribute together for a sustainable society.

Follow the campaign on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYFYzciaGvhOequ9MrovGhygwCDas2KsD

About Pernod Ricard

Pernod Ricard is the world's No 2 in wines and spirits with consolidated sales of 9,182 million in FY19. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard, which owns 16 of the Top 100 Spirits Brands, holds one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry, including: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute, and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur, Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo, and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard's brands are distributed across 160+ markets and by its own salesforce in 73 markets. The Group's decentralised organisation empowers its 19,000 employees to be true on-the-ground ambassadors of its vision of "Createurs de Convivialite." As reaffirmed by the Group's three-year strategic plan, "Transform Accelerate," deployed in 2018, Pernod Ricard's strategy focuses on investing in long-term, profitable growth for all stakeholders. The Group remains true to its three founding values: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust, and a strong sense of ethics. As illustrated by the 2030 roadmap supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "We bring good times from a good place." In recognition of Pernod Ricard's strong commitment to sustainable development and responsible consumption, it has received a Gold rating from Ecovadis and is ranked No. 1 in the beverage sector in Vigeo Eiris. Pernod Ricard is also a United Nations' Global Compact LEAD company. Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN Code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 index. To know more: https://www.pernod-ricard.com/en

About Erasmus Student Network

Erasmus Student Network (ESN) is the biggest student association in Europe. Present at over 1000 Higher Education Institutions, it unites over 500 local associations in 40 countries. More than 15,000 volunteers take care of international colleagues under the motto "Students helping students". ESN works for the creation of a more mobile and flexible education environment by supporting and developing the student exchange from different levels and providing an intercultural experience.

About Responsible Party

Born in 2009 from the idea that events are even better if they are enjoyed responsibly, Responsible Party is originally and today the first pan-European programme tackling binge drinking among young adults. Created in partnership with Erasmus Student Network, an EU-funded non-profit organization, Responsible Party is a unique programme which actively fights against the misuse of alcohol. The programme has two main goals:

Raise awareness among young adults about the risk of overconsumption of alcohol

Reduce alcohol related harm during event

It is about promoting a balanced lifestyle and empowering young adults to decide for themselves. Responsible Party can be activated during any event and is a non-branded programme. It is a label that provides a safer and more responsible environment for young adults. Working with a peer to peer approach, we are never killjoy but cool and friendly people acting to make good times memorable. Creating good times where different personalities meet and lasting international friendships get started that's what we're about. We are here to make good times unforgettable.

Website: https://www.responsible-party.com/en/responsibleparty

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/responsible__party/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ResponsibleParty/

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005693/en/

Contacts:

Pernod Ricard

Alison Donohoe/ Press Relations Manager +33 (0)1 44 00 44 63

Emmanuel Vouin/ Press Relations Manager +33 (0)1 41 00 44 04

Erasmus Student Network

Sabina Achim/ Communication Manager +32 470 472 225
Interns at the BJ General Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital have written to the Maharashtra minister of medical education to hike their stipend from Rs 11,000 per month (current) to Rs 50,000 per month. The request comes against the backdrop of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) offering to pay the same amount to its intern doctors serving Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients in various hospitals.

The letter states, Pune has the second highest number of Covid-19 cases all over Maharashtra. The hospital is not only handling the load of Pune district, but also of the neighbouring districts. Each patient coming to the hospital is being attended without us being aware of their Covid19 status and the testing and reporting of Covid-19 takes time. We are being posted in wards, OPDs and intensive care units, wherein we come in direct contact with the patient. Interns working at BMC hospitals have been granted Rs 50,000 stipend per month during the pandemic and we have a similar demand. We request you to provide us Rs 50,000 stipend as well.

The letter also states that while interns working in BMC hospitals are given enough personal protective equipment (PPE) kits, at Sassoon, the interns are directly exposed to the patients and later, it is confirmed that they are Covid-19 positive.

Dr Tatyarao Lahane, director of Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) under which the hospital functions, said, The BMC has offered to pay its interns Rs 50,000 per month and so this decision to hike the stipend needs to be taken at the local level. Also, the stipend cannot be hiked across the state for a few students. There are only 200 beds at Sassoon and so, only a few of the interns are attending to these patients in rotation, such a decision cannot be taken by the DMER.

Dr Parag Patil, a final year student working and studying at BJ medical college, said,  We are working in Covid and non-covid wards every alternate week and so, the pressure on us is comparable to the doctors working in any Covid-19 hospital in the city. We are ready to work, but currently our stipend is too less as compared to Mumbai and we would want it to be on similar lines.
Afghanistan: Taliban killed or wounded over 400 security personnel in one week

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 2:30 PM

Afghanistan's government says the Taliban militants have killed or wounded more than 400 security personnel in one week.

"In the past one week, the Taliban carried out 222 attacks against the Afghan security forces, resulting in the death and injury of 422" personnel, said government official Tareq Arian at a press briefing in Kabul on Sunday.

He also blamed the Taliban for targeting religious scholars in a bid to put "psychological pressure" on the government.

"This has been the goal of the Taliban to target religious scholars, especially in the past two weeks."

On Friday, a bomb blast ripped through a mosque in Afghanistan's capital, killing at least four people, including the prayer leader.

The assault came just over a week after an attack claimed by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group at a mosque on the edge of Kabul's heavily fortified diplomatic district killed a prominent prayer leader.

Afghan National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal on Sunday said the Taliban "have not reduced, but rather increased their attacks across the country."

The United Nations (UN) has recently warned of an alarming uptick in violence against civilians and a "striking deterioration" in upholding international humanitarian law in Afghanistan.

Violence has surged despite a deal between the Taliban and the United States. Official data shows that Taliban bombings and other assaults have increased 70 percent since the militant group signed the deal with the United States in February.

Under the agreement, the US will withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, and the Taliban will refrain from attacking international occupying forces. The militants have made no pledge to avoid attacking Afghan forces and civilians.

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The state party conventions are a great time for people to gather and see old friends, to help build the party platform, to take care of the mechanics of nominating people for statewide offices and for convention delegates, said Robin Winston, former state Democratic chair under former Gov. Frank OBannon. But weve all had to adjust  there are some changes to deal with this year, for sure.
With most of the nations attention in health care being focused on the new coronavirus pandemic, officials are reminding people of the importance of keeping up with basic health care needs as well.

Routine health care is similar to routine maintenance on your car. The better your upkeep, the better the car will run and the longer it will last. With medical care, the better you keep up with chronic medical care, whether thats medication changes or tweaks or exams with your blood pressure or diabetes, the better youre going to be able to take care of your condition and prevent a disaster, said Dr. Matthew Bruner at Regional West Health Services.

Whats been lost in this COVID has been some of these routine things, and some of these things that were taken for granted are going to become more urgent than emergent, Bruner said. Similar to when medicine was new and we were just reacting to diseases, rather than trying to prevent them.

Measures enacted to flatten the curve and reduce the spread of COVID-19 have served their purpose, but have also lengthened the time span of the pandemic, causing people to push back routine visits, potentially pushing conditions from a preventative care situation to something more serious.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader Karan Singh on Monday hit out at the government over the escalating Indo-Nepal border row, saying prima-facie this appears to have been a serious diplomatic lapse".

The communist government of Nepal on Saturday managed to get a unanimous approval of the lower house of the country's Parliament to a new map depicting disputed areas of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as Nepalese territories, prompting India to say that such "artificial enlargement" of territorial claim is untenable.

"As one who has been closely associated both personally and politically with Nepal over several decades, I must express my sense of deep regret and dismay that Prime Minister Oli (of Nepal) has moved the country into what can only be described as an irreversible confrontational posture vis-a-vis India despite the profound social, cultural, religious, economic and political relations between our two countries that go back many centuries," Singh said in a statement.

"Whatever impact this move may or may not have on India, I fear that the consequences for Nepal will not be favourable for the people of that beautiful country," said Singh, a former Sadr-e-Riyasat of Jammu and Kashmir.

Singh was sent to Nepal in 2006 by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Special Envoy to urge all political stakeholders there for reconciliation at a time of political turmoil in that country.

India should never have allowed the situation to deteriorate like this, Singh said.

"Although the dispute in question is a long-standing one, it was, if I recall correctly, raised by Nepal in November last year. Surprisingly, we did not seem to take the matter seriously," the former Union minister said.

India should have immediately initiated Foreign Secretary-level talks and then, if necessary, raised them to the level of Foreign Minister or even the Prime Ministers, he said.

"Prima-facie, this appears to have been a serious diplomatic lapse, the consequences of which are before us," Singh said.
Data from popular home genetic-testing kits could help scientists shed light on why some people who catch coronavirus have no symptoms while others become very ill.

Researchers are asking people who have used DNA testing services - such as Ancestry DNA, FTDNA and 23andMe - to gain ancestry or health insights to join a study that aims to identify key genes involved in the body's response to the infection.

Understanding the effect genes have on susceptibility to Covid-19 could aid efforts to tackle the pandemic, and help combat future disease outbreaks, researchers say.

More than 30 million people worldwide have used genetic testing services. Researchers are urging them to share their DNA data to help speed up discoveries that could help fight the virus.

By providing these data, volunteers will help the team avoid the costly, time-consuming task of collecting the hundreds of thousands of DNA samples that would otherwise be needed to map the genes involved.

Volunteers who have not used these services will also be able to provide the project with DNA, once current lockdown restrictions have been eased.

The team aims to identify genes that influence the risk of developing Covid-19 and those that affect disease severity, by comparing volunteers' symptoms - or lack of them - with their DNA.

Those taking part in the University of Edinburgh study - called Coronagenes - will complete online questionnaires about their health, lifestyle and any symptoms they have experienced, such as fever or a persistent cough.

Updating the survey before, during and after an infection will help scientists detect any patterns that might indicate how the virus progresses.

Researchers also aim to analyse the long-term health consequences of infection and self-isolation.

To volunteer for the study, visit: ed.ac.uk/coronagenes.

The study is supported by the Medical Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council, Health Data Research UK and Wellcome Trust.

Jim Wilson, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, who is co-leading the study, said: "Some people suffer no ill effects from coronavirus infection, yet others require intensive care. We need to identify the genes causing this susceptibility, so we can understand the biology of the virus and hence develop better drugs to fight it."

Albert Tenesa, Professor of Quantitative Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, also co-leading, said: "Time is of the essence. To identify the genes that explain why some people get very sick from coronavirus and others don't, we need the solidarity of a large proportion of people from different countries who can share their DNA testing results with us. In this case, size really matters."

###
George Floyd in a file photograph, left, and Derek Chauvin, who was arrested May 29, in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd, in a mugshot. (Christopher Harris via AP; Hennepin County Sheriff via AP)

Protests and the Search for Justice

Commentary

Like everyone everywhere, I looked on in horror, even though it was a replay and I knew how it would come out. George Floyd was in the custody of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. He was handcuffed, pinned face-down on the street, and he repeatedly called out, I cant breathe.

People from the sidewalk pleaded with the officers to let Floyd up but to no avail. When the ambulance arrived, the EMTs did not even take the time to check Floyds vital statistics or try to revive him. They loaded him in and headed off toward Hennepin County Medical Center. Within minutes, the ambulance called in, reporting that Floyd was entering cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead in the emergency room, less than an hour after he had been released from under officer Chauvins knee.

Everyone who watches the video is emotionally impacted. You cant help but be. Its horrible. Adding the racial element to the event even makes it worse. Floyd was black; Chauvin is white. Most people believe that things would have transpired differently if their races were different. Thus, this tragedy became the centerpiece of a movement to protest both police brutality and racism in general.

The earliest protests were statements designed to draw attention to this specific event and make sure that Floyd had not died in vain. People wanted to express their outrage, and they had every justification to do so. At some point, however, everyone knew about the event and had seen the video. There was still justification (and perhaps need) for statements of unity and opposition to racism. I even took part in a unity walk, but the original justificationdrawing attention to Floyds deathhad passed.

Even at the beginning, many protests turned destructive in the evening. People were assaulted, cars were burned, and stores were looted. Cities responded by imposing curfews, but they were often ignored, and the violence got worse.

Based on the latest reports, at least 17 people have been killed in the violence, hundreds of millions of dollars of damage has been done, and more than 700 police officers have been injured. Those numbers have been growing each night.

Its only fair to observe that much of the mayhem was created by people who were doing more than protesting racism. A significant number seemed to be seeking anarchy, social revolution, and a fundamental restructuring of the American society. The two principal objectives relate to police policies and historical figures who can be tied to racism. Thus, defacing, toppling, and destroying statues and memorials became a part of many protests.

According to The Guardian, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said that Minneapolis and St. Paul were under assault from anarchists and elements of domestic terrorism. He estimated that up to 80 percent of those looting and setting fires were from places outside of the area and that they had different objectives than the local protesters. Their motivation was not about the death of George Floyd. It was about attacking civil society, instilling fear and disrupting our great city.

Some changes to society, including many that are being advocated by the protesters, can and should take place. To be legitimate, however, they need to be accomplished through the democratic process. The U.S. Constitution puts most policing authority at the local level for that precise reason: Its easier to control matters at the local level. City hall may be hard to fight, but its much easier than Washington, D.C. If something is wrong with police policies, citizens can contact local officials to demand a change. If those officials cannot or will not make the necessary changes, the citizens can vote in new people who will.

The same goes for statues and monuments. Public art reflects history, but it also defines and speaks for the local community. People in that community (whatever its size might be) have the right to put it up or take it down, but the decision must be made through the democratic process. If the people want to remove a statue, they or their representatives will vote to do so. That is how democracy works.

Vandalism against statues, memorials, or government buildings is not justifiable. Essentially, its theft from the local community. Its the work of bullies, and bullies should not be rewarded. They should not be allowed to make public decisions for the entire community. They should especially not be permitted to destroy statues. After all, these are pieces of art. Destroying them is somewhat akin to burning books.

The Justice for Floyd protesters have come to resemble the angry mobs found in William Faulkners Intruder in the Dust and Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird. Given their way, I do not think that they would wait for Chauvins criminal trial before executing the sentence. (One night I saw a protester vowing that the protests would not end until there were convictions; arrest and charges were not enough.)

In terms of his treatment, Chauvin was immediately fired from the police force. Soon thereafter he was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Then his wife filed for divorce. Within a week, the charges were expanded to include second-degree murder. He has remained in custody the whole time. Three other officers at the scene were also charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. Thats actually very quick for our judicial system. The wheels of justice move slowly, and they operate that way for a reason.

No one wants to hear it, but the real question in this case is not justice for Floyd but justice for Chauvin. The United States promises all defendants a fair trial, benefit of counsel, the presumption of innocence, an impartial jury, and due process. How can the judicial system deliver on that promise to Chauvin? I challenged my criminal procedure students with that question last week. How would they represent him? Could they? How would the court ever find unbiased jurors? Its very difficult.

A lawyer I used to work with in Chicago specialized in criminal cases. He used to say, Everyone says no one is above the law, but they need to remember that no one is below the law. The legal system must now provide a fair trial for Chauvin. That is how Floyd will receive his justice. A jury needs to consider all of the evidence and render a verdict. We all think we know what the result will be, but trials sometimes surprise us.

The protests have given good people many things to think about. Changes to the rules regarding restraining suspects and the execution of search warrants have already garnered fairly widespread support. Communities are also re-thinking some monuments and statutes. The bullies, however, have also forced their cause in some areas with brute force and intimidation. Those wins will be short-lived, and they will breed resistance. Following them is not the American way, and its not a good way.

Ronald J. Rychlak is the Jamie L. Whitten chair in law and government at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of several books, including Hitler, the War, and the Pope, Disinformation (co-authored with Ion Mihai Pacepa), and The Persecution and Genocide of Christians in the Middle East (co-edited with Jane Adolphe).

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Courage to Care: Thanking Frontline Workers with Faith-Based Gifts

Upstart direct-to-consumer candle brand releases new product line to celebrate the efforts of frontline workers through gifts emblazoned with passages from scripture and messages of appreciation

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Courage Candles

June 15, 2020

BOSTON, June 15, 2020 /Standard Newswire/ -- Courage Candles, a candle company that weaves scripture into its products to inspire customers, has launched a new line of relaxing, lavender-scented candles to celebrate the heroism and sacrifices of frontline workers in recent months.

"The inspiration for this new line of candles came from seeing how our frontline workers have responded to the pandemic," said Founder Andrew Hemingway. "We've created candles that call out nurses, doctors, pastors and more, for their selfless sacrifice."

Andrew and his sister, Millie Cowles, started Courage Candles to inspire faith in their fellow believers during this trying time. "Some states aren't allowing gatherings in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We wanted to provide a light to ensure other believers don't lose their way in the darkness."

The candles, designed to be gifted to the frontline workers we all have in our lives, marry notes of lavender, white tea, and lily of the valley to create a soothing scent that carries across the entire "Care" line.

Their unique labels are emblazoned on one side with the verse found in 1Thessalonians 1:2,3 (We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father) and on the other with a heartfelt message (Thank you for putting your love into action for me. Through your compassion, I have seen God's love once again and have been helped. I want you to know that God is using your Care of others to challenge and to inspire within me the Courage to Care. May God bless you as you continue to serve Him by healing others).

"We pray that frontline workers and good Samaritans across our great nation are appreciated fully and recognized appropriately," says Hemingway. "Their sacrifice is great and their love is undeniable."

The collection can be found at www.couragecandles.com.

SOURCE Courage Candles

CONTACT: Andrew Hemingway, 603 203-4063

Related Links

www.couragecandles.com
As many as 156 Indian nationals stranded in Sri Lanka were flown back home on Monday under the third phase of a mega evacuation exercise.

National carrier Air India brought back the citizens in its AI-1202 flight from Colombo to Kochi and Bengaluru, the Indian High Commission here said in a press release.

Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay met the Indian nationals at the Bandaranaike International Airport and bid them a safe journey.

The flight was scheduled as part of the phase-III of Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indians stranded abroad due to the international travel restrictions following the coronavirus outbreak.

Over 1,000 Indians have been repatriated from Sri Lanka so far in various flights and the Indian Navy Ship INS Jalashwa since the first phase of the evacuation mission was launched on May 7.

The next Air India special flight from Colombo to Delhi, Lucknow and Gaya is scheduled on June 22, the release said.

Priority is being given to those who have been laid off, short-term visa holders, people with medical emergency, pregnant women, elderly citizens and students, it said.

The high commission urged stranded Indians to be patient and follow the updates on its website and social media.

The third phase of the Vande Bharat Mission got underway on Thursday and will continue till July 2. Phase-III will have 432 international flights from 43 countries reaching 17 states and union territories.

A total of 1,65,375 Indians have returned from abroad till Thursday under the evacuation mission, the first phase of which was launched on May 7.
Hong Kong: Exemption for legal practitioners set

The Government today announced the mechanism for legal practitioners providing necessary professional services in relation to important and large-scale commercial transactions to apply for exemption from the compulsory quarantine arrangement.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has started processing applications. Legal practitioners should submit the completed application form with all required supporting documents to the DoJ by email.

Under the Compulsory Quarantine of Certain Persons Arriving at Hong Kong Regulation, the Chief Secretary may designate any person or category of people for exemption from the quarantine arrangement if their travelling is necessary for purposes relating to the provision of professional services in the interest of Hong Kong's economic development.

The Chief Secretary has recently exempted qualified legal practitioners who travel from the Mainland, Macau or Taiwan to Hong Kong to provide legal services that require on-site physical presence in relation to important and large-scale commercial transactions from compulsory quarantine.

Legal practitioners who return to Hong Kong from the Mainland, Macau or Taiwan after provision of legal services that require on-site physical presence in relation to such transactions are also exempted.

After arriving in Hong Kong, the exempted person will be subject to medical surveillance arranged by the Department of Health for 14 days.

Currently, travellers to the Mainland and Macau would still be subject to the 14-day compulsory quarantine requirement imposed by authorities in those places.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is discussing with Mainland and Macau authorities about mutual recognition of COVID-19 testing results conducted by recognised medical laboratories to exempt the quarantine requirement for Hong Kong travellers to those places.

Click here for details.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Liza Minnelli denied she is helping the prince settle into LA. (Getty Images)

Liza Minnelli has denied she is helping Prince Harry find his feet in Los Angeles after she was credited with helping cope with the fame game.

It was reported that the 74-year-old actor offered her help to Harry and his wife Meghan as they settle in California.

But the star has denied any connection to the couple, and said she hasnt met them.

Sharing a story from The Sun, she wrote: While I wish them well, I have never met Prince Harry and Meghan.

Any statement to the contrary is a complete fabrication.

While I wish them well, I have never met Prince Harry and Meghan. Any statement to the contrary is a complete fabrication. Posted by Liza Minnelli on Sunday, 14 June 2020

Read more: Meghan Markle's best friend has show axed amid white privilege row

The paper had said a friend of Harry and Meghans told them: Liza reached out because she was close to Diana and offered her support.

Shes been dealing with paparazzi for years, and knows the fame game.

Minnelli was a friend of Harrys mother Princess Diana, and they first met backstage at one of her concerts.

Minnelli previously said about their friendship: I was lucky enough to count Princess Di as a friend. I was first introduced to her when she came backstage after a concert I did in London.

Then we'd bump into each other at premieres or events where she'd be the guest of honour. We'd fall into conversation then we'd meet for tea.

My instinct was to protect her. We talked about everything under the sun. She loved music.

Princess Diana and Liza Minnelli were friends in the early 90s. (Getty Images)

Read more: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 'feeling' tensions in US as Black Lives Matter protests continue

Harry, 35, and Meghan made the move back to her native Los Angeles in March, crossing over the border from Canada just as it closed to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Meghan, 38, is now close to her mother and she and Harry are living with their son Archie in a borrowed mansion.

The couples plan to launch a non-profit organisation has been put on hold as the world responds to the coronavirus pandemic and while the Black Lives Matter movements gains momentum.

Story continues

Of Harrys move to LA, a source previously told Vanity Fair: He doesnt have friends in LA like Meghan and he doesnt have a job. So at the moment hes a bit rudderless, but it wont always be like this, and he knows that.
Extreme pride among Americans is at its lowest point in two decades amid the coronavirus pandemic which has sparked economic and health crises, plus civil unrest following the police-custody killing of George Floyd.

New data released Monday shows the continuing downward trajectory of being 'extremely' proud to be an American at only 42 percent in 2020. About 21 said they were 'very' proud of their nationality.

For the first time in the Gallup poll's 20-year history, less than 50 percent of the white population was 'extremely' proud (49 percent) and it also dropped in the non-white population, to 24 percent.

Questioned between May 28 and June 4, by which point there were Black Lives Matter protests in all 50 states and internationally, 15 percent of Americans described themselves as 'moderately proud', 12 percent said they were 'only a little proud' and 9 percent were 'not at all proud'.

Only 42% were 'extremely' proud to be American, according to a new poll. Protesters appear outside the California Capitol on May 23 in opposition to COVID-19 shutdowns days before the new Gallup polling began

In 2003 the number of Americans either 'very' proud or 'extremely' proud combined was 92 percent and today it's only 63 percent

Additional findings from the telephone poll of 1,034 Americans in all 50 states and Washington DC, showed that national pride dropped across all subgroups. Extreme pride in white people fell below 50 percent for the first time

The time period also overlapped with the arrests of the Minneapolis Police officers involved in Floyd's killing on May 25.

The survey came about two and a half months into the coronavirus pandemic which has caused lockdowns and record-breaking 14.7 percent rate of unemployment across the US in April.

About 20 percent of participants said they were 'satisfied' with the way things were going in the US.

When Gallup first began polling in 2001, shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 'extreme' pride levels were around 55 percent and that shot up to between 65 and 70 percent in the three years following as Americans united in the face of terror.

There was dip in 2005 to 61 percent and by 2015 it hit 54 percent.

In line with various outside polls that have seen Donald Trump's approval rating fall, the Gallup data saw the president's drop to 39 percent.

Americans were questioned between May 28 and June 4 when Black Lives Matter protests were in every state and almost three months into the pandemic. Protests continue today. Demonstrators are pictured in Beverly Hills, California on June 6

Since the start of Gallup polls 20 years ago, 'extreme' American pride has dropped from 86 percent in 2002 to 67 today for Republicans. It has decreased from 65 percent in 2002 to 24 in 2020 for Democrats

President Donald Trump listens during a round table discussion on "America's seniors" in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Monday. His approval rating has decreased in the poll

Extreme pride analysed by political affiliation remained roughly the same with Democrats (24 percent) and Independents 41 percent) in 2020 but the Republicans figures decreased by 9 percent to 67 per cent this year.

The gap between extreme pride for Republicans and Democrats was narrowest in 2002 (10 points) when George W. Bush was president and in 2013 (15 points) when Barack Obama led the country.

It was most polarizing between the parties last year (54 points) and in 2020 the point gap was 43 percent between liberals and conservatives due to the Republican decline.

The random survey demographic weighted to reflect the American population including factors such as gender, age, race, and education.

Additional findings from the telephone poll of 1,034 Americans in all 50 states and Washington DC, showed that national pride dropped across all subgroups of ages 18-29, women, college graduates and nonwhites, all typically Democratic-leaning.
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a PIL challenging the Centre's policy to allow private bank officials to be appointed as Managing Directors or CEOs of public sector banks.

A bench comprising Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud rejected the petition filed by Bank Officers' Confederation challenging the policy pertaining to such appointments and held that there was nothing wrong with it.

The court had on May 5 sought responses from the government and Reserve Bank of India on the PIL, which had also challenged reduction of cut-off age for being considered for the top post from 58 to 55 years.

The plea had contended that the cut-off age for eligibility was "unjustly, irrationally and unilaterally" reduced against the advice and views of the Appointments Committee of Cabinet.

The PIL, filed by former president of All India Bank Officers Confederation K D Kheda, had challenged the February 26 advertisement for appointment of CEOs and MDs of Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank and IDBI Bank.

Quoting provisions of Banking Companies Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings Act 1980, the plea had contended that only whole-time directors of public sector banks, whose names are cleared by the Central Vigilance Commission, can be appointed to head public sector banks.

It had alleged that eligibility criteria for the posts of CEO and MD of the five banks have been set "with a sole objective to make all existing executives directors of Public Sector Banks ineligible."

"Executive Directors of PSBs, who were the only persons eligible under old policy, will automatically become ineligible solely on account of cut-off age of 55 years with three years Board experience, which is purposely and qualifiedly reduced in the case of appointment of MD & CMD only for these five large PSBs," the petition said.

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Foreign health and care workers are still being charged 400 to use the NHS despite Boris Johnson's pledge to waive the fee, new research suggests today.

A survey for the Doctors Association UK found that the Immigration Surcharge was still being forced on workers risking their lives to help save lives from coronavirus.

It comes almost a month after the Prime Minister U-turned and agreed to lift the levy affecting many of those at the business end of the battle against the pandemic.

In May he declared it would be dropped after senior Conservatives complained it was 'immoral' and 'mean-spirited'.

New data from the DA, reported by the Guardian, found that 158 NHS workers were still having to pay the cash, while just eight did not.

A spokeswoman for the organisation said: 'The utter failure to follow through on this promise is an insult to our colleagues who have served this country during our time of need'.

It comes almost a month after the Prime Minister U-turned and agreed to lift the levy affecting many of those at the business end of the battle against the pandemic

Mr Johnson had initially fuelled the row by suggesting at PMQs that the policy raised 900million in essential funding for the health service.

That prompted the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to wade in, saying that in fact the 225,000 foreign NHS staff and care workers accounted for only around 90million a year. Even Tory MPs slammed the claim, saying the true costs was a 'fraction of the total sum'.

A No10 spokesman finally said that Mr Johnson had asked officials 'to remove NHS and care workers from the NHS surcharge as soon as possible'.

'As the PM said in the House of Commons, he has been thinking about this a great deal. He been a personal beneficiary of carers from abroad and understands the difficulties faced by our amazing NHS staff.

Tory MP William Wragg, chair of the Public Administration select committee, led a backlash from Mr Johnson's own side in May before the U-turn (left). Keir Starmer said it was a 'victory for common decency' (right)

'The purpose of the NHS surcharge is to benefit the NHS, help to care for the sick and save lives. NHS and care workers from abroad who are granted visas are doing this already by the fantastic contribution which they make.'

However the move was not backdated, meaning those who had already received demands would have been liable to pay.

Dr Dolin Bhagawati, from the Doctors' Association UK, told the Guardian: 'These workers are paying up to four times over for the NHS  through their service, taxes, this surcharge and in some tragic cases with their lives.

'It is not too much to ask that this government does the honourable thing: stop this extortion and scrap this charge as soon as possible for NHS and care workers as well as for their dependants.'
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:16:16|Editor: huaxia

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Scholars discuss at a symposium on upholding and improving the "one country, two systems" in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, June 15, 2020. A symposium on upholding and improving the "one country, two systems" was held Monday in south China's Shenzhen to mark the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Basic Law. Organized by the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, the symposium was attended by about 200 people from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas, including officials from China's central authorities. (Xinhua/Liang Xu)

SHENZHEN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A symposium on upholding and improving the "one country, two systems" was held Monday in south China's Shenzhen to mark the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Basic Law.

Organized by the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, the symposium was attended by about 200 people from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and overseas, including officials from China's central authorities.

The National People's Congress (NPC) decision on establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security and the ensuing legislation by the NPC Standing Committee are the best ways to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of the HKSAR Basic Law, said Deng Zhonghua, deputy head of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.

Once enacted, the new law, with unchallengeable status and authority, will be a key component of the laws of the HKSAR and any local law of the HKSAR must not contradict it, he noted.

Chen Dong, deputy head of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, said that an increasing number of Hong Kong residents have come to understand that establishing and improving the legal system and enforcement mechanisms for the HKSAR to safeguard national security will help consolidate the "one country, two systems" and end the chaos in the HKSAR.

In accordance with the Constitution and the HKSAR Basic Law, the NPC, the highest state organ of power, made the decision, which has solid legal grounds and its validity is beyond question, said Zhang Yong, deputy director of the HKSAR Basic Law Committee under the NPC Standing Committee.

The NPC decision is an important institutional arrangement in upholding and improving the "one country, two systems" and another practice of governing the country in accordance with the Constitution, said Zhang.

Those from Hong Kong, Macao and overseas participated in the symposium via video link due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Enditem
A teenager who found images of herself used on a sordid Twitter account said that a clearer complaints procedure would have made dealing with the abuse easier.

Ciara, not her real name, now aged 17, knows about 30 girls whose images were abused on the same Twitter account which was permanently suspended last week after multiple complaints.

Some of the girls were as young as 12 in the pictures, Ciara said.

She is not a Twitter user and she would never have known that images of her were being objectified and shared online had friends not stumbled across the account and alerted her to it.

I was pretty shocked," the 17-year-old from Dublin said. When I scrolled down the site I found a post that had been up about me for a month and I never knew about it. That was quite upsetting. It made me aware that I could be on other accounts and I dont know how Id find out about them."

Ciara said that the Twitter account was both disgusting and upsetting but that she was not overly shocked because she had seen abusive accounts on other platforms like Facebook and Tinder before, where people stole her friends' identities, setting up fake profiles in their names.

But Ciara was shocked by how young the girls pictured on the account were and by how many pictures were posted.

I know more than 30 of the girls on the account and many of them were about 12 in the photos," Ciara said.

And there were hundreds of posts. There were 20 posts made in one day sometimes. It must take up most of your day to do that.

Ciara, whose Facebook account was already set to private, blocking people she does not know from seeing her page, said that the photos were taken from her Facebook profile pictures, going back years, which were the only images viewable by a stranger.

Its so wrong to use photos of people without asking them and the comments were really, really disgusting, they were horrible to read. And the fact that they had retweets makes me feel even more gross."

Accounts on Twitter can be made anonymously, so there is no way of telling who is really behind the account's profile picture. But Ciara said that those commenting on her account were mostly 50-year-old men and had pictures of their families in their profiles.

Its so blatant and open.

Ciara said that Twitter does not have a specific category to complain about these types of accounts, adding one would be helpful.

"You see weird stuff thats not nice on all sites but if it was easier to report it and quicker action was taken to remove it that would help," she said.

A spokesperson for Twitter said that the company "has zero tolerance for any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation".

"We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have heavily invested in technology and tools to enforce our policy," the spokesperson said. "Our dedicated teams work to ensure were doing everything we can to remove content, facilitate investigations, and protect minors from harm  both on and offline."

Twitter said that it has specific forms for reporting unauthorised images and for child sexualisation and exploitation and that action will be taken on all accounts which violate the company's rules.

Noeline Blackwell of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said that creating a clear and effective complaints procedure to tackle online abuse must be a priority for the new Government.

"The world we live in is as much virtual as physical right now, and you cant ignore the propensity for crime online," she said.

Our legislation is pre-internet so therefore it has no concept of how to properly protect people online. It can deal with a Snooping Tom in a physical world but it cant deal with them online.

"We want to impress on all of the parties going into the next government that this is no small thing. This is actual abuse. It causes real harm and it is not a victimless crime."
- Ken Carson had initially narrated his story noting his mother decided to sell their homestead so he could join Form One

- Life in school was not easy as his father was forced to exchange farm produce for school fees

- His hard work saw him get a full scholarship from the school and enabled him to complete high school and later joined college

- Now a dentist, he is working hard to give his mother the best life she deserved but never had

Our Manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

As I write this story, I feel so excited and full of pride you would think what I am about to write is my own grass to grace story - well it will leave you with admiration and sense of pride.

About a year ago, TUKO.co.ke highlighted Ken Carsons story of how he had risen above poverty to lead the life he had always wanted - he is still working on it to make it even better.

READ ALSO: Africa man builds special machine to wipe off coronavirus in public places

Ken Carsons story of how he had risen above poverty to lead the life he had always wanted was inspiring. Photo: Ken Carson.

Source: Facebook

Carson has yet another heartwarming achievement for himself that has left many Kenyans admiring his determination to lead a successful and happy life while not forgetting his mother.

He shared photos of a newly built mansion on his Facebook page with its captions revealing it was a gift for his mom as she turned 55-years for the sacrifices she had made for him to succeed.

To you my Mama, I gift you this during your 55th birthday, thank you for all your sacrifices, Carson captioned the photo.

READ ALSO: 1 hr is not enough to worship God - Fellow Ghanaians react to Nana's order

For those of you who know Carson, his inspiring story is not new but to those who just learnt about him, we hope his story will motivate you to face lifes challenges without fear.

In his initial story, the dentist attributed his success to the sacrifices his mother made and his burning desire to finish school that catapulted him to where he is today

According to him, he only had two options to choose from after passing his KCPE, to either join carpentry school which was his father's idea or sell their homestead for school fees.

READ ALSO: We are signing new artistes to generate income & pay Menzgold customers

Ken Carson said the new house was a gift for his mom as she turned 55-years for the sacrifices she made for him. Photo: Ken Carson

Source: Facebook

The latter thought, which was his mother's, carried the day.

"Dad (may his soul RIP) wanted me to join carpentry instead. Mum insisted I had to join high school even if it means selling our homestead and becoming homeless. Mum won," he said.

With nothing left for them other than courage, confidence and his result slip, Carson and his father embarked on a journey that would later change his life.

Life in high school was not smooth sailing and his father was forced to pay his school fees by supplying farm produce to the school.

The dentist decided to rent a house at Kanyanduru homestead in Karateng' village when walking to and from school every day became a challenge.

At the rented house, he would wake up at 3 am to weed people's farms for pocket money then head to school.

READ ALSO: Thank God: Heroic man saves child who fell out of moving car

Ken Carson's mom had sold their homestead so he could join Form One but he has now built her a new home. Photo: Ken Carson.

Source: Facebook

A year later, he got a full boarding scholarship from the school after an impressive performance in Form One.

He went ahead to give the school their first ever A plain in his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) and put it on the newspaper.

Being on the path to his success, the lesson one can learn from Carson's story is, in the absence of luck being granted to us by the lottery of birth, we all can still get a chance to get lucky.

Meanwhile, Nana Appiah Mensah, the Chief Executive Officer of Menzgold which collapsed with huge investments of many Ghanaians has returned to normal business.

In a video that is fast-trending on social media and sighted by YEN.com.gh on Twitter, the CEO who also runs Zylofon Media was captured signing a new artiste.

Since the video surfaced, many Ghanaians have been reacting on social media as it generated a great debate online.

Enjoy reading our stories? Download YEN's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Ghana news!

1 hr is not enough to worship God - Fellow Ghanaians react to Nana's order

Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
Women for Election has labelled a programme for government formation agreed by Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party "disappointingly vague" in its commitments to see more women elected to local government.

Ciairin de Buis, CEO of Women for Election said: "The Programme for Government was an opportunity to show the next government are serious about wanting to see more women running for election - we had called on the negotiating parties to commit to a 40% quota for our next local and Seanad elections, a practical way to ensure parties run a balanced ticket. Instead, we got vague aspirations.

"While the Programme for Government has the right sentiment and we very much welcome this, it falls short on practical commitments. We need more women at all levels of Irish political life, and this Programme for Government doesn't contain those practical commitments needed to ensure we have a political system reflective of Irish society."

Ciairin de Buis continued: "The next government needs to show some political leadership. A balanced cabinet would be a start in showing a commitment to seeing more women in politics. Only 19 women have ever served as a cabinet minister in Ireland. The next Taoiseach can bring about real change and appoint a balanced cabinet. It is, after all, 2020."

Ciairin de Buis also pointed out that the next Taoiseach can also ensure better balance in the Oireachtas by nominating women to the Seanad. "The next Taoiseach can nominate women, in all our diversity, to the next Seanad. The 11 nominees should be made up of women from all walks of life, reflecting Irish society, to bring fresh perspectives to the Irish political system."
T he reopening of many shops today has brought a welcome rush of enthusiasm, with queues outside some even before their doors opened, accompanied by appeals for people to return to the high street and spend for the good of the economy.

The Evening Standard hopes, of course, that plenty do, and are pleased that retailers big and small finally have the chance to begin to rebuild their businesses after two gruelling months of lockdown which have, according to the Office for National Statistics, cost non-food shops a frightening 1.7 billion a week.

Many are beginning this task by making impressive efforts to make shoppers feel safe.

The measures being seen today include the provision of sanitising equipment for customers on entry, the cleaning and sometimes quarantining of goods touched but not bought, and the installation of screens and floor markings to help people maintain social distancing.

As the figures quoted earlier show, however, the challenge remains immense. High street shops were already facing a difficult future even before Covid-19 hit because of online competition.

This crisis has accelerated that trend and the need for shopping to reinvent itself. This is particularly so in central London, where footfall is unlikely to return to anything like pre-coronavirus levels for many months, for a number of reasons. One is the switch towards home working, while another is the current absence of tourists.

All this means that imaginative solutions are required, not least because vibrant high streets add not just to economic prosperity, vital though that is, but add to our enjoyment of life, and make places seem friendlier and safer.

Fortunately, many are already thinking ahead. The New West End Company, which represents many of the capitals biggest names, says, for example, that one way forward is to widen pavements and use traffic calming measures to make the area more appealing to shoppers. Innovations in-store can draw people in too.

Ideas such as rents based on percentages of turnovers, suggested today by HMV, should also be considered by landlords who otherwise risk seeing tenants go bust and no one to replace them.

At the same time, ministers must reduce the two-metre social distancing requirement so cafes and restaurants, an essential component of any shopping street, can be viable. If theyre serious about wanting to revive retail they should also do what Scotland does and allow shops to open properly on Sundays. Action on all fronts is essential, but in the meantime, we wish our retailers success and their customers happy shopping.

Ditch quarantine now

The reopening by France of its border today and the relaxation of travel restrictions across much of Europe is a positive sign of the diminishing impact of coronavirus on the continent.

It should, too, have allowed Britons to travel to destinations such as Paris, Provence and the French Riviera. But regrettably, the 14-day quarantine the Government has imposed here has wrecked that prospect and made President Emmanuel Macron order reciprocal measures against arriving Britons in retaliation.

As the Evening Standard said from the start, the policy makes no sense and should be scrapped. Minsters should also beware: voters will remember lost holidays long after this crisis is over, and know who to blame.

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A heros example to all

The wonderful humanity shown by Patrick Hutchinson, a Black Lives Matter campaigner from Croydon who carried a stricken white man from a rival protest to safety on his shoulder in London during the weekend protests, has justifiably lifted spirits after the vile thuggery on display elsewhere.

Mr Hutchinson, 49, says he wants equality and white people on side to support the cause.

His brave actions and fine words can only bolster his already justifiable cause.
In a case of competing deductibles, a federal appeals court has sided with an insurer and against the owner of two Houston office buildings, holding that a larger windstorm deductible applied to flood damage caused by Hurricane Harvey rather than a lower flood deductible.

The insurer, Lexington Insurance Co., won by arguing that even though the building suffered only flood damage, the windstorm deductible applied because a hurricane is a windstorm.

The windstorm deductible had additional provisions attached that resulted in the insured being owed no payment towards its flood loss.

The case began in 2017 when the two Houston buildings were damaged solely by flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The policy had two possible deductibles  a lower one involving flood damage only and a higher one for windstorms including named storms.

In filing its claim, the insured owner of the buildings, Pan Am Equities, favored the generic flood deductible. The flood deductible said that $100,000 shall be deducted from any adjusted loss due to flood, which was defined to include surface water; rising waters; waves; tide or tidal water.

Pan Am argued that the policy provided discrete deductibles for discrete types of losses and, if a flood loss is unaccompanied by a windstorm loss as was its case, only the flood deductible should apply.

Pan Am claimed that there was no wind damage to justify using windstorm deductible. The windstorm deductible and its named storm provision were found under the Windstorm heading in the policy and thus must apply only to those losses caused at least in part by windstorm  not to flood-only losses, Pan Am argued.

Lexington, however, chose to apply the higher windstorm deductible. It argued that it was the correct deductible because a hurricane is a windstorm and it included a provision making clear it was to be used for losses caused by named storms (which Harvey was).

While both deductibles were $100,000, the windstorm deductible also required that the claimed loss had to be more than 5% of total insurable values (TIV) for it to be triggered. Pan Ams claim did not meet this threshold.

The opinion (Pan Am Equities Inc. v. Lexington Insurance Co.) written by Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Don R. Willett affirmed a district court ruling that the windstorm language was controlling.

Applying Texas law, the court rejected Pan Ams position citing, among other reasons, its failure to give effect to the entire policy, including the policys anti-stacking provision, which said that if multiple deductibles applied, then the larger one prevails.

The appeals court said the answer to the dispute turned on the interplay of five provisions: 1. flood deductible; 2. windstorm deductible; 3. named storm provision; 4. flood definition; and 5. anti-stacking clause.

This Policy, like many insurance policies, may not rank as first-rate legal craftsmanship. But it is clear enough. Inartful is not the same as equivocal. When read as an interrelated, contextual whole, this Policy is unambiguous, Willett wrote.

In siding with Lexington, the court explained: The Windstorm deductible applies to all loss due to Windstorm. And the accompanying Named Storm provision enlarges what qualifies as a loss due to Windstorm to plainly encompass Harveys flood damage to Pan Ams buildings.

The court said Pan Am placed undue interpretive weight on the fact that the policys named storm provision is found within the windstorm deductible. It said that the location of a provision matters lees than what the provision says.

The court rejected what it called Pan Ams myopic view that the policys generic definition of flood precludes the more specific named storm provision from listing the perils covered by the windstorm deductible.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Texas Profit Loss Flood Hurricane
A young Birmingham man was killed early Sunday in a single-vehicle accident in northern Jefferson County.

The Jefferson County Coroners Office on Monday identified the victim as Faris Hashem Ibrahim. He was 22.

The crash happened on Interstate 65 northbound near exit 266 in Fultondale. Authorities said Ibrahim, for unknown reasons, lost control of his vehicle and struck a concrete retaining wall.

Ibrahim was pronounced dead on the scene at 3:12 a.m. The accident is being investigated by Alabama State Troopers.
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg can add to her list of personal accolades, including TIME magazines Person of the Year, a group of spiders named after her. Thunberga gen. nov. is a new genus of huntsman spiders from Madagascar, described by German arachnologist Peter Jager, and named after the wunderkind in honour of her commitment to tackling climate change.

The rising temperatures affect all areas of nature -- including the endemic diversity and spider fauna of Madagascar, said Jager, who has participated in several protests inspired by Thunbergs School Strike for Climate.

A male Madagascan Huntsman spider (Sparassidae), the new genus named "Thunberg spider" which differs from other huntsmans in their eye arrangement and unique dotted patterns on their backs. (AFP)

A male Madagascan Huntsman spider (Sparassidae), the new genus named "Thunberg spider" which differs from other huntsmans in their eye arrangement and unique dotted patterns on their backs. (AFP)

In a study printed in the scientific journal Zootaxa, Jager explained that the new genus differed from other huntsmans in their eye arrangement and unique dotted patterns on their backs.

Jager, who has discovered several new spider species in a career spanning 20 years, said he hoped that by naming the creepy crawlies after Thunberg he could draw attention to the issue of biodiversity loss in Madagascar.

He named a previous discovery of Southeast Asian huntsman spider Heteropoda davidbowie.

Unlike most spiders, huntsman dont spin webs and hunt and forage instead for their food.

During his latest expedition, Jager also discovered a heretofore unknown species of huntsman on the island.

Its name? Thunberga greta.

pg/wai

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Egypts Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal and immigration minister Nabila Makram promised the country will take a stand at the right time against the mistreatment of Egyptian workers in Libya. The statement followed a widely-circulated video of Egyptian workers arrested and tortured by militias of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).

During a parliamentary session on Monday, MP Alaa Abed, head of the Human Rights Committee at the House of Representatives, called for a strong and deterrent stance against the mistreatment and torture of Egyptian workers in Libya at the hands of the GNA, Al-Ahram reported.

I know that Egypt will not stay silent, however, there has to be a strong statement from parliament to respond to such violations, Abed said.

Abdel-Aal urging Abed to be patient and that a stance will be taken at the right time, Al-Ahram said in its report.

Also on Monday, Makram stressed that Egypt does not remain silent in the face of any aggression against Egyptians abroad after being questioned about the video, stressing that practical measures are being taken to tackle the incident.

Makrams statement came during a meeting of the Arab Affairs Committee at the House of Representatives.

The minister stressed that the incident in the video will not be taken lightly, and that Egypt will not tolerate violations against its nationals abroad.

A video that has been recently circulated showed militias loyal to the Libyan GNA arresting and assaulting Egyptian workers in Libya.

The GNAs interior minister told Bloomberg afterwards that his government is keen on its relationship with Egypt and vowed to investigate the video.

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BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - Monday, many European countries started easing sweeping travel restrictions that were imposed in the wake of coronvirus pandemic. As Covid-19 cases continue to fall, the European Commission recommended that member states reopen their borders. Germany lifted a worldwide travel warning and withdrew security check points at its nine land borders, with countries including Austria and Denmark. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the government is removing all restrictions imposed on businesses and transport in the country from Monday. All cafes and restaurants can open. 'We must get our economy back on track whilst protecting the most vulnerable,' he said in an address to the nation. Travelers from almost all European Union countries can enter France without quarantine. Greece, the country with tourism being the main source of revenue, opened its borders to foreign tourists on Monday. Direct international flights will start in tourism hotspots such as the islands of Mykonos, Rhodes, Corfu, Crete and Santorini on July 1. Greece is one of the least affected countries in Europe by coronavirus. All retain shops in England opened for the first time in nearly three months. Belgium, Portugal and Switzerland are the other countries that have all relaxed their travel restrictions. Spain extended ban on entry of foreign tourists to the country until June 21. Globally, 7.9 million confirmed cases and more than 434,000 deaths have been reported so far. The United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, which were among the five worst-affected countries in the world, have recently been replaced by Brazil, Russia and India. 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 DoSeum, San Antonios childrens museum, will reopen June 29 with new safety procedures in place.

The museum closed in March because of emergency orders enacted to slow the spread of COVID-19. Museums were allowed to reopen in the first phase of Gov. Greg Abbotts Open Texas plan, though most waited until they could make and implement safety plans.

Health officials warned last week that San Antonio is entering a second wave of COVID-19 infections.

When The DoSeum reopens, occupancy will be limited. Under state guidelines, museums can operate at 50 percent of their total occupancy.

On ExpressNews.com: Devoted visitors attend Briscoe reopening

Patrons will have to buy tickets online for timed two-hour sessions. Visitors 10 and older must wear face masks, and masks are being encouraged for children 2 and older.

The museums Bubble Pavilion, Big Climb and Sand Yard attractions will remain closed.

The museum will be open to members for a week before it opens to the public. Health care workers also can visit the museum that week, June 22-28, for free.

The DoSeum, 2800 Broadway, 210-212-4453, thedoseum.org

Jim Kiest is the arts and entertainment editor for the San Antonio Express-News. To read more from Jim, become a subscriber. jkiest@express-news.net | Twitter: @WeekenderSA
Mumbai, June 15 : Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) consumer businesses, which include its retail business and telecom services, are at the cusp of a strong growth, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.

It also said that RIL's oil to chemical (O2C) business will continue to generate free cash flow even at cycle-low margins.

"We forecast consumer businesses to deliver FY20-23 EBITDA CAGR of 36 per cent and drive 52 per cent of EBITDA contribution in FY23, compared to 35 per cent/14 per cent in FY20/FY18," it said.

As per the report, the growth is likely to be driven by faster market share gains in retail on a combination of new stores addition and new commerce-led hyper growth, monetisation of the customer base for its telecom business, and ability to gain market share from highly levered peers in the current downturn.

It noted that Reliance Retail, with FY20 core retail revenue of over $13 billion, is the largest retailer in India and market leader in three of the largest retail categories, food and grocery, electronics and fashion and apparel, which together represent 76 per cent of the retail market in India.

The report said that Reliance has the largest store network and in several categories the most profitable underlying business.

"Reliance's market share in tier 3-4 cities is a real differentiator when compared with other modern retailers, online and offline, with Reliance having a significant lead in developing the ecosystem in these towns," it said.

Reliance Retail is likely to have 12 per cent market share of the overall grocery gross merchandise value (GMV) by FY29, against 1.9 per cent in FY21.

Goldman Sachs reinstates a 'Buy' rating for RIL with a 12-month target price of Rs 1,755.

It said that four potential catalysts for RIL are likely over the next 12 months, including rapid earnings recovery with limited volume risk in energy business and ability to gain market share in consumer businesses from highly levered peers amid the downturn and product launches like Enterprise, IOT among others.

Stepping up in free cash flow generation from declining capital expenditure intensity, and accelerated deleveraging and value unlocking through strategic stake sales across all key divisions would also help the company.
Australia is seeking to engage China on the future of Karm Gilespie, an Australian man sentenced to death for drug trafficking, amid escalating tensions between the countries, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday.

Reading a statement in parliament, Morrison said he was sad and concerned for the Australian citizen and said the nation remained irrevocably opposed to the death penalty.

"We advocate consistently for the abolition of the death penalty worldwide by every diplomatic avenue available to us," Morrison said.

"We will continue to provide Mr Gilespie with consular assistance and engage China on his case."

Gilespie, a former actor, was arrested in 2013 with more than 7.5 kg (17 pounds) of methamphetamine in his check-in luggage while attempting to board an international flight from Baiyun Airport in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, according to media reports.

The death sentence for drug smuggling is not uncommon in China, where executions are usually carried out by firing squad.

In a statement, Gilespie's family asked for privacy and called on friends and acquaintances to refrain from speculating on his case "which we do not believe assists his case".

"Our family is very saddened by the situation," the statement said. "We will not be making any public comment and ask that the media respects our privacy at this difficult time."

News of Gilespie's sentence on the weekend comes amid worsening diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Canberra, after Australia called for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the new coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

China has in recent weeks banned Australian beef imports and imposed tariffs on Australian barley. It has also urged Chinese students to consider avoiding Australia.

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TOKYO, June 15 (Reuters) - Japanese shares slipped to near three-week low on Monday as concerns about a spike in new cases of COVID-19 worldwide poured cold water on hopes of a quick recovery from a coronavirus-driven global recession.

The benchmark Nikkei average dropped plunged 3.47% to 21,530.95, its lowest since May 27, slipping below a key support of the 200-day moving average, which stood at 21,755.

As new coronavirus cases resurfaced in China and the United States, worries about a second wave have deepened, prompting fears about prolonged damage to the economy.

"U.S. shares had become very expensive, reaching levels above which further gains cannot be justified. And if U.S. shares won't rise, Japanese shares will have no choice but to pause," said Hiroki Takashi, chief strategist at Monex Securities.

On the Nikkei index, there were 5 advancers against 219 decliners, with cyclical shares leading the losses.

Airlines, one of the hardest-hit victims of the pandemic, lost 4.96% as concerns about the virus reared their head.

Shippers dropped 3.71% and real estate , the biggest decliner among the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 33 industry subindexes, lost 5.06%.

Semi-conductor-related shares were also lower, with chip equipment manufacturer Advantest dropping 6.96%, Tokyo Electron losing 5.55% and Screen Holdings shedding 7.0%.

Sapporo Holdings lost 5.76 % after Nomura cut its rating on the beverage firm and lowered the target price, citing the impact of the pandemic.

The broader Topix lost 2.54% to 1537.89.

The market showed muted response to a barrage of Chinese economic data that was slightly weaker than expected.

China's industrial output rose for a second straight month in May but the gain was smaller than expected, suggesting the economy was still struggling to get back on track after the virus crisis. (Reporting by Eimi Yamamitsu, Editing by Hideyuki Sano, Uttaresh.V and Aditya Soni)
This article is part of Privacy in the Pandemic, a Future Tense series.

Flying seems like just about the most dangerous thing you could possibly do right now. Youre spending hours confined in a metal tube, with hundreds of strangers from all over the world, without any way of knowing where theyve been or whom theyve been with. Under those circumstances, youd expect a few additional safety requirements. No one wants to get sickso whats the loss of a little more privacy, if it keeps you out of harms way?

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That, at least, is the rationale behind a fleet of new measures either under consideration or already in place at airports around the world. In the U.S., the Transportation Security Administration is reportedly preparing to begin checking passengers temperatures before they board. New arrivals to the U.K. must, as of June 8, provide an address where they will self-isolate for 14 days. (Police will follow up with surprise in-person checks.) More than 45 countries have rolled out digital ankle bracelet tracking apps, which are likely to be either mandatory or strongly encouraged for air travelers. Meanwhile, biometric scanning, to check people against their ID, is being aggressively tested by airports from Munich to Sydney.

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Since 9/11, weve grown accustomed to compromising on privacy when we fly. Its a trade-off: No one likes to be X-rayed, patted down, or prodded, but its the price weve learned to pay for our alleged safety. Few would fight extending those measures to protect us from getting sickprovided they actually do the job. But privacy experts and epidemiologists alike question the utility of some of proposed plans, as well as whose responsibility they are. Is it better to have your data held indefinitely by the government, or by an airline? And if the measures dont work, what are they there for?

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Is it better to have your data held indefinitely by the government, or by an airline? And if the measures dont work, what are they there for?

Heres the thing: Between the hospital-grade air filters and extremely dry air, a plane in flight actually seems to be a fairly inhospitable environment for the virusat least compared with going out for dinner, attending a cocktail party, or even going to choir practice. Theres some risk, especially in the terminal or during boarding, but it seems comparable to a bus, a train, or any other crowded environment, none of which are likely to have greater security measures.

Take one very recent study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal: On a 15-hour flight between Guangzhou, China, and Toronto, more than 25 people sat within 2 meters (7 feet) of a symptomatic passenger. Not one of them later tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, tracing of 1,100 infected air passengers, who between them came into contact with 100,000 others, revealed no secondary transmission, according to a statement from the International Air Transport Association. (Two crew members may have been infected by one of these passengers.)

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If the risk is fairly small to begin with, we might expect that any measures taken will actually be effectiveespecially if our privacy takes a hit in the process. But many of the proposed initiatives actually dont seem to do the job, raising concerns that they may be little more than health security theater, designed to encourage passengers to return to the skies. People want that simple solution, to give themselves the peace of mind that its all going to be okay, says Jeff Price, an aviation security expert. Even though that solution is not doing anything to really solve the problemit just gives the appearance.

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Take temperature checks. In early May, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists pushed back against Department of Homeland Security requests to introduce widespread thermal scanning in airports. In an email to DHS officials obtained by USA Today, Martin Cetron, the CDCs director of global migration and quarantine, described the process as poorly designed and without a probability of mission success.* He concluded, Please kindly strike out CDC from this role.

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When it comes to COVID-19 detection, health experts say, temperature checks alone simply arent sensitive enough to do the job, especially as many infectious passengers exhibit no symptoms. An elevated temperature could be the result of cancer treatment, a urinary tract infection, or other unrelated factors, many of which could be hard to justify to a security agent. (Its also extremely possible to trick these sensors, including taking ibuprofen to lower a fever.)

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With the CDC opting out, the U.S. government has reportedly turned to the TSA to perform the job. Its a problem, says Price: The TSAs primary function is security for transportation, not public health. Theyre trained to look for items that could damage an aircraft or be used to damage an aircraft or hijack a plane, he says. Theyre not trained as health experts.

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Travis LeBlanc is one of two Democrats on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the U.S. government that weighs citizens right to privacy against laws designed to counter terrorism. Since last year, he says, the board has been conducting an oversight investigation into the use of biometrics in aviation security, primarily focused on the use of facial recognition technology. Given their current work, he says, he was shocked to learn from media reports rather than the government itself that the TSA was considering conducting mandatory temperature checks on travelers. We have an oversight project and no one mentioned that, he says. I was surprised as to how TSA could have the legal authority to do this.

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In many respects, its a civil rights issue, he says: We know that surveillance activities typically disproportionately affect people of color. More than that, he worries that banning people with COVID-19 from flying, whether or not they are infectious, could disproportionately affect people of color, who have been more likely to contract the virus. For regular travel, flying a week or so later might not be a problembut it becomes trickier to judge when not allowing a passenger to fly could cost them their employment.

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LeBlanc would prefer airlines to take responsibility for these or other checks. It makes it easier for airlines to rebook passengers onto different flights, minimizing the likelihood that vulnerable travelers could wind up stranded. Finally, he says, The airline is not likely to collect the information in a massive government database that is accessed by lots of government agencies and kept in perpetuity.

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While some U.S. airlines such as Frontier have opted to do their own temperature screening, others have been outspoken in their desire for the government to take the reins. In a meeting with President Donald Trump in May, Gary Kelly, the Southwest CEO, pushed for a health screening to become part of the TSA experience. A temperature check like we had today coming into the White House would be very sensible, he said, along with a health declaration. (When asked about the CDCs view that temperature checks were not effective, Southwest declined to comment.)

Its not surprising that airlines would look to offload the cost of making travelers feel safe, says Price. Airlines traditionally dont want to take on any responsibility thats an expense, where theres no moneymaking portion, says Price. But its really their responsibility to ensure that nobody that is a safety risk, or security risk, or public health risk, gets on the airplane.

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Other measures are designed to protect essential airport staff from close contact with passengers. Biometric scanning of the sort in place in Australia could allow passengers to move seamlessly through the terminal, without coming within a few feet of anyone else. But there are huge concerns here too, says Justin Brookman, the director of consumer privacy and technology policy for the nonprofit Consumer Reports. Biometric information can be misused in so many ways, and can be exported to other contexts, he says. Im disappointed by how quickly its being adoptedI dont think that the incremental convenience justifies the collection of these really sensitive databases.

While more and more biometric scanning may at this point be unavoidable, passengers have resisted contacting tracing apps. Even in countries where surveillance is the norm, like Singapore, adherence rates are low, with citizens leery of handing over that much information. But with international travel on the verge of opening back up, states with quarantine procedures may opt to require incoming passengers to download one if they wish to enter the country.

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In India, for instance, passengers must show officials that they are marked as safe on the countrys national contact tracing app, Aarogya Setu (which means bridge to health in Sanskrit). While its not strictly compulsory, failure to do so could result in additional quarantine requirements as well as having to justify ones self to airport officials. Its concerning, says Brookman. I would not want to see any travel contingent upon sharing your historical and prospective movements with the government, he said. I think thats not justified remotely, under the circumstances.

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As they currently stand, these measures are concerning. But whats arguably more worrying is that, like many post-9/11 security measures, they may remain in place in perpetuity, or at least long after the initial justification ceases to be relevant. Its a reminder of why we dont like to build these [security] infrastructures, because they become so easy to expand once theyre set up, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLUs Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. And of why we dont want infrastructures that are built specifically for COVID detection to outlast the pandemicbecause it becomes easy to piggyback all kinds of surveillance and checkpoint functionalities onto them.

Correction, June 15, 2020: This piece originally misidentified Martin Cetron as the CDCs director of global mitigation and quarantine. He is the director of global migration and quarantine.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.
Senate Republicans will unveil legislation this week to restrict the use of choke holds by police officers, among other reforms, as protests continue nationwide in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd.

The legislation, which was spearheaded by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senates only black Republican, is set to be revealed on Wednesday. It is expected to restrict the use of choke holds by withholding federal funds from departments that continue to allow the practice, an anonymous Senate Republican told the Associated Press.

An early draft of the bill would increase funding for police body cameras and create a national database to record police use of force incidents, as well as leverage grants to incentivize police departments to inform the FBI when the use of force leads to serious injury or death. The bill would also include a push to make lynching a federal hate crime.

I think were going to get to a bill that actually becomes law, Scott said Sunday on NBC, adding that the issue of police tactics in minority communities is a personal one for him.

This is an issue whose time has come, he said. Its not Republicans and Democrats. Its Americans working together to solve a serious issue that has been running rampant throughout communities of color for far too long.

Democrats in both legislative chambers have pushed to end qualified immunity, which protects police officers from lawsuits, a proposal Republicans have rejected. House Democrats have introduced a wide-ranging reform package that limits those protections for law enforcement officers and proposes other reforms including banning police choke holds.

Democrats have expressed skepticism that Scotts bill will include enough reform measures to earn their support.

Tim Scott is a good person, and Ive worked with him, talked to him and respect him, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois said last week. I hope that hell step up. He can make a significant and historic contribution if he can bring the Republicans to a point where they are truly supportive of meaningful reform.

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GREENWICH  Signs are posted 6 feet apart in front of Greenwich Town Hall in a reminder to visitors to practice social distancing.

Town Hall reopened earlier this month for residents and others who need to complete business there. But visitors must make an appointment in advance and wait outside until the employee they are meeting with comes to the door to let them in.
Irish Water, working in partnership with Leitrim County Council has saved over seven million litres of water per week in Carrick -on-Shannon following a collaborative and strategic approach to reducing leakage in the town.

A multi-tiered approach to reduce the leakage in Carrick on Shannon from 80 per cent in 2018 to 30 per cent of treated water in 2020 was delivered by contractors Farrans Construction on behalf of Irish Water, a statement has outlined

The results were achieved by finding and fixing leaks; improving the management of the district metering area (DMA); controlling and managing pressure more effectively and securing the supply with additional cross connections on the network that provided Leitrim County Council with alternative ways to supply water to the Town Centre. The scale of the work undertaken was significant with a joined up approach that achieved strong results.

Speaking about the project Declan Cawley, Irish Water said: The data we received originally from Carrick-on-Shannon highlighted the significant issue of leakage in the town and surrounding area.

"Eighty per cent of the areas water supply was unaccounted for and following years of costly bursts and wasted water it was essential to reduce leakage in this area in order to minimise the loss of water and to secure the supply thus enabling future development. Based on this key information, Irish Water was able to formulate a plan in partnership with Leitrim County Council and roll out the type of works that would most efficiently and effectively tackle the problem.

From the beginning we set out a planned approach to reduce leakage in Carrick on Shannon that was collaborative, data driven and results focused. The very real impact of this has been significant leakage savings and a better, more robust supply for over 4,000 people in the area.

Since the commencement of the works over 190 public side leaks have been repaired; a further 30 private side leaks have been repaired through Irish Waters First Fix Free Scheme; four pressure reducing valves have been installed; numerous cross connections and six new sub DMAs have been created which will allow Leitrim County Council to deliver water in different ways to the town centre.

As well as all this 200 metres of new watermain has been laid, 89 backyard connections replaced and 780 metres of old and damaged pipe decommissioned. All of this was carried out under Irish Waters National Leakage Reduction Programme.

Irish Water recommenced works in St Georges Terrace, Carrick on Shannon on May 18 to complete the replacement of 250 metres of problematic watermains with high density, polyethylene pipes.

The works involve laying new water service connections from the public water main in the road to customers property boundaries and connecting it to the customers water supply. Where the existing service connections on the public side are lead these will be replaced as part of this improvement work. These works are due to be complete in the next two weeks and are being carried out in line with stringent Covid-19 measures.

Find and Fix works are currently ongoing in the South Leitrim Water supply scheme in the following areas - Kinkeen to Corrawallen, Drumshanbo and Mohill to further reduce leakage on this scheme.

Irish Water is working at this time with our Local Authority partners, contractors and others to safeguard the health and well-being of both staff and the public and to ensure the continuity of critical drinking water and wastewater services. Irish Water would like to remind people to follow the HSE COVID-19 advice and ensure frequent handwashing.

Irish Water is working proactively with our delivery partners as part of a multi-agency working group to ensure that our construction works are carried out in a controlled and safe manner, in keeping with Government and HSE guidelines to protect workers, their families and the broader community.

The National Leakage Reduction Programme helps provide a more reliable water supply to Irish communities, reduce high levels of leakage and improve water quality. Its delivery means investment of over 500 million between 2017 and 2021 to reduce leakage and replace old pipes on the water network.
Amid worldwide protests over systemic racism, a Richmond-area congresswoman, Virginia's chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, and the director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center hosted a virtual town hall Wednesday to discuss the disproportionate ways that minority communities have been affected by the novel coronavirus.

"Before the protests started and rallies and marches across Virginia and across the country, we were witnessing discussions about equity and justice as it related to who was in our hospitals and who was in our morgues," said U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger. "COVID-19, according to the data, is infecting and killing black Americans at disproportionate rates when compared to other ethnic groups. In Virginia, in particular, African Americans are 23% of the deaths to COVID-19 but represent 13.6% of our population."

Spanberger's office hosted the virtual event. She was joined by Janice Underwood, Ph.D., Virginia's chief diversity officer, and Robert Winn, M.D., director of Massey Cancer Center. Their discussion centered on the pandemic's disproportionate impacts on minority communities in central Virginia and across the country.

Underwood said the virus is affecting black communities from a morbidity standpoint but also Hispanic communities, as that group has the highest positive testing rate for the virus in Virginia. To address inequities in its COVID-19 response, the state created the Commonwealth of Virginia COVID-19 Equity Leadership Task Force. The task force is the first of its kind for Virginia and has been a model for similar groups across the country, Underwood said.

"We know that we are in a pandemic and some of us are in a pandemic within a pandemic," Underwood said. "And that has never been more clear to me and the administration and the governor in particular. We are certainly in this storm together, but we are not in the same boats."

The pandemic and the protests in the wake of George Floyd's death on May 25 are not entirely separate issues, Spanberger, Underwood and Winn said. The three penned a joint op-ed in Tuesday's Richmond Times-Dispatch titled "America tests positive for our collective disease," in which they argued that the country has been "in the grips of a disease that has plagued us for more than 400 years." This disease, they wrote, is structural racism. It is both "insidious and blatant" and can be identified "by inequities of housing, education and employment."

"Other symptoms include unfair policing, food insecurity and a lack of access to quality health care," they wrote. "The most toxic of its symptoms, however, is the dehumanization of other human beings, whichlike a defective immune systeminduces the body to attack itself."

The solution, they wrote, is treating the root causes, which will be more challenging than creating a vaccine for COVID-19 and require the collective will of the American people.

Winn, during the town hall, said that many of the conversations about the pandemic and the protests seem to center around the idea that these issues are new. But the same issues of poor education, poor housing and structural violence were discussed during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. These factors contributed to worse health outcomes for certain populations 100 years ago, the same as they are doing today.

"This pandemic and the protests have brought together an intersectionality of thoughts for me," Winn said. "I am thinking about where we are going. The truth is in 2020 I remain the only African American cancer center director in the country. We have made some progress, but we certainly have progress to make."

However, he is optimistic about confronting the pandemic. When the outbreak started, medical professionals had no idea how to treat patients. Now, clinical trials of several drugs are underway as well as for a vaccine. Winn believes a resurgence of the virus will occur in the fall and winter but will be less severe than what happened in the spring.

"What has kept this virus from getting worse is just individual people," Winn said. "Individual people being able to do social distancing. Being able to be respectful by wearing masks."

The panelists said anyone who has joined a protest should be tested for the virus. The federal government has provided funding for free testing.

During the town hall, the panelists were also joined by U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, a Democrat from Illinois and no relation to Virginia's Underwood. She said the pandemic is a unique opportunity to confront the systematic challenges in this country and discuss complex issues that exist within the U.S. and its health care system.

"COVID-19 is a once-in-a-generation crisis that will change our world forever but it's also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to catapult us into stronger health systems for everyone," Lauren Underwood said.
A journalist critical of the Philippine President Duterte has been sentenced to six years in jail after fixing a spelling mistake allowed her to be tried for libel over an article accusing a businessman of links to a murder.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa of the online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling the wealthy businessman Wilfredo Keng.

The Rappler's story on May 29, 2012, cited an intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling.

The site's lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

However because the story was updated in 2014 to correct a spelling mistake, the Department of Justice argued the story had effectively been republished, bringing it within the time limit.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa (pictured) of the online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling the wealthy businessman Wilfredo Keng

Rappler's lawyers said the story was based on an unspecified intelligence report and that Philippine penal law requires a libel complaint to be filed within one year. Keng filed his lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published.

A cybercrime law, which the Rappler journalists allegedly violated, was also enacted in September 2012 or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rappler's lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Rappler, however, acknowledged that it updated the story in February 2014 to correct a misspelled word but said it did not make any other changes.

The Department of Justice, which brought the libel charges to court, contended that by updating the story, Rappler effectively republished the story online in 2014, an argument dismissed by the news site's lawyers.

The Department of Justice argued a complaint can be filed under the 2012 cybercrime law for up to 12 years, countering Rappler's argument that Keng's complaint was invalid due to being outside the one-year deadline for libel.

The Manila court upheld the 12-year period.

'Rappler and both accused did not offer a scintilla of proof that they verified the imputations of various crimes in the disputed article upon the person of Keng,' Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa said in the 36-page ruling.

President Rodrigo Duterte (pictured) and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law

'They just simply published them as news in their online publication in reckless disregard of whether they are false or not.'

'The decision for me is devastating because it essentially says that Rappler, that we are wrong,' Ressa said in a news conference after the ruling.

Her voice cracking, she vowed that 'we will keep fighting' and appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights 'and hold power to account.'

The businessman, Wilfredo Keng, welcomed the ruling, which he said vindicated him and cleared his name 'which Ressa, with one click of a button, attempted to destroy.'

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years but her lawyer, Theodore Te, said the jail terms and other penalties imposed could not be enforced unless all appeals were rejected.

She posted bail for the case last year and will study possible appeals in the next 15 days, Te said.

'The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines' abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country,' said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, adding the verdict was 'a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.'

President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Philippine journalist Maria Ressa (centre) arrives for a press conference after attending the court's verdict in Manila today

Keng dismissed the allegations in the 2012 story as baseless and false and said Rappler refused to take down the story online and publish his side of the story.

He provided government certifications in court to show that he has no criminal record and sought 50 million pesos ($1 million) in damages, but the court awarded a much smaller fine.

As Rappler's chief executive officer, Ressa faces seven other criminal complaints in relation to legal issues hounding her news agency, including an allegation that it violated a constitutional ban on media agencies receiving foreign investment funds.

Ressa, who has worked for CNN and was one of Time magazine's Persons of the Year in 2018, has accused the government of abusing its power and of using the law to muzzle dissent.

Many news outlets in the Philippines and beyond have criticized Duterte's policies, including his anti-drug campaign that has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead.

Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily, and ABS-CBN, the country's largest TV network which was shut down by the government's telecommunications regulator last month after its 25-year franchise expired.

Congress has been hearing the network's request for a franchise renewal.

The shutdown has been criticized as it cut off a major source of information on the COVID-19 pandemic in a Southeast Asian hot spot of the disease.
This time is different; many say they have no plans to return and see little hope for a better Hong Kong. Those preparing to leave say they are racked with guilt about abandoning their home at a pivotal moment, yet deeply worried about their futures and those of their children if they were to stay.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Export of cement from Turkey to the US dropped by 10.71 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, having amounted to $160.6 million, Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend.

In May 2020, Turkey's cement export to the US decreased by 38.79 percent compared to the same month of 2019, making up $32.2 million.

In the first 5 months of 2020, cement export from Turkey to international markets declined by 6.9 percent compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $1.3 billion.

Export of cement from Turkey makes up 2.3 percent of the countrys total export for the mentioned period.

In May 2020, Turkey exported over $250.3 million worth of cement to world markets, which is 29.3 percent less compared to the same month of 2019.

Turkeys export of cement in May 2020 amounted to 2.5 percent of the country's total export.

From May 2019 through May 2020, Turkey exported cement worth $3.4 billion abroad.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
EU foreign ministers will hold video talks with their US counterpart Mike Pompeo on Monday as transatlantic rifts widen over Israel, international organisations and how to deal with China. The meeting kicks off a crunch week for US-Europe ties, with a virtual meeting of NATO defence ministers starting Wednesday already overshadowed by Washington's controversial plans to slash its troop presence in Germany. US President Donald Trump's "America First" approach has seen ties with Europe lurch from crisis to crisis, but EU officials are determined to keep talking to Washington, even if little progress is apparent. High on the agenda will be the Middle East peace process, as Brussels seeks to persuade Israel to back down from plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank. The new Israeli government led once again by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signalled it intends to annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, as proposed by Trump, with initial steps to begin from July 1. A senior EU official said Monday's talks with Pompeo would begin three weeks "devoted to strongly reaching out" to all parties -- including the Israeli and US governments -- to try to stop the moves. EU ministers will press their objections to annexations -- which they say breach international law -- with Pompeo. "We are reaching out trying to persuade everybody that annexations are not a good idea and will create instability, and the Israeli government should reconsider," the official said. Pompeo has urged the Palestinians to embrace Trump's Middle East peace plan, which promises them an independent but condensed and demilitarised state as well as international investment. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas travelled to Jerusalem this week to tell Israel of Europe's "serious concerns" about the proposed annexations. - Court concern - Europe is also increasingly alarmed by Trump's withdrawal from international institutions and agreements, most recently the World Health Organization and the Open Skies treaty with Russia. Monday's meeting comes after the US leader authorised sanctions against any International Criminal Court official who investigates US troops -- a move that EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said was a matter of "serious concern". The EU is still studying Trump's order on the ICC to assess its likely impact, but the senior official said the bloc thought the sanctions move was wrong. If the prospects of making progress on these issues on Monday look slim, diplomats hope the two sides may be able to make progress towards common ground on China. While the US has pursued a tough-talking approach to an increasingly assertive Beijing, the EU has sought to thread a path between cooperation, competition and confrontation. But the senior EU official insisted that fundamentally the two sides share the same assessment of China, differing only in approach, and should be able to find more space to cooperate. - Hypersonic missiles - The EU has struggled to forge a unified position on China at times, with 27 countries' competing national interests coming to the fore, and France has warned that Europe must avoid getting trapped between Washington and Beijing. "Europe must invent a third way, based on firm defence of our interests and fundamental principles and openness to multilateral dialogue -- a third way that is neither Cold War nor naive complacency," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said. France has long pushed for Europe to be more independent of the US, a stance that has at times ruffled feathers at NATO. Defence ministers from the alliance hold their own video talks on Thursday and Friday, after Washington told Berlin it was considering withdrawing some 9,500 troops from the 34,500 currently permanently based in Germany. Allies will hear from US Defense Secretary Mark Esper while also discussing NATO's coronavirus response and how to handle Russia's growing arsenal of weaponry, including next generation hypersonic missiles.
New Delhi, June 15 : The Delhi High Court on Monday sought response from the Delhi government over a petition filed by Sri Gangarm Hospital seeking quashing of an FIR registered against it for violating the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on coronavirus testing.

A single judge bench of the high court presided over by Justice C. Harishankar issued a notice to the Delhi government and posted the matter for hearing on August 11. The application seeking interim stay on the probe is listed for hearing on Tuesday.

The petition has also sought setting aside of the AAP government's order dated June 3 prohibiting Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT/PCR) sampling of suspected Covid-19 patients.

During the course of hearing, advocates Rohit Aggarwal and Sneha Sinha Jain were unable to transmit information regarding sample collection from May 8 to June 2 through the RT-PCR app as it could not register on the app due to operational constraints.

The hospital also contended that though it was not able to send the data via the RT/PCR app, but it did so by sending it manually to the Delhi government and the ICMR.

The Delhi Police registered a case against the hospital's Medical Superintendent based on a complaint from Amit Kumar Pamasi, Deputy Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Delhi government.

Pamasi in his complaint said the hospital was not using the RT-PCR app while collecting Covid-19 samples, which is "mandatory".

The CDMO-cum-mission director (central) said that Sir Gangaram Hospital was not using the RT-PCR app even as on June 3. It was a clear violation of the directions issued under the Epidemic Diseases Regulations 2020, the FIR stated.

The FIR was registered against the hospital on June 6, the day Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal warned private hospitals against denying treatment to Covid-19 patients. Sir Gangaram Hospital was also issued a directive by the Delhi government on June 3 in this regard.
San Antonio police chief William McManus gives briefing on shooting at Rebar in which eight people were wounded: San Antonio PD @SATXPolice

A man claimed to be a UFC fighter from California before he opened fire on a bar in Texas he had been refused entry to, wounding eight people.

San Antonio police chief William McManus said in a press conference that a manhunt was under way for the shooter. He said that none of the eight people wounded -- five women and three men between the ages of 23 and 41.

He said the gunman had been turned away from Rebar for being drunk.

Chief McManus said: "At about 11.30pm we got a call for shots being fired from a bar across the street. Officers arrived on the scene and what they found was that eight people had been shot from the bar across the street."

He said the shooter had been part of a group of several women and a couple of men turned away from Rebar.

"One of the two males then made a statement that, 'Don't you know who I am? I'm a UFC fighter from California' -- and they walked away.

"He then walked back to his car, pulled out a long rifle, walked back across the street and he opened fire.

"He hit eight individuals. None of them are deceased. They are in stable condition. The most serious one was one that was hit in the back."

He said the worst injury was someone who had been hit in the back. Two of those hit suffered grazes and declined hospital treatment.

Read more

Murders and shootings increased dramatically in New York City
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Workplace protections for LGBTQ employees are now the law of the land.

In a historic ruling for LGBTQ rights, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that companies cannot discriminate against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The majority of the high court issued its ruling in a combination of three cases  two involving employees who argued they were fired for their sexual orientation, and one in which a trans woman had argued she was fired for her gender identity  finding such discrimination violated federal law.

In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that such discrimination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace and housing over traits such as national origin, race and sex. Specifically, the cases asked the court to find that the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex under Title VII includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Title VIIs protections have also applied to protecting employees from pregnancy discrimination and workplace sexual harassment.

Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion of the court.

The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex, he wrote. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

The majority opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, and the courts liberal wing comprising Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer.

Dissenting from the ruling were Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Alito essentially argued in his dissent that the courts majority had created protections, rather than interpreting existing law simply as written. His argument reflects a common school of thought in conservative jurisprudence, where interpreting existing civil rights laws as offering expanded protections is often viewed as legislating from the bench.

Story continues

Indeed, Justice Alito wrote in his dissent, joined by Justice Thomas, that There is only one word for what the court has done today: legislation. The document that the court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive.

Notably, Justice Thomas confirmation hearings in 1991 were famously marked by lawyer Anita Hills allegations against him of workplace sexual harassment while she worked for him at the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Justice Thomas has denied her allegations.

Kavanaughs own confirmation hearings in 2018 included searing testimony by Christine Blasey Ford accusing him of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were in high school. Kavanaugh denied the accusations during the hearings.

In Mondays ruling, the two cases that dealt with sexual orientation were Gerald Lynn Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia and Altitude Express Inc., et al., Petitioners v. Melissa Zarda. The Zarda case involved a former skydiving instructor, Donald Zarda, who was gay, and who died in 2014 since filing his discrimination suit against a now defunct skydiving company in New York. He had claimed that Altitude had fired him on the basis of his sexual orientation after a customer complaint.

The third case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, involved a trans woman, Aimee Stephens, who had argued that she was fired in 2013 from her job as funeral director of a funeral home in Michigan after she came out as transgender. Stephens passed away in May.

The nonprofit ACLU, which represented Stephens and Zarda in their cases, hailed the ruling as a huge victory for LGBTQ equality, in a statement Monday.

The Supreme Courts clarification that its unlawful to fire people because theyre LGBTQ is the result of decades of advocates fighting for our rights, James Esseks, director of the ACLUs LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in the statement. The court has caught up to the majority of our country, which already knows that discriminating against LGBTQ people is both unfair and against the law.

Aimee Stephens widow, Donna Stephens, also issued a statement.

For the last seven years of Aimees life, she rose as a leader who fought against discrimination against transgender people, starting when she was fired for coming out as a woman, despite her recent promotion at the time, she said. I am grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Until Mondays Supreme Court ruling, employment protections for LGBTQ workers depended on state and local protections.

Only some 22 states and D.C. had barred discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while a handful of states barred discrimination based on just sexual orientation, or only protected public employees against such forms of discrimination, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group.

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After Hurricane Maria in 2017, PM Skerrit pledged to make Dominica "the world's first climate-resilient nation." One direction he took was focusing on the long-term plan to "build back better." Part of this is the Housing Revolution, a transformative project aiming to build around 5,000 new hurricane-proof homes, 14 polyclinics, new hospitals and many other community facilities. The PM says that the government is using CBI proceeds to transform its health sector entirely within five years, enhance the quality and the delivery of care and build for up to 70 years ahead.

"I think in the next five years or so, we will have almost a completely, brand new health infrastructure, taking into consideration the impacts of natural disasters on our country and building a greater resilience, building back better so that when these hurricanes come, we'll be able to withstand the impact much better," PM Skerrit told the nation on Sunday. "We're building this for the next 50, 60, 70 years," said the Prime Minister when describing the new, state-of-the-art Marigot Hospital.

As the annual hurricane season started on June 1st, the government of Dominica has been preparing methodically to minimise the impact that any weather challenges might present, should they appear. This includes security systems, healthcare, water safety, hazard mitigation, food security, sheltering, and housing.

"We cannot prevent hurricanes from coming, though we continue to call on developed countries to do what they should do to reduce on the emissions of carbon gases into the atmosphere because the effects of climate change and these natural disasters are more frequently and more ferociously impacting countries like Dominica," said PM Skerrit. "And so, what we can do with regards to the hurricane season is to prepare," he explained.

"Notwithstanding COVID-19, we never stopped our construction," the Prime Minister said with reference to the Housing Revolution projects, assuring that this was carried out responsibly. "We could not stop the construction of the health centres because health centres are critical to our preparedness for the hurricane season but, very importantly, if we are hit [by a hurricane, we can ensure] that we have facilities where people can shelter and where people can get the services and the care that they need."

Detailing the various stages at which the health centres across Dominica are, the Prime Minister said that the government was happy with the progress and the quality of work. "The health centre in Vieille Case is basically completed. We shall furnish it and equip it very soon in the next few weeks. Penville is well on its way [] We built a new health centre in Portsmouth in this new community that we have created, in Georgetown. Building is basically completed; we're looking towards furnishing it and equipping it and people will move in very soon," said PM Skerrit, explaining that the health centres comprise accommodation for nurses and doctors.

Dominica came a long way within the past three years since Hurricane Maria. Over the same period, the Nature Isle of the Caribbean became the best country for citizenship by investment. The CBI Index published by Financial Times' PWM magazine ranked Dominica as having the world's number one CBI Programme for three consecutive years. Praised for appealing investment requirements, reliable due diligence, transparency and integrity, Dominica continues to attract reputable foreign investors seeking second citizenship.

Applicants need not reside for any minimum period to qualify, but they must pass all the due diligence checks. This ensures that only investors of good moral character are successful. Once approved, applicants either make a one-off minimum contribution of US$100,000 to the Economic Diversification Fund or invest at least US$200,000 in pre-approved real estate.

Contact: [email protected], www.csglobalpartners.com

SOURCE CS Global Partners
A city in northern Alabama will pay a ransom worth $300,000 in Bitcoins in response to a hack of its computer system.

Florence City Council voted unanimously at an emergency meeting Wednesday evening to make the payment from the citys insurance fund in an effort to preserve information tied to its city workers and customers, news outlets reported.

Mayor Steve Holt said the city was contacted May 26 with information that its computer system had been compromised. The city didnt think any information had been stolen, but later learned ransomware had been deployed.

It appears they may have been in our system since early May  over a month going through our system, Holt said.

City leaders were advised that the hacker has a reputation of not releasing stolen information after the ransom is paid, news outlets reported.

The city will seek proof from the hacker that stolen information has been deleted, WHNT-TV reported.

Its unclear whether information about city residents was released, but officials are investigating, the TimesDaily of Florence reported.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan and Russia will lift restrictions on a number of flights, Trend reports with reference to the Federal Air Transport Agency of Russia.

The readiness of the Russian side to lift the restriction was confirmed in a letter Director of the Department of the State Policy in Civil Aviation of Russia Svetlana Petrova to Head of the Turkmenhovaellary Agency of the Ministry of Industry and Communications of Turkmenistan Duran Saburov in a response to Turkmenistan's proposal.

"The parties agreed to remove all restrictions on the number of destinations and departures on the territory of Russia and Turkmenistan, on the number of designated carriers and on the number of flight frequencies performed on contractual lines between points on the territory of Russia and Turkmenistan," the agency said.

The Russian side expressed confidence in the further development of bilateral cooperation in the field of air transport.

Currently, there are no air services between Russia and Turkmenistan due to the temporary closure of international flights caused by COVID-19.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
Arts Ed NJ Now the exciting work begins: to shape arts education pedagogy in a manner that is more process oriented, and to help our fellow educators and school administrators come to understand teaching and learning through the artistic process in a deep and meaningful way. - Dale Schmid

The learning standards by which the arts are taught in the state of New Jersey are undergoing their biggest transformation in more than a decade.

The 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standard for Visual and Performing Arts (NJSLS-VPA), adopted by The New Jersey State Board of Education on June 3, outlines what students must be taught in the arts and sets the foundation upon which school districts craft instruction. They also capitalize on the unique ability of the arts to cultivate creative and critical thinking, social-emotional competencies, and intellectual and expressive abilities within students that enables them to become active, contributing members of a global society.

The review and revision of the NJSLS-VPA represent the culmination of a six-year process intent on completely overhauling the existing system. In the first phase, a series of focus groups were conducted along with an independent review of the 2014 NJSLS as compared to the National Core Arts Standards, which were first published in 2014. The focus groups were followed up by a writing team that created the first draft of the revised NJSLS for Visual and Performing Arts. A second writing team was convened in 2019, in anticipation of the need for periodic review of the standards, as dictated by administrative code. The approved standards reflect the combined efforts of both review and revision / standards writing teams. In each case, concerted efforts were made to broadly represent New Jersey, in all its diversity.

In this revision, Media Arts is now included as one of the five arts disciplines, joining Dance, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. In addition, it includes a specialized approach to music instruction, providing standards for five subdisciplines of music: General Music (grades K8), Guitar, Keyboard, and Harmonizing Instruments (grades 5-12), Traditional and Emerging Ensembles (grades 512), Composition and Theory (grades 912) and Music Technology (grades 912).

Also new to the NJSLS-VPA is the Arts Education and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Framework, which is designed to illuminate the intersection between arts education and social-emotional learning to allow for the intentional application of appropriate teaching and learning strategies, with the overarching goal of enhancing Arts Education.

But perhaps the greatest change in thinking by top educators is not in what is being taught, but rather in how, and organizing the arts around the core elements of the artistic process, namely:



Creating new artistic work reflective of a variety of different ethnic, racial, and cultural perspectives;

Performing, Presenting or Producing, as artistically literate individuals, by expressing and realizing creative ideas and implementing essential technical skills and cognitive abilities which are significant to many aspects of life and work in the 21st century;

Responding to artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and cognizance of the ability of the arts to address universal themes, including climate change;

Connecting and evaluating how the arts convey meaning through all arts and non-arts disciplines and contexts of our global society.

While the NJSLS-VPA acknowledge that each of the five artistic disciplines has independent skills, knowledge, and content, they also illuminate how the arts, as a field, are interdependent, connected, and inclusive. The NJSLS-VPA are designed to guide the delivery of arts education in the classroom with new ways of thinking, learning, and creating.

New Jersey is widely recognized as a national leader in arts education. In September 2019, Governor Phil Murphy announced that New Jersey reached a benchmark by becoming the first state in the nation to provide universal access to arts education for all public-school students. This is according to the 2019 New Jersey Arts Education Annual Summary Report released in September by Arts Ed NJ, a non-profit education organization. Statewide, nearly 1.1 million students engage in the arts in each year, representing more than 81% of all students in New Jerseyan all-time high.

Adoption of the NJSLS-VPA keeps New Jersey at the forefront of arts education in the United States, ensuring that all students will have equitable access to a quality arts education that leads to artistic literacy and fluency. The New Jersey Department of Education calls for all school districts in the state of New Jersey to revise their Visual and Performing Arts curriculum, to be in alignment with the new standards by September 2021.

And not a moment too soon. With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing schools nationwide to rethink how schools can effectively teach this fall, New Jersey will be able to put its flexible, new learning standards to the big test, effectively reshaping how arts are taught in the future, both in and out of the classroom.

Now the exciting work begins: to shape arts education pedagogy in a manner that is more process oriented, and to help our fellow educators and school administrators come to understand teaching and learning through the artistic process in a deep and meaningful way, said Dale Schmid, Visual & Performing Arts coordinator for the New Jersey Department of Education. Now more than ever, a robust arts education provided by qualified arts educators is critically important for all students. Once we return to school in the fall, whatever that may look like, we can begin to offer opportunities for professional learning around the new standards. Additionally, we will now be able to illuminate the synergistic relationship between the arts and social emotional learning, and to bridge arts and learning across all disciplines.

The new standards will be a key topic of discussion at Arts Ed Summit 2020, a virtual event to be held June 16-18 featuring presentations by leaders from the states top education associations, as well as social-emotional learning and discipline-based organizations.

New Jersey continues to build its well-earned reputation as a national leader in arts education, by providing both the inspiration and infrastructure to ensure participation by all students. said Robert Morrison, Director of Arts Ed NJ. Bringing these new Visual and Performing Arts standards into practice will only serve to keep New Jersey at the front of the class.

For more information about the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standard for Visual and Performing Arts, visit the new interactive website at https://njartsstandards.org. For more information about the Arts Education & Social and Emotional (SEL) Framework, visit http://selarts.org.

###

About Arts Ed NJ

Arts Ed NJ is the unified voice for arts education in New Jersey. Formerly the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership, Arts Ed NJ was founded in 2007 by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey Department of Education and Music for All Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation, ArtPride New Jersey Foundation and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The mission of Arts Ed NJ is to create the proper conditions for arts learning to take place in New Jersey. Additional information is available at http://www.artsednj.org.
New Delhi's Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan hospital is the ground zero of COVID-19 treatment in India.

It is an exclusive hospital with 2,000 beds dedicated to combating coronavirus.

Nowhere in India are so many coronavirus patients being treated under one roof.

This 'garib ka hospital' was never spic and span or efficient even in normal times.

And now the fears of getting below average medical treatment are so high that a 2,000-bed hospital is half empty at the height of India's biggest health crisis, report Sheela Bhatt and Aniruddh Sheth.

IMAGE: The Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan hospital in New Delhi, with 2,000 dedicated beds for COVID-19 patients, is India's largest coronavirus treatment facility. Photograph: Supreet Sapkal/ANI Photo

Seema Kumari is weeping outside the main entry point of the COVID-19 wards at the Delhi government-run Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan hospital.

Her husband Vinod Kumar, an autorickshaw driver, is COVID-19 positive. He has been admitted to the LNJP hospital, but Seema has not been able to contact him at all for 48 hours.

She is not just anguished, but petrified.

She fears the worst and tells the staff manning the gate, "Unka koi ilaj nahi ho raha hai. Unko discharge karo (he isn't getting any treatment, so discharge him)."

All over India, the trauma of coronavirus-infected patients and their relatives's anxieties have been extraordinarily high because the patients, once hospitalised, are not allowed to meet relatives or friends.

Except luxurious and cash-rich hospitals, no private or government-managed hospital has a sensitive and efficient communication system to keep relatives fully informed about a patient's condition.

This act of omission has created complete chaos, resulting in psychological issues hard to ignore and tough to handle when the patients's condition worsens.

The decision to not allow any attendant or relative of a patient even at a safe social distance has been justified on health grounds as coronavirus is very infectious.

But this is a completely un-Indian move, particularly in the difficult environment of government-run hospitals where even under normal circumstances the poor and resourceless struggle with diseases as much as with issues of cleanliness, supplies of medical equipment, lack of information about the real status of the patient and professional attendance of medical staff.

So for days together, COVID-19 patients don't see their family or relatives, creating serious distress in them.

Their fears and brooding multiply which in turn creates a chain reaction of events and many a time results in panic situations.

Premai Devi, a COVID-19 patient, was admitted to the LNJP hospital but without familiar faces around she lost her mental strength if not balance. She called her son to complain that she is surrounded by three dead bodies and another patient on the next bed is about to die.

Without seeing any relatives around for many days she started having hallucinations. She called her son using someone's phone and told him, 'Yahaan toh bas lashe hi lashe hain (there are only dead bodies around).'

Her relatives shared this story with Seema who watched, the previous night, on a Hindi television news channel, horrifying videos of completely naked dead bodies of patients lying unattended in one of the wards at this giant hospital.

Since then, Seema has been so petrified about this sarkari hospital that she rushed in the morning to take her husband home.

Video footage about negligence of patients at this and many other hospitals are as tragic as the countless stories of Indians who walked hundreds of kilometres to be with their families.

IMAGE: Relatives of patients throng the LNJP hospital in New Delhi for information. Photograph: Shrikant Singh/ANI Photo

For Indians who strongly believe in the family system, social togetherness in times of crisis and for those who believe in giving physical solace through physical contact with their loved ones are just not able to take it easy these days.

One understands physical distancing is a must but the hospital managers should have well thought out system to keep information flowing between relatives and patients.

The restriction of not meeting their loved ones during hospitalisation is adding to the suffering.

It creates overwhelming fear and avoidable suspense. Entering a large medical facility under any circumstance is most often a very anxious experience.

Right from the gate of the LNJP hospital, there is an air of confusion and uncertainty.

Since a video of reported mismanagement inside the hospital was released by a disgruntled staff member, many relatives want their mothers, fathers, and grandparents to be released so that they can seek "better medical care" someplace else.

When asked "Are you planning to take them to a private hospital? How are you going to afford it?" a labourer from Jasola village replies, "I will wait at private hospitals for hours if I have to, but my brother will not stay here a minute longer."

Another man had his brother admitted to the COVID-19 ward at the LNJP hospital two days earlier and soon tested positive for the virus. Over the next 48 hours, and numerous phone conversations later with his brother, the family came back to the hospital saying no "real" medical care is being given and that they would like to take their family member to another hospital.

Gaurav, who runs an ambulance service and has visited LNJP hospital wards many times, says, "The Covid patients are full of anxieties and vulnerable to believe any stories because no family member is with them at the time of crisis."

"They cry to meet their sons and daughters. These patients are not able to comprehend why they can't see anybody for days together. Unko dar khaye ja raha hai (their fear is the real killer)," explains Gaurav.

The Lok Nayak hospital is the ground zero of COVID-19 treatment in India. It is an exclusive dedicated hospital with 2,000 beds dedicated to combating coronavirus.

Nowhere in India are so many coronavirus patients being treated under one roof.

But the fear of 'sarkari' treatment is such that along with Seema many other patients's relatives too cry for help to know the condition of their relatives inside the wards.

"These sarkari hospitals are impossible," says a young girl. "My father died two days ago, but I haven't got his body yet."

Coronavirus is an extremely infectious virus and only because of its lethal speed of spreading was it decided by all hospitals to keep their premises free from attendants of patients or relatives who have many times become a nuisance as they crowd waiting areas.

But these days it has become an excuse for the sarkari management at hospitals to hide their inefficiencies.

This "garib ka hospital" was never spic and span or efficient even in normal times.

The fears of below average treatment are so high that a 2,000-bed hospital is half empty at the height of the health crisis.

Those 1,200 empty beds speak volumes about the quality of treatment at the LNJP hospital.

The panic and hesitation just outside the gates are filled with questions and doubts regarding "treatment" and "care-giving".

After asking endlessly for hours, "Is my mother okay?" "Does my father need anything?" "Is my brother getting better?", family members, who have travelled for hours to reach the closed doors of COVID-19 wards are given dispassionate responses aimed at ending the conversation.

IMAGE: New Delhi's LNJP hospital. Photograph: Aniruddh Sheth

The tragedy is that despite representing some of the lowest income groups, these family members were seen maintaining social distancing. They wore masks, gloves and even contained somewhat their emotional upheaval in such harrowing circumstances.

Many people sat on makeshift pavements across the medical facility, waiting for news of their family members but while doing so were seen sanitising their hands regularly.

One can easily understand the fear within Seema when she falls short of words to explain why zero communication with her husband will kill her before coronavirus affects her husband.

Asked about the LNJP hospital's response to coronavirus, the hospital's Medical Director Professor Dr Suresh Kumar declares, "The hospital is providing the best care in North India."
FILE PHOTO: People drink outside a bar during the reopening phase following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) - New coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in record numbers swept through more U.S. states, including Florida and Texas, as most push ahead with reopening and President Donald Trump plans an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Alabama reported a record number of new cases for the fourth day in a row on Sunday. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and South Carolina all had record numbers of new cases in the past three days, according to a Reuters tally.

Many state health officials partly attribute the increase to gatherings over the Memorial Day holiday weekend in late May.

In Louisiana, which had been one of the earlier virus hot spots, new cases were again on the rise with over 1,200 - the most there since May 21.

Nationally, there were over 25,000 new cases reported on Saturday, the highest tally for a Saturday since May 2, in part due to a significant increase in testing over the past six weeks.

Perhaps more troubling for health officials, many of these states are also seeing record hospitalizations - a metric not affected by increased testing.

Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Utah all had a record number of patients enter the hospital on Saturday. In South Carolina, 69% to 77% of hospital beds are occupied, depending on the region.

While Utah's governor announced last week that most counties there would pause their reopenings, most states are not considering a second shutdown as they face budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment. Many went ahead with reopenings before meeting government infection rate guidelines for doing so.

New York, the hardest hit state, has utilized health guidelines to instruct its reopening and continued to see all measures of infection drop - new cases, deaths, hospitalizations and positive rates among those getting tested.

However, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned New York City and Long Island officials on Sunday that their reopenings were at risk if they do not stop further large public gatherings that he said are threatening progress on curbing the spread of the coronavirus.

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Cuomo said the state has received 25,000 complaints recently of violations of social distancing and other emergency requirements, mostly in Manhattan and the Hamptons, affluent beach communities on the east end of Long Island.

Yes, there is a very real possibility that we would roll back the reopening in those areas, he said at a briefing.

Fears that a second wave of infections is happening - or that states failed to curb their first wave - prompted health officials to plead with the public to wear masks and avoid large gatherings.

Trump still plans to hold his first campaign rally since early March on Saturday in Tulsa, although those attending will have to agree not to hold the campaign responsible if they contract COVID-19.

About a third of the record new cases in the state came from Tulsa County, according to state data. The Tulsa Health Department on Friday said the outbreak was linked to indoor gatherings. Hospitalizations and the percent of tests coming back positive have been steady in the state.

"I have concerns about large groups of people gathering indoors for prolonged lengths of time. It is imperative that anyone who chooses to host or attend a gathering take the steps to stay safe," said Bruce Dart, the departments executive director, in a statement that advised people at gatherings to wear masks.

Trump has refused to wear a mask at a series of recent public events.

(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker in Chicago; Additional reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
CLEVELAND, Ohio  Cleveland homicide detectives are looking into the death of a 6-week-old baby boy brought to the hospital early Sunday.

Cleveland police were called about 4 a.m. to Rainbow Babies & Childrens Hospital, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. At the hospital, authorities learned that the baby boy was taken to the emergency room by his parents overnight.

Cleveland homicide detectives probe all child fatalities in the city, Ciaccia said.

Cleveland police say that the baby had injuries that need to be further examined by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiners Office. The medical examiner will rule on the boys exact cause and manner of death.

No arrests have been made, Ciaccia said. The investigation continues.

More Cleveland crime news:

Man killed in drive-by shooting in Clevelands Kinsman neighborhood, police say

Woman, baby shot in possible road rage incident on Clevelands East Side

Two hurt in shooting that may be related to incident with pitbull, Cleveland police say
It might be hard to imagine that any other villain could top the omniscient power of Thanos. With many fans thinking Thanos is still too powerful to really be completely dead, at least he seems out of earths presence for a long while. Replacing him with a new big bad is still up for debate, if one particular character being eyed.

At first, some thought the next big villain The Avengers will face would be Galactus. From first mention, it makes sense considering Galactus is on the same power level of Thanos, if not more so. He also has a strong association with the multiverse, something future Marvel Cinematic Universe movies may utilize. Now fans think the villain will be Kang (the Conqueror) instead.

(L-R) Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Favreau, and Kevin Feige | Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney

Why would Kang make more sense as a new MCU villain?

One good reason to choose Kang as the next villain is because Galactus is still far too powerful, bringing another problem for Marvel in how to properly kill him off. Kang, in comparison, has no superpowers. He ultimately relies on his own unique battle armor, including having the power to time-travel, according to CBR.

This time-traveling aspect would be perfect for the new MCU movies since the films have already broached how traveling through time works. In the case of Kang, he gains most of his power from creating duplicates of himself through the annals of time, not including duplicate armies.

Maybe The Avengers will never mess around with time-travel again after the strain they went through with the time heist. With Kang, however, it could bring time back into the equation and create all-new problems.

Since the MCU opened up to all time-travel possibilities, no one should be surprised if they do it again to take on Kang and his duplicates. Part of this may revolve around the anticipated Secret Wars.

Fans on Reddit agree that Kang should finally join the MCU

RELATED: Avengers: Endgame: 2018 Thanos Was a More Interesting Villain Than 2014 Thanos, According to Fans

Not only do other media sites agree Kang is being wasted not being a new villain, but Reddit users also say the same. A recent thread there initially proposed Galactus or even Dr. Doom as new baddies. Others joined in and brought Kang into the mix.

A connector to Kang and the upcoming Phase 4 is Dr. Strange who can see all those alternate timelines as he did in Endgame. He may see what Kang has done to alter history, causing a complex problem for him to solve with his fellow Avengers.

Could this mean another time-travel adventure that bends the minds of viewers? It almost seems inevitable since fans never seem to get enough of ever-increasing, complicated time-travel plots.

Along with that, more complicated character development is possible, including for Kang and his dual existences. At the same time, having Kang aboard also means more old school fight scenes.

Taking on all the past variations of Kang

An interesting thing to note is Kang has even more time variations of himself, connecting him with different character names. He really is like a chameleon throughout the earths timeline, ranging from being a Pharaoh in Ancient Egypt to a future version of himself called Immortus. Through the latter character, he gives up his time-traveling ability to serve the Time-Keepers.

In turn, he helps repair the timelines he screwed up as Kang. And Immortus also eventually works with The Avengers, or at least in the comic books. Having this variation would also be worth exploring as he and The Avengers battle the ruthless, past versions of Kang.

All of this from Kang makes the potential time-travel disruptions from Loki look like childs play. If there was any perfect place to introduce Kang, it might be in the new Disney+ Loki series as the title character visits different time periods himself.
BERLIN  Mallorcas first tourists in 93 days touched down Monday, saying they feel safe in the popular Spanish island and ready to make the most of the beach and sunny weather without the hordes of visitors found there in normal times.

As borders opened up across Europe three months after closures that began chaotically in March, Spain prioritized the entry of a first batch of thousands of Germans who were allowed to fly to its Balearic Islands. The country waived its 14-day quarantine to test out with them the best practices in the coronavirus era.

Spaniards themselves are still not allowed to travel to the archipelago and it will take one more week for the rest of country, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic in Europe, to catch up with other countries in the region, where border checks dropped overnight on Monday..

The European Unions 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, arent expected to start opening to Americans, Asians and other visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly later.

Announcing Mondays reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said its time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom.

But he warned: This doesnt mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard.  The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.

That caution is widespread after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths in Europe. The region has had more than 2 million of the worlds 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Even so, social distancing was in short supply as Londons Oxford Street shops reopened and crowds jammed the entrance to Londons Niketown store despite efforts by employees to have an orderly line. Paris bistros like Cafe Des Anges welcomed back regular customers.

Its very hard to get people who are sitting at the bar to respect social distancing, said cafe manager Virgile Grunberg. People have missed this, because they come in every morning before work, have a little coffee and a discussion, so of course its part of Paris.

The need to get Europes tourism industry up and running again is urgent, especially for Mediterranean nations like Spain, Italy and Greece, as the economic fallout of the crisis mushrooms.

In a sign of that anticipation, workers in a Mallorca hotel welcomed with cheers the bus ferrying the first guests from the airport. The visitors had gone through temperature checks on arrival and had to leave their contact information and health status registered with authorities.

We are totally happy that we can get out, said Martin Hofman, who traveled on the first flight from Duesseldorf, adding that his holiday couldnt be postponed and to stay in Germany was not an option.

Daniel Borgerding, who squeezed in the last-minute visit before his wife is due to give birth, said the couple was looking forward to having a quiet and relaxed time, empty beaches, restaurants, bars and a little more space than usual.

Regional officials have expanded the capacity of the archipelagos health system in case any tourists shows signs of infection. They said the lessons from the trial in the islands will be taken into account for the countrys full re-opening.

We have got the pandemic under control, (but) the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said over the weekend as he announced he was bringing forward Spains opening to European travelers by 10 days to June 21. The threat is still real. The virus is still out there.

On Monday, Greece welcomed the first international flights whose passengers didnt face compulsory COVID-19 tests to Athens and Thessaloniki. Direct international flights to regional Greek airports, including its sun-kissed islands, will begin on July 1. Visitors will be subject to random virus testing.

A lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged.

Europes reopening isnt a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, uncoordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles.

Still, its a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere. Norway and Denmark, for example, are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a relatively high per-capita death rate. Other nations also have travel restrictions for Swedes.

In an interview with state broadcaster SVT, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven rejected the idea that Swedens strategy had failed, citing a continuing decline in hospitalizations and fatalities. While the rate of new infections has increased, officials say that reflects a long-delayed increase in testing.

German drivers queued up in long lines Monday to cross into Denmark, which is letting in German visitors but only those who have booked accommodation for at least six nights.

Britain, which left the EU in January but remains closely aligned with the bloc until the end of this year, only last week imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for most arrivals, horrifying its tourism and aviation industries. As a result, France is asking people from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks and several other nations are not letting British tourists in during the first wave of reopenings.

With flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and millions facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose to vacation at home.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz are both planning to vacation in their homelands this year.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

You can go abroad for your holiday again, Foreign Minister Stef Blok said. But it wont be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.

___

Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
Patna: Students, teachers, committee members and staff associated with St Karen`s Secondary School in the city cannot fathom the reason behind the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, an alumnus of the institution.

On Sunday, the school`s Facebook page shared a couple of photographs of the late actor, among them being a throwback to his school days where he can be seen posing in school uniform along with classmates.

The other photo is a still from the actor`s superhit film "MS Dhoni: The Untold Story", where Sushant is sitting on a platform. On the photo, it is written: "A finish we never expected. Rest in peace Sushant Singh Rajput."

"Posted this photo after his `Kai Po Che` movie.. it was a proud moment for every Karenite... Never expected that this gem would take his own life.. May god bless his soul..." read the caption to the photographs posted on the school`s page.

Several present and ex-students of the school reacted to the Facebook post expressing shock and grief at the actor`s demise.

"It is unbelievable !! We have lost one more precious diamond! RIP #Bihari #Karenite #jwellofindia," commented a student.

"We used to flex that he was an Alumni of our school..RIP," commented a former student of the school.

"LOSERS never commit suicide - "Chichore", By why shushant ??? Unbelievable," wrote another ex-student, quoting the actor`s dialogue from his recent hit film, "Chhichhore".

The 34-year-old actor, who was reportedly battling depression, was found hanging at his Mumbai residence on Sunday.
London, June 15 : There could be 36 active intelligent civilisations in our own galaxy, the Milky Way, but we are unable to communicate to them because the average distance to these civilisations would be 17,000 light-years away, new research has said.

According to researchers, intelligent life forms in less than 5 billion years, or after about 5 billion years, similar to on Earth where a communicating civilization formed after 4.5 billion years.

"There should be at least a few dozen active civilizations in our Galaxy under the assumption that it takes 5 billion years for intelligent life to form on other planets, as on Earth," said Christopher Conselice, professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham.

"The idea is looking at evolution, but on a cosmic scale. We call this calculation the Astrobiological Copernican Limit," he added.

It is also possible that we are the only civilization within our Galaxy unless the survival times of civilizations like our own are long, said the study led by the University of Nottingham published in The Astrophysical Journal.

"In the strong criteria, whereby a metal content equal to that of the Sun is needed (the Sun is relatively speaking quite metal rich), we calculate that there should be around 36 active civilizations in our Galaxy," explained first author Tom Westby.

The classic method for estimating the number of intelligent civilizations relies on making guesses of values relating to life, whereby opinions about such matters vary quite substantially.

"Our new study simplifies these assumptions using new data, giving us a solid estimate of the number of civilizations in our Galaxy," said Westby.

The number of civilizations depends strongly on how long they are actively sending out signals of their existence into space, such as radio transmissions from satellites, television, etc.

If other technological civilizations last as long as ours which is currently 100 years old, then there will be about 36 ongoing intelligent technical civilizations throughout our Galaxy.

"Our research suggests that searches for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals the existence of how life forms, but also gives us clues for how long our own civilization will last," said Conselice.

If researchers find that intelligent life is common, then this would reveal that our civilization could exist for much longer than a few hundred years.

"Alternatively, if we find that there are no active civilizations in our Galaxy, it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence. By searching for extraterrestrial intelligent life -- even if we find nothing -- we are discovering our own future and fate," the authors wrote.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
FAIRFIELD  With eyes toward bargains and hearts slightly touched with sadness, lines of people arrived at Pier 1 Imports on Black Rock Turnpike on Friday afternoon for the start of its closeout sale.

The chain store of home goods and furnishings, which first opened in 1962, was experiencing problems even before the pandemic struck, filing for bankruptcy in February and closing about half of its 900 locations, including all of its Canadian outlets.

While the Fairfield store was initially spared, unlike some other Connecticut locations, last month the company announced it was shutting down completely.

At this time the Fairfield branch is scheduled to continue its closeout sale into September, even receiving more merchandise during the summer for the sale, but that could potentially change as the store winds down.

Were going to miss Pier 1, said Lynette Sobbi of Fairfield, who was among 50 or so customers already on line outside Friday before its noontime opening.

Its a wonderful place, said Robert Testo of Fairfield. And the management team here is wonderful.

Pier 1 Imports began as a single store in San Mateo, Calif., in 1962, according to its website.

Our first customers were post-World War II baby boomers looking for beanbag chairs, love beads and incense, the site says, noting the merchandise expanded to have everything at one time or another from chocolate-covered ants to life-sized suits of armor.

Its got great products, said Amy Hester, who traveled from Bedford, N.Y., to be at the sale, having lost the one in her town in February.

Its just a sign of the times, I guess, she said.

Its sad, said Carter Butler of Bridgeport, who has frequented the Fairfield store for decades.

This is a great place, he said. They always have great stuff and the items are reasonably priced.

I think its not very surprising, said Erin Kelly of Fairfield. I think the company has been on its way out for a little while. Its sad, but kind of inevitable.

I just think its another sad case of another store closing in our town, said Linda Teja of Fairfield.

While she said she wasnt surprised, it still doesnt make it any more pleasant.

Theyve been talking about it, but obviously the pandemic was a nail in their coffin, she said.

Im very sad its closing, said Monica Lucke of Trumbull. I love this store.

Its just sad to see another store going down, she said.

Its hard because theres no other store like it in Fairfield, said Pia Misanda of Fairfield, and so its definitely gong to be a loss to the community.

My husband might be happy, though, she said. No more Pier 1 bills.
As the political season is gathering momentum and the NPP's primary have been scheduled for Saturday, 20th June 2020 to elect parliamentary candidates for the various constituencies nationwide, the NPP Japan branch wish to congratulate the national leadership for the swift and timely decision to hold this election in the midst of the pandemic.

The NPP Japan branch would like to use this opportunity to congratulate all parliamentary aspirants across the 168 constituencies where there are NPP sitting MPs and the remaining orphan constituencies for their bold decision to serve the good people of Ghana.

As the NPP goes through this crucial national exercise, the NPP Japan branch would like to wish the party the best of luck and entreat all aspirants and delegates to respect the rules of engagement as outlined by the general secretary.

There had been instances in the past when internal democratic engagements or exercises had degenerated into chaos and undesired ends in other political parties but the great Kukurudu party has gone about its activities without any skirmishes so far.

Fortunately, it is worthy to note that such negative incidents that usually mark the rudimentary stages in the political process of other political parties, such as parliamentary and presidential primaries, cannot be tolerated in this great party.

We believe in the hierarchy of the party of having worked to create a level playing field for all the aspirants to ensure a free, fair, and transparent election.

We would like to remind all aspirants and delegates that this national exercise is not a do-or-die affair but a democratic means of making our party great.

We entreat all stakeholders to accept the election results in good faith and fight together in unity after the elections.

It is our hope that all grievances that may come as a result of the election would be addressed using the party's laid down structures.

The NPP Japan would like to charge all delegates and aspirants that will partake in this national exercise to go about it with decorum and desist from any violent acts that would bring the image of the party into disrepute.

On this note, we wish all NPP delegates and aspirants free, fair, and successful elections.

Long live NPP

Long live our motherland Ghana.

Issued and signed by Kwaku Adu

(Acting Communications Director)
KYIV. June 15 (Interfax-Ukraine)  A group of participants in the solar generation market intends to develop a bill to support the renewable energy industry that is an alternative to the government's bill and submit it to the Verkhovna Rada.

"We are ready to introduce an alternative bill that will avoid a deep energy and investment problem," Director General of Tesla Energo Oleh Hramotenko said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday, June 12, adding that negotiations are currently underway on registration of the bill developed by him and his partners in parliament.

According to him, the document represents the opinion of participants in the solar generation market, combining the capacities of a total of 850 MW of solar power plants, which do not agree with some provisions of the memorandum proposed by the government.

"For us, the dialogue with the government is not over. We have not signed and will not sign the conditions of the government memorandum. The fight goes into the legislative plane," Hramotenko said.

Managing partner at Energy Investment Fund Oleksandr Pavlovsky, who participated in the press conference, explained that investors' proposals in the solar generation sector relate, in particular, to the deadlines set by the government for ending support for the feed-in tariff starting July 31 for solar power plants.

"To end the construction of solar power plants on July 31 is nonsense. This date was announced at the negotiations in the autumn, and then it was probably logical. But now the requirement to complete the construction of the solar power plants in a month is impossible. The government wants to stop the development of solar energy in Ukraine," Pavlovsky said.

According to him, the bill proposed by industry representatives provides for the preservation of the right for solar power plants to complete construction until April 1, 2020.

In addition, investors insist on maintaining all existing conditions for the plants with a capacity of up to 1 MW, as well as extending the feed-in tariff by two years (2030-2031) while reducing it.

"We fully support the position of the Ukrainian Association of Renewable Energy, which refused to sign the memorandum with the government, since it does not take into account the interests of investors and will negatively affect the investment attractiveness of Ukraine in the future," Hramotenko said.
New Delhi, Jun 15 (UNI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that India will sort out its differences with Nepal through dialogue and that the two nations share a very strong cultural bond.

'We not only have social, geographical, historical and cultural relationships with Nepal but spiritual connections as well.

'India's relationship with Nepal is that of 'roti-beti' which no power in the world can break,' said Mr Singh addressing a vitual Jan Samvad rally here for Uttarakhand.

A day ago, the upper House of the Nepalese Parliament accepted the proposal to consider the bill to amend the country's Constitution to endorse the new map which included the territory claimed by India- Lipulekh Pass, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani.

This territorial claim has become an irritant for India's relations with Nepal. This would also give China the advantage as it has been competing with India for geopolitical influence over Nepal.

Mr Singh said the relationship between India and Nepal does not belong to this world but to another world which cannot be severed just by wanting.

Therefore, no matter how much fencing is done in front of Dharchula, these ties cannot be snapped, he maintained.

Mr Singh said, 'I want to say with confidence that no kind of bitterness can ever arise in the minds of Indians about Nepal. If Nepal has got some misconception about the 80 km long Mansarovar link road, we will sit together and resolve it.'

If the road built by India has caused any misunderstanding among the people of Nepal, then it would be sorted out through dialogue, Mr Singh said.

More UNI RSA SB 1750
Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine veteran held in Russia on spying charges, was convicted of espionage by a court in Moscow on Monday and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum-security prison colony.

The Michigan native was arrested in late December 2018 by Russia's domestic intelligence service, the FSB, while visiting Moscow for a friend's wedding. He was charged with espionage and has spent almost a year and a half in Moscow's Lefortovo jail.

Whelan and his family have always denied he is a spy and have accused Russia of fabricating the case against him in order to use him as a bargaining chip in its relations with the United States.

In court on Monday, Whelan denounced the trial as a "sham" and part of a pre-planned operation by the Russian security services.

"We have proven my innocence," Whelan told reporters while standing in a glass cage in the court room, flanked by men in masks. "We have proven fabrication. This is slimy, greasy corrupt Russian politics, nothing more, nothing less."

The verdict was denounced by the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement that the U.S. is "outraged" by Whelan's conviction and accused Russia of denying him a fair trial.

"The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling. Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal," the statement read. "We demand Paul Whelan's immediate release."

Trial of Paul Whelan, ex-Marine held in Russia, begins

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, outside the court told reporters the judge had provided no evidence to justify Whelan's detention.

"I've described these proceedings as a mockery of justice and today just confirmed it," Sullivan said. "An American citizen has been sentenced to a term of 16 years for a crime for which we have not seen evidence."

Story continues

PHOTO: Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine who was arrested for alleged spying, listens to the verdict in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, June 15, 2020. (Sofia Sandurskaya, Moscow News Agency photo via AP)

Whelan's case is classified secret and Russia's authorities have never publicly provided details of the charges against him. The trial have been held almost entirely behind closed doors and it has been rushed through since it began in April.

His defense has said he is the victim of a crude frame-up by the FSB, which they said used a long-time friend of Whelan's to set him up.

According to his lawyers, the Russian friend, who was an FSB officer, planted classified materials on Whelan while visiting his hotel room in December 2018. Whelan had thought the friend was bringing him a memory card containing photographs of a trip to a monastery town they had taken together in spring earlier that year. Instead, unknown to Whelan, the card held the classified materials, according to his defense.

A few minutes later, FSB officers burst in and detained Whelan.

Whelan's lawyers have not named the friend because of secrecy rules, saying only that he is a member of Russia's security services. But Whelan's family have identified him as Ilya Yatsenko. The Russian newspaper, Kommersant has reported that Yatsenko is a major in the FSB's Department 'K', the powerful division handling economic crimes.

MORE: Moscow recorded almost 60% more deaths in May than usual amid COVID-19

Since the moment of his arrest, there has been speculation that Russia would seek to trade Whelan in a possible exchange for Russians imprisoned in the United States.

After the hearing, Whelan's Russian lawyers said that the FSB had made clear to them that Russia now intended to seek to swap Whelan.

"I understand that that question is already decided higher up," Vladimir Zherebenkov, Whelan's lawyer told reporters.

MORE: New data again suggests Russia's coronavirus deaths are higher than its official count

Zherebenkov said that the FSB had suggested to him that it did not make sense to appeal Whelan's verdict since it would slow down any attempt to trade him.

"There is a suggestion and thought from some agents of the security services, 'Guys, why do that, when the question of exchange will be solved quicker?'" Zherebenkov said.

Zherebenkov said he believed Russia wants to trade Whelan for two Russians currently serving long jail sentences in the U.S., Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot convicted of drug smuggling, and Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer suspected of links to Russian intelligence.

PHOTO: Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, holds a sign as he stands inside a defendants' cage during his verdict hearing in Moscow, June 15, 2020. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Russian officials have previously noted Whelan can be traded if pardoned by President Vladimir Putin, which can only occur after a conviction. Zherebenkov said they had intended to appeal Monday's verdict but that they would first discuss it with Whelan.

Shortly after the lawyer's comments, Viktor Bout's wife Alla Bout told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that she was ready to write an appeal to the U.S. government asking for Whelan to be exchanged for her husband. She said that she had already discussed the possibility of such a trade with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during a meeting last September.

Russian officials and state media have for years campaigned for Bout and Yaroshenko's release, painting them as unjustly imprisoned. Bout, was accused by U.S. prosecutors of running an international arms trafficking network, was sentenced to 25 years jail in 2011 after he was arrested in Thailand in a Drug Enforcement Agency sting operation.

Bout, who has been nicknamed the "Merchant of Death" and whose life was the basis for the protagonist in the Nicholas Cage film, "Lord of War," was convicted of conspiring to sell arms to a Colombian terrorist group. Yaroshenko is serving a 20 year sentence on a conviction for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

Asked about a possible exchange, Ambassador Sullivan said he couldn't comment on a possible exchange.

"I'm not authorized to discuss exchanges. Now, when Paul has been convicted, I'm seeking justice for Paul. We are seeking not an exchange, but justice for him" Sullivan told reporters at the court.

Whelan's family have said they believe Russia took Whelan prisoner in order to seek a trade for Bout, Yaroshenko, as well as other possible concessions from the U.S., such as the return of diplomatic properties seized in retaliation for Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Immediately after the verdict, they released a statement denouncing it and appealing to the U.S. government to take "immediate steps" to bring Whelan home.

"The court's decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process. We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities," the statement released by Whelan's brother David said. "We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home."

But David Whelan said the family did not now intend to ask the U.S. government to seek a prisoner exchange and expressed doubts about how possible it would be. It is unclear how willing the U.S. will be to exchange Russians convicted of serious crimes for Whelan, who it considers to be entirely innocent.

"Prisoner exchanges in hostage diplomacy only encourage the bad actor state to take more hostages," David Whelan told ABC News in an email. "Paul is a tourist, not a spy," he said, noting that a number of the trades, including Bout and Yaroshenko, that Russia has suggested it wants are not equivalent. "I would completely understand if the U.S. was reluctant to engage in a swap. I could completely understand how the U.S. would prefer punitive measures instead, like sanctions, rather than creating a reward for coercive detentions," he said.

"If the U.S. government decides that a trade of some sort is appropriate, I wouldn't argue against it. But I would not argue for it as the only way to secure Paul's freedom," David Whelan said.

Whelan's family said they would look to President Donald Trump to help release him and said they were relying on David Urban, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist and adviser to Trump's election campaign, to speak to the White House.

MORE: Russia declares emergency in Arctic after huge diesel leak turns rivers red

The Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, responding to questions after the hearing, denied that Whelan was a "political hostage." He declined to comment on the possibility of a trade, telling reporters in a daily briefing call that the Kremlin is not involved in Whelan's case.

Former U.S. intelligence officials have also said Whelan's case has the hallmarks of a KGB-style frame up, similar to those seen in the Cold War. They have said Whelan's background would have made him an unlikely choice for an American intelligence operative.

In addition to the U.S., Whelan also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship. He left the Marines after he was convicted in a court-martial on larceny charges in 2008 and received a bad conduct discharge. Whelan was a global security director for the autoparts supplier BorgWarner when he was arrested in Moscow.

A self-described Russophile, Whelan has traveled many times to Russia as a tourist and traveled in the country with friends, according to his family.

In court on Monday, Whelan held up a sign with the words "Sham Trial!" and "Meatball surgery" written on it, a reference he said to an emergency hernia operation he was given in June after being denied treatment for months.

He told journalists his detention was part of a pre-planned operation and that the Russian ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov had been aware of it before his trip to Moscow when he was arrested.

"It's absolutely ridiculous," Whelan said. "They say I'm a brigadier general. I'm not."

Tanya Stukalova provided reporting from Moscow.

Ex-Marine Paul Whelan sentenced to 16 years in Russian jail originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
By Bruce Lowry

As I watched footage of loaded-to-the-teeth, shield-bearing law enforcement troops and mounted police descend on American citizens peacefully protesting in Lafayette Square  and then at other U.S. cities, parks and squares in recent days  the single, similar image that came back to me from my lifetime was easy to conjure: Those from Bloody Sunday, 1965, when another generation of mounted police, wielding billy clubs, trampled unarmed protesters and used tear gas to disperse civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

That day, and those images 55 years ago, like all those we have all seen lately, eventually wrought a positive and lasting change for America and the basic civil rights of all its citizens. Who knows whether this new moment of nation-wide civil unrest and calls for change and reform will yield similar fruit?

Certainly, those grainy black and white TV images and photographs from 1965 were not tweeted by the split-second or picked up immediately by CNN or other big news networks, and yet they carried around the world in good time, nonetheless. ABC News even interrupted its primetime showing of the classic war crimes drama, Judgment at Nuremberg, to show images from Selma.

Such images, as ugly as they might seem, can be used as a catalyst for change, in that they can serve to hold our collective national feet to the fire, to remind us of basic freedoms promised in our founding documents, and to show us that just because we often speak of noble principles, too often in our history we have failed to follow through with them when it really matters.

Two marchers hold up a woman injured after civil rights marchers were beaten and gassed by Alabama state troopers and Dallas County deputies on March 7, 1965 at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.Alabama Media Group

While many commentators compare our current moment to 1968, and the violent protests that followed the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther Jr., the sickening images of people seemingly running for their lives in Lafayette Square, in Brooklyn, and in other cities in the last couple weeks as National Guard troops and heavily-armed police marched toward them using a chemical spray, and flash grenades were more reminiscent of 1965 and the blood spilled at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Civil rights historian Taylor Branch, in his book, At Canaans Edge, described that day in Selma:

The blue line of elephantine masks moved forward with slow, irregular steps, overlapping and concentrating to curl around the front ranks of marchers. With nightsticks held chest high, parallel to the ground, the troopers pushed into the well-dressed formation  toppling marchers with accelerating speed as troopers hurtled over and through them.

Just as protesters across the nation have gathered to memorialize George Floyd, so brutally killed by a Minneapolis police officer for no apparent reason, the march in Selma was in response in part to the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, also African-American, who was described as a twenty-six-year-old pulpwood worker whose attempt to register to vote had been rejected five times.

The point is these moments in history do not occur in a vacuum. They often are elevated after wrongs are perpetrated on ordinary people. In our case, now, the very heart and soul of our nation hangs in the balance. The very idea and practice of civil disobedience is part and parcel to our DNA.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., spoke with the passion of an old-style Baptist preacher about events at Lafayette Park, and the fact that the armed dispersal was carried out just so President Trump could stage a photo-op (Bible firmly in hand) at St. Johns Church.

I was not there in that park but every one of us should wish we were there, Booker told CBS News.

Certainly, the fabric of our nation seems almost about to be ripped in two, not just along racial lines, or lines of economic inequality, but in terms of our national creed, what it actually means to be American, to be free to protest and march without fear of being fired upon with rubber bullets, or otherwise militarily oppressed by officers in riot gear.

On the bright side, those gauzy images from Edmund Pettus Bridge 55 years did stir change, in the form of the Voting Rights Act. Events at Lafayette Square and elsewhere will also be seared into our national conscience, and in years to come will be recalled as a moment when hundreds of thousands of Americans stood for right, braved armed resistance, and sought, against all odds, systemic and lasting change.

Bruce Lowry, a native Southerner and long-time journalist, is a New Jersey-based writer whose commentary often focuses on civil rights and social justice issues.

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WASHINGTONIn most of the U.S. Monday, the Supreme Court delivered an unexpected opinion that will serve as a LGBTQ Pride milestone.

By a 6-3 majority, the court ruled that gay and trans people are protected from workplace discrimination by 1964 Civil Rights Act provisions outlawing discrimination based on sex. Lower courts in the U.S. had long been divided on whether the sex discrimination provisions applied to sexual orientation and gender identity. But in three cases before it in which gay and trans people were fired, the Supreme Court delivered a message it called simple and momentous.

An individuals homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions. Thats because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex, the decision read.

The breakdown of the vote was interesting in a country whose top court has become starkly politically polarized: The decision was written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch (who was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump in 2017), and was joined by fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the courts four liberals.

This decision comes at a time when many watching from Canada may feel that the tide of history has turned on such questions, and that equal rights for LGBTQ people should be self-evident. Yet those rights remain an active point of debate in America, with Republican party opinion often going against them.

On Friday, the Trump administration finalized a regulation that eliminated protections against discrimination for trans people by doctors, hospitals, and health insurance providers  part of a broader set of moves by the president to remove protections for trans people from interpretations of statute in housing, education, employment and the military. The Trump administration argued with the losing side before the Supreme Court in the employment discrimination cases decided Monday.

Sunday, thousands of people marched in cities across the country in Black Trans Lives Matter demonstrations after two Black trans women, Riah Milton in Cincinnati and Dominique Rem'mie Fells in Philadelphia, were murdered last week. Protesters highlighted that the safety of trans people  not just from discrimination but from violence  remains a pressing issue.

On Saturday, some Republicans showed they will remain adamantly opposed to even longer-settled LGBTQ questions: Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia, a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus and a loyalist to Trump, lost a primary challenge in a district that was firmly pro-Trump in 2016, after officiating at a same-sex wedding ceremony. His opponent, now the Republican nominee in Novembers election, has promised to advocate Judeo-Christian values in Congress.

Its not at all clear that advocacy against LGBTQ rights will serve such Republicans as well politically in Novembers general election. Rigglemans loss, for example, has led to speculation that Democrats may now put resources into that district, since the more extreme candidate might put an otherwise safe Republican district in play.

Late last year, Lucas Acosta of the Human Rights Campaign told me that where in the past Republicans were able to use LGBTQ ballot measures as wedge issues that motivated their base to come out to the polls, the situation might now be reversed. If Republicans want to try to use LGBTQ issues to try to turn out their base, go ahead  because, at the end of the day, it just goes to show how extreme they are and how out of step with the American public, Acosta said.

Such political calculations remain debated, and likely vary by location. But the clear legal effect of Mondays Supreme Court decision was greeted by activists as a major step forward. We applaud this historic and decisive decision, which brings us one step closer to a world where no one lives in fear of losing their job simply because of who they are or who they love, Tina Tchen, president of Times Up, which works to prevent sexual harassment, said in a statement.

Alphonso David, President of the Human Rights Campaign, called it a landmark victory for LGBTQ equality, and promised in remarks on Twitter immediately after the decision that the fight for recognition of rights would move from the courtroom to the ballot box.

We cannot and should not go back to a time when people felt they had to hide who they are in order to feel safe at work, David wrote. We must ensure that LGBTQ people are protected  under law  in every facet of our lives. Which is why we have and will continue to advocate for full equality, as well as continue our work to elect proequality leaders who will pass and sign the Equality Act. More to come.

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Protesters blocked westbound lanes of the Bay Bridge for more than two hours Sunday afternoon, as they painted BLM  the initials for Black Lives Matter  on the deck of the bridge, before officials reached the scene and made arrests.

It was the second time in recent weeks that protesters had blocked a bridge: The Golden Gate Bridge was briefly shut down on June 6 by a huge crowd of marchers that overflowed the walkways.

About 50 vehicles rolled to a stop shortly after 4:30 p.m. on the upper deck of the Bay Bridge between Treasure Island and San Francisco, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Andrews. In addition to the letters painted on the deck, Andrews said the walls on the sides of the lanes had writing.

San Francisco Sheriffs Office spokeswoman Nancy Crowley said 27 protesters had been cited and released. Andrews said five vehicles were towed and three bicycles were removed.

As the protest began, CHP vehicles tried to get by on the shoulder of the roadway, with sirens blaring. But because of the traffic, many officers had to park their patrol vehicles and walk, Andrews said.

A Chronicle photographer stuck in the traffic said he saw more than a half a dozen California Highway Patrol officers walking through the Treasure Island tunnel to the protest in riot gear. A man walked his dog as he waited in stalled traffic.

Police closed Interstate 80 on-ramps and exits in San Francisco during the protest, according to San Francisco Police Department spokesman Robert Rueca.

It was far from the only demonstration in San Francisco on Sunday. Marchers from a different Black Lives Matter rally on city streets waved to their counterparts high up on the bridge.

Now Playing: Pancho Kachingwe joined Oakland community members, artists and local businesses to paint Black Lives Matter across three blocks of 15th Street on Sunday, June 7. The 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

That march, which drew at least 200 people, was to protest racism in the exotic-dance industry and beyond. Many chanted, No justice, no peace. Abolish the police, and Black Trans Lives Matter. A police vehicle drove ahead of the march, which wound along from Broadway to the Embarcadero.

Alejandra Lopez, 21, of San Francisco, who dances under the stage name Sativa, held a sign that read: End systemic racism in the strip club industry.

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.

I went to Vegas with my friend whos black, Lopez said. We got matching ponytails. She got turned away at almost every club. And I was allowed to work at several of the ones she wasnt. Lopez said there are racist problems within the strip club industry that Ive seen firsthand. Were tired of seeing it in the police brutality. Were tired of seeing it in the strip club, she said. Were tired of seeing it, period.

Other San Francisco demonstrations Sunday included a Buddhist sit-in and meditation at Civic Center to support the Black Lives Matter movement, and an early afternoon march by hundreds of people along the Great Highway in San Francisco, adjacent to Ocean Beach.

In Oakland, destruction began after a march on Friday. On Sunday, Oakland police said that they were searching for about 100 people suspected of starting small fires and vandalizing businesses and police vehicles along Telegraph Avenue after a march Friday that began at the MacArthur BART Station. Police said responding officers saw about 100 people vandalizing property, some wielding bats and throwing rocks and bottles at police cars. Twitter posts showed broken windows at two stores and one car on fire.

Matthias Gafni, Matt Kawahara and Tatiana Sanchez are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: matthias.gafni@sfchronicle.com, mkawahara@sfchronicle.com, tatiana.sanchez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mgafni, @matthewkawahara, @TatianaYSanchez
Words carry a lot of power, says 2nd grade teacher Noelle Mapes.

Every year, Mapes talks with her students at P.S. 142 in New York City about identity, race, and racism. They create shared definitions for the concepts students learn, revising them when their understandings change.

This year, for example, students first described racism as being unkind to black and brown people, Mapes said. But the class edited this definition as her students learned more about structural and institutional racism. Were always crossing stuff out and going back, said Mapes.

This processof changing definitions to reflect deeper understandingplays out every day in classrooms. This week, its also happening in one of the nations oldest dictionaries.

Merriam-Webster announced that it plans to update its definition of the word racism, after Kennedy Mitchum, a woman from Florissant, Mo., contacted the company to say that the current definition didnt do enough to explain that racism is systemic, embedded in the countrys institutions, laws, and power structures.

The current primary definition in Merriam-Webster focuses more on an individuals bias, explaining 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.

During the weeks of ongoing protests after the police killing of George Floyd, Mitchum had many conversations with people who used the dictionary definition to argue that they werent racist, she told CNN.

The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, Mitchum, who is black, said to CNN . Its the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans.

The upcoming change holds significance for classroom teachers, said Keisha Rembert, an assistant professor of education at National Louis University in Chicago, and a member of the National Council of Teachers of Englishs Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English.

Especially for students who dont have a lived experience with racism, [a revised] expression of the definition provides a more clear context and a more global application, Rembert said. This idea of power and the systemic nature of racism is important when students are understanding a concept unfamiliar to them.

Still, Rembert cautioned, a definition is a starting place but not a finishing place. Humanities teachers, she said, should always seek to create a three-dimensional understanding of how race functions in U.S. society.

Moving Beyond a Dictionary Definition

Being an African American teacher, I like to bring lived experience into the classroom, whether that was my own experience, or a text we were reading, Rembert said.

When she was in the classroom, teaching 8th grade English and history, her students studied the poem Take a Knee , by Kwame Alexander. They discussed what the poem conveyed about racism in this country. It wasnt necessarily a dictionary definition. It was a decision based on what we saw in that text, she said.

In this moment, its important to scrutinize how curricula have erased voices that challenge or complicate the dominant narrative of the powerful elite, Rembert said. How do we center all people, instead of the powerful few?

Even though English teachers shouldnt stop at the dictionary definition, it could be a useful teaching tool in itself, said Leah Michaels, the English department chair at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Md.

We could deconstruct, how did this definition come to be in the first place? Who has the power to create definitions? she said. As protestors and activists push institutions to rexamine how they might contribute to racial inequities, everything needs to be interrogated, even the words in the dictionary, Michaels said.

Mapes, the New York City teacher, doesnt use the dictionary much in class, instead opting to create kid-friendly definitions with her young students. But shes still excited to share the news with them that Merriam-Webster is rewriting their racism entry. It mirrors the growth that children go through in her classroom, she said, and its proof that people can call for change, and see it happen.

To see an institution like the dictionary evolving with people evolving, thats pretty cool, she said.

As Merriam-Webster finally centers systems and structures in its definition of racism, its past time for schools to do the same, said Rembert.

Over the past few years, many schools have focused on anti-bias training, which asks educators to understand their implicit prejudices and work to change their behavior. (A recent study confirmed that teachers are just as likely to have implicit and explicit racial biases as other American adults.)

But racism in schools goes deeper than individual teachers or administrators actions, Rembert said. Its baked into policies, from dress codes written in ways that penalize black students to teacher-preparation standards that dont mention culturally responsive pedagogy.

Schools, too, need to acknowledge that racism goes beyond individual prejudice, she said. Bias and racism arent the same, said Rembert.

Image: Getty
For two days, November 910, 1938, the Jewish people underwent a seminal moment in their glorious but often tragic history. During these two nights, unaffectionately dubbed Kristallnacht or "Night of Broken Glass," Nazis in Germany torched synagogues; vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses; and killed close to 100 Jews.

Two days prior, a 17-year-old Polish Jew named Herschel Grynszpan heard that his parents had been deported by the Nazis to Poland. Seeking retribution, Grynszpan tracked down Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris and assassinated him. It turned out to be just the pretense Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels was seeking to incite anti-Semitic riots throughout Germany. Nazi officials ordered German police officers and firemen to do nothing as the riots raged and buildings burned. Sound familiar?

Fast-forward 82 years to the murder of George Floyd.

What started out as a peaceful protest against the death of this unfortunate man has likewise spawned unprecedented, widespread violence and destruction throughout the United States. This mayhem has thus far taken the lives of at least 11 people, many of whom are black Americans. Hundreds of others have been injured in the chaos, with police officers getting shot and protesters struck with rubber bullets.

As the carnage, looting, arson, and assaults have been allowed to continue in Democrat-controlled states and municipalities, it has become undeniably evident that the wrongful death of George Floyd has morphed into anarchism. As lives, businesses, and personal property have been driven asunder, the criminal perpetrators are buoyed by pusillanimous Democrat politicians too timid to take back their own streets. Whether it be Crown Heights, August 1991; Rodney King, May 1992; Ferguson Missouri, August 2014; Baltimore, April 2015; or one of many others, the script has remained the same. In concordance with fawning state and local officials, a legitimate protest is hijacked by a throng of anarchists.

In doing so, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, is branded by Democrats as the party of racist policies. Barry Shaw, the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, had this to say in an article entitled "America's Race Problems: An Outsider's Perspective":

The media went in search of white incitement to make a case against Republicans but found instead, white inciters were members of the far-left nihilist group, Antifa. They support and vote Democrat and that imported agitators, looters and arsonists were predominantly black.

According to Wikipedia, Antifa, which ironically stands for "anti-fascist," comprises autonomous groups "that aim to achieve their objectives through the use of both non-violent and violent action rather than through policy reform." No hidden agenda there. The article goes on to state: "Antifa's political activists engage in protest tactics involving property damage, physical violence, and harassment," ostensibly against fascists, racists, and those on the far right. Tell that to black and other business-owners whose life's work has gone up in flames.

Poignantly, the article concludes: "Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist views, subscribing to a range of left wing ideologies such as anarchism, communism, Marxism, social democracy and socialism." Irrespective of color, creed, or origin, these are not exactly ideologies most Americans have grown up following.

Seemingly forgotten in all this turmoil are the advances black Americans have witnessed during the Trump years. Since taking office, the president has created over a million jobs for that constituency. Prior to the recent pandemic, national black unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5 percent  even lower for black women at 4.4 percent.

Several months ago, Pastor Darrell Scott, a member of President Donald Trump's executive transition team, and co-founder of the New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, penned an article entitled "Black Communities Thriving Thanks to President Trump."

The pastor states: "That focus on expanding economic opportunity for minorities has been a major priority for the Trump Administration and by eliminating the sentencing disparities caused by the horrendous Clinton-era crime bill, African American inmates, sentenced unfairly were given a second chance at the American Dream." He concludes: "After all the progress African-Americans have made under Mr. Trump, it's difficult to even imagine going back to the Democrats' failed, big-government policies that have held us back for so long."

Words such as these are anathema to the race-baiters and insurrectionist elements in the aforementioned states whose sole goals are discord, dissolution, and anarchy, not social justice. As they burn police precincts, pillage property, and illegally occupy large swathes of cities, they are emboldened by state, local, and federal Democrats who acquiesce to their every wish and whim, no matter how absurd  the latest being to defund the police.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, representing Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, is in the vanguard of this movement. She's quoted saying: "The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root and so when we dismantle it, we get rid of that cancer and we allow for something beautiful to rise." The only beautiful thing to rise without a viable police force can be seen occurring today in Seattle.

In an interview on FOX News, Omar's opponent in November, Republican Lacy Lee Johnson, recognizing the imbecility of dismantling the police department, had this to say about Omar and the Minneapolis City Council. "We have a reckless city council making reckless decisions about the safety and health of our community by passing this law to disband and stop funding the police. They are putting our community at risk." Admonitions such as this have so far fallen upon deaf ears in other Democrat-run states such as Washington, particularly in the once beautiful city of Seattle.

This past week, going by the acronym CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone), a cabal of far-left adolescents directed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter affiliates occupied a seven-square-block portion of that city. Breaking through police barricades, protesters attacked police with bricks, bottles, rocks, and improvised explosive devices, sending some officers to the hospital. Abandoned by a feckless mayor, Jenny Durkan; a city council of equal irrelevance; and an ineffectual governor, Jay Inslee, police withdrew from the area, in effect relinquishing control of an American city to mob rule.

In a matter of days, unelected, self-proclaimed "warlords" created a hardened border, and a rudimentary form of government based on principles of intersectional representation. "Rather than enforce the law, Seattle's progressive political class capitulated to the mob and will likely make massive concessions over the next few months. This will embolden the Antifa coalition, and further undermine the rule of law in American cities."

Witnessing their success in Seattle, there can be little doubt that other U.S. cities under Democrat administration will soon follow suit and fall sway to instigation and violence by the likes of Antifa; Black Lives Matter; and other insurrectionist, anti-American organizations.
Tallahassee police are investigating the deaths of two women, including a teenager, who were reported missing this month.

Oluwatoyin "Toyin" Salau, 19, and Victoria Sims, 75, were found Saturday night in southeast Tallahassee, the Tallahassee Police Department announced on Monday.

The deaths are being investigated as homicides and the cases have been turned over to the department's Violent Crime Unit, police said.

MORE: LGBTQ community calls for justice after Tony McDade, a black trans man, shot and killed by police

Authorities have identified a suspect in the case, Aaron Glee Jr., 49, who was brought into custody over the weekend following the discovery of the victims, police said. Glee has not been charged in connection to the disappearances.

A Tallahassee Police Department spokesperson said any formal charges will be announced at the conclusion of the investigation.

Salau was last seen on June 6, according to police. Her body was found about 3 miles from where she was last reportedly seen.

PHOTO: A missing poster released by Tallahassee Police of Oluwatoyin Salau. (Tallahassee Police Department)

The teen was active in the city's Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, calling for justice for black people recently killed at the hands of police, including Tony McDade of Tallahassee and George Floyd of Minneapolis.

I dont want their names gone in vain," Salau said during a protest in front of the Tallahassee Police Department last month, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

The grassroots organization Tallahassee Community Action Committee had held search parties for Salau, whom they described as a local activist, after she was reported missing on June 9.

PHOTO: FSU students and community members marched to protest police brutality, June 14, 2020, in Tallahassee, Fla. (Hali Tauxe/Tallahassee Democrat via USA TODAY Network)

The same day she was last reportedly seen, Salau had shared details of an alleged sexual assault on Twitter, according to Tallahassee ABC affiliate WTXL. Police could not confirm to ABC News if the account was Salau's.

As news of Salau's death spread, mourners were tweeting the hashtag "Justice for Toyin."

MORE: Alleged hit man charged with killing 4 in 'wanton, violent crimes,' says Philadelphia DA

Story continues

Sims was last seen on June 11, according to police. Her body was found about 1.5 miles from where she was reportedly last seen. Her car was also missing at the time of her disappearance, police said.

PHOTO: A missing poster released by Tallahassee Police of Victoria Sims. (Tallahassee Police Department)

Sims was a long-time AARP volunteer, according to AARP Florida, which described her in a statement as a "passionate, fully engaged citizen" and "dedicated advocate for older Americans" the organization said in a statement .

The organization shared that she was also a member of the Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church. She had retired from the Florida Department of Elder Affairs several years ago and is survived by two daughters and several grandchildren, according to AARP Florida.

Missing teen Oluwatoyin Salau found dead, homicide investigation underway originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
A visitor watches the sunset at a bar in an area known as Little Venice in the main town of the island of Mykonos, Greece (Derek Gatopoulos/AP)

Borders have opened up across Europe after three months of coronavirus closures that began so chaotically in March.

But many restrictions persist, it is unclear how keen Europeans will be to travel this summer and the continent is still closed to Americans, Asians and other international tourists.

Border checks for most Europeans were dropped overnight in Germany, France and elsewhere, nearly two weeks after Italy opened its frontiers.

The European Unions 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, are not expected to start opening to visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly much later.

Expand Close Italian customs officials talk to a woman at the border station Chiasso Brogeda between Switzerland and Italy in Chiasso, Switzerland (Alessandro Crinari/Keystone via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Italian customs officials talk to a woman at the border station Chiasso Brogeda between Switzerland and Italy in Chiasso, Switzerland (Alessandro Crinari/Keystone via AP)

Announcing Mondays reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said it is time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom.

But he warned: This doesnt mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard.  The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.

Even inside Europe, there is caution after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths.

Europe has had more than two million of the worlds 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

We have got the pandemic under control, (but) the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday as he announced that his hard-hit country is moving forward its opening to European travellers by 10 days to June 21.

The threat is still real. The virus is still out there, he said.

Still, the need to get Europes tourism industry up and running again is also urgent for countries such as Spain and Greece as the economic fallout of the crisis multiplies.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged that a lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination.

In a trial run, Spain is allowing thousands of Germans to fly to its Balearic Islands starting on Monday  waiving its 14-day quarantine for the group.

Expand Close People enjoy the warm weather on the beach in Barcelona, Spain (Emilio Morenatti/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp People enjoy the warm weather on the beach in Barcelona, Spain (Emilio Morenatti/AP)

The idea is to test out best practices in the coronavirus era.

This pilot programme will help us learn a lot for what lies ahead in the coming months, Mr Sanchez said.

We want our country, which is already known as a world-class tourist destination, to be recognised as also a secure destination.

Europes reopening is not a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, unco-ordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles.

Still, it is a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere.

Several countries are not opening up yet to everyone.

Norway and Denmark, for example, are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a relatively high per capita death rate.

Expand Close Vehicles queue at the border crossing in Krusaa, Denmark, after Denmark reopened its borders to Germany (Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix via AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Vehicles queue at the border crossing in Krusaa, Denmark, after Denmark reopened its borders to Germany (Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)

Cars queued up on Monday morning at some crossings on the German border with Denmark, which is now letting in visitors from Germany but only if they have booked accommodation for at least six nights.

Britain, which left the EU in January but remains closely aligned with the bloc until the end of this year, only last week imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for most arrivals, horrifying its tourism and aviation industries.

As a result, France is asking people coming from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks and several other nations are not even letting British tourists come in during the first wave of reopenings.

With flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and many people facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose simply to stay home or explore their own countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz are both planning to holiday in their homelands this year.

The recommendation is still, if you want to be really safe, a holiday in Austria, Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg told ORF television, recalling the scramble in March to bring home thousands of tourists as borders slammed shut.

In Austria, you know that you dont have to cross a border if you want to get home, and you know the infrastructure and the health system well, he said.

The German government, which helped fly 240,000 people home as the pandemic grew exponentially, also has no desire to repeat that experience.

Expand Close A face mask left on the floor of the Roemerberg square in Frankfurt, Germany (Michael Probst/AP) / Facebook

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My appeal to all those who travel: enjoy your summer holiday  but enjoy it with caution and responsibility, German foreign minister Heiko Maas said.

In the summer holidays, we want to make it as difficult as possible for the virus to spread again in Europe.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

You can go abroad for your holiday again, foreign minister Stef Blok said.

But it wont be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.
Some of you may have heard of the Loch Ness monster. Scottish folklore describes it as a giant sea creature which inhabits waters close to the Scottish Highlands. The scientific community is yet to find proof for the existence of such an entity. However, here is a canine who may make you believe that it is the doggo version of the mythical being.

This almost 15-second-long clip was posted on Reddit on June 15. The post is captioned, Rare footage of mythical Loch Ness doggo.

The recording shows a white golden retriever, as identified by the original poster, running around in a field of tall grass. The doggo is almost submerged in the sea of green. Only some parts of the poochs body are visible as it gallops forward.

A few seconds into the film, the canine runs out of the grass field into a clearing. For a few moments, its magnificent body is fully visible to the camera. Then, the doggo runs away once again into the greenery.

Well, at least the viewers got one good shot of the mythical Loch Ness doggo before it descended into the deep depths of the field again.

Click To Expand

Since being shared to the subreddit zoomies, the post has received over 8,600 upvotes and over 50 appreciative comments.

Here is how Redditors reacted to this rare footage of the mythical doggo. One person said, He is loving life. To which another person responded with, I want to feel 1/10th of that joy.

Its a majestic beast, declared one Reddit user. While another individual wrote, This is clearly a luck dragon.

What are your thoughts on this rare mythical-looking doggo?

Also Read | Kosi the doggo proves that unicorns are real. Dont believe us? Check it out yourself
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Voyager Digital Canada, Ltd. ("Voyager" or the "Company") (CSE: VYGR;OTCQB: VYGVF; FRA: UCD2), a public, licensed crypto-asset broker that provides investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets, today announced it has closed the non-brokered private placement (the "Private Placement") previously announced on June 8, 2020, for gross proceeds of C$2,896,888 (US$2,161,282) through the sale and distribution of 14,484,440 units in the capital of the Company (each, a "Unit") at a price of C$0.20 per Unit.

Each Unit is comprised of one common share of the Company (a "Share") and one-half Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"), with each whole Warrant entitling the holder to subscribe for one additional Share at a price of C$0.30 per Share for a period of 24 months from the date of issuance (the "Warrant Expiry Date"). In the event that the closing trading price of the Shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange is C$0.30 or greater for a period of ten consecutive trading days, the Company may, at its option, accelerate the Warrant Expiry Date by issuing a press release (the "Warrant Acceleration Press Release"). In such case, the Warrant Expiry Date shall be deemed to be the 30th day following the issuance of the Warrant Acceleration Press Release.

Proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to increase Voyager's customer account base through marketing, product development and for other general corporate purposes.

Included among the investors in the Private Placement were Susquehanna Government Products, LLLP, Streamlined Ventures, LLC and Market Rebellion, LLC, as well as Market Rebellion's co-founders, Jon and Pete Najarian, Dirk Mueller-Ingrand and other insiders of the Company.

The Company engaged Regent Mercantile Bancorp Inc. to provide advisory and structuring services for the Private Placement. Regent Mercantile Bancorp, Inc was paid a cash fee equal to C$119,072 and received 595,361 Warrants.

In connection with the Private Placement, the Company settled C$103,112 of outstanding payables through the issuance of 515,560 Units at a deemed price of C$0.20 per Unit (the "Debt Settlement").

Each of the Private Placement and the Debt Settlement are subject to the acceptance of the Canadian Securities Exchange. All Shares and Warrants issued in connection with the Private Placement and the Debt Settlement are subject to trading restrictions.

About Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd.

Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd. is a crypto-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets. Voyager offers customers best execution and safe custody on a wide choice of popular crypto-assets. Voyager was founded by established Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who teamed to bring a better, more transparent and cost-efficient alternative for trading crypto-assets to the marketplace. Please visit us at https://www.investvoyager.com for more information and to review the latest Corporate Presentation.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No securities regulatory authority has either approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information: The forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this release and, other than as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Voyager Digital (Canada) Ltd. Contacts

Media:

Anthony Feldman / Raquel Cona

(347) 487-6194 / (212) 682-6300

[email protected] / [email protected]

Investor Relations:

Phil Carlson / Scott Eckstein

(212) 896-1233 / (212) 896-1210

[email protected] / [email protected]

SOURCE Voyager Digital
Hemanta Sengupta (name changed on request), 57, got stuck in a precarious situation due to the nationwide lockdown in lieu of the Covid-19 pandemic. Just before the lockdown began, Sengupta flew down to Hyderabad for a series of important business meetings. Soon before his scheduled flight back to his hometown, Kolkata, all domestic flights were cancelled until further notice, leaving him marooned at a company-provided hotel, in a city that he did not know. The first month that followed was a roller-coaster journey that took him close to depression.

It is at this time, at around late April, that Sengupta discovered an app called Remente on his iPhones App Store. As he began using it, he realised that he suddenly found an outlet to vent out his frustration  all without having to spend a fortune, or risk alarming his wife, parents and child. This, Sengupta says, played a considerable role in seeing him through until the end of May, when he took on the threat of the virus with a PPE (personal protective equipment) overall and flew back home.

What these apps offer

Sengupta is not alone. As the pandemic broke out, many found themselves in similar situations  suddenly alone and cut off from social interactions. Add to that the paranoia around the virus, the prospect of losing their jobs and many other factors, and mental health took a resounding beating all through the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, it continues to do so even today.

It is in these times that apps like Remente offered interesting platforms, and some people that News18 spoke to were even willing to pay for these services. Apps such as Calm, Simple Habit, Insight Timer and Presently are some of these apps that offer specialised features to help people through these times. Interestingly, some people that News18 spoke to were even willing to pay for the services offered by these apps.

Each of these apps actually offer a similar set of features  meditation guidance, motivational speeches and journaling, behind different interfaces. Calm, for instance, relies on clever interface design to offer its users an audio-visual sensory experience that is designed to make users feel less panicky, remind them to take longer breaths, and gradually, take off the steam. The key that it goes for here is relatability, by using public faces. For instance, you have motivational and anti-anxiety talks on offer by Matthew McConaughey and LeBron James, among others.

Apps like Insight Timer, on the other hand, work with a recurrent theme of making you feel like youre part of a tightly knit community. You have fellow users commenting about the most helpful posts on the platform, tracks and talks that have helped others meditate, and which forms of meditation have helped best against emotions related to isolation, anxiety and so on. Remente, on the other hand, is designed like a goal-keeping app instead of being a social medium. Here, you can set daily agendas, and use it to make your way through phases, one day at a time.

Two interesting aspects of the latter are a setting that allows you to rate your own life, and also get Apples WatchOS-like concentric circles that let you view your lifes balance based on voluntary inputs by you. It seems quixotic and ridiculous to rate your life and see its balance in a PPT-like graph, but the end goal is apparent.

Remente also offers you a journal section, which you can use to pen down your thoughts. The virtual equivalent of a diary, journaling is a tested formula when it comes to tackling mental health issues, and this is something that most apps of this nature offer in one way or another

The app does not judge me

Whether any of these apps work for you or not can be very subjective. However, through exceptional times like now, having a virtual companion can be a better solution than not having one at all. Similar thoughts were echoed by Sunidhi Vyas (name changed upon request), a Mumbai-based advertisement professional, who has been a long term user of Presently, a journaling app.

I realised after a point that typing gives me more comfort than writing with a pen, which Im sure is an unpopular opinion. But, ever since I started journaling, it almost feels like a steady outlet to thoughts that Ive always felt are too sharp for my friends to deal with. Plus, to be absolutely honest, the app does not judge me, says Vyas. It is this very aspect of not being judged is what makes using these apps more encouraging.

Do they really work?

Dr Vishal Sawant, a veteran consulting psychiatrist based in Mumbai, gives a pragmatic view at using these apps. Given the present times, it is natural that people will look at alternate ways to get help for various reasons. Different people face mental health issues in different forms, so there isnt a single or consistent formula to offering a solution. Hence, it is very difficult to automate the process, he says.

It is this that Sawant believes will only help the apps be effective to a certain level. When you consult a professional psychiatrist, he or she can communicate with you and reciprocate to your feelings, which is the most important part of seeking professional help. Can it replace actual doctors? I dont think so at all. But, can it help patients in certain cases? Definitely so. These apps are designed to be companions at best, so it isnt a standalone solution but one that augments actual advice from doctors, Sawant sums up.

Think of these apps as the proverbial first step in a long, winding flight of stairs. What apps like Remente and Insight Timer are offering are ways to get over your inhibition towards seeking professional help. But often, the first step is a very important step to take.

Note: This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).
Kevin Winter / Getty Images

You know how it is.

Your moms the billionaire boss of the ViacomCBS media empire, having emerged victorious from a messy, Succession-style family feud.

Youve spent your life criss-crossing the globe on airplanes. Youre 35, and youre dating an 18-year old Israeli model.

You dont think the normal rules apply to you.

Perhaps it is not entirely surprising then that Brandon Korff, son of Shari Redstone and grandson of Sumner Redstone, thought he could get away with flouting Israels tedious quarantine regulations.

His pressing need to break the health and safety guidelines amid a deadly global pandemic? Hooking up with his beautiful young girlfriend, Yael Shelbia, an 18-year-old Instagram star who has appeared in campaigns for Kim Kardashians KKW Beauty makeup line.

No doubt Korff wasnt expecting to be caught, and, having been caught, it seems unlikely that the scion of one of Americas most prominent billionaire families would have ever imagined he would be thrown out of the country in disgrace.

But that is exactly the fate that befell Korff, who was unceremoniously ejected from Israel on Sunday night after he violated the terms of an exceptional permit, which allowed him into the country to visit and stay with his brother, who is serving with the Israeli army.

Korff promptly abandoned his brothers company in favor of the more compelling charms of his girlfriend.

A statement from the Israeli government said Korff violated the isolation orders from the moment he entered the country and met his Israeli partner, and stayed with her in the same apartment.

It said Korff, whose mother is the chairwoman of ViacomCBS, was ordered to leave the country immediately.

The Times of Israel said the official statement did not identify Korffs partner, but Korff is known to be dating Shelbia, a part-time model who is also doing compulsory military service.

Israel banned entry to non-citizens and non-residents in March in an effort to clamp down on the spread of the coronavirus. Israel requires all individuals entering the country to remain in quarantine for two weeks following their arrival.

Story continues

Unluckily, perhaps, for Korff, the countrys leaders had every reason to come down hard on him; last week, Israels health ministry came under fire after an Israeli billionaire businessman, Teddy Sagi, was granted an exemption from the isolation orders only to be spotted attending a party with Israeli celebrities.

Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein issued a statement late last week saying: No one is above the guidances, not even celebrities or the one percent. No one! The virus does not differentiate between celebrities and ordinary people.

And nor, it seems, does the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The transit cargo transportation from Azerbaijan through Turkey from January through May 2020 decreased by 53 percent compared to the same period of 2019, Trend reports on June 15 referring to Turkeys International Freight Forwarders Association (UND).

As many as 322 trucks transited cargo from Azerbaijan through Turkey from January through May 2020.

The transit cargo transportation from Azerbaijan through Turkey makes up 1.58 percent of the total volume of transit cargo transportation from January through May 2020.

Some 20,389 trucks transited cargo through Turkey from January through May 2020, which is 36 percent less compared to the same period of 2019.

As reported, 65,957 trucks transported cargo from foreign countries to Turkey from January through May 2020, which is 22 percent less than in the same period of 2019.

As many as 9,285 trucks transported cargo from foreign countries to Turkey in May 2020, which is 51 percent less than in May 2019.
Teachers, charities, education unions and backbench Tory MPs have all urged the government to extend its free school meal vouchers through the summer  warning some children will struggle to get enough to eat without them.

No 10 and the Department of Education have come under intense pressure to reverse the decision to end the scheme in July after Manchester United star Marcus Rashford appealed to Boris Johnson to make a U-turn and ensure families receive them during the holiday.

One mother of three told The Independent the 15-per-child a week vouchers were a lifesaver  and revealed she had been forced to skip some meals before she began receiving them six weeks ago.

Paula Sarri-Gonzalez, a 29-year-old single mother with three children under the age of 10, said she has just 4.30 left for food each month once universal credit has covered her rent and utility bills.

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The north Londoner is almost entirely dependent on 30-worth of vouchers available each week for her oldest two children, and one weekly food package of basics like bread and pasta dropped off by a local food bank.

It will be really, really hard for us this summer, she said. I was struggling a lot before I got the vouchers and they made a big difference. Its been a real lifesaver.

Its meant getting the things I need like nappies and toilet paper and making sure the kids get fresh fruit and vegetables.

She added: The vouchers actually make the difference between my kids having proper meals or not. At the moment Im not sure how well get by without the vouchers.

Ms Sarri-Gonzalez and her children are relying on vouchers and local food bank (Paula Sarri-Gonzalez)

Amie Smith and her partner Marcus have four children, aged two, six, 11 and 13, at home in south London. Mr Smith, a delivery driver on a zero-hours contract, has struggled to get the same amount of work during the pandemic.

The vouchers have been a really useful top-up to help us get enough shopping with the kids at home all the time, said Ms Smith. It does make things easier.

Its such an unsettling time at the moment, so for the government to take that little bit of help away is not going to leave us and a lot of families in a good situation over the summer.

Mother of four Amie Smith is urging the government to think again (Amie Smith)

Headteacher Jon Barr, headteacher at St Barnabas Church of England Primary School in Bristol, said the food bank run from the school was now supporting 30 local families with regular food packages.

The disappearance of the vouchers will make life very difficult for some parents when their budgets are so tight, he said. It wil push some people into even greater need. We will keep going over the summer, but cant always guarantee well have everything a family needs each week.

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, the countrys biggest teachers union, said the organisation fully supports Mr Rashfords demand for government to carry on providing the vouchers beyond July.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: Disadvantaged families are likely to have been hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis, and the very least we can do as a society is ensure that children from these backgrounds have something to eat.

There are signs of a backbench rebellion on the issue. Robert Halfon, the Tory chair of the Commons education select committee, said: Marcus Rashford is right. No family should be unable to afford to feed their kids this summer. If we are really going to be the workers' party, we have got to support those workers when they are in distress.

Tory MP Jason McCartney, another Tory MP, added: Its not about politics  Its about doing the right thing for young people around the country.

The food charity Sustain has written to education secretary Gavin Williamson threatening to take legal action against the government if ministers do not reverse the decision to end the scheme.

Hunger has no respect for term-time dates, said Kath Dalmeny, chief executive of Sustain. Taking legal action is a last resort, but the time has come. Hungry children in lockdown cannot march to parliament to demand their rights, so this is why were speaking up.

Marcus Rashford is pressuring the government to perform a U-turn on the vouchers

On Monday Mr Johnsons official spokesman confirmed the voucher scheme would still be ending when the term ends next month, but said the prime minister would respond to Rashfords letter on the issue as soon as he can.

Despite the rejection, the England star tweeted: We arent beaten yet.

The spokesman also said that the government was giving 63m to local authorities to help all those struggling to afford food due to coronavirus.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: Free schools meals are ordinarily term time only, and the national voucher scheme will not run during the summer holidays.

Thousands of children will also receive additional support through our holiday activities and food programme, which offers activities and free meals throughout the summer holidays, the spokesperson added.

The Independent is encouraging readers to help groups supplying food to those in need during the pandemic as part of our Help the Hungry campaign  find out how you can help here. Follow this link to donate to our campaign in London, in partnership with the Evening Standard.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Despite weekend shutdown, the State Capital recorded its second highest single-day spike of Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officials said 16 new positive cases, including a local who works in a private hospital, were reported in the Capital in the last 24 hours taking the COVID-19 tally of the city to 122. The highest 24-hour spike of 18 cases was reported in the City two months back on April 5.

Three persons, all from a family at Shree Vihar in Patia, having link with a positive case, and a 72-year-old man and 71-year-old woman from Jaydev Vihar, having travel history to USA, were tested positive for the virus. Similarly, two persons from a family in Sastri Nagar with travel history to Kolkata, a 22-year-old youth from Dumduma Phase-I having travel history to Pune and a 34-year-old male from Kalinga Nagar, having travel history to Oman, were tested positive in the City.

A 60-year-old woman from Unit-3 Masjid Colony, whose relative has returned from Kolkata, has been tested positive. Besides, four others from Satya Nagar, Jadupur, Nayapalli Sabar Sahi, and Rasulgarh Netaji Vihar having travel history to Delhi, Chennai and Gurgaon also tested Covid-19 positive. A 25-year-old man from Kapileswar Vihar of Palasuni with local travel history to Bhadrak was also tested positive for coronavirus.

BMC officials said the 32-year-old employee of the hospital, who tested positive for the virus, has no travel history. The health department and civic body officials, who are carrying out contact tracing, are yet to find the source of infection in the case.

"We will collect swab samples of all family members of the patient as well as six persons from the hospital who have come in contact with him directly. His immediate neighbours and secondary contacts have been put under quarantine," an official from the BMC said.

He said that primary and secondary contacts and neighbours of other 15 patients have also been quarantined and further contact tracing is in progress.

After detection of the new cases, the number of active cases in the City has also jumped to 60. Meanwhile, a COVID-19 patient in Salia Sahi, who was detected on June 4, has recovered on Sunday. Active surveillance in other city slums is going on.
Iran Mulls Legal Action In Desperate Attempt To Release Frozen Funds In South Korea

Radio Farda June 14, 2020

Iran says it may take legal action to free billions of dollars of its oil money frozen in South Korea's banks due to U.S. sanctions.

In one of the latest developments in the saga to get some of its frozen assets released, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has ordered Central Bank Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati to take "firm measures" including legal action against South Korea "to prevent the repetition of this behavior by other countries," official news agency IRNA quoted part of Rouhani's order on June 14.

On Friday June 12, Hossein Tanhaee, the chairman of Iran and South Korea's joint chamber of commerce told Borna news agency in Tehran that Iran's frozen assets in South Korea were between $6.5 billion to $9 billion.

Tanhaee added that not only Korean banks refuse to release Iran's money, some of them have also demanded commission and maintenance fees for Iran's accounts.

He added that during the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the South Korean government agreed to pay $50 million to Iran to purchase food and medicine but Seoul later broke its promise and refused to pay the sum.

Earlier, Central bank Governor Hemmati had said that Iran might take international legal action against Seoul if Korea refuses to repatriate Iran's oil money.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Hemmati reiterated that South Korea refuses to repatriate the funds for the oil it has imported from Iran even for U.S. purchases of food and medicine, allowed by U.S. sanction rules. He complained that Iran has imported $500,000 worth of medicine from South Korea after two years of negotiations.

Korean officials say they will send another $2 million dollars' worth of medical supplies in June based on an agreement with U.S. government that allows the shipment of humanitarian aid to Iran.

An IRNA commentary published on Sunday June 14 says Rouhani has criticized South Korea for "following the United States anti-humanitarian policies," adding that Seoul's prevention of Iran's access to its oil money is "unacceptable."

Following the 2015 nuclear deal which ended the economic sanctions against Iran, South Korea expanded its trade ties with Tehran and became a major customer for Iran's oil. In return, Iran boosted its import of Korean products after a 2016 agreement between the two countries.

Using racist language about the appearance of Koreans, the commentary featured by IRNA criticized Seoul for not respecting its agreement with Iran but it did not mention the U.S. sanctions that have restricted Iran's transactions with the international banking system.

However, it mentioned that Korean companies that were represented in Iran after the JCPOA, left Tehran as soon as President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran.

The commentary added that after two years, there is still no will in Seoul to repay its debt to Iran. In the meantime, Koreans have said that they have been continuing consultations with U.S. officials about Iranian assets in Korea.

The IRNA commentary says Korean officials have implicitly said that Korea's strategic ties with the United States supporting South Korea against nuclear North Korea prevents them from paying their debts to Iran.

According to IRNA, Iran initially suggested that South Korea can repay its debt by exporting industrial machinery and later asked for medical supplies and medicine in return for the oil money, but Korea has held the money in two Korean banks and its officials say they are waiting for a go ahead from U.S. officials to release the assets.

Tehran calls the Korean medical supplies it has received "minimal". However, neither the IRNA commentary, nor President Rouhani or his Central Bank Governor are sure what they or Korea can do to end the deadlock.

In a clear sign of desperation, the commentary says Seoul has two choices: To continue the current situation or to play a more constructive role. But it does not say how.

In the meantime, during the first quarter of 2020, South Korea has exported $61 million worth of goods to Iran. The figure for the similar period last year was $282 million. During the same period, Iran's exports to South Korea usually exceeding two billion dollars have dropped to less than $4 million.

Source: https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-mulls- legal-action-in-desperate-attempt-to-release-frozen- funds-in-south-korea/30670202.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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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Madrid, Spain  Mon, June 15, 2020 09:01 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeb6745 2 World Spain,EU,European-Union,border-areas,reopening,reopening-plan,coronavirus,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-lockdown-easing,pandemic Free

Spain, one of the world's leading tourist destinations, will next Sunday re-establish free travel with fellow EU countries, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced.

The land border with Portugal will however remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic.

Madrid had previously planned to restart full EU travel on July 1 but decided to lift "border checks with all member countries on June 21," Sanchez said in a televised speech on Sunday.

The new date coincides with the lifting of the emergency Spain clamped on the country from mid-March to fight COVID-19 as fatalities soared.

Spain has recorded more than 27,00 deaths in the pandemic, one of the highest tolls around the world.

But by Monday, more than 70 percent of Spain's 47 million population will be in the final stage of a phased rollback of the lockdown that should finish by June 21.

The European Commission has recommended that the 27 EU members fully reopen their frontiers with each other on June 15 and many countries are planning to do so.

Italy reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Madrid has declared the virus under control but Sanchez alluded to fears that opening the borders could provoke a new surge, saying, "It's a critical moment but we are prepared".

Travellers who arrived in Spain after May 15 and had to go into quarantine will see the end of their period in isolation on June 21, Sanchez added.
The North Atlantic Alliance is awaiting the adoption of five fundamental laws to deepen cooperation with Ukraine.

"There are five basic laws: the law on parliamentary control over security and defense sector (bill No. 1204), amendments to the legislation on the Security Service of Ukraine (bill No. 3196), the law on intelligence (bill No.2412-d), the law on defense procurement (bill No.2398-d), and the law on the state secret which is being elaborated still," Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna said in an interview with the Yevropeyska Pravda online media outlet.

She added that the law on the state secret occupied a special place even among those important bills as it concerned the transformation not even of institutions, but of thinking.

"The fact is that most of the documents concerning state secrets are inherited from Soviet times. And I, as the Vice Prime Minister now and a civil servant before, watch with great admiration the implementation of the instructions dated back the end of the Soviet era," Stefanishyna said.

If it wasnt for Euro-Atlantic mobilization, these changes could be discussed for a long time, the official added.

"Instead, we are talking about the bills that are already [registered] in the Parliament," she said.

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Bloomsday tomorrow is named for the day James Joyce met Nora Barnacle, the decisive personal influence in his life. But Joyceans should perhaps mark another day as a key influence: the day he began his Jesuit education, as a boarder at Clongowes Wood in 1888, when he was six-and-a-half years old.

From that tender age, until he was 20, Joyce was constantly under the influence of Jesuit educators - with a brief interlude at the Christian Brothers' O'Connell Schools. In later life he told his friend in Trieste, Italo Svevo, that rather than alluding to him as a Catholic, "to get the correct contour on me, you ought to allude to me as a Jesuit". The Jesuit influence remained with Joyce all his life.

In his fame as an author, JJ was not - understandably for the time - immediately claimed by his erstwhile educators. Ulysses, published in 1922, was banned in America as obscene and seized at the port of Folkestone in England for similar reasons (As every literary geek knows, paradoxically it was never banned in Ireland). Visitors to Clongowes were advised to "breathe not his name", and when Joyce died in 1941, neither Clongowes nor his subsequent school, Belvedere, ran an obituary in the school magazines that usually honoured old boys.

Clongowes is identified with Joyce since it is so vividly evoked in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but Father Fergus O'Donoghue SJ, former editor of the publication Studies, thinks that Belvedere was more significant in Joyce's life: "Clongowes is more glamorous, but Belvedere had a much greater influence on Joyce."

Despite the reduced circumstances of the Joyce family - his father had no steady job and drank more than was wise - JJ's three younger brothers also attended Belvedere. Fr O'Donoghue notes that "they were given breakfast every day" because the Jesuits were aware of the straitened circumstances of home life.

James was a brilliant pupil. He won prizes and exhibitions from early on - Belvedere was gratified when, on two separate occasions in all-Ireland exams, he surpassed the star pupil at Belfast's elite (and Protestant!) Royal Academical Institution.

Initially, Joyce was both a bright boy and a good boy. Bruce Bradley SJ, the author of the acclaimed James Joyce's Schooldays, describes how he was elected Prefect of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary - effectively head boy. There were some hopes - and JJ entertained the idea himself - of him becoming a priest.

However, from about the age of 16, he began moving away from his childhood faith, finding a new identity as "dissident and rebel". After Belvedere, he spent four more years under the influence of the Jesuits at University College Dublin, which was then Jesuit-run.

After he and Nora eloped to continental Europe, he "left the Catholic Church, hating it most fervently", writes Bruce Bradley. He described Jesuits as "black lice" to his brother Stanislaus. As we know, JJ and Nora led a peripatetic life - in Trieste, Paris, Zurich - and, like his father before him, he was constantly short of money and always moving accommodation.

Was his Jesuit education set aside when he became an apostate? On the contrary: it imbued the very fundamentals of his work as a writer.

Kevin Sullivan, the Irish-American author of Joyce Among the Jesuits, claims that without that background in Clongowes and Belvedere, Joyce would never have become the great writer that he was.

"The Irish Jesuits left on Joyce a psychological, moral, religious, intellectual and even social impress which... explains the kind of person he was (and) helps to explain the kind of work he produced."

Even his rebellion "was an acknowledgement of their power and influence over him, a reluctant homage which disobedience must always pay to authority".

Joyce, as he admitted to Svevo, became a kind of artistic Jesuit - drawing on the Ignatian habit of self-discipline and focus, both in his work and his life. The "AMDG" (Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: "To God's greater glory") which he wrote on school copybooks was alchemised into an unremitting dedication to his life as a writer, despite hardships.

And JJ's life had many hardships: no fixed abode, trying to earn money teaching while needing to write, gradually going blind and struggling with the serious mental illness of his daughter, Lucia. His "fortitude and endurance" were an inheritance from his Jesuit training.

Time often mellows and, in his later years, he expressed gratitude for his Jesuit education and admiration for his educators.

Likewise, the Jesuit educators came to realise what a pearl they had formed, and at both Belvedere and Clongowes his portrait now hangs with pride.

When James Joyce died, Nora thought it apt to give him a secular funeral - although she had drifted back to faith - and the Zurich authorities wrote "Keine Religion" (no religion) on the official form. But, notes Fergus O'Donoghue, "that is officially XXXed over and replaced with 'Katholisch'".
French President Emmanuel Macron on June 14 said that he was accelerating the country's exit from the lockdown while highlighting how France needed to be more self-reliant. France's economy plunged into recession in the first quarter of the year due to the pandemic with hundreds of people being sacked by global companies.

Cafes to fully open

Making a television address to the country, the French Leader announced that all restaurants and cafes would be allowed to re-open from June 15. In addition, visitors from all European Union nations would also be allowed to inside the country, a move to give respite to the worst affected hospitality industry. Talking about his 500 billion euro aid to keep people in jobs and business afloat, he said that the cost of it would not be passed to the taxpayers.

Read: France Wants Answers From Macron Over Virus, Jobs And Racism

Read: France's Face-mask Production Goes Overboard; 20 Million Units Unsold After Covid

According to the latest tally by John Hopkins University, France has reported 1,94,153 cases and 29,410 fatalities as of now. Meanwhile, Macron asserted that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the flaws and fragility of Frances and more broadly Europes over-reliance in global supply chains for not only automobiles and smartphones but also pharmaceuticals. Addressing the issue, Macron said that the only answer to it was to build a "stronger economic model, to work and produce more" and not rely on others.

COVID-19 has led to the worst economic recession in France since World War 2. It has also forced Macron to suspend his economic drive to accelerate economic growth, deregulate the economy and create jobs. According to experts, the countrys economy is expected to shrink by 11 per cent in 2020. In his address, Macron also revealed that he would lay out a detailed blueprint for the final two years of his mandate in July.

Read: France 'stands Firm' Against Racism, But Won't 'wipe Away' History: Prez Macron

Read: France's Face-mask Production Goes Overboard; 20 Million Units Unsold After Covid
Jun 15, 2020 13:54 (IST)

How to check results for CGBSE Class 10 and CGBSE Class 12 exam

Step 1. Go to the official portal of the Chhattisgarh Board of Secondary Education cgbse.nic.in

Step 2. On the homepage, go to information centre

Step 3. Select the title that reads Class 10 and Class 12 results

Step 4. A new page will open. Enter your roll number and captcha

Step 5. Results will appear, download
DENVER, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) announced that Level 3 Financing Inc., its indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary ("Level 3 Financing"), completed its previously announced private offering of $1.2 billion aggregate principal amount of its unsecured 4.250% Senior Notes due 2028 (the "2028 Notes").

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 $360 million aggregate principal amount of Level 3 Financing's outstanding 5.625% Senior Notes due 2023 (the "2023 Notes").

The 2028 Notes are unsubordinated, unsecured obligations of Level 3 Financing, and are guaranteed on an unsecured basis by Level 3 Financing's direct parent, Level 3 Parent, LLC. The 2028 Notes were privately placed without being registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

In connection with completing the offering, Level 3 Financing issued notices to redeem (i) all $840 million aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 2022 Notes and (ii) $360 million aggregate principal amount of the $500 million aggregate principal amount of its outstanding 2023 Notes. Pursuant to these notices, on July 15, 2020, all such notes will be redeemed at par plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the redemption date. Additional information regarding the redemption of the 2022 Notes and 2023 Notes is available from Bank of New York Mellon. This press release does not constitute a notice of redemption with respect to any of the 2022 Notes or the 2023 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," "will," 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 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; and other risks referenced from time to time in the filings of CenturyLink 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.

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(Photo from (l) to (r)): duncan c on Flickr via CC/ Sylvia L. on Yelp

For more coverage, visit our complete coronavirus section here.

Months of the shelter-in-place order has pushed another San Francisco restaurant to permanent closure.

Hayes Valley's Dobbs Ferry closed its doors last week after months of financial struggle in addition to the termination of its lease, Hoodline confirmed.

"We worked with our landlord to renegotiate the lease, but we were unsuccessful with that," co-owner Lee Ann Frahm told Hoodline. (Frahm owns the restaurant with her husband Steve Izzo.)

According to Hoodline, Dobbs Ferry hadnt brought in revenue since March 31, even as it had been open for takeout service. By April 1, the restaurant announced on Facebook that it would temporarily close while it figured out the best way to weather this situation.

ALSO: One of SF's few German restaurants closes after 21 years

But more than a month later, Dobbs Ferry didnt reopen.

Well its been almost two months since the Shelter In Place started and the longer this continues, the harder it seems to feel optimistic about much of anything, let alone how bars and restaurants are going to look when we get to the other side of this pandemic, Dobbs Ferry wrote on Facebook in a May 12 post. However, the need to believe and the need to be hopeful is so important because we will get to the other side of this and we will be stronger because of it.

On Friday, many San Francisco restaurants began to offer outdoor dining, but Dobbs Ferry owners didnt believe the move would have worked in their favor, stating that outdoor dining is a very different business and that different equipment would have been required.

ALSO: Here are all the San Francisco restaurants reopening outdoor patio seating

Dobbs Ferry was first opened in 2011 by original owners Scott Broccoli and Danny Sterling, natives of Dobbs Ferry, a town in Westchester County in New York. A year later the duo opened Dobbs Bar, an adjacent bar connected to Dobbs Ferry through a common kitchen.

In 2018 Frahm and Izzo, former employees of Waterbar, became the new owners of Dobbs Ferry.

The future of the restaurant is uncertain, but the potential of a new outpost could be in the works. Frahm and Izzo told Hoodline they are working with a broker to find a new space, but also shared an interest in opening a shop with a wine bar attached.

Dobbs Ferry is located at 409 Gough St. in San Francisco.

Susana Guerrero is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: Susana.Guerrero@sfgate.com | Twitter: @SusyGuerrero3

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External Article

15 June 2020

While the global travel sector continues to withstand the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, some markets have started to show signs of recovery. In China, where the virus first broke out, domestic airline passenger levels have grown steadily, and now sit at 50 percent of precrisis levels. Hotel occupancy rates have also improved since the depths of the crisis, and are now back to 60 percent of last year's levels. Domestic travel is now positioned to accelerate as summer approaches, with segments that drive demand during this period, such as families, reporting an increased desire to travel in the near term. In this article we explore some key trends in travel, and how these have changed from the early stages of COVID-19 recovery, in April.

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Last month, we published early insights of traveler sentiment gathered directly from consumers in China. To better understand how quickly sentiment is changing in China, which was among the first to recover from the crisis, we conducted the same traveler sentiment survey in mid-May, a month after we collected the initial findings. While many trends from the April findings persisted through May, the latest survey data indicates some changes in the profile of travelers expecting to make a trip over the summer season. The data shows a return to previous trends, with families and retirees showing an interest in getting back into the market.

To assess how traveler responses have changed over time, we used the same methodology as the previous survey. Respondents to our survey took a domestic or international leisure trip within the past year, and were based in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xian, Xiamen, and Wuhan. We collected data from May 13 to May 19, and compared it with the results of our April traveler sentiment survey.

What trends have remained stable?

Four trends highlighted in April are consistent with the responses to our survey in May, which gives us confidence that these trends will persist through the summer and early fall. First, domestic destinations remain a top choice due to outbound travel restrictions, with 52 percent of respondents preferring this choice versus 55 percent in April. Second, trips to scenic outdoor spots, "foodie" tours, and trips to family attractions constitute the most popular types of trips, as people continue to avoid crowded tourist spots. Thirdly, we anticipate fewer leisure travel groups as people plan to travel mainly with immediate family members. Finally, guided group tours remain less attractive to travelers than self-guided and self-driven trips, compared with pre-COVID-19 traveler patterns.
Protesters take part in the March On Georgia, organised by NAACP, on Monday in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. - Getty

The widow of Rayshard Brooks, a black man who was shot twice in the back by Atlanta police, has called for the officers to be jailed as protesters marched on Georgias Capitol.

Tomika Miller, Mr Brooks' wife, said the policemen should be in prison: If it was my husband who shot them, he would be in jail. He would be doing a life sentence, she said. They need to be put away.

One of the two officers has been fired, while the other has been put on administrative leave. Prosecutors will decide by midweek whether to bring charges.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta's mayor, said on Monday she would be signing administrative orders to reform the city's "use of force" policies.

The orders would require officers to use de-escalation techniques to avoid physical force and for them to intercede if another officer is using unreasonable force. "It is clear that we do not have another day, another minute, another hour to waste," she said during a press conference to address growing outrage after the killing of Mr Brooks.

Mr Brooks' death on Friday has reignited protests in Atlanta after days of worldwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality prompted by the death of George Floyd, an African American, in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

Rayshard Brooks' widow Tomika Miller said on Monday that it would take a 'long time' for their family to heal.

Ms Miller on Monday urged people protesting in her late husband's name to keep it peaceful after a restaurant at the scene of his arrest was burned down.

Mr Brooks' fatal encounter with the police came after officers responded to a call that he had fallen asleep in his car in a Wendy's drive-through lane.

Caught on video, the encounter seemed friendly at first but when an officer moved to arrest him, Mr Brooks, 27, struggled with him and another officer before breaking away across the parking lot with a police Taser in his hand.

Mr Brooks turns as he runs and appears to point the stun gun back at the pursuing officers, both white, before one of them fires his gun.

Story continues

An autopsy released by the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office on Sunday recorded Mr Brooks death as a homicide, dying from blood loss and organ injuries caused by two gunshot wounds to his back.

A lawyer representing the Brooks' family says there was no need for the police to use deadly force when he was only armed with a Taser.

If the officer had been a bit more empathetic and a bit less scared, we probably wouldn't have a dead client, L Chris Stewart said.

Ms Miller said it had been their eight-year-old daughter Blessings birthday the day her father was killed. He was due to take her skating to celebrate later that day.

People walk past the site of a Wendy's restaurant set ablaze overnight on June 14, 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. Rayshard Brooks, 27, was shot and killed yesterday by police - Getty

I feel like I'm a statistic. I'm stuck being a single black parent. They took something from me, the mother-of-four said during an emotional family press conference on Monday.

The trust we have with the police is broken, said Tiara Brooks, Mr Brooks cousin. The only way to heal these wounds is through a conviction and a drastic change within the police department.

How many more protests will it take to make sure the next victim isnt your cousin, your uncle, your friend or your companion? We are tired.
All crew from a livestock ship that has been stranded at a West Australian port for more than three weeks have been cleared of COVID-19.

The Al Kuwait docked at Fremantle on May 22, with 21 of its 48 multinational crew subsequently testing positive for the virus.

They were isolated in hotels, with one case deteriorating and requiring hospitalisation.

The Al Kuwait docked in Fremantle.

But the final six cases recovered overnight, and the vessel will be loaded with 50,000 sheep before its departure deadline on Wednesday.
By IANS

NEW DELHI: Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Monday said he had written to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to seek his intervention to ensure cash refunds for air tickets cancelled due to the nationwide lockdown.

"I have written to the Minister to direct airlines' operators to provide cash refunds for cancelled air tickets within a specific time frame. Not refunding the money for cancelled flights is an abuse of consumers' rights," the senior Congress leader said.

Chavan pointed out in his letter that Indian fliers had to cancel their air tickets after the announcement of the nationwide lockdown from March 24-25 midnight and were therefore entitled to cash refunds but the airlines were instead handing out vouchers for future travels, which is "illegal".

"According the Consumer Protection Act, the contract between a consumer and an airline gives a right to the former to get a cash refund," Chavan said. He demanded that the Minister direct the airlines accordingly since many customers were not accepting vouchers.

The Supreme Court on Friday had asked the Centre to take a stand on the refund by airlines for tickets cancelled due to the lockdown, and suggested that the airline operators must extend the credit period for two years instead of offered one year.

The bench asked the Centre and the airlines to sit together and devise modalities on the ways to refund the passengers.

The petitioner had cited a Civil Aviation Ministry's April 16 office memorandum, which directed all airline operators to refund the full amount collected for all tickets booked during the first phase of the lockdown period, from March 25 to April 14, for domestic and international air travel.
A Syracuse University alumna has created a new coronavirus dashboard in Florida, which shows more Covid-19 cases than the state is officially reporting.

Rebekah Jones, a former Florida Department of Health data official who was fired in May after she accused the state of manipulating data to drum up support for the plan to reopen, has launched a new website called floridacovidaction.com. The site, paid for entirely by donations, shows 83,270 positive cases of Covid-19 in Florida and 3,022 deaths since March 1, while the DOH website reports 75,568 positives and 2,931 deaths as of Monday.

Florida deserves a community based dashboard that doesnt hide or fudge numbers, Jones website says.

According to CNN, Jones says the states numbers are lower because "cases are not currently created for those who receive positive antibody test results, and so DOH excludes them from that total. We show the total number of people who have definitive lab results showing they have or have had Covid-19 regardless of the type of test. Both sites include residents and non-residents, and are both based on testing data reported to the Florida Department of Health.

Jones, who earned a dual bachelors degree in geography and journalism at SU in 2012, designed both websites and managed Floridas online Covid-19 dashboard until she was removed on May 5. Weeks earlier, White House coronavirus task force leader Dr. Deborah Birx had singled out Floridas dashboard as an example of data that will help states reopen from shutdowns.

Jones tells NPR that another big difference between the two websites is that her new one includes a map showing which Florida counties are ready for the next phase of reopening, based on federal guidelines. Her data shows just two of the states 67 counties meet that criteria, and said state officials have purposefully hid that information.

When I went to show them what the report card would say for each county, among other things, they asked me to delete the report card because it showed that no counties, pretty much, were ready for reopening, Jones said. And they didnt want to draw attention to that.

Rebekah Jones, a 2012 Syracuse University graduate, designed Florida's coronavirus dashboard. She said she was fired for refusing to manipulate data to help the state reopen. (Provided photo via Tribune News Service)TNS

She also told NPR she was asked to alter the data to lower the states coronavirus positivity rating from 18% to 10% to help support reopening businesses, which it began on May 4. When she refused, she was reassigned and ultimately fired on May 18.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed Jones role in managing the states coronavirus dashboard and said she was fired because of insubordination. He also said she was facing criminal charges of cyberstalking and online sexual harassment; a man told Tallahassee Police that he was a victim of revenge porn in June 2019 and said Jones posted nude pictures of him online.

Concerns about the accuracy of coronavirus data were also raised in other states last month. Virginia, Texas and Vermont said they combined the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection, to show higher testing numbers but inaccurate pictures of how Covid-19 is spreading. Georgia briefly used a graph showing cases declining to support an early reopening, but the data was arranged in descending order, not chronological order, to make it look like numbers were trending downward.

As of Monday, there are 2.1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. and more than 115,000 deaths. All 50 states have at least partially reopened, despite Covid-19 cases being on the rise in at least 21 states  including Florida.

MORE ON CORONAVIRUS

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Complete coronavirus coverage on syracuse.com
UPPER PROVIDENCE  Council is continuing the conditional use hearing on Clarks Manor at the monthly legislative meeting, desirous of moving it at a steady pace. The second session focused on traffic issues around the property at 2978 N. Providence Road, as well as the programs serving a maximum of eight adult residents.

The first session had concluded testimony of applicant Charles Widger, who is creating the group residence in the model of Wild Acre in Belmont, Mass. Widger had testified his son, Clark, has resided with success at the facility, but the family would like to have Clark closer to home in the area.

The June 11 meeting continued with the applicants witnesses which included traffic engineer Frank Tavani; Wild Acre owner John Sciretta, who will be a consultant; project engineer Gus Houtmann; and landscape architect Bernard Panzak.

Each witness was questioned by applicants counsel Dennis McAndrews or co-counsel Nick Caniglia, followed by attorney Abby Sacunas, a Pineview Drive resident representing herself and about two dozen others living nearby who are a party to the hearing.

Tavani explained the category would be congregate care facility according to ITE (Institute of Traffic Engineers). ITE, founded in 1930, is the transportation industry leader in collecting data and setting standards. Tavani estimated trips of 16 per day, about the same as a family home use based on the number of vehicles of staff and residents, although prior testimony stated that residents would not have cars, and some transit was expected by outside services.

Tavani said the driveway would be repositioned to be opposite Springton Lake Road, the preferred road engineering rather than offset access points in the same area. This also improves left and right sight distances. He conducted a field investigation and did not see any potentially correctible road conditions, and had not changed his opinion when subsequently seeing an accident report provided by township police and submitted by those contesting the application.

Arguably, traffic appears to be a main concern of homeowners, and Sacunas continued questioning Tavani . She suggested substantial increasing to the numbers by citing additional staff; other workers; van and outside transportation services; visitors; and other routine deliveries. Using these examples, Sacunas said present conditions of traffic at the property could hypothetically be much worse.

Wild Acre founder and owner Sciretta described the milieu model on which Clarks Manor is expected to operate under the direction of Elwyn. The admissions process is thorough for candidate and family. Residents are described as having chronic but not acute mental illness, but have no history of violence or court involvement. They have daily activities-in, out, or around the home; individual types of therapy; and live in a staff and peer supportive environment, Sciretta said.

The relationship with neighbors is always a concern, he continued. When we come in, people know who we are, and that we are vetted. The house tends to enhance a neighborhood.

While Sciretta stressed the nature of the growth and goal-oriented program, Sacunas returned to staffing and the amount of traffic being generated since the walking to amenities was unlikely.

Sacunas asked if residents would have family visitors. Attorney McAndrews objected, citing the Fair Housing Act. You wouldnt ask that of any other family, he said.

Houtmann described existing conditions of the house and 3.6 acre property. Although this is a conditional use hearing, his information was complete and veered into what is generally required for land development. In touching on tree replacement and fencing, Sacunas later asked if the entrance would be gated. While it wasnt indicated, Houtmann said he would have to research codes for a gate.

Similar issues were discussed with Panzak who described the overall property as highly vegetated. He detailed trees and other vegetation which might be removed, as well as desirable species for replacement. Also reviewed in Panzaks report was the solid screen fencing, requested by neighbors, and estate fencing elsewhere on the perimeter.

Council President Beth Glassman had set 9:30 to 10 p.m. to end, having started at 6:30. With participants checking their schedules, the hearing will continue at the same time July 9, again in virtual form. Glassman said council will deal with regular township business first and then open the hearing. However, the board clearly wants to move the hearing along to complete with one or likely more sessions.
Wind Chill, Stoker, Rogue.

Enjoy magical monsters, theological satire and breathtaking psychological thrills as TopFilmTip brings you the best films on TV for Monday, 15 June.

Some films may require a Sky subscription.

Xenozoologist and misfit New-Yorkers corral Obscure escaped creatures in numinous adventurous fun Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 6:25pm ITV2

Shunned minority battle for recognition and equality to proclaim "We're here to stay" in super-powered coming-out allegory X-Men 2 6:25pm Film 4

Obnoxious student Emily Blunt and car sharing stranger endure chilling night of ghostly assault when stranded and snowbound on Christmas Eve in frostbitten horror Wind Chill 9:00pm Horror Channel

Quick-drawing snake-hunter rescues missionaries from mortar slaughtering Burmese kidnappers in lumpy, chunky, body-blasting fun Rambo 9:00pm Sony Movies

Broken and beleaguered remnants of failed heroes find final purpose protecting weaponised waif in head-stabbing heart-breaker Logan 9:00pm Film4

Amidst a seemly idyllic community of police men's families, a sheriff must investigate dirty cops. Sly Stallone stars in Cop Land 10:00pm ITV4

Girl shattered by father's death becomes uncle's infatuation in visually arresting, aurally immersive and elegantly abrasive Stoker 11:45pm Film4

Brain-munching zombie brainiac, sexually-slandered vampire and virginal human put aside differences to battle alien onslaught in Werner Herzog teen-comedy curio Freaks of Nature 00:40am Horror Channel

After texting humanitys death-dates, pugnacious gods defiant daughter seeks apostles in theological satire The Brand New Testament 1:45am Film4

Stranded in backwater, Northern Territories tour group are stalked by colossal killer croc in character led creature feature Rogue 2:30am Horror Channel

Everything new on streaming in June:

Netflix UK: Junes new releases

NOW TV and Sky Cinema: Junes new releases

Amazon Prime Video UK: June's new releases

Disney+ UK: June's new releases
Checkpoint at the administrative border with Crimea State Border Guard Service of Ukraine

In Ukraine, all checkpoints at the administrative border with Crimea temporarily occupied by Russia were opened, as the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine reported.

Starting from June 14, to fulfill the demands of the Regulation of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the work of all checkpoints at the border with Crimea temporarily occupied by Russia was completely restored, the message said.

The State Border Guard Service noted that no queues or delays were observed on the first day of the work of the checkpoints. 54 people were processed to the occupied territory of Ukraine. The occupants refused to pass 12 people stating there were no probable causes. 108 people were admitted from occupied Crimea.

All of them will stay in self-isolation.

On June 12, the government of Ukraine made a decision to restore the work of all checkpoints at the administrative border with Crimea occupied by Russia. The citizens who cross the border should stay in observation; however, they still have to use facial masks and gloves.

As we reported, Ukraine opened all checkpoints for air traffic through the state border on June 15.
Ahmedabad: A 4.4 magnitude struck near Gujarat's Rajkot at 12:57 pm on Monday according to the National Center for Seismology (NCS), the government's nodal agency for monitoring seismic activity in the country. The epicentre was 83 km northwest of Rajkot.

This is the third quake in 24 hours. On Sunday, Rajkot felt the tremors around 8:13 pm, following which an aftershock of 3.1 magnitude was felt six minutes later.

"Entire Saurashtra and north Gujarat regions, including Ahmedabad, felt the impact of the quake. The aftershock was of a lower intensity. There is no report of any major damage to life and property from any area after the quake," Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel was quoted by news agency PTI.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had held telephone conversations with the District Collectors of Kutch, Rajkot and Patan, regions where the quake was felt and from where tremors were reported. His office said officials had been told to report damages and activate disaster management cells if needed.
In June 2020, rumors about the efficacy of wearing face masks during the coronavirus pandemic made rounds online, although it is a topic that has been cleared by health experts and debunked by numerous news sites.

Is there no need to wear a mask?

In March 2020, the show "60 Minutes" did an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the leading members of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force.

The interview is going around in social media again, and in the said interview, Dr. Fauci said that there is no need for people in the United States to wear a mask.

However, the clip is old and Dr. Fauci was just echoing what a lot of people have argued at that time, including the World Health Organization or WHO, the U.S Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC.

Dr. Fauci's views and the views of the said organizations have changed as the cases of COVID-19 in the country rises and more information about the disease became available.

In the clip that aired in March 2020, Dr. Fauci said that the Americans should not be walking around with masks, and they should think of healthcare providers who are needing face masks and those who are ill.

In April 2020, the CDC recommended that everyone should wear cloth masks whenever they are out in public to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Also Read: Fact Check: Is the COVID-19 Pandemic a False Alarm?

The recommendations of the CDC has changed because of numerous studies found that even those without coronavirus symptoms, but may still have the disease, could still transmit the virus through close interactions with other people, especially through coughing, sneezing and speaking.

Cloth face masks should be worn in public settings where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, including in pharmacies and grocery stores.

The truth

Dr. Fauci clarified in an interview that he did in June that wearing masks are actually helpful, but in order to flatten the curve, wearing masks and physical distancing are important. The CDC also clarified that wearing masks should not be a substitute for social distancing.

A study that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed the infection rate trends in New York and Italy before and after the wearing of face masks were made mandatory.

The researchers wrote that both areas showed that the infection rates flatten after face masks were made mandatory.

According to the calculations of the researchers, wearing face masks helped prevent 78,000 infections in Italy and 66,000 infections in New York City. The researchers also wrote that wearing of face masks in public is one of the most effective ways to prevent transmission of the virus, and it is also an easy and inexpensive practice.

This should also be partnered with quarantine, social distancing and contact tracing. These steps and precautions can help stop the spread of the coronavirus, before the vaccine is developed.

As for the United States, the country has hit 2,170,042 coronavirus cases as of June 2020, with more than 117,951 deaths and 870,640 recovered cases.

Related Article: Ohio Lawmaker Ask If Colored People Get COVID-19 Because They Don't Wash Hands Properly

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The UKs minister for loneliness - described as the worlds first such minister - on Monday asked people to consider writing to the lonely amid the raging coronavirus pandemic.

The portfolio was created by former Prime Minister Theresa May, when she appointed the first such minister in January 2018. The current minister is Diana Barran, a junior minister in the department of gigital, media, culture and sport.

Writing letters might be a slightly forgotten art but its more important than ever to connect with people, and putting pen to paper is an excellent way of making sure our friends, family and neighbours know were thinking about them, said Barran.

The last few months have brought loneliness to the forefront of our minds. We all have a role in being kind and looking out for each other, and as some of us begin to regain some normality we cannot forget those who may need to stay at home for longer and could be at risk of feeling lonely, she added.

The initiative is part of Loneliness Awareness Week (June 15-19). Letters in the week will have a Lets Talk Loneliness postmark. According to Royal Mail, nearly three quarters of people (74%) feel that writing letters has positive mental health benefits.

Posting a letter to a friend who is still shielding. Please let me know about the letters you have sent or received during #lockdown and send another during #lonelinessawarenessweek #letstalkloneliness  pic.twitter.com/BytWkCRPJ5  Diana Barran #StayAlert (@dianabarran) June 13, 2020

David Gold of Royal Mail said: Handwritten correspondence is a very powerful way of connecting and showing someone close that you care; particularly during these difficult and sometimes isolating times.

A government spokesperson said after creating the first minister for loneliness, the worlds first government loneliness strategy was published in October 2018, containing 60 commitments from nine departments.

The first government fund dedicated to reducing loneliness is worth 11.5 million, supporting 126 projects across England. A #LetsTalkLoneliness campaign was also launched in June 2019 to help raise awareness and tackle stigma.

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House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Rep. Adam Schiff are endorsing Rep. Eliot Engel, the pair of Democratic heavyweights offering their full support as the embattled New Yorker fights to hold on to the seat hes represented for more than three decades.

Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, and Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have considerable influence within Democratic politics. Both men praised Engel for his longtime service to his Bronx district and tenure as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in statements exclusively obtained by POLITICO on Sunday.

Let me be blunt: We need leaders in Congress with proven records of standing up for civil and human rights, said Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress. Eliot Engel is not new to the fight for justice and equality  he's been in the fight his entire life, and I have worked with him on these issues for almost three decades.

Clyburn's support comes as Democrats prepare to move a police reform bill through the House this month, sweeping legislation thats been offered in response to the national outcry over the police killing of George Floyd. Engel is an original sponsor of the police reform bill.

Schiff, the lead prosecutor in President Donald Trumps impeachment trial, said Engels leadership as Foreign Affairs Committee chairman was invaluable during Democrats investigation into whether the president abused the power of his office.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn of S.C., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill Thursday, April 30, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Ever since Trump took office, Eliot has helped expose the abuses of his administration, and hold this lawless president accountable, Schiff continued. Eliot is a dedicated and talented public servant who knows how to get things done for the people of his district, while working diligently to protect our democracy. He has my full support for his reelection.

Their endorsements come one day after another prominent lawmaker, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), announced he was endorsing Engel as well. Jeffries served alongside Schiff as an impeachment manager.

Story continues

But its unclear whether the cadre of powerful Democrats will be enough to save Engel, who faces off against middle school principal Jamaal Bowman on June 23.

The support of Clyburn and Jeffries, two senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus, is especially notable after the CBCs political arm came under fire for supporting Engel, who is white, over Bowman, who is black.

Senior members of the CBC have defended the decision, citing Engels longtime tenure, representing his district for 31 years. The CBC is a fierce defender of seniority within the House Democratic Caucus and has in the past endorsed white incumbents over black primary challengers.

During the South Carolina primary several months ago, I endorsed our party's presumptive nominee, Joe Biden for President, because of his long and distinguished record of standing with us, Clyburn said in a statement. The same goes for Eliot Engel.

But Bowman has racked up his own string of high-profile endorsements, including from progressive leaders like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose district borders Engels. The New York Times  Engels hometown newspaper  endorsed Bowman over the weekend, another blow to the longtime lawmaker.

And Engel has had multiple missteps in recent weeks, drawing unwanted attention to himself and giving his opponent plenty of fodder in the run-up to the primary.

Engel came under fire last month after the Atlantic reported he was hunkered down in his Washington-area home as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged his district  particularly New Rochelle, one of the hardest-hit areas in the country and ground zero for the outbreak in New York.

Engel has since traveled back to his district. But two weeks ago, Engel triggered another round of bad headlines when he was caught on a hot mic as he pressed to speak at a press conference in his district. After being rebuffed by Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr., Engel tried again, saying, If I didn't have a primary, I wouldnt care.

Jeffries defended Engel in his endorsement over the weekend, telling the New York Daily News that an inartful statement shouldnt undo Engels three decades of committed compassionate on-the-ground service to the community."

The race has become something of a proxy war between the Democratic establishment  most of which is lined up firmly behind Engel  and insurgents like Ocasio-Cortez and Justice Democrats, a progressive group that is backing Bowman.

Ocasio-Cortez shot to fame after unseating Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), then the House Democratic Caucus chairman, in a stunning upset in 2018. Ocasio-Cortez was also backed by Justice Democrats, which has drawn the ire of senior Democratic lawmakers for its practice of targeting longtime incumbents.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who could face his own progressive challenger in 2022, declined to endorse Engel earlier this week. But most Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have publicly supported Engel in recent weeks.

Chairman Engel is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He also has unique privilege, which is unique and it wouldnt happen again ... he is also not only the chairman of Foreign Affairs, he is a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Pelosi told reporters last week.

That wouldnt happen again  thats a lot of power, Pelosi added.


President Donald Trump, on Thursday, signed an executive order placing restrictions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the courts decision to investigate allegations of human rights violations against Americas troops in Afghanistan.

The order states that individuals who have directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any United States personnel without the consent of the United States or have attempted the same against a U.S. ally without that countrys consent may be subject to sanctions.

This development, which has been condemned by prominent global institutions and individuals, appears a contravention of Americas avowed stance against impunity and human rights abuses.

The ICC, in its response, has also described the step as an attempt by Mr Trumps administration to strong-arm the international body out of an investigation into potential war crimes by US military and intelligence officials.

The international tribunal called the action the latest in a series of unprecedented attacks on the ICC that constitute an escalation and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Courts judicial proceedings.

ICCs probe

According to the international court, the office of its president received numerous communications on the situation in Afghanistan over allegations of human rights abuses including but not limited to murder, severe deprivation of physical liberty, cruel treatment, carrying out of executions without proper judicial authority, and intentional attacks against civilians.

These allegations, which were levelled against both pro-government and anti-government forces in the armed conflict rocking Afghanistan, are said to fall under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, which formed the legal pillar for the establishment of the international prosecution body.

America had sent troops to Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the country and the alleged refusal of the then Afghanistans Taliban government to extradite the late leader of Al-Qaeda organisation, Osama bin Laden, for prosecution in the U.S.

A narrative by the ICC on its website over the planned investigation, states in part; On 20 November 2017, the Prosecutor had requested authorisation from Pre-Trial Judges to initiate an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the armed conflict in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan since 1 May 2003, as well as regarding similar crimes related to the armed conflict in Afghanistan allegedly committed in the territory of other States Parties to the Rome Statute since 1 July 2002.

The court noted that the request was, however, in April, 2019, rejected by the pre-trial judges; the decision was appealed by the Gambia-born prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

Thus on March 5, 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court decided unanimously to authorise the Prosecutor to commence an investigation into alleged crimes under the jurisdiction of the Court in relation to the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The court said since Afghanistan had deposited its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute on February 10, 2003, it is empowered to exercise its jurisdiction over crimes listed in the Statute committed on the territory of Afghanistan or by its nationals from May 1, 2003 onwards.

Trump kicks

Earlier in 2019, the administration of Mr Trump revoked the U.S. entry visa of Ms Bensouda as immediate response to her probe plan, warning that other staff of the court could suffer a similar fate if they get involved in such probes.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, had said: If youre responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of US personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, you should not assume that you will still have or get a visa, or that you will be permitted to enter the United States, adding that; Were prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions if the ICC does not change its course.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Therefore, on Thursday, after signing the executive order, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said in a statement that; The International Criminal Courts actions are an attack on the rights of the American people and threaten to infringe upon our national sovereignty, adding that; As the Presidents Executive Order makes clear, the United States will continue to use any means necessary to protect our citizens and our allies from unjust prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Similarly, Mr Pompeo, while speaking at the State Department, said; We cannot and we will not stand by as our people are threatened by a kangaroo court.

He added that the economic sanctions indicated in the order, would be determined on a case-by-case basis. He also said the visa restrictions would include family members of the targeted officials.

It gives us no joy to punish them, but we cannot allow ICC officials and their families to come to the United States to shop, travel, and otherwise enjoy American freedoms as these same officials seek to prosecute the defender of those very freedoms, Mr Pompeo said.

CNN also quoted Americas Defence Secretary, Mark Esper, as saying that the administration expected information about alleged misconduct by our people to be turned over to US authorities so that we can take the appropriate action as we have consistently done so in the past.

Ultimately, our justice system ensures that our people are held to account under the United States Constitution, not the International Criminal Court or other overreaching intergovernmental bodies, Mr Esper said.

Double standard

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President Trumps action to block the investigation by the ICC has been seen by many as a contrast to Americas perceived meddlesomeness in the affairs of other nations of the world.

The step is said to ridicule the countrys acclaimed quest for equity, justice, and fairness outside its shores.

For instance, in the past 44 years, America has been consistent with its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices annual publication, which reviews and details human rights situations in more than 200 nations across the continents.

In his foreword to the 2019 edition, which was released on March 11, the Secretary of State wrote that the publication is aimed at demonstrating observance of, and respect for internationally recognised human rights and fundamental freedoms.

By publishing these reports, we reaffirm the United States longstanding commitment to advancing human rights and fundamental freedoms, Mr Pompeo wrote.

The report, which focuses on more countries across all the continents, noted that in the year under review, significant human rights abuses such as arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention, allegedly committed by both government and non-state actors, were recorded in Nigeria.

It, however, noted that in spite of logistic challenges recorded during the countrys 2019 general election, the return of President Muhammadu Buhari was in tandem with the observations of many independent observers.

The report added that Nigeria also recorded; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; unlawful infringement on citizens privacy rights; criminal libel; violence against and unjustified arrests of journalists; substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association in particular for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons and religious minorities; widespread and pervasive corruption; crimes involving violence targeting LGBTI persons; criminalisation of same-sex sexual conduct between adults; and forced and bonded labour.

The U.S. position on the matter has, therefore, been said by many to depict the countrys double standard.

Earlier in November, 2019, Mr Trump had also pardoned two Army officers accused of war crimes, one of whom was still set to stand trial.

He was also reported to have restored the rank of a Navy SEAL convicted of posing with a dead Islamic State captive.

Were undeterred ICC

In a statement issued soon after Mr Trumps decision was taken, the ICC expressed profound regret at the announcement of further threats and coercive actions, including financial measures, against the Court and its officials, made earlier today by the Government of the United States.

The statement, which was signed by the courts head of public affairs unit, Fadi El Abdallah, further said; These attacks constitute an escalation and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Courts judicial proceedings, adding that; They are announced with the declared aim of influencing the actions of ICC officials in the context of the Courts independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings.

An attack on the ICC also represents an attack against the interests of victims of atrocity crimes, for many of whom the Court represents the last hope for justice.

The ICC stands firmly by its staff and officials and remains unwavering in its commitment to discharging, independently and impartially, the mandate bestowed upon it by the Rome Statute and the States that are party to it, the statement said.

In a separate statement, the president of the Assembly of States Parties, the courts management oversight and legislative organ, O-Gon Kwon, said Mr Trumps action undermines the worlds common endeavor to fight impunity and to ensure accountability for mass atrocities.

I deeply regret measures targeting Court officials, staff and their families, Kwon said, adding that; I will convene an extraordinary meeting of the Bureau of the Assembly next week to consider how to renew our unwavering commitment to the Court.

Americas action a tragedy  Don

A professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Akoka, David Aworawo, described the U.S. action as one of the tragedies of international policies.

Mr Aworawo said the lack of catastrophic consequences for powerful countries disregard for international laws and norms has emboldened America to sanction ICC officials.

The don said, Since 1648 when the modern international system evolved, the international actors have struggled to compel powerful states to be committed to international laws which is regarded as a major factor in maintaining international stability. Unfortunately, the weak mechanism for enforcement of international law has created the avenue for powerful states like the United States to break international law with impunity.

That is what has happened in the case of what Trump has done regarding some of the actions Americas troop in Afghanistan took. It is common knowledge that some of these troops who have gone for international assignments have been excessive in their use of force and committed great infractions as far as protection of human rights are concerned. The American President is aware of it and he quickly did that so that the American troops will not be made to pay for what they have done in Afghanistan.

Mr Aworawo, however, said the less powerful nations cannot afford to toe such path of disregard for international laws, saying it could lead to anarchy and that the weaker nations will continue to suffer the consequences.

Apart from providing them the moral right to condemn such actions by the powerful nations, when less powerful countries obey all international protocols and laws, they are shielded from the anarchy they may break out, the lecturer said.
As the Rotary Club of Peterborough has been unable to have regular lunch meetings since mid-March due to COVID-19, the members decided to donate their unspent lunch funds to Kawartha Foodshare (KFS).

For many years the Rotary Club has provided a regular team of volunteers to work in the KFS warehouse.

Kawartha Food Share is a true community agency, operating with only two full time and two part time employees; however they are aided by over 100 volunteers each week to help acquire, sort and distribute food donations to member agencies in the city and county. Some funding comes from a small social service grant through the City of Peterborough. All other funds are raised through grant writing, fundraising and community support.

On average KFS spends $100,000 - $120,000 on food purchasing each year. With their purchasing power, they are able to purchase over $600,000.00 worth of food items for their 37 member agencies and 50 student nutrition programs.

For every dollar donated, KFS can purchase up to $6 worth of food through bulk purchasing and discounts offered through Feed Ontario and Food Banks Canada. Thus, the donation from the Rotary Club will be turned into over $30,000 worth of food for the Peterborough community.

Rotary Club of Peterborough
Staying Cautious & Staying Prepared With You Stocks Trading Account

Over the past 30+ days, our researchers have been warning our friends and followers to stay cautious and to consider the risks within this market trend. Certainly, weve received some emails and contact from some people suggesting we should become more active, but weve also received many emails from members that feel weve kept them safely removed from the volatility and risks associated with this wild price rotation during these uncertain times. Additionally, weve been able to grow their accounts at the same time.

One of the reasons weve been able to accomplish this is because our research team identified a major supercycle event that was likely near August 2019 and continued to warn our members of this potential event well ahead of the projected event date. We also issued a Black Swan warning on February 21, 2020 warning all of our members to get into cash and to prepare for a very big price event.

Throughout this massive price rotation, weve been protected from risk by properly hedging our investments into Metals, Bonds, and other sectors all of which were profitable trades. Our goal is to attempt to find the Best Asset Now known as our BAN strategy to keep our traders and investor safely positioned. We try to avoid taking unwanted risks and wait for the markets to set up a proper trading trigger before executing a new trade.

In todays article, we wanted to share a bit of longer-term research highlighting why we believe the current price rally may present some very real risk for certain traders and why we continue to be cautious in our actions. There is plenty of time to wait for the markets to setup better trade triggers  we just cant fall into the trap of being greedy and feeling like we have to trade all the time. The reality of the markets is that more than 55% to 65% of the time we are waiting for trade setups.

SPY  S&P500 ETF WEEKLY CHART

This first chart is the SPY Weekly chart highlighting the price channels that are currently driving many facets of the current price rotation.

The shorter-term price channel, from 2015~16 till now, is suggesting the current price has rallied back to levels near the upper 1x Std. Deviation range. This area is typically where we would expect the price to stall or set up some type of price retracement from recent peaks. Applying the strategy to a longer-term price channel, we can see the price is already well above the 1x Std. Deviation channel and nearing the 2x level. Youll hear many people telling you this stock market rally is forward-looking and attempting to price in a future recovery of the US stock market and US economy.

We believe this current rally is more about speculation with the US and foreign investors piling into the US Fed based rally as the best investment on the planet right now.. and we believe we are starting to see signs that this rally is close to reaching a critical peak.

CUSTOM US STOCK MARKET INDEX WEEKLY CHART

This next chart is our Custom US Stock Market index using our Fibonacci Price Amplitude Arcs and a traditional Fibonacci Retracement. Our Price Amplitude Arcs attempt to measure Fibonacci as it related to previous price trends and attempts to identify frequency and resonance (think Nikola Tesla) in relation to past and future price target and inflection points. Currently, the Arc near the February peak is suggesting price is nearing a 0.764% Arc level  which is a fairly narrow price area near the original peak price level. These inner price levels dont often come back into play after price moves dramatically away from them  in most cases. The fact that the SPY price level has recovered so quickly over time and is now targeting these inner arc levels suggests that volatility could become excessive again.

One other technical trigger our researchers want to point out is that price has reached the 0.8535% Fibonacci retracement level recently. This is not a typical Fibonacci retracement level for many people. There are important levels between 0.75% and 0.97% that are often very important when price sets up in a near Double Top or Bottom pattern. These levels become important because they often reflect a failure level for price.

Currently, we are still warning of excessive risks and the very strong potential for a renewed spike in volatility (VIX). But until then we do not plan to step in front of this market when its rising.

VIX  VOLATILITY INDEX WEEKLY CHART

This VIX Weekly chart highlights the Flag formation that is setting up as the US stock market rallies back towards new all-time highs. A tightening and narrowing FLAG formation is setting up in the VIX that suggests a breakout will occur fairly soon  likely with 7 to 10+ days.

Take a look at this short video we did showing what the technicals are starting to warn is coming.

Our objective is to help you navigate the risks and opportunities within the market to help you secure better and more consistent profits over time. Think of this as a longer-term battle, not a short-term race. Currently, there are a number of ETFs and market sectors that are on our radar (Utilities, Precious Metals, Miners, Consumer Staples, Technology, Biotech, and others).

Our objective is to identify the next big move and to time the trade entry so that we eliminate as much risk as possible for our members. Right now, our research team believes there is a very high degree of risk in the markets for the reasons we have illustrated above.

There is plenty of time to find and execute great trades and we dont mind waiting for the best opportunities with our accounts sitting in cash  protected from any and all risk.

The reason for todays article is to help you understand what our research and trading team are seeing in the markets  the potential for new volatility and new risk factors to suddenly burst into the markets. We are cautiously waiting for the markets to complete this setup and watching our trade setups for confirmation. Please consider this research article a suggestion to properly protect your open long positions and to properly hedge your portfolio accordingly. If we are right, a spike in volatility may only be about 7 to 10 days away.

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 Investor and Swing Trading Newsletters 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, and we closed out another winning trade last Friday.

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.




Hammerson, the owner of the Birmingham Bullring shopping centre, says its chairman David Tyler has declared his intention to leave the financially stressed company later in the year.

He will be succeeded by Robert Noel, the former chief executive of real estate firm Land Securities, sometime before the start of October.

The announcement comes over a fortnight after the shopping centre owner stated that CEO David Atkins would remain at the helm until springtime next year.

Hammerson owns Birmingham's Bullring, one of Britain's most well-known shopping centres

Noel said that he is 'delighted' to be joining the company as non-executive chair despite acknowledging the 'unprecedented upheaval' that the retail property industry was experiencing.

Hammerson, which also owns the Brent Cross shopping centre, has also said that Desmond de Beer of Lighthouse Capital, which owns a 15 per cent stake in Hammerson, has become a non-executive director at the firm.

Gwyn Burr, the senior independent director at Hammerson, said: 'Rob brings with him vast experience of the property industry which will help accelerate the Board's ambitions to put the company back onto a stable footing.

'We are also very pleased to welcome Des, whose experience in retail property and international perspective will make a valuable contribution to the future of Hammerson.'

Shopping centre chains such as Hammerson and Intu Properties, which manages Manchester's Trafford Centre, have seen their financial situation worsen since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the end of March, Hammerson stated it had received under 40 per cent of its expected total rent payments for the second quarter of the financial year and that many of its tenants had asked for rent deferrals and waivers.

Robert Noel is the former chief executive of real estate firm Land Securities

Meanwhile, Intu Properties warned in the middle of May that it would default on its debts due to the damage the coronavirus was causing them and was seeking standstill agreements with lenders.

Mr Tyler had been chair for seven years, overseeing a business which extended quickly but at a cost.

He was also chairman of Sainsbury's during its aborted deal with Asda, which was blocked by competition authorities but not until the supermarkets spent several million pounds in legal fees and time consumed on the deal.

Hammerson had been trying to sell off some of its properties but was hit last month by the collapse of a 400million deal for seven retail parks to private equity firm Orion Capital Managers.

Shopping centres reopened their non-essential stores in England today for the first time since the government imposed a lockdown towards the end of March

The suitors preferred to take a 21million deposit hit and walk away, rather than stump up the remaining 380million for the deal.

Shopping centres reopened their non-essential stores in England today for the first time since the government imposed a lockdown towards the end of March.

Customers have consequently flocked in large numbers to clothing and electronics retailers, among others, to buy goods, some of which are selling at discounted prices of up to 70 per cent.

However, strict social distancing and safety guidelines have been instituted to limit the number of people that can enter shops at one time.

Primark is situating some staff at the entrance to each store, who are allowing consumers to only enter one-by-one.

It has also put stickers on the floor to remind people to abide by a two-metre social distancing rule.

Many businesses have complained thought that the two-metre rule is excessive.

The pub and restaurant industry, in particular, have warned that unless the requirement is relaxed, many establishments would be unable to operate and could close.

Shares in Hammerson were down 1.5 per cent this morning to 109.1p.
People enjoy the warm weather on the beach in Barcelona (Emilio Morenatti/AP)

No matter how many times you visit Paris, this extraordinary city still has the capacity to surprise and captivate

Spain will reopen its borders to visitors from Europes passport-free Schengen travel area on June 21, bringing forward the original date by 10 days, the countrys prime minister has announced.

Spain will also drop its requirement for people arriving from abroad to stay in quarantine, either at home or in a hotel, for 14 days on arrival, Pedro Sanchez said.

In an exception, the border between Spain and Portugal will remain closed to non-essential crossings until July 1.

Spains government had already announced that on June 21 it would end the nations state of emergency to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

From then on, Spaniards will be able to move freely around the country without restrictions, but face masks will remain mandatory on public transport and in crowded spaces.

On Monday, Spains Balearic Islands will test their reopening strategy by accepting the first flights from Germany of tourists who will be exempt from a quarantine. The islands plan to welcome up to 10,900 Germans during the trial.

More than 27,000 Spaniards have died in the countrys pandemic.

France is also opening its borders to all arrivals from the EU and countries in the Schengen zone on Monday, June 15.

The French government has urged fellow EU members to co-ordinate their border rules, and is sticking to calendar recommendations from the European Commission last week.

People arriving from inside Europe will not need to undergo quarantine, but France will apply different rules to visitors from Spain and Britain because they established different reopening schedules.

France will gradually allow visitors from outside Europe starting July 1, based on the virus situation in countries of origin.

Other countries planning reopening to European visitors without quarantine on Monday and Tuesday, include Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Croatia.

Italy reopened on June 3, while Greece reopens to international flights on July 1.

Earlier, China reported its highest daily total of new coronavirus cases in two months, while infections in South Korea also rose, showing how the disease can come back as restrictions on business and travel are lifted.

Expand Close Labourers build a new quarantine centre in Gauhati, India (Anupam Nath/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Labourers build a new quarantine centre in Gauhati, India (Anupam Nath/AP)

Meanwhile, Egypt reported its biggest daily increase on Saturday and infections were rising in some US states as President Donald Trump pushed for businesses to reopen despite warnings by public health experts.

China had 57 new confirmed cases in the 24 hours to midnight on Saturday, the National Health Commission reported. That was the highest since mid-April and included 36 in the capital, Beijing, a city of 20 million people.

Beijings cases were all linked to its biggest wholesale food market, which was shut down on Saturday, the official China News Service reported, citing the citys disease control agency. It said 27 worked there and nine had direct or indirect exposure to it.

The Xinfadi market was closed after 50 people tested positive for the virus in the Chinese capitals first confirmed cases for 50 days.

The world is seeing more than 100,000 newly confirmed cases every day, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

China, where the pandemic began in December, and other countries that suffered early on including South Korea, Italy and Spain have seen numbers of new infections decline. Brazil, India, the United States and other countries are seeing large increases.

Expand Close Paramilitary police stand guard near the Xinfadi wholesale food market in Beijing (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Paramilitary police stand guard near the Xinfadi wholesale food market in Beijing (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

China responded to the outbreak with the worlds most intensive anti-disease controls, isolating cities with some 60 million people and shutting down much of its economy in steps that later were imitated by some other governments.

The ruling Communist party eased most limits on business and travel after declaring victory over the disease in March. Some curbs still are in place, including a ban on most foreign travellers arriving in the country.

On Saturday, authorities in Beijing locked down 11 residential communities near the Xinfadi market. White fencing sealed off a road leading to apartment buildings and drivers were required to show identification to enter the area.

South Koreas government reported 34 more coronavirus cases, adding to an upward trend in infections.

The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said 30 of the new cases were in the greater Seoul area, where half of the countrys 51 million people live. New cases have been linked to nightlife establishments, church services, a large-scale e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door sellers.

Expand Close An employee wearing a face mask cleans the widows of his shoe store in Seoul, South Korea (Ahn Young-joon/AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp An employee wearing a face mask cleans the widows of his shoe store in Seoul, South Korea (Ahn Young-joon/AP)

The Egyptian Health Ministry announced 1,677 new confirmed cases. Egypt is the Arab worlds most populous country and has its highest coronavirus death toll. The country has reported 1,484 deaths and 42,980 confirmed cases.

In the US, the number of new cases in the south-western state of Arizona has risen to more than 1,000 per day from fewer than 400 when the states shutdown was lifted in mid-May, according to analysis by the Associated Press.

Governor Doug Ducey has not ordered Arizona residents to wear masks in public despite warnings by health experts outside the government.

Elsewhere, bar owners in New Orleans were preparing to reopen. San Francisco restaurants resumed outdoor seating on Friday and the California government allowed hotels, zoos, museums and aquariums to reopen.

The states of Utah and Oregon suspended further reopening of their economies due to a spike in cases.

The latest Chinese cases raised the mainlands total to 83,132, with 4,634 deaths, according to the Health Commission. South Korea has reported 12,085 cases and 277 deaths.

Also on Sunday, Chinas air regulator announced that China Southern Airlines was required to suspend flights between Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the southern city of Guangzhou for four weeks after 17 passengers on Thursdays flight tested positive for the virus.

Beijing allows each airline to make one flight per week on each route. Under rules announced on June 4, a route will be suspended for one week if five passengers on a flight test positive and four weeks if the number rises to 10.

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Tradition defines Texas A&M University. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this principle. But what happens when institutional traditions symbolize white supremacy?

We, faculty of Latinx and Mexican American studies, Africana studies and Multicultural Education, join our students and colleagues in their call to remove the statue of Texas Ranger and Confederate Gen. Lawrence Sullivan Ross at Texas A&M University, College Station. The statue of Ross commemorates a man whose life, beliefs, actions and principles stand in stark contrast to the institution that Texas A&M University strives to be.

When Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, the states Declaration of Causes stated that the preservation of slavery, the subjugation of African Americans and the supremacy of white Texans motivated this call to arms. Ross saw these principles as upstanding and led Texas and the Confederacy in its fight to uphold equal civil rights for all white men and maintain the servitude of the African race.

Ross served in the Texas Rangers as a captain. The relatively unregulated purview of the Rangers led to anti-black, anti-Mexican and anti-native violence throughout the state. Archival research from scholars such as Monica Munoz Martinez and William Carrigan illustrates that the Rangers did more than instill order; they instilled terror.

The Texas Rangers claimed land for white Texans at the cost of human lives they believed mattered less than their own. Ross, who was known as an Indian fighter, ordered the murder of native peoples who sought to escape Ranger raids on their sovereign lands. And, in 1901, the San Antonio Daily Express reported that Ranger presence in the city made Mexicans live in terror and fear, as Rangers harassed, abused and lynched Tejanos who lived in the region for generations. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, the Rangers did not need hoods because the violence they committed was done with the endorsement and protection of the state. Between 1910 and 1920, the Rangers followed direct orders from the governor and killed several hundred Mexican-origin Texans. Scholars, across the state and nation, have gone to great lengths to document this history through the Refusing to Forget project.

In 1919, at the height of Ranger-led violence, Texas A&M University erected a statue to Ross. Our call to remove the statue is not an effort to remake history in exchange for politically correct fiction, but a call to recognize what the statue intended to represent in its historical moment. Jim Grossman, former president of the American Historical Association, reminds us monuments and statues do not explain history; the act of creating a statue carries a political purpose and agenda. When that statue represents a hateful past, it falls upon the university community to correct it.

It is impossible to divorce who Ross was, and what he stood for, from the statue itself. Ross grew Texas A&M University during his term as president at a time when higher education was segregated and intended to benefit white men only. The legacy of unequal treatment and discrimination lives on at Texas A&M and is validated by the veneration of men like Ross.

Texas A&M is a much different university than it was during Ross reign. According to the institutions student demographic report, nearly 40 percent of the student body are students of color and roughly 24 percent are Latinx. This ratio places Texas A&M on the verge of becoming the first state flagship in Texas to reach the status of a Hispanic Serving Institution.

It is time to stop treating students of color as inconsequential minorities that the university uses to celebrate diversity without doing the work needed to welcome them, accept them, support them, invest in them and empower them.

In the wake of the violent killings of thousands of black lives, it is time to remove Ross statue and follow the lead of national institutions that are boldly reckoning with their histories. NASCAR banned Confederate flags, the University of Alabama removed Confederate plaques and UT-Austin athletes staged the #WeAreOne strike for racial justice. Texas A&M must face its sullen history. Only then can enacting policies  such as the building of Latinx and black student centers, cluster hires of black historians and scholars and the development of consequences for hateful acts and rhetoric  change campus climate and create a university that reflects what Texas A&M is today.

We cannot bring back the lives weve lost to racial injustice, but we can create new traditions.

Hernandez, McNamara and Hinojosa are faculty in the history department at Texas A&M. Plankey-Videla is faculty in sociology and Collins in English. This statement represents Latino/a and Mexican American studies; Africana studies; and the Multicultural Education Program at Texas A&M University.
THESE days, grocery shopping looks a little different than usual.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

THESE days, grocery shopping looks a little different than usual.

People wait patiently outside the store in long, spaced-out, lineups. Direction arrows show customers where to move next. Customers stand at least six feet apart in the checkout lines. Cashiers carefully disinfect their terminals before the next customer arrives.

These measures are designed to prevent people from coming into close contact with each other. Whether we like it or not, physical distancing is the way of life in the COVID-19 era.

However, as important as physical distancing is in flattening the COVID-19 curve, lets not assume it will look the same in all settings. This is particularly true for physical distancing in schools.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault has reopened schools outside Montreal. Some in Montreal are also reopening, for special-needs students.

Legault also said it wont be business as usual in schools. To enforce physical distancing, class size will be capped at 15 students, and school buses will transport children at half-capacity.

No doubt, Legault thinks smaller classes and emptier buses will make it easier to keep students apart. Space desks six feet apart, put direction arrows in the hallways, and make students stand in long, spaced-out, lineups before entering the building. By doing these things, Legault thinks COVID-19 wont spread in schools.

But more than 40 staff and students tested positive for COVID-19 in the first two weeks after elementary schools outside the Montreal area opened on May 11, the education department has confirmed.

Obviously, Legault has never been a teacher. Otherwise, he would know that schools arent grocery stores, and students are not mature adults. Its absurd to think that physical distancing in schools will look like it does in grocery stores.

How do you think it will look in the media when a principal expels a kindergarten child for hugging friends she hasnt seen for months?

Anyone who thinks it is possible to keep students  particularly young students  six feet apart all day has little understanding of what children are like. Even if you space desks six feet apart, there is no way to prevent rambunctious students from coming into contact with each other. Close contact is what kids do.

With older students, some will comply with the distancing policy, but others will ignore the rules simply because they want to challenge school authority.

And, in high school, good luck keeping all the Romeos and Juliets away from each other.

Dont assume that a zero-tolerance approach to enforcement will work. In the past, draconian zero-tolerance policies have been disastrous because teachers and principals cant use their discretion when enforcing rules. How do you think it will look in the media when a principal expels a kindergarten child for hugging friends she hasnt seen for months?

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This doesnt mean that schools cannot take precautions. Of course they can  and they must be cautious. Schools can temporarily suspend large gatherings such as assemblies, concerts and sporting events. While not ideal, learning can proceed without these activities.

Also, it would be sensible to install hand sanitizers at the entrance doors and in classrooms. It would also make sense for teachers to remind students to regularly wash their hands. But it makes no sense to assume that all students will wash their hands multiple times a day.

When schools reopen, parents and teachers must be realistic about what physical distancing will actually look like in busy school buildings.

Above all, lets remember that schools are not grocery stores, and students are not adults.

Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

 Troy Media
Five days after a 37-year-old traders body was found hanging from a tree with his hands tied behind his back in outer Delhis Baprola Vihar, police on Monday said he had planned his murder to ensure his family got insurance money.

Three men, including one previously involved in a rape case, have been arrested while a minor boy has been apprehended for allegedly killing Gaurav Bansal, who ran a grocery store in east Delhis Karkardooma, deputy commissioner of police A Koan said.

Bansal had hired the minor boy for getting himself killed. The boy roped in his friend, Manoj Kumar Yadav, who in turn roped in Suraj and Sumit Kumar to execute the job. Bansal had paid money to the apprehended persons for getting himself murdered. They have revealed that Bansal had told them that his family will get the insurance money if they killed him, said Koan. Koan said Bansal had met the boy on social media.

Bansals family expressed shock over the polices claim.The police have not told us anything about this. It is difficult for us to believe that my brother-in-law got himself killed by a juvenile he had met on social media. Two days ago, the police had told us that they had caught four suspects but did not tell us about this planned murder story. We will contact the concerned police officers regarding this murder theory, said Bansals brother-in-law, Amit Kohli.

When asked how much money Bansal paid the alleged killers and how much insurance money his family might have got, Koan said, We have certain information about it but we cannot disclose it now as the probe is still in progress.

On June 9, Bansal went missing from his grocery store. His family lodged a missing complaint at the Anand Vihar police station the same night after he did not return home and his cellphone was found switched off. On June 10, around 8.30 am, Bansal was found hanging near a lake in Baprola Vihar, police said.

We registered a murder case since Bansals hands were tied behind his back. During the probe, we caught the first suspect, Suraj, on specific information. Suraj confessed to killing Bansal and revealed that he along with Manoj and Sumit were roped in by a minor boy, who was in contact with Bansal, said Koan.

He said the accused including the juvenile have been apprehended. The accused persons committed this act of murder by hanging Bansal near the drain. They revealed that they had received money for this act from Bansal, he added.

Police said that Sumit Kumar, 26, was previously arrested in a rape case and he earns his livelihood by stitching bags. Yadav, 21, is a vegetable vendor.

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Incredible aerial photos show over one hundred hippopotamuses cramming themselves into a single muddy waterhole in a rush to cool off under the African sun.

The large bodied mammals were seen making the most of a tiny pond in the otherwise dry Tanzania plains, where it hadn't rained for some time.

Making room for each other the hippos efficiently line the pool, wallowing side-by-side with their heads all facing towards the middle.

Wallowing in mud to keep the sun off over 100 hippopotamus made room for each other in the tiny pool in Arusha, Tanzania

Amateur photographer Martin Sanchez captured the images while on safari in the country's Arusha region, just 71 miles from Mount Kilimanjaro.

The 36-year-old graphic designer from New Jersey, USA, said: 'It was really something incredibly rare to see.

'I didn't count them all but I would probably say more than 100 hippos. They were very calm and relaxed and of course muddy.

Amateur photographer Martin Sanchez captured the images while on safari in the country's Arusha region, just 71 miles from Mount Kilimanjaro

The animals seem to be methodically placed, squeezing into the pool side-by-side with their heads facing towards the middle

Hippos sweat a red pigment sometimes called 'blood sweat' which is made of hipposudoric acid and acts as a natural sun block and an antimicrobial agent

'We were in an isolated region of Tanzania. It was a hot day in general and it hadn't rained for a while.

'As we were heading back to camp we noticed this small pond filled with hippos. The day was hot so it must've been the only area with enough water for them to cool down and I would say they were probably there throughout the entire day.

'I would like to think they were enjoying themselves as they had found a cooling zone for the day. It is almost like walking in the desert and all of a sudden you find water - I bet it becomes such a rewarding experience.'

Time for a bath! The relaxed hippos seem content as they pile in on top of each other in the cramped conditions

The animals are often seen submerged in water as they use mud and water to help thermoregulate themselves

As hippos have very little hair or fur to cover their bodies they cover themselves with mud to protect their skin from burning in the sun.

Bizarrely hippos also produce a bright red sweat, sometimes called 'blood sweat', which is named hipposudoric acid and acts as a natural sun block and an antimicrobial agent.

The animals also rely on the mud's cooling properties to thermoregulate as they have a small surface area to volume ratio compared to animals with less mass.
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA astronauts Chris Cassidy and Robert Behnken are scheduled to go outside the International Space Station (ISS) Friday, June 26, and Wednesday, July 1, for spacewalks to begin the replacement of batteries for one of the power channels on the orbiting laboratory.

NASA Television and the agency's website will broadcast the spacewalks live, along with a news briefing to discuss them.

The briefing will take place at 2 p.m. EDT Wednesday, June 24, at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Coverage of the spacewalks will begin at 6 a.m. on the day of each spacewalk. The spacewalks will begin at around 7:35 a.m., and will last as long as seven hours.

This will be a virtual event with no media present because of safety restrictions related to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Reporters who wish to participate by telephone must call Johnson's newsroom at 281-483-5111 to RSVP no later than 11 a.m. Monday, June 22. Those following the briefing on social media may ask questions using the hashtag #AskNASA.

Cassidy, the commander of Expedition 63, and Behnken, who joined the crew May 31 after arriving aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon with NASA astronaut Douglas Hurley on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 test flight, will depart the Quest airlock for both spacewalks. The briefing also will include an update about the Crew Dragon's mission to the orbital outpost.

The briefing participants are:

Kenneth Todd , ISS manager for integration and operations

, ISS manager for integration and operations Steve Stich , Commercial Crew Program manager

, Commercial Crew Program manager Allison Bolinger , ISS spacewalk flight director

, ISS spacewalk flight director Sandra Moore , ISS spacewalk officer

The spacewalking astronauts will replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries for one of two power channels on the far starboard truss (S6 Truss) of the station with new lithium-ion batteries that arrived to the station on a Japanese cargo ship last month. The battery replacement work is the culmination of power upgrade spacewalks that began in January 2017.

Cassidy will be extravehicular crew member 1 for both spacewalks, wearing the spacesuit with red stripes, while Behnken will be extravehicular crew member 2, wearing the spacesuit with no stripes. It will be the seventh and eighth spacewalks for each astronaut. The spacewalks will be the 228th and 229th in support of space station assembly, maintenance and upgrades.

For almost 20 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth that will enable long-duration human and robotic exploration into deep space. As a global endeavor, 239 people from 19 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 2,800 research investigations from researchers in 108 countries and areas.

For more information about the International Space Station, its research, and crew, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

SOURCE NASA

Related Links

http://www.nasa.gov


(Natural News) Canadians arent taking any chances when it comes to the pandemic, as more people report wearing masks to curb the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. A new survey by Leger and the nonprofit Association for Canadian Studies reveals that aside from heading off new infections, many fear that a second wave of infections may be as bad  or even worse  than the first one.

Among those who participated in the survey, over half responded that they had worn masks when grocery shopping, while 45 percent said that they had worn masks to go to a pharmacy. People also reported wearing masks to work, during walks, or when riding public transit.

Fifty-three percent of respondents said that masks should be required when riding public transit or entering confined spaces  an indication that Canadians are coming out of their homes and going back to work.

The survey also asked whether a second wave will hit Canada. Currently, the country has 98,958 confirmed cases and 8,064 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In response, 66 percent said they expect a second coronavirus wave to hit the country. Over a third of the respondents expect the second wave to be stronger than the first, while around 40 percent say that it will be just as strong. Despite their answers, more than half were comfortable to see restaurants, hotels and gyms reopen, as long as safety precautions are in place.

Canadians are being extremely prudent and careful about how they want us to go into sort of this exit strategy of Wave 1, probably because they fear Wave 2 is coming soon, explained Christian Borque, executive vice president at market research firm Leger. By no means is this over in Canadians minds  Maybe its just Canadians being Canadians, being careful about everything.

Nurses looking for a break

In Quebec, nurses and other health workers are pushing for time off this summer, as they anticipate a new surge of coronavirus infections in the fall. Health workers have staged a protest to appeal for their cause. Hospital workers waved placards that say messages like dead tired, in response to the challenges they face in Canadas hardest-hit province.

The province has 53,485 confirmed cases and 5,015 deaths, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins. The provincial government has asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to extend spring military deployment to support hard-hit nursing homes, where most deaths have taken place.

However, the request to take time off comes on the heels of a massive staffing crunch in the health sector. According to Quebec Premier Francois Legault, the province is in need of over 10,000 health workers, which he plans to recruit through a three-month paid training plan. (Related: Canada closes borders, rolls out aid as country scrambles to keep coronavirus cases down.)

In addition, Quebec Health Minister Danielle McCann announced plans to provide healthcare workers with a two-week vacation before a potential wave of new infections hits in the fall.

Its going to be very important that these people are well rested to return in the fall, to help us, she added.

Johanne Riendeau, president of a local nurses union in western Montreal, said that many in their ranks have seen their requests delayed because of coronavirus. Despite the new announcement, some health workers have yet to hear an answer to their vacation requests.

The nurses are burned out, Riendeau told the Epoch Times.

We are not machines. We need rest.

Learn more about the coronavirus outbreak at Pandemic.news.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com 1

Coronavirus.JHU.edu

TheEpochTimes.com 2
HCM City police said on June 13 that they had detained Le Huu Minh Tuan, a resident of central Quang Nam Province, for making, storing, spreading information, materials and items for the purpose of opposing the State

of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam under Article 117 of the Penal Code.

Pham Chi Dung was arrested for making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam.  Photo vov.vn

The investigation agency said the arrest was made on June 12 in connection with an investigation into Pham Chi Dung and accomplices.

The police also conducted a house search and seized many documents and material related to Le Huu Minh Tuan.

Last month, HCM City police also arrested Nguyen Tuong Thuy, 70, living in Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi, in connection with the Pham Chi Dung case.

HCM City police in November 2019 arrested Pham Chi Dung for making, storing, spreading information, materials and items for the purpose of opposing the State of Socialist Republic of Vietnam under Article 117 of the Penal Code.

According to the police, Dung has committed many serious and dangerous violations of the law, negatively impacting social security and order in the city.  VNS
The defense team says the judge's failure to read out the motivational part makes the ruling illegitimate.

A district court in Kyiv on Monday, June 15, handed down a ruling to select 60-day round-the-clock house arrest as a measure of restraint in the homicide case where the suspect is Odesa-based activist Serhiy Sternenko.

In 2018, in what he claims was a third attempt on his life, the activist stabbed one of the attackers in an "act of self-defense". The assailant eventually died of the injury sustained. Amid reports that both attackers were charged with "hooliganism", the case sparked public debate on the issue of self-defense boundaries.

Upon hearing the court ruling, Sternenko noted that he could be unable to follow it as the judge ordered that he stay on "house arrest" at the address of official registration, which is an actual military base in Odesa where he won't be allowed entry as he is not a military serviceman, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

This, Sternenko believes, could give the investigation grounds to claim he refuses to comply with the court ruling, only to further request that the court warrant custody remand, Ukrainian Pravda wrote.

The court put the said address in the ruling despite appeals on the part of defense team to change the address to that where the suspect currently resides, in Kyiv.

Also, the defense team says the judge's failure to read out the motivational part makes the ruling illegitimate.

Read alsoSternenko case hearing: law enforcers detain five at rally outside Kyiv courthouse (Updated)

A crowd has been rallying outside the courthouse throughout the day, demanding fair trial for Serhiy Sternenko. Earlier today, a clash erupted involving riot police and a number of protesters. Two law enforcers were suspended from service pending an investigation into the alleged use of excessive force against a detainee at the rally.

Tensions have risen at the site after protesters learned of the court judgment. They started hurling bottles at law enforcers cordoning off the courthouse, an UNIAN correspondent reported.

UNIAN memo: The SBU pressed homicide charges against Serhiy Sternenko, an Odesa activist and former leader of the Right Sector movement, over the death of Ivan Kuznetsov, a person identified as one of the attackers who assaulted him in 2018.

The assault was the third one over the course of the same year, all of which Sternenko claimed were attempts on his life. At the same time, as earlier reported by Ukrainian media, the attack on Sternenko, which turned out to be fatal for one of the two perpetrators, was qualified as "hooliganism, committed with the use of weapons or another item adjusted for inflicting bodily injuries."

The high-profile case has sparked public debate in Ukraine on whether Sternenko's actions were justified and whether the attacks on the anti-corruption activist were being properly investigated.
The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a bombshell ruling Monday that effectively makes it illegal for businesses across the nation to fire employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In the 6-3 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay or transgender employees from employment discrimination, giving the LGBTQ rights movement another big victory from the nations highest court.

What will change from this ruling, and does it cover employees at small businesses in all states?

USA TODAY consulted with experts in this area of the law to find out:

Supreme Court: What protections existed before the ruling?

It depended where someone lived. A patchwork of state laws determined how much protection employees had from discrimination.

In 27 states, there are no explicit statewide laws protecting people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodations, according to Freedom For All Americans, a bipartisan campaign to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

An employee in one of these states conceivably could be fired for being gay or transgender  and would have no guaranteed rights against it.

In 21 other states, plus the District of Columbia, employees had full protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing and public accommodation.

Demonstrators gather in front of the Supreme Court in October as the justices hear challenges involving workers who claimed they were fired for being gay or transgender.

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The ruling is a really big deal because before this, there certainly were employers who believed that they could just end the employment of somebody for being gay or transgender, said Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project at the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). So this is really an important clarification of the scope of federal law.

Story continues

Which states do and dont have protections that would cover LGBTQ discriminatory firings ?

The differences largely fall along the political divide between blue and red states. Those states that didnt provide statutory protection included Texas and many states in the South and Midwest.

States on the West Coast and Northeast, including California and New York, already had state laws providing such protection.

Two states dont fit neatly into either category, according to Freedom For All Americans: Wisconsin and Utah.

In Wisconsin, state law protects people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations. But it lacks explicit protections from discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

In Utah, the law protects people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment and housing, but there are no public accommodations statues.

How does Supreme Court ruling change that?

Employees in states that didnt provide statutory protection for this kind of discrimination are protected by federal law and have legal recourse if they are fired for this reason.

This ruling will affect nearly 4 million people in these states, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, a research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy. There are 8.1 million LGBTQ workers ages 16 and older in the USA, according to the institute. About 3.9 million of those work in those 27 states.

Those in states in which laws already protected them from such discrimination have additional recourse available through the federal courts.

Whats an illegal firing and what is not ?

Lets say youre a model male employee who is getting the job done, and your supervisor finds out you have a boyfriend. You cant be fired for that reason alone anymore in any state because you are protected by the Civil Rights Act.

A similar protection would apply for one of the plaintiffs in this court case, Aimee Stephens, who was a funeral director working near Detroit when she was fired in 2013 after announcing she would begin living as a woman. She died in May at 59 but helped make such a firing decision illegal with Mondays case.

Todays decisions make clear that if an employees sexual orientation or gender identity was the reason  or one reason  for the termination, then the firing was illegal, said Christy Mallory, a researcher at the Williams Institute. This is true even if the employer also had other reasons for firing the employee.

What about businesses with fewer than 15 employees?

The answer is less clear for small businesses in states that have no state law protections against this kind of discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination only by employers with 15 or more employees, said Angela Dallara of Freedom For All Americans.

That is one reason why state nondiscrimination laws are important, as many state nondiscrimination laws cover smaller employers as well, Dallara said in an e-mail. So, a business with fewer than 15 employees in a state such as Texas is still able to fire somebody on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, unless there is a city or county ordinance prohibiting such discrimination.

What should workers do to protect themselves?

If youre fired on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, probably the first call you should make is the state agency that is responsible for such complaints. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also can help.

Employees across the country can file discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and bring suit in federal court if they experience discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, Mallory said. While employees have had these avenues available for some time, the courts decision makes clear today that the commission must accept and enforce these complaints and that courts across the country must approach these cases uniformly to find protection for LGBT employees.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court ruling: What does it mean for LGBT rights and where?
TOP OF THE HOUR:

 Man shot as protesters in New Mexico try to tear down statue.

 Black Lives Matter banner removed from U.S. Embassy in South Korea.

 Seattle City Council votes unanimously to bar police from using tear gas and pepper spray.

 NYPD closes plainclothes anti-crime unit in nod to reform.

 Under police pressure, France backs off ban on chokeholds during arrests.

___

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  A man was shot Monday night as protesters in New Mexicos largest city tried to tear down a bronze statue of a Spanish conquistador outside the Albuquerque Museum.

The man was taken to a hospital but his condition was not immediately known, Albuquerque police spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.

The city announced the statue will be removed until officials determine the next steps.

A confrontation broke out between demonstrators and a group of armed men who were trying to protect the statue of Juan de Onate before protesters wrapped a chain around the statue and began tugging on it while chanting, Tear it down. One protester repeatedly swung a pickax at the base of the statue.

Moments later a few gunshots could be heard down the street and people started yelling that someone had been shot.

Gallegos said officers used tear gas and flash bangs to protect officers and detain those involved in the shooting. He said they were disarmed and taken into custody for questioning as police worked to secure the scene. Gallegos said detectives will be investigating but he did not immediately release any other information.

The shooting tonight was a tragic, outrageous and unacceptable act of violence and it has no place in our city, Mayor Tim Keller said in a statement. Our diverse community will not be deterred by acts meant to divide or silence us. Our hearts go out to the victim, his family and witnesses whose lives were needlessly threatened tonight. This sculpture has now become an urgent matter of public safety.

The violence came just hours after activists in northern New Mexico celebrated the removal of another likeness of Onate that was on public display at a cultural center in the community of Alcalde. Rio Arriba County officials removed it to safeguard it from possible damage and to avoid civil unrest ahead of a scheduled protest.

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SEOUL, South Korea  A large Black Lives Matter banner has been removed from the U.S. Embassy building in South Koreas capital three days after it was raised there in solidarity with protesters back home.

The banner was put up Saturday, with Ambassador Harry Harris tweeting that his embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change. But the banner was removed Monday and another banner commemorating the Korean War was on display Tuesday.

The embassy said the banners removal was meant to avoid any misperception that it aimed to encourage donations for certain unspecified organizations.

Harris wanted to highlight the enduring American values of racial equality, freedom of speech, and the right to peacefully protest, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. However, the Ambassadors intent was not to support or encourage donations to any specific organization. To avoid the misperception that American taxpayer dollars were spent to benefit such organizations, he directed that the banner be removed.

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SEATTLE  The Seattle City Council has voted unanimously to bar police from using tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd control devices after officers repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators protesting racism and police brutality.

The 9-0 vote Monday came amid frustration with the Seattle Police Department, which used tear gas to disperse protesters in the citys densest neighborhood, Capitol Hill, just days after Mayor Jenny Durkan and Chief Carmen Best promised not to.

The council heard repeated complaints from residents forced out of their homes by the gas even though they werent protesting; one resident said his wife doused their childs eyes with breast milk.

A federal judge on Friday issued a temporary order banning Seattle police from using tear gas, pepper spray, foam-tipped projectiles or other force against protesters, finding that the department had used less-lethal weapons disproportionately and without provocation, chilling free speech in the process.

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NEW YORK  New York Citys police department is disbanding the type of plainclothes anti-crime units that were involved in the 2014 death of Eric Garner and have long been criticized for aggressive tactics, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday.

The NYPDs anti-crime units, which focused primarily on seizing illegal guns, were responsible for a disproportionate number of shootings and complaints, Shea told reporters after meeting with top deputies to discuss the move.

The change comes amid a nationwide reckoning over police brutality.

Garner died when an officer enforcing a ban on the sale of loose cigarettes used a chokehold to wrestle him to the ground.

About 600 officers working in the unit will be given new assignments.

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WASHINGTON  A senior administration official says an executive order that President Donald Trump is expected to sign Tuesday would set up a database for tracking police officers who have complaints about excessive use of force in their records.

The official says the administration wants to keep officers with complaints in their record from moving from one police department to the next.

The presidents executive order comes as lawmakers work quickly in response to outrage over the death of George Floyd. Senate Republicans are also poised to unveil an extensive package of policing changes.

Administration officials say the executive order would also establish a national credentialing system that would give police departments a financial incentive to adopt best practices on such things as use of deadly force and prohibiting the use of chokeholds, except in situations when deadly force is allowed by law.

The official says that cities such as Minneapolis and Baltimore are not using the most modern standards when it comes to their training materials.

Two officials briefed reporters on the executive order on the condition that they not be identified. The officials said they expect the major law enforcement trade groups to back the effort.

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PARIS  Under pressure from police, the French government has backed away from a ban on chokeholds during arrests.

Frances interior minister announced a week ago that the maneuver would be abandoned, in the face of growing French protests over police brutality and racial injustice unleashed by George Floyds death in the U.S.

But French police responded with five straight days of counterprotests, arguing that the ban deprived them of a key tool to subdue unruly suspects.

On Monday, the national police director sent a letter to police, obtained by The Associated Press, saying chokeholds will no longer be taught in police schools but can continue to be used with discernment until alternatives are found.

Police unions hailed the reversal.

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RICHMOND, Va.  Six property owners in Virginias capital city of Richmond have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop Gov. Ralph Northams administration from removing a towering statue there to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The lawsuit challenges Northams authority to order removal of the Lee statue from Monument Avenue in the ex-capital of the Confederacy.

Northams spokeswoman says the governor considers the statue a divisive symbol. The governor recently ordered its removal, citing the pain gripping the country over the death in police custody of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis.

Richmonds Confederate monuments became rallying points for protesters in recent days.

Last week, demonstrators toppled a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, that was part of a much larger monument.

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LAS VEGAS  A former U.S. Marine has been charged with impersonating a federal officer after the man was armed and wearing tactical gear as he stood alongside police at a protest in Las Vegas last month.

A criminal complaint alleges Zachary Sanns was wearing plain clothes with a tactical vest, helmet and belt, a balaclava, a stun gun and two firearms as he appeared near the front line May 30 with police as they faced off with people protesting the death of George Floyd.

He is charged with one count of false impersonation of an officer or employee of the United States. Sanns attorney declined to comment.

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RICHMOND, Va.  Richmond police say one protester was arrested after an overnight demonstration outside police headquarters turned violent and three officers were injured.

The confrontation began Sunday night and extended into the early morning hours Monday as hundreds of protesters gathered outside police headquarters to protest an earlier incident in which a police car struck several protesters blocking its path.

No one appeared to be injured in that incident.

In a statement released Monday afternoon, Chief William Smith said some demonstrators threw rocks and other objects at police officers.

Smith said several city vehicles were heavily damaged, several privately owned buildings in the area were vandalized and numerous dumpster fires were set.

Protests against police brutality have rocked the U.S. since the death of George Floyd on May 25.

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Retail giant Walmart closed some of its locations in Arkansas after Black Lives Matter demonstrators gathered outside of stores in an effort to shutter them in wake of George Floyds killing in Minneapolis.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that four Walmart stores and a Sams Club closed on Sunday in Little Rock. The international corporation is based in the state.

Activist Dawn Jeffrey tells protesters at a Walmart location while live streaming on Facebook that they were done with the wicked Waltons.

She notes how the founding family takes too much money from the community and invests in private prisons.

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WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump says he wants the governor of Washington to call in the National Guard to deal with demonstrators in Seattle, saying the problem with what happened in Seattle is it spreads, and all of a sudden theyll say lets do some other city and lets do another one.'

Trump is also suggesting that hes got several options for dealing with demonstrators who have staked out several blocks near downtown Seattle after officers withdrew from a police station following violent confrontations. They named it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump says the American public is very angered by that.

Trump also complained that media organizations are not dedicating adequate attention to whats happened in Seattle.

He said that if the right ever took over a city, conservative Republicans took over a city, it would be the biggest story in history.

Trump also spent several minutes criticizing Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, calling her scared stiff.

If they dont do the job, Ill do the job, Trump said, declining a request to provide specifics.

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BOSTON  A long-running New England television show spotlighting local restaurants and food has been taken off air after its CEO mocked the nationwide protests against police brutality on social media.

Boston-based stations WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV said in a statement Sunday that Phantom Gourmet, which first aired in the early 1990s, has been placed on hiatus pending further review.

Dave Andelman, the shows CEO and co-host, took jabs at participants of the Black Lives Matter movement in a number of recent posts on his personal Facebook account.

He mockingly called for defunding potatoes, not police and suggested Boston restaurants and retailers offer touchless, curbside looting, in reference to the violence and destruction that followed a recent downtown protest.

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DULUTH, Minn.  Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz marked the 100th anniversary of a painful chapter in Duluth history by visiting a memorial to three black men lynched by a white mob.

Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie were traveling circus workers accused of raping a white woman, though her doctor later found no evidence of assault.

Walz gestured Monday to the corner where the men were lynched, and said Minnesotas inability to deal with that led to what happened down there, pointing southward toward Minneapolis, where George Floyd died after being arrested by police.

Walz made the same connection on Friday, when he and two other members of the state pardons board granted a posthumous pardon to Max Mason, a fourth circus worker convicted in the case despite what a prosecutor at the time called weak evidence.

Walz is now pressing for major policing reforms in a special session of the state Legislature. The Star Tribune reports that Walz said his goal is to change law in ways that activists say will make a difference in their lives. Walz said the state will be defined either by the murder of George Floyd or by how we respond to the murder of George Floyd.

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New Jersey police must divulge the names of law enforcement officers who commit serious disciplinary violations, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal ordered Monday.

The states top law enforcement official said in a statement that the order would apply going forward to all state, county and local law enforcement agencies.

Agencies must publicly identify officers who were fired, demoted or suspended for more than five days because of a disciplinary violation, Grewal said. The first lists must be published by Dec. 31.

Officers identities previously were not disclosed publicly unless they faced criminal charges, the attorney general said.

Grewal announced more stringent disclosures affecting the state police.

The names of troopers who have been disciplined in about 430 cases going back to 2000 will be published by July 15, Grewal said.

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DENVER  Former Colorado Gov. and current Senate hopeful John Hickenlooper on Monday apologized for jokingly comparing politicians to slaves being whipped to row an ancient slave ship.

Hickenloopers apology came after Tay Anderson, a black Denver school board member who has been instrumental in organizing protests after the death of George Floyd, tweeted a video of Hickenlooper making the quip Monday morning.

Anderson has endorsed Hickenloopers rival, former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, in the Democratic Senate primary.

Hickenloopers campaign said the video Anderson tweeted was from 2014 but did not specify the event at which the then-governor was speaking.

The video shows a silhouetted Hickenlooper speaking at some sort of gathering with a microphone in his hand about political schedulers. Imagine an ancient slave ship, he tells the audience. He says the schedulers are the people who lashed slaves to keep them rowing the ship. We elected officials are the ones rowing, Hickenlooper said.

In a statement released through his campaign, Hickenlooper said: Taking a look at this video from six years ago, I recognize that my comments were painful. I did not intend them to be. I offer my deepest apologies.

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TAMPA, Fla.  More than five dozen peaceful protesters in Florida who were arrested earlier this month for unlawful assembly while demonstrating against police abuse following the death of George Floyd in Minnesota wont be prosecuted, a State Attorney said Monday.

State Attorney Andrew Warren in Tampa said that his office wont be filing charges against 67 protesters who were arrested two weeks ago in downtown Tampa.

The prosecutors office will also work to expunge the arrest records of the protesters who were taken into custody, he said.

In these unlawful assembly cases, there is no value in filing charges, Warren said at a news conference. Prosecuting people for exercising their First Amendment rights creates problems rather than solving them. It can weaken the bonds between law enforcement and the community, while undermining faith in our system.

Warren warned, though, that his office would prosecute anybody who takes advantage of the protests to cause destruction or commit crimes. He said his office is still reviewing another 133 arrests starting from the night of May 30, including cases of arson and vandalism from that night when a gas station was set ablaze and store windows were smashed.

Under Florida law, an unlawful assembly is a gathering of three or more people with a common unlawful purpose that must have an intent to do an unlawful act which threatens the peace.

There was no evidence that anyone was intending to commit a crime, Warren said. They were just there to protest.

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Follow all AP coverage of protests against racial injustice and police brutality at https://apnews.com/GeorgeFloyd.
The police in this country have been asked to be on their best behavior for two weeks now. In response, they have knocked down and hospitalized an old man in Buffalo. In Atlanta, they have shot an unarmed man in the back for sleeping in his car. Are they incapable of doing better, or do they actually think theyre our bosses now? Either way, voters have to take sharp steps to reassert control. End qualified immunity and take some of their multibillion dollar budgets and put it into our schools.
Leaders of the Confederacy. Slave traders. Forces of imperialism.

All have fallen in the United States and beyond, their statues toppled during protests against racism.

Christopher Columbus is not safe.

Protesters in various cities have torn down, destroyed and defaced statues of the explorer.

In West Orange, signs that say Murderer and This is stolen land!" have been posted on a monument to Columbus.

The Italian explorer, whose name and 1492 voyage children have long been instructed to remember with a popular rhyme, has traditionally been venerated by Italian Americans. But the notion that he is a perpetrator of genocide is an increasingly recognized part of his legacy.

After residents called for the removal of the West Orange monument, the mayor says the landmark will be taken down. The news arrived just two days after Camden got rid of its Columbus statue.

The legend of Columbus does not match the history, West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi said in a video posted to social media June 13. And today, the man, the statues, the monuments celebrating his life are divisive and a symbol of hate and oppression and cannot remain as part of our community.

The widespread call to remove statues and monuments has accompanied the rise of protests following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died May 25 after police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyds neck for more than eight minutes.

A statue of Christopher Columbus was toppled by protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota.Stephen Maturen | Getty Images

There are at least 42 monuments to Columbus in New Jersey alone. On June 11, Camden removed its Columbus statue from Farnham Park.

It is long overdue, but we must now establish a plan to reexamine these outdated symbols of racial division and injustices," Camden Mayor Frank Moran said in a statement.

Protesters in Richmond, Virginia felled a statue of Columbus on June 9 before setting it on fire and throwing it in a lake. Richmond protesters also toppled a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. A Columbus statue in Boston lost its head on June 10. That same day, protesters in St. Paul, Minnesota tore down a Columbus statue. One man put his knee on Columbus neck, imitating what Chauvin did to Floyd.

On June 3, Philadelphia removed a statue of Frank Rizzo, the former mayor and police commissioner known for his racist statements. On June 7, protesters in Bristol, England sent a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol Harbor.

West Oranges granite Columbus monument, which stands at 5 1/2 feet, is located on a traffic island at the intersection of Valley Road, Quimby Place and Kingsley Street. The landmark bears an engraved portrait of Columbus.

The Christopher Columbus monument in West Orange was installed in 1992, for the 500th anniversary of his voyage to the Americas.Eniya Jaber | Change.org petition

The township will remove the monument and together we will find a more appropriate message to replace it, Parisi continued. This is an important time in our community and I remain committed to listening and to moving us forward.

He did not say when the monument would be removed.

The West Orange Columbus tribute was planted next to an American flag in 1992 as celebrations across the state marked the 500th anniversary of the voyage that brought him to the Americas.

Christopher Columbus, the monument reads. Discoverer of America in 1492. Foresight - Faith - Courage.

Parisis decision to remove the monument follows a petition to remove the statue from Eniya Jaber, a resident of West Orange.

The monument in West Orange incorrectly names Columbus as the Discoverer of America despite the land already being owned by Native Americans, Jaber said in the petition, which has drawn 793 signatures. In addition, he NEVER set foot on the land that is now the United States. He only saw the coasts of Central and South America. Therefore, in regards to both morality and basic truth, everything about Columbus voyages were WRONG. Any justification of Christopher Columbus behavior, including the brainless belief known as Manifest Destiny, is unacceptable.

June 13, 2020: Mayor Robert Parisi makes statement on Columbus monument in West Orange, NJ. @WestOrangeInfo pic.twitter.com/yUOBGlbsvb  Robert D. Parisi (@WOMayorParisi) June 14, 2020

In the petition, Jaber talks about Columbus inflicting slavery, rape and violence on Native Americans.

Christopher Columbus deliberate eradication of Native Americans initiated the pattern of colonialism, white supremacy, violence, and xenophobia that the United States exhibits to this very day, she said.

A block party welcomed the $7,000 monument to the Valley Junction traffic island in 1992.

Joseph Dorey chaired the Christopher Columbus Committee that raised money for the monument. The effort to install such a landmark began when he realized that Orange had a Columbus statue and West Orange did not.

A statue depicting Christopher Columbus had its head removed at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in Boston on June 10.Tim Bradbury | Getty Images

''I felt that the Italian Americans were not receiving their recognition in the community or doing enough to recognize the worlds greatest Italian explorer," Dorey told The Star-Ledger in 1992. He owned Munchies, a deli located in the same intersection.

''It will serve as a showcase and sense of pride for all residents," said Edward Palardy, the police chief at the time, who was also on the Columbus committee.

Another petition calls for the Columbus monument to stay in West Orange for generations to come.

West Orange resident Danny Brink tells NJ Advance Media that a group that backing that petition plans to protest the monuments removal on whatever day it will be taken down.

It wasnt a problem for 30 years so why is it a problem now? he says.

Sal Piarulli started the petition, which has drawn 119 signatures. He shared a comment from Anthony Lupica, his former teacher at Seton Hall Prep, who reacted to signs being posted on the monument.

What a disgrace to have destroyed and defaced the statuary of Christopher Columbus! Lupica said. Those responsible have committed hate crimes of racism against Italian Americans.

The plinth of a Christopher Columbus statue in Richmond, Virginia that was defaced with paint during protests. Protesters tore the statue down on June 9. "Out for coffee, be back in 5  Chris Columbus," reads a note attached to the statue's base.Eze Amos | Getty Images

Lupica spoke of Columbus as a symbol of pride in the Italian American community and of those immigrants that came here because of extreme poverty, of those that ALSO suffered prejudices, of those that died on battlefields like Normandy and Anzio, in patriotic wars, of those that have worked to build America with their bare hands, and of ALL people that honor the humanism deeply embedded in Italian heritage of art, music, and the architecture of Italy.

Italian immigrants used Columbus as a symbol to manifest their love for freedom in the USA, Lupica said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressed similar sentiments when talking about his support for the statue of Columbus at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

I understand the feelings about Christopher Columbus and some of his acts, which nobody would support, Cuomo told reporters on June 11. But the statue has come to represent and signify appreciation for the Italian American contribution to New York. So for that reason I support it.

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Send a coronavirus tip here.
Grammy winner Ariana Grande has registered a new song titled My Hair on an online music database for copyright reasons, according to The Sun's Bizarre column.

The Florida-born R&B belter - turning 27 next week - co-wrote the track with Victoria Monet, Tayla Par, and Tommy Brown, all of whom worked on her fifth studio album Thank U, Next.

It's an ironic title for Ariana, whose elusive natural shoulder-length locks are rarely seen without the signature ponytail extension fastened by hairstylist Josh Liu.

New song? Grammy winner Ariana Grande has reportedly registered a new song titled My Hair on an online music database for copyright reasons (pictured August 4)

Last month, Grande (born Butera) told Apple Music's Beats 1 host Zane Lowe she doesn't 'really feel comfortable putting' an album out during this 'tricky time.'

And yet the former Nickelodeon child star had no problem releasing two hit duets during the COVID-19 quarantine - Stuck With U with Justin Bieber and Rain On Me with Lady Gaga.

Millions of 'Arianators' are also still awaiting Ariana's mysterious Doja Cat collaboration.

The Florida-born R&B belter - turning 27 next week - co-wrote the track with Victoria Monet, Tayla Par, and Tommy Brown, all of whom worked on her fifth studio album Thank U, Next (pictured May 21)

Growing: It's an ironic title for Ariana, whose elusive natural shoulder-length locks are rarely seen without the signature ponytail extension fastened by hairstylist Josh Liu (pictured April 7)

The age of COVID-19: Last month, Grande told Apple Music's Beats 1 host Zane Lowe (R) she doesn't 'really feel comfortable putting' an album out during this 'tricky time'

'I'm obsessed with her. I love her. I was able to work with her earlier this year on this song that I want to save for whenever it's time again, to drop,' Grande told Zane Lowe.

'But I love her so much. I love her personality. I love what she brings to the table musically. She's just such a breath of fresh air. I think she's brilliant and so talented. And she produces, and she does everything herself. I love that. It's fantastic.

'We did this song together towards the end of last year and I love it so much. I remember when I first wrote it and sent it to her, she was in the shower and she was like, "B****, I love this. I'm in the shower." And I was like, "Shower! You can call me back."'

Dropping tracks left and right: And yet the former Nickelodeon child star had no problem releasing two hit duets during the COVID-19 quarantine - Stuck With U with Justin Bieber and Rain On Me with Lady Gaga (M)
Puducherry:

A court on Thursday awarded life imprisonment to a 24-year-old man for murdering his mother in February, 2015 at nearby Tirukannur. Principal and District Sessions Judge CV Karthikeyan also sentenced Manikandan alias Rajesh to six months of imprisonment for trying to make it appear a suicide. Both the terms would run concurrently.

The judge also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 and Rs 1,000 on the two counts (murder and giving false information) on the convict respectively. Police said a quarrel with his mother led Manikandan to strangle her to death. After the murder, he hung the body from a hook in the ceiling in an attempt to make it appear as if his mother had committed suicide and lodged a police complaint.

Police became suspicious and after the post-mortem, it was established that she was strangled and also suffered injuries which resulted in her death, following which they booked Manikandan under IPC section 302 (murder).

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Around 25% of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients being treated at the Delhi government-run Lok Nayak hospital are from neighbouring states, according to data presented by the hospitals medical director during a visit by Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday.

In a live telecast of the meeting, the director said that the hospital has so far treated 2,200 Covid-19 patients since it started admitting those with the viral infection in March. On Monday, the hospital had 580 positive cases and 188 suspected cases admitted to its isolation wards. The Lok Nayak hospital is the largest Covid-19 treatment centre in Delhi, with 2,000 beds.

Around 25% of our admissions in the last three months have been people from neighbouring states. When it comes to the deaths, there have been 455 deaths from Delhi and 14 from outside Delhi, said Dr Suresh Kumar, medical director Lok Nayak hospital. The Delhi government earlier decided to reserve the services in Delhi government hospitals and private hospitals that did not handle superspeciality cases for Delhi residents. Lieutenant governor Anil Baijal, however, overturned the order on June 8.

The Union home minister directed the Delhi chief secretary to install CCTV cameras in Covid-19 wards of every designated hospital in the national capital for proper monitoring, and set up alternative canteens for uninterrupted supply of food to the patients.

In an order issued later in the evening, Vikram Dev Dutt, principal secretary, health and family welfare of the Delhi government, asked the Public Works Department (PWD) to get the CCTV cameras installed within 24 hours.

It is hereby directed that Covid wards in all Covid hospitals of the Delhi government shall have CCTV cameras for efficient monitoring and supervision of patient care. PWD, of Delhi government, is directed to install CCTV cameras in all Covid wards within 24 hours and submit a compliance report in this regard at pshealth@nic.in, read the order.

After the visit to the Delhi hospital, Shah also suggested psychosocial counselling of doctors and nurses engaged in fight against Covid-19.

The home minister met senior doctors in the conference room of the hospital who briefed him about the number of patients treated at the facility, deaths there and the admissions process.

The hospital also boasts of the largest dialysis centre in north India, having provided 1,140 dialysis sessions during the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been 122 deliveries in Covid-19-positive mothers at the hospital  56 C-sections and 66 normal deliveries. This is the highest number of deliveries in Covid-19 patients by a hospital in the city so far, according to Dr Kumar.

After the meeting with the medical director and other senior staff of the hospital, the minister also thanked all the nurses at the facility. He visited the hospitals emergency department, which is being used to triage Covid-19 patients.

With regard to the union home ministers surprise visit at Lok Nayak hospital, a Delhi government spokesperson said: The union minister interacted with doctors and medical staff and motivated them. He scrutinised the infrastructure and medical facilities in the hospital. For the last 10 days, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has been taking stock of all arrangements at Lok Nayak hospital. He has been monitoring all the grievances and issues and ensuring that they are resolved immediately. Todays successful visit of the union minister was an endorsement of the better facilities at Lok Nayak hospital.

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The province's police watchdog is investigating a multi-car collision that left five people injured in Scarborough Sunday night.

Police were in the area of Markham Road and Nugget Avenue at around 8:15 p.m. when they saw a Nissan Rogue traveling southbound on Markham Road at a high rate of speed, the SIU said in an initial statement Monday morning.

Officers followed the vehicle, which became involved in a collision with a Ford Escape, which then struck a Honda Civic.

Two women in the Escape, a 52-year-old driver and her 21-year-old passenger, were transported to hospital for treatment of serious injuries, according to the SIU.

Three investigators and two forensic investigators have been assigned to the case. At this time, one subject officer and one witness officer have been designated.

The drivers and passengers of the other vehicles did not suffer serious injuries.

The SIU is an arms length agency that is called in to investigate any incident involving police and a member of the public that results in death, serious injury, or an allegation of sexual assault.

Margaryta Ignatenko is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @MargarytaIgnat1
Human remains found at the Chinchilla Weir in March are those of three-year-old Kaydence Mills.

Kaydence was born in September 2014 but was last seen in 2016.

Police digging at the Chinchilla Weir in their search for the remains of Queensland toddler Kaydence Dawita Mills. Credit:Nine News Queensland

Police launched an investigation into her disappearance late last year.

They dug up a backyard at a Chinchilla home in December with the aim of finding the little girl.
Washington:

Amidst a war of words between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the US has said it discourages "destabilising actions" by all states with nuclear weapons and missile capabilities.

"We continue to urge all states with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint regarding nuclear and missile capabilities," a State Department official said yesterday when asked about the reported remarks by Lt Gen Tariq Khan who retired as the Commander of I Strike Corps at Mangla in 2014.

"We encourage efforts to promote confidence building and stability and discourage destabilizing actions," the official said. Khan, in a widely-circulated social media post, said "there appears to be some preparations for military reprisal on anticipation of the Uri alleged raid."

"The next 48 hrs are critical; if Pakistan cannot garner international support, be prepared for a strike through ground or air. Expect a snowball effect if that does happen and it may lead to full-fledged hostilities," he said.

The State Department official, however, said: "The General is a private citizen and his views are his own." Tension between India and Pakistan peaked following a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri on Sunday in which 18 soldiers were killed.

Initial investigation by India has suggested the attackers came from Pakistan and were members of terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad.

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Controversial Nigerian Journalist, Kemi Olunloyo has reacted to the death of former beauty queen, Ibidunni Ajayi-Ighodalo.

Information Nigeria recalls the wife of the senior pastor of Trinity House, Ituah Ighodalo passed away on Sunday in her hotel room in Port Harcourt after suffering from an apparent cardiac arrest.

Reacting to the news, Olunloyo called for an investigation and autopsy to ascertain the cause of the death of the ex-beauty queen.

The journalist wrote;

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Ibidun Ighodalo just became my online friend this February 2020. She said she had a foundation, always checking on me in IG DM. I have screenshots. Why will her Instagram page be deactivated by anyone? @PoliceNG must Investigate how she DIED in a hotel room #Kemitalks

There is a wave of poisoning deaths all over Nigeria. Pure nonsense! The Niger Delta Commission guy was also poisoned. Did someone poison her in the hotel? I want to know her last meal, @Facebook legal dept will tell us what time her IG was deactivated and from what location

There must be NO COVER UP in her death. Wanna see her autopsy. 41yo women do have cardiac arrest SECONDARY to what though? To deactivate a page then cardiac arrest signifies SUICIDE, other way around MURDER. @PoliceNG get to work

@GovWike pls open an investigation #kemitalks

The hotel in Port Harcourt needs to be SEALED as a potential crime scene. The entire kitchen staff & management need to be detained and interviewed on what she ate before that cardiac arrest. Someone died in there. SHE MUST NOT be buried YET! #kemitalks

Ibidun Ighodalos family needs to be interrogated on who ran her Instagram pages. The Nurudeen Lawal guy who travelled with her to PH must be detained for questioning. Did he run the foundation page along with her? Why isnt an obituary posted on that page.

@instagram @Facebook

Rest in Peace Ibidun Ighodalo. I was just getting to know you. Im an Investigative Journalist and your DEATH IS SUSPICIOUS. @PoliceNG @GovWike plssssss get to work. Segun @segalink pls read the thread. Its a lawless country. Focus on the bigger picture. @GraffitiBMXCop DM

I want to know if this was SUICIDE or MURDER!

#RIPIbidun

Read Also: Sanwo-Olu Pays Condolence Visit To Pastor Ituah Ighodalo

See her tweets below:
Photo: The Canadian Press Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, wearing a protective mask, waves to the media before attending a court hearing at Manila Regional Trial Court, Philippines on Monday June 15, 2020. Ressa's verdict is expected to be announced Monday for a cyber libel case. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

An award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president was convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa, her online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling a wealthy businessman. The Rapplers story on May 29, 2012, cited an unspecified intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The sites lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

The decision for me is devastating because it essentially says that Rappler, that we are wrong, Ressa said in a news conference after the ruling. Her voice cracking, she vowed that we will keep fighting and appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights and hold power to account.

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years but was not immediately taken into custody. She posted bail for the case last year, and her lawyer, Theodore Te, said they will appeal the verdict.

The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country, said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, adding the verdict was a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.

President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Businessman Wilfredo Keng dismissed the allegations in the 2012 story as baseless and false and said Rappler refused to take down the story online and publish his side of the story. He provided government certifications in court to show that he has no criminal record and sought 50 million pesos ($1 million) in damages, but the court awarded a much smaller fine.

Rapplers lawyers said the story was based on an intelligence report and that the one-year period under Philippine penal law when a libel complaint can be filed had ended when Keng filed a lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published online.

A cybercrime law, which Rappler allegedly violated, was also enacted in September 2012 or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rapplers lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Rappler, however, acknowledged that it updated the story in February 2014 to correct a misspelled word but said it did not make any other changes. The Department of Justice, which brought the libel charges to court, contended that by updating the story, Rappler effectively republished the story online in 2014, an argument dismissed by the news sites lawyers.

The Department of Justice cited another law to say that a complaint can be filed under the 2012 cybercrime law for up to 12 years, countering Rapplers argument that Kengs complaint was invalid due to being outside the one-year deadline for libel.

If the Manila court upholds the Justice Departments position, journalists and media agencies can be sued up to 12 years after publishing a story.

As Rapplers chief executive officer, Ressa faces seven other criminal complaints in relation to legal issues hounding her news agency, including an allegation that it violated a constitutional ban on media agencies receiving foreign investment funds.

Ressa, who has worked for CNN and was one of Time magazines Persons of the Year in 2018, has accused the government of abusing its power and of using the law to muzzle dissent.

Many news outlets in the Philippines and beyond have criticized Dutertes policies, including his signature anti-drug campaign that has left thousands of mostly poor drug suspects dead.

Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him.

He has openly lashed out against the owner of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily.

He has vowed in the past to block the renewal of the congressional franchise of leading TV network ABS-CBN. It was shut down by the governments telecommunications regulator last month after its 25-year franchise expired. Congress has been hearing the major networks request for a renewal of its franchise.

The shutdown has been criticized as it cut off a major source of information on the COVID-19 pandemic in a Southeast Asian hot spot of the disease.
Airlines for America, a trade association, said that its members would take masks more seriously, including by not letting people without face coverings get on planes. But many big airlines have said that before, and passengers concerned about their health have pointed out that enforcement on board has often been lax.

U.S. airlines are very serious about requiring face coverings on their flights, Nicholas Calio, the chief executive of Airlines for America, said in a statement. Face coverings are one of several public health measures recommended by the C.D.C. as an important layer of protection for passengers and customer-facing employees.

According to the association, all of four of the largest U.S. airlines  Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines  have agreed to communicate their mask policies to customers before flying, reiterate the requirements in onboard announcements and enforce them when customers refuse to comply. Southwest issued a separate statement saying that it would deny boarding to passengers that refused to comply with its face covering requirement.

United said that, starting Thursday, any passenger who openly disregarded its rules could face a temporary travel ban on future flights. The airline, like others, grants exceptions for those with a medical condition or disability that prevents them from wearing a mask, as well as those who cannot put on or remove a mask themselves and small children. Customers may remove their masks to eat and drink.

The airline association said each airline would establish its own punishment for passengers who refuse to comply, up to and including suspension of flying privileges.

Airlines have so far been reluctant to publicly establish clear consequences for failure to wear face coverings, and many passengers have chided the companies on social media with photos of planes filled with people not wearing masks and sitting close to each other.
(Natural News) The Wuhan coronavirus may have spread in the United States as early as the fall of last year, according to several reports.

The allegation is fuelled by a volatile combination of inconsistent coronavirus antibody tests and testimonies from individuals who claim to have exhibited the infectious diseases symptoms months before U.S. health authorities confirmed its presence in the country.

Dental hygienist Judy Abram is among those who claim to be the first to have been possibly infected by the coronavirus, which first appeared in China late last year.

Abram, a resident of New Jersey, said she suffered severe illness last November, which was marked by bad headaches, chills and sore throat. The sickness, she added, became so intense that she had to use her asthmatic sons spare inhaler for weeks after experiencing severe breathing difficulties.

Abram tested positive for antibodies to the new coronavirus just last month.

They just have the timeline wrong somewhere, which explains why were so deep in it, she told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the exponential rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.

But Danielle Ompad, a public health researcher at New York Universitys School of Global Public Health, is unconvinced.

The challenge with COVID is the symptoms overlap with a lot of other respiratory illnesses, Ompad told Business Insider in an interview.

Despite this, however, talk of the coronavirus having established a foothold in the U.S. before January 21  the date of the first-known U.S. infection  is still rife on social media.

In a Facebook post, which has since been flagged for alleged disinformation, a certain Donna Lee Collier posted about a spate of severe upper respiratory infections that allegedly happened late last year. According to Collier, those infections were likely to have been caused by the coronavirus.

I have been saying this for the past 2 weeks Posted by Bonnie Betts Powell on Monday, March 23, 2020

As noted by several reports, people who think they had early COVID-19 infections have since joined a Facebook group called the Survivor Corps.

Kelly Flores, a 43-year-old mother of three in northern Virginia, is one of them. She experienced severe coughing, fever, extreme weakness and shortness of breath in late January, with the symptoms eventually persisting well into March. Flores has since tested both positive and negative for coronavirus antibodies from two different kinds of tests.

Its such a load off your mind if you know youve at least had it once, Flores said, noting that it is frustrating not to know what ones COVID-19 infection status is.

Flores is now planning to donate some of her plasma, which is being looked at as a treatment option for those who are currently battling the disease.

CDC confirms coronavirus tests inaccurate

While authorities insist that the first cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. only appeared in January, some medical experts suggest the coronavirus came over to the U.S. from China before that  although more testing will be needed to confirm that theory.

Anecdotally, weve heard about some influenza-like illnesses in December and January that were a little bit atypical, explained Luis Ostrosky, infectious diseases expert at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, adding that such reports highlight the need to expand testing for coronavirus antibodies among individuals. (Related: Asymptomatic coronavirus carriers puzzle scientists.)

Ostrosky adds that in order to ascertain if the coronavirus was, indeed, already in circulation in late 2019, they would have to take a look at blood samples collected from the beginning of December of that year.

There is a problem, however: The serology tests for COVID-19 are not necessarily accurate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who recently issued new guidelines regarding testings.

According to the agency, the antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected with COVID-19 in the past might be wrong up to half the time, with the tests known to also pick up antibodies caused by other coronaviruses, such as the one that causes the common cold.

Josh Petrie, a research professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, stressed that multiple existing viruses could cause severe upper respiratory symptoms, some of which circulated late last year.

Among these viruses, Petrie said, was Influenza B, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and Influenza A. According to Petrie, Influenza B infections grew in intensity around November and December last year.

Social distancing, good hygiene help against coronavirus infections

According to authorities, the probability of COVID-19 being in the U.S. much earlier than what was previously thought is still being investigated. With holistic and effective treatments against the virus still to be developed, its of utmost importance that individuals continue to practice good hygiene and social distancing practices to avoid infection.

As of this writing, 1,812,742 Americans have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus, of whom 105,262 have died.

Sources include:

WSJ.com

Reuters.com

BusinessInsider.com

USAToday.com

CBSNews.com

CDC.gov 1

BBC.com

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Linkedin Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 17:07 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdedba93 1 Business SMEs,Lazada,Cooperative-SME-ministry,digitalization,digital-platform,e-commerce,training Free

The government has teamed up with e-commerce platform Lazada Indonesia to advance its partnerships with digital platforms to meet its target of pushing 2 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to go digital this year.

The Cooperatives and SME Ministry and Lazada Indonesia launched on Monday a training program to help SMEs with digital marketing and with setting up stores on the e-commerce platform.



Lazada Indonesia, backed by Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group, will begin by recruiting 100 tutors, called kakak asuh, from successful sellers on its platform. Each tutor will oversee two to three small businesses.



Monika Rudijono, the chief marketing officer at Lazada Indonesia, said some small businesses had enough digital savvy to make it on their own after completing just one training course.



But there are [other] small businesses that are more traditional, Monika said in a virtual press briefing on Monday. Even though they have done a training course, they still need a tutor.



The government is pursuing partnerships with numerous private tech firms to accelerate the digitization of SMEs. One of the latest initiatives is a project with online ride-hailing company Grab Indonesia on an app for business management.



Out of more than 60 million small businesses across the country, which employ an overwhelming majority of the national workforce, only 13 percent have established an online presence and use the internet to sell their products, according to data from the ministry.



Other partnerships established by the government are with e-commerce companies Blibli.com, Shopee Indonesia, Tokopedia and Bukalapak  the last two are among the countrys so-called unicorns, or start-up firms valued at more than US$1 billion.



Arif Rahman Hakim, a deputy of human resource development at the ministry, said Monday that the government was partnering with the companies to integrate training programs with the platform, thereby simplifying the steps for small businesses to go online.



The program was especially important for small businesses to keep making money amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which was slowing down the economy as people had reduced spending to offset loss of income, said Arif.



It is very timely for small businesses to be able to market their product by using information technology, Arif said at the same briefing.



Leonard Theosabrata, the president director of Smesco Indonesia, a marketing agency founded by the ministry, said he hoped the program would run for a long time, because the government was aiming high with regard to SME digitization.



We hope they arrange it not only via digital means, Leonard said at the same briefing. They have to receive training from the tutors on quality control and quality assurance. This may have to take place in person.
Oskar Schindler's wife Emilie, who played a '50/50' role in saving the Jews, was mistaken for one of the people her husband had saved by Steven Spielberg, who sent her a letter asking her to appear in Schindler's List.

Emilie Schindler was married to 'Schindler's List' Oskar - the man credited for keeping over 1,300 people out of death camps.

New recordings up for auction have revealed how Mrs Schindler felt 'cut out' of history and Hollywood after being ignored 'in a very humiliating and offensive way'.

Friends says she didn't get the credit she deserved for her '50/50' role in saving the Jews and was left in poverty - not benefiting from the movie or book it was based on.

Emilie Schindler (right) was married to 'Schindler's List' Oskar (left, in 1957) - the man credited for keeping over 1,200 people out of death camps. Friends say she didn't get the credit she deserved for her '50/50' role in saving the Jews

And now previously unheard interviews she recorded in later life apparently show how Spielberg himself once mistook who she was.

They reveal she was sent a letter by him in 1993 inviting her to appear in the last scene of the film - because she was one of the Jews her husband saved.

The bureaucratic faux-pas note even invited Emilie to bring her husband - seemingly not realising she was married to Oskar Schindler.

Close friend and biographer Erika Rosenberg is auctioning off the taped interviews which are expected to fetch between 8,000 to 10,000.

Her unique collection of 48 cassette tapes is being sold at an auction in Edinburgh by Lyon & Turnbull.

The letter from Steven Spielberg - mistaking Emilie Schindler for a Jew her husband saved and asking her to appear in an epilogue scene at her husband's grave site

Emilie Schindler (left) and Erika Rosenberg, her Close friend and biographer

The letter is not part of the sale - but the recordings contain details of the embarrassing note.

Dated May 7, 1993, the letter asked Emilie to appear in the end scene of the film along with the 'other' Jews her husband saved.

Steven Spielberg at New York Fashion Week, September 2018

Hand-signed by Spielberg, the typed note says: 'You are part of a remarkable part of history.

'I first read about Oskar Schindler's improbable rescue of you and more than 1,300 Jews from the threat of Nazi death camps more than ten years ago, and it has taken me until now to bring this important piece of history to the screen.

'The story of how your lives were saved will be shared with people all over the world as a major motion picture by the end of this year.

'I will be travelling to Israel with my crew to film an epilogue scene at Oskar Schindler's grave site.

'I would be deeply honored if you would appear in the scene and allow me to include your important face in the film.

'You and your spouse are invited to come to Jerusalem as my guests May 25-May 30, 1993.'

Speaking from her home in Buenos Aires last week, Ms Rosenberg, 69, said Emilie, who died 2001, was left unhappy by the letter.

The lot of 48 cassette tapes, containing a series of interviews conducted with Emilie Schindler between 1994 and 1995, but some as late as 1998. For auction at Lyon and Turnbull, Edinburgh

She said: 'I met Emilie three years before Spielberg sent her an invitation to the last scene of Schindler's List to be held in Jerusalem.

'What is unique about the invitation is that Spielberg wrote to Oskar's widow as a Jew whom Oskar would have saved.

'But the amazing thing is in the last paragraph he also invites Emilie's husband.

'This made Emilie very angry and it is also one of the things which she relates to in the tapes.'

The couple helped to save the lives of more than 1,000 Jewish lives during World War Two despite being members of the Nazi party.

They declared all workers at their enamelware and munitions factory as essential.

The pair fled to Argentina following the war but split several years later when Oskar left to sort out his financial affairs - and never returned.

Emilie then lived out her life on a small pension, which is where she met Ms Rosenberg, who became a close friend.

The grave of Oscar Schindler (1908-1974) at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion in the Old City of Jerusalem

The tapes are said to give a detailed and personal account of her life, from childhood, marriage, courageous wartime work and later life.

Ms Rosenberg has said previously that Emilie's role in the saving of the Jews had been largely undervalued.

Speaking previously, she said: 'Emilie has suffered her whole life from being the woman in the shadow of a great man.

'In fact their roles in saving the Jews could be split 50-50. But she was cut out of the film and the book in a very humiliating and offensive way.'

Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent the execution of his workers until the end of World War Two.

But by this time he had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers.

It is said that Emilie also sold her jewels to buy food, clothes, and medicine.

She also looked after sick workers in a secret sanatorium in the camp with medical equipment purchased on the black market.

The collection of audio tapes is being sold as part of a Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Photographs sale on Wednesday, June 17.

A spokesperson for Lyon & Turnbull said: 'The archive of 48 cassette tapes includes important historical primary source material relating to both Oskar and Emilie Schindler and their role in saving the lives of 1200 Jews during the Holocaust.

'However elements of the accounts have never been in the public domain before.'

Amblin Partners, which is led by Mr Spielberg, has been approached for comment.
As Delhi prepares to ramp up testing for the coronavirus infection, Heath Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday said laboratory facilities under the Centre in the national capital are being extended to the city government.

Interacting with reporters, he also asserted that Delhi was doing maximum testing earlier and will continue to do more testing with whatever resources are at its disposal.

As far as increasing of testing capacity is concerned, in Delhi most of the lab facilities are under the Centre, so those are being extended to us, he said.

The Delhi government had designated 42 labs for carrying out Covid-19 tests.

Asked about the high-level meeting on Sunday with Union Minister Amit Shah, he said the meeting was very fruitful.

The main outcome of it was that Centre and Delhi government will be working together to fight Covid-19 in the national capital, Jain said.
Two women in Florida have been charged in the drowning death of an infant, more than three months after deputies found the baby boy dead inside a plastic container.

The Brevard County Sheriffs Office last week arrested 41-year-old Tanya Galvin and 25-year-old Ricky Tubbs, both of Cape Canaveral, in connection with the death of Tubb's foster child, identified as six-month-old Scorpio Sharp.

According to a detailed statement from the sheriff's office, the investigation began unfolding on March 1 when a deputy noticed three children between the ages of two and four walking alone along Caroline Street in Cape Canaveral.

Tanya Galvin, 41 (left), and Ricky Tubbs, 25 (right), have been arrested and charged in the drowning death of Tubbs' foster child, six-month-old Scorpio Sharp

The deputy and her colleagues who responded to the scene found out where the children lived and responded to the home to find the front door open and Galvin asleep.

The woman told the officers that she did not know the whereabouts of the two toddlers and assumed they were with Tubbs.

While performing a welfare check on the children, the two-year-old was found to be wet and reeking of urine.

Galvin gave Deputy Kimberly Reites permission to go to the childrens bedroom to get diapers and clean clothing for the child.

While looking for those items, the deputy reportedly discovered a naked infant who was unresponsive inside a plastic storage container.

'During CPR water was purged from the childs mouth and nose. The infant was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced deceased,' according to the statement.

The baby boy named Scorpio was taken to the Brevard County Medical Examiners Office, where an autopsy determined that the child died as a result of drowning.

A subsequent investigation uncovered that the infant and another child had been placed in foster care by the state Department of Children and Families under the supervision of Tubbs and her boyfriend, who were the only two adults authorized to care for the children.

Galvin has been charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child after the baby somehow drowned in a bathtub while in her care, and was later placed in a plastic bin

On the eve of Scorpio's death, Tubbs went out, leaving her boyfriend in charge of the children.

According to the sheriff's statement, she was supposed to return the following morning so that her boyfriend could go to work, but she failed to make it back in time and the man was forced to leave the children with Galvin, who lived with the couple.

The man contacted Tubbs, telling her to return home immediately so that the children would not be in the care of Galvin, who was not authorized by the DCF to supervise them.

Officials said Tubbs had consumed alcohol and drugs overnight, in violation of a DCF order, and did not return home until after Scorpio had been found dead in the bin.

During a search of Tubb's home, officers found a bathtub with standing water, located 25 feet from where the baby boy's body was discovered.

'The investigation concluded that while under the care of Ms. Galvin the infant came in contact with the water, which subsequently resulted in his death,' the statement read. 'The infant was then discarded in a plastic container in the childrens room.'

Galvin, who has been in the Brevard County Jail since mid-May on unrelated counts of shoplifting and resisting arrest, on Friday was charged with aggravated manslaughter of a child and violation of probation.

Tubbs has been charged with neglect of a child with great bodily harm after being accused of lying to the DCF about her living arrangements to gain custody of baby Scorpio and leaving him with Galvin, which resulted in his death.

She is currently being held at the Volusia County Jail on a bond of $25,000 awaiting extradition to Brevard County.

Arrest records indicate that both women have a history of run-ins with the law in Florida.

Tubbs was arrested in July 2016 on a charge with aggravated battery on a pregnant woman.

Galvin's extensive record stretches back to 2011 and includes charges of burglary with assault or battery, breach of peace and retail theft. She is due back in court for her arraignment on July 14.
TROY  City officials say they would like to open the South Troy pool sometime this summer - even though the renovation of it is still not done, and the city's ability to hire lifeguards at this point is questionable.

It appeared the coronavirus pandemic would keep the pool officially closed for a fourth consecutive summer. But Gov. Andrew Cuomos announcement that municipal pools could open has changed the equation. Now, Troy must figure out if it will be in the ranks of the Capital Region communities opening their pools, or those opting to skip the 2020 swimming season.

The City is working with the project contractor on final commissioning of the South Troy pool, including scheduling of required inspections by the County Health Department. In the meantime, we are working on necessary documents for the safe operation of the pool so that it will be ready to open this summer. However, reopening will depend on hiring sufficient staff to oversee and operate the facility, Mayor Patrick Madden, a Democrat, said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

The city shut the South Troy and Knickerbacker Park pools due to their dangerous conditions. The city plans to replace the Knickerbacker Park pool and repair the South Troy pool. The city announced last spring it would open for the 2019 summer swimming season, which traditionally begins by the July 4th holiday. Construction delays prevented that.

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Its like Groundhog Day, responded City Council President Carmella Mantello, a Republican, comparing the pool to Bill Murrays film character reliving Feb. 2 over and over again.

Its time to open up for the kids, Mantello said.

Meanwhile the town of Waterford is opening its pool, said Councilwoman Laurie Marble, who oversees recreation. The town is aiming to open July 1 or 2 before the start of the holiday weekend.

Were making every effort we can, Marble said about training staff and cleaning the pool.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan has the citys Department of Recreation working to open the Lincoln Park, Arbor Hill, and Mater Christi pools by July 3, the start of the holiday weekend.

Niskayuna is preparing for a June 29 opening, according to a Facebook posting, while Guilderland has posted online that it is aiming for a July 6 opening for its Tawasentha Park pool. Clifton Park intends to open its three pools by July 1, but is assessing whether it will do so for the summer, according to a posting on the town website.

Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy said it was unlikely the city will open its pool in Central Park and smaller pools in the Mont Pleasant, Stockade and Bellevue neighborhoods. I dont think so, he wrote in a text.

The towns of Bethlehem and Colonie, as well as the city of Watervliet, all previously announced they would not open their pools this summer.

Officials in the villages of Altamont and Ballston Spa and the city of Cohoes said they have not yet decided whether to open or not. We are still in the process of determining how and if we can open up Lansing's pool safely in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are a lot of challenging questions.., Cohoes Mayor Bill Keeler said.

New York hasnt decided whether to open pools in the state parks. 'We are currently reviewing plans for reopening and will have status updates soon, a spokesman for the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation said. The beaches in state parks are open.
Vallejo didnt need to spend $40,000 to hire a team of private consultants to tell city leaders that the Vallejo Police Department had problems.

Vallejoans have been telling city leaders this for years.

The problems are laid out in a 70-page report by the OIR Group, a company that specializes in police practices. The report, released Friday afternoon, found that the Police Department wasnt properly reviewing use-of-force incidents, suitably investigating misconduct allegations or appropriately disciplining officers. It also found much of the Police Department seems to have an aggrieved perspective toward local politicians, the media, and its critics in the activist and legal communities.

The OIR Group made 45 recommendations for the city and Police Department in its assessment that revealed failings in internal processes.

The reason the city commissioned the report was to mollify critics of the police. The city tried that after six police officers fired 55 shots at Willie McCoy as he slept in a fast food drive-through lane on Feb. 9, 2019. An independent investigator hired by the city to review the shooting found the use of force reasonable and necessary.

The OIR Groups report snapped at the tactic, writing that jurisdictions, including Vallejo, should avoid commissioning expert reports before the completion of criminal and administrative reviews. More money misspent.

It seems unlikely that a report finding a shooting out of policy or critical of the officers performance would have been disseminated the same way, the OIR Group noted.

The report isnt as comprehensive as I was expecting, as the OIR Group studied only samples of cases instead of combing through the department from top to bottom. Hopefully, that will come from the state Department of Justice review of the department.

The advantage of having a superordinate government agency like the state Department of Justice come in is that there is an obligation on their part to conduct a thorough investigation and not to worry about their contract with the city, said Jack Glaser, a UC Berkeley professor and social psychologist who researches stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. This all has to be put in the context of the reality that policing is generally underregulated in the U.S.

Chris Preovolos / Hearst Newspapers

If there is a police department that needs to be overhauled, its Vallejos.

In one of the Bay Areas most racially diverse cities  30% white, 25% Asian, 22% black and 20% Latino  Vallejos victims of police violence are often black or brown. If nothing else, the weeks of sustained protests in the wake of George Floyds death in police custody in Minneapolis have proved one thing: People arent going to stand for police brutality anymore.

Vallejo cant afford to keep allowing the department to operate like it has, because too many people have died under questionable circumstances, including Sean Monterrosa, who was fatally shot on June 2 by a police officer investigating alleged looting.

After shootings, officers are interviewed by investigators. But get this: the Solano County Fatal Incident Protocol allows officers to view their own body camera videos before being interviewed.

An officer shouldnt get to watch video so they can get their story straight. This kind of courtesy is a big reason why people are demanding police reform. Heres another: The OIR Group found issues with the way Vallejo conducts misconduct investigations.

Some case files revealed limitations in the scoping of issues, thoroughness of investigation, and timeliness or efficacy of resolution, the report said. We also noted two separate instances in which witness officers were not interviewed about encounters that had produced complaints of excessive force. Even though relevant body-camera evidence was available, the perspective of these individuals would presumably have been instructive."

And when internal investigations do find officer wrongdoing, the punishment is insignificant.

Chris Preovolos / Hearst Newspapers

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.

We are concerned that the light level of discipline at VPD is less about the gravity of the misconduct than a reluctance to alienate or discourage the involved officers  and their peers, the report said. This is not entirely consistent with a healthy process  one that takes accountability seriously, administers proportional discipline, and recognizes such interventions as necessary and constructive.

City officials welcomed the brutal assessment.

Change and reform will occur based on this assessment and our strong commitment to good policing, City Manager Greg Nyhoff said.

Mayor Bob Sampayan told me he was pleased with the report and recommendations, which included hiring more police officers. Thatll be hard to do with the citys budget constraints and the nationwide movement to reduce police funding.

Our community is asking for accountability, and I intend to have it, he said. Some of my colleagues were not happy with this, but I believe they now see the need. I am very pleased that the CADOJ will be looking at OIRs report as a starting place for change. We are in need of change, and I want to see it happen now.

Reform wont happen without supervision, because Vallejos police are incapable of policing themselves. But please remember that policing is just a symptom of what really ails this country: systemic racism.

What were seeing in racial disparities in policing is a manifestation of a much larger problem where we just have fundamental inequities in our society and racial stereotypes and a lack of will to affirmatively break that cycle, Glaser said.

You dont need to hire anyone to tell you that this uprising feels different.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays and Thursdays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
R ishi Sunak has opened up about the racist abuse he suffered when he was younger.

Speaking to Skys Sophy Ridge on Sunday, the Chancellor said these personal experiences were particularly upsetting when it occurred in front of his siblings.

He said that racist taunts cuts you to your core but said admitted that what stung me the most was when they happened in front of his family.

Mr Sunak said: Its the sort of thing thats happening on your own its difficult enough but when I had my younger brother and sister with me at the time it was particularly upsetting.

Sky News

They may just be words but they sting in a way that other things dont.

The Chancellor also said that he had not suffered such abuse for a long time, attributing it to the countrys enormous progress on tackling racism.

He said: That's not something that has happened to me for a long time and I think, as a society, it's not something that is common and that's because of how we have as I said evolved and adapted as a country has made enormous progress.

Mr Sunak went on to condemn Saturdays violent protests in London as "both shocking and disgusting".

Black Lives Matter protests in London continue - In pictures 1 /12 Black Lives Matter protests in London continue - In pictures Black Lives Matter protesters descend on Londons streets Getty Images Protesters practice social distancing Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images Protesters practice social distancing Getty Images Protesters take part in a 'Black Lives Matter' demonstration near Marble Arch on June 01 Getty Images The death of an African-American man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis has sparked violent protests across the world Getty Images Protesters wearing masks at Marble Arch amid the coronavirus pandemic Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images

He told Sky News that he also supports tougher sentences for those who desecrate war memorials.

During the unrest a man was photographed urinating next to the memorial of PC Keith Palmer, who died in Parliament from a terror attack in 2017.

Objects were also hurled at riot police who were trying attempting to disperse far-right activists away from Whitehall after the 5pm curfew.

"This has always been an open, and tolerant country and what we saw yesterday was not that," Mr Sunak said.

There will always be a small minority who maintain prejudice, and indeed are racist, but that is not overall the description I would ascribe to our country.

I think there's been enormous progress that our country and our society has made if I think back to the time when my grandparents first arrived, when I was growing up.

Mr Sunak added that a small minority of Brits still hold beliefs that he finds abhorrent.

It comes after Home Sectary Priti Patel revealed how she suffered real abuse in the school playground during her childhood that left her in tears.
Eighty years ago on Wednesday, thousands of people met a watery Atlantic grave when Nazi planes sank a cruise ship requisitioned by the British government to evacuate troops from France after the invasion by German troops.

In one of the single deadliest events of World War II, the sinking of the Lancastria saw seaside communities in France's western Loire-Atlantique region scramble to rescue survivors, tend the wounded and bury the dead.

Bodies washed up on their beaches for weeks on end.

"I remember, when he found the bodies, there was an old man who said: 'This one was still warm'," recounts Michel Adrien, a resident of Ile de Noirmoutier, who was six at the time of the tragedy on June 17, 1940.

Now approaching 90, Adrien may not live to know the true toll.

Details of the sinking, including the number of souls lost when the Lancastria sank, remain shrouded by a so-called D-notice issued by Winston Churchill to hide the news of the sinking from a demoralised wartime public.

The media blackout was decreed for 100 years, until 2040, though much has become known about the incident via survivors, next-of-kin and historical researchers such as the Lancastria Association of Scotland.

The sinking is described as the worst single disaster in British maritime history, and the largest loss of life for British forces in World War II.

- 20 Minutes -

The thousands of passengers were mainly troops but also civilians who boarded the former cruise liner at Saint-Nazaire to flee the German advance.

Luftwaffe planes caught the ship exposed off France's Atlantic coast and bombed it, causing it to roll over and sink within 20 minutes as lit fuel set the surrounding sea ablaze.

There were 2,477 survivors.

The death toll is estimated at 2,500 to 6,000 -- more than the sinkings of the Titanic and the Lusitania combined.

"Secrecy... continues to shroud the Lancastria like the dark, silt-laden waters which now cover the wreck site," says the Lancastria Association, whose website lists survivor accounts and a petition for the wreck to be declared a maritime war grave under British law.

Valerie Roux, a WWII expert with the archive of the Loire-Atlantique department of France, has gathered spotty records over the years, mainly from a government building at Saint-Nazaire bombed during the war.

The papers in her collection, yellowed with time and now open to the public, reveal just how little is known about the victims.

"He was dressed in khaki pants and a khaki shirt with grey socks," states an entry on a list of washed-up corpses compiled by one municipality.

Another "wore a metal ring on his left ring finger."

- 'Failed' evacuation -

In the seaside commune of Piriac were found the remains of soldiers Harry Bullock and Charles Heron, but a third body was listed as "unknown" according to "documents seized by the occupying army."

At Bernerie, records are incomplete because "the mayor, the deputy mayor and the mayor's secretary (were) all in the army."

Thibaud Harrois, a senior lecturer in British politics at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, said the German advance in 1940 after the so-called "Phony War" -- an early period with no major hostilities -- "truly surprised everyone."

It led to Allied forces withdrawing from France, most famously at the Battle of Dunkirk that ended with some 340,000 troops evacuated by sea amid fierce fighting.

"In Britain, when one talks of the retreat of May 1940, it is the Battle of Dunkirk that has become the symbol, it has taken on mythical proportions because more soldiers were evacuated than planned," Harrois said.

The Lancastria, however, was a "failed" evacuation, which explains the desire by officials to conceal it, he said.

And it came amid news of France's formal capitulation to Nazi Germany.

Descendents of victims and survivors continue to honour the fallen.

"It is important for them," said Karine Allioux, in charge of international relations at the Saint-Nazaire city hall.

"For many it is the trip of a lifetime, to come here to pay homage to their ancestors," she said.

The ceremony to mark the anniversary has had to be toned down this year, limited to only 10 people because of the restrictions imposed to fight the coronavirus epidemic.
Ireland's two dominant centre-right parties have agreed to form a coalition for the first time - meaning Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will hand power over to Fianna Fail.

The deal will also put the Green Party - headed by Eamon Ryan - at the centre of policymaking and end a political stalemate triggered by an inconclusive February election.

The deal, which must be ratified by members of the three parties, is expected to make Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin prime minister in the first half of the government's five-year term before Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar returns in 2022.

'The leaders have signed off on the draft programme for government,' the parties said in a coordinated statement.

The deal, which must be ratified by members of the three parties, is expected to make Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin prime minister in the first half of the government's five-year term before Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar (pictured) returns in 2022

Varadkar told journalists on Monday that the post of prime minister would rotate, but declined to confirm widespread expectations that Martin would serve first.

Ireland has been in political deadlock since the February 8 vote pushed historic rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fail together.

The two have swapped power since they emerged from opposing sides of Ireland's 1920s civil war.

'This is an agreement that, from my point of view and certainly from the point of view of the country, is going to be a good one and one that is very much in line with Fine Gael's values and principles,' Mr Varadkar said as he attended an event in Dublin on Monday morning.

The pair need the Greens to reach a majority in the fractured parliament to pass new laws, including a 6.5 billion euro ($7.3 billion) package to help businesses hit by the coronavirus.

Left: Fianna Fail's leader Micheal Martin is now set to become Ireland's next premier. Right: The deal will also put the Green Party - headed by Eamon Ryan - at the centre of policymaking

The agreement must be ratified in the next 10 days or so by grass root members from each party.

The smaller Greens need to secure two-thirds support, a higher bar than the larger parties that could yet scupper the deal.

'It's a challenging time ahead economically as a result of COVID but the programme for government does represent a new departure,' Martin told journalists after the talks.

His finance spokesman Michael McGrath said the document committed to moving towards a broadly balanced budget, without setting a target date.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on a bus in Dublin city centre today encouraging passengers to wear face masks on public transport

Monday's newspapers declared the Greens the winners. The Irish Independent's front page headline called it 'A green deal to remould the shape of our politics.'

Green negotiator Roderic O'Gorman said his party secured a seven per cent average annual cut in greenhouse gas emissions with a fixed annual carbon budget for different sectors, while infrastructure spending would focus on public transport.

If ratified, the deal will make Sinn Fein, which wants Northern Ireland and Ireland to unite, the main opposition party for the first time.

The former political wing of the Irish Republican Army surged to 37 seats in the 160-seat parliament, the same as Fianna Fail and two more than Fine Gael.
The white woman dubbed Central Park Karen for calling 911 on a black bird watcher once tried to have her doorman fired and now goes on vacation with the ex-wife of a man she claims to have had an affair with.

Details of Amy Cooper's life continue to emerge weeks after she ignited a race firestorm across the country after footage of her encounter with birdwatcher Christian Cooper in New York's Central Park went viral.

She was filmed falsely telling police that Cooper, who is not related to her, was threatening her life after he told her to leash her dog.

One of her neighbors in her Upper West Side apartment building has since said that Cooper vowed to get their doorman fired following a confrontation last winter.

The neighbor, Alison Faircloth, told the New York Times that she found Cooper on the 'verge of tears' after the doorman supposedly cursed at her for no reason.

Details of Amy Cooper's life continue to emerge weeks after she ignited a race firestorm across the country after footage of her encounter with birdwatcher Christian Cooper in New York's Central Park went viral

Faircloth said she later asked the doorman about the confrontation and he said Cooper had complained about a broken elevator before forcing her way into a security booth and yelling at him.

The doorman told Faircloth that Cooper had to be removed a security guard.

'There's always a narrative from her about someone who has done her wrong,' she said.

It has also since emerged that Cooper is now friends with and goes on vacation with the ex-wife of a man she claims she had an affair.

Cooper filed a lawsuit in 2015 against Martin Priest - a married man she worked with at Lehman Brothers between 2005 to 2008.

In the lawsuit, Cooper said the pair were in a relationship and she had lent him $65,000 so he could divorce his wife and pay for another woman he was involved with to have an abortion.

Her lawsuit claims that after she gave him the money she found out Priest's wife Tianna was pregnant and that he was going to marry another woman who was also pregnant.

Cooper filed the lawsuit to get back the $65,000.

Priest denies having a relationship with Cooper but says he did borrow money from her.

Cooper was filmed falsely telling police that Cooper, who is not related to her, was threatening her life after he told her to leash her dog

Christian Cooper, the man at the center of the saga, has since said the incident 'pulled the pin on the race grenade' that later exploded nationwide following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis

Cooper has since become friends with Priest's now ex-wife Tianna.

The pair now go on vacations together and Tianna's family credit Cooper for helping save her from a toxic marriage.

Tianna's father Tom Selby told the Times that Cooper was a hero and said of his ex-son-in-law: 'Amy is just another one of his victims'.

Priest has previously told DailyMail.com that he was friends with Cooper for a number of years before the lawsuit suit but began to distance himself from her sometime in 2012 when she confessed to having romantic feelings for him that weren't reciprocated.

In the months that followed, Priest says he was routinely 'harassed' and 'stalked' by Cooper.

He claims she would often leave him threatening texts and voicemails in which she menaced that she would hurt him, his family members and even herself if he continued to ignore her.

Priest says he contacted police in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in February 2013 to report her for harassment.

'She became increasingly abusive and unstable,' Priest said. 'I tried to get away from her as she became more outrageous and threatening with her demands.'

Cooper ended up being fired from her job at global investment firm Franklin Templeton in response. She also briefly surrendered her rescue dog (above) but the animal has since been returned to her

Cooper hasn't commented or been seen publicly since she issued an apology last month to the black birdwatcher she accused of threatening her life in Central Park.

The video showed Cooper lying to police and saying she felt threatened by the birdwatcher who asked her to leash her dog.

She was fired from her job at global investment firm Franklin Templeton in response.

Cooper briefly surrendered her rescue dog to a shelter following backlash but the animal has since been returned to her after vets deemed the animal to be healthy.

Christian Cooper, the man at the center of the saga, has since said the incident 'pulled the pin on the race grenade' that later exploded nationwide following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

He told CBS that his decision to start filming Cooper had 'nothing to do with race' at first but what transpired would go on to fuel a national conversation about racial bias in America.

'She basically pulled the pin on the race grenade and tried to lob it at me,' Christian told the network. 'She was going to tap into a deep, deep, dark vein of racism and racial bias that runs through this country and has done for centuries.'

He said that while he has accepted Cooper's apology, he urged the public to look at the bigger picture of racism that the encounter displayed.

'That's what we really have to address; not the specifics of her, but why are we still plagued with that and how do we fix it,' he said.
CND and CCPCJ commemorate 25th anniversary of Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for gender equality

Photo: UNODC

Vienna (Austria), 15 June 2020  The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) and the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) hosted a joint virtual high-level special event in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

The Fourth World Conference on Women set out a vision and commitments for achieving gender equality in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Many of the areas highlighted in the document are central to the work of Vienna-based Commissions.

2020 was intended to be ground-breaking for the accelerated realization of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, even limited gains made in the past decades are at risk of being rolled back. The special event was organized with a view to raising awareness for the commitments made in 1995 in Beijing, in particular in relation to the work of the Vienna-based Commissions, and discussing how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting women and girls and further deepening pre-existing inequalities.

Ambassador Mansoor Ahmad Khan, Chair of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs at its sixty-third session, stressed, in his welcoming remarks, that the COVID-19 pandemic has substantial implications for gender equality, deepening pre-existing inequalities and exposing cracks in the current systems across the globe, underscoring thereby the importance of collecting information on and raising awareness about those implications.

Collective action needs to be taken to tackle the specific impact of the COVID-19 crisis on women and girls, including with a view to addressing and tackling the rise in domestic violence against women, occurring during the lockdown period, highlighted Ambassador J. Antonio Marcondes, Chair of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its twenty-ninth session.

A more inclusive world is a more resilient world. Twenty-five years after Beijing, we cannot allow COVID to hinder progress and justice, said the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly. In every one of our countries, societies and families, there is a mother, a daughter, a sister who needs us to stand up for her more than ever before. We must fight for her rights in the midst of a global crisis that threatens to destroy past achievements.

The meeting was also addressed by Nathalie Muylle, Minister of Employment, Economy and Consumer Affairs, in charge of Combating Poverty, Equal Opportunities, and Disabled People, Belgium; Mher Margaryan, Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women at its sixty-fourth session; Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger, President of the Human Rights Council; and Asa Regner, Deputy Executive Director of the UN Women.

The high-level discussion further benefitted from the interventions of the Vienna-based International Gender Champions, including Alicia Guadalupe Buenrostro Massieu, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations in Vienna, and Khojesta Fana Ebrahimkhel, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan to the United Nations in Vienna.

The UNODC Executive Director welcomed her fellow International Gender Champions, and highlighted UNODCs work with their countries and other Member States, contributing to gender equality and mainstreaming, and responding to challenges posed by COVID.

Penny Hill from the Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs, and Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Chair of the Alliance of NGOs on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, also addressed the meeting. Interventions were made by the Permanent Representatives of Colombia, Norway, Namibia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Austria, Morocco, Cuba, Peru, as well as representatives from Ecuador, Germany, Australia, Tunisia and Ireland. In addition, a representative from the international Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, as well as civil society representatives from the NGO Committee on the Status of Women in Vienna and Action for Justice, made statements.

Further information

UNODC Commissions

UNODC on Gender
New Delhi:

The Supreme Court has decided to reconsider its jail order after Subrata Roy's fresh apology to the Apex court.

In a strong verdict, the Supreme Court had earlier on Friday cancelled all interim relief including bail granted to Sahara chief Subrata Roy and two others. As per court orders, they have been taken into custody

A bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur got infuriated when senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for Sahara, said they have not been involved in the process of selling of properties by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

"If you want to be heard, you go to jail. Don't tell us what to do. All interim arrangements stand cancelled. Condemners are directed to be taken into custody," the bench, also comprising Justices AR Dave and AK Sikri, said.

Dhavan said it was not a fair statement that they should be sent back to jail. "We have deposited Rs 352 crore already as per the last direction which is Rs 52 crore more. It is not a fair statement," he said.

Counsel appearing for SEBI said that 58 properties were put on auction and they had sold eight of them raising Rs 137 crore. He also said that five of the properties were provisionally attached.The SEBI counsel said the list of properties given by Sahara to them were those which were already attached.

To this, the bench told the Sahara counsel "You gave a list of properties which are already attached and you are not cooperating. It's better you if you go to jail." The bench asked Sahara chief to deposit Rs 300 crore to be allowed to remain on bail.

Dhavan then suggested that the matter be posted for hearing on September 30 when they would argue on it. Soon after the bench passed the order directing that Roy and the others -- Sahara directors Ashok Roy Choudhary and Ravi Shankar Dubey, be taken into custody, Sahara withdrew its counsel and apologised before the bench.

The Chief Justice said that some people play with the dignity of the court and there are some lawyers who aredisrespectful towards the court.

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The African Development Bank has responded swiftly to the needs of its member countries during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Banks operations have continued to run smoothly since the first cases appeared in early March, despite the wide range of lockdowns and measures imposed by governments to flatten the curve.

The COVID-19 pandemic is forecast to cause Africas GDP to drop by between $22.1 billion and $88.3 billion.

African countries, with the experience of having fought off Ebola, are working to adapt to this new threat and looking to the Bank for an effective, multilateral response to the crisis.

As of June 12, the Banks COVID-19 emergency packages have reached the continents five geographic regions.

West Africa

Before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, West Africa was home to at least four of the continents fastest-growing economies, and it has felt the impact of the disease hard, as borders remain closed and economic and social distress deepens.

Gambia, Mali and Niger will benefit from an ECOWAS support package to bolster national health systems in response to the pandemic. Much of the funds to this region will seek to address shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators and other emergency equipment. The support will also enable governments to provide shortfall cash to the millions of people who have been affected by mass layoffs or are unable to work because of lockdowns.

Nigeria  288.5 million euros

Senegal  88 million euros

Cote dIvoire  75 million euros

Cabo Verde  30 million euros

ECOWAS  $22 million

North Africa

The North African region is the worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 60,000 cases as at 12 June. The disease has already triggered a sharp drop in household incomes in North Africa, as export and tourism earnings suffer. The region will be assisted with a series of emergency operations to boost containment measures and help to ensure the supply and distribution of laboratory tests and reagents. The package will also support national and regional coordination mechanisms.

Morocco  264 million euros

Tunisia  180 million euros

Egypt  $500,000

East Africa

East Africa, the continents fastest-growing region economically, has been simultaneously struck by the coronavirus outbreak and an infestation of desert locusts, a double whammy for the regions farmers and economies.

In a region of climate change and water scarcity, post-harvest losses and poorly developed agricultural markets could threaten the promise of economic reforms and investment.

Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda are the top-performing countries, which have all seen a sharp fall in tourism revenue.

Kenya  188 million euros

Southern Africa

A decisive lockdown has been effective in stemming the spread of COVID-19 in the regions economic powerhouse, South Africa. The spread of the virus is by no means curtailed. Measures taken across the region to contain the pandemic have affected millions of people, many of whom work in the informal economy.

Assistance to this region comes in the form of preventive and protection measures as well as financial assistance to the vulnerable beyond the end of the epidemic.

Mauritius  188 million euros

Zimbabwe  $13.7 million

Central Africa

In Central Africa, Cameroon has reported over 8,000 cases as at 12 June and significant community transmission.

The package approved for this region, $13.5 million, will target the provision of PPEs, testing kits and healthcare and laboratory facilities, for Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, which is among the countries with the least number of ventilators on the continent.

CEMAC/RDC  $13.5 million

Timeline of COVID-19 support:

The Banks rollout of emergency response support to assist African countries began in March and has provided a package of financial relief and preparedness and response assistance.

March 27: The Bank raised $3 billion from the Fight COVID-19 Social Bond, the largest dollar-denominated social bond ever launched in international capital markets. Proceeds from the bond, with a three-year maturity, will help alleviate the impact of the pandemic on livelihoods and Africas economies.

April 2: The Bank provided $2 million in emergency assistance to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to bolster the capacity of member countries on infection prevention, testing and case management. WHO Africa will also boost surveillance systems, procure and distribute laboratory test kits, and support coordination at national and regional levels.

April 8: The Bank announced a COVID-19 Response Facility that will provide up to $10 billion to African governments and the private sector to tackle the disease and mitigate suffering that results from the economic downturn and job losses.

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To the Editor:

I am writing to you in response to the recent commentary, 2020 graduate: Raise your voices for justice, not graduation ceremonies, by Will Guisbond. As a parent of one of the protesters, his opinion saddened and angered me. His comments were not only factually inaccurate, but were also irresponsible and bullying of his own peers.

Guisbond states that it was not morally justifiable to protest graduations when there were other protests going on to fight racism nearly 10 minutes away. First of all, this is not accurate as there were no such protests in the city of Syracuse on this date, as these did not begin until days later. Secondly, these kids asking for the (white) privilege of celebrating each others accomplishments has nothing to do with racial equality and one can certainly advocate for both. In fact, he made the assumption (based on the skin color of the kids in the pictures) that these kids are self-centered teens who are not themselves involved in the Black Lives Matter protests or who have not themselves been fighting to end systemic racism. Nothing could be further from the truth. What Guisbond did is exactly what so many (including many of the graduating seniors in Syracuse) are out protesting against  making assumptions about a person based on their skin color.

In a recent Post-Standard article, School graduation rules not realistic, the parent of a senior in Henninger High School states that many of their seniors graduating come from poverty, violence and difficult home situations. They have fought many obstacles to graduate and are very proud of this accomplishment. She is also advocating for the graduation ceremony that these kids deserve. In the same article, Nottingham senior Jalen Owens agrees and asks how so many protests could be allowed, yet it doesnt seem fair to limit graduation ceremonies to 150 total. Will Guisbond be hurling accusations at them, as well?

On May 29, these kids were protesting outside Onondaga County Executive McMahons daily briefing for all seniors to have an in-person outdoor ceremony; those who are the first in their family to graduate and for those who worked incredibly hard to finish at the top of their class. This is not an issue about rich or poor, black or white; it is about all high school students who desperately want a chance to stand 6 feet apart and celebrate with each other instead of having their diplomas thrown into the car window as they drive by. If the New York state Department of Health does not change its guidelines, this will be the sad reality for many large schools.

Good for you, Will Guisbond, for your stance on ending systemic racism, as this is very important. I hope that as you mature, you will use your gifts to brighten the world and not to tear others down. You could not have been more wrong in your judgments of your peers.

Renee Sexton

Syracuse

Related: 2020 graduate: Raise your voices for justice, not graduation ceremonies (Commentary)
Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper reported June 15 that Israel has approved the transfer of $50 million to the Gaza Strip, in financial aid from Qatar. The money is expected to reach Gaza later this week or at the beginning of next week, and probably in two installments. The money will be transferred to projects supported by Qatar, especially infrastructure and electricity, and also to assist needy families.

The transfer comes on the backdrop of indirect contacts in recent days between Israel and Hamas, with the involvement of United Nations special envoy to the region Nickolay Mladenov and Qatari envoy to Gaza Mohammed al-Emadi. Hamas activists have been threatening lately to resume unrest on the Gaza-Israel border, specifically the incendiary balloon terror. It now seems that Mladenov and Emadi mediated an unofficial deal between the sides. In return for the money transfer, Hamas will keep quiet on the border.

The Gaza border has been relatively quiet throughout the coronavirus pandemic. On June 14, a bundle of suspicious balloons was spotted in the south of Israel, near the village of Tidhar adjacent to the Gaza Strip. The object was retrieved and neutralized. It was the first time since February that Israeli authorities spotted incendiary balloons coming from Gaza.

Senior Hamas official Ahmad al-Mudallal reportedly said that no decision has been taken yet on resuming the demonstrations near the border fence, or resuming other activities against Israel. A meeting of Gaza seniors on the issue is expected later today. Demonstrations near the fence were suspended last December, and were expected to resume at the end of March. But because of the coronavirus outbreak that did not happen. Mudallal also said that the balloons were launched by "desperate Gaza youth with no hope or future," hinting the launch was not an organized operation but an individual initiative.

On Feb. 22, following a meeting between Emadi and Hamas Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, Qatars Foreign Ministry announced that it will increase the number of families in Gaza that will receive financial support from 70,000 to 120,000. Now, with the reported agreement on another aid transfer, Emadi said that the recent installment did not reach Gaza because of coronavirus-induced difficulties and not because of Israel creating obstacles.

Israels constructive approach was also manifested this morning by the intention of Finance Minister Israel Katz to bring for government approval a decision prolonging the exemption of value-added tax payments over fuel purchased by nongovernmental organizations operating in the West Bank  a decision widely criticized by right-wing opposition politicians.
A young boy was also injured in the attack that happened in Mandera county near the border with Somalia, police say.

A police reservist and two armed attackers have been killed in a gunfight in Kenyas northeast Mandera county near the border with Somalia.

Security official Jeremiah Kosoim said a young boy had also been injured on Sunday during the gunfight that erupted as fighters were trying to destroy a telecommunications tower in the area.

He did not give further details about the attackers, but Somalia-based rebel group al-Shabab has often targeted security forces and strategic sites, such as telecommunications masts, in the area.

The al-Qaeda-linked group has said it wants to put pressure on Kenyan authorities to withdraw its troops from Somalia, where they are part of an African Union-mandated peacekeeping force.

Al-Shabab, which has lost control of most major cities and towns in Somalia, is fighting to topple the UN-recognised federal government in Mogadishu.
LOS ANGELES, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With over half a billion dollars recovered for victims of serious injuries, the attorneys at Biren Law Group have often been honored with awards and accolades for their work. Now the firm is proud to announce that Attorney Andrew G.O. Biren has been chosen to the exclusive 2020 Rising Stars list in recognition of his significant contributions.

Every year, the Super Lawyers organization searches for the most outstanding lawyers in each practice area and region, relying on a combination of peer nominations, client feedback, and independent research to place qualifying attorneys on either the Super Lawyers or Rising Stars lists. Using a patented multi-phase selection process, the Super Lawyers team first reviews candidates on 12 different indicators of professional success, such as verdicts and settlements, experience, community service, bar and professional activities, honors and awards, and representative clients. Candidates are then evaluated by a Blue Ribbon Panel composed of top scorers in their main practice area.

To be selected to the Rising Stars list, an attorney under the age of 40 must meet all of these requirements. Only 2.5% of practicing attorneys in California will be selected to the Rising Stars list, making this an extraordinary honor for those selected.

At this time, the team at Biren Law Group would like to congratulate Attorney Andrew G.O. Biren for winning this award. By continuing in the legal tradition of his father Matthew B.F. Biren  founder of Biren Law Group and a selectee by Super Lawyers for 15 consecutive years  Attorney Andrew Biren has continued to make a significant difference in the lives of his clients.

For more information or press inquiries, contact Biren Law Group at https://www.biren.com/.

SOURCE Biren Law Group

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Pat Withrow and the rest of the residents of the 46 units at Village West Condominiums are trying to move forward after voting unanimously to not rebuild their residences.

The condos, just off of West Main Street and just east of Northwood University, were all flooded extensively the third week of May when the Edenville and Sanford dams failed and the Tittabawassee River reached a record level of 35 feet.

"It's just a tragedy because people have lost all of their contents out of their houses, and these are things that mean a lot to people," said Withrow, who is the treasurer of the Village West Condominium Association board. "At the same time, financially, it's a burden as well to walk away from a house. A lot of people owned their homes. Some people had mortgages.

"And flood insurance is pretty minimal. Some (Village West residents) had only $5,000 of flood insurance coverage," Withrow added.

According to Withrow, most of the units at Village West sustained more than $100,000 in flood damage each. And because the condos are among the 483 structures in the City of Midland that lie within the 100-year regulatory floodplain, any rebuilding would be regulated by the "substantial improvement, substantial damage" rule of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

This rule, according to Grant Murschel, director of planning and community development for the City of Midland, says that if a property sustains damage that is equal to 50% or more of its value, the property has to be brought up to full compliance with floodplain standards in the 2015 Michigan Residential Building Code before any improvements can be made.

"(That would require) elevating the lowest finished floor to one foot above the base flood elevation," Murschel said. "It's an elevation height that has been defined by the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and the (NFIP). A way to achieve that could be, in some cases, filling in a basement."

In light of this rule and the amount of flood damage that the condos sustained, Withrow said, rebuilding them was not a realistic option.

"The cost of rebuilding would be too prohibitive," she said. "The cost to elevate the buildings and fill in the basements would be shared by everyone (in the condo association)."

Withrow said that eight of the 46 condos have been declared "condemned" by the City of Midland because the flood washed out the basement walls.

Most of the units had finished basements in addition to a main floor and a loft above the main floor.

"We had, on average, about two feet of water on our main floors. All of us lost all of our furniture on the first floor. And the living space is all on the first floor," Withrow said.

"If (residents') cars were in the garage, they lost their cars as well," she added.

Now, the residents have to figure out short-term and long-term living arrangements.

"It is concerning because a lot of the people are seniors," Withrow said. "With the flood, a lot of people are looking for temporary housing. Some people are staying at their cabins. Some have vacation homes in Florida and are now staying there permanently. Some people are still staying at the Residence Inn."
Everyone in the UK could be offered a flu jab to avoid a surge in serious cases this winter, when there might be a second wave of the coronavirus.

Scientists fear that Covid-19 could return in winter when lockdown restrictions have been eased and viral illnesses in general are more common.

If that happens and there is another major outbreak, the NHS will once again be at risk of getting overwhelmed. Winters are especially busy for Britain's hospitals because so many people get seriously ill with the flu.

Vaccinating everyone against influenza could minimise this risk and mean hospitals are under less pressure to begin with and better able to cope with Covid-19 patients.

Currently, the free jabs are mostly saved for over-65s, primary school and nursery children, pregnant women, people with serious health conditions such as heart, kidney or liver disease, and people who live in care homes.

A flu jab is not expected to give people any protection from the coronavirus but to ease pressure on the health service.

But the UK is not alone in its thinking - other countries are planning to do the same and there are already reports of a global supply shortage of the flu vaccines.

Manufacturers in the UK say demand for the doses is rising but companies may not have enough time to develop and manufacture them and get them out to clinics before the cold weather hits.

Everyone in the UK could be offered a flu jab to avoid a surge in serious cases needing hospital care in the event of a second coronavirus wave (stock image)

Most people who get the flu only have a mild illness, but the illness can become so severe a person needs hospitalisation and can be fatal.

The symptoms of coronavirus - a fever, cough (usually dry), headache, muscle and joint pain, a sore throat - could be mistaken for the flu.

This could cause confusion among the population. If they have the coronavirus, they may think they only have the flu is they have not been given a shot to protect them.

In the UK, the flu vaccine is already offered to those most at risk, including the over-65s, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems or having treatment for cancer, for example.

Flu shots are also made available for primary schoolchildren who have an underlying health condition and health and social care workers.

Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, previously said he was 'very concerned' a surge in coronavirus infections would coincide with other seasonal diseases such as the flu across Europe.

'We call it when "Covid will meet the flu",' Dr Kluge warned in an interview with The Guardian about the dangers of lifting lockdown too early in England.

Dr Kluge said it would be crucial for governments to distribute the influenza vaccine among the groups most vulnerable to Covid-19, such as the elderly and men.

A Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) spokesperson said the flu vaccination programme will be 'a crucial part of preparing the UK for winter'.

'We plan for the flu season well in advance and further details will be published soon,' the spokesperson said.

WHO IS ALREADY ELIGIBLE FOR A FREE FLU VACCINE? In 2020/21 groups eligible for the NHS funded flu vaccination programme are currently the same as last year. This includes: Over-65s and people with diabetes and chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma.

People with serious heart or kidney disease, or people undergoing cancer treatment.

Parents with children aged over six months with asthma or diabetes or weakened immunity due to disease or treatment.

Other groups include residents in long-stay care homes and people who have lowered immunity due to HIV or are on steroid medication.

NHS workers are also urged to get a free flu jab in order to protect patients. But according to a joint letter issued from the DHSC, Public Health England and, NHS England and Improvement, on May 14, the list may change if the programme is expanded this year. This could include: All children aged two to 10 years old (but not 11 years or older).

Those aged six months to under 65 years in clinical risk groups.

Close contacts of immunocompromised individuals.

Health and social care staff employed by a registered residential care home. The letter added: 'We anticipate that concerns about COVID-19 may increase demand for flu vaccination in all groups this year.' Advertisement

Pharmacy contractors have been given a forewarning about the challenges ahead for securing enough shots.

A joint letter issued from the DHSC, Public Health England and, NHS England and Improvement, on May 14 asked contractors 'to urgently review' their ability to meet demand.

It said 'discussions to consider expansion of the flu programme for this autumn are underway,' the results of which will be announced near to September.

It added: 'We anticipate that concerns about COVID-19 may increase demand for flu vaccination in all groups this year.'

Members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), who have been advising the Government during the coronavirus crisis, raised the idea of flu shots for the entire population in April.

Professor Peter Openshaw, an Imperial College London expert who is a member of the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) said a bad flu season with coronavirus 'would be a huge burden on the NHS'.

'Given that we do have a way of reducing the impact of flu with vaccination, it is something to be considered,' he told The Guardian.

Professor Openshaw said giving the flu vaccine to younger groups would offer a benefit.

He said: 'There would obviously be an additional cost but it could potentially reduce flu circulation by taking people out of the transmission pattern who aren't going to suffer terribly themselves, but who might pass it on to other people.'

To make flu jabs available to the whole population, Professor Openshaw said the UK would need 30 to 40 per cent more doses than usual.

Influenza vaccinations have become increasingly difficult to manufacture due to the viruses frequently changing.

Production of the vaccine starts in March - which is when the coronavirus peaked in Europe - after the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals which strains of flu virus are most likely to be circulating the next winter.

Vaccine manufacturers fear they will not keep up with the spike in interest from countries in the northern hemisphere as they move towards winter.

Sanofi, one of the top NHS suppliers of flu jabs each winter, warned it would struggle to ramp up production of flu shots for the 2020-2021 season and that the additional requests were 'beyond our anticipated and planned supply'.

A Sanofi spokesperson said: 'We have been asked by countries across the northern hemisphere, including the UK, about the possibility to provide additional flu vaccine.

'We are actively seeing what more can be done to meet additional demand, but it will be a challenge.

'Sanofi will produce more flu vaccines this year than ever before, a 20 per cent increase over the last two years, but global demand will outpace supply.'

It follows the companies' difficulties to speedily vaccinate those eligible in the winter of 2019 due to manufacturing problems.

The company wrote to GPs in England last September, alerting them stock would be held up for the first couple of weeks of the vaccinating programme.

UK-based vaccine manufacturer Seqirus, the largest influenza vaccine supplier in the UK, said it had seen a significant increase in demand but are 'on track to provide more vaccines to the NHS than ever before'.

Helen Concilia, UK Country Head for Seqirus said: 'We are experiencing very high demand for influenza vaccines across all markets and are increasing manufacturing to the extent possible at this stage in the production cycle.

'The potential for the coronavirus pandemic to persist or resurge in the winter months makes influenza vaccination more important than ever this year.

'Influenza vaccination will help to protect against seasonal influenza and minimise the burden of flu on the NHS, thus preserving capacity for Covid-19 patients. It will also reduce the risk of co-infection, especially among at-risk groups who appear most vulnerable to both influenza and Covid-19.'

The complexity of the flu vaccine supply chain, added to a global demand, will mean pharmacies and GPs could struggle to get enough doses, Alastair Buxton, director of NHS Services at the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, said.

But he added: 'Community pharmacy is already planning for the upcoming flu season, working closely with the NHS, so that priority groups for vaccination can get one.'
New Delhi: Yoga guru Ramdev-run Patanjali Ayurved has claimed that it has discovered substantial cure for coronavirus with 80 per cent success rate as per reports.

CEO of Patanjali Ayurved Acharya Balkrishna said the company will share the results of clinical trial soon, and that the patients treated by the said medicine have tested negative.

The company is conducting clinical trials as per government regulations.

The Health Ministry on Saturday stated that during the last 24 hours, a total of 7,135 COVID-19 patients have been cured. Thus, so far, a total of 1,54,329 patients have been cured of COVID-19.

The recovery rate is 49.95 per cent among COVID-19 patients. At present, there are 1,45,779 active cases in the country and all are under active medical supervision.
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Linkedin Esther Verkaik (Reuters) Amsterdam, Netherlands  Mon, June 15, 2020 16:15 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded7d45 2 World Dutch,Netherlands,alcohol-addiction,alcohol-consumption,alcoholism Free

People in the Netherlands convicted of crimes related to alcohol abuse will have to wear a special ankle bracelet to monitor their drinking habits once the government has passed the necessary legislation.

The Dutch justice ministry has said the electronic bracelet or tag will keep track of any sign of alcohol consumption by analyzing the sweat of the person wearing it.

Data from the bracelet will be sent to a central server once a day, giving probation officers a clearer picture of the wearer's behavior than the current system which relies on blood or urine tests which are done twice a week.

"Clients are continuously aware of the fact that they have something that is measuring their alcohol consumption. That helps them to keep away from alcohol abuse," probation officer Tony Rubino told Reuters.

The bracelet can also help offenders to show they have changed their ways.

A mother of two boys, who took part in the government's pilot studies for the bracelet, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "I have two young boys and had to show that I don't drink anymore."

"The alcohol anklet was an excellent opportunity for me to show that I do not drink 24/7."

The justice ministry said its pilot studies showed that 71% of the participants did not drink alcohol during the test, even though some were allowed access to alcohol.

Around half of the participants said they did not drink for at least three months after the anklet was taken off.

Studies, cited by the justice ministry, have shown that 26% to 43% of all violent incidents in the Netherlands are related to alcohol, while the cost of alcohol abuse to Dutch society is estimated to run to 6 billion euros ($6.75 billion) a year.
Even as Facebook grappled this month with an internal revolt and a cascade of criticism over its refusal to take action on President Trumps inflammatory posts, the social network was actively making other bets behind the scenes. Late one Tuesday, as attention was focused on how Facebook might handle Mr. Trump, the Silicon Valley company said in a brief blog post that it had invested in Gojek, a super app in Southeast Asia. The deal, which gave Facebook a bigger foothold in the rapidly growing region, followed a $5.7 billion investment it recently pumped into ...
Rock the Vote was built to support young people and in this moment when young people are showing their power and demanding action, we are honored to launch Democracy Summer. Artists, influencers, elected officials and activists are joining together to help sustain the fire lit by America's youth.

A powerhouse lineup of artists, activists, influencers and elected officials will kick off Democracy Summer 2020, the effort led by Rock the Vote in partnership with Voto Latino Foundation, When We All Vote, March For Our Lives and many more, to register and mobilize 200,000 new voters over the summer, at a virtual event on Thursday, June 18th.

In a mix of performances and messages, Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas will co-headline the kickoff alongside Big Freedia, Lucy Hale, Ne-Yo, Saweetie, Amara La Negra, MAX, Dove Cameron, Leslie Grace, Skylar Astin, Sofia Carson, Michael K. Williams, Rich Brian and Alex Wolff. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Cory Booker and Sec. Julian Castro will make appearances as will activists including Little Miss Flint, Dominic Dupont, Greg Jackson, Kyra Stephenson-Valley, Tylik McMillan and others.

Actors Rosario Dawson and Logan Browning will co-host with special guests Rapper Chuck D (of Public Enemy) and Eve to anchor the evening special, which will stream live at http://www.DemocracySummer.org beginning at 8:00pm ET / 5:00pm PT.

"This is no ordinary year, said Carolyn DeWitt, president of Rock the Vote. Rock the Vote was built to support young people and in this moment when young people are showing their power and demanding action, we are honored to launch Democracy Summer. Artists, influencers, elected officials and activists are joining together to help sustain the fire lit by America's youth and build a movement to the polls to elect leaders who will take action."

The Democracy Summer 2020 kickoff comes in the midst of young people taking to the streets in support of Black Lives Matter following the murder of George Floyd. The event will highlight the importance of supporting Black Lives and young peoples incredible power to organize and create change. More than 4-million young people turn 18 this year and will be eligible to vote for the first time.

During the livestream funds will be raised for Black-led and focused organizations like the National Action Network, Community Justice Action Fund, and others.

88 Rising, The Association of Fraternal Leadership & Values, APIA Vote, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Brady Community Justice Action Fund, Drag Out the Vote, Emerge America, Fair Fight Action, Generation Progress, Get Lit, IGNITE, The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, Mississippi Votes, Muslim Public Affairs Council, National Action Network, National Coalition Black Civic Participation, National Congress of American Indians, and People For the American Way are joining the vast Democracy Summer 2020 coalition, which in addition to Rock the Vote, Voto Latino Foundation, When We All Vote and March For Our Lives also includes; ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, American Constitution Society, The Andrew Goodman Foundation, CIRCLE, Generation Citizen, Music Forward Foundation, National Disability Rights Network, Students Learn Students Vote and Student PIRGS.

Media and promotional partners include Facebook, YouTube, Tixr Play, FaZe Clan, Epic Records, iHeartMedia, Influential and Participant, who will be airing an exclusive clip from their upcoming film featuring Congressman John Lewis John Lewis: Good Trouble.

A special thanks to partners like Influential, The Krim Group, and the Silver Linings Group who have made this event possible.

Outside of Thursdays launch, Democracy Summer 2020 will be holding several other activations throughout the summer to mobilize young people to organize their friends and family.

For more information on this effort, text SUMMER to 788-683 or visit http://www.DemocracySummer.org.
The National Immigrant Justice Center or NIJC, a nonprofit group in Chicago, recently filed 18 federal lawsuits in states which include Illinois, Texas, and Wisconsin, to seek the release of more than 40 detained immigrants since the middle of March. Thus far, two lawsuits have been lost and at least 26 individuals released as of this writing.

The Chicago group contended that the pandemic has led to unsafe conditions for detained immigrants. According to reports, this was aggravated by deferring measures in an "already-backlogged immigration court system," and keeping people in detention for a longer time with inadequate protection.

According to Keren Zwick, litigation director of NIJC, the court system has set individuals up for putting them in an undoubtedly dangerous condition "while they sit and wait".

Based on information Star Tribute has gathered, early this year there were approximately 1,800 immigrant detainees across the nation that have tested positive for COVID-19. Two deaths have also been recorded and reported, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

Protective Measures to Curb Virus Spread

Officials of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE claimed they have taken "protective measures to control the spread of infection." These measures include providing hand sanitizer and masks, distancing detainees and staggered meal schedules.

Because of the pandemic, state officials said they are holding up fewer individuals and have released "hundreds of medically-susceptible immigrant detainees" who are not a threat to public safety.

In addition, ICE announced it would provide COVID-19 tests to all detainees in Tacoma, Washington, and Aurora Colorado facilities, and eventually in other places.

Nevertheless, according to detainees and advocates, such initiatives are too late as COVID-19 had quickly spread, and the testing initiative has not gone far enough to benefit around 25,000 immigrants in ICE custody.

Worried Immigrant

One of the immigrants under ICE custody was Alfredo Chavez Garcia, who spent months worrying about his health and the future of his six children. He was in an immigrant detention center in Southern Illinois, where over 50 percent of the detainees have contracted COVID-19.

Garcia, a 49-year-old widower, has high blood pressure and diabetes. He said individuals waiting for immigration hearings at the Pulaski County prison were living in close quarters with no access to soap. He added that the facility did not provide them with masks or hand sanitizers as well.

Garcia is a Mexican immigrant who has been living in the US for four decades now. He has a green card. He was released from detention in April following the federal lawsuit filed by NIJC.

Despite his release and being reunited with his kids in Chicago, Garcia said he feels that the concerns of detainees have not been heard. He refused to discuss further details as his immigration case remains pending.

Growing Pressure from Activists and Lawmakers

Incidentally, the Chicago organization has made over 60 similar efforts across the nation to help high-risk immigrant detainees get out of the detention facilities.

Such initiatives take place as ICE encounters growing pressure from legislators and activists saying the agency is not doing enough to conduct more tests and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

ICE had reported that 45 detainees at the Pulaski County Detention Center located in Ullin have already tested positive with the virus since the public health crisis started. Ullin is a community with approximately 400 residents on the southern tip of Illinois.

The outbreak, based on a letter sent to the Homeland Security and Health and Human Services departments in late May, has provoked US senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin to seek investigation from federal inspections on the conditions of detention centers, referring to unnecessary risk and probable strain "that an outbreak could occur on inadequate local health resources."

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Maxine Dexter will take the House District 33 seat seven months earlier than she planned.

Dexter, a Kaiser Permanente physician from Northwest Portland, was appointed Friday to succeed Democrat Mitch Greenlick, who died May 15 at age 85. Dexter won a four-way Democratic primary May 19 for the open seat. Greenlick had announced during his 2018 campaign that his ninth term in the House would be his last.

Dexter's appointment marks a first. According to the House Majority Office, women now represent half of the 60 House districts in Oregon.

Dexter was sworn in Sunday by Justice Adrienne Nelson of the Oregon Supreme Court in a private ceremony. If the seat remained vacant on Monday, 30 days after Greenlicks death, state law empowers the governor to appoint any qualified Democrat.

I will do all I can to make my role in this government one that people can look back on as one who really aspired to fill the shoes of Rep. Greenlick, Dexter said just before the vote by commissioners in Washington and Multnomah counties. He was willing and able to advance the importance of public health, regardless of the pressures outside. Being able to be candid and forthright is something I would like to emulate.

Dexter, 47, has been a pulmonologist and critical care specialist at Kaiser for 12 years. She sat on the KP board for six years and led it for more than two years. She also joined the board of the Tualatin Hills Park Foundation in 2019. She is married to Robert Dexter, whos also a physician. They have a daughter and son.

Dexter has identified racial equity and adequate housing as top issues facing the Legislature and elected officials.

The (racial) fault lines have existed for generations and it is time to address them, she said.

She won about 40% of the Democratic primary vote. Dick Courter of Portland was unopposed for the Republican nomination. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans, 45.5% to 16.7%, according to May figures; about a third of district voters have no party affiliation.

Dexter was nominated by Democratic precinct committee members, who also put forth Valerie Aitchison and Pamela Kislak. Both had supported Dexter in the primary and urged the commissioners to appoint Dexter. State law required the party to propose three to five names for consideration by the commissioners.

This is a situation where we can all agree on who the obvious choice will be, said Washington County Commissioner Dick Schouten.

The votes were weighted 64% for the five Washington County commissioners and 36% for the five Multnomah County commissioners, based on the registered voters within the district. The district extends from Northwest Portland into unincorporated communities in Washington County north of the Sunset Highway.

All of the votes were cast for Dexter. Multnomah County Commissioner Lori Stegmann did not participate, and the law bars proxy voting.

Commissioner Roy Rogers, who represents an area outside House District 33, said he hoped Dexter would take the time to learn about other Washington County issues.

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COLORADO  The human rights fraternity is in mourning following the passing of a young activist.

Esther Nakajjigo, 23, was hit by a huge gate while exiting a shopping mall in Colorado, USA, at the weekend.

She has been the European Union leader in fighting violence against women in Uganda.

She also holds the NSSF future awards of 2015.

Former RDC Monday William Kintu is appealing to Government to help repatriate the body back home since she did not die of COVID 19.

As an associate for international programmes at Drexel University, Philadelphia, Nakajjigo, supported the recent ant-racism protests in US.

As anti-racism demonstrations sweep from Minnesota, through Philadelphia and across the United States, as a proud member of the Drexel Community, I strongly applaud the deliberate efforts made by Drexel University to the address the chronic issues of institutional racism that unequivocally impacts the Black community. Thank you for acknowledging the Black and all other beautiful races of the world. But above all, thank you for encouraging everyone to hold you accountable!! You have set a precedence for a new World Order, she posted on her Facebook wall.

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Life sciences open their doors for engineers

15 June 2020 - The European Molecular Biology Laboratory has secured 6.8 million Euros funding from the European Commission to launch a unique training programme. The ARISE Programme will train and develop Europe's next generation leadership for research infrastructures in the life sciences.

Research infrastructures are increasingly important to research and development activity by providing access to the latest detection, imaging, computational and research techniques at scale. Maintaining and improving these infrastructures requires interdisciplinary skills bridging science, engineering, service provision and management, that are not usually provided by traditional training programmes in academia or industry.

"During the last years we noticed an increasing need to train more engineers, physicists and other technology experts to become research infrastructure scientists," says Rainer Pepperkok, Director of Scientific Core Facilities and Scientific Services. "Yet worldwide, to our best knowledge, there was no training programme to address it, with few specialists being trained at the interface of academia and industry."

The ARISE Programme

To address this problem, EMBL developed a unique new training programme for future research infrastructure scientists. Supported by a European Commission Marie Curie COFUND Programme grant of 6.8 million Euros and an EMBL investment of 5.9 million Euros, the Career Accelerator for Research Infrastructure Scientists (ARISE) Programme will train 62 Fellows over the next five years.

"Having received the European Commission's stamp of approval in the form of a COFUND grant, we hope that the ARISE Programme will be seen as a model for training of a research infrastructure scientists for European life sciences," adds Peer Bork, Head of the Structural and Computational Biology Unit at EMBL and ARISE Programme Director.

During their three-year fellowship experienced STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) professionals will develop into future leaders in technology development and the operation of advanced life science research infrastructures in Europe. ARISE Fellows will work on a wide range of research and technology development in the different areas of expertise at EMBL and its 46 ARISE Programme partners. These include imaging, bioinformatics, data science and big data, structural biology, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and (bio)chemical engineering.

"After successfully finishing their training, we expect the ARISE Fellows to take positions as senior scientists or leaders in core facilities, research infrastructures or technology development groups across Europe," says Tanja Ninkovic, EMBL Project Manager. "These positions could be in academia, industry, health care and sectors we are not aware of today."

A unique European offering

With six sites in five European countries, state-of-the-art core facilities, research spanning the life sciences and international connections EMBL offers both the capacity and the capability to provide advanced training for many different types of research infrastructure scientists. Several engineering teams already support EMBL researchers in exploring new instrumental challenges and designing new instruments. EMBL has long-standing experience in training, having launched its international PhD programme in 1983. Nearly 250 pre- and postdoctoral fellows benefit from EMBL training each year.

The ARISE Fellows will be hosted by 39 participating groups at EMBL sites. All of them have a track record in developing new methods and technologies, and in providing scientific services. The EMBL Imaging Centre, currently under construction at EMBL Heidelberg, will also have a central role as technology platform for state-of-the-art microscopy. It will also allow scientists, together with world-leading industry partners, to develop new microscopy techniques.

The first call for applications will open in autumn 2020.

###

About EMBL

EMBL is Europe's flagship laboratory for the life sciences. We are an intergovernmental organisation established in 1974 and are supported by over 20 member states. EMBL performs fundamental research in molecular biology, studying the story of life. We offer services to the scientific community; train the next generation of scientists and strive to integrate the life sciences across Europe.

We are international, innovative and interdisciplinary. We are more than 1600 people, from over 80 countries, operating across six sites in Grenoble (France), Hamburg (Germany), Heidelberg (Germany), Cambridge (UK), Rome (Italy), and Barcelona (Spain). Our scientists work in independent groups and conduct research and offer services in all areas of molecular biology. Our research drives the development of new technology and methods in the life sciences. We work to transfer this knowledge for the benefit of society.

http://www. embl. org

About the project

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie grant agreement No 945405.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The new army strategy in the south, which has been underway for over a year, has paid off. The new approach relies less on an armed presence (fewer patrols and checkpoints) and more on surveillance technology and a network of local informants that has been built over the last few years. Most of the informants are local Moslems who have grown tired of more than a decade of separatist and Islamic terrorist violence. Over the last decade cell phone use has become universal in the south and that makes it easier and safer to be an informant. This new approach not only means fewer terror attacks, especially the bombs, but also fewer police and army raids. There are fewer active terrorists and supporters. The covid19 lockdown meant even fewer opportunities to carry out attacks or the need for raids on terrorist hideouts. There has been only one violent (guns fired) raid in the last three months and that took place in late April because the surrounded terrorists fired on the police. This reaction has become standard with most raids ending with no violence, and no bullets flying around the neighborhood threatening civilians.

Nearly all the terrorists, even the separatists, are generally seen as public enemies. The separatist groups negotiating with the Thai government (in Malaysia) admit that they have violent factions that insist on continuing the violence. These factions would have to be disowned as part of any political settlement but the radicals are steadfast in their violent beliefs. At the same time, the exiled (mainly in Malaysia) separatist leaders are dismayed with reports that most of their fellow Moslems in the three Moslem majority provinces are more interested in peace and prosperity than autonomy. In other words, give peace a chance.

During the last few months, soldiers and police have spent most of their time enforcing the quarantine. That included highway checkpoints that force a lot of criminal activity to go cross-country instead. The rural population still has their cell phone service and fear of covid19 infection. This combination led to more tips about where criminals were and that soon led to the bad guys spending most of their time seeking to remain undetected and uninfected. There has been less terrorist violence in the south while drug smugglers, who are often armed, became more of a problem.

The military was also forced to cut its budget by half a billion dollars for 2020 because of the nationwide economic crises. This means delaying some arms purchases like Stryker wheeled armored vehicles that were to arrive this year. That will be delayed a year or more. The navy has cut its 2020 spending by a third. That has led to eliminating a lot of its 2020 ship modernization work and delaying the arrival of two Chinese built submarines. Other major procurement projects are expected to be delayed as well. These budget cuts also helped persuade the military to permanently downsize. This has been a popular idea for decades.

Virus Victory

Thailand has come through the covid19 epidemic better than most other nations, both regionally and worldwide. Thailand so far has 45 confirmed cases of covid19 (coronavirus) per million population and 0.8 deaths per million. Those numbers hardly changed over the last month. Such was not the case with other nations in the region. Neighbor Malaysia had 261 cases per million confirmed cases and four deaths per million.

The stark difference here was because Thailand had a public health system that extended to the lowest levels (villages and city neighbors) with volunteers making up most of the staff and obtaining directions and medical supplies from the government. That meant a strict quarantine was not necessary and compliance was monitored and enforced by locals. In Malaysia, some Moslem clerics defied quarantine rules and continued holding prayer services in crowded mosques. Because more people in Malaysia were infected, some Thai Moslems working in Malaysia tried to return home infected with covid19. A screening and approval process was set up to catch most of these virus carriers before they got home and infected others. Another potential source of infections was the large number of Chinese tourists and commercial visitors that are normally in the country. Foreigners were sent home as soon as possible. While still in Thailand, foreigners were forced to self-quarantine for two weeks before they could move freely. Even then they were avoided by most Thais.

Thailand did not undertake widespread testing for covid19 but does know that few Chinese visitors were infected. While covid19 first appeared in Wuhan China in late 2019 the Chinese government tried to suppress the news but word-of-mouth did the job in Wuhan and a lot of tourists and business travelers canceled their trips. Some infected travelers did get out of Wuhan but Thailand was one of the earliest nations to quarantine and then ban foreign visitors in general. This ban is just now beginning to lift.

Elsewhere in the region, Bangladesh has 532 covid19 cases per million and seven dead per million. In Burma, its five cases per million people and 0.1 deaths. India has 241 cases per million and seven dead per million while Pakistan has 665 cases per million and 12 deaths per million people. China, where the virus began, stopped releasing covid19 cases and deaths data as part of a government program to try and blame the U.S. for the virus. Few (Chinese or foreigners) believe that and it is taken for granted by neighbors of China that the Wuhan Virus, as it was first known, indeed came from China.

By now it has also become known that covid19 is not much more dangerous than one of the deadlier annual influenza epidemics. The flu is taken for granted and it is unclear if covid19, which is genetically almost identical to the 2013 SARS virus, another Chinese corona (trans-species) virus, will be an annual event or disappear like SARS and similar diseases. Covid19 is unique in that it attacks the lungs and is often mistaken for pneumonia. As such it is particularly dangerous to the elderly or anyone with a weakened immune system or other illnesses. Most healthy adults and children do not notice covid19 at all even if exposed to it.

Economic Defeats

Thailand has suffered heavy economic losses so far, including the temporary loss of many jobs. Much of the damage was in the tourism sector. Chinese tourists stopped coming and soon after that most other tourists did likewise. Tourism is about 20 percent of the Thai economy and for 2020 tourism activity is expected to be down by at least a quarter and possibly a third or more. That added to other economic woes has got most Thais anxious about their financial futures. The government sees the unemployment rate peaking at over 20 percent and fears how long that will last. In late 2019 it was estimated that the economy (GDP) would grow nearly three percent in 2020. Now the prediction of for the GDP to lose nearly six percent in 2020, and possibly more depending on how long it takes to get the tourists back. Exports of manufactured goods is already booming but that cannot make up for the tourism losses.

All this is catastrophic for a country that has long had an unemployment rate of one percent or less. Particularly hard hit is the south, which depends a lot on tourism and where the less educated majority Moslem population always had a higher unemployment rate. The government will release comprehensive statistics at the end of June as Thailand lifts most economic restrictions and people get back to work.

June 14, 2020: The army has agreed to permanently reduce its personnel strength and annual spending over the next few years. The army is still very unpopular for its decade of direct interference in politics. This began in 2010 when the military intervened on the side of royalists in an ongoing dispute between royalists and democrats. In 2014 the military staged another coup. Public pressure led to the March 2019 elections that returned democratic government. That new government now has to deal with a growing list of economic and political problems.

The military changed the constitution before allowing elections so the newly elected government is basically a military government pretending to be a democratic one. Because of that in March, just before the covid19 lockdown and for the first time since 2014, there was a pro-democracy demonstration in the capital. In late 2015 pro-democracy leader (and former prime minister) Thaksin Shinawatra called on his followers (the red shirts) to play dead for the moment and wait for the military government to allow elections. At the time the military was looking for an excuse to crack down hard on any opposition, especially when it involved public demonstrations in the capital. Not surprisingly the red shirts, now wearing black, are back. The economy is a mess, censorship is rampant and the Islamic and separatist violence is still around down south. The new, pro-military king is, as expected corrupt and unstable. Not much to cheer about after six years of military rule. Resuming public protests seemed appropriate, even though that sort of thing is now illegal. Then again, the military is much more disliked than feared compared to 2014.

A major goal of the democrats is a return of local elections. These have not been held since the 2014 coup and resuming the local elections is one thing nearly all Thais can agree on. Those elections were supposed to be held in 2020 but the military-dominated government is trying to use covid19 to push the vote into 2021. The military knows that the local elections will simply spotlight how unpopular the military has become. That ill repute is not fading away. Local elections would also remove the many replacement local officials appointed while the military was in charge.

June 11, 2020: Long-distance railroad travel was resumed. Long-distance bus service resumed two days ago. With hardly any covid19 cases recently there is nothing to spread vis long-distance travel inside the country. The three Moslem southern provinces were isolated at the end of March because that was where there were the most infected people (tourists and Thai Moslems returning lost jobs in Malaysia). Masks are still required on trains and busses and passengers will have their temperatures checked before boarding.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 12:27:46|Editor: huaxia

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LONDON, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A cross-government commission is set to be launched to check how discrimination in the education system, in health and in the criminal justice system has affected black and minority ethnic groups in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said here on Sunday.

"We're going to have a big, big effort, which we will be announcing very shortly: a new cross-government commission to look at what is going on for black and minority ethnic groups and to champion their success," Johnson noted.

The move is aimed at ending racial discrimination and injustice in the country, as well as providing more opportunities to black and ethnic minority students going to university, which has been "slightly lost," according to the prime minister.

"What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative, so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination... We stop the discrimination, we stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success, that's where I want to get to," he stressed. "But it won't be easy."

Johnson's remarks came amid a series of protests following a series of anti-racism demonstrations across Britain, sparked by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed African American, by U.S. police.

More than 100 people were arrested during Saturday's protests in London, which turned violent later and left six police officers injured, according to Scotland Yard.

It came after around 200 people breached the 17:00 curfew with most congregating around the statue of Churchill in Parliament Square in central London on Saturday. Police later blocked off two pedestrian bridges between Embankment and Waterloo as Black Lives Matter protesters had been on them attempting to get north in the capital.

Johnson condemned the violence on Twitter, saying racist thuggery "has no place on our streets. Anyone attacking the police will be met with full force of the law."

"These marches and protests have been subverted by violence and breach current guidelines. Racism has no part in the UK and we must work together to make that a reality," he wrote. Enditem
At Least 27 Falun Gong Adherents Died of Persecution in First Half of 2020

Zhang Zhiwen, a native of Henan Province, was kidnapped by the police and detained in the Xuchang City Detention Center. Zhang, in her 60s, died three days later.

Hu Lin, an engineer in Shenyang city, was tortured to death in Kangjiashan prison.

Zhou Xiuzhen of Tangshan city was kidnapped and sent to prison. She died of illness caused by the persecution.

These are some of the Falun Gong practitioners who have died as a result of being persecuted by Chinese authorities.

Also known as Falun Dafa, Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese meditative discipline with moral teachings based on the core principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It was banned in July 1999 on orders of then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin.

According to human rights researchers, millions of Falun Gong practitioners have since been rounded up and thrown into detention centers, forced labor camps, and brainwashing centers, where they are routinely tortured and subject to other abuse. Falun Gong adherents are also the main source of organs in Chinas state-sanctioned, for-profit transplant industry, an independent peoples tribunal concluded.

According to data collected by Minghui.org, which compiles information and statistics on the Chinese regimes Falun Gong persecution campaign, at least 27 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death between January and May this year. Ten of them died during detention at a local police station or prison.

Due to the CCP virus pandemic, Chinas prisons were locked down and family visits were not allowed. But people continue to be imprisoned and persecuted for their faith.

Falun Gong Practitioner From Henan Dies at Detention Center

At around 9 a.m. on May 13, Luo Dongjun and Wang Xiaowei from the domestic security division of Yuzhou city, along with other police officers from Nancheng police station, kidnapped two female Falun Gong adherents, Zhang Zhiwen and Qiao Shuhong. Zhang was sent to the detention center of Xuchang city, Henan Province.

The next day, Zhangs family inquired about her whereabouts and sent her clothing and medicines for her diabetes. The detention center refused, saying that there were all kinds of medicines available in the center. The family members repeatedly reminded the detention center that she had to take her medicine every day.

On the morning of May 17, Zhangs family called the detention center to ask about her situation. Wang Xiaowei told them that she passed away.

Family Experiences Tragedy

Gao Yan, 49, lived in Beijing. She had benefited from practicing Falun Gong both mentally and physically since she took up the practice in 1998.

Because of the persecution campaign of the Chinese regime, she and her husband Yang Yuliang have been homeless for 10 years. Later, she was sentenced to two years imprisonment at a labor camp. During her incarceration, Yang suffered from multiple organ dysfunction, and Gao suffered from hypertension, irregular menstruation, and endocrine disorders.

After they were both released in 2013, Gao had never regained her health. But local police continued to harass the couple, often visiting their home.

In the early morning hours of April 17, Gao suffered a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. She died at around 8 p.m. on April 22.

Undated photo of Gao Yan. (Courtesy of Minghui.org)

Prior to this, her father-in-law had passed away on April 7. On April 27, when the family was making funeral arrangements, several police officers who claimed to be from the Shunyi branch broke into and ransacked the house. They forcibly took away Yang Yuliang and their daughter, Yang Dandan.

They were transferred to Mulin police station and then to Shunyi detention center with the reasoning that they needed to take a nucleic acid test for the CCP virus. The test cost more than 1,000 yuan ($141.21). Afterwards, a family member was notified to pick them up.

The familys neighbors complained about the inhumane treatment that Yang and his daughter received from the police.

Woman Dies From Persecution for Exposing Husbands Brutal Treatment in Prison

Bian Lichao and his wife Zhou Xiuzhen live in Tangshan city, Hebei Province. Bian was a teacher at the 10th Middle School of Kailuan, Tangshan city. He had suffered from primary heart disease and high blood pressure. But his health improved after practicing Falun Gong in 1997.

Bian was kidnapped from his home on Feb. 25, 2012 for practicing Falun Gong. His personal belongings and hundreds of thousands of yuan were confiscated. He was sentenced to 12 years in Baoding prison.

At the beginning of 2013, Bian was secretly transferred to Shijiazhuang prison. He was tortured by being forced to sit on a tiny bench for a long period of time. His heart disease recurred. The doctor warned that he may die suddenly at any time.

In an effort to rescue Bian, his wife Zhou and their daughter repeatedly exposed the torture tactics of the Tangshan authorities.

On March 12, 2014, the daughter and another Falun Gong practitioner, Chen Yinghua, were both kidnapped when they went to visit Bian in prison. Zhou was also abducted from home the next day.

In April 2015, Bian was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, and Chen was sentenced to four years. In May of the same year, Zhou Xiuzhen was sentenced to four years. Chen and Zhou were taken to the womens prison in Hebei Province.

Zhou was tortured in prison severely. She suffered damage to her liver and the onset of ascites. She had to be taken to the hospital for medical treatment.

After Zhou was released from prison, the police continued to harass her, and as a result, her health deteriorated. Zhou died on April 19 of this year.

Undated photo of Zhou Xiuzhen. (Courtesy of Minghui.org)

Aviation Engineer Persecuted to Death

Hu Lin, 47, was an aeronautical engineer and a Falun Gong practitioner who lived in Shenyang city, Liaoning Province. He was kidnapped by the police on May 23, 2019 for distributing pamphlets containing information about Falun Gong. He was sentenced to two years in prison. On Feb. 16, 2020, he was tortured to death in Kanjiashan prison, Shenyang city.

Prior to that, Hu had been kidnapped, detained, and sent to labor camp many times. Each time he was detained for his faith, he was severely beaten. He also suffered torture such as being handcuffed from the back, made to wear a restraint belt, shocked with electric batons, deprived of sleep, and ordered to do forced labor.

The police used electric batons to shock Hus knees, fingertips, toes, and genitals for prolonged periods, and they hurt his eyes with garlic and cigarette smoke, according to accounts collected by Minghui.org.
An LGBTQ activist jailed after waving a rainbow flag at a concert in Egypt was found dead over the weekend in a suspected suicide, the local press reports.

Egyptian authorities arrested Sarah Hegazi, 30, in October 2017 over the raising of the gay pride flag at concert performed by Lebanese indie-rock group Mashrou Leila, whose lead singer is openly gay.

Homosexuality isnt officially outlawed in Egypt, but rights groups say security forces frequently target people based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation using the countrys law against debauchery.

Hegazi, the only woman of more than 70 rounded up in the sweeping anti-gay crackdown, was charged with promoting sexual deviancy and debauchery. At the time of her arrest, the activist said an officer asked her if she was a virgin and why she wasnt wearing a hijab.

Hegazi says she was tortured with electric shocks and sexually abused by her cellmates at the Sayeda Zeinab police station.

She was released on bail after spending three months in a womens prison, during which she says she spent time in solitary confinement, and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks as a result of the trauma.

Fearing her rearrest, Hegazi fled the country and sought asylum in Canada, where she continued to struggle with her mental health, she explained in an article for independent media outlet Mada Masr in September 2018. In Canada, Hegazi attempted suicide twice.

This weekend, the activist posted a photo on Instagram with the caption, The sky is better than Earth. And I want the sky, not Earth. She also left behind a letter to her family and friends asking for forgiveness, according to Al Jazeera.

To my siblings: I tried to find redemption and failed, forgive me. To my friends: The journey was harsh and I am too weak to resist it, forgive me. To the world: You were cruel to a great extent, but I forgive, she wrote.

On social media, tributes to Hegazi poured in from admirers and fellow activists. Egyptian gay rights activist and neuroscientist Ahmed El Hady wrote in a Facebook post that the world had lost a luminary that dreamt of a just world.

I refuse to see you as a victim my dear Sara. You are a hero, you are a fighter and I promise you that we will continue your fight, he said.
[June 15, 2020] Summer Partners with Steady to Offer Student Loan Services to Over 2M Hourly and Gig Workers

ATLANTA, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Summer announced today that it is teaming up with Steady to introduce student loan financial assistance to the millions of hourly and gig workers on their platform. Summers mission is to improve the financial health of individuals across all income levels. Steadys worker population has been some of the hardest hit from COVID-19. Many hourly and gig economy workers now face an uncertain ability to earn a consistent income. As a result of this financial crisis, Steady is ramping up creative ways to support workers who are looking to increase their incomes and do not benefit from employer specific benefits that provide workers with support in areas such as healthcare, retirement and tax. In partnership with Summer, Steady users with student loans will be able to access Summer to help lower their monthly payments and have more cash on hand. Despite these accruing disadvantages, many hourly and gig workers are still expected to make their student loan payments. While the U.S. federal government has take the important step of pausing payments on all Federal Direct loans through September, millions of borrowers have continued to make payments on private student loans and commercially-held FFEL and Perkins loans that were excluded from the CARES Act.



Equipping workers with modern tools like Summer to mitigate other financial pain points while working to ease the prospect of navigating uncertain employment waters, Adam Roseman, Steadys CEO explains, provides every hourly and gig worker with a fighting chance to improve their financial lives without the added burden of crippling student loan debt. Borrowers who are either unemployed or have experienced a significant salary reduction could be eligible for a $0 or a low monthly payment in a federal Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan. A borrower with a monthly payment of $300 can save $3,600 this year alone3x the $1,200 stimulus check.

The economic downturn is adding gasoline to the fire for millions of student loan borrowers who have long struggled to cover high monthly payments, said Will Sealy, Summers CEO  Were proud to work with Steady to help their members enroll in programs like income-driven repayment to achieve greater financial stability during the turbulence of this recession. About Summer A certified B Corp, Summer is the leading resource for borrowers to simplify and save on their student debtoffering cutting-edge tools and a dedicated team of student loan experts to find, compare and enroll in dozens of loan assistance and forgiveness programs. About Steady Launched in 2018, Steady puts tools into the hands of American workers to help them solve their increasing income challenges caused by wages not keeping up with costs of living, the reduction of available work hours at employers due to their driving efficiencies, and future job loss due to automation. Steady makes it easier than ever for workers to fill their income gaps, gain insights into their income, and improve their overall financial well-being. To date, the Steady app has been downloaded more than 2.7 million times. For more information:

Paul Wilke

[email protected]

+1-415-215-8750

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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA)  Tanzania Parliament on Monday endorsed the national budget for 2020/21 financial year as President John Magufuli is set to address the House on Tuesday before it is dissolved ahead of the general elections in October
Islamabad/New Delhi, June 15 : The two Indian High Commission staffers in Pakistan, who were presumed missing since Monday morning, have been arrested by Pakistani police for their alleged involvement in a road accident in Islamabad.

The two staffers went missing at 8:30 am and since then were untraceable. India has since taken up the matter with Pakistani counterparts to ensure safety of the Indian officials.

Sources in Islamabad said "two Indian diplomats have been arrested by police authorities" after they were allegedly "involved in a road accident". Both are security officials of India's Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), assigned as security to the High Commissioner and other diplomats. The officials, as per police sources, "were over speeding when the accident occurred." However, there was no official communication from Pakistan.

At least one person has been injured in the accident, sources said adding that as the two Indian staffers tried to flee, the locals stopped them. Later the police arrived and arrested both of them.

Sources this morning had said that both the Indian High Commission staffers were out on duty in Islamabad and did not reach their destination. Strangely, there was no information about the two till the evening even as the Indian government had taken up the matter with the concerned Pakistan authorities.

Sources in New Delhi said Pakistan's charge d'affaires Syed Hyder Shah was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs and demarched on the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

India, in its protest against the arrests, has made it clear that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials. The responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, the government has conveyed to Pakistan.

Sources said the Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with their official car to the Indian High Commission immediately.

The intriguing drama of the arrest of the two officials has come two weeks after the Indian government deported two Pakistan High Commission officials from New Delhi after they were caught spying red-handed.

Pakistan's spy agency ISI has been harassing and intimidating India's top diplomats in Islamabad ever since the two officials of the Pakistan mission in New Delhi were deported for indulging in espionage activities.

The ISI has deployed several spies in cars and bikes outside the residence of India's charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia. However, on May 31 after the two Pakistani mission officials were caught spying and deported in New Delhi, ISI spies began chasing Ahluwalia's vehicle.

Indian law enforcement agencies had caught red-handed two Pakistani officials, Abid Hussain and Mohammad Tahir, for spying on the Indian Army on May 31. The duo used to meet Indian defence personnel as "businessmen" to get information for decoy news reporters. Both were declared persona non grata and expelled from India.

Amid this, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad is finding it difficult to resume normal functioning as Indian diplomats and consular officials are facing aggressive tailing and surveillance.

Last Friday, India registered a protest in the form of a note verbale to Pakistani authorities. India asked Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of the Indian High Commission and its staff and to allow them to resume their activities in keeping with the Vienna Convention.

India told Pakistan that the behaviour of its agencies violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and also the bilateral 1992 Code of Conduct which the two countries signed to provide diplomats immunity from hostilities in ties.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian signed a decree on appointing Tiran Khachatryan first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

According to another presidential decree, Komitas Muradyan has been relieved from the position of first deputy head of the general operative department of the General Staff.

Karen Abrahamyan has been appointed head of the general operative department of the General Staff  deputy chief of the General Staff.

The President signed the respective decrees based on the prime ministers proposal.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Desperate to restart the economy which has taken a hit by coronavirus pandemic, the Maharashtra government on Monday signed MoUs worth Rs 16,000 crore with companies spanning various industries, including two Chinese units, under its "Magnetic Maharashtra 2.0" initiative.

The companies are from diverse sectors like automobile, logistics, banking, engineering and mobile production, a state government official said.

The business pacts were signed by Industries Minister Subhash Desai of the Shiv Sena on behalf of the state government.

"We will facilitate all the companies that are willing to set up their plants in various parts of Maharashtra. They will face no hurdles in setting up their units," said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

The official said representatives of 12 countries including the USA, China, Singapore and South Korea among others, were present on the occasion.

"The total investment is Rs 16,030 crore. The MOU signing was part of the 'Magnetic Maharashtra 2.0' initiative," he said, adding that it was the first such programme after Thackeray became CM last November.
A Tory minister insisted he acted in 'good faith' when he approved a 1billion property for a party donor as he finally faced a grilling from MPs today.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick is facing continuing pressure after approving a planning application by billionaire Richard Desmond for 1,500 luxury flats in east London.

He overruled official objections and personally approved the plans the day before Mr Desmond would have been liable for a new tax, which would have cost him 30million to 50million.

Weeks later the two men sat together at a Conservative Party fundraiser where Mr Desmond, the former owner of the Express and Star newspapers, gave the party 12,000.

Mr Jenrick later withdrew his decision after being accused of 'bias' in the High Court over the Westferry Printworks development in London's Docklands.

Labour tried to bring him to the House of Commons to face questions last week, only for the Cabinet minister to send a more junior minister in his place.

But he took to the Despatch Box today to insisted that he had broken no rules and claimed he sat next to Mr Desmond at the party 'inadvertently'.

Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed today demanded he assure MPs that 'the integrity of the planning process cannot be auctioned off at conservative party fundraising dinners'.

Mr Jenrick replied: 'I took that decision in good faith with an open mind. And I am confident, confident that all the rules were followed in doing so.

Mr Jenrick he took to the Despatch Box today to insisted that he had broken no rules and claimed he sat next to Mr Desmond at the party 'inadvertently'

Shadow communities secretary Steve Reed today demanded he assure MPs that 'the integrity of the planning process cannot be auctioned off at conservative party fundraising dinners'

Billionaire Richard Desmond (pictured left) had his planning permission for 1,500 luxury flats in London approved by Mr Jenrick, in a deal where he may have avoided a tax bill up to 50million

'All of the relevant information relating to this matter is with the Cabinet Secretary and I have taken and will take again advice from my permanent secretary about what further documentation we might be able to publish.'

Pressed again on his attended at the fundraising event he added: 'My department knew about my attendance at the event before i went to it, they knew about the fact that I had inadvertently sat next to the applicant - I didn't know who I was going to be seated by until I sat at the table, and I discussed and took advice from my officials within the department at all times.'

Mr Jenrick later said the Metropolitan Police had informed him they would not be investigating allegations connected to the Westferry development.

SNP MP Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) pressed the minister over his 'entirely unsatisfactory' answers, adding: 'He accepts he acted unlawfully in overruling a local authority to grant planning permission to a wealthy Tory donor, helping him avoid 40 million in tax.

'Will he now explain to this House how he expects the public to have confidence in planning procedures given his actions and why he thinks it is appropriate for him to remain in post while the police investigation into his behaviour is ongoing?'

Mr Jenrick said the 'vast majority' of Mr Sheppard's points were 'factually incorrect', adding: 'I understand that a Labour member of the House of Lords did make an allegation to the police.

'That was swiftly assessed by members of the Metropolitan Police and they informed that there were no criminal matters to investigate and they had no intention of taking it further.'

He added: 'In terms of the decision, I entirely stand behind the decision that I made, I made it with an open mind, because we want to see more homes built in this country and in particular in our capital city.

Labour has demanded an investigation into Downing Street's links to a lobbyist involved in the development.

The Prime Minister himself has denied impropriety after it was revealed that the lobbyist Richard Patient had attended his leadership victory party.

Asked about the allegations yesterday, Mr Johnson said: 'I can assure you I had absolutely nothing to do with that. I meet people the whole time.'

Asked if Mr Jenrick had done the right thing, he added: 'As far as I know of course he did.'

It came after it emerged that Mr Jenrick was also linked to Mr Patient. He will face a series of questions today about the role of the so-called 'Tory fixer' in the scandal.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured) has defended Mr Jenrick's involvement in the development

The property development involved is the Westferry Printworks development in the London Docklands (pictured)

Yesterday, the row reached No 10 after it was revealed that Mr Patient was photographed at Mr Johnson's Tory leadership victory party last summer.

Mr Patient has boasted of his ability to access and influence Downing Street figures, according to the Mail on Sunday.

He has also boasted of his connections to Mr Johnson's senior adviser Sir Eddie Lister, describing him as 'a great friend'.

Labour plans to question the Housing Secretary on his links to the lobbyist, whose firm Thorncliffe Communications, declares the Westferry development as a 'paid-for client'.

Mr Patient was photographed twice last year with Mr Johnson, once during his leadership campaign and again on the night he won the Tory leadership race.

Mr Johnson told MPs last week that he had never spoken to anyone about planning permission for the Docklands development.

Mr Patient's firm's website describes Mr Jenrick as 'a friend of Thorncliffe'.

In January, two weeks after Mr Jenrick approved the development, Mr Patient posted a picture of him on his personal Facebook page with the caption: 'Robert Jenrick is a great guy.'

Mr Jenrick has denied any friendship with Mr Patient, his firm or any knowledge of their links to Westferry at the time. He has admitted being lobbied by Mr Desmond over the deal at a Conservative Party fundraiser last year.

Lobbyist Richard Patient (pictured left), who is linked with the development, was photographed with the PM on the night of Boris Johnson (right)'s leadership Tory leadership win

Thorncliffe Communications was hired by Mr Desmond in 2016 and has listed Westferry Developments as clients on the statutory register of consultant lobbyists since July 2019.

Lobbying firms only need report to the statutory register if they make communications orally or in writing to ministers or senior civil servants about key decisions on behalf of a client.

Mr Patient said that he had only registered Westferry as a paid client because he had discussed working with them, and insisted that he had not lobbied ministers over the project.

Last night, Labour wrote to the Cabinet Secretary to call for an investigation into the role of Mr Johnson and senior No 10 advisers in the scandal.

Steve Reed, shadow communities and local government secretary, said: 'The latest revelations expose the murky relationship between No 10, senior government ministers and lobbyists for billionaire property developers - they warrant urgent investigation by the Cabinet Secretary into any wrongdoing.

'Ministers must not put the planning process up for sale to their wealthy friends.

'Mr Jenrick must publish all correspondence about this case to allow full public scrutiny of what he's been up to.'

A spokesman for Mr Jenrick said: '[He] has no relationship whatsoever... with Thorncliffe.'

A Tory spokesman said: 'There is no question of any individual influencing party or government policy by virtue of any donations they may give to the party or their attendance at party events.'
HCQ has demonstrated in-vitro activity against SARS-CoV-2 and shown to be clinically beneficial in several small single-centre studies with significant limitations.

The Health Ministry on Saturday recommended the use of antiviral drug in the moderate stage of COVID-19 while backtracking from its earlier stance on hydroxychloroquine, saying the anti-malarial drug should be used in the early course of the disease and not on critically ill patients.

It also okayed off-label application of tocilizumab, a drug that modifies the immune system or its functioning, and convalescent plasma for treating coronavirus-infected patients in moderate stage of the illness.

In its revised 'Clinical Management Protocols for COVID-19' the ministry dropped the use of azithromycin in combination with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in severe cases and requiring ICU management.

Hydroxychloroquine has demonstrated in-vitro activity against SARS-CoV2 and was shown to be clinically beneficial in several small single-centre studies though with significant limitations, it stated.

"Nonetheless, several large observational studies with severe methodologic limitations have shown no effect on mortality or other clinically meaningful outcomes.

"As such, the evidence base behind its use remains limited as with other drugs and should only be used after shared decision making with the patients while awaiting the results of ongoing studies," the revised document stated.

As is the case with other antivirals, this drug should be used as early in the disease course as possible to achieve any meaningful effects and should be avoided in patients with severe disease, the health ministry said, adding an ECG should ideally be done before prescribing the drug.

Under emergency use authorization, remdesivir may be considered for patients in moderate stage requiring oxygen support. It is not recommended for those with severe renal impairment and high level of liver enzymes, pregnant and lactating women, and those below 12 years, the document stated.

The drug, administered in the form of injection, should be given at a dose of 200 mg on day one followed by 100 mg daily for five days.

According to the revised protocols, convalescent plasma therapy may be considered for patients with moderate illness with no improvement in condition despite the use of steroids.

The therapy involves taking antibodies from the blood of a person who has recovered from COVID-19 and transfusing those into a coronavirus patient to help kickstart the immune system to fight the infection. The recipient should be closely monitored for several hours after transfusion for any adverse events and its use should be avoided in patients with immunoglobulin A deficiency or immunoglobulin allergy.

"The dose is variable ranging from 4 to 13 ml/kg -- usually 200 ml single dose given slowly over not less than two hours, the revised document stated.

The guidelines state that tocilizumab, may be considered in patients with moderate illness with progressively increase in oxygen requirement and in mechanically ventilated patients not improving despite the use of steroids.

Long term safety data in COVID 19 remains largely unknown, the guidelines stated.

The presence of raised inflammatory markers should be checked before its use and the patient should be carefully monitored after tocilizumab is administered for secondary infections and neutropenia. Active infections and Tuberculosis should be ruled out before use, it stated.

For patients with progressive deterioration of oxygenation indicators, rapid worsening on imaging and excessive activation of the body's inflammatory response, glucocorticoids can be used for a short period of time.

Larger dose of glucocorticoids, a class of steroid hormones, will delay the removal of coronavirus due to immunosuppressive effects, the revised document stated.

According to the revised clinical management protocols, loss of smell or taste has been added to the list of COVID-19 symptoms.

The ministry said that coronavirus-infected patients reporting to various COVID-19 treatment facilities have been reporting symptoms like fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, expectoration, myalgia, rhinorrhea, sore throat and diarrhoea. They have also complained of loss of smell (anosmia) or loss of taste (ageusia) preceding the onset of respiratory symptoms.

The ministry said the use of remdesivir, tocilizumab and convalescent plasma therapy, at present, is based on limited available evidence. As the situation evolves, and when more data become available, the evidence will be accordingly incorporated, and recommendation upgraded, it stated.

Further, use of these drugs is subject to limited availability in the country as of now, the document stated.

India currently does not manufacture remdesivir

Four companies -- Hetero, Jubilant Life Sciences, Cipla and Mylan NV -- with which the original drugmaker Gilead Sciences Inc have entered into non-exclusive licensing agreements are still awaiting the nod from the DCGI for manufacturing and selling of remdesivir in India.

The drug regulator on June 1 had granted US pharma giant Gilead Sciences marketing authorisation for its drug remdesivir for "restricted emergency use" on hospitalised COVID-19 in the country.
For more than five years, William Sencion did the same task over and over. He signed onto the New York Citys housing lottery site and applied for one of the citys highly coveted, below-market apartments. Each time, he got the same response: silence.

That was until late last year, when he was told that he might qualify for a one-bedroom unit in the Bronx. But first he had to prove his eligibility by printing a months worth of financial, banking and tax documents, along with a letter from his employer, and providing them in person to a marketing agent for the apartment.

He finally moved into the Bronx apartment last month, nearly six years after he first filed an application with the citys affordable-housing system. His new one-bedroom home costs $1,554 a month, about $700 less than a comparable market-rate unit, he said.

For many New Yorkers, the most desirable jackpot is not the New York Lotto, but to be selected in the citys extraordinarily competitive affordable-housing lottery. Tens of thousands of people, and sometimes many more, vie for the handful of units available at a time. Since 2013, there have been more than 25 million applications submitted for roughly 40,000 units.
KABUL - An Afghan lawmaker accused Iranian authorities on Monday of involvement in recent attacks on Afghan refugees in Iran, incidents that have sparked protest rallies in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The lawmaker, Abdul Sattar Husseini, told The Associated Press that he is part of a government team investigating complaints that authorities in Iran had mistreated Afghans living there, including in an incident earlier this month in Yazd province when three Afghans died after their vehicle was shot at  allegedly by police  and set on fire.

In another incident, a large group of Afghan migrants was captured by Iranian border police last month, he said. Some from the group who got away later recounted that at least two dozen among them were allegedly pushed into a river by Iranian policemen and drowned. Tehran has vehemently dismissed the allegations.

More than 1 million Afghans live as refugees in Iran having fled four decades of war in their homeland. Iran has been accused of forcing Afghans back across the border into Afghanistan.

Also, a graffiti has surfaced in Kabul to protest the Yazd deaths, inscribed with the words We cant breathe in the Dari language  a homage to the last words of George Floyd, the African American who died when a white police officer knelt on his neck, killing him. The slaying has sent shock waves across the world and sparked protests against racism and police brutality.

The International Office of Migration says more than 200,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since the beginning of the year. Iran has since recorded the highest number of coronavirus infections, over 189,000 and 8,950 deaths. Afghanistan has reported over 25,000 cases and 482 deaths although health officials and aid organizations fear the toll is much higher as little testing is being done.

The Yazd incident sparked protests earlier this month in Kabul, outside the Iranian Embassy, and there have also been similar rallies in several European cities and Canada.

Husseini, the lawmaker, said the government team would present a report later this week to Parliament. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said Sunday that a delegation would go to Iran to have a larger discussion about the living condition of Afghan refugees in Iran and ways to improve the ties between the two neighbours.

Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Monday that the Afghan ambassador to Iran had been summoned and told that Tehran considers the rally outside the Iranian Embassy in Kabul destructive.

Mousavi said Tehran is co-operating with Kabul to to answer questions and clear up obscurities, and claimed some, including the foreign media, are taking advantage of this situation.

Afghan Najibullah Kabuli, one of the organizers of the Kabul protest, said the demonstrators sought an independent inquiry into the incidents involving Afghans living in Iran.

We are not satisfied with the efforts of the Afghan government, said Kabuli.

___

Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this report.
BrightFarms breaks ground on seven-acre greenhouse

BrightFarms' seven-acre greenhouse will produce more than 2 million pounds of locally grown produce for supermarkets in the region

BrightFarms, a leading grower of locally grown salads for supermarkets, broke ground on a new 280,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse on the old Seven Falls property near the French Broad River.

Once complete, the facility with seven acres under roof in the Pleasant Grove community will be the largest greenhouse for leafy greens in the state.

By growing produce close to its consumers, BrightFarms delivers its local, pesticide-free baby greens to supermarkets in as little as 24 hours of harvest, about a week faster than leafy greens grown on the West Coast. The Henderson County greenhouse will ship more than 2 million pounds of fresh leafy greens to North Carolina supermarkets each year. As consumer demand for local produced has increased, BrightFarms has played a key role for national retailers that are looking to source from farms closer to their stores.

BrightFarms will invest $21 million into construction of the greenhouse, which is expected to create up to 100 construction jobs among local suppliers. When the project is completed in early 2021, BrightFarms will hire 54 green-collar employees that will receive competitive pay and industry-leading benefits.

The new greenhouse will add to BrightFarms network of local, sustainable greenhouse farms; serving local markets including Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greenville, S.C.; Spartanburg, S.C.; and Atlanta, Ga. Existing BrightFarms greenhouse operations are in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois.



Agribusiness Henderson County (AgHC), a public-private ag economic development partnership, assisted BrightFarms in selecting its site and supports ongoing needs for the project.

Ive worked with BrightFarms extraordinary team since they reached out in August 2018," AgHC Executive Director, Mark Williams said. "It was obvious from the start that this was a top-notch company and a perfect fit for our area, where we are focused on expanding high-quality, sustainable agribusiness and have a perfect growing climate for greenhouse production.

With construction started, were less than a year away from supplying North Carolinas supermarkets with the freshest and most responsibly grown local produce, BrightFarms CEO Steve Platt said. We're thrilled to be planting our roots in Hendersonville, a community that has embraced our project from the very beginning. Were grateful for the support weve received from Governor Cooper, Mark Williams of AgHC, the Henderson County government, and the team at Conserving Carolina.

Development of the new facility also drew praise from the states Department of Agriculture.

I am pleased that North Carolinas agriculture and agribusiness industry continues to attract new investment such as BrightFarms hydroponic greenhouse operation," Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said. "This announcement is certainly a bright spot for the state in 2020 and brings much-welcomed jobs for the Hendersonville area. I welcome them to the ag family and I hope this signals the start of even more growth for our states leading industry as we continue to work to become a $100 billion industry.

I applaud Agribusiness Henderson County for its continued ag-related economic development efforts. I am a firm believer in building on our strengths and agriculture is one of our states strengths, Troxler said. I join Henderson County in celebrating the addition of this agricultural facility to your community. Your efforts are paying off.



Williams added: BrightFarms emphasis on 'local' and rapid delivery of fresh products will benefit buyers across the state and region. Our area has a strong, year-round supply of tomatoes and other produce, but a volume producer of leafy greens has been missing. We couldnt be happier that BrightFarms chose Henderson County for construction of its latest growing facility. This is a true complement to our existing hub of ag operations and AgHC is honored to continue partnering with BrightFarms as we all look forward to the first crops in 2021.

BrightFarms, the No. 1 brand of locally grown packaged salads, operates hydroponic greenhouse farms in the communities it serves, enabling it to eliminate time, distance, and costs from the food supply chain. BrightFarms growing methods, a model for the future of scalable, sustainable local farming, use far less energy, land and water than long distance, field-grown agriculture.

Forbes placed BrightFarms on its list of the 100 Most Consumer Centric Companies and Fast Company recognized BrightFarms as One of Worlds 50 Most Innovative Companies and one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Food. BrightFarms is funded by leading investors Cox Enterprises, Catalyst Investors, WP Global Partners and NGEN Partners. For more information, visit www.brightfarms.com.
The State of Vietnam will employ policies to encourage the development of cheap commercial houses to remove difficulties for the real estate market and enterprises due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social housing projects in Dong Anh district, Hanoi, for workers in Thang Long Industrial Park

The Ministry of Construction made the announcement at a seminar on solutions on restoring the domestic real estate market in the post-COVID-19 period. This event was held by the Vietnam Real Estate Association and Xay Dung (Construction) newspaper in Hanoi on June 12.

The Government recently issued a resolution on providing more capital for social housing development and assigned the Ministry of Construction to work with localities to review social housing projects and housing projects for workers at industrial zones nationwide.

The ministry has also proposed the Government amend Decree 100 on social housing development and management to cut administrative procedures to help businesses invest in this segment, according to Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Van Sinh who attended the seminar.

In addition, to develop housing projects for low-income people, the ministry has also built a draft of a resolution on developing low-price commercial houses. At present, the supply of middle and high-end houses is higher than that of low-price houses, prompting the need for the Government to intervene.

For instance, the State will increase incentives for businesses investing in commercial apartments with an area of under 75 sq.m per each and an offered price of less than 20 million VND (over 858 USD) per sq.m.

This draft of the resolution is expected to be submitted to the Government in the third quarter of this year, according to the Construction Ministry.

In the long-term, the ministry must review overlapping regulations relating to real estate investment and business activities and amend them to create good conditions and clear administrative procedures for investors.

As part of that, the ministry is amending the Housing Law and the Real Estate Business Law as well as decrees and circulars to ensure the consistency and reform of administrative procedures.

"In addition, the ministry needs to improve institutions relating to real estate and have a strategic plan for property market management," said expert Can Van Luc.

Expert Le Xuan Nghia said the quick or slow recovery of the real estate market will depend on the recovery of the economy and policies of the Government.

Basic segments such as industrial real estate, affordable housing, land plots, luxury apartments and shophouses might recover soon, while office and resort real estate might recover more slowly.

The Government's current stimulus packages have had a positive impact on the real estate market. Besides that, there are policies on infrastructure development, key economic zones, industrial parks and reform of administrative procedures and adjustment of laws.

However, the property market still needs solutions in regulations and administrative procedures on auctions for public land and leased land, site clearance and change of land use purpose. Those solutions will simplify procedures and keep the stability of those regulations for several years, Nghia said.

In the first quarter, large investors with financial ability continued with their projects, of which 56 projects with more than 20,000 apartments were under construction and 55 projects with 18,000 units were completed.

Suspended businesses in the property sector increased 94.1 percent year-on-year while 80 percent of property trading floors nationwide were suspended.

Meanwhile, the property sector attracted only 264 million USD of foreign direct investment (FDI), accounting for 3.08 percent of total national FDI in the first quarter of this year./.

Foreigners allowed to own homes in 22 Hanoi commercial housing projects The Hanoi Department of Construction has listed 22 commercial housing projects, some complete and some under construction, where foreigners can own homes.
Jaipur, June 15 : Even as the Congress has housed its MLAs at a private resort ahead of the June 19 biennial Rajya Sabha polls in Rajasthan, opposition BJP's ally Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) has accused the ruling party of "trying to lure RLP MLAs".

The RLP led by Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal has three MLAs in the Assembly, including Beniwal's brother. The party had formed an alliance with the BJP both in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Speaking to the media, RLP state President Pukhraj Garg said that the ruling Congress had tried to lure away the party MLAs by lucrative promises but the lawmakers had rejected the same.

"(Chief Minister Ashok) Gehlot has this misconception that they can merge any party into the Congress, as was done with the BSP lawmakers. However, the RLP has been formed after doing the ground work and we did not fall into the Congress' trap," he added.

All six MLAs of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Rajasthan had joined the ruling Congress a few months back.

Party convener and Nagaur MP Hanuman Beniwal said that their phones were being tapped which is not a good sign for healthy democracy.

"There were rumours doing the rounds that our MLAs were supporting the Congress. In fact, the CM had scripted a drama under which he alleged that the BJP is indulged in horse-trading. The drama was produced and directed by the Rajasthan CM to present Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot as a villain, Beniwal told the media on Sunday after a meeting with BJP leaders to discuss the Rajya Sabha poll strategies.

The meeting was held at Leader of Opposition Gulabchand Kataria's residence here.

Beniwal claimed that quite a few Independent and Congress MLAs were in touch with him and he had appealed to them to support the BJP.

Polls will be held for three Rajya Sabha seats from Rajasthan, with the Congress likely to win two seats.

While the BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat, the Congress has fielded KC Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi.
COVID-19 ushered in a wave of unexpected distanced learning into schools. With the pandemic persisting, schools are spending their summers planning for the fall. Microsoft issued its own lesson plans for Teams on Monday, with an expanded gallery view and more analytics arriving in time for the next academic year.

Several new features will be of importance to educators, parents, and students:

A 77 gallery view will replace the current 33 approach.

New Breakout Rooms will allow for smaller group discussion

Attendance reports and other class insights will provide data on whos struggling, and who isnt.

A Meeting Lobby is being put in place to allow only those who signed up for the meeting to attend.

None of the new features expressly leverage other capabilities in Microsoft Office, which has traditionally been Microsofts wedge to help establish Teams. But the company noted that municipalities and even entire companies quickly switched to remote learning via Teams. The United Arab Emirates, for example moved all its 650,000 students to Teams after the pandemic hit.

Keeping track of students with new Teams features

Microsoft said these new features were coming to Teams as part of Microsoft Educationspecifically, as part of Teams for Education. All but Class Insights will be coming to Teams at large, however.

Zoom, Microsofts most popular rival in online video calls, already offers a 77 gallery view that allows for the faces of 49 participants to be seen. Now, Microsoft is expanding from a 33 view to the new format. The company said the 49-person view will debut in preview in June and reach general availability for the fall.

Microsoft will steal a page from Zoom and add Breakout Rooms, which will also debut in the fall. Microsoft didnt offer any additional details. According to Zoom, however, Zoom meeting participants can be assigned to their own Breakout Rooms automatically or manually by the host, allowing them their own private audio, video, and screen sharing capabilities. With Zoom, up to 50 Breakout Rooms can be created.

Microsoft is adding a new trends view for its Class Insights, which has become more important as students drop in and out of online classes. (A child of one of my neighbors had to skip several high-school classes unexpectedly over several weeks while his parents recovered from the coronavirus.) Though the 77 gallery view may be Teams flashiest new feature, keeping track of students and their participation may be the most important addition for educators.

For educators, traditional lesson plans do not always translate digitallyand in many cases, teachers are finding they cant recreate the school day with just live sessions, Microsoft said in a blog post. According to our community of educators, over half said keeping students engaged digitally and student participation are the top challenges they faced during remote learning.

Microsoft The new Class Insights view appears to offer a wealth of information. Here, Microsofts competitor is probably Google Classroom, which offers less data, concentrating on the number of posts and active time spent in the virtual classroom.

Class Insights will provide data on which students attended, interacted, turned in assignments, and more, including grading. Teams for Education is adding a feature for students to signal their teachers, called Raise Their Hands, announced in March. The trends view will be in place by the time fall classes begin, Microsoft said.

Teams will add a new Lobby, a feature that is already in Zoom to help limit Zoom bombing and other unwanted intrusions into the meeting. The new Lobby will be joined by new meeting options that will prevent students from beginning the meeting without the teacher present.

Microsoft is also encouraging educators to tie in apps like FlipGrid, a social video discussion platform Microsoft bought in 2018, and Minecraft for Education, which takes the popular game and applies it to classrooms. Additional features like Immerisve Reader can help students who find it difficult to read text, while Background Blur can be helpful to keep students on task and protect their privacy. Recently, Microsoft made it easier to allow custom backgrounds by creating a dedicated folder for custom images. A more complicated version of the custom backgrounds feature had been in place for several months.

This story was updated at 3:17 PM with additional detail.
Blaming Brazils Bolsonaro, thousands rally against the presidents handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of protesters in Brazil have marched in Sao Paulo to denounce the governments handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

A smaller counter-rally was held in the capital, Brasilia, by supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, who continues to downplay the outbreak.

The country has the second-highest number of COVID-19 deaths worldwide.

Al Jazeeras Teresa Bo reports.
THE largest credit union in the country is set to be created from the merger of two West of Ireland lenders.

St Anthonys & Claddagh Credit Union plans to link up with St Jarlaths, both in Galway.

The two credit unions say members will be given a chance to vote on the proposal, once it is confirmed to be in line with regulatory and legislative requirements by the Central Bank.

The link-up will create a body with almost 450m in assets and around 100,000 members.

Between them, the credit unions have a total of 12 branches across Galway county and city.

The next largest credit union, by assets, is St Canices in Kilkenny, followed by the Health Services CU.

Chairperson of St Anthonys & Claddagh Mark Grogan said the two Galway lenders have been collaborating on a number of initiatives in recent years.

He said a merger is the obvious way to enhance the strength and capacity of both organisations.

If approved, the merger would be likely to lead to an extended branch network and provide enhanced services to members, according to St Jarlaths chief executive John Doyle.

The matter is likely to be considered for approval at the respective AGMs of both institutions later this year.

Kevin Johnson, CEO of the Credit Union Development Association (CUDA), a representative body, said combining the resources of two of the successful credit unions will create one of Irelands most significant credit union, which will be hugely beneficial for their members, local communities and Galway in general.

Meanwhile, the Irish League of Credit Unions, another representative body for the sector, has welcomed the inclusion of specific commitments to credit unions in the agreed Programme for Government.
China's Type 15 tanks join exercises in mountainous plateau region

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/14 19:23:40

Type 15 lightweight tanks of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) were spotted participating in a recent exercise in a low temperature mountainous plateau region. This type of tank has significant advantages over other types of tanks or armored vehicles in such regions, experts said.

An infantry battalion at the PLA Tibet Military Region recently organized infantry-tank cooperation drills at an undisclosed location at an elevation of more than 4,700 meters, putting the troops' teamwork and rapid-response capabilities to a comprehensive test, reads a statement the PLA Tibet Military Region released on Sunday.

Media reports and military observers identified the tanks participating in the drills as the Type 15, China's latest type of lightweight main battle tank that made its public debut at the National Day military parade on October 1, 2019 in Beijing.

As a part of the intended design, the Type 15 lightweight tank is highly mobile even on plateaus, a type of terrain which heavy tanks can struggle in due to the lack of oxygen to support the engine; any lesser armored vehicle that can operate on plateaus are no threat to the Type 15. This means that the Type 15 is basically unrivalled on plateaus, a military expert told the Global Times under the condition of anonymity.

During the drills, the battalion took advantage of the tank's strong firepower and sturdy protection alongside the foot soldiers' high mobility and situational awareness. Together, they had tanks leading the assault, foot soldiers pinpointing targets for the tanks and then had the tanks pave out paths for the foot soldiers, the statement said, noting that the tanks and infantry worked together to maximize the combat capabilities of both.

In another development, Type 99 main battle tanks attached to a brigade under the PLA 76th Group Army participated in separate exercises in mountainous plateau terrain on June 4, China Military Online reported on Thursday.

The Type 99 is a much heavier than the Type 15. It has even stronger firepower and protection, but it can run less freely on plateaus and can complement the Type 15, the expert said.

Military observers connected the PLA's recent maneuvering and exercises of troops with the recent border tensions between China and India.

A source told the Global Times on Friday that Chinese and Indian border troops are conducting multi-level meetings on the ground to promote the implementation of a high-level consensus and resolve differences on the frontline.

The source believes that the current situation at the China-India border is generally stable and controllable. The two sides recently held commander-level talks to find a resolution to recent border tensions. Communications through diplomatic and military channels were close and smooth, the source said.

The Indian Express reported that Indian and Chinese troops have gradually begun moving back from their "standoff positions."

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Manitoba landlords say a federal commercial-rent assistance program that has had little uptake during the COVID-19 recovery was not designed for the Prairies.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba landlords say a federal commercial-rent assistance program that has had little uptake during the COVID-19 recovery was not designed for the Prairies.

"Its hard to work with a program that is not overly well-designed," said Avrom Charach, a vice-president at Kay Four Properties, which has 14 commercial tenants.

"You have a program thats designed nationally, but every province is different."

Rent a top concern for city businesses Loren Remillard, head of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said the biggest threat to the citys small businesses surviving COVID-19 is their rental payments. click to read more These are beloved places of business, and if we cant get our minds wrapped around this issue quickly, we will continue to see those places () close their doors permanently, said Remillard, who was optimistic the federal government can find a solution. Polling two weeks ago of members of the WCC and Manitoba Chambers of Commerce showed 21 per cent of Winnipeg businesses rank facilities costs as one of their top two challenges. Cashflow is the top problem, while rent, travel restrictions and debt repayments are tied for second place. The federal Liberals various supports are all intended to prop up the economy as it gradually recovers from a coma, instead of creating a domino-effect recession where stores close, landlords default and companies stop hiring. Ron Penner, vice-president of Globe Property Management, said problems with CECRA prevent landlords from having the cashflow to keep tradespeople employed. Theyre asking us to administer a program where we take a 25 per cent cut, but we have our own costs, he said.  Dylan Robertson Close

Under the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance, the federal and provincial governments cover half the rent for a small business. The business must pay 25 per cent and the landlord agrees to forgo the remaining quarter.

The benefit only applied to firms that have lost at least 70 per cent of revenue. Local businesses have said theyre struggling to pay the rent as Manitoba recovers. Many say they dont qualify for the benefit, but dont make enough to sustain their businesses.

Landlords have been reluctant to go public with their own complaints about the program, but share the same concerns.

"By the time the program came, it was one-size-fits-all," said Ron Penner, vice-president of Globe Property Management, which has about 30 commercial tenants.

Applications opened on May 25, three weeks after Manitoba businesses started reopening. Penners firm considered applying, but didnt pursue it, mostly because it had already cut deals with tenants at that point.

Businesses in Ontario and Quebec have recovered much slower. "Maybe (the program) works in Montreal better than Manitoba," Penner said.

He and Avrom said the program is confusing. Some tenants assume they now only have to pay 25 per cent of their rent, even if the landlord hasnt applied for the benefit.

Applying for it is cumbersome, landlords say, as they have to estimate revenue during an uncertain recovery. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. requests data that are sorted differently to how businesses report financials to the province.

The program is unclear on whether landlords who signed agreements with tenants can pursue them for non-payment. It also appears to apply to rent but not utility costs that landlords share with tenants, outside of formal rent payments.

"CMHC rolled it out late; the instructions werent very clear on it," Avrom said.

There is a theme with the (federal) government of announcing things that sound great, but the follow-through is very weak, said Winnipeg Conservative MP Raquel Dancho. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press files)

Winnipeg Conservative MP Raquel Dancho said scores of small-scale landlords and businesses in her riding were thrilled when the program was announced.

Since then, theyve been panicking because the terms that are restrictive in a province that was already starting to reopen. "The program is seriously flawed; its not having any significant uptake in Manitoba that Ive heard," Dancho said.

"There is a theme with the government of announcing things that sound great, but the follow-through is very weak," said Dancho.

The federal government could not say how many Manitoba businesses have applied to the program or how many have been approved.

Business tenants have asked for direct support, while landlords said a government-run "rent bank" for tenants could solve the problem.

Colliers International vice-president Darren Klassen said the program would make more sense for different regions if it operated on a sliding scale, pegged to each provinces reopening rules.

Klassen stressed Ottawa is responding to an emergency and adapting programs on the fly, but says he relies on third-party law firms to publish analyses on the programs ever-changing process.

"Were finding it challenging that changes are made but theres no communication mechanism to the industry," said Klassen, advocacy head for the Building Owners and Managers Association.

Klassen said Ottawa appears to not have consulted widely with both commercial landlords and tenants, including his group.

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"For some, its a lifeline, and we need to understand the challenges theyre facing."

Premier Brian Pallister said last week hes working with Ottawa to try to rejig the program.

Asked whether shed overhaul the program, Mary Ng, the minister responsible for small business, did not directly answer.

"Some of the western provinces are looking at it," Ng said.

"We need to keep working with our provincial counterparts and with businesses and with the landlords to make sure that small businesses actually get the help they need during this difficult time."

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca
Road to redemption

Something besides police reform needs to happen now for African Americans in this country. How do you make reparations for all the decades of neglect and outright harm?

U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, at George Floyds funeral, spoke of creating a Department of Reconciliation. What if there were a program much like the Vietnam Era GI Bill, which provided educational assistance for thousands of service members?

This would be a tangible sign  a way to acknowledge American remorse  with the added desire to make amends.

To use a phrase from my church: This might be the road to redemption  for all of us!

Kay Mijangos

Kudos, North Carolina

President Donald Trump wanted to pull the the Republican National Convention out of North Carolina. It seems the (Democratic) governor refused to allow 50,000 screaming people to pack into a convention center and nearby hotels for a four-day rockin germ blowout.

So Trump wanted to economically punish the state for attempting to follow the cautious, measured guidelines set forth by public health officials who struggle to keep Americans safe.

Thank you, Gov. Roy Cooper, for standing up to a bully. Thank you for placing peoples lives ahead of political and economic expediency.

I, for one, intend to spend my next vacation and every dollar I can scrape together in the great state of North Carolina. Not sure when Ill feel confident about taking that road trip, but Im definitely looking forward to it.

Julie Love, Rio Medina

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio business leaders new efforts to host Trump, Republican National Convention likely lost to Jacksonville

Distancing for naught

All these progressive Democrats yelling and screaming, along with the media, that we must shut down, we must put millions out of work and destroy the economy to flatten the curve, and now its just grand for millions to be gathering in crowds and yelling and screaming, some protesting, some rioting, some looting and some both.

What happened to President Donald Trump not taking the coronavirus seriously and we all must sacrifice to save vulnerable people?

None of it matters now. This has made a complete mockery of our sacrifice. I understand the anger  and its justified. But day after day of massive gatherings and potential spread seem insane after all the progressives told us about the risks. No Easter in the park, no Fiesta, but you want to gather by the thousands to protest day after day? Great!

Its so revoltingly hypocritical. Its like we destroyed the economy and peoples lives for nothing.

Shannon Deason

On ExpressNews.com: Police out in force in downtown San Antonio Sunday night after violence

Health care for all

The coronavirus tragedy has certainly been an experience well never forget, and (hopefully) we will learn important lessons from it. Two issues in particular need addressing:

Having a health insurance system based on employment status has proven to be a foolish model. When a pandemic and its economic effects put tens of millions of people out of work, the last thing we need is to throw those people off their insurance plans.

The United States is the only advanced country in the world that uses such an antiquated, complicated and expensive system to provide health care for its citizens. Health care should be available to communities the same as roads, fire and police protection, and public education. It should not be an unchecked gold mine for health insurers, providers and pharmaceutical companies to harvest exorbitant profits off peoples misfortunes. Its time to bring our health care system into the 21st century.

And secondly, in 2016, while it may have seemed like mischievous fun to vote for a totally unqualified presidential candidate, we now see it really does matter when crises occur that our leadership be intelligent and emotionally stable. Its important we have a competent, stable grown-up in charge; currently we dont, and our country is suffering because of that. Please, no more fun-and-games nonsense when electing presidents.

Bill Celaya

No employee cuts

Re: Time for big government to get lean, Another View, Monday:

James Quinteros op-ed could not have been more ill-timed. In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, and with cases in Texas rising, Quintero thinks Texas has too many state employees?

Texas was caught with its pants down when COVID-19 came to our state. Along with the federal government, our state was sorely lacking in public health infrastructure to protect our population. Now, with the state opening up, cases are rising. Meanwhile, our governor used our tax dollars to overpay a questionable contractor to provide contact tracing because we do not have enough state employees to do the job.

This epidemic shows we need smart, efficient government with the right number of employees engaged in public health and other necessary fields. Across-the-board public employee cuts are no way to run government, especially not during a major pandemic.

Anne M. Emshoff
Photo: (Photo : Photo by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels)

Every high school graduation is supposed to be great. However, this year, the coronavirus made the graduation season a little sad.

School officials canceled most events, including graduations, but some schools chose to bring their game a notch higher through ceremonies that practice social distancing.

This year's high school graduations were not only a question of the best graduation song. It also asked which is the best socially distant one.

In New Hampshire, a ski lift graduation seems to be better than the others that practiced social distancing.

READ ALSO: Class of 2020 Alternative Graduations: Drive-in, Virtual, and Other Socially Distanced Ceremonies

Social distancing in the ski lift graduation in New Hampshire

On Saturday, the seniors from Kennett High School and their guests attended the unique high school graduation.

The graduation venue is not the usual one for a ceremony.

Cranmore Mountain Resort lent their facility to the 174 graduates and their guests for free.

The students received their diplomas at the top of the mountain. While at the peak, someone captures the moment of every graduate.

The ski lift brought the graduates and their guests up to the hill. Then the lifts also brought down the graduates after receiving their awards.

The idea of this kind of high school graduation came from one of the parents.

The principal of KHS in New Hampshire, Kevin Carpenter, said that they felt it was something students deserve. That is because they have missed out on so much during their senior year.

The school used the mountains in the New Hampshire area to make things extraordinary for the graduates.

"It's not your traditional graduation, but it will be a special one for sure," Carpenter said.

In an interview with WMUR9, students described their graduation as memorable.

Kennett High School's Class of 2020 Valedictorian, Grace Jarell, said it is magical. She added, "I would argue that it is almost better than traditional graduation."

Another student, Raven McAuliffe, said that it is a feeling like no other. She also said, "I don't think I will ever feel it again."

READ ALSO: Graduates Tested Positive For COVID-19 After A Drive-By Graduation in Atlanta

Social Distancing During High School Graduations

Aside from the ski lift graduation, other schools also held ceremonies that observed social distancing rules.

Another high school in New Hampshire chose to have drive-by graduation. Students and their guests were riding their vehicles at the Magic Mile for the service.

This ceremony is not the only drive-by graduation in the country, as other schools also chose this type of celebration to ensure that the gathering is still practicing social distancing protocols.

Other schools chose to hold a virtual function. That is to ensure that all graduates will stay at their homes to avoid catching the virus.

Some graduation ceremonies are even attended or hosted by celebrities.

The pandemic has brought out the creative side of school leaders. They did this to make sure that everything will be as great as it is supposed to be.

READ ALSO: Oprah Winfrey, Barrack Obama, Other Celebrity Parents Recognize 2020 Virtual Graduates
This misuse of force is all the more alarming given that the Attorney General appears to have issued this order to allow President Trump to walk across the street from the White House for a political photo op in front of St. Johns Church, the senators wrote. Notably, Attorney General Barr was not only on the scene less than an hour before the use of force to clear peaceful protesters, but he also participated in President Trumps photo op, posing for pictures in front of the church.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:45:02|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Egypt will resort to the United Nations Security Council to prevent Ethiopia from making any unilateral step on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), according to a statement by Egypt's Foreign Ministry on Monday.

Ahmad Hafez, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said in the statement that any unilateral move by Ethiopia will "negatively impact the right of Egypt in the Nile River and the international peace and security."

Egypt in the past few years attempted to reach a fair agreement to solve the GERD crisis while protecting the interests of Ethiopia and Sudan, but the recent negotiations haven't "brought any positive results," he added.

Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan decided to continue virtual negotiations on Monday.

However, the tripartite negotiations were planned to end on June 13. South Africa, the United States and the European Union attended as observers in a bid to seal a deal on the controversial dam.

"The four-day negotiations demonstrated that there are many fundamental issues that Ethiopia continues to reject," the Egyptian Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said in an earlier statement.

The ongoing negotiations came months after talks stalled in February during U.S.-sponsored meetings in Washington. Enditem
Pavel Barannik, the founder and head of the Moscow Gemological Laboratory, the founder of the Gemological Institute and president of the Moscow Diamond Club, graduated from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA).

He is an expert and consultant. He has been in the field of the precious stones expert evaluation and grading for more than 15 years.

Diamonds and diamond jewellery were in demand even in the most difficult economic situations. So, two months ago, you launched your new project, the Moscow Diamond Club. What is the core of its significance and novelty?

In principle, in previous years, the polished diamond reputation has been greatly undermined. However, for our business it is important to prove and remind you that despite all the crises and current events, a polished diamond also includes its investment attractiveness in addition to being beautiful and unique.

Did you decide to return the confidence in diamonds?

We decided to contribute to this and launched a project - the Moscow Diamond Club. Those who consider a diamond an integral part of the jewellery joined our Club, as well as those who believe in a polished diamond that has been an investment tool for many centuries. As for the diamond jewellery beauty and exquisiteness, everything is quite clear - everyone likes it, but from the point of view of investments, a number of questions arise.

The first thing to understand is that polished diamonds are not stocks and you should not consider them as an opportunity to capitalize on a rapid rise in there prices. They do not show rapid growth. The advantage of a polished diamond lies in the conservation of its value over the centuries, in the maximum concentration of the value per unit mass, and in high liquidity in case of selling it. You can always get money for a polished diamond, and the time required for this directly depends on the price you want.

The main problem is that the purchase is made the wrong way, at a very high price compared to that on the real market. Sometimes, it can be 100-200% higher. It is a so-called emotional purchase. There are few who want to buy an apartment without studying the market and consulting with a realtor, and people do buy polished diamonds without doing so! Still, some polished diamonds cost as much as an apartment, and some are much more expensive. Do not blame a polished diamond if it was bought three times more expensive than its real price in the market was. What to do? Consult with a professional - us or anyone else whom you trust. Just one opinion is not enough. It is advisable to collect a few opinions, and then form your own one.

When you know the main characteristics, you can find out its value in the international market using the RAPAPORT price list. There is a Rapnet platform - one of the largest in the world. The characteristics of the stone are introduced in a special application  its weight, color and purity - and it is easy to see that a stone weighing 1.31 carats can be bought in Hong Kong for $ 7,627, in Mumbai - for 7,754, in Dubai - for 8,143 and so on. This is a global market, they play fair and square, professionals are trading here and you can rely on their opinion.

Why should a buyer prefer the services of your site?

Our prices will strictly correspond to the main world exchanges ones (and this is two times, or more, cheaper than the prices in Russia). We have a price of about $ 6,445 for the same stone (mentioned above), with the same characteristics, and it will be extremely difficult to find it for that price anywhere else - it is easy to check now. The buyer having a choice sees guaranteed right characteristics, prices and makes his decision. In addition, our stones are not on the of Ramat Gans or Mumbais exchanges, but here. All diamonds undergo mandatory testing before their sale, they are certified or verified at the Moscow Gemological Laboratory (MGL), the main arbiter of the Diamond Club. We ensure the most stringent jewellery quality control. The MGL report is considered as complete as possible in our country. In addition, the members of the club have the opportunity to buy back at a minimal discount or even for the same money. The orders are fulfilled without prepayment, delivery is currently provided in Moscow only, but is planned to be made to any place in Russia. In addition, a lifetime warranty will be provided.

How long have you been in the secondary market?

I have been engaged in the secondary precious stone market for over 20 years. Unfortunately, this market is not mature although its prospects are huge. According to the US-based Blue Nile, the value of the polished diamonds on hand exceeds one trillion dollars (Rough&Polished, 2017). While the polished diamond turnover in Russia is disproportionately small compared to the global one, it is still a lot of money. And what we are doing is just small steps towards structuring and restoring the order in the secondary market in our country.

Among the main issues of this market is the diamond liquidity. What should be done if you have a polished diamond and need to turn it into money? Our banks (unlike the western ones) do not lend against precious stones. In thrift stores deluged with stones, it can take years to sell them. What, if you need money urgently? Second-hand shops or dealers give negligible money, it is almost impossible to get at least half the price. There are pawnshops, but most of them (95%) work only with gold as scrap, but not as precious stones. It is more beneficial to deal with gold: one gramme of gold bought today could be sold tomorrow for almost the same money. This is not the case with polished diamonds - there is a huge gap between buying and selling prices. A large number of fakes and synthetics add fuel to the flame - it is almost impossible to distinguish between a synthetic stone and a natural one without the help of experienced experts and reliable advanced equipment. The situation is, there are very few places where you can sell diamonds, and the prices offered are very low.

When I talk with polished diamond buyers, I see that many understand that they will not receive the full amount when would like to sell their stone. So, for example, the person who bought a polished diamond for ten thousand US dollars is ready to sell it for eight thousand only. If neither five nor four thousand dollars are given for the polished diamond, then the person will not buy it again. The buyer is already disappointed in the polished diamond as an investment. However, without the investment component, a polished diamond - the main stone in the jewellery business - is just a mere souvenir.

Have you foreseen this in your project?

The main thing in our platform project is that the gap in the polished diamond buying and selling prices should be brought down to a reasonable minimum. Today, the buyers must know at what price they will be able to sell their polished diamond tomorrow, and this is a mandatory prerequisite. We are not going to consider the coronavirus epidemic and other force majeure.

Second: both the buyer and the seller should be taken care of and be in comfort, but we are used to take care of the customer only. We have collected several convenient services on our platform. The main idea is that those who want to sell their polished diamonds can sell them at their own price. All of them will have their own personal account, in which they will display their polished diamonds and check how they are sold and at what price, and set their price. The market itself will dictate what will be sold and at what price. Many of us attend international conferences and exhibitions and know who offers what stone and at what price. The competition between the exchanges of Israel, New York, Hong Kong and Mumbai determines the prices. This is as it should be.

It is rather difficult to sell a loose stone, so we selected several jewellery companies - we will co-operate with those that are serious about the quality of jewellery. We offer some of the best designs, and a person who decides to buy a polished diamond he likes can get it in as an exquisite jewellery piece home-delivered in a beautiful gift box.

To advertize this project, we managed to conduct several promotion campaigns: we were polished diamond partners at the Cannes Lions performance in Russia, and in December, we made a presentation of our project at the International Gemological Conference in Moscow. In February 2020, a pilot version was launched. But the global situation, of course, is bringing about many changes.

Until recently, the secondary market was considered promising but now it is under the question, dont you think so?

The pandemic and quarantine are already affecting the secondary market very much, just look at the response: in March, Rapaport lowered the prices for some items by 5-10%. Of course, this is disappointing, although it depends with what we compare this. The decline in the share prices of some world leaders exceeded 20%.

We launched our project at a difficult time. To be become distinctive, you need to fly to some height, and to do this, you need the most favourable conditions for a take-off. And even if you have the favourable conditions, a good offer, excellent service, everything is in question today. The site sessions reduced tenfold. Now everyone is in a slight confusion, and some are in a severe panic.

Perhaps a pandemic, on the contrary, will revive the secondary market?

The secondary market, of course, will be revived, at least, because everyone starts to count the money. And first, the same thing is very different in price in the primary and secondary markets. The main point is that the jewellery business, especially in Russia, has practically no safety net. Without it, we cannot even imagine what the future holds. It may turn out that most of the jewellery market ceases to exist at all, at least, because theres nothing to reset with - there are no those credit instruments, any policy at all that could support the jewellery business. All that was promised, for the most part, will not be implemented. However, the secondary market is here to stay under any cataclysms.

That is, the slack in the jewellery trade will affect your project, but it will be in a better position anyway, wont it?

There are two points: people have not enough money and it will affect all businesses - the food, even a medicine one. The jewellery industry will suffer more - like tourism, for example. Recently, RBC, with reference to the Sberbanks report, published the following figures: during the first week under lockdown, from March 30 to April 5, the Russians spending on jewellery fell to almost zero, namely by 97%, and this industry is the leader in the decline.

But there is another point, too: those who survive, to a greater extent, will survive due to their presence on the Internet, making the most beneficial offers and providing the best experience. There will be a big general failure, and we will do our best to direct our efforts to the e-commerce and to providing the best consumer experience.

Let's hope that during a perfect storm our boat will have a reliable safety buffer, and then, time will tell.

Galina Semyonova for Rough&Polished




L-R: Philomena Connors, Helen O Donoghue, Anne O Reilly, Bridget O Reilly, Mary Moran, Margaret Hutchinson and Kathleen O Driscoll - all daughters of convicted rapist James O Reilly (75) - who was jailed for 20 years for the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his younger sister and his seven daughters over a 23-year period Pic: Collins Courts

A Tipperary man has been jailed for 20 years for the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his younger sister and seven daughters over a 23-year period.

From 1977 to 2000, James O'Reilly (75) subjected the young girls to horrific sexual abuse, as well as physical beatings, starvation and degradation, the Central Criminal Court heard morning.

O'Reilly of Killeens, Ballynonty, Thurles, Co Tipperary pleaded not guilty to 81 counts of rape and sexual abuse. Last December, after a five week trial, a jury convicted him of 58 counts of rape and nine counts of sexual assault.

O'Reilly's rape of one daughter caused her to become pregnant in late 1988. He continued to rape her during the pregnancy.

Expand Close Margaret Hutchinson and Helen O Donoghue after the sentencing of their father Pic: Collins Courts / Facebook

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At the time OReilly told his daughter to allege she had been raped by another man. He continued abusing her and only stopped when she threatened him with a knife.

Later DNA tests confirmed he was the father, a factor which was used to secure his conviction.

One victim said she was starved and forced to beg for food outside while another said she did not know what a Christmas present was until she was an adult.

Caroline Biggs SC, prosecuting, told the court that the victims wished to waive their anonymity, allowed for the naming of their abuser.

Outside the court today OReillys victims embraced and cheered as they celebrated what one called the end of a nightmare at the hands of a man they called the monster and a beast.

He showed no remorse. He showed nothing. He just showed the true beast that he really is, one victim said.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt described O'Reilly's actions as horrific and noted the escalating and repetitive nature of the offending.

He noted that O'Reilly continues to deny any wrongdoing and there was no evidence of remorse or regret on his part for his crimes.

Expand Close Daughters of convicted rapist James O Reilly (75) pictured outside the Criminal Courts of Justice (CCJ) after he was jailed for 20 years Pic: Collins Courts / Facebook

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Whatsapp Daughters of convicted rapist James O Reilly (75) pictured outside the Criminal Courts of Justice (CCJ) after he was jailed for 20 years Pic: Collins Courts

He commended the courage of the victims and noted the stoicism as well as the occasional flashes of good humour shown by them throughout the lengthy trial.

He said he was taking into consideration O'Reilly's abuse of his dominant position, the duration of the offending and the incalculable pain and harm caused to the victims.

It's not clear any of them will ever be free of the adverse effects.

O'Reilly was aged around 34 when he raped the first victim, his 13 year old younger sister. He abused her for the next three years, attacking her in a van.

He first abused the second victim, his daughter, when her mother was in hospital having suffered a miscarriage. His daughter was aged between four and six.

In 1977, she was aged around eight when he drove her in his van to a bog and raped her. He told her she would be put into foster care if she told anyone.

One victim testified that from the age of ten she was raped in the back of van if it was raining and outside the van in a field if it wasn't.

The trial heard that the family lived at Fortunestown Lane in Dublin at one point, living in an old-fashioned horse drawn wagon and later in more modern trailer.

O'Reilly raped another daughter when her mother was in hospital giving birth to another child.

This baby boy died in 1983 and while his partner was grieving, O'Reilly took one girl out and raped her in the pony shed.

O'Reilly moved the children around the country and in the late 80s they were living around Ballybay in Co Waterford, where he continued to abuse them.

One victim, who was raped until she was aged 20, said she couldn't tell her husband because saying you are being raped [as a] Traveller is like being thrown to the side of the road, you'd have to go back to the bog.

Kathleen O'Driscoll said she could remember her father abusing her form her earliest childhood memories. She said she prayed each night that she would not wake up.

Ms O'Driscoll said her father threatened that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would cut her throat and the throat of any person she told. She said she has put up with being raped, starved and beaten all her life.

Margaret Hutchinson was aged ten in 1981 when her father first began molesting her. A year later he raped in the back of the van.

She testified that during this time, when they were living in locations in Tipperary and Waterford he raped her hundreds, thousands of times.

A witness at the trial recalled how in 1986 she met this victim in the bog and she was shaking and crying. She said she still gets knots in her stomach remembering how the victim told her her father was abusing her.

Another victim recalled having to attend hospital with a head injury from beatings. She was aged ten when her father began raping her and he would rape her up to three times a week for the next six years.

In her victim impact statement, Kathleen ODriscoll said she could remember her father abusing her form her earliest childhood memories. She said she prayed each night that she would not wake up.

Ms ODriscoll said her father threatened that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would cut her throat and the throat of any person she told. She said she has put up with being raped, starved and beaten all her life.

Margaret Hutchinson was aged ten in 1981 when her father first began molesting her. A year later he raped in the back of the van.

She testified that during this time he raped her hundreds, thousands of times.

In her victim impact statement, which she read out in court, Philomena Connors said she sometimes thinks why did her mother have her and wishes she had never been born. She said she always had emptiness in her heart and she still has to this day.

Justice Hunt said a life sentence was the appropriate starting point based on the horrific facts. He said the mitigating factors presented carried little weight and that the main factor submitted in mitigation was OReillys age.

He imposed a range of sentences from two years to twenty years. A number of victims sobbed during the sentence hearing and as sentence was passed.

Speaking outside court, one victim said: It took me a long time to get it out but Im glad its out.Im going to beat this, and hold my head up high.

Its being hidden too long in the Travelling community and it wont be hidden no more. Come forward and be heard. Dont be afraid, dont be ashamed. I was robbed of my life but Im proud of my sisters today.

In a statement read on their behalf, the women asked how the abuse was allowed continue for so long and where was the protection from the State authorities when they were defenceless, vulnerable children forced to live on the fringes of Irish society.

They questioned if this would have been allowed to continue for so long if it had been a respected settled family in Ireland.

Justice Hunt said a life sentence was the appropriate starting point based on the horrific facts. He said the mitigating factors presented carried little weight and that the main factor submitted in mitigation was O'Reilly's age.

He noted that O'Reilly was in robust good health when he was interviewed four years ago but there was evidence his health has deteriorated since. He said the court was leaving it the executive to engage in any future intervention of the custodial sentence because of infirmity.

He said the difference between a life sentence and a lengthy but finite sentence may be academic given OReillys age.

He imposed a range of sentences from two years to twenty years. A number of victims sobbed during the sentence hearing and as sentence was passed.

Garnet Orange SC, defending, submitted that his client has no previous convictions and has never been on garda radar. Mr Orange asked the court to have regard for an elderly man facing a lengthy sentence who also has hearing difficulties.
National Science Foundations 2019 SBIR award winner uses machine learning to convert key data into guidance for farmers that helps boost crop yields

Herndon, VA, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) today announced that CIT GAP Funds has invested in Alexandria, Va.-based Agrology, developer of prediction agriculture technology that helps farmers boost crop yields. Agrologys solution uses machine learning to convert high-quality data into predictive guidance for crop growers that directs them to the right amounts, location and timeframe to apply inputs to their farm for maximized results. The startup plans to use this GAP Funds investment to continue developing its technology and the user experience of farmers, as well as to support sales and marketing efforts.

The global population is expected to hit 9.8 billion by 2050, which poses a serious problem for the agriculture industry. Farmers are also challenged by extreme weather conditions, climate changes and an overall decline in agricultural workforce. To ensure higher yields and protect the environment, many farmers are turning to IoT solutions. Agrology provides farmers an integrated IoT and machine learning system that offers predictive guidance, not just agronomic data. Farmers install Agrology devices in their fields, which takes just minutes and requires no technical skills, and a mobile application on their smartphones provides easy-to-use guidance. Agrology empowers farmers to apply precise amounts of water, fertilizer, pesticides/fungicides, and bio-stimulants for the right area of their farms at the right time.

Agrology is helping farmers gain better control over the crop growing process  making it more predictable, improving efficiency, and lowering risk, said Adam Koeppel, CEO of Agrology. We thank CIT for their support, which is helping accelerate our channel-sales initiatives.

Tyler Locke, CTO of Agrology, added: We will also use CITs support to continue developing our integrated and proprietary sensing and machine learning systems, as well as filing additional patents to protect our innovations.

Story continues

Agrologys affordable software/hardware-as-a-service seamlessly fits into existing workflows without requiring integration or modification of existing equipment or irrigation systems. With Agrology, farmers can boost crop yields by 10%  including irrigated specialty crops like tree fruits, tree nuts, and vegetables  while reducing inputs such as water or fertilizer by 10%. Farmers can affordably deploy 10 times more sensors using Agrologys products than traditional IoT farming solutions, enabling guidance for every microclimate on their farm.

Over 90% of farmers do not have any sensors or software to guide their irrigation and inputs, a process that is overwhelmingly manual across a majority of farms. As a result, many farmers do not get the coverage they need to monitor the individual micro-climates on their farms, said Tom Weithman, Managing Director of CIT GAP Funds. Agrology is meeting a critical market need for the agriculture industry, allowing farmers to achieve maximum profitability across their entire farm while using optimal levels of inputs. CIT looks forward to following Agrology this year as they continue to grow.

About Agrology

Agrology is a developer of prediction agriculture technology that helps guide crop growers to apply the right amount of water, fertilizer, pesticides/fungicides, and bio-stimulants for the right area of their farms at the right time. Agrologys technology uses machine learning to get high quality data from low cost sensors and convert this data into guidance for farmers. For more information, please visit: www.agrology.ag.



About CIT GAP Funds

CIT GAP Funds makes seed-stage equity investments in Virginia-based technology, cleantech, and life science companies with a high potential for achieving rapid growth and generating a significant economic return for entrepreneurs, co-investors and the Commonwealth of Virginia. CIT GAP Funds investments are overseen by the CIT GAP Funds Investment Advisory Board (IAB). This independent, third-party panel consists of leading regional entrepreneurs, angel, and strategic investors, and venture capital firms such as New Enterprise Associates, Grotech Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Harbert Venture Partners HIG Ventures, Edison Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Intersouth Partners, SJF Ventures, Carilion Health Systems, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, and Alpha Natural Resources. For more information, please visit www.citgapfunds.org.



About the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT)

Investing in Virginia's Growth | CIT concentrates on the early commercialization and seed funding stages of innovation, helping innovators and tech entrepreneurs launch and grow new companies, create high paying jobs and accelerate economic growth throughout the entire state of Virginia. Founded in 1985, CIT accelerates next-generation technologies and technology companies through commercialization, capital formation, market development initiatives, and expansion of broadband throughout Virginia. Our programs include | CIT GAP Funds | Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF) | Virginia Founders Fund | Broadband/Rural Broadband | Smart Communities | Cybersecurity | Unmanned Systems | SBIR/STTR Support (Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) & Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs) | University Partnerships | Startup Company Mentoring & Engagement. CITs CAGE Code is 1UP71. Contact: 2214 Rock Hill Road #600, Herndon, VA 20170 | 703.689.3000 | www.cit.org | You can also follow CIT on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Dan Warren

LaunchTech Communications

443-977-9638

dan@goLaunchTech.com



Sara (Pomakoy) Poole

Center for Innovative Technology (CIT)

sara.poole@cit.org


Iranian judge Gholamreza Mansouri arrested in Romania

06/15/20

Source: Tehran Times

An Iranian judge accused of corruption and taking more than $500,000 in bribes has been arrested in Romania, Iran's Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili announced on Saturday. Following the Judiciary's legal measure, Gholamreza Mansouri was arrested in Romania and was handed to Interpol, Esmaeili said.



Iranian judge Gholamreza Mansouri

"Mr. Mansouri had announced that 'I will return to Iran and attend the [court's] session', but after conducting investigations we realized that this announcement is not serious and is more like a show," he stated, according to ISNA.



He explained that Mansouri cannot be transferred to Iran at the moment due to the coronavirus circumstances, but "this will happen in the following days."



Mansouri is among several judges who were accused of corruption during the high-profile trial of a former senior Judiciary official that opened in Tehran on June 7.



In a video posted online on June 8, Mansouri didn't give details about his whereabouts, but he said he would return to Iran as soon as travel restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic are eased.



"I have full trust in the Islamic republic, Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei], and the judicial system," Mansouri said in the video.



On Thursday, June 11, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed an official complaint with German federal judicial authorities demanding Mansouri's arrest for suppressing and jailing dozens of Iranian journalists.
Liashko tweeted in response: "Thank you, Yulia!"

Batkivshchyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko will not nominate her party's candidate in a by-election to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, in constituency No. 208, as she has decided to back the nomination of Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko.

Tymoshenko announced this at a briefing on June 15.

Read alsoNYT journalists reveal who paid Tymoshenko "compensation for political repression"

"All Ukrainian forces should unite and nominate a single candidate in the 208th district... The person who already enjoys the support of over 30% of people in that district is Oleh Liashko. He has worked particularly hard in Chernihiv region, this is in fact his homeland, and he has great support from people there," she said.

Liashko tweeted in response: "Thank you, Yulia!"

According to earlier reports, MP Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-MP Liashko have recently been spotted dining together in a Kyiv restaurant.

In 2016, Liashko once called Tymoshenko "Moscow's cuckoo," accusing her of attempts to seize power. Tymoshenko later said that she "had forgiven" him for those words.

The additional elections in the 208th constituency are being held over the death of MP Valeriy Davydenko from the Dovira parliamentary group. He was found dead in his office in Kyiv with a gunshot wound to the head on May 23, 2020.
Go Rio Cruises will reopen its boat tours at 2 p.m. today, the company announced during a news conference Monday with the San Antonio River Walk Association.

The river cruises company suspended its boat tours operations in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Go Rio said on its website that it will open for narrated tours until further notice. Specialty cruises and river shuttles are temporarily closed.

There will be limited hours of operation  2 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from noon to 9 p.m. Friday.

READ ALSO: SeaWorld San Antonio plans to reopen June 19 with safety measures

The company also said that it has removed all its center benches to help ensure social distancing for its guests and employees. The removal of the center benches allows at least 10 to 12 guests on the riverboat, Go Rio said.

Guests may visit the Go Rio beverage bar and retail location near the Rivercenter ticket booth for frozen margaritas, pina coladas, beer, sodas or water to sip on while they enjoy a Go Rio Cruise, the company said on its website.

"Go Rio is excited to come back and start off strong," said Lee Talamantez, the general manager of Go Rio. "Our main goal will obviously be the safety of our employees and, of course, the guests themselves."

In May 2017, Go Rio was awarded a 10-year contract with the City of San Antonio to operate the river cruises. Operations began on Oct. 1, 2017.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre
YEREVAN.  The governing council of the parliamentary opposition Bright Armenia Party made a statement on Sundays events related to parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan. The statement reads as follows, in particular:

"We condemn the political influence and control over any criminal prosecution.

() the use of legal proceedings, as well as the use of blackmail, compromising materials as a political tool to silence, suppress opponents is unacceptable and reprehensible.

Political influence over law enforcement destroys the legitimacy of criminal prosecution.

The abovementioned clearly shows that criminal prosecution takes place under political interference and control.

The Bright Armenia Party strongly condemns the carrying out of criminal prosecution, the selective application of the lawstemming from political expediency.

We call on the authorities to engage in the fight against the [COVID-19] pandemic and managing the deteriorating socioeconomic situation, leaving the criminal prosecution to solely to law enforcement.
By Mohammad Saif

Being a Muslim in India is one of the biggest threats since the last few years, particularly in the reign of the BJP. I think the prevailing narrative has its base in the predecessors of radical Hindu ideologue. The consequential series of pity narrative and villainizing Muslims in the eye of Indians got manifested as terrorists, anti-nationals, cow murderers, inequity towards women in Islam, beef issue, Islamophobic cartoons, appropriation in the newspapers, systematic targeting of Muslims regarding anti-CAA protest by linking these Muslim students cum activists to Delhi riots and very incapacitated apprehension of Islam as the threat to Hinduism.

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In this article, an effort is made to explore Islamophobia in the thoughts and writings of Hindu Nationalist ideologoes which was later transformed in the speeches, interviews and the podcasts of BJP leaders which provided a base to its increase in our day to day lives. After providing a background to this, my focus will be on the strategy and propaganda adopted by ultra-nationalist organizations of Hindutva and the political leaders of the BJP  who are working in the various dimensions of characterizing Muslims as Islamophobic. The BJP and RSS act out the Islamophobic chronicle at the lowest level in the country.

Islamophobia: conceptualizing in the thoughts of Hindu Nationalists

Overarching Islamophobia as the ideological creation in the thoughts of radical Hindu ideologues is one of the Herculean tasks which vehemently prepared the ground for its progenitor in the current time and how this sick thought grounded a threat to the democratic and secular fabric of Indias forefathers like Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. In the thoughts of Golwalkar in his We or Our Nationhood Defined, Islamophobic credentials are seen. For Golwalkar, to construct a nation there are five incontrovertible components likely Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language. According to him, Hindus were a distinct Nation because first there were only Hindus, i.e. Aryan Race which inhabited Hindustan, the land of Hindus. Second Hindu belonged to a race which had, Hereditary society having common customs, common languages, common memories of glory and disaster, in short, it is a population with a common origin under on culture. Such a race is by far the important ingredient of a nation. Even if there be a people of foreign origin they must assimilate into the body of the mother race and inextricably fused into it. They should have become one with the original national race, not only in its economic and political life, but also in its religion, culture and language, for otherwise such foreign races may be considered, under certain circumstances, at best members of a common state, for political purpose, but they can never form part and parcel of the national body, if the mother race is destroyed, either by the destruction of the person composing it or by the loss of the principle of its existence, its religion and culture, the nation itself come to its endThe race is the body of the nation, and that with its fall, the nation ceases to exist.

The above paragraph is visualizing that Golwalkar is saying that the original owners of this land are Hindus, those belonging to Aryan Races. Besides, he indicated that the purity of race is necessary for the construction of Hindustan as a Nation, which he painted through commonness of culture, language and religion. This is necessary not only for the political and economic life of a Hindu citizen but fulfilled in the domain of religion, culture and language. And the person belonging to any foreign origin also converts himself in the same domain then it will create a space for him to live here as a part of the nation otherwise the ethos of the nation will be destroyed. The paragraph itself creates a Hindu Rashtra imagination in a vacuum and the other races, language, culture and religion on this land are subverted. This otherness of different races, culture, language and religion also creates hate and disparateness towards others and in current time this thought has been used against Muslims in India. This is how Islamophobia got its ideological colour.

In the further extracts from Bunch of Thoughts, we can take it for granted that Golwalkar visualized Muslims, as not being the sympathizers of this land of Hindus but they are lovers of Pakistan. He writes, In the consequences of partition he recognized Muslims as an internal threat which intimidates our country. Their threat is like internal subversion to our national freedom and security. They are more dangerous than aggressors outside. Let us take the case of Muslims as they left our country particularly those who supported Pakistan but now the rest are ours, they are loyal to us. Here the fact is different. In the 1937 election, all the Muslims from the Muslim majority province rejected the Muslim league. According to him, this could not prove their loyalty towards the nation. But just before partition there was an election for the constituent assembly, Muslims quietly supported Muslim league in this election so how these Muslim have been in Hindu majority province of U.P. As patriotic in a day just after partition night, so these rest are not faithful while they did not leave for Pakistan. He said that this will be a suicidal delusion to be confident with these Mohammadans. They came with twofold strategy one is Direct Action produced by Jinnah by which they got success in creating Pakistan. Next one is Kashmir by arguing through the purview of Arnold Toynbee, Golwalkar said that this historian provided a right assumption that they can fulfil their dream to create a separate nation which they had seen twelve hundred years ago by entering in India. Now Pakistan is trying to capture Kashmir by the support of pro-Pakistani elements in Kashmir. The ultra-nationalist thought of Golwalkar created Muslims in India as the most dangerous one as well as the supporters of Pakistan and anti-India in the matter of Kashmir. This argument is working for ultra-nationalist Hindus in propping Muslims as the enemy of India, which is very dangerous for the ecumenical dream of India. Of course in my view, this vision of Golwalkar created an anti-Islamic and anti-Muslim genesis in the mind of people.

Now after looking at Golwalkar, one more entrenched ideologue of RSS V.D. Savarkar in his important scripture Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? (1923), reckons a bad image to Muslims. He was in jail to create a suicidal plot for British secretary of state Curzon Wyllie and he met with a person from the Khilafat movement and considered them as the sympathizers of Pan Islamism. Savarkar saw them as one of the consolidated enemies of India, even greater than British.

Savarkar assumes that they (Muslims) had no sympathy for nationalism. In his book Hindutva, Savarkar placed Hindus on the top of the native citizens, descended from Aryans and established in India, where they already made a nation. He talked about the ethnic-based nation, but the only criteria common was culture, common language, and geographical boundaries were the further condition for the construction of a nation.

Of course, it is needless to say here what Christophe Jefferlotte reflected by Savarkars thinking about Christian and Muslims as an otherness of threatening nature, but the conversion of Muslims and Christian few generations ago can be integrated with Hinduism conditioned by faithfulness towards Hindu religion and culture. The narrowness of Savarkar towards Muslims and Christian and portrayal of them as threatening did not leave any space for these communities in the space of Hindu Nationalism. This can be recognized with conformity through another paragraph of his on Muslims.

We are one because we are a nation (about Hindus), a race and own a common Sanskriti (civilization) in the case of some of our Mohammedan or Christian countrymen who had originally been forcibly converted to a non-Hindu religion and who consequently inherited along with Hindus, a common Fatherland and a greater part of the wealth of a common culture  language law, custom, folklore and history are not and cannot be recognized as Hindus. For though Hindustan for them is Fatherland as to any other Hindu yet it is not to them a Holy land too. Their holy land is far off in Arabia or Palestine. Their mythology and Godmen, ideas and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently, their names and their outlook smack of a foreign origin. Their love is divided. Nay, if some of them they really believe what they profess to do, and then there can be no choice  they must, to a man, set their Holy land above their Fatherland in their love and allegiance. That is but natural.

Here either Savarkar is condemning not just the Muslims or Christians but proving their Holy land is desperate might have prepared the base in the eye of others that they cannot be loyal towards this Fatherland (Hindustan) and their love is not genuine as well as for the holy land and they cannot be united for India in the time of struggle but for Arabia or Palestine (Holy land of Christian and Muslims). This imagination of Muslims in their thoughts gave relevance to the propaganda of ultra Hindu nationalist in the last decade since this BJP government is in power, which is justifying that Muslims are not ours and that they have different culture, language and ethnicity and therefore they cannot live with us. This unnecessary creation of otherness towards Muslims has been turned into Islamophobic poison nowadays in our society.

Continuing Agenda of Hindutva: Propagating Islamophobia and Rhetoric

The agenda of Hindu Rashtra is transparent and propaganda against Muslims is a combined project of both BJP and RSS. What is the way forward for the Hindutva forces that are driving to fulfil their long seen project of Hindu-Rashtra? I would like to quote here Prof Dibyesh Anand, what kind of politics they used to do as a Hindu Nationalist or Hindutva? According to him Hindutva is a schizophrenic Nationalism, one that brings together politics of imagination, insecurity, cultural transformation and social mobilization in a manner that generates violence and fear at the same time allows for the myth of tolerant Hindus to go unchallenged. This filthy agenda of their project has been adjusted as a popular one against Muslims. They linked Muslims as invaders in India with the current generation of Muslims as a common foe. Like Mohammad of Ghazni and Mohammad bin Qasim were responsible for disturbing the peace and plenty of Sindhustan, Muslims are being scapegoated in the name of these rulers those who came to India from far distant lands.

S Sayyid discusses six clusters of Islamophobia in his paper Measuring Islamophobia while five among them usually performed by individuals or organizations may be private or public. In the same way, India is embracing Islamophobia by its far-right and Ultra Hindu nationalist propagandists.

This mechanism of stereotyping of the antagonistic identity of Muslims is very common nowadays in a way to achieve the combined agenda of both BJP and RSS. Also, this can be seen in further events happening in India in the name of Islamophobia. This propaganda of (Other Vs Us) is very common nowadays. The recent congregation of Tablighi Jamaat Markaz Nizamuddin, a world headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, caught in the news because of its gathering during the time of COVID-19 outbreak. Of course, their act was irresponsible, but the far-right Hindu nationalist forces from media, academicians and ultra Hindu nationalist organizations put these Tablighis on remand and painted this event in communal and religious colour to show their recklessness, thoughtlessness and as the enemy of India to these Tablighi Muslims. Even on Facebook, Twitter, Media headlines (electronic and print) started to trend them as super-spreader of COVID-19 in India, while so many cases came, later on, showing they had no links with Tablighi Jamaat.

The issue of Kashmir was highlighted by BJP and its far-right supporters as a threat to the sovereignty of India. They are using this Islamophobic propaganda just for political gain and projecting the Kashmiri struggle as Islamic terrorism is nothing but for its ideological legitimacy. After the abrogation of Article 370, several BJP leaders denoted it as the end of terrorism in the valley and a step towards development. Contextualizing the abrogation of 370 in terms of end of terrorism means locating the Muslims of Valley as the spreader of terrorism and separatism and anti-Indian image of Kashmirs surfaces again and provides a consolidate base to the existing narrative of the valley people as the supporters of Pakistan. This imaginary threat created by Hindu Right-wing is a big challenge in halting sufferings to the Muslims in India.

Social media is one of the biggest platforms for propagation of Islamophobic environment in India. Recently, one of the Asian American human rights organization released a report in which they delineated the hate speeches and misinformation on Facebook and social networking sites being responsible for 37 per cent of Islamophobic content. One more report on Islamophobia from University of California Berkeley centre added that rising nationalism in India is one of the agenda to create Islamophobia against Muslims and 29.9 per cent of total message spreads on WhatsApp across the country just in 2018 in the name of Nationalism were fake.

New propaganda of population control is also running afoot, with several BJP linked organizations like VHP and RSS propagating this to curb the population of Muslims and pushing Hindus to produce more children. They have a narrative that Muslims are doing jihad so that they could overpower Hindus in the near future by increasing their population and their vote bank will be strong. They do not take into account that Hindus are more than 80 per cent of the population and Muslims comprise only 14 per cent of the total population of India. In northern and central India, the population control movement is gaining momentum against Muslims in India. The campaign is punctuated with Islamophobia which is being promoted in both offline and online worlds.

A 2017 Outlook India article exposed that the government and a section of the media are trying to project that the increasing number of Rohingya refugees in the country will encourage Islamic fundamentalism by locating the Rohingyas as terrorists and linking their ties with Pakistani terror groups. This was another attempt to make Muslims  here Rohingya refugees, as others and a threat to the nation.

A bigger debate should be held on the issue of Islamophobia in India. The projection of both Islam and Muslims as a threat to India is not good for Indian unity or Hindu Muslim harmony. In the last six years, the root of Indian secularism has been shaken.

Christophe Jafferlote, a French-based political scientist having expertise on Indian Politics has said that, Hindu nationalist quest for power can only succeed in a context where there exists a perceived threat either real or imagined to the majority community of Hindus. We should be serious to note the narrative of Hindutva prevailing in our society and we should take a reasonable stand against this project. The rising hate of Hindutva should be a wakeup call to our sleeping collective conscience and reason.

Mohammad Saif is a Research Scholar at the department of political science AMU, Aligarh (U.P.) India. He can be reached at [email protected].
Also, police disciplinary records can now be accessed upon request. So, if an officer is involved in a shooting or some other questionable action, the public will be able to see whether that officer has been the subject of any past complaints. That may help add context to our understanding of the incident.

And now with the right to record police activity signed into law, there is protection for witnesses and bystanders who make videos.

Was Mr. Cuomo slow or quick to act on calls to make these changes?

You could say both. During Mr. Cuomos nine-plus years in office, he has shown an ability to jump on news and get laws enacted as a result.

Keep in mind, he doesnt make the laws. The Legislature had already drafted the bills. After the killing of George Floyd on May 25, there was new momentum to get them passed. Mr. Cuomo, seeing which way the wind was blowing, said he supported the measures, too. So, in a way, the Legislature acted very quickly and the governor embraced their action very quickly.

But before Mr. Floyds killing and the protests, these changes were not part of Mr. Cuomos agenda for the year.

What comes next?

Proposals to legalize marijuana, release older inmates early and end solitary confinement could gain more traction now.

And action could occur at any time. Traditionally the Legislature is in session from January to June. But members could get called back into session at any moment.
City officials will host a presentation Tuesday to guide residents through the online COVID-19 dashboards and website.

Daily COVID-19 updates have been shared with residents daily since the pandemic first took a hold in March. First, the numbers on positive patients were presented in a simple chart. Within days, the pandemic-dedicated tab on the city's website grew to include more data like a chart on cases by race and a log of cases by zip code.

ON EXPRESSNEWS.COM: Coronavirus cases in Bexar County ZIP codes

In May, the city launched an entirely new, user-friendly website with interactive material in which residents can access facts and guidance on daily case surveillance, assistance and more all in one place.

Metro Health Director Dr. Dawn Emerick will lead the presentation to help teach residents how to use the new site and the COVID-19 surveillance dashboards.

Residents can watch the presentation online or on TV at 1:30 p.m. The city's website and Facebook page will host the video live. On TV, the presentation will air on AT&T 99, Grande 20, Spectrum 21 or digital antenna 16.1

In recent days, the city and county have reported large increases in the number of new COVID-19 patients and hospitalizations. Health officials are urging residents to resume practices like frequent hand washing, maintaining physical distance and wearing a mask, especially indoors.

Madalyn Mendoza covers news and puro pop culture for MySA.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @maddyskye
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that a recent act of vandalism at Svalyavsky Memorial Park in Zakarpattia region was a provocation aimed at destabilizing Ukraine-Hungary relations

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th June, 2020) Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that a recent act of vandalism at Svalyavsky Memorial Park in Zakarpattia region was a provocation aimed at destabilizing Ukraine-Hungary relations.

On Sunday, reports emerged that unknown suspects had damaged a memorial at Svalyavsky Park.

"The sad news of the weekend was the information about an act of vandalism at an important place for Ukrainian Hungarians - near the Western Wall at Svalyavsky Memorial Park. This act of vandalism is a provocation aimed at destabilizing the situation in Zakarpattia conducted by those who want to prevent us from overcoming disputes with Hungary," Kuleba said on Facebook.

According to him, law enforcement officers are investigating the incident.

The minister expressed confidence that those responsible will be found and brought to justice.

Ukrainian-Hungarian relations deteriorated over Kiev's 2017 education law, which restricted the freedom of national minority children, including Hungarians living in Zakarpattia, to study in their native languages. Several countries, including Hungary and Romania, said that this law violates the national minorities' rights in Ukraine.

Hungary has retaliated against the Ukrainian education law by blocking Kiev's attempts to foster a closer relationship with the European Union and NATO. Budapest vetoed NATO's joint declaration on Ukraine last October because it did not mention the abuse of minority rights.
New Delhi, June 15 : In a bid to rekindle the Khalistan movement, separatist Sikh groups based in Canada and the US are being promoted by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to spearhead an anti-India hate campaign. More than twenty phone numbers of Khalistan extremists, originating from the US, Pakistan and other destinations, used in spreading audio messages in various districts in Punjab, have been identified by Indian Intelligence agencies.

Top sources in the agencies revealed to IANS that maximum calls have originated from numbers bearing US code such as (+1 253 533 71XX, +1 405 835 23XX , +1 833 779 04XX). Most of these numbers are being used by banned extremist outfit Sikhs For Justice(SFJ).

SFJ's extremist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, wanted in several cases of terror in India, is said to be the mastermind behind the recent anti-India campaign "Referendum 2020".

One of Pannu's alleged aides, Imran Malik, based in Karachi, called several people in Punjab and Chandigarh, including journalists, and informed them about the secret referendum of Sikhs relating to demand for creating an independent Khalistan state.

Sources in the agencies disclosed that Pannu, based in the US, and a few Sikh extremists hiding in Germany and Britain are being brought under one umbrella of the SFJ by the ISI handlers. Reports said that Pannu had travelled to Pakistan last year and also set up an office in Karachi.

The SFJ-ISI nexus is reportedly using fake IDs on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to promote their venomous separatist thoughts. On a complaint of the Indian government, micro-blogging site Twitter has suspended Pannu's account in June 2019.

At the behest of ISI, the SFJ leader had shot off a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping last fortnight. In his letter Pannu has sought support of the Chinese government for SFJ's demand of a separate Sikh state.

The letter was written by the SFJ, a day after Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh warned China that India wouldn't tolerate any bullying by Beijing over the ongoing border tension between the two countries. Amarinder Singh's government has also registered several cases of sedition against Pannu and his henchmen in Punjab.

Meanwhile, India's external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing is collecting inputs through its overseas sources against a few key Khalistani separatist leaders located in Germany.

These separatist leaders who were once operating from the soil of Pakistan had got asylum from the German establishment. RAW suspects that one of these separatist leaders - Gurdev Singh Bagga - was instrumental in delivering weapons including AK-56 rifles and grenades, from Pakistan into the border district of Tarn Taran district using sophisticated drones. Bagga is said to be close to Pannu, the mastermind of referendum 2020.
One may have heard Bollywood actor Sonu Sood helping thousands of migrant workers to aid them towards their home by providing different modes of transport. One such people's messiah is also there in Bengal who is helping migrant workers to come back to Bengal in any every way possible. Dev Adhikari, who is a Bengali actor, producer as well as the Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) of Ghatal TMC, has helped to bring back more than 300 migrant workers from Nepal and Jammu back to his constituency. Dev Adhikari is known to have made the bus and sustenance arrangements for the workers to aid them to travel back home. One such instance arrived when a doctor from Russia was seen to have tweeted Dev asking for help to travel back home.

ALSO READ| With 12 Fatalities, COVID-19 Death Toll Rises To 475 In West Bengal; No. Of Cases 11,087

Medical student stuck in Russia tweeted Bengali superstar Dev

Recently on June 11, an MBBS student from Moscow, Russia tweeted to the Bengali superstar Dev. Akhilendu Karak, a student from Tver State Medical University in Russia, saw how Dev helped the migrant workers stuck in different countries to bring them back to home in Bengal. He took to Twitter and stated that there are many Bengalis studying in Moscow and nearby cities who intend to return back home. Akhilendyu also mentioned that India has surely initiated the third phase of Vande Bharat Mission where the stranded Indian nationals are being brought back to the country. But India has not laid out any plans for bringing back the stranded nationals to West Bengal, India from Russia. Karak also wrote stating that they had spoken to the Indian embassy in Russia who told them to talk to Air India. He stated that he thought of contacting him as Air India customer care wasn't responsive. Akhilendu stated that the students are ready to pay for their tickets as well. Take a look at the actual conversation that happened between the two.

Acknowledging Akhilendu's tweet, Dev Adhikari responded stating that he would try his best to provide aid to the Indian national stuck in Russia and bring them back to Bengal.

Ok my team will cordinate..cant promise..but will surely try my level best  Dev (@idevadhikari) June 11, 2020

ALSO READ| Sonu Sood Helps Migrant Workers Again By Sending Them Home Via Borivali Station, Mumbai

ALSO READ| Sushant Singh Rajput's Death: Film Critics Lauded The Late Actor's Several Performances

Bengali superstar Dev extends aid to migrant workers

As of now, actor and Ghatal TMC MP Dev has brought more than 300 migrant workers back to Bengal. People from Dubai were also seen contacting the actor-politician asking him to aid their travel possibilities to India as well. Dev also provided his support to a club in Ghatal's Daspur region by providing ration to the club as the club members complained that the government was not helping them. The sporting club called Rajnagar Young Sporting Club provided food for the local quarantine centre for the people in the region.

ALSO READ| Putin On US Protests, Fight Against Coronavirus

Promo Image courtesy: Dev Adhikari Instagram
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday validated the first point of care rapid antigen diagnostic test for Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) that gives results in 30 minutes as compared to the five hours taken by a conventional reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test -- making it easier for government health departments to test widely and quickly, and hospitals to screen non-Covid patients being admitted, especially for surgeries.

The test , the worlds first rapid test , can be used in field settings in containment zones, hotspots and hospitals, and its findings do not need to be confirmed through an RT-PCR test.

The kit Standard Q COVID-19 Ag detection kithas been developed by SD Biosensor, a South Korean company and jointly validated by ICMR and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has approved its import and manufacturing in the country.The company is yet to begin mass production of these kits in India.

We have just got ICMR validation so production will take some time. We will start manufacturing, may be around next week but the date has not been finalized yet. The price has also not been decided as yet but it will be much cheaper than RT-PCR kits, said Punit Kumar, deputy manager, regulatory affairs, at SD Bio Sensor.

Such tests would help in proper implementation of the Govt. strategy to test, track and treat. Such tests will also help in allaying the anxiety and fear of health care workers and aid in better clinical management of the patients, said ICMR in a statement.

We have issued an advisory to the states that it can be used for diagnosis of Sars-Cov-2 and test results that return positive using this antigen based test dont require re-confirmation through RT-PCR. States can procure the kit and use it. ICMR has provided the broad guidelines and the rest is up to the states to see how well it can be deployed on ground, said Dr Lokesh Sharma, scientist and spokesperson, ICMR.

Sensitivity of the test (ability to detect true positives; which means the chances that an infected person will test positive) is 84%, depending upon the viral load of the patient wherein higher viral load correlates with higher sensitivity.

ICMR has advised states to use this kit for Covid-19 diagnosis in containment zones, hotspots, and hospitals to test all symptomatic Influenza Like Illness (ILI), asymptomatic direct and high-risk contacts with co-morbidities, and asymptomatic high risk patients who are hospitalized or seeking hospitalization such as those undergoing chemotherapy, immunosuppressed patients including HIV positives, suffering from a malignancy, transplant patients and elder patients with co-morbidities.

The test has also been allowed in asymptomatic patients undergoing aerosol generating surgical or non-surgical interventions such as neurosurgery, ear nose throat surgery, dental procedures, bronchoscopy (lungs examination by putting a tiny camera inside), Upper gastro-intestinal endoscopy (digestive track examination by putting a tiny camera inside) and dialysis.

RT-PCR tests are the gold standard frontline test for diagnosis of Covid-19, but require specialized laboratory facilities in terms of equipment, biosafety and biosecurity. Minimum time taken 2-5 hours including the time taken for sample transportation. These specifications limit the widespread use of the RT-PCR test and also impede quick augmentation of testing capacity in various containment zones and hospital settings, added the ICMR advisory.

It can be used for diagnosis but if the test is negative, RT-PCR will be done to rule out infection, said Dr RR Gangakhedkar, head, epidemiology, ICMR.

Hospitals say it is only after they start testing that they will be able to determine how beneficial this test is.

On face value, it does sound good to us as we are allowed to test in-patients and patients before admission, but then we will have to see how it helps us in our set-up of diagnosis. That we will come to know only when we start testing, said Dr Chand Wattal, chairman, clinical microbiology and immunology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital.

ICMR has asked other manufacturers and developers, who have antigen detection assays, to come forward for validation.

Currently, there is just one manufacturer but we are hoping many will come forward so that this testing can be expanded in states, said Sharma.

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DPRK warns of possible military retaliation against South Korea

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 10:12, June 14, 2020

PYONGYANG, June 13 (Xinhua) -- It is high time to break with the South Korean authorities and retaliate with possible military force against the South, a senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Saturday.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim Yo Jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and younger sister of DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, said she had given instructions for decisive action to be taken.

The DPRK has repeatedly lashed out at South Korea since last week in protest against anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent by defectors and activists across the border. Pyongyang has also closed its joint liaison office and cut off all communication lines with the South.

"If I drop a hint of our next plan the South Korean authorities are anxious about, the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army," she said, adding that the army "will determine something for cooling down our people's resentment and surely carry out it."

Kim also said she fully supported the statement issued Friday by Jang Kum Chol, director of the United Front Department of the Central Committee of the WPK, who said Pyongyang has lost all confidence in the South Korean government and warned of "regretful and painful" times ahead.

Kim pointed out that "the judgment that we should force the betrayers and human scum to pay the dearest price for their crimes and the retaliatory action plans we have made on this basis have become a firm public opinion at home."

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A paramilitary policeman stands guard at the entrance to the European Union embassy in Beijing on Dec. 13, 2011. (David Gray/Reuters)

Germany Pushes for Tougher EU Stance Towards China

BERLINGermany has signaled it will push for a tougher EU line towards China, adding language to a draft document that would see a stronger demand for reciprocityseen as code for access for European firmsand a new emphasis on values.

Germany takes over the rotating presidency of the EU in the second half of this year. It has set out its policy plans for the presidency in a draft reviewed by Reuters on June 15, which supersedes an earlier draft compiled in March.

Among new elements, the 24-page document said: We want to develop cooperation with China and (to) work for more reciprocity in all policy areas.

The reference to reciprocity follows complaints from German companies that they do not have the same access to markets in China as Chinese companies have in Germany.

The China policy of all EU institutions and member states should be united and balanced and be oriented towards long-term common EU interests and values, reads the 24-page paper.

The word values was omitted in the earlier draft, and its inclusion now could suggest a greater emphasis on issues such as democracy, human rights, and autonomy for Hong Kong.

Germany said earlier this month a summit planned for September in Leipzig, Germany, between China and the EU had been postponed because of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.

The U.S. is our closest foreign and security policy partner outside the EU, the paper also said.

By Andreas Rinke
The fifth president of Ukraine called the attempt not to recognize the Russian aggression "anti-state and unconstitutional"

The fifth president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko Open source

The former president of Ukraine was questioned in Kyiv Court of Appeal, where the case of Viktor Yanukovych's state treason was considered. This was reported by the European Solidarity faction.

Poroshenko said that he was dissatisfied with Yanukovych's attempts to justify Russian aggression and cede responsibility for the illegal annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas to Ukraine.

"The attempt not to recognize the Russian aggression, which is being heard in the hall of Kyiv Court of Appeal, is anti-state and unconstitutional. The fact of Russian aggression in Crimea, which began on February 20, 2014, was being recognized across all international platforms during all five years. The capture of Crimea was de facto completed on February 27-28. I personally testify that Crimea was captured by Russian troops during my visit," he said.

The fifth president of Ukraine added that he had personally seen the Russian troops and had information that they had been present at the airport in Simferopol while landing ships had been arriving from Novorossiysk.

As we reported earlier, on March 5, the Council of the European Union officially extended the sanctions against the former president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and his allies.
Vijayawada:

Copious rains due to formation of low pressure area in the Bay of Bengal paralysed normal life in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh and affecting train services on Guntur-Nadikudi section that provides a crucial link to Secunderabad.

Several express and passenger trains between Guntur and Secunderabad had to be stopped at several places as flood waters flowed over railway tracks. The South Central Railway has set up helplines at various stations to provide updates on the situation.

The affected trains include Falaknuma, Palnadu, Amaravati Express and Macherla-Bhimavaram Passenger.

Rivulets in Guntur district are in spate, inundating housing colonies in Sattenapalli town and nearby villages. Revenue officials have made arrangements to provide drinking water and food packets to the affected people.

Andhra Pradesh Assembly Speaker Kodela Sivaprasada Rao, who represents Sattenapalli, is monitoring the rescue and relief operations in there and put the revenue and police officials on alert to help the affected people.

Most places in Guntur district like Nakarikallu, Sattenapalli, Narsaraopet, Muppalla, Medikonduru received 10 to 21 cm rainfall since yesterday.

Transport services were disrupted in Sattenapalli, Narsaraopet and Pidiguralla. Many villages in the Palnadu region remained cut off as rivulets caused flooding and disrupted transport services.

The APSRTC bus station in Machilipatnam was marooned following heavy rains, paralysing the services.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu spoke to Collectors of the rain-hit districts and directed them to undertake all precautionary and relief measures.

Krishna, Prakasam, East and West Godavari districts have also been receiving moderate to heavy rainfall under the influence of the low pressure area in Bay of Bengal.

The MeT department forecast the situation is expected to continue till Friday.

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By Will Russell

LONDON (Reuters) - EasyJet <EZJ.L> aircraft took to the skies for the first time since March 30 on Monday, as the British carrier resumed a small number of mainly domestic flights after weeks of lockdown.

Passengers, who under easyJet's new rules must wear face masks, boarded the airline's first flight from London's Gatwick airport to Glasgow for an 0600 GMT departure.

Chief Executive Johan Lundgren said the airline was "super excited" to restart flights.

He said measures to protect passengers had been agreed with regulators. "It's absolutely safe to fly," he added.

The airline is starting with a minimal service, flying mainly routes within Britain to cities including Edinburgh and Belfast. It is also resuming some domestic and international routes from France, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal.

While borders across Europe are being opened, a hoped-for travel recovery in easyJet's home market of Britain has been put at risk by a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals.

EasyJet, alongside rivals British Airways and Ryanair, started legal action on Friday against the quarantine policy to try to have it overturned.

Lundgren said Britain introduced quarantine as the rest of Europe was removing restrictions.

"We don't see that it makes any sense from a public health point of view," he told Reuters, adding that it was having a "very dampening effect" on new bookings into the UK.

The airline is planning to ramp up services as the summer progresses and by August has said it will be flying about three-quarters of routes but at a much lower frequency than last year.

Capacity will be at about 30% of usual in the busy July to September season, easyJet said. Bigger rival Ryanair plans to be flying 40% of capacity by July.

Lundgren said there was scope to increase both the number of destinations and flight frequencies as the summer progressed, but whether the quarantine remained in place would be a factor.

"Aviation is facing its worse crisis ever," he said, adding that the airline estimated 2019 levels of demand would not return until 2023.

EasyJet said in May it was planning to cut 4,500 jobs, or 30% of its workforce.

(Writing by Sarah Young and Paul Sandle; Editing by Edmund Blair and Stephen Addison)
Bill Gates.

Elaine Thompson/AP Photo

Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has pledged a quarter billion dollars to combating the coronavirus pandemic through his foundation.

Gates has also been the focus of false conspiracies that have claimed he knew about the pandemic beforehand or was even responsible for it.

"#ExposeBillGates" was trending on Twitter over the weekend as the result of coordinated efforts by conspiracy theorists.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Video: How Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Are Advocating Change

Bill Gates remains a major target of conspiracy theorists around the world, as "#ExposeBillGates" was trending on Twitter over the weekend. The coronavirus pandemic has only increased online conspiracies about the Microsoft cofounder and billionaire, as false claims say Gates knew about the virus before it spread, or that he was even somehow responsible for it.

On Saturday, Politico correspondent Mark Scott noticed that "#ExposeBillGates" was trending on Twitter in North America and Europe, and found that activists on Reddit, 4chan, and other websites coordinated efforts to get the hashtag attention.

Alex Kaplan, a researcher at Media Matters, found that the hashtag was part of a day of action from online activists calling for "a non-partisan coalition of alternative media organizations and activists groups" to "expose Bill Gates and his control agenda." The hashtag was amplified by QAnon accounts, as well as far-right figures like Michelle Malkin, who was part of an earlier online pledge to not receive the coronavirus vaccine.

Gates has been the focus of coronavirus conspiracy theories since at least January. Online activists have used Gates' famous TED Talk on the danger of pandemics, along with his $250 million contribution to fighting coronavirus through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as evidence that Gates knew about COVID-19.

Some unsubstantiated theories  shared by fringe figures like Alex Jones and Fox News host Laura Ingraham  have claimed that Gates and other powerful figures were using the pandemic as an excuse to digitally track the world's population. Gates has also been the target of anti-vaccination activists, who have pledged not to take a coronavirus vaccine if one becomes available.

Bill Gates has been critical of President Trump and the US response to the coronavirus. "Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds," he tweeted on April 15, soon after President Trump announced intentions to cut funding for the World Health Organization. "Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever."

Read the original article on Business Insider
School resource officers view their jobs differently, depending on how diverse the students are in the districts they serve, some new research suggests.

In interviews, school resource officers in a largely white and affluent school district said they saw their role as protecting the students from outside threats, such as school shooters, and dealing with student behavior like sexting.

But their counterparts in an urban district with a higher representation of black and Hispanic students, saw threats as coming from a different sourcethe students themselves, who create chaos and create a tense and nearly unmanageable atmosphere.

The findings come from a report that will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Social Problems, said Ben Fisher, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville who specializes in studying school safety, security, and discipline. Though the paper has not been published online, Fisher co-authored a piece on the website The Conversation, advocating for a more critical evaluation of police in schools . He also shared a portion of the work on Twitter.

This difference in perception has particular relevance as school districts around the country reconsider their use of school resource officers in the wake of the recent widespread protests for racial justice. Minneapolis, Denver, Portland, Ore., and West Contra Costa, Calif., schools have recently voted to either end their relationships with local police, or phase them out.

The kind of subtle bias expressed in the interviews with police officersrace of students was seldom mentionedcan nevertheless have negative impacts on black students. Instead of referring to race, the officers used words that are often coded for race. (The officers themselves in this researcher were all white and nearly all male.)

For example, the urban district50 percent white, 40 percent black, and 10 percent Hispanicwas filled with students described as lacking a good upbringing and being out of control. School shooters were a possibility, said those school resource officers, but on a day-to-day basis, thats not [an] imminent threat, one officer said.

In contrast, in the suburban, predominantly white district, where fewer than half of the students are eligible for subsidized lunch, officers said that because students were well off, there were no problems with theft. Even though the resource officers spoke of drug possession and sales in the middle and high schools, the student-based threats they spoke of centered around cyberbullying. Police spent much of their time explaining to staff the importance of keeping exterior doors closed, another indication of how they saw threats as coming from outside the school, the researchers said.

The juvenile arrest rates in both counties were similiar, which suggests that school officers were not responding to a large disparity in crimes committed by youth in the two communities, Fisher said. And the differences in perceptions remained even when taking away the views of school resource officers based in elementary schools, who would presumably see younger students as less of a problem to school safety.

The takeaway for school leaders is to rethink the purpose of school discipline, Fisher said. Removing school officers and replacing them with a private security force, for example, could just replicate some of the same problems.

"[School resource officers] are part of a bigger approach to school discipline and about controlling student behavior, Fisher said. I feel like the folks who are talking about restorative practices are really onto something. That includes the way teachers talk to students and teaching social-emotional skills. We can reconsider what school discipline means.

Photo: Demonstrators shout slogans during a student-led protest for racial justice in Culver City, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
By Trend

The National Air Carrier of Azerbaijan (AZAL) will perform special flights on June 17 and 18 in the Baku-Istanbul-Baku direction, Trend reports citing Press Service of Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC.



150 passengers are to be accepted for flight in each direction.

Sale of tickets for Baku-Istanbul-Baku flights will be opened on June 15 on the website of the airline (www.azal.az).



Tickets for the Baku-Istanbul flight can be purchased both by citizens of Azerbaijan and Turkey (or persons holding a residence permit in this country). Only citizens of Azerbaijan will be allowed on the Istanbul-Baku flight. In order to obtain the rules and the corresponding permission to enter Turkey, citizens of Azerbaijan traveling to Istanbul must contact the Turkish Embassy in our country.



According to the new rules, only passengers who have been tested for coronavirus (COVID-19) in special laboratories accredited by the Management Union of Medical Territorial Units (TABIB) and received negative test results will be allowed to board the flight. In this case, citizens of Azerbaijan arriving by the Istanbul-Baku flight are exempted from quarantine. However, if COVID-19 symptoms are found, the passengers of this flight may be sent for the second medical examination.



Baku-Istanbul flights will be served via Terminal 1.

When departing from Istanbul, at the airport check-in counter, you will need to provide a certificate with negative results for COVID-19 testing issued by the Istanbul clinics - Memorial Saglk Grubu, received no later than 48 hours before the flight departure. Note that this clinic is recommended for COVID testing by the Ministry of Health of Turkey. We remind you again that only Azerbaijani citizens will be allowed to register for the Istanbul-Baku flight.



As previously reported, on flights operated during the COVID-19 pandemic, special rules will apply both at the airport of departure and arrival, as well as on board the aircraft. "Azerbaijan Airlines" prepared a video instruction available at: https://youtu.be/-s-0s4o1L2M



AZAL calls upon passengers to treat the requirements and recommendations of the Operational Headquarters and the World Health Organization aimed at combatting COVID-19 with utmost importance.



In turn, the employees of the airline and the airport will do everything in their power to ensure that the flight is as comfortable and safe as possible and call upon passengers to travel by air only if absolutely necessary.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
The major US automakers are continuing their policy of covering up the spread of the coronavirus in auto plants as reports filter out of new cases in several factories.

The attempt to hide the extent of COVID-19 infection is a transparent effort to keep production going in the face of mounting workers anger over the danger to themselves and family members amidst a nationwide resurgence of the virus due to the ending of all lockdown measures.

Auto workers leave the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Warren Truck Plant after the first work shift, Monday, May 18, 2020, in Warren, Mich. (Image credit: AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

General Motors and Ford have made it an official policy not to report the number and locations of confirmed COVID-19 cases at their factories. Fiat Chrysler has also apparently stopped reporting coronavirus cases as well. GM has reported only one death, a contract worker at its technical center in Warren, Michigan, but there is no reason to trust its count.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that Japanese carmaker Toyota has seen 40 new cases at its US operations since it reopened factories in early May, with no indication which facilities are impacted. There have been six cases reported at electric carmaker Teslas massive operations in Fremont, California, and cases have been reported at parts operations such as Lear and Flex-N-Gate.

A new case of COVID-19 has just been confirmed at the General Motors Arlington, Texas assembly plant, as the facility returns to full operation this week. The factory goes to three-shift operation Monday, meaning close to 5,000 workers will be in the plant.

According to a post on the local United Auto Workers website, a worker in the chassis department at Arlington Assembly reported feeling ill on June 5 and went home. Two days later the worker tested positive for COVID-19.

GM is ramping up production at the Arlington, Texas plant outside Dallas as the coronavirus spreads rapidly in the state. Dallas County Health and Human Services reported Friday that there were 328 new cases, following several days of record-high positive cases, and there are currently almost 14,000 cases. As of Sunday, there were 87,903 cases in the state of Texas with almost 2,000 deaths.

An autoworker in Texas told the Autoworker Newsletter, I think its terrible. I work for a plant right now, Lear, in Arlington, Texas. We are a supplier for GM. We build car seats. We were called back to work May 31, and on June 7 four Lear employees on third shift tested positive for the virus. The union and management kept it quiet. The employees on the third shift found out Wednesday night, June 10. We are still working just like nothing is going on. We are all afraid. How do you stop employers from hiding this virus?

A GM worker in Bedford, Indiana said, There are two confirmed cases of the virus that are being kept quiet. Management is not following their own rules. They keep doors closed and hide. They rarely come to work. They are forcing overtime while they cowardly stay home.

This follows reports of at least five cases at the GM Wentzville, Missouri Assembly Plant. There has also been one new case reported at the GM Bowling Green, Kentucky factory.

Despite the increase in the number of new COVID-19 cases, the UAW has refused to demand even the temporary closure of a single plant for cleaning. UAW Local 2250 President Glenn Kage in Wentzville told the Detroit Free Press that if cases at the plant reach about 20, he will have a serious conversation with management. He added, hopefully GM will do the right thing.

UAW spokesman Brian Rothenburg issued a statement, declaring, We are working right now with the local union and General Motors to monitor the situation in Wentzville and every other plant. In other words, the UAW will do absolutely nothing to defend workers.

The auto companies refusal to be transparent about the spread of coronavirus makes it impossible for measures to be taken to prevent the spread of the virus, such as contact tracing and quarantining of exposed workers. It further confirms the well-founded belief that management does not give a damn about workers' lives, only profits.

Under these conditions, many workers, including a substantial number of older workers, have not been reporting to work to preserve their health. In response, the auto companies are intensifying their superexploitation of temporary part-time (TPT) workers, while issuing threats of loss of benefits against more senior workers who do not show up for work.

One auto parts worker in Tennessee wrote to the Autoworker Newsletter, I work at a plant that manufactures parts for the Big 3 in Tennessee.

Now herein lies the major concern for myself and anyone else that works in a manufacturing plant like ours. We got called back to work starting this Monday and were told basically that if we didnt feel safe and didnt show up, ALL of our benefits would be shut off and job terminated, along with it being sent to unemployment.

Not only are the auto companies refusing to close plants for cleaning, workers are literally suffocating in the hot environment of the plants, wearing facemasks with inadequate air circulation. Even the largely cosmetic safety measures implemented by the auto companies, such as extended times for cleaning, have gone by the wayside.

The Tennessee autoparts worker said, As a leader I also get the mass management emails. Were going to be required to wear face masks, along with other PPE (i.e., cutting sleeves, gloves, eye protection) in a hot plant with barely functioning AC and fans stations six feet away (and in a plant that manufactures hot parts, its like having NO fan at all).

Its 110 percent not right, all the way up to the state level, considering we were SUPPOSED to phase back if cases spiked, and in which case they absolutely have in the last two weeks. So now, I have to go work elbow to elbow in a lot of cases and pray to God I don't bring it home to my wife and children.

A worker at GMs Spring Hill facility in Tennessee added, The masks are drenched with sweat because it is so hot in the plant. [In the area I work] the [machines] throw off so much heat, my goodness, we sweat in the winter time.

She added, Once those masks are wet from sweat or you move them to take a drink of water, they are now contaminated.

Then GM management wants numbers and expects you to run your butt off, and youre sick from the heat. Three people got heat exhaustion last summer, and that was without masks.

The worker also described how sick workers were being turned away from the plants medical unit, saying, Four people went to medical and were sent back to the line because their symptoms were not BAD ENOUGH. My goodness, [the virus] takes 14 days to show up. Medical has ALWAYS been a joke, [and] its even more so now.

Another GM worker employed at the Fort Wayne assembly plant (Roanoke, Indiana) wrote, Its a mess here. They herd us in like cattle through the same entrance, then we put our belongings on a table and theres jumbo-sized containers of hand sanitizer thats so watered down that any cut on your hand does not sting.

We pick our dirty belongings up from the table and then we move down to another table and receive our mask. Then someone sitting in a chair takes our temperature (with a gun that we learned gives false readings) from 10 feet away. Then once we get to our workstation, were given 6 minutes to clean our area with a disinfectant that says you have to let it sit for 10 minutes.

We just had a positive case confirmed Wednesday. We didnt shut down. We went to break 30 minutes early and they wiped her desk off but not any of her tools, materials, parts or trucks. Two people from her team are being made to quarantine, but the guy here who has had the most contact with her wasnt even tested and is out here working with everyone."

A veteran worker at the Ford Chicago Assembly Plant reached out to the Autoworker Newsletter after hearing how fellow workers at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant were threatened with job losses by the UAW if they did not report to work under unsafe conditions.

"I will walk out if I feel uncomfortable or unsafe," he told the Autoworker Newsletter. "The union is no good [and] never will be. I have seen a lot of backhanded BS go on in my 35 years.

At Ford Chicago Assembly, they are making us work days shift Monday through Friday, 11 hours for day and night shifts [A crew and B crew]. C crew is working half on days and half on nights to cover people not coming to work. Forty percent of the regular days shift has not come to work, so they split up C Crew to cover both shifts.

When they get enough workers to run for the day or night shift, they are sending some home on a 3.9-hour shift or less. After you go through all the mess to get into work, the company or the union doesnt do anything about people not wearing the masks, no social distancing and no cleaning. Its like the virus is gone, and we know its not, but Ford and the union people think that way.

The auto companies single-minded focus on production and the lack of any genuine representation for workers on the part of the UAW raise sharply the need for workers to organize independently to safeguard health and safety. The Socialist Equality Party and the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter call for the building of rank-and-file factory committees to enforce safe working conditions in the plants, including the full disclosure of coronavirus cases, testing, contact tracing and adequate rest time. If safe conditions cannot be maintained, workers should assert their right to stop production.
RAM has been in the Top Ten for six consecutive years and is the only top company that moved up in rank this year. In 2020, the company earned a spot in the top three in property management companies for online reputation. RAM attributes the achievement to its mission statement: "create value for their clients, residents, and associates, through a company-wide commitment to service excellence." The online reputation is a reflection of that commitment.

"Online reviews are a challenging landscape. They are largely anonymous and residents can say whatever they want. For RAM managed communities to rate as highly as they do consistently is a testament to our people, their professionalism and their passion," said Bill Leseman, President, RAM Partners, LLC. "We are always thrilled with the honor, and we can take special pride in the fact that we continue to move up in the rankings."

Last month, Multi-Family Executive Magazine (MFE) announced the rankings in partnership with J Turner Research, whose ORA (Online Reputation Assessment) ranks more than 116,000 apartment communities throughout the United States using a statistical model that gathers reviews across 21 websites.

Annually, J Turner Research ranks the National Multi-Family Housing Council's 50 Largest Management Companies, based on their ORA scores. With an Online Reputation Assessment score of 79.98, RAM significantly outpaces the national average of 65.28. (The ORA score is based on a 100-point scale.)

About RAM Partners LLC

RAM Partners, LLC, is a full-service real estate management company that manages approximately 48,000 apartment units throughout the United States. It specializes in multi-family community management for a variety of third-party owners. Since its inception in 1989, RAM Partners has established an excellent track record of successful apartment management, and an unsurpassed reputation for its commitment to quality customer service. For more information, visit rampartnersllc.com.

SOURCE RAM Partners, LLC

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https://www.rampartnersllc.com


"The police have clearly used this bail condition to prevent me from attending and supporting protests calling for the refugees to be freed." Cr Sri said he believed he was arrested ahead of the police moving in to break up the blockade on Monday afternoon, when they arrested some activists, citing "anxiety" from neighbours and guards. The Queensland Police Service was contacted about the number of arrests since Friday at the blockade. Activists blockading the hotel said they wanted refugee transfers to high-security facilities to be halted, for the refugees being held at the motel to have access to exercise, and for all of them to be processed and released into the community by Christmas. They have also expressed concern that the refugees are medically vulnerable and at a high risk if a coronavirus outbreak occurs in the hotel.

On Monday night, Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram issued a statement saying he was "concerned by the actions of some protesters" at detention facilities and the "subsequent impact on detainees, my officers and staff, and the general public". "The ABF has successfully prevented any cases of COVID-19 among detainees by implementing a range of essential measures," he said. "People gathering in large numbers outside detention facilities, interfering with deliveries and encouraging detainees to breach social distancing requirements puts detainees and staff at risk. "Access to essential medical appointments and the delivery of meals were impacted due to the protest activity." Mr Outram said detainees had access to family, friends and legal representatives through telephone and email, and that claims any detainees were being moved because they had spoken to the media or advocates were "incorrect".

"The individuals residing in the alternative places of detention in Brisbane and Melbourne were brought to Australia temporarily for medical treatment," he said. Loading "They are encouraged to finalise their medical treatment so they can continue on their resettlement pathway to the United States, return to Nauru or PNG or return to their home country." He said none would be resettled in Australia under federal policy. Acting federal Immigration Minister Alan Tudge told ABC Radio Brisbane the men were niether prevented from, nor being punished for, speaking to the media.

Labelling the protesters "Green and Labor activists", Mr Tudge said their single objective was "to ensure that no-one is in detention facilities and effectively to reopen our borders". "We've had to take out some of the health professionals from that facility because they have been at risk," he said. "So these protesters are actually putting at greater risk these detainees, the very people who they say they care about." Cr Sri has been an active member of the protests in the past week, urging more people to join and help stop further refugees from being moved from the motel. A council spokeswoman said it was "expected that councillors will always act in a responsible and respectful way and ensure their conduct does not reflect adversely on the reputation of council". "Based on media reports it appears the behaviour of Greens councillor Jonathan Sri has now become a matter for the Queensland Police," she said.

Any complaints made about a councillor's behaviour are now referred to the Office of the Independent Assessor, which investigates suspected misconduct. Cr Sri said he will fight the charge in court and would donate part of his salary to pay the legal costs of others charged during the protests. "I intend to fight this charge, and the undemocratic bail conditions on human rights grounds, not simply for my own sake, but because these attacks on the right to peacefully gather in public spaces must be stopped," he said. Cr Sri said several activists were injured on Saturday night and police claims of no injuries were "misleading". Last year Cr Sri was heavily criticised by the LNP council administration, including lord mayor Adrian Schrinner, for participating in Extinction Rebellion protests, including allowing climate activists to host meetings in his ward office.
They began dating in 2014 and married one year later in a lovely private ceremony in Florida.

And Modern Family star Sofia Vergara marked the upcoming dating anniversary with her husband Joe Manganiello with a flurry of social media activity, which showed the attractive couple seated at a table for a candlelit dinner near patio doors with a view of a swimming pool.

Sofia, 47, and Joe, 43, look happy in the snap, seated on opposite ends of the table set with an ornate spread.

Luxury romance: Sofia Vergara marked her dating anniversary with husband Joe Manganiello with a social media post, showing the attractive couple seated at a table for a candlelit dinner

'Gracias!!' Sofia captioned the snap, tagging her son Manolo and niece Claudia, both 27.

She also thanked some 'others for our surprise anniversary dinner date in quarantine'.

Manolo is Sofia's son from her first marriage to Joe Gonzalez from 1991 to 1993.

Another snap on Vergara's feed shows her nuzzling the neck of the hunky True Blood star, who smiles from ear to ear.

Going strong: Another snap on Vergara's feed shows her nuzzling the neck of the hunky True Blood star, who smiles from ear to ear

'6 yrs since u went and found me!!! happy aniversary [sic],' she captioned that image.

'U r mine!' she added, along with various emojis.

Sofia also added a dinner table snap to her Instagram Story, tagging Joe and writing over the image, 'I love you' along with a revolving anniversary message adorned with a rose.

Enthusiastic: Sofia also added a dinner table snap to her Instagram Story, tagging Joe and writing over the image, 'I love you' with a revolving anniversary message adorned with a rose

Joe, for his part, wished his lady love a happy anniversary in his own way on his social media, including two text posts in Spanish.

'Feliz Aniversario Mi Amor' (Happy Anniversary My Love) read the first text slide, which featured the color of love, red.

'Para la mujer de mis suenos...' (For the woman of my dreams...) read the subsequent image, in a more subdued cream color.

'Love you Love you Love you ...six years!' Joe captioned the post.

Joe, for his part: He wished his lady love a happy anniversary in his own way on his social media, including two text posts in Spanish
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Linkedin John Macdougall (Agence France-Presse) Berlin, Germany  Mon, June 15, 2020 09:14 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeb7171 2 World Germany,Berlin,anti-racism,anti-racism-protests,racial-issues,racial-discrimination,racial-tension Free

Thousands demonstrated in Berlin against racism and for broader fairness, including sharing the coronavirus burden, as they stretched a human chain through the German capital Sunday while keeping safe distances.

Although the German Weather Service (DWD) issued a storm warning for a swathe of the country, people also turned out in other cities like Leipzig and Hamburg after a nationwide appeal from progressive movement Unteilbar (Indivisible).

"Now we will decide whether we manage to put ourselves on the path to an anti-racist society of social and climate justice," tweeted Canan Bayram, Greens party MP for Berlin's lively central Kreuzberg district.

The capital's human chain was slated to stretch from the world-famous Brandenburg Gate past the landmark Communist-era TV tower at Alexanderplatz and down into the ethnically diverse Neukoelln district.

Organizers had registered 5,000 people to show up, while police said they were prepared for up to 20,000.

Over 10,000 people gathered in Berlin under the banner of Black Lives Matter last weekend in response to the May 25 killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the slogan was also in evidence on banners and T-shirts Sunday.

But the organizers of the latest demonstration posted a broader set of aims on their website.

'Responsible' protest

Their demands include better working conditions and pay for all including migrants, affordable housing, upholding asylum rights, relaunching the economy along green lines and allowing workers more say in how companies are run.

"Who bears the costs of the global crisis, who will be stronger afterwards and who weaker -- that's being decided now," Unteilbar organisers wrote.

A map posted online showed how different groups had been allocated responsibility for different sections of the Berlin human chain.

They ranged from political parties like the Greens and Left party to civil society groups like "Grannies against the far right" and the Fridays for Future youth climate movement.

On their website, Unteilbar organizers urged sticking to "a responsible form of protest in times of pandemic and crisis", telling participants to remain three meters apart to minimize the risk of coronavirus transmission.

As the human chain got under way, stewards handed out strips of brightly colored tape cut to the right length as a guide.

"We have to stand strong against racism, exclusion and discrimination. But at the weekend and in the weeks ahead, we have to be considerate and take care of one another" by minimizing virus transmission, Berlin mayor Michael Mueller told the Tagesspiegel newspaper ahead of the demonstration.
Covid-19 will slow down the assessments of people waiting in Ireland's Direct Provision system, the Department of Justice has said.

It comes as almost 80pc of asylum seekers in the system have their cases stuck in a backlog.

There have been increasing calls to abolish or reform Direct Provision.

A number of NGOs and human rights organisations have criticised how long people are left waiting in the system while their application for asylum is processed.

Calls for abolition of the system increased in the midst of the recent Black Lives Matter protests in Ireland.

Some people can be left waiting for years for a decision on their case while they live in the controversial Direct Provision system.

The Irish Refugee Council said some people can spend an average of three years in Direct Provision, and there have been cases of people waiting more than seven years.

At the end of April, the International Protection Office (IPO) was working on a caseload of 5,700 applications for asylum in Ireland.

According to figures from the end of May, there were a total of 7,195 people in the Direct Provision system.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan has warned that Covid-19 is slowing down attempts to process applications faster.

He said there was an increase in applications for asylum since 2019, but this increasing trend is expected to be slowed down by international travel restrictions due to the ongoing pandemic.

However, the minister added that Covid-19 would also affect attempts to process cases faster.

"Applications have been increasing year on year since the IPO's creation at the end of 2016, with applications up 30pc approximately at the end of 2019 on the total received in 2018," Mr Flanagan said.

"However, it is acknowledged that the impacts of Covid-19 on travel to Ireland since March 2020 will somewhat distort that upward trend.

"Efforts to improve processing times have been impacted upon by the current Covid-19 pandemic, which has reduced the output of cases considerably.

"The IPO's main focus going forward is to get its processing system functioning as effectively and efficiently as possible, while adhering to all measures in place to combat the spread of Covid-19," he added.

Mr Flanagan made the remarks in response to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fail TD Eamon O Cuiv.

The minister said there were currently 1,000 people living in Direct Provision who had already been granted asylum in Ireland but had not been able to move on to other accommodation.

"We are assisting these residents to transition to permanent mainstream accommodation, working closely with the City and County Managers Association, the local authorities and organisations like DePaul Ireland, the Peter McVerry Trust and the Jesuit Refugee Service," Mr Flanagan said.

"People with status or permission to remain in the State have the same entitlement to housing supports and State services as everyone else."

There are people from 110 different countries currently living in Direct Provision.

Mr Flanagan said there was "no single solution" for speeding up the application process, but the State was considering the greater use of automation and remote interviews.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has repeatedly said that the next government will try to change or reform the Direct Provision system.

He said he believed asylum seekers were better served by staying in self-catering, own-door accommodation while they wait for their case to be processed.
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COVID-19 looks set to accelerate the biggest paradigm shift in French animation in the last two decades: Global streaming platforms ever larger presence in finance and distribution.

How Frances auteur-driven animation movie and TV industry dovetails with the market interests and industry practices of Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Warner Media and Apple TV Plus will determine a large part of its future.

More from Variety

Depending on the company and the sector  TV is far more advanced than feature film  its a revolution that is already being put through.

Already, 15 months ago, 43% of Xilams revenues came from streaming platforms, Xilam president Marc du Pontavice said last year. Now that proportion will be higher, he told Variety in the eve of the run-up to this years totally online Annecy Festival.

At TeamTO, international sales represent about half of its revenues, and platforms will account for 30% of those in 2020, says Corinne Kouper, TeamTO SVP of production and development.

Were having more and more discussions about developing originals with global platforms and this will surely translate into more revenues from them in the years to come, she adds.

HBO Max, Disney Plus, Apple Plus TV, Netflix, Peacock  they are all looking for content, concurs Eleanor Coleman, head of animation and transmedia at Paris-based Indie Sales.

Just whos dealing with who, which of the newest platforms have done deals, has become the tittle tattle of multiple video conference conversations  the nearest online Annecy will get to table talk  as executives wait for new participants to join online.

But deals are getting done.

Even two years ago, sales to VoD platforms represented up to one-third of the annual export turnover of some French animation companies, according to a study by Frances CNC film-TV board and TV France International (TVFI) in 2018.

Story continues

HBO Max and Disney Plus are pushing the intensity of competition. We see deals getting done quickly with non-linears if they like what they see. The decision time is really fast, says David Michel, president of Cottonwood Media and MD, Federation Kids & Family.

In film, the platform pivot to date has been slower. Sold by Charades, I Lost My Body was acquired by Netflix following its 2019 Cannes Festival premiere  and the huge buzz that it generated  for worldwide distribution outside China, Benelux, Switzerland, Russia and France.

SC Films has sold Folivaris Pachamama to Netflix for worldwide outside French-speaking territories.

Ever larger French animation streaming platform involvement looks pretty well inevitable, however. TV ad revenues will drop at broad networks TF1 and M6, in part because of COVID-19 impact, from 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) to 1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) and 0.9 billion ($1.0 billion) to 0.8 billion ($0.9 billion) respectively, analysts Lea Cunat and Alice Thorpe said at a May 2020 Ampere Analysis webinar.

That will naturally affect their content spend. Meanwhile, OTT subscribers rose from 34% of French internet users, Q3 2018, to 61% by Q1 2020.

We are very optimistic about French animations future, says Didier Brunner (Triplets of Belleville, Ernest & Celestine). He adds: But we think that now we have to find new ways to finance our projects with FVOD and SVOD platforms.

Traditional investors such as the broadcasters will gradually lower their investment in animation. Public subsidies will probably decline slowly but surely.

Its becoming more and more complex to finance animation films, because they are more expensive and riskier, even if they can do well or very well. The tendency and temptation of being bought or financed by a global platform is high, agrees Axel Scoffier, UniFrance deputy executive director.

Even in feature film, Frances engagement with digital players has to date certainly been no debacle.

Some six releases a year, French animated features represent 2.0% of annual national feature film output but a far high percentage of 7.35% of SVOD titles around the world, says Scoffier.

In general, French films account for 2.4% of films on SVOD platforms, the fourth largest national presence. French animation films rank third, after the U.S and Japan, their comparative presence rising in key territories such as South Korea and Latin America. In South Korea last year, 30 French animated films were available 42 times on three platforms: Netflix, WatchaPlay and Wavve.

But French animated digital revolution still represents challenges.

One question is who and what kind of series or films will really benefit from the streamers advent. Disney Plus is reportedly only buying four quadrant content, even for series.

They may not be alone.

My sense of many streamers is that even though its early days the family content is really a big winner for them, says Eleanor Coleman, head of animation and transmedia at Paris-based Indie Sales.

Other collateral is a now huge competition for digital platform berths. The biggest streaming platform challenge now is that a lot of projects and shows being pitched, says Michel. We used to be a smaller sector and now the level of competition between producers and studios that are really good content makers is insane.

Another large question is just how digital platform play may advance directors careers.

In French cinema in general the IP is mostly the auteur, the director, Scoffier argues. Young talent discovered in short films who go on to make features need special promotion. Traditionally, they have received that from sales agents who push a new talent over a year-or-more sales cycle, from first festival to sales. If titles go straight to platform, the promotion strategy differs from a country-to-country, media-by-media strategy to a global one, he states. The way forward may be to co-create promotion strategies with platforms, he suggests.

That may mean combining parts of the established business models and new platform practice.

Most everyone wants to work with the platforms, as they represent a strong potential in terms of viewers, financing, visibility of work, observes Jean-Paul Commin, an animation expert and consultant on Cannes Official Selection title Josep.

He adds: But the success and credibility of animated features also come through theatrical distribution in Europe and exhibition at festivals.

On this point, platforms may prove more flexible. Once insistent on controlling 100%, they are now opening up to an array of deals, especially with Frances strongest companies, producers report.

Theres no unique business model with the platforms, says Pontavice.

A lot of production companies would be happy being funded 120% by platforms and meet their margin out of budget, and thats fine, he adds.

Others are more into the IP business, want to retain copyright, however. Its just a matter of being pragmatic and enhancing the variety of business models with platforms.

But doubts remain. Theres little visibility, for instance, on how France, Europes bastion of national film-TV protection, will really interpret European Commission regulation allowing it to oblige global platforms targeting France to invest a percentage of annual revenues in French shows and movies. Percentages talked about are 15% to 26% for AVODs and SVODs. They might even be higher. But everything is still under government arbitration, the CNC told Variety. Regulation is not likely to hit the statute books until 2021.

So platforms, though forcing through a paradigm shift, may or may not prove an economic panacea for French animation.

Platform financing is going to take up the slack lost from lowered investment from traditional linear private networks, says Federations Michel. But for me it wont mean increased investment to the overall economy.

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Even as Indian Railways has resumed select local train services in Mumbai to ferry those providing essential services, bank employees are not being allowed to use the service to commute, bank unions said.

Banks are declared as the essential service provider by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and have been providing uninterrupted banking services since the first lockdown announced on March 23.

Western Railway and Central Railway are running selected suburban train services only for essential services as identified by the state government.

"Since the railway authorities have started local trains for the employees from essential service but bank employees have been denied using that service as they are not in the list of essential services," Union Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Maharashtra Convenor Devidas Tujapurkar said.

"On the one side, the government expects banks to extend uninterrupted services even during the lockdown but when it comes to using local train services, banks are not considered in the list of essential service providers, which is disturbing," he added.

Central Railway said that around 1.25 lakh essential staff (including 50,000 on Western Railway) as identified by the state government are expected to travel by these trains.

While speaking to PTI, an employee of Syndicate Bank said, "I tried to enter Dadar station in the morning to travel to my branch in Churchgate but police did not allow me."

Railways has also appealed to the public that only the essential staff as identified by the state government will be permitted to travel by selected suburban services and requested others not to rush to the stations.

In a letter written to the chief secretary, Maharashtra government, Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation (MSBEF) have requested to allow bank employees to use the suburban train services.

"We earnestly request you to please extend this service to the bank employees to enable them to report to their duties regularly. This will also facilitate extending full-fledged banking services to all," the letter said.

Also Read: Delhi's coronavirus tally climbs by 10,000 in just six days; more than 41,000 cases reported

Also Read: Coronavirus: Record 11,929 cases, 325 deaths in a day; India's tally 3.32 lakh
Donald Trump on Sunday accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd.

In a tweet the president also suggested the 'same weak leaders' instead 'become radical' when it comes to keeping things closed due to coronavirus.

Protesters in Seattle have sealed off a six-block area that has become known as the CHAZ  or Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The mayor there ordered police to abandon the area after near-daily clashes in the wake of Floyds death.

Tweeting on his 74th birthday Trump wrote: 'Interesting how ANTIFA and other Far Left militant groups can take over a city without barely a wimpier from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership, yet these same weak leaders become RADICAL when it comes to shutting down a state or city and its hard working, tax paying citizens!'

Seattles chief of police said earlier she wants her officers to return to the abandoned East Precinct building that was boarded up just before Black Lives Matter protesters began occupying a so-called autonomous zone near downtown.

But Police Chief Carmen Bests message appears at odds with Mayor Jenny Durkan, who has supported a more hands-off approach while saying that the protesters are exercising their First Amendment rights.

President Trump had already taunted Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and Durkan about the situation on Twitter and said the city had been taken over by 'anarchists.'

olice abandoned its East Precinct during protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after being pinned down by a white police officer in Minneapolis.The six-block area that has become known as the CHAZ  or Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone - is pictured Sunday

People walk past barricades on a street near Cal Anderson Park, Thursday inside the CHAZ

Donald Trump on Sunday accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best talks to media in front of the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct on Thursday, left. Best has been critical of the decision by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan , right, to order officers to abandon the East Precinct, where protesters have set up their own police-free 'autonomous zone'

When asked by CNNs Chris Cuomo on Thursday how long she expected protesters to remain in the area before police return to the precinct, Durkan said: I don't know. We could have a summer of love.

Meanwhile, members of an armed left-wing group, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, have been spotted in the area after they were hired to provide security for some very prominent black voices who were giving speeches, according to The Daily Beast.

The clashes between demonstrators and police drew nationwide attention after law enforcement officials made widespread use of controversial crowd control tactics like stun grenades, pepper spray, and tear gas.

The massive unrest prompted the citys mayor, Durkan, to order police to abandon the East Precinct building, yielding it to protesters.

Despite reports of widespread lawlessness, the area appears to be largely peaceful, as authorities describe a 'block party atmosphere' where people are having cookouts, film screenings, art exhibits, and other cultural activities.

Protesters, however, said they plan on maintaining the 'no-police zone' until their demands for reform, including the cutting of funding to law enforcement, are met.

Protesters remove a man because he was bothering other protesters at the self-proclaimed Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) during a protest against racial inequality and call for defunding of Seattle police on Saturday

Mayor Durkans office on Thursday released a statement saying it was her decision to remove barriers around the East Precinct.

That came hours after Best posted a video criticizing the decision and implicitly accusing Durkan of caving to severe public pressure.

Best went public and distanced herself from the decision. She told her officers that she did not give the order to abandon the precinct.

I'm angry about how all this came about, Best said in the video.

Best said that SPD had solid information that led them to believe anti-government groups would destroy the precinct.

Best told KIRO-TV on Friday that she wanted to see her charges back in the precinct as soon as possible.

She said that 911 response times have increased threefold since the precinct was abandoned. Best said the department and city officials are now pondering their next steps.

A protester uses a scope on top of a barricade to look for police approaching the newly created CHAZ on Thursday

Trump taunted Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and Durkan about the situation on Twitter and said the city had been taken over by 'anarchists.'

'Take back your city NOW. If you dont do it, I will,' Trump tweeted.

The president continued his complaints in a Thursday interview with the Fox News Channel.

'If we have to go in, were going to go in,' Trump said, 'These people are not going to occupy a major portion of a great city.'

The president has sparred before with Inslee and Durkan - both liberal Democrats.

Inslee previously sought his partys presidential nomination.

Inslee tweeted Thursday that state officials will not allow threats of military violence from the White House.

'The US military serves to protect Americans, not the fragility of an insecure president,' he tweeted.

Donald Trump, pictured Saturday, accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd

Artists fill in the letters of a 'Black Lives Matter' mural on E. Pine Street as protesters establish what they call an autonomous zone while protesting against racial inequality and calling for the defunding of Seattle police

Protesters listen to a speaker as they sit in front of the Seattle Police Department East Precinct building, which has been boarded up and abandoned Thursday inside what is being called the 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' in Seattle

Seattle Police Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette and Assistant Chief Adrian Diaz are blocked by protesters from entering the newly created Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, Washington on Thursday

The zone set up by protesters stretches a portion of Capitol Hill, where dozens of people show up to listen to speakers calling for police reform, racial justice and compensation for Native groups on whose land the city of Seattle was founded.

Signs proclaim 'You are entering free Capitol Hill' and 'No cop co-op' along sidewalks where people sell water and other wares.

On Thursday, speakers used a microphone to discuss their demands and how to address the police presence after they visited the precinct during the day.

Down the street, artists continued painting a block-long Black Lives Matter mural on the street.

Several individuals inside the CHAZ have been seen with assault rifles.

These armed leftists who are members of the PSJBGC describe themselves as part of an 'anti-fascist, anti-racist, pro-worker community defense organization committed to accountable, community-led defense in the Puget Sound region.'

A volunteer works security at an entrance to the so-called 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' on Wednesday

Several armed individuals have been seen inside the CHAZ. A few belong to a left-wing group known as the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club

'There have been individuals with weapons - open carrying is legal in Washington State,' the mayor's office said in a statement when asked about armed protesters inside CHAZ.

'While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement.

'It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary.'
Following a chaotic Georgia primary, lawmakers are expressing increasing concern that a combination of threats stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, hacking groups and disinformation campaigns could seriously undermine confidence in election results this November.

After Russian hackers probed -- and in some cases successfully penetrated -- state voter registration systems across the nation in 2016, policymakers and experts have largely spent the past three years mapping out how to better defend both electronic voting machines as well as IT infrastructure like registration software, election management systems and e-pollbooks.

While protecting those assets is still viewed as critical, the coronavirus pandemic and resulting social distancing guidelines put in place by public health experts have introduced new complexities. States are scrambling to scale up their vote-by-mail operations to handle historically large number of absentee ballots.

Further, the virus is especially deadly for senior citizens and most poll workers are over the age of 60, according to a Pew Research Center survey. That has led to worries that a significant percentage could opt to stay home this election cycle -- something that appeared to affect some Georgia counties -- further straining resources and extending wait times for in-person voting.

Many of these latent fears by election experts came to a head last week during Georgia's presidential primary, when undertrained poll workers struggled to process a backlog of absentee ballots, faced huge lines in some polling stations and reportedly wrestled with navigating newly purchased Ballot Marking Device voting machines.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), co-chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, called the Georgia primary "a semi disaster" and warned that the experience could be repeated in states across the country come November.

"I've had hearings with secretaries of state and chief election officers and they're almost cocky about how invulnerable they are, and I just don't believe it," King said during a June 15 webinar hosted by New America.

Elections, King said, are primarily exercises of trust. Despite the focus on election security over the past four years, there remains a multitude of ways for both domestic and international bad actors to undermine that trust on election day.

"I just don't think we're anywhere near ready. I hate to be doom and gloom about it, but that's what worries me right now," he said. "It may be a foreign actor, it may be a domestic actor or maybe several foreign actors. All they've got to do is undermine that confidence and trust and they're 90% home."

The expansion of vote by mail is expected to cause delays in election-night reporting as precincts deal with backlogs of absentee ballots. According to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia voters cast more than a million ballots in the week before the primary, nearly 80% of that total via mail. Raffensperger and county election officials have both blamed each other for Georgia's primary day problems.

In Fulton County, where problems were particularly pronounced, Election Administrator Richard Barron said during a news conference that implementing expanded vote-by-mail operations in addition to managing the "full complement" of election day infrastructure "stretched" county resources to the brink.

Some lawmakers believe the failures in Georgia are a bad omen for the nation's election readiness. In a June 15 Medium post, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called the state's primary "a train wreck" and said state officials "had no contingency plans for extremely predictable COVID-related complications." He called for Congress to increase federal funding and guidance to states as well as better staffing and training at the state and local level.

"First, prepare aggressively for a huge increase in mail-in ballots. Purchase the equipment, train workers and adjust state laws as necessary NOW, instead of waiting for the fall and then scrambling to catch up," Wyden wrote.

King's co-chair on the commission, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), said his "nightmare scenario" is one where longer than usual delays in vote counting are exploited by hacking groups or disinformation campaigns seeking to sow confusion about the final results.

"It seems more likely we're going to see an extended period of time of just the basic counting of [ballots], and that's in a scenario in Georgia where you didn't have  a major cyberattack," he said. "How do you think we're going to be able to weather the storm if we have a delay in terms of the reporting, particularly coming from battleground states or districts?"

In an annex to its original report focused on the pandemic, the commission wrote that the federal government has "the capacity to quickly surge federal expertise and resources" to states in support of elections in response to the virus. While security concerns make widespread internet voting "impossible at this time," the commission did call for beefing up the Election Assistance Commission's budget and expanding election grant programs to state and local governments to set up alternative means of voting.

King also cited another recommendation from the report -- creating a new National Cyber Director position at the White House -- as a critical piece in terms of galvanizing the federal government's efforts to protect elections.

"Right now, there's no one in charge, and there's no one who the president can go to and say, 'Work on this' or 'You're in charge of this, you're responsible for this, you're accountable for this,'" King said.
By AFP

MOSCOW: Senior editors at Russia's leading business newspaper quit en masse Monday in protest against what they say is censorship under new management as a long-running dispute between journalists and management came to a head.

Vedomosti is one of the few remaining independent news outlets in Russia, where journalists are increasingly squeezed by curbs on press freedoms and pressure from the Kremlin.

"All five deputy editors at Vedomosti are leaving the newspaper in protest over the appointment of Andrei Shmarov as editor-in-chief," the newspaper said.

Launched in 1999, Vedomosti was co-founded and co-owned by Dutch entrepreneur Derk Sauer's Independent Media, the London-based Financial Times and US business daily, The Wall Street Journal.

It has changed hands several times since its first print run as lawmakers introduced legislation limiting foreign ownership of Russian media.

In March, the newspaper's reporters and editors were surprised by an announcement from then-owner Demyan Kudryavtsev that he planned to sell the newspaper.

Shmarov was appointed acting editor-in-chief the same month, before the sale was finalised.

The newspaper was eventually sold to the head of a little-known regional news agency called FederalPress, Ivan Yeryomin.

Vedomosti journalists have denounced censorship under Shmarov, saying his appointment was political.

They complain they have been barred from covering negative opinion polls of President Vladimir Putin, and that Shmarov interfered in coverage of oil giant Rosneft, which is run by top Putin ally Igor Sechin.

In an open letter published by The Bell, an independent Russian-language news site, all five editors said they were leaving after Shmarov was confirmed editor-in-chief.

"As acting chief editor, he ran the newsroom for almost three months and managed over that period to repeatedly violate editorial norms and guidelines adopted at Vedomosti," they said.

"We have no other choice but to leave."

Vedomosti journalists repeatedly complained to management about Shmarov and recently put forward an alternative candidate to lead the paper.

Nearly 70 staff members backed a colleague to be editor-in-chief, but the owners still went ahead with the appointment of Shmarov, they said.

The outgoing editors have worked at the newspaper for around 15 years or more.

An investigation in May by several Russian news outlets, including Vedomosti, concluded that Rosneft leveraged control over the paper through debts owed by Kudryavtsev to the oil giant's bank.
The major trade unions of Coal India and Singareni Collieries Company Limited will strike work for three days from July 2 to press for withdrawal of commercial mining, their spokesmen said.

The notice for the strike by five trade unions will be served on June 18, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to launch the auction of coal mines for commercial mining, they said.

The proposed strike will be held between July 2 and July 4 will also oppose the bifurcation of the Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Limited, a subsidiary of Coal India engaged in technical advisory, the spokesmen said.

RSS-backed Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, Hind Maha Sangh and AITUC have said they will join the strike.

INTUC-affiliated Indian National Mine Workers Federation secretary, SQ Zama said that all the major trade unions have decided to join the three-day strike. The notice for the strike will be served on June 18 in a joint demonstration (of TUs) if demands are not conceded before July 2, he said in a letter to the prime minister on Monday.

All India Coal Workers Federation general secretary DD Ramanandan said all the trade unions have sent their letters of decision to the prime minister and on June 18 the strike notice would be served to the coal secretary.

The Centre had announced to offer 50 coal blocks to the private sector for commercial mining to ramp up production of the mineral in the country and stop imports.

The launch of the auction that will be via video conferencing will be themed "Unleashing Coal: New hopes for Aatmanirbhar Bharat", the coal ministry said in a statement.
(TNS)  A bid by the city of Okolona to provide broadband Internet service has died in the state Senate.A local and private bill filed by state Sen. Ben Suber, R-Bruce, would allow the municipality of Okolona to offer broadband Internet by using the infrastructure already owned by the city for electric power delivery, including utility poles.The Mississippi Legislature in 2019 authorized rural electric power associations to offer Internet service, and Okolona wanted the same authority.Subers bill would only have applied to Okolona. As written, it would not have authorized any other municipality to offer Internet, though amendments to local and private bills have expanded their scope before.State Sen. Chad McMahan, R-Guntown, chairs the local and private committee in the Senate. He said he stopped the forward movement of the bill because he thinks further study is merited.I want to make sure the taxpayers are not at risk, McMahan said.The bill had previously passed the local and private committee, but McMahan halted it by sending it back to committee.According to McMahan, he wants more information from Okolona about the feasibility and cost of providing Internet services. The state senator from Lee County indicated plans to hold legislative hearings on the issue later this year, to ensure a full and fair airing of the issue.Okolona Mayor Sherman Carouthers criticized the decision.I just find it mind boggling that you would literally disenfranchise 5,000 plus individuals, many of whom have asked about broadband, Carouthers said.McMahan said he heard concerns from some residents of Okolona about the potential costs of the proposal, and that was one factor that led him to halt the issue for more discussion.Carouthers dismissed concerns that taxpayers could be imperiled.The city, weve had our studies done, the mayor said. The city is fine.Okolona Electric Power Company services customers in parts of Chickasaw, Clay, Lee and Monroe counties.House Rep. Johnathan Lancaster, D-Houston, has filed a similar local and private bill in the House, but it has not moved from committee.
How It Works

Union Objections

Lack of Access and Transparency

What's Next

Have a Police Review Board with a makeup thats not weighted toward police, with an equal number of police and civilian members.

Make the Police Review Board recommendations and the final discipline public on the Police Bureaus website with more details of the misconduct.

Have the state attorney generals office or a special prosecutor, not the county district attorneys office, do criminal investigations into police shootings or deaths in custody.

Revise the Police Bureaus discipline guide with public input.

(TNS)  Mayor Ted Wheeler wants to overhaul Portland, Oregons civilian oversight of police, plainly acknowledging that the confusing system doesnt have any real teeth.The structure we have right now isnt pleasing anybody, isnt doing what we want and it doesnt have the publics trust, he said last week.Wheeler added the oversight system to his reform list as a wave of widespread public support for police accountability washes over the city and the nation after the killing of George Floyd, spurring a sudden resolve to fix what in the past have seemed like intractable problems mired in political opposition or inertia.Community activists have urged stronger oversight for at least the past two decades but say theyve felt as if theyve been banging their heads against the wall without serious buy-in from the mayor or city commissioners.But scrapping or revamping Portlands tangled, secretive and what many insiders say is the misnamed independent police review system represents a degree of difficulty arguably unmatched in police change efforts.Still, two schools of thought are emerging:One suggests the city contract with a new outside office that would serve as the authority tasked with reviewing all allegations of police misconduct, as well as police shootings and deaths in custody.The other philosophy calls for strengthening the current system by granting reviewers greater authority and ensuring transparency on police discipline.Whichever model the city pursues, all agree that to work it must have adequate funding, true independence from the Police Bureau, full investigative power with the ability to subpoena officers and input on policies and discipline decisions.So far, every recent attempt to strengthen the system has been an absolute fight, said City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero.In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded a significant reorganization of the byzantine police oversight process after finding officers used excessive force against people with mental illness.Two years later, a community advisory group sent 46 recommendations to the city and Justice Department advocating for an outside board to investigate all citizen complaints against police, the hiring of a police auditor who could recommend discipline with unfettered access to Police Bureau records and identifying officers, their misconduct and discipline on the Police Bureaus website. None of that happened.Wheeler in his run for mayor four years ago campaigned on giving Independent Police Review investigators the power to subpoena officers, take sworn testimony and recommend police discipline. The police review office can subpoena witnesses and documents but doesnt have power to subpoena officers, and its director only can recommend discipline in a limited number of cases.I wont believe it until I see it, said Kristin Malone, an attorney who resigned out of frustration in January as chair of the Citizen Review Committee, a volunteer group that hears appeals of police findings on complaints. One other member also left the committee in the last year for much the same reason.As much as I applaud what he is saying and encourage him to say more about oversight and accountability especially, what I really want is the doing, Malone said.Hull Caballero, whose office includes the police oversight system, said significant change will come only with political will.Given the new era we are in, the question for the mayor, the chief, and the (police) unions is: Are they willing to give up ultimate control of deciding whether officers violated bureau policy? she said. And if so, what should the discipline be?If we cant cut out all steps that are not useful to the final decisions, the system will be as byzantine tomorrow as it is today.Three groups now review complaints against police separate from the Police Bureaus Internal Affairs Division. They are administrative reviews, not criminal investigations.Two of the groups are under the elected city auditor: the Independent Police Review office and the Citizen Review Committee. The third group is the Police Review Board under the Police Bureau.The Independent Police Review office, created in 2001, serves as the citys intake center for allegations against officers, ranging from retaliation to use of force.Last year, it received 408 complaints from community members, dismissed 155 of them and had 92 investigated. Between June 1 and 8 of this year, the office said it had received more than 2,300 letters and three dozen complaints, most related to force used on protesters.The office has 15 employees, including a director and seven investigators, and a budget of $2.8 million.Its staff can dismiss complaints or seek mediation between the person filing the complaint and the officer. It sends serious complaints that could lead to officer discipline to the Police Bureaus Internal Affairs Division to investigate and monitors those inquiries. More minor complaints go to an officers supervisor for review. Its own investigators take on complaints involving high-ranking officers, alleged discrimination or retaliation and street protests.Completed investigations that could end in an officers suspension or those that deal with police use of force filter through the Police Review Board. It issues a finding on whether officers violated any police policies and recommends discipline to the chief if so.The board has five revolving members: an assistant police chief, a commander or captain who supervises the officer under review, a peer officer of the same rank as the officer under review, the Independent Police Review director or a representative and one citizen representative.Two more members join the board for reviews of an officers use of force, a fatal shooting by an officer or a death in custody: another peer officer and a member of the Citizen Review Committee.If someone who filed a complaint against an officer isnt satisfied with a finding by the officers commander, the person can appeal to the Citizen Review Committee.If the committee recommends overturning the bureaus finding, it goes to the chief. If the chief disagrees with the committee, the committee holds a conference hearing with the chief. If the chief still disagrees, the matter gets kicked to the City Council to decide.The citizen committees finding is still just an advisory recommendation. Committee members were disheartened, for example, when former Chief Danielle Outlaw didnt support their 2018 finding that a police sergeant violated the bureaus truthfulness policy when he lied about a law to get a protester to stop filming him and other officers. Outlaw instead concluded the matter was a performance issue and suspended the sergeant for one day.Volunteers sign up to be on the 11-member committee through the Independent Review office for three-year terms. The current makeup includes five lawyers, nonprofit leaders and others working in higher education. They heard four appeals last year. Aside from hearing appeals, the committee also can recommend changes in bureau policies.The ultimate decision on police discipline still always rests with the police chief and police commissioner. Wheeler serves as police commissioner. Yet discipline meted out in high profile cases often has been overturned by an arbitrator, leading police leaders to complain they cant effectively manage their work force when decisions are second-guessed and overturned.The Portland Police Association, which represents about 950 rank-and-file officers, detectives and sergeants, often has objected to efforts to strengthen the oversight system.For years, for example, members of the Citizen Review Committee have pressed to use a preponderance of evidence standard when they consider a complaint appeal.The committee must now ask if the findings by an officer's supervisor were "reasonable'' or not  a measure open to wide interpretation and overly deferential to the supervisors ruling, members have said.But when the committee drafted a formal report with the proposal, the police union accused the citizen members of overstepping their authority.Officer Daryl Turner, the unions president, called their concerns much ado about nothing and argued in a May 2018 letter that adding a review layer to second guess an officers actions would further complicate a convoluted and time-consuming process.We must not forget that our police officers have to endure an already draining discipline process, which includes multiple investigatory bodies, commander reviews, PRB (Police Review Board) reviews, and police chief and commissioner reviews, all of which is subject to CRC (Citizen Review Committee) and City Council review, he wrote.The proposal never got to a City Council vote."Nearly every member of Council had affirmed at one time that the standard of review used by the CRC was unnecessarily deferential to the (officers) manager, echoing concerns raised by the community for nearly 15 years. Nevertheless, when the time came to take up the change to the standard of review, no Council member would bring it to the floor, citing reasons that were misinformed at best and disingenuous at worst. This was a grave disappointment to those of us who spent considerable effort drafting the policy change proposal,'' former citizen committee member Daniel Schwartz wrote in his December 2019 resignation letter from the group.Some previously proposed changes that have languished with little support or faced police union bargaining challenges include giving subpoena power to Independent Police Review to compel officers testimony and allowing the Citizen Review Committee to review officer-involved shootings and deaths in police custody.After two leaders of the committee resigned, partly out of disgust for the lack of support for its proposed new review standard, member Andrea Chiller told city staff at a meeting in March that theres a feeling weve been participating in accountability theater rather than accountability.Turner has said sufficient levels of police review already exist, citing the three oversight groups."We recognize we are held to a higher standard but that doesnt mean we can give up our rights, Turner told community members on the eve of recent contract talks.Other significant stumbling blocks to true oversight are the Independent Police Review offices lack of access to police records and restrictions on releasing what happens to the officers investigated, the city auditor and the offices director said.The Independent Police Review office is required to submit public records requests for any police report because it hasnt been designated as a criminal justice agency, according to Ross Caldwell, the review offices director.He said his investigators should have direct access to police reports, as well as the Police Bureaus Employee Information System, which is supposed to track complaints against officers and their use of force.The offices investigators also cant subpoena police officers to testify. They must ask a sergeant from internal affairs to read a chiefs memo to officers telling them that they must participate in an administrative investigation as a job requirement.An internal affairs officer also typically sits in when Independent Police Review investigators interview an officer. That shouldnt be necessary, Caldwell said. The police review office is trying to cut out internal affairs and simply have one of its own investigators read the chiefs memo to officers seeking to be questioned.The Police Bureau releases a report on the outcomes of the Police Review Board examinations of alleged misconduct but often only elliptically in a twice-a-year summary  leaving out names and most details. Police often cite a clause in the union contract for the secrecy. It says any discipline or reprimand of officers must be done in a way least likely to embarrass'' them.Right now we have these police review boards all done in a top-secret kind of way, Caldwell said. Right now the system is so hidden from the public.Hull Caballero said its been an uphill climb to make any change to the accountability system. The frequent turnover of police chiefs, she said, also hasnt helped -- five chiefs in the last four years.I appreciate the renewed interest in making the system better, but we had told the community through the (settlement) agreement that we would make it better, and it has been slow going.One change adopted in 2017, mostly due to support from the Justice Department, allows Independent Police Review and police internal affairs investigators to recommend to the Police Review Board whether to sustain a complaint instead of having just the officers commander do that.Last year, 32 officers were disciplined for policy violations investigated under the oversight system, according to an annual report. Thirteen officers received the most lenient discipline, command counseling by a supervisor. Nine received a letter of reprimand. Six faced one- to two-day suspensions without pay. Three were suspended for more than a week without pay and one officer was demoted. Five others resigned or retired pending discipline.Since George Floyds videotaped death, the mayor and city commissioners havent taken up any substantive changes to the police accountability framework, instead focusing on doing away with transit police, in-school officers and a gun violence team within the Police Bureau.But ideas are circulating once again, including creating a fully independent review board with the power to subpoena officers and investigate all complaints against police, essentially removing that role from the bureaus Internal Affairs Division.A co-chair of the citys new community advisory group, Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing, which does not have authority now to review individual police misconduct or discipline cases, wants the power to discipline officers and a say in the appointment of police command staff.Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty wants the Independent Police Review office eliminated, calling the system useless and a waste of public dollars.Nothing happens unless people are outside pushing policymakers to make change, said Hardesty, who is leading the police reforms charge on the City Council.Hardesty said she plans to work with the mayor to come up with an entirely new approach.Other ideas being considered:Community activist T.J. Browning sat on earlier police review groups and helped create the current iteration.She said she was surprised to hear Wheelers stance last week.Not only have we not heard that from City Hall, we also have had a lot of pushback from City Hall, she said.What I see happening right now is the police unions power is dwindling because of public pressure, and thats what City Hall is listening to right now. Theyre listening to us for the first time because theres too many of us, for the first time.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:47:07|Editor: huaxia

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MOSCOW, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained a 14-year-old boy suspected of plotting a school attack in the city of Volgograd, the Russian Investigative Committee said Monday.

The FSB received information that the schoolboy made improvised explosive devices and liquid fire grenades at his residence, the committee said in a statement.

The FSB seized improvised explosive devices, components for their manufacture, and 18 ready-to-use Molotov cocktails, it said. Enditem
Microsoft has helped the Japanese government create a contact-tracing app that officials hope will prevent a second wave of coronavirus infections, following more than monthlong delay in Tokyo's decision-making on the policy.

The plan is to have the software available for download as soon as this week, once Apple and Google sign off, Nikkei has learned.

The app was originally supposed to debut in early May, but the government's selection process dragged on longer than expected, even as people in urban areas began congregating again after a state of emergency was lifted.

"We wanted to introduce the app when the sense of urgency was high among the public, but we did not make it in time," a government source involved in the discussions said.

The app will use Bluetooth wireless communication to collect contact data when users come within 1 meter of each other for at least 15 minutes. If a person tests positive for the novel coronavirus, the app searches through two weeks' worth of data and informs the people who were in contact with the patient.

The Japanese government in May decided to hire a team of developers from Microsoft to create the app based on core technology developed by Apple and Google. The government had originally planned to commission Code for Japan, a Tokyo-based organization, to lead the development project. But shortly thereafter, Apple and Google imposed a host of conditions on using their software.

One stipulation limited the software only to public health agencies. These conditions dealt a setback to the government's plans, which which were led by Cabinet Secretariat.

Oversight of the app was then transferred to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. From there, the consensus began to favor a major tech company as a more reliable development partner. Code for Japan was taken off the project, putting roughly a month's worth of work to waste.

During the time taken to select an alternate developer, more than 40 countries rolled out their own contact-tracing apps.

Although Japan's app will be available soon, persuading enough people to use it presents another challenge. Such tools need to reach 60% penetration to be effective, according to a University of Oxford estimate.

That would mean the app would need to achieve as many downloads as the popular chat app Line. Even in Singapore and Iceland -- two early adopters of contact-tracing apps -- usage stands at 40% or less.
The Labor party has been accused of putting 'paedophiles before kids' after blocking a law which would impose mandatory prison sentences upon child sex offenders.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton made the scathing assessment of the Opposition and its leader Anthony Albanese on Monday night after they used a procedural tactic in the Senate to vote down the proposed new child protection laws.

'It is one of the worst acts I have seen in my 20 years in parliament,' Mr Dutton said.

'Anthony Albanese needs to look parents in the eye and explain his betrayal of them. Labor has backed paedophiles over Australian kids.'

Last week, Mr Albanese vowed to assist in 'any way possible' to 'stamp out' child sex abuse, but was vocal in his disagreement with the mandatory minimum sentencing clause.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton criticised Labor for refusing to back mandatory minimum sentencing (pictured speaking in Parliament on June 15)

He gained the support of the Greens, Centre Alliance and Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie in blocking the policy, which would have put all convicted child sex offenders away for at least five to seven years.

Labor let the bill pass through the lower house but immediately announced it would be challenging parts of the proposal in the Senate.

'Mandatory sentencing is wrong in principle, does nothing to reduce or deter crime and, worst of all, it has adverse consequences,' Labor Senator Murray Watt said.

He argued that while the prospect 'sounds tough' it would only make it more difficult to catch, prosecute and convict child sex offenders.

The bill demands repeat offenders be handed prison sentences, while a maximum penalty of life behind bars would be expected for the most serious offenders

'There is nothing tough about measures that do nothing to reduce crime or criminality. And there is nothing tough about sentencing measures that could, in some cases, result in unjust sentences being handed out to 18 or 19-year-olds,' he said.

'Children are the most precious and vulnerable members of our community and Labor will always support strong and effective laws to protect children from abuse and to punish their abusers.'

Law Council president Pauline Wright said mandatory sentencing was dangerous, as juries might hand down 'not guilty' verdicts rather than see teenagers locked up for years for low-end offences.

'Mandatory minimum sentences impose unacceptable restrictions on judicial discretion and independence, are inconsistent with rule-of-law principles and undermine confidence in the system of justice,' she said.

The Law Council also believes mandatory sentencing is inconsistent with Australia's international human rights obligations.

Anthony Albanese (pictured on June 15) vowed to assist in 'any way possible' to 'stamp out' child sex abuse, but was vocal in his disagreement with the mandatory minimum sentencing clause

Attorney-General Christian Porter said Labor's move was disappointing, considering last year 39 per cent of those found guilty of child-sex offences did not spend a day in jail.

Mr Porter said the government remained 'totally committed' to the reform and would return the bill to the Senate, with mandatory sentencing included in it.

The bill demands repeat offenders all be handed prison sentences, while a maximum penalty of life behind bars would be expected for the most serious offenders.

It also pledges to make it harder for offenders to be granted bail.

'Sentences need to reflect community expectations and act as a significant deterrent to others, which is why these sorts of despicable crimes must result in significant penalties, not simply a slap on the wrist which is often the case,' Mr Dutton said when it was first proposed.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said Labor's move was disappointing, considering last year 39 per cent of convicted child-sex offenders did not spend a day in jail

The government's proposed child protection laws The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 2019 hopes to implement: Mandatory minimum sentences for serious child sex offences and for recidivist offenders A presumption against bail for serious and repeat offenders to keep them off the streets Increased maximum penalties across the spectrum of child sex offences, including up to life imprisonment for the most serious offences Presumptions in favour of cumulative sentences and actual imprisonment Ensuring that all sex offenders, upon release from custody, are adequately supervised and subject to appropriate rehabilitative conditions Preventing courts from discounting sentences on the basis of good character where this is used to facilitate the crime Advertisement

Mr Dutton's comments came just hours after a former Labor state minister was charged over historic child sex abuse allegations.

Milton Orkopoulos was charged with 15 offences in total, including five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a victim under 16 and five counts of aggravated indecent assault of victims under 16 on Monday morning.

Three other charges relate to forcing a child under 14 to participate in prostitution.

Detectives from Lake Macquarie will allege Orkopoulos, 62, sexually assaulted two young boys who were known to him in the 1990s.
The Democrats also wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Small Business Administration head Jovita Carranza requesting their own correspondence with the banks, as well as trade groups such as the American Bankers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

House Democrats on Monday wrote to the chief executives of some of the country's largest banks demanding they disclose documents pertaining to their handling of the federal government's small business bailout loan program.

The PPP was established as part of the more than $2 trillion CARES Act to offer forgivable loans for smaller businesses that were hammered by the pandemic. But the program has come under fire amid concerns that it favored larger companies over those without relationships with banks.

Some banks have argued that lending to existing clients helped them lend out the loans at the rapid speed expected of them.

"We are writing to seek documents and information and to urge the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration to take immediate steps to ensure that remaining PPP funds are allocated to businesses truly in need, and to increase transparency so taxpayers can see whether federal funds are being diverted due to waste, fraud, and abuse," wrote Clyburn and other Democrats.

The Democrats joined a growing chorus of critics of Mnuchin's statement last week that the administration does not plan to disclose the names of those who took out loans from the program. The House Democrats demanded in their letter that the SBA and Treasury disclose a list of all PPP applications received and loans they have issued.

Mnuchin tweeted Monday that he would be discussing PPP oversight and disclosure with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

As of Friday, the PPP has supported 4.5 million loans for a total loan value of $512 billion, with roughly $130 billion still to be spent. 65% of the loans it has extended so far are for less than $50,000.

In letters to bank executives, the lawmakers said they are seeking a number of materials from the banks, including "all formal or informal guidance" from the Treasury or SBA about PPP requirements and communication with the departments about the "prioritization or exclusion" of loan applicants in underserved or rural markets.

They also requested "all internal communications" and policies pertaining to the program.

The letter notes that the SBA and Treasury, which are overseeing the program, "did not provide any public guidance to lenders until nearly two weeks after lenders started processing loan applications, and just a day before the initial round of funding dried up."

"Despite Congress' clear intent," wrote Clyburn and other Democrats, "this guidance made no mention of prioritizing loans to underserved communities."

"We have significant concerns that the two-tiered system that some banks reportedly developed for wealthy clients may have diverted PPP funds intended for vulnerable small business owners in underserved and rural markets, including small businesses owned by veterans, members of the military, socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, women, and businesses in operation for under two years," the letter said.

"We urge you to take immediate steps to ensure that your bank prioritizes underserved communities when issuing PPP loans going forward."

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said it has loaned $10.2 billion to 168,000 applicants through the program. The bank added that more than 80% of that funding went to companies with 10 or fewer employees, and more than 50% were for $25,000 or less.

"Wells Fargo will give away all fees received from the PPP to help small businesses in communities of need," the bank said.

A spokesperson for Truist said the bank's PPP applications were "handled through a single application portal made available to clients on a first-come, first access basis, without any preference given to larger or more affluent clients." The bank said that  to date  92% of its PPP loans have gone to companies with fewer than 50 employees.

"We look forward to providing information to the select subcommittee as we believe in fairness, accountability and transparency in connection with the PPP," the spokesperson added.

A spokesperson for US Bancorp said "from day one, the focus at U.S. Bank was on serving the needs of as many small businesses that we could." The bank said it has processed more than 90,000 SBA-approved loans for an average loan size of $77,000  with 86% of the approved loans for less than $100,000. Companies self-reported an average of nine employees.

Representatives for the other banks, the SBA and Treasury didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
Evening Standard

Londons new City Hall opened on Thursday  but only for a few hours as the building is only half-finished. Mayor Sadiq Khan has moved the home of the Greater London Authority (GLA) from its purpose-built home of 20 years beside Tower Bridge east to the Royal Docks, to a converted conference centre previously known as The Crystal. There were immediate problems with the heating - with Mr Khan, who donned a scarf, and members of the London Assembly complaining about the low temperatures.
The title here may sound a bit odd, but thats the situation. The Google Pixel 4a has been delayed again, but not its launch date, but its availability.

According to a new post by Jon Prosser, Google will still announce the Pixel 4a on July 13. The thing is, its release date has been pushed further back, to October.

The Google Pixel 4a got delayed again, now set to become available on October 22

The source claims that the Pixel 4a Black model is now set to launch on October 22. The Barely Blue model has been removed from the system entirely, however.

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This is getting extremely confusing at this point. The same source previously reported that the Just Black variant will reach the market on August 6. The Barely Blue model was supposed to follow on October 1.

Well, thats not the case any longer, at least as things stand at the moment. Jon Prosser said that timelines got pushed due to market conditions last time. We dont know whats happening now.

The good news is, the phone will still launch on July 13, it seems, that date hasnt been touched. At that point, Google will release more information regarding the whole thing, hopefully.

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The Google Pixel 4a is one of the most anticipated mid-range phones of the year, at least for the tech community. The device will be a direct successor to the Pixel 3a, and a competitor to the iPhone SE 2 in a way.

The Pixel 4a is expected to launch with a similar price tag as the iPhone SE 2. it will also be quite compact. Not as compact as the iPhone SE 2, but quite compact for todays standards.

The device will include a mid-range processor, unlike Apples iPhone SE 2

Unlike Apples device, the Pixel 4a will include a mid-range processor, and considerably thinner bezels. It will ship with wireless charging, it seems, and quite a compelling camera setup, probably taken from the Pixel 4.

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The Google Pixel 4a is expected to beat the iPhone SE 2 in the camera department, while those thinner bezels will also appear to more people, as they look more modern. The iPhone SE 2 will definitely have the processing power on its side, though.

In terms of battery life, it remains to be seen what will happen. You never know with Googles Pixel phones. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 4 were a disappointment in that regard, but the Pixel 3a did have pretty good battery life.

The Google Pixel 4a will probably be made out of polycarbonate (plastic). It will include a display camera hole in the top-left corner, and ship with a rear-facing fingerprint scanner. There you go, the Google Pixel 4a got delayed again, it seems, but this is not official info.
Connecticut health officials reported 15 new deaths from coronavirus, even as hospitalizations continued to fall, while New Yorks governor threatened to roll back reopening in some areas if businesses and residents continue to ignore restrictions.

Sundays 15 new deaths brings the statewide death toll in Connecticut to 4,201.

As of Sunday afternoon, another 94 people tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, the state data shows. The new infections bring the total number of cases to 45,088.

Hospitalizations in Connecticut have continued to decline, falling by 28 cases Sunday, with 205 still hospitalized for the illness.

Health care workers in Connecticut performed 4,852 tests, falling after the state reached a new record the day before for the number of tests performed in a single day.

Fairfield and Hartford counties continue to lead the state in the number of cases and deaths, both probable and confirmed through laboratory testing, with New Haven County following closely behind.

As the state looks to begin its second phase of reopening on Wednesday, allowing limited indoor dining as well as gyms and nail salons to reopen among others, Metro-North announced it will dramatically increase train service starting Monday.

The extra capacity will run on the New Haven, Harlem and Hudson lines.

The increase in service is due to a steady growth in ridership in response to the Phase 1 reopening in New York State, the railroad said in a statement Sunday. We will continue to provide hourly service during off-peak periods, on middays, evenings, late nights, weekends and holidays.

But on Sunday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to roll back reopening in some regions if businesses and residents continue to flaunt social distancing rules.

Were getting reports from all across the state that there are large gatherings, social distancing is being violated, people are not wearing masks, said Cuomo. We have gotten 25,000 complaints to the state of businesses that are in violation of the reopening plan. we have never received more complaints in a shorter amount of time.

The New York governor said most of the complaints have come from two regions: Manhattan and The Hamptons, and said videos of people ignoring social distancing rules have been widely shared on social media.

You dont need a detective squad to go out and find it, Cuomo said.

Asked repeatedly by reporters about his threat to roll back reopening in some regions if those violations continue, Cuomo said he would hold off stopping the reopening on a state level, but said he would first reverse it in those local areas.

Cuomo also tied his press conference to protests surrounding the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody after a white officer was filmed kneeling on his neck for more than 8 minutes.

Cuomo noted it had been 106 days since the coronavirus crisis befell New York and 21 days since Mr. Floyds murder.

He raised issue with images that have circulated of protesters and police alike not wearing masks during demonstrations.

Protesters and police, the law applies to you. Well Im protesting, yeah, I understand that. You can protest, the law still applies to you, Cuomo said. Police department, your job is to enforce the law. Why dont you follow the law.
Canadians were shocked and disgusted by the horrifying findings uncovered last month by Canadian Armed Forces personnel dispatched to help residents in five Ontario nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Editorial

Canadians were shocked and disgusted by the horrifying findings uncovered last month by Canadian Armed Forces personnel dispatched to help residents in five Ontario nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic.

The military report revealed cockroach infestations, forceful feeding of the elderly, poor hygiene practices and neglect, including patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 being allowed to wander freely in one care home.

Chelsea Kemp / The Brandon Sun FILES Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard (River Heights)

Ontario Premier Doug Ford described the report as "gut-wrenching," while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it "deeply disturbing."

What was especially shocking was the fact the report exposed how little Canadians  including the governments of Ontario and Canada  knew about what was going on inside those personal-care homes.

No one should be casting stones in this province, however, because Manitoba has long resisted calls for inspection reports on nursing homes to be made public.

Those calls intensified earlier this month in the wake of a CBC investigation detailing the contents of 40 surprise inspection reports involving 29 different Winnipeg nursing homes. The reports  describing unannounced inspections between 2015 and 2019  were obtained through freedom of information laws.

The 40 reports represent only a fraction of the roughly 80 inspections done annually at nearly 100 personal care homes in Manitoba.

Some of the inspection reports found few or no issues, but others revealed alarming deficiencies, including residents going up to 14 hours without access to food or drink, rooms going uncleaned for weeks, visibly soiled toilets and dead skin clusters on a bathtub.

The need for these reports to be made public is even more critical at a time when federal statistics show more than 80 per cent of coronavirus-related deaths in Canada have been linked to long-term care homes and residences for the elderly.

In Manitoba, inspection reports remain secret, while residents in Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan can easily visit government websites to find out when a home was last inspected, along with the results of that inspection.

The office of Manitobas auditor general has been calling for the release of these records for more than a decade, and the provinces opposition parties are now demanding an end to the secrecy.

"Its completely inadequate," Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard said. "Unless these are publicly available, there cant be real accountability."

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Offered NDP Leader Wab Kinew: "During this COVID-19 pandemic weve seen what can happen. It can be really nasty what can happen when seniors are not cared for in an adequate way."

Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen  who, as Tory health critic in 2013, took aim at the NDP government for not releasing the inspection reports  has promised changes are coming.

"Our government is currently working on a plan to provide publicly, regularly updated reports outlining inspections results in LTC (long-term care) homes," Mr. Friesen said in a statement.

The increased openness cant come soon enough. There is no reason why inspection reports could not be posted on the governments website, allowing Manitobans to use smart devices to scrutinize the care inside nursing homes.

The province for years has posted detailed health-protection reports that reveal when restaurants or other businesses are fined or closed for violating health orders. By contrast, brief online reports have cited penalties imposed on residential care homes, but without the details contained in inspection reports.

The global pandemic has underscored that seniors in care homes are Canadas most vulnerable population. The fact they need greater protection is not a secret.
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In the wake of this month's protests against systemic racism and police brutality, those who seek to reform the LAPD have focused primarily on defunding the department. KPCC's Take Two has asked various experts and thought leaders what other measures, if any, they think might work as well.

Some argue that change can happen even if the LAPD's budget were to remain untouched.

Here's how our sources think the department can start to do better by the community.

David Kennedy

Author of "Don't Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America," and criminal justice professor at John Jay College specializing in police-community relations.

1. The LAPD should start a reconciliation process with the community

Taking a cue from the reconciliation process in post-Apartheid South Africa, Kennedy argues that this would be an important step for the LAPD to start regaining trust among L.A.'s black community.

The process includes the department owning up to what it's done, hearing the experiences of those who've been harmed, committing to repair and committing to doing better going forward.

"[Reconciliation] is the closest thing to magic I've ever seen," said Kennedy, "but only if it is understood that it is not legitimate and authentic if it is not about repair."

Erroll Southers

Director of the Safe Communities Institute at USC and co-creator of an LAPD community policing training program

1. Make community-oriented policing and the Law Enforcement Advanced Development certificate program through USC part of the LAPD budget

Community-oriented policing is devoted to improving officers' relationship with the people they serve. Instead of only reacting to crime, the police might also talk with community leaders one-on-one about simpler problems that could be fixed, such as fixing lights in alleyways.

"They'd work with the community to put a solution together, present it to LAPD command staff, and then try to operationalize it," said Southers.

This practice has many benefits, but one is that it raises trust in the police among neighborhood children. If they grow up to join the force, then the demographic of the officers better reflects the area.

The LEAD program taught many of these ideas to officers, but the grant funding ran out three years ago. Southers argues that it should be an essential part of the LAPD budget.

2. Create a police commission filled with citizens

In Long Beach, an independent oversight board of which Southers was once a part is stacked with civilians who review all allegations of misconduct.

"They had subpoena power, they had the power to investigate," said Southers.

The LAPD does have a police commission, but its board is filled with people appointed by the mayor, and it's also charged with addressing things like equipment and personnel.

Southers believes LAPD should have a citizen commission similar to Long Beach's, focused only on officer misconduct.

3. Create an independent, national database to track officers' records

If an officer commits misconduct in one department, there's little stopping him or her from getting a new job elsewhere. Personnel files between police departments are not shared regularly, or an officer may resign if they get wind of an impending firing to keep their record clean as they look for new work.

Southers believes there should be a national database to track problem officers.

"They should be in that database and be prohibited by law from serving as a police officer ever again in any state," he said.

Greg Meyer

Retired LAPD captain and expert on police use-of-force

1. Make it a requirement for officers to intervene if they see another officer committing abuse.

It's not uncommon for Meyer to see officers turn a blind eye to misconduct committed by their colleagues.

Requiring intervention, he says, should be an explicit policy at all departments.

"The challenge is how to make this an operational norm across agencies big and small: 'Yes, I AM my brother's/sister's keeper,'" he said.

2. Reform the discipline process, and make consequences stick

"A wise deputy chief I worked for almost 30 years ago often said, 'We discipline far too many, and we fire far too few,'" recalled Meyer.

He argues that the LAPD should reform the way it fires officers.

"The courts and arbitrators and civil service commissions have a really sorry record for returning fired officer misfits back to duty," he said.

Like Southers, he suggests that a national database of problem officers could be a step towards a solution.

3. Don't think that defunding the LAPD is a silver bullet to reform

Meyer believes that many of the protesters stated goals could be accomplished even while leaving the LAPD budget untouched.

"Society's problems are much bigger than the police," he said. "We've got poverty, education, employment opportunities, economic challenges that foster crime."

But he believes that taking away police funding will hurt the department, especially since LAPD is being asked to provide more training and accountability.
Rajasthan: Man stripped naked, thrashed after being accused of stealing goat

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Jaipur, June 15: In a shocking incident, a man was allegedly stripped naked, thrashed and had his hair chopped off by 3 men who accused him of stealing a goat,in a village in Jhalawar on June 13. The incident took place in Balgarh village at around 10:30 pm on Friday.

The accused also demanded Rs 1 Lakh from him and made a video of the entire incident. He has been admitted to hospital.

We will register an FIR after taking his statement. Three people had thrashed him, they belong to the same village: Sub-Inspector Murlidhar Nagar, Thana Kotwali, Jhalawar #Rajasthan (13.06.2020) https://t.co/kN4uFT7uDe pic.twitter.com/NmLZkkaVGI  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

''We will register an FIR after taking his statement. Three people had thrashed him, they belong to the same village,'' Sub-Inspector Murlidhar Nagar, Thana Kotwali, Jhalawar said.

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

Rajasthan MLAs to stay put at hotel till RS polls

The police swung into action and arrested the three accused. They have been booked under sections 34 (illegal act done by several persons), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 327 (hurting to extort money from sufferer) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:16:20|Editor: huaxia

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COLOMBO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government is aiming to open its international airports before August 1 as no community transmission of the COVID-19 has been reported since late April, Tourism and Aviation Minister Prasanna Ranatunga was quoted by local media as saying on Monday.

"We will be ready to receive all international tourists into the country after the repatriation of all Sri Lankan citizens stranded overseas is concluded," the minister said, adding that the repatriation procedure is set to end before August.

Sri Lanka had initially set to open its international airports for foreign tourists on August 1 after their closure in March amid the spread of COVID-19 virus but discussions are now underway to open up by next month.

Ranatunga said that an estimated 20,000 nationals are awaiting to be repatriated from overseas and to date around 10,000 nationals had been brought back.

Once this is done, Sri Lanka will look to open up for foreign tourists immediately.

Ranatunga further said that tourists arriving in Sri Lanka, after its airports open, will be subject to PCR tests upon their arrival and they could enter the country after results are received within 24 hours.

"All tourists arriving in the country will be subjected to PCR tests and attention has been paid to bring tourists in small groups after the airport is reopened," the Minister said.

Sri Lanka has to date detected 1,895 cases of COVID-19 patients out of which 1,342 have been treated and discharged from hospitals.

A total of 11 deaths have been reported from the virus. Enditem
(Photo : REUTERS/Jennifer Gauthier) Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou smiles as she leaves her home to attend a court hearing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada May 27, 2020 (Photo : REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann) The logo of Huawei is seen in Davos, Switzerland January 22, 2020.

A massive repercussion might happen on the following days after Huawei's Chief Financial Officer and daughter of founder Ren Zheng, Meng Wanzhou got arrested at the airport. Canadian spy agency releases a report saying that Huawei's arrest could result in a global 'shockwaves' that surely won't be a good thing for anyone.

Huawei's founder daughter gets arrested; Canada warns it may result in something dangerous

On Friday, June 12, Canada's intelligence agency released a report saying how dangerous for countries that the Chinese billionaire Huawei Founder's daughter got arrested in an airport.

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. and the daughter of the Huawei founder Ren Zheng, was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on Dec. 2018 due to the United States extradition case filed against her in connection to alleged charges on defrauding banks.

"This planned event will be of great consequence internationally and bilaterally," as predicted by the Canadian intelligence agency.

After this, the Canadian spy agency said that there are huge repercussions that are about to happen due to this arrest-noting that Wanzhou was also the eldest daughter of the Huawei founder.

"The arrest is likely to send shockwaves around the world," the agency said. They also said that the Canadian police handling the arrest recognize "the highly political nature of the arrest," the memo said.

READ ALSO: [BREAKING] 18 Dead, Over 180 Injured on China Truck Explosion, Causing 10-Meter Crack on Highway

What happens to her arrest?

Wanzhou was arrested on an extradition warrant after arriving in Canada on a flight from Hong Kong. She was charged with fraud in the country after allegations said that she lied to an HSBC banker in 2013 about the telecommunication giant's control of a company that violated U.S. economic sanctions against Iran.

The billionaire's daughter reiterated until now that the issues and allegations against her were not real, and she did not commit any wrongdoings during the transaction with HSBC.

When the arrest was made, Wanzhou also complains that there were a lot of violations with the police when she was arrested. She accuses Canadian police, border officials, and the FBI of coordinating secretly to question her for hours and obtain passwords to her electronic devices, before even filing the report.

The CSIS admitted that the arrest was made in compliance with the request from the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), saying "advanced communication to CSIS came from the FBI."

Therefore, Wanzhou's lawyers said that the arrest was made to conspire and just pin the crimes against their client.

Meng Wanzhou still at home arrest

As of now, Wanzhou is still under home arrest after she released $10 billion bails for her case. She still stays in Vancouver and cannot go outside the country due to the case.

ALSO READ: Huawei Ban: Trump Pays You to Throw Your Huawei Networks After Gov't Extended Ban to May 15th

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Proposed changes to Cabinet's resolution on quarantine measures to determine conditions when Ukraine's regions can tighten restrictions - Stepanov at Zelensky meeting

Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov at a traditional meeting on the fight against coronavirus, chaired by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that amendments would be made to the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers regulating compliance with quarantine measures.

"They will determine under what circumstances a particular region can make certain restrictions tougher. This will be needed if the epidemic worsens," the presidential press service said on Monday.
A young girl has narrowly escaped serious injuries after rocks were pelted at her family's car.

At least 20 cars were damaged after youths spent just over and hour hurling rocks at cars along the Stuart Hwy, Woolner Rd and Tiger Brennan Dr., in Darwin on Sunday night.

NT Police believe up to five youths may have been involved in the rock throwing incident which lasted from 7.25pm until 8.33pm. No arrests or charges have been made.

Watch Commander Superintendent Antony Deutrom two victims chased two of the youths into bushland along Tiger Brennan Dr at about 9.15pm however did not catch them.

Several cars' windscreens were shattered (pictured) after youths pelted rocks as cars along Stuart Hwy, Woolner Rd and Tiger Brennan Dr., in Darwin on Sunday night

One car was littered in sharp shards of glass after two large rocks burst through its window

Toby George, who is contesting the seat of Port Darwin for the Country Liberals, said his car was struck just below the window where his six-year-old daughter was resting her head.

'When I saw that, my heart started to really pump,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'When you throw a rock half the size of a brick, at cars going up to 80km an hour, it is a really big impact.'

'I have no doubt if it struck someone it could have killed them.'

Mr George, who was also travelling with his wife and eight-year-old son, said after they were hit pulled over behind a long row of vehicles that had been targeted.

He said six or seven cars were smashed and a man in the car behind his was covered in glass shards, with a bleeding arm.

Mr George said rocks continued to hit the cars as occupants got out to inspect damage and check on one another.

'To be in the thick of it unfolding was pretty scary,' he said.

'They (the kids) were pretty terrified. They usually sleep in their own beds, my son was shaking a bit in bed. We are just really lucky that no one was badly hurt or killed.

NT Police said three Darwin units attended however were unable to locate the offenders on scene.

However, Mr George said, despite numerous calls, no emergency services arrived.

A massive dent (pictured) was left in the door of Toby George's car, centimetres below the window his young daughter, 6, was resting her head against when the vehicle was hit

One man was left covered in glass shards after a massive rock smashed through his car's window

Debris was strewn across the back seat of one car after it was damaged in the attack

'We called 000 immediately, most of us, all 18- 20 cars. Some drivers hung around for 80 to 50 minutes, but no police came,' he said.

Police have received a description of two men believed to be the alleged offenders.

One is described as a man of Aboriginal appearance.

The second man is described as being of Aboriginal appearance, approximately 19-years-old, 66 tall, skinny build, wearing white shorts, black shirt, and a red hat with medium length hair showing under a hat

Senior Sergeant Michael Fields said police are actively seeking the whereabouts of the offenders and urge them to come forward.

'Fortunately, no injuries were suffered by vehicle occupants. This is a despicable incident and police take these reports very seriously,' he said.

Police are appealing for witnesses and victims and those who have dashcam footage or phone footage to come forward.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted NT Police for comment.
Surfers walk on a sidewalk along Waikiki Beach prior to the pandemic. Locals have the beach to themselves as Hawaii remains off-limits to visitors from the U.S. mainland. (Hawaii Tourism Authority)

Hopes that Hawaii would reopen anytime soon were dashed against the coral reefs last week. Gov. David Ige extended until Aug. 1 his order that requires out-of-state travelers who visit the Aloha State to remain under mandatory quarantine for 14 days. Visitors who leave their hotel rooms for food or a stroll on a beach could be arrested.

Contrast that with California, which last week gave the green light for hotels, gyms, hair salons and other retail businesses to reopen, provided they adhere to state-mandated rules. Visitor bureaus from wine country to desert spas have been telling visitors they're open for business. However, the Golden State's stay-at-home order still urges residents to avoid nonessential travel.

But back to Hawaii, whose strict visitor quarantine appears to be working.

The state has a relatively low incidence of COVID-19: 728 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, as of Sunday. Officials want to keep it that way, for the safety of their residents and the long-term vitality of tourism, the islands' biggest industry.

Upon entering Hawaii, mainland visitors must sign acknowledgment of the order and tell authorities what hotel or vacation rental they will be staying in. Violating the rules could mean a $5,000 fine and/or a year imprisonment, the order said. The visitor quarantine went into effect March 26.

The governor's order also will lift current quarantine requirements for interstate travelers Tuesday. However, passengers will have their temperatures checked at the airport and anyone with a fever higher than 100.4 degrees will be denied boarding.

"We are working at opportunities to engage in safe, transpacific travel as quickly as we can," Ige told reporters Wednesday.

Though the governor speculated about creating travel bubbles with Pacific nations that have shrinking numbers of coronavirus cases, he remained concerned about letting in visitors from the western U.S. who could spread the virus.

Story continues

A number of Hawaiian Airlines jets are parked on a runway at Honolulu's airport in April. (Hawaiian Airlines)

The key markets that were monitoring domestically include California, Oregon, Washington state, Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona," he said at the news conference. "All of these Western states are now seeing spikes in their number of COVID-19 cases."

Much of the airline traffic from the U.S. mainland to Hawaii has shut down. On Saturday, 457 passengers arrived at the Honolulu airport, the only airport open in the state. Typically, the state greets about 30,000 travelers each day.

With tourism at a standstill, Hawaii's unemployment rate hit 22% in April. By comparison, Nevada, another state reliant on hospitality, reported 28.2% unemployment for the same month.

Ige added that once the pandemic ends, he expects it to take about a year for Hawaii's tourism numbers to bounce back.
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An elegant two-bedroom apartment in a grand Neo-Baroque blue-plaque Mayfair house, formerly a Royal residence of Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, has gone on sale for 2.25 million.

The 870 square-foot home lies in the Grade II listed house on the desirable Dunraven Street, which was built in 1897 and was formerly the the London home of HRH Alexander, a grandson of Queen Victoria and relative of Lord Louis Mountbatten and Prince Philip.

Also formerly home to famous author P. G. Wodehouse, the study where he wrote his famous Jeeves and Wooster stories, and Mounbatten wrote to his mother HRH Princess Beatrice, is now the master bedroom suite.

Meanwhile the large walk-in storage cupboard that was one home to the dresses, tiaras and royal jewels belonging to Mountbatten's wife Marchioness Carisbrooke, is now a modern fully fitted kitchen with concealed units.

An elegant two-bedroom apartment in a grand Neo-Baroque blue-plaque Mayfair house, formerly a Royal residence of Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, has gone on sale for 2.25 million

The home was formerly the the London home of HRH Alexander, seen left in 1905, a grandson of Queen Victoria and relative of Lord Louis Mountbatten (seen right) and Prince Philip

The 870 square-foot home lies in the Grade II listed house on the desirable Dunraven Street, which was built in 1897. Pictured: The open plan living room

Alexander Mountbatten, who died in 1960 aged 73 in Kensington Palace, was the very first member of the Royal family to take a job as a director of Lazard Brothers bank.

Mountbatten moved into 17 Dunraven Street in 1917, when he married Lady Irene Denison, who became the Marchioness of Carisbrooke.

They lived there until 1920 when, after the birth of their daughter Lady iris, they moved into a grace-and-favour residence at Kensington Palace.

Boasting a rich history, the residence also housed author P. G. Wodehouse, who lived at the property with his wife Ethel and step-daughter Leonora between 1927 to 1934.

The large walk-in storage cupboard that was one home to the dresses, tiaras and royal jewels belonging to Mountbatten's wife Marchioness Carisbrooke, is now a modern fully fitted kitchen with concealed units

The spacious, bright and airy suite has an adjoining en-suite bathroom and French windows which open onto a private balcony

Named after the 4th Earl of Dunraven and designed by architect Sidney R. J Smith (1858-1913) of Tate Gallery fame, Wodehouse wrote his famous works Very Good, Jeeves and Thank You, Jeeves, in the second floor study of the home.

While living in the house Wodehouse learnt of a notorious murder involving a butler and his master that took place just a few doors along at No.14 Dunraven Street in 1840 when butler Francis Courvoisier was convicted and later executed for slitting the throat of Lord William Russell.

During Courvoisier's trial it was revealed that he grew so frustrated with his deaf and infirm master that he repeatedly tried to harm him with leaking hot-water bottles and jabbing him with pins  which provided inspiration for the most light-hearted butler master comedy in the Wodehouse books.

Also formerly home to famous author P. G. Wodehouse, the study where he wrote his famous Jeeves and Wooster stories, and Mounbatten wrote to his mother HRH Princess Beatrice, is now the master bedroom suite (seen)

Boasting a rich history, the residence also housed author P. G. Wodehouse, who lived at the property with his wife Ethel and step-daughter Leonora between 1927 to 1934 (seen)

The study where Mounbatten wrote to his mother HRH Princess Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria, and Wodehouse penned some of his famous Jeeves and Wooster stories, is now the master bedroom suite

After WWII the property was converted into elegant apartments.

Wodehouse wrote his famous works Very Good, Jeeves and Thank You, Jeeves, in the second floor study of the home

In 1988 a Blue Plaque for P. G. Wodehouse was unveiled on the building's facade by HM the Queen Mother, who was a lifelong lover of his novels.

During the early 2000s the second floor apartment was owned by a financier who was a neighbour of fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who had bought the lower floors of the house and was renovating it into a luxury apartment. Tragically McQueen died in 2010, just two years after buying the property.

The two bedroom second floor apartment is now completely different from when Alexander Mountbatten and P. G. Wodehouse lived at 17 Dunraven Street.

The floor now provides a spacious reception room with three large windows, a separate kitchen, master bedroom suite with ensuite (formerly P. G. Wodehouse's study) and a second bedroom.

The study where Mounbatten wrote to his mother HRH Princess Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria, and Wodehouse penned some of his famous Jeeves and Wooster stories, is now the master bedroom suite.

The spacious, bright and airy suite has an adjoining en-suite bathroom and French windows which open onto a private balcony.

The original master bedroom suite, used by the Mountbattens and Wodehouse, is now a spacious west-facing timber floored reception room, and what was once a large walk-in storage cupboard for Marchioness Carisbrooke's dresses, tiaras and Royal jewels is now a modern fully fitted kitchen with concealed units.

In 1988 a Blue Plaque for P. G. Wodehouse (seen) was unveiled on the building's facade by HM the Queen Mother, who was a lifelong lover of his novels

Mountbatten moved into 17 Dunraven Street in 1917, when he married Lady Irene Denison, who became the Marchioness of Carisbrook (seen in 1938)

The second bedroom, which was once the bedroom of Wodehouse's adopted daughter Leonora, is for guests.

The apartment is complete with generous ceiling heights, an entrance hall lined with floor-to-ceiling storage units and air-conditioning throughout.

Additionally, the home is just a walk away from Park Lane and Hyde Park, and the shops of Bond Street and Oxford Street.

Peter Wetherell, Founder & Chairman of Wetherell said: 'This superb apartment provides a discerning purchaser with the opportunity to buy a slice of famous Mayfair history. Once a Royal home, it is here where P. G. Wodehouse wrote some of his world famous Jeeves and Wooster stories.'

The second bedroom, which was once the bedroom of Wodehouse's adopted daughter Leonora, is for guests
This year so far, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has put at least 44 co-operative banks across the country under watch citing deterioration in their financials or for flouting prudential norms. This includes those cases where the regulator has put fresh restrictions on the business activities and those where the RBI extended the restrictions already imposed on the entities. Two banks  CKP Co-operative Bank in Maharashtra and the Mapusa Urban Co-operative Bank of Goa  were asked to shut shop.

These actions raise critical questions on the health of co-operative banking sector in India.

Mapusa goes down

In April alone, the RBI acted on nine co-operative banks. This included the cancellation of licence of Mapusa on April 17 on account of the weak financials of the bank. The RBI found that the bank does not have adequate capital and earning prospects and its continuance will be prejudicial to the interests of its depositors. The RBI granted the scheduled bank status to Mapusa on January 30, 1998. The bank had a network of 24 branches. According to the 2018 annual report of the bank (the last available report), the bank had a deposit of Rs 378 crore in 2017-18 and Rs 100 crore advances.

Mapusa bank has all along contested the RBIs action since 2015. The financial position as on March 31, 2015 was sound enough to run the bank profitably. But in spite of this growth the RBI in a sudden move imposed directives u/s 35A of Banking Regulation Act, 1949 on 24.07.2015 at close of the business prohibiting us from undertaking the normal banking business, the bank said in the 2018 annual report. A good chunk of the loans had turned to non-performing assets (NPAs).

CKP Bank bites the dust

There were eight cases in May where the RBI announced some kind of actions on crisis-ridden co-op banks. On 2 May, the RBI clipped the wings of another bank. This time, the Mumbai-based CKP Co-operative Bank. As on April 30, only about Rs 4 crore out of the Rs 158 crore loan book was remaining standard on the lender's books, Moreshwar Dhaimodkar, General Manager of CKP Bank, told Moneycontrol. In other words, CKP Banks gross non-performing asset (GNPA) level had zoomed to 97 percent of the total loans.

Founded in 1915, and headquartered at Matunga, Mumbai, the bank has eight branches spread across Mumbai and Thane districts. CKP Bank's mistake was no different from that of many other failed cooperative banks  it built its business around a few large borrowers in the real estate sector. The strategy helped the small co-operative bank grow its loan book quicker than rivals, but backfired badly when the tide turned.

As per the latest available details, the banks net worth had eroded to negative Rs 239 crore. At the last count, total deposits stood at Rs 486 crore, a relatively small amount compared to other bank failures.

PMC remains unsolved

In fact, the CKP Bank closure was the third since PMC Bank clampdown by the regulator in September 2019. The action of the Mumbai-based bank was a big shocker because of the sheer nature of the fraud that happened in the bank. The RBI found that the bank was allegedly running fraudulent transactions for several years to facilitate lending to HDIL through fictitious accounts and violating single-party lending rules. The bank had Rs 11,600 crore in deposits. The RBI imposed restrictions on deposit withdrawals and superseded its board after the fraud was caught. Even though many depositors got their money under the deposit insurance scheme, even now the large depositors, which include two RBI employee cooperative societies, are yet to get their money back. On March 21, the RBI said that in the interest of the depositors and the stability of the cooperative banking sector, the RBI is trying to work out a scheme for revival of the bank. But even after nine months, the RBI is yet to find a solution to the PMC crisis. No bank has shown willingness in taking over the scam-ridden bank.

More banks face the wrath

Besides PMC, the RBI imposed restrictions on Bengaluru-based Guru Raghavendra Sahakara (co-operative) Bank Niyamitha on January 10 from renewing loans and deposits. The bank was also asked to not allow withdrawals beyond Rs 35,000 per account. Similar restrictions were imposed on Kolkatas Kolikata Mahila Cooperative Bank with deposit withdrawal restrictions of Rs 1,000 per account. In June, four more co-op banks received the RBIs directions on restrictions on business activities. On June 11, the RBI issued directions to Peoples Co-operative Bank Ltd., Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, asking the bank not to give any fresh loans or take fresh deposits without the central banks prior approval.

With more co-operative banks coming under the scanner of the RBI and their business activities restricted, there is a question on how deep is the mess in co-op banks. Every time the RBI clamps down on individual banks, there is panic among depositors to get their money back. This is evident in the cases of those co-operative banks, whose operations have been restricted by the RBI (such as PMC Bank) for financial misconduct.

What is ailing these banks?

The co-op banks have for long suffered from issue of dual regulation, intervention by local politicians and financial mismanagement. Also, the process of the RBI's supervision and periodical scrutiny of the books of these banks are not as stringent as in the case of commercial banks. All these create issues in their running.

"There is a lack of clarity between the RBI and the government on who does the regulation. This confusion has contributed to the present plight of the co-op banking industry," said an RBI official. He didn't want to be named.

According to the latest data, India had 1,551 urban co-operative banks (UCBs) by March-end 2018. These banks managed Rs 4.5 lakh crore deposits at that point of time. At the state level, there are three types of cooperative banks  primary credit co-operative banks, district-level cooperative banks and state-level cooperative banks. As on March-end 2017, there were about 33 state co-operative banks with Rs 1.2 lakh crore deposits, 370 district central co-operative banks (Rs 3.3 lakh crore deposits) and 95,595 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (Rs 1.15 lakh crore deposits).
Head of the Libyan House of Representation (HoR), Aguila Saleh, made an unannounced visit to Algiers, which has offered to mediate between Libyan factions.

The HoR leader, based in the east, has emerged as the new leader of the Libyan administration opposed to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). Following rebel Gen. Khalifa Haftars military failures in recent months, Saleh rose to fame and appears to enjoy international recognition as an interlocutor of the GNA in the Libyan crisis.

He appeared on the side of Egyptian President last week when the latter presented a peace deal after the string of defeats by his protege Haftar.

Salah has proposed a political initiative, which has earned the backing of Russia, UAE and Egypt.

The visit to Algiers came a day after Algeria said it is keen to host the Libyan factions for talks and help organize elections to create a Libyan state by Libyans.

While the eastern Libyan administration is backed by Egypt, UAE, Russia, France and the US, the GNA is endorsed by Turkey and Qatar. Last week, a top official of the Arab League also recognized the Tripoli-based government as the sole legitimate Libyan administration.
As Delta Colleges brass wrestles with the complex decision of whether to welcome students back to campus for fall semester 2020, spring/summer semester currently has 3,565 students enrolled in online courses. That number reflects a slight decrease from last year but is not nearly as steep a decline as many community colleges are experiencing this summer with their enrollments. Delta and many colleges and universities throughout Michigan have been battling budget-affecting enrollment hits for years.

Throw in a COVID-19 pandemic that forced Delta to quickly move all of its courses online in mid-March and other schools to do the same, and you have educational leaders facing unprecedented challenges on how to proceed forward on its campuses. Russell Curley, Deltas dean of enrollment management, said the college has maintained its personal touch even as it moved to a digital operation and continues to weigh options for what fall semester will look like at its main campus and satellite centers.

At the same time Delta announced plans for student instruction to be delivered strictly online, it also moved its enrollment management services online, including admissions, financial aid, academic advising, new student orientation and registration. Yet technology cant replicate all processes and people-centric things that were in place pre COVID-19.

This has allowed personal service to all students to continue, Curley said of Deltas pandemic-driven adjustments. However, its a slightly slower pace than normal, due to the inability to host larger group enrollment events. All new and continuing students have been interacting with staff one-on-one to access the advice and service they need through online, email or telephone.

Aurelian Balan, a Delta physics instructor whose gift for teaching astronomy helped him garner the colleges Bergstein Award for Teaching Excellence this spring, says most of his days now are spent working on ways to effectively deliver his course material in an online format. He longs to get back to the classroom.

Its working, he said of online instruction, but face to face is preferred for many. The best part of this job is face to face interaction and learning with students and colleagues. Real learning happens online and in person. But I can give more of my passion and personality delivered with the material in person. When someone is excited about something, its easier to learn from them. That excitement is more easily seen in person.

Delta waived online course fees for its spring/summer semester, a move that saved students about $33 per contact hour. It also may have helped Delta avoid the far larger enrollment dips that other community colleges are experiencing this summer.

Curley is encouraged.

The number of contact hours  basically the number of classes students are taking, is down just 0.1 percent from projections, he said. Its important to keep in mind that the number of high school graduates has declined for a number of years in Michigan and the Great Lakes Bay Region.

Last fall, 7,820 students took Delta classes. Curley anticipates nearing those numbers this fall.

Were hearing from many students and parents that theyre taking a 'community college gap year,' he noted. They are choosing Delta because theyre more comfortable staying close to home and out of dorms, yet getting a great education at a third the cost of public universities.

Will Delta resume in-person instruction in the fall? Will they offer a hybrid version of online and in-person instruction that would limit the number of students on campus and in classrooms to continue to safeguard against COVID-19? How will laboratory work that requires close teamwork among science and health profession students be pulled off? These are but a few questions that the pandemic has raised.

In terms of instructional delivery for the fall, we have not yet made a final decision on how courses will be offered, Curley said. However, the planning process is well underway and should be announced soon. Primary in the decision-making process is the exploration of all expert advice related to health and safety for students, as well as our faculty and staff.

Michael Hanson is president of the Michigan Community College Association. Its his job to work with the states 28 community colleges to advance the associations public policy agenda. He told the Daily News that the COVID-19 issue is so fluid, its all but impossible to predict how fall semester will unfold on community college campuses.

What is known today may change tomorrow or next week depending on state regulations, local conditions and/or the direction of additional outbreak of COVID, he said. Further, what makes sense in terms of in-person instruction in northern Michigan may not make as much sense in southeast Michigan.

Hanson does expect a number of community colleges to continue delivering what they can online, and develop safety protocols to be able to deliver classes that cant be taught easily online, such as welding and machining and others.

Other colleges may adopt a hybrid approach in which part of a course is taught online and part utilizing more face-to-face instruction.

There will be significant variations of that from college to college, and this may change as we get closer to the fall, but that seems to be a direction many are pursuing, Hanson said.
BENLD  The queen has spoken. There will be a Macoupin County Fair this year  its just going to look a bit different.

I am doing a social media takeover, where I am highlighting everything our fair has to offer, said reigning Macoupin County Fair Queen Maya Marcacci of Benld. Im posting past fair highlights, photos and videos of our 4-H members to show how important this aspect of the fair is.

The Macoupin County Fair in Carlinville was to be held June 9-13. But like other county fairs, this years event was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. That means many local 4-H youth who have worked hard all year preparing their show animals and projects will not get to experience the fruits of their labor physically in the fairgrounds show rings and barns.

That recognition was under way last week at the Macoupin County Fairs Facebook page.

My director and I have been working together to contact fairgoers, 4-H members, the fair board and past queens to compile photos and videos from past fair events, as well as personal statements and videos about what the fair means to them, Marcacci said.

We expect this takeover to be informational and so much fun, she noted. I want to bring smiles to peoples faces and make them still feel like they are at the fair and bring back some amazing memories.

For example, the Facebook page featured events last week that would have happened that day at the fair, such as harness racing and the kiddie tractor pulls. Wednesday would have been the queen pageant, and the Facebook posts showed current and past fair royalty discussing the fair experience. Each day, the work done by 4-H youth was highlighted, as 4-H events were scheduled every day of the Macoupin County Fair.

Still, pixelated show pigs, viral vegetables and mooing memes are no substitute for the real thing, and although Macoupin County 4-H members appreciate what is being done to recognize their projects, every one of them will deeply miss the county fair experience this year.

I miss that week of my summer when all my friends come together at the fair to show all of our hard work on projects we have been working on for months, said 16-year-old Braylee Gilmore of rural Carlinville, an eight-year 4-H member whose projects include dog care/obedience and poultry.

I work on dog training year round, and I hatch poultry the first week of January to get them the size I want for the county and state fairs.

Although Gilmore is disappointed that she wont be able to cheer on her fellow 4-H friends at the fair this year, shes grateful for the chance to show off their work online.

A lot of hard-working people are making that possible for us, she said, and I am thankful for the virtual show opportunity. We are learning to adapt to new times, a skill I am sure we will need in our futures. We will be back next year to the Macoupin County Fair, stronger and more thankful than ever for the oldest county fair in the state.

Emily Barr, 18, of Carlinville, who has been involved for 10 years in 4-H competitions, would have shown pigs at this years fair. Getting the pigs ready is always a year-long labor of love.

I feed them three times a day and practice walking them for anywhere between a half hour to an hour and a half each day, said Barr, who now plans to sell her show animals for the market when they are ready.

The fair has always been my favorite part of summer, since I was little, Barr said. Being a senior in high school, I was especially looking forward to this year since itd be my last year.

Likewise, this summer just isnt the same for Luke Wolff, 14, a member of the Bunker Hill Livewires 4-H Club, who had planned to compete at the Macoupin County Fair with his woodworking, electricity, welding, swine, goats and poultry projects.

A picture or a short video does not show all the detail of some of my projects, said Wolff, who is a six-year 4-H member, but I appreciate that they are trying to let us show what we would have shown at our fair.

The week of the fair is very busy, but I look forward to it every year. I also like to hang out with friends.

Youth who are age 5 to 18 can be 4-H members. Wolffs sister, Rachel Wolff, 20, was an 11-year 4-H member and has returned to the fair every year to help out her brother and other youth who still are in the agricultural-focused youth development and mentoring organization.

The Macoupin County Fair was always special because I got to spend the week with my friends and the barns were always filled with laughter and joy, she said.

The early mornings, late nights, and everyone helping each other in the barns making sure that everyone was ready for the next day, is something that I really miss.
For years, Charlamagne Tha God voiced his opinion on what he believed to be a toxic marriage between Wendy Williams and her now ex-husband, Kevin Hunter. Charlamagne worked closely with the former couple before a disagreement left him disgruntled about Hunter and estranged from Williams. Since Williams and Hunters divorce, Charlamagne has championed for Williams. Hunter is now telling his side of the story, alleging that he is responsible for Charlamagnes success and makes shocking claims about Charlamagne living a double life.

Jessica Gadsden and Charlemagne Tha God 2019 | Prince Williams/Wireimage

Charlamagne Tha God is married to his high school sweetheart, Jessica Gadsden

Charlamagne has been open about the shortcomings in his relationship with Gadsden. They began dating when he was 16-years-old. Hes made several controversial statements during his time on his popular morning radio show about cheating on his wife throughout their long relationship and their multiple breakups. He claims his decision to change his ways and commit to Gadsden was a result of a conversation with his eldest daughter.

Jessica Gadsden and Charlamagne Tha God via Twitter

Me and the mother of my kids have been together since high school. When you have your seven-year-old daughter asking why you and mommy dont have the same last name, that affects you as a man, he told xoNecole in 2017. It made me think, Well, why dont we? Whats stopping me from taking that next step?

After dating Gadsden on and off for 16 years, he made things official when they married in 2014.

Together, they share three daughters. Charlamagne credits Gadsdens love for his maturity and growth both personally and professionally. Hes kept his family out of the public eye, and photos of Gadsden did not surface online until a few years ago.

Though her husband is well regarded in media and Black culture, Gadsden is accomplished in her own right. She graduated from the University of South Carolina-Columbia with a degree in journalism and mass communication.

She later earned a Master in Business Administrations degree from Webster University in Missouri, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Bergen Community College in 2013. According to A Momma, Gadsden has worked as a fitness instructor for the past decade.

Kevin Hunter hints that Charlamagne Tha God told Wendy Williams about his mistress and alleges Charlamagne continues to cheat on his own wife

Hunter once handled Charlamagnes business affairs, though he never made The Breakfast Club host sign a management contract. Their relationship soured when Charlamagne says Hunter became enraged after feeling that Charlamagne was introducing his mistress, Sharina Hudson, to other men. Hudson and Charlamagne were friends and it was Charlamagne who introduced her to Hunter.

Charlamagne tha God and Jessica Gadsden 2019 | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation

Related: Wendy Williams Ex-Husband, Kevin Hunter, Says Hes Responsible For Charlamagne Tha Gods Career In New Interview

Hunter told YouTube star Tasha K that their relationship started to fizzle due to Charlamagnes jealousy that he was dating Hudson. He alleged that Charlamagne became bitter because he was interested in Hudson and she chose Hunter instead. Hunter also believes that Charlamagne broke guy code and told Williams about his affair with Hudson.

Hes told Wendy some intimate details, he broke the g-code by telling my wife and soon to be ex s**t that you shouldnt have no business telling her, unless you a real b***h, Hunter said of Charlamagne.

Though Charlamagne has said in the past that Gadsden agrees with his choice to not have their family on public display, Hunter claims the radio host has a different reason.

(L-R) Niko Khale, Keyshia Cole. Jessica Gadsden and Charlamagne tha God 2019 | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Netflix

The girl [Gadsden] is the key to the whole s**t. If you go and pull her out of hiding, itll be crazy for that n***a, Hunter said. According to him, Charlamagne prefers to keep Gadsden and his family out to the spotlight to avoid his own discretions from being revealed. He hinted to Charlamagne having affairs since hes been married to Gadsden.

He keeps her in hiding for a reason, pull her up, look at her. He never brought her around. When I invited him to Thanksgiving dinner, he didnt bring her. The way he carried on, he talking s**t about me but the way he carried on, they must have an understanding because that n***a was f***ing everything, Hunter continued.

Charlamagne has insisted that since marrying Gadsden, that hes been faithful.
It's visuals that take down a president, and the video of George Floyd's death is about as graphic as it gets  just like the victims of Hurricane Katrina stranded on rooftops, waving for help that was slow to come.

Katrina was the end of President Bush's presidency, even though it occurred at the beginning of his second term. After Katrina, Bush lost credibility and limped through the last three and a half years of his administration. After Katrina, Republicans lost control of Congress, and Bush was powerless to accomplish anything, even if he had wished to.

Bush was charged with being too slow and ineffective in his response to the storm. In fact, it was local and state Democrats who were slow and ineffective. The mayor of New Orleans seemed to have no advance plan and left much of the city submerged and in chaos, and it was Louisiana's governor, also a Democrat, who was slow to call out the National Guard. Slow on purpose, many would say. In reality, Bush's response was about as effective as it could have been, given the inept response at the local level.

But George Bush failed when he crumbled in response to media criticism and flew to New Orleans to abase himself in front of the cameras at Jackson Square. There he apologized to the black community and promised billions in reparations for what that community had gone through. It made no difference: the left hated him even more. But by demeaning himself in this way, Bush lost what support he still had on the right.

President Trump faces a similar moment, but his response has been just the opposite. In the wake of the Floyd protests, the president has defended law and order. He has defended business owners and police at a time when Democrats are claiming that reliance on the police is a form of "white privilege."

So when a violent criminal is breaking into my house and I call 911, that's "white privilege," and I should just let myself be robbed and murdered?

This is the crucial moment of the Trump presidency, but not in the way the media have framed it. By standing his ground and resisting calls for change, the president will win another term. Conservatives are watching Trump's response with intense interest because in defending law and order, he is defending us as well. Conservatives know that they have nothing to apologize for. It is the rioters, looters, and killers in the streets, including many young white radicals, who should be apologizing  and they should apologize from inside a prison cell.

Despite a recent Quinnipiac poll showing that 51% of Americans believe that the president is a racist, conservatives know that he is not and that racism is not a systemic problem in America. Nor do they believe that the police response in George Floyd's arrest was typical of policing in this country. Conservatives know that a disproportionate level of crime exists in black sections of American cities, and they believe that the problem lies with criminals, not the police. Policing broke down in the case of George Floyd because police in Minneapolis operate under a Democrat administration that appears to have exercised little control of its force. A well run police force is not going to retain an officer who has 17 serious complaints on his record.

Conservatives know that the Floyd case has been blown out of all proportion by the media for political purposes. We are tired of hearing that Floyd was a saint who was the victim of systemic racism. He was not. He was a repeat offender and drug-user who was the unfortunate victim of incompetent and perhaps criminal policing. There is a problem, I believe, in Minneapolis and other Democrat-run cities, but Larry Kudlow was right when he said on Wednesday that the U.S. does not have a problem with systemic racism.

The only real solution to the violence in our cities is for criminals to stop committing crimes, and for that, young men must be brought up differently. Black males, on average, commit seven times the number of murders as do those in the general population, and blacks themselves are six times as likely to be victims. It is the criminals who are responsible for the violence in our country, not the police.

It would help if black leaders like the Rev. Al Sharpton would acknowledge this fact. Instead, as he did in his eulogy for George Floyd, Sharpton maintains that the problems blacks face are the fault of whites. "Ever since 401 years ago, the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed to being is you kept your knee on our neck," he declared.

Nowhites don't have their "knee on your neck." The fact is that with affirmative action blacks have opportunities denied to whites. Blacks go to the head of the line at school and in the workplace, but apparently that's not enough.

Now some are asking for a lump sum in reparations and for community self-policing outside the control of state, city, or federal government, as well as for abolishing the police everywhere so that criminals can rob, rape, and murder with impunity. How much farther do we have to go before we realize that the solution is for all of us to adhere to the same civilized rules?

Fortunately, President Trump has been unwavering in his opposition to the left's radical proposals. He has pointed clearly to the source of the violence. He has been ready to assist cities in putting down riots, and he is insisting on prosecution of those responsible for violence.

Most importantly, he has not given in to the demands of protestors and critics. Conservatives expect President Trump to defend what is right, and they know that the looting and rioting are not our fault or the president's. He must act in a manner that makes that clear. If the president stands his ground, he will retain the conservative vote in November and win re-election.

The Floyd case need not be President Trump's Katrina. Only by abasing himself, apologizing, or offering reparations can he make it so. All he need do to retain conservative support is to stick to the truth: Americans are not racists, American police are overwhelmingly honest and decent, and America offers more opportunity and freedom for all its people than any nation on Earth.

So far, the president has stuck to his guns, despite pressure from the left. By doing so, he will retain his conservative base and win re-election in the fall.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.
She is an advocate for body confidence and uses her social media platform to encourage other women to love the skin they're in.

And Malin Andersson was doing her bit for the cause once again with a series of posts uploaded to Instagram on Monday.

The former Love Islander, 27, showcased her incredible curves as she slipped into a white lace lingerie set, which accentuated her ample assets.

Flawless: Malin Andersson, 27, showcased her incredible curves with a series of posts to Instagram on Monday

She wore her cropped brunette locks in loose curls as she gazed playfully toward the camera.

The TV personality uploaded the first photo alongside a candid caption that read: 'Dear Malin, I promise to always be good to you.

'To look after your body. To nourish it well, to be kind to it. To be kind to your mind.

Strike a pose: The former Love Islander sizzled as she slipped into a white lace lingerie set, which accentuated her ample assets

Candid: The TV personality uploaded the first photo alongside a candid caption that began: 'Dear Malin, I promise to always be good to you'

'And to always treat you with respect. For you deserve it. Love Malin [pink heart emoji].'

On the second sultry snap she added: 'A serious one too. Cos sometimes Im serious. I just dont take life seriously.'

Malin then uploaded another slew of racy snaps to her story in the same flattering ensemble as she danced around the house.

It comes just days after Malin joked that the reality of wearing a crop top is very different to the final picture that gets posted on her social media channels.

Beautiful: Malin then uploaded another slew of racy snaps to her story in the same flattering ensemble as she danced around the house

Support: Malin continues to be an advocate for body confidence and uses her social media platform to encourage other women to love the skin they're in

In the clip, Malin jumped around and giggled while squeezing her tummy and saying: 'The reality of wearing a crop top'.

Malin looked stunning in the neutral two-piece, which considered of a straight cut crop top and matching leggings, which she wore with black sliders.

The reality star wore her raven locks in a chic French plait, and highlighted her pretty features with a glamorous coat of make-up.

Candid: It comes just days after Malin joked that the reality of wearing a crop top is very different to the final picture that gets posted on her social media channels

She captioned the video: 'Looks hella' nice when you pose with it on, but REALITY SAYSSSSS OTHERWISE!'

Malin's fans praised her for her honestly in the caption of the snap, with one writing: 'You are really beautiful and you really never fail to make my day brighter and you cheer me up xx'

While another said: 'I love following you honestly your amazing.'

A third added: 'You're so real! and no photoshop BS  love you beautiful xx.'

Playful: In the clip, Malin jumped around and giggled while squeezing her tummy and saying: 'The reality of wearing a crop top'
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20+ concept has just surfaced on YouTube, and was created by Waqar Khan. Mr. Khan is known for his smartphone concept designs, and the latest one shows off his solution fo the design of the Galaxy Note 20+.

This is just a third party concept, so keep that in mind, its not a leak or anything of the sort. Based on rumors and leaks, however, the final Galaxy Note 20+ design may look very similar to this.

As you can see, the phone does resemble the Galaxy Note 10 series from the front. The device includes very thin bezels, with a centered display camera hole. Its display is curved, but that curve is not too pronounced.

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The top and bottom sides of this Galaxy Note 20+ concept are flat

The top and bottom sides of the phone are completely flat, while the design is proportional in general. The back of the device is covered by glass, and the same goes for the front, of course.

The phone includes either four or five cameras on the back. It seems like there are four, plus the laser autofocus, plus an LED flash. All of those sensors are included in the same camera module, which sits in the top-left corner of the phones back.

The designer also showed off the S Pen stylus in this video, and images. It doesnt look all that different than last years stylus, and it does have a button on the side.

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The designer showed off a ton of color options here. Do note that the phone will probably arrive in only a couple of them, but there are eight showed off in the provided video.

This Galaxy Note 20+ concept comes in black, gray, gold, light blue, purple, green, white, and pink color options. If only smartphone manufacturers released every flagship phone in so many color options.

The real Galaxy Note 20+ is expected to arrive in August. To be more precise, its rumored to arrive on August 5. The phone will launch alongside the Galaxy Note 20, and Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, it seems.

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The Galaxy Z Flip 5G & Fold 2 will launch alongside the Galaxy Note 20 series

Thats not all, though. The Galaxy Z Flip 5G and Galaxy Fold 2 are also said to be coming during that press conference. Samsung is rumored to organize an online-only press conference for these devices.

The Galaxy Note 20+ will probably offer a more compelling camera setup than the regular variant. The Ultra model is expected to ship with a periscope camera on the back, unlike the two other models.

The Galaxy Note 20+ will be the model most people will be interested in, quite probably. Consumers may surprise us, though, as they did with the Galaxy S20 series, as the Ultra was the most popular device.
Editor's note: The military launched an investigation into allegations that Vanessa Guillen, who vanished from her post at Fort Hood earlier this year was sexually harassed, officials said Thursday. As of this week, the reward for information leading to her whereabouts is up to $50,000.

A reward of up to $50,000 is now being offered for credible information leading to the whereabouts of missing Fort Hood soldier Private First Class Vanessa Guillen, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command announced.

Vanessa Guillen

As a nationwide search continues nearly two months after the 20-year-old disappeared, actress Salma Hayek, a congresswoman and a Latino advocacy organization have joined an effort to keep attention on Vanessas case.

Vanessa, a small-arms repairer with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, was last seen between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on April 22, 2020, in the parking lot of her Regimental Engineer Squadron Headquarters, in Fort Hood, Texas, according to a press release issued by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command.

Vanessas car keys, barracks room key, identification card and wallet were later found in the armory room where she had been working earlier in the day. Her cell phone is also missing.

In a press release emailed to Dateline on Monday, Army CID Chief of Public Affairs spokesman Chris Grey announced that the CID has increased the reward for credible information leading to Vanessas whereabouts from $15,000 up to $25,000.

We are completely committed to finding Vanessa and aggressively going after every single piece of credible information and every lead in this investigation, Grey said. We will not stop until we find Vanessa.

Vanessa Guillen

Vanessa, who is originally from Houston, Texas, has remained close with her family, including her sister, Mayra Guillen. Mayra told Dateline her sister knew she wanted to join the Army right after graduating high school and was excited to serve her country. She said Vanessa had plans to serve her four years and then go to school for kinesiology.

Story continues

We last spoke by text the day before she disappeared, Mayra told Dateline. She was talking about a car she wanted for her birthday, which is in September. Everything was fine and normal. And now, everything is a nightmare.

Mayra told Dateline that on the day of her sisters disappearance, Vanessa had texted her boyfriend to say she was going into work but she would text back as soon as she could.

But that text never came, Mayra said. And no one has seen or heard from her since.

Mayra told Dateline that Vanessa had previously expressed to their mother, Gloria Guillen, that she felt unsafe at Fort Hood and that a sergeant had been sexually harassing her. Mayra said Vanessa never identified that person and never reported the incidents to the Armys Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program.

Something weird was going there, Mayra said. Vanessa was afraid. And now she's gone. But I do know that she wouldnt have just left on her own without telling anyone. She would have at least told me.

On Thursday, military officials announced that they have launched an investigation into allegations that Vanessa was sexually harassed.

I take allegations of sexual harassment very seriously and we are conducting a thorough investigation, Col. Col. Ralph Overland, commander of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, said. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment continues to aggressively search for Pfc. Guillen and will not stop until we find her.

In a statement released by Fort Hood, officials said that the Army commander of Private First Class Vanessa Guillens regiment had appointed an investigative team to examine the allegations.

In a statement released on June 10, authorities said numerous special agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command have frequently called and met with members of the Guillen family from the date Vanessa was first reported missing.

But Mayra told Dateline their family is frustrated with the lack of information and is pushing for the FBI to take over the case from Army CID.

"This happened inside a federal building and we're still not getting answers," Mayra said at a press conference last week after military authorities provided updates on the search.

Its just really difficult because of the Armys jurisdiction, Mayra told Dateline. We are thankful for everything that is being done, but I am pushing for a bigger investigation.

CID spokesman Chris Grey, who confirmed that more than 150 people have been interviewed, said, We are working very closely with multiple law enforcement agencies to include the FBI, Belton Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, as well as others. Grey added, We have also partnered with Texas EquuSearch and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to tap into their resources as well. We have participated in ground and air searches on Fort Hood and throughout the Central Texas region.

The search for Vanessa sparked national attention after the family launched a Find Vanessa Guillen campaign on social media.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, tweeted that her office is working directly with the family to #FindVanessa.

Its been nearly 50 days since #VanessaGuillen has been seen. My team is committed to the movement to #FindVanessa, wrote another elected official, State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Texas, in a Facebook post.

According to NBCNews.com, community groups such as immigrant rights organization FIEL in Houston and LULAC, the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., have joined the family in peaceful demonstrations.

The president of the League of United Latin American Citizens said Tuesday that the advocacy group is offering another $25,000.

Actress Salma Hayek joined the effort this week by posting a message on Instagram saying, Bring back Vanessa . We wont stop until you come back.

Hayek also pledged to put Vanessas photo on my stories everyday until she is found.

Army CID and Fort Hood continue to seek the publics help for information.

We know somebody out there has some very critical information pertaining to this investigation and we strongly encourage you to do the right thing and come forward, Grey said. Do it for Vanessa and do it for her family, friends and fellow soldiers.

Vanessa is five feet, two inches tall, 126 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. She has the tattoo of a cross with a flower on her left arm, another flower also on the left arm, and a mountain with a circle on her upper left shoulder. She has a small mole between her lower mouth, and her chin. Vanessa was last seen wearing a black t-shirt and purple fitness-type pants.

Im never going to stop searching for my sister, Mayra told Dateline. There are days where I just want to vanish myself. But I cant. I have to hold on to hope that she's OK and that shes going to be home safe soon.

Anyone with information about Vanessas whereabouts is urged to contact Army CID Special Agents at 254-287-2722 or the Military Police Desk at 254-288-1170. They can also anonymously submit information at https://www.cid.army.mil/report-a-crime.html.
Singapore will allow most businesses to reopen on Friday as the hard-hit city-state further eases its coronavirus restrictions. But potential "super-spreader" venues such as cinemas, bars and nightclubs will stay closed despite infection rates remaining stable for the past two weeks, officials said Monday. Singapore initially kept the virus in check with a strict regime of testing and contact tracing, only for serious outbreaks to emerge later in dormitories housing low-paid migrant workers. It now has the highest recorded number of infections in Southeast Asia with over 40,000 cases, mostly among foreign workers. The death toll stands at 26. Authorities have been gradually easing a partial lockdown imposed in early April that forced schools and most workplaces to close and people to stay home unless they were going out for a good reason. At the start of June some were allowed to return to work and school as part of a three-stage relaxation. From Friday the "vast majority" of businesses can resume operations as long as safe distancing rules are in place, said Lawrence Wong, a cabinet minister who is a key figure in Singapore's fight against the COVID-19 outbreak. Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said the number of infections in the community "has remained stable and under control" for the past two weeks and the number of new cases in migrant workers' dorms has also declined. Social gatherings of up to five people will also be allowed from Friday, but individuals should stay one metre (three feet) apart from each other. People will be allowed to eat at restaurants, but live music and TV will not be allowed to be played as the noise can cause people to speak more loudly and spread droplets from their mouths.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:36:24|Editor: huaxia

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File photo taken on Feb. 20, 2020 shows a Huawei product and solution launch event in London, Britain. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A document newly released by a Canadian court on the arrest of Meng Wanzhou shows yet again the case is a "serious political incident," and reveals the U.S. political calculations to purposefully suppress Huawei and other Chinese high-tech companies, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Monday.

Zhao Lijian made the remarks when asked to comment on media reports concerning a memo disclosed by a Canadian court Friday, which indicated that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) received advance warning from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Dec. 1, 2018 of their plan to arrest Meng later that day.

The CSIS memo reportedly said the United States would refrain from taking part in the arrest to avoid being seen to exert influence. The lawyers for Meng said the memo reveals the CSIS' intentional cover-up of FBI involvement, and that documents have been disclosed showing the FBI's frequent contact with Canadian law-enforcement authorities.

China's Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou leaves her residence for the extradition hearing in Vancouver, Canada, Jan. 20, 2020. (Photo by Harrison Ha/Xinhua)

"The relevant document shows once again that the whole Meng Wanzhou case is a serious political incident. It speaks volumes about the U.S. political calculations to purposefully suppress Huawei and other Chinese high-tech companies," Zhao said, adding that Canada has acted as an "accomplice" to the United States.

The spokesperson said that China is firm in its resolve to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and enterprises.

"We once again urge Canada to take China's solemn position and concerns seriously, immediately release Meng and ensure her safe return to China, and not to go further down the wrong path," Zhao added.

Meng, Huawei's chief financial officer, was arrested on Dec. 1, 2018 at Vancouver International Airport at the request of the United States, which is seeking her extradition on fraud charges. Both Meng and Huawei have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. 


As China pushes back against pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong, Taiwan is preparing to receive possibly thousands of people fleeing the city.

Anti-government protests in Hong Kong have won deep sympathy in democratic Taiwan. But Taiwan does not have a lot of experience with refugees. It is also worried about Chinese spies who might try to join them.

Taiwan was established in 1949, when Chinese Nationalists fled to the island and set up a government after losing to communist forces taking over Chinas mainland. The Peoples Republic of China does not recognize the government of Taiwan.

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when it was returned to China. At the time, both Britain and China agreed to respect Hong Kongs democracy.

Taiwans President Tsai Ing-wen last month became the first government leader to promise to help Hong Kong people who leave because of tightening Chinese controls. China has written new national security legislation that many see as undemocratic. In Hong Kong, there have been large anti-China demonstrations for more than a year.

China denies it is anti-democratic and has condemned Tsais offer to Hong Kong people.

Taiwan is working on a humanitarian aid plan for the new arrivals, officials say. The plan would include money for living needs and housing, a government official told Reuters.

Hong Kong no doubt is a priority for Tsai, another Taiwanese official told the news agency.



No one knows how many people might flee. But Taiwan does not expect the number to be greater than the thousands who came from then-South Vietnam during the communist takeover in the 1970s.

Nearly 200 Hong Kong people have fled to Taiwan since protests began last year. So far, about 10 percent have been given visas under a law that protects activists from Hong Kong, said Shih Yi-hsiang. He is with the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

For now, very few are making the move since Taiwan has barred all new arrivals to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Shih expects the number to increase when the ban is lifted.

Taiwan is very worried that China will send in spies pretending to be activists from Hong Kong. Taiwans government was looking for experts to help research peoples history in an effort to prevent spies from entering, one official said.

Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office did not answer a request for comment.

A Taipei-based Western diplomat told Reuters that Taiwan was most likely to get the most extreme protesters and those with little money. Those with money, he said, would probably choose to go to other countries such as Canada or Britain.

Tyrant Lau was released last month from an eight-month sentence in Hong Kong for possession of weapons. He welcomed Tsais offer. He said he wants to go to Taiwan because of its democracy and low cost of living.

Its the only hope for protesters who cant afford moving to other places, he said in Hong Kong. He is waiting for the border to open.

I hope I can live a normal life in Taiwan. Ive forgotten what a normal life is like.

Im Susan Shand.

The Reuters News Agency reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English. Bryan Lynn was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

doubt  n. to believe something is probably not true

priority n. the most important thing

pretend v. to make believe or to act falsely

afford  v. to have the money to pay for something
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah asked all political parties to bury their differences and join hands in the battle against coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The Union Minister also announced during the meeting that coronavirus testing will be made available to everyone in the national capital.

"United face of all political parties will enhance people's trust and COVID-19 situation in Delhi will be soon normal," he stated.

The meeting was held in the wake of a spurt in novel coronavirus cases in Delhi. While Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain gave a miss to today's all-party meet convened by Amit Shah and Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was represented by party MLA Sanjay Singh. Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party and BJP members too attended the meet.

Shah appealed to the four parties to ask their workers to help in ensuring the ground implementation of the Delhi government's coronavirus guidelines. "These steps will enhance public trust and the COVID-19 situation in Delhi will improve soon. We will have to increase COVID-19 testing in Delhi by adopting new solutions," PTI quoted him stating at the meeting.

Amit Shah also apprised the leaders of the steps taken to check the coronavirus pandemic and sought their views on the issue, a home ministry official said.

More than 41,000 people in the national capital are infected with coronavirus while 1,300 have lost their lives due to the lethal infection.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 17:40:33|Editor: huaxia

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KABUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Police (ANP) operations team has arrested 10 suspects and seized narcotics in six provinces of the country's 34 provinces, the Afghan Ministry of Interior said Monday.

The officers of the ANP's crime reduction unit arrested six people on stealing vehicles and a big sum of cash in Kabul, Ghazni and Balkh provinces. They confiscated two vehicles and one weapon from the arrested people, a statement said.

The Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) which is part of ANP confiscated 2,040 liters of formic acid which is used in the production of drugs particularly crystal in Nimroz province.

The CNPA also arrested four suspects for trafficking of a large amount of crystal and hashish in Laghman and Khost provinces, according to the statement.

After initial investigations, the CNPA handed over the cases to the Central Narcotics Tribunal or CNT, a special Afghan court for jurisdiction of major drug cases, the statement added.

Further investigation is underway. Enditem
Prices that will save the UK consumer an average of 80% vs. other brands will mean that CBD Supplements can now be 'For Everyone,' as BRITISH CANNABIS launches ACCESS CBD

WOKINGHAM, England, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BRITISH CANNABIS, the UK's largest producer, manufacturer and distributor of legal cannabis-derived products, has unveiled ACCESS CBD - a range of great tasting CBD oils, made with high quality ingredients and industry-leading reliability yet 80% cheaper than market average prices.

Overnight, the release of ACCESS CBD will bring CBD (Cannabidiol), a legal-to-take, non-psychoactive element of the cannabis plant, within the reach of consumers with any budget. ACCESS CBD will cost on average only 1.49 per 100mg of active CBD ingredient, setting a new affordable price point for CBD in the UK.

The UK's lowest ever prices for quality CBD oils , in four strengths and three natural flavours: Natural with terpenes, Citrus and Berry. RRPs:

- 5.99 for 300mg

- 9.99 for 600mg

- 16.99 for 1200mg

- 29.99 for 2400mg

, in four strengths and three natural flavours: Natural with terpenes, Citrus and Berry. RRPs: - 5.99 for 300mg - 9.99 for 600mg - 16.99 for 1200mg - 29.99 for 2400mg Great tasting, natural flavours

No-nonsense packaging

A 40 Point Quality Assurance check

Publicly available test reports via on pack QR

Certified THC-Free status

Compliant FSA's Novel Foods regulations

Made in England by BRITISH CANNABIS

A Price Promise for the consumer

10% of profits donated to NHS charities

BRITISH CANNABIS CEO, Tom Whettem, celebrates this radical new launch by commenting:

"We wanted to move the CBD industry forward into the mainstream and break down the barriers that may be holding some people back from adopting CBD supplements long term. ACCESS CBD is gimmick-free, high quality, low priced CBD leading the way in transparency and reliability. This is our way of providing the UK public with a CBD supplement brand they can be proud of. ACCESS CBD is truly 'CBD for Everyone.'"

More info: https://accesscbd.uk

Instagram: @accesscbduk

Facebook: ACCESSCBDUK

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9GMcBEWwgvHk0piuT3ISCA/featured

Twitter: ACCESSCBDUK

For further information, more images or interviews with Tom Whettem, please contact:

Richard Stevenson

RSPR Media Solutions

+44-(0)1797-360481

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richrd@rspr.co.uk
An 88-year-old man who tried to kill himself and his wife days before they were to be separated because of her worsening dementia has been spared prison by a judge who granted him mercy.

Joseph Sugar injected himself and wife Heather with large doses of his medication on a Saturday night in December 2018 at their Hawthorn East aged care home, in the hope of ending their lives peacefully.

Mrs Sugar's health had deteriorated since she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2013 and she was due to be moved to a specialist ward at an another aged care facility.

Mr Sugar woke on the Sunday morning to discover his plan was unsuccessful as both he and his wife of more than 50 years were alive, although she was unconscious. He called for help and later that day was charged with attempted murder, and spent three days in hospital under police guard.

On Monday Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth granted Mr Sugar mercy by not sending him to jail. He pleaded guilty and prosecutors did not seek a prison term, citing three similar cases where husbands tried to kill their seriously unwell wives out of mercy, and were all spared jail.
Unlike the grand celebration previously held at the Linshui Palace Ancestor Temple in Gutian over the years, people and believers are able to "watch the festival and pray on the cloud" at their homes this year. At the same time, in the live streaming anchor marketing campaign that is newly launched this year, the Linshui cultural and creative products jointly created by the Gutian County Government and the design team of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in Jiangxi will be debuted.

With a history of thousands of years, the Chen Jinggu folklore belief culture originated from the Linshui Palace Ancestor Temple in Gutian has become an important part of the Fuzhou Culture and the Maritime Silk Road Culture and grown into an influential world cultural phenomenon in the Chinese communities around the world. As the birthplace of the Chen Jinggu folklore belief culture popular across the world and the ancestor temple of all sub-branches of the Linshui Palace at home and abroad, the Linshui Palace in Gutian has further enhanced its influence and cohesion by hosting the Chen Jinggu Culture (Tourism) Festivals over the years.

Image Attachments Links:

Link: http://asianetnews.net/view-attachment?attach-id=365323

Caption: Chen Jinggu Cultural Festival 2020 Webcast event was held in Gutian County

SOURCE The Publicity Department of CPC Gutian County Committee
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The second coronavirus vaccine made in Britain is on track to start human trials as soon as Wednesday, and could cost just 3 per person if it's proven to work.

Imperial College London scientists expect approval for the first phase of human trials - which will check if their vaccine is safe - to come through today.

The first 120 participants will be given the jab about 48 hours later after scientists have checked they haven't already had the coronavirus.

Professor Robin Shattock, who has been in charge of developing the jab candidate, said the team want to make it as cheap as possible so the entire British population could be vaccinated for the 'really good value' of just under 200million.

The Imperial project already has enough money to produce enough of the vaccine for the entire NHS and all social care workers.

If the trial starting this week is successful a second one, involving 6,000 people, will come later. But Professor Shattock said the vaccine won't be available until at least 2021 even if everything goes according to plan.

The first UK-made vaccine to go into clinical trials was developed by Oxford University, and the Government hopes it will be ready by September.

The second coronavirus vaccine from Britain is on track to start human trials as soon as Wednesday, and could cost as little as 3 per person if proven to work (stock image)

Professor Robin Shattock (pictured), who is heading up trials of the potential jab, estimates the British population could be covered for a 'really good value' of about 200million

Speaking to The Times, Professor Shattock said: 'We already have money from the government to make five million doses  that would cover 2.5million people.

'That is enough for the entire health service and for care home workers.

'But we also have the capacity, should we be called upon, to make enough vaccine for all the adult population in the UK.'

He estimated the vaccine would be 'roughly 3 for each person to be immune, assuming it works. Thats really good value.'

Imperial has formed a new social enterprise called VacEquity Global Health (VGH) to develop its vaccine.

Imperial and VGH will waive royalties for the UK and low-income countries 'and charge only modest cost-plus prices to sustain the enterprise's work, accelerate global distribution and support new research', the College said in a statement.

What is the difference between the vaccines being developed by Oxford University and Imperial College? The science behind both vaccine attempts hinges on recreating the 'spike' proteins that are found all over the outside of the COVID-19 viruses. Both will attempt to recreate or mimic these spikes inside the body. The difference between the two is how they achieve this effect. Imperial College London will try to deliver genetic material (RNA) from the coronavirus which programs cells inside the patient's body to recreate the spike proteins. It will transport the RNA inside liquid droplets injected into the bloodstream. The team at the University of Oxford, on the other hand, will genetically engineer a virus to look like the coronavirus - to have the same spike proteins on the outside - but be unable to cause any infection inside a person. This virus, weakened by genetic engineering, is a type of virus called an adenovirus, the same as those which cause common colds, that has been taken from chimpanzees. If the vaccines can successfully mimic the spikes inside a person's bloodstream, and stimulate the immune system to create special antibodies to attack it, this could train the body to destroy the real coronavirus if they get infected with it in future. The same process is thought to happen in people who catch COVID-19 for real, but this is far more dangerous - a vaccine will have the same end-point but without causing illness in the process. Advertisement

'The social enterprise's mission is to rapidly develop vaccines to prevent SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) infection and distribute them as widely as possible in the UK and overseas, including to low- and middle-income countries,' it said.

The technology used to make Imperial College London's vaccine makes it easy to scale up production rapidly.

The team have taken the sequence for the surface protein of the virus, a tiny amount of genetic material known as RNA.

They would inject the genetic code into a person's muscle - such as their arm - inside fat droplets.

The muscle cells are then told by the RNA to start expressing high levels of the coat proteins of the virus.

This creates the illusion of the virus inside the body. Because the outside of the coronavirus is present in the body, the immune system thinks the whole virus is there and starts to attack it. But the segments that are in the body are incomplete and unable to cause any illness.

After the immune system has reacted to something once, it should store the memory of how to do so in antibodies.

If these antibodies are produced, and remain in the body, someone can be considered protected from the virus in future.

It is hoped that if a person who receives the inoculation then contracts the coronavirus, they will be protected against COVID-19.

Because the piece of RNA is so tiny, a relatively small batch of them could be enough to vaccinate millions of people.

'In the equivalent of a litre bottle of lemonade [of RNA], we can make up to two million doses,' Professor Shattock said at a Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) webinar last week.

'Thats very different to conventional approaches that might need 10,000 litres or more to make the same number of vaccines.

'The advantage is we can make a lot of vaccine very quickly.'

The other leading British vaccine candidate, from University of Oxford, uses a different approach.

Known as a recombinant viral vector vaccine, researchers place genetic material from the coronavirus into another virus, called an adenovirus, thats been modified.

They will then inject the virus into a human, hoping to produce an immune response against SARS-CoV-2 but not illness.

This could train the body to destroy the real coronavirus if they get infected with it in future.

The Oxford vaccine, called AZD1222, has been in human trials since April 23, while Imperial's trials are expected to start today.

The first 300 participants to be given the jab will be used to check the vaccine is safe in humans, having proven to be safe in animals.

A larger trial, involving about 6,000 people, will follow in October. The results wouldn't be available until early 2021, the team believe.

How the vaccines from Imperial College London and Oxford University would work

The results from Oxford's trial are expected in August at the earliest, but could be stalled because the level of infection in the UK is lower than before.

Despite the long list of processes ahead of the Oxford vaccine - including publication of data which needs to be validated by regulators - steps have been taken to get the vaccine ready by the autumn of this year.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said in May the Government is hoping to be in a position to roll-out a mass vaccination programme in the autumn of this year.

Drug firm AstraZeneca has secured a deal with the Oxford team to manufacture the vaccine.

Pascal Soriot, chief executive of Cambridge-based AstraZeneca, said mass production has already started at factories in India, Oxford, Switzerland and Norway.

OXFORD TEAM TESTING VACCINE IN BRAZIL BECAUSE THERE ARE SO FEW CASES IN THE UK The University of Oxford announced this month that it will test its vaccine candidate in Brazil. Falling levels of the virus circulating in Britain, where the outbreak is fading, means it will be increasingly difficult to test the vaccine because there is nothing to test it against. In Brazil, however, Covid-19 cases are still rising rapidly and its outbreak is second only to the US, with 868,000 confirmed diagnoses and over 43,000 dead. The vaccine will be tested on 2,000 people working in healthcare environments between the ages of 18 and 55, said the Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is in charge of the study. The president of the university, Soraya Smaili, said the volunteers 'must be health professionals between 18 and 55 years old and be at high risk of infection, for example, cleaning and support staff in units treating COVID-19 patients'. Professor Smaili added the vaccine was being tested in Brazil 'ecause we are in the acceleration phase of the epidemiological curve'. Britain, on the other hand, is coming out the other side of its peak and case numbers are declining, meaning it will be hard to measure the effects of a vaccine because so few people are getting infected. Advertisement

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme he said: 'We are starting to manufacture this vaccine right now. And we have to have it ready to be used by the time we have the results.'

A deal has been was signed to produce 100million doses of Oxford's vaccine for the UK - 30million of which will be ready by September if it is proven to work.

AstraZeneca has agreed to supply a coalition of European nations with 400million doses of a vaccine.

It made the agreement with the Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), which includes France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

The IVA was formed this month in order to give its members 'a stronger negotiating position in the race for a coronavirus vaccine', according to a statement from the Netherlands government.

Both the Oxford University and Imperial College London vaccine projects are viewed as two of the world's 'frontrunners'.

But Professor Shattock said there are 'quite a lot of differences' between the vaccines developed by Imperial and Oxford.

Professor Shattock said: 'We are often pitted against each other or seen to be in race.

'But actually we are collaborating closely together and exchanging material. The two approaches may well be able to be used together in a prime boost approach.

'So we are not actually trying to beat each other, but work together to make a vaccine available in the fastest possible time.'

Professor Shattock added: 'There is no guarantee or certainty that A; a vaccine will work, and B; that data is reliable and robust enough to get it licensed.

'There is a lot of speculation. We really need to deal with facts and data rather than overpromising and under delivering.'
Harry and Meghan's British Columbia stay cost Canadian taxpayers more than $40,000 USD after the couple fled to Canada in wake of Megxit, according to RCMP documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The cost of protecting the couple during their two month stay came to $56,384.52 Canadian dollars, or more than $40,000 US dollars.

Harry and Meghan's security and who will pay for it has been a subject of much debate. In March it was reported that the couple had left Canada to set up home in California and they are now living at tycoon Tyler Perry's mansion in Los Angeles.

The figures, obtained by Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a taxpayer advocacy group, show the cost between November 18, 2019 and January 19 this year; it does not include fees after that.

And the bill does not include the salaries paid to the Mounties; it shows extra costs including overtime, travel and meals.

Policing for the couple is understood to have continued until March 14. In a statement a spokesman for the RCMP said: 'For security reasons and to protect our operations, we are not releasing salary costs. Security costs for protection are covered through the existing operational budget.

But National Division commanding officer Bernadine Chapman wrote in emails on January 10: 'We are having a greater conversation next week on the go forward on this. This has a potential to cost us huge!'

Harry and Meghan's decision to move to California came following the news the Canadian authorities would not contribute to the cost of protecting them with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after March 31.

It is unclear who is paying for their security bill in the US, though friends of the Sussexes say the couple would be paying for protecting out of their own pocket.

Harry and Meghan's security and who will pay for it has been a subject of much debate. The couple are pictured arriving back into Canada in February

Pictures taken in January had shown Meghan as she was followed by two royal protection officers on a walk through the Horth Hill Regional Park near the opulent Vancouver Island mansion they were living in

In March it was reported Prince Charles will also make 2million contribution to their 4million-a-year security bill. Donald Trump had tweeted to say US taxpayers would not contribute towards protecting them.

'The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have no plans to ask the U.S. Government for security resources,' a Sussex spokesman said. 'Privately funded security arrangements have been made.'

It was unclear whether this meant UK taxpayers would no longer have to contribute towards any future bill.

Last month it was reported the couple had hired an exclusive A-list security firm to protect them for 7,000 per day.

The couple are said to be using the firm also used by a slew of A-listers, including Jeff Bezos and Tom Hanks.

The team watching the royals in LA is believed to have been handpicked by Gavin de Becker, 65  a former security chief for President Ronald Reagan.

Canada's prime minister Justin Trudeau had tweeted before Christmas that Harry, Meghan and Archie 'were among friends, and always welcome here'.

But the Mounties said they would no longer pay for their security after their status as working members of the royal family came to an end in March.

Nearly three quarters of Canadians surveyed in January said they did not want to pay for their move to the country or to pay for their security arrangements.

After the figures were made public Canadian Taxpayers Federation spokesman Aaron Wudrick said: 'For months, the Trudeau government refused to even acknowledge Canadian taxpayers were on the hook for Harry and Meghan's security costs. Now we know the answer is yes  to the tune of at least $50,000.'

Prince Harry arrives at Victoria International Airport in Victoria, British Columbia

The cost of protecting the couple during came to $56,384.52 Canadian dollars. That's the total cost between November 18, 2019 and January 19 this year

The couple left Canada for LA and are now living tycoon Tyler Perry's mansion

Pictures taken in January had shown Meghan as she was followed by two royal protection officers on a walk through the Horth Hill Regional Park near the opulent Vancouver Island mansion they were living in.

The Duke and Duchess are now understood to be looking to buy the home in the famous 90210 zip code, which is complete with a 'granny annex' for her mother Doria to live in.

The UK and US have a long standing reciprocal agreement when it comes to bodyguards protecting diplomats and members of the royal family.

President Trump's Secret Service agents would have been allowed to carry their weapons on his state visit and likewise bodyguards for the Queen and Prince Charles when they made official trips to the US.

Having left the royal family the usual rules no longer apply to Harry and he would need to rely on President Trump to make an exception.

But the President tweeted in March to say US taxpayers would not contribute towards protecting them.

Harry and Meghan have been clear from the beginning that they wish to 'stand on their own feet' and there are already lucrative contracts in the pipeline, including one with the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The couple have been spotted only a handful of times since their move to Los Angeles, first volunteering for a local charity dropping off food to locals who are more at-risk of catching coronavirus, as well as taking their beloved dogs out for a walk.

It is unclear who is paying for the security bill in the US, though friends of the Sussexes say the couple would be paying for protecting out of their own pocket

Meghan was this week dragged into best friend Jessica Mulroney's race row after the Canadian 'threatened' a black social media influencer in an argument over white privilege.

Canadian fashion stylist Mulroney, who attended Meghan's wedding to the Duke of Sussex, has now said she is 'stepping back' from social media following an online disagreement with Sasha Exeter.

The controversy has seen the CTV network remove Mulroney's reality show I Do, Redo from its channels, saying her 'recent conduct... conflicts with our commitment to diversity and equality'.

Mulroney frequently appeared on Meghan's Instagram page, before it was closed as the former actress prepared to join the Royal Family.

But Meghan Markle is said to be 'absolutely mortified' with her best friend's 'tone-deaf' threats and can 'no longer be associated with her'

A source told Dailymail.com: 'Meghan is absolutely mortified that she's been dragged into this complete mess. She said Jessica is in no way a racist, but the way she handled the situation (with the fashion influencer) was tone-deaf and heartbreaking'.
ABOUT 300 people gathered in Henley on Tuesday to protest in support of Black Lives Matter.

They assembled in Falaise Square carrying placards and banners to show their support for the movement following waves of protests around the world at the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

The black man was pinned to the ground by a white police officer kneeling on his neck before he died. He has since been charged with second degree murder and manslaughter.

The organiser of the demonstration said it aimed to educate people about systemic racism, white privilege, police brutality and Black Lives Matter. There were speeches throughout the afternoon.

Ella Wandless, 21, from Harpsden, began by appealing to the crowd of mainly young people to observe the 2m social distancing rule and to wear masks.

She provided placards for people if they did not have their own with slogans such as Denying white privilege is a white privilege, Denial is ignorance, ignorance is deadly, The UK is not innocent.

Miss Wandless asked the protesters to join her in chanting Black Lives Matter to begin the protest.

The participants stood 2m apart on blue crosses which had been marked on the ground.

They faced Hart Street and continued to chant for a minute before pausing and then chanting, no justice, no peace.

Drivers in passing cars sounded their horns in a show of support and the crowd cheered.

Miss Wandless invited speakers to use her microphone.

India Holt, 21, from Woodley, said: This is the fight back now but remember that everyone is fighting an issue somewhere and everyone needs a hand.

Thats why were doing what were doing. Dont be afraid. Its really important to come and show our support in Henley.

She talked about witnessing racism when she worked in the town.

Miss Holt said: Theres a lot of people that made jokes or racist remarks and stuff like that and it has become socially acceptable over time but actually its not, especially in a predominantly white culture here in Henley.

Weve got to make sure were putting education systems into schools to learn about black culture and history. We learn about black history for just a couple of weeks of the year and were so heavily involved in our history with the slave trade. We have to take responsibility for the actions that were wrong and tackle racism from a rights perspective.

Others followed and asked why Henley MP John Howell was not present. The protesters chanted Wheres John Howell? and no justice, no peace.

They then marched from Falaise Square towards St Marys Church and then back on the other side of the road. They waved their placards and chanted black lives matter while onlookers applauded.

At 4pm Miss Wandless asked the protesters to take a knee as a gesture against racism for eight minutes and 46 seconds, the length of time Mr Floyd was pinned down before his death.

Everyone remained silent throughout and were joined by Pc Barbara Taylor and three other police officers, who were watching proceedings.

Afterwards everyone applauded and cheered and more speakers were invited to address the crowd.

Shek Sheriff, 25, of Goodall Close, Henley, said: Theres a lot of people who dont understand. Just imagine as a white person you go home and watch a movie like Dunkirk, a movie that makes you feel really amazing about yourself and your people.

And now swap that to a black man going home and having to see a movie about his people from the past and imagine the sadness, pain and anger that most black people feel and the anxiety of coming out every day and facing people.

Hannah Hughes, 25, who is originally from Binfield Heath, said: I think maybe there will be some people in this town that dont understand why this needs to happen here because they think we dont have an issue with race.

But thats partly because its such a white community and racism is a lot more complex than that. I think it needs to be part of the conversation. I find it hard to relate to someone who cant understand this. Theres no way I can understand why someone would not want to be here.

George Anders, 20, from Henley, said: I just wanted to show my support and speak up because our voices need to be heard.

Kanyo Zitha, 19, added: Were part of a community that sticks together in this time. I came to show my support because were much stronger as a unit. For a small town, I didnt expect Henley to actually stand up and it shows that people do react when something needs to happen.

Tristan Arnison, 43, of Kings Road, Henley, attended for his daughter Hermione, four.

He said: I think as a father to a small daughter, its incredibly important for me that she grows up in a world that is for equality and one in which everyone has the same opportunities.

The idea that she might be at an advantage by virtue that shes born white is appalling. I grew up in South Africa during the Seventies and Eighties and silence isnt an option.

I grew up in a system of institutionalised, government-sanctioned racism. While thats not the situation we have here today, issues of systemic racism do run deep.

And its especially important in a town like Henley, where we have a remarkable lack of diversity, to make a statement.

Sophia Rios, 18, of St Marks Road, Henley, made a speech about seeing communities coming together at the London protests and challenging racism.

She said: I come from a mixed family and Im half Spanish. Ive heard so many stereotypes about Latino people being drug dealers and when I hear it, it makes me so angry.

I love that every town is doing something and its just great that people can come out and dont feel embarrassed to stand for what they believe in.

Charlotte Purchas, 57, from Binfield Heath, praised all the speakers for their bravery and addressed Miss Wandless, saying: I want to speak to Ella for how amazingly proud I am of her to stick her neck out in an area like Henley and make it possible for other young people to voice their experiences, possibly for the first time.

 I hope its the first of many times and they go forward in life with that courage which theyve shown today.

Jessica Bowie, 22, of Peppard, also spoke about how being mixed race could hold her back.

She said: In two years time, I will be a doctor, joining the NHS. I am so proud that one day I will achieve a dream I have had for so long.

I also feel fear that, despite entering perhaps one of the most diverse organisations in the UK, I will still be 25 per cent more likely to be investigated by our regulatory body than my white colleagues.

I am more likely to be bullied and less likely to be promoted. To every 1 I earn, my white female colleagues will earn 1.19.

I am five times more likely to die in childbirth and four times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act.

John Howell says we do not live in a racist country. I say it is easy to dismiss something that has never affected you.

Towards the end of the protest a man was led away from Falaise Square by Pc Taylor amid chants of Back Lives Matter from the protesters and some told him to f*** off.

Miss Wandless thanked everyone for attending.

She said: I sincerely hope for a future where we do not discriminate based on skin colour, where schools teach black history with equal reverence to that of white history and where humanity triumphs over ignorance.

Mr Howell said he was given little notice about the protest and could not attend because he was speaking in Parliament

He said Mr Floyds death had, rightly, sparked outrage across the world and he was pleased to see police officers had been charged.

Mr Howell said he did not accept the UK was a racist country, saying: On the contrary, the UK is consistently ranked as one of the least racist places to live in Europe.

I fully admit that we have a long way to go but nevertheless we cant start equating the UK with the US. Its a completely different place with a completely different tradition.

I have always stood up for anti-discrimination and by attacking me they [the protesters] are attacking a friend.
Trump has criticised European powers for falling short of their obligations over Nato spending - AP

Donald Trump said he is cutting the number of American troops in Germany by half because Berlin is "delinquent" in its contributions to Nato and treats the US "badly" on trade.

The US president told reporters there are 52,000 US soldiers stationed in Germany. "It's a tremendous cost to the United States," he said. "So we're removing a number down to, we're putting the number down to 25,000 soldiers."

There are only between 34,000 and 35,000 US soldiers permanently stationed in Germany, according to the Pentagon, although rotation of units mean the overall number can temporarily top 50,000.

US troops have been stationed in the geopolitically vital country since the end of World War II, forming the bulk of the Nato alliance's conventional defence against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The resurgence of Russia's military ambitions under President Vladimir Putin have given the US presence a new importance in the past two decades, with central and eastern European states leading the way in pressuring for stronger US-led defences.

However, Mr Trump said he was reacting to ally Germany's insufficient payments to Nato.

"Germany's delinquent, they've been delinquent for years and they owe Nato billions of dollars, and they have to pay it. So we're protecting Germany and they're delinquent. That doesn't make sense," he said.

There are currently 52,000 US troops in Germany - GETTY IMAGES

Mr Trump has repeatedly accused European Nato members of freeloading on the US by falling short of their commitment to spend at least two percent of GDP on defence.

Senior German politicians expressed concern last week about reports the US was planning to cap troop numbers at around 25,000, which appeared to catch Berlin by surprise.

The plan raised fresh questions about Mr Trump's commitment to longstanding cooperation agreements with European allies, with some observers fearing the move could undermine Nato security.

Story continues

Mr Trump said Germany as the economic powerhouse of the European Union was also to blame because "they treat us very badly on trade."

"We're negotiating with them on that but right now I'm not satisfied with the deal they want to make. They've cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars over the years on trade, so we get hurt on trade and we get hurt on Nato."

He complained that Germany was profiting from the US troop presence.

"Those are well-paid soldiers. They live in Germany, they spend vast amounts of money in Germany. Everywhere around those bases is very prosperous for Germany. So Germany takes."
By Online Desk

Two junior officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad went missing on Monday morning, sources said.

The two personnel went out of the high commission in a vehicle for official duty but did not reach their destination, they said.

They are missing for over two hours, the sources said.

There is no official word on it yet.

The Indian Embassy has taken up the issue with Pakistani authorities.

The incident comes days after India expelled two Pakistan High Commission officials here on charges of espionage.

On May 31, two officials of the Pakistan High Commission were apprehended by law enforcement officials for their alleged involvement in espionage and have been asked to leave the country within 24 hours.

"The government has declared both these officials persona non grata for indulging in activities incompatible with their status as members of a diplomatic mission and asked them to leave the country within twenty-four hours," a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs stated.

According to sources, the two persons have been identified as Abid Hussain and Tahir Khan. While Abid is a resident of Sheikhpura in Punjab, Tahir is a resident of Islamabad.

The duo were apprehended in a joint operation by the Delhi Police and Military Intelligence and were handed over to the MEA. A third Pakistani, a driver with the mission, was also detained during the operation.

Pakistan's Charge de Affaires was issued a demarche and a strong protest was lodged against the two officials whose activities were against India's national security.

"The Pakistan Charge de Affaires was asked to ensure that no member of its diplomatic mission should indulge in activities inimical to India or behave in a manner incompatible with their diplomatic status," the statement added.

Pakistan on the next day summoned a senior Indian diplomat to register strong protest over New Delhi's actions.

Pakistan's Foreign Office (FO) said the Indian Charge d'Affaires was summoned for a "strong demarche", conveying Pakistan's condemnation of the decision to declare two officials of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi persona non grata and rejection of all "baseless" allegations against them.

Pakistan also conveyed that the Indian action was in "clear violation" of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the diplomatic norms.

(With PTI Inputs)
Most governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and have mandated that schools and universities introduce distance learning programs. In a short period of time, institutions have had to grapple with integrating information technology into their educational systems in order to provide a user experience consistent with classroom sessions.



Post pandemic, we see there likely to be a hybrid model where online education will eventually become an integral component of school education. Educational systems will need to be more agile, flexible and technologically advanced, said Jacob Chacko Regional Business Head  Middle East, Saudi & South Africa (MESA) at HPE Aruba.



Over the past two months while speaking to customers in the education space we find that their challenges start to sound similar to those of enterprise business customers; How do we bring students back to physical locations while maintaining social distancing? How do we engage students when online learning stretches into an extended timeframe? What are the resulting implications in how educators and planners prepare their education and technology plans to support these new learning models? These challenges are very stressful for stakeholders used to working with legacy technology, Chacko said.



Institutions have been radically disrupted and they will be looking to establish continuity, maintain security while in class or distance learning, enhance student engagements and have reliable high-performance connectivity that supports bandwidth hungry applications. Aruba understands these requirements and has devised technology that specifically addresses these pain points, he added.



Aruba is currently working with educational institutions to share new perspectives and trends as they emerge and enable new learnings. The company is playing an important role in helping these institutions re-envision the future of education and chart their journey post pandemic. Aruba is working to address their most critical technological needs and is channelizing its efforts towards few critical areas:



 Physical Distancing Monitoring

 Contact Tracing

 Thermal Cameras & Video Analytics for fever detection

 Touch-Less Operations

 High Speed Outdoor Links

 Flexible Remote Connectivity

 Extending SD-WAN to Public Clouds

 Dynamic Segmentation

 Unified Cloud Management

 Proactive User Experience Monitoring



With online and hybrid leaning models becoming strategically important for institutions, reliable, high performance Wi-Fi across the campus is as critical as classroom connectivity. Aruba powers up networks using high performance wireless point-to-point connectivity with ease, thus extending the network to support on-demand applications, thermal screening, IoT cameras and other touchless entry devices.



To help alleviate some of the current financial strain that institutions are facing today, the company, through HPE Financial Services (HPEFS), is offering IT financing solutions to address economic challenges. From helping release capital from existing infrastructures to deferring payments and providing pre-owned tech to relieve capacity strain, the company is helping institutions prepare for the future.



This forced and abrupt move to a hybrid mode of learning will not be easy. However, it can provide institutions with an opportunity to experiment and innovate. Piloting new approaches and building on practices that are proven to work can help create positive and enduring changes.



Aruba will continue to support our education customers and partners as they navigate these challenging times. Were here to educate institutions on how technology can enable learning, create better student experiences, and streamline operations, concluded Chacko.  TradeArabia News Service
A little girl found wandering the streets of Wembley alone has been reunited with her family.

The youngster, who was found by a stranger just before 9pm this evening, wasn't able to give police her name or address, sparking a desperate plea from Scotland Yard to try and find her parents.

Hundreds of people shared a picture of the girl in the hope within minutes of it being shared online.

Met Police in Wembley, North West London, are trying to find the parents or guardians of this little girl, who was found wandering the streets alone on Monday evening

The little girl was found wandering alone in Byron Road, Wembley, on Monday evening by a stranger

Just before midnight MPS Brent tweeted: 'The young girl has been reunited with her family. Thank you for all your assistance with this.'

While police tried to find her family, officers in North West London looked after the little girl, who couldn't tell officers were she lived.

A tweet with her picture shared by MPS Brent has been retweeted more than 1,100 times by concerned followers.

When one Twitter user asked why they were sharing her image, MPS Brent replied: 'Quite frankly reuniting this child with their family is more important than exposing identity. The child is now safe with officers but we'd like to get her home!'
Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Monday posted a series of tweets highlighting the many steps taken by the Central government amid the coronavirus pandemic including PM Modis seven-point plan to win the Covid-19 battle and assistance offered to other nations.

India has been testing samples for Covid-19 for other countries. New Delhi has also exported hydroxychloroquine to nearly 55 nations and paracetamol to many others. Teams of Indian military doctors have also been dispatched to countries like the Maldives, Kuwait and Nepal.

India tests clinical samples from abroad in its laboratories, sharing the burden of testing for other countries, the ministers tweet stated.

Also read: India records over 11,000 Covid-19 cases for third straight day

India helping others in times of need. #IndiaFightsCorona pic.twitter.com/HDEBUIFPFZ  Prakash Javadekar (@PrakashJavdekar) June 15, 2020

The seven-point plan against coronavirus calls for observing social-distancing norms, taking special care of the elderly, boosting immunity, installing Aarogya Setu for regular health updates, helping the poor and the needy and treating Covid-19 warriors with respect.

Javadekar, in another tweet, highlighted Indias rising recovery rate in Covid-19 patients and the dipping rate of fatalities. One of the tweets also highlighted Indias effort in helping other nations in the time of distress.

Rs 1.7 lakh crore relief package under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyana Yojana helping the poor during the lockdown, Javadekar tweeted.

Indias Covid-19 cases show no sign of abating. With 332,424 coronavirus cases, Indias is the fourth worst-hit country in the world after countries like the US, Brazil and Russia. While 169,797 people have recovered from the deadly contagion across the country, Indias Covid-19 death toll stands at 9,520.
The Duke of York's chief accuser Virginia Giuffre has labelled him a toad after a newspaper report on the weekend about his reaction to the infamous BBC interview in which he offered a defence of his friendship with deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Ms Giuffre has also revealed she is in hospital in Australia with bacterial meningitis, a potentially serious condition which required her to have a spinal tap procedure.

The American-born Ms Giuffre, who now lives in Cairns with her husband and three children, took to Twitter after The Sunday Times reported Andrew's latest reaction to his BBC interview about allegations relating to his friendship with American financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Quoting an unnamed source said to be close to the duke, the Times said Andrew viewed the interview as a source of regret, particularly in that he was unable to appropriately or sufficiently convey his sympathy for the victims of Epstein.

Ms Giuffre, who claims she was trafficked in an under-age sex ring by Epstein, also alleges the duke had sex with her on three separate occasions, including when she was 17 and still a minor under US law. The duke categorically denies he had any form of sexual contact or relationship with Ms Giuffre.

Late on Sunday, Ms Giuffre tweeted: Oh the gull of this toad- he regrets the BBC interview but not his 'friendship' with Epstein because it gave him 'great contacts' and much more.

She added: This man is not a prince but a facet of insidiousness.

A war of words continues to rage between the Duke of York's camp and American authorities over his availability to answer questions relating to his association with Epstein, the convicted sex offender who killed himself in prison last year.

Andrew has been accused of attempting to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate by US attorney Geoffrey Berman, who is leading the investigation into the disgraced financier.

Mr Berman was responding to the statement from the duke's legal team, who on Monday issued a strongly-worded defence of their client saying he had made three offers to give a witness statement.

Meanwhile, Ms Giuffre was admitted to a Cairns hospital after contracting bacterial meningitis, which she said may have been linked to a deficient immune system due to stress.

She tweeted: Back in the hospital- Again. This time bacterial meningitis. Went to the rainforest for the weekend with the fam and came back with something from the jungle. Day 3- just had to get a spinal tap- talk about pain! Pls send me some love vibes from all my friends on Twitter.

She later added she felt her immune system was deficient with so much going on and add some stress into that. Just scary- meningitis!!

Press Association
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Government of Ghana and the Global Railways Engineering Limited of South Africa for the establishment of a railways assembly plant in Ghana.



The MoU is towards the conduct of a four-month feasibility study for the formation of the plant.



Speaking ahead of the signing ceremony on Monday, June 15, 2020, Minister of Railways Development, Joe Ghartey, says when established, the plant will first begin with assembling wagons and later move to assembling locomotives.



It will pave for technology transfer where young Ghanaian engineers and technicians would be offered the opportunity to learn from the South Africans.



He says the agreement is between the Government of Ghana and Global Railways Engineering Limited, a South African Company with their local partner, Global Railways Engineering Limited Ghana.



He expressed the belief that the agreement was in the right direction.



He revealed that Global Railways Engineering Limited has expertise in assembling.



The MoU gives them a period of four months to do their feasibility studies, he noted.



Government under the MoU, has the right to give them facilities to establish their plant, the Minister revealed, adding that Tema and Takoradi are being considered.



After the four months period, they can move a step further depending on their findings, according to him.



The Minister revealed that total investments in the Railways sector so far exceed $1 billion.



Director of Global Engineering Ghana Limited, Dr. Jimmy B. Heymann, was optimistic that the cooperation will lead to technology transfer where young Ghanaian engineers will have the opportunity to learn from South Africa experts.



The cooperation will be beneficial to both Ghana and South Africa and improves intra-Africa trade  deputy High Commissioner of South Africa to Ghana, Thapelo Madumane.



Witnessing the signing ceremony were the Deputy High Commissioner of South Africa to Ghana and Chief Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration.

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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New Delhi, June 15 : After Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party used a LNJP doctor's statement to a news channel to suggest Union Home Minister Amit Shah praised the Delhi government hospital, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta shot back, calling the AAP government "a government of advertisements and Twitter trends".

This Twitter spat comes in the backdrop of 74 deaths due to COVID-19 in the national capital in the last 24 hours.

"AAP's is a government of advertising and Twitter trends. Their work is gauged from the fact that 65 per cent of corona beds are empty in Delhi government hospitals, while only 5 per cent in Delhi hospitals of the central government. It says that the public neither trusts Kejriwal nor the health system," tweeted Gupta.

He further alleged that the Mohalla clinics, in which the Delhi Chief Minister had allegedly spent crores, stand closed. He also called Kejriwal and his Mohalla clinics to be "missing". Taking serious potshots at the AAP government over its handling of the pandemic that forced the Union Home Minister to step in, in the first place, Gupta claimed, "In the all-party meeting today, Sanjay Singh said that in 3 months, the Kejriwal government could not even arrange 15,000 beds for corona. But after the intervention of Modi and Amit Shah, the number of beds in Delhi will cross 30,000, by 30 June." This Twitter spat took place after AAP tweeted a video from its official Twitter handle saying: "Today, Home Minister Amit Shah along with the Chief Secretary of the Government of Delhi visited the LNJP Hospital of the Delhi Government. What did Amit Shah say, while praising Kejriwal government hospitals? Listen to the doctors of LNJP yourself." Shah visited the Delhi hospital and reviewed the situation there after complaints poured in about the ground situation. Earlier the Supreme Court described Delhi's handling of the pandemic as "horrendous, horrific and pathetic".

Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston
Robots with car parts in car factory. Photo: Getty

Britains manufacturers are calling for a national recovery plan, including an immediate stimulus package, to boost investment and save jobs.

This comes on the back of a survey by Make UK, a representative for manufacturers, and accountancy and business advisory firm BDO, which shows that Q2 output in the manufacturing sector plunged to a record low amid the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Make UK said the government should launch a stimulus package, beginning with a business rates holiday for manufacturers, similar to that granted to the retail sector earlier this year.

Make UK believes this would be the single most important measure the chancellor could introduce having the quickest impact for companies of all sizes and across all sectors, the organisation said in a statement.

This should be accompanied by other measures including a National Infrastructure Strategy to help supply chains, a car scrappage scheme and incentives to invest in digital transformation and productivity improvements.

READ MORE: UK economy slowly recovering, says Bank of England chief

Tom Lawton, head of manufacturing at BDO said that with COVID-19 causing instability in global supply chains and uncertainty surrounding our future trading relationships, the UK will become more reliant than ever on its manufacturing sector. Now is the time for the government to step up and show its support.

According to the survey, output reached a record low of -56%, while both UK and export orders fell to -52%, comparable to the levels seen during the worst of the 2008 financial crisis.

Sectors linked to the automotive, aerospace and construction space were hit particularly badly.

Export orders turned negative last quarter for the first time since 2016, showing that demand in major markets was already slipping, a situation the COVID crisis exacerbated.

Make UK said the prospects for the next quarter appeared little better despite the easing of lockdown across Europe and Asia, with the forward looking indicator of output for the next three months at -42%.

Story continues

As with the impact on output and orders, both employment and investment levels were cut back significantly.

Make UK is now forecasting that manufacturing will contract by almost 10% this year, before clawing some of it back in 2021 (+6.2%).

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Employers to be given 30 days to admit to furlough fraud
Liza Minnelli has hit back at a report that she has struck up a friendship with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, saying she has 'never met' them.

The actress, 74, took to Facebook on Sunday to shut down The Sun's claims that she is helping the Duke of Sussex 'find his feet' in Los Angeles following his family's departure from royal life.

Liza shared a link to the article on Facebook, writing: 'While I wish them well, I have never met Prince Harry and Meghan. Any statement to the contrary is a complete fabrication.'

Shutting down speculation: Liza Minnelli, 74, has denied The Sun's report that she has struck up a friendship with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Didn't happen: The Cabaret star said she has 'never met' the royal couple and 'any statement to the contrary is a complete fabrication'

The report in question alleged that the Cabaret star had reached out to Prince Harry because of her friendship with his mother, Princess Diana.

While Liza has denied ever being in contact with the couple, she was friends with the late royal before her death in 1997.

The pair met a number of times during the 1990s and were photographed enjoying drinks together at a charity film premiere for Minnelli's film Stepping Out in 1991.

'I was lucky enough to count Princess Di as a friend,' she has previously said. 'I was first introduced to her when she came backstage after a concert I did in London.

'Then we'd bump into each other at premieres or events where she'd be the guest of honor. We'd fall into conversation then we'd meet for teaMy instinct was to protect her. We talked about everything under the sun. She loved music.'

Not having it: Liza shared a link to the article in question on Facebook, saying it isn't true

Harry, 35, and Meghan, 38, relocated to Los Angeles earlier this year after stepping down as senior royals and have spent the past few months quarantined with their son Archie amid the coronavirus pandemic.

However, it is now believed Meghan has moved her mother, Doria Ragland, into the $10 million mansion they are renting in Beverly Hills.

It was reported that Doria, a former social worker, is acting as an 'unofficial nanny' to one-year-old grandson Archie and to help the couple out.

The Duke and Duchess are understood to be looking to buy the home in the famous 90210 zip code, complete with a 'granny annex' for Doria to live in.

A source told The Sun: 'Doria has her own quarters and whilst a few of Harry's chums have been ribbing him about living with his mother-in-law, he has a brilliant relationship with her.'

Claim: The article in question had alleged that Liza had reached out to Harry and Meghan because of her friendship with his late mother, Princess Diana (pictured together in 1991)

Extended family: Meghan has reportedly moved her mother, Doria Ragland, into the $10 million mansion she and Prince Harry are renting in Los Angeles

Another source added that Meghan wants to keep her mother, 63, close as she is 'her rock' and now 'doesn't trust many people' outside of an immediate circle of family and friends.

Last week, Meghan was dragged into best friend Jessica Mulroney's race row after the Canadian 'threatened' a black social media influencer in an argument over white privilege.

The stylist, who attended the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding, said she is 'stepping back' from social media following an online disagreement with Sasha Exeter.

The controversy led the CTV network to remove Jessica's reality show I Do, Redo from its channels, saying her 'recent conduct...conflicts with our commitment to diversity and equality.'

The move came after Sasha posted a 12-minute long video to Instagram, claiming Jessica 'took offense' to her call of action for people to join the Black Lives Matter movement.

Helping hand: It is reported that Doria, a former social worker, is acting as an 'unofficial nanny' to one-year-old grandson Archie

House hunting: The Duke and Duchess are understood to be looking to buy the home in Beverly Hills, complete with a 'granny annex' for Doria to live in

'What happened next was a series of very problematic behavior and antics that ultimately resulted in her [Jessica] sending me a threat in writing last Wednesday.' she said.

Sasha said the threat was an example of 'textbook white privilege.'

She accused Mulroney of sending a message that said: 'I have also spoken to companies and people about the way you have treated me unfairly. You think your voice matters. Well, it only matters if you express it with kindness and without shaming people who are simply trying to learn. Good luck.'

Jessica frequently appeared on Meghan's Instagram page, before it was closed as the former actress prepared to join the Royal Family.

The royal is said to be embarrassed by her best friend's 'tone-deaf' threats and can 'no longer be associated with her.'

A source told Dailymail.com: 'Meghan is absolutely mortified that she's been dragged into this complete mess. She said Jessica is in no way a racist, but the way she handled the situation [with the fashion influencer] was tone-deaf and heartbreaking.'
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  For opposition lawmakers, rights groups, and media advocates, it is another bad day for press freedom following the conviction of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos, both found guilty of cyber libel.

However, darker days are ahead if the public does not fortify the defense for civil liberties and other essential rights, they said. Members of the opposition noted that repression will not stop at Ressa and Santos' guilty verdict.

Vice President Maria Leonor "Leni" Robredo said in a statement on Monday that threat to freedom of one is a threat to the freedom of all.

"Silencing, harassing, and weaponizing law against the media sends a clear message to every dissenting voice: Manahimik kayo, kung ayaw ninyong matulad sa kanila (Stay silent if you do not want to be like them)," she said.

Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros expressed the same sentiment, noting that any critic can be easily silenced at a crucial time.

"I urge everyone to speak out...We are complicit if we are silent," Hontiveros told the public.

Senator Francis Pangilinan noted that with the current political atmosphere of "repression and authoritarianism," the acquittal of Ressa and Santos would have been a surprise.

Senator Leila de Lima said her detention alone is just "one of the thousand ways" that the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte tries to instill fear in those "who fight for what is just and right."

"The decision to convict CEO Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos, Jr. for cyber libel (while certainly appealable) is but another demonstration of the Duterte government's weaponization of law against those who dare speak truth to power," she said.

De Lima, a staunch critic of the administration, has been detained for three years over illegal drug charges. She has vehemently denied the charges, describing them as fabricated.

Meanwhile, Gabriela Partylist noted that the incident is a "terrible development that may set forth more rabid attacks against media outfits who have earned the ire of Malacanang."

On Monday, the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 found Ressa and Santos guilty beyond reasonable doubt for violating the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 over an investigative story linking businessman Wilfredo Keng to alleged illegal activities, primarily human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Ressa and Santos were sentenced to jail for six months up to six years.

Rappler earlier maintained that the story, which had Santos' byline, was initially published months before the Cybercrime Prevention Act was passed. The prosecution had argued that the article was republished on February 19, 2014. Rappler maintained that it only made minor correction of typographical errors in the story at the time.

Rappler, which was originally charged in the suit, was declared to have no liability over the issue.

For Keng's legal counsel, holding Rappler accountable has given his client justice over the controversial article.

"Yung client ko, hindi mahalaga sa kanya ang monetary damages. Ang mahalaga nagkaroon ng hatol ang husgado na nagkamali ang Rappler, na hindi sila naging responsable sa pahayag nila ng mga krimen na inakusa nila sa kliyente ko," Atty Ryan Cruz told CNN Philippines' Balitaan, noting that the news organization did not get back to them to supposedly correct controversial details of the story.

[Translation: To my client, monetary damages do not matter much. What's important is the judge has decided that Rappler committed a wrongdoing, and they were not responsible with their words when they accused him of such crimes.]

International community alarmed

The international community, including rights groups and media advocates, expressed alarm over the incident.

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney noted that the conviction was "an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines."

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, noted that Ressa's case "will reverberate not just in the Philippines, but in many other countries that long considered the country a robust environment for media freedom.

Amnesty International cited the shutdown of media giant ABS-CBN alone is proof of "brazen vendetta against the press."

The network was forced off the air on May 5, following the expiry of its legislative franchise. It previously received backlash from President Rodrigo Duterte for supposedly failing to air his campaign ads.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/5/5/ABS-CBN-off-air-NTC.html

Roque: Duterte supports press freedom

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque insisted during Monday's briefing that Duterte has nothing to do with Ressa's conviction, noting that he supports press freedom.

"Naniniwala po siya sa malayang pananalita at ang paninindigan niya, ang taong gobyerno ay hindi dapat onion-skinned, hinaharap ang puna ng taumbayan lalo na kung ito ay nanggagaling sa media," he said.

[Translation: The President believes in free speech, he maintains that public officials should not be onion-skinned and should face the criticisms of the public including those from the media.]

Rappler, which has been repeatedly called out for its critical reporting of the Duterte administration, is facing other court cases and complaints, including supposed tax violations and foreign ownership.

"Eleven times in a little more than a year, cases have been filed against Rappler, so yes, absolutely they're trying to pin me down and Rappler down," Ressa previously said.

Rappler appealed to the public to be on tighter watch for a free and independent press, as the ruling has made the space for free press and free speech "tighter and narrower."
MOSCOW, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev, who heads the RussiaBrazil and RussiaArgentina business councils, discussed prospects for strengthening cooperation through the councils with the ambassadors from the two Latin American countries.

During video conferences with Brazilian Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes and Argentinian Ambassador Ricardo Ernesto Lagorio, the officials assessed the prospects for increasing trade and developing economic ties in the post-COVID era.

Mr Guryev, who is the Co-Chairman of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Coordination Council to combat Coronavirus, also spoke about systemic measures implemented by Russian industry to protect employees and residents from the pandemic.

As an example, he cited PhosAgro, whose workforce is ensuring the safe and uninterrupted operation of facilities producing mineral fertilizers for farmers in Russia and in more than 100 countries all around the world, including Latin America.

"I would like to give due credit to you and to PhosAgro for the measures that you have taken. Once again, they underline PhosAgro's high standards and concern for the safety of your workers," said Brazilian Ambassador da Silva Nunes, who went on to discuss the preventive measures being implemented in Brazil.

Ambassador da Silva Nunes emphasised that Brazil intends to continue dialogue through the business council, but online as a result of the pandemic. At his suggestion, a discussion took place on issues that could be raised during the BRICS summit in St Petersburg, including the continuation of stable supplies of Russia's main export to Brazil, mineral fertilizers, which are important for the sustainable development of local agriculture.

Argentinian Ambassador Lagorio discussed the impact of the quarantine measures taken by the Argentinian authorities. During a discussion about the prospects for economic relations between Russia and Argentina, he noted that the basis for the development of such relations are the high-quality products, state-of-the-art technologies and investment opportunities available in both countries. He proposed the creation of joint ventures between Argentine and Russian companies, as well as the possibility of teaming up in third markets.

Ambassador Lagorio suggested holding an online meeting of the councils of entrepreneurs of Russia and Argentina.

"In difficult times, you have to continue working, even if it's online," said the ambassador.

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.

SOURCE PhosAgro


The economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus led to a sharp drop in shipping traffic around the world. This has given scientists a rare chance to observe quieter oceans.

One international project has been launched to listen to the sounds of the sea to study how the reduced shipping activity has affected sea life.

Many scientists have long dreamed of the chance to observe the sounds of a quiet ocean. One of them is environmental scientist Jesse Ausubel. He leads the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York.

Eleven years ago, Ausubel dreamed aloud about the possibility during a speech to university students. He asked: What if scientists could record the sounds of the ocean in the days before engine-powered ships and boats began traveling the world?

In such an environment, researchers could listen to underwater communications between blue whales hundreds of kilometers apart. They could record the sounds of groups of dolphins. Scientists could carry out the observations without human influences, with the goal of understanding the ways industrial activity affects sea life.

Ausubel told the Reuters news agency that at first he suggested one year of quiet ocean, a period during which shipping would come to a halt, or at least be greatly slowed down. But he realized that such a period was not realistic and dropped his goal to one month. Then, finally, he hoped for just a few hours.

His desire to create a quiet ocean experiment drew interest from about 100 supportive scientists. In 2015, the group published a plan of how to carry out the International Quiet Ocean Experiment, if the right possibility ever presented itself.

That chance came in March, when the coronavirus led to an extreme economic slowdown that halted shipping traffic. Leaders of the experiment quickly organized efforts to establish a network of listening stations to pick up ocean sounds across the world.

The stations use hydrophones, instruments used for listening and recording underwater sounds. In May, the group reported it had helped set up 130 underwater listening stations.

The hydrophones were already in place, including six stations that had been set up to listen for underwater nuclear tests. But the group reported recently that it was working with the hydrophone operators to collect data that will be closely examined.

One of the projects supporters is Peter Tyack, a professor of marine mammal biology at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Well, were not excited that (coronavirus) happened, but were happy to be able to take advantage of the scientific opportunity, he told Reuters. It would have just been impossible any other way.

Tyack says the recordings should give scientists a never-before look at the oceans with little human interference. Generally, the group will be looking to see if whales and other sea mammals changed behaviors because of the quieter oceans. For example, they will examine whether the animals used quieter signals to each other, communicated more effectively or changed habitats.

The group hopes to publish its first results this summer, followed by a full report next year on how the reduction in shipping changed the behavior of ocean mammals and other sea life.

There has already been some anecdotal evidence of such behavioral changes, Ausubel said. There have been observations near Vancouver of orcas coming closer to the city than was customary, and off Scotland, he said.

Ausubel noted that orcas, dolphins and humpback whales communicate using high-frequency sounds that do not travel far. So they often gather in less deep waters. He said this may have caused some animals to move closer to once-busy ports.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from Reuters and the International Quiet Ocean Experiment. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

take advantage of  phr. to use (something, such as an opportunity) in a way that helps you : to make good use of (something)

opportunity  n. a situation in which it is possible to do something

mammal  n. an animal that feeds babies on milk from its body

habitat  n. the natural living environment for living things

anecdotal  adj. consisting of things people have said and not based on fact

customary  adj. normal or expected for a particular situation

high-frequency  adj. a frequency of 330 megahertz
The Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework represents something that has never been done before: harnessing the superpower within arts education, -- Robert Morrison, Director of Arts Ed NJ and co-chair of the SEL and Arts Education Taskforce.

With the June 3 adoption of the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standard for Visual and Performing Arts (NJSLS-VPA) by the New Jersey State Board of Education, heightened attention is now being given by key stakeholders to the positive impact arts education has on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) among public-school students.

With the unveiling this month of The Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework, New Jersey is now the first state in the nation to provide a formal roadmap illustrating how the arts foster, and often amplify SEL components, and more importantly, how educators can effectively embed SEL into their arts curriculum.

Districts across New Jersey are required by law to revise their own curricula to come into alignment with these new arts education standards by September of 2022. By embracing this approach, schools and districts will accelerate the incorporation of SEL into the curriculum during the revision process in a way that will underscore the inherent nature of SEL within the arts.

The Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework shows beyond any doubt that arts education provides students with opportunities to exercise their SEL skills, stated Dr. Maurice Elias, professor of psychology at Rutgers University and director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional and Character Development Lab who served as a co-chair of the SEL and Arts Education Taskforce that developed the framework.

And as students exercise their SEL skills, they reach and meet Arts standards in a deeper, more integrated way than they otherwise would. This website is a must-bookmark for anyone concerned with arts education or SEL, or the well-being of our students!

The new SEL Framework will be a key topic of discussion at Arts Ed Summit 2020, a virtual event to be held June 16-18 featuring presentations by leaders from the states top education associations, as well as SEL and discipline-based organizations.

Social-Emotional Learning is a process being prioritized across the globe intended to provide students with the knowledge, attitude and skills needed to understand and manage emotions, to confront challenges and make responsible decisions by being self-aware, socially aware and confidentin essence, preventative mental healthcare.

The arts, by their very nature, are both social and emotional, and serve to enliven and activate SEL components, which in turn, make arts education a catalyst for students social and emotional development. And because of the social and emotional nature of the arts, students are able to engage in learning experiences enable them to explore and develop with it in a deeper and more meaningful way.

While core competencies for SEL had been adopted by New Jersey in 2017, the SEL and Arts Education Taskforce convened by SEL4NJ and Arts Ed NJ, dedicated 18 months to create a framework designed to illuminate the intersection between arts education and social-emotional learning. The goal was to define a framework intent on embedding SEL into arts instruction, allowing for the intentional application of impactful teaching and learning strategies, with the overarching goal of enhancing arts education.

As New Jersey moves towards the implementation of the newly adopted Student Learning Standards in the Visual and Performing Arts Standards, the Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework becomes a critical resource.

This will be front and center when schools reconvene this fall, as teachers must develop new strategies for teaching and learning to address the level of student trauma and loss brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As arts educators revise their curriculum, connecting the new arts standards to SEL competencies, they will be able to do so with an eye towards embedding SEL in arts education. At the same time, they will be able to more effectively articulate to administrators how the arts foster conditions for social emotional learning in their students.

The Arts Education & Social and Emotional Learning Framework represents something that has never been done before: harnessing the superpower within arts education, said Robert Morrison, Director of Arts Ed NJ and co-chair of the SEL and Arts Education Taskforce. This SEL Framework document builds off the standards, but takes them to an entirely new level, defining the power of arts education to have a positive impact on the social-emotional learning of our students. We are prepared with the tools to make our arts educators leaders in that space. After all, where do students express themselves best? In the arts.

For more information about the Arts Education and Social and Emotional (SEL) Framework, visit http://selarts.org. For more information about the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standard for Visual and Performing Arts, visit https://njartsstandards.org

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About Arts Ed NJ

Arts Ed NJ is the unified voice for arts education in New Jersey. Formerly the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership, Arts Ed NJ was founded in 2007 by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey Department of Education and Music for All Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation, ArtPride New Jersey Foundation and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The mission of Arts Ed NJ is to create the proper conditions for arts learning to take place in New Jersey. Additional information is available at http://www.artsednj.org.

About SEL4NJ

SEL4NJ is a coalition dedicated to continuously building a network of organizations and individuals in New Jersey that are committed to the importance of developing students social and emotional competencies, and through this collaboration, promote a systematic and intentional integration of SEL, as broadly defined, in schools and other organizations, including before and after school programming. The goals of SEL4NJ include to: Build community awareness for SEL and its impact, Support- Support for state and local SEL policies and funding, Connect - Connect local SEL stakeholders to learn about and share research and best practices, Implementation - Provide resources and implementation support to schools and other institutions
Sydneysiders will pay less for their water from next month but face a price leap next time a dry spell hits, according to new usage charges set by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART).

The variable prices, which come into effect from July 1st, will cut average annual water bills for residences by about $81, or 7 per cent, to $1131, IPART said.

Washing hands for COVID-19 or anything else will get a little cheaper for Sydneysiders from next month. Credit:Nine

A drop in fixed charges for water and wastewater of about one-sixth - or about $120 for a typical household - will more than compensate for an 11 per cent rise in the usage price of $2.35 per 1000 litres from $2.11 now.

In a notable change, the regulator will introduce sharply higher prices the next time Sydney's dam levels drop below 60 per cent to encourage greater water savings. In that event, water prices would increase about a third to $3.18 per 1000 litres.
With only one test result pending, no further coronavirus cases have been discovered at a Cowlitz County nursing home that became the countys first long-term care facility with an infection, heath officials reported Sunday.

As part of routine statewide investigation, health officials tested 97 staff and residents of the nursing home and found only one positive result, an administrator who is said to have had no contact with residents. Only one more test result was pending late Sunday afternoon, according to Ralph Herrera, spokesman for the Cowlitz COVID-19 Management Team.

The employee has not had contact with residents, and health officials believe the risk of infection to staff and residents in low, according to a statement the IMT released Saturday.

Neither the name of the employee nor the nursing home was disclosed. Nor was the gender of the person involved.

The case is the first known infection relating to a Cowlitz County long-term care facility, a fact that likely is a major reason the county still has not had a COVID death among its now 102 cases. About 70 of those people is now considered cured.

Just under 90% of the 1,204 Washington deaths attributed to coronavirus have been people aged 60 or older, and 51% have been among people age 80 and above, the state Health Department reported Saturday.

Close contacts of the infected nursing home employee have been asked to quarantine for 14 days.

The new case capped a bad week of coronavirus news for the county, which saw its total COVID-19 infections increase by about a third. A quarter of the cases were reported this week, just as the county was about to apply for phase 3 of Gov. Jay Inslees plan to reopen and revive the economy.

The county went to phase 2 of Inslees reopening plan three weeks ago, but last weeks surge in cases prompted health officials to put off its application to move to phase 3 until at least early this coming week.
Founder, Chairman, CEO and President of Amazon Jeff Bezos unveils his space company Blue Origin's space exploration lunar lander rocket called Blue Moon during an unveiling event in Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Monday its founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos was willing to testify to a congressional panel investigating potential violations of U.S. antitrust law by big technology companies.

The company's attorney sent a letter to members of the House Judiciary Committee, saying Amazon had cooperated with the probe. "This includes making Jeff Bezos available to testify at a hearing with the other CEOs this summer," said the letter from Robert Kelner of Covington and Burling LLP.

The big four tech platforms - Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple Inc, Amazon and Facebook Inc - are under investigation by a House Judiciary Committee panel and the U.S. Justice Department. The Federal Trade Commission is probing Facebook and Amazon and U.S. state attorneys general are looking at Facebook and Google.

Representative David Cicilline, chair of the committee's antitrust panel, said testimony from the CEOs was "essential to complete this bipartisan investigation into the state of competition in the digital marketplace."

"The Antitrust Subcommittee will continue to use the tools at our disposal to ensure we gather whatever information is necessary," he said in a statement.

Kelner's letter said that Amazon and the committee would need to "resolve a number of questions regarding timing, format, and outstanding document production issues, all necessarily framed by the extraordinary demands of the global pandemic."

This would be the first time that Bezos has appeared before Congress, according to a source familiar with the company.

In early May, the committee demanded Bezos' testimony in the wake of a report that the online retailer uses data from third-party sellers to create competing products. Amazon's associate general counsel, Nate Sutton, had denied under oath last July that Amazon used sensitive information from independent sellers to develop Amazon products.

The letter also noted that Amazon had given the committee's antitrust panel more than 225,000 pages of documents and notes that the committee has not given a "binding commitment" that they would be confidential.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz, Editing by David Gregorio and Nick Zieminski)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:25:58|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have developed an intelligent, autonomous air-ground vehicle, which can be used for deliveries and rescue missions.

Developed by a team from Tsinghua University, the unmanned electric vehicle can switch between ground working mode and flying mode. It has a four-wheel drive system and is equipped with a rotor to enable flight.

The vehicle, which is 1 meter long, 0.6 meters wide and 0.6 meters high, can conduct three-dimensional path planning, and can realize the functions of vertical takeoff and landing, spatial planning, hovering in the air and flight obstacle avoidance, according to the team.

With a real-time perception module, the vehicle can recognize different types of obstacle or terrain. When it encounters obstacles or terrain that cannot be bypassed on the ground, the vehicle can switch to flying mode and seek a more suitable area for driving on the ground. The efficient and smooth switch of working modes will help improve the efficiency of transportation.

The vehicle has been tested in both urban environment and mountain areas with complex terrain.

It can be used in delivering goods and for rescue missions, and it can be integrated into intelligent transportation systems in smart cities. Enditem
Activists demand fair trial for someone they believe acted in self-defense.

Law enforcement officers detained five protesters who had been rallying outside a district court in Kyiv, where the judge is set to select a preventive measure in the case of Odesa activist Serhiy Sternenko who has been charged with homicide.

"At first, one of the men provoked a conflict with journalists, while others prevented the police from detaining the offender," the press service of the interior ministry reported.

The Interior Ministry said that the brawl between police and protesters erupted as one of the protesters was being apprehended.

Read alsoRight not to be killed: why is it still possible to be imprisoned for self-defense in Ukraine

"The most pro-active participants were detained. They are being taken to the police station to be identified and interviewed. After a preliminary check, their actions will be qualified from a legal perspective," the statement said.

At the same time, Kyiv PD chief Andriy Krishchenko told Ukrainian Pravda two of riot police officers were suspended from service pending probe into the possible use of excessive force during the clash with protesters. The investigation will be carried out by the State Bureau of Investigation.

UPDATE: MP with the Holos faction, Olha Stefanyshyna, reported on Facebook that all detained persons had been released from police custody in a few hours.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 12, the court hearing on the selection of preventive measure regarding Sternenko was postponed to June 15.

An SBU investigator has requested that the court rule to impose round-the-clock house arrest.

UNIAN memo: The SBU pressed homicide charges against Serhiy Sternenko over the death of Ivan Kuznetsov, a person identified as one of the attackers who assaulted the Odesa activist in 2018.

The assault was the third one over the course of the same year, all of which Sternenko claimed were attempts on his life.

At the same time, as earlier reported by Ukrainian media, the attack on Sternenko, which turned out to be fatal for one of the two perpetrators, was qualified as "hooliganism, committed with the use of weapons or another item adjusted for inflicting bodily injuries."

The high-profile case has sparked public debate in Ukraine on whether Sternenko's actions were justified and whether the attacks on the anti-corruption activist were being properly investigated.
By Dave Goldiner | New York Daily News

Sen. James Lankford says its time for some new American heroes.

The Oklahoma Republican backed the spreading calls for the names of Confederate generals to be removed from several military bases amid the movement for racial justice.

There are lots of great leaders, military leaders  that are modern leaders, Lankford said on ABCs This Week.

He said it was problematic to honor men who fought against the U.S. government like the rebel generals.

If you have a military base that is named after someone that actually rebelled against the United States government, then you would want to be able to go back and look at that name. That should be a pretty basic principle.

Lankfords stance puts him at odds with President Trump, who has insisted the forts should not be renamed. The military, which recently banned displays of Confederate flags, says it is open to considering new names.

Most Americans view the Confederate statues and flag as symbols of racism and slavery. But some white southerners insist they are simply part of their heritage.

Racial justice protesters have pulled down statues of Confederate leaders, and lawmakers are pushing to get rid of others.

Lankford compared the base names to public schools, which he said should be named after role models.

You want those children in that school to be able to learn, he said.
A Russian court on Monday sentenced former US marine Paul Whelan to 16 years in a penal colony for espionage in a verdict that has outraged Washington. A Moscow court found Whelan guilty of receiving classified information as he stood in the dock with a sign that read "Sham trial!" and pleaded for US President Donald Trump to intervene. The court process is "slimy, greasy Russian politics, nothing more, nothing less," he told reporters. The case has strained ties between Moscow and Washington and fuelled speculation of a prisoner swap. Whelan, 50, has been held in a Moscow jail since his arrest in December 2018 and his trial was held behind closed doors because of the accusations of seeking to obtain state secrets. He had complained of being mistreated in prison and last month underwent an urgent hernia operation at a Moscow hospital. Whelan's conviction is another impediment in relations between the two world powers, which are at odds over Ukraine, Syria, Libya, arms control and a host of other issues. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the verdict and demanded that Russia release Whelan immediately. He said the United States was outraged "after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defence witnesses". The US ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan condemned the trial as unfair and lacking transparency, saying he was "disappointed, outraged" by the verdict. He said Whelan was "sentenced to 16 years in prison with no evidence that's been produced." "I can't say I'm surprised," he added. "This is the direction this case has been heading from the beginning." - 'They abducted Mr Bean' - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations Whelan's detention was political saying: "The charges brought against him were proven in court and accepted by the court." Throughout the hearings, Whelan insisted he was innocent, saying he was framed and comparing himself to the hapless comedy character Mr Bean. "Russia thought they caught James Bond on a spy mission, in reality they abducted Mr Bean on holiday," he said in October. Whelan says he was detained on a visit to Moscow to attend a wedding when he took a USB drive from an acquaintance thinking it contained holiday photographs. Whelan, who also has British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced to 16 years in a strict regime penal colony. The prosecution had asked for 18 years, just short of the maximum 20-year term for the charge. The prosecutor said last month Whelan tried to receive information that was a state secret and could harm Russia's security, Whelan's lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told reporters. The prosecutor claimed Whelan has the rank of an officer -- "at least a colonel" -- at the US defence intelligence agency, the lawyer said. - 'Russian judges are political' - Whelan's brother David said his family would continue to fight for his release. "We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities," he said. Whelan was dishonourably discharged as a marine before working as head of global security at a US auto parts company. There had been suggestions that Whelan could be returned to the US in a prisoner swap. Whelan's lawyer said Monday that Russian intelligence services were considering an exchange for two Russians detained in the United States, including pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, imprisoned on drug smuggling charges. David Whelan has said that the family hoped a conviction would allow Russia and the United States to begin discussing Paul's release immediately. US diplomats and the former marine's family have condemned Whelan's treatment in detention, saying Russia ignored his medical condition and barred him from communicating with relatives. The US embassy criticised the Russian authorities for waiting until his condition was "life-threatening to provide him medical attention", while the Russian foreign ministry described his operation last month as "simple".
National uprising continues

Reports from around the US

Frederick, Maryland

In an unprecedented show of solidarity, a multiracial demonstration of 5,000 marched against the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department. Twenty-five years ago, Frederick was a sleepy agricultural town focused on dairy farming; today it is a vibrant city nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of western Maryland. Frederick is just [sixty-four kilometres] north of Washington, DC.

Pouring rain did not deter the protesters. The demonstration began at Baker Park Lake with a rally and speeches by Back Lives Matter, which organised the demonstration. Frederick City Alderman Roger Wilson, an African-American, spoke at the event. Alderman Wilson was elected in 2017 on a progressive program of youth economic sustainability, affordable housing, and the revamping of the citys roads. He is one of two African Americans out of the six Alderman. He serves on Fredericks Fair Housing Commission.

After the rally, the march proceeded down Main Street in the heart of downtown. Demonstrators carried signs that read Moratorium on Rents Now, An Injury to one, is an Injury to all, Free College Tuition for All,, Stop Funding the Police,, Free Health Care for all, and Jobs Not Jails. Pedestrians and shoppers on the sidewalks cheered on the demonstration.

The organisers vowed to continue their actions until all of the police involved in the execution of George Floyd are charged with first-degree murder. They also called for a nationwide ban on police violence.

Washington, DC

I had the honour of joining in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) Black Lives Matter-endorsed protest events this past Saturday evening in Washington, DC, at both Freedom Plaza (a location of one of the Occupy DC encampments back in Fall 2011) and the newly-named Black Lives Matter Plaza. From what Ive seen, heard, and read, these recent BLM protests are distinct from the past in that an unprecedented number of white people are joining in solidarity with the protests across the country.

The events were Black-led and Black-voiced, and people were happy to make space in conversation for each other. There was an outpouring of mutual aid from different organisations, with distribution of hand sanitiser, masks, water, snacks, meals, and street medic services.

As the evening continued and the event became a street party in celebration of the plaza renaming, street artists with Black Youth Project 100 took direct action to the plaza mural, painting over the stars on the DC logo and adding DEFUND THE POLICE, making the whole plaza read BLACK LIVES MATTER = DEFUND THE POLICE. This is directly in front of St Johns Church where Donald Trump held his Bible photo-op earlier in the week. The paint proved resistant to the street sweepers that came by after midnight.

Over the night, protest chants and songs were directed not only against the police, but also against Donald Trump. Some speeches also criticised DC Mayor Muriel Bowser for not doing enough to ensure racial justice from the Metropolitan Police Department, which she controls. In conversation, protesters spoke of the failure of police reform and suggested various kinds of police abolition. Some even spoke of drastic reduction in military spending to support improved social conditions at home.

There was also concern about corporate dominance of traditional and social media shaping public view against the protests. Saturdays DC protests were entirely peaceful, despite me seeing an unmarked police sedan weave in-between protesters in the plaza at nearly [thirty-two kilometres]-per-hour. No one was reported injured, and protesters didnt rise to the obvious bait.

There was also attempted police intimidation with the stationing of rooftop snipers from an unidentified agency atop the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute building. Some protesters shone spotlights at them when they noticed the rooftop snipers werent holding rifles.

Louisville, Kentucky

Friday, 5th June, would have been Breonna Taylors 27th birthday, and protests here continued into their second week against the brutality of the Louisville Metro Police Department and the lack of political courage of Mayor Greg Fischer, who refuses to initiate action against the officers who killed Breonna Taylor on 13th March while she was asleep in her bed.

Although the officers in Minneapolis, the city that has garnered the most attention for its part in the national protests, have been fired, arrested, and charged in the killing of George Floyd, the officers responsible for the death of Taylor, an emergency medical technician and Black woman shot during a no-knock warrant served on the wrong house, have not faced any meaningful consequences.

Over the past week, the movement has gained steam. Branches of protest have spread out into the West End to pay tribute to David McAtee, a Black community leader and business owner, who was killed by police when they continued aggressive crowd dispersal tactics on a non-protest-related gathering outside of Dinos, a local market, on Saturday, 30th May, the first night of a citywide curfew.

Demonstrations have also been held in the more affluent eastern edge of the city, sometimes as an act of solidarity and sometimes, more notably, as an expression of frustration with ongoing racial and wealth disparities in the city.

However, the central and most attended actions are the downtown protests. During the day, protesters here have tents and tables set up with water, cold and hot foods, masks, and hand sanitiser.

With financial support generated from various online campaigns, activists restock food and water throughout the day that, by nightfall, is handed out to Louisvilles unsheltered homeless community.

Since 30th May, the protesters have continued to defy the curfew, marching with allied car caravans flanking them to protect from traffic and carry the necessary food, water, and medical supplies that keep the march going late into the night.

Leading up to the nightly marches, activists give speeches and lead chants before opening the microphone and podium to the community.

During these open mics, unscheduled speakers share their grievances, lead their own chants and prayers, and call for new solutions. An MC follows each speaker to offer context and reflection that strengthens the collective spirit of the people.

Quintez Brown, 19, a local activist, scholar, and columnist called for renaming the park, the de facto meeting place of downtown protests because of its proximity to prominent political buildings, from Jefferson Square to Breonna Taylor Park.

Rev Charles Eliot, Jr, 85, a local civil rights icon, drew parallels with the current movement to his experiences marching with Martin Luther King, Jr, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. Gesturing toward the diversity, energy, and youth of the crowd, he insisted that, more than ever, this group looks like winners to me.

The continued support of the people has allowed the movement to solidify their calls to hold the police accountable and has forced Mayor Fischer to rescind his curfew, fire the police chief, and, for now, keep the National Guard and police from instigating violence against protesters  a marked change from last week.

There are no signs of the movement slowing down in Louisville.

Staten Island, New York

A large and spirited but peaceful protest began in Tompkinsville at the site of Eric Garners murder and ended at the 120 Precinct in St George. Significantly, the NYPD reported no arrests were made.

Protesters who took part in the action, organised by Al Sharptons National Action Network (NAN), demanded justice for George Floyd. Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on 25th May by Derek Chauvin, a (former) police officer who is now charged with second-degree murder. Protesters called for the charges against ex-officer Chauvin and the other officers involved in the killing to be upped to first degree murder.

Danville, Virginia

Danville, once the hot bed of Civil Rights demonstrations in the 1960s, is seeing action once more as young people peacefully protest the murder of George Floyd.

About 200 people gathered in downtown and shouted familiar slogans: Blacks Lives Matter, I cant breathe, and Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Racism has got to go.

Motorists honked their horns in support of the protesters. Protesters took their message across the Martin Luther King, Jr Bridge to fan out their message to more areas of the city. They headed into highways medians, bringing a message of peace and cooperation. They blocked traffic for two minutes.

Protesters then headed back to the city fountain and were urged to sit or lie on the ground for eight minutes and fourty-six seconds to symbolise George Floyds agonising death.

The young speakers talked about how they want to raise their children in a society where they are not afraid of being killed by police.

Peoples World
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



TORONTO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Water Ways Technologies Inc. (TSXV: WWT) ("Water Ways" or the "Company") reports today its financial and business results for the three months ended March 31, 2020 (the Financial Statements) and is pleased to provide highlights and comments on these results. This press release should be read in conjunction with the Financial Statements and corresponding Managements Discussion & Analysis found at www.sedar.com . The Company's Financial Statements are prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS").

Ohad Haber, President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Water Ways, commented: These are challenging times in the world but I am very pleased to report that we achieved record sales in Q1 of 2020 surpassing our Q1 results both in 2019 and in 2018. Our business in Canada grew substantially and we were able to reach sales of over C$1.1 million in the first quarter of 2020 making inroads selling to Canadian farmers. We will strive to continue to grow the business in Canada in the coming quarters. Overall the Covid-19 crisis delayed the launch of our Chinese business unit which we hope will be operational in the coming months resulting in direct sales to the Chinese market.

Financial Highlights for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020

The following are financial highlights of Water Ways' operating results for the three months ended March 31, 2020, compared to the three months ended March 31, 2019:

Revenue was C$3.21 million as compared to C$1.98 million for the first quarter of 2019.



The recognized revenues from service projects amounted to C$1.12 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020 as compared to C$0.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. The increase was mainly due to the increase in service projects initiated in Ethiopia and the continuation of the second cotton irrigation project in Uzbekistan.



The revenues from sales of products amounted to C$2.08 million for the three months ended March 31, 2020 an increase from C$1.67 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019. The increase is mainly due to sales of the Company's Canadian subsidiary, which were over C$1.1 million.

Gross profit reached C$603 thousand for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to C$246 thousand for the three months ended March 31, 2019. The increase was due to the overall gross profit increasing as part of steps taken to improve the profitability of services and products.



Operating expenses were C$596 thousand for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to C$330 thousand for the three months ended March 31, 2019.



The increase in operating expenses was attributed mainly due to the acquisition of the Company's Canadian subsidiary and its related general and administrative expenses.





The increase in operating expenses was attributed mainly due to the acquisition of the Company's Canadian subsidiary and its related general and administrative expenses. Total comprehensive loss was C$35 thousand for the three months ended March 31, 2020 compared to total comprehensive loss of C$2.037 million (include C$1.946 million issuance cost) reflecting the measures taken by the Company to improve profitability and reduce costs.

The following is a summary of key balance sheet items as at March 31, 2020 compared to December 31, 2019:

Cash and cash equivalents were C$349 thousand as compared to C$309 thousand;

Current assets of C$9.69 million as compared to C$7.19 million;

Total assets of C$11.08 million as compared to C$8.48 million;

Current liabilities of C$8.18 million as compared to C$6.05 million;

Non-current liabilities of C$555 thousand as compared to C$254 thousand.

Financial Highlights for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 in comparison to the first quarter ended March 31, 2019:

(CAD in thousands) Three months

ended March 31 2020 2019 Change % Revenues: Services Projects 1,127 307 267.1% Products 2,080 1,674 24.3% Total Revenues 3,207 1,981 61.9% Cost of Sales 2,604 1,735 Gross Profit 603 246 Gross Profit Margin % 18.8% 12.4% Operating Expenses * 596 330 Issuance Expenses - 1,946 Other Income (Loss) 43 (39) Foreign currency translation differences 32 Taxes on Income 85 - Total Comprehensive Income (Loss) (35) (2,037)

Business Highlights for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020 and Subsequent Events



The world is currently experiencing an event with macroeconomic consequences, originating from the spread of the Corona virus (COVID 19) in many countries around the world (hereinafter - "the Coronavirus" or the "Event"). As a result of the Event, many countries, including Israel, are taking significant steps to try to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, such as, but not limited to, restrictions on civilian movement, gatherings, transit restrictions on passengers and goods, closing borders between countries.

The Company believes that the Event is an opportunity for the worldwide smart irrigation business. The Event has proved that countries need to be self-sustainable for their food supplies in times of world crisis. The Company believes that there will be a growing demand for smart irrigation in countries that experienced shortages in food supplied during the Coronavirus crisis as they will seek to grow crops domestically.

The following are some of the effects of the Event on the Company:

Canada - The Company's Canadian subsidiary was not significantly impacted by the Coronavirus. February sales were affected by the railway blockade between Montreal and Toronto but recovered in March. Coronavirus effects include the Company's inability to send technical staff from Israel to support sales of new projects and therefor local Canadian staff was hired to assist.

On April 4, 2020, the Company secured a C$40 thousand loan as part of the Canada Emergency Business Account government program to businesses due to the Coronavirus. The loan bears 0% interest until December 31, 2022. After December 31, 2022, the loan will bear a 5% interest rate per annum on the outstanding balance.

China - As a result of the spread of the Coronavirus the Company had no business in China in January and February. In early March, this restriction was lifted, and the Company was able to re-commence administrative operations. The Company received payments that were late due to the Event. The Company is continuing its plans to commence its sales operations through its newly established local Chinese subsidiary.

Ethiopia - After a year of financial and political uncertainty, the Company was able to re-focus on growing its business in Ethiopia. The Company has received substantial orders from Ethiopia for both irrigation projects and components and the Company is currently bidding for additional irrigation projects.

Uzbekistan - The business in Uzbekistan continuous to be solid. The Company is deploying two cotton irrigation projects. The Event affected the Company's ability to ship components and send technical staff to install the projects. The Company overcame these obstacles buy sending the components by land freight which caused a delay and by using local staff in Uzbekistan for installations.

Israel - The Company's business in Israel remained solid. The Company has deployed two medical cannabis irrigation projects and has not experienced any delays in installations or payments.

Peru - The Company's business in Peru came to a standstill in March. The Peruvian government announced in March that it is closing its borders and called on citizens to self- quarantine for 15 days. The borders were opened again in April and as a result the Company commenced its shipment to Peru.

About Water Ways Technologies

Water Ways is the parent company of Irri-Al-Tal Ltd. ("IAT") which is an Israeli based agriculture technology company that specializes in providing water irrigation solutions to agricultural producers. IAT competes in the global irrigation water systems market with a focus on developing solutions with commercial applications in the micro and precision irrigation segments of the overall market. At present, IAT's main revenue streams are derived from the following business units: (i) Projects Business Unit; and (ii) Component and Equipment Sales Unit. IAT was founded in 2003 by Mr. Ohad Haber with a view of capitalizing on the opportunities presented by micro and smart irrigation, while also making a positive mark on society by making these technologies more widely available, especially in developing markets such as Africa and Latin America. IATs past projects include vineyards, water reservoirs, fish farms, fresh produce cooling rooms and more, in over 15 countries.

Water Ways has a number of operational subsidiaries:

Irri-Al-Tal Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Water Ways Technologies, was incorporated on October 11, 2003, under the laws of the State of Israel.

Heartnut Grove WWT Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Water Ways Technologies, was incorporated on June 3, 2019, under the laws of the Province of Ontario.

H.D.P Irrigation Ltd., a company of which Irri-Al-Tal holds a 73% interest, was incorporated on October 27, 2019, under the laws of the State of Israel.

IRRI-AL TAL (Shanghai) Agriculture Technology Company Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of H.D.P, was incorporated on February 26, 2020, under the laws of the Republic of China.

For more information, please contact



Ronnie Jaegermann

Director

T: +972-54-4202054

E: ronnie@waterwt.com

https://www.water-ways-technologies.com/

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 constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is defined in applicable Canadian securities legislation. The words "may", "would", "could", "should", "potential", "will", "seek", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions as they relate to Water Ways. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. Such statements reflect Water Ways' current views and intentions with respect to future events, and current information available to Water Ways, and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Material factors or assumptions were applied in providing forward-looking information. Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking information to vary from those described herein should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize. Should any factor affect Water Ways in an unexpected manner, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information prove incorrect, the actual results or events may differ materially from the results or events predicted. Any such forward-looking information is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Moreover, Water Ways does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such forward-looking information. The forward-looking information included in this press release is made as of the date of this press release and Water Ways undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable law. Water Ways' results and forward-looking information and calculations may be affected by fluctuations in exchange rates. All figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated.




An earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter Scale struck near Rajkot in Gujarat at 12.57 pm on Monday, reports news agency ANI quoting the National Centre for Seismology.

An earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter Scale struck near Rajkot in Gujarat at 12.57 pm on Monday, reports news agency ANI quoting the National Centre for Seismology. The epicentre of the earthquake was about 82 km north-northwest of Rajkot.

This was the second earthquake to hit the city in less than 24 hours. According to news agency PTI, 13 other aftershocks of varying magnitudes have rattled the Kutch district since last night but no casualty or damage to property has been reported, said officials.

According to a report in Times Now, a scientist from the Gandhinagar-based Institute of Seismological Research (ISR) said that the epicentre was 15 km North-North East of Bachau.

The report quoted ISR scientist Santosh Kumar as saying that they are analysing whether today's quake "is an aftershock or a new earthquake on a different fault line.

According to Kumar, as of now, they are counting it and other quakes in the region as aftershocks of last night's earthquake.

An aftershock of 3.7 magnitude was recorded at 10.02 am on Monday with its epicentre six km East-North East of Bhachau, another ISR official said. At 1.01 pm, another aftershock of 3.6 magnitude was recorded with its epicentre being 11 km NNE of Bhachau.

Earthquakes of various magnitudes of 3.1, 2.9, 2.5, 2.4, 1.7, 1.6 and 1.4 have been recorded till Monday afternoon, the official said. No casualty or damage to property has been reported so far, he added.

As per a report in NDTV, Rajkot experienced tremors as a 5.5 magnitude quake stuck 118 km north-northwest of the city at 8.13 pm on Sunday.

Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel was quoted as saying that the entire Saurashtra and north Gujarat regions, including Ahmedabad, felt the impact of the quake.

"There is no report of any major damage to life and property from any area after the quake," he added.

According to the NDTV report, four medium intensity quakes hit 90 km east of Jammu and Kashmir's Katra. The place also bore witness to a 3.8 magnitude quake last night.

According to a Indian Express report, Gujarat has witnessed three major earthquakes in the past. The most devastating among these was the one in 2001. The other two quakes were the one in Anjar in 1956 and the Rann of Kutch earthquake from 1918. The 2001 Bhuj earthquake had a 7.7 magnitude and reportedly killed 20,000 people.

With inputs from agencies
Third-quarter negotiations are ongoing but have thrown up many anomalies from the traditional process. The quarterly MJP benchmark is negotiated each quarter, usually between Japanese buyers and major overseas producers.The benchmark serves as reference for supply contracts across Asia, not just Japan, for both primary aluminium ingots and aluminium products.The latest deals concluded at premiums of $60 per tonne and $68 per tonne on June, while the first third-quarter deal settled a week earlier at $85 per tonne.During usual negations, deals may conclude at different levels while the market comes to a consensus on the benchmark. But these deals would usually conclude within a tight range.But there is currently a $25-per-tonne spread between the lowest and highest deal concluded for the third quarter so far - something traders told Fastmarkets is virtually unheard of.

We cant believe how widespread it is currently. Some tell us $60 per...
Our weekly roundup of books that should be on your radar.

We love stories, and even in the age of Netflix-and-chill, there's nothing like a good book that promises a couple of hours of absorption  whether curled up in bed, in your favourite coffeehouse, or that long (and tiresome) commute to work. Every week, we'll have a succinct pick of books, across diverse genres, that have been newly made available for your reading pleasure. Get them wherever you get your books  the friendly neighbourhood bookseller, e-retail website, chain store  and in whatever form you prefer. Happy reading!

For more of our weekly book recommendations, click here.

***

 FICTION

If It Bleeds

By Stephen King

Hachette India | Rs 799 | 384 pages

Bestselling author Stephen Kings book is a collection of four long stories, the first of which is the title story and a stand-alone sequel to his The Outsider. It follows Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency who sees the news about a bomb at the Albert Macready Middle School. But when she tunes in again for the late-night report, she realises that theres something amiss about the correspondent first on the scene, and her first solo case begins.

Read more about the book here.

High Wind

By Tilottama Misra; translated by Udayon Misra

Zubaan | Rs 545 | 208 pages

Translated by academic Udayon Misra, writer and critic Tilottoma Misras work is set in early 20th century Shillong. It follows the life of Sanskrit scholar Banamali Panchatirtha and his wife Haimavati, as they journey from the Bramhaputra plains to the hills. Through the novel, Tilottoma explores the complex relations between Shillongs different communities, including the Khasis, the Assamese, and the Bengalis.

Read more about the book here. Read an interview with the author here.

The Princess and the Political Agent

By Binodini Devi; translated by L Somi Roy

Penguin Random House India | Rs 399 | 344 pages

Author Binodinis Sahitya Akademi winning book, now translated by her son L Somi Roy, is set against the backdrop of the British annexation of the Tibeto-Burmese empire. It tells the love story of the Manipuri princess Sanatombi and British colonel Maxwell, following the 1891 Anglo-Manipuri War.

Read more about the book here. Read an excerpt from the book here.

 NON-FICTION

The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success: Overcoming Myths that Hinder Progress

By Mark Jaccard

Cambridge University Press India | Rs 1,889 | 296 pages

Sustainable energy professor at Simon Fraser University, Mark Jaccard draws light to the most essential actions and policies to solve climate change, which can otherwise sometimes feel complex and overwhelming. He shows how to differentiate climate science from insincere politicians and discusses a few key lifestyle changes to reduce emissions and contribute to the transition to affordable energy.

Read more about the book here. Read the PDF version of the book, available as Open Access on Cambridge, here.

Together

By Vivek H Murthy

Hachette India | Rs 699 | 352 pages

Appointed by Barack Obama, 19th US Surgeon General Vivek H Murthy discusses the roots of isolation and shows how loneliness is the cause of some of the greatest personal and social challenges, from anxiety and depression to addiction and violence. He also discusses how this can be cured, based on conversations with doctors, scientists, parents and community members.

Read more about the book here.

Bad Money: Inside the NPA Mess and How It Threatens the Indian Banking System

By Vivek Kaul

HarperCollins India | Rs 599 | 364 pages

Author and journalist Vivek Kaul discusses Indias NPA (non-performing assets) problem. Through tracing the history of Indian banking and looking at the economy, he analyses Indian banks bad loans, or those which havent been repaid for 90 days or more, as the total crossed Rs 10 lack crore in 2018. He answers questions like Are Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi just the tip of the iceberg? and How are the private sector banks gradually taking over Indian banking? among others.

Read more about the book here.

 YOUNG READERS

Scribble Witch: Notes in Class

By Inky Willis

Hachette India | Rs 399 | 240 pages

The first in childrens author and illustrator Inky Willis new series is about Molly, whos having a terrible Wednesday. Thats until Notes, a tiny paper witch who has been lurking in her pen pot, springs to life. With just one pencil, Notes can achieve amazing things, while also often getting Molly into trouble with her teacher.

Read more about the book here.
I work at a Tyson Foods processing plant. I help process the chicken for packaging. I cut the necks off the chickens. I pull the fat from the chicken. Pulling the fat, you pull a leg up on a chicken and pull it out like this. I do it like karate style. [LAUGHS] Its very fast paced. Its very, very intense. Line speeds are designed to run 140 birds a minute. Everyone is standing not even arms-length apart. [CLUCKING] Theres absolutely no way that we can social distance within these plants. Meat processing plants around the country have become Covid-19 hot spots. More than 10,000 workers in poultry and meat plants have contracted the virus. At least 30 have died. We now have masks and temperature checks. Tyson even put up plastic barriers between workers. But these measures can only do so much for when were cramped together on these lines. The reason our plants continue to be super spreaders is because Tyson forces us to process so much chicken so very quickly. The rate that they have to get these orders processed, it is physically impossible to social distance. If you slow down the lines, less workers will be needed. And by doing so, we can be able to social distance from each other and be more safe. We may be feeding America, but were sacrificing our own selves. Ive been with Tyson for almost a year and a half. I am very proud to work for for the biggest company thats producing chicken for this country. Ive always been a dedicated worker to Tyson Foods. I took great, great pride in my job. They said either you come into work, or you will be terminated. But right now, I dont feel like its safe enough. Back in March, my mother was diagnosed with pulmonary sarcoidosis. I couldnt carry that weight on my shoulders if I were to bring that virus home not knowing I had it and gave it to her. From my hypertension, from having a blood disorder puts me in a little higher risk. But I still go in every day to sacrifice myself to make sure people in America are taken care of. Chicken is the most popular meat in this country. And Tyson is the largest poultry producer. Heres how this works. The government regulates how fast these factories can run. So companies like Tyson lobby for faster and faster line speeds. The Trump administration relaxed regulations. They are allowing companies to speed up the production lines for chicken. Even with these outbreaks at Tyson plants, John Tyson, the company chairman, took out a full-page newspaper ad pushing for these plants to stay open. And President Trump listened. Were working with Tyson, which is one of the big companies in that world. The president will mandate that meat processing facilities remain open. My family supports the Trump administration. However, Tyson and the president are prioritizing keeping the supermarket stocked instead of keeping workers like me safe. Tyson, slow down your production line so we can social distance within these factories. How can we feed America if were all getting sick?
BERLIN (Reuters) - German charter airline Condor will cut up to 25% of its employees to reduce costs and recover from the coronavirus crisis, Chief Executive Ralf Teckentrup told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly.

"Like other airlines, we will have to cut about 15% to 25% of jobs. That would be between 650 and 1,000 jobs," Teckentrup told the Sunday newspaper, adding he expected a crisis in the airline sector to last until 2024.

In April, Germany's government and the federal state of Hesse agreed to give Condor loans worth 550 million euros after the owner of Poland's LOT pulled out of a deal to buy the group.

"We will have lower income and higher costs and have to repay state aid ... Average ticket prices will rise," said Teckentrup.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Edmund Blair)
When landing on our new website, users will find extensive information, engaging graphics, high-resolution photos and informative content that accurately reflect the knowledge, talent and results that we provide to patients, stated Dr. Wiggenhorn.

Dr. Jonathan Wiggenhorn, DO, of Estrella Ear, Nose and Throat is pleased to announce the launch of their refreshed website. The expanded website is extensive, user-friendly and showcases the extensive treatments that Estrella provides. See the new site at http://www.estrellaent.com

"When landing on our new website, users will find extensive information, engaging graphics, high resolution photos and informative content that accurately reflect the knowledge, talent and results that we provide to patients, stated Dr. Wiggenhorn. "It is designed to keep patients fully educated and informed on treatment options.

To ensure all patients have a user-friendly experience, the new website is engineered for easy navigation and even equipped to accommodate those with vision problems. It features a high contrast toggle button and optimized content that works with assistive technologies.

"My vision for the new website is to provide a place where patients can stay informed and involved in the services and procedures they are considering or have already chosen. We also hope to better educate the community on the number of advanced treatment options, such as sinuplasty, that they have available to them at our clinic," says Dr. Wiggenhorn.

Dr. Wiggenhorn is a leading board-certified Ear, Nose and Throat Physician known for providing widespread expertise in his field exceptional results. Every team member of Estrella Ear, Nose and Throat is dedicated to providing caring and personalized experience. Estrella sees patients of all ages and prides itself on taking the time to educate patients on every aspect of their visit. Whether patients are interacting with a doctor, nurse, surgical scheduler or the individual handling the billing, theyll experience a warm, personal approach and a passion for making things right.

About Dr. Jonathan Wiggenhorn:

Having battled severe allergies and chronic sinusitis personally, Dr. Jonathan Wiggenhorn has the personal insight necessary to help deliver knowledgeable and compassionate care to his patients. He knows how it feels to have one's quality of life altered by severe allergy symptoms and excels at improving how patients feel. Dr. Wiggenhorn is board certified in otolaryngology and facial plastic surgery and earned his medical degree from Western University of Health Services in Pomona, CA where he served as Vice President of his class and was elected to join Sigma Sigma Phi, a National Osteopathic Honor Society. He completed his internship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mich. and his residency within the St. John Health System affiliated with Michigan State University. Prior to opening Estrella Ear, Nose and Throat in 2010,

Dr. Wiggenhorn was in private practice in Asheboro, North Carolina. He is an Associate Clinical Professor at Midwestern University and continues to serve as the official ear, nose and throat physician for the Cincinnati Reds during spring training.
That evening he and scores of other black kids around the city were racially profiled, rounded up and arrested. Earlier that day, a police officer had been killed, which prompted the polices action. When my husband got to the station, there were black kids everywhere he recalled. Most of them, like he and his friends were all released later that night because they had done nothing wrong. But the experience shook him to the core. A few days later as he was walking to church, he saw a police car coming slowly down the street. As it approached, it slowed, and the white officer inside gave him the finger.
" " The Pantheon is one of today's best-preserved ruins from ancient Rome. It was built sometime between 126 and 128 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. John Harper/Getty Images

If a friend who was about to go off on a European adventure told you they were going to visit the Pantheon, would you immediately picture ruins of ancient white marble columns? What if that same friend told you they would also be stopping by the Parthenon. Would you also picture a similar scene in your head?

The point is, the Parthenon and the Pantheon are often confused as being the same thing. And that's no surprise because the names are super similar. But the two are very different; they're not even located in the same country. The Parthenon, for instance, is in Athens, Greece, and the Pantheon is in Rome, Italy. And aside from both being made of marble and sharing a similar etymology  both names are derived from the Greek word parthenos, which is an epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, meaning "virgin"  these two famous buildings of the ancient world actually have very little in common.

We spoke with Christopher Ratte, a classical archaeologist and professor at the University of Michigan and Dr. C. Brian Rose, the curator-in-charge of the Mediterranean Section at the Penn Museum and archaeologist who's been digging in the field for more than 40 years, to find out exactly what makes these two ancient ruins so different.

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1. They Were Built in Different Centuries

The Parthenon and the Pantheon are two of the most famous temples ever built in ancient Athens and ancient Rome. The Pantheon was constructed in the second century A.D., while the Parthenon we know today was built much earlier around 447 B.C.E. However, neither, as they say, was built in a day.

The Pantheon is one of today's best-preserved ruins from ancient Rome. It was built sometime between 126 and 128 A.D. during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, who was emperor from 117 to 138 A.D. "It was a reign largely marked by peace ... there was plenty of money throughout the empire," Rose says. "Economically it was a very prosperous time and you see that reflected in the building program. [The Pantheon] is primarily made of concrete, but the inside is lined with marble imported from Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa; these international materials bolster the Pantheon as a symbol of the extent of the Roman Empire."

The Parthenon, on the other hand, took 15 years to build, Rose says. It was built between 447 and 432 B.C.E. during the aftermath of the Persian Wars to highlight the victory of the Greeks over the Persians. At the time, the Greeks were led by (or controlled by, depending on who you talk to) Athens, which was being controlled by a commander named Pericles. Athens had access to a treasury that could pay for additional arms conflict if the Persians came back. This treasury helped to fund the construction of the Parthenon. The goddess Athena was credited with steering the Greeks toward victory, which is why, had you visited the site at the time, you would've found a statue of her in the temple's main room (more on that next).

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2. They Honor Different Gods

While both were built to honor gods, the Parthenon was built to honor Athena and the Pantheon was built to honor all of the Greek gods.

"Both have many other cultural meanings," Ratte says, "the Parthenon as a victory monument and a symbol of Athenian power and the Pantheon as a kind of architectural mirror of Roman imperial dominion." The Parthenon also originally contained a massive statue of Athena inside the temple designed by Greek sculptor and architect Phidias. It was said to be more than 37 feet (11.5 meters) tall and constructed of gold and ivory. The statue was dedicated in 438 B.C.E. and remained for 1,000 years until it disappeared.

" " The Parthenon in Athens, Greece, was built between 447 and 432 B.C.E. during the aftermath of the Persian Wars to highlight the victory of the Greeks over the Persians. joe daniel price/Getty Images

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3. The Designs Are Similar but Not the Same

You could look at both structures and think that the architecture of the Parthenon influenced the building of the Pantheon. But that's far from the case.

First, the Parthenon is built high on a hill in Athens and is based on the architectural column styles of Doric and Ionic order, two of the three canonic orders of classical architecture. The structure is dominated by outer columns in Doric style that lean slightly inward to give the illusion of straight lines.

The Pantheon's dominating design is its massive domed ceiling and rotunda. When it was built in the second century, it was the largest in the world. Today the Pantheon sits in the heart of Rome on the same site of the original Pantheon, which was built around 25 B.C.E. by Marcus Agrippa, son-in-law of the first Roman emperor, Augustus.

Unlike the Parthenon, which is original, the Pantheon, has been rebuilt numerous times, mostly because of frequent fires in Rome.

"The basic form of the Pantheon has changed over the years ... the Pantheon is a much more daring engineering marvel [than the Parthenon] because of the extraordinary span of the dome  the largest domical space that had ever been attempted in antiquity and not superseded until the Renaissance," says Rose.

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4. Today One Is a Church, One Is a Museum

While both the Parthenon and the Pantheon are open to tourism, the structures are used in different ways. "The Pantheon is intact and looks very much as it did when it was built, although some of its interior decoration has been altered," Ratte says. The Pantheon is still used as a Roman Catholic church, and visitors can view much of the original construction while learning more about it on a guided tour.

And although the Parthenon was blown up by the Venetians in 1687, according to Ratte, "it is still one of the best-preserved of all Greek temples and many of its fallen columns have been re-erected." Today the Parthenon serves more as a museum to ancient Greek history.

Despite having many differences, the two structures also have many similarities, as well. Both were originally built as temples, and were later turned into churches in the early Middle Ages. This is notable as Bernini put bell towers on the Pantheon, which have since been removed.

Both use columns extensively in their designs, and both have faced destruction, looting and rebuilding efforts through the centuries.

NOW THAT'S INTERESTING There is a full-scale re-creation of the Parthenon in Centennial Park in Nashville, Tennessee, where you can see the structure as it was in ancient Athens. Inside is a 42-foot (12.8-meter) statue of Athena. The replica is a celebration of classical architecture built for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition.

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Originally Published: Jun 15, 2020
Stephen Silbiger was the chief legislative aide to Congressman Stephen J. Solarz of Brooklyn. He also was the lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and was the Washington Representative for the American Jewish Congress. He currently is practicing law in Washington, D.C.

In the article below, which he submitted to Power Line, Stephen recounts his interaction, as a lobbyist, with Joe Biden. The article documents some of Bidens well known flaws, and reveals some that, I believe, are less known.

Michael Kinsley, who is one of the most perceptive observers of American politics, once said that a gaffe occurs in Washington when a politician reveals a truth that the politician did not intend to admit. When Joe Biden said if you have a problem figuring out whether youre for me or Trump, then you aint black, he accidentally revealed a truth. The truth he revealed had little to do with Black voters. The truth he revealed was his contempt for all Americans. He vividly proclaimed that contempt to me in a meeting that he summoned me to when I was lobbying for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in opposition to the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment.

I met with the then Senator from Delaware in 1982. At that time, Democrats on Capitol Hill were in full retreat. Ronald Reagan had won the last presidential election by a substantial margin, the Senate had turned Republican for the first time in nearly thirty years, and Tip ONeal was rolled over when the House of Representatives voted for the Reagan budget and tax cuts.

Sensing that their time had come, the libertarian National Tax Payers Union launched a campaign to amend the U.S. Constitution to require that the annual U.S. budget be balanced. The measure would have hamstrung future Congresses from dealing with national emergencies, such as the one we are currently experiencing, and would have immediately forced substantial cuts in federal spending.

The threat posed by the constitutional amendment to a union representing public employees was obvious. Gerald McEntee, the new AFSCME President, made defeating the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment a major priority for his union and convinced the then President of the AFL-CIO to make it a high priority for the union movement. It was in the context of the lobbying campaign to defeat the Amendment that I met with then Senator Biden.

Biden had co-sponsored the Constitutional Amendment and it is my recollection that he was the only non-Dixiecrat Senator to do so. I met with him and tried to explain the damaging effect that the Amendment would have on the economy. I specifically remember emphasizing the effect it would have on Social Security, which as the largest Federal domestic spending, would be subject to massive cuts.

During the meeting Biden seemed not to comprehend the consequences of requiring federal expenditures not to exceed federal revenues. He seemed not to comprehend that large spending cuts would occur because large tax increases were not politically possible or economically prudent. I assumed he was feigning a lack of comprehension, but given his academic record which later was revealed when he ran for President, his lack of intelligence may have been a factor.

At the end of my unproductive meeting with Biden, I went directly to his long-time administrative assistant, Ted Kaufman, and told him that this was an important issue to the entire labor movement and that he would be hearing from the Delaware AFL-CIO. I remember telling him that this was not a personal matter, but neither AFSCME nor the AFL-CIO could sit by and let a non-Dixiecrat support legislation that would cost millions of workers their jobs and cut Social Security. I told him that the state leaders of the AFL-CIO would ask to meet with him in Delaware to make their views known.

Several weeks after my meeting I was told that a meeting did take place in Delaware, and soon thereafter, I was informed that the Senator had removed his name from the list of sponsors. I assumed that was the end of the matter.

However, that was not the case with Biden. I soon received a phone call that the Senator wanted to see me. I went to his office and witnessed something I had not seen in my nearly two decades on Capitol Hill.

Once I sat down, Biden got up and started to yell at me. He bellowed you are going to lose this issue. You are going to lose this issue because the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment sounds good and the American people are stupid and will support anything that sounds good.

I remember sitting there in partial amusement. For close to two years I worked for Jerry Wurf, the then recently deceased President of AFSCME who built a million member union. While Wurf was brilliant, tenacious, and shrewd, he also had a volcanic temper and would yell so loudly that you could almost feel the walls shake. As I sat through Bidens tirade, I kept thinking that Joe Biden was no Jerry Wurf in any way. When I walked out I remember thinking what an arrogant buffoon he must be for supposing that by bellowing at me could bully someone who was born in a refugee camp, and whose parents were Holocaust survivors.

After that I had very little to do with Biden. In fact, in 1988 when a host of Democratic candidates for President tried to get the support of AFSCME, which was then the largest union in the AFL-CIO, one of the few candidates who did not was Joe Biden. He was running a campaign which tried to capture the white backlash vote. He had a Southern strategy in which he bragged about receiving an award from George Wallace and claimed the [w]e Delawareans were on the side of the South in the Civil War.

Jerry Wurf, who built AFSCME, was very active in the civil rights movement. He fought tenaciously against Jim Crow and his commitment to civil rights was evidenced by the Reverend Martin Luther King coming to Memphis to support a strike of sanitation men that AFSCME had organized. Martin Luther King was killed helping AFSCME get dignity for African-American workers, and the AFSCME that still remembered Jerry Wurf was never going to support a candidate who bragged about an award from George Wallace and that his state supported slavery.

Joe Biden has publicly come a long way since then. Barack Obama selected him to be his running mate in one of the oddest pairings in American history. I believe the only reason why someone as ideological as Barack Obama would select Joe Biden is that he had the same opinion of him that I had.

Barack Obama knew, as I did, that even the most high-powered MRI could not detect an honest or principled bone in Bidens body. Barack Obama knew that with Joe Biden, there would be no honest disagreements or principled dissents from his policies. All you had to do was feed his arrogant sense of entitlement and you could get him to support any position. In fact, the man who bragged about getting an award from George Wallace, and that many in his state sided with those who enslaved Black people, could tell an African-American audience that Mitt Romney would put them in chains.

When you are not very bright and have no scruples and you think the American people are stupid, you can say anything.
Conversations around mental health are once again happening all around us after actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death. The 34-year-old actor was found hanging at his home in Bandra on Sunday. The police said they suspect he died by suicide.

And a pandora's box opened up on mental health.

Most of us refused to believe that Sushant had died when the news first surfaced on social media. Even when TV channels had broken the news, a colleague said it was possibly fake news. It was, in fact, a hard-to-believe fact, particularly for his fans who know their favourite actors as the happy faces on celluloid. But, that is the thing about mental health: you never know what that warm smile and hearty laughter are concealing.

Also Read: A Spike in Google Search for 'Depression Symptoms' After Sushant Singh Rajput's Death

Within hours of Sushants death, social media was brimming with posts on mental health. His death blew the lid off the issue of mental health that is like an open secret of our society. We all know a friend, a colleague or a family member who grapples with depression, anxiety and many other mental health problems. Most of the times we try to be each others therapists, just to avoid the stigmatisation. Sometimes it is our own denial to acknowledge the problem that we refuse to seek professional help.

Actors, politicians, writers, journalists and almost everyone on social media were in utter disbelief that Sushant Singh Rajput, that young actor whose smile shone brightly in his eyes, was no more among us.

Also Read: Ex-Nagaland Governor's Son Recalls How Sushant Singh Rajput Helped Flood-hit State in 2018

While there were half-baked suggestions, no matter how well-meaning, on tackling mental health, there were many others who took a preachy tone, patronising those who battling depression and anxiety every moment of their life. This tweet by a social media influencer is a classic example.

You know why our parents are so mentally strong and emotionally stable... because they stayed close to their family, lived life on a foundation of rock solid morals, believed in relationships, stayed committed and were religious. Maybe that's what we as a generation are lacking.

You know why our parents are so mentally strong and emotionally stable... because they stayed close to their family, lived life on a foundation of rock solid morals, believed in relationships, stayed committed and were religious. Maybe that's what we as a generation are lacking.  SwatKat (@swatic12) June 14, 2020

Well, who said our parents and elders are mentally strong? They are humans too and they too have breaking points. And let us not forget that they are from the generation who never talked about mental health like a health issue. Morals and religion have nothing to do with things like depression. In 2018, a French man jumped off the roof of Meccas holiest mosque. He was on a holy pilgrimage. Had mental health been about being close to religion and morals, he would have never ended his life at the holiest place as per his belief. If some of us still want to believe that mental health is about morals and religious beliefs, take a look at our elders who suffer diseases like Alzheimer and dementia. These are mental health issues too and, as this influencer says, the elders are closer to families, religion and morals. By that logic, they should have been the healthiest ones. But no, that is not the case. Depression is not in your head and cannot be cured by thinking positive thoughts. Have you tried curing fever by thinking that it is just in your head? No, that is not how our body works. We still catch flu when surrounded by family members. People do get migraine attacks when they are having the best time with their friends. Such comments mock the suffering of those who use all their resources and energy to come out of the abyss of mental illnesses. But perhaps, this is more than just preachy thoughts. This is about lack of empathy and sensitivity. If this tweet wasnt enough, there was another social media user who suggested the most bizarre way to prevent suicidesto alter the designs of ceiling fans. This is a cruel joke. Ceiling fans dont trigger suicides, depression does.

#ceilingfans need to be redesigned. They should be henceforth be made such that they collapse with load/ weight of 20kgs + on it  Suchitra Krishnamoorthi (@suchitrak) June 15, 2020

A similar suggestion was given by Rakhi Sawant a few years ago when actor Pratyusha Banerjee had ended her life. Remove all the fans, hide all the poisonous substances, throw away all the knives, and barricade all the balconies, but depression will not stop to exist. Suicidal thoughts will exist, depressive thoughts will not vanish in thin air.

Also Read: How Acting Helped Sushant Singh Rajput 'Fulfill' His Dream of Becoming an Astronaut

Not all of us are mental health experts and we are not supposed to be. Just like not all of us are doctors, you know? The least that we can do is not jump the gun with our opinions about issues that we dont understand. With our uninformed opinion on mental health, we come across as insensitive fools and end up mocking the suffering of so many people out there.
More than 100 liberal activists, leaders and celebrities signed a letter urging Joe Biden to select Sen. Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, intensifying pressure on the presumptive Democratic nominee from the left as he faces competing demands to pick a black woman.

The letter portrays Warren, D-Mass., as the best prepared prospect to serve as president and one uniquely capable of helping Biden politically in the November election. It asserts that he is "already strong" among nonwhite voters but could use help winning over disaffected voters who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the primary - even as some of them have soured on Warren.

"A crisis election as big as 1932 requires a big running mate. So why not the best?" says the letter, which bears the names of an array of left-leaning figures ranging from actress Jane Fonda to leading activists such as Ady Barkan and Charles Chamberlain.

It adds, "Elizabeth Warren has proven herself most prepared to be President if the occasion arises and deeply expert on the overlapping emergencies now plaguing America - Covid-19, Economic Insecurity, Racial Injustice and Climate Change."

The letter, sent to Biden's campaign on Friday, underlines the dueling pressures the former vice president is facing as he weighs his choices. While many on the left favor Warren, the nationwide protests over racism and police violence have prompted growing calls for Biden to choose an African American woman.

This has added a challenge for white candidates such as Warren, who lack deep ties to African American communities, some Biden allies believe. As a candidate for president, Warren attracted mostly white crowds to her events and struggled to break through with black voters.

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University, where Warren once taught, said that there would be some "symbolic ways in which some people would be disappointed" if Biden does not choose an African American woman, and that disappointment should count. But Warren's record, he said, makes her the strongest choice.

"I think African Americans above all would be the first to say they are more interested in results than cosmetics," said Tribe, who signed the letter.

But many black activists disagree and are advocating for several alternatives to Warren. At least several African American women have advanced to the next stage of Biden's search.

The letter comes as Biden's undertaking has advanced to the next phase, with his campaign conducting more extensive reviews of some of the prospects it initially identified. Warren is among the group of candidates who have progressed to the point of more comprehensive vetting, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Among the candidates who have progressed to that stage or have the potential to do so are Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., former national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, all of whom are black.

Along with Warren, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is Latina, is also in that group. The pool of prospects remains fluid, and some close Biden allies suggested other contenders could also face the more intensive vetting process.

Allies of Warren are trying to underscore her commitment and accomplishments on racial justice and the letter is in part designed to bolster her credentials. It says that Warren's "scholarly studies explained how economic fraud and banking practices especially devastated families of color" as well as "what to do about that racial injustice."

Beyond her policy resume, the letter tries to get the Biden campaign to envision her taking on Vice President Mike Pence in a debate this fall. Warren had some standout debate moments during the Democratic primary.

"She's a very skilled communicator and debater," it says. "Imagine her on stage debunking Mike Pence or needling 'President Tweety.'"

The letter says Warren holds a political advantage that others do not - the ability to help persuade Sanders voters who might not be enthusiastic about Biden.

"Anyone can speculate about who could most help your ticket politically in swing mid-western states or with people of color, both areas where you're already strong," it says. "Another big variable is who could persuade millions of disappointed Sanders supporters to vote for your ticket."

Although Warren and Sanders hold similar policy views, many Sanders supporters were upset that Warren did not endorse the senator from Vermont when she exited the primary, instead staying neutral until it was effectively settled with Biden emerging.

To this day, there remains some animosity from Sanders backers. Sanders himself is not publicly advocating for a specific individual to be named as Biden's running mate.

Former New York City public advocate Mark Green helped spearhead the letter and sent it to the Biden campaign on Friday. He said he did not coordinate with Warren or her office on it. The Biden campaign did not have any immediate comment.
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. The Police of Armenia launched a criminal case for deliberately organizing and holding a rally by a group of people with the violation of the law, the Police said in a statement.

According to the decision of the government on declaring a state of emergency, rallies are banned across the Republic. On June 14, a group of people, ignoring the ban on holding a rally, organized and held a rally outside the building of the National Security Service of Armenia.

These people didnt obey the legal demands of the Police to keep a social distance and stop the rally in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, as a result 252 persons have been detained as of 22:00.

Criminal case has been launched over the incident, the statement says.

On June 14 leader of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party Gagik Tsarukyan was taken to the National Security Service for questioning. He stayed there until 23:30. Tsarukyans supporters organized a rally outside the NSS demanding to stop the actions against the lawmaker.

Earlier the NSS issued a statement according to which a company, that is included Gagik Tsarukyans Multi Group Concern, has caused tens of billions of drams in damage to the state.

In another statement, the NSS said it revealed numerous cases on giving bribes to voters by the Prosperous Armenia party members, as well as candidates to vote in favor of the party during the April 2, 2017 parliamentary elections.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Portuguese police are preparing to search wells at Christian Brueckner's Praia da Luz villa in the hunt for Madeleine McCann's body.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007.

The building has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to.

It comes as her parents Kate and Gerry may 'be told within days how their daughter died'.

Brueckner's lawyers have said he will not answer questions on Maddie until he sees proof he was involved.

He may also be in the clear over missing German child Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015.

A single-storey farmhouse the prime suspect rented is less than half an hour away from where the three-year-old disappeared in 2007 and has become a focus point

It comes after Brueckner's lawyers revealed he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved

The Judicial Police was yesterday considering searching the abandoned shafts in Praia da Luz for Madeleine's body, according to Portuguese newspaper Sol.

Officers earlier this month were understood to be looking to dig up land around two houses Brueckner lived in while in Praia da Luz.

The other building sits on a hill above the resort, about 11 minutes away from the Ocean Club the McCanns were staying.

A Portuguese source told the Sun: 'Judicial Police have confirmed they have been approached by German authorities in connection with the case and they will undoubtedly be prepared to carry out fresh searches in the hope of giving the McCanns closure.

'The obvious focus would be around the hillside former farm building and another property nearby with links to him.'

Brueckner's rented home has a number of old wells on its land and a path leading to a beach Madeleine went to

Kate and Gerry reportedly face being told within days how their daughter died as their Portuguese lawyer is set to meet with senior police.

German detectives say they have one piece of evidence that proves the child is dead.

They have not told the McCanns but have shared it with Portuguese police.

It was described it as 'significant' and 'very important'.

The lawyer for the family from Leicestershire, Rogerio Alves, will meet them within days to find out more.

He is said to be hoping they will unveil the evidence they have on Brueckner.

The suspect's lawyers said he will not answer questions on Madeleine until he sees proof he was involved.

Friedrich Fulscher told the Times: 'Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings.

'It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime. No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.'

And in another potential boost for Brueckner, he may be in the clear over the disappearance of five-year-old Inga in Germany five years ago.

It was widely reported that Brueckner was in the same area at the time. The Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating whether there are new investigative leads.

But according to respected German news magazine FOCUS, investigators currently have no clues as to Brueckner's culpability.

Inga vanished on May 2, 2015, after travelling with her family near Uchtspringe in Saxony-Anhalt.

At around 7 pm, she ran into the nearby forest to collect firewood for a barbecue - and has not been seen since.

In the furore surrounding serial sex criminal Brueckner and the suspicions he is responsible for Maddie's death, he was linked to Inga's vanishing.

FOCUS said: 'Now the relatives of the girl and large sections of the public are asking themselves: were the traces of Christian B. really be intensively enough at that time? Or may investigators have overlooked something crucial? Did they let go too soon?.

'The fact is that the current findings in the Maddie case have further strengthened the efforts of the competent public prosecutor's office in Stendal to investigate the Inga case.

'But prosecutor Thomas Kramer confirmed to FOCUS Online there is 'no concrete suspicion, no hot streak.

'His Mobile phone was not logged into the crime scene area. We have no concrete evidence that he was in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene on the day of the crime.'

The prosecutor said Christian B had already been investigated 'comprehensively and intensively'.

Bruekner may be in the clear regarding another missing toddler called Inga Gehricke, who vanished in Saxony-Anhalt in 2015

After Inga's disappearance, the Stendal investigators had examined all sex offenders who were eligible candidates for the crime.

On July 23, 2015, a so-called trace file was created for Christian Brueckner, based on information from the Braunschweig police.

Brueckner lived in Braunschweig at the time and owned a dilapidated building in the district of Borde in Saxony-Anhalt.

During a search in another case in 2016, investigators found six USB sticks and two phone chip cards there.

Prosecutor Kramer said: 'The evaluation led to the seizure of a large number of child pornography files, but they had no connection to Inga.'

It is also known he had a minor car accident on the A2 autobahn near Helmstedt the day before Inga's disappearance.

Prosecutor Kramer told FOCUS Online: 'The accident in a parking lot happened on the route between Braunschweig and Christian B.'s property in Neuwegersleben. According to our findings, it is unrelated to the disappearance of Inga.'

The crime scene is about 60 miles to the northeast of the crash site.

Kramer told FOCUS Online prosecutors will continue their efforts to resolve the Inga case. He rejected Inga's family's criticism of the investigation.

It emerged yesterday an attack on a 10-year-old British girl in Praia da Luz two years before Madeleine disappeared has formed part of German inquiries.

Portuguese police have been asked to send on details of the 2005 assault, Hans Christian Wolters, the prosecutor heading the investigation, confirmed.

The request from German authorities follows their suspicions Brueckner could be responsible for other assaults.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out. Pictured is the apartment block Maddie went missing from in 2007

The previous attack on a British holidaymaker was revealed by Met Police officers in 2014 after they joined the worldwide search for the youngster.

In the attack  which took place in 2005  it is thought the person slipped into the girl's holiday apartment while her parents were out.

Police said there were 18 similar cases along the Algarve coast over a six-year period that could possibly be linked.

Many were classified as 'near misses' after parents returned home to disturb the intruder.

The attacker was said to have a deep tan and stale smell, leading investigator to believe he could be a bin man.

Many of the incidents took place early in the morning after refuse collections had been completed.

The attack on the 10-year-old was not widely publicised and only came to light after an appeal by Met Police officers.

It comes after German prosecutors admitted last week that Madeleine could still be alive.

In comments which could ignite fresh hopes for her parents Kate and Gerry, prosecutor Hans Wolters said there was no forensic evidence to say she is dead.

Madeleine McCann could still be alive, according to the German prosecutor Hans Wolters (left) who previously suggested she was likely to be dead. Pictured right: Paedophile Christian Brueckner, who is suspected of kidnapping Madeleine

This was despite officials saying they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner.

German prosecutors had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is.

But speaking to the Mirror, Mr Wolters said: 'Because there is no forensic evidence there may be a little bit of hope.

'We don't want to kill the hope and because there is no forensic evidence it may be possible.

'I am surprised the fact we say or I say Madeleine is dead is so important for the British people.'

The prosecutor added in Germany it is 'normal' to assume a murder has taken place in similar cases.

Brueckner is currently in prison in Kiel, northern Germany, for drugs offences and is appealing a conviction for rape from last year over a 2005 attack.

Mr Wolters also admitted his previous assertion Madeleine may have been 'killed quickly' was only 'personal opinion and speculation'.

In comments which could ignite fresh hopes for Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry that their daughter may be alive, Mr Wolters said there was no forensic evidence to say she is dead

This was despite officials repeatedly saying that they were convinced she is no longer alive after news emerged earlier this month of new prime suspect Brueckner

He said he came to the opinion 'without facts' based on experience of previous kidnapping cases.

Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know he was a sex offender.

At the time of Madeline's disappearance, the German was living in the Praia da Luz area.

But his criminal past in Germany was not known to detectives searching for Madeleine.

While all sex offenders in the Algarve region came under suspicion and were interviewed, 43-year-old Brueckner was not among them.

Though Brueckner had two convictions for theft and disobedience since arriving in Portugal in 1998, he was not on the radar of those searching for the youngster.

His name was included in a file sent to British police in 2011 - but only because he was a foreigner who had been jailed and not because he was linked to a sex crime.

It was not until Brueckner 'confessed' to a friend in a bar in Germany that he knew about Madeleine's disappearance that he became the prime suspect.

German prosecutors are convinced he killed the child but admitted they do not have enough evidence to charge him with murder.

German prosectuors, who are investigating Brueckner for links to Madeleine's 2007 disappearance, had also said they knew how the little girl was killed but had no idea where her body is. Pictured: Portuguese police at the the Praia da Luz resort from where Maddie disappeared

It comes after news emerged that Portuguese police reportedly did not interview Brueckner in the weeks after the three-year-old's disappearance as they did not know that he was a convicted sex offender.

Kate and Gerry McCann continue to hope that their daughter is alive

Portuguese media said EU countries did not routinely share information on all criminals in the 1990s.

Brueckner was convicted of molesting a six-year-old girl in a playground in his home town of Wurzburg, Bavaria, in 1994 when he was just 17.

He left Germany for the Algarve after serving part of a two-year youth sentence for the crime. But that conviction was unknown to police on the McCann case in 2007.
The dam is located south of 29th Avenue, near the former Riverside Mobile Home Park, devastated by flooding in 2008. Some work has already begun and trees around the river and former mobile home park have been cleared.
[June 15, 2020] MDLink Fast-Tracking Its Telemedicine Platform to Meet the Demand In The Caribbean Countries with an Influx of 400% in Participating Doctors

MIAMI, Fla., June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ehave, Inc., (OTC Pink: EHVVF) (the Company), a provider of digital therapeutics delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients, announced today its Jamaican based MDLink subsidiary is fast-tracking the development of digital solutions to meet the growing demand of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Caribbean. MDLink was created in 2018 by Trinidadian physician, Dr. Che Bowen.

Prior to the global pandemic, MD Link had around 40 registered doctors. Since the virus spread to the Caribbean, MDLink has seen a large influx of doctors wanting to be part of its platform. Dr. Che Bowen, MDLink Founder and CEO, said, "In one day I was seeing about 20 doctors registering. Across the Caribbean we have 300 doctors registered and we are in the process of registering more. In addition, Dr. Bowen noted that the platform helped to flatten the curve as patients did not have to leave their home to see a doctor. On the patients end, utilizing MDLinks telemedicine approach is usually less expensive than an office visit. For providers, registration is free, and their credentials are checked and verified to ensure they are legitimate. Dr. Bowens credentials have earned him invitations to speak at International Conferences and will be a key featured speaker on June 18th, 2020 at the CME (Continuing Medical Education) conference. Dr. Bowen will be educating doctors throughout the Caribbean region about Telemedicine as a COVID-19 solution and teaching them Telemedicine basics. CME credits will be awarded to all participating doctors. According to the World Health Organization ("WHO") there are 7,690,708 confirmed cases of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) worldwide. As of June 14, 2020, this pandemic has caused 427,630 confirmed deaths. One of the geographical areas heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is the Caribbean, since the economy is dependent on tourism. In 2019, the Caribbean attracted more than 31 million visitors. Most of the Caribbean countries have closed their borders to commercial flights in an effort to contain the coronavirus, and tourism has slowed to a crawl. With Jamaica Opening its borders on June 15th MDLink is preparing to launch MD Lex, its A.I COVID-19 screening chatbot and MDLink Therapy - a mental health focused arm of MDLink that will assist in management of patients via telepsychiatry and other tools. When coronavirus came around we saw a need for it and we began expanding all over the region. We are now in The Bahamas, St Lucia, the Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bitish Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbados, said Dr. Bowen.



We invite you to read article published in Caribbean Local News. http://www.looptt.com/content/md-link-brings-telemedicine-caribbean

Ben Kaplan, CEO of Ehave, Inc. said, "We look forward to the MDLink platform benefitting patients in the Caribbean during the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the platform also has long-term benefits for the region during natural disasters such as hurricanes. As we have already mentioned, our business model calls for further expansion of the MDLink platform to cover clinical trials of psychedelics, which will enhance our mental and behavioral health programs. About Ehave, Inc. Ehave, Inc. is a provider of digital therapeutics delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients. Our primary focus is on improving the standard care in therapeutics to prevent or treat brain disorders or diseases through the use of digital therapeutics, psychedelics, independently or together, with medications, devices, and other therapies to optimize patient care and health outcomes meeting privacy and HIPAA & GDPR Compliant. Our main product is the Ehave Dashboard which is a mental health informatics platform that allows clinicians to make objective and intelligent decisions through data insight using Blockchain technology. The Ehave dashboard offers Offline Encrypted Digital Records Empowering Healthcare providers and patients and it's a powerful machine learning and artificial intelligence platform using artificial intelligence to extract deep insights from audio, video and text to improve research with a growing set of advanced tools and applications developed by Ehave and its leading partners. This empowers patients, healthcare providers, and payers to address a wide range of conditions through high quality, safe, and effective data-driven involvement with intelligent and accessible tools. About MDLink MDLink is the pioneer of Telemedicine and the only operational Telemedicine platform in the Caribbean region. Founder and CEO, Dr. Che Bowen, launched MDLink in 2018 and has since spearheaded the Telehealth movement through the region. MDLink provides services in Psychiatry, General Practice, Urgent Care and Urology, Internal Medicine, Dermatology & more. MDLink was the first to have a partnership with a regional telecommunications company- Cable & Wireless/Flow. With more than 10,000+ registered patients, MDLink is the first telemedicine provider to launch a COVID-19 A.I. Chatbot in the region next month, MD Lex. Additionally, MDLink is a member of the Psychiatric Association of Jamaica. MDLink now has 300+ registered Doctors throughout the region and continues to grow daily. Forward-Looking Statement Disclaimer This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may be preceded by the words intends, may, will, plans, expects, anticipates, projects, predicts, estimates, aims, believes, hopes, potential or similar words. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements: (i) the initiation, timing, progress and results of the Companys research, manufacturing and other development efforts; (ii) the Companys ability to advance its products to successfully complete development and commercialization; (iii) the manufacturing, development, commercialization, and market acceptance of the Companys products; (iv) the lack of sufficient funding to finance the product development and business operations; (v) competitive companies and technologies within the Companys industry and introduction of competing products; (vi) the Companys ability to establish and maintain corporate collaborations; (vii) loss of key management personnel; (viii) the scope of protection the Company is able to establish and maintain for intellectual property rights covering its products and its ability to operate its business without infringing the intellectual property rights of others; (ix) potential failure to comply with applicable health information privacy and security laws and other state and federal privacy and security laws; and (x) the difficulty of predicting actions of the USA FDA and its regulations. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update any written or oral forward-looking statement unless required by law. More detailed information about the Company and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward-looking statements is contained under the heading "Risk Factors" in Ehave, Inc.s Registration Statement on Form F-1 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 24, 2015, as amended, which is available on the SEC's website, http://www.sec.gov. Media and Investors Relations, please contact: Gabe Rodriguez Phone: (623) 261-9046 Email: [email protected]

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A 19-year-old Seymour woman was killed in a shooting while attending a graduation party in the Bronx, according to the New York Police Department.

In a tweet, NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said Tyanna Johnson was shot five times on Friday night while at the celebration at Shoelace Park located at E 226 Street and Bronx Boulevard.
Q: Just exactly what does it mean when an attorneys advertisement or website states that the initial consultation is free? Is the attorney expecting that this visit will be the first of many visits, and this one is free? Or is the attorney thinking of this visit as a sales pitch which may or may not lead to other paid visits? As a potential client, what should I expect?

A: The free initial meeting is most definitely a way to get potential clients in the door as a way to generate more business for the lawyer.

Plaintiffs lawyers  those who file lawsuits claiming their clients have been injured  can make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, on every case they sign up. So, they will try anything to get good cases in the door. Not only is the first meeting free, but they will come to your home, office or the hospital where you are recuperating to try to sign you up.

Other attorneys, such as divorce attorneys or estate planning attorneys, are also looking for clients. A divorce can cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, so it makes sense to offer the first meeting for free. Estate planning documents usually cost far less than a divorce, but many lawyers will offer a complimentary first meeting.

As a potential client, you should expect that the lawyer will be doing his or her best to impress you with their skills and expertise. You are, of course, able to shop the market and ultimately decide on the one attorney you find to be the best qualified and most reasonably priced.

Q: I was named the beneficiary of an annuity owned by my sister. Its value at the time of her passing was about 10 percent greater than its original cost. Rather than cash it out, I elected to extend the contract for another five years. During this period of time, the value has appreciated another 5 percent. The mandatory surrender date is fast approaching and taxes will be due. What is my cost basis? The gain over original cost, or the gain since date of inheritance?

A: Your cost basis is tied to the original cost.

Like retirement accounts, annuities do not get a stepped-up cost basis at death. For more information, check out IRS Publication 575, available at www.irs.gov.

Q: Im an executor in a will for a person who has assets worth about $1 million, most of which passed to named beneficiaries. She had no children. Only about $50,000 in cash accounts needs to be probated. Can I use the Small Estate Affidavit instead of regular probate?

A: No, you cant. A Small Estate Affidavit is for someone who dies without a will, where property passes to that persons heirs as determined by Texas law.

The person you have asked about died with a will, and importantly, that will almost certainly left property to different people than those who would inherit under Texas law.

Thus, the will needs to be probated.

The information in this column is intended to provide a general understanding of the law, not legal advice. Readers with legal problems, including those whose questions are addressed here, should consult attorneys for advice on their particular circumstances. Ronald Lipman of the Houston law firm Lipman & Associates is board-certified in estate planning and probate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Email questions to stateyourcase@lipmanpc.com.
When Ontarios COVID-19 lockdown began, Emily Elkouby didnt anticipate any technical challenges to working from her Markham home.

After all, Elkouby, 40, a music teacher at Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute in Toronto, had long been an avid video gamer and was conversant with all the current online communications programs and apps.

Experience proved her wrong. Elkouby discovered that her hybrid tablet wasnt fast enough to keep up with full days of online work and that her headphones, which were fine for listening to a song or two, became uncomfortable after an hour or two. Accustomed to leading bands and addressing rooms full of students, Elkouby also found that sitting down at the dining room table all day made it hard to concentrate. Then, there was the microphone she owned; it didnt work well for recording music to play online for her students.

Within a couple of weeks, Elkouby had rectified these problems by investing in a new laptop, wireless headphones, a standing desk and a professional musicians microphone, to the tune of $1,200 in total.

It has been worthwhile, Elkouby said. Work would have been a lot harder without these purchases and, when I hear the words second wave, I realize I may be using this equipment again this fall.

Elkouby is not alone in spending money on items she wouldnt have ordinarily needed if working from home werent required.

While many employees are saving money on transit costs or the price of lunches, they are accumulating other expenses, such as desks and ergonomic chairs, printers and scanners, paper and ink. There may also be other costs: courier services and increased data and electricity usage at home, for example.

We are all home using our devices; the bread machine is going 24/7 and, now that its warm, the air-conditioning is running all day, Elkouby said of her family, including husband and son. I wouldnt be surprised if our electricity bill increases.

Tracey Bissett, a certified financial adviser and president of Bissett Financial Services in Toronto, says that not all employees are paying the increased costs of working from home out-of-pocket.

Some people are getting a flat benefit from their employer to improve their physical surroundings or get faster internet service, Bissett said. Of course, this would be a taxable benefit.

Others are working with their employers to get necessary items from the workplace or have them delivered to their homes.

Luckily, for those paying for office-related expenses out-of-pocket, there is relief in sight  unless the federal government makes a quick change to tax regulations. Under the current system, anyone who works from home regularly can deduct a portion of their business-related expenses from their taxable income. The expenses that fall into this category include utility payments, rent and business-related cellphone usage. Purchases of new office equipment are considered fixed assets; a portion of their cost can depreciated each year. For homeowners, deductible expenses also include maintenance and upgrades to the home office.

Regular employees who arent working from home dont usually have access to these deductions, says Owen Tulk, a retired certified general accountant who operates The Mad Accountant tax planning and preparation business in Uxbridge. They usually apply to freelancers or salespeople who work from their homes.

However, the pandemic has changed the tax landscape. Employees working from home under COVID-19 can file Revenue Canada form T2200, says Gerry Campbell, who prepares hundreds of tax returns annually at Liberty Tax Service East Toronto.

The form allows those working from home to determine the percentage of their home that is used as an office and deduct that percentage of relevant expenses on their tax return. (You calculate the home office percentage by measuring the space in your home that is used as an office and dividing it by the total square footage of the finished portion of the home.)

The only catch is that you have to work from home more than 50 per cent of the time over the course of a calendar year. But given that many Ontario employees started working from home in March and will probably continue doing so until September, its likely that lots of workers will qualify.

Reducing taxable income is a real bonus for employees, since it will make a difference in the amount of tax they pay, Campbell noted.

The key to filing a T2200, noted Tulk, is that your employer must fill it out and sign it for your deductions to be allowed. Previously, these deductions were used only by the self-employed or salespeople who always worked from home.

It doesnt cost your employer anything to fill out a T2200 and once he or she has done one, they are all basically the same, Tulk said. Most people dont know about the T2200, so it has been an eye-opener.

Elkouby was pleasantly surprised to learn about the potential for a tax break.

Right now, I just feel grateful that my husband and I both have incomes, so were not hurting financially by purchasing equipment for my home office, she said. However, it would help if I could deduct my purchases.

Before turning cartwheels to celebrate a potential tax deduction, both Bissett and Tulk remind employees to keep all their receipts handy in preparation for tax time.

This is where people often fall down, Tulk said. Get an envelope or file folders and stuff your receipts and bills in there so they are handy at year end.

Added Bissett, You should have all the documentation you need, including utility bills, on hand.

Elaine Smith is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributor for the Star. Reach her via email: is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributor for the Star. Reach her via email: ersmithwriter@gmail.com
It is also an insinuation of insulting because it is implying that if you are a Zanu PF leader you have to think the same like everybody who is Zanu PF which is not right. It is like thinking that we (in Zanu PF) are like a locomotive engine which runs on a rail and when it goes out of that rail that whole thing collapses.
PORTLAND, Oregon, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, "Healthcare Personal Protective Equipment Market by Material (Protective Clothing, Face Protection, Eye Protection, Respiratory Protection, Hand Protection, and Others) and End User (Hospital, Home Healthcare, Outpatient/Primary Care Facilities, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202027". According to the report published, the global healthcare PPE market generated $12.9 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach $33.4 billion by 2027, registering a CAGR of 12.4% from 2020 to 2027.

Key determinants of the market-

Rise in demand for healthcare PPE to protect the healthcare personnel involved in the treatment of Covid-19 patients augments the growth of the global healthcare PPE market. Furthermore, rise in investment from public and private players in the production of healthcare PPE kit to meet the growing demand fuels the growth of the market. Nevertheless, negative impact of PPE material on environment restrains the market growth. Moreover, growing development of healthcare PPE kits based on bio materials is expected to usher a number of opportunities in the near future.

Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/6741

COVID-19 scenario:

The novel coronavirus outbreak all over the world has augmented the demand for healthcare PPE products including face masks, gloves, goggles, gowns, coveralls, and face shields.

North America and Europe have outsourced the PPE products to meet the demand in Asian countries such as China and Malaysia . The preliminary stage of COVID-19 outbreak resulted in increased demand in China . However, the market witnessed supply chain disruptions due to lockdown.

and have outsourced the PPE products to meet the demand in Asian countries such as and . The preliminary stage of COVID-19 outbreak resulted in increased demand in . However, the market witnessed supply chain disruptions due to lockdown. The surge in demand for N95 and surgical masks to prevent infection is anticipated to contribute for market growth.

Get Detailed COVID-19 Impact Analysis on the Healthcare Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Market @ https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-for-customization/6741?reqfor=covid

The protective clothing segment to dominate the market in 2019-

Based on product, the protective clothing segment contributed to the largest share in 2019, accounting for more than one-third of the global healthcare PPE market, owing to increase in use of coverall, gowns, and scrubs as a basic requirement for any healthcare personnel or patient. However, the respiratory protection segment is estimated to portray the highest CAGR of 14.0% during the forecast period. This is attributed to rise in the usage of face masks by general public due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The hospital segment to lead the trail throughout 2027-

Based on end-user, the hospital segment accounted for the largest share in 2019, holding more than two-fifths of the global healthcare PPE market share, and is expected to maintain the largest share throughout the forecast period. Moreover, the same segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 13.1% from 2020 to 2027. This is owing to easy availability of healthcare insurance services.

For Purchase Enquiry at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/6741

North America to rule the roost throughout 2027-

Based on region, North America contributed to the highest share, accounting for more than one-third of the healthcare PPE market in 2019, and will maintain its dominance throughout the forecast period. This is owing to the presence of world-class healthcare systems and stringent regulations for the use of proper PPE in healthcare settings. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 13.7% from 2020 to 2027. This is owing to increase in affordability of primary healthcare services and other healthcare infrastructure investments in the region.

Leading market players

Med-Con Pty Ltd.

Ansell Limited

DuPont de Nemours Inc.

Cantel Medical Corporation

Cardinal Health

3M Company

Company Owens & Minor Inc

Honeywell International Inc.

Medline Industries Inc.

Medisca Pharmaceutique Inc.

Interested in Procuring this Report? visit: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/healthcare-ppe-market/purchase-options



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US protests

A lesson in violence

The last few weeks have given US citizens an extraordinary practical lesson in what Max Weber called the states monopoly over violence. Mass protests against police brutality have been met with an obscene increase in police brutality as the state attempts to reassert control over the people and maintain the status quo.

At the time of writing, over 10,000 arrests have been made and several protestors have been killed. Indiscriminate use of non-lethal ammunition has resulted in hundreds of injuries, with many people permanently blinded after being shot in the face with rubber bullets. The use of tear gas, which is banned in conventional warfare, has also been heavily criticised, especially as any harm caused to protestors respiratory systems will exacerbate the symptoms of COVID-19.

Despite the violence  or perhaps because of it  some progress has been made. The Minneapolis City Council has pledged to disband its police department and to explore community-based public safety models. Protestors in other states have been pushing for police services to be defunded, while those at the most radical fringe are calling for the abolition of police altogether.

There is, however, a further lesson to be learned from the situation. Despite the immediacy of the ongoing conflict, protestors in the US must also realise that what they are currently experiencing is the same brutality and repression their own nation has always inflicted upon the global south.

The daily violence brought against black Americans (and now their non-black allies) in the imperial core is the same daily terror inflicted upon millions of ordinary people on the imperial periphery. Indeed, we can say that the relative comfort and prosperity enjoyed by Americans comes at the cost of millions of others living in misery, and that this exchange is guaranteed by US military force.

The US maintains more than 800 military bases outside of its own borders, all of which are crucial for continuing the empires stranglehold on global politics and economics. Since 2003, over 200,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by US forces as part of the empires effort to maintain control of the global oil industry. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, over 2,000 civilians have been killed by illegal US drone strikes, with Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump all sharing responsibility. On more than one occasion, these barbaric drone strikes have deliberately targeted wedding parties and other social gatherings in full knowledge that civilians were at risk of injury or death.

The 2011 US-led military intervention in Libya, orchestrated by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, turned a thriving, cosmopolitan nation into a boneyard. Under the false pretence of humanitarian concerns, the US targeted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi because of his vocal anti-imperialism. Gaddafis pan-African vision for economic independence was unacceptable to the US, especially considering Libyas vast oil reserves.

The murder of Gaddafi, aided by US drone strikes, tipped Libya into a downward spiral of civil war. Now, Libya is the epicentre of the modern African slave trade. Refugees from across the continent attempting to cross the Mediterranean are captured, tortured and sold. This is a humanitarian crisis created by US military violence, once again in the interests of maintaining US control of global markets and politics.

And let us not forget the United States outsourcing of violence through proxies. The US is currently providing material and logistical support to Saudi Arabias military intervention in Yemen. The Yemeni population has been utterly devastated by this ruthless conflict. Over 16 million Yemenis are suffering from malnutrition as their entire country is effectively under siege. As many as 100,000 Yemeni children have died of starvation since the conflict began in 2015. Some critics have gone so far as to label the war as an act of genocide. The destabilisation of Yemen bolsters Saudi Arabias presence in the region, which ultimately serves US interests.

If progressives in the US are serious about achieving real change, they need to recognise that this change must also extend beyond their own borders. US police brutality at home and US military brutality abroad are two sides of the same coin. Yes, systemic racism and violence against people of colour must stop, in the US and everywhere. But it is not enough for protestors to demand an end to police brutality within the US while ignoring the violence their nation inflicts upon people in other countries, especially when Americans benefit from this violence.

Should the protests succeed in putting a stop to police brutality in the US, this momentum must then be directed towards solving the broader problem of US imperialist violence. Only the abolition of the US as a global military empire will bring true justice for the oppressed peoples of the world, and this change must be led by Americans themselves. Whether those in the US who are striving for change can summon the self-awareness to recognise this need remains to be seen.
A close friend of Tylee Ryan has revealed her heartbreak over the news that the 17-year-old and her little brother Joshua 'JJ' Vallow were found buried in their stepfather's backyard nine months after they went missing.

Alexcia Law spoke out prior to a vigil for Tylee and JJ in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on Saturday night, less than a week after their remains were recovered from Chad Daybell's property in nearby Salem.

Chad and the children's mother, Lori Vallow, are both behind bars on charges related to their disappearance.

Alexcia choked up as she described how Tylee was like a sister to her, and how Lori treated her like a 'second daughter'.

'It is hard because I saw Lori as, like, my second mom,' she told KUTV.

Scroll down for video

Alexcia Law shared her heartbreak over the death of her friend Tylee Ryan in an interview with Salt Lake City news station KUTV (pictured)

Seventeen-year-old Tylee (left) and her seven-year-old brother JJ (right) were found buried in the backyard of their stepfather Chad Daybell's home in Salem, Idaho, last week, seven months after they disappeared last September

The children's mother, Lori Vallow, is currently behind bars on charges related to their disappearance. In her interview with KUTV, Alexcia described Lori as a 'second mom'

Alexcia met Tylee when they lived in Hawaii a few years ago and Lori served as the children's leader at their church.

She said she and Tylee quickly became best friends while living a few doors down from each other in Hawaii.

'She was always so happy, and she loved JJ, and she did everything with him,' Alexcia said of Tylee.

She said Tylee had a very close and loving relationship with her mother when she knew them, and reminisced about the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies Lori used to make for the girls.

Alexcia said she was stunned when she heard about Tylee and JJ's deaths, and that their mother was jailed for charges including child abandonment and desertion.

However, she was less surprised by the allegations that Lori was a member of a Doomsday cult led by her husband Chad.

'Lori would talk about the end of the world and the second coming all the time,' Alexcia said.

'She would joke about it. She'd be like: "Let's go off a cliff. The world is going to end, let's just die all together." And talk about running all of us off of a cliff together.'

Alexcia said she and everyone else took Lori's comments as a joke, never thinking that the mother actually believed what she was saying about the end of the world.

She lost touch with Tylee and her family when they moved back to Arizona about four years ago. Alexcia herself left Hawaii for Utah, where she lives now, around the same time.

Alexcia said she got back in touch with Tylee briefly last summer, after her stepfather Charles Vallow, Lori's fourth husband, was killed in July.

'I texted her, I was like: "I'm thinking about you and hope you're okay." She was like: "I'm okay," and I never heard from her again,' Alexcia said. 'It was really sad.'

She said she wants others to remember Tylee and JJ as the 'sweetest people' they were, rather than the tragic manner in which they died.

Alexcia met the Vallow family when they lived in Hawaii a few years ago. She said she wants others to remember Tylee and JJ as the 'sweetest people' they were, rather than the tragic manner in which they died

Hundreds turned out for the candlelight vigil for JJ and Tylee on Saturday night in Idaho Falls

Hundreds of people turned out for the candlelight vigil on Saturday night in Idaho Falls, which came just hours after the Rexburg Police Department confirmed that the remains recovered from Chad's property were positively identified as JJ and Tylee.

Family members who for months clung to hope that the kids would be found had made the confirmation days earlier.

The vigil was organized by Timanee Olsen, a specialty cookie baker who didn't know JJ or Tylee's families but had closely followed the case since it was first announced in December.

'I never thought it would come to this - I didn't think they were dead,' Olsen said. 'It's just sparked a lot of sadness in our town.'

The vigil included poetry, prayer, music and a moment of silence for JJ and Tylee.

Timanee Olsen, who organized the vigil, speaks to the large group of attendees on Saturday

Many attendees broke down in tears as they held a moment of silence for JJ and Tylee

Attendees are seen writing personal messages on index cards that will be delivered to JJ and Tylee's families

Attendees came from as far away as Arizona, where Tylee, JJ and Lori lived until they moved to Rexburg last August - weeks before the children vanished.

April Raymond, who was friends with Lori when they lived in Hawaii, drove up from Utah to pay her respects.

'I'm glad we have some answers but I'm waiting for a lot more,' Raymond told the East Idaho News.

'We really wanted to be here. It was important for me to have an opportunity to remember Tylee and JJ the way that we would like to.'

Attendees wrote personal messages on index cards that will be delivered to JJ and Tylee's families.

'Most of us haven't felt this kind of pain or loss,' Lee Linde said during the closing prayer.

'I think we can all feel the pain of this loss whether you knew JJ and Tylee or not because this kind of tragedy affects us all.'

JJ's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, were unable to attend the vigil but watched it via livestream on Facebook.

At the end Larry wrote in the comments: 'God bless you all! Thank you for supporting the loss of our kids.'

Rexburg Police on Saturday confirmed that the two sets of remains recovered from Chad Daybell's property (pictured) had been officially identified as JJ and Tylee

Chad Daybell, 51, is facing two felony charges in the disappearance of his wife Lori's children. Lori is currently behind bars on charges of neglect and desertion

Timeline of JJ and Tylee's disappearance July 11, 2019: Lori Vallow's husband, Charles Vallow, is killed by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona. August: Lori moves children JJ and Tylee to Rexburg, Idaho, where Chad Daybell lives with his wife Tammy. September 8: The last time Tylee is seen during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with Lori, JJ and Alex. September 23: The last time JJ is seen at his school in Rexburg. October 19: Chad's wife Tammy, 49, dies at their Idaho home. October 25: A friend of Tylee receives a vague 'miss you' text from her phone but says that it didn't sound like the teen. November 5: Lori and Chad tie the knot on a beach in Kauai. November 26: Out-of-state relatives ask Idaho police to perform a welfare check on JJ and learn both he and Tylee have not been seen for months. November 27: Police execute a search warrant related to the children at Lori's home and discover that she and Chad have fled Idaho. December 11: Tammy's body is exhumed from a Utah cemetery and her death is reclassified as suspicious. December 12: Lori's brother, Alex Cox, is found unresponsive in Arizona and dies. December 21: Rexburg police issue the first press release about JJ and Tylee, revealing they believe their disappearance could be linked to Tammy's death. December 24: Lori and Chad issue a statement through an attorney saying they love their son and daughter and look forward to addressing 'allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor'. December 30: Police accuse Lori and Chad of lying to investigators and say they believe the couple know where the kids are or what happened to them. January 3, 2020: Police search Chad's home in Salem and remove 43 items. They also comb over sections of the snow-covered yard with rakes and metal detectors. January 26: Lori and Chad are seen for the first time in months as police serve them with a court order to produce the children to authorities in Idaho in five days. January 30: Lori misses the court deadline to produce the children to Idaho authorities. February 20: Lori is arrested in Kauai. March 5: Lori is extradited to Idaho, where she is held on $1million bond at Madison County Jail. April 9: Authorities reveal they are investigating Lori and Chad for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with Tammy's death. June 9: Police search Chad's home in Salem for the second time and discover human remains in the backyard. Chad is taken into police custody and charged with destruction or concealment of evidence. June 13: Police confirm that the remains belonged to JJ and Tylee. Advertisement

Nearly a week after the children's remains were found last Tuesday, many questions in the complicated case remain unanswered.

Chad is currently being held on $1million bond at Fremont County Jail on two counts of destruction or concealment of evidence.

Lori has spent the past four months behind bars at the neighboring Madison County Jail on five charges related to the children's disappearance: two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of children and one misdemeanor count each for obstructing an investigation, criminal solicitation to commit a crime and contempt of court.

Prosecutors have not said whether they plan to add additional charges in light of the bodies being found.

Tylee and JJ were last seen in Idaho in September but were never reported missing by Lori or Chad, the man she married weeks after the kids vanished.

Authorities began searching for the children in late November after performing a welfare check ordered by concerned relatives who said they hadn't spoken to seven-year-old JJ, who is autistic, in months.

When officers first went to Lori's home in Idaho on November 26, she told them that JJ was visiting relatives in Arizona - which investigators say was a lie.

Officers returned the following day and found that Lori and Chad had fled from the home.

Authorities say the couple have repeatedly lied about where JJ and Tylee are and refused to cooperate with the investigation.

Lori and Chad were named persons of interest in the children's disappearance after investigators said they believe the mother knew where her children were or what happened to them.

The case captured nationwide attention with the revelations that police are also investigating three mysterious deaths linked to Lori and Chad, as well as family members' claims that the couple are members of a dangerous doomsday cult.

The first death is that of Lori's estranged husband Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona on July 10.

Charles and Lori had gotten into an argument when the father came to pick up JJ at the mother's home in Chandler.

Lori's brother intervened and fatally shot Charles.

Police initially determined that he acted in self defense - but the case was reopened amid the multi-state search for JJ and Tylee, who had moved to Idaho, where Chad lived, with their mother in August.

The second mysterious death was that of Chad's first wife Tammy Daybell, who was found dead at the home they shared on October 19.

An obituary stated that Tammy passed away in her sleep and her cause of death was ruled as natural after Chad reportedly declined an autopsy.

Investigators reopened the case after learning that JJ and Tylee were missing, as their mother had married Chad just two weeks after Tammy died.

They believe the two cases could be linked.

Tammy's body was exhumed on December 11 and the autopsy results have not yet been released.

On December 12, Lori's brother, Cox, was found dead in Gilbert, Arizona.

An autopsy determined that the 51-year-old's died of natural causes but noted that he had the overdose drug Narcan in his system at the time.

Police tracked Lori and Chad down in Princeville, Hawaii, in late January and served the mother with a court order requiring her to physically produce the children to authorities in Idaho by January 30.

Lori failed to meet the deadline, prompting her arrest and extradition to Idaho, where she is currently being held at Madison County Jail in lieu of $1million bond.
This is an opinion column.

Authors note: I wrote this column two weeks ago. While it ran in print, I waited to publish it online because protests and civil unrest seemed to be more pressing matters of public attention at the time. Since then, it has aged well, if for all the wrong reasons.

Gov. Kay Ivey isnt telling us the whole truth.

Thats not to say shes lying. She isnt.

Thats not to say shes withholding important information. Shes not (at least, that I know of).

No, Alabamas governor needs to tell Alabamians the truth about what our state can do, what it cant, and what Alabamians must do for themselves. This is where she has been less than clear.

If I were her speechwriter, it would go something like this 

My fellow, Alabamians, no matter what anybody calls me on Twitter, I am not your Mee-Maw.

And judging by what weve seen happening on Alabamas beaches, in bars, some restaurants and other venues, Im very glad Im not your Mee-Maw. Last year, I had surgery for early-stage lung cancer, and if I had to live in the same home as some folks Ive seen on TV, Id probably be dead already.

I can tell you from experience that this attitude of everybodys got to go sometime  what some of our fellow citizens shared on the beach with national TV reporters  ends the moment you are diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness. And it ends the moment you pass on an illness that can kill  even if harmless enough for you  to someone you love.

Unfortunately, for some, thats what it might take to get the message across. Theres little I can do about that.

Before we began lifting restrictions on businesses and individuals, I told you Id do so based on data, not a date. I wish I had been able to follow through with that. I couldnt.

As our Declaration of Independence says, the government gets its power from the consent of the governed, and too many people had enough of sheltering in place. Barbers fussed because they didnt think the rules should apply to them, and local officials like sheriffs and mayors refused to uphold the law.

We relaxed restrictions, not because the data was getting better, but because public frustration with the restrictions was getting worse.

Thats the truth.

When we relaxed the guidelines, we put in a bunch of fudge language to make us feel better about it. Restaurants and movie theaters may reopen as long as they follow proper procedures, we said. Let me tell you what that really means: Everybody is on the honor system.

Theres not much we can do if businesses blow off our suggestions. What are we going to do, send in state troopers to bolt the doors? The moment we start arresting people well have armed yahoos marching around our capitol just like they do in Michigan. If businesses dont want to follow guidelines, we cant make them.

So this is what you wanted, and this is what youre going to get.

New cases of coronavirus are rising in Alabama and theres very little I or anybody else in government can do about that. We cant put restrictions back in place if no one is going to follow them. We cant declare martial law.

You wanted freedom. You got it.

But with freedom comes responsibility.

Its up to you. And its up to those folks on the beach this weekend.

Wear a mask in public. Avoid unnecessary, prolonged exposure indoors with people who arent your family. And wash your hands.

Wearing a mask isnt about protecting you. Its about protecting the people around you if you already have the disease and dont know it yet.

I get it. Masks are hot. Theyre itchy. They make your ears stick out. You know who else doesnt like wearing masks? Everybody. When you dont wear a mask, youre not making a political statement, youre telling the person at the checkout counter you dont care about their wellbeing. Or worse, youre giving them a disease.

There is no such thing as individual responsibility with a communicable disease. We have community spread, not individual spread. The only way to lick this thing is to care as much for our neighbors as ourselves.

Thats the truth. And telling you the truth is all Ive got left I can do. I cant make you. I cant whoop you if you dont.

Because Im not your Mee-Maw. Im just your governor.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

You can follow his work on his Facebook page, The War on Dumb. And on Twitter. And on Instagram.

More columns by Kyle Whitmire

Alabama monuments law affects more than Confederate monuments

Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 arent competing stories. Theyre the same story.

Dont be fooled. Huntsvilles Confederate monument isnt going anywhere.

Alabama monument law turns AG into stone

If Alabama has a coronavirus plan for nursing homes, its hiding it

The Confederate monument is gone, but white supremacy still rules Alabama

When a Confederate monument wouldnt fall, rioters turned on Birmingham

Congrats, Twitter, youve been Jeff Session-ized

Alabamas Black Belt is in trouble, again

Remember when Alabama lawmakers said porn was a public health emergency? That was three months ago.

Alabamas secret prison plan puts public information into quarantine

And now we play American Roulette
The attack took place near Novoselivka-2, Donetsk region, at about 6 a.m. Monday

Since the beginning of the day, Russian armed mercenaries attacked Ukrainian positions in Donbas once. The ceasefire violation occurred near Novoselivka-2, Donetsk region.

According to Ukraine's defense ministry, the enemy used anti-tank missile launchers to shell the emplacements of Ukraine's government troops in this area. The attack took place at about 6 a.m. Monday.

The Ukrainian forces returned fire. No casualties were observed among the staff.

Previously, the occupants attacked Ukrainian positions 15 times; one serviceman was wounded in action. Pro-Kremlin militants used a 120-mm mortar, as well as infantry fighting vehicle armament, grenade launchers of various systems, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles and small arms.

Earlier, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that Russian passports, issued to residents of the occupied Donbas are "worthless pieces of paper". "Some take them for ideological reasons because they support Russia "right till the victorious end". Some get Russian passports relying on certain benefits in everyday life: they want to leave this place, to cross the border, and to get some payments. Some think of their security, fearing to find themselves on the "blacklist", in case they don't get the document offered by Russia", the Minister explained.
Two weeks away from the apple harvesting season, orchardists in Himachal Pradesh are struggling to arrange labour, which may render a blow to the Rs 4,500-crore apple economy of the hill state.

Apple growing regions of state rely on farm laborers from Nepal, most of whom returned to their native places in winter and are now stranded there due to the lockdown imposed in the land-locked country.

Nepalese labourers, known to be sturdy, have carried out fruit harvesting in the state for decades, so much so that they have been called the backbone of the apple economy.

Ordinarily, Nepalese laborerers start returning to the orchards in March-April.

APPLES MAY ROT ON TREES

Nawar Valley Apple Society president Mahijit Rathore said, The Nepalese labourers are keen to return but they are unable to return due to travel restrictions imposed in wake of the coronavirus crisis. This is a difficult time for apple growers. If the laborers dont arrive in time, the apples will simply rot on trees.

Apple growers in Himachal are already expecting a lean crop, since unfavourable weather had impacted the blooming in March and April. Later, in May, hail storms pounded the apple orchards in many regions of Shimla, Kullu and Mandi districts.

Worried about upcoming apple season the Federation Of Apple Growers (FOAG), a conglomerate of 11 different fruit growers associations, has asked the government to arrange labourers ahead the apple season.

The government has spoken about the issue many times but nothing can be seen on the ground so far, said FOAG spokesperson Rajesh Dhanta, adding that so far the government had done nothing to redress problem.

SEEK HELP FROM BIHAR, UP

The government should approach the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, as districts bordering Nepal like Betia in Bihar, Moradabad in UP have ample labourers and they are as hardy as Nepalese labourers, said Progressive Apple Growers Association (PGA) president Lokinder Singh Bisht.

Apples are one of the most important fruit crops of the state, it comprises 79% of the total fruit economy and are grown in Shimla, Kullu, Mandi, Sirmaur, Kinnaur and Chamba districts.

Carton manufacturers have already raised the prices of the cardboard trays used for packaging apples by Rs 150. Until 2019, prices of apple trays varied between Rs 410-Rs 470. One tray pack contains 150 trays.

INCREASE MSP: APPLE GROWERS TO GOVT

Apple growers have demanded that the government increase the minimum support price for apples to Rs 20 per kilograms.

They have also demanded that the government pay the pending dues of farmers for apples purchased under the market intervention schemes (MIS) in 2019. Fruit growers are demanding that the government deposit the pending dues in the beneficiaries bank accounts. Apart from, fixing the price of A-Grade apples like Kashmir.

Late harvest will translate into lower yields, reduced returns, and the crops will become vulnerable to fungal disease during monsoon. Farmers also face the challenge of taking the produce to markets.

There is growing apprehension among farmers about the non-arrival of ladanis, the fruit wholesale buyers who come from other states such as West Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

HPs Coordinator of Federation of Apple Growers Rajeev Chauhan said that although the state government has assured that there will be no shortage of labourers during the apple season but they need to take effective steps in this direction on time. Orchardists have also demanded the state government fix rates of A-grade apples, to pay last years outstanding amounts to orchardists.

He said that due to coronavirus pandemic, orchardists are already facing many problems and lack of labourers can lead to huge wastage of apple crops as they will not be able to pluck apples on time.

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Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro faced US accusations Monday of attempting to rig upcoming polls after naming a new regime-friendly election authority that prompted the opposition to withdraw from elections. The country's main opposition parties pulled out of legislative elections in a statement late Sunday, two days after Maduro's government-controlled Supreme Court named a new electoral body to oversee the polls. US State Department chief Mike Pompeo denounced the move as "the latest step to rig the next Venezuelan election." "The regime has selected a National Electoral Council that will rubber-stamp its decision and ignore the conditions required for free elections," Pompeo said in a statement. Eleven opposition parties, including the four largest, announced their withdrawal from the polls in a statement late Sunday. "The Venezuelan democratic parties will neither validate nor recognize any electoral farce staged by the dictatorship for its own interests," it said. The parties denounced "the dictatorial pretension" of the elections intended to renew the National Assembly, a process which they say will serve "to aggravate the current political crisis." The opposition has long accused the Supreme Court, which appointed the electoral council, of being biased in favor of Maduro. The CNE will be responsible for overseeing the poll for which a date has yet to be set, but which by law must be held this year. "We must fight, united, with more force than ever," said opposition leader and Maduro rival Juan Guaido. The National Assembly speaker is recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries, including the United States, who refuse to recognize Maduro on the grounds that his 2018 re-election was rigged. The opposition won the last National Assembly elections in December 2015, winning 112 of the 167 seats. It is the only state institution in opposition hands but its power is largely symbolic, having been usurped by the all-powerful Constituent Assembly, which was created by Maduro and is stacked with his supporters. The new president of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), Indira Maira Alfonzo, at the inauguration of the new body at the Supreme Court headquarters in Caracas, on June 12, 2020
Police appeal for more information about chemical weapons attack that nearly killed double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018.

British counterterrorism police have appealed for more information about a chemical weapons attack that nearly killed Russian-born double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter two years ago.

What you need to know

Britain blames the 2018 attack on two Russian security service officers who allegedly entered the United Kingdom using false passports and poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury.

The Skripals spent days in a coma before recovering but resident Dawn Sturgess died after picking up a discarded perfume bottle that was allegedly used to carry the Soviet-designed agent novichok that poisoned the father and daughter.

Russia denies being behind the attack, but the incident resulted in the largest ever expulsion of diplomats between Western powers and Russia.

What does the UK want?

UK counterterrorism police said late on Sunday that the two Russians who entered Britain using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were still wanted. But they said they could not piece together the full timeline of the attack.

We continue to urge anyone who has information that they have not yet passed to police to do so, they said in a statement. In particular, we are keen to hear from anyone who may have seen the counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume box or bottle that was recovered from Charlie Rowleys address in July 2018.

How did we get here?

Skripal was one of several suspected double agents involved in a spy swap that saw the United States return suspected spy Anna Chapman to Russia in 2010.

The New York Times said Skripal probably angered the Kremlin by continuing to provide information about Russian operations to Western security agencies after his return to Britain.
Seattle's Mayor Jenny Durkan has muscled aside Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey for the title of most cowardly and ineffective clueless wuss to lead a major American city. She ordered the cops to surrender a precinct to the mob and then permitted a literal insurrection, with a so-called autonomous zone openly defying the sovereignty of the city, state, and nation. Worse, she defends the insurrectionists as street fair participants.

In four other cities, some of them (Portland) as crazy left as the Emerald City, the authorities did their job and quickly showed what any sane person realizes: that civil order requires suppression of insurrections.

Emily Zanotti reports for the Daily Wire:

In an effort to replicate the "Seattle Autonomous Zone" in cities nationwide, protesters took to the streets of Asheville, North Carolina, Portland, Oregon, Nashville, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois, over the weekend. Warned by what's happening in the "CHAZ," though, police departments were quick to shut down those efforts. In Nashville, the effort was over before it even began. (snip) In Asheville, members of law enforcement were on hand as demonstrators built their temporary lodgings on Livingston street in the center of the city and dismantled the autonomous zone just hours after protesters declared themselves immune from the laws of the United States. (snip)



Asheville cops dismantle the "barricades."

Police dismantle an Antifa autonomous zone in Asheville, NC. Not today, stalin. pic.twitter.com/xWeepUDxkp  Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 13, 2020

Portland protesters received the same treatment. Cops dismantled the autonomous zone almost as quickly as it was erected. (snip) And in Chicago, a firm hand giving the dmeonstrators what they demand  autonomy, meaning no food and other services is about to accomplish what is beyond Mayor Durkans capacilities:

University of Chicago police are blocking the doors, preventing us from getting access to food, water, & bathroom breaks during our peaceful sit in. Folk bought pizza and we can't get it. Call 773-702-8181 and DEMAND that they stop blocking the doors. #WeKeepUsSafe #HydePark pic.twitter.com/h8Mxkg8BjR  Abolition is a Presence Asha AE  (@Asha_2A) June 12, 2020

Photo credit: Twitter video screen grab.
By Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's two dominant centre-right parties have agreed to form a coalition for the first time in a deal that will also put the Green Party at the centre of policymaking and end a political stalemate triggered by an inconclusive February election.

The deal, which must be ratified by members of the three parties, would make Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin prime minister in the first half of the government's five-year term before Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar returns in December 2022.

Ireland has been in political deadlock since the Feb. 8 vote pushed historic rivals Fine Gael and Fianna Fail together. The two have swapped power since they emerged from opposing sides of Ireland's 1920s civil war.

The pair need the Greens to reach a majority in the fractured parliament to pass new laws, including a 6.5 billion euro ($7.3 billion) package to help businesses hit by the coronavirus crisis.

"This is an historic moment. We're going to have to learn to work with each other, we're going to have to learn to trust each other. I know thats possible," said Varadkar, who will become deputy prime minister under Martin.

"CHALLENGING TIME"

The agreement must be ratified in the next 10 days or so by grassroot members from each party. The smaller Greens need to secure two-thirds support, a higher bar than the larger parties and one which could yet scupper the deal.

"It's a challenging time ahead economically as a result of COVID but the programme for government does represent a new departure," Martin told journalists.

Martin said the government would engage in "significant borrowing" for the first two years but said the programme promised a move towards what the coalition deal calls a "broadly balanced budget" as employment rates improve.

Monday's newspapers declared the Greens the winners, with the Irish Independent's front-page headline calling the accord "A green deal to remould the shape of our politics".

Story continues

The deal includes a 7% average annual cut in greenhouse gas emissions with a fixed annual carbon budget for different sectors, while infrastructure spending would focus on public transport rather than roads.

If ratified, the deal will make Sinn Fein, which wants British-ruled Northern Ireland to unite with Ireland, the main opposition party for the first time.

Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), surged to 37 seats in the 160-seat parliament, the same as Fianna Fail and two more than Fine Gael.

($1 = 0.8884 euros)

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Close the curtains and put your cellphones ringer on silent, because its time for another instalment of something I like to call Naked People in the News.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Close the curtains and put your cellphones ringer on silent, because its time for another instalment of something I like to call Naked People in the News.

This is the semi-recurring feature wherein I provide in-depth coverage of people around the globe who are determined to obtain maximum exposure.

It is also one of the few chances I get as a crusading newspaper columnist to activate the caps lock feature on my keyboard and repeatedly write a single word  NAKED! NAKED! NAKED!  in a sincere and humanitarian effort to attract more online eyeballs.

Our first unclad news item appeared in Britains Daily Mirror newspaper under this intriguing headline: "We looked for love while completely naked."

For this hard-hitting yarn, the paper interviewed three people who were taking part in the latest matchmaking trend on the other side of the pond  naked speed dating, which is apparently just like regular speed dating, except you take part without all the bother of having to wear pants, or anything else.

One participant quoted in the story was a 36-year-old guy named Nolan, who had no problem doffing his duds, but refused to take off his hat because, and I will quote him directly, "I wear it every day so its like my identity."

Heres what hat-wearing Nolan said of spending three minutes on a series of naked dates: "I found it more relaxing than normal speed dating. You had nothing to hide. Youre not being judged. I feel were normally judged by what we wear and we try to guess what people do."

Speaking of intriguing headlines, we found it impossible to ignore a story on CNNs travel website that appeared under this gem: "I was trapped naked on a German fire escape."

In a nutshell, it was a travel writers tale of visiting a German resort town with her boyfriend, attempting to find her way to the sauna au natural, and ending up on a fire escape in the altogether. Weve all been there at one time or another.

Fortunately, this tragic tale had a happy ending in the sense the womans modesty was rescued by an elderly pool-goer who offered up a large inflatable pool float, which just happened to be shaped like a lobster with (Whew!) oversized claws.

We assume she did not come out of her shell until she got back to the safety of her hotel room.

You might not think being naked would be a major pastime during a global coronavirus pandemic, but it turns out you would be completely wrong.

We base that on a Reuters news report stating that a group of Russian restaurant owners, angry about being stripped of their income by a prolonged coronavirus lockdown, are campaigning for their businesses to be allowed to reopen by posting nude pictures of themselves on social media.

It might be more accurate to say these Russians were "sort of naked" in the sense that they and their employees have been posting photographs of themselves in the buff with carefully positioned plates, cups, saucepans, bottles, bar stools and napkin holders to hide what we family newspapers typically refer to as their "jiggly bits."

Not to be outdone, Ontarians sick of being cooped up by COVID-19 are shaking off the shackles of quarantine by shaking off their clothes, according to a CTV News report stating that naturist resorts have been welcoming more visitors this year than prior to the pandemic.

"Theres something about taking your clothes off that makes you feel like youre really finally losing all the shackles of society and all the rules," Stephane Deschenes, owner of Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park near Newmarket, Ont., said.

"You almost feel cleaner because your body is breathing and you can feel the sun on your skin. Makes you feel very alive. We were unusually busy. I think people had a ton of cabin fever."

Our next item involves an incident we are surprised did not happen more often during the lockdown because most of us do not have a clue what we are doing when we take part in those (bad word) Zoom conference calls.

Ready, Pet, Go! Leesa Dahl looks at everything to do with our furry, fuzzy, feathered, fishy (and more!) pet friends. Arrives in your inbox each Monday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

What happened was a Mexican senator issued an apology earlier this month after she was accidentally caught topless during a government Zoom conference.

Martha Lucia Micher, 66, was unaware her camera was still on when she started to get changed during the live meeting with a bunch of bigwigs discussing the impact of the pandemic on the economy.

She apologized for the wardrobe malfunction, which she blamed on her lack of digital expertise, and bravely tore a strip off the online jerks who posted stupid remarks mocking her appearance.

In an effort to leave you on an upbeat note, we are delighted to report that, according to forbes.com, sensational photos purporting to show U.S. President Donald Trump getting a spray tan in his birthday suit are, in fact, bogus. It was part of some off-the-wall art project featuring celebrity lookalikes, which is far less disturbing, right?

Which, sadly, is all the naked news we have room for today. But we promise that if anyone in the future does anything in a revealing manner, well be there to cover it.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca
Swinburne University will for the first time allow graduating year 12 students entry to some of its most popular bachelor degrees without an ATAR this year, in a move it says will support students whose VCE studies have been affected by COVID-19.

Swinburne University of Technology will accept students in many courses with no ATAR.

Instead of competing for a university place, students will be able to enrol in bachelor degrees in fields including arts, engineering, design, business, science and media without getting an ATAR.

The decision follows several other interstate universities that have opened up new entry options to domestic students this year as foreign student arrivals flatlined.

Swinburne said year 12 graduates would be admitted in semester one next year with a letter of recommendation from their school, provided they met minimum English requirements.
LONDON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AQMetrics, a leading global platform for risk and regulatory compliance, continues to expand its client base, with the addition of a number of MiFID II clients. The recent wins include a tier one Asian sovereign wealth fund, as well as a leading ETF provider focused on fixed income solutions for institutional investors, with AQMetrics set to onboard several more MiFID firms in the coming weeks.

Both firms chose AQMetrics after wide-ranging market reviews, which included assessing multiple providers for MiFID II transaction reporting. Ultimately, they said they selected AQMetrics because of the company's robust and multi-jurisdictional technology platform, its data quality assurance capabilities, and the fact that AQMetrics has regulatory authorisation to act as a MiFID II Data Reporting Service Provider (DRSP).

Andy Baker, Operations Manager at Tabula Investment Management, commented that: 'After a thorough review we selected AQMetrics because of the quality of their offering. The client interface is best in class, and is backed by robust industry knowledge and service.'

For AQMetrics, meanwhile, the wins underlines the firm's strong growth and reputation as the number one Software-as-a-Service platform in the global regulatory space, having recently won 'Best RegTech Solution' at the HFM European Services Awards 2020.

'We are delighted to welcome new MiFID clients to AQMetrics,' remarked Darell Miller, AQMetrics' Head of Sales. 'This is a strong vote of confidence in our leading MiFID II ARM. We are now building a truly global reputation and client base, putting us in a great position to help existing MiFID II firms who may be looking to switch their ARM provider.'

About AQMetrics



AQMetrics is a leading regulatory and risk platform focused on delivering compliance solutions to leading financial firms across the globe. Drawing upon the team's deep experience in innovation, technology, reporting, and financial services, we have built a simple and transparent platform that has quickly become the industry's best. To learn more about AQMetrics' MiFID II ARM visit https://www.aqmetrics.com/industry-segment/mifid-firms/



Whatever the clients' needs, we leverage market-leading technology to help them more efficiently meet their obligations. The AQMetrics platform has been tried, tested, proven and perfected. To find out why more and more financial firms are turning to AQMetrics, visit https://www.aqmetrics.com, or follow us on Twitter @AQMetrics.

CONTACT: Andrew Manners,+44(0)7788981751, [email protected]

SOURCE AQMetrics Ltd

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No one could doubt that the world now is a very different place to the world as it seemed at the beginning of this year.

Coronavirus has come and wreaked havoc on the health and wellbeing of millions around the world, and disrupted markets and income streams everywhere. In one or two serendipitous cases however, the outcomes haven't been all bad.

There's the online delivery and tech sectors, for a start. There's the international iron ore mining industry, in which prices have held up as supply from Brazil has collapsed even as demand from China remains strong.

And there's the chrome market, which has undergone a sharp reversal of fortune since the beginning of the year, as Chinese stimulus money has impacted the market.

Tharisa is a major producer of chrome, which is used in stainless steel production, which in turn is used in infrastructure and construction

'The recovery of the Chinese economy has spurred demand for chrome,' says Phoevos Pouroulis, the chief executive of Tharisa, a major producer with operations in South Africa.

'Metallurgical chrome was under pressure at the beginning of the year, but with the stimulus packages from China demand is opening up again.'

Demand is primarily for the use of chrome in stainless steel production, and stainless steel in turn is used in infrastructure and construction, two sectors which the Chinese are keen to boost to support the economic recovery there.

That in itself is all to the good. But there are other factors aiding Tharisa too.

Other producers of chrome still remain hamstrung by the coronavirus crisis, meaning that supply is still significantly curtailed.

South Africa accounts for a significant portion of global chrome supply, but because many mines are underground where social distancing is near impossible, production was disrupted during the lockdown and ramping back up to full production is proving to be more difficult.

Tharisa's operations on the other hand are unequivocally open cast. So, from the very first announcement of lockdown in South Africa, Tharisa was able to apply for and be granted a dispensation to continue with production.

Not at full tilt, mind, but at a robust enough rate to allow Pouroulis to be confident about the second half of the year.

Because the uncertainties around coronavirus are still swirling Tharisa, in common with many companies across many sectors, is reluctant to give formal forecasts at the moment as to production and revenue rates.

But suffice it to say that the chrome price has risen from the $113 per tonne that it was trading at the beginning of the year to the current levels of between $165 and $170 per tonne.

'The stainless steel market signals and indicators are there for demand,' continues Pouroulis. 'What happens next really depends on the supply side. But operationally we're doing well. The effort we've made in optimising our open pit and processing plants are paying dividends, and we're now operating at full capacity.'

Yes, some production will have been lost by the enforced go-slow, but on the other hand significantly higher margins will make up for much of that lost output. There are also benefits to be accrued from the weaker rand.

The uncertainty that remains is more to do with how much ground will be recovered, than whether Tharisa is going to come out of the coronavirus crisis leaner and more efficient.

'We're feeling very positive about how things are operating,' adds Pouroulis. 'Relatively speaking, things are in good shape. And people are grateful. Our workforce are grateful, and we're grateful.'

Indeed, there is much to be grateful for. Only one case of coronavirus has thus far afflicted the Tharisa team, and this was right at the beginning of the crisis. The worker in question has now recovered and those she came into contact with have not contracted the illness.

Meanwhile, operations continue in a wider Southern African context where underground mines remain partially shut, and economic uncertainty abounds, as it does in many countries of the world.

But Tharisa has more than one string to its bow. There's also significant platinum group metals (PGM) production from the South African mine and, although the PGM price has weakened somewhat of late as autocatalyst demand has fallen, it's still relatively high and at a level that Pouroulis is happy with.

What's more, the company also has expansion to look forward to in the shape of its Zimbabwe chrome operations.

Moving into Zimbabwe is described by Pouroulis as 'a very important step', and it shows, if nothing else, that the company remains proactive at a time when many peers are hunkering down.

Much of the proof of this optimistic pudding will be in the third quarter results which are likely to be the next major news item from the company. Whatever happens, they'll be worth a read.
New Delhi, June 15 : With the suicide of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput shining the spotlight on mental health issues, experts have suggested that people first need to be able to identify the problems so they can seek help and get the right treatment.

The "Chhichhore" actor's body was found hanging in the bedroom of his home on Sunday, leading Mumbai police to launch a probe into the suicide from various angles.

According to Dr Samir Parikh, Director of Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences at Fortis Healthcare, depression is an illness that is characterised by periods (of two weeks or more continuously) in which an individual experiences low moods, lack of interest, reduction in pleasure in activities, tiredness or fatigue, poor concentration, changes in sleep and appetite, feelings of helplessness or hopelessness or even thought of self harm (in severe forms of the illness).

"When a person's functioning is affected and these symptoms are present it is important to seek help," Parikh said, adding that treatment can involve a combination of or individually the utilisation of medicines and psychotherapy.

"It is also important that people focus on self care, identify if there are errors in their thinking, determine ways to manage emotional functioning, seek support in friends and family and most importantly talk about the struggle they may have and not hesitate because of the stigma or misconceptions that surround mental health problems," he said.

Actor Deepika Padukone, who earlier opened up about her own struggles with depression, emphasised on the need of "reaching out" again on Sunday.

"As a person who has had a lived experience with mental illness, I cannot stress enough about the importance of reaching out. Talk. Communicate. Express. Seek help. Remember, you are not alone. We are in this together. And most importantly, there is Hope," she wrote in an Instagram post.

As Manish Jain, Consultant, Psychiatry, BLK Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi, pointed out, social, psychological, cultural and other factors can interact to lead a person to suicidal behaviour, but the stigma attached to mental disorders means that many people feel unable to seek help properly.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  The months-long lockdown has not stopped folk-pop group Ben&Ben from making music for their fans, even when apart.

The nine-man band has recently released 'Lifetime,' written and recorded in the confines of their own homes.

"We are very happy with how it turned out...We're happy that a lot of people were able to connect to the song," vocalist Miguel Benjamin Guico told CNN Philippines' New Day.

How did the band pull through? For them, it was all about creativity.

"First we were sending clips back and forth on Messenger, it was really tedious. Eventually we found this platform, which was like Google Docs for music," percussionist Andrew de Pano bared.

"Now we could each record our own tracks then each other one of us can see all the updates in real-time. It was almost like playing together but not really," he added.

The group also had to improvise in creating a studio-quality music by using the full potential of their closets for doing vocals and instruments.

"We put our microphones in the closet so it would function as silencing tool or an isolation booth so there wouldn't be much background noise," Guico added.

'Lifetime,' which was released on June 3, was inspired by a netizen and an untold love story between her and her best friend. To date, the music video has garnered more than 2 million views on YouTube.

On Independence Day, June 12, the band also released 'Nakikinig Ka Ba sa Akin,' a song which celebrates right to freedom of opinion and expression. The song was written two months prior, while the group was on strict lockdown like the rest of the people in Luzon.

As the country further eases quarantine rules, fans can expect the band to continue making music, despite the circumstances.

"We're going to keep putting out stuff, especially now with the general community quarantine," said Guico's twin brother Paulo Benjamin. "We want to keep connected to our fans and the best way of doing that is to keep releasing music."

"And when its allowed, we will shoot music videos as well. We have so much in store for everyone."

Ben&Ben previously put up online concerts to raise funds for COVID-19 relief and benefit frontliners battling the spread of the virus. Its online concert "Puhon" held last March 27 generated more than 4.2 million alone.
Melbourne, June 15 : Two primary schools were closed on Monday in Melbourne after some students tested positive for the novel coronavirus, authorities said.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) confirmed in a statement that two students at St Dominic's School in Broadmeadows were infected with COVID-19 and one of them was already infected while attending classes, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Testing will be undertaken for students and teachers who were at the school from May 26 to June 3," it said.

In response, the school will be closed for three days to enable contact tracing and deep cleaning.

Pakenham Springs Primary School also in Victoria state was shut down on Monday after two students contracted COVID-19.

The school required all students and staff who have attended the school to remain at home while contact tracing is underway.

Victoria state recorded 12 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday. All the positive cases among students were linked to an extended family outbreak in Melbourne's northern and southeastern suburbs.

Another outbreak was identified with two new cases linked to a patient of Monash Health.

One of the new cases is a healthcare worker. The health service is racing to contact all staff and patients who may have been close contacts of the healthcare worker.

In addition, a young woman who attended Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne on June 6 also tested positive for the virus.

The source of infection is still under investigation, but at this stage there were no links to the previous infected patient who attended the protest.

Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton urged anyone who attended the march to remain vigilant and should isolate at home and get tested if symptoms develop.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Recipients from Iredell-Statesville Schools Career and Technical School were selected by a committee of Rotarians based on academics, future educational goals and community involvement. The scholarship was founded in 2019 with the goal of providing opportunities for promising young CATS students to develop much-needed technical and employability skills for workplace success. Each student receives a $1,000 scholarship, which is funded by a matching grant through club members and the Rotary Foundation.

Our club is honored to be able to support these students as they take the next steps toward college and career, said Rotary Club of Greater Statesville President Kyle Houston. The motto of Rotary is Service above Self and all of this years scholarship recipients have shown a commitment to hard work and community service.

Meredith Carson (Lake Norman High School) intends to study Exercise Science at the University of South Carolina to become a physical therapist. During her nursing fundamentals course through CATS, Carson said she was able to learn about the benefits of physical therapy by witnessing patients improvements. Each patient had unique challenges, and the therapists were able to help them live a happier and healthier life. I became motivated to help them in the same way. Carson has participated in community service through National Honor Society, Beta Club, and service through her church. Martin Kirby, a teacher at Lake Norman High School, wrote, Meredith is one of those special types of students who leave indelible arks on their school and community. She does what is expected of her and so much more.
Supporters of President Donald Trump marked his 74th birthday and the United States Flag Day on June 14 with numerous flotillas in Florida, reports said.

Video from Deerfield Beach, Florida, shows many supporters cheering and dancing on boats decked out with American flags and Make America Great Again flags.

Pro-Trump flotillas also were planned for Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, as well as in other states like Michigan, according to local reports Credit: RedSquirrel via Storyful
A college student housing facility in Tennessee has placed one of its employees on disciplinary leave after she was accused of racially profiling a black resident by refusing her and her friends access to the on-site swimming pool.

The incident from last Tuesday was filmed by the young black woman who then posted the video to her Twitter page, where it went viral.

The young woman was with two of her friends who are also black.

They are standing a few feet away from the entrance to the swimming facility at the Knox Ridge housing complex that is home to students attending the nearby University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

A white woman who works for the Knox Ridge student housing facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, was accused of racial profiling after she refused to allow a young black woman who said she lived in the complex access to the on-site swimming pool

The young black woman and two of her friends who are also black were not allowed into the pool at the Knox Ridge apartment complex last Tuesday in Knoxville, Tennessee. Video filmed by the black woman who lives at the residence shows white people allowed to enter

'This woman automatically assumed that we didn't live there and stopped us before we could go inside,' wrote the student, whose Twitter handle is @royaal_e

A white employee of Knox Ridge, who was later identified online as Cheryl Eastman, is seen standing at the entrance.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Eastman seeking comment.

The young woman tries to explain to Eastman that she lives at the complex and should be allowed access to the pool.

As other residents are seen entering the facility, Eastman claims that she never saw the young woman before, and thus doesnt believe that she lives there.

I live here, the young black woman tells Eastman, who is holding the door open while she is being recorded.

Im sub-leasing. She then gives her address at the complex.

We cant have any guests, Eastman replies.

But I live here, the young black woman says.

Another video posted by the young resident shows the employee, Cheryl Eastman, providing her with an email address to file a complaint

The employee, Cheryl Eastman (left), has been placed on disciplinary leave, the housing complex announced. The unnamed black woman who was denied entry is seen right

Residents cant have guests, Eastman says.

The student then wonders why she isnt allowed into the facility while others are. In the video, at least one white student is seen entering the building.

How are you going to automatically assume that I dont live here? the student asks Eastman.

Because I know her, Eastman says. I know everybody that lives here.

The student replies: You dont know everybody that lives here because I live here.

Just because you dont know me doesnt mean I dont live hereThats very rude of you to just assume that I dont live here.

The student then asks: Is there a reason you just assume that I dont live here?

[You assume] a black woman doesnt live here but you can let this white woman in and assume she lives here.

Eastman denies that she is denying entry to the student because she is black.

Its not about that, Eastman says.

To which the student replies: It is about thatClearly [it is], because you see three young women of color walk up to go to the pool and you stop us before we even get to the door.

Eastman then claims that the student didnt fill out paperwork, which the young woman denies.

Knox Ridge Apartments is a housing complex that serves students enrolled at the nearby University of Tennessee in Knoxville

The above image shows the 'lazy river' swimming pool that is accessible to residents

Ive been living here since March, paying rent since March, the young woman says.

How are you going to tell me [that I dont live here]? You stopped me before I could even get to the door to speak to anyone.

The young black student posted another video showing Eastman sitting at her desk. She gives the student a piece of paper with the email address of her supervisor.

The email address is that of Casey Schuler, who is director of operations at University Partners, the property management company based in Dallas, Texas.

Knox Ridge is aware of the incident that occurred [yesterday] involving a staff member and resident, a statement from the housing facility read. We have placed the employee on disciplinary leave while we review this matter further.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to Schuler for comment.

The day after the video was posted to social media, Knox Ridge announced that Eastman was placed on disciplinary leave.

Knox Ridge is aware of the incident that occurred [yesterday] involving a staff member and resident, a statement from the housing facility read.

We have placed the employee on disciplinary leave while we review this matter further.

As a community, we have absolutely no tolerance for discrimination  inadvertent or otherwise.

We intend to revisit our training program for all staff, in order to do our part to prevent situations like this happening in the future.

Our top priority is ensuring our residents feel at home and welcome.

Two people on Twitter who claimed to know Eastman wrote that they did not believe she was racist.

Two people on Twitter who claimed to know Eastman wrote that they did not believe she was racist. Cheryl always treated me with the upmost respect and I've never seen her disrespect or profile anybody of color,' tweeted Marcus Cordier

Another Twitter user wrote: Agreed. Personally know this person. Far from racist.'

I lived at Knox ridge for 2 years 2016-2018, tweeted Marcus Cordier.

Cheryl always treated me with the upmost respect and I've never seen her disrespect or profile anybody of color.

I'm sorry for your bad experience with her but I really think she just didn't know you.

Another Twitter user wrote: Agreed. Personally know this person. Far from racist.

More like the person youre going to see volunteering to to make the world a better place.

Sad to see an ally get eviscerated on twitter over a possible misunderstanding.

The Knox Ridge incident is the latest in a series of viral videos featuring 'Karens' - a derogatory term made popular on social media which is used to describe a white woman usually above the age of 30 who complains about relatively insignificant and mundane things out of a sense of perceived entitlement.

The incident in Tennessee is the latest involving a so-called 'Karen'. Lisa Alexander (left) called San Francisco police on Friday after she accused her Filipino neighbor of defacing his own private property by writing Black Lives Matter. Lauren Balsamo (right) coughed on customers inside a New York bagel store last week after she was told to wear a facial covering

In Los Angeles, a woman dubbed 'Susan' was filmed attacking her neighbor's car with two hammers and yelling at witnesses to 'get the f**k out of this neighborhood' and 'go back to Mexico '

In Arizona, a white woman was slapped across the face after she was caught on camera making racist remarks to another shopper at a gas station last week

Lena Hernandez, 56, also known on social media as 'Torrance Karen,' was identified by police as the woman who launched a racist rant at an Asian woman exercising at Charles H. Wilson Park in Torrance, California, last week

Over the weekend, a San Francisco 'Karen' - Lisa Alexander - apologized after she was filmed on social media accusing a Filipino man of breaking the law because he was writing Black Lives Matter on a wall outside his own property.

Alexander has since apologized for calling the police on the neighbor.

In New York City, a woman was accused of being a 'Karen' after she coughed on customers inside a bagel store in response to her being called out for not wearing a facial covering during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Los Angeles, a woman dubbed 'Susan' was filmed attacking her neighbor's car with two hammers and yelling at witnesses to 'get the f**k out of this neighborhood' and 'go back to Mexico'.

In Arizona, a white woman was slapped across the face after she was caught on camera making racist remarks to another shopper at a gas station last week.

In California, a white woman linked with three racist attacks against Asian people was identified by Californian police.

Lena Hernandez, 56, was named the 'Torrance Karen' after a video emerged of her verbally harassing a woman who was exercising in Wilson Park and telling her to 'go back to whatever f****** Asian country you came from.'
Fireworks being used in the neighborhood caused a two-alarm fire at a home in Worcester Sunday night, according to fire officials.

Worcester Fire Department Deputy Chief Martin Dyer said fireworks struck a three-decker at 14 Preston Street around 10:42 p.m. Sunday.

The third floor of the building caught fire. It took firefighters about 30 minutes to extinguish the two-alarm fire.

Eleven people were displaced because of the fire. No one was hurt.

When you light off these dangerous fireworks, they can have a dangerous toll and we saw that Sunday night, Dyer told MassLive.

The city has seen an increase in complaints about fireworks use lately, Dyer said. He noted there were dumpster fires caused by fireworks on Winthrop Street on Saturday.

Worcester officials are now establishing a working group to determine what resources are needed to address the issue of fireworks in the city, a spokesman for City Manager Edward Augustus Jr. said.

On June 10, city officials put out a message stating there has been an alarming increase in residential complaints regarding the use of fireworks in Worcester. The city reminded people that possession, use and transportation of consumer fireworks is illegal in Massachusetts.

The City of Worcester is especially susceptible as a community with dense neighborhoods and many aging housing units, Worcester Fire Chief Michael Lavoie said recently. Despite the Fire Prevention Divisions efforts to educate the public about the dangers of consumer fireworks, the Worcester Fire Department inevitably responds to avoidable fires caused from the use of illegal fireworks every year.

Earlier this month, police in Boston seized a large number of fireworks in the South Boston area. People in the neighborhood complained about fireworks being used.

Officers spotted a group of people gathered in the Saint Peters Church parking lot and seized boxes of fireworks.

Got a news tip or want to contact MassLive about this story? Email newstips@masslive.com or message us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also call our news tips line at 413-776-1364.
A 28-year-old black man who suffers from multiple mental health disorders spent five months in prison for 'assaulting' two white Ohio cops before bodycam footage revealed that the officers beat, tased and taunted him during a January arrest.

Kenta Settles, who has been diagnosed with bipolar and schizophrenia disorders, was arrested on January 23 in Garfield Heights, Ohio, while walking down an icy sidewalk along Turney Road.

In bodycam videos obtained by Cleveland.com, Garfield Heights officers Michael Malak and Robert Pitts are seen stopping Settles, who appeared confused about why the cops were approaching him to begin with. Settles didn't appear to be committing a crime when he was stopped.

'Come here, come here. You're being detained,' one of the officers is heard telling Settles, who responds: 'What's going on?'

Within a matter of seconds, Settles goes from putting his hands on the patrol car to being hurled to the ground by the officers.

He's seen curled into the fetal position as one officer punches him and another deploys a taser.

Settles cries out in pain as his body convulses after being tased. The officers are then heard screaming at him to 'roll on your stomach'.

Kenta Settles, 28, spent five months in prison for 'assaulting' two white Ohio cops before bodycam footage revealed that the officers beat and tased him during his arrest. Officers are seen on top of Settles during the January 23 arrest

Settles, who has been diagnosed with bipolar and schizophrenia disorders, was arrested in Garfield Heights, Ohio, while walking down an icy sidewalk along Turney Road. It's unclear why he was arrested but authorities said a robbery had been committed in the area

Officers are heard yelling for Settles to 'stop resisting', but Settles responds: 'I'm not!'

Another angle of the video shows more police officers at the scene as they work to handcuff Settles.

None of the footage clearly shows Settles striking any of the officers, but Malak somehow ended up with a bloody nose.

In another clip, Settles apparently begins crying while lying face-down on the sidewalk.

'Are you crying? All poor baby you shouldn't f**king hit cops you a**hole,' Malak tells Settles.

When they finally picked a handcuffed Settles off the ground he tells the officers: 'I hope y'all had fun tonight.'

Another officer responds: 'This isn't our idea of fun.'

'Confused the f**k out of me. I was like what the f**k,' Settles said, referring to the cops approaching him while he was walking down the street. 'Do me like that out of nowhere. Was that fair?'

The same officer told Settles: 'All you had to do was stop and talk to us and none of this would've ever happened.'

Settles then said: 'You didn't ask me to talk.'

According to Cleveland.com, the incident left Malak with a broken nose and Settles with a chipped tooth, a rotator cuff injury and a gash near his eye.

Settles was charged with assaulting a peace officer and obstructing official business and indicted by a judge seven days later. He was held on a $250,000 bond.

In another clip, Settles apparently begins crying. 'Are you crying? All poor baby you shouldn't f**king hit cops you a**hole,' Malak tells Settles (center)

Settles is seen asking the officers if it was fair for them to treat him the way they did during the arrest

Settles remained behind bars for nearly five months before videos of the incident were released.

He was released from jail on June 8 after a judge granted him a personal bond.

On Thursday, Settles filed a lawsuit accusing Malak, Pitts and three other Garfield Heights officers of using excessive force against him and violating his constitutional rights.

According to Cleveland.com, the Garfield Heights police officers involved in the arrest were cleared two weeks after Settles was indicted following an internal investigation that blamed Settles.

Settles alleges in the lawsuit that he had taken a bus to Garfield Heights from Cleveland.

He said he was in the area because he was on his way to visit his brother to borrow a pair of hair clippers to give his son a haircut ahead of his birthday.

On the way to his brother's house, Settles decided to stop by CVS on Turney Road so he could fill a prescription, according to his attorney Jeremy Tor.

According to the complaint, Settles decided to walk through the drive-thru because the main entrance of the store appeared to be closed.

He stood there for a few minutes waiting to be helped, eventually realizing that he looked out of place.

The lawsuit claims that he walked over to a car that was waiting in the drive thru to let them know that he was trying to pick up a prescription.

The man told Settles he had a gun, so he left without getting his medication.

Garfield Heights Police Chief Robert Byrne told Cleveland.com that the officers had then responded to a call about a man trying to pull another man out of his car.

Byrne also said that an armed robbery had been reported near the same CVS more than an hour earlier. Authorities did not release the description of the robbery suspect.
OSCODA, MI  The U.S. Air Force says it plans to increase the amount of fluorochemical contamination thats being removed from the groundwater at its former base in Oscoda after Michigan Congressional delegates pushed for accelerated stopgap cleanup measures.

The Air Force said it will award a contract next month to expand pollution plume capture at two locations around the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base, where past used of AFFF firefighting foam has contaminated lakes, rivers and wetlands with toxic PFAS forever chemicals.

The announcement came late Friday, June 12.

The Air Force has heard the communitys concerns, said Stephen TerMaath, chief of the Air Force program managing remediation at Wurtsmith, which closed in 1993. We are eager to begin taking action at these specific locations.

The extent of the expanded cleanup effort, however, is unclear. The announcement provides few details and does not specify contaminant reduction goals in the contract, which the military says its awarding a year earlier than planned.

Calls to the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center public affairs line were not answered Monday and the system was unable to accept messages.

The interim cleanup measures follow recent pushes from both U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., who helped secure $13.5 million in new base funding that was intended to help the Air Force accelerate a slow-moving cleanup that has angered locals.

The lawmakers stepped-in after military engineers told a local advisory board in April that the earliest any new remediation efforts might begin was sometime in 2024.

The Air Force now says it will increase contaminant removal near an existing treatment facility in the former central base area, and at an old firefighter training site adjacent to Clarks Marsh, a Huron-Manistee National Forest wetland thats highly affected by the pollution. The state of Michigan warns against consumption of any fish or game animal from the marsh due to high PFAS levels found in almost all wildlife in the area.

Members of the local advisory board say its not yet clear to what extent pollution capture zone expansion at the central treatment facility will curb high-strength plumes that are seeping into nearby Van Etten Lake and causing toxic surface water foam to blob around the shoreline.

Toxic foam has been a frequent occurrence around the lake this spring. Testing by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) in March showed high concentrations  about 222,000 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for Total PFAS detected  in a sample taken near the outlet to Van Etten Creek. The creek drains to the Au Sable River, which enters Lake Huron in Oscoda.

Arnie Leriche, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer who co-chairs the Wurtsmith Restoration Advisory Board, said the Air Force hasnt specified whether it will also expand filtration capacity at its treatment facilities, or just install more wells and pump polluted groundwater through existing filtration units.

The facility on N. Skeel Avenue has space to add more granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration vessels, which Leriche said could boost its current operating capacity from 380 gallons-per-minute (gpm) to nearly 1,200-gpm within two years. Increased filtering would significantly cut down on chemicals entering the adjacent lake.

That could be done fast, Leriche said. Theyve got the building. Theyve got the capacity to put the pumps in  just hook it up. Its plug-and-play.

In January, EGLE asked the Air Force to expand plume capture zones and increase pumping rates on existing treatment wells intercepting contaminated groundwater entering Clarks Marsh and the Oscoda Township beach on Van Etten Lake. The Air Force was non-committal in a March reply, in which TerMaath said the cleanup was entering a remedial investigation, or RI, phase where possible interim actions would be evaluated.

Beth Place, Wurtsmith site manager for EGLE, said the state is awaiting details on the capture zone expansion. Those are anticipated once the Air Force selects a contractor.

I think its possible (the contract work) could impact Van Etten Lake, she said. It would obviously depend on how its done. Im still hopeful.

Place said a formal dispute between EGLE and the Air Force that opened under a federal defense remediation grant program in 2017 has ended, although letters have yet to be traded acknowledging the resolution.

Leriche said that while the Air Force may have sped up its own schedule a bit, years of extensive cleanup work around the base and Oscoda area remain. The Air Force is proceeding into a base-wide investigation phase that will likely take a couple years and entail lots of redundant data collection. After that, a feasibility study and more protracted bureaucratic decision-making steps would come before any final cleanup system could begin design or construction.

Leriche said there are PFAS contaminated areas yet to be touched by any cleanup, such as plumes entering Clarks Marsh from the bases former wastewater plant, an old base landfill plume moving under the YMCA Camp Nissokone, and scattered areas of contamination around the area where AFFF foam was used to fight forest or structure fires.

The Air Force has estimated total cleanup at the base would cost about $251 million.

Leriche said the Air Force is moving slowly to clean up PFAS at Wursmith despite having vast knowledge about the location of plumes and contaminant concentrations. Cleanup of other toxic contaminants on the base dates back to the late 1970s.

Although academic scientists first found PFAS chemicals at Wurtsmith more than 20 years ago, the first serious scrutiny came after former EGLE site manager Robert Delaney tested the old base fire training area in 2010. The first drinking water advisory was issued in 2016.

Leriche worries about local hunters eating deer that may have migrated away from Clarks Marsh and is upset the Air Force hasnt acted to prevent locals from consuming contaminated wildlife. All fish and game advisories have been state-driven.

They are moving slowly at this base  slower than at other bases  to get to the point of shovels in the ground to start final remediation, Leriche said.

Were wasting time to start that 30-year operation.

Related stories:

Michigan veterans face uphill battle proving toxic exposure

Quit horsing around, Oscoda residents tell Air Force

Advocates ask EPA to regulate PFAS as hazardous waste
Tower block games such as Jenga can be used to explain to schoolchildren how lithium-ion batteries work, meeting an educational need to better understand a power source that has become vital to everyday life.

While lithium-ion batteries are abundant in so many of our electronic devices, from smart phones to electric vehicles, the resources available to teach children how they work and why they are important are limited.

A team in the University of Birmingham's School of Chemistry, has devised an educational tool which uses the tower block game Jenga to explain the processes at work inside the battery cells and the electrochemistry behind them. Their method is published in the Journal of Chemical Education.

A rechargeable Li-ion battery consists of an oxide and a graphite electrode. These are commonly built in layers separated with an electrolyte. When the battery is charged, lithium ions move from the graphite to the oxide electrode via the electrolyte. Current collectors, which the electrodes are coated onto, allow electrons to move via an external circuit, providing power.

By using the layers of blocks, children can get a sense of how the battery is constructed and how the different components interact with each other. The battery Jenga can show battery operation and key characteristics. The intercalation, or layered, chemistry of charging and discharging this type of battery can be easily visualised. Through removing a few blank blocks in the graphite electrode (these blocks represent empty space between the layers of graphite), a student can move the Li-ion blocks from the oxide electrode to the graphite electrode. The reverse process will occur on discharge.

The simplicity of this demonstration provides a basis for complex chemistry and redox reactions to be explained. The importance and safety of rate of charge for differing applications can be shown too, when students remove the lithium ion blocks from the oxide electrodes at varying rates. The faster charge invariably leads to the Jenga structure collapsing.

The tower block game can also demonstrate how the performance of the battery reduces over continued use by showing how the blocks become slightly displaced as the lithium blocks are removed and reinserted.

Researcher Elizabeth Driscoll explains: "Hands-on demonstrations are known to be a useful way of supporting learning - teachers often use lemons or potatoes to explain conventional non-rechargeable batteries, for example. But we know that electrochemistry is a tricky area for teachers, which often leads to misconceptions among students. We wanted to design a hands-on activity that would help address this and explain this rechargeable-type."

By introducing tower block sets with strong contrasting colours and different textures, the team were also able to devise teaching tools that would be more inclusive for students who are blind or partially-sighted.

The activities have been trialled with multiple visiting schools over the past year, including: the Royal Society of Chemistry's Top of the Bench demonstration lecture, with positive feedback from both teachers and students. The sets have also made an appearance at public events at museums, from the ThinkTank science museum in Birmingham to the Manchester Science Museum and the Royal Institution in London.

The next step for the team will be to enable the activity to be widely accessible to more students and provide support for educators in these topics. Funding from the Faraday Institution and the Royal Society of Chemistry has already enabled 100 small jenga sets to be supplied to a Birmingham secondary school. Tactile classroom sets will also be provided to New College Worcester and Bolton Sensory Support service. Educators interested in producing their own sets can access full instructions via the open access paper in the Journal of Chemical Education.

###

Notes to editor:

* The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world's top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.

* Driscoll et al (2020). 'The Building Blocks of Battery Technology: Using Modified Tower Block Game Sets to Explain and Aid the Understanding of Rechargeable Li-Ion Batteries'. Journal of Chemical Education
Pleas in SC seeking stay or deferment of Puri Rath Yatra due to COVID-19 pandemic

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, June 15: Two pleas have been moved in the Supreme Court seeking to cancel or postponement of the historic 'Rath Yatra' at Puri in Odisha, which continue for 10 to 12 days and is attended by lakhs of devotees from across the world to avoid spread of Coronavirus.

A PIL has been filed by Bhubneshwar based NGO 'Odisha Vikas Parishad seeking stay on holding of the annual festival and an appeal has been moved by one Surendra Panigrahi of 'Bhartiya Bikash Parishad against the Orissa High Court order of June 9, by which it had asked the state government to decide on holding 'Rath Yatra' festival in consistent with the COVID-19 guidelines.

The PIL by NGO said that the religious congregation of such nature which has been specifically prohibited by the State Government vide its guidelines dated June 1 and June 7 and the guidelines dated May 30 of Ministry of Home Affairs, if allowed, will lead to catastrophic results and it will be very difficult on the part of the authorities to control the spread of virus thereafter.

Chennai: Intense lockdown in Chennai from June 19th, no Sunday break | Oneindia News

Thus, keeping in mind the interests of the general public at large, it would be apposite to postpone the Rath Yatra festival which is scheduled to commence on June 23, 2020 and further continue for a period of 10-12 days thereafter, the plea said.

Coronavirus: India's recovery rate rises to 51.08%

It said that if the 'Rath Yatra' is allowed to happen on June 23, despite State Government's prohibition on holding religious gathering or congregations, lakhs and lakhs of devotees from all over the country are going to gather for 'darshan' of Lord Shri Jagannath.

If such a massive gathering takes place members of the crowd will not be able to maintain adequate distance, which will make them all vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 infection, it said.

It sought a direction to the Centre and the state government for not granting any permission for holding the 'Rath Yatra' festival.

The appeal of Panigrahi also mentioned similar grounds for deferment of Rath Yatra like to preventing the spread of COVID-19 virus and said, This time the entire country including the state of Odisha is presently passing through a very critical situation due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in India as well as Puri district.

His appeal filed on Monday said, Now the Puri district is declared as RED ZONE since the month of May 2020. Till today, about more than 155 Corona positive cases are detected in Puri district only and every day the numbers of Corona positive cases are increasing rapidly in the state as well as in Puri district.

It said that lakhs of people will gather if the festival is allowed as scheduled making it difficult to enforce the social distancing norms.

On June 9, the High Court on the PIL filed by Panigrahi has directed that the state government that in case it decides to hold 'Rath Yatra' festival at Puri in consistent with the Covid-19 guidelines, then it must also duly consider deploying machinery or other means like elephants to pull the chariots.

The three heavily built wooden chariots of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra are traditionally pulled manually over a distance of three kilometre twice during the nine-day festival of the Trinity at Puri. While the festival is scheduled for June 23, the 'Bahuda Yatra' (return car festival) is fixed for July 1.

The High Court had said that it is up to the state government to decide whether or not to allow the religious festival depending on the Coronavirus situation prevalent on the ground.

If, however, any such decision is eventually taken, the state government shall ensure strict adherence to the directives issued by the Centre and the State's own orders containing additional guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid-19 virus, the high court had said.
MADERA, Calif., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- California Custom Processing (CCP) announced the approval by the California Energy Commission (CEC) of its project to install a zero-emissions Sunvapor steam generator. The CEC has awarded the project a $3.9 million Food Production Investment Program (FPIP) grant. CCP is a custom almond processor that provides processing services to the snack, bakery, butter, confection, plant-based milk, and alternative flour markets. As an organic processor, CCP uses steam instead of chemicals for blanching, scalding, and pasteurizing of raw almonds.

Currently, CCP's process steam is generated in natural gas boilers. After the project is completed, nearly 100 per cent of the steam will come from Sunvapor's solar steam boiler when operating at full capacity. "While the Energy Commission gives preference to projects for processors in capped facilities emitting greater than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases, the CCP-Sunvapor project stood out for its uniquely high sustainability impact," said Kevin Uy, Team Lead with Energy Commission's R&D Division.

Sunvapor's steam generator achieves an industry-leading 75 per cent thermal conversion efficiency of sunlight to process steam. Such a high efficiency enables the CCP plant to operate on solar steam alone in sunny conditions. In comparison, a photovoltaic system feeding an electric boiler would be capable of producing only one quarter of the steam demand on the same parcel of land.

In Sunvapor's patent-pending process design, parabolic trough collectors track the sun and concentrate the sunlight on specially-coated tubes through which pressurized water circulates in a closed loop. The heat gained by the flowing fluid is supplied to a heat exchanger to generate 100 psig steam pressure, identical to the steam conditions produced in the existing natural gas boilers, except with zero greenhouse gas emissions. Conventional parabolic trough systems use flammable, non-food grade thermal oil instead of water as the heat transfer fluid.

"Our growth has been driven by our discerning customers from the United States and abroad who value our organic and conventional processing of almonds. Many of them have sustainability goals that are demanding reductions in greenhouse gases from their suppliers. Sunvapor's technology provides the best solution for us, and we would be excited to serve as a showcase for other processors to follow our lead," said Grant Willits, co-owner of CCP.

"In food processing, like many other manufacturing industries, the demand for heat far outweighs the demand for electricity, and is more difficult to decarbonize. The FPIP program provided an ideal opportunity for us to help a forward-looking company disrupt business-as-usual energy practices," said Philip Gleckman, CEO of Sunvapor.

About FPIP

The California Energy Commission's Food Production Investment Program (FPIP) provides grants to California's food processing industry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use. The goals of the program are to accelerate the adoption of advanced energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, and demonstrate their reliability and effectiveness for food processors.

About California Custom Processing

CCP is one of San Joaquin Valley's leading almond producers. In 2016, CCP designed and built a 57,300-sq.-ft. food safety processing facility in a prime location local to various almond packers. CCP holds SQF, HACCP, Kosher and Organic certifications.

About Sunvapor

Sunvapor is a technology and project development company based in Pasadena, CA focused on delivering turnkey solutions to decarbonization challenges. Sunvapor has received $7 million from the US Department of Energy for research and development related to low-cost energy storage, collector design, and automated manufacturing. Sunvapor has developed a solar steam facility for a biofuels production plant in California.

For more information: www.sunvapor.net, www.californiacustomprocessing.com

Media Contact: Philip Gleckman, Sunvapor, Inc., Email: [email protected], Telephone: (408) 462-0154

SOURCE Sunvapor, Inc.
World's most powerful telescopes shutdown due to restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic

It's as if the Earth has closed its eyes, some scientists say: the coronavirus pandemic has forced astronomers in northern Chile to shut down the world's most powerful telescopes, running the risk of missing out on supernovas and other spectacles in space.

Scientists have been unable to take advantage of the pristine skies over Chile's Atacama desert since late March, when its array of world-renowned observatories were shuttered.

That means humans will be oblivious to what astronomers call randomly occurring transitory phenomena, like Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) or supernovas -- lost forever to the starry wastes.

"Any GRB or supernova that goes off while we're shut down, we can't really observe it. We will have missed the opportunity to observe it because it catches on so fast and then fades away, so it's these opportunities that are lost," says astronomer John Carpenter.

It's also a critical time to observe Betelgeuse, the giant red star in the constellation of Orion -- the 10th brightest in the night sky -- which has suddenly dimmed, prompting speculation that it could explode, though that could take decades.

"We were starting a campaign to observe and monitor it when we had to close -- so we couldn't continue," Carpenter told AFP.

- Eyes on the Skies -

An astronomer prepares equipment ahead of a solar eclipse at the La Silla European Southern Observatory in Chile's Coquimbo region, on July 2, 2019 /  AFP/File

Carpenter is chief scientist at the revolutionary Atacama Large Millimeter Array, or ALMA, an observatory whose 66 antennae combine to make it the world's most advanced radio telescope.

Carpenter said his observatory's operations have been on hold since March 18.

ALMA is just one of an array of observatories in Chile's arid north that comprise more than half of humanity's astronomical power. Just 400 kilometers (250 miles) away from ALMA is the Paranal Observatory and its Very Large Telescope, the world's most powerful.

The coronavirus pandemic has hit Chile hard, forcing a month-long lockdown of its capital Santiago. More than 2,450 people have died from Chile's 150,000 COVID-19 cases.

"There are a very small number of people who are taking care of the observatory but no observation is being carried out," said Itziar de Gregorio, head of the science office of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) which runs some of the key observatories.

De Gregorio voiced a more optimistic view over the opportunities for stargazing lost to the Earthly health crisis: scientists are likely to get another chance.

"These transitory phenomena are not usually unique. If they occur today, bad luck! But the next year surely many more will come by," he said.

- Stalled probes -

A supermoon -- when the moon reaches its closest position to the Earth -- rises over Santiago, on April 7, 2020 /  AFP

Astronomers chose the vast Atacama desert for its pristine atmosphere -- there is little rain and low humidity year-round.

With telescopes shut down and antennas switched off, space watchers are instead focusing on processing the myriad data collected during long accumulated nights of observation.

Specialists have "several months" of work to keep them going until the pandemic passes and the planets are opened up to them again, said Caludio Melo, ESO representative in Chile.

"Of course, at any given point new observations will be needed but we cannot know yet when that will be," Melo told AFP.

In some ways, the biggest losers are young scientists working to finish research on doctoral studies, "because they have more critical deadlines," said Carpenter.

The long weeks of standstill mean a lag in their observation requests, he said.

"It will be a significant delay. We observe approximately 4,000 hours every year at ALMA with the 12-meter antenna complex, so if the shutdown lasts six months, it is 2,000 hours of lost observation."
Soldiers and policemen keep watch near white bags holding the bodies of people killed in a bomb blast outside a church in Jolo, the capital of Sulu province in the southern Philippines, Jan. 27, 2020.

Two Filipino policemen and a suspected militant with links to Islamic State extremists were killed in separate incidents in the southern Philippines over the weekend, and a manhunt was under way, officials said Monday.

Men believed to be members of the Abu Sayyaf Group opened fire at a police station in Parang, a town on Jolo Island in Sulu province on Saturday, leading to casualties on the police side, said Col. Michael Bawayan, the provincial police chief.

We dispatched our men to track down the perpetrators who were seen retreating to nearby Indanan town, Bawayan said. Three officers were wounded apart from the two slain policemen, who were identified as Patrolman Arjun Putalan and Corp. Mudar Salamat, he said.

National police chief Gen. Archie Gamboa deployed police commandos to Sulu as he ordered a manhunt against the suspects.

I directed my men to launch hot pursuit operations and an investigation in coordination with our counterparts from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to bring the suspects to justice, Gamboa said in a statement.

Also on Saturday, a member of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters militant group under the command of commander Imam Bungos was killed and five other BIFF suspects were captured during a clash with soldiers in Midsayap town in North Cotabato province, according to regional military commander Maj. Gen. Diosdado Carreon.

The soldiers were responding to reports about the presence of gunmen in Lomopog village when fired upon by the BIFF, triggering a 30-minute running gun battle, Carreon said.

BIFF is a splinter faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front group, a former rebel group that signed a peace deal with Manila and now administers an autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines. BIFF is one of several Philippine groups that have pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS).

The weekends violence occurred amid a heated debate in the Philippines over a strengthened anti-terror law, which is awaiting President Rodrigo Dutertes signature after Congress passed a related bill earlier this month. Human rights groups and members of the opposition warn that his administration could use provisions in the proposed law to go after the presidents critics, although government officials have assured the public this would not be the case.

The Abu Sayyaf is the smallest of several armed groups operating in the Philippine south. Abu Sayyaf figures allied with IS and foreign militants led a takeover of the southern city of Marawi in 2017. They were defeated five months later after a battle with Philippine forces that killed an estimated 1,200 militants, soldiers and civilians.

In January 2019, an Abu Sayyaf unit helped two Indonesian suicide bombers attack a church on Jolo in twin bombings that killed 23 people during a Sunday Mass service.
America is in the street, and its mostly about one thing: The country demands a new model for policing, one predicated on transparency and accountability.

New Jersey has pursued this model for decades, with discouraging progress. One glaring example: If a cop in our state has a record of misconduct, the public has little or no access to that information, and there is no fail-safe that removes abusive cops from the system.

Some states are making use of the civic momentum, notably New York, which profoundly changed oversight of law enforcement by repealing a law that had allowed bad cops to hide behind their shields. When Gov. Cuomo applied his signature Friday, police misconduct records and internal affairs complaints had to be made public for the first time in 44 years.

New Jerseys elected officials need to read the room  and the streets  and follow the example of New York and 12 other states, and eliminate the power of police departments to exempt bad cops from exposure and expulsion.

The reality is, New Jersey is among the worst states when it comes to police transparency  internal affairs records are impossible to get, and disciplinary records are mostly inaccessible, says CJ Griffin of Pashman-Stein, the eminent media attorney and OPRA expert.

The public has a right to know when cops engage in misconduct, because they must uphold rigorous standards. Theyre allowed to exert tremendous power, carry deadly weapons, and arrest us. And evidence from every state shows that the secretive internal affairs process doesnt work when they abuse that power. Nobody knows the outcomes, and no one can monitor how effective it is.

Today is a good day to make police internal affairs records public.



Like they do in Florida. Or Colorado. Or Georgia. And on and on. pic.twitter.com/IO9LxtBTdt  CJ Griffin, Esq. (@CJGriffinEsq) June 13, 2020

Consider this: The Minneapolis cop who killed George Floyd was a 19-year veteran who had racked up 18 internal affairs complaints. Only 2 were closed with discipline. A database that documents police misconduct listed 7 other complaints against him, all closed with no discipline.

A more rigorous evaluation of this officer probably would have saved Floyds life, but it isnt permitted in most states. Internal affairs investigations are secret, and the records are never made public unless there is a court proceeding.

Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, who has attended a few marches himself, has championed a package of smart reforms. But he will not offer his opinion on New Yorks action, stating only that everything is on the table and that he will visit 21 counties to hear the publics views on policing issues.

Let him hear you. Start with a comment at his offices online portal.

Senate President Steve Sweeney, who likes to recite his legislative record on transparency issues, agrees that We obviously have to raise the bar on (police transparency), because were in a different world now. But he adds that he would give Grewal the first opportunity to take the lead, and if not, then we could legislate.

Maybe you sense a game of bureaucratic ping-pong heating up, but this is not the time for it. Griffins lament: Transparency isnt even on the legislatures radar right now, she says. And its the most basic component for accountability, because if you dont know whats happening, you cant advocate to stop it or change it.

This has been a failure of process and a failure of moral courage, and reform can no longer wait. It is a tragedy that we no longer give police the benefit of the doubt, but hiding records of misconduct is no way to mend the fracture. Shielding criminal behavior didnt exactly boost the moral credibility of the Catholic Church.

Cops are entitled to due process and the presumption of innocence, and the vast majority of them dont deserve to have their reputations stained by the actions of a minority.

But the public has lost faith in their ability to police themselves, and Americans no longer buy the narrative about a few bad apples  this is about an endemic rot in the orchard. New York has acknowledged that, and New Jersey should do the same.

Racial injustice and abuse of power in policing are not incidental. Theyre built in.



As New Jersey begins to reimagine policing, we can immediately put three policies focused on transparency and accountability in place.



Get to know them:https://t.co/cVGTmIynSi  ACLU of New Jersey (@ACLUNJ) June 12, 2020

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In the automotive world, it can take decades to build a brands reputation with customers, and mere moments to wipe any and all goodwill that may have accrued. Cars and trucks are somewhat more vulnerable than other consumer products in this regard, as the swirling winds of federal regulations, market pressures and financial reality can often lead to ill-advised decisions with far-reaching consequences in terms of how a certain vehicle is perceived by the public.

Just as the term heritage became one of the most effective marketing tools used by car companies seeking to bolster more recent models, so too can a misunderstanding of a vehicles legacy ensure a very public bonfire of development dollars. Automakers have had a history of ignoring history in favor of expediency, convenience or the irresistible allure of a quick cash-in. And yet, nearly every time a major brand has stepped all over the image of a beloved nameplate on the way to a perceived payout, its ended up costing far more than the short-term benefits it was intended to bring to the table.

Atrophied Muscle



Its hard to think of a more storied era for Detroit than when muscle machines ruled Woodward Ave for that brief, shining moment that ran from the mid-60s to the early 70s. Its here that Americas penchant for big blocks and burnouts went mainstream, and showrooms were stocked with V8 power at surprisingly affordable prices.

One of Mopars biggest muscle stars was the Challenger. Introduced by Dodge in 1970, it had a strong five-year run as a leading light in the muscle-car scene before being snuffed out by encroaching EPA regulations and a looming energy crisis.

A few years later, Chrysler was scrambling for fresh blood, its showrooms soaked in also-rans huddled under the cloud of an impending bankruptcy. Newcomer CEO Lee Iacocca was eager to leverage the companys partnership with nascent importer Mitsubishi and deliver at least a handful of vehicles that could make it past a gas station without giving drivers a seizure.

Enter the 1978 Dodge Challenger redux, a two-door hardtop that bore no resemblance to its predecessor in terms of either styling or performance. Featuring a four-cylinder engine tuned for frugality rather than fun, the Challenger was a slap in the face for performance fans unable to understand why Dodge would vaporize its brand equity for the sake of a commuter car wrapped in a sticker package.

An ad for the reimagined 78 Dodge Challenger in Playboy (Chrysler)

The faux-Challenger would hang on until 1983, but even that short run couldnt avoid damaging the good name it had usurped. In fact, so lasting was the antipathy generated by the captive import that it would be 35 years before Chrysler elected to revive the Challenger badge, despite the considerable success enjoyed by its Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro rivals during that same period. The third-time-around 2008 model made sure to wipe out any lingering bad vibes by way of retro styling and massive horsepower that connected directly with the original models heritage.

Supersize Me



As any Hollywood producer knows, attempting to commodify the spirit of a successful original in the form of a mass-market sequel often leads to results that are middling at best. In the auto world, bringing a low-production icon to a broader audience often requires that it run through a gauntlet of accountants, design committees and focus groups, each fully capable of stripping out the personality that had elevated it above the rest of the pack.

So it went with General Motors and its disastrous attempt to springboard off the rugged image of the original Hummer H1. The massive militarized machine was well known for its considerable off-road acumen throughout the 90s, and its stints in both army green and desert khaki gave it a cachet among SUV fans as one of the most rugged rigs around.

What the H1 lacked was a truly livable driving experience. Although a favorite toy among the idle rich, the Hummer was too wide and too long to be practical in an urban environment, and its cabin was spartan at best. In the early 2000s, GM decided to leverage its ownership of the H1s builder, AM General, and create a true civilian version of the sport-utility vehicle that would cram all of its larger-than-life character into a more manageable package.

The Hummer H2 project was one mired by compromise. Rather than maintain any of the unique aspects of the H1s platform, the reimagined H2 moved over to the Generals GMT820 platform, which was shared with more pedestrian fare like the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. This meant not only were the new Hummers proportions taller and narrower than those of its inspiration, but that it inherited the same ho-hum running gear as nearly every other similarly sized SUV in the GM portfolio.

There was one area where the Hummer H2 did stand apart from its cronies: weight. Checking in with a gross vehicle weight rating of over 8,500 lbs., the Hummer was exempt from EPA fuel-mileage testing, which meant it didnt have to advertise is 9-mpg rating on the window sticker.

In fact, fuel economy was perhaps the one area that the H2 matched its predecessor. In all other respects, the truck was perceived as an over-the-top over-compensation from a brand that -like Chrysler before it  was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Rather than stay true to the H1s legacy, the H2 took it to clown school and emerged with a caricature of the off-road legend at the worst possible time in GMs history.

The Hummers modest sales from 2002 to 2009 in no compensated for it becoming the focal point for critics pointing out just how out of touch GM was with the automotive market in general, and the pain being caused by soaring fuel prices in particular. Tainted in all of this, too, was the original H1, once revered for its brash novelty and now wearing the same anti-eco smear. After 2009, Hummer would disappear entirely from the General Motors prospectus on the heels of the government bailout required to save the company from itself.

Get That Out (Of Here)



Hummer wouldnt be the only victim of GMs shaky leadership after the turn of the millennium. An even more important figure from the automakers venerable past would also be subjected to the negative effects of casual product planning and questionable corporate synergy: the Pontiac GTO.

Celebrated for having kick-started the very muscle-car movement that led off this article, the GTO was the go-to performance option from Pontiac during its 11-year run. But it would then go into hibernation for the next several decades until the brand decided to give its sagging sales a boost in the arm in the laziest possible manner in the early aughts.

Rather than develop an all-new model befitting the GTOs status, Pontiac instead turned to its Australian stable mate Holden, borrowing a rear-wheel drive, V8-powered platform and contributing only the most cursory updates to a styling package that was far blander than the three exciting letters on the back would suggest. Throw in a drivetrain that couldnt quite stir the soul in the same way as its predecessor, and the GTOs 2004 launch managed to turn a potential triumph into a tumble.

The wholly uninspiring fifth-generation GTO (Wikimedia Commons)

A quick engine swap would restore the Pontiacs power to a more acceptable level, but it wasnt enough to overcome the anger of brand loyalists stung by the pan-Pacific bait-and-switch. Sales plummeted, and after a trio of years on the market, the car had been axed. Three years after that, Pontiac itself joined Hummer on the dust heap.

History Repeating



Henry Ford might have said history is more or less bunk, but its clear that car companies tarnish the legacy of once-popular products at their own peril. Nearly every time an automaker attempts to ride the coattails of a successful legacy model without any regard for doing the name proud, the result is close to disastrous  and in the case of both Hummer and Pontiac, one might argue terminal.

That GM is now trying a third time with Hummer, by way of an EV-focused greenwash that doesnt just disengage from its roots but thoroughly nukes them from orbit, indicates that not all lessons are lasting, no matter how costly they might have been. Its difficult to reconcile any iteration of the Hummer brand with the desire to give it a new life among the eco set, which suggests that GMs product planners maybe have been reading a few too many Ford biographies of late.

The post What Compels Car Companies to Destroy Their Own Heritage? appeared first on InsideHook.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court refused Monday to reconsider the legal immunity from lawsuits generally given to police and other public officials accused of misconduct.

The justices' decision not to hear a case on qualified immunity in their next term, which begins in October, follows the death last month of George Floyd, an African American man, in Minneapolis while in police custody. His killing led to days of unrest as well as peaceful protests across the U.S. and a renewed national debate about racism and police brutality.

The Supreme Court has in recent decades set a high bar for pursuing lawsuits over official misconduct. Officers' behavior must violate "clearly established" laws or constitutional rights, and courts have found it seldom does because almost every specific allegation is different.

But some justices, lower court judges and scholars on both the left and right have questioned that legal doctrine for creating a nearly impossible standard for victims to meet and a nearly blanket immunity for those accused of misconduct.

Earlier: Legal immunity for police misconduct, under attack from left and right, may get Supreme Court review

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the decision not to hear a new case on qualified immunity, one involving a burglar who surrendered and then was bitten by a police dog.

"I have previously expressed my doubts about our qualified immunity jurisprudence," he wrote. "Because our ... qualified immunity doctrine appears to stray from the statutory text, I would grant this petition."

By refusing to hear a case, the court is not necessarily signaling that it will never abolish qualified immunity or significantly scale it back. Chief Justice John Roberts, in particular, prefers baby steps to big changes in court precedent.

People hold signs near the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct headquarters during protests following the death of George Floyd.

The justices had considered more than a dozen petitions involving public officials' invocation of qualified immunity even before examples of police brutality in Minneapolis and Louisville, Kentucky, captured the nation's attention.

Story continues

In the case that drew Thomas' dissent, a Tennessee man was bitten by a police dog unleashed on him while he was sitting with his hands in the air. In another, a 10-year-old Georgia boy was shot in his backyard by police pursuing an unarmed criminal suspect. In a third, police in California searching for a gang member used tear gas grenades rather than the house key given to them by his ex-girlfriend.

David Cole, national legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, highlighted the implications of the courts decision on police accountability and Congress responsibility to abolish the doctrine:

"We have seen the deadly consequences play out on the streets, and Black Americans have largely paid the price," Cole said. "Recent events demonstrate the urgent need for Congress to stand up for the rule of law and abolish qualified immunity  for anyone acting under color of law  to close the loophole allowing government officials to escape accountability for violating constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court has given police and other public officials considerable leeway in most cases where their conduct has come into question.

 In February, the court's conservatives ruled that the family of a Mexican teenager shot and killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent cannot seek damages because of the border that was between them.

 In 2017, the court ruled that Bush administration officials could not be held liable for the detention and harsh treatment of illegal immigrants in the calamitous days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

 In 2015, the justices ruled that California police were entitled to protection after they forcibly entered the room of a woman with a mental disability and shot her.

William Baude, a University of Chicago Law School professor and leading scholar on qualified immunity, documented in 2018 that in 30 cases spanning more than three decades, the Supreme Court found official conduct violated clearly established law only twice.

Associate justice Clarence Thomas

Two of the court's current justices have pushed back against that trend from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Thomas, the court's most conservative member, has complained that the doctrine has no historical basis. The court, he said in a 2017 case, routinely substitutes "our own policy preferences for the mandates of Congress."

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, arguably its most liberal member, said in 2015 that the court's "one-sided approach to qualified immunity transforms the doctrine into an absolute shield for law enforcement officers."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Police misconduct: Supreme Court won't consider eliminating immunity
In early April, Christine Getman had been quarantined for three weeks when she developed a bad headache  the kind shed only had once before in her life.

I immediately knew the type of headache it was, she said. It was bacterial meningitis.
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 15:31 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded5324 2 Business travel,industry,recovery,TripAdvisor Free

Holidaymakers have begun planning trips, a positive sign for the hard-hit tourism industry, but the financial concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic-induced economic downturn might affect the recovery, a study from travel website Tripadvisor shows.

The study, published on June 10, shows that 68 percent of customers surveyed were considering making travel plans, while hotel searches are also on the rise. Searches for hotels in Indonesia on the website increased 5.4 percent year-on-year (yoy) between March 29 and May 31.

We are already seeing early signs of recovery in the travel-planning habits of millions of customers all over the world, who are actively researching and dreaming about their next big trip, the report reads.

The searches are mostly focused on domestic travel in three months time, as more than half of respondents plan to travel domestically within the next six months, the research found.

According to the findings, Tripadvisor projects that the recovery of tourism, which has been hit hard by travel restrictions, will happen in stages. The stages include decline, plateau and emergence phases, before the return of domestic travel and international travel in the final phases.

However, the study also warns that the tourism recovery might be affected by consumers spending power and the negative perception of their financial stability due to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research shows that 40 percent of respondents stated that their household would be financially worse off over the next 12 months. Consequently, more than half of the respondents said they were likely to take fewer trips than the year prior.

As the pandemic eases, the travel sector will not be able to operate as it did before, in part due to continuing interventions from governments, but also as a result of changing consumer expectations and spending power, the report explains.

A recent Bank Indonesia survey showed that Indonesias consumer confidence index (IKK) had dropped to its lowest level in nearly 15 years in May, weighed down by negative perceptions of the current economic situation and a dearth of jobs with rampant layoffs.

In addition, fear of a potential second wave of infections is also casting a shadow over the positive trends, as it could bring the recovery process back to square one.

President Joko Jokowi Widodo has warned of a second COVID-19 wave in Indonesia as the number of new cases continues to soar amid the relaxation of large-scale social distancing (PSBB) in a number of regions. More than 38,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases had been recorded across the country as of Sunday.

Once demand for travel begins to rise, the study also underlined that there would be significant changes in the sector, including heightened hygiene and sanitization precautions.

The years 2020 and 2021 will prove to be an unprecedented time for accommodations. Existing expectations for rates and performance based on pre-pandemic conditions must be re-evaluated, the study reads.

Despite the positive trends, Indonesian Hotel and Restaurant Association (PHRI) chairman Hariyadi Sukamdani voiced similar concerns to those stated in the study regarding consumer spending power.

Even if our travel industry starts to re-emerge, the next big challenge is the decreasing purchasing power of consumers. The majority of our workforce is reeling from the financial impacts [of the pandemic], which dissuades them from traveling, he said on June 12.

He said that the countrys hotel and restaurant industry were still in the plateau stage, even though the restaurant business may begin to see a re-emergence when malls reopen.

Retail centers in Jakarta are scheduled to reopen on Monday as the capital city begin its transition out of PSBB measures this month.

In response to rising consumer concerns about sanitation, the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry is preparing to launch a cleanliness, health and safety (CHS) program to encourage travel, the ministrys spokesperson, Agustini Rahayu, said on June 10.

To gain the publics confidence we have prepared a CHS program, with information to be published through digital media, print media and out-of-home advertising. Weve also prepared CHS protocol training for tourism workers, she said during an online discussion.

In response to reduced purchasing power, hotel chain Westin Hotels and Resorts in Nusa Dua is offering discounts aimed at the domestic tourist market.

We cannot expect much from the international tourist market because of the border closure, and thats why we are offering affordable accommodation packages called Terima Kasih Indonesia [Thank You Indonesia], Westin Nusa Duas communication director Dewi Anggraini said on June 10.

The packages start from Rp 2.2 million (US$154) for a two-night stay at the resort, a discount from the normal price of Rp 1.56 million per night, according to the resorts website.

Topics : travel industry recovery TripAdvisor
Findings from the report reveal 75% organizations require increased infrastructure budget for new tools, technologies and collaborative networks to navigate the pandemic

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today released its 'State of IT Infrastructure 2020' report.

The study reveals that 75% of organizations find the need to upgrade outdated infrastructure and invest in new technologies. In addition, 81% of enterprises are reskilling their existing workforce to increase digital penetration, signifying major changes on the horizon for IT infrastructure.

The report provides a multi-dimensional view of how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact IT infrastructure trends in the immediate future. With uncertainty in demand, there is a rapid shift in channel preferences, the large-scale adoption of work from home brings new challenges for businesses and their suppliers. The report also looks at the new tools, technologies and collaborative networks that will emerge. It shares insights into various aspects of the new digital workspace, the approach taken by organizations to consistently deliver the user experience, enhance resiliency of services and make the environment more secure amidst new threats.

Additional highlights from the report on IT infrastructure include:

In an enterprise, on an average 43% of the IT infrastructure spend budget is used for transforming the business. This suggests that there is considerable scope for innovation

24% organizations do not have a single cloud partner. The single-largest expense account will be for data center cloud, heralding a new phase in cloud adoption as organizations move from a "cloud-first" to a "cloud smart" approach

54% organizations will be adopting containers, a trend that will make open source a more compelling choice across IT infrastructure

Rapid evolution of software-defined resources and emergence of AIOps to advance automation programs

The annual study is based on three months of primary and secondary research including surveys of C-level executives, vice presidents, business unit leads. These respondents belong to the Banking, IT Services Insurance, Industrial and Process Manufacturing, Utilities, Oil Gas, Communications, Securities and Capital Market, Automotive, Consumer Packaged Goods, and other industries. The poll was conducted across UK, North America, Asia Pacific Region, Continental Europe, Middle East, and Latin America.

Kiran Desai, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Cloud and Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited said, "The report should be a timely guide for leaders to navigate the pandemic. A range of new technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Blockchain are on course to be fully exploited by digital businesses. By leveraging Multi-cloud, Edge, Software-Defined Infrastructure, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, we will be able to realize the full potential of these new technologies and present a truly 'invisible infrastructure' to applications."

To access the full report click here.

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/20200615005384/en/

Contacts:

Media Contact:

Shraboni Banerjee

Wipro Limited

Shraboni.banerjee@wipro.com
South Africa: President condemns brutal killing of women, children

South Africa is under siege, with the number of women dying in the hands of men increasing since the easing of lockdown regulations under level 3, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted.

The President has since called for South Africans to end the culture of silence and report perpetrators to the South African Police Service (SAPS).

The country is still in shock after the gruesome murder of Tshegofatso Pule, whose stabbed body was found hanging on a tree in Durban Deep, Roodepoort -- less than a month she was due to give birth.

Several other cases where women were either raped or brutally murdered have been hogging the headlines.

It is a dark and shameful week for us as a nation. Criminals have descended to even greater depths of cruelty and callousness. It simply cannot continue.

We note with disgust that at a time when the country is facing the gravest of threats from the pandemic, violent men are taking advantage of the eased restrictions on movement to attack women and children," the President said.

In a statement, President Ramaphosa said he was struggling to come to terms with the violence inflicted on Pule, Naledi Phangindawo, Nompumelelo Tshaka and other women in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, whose bodies were found dumped in previous weeks.

The First Citizen has also bemoaned the level of barbarism and lack of humanity in the manner in which these defenceless women have killed.

Tshegofatso Pule, who was eight months pregnant, was found stabbed to death and hanging from a tree in an open veld. It is also suspected one of the murdered Eastern Cape women was a victim of a mob killing.

The Presidency mentioned another case of an elderly woman who was raped and a child found dead in a field, and two young women shot dead in KwaZulu-Natal.

According to the SAPS, there has been an increase in violent crime, especially murders since we entered alert level 3. We need to understand what factors are fuelling this terrible trend and, as society as a whole, address them urgently, the President said.

The President said he will be deploying Ministers and Deputy Ministers to meet with community leaders in all districts around the country as part of national efforts to combat COVID-19.

However, the leaders will also engage communities on this upsurge in GVB and look at ways to prevent the killing of women.

President Ramaphosa is also concerned that SA has one of the highest levels of intimate partner violence in the world and that about 51% of South African women have experienced violence at the hands of someone with whom they are in a relationship.

In far too many cases of gender-based violence, the perpetrators are known to the victim, but they are also known to our communities. That is why we say this is a societal matter and not a matter of law enforcement alone.

Gender-based violence thrives in a climate of silence. With our silence, by looking the other way because we believe it is a personal or family matter, we become complicit in this most insidious of crimes, President Ramaphosa stressed.

President Ramaphosa calls on criminal justice to do better



Citing the case of 36-year-old Sibongiseni Gabada from Khayelitsha, who was found murdered last month, the President said survivors of GBV believe the criminal justice is failing them.

Despite Gabadas boyfriend allegedly confessing to the murder, the case against him was dropped, reportedly due to lack of evidence.

For public faith in the criminal justice system to be maintained, gender-based violence needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves by our communities working together with our police.

I urge the SAPS to act swiftly to track down whoever was involved in these murders and ensure there is justice for the murdered women and children. I also urge our communities to end the culture of silence and speak up. In doing so, you will be saving lives, President Ramaphosa said.

The President has urged communities to work with the police and report any tip-offs they may have to the Crime Stop Hotline on 08600 10111 or send an anonymous SMS to Crime Line at 32211, or to call the Gender-Based Violence Command Centre at 0800 428 428.  SAnew.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Breweries, in particular, appear to have rallied around their core products rather than investing in seasonal or limited releases, as a way to cut costs, said Larry Cormier, vice president, general manager of Sovos ShipCompliant.

Brewers are bringing fewer new products to market amid coronavirus concerns and a slowing economy, according to Sovos ShipCompliant label registration data for the months of April and May 2020, indicating these producers are doubling down on their existing product lines.

Overall, producers and wholesalers in the beer, wine and spirits business registered 16,164 products through Sovos ShipCompliants Product Registration Online (PRO) system, while many bars, retailers and tasting rooms remained closed due to stay-at-home orders. This represents a drop of 2% over February and March and a 0.3% decrease year-over-year.

However, brewers felt the decline most sharply with 43.4% fewer new product registrations in April and May compared to the same time last year.

The closure of tasting rooms beginning in mid-March left many industry producers struggling to make ends meet. Breweries, in particular, appear to have rallied around their core products rather than investing in seasonal or limited releases, as a way to cut costs, said Larry Cormier, vice president, general manager of Sovos ShipCompliant. "Craft beer innovation takes place in the taproom. With limited retail shelf space, many newer brewers focus on taproom sales rather than traditional distribution. So when tasting rooms closed, the newest and smallest brewers took the biggest hit."

Carbonated wine, hard seltzers and spirits less affected

In recent years, hard seltzers have skyrocketed in popularity with more than 203 new labels registered at the federal level since 2016. These products, along with premixed wine coolers, make up nearly 60% of all malt beverages registered in 2020  compared to 40% last year. However, registrations of special malts are only down 15.7% year-over-year, compared to 43% for the overall malt category, indicating sustained momentum in this category despite the coronavirus.

Carbonated wine as a category is also bucking the downward registration trend. Product registrations for carbonated wine soared in the past two months, up an astounding 33 times over the same period last year. By comparison, sparkling wine decreased by 2%, red table and rose wines saw a 13% increase, and table white wines grew by 11%.

Spirits are also doing relatively well with an overall 38% increase year over year. Registrations for rum, gin, tequila and whiskey products are up 240%, 120%, 40% and 25% whereas registrations for vodka products are down 12%, respectively.

Sovos ShipCompliant offers the industrys most advanced system for electronic brand registrations for beer, wine and spirits. The Sovos ShipCompliant Product Registration Online (PRO) system is available in more than 20% of the county, including Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota.

Using PROs online submission and approval system, manufacturers and wholesalers typically see their approval wait times drop from weeks to hours in many cases, expediting their ability to introduce new beer, wine and spirits products into the marketplace.

To learn more about Sovos ShipCompliants solution for product registrations, visit http://www.sovos.com/shipcompliant/.

About Sovos ShipCompliant

ShipCompliant has been the leader in automated alcohol beverage compliance tools for more than 15 years, providing a full suite of cloud-based solutions to wineries, breweries, distilleries, importers, distributors and retailers to ensure they meet all federal and state regulations for direct-to-consumer and three-tier distribution. ShipCompliants solutions reduce risk, lessen the burden of compliance, accelerate bringing products to market, and enable revenue growth. With 60 partner integrations and growing, ShipCompliant leads a robust ecosystem of technology partnerships, enabling powerful complementary solutions. For more information, please visit Sovos.com/ShipCompliant.
by Biju Veticad

The Supreme Court of India speaks out about the situation, slamming government officials for the way they are handling the pandemic. For the Court, the situation in the capital is "horrific" with some bodies thrown in the trash. For Indian priest, the authorities are unable to manage the crisis. Church organisations and NGOS are playing a crucial role.

New Delhi (AsiaNews)  Delhi, Indias political capital, and Mumbai, the countrys economic and financial capital, are now also the centres of the country's COVID-19 emergency.

At the worst possible moment after the lockdown to counter the pandemic was partially lifted, the Supreme Court of India last Friday came down harsh on the central government for its handling of the bodies of patients who died of the novel coronavirus.

In a statement, Indias highest court said that the situation in Delhi was "horrific, noting that in at least one case, the body of a man was found in the trash.

He was identified as Mohammed Anwar from Sahzora, a village in the precinct of the Sadullah Nagar Police Station, near Balrampur (Uttar Pradesh).

The deceased had gone to a local government office where he lost consciousness and died a short time later near a door.

Fearing that he might have died from COVID-19, the police and local municipal employees initially refused to touch the body. In the end, the agents threw him in a rubbish lorry.

The story found wide echo in public opinion, sparking harsh criticism across the country for the lack of respect for COVID-19 victims.

Asked by AsiaNews, Fr Jose Vallikatt MST, a missionary in northern India, said government authorities are unable to cope with the problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic and religious organisations and NGOs are filling in the gap, working with public agencies.

For the clergyman, the Churchs true mission is to meet the needs that are increasingly evident at such a time of difficulty.

Right after the Supreme Court spoke out, a series of meetings took place between high-level officials, including Union Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah, Union Health Minister Harshad Vardha and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The first steps under study include a review of the COVID patient intervention protocol and ways to increase testing.

India is the fourth country in the world in terms of cases with more than 330,000 with 9,500 deaths.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Three people died and five others were left critically injured when a car collided with a lorry at TB junction near Attingal on Sunday midnight.

The deceased were identified as Azeem, Maneesh and Prince- all natives of Kalluvathukkal in Kollam district.

The police said they were travelling with five others in a car headed to Kalluvathukkal from Thiruvananthapuram after attending a marriage function.

The lorry that hit their car was carrying cartons of milk.

The two vehicles collided head-on and in the impact, the car was thrown into a mud bank nearby where it turned turtle.

The exact reason for the collision however, is not known yet.

The police and fire and rescue personnel had a tough time pulling out the injured from the mangled vehicle.

They have been admitted to Thiruvananthapuram Medical College Hospital.
Rebecca Judd has revealed the 1990s pop anthem that makes her fall in love with her husband Chris all over again.

Speaking on her KIIS FM's 3pm Pick-Up show on Monday, Rebecca, 37, admitted that whenever she's angry at her AFL star husband, she simply listens to Love... Thy Will Be Done by Martika.

'I have a romance Spotify list, and [that song] is on there,' she told co-host Monty Dimond.

'Bang, we're back on!' Footy WAG Rebecca Judd, 37, explained on Monday's 3pm Pick-Up that whenever she's angry at her husband Chris, 36, she listens to Love... Thy Will Be Done, by Martika. Rebecca and Chris pictured in November 2018

'If I'm ever feeling not in love with my husband, I put that song on and then bang, we're back on!' she enthused.

Produced by Prince, Love... Thy Will Be Done was released in 1991 and is the first single on her second album, Martika's Kitchen.

It's not the only song that holds a special place in Bec's heart.

Takes her back: Rebecca previously revealed the music of Powderfinger reminds her of one of the happier times in her life

Last Month, the mother-of-four revealed that the music of Powderfinger also reminds her of one of the happier times in her life.

She explained on the 3pm Pick-Up that the Australian rock band's songs take her back to her glory days in the mid-2000s.

At the time, her husband, retired AFL star Chris Judd, was at the top of his game playing for the West Coast Eagles.

Good times: Last Month, the mother-of-four revealed that the music of Powderfinger also reminds her of one of the happier times in her life. Rebecca and Chris pictured on September 20, 2004 in Melbourne

Rebecca said: '[It] brings back all the memories. This was kind of around the time when Juddy and I were living in Perth. He was playing for the West Coast Eagles. They were the golden years.

'We were winning pretty much every match, he was best on ground, he won a Brownlow, he won a premiership at that time.'

Rebecca and Chris met at a pub in Perth almost 17 years ago when they were both teenagers.

They married on New Year's Eve in 2010 and share four children, son Oscar, eight, daughter Billie, five, and three-year-old twins Tom and Darcy.

Chris left the West Coast Eagles for Carlton in 2008, and the Judds have lived in Melbourne ever since.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 15, 2020 | 04:00 PM | PADUCAH





On Monday, detectives with the Paducah Police Department were driving along 21st Street when they reportedly noticed an SUV that matched the description of a vehicle that had been involved in a theft investigation.







As detectives were investigating, the vehicle reportedly sped away on Jefferson Street, turning onto 23rd Street, then quickly parking in an alley.







When detectives approached the vehicle, 33-year-old Antonio Jackson and two children under 12-years-old left the vehicle. Jackson told officers that he doesn't live at the home near where he had parked, and didn't know the occupants. He allegedly told detectives that he was only going for a walk with the children.







According to the detectives, the vehicle smelled strongly of marijuana and Jackson admitted that there was marijuana in the vehicle. After a search of the vehicle, detectives reportedly found a digital scale, packaging, 1.9 pounds of marijuana, $1,700 in cash, and a handgun. Detectives say Jackson is a convicted felon.







He is being charged with possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, and trafficking in marijuana firearm enhanced. He was lodged in the McCracken County Jail, and the children were released to a grandparent.

A Paducah man is facing drug trafficking charges after a traffic stop.
Social distancing in classrooms is an 'aspiration' and not an 'absolute requirement', the head of Ofsted said yesterday.

Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of Ofsted, told Sky News that reducing the two-metre distancing rule would allow more pupils to return to school.

She added that schools are following a 'hierarchy' of infection controls, which emphasise hand washing over distancing, and many schools are being 'creative' to manage their class sizes.

Ms Spielman said: 'Social distancing within the bubbles of the half-size classes is, according to the guidance, an aspiration, not an absolute requirement.

'What's really important is that everybody works to the guidance as it stands, plans for the relaxations that are likely to come along in future.

'But, yes, obviously, a reduced distance expectation will flow through into greater capacity in schools but what we need to get to is that plan for how we build capacity over time.

Children arrive for school with social distancing at L'Ecole de Battersea, an independent French bilingual school in London

'Use relaxations as they come through but concentrate on the main objective which should surely be to get as many children back into school as possible and as soon as possible.'

She added that were losing out on education, development and social interaction.

'Boredom and frustration, which most of our teenagers are experiencing at the moment, is clearly not helpful,' she said.

Under Department of Education guidance for primary schools, classes are split in half with a limit of 15 pupils per group.

Schools are then required to follow a hierarchy of measures to keep the virus under control.

The first measure stresses that all contact with someone with symptoms must be avoided.

Next is frequent hand washing, followed by regular cleaning of school facilities'.

The guidance stresses the importance of reducing contact between pupils and calls on teachers to minimise mixing.

Secondary school pupils with GCSE and A-level exams next year are returning to classes today, but only a quarter of Years 10 and 12 are allowed on site at one time due to social-distancing.

Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector of Ofsted, said schools are following a 'hierarchy' of infection controls as they start to reopen

Children maintain social distancing measures while taking part in a lesson at Earlham Primary School in Newham, London

The Government wants pupils to have 'face-to-face' support before their exams next summer, but the amount contact time will vary considerably across the country.

Some schools are only launching weekly contact sessions for teenagers or prioritising contact for children who have struggled with remote learning, while around one in eight are set to remain closed.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told MPs that they were working towards bringing all children back to school by September, and GCSE and A-level exams will go ahead next year.

Health chiefs warned last night that school closures are putting a generation of children at risk of obesity.

They said lack of exercise could have devastating long-term consequences when one in five pupils are already excessively overweight.

'We need to get kids back to school as soon as we can for their health,' said Russell Viner, who leads the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. 'Everybody in the nutritional world is concerned.'

Meanwhile, Manchester United and England star Marcus Rashford, 22, has pleaded with the Government to keep providing free meals for vulnerable children during the school holidays.

When schools were shut down in March amid the coronavirus lockdown, a food voucher scheme was set up to guarantee meals to children who had been reliant on food being provided at schools. Vouchers worth 15 are available to spend each week in supermarkets.

And now the Manchester United and England star has expressed his concerns about the scheme coming to an end next month, penning a letter to members of the House of Commons.
Perth Man Charged After Statue Vandalised

A man has been charged after another statue of a figure from Australias colonial era was spray painted.

The 30-year-old man was arrested in the Perth CBD on June 13 after reports the statue of Captain James Stirling  the founder of the colony of Western Australia  outside Town Hall was being vandalised.

The man has been charged with criminal damage or destruction of property and is due to appear before the Perth Magistrates Court on June 26.

Historical monuments across the world have been toppled over the past two weeks as Black Lives Matter protesters marched through the streets to call out racism following the death of African American man George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

A statue of Captain James Cook was spray painted in Sydney, and busts of former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott were defaced in Ballarat.

Stirling proclaimed the foundation of a British colony on the Swan River in 1829, and administered the settlement from until August 1832.

In October 1834, Stirling led a posse of 25 police, soldiers and settlers to punish Aborigines of the Murray River tribe in retaliation for several murders.

It became known as the Battle of Pinjarra, with 14 Aborigines and one police superintendent killed, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

Perth
President Rodrigo Duterte

MANILA, Philippines  President Rodrigo Duterte early this month certified as urgent the Anti-Terrorism Bill that seeks to amend the over a decade old Human Security Act.

Despite mounting criticisms especially from human rights advocates, Malacanang is confident that there is little chance it would be vetoed by that the President.

Hindi naman para i-veto ni Presidente ang isang panukalang batas na sinertify as urgent niya so, parang iyong expectations, said Presidential Spokesperson Secretary Harry Roque though he is not sure if the version that the Congress passed is the same urgent bill signed by the President.

Nonetheless, the Palace official clarified that the bill did not come from the Office of the President but a measure that has been stalled in Congress for years already.

President Duterte has 20 days to act on the bill. He may opt to veto, sign or unsign it and let it lapse into law.

The bill will also go through the scrutiny of various offices in the Executive Branch namely the Office of the Executive Secretary, Deputy Executive Secretary, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and even the Department of Justice (DOJ), and no less than the President himself who is a lawyer.

The DOJ is expected to issue a comment on the proposed legislation by June 17.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra assured that the DOJ is dealing with the issue with impartiality especially as it concerns national security and human rights.

Well review the proposed anti-terrorism bill as independently and objectively as possible, with only the security of the nation and the civil and political rights of the people in mind, he said.

Meanwhile, the author of the bill, Senator Panfilo Lacson, said he will personally keep an eye on the implementation of the Anti-Terror Bill should it be enacted into law to ensure that the rights of every Filipino citizen is protected.

I vow to join those who are concerned, genuinely or otherwise, about the proposed laws implementation to be as vigilant in monitoring each and every wrongful implementation by our security forces, even to the point of joining them in street protests, just like what I did before during the time of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he accrued the public in a statement.

He stressed that the bill has enough safeguards so as not to be used as an instrument for abuse, one of which is the provision of 10 years jail term to any person in authority who will commit an act that is against it. MNP (with details from Rosalie Coz)

The post Malacanang: Chances of a presidential veto against Anti-Terrorism Bill are low appeared first on UNTV News.
Are Democrats fired up for the 2020 election? Undoubtedly. But are they as fired up as Republicans? I dont think so. A number of polls have found more intensity on the GOP side, but what makes me think of this question is (via InstaPundit) this headline: Trump campaign says ticket requests for Oklahoma rally surpass 800,000. Thats enthusiasm!

Then there is the fact that, even though there was no race on the Republican side, primary vote totals for President Trump often exceeded the combined totals for all Democratic presidential candidates, and easily surpassed the numbers cast for President Obama in 2012. This happened recently in Georgia, but it was true when there was still a genuine contest on the Democratic side, too.

Michael Moore and I were two of the very few pundits who predicted Trumps win in 2016. Now Moore is warning Democrats not to underestimate the intensity of the Republican bases support for the president, as Trump himself tweeted:

Michael Moore: Im Begging Dems  Dont Underestimate White Male Trump Supporters Rage, Emotion https://t.co/IktLtIZNgZ via @BreitbartNews Well, he got it right in 2016?  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2020



Rage is liberal-speak for the deep concern so many of us share that the Democrats far-left, anti-American agenda would destroy our country. It translates into voter intensity.

The Democrats know they cant match Republicans eagerness to go to the polls, so they have come up with an alternativeno one goes to the polls. Instead, we have a mail-in vote system in which many millions of ballots are mailed to people who have died, moved or are ineligible to vote. Those ballots will fall into a wide variety of hands, but the Democrats know that law-abiding Republicans wont fill them out and fraudulently send them back. Many Democrats will.

In order to combat voter fraud, Republicans need a wide advantage in voter enthusiasm. At the moment, I think they have it.
Botswanas director of health services, Dr Malaki Tshipayagae, announced Friday that the capital, Gaborone, will return to extreme lockdown after eight new COVID-19 cases at a private hospital.

We are concerned because we did not know if it is a communal infection or a hospital-acquired infection, or [it] indicates significant local transmission, or whether there is some form of contamination at the facility, Tshipayagae said. As a result, because of those factors, or unknowns, we have decided to shut down or lock down Greater Gaborone.

A further four imported cases were reported Friday, bringing the countrys COVID-19 tally to 60.

Tshipayagae said the army and police would resume patrols, effective Friday midnight.

Movement of people will be through a permit and there would be patrols to ensure that rules are adhered to.

Most economic activities had resumed as the diamond-rich country emerged from a seven-week lockdown that ended May 21.

Schools had reopened but will now close in Gaborone and surrounding areas until further notice.

Gaborone resident Mpho Marumo said the latest development is a drawback.

Its quite disappointing really, Marumo said. We were looking forward to... the schools, the kids. Its a really big setback, the schools had reopened and now closed.

Prior to Fridays 12 cases, Botswana only had one active case. The country has recorded one COVID-19 death.
ATLANTA  Outrage over the death of Rayshard Brooks continued on a rain-soaked Sunday in Georgia's capital city, with demonstrators returning to the burnt-out shell of the fast-food restaurant where he was shot by a now-fired police officer.

Brooks' death is the latest of a Black person at the hands of police in a country still reeling from the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, both of which have sparked nationwide protests against racial inequality and police brutality.

His death was ruled a homicide on Sunday night by the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office, caused by two gunshots wounds to the back.

They are killing us every day," said Kenyah Farley, who was among the small group of protesters who marched to the Georgia State Capitol, where there is a prominent statue of a Confederate soldier John Brown Gordon. "Not just in the streets but in the prisons, too. ... I dont want to see another man dead on the street because he was drunk at a freaking Wendys.

'It's got to be the culture': Atlanta officer fired, video released in shooting of Rayshard Brooks

Brooks, 27, was shot by an officer late Friday outside of a Wendy's after police responded to a call about him being asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane. He failed a sobriety test and officers tried to handcuff him. Bodycam video shows Brooks wrestling with two white officers and appearing to get a Taser from one of them.

Brooks was fleeing when he was shot, the video shows.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesters joined the dozens who remained in front of the charred restaurant, which was set on fire by protesters late Saturday night and again on Sunday.

Protesters line Interstate 85 in Atlanta on Sunday night near the Wendy's restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by police.

A handful of people were still outside of the Wendys late Sunday, prompting police to close a nearby road.

Some in the small group played music from speakers. Others held each other in front of the memorial of flowers and stuffed animals that now lines the front of the gutted restaurant.

Story continues

Occasionally, cars pulled in and rolled around the building, tracing the drive-thru line that Brooks was waiting in when he fell asleep, prompting the fatal 911 call.

Duke Henry was among the late crowd. Hed been there the night before, too.

It could have been me, he said.

On Sunday protesters marched in Atlanta from the Wendys restaurant on University Ave. to the overpass of Highway I-85. The Wendys Restaurant had been destroyed by fire on Saturday night. As the protesters tried to cross the Highway I-85 overpass, they were stopped in force by the police. The protesters were marching in response to an incident where a black man was shot by police as he tried to escape arrest at the Wendys restaurant on friday. [ALEX HICKS JR./USA TODAY NETWORK]

Protesters who earlier in the day tried to block the road near the Wendy's on Interstate 85 were cleared by police using pepper spray. As the rain began to clear up, jail buses joined police dressed in riot gear under a bridge on the interstate.

The demonstrators took shelter at a nearby gas station, chanting "Black Lives Matter!" while under the canopy.

Saidah Kimerman arrived at what remained of the Wendy's at about 6 p.m., joined by her 13-year-old daughter Marcroee. She said she wanted her daughter to see what had happened there and to experience the protests that followed firsthand.

Weve been hearing these stories for years and years and years, the mother said. I really hope these kids see this. I tell them all the time, its going to be them that helps to build a new world.

Who was Rayshard Brooks? Father of 4 celebrated daughter's birthday hours before police shot him in Atlanta

Away from Wendy's, hundreds of protesters holding signs, raising their fists and chanting "No justice no peace!" marched peacefully to Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta. There was virtually no police presence during the march.

Only a few protesters showed up to the Capitol building, where state police had one street blocked off. No protesters came near the law enforcement officers.

On Saturday, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said she didnt believe the shooting of Brooks was a "justified use of deadly force" by the former officer. Atlanta Police Department Chief Erika Shields resigned in the wake of the shooting.

Sunday, the department announced that Garrett Rolfe, a seven-year veteran, had been fired. Officer Devin Brosnan, on the force for less than two years, was placed on administrative duty.

The NAACP called for a Monday protest: The March on Georgia is scheduled for 9 a.m.

It is unconscionable that a country still feeling the sting of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, would be sitting here addressing another wound dealt to us by the those who have sworn to protect and serve, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

He added, Until this nation is willing to address the systemic racism that has been allowed to manifest itself in police brutality, criminal justice, education, voting rights, economic wealth-gaps, and every other imaginable area that affords us an equal and sustainable life, America remains in breach of contract with the Black community.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rayshard Brooks: Atlanta protesters return to Wendy's, State Capitol
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President Donald Trump acknowledged a 'very powerful' decision by the U.S. Supreme court in a landmark case protecting the employment rights of gays and transgender people  saying Monday the government will 'live with' the decision.

'Theyve ruled and well live with the decision,' Trump told reporters at the White House hours after the ruling.

He called it a 'very powerful decision actually,' without explicitly stating whether he agreed with the court's reasoning on a case where the majority cast aside the arguments put forward by his administration.

The High Court ruled Monday that civil rights law protects gay and lesbian people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against gay and lesbian workers.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, appointed by President Donald Trump, authored the majority opinion, in which he was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts.

'An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex, Gorsuch wrote.

'Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids,' he added.

The 6-3 ruling represented the biggest moment for LGBT rights in the United States since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs. Only one of the men is still alive to see the ruling.

Fractured court: The 6-3 ruling saw two conservatives - Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts - join the liberal wing of the court to rule that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to gay and lesbian people

A man waves a rainbow flag as he rides by the US Supreme Court that released a decision that says federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination on June 15, 2020 in Washington,DC

The court's 6-3 majority opinion that it is illegal to fire workers based on sexual orientation was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch

'Theyve ruled and well live with the decision,' President Trump said hours after the Supreme Court released its ruling

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE CASE- ONLY ONE OF WHOM IS ALIVE TO SEE IT The court issued its ruling Monday after considering Appeals Court rulings on three where people were fired from their jobs after revealing their identity as gay or transgender. In none of the cases did the employer dispute this as a cause of the firing. LGBT worker, Gerald Bostock speaks to demonstrators in favor of LGBT rights rally outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, October 8, 2019. Bostock got strong internal reviews as a child social worker, but that ended after he joined a gay softball league. Gerald Bostock had served as the child welfare coordinator for Clayton Country, Ga. His job focused on coordinating foster care for abused and neglected children in the county. Bostock got strong internal reviews for his job performance, but that ended after he joined a gay softball league. According to the court, influential members of the community then made disparaging comments about Bostock's sexual orientation. He was fired for conduct 'unbecoming' a county employee. 'From that point on, my life changed,' Bostock told NPR. 'I lost my livelihood. I lost my medical insurance, and I was recovering from prostate cancer when this occurred. It was devastating,' he said. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostocks claim in a three-page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held 'discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.' Bostock said no should should have to be 'fearful of losing their job because of who they are, who they love or how they identify. And the justices have now made sure that we won't have to worry about that.' Aimee Stephens lost her job as funeral director for a funeral home in Livonia, Michigan after changer her gender identity in 2012. She had her wife Donna were at the Supreme Court last year for oral arguments; she died weeks before the ruling Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in Livonia, Michigan, after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with gender most of her life and had, at long last, 'decided to become the person that my mind already is.' She had presented as a male when she was hired. Stephens told funeral home owner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conservative skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fired Stephens. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that the firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law. Stephens died last month. Donna Stephens, her wife of 20 years, said in a statement that she is 'grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.' A separate case, Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, involved a skydriving instructor who told a female client he was gay A separate case, Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, involved a skydiving instructor in Central Islip, New York, who told a female client who expressed concerns about being strapped to him not to worry because he was '100 per cent gay.' The school fired Zarda after the woman's boyfriend called to complain. Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014. Advertisement

The Trump administration has argued that sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered by the Civil Rights Act.

The three dissents came from Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh - the more recent of Trump's two appointees.

'The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous,' Alito wrote in the dissent. 'Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of 'sex' is different from discrimination because of 'sexual orientation' or 'gender identity.''

Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an 'important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.'

The three cases being considered as one by the justices hinged on whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applied. The law makes it unlawful for an employer 'to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.'

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

U.S. Appeals Courts were split on whether the statute applied to sexual orientation.

But the the Supreme Court's majority decision says that it does.

Gorsuch, for the majority wrote: 'An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex.

'Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.'

The cases were the court's first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedys retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh.

Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh generally is regarded as more conservative.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its longstanding interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states don't protect them from workplace discrimination.

An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, Obamas vice president, praised the decision on Twitter as 'another step in our march toward equality for all. The Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect.'

Efforts by Congress to change the law to explicitly bar job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity have so far failed.

More than half of LGBT+ Americans live in states without explicit workplace protections, according to U.S. think tank Movement Advancement Project, meaning they could be fired or harassed for being gay or trans and have little legal recourse.

LGBT+ rights have become increasingly contentious under the administration of President Donald Trump, who has rolled back some initiatives, such as trans people enlisting in the military.

Last week the Trump administration announced a rollback of guidance implemented during the administration of President Barack Obama which protected trans people from facing discrimination in healthcare.

But Monday's decision is not likely to be the court's last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted.

Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes participation in school sporting events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed concerned about during arguments in October. Employers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said.

'But none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today,' he wrote.

Former Vice President Joe Biden celebrated the ruling in a statement released by his campaign. 'Today's Supreme Court decision is a momentous step forward for our country,' he said. 'Before today, in more than half of states, LGBTQ+ people could get married one day and be fired from their job the next day under state law, simply because of who they are or who they love. This landmark 6-3 ruling affirms that LGBTQ+ Americans are entitled to equal rights under the law.'

'No trans people and no lesbian or gay people can ever be fired or discriminated against for being gay or transgender - that's the immutable law of the land now,' said Vandy Beth Glenn, who was fired in 2007 when she came out as a trans woman.

'This is a win for all Americans,' Glenn told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding she was in tears upon hearing of the court's ruling.

'The Supreme Court's simple yet profound recognition that sex discrimination law protects LGBT employees is another important marker on the long path toward greater equality and justice for all,' said Suzanne Goldberg of Columbia Law School's Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic, in emailed comments.

Nicolas Talbott, a transgender man challenging a U.S. ban on trans people serving in the military, welcomed the ruling.

'I know what it's like to be told I cant do a job Im qualified for just because Im transgender,' he said in a statement.

'Especially now when so many have lost jobs and are struggling, the last thing we should be doing is erecting barriers that keep people who want to work and contribute from doing so.'

THE STATES WHICH LACK LGBT PROTECTIONS The Supreme Court ruling rewrites laws in many states where a patchwork of protections exist: STATES WITH NO PROTECTION ON SEXUALITY OR GENDER IDENTITY Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wyoming STATES WHERE SEXUALITY IS PROTECTED IN PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT BUT NOT PRIVATE AND GENDER IDENTITY IS NOT PROTECTED AT ALL Alaska, Arizona, Missouri STATES WHERE SEXUALITY IS PROTECTED FOR ALL EMPLOYMENT BUT GENDER IDENTITY IS NOT Kansas, Montana, North Carolina STATES WHERE GENDER IDENTITY IS PROTECTED FOR ALL JOBS BUT SEXUALITY IS NOT AT ALL Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee STATES WHERE SEXUALITY IS PROTECTED FOR ALL EMPLOYMENT BUT GENDER IDENTITY IS ONLY PROTECTED IN PUBLIC-SECTOR JOBS Indiana, Wisconsin STATES WHERE GENDER IDENTITY IS PROTECTED FOR ALL EMPLOYMENT BUT SEXUALITY IS ONLY PROTECTED IN PUBLIC-SECTOR JOBS Kentucky, Ohio STATES WHOSE LAWS ALREADY COMPLY WITH RULING California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia (as of July 1), Washington Advertisement

A conservative Christian group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, called the ruling 'disappointing.'

'Redefining 'sex' to mean 'gender identity' will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, womens shelters, and many other contexts,' said John Bursch, an attorney at the group.

'Civil rights laws that use the word 'sex' were put in place to protect equal opportunities for women.

'Allowing a court or government bureaucrats to redefine a term with such a clear and important meaning undermines those very opportunities - the ones the law was designed to protect.'

The Alliance is waging a legal battle against a policy in the U.S. state of Connecticut that allows transgender girls to compete on girls' sports teams.

Tony Perkins, head of another conservative religious group, the Family Research Council, said letting judges 'rewrite the Civil Rights Act to add gender identity and sexual orientation as protected classes poses a grave threat to religious liberty.'

The Trump Administration has methodically used regulations and the courts to seek to undue Obama Administration extensions of rights to gays and lesbians, even as Trump called himself a 'real friend' of gays and lesbians during the campaign.

Trump during his 2016 GOP convention speech mentioned 'our LGBTQ community' and said during the campaign that Caitlyn Jenner could use any bathroom at Trump Tower. Trump called himself 'most pro-LGBT presidential nominee in the history of the Republican Party.'

But inside the bureaucracy after the election, the Trump Administration reinstated a ban on transgender people serving in the military. He withdrew protections for transgender students that let them use the public restrooms that fit with their gender identity. The Education and Justice Departments under Obama had told schools receiving federal funds to allow the change, and it had become a campaign issue. The Trump administration said the policy did not provide 'extensive legal analysis' on why it was consistent with the law.

The State Department banned U.S. embassies abroad from displaying the rainbow flag.

Trump last year won the endorsement of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, and appointed Ric Grennel, who is openly gay, as his ambassador to Germany and his acting Director of National Intelligence. The group had withheld its endorsement in 2016.

'While we do not agree with every policy or platform position presented by the White House or the Republican Party, we share a commitment to individual responsibility, personal freedom and a strong national defense,' the group's chair and vice chair, Robert Kabel and Jill Homan, wrote.

Trump has said he opposes gay marriage, and his administration filed court briefs against protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination under Civil Rights laws. Trump's Health and Human Services issued rules rolling back rules extending health care protections to transgender people. Vice President Mike Pence also opposes gay marriage, citing his Christian faith.

Celebrities were quick to take to social media to support the move. Caitlyn Jenner recorded herself talking during an Instagram video where she said 'trans lives matter' while Taylor Swift added 'this is a beautiful step forward' and Selena Gomez shared, 'great news.'

Celebrating: The High Court ruled Monday that civil rights law protects gay and lesbian people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court. And celebrities were quick to take to social media to support the move which went against President Donald Trump's wishes; Caitlyn Jenner is pictured

'Victory yes, victory for the LGBT community in the Supreme court today this is great news,' said an ecstatic Jenner, who came out as trans in 2015.

'Trans voices must be heard, and they are, this is a great day - black trans lives matter, trans lives matter,' said the former Keeping Up With The Kardashians star.

'We are not going to be erased despite what the Trump administration has been doing to the trans community over he last couple of years.

More to do: The 1989 singer added, 'We still have a long way to go to reach equality, but this is a beautiful step forward. '

All for it: Selena Gomez shared, 'Great news' as she linked to the New York Times

Well put: Bette Midler wrote, 'Hooray!... The vote was 6 humans to 3 backward-looking nincompoops'

Jonas power: The Jonas brothers wrote on their Twitter account, 'A historic day for the LGBTQ+ community'

'We are going to keep fighting and we are going to fight hard because this is pride month and I am so proud to who I am,' said the I Am Cait star very enthusiastically as she wore her hair down and was made up nicely while in her living room.

The ex of Kris Jenner added, 'So I want to encourage everyone to keep up the good fight, keep working it's not over yet.'

Taylor Swift tweeted, 'YES!! Thank you to the Supreme Court Justices who voted in favor and all the advocates who have fought so hard for this! We still have a long way to go to reach equality, but this is a beautiful step forward. '

Andy Cohen of Watch What Happens Live said, 'Hey Brett Kavanaughf**k you.'

Cynthia Nixon of Sex And The City noted: 'HUGE VICTORY FOR LGBTQ RIGHTS!!! Happy Pride Everybody -- the Supreme Court has decided LGBTQ people can sue for workplace bias..'

'This is just incredible news!' Mandy Moore of This Is Us fame said on Twitter. 'A bright spot in a dark time.'

'A huge win for the #LGBTQ community today, as the Supreme Court ruled that living authentically is not a fireable offense,' Billie Jean King added. 'Protection under the law will now be afforded to millions of workers nationwide.'

'We have won at the Supreme Court of the United States,' Laverne Cox said during an Instagram Stories post. 'It's very emotional. We won at the Supreme Court. I can't even believe it. I'm overwhelmed. A six-three decision stating that it is illegal to fire someone for being LGBTQ in the United States of America.'

Selena Gomez shared, 'Great news' as she linked to the New York Times.

Bette Midler wrote, 'Hooray!... The vote was 6 humans to 3 backward-looking nincompoops.'

Star Trek vet George Takei added, 'The LGBTQ civil rights movement began 51 years ago with the Stonewall Riots, led by trans POC heroes. Today we mark another milestone in our struggle for equality with a victory in the Supreme Court, extending Title VII nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQs..'

Former talk show host Chelsea Handler said the world is only getting 'browner and gayer,' so everyone 'better hop aboard.'

She added, 'Or you're going to miss the bus. Even a conservative Supreme Court got on the bus. What a great day for America. Woo hoo!!!'
Restraint in South China Sea needed against US inflammatory opinions

Some Western media outlets have launched a new wave of public opinion offensive against China. A CNN report on Monday hyped up a standoff between China and Malaysia in the South China Sea that has lasted more than a month. Even though this was old news and took place earlier this year, CNN criticized China for its growing aggression and forcefulness, which are partly driven by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) and his Malaysian counterpart, Saifuddin Abdullah, last year agreeing to set up a dialogue mechanism to handle South China Sea disputes.

Malaysia is one of the South China Sea claimants. Compared with countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, Malaysia has been regarded as a low-profile pragmatist when it comes to the South China Sea issue. The country has played it safe.

Policies pursued by Malaysia include:

First, the South China Sea dispute is not at the top of the agenda of dialogues between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is more willing to take chances of political dialogues to promote pragmatic cooperation with China.

Second, oil and gas exploration is a priority for Malaysias South China Sea policies.

Third, the country is not keen on sensationalising the South China Sea disputes. Large protests triggered by the South China Sea differences are rarely seen in Malaysia.

Fourth, Malaysia has taken a positive attitude toward promoting consultations and preventative diplomacy among South China Sea claimants.

It has played a relatively proactive role in negotiations regarding the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.

Thanks to such policies, Malaysia and China have a lot in common to promote pragmatic cooperation and to maintain regional stability.

Yet its noticeable that subtle changes are taking place in Malaysias South China Sea policies. In December 2019, the country submitted an extended shelf claim in the South China Sea to the UNs Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, seeking to establish the outer limits of its legal continental margin beyond the 200 nautical mile limit.

Breaking with past postures, Malaysia has now begun exploration and development of oil and gas in waters near the Wanan Tan in the Nansha Islands, an area disputed by China, Malaysia and Vietnam. Moreover, Malaysia has become increasingly vigilant toward China for the latters measures to safeguard its legitimate rights in the South China Sea.

However, the changes in Malaysias South China Sea policies dont mean the country lacks understanding of the complexities and sensitivities of the South China Sea issue. In fact, Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein in April called for peaceful means amid the China-Malaysia standoff, and reaffirmed Malaysias commitment to peace in the disputed waters.

Moreover, China-Malaysia disputes in the South China Sea have attracted public attention. This is directly related to the US and Australian navies interference in the region, and the influence of US officials, think tanks, and mainstream media.

In April, the amphibious assault ships USS America, USS Bunker Hill, and USS Barry sailed with Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Parramatta to conduct combined exercises in the South China Sea.

The US and Australian warships intentionally sailed near where the China-Malaysia standoff took place. Meanwhile, US Indo-Pacific Command spokesperson Nicole Schwegman said that their continued operational presence in the South China Sea is to promote freedom of navigation and overflight, and the US supports the efforts of our allies and partners to determine their own economic interests.

In April, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told his Southeast Asian counterparts that China is taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to push its so-called territorial ambitions in the South China Sea. He also regarded Chinas maintaining of stability there as bullying. Then, US media, such as CNN, reported on the recent China-Malaysia interactions in the South China Sea in an attempt to echo Pompeos vindictive views.

From this perspective, the China-Malaysia dispute has become a heated topic for the US to further attack China. The increasingly intense China-US disputes and major power competition in the South China Sea serve as sober and stern warnings that China, Malaysia and other disputing parties need to remain restrained and be vigilant against inflamed US-led public opinion about the South China Sea.

Global Times
HONG KONG, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC), a fully-fledged fixed-line operator and ICT service provider with extensive local and international network coverage, services and infrastructure, today announced that it has launched its third point-of-presence (PoP) in Bangkok, Thailand. This new investment in Thailand is the latest example of HGC's strategy of continuously extending meshed international network coverage in ASEAN regions, enabling business customers to navigate the digital economy.

New PoP in Thailand, a major gateway to GMS

Thailand is one of ASEAN's top performers in the logistics field, playing a major role in the increasingly sophisticated regional supply chain in meeting the rising demand for cross-border logistics services. The new HGC PoP was launched to meet the growing demand for connectivity and support rapidly growing traffic patterns in e-commerce across Asian capital markets. Located at a carrier-neutral data centre, the new PoP serves international carriers and service providers, providing more direct connectivity options for latency-sensitive customers including the financial sector, OTT such as gaming and content providers that require diverse high bandwidth transit between Thailand and the rest of the world to deliver high quality digital experience.

The new PoP in Thailand also further extends HGC's footprint expansion in the densely interconnected ecosystems in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). It not only enhances HGC's Asian presence but also cements its strategic expansion in the Indochina market with existing PoPs in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

Supporting customers on their journey route to Industry 4.0 in Thailand

To harness the potential of Industry 4.0 in ASEAN across verticals such as logistics, tourism, and manufacturing, and to reinvent business to support digitisation, a strong and agile IT infrastructure is essential for corporations, leading to the need for cutting edge strategy and technologies in connectivity, cloud, and data centers. HGC's new PoP in Thailand facilitates data, voice and messaging and the provision of a full and flexible range of reliable network services such as IPLC, IPVPN, GEPL, MPLS and internet service for international carriers, OTT service providers and enterprise customers, enabling them to interconnect with Thailand and the rest of the world.

Cliff Tam, HGC's Vice President, Global Data Strategy of International Business, said, "The new PoP enabled with SDN demonstrates HGC's commitment to provide the most satisfying customer service for enhanced digital and network performance, and allowing international enterprises and OTTs to flexibly scale up business with instant activation of resilient, secure and low latency global connectivity and multi-cloud direct connect. HGC will continue to satisfy global requirements with our advanced ICT infrastructure and to invest further in value-added ICT services and mission-critical solutions, including software-defined networking, integrated cloud and network security solutions with end-to-end managed digital solutions for our global customers."

Chirawat Mahawat, HGC's Vice President, Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) said, "The expansion allows HGC to provide low latency and high bandwidth solutions, which serves new demands in the industry, coping with the boost in OTT adoption and high bandwidth consumption. On top of the PoP infrastructure, we have also activated a direct route high-bandwidth backbone to Hong Kong and Singapore, making this new PoP a truly diversified network. Our MNC clients in Thailand can also benefit from transaction options in local currency, as well as our knowhow in business environment and compliance, etc. 2020 is a challenging year for all business. This new infrastructure will ensure HGC can further assist and support our clients with our fully-fledged telecom services to achieve their business goals."

About HGC Global Communications Limited

HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC) is a leading Hong Kong and international fixed-line operator. The company owns an extensive network and infrastructure in Hong Kong and overseas and provides various kinds of services. HGC has 23 overseas offices, with business over 5 continents. It provides telecom infrastructure service to other operators and serves as a service provider to corporate and households. The company provides full-fledged telecom, data centre services, ICT solutions and broadband services for local, overseas, corporate and mass markets. HGC owns and operates an extensive fibre-optic network, five cross-border telecom routes integrated into tier-one telecom operators in mainland China and connects with hundreds of world-class international telecom operators. HGC is one of Hong Kong's largest Wi-Fi service providers, running over 29,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in Hong Kong. The company is committed to further investing and enriching its current infrastructure and, in parallel, adding on top the latest technologies and developing its infrastructure services and solutions. HGC is a portfolio company of I Squared Capital, an independent global infrastructure investment manager focusing on energy, utilities and transport in North America, Europe and selected fast-growing economies.

To learn more, please visit HGC's website at: www.hgc.com.hk

SOURCE HGC Global Communications Limited (HGC)

Related Links

http://www.hgc.com.hk


(TNS)  Penn Twp. has become the third municipality to be victimized recently by hackers. In late May someone in Belgium got access to a township credit account to steal more than $200, township treasurer Tina Kelly said on May 27.The latest hack, combined with Duncannons becoming the victim of a ransomware attack in April, convinced the supervisors the township needs enhanced cybersecurity.Kelly said she found about $212 of fraudulent charges on the Visa account drawn from Orrstown Bank just before Memorial Day. The charges to purchase travelers checks were made in Brussels, Belgium.Kelly spent much of May 25 on the phone with the bank to iron out the fraudulent charges. The bank flagged the charges as possible fraud, keeping them from going through. The bank advised it appears hackers were using computer programs to try random credit numbers until one hit, she said.The bank removed the charges from the township account and authorities were notified of the breach.The account should be made whole in the next couple days, Kelly told the supervisors.Township secretary Helen Klinepeter said the township did not lose any money in the attempted theft.However, Kelly also advised supervisors that recent cyberattacks on local municipalities were cause for concern, and they should consider bulking up security. She knew of at least two municipalities hit by ransomware attacks, including Duncannon Borough.In April, a hacker sent ransomware to Duncannons computers and servers making them useless. The hacker demanded $50,000.The borough paid the ransom because its computers and information could not be recovered by other means. The case is under investigation by law enforcement.Now that two of our neighbor areas have been hit with ransomware, I think (enhanced security) is a good idea, Kelly said.Penn Twp.s current technology services include offsite backup of computer systems and information, she said. But if an attack occurred on a weekend, it might be a day or two before someone could respond. Ransomware would cost more than the enhanced security. Onsite visits from the cybersecurity specialists cost $125 per hour.The township still would need enhanced security after an attack. Theres also the threat of malware designed to steal information. Either scenario could be far more costly to the township and residents.This causes not just expense, but also a lot of heartburn, supervisors Chairman Jessie Boyer said.The townships IT provider, Mechanicsburg-based 3rd Element Consulting, offers several levels of increased security, including 24-7 monitoring for about $260 per month and a one-time setup fee of $1,200, according to Kelly.The supervisors approved the increased security 2-1. Supervisor Henry Holman III dissented.
Amid an unabated rise in coronavirus cases in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a fresh round of consultations with chief ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday on ways to check the spread of the virus as India exits the lockdown.

On Tuesday afternoon, PM Modi will hold a video-conference with chief ministers, Lt governors and administrators of 21 states and Union territories.

These include Punjab, Kerala, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, the northeastern states and some UTs. The prime minister will interact with chief ministers of 15 states and the LG of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

These include high case load states like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The two-day virtual meet comes against the backdrop of rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.

India saw a jump of over 11,000 novel coronavirus cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, taking the total number of infections to over 3.32 lakh, while the toll rose to 9,520 with 325 more deaths.

Under "Unlock 1", several relaxations have been made for public and businesses to ensure that economic activities hit by the lockdown gather momentum.

Ahead of his meeting with chief ministers, the prime minister had on Saturday reviewed the steps being taken to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in areas with high case load and the road map for effective management of the situation.

PM Modi had suggested that the home minister and the health minister convene an emergency meeting with the Delhi Lt governor and chief minister and other officials to plan a "coordinated and comprehensive response" to handle the challenge posed by rising cases of COVID-19 in Delhi.

The meets suggested by the prime minister took place on Sunday. This would be the prime minister's sixth round of consultation with the chief ministers, the last being on May 11.

Home Minister Amit Shah spoke with all the chief ministers over telephone in the last week of May, just before lockdown-4 was to end.
She said she did not participate in any recent protests because she had to work, but she supports the calls to change the police culture across the country. As she followed news reports about the demonstrations and saw the signs on the street, she says she empathized with the fears and frustrations protesters expressed.
New Delhi, June 15 : Congress leader and former Maharaja of Kashmir, Karan Singh, has slammed the government for mishandling the India-Nepal ties over Nepal passing a resolution in its House of Representatives to adopt a new map which includes Indian territory.

Karan Singh termed the fiasco as "Prima facie this appears to be a serious diplomatic lapse, the consequences of which are before us".

Karan Singh said that the matter was raised in November last year but "surprisingly it was not taken seriously, ideally the Nepal government should have been engaged through Foreign Secretary or Foreign Minister level, and if needed the Prime Minister should have pitched in to resolve the deadlock".

The Congress leader also criticised Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli for the "irreversible confrontational posture "with its relationship with India.

Karan Singh said that he has been associated with Nepal politically and personally for several decades and he has deep regrets for what Prime Minister Oli has done with regards to ties with India.

Nepal's House of Representatives on June 13 unanimously adopted the Constitution Amendment Bill, paving the way for accommodating the updated political-administrative map in the national emblem which includes Indian areas of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

Nepal Foreign Minister, Pradeep Gyawali, said in a tweet, "The House of Representatives unanimously adopted the Constitution Amendment Bill, paving the way for accommodating the updated political-administrative map in the national emblem." On June 9, Nepal's House of Representative had unanimously endorsed the Constitution Amendment Bill to adopt a new map of the country.

The proposal was backed by the Nepal Communist Party headed by Prime Minister Oli, the opposition Nepali Congress and Madhesi -based parties.
According to information released by the Italian news agency ANSA on June 8, 2020, Italy approves the sale of two FREMM frigates to the Egyptian navy. In February 2020, it was announced that Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri will sign a deal with Egypt to purchase two European Multi-Purpose Frigate (FREMM) warships.

According to information released by the Italian news agency ANSA on June 8, 2020, Italy approves the sale of two FREMM frigates to the Egyptian navy. In February 2020, it was announced that Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri will sign a deal with Egypt to purchase two European Multi-Purpose Frigate (FREMM) warships.

Follow Navy Recognition on Google News at this link

FREMM class frigate Spartaco Schergat (F538) during sea trials. (Picture source Twiter account AurelioGiansira)

According to the report, these frigates may be drawn from the Italian Navys procurement program  the vessels Spartaco Schergat and Emilio Bianchi, launched in January 2019 and January 2020, respectively  enabling Fincantieri to sell the vessels for an estimated cost of 1.2 billion.

The FREMM ("European multi-purpose frigate"; French: Fregate europeenne multi-mission; Italian: Fregata europea multi-missione) is a class of multi-purpose frigates designed by Naval Group and Fincantieri for the navies of France and Italy. The lead ship of the class, Aquitaine, was commissioned in November 2012 by the French Navy.

The "Emilio Bianchi" vessel, like the other units, features a high degree of flexibility, capable of operating in all tactical situations. 144 metres long with a beam of 19.7 metres, the ship has a displacement at a full load of approximately 6,700 tonnes. The vessel has a maximum speed of over 27 knots and has a maximum accommodation capacity for a 200-person crew.

Spartaco Schergat is a general purpose-configured variant with a full-load displacement of 6,900 tons and 144 meters in length. It carries an OTO Melara gun, a 16-cell vertical launch system launching Aster 15 and Aster 30 missiles, an MU90 lightweight torpedo launching system (Torpedo Launching System) and the Teseo MK2/A anti-ship system, based on the Teseo missile. The ship also has a flight deck for embarking two helicopters.
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This has been happening since 1997.

Via: AFP:

When US police flooded the streets around the country to confront protesters two weeks ago, for many it appeared like the army had deployed, with camouflage uniforms and combat gear, heavily armored anti-mine vehicles, and high-powered assault weapons.

Thats not by accident. For years the US Defense Department has been handing its surplus equipment over for free to police departments  and the departments, large and small, have revelled in it.

Critics say it has been part of the overall militarization of the police, and helped fuel mass nationwide demonstrations against police abuse and deadly tactics that began after the May 25 killing of a handcuffed African American, George Floyd, by a Minneapolis police officer.

As soon as protests began in Minneapolis, the citys troubled police department rolled out armored vehicles appearing more suited to Middle East battlefields.

Other large cities have them too, but also small towns.



Since 1997, the US military has distributed used and new equipment ranging from handguns to helicopters to armored vehicles, worth around $8.6 billion, to more than 8,000 federal, tribal and local police forces, according to the US Congress.

In 2015 President Barack Obama severely limited the program, but his successor Donald Trump restored it in 2017.

That year alone, some 500 million pieces of military equipment were transferred to the countrys police services under the 1033 program.
Check out the news you should not miss today:

Society

-- Today marks Vietnams 60th day without community infection of COVID-19, with the most critical patient, a British pilot, progressing very well, currently stopping using all antibiotics, and regaining his lung functions.

-- The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has suspended two pilots and six members of the aircrew of a Vietjet Air plane which veered off a runway while landing at Tan Son Nhat International Airport on Sunday afternoon, after departing from Phu Quoc Island off Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam. All passengers and crew members aboard the flight were unharmed.

-- The Forest Protection Department in the central province of Quang Nam on Sunday said it had found two adult elephants looking for food at the edge of the forest in Hiep Duc Districts Phuoc Gia Commune.

It is said that the prolonged hot weather has resulted in insufficient food and water in the forest core so the animals had to seek for food elsewhere. Local authorities are keeping an eye on the animals to protect them.

-- Five fire trucks and numerous firemen were sent to put out a fire that broke out at a 2,000-square-meter scrap warehouse in the southern province of Binh Duongs Tan Uyen Town on Sunday morning. The fire was extinguished after three hours and no casualties were reported.

-- Seventy-eight percent of the workload on a flood control project for District 7, District 8, and Nha Be District in Ho Chi Minh City, developed at a cost of VND10 trillion (US$430 million) had been completed as of Sunday. The project is expected to be put into operation in October this year.

-- Police and local people in north-central Thanh Hoa Province on Sunday arrested two suspects who had allegedly poisoned 30 cats and dogs and stolen them the night before.

Business

-- By the end of May, Ho Chi Minh City had had 37 tourism companies, including seven foreign and 30 domestic tour operators, filing for bankruptcy as the tourist industry has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The Philippines, once considered to have the freest press in Asia, has become one of the worlds most perilous places for journalists. This year, it slipped two spots to 136th place in the World Press Freedom Index. Duterte has previously called Rappler fake news and said that journalists are not exempt from assassination, though his spokesman Harry Roque said Monday that the president was not behind the supposed suppression of free speech.
For non-practitioners, Transcendental Meditation may carry a whiff of mysticism or New Age-iness: Its what the Beatles went to India for during their LSD phase; a Google image search brings up no shortage of mandalas. Its Hindu origins may add a dash of exoticism, but TM is a relatively simple relaxation exercise: Essentially, the practitioner sits comfortably with their eyes closed, repeating a mantra, twice a day for twenty minutes per session.

That makes it sound easy, but TM takes time, and often guidance, to master. Gibbons took in-person classes for two months before she felt like she had a handle on it.

You have to do it consistently for it to work, and for you to get in that zone, she says, encouraging brokers interested in trying Transcendental Meditation to stick with it, even if the effects arent immediate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt. People give up on it too easily.

Gibbons says her daily meditation routine has been especially helpful during the past three months of global uncertainty and anxiety, allowing her to drown out the noise, recharge and focus. And shes not alone in her enthusiasm for TM. Celebrities like David Lynch, Howard Stern and even Katy Perry all swear by it.

Jerry Seinfelds been doing it for thirty years, she says. He said he would be lost without it.
3 1 of 3 Monroe Volunteer Fire Department / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Monroe Volunteer Fire Department / Contributed photo Show More Show Less 3 of 3





MONROE  Town firefighters had a busy weekend  from rescuing a man trapped under a tractor to offering mutual aid to neighboring Shelton crews during the massive Star Pin building fire.

Monroe Fire Deputy Chief Kevin Catalano said the weekend began with fire crews responding to an unauthorized burn Saturday and ended with rescuing the man who was trapped under a lawn tractor on Sunday on Twin Brook Terrace.
A new study led by researchers from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College Dublin challenges claims from some international scientific circles, that having high blood levels of folate (folic acid) increases the risk of poor cognition in older adults, especially in those with low levels of vitamin B12.

The study published today (Monday, 15th June 2020) in the British Journal of Nutrition, forms part of the largest representative study of its kind conducted among older persons.

Both vitamin B12 and folate are essential vitamins for the nervous system and healthy blood cells. Deficiency of folate in early pregnancy can lead to neural tube defects (NTDs) in new-born babies. This is the reason for mandatory fortification of the food supply with folic acid in the US and other countries (but not Ireland or Europe). While fortification is proven to reduce NTDs, several influential publications in the US suggest that very high folate levels in older persons, if coupled with low vitamin B12, leads to poorer brain function and a faster rate of cognitive decline. Largely because of such fears, no country in Europe has implemented mandatory folic acid fortification, although the NTD rates have not declined in two decades and may be rising in Ireland, according to recent data.

What has the new research unveiled?

Using blood samples from over 3,700 Irish older adults aged 50 and over, the study compared cognitive health in individuals grouped by their combinations of vitamin B12 and folate blood levels. It found no evidence that having high blood levels of folate affected the risk of cognitive decline in those with low levels of vitamin B12. Moreover, having higher folate seemed to be associated with better cognitive function in these older adults.

Key findings:

Cognitive performance was not worse in older people with low vitamin B12 combined with high folate (representing 1.5% of older adults in Ireland)

Those with normal vitamin B12 levels and high folate levels (7.6% of older adults) performed better cognitively than the others

The use of folic acid - containing supplements was uncommon, with higher rates among women than men but less than 4% overall taking supplements

Why do the findings matter?

Older adults at significant risk of deficiency

TILDA has previously reported high rates of deficiency: 1 in 8 older adults are deficient in vitamin B12, while 1 in 7 are deficient in folate. Vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with cognitive impairment and nerve damage. Older adults can have difficulty in absorbing vitamin B12 due to diminished digestive function or medications. Folate deficiency causes anaemia and is associated with heart disease, stroke, and possibly certain cancers.

New-born babies at significant risk

Folate is critical to the healthy development of the brain and spinal cord in the growing foetus, and deficiency can cause NTDs, such as spina bifida. Consequently, public health authorities world-wide recommend that women of childbearing age consume folic acid from fortified foods and/or supplements. Voluntary food fortification is permitted in Ireland but is not effective in this regard. Ireland has one the highest rates of NTDs in Europe but does not have mandatory fortification largely because of concerns detailed above.

Lead author Deirdre O'Connor, Registered Nutritionist and TILDA researcher said,

"Concerns surrounding associations between high intakes of folic acid and cognitive decline in older adults with low vitamin B12 have impeded mandatory folic acid fortification in Ireland. Our study shows that a small percentage of older people in the community have this potentially adverse combination, but they are not at increased risk of poorer cognition. In fact, older adults with normal vitamin B12 and high folate levels performed better in cognitive tests than their counterparts with normal folate. This implies that elevated folate may benefit cognitive health in older persons in Ireland."

Professor Anne Molloy, senior author of the study said:

"Ireland does not have mandatory food fortification with folic acid. We know that folic acid fortification is an effective population strategy if it is carefully established, controlled and monitored. We can learn from up to two decades of experience in North and South America and Australia. It reduces NTD prevalence and eliminates folate deficiency - a much bigger health problem. Our study on this important Irish cohort of almost 4,000 older individuals indicates that improving folate levels in the population would have positive health consequences for both young and old."

Professor Rose Anne Kenny, Principal Investigator of TILDA, said:

"This is the largest study of the interaction between vitamin B12 and folate and cognitive function world-wide. The high rates of vitamin B12 and folate deficiency in the older adult population are of concern and, given that this can be easily treated with fortification, this has significant policy implications for Government and health services. TILDA has consistently assisted policy makers by providing strong evidence-based data on which to make recommendations and this study provides such data to energize policy decisions on this important topic for all ages and reopen the public discourse regarding the proposition of mandatory fortification."

###

To view the full report, 'Plasma concentrations of vitamin B12 and folate and global cognitive function in an older population: Cross-sectional findings from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA)' visit: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007114520001427

The study was conducted by researchers at Trinity College Dublin, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and was funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, Irish Life, Department of Health, Health Research Board and Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine through the grant 13F492: The Nutritional Biomarker Database Enhancement Initiative of ('BIO-TILDA' 2013-2015).
A furious mother filmed the moment she confronted heroin addicts shooting up outside her house after her terrified son believed one of them was dead.

Charlotte Spencer-Roy lives ten minutes away from the North Richmond injecting clinic in Melbourne's east, but still finds people using drugs in the laneway beside her home.

Her nine-year-old son, Angus, was traumatised after discovering a man who had apparently overdosed laying unconscious outside their home.

'He said ''mummy, mummy there's a dead body'',' Ms Spencer-Roy told Nine News.

Charlotte Spencer-Roy lives ten minutes away from the North Richmond injecting room in Melbourne's east, and often finds people using drugs in the laneway beside her home

The fed-up mother decided to confront the drug-users outside the home.

Ms Spencer-Roy opened her door as two men scrambled to pick up their drug paraphernalia.

'Why are you choosing to inject here? This isn't the injecting room,' she asked as the pair quickly scurried away.

The men told the furious mother the queues at the Lennox Street injecting room were too long and said it was 'too far away'.

But Ms Spencer-Roy said the controversial injecting room, which opened in 2018, is just a ten minute walk from her house.

One of the men also told the family he was banned from going into the injecting facility.

The family have opened their doors to find people with needles hanging out of their arms, which Ms Spender-Roy said has taken a toll on her son.

'We're just fed up. It's really confronting and it's really scary when you've got a small child,' she said.

In a video Ms Spencer-Roy opens her door as two drug users scramble to pick up their drug paraphernalia

Her nine-year-old son, Angus, was traumatised when he assumed a man who had passed out in the laneway was dead so she confronted drug-users outside the home

Ms Spencer-Roy (pictured right with her son Angus) lives just streets away from the controversial injecting room in North Richmond

Ms Spencer-Roy said she has also had to call police after being physically assaulted twice by drug-users.

In November she told Daily Mail Australia the neighbourhood had become overrun with drug addicts.

In one instance she told a man to utilise the injecting clinic but he refused and spat on her.

'That was the first time I've ever called police and reported an assault in this area since I moved here in 2003,' she said at the time.

The family say there has been a spike in anti-social behaviour since the safe injecting room opened in North Richmond.

Ms Spencer-Roy said she was spat on and threatened by a drug addict (pictured right and left) who had been shooting up outside her home in November

'It's a magnet. All of Victoria's drug problems have been dumped on our front doorstep,' she said.

Ms Spencer-Roy and her husband also claimed drug addicts use the local playgrounds to perform sex acts.

She said she witnessed a man pulling down his pants and exposing himself to urinate on the street while she was grocery shopping with her son.

She noted that the injecting room, referred to by residents as 'Dan's Drug Den' in a reference to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews who approved the facility, was opened right next to a primary school, which saw drug users injecting themselves in the neck at 3pm as children were going home from school.

Victoria Police said they have increased patrols in the area but urge residents not to confront suspected drug-users.

The family say there has been a spike in anti-social behaviour since the safe injecting room opened in North Richmond (pictured)
The African Telecommunications Union (ATU), which aims to promote the rapid development of info-communications in Africa, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ericsson to help fast track the roll-out of technology across the continent.

The ATU, a specialised agency of the African Union, says that the MoU will support the growth of ICT as a critical infrastructure for the 21st century and help set the foundation for social and economic progress in the continent. In the understanding, the two organisations say they look towards promoting global and regional coordination and harmonisation of spectrum usage to encourage economies of scale and maximise affordability for all users in Africa.

According to Fadi Pharaon, president of Ericsson Middle East and Africa, the collaboration will focus on spectrum management strategies to ensure efficient use of scarce resources and allocation of new spectrum.

The agreement comes at a time when mobile broadband take-up is accelerating across the continent, driven, in part, by a young and growing population and the growing availability of lower-priced smart and feature phones.

The partners argue that the harmonised and globally aligned frameworks they envisage will assist African countries in spectrum management activities that will facilitate cost-efficient roll out of ICT. Certainly this sounds like a laudable aim. However, concrete detail, including how the two organisations will work together, has yet to be offered.

Established on December 7th, 1999, the African Telecommunications Union is the leading continental organisation fostering the development of information and communication technologies infrastructure and services. It has 44 member states and 16 associate members (comprising fixed and mobile operators).
[June 15, 2020] Ryan and Meridian Global Services Enter Partnership to Improve VAT Determination in SAP Ryan, a leading global tax services and software provider, announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Meridian Global Services to enhance its ability to deliver global value-added tax (VAT) determination solutions in SAP (News - Alert). The partnership will support Ryan's tax technology implementations for European Union businesses with a tax solution that provides fully compliant and automated tax processes in their SAP ECC 6.0 or S/4HANA systems. Ryan can now utilize the Meridian VAT add-on for SAP, built into native SAP with no external software to interface, for new SAP implementations or within existing SAP landscapes. This VAT add-on is the only certified, native SAP tax solution for achieving automated tax determination and improving reporting, analytics, and control functionality. This partnership gives Ryan clients access to an expanded portfolio of technology to meet their evolving tax compliance needs. "Meridian Global Services' VAT add-on for SAP is a perfect complement to Ryan's implementation services," said Jun Miyake, Ryan Tax Technology Pincipal. "As a result, Ryan will minimize tax compliance risk resulting from systemic weaknesses and manual workaround procedures, improving processes and efficiencies while reducing SAP system maintenance costs for clients with complex VAT flows."





"Ryan has a proven reputation in providing innovative tax technology services," said Adam Smith, Commercial Director - Managed Services of Meridian Global Services. "Their expertise combined with Meridian's VAT add-on for SAP will eliminate the complexity involved in managing VAT determination within SAP." "This partnership supports our European strategy of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our clients' people, processes, and systems by transforming their tax function into a best practices environment," said Jon C. Sweet, Ryan President of European and Asia-Pacific Operations. "Meridian Global Services and its VAT add-on for SAP perfectly fit this strategy, and we look forward to partnering together to add value and results for our mutual clients." About Meridian Global Services Meridian Global Services has provided international tax technology and VAT solutions to global businesses for more than 30 years. The company guides clients through the complexity of a global indirect tax compliance environment and helps them overcome indirect tax complexities at both the organizational and transactional level. Meridian is recognized as a market leader, and its tax technology solution is used by many of the world's largest companies. The Meridian SAP VAT add-on is certified by SAP for all Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) versions up to and including S/4 Hana 1909. Meridian is an SAP Silver partner, and the VAT add-on is available via the SAP App Center. About Ryan Ryan, an award-winning global tax services and software provider, is the largest Firm in the world dedicated exclusively to business taxes. With global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides an integrated suite of federal, state, local, and international tax services on a multijurisdictional basis, including tax recovery, consulting, advocacy, compliance, and technology services. Ryan is an eight-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multidisciplinary team of more than 2,800 professionals and associates serves over 16,000 clients in more than 50 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com. "Ryan" and "Firm" refer to the global organizational network and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ryan International, each of which is a separate legal entity. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005036/en/

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A Donegal woman has been speaking about her incredible journey back to health - after spending 71 days in hospital with Covid-19.

Gail Lafferty was admitted to Sligo University Hospital in March.

In an emotional interview, she explained how she did not realise that she had Covid-19, but could have had it for four or five days before the ambulance was called. Her remarkable story has been recorded and posted online by the Saolta University Healthcare Group, whose hospitals include Sligo and Letterkenny.

'An incredible journey for an incredible lady'.



Gail Lafferty from County Donegal was admitted to Sligo University Hospital #SUH last March with #COVID19



Gail spent 71 days in hospital.



Here is her remarkable story  pic.twitter.com/jWrQtHecAc  saoltagroup (@saoltagroup) June 12, 2020

She does not remember being in ICU for three and a half weeks.

Not surprisingly, she was full of praise for the staff in the hospital and the treatment she has received.

And she added: "If anyone is feeling ill, they should not worry about coming into hospital, they (the staff) are amazing and they are here to look after you. Sligo hospital is amazing. I am so grateful, they have saved my life.

At the end of the video, she is pictured leaving the hospital as the staff applaud her and she applauds them.
Vladimir Putin has boasted of Russia's success in handling the coronavirus pandemic and attacked America's response - despite his country having the third-largest outbreak in the world.

Putin said in an interview with state TV: 'We are exiting the coronavirus situation steadily with minimal losses, God willing, in the States it isn't happening that way.'

The Russian president savaged the US for putting 'party interests higher than the interests of the people' and accused Donald Trump of a lack of leadership.

Russia has 528,964 virus cases but only 6,948 deaths, while the US has piled up more than two million infections and more than 100,000 deaths.

However, there are doubts about the accuracy of Russia's figures and fears that the true death toll could be far higher.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, pictured giving a speech on Friday, has attacked the US response to the coronavirus pandemic

Russia's death rate is only 1.3 fatalities per 100 confirmed cases, a far lower rate than in the US, UK or Italy.

Putin's government has now begun giving fuller information on deaths, including cases where Covid-19 was never confirmed by tests.

Under this new method, Russia said 2,712 people had died from coronavirus in April - - more than double the 1,056 deaths which were announced during the month.

Russia's daily numbers have fallen from their peak but the country is still regularly adding more than 8,000 new infections per day.

The current total of 528,964 infections is second only to the United States and Brazil, which has more than 850,000 cases.

However, the death toll of 6,948 is far lower down the table, well below the UK, Italy, France and even the relatively successful Germany.

Moscow accounts for more than 200,000 of Russia's cases, while the region which surrounds the capital has seen another 49,000.

Nonetheless, regions are gradually lifting lockdown restrictions and Moscow has reopened non-essential shops and hairdressers.

Attacking the US response, Putin told state television that the coronavirus pandemic had exposed 'deep-seated internal crises' in the US.

He criticised a lack of US leadership, saying that 'the president says we need to do such-and-such but the governors somewhere tell him where to go.'

'I think the problem is that group interests, party interests are put higher than the interests of the whole of society and the interests of the people,' he said.

Medical workers wearing full protective suits and goggles attend to a suspected coronavirus patient at a hospital in Moscow last week

Russian National Guard officers wearing masks donate blood at the Transfusion Unit of a Moscow hospital yesterday

In Russia, he argued, the government and regional leaders work 'as one team' and do not differ from the official line.

'I doubt anyone in the government or the regions would say 'we're not going to do what the government says, what the president says, we think it's wrong,' Putin said of the virus strategy.

When the northern Caucasus region of Dagestan suffered particularly hard from the virus, 'the whole country rallied to help', he claimed.

Putin also criticised anti-racism protests in the United States for sparking crowd violence, in his first comments on the issue.

'If this fight for natural rights, legal rights, turns into mayhem and rioting, I see nothing good for the country,' the Russian leader said in his televised broadcast.

He stressed he supported black Americans' struggle for equality, calling this 'a longstanding problem of the United States'.

'We always in the USSR and in modern Russia had a lot of sympathy for the struggle of African-Americans for their natural rights,' he insisted.

But Putin added that 'when - even after crimes are committed - this takes on elements of radical nationalism and extremism, nothing good will come of this.'

Putin also described the protests as a sign of 'deep-seated internal crises' in the United States, linking the unrest to the coronavirus pandemic, which he said 'has shone a spotlight on general problems'.

He said he nevertheless expected that the 'fundamental basis of American democracy will allow the country to escape this series of crisis events'.

The interview was billed as Putin's first since the start of the pandemic, but it is not clear when it was recorded.
The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear eight cases involving a legal defense called qualified immunity that can be used to shield government officials from lawsuits including seven involving police accused of excessive force or other misconduct.

In six of the seven cases involving police, plaintiffs who sued officers were challenging actions in lower courts that protected the defendants through qualified immunity. The other one involved two officers who argued they deserve such protection but lost in a lower court.

Among the cases the justices declined to hear was a dispute over whether officers in Tennessee can be sued for using a police dog that bit a man who has said he had put up his hands in surrender. Justice Clarence Thomas, a skeptic of qualified immunity, said in a dissent that the court should have heard that case.

The court could still take up other qualified immunity cases awaiting attention by the justices.

The issue of police use of force has been in the spotlight since a black man named George Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while detaining him on May 25. Floyd's killing sparked protests in US cities demanding police reform, with some demonstrators calling for eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement officers.

Democrats and Republicans in Washington have been pulling together their own versions of police reform legislation. A Democratic plan unveiled in the House would roll back qualified immunity for law enforcement officers. Some Republican lawmakers have come out against abolishing qualified immunity, and the White House has signaled its opposition.

The Supreme Court recognized qualified immunity 50 years ago to protect government officials from frivolous lawsuits. Police have said the doctrine ensures they can make split-second decisions in dangerous situations without worrying about being sued later.

Critics have said the doctrine too often lets police brutality go unpunished. On the high court, Sonia Sotomayor has chided her fellow justices for what she has called a "disturbing trend" of favoring police in qualified immunity cases.

Reuters published an investigation on May 8 that showed how qualified immunity, with the Supreme Court's continual refinements, has made it easier for police to kill or injure civilians with impunity.

The investigation found that based on Supreme Court guidance, police often escape liability even when a lower court determines officers used excessive force in violation of US Constitution's the Fourth Amendment, so long as their specific conduct has not been "clearly established" in earlier cases as unconstitutional.

Amid the mounting criticism of qualified immunity, the justices had signaled an interest in potentially revisiting the issue by letting multiple appeals seeking to roll back the doctrine pile up.

In the Tennessee case, a homeless man named Alexander Baxter arrested during a 2014 home break-in in Nashville challenged a lower court's ruling granting immunity to two officers who used a police dog on him.

Baxter said he had already put up his hands in surrender when the dog bit him, resulting in an injury to his arm that required hospital treatment. The officers, Brad Bracey and Spencer Harris, said Baxter had not responded to warnings and that they did not see his hands raised.

Baxter sued the officers in federal court, accusing them of using excessive force. The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, granted the officers qualified immunity.

Two cases turned away on Monday involved law enforcement officers sued over alleged misconduct not involving excessive force and one case involved Texas Medical Board investigators who relied upon qualified immunity in a lawsuit.
Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found dead at his Mumbai home on Sunday afternoon, reportedly made his last call to his close friend, Mahesh Shetty. According to India TV, Sushant called his sister at 9.30am on Sunday, after which he called Mahesh.

The report further added that Maheshs statement will be recorded by the police as a part of their investigation into Sushants death by suicide.

In a statement shared on Maheshs Instagram account, his team requested the media to give him privacy and allow him to come to terms with the tragic news. As we all are deeply pained and shocked to hear about Sushant Singh Rajputs untimely demise... So is Mahesh Shetty. He has lost a brother, a very dear friend and is still coming to terms with the shock and reality and is completely heartbroken. We, his team, request the media and all of you, on his behalf, to please give him some privacy and let him grieve for his loss, the statement read.

Also read: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, found dead at Mumbai home

Mahesh worked with Sushant in the shows Kis Desh Mein Hai Mera Dil, which marked the late actors small screen debut, and Pavitra Rishta. The two remained close friends even after Sushant quit television for films.

Just last month, Sushant wished Mahesh on his birthday with a happy selfie. Happy birthday meri jaan.. @memaheshshetty, he wrote.

Sushant was found dead at his Bandra residence by his domestic help, who immediately informed the police. His post-mortem was conducted at Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital and further details of the autopsy report are awaited, ANI reports.

Sushant dropped out in his third year of engineering to become an actor. After a supporting role in Kis Desh Mein Hai Mera Dil, he shot to fame with the popular serial Pavitra Rishta. He quit Pavitra Rishta in 2011 to try his luck in Bollywood and made his big screen debut with the critically and commercially successful Kai Po Che! in 2013.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

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Dear Mr Trump: the Bible has a long history as a symbol of protest, so don't use it as a sign of repression

Amid Black Lives Matter protests taking place in Washington DC and nationwide on the evening of Monday June 1, US president Donald Trump walked the short distance from the White House to St Johns Episcopal Church, where he posed outside while holding a Bible above his head.

The photo-op proved controversial for a number of reasons: tear gas was used on peaceful protestors to clear his path; Trump awkwardly held the Bible upside down; and his actions seemed to be an incongruous response to the situation at hand.

Trumps use of the Bible in Mondays act of political theatre participates in a long history of using sacred texts to legitimise state power. From courtrooms to the US Capitol steps, the Bible is regularly used as a physical symbol of political authority. Such practices in American public life continue a long history of using the Bible as a material object in order to authorise political power  a history that goes back to the late Roman empire.

Though Christians have been interested in the content of their scriptures from the beginning, the use of the physical presence of Christian scriptures as a symbol of power began in a period when Christians faced legislative pressure, marginalisation and violence. We believe the evidence suggests that Christian interest in and defence of their physical books was a response to the aggressive actions of Roman emperors.

In AD249  in light of challenges to his legitimacy  the newly proclaimed emperor Decius issued a decree that everyone in the empire should perform a sacrifice to the genius (divine spirit) of the emperor. In exchange for this display of loyalty to the state, each subject would be provided with a certificate called a libellus (little book) as proof of participation and material evidence of loyalty.

Copies of these certificates demonstrate, as historian James Rives has shown, that the decree was not aimed specifically at Christians. Nonetheless, it affected Christians in unique ways, and a number were martyred.

Saint Reparata prepares to martyr herself before the Emperor Decius. Bernardo Daddi, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Around this period, and arguably in response to Roman demands that people carry certificates of loyalty to the state, Christians began to use their scriptures as physical manifestations of divine presence and power. Just as individuals who had sacrificed to the genius of the emperor were expected to carry their libelli, Christians might carry Gospels  tokens of allegiance to a different divine being.

By the late third century, the Gospels came to represent Christian identity. According to an account preserved by the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, the martyr Marinus had to choose between the divine Gospels and sacrifice (with the associated libellus), between Christ and Caesar. Marinus chose the Gospels and was accordingly martyred.

Many Christians thought of their sacred texts as powerful objects, manifestations of divine presence and authority. By the early fourth century, Gospel books and folded-up pieces of papyrus or parchment with scriptural passages functioned as amulets to secure healing or ward off evil, a set of practices attested by both ancient authors and archaeological evidence, primarily from ancient Egypt. Before Christians wore crosses around their necks, they wore sacred texts.

In AD303, on the 20th anniversary of his reign, the emperor Diocletian issued his First Edict against Christians. Among other things, the edict required destruction of Christian books. Yet a number of Christians throughout the empire defied the imperial command, preferring to die rather than hand over their books.

According to one Latin account, a Sicilian Christian named Euplus maintained that whoever gives up [the scriptures] loses eternal life. Euplus was executed with his Gospel book hanging from his neck, marking his identity as a Christian.

As a sacred object, the Christian book became a symbol of resistance to imperial power. In one account, a group of Christians from the small North African town of Abitina (modern-day Henchir Chouhoud el Batin, Tunisia) defied the imperial decree. This refusal to hand over physical books of scripture was a show of the Abitinian Christians loyalty to God over Rome.

Referring to Christian scriptural books as the law, the fourth-century martyrdom account Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs sets up a question of political allegiance: will one follow the law of Christ or the commands of Caesar? The contest between divine law and imperial edict centred on physical scriptures.

To preserve the physical books of scripture was to profess Christian identity and appeal to a higher, divine authority. By contrast, those who handed over sacred books to be destroyed by imperial functionaries renounced their allegiance to God.

The Christian Martyrs Last Prayer by Jean-Leon Gerome (1883). Walters Art Museum.

As North African Christians grappled with the aftermath of Diocletians edict, figures such as the bishop Petilian of Cirta (in modern-day Algeria) argued that to hand over the sacred book was to condemn Christ himself to the pyre. In these developing theologies of the book, material scriptures manifest divine authority and even embody Christ himself. The Bible as a book was a source of authority that could challenge even the demands of the Roman empire.

The use of the Bible as a material symbol of divine authority began in response to political oppression and violence. In North Africa in particular, some Christians refused to hand over books for destruction or to accept those who had done so as their religious leaders.

While the history of the Bible as symbol expanded from this point  so that Bibles are held aloft in liturgical spaces and used to cement the authority of legal ceremonies  the symbolic power of the Bible began as a form of political resistance. There is a tragic irony to the fact that a mode of resistance developed by disenfranchised and powerless North African Christians is now weaponised against black people by the most powerful man in the world.

Candida Moss, Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology



This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 22:00:02|Editor: huaxia

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BAGHDAD, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday recorded 1,106 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of infections to 21,315 in the country.

It said that 45 more people died from the coronavirus during the day, bringing the death toll to 652, while 9,271 patients have recovered.

The new cases were recorded after 10,135 test kits were used across the country during the past 24 hours, and a total of 380,005 tests have been conducted since the outbreak of the disease, the statement added.

On June 13, the Iraqi authorities decided to partially lift the nationwide curfew from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. starting Sunday, but full curfew will continue on Thursday, Friday and Saturday every week.

China has been helping Iraq fight 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.

Since March 7, China has also sent three batches of medical aid to Iraq. Enditem
By 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 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 regions.

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 regions.
ROME - An Argentine bishop close to Pope Francis has gone back to work at the Holy Sees financial administration office while under investigation in his native Argentina and at the Vatican for alleged sexual abuse.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, confirmed Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta had resumed work at the APSA patrimony office but said it in no way interferes with the investigations. He said Zanchetta remains at the disposition of Argentine judicial authorities.

The developments came as Francis on Monday named a new No. 2 at the office, an Italian layman and auditor, Fabio Gasperini.

The Vatican in January 2019 said Zanchetta would abstain from his job as APSAs assessor, the No. 3 position, pending the outcome of a preliminary investigation into the allegations.

Zanchetta has been formally accused in Argentina of aggravated continuous sexual abuse of two seminarians in Oran, about 1,600 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires, starting in 2016. He has denied the charges.

He is also facing a canonical investigation at the Vatican. While such probes usually wait for the outcome of any secular investigation, Zanchettas lawyer, Javier Belda, told The Associated Press that the Vaticans investigation into Zanchetta was nearly finished.

In an email, Belda said the investigation actually wrapped up in December, but was then delayed and complicated by the coronavirus outbreak, which shut down the Vatican for nearly three months. He said he and Zanchetta are confident about the outcome of the procedures in both fora.

We are fully convinced that this long judicial process will serve to rehabilitate the name of Monsignor Zanchetta and reinforce justice, because while its right to protect victims its also right to absolve those who have been falsely accused, he said.

Francis accepted Zanchettas resignation in August 2017 after priests in Oran complained about what they said was his authoritarian rule. In addition, a former vicar, a seminary rector and another prelate provided reports to the Vatican alleging abuses of power, inappropriate behaviour and sexual harassment of adult seminarians.

Francis created a new job for Zanchetta at APSA later that year. After the scandal erupted, the Vatican said in early 2019 that Zanchetta was only facing governance problems at the time of his abrupt 2017 resignation and appointment at the Vatican, and that the first sexual abuse allegation was only made in late 2018.

Testimony from Oran priests and documents obtained by the local Tribune of Salta newspaper, however, suggest that the Vatican was aware of allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by Zanchetta two years before he resigned.

The Zanchetta case was particularly grave for Francis, given it erupted at the same time that the Argentine pope was defending a Chilean bishop accused of covering up for the countrys most notorious abuser.

___

This story has been corrected to show that Zanchetta is a bishop, not an archbishop.
Any misunderstanding between India and Nepal will be sorted through dialogue, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday while addressing Uttarakhand Jan Samvad virtual rally.

India-Nepal ties are not ordinary, we are bound together by roti-beti and no power in the world can break it, Singh said. The minister said that the road built by the Border Roads Organization (BRO) in Lipulekh is very much part of the Indian territory.

Singhs comments came after the government of Nepal, over the weekend, got a unanimous approval of its lower house in parliament to a new map depicting disputed areas of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as Nepalese territories.

India reacted, stating that such artificial enlargement of territorial claim is untenable.

Some misconception has risen in Nepal regarding this road. But I would like to say that as far as Nepal is concerned, we not only have social, geographical, historical or cultural relations with them but also a devotional relation. India can never forget this: Defence Minister https://t.co/9fEFYp7TPb  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

Rakesh Sood, who was Indian Ambassador to Nepal from 2008 to 2011, said both sides have allowed the relationship to come to a very very dangerous point and that India should have found time to engage with Kathmandu as it pressed for talks on the issue since November.

I think we have displayed a lack of sensitivity, and now the Nepalese have dug themselves deeper into the hole from which they will find it difficult to come out, he told news agency PTI.

Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday addressed the Jammu Jan Samvad virtual rally during which he talked about the Modi governments commitment towards the growth and development of Jammu and Kashmir in the coming years.

Just wait, soon people of PoK will demand that they want to be with India and not under the rule of Pakistan, and the day this happens, a goal of our Parliament will also be accomplished, he said yesterday.

(With inputs from PTI)
Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol bangs a gavel during a monetary board meeting at its headquarters in Seoul on May 28. Yonhap



By Lee Min-hyung



The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Monday it had launched a legal advisory panel to review possible regulatory hurdles in issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).



The panel consists of six experts in the finance and IT sectors  including professors of commercial law and lawyers specializing in fintech. One of them is from the BOK's legal policy office.



Starting Monday, the panel will be in operation at least until the end of May 2021, the central bank said.



"We established the advisory group to discuss legal issues surrounding a CBDC and figure out which laws need to be revised or enacted for smooth progress in the BOK's possible issuance of digital currency," an official from the bank said.



The launch of the panel is part of an initial step for the BOK's 22-month-long plan to develop its own CBDC. The drive started in March this year, and the central bank is enhancing its research capabilities to finish a pilot test on issuing a digital currency before the end of 2021.



The BOK established a digital currency research team in February to keep track of the latest trends at overseas central banks in the possible issuance of their digital currencies.



Global financial powerhouses  such as the United States and Japan  are on boosting research into CBDCs, in a bid not to fall behind the global financial paradigm shift. With central banks from a growing number of countries jumping on the digital drive, the BOK is also speeding up its digital currency initiatives.



In a recent speech celebrating the 70th anniversary of the central bank, BOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol underlined the need to enhance research and development in CBDCs, saying digital innovation is a crucial task private lenders as well as central banks should embrace amid the rise of contactless payment.


Before he was one of the presidents closest allies, Lindsey Graham (RSC) was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump  and some members of the Republican Party want voters to remember that come Election Day.

A new ad from the group Republican Voters Against Trump features the conservative senator dissing the president along the campaign trail in 2016, as well as discussing his admiration for former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

It starts with Mr Graham saying I want to talk to the Trump supporters for a minute, before he asks: What is Donald Trumps campaign about?

Hes a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot, the senator says. You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.

The ad then cuts to glowing praise of Mr Biden from the Republican senator, who says: If you cant admire Joe Biden as a person then theres probably  youve got a problem.

Mr Graham goes on to say Mr Biden is as good a man as God ever created and is the nicest person I think I ever met in politics.

The ad concludes with a statement from Mr Graham in 2015, in which he told CNN: This is a defining moment in the future of the Republican Party.

He adds: We have to reject this demagoguery, and if we dont reject Donald Trump, weve lost the moral authority  to govern this great nation.

The ad, which was released over the weekend, has already received over 1.4 million views on YouTube.

Republican Voters Against Trump confirmed the ad was set to air in several states across the country on Fox News, MarketWatch reported on Monday.
WHERE WERE THE REPUBLICANS?

I attended the Community Day of Healing last week down in Upper Darby and I just wanted to express my concern is that there were no Republican members of the township council there. Only the Democratic council members attended. I dont understand why a Community Day of Healing should be a partisan issue. Being a resident of the Drexel Hill

area, their absence actually embarrassed me.

IDIOTS UNMASKED

In response to Those Lying Dems in the June 14 Sunday Times: So short-sighted. Dems encourage the 6-foot social distancing and mask wearing during these demonstrations. About 85 percent of these peaceful protesters can be seen wearing masks, but with such large crowds its very difficult to meet the 6-foot rule even though they do try their best ( not talking rioters and looters whom I and most others have no time or respect for)! And the protesting is done outside in fresh air. As to Trump rallies, these are held at indoor venues, people sitting or standing shoulder to shoulder, with hardly anyone wearing masks  even their irresponsible leader whose task force made the rules! Did you see the idiots invade the Michigan Statehouse a few weeks ago with their automatic weapons? Not many wearing masks. But what tops that is moron #2  the leader of the task force who made the rules, holds a rally of Trump campaign workers in Virginia last week. About 70 people cramped into a small room and no one wearing a mask! Go watch the video! What a fine example of leadership!

UNCLE BILLY

DRAW SOME LINES

I totally agree with Confederate statues coming down. They were enemies of the United States. The war was won and a Union of the states was formed. You wouldnt put up a statue of any other enemys war hero even though it is a part of our history. However, I dont think taking Columbus statues down is necessary. We know he didnt discover America but he may have been the first Italian on this land, thats positive history. His accomplishments can be worded differently. We learned he mistreated indigenous individuals as did most settlers but I think we must draw the line somewhere. I hated Rizzos Gestapo tactics but I could care less about his statue. I just never visited it and never would pay homage to him.

RNB

OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

To Sad Times in response to Flaming Feminist: How dare you call it my perch in 2020? I happen to be an old woman who worked all her life, mostly in jobs where I was underpaid because of women being crowded into the few job opportunities they had. I was also successful in suing a former employer for sex discrimination after they fired me for being an uppity woman. Perhaps you should spend some time in your perch in 2020 contemplating all the advantages youve had as a while male American.

FLAMING FEMINIST

ONE BAD EGG

To But They Were Cops(June 13): 911 should have been called to report about the cops at hand who were watching a life snuffed out in progress and did nothing. Looks like that brutal cop Chauvin wanted to murder George Floyd; thats why he didnt allow the paramedics to examine him. Chauvins head and heart need to be examined. He seems to be a heartless lunatic. All you decent cops out there  please continue to do a good job and do not follow Chauvins footsteps.

GIVE IT A CHANCE

Id like to Sound Off about Spike Lees new movie Da 5 Bloods, which I think is way way overdue. Theres been many movies made about Vietnam  Apocalypse Now,Platoon, etc. Some of those are good, but this movie shows the movie through the African-American soldiers eyes and the fact that they were put right up to the the front in battle. It starts with the preface done from an interview with Muhammad Ali when he said that I have nothing against those Vietcongs, they never lynched me. So I would encourage anybody with an open mind to go see the new Spike Lee movie Da 5 Bloods. And really, youll never regret it.

MOVIE MAVEN IN MARVEL
(Alliance News) - Petrel Resources PLC on Monday reported a widened loss for 2019 as it announced plans to focus on its operations in Iraq and Ghana.

Shares in the oil and gas exploration company were trading 6.3% lower at 3.84 pence each on Monday morning in London, having fallen to 3.54p soon after the open.

For the year, Petrel posted a pretax loss of EUR2.0 million, widening significantly from a EUR239,042 loss in 2018. No revenue was received either year.

Administrative expenses were EUR350,000, up from EUR240,000 with the company also posting an impairment of deferred development costs of EUR1.6 million compared to zero in 2018.

Looking ahead, Chair John Teeling said: "The strategy is clear. We focus on Iraq while pushing Ghana with our partners. We raised a limited amount of new money, GBP250,000, in early 2020 to fund an expansion of our Iraqi involvement. So we are well funded for current activities."

As at the end of 2019, Petrel had cash of GBP367,777

By Ife Taiwo; ifetaiwo@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2020 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Four TN districts including Chennai to be in lockdown from June 19 till 30th

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Chennai, June 15: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Monday announced 'maximized restricted lockdown' from 19th to 30th June in areas of Chennai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur districts which come under Metropolitan Chennai Police limits.

The move came after health experts recommend the tightening of lockdown restrictions in Chennai earlier on Monday, in a meeting with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisaamy.

The Tamil Nadu government has been advised on scaling down lockdown relaxations and preventing the further spread of coronavirus, a member of an expert committee said here on Monday following a consultative meeting with Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Amid continuing surge in the number of fresh coronavirus cases in the State, Dr P Kuganantham, a senior epidemiologist and member of the 19-member expert committee on COVID-19 set up by the government, said: "We have given advice (to the government) on cutting down relaxations and (further) prevent the spread of virus and the government will take a decision."

The panel had about an hour and a half discussion with Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, Health Minister C Vijayabaskar and other top state officials.

This is the fifth meeting of the expert committee with the government and several experts including Dr Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist with WHO and Dr Prabhdeep Kaur, public health expert with Indian Council for Medical Research- National Institute of Epidemiology here took part in the meeting through a virtual link.

On Sunday, Tamil Nadu registered 1,974 new coronavirus cases pushing the overall tally to 44,661 and 38 people died of the virus, raising the fatality count to 435 in the state.

Dr V Ramasubramanian, a member of the expert committee, said the rise in the number of cases was on expected lines.

Though there was ''psychological stress'' and several people feared the pandemic, they did not take adequate precautions and it was a dichotomy, he said.

The member, an infectious diseases specialist, said following the panel's suggestions mobile hospitals have been deployed by the government and people with apprehensions may avail counselling from such facilities, he said.

Even symptoms like fever, headache, body or throat pain, for a day or two could be an indicator to coronavirus and minor symptoms even for a brief spell should not be ignored and such people need isolation for a week at the least.

Pointing out that there was an apprehension among some people that they will be immediately put in isolation in a hospital, he said it was unfounded.

"It has been suggested that symptomatic people with necessary means could isolate themselves at their homes." People in isolation with other health issues could use pulse oximeter, a device to monitor oxygen levels in body and if oxygen saturation was found to be below 94 per cent, they should reach the hospital immediately.

"If they reach the hospital with respiratory distress, it may be too late and understanding that people should cooperate," he pointed out.

To a question, he said it will be sufficient if the present curbs were followed and added that the government will act on their recommendations on which area needs tightening of restrictions.
US President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to block its officials from being directly involved in investigating American troops and intelligence officials and those of allied nations. President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order authorizing new sanctions against prosecutors and officials of the ICC so that they can't bring war crime suspects from the US and Israel to justice. He imposed the sanctions at a time when the ICC is close to opening probes into possible war crimes against the US and Israel.

Analysts are of the view that by imposing sanctions on the ICC, the US has put the final nail in the coffin of the global justice system. They believe Trump's move has revealed the US' true colors. The country is very clamorous about human rights around the world, and plays the sole agent in safeguarding global human rights.

But Trump's order has unmasked the double standard of his country regarding human rights. It has made it crystal clear that the US government uses human rights as a political tool to protect its ulterior motives and self-interest against its opponents. The US uses human rights as an excuse to clamp down on its dissidents around the world. But it is, in fact, not the least bit interested in human rights.

If the US has the least respect for human rights, it can't impose sanctions on the ICC to block the investigation into possible war crimes in Afghanistan involving US troops and intelligence officials. The world knows many notorious incidents involving the torture of prisoners, sexual violence, and the indiscriminate mass killing of civilians by US forces in Afghanistan.

During the Afghan War, about 150,000 people were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while over 40,000 civilians suffered violent deaths in the conflict. Last November, an American Reaper drone targeted a group of villagers in Paktia and killed seven civilians, including three women and one child.

US forces committed enormous crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. But the world has been shocked by the news of grisly and heinous crimes such as the torture and prisoner abuse in the Bagram military detention center, Kandahar massacre, and Maywand District murders.

In 2005, the world reacted with fury as the New York Times published reports concerning the general treatment of prisoners and the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by US military personnel at the Bagram detention center in December 2002.

The two prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were repeatedly chained to the ceiling and beaten, resulting in their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners' deaths were homicides. But autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus.

In May 2010, the BBC reported on nine prisoners who "told consistent stories of being held in isolation in cold cells where a light is on all day and night. The men said they had been deprived of sleep by US military personnel there."

The Kandahar massacre occurred in the early hours of 11 March 2012, when United States Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales murdered sixteen civilians and wounded six others in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Nine of his victims were children, and eleven of the dead were from the same family. Some of the corpses were partially burned.

The Maywand District murders involved the killing of at least three Afghan civilians perpetrated by a group of US Army soldiers from June 2009 to June 2010, during the War in Afghanistan.

Given the gravity of crimes and violation of human rights by the US in Afghanistan, it can easily be concluded that the US has never been a savior, but rather the worst violator of human rights. All of its efforts for human rights are nothing but crocodile tears. By imposing sanctions on the ICC, the US has been disqualified from talking about human rights. It no longer has the moral grounds to speak for peace, justice, and stability in the world.

The author is the China Correspondent of the Bangladesh Post.
Dustin Lee Dennis, 31, was arrested on two counts of second-degree murder after his two children, who are both under the age of 5, died on Saturday

An Oklahoma man has been arrested after his two young children died after being locked inside his truck for five hours in 90 degree heat while he took a nap indoors.

Dustin Lee Dennis, 31, now faces two counts of second-degree murder after his kids, Teagan, 4, and Ryan, 3, were found dead.

Police say Dennis told them he took a drive to a QuikTrip convenience store at around noon before returning to his Tulsa home and falling asleep for between four and five hours.

After waking, Dennis told police that he was unable to find his children, according to Fox 23.

Dennis allegedly claims he found the pair on the floorboard of the truck.

He called 911 and moved the children into the living room of the family home where paramedics pronounced the children dead.

Dustin Lee Dennis, 31, now faces two counts of second-degree murder after his kids, Teagan, 4, and Ryan, 3, were found dead

The children are thought to have passed away while locked in their father's truck

An father from Oklahoma has been arrested after his two young kids were left in a locked truck for five hours and died

Dennis told police he drove with his kids around noon to a convenience store, but then returned home and fell asleep for several hours

Dennis had recently posted a seemingly heartfelt tribute to his children on his Facebook page of whom he said that he 'couldn't imagine this world without them'

From photos posted online, Dennis appeared to have a good relationship with his children

Police say they have received video from a next door neighbor who filmed Dennis locking up his truck without taking the children back inside with him.

'The children had not been checked on for nearly five hours during the time they were locked inside vehicle,' an arrest report seen by the television station states.

Dennis is currently in the Tulsa County jail on a $750,000 bond.

Although it has not been revealed how the children died, temperatures in Tulsa were extremely hot on Saturday and were in the low 90's Fahrenheit.

Dennis was a former soldier in the Army and ran a children's bouncey house business

By the time he woke up, Dennis said that couldn't find his children and claims that he found them under the floorboard of his pickup truck

Writing on his Facebook profile on Thursday, Dennis appeared to write about the love he held for his children, who did not live with him, online

Writing on his Facebook profile on Thursday, Dennis appeared to tell of his love for his children, who did not live with him.

'2 in the morning up watching my kids sleep, I cant believe theyre mine, I love them so much and nobody in this world could ever make me feel as loved as they do. The other day I was so depressed because I just missed them, and I got to thinking of when they get older and become adults,' he wrote.

'If you dont have kids you may not understand this but that is the scariest but most amazing thing to think of, watching them become their own person and seeing what they will experience and achieve. I hope our bond only grows stronger, I hope they always want to call me or see me just to talk or ask for advice. I cant imagine this world without them,' he continued.
Authorities and businesses are working to guarantee Beijing has an adequate supply and delivery of vegetables and fruit following the capital's largest wholesale vegetable market being closed after its link to a new cluster of COVID-19 cases was detected.

Wang Hongcun, a senior Beijing Bureau of Commerce official, said emergency measures have been put in place to guarantee the food supply during the closure of Xinfadi wholesale market in Fengtai district.

The market has been temporarily closed since 3 am Saturday and service at a nearby long-distance bus terminal has also been suspended since that day.

Massive quantities of vegetables and fruit have been arranged to maintain Beijing supplies.

"The supply of daily necessities in Beijing ran smoothly on Saturday, in an orderly manner and with a stable supply provided for major supermarkets," Wang said at a news briefing in the capital on Sunday.

"However, owing to disease prevention and control measures, the prices of vegetables at some supermarkets and markets rose and some varieties of vegetables have been out of stock for a short period," he added.

Wang said on Saturday that Xinfadi market provides 90 percent of the capital's vegetables and fruit and its temporary closure could affect supply.

Vegetables and fruit previously traded at the market have been moved to five designated areas for wholesale trading. These temporary trading venues will not be open to the general public.

Coordinated efforts to ensure market supply were called for at a meeting presided over by Beijing's Party Secretary Cai Qi on Saturday morning.

It was decided at the meeting that communication between the capital and neighboring cities' markets should be strengthened to ensure a constant and abundant vegetable supply for Beijing, as well as that district officials in the capital should keep in mind that ensuring the availability of Beijing residents' daily necessities was essential.

Xinfadi wholesale market became a focal point of attention after it was learned that all 36 confirmed, locally transmitted COVID-19 cases reported in Beijing on Saturday were somehow associated with it.

Earlier media reports revealed that 40 environmental samples collected from the market tested positive.

Ma Junchao, director of the Beijing Youxian foodstuff distribution company, said to provide timely supplies for residential communities, the company had contacted more vegetable production bases near Beijing to deliver fresh vegetables.

"Our long-term cooperative production bases helped with timely vegetable and fruit supply for more than 90 communities and 40 workplaces in Beijing," he said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Export of electrical goods from Turkey to Uzbekistan dropped by 45.62 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, having amounted to $16.2 million, Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend.

According to the ministry, Turkeys export of electrical goods to Uzbekistan reduced by 60.99 percent in May 2020 compared to the same month of 2019, and stood at $2.2 million.

In the first five months of 2020, export of electrical goods from Turkey to international markets decreased by 18.2 percent compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $3.8 billion.

Meanwhile, the export of electrical goods from Turkey made up 6.2 percent of the country's total exports.

In May 2020, Turkey exported electrical goods worth $671.8 million to world markets, which is 35.5 percent less compared to May 2019.

Export of electrical goods from Turkey in May 2020 amounted to 6.7 percent of the country's total exports.

From May 2019 through May 2020, Turkey exported $10.3 billion worth of electrical goods abroad.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
BP logo seen in Krakow. On Monday, May 11, 2020, in Krakow, Poland.

Energy giant BP announced Monday it had lowered its oil price expectations through to 2050, saying the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic was likely to accelerate the transition to a lower carbon economy and energy system.

The U.K.-headquartered oil and gas company said it had been reviewing its portfolio and capital development plans as part of its ambition to become a net-zero company by 2050 or sooner.

It now expects international benchmark Brent crude futures to average around $55 a barrel from 2021 through to 2050, with Henry Hub gas prices forecast to average $2.90 over the same period.

Henry Hub is a natural gas pipeline located in Louisianna and serves as the official delivery location for futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

BP's forecasts for Brent futures and Henry Hub gas prices are down roughly 27% and 31%, respectively, when compared to those cited in the group's annual report at the end of 2019.

As a result of its long-term strategic planning and continued focus on capital discipline, BP said it expected to incur non-cash impairment charges and write-offs in the second quarter, estimated to be in an aggregate range of $13 billion to $17.5 billion after tax.

The company said it was unable to precisely determine the impact of the revised impairment testing price assumptions on the group's financial statements.

Instead, further information would be provided in the firm's second-quarter results, which are expected to be released on August 4.

Shares of BP dipped around 4% during early morning deals.

Brent crude futures traded at $38.11 a barrel on Monday morning, around 1.6% lower, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures stood at $35.20, down almost 3%.

Earlier this month, BP said it would cut 10,000 jobs from the current 70,100 in response to the coronavirus crisis, with the majority of those affected leaving by the end of this year.
Urban Standard, a popular coffeehouse in downtown Birmingham, is closing its doors for good.

Owners of the cafe, 2320 Second Ave. North, today announced the decision on social media. The business, which opened 13 years ago, is the latest eatery to close here due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Urban Standard posted this message on Facebook and Instagram:

Urban Standard loves our community deeply and are so grateful for your support. Unfortunately, due to this pandemic we have to close our doors for good this Wednesday the 17th. Weve been serving our community since 2007 and so many life long relationships have been formed here. We really love Birmingham and all of our loyal customers that have been coming here for years. All the over the counter talks weve had over the years will be so greatly missed. Thank you for everything youve done for us and were so sad to see Urban Standard close. Come by and say goodbye and grab your last latte, we want to see you before we close. Thank you again, Birmingham.

Like many restaurants and coffeeshops in Alabama, Urban Standard closed in mid-March when the pandemic hit, and reopened for to-go orders with curbside pickup in mid-May. The coffeehouse -- which offered baked goods, sandwiches, salads and other casual fare -- experimented with delivery orders in late May.

Emily Stroud, general manager of Urban Standard, started a GoFundMe campaign to help employees cope with lost wages, and raised more than $4,700 for the staff that way. The independently owned coffeehouse kept its social media posts upbeat, but a lack of business during the pandemic has been a struggle for many restaurants and coffeeshops, in Alabama and across the country.

Another longtime coffeehouse in Birmingham, Lucys Coffee & Tea, announced its closure on May 4. Zs Restaurant -- a downtown eatery known for its bean pies, soul food and homemade ice cream -- also closed in early May.

Customers and fans of Urban Standard quickly began to bid farewell to the coffeehouse on social media. Heres a sampling from Facebook:

Man...This breaks my heart!!!! So many favorite memories were made here that I cherish to this day! Every time I bake, I still think of you. I love you Tom and thank you for all the special years! Wish I could come to Birmingham on your last day. -- Olivia Merritt

Noooooooo!!! My son and I have so many good memories at US! When he was little, Id walk with him riding his little power wheels motorcycle there several days a week for afternoon snacks. He loved that so much! Now as a teenager, its some of his fondest memories. The food here is amazing, but it isnt even about that. Lots of memories were made here. So very sad to see it go. -- Sharon Dickert Supplee

So sad to see you leave downtown. Grateful for all the wonderful times spent with family and friends over the years at Urban. Delicious drinks and yummy food always! Thank you for hosting me for many years at Birmingham Artwalk and for supporting downtown and the creative scene since you opened. You will be greatly missed by us and our Birmingham community. xoxoxox -- Jill Marlar

This is very sad news! I visit Urban Standard on every trip to Birmingham. On my last trip I headed directly there from the airport even! Thank you for everything. -- Joshua Mallory

This was the first coffee shop that I fell in love with. This was the place that always felt like everyone was welcome. It absolutely breaks my heart that this place is closing its doors and I will dearly miss you all and the place that has so many memories for me over the past 12 years. -- Bethany Whitehead Bass

This is heartbreaking. You have been a place of refuge and rest for the Magic City. Im so sorry to see you go. Birmingham wont be the same without you. Best of luck in the future. -- Jason Elam

In a 2008 review in The Birmingham News, Susan Swagler called Urban Standard a treat from start to finish. One dish delighted more than the next, and the funky setting made us smile and then shop for friends. It all makes for an exceptionally good outing.

When another reviewer for AL.com, Fletcher Harvey, visited Urban Standard in 2011, he described the atmosphere this way: Funky, friendly, upscale-casual, old world charm meets southern hospitality.

Urban Standards history includes concerts during the annual Secret Stages festival, a visit from Hillary Clinton on the 2016 campaign trail -- I needed to get my caffeine fix, she said -- and a 2017 fire that caused the kitchen to be gutted and rebuilt.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei greets participants during a meeting in Tehran, Iran - Anadolu Agency

Iran is scaling back access to vasectomies, contraceptives and other family planning services as the regimes leadership launches a campaign to boost the countrys population size.

According to Iranian media reports, religious leaders have grown concerned by the countrys aging population and falling birth rates, while marriages are also in decline.

The new measures mean that contraceptives will only be available in cases where the womans health may be at risk, according to Iranian media reports.

The BBC reported that access to vasectomies will also be restricted, citing the Iranian news agency Irna.

On the issue of contraceptives, we recommend absolutely no measures for the decrease in population, said Seyed Hamed Barakati, Irans deputy health minister.

However, if for example a woman is receiving chemotherapy, as it can cause physical harm to herself and the fetus, we do advise the use of condoms for her partner.

Another Iranian news agency, Mehr, warned in an editorial published on Monday that a bitter future awaits Iran unless the population increases.

The march of our people towards turning into an old age population has serious and unwelcome political, social and even security implications for our nation and indifference towards it will result in grave consequences in the decades to come, it said.

Mr Barakati also said that the marriage rate had dropped by 40 per cent over the past ten years.

"With this trend, we will be one of the oldest countries in the world in the next 30 years," he said.

The announcement coincides with warnings that Iran may soon have to re-introduce tough lockdown measures as the country recorded its second consecutive day with more than 100 deaths from coronavirus.

According to official figures, more than 8,000 people have succumbed to the virus in Iran but analysts say the true figure is likely to be far higher.
SAN DIEGO, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Biolinq Inc., the San Diego-based medical device company, announced today that the company has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of a minimally invasive continuous glucose monitor (CGM), showing a high correlation between dermal interstitial glucose and venous blood glucose. The results of the firm's two most recent clinical studies were presented at the American Diabetes Association 80th Scientific Sessions and shows the feasibility of a microneedle CGM system. The current Biolinq CGM is an investigational device available for use only in approved clinical studies.

Biolinq Continuous Glucose Monitor Prototype Biolinq announces results from first-in-man clinical studies showing feasibility of a novel, minimally invasive approach to continuous glucose monitoring in the dermis.

The data from the study was presented by company CEO, Jared Tangney, PhD, in the Late-Breaking Poster session, on Saturday, June 13th as poster 69-LB "A Wearable Microneedle Array Sensor Shows High Correlation between Dermal Glucose and Venous Blood Glucose."

"The team at Biolinq has been working for many years to establish the benefits of dermal sensing for CGM. We are thrilled to share the promising feasibility data from our recent studies. We believe that this positive data is a major step towards making this product a reality for people with diabetes." -Jared Tangney, PhD, CEO, Biolinq Inc.

Biolinq's novel platform uses dozens of miniature sensors, much less than 1 mm in length, to continuously measure blood glucose in the outer layer of the skin (the dermis). The product has no introducer needle resulting in a pain-free application of the sensors and can be worn almost anywhere on the body.

The company is targeting the clearance of the device through the FDA iCGM pathway.

The Late Breaking Poster shows the high degree of correlation between the Biolinq sensor raw data and venous blood glucose with little to no lag time - something patients and industry experts believe has the potential to deliver better outcomes to those living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Phase 1 of the study consisted of 5 subjects without diabetes and 10 subjects with diabetes who wore the Biolinq sensor for two days. In the second phase, 10 subjects with diabetes wore the Biolinq sensor for seven days. Data from the Biolinq devices was compared to venous blood reference measurements.

Mark Christiansen, MD (Co-Medical Director, Diablo Clinical Research), the Principal Investigator and an experienced researcher in the field, said the following: "I am very encouraged by Biolinq's data, especially the high correlation between the raw sensor signal and the blood glucose and the absence of the venous to interstitial fluid glucose lag time."

Further studies of the Biolinq CGM are planned for later this year.

About Biolinq Inc.

Biolinq is a venture-backed medical device company developing a wearable biosensor platform that measures biomarkers important to the management of many clinical conditions including diabetes. The company's first product is a continuous glucose monitor that is intended to be cleared following the FDA's iCGM pathway.

Media Contact:

John Sjolund

[email protected]

650 382 8278

Link to Abstract: https://bit.ly/biolinq

SOURCE Biolinq Inc.
New York: Janet Mendez started receiving bills soon after returning in April to her mother's home from Mount Sinai Morningside hospital, where she nearly died of COVID-19.

First, there was one for $US31,165. Unable to work and finding it difficult to walk, Mendez decided to put the bill out of her mind and focus on her recovery.

The next one was impossible to ignore: an invoice for $US401,885.57 ($588,098), although it noted that the hospital would reduce the bill by $US326,851.63 as a "financial assistance benefit". But that still left a tab of more than $US75,000.

Janet Mendez (left) who spent almost three weeks in hospital with COVID-19, walks with her mother Maria in New York. Credit:Calla Kessler/The New York Times

"Oh my god, how am I going to pay all this money?" Mendez, 33, recalled thinking. The answer came to her in about a second: "I'm not going to be able to pay all this."
It is difficult to surprise anyone in todays world with another set of sanction-slapping. A bipartisan group of US senators has expressed its intent to put another spoke in the wheel of Gazproms 55 BCm per year Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The new bill would amend the 2019 Protecting Europes Energy Security law by extending its force to entities that provide underwriting services or insurance or reinsurance relating to the construction of Nord Stream 2 as well as provide services or facilities for technology upgrades or installation of welding equipment for, or retrofitting or tethering of vessels. In a nutshell, wary of antagonizing European partners even further, Washington is seeking to implement a strategy of legislative precision strikes. Yet the chances of such sanctions derailing Europes prime pipeline-construction project remain pale, as we will see below.

The new anti-Nord Stream 2 bill is sponsored among others by Ted Cruz and Jeanne Shaheen, senators who were instrumental in drafting previous legislation against the gas conduit which purportedly threatens Ukraine, Europes energy independence (Shaheen) and poses a critical threat to Americas national security (Cruz). As can be seen from the senators comments, the encompassing narrative to buttress the bills prospects is a thin line to be walked  were the senators to publicly present the new measures as further attempts to use non-market measures to achieve the objective of higher US LNG exports to Europe, their case could be easily taken to arbitration courts. Yet some of the phrasings involved certainly do insinuate this  why else would a Russian subsea pipeline to Germany (which as of 2020 has no LNG terminal) threaten US national security?

The difficulty of maintaining a healthy enough US-German tandem also transpires from the bills reported aim to sanction any entity that would provide services for the testing, inspection or certification necessary for or associated with the operation of Nord Stream 2. This is a direct jab at the German energy regulator Bnetza as it would be them who provide official approvals for the constructed pipeline. Bnetza has already been in the crosshairs of intra-European decision-making, rejecting Nord Streams application to have the pipeline exempt from the EUs 3rd Energy Directive. This need not be the final decision on the matter (notwithstanding the decision Brussels can still grant a more lenient set of conditions to Nord Stream 2 if both parties manage to find common language) yet has already stirred up too much attention around the regulator.

Story continues

Related: Iran To Reach Production Target At Worlds Largest Gas Field This Year

The new set of US sanctions pit Washington against the European Union, concurrently upending its delicate balancing act vis-a-vis Russia. Ambassador Grenells sudden departure and President Trumps decision to cut the size of US troops in Germany has complicated matters even further. In the meantime, Germanys Baltic port of Mukran has seen a flurry of activity around the two Russian pipe-laying vessels assumed to complete Nord Stream 2. Akademik Cherskiy, the one which received significantly more media coverage due to its dynamic positioning capability, has moved out of the Far Eastern port of Nakhodka in February 2020 and carried out a prolonged (and oftentimes untraceable) 4-month voyage around Africa all the way to Mukran. It seems that the vessel is currently being retrofitted for the upcoming pipe-laying works and getting loaded with pipes to be laid.

The second vessel, Fortuna, lacks dynamic positioning equipment  a precondition for pipe-laying in Danish territorial waters  but might carry out all the necessary works in the shallow waters of Germanys Baltic waters. The Danish authorities have also barred pipelaying works in July-August around the Baltic island of Bornholm due to cod spawning season, adding another prohibitive layer to this summers construction developments. Since every single vessel associated with Nord Stream 2 is under immediate threat of ending up sanctioned by the US government, the supply vessels required to assist the pipe-laying ones will also be Russian  according to Russian media reports 2 such vessels have already departed from Vladivostok.

Inasmuch as the constant sanctions threats keep on unnerving Gazproms management, the Russian gas export monopoly has found a seemingly simple yet effective way to complicate matters further for US senators. As Russian media reports have discerned, Akademik Cherskiy no longer belongs to Gazproms shipping subsidiary Gazprom Flot (which had owned it for 4 years, since 2016)  the vessels owner is a largely unknown Russia-based property investment fund STIF. What is adding another twist to the story is the fact that it seems almost impossible to understand who owns the investment fund and why it bought the pipelaying vessel. In effect, such a lack of clarity renders it quite difficult for US authorities to sanction STIF  it can hardly allow itself to initiate a lengthy and very risky legal dispute with Gazprom, stabbing in the dark in its pursuit of any Gazprom trace.

Derisking the day-to-day operations of Gazprom Flot was a good enough reason to sell Akademik Cherskiy as the company has already been subjected to sectoral sanctions, meaning that it is forbidden to provide US equipment and technology to the Arctic, offshore and shale projects that the company might be participating in. According to recent reports, the STIF investment fund was co-owned by two Gazprom subsidiaries before April 2020, however, given its private character has decided to conceal its current ownership structure. Theoretically, with its acquisition of Akademik Cherskiy, it might have concurrently switched owners yet there is no way of telling whether this has in fact happened.

By Viktor Katona for Oilprice.com

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US Surgeon General Says Wearing Masks Promotes Freedom

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams is urging Americans to wear face coverings amid the pandemic and has outlined the case for why such behavior means more, not less, freedom.

Adams, in a tweet on June 14, dismissed the idea that face coverings curtail freedom, arguing that wearing masks to stem the spread of COVID-19 is a small sacrifice that leads to a faster reopening and a return to economic and social normalcy.

Some feel face coverings infringe on their freedom of choice  but if more wear them, well have MORE freedom to go out, Adams wrote.

He said wearing a face covering would cut down on viral spread, which would then lead to more places open, and sooner!

In the early stages of the outbreak, officials didnt recommend mask-wearing; that included Adams, who, in early 2020, recommended against the general public buying or wearing masks.

What the World Health Organization [WHO] and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have reaffirmed in the last few days is that they do not recommend the general public wear masks, he said in a March 31 interview on Fox & Friends.

Adams changed his mind when the CDC modified its guidance on mask-wearing in April, with the agency citing evidence of increased asymptomatic spread of the virus.

Cloth face coverings may prevent the person wearing the mask from spreading respiratory droplets when talking, sneezing, or coughing. If everyone wears a cloth face covering when out in public, such as going to the grocery store, the risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 can be reduced for the community, the CDC wrote in its guidelines (pdf).

Adams concluded his tweet by saying: Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face covering!

Some feel face coverings infringe on their freedom of choice- but if more wear them, well have MORE freedom to go out. Face coverings  less asymptomatic viral spread  more places open, and sooner! Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face covering! pic.twitter.com/3A4fW2qmN8  Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) June 14, 2020

In a follow-up message, Adams acknowledged the issue of mask-wearing had its proponents and detractors and said it came down to individuals making choices about the safety of others in the community.

Ultimately it is a choice we make, and I hope its made based on the best available/ current science, and a desire to do all we can to help others and ourselves/ our communities, he wrote, adding, Like vaccines, the more who participate, the greater the impact.

His remarks come after a roundtable with President Donald Trump on June 11 in Texas, when Adams stressed the country has a positive testing rate under 6 percent and that data shows the nation is moving in the right direction.

Still, Adams cautioned that while the country has flattened the curve on virus cases, that doesnt mean that COVID has gone away, that its any less contagious, that its any less deadly to vulnerable communities.

The country surpassed 2 million COVID-19 cases last week, with new hot spots emerging in states such as Arizona and cases rising in nearly half of states, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Some states that have moved quickly to reopen have not seen a surge, while others have seen an increase in cases.
realme Philippines strengthens its AIoT game by launching the latest in its smart audio device and accessory lines  the realme Buds Air Neo and realme Powerbank 2. The fastest-growing smartphone brand is also bringing in the country the official realme Adventure Backpack. The launch of these products is happening on June 18, 12 noon, in a Facebook livestream on the official page of realme Philippines.

The realme Buds Air Neo, Powerbank 2 and Adventure Backpack perfectly complement the youths digital lifestyle

The realme Buds Air Neo promises super low-latency perfectly synced with the audio and visual of the users smartphone. The wireless experience is optimized by the Buds Air Neos R1 True Wireless Chip, which uses a new generation of dual-channel transmission technology. In terms of sound quality, the realme Buds Air Neo has a Dynamic Bass Boost (DBB) solution, allowing the device to unleash true bass potential and bring about the dynamism and layers of the bass. All of these features can be experienced by users for a promised total playback of 17 hours.

realme Philippines is also bringing an upgraded version of its power accessory, the realme Powerbank 2. The realme Powerbank 2 can store 10,000mAh of juice at every full charge. Its size is well-complemented by an 18W Two-way Quick Charge. No realme fan shall be a wall-hugger any longer for the device is capable of charging multiple devices at a time.

realme Philippines also adds the all-new realme Adventure Backpack to its local merchandise. The realme Adventure Backpack is intended to accompany the on-the-go young market of realme. It is designed to keep gadgets safe in a 32L Large Capacity storage. Its chic and trendy design can easily accentuate any casual fashion ensemble.

The Filipino youth is full of vigor  always ready to do or create something. We at realme Philippines would like to support them by offering products that can serve as their tech lifestyle companions while they try to attain their goals. We hope to see you all during our livestream next week. Theres a good number of exciting surprises we have in store for you, shares realme Philippines VP for Marketing Austine Huang.
Michael Clifford took to Twitter on Sunday to apologize for offensive tweets he allegedly wrote in 2012.

The 5 Seconds of Summer lead guitarist wrote that he was 'a different person now' compared to the 16-year-old who wrote the original posts.

On Tuesday, one Twitter user shared screenshots of sexist and homophobic tweets they claimed Clifford, 24, had written and eventually deleted, though he hasn't confirmed their veracity.

Saying sorry: Michael Clifford, 24, apologized on Twitter after he was accused of allegedly writing sexist and homophobic tweets in 2012 and 2013; pictured in June 2019

Though he didn't specifically mention the tweets, Clifford launched into an apology on Saturday on his Twitter account.

'hi. I am so f***ing sorry for all the dumb s*** I did when I was younger,' he began.

'I am a different person now with a much better understanding of the world. some people have access to a digital megaphone a bit earlier than they should, unfortunately, I was one of them.'

'I am so sorry for hurting anyone. it was never my intention,' he continued in a second tweet.

'I was so naive and I am embarrassed and I am beyond sorry. I will continue to be better and I will continue to change. I never want to hurt anyone again.'

Moving on: Though he didn't specifically mention the tweets, Clifford launched into an apology on Saturday on his Twitter account by claiming he was a 'different person now'

The evidence: One Twitter user shared screenshots that they claimed were of misogynist and homophobic tweets from the past that Clifford had since deleted; pictured with 5SOS bandmates (L-R) Luke Hemmings, Ashton Irwin and Calum Hood

The tweets he was accused of writing included sexist and misogynist jokes about women belonging in the kitchen from 2012.

The original poster also included screenshots of homophobic tweets using the F-word to insult other users.

Another image from March appeared to be a Twitter direct message sent from the user to Clifford about the offensive tweets.

'thank you,' he appeared to reply. 'Geez I've grown up a lot since then and apologized. Let me know if you find anything else stupid that I've done lol.'

In recent days, the Australian rocker had mostly devoted his Twitter feed to encouraging his fans to support the Black Lives Matter movement and retweeting activists involved in the struggle.

Growing: In recent days, the Australian rocker had mostly devoted his Twitter feed to supporting the Black Lives Matter movement; pictured in January

Cute couple: In January 2019, Clifford celebrated his engagement to the American model Crystal Leigh

Michael's band 5 Seconds of Summer originated in Sydney in 2011 and rose to fame following a tour with the pop group One Direction.

In March, the group released their fourth studio album Calm, which debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

In January 2019, Clifford celebrated his engagement to the American model Crystal Leigh.

'There aren't enough words in the English language to describe this love or how I felt in this moment,' Leigh captioned a photo of the two kissing by the sea from their engagement.
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Face masks are a must-have these days  and Guess is the latest brand to offer a take of its own.

The apparel and accessories brand is now offering fashionable face masks for men, women and children. The masks are made in the United States of 100% cotton jersey. Elastic straps allow for the styles to be adjusted to fit to the wearers face. Available in chic stripes as well as neutral solids, the masks can be purchased on the Guess website now for $7 each. To clean, machine wash your mask in cold water and hang to dry.

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To Buy: Guess Cotton Face Mask, $7.

For each mask purchased, Guess is donating $4 to Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit organization that assists former gang members in re-entering the world and improving their lives.

Guess joins a number of fashion brands that have begun offering masks in recent weeks, among them Alice + Olivia, Sanctuary and Rag & Bone  and with good reason. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals wear face coverings in public settings where social distancing is difficult to maintain, regardless of whether they are feeling sick or healthy.

In addition to offering masks for consumers, Guess has also taken steps to get personal protective equipment into the hands of the front-line health-care workers who need it the most. Working with Direct Relief, the label donated funds to provide PPE to medial professionals and essential workers in New York, Los Angeles and Kentucky. Whats more, Guess partnered with Good360 to donate 45,000 pieces of apparel, as well as blankets and coloring books, to those most in need. Additionally, the brand made a donation to the LA Regional Food Bank to provide meals for local youths and families struggling with hunger.

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Outside of the United States, the Guess Europe Foundation helped source N95 masks for distribution in Italys Lombardi region and Spains Madrid region, two hard-hit areas. In addition, Guess Shanghai donated to the Hubei Youth Development Fund to assist individuals in the Greater Wuhan Area.

Below, shop a selection of stylish Guess masks for the whole family.

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To Buy: Guess Cotton Face Mask for Adults, $7.

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To Buy: Guess Cotton Face Mask for Adults, $7.

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To Buy: Guess Cotton Face Mask for Kids, $7.

All products featured have been independently selected and curated by our editorial team. If you buy something through our retail links, we may earn commission and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

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One of the biggest challenges for legacy church is budgets and ministries that have been driven by programs, facilities and personnel. Many of us have recognized this challenge for years but have struggled with changing the conversation from programs, facilities and personnel to mission. If you need evidence of that  talk to the personnel chair that has dealt with a long-standing employee, the facilities chair that has to deal with an ever growing list of deferred maintenance issues or the staff members who has to continue to show they value a programmatic ministry that has long outlived its effectiveness. We need to start having these conversations today.

Personnel  What percentage of total income should be allocated to personnel in the post-pandemic world? I had been leading my current church to get down to around 45% (most legacy churches Im aware of are 60+%). Now Im thinking we need to get down to 35%. Many of us will not get a choice in that matter. The economic downturn and the loss of donation income will require some quick and stressful decisions to be made. We usually dont do those well. Lets be upfront with our staff and be as graceful as we can with their exits.

Lets also understand that the church has a mission that is greater than being an employment agency. For far too long we have let under-performing staff continue because we didnt want to have the hard conversations or we didnt know what else the staff member would do.

Mergers This conversation was happening before the pandemic. We need to get more focused on it now. Every legacy church should empower a team of folks to look at opportunities to merge with other congregations. This will help us control fixed expenses but also bring much needed creative conversations to ministry possibilities.

Facilities  I am grateful for my current church and their willingness to open up our facilities to our community. Until the pandemic started it was amazing to see how much happened in our building on a daily basis. Some of those activities generated needed income for the building and some of that was us blessing the community. But during the pandemic the buildings were only a liability. Can you leverage your facility in new ways? What businesses might need space to get restarted or start? Can your property be used for affordable housing? Can your buildings become a non-profit hub for your community? What about multiple churches gathering in one space? The cost of facilities will have to decrease for all churches. What can you do to make this happen?

Move from Programs to Partnerships  Dont start another program for your church  look for groups you can partner with to make a greater impact in your community. Look for ways you can partner on personnel, space use, back office work and community impact. The redundancies of program focused churches cant continue. So call the most networked people in your congregation and start thinking through all the relationships your church can build going forward. Also be willing to figure out how to partner in new ways for missions. Expect more from denominational agencies then what they have been providing. Dont invest in a denominational model that is as broken as the local church model.

We must all pivot from programs, facilities and personnel conversations to conversations that lead to partnerships and blessing. We dont have a lot of time to make this pivot. So start working on it today.
Johnson is speaker at Northern State event Monday

U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson will speak at the grand opening of Northern State University's Center for Public History and Civic Engagement.
WASHINGTON  Charter schools, including some with healthy cash balances and billionaire backers like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates, have quietly accepted millions of dollars in emergency coronavirus relief from a fund created to help struggling small businesses stay afloat.

Since their inception, charter schools have straddled the line between public schools and private entities. The coronavirus has forced them to choose.

And dozens of them  potentially more because the Treasury Department has not disclosed a list  have decided for the purpose of coronavirus relief that they are businesses, applying for aid even as they continue to enjoy funding from school budgets, tax-free status and, in some cases, healthy cash balances and the support of billionaire backers.

That has let them tap the Paycheck Protection Program, which Congress intended to keep businesses and nonprofits from shedding jobs and closing their doors. Parents, activists and researchers have identified at least $50 million in forgivable loans flowing to the schools, which, like all schools, are facing steep budget cuts next year as tax revenue, tuition payments and donations dry up.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 03:00:13|Editor: huaxia

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ANKARA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Italian and Turkish navies have conducted joint maritime training in the Mediterranean, the Turkish defense ministry announced on Monday.

"Italian and Turkish submarines have conducted maritime training in the Mediterranean. Two Navies, having the most effective submarine force in the Mediterranean, continue to improve the interoperability with maritime training," the ministry tweeted on Monday.

The joint exercise came after the Turkish army held offshore training with its air and navy elements in the Mediterranean last week.

Turkey's training came amid heightened tensions in the eastern Mediterranean due to the conflict in Libya. Enditem
Bad Bunny's music, which combines elements of hip-hop, reggaeton and pop, is often classified as "urbano." (Chris Walker / For The Times)

In the wake of the nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police, and following last weeks music business-led Blackout Tuesday, music executives began to reconsider or eliminate the use of the word urban to define a genre of music. The catchall term has been used for decades to categorize rhythmic music made by Black artists  R&B and hip-hop, primarily  yet the connotations of its name often serve to segregate those acts from mass-market platforms such as Top 40 radio and limit the range of Black voices accepted within the genre.

Republic Records, home to Drake, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, stated it will no longer use the term when referring to departments, employee titles and genres. And on Wednesday, the Recording Academy announced its decision to rename the Grammys urban contemporary category to progressive R&B album.

Some influential Latin music journalists have likewise announced they too will be phasing out a similar shorthand. Moving forward, many have said they will no longer employ the umbrella term urbano that is frequently attached to the popular Latin trap, reggaeton and dembow genres, all influenced by hip-hop, made by such artists as Bad Bunny, J Balvin and Karol G.

The term urbano originates from Afro-Latinx communities that first created its music and sounds. It is a response, and also a form of resistance, to the displacement of Black communities within Latin America. However, urbano is now used to describe the modern wave of Latin music that has ties with hip-hop and trap music. Pitchfork, for instance, recently published a list of 50 essential Urbano songs, stating, Musica urbana has always provided space for multiplicity  for pleasure, for protest, for romance. It is the soundtrack of struggle and joy.

Eduardo Cepeda of Remezcla, an influential Brooklyn-based Latinx music and culture publication, understands the cultural and musical complexities the term carries. The music editor released an editorial note on the publications website addressing why it will discontinue the use of the terms urbano and musica urbana, and instead replace it with the term movimiento.

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"These are terms that are inextricably linked to a history of exclusion and segregation within the music industry," wrote Cepeda. "Within the recording industry and in award shows, the word ['urban'] has been used as a way to separate Black artists, while hypocritically allowing many white artists to freely navigate in and out of numerous categories  including urban. ... 'Urbano' comes with a fraught and problematic history reeking of exclusion and othering."

Cepeda told The Times, "Often in Latin America, you read or hear about el moviemiento urbano.' Its a common phrase, so it seemed easy to remove the word urbano.' Were not necessarily telling people this is what you should call the genre. We just want to make sure people understand that urbano doesn't serve the community.

He hopes the use of movimiento will open up a larger conversation on the exclusion of Black artists within genres such as Latin trap, reggaeton and dembow.

Rosalia's "Con Altura" won the 2019 Latin Grammy award for urban song. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In an article for Rolling Stone, Latin music editor Suzy Exposito approved of Remezclas decision, writing that urbano is largely a marketing term that does not do justice to the actual music being made  which is predominantly by non-Black artists.

White Hispanic artists are more able to hop from genre to genre. Theyre given the room to experiment by audiences and critics, to be all things to the extent that Black artists cannot, Exposito told The Times. We should be consulting Black artists and see how they feel about the term. See if they feel the same way that Tyler, the Creator feels about it.

After winning in this year's rap album category at the 62nd Grammy Awards, Tyler, the Creator cited his disappointment with the term "urban," saying, "It's just a politically correct way to say the n-word."

Reggaeton and Latin trap artists Tempo and Nicky Jam were asked about the term urbano in a Spanish video interview with Rapeton, a Latin rap media outlet. They responded with their support of dropping the umbrella term in favor of calling each by its stated genre.

For its part, the Latin Recording Academy has modernized the 2020 Latin Grammy Awards, tentatively scheduled to take place in November, adding awards for reggaeton performance and rap/hip-hop song. However, it still uses the term "urban" or "urbano" for multiple categories, including urban music album and urban song.
Vice President Mike Pence will travel to North Iowa on Tuesday, heading to Forest City to tour Winnebago Industries and speak with its employees.

Pence will land at the Mason City Airport at around 10:45 a.m. and head to lunch at an as yet undisclosed location with Gov. Kim Reynolds. The governor's staff did not immediately return requests for information on the governor's Tuesday schedule so it's unclear whether she will accompany him to Forest City.

The vice president is scheduled to address Winnebago's employees around 2 p.m.

Winnebago Industries public relations specialist Sam Jefson said on Monday that Pence is interested in learning how the company handled the economic impact from COVID-19.

"We did have to postpone manufacturing for a time period there and suspend that while keeping some other areas of our company open, but we did postpone some manufacturing," he said.

The company had stopped production near the end of March, and production in facilities like the one in Forest City did not resume until the beginning of May.

During that period, Winnebago Industries provided base pay and benefits to its 5,000 employees for the first two weeks.

Winnebago Forest City employees also made medical masks for MercyOne North Iowa, using its Stitchcraft facility, which houses industrial sewing capabilities to produce soft goods for Winnebago Motorhome production, such as seats, pillows, and draperies.

Though production in Forest City resumed May 4, about seven weeks after it was suspended, production employees did not have their wage payments extended, but the company still paid for their medical and dental insurance.

Employees are required to follow safety protocols, such as social distancing, strict sanitization practices and daily employee health checks, whether working physically on campus or offsite.

Now that the heat of summer is moving in, Jefson said the company is seeing some momentum and interest in its consumer base with people wanting to get outdoors and "enjoy the RV lifestyle."

Jefson said they're excited to show the vice president what they do and tell him how they got through the economic and health impact of the pandemic.

"Obviously, [this is] quite a historic event for a company to have the sitting U.S. vice president come to our facility, and we're excited to showcase what we do and share our story," he said.

Focus on Rural America co-founder and former Iowa Lt. Gov. Patty Judge said on Monday that Pence's visit to Iowa, including a stop at Winnebago Industries, would be a "fantastic opportunity" for him to see what is happening to the rural economy, more specifically to struggling ethanol plants across the state.

"A Winnebago tour to rural communities could take him to ethanol plants that are suffering thanks to small refinery waivers for oil and gas, coupled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic," she said. "I'm certain that struggling ethanol plants would welcome the (vice president) and any support to end the waivers and help the rural economy."

Rural economies remain particularly vulnerable to the pandemic as small refinery waivers and the coronavirus have forced 150 biofuel facilities to scale back or shut down.

Pence is scheduled to return to Washington, D.C., Tuesday evening.

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The authorities in Beijing placed a swath of the city under lockdown on Monday and tested tens of thousands of people as they rushed to contain a new coronavirus outbreak that marked an unnerving breach in Chinas capital.

President Xi Jinping had said from the outset that Beijing, the seat of Communist Party power and a crowded metropolis, should be a fortress against the pandemic, and local officials have imposed strict measures to keep infections low. Until now, the efforts appeared to have protected the capital against the virus after it emerged late last year in Wuhan, a city in central China.

While the dozens of new cases in Beijing seem slight compared to the hundreds and even thousands of infections reported daily in other countries, the fresh outbreak has jolted China, prompting the government to fire local officials and reinstate some recently relaxed restrictions. The resurgence of cases points to the challenges that governments around the world face as they reopen economies while the virus persists.

We feel this is dangerous, Chen Xiaoxi, the owner of a shop about two miles from a market linked to the new outbreak, said by telephone. He said he was awaiting the results of a nucleic acid test to check if he had the virus. It is a worry; everyone is worried. This is no ordinary disease. Were waiting at home and cant go out.
BELLEVILLE  Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Monday announced $90 million will be injected into assistance programs and community service block grants in an effort to better help families and individuals affected financially by COVID-19.

During a news conference at Belleville's Community Interfaith Food Pantry at 1218 W. Main St., Pritzker said the new funds, which are being provided by the federal CARES Act, will be aimed to help families who are struggling through programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, and Community Service Block Grants.

Illinois families who need assistance can get information about help paying for rent, food, temporary shelter, utility bills and other essential needs at helpillinoisfamilies.com.

Pritzker said the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on the economy have pushed many families to the edge.

"We must take action to protect people from the financial challenges that COVID-19 brings on," Pritzker said, mentioning Illinois' past moves to help protect low-income families, by banning evictions and putting a moratorium on shut-offs and repossessions.

Pritzker said he has heard concerns from people who have been out of work for months that they may be evicted when the ban is lifted because they cannot afford to pay the back rent they owe. He acknowledged the program announced Monday "doesn't full address" their concerns but said there are other types of assistance available.

"We have programs, not just what we announced today, but other programs at the Department of Human Services that are intended to provide rent assistance to people to help them deal with their monthly rent and even back rent," the governor said. "We don't want people to be evicted, and so we're going to try to work as we go forward to figure out how we can help people avoid that."

The $90 million bring the total funds put into Illinois' assistance programs and community service block grants to $275 million. Pritzker said the new funding and recent revisions to the programs have also made more families eligible for assistance.

"This new funding means 1 million more residents are now eligible for community assistance," he said. "These two programs put hundreds of dollars on average into low-income households and families that need it the most."

In total, 3.5 million Illinoisans are now eligible for "hundreds of dollars" in relief. The state also increased the eligibility income threshold up to 200% of the federal poverty level.

On top of that, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity recently launched a new remote application process to "streamline" the process of receiving assistance and determining eligibility.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with twin crises, one of public health and one of economic downturn," said Acting Director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Michael Negron. "For too many families these twin crises have pushed them to the edge of a cliff. Just one unpaid bill, one medical emergency away from financial ruin."

Locally, St. Clair County's Intergovernmental Grants and Economic Development departments Executive Director Rick Stubblefield says in the past 90 days the county has mailed out more than 2,000 applications and received 1,000 applications. He said the county expects to have five to six times the amount of applications from last year.

Under Pritzker's plan to reopen Illinois, the state is tentatively scheduled to move to Phase 4 on June 26.

Will there be a second COVID-19 surge in Illinois? These are the stats to watch.

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YEREVAN.  MPs from the opposition Prosperous Armenia faction have boycotted Mondays special session of the National Assembly.

The sitting is held with the attendance of lawmakers from the opposition Bright Armenia and the majority My Step factions.

To note, the National Security Service (NSS) investigators on Sunday searched parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan's mansion and the enterprises belonging to him.

Then, the NSS issued statements on three criminal cases involving the PAP leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than 29 billion drams in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj communitywhere Gagik Tsarukyan residesof Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased, and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about 370 million drams were not transferred to Arinj's budget.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he has a tinge of regret handing over the role of head of government, as the new proposed three-way coalition takes shape.

Speaking about the proposed new government made up of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens, he also said there would be a stimulus package for the country unveiled in July as well as more supports for the economy announced in October's budget.

Speaking at government buildings, he and Tanaiste Simon Coveney said they hoped the proposed three-way deal would be accepted by Fine Gael.

Mr Varadkar confirmed he would be Tanaiste after Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin takes over his role when and if the coalition is agreed by the parties in the next two weeks. He confirmed that all three parties would count voting from members on the proposed deal on Friday week on June 26 and that a new government would need to be up and running quickly after to pass laws.

Mr Varadkar also said that it was not necessary for the markets to see exact predictions about reducing the government's deficit in the programme for government. Instead, he reiterated that the deficit would be tackled once there is a return to growth.

Mr Coveney tried to allay rural party concerns over the deal, saying that emissions targets demanded by the Greens would not necessarily meet 7% next year. "No one was saying this", he said, and equally there were no deficit targets in the government plan.

Mr Varadkar also dismissed criticisms that a lot of rows, including over pension reforms and housing, had been fudged and left for commissions or committees to discuss.

He quipped that there were critics who would say that was a recipe for indecision, but said such paths had worked out for previous assemblies and committees in recent Irish history.
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(CNN)  A Spanish archaeologist has been sentenced to more than two years in prison and fined 12,490 (over $14,000) for forging some of his most famous findings.

Eliseo Gil, the former director of excavations at Roman archaeological site Iruna-Veleia, was handed a prison sentence and fined for having "manipulated" writings considered historical at the time, either by himself or "through third persons," according to sentencing documents seen by CNN.

In 2005 and 2006, Gil announced that his team had found pieces of clay at the site, near the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain's Basque Country. The artifacts, he said, dated back to the third century AD and contained Egyptian hieroglyphic references, representations of the crucifixion and signs of the Basque language, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.

At the time, the discovery was considered revolutionary, and was thought to show the first written example of the Basque language, 800 years earlier than previous examples, El Pais reported.

However, two years later, a multidisciplinary committee of linguistics, ancient history, archeology, chemistry and philology experts deemed the discovery to be a fake, the Reuters news agency reported.

Experts who studied the pieces found inconsistencies such as the absence of syntax, modern spellings of words, and names and phrases inconsistent with the supposed time period, El Pais previously noted.

According to the newspaper, experts in philology and ancient history questioned the appearance of Latin words with more modern features, such as the use of the letter J in Jupiter in place of the Latin spelling, "Iupiter," or "Octavian Augustus" to refer to Emperor Augustus.

At first, Gil and his team defended their controversial findings from the "great stir" they were causing.

In a statement seen on an archived version of the excavation team's website, which is no longer active, Gil and his team defended the findings, which they said consisted of "a voluminous set of graffiti -- inscriptions and engraved graffiti on various media -- of an exceptional character from the texts and themes represented."

In February, Gil maintained his innocence in statements made to the press.

On Wednesday, the head of a court in Vitoria-Gasteiz found Gil guilty of forgery and fraud, sentencing him to two years, three months and 23 days in prison.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Spanish archaeologist gets jail sentence for faking his finds."
Nana Ofori Owusu says the use of thermometer gun to determine COVID-19 infections is a myth.



According to him, the guns do not have the ability to show who has the disease or not, particularly in the case of aysmptomatic patients.



He made this statement during a panel discussion on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' on Monday, June 15, 2020 while responding to President Nana Akufo-Addo's ease of restrictions on educational institutions in the country.



The President has directed schools to reopen for final year students and in his 11th update on COVID-19 on Sunday, June 14, noted that ''a total of six hundred thousand (600,000) face masks has been distributed to the tertiary institutions. This is to enable every student, teaching and non-teaching staff to have three (3) reusable face masks. In addition to this, one thousand seven hundred (1,700) Veronica buckets, two hundred thousand (200,000) litres of hand sanitisers, three thousand, four hundred (3,400) litres of liquid soap, and nine hundred (900) thermometer guns have been distributed, with the transportation and delivery of these items being overseen by the special logistics team of the Government Committee, chaired by the sagacious, experienced politician, the Senior Minister, Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, that is supervising the re-opening of the schools''.



The distribution of the items is aimed at safeguarding the students and the school authorities and staff against transmissions of COVID-19.



This notwithstanding, Nana Ofori Owusu, who is aspiring to be the National Chairman of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) is of a strong view that the President may rather be exposing the students to the disease and therefore endangering their lives.



He also sought to defuse the reliability of thermometer guns used to test people's temperature to ascertain their health status with regard to COVID-19.



Nana Ofori Owusu implored the President and all Ghanaians not to repose their confidence in the thermometer guns stating emphatically the ''thermometer guns do not prove anything. It cannot show you are infected or not.



"If you're asymptomatic, there is no thermometer gun that can prove that you have contracted the disease or not. It's not the case. This is part of the myth of the issue," he added.







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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Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday chaired a meeting of all the parties of Delhi to discuss the coronavirus crisis in the national capital.

Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh and Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta were among the political leaders who attended the meeting.

News agency ANI reported that the Congress party demanded that Covid-19 testing must to be provided to all, as it is everyones right. The Congress also demanded that Rs 10,000 be paid to every family whose member is infected or in containment zone, ANI further reported.

Watch | Amit Shah chairs all-party meet to discuss Delhis Covid situation: Key points

The party further reported that the fourth year medical students be used as non-permanent resident doctors to provide help during the Covid-19 crisis. The Congress also suggested that schools and college hostels should be used as quarantine facilities.

The BJP, meanwhile, demanded that 50 per cent charges should be waived off on testing. This demand has been approved by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, ANI quoted Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta as saying.

He quoted Shah to say that by June 20, the Delhi government will start conducting 18,000 Covid-19 tests per day.

However, no party made any suggestion in further lockdown.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh said that a new test which will cost only Rs 450 will soon be available in Delhi.

A day before the meeting, Kumar had said that the Congress has been giving positive suggestions for tackling the deteriorating situation of pandemic in Delhi and will do so in the meeting with Shah.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

Shah had held several meetings on the coronavirus situation in Delhi on Sunday, first with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and others, and later with the mayors and top officials of municipal bodies.

He then announced a series of measures to contain the spread of the virus in the national capital. On Twitter, Shah said that a comprehensive health survey of every person would be conducted in the containment zones to check the spread of coronavirus.

Kejriwal later said that the meeting with Shah was very productive and decisions were taken jointly after detailed discussions on key topics.

In a statement, the Delhi government said that the Centre and the AAP dispensation has agreed on an immediate action plan to increase capacity of beds, increase testing and other important initiatives.
This is the horrifying moment a woman's limbs were cut out of a crocodile's stomach shortly after it ate her.

The beast pounced on the 45-year-old woman, named only as Fatimah, while she was fishing in a river in North Kalimantan, Indonesia, last Friday night.

Shocked friends heard Fatimah's screams and watched in terror as the reptile clamped its jaws around her body and dragged her below the surface of the water.

The 19-foot long crocodile was caught the next day after angry residents hunted it down.

This is the horrifying moment a woman's limbs were cut out of a crocodile's stomach shortly after it ate her in Indonesia

Shocked friends heard Fatimah's screams and watched in terror as the reptile (pictured) clamped its jaws around her body and dragged her below the surface of the water

Gruesome footage shows locals cutting open the crocodile's stomach and removing her limbs.

Fatimah's severed head and other body parts were later found nearby, having been discarded by the croc.

Amiruddin, head of the Tarakan National SAR Agency said: 'The police first shot the crocodile. Then, the stomach of the crocodile was cleaved, and pieces from the victim's body were found.'

Eyewitnesses said Fatimah was attacked by a large crocodile while she was releasing food into the water on Tibi Island in Bulungan Regency.

Fatimah's severed head and other body parts were later found nearby, having been discarded by the croc

A search operation was carried out by residents and the police after receiving the crocodile attack report.

After several hours of searching, the Search And Rescue (SAR) Agency team found a body piece and then Fatimah's head.

They continued the search operation until they finally found the giant crocodile lurking around the river banks.

Fatimah's severed body and her limbs were later taken to Tarakan to be handed over to her family.

Rescue chief Amiruddin added: 'We have warned residents to stay away from the water as there could be more crocodiles in the area.

'People need to make a livelihood from the water so it's not always possible to avoid it but they should take extra care.'
Royal Ascot will not take place as a public event this month, meaning thousands of racegoers will miss out on afternoon tea and the upmarket event.

In a regular year, top chefs hand-craft 240,000 afternoon tea cakes to be enojyed over the five day event, while 56,000 bottles of champagne are consumed.

Other treats include 120,000 buttermilk scones and more than 60,000 finger sandwiches.

As this year's events will take place behind closed doors amid the coronavirus pandemic, Ascot's Head Chef Ben Dutson and Executive Chef, Gemma Amor shared nine of their favourite recipes from the event exclusively with FEMAIL.

VICTORIA SPONGE Serves 10 | Prep 20 mins | Bake 20 - 25 mins INGREDIENTS 225g/8oz butter or margarine, softened at room temperature

225g/8oz caster sugar

4 medium free-range eggs Filling Jam, whipped cream,

fresh berries or lemon curd

2 tsp vanilla extract

225g/8oz self-raising flour

Milk, to loosen METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. 2. Grease and line two 18cm/7in cake tins with baking paper. 3. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl until pale and fluffy. 4. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, and stir in the vanilla extract. 5. Fold in the flour using a large metal spoon, adding a little extra milk if necessary, to create a batter with a soft dropping consistency. 6. Divide the mixture between the cake tins and gently spread out with a spatula. 7. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. 8. Remove from the oven and set aside for five minutes, then remove from the tin and peel off the paper. Place both cakes on a wire rack to cool completely. 9. Sandwich the cakes together with jam, whipped cream, fresh berries or lemon curd. Advertisement

CHOCOLATE ROULADE Serves 16 | Prep 30 mins | Bake 20 - 25 mins INGREDIENTS 175g/6oz good-quality dark chocolate, finely chopped

6 free-range eggs, separated

175g/6oz caster sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

300ml/10fl oz double cream

Icing sugar, to dust METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160F/Gas 4. Lightly grease a 33cm x 23cm/13in x 9in Swiss roll tin then line the base and sides of the tin with a large sheet of greaseproof paper, pushing it into the corners. 2. Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. 3. Place the egg whites in a large bowl and whisk until stiff but not dry. 4. Put the egg yolks in a separate bowl with the sugar and whisk on high speed for 2-3 minutes or until thick and creamy. Pour in the cooled chocolate and gently fold together until well combined. 5. Gently stir two large spoonfuls of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen the mix, then fold in the remaining egg whites using a large metal spoon. Sift the cocoa over the top and lightly fold it in. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and gently move the tin around until the mixture is level. 6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes until the sponge is risen and its top feels firm and slightly crisp. Remove from the oven, leave in the tin (expect the roulade to fall and crack a little) and set aside until cold. 7. Whip the cream until it just holds its shape. Lay a large piece of greaseproof paper on the work surface and dust it lightly with icing sugar. Turn the roulade out onto the paper so its lining paper is on top, then carefully peel off the paper. Spread the roulade with the whipped cream, leaving a border of about 2cm around the edges. With one of the shortest edges facing you, make a cut along it with a sharp knife, going about half way through the sponge. This will help to start the rolling up. Now roll this cut edge over tightly to start with and use the paper to help continue the tight rolling, by pulling it away from you as you roll. 8. Finish with the join underneath then lift the roulade onto a serving plate or board using a large wide spatula or two fish slices. Dust with icing sugar. Advertisement

CARROT CAKE Serves 12 | Prep 20 mins | Bake 25 - 30 mins INGREDIENTS 250g self-raising flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 400g caster sugar

350ml vegetable oil

4 free-range eggs

350g grated carrots

120g chopped walnuts

Cream cheese icing

225g cream cheese

110g unsalted butter, softened 450g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease two 23cm round cake tins. 2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon and sugar. Add the oil and egg mix until blended, then stir in the carrots and nuts. Divide the cake mixture evenly between the two prepared tins. 3. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes in the preheated oven. A skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean. Cool the cakes on wire racks before removing from the tins. 4. To make the icing, cream together the butter and cream cheese in a medium bowl, then add the sugar and combine. Stir in the nuts and vanilla. Use to fill and ice the cooled cake layers. Advertisement

BUTTERMILK SCONES Makes 10 | Prep 10 mins | Bake 14 - 20 mins INGREDIENTS 330g flour

20g baking powder

50g unsalted butter

50g caster sugar

100ml milk

100ml buttermilk

1 egg, beaten METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. 2. Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and rub the butter in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 3. Create a well in the middle of the mixture and add the sugar, mixing thoroughly. This recipe is for plain scones but if you wish to add any fruit or flavourings such as sultanas, cinnamon or vanilla, now is the time to do so. 4. Pour in the liquid gradually until a dough is formed and all the ingredients are nicely incorporated. 5. Remove the dough from the bowl and flatten on a clean surface. 6. Using a biscuit cutter, cut into rounds and place on a lined baking tray. Glaze the top of each scone with the beaten egg and rest for ten minutes. 7. Bake for 14 - 20 minutes until lightly golden brown and risen. Advertisement

EGG CUSTARD TART Makes 16 | Prep 40 mins (with time to rest pastry) | Bake 25 mins | Cool 30 mins INGREDIENTS Sweet pastry

165g/5oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

25g/1oz ground almonds

120g/4oz chilled unsalted butter, cubed

Freshly ground nutmeg 55g/2oz caster sugar

1 free-range egg

Custard filling

700ml/1 pint full-fat milk

7 free-range egg yolks

90g/3oz caster sugar METHOD 1. To make the pastry, stir the flour and ground almonds together in a large bowl, then add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. 2. Break in the egg and work it into the mixture with your fingers, bringing it together to form a soft dough. 3. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and shape it into a ball. Flatten with your fingers to a disc and wrap in cling film. Leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. 4. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. 5. Roll out the sweet pastry on a lightly floured work surface. 6. Using a 11cm/4in fluted cutter, cut out 12 discs and line the muffin tray moulds with the pastry circles. The pastry should overlap the top of the moulds by a few millimetres. Crimp the edges. 7. For the custard filling, warm the milk in a saucepan, and beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until pale and creamy. 8. Pour the milk onto the egg yolk mixture and stir well, creating little bubbles. 9. Transfer the custard mixture into a jug and fill each of the tart cases. 10. Sprinkle a small pinch of ground nutmeg into the middle of each tart. 11. Bake the tarts in the oven for about 25 minutes - you may need to turn the temperature down to 180C/350F/Gas 4 for the final ten minutes. You are looking for a very slight dome on the custard. If the custard domes too much, you have overcooked the custard, it will have boiled, and will sink back down leaving a big dip. You can help rescue it by removing the tarts from the oven immediately and placing the tin in cold water on a cold surface. 12. Cool in the tin for 30 minutes and then carefully remove from the moulds. The base of the tarts should be perfectly baked through, without having overcooked the custard filling. Advertisement
By Trend

Turkmenistan, along with other Central Asian countries and European Union have discussed countering the spread of COVID-19, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.

The mentioned topic was discussed during an online meeting between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central Asian countries and the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles was held on June 12, 2020.

The parties discussed issues related to the consolidation of efforts aimed at countering the spread of coronavirus infection.

Thus, the parties considered the prospects for cooperation between the EU and the countries of the Central Asian region in the context of implementing the EU Strategy for Central Asia.

Turkmenistan's initiatives in the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO) and other multilateral formats were pointed out, the report says.

The parties discussed issues of maintaining peace and security in the region, in particular, further practical steps to establish stability in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Turkmenistan, along with other Central Asian countries reviewed the actions taken by the ministries of agriculture to mitigate the negative impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic on food security on May 19, 2020.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Sen. Ron Johnson wouldnt appear to be one of President Donald Trumps closest allies at first glance.

The Wisconsin Republican doesnt flood the airwaves to defend the president. He isnt a fixture in the conservative media world, and he hasnt seen his political stock boosted by a barrage of tweets and retweets from the president. In 2018, he even criticized Trumps mix of tariffs and bailouts as a Soviet-style economy.

But Johnson, the chairman of the Senates chief oversight body, is playing a major role in advancing a key theme of the presidents reelection bid  that he and his associates were targeted unfairly by the outgoing Obama administration.

He is also investigating corruption allegations involving Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic presidential nominee, stemming from the younger Bidens role on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Trump and congressional Republicans have claimed the former vice president sought to shield his son from a Ukrainian-led investigation into Burisma  though Biden denies the allegation.

In both instances, Democrats have accused Johnson of abusing his power, misusing the Senates oversight resources to boost Trumps political prospects, and even operating a Russian disinformation front that jeopardizes U.S. election security  all serious allegations, even in todays hyperpartisan Senate. But Johnson insists its just the opposite.

Im a very nonpartisan guy. I just am, Johnson said in an interview. I like using the word nonpartisan.

Privately, Senate Republicans are worried that the efforts to relitigate the Russia investigation and the events of 2016 could backfire, according to a GOP senator who was granted anonymity to candidly address the situation. Republicans are especially concerned about the perception that their priorities are not in order as the country is reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, staggeringly high unemployment and unrest over recent police killings of unarmed African Americans.

Story continues

Despite the partisan tensions and the intensifying harshness of the disputes, Johnson is unfazed by the criticism  even as he increasingly finds himself on defense.

Im not doing anybodys bidding, said Johnson, who has chaired the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee since 2015. I am doing this because Im concerned about this democracy, and Im concerned about what happened starting before the election, during the transition, and what continued certainly through the impeachment trial.

According to Johnson, the Homeland Security panels probe has uncovered information that shows the incoming Trump administration was sabotaged by the outgoing Obama team. Johnson portrays his investigation as an honest effort to find the truth and reform the presidential transition process to ensure a peaceful transition of power.

Im just a straight shooter. I call them as I see them, he said.

Democrats contend thats far from the truth. They note that Johnson intends to release reports in the summer and the fall on his twin investigations, which would thrust the issues back into the spotlight as Election Day nears. They also point to his comments earlier this year in which he said former Vice President Joe Biden has not adequately answered for his sons role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, adding: If I were a Democrat primary voter, Id want these questions satisfactorily answered before I cast my final vote.

And after Johnson released a declassified list of former Obama administration officials who potentially unmasked former national security adviser Michael Flynns name in intelligence reports, the Trump campaign seized on the fact that Joe Bidens name was on the list  even as Bidens precise involvement was not clear.

Were in the middle of a pandemic and a peaceful uprising against police brutality, and [Johnson is] running errands for the Republican National Committee, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said in a brief interview. And its a misuse of his position.

Minutes later, Schatz ran into Johnson outside the Senate chamber and told him: Hey Ron, somebody asked me about your investigations and I wasnt that nice. Johnson laughed and replied, Thats OK.

Johnson later dismissed the interaction as being representative of the collegial nature of the Senate. But it also underscored the reality of how investigations into Trumps political enemies that began after the Senates impeachment trial have been gripping the body ever since.

As he defended himself, Johnson contended that Democrats are simply afraid of the truth.

Anybody that could take a look at what we already know and say, well we should just close our eyes and ears to this, lets stop looking at this  I would say doesnt really care about the fact that the transition was corrupted, Johnson said.

Im just tenacious. Im dedicated to getting the information, he added. And the question I have for my Democratic colleagues  what are you afraid of? What part of the truth that I hope we can reveal are you worried about?

Johnson gavels a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee meeting to a close.

Johnsons allies say his concerns are legitimate and require appropriate congressional oversight  an area in which Johnson has distinguished himself among conservatives, in particular during the saga over Hillary Clintons email server and the attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. Both of those probes were led by Republicans.

I think hes genuinely upset about what happened, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is conducting a similar investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel. Now, how could you have Hunter Biden milking the most corrupt company in the Ukraine for millions of dollars while youre trying to have, you know, Joe Biden there to reform corruption?

So I think [Johnson] is just sort of a good-government guy, and thats driving his passion, Graham added.

Graham also pushed back against the allegation that he and Johnson are simply doing Trumps bidding, citing recent revelations that call into question the genesis of the counterintelligence investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Nobody said that about me when I supported the Mueller investigation. I was a great guy, Graham said. Now that I want to know how it got so off the rails and got so corrupt, Im shilling for Trump. Not gonna work.

Trump has mentioned Johnson by name on Twitter just twice  both coming in the past two months, when the senators investigations intensified and gained new momentum. In one tweet, Trump wrote: America is proud of Ron Johnson. He never gives up!

Still, thats a stark contrast to the number of times Trump regularly boosts his top House defenders on Twitter, including Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

But unlike Nunes and Jordan, Johnson has a committee gavel  and hes using it in a way that is, wittingly or unwittingly, advancing the presidents political interests.

His role has also strained his relationship with Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Homeland Security Committees top Democrat. Peters, one of the most bipartisan senators, rarely engages in the types of spats that have overtaken the committee in recent weeks, but he has been forced into that role given his seniority on the panel. As a result, he has treaded carefully so as to not further inflame his relationship with Johnson.

Certainly, I would say it is more difficult. But Ive tried not to let that get in the way, said Peters, who is up for reelection this year. It makes no sense to me. Were in the middle of a pandemic, dealing with a whole host of threats to our national security. Thats where we should be focused. Not on what basically looks like a political witch hunt.

Even some of Johnsons fellow Republican senators have put the Wisconsin Republican in an awkward spot by warning him  directly and indirectly  that the investigation itself could be a front for Russian disinformation.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee until stepping aside last month amid a federal probe into his stock trades, privately warned Johnson in December that going after Hunter Biden could aid Russian efforts to sow chaos and distrust in the U.S. political system. Burrs temporary replacement as chairman, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), has expressed similar concerns about Russian disinformation, though he has declined to specifically call out Johnson.

And the Intelligence Committee is notably in the dark about the investigations. I just hope that, when all the facts come out, the committees not being unwittingly used by Russia, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said in a brief interview.

Those tensions boiled over during a classified election security briefing in March, during which several Democratic senators confronted Johnson over his Biden investigation, POLITICO previously reported.

Johnson was accused of playing politics with national security and enabling a repeat of Russian interference in the presidential election, especially as he was initially relying on disputed pro-Russia Ukrainian sources of information. One of those sources, former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko, had leveled unsubstantiated allegations about coordination between the Ukrainian government and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign. Concerns over Telizhenkos credibility prompted Johnson to scrap a scheduled subpoena vote for him in March.

And at least one committee member, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), said its apparent on its face that the Hunter Biden probe is politically motivated, given that the elder Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee. Romney chose his words carefully, declining to explain why he has voted for Johnsons subpoena authorizations targeting former Obama officials despite his criticisms. When asked if Johnson is doing a good job, he declined to answer.

In recent days, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has dubbed the GOP the conspiracy caucus over its election year investigations, arguing that Republicans are more consumed with helping Trump get reelected than working to solve the countrys problems.

Rank-and-file Democrats have largely echoed that message, though some Democrats are privately frustrated that the party has not responded to the investigations more substantively. But Schatz suggested that it might not be breaking through the partisan jabs, which have become increasingly vitriolic.

Let me just be as crystal clear as I can  nobody cares. I dont think the public is paying any attention to this, an animated Schatz said. This is a fools errand for them, and my response is: Meh.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a joint press conference in the White House in Washington D.C., the United States, on Jan. 28, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

"We will begin practical steps in establishing the community of Ramat Trump," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells a cabinet meeting as the country prepares to build a new settlement in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights named after U.S. President Donald Trump.

JERUSALEM, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Israel started on Sunday preparations for building a new settlement in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights named after U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Cabinet ministers ratified a decision to establish the new settlement, named "Ramat Trump" in Hebrew, meaning "Trump Heights," according to a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office.

"Today, we will begin practical steps in establishing the community of Ramat Trump on the Golan Heights," Netanyahu told the cabinet meeting.

The new settlement will be located in the Golan, a disputed territory that Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and has controlled ever since despite international criticism.

Minister of Settlement Affairs Tzipi Hotovely, whose office was tasked with coordinating efforts to establish the new settlement, hailed the move as "great news for the settlement activity in the Golan Heights."

"The ministry is starting to work to prepare the ground," she said in a statement, adding the settlement will be populated with an initial group of 300 settlers.

The move comes weeks before Netanyahu plans to begin his controversial plan to annex the Jordan Valley, a portion of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Netanyahu set July 1 as the starting date for the beginning of the plan despite international condemnations.

Trump recognized in March 2019 Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Martinez Mitchell, 43, turned himself into the police in Washington state after two days on the run and was charged with assault of a child

A Washington father turned himself in to the police last week, two days after he allegedly helped his 12-year-old son attack and stab another boy his age, and then went on the run.

Martinez Mitchell, 43, was booked into the Snohomish County Jail on Friday on charges of assault of a child and parole violation.

According to a press release from the city of Mill Creek, the incident took place on the night of June 10 at the Heatherwood Apartments, where Mitchell allegedly accosted a 12-year-old boy, grabbed him and began punching him, reported ABC News.

Mitchell's son, also aged 12, then allegedly attacked the victim and proceeded to stab him while his father held the boy down for him.

The victim was reportedly stabbed in the bicep, wrist and finger. He was taken to Harborview Medical Center to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The violent incident took place at the Heatherwood Apartments in Mill Creek on Friday

Meanwhile, Mitchell fled the scene immediately after the stabbing, leaving his son behind.

Records indicate that the 43-year-old is a registered sex offender

When police responded to the scene, they found the young suspect inside his family's apartment and arrested him on a count of first-degree assault. The boy was then booked into the Denney Juvenile Justice Center in Everett.

Mitchell is being held on $50,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for this afternoon.

Records indicate that the 43-year-old is a registered sex offender in Washington state stemming from his 1997 conviction on a charge of second-degree assault with sexual motivation.

Over the past 10 years, Mitchell has racked up two additional convictions on charges of failure to register as a sex offender.
Pakistani authorities on Monday detained two junior staff members of the Indian mission in Islamabad and held them for almost 12 hours, releasing them after the Pakistani charge daffaires in New Delhi was summoned to the foreign ministry for lodging a strong protest.

The two non-diplomatic staff members, who were in an official car, were initially reported missing at 8 am Pakistan time while out on official duty, people familiar with developments said on condition of anonymity. They were handed over to two other officials of the high commission at the Secretariat police station, located a short distance from the diplomatic enclave, about 12 hours later.

The people said the two staff members had signs of injuries and would undergo a medical examination. The incident was widely seen in New Delhi as retaliation for the Indian governments decision to expel two officials of the Pakistan high commission who were apprehended on charges of spying on May 31.

Almost seven hours after the two staff members were reported missing, reports in the Pakistani media claimed they had been arrested after their car allegedly hit a pedestrian near the diplomatic enclave. The Express Tribune newspapers website reported the two men allegedly tried to flee and the car was stopped by a large group of bystanders who handed them over to police.

A first information report (FIR) by Islamabad Police, accessed by HT, said the two men were charged under provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure related to rash driving, injuring a person through rash driving and possession of fake currency. The FIR further claimed fake Pakistani currency with a face value of Rs 10,000 was found in the car.

These allegations were dismissed by the people cited above, who described them as false and baseless.

Following the media reports, Pakistans charge daffaires Syed Haider Shah was summoned to the external affairs ministry and served a demarche or formal diplomatic representation on the arrest of the two staff members. Shah was told there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indians and that the responsibility for the safety and security of the personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, one of the people cited above said.

The Pakistan side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the high commission immediately, the person added.

There was no word from Pakistans Foreign Office regarding the incident.

On May 31, India expelled two officials of the Pakistan high commission in New Delhi after they were detained by security agencies while trying to obtain classified materials on Indian security installations. Both men were declared persona non grata for indulging in activities incompatible with their status as members of a diplomatic mission and asked to India within 24 hours.

Pakistan had condemned the Indian governments action and said the officials were detained on false and unsubstantiated charges.

Subsequently, India had also complained about the harassment of its diplomats in Islamabad. These developments have come at a time when ties between India and Pakistan are at an all-time low.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sperling Dermatology, LLC, headquartered in Florham Park, NJ, is well-known for its cutting-edge marketing, sales and technology solutions, which has helped it achieve some very notable accomplishments, including being recognized as the #1 CoolSculpting Provider in the USA (May 2019), #1 EMSCULPT Provider in NJ (December 2019), and one of the highest-rated dermatologists on all of HealthGrades (1,000+ five star reviews as of May 2020).

The Sperling Sprinter, by Sperling Dermatology, is NJ's FIRST MOBILE SPA and features two 50-inch TVs, high-speed Wi-Fi, Netflix, and Maybach leather chairs, as well as other luxurious amenities.

Today, Sperling Dermatology is proud to announce its newest innovation to disrupt the aesthetic space with the introduction of New Jersey's first Mobile Spa. Services will be performed in a state-of-the-art Mercedes Benz Sprinter, which has been custom fitted for Sperling's use. Amenities on-board the Sprinter will include two 50-inch TVs with Netflix and other streaming services, fully reclining "Maybach Style" leather seats, high-speed Wi-Fi, mobile charging options, and an assortment of refreshments like fresh coffee and bottled water. The Sprinter is 24 feet long, 6.5 feet high, and offers over 500 cubic feet of space in its interior "Spa Cabin".

Ari Katz, Sperling's Managing Partner, explained how the idea for the Mobile Spa service came about by stating, "With our business forced to shut down these last few months due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, we viewed this challenging time as an opportunity to think outside the box and introduce something we felt was both innovative, revolutionary, as well as extremely appropriate for the new reality we find ourselves in." Katz continues, "By introducing New Jersey's first-of-its-kind Mobile Spa offering, we feel like we are directly aligning ourselves with the current social distancing guidelines that we believe will be in place for the foreseeable future, allowing our clients to continue to receive our best-in-class, non-invasive treatments from the safety and comfort of their driveway."

Sperling has also introduced virtual video consults for all clients wishing to learn more about their spa services. As Katz explains, "We recognize that, understandably, some people will not feel comfortable visiting retail stores, even once the stay-at-home orders are fully lifted. With the Sperling Sprinter, we have designed a minimal contact, socially distanced, end-to-end experience that starts with a virtual consult from the comfort of your living room and ends with a treatment performed from the comfort of your driveway. That means getting the full, five-star Sperling experience without ever leaving your home property. This is truly a revolutionary offering and we couldn't be more excited about it."

Reserve your spot today: www.SperlingSprinter.com

About Sperling Dermatology

Sperling Dermatology was founded in 2016 by Dr. Shari Sperling. Dr. Sperling founded the practice with one primary goal: to help all of her patients feel, look, and be spectacular in their own skin. Since then, Sperling Dermatology has grown to become one of New Jersey's fastest-growing and highest-rated Dermatology practices and is incredibly humbled by its more than 1,000 five star patient reviews and counting. Sperling Dermatology has three physical locations across NJ and one Mobile Spa.

Dr. Shari Sperling, DO, is a board-certified dermatologist who specializes in medical, cosmetic, laser and surgical dermatology for adults and children. She practices in both Florham Park Montclair, and Red Bank, NJ and is affiliated with St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, NJ.

Marketing Contact: [email protected]

Investor Contact: [email protected]

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The Sperling Sprinter - NJ's First Mobile Spa

The Sperling Sprinter, by Sperling Dermatology, is NJ's FIRST MOBILE SPA and features two 50-inch TVs, high-speed Wi-Fi, Netflix, and Maybach leather chairs, as well as other luxurious amenities.

SOURCE Sperling Dermatology, LLC
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a cross-government commission would examine racism and the disparities experienced by minority ethnic groups in education, health and the criminal justice system following Black Lives Matter protests.

Johnson said he could not ignore the strength of feeling shown by tens of thousands of people who had demonstrated in British cities following the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

"What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative, so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination," he said on Sunday.

"We stop the discrimination, we stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success. But it won't be easy. We'll have to look very carefully at the real racism and discrimination that people face."

Simon Woolley, advisory chair of the UK government's Race Disparity Unit, said some of Johnson's language in talking of a "sense" of victimhood was "frankly unhelpful".

"The 'Great' in Great Britain was predicated on slavery and colonialism. And its legacy we still live with today," he told BBC Radio.

"The structures that lock people out - that's not wallowing in victimhood, that's an honest conversation. And we need to confront that."

The protests have prompted a re-evaluation of the memorialisation of Britain's colonial and slave-trading past.

Just over a week after protestors in the southwestern port city of Bristol tore down a statue of Edward Colston, who made a fortune in the 17th century from the slave trade, the owners of Colston Hall, a concert venue in the city, began removing the name from its front.

In a separate column in the Telegraph, Johnson said he was "extremely dubious about the growing campaign to edit or photoshop the entire cultural landscape" by tearing down statues.

"Lets fight racism, but leave our heritage broadly in peace," he added.

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From the South: From Monday to holidaymakers from Germany can go to popular destinations in Europe. The travel warning of the foreign office is likely to be lifted for 27 European countries, at the same time, most countries allow tourists to enter the country. Spain as a holiday destination number one of the German citizens abroad is only from the 1. July to this. However, up to 10.900 people should be allowed to fly for a Test of Monday to Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands.

airports, Airlines, and tour operators have with Hygiene and security concepts on the restart is prepared. Lufthansa has reduced its offer of high. Have a great trip shaft, however, is not initially expect to, and also because most of the air travel large organizer start only in the course of the week, or the beginning of July.

Detailed notes for each country

The Cabinet had decided that the worldwide travel warning for tourists for 31 European countries for the four States, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Finland is not likely to happen but still on Monday. For the 27 other countries there are detailed notes, in which the country-specific risks will be informed. This can also mean that tourist travel is not advised. For example, in the case of the UK, that should be the case, as long as there is still a 14-day mandatory Quarantine for all entering the country is.

For more than 160 countries 31 the travel warning, first to the. August be extended. Federal foreign Minister Heiko Maas had, however, made it clear that it could also be the exception to the rule, for examples of popular holiday countries such as Turkey, which has already included the air traffic to Germany again. The country on the Bosporus is the third most popular holiday destination of the Germans abroad, to Spain and Italy. The Turkish government is pushing for a lifting of travel warnings "at the earliest possible date".

A travel warning is a ban not a travel. Holidaymakers can be at their own risk, unless the country opened its borders for tourists. Maas had, however, made it clear that there will be no large-scale return action is more like in March. Organizers are tied up with travel warnings, the hands. You need to cancel the already-booked Trips.

Updated Date: 15 June 2020, 02:19
It was a different kind of protest Sunday evening, but with the same heart-felt passion as the others that have taken over the streets of San Antonio in recent weeks in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and seeking justice for black men killed by law enforcement.

At least 200 protesters on bikes, skateboards, roller blades and roller skates wheeled down North Main, taking off from the parking lot of The Vaulti, a thrift store near San Antonio College, at about 6:15 p.m., bound for Travis Park.

This is crazy, said Ryan Silva, marveling at the Roll in Peace protest he had helped organize. He told the crowd his idea for the march-on-wheels had turned out exactly as he had envisioned.

Some wore sparkly roller skates, others were riding worn spray-painted skateboards, and more were on bicycles.

The large crowd momentarily stopped traffic on the way to the park, where they heard from speakers and chanted the now familiar No justice, no peace and Black lives matter phrases

The group was organized to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

In San Antonio, the protests also call for justice for three other black men  Marquise Jones, 23, Antronie Scott, 36, and Charles Roundtree, 18  who were killed by San Antonio police in three separate incidents over the last six years.

Antronie Scott Jr. held up his iPhone to the crowd, tears streaming down his face as he talked about his dads death four years ago.

Dad died because cops shot him in the heart after thinking his iPhone 4 was a gun, the young man said.

Wearing a white denim jacket with no more silence on the back, 17-year-old Camren Moreno spoke about how he felt about the death of Trayvon Martin, a teen who was getting some snacks in Florida when he was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer.

Moreno looked at his friends who came to the event with him and said, I cant imagine if something like that happened to my friends.

They hugged him and he told the crowd that he cant wait until hes old enough to vote.

Stephanie Fiiire Nious told protesters that she is 51 years old, a Latina and black woman, and feels she must speak out against police brutality and racism for the sake of her children and grandchildren.

Im out here because people of color are being attacked, she said into a megaphone.

Toward the end, some protesters had grabbed free snacks and water courtesy of several volunteers including the Krishna Temple and a group of skaters.

Kendra, 27, who declined to give her last name, said she and her friend were excited for this event, even though she wasnt very comfortable on her iridescent purple and teal skates.

A black woman who has lived most of her life in San Antonio, Kendra said this was her first protest and she was pleased to meet many like-minded people.

Im just overwhelmed with all of this support and that so many people came out here to show that they care, she said.

laura.garcia@express-news.net
OTTAWA - Sales of residential properties in May were up from a record low in April, but were still down 39.8 per cent from the same month last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported Monday.

It was the weakest showing for the month of May since 1996, even after rising 56.9 per cent from April, when sales volume was the lowest on record, CREA said.

Like most sectors of the economy, the real estate industry was affected by the lockdowns put into effect from mid-March to battle the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The big picture is things are moving in the right direction but still have a long way to go," CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart said in a statement.

He added that the number of homes sold has been steadily rising from mid-April through the first week of June.

The month-over-month sales increase came as the number of newly-listed homes rose by a record 69 per cent in May compared with April.

Still, CREA said there were only 5.6 months of inventory for sale at the end of May, compared with nine months at the end of April.

The national average price for homes sold in May was $494,500, down 2.6 per cent from the same month last year.

Sherry Cooper, chief economist for Dominion Lending Centres, wrote in a commentary that the national number obscures the fact that theres a wide variation of regional pricing and the trends appear to be converging on moderate positive pressure on prices.

People who remain employed despite the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to make their regular housing decisions, Cooper predicted, but added that the bigger concern is for people who permanently lose their jobs.

TD economist Rishi Sondhi wrote in a commentary that pent-up demand is likely to fuel additional gains for at least another few months.

The big question is what happens after this initial burst, Sondhi added.

TDs expectation is growth in sales and prices will moderate towards the latter part of 2020 and into 2021 as a result of slower population growth, a slow job recovery and tightening measures from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, Sondhi concluded.

Excluding the Greater Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area, two of Canadas most active and expensive housing markets, the average price was about $401,000.

Generally speaking, since the COVID crisis began small declines in prices have been seen in British Columbia while declining trends already in place in Alberta have accelerated, CREA said.

Across the rest of the Prairies, where sales have been doing comparatively much better against history than in much of the country, price trends have actually been stabilizing.

In Ontario, the year-over-year average price was up nearly 9.5 per cent in the Greater Toronto Area and the Hamilton-Burlington market, up 11.2 per cent in the Niagara region, and up 15.67 in Ottawa.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:09:28|Editor: huaxia

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TOKYO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition in Tokyo which opened Monday showcasing UNESCO World Heritage sites associated with Japan's industrial revolution, has come under criticism from South Korea for negating to provide information about Koreans' forced labor at some of the sites during World War II.

Following the exhibition's opening, Japanese Ambassador to Seoul Koji Tomita was summoned by the South Korean Foreign Ministry where an official protest was lodged about Japan failing to honestly disclose and pay regard at the exhibit to the Korean victims who were forced into labor at some of the sites during the war.

While the exhibition does, purportedly, portray testimonies from second-generation Korean-Japanese residents at the sites, these have been denounced by South Korea as being distorted, as they essentially deny the fact that Koreans were routinely subjected to slave labor and discriminatory practices at the sites.

South Korea had previously opposed Japan adding 23 sites covering eight prefectures here to UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list, under the banner of "Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Iron and Steel, Shipbuilding and Coal Mining."

This was due to Korean nationals being coerced and forced into slave labor at seven of the sites during Japan's brutal wartime colonial rule between 1910 and 1945.

South Korea's complaint at Japan adding the sites was withdrawn, however, on agreement with Tokyo that it would provide honest and comprehensive facts about the harsh labor conditions at the sites.

"We cannot but feel very worried and disappointed that we cannot see any kind of effort to commemorate the victims in any part of the exhibit," a South Korean ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying in a statement on the issue, while also expressing "deep remorse" over Japan reneging on former promises not to whitewash the issue.

The controversial exhibition is the latest contribution to strained ties between Tokyo and Seoul who have been at odds since South Korea's top court ordered a Japanese firm to pay compensation for the forced labor of Korean nationals during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The Japanese side has maintained that the highly controversial matter of it forcing its neighbor's citizens into hard labor during the war was settled by a 1965 pact, which saw Tokyo pay Seoul some 500 million U.S. dollars under the banner of "economic cooperation."

The bitter diplomatic row stemming from the wartime labor dispute went on to spill over into trade and security areas.

While some trade restrictions have since been lifted and related talks held as recently as earlier this month, both sides have said that while improving ties in areas such as people-to-people exchanges remain important, there remains a gulf in opinion on a number of pertinent diplomatic and trade matters. Enditem
Paul Whelan, right, stands in a Moscow courtroom

A Russian court has sentenced a British-American citizen to 16 years in prison, raising speculation of a potential prisoner swap between Russia and the United States.

Russian courts have convicted several foreign nationals of spying in recent years but the case of Paul Whelan is the first for a British or an American citizen in a long time, putting a further stain on ties between Russia and those countries.

The US reacted with fury yesterday, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanding his immediate release.

Judge Andrei Suvorov on Monday convicted the 50-year old Whelan of spying and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security prison, a year and a half after the former US Marine was detained in an upscale Moscow hotel.

Prosecutors claimed during the trial which was held behind closed doors that Mr Whelan was caught red-handed with documents containing state secrets. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

This is all a political theatre, Mr Whelan, a bespectacled man dressed in a grey jumper, said from the defendants glass cage upon hearing the sentence, adding that he did not understand what was being said in the room since he was not provided with translation.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, David Whelan, Mr Whelans brother, said in an emailed statement after the verdict, adding that his family only counts on direct negotiations between Russia and the United States to secure his release.

John Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, described Mondays verdict as a mockery of justice.

If it can happen to Paul, it can happen to anyone, Mr Sullivan said outside the court on Monday.

The ordeal for Mr Whelan who holds British, American, Irish and Canadian passports began in December 2018 when he was visiting Russia for a wedding.

Russian investigators do not reveal the details of the indictment, citing secrecy, but Mr Whelans attorney claims that his client has been framed after he was given a flash drive with documents containing state secrets right before he was arrested in an upscale hotel in central Moscow.

Story continues

Mr Whelan, who has been visiting Russia frequently for several years, has insisted that an acquaintance who later turned out to be an intelligence agent gave him a USB stick, saying that there were pictures of his recent holiday.

Almost immediately after Mr Whelans arrest speculation was raised that he could be exchanged for a Russian woman held in the United States and charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent. But she was deported back to Russia last year.

Mr Whelans attorney Vladimir Zherebenkov confirmed on Monday that he has been approached about a potential prison swap but said he was not at liberty to disclose certain details.

Mr Zherebenkov said that Mr Whelan is not opposed to the idea of formally asking for presidential pardon, which could pave the way for the exchange.

There are several high-profile Russian prisoners in the U.S. that Moscow has wanted to get back for years including Viktor Bout, the notorious Russian arms dealer convicted for 25 years in a U.S. prison.

Mr Zherebenkov said on Monday that his client was told by a Russian intelligence officer upon arrest in 2018 that he would be swapped for Mr Bout.

Secretary of State Pompeo said: "The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses. We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations.

"The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling. Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends.

"We demand Paul Whelans immediate release."
 Flash

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will join a videoconference with European Union (EU) leaders on Monday to push for progress in determining post-Brexit relations with the bloc, while officials in Brussels expect little breakthrough, media reported.

Johnson, his chief Brexit negotiator David Frost, and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove are due to hold "high-level talks" with President of the European Council Charles Michael, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and President of the European Parliament David Sassoli.

Johnson will tell the EU leaders that the Brexit talks must be concluded by autumn "at the latest," because the public and businesses affected by Brexit need certainty, British press The Telegraph reported Sunday.

At the teleconference, the prime minister will also demand a "high-quality Free Trade Agreement" that is "consistent with others the EU has agreed, as part of a balanced overall outcome," according to the Express newspaper.

Meanwhile, Brussels has warned that it would not brush aside the bloc's economic interests in a bid for a deal.

One senior EU official told British media that Monday's meeting was simply scheduled in the withdrawal agreement, "so it is happening but no one expects much."

Michel Barnier, EU chief negotiator for Brexit, has said that while he is open to some compromises, any deal must be reached in the overall long-term political and economic interest of the EU. Last week, he accused Britain of "looking to maintain the benefits of being a member state" in the bloc.

Britain and the EU concluded their fourth round of talks last week, during which they made no progress on the most difficult areas where differences of principle are most acute, notably on fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field.

Friday, Gove tweeted that "I formally confirmed the UK will not extend the transition period and the moment for extension has now passed. On 1 January 2021 we will take back control and regain our political and economic independence."

Britain ended its EU membership on Jan. 31 but is still following EU rules during the 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 on laws imposed by Brussels.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  A Staten Island couple has settled its malpractice lawsuit against a New Jersey hospital and medical staff for $12.5 million arising from the amputation of their young sons leg due to complications from tonsil surgery.

The boy was 5 years old at the time, said online filings in Essex County (N.J.) Superior Court.
"COPA has strict policies, a code of conduct and high standards for every employee of the agency, chief administrator Sydney Roberts said in a statement. There is a responsibility we have as employees of COPA and as law abiding residents of this great city to use sound judgement under difficult circumstances. When the actions of any employee violate the policies of this agency, we will hold them accountable.
Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty, who was rumoured to be in a relationship with Sushant Singh Rajput, was spotted outside Dr. R N Cooper Municipal Hospital in Mumbai on Monday (June 15, 2020). This is the same hospital where the late actor's body was taken for postmortem on Sunday evening. (June 14, 2020).

Sushant Singh Rajput: Rhea Chakraborty      Cooper hospital; Video | FilmiBeat

In the pictures, the Jalebi actress is seen wearing a mask and has her head covered with a white dupatta. Rumours were rife that Rhea and Sushant were in a relationship. However, the alleged lovebirds never confirmed their relationship status.

Earlier, in an interview with Times of India, Rhea had reacted to the dating rumours and was quoted as saying, "Neither Sushant Singh Rajput nor I have ever admitted that, so it's not true. Sushant and I are really good friends. I've known him for eight years now. We were in YRF together and we had the same manager for a long period. Our friendship has evolved over the years."

On the other hand, when Sushant was asked whether he was seeing someone, the actor had said in an interview with Man's World magazine last year, "I'm seeing many. Oh, you mean it as a metaphor? I'm not allowed to say. It's not that someone else is saying that I'm not allowed to say it. I cannot allow myself to say anything. Right now, it's not right to say. People shouldn't start talking about things in a nascent stage as if they are very sure of it. Why do that?" If you ask me any question that has to do with me, I can say it. If I was seeing somebody, I'd have to ask that somebody."

Speaking about Sushant's tragic demise, the actor ended his life in his Bandra residence in Mumbai on June 14, 2020. The Mumbai Police has revealed that the provisional cause of his death was asphyxia due to hanging. Sushant's last rites will take place on Monday at Pawan Hans crematorium in suburban Vile Parle on Monday (June 15, 2020).

ALSO READ: Amitabh Bachchan On Sushant Singh Rajput's Death: To End A Most Gainful Life Is Simply Not Permitted

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput Was Going The Parveen Babi Way: Mukesh Bhatt Recalls His Meeting With The Actor

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The present president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greear, gave his annual SBC Presidential Address online (at his FB page) and focused on major topics, including race and racism. (On which I will not comment.) I have long watched Greear and I read his gospel book some years back and we engaged in a fair minded conversation, and I hope (if he has time) we can do the same again someday.

Greears first topic was gospel and his commitment to Scripture. On gospel I want to make a few observations.

He speaks too about sexual abuse and the need for making the church a safer place. About diversity as well, and says 20% of SBC churches are non-white. Leadership doesnt reflect this so appointments will make diversity and persons of color a priority. Black Lives Matter is a gospel issue he says. Please dont respond, he says, with all lives matter. Thank you J.D. Greear. He talked about baptism numbers 50 years of decline work with others to change the trajectory. Too much concern about the news cycle than evangelism. Gospel unity: rancor and divisiveness over secondary issues among some. Presidential election comes up and he appeals to Romans 14. I earlier stated that Greear said hed vote for Trump but I misheard what he said when he was speaking in the first person. I correct that, and I apologize to him. He was appealing to unity of believers and difference in politics, and he did not specifically state his view. He finished with an exhortation about sending gospel agents into the world as missionaries.

Summary of J.D. Greears opening comments on gospel

He says the gospel above all has been the focus of the SBC the last couple years and he acknowledges that some have diminished it by making it so common. Hes referring no doubt to the use of gospel for whatever anyone thinks is most important. Hes right about that as Ive heard people say the gospel is justice or feminism, and I once heard a friend say the gospel is really the gospel when you believe in double predestination. He continues with Paul in 1 Cor 15 that the gospel is of first importance. And then he summarizes Paul saying that his message was Christ crucified (and then cites Rom 4:25 that he died for our sins and was raised for our justification).

Which leads him to ask what the gospel was. He says alot can be said about kingship and the authority of Jesus and new creation and the radically new way of living, and at this point hes got my interest. (Hes at least nodding in the direction of NT Wright, Matt Bates and me.) What hes saying is that kingship etc are important but not as key as what he wants to focus on.

Then he says this: The key word  is substitution. At his church they teach a four word summary of the gospel: Jesus in my place.

Then he says this: The key word  is substitution. At his church they teach a four word summary of the gospel: Jesus in my place. [Notice how individualistic this is, notice too that this formula of his is nowhere found in the NT: it is for our sins.] Greears point is that he didnt die just for us but instead of us. He glosses that with double imputation: he took our sin so we could put on his mantle of righteousness. (D.A. Carson, by the way, said there is no place in the NT that unambiguously teaches double imputation but it is implicit in places, and R.H. Gundry took issue with Carson at a famous Wheaton Theology Conference I attended.)

More from Greear: The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived the life we were supposed to live and died our death (I summarize). Peter says this is the gospel that saves and to which we must respond by hearing and repenting and believing.

What God has taught the SB people is that we must be a gospel-above-all people. The gospel contains the power of God. Heals the blind, saves the sinner, and renews the church. Without the gospel Bible stories are merely instructions of what we ought to do without the power to do it. Everything in church ministry, Greear says, requires the power of the resurrection unleashed by the gospel, and this gospel has the ability to make all we do the power of God.

Caring the poor is an implication of the gospel but the gospel is the message that sinners can be saved from the wrath of God by faith in Christ Jesus. He points to Luther about humans being prone to self-sufficiency and therefore our lives must be continual repentance (southern accent on repenunce, love it). He is sitting at table with Luthers works flanked behind him.

One phrase emerges  he now plays with the SBC and its annual convention and the Jerusalem Council  from the Baptist or business meeting in Jerusalem and the Committee on Resolutions said We should not make it difficult for the gentiles who are turning to God (Acts 15:19). This must shape the whole of the SBC and its churches. Ill say this: Im not sure his reduction to substitution makes it difficult, I dont know that. Many respond to that.

But I am sure that there is more to the gospel than what Greear says it is. His gospel, as I have said of others presentations of the gospel, is inadequate when compared to the Bibles own presentation of the gospel.

Responding to his comments

There is much in this summary and in his address that is commendable. There is nothing wrong about what he says about gospel in that I, too, affirm substitutionary atonement. I affirm other models of atonement theory too! See A Community called Atonement.

But as I listened to Greear (more than once) I kept saying to myself, Theres something missing here. One cannot expect in an address like this for Greear to cover everything, but he is a clear communicator, this was not off the cuff, and he was prepared to speak about and into an ongoing conversation and he wants it clear where he stands. That conversation, and a friend told me Greear knows about this very issue, is one NT Wright and Matthew Bates and I have had with the evangelical tradition and Bates and I with Greg Gilbert and others. This has taken place in our books and on the internet.

Greear reduces gospel to (individual) substitution and he minimizes kingship to substitution. This approach to gospel is common and it is widespread and it is the very thing Bates and I and NT Wright push against. The apostles announced that the Jesus who was crucified for us was raised for us by God to right hand of God as the one who rules, and as ruler calls us to be allegiant to him. When Paul summarizes the gospel in 2 Tim 2:8 he doesnt even mention what Greear thinks is the key (NIV: Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel).

I see three major lacks in Greear: First, he has ignored the Gospels understanding of the gospel and, for me more importantly, second his gospel is a transaction and not about Jesus, and third (and forgiveable in this context) there is no statement about method.

So, to be more biblical, one more time, I say it: the gospel of Jesus in the Gospels is the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus, unless Im missing something, talks the unsaved over and over and never once to the unsaved does he say anything about substitutionary atonement. He calls people to follow him and to come to him and to surrender to him and to his teachings. Its all about relationship to him.

Plus, there are two major texts along this line of atonement and they are Mark 10:45 (a ransom for many) and 14:24 at the last supper.

How do the Gospel authors describe Jesus message? The synoptic Gospel authors summarize the message of Jesus with the term kingdom and here Jesus is presenting himself as king/Messiah/Lord. The key for them is the word kingdom. Kingship then is not to be diminished but centralized and when it does the king is the Savior who dies for us (instead of us, yes) and is raised for us and will return for us. To reduce the gospel to substitution runs the risk of overpowering Jesus own term (kingdom, or eternal life in John) and replacing it with something else (substitution).

Second lack. Jesus in Greears summary is the agent or means of redemption (and I totally affirm Jesus as the means of our redemption) but the Gospels make Jesus the Subject of the gospel and only as Subject does he become the means and agent. When we make Jesus a means we turn the gospel into a formula of transaction. We defocus from the Person and refocus on the benefits and salvific accomplishments. In fact, we tend to reduce the gospel to a transaction. But the gospel is about Jesus  every paragraph in all four Gospels is about Jesus and the more we see Jesus as the Center of the Story the more we will also see that Who he is leads to What he accomplishes (which is kingdom itself, including redemption). The gospel announces that Jesus is the Christ, the king, the Messiah. The Lord Jesus Christ summons people to respond by surrendering to him in allegiance.

I mention here a bit of an academic discussion, and I have not brought this up quite this way in previous conversations, but it pertains to genre: the genre of the Gospels has settled into seeing them as lives (bioi) of Jesus, and the moment one makes this conclusion, the gospel itself becomes a kind of narrating the life story of Jesus. The most recent discussion is a book Im now reading by Helen Bond, and her opening chp clinches this point: if the Gospels are bioi, there is a reason why they called these bioi Gospels! Because they were the gospel.

A third lack is method: the gospel needs to be defined by clear gospel passages, and those are 1 Cor 15, 2 Tim 2:8, the gospel sermons in Acts and the Gospels as the gospel. Greear didnt work out a method and thats fine because he didnt have time to do that, but method is vital. When we focus on these crucial gospel-defining passages we learn the gospel is the story about Jesus (what he did, who he is, what he accomplishes) that fulfills the story of Israel. We need to let the clear passages take the first step.

The key word then is Jesus. Heres the question someone asked that needs to be first and foremost on our minds in our churches: Sir, we want to see Jesus. Those who then say come with us, well show you him can then take others to Jesus, and they are the ones gospeling a gospel that saves.
Update: More time slots to sign up to be tested in New Canaans community testing program for the coronavirus have opened up. They are available on Tuesday, June 30, and Wednesday, July, 1.

The link to sign up to be tested is: https://signupgenius.com/go/covid19testing.

Update: Time slots to sign up to be tested in New Canaans community testing program are currently full, but Waveny Pool, and all of the parks in the town are open again.

Update: Waveny Pool in New Canaans Waveny Park is open again, as are all of the parks in the town.

Original story: New Canaan now has 219 reported positive PCR, (Polymerase Chain Reaction), tests, according to First Selectman Kevin Moynihans update about the coronavirus to town residents on Sunday, June 14.

Of the tests overall, the town has now completed a total of 1,965 tests with its Stamford Hospital local Community Testing program, with the newest coronavirus case from the tests, being a college age individual who is asymptomatic living at home with his family, all of whom (have) tested negative, Moynihan said.

No further information has been released about the individual.

The town has also found only 72 antibody positive cases through the testing program.

Even though our community transmission is very low, we all must remain vigilant in wearing masks, social distancing and hand washing to keep the few cases that occur controllable, Moynihan said.

The testing program continues this week at the Lapham Community Center Tuesday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Residents who wish to be tested should register on the SignUpGenius link to be tested. The link is: https://signupgenius.com/go/covid19testing.

You do not need a prescription, but you must complete the lab requisition form online. You must have an appointment secured through SignUpGenius to be tested, wear a mask to the test site, and bring your photo ID, and insurance cards to your appointment, Moynihan said.

If you do not have insurance, the cost will be covered by the State of Connecticut Coronavirus Relief Fund. Please note that you must do both the nasal PCR test and the IgG antibody blood draw test, Moynihan said.

RELATED: New Canaan First Selectman Kevin Moynihans update about the coronavirus in the town, Sunday, June 14, 2020

Moynihan also spoke about New Canaan High School graduation parade on Monday, June 15, in his update, and congratulated the graduates in the schools Class of 2020. Moynihan also mentioned what residents are asked to do, especially for people who are planning to see the parade.

Tomorrow, Monday, June 15th, the New Canaan High School graduation parade through town will start from the High School beginning at 11:00 a.m., and will last about an hour, or more. I extend my congratulations to each, and every graduate on your achievements, and wish you every success in your future careers. If you plan to watch the parade of cars along South Avenue, please be sure to maintain proper social distancing, and wear your masks, Moynihan said.

Moynihan also reminded town residents about the towns Waveny Pool, and other park recreational facilities re-opening on Wednesday, June 17, which falls in the same week as the high schools graduation. Moynihan also spoke about what residents are asked to when using the parks.

On Wednesday, June 17th, Waveny Pool, and other park recreational facilities will re-open. We remind parents, and everyone to be cautious with hand washing, social distancing and wearing masks when using the parks and you are strongly encouraged to bring sanitizers to the parks to use as needed. Stay safe New Canaan, Moynihan said.
[June 15, 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, California, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 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 architecture and leverage its benefits to support digital transformation endeavors. From specific use cases to deployment strategies, the bookoffers 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. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1178711/Apstra_Intent_Based_Networking_for_Dummies.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1166841/Apstra_Logo.jpg SOURCE Apstra

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US President Donald Trumps niece Mary Trump is reportedly preparing to publish an "explosive" tell-all book that could hurt his chances of being re-elected in November 2020.

According to a report by The Daily Beast, the daughter of Fred Trump Junior, the Presidents brother, plans to launch her book Too Much and Never Enough on August 11, barely three months ahead of the election that is likely to be fractious.

According to people in the knowledge of the content, the book will contain intimate and damning thoughts" about Donald Trump.

It is expected to elucidate how Mary turned against her uncle to become a key source for the Pulitzer-winning investigation of the New York Times about alleged embezzlement by Trump. The investigative piece had revealed how dubious tax schemes were used by Trump in the 1990s to transfer $413 million from his father to resuscitate failing businesses.

Mary has stayed away from public glare and the last time she appeared in an interview was in 2000 after a court battle over Fred Trump Seniors estate. It was this court battle that gave her access to the Trump familys tax papers.

Fred Trump Jr was reportedly to inherit the Trump fortune. However, he never took over the family estate and died of alcoholism later, leaving Donald Trump as the only legal heir. In the book, Mary blames her uncle and her grandfather for her father's death, claiming they neglected him when he was becoming an addict and needed them the most.

The US President had once confessed that he had pressured Fred Trump Jr over his career choices and said, I do regret having put pressure on him. The family business was just something he was never going to want to do. I think the mistake we made was we assumed that everybody would like it.
June 15 : Philanthropist actor Akshay Kumar hails the incredible and selfless non-profit student organization, Mask For India, that is doing their best to help the underprivileged people.

During the corona-virus lockdown, several people are extending their hand of support to the poor and the needy, one such organization is Mask Of India that has distributed 2.4 lakhs masks and 3.8 lakh sanitary napkins so far.

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar hailed Mask for India, a non-profit student organization that is doing their best to help the underprivileged people. He also applauded the efforts of the organization.

Akshay Kumar took to his social media profile and wrote, Kudos to @masksforindia, a not for profit student organization formed by Class X, XI & XII students to help the underprivileged. These bright young minds have distributed 2.4 lakh masks & 3.8 lakh sanitary pads so far! Help save lives, one mask at a time. Donate

Kudos to @masksforindia,a not for profit student organization formed by Class X,XI & XII students to help the underprivileged.These bright young minds have distributed 2.4 lakh masks & 3.8 lakh sanitary pads so far!Help save lives,one mask at a time.Donate https://t.co/Clzuu92sk8  Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) June 15, 2020

The organization consists of class 10, 11, and 12 students who are doing their best to serve the people. Akshay even shared a link along with his praises for the organization and also urged the people to step up and help the people with their contribution.

Meanwhile on the work front, Akshay Kumar was busy shooting for his next film Bachchan Pandey before the outbreak of corona virus forced the industry to stop work.

The actor an interesting line-up of release, such as Rohit Shetty's Sooryavanshi, Bachchan Pandey, Laxmmi Bomb, Prithiviraj and Bell Bottom.
Some European countries are starting to relax travel restrictions as the number of new COVID-19 infections falls.

Many European countries have started easing coronavirus-related travel restrictions, with June 15 seeing several of them open up to visitors from certain countries in an effort to boost tourism and return to normalcy.

Each country is following its own timetable. Here are the details of the current travel policies:

Albania reopened its land borders on June 1, but the country still bans mass gatherings until June 23. The government also opened beaches serving hotels in June.

Armenia imposed a state emergency on March 16. Its borders are closed for foreigners arriving from Russia or Georgia as well as from countries with a tense epidemic situation.

Austria reopened its borders on June 16 and lifted a quarantine requirement for incoming travellers from within the EU, excluding the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain and Portugal. The country lifted border restrictions last week for all of its neighbouring countries except Italy.

Belarus does not have travel restrictions in place. However, there is a mandatory 14-day-self-quarantine requirement for people entering from countries where the virus is actively circulating. (same as Armenia).

Belgium opened its borders to and from European countries on June 15, including the UK and the Schengen Zone countries Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway.

Bosnia has reopened borders with neighbouring Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia since June 1 and lifted restrictions on commercial flights.

Bulgaria allows most European travellers to enter freely, but citizens of countries heavily hit by the pandemic, including the UK, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Sweden and Belgium, must spend 14 days in quarantine.

Croatia has opened its borders to citizens of Germany and nine other, mostly Eastern European, EU states. Other EU nationals need to prove a valid reason to enter, such as a tourist booking confirmation. Unlike other nations, Croatia, is not requiring a negative COVID-19 test.

Cyprus will allow visitors from countries considered to have dealt with the pandemic successfully, which it divided into two lists. Travellers from the 19 countries in List A face no restrictions, while those coming from countries in List B must provide a health certificate. The UK and Russia remain barred for now.

The Czech Republic opened its borders to citizens from more than 20 European countries from June 15. But visitors from the UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands will be required to take a test or stay in quarantine.

Denmark on June 15 started to allow travellers from Germany, Norway and Iceland to enter. Citizens from other European countries will be allowed to enter from June 27, except Sweden and Portugal. EU and Schengen countries, including the UK, will be individually assessed. A country will be classified as open if it has less than 20 infected per 100,000 inhabitants per week.





Estonia reopened borders on June 1 to visitors from within Europe, but those arriving from countries with high infection rates face quarantine

Slovakia allowed people travelling to and from another 16 European countries from June 10. The border opened a week earlier for the visitors from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. All new arrivals must go into quarantine for 14 days.

Finland opened its border on June 15 to Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It also allowed recreational boats from Schengen countries. Visitors from other countries might be allowed in after July 14.

France opened its borders to the European Union and Schengen countries on June 15, excluding Spain until June 21. However, a voluntary quarantine will be required from the travellers from countries that imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine in an uncoordinated way.

On July 1, France reopened its borders to 15 non-EU member states.

Germany on June 15 stopped its land border checks and removed travel warnings for its citizens for 29 European countries. Its travel restrictions for visitors from outside the EU remains in place until at least August 31.

Georgia reopened domestic tourism on June 15 and will allow the arrival of foreign tourists from July 1.

Greece opened its borders on June 15, and on July 1, it reopened its regional airports to international flights.

Visitors from some countries, including France, Belgium and Italy, will have to be tested on arrival and go into quarantine, while others will be subject to random tests and no further restrictions.

Hungary has its borders open with Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia. It is expected to lift a state of emergency on June 20.

Iceland lifted its travel restrictions for passengers from the EU and the Schengen Zone on June 15, but arrivals have to either get tested for COVID-19 or stay in self-quarantine.





Ireland is to lift all domestic travel restrictions on June 29. From July 20, theatres, cinemas and nightclubs will be allowed to resume operations. On June 18, the government will review a 14-day quarantine requirement for international arrivals as the country seeks to reopen borders in the coming months.

Italy opened its borders on June 3 to visitors from the EU, UK, and Schengen area. Tourists from the rest of the world have to self-quarantine for 14 days on arrival.

Kosovo is expected to open all land borders from June 22. Currently, there are no quarantine requirements in place. However, there are medical teams at crossing points monitoring visitors.

Latvia opened its borders to its Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania on May 15 to create a Baltic Bubble. Since June 1, there have been no border checks with Lithuania. Latvias borders, similar to those of other Baltic states, are open to visitors from the EU and European Economic Area countries. However, all passengers will have to self-quarantine unless their country of origin has had fewer than 15 per 100,000 inhabitants infected in the past 14 days.

Lithuania allows visitors coming from EU and European Economic Area countries where the infection rate is less than 25 cases per 100,000 people in the past 14 days.

Liechtenstein lifted entry restrictions on all EU and Schengen Zone countries on June 15.

Luxembourg opened its border with Germany on May 15.

Malta opened its borders on July 1 to visitors from several EU and Schengen Area member states, as well as from Sicily and Israel. Tourists will not need to enter self-quarantine if they meet the entry requirements.

Moldova has restricted the entry of foreigners until June 30; it also requires a 14-day home-stay quarantine for new arrivals.

Montenegro allows entry without quarantine, as long as travellers are coming from a country with less than 25 active COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The government keeps a list of countries that are considered safe to accept travellers from.

The Netherlands has extended a ban on non-essential travel from outside the EU to July 1. Citizens of the EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland can visit the Netherlands. People must self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

Norway opened its border with Denmark and Finland on June 15. By July 20, entry from other nearby European countries may be considered.





Poland on June 13 reopened its borders to visitors from the EU without requiring quarantine. Some domestic flights are operating, and international flights are expected to resume on July 16.

Portugal opened its borders to international visitors on July 1. Travellers will have to present negative COVID-19 test results from within 72 hours prior to travel, or be tested on arrival.

Romania on June 1 eased international travel restrictions. Visitors, including those arriving from the EU, Switzerland and the UK are required to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Russia bans the entry of foreign nationals, except diplomats, aeroplane crew members, residents or transit passengers.

Serbia on May 22 opened its borders to all foreigners without the need to self-quarantine or to undergo a medical test.

Slovakia on June 10 opened its borders to visitors coming from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Slovenia and Switzerland. Arrivals from Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary had been allowed earlier.

Slovenia opened its borders to tourists coming from the EU, Schengen Area countries and the UK. Visitors from these countries will not need to self-quarantine upon arrival. Masks are mandatory in public.

Restaurants and bars can operate their patios, and some hotels have opened. Transportation remains somewhat limited.

Spain reopened its border to the EU and Schengen area on June 21, Portugal was the exception, but the two borders reopened on July 1.

Sweden has opened its borders to visitors from EU countries as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. From June 30, Sweden is also expected to lift its advice against non-essential travel to 10 European countries, including Belgium, Croatia, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland.

The borders remain closed to non-EU citizens.

Switzerland on June 15 lifted its entry restrictions on all EU countries, as well as the UK, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland.

The United Kingdom since June 8 requires all arrivals, including its own nationals, to self-quarantine for 14 days as well as provide journey and contact details. Only people coming from Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands are exempt.

Ukraine resumed international air travel on June 15 in its 15 airports. Ukraine International Airlines are expected to carry out temperature screenings before boarding and disinfect planes between flights.
By Trend

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has called on the government to have control over the economic effects of the COVID-19 coronavirus, and to take care of the low-income class - as priorities, Trend reports via IRNA.

"Although economists believe that the economic effects of COVID-19 are more lasting and harmful than the coronavirus itself, the government has been implementing special measures to prevent any serious damage done to people," said Rouhani during the meeting of the government's economic coordination headquarters.

Rouhani pointed out that the government didn't have major problems with supplying the low-income class with essential goods.

"Close monitoring and timely response to rising prices are of the most serious tasks for the government officials, producers and sellers, said Rouhani. Any negligence in this regard is unacceptable.

Rouhani stressed that the new 'negative psychological wave' should not be allowed to overshadow the living conditions of the people.

Referring to high prices of housing and home appliances in recent days, he said that with the policies proposed by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development and the Ministry of Industry to the government's economic headquarters, efforts will be made to manage the prices.

Rouhani added that accelerating implementation of large-scale national housing projects is among the effective measures to control the housing prices.

The president also called on the Central Bank to take the necessary steps to increase the share of housing construction credits and loans in order to strengthen supply and move on with the national housing project.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
UIA delivers 178 Ukrainian seasonal workers to Poland Focus

263 Ukrainian citizens who could not get back home due to quarantine restrictions have been finally evacuated from Canada. Ukraine's Embassy in Canada posted this on Twitter.

Ukraine's International Airlines company performed this flight.

"263 Ukrainians returned home with Toronto-Kyiv special flight. We hope we won't be needing them anymore", reads the message.

Earlier, another 277 Ukrainian citizens left the United States with a special flight.

As is known, on March 12, the Ukrainian government imposed a quarantine to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The air traffic was blocked from March 28 until now, June 15; respectively, all checkpoints on the Ukrainian border were shut down.

The Austrian government ordered to prolong the ban on hosting air flights from ten countries. This is mentioned in the decree by the Austrian Healthcare Ministry, Ukrinform reports.

"The ban on planes landing from 10 countries, which expired on June 14, is extended until June 30", reads the message.

The list of countries includes China, Iran, Belarus, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia and Ukraine. Italy's region of Lombardy is there as well.
PHILADELPHIA, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced that 22 early-career researchers have been selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. These talented scientists will receive four years of funding to invest in foundational research to pursue scientific breakthroughs and advance human health.

"Pew is proud to support these promising researchers as they conduct world-class research to address biomedicine's most complex questions," said Rebecca W. Rimel, Pew's president and CEO. "They join a group of distinguished scientists who have worked for decades to advance science and protect public health."

The 2020 class of scholarsall of whom hold assistant professor positionsare new members of a vibrant community of more than 1,000 scientists who have received awards from Pew since 1985. Current scholars meet annually to share their research and exchange perspectives across diverse health disciplines.

"As all researchers know, science's work is never truly done. By leveraging findings and investigating new ways to solve problems, this year's class will continue the legacy of countless Pew scholars before them," said Craig C. Mello, Ph.D., a 1995 Pew scholar, 2006 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, and chair of the national advisory committee for the scholars program. "I'm confident that these scholars will help push scientific boundaries."

The 2020 scholars were chosen from 191 applicants nominated by leading academic institutions and researchers across the United States. This year's class includes scientists exploring why female mammals age differently than males, how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease, and the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Five members of the 2020 class, who were selected for their commitment to investigating health challenges relating to the brain as it ages, will receive awards with support from the Kathryn W. Davis Peace by Pieces Fund.

The 2020 Pew scholars in the biomedical sciences are:

Michael Baym, Ph.D.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Baym will study how bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics.

Berenice Benayoun, Ph.D.

University of Southern California

Dr. Benayoun will explore why female mammals age differently than males.

Shelby Blythe, Ph.D.

Northwestern University

Dr. Blythe will identify the factors that initiate the wave of gene activation in the earliest moments of embryonic development.

Xiaolu (Lulu) Cambronne, Ph.D.

University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Cambronne will explore how cells compartmentalize metabolites that have distinct regulatory roles in different cellular locations.

Carlos Carmona-Fontaine, Ph.D.

New York University

Dr. Carmona-Fontaine will explore how cancer cells coordinate their metastatic spread.

Juan Du, Ph.D.

Van Andel Research Institute

Dr. Du will investigate the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Daria Esterhazy, Ph.D.

The University of Chicago

Dr. Esterhazy will explore how intestinal infections can trigger an immune reaction in the pancreas.

Gilad D. Evrony, M.D., Ph.D.

New York University Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Evrony will develop single-cell technologies for constructing a "family tree" of human brain cells.

Sarah Keane, Ph.D.

University of Michigan

Dr. Keane will explore how the structural configurations of large RNA precursors control the production of smaller regulatory RNA molecules.

Meghan Koch, Ph.D.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Koch will explore how maternal antibodies promote early childhood growth and health.

Evan Macosko, M.D., Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Macosko will develop genomic technologies to discover pathological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

Sonya Neal, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego

Dr. Neal will examine the quality control mechanism that allows cells to clear away potentially toxic misfolded proteins.

Lauren O'Connell, Ph.D.

Stanford University

Dr. O'Connell will identify the neural circuits that prompt infants to cry when hungry.

Lauren Orefice, Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Orefice will explore how changes in sensory input from the skin and gastrointestinal tract can influence brain development in people with autism spectrum disorders.

Eunyong Park, Ph.D.

University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Park will demonstrate the mechanism of biogenesis and quality control of mitochondria.

Benjamin Parker, Ph.D.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Dr. Parker wills use the pea aphid insect and its microbial partners as basic research organisms to study host-microbe symbiosis, or the biological interaction between host and microbe.

Seth Shipman, Ph.D.

Gladstone Institutes

Dr. Shipman will develop a novel method for introducing engineered DNA sequences into living cells.

Nicholas Steinmetz, Ph.D.

University of Washington

Dr. Steinmetz will explore how different brain regions cooperate to make decisions.

Samuel H. Sternberg, Ph.D.

Columbia University

Dr. Sternberg will explore the development of a CRISPR-Cas system with enhanced efficiency and safety.

Christoph Thaiss, Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Thaiss will investigate how immune cells contribute to tissue maintenance, and how loss of this housekeeping function exacerbates disease.

Andrew Wang, M.D., Ph.D.

Yale University

Dr. Wang will explore how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease.

Jeffrey Woodruff, Ph.D.

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. Woodruff will explore how mammalian egg cells maintain their quality even after decades spent awaiting fertilization.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Learn more at pewtrusts.org.

Erin Davis, 202-540-6677, [email protected]

SOURCE The Pew Charitable Trusts

Related Links

www.pewtrusts.org


Egypt will gradually resume regular international flights at all its airports starting from July 1, but foreign tourists will only be allowed into three coastal governorates, the civil aviation minister said on Sunday.

Flights will be resumed with countries that have reopened their airports, minister Mohamed Manar told a televised briefing, adding that the ministry has upgraded airports nationwide during the period of flight suspension.

Egypt halted all international flights on 19 March in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It has since only allowed its airports to open to domestic, freight and special repatriation flights.

The areas that will open for foreign tourists in the first stage are South Sinai, where the popular seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh is located, the Red Sea govenorate, home to the city of Hurghada, and Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean.

The government said last week it would reopen the country's major coastal resorts for international flights and foreign tourists starting the beginning of July.

Manar said that authorities have adopted a series of preventative measures to stem the spread of the virus during the reopening stages.

He said that travellers must sign an acknowledgement at departure airports that they are free of the virus prior to boarding their planes and before receiving the boarding pass.

Travellers coming to Egypt from countries with high rates of coronavirus infections, based on evaluation by the World Health Organization (WHO), will be required to submit PCR test results before travelling to prove they are coronavirus-free.

Speaking about Egyptian airlines, the minister said passengers would be required to keep a safe distance from one another in queues and during boarding and embarking from the plane.

Passengers and aircrew will also be obligated to wear masks on board planes.

Planes will be sanitised after each trip, he noted, adding that only dry meals and canned drinks are to be provided, while paper publications like magazines and newspapers will not be allowed onboard.

Disinfectants, gloves and masks will be available on board in a special bag for each traveller, the minister also said.

Special seats will be designated for people with chronic diseases who cannot wear masks for a long time.

Two rows at the end of each plane would be allocated for isolating any passengers who may show symptoms, in addition to allocating a private restroom, and one of the flight personnel to serve them.

Speaking about airports, the minister said authorities have put in place measures to ensure physical distancing. Travellers' temperatures will be measured at the sterilisation gates and all baggage will be sanitised before being placed on the luggage belt.

Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled El-Enany, who also spoke during the joint news conference, said tourist sites across the country will be allowed to gradually reopen starting July 1, with a 20% discount on tickets offered to travellers of Egyptian airlines.

Officials said Egypts seaside resorts have been least affected by the coronavirus, unlike Greater Cairo which has racked up the lions share of the infections.

Other areas across the country will gradually open up for foreign tourists later based on the development of the pandemic, the tourism minister said.

The government has so far allowed dozens of hotels to operate at a reduced occupancy rate after adhering to safety protocols. The move is meant to revive its key tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the virus restrictions.

The permitted occupancy was initially set at 25 percent of the usual capacity, but was increased to 50 percent earlier this month.

Al-Anani announced a set of precautions to be adopted before resuming tourist trips, including obligating tourism firms to provide their clients with protective face masks.

He said that parties and shisha smokers will not be allowed inside hotels, adding that spaces between dining tables at hotels' restaurants will be wider.

Each room at operational hotels will not be allowed to house more than two guests.

Each tourist group should consist of no more than 25 people until further notice.

The number of visitors of major museums, such as Cairo's Egyptian Museum, will not exceed 200 visitors per hour, while other museums will not receive more than 100 per hour.

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Linkedin (Reuters) London  Mon, June 15, 2020 12:08 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec28fc 2 News United-Kingdom,travel,quarantine,coronavirus,COVID-19 Free

Britain's government is looking at options for its two-week quarantine for people entering the country and might be able to make changes to the rules, finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday.

"We all want to see travel open again, of course we do, and like everything else we want to make sure we have the right measures at the right time informed by the science and everything else that we have to consider," Sunak told BBC television.

"We are looking at all options to ensure that that is possible and people have got suggestions about how we might be able to open up some travel corridors over time and so the transport secretary is actively looking at all of those options."

The government has come under heavy pressure from the travel industry and other sectors over the quarantine policy which it introduced last week. Airlines said it will hammer jobs and tourism.
UAE spends billions on arms imports despite plummeting revenues

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 5:50 AM

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has spent billions of dollars on buying weapons over the past years, draining the country's financial liquidity at a time when revenues have plummeted amid crude price rout and the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Latest figures released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) show the tiny country imported a total of $4.98 billion worth of arms between 2015 and 2019.

The purchases made the UAE the eighth-largest arms importer in the world during the period, with more than two-thirds of all purchased weapons coming from the US.

The data, however, does not include any additional expenditures on the UAE's military forces, or the financing of its military interventions in Yemen and Libya.

In Yemen, Abu Dhabi is a key party to a Saudi-led military coalition that has been waging a bloody war on the impoverished country since early 2015.

In Libya, the UAE supports forces loyal to renegade general Khalifa Haftar, who has been trying to storm Tripoli and unseat the internationally-recognized government headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. The UN says Abu Dhabi has supplied aircraft and military vehicles to Haftar.

According to the SIPRI figures, the UAE's arms imports stood at $1.22 billion, $955 million, $965 million, $1.2 billion and $644 million, between 2015 and 2019, respectively.

The military expenditure comes as the economy of the oil-rich Persian Gulf Arab country has been rocked by slumping oil prices driven by the decrease in demand amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Earlier this week, the central bank of the UAE predicted that the country's economy is likely to contract by 3.6 percent this year.

In the first quarter of 2020, it said, the UAE economy shrank by 1 percent year on year, with non-oil gross domestic product down by 3 percent.

Back in April, the UAE's capital city of Abu Dhabi sold $7 billion in bonds in a bid to gain extra liquidity.

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Conservation groups in South Carolina are challenging a 3,000-acre (12,100-hectare) development project in Charleston over concerns that a loss of wetlands could worsen flooding in an already flood-prone area.

The Sierra Club and the South Carolina Wildlife Federation argue that the Long Savannah community development in the West Ashley area of Charleston would affect more than 200 acres (81 hectares) of wetlands that would otherwise store floodwaters during major storms.

The challenge comes amid a much wider debate over Charlestons future as a coastal city as sea levels rise and floods become more frequent. The development is west of the Church Creek drainage basin, where the city has bought out dozens of flooded homes since 2017 through Federal Emergency Management Agency grants.

The environmental groups filed a petition for the state board of the Department of Environmental Health and Control to overturn certifications for the project issued under the federal Clean Water Act by agency staff.

During this day and time, we know better than to fill and build in floodplain wetlands, said Amy Armstrong, executive director of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, which is representing the groups.

These activities have led to peoples homes being repeatedly flooded and have exacerbated flooding by eliminating important flood buffering wetland systems, she added in her statement.

The Long Savannah proposal has been hailed as one of the largest developments in Charlestons history. Work on the project stalled following the deep 2008 recession.

Developer Taylor Bush said the project will also include a 1,628-acre (660-hectare) public park and an agreement that protects nearly 1,900 acres (nearly 770 hectares) of freshwater wetlands within the property from future development.

Because of these commitments and the incorporated drainage improvements, the project provides a significant public benefit, Bush said in an email. DHEC recognized this benefit as reflected in the issuance of its certifications.

In addition to state certifications and federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, developers must also comply with municipal stormwater ordinances.

Matthew Fountain, Charlestons director of stormwater management, said developers should implement best management practices to mitigate any problems caused to stormwater by building on wetlands.

About 12.3% of the project area lies within the Church Creek drainage basin.

Liu 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.
The Adaklu District Assembly, has presented 508 dual desks, valued at GHS127,079 to the District Directorate of Education for distribution to various schools in the area.



The desks were procured with funds from the investment grant under the District Performance Appraisal Tool.



The DCE, Mr Phanuel Donkor Kadey said that education was one of the topmost priority areas in which the assembly was poised to invest in.



Pursuant to that, he said, work was ongoing on a six-unit classroom block at Anfoe, and at Waya as well.



For now, we are committing the total investment grant to education development, although the funds could also be used to support the areas health, sanitation and security as well, Mr Kadey added.





He said that the dual desks would cater for 1,016 pupils and help largely to address the furniture deficit of 5,000 in the schools.



Meanwhile, the DCE gave the assurance that the assembly would provide another set of 600 dual desks to the schools in October, this year, in addition to mono-desks and kindergarten furniture.



The District Director of Education, Mr Francis Yao Agbemadi, expressed gratitude for the items, saying the provision of furniture has led to effective teaching and learning.



He announced that the desk would be distributed among 11 schools immediately.



Mr Agbemadi affirmed that the District Directorate of Education would collaborate with the heads of the beneficiary schools to ensure that the desks are well maintained.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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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ALTON  The protests and rioting across the nation in reaction to George Floyds death while in police custody have seemingly caused a spike in firearm and ammunition sales in the Riverbend region, local gun dealers say.

The Illinois State Police (ISP) Firearm Services Bureau, which issues state Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) cards and performs the required firearms purchase background checks, received 17 new applications for FOID cards May 25, the date of Floyds death in Minneapolis. The next day, 1,742 applications were received. The numbers peaked June 2 when the bureau received 4,916 FOID card applications in a single day.

Sales are significantly up, owner of Altons Piasa Armory Scott Pulaski said.

They are buying anything and everything, but mostly defensive firearms, things like handguns, AR-15s and defensive shotguns.

The surge in firearm and ammunition sales is due in large part to first-time gun buyers who are using their FOID card for the first time, gun sellers have said.

They are nervous, they are seeing the events going on around the country and are saying how theyve been thinking about it for a while and decided now is the time, Pulaski said. Most folks have had their FOID cards for a while, but have never made a purchase.

Pulaski said many first-time buyers are surprised to learn that it can take days from the time they enter a gun shop until they walk out with a firearm. All buyers must have a valid FOID card and undergo an Illinois State Police background check, which Pulaski said normally takes approximately one day, but more recently has stretched to six or more days in certain cases. Those who pass the background check then have to wait 72 hours before they can pick up the firearm that they purchased.

So they are getting delayed access to the stuff that they are legally able to own, Pulaski said.

We have also had a huge delay in people receiving their FOID cards. It was slow before this buying surge started, and now its even worse.

At Outrageous Outdoors, in Jerseyville, owner Bob Jones said gun sales are up and about one half of the purchases are from first-time buyers.

They feel that they need to protect themselves and their homes now, because they keep hearing that the protests and riots are going to start in the rural areas, Jones said.

The time required to purchase a firearm in Jersey County is no less than in Madison County.

The background check approvals now are actually running four or five days, and we cant transfer the gun until we get that approval back, Jones said.

New FOID card applications between March and May this year totaled 84,829 compared to 48,194 from last December through February, ISP spokesperson Beth Hundsdorfer said. To meet the increased demand, Firearm Services Bureau staff are working one extra week, in overtime hours, every month and the bureau hired 10 new trainees with an additional 20 hires pending, she said.

Hundsdorfer said the bureau is within the statutory timelines for processing firearms transaction background checks, but it is outside of those timelines for new FOID processing. The Firearms Services Bureau continues to work to get through these new applications to return to processing within the statutory guidelines, she said.

State officials arent the only ones struggling to keep up with the firearms sale increase. Local retailers are having a hard time keeping items on the shelves and in the gun racks.

The manufacturers and distributors are behind on a lot, everything across the board  pistols, rifles, shotguns, anything you would typically see for a home defense situation, said STS Armory owner Katie Johnson. We are out of stock on a lot of things right now, and weve had to back order a number of items.

Johnson said the sales increase at her Pontoon Beach store began with the COVID-19 crisis.

People are becoming awakened by whats going on, the times we are in, Johnson said. The world is not necessarily all made of rainbows and sunshine. They want to figure out how to defend themselves should they ever be put in a situation where they need it.

Edwardsvilles Goshen Guns has seen a significant uptick in sales of home defense-style firearms and ammunition, including the old reliable favorite, the pump-action shotgun.

The pump shotgun has a very distinctive noise when it is racked, or loaded, a very loud click-clack noise, Goshen Guns owner Terry Bast said and hopefully the home intruder hears that and decides its time to go. The goal of any self-defense product is to make the aggressor go away.

Having a defensive firearm is one thing, but using it is another. All of the people interviewed for this story stressed that every gun owner should be properly trained to safely handle their particular firearm.

In a worst-case scenario, when a gun owner has to decide whether to pull the trigger while facing another human being, there are very serious consequences that must be considered.

You have to be in danger of death or great bodily harm before you can use a firearm, said Illinois State Rifle Associations Richard Pearson, executive director. Whether you are in or out of your home has some bearing on it. It also depends if you are an older person against a younger person, or a woman against a man, several people against one. But if you are under attack, you have to do what you have to do to defend yourself.

Pearson said it is not considered self-defense if you shoot someone who is fleeing from you. If you do shoot and injure or kill someone, the incident will be treated as a crime scene, the police will investigate, a states attorney will decide whether to charge you, and you may have to defend yourself in court, he said.

Pearson said if civil unrest occurs, and you have a valid FOID card and a legally-obtained firearm, you can carry a loaded weapon to defend your property as long as you are physically on your property. Pearson added that both the Illinois and U.S. supreme courts have ruled that the police have a duty to protect the public at large, but no duty to protect any individual person. Thus, self-defense is a personal issue.

You need to think it through. Do you really want to do this, are you capable of doing it? Pearson said. Its not just saying at the coffee shop that youre capable, its serious business.
[June 14, 2020]

Changhong Showcases Full Range of High-end Smart Home Appliances at 127th Online Canton Fair

SICHUAN, China, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Changhong, one of the leading home appliance manufacturers in China, will present its full range of high-end home appliances for global markets at the 127th Canton Fair from June 15 to June 24.

Themed "Smart Connectivity  Life Simplified", Changhong has created a new online VR exhibition hall to deliver an immersive visual experience to global buyers through a mix of videos, images, and 3D representations, enabling an enhanced understanding of the new product line-ups.

5G+8K TV Q7ART

Backed by 5G technology, Changhong TV has three advantages: high-speed data transfer rate, large capacity and low time consumption. Its 5G+8K TV, Q7ART, can quickly connect to a wider range of TV-centric smart IoT devices, achieving the interonnection between families, communities and cities.







Frameless Smart Android TVs

Changhong's K9 and Q6N are equipped with the latest Android system, realizing the smart connection between viewers and TVs. Powered by Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos systems, the two models provide consumers with a high-quality surround-sound experience like seating in a modern movie theater. The three-sided metal frameless design enables a screen-to-body ratio exceeding 95%, delivering both an ultra-wide view and ultra-large screen watching experience.

Space Pro 2.0 Refrigerator

The Space Pro 2.0 Refrigerator features 3D double curved glass doors and the application of GLS integrated technology. Comparing with traditional refrigerators, the appliance allows an overall reduction in the body width of 11%, an increase in the interior space size of 20% and a decrease in the floorspace amount of 38%. The Space Pro 2.0 comes with an upgrade that activates the water molecules in the stored food to preserve their freshness.

UVC Air-conditioner

The Dazzle UVC air conditioner deploys a 200-280 nm dual LED lamp, coupled with a nano-scale antiviral filter that disrupts the bacterial DNA molecules, reaching a 99.2% sterilization efficiency. The air-conditioner comes equipped with 58C high-temperature self-cleaning and mold removal features.

Changhong also plans to launch its latest curved screen monitor and commercial display screens.

Changhong's products including televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, commercial display screens and small appliances are currently sold in more than 100 countries and regions. Its another brand CHiQ has entered markets of Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America. The company has established a number of R&D centers, production facilities and sales subsidiaries worldwide.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190458/Changhong.jpg
R estaurants and cafes were reopening fully in Paris today after President Macron announced he was accelerating the lifting of lockdown in France.

It coincided with borders opening across Europe after three months of closures due to the coronavirus.

Announcing the reopening of borders and Paris restaurants for dining inside, the President said it was time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom. Restaurants, hotels and cafes were allowed to reopen in many parts of France earlier this month  provided distancing rules were observed.

Mr Macron confirmed that from today, this would also happen in the Paris region, which recorded the highest number of cases in the country.

He also said that schools would reopen from June 22  except for high schools. Germany, Belgium, Croatia and Switzerland were also fully reopening borders with EU countries today.

Travellers from the UK will be able to visit them without quarantine or restrictions on arrival. However, those travelling to France from the UK or Spain face a two-week isolation period on arrival.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the country was moving forward its opening to European travellers by 10 days to June 21.

We have got the pandemic under control, but the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment, he said.
Will receive  0.7 million public funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation





In collaboration with the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Vall dHebron in Barcelona (VHIR)

MADRID, Spain and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oryzon Genomics, S.A. (ISIN Code: ES0167733015, ORY), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging epigenetics to develop therapies in diseases with strong unmet medical need, announced today that its project entitled VENCER: Vafidemstat: Efficacy in the treatment against Schizophrenia and other related pathologies has been approved for funding by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the 2019 call of the governmental R&D RETOS-COLABORACION program. The company will carry out this project in Collaboration with the Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) in Barcelona. The project has an initial global budget of  1,129,716.

This new public funding, structured in the form of a preferential long-term soft-loan for companies and non-reimbursable grants for the participating Public Research Organizations, comprises a loan to Oryzon for 688,517 plus a grant of 332,601 to the VHIR. The project will explore the efficacy of vafidemstat, a Phase II drug in development in central nervous system (CNS) disorders, in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia or related psychiatric disorders. This funding will partially cover the activities of the project, including activities related to a Phase II clinical study in schizophrenia patients and a set of additional research to gain further insight into the activity of vafidemstat in these psychiatric patients. The project is foreseen to last a maximum of 39 months, with a start scheduled for next October 1, 2020.

The Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) led by Dr Ramos-Quiroga and Oryzon have already successfully collaborated on a recent Phase IIa clinical trial called REIMAGINE, where vafidemstat was shown to reduce agitation and aggression in psychiatric patients with borderline personality disorder, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as to improve their general clinical condition. In addition to the interest that vafidemstats mechanism of action has for general population with schizophrenia, independent research results recently published by U.S. universities show that some genetic mutations involved in the evolution of schizophrenia can be mitigated by Oryzons LSD1 inhibitors.

Story continues

Roger Bullock, Chief Medical Officer of Oryzon, commented: "This new study in schizophrenia patients will continue the efforts made in the last three years to demonstrate the ability of vafidemstat to exert a positive effect in the treatment of disorders of the behavior in a wide range of neurodegenerative and psychiatric indications and we hope that in the future it will provide positive results in these patients such as those already presented in the REIMAGINE and REIMAGINE-AD trials in patients with borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Ramos-Quiroga, Head of the Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) said, The epigenetic modulation exerted by vafidemstat has opened up a new paradigm in the search for safer and more efficacious treatments for mental disorders where neurodevelopment dysfunctions co-exist with environmental triggers.

About Oryzon

Founded in 2000 in Barcelona, Spain, Oryzon (ISIN Code: ES0167733015) is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company considered as the European champion in Epigenetics. Oryzon has one of the strongest portfolios in the field. Oryzons LSD1 program has rendered two compounds, vafidemstat and iadademstat, in clinical trials. In addition, Oryzon has ongoing programs for developing inhibitors against other epigenetic targets. Oryzon has a strong technological platform for biomarker identification and performs biomarker and target validation for a variety of malignant and neurological diseases. Oryzon has offices in Spain and the United States. For more information, visit www.oryzon.com



About Vafidemstat

Vafidemstat (ORY-2001) is an oral, CNS optimized LSD1 inhibitor. The molecule acts on several levels: it reduces cognitive impairment, including memory loss and neuroinflammation, and at the same time has neuroprotective effects. In animal studies vafidemstat not only restores memory but reduces the exacerbated aggressiveness of SAMP8 mice, a model for accelerated aging and Alzheimers disease (AD), to normal levels and also reduces social avoidance and enhances sociability in murine models. In addition, vafidemstat exhibits fast, strong and durable efficacy in several preclinical models of multiple sclerosis (MS). Oryzon has performed a Phase IIa clinical trial in aggressiveness in patients with different psychiatric disorders (REIMAGINE) and in aggressive/agitated patients with moderate or severe AD (REIMAGINE-AD), with positive preliminary clinical results reported. Additional Phase IIa clinical trials with vafidemstat are ongoing in patients with Mild to Moderate AD (ETHERAL), where a significant reduction of the inflammatory biomarker YKL40 has been observed after 6 months of treatment, and in Relapse-Remitting and Secondary Progressive MS (SATEEN).

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This communication contains, or may contain, forward-looking information and statements about Oryzon, including financial projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions, statements regarding plans, objectives and expectations with respect to future operations, capital expenditures, synergies, products and services, and statements regarding future performance. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally identified by the words expects, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates and similar expressions. Although Oryzon believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors and holders of Oryzon shares are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Oryzon that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include those discussed or identified in the documents sent by Oryzon to the Spanish Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), which are accessible to the public. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and have not been reviewed by the auditors of Oryzon. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were made. All subsequent oral or written forward-looking statements attributable to Oryzon or any of its members, directors, officers, employees or any persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statement above. All forward-looking statements included herein are based on information available to Oryzon on the date hereof. Except as required by applicable law, Oryzon does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States or any other jurisdiction. Oryzons securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration. Any public offering of Oryzons securities to be made in the United States will be made by means of a prospectus that may be obtained from Oryzon or the selling security holder, as applicable, that will contain detailed information about Oryzon and management, as well as financial statements.
London Breast Care Centre (LBCC), one of Bahrain's leading multi-disciplinary wellness clinics, has introduced a new service that allows customers to receive checkups for core vitals and vitamins at the comfort of their home.

The Vital Home service is aimed at patients who are unable to visit the hospital, or for whom is it unsafe to do so, especially during the current pandemic.

A consultant GP, who will adhere to strict sanitisation practices, will visit the patient and test for all essential vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin D, B12, and Iron as well as blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory rate, and red and white blood cell count. Specialised tests are also offered for diabetes, hydration, thyroid, and liver functions.

LBCC Chief Surgeon and Proprietor Dr. Sara Al Reefy said: LBCC is well reputed for its early detection campaigns and state-of-the-art mammogram and ultrasound tests for breast cancer diagnoses. However, given the current circumstances, we have added this basic home health care package to serve people for whom visiting a hospital is no longer the best option, such as those who are immunocompromised, elderly, bedridden, have mobility issues, or simply want to avoid crowds as a precaution.

She added: Regular checkups are an important preventative health measure and help to fight the onset of disease. For instance, irregularities in white blood cells can be a sign of immune deficiencies, and if we spot this early on, we can help prevent illnesses from occurring.

Dr. Al Reefy also warns of Vitamin D deficiencies that may have set in due to people not leaving their homes as much as before. Due to our hot climate, we tend to avoid the sun, and given the current situation, many of us have not been leaving the house as much as before, which can cause increased Vitamin D deficiency. Moreover, women are often deficient in Vitamin B12, which causes mood instability. Such deficiencies can be treated easily if detected early on, she said. - TradeArabia News Service
A nurse suspected of killing eight elderly patients over a two-year period in a rest home where he worked was arrested this morning.

The 57-year-old, named in local news reports as Leopoldo Wick from Grottammare, was charged with injecting patients with massive, fatal doses of medication.

The arrest came after a long investigation into unusually high rates of deaths at the RSA di Offida, a nursing home in the town of Offida in the Ascoli Piceno province.

The 57-year-old, named in local reports as Leopoldo Wick, was arrested this morning on suspicion of killing eight nursing home patients

Wick, from Grottammare, is suspected of giving patients at the nursing home in Offida a lethal dose of medication

He is believed to have carried out the killings, injecting a lethal amounts of insulin and promazine, between January 2017 and February 2019.

The nurse is also a suspect in the attempted murder of four other patients, according to news reports.

Public prosecutors launched the investigation in September 2018, questioning his colleagues and acquiring medical records of some guests before ultimately tracing the cases back to him.

Wick was aware of the year and a half long investigation police investigation into his conduct.

The Corriere della Sera reported that Wick, who is married and has one daughter, said he was innocent when he was arrested.
Regulator Sebi on Monday barred Vaibhav Dhadda, an employee of Fidelity International Ltd, his mother Alka and sister Arushi from the capital markets for indulging in ''front running'' activities.

Sebi said that detailed investigation in the matter is in progress which may bring out additional roles of the entities, if any. In a confirmatory order, the regulator has restrained Vaibhav Dhadda (or Avi Dhadda), Alka Dhadda and Arushi Dhadda "from buying, selling or dealing in the securities market or associating themselves with securities market, either directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever till further directions".

Sebi, through an interim order passed in December 2019, had restrained these persons from the capital markets.

It further said that they have not been able to make out a prima facie case for revocation of the interim order.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi) surveillance system had generated alerts for possible instances of front running by certain entities during May-August 2019.

Following this, the regulator conducted a preliminary probe to look into the possible violations of various norms, including PFTUP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices).

The Sebi probe found that Vaibhav, being the trader on behalf of the Fidelity Group, was in possession of non-public information of the impending trades of Fidelity Group entities.

He had directed his mother and sister to open bank accounts and trading accounts immediately before executing the prima facie front running trades.

He had transferred funds to his mother. His mother who has no source of income, had transferred funds to Arushi, who is a student with no source of income.

Avi admittedly had access to the trading accounts of Alka and Arushi and had executed the front running trades from their trading accounts, the regulator said. Besides, Alka and Arushi by opening trading accounts and bank accounts and by giving access to Avi of their trading accounts have participated in the scheme to front run the trades, it added.

The regulator, further, said that the trading pattern suggested that they took advantage of the impending trading activity of Fidelity Group entities by front running, and thereby generated profits for themselves by the price movement of scrips on account of large buy or sell orders of Fidelity Group entities.

The three persons by their actions have made a wrongful gain of Rs 1.86 crore, the regulator noted. Front running in market parlance means buying or selling securities ahead of a large order so as to benefit from the subsequent price move.

By front running trades, they have violated PFUTP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) Regulations and accordingly in a confirmatory order Sebi prohibited these three persons from the capital markets.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI  Last week, when Max Trierweiler opened The Mitten Brewing Co.s dining room for the first time since March, he felt butterflies in his stomach.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmers order prohibiting in-person dining at Michigans bars and restaurants had been lifted, but it was far from business as usual.
The Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong has said many politicians are unable to criticize their political parties when they err because they fear they will be sabotaged.

According to him, being solid financially and not caring so much about ones wealth will give people boldness to criticize a party they belong to if the party goes wrong.

Speaking on Citi TVs Upside Down variety show, the outspoken legislator said the risk of sabotage against party critics is not peculiar to Ghana.

To speak your mind, you should work hard and have deep pockets. If you are not solid financially, they will sabotage you. Everywhere, politics is like that so for you to speak the truth, even against your own party, you should be financially sound, he said.

Kennedy Agyapong is known for criticizing the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the political party he belongs to on a number of occasions, calling the party out on some decisions he believes are not in the interest of Ghanaians.

Some of his comments have been so critical of the party such that some believe he may face disciplinary action from the party but no such action has been taken against him, allegedly due to his influence and significant financial contributions to the party.

You should not worship your money or wealth because if you do, your mind will tell you that what if I criticize and they come after me, what will happen to my wealth? So let me keep quiet.

I personally dont care about money. I work hard for it, it is good to have it, but I dont let it get into my head so anything that is against Ghanaians, I put money aside and criticize, he said.

He however said, he still prefers being a businessman to a politician.

citinewsroom
LANSING, MI  State officials are urging Michigan boaters to use extreme caution while on the water this season since flooding and high water levels increase the likelihood for hidden debris.

Record or near-record high water levels that have caused extensive erosion and inundated infrastructure across the state in 2020. Along the Great Lakes, erosion and storms have undermined docks, decks, stairs and trees and washed the debris away from the shoreline. On inland lakes, high water can inundate marinas, yards or public property, making it difficult to see structures in the water.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) issued an official warning late last week.

As Michiganders take to the water for recreation, they should use more caution and be aware of dangers that can be lurking in the water, either floating on the surface or submerged by record high water levels, said Jay Eickholt, EGLEs Emergency Management Coordinator. As always, follow all boating regulations and wear life-saving equipment when out on the water. And avoid any debris to protect your watercraft and keep everyone safe.

Things to watch out for in the water and onshore include wooden docks, stairs, decks, trees, structure pilings, nails, screws, shattered boards, branches, exposed rocks, or other manmade and natural debris.

Boaters should be aware of any floating items which could damage hulls or engine propellers or injure anyone who is being towed on flotation devices behind boats. Also, be aware to avoid flooded areas when driving to or from your destination.

There is also an increased need for boaters to adhere to no wake zones while water levels are high, since wakes from vessels can cause overflow onto land or docks, potentially causing property damage, erosion and flooding, and safety concerns.

Property owners are urged to clear items from the shore that may have been damaged by high waves or erosion before they become a potential hazard for recreation. . If any debris is washed up on shore, it is the responsibility of the property owner to dispose of it properly

The Department of Natural Resources provides a county-by-county list of local water controls.

Finally, boaters should also review their insurance policies. According to the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS), damage to watercraft caused by debris in the water can also be costly without proper insurance coverage.
File image: Union Home Minister and BJP leader Amit Shah

Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar said he would attend a meeting on the COVID-19 situation in the city convened by Union Home minister Amit Shah on Monday, and sought suggestions from the people that he would mention there. Kumar said the Congress has been giving positive suggestions for tackling the "deteriorating" situation of pandemic in Delhi and will do so in the meeting with Shah.

"I have received information about the meeting from the home ministry. I will attend the meeting and people can give suggestions which I will place before the home minister of the country," Kumar said.

The Home minister has called an all party meeting to discuss the COVID-19 situation in Delhi on Monday. The Delhi units of BJP, AAP, Congress and BSP have been invited to attend the meeting.

Shah held several meetings on the coronavirus situation in Delhi on Sunday, first with Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and others, and later with the mayors and top officials of municipal bodies.

The Delhi Congress chief expressed satisfaction that suggestions given by him in an all-party meeting on COVID-19 called by the Lt Governor were fulfilled.

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

Although the Lt Governor and now the Home minister have taken this initiative, but no such meeting has been called by the Delhi government, he said.
The so-called Seattle autonomous zone is seen in an aerial picture, in Seattle, Wash., on June 11, 2020. (Lindsey Wasson/Reuters)

Mayhem in Seattle Autonomous Zone as Man Allegedly Breaks Into Store, Police Dont Respond

Update: The suspect was arrested for a separate burglary a day after the break-in.

Original story below.

Chaos erupted near the so-called autonomous zone in Seattle late Sunday when a man allegedly broke into an auto repair store, stealing items and trying to start a fire.

Workers at the business, which sits just outside the zone, called the police but said they never came.

Groups of activists took over an area comprising multiple city blocks in Washington states largest city last week after police officers, who clashed with them, abandoned a precinct building.

Response times to crimes including rape have soared in the area since then, according to Police Chief Carmen Best.

The incident on Sunday was captured by reporters with the Daily Caller and One America News as well as people live streaming video during the occupation.

This still image from video shows the Seattle Police Departments abandoned East Precinct in Seattle, Wash. on June 12, 2020. (Bowen Xiao/The Epoch Times)

It started when the family that owns the business was notified by neighbors that someone was in our parking lot, swinging a hammer around, trying to break into the building, the owners son, Mason McDermott, told The Epoch Times.

The police were called a number of times but they never showed up, the man said.

Its really disheartening, McDermott said, adding that the alleged thief, who is also accused of starting a fire that was quickly put out, stole $500 to $1,000.

As word of what happened made it to occupiers, dozens rushed to the store and tore down fencing separating it from the street. They threatened to kill the owners family and employees if the man wasnt released.

At least two people at the business brandished guns, prompting occupiers to retreat back to the street. Workers said they couldnt search the alleged thief because he wouldnt cooperate with them and eventually let him go.

EXCLUSIVE: I spoke with the son of the Car Tender owner whose store got robbed and set on fire last night. They are 100 yards from #CHAZ. We called the police a number of times. There was no response.. never showed up. Its really disheartening you call and hope they show pic.twitter.com/9eHpQR1zpE  Bowen Xiao (@BowenXiao_) June 15, 2020

This still image from video shows an entrance to the so-called Seattle autonomous zone in Seattle, Wash. on June 14, 2020. (Bowen Xiao/The Epoch Times)

As the activists approached the business, workers decided it wasnt worth the cost to try to keep questioning the man.

Things took another turn when the man who allegedly broke in and started a fire returned to the area outside the store later in the night. He quickly left after workers pointed him out.

That prompted Raz Simone, dubbed the warlord of the autonomous zone, and a group of occupiers to chase down the man. He was detained inside the zone by part of its security force as people made him empty his pockets.

When someone from the crowd tried assaulting the man, he slipped away.

This still image from video shows Raz Simone speaking to The Epoch Times in Seattle, Wash. on June 13, 2020. (Bowen Xiao/The Epoch Times)

No property from the store was recovered except for a jacket he stole from the store, one person who was filming the scene said.

The Seattle Police Department didnt return a voicemail.

The man identified as Car Tenders owner told reporters that he wants to see the East Precinct, which remains boarded up, restored, and called for local officials to step up and represent their constituents.

This whole kind of mob thing doesnt work, he added, estimating the occupation has cost his business some $55,000 so far.

Bowen Xiao contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the location of Car Tender. It is about 100 yards from the autonomous zone. The Epoch Times regrets the error.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 12:38 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec773d 4 National surabaya,District-Court,Court,East-Java,COVID-19,coronavirus Free

The Surabaya District Court in East Java will be closed for almost two weeks after a civil servant working at the court tested positive for COVID-19, while two others also died unexpectedly.

Besides the civil servant who tested positive for COVID-19, a judge and a bailiff died unexpectedly, court spokesman Martin Ginting said as reported by Kompas.com on Sunday.

The judge, Eko Agus Siswanto, died after experiencing seizures and respiratory failure on Friday, while the bailiff, Surachmad, died a day earlier. However, the exact causes of both deaths remain unknown.

Ginting said the Surabaya District Court would be temporarily closed from June 15 to June 26. The closure was stipulated in a court decree.

This decision was made to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission that has entered the circle of civil servants at the Surabaya District Court, said Ginting.

Read also: 'COVID-19 is real': Virus ravages family in Indonesia's second-largest city

Even so, he said, the court would proceed with several criminal trials that could not be delayed as the detention period of the defendants would end soon.

The court will ensure the trials are held under strict health protocols.

No visitors are allowed to enter the court and we will also limit media coverage to only a few journalists, he added.

Despite the closure, some services will still be available, including the online civil case registration system. (syk)
By PTI

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday claimed to have cracked the Anamika Shukla case, arresting three men who got aspiring teachers jobs in government schools on fake documents.

The curious case involved teachers being recruited in state government schools on the basis of educational certificates of one woman -- Anamika Shukla.

She had cleared the eligibility exam.

The fake Anamika Shuklas drew lakhs in salaries from multiple schools, a scam for which the state government drew flak from opposition leaders including Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Last week, police handed over the investigation to its Special Task Force (STF).

"Three persons including the kingpin of the gang were arrested by the STF from Gonda. They were identified as Pushpendra Singh alias Shushil of Mainpuri, Anand of Jaunpur and Ramnath of Kehri," an STF statement said.

Police recovered a licensed pistol and seven cartridges, mobile phones and some documents from them, it said.

Teachers got jobs in Anamika Shukla's name at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) in Allahabad, Amethi, Raebareli,Varanasi, Baghpat, Kasganj, Sahranpur, Ambedkar Nagar and Aligarh, according to earlier reports.

The probe found that the real Anamika Shukla of Gonda had applied for the post of a KGBV teacher in 2017 at Sultanpur, Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Basti and Lucknow.

She got calls from Sultanpur, Jaunpur and Lucknow but due to her health she did not take the job.

But her documents were misused and teachers in several districts worked in her name, the STF said.

The real Anamika had lodged an FIR in this connection in Gonda on June 11, it said.

In Kasganj, a teacher called Priya worked as Anamika Shukla.

She told police that she got the job with Pushpendra's help, the STF said.

Pushpendra's name cropped up during the probe in other districts too.

Police then got a tip-off about his presence near the High Court building in Lucknow and he was arrested along with the two others.

During interrogation, Pushpendra said he got Anamika Shukla's documents from Anand in 2019.

He then took Rs 2 lakh each from the candidates and got them appointment as teachers on fake documents.

The three men were handed over to Gonda police, where an FIR is registered and a detailed probe will continue, the STF said.

Last week, UP Minister for State for Basic Education Satish Dwivedi said the probe so far had revealed that same set of documents were used to draw Rs 12.

24 lakh as salary from nine schools in several districts.

As the case surfaced in the media, at least one Anamika Shukla resigned but was arrested.

The real Anamika Shukla, who was jobless, was on Saturday appointed as an assistant teacher on ad hoc basis by a state-aided private school in Gonda.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:52:43|Editor: huaxia

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VIENTIANE, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Lao National Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control on Monday announced it has been monitoring 3,449 people across the country.

Deputy Director General of the Department of Communicable Disease Control under the Ministry of Health Latsamy Vongkhamsao told a press conference here on Monday that 3,449 people have been quarantined at 94 accommodation centers across the country.

The Lao government continues to implement preventive measures and monitor people entering Laos to prevent the spread of COVID-19, even as the country recorded no new confirmed cases for 64 consecutive days, according to the Center of Information and Education for Health under the Ministry of Health.

On Sunday, a total of 1,284 people entered Laos through international border checkpoints. The temperature of each person entering Laos was checked and no one showed signs of fever.

As of Monday, Laos has tested 11,000 suspected cases with 19 cases tested positive, and all of them have been discharged from hospitals.

Laos announced its first two COVID-19 confirmed cases on March 24, and the last patient was discharged on June 9. Enditem
The first signs that the cluster was linked to Xinfadi came with a man who tested positive after visiting the market on June 3 to buy meat and seafood. Then on Friday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that two quality-control workers who had been in the market checking standards had also tested positive.
In recent research conducted by the US Paulson Institute, it has become clear that China is playing an increasing role in the expansion of green finance throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Using a combination of power politics, financing and infrastructure development, the country is becoming a driving force in the regions transition to green development, especially in clean energy. It is no surprise that a number of the MENA countries have aligned their sustainable development strategies with Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to leverage Chinese firms expertise as well as financing and the promotion of green economic growth. It remains to be seen how successful China will be in changing the behaviour of these countries over the long term to make them more sustainable, however.

Through targeted and strategic investments, China has been able to take a stake in many of the major renewable energy projects in the region. And more importantly, it has positioned Chinese companies, mostly state-owned enterprises, to benefit as suppliers or developers of these projects as a condition of the financing that it provides to support these efforts.

One early investment by the Chinese Silk Road Fund, a government fund to promote development along the Belt and Road, is the funds acquisition of a 49 per cent stake in ACWA Renewable Energy Holding, the renewable energy arm of Saudi Arabias ACWA Power. This deal makes the fund a major shareholder in a portfolio of clean-energy projects that adds up to a sizeable 1,668 MW of electrical generation capacity and provides access to projects across the MENA region.

However, this is not the first time that ACWA Power and the Silk Road Fund have teamed up. The parties also teamed up with Harbin Electric, a Chinese enterprise engaged in research and development and the manufacturing and construction of power plant equipment, to act as the project developer for the 2,400 MW Hassyan Clean Coal Power Plant in Dubai, which has been under construction since 2016. This is the first clean-coal power plant in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

In addition to being part of the consortium acting as the project developer, Harbin Electric also acted as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor along with the US firm General Electric. Financing for the project was provided by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the China Construction Bank and the Silk Road Fund. This ground-breaking project, the second-biggest power plant under Chinas BRI umbrella, shows how Chinese firms are involved throughout the value chain and not solely in the financing of projects. It is a major investment for the region.

Chinas portfolio of clean-energy projects in the region continues to expand. ACWA Power has a stake in significant projects like the Noor Solar Power Station in Morocco, which is the worlds largest concentrated solar power plant, and the Mohamed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Solar Complex in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is one of the worlds largest renewable energy projects based on an independent power-producer model. Through its investment in ACWA Power, China now has a stake in these major projects.

More recently, in April this year the Shanghai Electric Generation Group signed an agreement for the DEWA (Dubai Electricity and Water Authority) 700 MW concentrated solar project (CSP). The DEWA and ACWA Power, in collaboration with Shanghai Electric, will undertake the 700 MW CSP portion of the 950 MW solar project in Dubai. The ICBC is the mandated lead arranger and is aiming to approve a $1.5 billion loan.

The project will allow the ICBC to support the three major Chinese power equipment suppliers of Shanghai Electric, Dongfang Electric and Harbin Electric in their efforts to expand globally. In addition to the ICBC, the Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China will also play an important role in the financing of the project. The three banks will provide almost 80 per cent of the debt and total investment for the project of $3.87 billion.

China is a growing power in the regions renewable energy market, which has helped Chinese companies at a time when its own domestic market for renewables is going through restructuring. As MENA governments including those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Qatar make the diversification of their energy mix a core part of their economic growth strategies, Chinas financing, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, hand over and development services will continue to be in high demand. These projects are also part of the BRIs North Africa Power Corridor, which places great importance on the development of energy infrastructure in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan.

In addition, the Saudi Arabian and Emirati leaderships have been actively recruiting Chinese participation in their own sustainability plans. Through such symbiotic relationships, Chinese companies have been able to establish a strong foothold in the region, and they will play a crucial role in further developing these countries clean-energy generation capacities. In a region that is an increasing source of carbon emissions and is traditionally reluctant to move away from fossil fuels, Chinas activities could have an important and significant impact on economic growth and lower pollution rates.

The writer is at Indiana Universitys Kelley School of Business in the US and is a Paulson Institute Green Finance Centre Research intern focusing on Chinas sustainability drive in the MENA region.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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New UNLV Center advances global fight against Alzheimer's

LAS VEGAS - June 15, 2020 - The UNLV department of brain health has formally launched the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience, offering hope through scientific discovery for patients who are suffering from Alzheimer's, dementia and other brain and neurological diseases.

The Center is the latest in a series of milestones from the department of brain health and the School of Integrated Health Sciences to better understand how a healthy brain functions, to improve care and treatment of people with brain diseases, and to identify mechanisms of brain disorders. The Center will drive research, track the progress of clinical trials around the world, and provide learning opportunities in the science of developing treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

"The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience will advance the science of brain health in tangible ways to transform the lives of millions of people affected by neurodegenerative diseases today and into the future," said Ronald. T. Brown, dean of the School of Integrated Health Sciences.

The Center will be led by UNLV research professor Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, who previously served as founding director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research at UCLA and founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. Dr. Cummings is a renowned clinical trials and Alzheimer's expert. He has published nearly 800 scientific papers and 44 books devoted to Alzheimer's, clinical trials, and treatment development.

"The Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience will allow our programs at UNLV to be in the forefront of learning how to get more and better treatments to patients faster. We are building the foundation for cures," said Dr. Cummings.

At the heart of the Center is its clinical trial observatory. This unique scientific platform is dedicated to tracking most Alzheimer's disease clinical trials throughout the world, acquiring data from the successes and failures of each trial, enabling researchers to learn how to improve trials and accelerate drug development.

"The observatory will strengthen the science of treatment development and systematically reveal how to make trials better, faster, and cheaper," said Dr. Cummings. "Application of these lessons will accelerate treatments to dramatically improve people's lives."

The Center is made possible thanks to a $6 million pledge from philanthropist Joy Chambers-Grundy and the late Reg Grundy. Mr. Grundy was a successful and well-loved Australian entrepreneur best known for his many television productions, which remain popular with audiences throughout the country.

"My darling late husband, Reg, and I have always been drawn to support this wonderful cause that aims to end the suffering for so many people," said Joy Chambers-Grundy. "Our fervent hope is that scientists across the world can collaborate with Dr. Cummings and other top researchers at UNLV to find treatments for brain disorders and help people thrive in their daily lives."

The Chambers-Grundy gift also supports an endowed chair for Dr. Jefferson Kinney, professor and chair of the UNLV department of brain health and an endowed professorship for Dr. Cummings. The center was formally approved by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents at its June meeting.

###

The UNLV department of brain health was launched by the School of Integrated Health Sciences in 2019 to advance research, education, and practice to benefit brain health and the care and treatment of people with brain disorders. The department's faculty specialize in basic and clinical research in neurodegenerative disease, neuropsychology, and occupational therapy.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:43:22|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will co-chair the fifth meeting of the China-Cambodia intergovernmental coordinating committee with Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Nam Hong on Tuesday via video, the Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the comprehensive, strategic, cooperative partnership between the two countries and the first anniversary of signing the action plan for building a shared future for China and Cambodia. Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a news briefing that the two countries have helped each other through thick and thin, and achieved a major victory in the fight against COVID-19, tightening bilateral ties.

China is ready to review the implementation of the action plan for building a shared future for the two countries over the past year. This meeting will facilitate the exchanging of views on strengthening cooperation in various fields, and other international issues of concern to both countries, amid normalizing COVID-19 prevention and control, said Zhao.

"China believes that this meeting will inject new impetus into deepening China-Cambodia ties and promote the construction of a shared future for China and Cambodia," said the spokesperson. Enditem
eBay's headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S. Bloomberg | Getty Images

Federal prosecutors on Monday charged six former eBay employees with cyberstalking, alleging the defendants attempted to "stifle" a couple who published an online newsletter about e-commerce companies that was sometimes critical of eBay. According to a Justice Department affidavit, the former eBay employees used all sorts of tactics to try to silence the couple. They sent crude objects, such as a fetal pig, and flew to the couple's hometown in an effort to plant a GPS tracker on their car. The defendants also operated several fake Twitter accounts that sent a barrage of nasty messages. "Among other things, several of the defendants ordered anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims' home, including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, a book on surviving the loss of a spouse and pornography  the last of these addressed to the newsletter's publisher but sent to his neighbors' homes," the Department of Justice said Monday. Defendants also posted on Craigslist that the couple were looking for sexual partners, according to the Justice Department's criminal complaint.

Former eBay employees charged

The Justice Department charged James Baugh, eBay's former senior director of safety and security, and David Harville, eBay's former director of global resiliency, with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. "In addition the following defendants were charged in an Information unsealed today: Stephanie Popp, 32, of San Jose, eBay's former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence; Stephanie Stockwell, 26, of Redwood City, Calif., the former manager of eBay's Global Intelligence Center (GIC); Veronica Zea, 26, of San Jose, a former eBay contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst in the GIC; and Brian Gilbert, 51, of San Jose, a former Senior Manager of Special Operations for eBay's Global Security Team," the Department of Justice said. "They are each charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses and will make appearances in federal court in Boston at a later date."

'Take her down'

The Justice Department affidavit mentions two members of eBay's leadership team who wanted the newsletter shut down. They're referred to only as Executive 1 and Executive 2 in the complaint. Executive 1 told Executive 2 at one point to "take her down," referring to one of the victims, according to the filing. According to the affidavit, the defendants began to hatch plans to quiet the authors of the newsletter, largely through intimidation. The defendants created a fake Twitter account named "@Tui_Elei" pretending to be an angry eBay seller. Here's one of the messages the former execs sent to the owners of the newsletter on Twitter: "many familys includin mine make money 2 pay 4 food cloths and rent by selling on ebay UR stupid idiot comments r pushin buyers away from ebay and hurtin familys!! STOP IT NOW!! #ebay #ebayseller." At times, the account seemed to suggest that it was also behind the terrifying packages that were being sent. "DO I HAVE UR ATTENTION NOW????" one Twitter message said, according to the affidavit. The group also sent a box of cockroaches, in addition to the fetal pig, pornography and pig mask. Another time they were sent a box of fly larvae and live spiders, according to the affidavit. Then the defendants decided to travel to the victim's hometown to follow them, according to the affidavit. Baugh and Harville, during one such trip, intended to installed a GPS device on the victims' car but found the car was locked in a garage, the affidavit says. After the couple spotted one of the surveillance teams, the Natick Police Department (NPD) opened an investigation. The police connected Harville and Zea to eBay and eventually asked for assistance, according to the filing. But the defendants were ready for that move, too. "When Baugh, Harville, Gilbert, Popp, Stockwell, Zea, and others learned that the NPD was making inquiries, they interfered with the investigation, either lying to the NPD about eBay's involvement while pretending to offer the company's assistance with the harassment, lying to eBay's lawyers about their own involvement, or both," according to the filing. When the local police began investigating, Gilbert sent a text outlining a plan for how they would cover their tracks, according to the affidavit: "'I'm going to push the idea that eBay is a massive company and have no interest in the [Victims]. The idea we would send s*** to their house is ridiculous." "If I need to bring in and (sic) eBay attorney to talk to cops, I have that in my back pocket," Baugh said in one message to the other defendants published in the affidavit.

EBay investigates

Ebay began investigating complaints from the Natick Police Department in August 2019, when it asked Harville to turn in his phone. "Want me to wipe it?" He asked Baugh. "Don't do anything until we speak to an attorney," Baugh said. "Don't turn phone in either." Harville eventually turned in his iPhone, but the FBI's forensic analysis found he had deleted all of his iMessages, web search results and contacts, according to the addidavit. On August 30, eBay placed Baugh, Harville and Popp on administration leave, the affidavit said. EBay said it a statement that it terminated all involved employees in September 2019. The investigation also looked into former CEO Devin Wenig, who left the company in September 2018. "What these charges allege is unconscionable," Wenig told The Wall Street Journal on Monday, denying involvement in the operation. EBay also said it found no indication of Wenig's involvement. Wenig did not respond to CNBC's request for comment. "The internal investigation found that, while Mr. Wenig's communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her husband," eBay said. "However, as the Company previously announced, there were a number of considerations leading to his departure from the Company." Wenig has been a member of the General Motors board of directors since 2018. He currently serves on the risks and cybersecurity committee for GM and is one of 11 board-recommended directors up for re-election at the company's annual meeting Tuesday. "GM has a longstanding commitment to opposing harassment in any form," GM CEO Mary Barra said on a press call. "Other than that I don't have anything further to say."  CNBC's Michael Wayland and Dan Mangan contributed to this report. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 15, 2020) - XPhyto Therapeutics Corp. (CSE: XPHY) (FSE: 4XT) (OTC Pink: XPHYF) ("XPhyto" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its wholly owned German subsidiary, Vektor Pharma TF GmbH ("Vektor"), has successfully incorporated peptide biosensors into its oral dissolvable thin film ("ODF") platform. XPhyto and its diagnostic partner, 3a-Diagnostics GmbH ("3a"), are developing pathogen-specific ODF biosensors for infectious diseases, including pandemic threats.

"Successful incorporation of 3a's peptide biosensors into Vektor's ODF platform represents a significant technical milestone on the pathway to commercialization," said Hugh Rogers, CEO of XPhyto. "This was a critical step that unlocks a pipeline of potential biosensor screening products."

3a has developed peptide-based biosensor screening tests for bacterial and viral infectious diseases, including influenza A, scarlet fever, stomatitis, periimplantitis, and periodontitis. Additional pandemic-focused biosensors are in planning and development, specifically for COVID-19 (corona virus), H1N1 (swine flu), and H5N1 (avian flu). Positive detection of the respective pathogen results in enzymatic release of an extreme (but safe) bitter compound. On April 20, 2020, XPhyto announced a definitive development, technology purchase and licence agreement with 3a for the development and commercialization of real-time, low-cost and easy-to-use ODF screening tests using 3a's biosensors.

With formulation development and ODF incorporation complete, Vektor and 3a are reviewing ODF optimization priorities such as: placement (i.e. tongue vs cheek), size, dissolvability timeline (i.e. 1-2 minutes), and taste. Vektor has commenced strategic planning for pilot-scale EU GMP test-manufacturing for use in clinical evaluation.

On June 10, 2020, XPhyto announced that 3a and their contract research collaborators received a 254,200 grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research ("BMBF"). 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. The parties will continue to pursue additional opportunities for non-dilutive funding for infectious disease screening test development.

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/57872
Photo: (Photo : Photo by jianfeng lai from Pexels)

There are several surrogate mothers in Ukraine. This industry is popular in Ukraine. Genetic parents from different countries are choosing surrogate mothers from Ukraine to carry their child.

There is a swell in the number of unclaimed babies from surrogate mothers in Ukraine. That is because, in the past months, the coronavirus pandemic caused lockdowns to be implemented. That also meant that flights were canceled, so parents cannot claim their babies.

Some officials even predicted that if the lockdowns will continue, there is a possibility that the unclaimed babies will reach up to a thousand.

The Ukrainian government was strict in implementing restrictions from entering the country.

Unclaimed babies meet parents after weeks of being unclaimed

According to a report from the New York Times, about one hundred babies were waiting for their parents to claim them from the surrogate mothers in Ukraine.

Just recently, the government of Ukraine allowed some families to enter the country to claim their babies. That is after going through a mandatory quarantine.

These couples were from Argentina and Spain.

Around 11 babies meet their parents for the first time, after weeks or months of waiting.

READ ALSO: Kids' Adoption Confirmations Done Virtually Due to the Pandemic

The backlog problem in the baby pickup

In one of the largest surrogacy agency in Ukraine, the birth rate is comparably faster than the speed of babies meeting their parents.

Because of travel restrictions all over the world, a growing number of babies remain unclaimed in the surrogacy agencies in Ukraine.

According to the human rights ombudsman od Ukraine, Lyudmila Denisova, only 31 of the 120 parents who have asked for travel assistance have arrived to pick up their baby.

In the United States, eleven parents have been assisted by the United States Embassy to travel in Ukraine. There are three more parents who are set to go to Ukraine next week.

Surrogacy Agencies: looking for ways to ease the backlog

When the borders of Ukraine were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, concerns about the burden in clinics were raised.

One of the largest surrogacy agencies in Ukraine, BioTexCom, said that they tried to develop mechanisms to solve the situation.

Because of the prolonged stay of unclaimed babies, some surrogate mothers find it challenging to take care of the baby, mainly because they get very little support.

READ ALSO: Surrogate Babies In Ukraine Are Not 'Home' Yet Due To Lockdown

laments and gratitude of surrogate mothers in Ukraine

Ukraine is one of the few countries that allow custody of generic parents, home to surrogate mothers with different thoughts in becoming one. Some are upset when they are about to hand their babies to the families, while others are grateful for the pay that they receive.

At an average, a surrogate mother is given fifteen thousand dollars per birth.

Some women's rights groups report that they receive calls every year from surrogate mothers in Ukraine asking for help.

Other stories of surrogate mothers include those who had to take care of the babies because the genetic parents did not claim the ones they gave birth.

READ ALSO: Authorities Investigate Welfare of Youtuber Myka Stauffer's Adopted Son; Big Brands Cancel Partnership with Mom Blogger
HONG KONG - China's Communist Party has haunted Leung's family for generations.

Her father, Guo Yao, fled forced labor and the violent purges of the Cultural Revolution for a better life in Hong Kong, where he arrived with his wife in 1973 to find relative freedom and prosperity.

Years later, as his family watched the ceremony marking Hong Kong's 1997 handover from Britain to China, his then-teenage daughter had a premonition.

"I thought to myself, maybe one day we will have to run away from the Chinese Communist Party again," said Leung, now 36. "I just didn't imagine it would be this soon."

Now, 17 years after the death of her father - whose name means "glory to the nation" in Mandarin - Leung is preparing to flee Hong Kong. A new law approved by the Communist Party to take effect this summer will allow China's powerful state security agencies to operate in the territory, paving the way for political purges and intimidation of government critics by secret police. Officials are pushing to impose party propaganda in schools.

With their political freedoms deteriorating, nurses, lawyers, business people and other skilled workers are rushing to renew documents that could provide a pathway to residency in Britain, or finding ways to emigrate to Taiwan, Canada or Australia.

Applications for police certificates required to emigrate soared almost 80% to nearly 21,000 in the latter half of 2019 from a year earlier, even before the advent of the security law, coinciding with a crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Animal rescue groups have reported an increase in surrendered dogs as their owners leave Hong Kong. Protesters fearing persecution have sought refuge in Germany, the Netherlands and United States.

The exodus of talent recalls the pre-handover years, when anxiety over Beijing's rule drove tens of thousands of people out of Hong Kong. Many eventually trickled back, having obtained second passports as insurance, when the initial period of Chinese control seemed relatively benign.

This time is different; many say they have no plans to return and see little hope for a better Hong Kong. Those preparing to leave say they are wracked with guilt about abandoning their home at a pivotal moment, yet deeply worried about their futures and those of their children if they were to stay.

Families spoke to The Washington Post on condition of partial or full anonymity for fear of retribution from the authorities or their employers.

Washington Post photo by Shibani Mahtani.

"This is not a happy thing," said Law, a 40-year-old business executive who plans to move with his family to Taichung, Taiwan, when travel restrictions for the novel coronavirus ease. "It isn't like we will have a farewell party to celebrate. I feel a bit ashamed, like I've betrayed the protesters."

Beijing in recent weeks has redrawn its relationship with Hong Kong, whose autonomy and political freedoms it previously promised to preserve until 2047.

Facing widespread resistance to its encroachment, the party has moved to quash dissent with the security law, which Western governments have said violates the handover agreement and the "one country, two systems" model it established. Washington has said it will no longer treat Hong Kong as distinct from China, and has begun to rethink the special trade status that helped Hong Kong flourish as a financial center.

Zhang Xiaoming, deputy director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs office, last week likened the security law to "anti-virus software" and said forces in Hong Kong are trying to subvert Communist rule - emphasizing that Beijing now sees the city as a restive region that must be controlled.

The law will criminalize "foreign interference" - a broad phrase that legal experts say could ensnare anyone with ties to a foreign political party. That would be problematic for Chris Yeung, Leung's husband, who is an overseas member of Britain's Liberal Democrats. In the neighboring Chinese territory of Macao, which passed similar laws in 2009, such an affiliation carries a maximum 25-year prison sentence if China deems it to endanger national security.

Yeung, a dual Canadian and British citizen, and his wife had previously discussed an exit plan if the "metaphorical nuclear plant explodes" in Hong Kong, she said. That conversation became more serious last June, when protests erupted over a bill that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China. Leung watched political divisions deepen and young people turn into fighters armed with petrol bombs as the police beat them bloody on the streets.

Leung had been prepared for her husband to run afoul of the law over his activism. But when he was arrested in September for participating in an anti-government protest - and denied legal access for hours - it was their first indication that rule of law was crumbling.

The national security law "has changed everything, we now realize that each and every one of us can be the target," said Leung, who works in business development. The family plans to move to Vancouver, but has not settled on a departure date.

"There's no hope for any reconciliation," Leung said. "Even if we love our city so much, the reality is that our government hates us."

- - -

The Law family began devising exit plans last year. The business executive's wife, a 38-year-old broadcast producer, was documenting demonstrations one day when police sprayed protesters with a chemical-laced liquid from a water cannon, leaving a 14-year-old demonstrator writhing in pain as the substance burned her skin.

In a few years, she thought, that could be her child (she has two, ages 7 and 5).

"And there is nothing I can do to protect her," she said. "What else can you do but leave?"

The Laws, together with three other families, met an agent who helped them gain Taiwan residency under an investment program. Documents in hand, they can leave when pandemic travel curbs end.

Still, they have agonized over the decision.

"Deep down, I feel very selfish," the broadcast producer said. "The only thing I can do is to raise my children in a land of freedom under the air of democracy. And hope that one day, whether they come back or not, they will remember their roots are in Hong Kong."

Others have wrestled with similar anguish. When Ho, a nurse at a hospital rehabilitation ward, joined a strike this year to pressure the Hong Kong government to close its border with China during the coronavirus outbreak, she did not fear payback. In the worst case, she figured, she could quit.

Now, with the security law looming, she fears a political purge.

"You don't know what they can accuse you of under the new law," Ho said. "Would joining a strike be considered a subversion of state?"

The family is applying to emigrate to Taiwan through its program for foreign professionals, while her husband stays for a few months longer to support them with his job at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, the stock market operator.

Their departure is so hurried that Ho has yet to assess school options for her two children. Her husband does not know what he will do in Taiwan, which lacks a financial sector comparable with Hong Kong's. But even working at a restaurant would be acceptable. "Having my freedom of speech is worth more," he said.

Among their friends, mostly well-educated professionals with children, nine out of 10 have left or are in the process of leaving, he said. At the Hong Kong Exchange, his colleagues who have dual citizenship are assessing their options, while others are making plans to procure foreign residency.

"It has become the norm. We are the last to go," he said. "In many ways, it feels like we are refugees, fleeing a war."
A Portland man who accidentally shot himself in the groin but told police he was robbed and shot by a homeless man at a bus stop was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison.

Marcus Anthony Davis Jr., 35, wasnt allowed to have a gun because he had been convicted of prior felonies and was on federal supervision for a drug offense at the time of the Jan. 8 shooting.

U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut sentenced Davis to five years and nine months in custody after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The prison term was a joint recommendation by the prosecutor and defense lawyer as part of a negotiated plea deal.

The prosecutor said Davis made a dangerous choice to pick up a gun when he clearly knew he was prohibited from carrying guns.

"He paid a significant price with his physical injuries and the sentence hes now going to receive,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Burkhart said.

"I dont think anything the court can say or the government can say can top the injuries he gave to himself to stop him from possessing firearms. Hopefully this is the last time we will see Mr. Davis.''

Davis was treated at a local hospital on Jan. 8.

Records showed that a single bullet traveled through the top of his penis, through his right testicle, into his upper inner right thigh and exited through his lower right thigh, according to Burkhart.

Davis claimed he had been robbed and shot by a white homeless man at a TriMet stop at Southeast Powell Boulevard and 82nd Avenue, but he couldnt share any details about the suspect, according to the prosecutor.

Police went to the location and found no evidence of a shooting or robbery.

The gun was accidentally discharged as Marcus Anthony Davis Jr. had the loaded firearm in his front waistband, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Burkhart told the court.

Officers later recovered a gun in the car of Davis girlfriend that was the one believed to have been involved in the shooting. The gun was hidden in Davis bloody clothes, according to the prosecutor.

It was a .40-caliber handgun loaded with six bullets. The gun had blood on it and a shell casing was stuck in the slide. They also discovered a gunshot hole in a black pair of sweatpants.

The gun had been reported stolen in 2018.

Based on the injuries, physical evidence, the bullets trajectory, the jammed shell casing and hole in Davis pants, police determined the injuries were self-inflicted.

The evidence gathered showed the injuries were consistent with an accidental discharge occurring while the defendant had the gun in a pocket or waistband, Burkhart wrote in a sentencing memo.

Davis, described by the prosecutor in court papers as a member of the Rolling 60s gang, was on federal supervision from a 2016 conviction for possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He has prior convictions in Multnomah County for assault and attempted murder.

Mr. Davis has taken stock of his future, Assistant Federal Defender Francesca Freccero told the judge. He resolved his new charges very quickly."

Davis, appearing by video for the hearing, told the court hes committed to being a "better role model and example'' for his two children.

Marcus Anthony Davis, 35, was sentenced Monday after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and admitted he had violated his federal supervision.

In January, U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta granted Davis about 10 hours of temporary release so he could be present for the birth of his daughter.

Freccero said her client was deeply grateful for the temporary release. Immergut said she was impressed that Davis returned to custody on his own.

"I have to keep them and myself safe,'' Davis said of his children.

The judge imposed a two-year sentence for his supervised release violation, to run concurrently with his sentence for being felon in possession of a firearm.

"My hope, Mr. Davis, being a parent does turn your life around,'' Immergut said. "Im banking on you to make a change.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

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Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin has voted in favour of the programme for government being put to her partys membership.

However, her husband Francis Noel Duffy was among a group of party members who abstained on the vote.

Mr Duffy, who is TD for Dublin South West, along with Dublin Centrals Neasa Hourigan and Dublin South Centrals Patrick Costello abstained on a vote on whether the programme for government should be voted on by the partys membership.

Ms Martin, who was the Greens lead negotiator during the talks, told the meeting that her team fought hard for the deal. She said it was not a perfect deal but said she supported putting it to a vote of the membership.

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In a statement released after the meeting, the party said: "The TDs took a decision to accept the Programme for Government by 9 votes in favour with 3 abstentions.

"Indicative votes were also taken of the Green Party Senators, MEPs and one MLA.

"The group, including indicative votes, recorded 13 votes in favour and four abstentions.

"The Programme for Government will now be referred to the party membership for ratification.

"Members who register for an online Special Convention or who apply for an absentee ballot will now have to the opportunity to vote on the Programme for Government. Members will receive information shortly from the Green Party Head Office on how to register online for the Special Convention or apply for a vote.

"The membership of the Green Party will now have the chance to vote on the deal and each members vote will have the same weight as any TD, Senator, MEP or MLA," it added.

Ms Martin this evening spoke publicly about the deal for the first time.

She issued a statement saying there was never going to be "outright winners" in the government talks and she's satisfied the deal negotiated was the "best achievable and that it includes some worthwhile and transformative policies."

She said that if the Green Party does enter government "our overriding concern will be with verifiable implementation of our policies."

Ms Martin said: "We are in the midst of a period of immense and unprecedented challenge. We face a seismic economic setback the like of which has never been experienced before. We need to work together for our country.

"The national health emergency continues to cause loss, untold heartbreak and suffering. Our country needs stability and political certainty.

"There were never going to be, nor could there have been, outright winners in these negotiations and clearly we did not get everything we sought. I am however satisfied that the deal negotiated was the best achievable and that it includes some worthwhile and transformative policies.

"If the Green Party enters government, our overriding concern will be with verifiable implementation of our policies.

"No member of the Green Party would wish to belong to a government thats not enthusiastically and realistically delivering a green agenda.

"It is vital to ensure that our partys independence and core values are never undermined or weakened by participation in government."

She added: "I look forward to discussing the Programme for Government in more detail with our members over the coming days."

Speaking on RTEs Claire Byrne Live show this evening, Green Party Chairperson Cllr Hazel Chu said that there are "a lot of good things in the deal".

"A lot of good things in the deal, but we have to understand where the emissions are too."

On three TDs abstaining from voting on the deal, she said: "This is up to membership as it always was set to be because we are a grassroots party.

"Its up to the membership to decide."

She said that the Green Party got "key wins" in negotiating a programme for government.

"I dont think we got everything, I definitely think we got key wins but there are gaps.

"The question is, is are the wins good enough?"

She added that deputy leader Catherine Martin, who is contesting for the leadership role of the party, has been "amazing" during negotiations.

"She went in there and she fought hard and she fought until a deal was on the table.

"Is it the best deal ever? No, but it is a good deal to her," added Cllr Chu.

Fianna Fail passed the government formation deal with very little dissent.

John McGuiness - who has been sceptical of going into government with Fine Gael - was said to have stopped short of saying whether or not he supported the deal.

He's understood to have argued that any government should be left-leaning and avoid being dominated by the "culture" of Fine Gael.

Eamon O Cuiv also raised concerns but one source at the meeting described his and Mr McGuinness's contributions as having "no bite".

Dublin South-West TD John Lahart was said to be clear that the coalition arrangement wasn't his preferred option.

He previously publicly argued for a national unity government.

Sources said Mr Lahart told the meeting the Programme for Government was an impressive document and he wished Micheal Martin well but he warned that "leaving the Oppositon benches to Sinn Fein would come back to bite us".

Mr Lahart was concerned at proposals in the document surrounding Strategic Housing Developments - which Fianna Fail had previously criticised and the lack of a feasibility study for Metro South - which had been in the party's manifesto.

Fine Gael's meeting was broadly supportive of going into government.

Rural Development Minister Michael Ring was a notable exception.

He hit out at Fianna Fail and the Greens pointing out that the last time Micheal Martin, Dara Calleary and Eamon Ryan were in power saw the last economic crash and the Troika coming to Ireland.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar urged party members to vote for the deal as "the right thing to do for the country".

He said the proposed coalition had a mandate of more than 50pc, would have a strong majority and a very good chance of lasting until spring 2025.

He said it would allow Fine Gael to protect the good work already done and provide an opportunity to build on it.
Jockey Hayley Turner ended 33 wait for a woman jockey winner at Royal Ascot in 2019 - Hollie Doyle is determined to next wait will be much shorter.

Hollie Doyle has been locked in her garage during lockdown with one focus - taking another hammer blow at her sport's glass ceiling at Royal Ascot, writes James Toney.

Ladies' Day has a whole new meaning for Doyle, 23, who is fast underlining why it should be every day, not just one Thursday in June.

Doyle - who last year broke the record for the most winners in a year by a female jockey - has collected so many bottles of winners champagne she could open an off licence but shes no intention of cracking one open to celebrate just yet.

She's fully focussed on landing one of her sport's biggest prizes at Flat racing's most fabled meeting - and would like to do it before Tom Marquand, her partner and another rising star of the sport.

Marquand headed Down Under during lockdown to ride a series of big winners in Australia while Doyle sweated it out in their garage, picking her way between bikes and exercise equipment to spend time working out her racehorse simulator, a blue metal torture contraption that doesn't need sugar lumps.

It's 33 years since Gay Kelleway became the first woman jockey to win at Royal Ascot, with a 1987 ride on Sprowston Boy in the Queen Alexandra Stakes.

Last year Hayley Turner ended a three decade plus wait for win number two - triumphing in the Sandringham Stakes.

Doyle is in no mood to wait any longer than necessary to chalk up number three - riding Upper Lambourn trainer Archie Watson's Glen Shiel in Tuesday's opening race, the Buckingham Palace Handicap.

"I just want women winning at Royal Ascot to become a normal thing, not a big story," said Doyle.

"It was getting boring having all these years between Gay winning but thankfully Hayley ended the wait. I was so pleased for her because of what she's done for women jockeys, I think the emotion was just relief that long was over.

"If it becomes a regular occurrence then that will be a huge step forward for the sport."

"Look, I just flipped the switch..." pic.twitter.com/hLD2ZH3L4C  At The Races (@AtTheRaces) May 28, 2020

In jumps racing the likes of Nina Carberry and Kate Walsh have been long established trailblazers for women jockeys while fellow Irish jockey Rachael Blackmore won a string of big races in recent months.

Story continues

Progress has been a little slower on the flat, though Doyle and Turner will be joined by Nicola Currie, Josephine Gordon and Megan Nicholls in Royal Ascot's weighing room.

The diminutive Doyle is barely five foot tall but is as hard as nails.

She's up at 5am every day, works seven days a week and probably spends more time in her car - racing between tracks - than she does in bed.

Doyle's future was perhaps never in doubt - father was a jockey and she was on a horse virtually as soon as she could walk.

From her first wins at Pony Club her ambition was clear and one day after receiving her GCSE results, she packed her bags as left Herefordshire for Wales, riding for maverick trainer David Evans - whose school of hard knocks approach moulded her work ethic.

Last year she had all her teeth kicked out after a fall but 8,000 of dental work later and she can afford a broad smile about a year that has seen her establish her credentials.

Classic-winning trainer Richard Hannon has spoken about her fearsome work ethic, having been an early supporter of her career.

And while most of her winners have come for the prolific Watson, 41 other trainers have benefited from her winning touch too.

"I've had to work hard for this, the first few years racing were really demanding and that certainly toughened me up," added Doyle.

"This is all I've wanted so I've never considered giving up, I just have to work harder at it than some of the other guys."

Marquand, who'll ride Silent Attack in Tuesday's opener, sees her dedication to the cause at close quarters and is full of admiration for his partner.

Though that doesn't mean he'll be holding back in pursuit of his first Royal Ascot winner, should the two be battling to the winning post shortly after 1pm on Tuesday.

"She's relentless," he said. "She doesn't want to be seen as a female jockey - just a jockey in her own right and that's one of the things that makes her special.
Man Found Guilty of Defacing University Campus With Racist Graffiti

A man has been found guilty of a series of racially-charged bouts of vandalism that caused much disturbance in the campus of Salisbury University, Maryland, throughout the past academic year, according to local authorities.

The SU campus community has experienced a great deal of fear since October last year as racist graffiti messages continued to be discovered in academic buildings. These incidents prompted the university to hire a new associate vice president for its Office of Diversity and Inclusion this April, amid campus closure due to public health emergency. Local law enforcement agencies, as well as the FBI, participated in the investigation.

We have been made aware of an incident that has been reported in Henson Hall. We will update you as updates are made available. Please be advised the second image contains racist language. pic.twitter.com/5HLLd42ciw  Salisbury U NAACP (@NAACP_SU) February 19, 2020

The individual involved in those vandalism cases was found to be 54-year-old black man Jerome K. Jackson from Princess Anne, Maryland, according to the Office of the States Attorney for Wicomico County. Jackson was alleged to have maliciously defaced property of Salisbury University while exhibiting racial animosity in a manner that is commonly referred to as a Hate Crime.

The statement makes no mention of what group the racial animosity was directed at, but an earlier statement from the University said the graffiti frightened members of our campus community, particularly Black and Brown students, faculty and staff.

One of the graffiti messages circulating on social media invoked images of lynching black Americans.

Jackson pleaded guilty on June 12 based on a plea agreement, admitting responsibility for every one of the racial and sometimes gender related discriminatory graffiti found on SU campus in the 2019-2020 academic year. It comes with a punishment of 18 months of jail time, as well as a $494 restitution to cover the costs associated with removing the graffiti from the universitys property.

I commend the SUPD for its diligence in the investigation, which included combing through an enormous amount of evidence and information, wrote SU president Charles A. Wight in a statement announcing the latest development of the vandalism case.

Hate and discrimination have no place on this campus, and neither do ignorance or apathy as they relate to these issues, he continued. These incidents were targeted, but they affect us all. SUs campus culture is all of our responsibility, and throughout this difficult time, our students, faculty, staff, alumni and community supporters have made one thing very clear: SU unites and stands together.

In a desperate 2016 incident, a group of unnamed African-American students were held responsible for a racist drawing on SU campus that depicted the lynching of a crying stick figure, according to a USA Today report at the time. The drawing, that included the hashtag #whitepower, was found on a whiteboard in a library.
UN calls for end to 'cruel' 'conversion therapy'

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The United Nations is urging nations around the world to ban what opponents call conversion therapy, which involves therapy for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction and gender confusion, saying it can amount to torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

A U.N. report says conversion therapy is an umbrella term to describe interventions of a wide-ranging nature, all of which are premised on the belief that a persons sexual orientation and gender identity, including gender expression, can and should be changed or suppressed when they do not fall under what other actors in a given setting and time perceive as the desirable norm, in particular when the person is lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or gender diverse.

The report, released in May, suggests that conversion therapy constitutes cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment when it is conducted forcibly or without an individuals consent and may amount to torture depending on the circumstances, namely the severity of physical and mental pain and suffering inflicted.

All practices of conversion therapy, it adds, take as a point of departure the belief that sexually diverse or gender-diverse persons are somehow inferior  morally, spiritually or physically  than their heterosexual and cisgender siblings and must modify their orientation or identity to remedy that inferiority.

The report goes on to say that children most often undergo practices of conversion therapy as a result of the desire of parents or guardians to have them conform to expectations, either theirs or their communities, regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

These therapies, the U.N. says, are, in many cases, a lucrative business for providers around the world. In the United States, the cost for a single episode of conversion therapy may range from no cost to $26,000.

American psychological organizations have also rejected it as harmful and several left-leaning states, beginning with California, have banned it for minors.

While 20 states and the District of Columbia have passed bans on conversion therapy for youth, which have so far survived legal challenges, some localities that had similar measures have repealed them in light of litigation.

New York City decided last September it would move to repeal its ban on the practice following litigation brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of a licensed psychotherapist.

In May 2018, a small group of former LGBT individuals held a rally in Washington, D.C., to spread awareness of their community days before Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed a bill banning conversion therapy into law.

Known as The Freedom March, the event was organized by Jeffrey McCall, who formerly identified as gay and then transgender.

This country does not give a platform to people that have come out of the LGBTQ life. They just always talk about conversion therapy and try to make it sound like its all about hurting people, explained McCall in an earlier interview with The Christian Post. But what I want people to know is all of these stories that will be told at the Freedom March are so unique. Every single story is different but its completely wrapped in love.

He further stressed, "It's not about conversion therapy. It's about following the Holy Spirit. And as I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, I changed. My ideas of who I was changed. The Lord showed me that He created me as Jeffrey McCall and He showed me how much He loved me specifically as Jeffrey."

In an op-ed, Christopher Doyle, a political consultant with Equality And Justice For All and a licensed clinical professional counselor, argued that the media often fail to distinguish between unlicensed pastors operating reform schools for troubled youth, some of whom identified as gay or lesbian, and licensed therapy for youth struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions and gender confusion. He rejected unlicensed practices such as intimidation and isolation.

In my clinical experience, I have worked with hundreds of parents and teenagers struggling with sexual and gender identity, he wrote. Not once have I ever allowed a parent to force or manipulate their child to change.

Doyle added, As a former homosexual , I understand that same-sex attractions and gender confusion are the results of many underlying factors; and when parents heal the wounds and work through dysfunctional patterns within the family, relational and emotional healing occurs with the child. In some cases, this results in a redefinition or new understanding for the child struggling with sexual and gender issues  even a change in the way he or she identifies.
Bengaluru, June 15 : A city police inspector's circular, directing policemen to say 'Jai Hind' after saluting an officer, which kicked up a row, has been withdrawn. "The circular has been taken back," an official told IANS, here on Monday.

According to sources, the inspector, it's believed, had taken a leaf out of such conventions followed by the police and the central paramilitary forces in some parts of the country.

Though the inspector didn't violate any rule, it caused unnecessary controversy. Also, 'Jai Hind' salutation is not mentioned in any rulebook or manual.

"We have told him not to do anything. It was done on his own. It's causing unnecessary diversion of our resources," said the source and added, 'Hind' in 'Jai Hind' refers to the country and not any religion.

Senior police officers were not available for comment.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

What did health professionals learn about dealing with viral outbreaks from the Ebola epidemic of 2018?

Brayden Schindell (BSc/18) is a doctoral student in Dr. Jason Kindrachuk's Laboratory of Emerging and Re-emerging Viruses, in medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences. He was the first author on a major paper published in the scientific News Journal Contagion Live, with co-authors Dr. Kindrachuk and Dr. Krutika Kuppalli. The paper was about what the ongoing Ebola epidemic in Africa taught medical researchers and health professionals about their responses to viral outbreaks and how they were able to deal with them.

Schindell didn't go to Congo to study Ebola himself, but Dr. Kindrachuk and his collaborator Dr. Krutika Kuppalli were both in West Africa helping support the prior epidemic. Kindrachuk was helping to coordinate and run testing while working with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, while Kuppalli was overseeing an Ebola treatment center.

Schindell's doctoral research involves looking at the persistence of the Ebola virus within the reproductive tracts of survivors, and how it enters these regions of the body. He is also studying long term reproductive health effects, through administration of a questionnaire and sampling of a cohort of survivors.

He explains: "Both aspects of this project are important, as sexual transmission is partially responsible for extending the epidemic of Ebola virus in West Africa into 2016. This can occur because male survivors can carry the virus undetected in their testes for more than 1,100 days after recovery from the disease and spread it through semen. It is also believed the virus can persist in females, but research on this is unfortunately greatly lacking."

Schindell graduated from UM in microbiology in 2018, then began his graduate studies with Kindrachuk and his ambition led him to pursue his doctoral program in medical microbiology and infectious diseases (MMID). He received a CIHR Canada graduate scholarship for his master's program, and is the current vice president for the MMID Student council.

Even though Schindell is not in the lab at the moment because of the pandemic, he recently finished helping with a weekly newsletter for the Cadham Provincial Laboratory, for frontline workers and health officials to inform them on the latest information available for SARS-CoV2. He was working with medical residents, med students, librarians and other grad students who are trying to assist the effort against COVID-19, however they can.

UM Today posed some questions to Schindell about his research and what it is like working with leading researchers of the caliber of Drs. Kindrachuk and Kuppalli.

Your article says there were about 2264 deaths attributed to the virus, with a 65 percent fatality rate. In a country of 80 million people, had interventions not taken place, the number of deaths would have been much higher. And now, almost 300,000 people have been vaccinated, with 95 percent protection. Your paper says that Ebola was contained because of cooperation and working together. Can you elaborate on this?

Yes, that is correct in the current outbreak in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. And there has unfortunately been a recent re-emergence and new cases, just as the country was days away from declaring the outbreak over (as it had been over a month since someone tested positive for the virus).

There has been a huge international effort towards containing Ebola since the West African epidemic occurred in 2013-2016. Ongoing research is looking to understand the virus and how it does the damage that it does, how it spreads to people and between people, and how to treat and vaccinate against it.

With front line workers that risk their lives to care for, and trace contacts, this to date has been a testament to international collaboration to support local governments and populations. That isn't to say any of it has been easy, especially for front line workers in this current outbreak in Eastern DRC which has had a lot of community mistrust and violence from the many armed groups in the region, making access to some affected communities impossible.

The drug Remdesivir was one of the effective therapeutics used in West Africa against Ebola. It's being tested against COVID-19 now. Since it worked against a very virulent disease, is it possible it can work against COVID-19?

Remdesivir was one of four therapeutics tested in what has been known as the PALM trial, also including mAb114, ZMapp (which was developed in Winnipeg at the National Microbiology Laboratory) and REGN-EB3. Unfortunately both Remdesivir and ZMapp were significantly less effective at reducing mortality than mAb114 and REGN-EB3 and were discontinued in the trial. Remdesivir is now being tested in clinical trials for treating SARS-CoV2 infections and has been granted emergency use status by the FDA for some preliminary results from a clinical trial in the U.S.. Gilead Sciences which produces it has found in research conducted in cell culture that it potentially has broad activity against several different families of viruses, including coronaviruses. It is currently being investigated in clinical trials and while preliminary data seems to show some effect on duration of infection we will have to wait to see what the final data of these studies are.

Brayden Schindell is working with a team of researchers in the Kindrachuk lab. Left to right: Jason Kindrachuk, Brayden Schindell, Andrew Webb, Jared Rowell, Meagan Allardice. Credit: University of Manitoba

Can you put the Ebola experience into perspective with regard to COVID-19? What are we doing right, and what are we doing wrong?

I do think that the recent epidemic in West Africa and the outbreaks in DRC recently have shown how well a unified effort of research as well as treatment and containment can work at successfully ending an epidemic/outbreak. I think the most important lesson learned from these recent outbreaks has to be that none of this can be done successfully without both community engagement and community trust. Without this, nothing you wish to implement will be completely successful. We have seen the effects of what can happen without community trust in some parts of the world as an example some US states where defiance of public health orders has resulted in resurgence of SARS-CoV2. Taking the time to engage with individuals and community leaders just like with Ebola will play a vital role in gaining cooperation and trust of people. This can then allow health officials concentrate their efforts on containing the virus.

Here in Canada people really seem to be doing a great job of buying in and trust appears to be strong in the efforts being taken. However, as communities begin to open up again that trust and cooperation becomes more important and will be tested as this is when social practices to this point become most important. Canada also with its recent announcement of a national medical research strategy will go a long way in bringing unity to research efforts. One important difference between Ebola and SARS-CoV2 to note is that due to research efforts there are now a couple effective treatments that are being tested as well as an approved vaccine for Ebola and there are still no treatments or vaccines available for SARS-CoV2.

Dr. Jason Kindrachuk is probably one of the best and most visible spokespersons for the fight against COVID-19. What's it like working with him?

Dr. Kindrachuk has been a great voice to bring some clarity to all noise that has been out there, and I and all the others in his lab believe it's an important thing to be doing.

It is a wonderful experience to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Kindrachuk; he is a very inspiring person who has a passion for the subject of emerging viruses and for teaching people about those viruses. His passion is contagiousno pun intended. There have also been a lot of great collaborators I am now lucky to be working with and learning from through the contacts he has made such as Dr. Kuppalli. He is a great mentor professionally and personally, I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from him.

Since Dr. Kindrachuk is working on possible antivirals and vaccines, you must be in the thick of it too. Do you feel that progress is being made?

Currently his lab is shut down along with the majority of other labs on campus following the current University decision for the safety of staff and students. But we hope to be getting back to work on our projects soon as everything begins opening up with the province's announcement of the phase 2 plan for reopening. I know we have all been itching to get back at it and contribute best we can to the COVID-19 research effort and for science as a whole to ramp up again as there is a lot of important work that has been on hold in all fields. [NB: as this post was in process, Kindrachuk's lab as in fact opened.]

We know that testing of vaccines takes time, and there might not be anything ready for wide distribution for many months. What about antivirals? Are we close to those?

In general progress towards developing vaccines and drugs takes time, unfortunately. However, with what has been learned through past experiences such as with Ebola virus, the process to making antivirals and vaccines is much more efficient than it used to be. As mentioned remdesivir has been granted emergency use approval and over 100 labs globally that are working day and night to find successful treatments and vaccines. An example of this is the recent announcement of the vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics Inc. with the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology that will be starting a clinical trial at the Canadian Institute of Vaccinology in Halifax following promising results in China.

What do you think about many regions in North America that are now "opening up" and trying to "get back to normal?"

As health officials and the Prime Minister have said, the "normal" we knew won't return until a vaccine is available. I know the decision makers are ensuring as things open up again that each is done only when determined it is safe and feasible to do so. We all just need to be patient and mindful of the social practices we have learned through this pandemic so our progress doesn't regress as I said in an earlier question this is when trust becomes very important.

In your opinion, what will "normal" look like in three months? Six months? A year?

"Normal" will be different than it was, as I am sure you have noticed a lot more people are wearing PPE such as masks that are not medical professionals. People are a lot more conscious to maintain that two meters' distance from others. Large gatherings will probably be something that we don't see for a while either. These and other basic measures will most likely not change until large scale vaccinations can take place which could be over six months or even a year.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

More information: What the 2018 DRC Ebola Epidemic Taught Us About Outbreak Response and Experimental Countermeasures: What the 2018 DRC Ebola Epidemic Taught Us About Outbreak Response and Experimental Countermeasures: www.contagionlive.com/publicat  ntal-countermeasures
King Abdullah of Jordan reportedly refused a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian media outlet Maan reported today, as tensions between the two neighbors rise over West Bank annexation.

Abdullah refused the call due to Israels plan to annex parts of the West Bank in July, according to Maan. Amman staunchly opposes the move.

Abdullah also did not set a date to meet with Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, after Gantz requested to speak to him about US President Donald Trumps peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, the outlet reported.

Jordan and Israel are currently at odds over West Bank annexation. Israels intention is to incorporate Jewish settlements and the entire Jordan Valley in the West Bank into Israeli territory.

Jordans population is largely descended from Palestinians who left their homes during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1947 and 1948. Many Jordanians oppose annexation as well as Jordans peace treaty with Israel. Opposition to Israel in general is high in Jordan.

This is not the first time Abdullah has expressed frustration with Israel over annexation. In May, the king told the German media that there would be massive conflict if Israel goes ahead with the move.

Israel believes annexation is essential to its security. Palestinians say it deprives them of their rights to self-determination.

Israels relations with Arab states have improved since the Arab-Israeli wars of the 20th century, but annexation threaten to derail this. Jordan is considering suspending parts of its peace treaty with Israel in opposition to annexation.

In recent years, Israel has grown closer with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia due to their shared concerns about Iran. However, the Emirates ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, wrote an unprecedented op-ed in an Israeli newspaper last week telling Israelis, Annexation will certainly and immediately upend Israeli aspirations for improved security, economic and cultural ties with the Arab world and with the UAE.

Annexation is moving along in the meantime. US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman met with Netanyahu, Gantz and other Israeli leaders yesterday to discuss the plans.
Michigan small businesses haves until June 30 to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan to help with payroll, utilities, rent, and other expenses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of June 12, a total of 115,043 Michigan small businesses had received PPP loans totaling $15,722,896,546, according to the SBA. The average loan totaled $136,669. Around $130 billion in program funds remain available to small business owners across the country.

We have around $130 billion left and you have until June 30 to apply for a PPP loan, said Robert Scott, regional administrator for the SBA, during a Facebook Q&A hosted by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin. After that, the SBA will not be taking any more PPP loan applications unless Congress decides otherwise. Have a conversation with your lender or find a local lender at sba.gov. There is still time left, but not a lot.

Slotkin thanked all the Michigan business owners listening into the social media conversation for their fortitude and leadership in the middle of tremendous uncertainty. Although businesses are beginning to reopen, she added that consumer confidence will play a big role in the success of these businesses.

We know that your livelihood and passion and your work and your sweat are all tied into your business, she said. It has a been a painful and difficult time for all of us, but particularly for our business ownersI know the road ahead is not going to be easy. A lot of people have been laid off and a lot of people have less money in their pockets.

Scott said he highly doubts that the $130 billion in funding will be exhausted by June 30. He added that once the SBA approves an applicants request for a loan, the lender has up to 10 days to disperse the money and close the loan.

The reason why its lasted as long as it has is because the overall loan amounts are a lot less, on average, than in the first round, he said. Most of the loans are now below $100,000. The money is going a lot farther.

Earlier this month, Congress passed the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, which gave small business owners more time to use the loan, expanded from 8 weeks to 24 weeks, and more ways in which to use the loan.

Details of PPP Flexibility Act

Extends the time businesses have to use PPP funds from eight to 24 weeks. Under previous PPP rules, the small business loan converts to a grant only as long as the business uses the loan within eight weeks.

Increases the percentage of the small business loan that can be used for non-payroll expenses from 25% to 40%. This change will help many small businesses, especially restaurants, cover expenses like rent, mortgage interest, and utilities, which are often more than 25% of their expenses.

Extends loan terms from 2 years to 5 years, to better match the average recovery times that many of our businesses needed to recover after 9/11 and the 2008 recession.

Prohibits the current mutual exclusivity of PPP loans and payroll tax deferments, so that businesses can take advantage of both payroll tax deferments and PPP loans  a huge help to many local businesses.

Includes a rehire safe harbor pathway for employers who try but are unable to rehire 100% of their employees, if some employees decline to come back on payroll. Those employers must provide proper documentation that they tried to rehire all employees, but were unable to, and may still qualify for loan forgiveness.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 87 percent of small businesses are anticipating a sales decline of at least 10 percent, according to a new survey by the Small Business Association of Michigan. The survey showed that sales and future profitability are the top concern among small businesses.

The survey, conducted between May 26 and June 2 of nearly 600 Michigan small businesses, also showed that 90 percent of businesses are confident in their ability to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. Additionally, 75 percent of businesses say they already have their COVID-19 Preparedness and Response plan in place, as required by executive order to operate.

For more information about PPP loans, including how to apply, visit https://www.sba.gov/offices/district/mi/detroit. Resources for Michigans small business can also be found at https://www.michiganbusiness.org/pure-partnership/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhfat-Z6E6gIVjpOzCh35vAr0EAAYASAAEgJqXvD_BwE.
BERLIN  Mallorcas first tourists in 93 days touched down Monday, saying they feel safe in the popular Spanish island and ready to make the most of the beach and sunny weather without the hordes of visitors found there in normal times.

As borders opened up across Europe three months after closures that began chaotically in March, Spain prioritized the entry of a first batch of thousands of Germans who were allowed to fly to its Balearic Islands. The country waived its 14-day quarantine to test out with them the best practices in the coronavirus era.

Spaniards themselves are still not allowed to travel to the archipelago and it will take one more week for the rest of country, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic in Europe, to catch up with other countries in the region, where border checks dropped overnight on Monday.

The European Union's 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, aren't expected to start opening to Americans, Asians and other visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly later.

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said it's time "to turn the page of the first act of the crisis" and "rediscover our taste for freedom."

But he warned: "This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard. ... The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other."

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That caution is widespread after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths in Europe. The region has had more than 2 million of the world's 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Even so, social distancing was in short supply as London's Oxford Street shops reopened and crowds jammed the entrance to London's Niketown store despite efforts by employees to have an orderly line. Paris bistros like Cafe Des Anges welcomed back regular customers.

"It's very hard to get people who are sitting at the bar to respect social distancing," said cafe manager Virgile Grunberg. "People have missed this, because they come in every morning before work, have a little coffee and a discussion, so of course it's part of Paris."

The need to get Europe's tourism industry up and running again is urgent, especially for Mediterranean nations like Spain, Italy and Greece, as the economic fallout of the crisis mushrooms.

In a sign of that anticipation, workers in a Mallorca hotel welcomed with cheers the bus ferrying the first guests from the airport. The visitors had gone through temperature checks on arrival and had to leave their contact information and health status registered with authorities.

"We are totally happy that we can get out," said Martin Hofman, who traveled on the first flight from Duesseldorf, adding that his holiday couldn't be postponed "and to stay in Germany was not an option."

Daniel Borgerding, who squeezed in the last-minute visit before his wife is due to give birth, said the couple was looking forward to having "a quiet and relaxed time, empty beaches, restaurants, bars and a little more space than usual."

Regional officials have expanded the capacity of the archipelago's health system in case any tourists shows signs of infection. They said the lessons from the trial in the islands will be taken into account for the country's full re-opening.

"We have got the pandemic under control, (but) the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment," Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said over the weekend as he announced he was bringing forward Spain's opening to European travelers by 10 days to June 21. "The threat is still real. The virus is still out there."

On Monday, Greece welcomed the first international flights whose passengers didn't face compulsory COVID-19 tests to Athens and Thessaloniki. Direct international flights to regional Greek airports, including its sun-kissed islands, will begin on July 1. Visitors will be subject to random virus testing.

"A lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged.

Europe's reopening isn't a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, uncoordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles.

Still, it's a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere. Norway and Denmark, for example, are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a relatively high per-capita death rate. Other nations also have travel restrictions for Swedes.

In an interview with state broadcaster SVT, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven rejected the idea that Sweden's strategy had failed, citing a continuing decline in hospitalizations and fatalities. While the rate of new infections has increased, officials say that reflects a long-delayed increase in testing.

German drivers queued up in long lines Monday to cross into Denmark, which is letting in German visitors but only those who have booked accommodation for at least six nights.

Britain, which left the EU in January but remains closely aligned with the bloc until the end of this year, only last week imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for most arrivals, horrifying its tourism and aviation industries. As a result, France is asking people from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks and several other nations are not letting British tourists in during the first wave of reopenings.

With flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and millions facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose to vacation at home.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz are both planning to vacation in their homelands this year.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

"You can go abroad for your holiday again," Foreign Minister Stef Blok said. "But it won't be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain."

 The Associated Press
Two pilots and six flight attendants have been temporarily suspended from their job after a plane skidded off the runway during a landing attempt in bad weather at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday afternoon.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has imposed the suspension upon two foreign pilots and six flight attendants of flight VJ322, operated by low-cost carrier Vietjet Air, to assist in an investigation into the accident.

The pilots also had their licenses temporarily seized.

Investigators are working with relevant agencies to analyze the aircrafts black box, including the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, to determine the cause of the incident.

Flight VJ322 touched down in Ho Chi Minh City at 12:10 pm on Sunday after departing from Phu Quoc Island off Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam.

As it was landing at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, the aircraft slid off the runway, with one of its wheels damaged.

All passengers and crew members were unharmed, but the runway had to be shut down, affecting hundreds of flights.

Tan Son Nhat has two runways, 25R/07L and 25L/07R, its operator said.

The Vietjet plane skidded off the 25L/07R runway, while the 25R/07L was closed as an examination was being carried out to prepare for its upgrade.

Operations at the airdrome were halted until 6:30 pm the same day, when the 25R/07L runway was reopened.

The Vietjet aircraft was successfully pulled from the accident site into a parking lot at 6:30 am on Monday.

The 25L/07R runway was reopened nearly two hours later at 8:27 am after authorities had finished fixing runway lights damaged by the runaway plane.

The effort took quite a long time as the plane needed to have its damaged wheel replaced before it could be moved.

The other runway has been shut down again from 9:00 am the same day for upgrade surveys.

A Vietjet representative on Sunday attributed the incident to rain and strong winds.

However, an aviation official stated that the weather conditions were not bad enough to affect landing at the airport.

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Dangote Cement starts Senegal exports and sets new target

15 June 2020

Nigerias Dangote Cement exported its first shipment of clinker to Senegal during the weekend. The 27,800t shipment set off from the companys terminal in Apapa Port, Lagos.



"This vessel, being the maiden ship is exporting 27,800t to Senegal and this is just a tip of the iceberg as to what we have in plan. What we have in plan is to send clinker from Nigeria to Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana," said Alhaji Sada Ladan-Baki, group executive director.



Mr Ladan-Baki also noted that the company will launch its export terminal in Onne, Rivers State, in the next few days. The terminal is expected to enable the company to export clinker to its grinding facility in Cameroon and then to new grinding plants being built across west Africa, according to The Punch.



"Our target is to export at least 4Mt of clinker annually to various parts of Africa," added Mr Ladan-Baki.

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Citizens of Pakistan-Administered Kashmir Will Demand to Be Part of India - Indian Defence Minister

Sputnik News

10:02 GMT 14.06.2020

New Delhi (Sputnik): Locked in territorial conflict over Kashmir for decades, India and Pakistan claim the disputed region in full but control it in part and often oppose each other in matters of governance in the regions, which are identified as "Indian-administered Kashmir" and "Pakistan-administered Kashmir".

Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh claimed on Sunday that soon people from "Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)" will demand to be part of India and refuse to remain under the control of Islamabad after witnessing the developments in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Our government will carry out so much development in Jammu and Kashmir that the people of PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) will demand to be part of India and not under the occupation of Pakistan, and the day this happens, a goal of our Parliament will also be accomplished," he said while addressing the 'Jammu Jan Samvad rally' via video-conferencing.

Singh was praising the historic decision to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, a move which created ripples in politics at an international level, when he said that the "fate of people of Jammu and Kashmir will change in the years to come".

India scrapped Article 370 of its Constitution, which addresses Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. The provision had previously allowed the state's local legislature, the Constituent Assembly, to make its own laws.

However, reacting to India's decision on the abrogation of Article 370 of its Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan lodged a protest against New Delhi's move and downgraded diplomatic relations, suspending bilateral trade with India as well.

Singh also slammed opposition parties for playing politics by questioning the India-China conflict and promised that India will not compromise on "national pride".

"We are in talks with China at diplomatic and military levels. China too has expressed a wish to resolve this issue through dialogue. I would like to inform the opposition that our government won't keep anyone in the dark," he said, adding "I promise you that we won't compromise with national pride in any situation."

Troops from India and China have been in a standoff since the last week of April, when Beijing raised objections over infrastructure development by India along the border. The current standoff is the longest since the 2017 Doklam issue.

 Sputnik

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 04:25:53|Editor: huaxia

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VILNIUS, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Foreign ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland met here on Monday, calling for cooperation and actions to further ease restrictions related to COVID-19, according to a press release from Lithuania's foreign ministry.

"The Baltic States and Poland, which has joined them, have become an example of how coordinated action can help minimize the scale and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.

The foreign ministers vowed at the meeting to step up regional cooperation in case of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, local news agency Elta reported.

"If we took national-level decisions separately when entering the crisis, we should at least exit from the crisis in a coordinated way. We wish to show an example and be better prepared in case a second wave comes," Linkevicius was quoted as saying at a press conference.

During the meeting, the ministers also discussed the security situation in the region and exchanged views on the European Union's multiannual financial framework and economic recovery instrument. Enditem
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Crimes like burglary, theft and vandalism should be given less weight in official statistics, say 11 former chief constables, as they are accused of legitimising the failure to investigate such offences.

The chief constables including two former Scotland Yard commissioners say the way overall crime and detection rates are presented can be misleading by giving too much weight to solving minor offences.

Calling for a radical transformation of the way crime statistics are presented, they argue that more serious crimes such as murder should be given a higher value than theft or burglary to reflect the greater harm to individuals and society.

They say this would give the public a more realistic idea of whether they were safer and whether police were succeeding in cutting crime.

However, the proposal was criticised yesterday for formalising the shift away from investigating minor crimes where as few as one in 50 of some thefts are now solved.

The number of crimes resulting in a charge has fallen from 15.5 per cent in 2015 to 7.3 per cent with some thefts screened out by police because they are determined unlikely to be solved.

Marian Fitzgerald, Professor of Criminology at Kent University, said: This is formalising the expectation that many crimes that affect people and the people they care for are not going to be investigated.

If these are not serious enough for anyone to do anything about, then we could have people who can afford it buying in private security or the vast majority who cannot afford it taking the law into their own hands.

The police watchdog warned earlier this year that public confidence is being damaged with officers rumbled for struggling to investigate crimes such as burglary. It feared the public was giving up reporting crime as victims withdrawing from investigations was up 8.7 per cent to 22.9 per cent.

In the paper, jointly published with criminologists, a leading statistician and academics from Cambridge Universitys Institute of Criminology, the chief constables say: Few would ask the police to give the same effort to investigating a burglary as to a murder.

Story continues

Yet when low burglary detection rates are reported, the related fact of high murder detection rates goes unmentioned.

Without a crime harm metric built into a single bottom line for detection, police are permanently exposed to blame for acting rationally in relation to differential harm levels across crime categories.

Unless these problems are remedied, the public will not be able to tell whether their police have cut crime and made the streets safer.

They propose scrapping the single measure of overall offence and detection rates per 1,000 of the population. This practice can show crime going down even if murders rose 10,000 per cent as long as thefts dropped by 50 per cent, because the volume of theft is so much higher than murder.

Instead, there would be a new system that weighted crimes according to the harm they caused, based on the number of days in jail that an offender would be expected to serve under sentencing guidelines.

This would mean for example that 100 bicycle thefts would score 200, after being multiplied by 2 days, 20 burglaries would be 380 (multiplied by 19 days) and two murders 10,950, each multiplied by 5,475 days.

It would be published alongside the raw data for individual crimes as well as new indexes for proactive policing of hidden crimes such as child abuse, historic offences and crimes reported by other organisations.

The paper published in the Cambridge Journal of Evidence-based Policing is co-authored by criminology professor Lawrence Sherman, statistician professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, seven criminologists, former Met Commissioners Sir Ian Blair and Lord Hogan-Howe, and nine former chief constables.
Police in Japan have arrested a Chinese national on suspicion of dumping the body of a woman in a suitcase on the banks of a river last October.

Byao Jong Li, 31, has been charged with improperly disposing of a body and has remained in custody while police build a case against him over the death of 37-year-old Wang Mou, a fellow Chinese national, the Sankei newspaper reported.

Authorities have not confirmed where in China either Byao or Wang are from, but the suspect is known to have lived in the city of Chiryu, central Japan, and worked for a Japanese company.

Wang was a frequent visitor to Japan, most recently arriving in the country on a short-term visa on June 1 last year. She was last seen by her brother, who is a resident, in Tokyos Ikebukuro district last July. He filed a missing-person report the following month.

In October, a workman cutting the grass on an embankment between the Yahagifuru river and a motorway in Nishio, Aichi Prefecture, uncovered a locked suitcase that was giving off a strong odour. Inside were Wangs remains, found in a seated position  though police said she was likely put in the suitcase after her death, given the lack of any obvious restraints or bindings.

An autopsy suggested she had died about three months before her body was found, although decomposition made determining a cause of death impossible. She was identified with the help of an ID card that was in the suitcase.

Police named Byao as a suspect after interviewing Wangs friends in Japan. He was arrested on Saturday and charged with abandoning a body, though police are expected to question him intensively about his relationship with Wang and his movements around the time of her disappearance.

The case has unpleasant echoes of the killing of two Chinese sisters, 25-year-old Chen Baolan and 22-year-old Chen Baozhen, in Yokohama in July 2017. The bodies of the two women, from Fuzhou, were found dumped in suitcases along a road about 40km from the flat they shared. Both had been strangled to death.

Story continues

In July 2018, 40-year-old Tatsuya Iwasaki was sentenced to 23 years in prison for murdering the two women. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty.

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For the past several weeks, I have been deeply grieved by the unjust deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and by the continued abuses of biracial people, indigenous people and people of color in America. In the 21st century, men, women and children should not have to live in fear for their lives because of the color of their skin. But they do. Daily.

Racism is alive and well in our nation. Tragically, racism has been alive and well in America since the birth of our nation.



As a follower of Jesus, I believe that all people are made in the image of God  which is, by the way, not necessarily a literal image. This means that all are created by God and thus are inherently valuable, regardless of the color of their skin. The church should be the most diverse community of people in the world. It should look like the Apostle Johns vision in Revelation 7:



After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! (ESV)



Our church in Sacramento, California, is an example of this heavenly community. We are 40% black, 40% white and 20% hispanic-Latino. Our greeters welcome members in Spanish, English and what we amusingly refer to Spanglish. Whenever I get on stage to preach on Sundays, I am delighted that the first thing I notice is multi-racial and -ethnic families sitting next to each other, worshipping together.



Sadly, the church has not always been united on its stand against racism and discrimination. But we cannot continue to stand on the sidelines arguing with each other while injustice lifts its ugly head. Only a multi-ethnic, multi-generational firewall will prevent the virus of racism from infecting future American generations.



Speaking up against injustice is in fact what God calls his people to do in Micah 6:8, What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?



More than two and a half millennia later, the prophet Micahs message is as timely to America today as it was to Israel in the 8th century B.C. Heres three ways it can help us move forward during this crisis:



Do justice.

I call my fellow believers and all people of faith to rise up and speak out against the heinous injustices that continue to be propagated in our land. We have to preach against racism. We have to teach against racism. We have to protest peacefully. We have to use our social media presence to advocate for justice.



If we are a nation that truly desires liberty and justice for all, then we also have to call for our government leaders and members of the police force to be held accountable for their actions. The federal government and the Department of Justice should establish a national commission to address the broken trust between the African American community and law enforcement. What happened to George Floyd and what has happened to so many others must never happen again.



Love kindness.

Our country is never going to overcome the sin of systemic racism until we decide to confront it head on. It is not enough to claim that we are not racist or that we dont hate certain groups of people. We must be actively anti-racist.



Practically, this looks like living in solidarity with people who do not look like us. We have to establish and maintain relationships with those who come from different backgrounds than we do. We need to get out of our comfort zones and listen to and learn from our brothers and sisters who have been oppressed. We have to serve one another in love, not only with our time but also with our treasure. Whatever natural or spiritual gifts we possess must be used for the good of our fellow human beings.



Walk humbly with God.

Lately, I have been meditating on Gods words to the prophet Ezekiel: And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart (Ezekiel 36:26 NLT).



In modern terms, we could say that God is telling his people that they need heart transplants. Their old hearts need to be replaced with new ones.



This is Gods word to us today. Our spiritual hearts are just as vital as our physical hearts. When we have a problem with our spiritual heart, it affects all parts of our lives. When our hearts are full of hatred, arrogance or indifference, we live in hateful, arrogant and indifferent ways.



The truth is that our laws can prosecute crime and deliver the justice we desperately need, but they cannot legislate the human heart. We must ask God for new hearts and submit to his careful, precise hand as he removes hatred, arrogance and prejudice from our hearts.



I dont write this as someone who has all the answers. I write this as someone whose heart is broken by human suffering and who desires to play a part in fulfilling Jesus prayer for Gods kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). If we commit ourselves to doing justice, loving kindness and humbly seeking God, then perhaps our nations wounds will begin to heal.
(Newser)  John Bolton isn't the only notable figure coming out with a tell-all about President Trump. The Daily Beast reports that his niece, Mary Trump, plans to release an unflattering book about her uncle in August. The 55-year-old is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., an older brother of the president who struggled with alcoholism and died in 1981 at age 42 of a heart attack. According to the Daily Beast, Too Much and Never Enough will reveal that Mary Trump is the person who provided the New York Times with financial documents for its 2018 Pulitzer-winning investigation into the president's taxes. Among other things, the investigation detracted from the president's image as a self-made billionaire by showing that he received more than $400 million from his father's real estate empire in the 1990s.

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Mary Trump, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, has kept a relatively low profile over the years, per New York Magazine. In her book, she will assert that President Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr., contributed to her own father's death by neglecting him when he needed help dealing with his addiction. (The president has said he regrets pressuring his brother about the family business.) According to the Daily Beast, the book will include conversations with Trump's sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, in which the retired federal judge voices "intimate and damning thoughts" about her brother. All in all, people familiar with the book tell the DB it will have "harrowing and salacious" stories about the president. It's due out Aug. 11, just ahead of the GOP convention. (Read more President Trump stories.)
Geneva:

Organization for Pakistani Minorities, on September 16, organised a side event titled Plight of Pakistani Minorities at the 33rd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The speakers included Fulvio Martusciello, Member of the European Parliament, Mario Silva, Executive Director, International Forum for Rights and Security, Canada, Dr. Rubina Greenwood, Vice Chairperson, World Sindhi Congress and Senge Sering, President, Institute for Gilgit-Baltistan Studies.

Speaking on the occasion, Fulvio Martusciello highlighted Pakistans discriminatory laws against minorities and use of extremist groups as proxies to target minorities including the Christains, Hazaras, Ahmadiyas, Hindus and Balochs. He expressed deep concern regarding the growing intolerance in Pakistani society, a phenomenon aggravated by the actions of the Pakistani government.

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The mysterious death of 154 elephants is being investigated in Botswana after poaching, poisoning and anthrax were dismissed as possible causes.

The carcasses were intact when they were found which suggested that they had not been poached.

After the caresses were examined further it was ruled that the elephants had neither been poisoned by humans nor died from anthrax.

Although Africa's elephant population is declining because of poaching Botswana's numbers are growing.

Pictured: Stock photo of a young bull elephant in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Although Africa's elephant population is declining because of poaching Botswana's numbers are growing

The southern African country is home to a third of the continent's elephants and grew a population of 80,000 to 130,000 because of well-managed reserves.

However elephants are still under threat as farmers see them as a nuisance for destroying crops when they roam out of reserves and poaching is still prevalent.

President Mokgweetsi Masisi last year lifted a five-year ban on big game hunting imposed by previous president Ian Khama.

But coronavirus travel restrictions meant that the hunting season did not take off this year.

The Wildlife Department is working on relocating and dehorning all rhinos to tackle poaching in Botswana, mirroring successful efforts in other parts of the region.

Pictured: A rhino that has been dehorned in an effort to deter poaching in the North West Province in South Africa

Poachers have taken advantage of the lack of safari visitors during the pandemic which has left the Okavango Delta rhino population hit the hardest.

Between December and the beginning of May 25 Okavango Delta rhinos were reported poached, government figures show.

This is a large number of rhinos given that a total of 31 rhinos were poached between October 2018 and December last year.

'Both white rhino and black rhinos have been severely affected, necessitating the ... relocation of highly endangered black rhinos (and) intensification of surveillance,' the Department said.
Veteran banker Pralay Mondal has resigned as executive director and head of retail banking at Axis Bank, over a year after joining the bank in April 2019. Mondal has resigned to pursue a leadership role at another smaller private sector lender, as per media reports.

Confirming the development, Axis Bank in an exchange filing said that Pralay Mondal, Executive Director (Retail Banking) of the bank, has resigned from the services of the lender to pursue other career opportunities. He will demit office on September 14 this year, the lender said.

The lender further stated that Mondal has requested the board to relieve him from the services from the said date.

Axis Bank said that its nomination and remuneration committee has initiated the succession planning process for the said post and it will keep the exchange posted on the same in due course.

"The bank places on record its appreciation for the contributions made by Pralay Mondal during his tenure as executive director (retail banking) of the bank and wish him the very best in his future endeavors," Axis Bank said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Before joining Axis Bank, Mondal, an engineer from IIT Kharagpur and a management graduate from IIM Calcutta, was the Senior Group President and Head of Retail and Business Banking at YES Bank since September 2012. Before that, he was associated with HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Wipro Infotech & Colgate Palmolive. ?

Ahead of the announcement, shares of Axis Bank closed Monday's trade at Rs 389.35 apiece, down 4.55 per cent, on the BSE.

By Chitranjan Kumar

Also Read: Axis Bank results: FY20 profit plunges 65% to Rs 1,627 crore on higher provisions, one time DTA charge
In their paper available on the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers from Russia showed that patients with moderate and severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have a high incidence of deep vein thrombosis  indicating that they may necessitate an early administration of anticoagulation therapy as a part of their treatment regimen.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a potentially fatal respiratory disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the data on various complications caused by this virus are still emerging and evolving in real-time.

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 at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Credit: NIAID

One of the potential complications is deep vein thrombosis, which is a condition that occurs after a blood clot forms in a large vein, most often in the calf. Pain, swelling, and sometimes pulmonary embolism (or a sudden blockage in the lung) can occur, making deep vein thrombosis a life-threatening condition.

Several studies to date have shown a high incidence of venous thromboembolic complications in patients with severe and critical COVID-19; however, the data on moderate to severe (but not critical) illness is lacking.

This is why researchers from the Federal State Clinical Research Hospital and Burnasyan Federal Medical Biophysical Center of Federal Medical Biological Agency in Russia aimed to investigate the incidence of deep-vein thrombosis in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19, but also to assess its prevalence by using imaging methods, clinical information, and laboratory data.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

This study explored 75 consecutive patients during the first half of May 2020 with moderate to severe COVID-19. All of them underwent venous ultrasonography within seven days following hospital admission, which is the standard imaging test used in patients suspected of having acute deep venous thrombosis.

Critical COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit, patients with a known history of deep vein thrombosis, patients with more than 75% lung damage, as well as patients with recent hip or leg trauma were excluded from the analysis.

High prevalence of deep vein thrombosis in COVID-19 patients

Detailed vein ultrasonography has revealed spontaneous echo contrast in common femoral veins in 71% of patients, which indicated a decreased venous flow velocity and blood stasis. Furthermore, vein thrombosis was found in 16 patients; one of them had superficial thrombosis, while 15 patients developed deep vein thrombosis.

Most of the patients had thrombi only in calf veins, while two patients presented with ileofemoral thrombosis and floating thrombi with an increased risk of pulmonary embolism. Most of the thrombi were occlusive and situated in the peroneal veins, posterior tibial veins, and sinuses.

"Patients with deep vein thrombosis were somewhat older than those without thrombi, and they had a longer time between symptoms onset and admission to hospital," explain study authors. "However, those differences were not significant," they add.

Despite intensive anticoagulant therapy with low molecular weight heparins, results were limited, and basically, all thrombi persisted. The aforementioned ileofemoral thrombosis in two of the patients carried a high risk of pulmonary embolism, but early detection helped in averting that dire scenario.

Additionally, two patients with deep vein thrombosis presented with thrombi in veins of the upper extremities, which underscores the possibility of extensive thrombi formations in patients with even moderate COVID-19.

Treatment implications

Based on the results of this study, we can appreciate the recommendations of the American Society of Hematology to monitor platelet count, partial thromboplastin time, activated partial thromboplastin time, fibrinogen and D-dimer in all patients with COVID-19. But should we wait for the results before administering treatment?

"Perhaps it is advisable to start anticoagulation therapy as early as possible in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 and continue it after discharge from hospital", caution study authors based on their results.

Moreover, it perhaps makes sense to additionally follow these patients even after recovery and, at some point in the future, perform venous ultrasonography in order to rule out deep vein thrombosis.

Going forward, physicians around the world will have to consider appropriate prevention of deep vein thrombosis in patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 by ordering screening tests for early detection and making proper referrals for patients that necessitate prophylactic treatment.

*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.
TORONTO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unisync Corp. (TSX: "UNI") is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary Unisync Group Limited (Unisync Group) has been selected by the North American Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors (NAUMD) to receive the Image of the Year Award in the Transportation  People category for the recent new designs of the entire Image Apparel Program for Alaska Airlines. In addition, the new Alaska Airlines Image Apparel Program has also been awarded the highly prestigious Best of the Best Award. This award is presented to the highest scoring entry in recognition of overall excellence. This marks the second time in the last three years that Unisync Group has won the Best of the Best Award.



Everyone at Unisync is honored to have worked on this collection, not only does the program look great, but the product is also being recognized for its high-quality and industry leading safety certification, said Michael Smith, SVP Operations from Unisync. From the beginning, we knew that this program was going to be very special, and were proud that Alaska entrusted us with this partnership.

The new uniform collection was launched in late 2019 with the design and development being more than 4 years and 2 wear tests in the making. It will clad over 19,000 Alaska and Horizon Air uniform employees. Unisync Group was selected as Alaska Airlines new uniform partner in mid-2016 and has been working extensively with Alaska Airlines and Seattle-based designer Luly Yang on the project. The uniform collection was built around a foundation of safety and led to it being the first airline program in the United States certified to STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX. STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX ensures that garments meet or exceed global safety standards with regards to harmful substances. Not only are finished garments tested and certified, but every single raw material and supplier are tested and audited before the finished garments are even manufactured.

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This is a wonderful recognition for Alaska Airlines and their employees, said Matthew Graham, CEO from Unisync. We are very proud to have been a part of this journey to launch such a groundbreaking uniform collection. Unisync continues to solidify itself as the leader in North America for full-service, managed apparel programs, and the quality and attention to detail in this program reinforces our capabilities across the various industry sectors we work within.

NAUMD has been recognizing the best workplace apparel programs with its Image of the Year Awards since 1978. Independent judges evaluate the programs on 1) originality of design, 2) Technology and Innovation, 3) functionality for the job, and 4) Employee Satisfaction

ABOUT UNISYNC



Unisync is a broad-based vertically integrated North American enterprise with exceptional capabilities in garment design, domestic manufacturing, and off-shore outsourcing, including state-of-the-art web based B2B ordering, distribution, and program management systems. Unisync operates through two business units: UGL and Peerless Garments LP (Peerless).

UGL provides full-service, managed apparel programs for major corporations and government-related entities through operations across Canada and has recently expanded into the US marketplace through the establishment of a 45,000 sq. ft. distribution and service facility in Henderson, Nevada, and a sales and service facility in Lakewood, New Jersey. The Nevada facility is now staffed and distributing new uniforms for the launch of its first major US based airline account which is currently rolling out its new designs to employees. UGLs customer base includes a broad list of North American iconic brands as well as municipal and provincial agencies across Canada.



Winnipeg based Peerless specializes in the manufacturing and distribution of highly technical protective garments, military operational clothing, and accessories for a broad spectrum of Federal, Provincial and Municipal government agencies in Canada.

For more information on our capabilities, products and services please visit our website at www.unisyncgroup.com .

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Matthew Graham, CEO

Investor relations contact:

Douglas F Good at 778-370-1725

Email: dgood@unisyncgroup.com
She celebrated her 29th birthday at home with her husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard, last week in their Los Angeles home.

And Emily Ratajkowski appeared to be enjoying the West Coast heat on Sunday, posing with a plunging top in a social media post.

The beauty was seen sitting in her car in a ultra revealing halterneck top for the racy shot.

Emily Ratajkowski set pulses racing on Sunday when she shared a selfie with her fans of herself wearing a very revealing halter-neck top.

Emily rocked a bright floral design crop that featured a very low v-neck design.

She styled her brunette tresses out and accessorised with dainty chains around her neck.

The model appeared to be wearing a natural amount of makeup complete with her signature blushed cheeks and a very overlined nude lip.

Stunner: Yet Emily Ratajkowski ensured the festivities rolled on on Thursday as she shared a series of stunning snaps while living it up for her 29th birthday

Emily's appearance comes after she rung in her 29th birthday last week.

Part of her special day saw her lounge around her backyard in a racy bikini set from her brand, Inamorata.

Emily looked simply sensational as she soaked up the sun while clutching a beer and pulling her very sexiest pout for the camera.

Loving life with her beloved four-legged friend - Colombo, a Husky-German Shepherd - she shared a selfie with her husband and the dog.

She shared a shot taken from a distance which seemed to show two pals and her husband as they enjoyed the spoils of sun-soaked lockdown.

My gang: Loving life with her beloved four-legged friend - Colombo, a Husky-German Shepherd - she shared a selfie with her husband and the dog

Relaxed: She was also cosied up in comfy yet sexy pyjamas

The Blurred Lines model then caught up on some reading while reclining on a sunlounger and looking totally relaxed while sporting another tiny bikini.

The model and her husband were initially hunkering down in New York City, the American epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they flew to LA on April 15.

The Centers For Disease Control And Prevention issued an advisory on March 28 asking 'residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.'

Sunner! She then caught up on some reading while reclining on a sunlounger and looking totally relaxed while sporting another tiny bikini

Earlier in lockdown, Emily shared the books she was keeping busy with including All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks and This Life by Martin Hagglund.

And she recently told British GQ that 'one of the main things Ive been doing' in lockdown is writing her own 'book of essays.'

She said: 'Id say its like a memoir, but with added political thinking.

'Im trying to use my experience as a model and someone who has capitalized on their image and also someone who has been maybe a victim of their image. Its complicated.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 03:28:49|Editor: huaxia

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GABORONE, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Botswana's capital city Gaborone has returned to normalcy after all the probable coronavirus cases registered Friday tested negative, an official said Monday.

Mosepele Mosepele, deputy coordinator for the Southern African country's COVID-19 Presidential Taskforce Team, made the announcement during a virtual media briefing that was broadcast live on national television, Botswana Television.

Mosepele said all the 16 possible cases, which were tested between Friday and Sunday, came out negative.

"All the cases that caused Gaborone to be placed under lockdown were probable ones, which eventually tested negative, hence the decision to return to normalcy," said Mosepele.

Botswana's capital city reinstated its strict containment measures starting midnight Friday following the announcement of presumed cases.

Malaki Tshipayagae, director of public health in Botswana's Ministry of Health and Wellness, said the lockdown ends midnight on Monday.

However, he urged the country's citizens to exercise caution and all the precautionary measures put in place to mitigate the spread of the deadly disease. Enditem
A Liberal senator who appeared to compare Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to the American police officer who allegedly murdered George Floyd has claimed the reference was unintentional.

Queensland senator Amanda Stoker on Sky News last Thursday claimed Ms Palaszczuk's COVID-19 border closure was the 'knee on the throat' of local businesses which was 'stopping them breathing'.

Northern Territory Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy led condemnation of what she called 'abhorrent' comments - which came just two weeks after Mr Floyd died when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin allegedly held his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.

Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker appeared to compare Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to the American police officer who allegedly murdered George Floyd in an interview

'What worries me most is Premier Palaszczuk knows that she is absolutely choking our economy by having these borders shut,' Senator Stoker said in last week's late-night discussion.

'She is the knee on the throat of the businesses of Queensland stopping them breathing. Right?'

Addressing the furore surrounding the remark, the senator and former lawyer said her reference to the African-American man's death may have come out because of Mr Floyd's death weighing on her brain.

'Look, I didnt intend it that way, but because there had been so much discussion around that subject I suspect it was front of mind,' she said, according to ABC News.

Senator McCarthy asked Finance Minister Matthias Cormann in the Senate on Monday for his response to the remarks - but he said he would discuss the matter with his Liberal colleague 'separately'.

Queensland Labor senator Murray Watt said the comments were a 'new low' for the Liberal National Party.

Pictured: Annastacia Palaszczuk during a press conference on Monday. Stoker claimed the Queensland premier's COVID-19 border closure was the 'knee on the throat' of local businesses which was 'stopping them breathing'

African-American man George Floyd died when Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin allegedly held his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes

'Who uses the words of a dying man to score a political point?' he asked.

The comments came as anti-racism protests erupted across the Western world following the death of Mr Floyd on May 25.

Senator Stoker earlier declined to comment on whether she referenced the death of Mr Floyd deliberately.

She told Daily Mail Australia: 'This is nothing but a shallow attempt to use outrage to distract from the mess Labor is facing today [after the sacking of Victorian Labor minister Adem Somyurek].

Liberal Senator Amanda Stoker during Senate Question Time in the Senate chamber at Parliament House

'It's the Queensland Premier who should apologise to the many business owners who've lost their livelihoods, and the thousands of staff who've lost their jobs in circumstances where these border closures have gone on way too long.

'It's choking the Queensland economy, and it has got to stop.'

On Friday the Queensland government announced that its borders closures would end on 10 July.
B oris Johnson has announced plans for a cross-government commission to examine all aspects of racial inequality in Britain.

It comes after two weeks of Black Lives Matter protests in the UK, after anti-racism momentum spread across the world in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the country had much more to do when it comes to tackling racism.

He said the commission on race and ethnic disparities would look at all aspects of inequality  in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life.

Black Lives Matter protests in London continue - In pictures 1 /12 Black Lives Matter protests in London continue - In pictures Black Lives Matter protesters descend on Londons streets Getty Images Protesters practice social distancing Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images Protesters practice social distancing Getty Images Protesters take part in a 'Black Lives Matter' demonstration near Marble Arch on June 01 Getty Images The death of an African-American man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis has sparked violent protests across the world Getty Images Protesters wearing masks at Marble Arch amid the coronavirus pandemic Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images Police detain a protester Getty Images

The commission will report directly to the PM and will be overseen by Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, a source told the Telegraph.

An independent chair will apparently also be appointed to oversee a commission of people with a mix of ethnic, social and professional backgrounds.

Mr Johnson told broadcasters: What I really want to do as Prime Minister is change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

We stamp out racism and we start to have a real expectation of success.

"Thats where I want to get to but it wont be easy.

However the announcement, which included little detail, was sharply criticised by opposition parties.

Labour's shadow equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: We are in the midst of a global health pandemic that has sharply exposed deep structural inequalities which have long since needed urgently addressing.

That the Prime Minister now says he wants to change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination is condescending and designed to let himself and his Government off the hook.

TODO: define component type apester

Liberal Democrat equalities spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the commission was a welcome first step but said the Government must go further.

Too many peoples lives are blighted by discrimination, inequality and injustice. The Government must move further and faster to redress institutional racism in the criminal justice system and many other parts of our society, she said.

But Mr Johnson also wrote that the country cannot photoshop its long and complicated cultural history.

He said to do so would be a distortion of our past.

Mr Johnson also said he would resist all attempts to remove Churchill's statue from Westminster, adding that accusing him of racism was the height of lunacy.

I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better, he said.
At least 20 soldiers and more than 40 civilians have been killed, and hundreds injured in twin attacks in northeast Nigerias Borno state, residents and a civilian task force fighter said.



The attacks on Saturday, in the Monguno and Nganzai areas, came just days after armed fighters killed at least 81 people in a raid on a village in a third area, Gubio.



Two humanitarian workers and three residents told Reuters that fighters armed with heavy weaponry including rocket launchers arrived in Monguno, a hub for international non-governmental organisations, at roughly 11am (10:00 GMT).



The fighters then overran government forces, taking some casualties but killing at least 20 soldiers and roaming the area for three hours.



The sources said hundreds of civilians were injured in the crossfire, overwhelming the local hospital and forcing some of the injured to lie outside the facility awaiting help.



The fighters also burned down the United Nations humanitarian hub in the area and set fire to the local police station. Fighters distributed letters to residents, in the local Hausa language, warning them not to work with the military or international aid groups.



Fighters also entered Nganzai at about the same time on Saturday, according to two residents and one Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) fighter. They arrived on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks and killed more than 40 residents, the sources said.



A military spokesman did not answer calls for comment on the attacks. UN officials could not immediately be reached for comment.



Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have killed thousands and displaced millions in northeastern Nigeria.



ISWAP claimed the two Saturday attacks as well as the Gubio attack.

Source: Reuters.com









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insights from industry Karen Esmonde-White Food and Beverage Product Manager Kaiser Opitcal Systems

In this interview, Karen Esmonde-White from Kaiser Optical Systems talks to News-Medical Life Sciences about measuring Salmon Meat composition using Near-infrared Raman Spectroscopic techniques.

What are the main components in salmon that an analytical tool would need to measure during processing?

We all know that salmon is a popular dish and can be a very tasty food. We also know that there is high consumer demand for salmon worldwide. This demand creates a need for efficiency from the initial raising of the salmon to the point when it is processed in the plant. Rapid measurement of quality can help achieve this goal.

Ideally, you would want your analytical tool to predict the three main attributes of meat quality: fat, color, and texture. In addition, the analytical tool would need to be rapid, non-destructive, and robust to the plant environment, whether you are measuring before the slaughter or in the processing plant itself.

For maximum efficiency, the primary three measurement components of salmon could be measured using a single probe because you do not want to be stopping the plant to take a measurement three times. To do so, you would need the tool to be hygienic, or to not come in direct contact with the tissue.

Tests for these three components are most often performed in the laboratory. For fat content, people use the American Oil Chemists' Society method to examine the fat saturation, otherwise known as the iodine value. Newer methods may use liquid or gas chromatography.

We can also these principles of lab measurement when it comes to determining color. For color identification, you look at the Roche color card or do a carotenoid extraction in the laboratory and use chromatography or reflectance (which is UV-Vis based). For firmness, you are doing standard mechanical testing by looking at the mechanical deformation or doing extractions for collagen or moisture content.

These laboratory-based techniques are not efficient, and most importantly, they are destructive. You need to take a sample out of the processing plant, bring it to the lab, perform your reaction, and then wait. Such inefficiency does not yield real-time measurement. Simply put, salmons higher product demand is driving industry for tests that are non-destructive, automated, and inline.

To get inline measurements, the field is looking at various optical and spectroscopy technologies. These include UV-Vis, hyperspectral imaging, machine vision (a high-speed camera with automated color), near-infrared for moisture, and Raman spectroscopy.

Image Credit:Shutterstock/udra11

What does Raman spectroscopy measure? How does this analysis technique benefit the analysis of salmon products?

Raman spectroscopy measures scattered light. It uses a laser that will illuminate the sample. Most of the scattered light will not change in wavelength, so it will return as the same color. However, one out of every million photons that laser light will interact with causes molecular vibration (making Raman a one in a million phenomenon). In these cases, it will lose a little bit of energy, and we can measure that change of energy.

That change of energy is based on the functional groups or the chemistry of the material that we are examining. The result is a spectrum, and sometimes we call that spectrum a molecular fingerprint because it gives us very specific information on the chemistry of the material.

Because it uses visible or near-infrared light, the advantage of Raman spectroscopy is that we can use visible optics that do not require specialty materials, which provides a great deal of sampling flexibility. We can measure solids, liquids, gases, and we can do this inline or in the laboratory.

We can use Raman in three different ways. First and foremost, it can chemically identify what we are looking at. For example, we can identify that our sample is a pharmaceutical small molecule and it is in crystal form. The Raman spectra does an excellent job of differentiating between crystal forms. The second use is for quantitative purposes. For example, we can measure glucose solutions in a sample and are able to measure from 0.5 grams per litre up to 15 grams per litre.

In addition, the identification and quantitative measurements can be integrated to understand whether the molecular fingerprint has changed, and if so, by how much during a process. One very powerful application of this is identifying the endpoint of a reaction based on the disappearance of our reactants and the formation of our products.

Other advantages of Raman spectroscopy are that it provides direct, real-time, and in-process measurement. Some Raman systems are compatible with hazardous area environments such as petrochemical fields and chemical plants. The analyser can talk to a control room via industrial communication platforms, thereby avoiding the need for manual user intervention.

With Raman spectroscopy, we can measure the absorption, refraction, and scattering. Some materials have multiple interactions with the same matter, which is certainly true for biological tissues including meat and fish products. The reason why spectroscopy is so powerful is that it can examine the materials' chemical properties non-destructively based on changes in transmission, absorption, or wavelength. Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique because we can understand the chemistry of something in real-time without needing to prepare or destroy it.

Your background is in biomedical and tissue optics. Did your work in this field relate to your experiments with salmon tissue analysis?

Yes. As I am looking at Raman spectroscopy of salmon, I look at it as a food. However, scientifically, I can also look at it as a biological tissue and apply my training in biomedical optics. Biomedical optics is the field in which we are developing spectroscopy for measuring biochemical changes of tissues in health, aging, and disease, with the aim of clinical measurements being to observe these biochemical changes that may precede or accompany disease.

Tying the principles of Raman spectroscopy with tissue optics results is the field of tissue Raman spectroscopy. Similar to spectroscopy, we do tissue optics every day. We see it when we go to see the doctor for a blood oxygen measurement, for example. That is biomedical optics in action. We can also see some principles behind biomedical optics when we put a laser on our finger. Our finger glows instead of the laser just going straight through our finger. We might be able to also see some changes of intensity as well.

While the field of tissue Raman spectroscopy has been around for a long time, it was advanced in the early 2000s when Mike Morris and Pavel Matousek were first able to demonstrate that they could measure subsurface Raman spectra. Bringing in some principles from tissue Raman spectroscopy, such as understanding sampling volume and incorporating the use of tissue phantoms, can help us build a comprehensive approach to meat quality measurements using Raman.

This understanding happens because we have heterogeneous tissues that can absorb light and bounce light around. Consequently, we see changes in absorption or scattering. We can also see that light is sometimes just reflected back and it just goes through the tissue very, very rapidly. All these things are happening at once, and we can understand those complex interactions in the laboratory.

An important tool we have in the laboratory are specially designed physical models, also called tissue phantoms. They are not scary! Tissue phantoms are used in hospitals and medical facilities every day to calibrate our medical imaging equipment such as X-rays, CT, MRI, and PET equipment. They are also used for the biomedical optics community because they allow us to understand instrument performance, and they can also be very useful in food analysis.

Using these well-defined models is especially important for chemical analysis such as Raman spectroscopy. While we can go to the store, or we can work with a processing plant to get specimens, we cannot define the composition precisely. What a tissue phantom allows us to do is build something in the laboratory very easily, very simply, and very quickly with a precisely defined composition.

Using tissue phantoms has several benefits including optimising what probe to use, understanding measurement performance, and serving as starter data for our analytical model. What is interesting about tissue phantoms is that because you are making these in the laboratory, you can define the zonal variations too.

For example, for the red portion phantom, you can make distinct fat inclusions in a layer of muscle. That can mimic the red portion, and it is easy to define the percentage of fat as well. For a white portion phantom, you would want to have something where you do not have the very distinct zonal variations. For this, you would probably want to mix your zones a little bit more, and that is something that you can easily do with a tissue phantom.

Image Credit:Shutterstock/Milovzorova Elena

Are the common Raman spectroscopy wavelengths of 785 nm and 1000 nm useful for the analysis of food products?

In Raman spectroscopy, we talk about using 785 nm or even 1000 nm as a way to reduce fluorescence. That is one reason that we use those wavelengths. In tissue measurements, we have additional benefits of going to these wavelengths. These include balancing the effects of water or haemoglobin absorption at different wavelengths, or trying to optimize for one or the other, which is a really important component of tissue optics.

Could you give us more detail on the experiments you conducted to analyze salmon samples?

We performed two studies. The first study was to assess the utility of the 1000 nm system for measuring fat, color, and texture components in salmon tissue. Salmon Raman spectroscopy has been around for at least 15 years, but it had all been done at 785 nm and never at 1000 nm. We had the 1000 nm system and wanted to know what would happen if we used this wavelength. The second study was to assess the compatibility of an offset non-contact probe at 785 nm for inline meat quality measurements. For both studies, we simply used store-bought samples. My colleague had gone to our local grocery store and just picked up every type of salmon specimen that she could find, including some farmed Atlantic salmon, wild coho salmon, and smoked salmon.

We measured it in as many ways that we could in the laboratory. We measured the meat in various locations and we also collected on the skin. We took measurements on dark and light skin using a contact probe and non-contact optic. We were able to collect good spectra within one and ten seconds. We used the Raman Rxn2 analyzer that operates either at 1000 nm or 785 nm, and the laser intensity was about 80 milliwatts.

We used a contact optic, so we were able to get surface measurements of the solids when we were able to touch the probe to those different sections. These probes use the backscatter geometry. The illumination and the collection fibres are close together, and it gives a small spot size that provides surface measurement. With the contact probe, we were able to see the zonal heterogeneity. We could look at the fat section versus the muscle section, and get information on just the fat, or information on just the muscle.

The non-contact optic uses a similar backscattered Raman approach and it provides a small spot size, but it is non-contact. For the inline process probe, we used our non-contact PhAT probe. It uses a large volumetric approach to collect surface and subsurface Raman signal. This approach is especially useful in processes involving solids for a couple of reasons. The first reason is to obtain a large volume measurement that is representative of the sample quickly with a single measurement. The second reason is that we can do this without needing to focus the probe onto the sample for every new sample.

What were the results of these experiments?

First, we needed to get the meaning from the spectra we generated. The different bands that we saw corresponded to different attributes in the tissue. We observed bands that corresponded to collagen, fats, proteins, and the carotenoid pigments. These bands have been shown to inform on the three major components of fish qualityfirmness, fats, and color. So, we were able to get a multi-attribute measurement with just a single probe and a single measurement.

The use of 1000 nm had its advantages. It did give us high spectral resolution and less water absorption. I would say that in terms of reducing fluorescence, it did reduce fluorescence slightly. I am really pleased with the 1000nm system because it was able to provide spectra rapidly that are consistent with literature reports on salmon meat proteins, fats, and carotenoids. Using the 1000 nm system with a small spot size probe allowed us to see the compositional heterogeneity in salmon meat. The PhAT process Raman probe is compatible with the cycle time of the processing plant for inline meat quality measurements.

About Dr. Karen Esmonde-White

Dr. Karen Esmonde-White is a Senior Marcom Specialist at Kaiser Optical Systems Inc.

She earned her B.S. in chemistry from Wheeling Jesuit University, her M.S. in Chemistry, M.Eng. in Pharmaceutical Engineering and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Esmonde-White has over 6 years experience as an analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry.

Her research interests are in biological Raman spectroscopy, process analytics and instrument design.
Sweeping new national security laws being imposed on Hong Kong might not be retroactive, a Chinese official said, potentially limiting the scope of controversial legislation thats currently being drafted in Beijing.

Deng Zhonghua, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, made the comments Monday at an event in the mainland border city of Shenzhen. The conference was organized by the Chinese Association of Hong Kong & Macau Studies and was attended by several officials responsible for affairs in the former British colony.

It needs to be clarified that, even though there are differences in the Hong Kong and mainland legal systems, the principles used in the mainland with regard to criminal laws are not fundamentally different from those in Hong Kong, Deng said. They all include principles such as the laws will not be applied retrospectively, presumption of innocence, suspects and defendants will have right to defense.

Deng added: All these principles can be stipulated in this legislation.

The Chinese government and its appointed leaders in Hong Kong have been seeking to reassure local residents, foreign officials and overseas investors about the looming legislation. Pro-democracy activists and their supporters have expressed alarm about the security laws, which would criminalize the harshest criticism of Beijing after a year of unprecedented and often violent anti-government protests.

Organizations ranging from business chambers to human rights groups have criticized Beijings move to bypass Hong Kongs legislature and impose laws banning subversion, secession and foreign interference. Opponents say the push would undermine the freedoms promised to Hong Kong before its return to Chinese rule in 1997 and erode the citys appeal as a global financial hub.

For months last year, protesters chanted Liberate Hong Kong! Revolution of our times! in marches that drew more than a million people. One band of radicals broke into the Legislative Council on the anniversary of the handover, ransacking the chamber and defacing the citys emblem. Some high-profile activists traveled to Washington to advocate for legislation that would punish Beijing for its crackdown.

Dengs comments echo remarks by Hong Kong Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng, who said in a blog post Sunday that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Regions Common Law legal system had much in common with Chinas system.

There are a number of commonalities between the civil and common law systems respectively in the Mainland and the HKSAR, such as retrospectivity, presumption of innocence, burden of proof and standard of proof, legal certainty, etc., she wrote.

At the same time, she said it was impracticable and unreasonable to expect that everything in a national law, the National Security Law, will be exactly as what a statute in the HKSAR common law jurisdiction would be like.

Rare Circumstances

In his remarks, Deng referred to Beijings plan to establish new national security enforcement mechanisms as part of the impending legislation, a move that has raised fears China would allow its security forces a free hand to operate openly in Hong Kong for the first time.

Deng said that Hong Kong should remain in charge of most enforcement and legal processes surrounding the security legislation, but mentioned that China should also reserve the right to have jurisdiction over cases that seriously endanger national security under very rare circumstances. That reference could raise the specter of extradition -- an issue that sparked last years protests -- or trials by Communist Party-controlled judges.

For this law to be effective, the key is the establishment of strong enforcement mechanisms, including setting up agencies to safeguard national security and to grant them necessary enforcement powers, Deng said. Of course, there are only few cases where China will have jurisdiction over. It will not replace the responsibilities of Hong Kongs relevant departments, nor would it affect judicial independence and final adjudication that Hong Kong enjoys under the Basic Law.

Proposed Agenda

It is not yet clear when China will finalize its plans for the new security laws.

The National Peoples Congress Standing Committee, the top decision-making body of Chinas rubber-stamp legislature that had originally unveiled Beijings plan to impose the new laws, will hold its bi-monthly session from Thursday to Saturday. The Hong Kong national security legislation is not on a proposed agenda published last week.

The Hong Kong security issue could be added in a last-minute change to the agenda, or the committee could also hold an interim meeting if theres a special need to do so.
The head of the regional council in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson who is suspected of ordering a deadly attack on local anti-corruption activist Kateryna Handzyuk failed to show at a hearing in Kyiv that would have decided on his possible pretrial arrest.



Representatives of Vladyslav Manher told the Pechera District Court in Kyiv on June 15 that Manher was unable to travel from Kherson to the Ukrainian capital because he is being treated in an emergency unit at a local hospital.



It's the second time Manher has failed to show up at the court in Kyiv. He has denied any involvement in the attack.



Last week, he missed a hearing, which his lawyers said was because Manher's daughter was going to have surgery.



The court subsequently ruled that Manher could be brought to the June 15 hearing by force. However, when investigators arrived in Kherson on June 14 to deliver the court ruling, they found that Manher himself was in hospital.



Lawyers of Handzyuk's family accused Manher of "hiding" from justice.

Kateryna Handzyuk, a 33-year-old civic activist and adviser to the mayor of the Black Sea port city of Kherson, died in November 2018 -- three months after she was severely injured in an acid attack.



Prosecutors arrested Manher in February last year and charged him with ordering the attack. Manher was later released on bail.



In June 2019, five men were sentenced to prison terms of between 3 and 6 1/2 years for organizing and executing the attack, after they made plea deals with investigators.



Human rights activists have accused Ukrainian law enforcement agencies of failing to thoroughly investigate the growing number of attacks on activists, and even of collusion with the perpetrators in some cases.

With reporting by Suspilne and UNIAN
Mogul Tyler Perry will be paying for Rayshard Brooks' funeral after he was fatally shot by police in Atlanta, Georgia over the weekend.

The 50-year-old producer spoke to Brooks' family about taking care of the observance financially attorney L. Chris Stewart announced at a press conference on Monday.

The death of 27-year-old Brooks, which the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office ruled a homicide, was the latest police killing of a black man to fuel nationwide outrage against police brutality and racial injustice.

Mogul Tyler Perry will be paying for Rayshard Brooks' funeral after he was fatally shot by police in Atlanta, Georgia over the weekend.

Sad: The death of 27-year-old Brooks, which the Fulton County Medical Examiner's office ruled a homicide, was the latest police killing of a black man to fuel nationwide outrage against police brutality and racial injustice

Stewart said: 'We do want to acknowledge and thank Tyler Perry, who we spoke with and who will be taking care of the funeral for the family.

'It's support like that and it's people who are actually in this community, that love the community, that want healing, and [want] families like this to never have to go through something like this. It's a step forward.

'We want to thank him for such a generous move.'

'It is a step forward': The 50-year-old producer spoke to Brooks' family about taking care of the observance financially attorney L. Chris Stewart announced at a press conference on Monday

Hard to watch: Caught on video, the encounter seemed friendly at first but when an officer moved to arrest him, Brooks struggled with him and another officer at the scene before breaking away across the parking lot with what appears to be a police Taser in his hand

Brooks' fatal encounter with the police came after police responded to a call that he had fallen asleep in his car in a Wendy's restaurant drive-through lane.

Caught on video, the encounter seemed friendly at first but when an officer moved to arrest him, Brooks struggled with him and another officer at the scene before breaking away across the parking lot with what appears to be a police Taser in his hand.

A video from the restaurant's cameras shows Brooks turning as he runs and possibly aiming the Taser at the pursuing officers, both white, before one of them fires his gun and Brooks falls.

Gone too soon: Prosecutors will decide by midweek whether to bring charges, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said on Sunday

Atlanta's police chief, Erika Shields, resigned over the shooting. The officer suspected of killing Brooks was fired, and the other officer involved in the incident was put on administrative leave.

Prosecutors will decide by midweek whether to bring charges, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said on Sunday.

Several members of Rayshard Brooks' family attended Monday's news conference in tears and spoke of him as a warm family man who loved to take his daughter skating. One man left the room during the briefing in hysterics, shouting, 'Somebody took my cousin!'

'We want to keep his name positive': Several members of Rayshard Brooks' family attended Monday's news conference in tears and spoke of him as a warm family man including his widow Tomika Miller

Brooks' death reignited protests in Atlanta after days of worldwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality prompted by the death of George Floyd, an African American, when a Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes on May 25.

Brooks' widow, Tomika Miller, implored the public to protest peacefully in her husband's name.

'We want to keep his name positive,' she said.

Kim Kardashian, Billie Eilish, and Justin Timberlake were among celebrities using their social media platforms to bring attention to the death of Brooks over the weekend.
India always had problems dealing with the spectrum.

-- We wasted valuable wireless spectrum for fixed-line services in 1995, unlike any other country, after the erroneous decision that expensive mobile phones were not for the poor Indians. The decision was reversed in 2004 but led to a lot of inspired criticism by mobile incumbents.

-- Earlier, the government approved a Convergence Bill in 2001, for more efficient use of spectrum, but was not approved. The government/regulator, therefore, approved a Unified Access License in 2004, a reduction in interconnect charges and tariff forbearance. But, it took inefficiently long to bring in these changes (it had to be done in stages, by many regulatory efforts). Unified License reduced tariffs 50 times, but increased government revenues. Mobile numbers growth immediately increased 10 times, and gradually 200 times, three times ever the leader, China. 3G spectrum auctions were efficient later, though delayed, and showed the huge loss in 2G allocation and crony capitalism involved, the basis of the CAG report. The allocations led to litigation and differing and controversial judgments by the Supreme Court/CBI Court, the issue still remaining open, but this was one of the issues on which the UPA lost heavily to NDA, in the ultimate court of elections in 2014.

-- 4G auctions were conducted efficiently, even though they were delayed, and now we have come to 5G auction issues, with an ET news item commenting, "India is set to miss the '5G bus' following the lack of preparedness, unavailability of sufficient spectrum, absence of encouraging use cases, and uncertainty around radio waves sale for the next generation of telecom services." This is despite India appointing A.J. Paulraj (winner of the Marconi Prize) Committee to give the recommendations to the steps required. They gave the report in mid-2018, and despite giving the schedule, we have not moved fast. In the past, Prime Minister Modi-led government maintained that it "won't afford to miss 5G bus" like in the case of 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies that were deployed in India way later than many countries, thus losing the many early user advantages.

5G and India: Before we discuss, let us understand the nature of the use of 5G. For a layman, 5G is just next-generation wireless infrastructure which will provide them voice and data services. However, it will impact much more due to its bit-level intelligence characteristics. 5G will provide an array of network intelligence which will get translated into precise and demand-led resource allocation.

1G came in the 1980s and provided basic voice services, 2G in the 1990s, and enabled voice and SMS services due to its digital standards, 3G came in the 2000s and introduced data services along with voice and SMS that enabled multimedia services. 4G pure IP network, came in the 2010s, and enabled the application services and partially merged the telecom and information technology which gave boom to platform services.

The architecture of 5G is designed to handle the connection of billions of devices including industrial machines with seamlessness and reliable data transfer with much faster speed. 5G is not only about high-speed boost but it is about the intelligence at the bit level and low latency which will make it the foundational tech for multiple new tech., including self-driven cars, AR & VR, telemedicine, robotic surgery, powering future smart cities, IoT, m2m, AI and manufacturing. 5G will change the future warfighting too due to increased situational awareness to increase the command and control of the battlefield. Once these networks come, 2G and 3G networks can be abolished, like in other countries for better overall spectrum utilization. We have not started.

Industrial revolutions and change: It has been shown that industrial revolutions change the world. Hirschman had said that these revolutions occur every 70 years. This was proved in IR 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. The US and the West's GDP went up five to six times in IR 1.0 & 2.0, while India and China went down 10 times (colonial loot was also the reason).

Growth reversal with IR 3.0: But IR 3.0 changed the world with the technology being on a connected net and with globalization, available to the Third World (right from the beginning). Of course, the US helped China a lot post-1980, in technology dispersal, and helping China with accelerated WTO membership in 2001. This led to China growing eight times and India 2.5 times in a few years.

IR 4.0 and 5.0: The world is now moving to the fourth and the fifth industrial revolutions in quick succession. Providentially, these revolutions are also happening on the same wire or wireless lines as in IR 3.0, and we have bright Indian minds working in the digital sector like Nadella, Pichai, Arvind Kuar, Banga, Tata, Kohli, Nilekani, Narayana Murthy, Patni, Soota, Premji, and millions of others located in Silicon Valleys around the world. The most exciting additions to the list are Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, and Kumar Mangalam Birla. They have kept the mobile sector alive despite crony capitalism, and given the appropriate ambiance, should do very well now. Through them, and despite COVID, the world has shown confidence in the Indian economy.

China should do well because of enormous investment, past technology thefts, uninhibited US support until 2015, and R&D. The fifth IR will happen with IT getting connected to human minds (AI and beyond). IR 5.0 having reached the human mind, perhaps cannot move beyond, and the 6th IR has to be in another area, maybe the planets, as visualized by Jeff Bezos. Again, India is well-placed. Creating an appropriate environment is key.

Role of the private sector: It may also be recalled that the 2G rollout had created strong private sector companies and from 10 percent private network, it had gone to 80 percent (though the public sector had grown too). Later, despite crony capitalism, they had survived, and are today, India's main hope to take us forward. With 5G networks being more powerful, they will surely impact GDP growth much more than the earlier generation networks and move the country towards Namo's $5 trillion economies in 2024.

Fiscal pressure on the government -- we can ill-afford to ignore: We are today also hit by Covid, huge bank NPAs, financial crisis, fiscal deficits and fall in investments. 5G rollout is an opportunity for huge network (and downstream) investments by existing private sector companies and their networks all over the country, without putting any fiscal deficit pressure on the government. I had, therefore, anticipated in my China book and articles, that the present is 'providence' for India, like it was 'providence' for China in the 80s with an imaginary 'cold war'.

Pricing Issues: A word about pricing here -- our entire 2G revolution came after tariff forbearance, and liberal availability, connectivity and regulatory reforms. Obviously, once 5G revolutions get moving, the disruptions would be higher. Indian economy/GDP did well during IR 3.0, its DNA being more IT-centric, demonstrated by high growth in these sectors during some periods of IR 3.0, when regulations were right (2004 to 2010), particularly vis-a-vis China, and also the Indian minds being more IT-centric, demonstrated by the success of IT (software) and mobile revolutions.

World Digital Economy: In 2019, the world celebrated the first full year when more than half of the world (51.2 percent, or 3.9 billion people) had begun to participate in the global digital economy by logging onto the internet, from almost zero a couple of years back. The world is turning fully digital, and networks converging very fast. China has touched 840 million subscriber base and will be 1 billion at the end of 2020, with superior speed, whereas India has only touched 600 million broadband subscribers.

The world will thus transform itself into a form that during IR 4.0 and 5.0 the versatile 4 and 5G networks will be more valuable than all other infrastructure, like roads, rail, and air transportation systems, etc. Looking at the future, China has created companies that are leading in 5G, AI, quantum computing, and other digital products and shaping up the digital behaviour of the people because they are deploying networks faster and learning by doing it.

China is also leading in the standardization and patents of the digital ecosystem, manufacture of equipment, etc. In contrast, the Indian 5G process is yet to commence (allocation of spectrum and installation of 5G equipment), though we have done extremely well despite a late start in the past. India can grow in IR 4.0 given its human capital pool, the start in the use of algorithm prowess and an established IT hub, only if we install 4G and 5G systems adequately. But expensive and presently unviable (for India, since IR 4.0 and 5.0 industries and services have not started) 5G systems are likely to come in slow. Also, the spectrum and equipment prices are anticipated to be high. Unless both spectrum and equipment prices are low and heavily backloaded, I do not see India coming out of the jigsaw puzzle, and not falling back severely in the digital war. And if we miss India's turnaround moment, India's vast market and trained manpower will be used by advanced countries to develop 5G / IR4.0 and 5.0 networks fast. The Paulraj Committee recommended that 5G will mature between 2019 and 2024. India should take lead and become an innovator in 5G applications.

(Pradip Baijal is former Secretary, Disinvestment and former Chairman, TRAI. This article is in continuation of his book, Containing the China Onslaught, published by Quadrant, and available on amazon.in and walmart, and further to a review of China's growth in Defensive Offence https://youtu.be/gFmRP3whXmU)

Latest updates on Howdy Modi Houston

-- Syndicated from IANS
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:38:38|Editor: huaxia

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WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The fatal police shooting of Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old African American man, outside a fast food restaurant on Friday in Atlanta, in the U.S. state of Georgia, was ruled a homicide on Sunday.

Brooks was shot twice in the back and died from organ damage and blood loss from the wounds, the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office said in a statement.

Garrett Rolfe, the officer who shot Brooks, was fired. A second officer, Devin Brosnan, was placed on administrative duty. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned over the shooting.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said his office is hoping to announce a decision about possible charges by the middle of next week.

Brooks died after a confrontation with police officers who were responding to a complaint that he was asleep in the drive-thru of the restaurant.

Police said the officers tried to take Brooks into custody after he failed a sobriety test, which led to a struggle between the two sides. Police claimed that Brooks, while allegedly resisting, grabbed an officer's Taser and ran off with it.

Footage capturing the scene from the restaurant's parking lot showed that Brooks turned around and appeared to point the stun gun at the police officers before being shot.

An ambulance transferred Brooks to a local hospital, where he died after undergoing surgery.

The shooting prompted protests Saturday night in Atlanta, and the restaurant was set aflame.

Brooks' death came amid widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Floyd died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Enditem
A coalition of New Jersey schools serving more than 3,000 special education students will remain closed this summer, saying state guidance for reopening in July is insufficient for hosting students with special needs.

The schools, including those from eight county special services districts, said in a statement that the states announcement allowing summer school programs to begin next month gave parents false hope." The guidance for reopening  issued last week by Gov. Phil Murphys administration  came too late and is general in nature, the schools said.

The schools will continue to provide remote instruction when possible.

Children with the most intensive disabilities cannot serve as the test case for whether New Jersey schools can reopen safely," said Howard Lerner, superintendent of the Bergen County Special Services School District and chairman of the New Jersey Joint Council of County Special Services School Districts.

Many of the students who would be in the extended school year program require 1-on-1 support for feeding, washing, using communication devices and other tasks, making social distancing impossible, Lerner said. Those students may not be able to wear masks for extended periods of time, and in some cases, have medical conditions that physically prevent them from using face coverings.

We recognize that remote instruction requires tremendous family involvement and commitment, and that all parents, especially working parents, look forward to schools reopening," Lerner said. However, our overriding priority must be the safety of our students, their families and our staff, and it is not feasible to reopen schools for this vulnerable student population in July.

The decision illustrates the myriad logistical challenges of returning to normal in New Jersey without a vaccine for COVID-19. Unlike salons or restaurants, publicly funded schools wont go out of business if they err on the side of caution. Yet parents of special education students have consistently said their children are in desperate need of services, including physical therapy they normally would receive in school.

Murphy paved the way for schools to reopen last week, saying they can start in-person summer programs July 6. The state told schools to follow the same health guidance it provided for summer camps, including face masks, temperature screenings and staggered arrival and dismissal times.

However, the guidance allows schools to continue with virtual instruction if they cannot meet their academic goals while following necessary safety measures.

Many schools across the state had already planned for virtual instruction this summer. Theres simply not enough time to change course, said Mark Finkelstein, superintendent of the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey.

Mid-June is too late to start preparing for a July 6 in-person start when we must schedule complex transportation routes, collaborate with local health officials on screening, train staff, retrofit indoor facilities, develop emergency and situational protocols and acquire sufficient personal protective equipment for our staff and those students who can wear it," he said.

New Jersey private schools for special education appear ready to reopen, however. An organization representing more 130 private schools for students with disabilities wrote to the state on June 5 with a plan to bring students back with a combination of onsite, virtual and in-home programming

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Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Sudan's public prosecutor announced Monday the discovery of a mass grave containing conscripts allegedly killed after trying to flee a military camp in 1998 under ousted president Omar al-Bashir's regime. The grim discovery came as part of investigations into misdeeds committed under al-Bashir, who ruled the country with an iron fist before the army deposed him amid huge street protests in April 2019. A investigating committee "found the mass grave in the past four days after hearing witness accounts," about killings at Ailafoon military camp, public prosecutor Tagelsir al-Hebr told reporters in Khartoum. Some of those suspected of involvement in the incident have fled the country, said Hebr, who did not disclose how many bodies were found. "The grave was exhumed and now the committee will continue to work with forensic authorities and examine the evidence," said Wael Ali Saeed, a member of the investigation committee. Ailafoon military camp, located southeast of the capital Khartoum, was used for training new conscripts under Bashir's rule. In 1998, a group of conscripts died as they attempted to escape the base for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holidays. The Sudanese government said at the time that around 55 young conscripts who fled the base drowned when their overloaded boat capsized in the Blue Nile. Opposition groups accused the regime of deliberately killing the conscripts and reported a death toll of more than 100. - Other investigations - Many Sudanese families reported that their sons went missing and their remains were never found. Bashir used conscripts in the civil war against rebels in the oil-rich south, which seceded in 2011. Following Bashir's ouster last year, the country has since August been led by a civilian-majority administration presiding over a three-year transitional period. Sudanese authorities have vowed to probe "violations" committed under Bashir as well as violence during last year's protests against his rule. Hebr also disclosed on Monday that an investigatory team is looking into the 1989 Islamist-backed military coup that brought Bashir to power. Other ongoing investigations include cases of corruption and violence against demonstrators during anti-government protests that took place from December 2018, he added. Doctors linked to Sudan's protest movement said at least 246 were killed and hundreds others wounded during the 2018-19 protests. Since his ouster, Bashir and many of his aides have been kept in Khartoum's Kober prison on multiple charges. In December, he was sentenced to two years detention in a correctional facility in an initial corruption case. The ex-president has for a decade been wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court, where he faces charges of genocide and war crimes committed in the war ravaged Darfur region of western Sudan. The Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003 between African minority rebels and Bashir's forces, killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million others. Last week, top militia leader Ali Kushayb, who was accused of atrocities in Darfur, handed himself over to the ICC. A picture taken on June 13, 2020, shows members of a forensic team at a cemetery where a mass grave of conscripts killed in 1998 was discovered, in the Sahafa neighbourhood, south of the Sudanese capital Khartoum
Pew funds 22 researchers to pursue scientific breakthroughs

PHILADELPHIA--The Pew Charitable Trusts today announced that 22 early-career researchers have been selected to join the Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences. These talented scientists will receive four years of funding to invest in foundational research to pursue scientific breakthroughs and advance human health.

"Pew is proud to support these promising researchers as they conduct world-class research to address biomedicine's most complex questions," said Rebecca W. Rimel, Pew's president and CEO. "They join a group of distinguished scientists who have worked for decades to advance science and protect public health."

The 2020 class of scholars--all of whom hold assistant professor positions--are new members of a vibrant community of more than 1,000 scientists who have received awards from Pew since 1985. Current scholars meet annually to share their research and exchange perspectives across diverse health disciplines.

"As all researchers know, science's work is never truly done. By leveraging findings and investigating new ways to solve problems, this year's class will continue the legacy of countless Pew scholars before them," said Craig C. Mello, Ph.D., a 1995 Pew scholar, 2006 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, and chair of the national advisory committee for the scholars program. "I'm confident that these scholars will help push scientific boundaries."

The 2020 scholars were chosen from 191 applicants nominated by leading academic institutions and researchers across the United States. This year's class includes scientists exploring why female mammals age differently than males, how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease, and the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Five members of the 2020 class, who were selected for their commitment to investigating health challenges relating to the brain as it ages, will receive awards with support from the Kathryn W. Davis Peace by Pieces Fund.

The 2020 Pew scholars in the biomedical sciences are:

Michael Baym, Ph.D.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Baym will study how bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics.

Berenice Benayoun, Ph.D.

University of Southern California

Dr. Benayoun will explore why female mammals age differently than males.

Shelby Blythe, Ph.D.

Northwestern University

Dr. Blythe will identify the factors that initiate the wave of gene activation in the earliest moments of embryonic development.

Xiaolu (Lulu) Cambronne, Ph.D.

University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Cambronne will explore how cells compartmentalize metabolites that have distinct regulatory roles in different cellular locations.

Carlos Carmona-Fontaine, Ph.D.

New York University

Dr. Carmona-Fontaine will explore how cancer cells coordinate their metastatic spread.

Juan Du, Ph.D.

Van Andel Research Institute

Dr. Du will investigate the molecular mechanisms that allow the body to sense and regulate temperature.

Daria Esterhazy, Ph.D.

The University of Chicago

Dr. Esterhazy will explore how intestinal infections can trigger an immune reaction in the pancreas.

Gilad D. Evrony, M.D., Ph.D.

New York University Grossman School of Medicine

Dr. Evrony will develop single-cell technologies for constructing a "family tree" of human brain cells.

Sarah Keane, Ph.D.

University of Michigan

Dr. Keane will explore how the structural configurations of large RNA precursors control the production of smaller regulatory RNA molecules.

Meghan Koch, Ph.D.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Dr. Koch will explore how maternal antibodies promote early childhood growth and health.

Evan Macosko, M.D., Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Macosko will develop genomic technologies to discover pathological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric diseases, such as Alzheimer's.

Sonya Neal, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego

Dr. Neal will examine the quality control mechanism that allows cells to clear away potentially toxic misfolded proteins.

Lauren O'Connell, Ph.D.

Stanford University

Dr. O'Connell will identify the neural circuits that prompt infants to cry when hungry.

Lauren Orefice, Ph.D.

Massachusetts General Hospital

Dr. Orefice will explore how changes in sensory input from the skin and gastrointestinal tract can influence brain development in people with autism spectrum disorders.

Eunyong Park, Ph.D.

University of California, Berkeley

Dr. Park will demonstrate the mechanism of biogenesis and quality control of mitochondria.

Benjamin Parker, Ph.D.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Dr. Parker wills use the pea aphid insect and its microbial partners as basic research organisms to study host-microbe symbiosis, or the biological interaction between host and microbe.

Seth Shipman, Ph.D.

Gladstone Institutes

Dr. Shipman will develop a novel method for introducing engineered DNA sequences into living cells.

Nicholas Steinmetz, Ph.D.

University of Washington

Dr. Steinmetz will explore how different brain regions cooperate to make decisions.

Samuel H. Sternberg, Ph.D.

Columbia University

Dr. Sternberg will explore the development of a CRISPR-Cas system with enhanced efficiency and safety.

Christoph Thaiss, Ph.D.

University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Thaiss will investigate how immune cells contribute to tissue maintenance, and how loss of this housekeeping function exacerbates disease.

Andrew Wang, M.D., Ph.D.

Yale University

Dr. Wang will explore how environmental factors affect the trajectory of inflammatory disease.

Jeffrey Woodruff, Ph.D.

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Dr. Woodruff will explore how mammalian egg cells maintain their quality even after decades spent awaiting fertilization.

###

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems. Learn more at pewtrusts.org.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

THE GHANA Tourism Federation (GHATOF) has called on Government to consider upgrading Ghanas tourism infrastructures to attract more international and local visitors.

According to GHATOF, over the years, Ghanas tourism infrastructures have not seen significant facelift which to a large extent has weakened attempts made at attracting visitors to tourism sites across country.

Mr Emmanuel Frimpong, the Executive Secretary of GHATOF, who made this known, highlighted, Due to our lack of maintenance culture, most of these infrastructures are in deplorable state. Many interesting tourism and attraction sites are equally in appalling condition making them lose their values of attraction.

We believe this will help to attract more tourists to patronise our attraction sites and also empower the private sector to champion certain aspects of tourism development. We are still dependent on the government to play its role.

Mr Emmanuel Frimpong continued that most of the roads leading to the various tourist destinations were in horrible state which has made internal travels very difficult, unattractive and caused revenue loss to the sector.

He, meanwhile, commended the BUSAC Fund and its development partners DANIDA and USAID for sponsoring the research AND advocacy drive.

It is the hope of GHATOF and its sponsors BUSAC Fund and its development partners DANIDA and USAID that the attention of the Government would be drawn to this all important sector create more jobs and reduce poverty.

The Ghana Tourism Federation (GHATOF) over the last few months has embarked on an extensive advocacy programme on several media platforms to discuss the state of tourism infrastructure in the country.

Such advocacy has been made possible with the support from BUSAC Fund and its development partners, DANIDA and USAID.

The Ghana Tourism Federation (GHATOF) is the umbrella body of the various private trade associations, such as the Ghana Hotels Association, Tour Operators Union Association, Ghana Chefs Association, Tourism Society of Ghana, Tour Guides Association of Ghana, and many others mandated to advocate the development and the growth of the industry as well as identify various opportunities and challenges hindering the development of the industry.

GHATOF, over the years has addressed issues affecting the industry and has organized stakeholder engagements to come out with various findings impeding tourism development in Ghana.

The hospitality and tourism industry has over the years been a major contributor to Ghanas GDP.
The EU warned it will not accept a 'pig in a poke' deal today as Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen vowed to inject 'momentum' into agreeing future trade terms.

After holding a virtual summit, the leaders confirmed that the transition period will end in December, and declared that talks will be 'intensified' in July in a desperate bid to break the deadlock.

Mr Johnson said he believes there was a 'very good' chance of a settlement 'provided we really focus now and get on and do it'.

But he added that the process cannot be allowed to drag on into the autumn 'as perhaps in Brussels they would like'. 'We cannot leave the EU and stay somehow controlled by EU law,' he said.

As temperatures threatened to boil over, European Council president Charles Michel warned that Brussels will not accept a 'pig in a poke', saying it is 'essential' that the UK bows to EU standards on food and the environment.

Mr Michel said a 'broad and ambitious' agreement was in both sides' interests but the level playing field was 'essential'. The EU was 'ready to put a tiger in the tank but not to buy a pig in a poke'.

Boris Johnson (pictured today) and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen have held a crunch summit with the Brexit trade talks on the brink of collapse

EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen (left) and council president Charles Michel (right) were on the conference call today

In a joint statement after the summit, the EU and UK 'noted the UK's decision not to request any extension to the transition period'.

'The transition period will therefore end on 31 December 2020, in line with the provisions of the Withdrawal Agreement,' they said.

The statement said the engagement so far had been 'constructive'.

But it added: 'The Parties agreed nevertheless that new momentum was required. They supported the plans agreed by Chief Negotiators to intensify the talks in July and to create the most conducive conditions for concluding and ratifying a deal before the end of 2020.

'This should include, if possible, finding an early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement.'

Mr Johnson has stressed that the UK is prepared to start dealing on World Trade Organisation rules from January 1 that is not possible.

Speaking in Downing Street after the talks, Mr Johnson said: 'We can't have the involvement of the European Court of Justice in this country; we can't have a system whereby we continue to have to obey EU law even when we're out of the EU, and we've got to get a great deal for our fish.'

He added that what was needed was a 'bit of oomph'. 'It's very clear what we need to achieve, I don't think we're actually that far apart, but what we need now is to see a bit of oomph in the negotiations.'

Mrs von der Leyen was joined on the conference call by Mr Michel and the president of the European Parliament David Sassoli.

The Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and the UK's chief negotiator David Frost were with Mr Johnson.

There are now set to be a series of weekly discussions at official level for five weeks commencing June 29 looking at detailed technical issues.

For the first time, the negotiations are set to include face-to-face meetings. Both sides acknowledge that the remote nature of the process so far, due to the coronavirus pandemic, have hampered efforts to find a way forward.

Four rounds of video conferencing discussions made only limited progress with a series of major obstacles still to be overcome.

Mostly notably the two sides remain far apart on the issues of future access to UK fisheries and the so-called 'level playing field', the extent to which Britain is required to follow EU rules and standards in return for access to the single market.

The prospect that they will be unable to reach an agreement has alarmed business groups who warn that firms reeling from the impact of the coronavirus lockdown are ill-prepared to with a major upheaval in trading arrangements with the UK's biggest trading partner.

EU council president Charles Michel warned that Brussels will not accept a 'pig in a poke', saying it is 'essential' that the UK bows to EU standards on food and the environment
China has rejected proposals to demarcate LAC since 1846

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: The Chinese since August last year have argued that India's decision to abrogate Article 370 challenged its sovereign interests and also violated bilateral agreements on maintaining peace in the border area.

In Ladakh there are two spots along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that are disputed. One is at the Trig Heights in the north-eastern edge of Ladakh white the other is Demchok.

While Beijing has questioned the chawed status of the boundary, the fact remains that there is none. This is largely because the Chinese have since 1846 rejected every proposal to demarcate the Line of Actual Control.

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

India-China standoff: Both sides continue engagement to sort out issues

The first attempt to have a boundary was made in 1846, when British took over Jammu and Kashmir in the first Anglo-Sikh war. Another attempt was made a year later, which was again followed up in the years 1865, 1873, 1899 and 1914. However all these attempts were rejected by China.

This was also noted in a book called Ladakh Physical, Statistical and Geographical, written by Major Alexander Cunningham, who led the British attempt in 1847 to demarcate the boundary. He noted in his book that the settlement of this boundary between Ladakh and Tibet was of some importance.

It may be recalled that the Dogra Army led by General Zorawar Singh had in 1834 captured Ladakh, In the Sino-Sikh war of 1841, the Qing Empire invaded Ladakh. However the Sino-Tibetan Army was defeated, following which a letter of agreement was signed.

Since then several attempts have been made to demarcate the LAC. In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested the demarcation of the LAC. The Chinese however said that the representatives should resolve it.

In 1947, the Chinese entered Tibet and in 1950, India declared that the McMahon Line in Arunachal Pradesh is its boundary. In 1954, India claimed Aksai Chin as part of its northern border. In 1958, India learnt that the Chinese had built a road over the plateau of Aksai Chin.

In 1960 China, expanded its claim on another 5,100 sq km of the territory in easter Ladakh. This led to the Chinese seeking for a status quo, following which India kept Arunachal, while China kept Aksai Chin, northeast edge of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1962, the India China war was fought and a year later a pact was signed to maintain peace at the LAC. Since 1962 not a single bullet has been fired in Ladakh.
Compulsory face coverings and testing for everyone with symptoms could cut UK coronavirus deaths by 50,000 over two years until a vaccine is found, a study has claimed.

A team of experts investigated 31 different scenarios for capping the UK death toll. Each scenario had a range of interventions, such as testing the whole population once per week.

They found the most successful strategy would be to make face coverings compulsory for public spaces - with about 50 per cent of people adhering - effective testing and tracing, and lockdowns when cases increase.

Modelling found the death toll could be capped at 52,000 - roughly half the deaths that might be seen without contact tracing but with temporary lockdowns.

Official statistics show the death toll has already surpassed 51,000. But the researchers based their model on confirmed Covid-19 deaths, and not suspected, which are currently at 41,700.

The strategy would be one of the cheapest at 8billion and has the most limited impact on GDP and the NHS.

The researchers, led by University College London, said around 300,000 people would need to be tested per day during the winter for the system to work.

At the moment around 50,000 are currently being tested per day, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

At present, face coverings are mandatory on public transport and in hospitals in England  but are not mandatory in crowded places, such as busy shops.

Compulsory face coverings and testing for everyone with symptoms could cut UK coronavirus deaths by 50,000 over two years, a study suggests

Modelling found the death toll could be capped at 52,000. Government statistics show there have been almost 42,000 victims so far

The new study, co-led by University College London (UCL), the University of Edinburgh and the University of Haifa, has not yet been peer-reviewed.

The pre-print study uses mathematical and economical models to investigate 31 scenarios for tackling COVID-19 in the UK over the next two years.

It helps to give a rough estimate of the impact, costs, feasibility, and health and economic effects of different strategies.

The goal is for NHS costs, reduction in GDP as a result of the pandemic, and intervention costs to be as small as possible.

In the worst scenario, 600,000 people would die and 447bn GDP lost if the lockdown was eased until July 4 with no test and trace plan.

With lockdown triggers added when cases were too high, the deaths are reduced to around 105,000. The cost to the economy would be 1.1trn in GDP due to people potentially being out of work.

Neither of these scenarios will play out in the UK because the Government has been working towards a 'world class' contact tracing system.

One scenario was picked out as the best for covering all areas, costing 8bn and capping the death toll at 52,000.

Data collected by national statistical bodies shows the Covid-19 death toll is already at 51,000 after taking suspected but not confirmed cases into consideration.

But the study was conducted using Government death figures - which only take deaths of people with a positive Covid-19 test into consideration.

They used data up until June 5, when 40,000 deaths had been recorded. Now, the total is at 41,730.

Either way, the model showed the significant number of fatalities that can be avoided with effective interventions - meaning they work as they should without failings.

The goal is for NHS costs, reduction in GDP as a result of the pandemic, and intervention costs to be as small as possible. One scenario (labelled as scenario 4d-Trig, second down) was picked out as the best for covering all areas, costing 8bn and capping the death toll at 52,000. The NHS costs are not visible because they are relatively small compared to reduction in GDP

The measures included targeted testing of symptomatic people in the UK, which is already in place.

In summer months approximately 75,000 symptomatic people per day need to be tested for this strategy to work, the paper said.

Testing will need to be ramped up in the winter months when the cold and flu begin circulating and more people want to be tested for the killer coronavirus.

An estimated 300,000 people will need to be swabbed per day, up from the estimated 50,000 at the moment.

The Government has capacity to swab 112,000 people with symptoms every day. But figures show around 100,000 tests are being conducted - around 50,000 of which are for research purposes.

The scientists also advised tracing and isolation of positive case contacts. The contact tracing system is already running, but it is not at the standard officials hoped for yet.

It was launched without the NHS contact tracing app, therefore is relying on an army of 25,000 Government call handlers using old fashioned interviews.

The scientists also advised tracing and isolation of positive case contacts. The contact tracing system is already running, but it is not at the standard officials hoped for yet. Pictured: How it works

The contact tracing system in the UK was launched without the new NHSX app, which uses Bluetooth technology to alert people when theyve been close to a COVID-19 patient

What is the NHS Test and Trace system? Anyone who develops Covid-associated symptoms is being told to self-isolate and get tested under the test and trace scheme. Close contacts of those who are found to be positive for the disease are then told to quarantine for 14 days - even if they test negative and are not sick. Boris Johnson's government has hired an enormous army of 50,000 people who will attempt to make this huge undertaking possible. Around 25,000 are contact tracers who will contact people who return positive coronavirus tests to grill them on their movements and their known associates. The idea is to build a picture of who they have come into contact with and so who might be at risk of a) becoming ill and b) passing it on to more people. Another 25,000 people in the scheme are testers, who will go out into the community and test these known associates. Either way, these known associates will be under orders to immediately quarantine, even if the tests they return are negative. Baroness Dido Harding, executive chairwoman of NHS Test and Trace, said the scheme was central to easing the lockdown further. She said: 'NHS Test and Trace is designed to enable the vast majority of us to be able to get on with our lives in a much more normal way. 'We will be trading national lockdown for individual isolation if we have symptoms. 'Instead of 60 million people being in national lockdown, a much smaller number of us will be told we need to stay at home, either for seven days if we are ill or 14 days if we have been in close contact.' The UK's coronavirus tracing programme will be split into two parts. Part One: People will be ordered to self-isolate for seven days if they develop symptoms. Anyone in the same household will have to do the same. Those people should then order a coronavirus test online or by calling 119. This will be available for residents in Wales from Saturday. If a test is positive, that victim must complete seven days in isolation. If the test comes back negative, no one needs to self-isolate. However, people with a positive test for Covid-19 will then be contacted via text message or email or by phone and told to answer questions. They will be asked to share phone numbers and email addresses for close contacts. For those under 18, they will receive a call from the team and a parent or guardian must give permission for the call to continue. Part Two: People who have been listed as a person with whom a coronavirus victim has had close contact will receive a text message or an email. They will then be asked to self-isolate for up to 14 days based on when they last came into contact with that person. Other household members do not need to self-isolate unless symptoms are present. If they develop Covid-associated symptoms, all other household members should self-isolate and they should then order a test. If the test is positive, self-isolation must continue for seven days. If the test is negative, that person should still complete 14 days in case the virus is not showing. Advertisement

The model assumed every potential case is tested and all their contacts are indeed traced and comply with self isolation.

But data last week showed that the NHS's test and trace system was not able to get co-operation from a third of contacts in its first week.

The team say that the scale-up of a functional contact tracing system needs to be done when contacts and transmission numbers are low.

If lockdown is lifted too soon and contacts rise, another lockdown is therefore needed whilst contact tracing is scaled up.

Widespread use of face coverings can suppress the epidemic - but face coverings are not currently mandatory, except for on public transport,

Adding mandatory face coverings in all scenarios saved an additional 14,000 lives and 5bn in intervention costs because it reduces how many tests need to be carried out.

The fourth measure was lockdown periods whenever cases tipped over 40,000 at one time. Only when cases are under 10,000 should the lockdown be lifted, the paper said.

For relative comparison, an estimated 0.1 per cent of the population now thought to be affected - around 53,000 people.

The length of the extra lockdowns would depend on the number of contacts traced per day. It could be weeks if the Government can't quarantine enough contacts of positive Covid-19 cases.

The additional lockdown results in total reduction in GDP of 503bn - half the price without contact tracing which helps to suppress cases and get people back to work.

Lead author Dr Tim Colbourn (UCL Institute for Global Health) said: 'Our results make a strong case for expanding testing and tracing immediately to control COVID-19 spread until a vaccine or highly effective drugs are available.

'By clearly showing the health and economic benefits that such a system could lead to, we hope our study will help to galvanise support for integrated testing, tracing and isolation for the UK.'

Experts have warned the UK should not lift lockdown rules until the test and trace system is ready to cope with huge numbers of people.

Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization director for Europe, said test and trace must be 'robust' and ready for 'aggressive' use if the number of new cases starts to soar again.

Dr David Manheim, at the University of Haifa, said: 'The new model shows that we can make far better trade-offs in the future than those made so far.

'The next task is focusing on getting implementation of these programs scaled up to necessary levels, rather than further debate.'

Commenting on the findings, Dr Daniel Lawson, a lecturer in statistical science, University of Bristol, said: 'This is a brave attempt to put numbers on actions, and is at present the most comprehensive attempt for the UK.

'The paper paints a simplified picture of reality and should be viewed with caution, as epidemics are an exponential process so any mistake can be amplified.

'The modelling makes many assumptions that are unverified; for example the effectiveness of masks, the fatality rate, and the mortality time.'

The research team - a group of 26 scientists from UCL, LSHTM, Haifa, Edinburgh, Southampton, Oxford, Leicester and York universities among others - acknowledged their work made a number of assumptions.

This includes that if people are told to self isolate because they pose a risk of transmitting the virus to others, they comply. There is limited data on how well Britons are following these rules.

They worked out a fatality rate of one per cent by assuming 6.8 per cent of the UK has already had the virus as of 24 May (40,000 of whom have died).

This is based on Government surveillance testing using antibody testing, which, in itself, is not perfect. The 6.8 per cent figure is only a prediction by extrapolating data from a sample of people who gave their blood.

Face coverings were estimated to reduce transmission of the virus by 60 per cent, based on current data. The team gave a 'conservative assumption' that masks would only be worn 50 per cent of the time.
By PTI

PARIS: Less than a week after France banned police chokeholds, the government responded to growing officer discontent by announcing it would test stun guns for wider use, adding to the ranks of European law enforcement agencies that have recently adopted the weapons that many in the U.S. equate with excess police violence.

For Johny Louise, it felt as though the 22 seconds of Taser pulses that led to his son's death counted for nothing.

They need more death so that one day they understand, but it will be more pointless deaths and sufferings for families, Louise said.

Gendarmes in Orleans responding to a drunken brawl tried to arrest his son, Loic.

One of the officers, Noham Cardoso, fired his Taser for the first time, hitting Loic Louise in the chest with the twin darts and jolting him for a full 17 seconds, rather than the usual 5-second cycle, then hitting him again less than a minute later with another 5 seconds, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Loic Louis, who was black, passed out and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Cardoso was charged last year with involuntary homicide in the Nov. 3, 2013, death.

He has said Loic Louise was aggressive and appeared ready to attack.

The officer's lawyer, Ludovic de Villele, can't fathom why France would replace an immobilization technique with a weapon.

He said it would make more sense to invent another technique to replace the banned chokehold.

It's a bad sign to say, 'You can't strangle, but here are Tasers for you to use,' de Villele said.

But Tasers, or other stun guns, are increasingly the weapon of choice for European law enforcement as they have been for years in the United States.

In Atlanta, just hours after the French announcement on Friday, a seemingly routine sobriety check outside a Wendy's restaurant ended in gunshots after Rayshard Brooks grabbed a Taser from officers and ran.

The killing of the 27-year-old black man in an encounter with two white officers late Friday rekindled fiery protests in Atlanta and prompted the police chief's resignation.

One of the officers was fired.

Axon, the company that makes Tasers, has made a big push outside the United States in recent years and agencies in the Netherlands and Italy recently expanded use of stun guns, following the path of Britain, where use has increased steadily since they were introduced in 2003.

Stun guns are in limited but increasing use in France already.

The number of discharges increased from 1,400 in 2017 to 2,349 in 2019.

According to the French police oversight agency, stun guns killed one person last year and three suffered severe injuries.

After France said it would abandon the chokehold last week, police across the country staged scattered protests, saying they felt abandoned by the government.

Police in England and Wales discharged Tasers 2,700 times over the 12 months ending in March 2019, according to government statistics, which also showed black people were more likely than white ones to have stun guns used on them.

Britain's Independent Office for Police Conduct said last month that there were growing concerns about its disproportionate use against black men and those with mental health issues.

 British rapper Wretch 32 posted video last week of his 62-year-old father being hit by a Taser in his London home during a police raid in April.

The Metropolitan Police force said a review found no indication of misconduct, but London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for an urgent investigation by the police watchdog.

According to Amnesty International, at least 18 people in Britain have died after a stun gun was discharged on them by police, but in many cases it was not determined that the weapon caused the death.

The human rights group has said at least 500 people died after being hit by stun guns between 2001 and 2012 in the United States.

Italy's government approved using Tasers in January after a two-year trial and opened a bidding process to purchase nearly 4,500 stun guns to be divided among various law enforcement agencies.

Police chief Franco Gabrielli said in March that the next phase would involve a period of training and operational experimentation in a half-dozen cities.

The administration is certainly attentive to guaranteeing that the security of our personnel is first, obviously without causing damage to the people who might find themselves on the other side, Gabrielli told reporters outside a Genoa hospital where he had gone to visit two police officers who were recovering after being injured in a shootout.

The Netherlands began issuing stun guns to police in 2017 and is training 17,000 of the force's 40,000 officers.

But far fewer of the weapons are on order and they will not be part of an officer's standard equipment.

There are about 15,000 stun guns in France, which has a total police and gendarme force of around 240,000.

In the United States, by contrast, more than three-quarters of officers carry the weapons as standard issue, according to William Terrill, a professor of criminal justice at Arizona State University.

Axon says it has standing relationships with 95% of American law enforcement agencies.

Terrill said training must come before widespread distribution of Tasers, which are sold as a way to protect officers from aggressive suspects while avoiding deadly force.
Boris Johnson will warn the EU today Britain will choose a no-deal Brexit if a trade agreement is not struck by the end of next month.

The threat comes despite the head of the World Trade Organisation suggesting that doing so could slow the UK's economic recovery from coronavirus, and that a deal similar to current arrangements would be better for jobs.

WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo highlighted agriculture and the car industry as two of the biggest victims if a deal could not not be struck, due to the heavy tariffs they would be subject to under trade rules.

Boris Johnson, pictured at Westfield shopping centre yesterday, will warn the EU today Britain will choose a no-deal Brexit if a trade agreement is not struck by the end of next month

The Prime Minister still wants an agreement that keeps tariff-free access to EU markets but insists Britain would still be able to thrive under WTO terms, which will automatically apply if nothing is rubber-stamped by the end of the year, according to The Times.

Mr Johnson will be joined today by Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove and chief negotiator David Frost on a video call with Charles Michel, president of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and David Sassoli, president of the European parliament.

That will then be followed by a series of weekly talks at official level for five weeks from June 29, looking at detailed technical issues.

It is hoped that they will, for the first time in these negotiations, include face-to-face meetings, with both sides acknowledging that the remote discussions, due to the coronavirus epidemic, have gone as far as they can.

Four rounds of video conferencing discussions made only limited progress with a series of major obstacles still to be overcome.

Mostly notably the two sides remain far apart on the issues of future access to UK fisheries and the so-called 'level playing field', the extent to which Britain is required to follow EU rules and standards in return for access to the single market.

The threat comes despite WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo, pictured, suggesting that doing so could slow the UK's economic recovery from coronavirus

Mr Azevedo highlighted agriculture as one of the biggest victims if a deal could not be struck. Pictured: Farmer Chris Hynes shears a sheep at Pines Lane Farm in Staffordshire on Saturday

The prospect that they will be unable to reach an agreement has alarmed business groups who warn that firms reeling from the impact of the coronavirus lockdown are ill-prepared to with a major upheaval in trading arrangements with the UK's biggest trading partner.

Furthermore, the WTO has warned global trade could fall by a third as a result of the pandemic.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, Mr Azevedo said: 'The less disruption the better, the less turbulence the better, and less turbulence is the closest to where you were before.

'So if you can maintain the degree of integration and relationship that you had before Brexit, it is less traumatic than if you have to go to WTO terms'.

Doing so could prove 'painful' for some sectors, he said, but insisted he was optimistic a deal would still be reached.

It comes as a group of MPs will call for a vote on extending the transition period, despite that being previously ruled out by Mr Gove.

Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat leadership candidate, told The Times: 'No-deal Brexit at the end of this year would strike a devastating blow to people's livelihoods, businesses and the NHS just as we begin to turn the corner from the coronavirus. It's not too late to stop this monumental act of national self-harm in its tracks and agree to an extension.'
A new logo and brand identity of Pacific Airlines in plan

Today (June 15, 2020), Vietnam Airlines and Qantas Group agreed to reconstruct Jetstar Pacific to enhance the airline's performance and business results.

Therefore, Jetstar Pacific will carry out necessary procedures to be renamed into Pacific Airlines, together with a new logo and brand identity, inspired by the main colours of Vietnam Airlines.

Pacific Airlines used to be the original name of this brand at the establishment in 1991. Whether the airline can now return to its original name or not depends also on the decision of authorities.

Furthermore, as part of the major shareholder change, Pacific Airlines will replace the current booking system by Qantas with the one by Vietnam Airlines to synchronise its flight management data and booking processes, together with other functions, for customers. Additionally, Vietnam Airlines will also consider restructuring Jetstar Pacific's current flight schedules.

Trinh Hong Quang, deputy general director of Vietnam Airlines cum chairman of Jetstar Pacific, recently revealed some information related to the restructuring of Jetstar Pacific.

This airline cannot develop well despite being established for a few decades. After some careful analyses, we finally find a solution, he said.

Between 2009 and 2019, low-cost airlines developed rapidly across the world, making up 30-40 per cent of the total market share. Specifically. low-cost airlines occupied 35 per cent in the US market, 42 per cent in Europe, 30 per cent in Asia-Pacific, and 50 per cent in Vietnam.

The scale of Jetstar Pacific is too small for a low-cost airline to meet all demands with just 18 aircraft, said Quang.

Moreover, Qantas Group, a member of the Jetstars board of management, is a private group, while Vietnam Airlines is a state-owned enterprise. The differences this entails could slow down a rapid development and possible breakthroughs of the airline.

Using the Qantas Airways booking system, which is based in Australia, is a disadvantage due to conformity issues in the local market, Quang added.

After realising these issues, Vietnam Airlines is now planning the restructuring of Jetstar Pacific's organisation and business measures.

Thus, both Qantas and Vietnam Airlines confirmed the necessity of restructuring the major shareholder position, and Qantas is ready to withdraw, leaving most of the shares to Vietnam Airlines.

Vietnam Airlines will hold 98 per cent of Jetstar Pacific and restructure the airline in the way they want, Quang said and confirmed that this low-cost airline would be able to survive this way.

In the near future, Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines plan to provide attractive products meeting diverse demands of customers covering both the low-cost and high-end segments, thereby helping both airlines to utilise the advantages of each other and serve customers at affordable costs.
Schiphol  15 June 2020. As the operational situation has developed considerably since its first quarter 2020 press release of 5 May 2020, GrandVision N.V. (EURONEXT: GVNV) publishes an update on the impact of COVID-19 on its business.

Stephan Borchert, CEO of GrandVision said: As governments started to ease measures aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19, we have seen sales improve considerably across many of our markets. As of 30 May 2020, approximately 4,700, or 80% of our own stores returned to full operation, including in most of our markets across Europe.

As reported on 5 May 2020, approximately 60% of GrandVision stores were closed in April and 40% were partially open but impacted by various degrees of sales limitations. Accordingly, GrandVision experienced in April 2020 a negative revenue impact of more than 80% compared to April 2019. As we were well prepared to re-open large parts of our store network as soon as possible, the negative year-over-year revenue impact reduced to approximately 55% in May. In the first week of June, sales of the fully opened stores were at 87% of last year, i.e. a decline of 13%, with a negative revenue impact of 20% for GrandVisions total own store base.

Over the past months we have also seen the benefits of our sustained investments in our digital capabilities. E-commerce sales have grown by more than 80% in the first five months of the year, particularly driven by e-commerce sales through our banner websites with growth of almost 190%.

Looking ahead, we remain focused on preserving the integrity of the business, including protection of the safety and wellbeing of our employees and customers. The current developments we are seeing in our business reconfirm our confidence in the resilience and long-term prospects of our company. We recognize that there may be setbacks and further challenges, but we are confident that the inherent strength of our business will allow GrandVision to continue being a leading player in this market.

Story continues

Business Update

During May, most of GrandVisions European markets started to re-open. A particularly strong recovery is currently seen in the Benelux, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and across most of the Nordics. In these markets, we are on good track to reach prior levels and lower store traffic is compensated by higher customer conversion as well as the expected catch-up effect after several weeks of store closures. Throughout the period, customers have shown great loyalty to our retail banners, with a significant portion of traffic coming through our CRM channels.

In Latin America, where countries have been impacted by COVID-19 a few weeks after Europe and North America, stores in most markets remain either closed or are operating with limited opening hours. The ramp-up of our stores across Latin America is also expected to lag behind other markets.

We have also started to observe some changes in customer behavior. Even after stores have started to re-open, e-commerce sales are staying at high levels as customers switched sales channels, particularly for contact lenses. Our investment in omnichannel capabilities is serving us well with a key role of our web-sites in preparing store visits and we benefit from a strong growth of online appointment bookings. In line with these developments, we have also further expanded our prescription glass e-commerce capabilities, which are now available through 12 banners in 8 countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, and 3 more markets to launch in the coming months.

As a reflection of our business resilience, investments behind our strategic transformation and store network continue. With the recovery of our sales levels, GrandVision has taken all measures to enable full operation levels of its stores in the countries where possible. This includes staffing, marketing and tech center operations as well as continued investments in the company at our regular capex level of approximately 4-6% of sales. During the difficult COVID-19 times, we have experienced strong relationships with our stakeholders, including our employees for whom the furlough requests are now reducing, suppliers and landlords.

Financing Update

On 31 May 2020, GrandVision had a net debt of 842 million, versus a net debt position at the end of 1Q20 of 755 million. We continue to engage with our relationships banks and we remain confident in our ability to retain liquidity and secure additional funding, also in the event of a prolonged impact of COVID-19.

Status of transaction with EssilorLuxottica

GrandVision continues to support EssilorLuxottica with the shared objective to obtain regulatory approval for the closure of the acquisition by EssilorLuxottica of HAL's 76.72% interest in GrandVision within 12 to 24 months from the announcement date of 31 July 2019.

Outlook

Due to the dynamics and uncertainties of the COVID-19 developments, we continue to refrain from issuing a new outlook for the year 2020.

GrandVision will publish its second quarter and half year 2020 results on 5 August 2020.

Attachment




Opinions are split over whether Fernando Alonso should return to Formula 1 with Renault next year.

The Spaniard's friend and former rival Mark Webber thinks Alonso is "not at his peak anymore", while his first boss Giancarlo Minardi says Renault is not the right destination for the two-time champion.

"He has no chance to be in a top team, so if he returns it could only be in a mediocre car," Minardi is quoted by racingnews365.

But former Renault engineer Isaac Prada, who worked alongside the now 38-year-old at the French works team 15 years ago, encourages Alonso to return.

"Fernando is without a doubt the number one candidate for the place at Renault," he told La Voz de Asturias.

"There is the emotional factor but also the fact that he has won titles there. If he sees an opportunity that has potential then he will agree.

"Renault is a team with an excellent budget and serious intensions, and Alonso is able to go three tenths faster than the others. Don't forget that he fought for the title when he didn't have a car capable of it," Prada added.

(GMM)
SARASOTA, Fla. (June 15, 2020) - A recently published nationwide study by two University of South Florida professors indicates that blacks are five times more likely and Latinos four times more likely to fear police brutality than whites.

Criminology instructor Murat Haner and Melissa Sloan, associate professor of sociology, report In "Race and Worrying about Police Brutality: The Hidden Injuries of Minority Status in America" that while only 6.6 percent of whites "worry a lot" about police violence, some minorities experience much greater fear, with 32.4 percent of blacks and 26.5 percent of Latinos reporting they "worry a lot" about becoming victims of police violence.

Conversely, three-fourths of whites "do not worry at all" about officer violence, while only one-third of minority respondents "do not worry at all" about police brutality.

Haner and Sloan, researchers at USF's Sarasota-Manatee campus, conducted the study with four other professors over three months in 2018. Their article was published online on May 26 in the journal, Victims & Offenders: An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy and Practice.

"Blacks and Hispanics live with these worries that whites really have no concept of," Sloan said, summing up. "Given the long history of racial discrimination in the United States, this divide likely has been occurring for a long time, across generations."

The study is based on a national survey of 1,000 respondents to measure fear by how much the study's participants "worry" about experiencing police violence.

Participants were asked how much they worry about six potential areas of concern:

Experiencing police brutality

Becoming the victim of a racial/hate crime

Becoming the victim of a violent crime

Someone breaking into your house when you are home

A mass shooting at some event or at work/school

Becoming the victim of a terrorist attack

The goal of asking about these other worries was to determine if racial/ethnic differences were unique to the worry of police brutality or found within other examples of victimization, and if so, to what extent.

Also collaborating in the study in addition to Haner and Sloan were researchers from Georgia Southern University, the University of Cincinnati, Xaiver University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Previous studies have examined fear of police generally, but this is the first study to specifically examine the fear of police brutality. Further, the study includes a representative proportion of Latino respondents - a subgroup of the U.S. population often omitted from the area of research.

In addition to considering racial differences as related to police violence, the study suggests that for blacks, as well as Hispanics to an extent, worrying about police brutality exacts an emotional toll that is pervasive and largely hidden from view. This emotional burden is hazardous because research shows excessive worry leads to psychological and physical health consequences as well as behavioral changes.

"Research on the fear of crime shows that worries like these can lead to avoidance behaviors where people restrict normal activities and social interaction out of fear, which can lead to feelings of isolation and lower quality of life," Sloan said. "More concerning is that this worry is justified as demonstrated by the killing of George Floyd as well as the numerous other black Americans who have been brutalized and killed by police in the past."

The extent of this worry among blacks suggests that these consequences may affect entire communities, not only individuals in contact with police and the criminal justice system.

"Taken as a whole, what remains is an insidious picture in which communities worry about those they are supposed to trust during their greatest time of need," Haner said. "There is a substantial subpopulation in America that worries about being victimized, not by some perpetrator, but by the state - the very people who are sworn to protect and serve them."

To provide further context, the researchers analyzed responses about worries across the five other victimization scenarios, which are listed above.

Worries about becoming the victim of a violent crime or a mass shooting appeared homogeneous, with black and Latino respondents worrying no more or less than white respondents. However, it appeared that younger Americans worry more than older Americans about both of these events.

Uniquely, Latino respondents worried more than white respondents about someone breaking into their house when they were present. Black respondents, on the other hand, did not worry about this crime any differently than white respondents. Finally, black and Latino respondents worried significantly more than white respondents about being victims of a racial or hate crime or being victims of a terrorist attack.

###

To learn more about the study, visit: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FRMXAXYKWP6IYR6BUYCM/full?target=10.1080%2F15564886.2020.1767252&fbclid=IwAR01Scq0BctCag3LMre31LNXk58OhgPEOi9OBJU56LYCKadEJk2N5roTxyQ.

For more about the University of South Florida, visit http://www.usf.edu.

About the University of South Florida

The University of South Florida is a high-impact global research university dedicated to student success. Over the past 10 years, no other public university in the country has risen faster in U.S. News and World Report's national university rankings than USF. Serving more than 50,000 students on campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee, USF is designated as a Preeminent State Research University by the Florida Board of Governors, placing it in the most elite category among the state's 12 public universities. USF has earned widespread national recognition for its success graduating under-represented minority and limited-income students at rates equal to or higher than white and higher income students. USF is a member of the American Athletic Conference. Learn more at http://www.usf.edu.
By Lee Min-hyung





Jeremy Zook, director on the Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings team at Fitch Ratings
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:31:47|Editor: huaxia

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KAMPALA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Uganda on Monday reported nine more confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total to 705 in the east African country.

The nine included four Ugandan cross-border truck drivers, Henry Mwebesa, director-general of health services at the Ministry of Health, said in a statement.

He said 37 foreign truck drivers -- 32 from Kenyans, three from South Sudan and one each from Tanzania and Eritrea -- who tested positive for COVID-19 at Uganda's points of entry were handed over to their countries of origin.

A total of 59 patients were discharged from various hospitals after successful treatment, bringing the total number of recoveries to 299, with no death recorded since the index case was reported on March 21, according to the ministry of health. Enditem
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The US Congress is about to get its wish, having Amazon boss Jeff Bezos testify.

Congress has been wanting to have Bezos testify for quite some time, and now they are getting their wish. In a letter sent to Congress on Sunday, an Amazon lawyer stated that Bezos would be willing to come and testify. Only if it was alongside the other three tech giants (Apple, Google and Facebook), that are involved in the investigation.

Congress opened an antitrust lawsuit into the four companies last Summer

Last summer, subcommittee chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) started an investigation into Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook to evaluate the ways that these tech companies compete against rivals and even their own partners. The reason for the investigation was to see whether the current antitrust laws are suitable to check these companies power or if new ones need to be written.

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When it comes to Amazon, lawmakers have expressed concern about the data Amazon uses to create its own brands that end up competing against small businesses that sell on Amazons platforms. The committee has already heard from small businesses that have claimed Amazon gets away with bullying them because of the e-commerce giants control over online commerce.

This probe has already had five public hearings, along with massive document requests from all of the companies. Once the probe is finished, the subcommittee will issue a report on the findings, which could include some recommendations for updates to antitrust laws.

Amazon stressed that Bezos does not run the day-to-day business anymore

In the letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee on Sunday, a lawyer representing Amazon stated that Bezos does not run the day-to-day business at Amazon. And instead, that is run by other Amazon executives.

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But Bezos did agree to be there, and the letter asked for more clarity on the timing and format of such a hearing. As well as being there alongside the CEOs of the other tech giants  Apple, Google and Facebook.

Currently, its unclear whether the committee would hold one hearing with all four CEOs or if it would be done in multiple hearings. This could also be based on how busy the CEOs actually are. As you can imagine, being the CEO of a huge tech company is a pretty busy thing. Not to mention the fact that during this pandemic, it might not be smart to have them all in the same room.
My Short History of Pushing the Button Getting ready to take photos involves numerous actions and choices involving what to shoot and how.

And there's typically more work to be done after your images are safe and sound inside your camera. Sandwiched in between lies the critical act of pressing the shutter release button. While it remains fundamentally the same, the details have evolved. In the old days, the shutter release was a simple mechanical button on the camera. That's all that was possible, given that cameras themselves were purely mechanical. As cameras began accepting a battery, the original purpose was to power the light meter. When pressed, the shutter release button opens the shutter to allow light to pass through, and then closes it after the specified duration had elapsed. With the advent of Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras, the act of tripping the shutter also caused the reflex mirror to swing out of the way temporarily. Subsequent generations of camera bodies added a linkage to stop the shooting lens down to the chosen aperture automatically. But for many years, the shutter release button remained a simple button atop the camera. For longer exposures, care was necessary when firing the shutter in order to minimize the chances of bumping the camera and blurring the image. Telephoto lenses complicate things further by magnifying the effect of even the slightest movement. A remote cable release became a recommended accessory to address these and other challenges. Progress had to start somewhere. Given the mechanical nature of vintage cameras, it was understandable that remote release cables of the era were mechanical as well. If you've ever shot with an older film body such as the popular Nikon FM2n, you know how it worked. A cable release consisted of a sheathed wire with a plunger at the end. The whole affair screwed into the shutter release button and pressing on the plunger at the opposite end forced the wire down through the sheath where it operated the button remotely. If your hand did shake at all during the exposure, the movement wouldn't make it to the other end. Once cameras became electrified, cable releases could as well. Rather than a mechanical wire remotely pushing through the cable sleeve, electronic cables contain wires that carry a signal. Over the years, Nikon released various iterations of electronic cable releases, not all of which were compatible with every Nikon body. Over the same period, I accumulated quite the collection of these things. I suspect the two trends are related. My first Nikon DSLR was the legendary D100. For some inexplicable reason, Nikon required users to buy a battery grip to gain access to an electrical cable release port. The body itself included only an old-school mechanical release socket in the middle of the shutter button. Not wanting to carry the added weight of the MB-D100 battery grip, I resigned myself to the limitations of the mechanical cable. On a trip to Canada, I found out how fragile this solution was when the thing broke off, leaving the screwthread end deep inside the hole in the button. I suppose it could have happened with an electrical release cable, but it never did to me at least. On higher-end DLSR bodies, Nikon returned to including electronic release sockets, but switched to the use of infrared remotes for consumer cameras. Even though they extended the range beyond what a wired remote could reach, I never liked the IR remotes. I always had to enable the IR port via the camera menus before I could use the remote, an added step that I often forgot at the worst possible moments. It was also a curious choice to put the IR sensor on the front of the camera rather than the back where the photographer typically stands. A common workaround for cable release headaches is to use the self-timer instead. Look ma, no cables. Unfortunately, by having to predetermine how soon the shutter will fire, you can't respond to what is happening when it finally does. If you're looking for an exercise in frustration, try shooting outdoors with the self-timer in a light breeze. Even if you start the self-timer when the coast seems clear and the wind is calm, there's guarantee how gusty it will be a few seconds later when the shutter fires. Try as you might, you're going to lose some shots when using the self-timer this way. As the years progressed, Nikon also released a radio frequency (RF) remote solution that was expensive but useful. No longer requiring line of sight as infrared remotes do, and working over much greater distances, it very convenient. I never owned one, but I did go through a series of third-party RF remotes that were far less expensive and worked almost as well. But even the Nikon versions had one significant drawback. Not being built into the camera, they connected to the electronic release socket via a short cable, and the RF receiver itself sat atop the camera in the flash hot shoe. I've never been a big user of flash, but I do rely on sliding a bubble level in the flash shoe to keep the horizon straight. And two things can't occupy the same space at the same time. Thankfully, progress has continued its march, and today we have better options. Indeed, we have more options today than ever. If you want to stick with one of the above solutions, you can. But the history of pushing the button has reached fruition, and you can do better. Most prosumer and above cameras released over the past few years feature built-in Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or both. If you have an Android or iOS smartphone in your pocket, you have a remote. With the right software, your phone can control your camera. For Nikon shooter, the official standard has been SnapBridge, but there are third-party options. Canon and Sony shooters have numerous alternatives, too. And if you tried SnapBridge back when it first came out and found that what it lacked in features it made up for in bugs and glitches, fear not. The quality has improved considerably in newer releases. Programs such as qDslrDashboard, Helicon Remote typically allow free trials, so feel free to see which one you like best. No one application works best for every need and every camera. And last Fall, Nikon officially abandoned its practice of locking Wi-Fi users into SnapBridge. Updated firmware can allow many Nikon photographers to use even more third-party apps. Now that's what I call progress.
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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP)  Range Resources Corp., Pennsylvania's most active shale gas driller, has pleaded no contest to environmental crimes over its handling of contamination at a pair of well sites, the state attorney general's office announced Friday.

The Fort Worth, Texas-based company pleaded no contest in Washington County Court to seven misdemeanor counts, including violations of the Solid Waste Management Act and illegal discharge of industrial wastes. As part of its plea, Range will pay $50,000 in fines and make $100,000 in charitable contributions to a pair of watershed groups.





. . .
The absence of spectators will not be the only major change when Formula 1 gets back up and racing in Austria next month.

F1 sporting boss Ross Brawn says the usual pre-race grid activities and even the traditional podium will be missing as F1 enforces strict social distancing.

DPA news agency quotes him as saying the driver parade will also be scrapped "so we're going to interview each of them outside the garage".

And instead of the podium, a ceremony to herald the top three will occur on the grid and no trophies will be handed over.

"One way would be to put the cars on the track with the drivers in front," said Brawn, revealing that proposals like that are being assessed for their suitability for TV.

As for the pre-race grid, he revealed: "What we did in the past simply cannot happen without endangering health and safety."

But Brawn said Formula 1 will remain exciting and interesting.

"It's just going to be different. It's the new normal that will probably be the new standard for the rest of the year."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff is quoted by Blick newspaper: "We will quickly get used to it."

Renault (Red Bull Ring) and Alpha Tauri (Imola) plan to test two-year-old cars to prepare for the new situation in the next days.

Haas has no such plans.

"No, we have no plans to test either our 2018 car or a Formula 3 car," a team spokesman told BT newspaper.

(GMM)
WHO chief warns of a resurgence as over 100,000 cases have been reported worldwide each day over the past two weeks.

China has turned to mass testing and district lockdowns in Beijing after a jump in cases connected with a wholesale food market in the capital.

UN agencies have warned the pandemic could lead to the deaths of more than 50,000 under-fives in the Middle East and North Africa by the end of the year.

More than 7.9 million people are confirmed to have the coronavirus around the world. Nearly 3.8 million have recovered, while at least 433,394 have died, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, June 15

19:23 GMT  UAE citizens, residents are allowed to travel as of June 23

The United Arab Emirates announced that citizens and residents are allowed to travel to specific destinations as of June 23, state news agency (WAM) reported.

A list of the destinations, the groups authorised to travel, and the procedures that must be adhered to before, during, and after returning from travel for citizens and residents will be announced later, WAM reported.

19:14 GMT  WHO notes 100,000 new virus cases daily

The head of the World Health Organization says more than 100,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported worldwide each day over the past two weeks  mostly in the Americas and South Asia  and countries that have curbed transmissions must stay alert to the possibility of resurgence.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted a new cluster of cases in Beijing, which went more than 50 days without a new case of COVID-19, and said the origin of that new series of cases is under investigation.

Tedros noted that it took over two months to reach 100,000 reported cases  now that is a daily norm. Nearly three-quarters of each days new cases come from 10 countries, mostly in South Asia and the Americas, he said.

18:42 GMT  Oscars 2021 ceremony switched to April from February

The organisers of the Oscars shifted the date of the 2021 movie awards ceremony to April from February because of the coronavirus.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said the Oscars, the highest honours in the film industry, would take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally scheduled for February 28. The pandemic shut down movie theaters worldwide in mid-March and brought production of films to a halt.

A finished Oscar statuette is polished by Stephanie Minor, project coordinator, at Polich Tallix foundry in Walden, New YorK [File: Shannon Stapleton/Daylife]

18:27 GMT  Chile extends state of catastrophe by 90 days as coronavirus surges

Chiles government said it would extend a state of catastrophe in place since mid-March by 90 days as cases of coronavirus in the South American nation have surged.

The pace of new infections has increased dramatically in May and June, averaging over 5,000 daily in recent weeks. The onslaught has filled critical care wards and prompted authorities to declare a full lockdown in the capital Santiago, a city of more than six million.

The state of catastrophe, extended by presidential decree, gives the government extraordinary powers to restrict freedom of movement and assure food supply and basic services. Quarantine measures are routinely enforced by soldiers in Santiago.

A woman wearing a protective suit talks to a child at a migrant neighbourhood during the start of a general quarantine to force down a surging rate of fresh coronavirus cases in Santiago [Ivan Alvarado/Reuters]

17:54 GMT  Partial restrictions to remain in capital as Philippines tackles virus

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said partial restrictions would remain in place in the capital Manila for another two weeks because the threat from the coronavirus was still present.

But Duterte reinstated strict lockdown rules in Cebu City, the countrys fifth most populous city, following an increase in new infections there.

The battle against COVID-19 is not yet over, Duterte said in an address.

Restrictions were further eased in provinces and cities with low cases of the virus to help restore business activity in the Southeast Asian economy, which is expected to shrink for the first time in more than two decades this year.

17:12 GMT  Abu Dhabi extends movement ban for additional week

Abu Dhabi has extended a ban on movement in and out of the emirate and between its major cities by a week to further curb coronavirus infections, state news agency (WAM) reported.

The week-long ban on movement between the cities of al-Ain, al-Dhafra and Abu Dhabi applies as of Tuesday to all residents and nationals of the emirate, the largest and wealthiest member of the United Arab Emirates federation.

This is the second time the ban has been extended since it was imposed on June 2.

Abu Dhabi residents will be allowed to move within their cities, excluding the national daily curefew hours, between 10pm to 6am local time.

17:10 GMT  Over 100 cases in new Beijing COVID-19 outbreak: WHO

More than 100 cases of the coronavirus have been officially recorded in the fresh outbreak in Beijing, the World Health Organization said.

The UN health agency said it understood no new deaths have been reported thus far in the Chinese capital but added that given Beijings size and connectivity, the outbreak was a cause for concern.

Even in countries that have demonstrated the ability to suppress transmission, countries must stay alert to the possibility of resurgence, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference.

Last week, China reported a new cluster of cases in Beijing, after more than 50 days without a case in that city. More than 100 cases have now been confirmed.

The origin and extent of the outbreak are being investigated.

17:03 GMT  Spain is likely to join European deal to buy vaccine from AstraZeneca

Spain is very likely to join four other European governments in a deal to buy COVID-19 vaccine from British drugmaker AstraZeneca, Health Emergency Coordinator Fernando Simon said.

The pharmaceutical group agreed on Saturday to supply 400 million doses of its vaccine, which is still under development, to the governments of France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Speaking at a news conference, Simon said Spain may also join with other countries pursuing different vaccines.

16:59 GMT  In Pictures: Gravediggers in Mexico, the pandemics last link

Gravediggers and crematorium workers in Mexico are struggling to keep up the pace as the country registers escalating coronavirus death numbers while gradually easing some restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19.

Workers at the San Lorenzo Tezonco municipal cemetery on Mexico Citys east said in interviews with The Associated Press news agency they have buried more bodies in the past weeks than they have ever seen before.

Click herefor more.

Melvin Sanaurio, front, digs a grave at the San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa cemetery in Mexico City, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. It takes me more than an hour to dig one grave, Sanaurio said [Marco Ugarte/AP Photo]

16:25 GMT  New York to allow gatherings of up to 25 people: Cuomo

Gatherings of up to 25 people will be permitted in parts of New York that have entered the third phase of the states reopening plan, up from a previous limit of 10, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.

He said the states continuing decline in the rate of positive tests and in hospitalisations supported the move.

Cuomo urged local governments to keep on top of enforcing social distancing rules and criticised images of people crowding the streets outside bars in New York City over the weekend.

We have months of data now that the guidelines makes sense: keep following them, Cuomo said at a news conference of the Mario Cuomo Bridge in Westchester, where he was opening a new pedestrian crossing. To the local governments I say, Do your job.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo exits a Subway train in Manhattan on the first day of New York Citys phase one reopening during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in New York City [Mike Segar/Reuters]

16:20 GMT  WHO says hypothesis about cause of Chinas latest outbreak needs further testing

The origins of a new cluster of coronavirus infections in Beijing are not certain, World Health Organization officials said, describing as a hypothesis the claim that it might have been caused by imports or packaging of salmon.

State-run newspapers reported that the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at Beijings Xinfadi market amid worries about a second wave of the pandemic in China.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHOs emergencies programme, said in a briefing that he would be reticent to say that packaging needs to be tested for the virus as a result of the new infections.

16:12 GMT  German vaccine maker CureVac plans Nasdaq listing in July

German vaccine maker CureVac plans to raise funds by selling stock in an initial public offering in the United States next month, a finance ministry document seen by Reuters showed.

The German government plans to take a stake of about 23 percent in unlisted CureVac to fund the biotech companys further development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The finance ministry said in a letter to parliaments budget committee, It [CureVac] currently has a big capital requirement and plans a flotation on the Nasdaq in New Yor in July 2020.

15:31 GMT  FDA revokes emergency use status of drug touted by Trump

The US Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorisation for malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, the use of which has been championed by US President Donald Trump.

The FDA said based on new evidence, it was no longer reasonable to believe that oral formulations of hydroxychloroquine and the related drug chloroquine may be effective in treating COVID-19.

A large-scale study in The Lancet that raised safety fears over the use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 was retracted earlier this month [File: George Frey/Reuters]

15:22 GMT  British embassy confirms Brits can travel to Spain from June 21

The British embassy in Spain confirmed that British citizens will be allowed to travel to the Iberian country when it opens its borders next Sunday, but still advised against any non-essential international travel due to the coronavirus.

Spain will reopen its borders to most European visitors from June 21, 10 days earlier than previously planned, a Spanish Foreign Ministry source told Reuters News Agency on Sunday.

The Spanish government has confirmed to us that the UK is included within the group of countries to whom these border relaxations will apply, the embassy said via a Twitter account it uses to inform British citizens in Spain.

Nevertheless, it added that the government still advises against all but essential international travel.

You may have seen the announcement this weekend that  will open its borders with some countries from 21 June. The Spanish government has confirmed to us that the  is included within the group of countries to whom these border relaxations will apply.  BritslivinginSpain (@BritsliveSpain) June 15, 2020

15:15 GMT  Germany, Italy, among European countries which eased travel restrictions

Many European countries have started easing coronavirus-related travel restrictions, with June 15 seeing several of them open up to visitors from certain countries.

Each country is following its own timetable. Here are the details of the current travel policies.

15:13 GMT  North Macedonia to hold July election after virus delay

North Macedonias main political parties agreed to reschedule coronavirus-delayed elections for July 15 after weeks of wrangling over the new date as the country battles a second wave of infections.

The Balkan state has been weathering the pandemic in the hands of a limited caretaker cabinet whose mandate was supposed to expire in April when a snap poll was initially scheduled to take place.

Since that election was put on hold due to the virus, the countrys major parties have been locked in a battle over how to proceed.

After reining in a small outbreak in late April, the country is now facing a steeper surge of infections, logging more than 4,000 cases and nearly 200 deaths among the population of less than two million.

14:56 GMT  Nigeria reports surge in domestic abuse during virus lockdown

Nigerias police chief said the country had seen a sharp increase in cases of rape and domestic abuse of women during coronavirus lockdowns.

It has come to the public knowledge now that because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we have a surge in cases of rape and gender-based violence, Inspector General of Police Mohammed Adamu told reporters in the capital Abuja.

From January-May 2020, we have recorded about 717 rape incidents that were reported across the country, he said, adding that 799 suspects have been arrested.

A worker sprays disinfectant on the chairs, after a church service as worship centers were reopened following the ease of restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Abuja [Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters]

14:21 GMT  Singapore to allow most businesses to reopen as virus rules ease

Singapore will allow most businesses to reopen on Friday as the hard-hit city-state further eases its coronavirus restrictions.

But potential super-spreader venues such as cinemas, bars and nightclubs will stay closed despite infection rates remaining stable for the past two weeks, officials said.

From Friday the vast majority of businesses can resume operations as long as safe distancing rules are in place, said Lawrence Wong, a cabinet minister who is a key figure in Singapores fight against the COVID-19 outbreak.

Social gatherings of up to five people will also be allowed from Friday, but individuals should stay one metre (three feet) apart from each other.

14:18 GMT  Sweden extends ban on visits to elderly care homes due to pandemic

Sweden will extend its ban on visits to elderly care homes to August 31, Health Minister Lena Hallengren said.

This is one of many tough measures that needs to remain in place, Hallengren told reporters at a news conference.

More than 4,800 people have died in Sweden after being infected with the coronavirus, the vast majority of them over 70 years old and of those, many were resident in elderly care homes.

The ban on visits was put in place on March 30.

Pakistan suffered its worst week of the COVID-19 outbreak so far. What does this mean for hospitals? Al Jazeeras @asadhashim explains. pic.twitter.com/RUp1Ld62Ri  Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 15, 2020

14:08 GMT  Indias Chennai city to reimpose lockdown as cases surge

A lockdown will be reimposed Friday on some 15 million people in the Indian city of Chennai and several neighbouring districts, state officials said, as coronavirus cases surge in the region.

Full Lockdown from 19th for Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpet & Kanchipuram districts, the Tamil Nadu state government tweeted.

It will be in place until the end of June.

Tamil Nadu, where Chennai is the capital, is the second-worst hit state after Maharashtra. The southern state has recorded just over 44,000 cases out of a nationwide total of 332,424, according to official figures.

Hello, this is Farah Najjar taking over from my colleague Shereena Qazi.

12:45 GMT  Review into two-metre rule to be completed in coming weeks

The UKs government hopes to complete a review into whether the country should stick to a social distancing measure of keeping people two metres (six feet) apart in the coming weeks, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

The review into the two-metre rule comes after some businesses, especially in the hospitality industry, complained they could not return profits if customers had to stand far apart, citing other countries where the distances are smaller.

It will be completed in the coming weeks, the spokesman told reporters, adding that the review would be chaired by Simon Case, permanent secretary at Number 10, and would report to Johnson.

12:10 GMT  Singapore to remove most coronavirus restrictions from Friday

Singapore will allow small gatherings and the reopening of restaurants and shops from June 19, its health ministry has said.

Social gatherings of up to five people will be permitted from Friday, when the majority of activities resume after more than two months of restrictions. Social distancing requirements will remain in place.

Tiny Singapore has one of the highest infection tallies in Asia, with more than 40,000 cases, because of mass outbreaks in dormitories for its migrant workers.

11:50 GMT  Finland withdraws emergency powers act as virus spread slows

Finland is withdrawing the emergency powers act that Parliament adopted in March to tackle the coronavirus as the infection rate has slowed and exceptional measures are no longer needed, the prime minister said.

Sanna Marin said there were no longer legal grounds for the government to keep the emergency legislation and the state of emergency would end at midnight on Monday.

There were 26 hospitalised COVID-19 patients and only one person in intensive care on Monday across Finland, the government said, adding there had been around 15 to 25 new cases a day for several weeks, totalling at 7,104 on Sunday.

10:50 GMT  Virus effects could kill over 50,000 children in MENA: UN

UN agencies have warned the coronavirus pandemic could lead to the deaths of an additional 51,000 under-fives in the Middle East and North Africa by the end of the year.

While there are not many cases of COVID-19 among children in the region, it is evident that the pandemic is affecting childrens health firsthand, UN said [Source: Mediawire]

The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations childrens agency, UNICEF, said the disruption of essential health and nutrition services risked reversing progress (on) child survival in the region by nearly two decades.

Such a number of extra deaths would represent an increase of almost 40 percent more than pre-COVID-19 figures, they said in a joint statement issued in Amman.

09:50 GMT  Norway to halt COVID-19 track and trace app

Norway will halt its COVID-19 track and trace app and delete all data collected so far after criticism from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) said.

The app was introduced by some Norwegian authorities to limit the transmission of the coronavirus.

The data protection watchdog said on Friday that considering the low spread of the infection, among other issues, collecting data through the app could no longer be seen as reasonable amid privacy concerns.

09:15 GMT  Coronavirus cases surge in Pakistan

Pakistan saw an exponential rise in cases of the coronavirus last week, with the countrys planning minister predicting that the South Asian nation could see more than 1.2 million cases by the end of July if citizens do not abide by the governments advice on social distancing and hygiene.

Last week, Pakistan saw cases of the coronavirus rise by 39 percent, from 103,671 to 144,478, according to government data.

Deaths rose by 31.4 percent, to 2,787.

09:00 GMT  The coronavirus is changing the way Londoners get to work

The crowded daily commute in London has long been a source of misery for millions. But getting to work will be even more of a challenge following the UKs coronavirus lockdown.

A cyclist rides along a newly created bicycle lane by Transport for London on Park Lane in London [Toby Melville/Reuters]

Capacity on the transport network in one of the worlds biggest financial hubs has been reduced by 85 percent to comply with social-distancing rules, protecting commuters by preventing them from cramming into trains, the London Underground and buses.

Read more here

08:55 GMT  The second wave?

Global markets started the week on the back foot while oil prices slipped as fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections in China and a surge in cases in the United States sent investors scurrying for safe-haven assets such as gold.

The pan-European STOXX 600 fell 2.5 percent with all sectors and regional markets trading deep in the red after losses accelerated in the final hours of trading in Asia.

Read more here

08:45 GMT  Tajikistan starts easing restrictions

Tajikistan has announced the first easing of restrictions, as it allowed malls, bazaars, restaurants, hotels and other service providers to reopen after a two-month shutdown.

State borders will remain closed, the government said in a statement, and so will mosques and mass transit facilities such as railways.

The Central Asian nation bordering China has confirmed 5,035 COVID-19 cases with 50 related deaths.

08:30 GMT  Montenegro reports first case since May

Three weeks after declaring it was free of the coronavirus, Montenegro has reported a new COVID-19 case  a person who arrived from neighbouring Bosnia

It was the first new infection reported in the tiny Balkan country since May 5.

The Institute for Public Health, which is tasked with combating the new coronavirus, said the infected patient was in self-isolation in the Balkan countrys capital, Podgorica.

Montenegro, a former Yugoslav republic of 620,000 people whose economy relies heavily on tourism revenues, has so far reported 325 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus and nine deaths.

Prime Minister Dusko Markovic declared Montenegro coronavirus-free on May 25.

07:50 GMT  India may use train carriages for virus beds

Indias home minister has offered 500 railway carriages for use as makeshift coronavirus hospital wards as the capital New Delhi struggles to contain a rise in cases.





New Delhi has about 9,000 beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients among public and private hospitals, but a state government panel of experts has said the city will need at least 15,000 beds by the end of June.

Indias health ministry reported a jump of more than 11,000 new coronavirus infections nationwide for a third consecutive day, taking the total caseload to more than 332,000, including 9,520 deaths.

07:47 GMT  Qatar eases Industrial Area restrictions

In line with the first stage of the gradual lifting of restrictions, Qatar has removed the requirement for entry and exit permits to and from the Industrial Area, a commercial hub outside the capital Doha where many of its migrant workers live, effective Monday, June 15.

The Industrial Area was partially closed after the discovery of a number of coronavirus cases among its residents.

The Gulf state will also implement phase one of the lifting of restrictions where certain shops in malls, as well as selected parks and mosques, will reopen.

07:45 GMT  Greece welcomes foreign visitors, restarts summer tourism

Greece has reopened its main airports to more international flights, hoping to kick-start its vital tourism sector after three months under lockdown.

Tourism employs about 700,000 people and accounts for some 20 percent of Greeces economic output, so how the sector fares is significant for the countrys recovery. Greece emerged from a decade-long debt crisis two years ago.

Tourists and locals mill about outside of a cafe opened for take-away business in the Plaka district in Athens [Getty Images]

Passengers arriving from airports deemed high-risk by the European Unions aviation safety agency will be tested for the coronavirus and quarantined for up to 14 days, depending on the test result.

Restrictions remain for passengers from the UK and Turkey. Arrivals from other airports will be randomly tested.

07:30 GMT  Djokovic tennis event gets flak over coronavirus fears

A charity tennis event organised by mens top-ranked player Novak Djokovic that drew big crowds over the weekend has sparked criticism for its lack of safety precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Thousands of fans were seated closely inside the stadium and without face masks as top players were seen exchanging high fives and hugs on court in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

Read more here.

06:30 GMT  Indian journalists targeted during lockdown: Report

At least 55 journalists have either faced arrests, physical assaults, alleged destruction of properties or threats for reporting on the coronavirus crisis during Indias lockdown from March 25 to May 31, the Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) has said in a report.

India has become the riskiest place for journalists in the world, said the report. It said the Indian state and political activists alleged that journalists acted prejudicial to maintenance of harmony and the national integrity, sovereignty and security of India

The RRAG said the highest number of attacks on media persons was reported from Uttar Pradesh state (11 journalists), followed by Jammu and Kashmir (6) and Himachal Pradesh (5).

05:05 GMT  Coronavirus case updates

A number of countries have been updating their data.

Thailand has reported no new cases or deaths, and its 21st day without local transmission. All recent cases have been found in Thai people returning from overseas.

In Europe, the Czech Republic says total cases have now risen above 10,000. Germany, meanwhile, has reported 192 new cases bringing its total to 186,461. It also reported four more deaths.

04:15 GMT  Englands high street shops to reopen on Monday

Shops in the UK are set to reopen on Monday after being forced to remain closed for 83 days because of the coronavirus.

They will have to abide by social distancing rules that will limit the number of customers and make it more difficult for people to try on clothes, test furniture and browse books.

From tomorrow, 15 June, all our Clothing & Home stores in England and Northern Ireland will be open. We look forward to welcoming you back, with some new measures in place to keep you well. Read more about how you can shop with confidence here: https://t.co/zIR8zTQ3kC pic.twitter.com/VuFqPJQoTO  M&S (@marksandspencer) June 14, 2020

Shops in Scotland and Wales are still waiting to find out when they can resume trading. Only supermarkets and other essential retailers were allowed to operate during the coronavirus lockdown.

Thank you from our Selfridges family. Discover personal notes of thanks from team members, displayed across our windows. From kind strangers, NHS workers & delivery drivers, our team has expressed their gratitude ahead of reopening on 15.06.20 https://t.co/ANKRHvmwIo pic.twitter.com/dOzG3aKCiw  Selfridges (@Selfridges) June 11, 2020

04:00 GMT  Peasant brigades mete out rough justice in Peru coronavirus fight

The Peruvian peasant brigades who once battled leftist rebel groups are now being deployed against people breaking coronavirus quarantines, according to the Reuters News Agency.

The community brigades were created in the 1970s in northern highland areas.

Aladino Fernandez, the president of a group in the region of Cajamarca, told the news agency rule-breakers risked being caned.

A serious crime would be about 15 lashes, he said.

Peru has the second-highest number of cases in South America after Brazil.

03:30 GMT  Hong Kong Disneyland to reopen on June 18

Disneyland in Hong Kong has announced it will reopen on June 18, nearly six months after it closed in late January.

The theme park, including its shops and restaurants, will open with controlled capacity and social distancing will be enforced.

The Disneyland in Shanghai reopened last month.

03:20 GMT  Areas around another Beijing market locked down after positive tests

State broadcaster CGTN has more on the areas of Beijing that have been locked down. It seems they are in the northwest of the city, around a market where some staff were diagnosed with coronavirus.

Ten communities around Yuquandong market in Beijing's Haidian District were shut down after some market staffers tested positive for #coronavirus, with all of them having links to Xinfadi wholesale market that is at the center of new cases, local official told a briefing Monday. pic.twitter.com/EwrAbkQLUd  CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) June 15, 2020

03:15 GMT  China seals off another 10 Beijing neighbourhoods

Another 10 neighbourhoods in Beijing have been sealed off as part of the citys attempt to deal with a sudden spike of cases linked to a wholesale food market, according to AFP news agency.

02:45 GMT  South Korea checks cases, but keeps wary eye on Seoul

South Korea has reported new cases below 40 for the second day in a row, according to Yonhap news agency, but is concerned about cluster infections and untraceable cases in the Seoul metropolitan area.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 37 new cases on Monday, 24 of them local infections and all but two of those in the Seoul area.

The new cases are clustered around a door-to-door business group, small churches and a table tennis centre.

But the number of cases where the origin is unknown is also growing, according to the KCDC, up 1.8 percentage points to 9.2 percent of cases over the first two weeks of June.

Life has been returning to normal in Seoul but with clusters of coronavirus emerging some restrictions have been reimposed [Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters]

02:15 GMT  Japan says it has not decided to ease entry ban

Japans Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi says the government has made no decision to ease the entry ban imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus after local media reported it might lift it for people from certain countries.

Motegi told parliament the government was looking at ways to ease the ban and would do so in stages if it decided to do so.

00:05 GMT  China ramps up testing in Beijing after spike in cases

Chinas vice premier Sun Chunlan is calling for decisive measures in Beijing as the capital moves to mass coronavirus testing after a spike in cases connected to a major wholesale food market.

Late on Sunday, all companies were ordered to supervise a 14-day home quarantine for employees who had visited the Xinfadi market or been in contact with anyone who had been there. The market has been closed and a number of residential estates around it sealed off. Schools and kindergartens in the area have been closed too.

Beijing has entered an extraordinary period, city spokesman Xu Hejian said.

According to state media, the latest figures show 49 new cases in mainland China, 10 imported and 39 acquired locally  36 of them in Beijing.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who had led anti-#COVID19 fight in #Wuhan for months, urged authorities to take decisive measures in containing virus spread in #Beijing after latest infection clusters. The capital city is still facing high risks of further virus spreading: Sun pic.twitter.com/hjLl4IDj1b  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) June 15, 2020





00:00 GMT  Australia banking on infrastructure to escape coronavirus economic rout

Australia is expected to spend a further 1.5 billion Australian dollars ($1.03 billion) on infrastructure and fast-track approvals for a series of projects including the expansion of the Olympic Dam.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to speak later on Monday.

As we come out of the COVID crisis, infrastructure can give us the edge many countries dont have, hes expected to say, according to extracts of the speech sent to Reuters by his office.

The government has already brought forward 3.8 billion Australian dollars in infrastructure funding with the country facing its first recession in 30 years.

23:00 GMT (Sunday)  EasyJet to resume some flights in UK

The UKs easyJet will resume operations on Monday with a limited number of domestic flights within the UK. The first will leave Gatwick Airport for Glasgow at 06:00 GMT.

All passengers will have to wear face masks, aircraft cleaning will be enhanced and no food services will be offered.

EasyJet plans to add more services as the months progress and expects to be flying about three-quarters of its routes by August but at a much lower frequency.

Easyjet planes on the ground at Luton airport after the airline grounded its entire fleet in late March [File: Matthew Childs/Reuters]

22:05 GMT (Sunday): Ghanas health minister confirmed with coronavirus

Ghanas health minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu has been diagnosed with the coronavirus and is in a stable condition.

Let us wish our hardworking minister for health, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty, President Nana Akufo-Addo said on television on Sunday.

Ghana has recorded nearly 12,000 cases of coronavirus, one of the highest infection rates in Africa, but has also tested far more people than most other countries. It has reported 54 deaths.

-

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 14) here.
New Delhi:

In yet another blow to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), its MLA Somnath Bharti was on Thursday arrested for allegedly assaulting the security guards of AIIMS. On September 11, Bharti was booked for allegedly inciting a crowd to damage AIIMS fence and misbehaving with the hospitals security personnel.

However, Bharti had denied the charges. The chief security officer of AIIMS gave a written complaint on September 9 stating that Bharti provoked the mob to damage the fence of the hospital with JCB at Gautam Nagar Nallah road in order to give access to unauthorised persons inside AIIMS property and also misbehaved with security personnel at around 9.45 AM.

The medical examination of six security personnel was done and a case under IPC sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of his public functions), 353 (assault or use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of his duty) and  Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act has been registered at Hauz Khas police station.

Reacting to the development, Bharti had tweeted then, AIIMS is lying. They have been denying legitimate access to Gautam Nagar residents. AIIMS even refused to PWD meetings.

Wherever common man will be troubled I will go. D allegation that residents dismantled the wall is a blatant lie. I will fight in court.

Bharti, who represents Malviya Nagar seat, has been mired in controversies. He was booked for allegedly obstructing public servants from discharging their duty during his purported midnight-raid when some African women were allegedly molested in 2014. He was also arrested last year after his wife accused him of domestic violence.

A number of legislators of Arvind Kejriwal-led ruling AamAadmi Party party have been booked by Delhi Police on various charges, prompting the AAP to allege that they were being targeted under political vendetta.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
An image of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested for alleged spying in Moscow, is displayed behind Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, at a news conference at the State Department in Washington, on June 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool)

Pompeo Demands Russia Immediately Release US Citizen Convicted of Spying

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has denounced the conviction by a Russian court of U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, a former Marine, on charges of spying.

The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses, Pompeo said in a June 15 statement.

A Russian court sentenced Whelan, an American security executive, to 16 years in a maximum-security prison.

We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations, Pompeo said, while demanding Whelans immediate release.

Whelan, who also holds British, Irish, and Canadian citizenship, denied the charges of spying for the United States, saying he was set up. Whelans lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about.

The 50-year-old corporate security executive from Novi, Michigan, was arrested in a sting operation in Moscow in December 2018 while he was there to attend a friends wedding.

Whelan has complained of poor prison conditions in Russia and has said his life is in danger. Last month, Whelan underwent surgery for a hernia.

The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling, Pompeo said.

Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal, and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition, Pompeo said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Whelan has become a political hostage, saying during a conference call with reporters that his guilt was proven during the trial.

Peskov refused to comment on whether Russia could be eyeing Whelans exchange for some of its citizens in U.S. custody.

But Whelans Russian lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, pointed at Russian official statements signaling a possibility that Whelan could be exchanged for Russians.

There have been proposals of exchange, the issue is being discussed, he said.

Whelans brother, David Whelan, said in a statement after the verdict that he believes the conviction makes a prisoner swap more likely.

In an email cited by The Guardian, David Whelan wrote, The courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, he wrote.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan denounced the secret trial, during which no evidence was produced as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. He described Whelans conviction as a mockery of justice and also demanded his immediate release.

Sullivan, in an earlier statement, criticized Russian authorities for not allowing Whelan to contact his family while in detention and that he has been denied medical examination by an independent doctor.

What is more disheartening is that Paul has not been able to talk with his family in 16 monthsnot one phone call to his elderly parents, brothers, or sister, Sullivan said.

Speaking of suffering, Paul continues to endure complicated medical issues that are potentially life-threatening and require treatment. We have repeatedly asked for our doctors to visit Paul but have been met with only denials, Sullivan said.

I remain concerned about Pauls health and welfare; he needs medical care and he needs to go home. Thats the bottom line, he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi constantly runs down Jawaharlal Nehru, he is obviously keen on emulating him.

This is the interpretation given by Congress insiders to the news that a collection of letters written to Mother Goddess by Mr Modi as a young man are to be published this month.

Translated from the Gujarati Saakshi Bhaav by Bhawana Somaaya, the concept of Letters to Mother appears to be borrowed from the collection of letters written by Nehru to his daughter Indira in 1928 when he was in jail. Titled Letters from a Father to his Daughter, this collection was translated into Hindi by well-known writer Munshi Premchand.

While Nehrus letters provide an insight into the evolution of mankind and natural history, Mr Modis letters are described as conversations with Mother Goddess and his feelings of fear and anxiety.

The ordinary feelings of an ordinary man. According to the publishers HarperCollins, young Modi had got into the habit of penning a letter to Mother Goddess every night but he would invariably destroy his letters subsequently.

However one diary survived and has now been published. And to avoid any comparisons with Nehrus work, Mr Modi confesses that he is no writer and that the letters are reflections of my observations and sometimes unprocessed thoughts, expressed without filters.

Luck really seems to be favouring Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. A recent survey, conducted by a private research organisation on the performance of Bharatiya Janata Party chief ministers, placed Mr Rawat at the bottom of the list.

But Mr Rawat is sitting pretty as all his rivals are conveniently out of the way.

Bhagat Singh Koshiyari is well ensconced at the Raj Bhavan in Maharashtra, Ramesh Pokhriyal is busy handling the human resource development ministry in Delhi while party media chief Anil Baluni is recovering from an illness.

The party leadership in Delhi has no time to focus on the state as it is busy managing the Covid-19 pandemic and with the coming Bihar Assembly polls.

Even his political opponent, former chief minister Harish Rawat, is giving him an easy ride.

On the other hand, former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scinida has had a run of bad luck in recent months.

He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on the promise of a Rajya Sabha seat from his home state Madhya Pradesh and a ministerial berth in the Modi Cabinet.

But the election to the Upper House had to be deferred because of the Covid-19 pandemic, thus delaying his induction into the Union Cabinet.

And now that the election has been fixed for June 19, Mr Scindia tested positive for coronavirus and is currently undergoing treatment in a Delhi hospital. Furthermore, reports from Bhopal say there is trouble brewing in the BJPs state unit as party legislators are upset that Scindia has not bothered to meet them to seek their support for the June 19 election, considering they are the voters in a Rajya Sabha poll.

In fact, the BJP MLAs have been unhappy ever since Mr Scindia and his loyalists joined their party as the newcomers have been promised ministerial berths which will obviously scuttle their chances of being upgraded.

Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jhas recent column criticising the party for lack of internal democracy and its inability to develop a sound political strategy for revival, has put the proverbial cat among the pigeons.

A number of younger leaders, who have been sidelined by the Congress old guard, apparently called Mr Jha to say that though they privately agree with him, they had no choice but to criticise him publicly.

On the other hand, there is a section in the Congress which was quick to point out that Mr Jhas public outburst showed that it does not pay to promote what they describe as lateral entrants who have no grassroots base.

This has led to a growing internal demand that such paratroopers should not be fielded to speak for the Congress on television channels, and should definitely not be given any important position in the party organisation.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has a lot on his plate these days. He has to manage the influx of migrants who have returned to their villages from the cities where they had gone to earn a livelihood.

Then he has to deal with the spurt in the coronavirus cases and also begin preparations for the coming assembly polls. Despite all these preoccupations, Nitish Kumars litchi diplomacy continued unhindered.

There was no stopping the annual ritual of sending baskets of the states famous Jardalu mango and Muzaffarpur shahi litchi to his political friends and Bihari journalists based in Delhi.

Though all top BJP leaders are on Nitish Kumars list, no one is close to the late Arun Jaitley when it comes to appreciating the delicious fruit from Bihar.

Jaitley often spent hours talking about the juicy and flavourful litchi from Muzaffarpur.
Anne-Marie Duff has revealed she accidentally joked to Prince Charles about her sex life with ex-husband James McAvoy.

The actress, 49, made the gaffe when the royal asked if their busy acting careers left them with enough time for one another.

She told The Observer magazine: 'My most embarrassing moment involved Prince Charles. I was at a premiere with my ex-husband.

Embarrassing moment: Anne-Marie Duff has revealed she joked about her sex life with James McAvoy during a conversation with Prince Charles

'Prince Charles said, "I suppose you two never see each other." I said, "We see each other in bed."'

Anne-Marie and James were married from 2006 and share a son, Brendan, 10, but the couple divorced in 2016.

The star also opened up about her milestone 50th birthday this year, admitting it is 'scary'.

Royal gaffe: The actress, 49, said she joked about seeing her then-husband James in bed while talking to Prince Charles

Thinking ahead: The Shameless star also said she finds the idea of turning 50 this year 'scary'

She said: 'Ill have a word with myself because everything is relative. You can be a miserable 23-year-old, then be pants-in-the-air happy at 50.'

It comes as Anne-Marie hits TV screens this week in the new BBC drama Salisbury Poisonings, based on the novichok poisoning in 2018.

She portrays 'superhero' Tracy Daszkiewicz, the director of public health at Wiltshire council at the time of the attack on former Russian military intelligence officer and double agent Sergei Skripal.

Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who was visiting him at the time of the attack, both survived but a local woman named Dawn Sturgess died. Her boyfriend Charlie Rowley became critically ill, as did Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who had searched Skirpal's house.

Three-part BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings, which is airing on BBC1 later this week, focuses on these people most directly affected by the attack, with Mrs Daszkiewicz at its centre.

The programme was originally scheduled to premiere in early spring but was pushed back due to COVID-19.

In June 2018, Tracy Daszkiewicz (left) was the director of public health at Wiltshire council, when a perfume bottle filled with nerve agent novichok was deployed in the city in a deadly attack. She is portrayed by Anne-Marie (right) in new BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings

Speaking to The Times about the show, Duff acknowledged the iconocraphy such as the hazmat suits and restaurants closed to prevent any spread will strike a chord with viewers in a way that could not have been foreseen when the show was made.

She said it also shines a light on the everyday heroes at the heart of a crisis like the poisonings - or the current coronavirus pandemic.

Three-part BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings, which airs on BBC1 this week, focuses on these people most directly affected by the attack, with Mrs Daszkiewicz (Duff) at its centre

'We've become phenomenally aware of all the people that are cannon fodder in our lives, the people that are really there are at the front, taking bullets for us,' she said.

'I think this is a story about those people: the people who pick up after us, the people who take our rubbish away and who stack shelves and get paid sometimes less than the minimum wage, unfortunately. They are our superheroes, and this drama is about a few of those superheroes.'

The show follows Daszkiewicz (Duff) as she works with colleagues to try to combat a lethal and invisible enemy that has appeared out of nowhere.

The public health response team of which Tracy is a part instigates a lockdown. They close a local economy. They set up an elaborate system of contact tracing and testing. They source and distribute Personal Protective Equipment for use on the frontlines. And they deal, every day, with a terrified and frustrated public.

Dawn Sturgess (MyAnna Buring), left, who died as a result of novichok poisoning

Duff was able to spend time with Daszkiewicz and her family and describes the public health expert as having 'titanium' self-belief who was able to take on the enormous responsibility she was suddenly given.

She added: 'This was something so extraordinary, and to be surrounded by a group of strangers  predominantly male strangers  it was very frightening for her. Yet Tracy is somebody who takes responsibility, and thats the story I was trying to tell.'

The programme is written by Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn, who admitted it is 'not always and easy watch'.

The target was former Russian military intelligence officer and double agent Sergei Skripal. Skripal and his daughter Yulia, pictured, who was visiting him at the time, both survived

In a conversation with the BBC, they said: 'It deals with real trauma, experienced by real people, not very long ago. So why show it now? Because it is a story of people coming together in remarkable ways, finding strength in family and community.

'Its a story that reflects the internal reality of an emergency public health response, with all of its critical decisions. But perhaps most of all, because it reflects a kind of heroism that we have all come to recognise recently.

'A heroism that is quiet - ordinary even - and that is wrapped up in a simple sense of civic duty that we had wrongly assumed was on the wane, but that really had only been lying dormant. An everyday kind of heroism that nonetheless changes the world.'
 Flash

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent surpassed 232,815 as of Sunday morning, the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC in its latest update said that the number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases rose from 225,105 on Saturday morning to 232,815 as of Sunday morning.

The death toll from the pandemic also rose from 6,040 on Saturday morning to 6,244 as of Sunday morning, 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 106,459 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent as of the stated period.

Amid the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the African continent, the highly affected African countries include South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, as well as Algeria, it was noted.

The Africa CDC also said that the Southern Africa region is now the most affected area across the continent in terms of positive COVID-19 cases, overtaking the Northern Africa region.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:16:06|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Abul Gheit warned on Monday that the humanitarian situation in Yemen "will turn catastrophic."

In a statement, Abul Gheit urged the international community to mobilize efforts and bear their financial responsibilities to rescue Yemen from a horrific fate.

He noted that the donor conference co-hosted by Saudi Arabia and the United Nations on June 2 failed to collect the desired funds.

The conference only secured 637 million U.S. dollars, less than half of the needed sum to save Yemen, according to the statement.

"Yemen needs nearly 4 billion dollars to drag it from the drastic impact of war that devastated the whole country," the statement said, noting 80 percent of the Yemeni population depend on daily aid for living.

According to the UN report titled "Yemen: 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview," 2 million Yemeni children are suffering from acute malnutrition.

Since the beginning of 2020, some 80,000 more people in Yemen have been uprooted from their homes, taking the total displaced population to almost 4 million, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In addition to COVID-19, cholera continues to threaten the lives of Yemenis, with 110,000 people contracting it so far this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of the Humanitarian Affairs. Enditem
WOODRIDGE, IL  Woodridge Patch wants to honor local high school graduates, as in-person graduations, proms and other events have been canceled or postponed for 2020 due to the new coronavirus. Since many seniors are missing out on these events, we wanted to find a way to make them feel special. These messages and photos were sent by family members who wanted to show their graduates some love.

If you'd still like to submit a graduation photo and message or if we missed your photo, please email lisa.farver@patch.com

Natalia Stefanovska

Natalia Stefanovska, who is graduating from Downers Grove South High School, will attend DePaul University.



Natalia's family writes, "Congratulations to your High School. We are so proud of you and can't wait to see more great things from you. We love you."

Shannon Simpson

photo by Daniel Simpson

Shannon Simpson, who is graduating from Downers Grove South High School, will major in art education at Trinity Christian College.



Shannon's family writes, "Be proud and look forward to what the future holds. You will do great in college. Congratulations!"

Ciara Scott

Ciara Scott, who is graduating from Downers Grove South High School, will study political science at Arizona State University.



Ciara's family writes, "Congratulations! Mom and dad are very proud of you."

Jenna Allard

Jenna Allard, who is graduating from Downers Grove South High School, will attend College of DuPage.



Jenna's family writes, "We are so proud of you! We love you!"

This article originally appeared on the Woodridge Patch
UAE-based upscale residential, hospitality and commercial property developer Seven Tides has recorded 250 residential unit sales units between March 1 and May 31 at its prime development, Seven Palm.

The overall development was rebranded Seven Palm last year with both component projects rebranded to Seven Palm Hotel Apartments and Seven Palm Residences, respectively.

Apartment prices in Seven Palm range from Dh649,888 to Dh3.38 million ($176,918 to $922,551). Both projects come with a revised and more flexible post-handover payment plan, it stated.

CEO Abdulla Bin Sulayem said: "These are impressive sales figures given that during April and May, most of the world was still in lockdown. Indeed, although the UAE did not close its airports until the last week of March, many other countries such as Italy had been in lockdown since March 9, which was swiftly followed by other European nations."

So, despite tough trading conditions once again this project undoubtedly underscores the argument that a compelling proposition, based on quality, return and potential capital appreciation, will attract investment, irrespective of volatility in the financial markets and the current global economic sentiment, stated Bin Sulayem.

More than 40 different nationalities have invested in Seven Palm, with Europeans including UK nationals, enticed by the warm winter climate and luxury lifestyle in Dubai, emerging the top investors by volume, over the last five months, representing 52% of all sales, he said.

The Central Asians (28%) were second on the list folllowed by the Russians (17%), he added.

The Dubai developer said work was progressing at a steady pace on the project with 30% of the construction work already completed and on track for handover in the first quarter of 2021.

This project also offers flexible payment plans to all investors, it stated.
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Vienna, Austria  Mon, June 15, 2020 14:45 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded18c4 2 World Europe,European-Union,post-lockdown,coronavirus,coronavirus-restrictions,coronavirus-prevention,COVID-19,COVID-19-lockdown,COVID-19-lockdown-easing,reopening,reopening-plan Free

As European countries emerge from their coronavirus lockdowns and lift travel restrictions to revive their tourist industries, the EU has been aiming to coordinate the border reopening among its 27 members.

The bloc has recommended that the member states fully reopen their frontiers with each other on June 15, and many countries are planning to relax controls on that date.

But the border reopenings have been far from harmoniously coordinated.

Early birds... and those that never closed

Italy, which has been among the world's hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe -- in many cases that list includes Sweden and the UK.

Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13.

Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries.

Neither did tiny Luxembourg -- but quickly found all its neighbors closing their borders instead.

EU's mid-June plans

In line with the EU's plans to reopen borders in the bloc by mid-June, Belgium, France and Greece are lifting restrictions on Monday for travel within Europe.

Paris, however, has specified it wants reciprocity and so may impose restrictions on those countries blocking travellers from France.

Greece, on the other hand, has gone further, also allowing travellers from farther afield, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon.

Germany is due to end land border checks on June 15, while the Dutch government has announced it would ease warnings against non-essential foreign travel from the same date.

Austria, which has already opened its borders to most of its neighbors, will on June 16 lift travel restrictions with a total of 31 countries -- but has excluded Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The Czech Republic is also allowing free travel with a number of European countries from Monday, but restrictions are still in place with those deemed a risk due to their levels of coronavirus infections.

Hold outs

Spain will only lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with fellow EU countries.

The land border with Portugal will however remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic.

However, Spain's Balearic Islands will see an earlier contingent of foreign guests when they welcome 11,000 Germans from June 15 in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector.

Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions.

Meanwhile, others are lifting border controls, but are still doing so more gradually.

Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights.
Helena Christensen was seen enjoying the outdoors on Sunday as she took her adorable dog for a walk in New York City.

The Danish supermodel, 51, wore a stunning putty-colored sundress that featured spaghetti straps at the shoulders and fit her figure beautifully.

The dress's material had a textured look, with tailored detailing at both the bust line and the waist.

Radiant: Helena Christensen was seen enjoying the outdoors on Sunday as she took her adorable dog for a walk in New York City

Helena's frock also had two practical front pockets, in which she held her smartphone.

The dress hung to just below her knees, and flowed beautifully as she walked along the street.

Christensen sported bangs and kept the rest of her brown hair up in a messy bun.

She wore an olive-colored face mask with a vent on one side.

The Copenhagen, Denmark-born catwalker donned yellow grecian-style strappy sandals on her feet.

Effortlessly chic: The Danish supermodel wore a stunning putty-colored sundress that featured spaghetti straps at the shoulders and fit her figure beautifully

Style in stride: The dress's material had a textured look, with tailored detailing at both the bust line and the waist

At one point, Helena stopped and rested on a stoop with her pooch next to her, as the pair took in the summer sun.

The mother-of-one was seen in the affluent West Village district of Manhattan.

A former Victoria's Secret model, Christensen recently wowed in a vintage Dior gown for a special campaign with British Vogue to raise funds for the NHS Charities Together and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

'Im excited to be part of an amazing initiative by @britishvogue and @hardlyeverwornit,' Helena said in the caption next to a duo of selfies in the stunning silver dress featuring a bow.

She continued, saying the initiative was 'in aid of @NHSCharitiesTogether and @NAACP by having donated my vintage silver silk @dior to the first ever #TheWayWeWoreAuction which is now live for 72 hours. Please go to Vogue.co.uk to find out how you can bid on the 22 beautiful pieces  '

Her treasured frock was being auctioned off in a project with 23 of the world's most beautiful women, including Gigi Hadid, Joan Smalls, Kate Moss, Adut Akech and Ashley Graham.

The virtual event, entitled 'The Way We Wore,' corresponds to Vogue's July 2020 issue, where each model donned their selected piece in a socially distanced picture.

Put a bow on it: 'Im excited to be part of an amazing initiative by @britishvogue and @hardlyeverwornit,' Helena said in the caption next to a duo of selfies in the stunning dress
What should Toronto be looking for in its next police chief? June 9

The civilian police board is faced with the onerous task of searching for a new leader to replace Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders after his sudden resignation. The police board has a timely opportunity to now consider in earnest the mounting calls from citizens for abolishment of policing as we know it, to reflect the needs of our multi-ethnic diverse city to ensure true reform and also to reduce budgets that were bloated over time.

Police defunding done properly would not compromise public safety.

A big chunk of a police officers time is eaten up by mundane administrative tasks and non-emergency calls that outside agencies could adequately handle. Such responsibilities should be redirected to civilians, freeing up police offers for key law enforcement tasks and community work.

We have long known that police services should be modernized, but the unions are standing their ground, showing they might have become too powerful to be reined back in. The new police chief must be able to seize the moment to meet persistent cries from citizens for police reform. It is equally important that the police board use this unique opportunity to seriously consider a community-centred model of public safety while safeguarding against increased crime or danger to police.

Its time to reimagine Toronto.
Dominic Raab

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has weighed into the political row over HSBC's backing of a crackdown in Hong Kong by warning that the UK government "will not sacrifice the people of Hong Kong over the altar of banker bonuses".

Mr Raab hit out at the banking giant just days after senior figures in Beijing and Washington clashed publicly over the bank's decision to support a new Hong Kong security law which has drawn condemnation from human rights campaigners and pro-democracy activists around the world.

The proposed law criminalises anti-government movements in the former British colony, and come as sources say HSBC is privately warning Downing Street it could face reprisals in China if Huawei is banned from the UKs 5G network.

"In relation to HSBC, ultimately businesses will make their own judgement calls," he told a daily news briefing in response to a question about what message he would send to the bank.

Weve made a historic commitment to the people of Hong Kong to protect their autonomy and protect their freedoms and so has China.

For us, this is a point of principle and I think its right we live up to our historic responsibilities and we stick up for the people and stand up for the people of Hong Kong at this very sensitive time.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last week accused China of bullying HSBC into backing the law , causing China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying to call his opinions "narrow minded" .

London-listed HSBC, full name the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, was founded in Hong Kong in 1865 and makes almost all of its money in Asia. However a majority of its investors are based in the US and UK.

Last week one of its largest UK investors Aviva said it was "uneasy" that HSBC and its rival Standard Chartered had decided to throw their weight behind the rule.
[June 15, 2020] Endurance Group Gives Back to Support India's COVID-19 Relief and Recovery

MUMBAI, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Endurance International Group (EIG) recently announced a multi-faceted initiative to support India during the COVID-19 outbreak and recovery. This commitment is made in addition to Endurance Group's global contribution to Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization active in more than 80 countries to support COVID-19 relief efforts. Direct Relief is working in overdrive to get protective gear and critical care to as many health workers as possible to alleviate the strain on hospitals, emergency rooms, and ICUs. In India, Endurance is making its employees an intrinsic part of the give back. Each employee selected a charity of their choice amongst five shortlisted and Endurance makes a contrbution on their behalf. All 550 employees in India participated in this initiative. The company has handpicked five local charities that are in the forefront of supporting the COVID- 19 response. The selected organizations are Goonj, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, CRY, Give India and Doctors For You. Employees are sharing messages of gratitude to frontliners in team videos on social media using #EnduranceGivesBack



"We stand in solidarity with the people on the frontlines who are tirelessly and selflessly working in this pandemic," said Manish Dalal, Senior VP & GM of Endurance Group, APAC, parent company of web presence brands like HostGator, bluehost, ResellerClub and BigRock. "It is our hope that through these actions, we are able to provide some relief during this challenging time." Endurance Group caters to small business owners and web professionals through brands such as ResellerClub, HostGator, bluehost, and BigRock. These brands provide the tools and resources needed to build and establish a web presence, be found online, and improve productivity through digital solutions like domains, hosting, business email and more.

About Endurance International Group Endurance International Group Holdings, Inc. helps millions of small businesses worldwide with products and technology to enhance their online web presence, email marketing, business solutions, and more. The Endurance family of brands includes: Constant Contact, bluehost, HostGator, and Domain.com, among others. Headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, Endurance employs over 3,800 people across the United States, Brazil, India and the Netherlands. For more information, visit: www.endurance.com. Media Contact:

Mitika Kulshreshtha

[email protected]

+91-22-6720-9090

Vice President - Marketing, APAC Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1039655/EIG_Logo.jpg

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In the Supreme Courts first full term since the arrival of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh shifted it to the right, the justices confronted an unusually potent mix of political and social issues in the middle of both a presidential election year and a public health crisis.

A recent survey from researchers at Harvard, Stanford and the University of Texas suggests that the public aligns with the court's major decisions this term. A notable exception: The court ruled that the president may for now block disclosure of his financial records to Congress, but 61 percent of Americans do not believe he should be able to do so.
Hong Kong recorded three imported Covid-19 cases but no local infection on Monday, with the government expected to announce the easing of some social-distancing measures on Tuesday.

The total tally of confirmed cases in the city now stands at 1,112, with four related deaths.

The Centre for Health Protection said on Monday that the three imported cases involved a 32-year-old woman who arrived in the city from Indonesia, as well as a 47-year-old mother and her son, 10, who had visited Russia.

A cluster of infections in Luk Chuen House at Lek Yuen Estate in Sha Tin recorded one new addition on Friday and another on Saturday, bringing the total number of people infected who live in that block to nine.

The two new cases involved the sister-in-law of the blocks first reported case, a 34-year-old woman, and a man who lived in the neighbouring flat of the woman.

With the coronavirus situation continuing to ease citywide, the government is considering a relaxation of the rules on public gatherings, which currently ban groups of more than eight people. The regulation is set to expire on Thursday.

Experts agreed on Monday that the citys social-distancing measures could be relaxed, including the ban on gatherings and number of people permitted at a restaurant table.

Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert from Chinese University, said further relaxations could be considered.

MTR stations and bus stops now are often full of people ... Also, the book fair will be held, therefore I think there is not much significance to the ban on gatherings of more than eight, Hui, a government adviser on the pandemic, said on a radio show on Monday morning.

Dr Leung Chi-chiu, chairman of the Medical Associations advisory committee on communicable diseases, also said there had been many occasions where there were more than eight people in a setting.

Echoing Hui on the same programme, Leung said the ban was now not really effective.

Story continues

Both experts agreed that the number of people at each restaurant table could be expanded to 12, while Leung said rules could remain open for those within a family.

Hui also noted that tables should be maintained at a certain distance apart and diners should wear masks after eating.

The pair also believed that the latest infection recorded from the Luk Chuen House cluster, involving a 33-year-old man, was unlikely from airborne transmission.

Professor Yuen Kwok-yung from the University of Hong Kong, who also sits on the governments expert advisory panel, had said on Saturday that the patient could have caught the virus through the air as he only returned positive results on a bronchoscopy test, while his saliva and nasal samples were negative.

But Hui said there was no evidence proving the coronavirus could spread this way, and officials did not obtain air samples from the block for tests.

Also, airborne transmission can usually affect a lot of people. If we are talking about a virus particle that is smaller than 5 micrometres, many people can inhale this into their bodies. But the current distribution of patients does not support the possibility of airborne transmission, he added.

Leung also said there was no specific source observed at the block which could have caused the virus to be present in droplets suspended in the air. He suggested that the infection was more likely to have spread through contact with common surface areas at the estate.

Separately, two public hospitals reported temporary malfunction in the negative pressure system in their isolation wards on Monday. Risks of causing infection in both incidents were deemed to be low, the Hospital Authority said.

The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department has been requested to investigate the incidents.

The first incident happened at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan, where the electricity supply system went out of order at 11.03am. The systems safety device cut electricity supply and thus the air exhaust system stopped operating, causing a change in the air pressure in isolation wards. The system was normalised at 11.35am after an inspection by technicians.

The problem occurred again at 2.25pm, when five patients, including one suffering from Covid-19, were there in an isolation ward. No healthcare staff were in the ward at that time.

Another incident happened in Princess Margaret Hospitals Infectious Disease Centre at 10.57am. Power supply in some wards was affected when technicians were conducting repairs in a nursing station on the eleventh floor, resulting in electric doors between some negative-pressure rooms and their anterooms not closing completely. But the negative pressure and exhaust systems were not affected.

This article Coronavirus: Hong Kong records three imported Covid-19 cases but no new local infection, relaxed social-distancing rules expected first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2020.
Police brutality

Sydney District Committee CPA  Media Release  June 7

The Sydney District Committee (SDC) of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemns the instances of police brutality and corresponding conduct by the NSW police force following yesterdays Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in Sydney. Following the peaceful protest attendees were forced into Central Station where pepper spray was used without warning against non-violent protesters and observers, including a woman on crutches. This act of brutality by the police cannot be justified and is a contemptible act of violence.

The SDC also notes that forcing a large group of people into a tightly enclosed space and spraying noxious irritant chemicals is unhygienic and deeply irresponsible in the context of the global pandemic of COVID-19, the context that the NSW government and police previously attempted to use to outlaw the BLM protest. The SDC of the CPA condemns this flagrant disregard of public health and safety.

The massive Black Lives Matter protest march in Sydney on Saturday afternoon was peaceful. In this context the conduct by the NSW police force later on Saturday night was shameful. The actions of protestors throughout this time consisted of the passionate chanting of political slogans and passive resistance. This was observed by CPA members. This sorry incident at Central Station was not inevitable and was escalated due to heavy handed police measures.

Over 40,000 people, including many members of the Communist Party marched yesterday in support of the black lives matters movement and in defiance of attempts by the NSW government and the NSW Police Force to suppress this march. In Australia over 400 aboriginal people have died in custody since the 1990. Aboriginal people face daily discrimination and harassment by police. Many members of Pacific Islander, African and Arab communities face similar oppressions daily. The use of violence by the police against young people, mostly of minority backgrounds will only further inflame tensions in the community.

In these times of COVID-19 where people are losing their livelihoods due to it, it is only natural the people will take to the street to voice the demand for democratic rights, economic equity and social justice. A democratic society is one that would celebrate civic participation and engagement of this kind. A truly democratic society would act on the demands of the people for justice rather than attempt to police them into oblivion. The Communist Party of Australia will always stand in solidarity with the oppressed working peoples of the world.

Contact: Daniel Fisher

Secretary of the Sydney District Committee

0450787346
Insurance broker and professional services firm Aon announced the formation of a coalition of other insurers, companies and organizations in the Chicago area to help advance economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coalition includes other Illinois insurance firms Allstate, CNA and Zurich Insurance along with other large employers and key organizations from other sectors focused on how to re-introduce fundamental aspects of society and the economy: working, traveling and convening.

The participating Chicago organizations will create a set guidelines for businesses and communities to confidently and safely help restart the economy. Member companies will be asked to share key learnings and insights related to planning and operations, to assess impact and measurement of efforts, to evaluate the latest technologies, and to develop guidelines for reopening the economy.

We have used our expertise to assist clients in maintaining operations and mitigating risk during the pandemicand believe we have a responsibility to play a larger role in helping the private and public sector navigate the recovery, said Greg Case, Aon CEO. 

The initial group of coalition members includes: Abbott, Accenture, Allstate, Beam Suntory, BMO Harris, CDW, CNA, ComEd, ConAgra, Exelon, Fortuna Brands, Hyatt, JLL, McDonalds, Mondelez, Morningstar, Motorola Solutions, Sterling Bay, Ulta Beauty, United Airlines, Walgreens, Whirlpool, Zurich and others.

Case said that Aon will begin this work in Chicago but believes it can be expanded and shared to help businesses and cities around the world open safely and continue to grow and thrive. The intention is to scale this work to other key geographies including London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.

This coalition plans to issue an initial report in November 2020.

As Illinois reopens, businesses will have the opportunity to reinvent how they operate and compete, said Jim Coleman, senior managing director, who leads Accentures Chicago office.

The coalition will continue to work with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzkers and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoots offices to ensure alignment with public health and city and state official recommendations, according to the announcement.

Topics Aon Illinois
Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi on June 15 while speaking in the parliament said that the country hasn't decided to lift the travel ban that restricts entry of foreign nationals in order to block the spread of coronavirus. Motegi said that if the government decides on easing the curb in the future it would do so in stages. According to reports, Japan is considering lifting travel restrictions for business people who want to come in from countries such as Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, and New Zealand.

Read: Japan, New Zealand March To Mourn George Floyd, Seek Change

Motegi in the parliament said that he is in touch with his counterparts in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, and New Zealand over lifting the ban for business purposes. Japan's economy is expected to shrink due to the slowdown triggered by coronavirus lockdown and the fear of recession in the country is looming large. The cabinet recently announced an annual contraction of the economy at 2.2% in January-March. Japan was under a state of emergency for the last two months, but it was mainly concentrated in the major cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka, where coronavirus had reached the community transmission stage.

Read: Japan Wants US To Extradite Americans Who Helped Ghosn Flee

COVID-19 in Japan

According to figures by Johns Hopkins University, Japan has recorded more than 17,300 confirmed coronavirus cases, of which 927 people have lost their lives. The mortality and infection rates in Japan are comparatively lower than in other developed countries in the world. Japan has successfully managed to flatten its curve as the numbers have not risen dramatically in the past one week as in some of the other nations across the globe. Meanwhile, the world has registered over 7 million infections and more than 4,00,000 deaths.

Read: Japanese Company Plans Carbon Dioxide Project In Wyoming

Read: Japan Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimaru Warns Against Negative Rates
The outcome is expected to make a big difference for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the US.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a landmark civil rights law protects LGBT people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

The dissent

Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity, Alito wrote in a dissent that was joined by Thomas.

The outcome is expected to have a significant effect on the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states do not protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the US, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

The cases were the courts first on LGBT rights since Justice Anthony Kennedys retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh is generally regarded as more conservative.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its long-standing interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

Efforts by Congress to change the law have so far failed.

Massive win for us legally- MASSIVE.

This should also invalidate the anti lgbt rule trump just enacted last week allowing denying health care to LGBT, I would think. But either way- this is a huge win for us LGBT humans:) https://t.co/OqSJAikywp  Martina Navratilova (@Martina) June 15, 2020

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

Fired from jobs

The federal appeals court in New York ruled in favour of a gay skydiving instructor who claimed he was fired because of his sexual orientation. The full 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that it was abandoning its earlier holding that Title VII did not cover sexual orientation because legal doctrine evolves. The court held that sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.

That ruling was a victory for the relatives of Donald Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, New York, that required him to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an aeroplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease by explaining he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the womans boyfriend called to complain.

Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014.

An LGBTQ activist taking a photo outside the US Supreme Court as it hears arguments in the major LGBT rights case on whether a federal anti-discrimination law that prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sex covers gay and transgender employees in Washington, US [File: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]

In a case from Georgia, the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled against Gerald Bostock, a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs. Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. The county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of an audit of funds he managed.

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostocks claim in a three-page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.

Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in the Detroit area after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with her gender most of her life and had, at long last, decided to become the person that my mind already is. Stephens told funeral homeowner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conservative skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fired Stephens.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that the firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law.

Stephens died last month.

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden hailed the decision as a momentous step forward towards equality in the US.

Before today, in more than half of states, LGBTQ+ people could get married one day and be fired from their job the next day under state law, simply because of who they are or who they love, he said in a statement issued on Monday.

This landmark 63 ruling affirms that LGBTQ+ Americans are entitled to equal rights under the law, according to the statement.
2 | Next crop of COVID-19 vaccine developers take more traditional route: The handful of drugmakers dominating the global coronavirus vaccine race are pushing the boundaries of vaccine technology. The next crop under development feature more conventional, proven designs. The world will need several different vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, given the sheer size of global need, variations in effects on different populations, and possible limits of effectiveness in the first crop. Many leading candidates now in final-stage testing are based on new, largely unproven technology platforms designed to produce vaccines at speed.

Johnson and Johnson (J&J) expects to begin human trials for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in July, and might receive emergency approval by early 2021.

J&J's chief scientific officer Paul Stoffels told The Economic Times the company was looking to scale its manufacturing capacity in many countries, including India.

Follow our LIVE blog for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic

"We remain committed to global access to our vaccine and are in discussions with many partners around the world to make this a reality. There is a lot of capacity in India. So, we are actively exploring what we can do all over the world, but a very logical place for capacity is India," Stoffels told the publication.

The US drugmaker initially expected to begin trials in September but fast-tracked its work on the vaccine.

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 company has received funding from the US government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development (BARDA) to accelerate the development of the vaccine.

"The same technology was used to develop and manufacture two million regimens of our Ebola vaccine and to construct our Zika, RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and HIV vaccine candidates," Stoffels told the paper.

Other companies that have made significant progress in developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus are UK-based AstraZeneca, US-based Moderna, and Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech.

Globally, nearly 79 lakh infections and over 4.3 lakh deaths have been reported due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

So far there are no known vaccines or medicines that cure or prevent COVID-19 infection.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here
Catastrophes often spur change in government. The 9/11 attacks led to the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and an expanded investment in combatting terrorism among local police departments, especially the NYPD. Hurricane Sandys destructive impact pushed New York City to dedicate billions of dollars to new climate resiliency projects to prepare for other natural disasters.

Unlike terrorist attacks and natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the entire country and will continue to do so until a working vaccine is developed. This is especially true of New York, which has seen the worst outbreak of COVID-19 thus far. Such a far-reaching health crisis will likely end up changing the way the state and localities will prepare for emergencies in the future.

The pandemic is going to fundamentally change responsibilities in a lot of different areas, said Robert Griffin, dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University of Albany. Chiefly among them is that both businesses and government agencies are going to have to have a much more robust program for both planning and response to a whole set of disasters.

Whether that means the creation of new government agencies in state and local government dedicated to pandemics  as some have speculated could happen on a federal level  or smaller-scale changes is up in the air. Some operational changes are naturally already happening as the state and New York City have had to adjust rapidly to the coronavirus outbreak. Under normal circumstances, for example, it wouldve been difficult to imagine the city would appoint a director of isolation.

To figure out the best strategies, policy makers will need to examine what worked this time  and what didnt. Disasters are often followed by after-action reports, which outline the successes and failures about how governments responded.

This could serve as a valuable tool for informing future approaches  but it can often go awry. Too often with the after-action reports, they are sanitized by the time they get to a place where theyre distributed and theyre not as candid as they need to be, said David Abramson, a professor at New York Universitys School of Global Public Health. They often can be politicized or treated as fodder for lawsuits, Griffin said, noting theyve become punitive rather than educational.

But if elected officials in New York commit to honestly reviewing their work, they can learn best practices for future emergencies  and that need for reflection may become more pressing given that health officials are anticipating more coronavirus outbreaks in the near future. Many lessons have already emerged.

Building greater hospital capacity would be vital to ensuring New York hospitals dont get so quickly overwhelmed by new cases again, health and disaster relief experts said. And though the state largely followed its previously established pandemic response plan, experts are recommending that future social distancing measures are implemented more swiftly given what happened during the initial COVID-19 outbreak. If lockdown measures had been implemented just one week earlier in New York City, about 14,700 fewer people wouldve died from COVID-19 as of May, according to research from Columbia University. Improved data sharing and other capacity-building measures for health care systems are also recommended by any health experts.

And its important not just to make changes as they relate to immediate needs during the pandemic, but to think about long-term, consistent investments into the health system.

Its tempting to think about that capacity were building now as just a temporary thing we need now, said Glen Mays, an expert in health systems at the Colorado School of Public Health, and eventually we may not need it once we get over the hump of the pandemic. But the expansion of contact tracing, for example, and other public health resources could be helpful for the future, he said, allowing a robust public health system capability on an ongoing basis to detect and even prevent future health threats going forward.

Responsiveness to pandemics relies on more than just the public health system. Widespread outbreaks at nursing homes, fueled by a lack of personal protective equipment, understaffing and a state-level directive that mandated long-term care facilities let in residents recovering from COVID-19, and technological difficulties and learning gaps resulting from school closures, highlight the need to prepare plans for other institutions, Griffin said.

A more collaborative approach, involving different government agencies, may be key to doing that. One of the areas of vulnerability that have really been exposed is the limited ability of our sectors to best align and collaborate across traditional sectors of medical care, public health and social services broadly defined, Mays said, noting that local and state government can be particularly well-suited to facilitating that collaboration.

New structures such as task forces or interagency councils may be a good idea to do that, May said. Griffin also recommended that preparedness professionals be embedded more deeply in the administrations of governors and mayors in the future. We're seeing that across the country that they can't be sort of a secondary thought, Griffin said. They have to be part of the inner circle.

Experience from previous disasters point to mixed results regarding how radically government improves vulnerabilities. Major crises such as the 9/11 attacks have led to oversight committees in Congress that produce major policy changes and congressional leaders have floated the creation of a similar commission regarding the coronavirus response. The House of Representatives has already voted to establish a new investigative body to do just that, though that effort may be hampered by Republicans who fear embarrassing President Donald Trump.

But changes or improvements that officials implement may falter years after the fact. For example, public health funding at a federal level was boosted in the aftermath of 9/11, but took a hit during the 2008 financial crisis and hasnt fully recovered since. That trend is partially driven by competing demands for government funding that dont dissipate in the aftermath of a disaster, which could be a particularly difficult issue for lawmakers today who are contending with shrinking budgets and economic needs among constituents suffering from the effects of the coronavirus-induced recession.

Some might even say the process is cyclical. I have no doubt were going to make similar mistakes again, said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University.
WHA Industrial Zone 1  Nghe An dazzles investors with its utilities and infrastructure

The 3,200-hectare WHA Industrial Zone 1  Nghe An is located at Dong Nam Nghe An Economic Zone in the central province of Nghe An. After two years of construction, the project has finished 143.5 of the 498ha of the first phase and has already attracted secondary investors from Japan, Thailand and China with its international-standard and modern infrastructure.

The land plots come in all shapes and sizes (500-10,000 square metres), fitting the requirements of any investor.

Moreover, the industrial zone (IZ) also boasts a state-of-the-art water supply system with the daily capacity expandable to beyond 15,000 cubic metres  one of the primary factors ensuring effective production. Additionally, the IZ also has a wastewater treatment plant running on biotechnology, including an underground filtration system (3,200-9,600cu.m a day). The IZ uses a dike holding pond and pumping system to manage storm water.

David Nardone - Group executive, Industrial and International, WHA Industrial Development Plc. Foreign investors are showing strong interest in Vietnam, which is the regions fastest growing economy. Following the COVID-19 crisis, the country remains a safe and attractive destination, enhanced by its investment-friendly policies of Nghe An province that benefit IZs like ours.

Another one of WHA IZ 1  Nghe Ans strengths is its green industrial zone model with the same high environmental standards that WHA applies at its 11 industrial estates in Thailand, with the IZ management board actively promoting eco-friendly and sustainable growth.

Its good performance has boosted WHA IZ 1  Nghe Ans contribution to the state budget and furthered the ongoing economic restructuring towards higher added value production in the industry, accelerating industrialisation and modernisation in Nghe An province. At the same time, the IZ will create jobs for local residents. WHA has signed agreements with universities and colleges in Nghe Ans Vinh city to recruit personnel. As the whole world is engulfed in the fight against COVID-19, Vietnam emerges as a lucrative investment destination thanks to the local governments strong efforts to grease the wheels of industry and facilitate a rebound.

Despite a plunge in total foreign investment during the first months of 2020, the market has retained its good prospects, as reflected by the multitude of foreign investors angling to expand capital at their current projects in the country to capitalise on Vietnams growing network of trade agreements.

Additionally, a series of global industry leaders are establishing presence in the country, such as Thailands Stark Group which has fully acquired two local metal firms for a total of $240 million.

According to the Vietnamese General Statistics Office, as of May 20, the nation recorded about $13.9 billion in total foreign investment, down 17 per cent on-year. Of this, 436 projects licensed last year expanded capital by $3.5 billion, up 31.4 per cent on-year.

Moreover, through the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) adopted by the National Assembly (NA) last week, the country is growing more attractive for foreign investors, especially those from the EU. As of late 2019 the EU was the fourth-biggest partner of Vietnam with more than 2,240 projects worth $24.67 billion or 7.6 per cent of the total foreign capital pouring into the market. EU companies tend to invest in high-tech and services such as telecommunications, finance, office leasing, and retail. Accordingly, they are present in 18 of 21 economic sectors in which manufacturing, processing, real estate and communications occupy a major part.

The EVFTA and other FTAs will likely boost foreign investment in the country. It will also encourage international corporations to expand their investments here and secure their supply chains, said Nardone.

Currently, Vietnam is trying to making itself a more business-friendly destination. This week, the NA will likely adopt the new Law on Investment and the new Law on Enterprises, among others, further facilitating investors projects in the country.

Along with the positive policy changes, the health crisis has accelerated the relocation of many businesses to Vietnam. Specifically, global tech giant Apple has most recently announced to bring about 30 per cent of its AirPods production to Vietnam. Accordingly, Luxshare ICT in the northern province of Bac Giang was selected for the task. With the backdrop of the health crisis, Panasonic in late May declared halting the operations of its washing machine factory in Bangkok to migrate the facility to a branch in Vietnam. The factory, along with a research and development (R&D) centre in Thailand, will be closed by next March.

After shifting to Vietnam, Panasonic could select Thang Long Industrial Park II in Hanoi to integrate its manufacturing lines from Thailand and as a result build the largest washing machine factory and R&D centre in Southeast Asia.

According to consultancy firm Savills Vietnam, nearly 20 overseas companies are following this example. Some of them include South Korean aerospace manufacturer Hanwha Aero Engine, Japanese carmaker Yokowo, and Hong Kong-based textile producer Huafu Industrial, as well as one of Apples assembly partners, Chinese Goertek.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the Trump administration's challenge to a California "sanctuary" law, leaving intact rules that prohibit law enforcement officials from aiding federal agents in taking custody of immigrants as they are released from jail.

Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted to hear the administration's appeal.

The court's action is a major victory for California in its long-running battle with President Trump.

At issue was a clash between federal power and states' rights.

The Trump administration's challenge was launched by former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. He insisted California was unconstitutionally interfering with federal immigration enforcement. But the Supreme Court, in a decision written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, has said state and local officials are not obliged to carry out federal enforcement. That states' rights doctrine appears to have prevailed. Even Trump's two appointees  Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh  refused to hear the administration's appeal.

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said he was gratified by the decision and believed it was a huge step forward. He said the courts reasoning followed precedent and the interpretation of the Constitution the way it has been for 200 years.

Despite the victory, Becerra said that he worried that the high-profile case and the federal governments position had damaged trust in immigrant communities.

Even [when] the Trump administration loses, in many ways their anti-immigration, hostile agenda can still win because the message reverberates, Becerra said. Go into a community where there are lots of immigrant families and see if they believe that anyone wearing a uniform is there to protect them and not deport them.  Especially right now, in this time of real pain, having trust in the people that are supposed to keep you safe is crucial.

Separately Monday, the court also refused to hear several cases involving gun rights and police immunity. The justices for now appear unready to reconsider past rulings that gave states ample authority to regulate guns and to shield police from lawsuits.

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Gun-rights advocates have been confident that the justices were ready to grant them the ability to carry guns in public. But so far, the court's majority has given state and local officials considerable leeway in deciding who may obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

In California, gun owners must show they have "good cause" to carry a gun, and law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other urban areas do not grant many such permits.

The court had also been under pressure to reconsider the "qualified immunity" that shields police from many lawsuits involving excessive force. But Congress is also moving to reconsider the doctrine as a part of wide-ranging legislation on police reform. And for now, the justices appear unwilling to revisit the issue.

In challenging California's sanctuary law, Trump's lawyers said the federal government has exclusive authority over immigrants, and they said the state is obstructing federal enforcement of the law.

"Aliens are present and may remain in the United States only as provided for under the auspices of federal immigration law," Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco said in his appeal. "It therefore is the United States, not California, that 'retains the right' to set the conditions under which aliens in this country may be detained, released, and removed. As a result of SB 54, criminal aliens have evaded the detention and removal that Congress prescribed, and have instead returned to the civilian population, where they are disproportionately likely to commit additional crimes."

In response, California's lawyers argued the Constitution's 10th Amendment makes clear that state officials need not enforce a federal law. They relied in part on a 1997 opinion writtenby Scalia that held that federal authorities may not "commandeer" state or local officials to carry out a federal law. In that case, Printz vs. United States, the high court said local sheriffs could not be required to conduct background checks on buyers of handguns.

The same principle applies when enforcing federal immigration law, said Becerra in defense of the law. "SB 54 regulates the use of the states own resources. It establishes the conditions under which state and local law enforcement agencies may deploy public funds and personnel to assist with federal immigration enforcement," he wrote.

California's lawyers also stressed that the state cooperates with federal agents if they have a judicial warrant or if immigrants are being held for serious or violent crimes, including prisoners who are serving time in the state system.

The case was called United States vs. California. The state Legislature adopted the California Values Act in 2017 after the Trump administration stepped up enforcement against immigrants living illegally in this country. State lawmakers said they were concerned that "local entanglement in federal immigration enforcement threatens trust between Californias immigrant community and state and local law enforcement agencies." If so, immigrants will fear approaching police when they are victims of, and witnesses to, crimes, jeopardizing public safety for all Californians," the state's lawyers said.

The Trump administration, led by Sessions, filed suit against California seeking to have the state law declared invalid. But a federal judge in Sacramento and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to do so and instead ruled that state and local officials were not obstructing federal agents. "Refusing to help is not the same as impeding," said U.S. District Judge John Mendez.

Although the state's lawyers cited conservative precedents upholding states' rights, Trump's lawyers relied on a liberal ruling by the Supreme Court in 2012 that sided with the Obama administration and voided much of an Arizona law that would have empowered local police to arrest and detain immigrants in the country illegally.

In Arizona vs. United States, the high court stressed then that immigration enforcement is a federal matter. Quoting that opinion, Francisco said the supremacy of the national power in immigration enforcement was made clear by the Constitution.

Times staff writer Anita Chabria in Sacramento contributed to this report.




The governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Ganduje, on Monday, said the decision of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to disqualify his colleague, Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, from seeking reelection on its platform was the right one.

Mr Ganduje also said the ruling party would win Edo polls without the incumbents efforts.

Mr Ganduje stated this at the COVID-19 press briefing which held at the Government House Kano.

He said the APC was guided by the party constitution, electoral laws and constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria before arriving at the decision.

As far as the issue of Edo is concerned, were more worried about legality. We have to follow rules and regulations while conducting our affairs for the election, Mr Ganduje said.

He added that as far as Kano State is concerned, it is doing whatever it takes for APC to win Edo election because all the right procedures have been followed. We will win the election.

Mr Obaseki was on Friday disqualified by the APC from contesting the forthcoming governorship primary of the party in Eco on the grounds of alleged discrepancies on his certificates.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the running battles between Mr Obaseki and his predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole, who is the National Chairman of the APC.

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Mr Ganduje, however, on Monday, acknowledged the crisis within the party in Edo State.

He said crisis in democratic settings is normal as no political party is free from it, and the party will win Edo election because of high degree of mobilisation.

The APC is following the party constitution, manifestation, electoral laws and the Nigerias constitution in managing election issues. Also the party is conscious of legal issues in order to avoid the the repetition of what happened in Bayelsa State, Mr Ganduje said.

Although the APC won the last governorship polls in Bayelsa, it was denied the victory by the courts over forged certificates.

The Supreme Court in February upturned the victory of David Lyon, candidate of the APC and winner of the November 16, 2019 governorship election in Bayelsa State.

The court then declare the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party as governor-elect of the contest.

Justice Ejembi Ekwo, who read the lead judgment of the court, made the order after disqualifying Mr Lyons running mate in the exercise, Degi-Eremienyo, over forged certificates submitted to INEC.
A Hong Kong scientist is facing criticism in China after claiming that the real COVID-19 infection number in former epicentre Hubei could be 2.2million, or 32 times the government's official toll.

Professor Yuen Kwok-yung and his team from the University of Hong Kong announced the finding after analysing samples from Hong Kong people returning from the province of Hubei.

But their study has been condemned by China's state media, which questioned if Prof Yuen was helping the United States smear Beijing over the pandemic.

Professor Yuen Kwok-yung (pictured) and his team from the University of Hong Kong said that 2.2million Hubei residents could have contracted COVID-19 in a study this month. They analysed the blood samples of 452 Hong Kong resident who returned from Hubei in March

In comparison, the provincial government of Hubei said 67,802 had tested positive for the virus as of March 31. Pictured, students attend COVID-19 screening in Wuhan on June 11

Prof Yuen, a microbiologist, and his team collected the blood samples of 452 Hong Kong resident after they returned to the city from Hubei in early March, according to their university.

Their research discovered that 17 of them, or 3.8 per cent, carried antibodies against COVID-19.

After applying the antibody rate to the entire population of Hubei, which stands at 58.1million, the team found out that some 2.2million residents should have caught the bug by early March.

Prof Yuen and his team published their study earlier this month on The Lancet Microbe, an open-access journal.

The official infection figure of Hubei, however, is significantly lower.

The provincial government said a total of 67,802 had tested positive for the virus as of March 31 while the latest infection figure is 68,135.

This means the Hong Kong team's finding is 32 times higher than Hubei government's number either from March or today.

Prof Yuen's study has been doubted by Chinese state media and slammed by Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a pro-Beijing politician in Hong Kong, who accused the scientist of blackmailing. Pictured, tourists pose for pictures at the Ocean Park amusement park in Hong Kong on June 13

The researchers' scientific endeavour was criticised China's state-run newspaper The Global Times yesterday.

The newspaper raised the question if Prof Yuen was 'the most powerful foreign aid' for the United States, suggesting that he conducted the study to assist Washington.

The Trump administration has accused Beijing of covering up the true scale of the coronavirus outbreak and the origins of the pathogen - allegations Beijing has firmly rejected.

The Global Times report challenged the motives of Prof Yuen's study, citing a Facebook post written by Stanley Ng Chau-pei, a pro-Beijing politician in Hong Kong.

Mr Ng accused Prof Yuen of blackmailing authorities by 'politicising science and public opinion'.

He slammed the scientist for using 400-odd samples to deduce the number of cases of the whole Hubei, instead of resorting to the official figure from the government.

Beijing has locked down at least 10 neighbourhoods and activated a 'war-time mode' after a cluster of coronavirus infections were detected in a huge food wholesale market. Pictured, a security guard wearing a face shield and mask stands outside a Beijing hospital on Monday

'If calculated like this, China has 1.4billion people, so shouldn't there be 53million infections? If the mainland people can still be so calm and carry on returning to work with such a shocking number, then it is not to demonise but deify the Communist Party,' Mr Ng wrote on his Facebook account last Friday.

On China's state-controlled social media platform Weibo, some users have even called Prof Yuen 'han jian', a derogatory term for a race traitor to the Han Chinese.

The COVID-19 pandemic was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, which is the capital of Hubei province.

More than 433,000 people have died of the deadly disease worldwide, and over 7.9million have fallen ill.

The Chinese National Health Commission has reported a total of 83,181 coronavirus infections and 4,634 deaths as of today.
While businesses are still struggling to come to terms with Covid-19, Brexit has not been resolved.

Operational disruption, workforce changes and trade challenges are facing every organisation in the country right now, and that is before we reach the key dates of June 30 and the end of the transition period on December 31.

It looks increasingly unlikely that the UK will request an extension to that deadline.

Increased costs, supply chain disruption and job losses are the greatest concerns, according to PwC's recent Brexit poll.

Here are key considerations around some of the most pressing areas of change out of Brexit, and what you should be keeping in mind as you plan to succeed out of uncertainty.

Customs, excise and trade

For companies that will be importing and exporting, ensure you have relevant UK and EU Economic Operators' Registration and Identification (EORI) numbers in place so that you can continue to move products between the UK and European Union post-Brexit.

Make sure you have some way to connect with the Customs Authorities. Appoint a customs broker who will prepare and file customs declarations or consider installing a solution to file your declarations directly.

Make sure you have a method in place to pay duties.

The rate of duty arising on goods depends on their customs classification. Ensure you have confirmed the commodity codes for all goods.

The UK recently released its draft tariff schedule which defines the duty rate applied to goods entering the UK from third countries. Should the EU and UK fail to ratify a free trade agreement (FTA) before January 1, 2021, many products shipped from Ireland and other EU states to the UK may be subject to customs duty.

Companies should take this time to reassess the impact of these additional customs duties on their business.

Vat

Understand the impact the change will have on your Vat.

Identify your transactions that will change character from intra-community supply or acquisition to being exports and imports. This may:

- Impact the taxing and reporting obligations applicable to them;

- Necessitate ERP tax decision and tax report reconfiguration;

- Necessitate related documentation and reporting changes;

- Impact existing Vat registration obligations or create new obligations or both;

- Ensure you have visibility of the supplies and purchases of goods in which you engage that involve a movement of those goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

People

- Brexit will give rise to personnel travelling or commuting as short-term business visitors. The rules regarding the obligation to operate Irish PAYE need to be considered and whether the role undertaken or presence in Ireland triggers an obligation to operate payroll withholdings;

- More formal postings can, with planning, be structured more tax-efficiently, through the use of Special Assignee Relief Programme, housing exemptions, generous relocation rules and availability of the remittance basis for investment income;

- EU social security rules will expire at the end of the transitional period, ie December 31, 2020. Similar rules will take effect; however, it will give rise to new applications having to be made under the Ireland-UK Bilateral Agreement on Social Security. This will need to be planned for;

- Depending on the nature of the transfer, and given that individuals may be moving from the UK to the Irish taxation regime, there can be the possibility of accumulating a pension fund in Ireland. This may fall outside of UK Lifetime Limits on pension fund accrual.

Financial services

- From January 1, 2021, the ability of financial services firms to passport financial services to or from the EU or UK will cease to be available;

- On the positive side, the UK has undertaken a consultation to facilitate the continued sale of EU investment funds (UCITS and AIFs) into the UK. Called the 'Overseas Funds Regime', this is very important for Asset Management firms who sell Irish or other EU funds into the UK;

- UK-based financial services firms which have been planning to rely on the equivalence provisions in EU financial services regulations to continue to serve clients may have to make alternative arrangements as it appears that little progress has been made on the equivalence decision which the EU and UK were aiming to complete by June 30 under the Withdrawal agreement;

- For EU firms providing financial services into the UK, the UK's temporary permissions regimes (TPR), which allows EU firms which have registered under the TPR regime to continue to continue to serve UK clients, will take effect at the end of the transition period and will last for a period of up to three years;

- Financial services firms which have established regulated entities in Ireland should be planning to complete any necessary implementation actions such as novating relevant client contracts before the transition period ends.

Northern Ireland and trade

The UK published the approach it intends to adopt in respect of the NI Protocol in a recent "command paper". The paper represents the UK position only. It does not indicate the acceptance of such an approach by the EU.

Some of the main points from the paper are as follows:

- Tariffs: Trade going from Britain into NI will not be subject to tariffs or will be reimbursed, once the goods remain within the UK customs territory. Any goods ultimately entering Ireland or the rest of the EU will face tariffs;

- Movement of goods from Britain to NI: While there is considerable emphasis within the document on mitigating any checks within its internal market, the UK approach concedes that customs formalities and import declarations will need to apply to goods moving from Britain to NI;

- Movements of goods from NI to Britain: The paper states there will be no import or export declarations, regulatory or customs checks, and no tariffs. There may be some limited exceptions to this principle. The paper indicates the UK does not intend to make exit declarations mandatory;

- Agri-food and customs infrastructure: There will be no new physical customs infrastructure, but expansion of some existing entry points for agri-food goods is planned;

- Vat, excise and other areas: The paper acknowledges that the Protocol means that certain EU Vat and excise rules will continue to apply in Northern Ireland.
People drink outside a bar during the reopening phase amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the East Village neighborhood of New York City, N.Y., June 13, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

New York Allowing Gatherings of Up to 25 as Virus Situation Improves

Some New Yorkers can begin to gather in groups of up to 25 in the third phase of the states reopening plan, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in an executive order on June 15.

Cuomo, a Democrat, said the loosened guideline after months of coronavirus shutdowns is only for regions that are entering the next phase of reopening.

Five regions entered Phase 3 on June 15. Long Island and the mid-Hudson region are in Phase 2, and New York City is still in Phase 1.

At a press briefing, Cuomo noted that the three-day average of deaths linked to COVID-19 was the lowest since the pandemic started.

Were going to modify phase three, given this new data, and were going to allow gatherings of up to 25 people in phase three, which is up from 10 people, Cuomo told reporters.

Western New York is entering phase three of Cuomos reopening plan June 16 while the Capital Region is slated to enter the phase the following day.

Other loosened restrictions in phase three include allowing up to 50 percent occupancy in restaurants and personal care businesses, letting up to 10 people sit at one table when eating out, and requiring six feet distance between individuals when possible.

New York was the hardest-hit state in the nation by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, that causes the disease COVID-19.

Thousands gather in New York City for a protest on June 14, 2020. (Michael Noble Jr./Getty Images)

Statewide deaths linked to the disease reached 25,579 on June 14, officials said. New York City health officials recorded 17,433 deaths among people with laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of June 15.

Cuomo mocked people who pushed for earlier reopenings, mimicking them in saying: Reopen, reopen, reopen. Liberate. Free us, free us!

Yeah, free us, free us to hurt ourselves, and decline, he said. And you know what, thats exactly what you see now.

While some states have seen more new CCP virus cases, health experts say theres a number of factors linked to the jumps, including more tests being done.

The governor also urged local governments in the state he oversees to enforce compliance with virus-fueled restrictions, threatening to rollback reopenings in areas that see case numbers rise.

The press conference came after days of large protests. Some of them included thousands of people, such as one in Brooklyn, a borough in New York City, on June 14.

Many of the gatherings were sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Cuomo also targeted video footage recorded June 12 showing large crowds outside bars in Manhattan, with most people not wearing masks.

Dont make me come down there he wrote on Twitter.
Sergei Savostyanov/Getty

MOSCOWOn Monday a panel of three Russian judges sentenced former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan to 16 years of strict regime in a labor camp. The charge against him: espionage.

Whelan stood in the courtrooms cage listening to the verdict pronounced in Russian, pressing a piece of paper to the glass wall: Sham trial! it said, and Meatball surgery!, referring to the hernia operation he had in prison, and No human rights!, as well as other slogans.

Prior to the sentencing, Whelan reportedly shouted that his case is a political charade by a Russian government that feels impotent in the world, so its taking political hostages.

Later Whelan complained to reporters in the courtroom that nobody bothered to translate what had just happened.

Whelan says his prison guards and investigators humiliated him from the first day he was arrested in his hotel 18 months ago to the day. He was kept in a small cell at Moscows notorious Lefortovo prison without a chance to speak with his family. He suffered from agonizing pain for months because of the hernia, without a chance to consult with his doctors.

Accused U.S. Spy Paul Whelan Turns 49 in Moscow Prison With Freedom Nowhere in Sight

Whelans state appointed lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, is convinced that now it is up to the former spy Vladimir Putin to decide what to do with Whelan.

It must have been hard for the judge to hand down that sentence: the prosecutors presented only one witness, who most probably works for the Russian special services and claims that Paul had intended to recruit him, while we presented 12 Russian witnesses, including retired military who confirmed that Whelan had never tried to recruit them, that he loved Russia, Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. I told Paul that there is no justice in Russia. He knows his case is a political provocation. Hes been prepared. We have not seen any Americans convicted of espionage in our labor camps for at least 15 yearshe was taken to be swapped, it became clear already in December.

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There is a common saying in Russia: The intelligence services do not give up on their own. There are at least two prisoners in United States that the Kremlin has been eager to bring back home for years, both of whom are suspected Russian intelligence operatives, most likely for the foreign intel service known as the SVR.

One is Victor Bout, a former Soviet military officer whose arms trafficking earned him the sobriquet Merchant of Death. He was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 25 years for agreeing to sell weapons to undercover agents posing as Colombian terrorists who intended to kill Americans. The other is Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, also convicted in 2011, who was sentenced to 20 years for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.

A few weeks ago Mikhail Alekseyev, a spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, mentioned that Paul should be swapped for Bout and Yaroshenko, which means that the SVR now admit both men are theirs, Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. The decision to swap Whelan for Bout and Yaroshenko must have been considered at the very top; now the two [American and Russian] presidential administrations and intelligence services will discuss the details.

The Kremlins major newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, reported on Monday that investigators discovered a memory stick in Whelans hotel room with a list of employees of one of the Russian special services. The state newspaper says that once Whelans verdict goes into effect, The Washington side might raise a question about a possible exchange of Whelan and some Russian citizens convicted in the United States.

When Whelan was arrested in December 2018 there was widespread speculation he might be traded for Maria Butina, who used gun rights advocacy and a glamorous makeover to work her way into the confidence of GOP lawmakers. But she served only five months of an 18-month sentence for failure to register as a foreign agent, and was deported back to Moscow last year with, it appears, with no deal to let Whelan go.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan told a crowd of reporters that he felt disappointed and outraged after hearing the verdict and seeing Whelan in the courtroom. The ambassador, a lawyer, called the court process a mockery of justice.

An American citizen has been sentenced to a term of 16 years for a crime of which we have not seen evidence, said Sullivan. He was denied an opportunity to work cooperatively with his defense council who was appointed for him; in addition he was horribly mistreated.

Ambassador Sullivan said that Whelan had been denied medical help until surgery was needed to repair a hernia. That also was conducted on Russias terms. He wasnt able to speak with his family, with his elderly parents for almost a year and a half. To say that I am troubled by this is an understatement.

In vain Whelans family tried to get in touch with him during three months of COVID-19 lockdowns. In late May the family found out about the hernia operation. We do not know how his health is, no one has spoken with Paul since his emergency surgery, and that was a brief call to the embassy, Whelans twin brother David told The Daily Beast on Monday. Our family has not spoken with Paul, except for the single phone call that the Lefortovo prison allowed him in May.

Ambassador Sullivan called for all fair-minded people in Russia and around the world to demand Whelans release, because if they can do this to Paul, they can do this to anyone.

Since Whelan also holds Canadian, U.K., and Irish passports, four embassies are now working on appealing his sentence. Out of all the criticism against the United States over the years, one thing I have not heard Russia criticize was our federal criminal of justice system, our commitment to due process, the fundamental rights, the fundamental human rights around the world of a public trial, an opportunity to present all the evidence on all chargeshe was denied that from the beginning, Sullivan said.

Whelans defense now waits for the deal proposal from the state, Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. Prosecutors ask us not to appeal the verdict nowwell wait until next week and see what they have to offer us.

The family also hoped for a prompt release. Pauls attorneys Vladimir Zherebenkov and Olga Karlova are better situated to answer questions about whether to appeal or go straight to a petition for clemency. Paul will be involved in that choice too. I am in favor of whatever arrangement gets Paul released most promptly, said his brother, David Whelan.

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US denounces Russian courts verdict against Paul Whelan, with Pompeo demanding his immediate release.

A Russian court has sentenced former United States marine Paul Whelan to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony on espionage charges.

The Moscow City Courts verdict on Friday was condemned by the US envoy to Russia who said it was based on a secret trial in which no evidence was produced.

Whelan stood in the courtroom defendants cage with a sign that read Sham trial! and called on the US president to intervene.

He was accused of having obtained classified Russian state information, the nature of which has not been disclosed.

US Ambassador John Sullivan, who was present at the court in Moscow, slammed the proceedings as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms, a statement by the US embassy said.

Ambassador Sullivan: The United States demands that U.S. citizen #PaulWhelan be released immediately. His conviction is a mockery of justice. The world is watching. @mfa_russia  Rebecca Ross (@USEmbRuPress) June 15, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Whelans immediate release.

The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict US citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses, he said in a statement.

Whelan, 50, has been in Russian custody for the past year and a half.

A flash drive and documents were confiscated from Whelan while he was arrested on a trip to Moscow in December 2018. No further details about the evidence have been revealed.

Whelan has insisted that he is innocent. His family has said he was visiting Russia to attend a wedding.

Appeal expected

Whelans brother David said lawyers would appeal against the verdict that he denounced as political, adding in a statement that the courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, the statement said. We look to the US government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.

Whelan, born in Canada to British parents, is also a citizen of Canada, Britain and Ireland. He was employed by US auto parts supplier BorgWarner when he was detained.

He underwent surgery two weeks ago for an abdominal hernia, state media reported. The US embassy said it was an emergency surgery, performed because the condition had become life-threatening.
Ambassador of Belarus V.Brylev meets the President of Serbia

On June 15, 2020 the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Serbia, Valery Brylev, was received by the President of Serbiam Alexandar Vucic.

During the meeting actual issues of the development of Belarusian-Serbian cooperation were discussed.

The parties emphasized the high level of interstate relations and the focus of Belarus and Serbia on strengthening trade and economic ties.

The joint production of fire engines based on the MAZ chassis, metallurgy, the supply of agricultural products and urban passenger transport, participation in infrastructure projects in Serbia were specified among the important areas of partnership.

The opportunities for humanitarian collaboration in the fight against the spread of coronavirus were also considered.

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Democrats Dana Balter and Francis Conole disagreed Monday over their plans to reform health insurance, highlighting one of the few issues separating the candidates in their campaigns for Congress.

Balter and Conole talked about their competing plans in the first and only public debate of the Democratic primary election for the 24th Congressional District seat. The taped one-hour debate via Zoom will be broadcast at 7 p.m. today on WSYR-TV, Channel 9 in Syracuse.

Balter, 43, a Syracuse educator making her second bid for Congress, supports transitioning in phases to a Medicare for All plan that provides free government-run health insurance for all Americans.

Balter initially would lower the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 55. Children would be enrolled in Medicare at birth, and anyone could buy into the program at any age.

But Conole, 42, an Iraq war veteran from Syracuse, warned that Medicare for All wont be popular with Central New Yorkers who are happy with their employer-provided private health insurance plans.

Having grown up in Central New York, I know that youre not going to make progress ordering Central New Yorkers into a plan, Conole said. What my plan does is it trusts Central New Yorkers to make their own decisions about their own healthcare.

Conole said he would improve key parts of the Affordable Care Act and allow those with private insurance to keep their plans. He wants to make government-provided health insurance a public option for those who want to buy into the program.

Obviously we need to protect and strengthen the ACA, Balter said. Thats only step one. And Mr. Conoles plan doesnt go far enough. It will still leave 10 million Americans uninsured. And Im sorry, but thats just not good enough.

Conole repeated his counter argument: The big difference here is that I trust Central New Yorkers to make decisions about their healthcare, he said.

It was one of the few times in the debate moderated by Dan Cummings of NewsChannel 9 where the Democratic candidates underscored their differences for voters.

Watch Balter, Conole debate over healthcare

Balter and Conole agreed on questions about the future of Interstate 81 (they both support the community grid), the need to focus on infrastructure to boost the economy after the coronavirus pandemic, and the urgency for a federal use of force policy for police.

They also agreed that the November congressional election should, in part, be considered a referendum on the job performance of President Donald Trump.

But the Democrats disagreed on who is best positioned to defeat Rep. John Katko, R-Camillus, in the November election. Balter lost to Katko by about 5 percentage points in 2018.

Balter said that she came closer to defeating Katko than his previous two Democratic opponents, built a grassroots movement of 1,900 volunteers and has a plus 46 approval rating among Democratic voters, about double Conoles rating in her internal poll.

If thats not enough to convince you, listen to John Katko himself, Balter said. On Election Night last year he said, I really hope she doesnt run again. She a very tough opponent.

Conole said Balter had her chance in 2018 and couldnt get the job done in a district that Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election.

Conole said its a big reason why hes the only candidate endorsed by a labor union, every voting member of the Syracuse Common Council, and the Onondaga County Democratic Committee.

The debate comes as voting has started in the 24th Congressional District, which covers all of Onondaga, Cayuga and Wayne counties and the western half of Oswego County.

The state eased restrictions on absentee ballots for the primary election, giving all eligible primary voters the option to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. So far, more than 15,000 ballots have been returned in Onondaga County alone.

Polls opened for in-person early voting on Saturday. Voters will have a 10-day window to vote at designated polling places in each county through Sunday, June 21.

All polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Election Day, June 23.

MORE ON THE NY-24 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY CAMPAIGN

When, where to vote early in 2020 Central New York primary election

CNY congressional primary: Where Dana Balter, Francis Conole differ on the issues

Balter raises more cash than Conole for final stretch of Democratic primary for Congress

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

Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact Mark Weiner anytime by: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
The BAFTAs have been postponed until April 2021.

The British Academy Film Awards were due to take place in London on February 14, 2021 but they have now been moved to April 11, 2021.

BAFTA said in a statement: 'This change from the previously announced date of February 14 acknowledges the impact of the global pandemic and accommodates an extended eligibility period.

Two month shift: The BAFTAs have been postponed until April 2021, to align with the new date for the 2021 Academy Awards (pictured Best Actor winner Joaquin Phoenix at the 2020 BAFTAs in February)

'Further details on the ceremony will be announced later in the year.

On Tuesday, BAFTA explained the reasons behind the temporary changes to its film eligibility rules for the EE British Academy Film Awards for 2021.

These changes are in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, which resulted in UK cinemas closing on 20 March, and are the result of extensive industry consultation.

Award: BAFTA said: 'This change from the previously announced date of February 14 acknowledges the impact of the global pandemic and accommodates an extended eligibility period' (pictured Best Actress winner Renee Zellweger at the 2020 BAFTAs)

They have been implemented to ensure that titles which had an intended theatrical release are not penalised due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on cinemas.

'The date for the 2022 Film Awards, announced last year as 13 February, is currently under consideration as part of the Awards Review (set up following this year's Film nominations), and any changes will be published once the Review has been completed, alongside other findings and recommendations.'

Marc Samuelson, Chair of the Film Committee, said: 'We have pushed back by two months to give all films the best possible chance to be released and considered properly.

'As cinemas gradually re-open we know that the major releases will dominate screens.

Acclaimed: At the 2020 ceremony back in February, Sam Mendes' 1917 led the winners at the 73rd annual EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

'Relaxing the scale of theatrical release required, including releases on VOD in some cases, and pushing back the date of the Awards should help the smaller, independent, documentary, foreign language and particularly the British films to be seen in good time for EE British Academy Film Awards in 2021.

'The date of the 2021 Awards has to be set now to allow distributors to make plans, but the current Awards Review is considering all aspects of the Awards, including the date from 2022, and our relationship to other awards ceremonies.'

At the 2020 ceremony back in February, Sam Mendes' 1917 led the winners at the 73rd annual EE British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Temporary changes for the 2021 BAFTA Ceremony are as follows: 1. Titles which were on theatrical release when cinemas closed and therefore had their theatrical release curtailed, will be eligible regardless of the number of qualifying screenings they had. 2. Titles whose confirmed theatrical release date (as determined by the Film Distributors Association) has fallen during the cinema lockdown will be eligible should their release change to an approved commercial VOD platform. These titles can be released at any time during the 202021 eligibility period. 3. Titles which were intended for theatrical release during the cinema lockdown, but without a confirmed and published release date, will be eligible should they release on an approved commercial VOD platform during lockdown. After lockdown, on a date determined by BAFTA and once cinemas re-open, these titles will only be eligible if they are given a theatrical release. 4. On a date to be determined by BAFTA and once cinemas re-open, all remaining titles, barring the exceptions outlined in points 2 & 3, must be released theatrically within the eligibility period in order to qualify. 5. All titles released theatrically for the rest of the eligibility period will have a lower qualifying threshold to meet: a minimum of one screening per day for seven days (in aggregate). 6. Titles qualifying via release on an approved commercial VOD platform must be available for a minimum of 30 days to UK audiences. 7. All titles must also be made available to BAFTA voting members on BAFTA View (BAFTAs online viewing site) as soon as possible after the date of release and within 60 days of release (theatrical or online) for a minimum of 30 consecutive days. All titles should be available to voting members via BAFTA View by the date that Round One voting opens (date to be announced autumn 2020). 8. All releases, whether theatrical or on VOD, must be released within the Film 2020-21 eligibility period  this period will be announced autumn 2020. Advertisement

The World War I masterpiece took home seven gongs, which included the Best Film, Director, Outstanding British Film, Special Visual Effects, Cinematography, Production Design and Sound at the star-studded ceremony.

While Renee Zellweger, 50, won the Leading Actress gong for her role as Judy Garland in the namesake biopic Judy with Joaquin Phoenix, 45, taking home the Leading Actor award for his role as Joker.

Other A-lister wins included Laura Dern, 52, who won the Supporting Actress gong for her role as cutthroat lawyer Nora Fanshaw in Marriage Story.

While an absent Brad Pitt won the Supporting Actor gong for his role as Cliff Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was collected by his co-star Margot Robbie who lost out on her own Supporting Actress nomination for her Sharon Tate role in the Quentin Tarantino movie.

Andy Serkis was honoured with the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema award by his Lord Of The Rings co-star Sir Ian McKellen while E.T producer Kathleen Kennedy received the highest honour with The Fellowship award.

This comes as it was announced the 2021 Academy Awards have been delayed by two months.

The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who organize the annual ceremony, met via Zoom on Monday to discuss the date the 93rd Oscars will take place on.

The event was scheduled for February 28, 2021, but after the coronavirus pandemic caused chaos in Hollywood and put the movie industry on hold, the governors decided to move the ceremony to April 25, 2021, according to Variety.

Hold on Oscar! This comes as it was announced the 2021 Academy Awards have been delayed by two months.

A real winner! The board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who organize the annual ceremony, met via Zoom on Monday to discuss the date the 93rd Oscars will take place. Brad Pitt in February

'For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times,' began a statement from Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson.

'They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone's control.'

She added, 'This coming Oscars and the opening of our new museum will mark an historic moment, gathering movie fans around the world to unite through cinema.'

The rules have also changed.

A feature film must have been released between January 1, 2020, and February 28, 2021.

December 1, 2020 is now the deadline for the 'specialty categories' such as animated feature film.

Hold up: The event was scheduled for February 28, 2021, but after the coronavirus pandemic caused chaos in Hollywood and put the movie industry on hold, the governors moved it to APril. Jared Leto seen in 2014

January 15, 2021 is the new deadline for 'general entry categories,' such as best picture.

The Academy also decided the annual Governors Awards gala has been postponed to a later unspecified date.

And the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will now open in April 2021 to line up with the Oscars rather than December 2020.

The Oscars were previously delayed on three occasions, due to flooding in Los Angeles in 1938, following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and again in 1981, following an assassination attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan.

In 1934, the Oscars had a 17-month eligibility window, which ran from 1 August 1932 until 31 December 1933 so thereafter the eligibility period would be a full calendar year.

This follows news that the Academy Awards are setting up a special task force 'to develop and implement new representation and inclusion standards' for Oscars eligibility by July 31, 2020.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday that there will be now be a fixed number of 10 best picture nominees beginning with the 94th Academy Awards in 2022.

The organization is also planning to implement new eligibility requirements with an eye toward diversity in collaboration with the Producers Guild of America that will be finalized by the end of July.

New beginning: The Academy Awards announced Friday it will introduce new 'representation and inclusion standards' for eligibility... five years after #OscarsSoWhite controversy

The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was created by activist April Reign in January 2015 to call out the awards ceremony for their lack of diversity, as that year, only two people of color were nominated in major categories.

Since then, the Academy has sought to double the number of women and people of color among its membership. The Academy is now said to have 26 women and 12 people of color on its 54-person board of governors - a first for the organization - which includes director Ava Duvernay.

The most recent changes will not impact the 93rd Academy Awards set to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2021, because it is already deep into the eligibility calendar.

The film academy has shifted the number of best picture nominees several times in its history.

In 2009, it was expanded from five to 10, which many thought at the time was in response to the lack of a nomination for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

Going for gold: This year's Best Actress winner Renee Zelwegger is seen with her statuette

In 2011, the field was allowed to fluctuate from five to 10, which led to some years having more than others.

Last year there were nine. In the Academy's early years, anywhere from eight to 12 films could be nominated for best picture.

The organization that puts on the Oscars is also committing to a new phase of diversity and inclusion initiatives, which it calls Academy Aperture 2025. The first phase, which ended this year, was in response to the #OscarsSoWhite criticisms.

Academy President David Rubin said that the organization had surpassed the goal to double the number of women and diverse members by 2020.

Happy lady: Regina King poses with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (If Beale Street Could Talk) in the press room during the 91st Annual Academy Awards at the Hollywood & Highland Center in 2019

Since 2015, overall female membership has grown from 25% to 32%, the academy said. Overall membership of people of color has doubled, from 8% to 16%.

'While the Academy has made strides, we know there is much more work to be done in order to ensure equitable opportunities across the board,' Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a written statement.

'The need to address this issue is urgent. To that end, we will amend - and continue to examine - our rules and procedures to ensure that all voices are heard and celebrated.'

Rubin added that the leadership and board are committed to weaving, 'Equity and inclusion into the fabric of every Academy initiative, committee, program and event.'

A newly established Office of Representation, Inclusion and Equity will oversee the Aperture 2025 initiative and be headed by Academy COO Christine Simmons.

The academy also said that it is continuing efforts to increase diversity in its membership ranks. The new class will be announced in July.
Terreno Realty Corporation TRNO recently sold three industrial properties in Marylands Baltimore/Washington Corridor, for $51.3 million. The company had acquired these properties at 7125 Troy Hill Drive in Elkridge, 7190 Parkway Drive in Hanover and 9070 Junction Drive in Annapolis Junction in 2012, 2014 and 2015, respectively for a total of $35.1 million.



The estimated unleveraged internal rate of return generated by the investments amounts to 10.9%.These properties are fully leased to multiple tenants. The Troy Hill property has been disposed for $9.3 million, the Parkway Drive asset for $25.3 million and Junction Drive property for $16.6 million.



Notably, Terreno is focused on an acquisition-driven growth strategy. It targets functional buildings at in-fill locations, which enjoy high-population densities and are located near high volume-distribution points. Amid these, the companys efforts to shed non-core properties will provide capital for strategic acquisitions.



Through such efforts, the company is well poised to fortify its portfolio in six major coastal U.S. markets  Los Angeles, Northern New Jersey/New York City, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Miami, and Washington, DC  which display solid demographic trends and witness healthy demand for industrial real estates.



In May, Terreno completed the acquisition of another industrial property in Seattle, WA, for $5.6 million. The property is fully leased to one tenant through December 2021, the estimated stabilized cap rate being 4%. Moreover, in April, the company completed the acquisition of an industrial property in Kent, WA, for $4.5 million. This property is fully leased to one tenant on a month-to-month basis and the estimated stabilized cap rate is 5.7%.



Amid the e-commerce boom and supply-chain strategy transformations, demand for industrial real estate has been strong. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, warehouse operations have become more essential with increased e-commerce customers. Over the long term, apart from the fast adoption of e-commerce, the logistics real estate is expected to benefit from the likely increase in inventory levels post crisis. This will open up prospects for Terreno Realty and other industrial REITs like Duke Realty Corp. DRE, Prologis PLD and Rexford Industrial Realty, Inc. REXR.



However, the pandemics adverse impact on the economy will likely thwart demand for space in the near term. Rent relief and deferrals are added concerns.



Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have increased 9.7%, over the past year, as against the 7.7% decline of its industry. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.





Story continues



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The San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge is one of the major arteries in the San Francisco Bay Area. That's why it's a big deal when protesters walk onto the bridge and stop traffic, especially because the bridge has...well, let's just call them issues. It remains to be seen whether, over the long run, this protest helped or hurt the cause in the eyes of the people trapped in their cars. After all, Bay Area virtue-signalers will put up with a lot to see Trump gone.

It took almost three and a half years to build the Bay Bridge, from 1933 through 1936. When finished, those men who worked on the bridge, 24 of whom died during construction, had built a two-tiered, two-part span covering four and half miles of the San Francisco Bay. The span has something of a pause on Angel Island, when it no longer crosses the Bay but, instead, travels through the Yerba Buena Tunnel.

Originally, the lower level was for train travel. When the train was decommissioned, people driving to Oakland were on the lower level, and those driving to San Francisco were on the upper level. One of the things that always rankled San Franciscans when watching Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate was that he ostensibly traveled from San Francisco to Oakland on the upper deck.

In October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, one segment of the upper deck on the eastern span collapsed, killing a driver. Because the bridge is such a vital artery, CalTrans quickly reopened it, but it was clear that the bridge needed upgrading. Ultimately, CalTrans retrofitted the western (San Francisco) end and completely rebuilt the eastern (Oakland) end, a process that took two decades and had a 2,500% cost overrun (not a typo). The eastern span is now a single-deck bridge.

In 2015, the local paper reported that the newly built eastern portion was still a seismic threat:

Californians spent $6.4 billion to replace the old Bay Bridge eastern span because it was unlikely to survive a major earthquake. Now, mounting revelations of construction problems are calling into question whether the new bridge can withstand the Big One. Tests showing signs of saltwater intrusion into the bridge tower's foundation and damage to its anchor rods could be the most serious seismic issues for the project. But they aren't the only ones. Substandard welds on the suspension span's decks and water leaks near rods that secure the main cable also trouble engineers outside Caltrans who are experts in bridge construction and integrity.

None of this, incidentally, surprised me, because I'd heard from one of the construction workers that CalTrans originally bought materials from Japan but, when they proved too expensive, switched to Chinese-manufactured components. The Chinese-made pieces, said the construction worker, were garbage.

The same article details a myriad of other problems with the bridge. For someone like me, a worrier, driving across the bridge was always something that made me worry.

Safe or not, about 260,000 vehicles per day cross the bridge. Traffic is heaviest during peak commutes, but it's a busy bridge at all times, except for the wee hours of the morning. For those sitting on the span in traffic, there's always the slight worry that, if another big earthquake hits, they're in a bad place.

This long history is not just blather. It matters because of what happened Sunday afternoon on the Bay Bridge: Black Lives Matter activists decided to shut the bridge down. It's hard to tell if the cars honking are in sympathy with the protesters or really hacked off and worried by an unnecessary traffic jam trapping them on a theoretically unstable bridge in the middle of a bay in earthquake country.

Cops on foot going to the front pic.twitter.com/4LZR56CCoa  Mandeep (@mandeepnyc) June 15, 2020

Made it out after about 2 hours. No sign of protestors or their vehicles. Hella cops though pic.twitter.com/zomsi7lTpq  Mandeep (@mandeepnyc) June 15, 2020

Mandeep, who posted the videos immediately above, decided that the whole thing was an intersectional moment, tying together Black Lives Matter and transgender lives (because who could forget that, in years past, June was dedicated to gay lives mattering):

We are much more privileged than the Black folks who have lost their lives. In light of Pride, Ive also been reflecting on the Black trans folks who continue to search for acceptance and are being attacked ruthlessly  Mandeep (@mandeepnyc) June 15, 2020

Do what you can to support Black organizations and movements all lives only matter when #BlackLivesMattters  Mandeep (@mandeepnyc) June 15, 2020

It must be so exhausting being an intersectional, virtue-signaling, victim-group person in today's ever-changing activist world.

If you're a mom with a baby and toddler screaming in the back seat of a car while you're trapped in a two-hour activist-created traffic jam, maybe now is a good time to revisit some of your leftist political beliefs. But then again, given that this is the Bay Area, maybe not:
[June 15, 2020] ORYZON Initiates a New Project to Explore the Efficacy of Vafidemstat in the Treatment of Schizophrenia

Will receive  0.7 million public funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation





In collaboration with the Research Institute of the Hospital de la Vall dHebron in Barcelona (VHIR) MADRID, Spain and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Oryzon Genomics, S.A. (ISIN Code: ES0167733015, ORY), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging epigenetics to develop therapies in diseases with strong unmet medical need, announced today that its project entitled VENCER: Vafidemstat: Efficacy in the treatment against Schizophrenia and other related pathologies has been approved for funding by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under the 2019 call of the governmental R&D RETOS-COLABORACION program. The company will carry out this project in Collaboration with the Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) in Barcelona. The project has an initial global budget of  1,129,716. This new public funding, structured in the form of a preferential long-term soft-loan for companies and non-reimbursable grants for the participating Public Research Organizations, comprises a loan to Oryzon for 688,517 plus a grant of 332,601 to the VHIR. The project will explore the efficacy of vafidemstat, a Phase II drug in development in central nervous system (CNS) disorders, in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia or related psychiatric disorders. This funding will partially cover the activities of the project, including activities related to a Phase II clinical study in schizophrenia patients and a set of additional research to gain further insight into the activity of vafidemstat in these psychiatric patients. The project is foreseen to last a maximum of 39 months, with a start scheduled for next October 1, 2020. The Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) led by Dr Ramos-Quiroga and Oryzon have already successfully collaborated on a recent Phase IIa clinical trial called REIMAGINE, where vafidemstat was shown to reduce agitation and aggression in psychiatric patients with borderline personality disorder, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as to improve their general clinical condition. In addition to the interest that vafidemstats mechanism of action has for general population with schizophrenia, independent research results recently published by U.S. universities show that some genetic mutations involved in the evolution of schizophrenia can be mitigated by Oryzons LSD1 inhibitors. Roger Bullock, Chief Medical Officer of Oryzon, commented: "This new study in schizophrenia patients will continue the efforts made in the last three years to demonstrate the ability of vafidemstat to exert a positive effect in the treatment of disorders of the behavior in a wide range of neurodegenerative and psychiatric indications and we hope that in the future it will provide positive results in these patients such as those already presented in the REIMAGINE and REIMAGINE-AD trials in patients with borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Ramos-Quiroga, Head of the Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions of the Research Institute of Vall dHebron (VHIR) said, The epigenetic modulation exerted by vafidemstat has opend up a new paradigm in the search for safer and more efficacious treatments for mental disorders where neurodevelopment dysfunctions co-exist with environmental triggers.



About Oryzon

Founded in 2000 in Barcelona, Spain, Oryzon (ISIN Code: ES0167733015) is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company considered as the European champion in Epigenetics. Oryzon has one of the strongest portfolios in the field. Oryzons LSD1 program has rendered two compounds, vafidemstat and iadademstat, in clinical trials. In addition, Oryzon has ongoing programs for developing inhibitors against other epigenetic targets. Oryzon has a strong technological platform for biomarker identification and performs biomarker and target validation for a variety of malignant and neurological diseases. Oryzon has offices in Spain and the United States. For more information, visit www.oryzon.com

About Vafidemstat

Vafidemstat (ORY-2001) is an oral, CNS optimized LSD1 inhibitor. The molecule acts on several levels: it reduces cognitive impairment, including memory loss and neuroinflammation, and at the same time has neuroprotective effects. In animal studies vafidemstat not only restores memory but reduces the exacerbated aggressiveness of SAMP8 mice, a model for accelerated aging and Alzheimers disease (AD), to normal levels and also reduces social avoidance and enhances sociability in murine models. In addition, vafidemstat exhibits fast, strong and durable efficacy in several preclinical models of multiple sclerosis (MS). Oryzon has performed a Phase IIa clinical trial in aggressiveness in patients with different psychiatric disorders (REIMAGINE) and in aggressive/agitated patients with moderate or severe AD (REIMAGINE-AD), with positive preliminary clinical results reported. Additional Phase IIa clinical trials with vafidemstat are ongoing in patients with Mild to Moderate AD (ETHERAL), where a significant reduction of the inflammatory biomarker YKL40 has been observed after 6 months of treatment, and in Relapse-Remitting and Secondary Progressive MS (SATEEN).

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This communication contains, or may contain, forward-looking information and statements about Oryzon, including financial projections and estimates and their underlying assumptions, statements regarding plans, objectives and expectations with respect to future operations, capital expenditures, synergies, products and services, and statements regarding future performance. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally identified by the words expects, anticipates, believes, intends, estimates and similar expressions. Although Oryzon believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors and holders of Oryzon shares are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Oryzon that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include those discussed or identified in the documents sent by Oryzon to the Spanish Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV), which are accessible to the public. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and have not been reviewed by the auditors of Oryzon. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they were made. All subsequent oral or written forward-looking statements attributable to Oryzon or any of its members, directors, officers, employees or any persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statement above. All forward-looking statements included herein are based on information available to Oryzon on the date hereof. Except as required by applicable law, Oryzon does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States or any other jurisdiction. Oryzons securities may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration. Any public offering of Oryzons securities to be made in the United States will be made by means of a prospectus that may be obtained from Oryzon or the selling security holder, as applicable, that will contain detailed information about Oryzon and management, as well as financial statements. IR & Media, US & Europe: Spain: Oryzon: LifeSci Advisors LLC ATREVIA Emili Torrell Hans Herklots Patricia Cobo/Carlos C. Ungria BD Director +41 79 598 7149 +34 91 564 07 25 +34 93 515 13 13 [email protected]

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Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and France have agreed to pay an initial 750 million euros ($843.2 million) for 300 million doses of AstraZeneca's potential vaccine against Covid-19, according to Reuters which cited the Italian health ministry.

The countries will have the option to buy a further 100 million doses of the vaccine, according to the news agency. Italy itself will pay 185 million euros for 75 million doses of the vaccine, which is being developed by Oxford University.

When asked for further comment on the deal, a spokesman for the pharmaceutical company told CNBC that "AstraZeneca is not disclosing any financial information in relation to that agreement."

The news comes two days after AstraZeneca announced on Saturday it had agreed with the four countries to supply up to 400 million doses of the vaccine, with deliveries set to start by the end of 2020. The pharmaceutical giant said it was building a number of supply chains in parallel across the world and is seeking to expand manufacturing capacity further.

AstraZeneca has recently completed similar agreements with the U.K. and U.S. and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and vaccine alliance Gavi for 700 million doses. It added on Saturday that it had agreed a license with the Serum Institute of India for the supply of an additional 1 billion doses, principally for low and middle-income countries. Total manufacturing capacity currently stands at 2 billion doses, the company said.

The company has said it is open to collaborating with other companies "in order to meet its commitment to support access to the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic" and anticipates that the cost of manufacturing the vaccine will be offset by funding from governments.

The vaccine is undergoing phase 2/3 clinical trials with around 10,000 adult volunteers taking part in the late-stage U.K. trial. In its statement Saturday, AstraZeneca said it "recognises that the vaccine may not work but is committed to progressing the clinical programme with speed and scaling up manufacturing at risk."

It was announced elsewhere Monday that AstraZeneca had agreed a deal with Catalent to provide vial filling and packaging capacity at its manufacturing facility in Anagni, Italy, and to "prepare for large-scale commercial supply" of the vaccine.




LOS ANGELES - Federal authorities will review local investigations into the hanging deaths of two black men in Southern California to determine whether federal law was violated, officials said Monday.

Local authorities have said there is no evidence of foul play in the deaths of Robert Fuller in Palmdale and Malcolm Harsch in Victorville and early indications point both to suicide, but sheriffs have pledged to continue to investigate the cases.

Mondays announcement follows weekend protests, which were prompted by the initial determination of suicide as the likely cause of death for Fuller.

People who participated in a town hall hosted by Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Monday also voiced concerns that Fuller and Harsch may have been lynched. The callers denounced what they described as a rush to judgment and urged investigators to look into the possibility that hate crimes were committed.

The FBI, U.S. attorneys office in the Central District of California and the U.S. Department of Justices Civil Rights Division are monitoring the investigations of the Los Angeles County and San Bernardino County sheriffs, authorities said in a statement.

The city of Palmdale issued a statement supporting an independent inquiry, and three elected officials urged California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the probe. Becerra said for now his investigators will just support the sheriffs department, though we also have the ability to do it on our own if necessary.

Fullers body was discovered around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday in a park near City Hall. An autopsy was conducted Friday and the Los Angeles County medical examiner-coroners office said the 24-year-old man appeared to have died by suicide.

The finding prompted outcry by his family, who believed he wasnt suicidal, and community members who called for an independent investigation and autopsy. More than 1,000 people turned out for a protest and memorial Saturday around the tree where Fullers body was found about 40 miles (64 kilometres) north of Los Angeles.

Dr. Jonathan Lucas, the chief medical examiner-coroner, said the initial finding was the result of nothing at the scene indicating foul play. Investigators only found rope and a backpack in the park.

The initial report appeared to be consistent with a suicide but we felt it prudent to roll that back and continue to look deeper, Lucas said Monday at a news conference.

The coroners office is awaiting toxicology results, Lucas said. Investigators are also looking at Fullers medical history.

Homicide detectives plan to analyze the rope and its knot, canvass the area for video footage, interview Fullers social services case worker and speak to anyone who had recently interacted with him.

They are also seeking to meet with Fullers family, authorities said.

Fullers family and friends described him as a peacemaker who was street-smart, loved music and video games, and mostly stayed to himself. Days before he died, he attended a Black Lives Matter protest, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Fullers sister, Diamond Alexander said her brother was not suicidal. My brother was a survivor, she said.

The state Senate began its session Monday with a moment of silence for Fuller and Harsch, a 38-year-old homeless black man who was found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city about 45 miles (72 kilometres) east of Palmdale.

The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department said foul play was not suspected in the death of Harsch, but his family said in a statement issued Saturday that they were concerned it will be ruled a suicide to avoid further attention.

San Bernardino authorities provided a fuller accounting Monday of the circumstances surrounding Harschs death. In a statement, the department said his girlfriend called 911 and told a dispatcher that he had hanged himself in a homeless encampment. The woman said they had been together earlier in the morning but separated for a brief time when she returned to her tent.

Others in the encampment had cut him down and tried to revive him, the sheriffs department said. Detectives have interviewed several people who were nearby at the time.

The department said there was no evidence of foul play found at the scene or discovered during Harschs autopsy. Toxicology results are still pending so the official cause and manner of Harschs death has not been determined.

Villanueva said his investigators will consult with San Bernardino detectives to see if there are any commonalities between the deaths of the two men.

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched from the Palmdale park near City Hall to the sheriffs station. Many carried signs that read, Justice for Robert Fuller. Meanwhile, an online petition demanding an investigation collected more than 200,000 signatures.
UNs nuclear agency suspects Iran is sanitising two sites where it has stored or used undeclared nuclear material.

The head of the United Nationss atomic watchdog agency has said Iran must provide inspectors prompt access to two sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material.

Speaking after a meeting of the agencys board in Austrias Vienna on Monday, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mariano Grossi told reporters he had made his case with Iranian authorities at higher levels.

We need this cooperation, he said. I regret that at this point we have this disagreement.

Grossi told the board that for more than four months, Iran has denied us access to two locations and that, for almost a year, it has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify our questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.

Activities at all three sites are thought to have been from the early 2000s before Iran signed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and Iran maintains the IAEA has no legal basis to inspect them.

Grossis comments underlined the agencys concerns outlined in the agencys written report to members earlier this month about access to two of three locations it identified in March.

Extensive sanitisation

In the report, the IAEA said in its current report it had determined that one site had undergone extensive sanitisation and levelling in 2003 and 2004 and there would be no verification value in inspecting it.





It said Iran has blocked access to the other two locations, one of which was partially demolished in 2004 and the other at which the agency observed activities consistent with efforts to sanitise the facility from July 2019 onward.

Earlier on Monday, Iran urged IAEA not to make an unconstructive decision in their meeting.

Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, said a claim by Israel was the basis of allegations against Iran.

He added the documents Israeli officials claimed to have obtained through espionage were decades-old and worthless.

Mousavi warned the IAEA of a proportional reaction if a decision against Iran was made at Mondays meeting.

Grossi said there were no legal ambiguities around the requests for access.

The agency works on the basis of a very rigorous, dogged, meticulous technical and scientific analysis of information. Nothing is taken at face value, he said.
OTTAWA - Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19, the country's ambassador to Canada said Monday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Temporary foreign workers from Mexico plant strawberries on a farm in Mirabel, Que., on May 6, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Canada and around the world. The government of Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19. The Mexican ambassador to Canada says his government wants to know more about the circumstances around the death of the two men and what's being done to prevent similar tragic outcomes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

OTTAWA - Mexico won't send any more temporary foreign workers to Canada until it has more clarity on why two died due to COVID-19, the country's ambassador to Canada said Monday.

That means as many as 5,000 temporary foreign workers expected to arrive in Canada in the coming months are being held back, for now.

"It's so we can reassess with the federal authorities, provinces and farmers why this happened and if there is anything to correct," Juan Jose Gomez Camacho said in an interview.

The two men  one died this month and the other in late May  were employed by different farms in the Windsor, Ont., area, a farming heartland in southwestern Ontario that has seen ongoing outbreaks.

The outbreaks were cited Monday as the reason Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the region can't follow in the footsteps of others and loosen restrictions designed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Ford was quick to say people shouldn't blame the workers.

"They came here, they self-isolated for two weeks and they picked it up since they've been here," he said.

"So I don't want any finger pointing at these hard-working migrant workers. They're good people, they mean well, and they're hard workers too."

Gomez Camacho said across Canada, 300 Mexicans are believed to have been infected with the novel coronavirus.

His government needs assurances that the situation can be brought under control, he said, before allowing more workers to arrive.

He said agriculture firms reporting outbreaks are even asking Mexico to keep sending people, and "that will not happen."

But he said the pause is intended to be temporary, respecting the fact that farmers often need workers at specific times, and the government isn't trying to spoil that.

"We are pausing this quickly now to understand," he said.

The decision to hit pause is a further blow to the agriculture industry which has been struggling to find enough labour to handle this year's planting and harvest season, due in large part to the travel restrictions in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Mexicans make up about half of the temporary foreign worker population employed in the agriculture sector, which in 2018 meant there were 25,060 people employed on farms, in greenhouses and other related jobs.

The dizzying array of government departments charged with ensuring workers are being treated well is difficult to navigate at the best of times, and COVID-19 threw up even more challenges, Gomez Camacho said.

But he commended the Canadian government for making what he called a "tremendous" effort to put protections in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Programs have been implemented at both federal and provincial levels to assist temporary foreign workers since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They include money to cover the costs of mandatory isolation requirements as well as the purchase of personal protective equipment.

Gomez Camacho said the Mexican government worked with Canadian officials to design some of those supports, including a provision that workers be paid while they were in isolation upon arriving in Canada.

The vast majority of firms are complying, he said.

"But we also know, we have always known, some will not," he said.

On his government's part, they also put in a place a program this year that saw only workers who were requested by name by Canada's farms and greenhouses allowed to travel here.

He said many workers are connected to small family farms, and have developed relationships over time.

The pause on allowing more to arrive is a nod to that relationship, he said.

"We are doing this out of solidarity with Canada," he said."We understand the role these workers play in your food chain."

Gomez Camacho said one bright light of the COVID-19 crisis is that Canadians seem to be understanding that as well.

He said the embassy and consulates have fielded calls from Canadians thanking Mexicans for their efforts, and supporting calls for better safeguards on their work.

Late Monday night, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough's office issued a statement in response to the ambassador's comments, saying the government took them seriously.

The Liberals engage regularly with Mexican officials, the statement said, citing recent calls between other cabinet ministers whose files include the foreign worker program and their Mexican counterparts.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also spoke Monday to Mexican President Lopez Obrador and expressed his condolences over the death of the two men, the statement said.

"Our government will continue to engage and work closely with the ambassador and other Mexican officials to ensure their citizens are safe and receive the support they need when they come to work in Canada," the statement said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.
Massachusetts residents who have recently attended large gatherings, including protests against police brutality and racial biases in law enforcement, can get free COVID-19 testing this week, Gov. Charlie Baker announced.

The state is launching more than 50 pop-up test sites around the state that will offer free COVID-19 testing Wednesday and Thursday, Baker said Monday afternoon during a news briefing at the Massachusetts State House.

He cited the recent protests that broke out in the wake of George Floyds death, after the black man was killed while in Minneapolis police custody.

Its up to all of us to continue to do the things that we know can kill COVID, the Republican governor said Monday, crediting Rep. Carlos Gonzalez, a Springfield Democrat and chair of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, with advocating for the testing options.

If youre healthy or feeling fine, you should consider getting tested anyway, Baker said.

The protests in the wake of Floyds death drew thousands of people who have called for police reforms and reducing, or in some cases, completely defunding police forces to reallocate money to social services. In Massachusetts, the protests prompted lawmakers, including the governor, to consider policy changes that would license police officers and decertify problem officers, preventing them from working in other law enforcement agencies if theyve been stripped of their credentials due to misconduct.

Baker has noted previously that protesters have mostly worn masks, but the protests have raised questions about the possibility of demonstrations leading to spikes in COVID-19 cases.

Baker has noted previously that protesters have mostly worn masks, but the protests have raised questions about the possibility of demonstrations leading to spikes in COVID-19 cases.

State officials announced 48 new deaths and 208 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday. As of Sunday, more than 105 people have tested positive, and more than 7,600 people have died from complications related to the coronavirus.

Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said the state launched 52 sites across Massachusetts with help from CVS Pharmacy and several hospitals, including Baystate Health. Some sites will offer testing by appointment only, some will accept walk-ins and others will accept a combination of the two.

Sudders said the state website will outline where the testing sites are located and the requirements to obtain COVID-19 testing on Wednesday and Thursday.

More than 700,000 COVID-19 tests have been performed in Massachusetts since the pandemic began. Baker has set a goal for the state to increase lab testing capacity to 45,000 a day by the end of July.

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Cronkite News

PHOENIX  The disproportionate impact COVID-19 has had on minorities underscores the longstanding failure of federal officials to respond to the needs of Native Americans , Rep. Betty McCollum said Thursday in a subcommittee meeting on the Indian Health Service.

Five tribes are experiencing more instances of coronavirus per 100,000 citizens than any states, including New York, the Minnesota Democrat said, citing data from the American Indian Studies Center at UCLA and Indian Country Today

According to a data visualization posted by UCLA researchers, if COVID-19 infection rates were scaled per 100,000 people and if tribes were states, the top five infection rates nationwide would be tribes. The Navajo Nation ranks fifth in the highest number of cases per capita, the data said.

The virus has raced through the Navajo reservation, which touches parts of New Mexico, Utah and Arizona and is home to 173,000 tribal members. As of Tuesday, 6,110 COVID-19 cases have been reported on the reservation, with 277 deaths and 2,814 recoveries.

The United States government has a trust responsibility to Indian tribes and signed treaties promising to provide health care and other services, said McCollum , chairwoman of the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. Hundreds of years later, the failure to meet these treaty and trust obligations continues.

Even before the pandemic, she said, the federal government had failed to provide basic preventative health care or to meet treaty obligations extending beyond health care. Since the pandemic was declared in March, officials have not provided sufficient personal protective equipment and adequate test kits, and they delayed distribution of federal relief funds, McCollum added.

As of Friday, June 12, the Arizona Department of Health Services reported 1,654 new cases of COVID-19 in the state  a record for a single day  and 17 additional deaths, bringing the total to 1,144. Health officials said 442,886 tests for COVID-19 have been completed in public and private labs in Arizona, and 6.7% of tests have come back positive.

House Committee on Appropriations Notice

Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News and is published via a Creative Commons license . Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University

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School districts now preparing their budgets  most of them for fiscal years that begin either July 1 or Sept. 1  are still waiting for clarity from the Texas Education Agency on how enrollment-based state funding will be calculated in a new education environment shaped by the coronavirus pandemic.

Theyll be reopening classrooms in the fall, and many plan to continue offering families the option of remote learning at home. Because they cant predict how many students will be in schools, any return to the old way of basing state funding on average daily attendance would make their finances unworkable or distance learning unaffordable, district leaders said.

We just dont know yet how our enrollment may be impacted by parents who just arent ready to send their students back, said Aubrey Chancellor, spokeswoman for the North East Independent School District. If we are permitted to do remote learning, that could make a huge difference.

North East ISD and San Antonio ISD are racing to approve budgets next week. SAISD plans to keep offering distance learning, said Leslie Price, school district spokeswoman, who called the attendance-based funding a critical part of our budget.

Based on current legislation that is in place, it is our expectation that TEA will keep us whole for the second year in the (state budgets) biennium, Price said.

TEA guidelines on how students will be counted are expected to be issued as early as Tuesday, though the agency could only say it would happen at some point in the next two weeks.

The issue I cant overemphasize is, if schools cant be funded to do what parents are asking us to do, then its going to put school district budgets in a free fall, said Northside ISD Superintendent Brian Woods, who was among a group of education leaders invited to send suggestions to the TEA.

The agency has received questions from around the state about how to fund distance learning going forward, said Jake Kobersky, TEA spokesman.

As the pandemic closed campuses this year, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath waived the requirement that based school funding on attendance, in effect freezing funding on previously reported enrollment. That method cant be used to fund distance learning for a whole new school year, Kobersky said.

Josie Norris /Staff Photographer

You cant just go by the book, he said. Theres going to have to be a unique solution.

Woods said he and others in the advisory group asked the agency to extend the waiver for one more semester and spelled out scenarios that could follow  ways that could count at-home learners as attending school while holding districts accountable for teaching them.

Students who are tuning in to a class in real time, whose teacher can see that theyre engaged in the lesson, should be counted, Woods said. So should students who, for whatever reason, watch a recorded class late at night and complete the work, he said.

Required Reading: Get San Antonio education news sent directly to your inbox

We know eventually there is going to have to be accountability tied to (funding), and we get it, Woods said.

He called the conversations with TEA very productive and healthy and said the agency and Morath have supported school districts during the pandemic with darn near everything so far, setting aside regulatory requirements and communicating frequently and openly. But this is the biggest decision theyre going to make, Woods said.

North East ISD, the second-largest in Bexar County, has more than 67,000 students. It overestimated its enrollment by 300 students last school year and projects another loss of 300 in the fall, without accounting for the effects of the pandemic.

Those effects are hard to measure. The economic fallout caused some families to move in with relatives or to cheaper housing outside the district, Superintendent Sean Maika said last week at a board meeting.

This year could be potentially even more of a challenge because we have no idea of the demographic changes that have gone on through COVID-19, Maika said.

Billy Calzada /Staff Photographer

The districts proposed budget included a reduction of about 38 teaching positions, which would be done through attrition, said Susie Lackorn, director of budget and financial analysis.

We have enough people who retire and leave that this would just happen naturally, Lackorn said. We wouldnt be asking anybody to go.

NEISD also had to pay nearly 400 unemployment claims because of the pandemic, Lackorn said in an email, adding, That is more than triple what the district sees in a normal entire calendar year.

More than half the claims were filed by former employees who had left the district at some point in 2019 and subsequently were laid off by another employer, making NEISD responsible for a portion of the claim. NEISD didnt lay anyone off because of the pandemic, Lackorn said, but some temporary and substitute employees left without classroom assignments were eligible to file claims.

The unemployment spike cost the district an additional $310,000.

Woods said his colleagues across the state are estimating that anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of families wont be comfortable returning their kids to school buildings. Northside ISD recently surveyed parents on that question and will present the results to the districts board of trustees Tuesday.

Parental attitudes can change, though  in Bexar County, coronavirus cases and hospitalizations for COVID-19 have climbed sharply in recent days  and Northside plans at least one more survey before the fall semester.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio schools planning for fall social distancing  and theres a lot of math

With no firm way to estimate how many students theyll actually have  or receive state funding for  some districts are planning their budgets based on enrollment numbers from a year ago. Northside, the largest in San Antonio, had more than 106,000 students in the academic year that just ended.

The pandemics economic disruption has reduced Texas sales tax and oil sector income and added costs to state government, but the federal stimulus money under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act provided $1.3 billion the state will use to fund school districts under House Bill 3, the 2019 school finance law.

Northsides fiscal year starts Sept. 1, which last year gave its budget planners extra time to incorporate major changes in state funding that werent immediately defined under the new law.

Thats two years in a row Ive said to my chief financial officer, Thank God we dont have to have this done by July 1, Woods said.

Krista Torralva covers several school districts and public universities in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Krista, become a subscriber. Krista.Torralva@express-news.net | Twitter: @KMTorralva

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the Alamo Colleges District in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Alia, become a subscriber. amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
OCEANSIDE, California, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Therapeutics Solutions International, Inc., (OTC Markets: TSOI) issues the following cautionary notice to the shareholders and public at large.

This morning it was discovered that a person or persons had published "Fake News" concerning the Company's FDA Registered upcoming Clinical Trial of QuadraMune. The fake news below was published on Google Sites at this address that has been since shut down. https://sites.google.com/view/pennytradeinsider/menu/healthcare/newsroom

Therapeutic Solutions International, Inc. boldly states that what is contained below is absolutely false even if it contains an accurate quote from Officers of the Company. We have publicly posted on our social media as well that is categorically false. Our lawyers are now in charge of this matter and any questions concerning this should be addressed in writing to Mr. Hugh D. Kelso III, Esq, Managing Attorney, 8799 Balboa Avenue, Suite 155 San Diego, CA 92123.

UC San Diego Health Conducts COVID-19 Trial

Therapeutic Solutions International Initiates 500 Volunteer Prevention Clinical Trial Using QuadraMune

San Diego UC San Diego Medical Center will lead the first large-scale study in the United States of the effectiveness of QuadraMune in preventing COVID-19 in healthcare workers and first responders who volunteer to participate. The study of QuadraMune has begun in earnest after a collaborative effort by Dr. James Veltmeyer, Therapeutic Solutions International and several major California medical centers.

Therapeutic Solutions International is focused on immune modulation for the treatment of several specific diseases using their proprietary drug formulation QuadraMune

"This is going to be the first major, definitive study in healthcare workers and first responders of QuadraMune as a preventative medication," said the study's organizer, UC San Diego Health Centers Dr. Ehtisham Mahmud , a world-renowned interventional cardiologist and researcher who has pioneered multiple treatments for heart disease. "There has been a lot of talk about this drug, but only a small, non-blinded study so far . We are going to change that in San Diego and produce a scientific answer to the question: Does it work?"

Dr. James Veltmeyer , San Diego's leading physician and Chief Medical Officer of Therapeutic Solutions International will oversee the study with Dr. Ehtisham Mahmud.

"We at Therapeutic Solutions International are pleased to apply our work in the area of inflammation and immune stimulation, to attempt to add another arrow in our quiver against this invisible enemy," said Timothy Dixon, President, and CEO of Therapeutic Solutions International. "In some ways, Coronavirus is like canceryou want to increase activation of innate immunity and suppress inflammatory reactions simultaneously. We have been doing this research successfully using NanoStilbene in cancer, and now we are transposing our findings into the field of virology with QuadraMune.

"We are glad to see UC San Diego 's lead on this volunteer study that could help protect medical workers and first responders across the country " remarked CEO Christopher Kane of UC San Diego Health Physician Group.

Both health care workers and first responders will also be enrolled at UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Any hospital healthcare worker within the Metro San Diego area will be able to volunteer to participate, including those from the San Diego COVID Consortium, a recently announced healthcare collaboration on COVID-19 research that includes Stanford Health Care and University of California, Davis Medical Center. Dr. Ehtisham Mahmud recently organized the group to efficiently coordinate and disseminate information about large-scale studies of COVID-19 treatments and bring those measures to healthcare workers sooner.

The study, titled QuadraMune(TM) for Prevention of COVID-19 is a 500+ subject look at whether the drug prevents front-line workers from contracting the virus. Once they provide a blood sample, the study subjects will receive vials with unidentified, specific pills to take over the next 5 months. A once-a-week dose of QuadraMune and a once-a-day dose of a placebo pill that looks like the medication, but does not contain any medication or other active ingredients will be administered. The study medication was specially procured for this study and will not impact the supply of medication for people who already take the medication for other conditions.

Participants will not know what group they are in. They will then be contacted weekly and in person at week 4 and week 8 of the study to see if they are exhibiting any symptoms of COVID-19, including dry cough, fever or breathing issues, as well as any medication side effects. At eight weeks, they will be checked again for symptoms, medication side effects, and have blood drawn. Results will be compared among the three groups to see if the medication had any effect.

"Given our broad clinical trials and translational research infrastructure, we are grateful to bring this type of large-scale effort to the COVID-19 battle," said Dr. Veltmeyer "We see the heroics of the frontline responders in healthcare, public safety and service. and we will do anything we can to help them stay safe."

Therapeutic Solutions International will provide the drug directly to UC San Diego Health and UCLA Medical Center physicians to distribute.

Recruiting has recently begun, more information can be found at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ and www.therapeuticsolutionsint.com .

The CDC describes QuadraMune, as a relatively well-tolerated medicine. The most common adverse reactions reported are minor stomach pain, and nausea.

If the study finds the drug effective as a preventative medication for COVID-19, it is possible that the study could expand to include QuadraMune in other COVID-19 treatment options.. The drug is an off-label treatment for only health care and frontline COVID-19 responders who meet specific criteria as outlined by the hospital system's Division of Infectious Diseases. As required by the state of California's Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, the physicians are documenting the prescribed use in the patient's electronic medical record.

UC San Diego Medical Cente r as one of the region's major academic medical centers with more than $100 million in annual research funding, is already involved in numerous COVID-19 trials with partners around the world.

About Therapeutic Solutions International, Inc.

Therapeutic Solutions International is focused on immune modulation for the treatment of several specific diseases. Immune modulation refers to the ability to upregulate (make more active) or downregulate (make less active) one's immune system. The Company's corporate website is at www.therapeuticsolutionsint.com and our e-commerce is at www.youcanordernow.com and for additional info on QuadraMune visit www.areyoucovidmune.com/covidmune/ .

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:

Therapeutic Solutions International, Inc.

Timothy Dixon

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1(760) 295-7208

SOURCE Therapeutics Solutions International, Inc.
Renee Bargh and Hugh Sheridan are old pals, and on Monday, they caught up for lunch in Sydney.

Blessed with a spectacularly sunny day, the pals were all smiles as they sat down for a bite at a local cafe.

Renee, 33, looked chic in a pair of shiny black tights from Pip Edwards' fashion brand, P.E Nation.

Fun times: Renee Bargh (left) and Hugh Sheridan (right) are old pals, and on Monday, they caught up for lunch in Sydney

The Voice host paired the tights with a matching black jumper that fit closely to her slim figure.

She opted for a white shirt underneath, which matched her white socks and sneakers.

The beauty appeared to be makeup free, and hid her famous face under a pair of black sunglasses.

A look: Renee, 33, looked chic in a pair of shiny black tights from Pip Edwards' fashion brand, P.E Nation

Back in black: The Voice host paired the tights with a matching black jumper that fit closely to her slim figure

Dressed down: She opted for a white shirt underneath her jumper

All white! The white shirt matched her white socks and sneakers

A tad breezy: After the lunch, Hugh pulled on his sweater outside the eating establishment, perhaps feeling chilly

Sporty: It appears the pair may have met up for a run or a gym session before their meal

Renee carried nothing but her phone, and the TV host was beaming throughout the meal.

Hugh likewise looked sporty in his casual ensemble, which included a grey, sleeveless shirt.

He added a pair of black shorts and chose white socks and matching sneakers for the look.

Lovely day: Blessed with a spectacularly sunny day, the pals were all smiles as they sat down for a bite at a local cafe

Looks Delicious: Hugh appeared to have ordered a milkshake

Having a laugh: The pair giggled as Renee looked at something on her phone

So funny! Renee laughed heartily at something Hugh said during the lunch

Who, me? The pair seemed deep in conversation as they ate

Chats outside: Hugh and Renee continued their conversation outside the cafe

Like Renee, the actor covered his face with a pair of sunglasses, and carried a jumper over his arm.

After the lunch, Hugh pulled on his sweater outside the eating establishment, perhaps feeling chilly.

It appears the pair may have met up for a run or a gym session before their meal.

Looking good: Hugh likewise looked sporty in his casual ensemble, which included a grey, sleeveless shirt

Hidden: Like Renee, the actor covered his face with a pair of sunglasses

Gorgeous! The beauty appeared to be makeup free

Glam: Renee hid her famous famous under a pair of black sunglasses

That's all folks: Renee carried nothing but her phone

During their meal, the friends giggled and chatted happily, each showing each other something on their phones.

When she left the venue, Renee was glued to her phone, looking down and reading something on the screen.

The US-based TV host has recently returned to Australia to co-host The Voice along with Darren McMullen.
Legislation aimed at changing police training and strengthening police hiring practices in Pennsylvania moved out of a House committee and is now in a position to be considered by the full House of Representatives next week.

The House Judiciary Committee on Monday, by a unanimous vote, approved two bills that begin to address some of the concerns that brought members of the Legislative Black Caucus to take over the rostrum in the House chamber last Monday.

The committee approved an amended version of House Bill 1910 that would require training police officers to identify and report suspected child abuse to also include a provision addressing the use of deadly force.

One change to the bill that won committee support was offered by Rep. Todd Stephens, R-Montgomery County. It would require the Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission to develop in-service training, including annual instruction on the use of force, de-escalation, and harm reduction techniques and biennial instruction in community and cultural awareness.

Stephens said while these areas may already be addressed in training, his amendment seeks to ensure these areas are given the attention they deserve..

As weve seen throughout the news recently with tragic events unfolding across this country, this issue of use of force when its appropriate, how it should be utilized and de-escalation techniques is so critical and on the forefront of the nations mind so I appreciate the opportunity to advance this amendment," Stephens told the committee.

The committee approved another amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jason Dawkins, D-Philadelphia, which would require police officers to be evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder by request of the officer or upon recommendation by a police chief or supervisory officer and within 30 days of any lethal use-of-force incident.

[With] what were seeing in our country this is very timely, Dawkins said. Im glad were taking up this issue to really ensure we are looking after our police officers.

Rep. Barry Jozwiak, R-Berks County, raised a concern over the impact on small police departments of a provision that would have an officer placed on administrative duty if they fail the evaluation for PTSD. The assignment would last until the officer is cleared for full duty.

Jozwiak said that could be an issue for smaller departments if they had to take an officer off the street. But that drew a response from Democratic counsel Tim Clawges who said the department would have to balance that staffing issue with how comfortable they are having that officer on the street.

A second bill that the committee passed, House Bill 1841, would require law enforcement agencies to conduct a thorough background investigation of a job candidate for a police officer position, including a review of past employment and separation records from prior law enforcement jobs, before they could be hired.

Part of that investigation would include another provision sponsored by Rep. Chris Rabb, D-Philadelphia, that would create an electronic database to be maintained by the Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission. It would retain records of law enforcement officers who have demonstrated documented patterns of excessive use of force or other misconduct.

This databases creation has the support of law enforcement organizations as well as members of the Legislative Black Caucus. It is rooted in discussions that Attorney General Josh Shapiro began in the aftermath of the June 19, 2018, police-involved killing of unarmed 17-year-old Antwon Rose in East Pittsburgh. The officer, who was sworn just hours before the shooting, was found not guilty by a jury last year.

Shapiro began working in earnest with representatives from the law enforcement community and black lawmakers six or seven months ago to find a way to address their common interest in keeping officers with a history of misconduct off the force.

Law enforcement as well as black lawmakers found they shared a common interest in keeping individuals off the force if they had a history showing they were unsuited for law enforcement work or had a record of misconduct, which led to the amendment that the committee approved.

We have seen time and time again officers who engage in patterns of misconduct undermining the strength of that police department and oftentimes having negative consequences in the community," Shapiro told PennLive. Of recent note, we saw the killing of Antwon Rose at the hands of a police officer who had a history of misconduct. We need to make sure that police officers who have a history of misconduct and try to go to another department have their record go with them.

Shapiro said he has told Roses mother that it is his hope that if the legislation passes creating the electronic database of records of police misconduct, it would be named the Rose Registry" to honor her sons memory.

Along with Roses death, the other impetus for the police reform bills seeing action on Monday was the May 25 death of George Floyd, who was pinned to the ground by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyds death has sparked three weeks of protests over racial injustice and police brutality, including protests this past weekend in Hummelstown, Middletown and Harrisburg.

Committee Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin County, said he anticipates more conversations about police reform legislation in the ensuing weeks and months including some with the Senate, which is having hearings on Wednesday and Thursday to evaluate potential reforms as well as review laws on the books for weaknesses and ways they could be improved.

What ends up getting to the finish line from both [chambers] certainly is yet to be seen, he said. With the bills his committee moved on Monday, he said, we have a great product to work from and I assume the Senate will have its own ideas.

He is hopeful that proposed police reform legislation reaches the governors desk before the session ends on Nov. 30.

Thats our hope, Kauffman said. We went at this in a good faith attempt to get a good workable product that could move. While there may still be some fine-tuning to be done through the legislative process, my hope is the Senate is ready to partner with us and get something done whether it looks like what we did or if they have some other ideas they would like to see done. That would be our intent.

Resigning House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County, who has urged Gov. Tom Wolf to call a special session on police reform, commended the committee for its action.

Todays action, during my last day as Speaker of the House, strengthens our confidence that this body will continue its promise of a better Pennsylvania for all citizens," he said in a statement. "I am sure the House will continue efforts to promote education choice, economic opportunity for all, and additional criminal justice reforms. We have yet to end racism and racial strife. We have come far, but not far enough. These steps today will move our state and country positively forward.

During an afternoon news conference, Wolf called the committees action, a first step but I believe we have more to do.

* This post was updated to include Speaker Turzais statement as well as a comment for Gov. Wolf.

Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.

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.
More frequent heatwaves over Northeast Asia since 1990s. Credit: Ren Liwen

Widespread hot extremes have been seen throughout the world in recent years, causing heat-related mortality and harming crops and livestock. In summer 2018, a record-breaking heat wave swept across large areas of Northeast Asia. The China Meteorological Administration issued high-temperature warnings for 33 consecutive days. In Japan, at least 71,266 required hospitalization for heat stroke.

To make things worse, the 2018 heat wave was probably not a random or an individual case, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

In the study, the 2018 heat wave was used as a rear-view mirror to investigate what has caused more extreme summer heat events over Northeast Asia, and in particular, to look into the role of anomalous anticyclones over Northeast Asia.

An anticyclone is an area of high atmospheric pressure, which causes settled weather conditions, and, in summer, clear skies and high temperatures. But how much the anomalous anticyclone circulation would contribute to extreme heat events over Northeast Asia still remains unknown.

"Our study, for the first time, gave a quantitative estimation of the contribution of circulation to such a heat event over Northeast Asia, by using the flow analog method," said Liwen Ren, the lead author, a Ph.D student from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. "We found that an anomalous anticyclone over Northeast Asia was responsible for nearly half of the magnitude in extreme heat events of 2018."

The researchers found that such anomalous anticyclones similar to that in 2018 have become worse and more common in recent decades (1991-2017) than in the past (1958-1990).

Further, this kind of dynamical (anticyclone) change in recent decades, together with thermodynamical change (e.g. mean temperature shift towards a warmer state with increasing greenhouse gases) have made such kinds of extreme heat events more likely to happen over Northeast Asia.

"We also found that, the more extreme the heat event is, the larger the contribution of thermodynamical change will be, with a contribution of at least 80%," said Prof. Tianjun Zhou, the corresponding author. "This implies that as long as global warming continues, we will face higher risk for extreme heat events over Northeast Asia in the next decades."

Explore further Scientists discover the forces behind extreme heat over Northeast Asia

More information: Liwen Ren et al, Attribution of the record-breaking heat event over Northeast Asia in summer 2018: the role of circulation, Environmental Research Letters (2020). Journal information: Environmental Research Letters Liwen Ren et al, Attribution of the record-breaking heat event over Northeast Asia in summer 2018: the role of circulation,(2020). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab8032
When Karen Jackson founded Sisters Network INC. in 1994, a national African American breast cancer survivorship organization, she was optimistic to the point of wearing rose-colored glasses about the healthcare industry. She believed that if someone was sick then there would be someone to help.

But finding breast cancer treatment for African American and Hispanic women have proven to be disproportionally harder for them than women of other ethnicities. With the onset of the recently FDA approved breast cancer treatment drug Trodelvy, Jackson and the Sisters Network are reaching out to communities of color to let them know about this new option.

Trodevly is the first targeted option late-stage metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) whose cancer has not responded to prior treatments. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer with a generally poor prognosis.

To date, there has not been any type of treatment specifically for triple-negative breast cancer, said Jackson, so this is great news for our community.

TNBC does not have estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, or human epidermal growth factor receptor 2- giving it the term triple-negative. This means that medicines that target these receptors are not typically effective in TNBC, making TNBC more difficult to treat, according to the American Cancer Society.

According to John Hopkins Medicine, TNBC accounts for up to 20 percent of all breast cancer cases and has a higher chance of becoming metastatic (spreading to other parts of the body) than any other type of breast cancer.

And according to an analysis of TNBC cases from the Nation Cancer Database, conducted by Yale Universitys School of Medicine, African American women are two times more likely than Asian and white women to be diagnosed with TNBC. Hispanic women are also more likely to be diagnosed with TNBC than white women.

As Black women, we get breast cancer at two times the rate of other mostly white women and our rate of dying is three times higher, said Jackson. When I first started Sisters Network it was about what African American women dont do instead of what the system is doing to us.

We are not at fault as a community. There are so many different things that affect us in different ways that we have to constantly adjust to make something happen.

The Sisters Network is currently located in twenty cities and is in the process of taking on two new affiliate chapters. They have a variety of partnerships with national social organizations like The Links, Incorporated, the African American Womens Organization, and are associated with historically black sororities like Delta Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alphas.

With the Sister Networks extensive social media presence and a membership roster of over 3,000 active women in their community and have over 15,000 people attending their events, doctors reached out to the Sisters Network to help reach the African American community about Trodelvy.

Trodelvy is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that is directed to the protein TROP-2, which is found in approximately 90 percent of TNBC tumors and several other types of cancers. The drug directs the anti-cancer drug SN-38 inside the tumor cell to break down the tumor from the inside.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed an overall response rate (the percentage of people with a complete or partial response, defined as 30 percent or more tumor shrinkage following treatment) of 33.3 percent.

It looks promising, said Dr. Jenny Chang, Director of Houston Methodist Cancer Center and Emily Herrmann Chair in Cancer Research. Its going to be tested in other breast cancer patients.

Its a new drug, so we will learn more about how to use it and will move it up in the food chain, so to speak, said Dr. Chang. The first treatment is still chemotherapy but as we get to know the drug better and test it, we may be able to use it earlier and earlier.

Jackson and the Sisters Network are already in the process of putting together digital toolkits for their communities as COVID-19 has delayed many in-person doctor visits. Creators of the drug are also echoing support for online learning tools and have created online forums for doctors to better understand how the drug works and how to prescribe it during the pandemic.

Within our organization, we know that knowledge is power, said Jackson. We didnt make that slogan up but it is such a true statement that without knowledge, you face a harder time of survival in our system that exists for breast cancer survivors.

ryan.nickerson@hcnonline.com
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.

A dedicated BrandBucket agent will manage your domain transfer from beginning to end, ensuring a secure and easy transaction. They will manage the receipt of the domain into one of BrandBuckets secure registrar accounts and then complete the transfer to you.

1. Verification and registrar choice

After we receive the payment and verify it, we will reach out via email to confirm which registrar you want the domain transferred to. We also provide a link to our tracking system, where you can communicate with us, check on the status of your transfer, view your invoice, and download your logo files.

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.

BrandBucket has vetted and supports the following registrars:



GoDaddy

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2. We request the name from the seller.

Once we know where you would like the domain transferred, BrandBucket will request the domain from the seller. All of our sellers are very responsive, making for a quick process.

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As soon as we receive the name from the seller, we start the transfer into your account and guide you through the whole process.

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Once we confirm that you have received the name, we consider the escrow process to be complete. Only then do we release payment to the domain seller.
Bonell has since been charged with a hate crime and attempted murder

Yasmine was left with gashes on her face and a dressing on the back of her neck

JohVonnie was the daughter of Cheryle Terrell and Michael Jackson's dad Joe

Nurse Yasmine is the daughter of Joe Jackson's lovechild JohVonnie

This is the shocking moment a Las Vegas woman is arrested after allegedly stabbing Joe Jacksons granddaughter seven times and hurling the n-word at her.

Footage taken in the aftermath of the alleged attack shows Angela Bonell, 22, being led away by cops as nurse Yasmine Jackson sits on the ground, her face slashed.

Yasmine's mother JohVonnie was the lovechild of secretary Cheryle Terrell and Michael Jackson's father Joe. He was the patriarch of the Jackson family and guided his children to unprecedented success as The Jackson 5.

Jackson - who is also the niece of singer Michael and his sister Janet - had shared graphic images of her horrific injuries after the alleged attack near her home on May 30.

Bonell has since been charged with a hate crime and attempted murder with a deadly weapon. She is due in court Tuesday, News3 reports.

Jackson said: 'I was stabbed 7 times right by my house because "I'm a n****r".'

She added that the racial slur was all she could hear during the attack by the Hispanic woman.

Scroll down for video

This is the shocking moment a Las Vegas woman is arrested after allegedly stabbing Joe Jacksons granddaughter seven times and hurling the n-word at her

Footage taken in the aftermath of the alleged attack shows as Angela Bonell, 22, is led away by cops

Nurse Yasmine Jackson (pictured with her grandfather Joe) is the daughter of Joe's lovechild JohVonnie

The clip shows Jackson sitting on the ground and being tended to by onlookers and an officer. Her head is bandaged and blood can be seen on her forehead.

Bonnell is handcuffed laying on the ground before being led away by cops after more police and an ambulance arrive on the scene.

Angela Bonell, the 22-year-old Hispanic woman arrested for the attack

Yasmine says she was chased down and stabbed seven times by Bonell who also yelled racial slurs at her.

Images she shared online show large gashes across both sides of her face while a dressing covers the back of her neck.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department say they were called to reports of a woman being attacked.

After arriving on the scene a woman, identified as Bonell, was found held by an eyewitness. Jackson was taken to hospital with cuts to her head and body, according to the police report.

Witnesses told police Bonell had made noise complaints about Jackson, who was her upstairs neighbor.

She is said to have thrown a broom at Jackson before chasing her alleged victim with a knife and attacking her.

Joe Jacksons granddaughter Yasmine Jackson said she is 'scared to be alone' after being chased down and stabbed seven times by a woman who yelled racial slurs at her. Pictured: Her injuries

Large gashes can be seen across both sides of her face while a dressing covers the back of her neck (pictured)

Witnesses told police she also directed the racial slur at Jackson. Jackson's friend Dymin Dilaurentis called the police.

Bonell told police 'she was just out for a walk and does not own a knife'.

In the caption shared alongside the images, Yasmine wrote: 'I was stabbed seven times right by my house because Im a n*****.

'This woman chased me down and started stabbing me.

'She said its because I was a n***** and thats all I could hear while I was being stabbed.

'I cant move my neck at all. Im scared to be alone. I asked people to help me because she was stabbing me and nobody helped.

'Until someone did, actually a few people did and I am thankful for you.

'I pray to God that if you have any kind of hatred in your heart towards black people that you heal it.

'I didnt deserve this, nobody does. Oh and by the way, Im still f****** proud to be black.'.

Yasmine is the daughter of Joe's lovechild JohVonnie. She had shared graphic images of her horrific injuries after the alleged attack near her home on May 30

Bonell has since been charged with a hate crime and attempted murder with a deadly weapon. She is due in court Tuesday, News3 reports

JohVonnie was secretly raised in a house just five miles from Joe's marital home in Encino, California. Joe, who was married to wife Katherine for nearly 70 years, died in 2018.

Yasmine's mother JohVonnie was the daughter of secretary Cheryle Terrell and Michael Jackson's father Joe (pictured together)

JohVonnie also shared pictures of her daughter's wounds with the caption: 'Look what this woman did to my daughter. She tried to kill my daughter for being Black.

'My daughter has a good heart and has dedicated her time as a nurse to help others.

'She did not deserve this! F*** anyone who has enough hate in their heart to want to do this to anyone!'

The alleged attack came amid protests over the death of George Floyd.

White police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Floyd passed out and later died.

His death is seen as a symbol of systemic police brutality against African-Americans sparking outrage and largely-peaceful protests country-wide.
FAIRFAX, Va. (June 15, 2020) -- A novel treatment for advanced mesothelioma is safe and effective and may improve the quality of life for patients who have few treatment options, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting on June 14. Transarterial chemoperfusion treatment for malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) comes with minimal side effects and shows promise for extending the lives of patients who have limited or no remaining treatment options.

"MPM is a devastating cancer of the pleura, the membranes surrounding the lungs, that is very difficult to treat," said Bela Kis, MD, PhD, the principal investigator on the study and an interventional radiologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. "The typical survival rate of patients with stage 3 and 4 MPM is around 12 months from diagnosis; but with this new treatment, we are hoping we might be able to extend patients' lives beyond that--giving them more time with friends and family."

Twenty-seven patients with MPM were enrolled in the Phase II clinical trial and underwent chemoperfusion treatment. All patients had received prior chemotherapy, many of whom received multiple lines of chemotherapy. Four of the patients had prior radiation therapy and three patients had pleurectomy. All continued to have disease progression before enrollment.

Transarterial chemoperfusion delivers a relatively high concentration of drugs to diseased tissue in the lining of the lungs to maximize the treatment effect with limited side effects. Unlike other chemotherapy that is delivered intravenously and circulates through the entire body, interventional radiologists inject one-third of the chemotherapy cocktail of cisplatin, methotrexate, and gemcitabine directly into the internal mammary artery that supplies the pleura. The other two-thirds of the drugs are injected into the descending aorta, which reaches the intercostal vessels that also supply the pleura. The treatment is an outpatient procedure and typically lasts an hour, followed by a one-hour recovery.

The interim results of the study show 70.3 percent disease control rate and median overall survival rate of 8.5 months from the start of the chemoperfusion treatment. The treatment was well-tolerated by patients with a major complication rate of 1.4 percent. Most side effects were relatively minor, including mild nausea and chest pain.

"We were pleasantly surprised to find that this treatment doesn't come with the same side effects of traditional intravenous chemotherapy," said Kis. "To see these promising results with so few side effects means we are able to make a positive impact on quality of life for these patients."

Currently, surgery is the only truly effective treatment for MPM, but the disease must be diagnosed early. Unfortunately, only 10 to 20 percent of patients are candidates for surgery and often experience surgical complications.

The researchers are looking to expand their study to other cancer centers with larger MPM patient populations, since the cancer is so rare. They also hope to add flexibility to the study to allow for increasing the dosage and changing the combination of medications for individual patients to determine whether either approach could further improve outcomes.

Additional information about the clinical trial is available at ClinicalTrials.gov, using the identifier NCT02611037.

Abstract 1: Transarterial chemoperfusion treatment of unresectable pleural mesothelioma - interim results of a phase 2 prospective study. B. Kis; M. Pereira; J. Logeman; Z. Makovich; G. El-Haddad; J. Choi; J. Fontaine; B. Creelan; T. Tanvetyanon; Moffitt Cancer Center, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

The research was originally scheduled to be presented in person at SIR's Annual Scientific Meeting, March 28-April 2, in Seattle before the meeting was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. Visit sirmeeting.org for the latest information.

###

About the Society of Interventional Radiology

The Society of Interventional Radiology is a nonprofit, professional medical society representing more than 8,000 practicing interventional radiology physicians, trainees, students, scientists, and clinical associates, dedicated to improving patient care through the limitless potential of image-guided therapies. SIR's members work in a variety of settings and at different professional levels--from medical students and residents to university faculty and private practice physicians. Visit sirweb.org.
The winter series of Love Island has been cancelled amid ongoing uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The ITV2 dating show will instead return for an extended run next summer, according to a spokeswoman for the programme.

The series had been scheduled to take place early next year.

The programme will return next summer (Joel Anderson/ITV/PA)

A spokeswoman for the programme said: Love Island UK will return bigger and better than ever with an extended run in summer 2021.

The decision has been taken early as preparations for the series would have had to begin shortly.

It was announced last month that this summers series would not be taking place because of the pandemic.

Kevin Lygo, director of television at ITV, said at the time that he would feel uneasy about airing the show, which sees singletons holed up in a villa together, while the rest of the nation is being told to socially distance.

The show has been a huge hit for ITV2 and the first winter series, filmed in South Africa, aired earlier this year.

Tapp and Turley won the last series of the programme (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The series was won by Paige Turley and Finley Tapp.

However, it was overshadowed when former host Caroline Flack took her own life on February 15 at the age of 40.

Episodes of the programme were pulled from the TV schedule following her death, but the series later resumed.

A summer series of Love Island was last broadcast in 2019 and was won by Amber Gill and Greg OShea, who are no longer dating.
Paul shares our passion for helping businesses get the most out of their technology and people, safely empowering teams across an organization to fill in the gaps and build the solutions they need that connect their data and systems.

Quick Base, the leading low-code platform for operational agility, announced that Paul von Autenried, executive vice president and chief information officer at Bristol Myers Squibb, has joined its board of directors. Paul is the second Fortune 500 CIO to join Quick Bases board since the beginning of the year.

Paul has long been vocal about the ongoing evolution of the role of IT in organizations today. No longer distinguished solely by the depth of their technology expertise, he considers IT professionals stewards of the digital enterprise, taking full accountability for the digital capabilities of their companies. In this way, IT can support those on the frontlines of the business by providing a shared, managed platform for process innovation and agility.

To be successful today, businesses need to adapt and evolve incredibly fast, Paul said. "Quick Base is a leader in enabling safe and compliant innovation at the edge of enterprise-level systems. Its strong data-centric platform, low barrier to entry for developers, best-in-class support and skilled management with a vision for the future are all reasons Ive joined the board."

Paul joins Javier Polit, CIO at Mondelez International, Inc, on Quick Bases board of directors, marking a growing number of global CIOs advocating for widespread adoption of citizen development to help businesses create lasting operational agility. Pauls perspective as one of healthcares leading CIOs is also extremely valuable as the world responds to the impact of COVID-19.

In the wake of disruption caused by the novel coronavirus, companies are faced with rethinking their operating model, according to a recent McKinsey report, building it around how their people work best. That means the pace of transformation is moving faster, and the challenges that existed before--disconnected legacy systems, inefficient manual workflows and scarce development resources--will be magnified.

Were seeing businesses come back to the future of work right now. Agility and speed are suddenly paramount, meaning data and technology must be more accessible, automated and integrated than ever before, said Ed Jennings, Quick Base CEO. Paul shares our passion for helping businesses get the most out of their technology and people, safely empowering teams across an organization to fill in the gaps and build the solutions they need that connect their data and systems. His experience, including enabling citizen development in a highly-regulated industry, will help shape the practice for our customers and for businesses around the world.

Patients are the center of everything we do at Bristol Myers Squibb, Paul said. IT enables us to inspire innovators across the entire organization to leverage digital technology to improve the overall patient experience and succeed in our mission to discover, develop and deliver innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases.

Throughout his experiences in high-tech, consumer packaged goods, and biopharmaceuticals companies, Paul's career has been focused on strategically leveraging information technology to drive superior performance. Before joining Bristol Myers Squibb, Paul held positions with Kraft General Foods and Hewlett-Packard. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Penn Medicine Princeton Health.

For more information about Quick Base, visit our blog.

About Quick Base

Quick Base is the trusted platform for continuous process innovation at enterprise scale. As the first cloud application development platform to support safe, secure and sustainable citizen development, Quick Base helps more than 6,000 customers, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 50, continuously perfect the processes that make their businesses unique. Quick Base is a leader in the Forrester Wave: Low-Code Platform For Business Developers. Visit QuickBase.com to learn more.
Company announcement  No. 33 / 2020

Zealand Pharma strengthens executive team with new U.S. leadership

Copenhagen, June 15, 2020  Zealand Pharma A/S (ZEAL.CO) (CVR-no. 20045078), a biotechnology company changing lives with innovative peptide-based medicines, today announced the appointment of Frank Sanders as President of Zealand Pharma U.S. Frank will join Zealand on July 6, 2020.

I am pleased to welcome Frank Sanders to Zealand Pharma, and am confident that he will provide strong and experienced leadership for our U.S. organization, said Emmanuel Dulac, President and Chief Executive Officer at Zealand Pharma. Frank has more than 25 years of experience within commercial operations. He is well equipped to lead Zealands commercial operations to focus on growing existing sales of V-Go and to successfully launch four potential products beginning in 2021.

Frank has extensive experience in leading multidisciplinary operational teams to achieve successfully their growth strategies. He joins Zealand at a critical point in the companys journey toward commercializing its proprietary products. Frank has worked in both start-up and established companies, where he has built, led and scaled organizations across sales, account management, marketing, pricing and contract strategy, operations, and patient support.

This is an exciting opportunity to join Zealand Pharma, and to be a part of the companys transformative journey, commented Frank Sanders. I have been impressed by the team through our interactions so far, and I further appreciate the insights I gained to the potential of the business. I look forward to working with the extended team that is preparing to deliver Zealand products and create positive impact in the lives of patients, their families and caregivers.

Leading the U.S. organization from Zealands Boston-area office, Frank will be a member of the international corporate management team reporting to President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Dulac.

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Prior to joining Zealand Pharma, Frank served as the general manager of the U.S. Commercial team at Sage Therapeutics. Earlier experience was gained through roles of increasing commercial responsibilities at Janssen and GlaxoSmithKline. Frank holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from Wittenberg University (Ohio, U.S.).

# # #

About Zealand Pharma A/S

Zealand Pharma A/S (ZEAL.CO) ("Zealand") is a biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of next generation peptide-based medicines that change the lives of people living with metabolic and gastrointestinal diseases. More than 10 drug candidates invented by Zealand have advanced into clinical development, of which two have reached the market. Zealands robust pipeline of investigational medicines includes three candidates in late stage development, and one candidate being reviewed for regulatory approval in the United States. Zealand markets V-Go, an all-in-one basal-bolus insulin delivery option for people with diabetes. License collaborations with Boehringer Ingelheim and Alexion Pharmaceuticals create opportunity for more patients to potentially benefit from Zealand-invented peptide therapeutics.

Zealand was founded in 1998 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has presence throughout the U.S. that includes key locations in New York, Boston, and Marlborough (MA). For more information about Zealands business and activities, please visit http://www.zealandpharma.com .

Forward-Looking Statement

The above information contains forward-looking statements that provide Zealand Pharmas expectations or forecasts of future events. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and inaccurate assumptions, which may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations set forth herein and may cause any or all of such forward-looking statements to be incorrect. If any or all of such forward-looking statements prove to be incorrect, our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied by such statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on information available to Zealand Pharma as of the date of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Zealand Pharma Investor Relations

+45 50 60 38 00

investors@zealandpharma.com

Lani Pollworth Morvan, Investor Relations and Communication

LMorvan@zealandpharma.com

Attachment
Melt them down and recast them as commemorative pieces, said Mr. Chino, adding that doing so could help draw attention to crucial junctures in New Mexico history, such as the 1680 uprising that figured among the most successful Indigenous rebellions against the Spanish empire anywhere in the Americas.

The statue in Alcalde that was removed on Monday gained notoriety decades ago when the right foot of the statue was cut off in a secretive act of protest. Since then, that act has resonated widely in New Mexico as a symbol of Indigenous resistance.

Some Hispanic leaders in New Mexico oppose removing the statues, though there is by no means consensus on the question. Ralph Arellanes Sr., the president of the Hispano Round Table of New Mexico, said that taking down the Onate statue in Albuquerque would be wrong.

It is a sculpture of a group of people on their journey into New Mexico with their livestock, Mr. Arellanes said in a Facebook post about the statue, which was completed in 2004 and depicts Onate leading an expedition of settlers and soldiers.

The Albuquerque Museum board of trustees voted last week to remove the sculpture, called La Jornada, or the journey. The citys cultural services department said over the weekend that it would convene a group of artists and community leaders to discuss the issue.

At Monday nights protest, demonstrators engaged in shouting matches over whether to keep the statue or take it down, with the majority demanding its removal. Some looked on derisively as members of the New Mexico Civil Guard arrived with their long guns.

These guys should worry more about diabetes than the statue coming down, Kurly Tlapoyawa, an archaeologist who had come to urge the removal of statue, said as he pointed to a militia member who was grasping a Burger King bag along with his rifle.
The human rights expert, Irena Bihariova, brands herself a social liberal. She believes teaming up with Spolu was a mistake.

Irena Bihariova and Michal Truban, new and former chairs of Progressive Slovakia, hug each other in Bratislava on June 6, 2020. (Source: TASR)

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Irena Bihariova's best friend from her primary school for gifted children cut off all contact with her. It is believed the friend did so only because her mother was afraid of what people would have said about her being friends with a Roma girl. When Bihariova's son was born, her father-in-law rejected him for the same reason.

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 When I'm on a tram, I'm visibly holding on to something with both hands so that no one can feel like I'm trying to rob them.  PS Chair Irena Bihariova

The lawyer and former head of the civic association People Against Racism, Irena Bihariova, became the new head of the non-parliamentary party Progressive Slovakia (PS) on June 6. She defeated her opponent and the former party leader, Michal Truban, by five votes.
Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa, center, is escorted as she arrives to attend a court hearing at Manila Regional Trial Court, Philippines on Monday June 15, 2020. (AP)

Manila: An award-winning journalist critical of the Philippine president was convicted of libel and sentenced to jail Monday in a decision called a major blow to press freedom in an Asian bastion of democracy.

The Manila court found Maria Ressa, her online news site Rappler Inc. and former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. guilty of libeling a wealthy businessman. The Rapplers story on May 29, 2012, cited an unspecified intelligence report linking him to a murder, drug dealing, human trafficking and smuggling. The sites lawyers disputed any malice and said the time limit for filing the libel complaint had passed.

The decision for me is devastating because it essentially says that Rappler, that we are wrong, Ressa said in a news conference after the ruling. Her voice cracking, she vowed that we will keep fighting and appealed to journalists and Filipinos to continue fighting for their rights and hold power to account.

Ressa was sentenced to up to six years but was not immediately taken into custody. She posted bail for the case last year, and her lawyer, Theodore Te, said they will appeal the verdict.

The verdict against Maria Ressa highlights the ability of the Philippines abusive leader to manipulate the laws to go after critical, well-respected media voices whatever the ultimate cost to the country, said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch, adding the verdict was a frontal assault on freedom of the press that is critical to protect and preserve Philippines democracy.

President Rodrigo Duterte and other Philippine officials have said the criminal complaints against Ressa and Rappler were not a press freedom issue but a part of normal judicial procedures arising from their alleged violations of the law.

Businessman Wilfredo Keng dismissed the allegations in the 2012 story as baseless and false and said Rappler refused to take down the story online and publish his side of the story. He provided government certifications in court to show that he has no criminal record and sought 50 million pesos ($1 million) in damages, but the court awarded a much smaller fine.

Rapplers lawyers said the story was based on an intelligence report and that the one-year period under Philippine penal law when a libel complaint can be filed had ended when Keng filed a lawsuit in 2017, five years after the story was published online.

A cybercrime law, which Rappler allegedly violated, was also enacted in September 2012 or four months after the story written by Santos was published. Rapplers lawyers said Philippine penal laws cannot be retroactively applied.

Rappler, however, acknowledged that it updated the story in February 2014 to correct a misspelled word but said it did not make any other changes. The Department of Justice, which brought the libel charges to court, contended that by updating the story, Rappler effectively republished the story online in 2014, an argument dismissed by the news sites lawyers.

The Department of Justice cited another law to say that a complaint can be filed under the 2012 cybercrime law for up to 12 years, countering Rapplers argument that Kengs complaint was invalid due to being outside the one-year deadline for libel.

If the Manila court upholds the Justice Departments position, journalists and media agencies can be sued up to 12 years after publishing a story.

As Rapplers chief executive officer, Ressa faces seven other criminal complaints in relation to legal issues hounding her news agency, including an allegation that it violated a constitutional ban on media agencies receiving foreign investment funds.

Ressa, who has worked for CNN and was one of Time magazines Persons of the Year in 2018, has accused the government of abusing its power and of using the law to muzzle dissent.

Many news outlets in the Philippines and beyond have criticized Dutertes policies, including his signature anti-drug campaign that has left thousands of mostly poor drug suspects dead.

Duterte has openly lambasted journalists and news sites who report critically about him.

He has openly lashed out against the owner of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a leading daily.

He has vowed in the past to block the renewal of the congressional franchise of leading TV network ABS-CBN. It was shut down by the governments telecommunications regulator last month after its 25-year franchise expired. Congress has been hearing the major networks request for a renewal of its franchise.

The shutdown has been criticized as it cut off a major source of information on the COVID-19 pandemic in a Southeast Asian hot spot of the disease.
Sunday not only marked the birthday of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, it also marked the 245th birthday of the United States Army.

The theme of this years demarcation highlighted contributions of soldiers both past and present to inspire those yet to serve in the future.

Officials noted that this year has been especially challenging.

About a year before America even existed, on June 14th, 1775, the Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army to protect the rights of the colonists and to unite the original 13 colonies against British tyranny.

Throughout the last 245 years, our Army has been there to protect defend and serve our people  and I think certainly, as we find ourselves today in a very challenging moment in our history, Richard Pascoe, civilian aide to the Secretary of the Army, told KUSI.

The Army has been there every step of the way, he added, from a medical perspective, supporting them in the civil unrest and just being there to provide that protection that our citizens deserve and demand.

Members of the D.C. National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as demonstrators participate in a peaceful protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, on June 2, 2020, in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This has been a profoundly challenging year, the U.S. Army noted in a statement, yet soldiers have met those challenges admirably in service of the nation.

The recent riots across the country called for protecting the American peoples right to peacefully assemble, the Army stated. In recent weeks, we have done that.

Meanwhile, the Armys response to the coronavirus pandemic has set new a precedent, as they provided augmentation to medical care facilities in the nations most stressed cities.

The United States Army, Army National Guard, and Army Reserve Soldiers helped mount a nationwide response to this crisis that truly embodies their motto of This Well Defend, the White House stated. In New York, the United States Army Corps of Engineers created and converted alternate care facilities, providing extra space for thousands of patients.

In addition to marking the Armys 245th birthday, 2020 also marks another significant date in Allied military history.

June 6, 1944: U.S. Assault Troops seen here landing on Omaha beach during the Invasion of Normandy. (Keystone/Getty Images)

This year is also the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of World War II, the White House noteda monumental struggle between the forces of freedom and tyranny.

The historic triumph came at a somber price, as the Army bore the brunt of the fightingand human costof our Nations contribution to victory in the war, the White House added. [W]e also pause to remember those Soldiers who laid down their lives to defend our freedom and protect their fellow Americans.

A member of the U.S. Army places an American flag on a grave at Arlington National Cemetery on May 25, 2017, in Arlington, Virginia, in preparation for Memorial Day. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal will deport five foreign tourists and ban them from entering the Himalayan nation for two years after they joined protests against the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak, officials said on Monday.

Police arrested three Chinese nationals and one each from the United States, Australia and Norway during a street protest on Saturday in the capital Kathmandu.

The demonstrators demanded better quarantine facilities, and more testing and transparency in the purchasing of medical supplies to fight COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The director general of Nepal's Department of Immigration, Ramesh Kumar K.C., said the Chinese and U.S. tourists were fined 10,000 Nepali rupees ($82.75) each. The Australian was fined double that because he was also taking pictures of the protests.

"All five will be banned for two years from entering Nepal and deported to their respective countries after international flights resume," he told Reuters. Nepal has suspended all flights until July 5 as part of its coronavirus lockdown.

He said the Norwegian woman, who is married to a Nepali, will have to pay a 5,000-rupee fine but can remain in the country.

Another immigration official, Ram Chandra Tiwari, said the foreigners had been penalized for misusing their tourist visa and indulging in political activities like the demonstration.

Nepal imposed a lockdown in March after detecting its second case of coronavirus infection. The numbers have since increased to 6,211 infections and 19 fatalities.

The government, which has been widely criticised for allegedly not doing enough to control the outbreak, says it is committed to increasing the number of tests and improving quarantine facilities.

($1 = 120.84 Nepali rupees)

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness announced Monday it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will permanently close more than 130 gyms, including seven in New Jersey.

The company says the bankruptcy filing is due to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The seven New Jersey locations that will permanently close are:

Avenel: 1624 Saint Georges Ave.

Hasbrouck Heights: 459 Route 17

Jersey City: 918 Bergen Ave.

Parsippany: 30 Sylvan Way

Piscataway: 1327 Centennial Ave.

Saddle Brook: 189 U.S. Highway 46

Wayne: 133 Route 23

That will leave just five 24 Hour Fitness gyms left in New Jersey, located in Englewood Cliffs, North Brunswick, Paramus, Ramsey and Springfield. All remain temporarily closed due to the coronavirus.

The company was reportedly weighing bankruptcy since April as it was struggling with debt and performance decline.

If it were not for COVID-19 and its devastating effects, we would not be filing for Chapter 11," CEO Tony Ueber said in the statement. We expect to have substantial financing with a path to restructuring our balance sheet and operations to ensure a resilient future.

All club members will have access to any gym location through 2020, regardless of membership level, according to the statement.

Golds Gym also filed for bankruptcy in May.

Along with gyms, big-name retailers have been slammed with store closures and bankruptcy due to the pandemic. JCPenney, Nordstrom and Pier 1 Imports are just a few that have been impacted.

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Nicolette Accardi can be reached at naccardi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter: @N_Accardi. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips
Protester have occupied the area around a Seattle police station deeming it Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone: AP

Fox News coverage of the Seattle protests has taken another hit after the news organisation quoted a Reddit Monty Python joke as real for its viewers.

Martha MacCallum, host of Fox News The Story, was covering Seattles Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) for her viewers, which included claims from the cable news channel that there were leadership problems within the organisation.

To illustrate this point, Fox News shared a screenshot of a Reddit post entitled I didnt vote for Raz. Raz Simone, a rapper, is the alleged unofficial leader of CHAZ.

I thought we had an anonymous collective, Ms MacCallum said, reading the Reddit post. An anarcho-syndicalist commune at the least, we should take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.

What Fox News failed to realise was that this post was a joke that played off a popular scene from the 1975 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

In the scene, King Arthur approaches two peasants who are mud-farming out on the land and announces himself as their king. But Dennis, one of the peasants, informs the dumbfounded king that he and his cohorts have established their own form of government  which results in a debate about who actually is in charge.

We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs, but by a two-thirds majority in the case of purely external affairs, Dennis says, a nearly verbatim quote used in the Reddit post.

The Reddit user even went as far as to later include the quote where Dennis says the king cant simply expect to wield supreme executive power just because someone threw a sword at him. This portion of the post was not read aloud by Ms MacCallum to viewers but it was shown in the screenshot aired.

Although Fox News did not recognise the joke, people on Twitter did and the moment quickly went viral.

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Fox News fell for a Monty Python joke on Reddit lmao pic.twitter.com/Yo34yuQvlD  Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) June 13, 2020

But this type of misinformation from Fox News is notable, specifically because it is Americas most watched cable news channel. Spreading this misinformation could skew viewers perspectives about what is actually going on inside CHAZ.

Opinions have differed about the police-free occupation. People with the movement overtook multiple blocks of Seattle, including the area surrounding a now-abandoned police precinct, last week.

President Donald Trump and Fox News have called the people involved with CHAZ anarchists and claimed they're involved with Antifia, a far-left militant group. But the area has actually remained rather peaceful and morphed into a sort of a music festival, with people camping, drinking, and playing music for others.

CHAZ formed as a police-free settlement in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black Americans at the hands of police.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has vowed to protect the settlement's First Amendment rights of speech, but the occupation has sparked conversations on if the area should be dispersed.

Fox News coverage, including the moment wrongly quoting a Monty Python joke as reality, has largely criticised the settlement.

The conservative site also had to remove doctored pictures on Friday that pushed misleading information about CHAZ after the Seattle Times reported that the photos used were inaccurate.

A spliced 10 June picture of an armed man at the Seattle protests was combined with two other pictures: One also from 10 June of a sign reading: You Are Now Entering Free Cap Hill, and another image captured on 30 May of a shattered storefront.

Coverage on Fox News' site also labelled Seattle as CRAZY TOWN in a headline while displaying a banner image of a city block on fire. The picture used actually came from protests in St Paul, Minnesota.

Fox News took down the pictures following the Seattle Times report and released an editors note addressing the mistakes.

A FoxNews.com home page photo collage which originally accompanied this story included multiple scenes from Seattles Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone and of wreckage following recent riots. The collage did not clearly delineate between these images, and has since been replaced. In addition, a recent slideshow depicting scenes from Seattle mistakenly included a picture from St. Paul, Minnesota. Fox News regrets these errors, the note read.

Fox News declined to comment about the Monty Python error when contacted by The Independent.

Read more

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A young boy is donating his bone marrow to save his little brother's life.

Henley Carey, one, from Coolaman, in south east NSW, was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder that causes his body to swell, putting pressure on his organs.

But despite the disease, which affects one in 88,000 children, being incurable a bone marrow transplant will add years to his life.

This week his older brother Darcy, three, will undergo surgery to donate his tissue to his sibling.

Their parents hope the operation will allow Henley to live until his 20s.

Darcy (left), 3, will donate his bone marrow on Thursday to save the life of his younger brother Henley (right, 1, (pictured with their parents Sean and Alicia)

'The initial shock is like a constant pain, I felt like I couldn't breathe. How do you live your life knowing that your child is going to die?' Mrs Carey told Daily Mail Australia.

'I'm a nurse I see people go through this, you never think you will be that parent. We have just cried since March, I don't think we have had a day where we haven't cried.

Children who suffer from severe Mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS I) rarely live past 10 years old.

Although it is hard for the parents to watch their children undergo medical procedures, Mrs Carey said she believes Darcy will one day be proud of helping his sibling.

'I know Darcy will be proud, who wouldn't be proud to know they have helped their brother?' She said.

'If Henley has a good quality of life, our whole family will have a good quality of life.'

Following Henley's diagnosis, doctors told the Careys there were two treatment options, enzyme treatment therapy or, the better alternative, a bone marrow transplant.

While both work to replace the missing IDUA enzyme, the bone marrow transplant will help his body produce it, which will provide more protection his brain so it will be less cognitively impaired.

As there was a two in four chance Darcy could also have the disorder, the parents decided to have testing done, which cleared him of the condition but discovered he was a donor match for his brother.

The family has been making the five hour drive to Sydney every week for Henley to have replacement therapy at Westmead Children's Hospital, under the lifesaving drugs program.

Henley has Mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS I), a rare genetic disorder that prevents him from breaking down large sugar molecules which causes swelling in his body and impairs his organs

The one-year-old has recently started chemotherapy in the lead up to his blood infusion on Thursday, and will remain in isolation at hospital for three months following the procedure while his immune system is suppressed.

Family members have started a gofundme campaign to help the Careys financially as they adapt to huge life changes as Henley undergoes treatment, which could see them travelling between home and Sydney for more than six months.

Mrs Carey will take time off work to care for Henley in hospital for the first few months while Mr Carey and Darcy travel up every weekend.

MPS type 1 causes enlarged facial features, heart diseases and vision impairment. Those with the condition usually die from ongoing respiratory issues.

As it is a rare disorder, a lot of information about MPS I remains unknown. To raise awareness and track their son's progress, the Careys have launched a Facebook page called Henley's mission.

Despite the devastating circumstances, Mrs Carey said the family have grown and learned to be more positive, after being inspired by Henley.

'He is the most beautiful little boy, no one wants to be in this situation, but we believe he is here to teach us and a lot of other people a lesson because he is so resilient and strong, he just keeps smiling,' she said.
New Delhi: In the all-party meeting that was chaired by Union minister Amit Shah, the BJP demanded that 50 percent charges should be waived off on coronavirus testing in Delhi. The party also demanded setting up of new health camps and said that BJP will distribute face mask and sanitizers to 10 lakh people.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh said that daily testing in Delhi will reach around 18,000 tests from June 20. Further meetings will take place between Delhi CM and LG to discuss the course of action. He said that the party cadre will work for Covid-19 management. He further added that all party needs to come together and fight the pandemic keeping the political issues aside.

The Delhi BJP chief said, ''BJP suggested that charges at private hospitals should be fixed. Taking cognizance of the matter, Home Minister has constituted a committee that will submit a report within 2 days. Based on the report, price capping will be done for private hospitals.''

On the other hand, Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary said that everyone should have the right to Covid-19 testing. Chaudhary also said that the Home Minister assured that under a new testing policy, all will have the right to testing. He also mentioned that the compensation of Rs one crore announced by the Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for the kin of Corona warriors has not been provided yet, and requested that the compensation should be immediately provided.

Today's meeting comes a day after he held a high-level meeting with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, following which he laid out a number of measures to battle the capital's COVID-19 crisis.
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2020 / IMC International Mining Corp. (IMCX.CN) (OTC PINK:IMIMF) (3MX.F) (the "Company" or "IMC"), is pleased to announce that it has received an amendment to its previously filed Mineral Exploration Permit for its Thane Property (the "Property") located in north-central British Columbia. The amendment allows the Company to drill up to 40 holes within the Cathedral Area of the Property.

Work on the Property has identified six areas of significant gold  copper  silver mineralization. The Cathedral Area is the most advanced of these areas and exploration results to date have revealed copper and gold mineralization in a variety of styles over a 2 km long by 1.5 km wide zone, all consistent with alkali porphyry systems.

"Exploration results to date have shown the potential for a significant copper-gold alkalic porphyry system within the Cathedral Area," stated Brian Thurston, Chief Executive Officer and President of IMC. "The Company is currently on schedule to begin its Phase-1 summer program. We have planned a detailed IP geophysical survey, geological mapping, and geochemical sampling programs to begin in early July. Our goal is to determine the best targets for diamond drilling this fall. We look forward to integrating results from this Phase 1 program with our current Cathedral Area database in order to establish the best potential sites for drilling."

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Brian Thurston

Chief Executive Officer and President

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL MINING CORP.

IMC is a junior exploration and development company focused on creating shareholder value through the advancements of its current assets that include the Thane Property in north-central British Columbia, and the Bullard Pass Property in Arizona. Utilizing its heavily experienced management team, IMC continues to source and evaluate assets to further generate shareholder value.

The Thane property covers approximately 206km2 (50,904 acres) and is located in the Quesnel Terrane of north-central British Columbia. The northern part of the Quesnel Terrane extends from south of the Mt. Milligan Mine northward to the Kemess Mine, with the Thane property located midway between these two copper-gold porphyry deposits. The Thane property includes several highly prospective mineralized areas identified to date, including the Cathedral Area' on which the Company's exploration is currently focused.

Story continues

The Bullard Pass Property is comprised of 171 unpatented federal lode claims totaling 3,420 acres and is located in west-central Arizona, northwest of Phoenix, within the Pierce Mining District of Yavapai County. The property has a regional setting typical of detachment fault gold deposits and has geological, mining and metallurgical similarities to the Mesquite Mine in California. The claims are 100% owned by IMC International Mining Corp.

INVESTOR RELATIONS:

i r@internationalmining.ca

1 (604) 588-2110

https://imcxmining.com

Forward-Looking Information: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to statements regarding the Company's business and plans, including with respect to undertaking further acquisitions and carrying out exploration activities in respect of its mineral projects. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance and developments to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements depending on, among other things, risks related to the ability of the Company to obtain necessary approvals; speculative nature of the Company's business; the Company's formative stage of development; the Company's financial position; conclusions of future economic evaluations; business integration risks; fluctuations in the securities market; that the Company's plans and prospects will vary from those stated in this news release; that the Company does not complete any further acquisitions; that the Company does not carry out exploration activities in respect of its mineral projects as planned (or at all); and that the Company may not be able to carry out its business plans as expected. Except as required by law, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation and does not intend to update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information in this news release. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct and makes no reference to profitability based on sales reported. The statements in this news release are made as of the date of this release.

The CSE has not reviewed, approved or disapproved the content of this press release

SOURCE: IMC International Mining Corp.





View source version on accesswire.com:

https://www.accesswire.com/593876/IMC-International-Mining-Corp-Receives-Cathedral-Area-Drilling-Permit




Mu Cang Chai is slowly developing from typical traditional homestays to grander eco-facilities for new visitors, Photo: VietWings

At more than 60 years old, bonding to the land of Mu Cang Chai from birth, Thao A Sang, former chairman of Mu Cang Chai district, said that agriculture is hard work for a retiree like him, so he decided to shift into tourism to both generate more income for the family and to bring stable jobs for some young people in the village.

In 2017 with the help of a friend, Sang decided to invest more than VND3 billion ($130,000) to build a resort. That July, Mu Cang Chai Ecolodge was completed and began welcoming guests. From five homes combining the traditional roof architecture of the Mong people with pine wood and the style of Thai stilt houses, the resort has now expanded to nine houses and aims to increase by six more in the future.

After nearly three years in operation, Mu Cang Chai Ecolodge has brought Sang's family a stable and increasing income.

Sang said, In 2019 we welcomed nearly 2,000 visitors, two-thirds of which were international visitors. Although the price per room ranges from $39-47 per night, visitors usually stay for two or three nights because they like the quiet space and the chance to experience many interesting indigenous activities.

Elsewhere Dao Xuan Thinh, general director of Thinh Dat JSC, was not born and raised in Mu Cang Chai like Sang, but ventured into tourism nevertheless with the establishment of the high-class Le Champ Tu Le Hot Spring & Spa in the beautiful Tu Le Valley.

In addition to hotels, Thinh Dat also invests in other tourism ventures such as establishing four co-operatives to develop professions such as brewing rice, knitting, growing vegetables, raising poultry, weaving brocade, and exploiting Pu Cang cave in Nam Khat commune.

These projects have created jobs for many people in Mu Cang Chai and contributed significantly to introduce the beauty and potential of this pristine land to investors. Thinh shared that district and provincial authorities had called for investors to come to Mu Cang Chai many years ago, but only small homestays were developed.

But in recent years, many investors in the field of tourism have begun to visit Mu Cang Chai to conduct surveys and build high-class luxury resorts, signalling a new wave of funding preparing to rush into this area.

Agri-tourism is of higher interest to visitors these days

Earlier this year, 900 hectares of the 4,500ha terraced fields in Mu Cang Chai were recognised as a special national beautiful landscape by the Prime Minister. At the same time, being named in the list of top destinations in the world in 2020 announced by US news agency CNBC has created momentum for tourism of Mu Cang Chai to develop even stronger in the future.

The orientation of Mu Cang Chai district is to turn tourism into a spearhead economic sector of the locality, but that development must be placed in the master plan so as not to break the scenic space and so that it moves towards sustainable development with the green tourism model, linking tourism activities with agriculture and environmental protection.

Therefore, despite welcoming investors, Mu Cang Chai district is also very strict in the selection of such investors for long-term co-operation. The story of investors coming to Mu Cang Chai is not a story of how large the projects are or how much the costs are, but the stories of green projects on a guaranteed sustainable plan in exploiting nature and maintaining long-term benefits between local people and businesses.

Therefore, although the number of tourists is increasing each year, including 250,000 domestic tourists and 37,200 international visitors in 2019, the whole district has just over 100 accommodation and food services, a rudimentary number that does not meet the needs of travellers.

With the support of local authorities, many Mong and Thai people in Mu Cang Chai are willing to travel to Sapa town and Lai Chau province to learn how to carry out community tourism, then return to invest and develop their own homeland. The long-term orientation of utilising available resources is one of the solutions encouraged to be implemented by the district, while waiting for investors who are interested in seeking co-operation and sustainable development to imprint Mu Cang Chai as a friendly and safe tourism destination for cultural and eco-luxury travellers worldwide.
The Chief Executive Officer of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), John Ampontuah Kumah, has said the time is ripe for him to lead the people of the Ejisu Constituency in the Ashanti Region, as they need a saviour.



According to him, his main objective of aspiring to become the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area is to bring development to the constituency and create more jobs for the youth, asserting that he has the ability to manoeuvre a complex political system to bring about needed changes required by the people of Ejisu.



He told DAILY GUIDE that he had campaigned vigorously at Ejisu at his spare time to ensure that he wins the June 20 NPP primary to represent the people on December 7.



He said the training of 7,000 startups under the Presidential Business Support Programme amply attests to his ability on job creation, and added that a total of 1,350 beneficiaries had been supported with funds ranging from GH10,000.00 to GH100,000.



Kumah said he had the wherewithal, stature, credibility and the sincerity to lead the people of the constituency, intimating the NPP at Ejisu needs such a person to lead the constituency.



The constituency needs someone who is not a consensus builder but one who is a strong leader and has faith in the greatness of what the Ejisu Constituency has to offer even in the most trying times, he added.



Mr. Kumah, a lawyer, said he would continue to campaign devoid of acrimony and bickering, since he said the primary was a family contest and the biggest task was for the NPP to focus on how to secure the mandate of the

Source: daily guide









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The authorities are investigating the vandalism of a sign that memorialized a Missouri man, Levi Harrington, who was lynched in the 1880s, the police in Kansas City, Mo., said on Monday.

A spokesman for the police, Sgt. Jake Becchina, said that no one had reported the incident to the police, but that they were now looking into it after being notified by news reports.

The navy blue and gold sign was removed from its post and tossed over a small wall and down a cliff, according to photos posted on social media and local news outlets.

The sign was unveiled in 2018 by community leaders and the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, in West Terrace Park to memorialize Mr. Harrington, a well-respected African-American man who lived with his wife and five children near Kansas City, according to the marker.
Eliceo Hernandez, 20, was arrested in the death of officer Julian Keen Jr. over the weekend (Hendry County Jail)

Suspect Arrested in Slaying of Florida Wildlife Officer: Authorities

A suspect has been arrested in the slaying of a 30-year-old Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer in Florida.

Eliceo Hernandez, 20, was arrested in the death of officer Julian Keen Jr. over the weekend, officials told Fox35. Hernandez was charged with negligent homicide, according to WINK News.

Hernandezs arrest came after three suspects in the case were taken in for questioning. The two others have not been charged.

According to officials, Hernandez was taken to the Hendry County Jail. His bond was set at $500,000, and his next court date is Aug. 4.

Authorities said that Keen was off-duty and was trying to stop a hit-and-run suspect when he was gunned down. Several law enforcement agencies confirmed and mourned Keens death.

It is with heavy hearts that we confirm the tragic death of Officer Julian Keen. Our thoughts are with his friends and family during this difficult time. #Officer #Florida #LawEnforcement pic.twitter.com/SJdgwqcQ5S  MyFWC (@MyFWC) June 14, 2020

Hendry County Sheriff Steven Whidden also told news outlets: We will do everything we can to bring about justice to those guilty in his shooting death.

We all knew Officer Keen, and he wasnt only our brother but a role model for the community. He will be missed, the sheriff said.

The Florida Highway Patrol Command Officers Association stated, He was a genuine officer who would literally give his shirt off his back to ANYONE who needed it. Please pray for his family and law enforcement everywhere as we face these troubling times.

The Sumter County Sheriffs Office also offered condolences to Keens family.

We wish to offer our condolences to FWC, the family and friends of FWC Officer Julian Keen who lost his life last night. You have our deepest sympathies, prayers for you all, a Facebook post from the local agency said.




GOVERNMENT is considering coming up with a special fuel facility for frontline workers who are losing a lot of productive time in fuel queues.





This was said by Energy and Power Development Minister Advocate Fortune Chasi yesterday. Fresh fuel shortages have hit the country and in Bulawayo most service stations have been dry for the past week.





A Chronicle news crew observed yesterday that there were long winding queues at very few service stations which had fuel selling in local currency. Service stations that sell in forex had few vehicles refueling.





Due to the ongoing fuel crisis, illegal fuel dealers continue to thrive in the city with new selling spots sprouting.





Frontline workers who include but are not limited to doctors, nurses, police, the media and security services have seen their work being disrupted by the fuel shortages.





Minister Chasi said Government was considering introducing a fuel facility for those in the frontline for a while, but was still looking into the logistical side of implementing the programme.





We have actually been looking at how we can possibly be helpful to critical businesses and essential services. Doctors, nurses this is not a conclusive list. We also have the media, police, and others. We are looking into how best we could assist and set up the facility so that they dont lose productive time, we are just not yet sure about how to go about the logistics of it. It is something that we have been looking at and is under consideration, he said.





Minister Chasi said motorists should expect relief as fuel deliveries were expected countrywide with effect from today.





The current holdings that we have at the moment are 4,2 million cubic metres of fuel at our depot. 4, 2237 million cubic metres, inclusive of 2,4 million litres of diesel and 1,8 million litres of blend. We are trying to raise this to about 6 million cubic metres of fuel. We have put in place some measures to ensure that we have enough supplies and as we speak, we have some fuel on its way to the rest of the country. Shortages must ease, he said.





After tomorrow, I think there should be a reasonably good supply of fuel countrywide. We have indeed faced some fuel challenges due to some logistical issues, among other things. The shortage has been a nationwide phenomenon. We are working on logistics to ensure that supplies are delivered across the country.





Asked on why the country was facing fuel challenges during a lockdown when some sectors of the economy and industry are not yet operational, the Minister said there was increased vehicular traffic in the streets despite the fact that a lockdown was still in place, after some restrictions were eased.





Its very difficult to answer that question on why we have fuel shortages during lockdown wen a considerable number of industries are still closed, but people are buying fuel for the various activities that needs fuel, there is a lot of vehicular traffic now also that some lockdown restrictions were eased, said Minister Chasi.





At some service stations in the city centre, cars were in queues, with motorists only anticipating fuel deliveries.





At a Puma Service Station at the corner of Joshua Nkomo Street and 15th Avenue, a fight broke out between some motorists after one was accused of helping jump the queue.





There was a group of people standing at the fueling point, monitoring and most were not putting on masks while social distancing was also not being observed.





Although the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority increased pump price of diesel to $24,93 per litre and petrol to $28,96 per litre, demand has remained high.





Prior to the latest price hikes the maximum pump price for diesel was $20,84/litre in Harare and $21/litre for blend while in Bulawayo diesel sold between $21,59 and $22,55/litre while petrol sold for between $21,76 and $23,30/litre.





National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC) chairperson, Engineer Daniel Mackenzie Ncube, last week told Chronicle that some service stations were diverting the fuel to the black market where they were making more money by selling the product in forex.




(Reuters) - State investigators in both California and Washington are examining Amazons business practices, two newspapers reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The inquiries focus at least in part on how Amazon treats sellers in its online marketplace, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported on Friday.

Amazon declined to comment on the report of an investigation by California. It was not immediately available for comment outside regular market hours on the Washington review report.

The reports said California state is reviewing Amazons practices on selling its own products in competition with third-party vendors. Amazon said its in-house products only account for about 1% of its total annual retail sales.

Washington state is also investigating whether Amazon makes it harder for sellers to list their products on other websites, the NYT reported. The inquiries did not appear to be in advanced stages, the NYT report added, citing sources.

A spokeswoman for the Washington attorney general told the NYT that the office did not confirm or deny investigations. California attorney generals office told the NYT that it does not comment on any pending or potential investigations.

The California and Washington attorney generals were not immediately available when approached by Reuters for comment.

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee last month called on Chief Executive Jeff Bezos to testify about allegations that Amazon uses data from its own third-party sellers to create competing products.

Amazon is already being investigated by the European Commission for its dual role as a marketplace and as a rival, after complaints from traders.

It may also face EU antitrust charges in the coming weeks over its use of data on merchants with whom it competes on its platform, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source.
The identity of an eight-year-old boy who died in a caravan accident on a rural highway has been revealed.

Brettson Payne was killed after he fell out the door of a white Roma caravan on Edith Farms Road in Katherine in the Northern Territory on Sunday.

The caravan was being towed behind a white Mazda utility when the young boy fell out of the cabin and suffered serious head injuries.

He later died at Katherine District Hospital.

Brettson was travelling in the caravan with some of his seven siblings to a friend's house when the incident occurred, police allege.

Brettson Payne was killed in a horror caravan accident in Katherine in the Northern Territory on Sunday

His father Brett Payne told NT News his family and friends will always remember Brettson's infectious smile.

'You wouldnt have to look at his mouth for a smile you could just look at his eyes and see the smile in his eyes,' he said.

Brettson loved his rugby league and was a huge Brisbane Broncos fan who played for the Katherine Bushrangers.

'He was a energetic, cheeky, always happy and wanted to go fishing and play rugby. He just loved the bush life,' Mr Payne said.

'Even people in the street loved him. He was just very happy.'

The Payne family have started a GoFundMe to raise money for Brettson's funeral, which has received more than $7,500 in donations.

The driver of the ute was charged by major crash detectives on Monday.

Police allege the 31-year-old Katherine man was travelling with nine children and a number of them were unrestrained, including four children inside the caravan.

His family said they will remember Brettson as a cheeky, energetic boy who loved to play footy

He was charged with driving a motor vehicle causing death and is due to front Katherine Local Court on August 10.

Major Crash Investigation Unit and local detectives continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident.

Police have seized the white Mazda utility and white Roma caravan involved in the incident.
FAIRFAX, Va. (June 15, 2020)-- Interventional radiologists participating in a collaborative house call model in rural Indiana helped reduce emergency department use by 77 percent and hospital readmissions by 50 percent for nearly 1,000 elderly homebound patients with chronic illnesses, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting on June 13. The novel care model brings interventional radiology treatments into patients' homes to provide more value through in-home advanced specialty care, prevent common complications of chronic diseases, and avoid unnecessary emergency department visits and hospital admissions.

"Older homebound patients, including those in nursing home settings, have few resources available to receive specialty care and often delay care until preventable issues become urgent and acute," said Nazar Golewale, MD, lead author of the study and an interventional radiologist with Modern Vascular & Vein Center in Valparaiso, Indiana and the northwest Indiana area. "By providing image-guided treatments in a patient's home, we are improving access to care that otherwise would need to be delivered in the hospital."

Dr. Golewale sees more than 900 of the practice's patients to diagnose and manage their conditions. Through varieties of portable technology, he brings interventional radiology care into patients' homes that would normally be delivered in clinics, such as ultrasound-guided needle biopsy, paracentesis and thoracentesis, ultrasound-guided joint injections for pain, wound care, and drug infusions. Payments for care are covered by Medicare reimbursement for homebound patients.

The care partnership was formed to overcome the difficulty of providing specialty care for chronically ill, homebound patients in Dr. Golewale's rural community. As a result of the program, patient satisfaction scores increased from 17 percent to 84 percent from before and after implementation of the program. Primary care providers, including internists and nurse practitioners, recruited specialists based on the needs of the patients they serve. In addition to interventional radiology, the house call practice includes providers in internal medicine, podiatry, laboratory services, and wound care.

"Some specialty services are available at our local hospitals, but cost-effective ways of coordinating patients' transportation and visits remained a significant barrier to care," said Golewale. "By bringing the hospital care to the patient, we're eliminating these hurdles and providing timely, personalized care."

Abstract 117: A Novel Health Care Delivery Model-House Call Docs. N. Golewale, Modern Vascular & Vein Center, Valparaiso, IN, S. Sinha, House Call Doc, PC, Highland, IN.

The research was originally scheduled to be presented in person at SIR's Annual Scientific Meeting, March 28-April 2, in Seattle before the meeting was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. Visit sirmeeting.org for the latest information.

###

About the Society of Interventional Radiology

The Society of Interventional Radiology is a nonprofit, professional medical society representing more than 8,000 practicing interventional radiology physicians, trainees, students, scientists and clinical associates, dedicated to improving patient care through the limitless potential of image-guided therapies. SIR's members work in a variety of settings and at different professional levels--from medical students and residents to university faculty and private practice physicians. Visit sirweb.org.
The Canton Fair, also known as the China Import and Export Fair, has been moved to the cloud for the first time since its inception 63 years ago, Sina Finance reported on Monday.

About 50 virtual exhibition areas have been launched to promote supply and purchase side matchmaking and business negotiations all day long since opening on June 15.

In addition, 24-hour online services including IP protection, finance and convenient customs clearance are provided to guarantee the interests of foreign trade companies are protected.

The establishment of new platforms and supporting measures will provide new opportunities to explore the international market and new engines for the world's economic and trade cooperation, analysts said.

Many participating companies, including electrical appliances manufacturer Midea Group and machinery company SUMEC Group, have been actively preparing for the livestream with the aid of new technology.

About 60 to 70 percent of customers have confirmed they will attend the online exhibition, which indicates people are optimistic about Chinese products and strengthens confidence in fair participation, said Yang Yongqing, President of SUMEC Group.

Holding the 127th Canton Fair online is not only an important measure to tackle challenges brought by COVID-19, but also showcases China's determination to stabilize foreign trade, said Pang Ran, associate researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute.

Making full use of information technologies including internet, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, this year's Canton Fair showed an innovative method of cooperation for foreign and domestic companies and inspired confidence to find opportunities amid challenges.

The Canton Fair has been held every spring and autumn in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong province, since its founding in 1957, and is seen as a barometer of China's foreign trade.
The military has launched its second big study looking at how the novel coronavirus affects young people, this time at a Marine Corps' recruit depot that saw an early COVID-19 outbreak.

More than 1,000 people at Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina have volunteered to participate in the COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines -- or CHARM -- study. Personnel from the Maryland-based Naval Medical Research Center are leading the study, which started May 4 and will last about four months.

Read next: Hundreds of Sailors Participated in a COVID-19 Antibodies Study. Here's What Was Learned

Researchers leading the CHARM study hope to learn more about the new virus, which has created a global pandemic, infecting nearly eight million people worldwide and killing more than 115,000 Americans.

"The objectives include understanding more about this new virus by identifying individuals who acquire COVID-19 with only mild or no symptoms, understanding the prevalence of the virus within the [boot camp] population, and assessing how the body responds to and fights the virus," said Regena Kowitz, a spokeswoman for Naval Medical Forces Pacific, which oversees all Navy medicine research and development efforts.

This is the second major study on the illness involving Defense Department personnel. The Navy and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week wrapped up a two-month study on the COVID-19 outbreak on the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. About 380 people participated in that study, which found 20% of volunteers who tested positive showed no symptoms of the illness, and masks and social distancing helped prevent new cases.

Navy Surgeon General Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham said that, since volunteers in the CHARM study will be tracked for several weeks, the hope is researchers will learn more about possible immunity to COVID-19. Data from the study on the Roosevelt was based on one point in time, he said.

Volunteers at Parris Island each agree to give a nasal swab test and saliva and blood samples six times over a 56-day period, Kowitz said. The samples are taken on Days 1, 7, 14, 28, 42 and 56.

Those participating in the study also answer questionnaires and provide information about their demographics, living conditions, symptoms and risk assessments, Kowitz added.

The findings will help not only Parris Island plan for preventing and minimizing future outbreaks, she said, but the entire Defense Department.

The Marine Corps was the first military service to temporarily halt incoming shipments of new recruits at its East Coast training base. That was in March, after more than 20 people there tested positive for COVID-19, the sometimes-fatal illness caused by the coronavirus.

The military no longer releases information on outbreaks at specific locations, but an official with knowledge of the situation at Parris Island said there have been about 150 cases of COVID-19 at the South Carolina base. Nearly everyone who has tested positive there -- including recruits, drill instructors, other Marines and civilians -- has since recovered from the illness, the official said.

The Marine Corps, along with the other military services, has taken a host of steps to help prevent COVID-19 from spreading at boot camp. After resuming incoming shipments of recruits in April, the service began sending the new arrivals to the Citadel military college about 75 miles northeast of the training base for a 14-day quarantine.

Researchers ask recruits whether they're willing to volunteer for the CHARM study before they begin training, Kowitz said. To ensure no one feels compelled to participate, she said no one in the recruits' chain of command is present when they're asked.

"Additionally, all study personnel wear civilian attire throughout the recruitment and informed consent process, also to avoid the possibility of influencing participation," she added.

Drill instructors who have previously been infected with COVID-19 have also been asked to volunteer in a sub-study examining the immune system's response to the illness. That portion of the study, Kowitz said, will assess the possibility of the illness being spread by asymptomatic people.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

Related: 'We Are Putting Lives in Danger': Recruiters Urge Boot Camp Closures Amid Pandemic
It was a rare celebration of Aboriginal women, who had previously been excluded from such occasions. Flower girl and boy at the 1968 Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs debutante ball at Sydney Town Hall. Credit:John Elliott I felt we did belong there and it was our night to shine. Wed never had that opportunity before, recalls one woman who made her debut. The watershed event has spawned similar Indigenous-run balls across the country, including one organised by Luis mother, Jennifer Beale, in the western Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt. Instead of being presented to a monarch, the young women are presented to a local elder. After waltzing the Pride of Erin, debutantes add their own flavour with traditional cultural dances.

Butucarbin Aboriginal Corporation Naidoc Debutantes Ball in 2018. Credit:Louise Kennerley The area is one of the poorest places in Australia, Lui says, with massive inequalities in education, health and housing. A lot of young Aboriginal people dont finish high school and miss out on senior formals or graduation ceremonies, so the ball is one of the only moments when teenagers  especially young women  can feel beautiful, celebrated and empowered. Tapsell says her teenage self would have savoured such a moment: I think 16-year-old Miranda would've walked into the adult world with her head a little higher. The Larrakia woman says she was endlessly bullied in high school.

Judy Shepherd getting ready for the Butucarbin Aboriginal Corporation Naidoc Debutantes Ball in 2018. Credit:Louise Kennerley I felt like all people could ever talk to me about was being Aboriginal or being short  I just felt like lots of limitations were placed on me. She turned to acting to break free of those limitations. Her crowning moment came at her year 12 formal when she was awarded most likely to become a movie star: That was kind of the pinnacle moment for me, where I went: yeah, I can take on the adult world  and no one's going to stop me. As Tapsell and Lui set out to speak to other Indigenous and African-American women across the globe, they find they have much in common. Every day I was surprised at the conversations we were having and the places we were going, Lui says.

On location in Minnesota, US: Miranda Tapsell and Nakkiah Lui meet Mary Kunesh Podein (centre) at Minnesota State Capitol. She recalls one poignant moment, when she swapped stories with an African-American woman at the site of a former slave market in Atlanta, a few blocks from the church where Martin Luther King used to preach. We sat there and held each other's hands and cried as we realised that our grandmothers were eerily similar, she says. The grandmothers of both women had an obsession with cleanliness and keeping up appearances, to the extent they would insist their children always wore matching underwear. Being clean was the reason why your children didn't get taken away, Lui says.

And we laughed about it, but it was also so incredibly sad: because of that shared trauma and those shared practices of colonisation that happened around the world. The pair also travelled to Minnesota, which has since become the epicentre of a renewed global Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in police custody. Tapsell says it's been "really tough" to see the footage of the unrest. "We spoke to a lot of Ojibwe and Dakota people who are the traditional owners of that area and it was just so amazing to have these conversations on the other side of the world, and their history could almost be cut and paste [with Australian history]." Debutante deftly shifts between a fun, gently mocking critique of outdated traditions and a deeper dissection of the darker history of colonialism, violence and oppression upon which such traditions are built.

It pivots from giggling over etiquette classes in London (where Lui learns a hard lesson about the burp-inducing properties of champagne) to raw conversations about how First Nations people are trying to carve out their own place in Western society. Lui says history and politics were always going to form part of the discussion. Inevitably you want to be able to talk about things comprehensively and in a way where it's not a lecture, it's a conversation, she says. Often we think that politics  or being political, is something you can opt in and out of. For myself, I think politics are totally a part of your identity, because that's what constructs your identity. For Lui, the way in which African-American and Indigenous communities have claimed ownership of the debutante ball is, in itself, an act of rebellion  and a cause for optimism.
Actor Sushant Singh Rajputs last rites were performed at the Vile Parle crematorium on Monday. He was found dead at his house on Sunday, at the age of 34. While some members of his family flew down to Mumbai late Sunday, his father arrived with other family members from Patna on Monday afternoon.

Seen at the funeral, amid heavy rain, were his Chhichhore co-stars Shraddha Kapoor and Varun Sharma, his Raabta co-star Kriti Sanon, and his Dil Bechara director Mukesh Chhabra, among others. Also in attendance was Sushants Kedarnath and Kai Po Che director Abhishek Kapoor, who came with his wife, Pragya.

WATCH | Sushant Singh Rajput funeral: Kriti Sanon, Shraddha Kapoor, others attend

Kriti Sanon at Sushant Singh Rajputs funeral. (Varinder Chawla)

Shraddha Kapoor at Sushant Singh Rajputs funeral. (Varinder Chawla)

Pictures and videos also showed actor Rajkummar Rao, Sushants Sonchiriya co-star Ranvir Shorey, Vivek Oberoi, producer Dinesh Vijan and actor-producer Jaccky Bhagnani at the funeral.

Ranvir Shorey at Sushant Singh Rajputs funeral. (Varinder Chawla)

Rajkummar Rao and Dinesh Vijan at Sushant Singh Rajputs funeral. (Varinder Chawla)

The actors body was taken to the Cooper hospital in Mumbai for a post-mortem. The provisional cause of death is asphyxia due to hanging, Abhishek Trimukhe, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), told ANI. While the police have confirmed that Sushant died by suicide, no note was found at his residence. Sushants team shared a message for his fans: It pains us to share that Sushant Singh Rajput is no longer with us. We request his fans to keep him in their thoughts and celebrate his life, and his work like they have done so far. We request media to help us maintain privacy at this moment of grief.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: Rhea Chakraborty arrives at hospital

Sushant was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

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- Black Coffee felt the heat when a number of peeps criticised a number of things regarding his upcoming men's march

- The star has organised a men's and boys' march to protest woman abuse

- The march will be taking place today from 9am in Commissioner Street, Soweto

- Everyone will be dressed in all black and masks are compulsory

PAY ATTENTION: Click See First under the Following tab to see Briefly.co.za News on your News Feed!

Black Coffee lashed out after some social media users criticised a few things about his upcoming men's march.

Peeps didn't like some of the wording on his poster and also called him out for his behaviour towards his estranged wife, Enhle Mbali.

Black Coffee has organised a men's march aimed at bringing awareness to woman abuse in Mzansi.

The march is set to take place today at 9am in Soweto, Johannesburg.

The star has called for men and boys who will participate in the march to wear all black.

READ ALSO: The Queen trends as notorious Shaka Khoza makes unforgettable return

The first thing people had a problem with was Black Coffee's poster.

Feminists pointed out that the wording "our women" implied that women were somehow men's possessions.

Then tweeps started calling Black Coffee out for "emotionally abusing" his estranged wife, actress and designer Enhle Mbali.

Earlier this year, Briefly.co.za reported that Black Coffee dumped Enhle after allegedly cheating and siring kids outside of wedlock.

There was also another allegation that Black Coffee had ignored his friend's partner when she reported his abuse of her to him.

As more and more fingers kept pointing his way, Black Coffee eventually tweeted, "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

However, there's been no cancellation announcement of the march, therefore it's safe to assume that it will be going ahead as previously planned.

Enjoyed reading our story? Download BRIEFLY's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major South African news!

Source: Briefly News
New Delhi: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found hanging in his Mumbai apartment on Sunday, had made four phone calls in his last few hours, as per Mumbai Police investigation. At 1.47 am, he had dialed his close friend Rhea Chakraborty, but she failed to receive the call. Within minutes, he phoned his close friend-actor Mahesh Shetty, who also did not take the call.

In the morning, just a few hours before Sushant committed suicide, Mahesh, on seeing the actors missed call on his phone dialed him back. However, this time, Sushant failed to respond. Later, Mahesh learnt from the police that Sushant tried to call him at 9.30 am, but could not reach out to him.

As per the investigation, Sushant had a glass of pomegranate juice before breakfast. At 10.25 am, his cook Neeraj knocked on the door of his bedroom to ask about the menu for lunch. He was accompanied by other house helps too. A friend of Sushant was also present at his home. He woke up at 11 am and enquired about the actor. Sometime later, he knocked on Sushants door. After failing to get a response from him, the friend called him. They could hear the phone ringing from outside and after Sushant didnt respond to the call, his sister Ritu was informed.

By the time Ritu arrived at Sushants residence, a staff member had already called a key-maker to open the bedroom door. In the meantime, Ritu narrated the incident to her husband, who is an official with the Haryana government. He immediately called up Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh for help.

At 12.25 pm, when they opened the bedroom, Sushant was found hanging from the ceiling. After the doctors checked on him, he was declared dead.

Sushant, who was just 34, is survived by his father KK Singh and four sisters. He had lost his mother in 2002. He was said to be under stress and depression for the last few months.

Sushant Singh Rajput was the star of films such as Kai Po Chhe!, Shuddh Desi Romance, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Kedarnath and Chhichore, among several others. He was also a TV sensation with two hit shows - Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil and Pavitra Rishta  to his credit.
New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs on Monday (June 15) summoned Pakistan's Charge d'affaires to India Syed Hyder Shah after two officials of Indian High Commission in Islamabad went missing. In the demarche, it was made clear to the Pakistani CDA that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials and the responsibility for their safety and security lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, PTI quoted sources as saying.

The sources added that Indian also asked Pakistan to ensure the return of two Indian officials along with the official car to Indian High Commission in Islamabad immediately.

Pakistani media reported that two Indian staffers, who went missing on Monday morning, were arrested by Pakistani authorities for their alleged involvement in a 'hit and run accident'.

The two Indian High Commission officials in Pakistan have been missing since over 9 hours now, at the time of filing the report. Earlier in the day, the Indian envoy in Pakistan confirmed the development and said that the matter has been taken up with Islamabad.

It is learnt that both the Indian High Commission staffers were CISF drivers and they went missing at around 8:30 am while they were out on duty in Islamabad.

The development comes a few days after India had expelled two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi after they were caught red-handed for spying against India. The two Pakistani officials worked in the visa section of the High Commission in New Delhi.

On May 31, the Indian authorities had nabbed two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi's Karol Bagh while they were trying to source a sensitive document. For this act of espionage, India had declared them as persona non grata and both were sent back to Islamabad on June 1.

It is alleged that the two had assumed fake Indian identities. The authorities had also recovered a fake Aadhaar card by the name of Nasir Gotam, resident of Geeta colony from them. Also, two Apple iPhone and Rs 15,000 in cash were recovered by the authorities.

The two officials, Abdi Hussain Abid, aged 42 and Tahir Khan, aged 44 had come in a Pakistani diplomatic car. After probe it was revealed that the Pakistan High Commission was in the process of selling the car.

Earlier on June 5, it was reported that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been harassing and intimidating Indias top diplomat in Islamabad. The report stated that ISI had stationed multiple persons in cars and bikes outside his residence to harass and intimidate him.
The Government today announced the mechanism for legal practitioners providing necessary professional services in relation to important and large-scale commercial transactions to apply for exemption from the compulsory quarantine arrangement.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) has started processing applications. Legal practitioners should submit the completed application form with all required supporting documents to the DoJ by email.

Under the Compulsory Quarantine of Certain Persons Arriving at Hong Kong Regulation, the Chief Secretary may designate any person or category of people for exemption from the quarantine arrangement if their travelling is necessary for purposes relating to the provision of professional services in the interest of Hong Kong's economic development.

The Chief Secretary has recently exempted qualified legal practitioners who travel from the Mainland, Macau or Taiwan to Hong Kong to provide legal services that require on-site physical presence in relation to important and large-scale commercial transactions from compulsory quarantine.

Legal practitioners who return to Hong Kong from the Mainland, Macau or Taiwan after provision of legal services that require on-site physical presence in relation to such transactions are also exempted.

After arriving in Hong Kong, the exempted person will be subject to medical surveillance arranged by the Department of Health for 14 days.

Currently, travellers to the Mainland and Macau would still be subject to the 14-day compulsory quarantine requirement imposed by authorities in those places.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is discussing with Mainland and Macau authorities about mutual recognition of COVID-19 testing results conducted by recognised medical laboratories to exempt the quarantine requirement for Hong Kong travellers to those places.

Click here for details.
SEYMOUR  For many residents on Scott Avenue and Route 115, the death of a 19-year-old neighbor fatally shot at a graduation party in New York City was being heard for the first time Monday afternoon.

Tyanna Johnson, who had lived in the neighborhood for about two years, was shot five times, once in the head, after two men drove up to a party at Bronx Park Saturday night and opened fire into the crowd. Three other people were wounded.

NYPD Detectives Chief Rodney Harrison said in a Tweet that two unknown males got out of a silver BMW around 11 p.m. and opened fire on the graduation party.

This should have been a joyous occasion, Harrison said, but instead it turned into a nightmare.

An older woman watching two young children on the basement patio of the two-story brick Cape Cod-style home here where Johnson lived declined to answer questions.

Neighbors, while expressing condolences, said they knew very little about the family who lived in the house or about the teen and had not heard about her death.

Really? Thats a shock. Im hearing this for the first time, said Ken Rzepecki, who lives across the street from where Johnson was living. I never saw the girl.

Rzepecki and John Barker, 87, who lives near Rzepecki, said they only knew the family to say hello.

When they moved here, I welcomed them and told them to let me know if you need anything, Rzepecki said. They seem like nice people.

Barker agreed but added that, its not like before. No one knows their neighbors anymore.

A woman living two houses away on Scott Avenue said she noticed a gathering at the home Sunday with many cars bearing New York license plates.

New York police said Johnson was shot during the party in Bronx Park near Bronx Boulevard and East 226th Street. She died at Jacobi Hospital.

Two men were seen fleeing in a silver BMW. No arrests have been made.

The departments 47th precinct is handling the investigation, according to the NYPDs public information office.

Video of the incident shared by Harrison on Twitter shows five people jumping into a car and driving away as bystanders run from the scene.

Harrison said police believe Johnson was caught in the gunfire and not the intended target.

Also shot were a 15-year-old boy, who was wounded in the backside; a 16-year-old boy shot in the ankle, and a 24-year-old man shot in the groin. Police said they are all in stable condition.

Anyone with information regarding the identity of the individuals responsible can contact Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (8477) or DM @nypdtips.

Past reporting by staff writer Josh LaBella contributed to this report.
The LG Velvet will launch in key European markets soon. The company has announced that its newest premium smartphone will arrive in Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Poland this month, without revealing the exact launch date.

The European launch will be followed by debuts in North America, Asia, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America in the weeks ahead. The handset may not arrive in these markets before July, though.

LG has yet to reveal the Velvets pricing in international markets. The smartphone launched in South Korea last month with a price tag of 899,800 won, which roughly translates to $740 or 660 as of now. It may cost slightly lesser in global markets.

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The LG Velvet was spotted on the companys Italian website last month with a June 2020 launch date. The listing still exists but it doesnt reveal anything about the devices price and exact release date.

LG Velvet launches in Europe in June

Featuring a new design language, that includes a slim profile, curved edges, and a raindrop camera array, the LG Velvet is a premium-looking high-end smartphone from the South Korean company. Its key specifications include a Snapdragon 765G SoC, a 6.8-inch OLED display, 6GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 48-megapixel triple rear camera setup, in-display fingerprint sensor, and a 4,300 mAh battery with 25W fast charging.

The LG Velvet is a 5G-capable smartphone and comes with IP68 certification for dust and water resistance. It also features Bluetooth 5.1, NFC, HDR10 capabilities, and a MIL-STD-810G military-grade build.

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LG is also selling a dual-screen accessory with this phone. It features a 6.8-inch Full HD+ OLED display, as well as a 2.1-inch monochrome cover display. It weighs 129 grams and connects via the USB Type-C port. LG says both the Velvet and dual-screen displays work with compatible active stylus pens.

The LG Velvet seemingly has had a successful introduction in South Korea. The company is now planning to make it global, starting with key European markets this month. The initial launch should be followed by the arrival of LG Velvet in other markets in Europe, including the UK.

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An LTE variant is also coming

Last week, it was revealed that the LG Velvet could be available in a 4G (LTE) variant in the US, with a Snapdragon 845 chip inside. Now, the company has officially confirmed the existence of an LTE-only LG Velvet smartphone.

In its announcement post, LG said that the Aurora Silver and New Black color variants of the smartphone will be exclusive for the LTE model. The 5G variant, meanwhile, will come in Aurora Gray, Aurora Green, Aurora White, and Illusion Sunset color options.

LG also recently launched Aurora Blue, Aurora Red, and Aurora Pink color variants in the domestic market but those arent coming to international markets. They may down the line, though. The dual-screen accessory will be available in White, Gray, and Silver colors.

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The company didnt reveal the chip details for the LTE variant. However, it did say that chipset may vary depending on the market and carrier. Talking about carriers, the handset should be available through all major carriers in the US.

Its unclear if LG plans to sell both 4G as well as 5G variants of the phone simultaneously. If it does, the LTE-only LG Velvet will likely arrive stateside at the same time as its 5G counterpart. The handset has already been certified by the FCC, so its only a matter of time now.
The Africa Secretariat of the Infrastructure Transparency Initiative Programme, (CoST) has expressed profound shock and sadness, at the death of Mr Anthony K.K. Sam.



"Our office has received with profound shock and sadness the news of the untimely demise of our friend and a great champion, Mr Anthony K.K Sam, Mayor of Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA)... Anthony was very instrumental in the establishment and success of CoST STMA programme and was very passionate to serve his people beyond self".



Mr Gilbert Sendugwa, Africa Senior Regional Manager, CoST programmes, in a statement said "we were pleased to see his personal commitment to the programme through his attendance and address of STMA Assembly on CoST, community meetings as well as one-on-one meetings with us.



We observed this when I met him at the Open Government Partnership Summit in Ottawa, Canada and in STMA when we visited.



The Senior Regional Manager continued, "On the morning before we left for the airport, Sam had a breakfast meeting with us during which he inquired of our observations and areas where CoST STMA could improve. Later, he personally picked us from the hotel and drove us to the airport".



"We have lost not only a great champion, but also a friend, with his hard work, leadership and caring heart, Sam was connected to each of you and collectively as Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG)," he added.



We are confident that this will propel the STMA to ensure that His vision for a successful CoST programme lives on.



"On behalf of CoST programmes in Africa and my own behalf please accept our heartfelt condolences and sympathy to the MSG, Sams family and STMA community," Mr Sendugwa said.

Source: GNA









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US Senate calls for new F-35 hub, strategic arms buildup in Pacific to deter China

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 2:21 AM

US Senate Armed Services Committee has approved a $740 billion military budget that partially calls for spending nearly $7 billion over two years to launch an aggressive move towards deterring China and shoring up American military buildup in the Pacific region.

The budget further calls for strategic deployments of weapons and platforms to keep China and other perceived threats, such as Russia, at bay, according to a Friday report by Military.com news outlet.

The Pacific Deterrence Initiative, approved as part of the Senate version of the 2021 defense budget and policy bill, also includes $1.4 billion for next year and plans $5.5 billion for fiscal 2022 to augment missile defense, fund new efforts in support of regional allies, and forward-posture more troops in the region.

"The best way to protect US security and prosperity in Asia is to maintain a credible balance of military power but, after years of underfunding, America's ability to do so is at risk," said a summary of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The Senate-approved NDAA "encourages" the US Air Force to establish a new F-35A Joint Strike Fighter operating location in the Indo-Pacific region "quickly to posture ready forces in our priority arena," added the summary of the bill.

Elements of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative also include improving active and passive missile-defense systems for bases and operating locations in the region; building up the military's system of prepositioned stockpiles, including vehicles, weapons and fuel; and starting to transition the military's operating model in the Pacific from large and difficult-to-defend bases to "dispersed, resilient, and adaptive basing."

Deploying Israeli-made Iron Dome weapons system

The bill further requires the secretary of the Army to draft and present a plan to station or deploy its two batteries of interim cruise missile defense capability into operational theaters. This refers to the Israeli-built Iron Dome weapons system that was purchased by the US Army in 2019 to fill what was considered as an urgent capability gap. The Army is due to take delivery of the first of two Iron Dome batteries in December.

Moreover, the NDAA would require the chief of naval operations and the head of US European Command (EUCOM) to collaborate on a "detailed plan" to base two additional guided-missile destroyers in Rota, Spain -- a hub that has been used as a launch pad for quick-response forces to Africa and the surrounding region.

EUCOM commander, Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, asked for two additional destroyers in Rota to execute command-and-control in light of increased Russian undersea activity in the region during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February.

The Senate bill, which totals $740.5 billion, must still be reconciled with an identical bill that is to be passed by the US House of Representatives. The House Armed Services Committee plans to mark up its version of the bill later this month.

Bill Includes pay raise, controversial changes

The Senate version of the NDAA for fiscal 2021 also includes a 3-percent pay raise for the military and controversial provisions banning the use of troops against peaceful protesters and calling for renaming military bases honoring racist Confederate leaders.

The differences between the House and Senate versions of the NDAA will then have to be hashed out in a House-Senate conference committee before going to Trump for approval against a deadline of October 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

War budget for Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere

The Senate committee's proposal for the so-called "war budget," or Overseas Contingency Operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere, is $69 billion within the overall $740.5 billion and about the same as proposed by the Defense Department.

On Afghanistan, the Senate committee's bill includes "a sense of the Senate expressing concerns about the risks of a abrupt withdrawal of US military, diplomatic, and intelligence personnel from Afghanistan and the need to ensure such decisions are conditions-based."

Focus on countering Russia, China

In terms of strategy, the committee's summary further stated that the goal of the spending proposal is to accomplish the objectives of the National Defense Strategy aimed at countering Russia and China -- with particular emphasis this year on China.

As happens every year, the bill would prohibit the transfer or release of any of the remaining 40 foreign captives at the US military prison and torture facility at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and also prohibit their transfer or release to Libya, Somalia, Syria or Yemen.

Additionally, the bill would prohibit any attempt to close or abandon the Guantanamo military base or give up control of the base to Cuba.

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Uttarakhand reported 17 fresh coronavirus disease (Covid-19) positive cases on Monday, as the overall tally in the hill state rose to 1,836.

A bulletin issued by the state health department said seven Covid-19 positive cases were reported on Monday morning and another 10 were recorded the previous night.

The new Covid-19 positive cases were reported from the states following districts: Almora (1), Bageshwar (2), Nainital (3), Tehri Garhwal (3), Pauri Garhwal (3), Rudraprayag (2), and Pithoragarh (2).

A majority of the Covid-19 patients have recently returned to Uttarkhand from Delhi-national capital region (NCR) and Maharashtra, which have emerged as hotspots of the epidemic, amid the easing of nationwide lockdown restrictions, which were enforced from March 25 to contain the spread of the raging viral outbreak.

While one patient is a close contact of a person, who had earlier contracted SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19.

On Monday, 24 patients were also discharged from hospitals across the state after they recovered from the viral infection.

Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospitals in the following districts: Dehradun (9), Pauri (1), Chamoli (5), Udham Singh Nagar (5), and Bageshwar (4).

The state has tested over 46,000 swab samples to date, of which the results of more than 4,600 are still pending.

Uttarakhand has a recovery and infection rate of 61.82% and 4.54%, respectively.

Dehradun district has reported the maximum number of Covid-19 positive cases at 475, followed by Nainital (338), Tehri Garhwal (294) and Haridwar (209).

While Uttarkashi district has the lowest number of Covid-19 positive cases at 33.

Uttarakhand has 78 containment zones, including 43 and 21 in Haridwar and Dehradun districts, respectively.
Beijing has begun carrying out mass coronavirus testing after a new cluster linked to a food market raised the alarm and prompted travel warnings across the country.

The deadly contagion had been brought largely under control in China through strict lockdowns that were imposed early this year but have since been lifted.

But a fresh cluster linked to a wholesale food market in the capital has sparked widespread alarm and raised the spectre of a return to painful restrictions.

Xinfadi food market

The National Health Commission (NHC) reported 57 new infections on Sunday, of which 36 were local transmissions in Beijing, all linked to the Xinfadi market.

Another two domestic infections were in northeastern Liaoning province and were close contacts of the Beijing cases.

The 19 other infections were among Chinese nationals returning from abroad.

Liaoning was among several provinces to advise residents against travelling to Beijing due to the new outbreak -- along with cities such as nearby Tianjin and several in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing.

Some local authorities said people entering from Beijing would have to quarantine, state media reported.

In the capital, lockdowns have been imposed on a very small part of the city that includes 11 residential estates near the market which supplies most of the city's fresh produce.

46,000 residents to be tested

Officials said Sunday they planned to carry out virus tests on 46,000 residents in the area surrounding the market and had set up 24 testing stations.

Everyone who works at Xinfadi also has to undergo testing.

So far 10,881 people have been tested in the area with another eight cases diagnosed on Sunday. They were not included in the NHC's tally earlier in the day that covered the previous 24 hours.

"I went to Xinfadi market so I want to confirm that I am not infected," a 32-year-old woman surnamed Guo told French news agency AFP as she queued in scorching heat at a stadium waiting for a virus test.

"We were told that after the tests... if it is positive, we will be taken directly to the hospital."

Lockdowns and closures

One of Sunday's new cases was a 56-year-old man who works as an airport bus driver and had visited the Xinfadi market in early June before later falling ill, state-run People's Daily reported.

The meat section of the huge, sprawling market was closed Sunday and AFP reporters saw hundreds of police officers and security personnel plus dozens of paramilitary police blocking access.

Efforts to trace those who had visited the market have begun, with companies and neighbourhood communities messaging staff and residents across the city to ask about their recent movements.

A vegetable market adjacent to Xinfadi was open Sunday and trucks were arriving to deliver or collect stock.

"Afraid? Not really" a delivery driver surnamed Zhang told AFP.

"But anyway I have no choice -- I am part of the lowest class of society. So I have to keep working in order to make a living."

In nearby streets, residents were under lockdown and restaurants closed.

Some people used a wooden stepladder propped against the gated entrance to one community to pass supplies to loved ones.

A resident surnamed Chen told AFP he had made several trips with his car to the front gate of his compound to deliver food.

"As soon as I finish delivering the supplies to my family members, I will go upstairs to join them," he said.

"After that I won't be able to get out."

Food safety inspections

Covid-19 first emerged late last year and one of the first clusters was from a market in the central city of Wuhan that sold wild animals for meat.

The latest outbreak in Beijing has turned the spotlight on the hygiene of the city's food supply chain.

State-run media reported that the virus was detected on chopping boards used to handle imported salmon, and that major supermarkets had removed the fish from their stocks.

Beijing authorities ordered a city-wide food safety inspection focusing on fresh and frozen meat, poultry and fish in supermarkets, warehouses and catering services.

City authorities have closed nine schools and kindergartens near Xinfadi, while sporting events and cross-provincial tour groups have been stopped.

(with AFP)
Brandon Stephenson

You cant overstate the impact COVID-19 has had on every aspect of our lives: physical, emotional, financial. It has exasperated our hyper-partisan environment, brought our once-bustling economy to a grinding halt and created new barriers for our interconnected society. And just as individuals are responding to the pandemic and our altered reality differently, the same is true for the communications industry.

Firms specializing in serving tourism, recreation and hospitality clients have obviously seen a drastic reduction in revenue as these sectors have been devastated since travel restrictions and Safer at Home orders were put in place. Conversely, firms that have more of a diverse or different clientelehealth care, natural resources, transportation, technology, infrastructureare in a better position to weather the storm.

But even for those of us fortunate enough to be at firms that have been able to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on its operationsor for those that have expanded their businessweve all had to make significant adjustments on the fly.

Successful communications professionals and firms have had to quickly adapt to this new normal, changing how we approach the internal and external aspects of our operations. Rightfully so, theres more of a focus on employee well-being and flexibility as part of ongoing retention and development programs. Client services and marketing efforts to secure new clients have taken on renewed importance as clients from all sectors tighten budgets and look to trim expenses. This is the new reality we find ourselves in. This is our new normal.

These two months have reaffirmed some foundations of successful communication programs; you must put yourselves in the shoes of your audience and understand their perceptions if you wish to truly reach them, and you must be prepared for whatever situation might arise as every organization finds itself on the front lines.

Understanding your audience

Our formula is tried and true: determine the best messages, messengers and delivery to engage our target audiences, educating them, influencing them, motivating them toward a certain action or position. It has always been and will continue to be about clearly and consistently communicating the whats in it for me to make our clients issues relevant to our intended audience, making our issue their issue. But figuring out the whats in it for me proposition in our new normal is radically different as peoples perceptions have changed.

Just think about what life was like in January. Unemployment was at historic lows, the stock market continued to reach new heights and consumer confidence was high. People now see things through the lens of a societal shift that we havent seen in decades, if not generations.

Recent polling by California-based survey research experts Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates details just how much COVID-19 is weighing on the minds of the public. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said the economic impact of coronavirus is an extremely serious/very serious problem, unsurprisingly outstripping issues that previously dominated surveys such as healthcare, housing and climate change. The same poll found that concerns about unemployment has shot up more than 24 percent in the last 12 months.

None of this should come as a surprise, but we must constantly remind ourselves that this is the mindset of the public and the concern of decision-makers that were ultimately trying to influence. We must tailor public relations and public affairs strategies to this current climate. Understand where your audience is now coming fromtheir concerns, stress and fearswhen developing how and when youll communicate with them.

This is a delicate balancing act. Continue with your pre-coronavirus communications plan and youll look tone deaf, like the property management company posting a celebratory post about the first day of Spring on the same day Los Angeles County announced its Safer at Home order. But at the same time, people are experiencing fatigue from the wall-to-wall COVID coverage. While we always want to be mindful of the current situation, we also need to make sure we arent overwhelming anyone with coronavirus-related content nor can we get distracted from achieving the clients goals.

Preparing for whats next

Every day, you read about some COVID-19 crisis: a protest against government shelter orders, conflicts that spirals into confrontations at businesses that are trying to protect shoppers and employees, mass outbreaks of coronavirus at large employers worksites, workers demanding better protections and casting businesses in a negative light as being uncaring or unresponsive.

Whats amazing is how many businesses, regardless of size, still dont have crisis communication plans, nor the trained team to implement those plans, in case of an incident that could hurt a companys reputation. These companies risk having their story be told by someone else if they dont rapidly deploy a program to providing timely and accurate information.

This goes without saying, but since so many people and organizations are unprepared it can never be stated enough: good crisis planning, preparation and execution, even in the middle of a pandemic, is vital. Companies that are ready to respond to various scenarios have the internal-consultant team in place who own the crisis communications plan, with messaging and trained spokesperson(s), ready to communicate rapidly and across a broad spectrum of channels.

This includes social media, which is still seen as an afterthought by too many traditional leaders and organizations. Sure, social media can be your best friend or your worst enemy. But in a time of crisis, its often the very first place people turn to get the latest information. Social media should be one of the first places you disseminate information. Use your social channels often, monitor and respond to comments, and push out essential information in a consistent and timely manner, just like youd do with traditional press releases and press conferences.

You need to hope for the best but plan for the worst. We know that one day this pandemic will end. We hope it ends soon, but we have to plan that this new normal will last for the foreseeable future. And as our offices and conference rooms have become kitchen tables and Zoom virtual meetings, we still need to develop strategies and solutions to tackle complex problems. Through persuasive storytelling, understanding our audiences and being prepared to rapidly respond to crises, communications firms can continue to help our clients meet their goals.

***

Brandon Stephenson is Chief Strategic Officer with Cerrell Associates.
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One particularly new addition in Animal Crossing New Horizons is that of a more fleshed-out crafting device where the player individual can gather crafting recipes and assets together with wooden, iron and clay and then integrate them to Nook Miles Ticket create gadgets from scratch. The factor right here is simple: often, its extra to your rate variety to craft gadgets from the raw materials then sell the objects than it's some distance to promote the raw materials.

Heres an instance or . If you fish an Old Tyre out of the water, you can sell it to Nooks Cranny for 10 Bells. If you are taking the Old Tyre to a crafting station and craft a Tyre Toy object, but, itll be truly worth 20 bells. Another: youll get 750 bells for 2 Iron Nuggets. That identical quantity of Iron Nuggets can be used to craft a Frying Pan, which sells for 1500 Bells. Thats double your cash!

This is glaringly a time-ingesting activity. But if youre early on on your island enjoy, it doesnt damage remotely to craft greater raw substances into devices earlier than you sell them. And remember, you possibly want to Miyea maintain as a minimum a touch of each again, as sometimes wood and iron, mainly, are used to gate progression in which youll need to reveal some in to open up new shops or assemble new infrastructure.
Ricky Gervais has revealed he always eats at Italian restaurants no matter where he is in the world because 'you can't can't beat pizza and pasta.'

The After Life actor, 58, shared his confession when speaking with The Sun and said he likes to keep it safe and opt for Italian because he knows it will be 'the same.'

The writer shared: 'If I am in a new city and I want to experience a nice restaurant, wherever we are in the world, it's always Italian. Because I know it's going to be good and the same.'

Delicious: Ricky Gervais has revealed he always eats at Italian restaurants no matter where he is in the world because 'you can't can't beat pizza and pasta' (pictured in 2011 in Curb Your Enthusiasm)

Ricky continued: 'I know exactly what I can eat, I understand it. So I know I can have a plate of penne pesto or something like that so I do love a real self-indulgent plate of pasta and a red wine wherever I go.'

The Office star shared that he would only opt for local cuisine after fulfilling his first choice.

He continued: 'You can't beat pizza and pasta, you really can't.'

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Ricky is already writing series three of After Life during the coronavirus lockdown by his on-screen love interest.

Playing it safe: The After Life actor, 58, shared his confession when speaking with The Sun and said he likes to keep it safe and opt for Italian because he knows it will be 'the same' (pictured in NYC in 2014)

Co-star Ashley Jensen appeared on The One Show on Friday to give an update on the progress of the popular Netflix show.

No doubt delighting fans with news of the eagerly-awaited next season, the Ugly Betty actress, 50, said: 'I know a third series is already on its way...

'And I think Ricky has tapped a few words into his computer or with his quill or whatever he uses.'

The writer shared: 'If I am in a new city and I want to experience a nice restaurant, wherever we are in the world, it's always Italian. Because I know it's going to be good and the same'

The series, which portrays Gervais as a suicidal local journalist struggling to cope with the loss of his wife Lisa to cancer, shot to number one soon after its release.

It will be the first time that Ricky, who also wrote The Office, Extras and Derek, has broken his own two-season tradition.

This comes after the comedian confirmed that there will be a third series of After Life, with the star reportedly offered more than 5million for the deal.

But along with a third instalment of the popular show, he will also be expected to write a number of standalone comedy specials, according to reports.

He delighted fans as he took to Twitter last month to make the announcement.

Speaking about the show, he wrote: 'Because so many of you watched #AfterLife2 so quickly and made it Number 1 again, the nice people at @Netflix have suggested that I get off my fat a*** and do another season. This is all your fault.'
Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are now getting the latest One UI 2.1 update. The update has already started rolling out in South Korea and Germany. However, it will take a few more weeks for the update to be made available in all the other regions.

The latest One UI update weighs in at 896.15MB in size and includes the June 2020 Android security patch. It comes with firmware versions G96xNKSU3ETF4 in South Korea and G96xFXXU9ETF5 in Germany.

Galaxy S9 & Galaxy S9+ receives One UI 2.1 update

The Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones were launched in March 2018 with Samsung Experience 9.0 based on Android 8.0 Oreo. Both devices have already received Android 9 and Android 10 updates. Since Samsung only offers two major Android updates, the latest One UI 2.1 may be the last major update for these devices.

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Interested users can also manually check for the latest OTA update by going to Settings > About phone > Software update. If the new One UI 2.1 update is available, continue with the process to successfully install it. With the One UI 2.1 update, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ get a slew of new features for an even more enhanced user experience.

The newly added AR Zone app includes all the augmented reality features including AR Emoji Camera, AR Doodle, and AR Emoji Stickers. With Music Share, you can share your paired Bluetooth connection with anyone else. It allow others to play music on a speaker paired with your smartphone.

Samsung brings back the Pro mode for video recording

The devices will now support Quick Share for easily sharing files with nearby Samsung devices. There are also a few new shooting modes added in the camera department. Mainly, the Single Take is a nice addition to these older devices. It allows the user to capture 14 photos and record a 10-second video with just a single tap.

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Samsung also brought back the Pro mode video recording option which was removed with the Android 9.0 Pie update. While LG has been offering the Pro video recording mode for several years, we are now seeing it more commonly on major Android flagship smartphones.

Also, the new update brings multi-lingual translation feature to the Samsung Keyboard app. The Gallery app was also updated with a new quick crop option. Just last week, Samsung rolled out the One UI 2.1 update for the Galaxy Note 9 smartphone.
Burma Arakan Army Blamed for Attack on Myanmar Border Police

The Gokepi border guard police outpost in northern Rakhine in January. Min Aung Khine / The Irrawaddy

Sittwe, Rakhine State  Police officers were injured in a raid by the Arakan Army (AA) on Done Pike border guard outpost in Rakhine States Rathedaung Township, according to Myanmars military spokesman Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun.

The AA attacked the Done Pike border outpost at around 5.30 am this morning. They retreated after attacking for around 15 minutes. Some police officers were injured in the attack, Brig-Gen Zaw Min Tun told The Irrawaddy on Saturday.

Myanmars military and the police chased after the attackers, he added.

A village administrator, who requested anonymity, told The Irrawaddy that he heard gunshots.

We heard an exchange of fire from the outpost. I dont know the details. I saw ambulances going to the outpost. Done Pike villagers have fled and I was not able to phone them, said the administrator.

The Rathedaung Township outpost is overseen by Agnumaw police via the coastal road.

The AA raided the Thazin Myaing police outpost on May 29, killing four police officers and abducting six other officers and three civilians, including a child. It later released the three civilians.

On Jan. 4, 2019, the AA attacked four police outposts in Buthidaung Township. It attacked Yoe Tayoke police station in Ponnagyun Township on March 3, and a battalion near Koe Thaung temple in Mrauk-U on April 10, 2019, and a police outpost in Buthidaung Township on July 16.

In January, four border guards from the Thazin Myaing outpost were robbed of their December salaries on their return from Zedi Pyin police station in Rathedaung Township with their wages. Two of the four border guards went missing.

The AA said its attacks on the police were retaliation for their assistance to Myanmars military. According to the AA, the military has been using the outposts to shell rebel fighters.

As the government has declared the AA a terrorist organization, The Irrawaddy was not able to contact the armed group for a comment.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko

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The COVID-19 pandemic has upended consumers lives, causing many to overhaul their purchasing behaviors, accelerate their adoption of technologies, reconsider their values, and learn new ways of communicating. As shelter-in-place orders lift, the impact of these habit shifts will continue to influence consumer behavior. Saage Insights spoke with diverse consumers throughout the US in order to uncover how people are living, socializing, eating, drinking, and purchasing in 2020, and anticipate how these new patterns will impact the future.



Quickly adopting new digital platforms: from going out to see live-streamed shows to weekly zoom hangs with friends, consumers are living their lives online.

Seeking convenience: apps and services such as subscription food boxes and meal kits are on the rise. While consumers have reservations about Amazon, citing its bad treatment of workers, they are ordering from the website more than ever.

Conscious consumption becoming the norm: they are well informed on everything from supply chain issues to workers rights. Many are aware that they can influence social, environmental and political issues through their purchases. Fair wages, zero waste, reduced packaging, organic and local are all terms that resonate with them.

Calculated, frugal shoppers: essentials such as groceries are planned with lists, while non-essential goods have fallen off their radar for the most part during the crisis.

Strong interest in better-for-me food and beverage: the public health crisis is more fuel for the growing wellness segment. Many mentioned that organic foods are safer and more healthful.

About Shifting Habits: 2020 Snapshot Report

Conducted from May 4-9, 2020, this qualitative study explores shifting consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. This pulse check aims to uncover how people are living, socializing, eating, drinking, and purchasing in 2020, and anticipate how these new patterns will impact the future. Saage Insights recruited 18 consumers across the US, split into four demographics: Gen Z (4), Millennial (4), Gen X (6), and Boomer (4). The gender split included 10 women, 7 men, and 1 non-binary individual. Interviewees spanned the following markets: California, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Georgia. Find out more, including calls to action and opportunities, in the full Shifting Habits: A 2020 Snapshot report, available for purchase.

About Saage Insights

Rooted in research and discovery, our ethnographic approach combines deep exploration and detailed analysis to uncover the most impactful and actionable insights. Operating with the knowledge that the research is only as good as our subjects, we hand recruit participants for custom ethnographies and insider roundtables. Our work is essential for companies that want to know what todays trends reveal about tomorrows consumer. Contact us to find out how we can help.
A Russian court has sentenced a Michigan businessman to 16 years in prison on spying charges.

Paul Whelan, 50, of Novi was the head of global security for auto-parts supplier, BorgWarner in Auburn Hills before he was arrested in December 2018 while in Moscow for a wedding.

The Moscow City Court announced that Whelan was found guilty of espionage on Monday. He will serve his sentence in a maximum-security prison colony. The trial was held behind closed doors, the Associated Press reported.

Whelan has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up. U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan has called for his immediate release.

The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said in a statement. We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations.

The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling. Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends. We demand Paul Whelans immediate release.

Whelan's brother David said lawyers will appeal the verdict that he denounced as political, adding in a statement that "the court's decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process, according to the Associated Press.

Whelan, a former Marine, also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship. He has denied the charges of spying for the U.S. that his lawyers said stem from a sting operation.

His lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about. Whelan has publicly complained of poor prison conditions in Russia and has said his life is in danger. Last month, he underwent surgery for a hernia.

Michigans congressional delegation has also called for Whelans release.

During his detention, Mr. Whelan has endured unimaginable hardships. He was denied necessary medical care until his condition required a life-saving emergency surgery. He was barred from speaking to his family for over a year. He has been threatened by prison guards," their joint statement reads.

Despite months of harsh and cruel treatment, we remain steadfast in our commitment to working with the Whelan family to end this nightmare. Mr. Whelan should not continue to be held as a political prisoner, and he should be allowed to return home to his family in Michigan immediately.

U.S. Sen. Gary Peters introduced a resolution condemning Russia and pressing for Whelans release in 2019. U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens and U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg introduced a companion resolution in the House of Representatives.

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Fred Upton (MI-06), Bill Huizenga (MI-02), Dan Kildee (MI-05), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), John Moolenaar (MI-04), Jack Bergman (MI-01), Elissa Slotkin (MI-08) and Andy Levin (MI-09) also endorsed the statement.
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Linkedin Mardika Parama (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 17:14 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdedc33d 1 Business COVID-19,nielsen,shopping-mall,consumer-behaviour,PSBB,PSBB-Masa-Transisi,new-normal Free

Retailers and shopping centers should run an extensive public relation (PR) campaign regarding their propertys health and safety standards to lure consumers that are still reluctant to visit retail stores amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey shows.

According to a study conducted by Nielsen Indonesia, 84 percent of regular shopping center visitors said they would opt to visit shopping centers again once the pandemic is over, while only 67 percent of the regular visitors are interested in coming back during the period of relaxed large-scale social restrictions (PSBB), the so-called new normal.

Read also: Govt pins hopes on restarting economy, despite Tuesday's COVID-19 surge

Retailers could adapt [to the situation] with sanitation technology such as contactless sensors to replace buttons on the lift or parking ticket machines. They should also provide sterilization points to disinfect consumers groceries, Nielsen consumer insight director Rusdy Sumantri said in a statement on Monday, adding that shoppers remained wary of the COVID-19 infection risk in shopping centers.

The government has begun to relax the PSBB that were implemented to contain the coronavirus spread, allowing shopping centers, among other facilities, to open gradually. The Jakarta administration stated that all malls in the city would be allowed to reopen on Monday despite the increasing number of infections.

More than 38,200 cases of COVID-19 have been recorded nationwide as of Sunday afternoon, with the death toll now exceeding 2,100, official data show.

Three provinces and four regencies/cities across Indonesia are still enforcing the PSBB, down from four provinces and 26 regencies/cities earlier in June.

Rusdy said retailers should run aggressive PR campaigns regarding their health protocol to seek to assure consumers of their well-being during store visits.

Read also: Customers will still be worried about COVID-19: shopping center association

Shopping centers and brand owners must frequently run bold advertisement and position themselves regarding their health protocol to the consumers, he said.

According to the survey, consumer behavior will remain generally the same as it was in the earlier stage of the pandemic, with groceries shopping for daily needs projected to remain the top reason for consumers visiting shopping centers.

Previously, 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 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 [after the PSBB relaxation], because they will still be worried about the pandemic, APPBI chairman Stefanus Ridwan said during a MarkPlus online webinar on June 9.

The number of shopping mall visitors had dropped since the countrys first two COVID-19 cases were announced in March. During the pandemic, no fewer than 190 shopping malls across the country were temporarily closed, APPBI data show.

Read also: Holidaymakers begin planning for domestic travel despite COVID-19 fears: Tripadvisor

Retail sales have dropped 64 percent, according to data from the Office of the Coordinating Economic Minister, while the Bank Indonesia (BI) consumer confidence index dropped to its lowest level in nearly 15 years in May.

Stefanus said customers would still need time to adjust to the health requirements of the new normal, including wearing a face mask inside malls, practicing physical distancing and using cashless payment methods.
Sobyanin reports 30% decrease in severe COVID-19 cases in Moscow

 Moskva city news agency, Sergey Kiselev

14:14 15/06/2020

MOSCOW, June 15 (RAPSI)  The number of community-acquired pneumonia cases, the most severe sequela of coronavirus, dropped in Russias capital by 30% in the last week, according to a statement of Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin published on his official website on Monday.

There is a steady decline for pneumonias; their number reduced from 706 to 493 cases a day, Sobyanin stated.

The number of hospitalizations also decreased last week by 22%, from 753 to 587 cases per day. Therefore the number of people receiving treatment at hospitals reduced by 13%, up to 8,500, the Moscow Mayor said.

Moscow authorities began lifting the self-isolation regime introduced due to the outbreak of coronavirus on June 9. According to Sobyanin, Moscow residents, including those older than 65 and suffering from chronical deceases, were allowed to unrestrictedly leave their homes and move through the city. Moreover, hairdressing salons, beauty shops, photo studios, employment agencies resumed their work. Carshering restrictions were lifted. Cemetery visiting restrictions were canceled.

The next stage of the restrictions lift will begin on June 16 with the opening of libraries, realtor agencies, advertising and consulting services, summer terraces of cafes and restaurants.

Fitness centers, swimming pools, kindergartens will reopen starting June 23.
[June 15, 2020] Court Unseals Suit Against Bremer Bank Board For Willfully Obstructing Sale

Otto Bremer Trust announced today that its suit to hold seven directors of Bremer Financial Corporation personally responsible for blocking the exploration of a sale of BFC has been unsealed by the Ramsey County Court. The now-public documents, available here, reveal that the bank's interference has substantially harmed OBT and reduced the charitable support it is able to provide to its local communities. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005691/en/ Except from 1988 BFC presentation (Photo: Business Wire) The unsealed documents demonstrate that the bank has long been aware of OBT's clear right to sell its BFC holdings should its trustees determine that doing so would protect and enhance the trust's assets. The documents also show that BFC's management and directors were informed of this right at least as early as 1988. For example, a detailed 1988 BFC senior management presentation concludes with a slide titled "A WORD OF CAUTION!" that spells out in plain language the right and the responsibility of the trustees to consider and accept an offer to sell the bank if they determine that a sale is in the interests of OBT's charitable capacity (image accompanying release, highlight added). Similarly, the suit reveals a June 23, 1988 memorandum to BFC's executive management from its then-President, subsequent CEO and long-time board member Terry Cummings in which he explains that OBT's trustees could obtain an offer to sell BFC at any time "and with ownerhip of 92% of the economic value of the Corporation, they have the power to vote whether to accept or decline such an offer."



These 1988 documents describe elements of a business re-organization that was put in place in 1989 when the trust, due to a change in the tax laws, was forced to reorganize itself into its current form. That structure - including the rights reserved for OBT's trustees - is memorialized in an April 20, 1989 prospectus widely circulated at the time. That document is available for review here. The public disclosure of these documents was delayed by BFC's efforts to keep them under seal. Now that the documents have been filed publicly, OBT can comment on their disclosure:

"BFC's efforts to hide these documents from public view are over. The documents show that the bank has known for decades that OBT's trustees have the right, in fact the responsibility, to sell if they believe a sale enhances the trust's charitable purposes. That fundamental fact negates the bank's entire legal position and means that this dispute has been an ill-founded and reckless waste of OBT's charitable resources. "BFC's seven non-Trustee directors have not only wasted millions of dollars in needless legal fees at the expense of the trust and its beneficiaries, their improper tactics have deprived OBT of the opportunity to substantially increase its charitable assets by selling the bank before recent events severely disrupted the marketplace. Those wasted and lost assets could have - should have - been better spent to help those in need across our service area: Individuals and families struggling against daily challenges, against a pandemic, a severe economic downturn and, as we've been painfully and tragically reminded by the killing of George Floyd, against the corrosive effects of persistent racism. It is long past the point at which the bank's obstruction should have ended." OBT's suit, filed on May 13, 2020 as a counterclaim, seeks full recovery of damages from directors Jeanne Crain, Ron James, Mary Brainerd (News - Alert), Glenn McCoy, Kevin Rhein, Wendy Schoppert, and Charles Westling. About the Otto Bremer Trust The Otto Bremer Trust is a bank holding company and a private charitable trust based in Saint Paul, Minn., that works at the intersection of finance and philanthropy. Created in 1944 by Otto Bremer, it is today one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations and is committed to supporting a better quality of life for residents of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. OBT is the majority owner of Bremer Financial Corporation, a regional financial services company, and manages a diversified investment portfolio. Since its founding, OBT has invested more than $750 million in people, places, and opportunities in the Upper Midwest. Visit ottobremer.org for more information, including a list of grants and program-related investments. Visit ottobremer.org. Disclaimer This press release does not constitute or form part of, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the securities of BFC or any other securities in any jurisdiction, including the United States, or an inducement to enter into investment activity. No part of this press release, nor the fact of its distribution, should form the basis of, or be relied on in connection with, any contract or commitment or investment decision whatsoever. Note to Editors: For more information, contact David Hakensen at [email protected] or (612) 840-4592. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005691/en/

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Pok Pok, the Portland-based Thai restaurant group that once stretched from New York to Los Angeles, will not reopen the majority of its restaurants after COVID-19, chef-owner Andy Ricker wrote on Instagram Monday.

According to Ricker, the closures will affect the Pok Pok NW at 1639 N.W. Marshall St., the Pok Pok Wing in the former Pok Pok Noi at 1469 N.E. Prescott St., the Pok Pok Wing in the former Humdinger Drive-In at 8250 S. Barbur Blvd. as well as the decade-old Whiskey Soda Lounge at 3131 S.E. Division St.

These closures are necessary so that the original Pok Pok on Division Street may have a chance of reopening when it is safe and financially tenable to do so, Ricker wrote.

The Pok Pok Wing location at 3120 S.E. Milwaukie Ave. could also reopen at some point in the future, Ricker wrote.

Ricker did not immediately return a request for further comment Monday, but he did lay out the reasoning behind the permanent closures in his post:

The economic reality is that we simply cannot afford to reopen these locations, given the face that 1) it is unsafe for workers in a city, state and country with no cohesive plan for testing and tracing COVID-19 cases, no mandatory mask policy for the public, no vaccine and no treatment; 2) phase 1 & 2 restrictions on operating restaurants will render us unable to seat enough customers to make payroll let alone break even; 3) the carrying costs incurred as we wait until we can reopen are draining what little resources we have at a rate that will leave us with no money to reopen all locations when the time comes and; 4) the cost of reopening a restaurant is huge and given all the other factors plus the possibility of being shut down again if cases surge, even if we did have the resources to reopen it would be risky at best and ruinous at worst.

Pok Pok opened as an unassuming takeout shack stationed in front of a Southeast Portland home in 2005. But the restaurant, which was designed around street food recipes Ricker carried home from backpacking trips to Thailand, quickly grew. Pok Pok was The Oregonians 2007 Restaurant of the Year. In 2009, Ricker moved the subterranean Whiskey Soda Lounge across the street into a home of its own. A James Beard Award for Best Chef: Northwest followed in 2011.

In the 2010s, Ricker pursued an aggressive expansion plan for his budding restaurant empire, opening spin-off restaurants in Portland, Los Angeles and New York. Those restaurants closed in 2017 and 2018, respectively. After contracting most of his far-flung operations, Ricker has recently concentrated on Pok Pok Wing, his mini chain of takeout- and delivery-focused restaurants with stripped down versions of the original Pok Pok menu, built around the restaurants best known dish, Ikes Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings. A licensed Pok Pok Wing location opened in Las Vegas Cosmopolitan Hotel in 2018.

In December, Ricker debuted Ping Yang Pow, a 24-seat supper club hidden above Pok Pok NW. The restaurant, built around the charcoal-fired cooking of talented chef Thanyawan Thanya Kaewket, felt like the most ambitious opening in the Pok Pok universe in several years, with its grilled langoustines, fluffy Dungeness crab fried rice, ribeye steaks dressed up like drunken noodles and simple pea shoot tips wok-fried with garlic, pork fat, smoked oyster sauce and menacing Fresno chile.

After shifting his restaurants to a takeout-only model near the start of Oregons coronavirus outbreak, Ricker reversed course in late March, reacting to the death due to COVID-19 of his compatriot, the celebrity chef Floyd Cardoz. Pok Pok is a restaurant, not a hospital, not a fire station, not a police station, not a vital food delivery service, Ricker wrote at the time. "I simply cannot bear the thought of one of our team becoming ill for the sake of preparing some chicken wings.

Ricker began offering meal kits from Pok Poks Southeast Portland commissary kitchen, 3634 S.E. 20th Ave., in April.

-- Michael Russell, mrussell@oregonian.com, @tdmrussell

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:17:31|Editor: huaxia

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A staff member checks tickets at the Brussels-Midi station in Brussels, Belgium, June 15, 2020. Belgium on Monday reopened its borders to and from the United Kingdom, European Union (EU) member countries and four other countries of the Schengen zone (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein). (Xinhua/Zhang Cheng)

BRUSSELS, June 15 (Xinhua) -- After three months of isolation, Belgium reopened its border on Monday to other European Union (EU) member states, non-EU Schengen countries -- Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway -- as well as Great Britain.

While Belgium gives the green light to other European countries, the same does not necessarily apply in the other direction. According to the information posted online by the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgians can currently only visit Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Liechtenstein and Switzerland without restrictions.

Non-essential travel outside the EU and Schengen area is still prohibited.

With the reopening, Belgium's flag carrier Brussels Airlines also resumes its flights.

After 12 weeks of inactivity, the airline will take its first passengers to Madrid, but passengers need to undergo 14-day quarantine upon arrival. In total, Brussels Airlines will operate 11 flights on Monday, carrying around 2,000 passengers, which is about 10 percent of a normal-day capacity in June last year.

Each passenger will have to wear a mask and comply with health safety measures, mainly physical distance and hand hygiene with hydro-alcoholic gel.

The downward trend of COVID-19 continues in Belgium, with six coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, 17 hospital admissions versus 21 discharges and 71 new contaminations recorded on Monday by the public health institute Sciensano. This brings to 60,100 the total number of known cases in Belgium since the beginning of the epidemic.
If successful, negotiations between the Sudanese government and armed movements will put Khartoum on the right political and economic path, writes Haitham Nouri

A breakthrough in negotiations was achieved between the Sudanese government and armed groups after more than a week of talks supported by neighbouring countries and international powers. The negotiations aimed at closing the long chapter of conflicts that flared between the two parties during the rule of ousted president Omar Al-Bashir.

In Juba, capital of South Sudan, the two parties signed a political agreement focusing on halting hostile activities and laying out a roadmap for direct negotiations, international news agencies reported head of the Revolutionary Front Al-Hadi Idriss as saying.

The Sudan Revolutionary Front comprises the armed groups that fought against Al-Bashirs regime to the west, in Darfur, south of the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains, nearby South Sudan.

Juba, in the vicinity of the location of armed movements, hosted peace talks. The opening session was held in the attendance of Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his Egyptian counterpart Mustafa Madbouli. The talks were headed by President of the Sudanese Sovereign Council Abdel-Fattah Burhan and South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir.

The negotiating government delegation was led by Vice President of the Sovereign Council Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, while Abdel-Wahed Nour, the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement fighting in Darfur, was a no-show.

The negotiation halls were filled with an air of optimism. The armed movements have a lot in common between them, on the one hand, and with the Alliance of Freedom and Change, on the other.

The new government of Abdalla Hamdok is working tirelessly to remove Sudan from the US list of countries harbouring terrorism. But this will not happen unless sustainable and just peace is achieved in the country that has been worn out by decades of civil war.

Observers are noting regional and international interest in Sudans affairs, first among which is making peace.

The Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry tweeted on its official account that Riyadh was working towards lifting Sudan off the terrorism list, in addition to establishing a number of promising investment projects and upgrading existing projects.

This is in line with Hamdoks statement that his visit to the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates earlier this month was not to ask for aid from anyone. We want our brothers to come to Sudan to invest.

The current investment climate in Sudan is not suitable, said Fayez Al-Salik, editorial advisor at the Sudanese Change website. We need a long time to rehabilitate the investment climate, starting with halting war, adjusting the legal structure and upgrading the infrastructure, Al-Salik said.

Nonetheless, there are fair investment opportunities in Sudan in the agricultural and livestock sectors that need marketing and promotion. But these also need a lot of time and effort, he added.

The main obstacle, however, is the name of Sudan on the terrorist list, according to Al-Salik. This prevents Sudan from applying to receive loans from the World Bank and denies it large investments it desperately needs to give its ailing economy a boost.

Sudan was put on the US terrorist list in 1993 a few years after the Islamists rose to the helm following Omar Al-Bashirs military coup in 1989, orchestrated by late Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi.

Neighbouring African and Arab countries are pushing for the success of the Juba talks for various reasons. Africa wants to stop the migration of refugees and arms between its countries. The first step to do this is to stop the war in Sudan.

The Arab countries want to save Sudan from the dangerous Islamist hegemony. Many Arab countries are at war with Islamist terrorist groups.

As Sudan prepares to launch direct negotiations between the government and armed movements, the head of the Sovereign Council announced a ceasefire across the country, after negotiations faced a stumbling block on 16 October.

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) hinted at withdrawing from negotiations if government forces didnt withdraw from fighting zones in the Nuba Mountains, claiming the Sudan army attacked its lands the days prior, despite the unofficial ceasefire.

The two parties, however, resumed negotiations to reach a political settlement, which lays the groundwork for the armed movements to propose their five demands and formulate them in articles when the time comes to sign a peace deal.

The five demands are: the management of religious and cultural diversity; achieving social justice; instating citizenship; adopting democracy as a governing system and building a unified national army that is not subject to political polarisation.

Despite the prevailing optimism, the absence of Nour from negotiations was unfortunate, according to UN Undersecretary General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix in his statement to the UN Security Council.

Our negotiators are sorry about Nours rejection of the transitional process, the new government and joining peace talks, despite Abdalla Hamdoks initiation to meet with Nour in Paris on 30 September. In our opinion, all possible efforts should be exerted to convince concerned groups to seize the opportunity to instate peace, Lacroix said.

Nour refused to acknowledge the civilian government formed after the toppling of the former regime. He demanded a referendum be held on the legitimacy of the new regime before entering peace talks.

The meeting between Hamdok and Nour in the French capital was a personal meeting based on the request of the government leader, said Al-Salik.

According to Lacroix, Nours forces are still attacking Sudanese forces, kidnapped local employees working at international non-governmental organisations for ransom, and stole trade vehicles and items belonging to local humanitarian and medical organisations.

The Sudan Liberation Movement was founded in 2003, before it soon split into two groups under the leadership of Nour and Arcua Minnawi. The latter inked a deal with Al-Bashirs government according to which he was appointed senior assistant to the president of Sudan. Then he re-joined his armed group.

Meanwhile, the Islamist-leaning Justice and Equality Movement, supported by the opposition National Congress Party founded by Al-Turabi in 2000, is still active, but its power is waning.

At the same time, the SPLM-N is enforcing its position after the reconciliation of its armed wings south of the Blue Nile, spearheaded by Malek Aqar, and in Nuba Mountains, led by Abdel-Aziz Al-Helw.

There are still two vacant seats in the transitional government, which Hamdok said are reserved for the armed movements.

But the clock is ticking for Sudan to achieve peace due to the short life span of the transitional period  three years  during which the Sudanese need to feel hopeful about a future not governed by dictatorship.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 October, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.

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One of the biggest financial players in Republican politics is coming in to help Fort Bend Sheriff Troy Nehls in his primary run-off battle for Congress with just two weeks left before early voting starts.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is committing to help Nehls as he battles Houstons Kathaleen Wall, who has already spent more than $4 million of her own money this year on her campaign for Congress. That is far more than Nehls has been able to spend. According to the latest campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission, Nehls has spent less than $400,000 so far.

Nehls won the first round of the primary in March with just over 40 percent of the vote. But because he didnt hit 50 percent in the crowded primary field, he will now face Wall, who finished second with 19 percent, in a runoff on July 14. Early voting starts June 29.

They are battling for the 22nd Congressional District, which includes most of Fort Bend County plus parts of Brazoria and Harris counties. The winner will face Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni in November.

The race for the 22nd Congressional District is considered one of the most competitive in the nation. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, is retiring from Congress this year. In 2018, Kulkarni came within 5 percentage points of beating Olson, giving Democrats hope they can flip the seat in 2020. The Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., ranks it as one of 22 toss-up races in November.

WALL BLAMES CHINA FOR COVID-19: China poisoned our people, says campaign ad from Houston candidate for Congress Kathaleen Wall

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce support is more than just an endorsement. The group has long been one of the biggest financial supporters of Republicans in federal races in the nation. In 2018, the group spent more than $7 million helping mostly Republican candidates.

The U.S. Chamber is proud to endorse Troy and looks forward to partnering with him in the future, U.S. Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement.

Nehls is running on his public service experience, pointing to 30 years in the military and in law enforcement. Wall, meanwhile, has tried to position herself as a better potential ally to President Donald Trump.

Like Donald Trump, Kathaleen Wall is a successful conservative businessperson who wants to make America great again, ads supporting Wall have said.

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Wall, a prominent GOP campaign donor over the last decade, is about to ramp up her television advertising once again. Media tracking data shows Wall has reserved almost $250,000 in ad time on broadcast and cable TV in Houston over the next week.

But Nehls has also been aggressive in aligning himself with Trump.

In Congress, I will stand with President Trump to defeat the socialist Democrats, build the wall, drain the swamp, and deliver on pro-economy and pro- America policies, Nehls says on his campaign website.

Wall has touted endorsements from key elected officials including U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Paul partly grew up in Brazoria County while his father Ron Paul was a congressman. Rand Paul graduated from Brazoswood High School and attended Baylor University.
A few celebrities from B-town including Rhea Chakraborty, Kriti Sanon, Shraddha Kapoor, Vivek Oberoi, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Abhishek Kapoor, Pragya Kapoor, Pooja Chopra and Varun Sharma arrived at the funeral of Sushant Singh Rajput.

Apart from these celebrities, casting director Mukesh Chhabra, who is the director of Sushant's film Dil Bechara, was also spotted. These celebrities attended Sushant's funeral despite the heavy downpour in Mumbai.

Sushant took his life inside his room by hanging himself and was found dead at his Mumbai residence on 14 June 2020. The police has not found any solid reason behind the drastic step he took, but anti-depression pills were reportedly found in his room.

Apart from these celebrities, Sushant's family also arrived in Mumbai from Patna to perform the last rites of the actor. It is indeed a tough time for his family, especially his dad, who is inconsolable since yesterday. Reportedly, he had fainted as soon as he heard the unfortunate news about his son's demise. Sushant had lost his mother when he was young.

Earlier, Sushant's rumoured girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty was also spotted outside Cooper Hospital and the actress looked devastated. Though neither of them confirmed their relationship, yesterday Sushant's cousin told the media that the Raabta actor was planning to get married in November 2020.

Sushant Singh Rajput's Cousin Reveals He Was Supposed To Get Married In November

We pray to god to give strength to Sushant Singh Rajput's family to cope with this tragedy.

Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM
Social media users are sharing photos of school lunches around the US  compared to those in other countries  to make the case for redirecting police funds toward education.

On Jun 9, Twitter user Erv from San Diego, California tweeted that the San Diego Police's new annual budget is $566 million. Alongside this staggering sum, Erv included a photo of a lunch served at a San Diego public school, showing an unimpressive spread of chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and carrot sticks that leaves much to be desired by way of nutrition and cuisine.

The tweet has prompted other Americans to shared pictures of unimpressive public school lunches that could benefit from more funding  while others shared snaps of lunches from Germany, France, and Spain to show how much better it could be.

Where the money is spent: Twitter user Erv from San Diego, California tweeted that the local PD's new annual budget is $566 million  but this is what school lunches look like

Yikes: Others responded with their own comparisons of local school lunch and local PD budgets

One pointed out that a Massachusetts town serves this for lunch but wants to spend a quarter million dollars more on police

San Diego's new $566 million budget will go into effect on July 1, a $27 million increase that was announced last week.

The funding boost was met by outrage from locals in light of widespread protests calling for American cities to defund police departments.

Advocates for defunding the police aren't demanding the abolition of police departments in general. Rather, they're arguing that police departments are over-funded while many other programs  like education, healthcare, and housing  are hugely underfunded.

The argument is that a large portion of the money spent on police should be redirected to other areas of need.

Guns over food: The NYPD has a staggering $5.6 billion police budget

Yikes...Twitter user @shraq_kill_o_ne posted this school lunch photo of a slider, three mini carrots, and a bit of celery

Where's the veggies? While this New York City plate posted by @TiredinBrooklyn looks like a nice snack, it's certainly not a nutritious meal

Gross: @TiredinBrooklyn also posted this photos of a disgusting moldy sandwich

Failing: @TiredinBrooklyn's pictures of New York City lunches also included mozzarella sticks and pizza

One of those areas of need, as the Twitter thread points out, is school lunches  which many children living in poverty rely on.

After Erv shared an example of a San Diego school lunch, others replied with images of their own.

One posted four photos of lunches from a school in Bed-Stuy in New York City  all of which look unappetizing and lack nutrition.

The images show mozzarella sticks and pizza, a moldy sandwich, and mac and cheese with a pretzel.

Another American posted a photo of a chicken slider with carrot sticks, while yet another posted a photo of a small piece of chicken and a roll served in Shelby County, Tennessee.

Comparison: Meanwhile, people shared other photos of what school lunches look like around the world (pictured: UK)

Better: School lunches in places like South Korean look much better

Mixing it up: The lunches (like this one, also from South Korea) have more variety

A bit of this, a bit of that: This Japanese lunch is small but covers several food groups

Yum! This school lunch from France has several courses (including a tasty dessert)

Upgrade: The international lunches also look miles more nutritious

The comparisons drive home the priorities of other countries as compared to the US

US Police Department Budgets New York City: $5.6 billion

Los Angeles: $1.9 billion

Chicago: $1.78 billion

Houston: $964 million

Miami: $771 million

San Diego: $566 million

Baltimore: $557 million Advertisement

In comparison, photos of school lunches from other countries appear to include more food of higher quality and nutritional value.

A photo of a school lunch from France shows steak, carrots, asparagus, cheese, apples, and kiwi.

Writer Tiffany Aleman shared photographs taken of lunches from several different countries around the world.

One from Brazil included salad, rice, beans, and plantains, while a lunch from Spain included rice, shrimp, soup, salad, and a hearty roll.

A tasty lunch from Italy was made up of a piece of salmon, salad, pasta, a large serving of grapes, and a piece of bread, and and a Finnish school lunch was comprised of carrots, beets, soup, and a fruity crepe.

One Twitter user even shared photos of what he said was food served at a German refugee camp, which looked miles better than the American school lunches in the thread.

Colorful A Finnish school lunch was comprised of carrots, beets, soup, and a fruity crepe

Home cooking: A lunch from Spain included rice, shrimp, soup, salad, and a hearty roll

Looks good! A tasty lunch from Italy was made up of a piece of salmon, salad, pasta, a large serving of grapes, and a piece of bread

Pricey: The US spends billions of dollars on policing every year
Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar said Sunday that the Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root, making any attempt to reform it futile, and called for the citys police force to be dismantled.

You cant really reform a department that is rotten to the root, Omar said during an interview on CNN. What you can do is rebuild. And so this is our opportunity, you know, as a city to come together, have the conversation of what public safety looks like, who enforces the most dangerous crimes that take place in our community.

Calls to overhaul and defund the police department have emerged in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, including after Floyd passed out.

A new way forward cant be put in place if we have a department that is having a crisis of credibility, if we have a department thats led by a chief whos suited for racism, if we have a department that hasnt solved homicides. Half of the homicides in Minneapolis Police Department go unsolved, said the congresswoman, whose district encompasses the entire city of Minneapolis. There have been cases where theyve destroyed rape kits.

Right now theyre moving towards a process where there is a separation of the kind of crimes that solicit the help of, you know, officers, and the kind of crimes that we should have someone else respond to, she said.

The Minneapolis police chief announced last week that he will immediately withdraw from negotiations with the citys police union as the department considers a suite of reforms after George Floyds death.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has called for sweeping structural reform of the department but has resisted calls to defund the citys police force.

Meanwhile, the Minneapolis City Council last week announced that a veto-proof majority had voted to dissolve the department, a proposal opposed by both the mayor and police chief.

Story continues

Both riots and peaceful protests against racism and police brutality have broken out in Minneapolis and in cities around the country in the wake of Floyds death.

More from National Review
The much-loved Salon Varietes Theatre in Fuengirola is celebrating 35 years of serving the artistic community of the Costa del Sol. The English-speaking theatre, the only one of its kind in Spain, was founded by a group of like-minded British residents whose ambition was to offer amateur productions on the Costa del Sol.

The building where the theatre is located was established at the beginning of the 20th century: it first served as a warehouse, although there are references to it being used a theatre as early as 1916. By 1925, the building had become established as a zarzuela theatre and it continued under this guise until 1956, when it became a cinema.

As cinema popularity began to wane, the theatre was briefly used as a bingo hall, although by the 1960s, the building had fallen into disrepair. It would be another two decades before the premises were inaugurated as the Salon Varietes Theatre, an event that was marked by a special concert given by English clarinettist Acker Bilk.

Lynn Halliday, who has been president for the last three years, joined the company as a performer when she first arrived on the coast in 1999. She told SUR in English of her joy that the theatre is still going strong, although she is disappointed that, due to the current coronavirus pandemic, the anniversary cannot be marked in true thespian style.

"The Salon is very unique; I believe it is the only one of its kind in Spain, that's why I am so very proud of it. Obviously, we are very disappointed that we cannot celebrate the 35th anniversary in the theatre, as it's such a tremendous achievement," she explains.

In 1979, The English-Speaking Players Association (THESPA) was formed with the aim of giving aspiring actors and playwrights the opportunity to flourish. The group's productions were first staged in the Hotel Las Palmeras (Fuengirola). In 1985, the lease on the cinema became available and, after raising sufficient funds, THESPA acquired the building and named it the Salon Varietes Theatre.

Opening night mayhem

The official opening took place on 14 June 1985, although panic set in just hours before the curtain was due to rise. Builders had overlooked the laying of sewage pipes and so the audience (unaware of the pandemonium taking place inside the theatre) were kept in the foyer, appeased with free champagne, while every able body worked to clean the theatre after the aisle had been hastily dug up, and then refilled.

The board had much to learn in the theatre's infancy, not least that the public's appetite for theatre during the summer months was not as strong as they had anticipated. The theatre, which seats approximately 300 people, soon ran into financial difficulties and several members took out personal loans in order to keep it afloat. In the early nineties, the SALVA management team was established and this board continues to oversee the smooth running of the theatre today. The performing rights for the most popular musicals can be astronomical and it is SALVA's job to make decisions about which productions are financially viable.

Shows are presented from early September until the end of May and the programme includes a variation of plays, musicals, concerts, pantomime, farce and stand-up comedy, although Lynn says it is hard to pick a favourite.

"We have produced many different shows and featured incalculable excellent actors and writers, so it is hard to highlight one as a favourite. We are basically an amateur set up, so I wouldn't like to pick one in particular, because the whole thing about it is that everybody works as part of a team."

Valuable contributions

A defining factor for the theatre was the founding of the Friends of the Theatre Association (FOTA), a support group that raises valuable contributions for the theatre.

SALVA board member Alan Boardman explained that the theatre's fundraising arm has been of "paramount importance" to the success of the theatre.

"FOTA is responsible for the social events and fundraising. The social side of FOTA became very popular due to the high density of expats moving out here and wanting a good social life," he says.

The Salon Varietes receives no external funding, so it is run primarily on the generosity of the voluntary staff and the performers, who strive to ensure the continued success of the theatre.

The theatre's wardrobe department runs the whole width of the theatre to the rear of the stage and incorporates the props department. There are thousands of costumes and a bewildering array of accessories which have either been bought or donated by well-wishers. The theatre workshop where the stage sets are built is located under the stage. It can take up to ten weeks to fully prepare for a major stage production, usually whilst other shows are running.

However, being a largely amateur organisation does not mean that standards are sacrificed. The Salon has become the epitome of amateur theatre on the coast. The company has produced numerous celebrated shows over the decades, including The Wizard of Oz, South Pacific, Grease, Oliver, Mama Mia and Phantom of the Opera, to name just a few. A special production was planned to celebrate the 35th anniversary. Sadly, this has been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Just before the lockdown, the company had been rehearsing for a production of Evita. This was going to be a mega production, but we could obviously not go ahead with it. We are hosting a nostalgic day on our official Facebook page where people can post photographs and anecdotes about their favourite performances: it's not the same as putting on a production, but we do need to mark the day somehow. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we can present the planned production of Evita later in the year," the president concludes.
Warplanes took off from various air bases in Turkey, targeting multiple areas including PKKs Qandil stronghold.

Turkish warplanes have struck more than 80 Kurdish targets in northern Iraq in response to an increase in attacks on Turkish army bases, the defence ministry said on Monday.

Iraqs Joint Operations Command condemned the cross-border raid as a provocative action and accused Turkish forces of hitting a refugee camp.

The operation, codenamed Operation Claw-Eagle, hit targets suspected to belong to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in several regions in Iraqs north, including Sinjar, according to a tweet from Turkeys military, which claimed 81 PKK targets were targeted, including shelters and caves.

The Claw-Eagle Operation has started. Our planes are bringing the caves down on the terrorists heads, the defence ministry said.

Turkey regularly targets PKK fighters, both in Turkeys mainly Kurdish southeast and in northern Iraq, where the group is based. There was no immediate statement from the PKK.

Along with the fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles, and refueling aircraft also took part in the operation, the military said.

Al Jazeeras Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Istanbul, said the latest operation targeted multiple areas and was coordinated among several air force bases.





Koseoglu noted Turkeys military has been striking the PKK inside northern Iraq since 1996, adding PKK fighters had been harassing military and police units along the Turkish border.

Turkeys armed forces hit separate targets simultaneously this time, the logistics lines run through this area. According to Turkeys defence ministry, some of the strikes were called off at the last minute over concerns of civilian casualties, she said.

Iraqs military denounced the attacks.

We deplore the penetration of Iraqi airspace by the Turkish planes which  at a depth of 193km from the Turkish border inside the Iraqi airspace  targeted a refugee camp near Makhmour and Sinjar, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

Threatening security

A security source earlier told Reuters news agency the warplanes took off from various air bases in Turkey, notably in the southeastern cities of Diyarbakir and Malatya.

The defence ministry subsequently said the air operation targeted the PKK in its stronghold at Qandil, near the Iranian border, as well as the areas of Sinjar, Zap, Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk.

The PKK and other terrorist elements are threatening the security of our people and borders with attacks increasing every day on the areas of our outposts and bases, it said.

The PKK, designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, focused in southeast Turkey.

While Turkish warplanes frequently target PKK targets in northern Iraq, Turkey has also warned in recent years of a potential ground offensive targeting PKK bases in the Qandil mountains.

Koseoglu noted the head of Turkish intelligence had visited Iraq only a couple of days ago.
Photo: Unsplash

You can leave your umbrella at home through Wednesday, but light rainfall is in the forecast for Philadelphia later in the week, according to the seven-day forecast from drone-powered weather service Saildrone. The greatest chance of rain is predicted on Sunday at 70%, with the possibility of light rainfall of 0.58 inches.

The next few days will also bring warm temperatures, forecast to stick around through Thursday. Temperatures will rise even more from Friday to Sunday, with a high of 95 degrees on Sunday.

Skies will be cloudy for the next few days and partly cloudy on Saturday. Winds will stay light throughout the week, with the highest speeds today at only 12 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.
(Natural News) Social media giant Facebook is now doubling its efforts to quash hate speech and violence on its platforms, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The social media company purged almost 200 accounts from its platform  all of which were associated with notorious White supremacy groups. Some of these groups, according to the report, even pushed their members to arm themselves and crash protests against police brutality and racism.

We saw that these groups were planning to rally supporters and members to physically go to the protests and in some cases were preparing to go with weapons, Brian Fishman, Facebooks director of counterterrorism and dangerous organizations policy, said in an interview with AP. (Related: Have Google, Facebook bought off DC conservative think tanks?)

Facebook and its image-sharing platform Instagram removed accounts associated with the groups Proud Boys and American Guard, both of which have been banned previously from the social media platform for violating its rules against hate speech.

Facebook, however, did not provide details about where the account users were located, or what they may have planned to do at the protests.

Meanwhile, a Reuters report also revealed that the social media platform will no longer actively promote all mentions of the word Boogaloo, a term coined by extremists to refer to a potential U.S. civil war or the collapse of civilization.

According to Facebook, this means that users will find it much harder to locate user groups associated with the term.

This decision, announced by the company Thursday, came after federal authorities in Nevada charged three men with conspiracy to cause destruction during demonstrations in Las Vegas.

The men were found to be associated with the far-right group Boogaloo movement.

Violent instigators have hijacked peaceful protests and demonstrations across the country, including Nevada, exploiting the real and legitimate outrage over Mr. Floyds death for their own radical agendas, Nevada U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich said.

Facebook, through a spokeswoman, said it started making the changes early last week.

We felt we needed to take this action given discussions of the potential use of violence, the spokeswoman, whose identity has been withheld by Reuters for her protection, said.

According to the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), an independent nonprofit of scientists and engineers that tracks and reports instances of misinformation and hate speech across social media, the Boogaloo movement has adherents on mainstream internet platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as sites such as Reddit and 4chan.

NCRI, in its report, noted that extremists who identified with the movement would push anti-government and anti-law enforcement messages across social media platforms through the use of memes or images  a tactic that has been dubbed memetic warfare.

An NBC News report, meanwhile, said the current boogaloo movement was first brought to the attention of extremism researchers in 2019 after several fringe groups began using the term to refer to what they think is an impending civil and race war.

As cited in the Reuters report, an advocacy group called the Tech Transparency Project was one of the first to send out a warning on social media that several adherents of the Boogaloo movement were discussing taking up arms in order to liberate states from restrictions brought about by COVID-19-related lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.

According to the project, those affiliated with the Boogaloo movement often identify with white nationalist and supremacist groups such as gun rights advocates, while some are members of private militias.

In its report, the project noted that most of those who are affiliated with the Boogaloo movement often see the public health lockdowns and other directives by states and cities throughout the United States as a violation of their rights and that they are aiming to harness public frustration at such measures to rally and attract new followers to their cause.

Social media censorship?

Despite being promoted as one of the social media networks attempts at quelling problematic pages and accounts, some users think Facebooks recent actions may be part of a plan to paint conservative and right-wing voices as online boogeymen.

However, the report by NCRI, according to authorities, lends credence to Facebooks decision, noting that extremists affiliated with the Boogaloo movement have used the social media platform to not just strategize, but also to share instructions on how to create explosives and 3D print firearms, as well as distribute illegal firearm modifications, and siphon users en masse into encrypted messaging boards.

Weve been studying trends around this and related terms on Facebook and Instagram, Facebook said in a statement published in NBC, adding that the social media platform does not allow speech used to incite hate or violence and that it will remove any content that violates their policies.

Earlier this year, the social media platform also removed a network of pages, accounts and groups that push the QAnon theory. According to Facebook, the said network was taken down for violating the sites policies against coordinated, inauthentic behavior.

Sources include:

BigLeaguePolitics.com

APNews.com

Reuters.com

News3LV.com

NCRI.io

NBCNews.com

TechTransparencyProject.org

Mashable.com
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) came out with three schemes recently to promote domestic manufacturing of electronic goods, and especially mobile phones. The Rs 50,000-crore schemes - production-linked incentive, components and semiconductors manufacturing and manufacturing clusters - have received mixed response from the industry, and there has been a sense of hope that India could align itself to the global supply chain and take away market share from China and Vietnam, who control a bulk of the market.

Replicating Maruti's Model

Consider this. During the early days of Maruti Suzuki, it was importing totally assembled cars from Japan's Suzuki which was also the 26 per cent shareholder in the Indian entity. Over the years, Maruti began importing semi-knocked down units (SKD), and later completely-knocked down (CKD) from Suzuki. This led to spike in the imports of auto parts from $4 million in 1980 to $155 million in 1986 - hurting India's foreign exchange reserves.

In 1987, when Suzuki increased its shareholding to 40 per cent, it proved to be a big turning point. How? This led to gradual development of domestic auto ancillary ecosystem in the country when Maruti was no longer dependent on imports to make cars. This model was followed by other carmakers like Toyota, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and others who were joined in by their auto parts producers in the country.

With nearly 90 per cent of the global mobile market controlled by top six players - Apple, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and Huawei - the government wants these brands to expand their presence in India. While Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo are already assembling phones in the country, they could use the incentives to help them lower the cost of production for making phones in the country. For instance, product-linked incentive alone would result in cost savings of about 6 per cent, the other two schemes would further bring the costs down - bringing the cost structure at par with Vietnam.

The pull factor

The key element in making India a global mobile manufacturing hub is to attract the Big Six. These players already have been doing some manufacturing in the country for the past few years (primarily to serve the domestic demand), they have just started using India as an exports base to serve other countries.

The recent schemes are expected to lure these brands to further increase their presence in India, and benefit the domestic market. How? The brands like Samsung and Apple have a global distribution network, and if they are sufficiently incentivised, they could integrate India to their distribution chain besides bringing in technology and R&D (research and development) capabilities into the country.

Although the government has outlined the need to create five global and five domestic champions through its schemes, it's likely that domestic manufacturers will have to rely hugely on the global players in the initial years. "Domestic companies can initially begin by becoming white label suppliers to some of the global lead firms and, in turn, improve their production systems. With the right policy environment and stimulus, these Indian companies could reach global scale," says a recent ICEA-EY report.

Benefitting from US-China dispute

While the COVID-19 pandemic has deteriorated the already-strained links between the US and China, the Indian government thinks that it has a fair chance of pulling some business out of China. How? The trade dispute between China and the US began in May 2018 when the US government imposed import tariffs on Chinese goods. China retaliated in a similar fashion. Over the past two years, the trade war has transformed into geo-political fight between the two nations with the US raising concerns over China's role in handling coronavirus crisis. It seems that this brawl is unlikely to end soon. As such, China has become the new enemy of the world for being the place from which the deadly virus germinated.

But it's understood that the US-China fight alone would not prod companies to move out of China, and hence, the MeitY, under the leadership of minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, quickly prepared a set of schemes to lure global brands.

Exports strategy

Being a large country with sizeable population, India is a large consumer of smartphones. The domestic mobile market is expected to grow at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 17.6 per cent till FY26 to reach $80 billion, as per ICEA-EY report. But that's not good enough for global brands to expand base in the country. Why? That's because the opportunities in the exports market are huge. For instance, China exported mobile phones worth $224.07 billion in 2019 whereas Vietnam exported $63.1 billion in the same year. India's exports stood at just $1.6 billion in FY19.

"Given the size and scale of investment required to achieve economies of scale and enhance export competitiveness, domestic market alone may not be attractive enough to encourage global lead firms to develop manufacturing ecosystem," said the ICEA-EY report.

But there's a catch. India cannot give direct exports incentives as it would be in violation of WTO norms. "We cannot have a scheme with direct linkage to support exports. The current scheme, which is being challenged by the US, would likely to discontinued, and hence the government has come out with these new incentives," says Bipin Sapra, partner at EY.

Forex gains

One of the biggest underlying reasons to push domestic manufacturing is to have a healthy fiscal position. For instance, India ran a current account deficit of $63.38 billion on account of imports of electronics. That's a huge number to create trade imbalance. Then, there's also fear that the electronics imports would surpass oil imports in a few years if it continue to grow at the current pace.

While reducing the dependence on imports is a long-haul process, the quickest way to minimise the forex outgo is to increase exports. there's a belief that even if India continues to import higher amounts of electronics products, it can cover that up with higher exports value which will ultimately add to the foreign reserves of the country. The National Policy on Electronics (NPE) 2019 has already outlined the target of exporting 600 million units valued at $110 billion by 2025/26. To achieve that target, India really needs to leapfrog, and plug itself into the global supply chain.

Labour cost

About 8-10 years ago, when China took off as a global mobile manufacturing hub, its cost advantage was partially driven by the availability of cheap labour. Same was the case with Vietnam. In the recent years, the overall increase in per capita GDP (gross domestic product) in these countries has made labour expensive. While there's no doubt that a lot of mobile manufacturing processes have now been automated, the industry will still require huge amount of people which is where India is at a gainful position given its young demography and comparatively cheaper labour cost.

Also read: SBI's liquidity ratio at 143%: Either nobody wants money or bank doesn't want to lend

Also read:Reliance Industries' rights issue share debuts at Rs 690
WATERLOO REGION  The organization that oversees Waterloo Regional Police Service and sets its budget will discuss the issues raised by Black activists at a meeting this week, says the board chair.

It is our intent to hear from the Chief (Bryan Larkin) what actions have been taken and what undertakings are being made within the police service to address systemic racism, Karen Redman, chair of the Police Services Board, said in an email Sunday.

The board will discuss what action it wants to direct police leadership to take to address the issues outlined in the Black Lives Matter concerns.

When asked if there were specific concerns the board would address on Wednesday at its monthly meeting, Redman said the board would decide at the meeting.

It will be a discussion that focuses on what shape the path forward will take with an emphasis on taking action.

Earlier this month, thousands of people marched in downtown Kitchener in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and to recognize racial injustices faced by Black and Indigenous people. It was one of many protests around the world demanding fundamental changes in law enforcement, including defunding of police forces, to address systemic racism.

Following the Kitchener march, local Black activists and organizers put forth action items to end anti-Black racism. They are calling for the defunding of the police service at a minimum of $29.3 million, and for those funds to be invested in community-led health and safety initiatives for impoverished and racialized groups. They also want the school resource officer program and the community outreach program for youth scrapped.

Ruth Cameron, a member of the African, Caribbean and Black Network of Waterloo Region advisory committee, said its important the calls to action are not mischaracterized as concerns.

That downplays the seriousness of what were requesting, she said, adding she is not seeing a response to their specific requests.

The calls to action are about defunding police. (There is) nothing within our calls to action that speaks to reform of the police and we see any call which speaks to anti-bias training as ineffective.

Police budgets are determined by the police board and funded by regional taxes.

In addition to Redman, who chairs the board, there are two other elected members from regional council, one community-at-large-member who is appointed by regional council, and three provincially appointed members.

All the members of the board were contacted by the Record to ask if they would raise the issue of defunding on Wednesday.

The two members who are elected regional councillors  Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz and Cambridge councillor Karl Kiefer  were the only two to respond.

Please contact WRPS Board Chair Karen Redman for a response, said Kiefer.

I believe Chair Redman has replied to the community on behalf of the board, said Shantz in an email. The topic is on the agenda and I will participate in the discussion at that time.

The other members of the board  Ian McLean, Rosita Tse and Tony Giovinazzo  did not respond to the request for comment by Sunday afternoon.

There is one vacant spot on the board  the position available is by appointment of the province.
Hundreds of people gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court to rally in support of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program as the court hears arguments about DACA November 12, 2019 in Washington, DC.

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will not hear a challenge brought by the Trump administration to a so-called sanctuary law in California that was passed to limit the impact of the president's immigration agenda in the state.

The case concerned a California law passed in 2017 that limits how state and local law enforcement can assist the federal government in immigration enforcement.

With certain exceptions, the law bars state and local law enforcement agencies from informing the federal government of an individual's home address, work address or date of release from custody for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

It also prevents state and local officials from transferring someone into the custody of immigration officials without a warrant.

The Trump administration sued California over the measure, alleging that it was invalid under federal law.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued in court papers that the law's "conceded purpose to obstruct  and effect of obstructing  federal law through its own regulatory scheme makes the state law unenforceable."

A federal district court ruled in California's favor and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision.

President Donald Trump, who is facing reelection in November, was elected on a promise to make the nation's immigration laws more restrictive.

The case is United States v. California, No. 19-532.
The father of controversial leftist congresswoman Ilhan Omar is desperately ill in a Minneapolis hospital suffering from Covid-19, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

But Nur Omar Mohamed has banned the congresswoman from his bedside amid a furious argument father and daughter have been having over her affair and marriage to her campaign fundraiser.

Mohamed, 67, has been in a coma in Hennepin Medical Center for the past eight days.

He is so ill that Ilhan's elder sister Sahra is flying in from Kenya to be at his side.

'It is not looking good, he is very sick,' one friend of the family told DailyMail.com.

'He told the family he did not want Ilhan near him and wanted Sahra to be in charge of everything.

The source said Mohamed  who is also known as Nur Said Elmi  and Omar have not been speaking in recent months since DailyMail.com posted pictures of her and her new husband Tim Mynett with his hand on her rear.

'He thought that was very demeaning that she should be walking around in public like that,' said the source. 'They have hardly spoken in three months.'

'He has been very angry about the shame his daughter brought upon him and the family for having an affair while married.'

Ilhan Omar's father Nur Omar Mohamed, 67, has been in a coma in Hennepin Medical Center for the past eight days suffering from COVID-19

The source said Mohamed and his congresswoman daughter have not been speaking in recent months since DailyMail.com posted pictures of her and her new husband Tim Mynett with his hand on her rear

Mohamed is being treated at the Hennepin Medical Center in Minneapolis

Soon after DailyMail.com initially reported the rift, Omar put a picture on Instagram of herself, Mynett and her father happily smiling at the Iftar.

Omar's spokesman Jeremy Slevin confirmed that Mohamed is in the hospital with COVID but denied that he and his daughter were on the outs. 'They talk regularly and recently had Iftar together,' he said, referring to the after-sunset meal that Muslims eat during Ramadan.

'The man is seriously ill, his whole family is grieving,' added Slevin.

Omar, who is facing a tough Democratic Party primary to hold on to her Minneapolis-based seat, married Mynett, her chief fundraiser in March.

Nur Mohamed moved to the United States with Sahra and Ilhan in 1995 after spending more than four years in a camp for Somali refugees in Kenya. Other siblings who could not get permission to come to America went to Britain.

In the congresswomen's book, This Is What America Looks Like, Ilhan alternates between saying her father was strict and that he was liberal

The family moved first to Alexandria, Virginia, before settling in Minneapolis where Mohamed worked first as a taxi driver and then for the United States Postal Service.

Ilhan's mother had died when she was just two years old.

His background in Somalia has always been clouded. Ilhan's Wikipedia page says he was a teacher, but others have claimed he was the propaganda minister for the repressive government of dictator Said Barre, and as such he should have been barred from moving to the United States.

He had seven children  Ilhan is the youngest.

In 2009 she married British subject Ahmed Elmi, who some have said was Mohamed's son and so her brother. The marriage allowed him to get an education at North Dakota State University.

In her memoir published this year, Ilhan Omar said she had a 'Britney Spears-style meltdown, shaving off her hair and eloping with Elmi, who she hardly knew.

In the book, This Is What America Looks Like, Ilhan alternates between saying her father was strict and that he was liberal.

She said she sometimes wished he had been tougher with her when she was a child, saying he and her grandfather 'were annoyingly accommodating to each person's opinion.'

But she said he got upset with her during her teenage years if her clothes showed too much skin.

'It is not looking good, he is very sick,' one friend of the family told DailyMail.com. Ilhan's father is pictured at her swearing in ceremony with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Ilhan's elder sister Sahra (pictured) is flying in from Kenya to be at their father's side

Nur Mohamed moved to the United States with Sahra and Ilhan in 1995 after spending more than four years in a camp for Somali refugees in Kenya

'He wouldn't have been fixated on the fact that a shirt didn't cover up my chest enough but rather on the fact that he had failed to teach me that my value as a human wasn't based on the extent of my body that I had on display.

'He would have blamed himself for not giving me enough self-esteem, resources, or love,' she wrote.

But in another part of the memoir This Is What America Looks Like, she said he was stern.

'Although most other kids my age went to clubs, I never wentnot because I would be tempted to drink. No, I worried about there being a shooting or a fire and getting stuck or dying inside and my father's having to live with the fact that I had been in a club.

'My friends joked that I was more afraid of my father than I was afraid of God. ''God is forgiving,'' I would say. 'My father isn't.'

Omar, who is facing a tough Democratic Party primary to hold on to her Minneapolis-based seat, married Mynett, her chief fundraiser in March

'My father raised me with a strict morality, not strict rules. He never said I needed to be home by a certain time, but he would have been angry if I came home late because I was at a party with my friends.

'He never once said to me, ''You can't leave the house unless you wear a hijab.''

'A lot of the Muslim girls I went to school with would change their clothing as soon as they were out of their parents' housethe skirts got shorter as they got closer to school.

'This was a time when jeans with cutouts were popular. I told my dad I wanted a pair, and he went out and bought them for me. When I left the house, my friends, who put their cutout jeans on only when they were out of sight of their parents, were shocked. 'You're the devil's child,' one said.
A 19-year-old Black Lives Matter activist whose disappearance this month led to a desperate search after she sent a series of tweets describing a sexual assault has been found dead in Tallahassee, Fla., the police said Monday.

The activist, Oluwatoyin Salau, was one of two women whose bodies were discovered in an area southeast of the city on Saturday evening, the police said. The other victim was identified as Victoria Sims, 75, an AARP volunteer who was last seen on Thursday. Officers who went to her home found that it had been burglarized and that her car was missing, the police on Tuesday as they released new details on the womens deaths.

A 49-year-old man, identified as Aaron Glee Jr., has been charged with murder and kidnapping in connection with their deaths, the police said.

Ms. Salau was last seen on June 6, according to the police, and friends and fellow activists raised concerns about her well-being after she wrote a number of alarming posts on Twitter that day in which she described being sexually assaulted by a man who had offered her a ride and a place to stay.
UN calls for investigation of 'horrible reports' of mass graves in Libya

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 7:34 AM

The United Nations (UN)'s mission to Libya has called for an investigation of the "horrible reports" that several mass graves have been found in the North African country.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) on Thursday expressed its "deep concern" about the "very horrible reports about the discovery of several mass graves, most of them in Tarhuna."

The strategic town of Tarhuna, to the southeast of the capital, Tripoli, had for 14 months been the last major stronghold of Libyan rebels under the command of strongman Khalifa Haftar. Earlier this month, Libyan government forces retook control of the city.

UNSMIL said last Sunday that it had received "deeply disturbing" reports of deaths, destruction, and looting from the areas recently recaptured.

On Thursday, UNSMIL said that authorities "must conduct a prompt, transparent and effective investigation into reports of extrajudicial killings."

It also welcomed a decision by Libya's Ministry of Justice to form an investigation committee to protect mass grave sites.

The Libyan Justice Ministry has called on the committee "to identify victims and causes of death and return the bodies to the families of the dead."

Mass graves were also found in the cities of Souq al-Khomis and al-Mashrou.

Haftar's rebel forces  backed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  have been fighting to overtake Tripoli and unseat the UN-recognized government there for over a year.

The Libyan government receives backing from Turkey.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu will meet their Turkish counterparts, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Hulusi Akar, in Istanbul on Sunday to discuss a potential ceasefire in Libya.

Separately, the president of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, has offered to mediate and help end the Libyan conflict.

Libya plunged into chaos in 2011 when a popular uprising backed by a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:11:23|Editor: huaxia

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ULAN BATOR, June 15 (Xinhua) -- A construction worker was killed and two others were injured during a building demolition here on Monday, according to Mongolia's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

The accident happened in Sukhbaatar district at around 9:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).

The two rescued workers have been taken to the National Traumatology and Orthopedics Research Center, NEMA said.

An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway. Enditem
Entire Digital, the fastest-growing media tech player in Europe thanks to its proprietary technology for media outlets and products in SaaS, has acquired the American brand Contents.com. From fall 2020, the company will broaden its horizons by fully entering the global market with an acquisition that is an integral part of a strategy focused on the entire international market of information technology.

MILAN, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Breaking the American market with the acquisition of Contents.com is another big score for the tech company. Through this operation, managed by Dave Evanson - the Boston-based broker and expert in M&A of high value-added corporates, assets and domain names - Entire Digital aims to reinforce and expand its international strategy to create brand new opportunities in a new environment. It's a commercial tactic focused abroad and one of the few examples of an Italian company acquiring in American territory, which will accelerate predictive algorithm generation and big data analysis for distinct kinds of content, signifying a grand entrance into the global market.

The company will begin to use its resources and technology to renovate and provide new development and distribution environments in its unique platform. These come as part of the new plans of Founder and CEO Massimiliano Squillace, a serial entrepreneur who made four exits and has previous experience in the USA after taking part in the sale of OLX - founded by the millionaire serial entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda - to Naspers in addition to the sale of Nano Publishing to Excite.

As a result of this acquisition, Contents.com will benefit from the full range of Entire Digital's services, making available its platform for trend discovery, content production and recommendation, powered by its proprietary predictive algorithm and its competence and experience in the digital tech field. The company continues with its strategy geared towards brand globalization and, after Europe, expanding into the American market.

After having raised $1.3 million in 2019, Entire Digital is now seeking to raise $4 million in Series A funding.

Entire Digital has developed an advanced system of proprietary AI as it continues to innovate in the content creation industry with an entirely algorithm-based approach, applicable to every kind of business online, and provide cloud services to every customer. AI and machine learning give millions of possibilities to every business: from marketing to sales and reputation management, offering the valuable in-depth content and tools that people need.

Machine learning algorithms learn and analyze a massive quantity of data using labeled examples to predict future requests and interests from customers: in fact, Entire Digital's trend discovery process is managed by an algorithm that identifies the best trends at a given time and makes predictions about the output values.

According to a machine-to-human interaction perspective, the content production phase is characterized by a hybrid production model of contributors from all over the world and machine learning.

Thanks to neural networks and big data processing, the company uses a Natural Language Generation system for content generation in fields such as economics or finance. The Natural Language Processing checks the quality and the veracity of automatic or man-made texts. The recommendation system is machine learning-based and suggests the exact content to the right user according to their navigation and likes.

Artificial intelligence and natural language meet deep learning algorithms to integrate with one another, producing outstanding results in different operative scenarios and applications. This will inevitably transform the face of every modern industry with some tools, even revolutionizing the way some producers create or edit content from texts to podcasts and videos.

"We are particularly proud of this new acquisition of Contents.com," explained Massimiliano Squillace, Founder & CEO of Entire Digital. "This is going to enable us to test ourselves again, employing our services to renovate a stalling sector and widen our range of action to new playing fields. Since day one, Entire Digital has always been imagined as a multinational company, and Contents.com is a realization of our purpose. We hope to improve the world we are living in by orienting ourselves towards targeted market growth and expansion, through a technology which makes the whole thing even more distinctive."

BRIEF DESCRIPTION ABOUT ENTIRE DIGITAL

Entire Digital is a data-driven company that provides tailored technology solutions for publishers, media outlets, and all businesses online, using a proprietary system of advanced AI that helps the development of content identifying trends. Furthermore, from 2021, it will sell its solutions in SaaS.

***

Contacts

Entire Digital Srl

Via Paolo da Cannobio 9 - 20122 Milan (Italy)

E-mail: entiredigital@entiredigital.com

Press: press@entiredigital.com

Tel: +39 02 96840095

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Passenger demand at London's second-largest airport may not return to pre-crisis levels for another three or four years as the sector grapples with severe disruption.

Airports have been heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, with airlines stopping or significantly reducing their flights in the wake of lockdowns and travel restrictions to contain Covid-19.

"We think it will take three to four years for Gatwick to come back to 2019 passenger volume levels," Stewart Wingate, chief executive officer of Gatwick, told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick Monday.

Gatwick reported just under 37 million passengers in the nine months to the end of 2019, an increase of 0.3% from the same period the year before.

The airport has also been under pressure after two big airlines announced plans to reduce or review their presence at Gatwick due to the current crisis. Virgin Atlantic said it will end its operations at the airport, while British Airways said it could not exclude the possibility of also closing its services there.

"We are very hopeful that British Airways will continue flying, we think they will, we certainly are doing everything we can to persuade them to continue to fly to and from Gatwick and Virgin (Atlantic) are holding on to their spots, so in three or four years, they are telling us, they certainly intend to come back to Gatwick," Wingate said.
Eunice Sophia Crown is the co-founder of Global Exploits Ministries International (GEMI) based in Thika, which she runs with her pastor husband. She narrates what its like to be a pastors wife.

In the past two months, I have had a lot of time to bond with my family. It feels weird. I am a pastors wife and my biggest struggle in the last three years since we got married and started ministering has been time. Then, I yearned for more time with my husband and our two-year-old son.

My husband and I are the founders of Global Exploits International Ministries (GEMI) in Thika. When you are church planters, you have to commit much of your time to the church. It is a requisite for growth.

However, due to the governments directive to ban social gatherings and as a result church attendance due to Covid-19, my place as a pastors wife has shifted greatly and my roles downplayed. On a day like this, I would have had many things calling for my attentiona needy baby, a shirt, and a dress that requires ironing and house chores. Then my phone would ring and the person on the other end, a congregant, wants to know what time I will get to the church because she wants to talk to me before we start preparing for the Sunday service.

Now, the ministry set up has changed and we are keeping in touch with our members through platforms such as Facebook Live, WhatsApp Groups, Zoom, and calls, which if you ask me, are all less impactful compared to physical meetings. I miss holding hands with other believers when praying and singing our hearts out during the praise and worship session.

Now that I am mostly at home, I have also had the time to reflect on my position as a pastors wife.

Nothing prepares you more for this role. You read materials and books, memorise quotes and lines from various authors, but once you get into it, you realise how unique the journey is.

There are some common experiences, though. The expectations, the somewhat lonely journey, and the burden we carry for our families and church. But every day is a blessed one. The thrill of serving the congregants and ministering alongside my husband is alive. It is always amazing to look back and see all the things that have unfolded in my eyes  the needs met, the changed lives and the miracles performed. Its a journey  one set in joy, surprises, and trying times. These tides make it unique.

I grew up in church and in the front line of the childrens ministry. I recited verses, led the prayers, and had dreams that my parents concluded were signs and visions. I was chosen to serve the church, they told me. That dictated my place in Christian unions, abbreviated as CU, and the choice for dating partners. Even before meeting my husband, I had not dated anyone outside the gospel ministry.

I was a first-year diploma student at Mount Kenya University when I met him. He was in his final year of study but remained a regular minister during our CU fellowships. As one of the CU leaders, I would interact with him during those visitations and after a couple of months, we started dating.

How is life as a pastors wife? This is probably where my story should have started because this is a question asked many times and especially during these unprecedented times. And I know why the question keeps recurring it is because of the expectations that plague this undefined role.

You are expected to be perfect, all-time righteous and at a time like this, be actively present in the lives of the members of your church. The anticipation and criticism of pastors wives have doubled since the pandemic frost.

On social media, I have come across posts expressing disappointment in us.

Why are they not organising food drives or paying frequent visits to those whose lives have been upended by the pandemic? Theres an unspoken belief among some people that if its not on social media, its not happening.

However, as a church minister, I have been keeping tabs with the members of our church, a wonderful group of people I must say. Ours is a small congregation and we are more like a family.

When we first got married, I was a primary school teacher and he was the principal of a start-up college. One evening, he told me, I feel that its time we focused all our attention to the church. He meant that we should quit our jobs.

In my mind, two thoughts were seeking an audience, okay, quit our jobs to plant a church? And, then what? What will we be doing during weekdays? I was frightened but still hopeful.

I spoke to a few pastors wives, who encouraged and reminded me that one of the attributes that make up our responsibility is living by faith. Thankfully, my husband is an author of eight motivational books so, through the sales of the books, he would make money to see us through. Our friends and family were also very supportive and they still are. To supplement our income and keep myself busy, I decided to start the clothing business.

However, when the pandemic struck, the hustle went under. So I have resorted to selling clothes online and offering great discounts to attract customers. At the moment, my husband is designing online posters for other pastors who have been holding online meetings. This has been an income opening for us.

We are also suffering just like anyone else. There are those who think that as pastors, we are doing okay. When people reach out to us for essentials, I sometimes get jittery. What do you tell them when your business has also crumbled?

Nowadays, there are many women desiring to get married to a gospel minister. I hear that many times. You get the front row seat, a faithful husband (he is a conveyor of the word and evangel, right?), but they need to know that this is different from other professions. There are days you will have to dig deep into your pockets to support the church or its members, carry other persons burdens, and spend more time away from your home.

It is a sacrifice. One that is messy and fulfilling at the same time.

Source: Saturday Magazine
(Natural News) A new study led by a team from The Rockefeller University in New York City suggests that most people infected with Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) develop antibodies after they recover.

But theres a caveat: The team reveals that only some of these antibodies have the ability to neutralize the coronavirus. The immunological study looked at 149 people and found that while the antibodies they produced are able to latch onto the virus, only a few are capable of blocking it from infecting cells.

Everyone develops antibodies, but are they strong enough?

In their report, posted in the preprint server bioRxiv, the team worked with immunologists, medical scientists and virologists to collect blood samples from recovered COVID-19 patients. While most of the samples they collected had antibodies present, these showed either poor or modest neutralizing activity, which indicated a weak antibody response.

The researchers also found that all the recovered patients were capable of producing effective antibodies, but some of them werent producing enough. Nevertheless, the researchers noted the presence of rare antibodies with potent antiviral activity in all the samples they tested.

This suggests just about everybody can do this, said senior author Michel Nussenzweig, who is also the head of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at Rockefeller. If scientists are able to develop a treatment that can activate these rare antibodies, Nussenzweig says that it can possibly work for a lot of people.

In addition, the team identified three distinct antibodies that had the most promise in neutralizing the coronavirus. They are currently developing these antibodies for use in therapy. (Related: mRNA vaccines, a primer: How they work, why theyre cleaner than traditional vaccines, and why they might prove catastrophic in a rushed coronavirus response.)

Replicating strong responses for treatment

A total of 149 people who recovered from COVID-19 visited the Rockefeller Hospital to donate plasma, the part of blood that contains antibodies, as well as the immune B cells that produce them. Those who donated exhibited symptoms nearly 40 days before they donated plasma and had symptoms that lasted for an average of 12 days.

The researchers tested the neutralizing ability of the plasma samples using an antibody test that they developed. It involved mixing a pseudo version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen behind COVID-19, with the plasma samples and testing whether it can still infect human cells in vitro.

The team discovered that the neutralizing activity of a third of the plasma samples was below detectable levels. They interpreted this to mean that the owners of these samples were able to resolve the infection quickly, even before the antibody-producing cells got involved. Most of the samples, meanwhile, exhibited poor to modest neutralizing activity. Only 1 percent showed high neutralizing activity.

Like in other diseases, everyone responds differently, explained lead author Davide Robbiani, who is also a researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology. Some people have [a] poor response, some average. And then there [are] a fraction of people that are exceptional responders.

These people  the one percent  are what the team is looking for. Because of their high levels of neutralizing antibodies, plasma samples from these recovered patients will make it easier for the team to catch the immune B cells that produce them. These cells can be developed into a therapy that will allow everyone to have a strong response against the coronavirus.

From the plasma samples of the exceptional responders, the researchers identified 40 antibodies that can neutralize the coronavirus. They decided to focus on three antibodies that exhibited neutralizing activity even at low concentrations. The team is now working on developing them for clinical use.

The neutralizing antibodies identified in the study bind to at least three specific sites that are found on the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the coronaviruss spike protein. This protein is what the virus uses to gain entry into target cells. Low-performing plasma samples also contained RBD-binding antibodies, but only in small amounts.

We now know what an effective antibody looks like and we have found similar ones in more than one person, Robbiani said, adding that this is important information for scientists who are currently working on coronavirus treatments.

Pandemic.news has more on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Sources include:

MedicalXpress.com

BioRxiv.org
Amaravati, June 15 : Andhra Pradesh Governor Biswabhushan Harichandan is set to become perhaps the first Governor of any state in India to address the state legislature through video conferencing.

The budget session of the legislature will begin on Tuesday with the customary address by the Governor.

Harichandan will address the joint session of Assembly and Council from Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the governor in Vijayawada.

Andhra Pradesh is also set to become the first state to hold its legislature session after the Covid-19 pandemic breakout.

The decision to have the governor's remote address was taken in view of the current Covid-19 situation.

Seating arrangements have also been changed in both the houses to ensure social distancing.

Assembly Speaker T. Seetharam said that every seat in the Assembly and Council will be sanitised.

Governor Chief Whip G. Sreekanth Reddy said arrangements were in place to conduct a medical test of every legislator. He said no visitors will be allowed during this session while the media would be allowed to cover the proceedings only from the press gallery.

It is likely to be a short session. Both the houses will be adjourned after the Governor's address.

Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meeting will be held after this to decide the duration and agenda of the session.

Finance Minister B. Rajendranath will present the budget for 2020-21 in the Assembly in the afternoon session.

The government could not present the full budget in March due to the coronavirus crisis. It instead issued an ordinance for vote on account for the three month period ending June 30.
James H. Lowry shares his success story to inspire the next generation of leaders to make a better world

CHICAGO, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- James H. Lowry encapsulated his 30-plus years of experience in the field of minority business development in the book he co-authored in 2011, Minority Business Success: Refocusing on the American Dream. In his latest publication, Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities (published by Archway Publishing, Lowry delivers a deeply personal, candid and often humorous portrayal of his journey as a trailblazing African American.

More than just a story of his life going from the South Side of Chicago to Wall Street, this memoir illustrates the power of iconic mentors and pivotal opportunities leveraged across the globe. Lowry describes how he was influenced by the positive advancement of the civil rights movement and demonstrates how breakthroughs can be achieved through years of lessons learned. Here, the author delivers a plan to accelerate economic development in the black community, highlighting the need for blacks to gain a deeper understanding of the United States free enterprise system to be more meaningful players in it.

The United States is going through the most challenging phase of our history, and race relationships need to be understood and leveraged if we can progress positively, Lowry points out. People of all ethnic, religious backgrounds, and genders have to work together to make the world better.

Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities intends to offer a roadmap for the next generation of leaders and inspire new change agents to take the reins. By sharing his success story, the author hopes readers will be encouraged to work together and maximize their knowledge and resources for the betterment of all. Visit https://www.archwaypublishing.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-001221083 to purchase a copy.

Change Agent: A Life Dedicated to Creating Wealth for Minorities

Story continues

By James H. Lowry

Hardcover | 5.5 x 8.5in | 312 pages | ISBN 9781480887237

Softcover | 5.5 x 8.5in | 312 pages | ISBN 9781480887244

E-Book | 312 pages | ISBN 9781480887251

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

James H. Lowry is a business icon, sought-after speaker, strategic advisor and nationally recognized workforce and supplier diversity expert and pioneer. Lowry was the first African American consultant for global consulting firm McKinsey & Company in 1968. Later, he became the first African American senior partner at the prestigious Boston Consulting Group, where he led the firms workforce diversity, ethnic marketing and minority business development consulting practice. Lowry continues to serve as a senior advisor to BCG, while heading his own private consulting firm, James H. Lowry & Associates. Lowry was inducted into the inaugural class of the Minority Business Hall of Fame, and has been awarded the National Minority Supplier Development Councils Lifetime Achievement Award, MBDAs Abe Venable Award for Lifetime Achievement, Chicago Minority Supplier Development Councils Impact Award and the Executive Leadership Councils Alvaro L. Martins Heritage Award.

Simon & Schuster, a company with nearly ninety years of publishing experience, has teamed up with Author Solutions, LLC, the worldwide leader in self-publishing, to create Archway Publishing. With unique resources to support books of all kind, Archway Publishing offers a specialized approach to help every author reach his or her desired audience. For more information, visit www.archwaypublishing.com or call 888-242-5904.

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Congress general secretary Avinash Pande said on Monday that the legislators who are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan would continue to stay together at a hotel till the Rajya Sabha election due to the alleged poaching threat from the Bharatiya Janata Party.

IMAGE: All India Congress Committee general secretary Avinash Pandey, party's Rajya Sabha candidate KC Venugopal, Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, deputy CM Sachin Pilot and party leader Randeep Surjewala show victory sign during a press conference in Jaipur. Photograph: PTI Photo

Pande said the legislators had been staying like a family, adding that discussions on the future roadmap for the development of the state were being held at the hotel.

According to Pande, the special operations group of the Rajasthan Police is investigating the alleged attempts to poach and destabilise the state government, and the report is likely to come soon.

Pande said the Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties had supported the government, which took the number to 125 (including 107 Congress MLAs) in the House of 200.

"It was decided that the legislators will stay together so that the BJP's attempts, which the party did in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, could not succeed in Rajasthan," he told reporters at the JW Marriott hotel in Jaipur.

"We are staying like a family and this is a blessing in disguise," Pande said, adding that the legislators had been kept after discussion with them.

Asked about the food and civil supplies minister Ramesh Meena's absence, Pande said the Sapotra MLA was away due to some "personal reasons", but he was in touch and would will follow the party directions.

Meanwhile, a letter written to Pande by MLA Bharat Singh surfaced on Monday, in which the legislator had pointed out that most of the Rajya Sabha MPs "do not even recognise" the legislators who elect them.

Singh alleged that the upper House MPs had nothing to do with anyone after the elections get over.

In the letter written on June 11, the former minister said senior leaders of the party were focusing on the Rajya Sabha elections with seriousness despite the fact that two seats were sure to be won by the party.

He pointed out that the Congress could win the Lok Sabha election, too, if the party leaders started working in the same manner.

Asked about it, Pande acknowledged that Singh had written the letter and expressed his sentiments in a "positive way".

On the cabinet expansion, Pande said discussion would be held at the right time.

Government chief whip Mahesh Joshi, who filed complaints alleging attempts to destabilise the state government, said he would elaborate on it once his statement is recorded by the special operations group of the police.

Sources said Joshi had handed over some evidence in connection with the alleged poaching attempts.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.

The MLAs were taken to a luxury resort last week for discussion on the June 19 Rajya Sabha election and were shifted to the JW Marriott on Friday.

The Congress has nominated K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi, while the BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.

In the assembly of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs and has the support of Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal, Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Bhartiya Tribal Party, taking the number of legislators on its side to 125.

The ruling Congress has more than enough majority to win two seats and the BJP, which has 72 MLAs and support of three Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLAs, has the numbers to comfortably win just one seat.
The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, is on admission at the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), receiving treatment for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).



The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who confirmed this in his 11th Update on Measures Taken Against the COVID-19, said the 64-year-old minister, who was admitted last Tuesday, was in stable condition.



Let us also wish our hardworking Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, MP for Dormaa Central, a speedy recovery from the virus, which he contracted in the line of duty and is in stable condition, the President said as he concluded his address yesterday.



Earlier, multiple sources, both at the UGMC and in government, had confirmed the news to the Daily Graphic and said he was responding to treatment.



Frontliner



The minister, one of the key men at the forefront in Ghanas fight against the COVID-19, has not been seen in public since the regular Ministers Media Briefing on the COVID-19 last held on May 28.



Since then, no briefing had been held and the situation had given rise to speculations that he had tested positive for the COVID-19.



However, the Ministry of Health said the minister had taken some days off and was yet to resume work.



COVID-19 response team



Mr Agyeman-Manu, a leading member of Ghanas COVID-19 response team, regularly addresses the Ministers Media Briefing on the virus.



During those briefings, he constantly stressed the need for people to observe the safety and preventive protocols.



At the May 14 briefing, he called on Ghanaians to learn to live with the coronavirus because it had come to stay, stressing that the only way to keep the virus away was by observing the protocols.



The last time I came here, I made some factual statement that the coronavirus had come to live with us. It will have nowhere to go and well have to learn to live with it.



There is no medication that we can take; there is no vaccine against the virus, but there are certain things we know we can do to protect ourselves, he had emphasised.



Casualties



The confirmation of Mr Agyeman-Manus status makes him the third government official to have been confirmed to have contracted the infection, after the Metropolitan Chief Executive for Sekondi Takoradi, Mr Anthony Kobina Kurentsi Sam, and Ghanas High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Papa Owusu-Ankomah.



Unfortunately, Mr Sam passed away at the UGMC last Friday, where he had been on admission, after being referred from the Effia Nkwanta Hospital.



He succumbed to the infection from an underlying health condition.



Papa Owusu-Ankomah was the first high-profile government official to have confirmed testing positive to the infection.



He tested positive in London and was admitted at an ICU on April 10 but recovered and resumed work on May 12.



Last Thursday, the leadership of Parliament expressed concern over the refusal of some members to go into quarantine after testing positive.



The Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, had told the House that the medical team of COVID-19 was frustrated in getting those who had tested positive to go into self-isolation after they had communicated the outcome of their COVID-19 tests.



Case count



Ghanas case count has risen to 11,964, with 4,258 recoveries, while the death toll has also risen to 54.



The active case count stands at 7,652, with 13 people severely ill, six critically ill and three on ventilators.









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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One of Americas most popular governors has taken some unusually pointed hits for his cautious, four-phase plan to reopen the Massachusetts economy.

Frustrated by a three-month battle against the coronavirus pandemic, worried about the long-term economic impact and anxious to take advantage of warmer weather, many Massachusetts citizens ask if Charlie Bakers plan is too moving too slowly.

Its not. Its working. The states encouraging trends with COVID-19 numbers offer the best reason to stay patient, stay the course and see this process through to its proper conclusion.

That wont happen if citizens disregard the same health and safety guidelines that have flattened the COVID-19 curve in this state.

The grass is not greener in other parts of the country. Pushing ahead with reopening schedules that health experts warned was coming too soon, many states are experiencing new upticks in COVID-19 cases - potentially unraveling whatever progress was made in the spring.

According to CNN, rises of more than 50% from the previous week were recorded in Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Alabama and South Carolina. A record-high 2,200 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 on Saturday in Texas. A North Carolina record of 823 were hospitalized that day.

In Massachusetts, the numbers remain encouraging. But the Baker Administration is urging citizens to keep wearing masks, continue social distancing and follow other safety guidelines prescribed by health experts.

Mindful that race-related protests have drawn large crowds, Baker announced Monday that free, confidential coronavirus testing will be offered at 52 pop-up locations across the state. We certainly support peoples rights to express their views peacefully, but we need to keep up our fight to slow the spread of COVID-19 here in Massachusetts, the governor said.

Only steadfast attention to safe practices stands in the way of a new surge of cases in the fall. Signs of progress and some encouraging numbers lured many Americans into mistakenly thinking the crisis is over, and treating safety precautions casually - or worse, discarding them altogether.

The states that hastened reopening were cheered by residents who were tired of the masks and the restrictions. Recent numbers indicate they may pay a daunting price.

Massachusetts has not been one of those states. Bakers refusal to bend to pressure, and instead maintain a strategic phase-in plan, is a credit to his political will.

Massachusetts residents must not let down their guard at just the moment that will decide the outcome of a well-conceived plan to corral the virus until a vaccine is found. Keep wearing the masks. Continue social distancing.

Progress may be coming more slowly than wed like, but the payoff will come when this state avoids the deeper pain of taking several steps back.
President Trump said Monday that 'every conversation' with him is 'highly classified' suggesting former National Security Advisor John Bolton could face criminal prosecution for the contents of his forthcoming tell-all about working in the Trump White House.

'I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified,' Trump told reporters Monday. 'So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the book gets out he's broken the law. I would think he would have criminal problems,' Trump added.

On Monday, ABC News announced that Bolton had taped a primetime sit-down interview with Martha Raddatz that will air Sunday night.

Additionally, the network reported that the Trump administration is expected to file a lawsuit to keep Bolton's book, in its current form, off of store shelves.

Bolton, President Trump's former national security adviser, is poised to release 'The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir' next Tuesday, June 23, which will paint a picture of 'chaos' and a president focused exclusively on his own re-election, according to the book's publisher.

President Trump said Monday that every conversation with him is 'highly classified' thus suggesting that if former National Security Advisor John Bolton goes ahead with releasing his book he could face 'criminal problems'

John Bolton (left), President Trump's former national security adviser, sat down for his first interview about his blockbuster book with ABC News' Martha Raddatz (right). The interview will be a primetime Sunday night special, the network announced Monday

Meanwhile, President Trump's (pictured) administration plans to file an injunction in federal court in order to prevent Bolton's book from being released. It's due to hit bookshelves on June 23

The book's epilogue describes battles with the White House over publication of the book, which is likely to continue to play out this week in court

John Bolton (right) is photographed in the Oval Office with President Trump (left) in August 2019. Trump ousted Bolton from his position as national security adviser a month later

Attorney General Bill Barr said at the White House that the current goal to deal with Bolton's book is to have the ex-aide finalizat the National Security Council security review process. Bolton's lawyer charged the NSC with dragging its feet, bowing to White House pressure

The Trump administration could file an injunction as early as Monday in federal court to prevent Bolton's book release, ABC News said.

At the White House Monday, Attorney General Bill Barr said the current goal was to get Bolton to finalize the National Security Council security review process.

'The thing that is front-and-center right now is trying to get him to complete the process, go through the process and make the necessary deletions of classified information,' Barr said.

But Bolton's book has already been delayed due to the standard back-and-forth with the NSC over whether it contained classified information.

In a June 10 op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Bolton's lawyer Chuck Cooper said the process was anything but standard.

'What followed was perhaps the most extensive and intensive prepublication review in NSC history,' Cooper said.

In a printed press release given to reporters last week, Bolton's publisher said he had worked to address NSC's concerns and the 'final published version of this book reflects those changes.'

Cooper documented a play-by-play of the rounds of edits Bolton made in conjunction with Ellen Knight, the NSCs senior director for prepublication review of materials written by NSC personnel.

By late April she informed Bolton 'thats the last edit I really have to provide for you,' but the White House refused to give the former adviser his letter saying the book had been cleared.

Cooper wrote that Bolton hadn't heard from Knight since May 7.

Then on June 8 , John A. Eisenberg, the president's deputy counsel for national secuirty, reached out to Bolton and said the manuscript contained classified information and publishing the book would violate Bolton's non-disclosure agreement.

'This last-minute allegation came after an intensive four-month review, after weeks of silence from the White House, and - as Mr. Eisenberg admits in the letter - after press reports alerted the White House that Mr. Bolton's book would be published on June 23,' Cooper argued.

'This is a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import,' Cooper wrote. 'This attempt will not succeed, and Mr. Bolton's book will be published June 23.'

Barr continued to maintain that without the letter, Bolton wasn't done yet.

'And we don't believe Bolton went through that process, hasn't completed the process and therefore is in violation of that agreement,' Barr said.

Trump chimed in adding, 'And that's a criminal liability.

'By the way, you're talking about, you're not talking about like he's going to return $3 that he's made on the book,' the president continued. 'By the way, you're talking about, you're not talking about like he's going to return $3 that he's made on the book.'

'You know Hillary Clinton, she deleted 33,000 emails. And if we ever found out what those emails said, she'd have a liability. That's what you have, you have a liability,' the president continued, referencing his former political rival's decision to use a private email account during her time serving as secretary of state, which she deleted messages from.

Clinton was investigated by the FBI over whether she mishandled classified information, but was never charged of a crime.

Last week some details about Bolton's book were released by publisher Simon & Schuster.

It will accuse the president of 'misconduct' beyond the Ukraine scheme, which led to Trump's impeachment in the House of Representatives in December.

ABC News' Martha Raddatz (left) will speak to John Bolton (right) for the first time about President Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky - the call that got Trump impeached by the House of Representatives in December

Bolton describes additional 'Ukraine-like "transgressions"' in a 'full-range of his foreign policy, the release for the book said.

The former national security adviser will also make the point that Trump's only aim is to win a second term.

Bolton described Trump as a person 'for whom getting re-elected was the only thing that mattered.'

In promotional material about Bolton's forthcoming interview with Raddatz, ABC News said Bolton would discuss - for the first time - Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which led to the president's impeachment.

He'll also tell American audiences why he didn't testify during last year's impeachment hearings.

Democrats were frustrated that Bolton, who was poised to publish a tell-all, wouldn't testify publicly about Trump's behavior surrounding the Zelensky call.

Trump was accused of holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Zelensky to announce an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

Joe Biden, the former vice president, is now the presumptive Democratic nominee.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a landmark civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment, a resounding victory for LGBT rights from a conservative court.

The court decided by a 6-3 vote that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

The decision was a defeat not just for the employers, but also the Trump administration, which argued that the laws plain wording compelled a ruling for the employers. Gorsuch, a conservative appointee of President Donald Trump, concluded the opposite, and Trump said Monday he accepted the courts very powerful decision.

Gorsuch was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and the courts four liberal members. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trumps other Supreme Court pick, dissented, along with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous, Alito wrote in the dissent. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.

Trump had a restrained reaction, telling reporters that hed read the decision and that some people were surprised.

He added: But theyve ruled and we live with their decision. Thats what its all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court. Very powerful. A very powerful decision actually. But they have so ruled.

The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states dont protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

Gerald Bostock, a gay county government worker from Georgia whose lawsuit was one of three the Supreme Court decided Monday, said no one should should have to be fearful of losing their job because of who they are, who they love or how they identify. And the justices have now made sure that we wont have to worry about that.

John Bursch, who argued the appeal from a Michigan funeral home owner against a fired transgender employee, said, Americans must be able to rely on what the law says, and it is disappointing that a majority of the justices were unwilling to affirm that commonsense principle. Redefining sex to mean gender identity will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, womens shelters, and many other contexts.

But Mondays decision is not likely to be the courts last word on a host of issues revolving around LGBT rights, Gorsuch noted.

Rights groups have said they will challenge the administrations effort to roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in health care. Lawsuits are pending over transgender athletes participation in school sporting events, and courts also are dealing with cases about sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, a subject that the justices seemed concerned about during arguments in October. Employers who have religious objections to employing LGBT people also might be able to raise those claims in a different case, Gorsuch said.

But none of these other laws are before us; we have not had the benefit of adversarial testing about the meaning of their terms, and we do not prejudge any such question today, he wrote.

The cases were the courts first on LGBT rights since J ustice Anthony Kennedys retirement and replacement by Kavanaugh. Kennedy was a voice for gay rights and the author of the landmark ruling in 2015 that made same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. Kavanaugh generally is regarded as more conservative.

The Trump administration had changed course from the Obama administration, which supported LGBT workers in their discrimination claims under Title VII.

During the Obama years, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had changed its longstanding interpretation of civil rights law to include discrimination against LGBT people. The law prohibits discrimination because of sex, but has no specific protection for sexual orientation or gender identity.

Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, Obamas vice-president, praised the decision on Twitter as another step in our march toward equality for all. The Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect.

In recent years, some lower courts have held that discrimination against LGBT people is a subset of sex discrimination, and thus prohibited by the federal law.

Efforts by Congress to change the law to explicitly bar job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity have so far failed.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in the Detroit area after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with gender most of her life and had, at long last, decided to become the person that my mind already is. Stephens told funeral home owner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conservative skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fired Stephens.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that the firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law.

Stephens died last month. Donna Stephens, her wife of 20 years, said in a statement that she is grateful for this victory to honour the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The federal appeals court in New York ruled in favour of a gay skydiving instructor who claimed he was fired because of his sexual orientation. The full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that it was abandoning its earlier holding that Title VII didnt cover sexual orientation because legal doctrine evolves. The court held that sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.

That ruling was a victory for the relatives of Donald Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, New York, that required him to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an airplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease by explaining that he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the womans boyfriend called to complain.

Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014.

In a case from Georgia, the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled against Bostock, a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs. Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. The county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of an audit of funds he managed.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostocks claim in a three-page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.

___

Associated Press writers Alex Sanz in Atlanta and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
If you travel back to the year 1927, you are bound to stumble upon Crispus Attucks High School, one of Indianapolis historic gems. Crispus Attucks was located in the heart of Indianapolis. Prior to its founding, only three public high schools enrolled Black students during these racially segregated times: Emmerich Manual, Arsenal Technical and Shortridge High Schools. Overcrowding, especially at Shortridge, led Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) board members to begin discussions and eventually vote on the construction of a new high school, Crispus Attucks.

The first principal of Crispus Attucks was Matthias Nolcox, Ph.D. Nolcox was determined to create Indianapolis only all-Black high school. During this time, white universities did not hire Black educators with advanced degrees. Dr. Nolcox saw this racial barrier as an opportunity and he diligently recruited a cadre of teachers from local and regional HBCUs. Dr. Nolcox expanded his search even further and recruited high school educators from all over the country.

But after a few decades of school success, the national landscape shifted. In 1954, after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, white superintendents made attempts to integrate public schools and a large percentage of Black teachers and administrators resigned or were demoted due to racial discrimination. These changes ultimately precipitated a massive reduction in the Black teacher population in Indianapolis and nationally.

Fast forward to 2020, the Black teacher population stands at 7%, while white women compose 76% of the teacher workforce. The limited diversity and cultural mismatch among students and teachers and administrators, has substantial and often long-term effects (eg. prison to school pipeline). Based on 2014 U.S Department of Education Civil Rights data, the state of Indiana ranks number two in the highest percentage of out of school suspensions for Black males compared to any state in the nation. Only one state, Wisconsin, suspends a higher percentage of Black males than Indiana.

On the other hand, recent studies suggest that Black students who have a Black teacher in grades K-3 are 7% more likely to graduate from high school and 13% more likely to enroll in college than their peers in the same school who are not assigned a Black teacher. Race and culture matter.

To build a community of teachers who mirror the students they teach, we must be more intentional about building awareness, engagement and enrollment in the education field amongst people of color and that is where the Educate ME Foundation comes in!

Educate ME is an Indianapolis-based social enterprise with a mission to increase the number of educators of color in urban schools, starting with Indiana, by inspiring high school cadets, developing college students and recruiting career professionals to enter the education field. With our deliberate recruiting programs, strategic partnerships and teacher support we envision that we will play a significant role in ensuring schools across Indianapolis and the nation will have effective teachers of color who reflect the student population they are serving.

We are creating opportunities for the college graduates and professionals to think about and consider a career in education. Maybe its in the classroom, early learning center, an after school program, or a service provider, whichever role you think you can serve, this may be a calling and we are here to help you.

For more information, please visit our website, www.educatemefoundation.org.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Monday afternoon that it was officially going to push back the next Oscars ceremony.

The ceremony will be moved to April 25 from February 28, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Because of the delay, the eligibility window for films is extending to February 28 instead of December 31. The organization has not yet said whether or not the April 25 show will have the typical red carpet and live audience that viewers have grown to expect.

Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyones control, David Rubin, the academys president, and Dawn Hudson, the organizations chief executive, said in a joint statement.

They continued, For over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring and entertaining us during the darkest of times. They certainly have this year.

The academy has also pushed back its Governors Awards, where lifetime achievement Oscars are given out but not televised, as well as the opening of its museum in Los Angeles.

The museum is now set to open on April 30, 2021.
Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (Dafza) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (CCAB) to on board the chamber as a Halal Trade and Marketing Centre (HTMC) service partner, during a webinar held recently by CCAB.

The MoU signing ceremony was attended by Amna Lootah, Dafza's Assistant Director-General, and Rubens Hannun, CCAB President, in addition to officials from both sides, said a Wam news agency report.

HTMC is a global business development centre focused on opportunities within the halal economy for manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors of halal products and services. Co-founded by Dafza and the Dubai Islamic Economy Development Centre (DIEDC), it is substantially supported by the key services partners across the halal economy ecosystem. Following the new partnership, CCAB will become a key contributor to the HTMCs support services pillar.

During the signing ceremony, Lootah emphasised Dafzas ecosystem and its contribution to Dubai's foreign trade in recent years. She explained Dafzas Islamic Economy Strategy and some of its key initiatives, which include the Halal Guidebook, the second version of which will be translated into Portuguese, in association with CCAB. As well as the role of HTMC in expanding opportunities for bilateral trade with the Brazilian market.

Lootah commented: "The economies of Brazil and the UAE are highly complementary and show potential for significant cooperation in several trade and investment sectors, which are still unexplored or only partially developed. The UAE is the third-largest Arab trade partner and the second one in the Middle East for Brazil and there is a collaborative will to increase trade and investment between the two countries.

"The alliance between CCAB and HTMC will strengthen and increase the trade and investment flows between Dubai and Brazil. It will also generate opportunities and economic prosperity for companies in both regions. We are delighted to partner with CCAB as a service partner of HTMC and look forward to a bright future for halal trade between Brazil, Dubai and the wider region," added Lootah.

Hannun commented: "Our relationship with Dafza has strengthened over the years and is now consolidated with the signing of this important MoU. Dafzas work through the HTMC and CCAB contributes to the growth and development of manufacturers, suppliers and distributors in the halal economy. Our partnership will offer agility, reliable knowledge of the markets and a greater understanding of economic demands and trends, that allow us to maximise opportunities."

CCAB organised the webinar to discuss the halal market opportunities for Brazilian companies. The virtual event showcased the latest trends, prospects and challenges in the halal economy. Brazil is the largest exporter of F&B products to the Mena region. It is estimated that Brazilian companies exported food and beverages to the region were worth $9.1 billion in 2018. However, there still remains untapped business opportunities for Brazilian companies in other halal sectors across the Arab countries, it said.
Furious Tory MPs today lined up to demand immediate easing of the two-metre rule after No10 said a decision might not be taken for 'weeks'.

Downing Street played down the chances of a swift change despite warnings millions of jobs are at risk, refusing even to guarantee that it will come before pubs and restaurants are slated to open on July 4.

Former Cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Greg Clark were among the senior figures calling for an overhaul to the social distancing guidelines in the Commons this afternoon, pointing out that other countries were using lower limits. Ex-defence minister Tobias Ellwood said: 'Now is the right time, not in two weeks.'

There is a huge push within government to loosen the distance, with Rishi Sunak hailing the 'positive impact' it would have on business and jobs. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the No10 briefing this evening that two metres was not a 'magic' level, while stressing that action had to be 'underpinned' by science.

However, there are doubts in government over whether the test and trace system is ready to deal with the potential increase in cases, with the NHS app still on hold over technical and privacy problems. No10 sources flatly denied the problems with the app were delaying a shift on the social distancing guidance.

The WHO has cautioned that there should be no further loosening of lockdown until 'robust' contact tracing is in place.

Hotels, pubs, bars, and restaurants have warned they must have clarity on the two-metre rule by Tuesday next week, when many firms have to make rent payments for the three months from July

Boris Johnson (pictured at M&S in Westfield Stratford yesterday) has urged Britons to go out and support high streets amid fears that the social distancing restrictions are inflicting catastrophic harm on the economy

Dominic Raab told the No10 briefing this evening that two metres was not a 'magic' level, while stressing that action had to be 'underpinned' by science

Easing 2m rule 'will increase risk' Easing two-metre rule will increase risk, a top scientist said today. But Dr Michael Tildesley, infectious disease scientist at the University of Warwick, said ministers had to take the economic factors into consideration as well at public health. The Government's two-metre rule is currently under review, as ministers balance public health priorities with enabling more businesses to reopen. Speaking on BBC Breakfast today, Dr Tildesley said: 'The evidence is still slightly unclear - depending upon the studies it could be anything from about twice the risk to 10 times the risk. 'So there is an increase in risk with going down to one metre. 'But I have to stress this is purely based upon public health, and the Government has to consider economic factors before taking a decision.' Advertisement

Boris Johnson said last night that the country is building 'room for manoeuvre' by reducing infection rates.

However, scientists and the public still appear to be strongly behind the rule - with suggestions chief medical officer Chris Whitty and science chief Sir Patrick Vallance might even be on 'resignation watch'.

The hospitality sector is planning to press the case in a meeting with business minister Paul Scully and local government minister Simon Clarke tomorrow.

UK hospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls warned 30,000 to 40,000 firms could start redundancy processes next week, with a million jobs at risk.

'If businesses are opening at two-metre social distance, then they're operating at 30 per cent of their normal revenues and for a quarter of our small hospitality businesses they won't be able to open at all,' she told BBC Breakfast.

'If they open at one metre with additional protections to make sure staff and customers are safe, then they can reach 60 per cent to 70 per cent of their normal revenues, and that puts them at break-even.

'So, for many of those businesses it is literally about viability and we know that a third of businesses may not reopen as a result of prolonged closure, and that puts a million jobs at risk across the hospitality sector.'

The PM's spokesman said this afternoon that the review will be completed 'in the coming weeks'.



It will be led by Simon Case, permanent secretary at Number 10, and will report to the Covid Strategy Committee chaired by Mr Johnson.

'It will look at evidence around transmission of the virus in different environments, incidence rates and international comparisons,' the spokesman told a Westminster briefing.

'It will draw on advice from scientific and medical experts as well as economists and papers from Sage.

'It will take advice from a range of experts including the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser.'

Challenged that the timetable for the review was as vague as that for the NHS app, the spokesman said: 'I wouldn't make comparisons.'

At the daily briefing, Mr Raab insisted a decision on whether to reduce the two-metre rule would be 'underpinned' by science.

The Foreign Secretary said: 'There's no magic to one or other particular measure, there will be different levels of risk whether it's at two metres, one-and-a-half metres or one metre.

'As we bring the incidence and the transmission rate down, depending on the setting, it's something that can be looked at.

'We are still going to make sure that all of the policy judgments that we rightly as politicians take and are accountable for are underpinned by the science.'

Government sources denied that the delay to the NHS app - which has been tested on the Isle of Wight for more than a month, but still does not have a timetable for going nationwide - was holding up the two-metre decision.

'The decision is not being held up. It started last week and work is ongoing,' a senior source said.

In a brutal assault in the Commons this afternoon, Science and Technology committee chair Greg Clark said the findings of the two-metre rule must be published well before July 4.

Mr Clark, former business secretary, said: 'What is peculiar about the UK where we've had to have a two-metre rule when almost all other countries, advised by reputable scientists, have had a smaller distance?'

He added: 'Many of these countries have a shorter distance rule but require face coverings to be worn. Why is it right for them but wrong for us?'

Mr Clark said: 'Will the review consider the total impact on lives and public health of the two-metre rule, including the consequences of people being unable to work.

In a brutal assault in the Commons this afternoon, Science and Technology committee chair said the findings of the two-metre rule must be published well before July 4

'And finally, vitally, will it conclude in good time before July 4 so that if more businesses are able to open then, including hospitality businesses, they can plan for what social distancing to enforce?'

Mr Clark added that the UK should 'apply lessons from the experience of others'.

He said: 'Millions of people, workers in pubs, cafes and restaurants and in manufacturing industries, as well as children going to school and young adults in colleges and universities, depend on this decision.

'We're fortunate in this country in having some of the very best scientists in the world, but so far our outcomes have not always been the very best in the world.

'Therefore ministers, officials and scientists should have the confidence, as good science itself does, to rigorously challenge current thinking and to apply lessons from the experience of others.'

Health minister Edward Argar responded: 'We do recognise the importance of getting this information and this decision out there as swiftly as we can because it is important to give businesses all the time we can in order to prepare for it.'

But he added that he could not 'set a particular deadline while the work is being done'.

Tory former minister Steve Baker told MailOnline that ministers had to weigh up the harm to the economy against the risk of easing the two metre rule.

'The economic harm of sticking with two metres will be profound,' he said.

'And it will be profound in areas that everybody cares about, like going to the pub.

'So if the government does insist on two metres when the WHO is saying one, they will have to be very, very clear with the public why those costs are being imposed on everybody.'

Mr Baker said it was not right to 'blame scientists'.

'If you are a politician and you have to take a decision then you cannot afford to be cavalier about the economy. Therefore you have to take a balanced judgement and do what you think the public would most want,' he said.

'I think the public would accept a range of measures - washing hands , wearing facemasks on transport and so on. If we get towards Christmas and it is getting to be very very difficult to get a meal out or go to a pub because they have gone out of business, I don't think the government would be thanked for that either.'

Mr Baker said 'you would have thought' that the app will make the decision easier.

'But of course everything is difficult,' he added.

UK should not ease 2m rule until test and trace is ready, says WHO The UK should not lift lockdown rules until the test and trace system is ready to cope with huge numbers of people, a World Health Organization director has warned. Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO's chief for Europe, said the Government must only take sure-footed steps and not rush into decisions like scrapping the two-metre social distancing rule. He said test and trace must be 'robust' and ready for 'aggressive' use if the number of new cases starts to soar again. Dr Kluge said: 'The key words here are to do it gradually. Do it carefully.' His comments come after data last week showed that the NHS's test and trace system was not able to get co-operation from a third of contacts in its first week. Advertisement

Another senior Tory MP said 'priorities' appeared to be holding up the app. 'It keeps getting pushed back, so there is some internal discussion on how they order this,' they said.

The MP added that the app should play a significant role in assuaging concerns about easing lockdown.

'The sooner we can adjust the two metre rule the better,' they said.

'The more we have got mitigation in place the more that life can resume. We all need that to happen.'

In a round of broadcast interviews this morning, Mr Scully insisted the timetable for the review would be longer than a few days.

'It will take a matter of weeks to do but we want to make sure we get the best scientific advice and we can look at the international comparisons,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

'Clearly you have the likes of Germany, it's one-and-a-half metres, America it is one-metre, and see how those differences land in terms of health guidance.'

Mr Scully said the Government did not want to be 'rushed into decisions as we gradually open up the economy'.

The Government's advice to stay 2m apart is further than the World Health Organisation's recommendation of at least 1m, and some other countries like France and Denmark.

Mr Johnson said: 'As we get the numbers down so it becomes one in 1,000, one in 1,600 maybe even fewer, your chances of being two metres, one metre or even a foot away from someone who has the virus is going down statistically, so you start to build some more margin for manoeuvre.'

Mr Sunak confirmed yesterday the Government would 'take a fresh look' at the regulation and suggested the decision was for ministers, not scientists, to take.

He told Sky News: 'The Prime Minister has put in place a comprehensive review of the two-metre rule. That review will involve the scientists, economists and others so that we can look at it in the round.

'I know that of course it's the difference between three-quarters and maybe a third of pubs opening, for example, so it's important that we look at it.'

The Chancellor said any decision on ending the lockdown before a vaccine was ready had an element of 'risk', but pointed out that other countries have lower distance requirements and were still managing to contain the virus.

'Now that we have made good progress in suppressing the virus, we're at a different stage of this epidemic than we were at the beginning and that enables us to take a fresh look at this,' he said.

'I can very much understand the impact, the positive impact it will have on business's ability to reopen and thereby maintain the jobs that they have.'

Business minister Paul Scully (pictured) warned a shift will take time as non-essential shops get up and running for the first time since March

Researchers found there was roughly a 1.3 per cent chance of contracting the virus when two metres from an infected patient. But halving this gap raised the risk to only 2.6 per cent. This means the disease would spread to fewer than three in 100 people, against 13 in 100 without any social distancing at all. That equates to an 80 per cent reduction in risk

The new distancing review will take advice from experts including the Prof Whitty and Sir Patrick. The panel will also include behavioural scientists and economists.

Mr Sunak suggested that the Government would be prepared to override the views of Sir Patrick and Prof Whitty if they did not agree with a reduction.

He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that scientists had made clear there is a 'different degree of risk at different levels', and the decision on relaxing the rule was 'ultimately' for ministers to make.

He said: 'Much as I would like to see it reduced  everyone would like to see that reduced from an economic perspective  we can only do that if it's safe and responsible to do so.'

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'If other countries are doing it successfully, we need to move now.'

Shadow justice secretary David Lammy said Labour would support a relaxation of the 2m rule if the evidence showed it was 'the right time to do it'.
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

China reported dozens of new coronavirus cases for the second consecutive day on Monday as a growing cluster of infections stoked fears of a second wave, while more borders were opened in Europe ahead of the summer holiday season.

Streams of people queued in a stadium as mass testing was carried out in Beijing, the capital of the country where the disease emerged late last year.

The pandemic is gathering pace in Latin America, and Iran and India have reported worrying increases in deaths and infectionsadding to concern over challenges the world will face in the long fight against COVID-19.

But for the moment news has been better in Europe, which has mostly seen caseloads fall steadily in recent weeks.

Many countries are further lifting painful lockdowns that have saved lives, but have also devastated economies and wearied confined populations.

"Very few people have been infected... it's why I've chosen to travel to Santorini. Next week I'm going to Crete," Max Han, a young Chinese tourist, told AFP on the Greek island as he admired the sunset.

Greece is already allowing travellers from nations deemed low-risk, and on Monday it opened its borders to EU countriesas did Germany, Belgium, France, with Austria to follow the next day.

China was the first country to implement extreme restrictions on movement early this year, forcing local transmission down to near-zero as the crisis walloped the rest of the world.

But on Monday Chinese health officials reported there have now been 75 cases of the respiratory illness in Beijing where the fresh cluster has been linked to a wholesale food market.

More than 10,000 people there have already been tested, including workers at the Xinfadi market, local residents and anyone who visited it in recent weeks.

Officials have said they plan to test 46,000 people who live in the area, and a strict lockdown was extended across 21 neighbourhoods in the capital.

'Micro-outbreaks'

More than 430,000 people worldwide have died from COVID-19, nearly halfway through a year in which countless lives have been upended and the global economy ravaged by the crisis.

The United Statesby far the hardest-hit country with more than 115,700 recorded fatalitieson Monday reported its lowest 24-hour death toll since its infection rate peaked in mid-April.

President Donald Trump's administration has noted that some states have seen new flare-ups, but insists there will be no shutdown of the economy if a second full-blown wave arises.

The Middle East's worst-hit country, Iran, reported its own uptick on Sunday, recording more than 100 new virus deaths in a single day for the first time in two months.

And there have been two new outbreaks in Rome, with 109 infections including five deaths diagnosed at a hospital and 15 cases detected at a building inhabited by squatters.

"It means the virus hasn't lost its infectiousness, it isn't weakening... we shouldn't let down our guard," World Health Organization deputy director Ranieri Guerra told Italian journalists.

"Such micro-outbreaks were inevitable, but they are limited in time and space. And today we have the tools to intercept them and confine them."

Despite fears over fresh clusters, many countries are making moves towards semi-normality.

Egypt is set to welcome tourists to beach resorts in July, and Peru's Machu Picchu will also reopen next month, although it will sharply reduce the number of daily visitors.

And the English Premier League finally makes its long-awaited return this week following a three-month virus suspension.

Explore further Follow the latest news on the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

 2020 AFP
Thousands of Syrian rely on the wheat harvest, but this has been severely affected by the conflict and factions are now rushing to secure what they can reports Asharq al-Awsat.

Ravaged by nine years of war, Syrias wheat production has been nearly halved. Despite that, rivals are vying to gain access to remaining crops, fighting with the US dollar, the Turkish lira and arms.

General overview

In 2010, Syrian wheat production stood at over 3.5 million tons and authorities ensured the storage of a parallel amount in silos across the country. After protests erupted in 2011, followed by a drought, production took a nosedive, recording its lowest at 1.2 million tons in 2018.

Throughout the nine years of conflict, Syrias agricultural sector maintained its role in securing the minimum food security. Its role was stepped up in areas outside regime control as economic activities had deteriorated there.

Even though it succeeded in providing for thousands of low income families during times of war, the agricultural sector had taken a hit.

Conflict had destroyed irrigation networks, reduced accessibility to fertile land, resulted in shortage of raw materials and labor force, and affected transportation of goods, according to a report released by the Syrian Center for Research and Studies.

More so, fires instigated by conflict had grazed crops to the ground.

Between 2016 and 2018, a significant decrease in precipitation occurred. With 70 percent of crops dependent on rain, this negatively affected it.

The area of irrigated land was cut during this period, due to the drop in the amount of water and the increase in the cost of fuel used in operating wells.

The agricultural sector was also affected by the scarcity of agricultural supplies and their high costs. Local enterprises only met 10.8% of farmers fertilizer needs.

As for fuels, the price of diesel reached 350 Syrian pounds per liter on the black market, compared to the government-backed price of 185 pounds.

Financial capabilities of farmers were also slashed by fluctuations in the exchange rate against the US dollar. Between 2018 and early 2020, the Syrian pound depreciated dramatically, raising the prices of agricultural supplies and commodities.

Compensation

According to Syrian officials, between 2017 and 2018 Syria had imported around 2.2 million tons of wheat, 90% of which was Russian. At the start of 2019, the government announced a plan to purchase 400,000 tons of wheat from independent contractors after having bought 200,000 tons of Russian wheat again in January.

At the beginning of 2020, the Syrian government allowed the import of wheat flour for all who wish to do so, meaning that it was no longer restricted to a category of industries or productive activities. And weeks ago, Moscow donated thousands of tons of wheat to Damascus.

The regime had also expanded the area of planted wheat because of the increase in rainfall and the return of farmers to their homes.

A government official said that the rate of implementation of the wheat cultivation plan stood at 70%. Of the total 1.8 million hectares planned for wheat cultivation, 1.2 million hectares were completed.

The increase in cultivation has reached areas in Aleppo, Raqqa, Deir Ezzor, Idlib and Hasakah.

Conflict

Three warring parties are fighting to lay claim to Syrias wheat production. Hasakah, Deir Ezzor and Raqqa fall under the control of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Aleppos rural areas are controlled by SDF units, Turkey-backed opposition fighters, and regime forces.

Most of Idlib is controlled by Turkey-backed factions. In the east Euphrates region, Damascus controls two areas in Hasakah and Qamishli.

With the harvest season arriving, warring parties are competing to lure farmers to give up their wheat to them. The regimes cabinet, a few days ago, approved raising the price of receiving wheat from farmers for the current season from 225 Syrian pounds to 400 pounds per kilogram (about 30 US cents, according to the exchange rate at that time).

In mid-March, the Syrian government raised the price of wheat from 185 pounds to 225 pounds per kilogram.

An SDF official, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, said that there is around 1.2 million tons of wheat in Hasakah and east Euphrates regions under SDF control.

Fighting off the governments offer to farmers, the SDF is offering to buy the wheat in dollars at the rate of 17 cents per kilo. This has weakened the position of the regime thats been trying hard to lure farmers into selling it the wheat yield.

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.
Pakistan increases defense budget

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, June 14, IRNA -- As the border tension between India and Pakistan is on the rise the later has increased the defense budget up to 11.9 percent for the next fiscal year.

According to the new budget the defence outlay for 2020-21 would be Rs1, 289 billion (US $ 7.8 billion) as compared to Rs1, 152 billion (US $ 7 billion) earmarked for the ongoing fiscal year.

Part of the excess defence spending in the ongoing fiscal year has been attributed to the continued tensions between Pakistan and India. Relations between the two countries have been spiraling downwards ever since an attack in Pulwama city of disputed Kashmir region in February 2019.

The two countries were on the brink of conflict when Pakistan shot down two Indian jets following the attack.

Since the beginning of this year Pakistan has shot-down 8 Indian drones after they violated country's airspace in disputed Kashmir region.

Earlier this year, India raised its defense spending by around 6%. However, the size of Indian defense budget is six times bigger than the total outlay of Pakistan's defense. In fact, India's defense budget is equal to Pakistan's total budget outlay.

In its annual report released in April, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) said India had the world's third-biggest military budget only behind the United States and China.

The military sources said that Pakistan spends $9,000 per solider, India $18,000, Turkey $37,000, China $70,000, Saudi Arabia $360,000 while the United States allocates $425,000 per solider annually. The difference, however, between Pakistan and other countries is that the size of their economies is far bigger than Pakistan.

India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947 when British colonialists left the subcontinent. Since partition, the two countries have fought three wars  in 1948, 1965 and 1971  two of them over Kashmir, in addition to a three-week-long Kargil skirmish in 1999.

Both countries accuse each other of targeting civilian populated areas with artillery fire on the border in Kashmir.

272**1416

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Farmers are normally tied up on their own farms dealing with livestock and crops, these events provide a welcome break and are opportunities to build relationships and get to know suppliers, face-to-face. They also give hands-on access to the latest industry information, trends, and technology providing a real showcase for the industry. Everyone understands the necessary reasons behind these cancellations, but they are integral to the farming scene.

Brian continues: Our Agricultural Managers across the UK look forward to these events as it gives them the chance to catch up with customers and nurture professional relationships. With face-to-face contact restricted, there will be reduced opportunities to connect and collaborate.

Even though these showcases will be sorely missed, since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Banks specialist Agricultural Team has been working hard for customers to ensure they have what they need and helping them to plan for the next few months. To ensure contact is maintained, where possible, virtual platforms such as Teams and Facetime are being utilised.

Brian continues, Of course, it does not quite make up for leaning against the sheep pens for a chat at the local show. Sharing experiences are vital components of agriculture and the shows support mental wellbeing, so at the moment keeping in touch and looking out for each other is critical for our farming and rural community.

I certainly wont be the only one who will miss the shows over the summer months, but I am sure they will be back even stronger next year. In the meantime, we are dedicated to keeping in contact with our customers across the UK through all other available means!

Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank, owned by Virgin Money UK PLC, has a long history and heritage in providing finance and support to farmers across the UK. Lending to the farming and wider food sector is a high priority area and a significant part of its portfolio.

The farming community requires specialist support for their businesses and to underpin this, the Bank has a dedicated and highly experienced team of specialist Regional Agricultural Managers with an in-depth knowledge of the sector. Built up of many years, the close relations this team has with customers is proving to be invaluable in supporting their network of UK farming businesses.
PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC this month pushed forward on two fronts in an effort to get its project built.

On June 9, the consortium of natural gas companies behind the proposal filed a response with the U.S. Supreme Court to New Jersey's arguments concerning eminent domain.

And on a separate tack, the Delaware River Basin Commission acknowledged June 3 receipt of PennEasts application for approval to build Phase 1 of its pipeline through Pennsylvania.

Phase 1 would construct 68 miles of new 36-inch-diameter natural gas transmission pipeline from Pennsylvanias Marcellus Shale natural gas production region in Luzerne County into Northampton County. PennEast later plans to pursue a second phase to extend the proposed pipeline across the Delaware River through Hunterdon County into Mercer County, New Jersey.

PennEast says it "does not believe Phase One requires DRBC approval" but "is seeking to work collaboratively with the DRBC" in submitting the initial phase application. The companies say the reason they dispute the need for Basin Commission approval is that Phase 1 does not require the withdrawal or discharge of any water within the basin.

The Basin Commission and environmental groups opposed to the project disagree.

In a letter June 1 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the commission said its approval is required under the 1961 Delaware River Basin Compact between New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the federal government.

"The planned route for the line traverses streams, wetlands, floodplains and other water resources and involves related uses of land," commission Executive Director Steven Tambini wrote to FERC. "These facts, among others, confirm that PennEast plans to utilize water resources and is undertaking one or more projects as defined in the Compact."

The application is under review, commission spokeswoman Kate Schmidt said Friday, and there is no timetable for when it would be completed. Once a draft docket is published for the project, a formal public comment period will begin, she said.

We are asking the DRBC to deny PennEasts application," Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said in a statement Wednesday. "PennEast is trying to get approval for building their pipeline on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River.

"The whole reason that they split the pipeline into two segments was to try to sidestep DRBC oversight. If they get approval in Pennsylvania, PennEast could use it to put pressure on NJ regulators to try to push through their project. PennEast will say or do anything to try to get their terrible pipeline approved."

PennEast maintains its project, already approved by FERC, is necessary to serve domestic natural gas needs across the region, and points to its Supreme Court fight as further proof.

"At the heart of the petition before the Supreme Court is to ensure the safe and reliable transportation of affordable natural gas, which supports jobs and a cleaner environment, as well as lowers energy bills," PennEast spokeswoman Patricia Kornick said in an email Friday. "The PennEast Pipeline is a federally approved project, deemed to be in the public need and benefit and safe for the environment following years of review."

The pipeline was first proposed in August 2014. PennEast's current, anticipated timeline for construction is that Phase 1 would be in service by November 2021. The Phase 2 portion would include the remaining route in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with a targeted completion of 2023.

The Supreme Court filing seeks to overturn a federal appeals court ruling from last year blocking PennEast from using eminent domain to acquire New Jersey state land needed for the pipeline route.

Learn more

The Delaware River Basin Commission invites individuals and organizations to be added to its Interested Parties List (IPL) for the PennEast Pipeline Project-Phase 1 by providing the partys name, organization (if applicable), address and email information to penneastapp@drbc.gov or sending their contact information by mail to DRBC, Attn.: Project Review Section, P.O. Box 7360, 25 Cosey Road, West Trenton, NJ 08628.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.
A man who stabbed his friend in the neck over $38 has been jailed for more than two years.

Brett Nairn-Payne borrowed $70 to help make ends meet before his next pension payment came through.

He only repaid $32 and offered his friend, Phillip Freebury, drugs and a pair of sunglasses to settle the rest.

Brett Nairn-Payne has been jailed in the County Court of Victoria (pictured) after stabbing his friend Phillip Freebury in the neck after a dispute over a $38 debt

Mr Freebury didn't want drugs but was happy to take the sunnies.

After handing them over, Nairn-Payne stabbed the 38-year-old's neck with a flick knife at a Frankston boarding house.

'That is what you get for standing over me,' he told his confused victim after the August 2019 attack.

Nairn-Payne then called triple zero and claimed he had been robbed at knifepoint.

He was jailed in the County Court of Victoria on Monday for two-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to recklessly causing injury.

The 30-year-old has a mild intellectual disability and array of mental health problems.

'Perhaps you felt a bit unhappy having to pay back money. But you went to see him, gave him the sunglasses and then stabbed him,' Judge Michael Tinney said.

'There is, on any view of it though, an oddness to the level of violence and your explanation for it offered up to him on the phone on the day.

The court heard Nairn-Payne, who is thought to have schizophrenia, stabbed his friend in the neck with a flip knife after a dispute over the remainder of the debt (stock image of a flip knife)

'There was actually a debt owed by you and you were not being stood over.'

Nairn-Payne is thought to have schizophrenia and has received a string of diagnoses over the years including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and drug-induced psychosis.

Judge Tinney said the man was clearly distressed but wasn't convinced he was genuinely sorry for the attack.

'You weren't a silly teenager, you were a mature man engaging in serious criminal behaviour,' the judge said.

'Not everything is doom and gloom. I'm certainly not going to write you off but I have to be realistic (about your prospects of rehabilitation).'

Nairn-Payne was previously jailed for stabbing someone and his criminal history also included arson, theft and recklessly causing injury charges.

He must serve 20 months before being eligible for parole and faces deportation to his birth country of New Zealand upon release
Building on ongoing work in Denver, CSU food and agriculture experts are turning their attention to how the pandemic has forced rapid changes in food-procurement practices

Editor's Note: This release has been removed upon request of the submitting institution. Please contact Anne Manning for more information. Anne.Manning@colostate.edu

Social distancing measures, including shutdowns of schools and restaurants during COVID-19, have caused major shifts in how American municipalities, institutions and families get their food. This new reality is very much on the minds of food systems researchers at Colorado State University, who for the last three years have been conducting a study on food policy decisions in the city and county of Denver.

Building on their ongoing work in Denver, CSU food and agriculture experts are turning their attention to how the pandemic has forced rapid changes in food-procurement practices, and what new insights can be gained from those changes.

A multidisciplinary team led by Becca Jablonski, assistant professor and CSU Extension economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, has been awarded a one-year, $100,000 supplement to an existing research grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. The original grant award has supported a $2 million project under the "Tipping Points" program in which CSU researchers have been building a computational model of Denver's current food system. The goal of the original work was, and still is, to give city and county officials science-based insights into different food purchasing scenarios and the tradeoffs associated with each.

Localized supply chains

For the follow-up study, the researchers will use their developed model to investigate social, economic and environmental effects of a shift to more localized food procurement. They will investigate impacts on Colorado producers resulting from increased local demand related to supply chain disruptions during COVID-related closures.

"We are using our model to determine what happens when there is a breakdown of national and global supply chains and suddenly cities like Denver have to depend on local supply chains," Jablonski said. "For example, if there are higher prices, these will impact consumers negatively - but there may be positive impacts for some Colorado farmers and ranchers."

School meal programs

Another major portion of the supplemental study, led by Rebecca Cleary, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, will examine shifts in school-based emergency food service provisions resulting from COVID-19 shutdowns.

When schools closed, Colorado districts, along with others across the country, scrambled to offer takeaway meals to students and families and find options to replace routine school meal programs for low-income students. In Colorado, those takeaway meals were funded through the state's Summer Food Service Program, at greater cost than the normal national school lunch and breakfast programs. Another emergency program, the Pandemic-EBT program, offers households with children receiving subsidized school meals a dollar-amount equivalent to the federal meal reimbursement rate. The researchers will investigate the cost-effectiveness of some of these policies in helping reduce food insecurity.

"It's hard in an emergency situation, because we don't want people to go hungry," Jablonski said. "But we have a chance now to do this research and provide insight into what might be more efficient and effective in the future."

To answer questions about how the emergency food service provisions have fared in Denver, the researchers will collect survey data from low-income households with school-aged children, using a new, validated online survey instrument developed by Laura Bellows, associate professor in CSU's Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. The survey mimics the USDA Economic Research Services' FoodAPS data collection protocol.

Building on Tipping Points progress

The original Tipping Points work was aimed at understanding how urban food policies impact farmers, ranchers, regional communities and economies. It includes a detailed analysis of supply chains for four key commodities across the state: potatoes, wheat, beef, and peaches. How these supply chains are affected by shifts in emergency food provision and other disruptions will provide insights into how decisions can be made more efficiently in the future, should another major event like this pandemic arise.

The funded researchers first got together several years ago as the Rural Wealth Creation team, created by the CSU Office of the Vice President for Research Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships program. It includes researchers from nearly every college on campus, with expertise in food systems, energy, ecological modeling, health, computer science, agricultural economics and rangeland systems.

Many members of the Rural Wealth Creation team also serve on the CSU Task Force on Colorado Food Supply, convened in the wake of the pandemic. Faculty and Extension specialists serving on the task force are charged with rapid-response research on food supply chains, workers and safety.

###
Thirty-eight people tested positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in Himachal Pradesh in 24-hours, taking the states Covid-19 count to 556.

Nineteen cases were reported from Baddi, Solans industrial hub, three each from Kangra and Hamirpur and two from Chamba and Una on Monday. Seven cases were reported from Una late on Sunday.

With the 19 fresh cases, Solan on Monday recorded the biggest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases.

Solan chief medical officer Dr NK Gupta said five of the new cases were linked to a former Gularwala panchayat pradhan who had tested positive on June 11. So far, there are 59 Covid-19 cases in the district, of which 30 are active.

Dr Gupta said authorities had started contact mapping the new patients. Most patients have no travel history.

16-yr-old tests positive after death

A 16-year-old from Piyrah village of Chamba district tested positive for Covid-19 after his death. He had died on the intervening night of June 12 and 13 as he was suffering from some health issues. His sample was sent for testing as a precautionary measure. The body has already been cremated. District health authorities are ascertaining the cause of death.

A 45-year-old woman from the same village has also tested positive and has been shifted to the Covid-care centre.

Four of family infected

Seven people tested positive for Covid-19 late on Saturday in Bangana subdivision of Una district.

Una deputy commissioner Sandeep Kumar said that new cases include the family of an ex-serviceman who had tested positive few days ago. They include his 90-year-old mother, a 50-year-old wife and two daughters aged 19 and 16. Their samples came out positive while random testing.

A 55-year-old woman from Amb subdivision and a 43-year-old man from the bordering town of Mehatpur have also tested positive. Three more cases were reported from the district on Monday.

Apart from it, three cases each were reported from Kangra and Hamirpur in the late evening.

So far, Himachal has recorded 556 cases, of which 342 have recovered while six, three men and three women, have succumbed to the disease. Eleven patients have migrated to other states.

195 active cases

There are 195 active cases in the state. Kangra is the worst-hit district with 145 cases followed by Hamirpur with 134 cases, Una with 73 cases, Solan with 59 cases, Chamba with 38 cases, Bilaspur with 29 cases, Sirmaur with 27cases, Mandi with 22 cases, Shimla with 21 cases, Kullu with four cases and Kinnaur with two cases.

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FILE PHOTO: A storage tank is seen at Ecopetrol's Castilla oil rig platform, in Castilla La Nueva

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's majority state-owned oil company Ecopetrol denounced on Sunday the sabotage of 31 wells at an oil field in the northeast of the country, which put the wells offline and led to oil being spilled.

The acts of sabotage took place at Ecopetrol's <ECO.CN> La Cira-Infantas oil field, near the city of Barrancabermeja, which produces around 35,000 barrels of oil a day.

As well as the acts of sabotage, security guards and workers at the field received threats from hooded aggressors to abandon their posts and join a blockade which started five days ago, Ecopetrol said in a statement.

The damage to the wells led to oil being spilled, putting local communities and the environment at risk, the company said in the statement.

Ecopetrol called on those behind the blockade to suspend attacks and said it was open to talks to review their requests alongside the local mayor's office and the attorney general's office.

Energy companies in Colombia often see operations become targets of protesters from nearby towns demanding the hiring of local workers, as well as investments in health, education and roads.

Ecopetrol is the largest company in Colombia and produces the majority of the Andean country's oil. It owns two of the most important refineries in the country and most of the oil pipelines.

(Reporting by Oliver Griffin and Luis Jaime Acosta; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
Indian indices ended on a negative note on June 15 on the back of weak global cues with Nifty below 9850 level. At close, the Sensex was down 552.09 points or 1.63% at 33228.80, and the Nifty was down 159.20 points or 1.60% at 9813.70.

Reliance Industries | CMP: Rs 1625| RIL share price hits record high after company announced more deals for its digital arm Jio Platforms. Over the weekend, two more global investors joined hands with RIL for making investment in the digital arm of the company. TPG will invest Rs 4,546.80 crore for a 0.93 percent stake in Jio Platforms and L Catterton will invest Rs 1,894.50 crore in Jio Platforms, in exchange for a 0.39 percent stake. Also, the company's partly paid-up rights shares listed on bourses. Disclaimer: Reliance Industries (RIL) is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.

Aarti Industries | CMP: Rs 866.50 | Share price tumbled nearly 6 percent after the company said its long-term contract with a global firm to supply agrochemicals worth Rs 4,000 crore has been cancelled. In a regulatory filing, AIL informed exchanges that the company in June 2017 had entered a 10-year contract with a global agrochemical major to supply a high-value agrochemical intermediary with application in herbicides.

BHEL | CMP: Rs 29.10 | The stock was down over 7 percent after the company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 1,532.18 crore for the March quarter, mainly due to lower revenues and deferred taxes. The company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 680.77 crore in the quarter ended March 2019, it said in a BSE filing on June 13. Total income in the quarter review stood at Rs 5,193.51 crore, down from Rs 10,489.11 crore in the same period last year.

Tata Power | CMP: Rs 42.40 | Tata Power added over 1 percent after its subsidiary Tata Power Renewable Energy Limited (TPREL) received a Letter of Award from Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Limited (GUVNL) on June 12, 2020 to develop a 120 MW solar project in Gujarat. The energy will be supplied to GUVNL under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), valid for a period of 25 years from scheduled commercial operation date.

Lakshmi Vilas Bank | CMP: Rs 15.30 | The stock was up 5 percent after the bank received preliminary, non-binding letter of intent from M/s. Clix Capital Services Private Limited & Clix Finance India Private Limited. Under the non-binding LOI, the proposed transaction is subject to completion of due diligence, and will be subject to regulatory and other customary approvals.

Jet Airways | CMP: Rs 25.65 | The stock shed nearly 5 percent after the NCLT allowed the company to sell its premises in Bandra Kurla Complex to settle Rs 360 crore dues of mortgage lender HDFC, clear overseas debt and cover corporate insolvency resolution process costs.

AstraZeneca Pharma | CMP: Rs 3,445.20 | Shares of AstraZeneca Pharma jumped 7 percent after it struck a deal with Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine. The alliance forged by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands to speed up production of a coronavirus vaccine is set to take delivery by the end of 2020 of a vaccine being tested by the University of Oxford. The agreement struck on June 13 aims to make the vaccine available to other European countries that wish to take part.

Tata Motors | CMP: Rs 100.45 | The stock fell over 4 percent ahead of its Q4 results. The company is likely to report a big loss in the range of Rs 2,500-3,000 crore for the March quarter 2020, as COVID-19-led lockdown hit businesses. It had reported consolidated profit of Rs 1,117.5 crore in Q4FY19 and Rs 1,738.3 crore in Q3FY20. Brokerages expect the company to report around 30 percent year-on-year decline in revenue and more than 50 percent fall in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) with sharp contraction around 3 percent in margin.

Mastek | CMP: Rs 346 | The company share added 2o percent after it posted 49.6 percent QoQ jump in its Q4 net profit at Rs 38.9 crore against Rs 26 crore and revenue was up 38.2% at Rs 336.7 crore versus Rs 243.7 crore. Earings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was up 75.3% at Rs 75.7 crore and EBITDA margin was up 430 bps at 21.4percent.
A Los Angeles-based startup that upcycles unused milk into sustainable clothing is in talks with leading dairy companies in China over strategic partnerships, said the companys founder and chief executive.

Mi Terros Robert Luo said he is discussing investment with dominant firms in the Chinese dairy market, where the startup sources its raw materials. Since the launch in June 2019 of its T-shirts made using fabric produced from excess milk, Mi Terro has generated more than $100,000 in revenue from online sales to customers in more than 40 countries, Luo said in an interview.

Mi Terro is one of many small fashion brands tapping consumers growing desire to direct their purchases toward companies operating sustainably, in an industry that has been dogged by concerns around waste and over-production. Small- and medium-sized companies make up roughly half of the fashion industry, and are well-placed to innovate in sustainability, according to a 2019 white paper led by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion.

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Luos inspiration came not from clothing waste but from food. On a visit to his uncles dairy farm in China, he saw buckets and buckets of spoiled milk going unused. I realized its a huge problem that we just dont talk about enough, he said.

When he returned to the U.S., he worked with a childhood friend with a background in material science and chemistry to find a use for the waste. After three months of researching they started to work out a solution that can extract the casein protein from the milk and spin it into fiber. The fats are removed from the milk before de-watering it to become powdered milk. Proteins are then isolated and solidified into fibers which are stretched and spun into yarn that is ready to be used in making clothing.

Mi Terro intends to launch in China on June 18 and Japan in the next two months. It has signed letters of interest with several big fashion brands but needs both strategic and financial support to scale up its capacity to keep up with the demand, Luo said.

In 2019, the company launched two Kickstarter campaigns that rapidly hit their funding goals, and counts startup accelerator Lair East Labs among its backers. Mi Terro is now in the process of raising $800,000 in fresh funding, Luo said, ideally from strategic partners in China and globally.

Investments in apparel and footwear by venture capital rose to $561 million in 2017 from $43.5 million a decade earlier, according to a report last year by McKinsey and industry publication Business of Fashion.

The startup is preparing to expand its food waste innovation beyond fashion. It is working on new technology that will help dairy makers recycle whey waste into biodegradable food packaging film, Luo said. He expects its business model to gradually shift away from selling directly to consumers.

Mi Terro is looking to license its technologies in the near future and is in the process of applying for patents in China, he said.
Eli Lilly and Co on Monday said it was launching a study of its rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

The trial is one of several efforts by the US drugmaker to help combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 400,000 people globally, according to a Reuters tally.

The drug is being tested to see if it can reduce deaths from the COVID-19 illness and lessen its severity. Scientists at Lilly believe that baricitinib could help suppress a potentially lethal immune response to COVID-19 called "cytokine storm" and reduce COVID-19's ability to reproduce in infected cells.

The trial began dosing patients last week and plans to enroll around 400 patients globally. Lilly could potentially obtain US regulatory approval for the drug as soon as August, Patrik Jonsson, the president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, told Reuters in an interview.

Lilly has also been working with the National Institutes of Health to study baricitinib, which is branded Olumiant, in a pairing with Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir. That study began enrolling patients last month.

The US Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead's remdesivir emergency use authorization (EUA) last month, citing results from a US government study that showed the drug reduced hospitalization stays by 31 percent, or about four days, compared to a placebo.

Lilly could potentially receive approval to use baricitinib in combination with remdesivir by as early as July, Jonsson said.

Separately, Lilly could have an drug specifically designed to treat COVID-19 authorized for use as early as September if all goes well with either of two antibody therapies it is testing, its chief scientist told Reuters last week.

Also Read: Delhi's coronavirus tally climbs by 10,000 in just six days; more than 41,000 cases reported

Also Read: Coronavirus: Record 11,929 cases, 325 deaths in a day; India's tally 3.32 lakh
Monday, June 8, marked the annual meeting of the Church of Christ, Scientist, based in Boston. The meeting was held online. The church is one of many faith groups that has worked tirelessly over the past several months to help congregations move to a virtual space, in compliance with local guidelines and recommendations. The annual meeting was an occasion for members to come together and consider what it means to be a church in a time of crisis  to go above and beyond whats being asked by authorities, and really serve.

What real love does is reduce fear, said Robin Hoagland, of the churchs five-member board of directors, and that is the love that is most needed right now.

The question applies to needs from the current economic and public health crisis as well as global concerns about civil rights. The Christian Science Monitor, mentioned in the meeting, is one way the church aims to show its commitment to addressing such issues. The newspaper was founded in 1908 with the motto, to injure no man but bless all mankind. It has covered issues relating to injustice and race since its earliest days. Pandemic coverage in recent months has been offered without a paywall.

Church officials and members comments during the meeting highlighted the connection between worshipping God and caring for ones neighbors  a core teaching of Jesus, which Christians embrace.

To the degree that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind  to that degree will our hearts and hands be moved by Christ to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters, board member Keith Wommack conveyed.

A member from Germany who has been organizing humanitarian aid for the UN said, When you are faced with global humanitarian needs, you can do a lot of things that are not meeting the needs of the people, or you face obstacles. Prayer brings solutions to mind...because prayer is powerful. It has an impact.

Comments also affirmed the churchs commitment to spiritual healing, which endeavors to see the image of God in everyone. Great charity and humility is necessary in this work of healing," wrote church founder Mary Baker Eddy. "The loving patience of Jesus we must strive to emulate.

Healing cant be approached dogmatically, Christian Scientists emphasize. It is about giving gratitude to God, who is love, and learning to acknowledge more of this saving presence.

A member from Peru shared how Gods love healed his grief after his son died in the hospital from a car accident. During this same time he was healed of chronic pain in his knees and spine. The encouragement of the local church was instrumental, he said, and he joined soon after.

The church's clerk welcomed new members from over 30 countries,  from Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, to the UK, US, Uruguay and Zimbabwe. Members also welcomed a new president, Anne-Francoise Bouffe, of Paris, France.

The meeting concluded with a video compilation of hundreds of members singing a hymn in five languages. Meeting participants were invited to join in live from home, including those who tuned in from Tennessee.

* * *



Kevin Ness is the manager of Christian Science Committees on Publication for The First Church of Christ, Scientist






Although the government has relaxed lockdown curbs, majority of IT and technology companies are in no rush to bring employees back to offices. Work-from-home is not affecting their productivity as most of the work happens over the internet.

While many tech companies are considering a rotation of teams that come into office, several other firms are even letting employees decide if they feel at ease returning to work, according to a report in The Economic Times.

Indian IT giant Infosys is enabling staggered returns over several months. Presently, only around 15% of its employees are working from offices across India. The tech firm is carefully monitoring the situation across its office locations and taking a calibrated decision on whether to open them or not.

American investment bank Goldman Sachs, which has a technology and services centre in Bengaluru with an employee strength of 5,500, expects to have only around 30% of its workforce operating from home over the next few months. This will happen in a phased manner after the bank assesses its return-to-office strategy by June-end.

"Return to office is entirely voluntary and everyone is encouraged to take an approach that works for them, based on their personal constraints and considerations," Gunjan Samtani, head of Goldman Sachs Services in India told the news daily.

Global software consultancy firm ThoughtWorks plans to have up to 50% of its employees work from office on a rotational basis, however, that will not happen anytime soon.

Also Read: Coronavirus lockdown impact: Uber lays off 600 employees in India

Deepa Deo, the Covid-19 response team lead for ThoughtWorks in India told the news daily that the employees will be allowed to avail the work-from-home option for as long as needed, even after the coronavirus-induced lockdown ends officially.

Around 4% of HCL Technologies' employees are currently working at customer locations and company's offices. Wipro has about 97% of its workforce working from home and is adopting a staggered method towards resuming operations at its offices.

Meanwhile, tech giants such as Google and Facebook in India stated that they would follow their global guidelines. Google CEO Sundar Pichai had stated in May that the company would reopen the company's offices beginning July 6, for whosoever wishes to return.

Also Read: Coronavirus lockdown 2.0: IT companies to continue work from home for next few weeks

"Beginning July 6, assuming external conditions allow, we'll start to open more buildings in more cities. This will give Googlers who need to come back to the office or, capacity permitting, who want to come back-the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis," Google wrote in a blog post.

Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter have announced that their employees can decide to work-from-home till the end of this year. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has even stated that employees can also choose to work from home forever.
Iraqs government has approached international oil companies operating some of its largest oilfields to reduce production further and they have agreed, Reuters reports, citing an unnamed source from the industry.

An earlier report by Bloomberg said Baghdad had asked BP, which operates the giant Rumaila field in the southern part of the country, by another 10 percent. Rumaila is Iraqs biggest oil field and produces some 1.5 million barrels of crude daily.

Iraqs production quota under the latest OPEC+ agreement for production control was 3.6 million bpd, but according to Bloomberg calculations, the country, which is OPECs second-largest exporter of oil, exceeded this by as much as 600,000 bpd last month. It was the first month of deep cuts among OPEC+.

Now, according to the Reuters source, Baghdad has agreed with Lukoil to cut an additional 50,000 bpd in output from its average daily at West Qurna-2, after it asked the Russian company to reduce production at the southern field by 70,000 bpd in May. With the additional cuts, output at West Qurna-2 will fall to about 275,000 bpd.

Exxon, which operates West Qurna-1, has agreed to reduce output at the field by another 70,000 bpd, the source also said, which would mean an average daily total of 350,000 bpd from the field this month. The initial cuts at West Qurna-1 were 50,000 bpd last month.

Iraq has become notorious as a laggard in the OPEC+ production control deals and at the latest meeting of the cartel Saudi Arabia clearly showed it had had enough. The Kingdom, which has been cutting by a million bpd more than its quota, insisted that both Iraq and the other laggard, Nigeria, not only deepened their cuts to their quotas but cut even deeper, to make up for the excess oil they had produced last month over their quotas.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Protests in Lebanon's Tripoli leave 20 people injured

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/6/14 8:24:31

Clashes between the Lebanese army and protesters in Lebanese Tripoli's demonstrations on Saturday led to the injury of 20 people including four army members.

A security source told Xinhua that clashes erupted when a group of protesters in the northern city of Tripoli intercepted big trucks carrying food items in an attempt to prevent them from going to Syria.

The source said that protesters expressed their anger to see food being transported to Syria while the Lebanese are in great need for these products amid current economic crisis and the steep hike in prices.

Protesters threw stones at army members who prevented them from stopping trucks by using tear gas to disperse them which led to the violent clashes.

Nationwide demonstrations resumed on Friday evening in Lebanon for the second consecutive day in protest against the dire living conditions in the country.

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SCHAUMBURG, Ill., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations (CSRO) is working to enlist the business community to join in its fight against implementation of a harmful prescription policy BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee (BCBST) is scheduled begin on July 1, 2020. In a letter to the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, CSRO (representing additional physician groups and patient advocates) warns the business community of a looming threat to the Tennessee workforce.

"High risk COVID-19 patients who are chronically ill run the risk of losing access to treatments at their doctors office if the BCBST policy is implemented," Dr. Madeline Feldman, CSRO President stated. "This policy could destabilize them at a time when they are most vulnerable, further harming public health and the economy."

The BCBST policy forces patients to utilize its preferred specialty pharmacies for infusion therapies making it nearly impossible for treatments to be conducted in physician offices  under their care.

"BSBCT's new policy transfers medications covered on the medical side of insurance to the pharmacy side. While more economically lucrative for the payers and specialty pharmacies, based on the hidden fees and price concessions - the patient is harmed, as are the businesses employing them," Dr. Feldman, wrote to Tennessee Chamber President Bradley Jackson. "Delay or loss of treatment results in increased disease activity resulting in further increases in costs to patient health and welfare. Missed time from work, and lower productivity will cost employers immensely more than any savings promised by BCBST."

"As physicians on the front lines of medical care, we will fight for our patients," Dr. Feldman said. "As someone on the front lines protecting Tennessee businesses, surely the Chamber of Commerce cares for the wellbeing of its members too. Hopefully, we will join forces to educate employers and patients in Tennessee to avoid securing insurance policies that reduce access to care."

CSRO sent a letter requesting a meeting with BCBST leader JD Hickey last week that has so far, gone unanswered.

The CSRO is comprised of professional rheumatology societies formed to advocate for excellence in rheumatologic disease care and ensuring access to the highest quality care.

CONTACT

Dan Rene of kglobal

202-329-8357 or [email protected]

SOURCE Coalition of State Rheumatology Organizations

Related Links

https://csro.info


South Africa: Caring for the elderly

Minister Lindiwe Zulu has put the spotlight on crimes against the elderly people as nations commemorate the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on Monday.

The Minister of Social Development has since condemned violent crimes against senior citizens and is calling on members of the public to care and protect them against the brutal attacks and COVID-19.

Older persons are at a significantly increased risk of severe diseases and from the virus, the department said.

This years theme, 'Listening to the voices of older persons amid the Coronavirus pandemic', comes in light of a recent surge in cases of gender-based violence (GBV) reported during the lockdown period in South Africa.

Elderly women have not been spared in the country, also dying at the hands of men. A 75-year-old woman was brutally raped and murdered by criminals, who pretended to be law enforcement agents in March.

Meanwhile, the double murder of a 91-year-old man and 85-year-old woman in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape, recently made headlines.

At a time when our senior citizens are concerned about their health and safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic, criminals are taking advantage to attack the most vulnerable, who cannot even defend themselves.

What kind of society are we that abuses, instead of cherishes, our senior citizens? We strongly condemn any form of violence against senior citizens in our country, and we urge our law enforcement agencies to bring the perpetrators of these senseless acts of utter barbarism to face the full might of the law, Zulu said.

The department said the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 66/127, which designated 15 June as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day to support the rights of older persons to a dignified life free of violence and abuse.

In a statement, the department defined elder abuse as a global phenomenon that takes many forms, including physical, emotional, sexual and financial abuse.

Older persons are particularly vulnerable to these forms of abuse, as they are unable to defend themselves. Research shows that age, gender and dependency increases the risk of abuse, with women suffering the most, the department said.

The department has noted with concern that some of these abuses are perpetrated by close family members and institutions that are meant to care and protect them.

Protecting the elderly against COVID-19

Zulu said she was also worried the implications for older persons, as confirmed positive cases of Coronavirus continue to increase in South Africa.

The country recorded 4 302 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday -- the biggest single jump since the outbreak, bringing the total number of infections to 70 038, with 1 480 recorded deaths.

Over the last few days, we have witnessed widespread community transmission of the virus in many parts of our country, with confirmed cases now surpassing 60 000 and over 1 000 reported deaths.

We know that over 63% of the reported deaths occur in those aged 60 and above. While we emphasise that everyone is at risk of contracting the virus, our senior citizens are at greater risk of infection due to ageing, decreased immune and comorbidities.

She said the pandemic threatens to reverse the significant gains we have recorded in improving life expectancy in our country.

We, therefore, need to act in solidarity with them by preventing the community transmission to this vulnerable group by giving them love, care and support and ensuring that they are protected against infection at all times.

Elderly care centres experiencing a spike in infections

Several elderly care centres in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape have reported Coronavirus infections and deaths.

The total number of deaths reported so far is 27, with 127 confirmed positive cases among older persons. As of today, the total number of reported confirmed cases among support staff, including nurses is 221.

The department has since temporarily suspended all external visits to residential facilities that provide care and support for older persons across the country.

They are also prioritising the training of healthcare workers and support staff, with 199 nurses trained to conduct screening and testing within the residential care facilities to date.

They will also roll out flu vaccinations for the aged men and women.

Meanwhile, they are looking into providing Personal Protective Equipment and monitor compliance with all the precautionary measures to contain the further spread of the virus.

The department has also set aside R1.75 million to prevent and contain the spread of the virus in the 418 elderly care centres they support in the country.

Also, the department has collaborated with National Institute Community Development and Management and First National Bank targeting to train and capacitate 89 resource-constrained residential facilities on infection control, health and safety guidelines and palliative care, amongst others.

All these measures are aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting older persons in residential facilities as they are at an increased risk of severe illness, the department said.

South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) grants



SASSA currently pays an old age grant to over 3 million people aged 60 years and above every month.

The recipients of old age grant received a top-up of R250 as part of the governments socio-economic measures to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the poor and most vulnerable.

To comply with the disaster management regulations, SASSA has staggered the payment of social grants, with priority given to older persons and persons with disabilities.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Shu Zhang and Florence Tan

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The world's largest oil exporter Saudi Aramco has reduced the volume of July-loading crude that it will supply to at least five buyers in Asia, seven sources said on Monday.

The cuts were mainly for medium and heavy grades and were seen at refineries in countries such as China, the sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Four of the refiners saw smaller July cuts than what they had received in June. The sources declined to be named due to sensitivity of the matter.

The move followed a deal struck by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies including Russia to keep production cuts of 9.7 million barrels per day, or 10% of pre-coronavirus world demand, until the end of July.

Saudi Arabia said it will end its deeper, voluntary cuts amid signs of recovering global demand.

Saudi Aramco declined to comment.

Tighter Middle East supplies and improving refinery appetite for crude have prompted Saudi Aramco to hike July official selling prices (OSPs) to Asia more than expected even though refining margins and oil demand have yet to catch up with the rising crude valuation, the sources said.

"Increased OSPs have caught us by surprise and these are not attractive to refiners specially in a market where refining margins are weak," said BPCL's head of refineries R Ramachandran.

This has led at least one major Asian buyer to request for almost a third less of its contract volume for July, one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Two other sources said they will increase the purchase of cross-region arbitrage cargoes this month, such as West African crude and U.S. crude, that are priced more competitively and reduce the purchase of expensive Middle Eastern oil.

(Reporting By Shu Zhang and Florence Tan; Additional reporting By Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Dahlia Nehme in Dubai; Editing by Tom Hogue & Shri Navaratnam/Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #24

Posted on 14 June 2020 by John Hartz

Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week...

Story of the Week...

'Surprisingly rapid' rebound in carbon emissions post-lockdown

Busier roads to blame, with fears of worse to come as workers shun public transport

Huge queues of traffic blocked roads throughout Staines, Middlesex, when the McDonalds drive-through restaurant reopened on 20 May. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Rex

Carbon dioxide emissions have rebounded around the world as lockdown conditions have eased, raising fears that annual emissions of greenhouse gases could surge to higher than ever levels after the coronavirus pandemic, unless governments take swift action.

Emissions fell by a quarter when the lockdowns were at their peak, and in early April global daily carbon dioxide emissions were still down by 17% compared with the average figure for 2019, research published last month in the journal Nature Climate Change found.

Now daily carbon emissions are still down on 2019 levels, but by only 5% on average globally, according to an updated study.

Things have happened very fast, said Corinne Le Quere, a professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia and the lead author of the studies. Very few countries still have stringent confinement. We expected emissions to come back, but that they have done so rapidly is the biggest surprise.

'Surprisingly rapid' rebound in carbon emissions post-lockdown by Fiona Harvey, Environment, Guardian, June 11, 2020

Click here to access the entire article as originally posted on The Guardian website.

Coming Soon on SkS...

How Climate Change Reinforces Racism (Climate Adam)

(Climate Adam) A brief history of climate targets and technological promises (Duncan McLaren)

(Duncan McLaren) SkS New Research for Week #24 (Doug Bostrom)

(Doug Bostrom) Will Fusion Power solve Climate Change? (Climate Adam)

(Climate Adam) IEA: Coronavirus accelerating closure of ageing fossil-fuelled power plants (Josh Gabbatiss)

(Josh Gabbatiss) 2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25 (John Hartz)

(John Hartz) 2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #25 (John Hartz)

Climate Feedback Claim Review...

Low solar activity has little effect on Earths climate, contrary to claim in The Sun

CLAIM: The sun has gone into lockdown which could cause freezing weather, earthquakes and famine, say scientists. Nasa scientists fear it could be a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, which happened between 1790 and 1830  leading to periods of brutal cold, crop loss, famine and powerful volcanic eruptions.

VERDICT:

SOURCE: The sun has gone into lockdown which could cause freezing weather, earthquakes and famine, say scientists by Chris Pollard, The Sun (UK), May 13, 2020

KEY TAKE AWAY: Although solar activity is currently in a quiet phase, this is typical of the 11-year cycle in the Suns energy output. The effect of low solar activity on the Earths climate is small compared to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Low solar activity has little effect on Earths climate, contrary to claim in The Sun, Edited by Nikki Forrester, Claim Review, Climate Feedback, May 21, 2020

UPDATES:

(May 22, 2020): After this post was published, the headlines and bodies of articles in The Sun and the New York Post were corrected to clarify that low solar activity does not cause brutal cold, crop loss, famine, or volcanic eruptions. These articles now include disclaimers saying previous versions of the articles included misleading claims.

May 27, 2020): After this post was published, the headline and body of an article in The Daily Mail was corrected to clarify that solar activity cycles have little effect on the Earths climate.

SkS Week in Review...

Poster of the Week...
Tanya Galvin and Ricky Tubbs: Brevard County Sheriff's Office

Two Florida women have been charged over the death of an infant after allegedly drowning the baby boy and stuffing the body in a plastic bin.

Tanya Galvin, 41, and Ricky Tubbs, 25, were arrested by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office in connection with the death. The dead infant was Ms Tubb's foster child, Scorpio Sharp.

The child's body was found several months before the women were charged.

The sheriff's office first became aware of the situation when a deputy saw a trio of children aged between two and four walking unaccompanied in Cape Canaveral. After questioning the children, the deputy went to their home, where Ms Galvin was asleep.

Ms Galvin told the deputy she hadn't been aware of where the children were, and that she assumed Ms Tubbs had been taking care of them.

One of the children found on the street was "wet and smelled of urine", so the deputy searched the house for diapers to change the child. While the deputy was searching, they discovered the body of an unresponsive infant in a plastic bin.

The deputy performed CPR on the child in an attempt to revive him. In the police report, the deputy said that water was cleared from the child's nose and throat. The deputy rushed the child to a hospital, where it was pronounced dead.

An autopsy by the Brevard County Medical Examiner's Office found the child had died by drowning.

The baby, Scorpio, was placed under the supervision of Ms Tubbs by the state's Department of Children and Families. The night prior to Scorpio's death, Ms Tubbs left the children in the care of her boyfriend.

According to the police report, she returned the following morning so her boyfriend could go to work, but she didn't make it home in time, and her boyfriend left for work, leaving the children alone at the house.

Ms Tubbs' boyfriend called her and told her she needed to go home immediately because the children were alone with Ms Galvin, who was not authorised by the state to care for them.

Story continues

According to law enforcement, Ms Tubbs has used alcohol and drugs the night prior. By the time she'd returned home, the baby was dead in the container. During the initial search of the house, officers found a nearby bathtub filled with standing water 25 feet from where the drowned baby was found.

A statement released by the police following the investigation of the scene posits that the child drowned in the bathtub and was discarded by the women.

Ms Tubbs was charged with neglect of a child with great bodily harm and is being held in the Volusia County Jail on a $25,000 bond. She will be extradited to Brevard County.

Read more

Man who crammed baby into backpack for hours faces murder charges
As European countries emerge from their coronavirus lockdowns and lift travel restrictions to revive their tourist industries, the EU has been aiming to coordinate the border reopening among its 27 members.

The bloc has recommended that the member states fully reopen their frontiers with each other on June 15, and many countries are planning to relax controls on that date.

But the border reopenings have been far from harmoniously coordinated.

 Early birds and those that never closed 

Italy, which has been among the worlds hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe  in many cases that list includes Sweden and the UK.

Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13.

Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries.

Neither did tiny Luxembourg  but quickly found all its neighbours closing their borders instead.

 EUs mid-June plans 

In line with the EUs plans to reopen borders in the bloc by mid-June, Belgium, France and Greece are lifting restrictions on Monday for travel within Europe.

Paris, however, has specified it wants reciprocity and so may impose restrictions on those countries blocking travellers from France.

Greece, on the other hand, has gone further, also allowing travellers from farther afield, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon.

Germany is due to end land border checks on June 15, while the Dutch government has announced it would ease warnings against non-essential foreign travel from the same date.

Austria, which has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours, will on June 16 lift travel restrictions with a total of 31 countries  but has excluded Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The Czech Republic is also allowing free travel with a number of European countries from Monday, but restrictions are still in place with those deemed a risk due to their levels of coronavirus infections.

 Hold outs 

Spain will only lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with fellow EU countries.

The land border with Portugal will however remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic.

However, Spains Balearic Islands will see an earlier contingent of foreign guests when they welcome 11,000 Germans from June 15 in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector.

Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions.

Meanwhile, others are lifting border controls, but are still doing so more gradually.

Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights.

SOURCE: AFP
Samsung saving Huawei isnt something you see every day but it just might end up happening regardless. Huawei is apparently on the verge of securing perhaps its first major ally in the era post U.S. technology ban. Curiously enough, that potential partner also happens to be its biggest smartphone rival. From another perspective, Samsung is on the verge of neutralizing the arguably biggest threat to its global smartphone dominance to date. Because the very existence of their fierce rivalry is what makes them such a potentially powerful pairing. And the Chinese company could certainly use a break right about now, no matter how small.

A recent report suggested the duo is close to reaching a large-scale supply agreement which would essentially have Samsung save Huaweis 5G ambitions; one that would eliminate a key barrier to its ability to continue mass-producing 5G equipment. That would be chips of the wireless variety, of course. The very latest of which are based on a 7nm process node, cutting-edge tech few foundries can deliver.

For added context, Samsungs proprietary solution can accomodate about 10 billion transistors on a silicon wafer the size of a penny. Now for the pivotal part: thats likely doable without utilizing any tech owned by an American company. Which is essentially what the Trump administrations recently extended Huawei sanctions are all about. Theres no telling how exactly would Washington respond to Samsung saving Huawei from this predicament. But it likely wouldnt be able to do anything directly.

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Samsung saving Huawei can only be bad news for consumers

Samsung is now said to be in the process of testing out that theory. Sources close to the firm report it already set up a benchmark 5G chip production line sans U.S. tech. The shop floor in question instead utilizes equipment from only Europe and Japan, as per the same insiders. The setups believed to include silicon testing machines from Yokohama-based Lasertec, while the actual production will be handled by a line based on Dutch IP. Theres but one option for 7nm EUV etching, anyway; that would be the semiconductor specialists from ASML based in Veldhoven, Netherlands.

In exchange for that key support act, Samsung would secure a truce with its most threatening competitor in the smartphone space. Besides a ton of money, of course, since its not like Huawei has many other options at this point. Assuming conceding the 5G race before it even truly began is still out of the question. At the same time, this would spell exclusively bad news for consumers. How would it not? Its difficult to imagine an industry that wouldnt capitalize on two of its biggest players getting friendlier.

Then again, it remains to be seen whether this quid pro quo actually ends up happening. Its not like having Korean partners is what landed Huawei in hot water with the U.S. in the first place. No, no, the other Koreans. Of course, theres the whole other matter of doing business with another internationally sanctioned nation in Iran, among a couple dozen other incidents which led Huawei to the thankless position in which it now finds itself.
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It's not just heavy drinking that's a problemeven consuming alcohol within weekly low-risk drinking guidelines can result in hospitalization and death, according to a new study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Moderate drinkers "are not insulated from harm," write researchers led by Adam Sherk, Ph.D., of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

The Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines state that women should consume no more than about 10 drinks per week and men no more than 15. (A drink is 12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine, or 1.5 oz. of liquor.) These limits are slightly higher than those in the United States and exceed those of most other high-income countries.

In their research, Sherk and colleagues found that in British Columbia, a significant portion of alcohol-caused death and disability was experienced by those drinking within these guidelines. For example, more than 50 percent of cancer deaths resulting from alcohol use occurred in people drinking moderately. Further, 38 percent of all alcohol-attributable deaths were experienced by people drinking below the weekly limits or among former drinkers.

However, for women, alcohol consumption within the guidelines did offer some protection from death from heart attack, stroke and diabetes. Nonetheless, "[t]his protective effect did not appear to hold for men," the authors write, "who experienced harm at all drinking levels."

Does drinking within Canada's low-risk guidelines prevent harm? Credit: University of Victoria

For their study, the investigators used a new, open-access modelthe International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies (InterMAHP)which can be used to estimate alcohol harms in a country or state, in total or by drinking group. They used British Columbia-specific alcohol exposure data from substance use surveys, hospital data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and mortality data from Statistics Canada's Vital Statistics. These sources were nonidentifying and for 2014.

Because of these results, Sherk and colleagues say that some national drinking guidelines, which are published by many countries to help drinkers make informed health decisions, may be too high. This may be particularly true in Canada, where the research was conducted.

Sherk suggests that guideline limits should be lowered to match those in the Netherlands: "Don't drink or, if you do, drink no more than one drink per day."

Overall, he says, the best advice for drinking is to err on the side of caution, "When it comes to alcohol use, less is better."

Explore further Middle-aged moderate drinkers rarely have health concerns about drinking

More information: Sherk, A., Thomas, G., Churchill, S., & Stockwell, T. (2020). Does drinking within low-risk guidelines prevent harm? Implications for high-income countries using the international model of alcohol harms and policies. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 352361. Journal information: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs Sherk, A., Thomas, G., Churchill, S., & Stockwell, T. (2020). Does drinking within low-risk guidelines prevent harm? Implications for high-income countries using the international model of alcohol harms and policies., 81, 352361. DOI: 10.15288/jsad.2020.81.352
'Privileged military service' doubt must be investigated thoroughly



A conscript in an Air Force unit in western Seoul is suspected of receiving preferential treatment thanks to what appears to be his father's influence. A man who identified himself as an Air Force noncommissioned officer raised the allegations in an online petition he posted on Cheong Wa Dae's website Thursday.



The various privileges the airman has enjoyed leave us speechless. The soldier has an assistant employed by his family take his laundry every Saturday morning and bring it back after being washed. Some noncommissioned officers, who are senior to the conscript, are mobilized to deliver the laundry. The petitioner also claims that contrary to the usual situation in which six to eight soldiers share a room, the serviceman has his own room in the barracks because he became ill from overexposure to air conditioning.



The serviceman often goes AWOL under the pretext of medical treatment, but he allegedly has dinner with his family while off base. The process through which he was assigned to the post is also in doubt amid allegations that his father used his influence to secure the post for his son.



The petitioner suspected the wealth of the soldier's parents was behind such privileges, saying the parents had frequently called noncommissioned officers to intervene in their son's military life. The press later identified the serviceman as the son of a vice chairman of the NICE Group, a credit information conglomerate.



Given the extent of the special treatment, there is little doubt that some in the Air Force unit were receptive to absurd and reckless demands from the airman's parents and provided things for his convenience. What is needed first is to get to the bottom of the facts thoroughly. If what is revealed through the petition turns out to be true, the military should deal sternly with the serviceman and Air Force personnel involved in the irregularities. The military also should take fundamental measures to prevent a recurrence.




Speaking at the event, DEA deputy director general Martin Hansen said that the organisation of the high-level offshore wind event is a testament to the extraordinary government-to-government energy partnership that Vietnam and Denmark have developed since 2013.



He expressed his delight to see that cooperation and activities within offshore wind are on track despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The official affirmed Vietnam has a huge potential for offshore wind, which could play a key role in the green transition of the country.

Since 2009, Denmark has provided over US$60 million in non-refundable aid for Vietnam in the fields of energy and climate change.

The third phase of the two countries partnership cooperation programme in the energy field will begin in late 2020 until 2025, with the focus on offshore wind power.
A Montgomery judge has ruled that employees of the Birmingham Airport Authority are not public employees under the state ethics law, rejecting an advisory opinion adopted last year by the Alabama Ethics Commission.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Brooke Reid agreed with lawyers for the Airport Authority, who argued that airport employees are not public employees because they are not paid from taxpayer funds. Their salaries come from fees that airlines, car rental companies, and other vendors pay to use the airport.

The Airport Authority is a public, nonprofit corporation created to operate Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, which is owned by the city.

Airport Authority attorney Mark White said the Ethics Commission opinion would have affected employees for other public corporations that manage airports, water, sewer, gas, and electrical systems and that operate on self-generated funds, as opposed to tax dollars.

The opinion they reached impacted thousands of people in Alabama," White said.

The airport authorities in Huntsville, Mobile, and Dothan filed briefs supporting the Birmingham Airport Authoritys position, as did the Alabama Rural Water Association, the Alabama Water and Wastewater Institute, the Jefferson County Employees Retirement System, the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority and the Alabama Public Utilities Association.

Reid put the Ethics Commission opinion on hold in September pending the outcome of the case. The Ethics Commission did not oppose that move.

The commission issued the advisory opinion last year in response to a request from the Birmingham Airport Authority. White said the request was to resolve conflicting opinions from the commission.

The ethics law is intended to prevent public officials and public employees from using their public positions for personal gain and to require them to disclose conflicts of interest. White said it was not meant to cover employees for public corporations like the Airport Authority.

Putting these kind of employees in that category is kind of like trying to get rid of a gnat with a sledgehammer, White said. And frankly, the Ethics Commission realized it was an issue that needed to be resolved.

The ruling means that Airport Authority employees are not subject to the requirements and restrictions of the ethics law. One such requirement, which applies to supervisors and those making $81,000 or more a year, is to file an annual statement of economic interests with the Ethics Commission.

Its more than just having to file the form, which is an inconvenience," White said. Once youre a public employee, that classification can also impact members of your family.

White said airport authority board members, unlike employees, are subject to the ethics law because they are public officials.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Tom Albritton said the commission is still reviewing the judges order and has not decided whether it will appeal.
- Kwaku Agyemang Manu has been reported as one of the ministers of states to have contracted the deadly coronavirus disease.

- The minister is quoted saying he is responding to treatment.

- He also expressed heartfelt gratitude to the President and all Ghanaians for their prayers and well wishes

- Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu has been reported as one of the ministers of states to have contracted the deadly coronavirus disease.

According to President Akufo-Addo in his 11th address to the nation, the health minister contracted the disease in the line of duty and is currently on admission.

In his address, he wished the minister of state a speedy recovery as he is currently receiving treatment at the University of Ghana Medical Centre.

In a JoyNews post sighted by YEN.com.gh, the minister is quoted saying he is responding to treatment.

He also expressed heartfelt gratitude to the President and all Ghanaians for their prayers and well wishes.

READ ALSO: Ken Agyapong explains how he made his first million dollars at age 36 in 1996

Ghanaians have, as usual, reacted to the post to the minister's comments and wished them well.

Edward prayed for God'Ss healing power for the minister.

Gideon said in a serious country no one will ever take the comments of the minister seriously.

Roger sacarstially stated the minister saying he was resting.

Charles sounded anote of caution to those who were treating the virus lightly.

READ ALSO: Ghanaian student in Washington laments on poor services rendered by Ghanaian Embassy

In other news, President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday, June 14, 2020, announced that 54 COVID-19 patients have died so far in Ghana.

In his 11th COVID-19 address to the nation, President Akufo-Addo said the countrys case count has also shot up to 11,964 with 4,258 recoveries.

We have a total of 4,258 patients who are fully recovered and been discharged and are now free of the virus, the president said, adding: So, our scrutiny, in effect, must be on the number of active cases, i.e., people who remain on our books as still positive

READ ALSO: COVID-19: 54 people have died from virus so far; 11,964 cases recorded

Ghanaian Pastors are crying because of the lack of offerings and tithes - Woman explains | #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
"We all have an important part to play right now in acknowledging the role that racially-motivated drug war policies have played in perpetuating systemic injustice in America," NORML wrote in an open letter. "We hope that you continue to use your voice to call attention to this issue, and that you consider joining those of us in calling for long overdue public policy changes."
FIANNA Fail stalwart Eamon O Cuiv has urged Irish language enthusiasts and supporters of the Gaeltacht to reject the proposed three-party coalition.

The former Gaeltacht Minister, and grandson of party founder Eamon de Valera, has said the new government programme lacks any detail on the Irish language, Irish-speaking areas, and the off-shore islands.

The former party deputy leader has been critical of coalition moves recently, a critic of the party direction for some years, and has warned of a rejection of coalition by party grassroots. He has become the most senior party member to reject the three-party coalition plan endorsed by the party leaders earlier today.

Read More

It was promised that the Irish language legislation would be strengthened, and that a large Irish language centre would be built. There's nothing in it for the Gaeltacht, there's no support for parents raising children through the Irish language. There's nothing there beyond the usual 'soft soap,' he told the online Irish language magazine, Tuairisc.ie.

There's nothing there beyond nice words, without any action plan laid out. There is only the usual praise for Irish speakers and the people of the Gaeltacht  but no plan of action and no funding that would be required to put things into effect, the Galway West TD added.

The Irish language promotion organisation, Conradh na Gaeilge, gave a guarded welcome to the government programme's Irish language proposals. But warned that it was vague about funding - and nothing would happen without a Gaeltacht Minister in Cabinet and proper funds for Irish language organisations.
Regulatory News:

Carrefour (Paris:CA):

Rami Baitieh, Executive Director for Spain, is appointed Executive Director for France. Alexandre De Palmas, Executive Director for Convenience France, is appointed Executive Director for Spain. These appointments will be effective on July 1st 2020.

Carrefour France has undergone a deep transformation over the past three years, under the leadership of Pascal Clouzard and his team. The first objectives set as part of the Carrefour 2022 transformation plan have been met: overhaul of business models, expansion in convenience and e-commerce, development of our own brand as well as of our organic products, new purchasing partnerships, increased price competitiveness and launch of new loyalty programs.

The results achieved over this period enable us to move on to a second stage of Carrefour France's transformation, in a context in which the sanitary and economic crisis has enhanced the need to strengthen operational excellence for the service of customers and to accelerate change in our organization and operating models to bring more efficiency, simplicity and proximity in our action.

Thanks to his perfect knowledge of the Group, acquired over a career that started in France 25 years ago, and thanks to the results he recently obtained as head of Taiwan, Argentina and Spain, Rami Baitieh will have the responsibility, along with his team, to lead this new stage.

Building on a broad career, notably in the retail industry, Alexandre de Palmas has successfully contributed to the expansion of Convenience in France over the last two years. He will endeavor to continue Carrefour Spain's recovery and to accelerate its development.

Alexandre Bompard, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, declared, "I wish Rami Baitieh and Alexandre de Palmas much success in their new positions. I fully trust them to carry out this new stage of our transformation in these two key countries for Carrefour. I warmly thank Pascal Clouzard for the work he has done over the past three years at the head of Carrefour France. He was of great help to me during this first phase of transformation and I wish him all the best for the future."

About Carrefour Group

With a multi-format network of more than 12,000 stores in over 30 countries, Carrefour Group is one of the world's leading food retailers. Carrefour recorded gross sales of 80.7 billion in 2019. The Group has more than 320,000 employees who contribute to making Carrefour the world leader in the food transition for all, offering quality food every day, accessible everywhere and at a reasonable price.

For more information, visit www.carrefour.com, or find us on Twitter (@GroupeCarrefour) and LinkedIn (Carrefour).

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005638/en/

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Selma Bekhechi, Anthony Guglielmo and Antoine Parison

Tel: +33 (0)1 64 50 79 81

Shareholder Relations

Tel: 0 805 902 902 (toll-free in France)

Group Communication

Tel: +33 (0)1 58 47 88 80
Editor's note: Philip Baltazar and Anna Bueno are lawyers. The views expressed in this essay are the authors'.

Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  On June 1, amid a lockdown that has gripped the country since March, President Duterte certified as urgent House Bill 6875, which earlier adopted the Senates version of the new Anti-Terrorism Bill, or Senate Bill 1083, skirting the bicameral conference committee. On June 9, the bill was transmitted to Malacanang for signing of the president.

It was not growing criticism over the administrations handling of the pandemic that triggered the bills haphazard enactment. As early as January this year, military and police officials lobbied for a stricter anti-terror law, after struggling to get convictions under the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA), which the new bill seeks to repeal. The same officials are now expected to exercise near unlimited discretion in implementing a law that vaguely defines terrorism  a term with no agreed definition even under international law  and which vagueness, once the bill takes effect, provides cover for law enforcers to commit any number of atrocities.

Perhaps even more alarming than the bills provisions (see here for a matrix, prepared by human rights lawyer Ross Tugade, comparing the new bills provisions with the HSA), was the railroading by Congress in what seemed like a declaration of its readiness to bend to executive will. These irregularities are aggravated when set against the backdrop of this administrations track record of tolerating, downplaying, and even encouraging human rights violations in enforcing State policies, and careless red-tagging of organizations critical of it.

Most recently, the president himself (who has admitted in public that his only sin is extrajudicial killings) expressed his preference to hogtie online scammers and throw them into the Pasig river. He has told police to shoot dead violators of a quarantine. He also renewed his conviction to kill drug dealers, a statement that came at the heels of a U.N. report documenting the near impunity of police officials committing serious human rights violations (including the planting of evidence) in the crackdown against drugs.

When Duterte commands, the police and military obey. This militarized obedience has resulted in countless deaths on account of excessive force or shoot first, think later tactics, as seen in the cases of Kian de los Santos (murdered by police who insisted he was a drug runner) or Winston Ragos (shot by a police officer now charged with murder, perjury, and planting of evidence). Despite the conviction of and the charges brought against erring police officers, impunity looms large, and many of these erring officers remain in the force.

As it is, the government response to the pandemic has been militarized and tagged as a war (similar to the war against drugs) instead of a public health crisis. In the midst of the quarantine, a two-billion U.S. dollar arms deal with the U.S. (including attack helicopters, missiles, warheads, guidance and detection systems, and ammunition) has been proposed for counterterrorism, which has also targeted poor and oppressed groups. Even for the years prior, various surveillance technologies have been employed in the Philippines in the context of a global war on terrorism; or in Davao, a war against drugs.

Over the years, we have observed the creeping acquisition of power and cabinet-level posts by police and military officials (many of them retired) in the executive department. The following key posts, for example, are occupied by ex-military officers or individuals affiliated with the military as of date: Interior and Local Government (Eduardo Ano), Social Welfare and Development (Rolando Bautista), Agrarian Reform (John Castriciones), and Environment and Natural Resources (Roy Cimatu).

The Anti-Terrorism Bill institutionalizes the level of influence that the military may already have, and it shows they can even railroad the legislative process.

Much of the uproar about the bill is how it combats terrorism by catching too wide a net over acts that may, or may not be, punishable: an approach that may make sense from a military standpoint, but not from a civilian standpoint, especially in the Philippines, where individual liberties are supposedly held paramount. Civilian authority is, at all times, supreme over the military, states the 1987 Constitution. The State values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights.

In this respect, the Anti-Terror Bill is already in clear violation of Constitutional precepts. In Section 4, terrorism may include a broad range of acts (e.g. those that cause death or serious, physical harm) already punished under existing law, or the so-called common crimes, without providing sufficient standards to classify such acts as terrorism. Without these standards, certain common crimes may now be brought within the pale of the anti-terrorism law, which could mean warrantless arrests and detention for up to 24 days on mere suspicion.

While the bill does provide that respect for human rights is absolute, and dissent, advocacy, protest, mass action, among others, do not qualify as terrorism, in the same breath it qualifies that these acts are permissible so long as they are not intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person or create a serious risk to public safety.

It does seem that as a result of a person (even a police officer) being injured at a protest, State agents could tag the same protest as an act of terrorism. So, too, would be the burning of an effigy, coupled with loud calls to oust the presidency. The vagueness in the bill invites certain questions: Do we have enough faith in our State agents not to feign injury at our rallies? Will a matrix waved around by the chief presidential legal counsel  supposedly of journalists and lawyers who have an ouster plot  be used as evidence of terrorism?

The bill then broadens its coverage to include acts associated with terrorism: proposal, threat, incitement, conspiracy, and mere membership into organizations that the authorities may, in the exercise of its wide discretion, tag as terrorists.

In Section 9, any person who incites others to terrorism by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, etc. commits the crime of inciting to terrorism. Angry posts on social media could qualify as inciting to terrorism, a possibility not at all remote, since the police have, in fact, already arrested a teacher without a warrant on the basis of inciting to sedition (a similar crime), for posting on Facebook that a gym should be raided, because people are going hungry during a pandemic.

True to form, the bill does make it easy for State agents to obtain evidence: by questioning persons in held detention on mere suspicion, or through a blanket authority to surveil, wiretap and record private communications on the State agents mere assertion that the surveillance would provide evidence.

Just who is vulnerable under the bill?

The military and the Department of Defense have already red-tagged legitimate non-government organizations such as Gabriela, Oxfam Pilipinas, and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, calling them fronts for communism. Too many activists and journalists have been arrested, detained, and released based on mistaken identity. Opposition lawmakers have repeatedly pointed out how the government has continually targeted activists for demanding accountability.

But it is not just persons with past brushes with State agents who are vulnerable. The present administration has never lacked for creativity in weaponizing laws against its own critics, be they persons or institutions, even as we thought those laws robust enough to repel abuse. The danger in this bill is therefore composite: a law that lends itself easily to abuse is now in the hands of authorities who have been known to abuse.

What is becoming clear is that the militarization of our democratic space has not been abrupt. Abrupt would have been easier to contend with: it would have shocked us into mounting a full and formidable opposition. The manner in which this administration has institutionalized militarization is gradual and creeping. And this is the problem: we know our rights and liberties are being eroded, but we cant quite put our finger on the exact moment we have ceded these rights.
San Francisco: Even as Facebook grappled this month with an internal revolt and a cascade of criticism over its refusal to take action on President Donald Trump's inflammatory posts, the social network was actively making other bets behind the scenes.

Late one Tuesday, as attention was focused on how Facebook might handle Trump, the Silicon Valley company said in a brief blog post that it had invested in Gojek, a "super app" in Southeast Asia. The deal, which gave Facebook a bigger foothold in the rapidly growing region, followed a $US5.7 billion ($8.3 billion) investment it recently pumped into Reliance Jio, a telecom giant in India.

Technology giants are aggressively spending during the pandemic. Credit:Bloomberg

The moves were part of a spending spree by the social network, which also shelled out $US400 million last month to buy an animated GIF company and which is spending millions of dollars to build a 37,000 kilometre undersea fibre-optic cable encircling Africa. On Thursday, Facebook confirmed that it was also developing a venture capital fund to invest in promising startups.

Other technology giants are engaging in similar behaviour. Apple has bought at least four companies this year and released a new iPhone. Microsoft has purchased three cloud computing businesses. Amazon is in talks to acquire an autonomous vehicle startup, has leased more airplanes for delivery and has hired an additional 175,000 people since March. Google has unveiled new messaging and video features.
[June 15, 2020] Community Bank System, Inc. Completes Merger with Steuben Trust Corporation and Enhances Western New York Presence

Community Bank System, Inc. ("Community Bank System") (NYSE: CBU), the parent company of Community Bank, N.A., announced today that it completed its merger with Steuben Trust Corporation ("Steuben") (OTCQB: SBHO) and its banking subsidiary, Steuben Trust Company ("Steuben Trust"), on June 12, 2020. Community Bank System acquired Steuben for a combination of stock and cash representing total consideration valued at approximately $98.3 million. The acquisition extends Community Bank System's footprint into two new counties in Western New York State, and enhances its presence in four Western New York State counties in which it currently operates. Upon completion of the transaction, Community Bank System will have over $13.0 billion in assets and over $10.0 billion in deposits. Mark E. Tryniski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Community Bank System commented, "We are pleased to welcome the shareholders, customers and employees of Steuben Trust to Community Bank. Over the past 118 years, Steuben Trust has developed a culture dedicated to exceptional customer service and meeting the banking needs of its communities. Community Bank shares these same values and looks forward to the opportunity to continue to serve Steuben's customers. The commitment of our collective employees was demonstrated time and again by their efforts to work through the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that the customers' transition to Community Bank is as seamless as possible. I want to commend both teams for their innovation and hard work and we are excited about this opportunity to expand the reach and depth of our banking services in Western New York. We hope that our new customers will enjoy the larger branch network and broad variety of financial services Community Bank and its subsidiaries have to offer. Community Bank is committed to our new employees and customers and the communities in which they live and work, and we look forward to this opportunity to welcome them to the Community Bank family." Under the terms of the Agreement and Plan of Merger ("Merge Agreement"), Steuben's common stockholders are entitled to receive a combination of $12.60 in cash and 0.8054 shares of Community Bank System common stock, and cash in lieu of fractional shares, if any, for each share of Steuben common stock. The Exchange Agent, American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC ("AST"), is in the process of mailing the transmittal paperwork to each stockholder in order to complete the exchange of the Steuben stock for the merger consideration in accordance with the terms of the Merger Agreement. Stockholders should receive the exchange paperwork within the next ten business days and do not need to take further action at this time. Any questions related to the exchange process should be directed to AST's Shareholder Services Department at (877) 248-6417 or (718) 921-8317.



With the inclusion of Steuben Trust, Community Bank System, Inc. will operate over 240 customer facilities across Upstate New York, Northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Western Massachusetts through its banking subsidiary, Community Bank, N.A. With assets of over $13.0 billion, the DeWitt, N.Y. headquartered company is among the country's 125 largest banking institutions. In addition to a full range of retail, business, and municipal banking services, the Company offers comprehensive financial planning, insurance and wealth management services through its Community Bank Wealth Management Group and OneGroup NY, Inc. operating units. The Company's Benefit Plans Administrative Services, Inc. subsidiary is a leading provider of employee benefits administration, trust services, collective investment fund administration and actuarial consulting services to customers on a national scale. Community Bank System, Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Company's stock trades under the symbol CBU. For more information about Community Bank visit www.cbna.com or http://ir.communitybanksystem.com. This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of the words "will," "anticipate," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "target," and words of similar import. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts but instead express only management's current beliefs regarding future results or events, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of management's control. The following factors, among others listed in Company's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings, could cause the actual results of the Company's operations to differ materially from the Company's expectations: the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the negative impacts and disruptions on the Company's colleagues, the communities it serves, and the domestic and global economy, which may have an adverse effect on the Company's business; the successful integration of operations of its acquisitions; competition; changes in economic conditions, interest rates and financial markets; and changes in legislation or regulatory requirements. The Company does not assume any duty to update forward-looking statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005133/en/

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Nepal has fast-tracked the passage of a Constitution Amendment Bill to update the countrys map that includes three strategically key Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura.

The Nepal Parliament's upper house on Sunday endorsed a proposal to discuss the Bill for approval of the new political map, a day after the lower house unanimously voted in favour of it. Several members, while urging the government to reclaim the encroached territories, also called for early dialogue with India.

Nepal's ruling and opposition political parties had on Saturday voted in unison to amend the Constitution to update the national emblem by incorporating the controversial map incorporating Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura in India's Uttrakhand, a move described by New Delhi as "untenable."

Of the total 275 lawmakers in the House of Representatives on Saturday, all 258 lawmakers present in the house voted in favour of the Constitution amendment bill.

Now, the bill will undergo a similar process in the National Assembly. The passage of the Bill appears to be a formality since 50 of the 59 members of the Upper House are from the ruling Nepal Communist Party. Members cutting across party lines have already backed the Bill.

Rajendra Phuyal, secretary of the National Assembly Secretariat, tabled the bill at the first meeting of the upper house on Sunday, The Kathmandu Post reported.

During the second meeting of the National Assembly later on Sunday, Law Minister Shiva Maya Tumbahangphe tabled a proposal to consider the bill for discussions, the paper said. After the discussions, the proposal to consider the bill was unanimously endorsed, it added.

Moving the Bill, the Law Minister said it is a rare and historic moment for Nepal since Parliament is solidly behind the government in its attempt to reclaim territory currently under Indian possession.

The National Assembly will give lawmakers 72 hours to move amendments against the bill's provisions, if they have any. "We are making necessary preparations to endorse the bill within the next four days," Phuyal was quoted as saying by the paper.

After the National Assembly passes the bill, it will be submitted to the President for authentication, after which it will be incorporated in the Constitution. After that, the new map will be used in all official documents, including the coat of arms.

Meanwhile, the main Opposition Nepali Congress has urged the government to intensify diplomatic efforts to ensure the country's rights in the Kalapani area after the country includes its updated political and administrative map in the Constitution, the Himalayan Times reported.

In a press statement on Saturday, the party said the "campaign to reclaim encroached territories would enter the second phase after the revised map incorporating Limpiyadhura, Lipulek and Kalapani areas as its parts, gets endorsed and this would mark a significant solidarity in the issue of nationality."

Reacting to Kathmandu's move, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Saturday "this artificial enlargement of claims is not based on historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues."

The India-Nepal bilateral ties came under strain after Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a 80-km-long strategically crucial road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8.

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.

Nepal last month released the revised political and administrative map of the country laying claim over the strategically key areas, more than six months after India published a new map in November 2019.

India had then sternly asked Nepal not to resort to any "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims.
A member of the Philadelphia bomb squad surveys the scene after an ATM machine was blown-up at 2207 N. 2nd Street in Phil., Pa. on June 2, 2020. (David Maialetti/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

UPenn Students, Faculty Want Campus Police Disarmed, Crime Alert System Dismantled

Students and faculty at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) are calling on the administrators to disarm the campus police force and dismantle the crime alert messaging service, in an effort to fight against what they call militarized models of campus policing.

We stand against the manner in which this police state is institutionalized at the University of Pennsylvania, reads a petition started after the May 25 death of George Floyd. Over 12,000 signatures have been collected for the petition in support of banning a host of policing practices that they say have led to the lynchings of Black men, women, and transgender people.

In particular, the petitioners call for UPenn to fully open its campus and all buildings, arguing that restricting access through policing enunciates a racist relationship with the community. The universitys crime alert system, which sends safety alerts to the campus community via text and email messages, was also called out for being racialized since UPenn students are predominately white and their crimes do not warrant the same levels of scrutiny and publicity.

Moreover, the petitioners are calling for the disarming of the university police force. Form an investigative team comprising students and faculty of color, they suggest in their petition. That will examine every instance of a person of color being stopped and frisked by the university police. There is also a demand to end criminal background checks in UPenns hiring process, which is seen by the petitioners as an extension of the police surveillance system to campus.

A UPenn spokesperson told the Philadelphia Inquirer that while he was aware of the petition, he didnt agree with the claim that a police state is institutionalized at the university.

We strongly disagree with the assertion that there is a police state at Penn, he wrote. We have one of the finest university police departments in the country. Racial profiling is something the university does not tolerate.

The petition has drawn criticism from the conservatives, such as GOP donor Adam Milstein and Inez Stepman, a commentator at The Federalist.

Surely that will work out if and when there is violence, robbery, assault, etc on campus, wrote Milstein on Twitter.

Its ironic that the same people who falsely claimed there was a rape epidemic on Americas campuses necessitating Title IX procedures that gutted due process are now removing resources, alerts, and protections for students who want to report crime, wrote Stepman. If these demands are met, universities may soon actually become unsafe places for women.

The past week has seen colleges and school districts reviewing the role of police on their campuses, as many advocate groups urge the institutions to either cut ties with local police departments or dismantle their own police forces. Minneapolis Public Schools became the first to sever its relationship with the citys police department. Meanwhile, in Chicago, teachers union members are also calling for the removal of police in public schools, a demand that has been dismissed by Lori Lightfoot, the citys mayor.
COVID-19 might have started as early as August 2019, according to a research study by Harvard University. The study's results were reportedly dismissed by China, and its methodology challenged by independent scientists as well.

The study, according to a report by BBC News, has not undergone peer review, and is based on satellite imagery of movement and traffic around Wuhan hospitals. Moreover, it reportedly conducted a trace of internet-based studies for particular medical symptoms.

The research indicated a noticeable increase in vehicles parked outside the city's six hospitals between the latter part of August until early-December last year.

At the same time, Harvard said in its report, that "this coincided with an increase in online searches" for possible symptoms of COVID-19 such as "diarrhea and cough."

The BBC news site reported that this is a significant result since the earliest COVID-19 case reported in Wuhan was not until the start of December 2019.

Online Search Trends Disputed

The Harvard study stated that, while they cannot confirm whether the increased volume of searches for covid-related symptoms was directly related to COVID-19, their evidence backs other recent studies that show the occurrence took place before it was traced back to the "Huanan Seafood market."

While the research claims though there was a rise in online searches for COVID-19 symptoms, specifically "diarrhea," on the popular Chinese search engine Baidu, officials at the Chinese firm said, "There was in fact, a drop in searches for 'diarrhea'" during that period.

Reports said the term "diarrhoea" which Harvard University used in the paper is, in fact, translated from the Chinese language as 'symptoms of diarrhoea'."

According to BBC News, it checked on the tool of Baidu that allows online users to analyze the search queries' popularity, like "Google Trends." As a result, "symptom of diarrhoea" as a search-term, indeed showed a rise in queries from August last year.

However, the news agency said that when it ran the word "diarrhoea," a popular search-term in Wuhan, in contrast, it presented a drop from August 2019 until the onset of the pandemic.

'Diarrhoea' a Search-Term Best Match for Confirmed COVID-19 Cases

Benjamin Radar, the Harvard Paper's lead author, said the search-term they had selected for "diarrhoea" was chosen as "it was the best match for confirmed COVID-19 cases" and was suggested as a search-term related to the deadly virus.

Moreover, he said, they also looked at the search popularity for two other common COVID-19 symptoms -- "fever" and "difficulty in breathing" and there was a slight increase in searches for the term "fever" after August akin to the rate of the term, "cough." Meanwhile, queries for the term, "Difficulty in breathing" also dropped after the same month.

Questions on the use of "diarrhoea" as a gauge or indicator of the illness have also been raised.

Specifically, a comprehensive UK research of almost 17,000 COVID-19 patients found that the term "diarrhoea" was found to be the "7th most common symptom," which, the research said, was way below the Top 3 COVID-19 symptoms of cough, fever and shortness of breath.

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BOSTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Founded in 2001, Trace One offers a suite of integrated cloud solutions for the creation and management of CPG products. The company works with both CPG manufacturers and retailers, supplying a single platform for users to collaborate on the management of product innovation, specification, safety and quality, a marketplace to promote and discover new products, an E-sourcing solution to manage RFPs in one place. Trace One serves a global customer base, with a powerful retail community of over 20,000 organizations of all sizes, that sit the heart of the industry ecosystem.

A new identity to present long-standing expertise in a new light

There have always been strong rational reasons for brand owners to choose Trace One, but the company has identified that the time has come to differentiate. In a market where many competitors are impersonal, tech-focused and feature-led, offering a relationship based on the values shared with brand owners will create stand-out. Trace One is now where remarkable products begin. This builds on an existing expert position to create a thought-leading inclusive brand identity. The new approach will allow Trace One to better support its customers, helping them to be prepared for the challenges of an ever-changing market. This is true for brand owners of all sizes, all around the world.

The new brand strategy and identity is rooted in a truth that Trace One shares with all segments of the audience: to make remarkable products. The new brand personality and tone of voice reflect this approach. It was important that Trace One's expertise, passion and heritage weren't forgotten, but could flex across their suite of products and straight into the hearts and minds of the CPG and retail community.

Our New Logo conveys our ambition to enable brand owners and their products to "be all they can be" by connecting expertise, people, and information in one place to overcome complexity and grasp the opportunities at every stage of the product life cycle.

A brand to inspire the retail and CPG industry to create remarkable products that empower consumers

To be called remarkable, products must be more than just fit for the future; they must delight consumers and lead the market.

Brand owners across the whole industry face tough challenges. Every day sees further advances in technology, changing consumer demands and new regulations and legislation. Meanwhile, they must keep developing new strategies to address eroding consumer trust and the accelerating global climate crisis. To thrive in such a demanding, constantly evolving environment, brand owners must be nothing less than remarkable  and so must their products.

Trace One knows these challenges inside and out, with teams that are intensely specialized in CPG and retail. It spearheads a powerful global retail community at the heart of the industry ecosystem. Unified on one platform, Trace One systems connect, streamline and organize data, teams and networks. This allows brand owners to overcome complexity, grasp the opportunities at every stage of the product lifecycle, and be successful in their digital transformation.

Trace One has fostered strategic, long-term partnerships with high-profile businesses around the world for almost two decades. Evidence-based insight and analysis generates tightly targeted solutions and services that let brand owners develop unique, beneficial, sustainable products. Such remarkable products are the ones that will thrive, empower consumers and change the way we live.

"We're here to foster the creation of remarkable products. We want to work with the most ambitious and perceptive brand owners  those who are determined to evolve and become remarkable themselves. Those who want to achieve positive change in the world by building a more sustainable future for our planet. We offer smart business solutions, collaboration on a global level and deep industry expertise and experience. We smooth the path for brand owners: overcoming complexity; streamlining data, teams and networks; and getting to market faster. Join us to continue building our remarkable community and share our insight and inspiration."

Christophe Vanackere, CEO

Discover how our solutions smooth the way for you, freeing you to think bigger (and faster), to create remarkable products that consumers love and want to buy. Join our remarkable community and learn how we can help you create remarkable products today.

Visit www.traceone.com

About Trace One

We've created a global community of 20,000+ brand owners, spanning more than 100 countries. Our smart solutions let them collaborate and innovate on remarkable products worth over $300 billion every year. We've been helping them create products that consumers love and want to buy since 2001, through bigger (and faster) thinking.

Our people are passionate about helping brand owners develop remarkable products: those that are good for society and for our planet. More than half of us have previously worked in the roles our customers work in today. This gives us a unique depth of knowledge and experience specific to CPG  one which drives us to innovate and solve the big challenges of this industry.

Our culture matches our diverse, international customer base. We value and nurture our diversity not only for its own sake, but also because it helps us understand how to best serve local markets.

Photos:

https://www.prlog.org/12825534

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Trace One

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June 15 : Thespian Amitabh Bachchan took to his blog to post a heartfelt post on Sushant Singh Rajputs death. The young actor was found dead at his residence on Sunday in Mumbai; police have confirmed death by suicide.

Actor Sushtant Singh Rajput was found hanging in his Bandra residence, sending shockwaves through the country and Bollywood. The actor was 34 years old. He was among few who made the smart transition from Television to Movies and found success on both the spectrum.

Amitabh Bachchan wrote a long note, which read, T 3563 - In memorial Sushant: DAY 4483 Jalsa, Mumbai June 14/15, 2020 Sun/Mon 12:48 AM...Why... Why... Why...Why...Sushant Singh Rajput...why do you end your life...your brilliant talent...your brilliant mind...laid to rest, without asking, seeking...why...his work was sheer brilliance...and his mind even more...many a time did he express himself in the depth of philosophical verb...they that looked passed it were either in wonder or oblivious of its strength of meaning...some wondered, some quibbled...to some it was a subdued mirth...subdued because, for it to be given lethargic ignorance, would have opened the caves of their own...his speak was measured...as was his screen presence...

See his post!

I saw a complete work of his in DHONI...the film was dressed with remarkable moments of his performance...but three of the moments ever remained with me as an observer...they were done with such casual conviction that it would be difficult for an analyst of some credibility, to either notice it, or give attention to its bearing

When he spoke or communicated, there was something of an inner value, which had remained unsaid, yet said in its covered all...its a trait of excessive intelligence...and when that takes a diversion from the highway, it invariably ends up against a road bloc - depressive, unwanted, and in belligerent frustration...on one of my meetings with him, I asked him how did he manage to give that iconic shot of Dhoni hitting a six winning the International tournament, to absolute perfection...he said he saw that video of Dhoni, a hundred times...!!

That was the severity of his professional effort....he came from humble beginnings... was a part of the 4rth line group dancers, that performed shows with Shiamak Davar, the ingenious talented choreographer of our times...rising from those climes to where he was, is a story by itself...excessiveness can often lead to extremes....what kind of a mind leads one to suicide is an eternal mystery....to end a most gainful life, is simply not permitted..

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Protests against police brutality following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis are planned throughout New Jersey over the next several days.

There have been hundreds of protests against police brutality in New Jersey over the past two weeks, as rallies and marches over Floyds death have continued to spread across the nation.

The four police officers at the scene of Floyds death have been fired, and one, Derek Chauvin, is charged with second-degree manslaughter and second-degree murder in the case. Three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting.

In New Jersey, all 21 N.J. county prosecutors offices have called images of Floyds death deeply disturbing and said police are not exempt from law. State PBA President Pat Colligan also condemned Chauvin and the four officers at the scene, saying "nobody in law enforcement can look at that video and justify the actions of those officers.

Among the protests, marches and rallies planned in New Jersey this week:

MONDAY, JUNE 15

The Peoples Organization For Progress is holding a Justice Monday protest at 4 p.m. in front of the Federal Building, 970 Broad St., Newark.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17

A protest will be held in Westampton at the Burlington County Library Amphitheater at 4 p.m.

FRIDAY, JUNE 19

A county-wide Juneteenth protest will be held in Bergen County. The demonstration will begin at 12:30 p.m. at the Teaneck High School track and the group will march to the Teaneck Public Library.

There will be a joint Juneteenth march in Jersey City at 2 p.m. Friday. Demonstrators will meet at Mary McLeod Bethune Center at 140 MLK Drive and march to the public safety complex at MLK Drive and Kearney Ave.

There will be a Juneteenth/protest march held in Somerville. Demonstrators will meet at the Somerset County Courthouse at 3 p.m. and walk down Bridge St. toward routes 22 and 206 and kneel for eight minutes, 46 seconds before walking back to the courthouse.

There will be a protest in Manalapan at 6 p.m. The protest will begin at the Manalapan Police Department and end at the Englishtown Police Department.

SATURDAY, JUNE 20

A march and public forum will be held in Middlesex County. It will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday with a march at Crossroads South Middle School in Monmouth Junction and end at the paring lot of the South Brunswick Police Department.

NJ Advance Media staff writer Caroline Fassett contributed to this report.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Andrew Koob may be reached at akoob@njadvancemedia.com.. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.
Thousands of tourists from Germany will be able to travel to Spains Balearic Islands from Monday, according to an official decree published on Friday.

As part of a pilot program, 47 airplanes from the cities of Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart and Hanover have been authorized to land in Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Menorca in the coming weeks, despite the countrys current travel restrictions.

An estimated 10,900 tourists will arrive this month.

According to the rules, the tourists will have to stay for at least five nights. Airlines will also have to collect public health data from the visitors so they can be tracked in case of an outbreak.

These tourists will be exempt from Spains mandatory 14-day quarantine and will not have to undergo a COVID-19 test before flying.

The goal of this pilot project is to check the model of lifting border restrictions and to recover free circulation, said the Spanish Health Ministry in a press release.

Although the European Commission strongly recommends reopening all internal borders on June 15, Spanish authorities have said borders will not open generally until July 1.

Until then, all arrivals to Spain, with the exception of these approved tourists and some trans-border workers, will have to quarantine for 14 days.

Within Spain, residents are still prohibited from traveling outside of their particular region. The German tourists will likewise be limited to the Balearic Islands.

They will also have to comply with Spains hygiene measures, which include mandatory masks in circumstances where physical distance between people cannot be guaranteed.

Still, the program has provoked criticism.

Its ironic that I cant drive an hour and a half to visit my mom (which I believe is logical at the moment), but 11,000 Germans can go to the Balearic Islands while were still in a state of emergency, tweeted Julen Bollain, a Spanish economist, on Friday.

At the same time, tourism is the economic lifeblood of Spains famous Balearic Islands. The sector makes up around 35% of the regions economy and Germans are responsible for around 30% of total spending.

Germany was also chosen for the pilot project due to its local coronavirus situation.

Francina Armengol, president of the Balearic Islands, said in a press conference on Tuesday that Germanys epidemiological data is similar to ours.

At the time, Germany had 6.8 COVID-19 cases per every 100,000 inhabitants and the Balearic Islands had just over five.

We can lead the pilot program because our health situation is under control, said Armengol.

Image Credit:  AA
By Express News Service

VISAKHAPATNAM: King George Hospital (KGH) authorities on Monday closed the morgue in the hospital premises after a Post Graduate (PG) doctor attached with the Forensic Medical Department tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday.

A total of 20 primary contacts of the doctor, including five other PG doctors, five medical officers and some para-medical staff of the department, were sent to quarantine.

According to KGH officials, all the staff working at the morgue were provided with PPEs and precautionary measures were taken while performing autopsy on the dead bodies. It is suspected that the PG doctor had recently travelled to Guntur and returned to Visakhapatnam in a bus.

Soon after the doctor tested positive, his 20 primary contacts were tested for COVID-19 and all of them tested negative. However, all 20 were sent to quarantine as a precautionary measure and the morgue closed, Andhra Medical College Principal Dr PV Sudhakar said.

KGH officials said they will now be making alternative arrangements to conduct post-mortems on dead bodies.

Meanwhile, a PG doctor working in the orthopedic wing of the KGH too tested positive for COVID-19.
Im writing to express my enthusiasm for Dr. Arati Kreibich, a progressive Democrat running for Congress in New Jerseys Fifth District.

As I type this, my mail-in ballot sits on my desk, representing the first election that Im of age to vote in. Staring at it, Im called to think of what I hope for in a candidate. I want someone who will fight for climate regulation, preserving the future for my generation and many generations to come. I want someone who has the courage to stand up to corporate lobbies, pushing for fair campaign finance laws and policies that benefit the people, not the oligarchy of the 1%. I want someone who will push for Medicare for all, ensuring that healthcare is regarded as a human right rather than a luxury for the privileged few. Maybe its naive, but I want my first vote to matter.

Self-proclaimed bipartisan problem solver Josh Gottheimer is the antithesis to this. Hes proven that his loyalties lie only with preserving the status quo. Hes sided with Trump to fund a border wall, fought to bail out Wall Street during the COVID-19 pandemic, and refused to support Medicare for all.

Im not happy with the status quo, and neither is anyone else in the upcoming generation. Kreibich is our voice. She is willing to fight for the actual, lasting change that Gottheimer has deemed impossible. Im thrilled to cast my first ballot in her favor.

Sean Pergola

Blairstown
Launched in 2002, the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging will continue to follow and document risk and protective factor for cognitive and brain aging in 1,600 male twins

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Boston University and elsewhere, will receive almost $19 million over five years to launch the fourth phase of the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (VETSA 4). Funded by the National Institute on Aging, the grant will support ongoing research, including large-scale behavioral genetics studies, of cognition, aging and the risk for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD).

VETSA is a set of longitudinal projects with a primary focus on examining genetic and environmental influences on brain function and aging, beginning at midlife. It was originally launched in 2002. To date, more than 1,600 identical and fraternal male-male twins have participated, all with military service at some point between 1965 and 1975, though most report no combat experience.

"At this point, they are all older men living in all 50 states. They are roughly comparable in terms of lifestyle, education and health characteristics to American men of their age," said William S. Kremen, PhD, one of three principal investigators of VETSA 4 with Carol E. Franz, PhD, and Michael Lyons, PhD. Kremen and Franz are both professors of psychiatry and co-directors of the Center for Behavior Genetics of Aging at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Lyons is a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Boston University.

The participants' narrow range of age is a key feature of the study. All participants were in their 50s when baseline assessments were taken, with new testing regularly conducted every few years. Participants undergo tests of cognitive and sensory functioning, relevant biomedical characteristics, psychosocial functioning, neuroendocrine status and genotyping -- the last a method of determining differences in the genetic makeup of individuals. A large subset has also undergone magnetic resonance imaging.

"Clinical trials of dementia patients have been unsuccessful, and current thinking is that a major reason is that the disease has already progressed too far by that time," said Franz.

"Because it is now well known that the pathological process of AD begins as much as 20 years before onset of dementia, there has been a major focus on early identification of risk as the key to slowing or preventing disease progression. With its baseline in midlife, the VETSA is in many ways ideally suited for advancing the goal of early identification. In addition, the twin design helps determine the extent to which characteristics are due to genetic or environmental influences."

It's estimated that nearly 6 million Americans age 65 and older are living with AD; 80 percent are 75 or older, according to the Alzheimer's Association. MCI is a prodromal phase of AD in which there is cognitive impairment, but dementia has not yet developed. "That makes identifying MCI early an important part of efforts toward early diagnosis and treatment," said Kremen.

Previous VETSA research has shown that extensive cognitive testing can identify MCI in adults who are still in their 50s. Genotyping has allowed researchers to assign an AD polygenic risk score. VETSA investigators have also found that common major midlife adverse events, such as divorce or death of a family member, can accelerate aging in the brain.

A novel aspect of VETSA is that researchers have test scores of general cognitive ability dating back to participants' military service when they were in their 20s. "It is well known that more education, greater occupational complexity and greater engagement in cognitively stimulating activities are associated with reduced risk of dementia," said Kremen. "This presents a chicken-egg dilemma: Do these things cause the reduced risk or is it that people with higher cognitive ability tend to be higher on these factors?"

A VETSA study showed that it was primarily the latter.

In the fourth phase of VETSA, the average age of participants will be 74 years. Researchers expect a greater increase in cognitive decline and development of MCI and AD. "The potential value of this ongoing project for contributing to our understanding of risk for later life cognitive decline and dementia is only likely to increase," said Franz.

###
In December 2017 Bloomberg made headlines when it published a report that suggested inclusive teams made better decisions up to 87 percent of the time. The report also noted that having more inclusive decision-making led to swifter decisions.

Recent newspaper articles have remarked that the governments that have apparently dealt well with the COVID- 19 pandemic, such as New Zealand, Germany and Taiwan, are those that have women in key positions. A wider analysis will be needed in due course to decide if the mere presence of women makes a difference, but a 2019 World Economic Forum report did note that having women in decision-making positions across different state level governments in Canada made a measurable difference to health.

All of this is important as the worlds governments claim to want to build back better after the immediate health and socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis have passed.

But none of this is new. It took many years of concerted action by womens groups and lobbying by activists on the ground for the United Nations Security Council to acknowledge the key role women play in ensuring peace and security in the world by passing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) in October 2000. Since then, nine more resolutions on women peace and security have been passed. There has been research on the impact of womens engagement in peace negotiations and there has been considerable effort by UN Women, the Womens International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the International Civil society Action Network (ICAN) to bring women to the peace table.

However, there are still big gaps and regrettably many languishing conflicts. One key part of these resolutions that has not been well implemented is the call to ensure that women are engaged in economic and political decision-making in post-conflict situations. That doesnt mean women are not taking key decisions in their communities, but it might mean that their voices are not being heard.

Women are often the glue that keep societies together in conflict and in times of displacement and return. Evidence from Northern Ireland, Colombia and the Philippines shows that supporting the efforts of women peace-builders at the local level can help build wider peace.

To try and encourage the voices of women to be heard, UNDP, working with UN Women, WILPF and ICAN, launched an online discussion last month to explore the role of women peace-builders in post-conflict economic and political decision making. Running until 30 June, the external consultation focuses on three themes, including womens roles in the COVID-19 response. The results will be shared on the 20th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 later this year, and the best approaches from the consultations will be implemented into future UNDP projects. We encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to share your perspectives and to join this discussion.
Japan well represented in global traditional fine arts exhibition

By:Zheng Qian | From:english.eastday.com | 2020-06-12 17:28

To celebrate China's Fifteenth Cultural and Natural Heritage Day which falls on June 13 this year, the 10th International Exhibition of Traditional Fine Arts opened at the Shanghai Art Collection Museum on June 11.

Hosted by the Shanghai Changning District Government and the Shanghai Creative Industry Association, this years exhibition has attracted more than 130 artists and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage from 22 countries, including Japan, South Korea, the United States, Australia, Iran, and Poland. The number of participating artists and countries has set a new record for the event.

Themed around the phrase "many a little makes a mickle" (many small amounts accumulate to make a large amount),the exhibition adopts an immersive layout to integrate traditional arts like paintings, sculptures, ceramics, lacquerware, glass, jewelry, embroidery and dyeing and weaving into daily living spaces, bringing visitors a special experience of the perfect combination of art with everyday life.

A Red Korean paper work Loss of ego and a Chinese white porcelain work Palace are integrated into a daily living space.[Photo provided to Eastday]

Regarding the theme, Hu Muqing, curator and director of the Shanghai Art Collection Museum, says "many a little makes a mickle" sums up the spirit of the past nine exhibitions and highlights the significance of the inheritance of craftsmanship and inventiveness.

In the view of Wang Wei, an official from the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the protection and inheritance of traditional culture needs accumulation and exchange. About 150 works gathered in the exhibition conveys the spirit of exchange of global artists who are open to learn from each other.

Japan has contributed the most items to this year's exhibition. Akio Isomata, Consul General of Japan in Shanghai, said in an interview with Eastday that Japan, which shares a lot of cultural commonalities with China, attaches importance to the traditional Chinese arts and is willing to conduct further cooperation in cultural exchanges.

Two paper Nagasakihata Kites from Japan. [Photo/ Eastday]

Besides the physical exhibition, an online version has also been launched with each exhibition hall equipped with several interactive icons for people to touch to see introductions to the works. A forum discussing the protection of intangible cultural heritage was also opened on the same day.
The educator tested positive but did not tell anyone about it

A principal of one of Kyiv's schools violated safety rules during a lockdown Open source

In Kyiv, the principal of one of the schools received a positive test for coronavirus but did not tell anyone about it and continued contacting people while going to work. The mayor of Ukraines capital Vitaliy Klitschko told about it during an online press conference.

"We have a shocking case. As it turned out, the principal of a school, who got infected with the coronavirus, was talking to a large number of people when she had already tested positive for Covid-19. She said nothing to anyone and managed to go to work. The State Food and Consumer Service of the city appealed to law enforcement agencies to initiate a criminal case against the principal," the mayor said.

He also noted that patients with coronavirus or people with a suspicion of the infection were also found among the staff of three more kindergartens.

As we reported earlier, on June 13, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky conveyed the Cabinet of Ministers and law enforcement agencies for a conference call on the activity of Covid-19 spread.

We need to carefully check the stores, markets, public transport - places where can be crowded. The responsibility for these gatherings lies on bodies and platforms that should ensure the safety prescribed by the Cabinet of Ministers, Zelensky said.
GIS - 15 June, 2020: The objective remains to address the deficiencies pointed out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and five sub-committees have been set up to ensure that Mauritius complies with the five issues raised. There will be another FATF assessment in late August/early September and Government will work progressively in order to remove Mauritius from the European Commission (EC) blacklist and the FATF monitoring list.

This statement was made by the Minister of Financial Services and Good Governance, Mr. Mahen Kumar Seeruttun, during his intervention on the budget debates on June 12, 2020 in the National Assembly.

Mr. Seeruttun emphasised that Government has taken several initiatives following the inclusion of Mauritius on the FATF list and the EC's list of high-risk countries. He underlined the commitment of the Prime Minister, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, who has communicated with international institutions to inform them that Mauritius was never consulted before being included on this list and this is detrimental to the economy of the country, especially against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Government, he underlined, is engaged with the European Union (EU) as well as with all Member States to get out of this situation while adding that collective effort at the national level is important. The restoration of Mauritius as a reputable financial centre was also raised by Mr Seeruttun.

The Minister further referred to Hungary, one of the countries of the EU, which has asked for the list to be revised and has requested that the EU evaluates the progress made by these countries before officially putting them on the list on the 1st of October 2020.
The Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Jean Mensa, has defended the compilation of a new biometric voters register (BVR), saying it is the surest way to deliver free, fair, credible and transparent elections.

She said the ECs decision was in the interest of all political parties and that it was committed to delivering incident-free and peaceful elections.

Mrs Mensa explained that an audit of the current system had established potential room for election manipulation, with dire consequences on the general election, saying that was something the EC wanted to avert with the new BVR.

Addressing the leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) before proceeding to a closed-door engagement on the compilation of the new register in Accra yesterday, she said the reason for compiling a new register was two-fold.

Reasons

First, she said, the current system required a mandatory upgrade and refurbishment, which had been awarded on contract at $56 million before she assumed office in 2018.

However, the cost of refurbishment was far more expensive than obtaining a new system.

Mrs Mensa said although on assumption of office stakeholders, such as the vendors, mounted pressure on her to allow the contract to run or risk a system breakdown, the EC did not succumb but commissioned a thorough analysis and audit of the system and concluded that the refurbishment, which could not last for the next six years, was not the way to go.

The refurbishment was only going to support the 2018 referendum and the 2019 limited voters registration, the EC Chair said.

I am pleased to note that the EC did not make good that contract, and that money has not been spent as we speak, she added.

Relating the new system to the new register, she said the experts had indicated that the new system would require a new operational system which would, in effect, require a migration of the old data onto it.

But the experts say the migration process could cause a huge loss of data and that may result in people not finding their names in the register on the voting day, and this is what we dont want to compromise on, she said.

In addition, the experts also cautioned that the quality of the print could reduce to an unreadable level during the migration, she said.

That will also cause a situation where prospective voters cannot be verified with their thumbprints, and that will force us to use manual verification to ensure that no one is disenfranchised, Mrs Mensa said.

However, mass manual verification will give room to manipulation because anybody can vote with any card, even if it was not his or hers, because there will be no electronic way of verifying, and we do not want to come to that, she said.

Credibility of register

Second, Mrs Mensa said, the current register was not credible because it had been bloated with the names of foreign nationals due to the ECs acceptance of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards for voter registration and the demise of about a million registered voters.

She said the Supreme Court determined that the NHIS card was not a sure proof of citizenship and asked the EC, in 2014, to expunge the names of those who used NHIS cards for the voters registration from the register.

That, the EC Chair added, had become challenging because determining who used the card had become almost an impossible task.

She gave an assurance that the EC would not conduct itself in any way that would compromise the peace of the country but would continue to ensure that its activities were transparent, inclusive, involving and peaceful.

TUCs invitation

The meeting, which was at the invitation of the TUC, took place after a social policy dialogue by the TUC to discuss the preliminary report of a research it conducted to collect data on the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on employment, livelihoods and enterprises.

The Secretary-General of the TUC, Dr Yaw Baah, said the congress invited the EC over public concerns raised against the compilation of the new register by a number of political parties and civil society organisations for various reasons.

He said the invitation was premised on petitions the congress had received from a couple of stakeholder institutions, appealing to the TUC to intervene through a dialogue to facilitate a win-win situation for stakeholders and help avert a national state of anarchy.

The TUC is concerned because it affects all of us and majority of our members, and so knowing what election-related disputes have caused in other countries, we cannot sit unconcerned.

This is why we invited the EC to the dialogue table to enable us to understand the issues better by hearing from them officially for the first time before speaking publicly on the issues. We are grateful that even at a very short notice EC Chair is here with her two deputies, he said.

Dr Baah said the TUC was committed to the interest of all its members, workers and stakeholders.

Source: Graphic
The U.S. Air Force has confirmed that the pilot of a fighter jet that crashed into the North Sea, off the coast of northern England, has been found dead.

In a statement Monday, hours after the crash, it said the pilot of the downed F-15C Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing has been located, and confirmed deceased.

It said this is a tragic loss for the 48th Fighter wing community and sent condolences to the pilots family.

The name of the pilot will not be released until all next of kin notifications have been made.

Rescuers have found the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force fighter jet that crashed Monday into the North Sea on Monday, officials said. The pilot remains missing.

The F-15C Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing was on a routine training mission from RAF Lakenheath when it crashed at 9:40 a.m. The cause of the crash wasnt immediately clear.

Britains coast guard located wreckage from the downed fighter, and recovery efforts were underway, the U.S. Air Force said in a statement.

The pilot is still missing, and search and rescue efforts continue, the statement added.

Coast guard officials said in a statement that they received reports the plane went down 74 nautical miles off Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast.

A helicopter and lifeboats have been deployed.

Other vessels nearby are heading to the area, the coast guard said in a statement.

Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force base that hosts the U.S. Air Forces 48th Fighter Wing, known as the Liberty Wing. The base is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of London.

The wing has more than 4,500 active-duty military members.
A man was killed after a group of men opened fire outside a gas station in northwest Harris County late Sunday.

The victim was with a group who met with another group outside the Citgo station at West Road near Easton Commons around 11:45 p.m., according to Harris County Sheriffs Office Sgt. Dennis Wolfford. At some point during the meet, two men in a group started shooting toward the other group, striking the victim, Wolfford said.

BLOCK PARTY SHOOTING: Children duck for cover as gunmen shoot up Houston block party

Paramedics rushed the man to Ben Taub Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Surveillance video captured the entire ordeal, Wolfford said. The suspects were last seen walking toward a nearby apartment complex on foot, although it is not clear if they got into a waiting car or remained on foot.

Police did not release a detailed description of the shooters. The victims identity was not immediately released.

Anyone with information is urged to call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com
By PTI

CHENNAI: The National Institute of Siddha (NIS), which claims to have successfully treated 160 COVID-19 positive cases in the metro in a short span, has requested the state government to hand over all COVID-19 Care Centres in the city to it to facilitate Siddha doctors to commence treatment.

Coming under the Union Ayush Ministry, NIS, which claims to have cured the 160 people within five days, is confident of flattening the curve in Chennai and convert it into a safe zone in just matter of days.

NIS has requested the state government to hand over all the COVID-19 Care Centres in the city to the institute at the earliest so as to facilitate the Siddha doctors to commence treatment, a top official said.

The institute, through its pilot study on the use of the traditional system of medicine, has come out with three potent combinations of Siddha drugs and is ready to use the combo to prevent the spread of the virus as well as treat the infected.

"Depending upon the availability and quantity required for treating Coronavirus positive patients, we have after thorough research, come out with three different effective combinations of the Siddha preparations," Dr R Meenakumari, Director, NIS, told PTI.

ALSO READ: Lockdown to be intensified in Chennai, 3 more districts from June 19, here's what's allowed

Moreover, the treatment cost is negligible compared to the prohibitive cost in corporate hospitals and all the Siddha medicines are locally available, she added.

"We have requested the state government to hand over all the COVID-19 Care Centres (at RGGGH, Stanley GH, KMC, Omandurar GH besides those in the Chennai Corporation limits) to us and allow us to treat all the patients.

"Our Siddha drug combination is potent enough to convert a positive patient into Coronavirus negative in three days' time," she claimed.

Her confidence stems from the fact that the Siddha doctors here have "successfully" treated 160 patients besides 23 inmates of the Puzhal Central Prison.

"Initially, we treated 85 patients with SRM Medical College and Hospital and another 75 at the Greater Chennai Corporation run CCC at Saligramam.

They all recovered and tested negative after five days of successful treatment," she claimed.

"The combination that we have prepared will help to cure the infected patient within three days," Dr. Meenakumari who is a member of the national task force on framing guidelines for treatment protocols, said.

"Siddha medicine has huge potential to treat the patients and there are possibilities to use the medicine to save precious human lives," she said.

The NIS, which is all set to commence clinical trials in three days, also claims that Siddha drugs could treat persons with acute respiratory distress one of the symptoms of Coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the Central Council for Research in Siddha has sent a proposal to the state government to include the traditional medicine in the treatment protocols at the state- run CCCs.

"We have also urged the state government to include the Brahmananda Bhairava Mathirai a herbo-mineral preparation, which has already been approved by the Ayush ministry to treat persons with COVID-19 related fever, at all the COVID-19 wards," a senior doctor at the CCRS said.

The proposal also includes providing kabasura kudineer (a herbal concoction) among others.
Laredo College announced on Friday that the college was awarded a $199,978 grant by the National Science Foundations Hispanic Serving Institutions program in order to research the benefits of a fully virtual undergraduate research format and provide undergraduates opportunities to research with faculty members.

Students in Laredo must be career-ready to meet the demands of our countrys STEM industries, said Congressman Cuellar. This federal investment will help students learn quantitative skills by gathering and analyzing COVID-19 pandemic data from our community.

According to Dr. Nora Garza, LC Principal Investigator, the major goal of the project is to use real COVID-19 data to teach quantitative reasoning skills to Hispanic students. Students are expected to use the data from the pandemic and apply mathematical concepts and models to find trends and make predictions.

She also said that both new and returning students will benefit from the additional programs the grant will bring.

High school students are being recruited, and approximately 70 students from all Laredo high schools have already been selected for virtual platforms to discover the impact of real-time research. The full group is expected to be 100 students, and they will participate in a virtual summer bridge in the first week of August.

Thirty students from both Cigarroa and Martin High School have already been selected to receive a scholarship to LC. Seven more students who are pursuing degrees in food, agriculture and natural resources will also receive a scholarship as a result of a from a USDA NIFA Grant.

Applications are still available for students that pursue a food, agriculture and natural resources degree for a $25,000 scholarship that can help before and after that student transfers to a four-year university.

Garza provided four objectives of which the funding will be allocated to that will ultimately enhance STEM fields at LC.

Students will increase their quantitative reasoning knowledge base, their skillset and confidence level by gathering, interpreting, analyzing data and drawing conclusions based on numerical evidence and communicating this information to others, Garza said.

The first is to implement a quantitative data analysis research experience which will give students opportunities to learn and improve their understanding of the data. This may help with finding the trends and knowing which mathematical concept to implement.

The second objective focuses on professors in the research division and is focused on creating research opportunities at the college, Garza said. The objective aims to give professors with Doctorates or masters the capacity to research outside of their classrooms.

The impact on the students overall experience and the expected improvements of their skills will be looked over for the third objective. According to Garza, the data will investigate the success of students during their time in the project and their transition from a two-year to a four-year university.

By gathering data of the COVID-19 spread in Laredo, the tragedy can be an opportunity to use data to study, to learn and to prepare for the future, Garza said.

Christian Ocampo may be reached at cocampo@lmtonline.com
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:59:35|Editor: huaxia

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ISLAMABAD, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Police on Monday detained two staff members of the High Commission of India in Islamabad for injuring a pedestrian in a road accident here, local media and sources said.

The staff members were trying to flee after hitting the pedestrian when people gathered around their car to stop them. In the meantime, police reached at the incident site and detained the two staffers, local media quoted eye witnesses as saying.

Sources from the intelligence agencies told Xinhua that the two staffers were in Pakistan in the non-diplomatic category, and have been working in the country since 2017.

They also said that reckless driving on the part of the staffer, who was driving the car, was the cause of the accident.

The injured man, who got hit while walking on the footpath, has been shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Police shifted the staffers to Pakistan secretariat police station for further investigation where two senior officers of the Indian high commission also reached to handle the matter, the sources added.

Local media later quoted a statement by Islamabad police as saying that the arrested people have been released.

Tension runs high among the diplomatic circles of the both countries after India expelled two staffers of Pakistani high commission on the charges of espionage in May.

Pakistani foreign office termed Indian allegations as baseless, calling the Indian action a clear violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Enditem
Armenian News - NEWS.am presents a daily digest of Armenia-related top news as of 15.06.2020:

 Armenian National Security Service investigators on Sunday searched parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan's mansion and the enterprises belonging to him.

The NSS issued later statements on three criminal cases involving the party's leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than AMD 29 billion in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj communitywhere Gagik Tsarukyan residesof Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about AMD 370 million were not transferred to Arinj's budget.

According to his lawyer Emin Khachatryan, the PAP leader was not questioned at the NSS under any of 3 criminal cases involving him.

 In the meantime, protests were held on Sunday in support of Opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan in Yerevan.

A total of 252 people were apprehended as they did not obey the lawful demands of the police to keep a social distance and to stop the rally in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

A criminal case has been launched.

 Armenia confirmed Monday 397 COVID-19 new cases, bringing the total number to 17,064.

The total number of tests conducted so far is 83,600.

According to the latest data, 6,276 people 62 people in the last dayhave recovered thus far.

In total, 285 patientsan increase by 16have died.

 The doctors from France are already in Armenia, and they have already started working at three hospitals on the COVID-19 frontline, The Office of High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs said in a statement.

The doctors who had already undertaken the COVID-19 fight in France are in Armenia for the first time and will invest all their experience and knowledge in this crucial mission to save human lives."

 Armenia has extradited a Russian man Rolandi Azov wanted for fraud amounting to almost 800,000 Russian rubles. This was reported to TASS by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office.

According to the respective investigation, Azov had received 766,000 rubles from his acquaintance in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, to deliver food from Greece to Russia, but he had hiddentaking the money, and he was declared wanted. In November 2019, it turned out that he was in Armenia.
Maria Ressa denies cyber-libel charges over an article published on her Rappler news website.

Maria Ressa, who runs the news website, Rappler, has been sentenced to at least six months in jail for cyber libel. She says she will appeal the controversial ruling.

One of the Philippines most prominent journalists, Ressa has been found guilty in a case seen as a major blow to press freedom.

She joins us live from Manila to discuss the latest updates.
100 Years Ago  1920: Chester City Commissioner T. Woodward Trainer was back at his desk yesterday after a strenuous period spent in Chicago last week. He was a spectator of every happening at the Coliseum, and, as he humorously remarked, wore out several sets of lungs cheering for Gov. Sproul, during the balloting. This was unquestionably the most strenuous convention since that of 1880, when it took 36 ballots to nominate Garfield, said Trainer.

75 Years Ago  1945: Driving celebrities to places of interest in Germany can be a lot of fun, especially if its behind the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz, with an inch-and-a-half thick windshield, which belongs to one A. Hitler. Thats the duty of Pfc. Joseph J. Sullivan, of Beechwood. Sullivan, 19, recently drove members of the Bulgarian royal family on a tour of the Bavarian Alps in Der Fuehrers chariot. He wrote to his father that It has five speeds forward  the last one flying! Joe holds the Purple Heart for wounds received in Germany while serving with the 100th Division of the Seventh Army.

50 Years Ago  1970: State Rep. Stanley R. Kester, R-160 of Chester Township, will draft a bill amending the state penal code that would prohibit the retail sale of soft drinks in glass, no deposit, no return bottles. Kester said today from his hometown that the bill may bring a lot of opposition but were going to introduce it.

25 Years Ago  1995: Regarded by many as a living saint for her tireless work with the sick and poverty-stricken around the world, Mother Teresa is scheduled to make brief stops in Chester Saturday evening as part of her current United States tour. She will visit the Gift of Mary AIDS Hospice, which is run by her order, the Missionaries of Charity sisters, then attend the 5 p.m. Mass at Blessed Katharine Drexel Roman Catholic Church, 20th and Providence avenues.

10 Years Ago  2010: In the face of continued criticism, Eddystone council approved the first step of an indoor scrap metal shredding facility locating in the former Foamex plant along the Delaware River. Councilman Bob Howat made the motion to approve the development application. A life-long resident, he recounted looking at Baldwin Locomotive, running near round the clock, from his back door. He noted neither he nor his family were sickened by the various industries once operating in the borough.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

Accra, Ghana - The civil society sector has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby reducing civil society organisation's (CSO) capacity to effectively implement their activities and reach targeted vulnerable communities. As lock-down measures have been put in place, CSOs have had to reduce, postpone or even cancel their programmatic interventions.

However, West African CSOs have also intensified their efforts in flattening the curve of the pandemic, particularly through information and communications technology (ICT) activities. Because they have access to communities that donors and governments have difficulty to reach, they have been essential in complementing governments' COVID-19 national responses. CSOs like TY Danjuma Foundation in Nigeria have been involved in awareness-raising around COVID-19 preventive measures, signs, and symptoms by regularly publishing updates and informative messages on social media. SEND Ghana, Penplusbytes and YIAGA Nigeria among others have also initiated leading online citizen monitoring initiatives to promote transparency, responsiveness and accountability of West African governments COVID-19 response.

Yet, the technology and communication gap has also been exacerbated by the COVID-19. While several CSOs have succeeded in diverting their activities online, a high proportion of West African CSOs have limited capacities to use digital technology and ICTs. Their insufficient ability to communicate the impact of their work prevents key stakeholders to know about their activities during COVID-19.

In this context, the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI) has been undergoing online half-day trainings on communication skills and strategies for CSOs in 18 countries in West and Central Africa registered on the West Africa Civil Society E-Directory.

On 8 May 2020, the Institute provided 33 CSOs in Cote d'Ivoire and Cape Verde with skills and knowledge to effectively manage all internal and external communications within a non-profit organisational setting amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

This interactive online training aimed at equipping participants in knowledge and skills to develop practical communication strategies, to write impactful stories of their work and to use the West Africa Civil Society E-Directory to communicate their organisation's impact. This bilingual online platform provides space for organisations from all ECOWAS member states as well as Cameroon, Chad and Mauritania, to establish networks and partnerships, share knowledge sharing and collect data on civil society's work.

According to Perpetual Tindiana, Project Coordinator, Civil Society E-Directory, [this training] is important because it provides CSOs with the opportunity to communicate their core messages whiles boosting their visibility. Organisations often seek to strategically attract the interest of supporters and win the understanding and confidence of supportive stakeholders, as such, coining their key messages in a rightful manner enhances their engagement.

94% of participants in the training reckoned that they were satisfied or very satisfied by the training. According to one participant, this training allowed me to better understand the difference between the communication means and channels, as well as the tools of communication tools. It also enabled us to strengthen our communication messages to better adapt them to our different targets.

The training's methodology was also very much appreciated: the training had a participatory and dynamic methodology with enriching exchanges. The slides were well presented, and the explanation was of high quality, another participant explained.

Do you want to benefit from such trainings? If yes, please register on our E-Directory platform here. If you have difficulty in registering, please watch this explanatory video or contact us at [email protected] or +233501440545.
Mumbai, June 15 : Filmmaker Hansal Mehta has warned young "outsiders" to avoid the traps of Bollywood, where your value is a direct reflection of your success or failure.

The director took to Twitter to share a word of advice with a string of posts.

"There are many young 'outsiders' in this industry. Remember this -- there is an establishment that will make you feel like the next big thing until they need you. They will drop you and mock you as soon as you falter. Do not fall for the trap," he wrote.

"The ones that celebrate you will celebrate your downfall some time later. Success and failure are transient. You are not. Just be authentic, follow your heart and stop seeking acceptance from anybody. Your connection should be with your art, your craft and with your audience. Nothing else matters," added the "Aligarh" maker.

The director continued: "Over the years you will succeed, you will stumble. But remember that nothing is more important than you. Look after yourself. And know that you matter. The world is much bigger and wiser than what you perceive. So are opportunities. If you stay they will be yours. Lots of love. Never lose heart." The advice comes after the sudden demise of Sushant Singh Rajput.

Sushant was found hanging in his Bandra residence on Sunday morning by his domestic help. He was reportedly battling depression over the past few months and undergoing treatment for the same.

After establishing himself on the small screen with "Pavitra Rishta", he transitioned to the big screen with film "Kai Po Che!". He went on to do projects including "Shuddh Desi Romance", the biopic "M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story", "Kedarnath" and "Chhichhore", among several others.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery
Will a growing movement to remove police from schools force President Donald Trump and former Vice Presiden Joe Biden to confront their past positions on school resource officers during the 2020 presidential campaign?

The massive protests following the death in police custody of Minneapolis man George Floyd have already driven discussions of law enforcement and racial justice to the forefront of national political conversations.

But, amid all of that attention, quickly snowballing calls for police-free schools have stayed largely at the local level. Thats despite the fact that both Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden have championed school resource officers and played a role in the growing use of law enforcement in K-12 settingsBiden as an advocate of federal funding for SROs and Trump in a push for hardening schools following two large school shootings in 2018.

In response to Floyds death, Biden, who faced criticism in the Democratic primary for authoring the 1994 crime bill, called for an era of action to reverse systemic racism with long overdue and concrete changes in a Philadelphia speech. He pushed for a ban on chokeholds and the formation of a federal police oversight commmission, but he rejected calls to defund police.

Trump, while condemning Floyds death, has called for law and order and voiced support for law enforcement. Hes reviewing police-related measures, White House officials have said, even as he criticizes Bidens positions on the issue.

But neither campaign has commented on local efforts that started in Minneapolis June 2 when the school board there unanimously voted to end the districts relationship with the city police department. Since then, districts from Portland, Ore., to East Lansing, Mich., have ended school police contracts. Citing disproportionate rates of police interactions with black students, activists and teachers unions in at least a dozen other cities have called on their leaders to shift funds spent on law enforcement to personnel like school counselors and student support staff.

Often what youll hear from [school resource officers] is, You know, Im kind of like a social worker, said Marc Schindler, the executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization that has questioned the effectiveness of school police . My response to that is, Thats great. Whats your degree in? Id rather hire a social worker who has that training, is less expensive than a law enforcement officer, and Im less likely to get the negative consequences of that.

Meanwhile, mayors and superintendents in Democratically controlled cities like Chicago, the District of Columbia, and New York have rejected those calls, insisting that officers are necessary for student safety.

Its going to vary by community, Schindler said. How this plays out at the national level remains to be seen.

Biden and School Police

Throughout his long career as a U.S. senator from Delaware, Biden was a big supporter of school resource officers as part of a community policing strategy.

And bills he supported, sponsored, and authored provided federal funding to help local agencies hire officers in cooperation with school districts, contributing to a multidecade growth of police in schools. By the 2017-18 school year, 58 percent of American schools reported having a sworn law enforcement officer on campus at least once a week.



Among its provisions, the 1994 crime billwritten with heavy input from police groups and formally known as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Actcreated the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, providing federal grant funding for 100,000 local police positions, including school resource officers. Biden continued to push for funding for COPS grants, until he took office as vice president in 2009.



Bidens presidential 2020 platform includes a pledge to reinvigorate the COPS program with a $300 million investment.

Civil rights groups have blamed the growth in school police, coupled the growth of zero-tolerance policies, with overly punitive school discipline.

Those groups pushed Biden not to encourage school policing when, after the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., President Barack Obama put him in charge of the administrations school safety and gun control efforts.

Weve found that those school resource officers were of value in many schools, Biden said in a 2013 town hal l. We havent been funding them of late. We think they should be funded.

The administrations response to the Newtown shooting included a plan to hire school resource officers who not only enforce the law but act as teachers and mentors. It also created a Comprehensive School Safety Program that provided grants for schools and researchers to pilot and evaluate new models for helping students feel safe and supported, including new models of school policing.

The Biden campaign did not respond to questions about his positions on school resource officers.

Trumps Position on School Police

Some of Trumps most significant action on school policing has been undoing policy changes made by the Obama administration.

Obama-era guidance, issued by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education in 2014 , included a call for schools to ensure that they do not involve law enforcement in routine disciplinary issues. It also put schools on notice that they may be in violation of civil rights laws if their disciplinary policies led to disparately high discipline rates for students of color, even if those policies were written without discriminatory intent.

After a 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., victims families blamed that guidance and a diversionary program meant to reduce school arrests in Broward County Schools. They said their childrens high school failed to adequately intervene in the behavior of a former student who carried out the attack.

At the recommendations of a federal school safety commission chaired by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration later rescinded that guidance.

After the shooting, the Trump administration prioritized school resource officer positions when selecting COPS grant recipients.

After Parkland families also faulted a school resource officer, who failed to enter the building to confront the gunman, Trump also advocated for arming teachers.

These teachers love their students, and these teachers are talented with weaponry and with guns, Trump told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Id rather have somebody that loves their students and wants to protect their students than somebody standing outside who doesnt know the students, he said, seeming to criticize the officer.

In 2017, Trump also rescinded an Obama-era executive order that placed limits on a federal program that sends surplus military equipment to local law enforcement . That order included restrictions on law enforcement agencies operated by K-12 school districts, which had used the program to obtain items like grenade launchers, tactical gear, and armored vehicles.

Debate Continues

Critics of school police say their efforts have seen more progress in the last two weeks than they had in years, but that doesnt mean the issue will become significant in national politics, or in the presidential campaigns.

For one thing, not everyone agrees with the push. While Trump hasnt said anything about the local campaigns for schools to sever ties with law enforcement, some allies have criticized them.

Dems have lost their minds. Having met repeatedly w/victims, parents & teachers hurt by gun violence in schools, the single most effective way to keep our kids safe is more armed police officers in schools. This idiotic proposal would tragically result in MORE school shootings. https://t.co/D3K0Fk8QHl  Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 8, 2020

And some school safety consultants have called on schools to improve their agreements with school polic e, rather than eliminating them entirely.

The context in which these decisions are being made a highly politicized, socially and racially charged context  reeks of political decision-making under pressure, wrote Kenneth Trump, a school safety consultant who is not related to the president. This is not decision-making driven by school safety best practices.

Its unclear how long newly energized protesters will assert their demands. And public opinion on school police can move like a pendulum, Schindler said.

Federal data show that school violence is statistically rare. But after school shootings, public polls often show increased concerns about student safety and increased demand for security measures, including officers.

If we had a big school shooting in the near future, you could see things shift, Schindler said.

Photo: Jaylen Lee, 4, rides his scooter and looks at signs hanging on a fence near the White House June 9 after days of protests over the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, a black man. --AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Follow us on Twitter @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Politics K-12 reporters @EvieBlad @Daarel and @AndrewUjifusa .
Gender is not an issue for first female brokerage chief



By Kim Bo-eun





KB Securities CEO Park Jeong-rim
Sheriff Apologizes to Black Pastor in Virginia Following Arrest

A Virginia sheriff apologized to a black pastor who was arrested after calling 911 on a group of people who were threatening to kill him after they tried to dump a refrigerator on his property.

Five people were charged with hate crimes and assault by mob, officials told WHSV.

Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter made the apology to Leon K. McCray Sr. of Woodstock on Friday after McCray explained what happened during a church event at the Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International, according to The Associated Press.

McCray said he confronted the group after they tried to dump a refrigerator into a dumpster that he owns. Five people ultimately confronted him, telling him that they dont give a darn about my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, adding that they would kill him.

McCray said they retreated after he drew his legally concealed firearm before calling 911. Arriving deputies took his gun and handcuffed him as the group yelled epithets at him, AP reported.

Really to save my life, I pulled my gun, he said, reported WUSA9. And I pointed it down to the ground in hopes they would back off.

Carter, the sheriff, said that Mr. McCray was defending himself, and I believe Mr. McCray.

Elaborating further, the sheriff said that he was disappointed in the situation.

I believe if I had been there, this would have gone in a totally different direction, Carter said.

Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp, and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held in police without bond, officials told AP.
South Africa: Government warns liquor licence holders

KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has warned liquor licence holders against the sale of alcohol on a public holiday.

Tomorrow, we will pay tribute to young people who laid down their lives in order for me and you to be free. We will also reflect on programmes that are aimed at ensuring that young people continue to be the motor-force of change, Dube-Ncube said on Monday.

Annually, South Africa commemorates the Soweto youth uprising of 16 June 1976, a public holiday known as Youth Day.

According to the terms of Section 44 (5) of the Disaster Management Regulations as amended (28th May 2020), the sale of liquor is prohibited on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and on public holidays.

As we move forward, I wish to reiterate once again that where any licence holder is found to have violated any of the provisions contained in the regulations or the sale of liquor in terms of the KwaZulu-Natal Liquor Licensing Act, the KZN liquor authority will recommend the suspension of the licence until the end of lockdown or for three months, the MEC said.

Over the past two weeks, a total of 1 447 liquor traders across the province have been visited during business inspection, compliance and enforcement. Two liquor traders were arrested.

The MEC said inspections will continue throughout the province which has 8 000 liquor licence holders.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The Nigerian police recorded 717 rape cases between January and May, an official said on Monday.

The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, said this to State House Correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House in Abuja.

Mr Adamu said 799 suspects have so far been arrested while 631 cases have been conclusively investigated and charged to court. He said 52 cases are still being investigated.

The police chief called on Nigerians to join in efforts to tackle rape and other sexual violence by ensuring prompt report of cases and working with the police to apprehend the suspects.

I will call on every Nigerian that comes across any victim of sexual offences, rape or gender-based violence to quickly report to law enforcement agents because keeping quiet without reporting it will give room for the perpetrators to continue to commit the offences, he said.

It is a very wicked offence, it is wicked of an individual to engage in rape or defilement and there are a lot of reasons for that, some are doing it for ritual purposes and some are doing it because they sit within the family and they see the victims and have the urge to go into it such people should not be allowed to go scot-free.

He suggested that the movement restrictions put in place because of COVID-19 may have contributed to the increase in reported rape cases across Nigeria.

It has come to the public knowledge now that because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we have a surge in cases of rape and gender-based violence. These are cases that are now coming up but we want to let members of the public know that, rape and gender-based violence has been there.

The law enforcement agents have been dealing with these cases, in most cases, members of the public are not aware of the actions that the law enforcement agents have been taking.

The police and other security agencies and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been collaborating, to see to it that these cases of rape and gender-based violence are dealt with.

The NGOs and Civil Society Organisations that have the capacity to deal with this kind of offenses, have been cooperating with law enforcement agencies in capacity building, management of victims of rape and similar offenses and procedures for collecting evidence, towards successful prosecution. The government has taken the matter to another level now because of the scourge we have noticed. he said.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the increasing rape cases across the country with some of the victims also killed.

The menace was also discussed at last weeks Federal Executive Council meeting after which the women affairs minister restated the governments determination to ensure enforcement of adequate laws to tackle the menace.

On Monday, Mr Adamu said the police will partner with stakeholders across West Africa to tackle the menace.

From now onward, national partnership with every stakeholder is what we are going into now and not only within the country but within the subregion. We have to partner with organizations that are involved in this. We know we have been working seriously with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other civil society organizations, he said.
Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI), the UAE federal export credit company, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bpifrance Assurance Export, the French export credit agency, to explore, strengthen, and enhance the trade and economic cooperation between France and the UAE.

The MoU was signed by Massimo Falcioni, CEO at ECI and Francois Lefebvre, General Manager of Bpifrance Assurance Export. The alliance aims to give a boost to the existing trade relations between France and the UAE, and also provide a platform to identify new business opportunities and develop new partnerships in the UAE. With accessibility to a range of export credit, financing and investment insurance products, the exporting community in both countries stand to gain from this partnership, said a statement.

Under this MoU, both institutions will work towards boosting their cooperation and communication in the following fields: enhancement of trade and business relations between the two countries; exploration of mutual opportunities for insurance, reinsurance, co-insurance services for export of goods in a third country, investments and services to assist and support insured exporters; facilitation of access for SMEs; mutual exchange of good practices; organization of joint events; identification of specific solutions in the export insurance field, among others.

Discussing this strategic alliance, Massimo Falcioni, CEO of ECI commented: The UAE and France have always shared distinguished trade relations, and over the past several years, these bilateral ties have witnessed a major leap. The strategic dialogue between the two countries started in 2007  an annual dialogue that ensures to strengthen the bilateral relations aimed at achieving their shared goals. As UAEs Federal export credit company, it is our mandate to support local companies grow internationally by providing risk management solutions and creating an ecosystem of strategic partners. In line with this, we are pleased to sign an agreement with Bpifrance, through its subsidiary Bpifrance Assurance Export. This will pave the way for a mutual exchange of export credit solutions and financing that will benefit the local business and export community.

Francois Lefebvre, General Manager of Bpifrance Assurance Export, stated: We are delighted to partner with Etihad Credit Insurance, who in a short span of time has consolidated its position as an effective export credit agency in the region. We believe this agreement, while actively boosting the bilateral trade relations, will also enhance support for the exporting community as it will give small businesses access to ECIs unique range of trade credit solutions and services.

The UAE is France's second largest trade partner in the region with non-oil foreign trade at $7.616 billion in 2018, data from UAE Ministry of Economy shows. There are 600 French companies present in the UAE in different sectors. -- TradeArabia News Service
The senior tax official could only be bailed out if he posts a stunning UAH 84 million (which is over $3 million).

The High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine on Monday, June 15, ruled to remand in custody for 60 days another suspect in last week's foiled attempt to hand a $5 million bribe to heads of anti-corruption bodies for shutting a criminal case against ex-ecology minister Mykola Zlochevsky, who is also president of Burisma Group. The suspect in question is first deputy chief of the State Tax Service's Main Directorate in Kyiv, Mykola Iliashenko.

The senior tax official could only be bailed out if he posts a stunning UAH 84 million (which is over $3 million).

Another suspect involved in the scheme, whom the court also ruled to remand in custody, is Andriy Kicha, a person who earlier was a Burisma official before starting to work as a lawyer, Ukrainian media reported. Kicha was shortly bailed out for over UAH 40 million, Hromadske reported. It remains unclear, who has posted the bail.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 12, three persons were detained upon the attempt to hand a $5 million bribe to the leadership of the National Anti-corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office for closing the criminal proceeding targeting ex-ecology minister and president of Burisma Group Mykola Zlochevsky.

Read alsoZelensky: Ukraine mustn't be dragged into U.S. election process over leaks

The case concerns his alleged complicity in embezzlement of the NBU's stabilization loan, which was issued to a bank controlled by businessman Serhiy Kurchenko, and the subsequent laundering of these funds.

Currently, the investigation in this case has been suspended, while Zlochevsky remains on the wanted list.

Law enforcers detained three persons in what appears to have been a sting raid.

Burisma said in a statement it had nothing to do with the matter, Reuters reported.

It did not respond to a request for comment from the company's founder Mykola Zlochevsky.

The Ukrainian company was thrust into the global spotlight last year in the impeachment inquiry into whether U.S. President Donald Trump improperly pressured Kyiv into opening a case against his rival Joe Biden for the November election race.

"Let's put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding," Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of anti-corruption investigations at the prosecution service, told Saturday's briefing.

Read alsoSBI reports senior customs officer in Odesa detained over bribery (Photos)

The country's former prosecutor general told Reuters in June that an audit he commissioned while in office of thousands of old case files had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden while he worked for Burisma.

Hunter Biden joined Burisma in 2014, one of several high-profile names to join what the private company said was an attempt to strengthen corporate governance.

The Bidens deny any wrongdoing and Democrats said Trump was trying to help his re-election prospects.
Atlanta, Georgia police officers shot and killed a black man who had fallen asleep in the parking lot of a Wendys fast food restaurant on Friday, sparking protests and the burning of the establishment during a demonstration Saturday night. Within 24 hours of the killing, the citys police chief announced that she was stepping down from her position in response and the department stated that the officer who fired the lethal shots had been fired.

Police officers were called to the Wendys restaurant in South Atlanta after Rayshard Brooks, 27, had passed out in his vehicle in the drive-thru lane, causing other customers drive around his vehicle to make their orders.

Officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan arrived on the scene and performed a sobriety test on Brooks, which was recorded on video by a witness who was in line at the restaurant. The interaction between Brooks and the officers can also be viewed through police bodycam and dashcam video released publicly by the Atlanta Police Department (APD). According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), Brooks failed the sobriety test, at which time the officers attempted to take him into custody.

Bodycam footage of Rayshard Brooks moments before being gunned down.

Brosnans bodycam recorded a peaceful interchange between himself and Brooks, prior to Rolfes arrival on the scene, where Brooks related that he had just celebrated the birthday of one of his daughters the day prior.

Dashcam footage from Rolfes vehicle shows Brooks began struggling with the officers once they attempted to handcuff him. Video recorded by a second bystander shows that Brosnan drew his Taser, which Brooks then grasped while the two officers sought to wrestle him to the ground. Brooks continued his attempt to wriggle away from the two officers, punching Rolfe in the head before slipping out of their grasp while wresting away Brosnans Taser. Rolfe then stood and fired his own Taser into Brooks, who turned and ran away from the two officers with Rolfes Taser wire still attached to his body and Brosnans Taser in hand.

Security camera footage obtained from the restaurant shows Officer Rolfe chasing Brooks and then shifting his Taser to his left hand so that he could draw his handgun with his right hand. The video then shows Brooks looking back while running and, while in full stride away from the pursuing officer, pointing the Taser wildly behind himself and firing. The flash of the Taser suggests that the discharge did not strike Rolfe.

The security camera footage shows that Rolfe then dropped his own Taser, pointed his handgun, and rapidly fired three shots into Brooks while he was running away. Video shows the young father of four falling to the ground and both officers standing over him, injured but still making movements on the ground. Witnesses have stated that before administering any aid to Brooks, the officers put on gloves and collected the shell casings.

Surveillance footage of the shooting of Rayshard Brooks.[Screenshot Georgia Bureau of Investigations]

Surveillance video shows that the officers waited two minutes and 16 seconds before they attempted to provide medical aid to Brooks. A few minutes later, an ambulance arrived, which took Brooks to a hospital, where he was declared dead after emergency surgery. Rolfes bodycam video shows him asking another officer on the scene if there was any word on the condition of Brooks.

Attorneys for Brooks family say that he left behind three daughters and a stepson.

Attorney Chris Stewart spoke to reporters over the weekend, posing the question, Are you not tired of seeing cases like this happen? Deadly force should have never come into the equation. [The officer] had other options instead of shooting him in the back. The police officers already had Brooks ID and address, so they could have easily tracked him down had he eluded them.

Stewart has also pointed out that police officers have claimed in the past that a Taser is not a deadly weapon, and that, by this logic, there was no reason to use deadly force. I have cases where officers used Tasers on victims and they argue with us in court that Tasers arent deadly. You cannot have it both ways.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNN Sunday that a decision by his office on whether to bring criminal charges against Brosnan and Rolfe would come by Wednesday. [Brooks] did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable, Howard said.

Protesters flooded the streets of southeast Atlanta on Saturday, angry over the killing of Brooks, and surrounded the Wendys where the shooting took place. In the evening, the crowd marched to Interstate 75/85, bringing the major thoroughfare to a standstill. The Wendys restaurant was in flames later that night, and fire was also set to automobiles near the fast food chain. Police earlier in the day used tear gas and a flash bang to try to clear the crowd.

Officer Rolfe, who had been employed with the department since 2013, was fired around midnight on Friday night, and Officer Brosnan, who has been with the department for less than two years, was placed on administrative duty. Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms called for the dismissal of Rolfe and announced that Police Chief Erika Shields would no longer be running the department.

Former Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields [Image Credit: APD]

Chief Erika Shields has been a solid member of APD for over two decades and has a deep and abiding love for the people of Atlanta, Bottoms said in a statement. And because of her desire that Atlanta be a model of what meaningful reform should look like across the country, Chief Shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency in rebuilding the trust so desperately needed throughout our community.

Last month Bottoms denounced the very diverse crowd that had been protesting police brutality in Atlanta and labeled the large numbers of white people participating in the protests as outsiders. While speaking from one side of her mouth about rebuilding trust, from the other she issues calls for the repression of mass popular outrage against police violence.

Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate and a leading Democratic Party proponent of racialist identity politics, tweeted that Atlanta needs to severely restrict the use of deadly force. Yes, investigations must be called forbut so too should accountability.

The statements of both Bottoms and Abrams, who are both considered serious contenders to be chosen as a running mate for former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, show that they are not even on the same spectrum as the masses of people around the world who have been protesting police violence day after day since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

While protesters are calling for an end to police killings and many support the defunding of police rather than their reform, Democrats such as Bottoms and Abrams push for diversifying law enforcement with more black police officers and chiefs and in fact increasing the amount of money going to the repressive arm of the state.
A Co. Tipperary man has been jailed for 20 years for the repeated rape and sexual abuse of his younger sister and seven daughters over a 23-year period.

From 1977 to 2000, James O'Reilly, 75, subjected the young girls to horrific sexual abuse, as well as physical beatings, starvation and degradation, the Central Criminal Court heard this morning.

O'Reilly of Killeens, Ballynonty, Thurles, Co Tipperary pleaded not guilty to 81 counts of rape and sexual abuse. Last December, after a five-week trial, a jury convicted him of 58 counts of rape and nine counts of sexual assault.

O'Reilly's rape of one daughter caused her to become pregnant in late 1988. He continued to rape her during the pregnancy.

At the time OReilly told his daughter to allege she had been raped by another man. He continued abusing her and only stopped when she threatened him with a knife.

Later DNA tests confirmed he was the father, a factor which was used to secure his conviction.

One victim said she was starved and forced to beg for food outside while another said she did not know what a Christmas present was until she was an adult.

Caroline Biggs SC, prosecuting, told the court that the victims wished to waive their anonymity, allowed for the naming of their abuser.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt described O'Reilly's actions as horrific and noted the escalating and repetitive nature of the offending.

He noted that O'Reilly continues to deny any wrongdoing and there was no evidence of remorse or regret on his part for his crimes.

He commended the courage of the victims and noted the stoicism as well as the occasional flashes of good humour shown by them throughout the lengthy trial.

He said he was taking into consideration O'Reilly's abuse of his dominant position, the duration of the offending and the incalculable pain and harm caused to the victims.

It's not clear any of them will ever be free of the adverse effects.

O'Reilly was aged around 34 when he raped the first victim, his 13-year-old younger sister. He abused her for the next three years, attacking her in a van.

He first abused the second victim, his daughter, when her mother was in hospital having suffered a miscarriage. His daughter was aged between four and six.

In 1977, she was aged around eight when he drove her in his van to a bog and raped her. He told her she would be put into foster care if she told anyone.

One victim testified that from the age of 10 she was raped in the back of van if it was raining and outside the van in a field if it wasn't.

The trial heard that the family lived at a place in Dublin at one point, living in an old-fashioned horse-drawn wagon and later in more modern trailer.

O'Reilly raped another daughter when her mother was in hospital giving birth to another child.

This baby boy died in 1983 and while his partner was grieving, O'Reilly took one girl out and raped her in the pony shed.

O'Reilly moved the children around the country and in the late 80s they were living around at a location in the south where he continued to abuse them.

One victim, who was raped until she was aged 20, said she couldn't tell her husband because saying you are being raped [as a] Traveller is like being thrown to the side of the road, you'd have to go back to the bog.

Kathleen O'Driscoll said she could remember her father abusing her form her earliest childhood memories. She said she prayed each night that she would not wake up.

Ms O'Driscoll said her father threatened that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would cut her throat and the throat of any person she told. She said she has put up with being raped, starved and beaten all her life.

Margaret Hutchinson was aged 10 in 1981 when her father first began molesting her. A year later he raped in the back of the van.

She testified that during this time he raped her hundreds, thousands of times.

A witness at the trial recalled how in 1986 she met this victim in the bog and she was shaking and crying. She said she still gets knots in her stomach remembering how the victim told her her father was abusing her.

Another victim recalled having to attend hospital with a head injury from beatings. She was aged 10 when her father began raping her and he would rape her up to three times a week for the next six years.

Justice Hunt said a life sentence was the appropriate starting point based on the horrific facts. He said the mitigating factors presented carried little weight and that the main factor submitted in mitigation was O'Reilly's age.

He noted that O'Reilly was in robust good health when he was interviewed four years ago but there was evidence his health has deteriorated since. He said the court was leaving it the executive to engage in any future intervention of the custodial sentence because of infirmity.

He said the difference between a life sentence and a lengthy but finite sentence may be academic given OReillys age.

He imposed a range of sentences from two years to twenty years. A number of victims sobbed during the sentence hearing and as sentence was passed.

Garnet Orange SC, defending, submitted that his client has no previous convictions and has never been on garda radar. Mr Orange asked the court to have regard for an elderly man facing a lengthly sentence who also has hearing difficulties.
A Kashmiri Pandit migrants body has rejected the inquiry committee formed by the Jammu and Kashmir administration to investigate the alleged scam of 2,340 crore involving relief funds meant for the community.

Reconciliation, return and rehabilitation of migrant Kashmiri Pandits issued a statement on Monday saying they had sought an investigation by the CBI or the ACB. Instead, the administration has formed an inquiry committee which includes members who were involved in the process of enrolling the activists and disbursing the money to them, said Satish Mahaldar, chairman of the body.

The body rejects the inquiry committee set up by the J&K administration to investigate the scam of 2,340 crore, he said.

He added that the notification from the office of the relief and rehabilitation commissioner, Jammu, dated June 11, 2020, has ordered the internal audit of zonal/camp offices by a committee. It said that a a five-member committee will conduct the detailed audit of the official record pertaining to the cash assistance, ration, inclusion/deletion, bifurcation, cashbook, cash A/c, etc. and will submit a detailed report.

We totally reject this committee. How can justice be expected from those people who were very much part of the scam? It seems that the committee has been made to cover up the scam. It also is very clear that the government is not sincere to give justice to the wronged, the body said.

Ethically, what should have been spent on the relief and rehabilitation of the persecuted has been mischievously and deliberately given to the undeserving, said Mahaldar.

While giving details of the press briefing they had addressed on May 17, Mahaldar said the Jammu and Kashmir administration is annually dispersing an amount of approximately 78 crore to political workers in Kashmir.

Documents with us show that the administration has been paying the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party and the Congress workers for the past 30 years. These leaders and workers have been getting the money from J&K coffers every month and every year since 1990. The amount totals a whopping 2,340 crore for the last 30 years, he said.

We lost our houses and land because of terrorism and persecution and now the relief meant for us is also being cornered by many people in Kashmir. This is an irony, Mahaldar said.

We reiterate our demand for an independent inquiry either by CBI or ACB. The amount involved in the scam is huge and the people involved need to be punished. he added.
A statue of Spanish conquistador Don Juan de Onate that stands outside a building that now houses offices of the Rio Grande National Heritage Area in Alcalde is being taken down temporarily, according to Rio Arriba County officials.

The building used to be called the Onate Monument Center until the name was changed three years ago.

The decision to remove the statue comes as the city of Albuquerque is considering taking down a multi-figure sculpture titled La Jornada that includes Onate and stands in front of the Albuquerque Museum. The museums board of trustees asked Mayor Tim Keller to remove the sculpture by Reynaldo Sonny Rivera and Betty Sabo.

Rivera is also the sculptor of the Onate statue in Alcalde.

Onate is a controversial figure in New Mexico history. While he is seen as a heroic figure by some for leading the colonization of New Mexico in 1598, he is viewed by some Native Americans as a killer who repressed and enslaved their ancestors. Following an uprising at Acoma Pueblo, he sentenced hundreds of their people to 20 years of personal servitude and purportedly ordered all men over the age of 25 to have a foot cut off.

In 1997, vandals cut of the foot of the statue in alcalde. That incident took place days before the calendar turned to 1998, the 400th anniversary of Onates arrival.

Rivera recently told the Journal that Onates indiscretions shouldnt negate the contributions he made to New Mexico history.

Its not about the cruelty of the incident, but about the colonization of New Mexico and what he brought, including Christianity, which is a big part, but also wine, irrigation, mining and livestock  the horses, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, he said.

Santa Fe activist Elena Ortiz, a member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, has advocated the removal of all Onate statues. She told the Journal that the conquistador is a symbol of patriarchal violence that also serves to diminish current efforts to build community.

If you look at it logically, he was no one to celebrate, she said. He was convicted of treason by his own people and banished from New Mexico forever.

Why would you glorify someone like that?

The decision to remove the statue also comes at a time of national civil unrest and racial tension over last months killing of George Floyd, a black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. That incident led to a surge of demonstrations across the country. It also renewed the appropriateness of statues honoring Confederate leaders and military bases named after them.
[June 15, 2020] Gitterman Wealth Management Selects Natixis for Tax Overlay Management in New SMART UMAs Focused on Sustainability

Gitterman Wealth Management (Gitterman) today launched the Sustainability Metrics Applied to Risk Tolerance1 (SMART) Unified Managed Account (UMA) Models in an effort to provide clients access to boutique and emerging managers that implement climate science to security selection and portfolio construction in a UMA structure. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005138/en/ The SMART UMA Models incorporate products that have robust financial metrics, sophisticated ESG capabilities and rigorous due diligence processes, and are available to outside Registered Investment Advisors (RIA) as well as retail investors. According to the World Economic Forum2, the highest impact and highest probability global risks are primarily climate-related or will be exacerbated by climate change. As such, investment models with a climate focus are increasingly important. The SMART UMA models feature managers who are strategically exploring climate scenarios and their related impacts, alongside disclosing risks and opportunities. Gitterman selected Natixis as its tax overlay manager in order to achieve after-tax returns that may benefit from significant outperformance. The additional managers in Gitterman's SMART UMA Models are: Alliance Bernstein

Calvert

Federated / Hermes

Green Alpha Advisors

KBI Global Investors

Martin Currie

Promethos Capital

Stance Capital

Water Asset Management

Welington Management The SMART UMA Models are exclusively designed as fully diversified core products available in taxable and qualified formats. Gitterman selected Natixis as its tax overlay manager in order to achieve after-tax returns that may benefit from significant outperformance. "We're thrilled to partner with Natixis given their excellent reputation for developing multi-manager solutions and maximizing portfolios' after-tax investment returns," said Jeff Gitterman, Co-founding Partner at Gitterman Wealth Management. "Building on our existing success with ESG-oriented mutual fund models, we are confident Natixis will enhance the SMART UMA Models by implementing more tax-aware strategies for our climate-focused investors." "Since we know that taxes historically erode 1-2% of a client's investment returns, we believe our tax loss harvesting and overlay management capabilities can mitigate a significant amount of that impact," said Curt Overway, President and Portfolio Manager at Natixis' subdivision Managed Portfolio Advisors (MPA). "The introduction of Smart UMAs, implemented in a single integrated portfolio, gives retail investors unique access to world-classinstitutional strategies through Gitterman's extensive network of boutique and emerging managers."



Click here to register for the Gitterman Sustainable UMA iSummit (in production with RIA Channel) from 1:00pm-3:00pm ET on June 18, 2020. About Natixis Investment Managers

Natixis Investment Managers serves financial professionals with more insightful ways to construct portfolios. Powered by the expertise of more than 20 specialized investment managers globally, we apply Active Thinking to deliver proactive solutions that help clients pursue better outcomes in all markets. Natixis Investment Managers ranks among the world's largest asset management firms3 with $908.9 billion / 828.4 billion assets under management4. Headquartered in Paris and Boston, Natixis Investment Managers is a subsidiary of Natixis. Listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, Natixis is a subsidiary of BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France. Natixis Investment Managers' affiliated investment management firms include AEW; Alliance Entreprendre; AlphaSimplex Group; DNCA Investments;5 Dorval Asset Management; Flexstone Partners; Gateway (News - Alert) Investment Advisers; H2O Asset Management; Harris Associates; Investors Mutual Limited; Loomis, Sayles & Company; Mirova; MV Credit; Naxicap Partners; Ossiam; Ostrum Asset Management; Seeyond; Seventure Partners; Thematics Asset Management; Vauban Infrastructure Partners; Vaughan Nelson Investment Management; Vega Investment Managers;6 and WCM Investment Management. Additionally, investment solutions are offered through Natixis Investment Managers Solutions, and Natixis Advisors offers other investment services through its AIA and MPA division. Not all offerings available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit Natixis Investment Managers' website at im.natixis.com | LinkedIn (News - Alert): linkedin.com/company/natixis-investment-managers. Natixis Investment Managers' distribution and service groups include Natixis Distribution, L.P., a limited purpose broker-dealer and the distributor of various U.S. registered investment companies for which advisory services are provided by affiliated firms of Natixis Investment Managers, Natixis Investment Managers S.A. (Luxembourg), Natixis Investment Managers International (France), and their affiliated distribution and service entities in Europe and Asia. This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. Diversification does not guarantee a profit or protect against a loss. Gitterman Wealth Management Gitterman Wealth Management is a leader in the Sustainable, Impact, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Investing space, offering outsourced research, education, and investing solutions for financial professionals. Founded by Jeffrey L. Gitterman and Elias S. Rauch, we are an independent SEC (News - Alert) registered investment advisory firm that also provides retirement and wealth management services to the higher education marketplace and high-net-worth individuals. 1 Gitterman Wealth Management's proprietary, ESG and sustainability investment solutions that comprise third-party products (mutual funds, ETFs and SMAs). Gitterman Wealth Management and Natixis Investment Managers are separate and distinct federally regulated entities.

2 World Economic Forum Global Risks Perception Survey 2019-2020.

3 Cerulli Quantitative Update: Global Markets 2019 ranked Natixis Investment Managers as the 17th largest asset manager in the world based on assets under management as of December 31, 2018.

4 Assets under management ("AUM") as of March 31, 2020. AUM, as reported, may include notional assets, assets serviced, gross assets, assets of minority-owned affiliated entities and other types of non-regulatory AUM managed or serviced by firms affiliated with Natixis Investment Managers.

5 A brand of DNCA Finance.

6 A wholly-owned subsidiary of Natixis Wealth Management. 3124203.1.1 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005138/en/

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OKLAHOMA CITY - So many people have expressed an interest in attending President Donald Trumps rally Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that the governor said hes asked the campaign to consider a larger, outdoor venue to accommodate them.

Gov. Kevin Stitt said Monday after talking with Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence that nearly one million people have requested tickets to the event. Some Trump supporters have already started waiting in line outside the 19,000-seat BOK Center in downtown Tulsa.

Were excited were being recognized as one of the first states to safely and measurably reopen, Stitt told reporters Monday. Im looking for a potential other venue that maybe we could move it outside. Its still kind of in the works.

Stitt, who plans to introduce Trump at Saturdays rally, said he also asked Trump and Pence to join him on a tour of the citys Greenwood District, once home to a prosperous African American community dubbed Black Wall Street that was burned to the ground during a racially motivated massacre in 1921 that left as many as 300 people dead.

The Trump campaign initially planned to hold the rally on Friday, which is Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery in the United States, but agreed to move the date to Saturday at the request of Stitt and others.

The Trump campaign didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on whether theyre considering moving the event to a larger venue, and the White House didnt respond to a request for comment on accepting Stitts invitation to tour the Greenwood District.

Health officials, including Tulsa County Health Department Director Bruce Dart, have voiced concerns about having so many people in a confined space, noting both the state and Tulsa have seen daily highs in the number of positive cases in recent days.

Oklahoma County Republican Party Chairman David McLain said Monday that the Trump campaign intends to fill every one of the venues seats. He said the campaign also intends to provide masks to every person who attends, although he said there wont be a requirement to wear one.

I havent heard of any policy of mandatory mask wearing at this point, McLain said, but thats fluid and could possibly change.

Social distancing is still encouraged in Oklahoma but theres no prohibition on large gatherings.

There have been more than 8,400 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 359 total deaths in Oklahoma from the disease, more than half of which have been residents of nursing homes or long-term care facilities.

Oklahoma began allowing some businesses, like hair salons, pet groomers and spas, to reopen on April 24 during its first phase of reopening. The state has since moved into its third phase of reopening, with virtually no restrictions on businesses.

While acknowledging the state has seen a recent surge in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus, Stitt said much of that is due to an increase in testing. He also said only 150 people are currently hospitalized due to COVID-19 and that the state has plenty of hospital capacity.

We need to continue to be vigilant and continue to take precautions, Stitt said, but we also have to learn how to deal with COVID, because its in the United States, its in Oklahoma, and we cant let it dictate our lives.
Iran to react if US prevents lifting arms embargo as per nuclear deal: President Rouhani

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 5:04 PM

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says the country will not remain indifferent and will show suitable reaction if the US tries to prevent lifting of arms embargo against the Islamic Republic, which will end this year in accordance with the landmark nuclear deal that Tehran clinched with six world powers back in 2015.

During past months, Washington has stepped up calls for the extension of a UN arms embargo on Iran, which will expire in October under UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened that it may seek to trigger a snapback of all sanctions on Iran if its attempts to extend the arms embargo fail.

The landmark nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany -- in 2015. However, in May 2018, US President Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the JCPOA and re-imposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran and began unleashing the "toughest ever" fresh sanctions.

While the US is no longer a party to the JCPOA, it has launched a campaign to renew the Iran arms ban  in place since 2006/2007 -- through a resolution at the Security Council, but Russia and China are most likely to veto it.

Addressing a cabinet session on Sunday, Rouhani said, "The termination of the arms ban [on Iran] ... is one of the important achievements of the JCPOA and if Americans want to question this achievement, other big countries know what our reaction will be."

The Iranian president also expressed hope that "all countries who are members of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors" of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), would be aware of "the US planning with regard to these plots."

"We, for our part, will be successful in this regard and will weather these plans that the United States has made for Iran," he noted.

Posting a tweet in early June, Iran's UN ambassador said the US' call for an extension of the UN Security Council's arms embargo on Tehran lacked legal standing in international law.

Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said the US ambassador to the UN "wrongly" believes the US retains the right to initiate snapback of sanctions under the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

"WRONG: US cannot be a JCPOA 'Participant', since Donald Trump ceased US participation," the Iranian ambassador noted, referring to Trump's 2018 decision to withdraw his country from the Iran nuclear deal in violation of the Resolution 2231.

In the middle of May, China and Russia also rejected US plans to extend a UN arms embargo on Iran along with a probable push to trigger a return of all sanctions on Tehran at the UN Security Council.

The "US has no right to extend an arms embargo on Iran, let alone to trigger snapback," China's UN mission wrote in a tweet.

"Maintaining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is the only right way moving forward," he added.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov vehemently rejected the plan as a "cynical" measure plunging the UN Security Council into crisis.

"The conclusion is that the next crisis in the UN Security Council and the UN as a whole is imminent, taking into account this US stubbornness," he said, adding, "Washington will not have an easy road here in any case."

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Tuesday that the US has already pulled out of the international nuclear agreement and cannot currently use its former membership of the deal to seek a permanent arms embargo on Tehran.

"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.

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Linkedin (The Nation/Asia News Network)  Mon, June 15, 2020 11:35 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec11f8 2 News Wat-Pho,travel,Bangkok,Thailand,tourism,destination Free

Authorities at Wat Pho temple say foreigners have been banned from visiting the Bangkok landmark in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The temple placed a sign outside its entrance with a message reading Open for Thais only and Now not open for foreigners, as reported by the Associated Press.

Wit Artchinda, an official at the temple, explained that Wat Phos committee had responded to the COVID-19 crisis in other countries and decided to follow the governments preventive measures.

Read also: Hotels in Thailand advised to offer promotions in June, July to attract customers

However, the government has made no announcement banning foreigners from entering public places as part of disease control measures.

Wit added that some areas of the temple are under repair, and the committee was afraid that foreign visitors might be disappointed if they paid Bt200 (US$6.46) and saw nothing.

Wat Pho Temple is among the oldest and largest temples in the country and also one of Bangkok's most popular tourist attractions.

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This article appeared on The Nation newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
Seafood markets come under spotlight amid Beijing's new outbreak

Global Times

By GT staff reporters Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/14 23:30:40

High humidity may contribute to Beijing's new outbreak: virologist

With infections related to a Beijing food wholesale market hitting 53 on Sunday, seafood markets have entered the public spotlight with many discussing how samples, including one collected from a chopping board processing imported salmon, tested positive for COVID-19.

Scientists said that fish and other seafood cannot transmit a virus and that it was more likely that conditions in a large busy market contributed to the local outbreak.

The infection chain has involved 53 people, 51 in Beijing and two in Northeast China's Liaoning Province as of Sunday morning, according to health authorities.

After detection of coronavirus on a chopping board processing imported salmon at the Xinfadi wholesale market, major supermarkets in Beijing, including Carrefour and Wumart, removed salmon from the freezers. Some markets in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and North China's Shanxi Province have also suspended sales of salmon, media reported.

Sushi restaurants are also impacted and many have stopped serving salmon dishes. A Nanjing restaurant association in East China's Jiangsu Province has suggested suspending supplies of raw seafood.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, was reportedly first detected at the city's Huanan seafood market, which led some people to ask whether seafood markets are hotbeds for the virus.

Yang Zhanqiu, deputy director of the pathogen biology department at Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Sunday that these markets sell all types of food. It is more likely that the humid environment and large flows of sellers and customers lead them to becoming virus hotspots, from where it can spread easily.

Yang noted that seafood usually is preserved at a temperature of -20 C. Viruses can remain infectious in such low temperatures for weeks.

The latest infections drove up concerns over consumption of seafood. Beijing local Fan Jingli, after dining at a sushi restaurant, said she was considering having a nucleic acid test to rule out the possibility of contracting the coronavirus.

However, scientists said that there is no possibility that the seafood itself, including salmon, can carry the novel coronavirus.

The novel coronavirus mainly affects mammals and its pathological effects are mainly concentrated in the lungs. Salmon and other seafood cannot host the novel coronavirus. There are no shared diseases that can be spread from fish to humans, media reported.

It is more likely that seafood was contaminated overseas during the long production chain of fishing, packaging and transportation, Yang said. Preliminary gene sequencing found the virus strain in Beijing this time does not resemble the type that widely circulated in the country earlier, said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yang Peng, a researcher from Beijing CDC told China's Central Television (CCTV) via telephone interview on Sunday that it has been preliminarily determined that the virus found on the samples from the market is related to strains China has seen from imported cases. Genome sequencing showed that the coronavirus came from Europe.

Yang said that the source of the virus is still being traced and it is not known how it entered the market.

There are two main theories as to how the virus got into the market. One is through contaminated seafood and meat imported from abroad which infected those who came into contact with it, Yang said.

The other is through people coming into the market and spread through human secretions such as coughs and sneezes which could also have transferred the virus onto seafood or meat.

The COVID-19 tests showed that 40 environmental samples collected from the Xinfadi market, the largest food wholesale market in the capital city, came back positive.

Analysts noted that one person could have become infected after coming into contact with a contaminated product, which may or may not be salmon, and thus became the "patient zero" of this round of infections.

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Many businesses remained closed along south 52nd and Market Street in early June. Some were damaged in looting and vandalism on May 31. Others have been closed because of the city's shutdown to slow spread of the coronavirus. Read more

Signs of community on 52nd Street shone through even as looters shattered glass and burned a business along the historic West Philadelphia corridor.

The brothers in the neighborhood stood up for me, said Tedd Hall, who since 1972 has run Babe, a clothing and nutrition store on the street.

About 15% of the 200 businesses on 52nd between Arch and Pine Streets, and along some side streets, suffered some form of damage May 31 from looting and vandalism after protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Big chains, such as Foot Locker and McDonalds, got hit, but the majority of the damage was done to small businesses.

Halls store, though, had only a broken upper-story window. People in the neighborhood discouraged looters from prying open the front gate, he said. The same happened for Tiffany Easley, whose store, NV My Eyewear, was untouched.

I probably would have been devastated if my business was one of the properties, she said. I thank God that people remember me.

Two weeks after looting ended amid a fog of tear gas and smoke billowing from burned cars, the corridor known as West Phillys Main Street took stock of the damage, evaluated the future, and hoped the communitys recent positive trajectory would not be derailed.

The Rev. Wendell Mapson, pastor of Monumental Baptist Church on 50th Street, is old enough to remember the 1967 riots in Newark, N.J., his hometown. Some parts of that city were never fully rebuilt. He doesnt think that will happen in West Philadelphia.

 READ MORE: This West Philly neighborhood had been struggling to rebuild. Then the looting started.

The black community is kind of a different sort and more than that, Mapson said. I think they will be rebuilding, and I think its important that leaders come together and figure out what happened and say, This cant happen again.

A number of business owners on the corridor said they empathized with the people who committed looting and vandalism.

I dont understand it, but I think I can sympathize, Easley said. It seems as if theres nothing ever done unless theres violence.

Some said the destruction stemmed from the same frustration and anger that spawned peaceful protests.

So many people have this pent-up emotion, this pent-up rage, and people just end up lashing out, said Jabari Jones, president of the West Philadelphia Corridor Collaborative, the largest coalition of small businesses in the neighborhood. Weve tried everything. Nobody is listening to us.

Empathy didnt mean people condoned the destruction, though. Fire gutted one business, Kings Men & Women, which sells custom clothes, uniforms, and Sixers and Eagles gear. The city has given the business 30 days to repair the building, or it will be condemned. Damage to pharmacies, ATMs, and check-cashing businesses have not yet been repaired, depriving the community of access to money and medication.

Amir Hussian, owner of Variety Plus, said looters took $100,000 in jewelry and watches. He has no insurance, and his finances are already dire because of the pandemic-driven shutdown.

How we gonna support the family? he said. I have a couple of kids. My wifes not working.

Questioned police response

The Philadelphia Police Department is conducting an internal review of that day, a spokesperson said, and declined to comment on what prompted the police presence there. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier said she had seen social media posts on May 31 that encouraged people to target stores on 52nd Street.

As the people who were there, mostly young people, ratcheted up their aggression, Gauthier said, the police also ratcheted up their aggression pretty quickly.

Officers initially used tear gas to dispel looters at a Foot Locker, but later fired tear gas on empty streets and at bystanders. One canister landed on a familys front porch. Groups of young people gathered later in the day not to loot, Gauthier said, but to confront police about how they patrol the neighborhood, interact with young black residents, and use force.

Gauthier returned to the street that night to act as a go-between for police and the protesters, and facilitated a phone call between Mayor Jim Kenney and protesters.

 HELP US REPORT: Are you a health care worker, medical provider, government worker, patient, frontline worker or other expert? We want to hear from you.

After the destruction May 31, National Guard members in military fatigues, driving military vehicles, and carrying soldiers weaponry patrolled 52nd Street, supplementing police. About 20% of the Pennsylvania National Guard are from within 50 miles of Philadelphia, said Lt. Col. Keith Hickox, a Guard spokesperson, and theres recognition of the sensitivity needed in the citys neighborhoods right now.

Its definitely more complicated compared to operations where weve been in Philadelphia for the papal visit and the Democratic convention, Hickox said.

West Phillys Main Street

About 60 years ago, 52nd Street was a flourishing black enclave. Older residents remember jazz clubs and movie theaters, a place that wedded economic prosperity to cultural cache. In the decades since the deindustrialization of cities, disinvestment, and misguided efforts to compete with suburban shopping malls contributed to the communitys decline. The neighborhood hit a nadir in the 2000s. A prolonged and deeply disruptive repair project on the El caused some businesses to fold. Crime and the drug trade became rampant. The Daily News in 2007 called 52nd and Market Streets the citys deadliest corner.

More recently, though, property values have gone up, unemployment has gone down, and the corridor is again hosting cultural events. It remains a predominantly black neighborhood where about half of the businesses along 52nd Street are now black-owned. Gauthier noted that periods of disruption can attract outside speculators. She wants the city to support Enterprise Center plans to acquire properties along the corridor and make them available to locally owned businesses.

We need to focus ourselves on preserving the culture and identity of 52nd Street as a center of black culture, said Gauthier, who was elected to represent the area last November.

 READ MORE: In a plan for a safer, vibrant 52nd Street, worried West Philly neighbors see gentrification looming

Easley, one of the faces of the new 52nd Street, wanted to bring high-quality eye care to a community that lacked it. She went to 11 banks before she could get a loan, which, along with $43,000 of her own money, allowed her to open three years ago. Along with running the business, shes active in charitable efforts benefiting the neighborhood. On Thursday, she was on a panel with Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden as he unveiled an economic plan.

Shes also among business owners reeling because of the coronavirus shutdown. I was closed for two months, she said. I need business right now.

Hussian, whose shop lost so much merchandise, hasnt been able to pay his $2,000-a-month rent most of this year. I got four month rent I dont pay, he said. How am I gonna pay?

The community didnt take long to rally around the wounded corridor. On June 1, the day after looting and vandalism, hundreds came to 52nd Street. They swept glass and picked up trash.

Turnout was amazing, said Sadiyah Sabree, 52nd Street commercial corridor manager for the Enterprise Center, a nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing the neighborhood. Most of the debris on the sidewalk and in the street was cleaned up in a matter of hours.

 READ MORE: Black owned dont loot: For some business owners, signs show solidarity  and provide protection

Revitalizing black and brown neighborhoods

Jones fears that wealthier, whiter areas of the city will be prioritized over 52nd Street for robust investment to help recover from the pandemic, economic depression, and the recent destruction.

Predominantly black and brown neighborhoods are typically the last to receive resources, he said.

He is assembling volunteer lawyers and insurance professionals to help business and property owners file insurance claims. (They can be reached at 610-304-8529.) The Enterprise Center has received tens of thousands of dollars that can be used to support small businesses affected by looting and damage. It is also in the process of opening a satellite office on 52nd Street.

The center administers its own low-interest loan program and the federal Paycheck Protection Program loans designed to offset the revenue lost during the pandemic, but so far only 10 businesses have sought help applying for relief and received funds. A dozen more are in the process of applying. Many are staying away because of the complexity of the application, said Jesse Blitzstein, director of community and economic development for the Enterprise Center. They also are afraid to assume any debt as theyve had no income.

City Council is using $25 million from a reserve fund to bolster an array of programs, some of which could help shuttered businesses and those damaged in recent weeks, but whats needed, officials said, is a coordinated effort.

At this point, theres no real kind of comprehensive program to help with all that, Gauthier said.

Programs to help business owners become property owners, and to help property owners maximize the value of their buildings, would be a major support for the community, Blitzstein said. Along 52nd Street many buildings second stories are boarded up. Rehab programs that could turn that space into apartments or offices could give owners financial stability.

The city is working to identify resources, a spokesperson said, for businesses struggling after recent damage.

Gauthier said budget plans to reduce funding to the commerce department could hurt neighborhoods such as the 52nd Street corridor.

Restoration is underway, though. Kings Men & Women remains a burned-out husk, but McDonalds, with windows boarded up, has reopened. Repairs have progressed at SunRay Pharmacy, which was looted. All the business owners who have spoken with representatives from the Enterprise Center said they plan to reopen.

On Sunday, two weeks after vandalism and the police response shattered the corridor, a group of young people gathered at 52nd and Hazel Streets with a banner saying, Heal the Hood. Many were twentysomethings who had grown up in West Philadelphia and since moved away.

When I saw 52nd Street burning, my first thought was, OK, I have to do something, said Alliyah Francis, 24, a Philadelphia high school teacher.

Her group has raised money to buy goods from black-owned businesses to give to people in the community. She and other organizers see themselves as beginning to build the legacy of the protests and unrest on the street  young people with a different perspective on American race relations taking leadership from their parents and grandparents.

It comes from people knowing themselves at this point, said Rakirah Fisher, 23, another teacher. Theres hella awareness right now.
Testing WhatsApp payments started in India in 2018, but the feature is yet to be rolled out officially.

WhatsApp has launched its payments feature in Brazil today. WhatsApp Payments will be powered by the Facebook Pay technology and the payments are going to be processed by Brazilian fintech company Cielo.

Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook to announce the launch today, We're making sending and receiving money as easy as sharing photos. We're also enabling small businesses to make sales right within WhatsApp, he explained in his post.

Brazil was the second country to get WhatsApp Payments after India. While it has been officially rolled out in Brazil, its still on testing mode here due to regulatory roadblocks. WhatsApp started testing its payments feature in India in 2018.

For its Brazil chapter, WhatsApp has tied up with several local merchants and users can chat with them and make payments easily. You will need to add your debit or credit card details just one time to start the payments process. For now, WhatsApp Payments in Brazil is supporting credit cards from Visa, Mastercard, Banco Do Brasil, Nubank and Sicredi networks.

Sending money or purchasing anything on WhatsApp is free for individuals. Businesses, however, will need to pay a processing fee to receive payments that customers have paid. Going forward, WhatsApp wants to let people use a single card across all of Facebooks suite of apps and services.

Zuckerberg had announced earlier this year that WhatsApp Payments will be launched in several countries over the next six months.
Sherry Li has lived in her Bathurst Street bachelor apartment since 2018. She counts on her window air conditioner to make her home comfortable during Torontos sweaty summers.

When she received a notice from her landlord Greenwin Inc. last winter, stating window units must be removed, Li called building management.

What I took away from the conversation, she said, (the building manager) was saying they dont want them in for the winter, which made sense to me, so I took it out.

In May, after she reinstalled her window unit, Li received another notice that stated window air conditioners were no longer allowed due to a policy change in January requiring air conditioners be stand-alone, portable models.

Greenwin, which manages some Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) units as well as privately owned buildings, said the change is about safety following the death of a toddler by a falling AC unit last year.

TCHC decided to get rid of window air conditioners in its buildings and Greenwin, along with other private property management companies, followed suit.

Greenwin advised tenants in January to switch to portable air conditioners to allow time to make the change before summer.

In cases where tenants reached out to let us know they were struggling to comply with the policy, accommodations were made on a case-by-case basis. For some, this meant deferring enforcement of the policy for the year as long as the AC unit met the safety regulations necessary to mitigate risk to any persons at the residential complex. For others, this meant working together to create a rent-to-own payment plan for floor model AC units, said an email from the company.

Li agrees with making air conditioners safe so she bought an undermount and window locks to secure her second-floor unit. But she has not removed or replaced her window air conditioner.

Nor should she, said Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations.

Tenants like Li, who live under the terms of a lease that does not specify the landlords new policy against window units, arent obliged to take out or replace their air conditioners, he said.

If youve had an air conditioning unit you can keep it. Your landlord cant introduce new charges or rules without your consent. If they think your unit isnt safe, they can tell you what you need to do to make it safe, he said.

The issue of safety around air conditioners extends to other items affixed to buildings such as planters and satellite dishes.

If its properly installed, youre going to be fine. The issue is things (that) are improperly installed. Ultimately youre a tenant and (if) you install it, its your liability, he said.

Dents fear is that some tenants will, acting on their landlords wishes, remove their air conditioners and end up endangering their lives. There have been cases where seniors have died as a result of the heat.

Lis neighbour Alex Chiao said the landlord has warned him off the use of a window air conditioner every year for the five he has lived there. This year he received three notices by June.

Chiaos mother, who also lives in the building and has health issues, has also received notices to remove her air conditioner.

Chiao only uses the AC when the temperature exceeds 24 or 25 degrees Celsius, mostly for the comfort of his 16-year-old dog that pants when it gets hot.

Otherwise I open the windows and would rather crack a fan. I prefer that kind of air, he said.

Chiao said three inspections over the past five years have verified that his air conditioner unit is secure and has been properly installed.

Li said the notices initially made her think she could be evicted.

I dont want to leave. I feel worried about that. I dont have somewhere else to go.

She and a neighbour in a nearby Greenwin-run building are working to organize a tenants association for information sharing.

Greenwin said its tenants have always required management permission to install air conditioners. Ongoing inspections of its buildings revealed that many window mounted AC units were outdated and improperly installed.

We understand that asking our tenants to replace their window-mounted AC units with floor models may not be a popular decision, but we will always stand by the fact that the safety of our tenants, staff and visitors is our top priority, said an email responding to questions from the Star.

TCHC has removed 7,500 window units and replaced them with portable air conditioners. Its part of a phased removal program that will be completed by this time next year, said a spokesperson. There are still some window units in TCHC town homes, three-storey apartment buildings and some hung over balconies that are considered less risky than those that could potentially fall directly to the ground below.

The spokesperson confirmed that the window units are all tenant owned but the housing agency is paying for the stand-alone replacements.
Sensex, Nifty Updates: Market indices Sensex and Nifty fell majorly by the second hour of session and closed over 1.6% lower each, amid weak global equities. Domwstic markets were in trading on a bearish note on Monday, in line with weak Asian counterparts and oil prices amid concerns of a rise in domestic coronavirus cases and second wave of coronavirus arising out of Beijing. Sensex ended 552 points lower to 33,228, and Nifty closed 159 points lower to 9,813. Countering Wall Street, Asian counterparts traded on a bearish note today, as investors sentiments were stance over the fears of a second wave of coronavirus. With signs that the deadly disease is coming back in China and seeing a resurgence in the United States too, investor optimism about economic recovery is beginning to fade, experst suggested. Companies set to announce their earnings are Tata Motors, Ashoka Buildcon, Can Fin Home, CSB Bank, JK Tyre, Pfizer, Shalby, Shoppers Stop and Ramky Infra among others.

Here's a look at the updates of the market action on BSE and NSE today

3.45 PM: Closing

Market indices Sensex and Nifty fell majorly by the second hour of session and closed over 1.6% lower each, amid weak global equities. Domwstic markets were in trading on a bearish note on Monday, in line with weak Asian counterparts and oil prices amid concerns of a rise in domestic coronavirus cases and second wave of coronavirus arising out of Beijing. Sensex ended 552 points lower to 33,228, and Nifty closed 159 points lower to 9,813.

3. 35 PM: Cadila Healthcare share price gains over 2.5%

Cadila Healthcare share price climbed 2.58% to hit a new 52-wek high of Rs 383.65 today after the company said its sunsidiary Zydus has signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc, to manufacture and market Remdesivir.

3.27PM: Castrol India share price falls over 4% post results

Castrol India share price touched an intraday low of Rs 116.85, falling 4.14% on BSE after the company posted its Q4 results.

The company net profit stood at Rs 125.2 crore versus Rs 185 crore in the same period a year ago. Company's revenue came in at Rs 688 crore as compared to Rs 976.2 crore on a yearly basis.

3.12 PM: Astrazeneca Pharma share price

Astrazeneca Pharma share price opened with a gain of 3.57% today and later touched an intraday high of Rs 3470, rising 7.83% on BSE after the company announced that it plans to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine to European Union countries. The company will begin delivering the vaccine to European countries by the end of this year under the agreement with the Inclusive Vaccine Alliance, formed this month by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

3.04 PM: RIL erases early gains, trades lower

Shares of Reliance Industries rose 1.4% at Monday's opening bell today, after L Catterton announced it will invest Rs 1,894.50 crore in exchange for a 0.39% stake in company's Jio Platforms,

The investment from L Catterton, the world's largest consumer-focused private equity firm, recorded as the tenth investment in the Reliance Industries (RIL) digital unit since the last seven weeks. Earlier, private equity firm TPG also announced that it has invested Rs 4,546.80 crore for a 0.93% stake.

However, amid weakness in general market trend, the shares of RIL gave up early gains and traded 0.59% lower at Rs 1,579 onBSE, by the later half of the session.

2.45PM: Market Update

BSE mid cap and small cap indices fell 134 and 10 points respectively in afternoon trade. All 19 BSE sectoral indices were trading in the red. Banking stocks led the losses with BSE bankex falling 878 points to 22,620. BSE consumer durables index too fell 366 points to 20,079.

Bank Nifty too plunged 765 points or 3.71% to 19,889. Market breadth was negative with 1084 stocks rising against 1204 falling on BSE. 154 stocks were unchanged.

2.40 PM: WPI inflation contracts 3.21% in May

The annual rate of inflation based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI) contracted 3.21 per cent for May, 2020 as compared to 2.79 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year. Fuel and power have the biggest contribution in bringing WPI down in May, the official data released on Monday showed. The WPI data has been released by the government after suspending it for a month. The figure stood at 1 per cent in March, the last month whose headline figure is available. "Due to limited information available for the month of April 2020, the provisional figures of May-2020 are compared with final figures of March 2020," Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) said.

2.30 PM: Market Update

All 30 Sensex stocks except M&M were trading in the red. M&M share gained 0.71% at 12:00 pm. IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank were the top Sensex losers falling up to 6.25%.

2. 10 PM: JM Financial Limited raises Rs 770 crore through QIP issue

JM Financial Limited has announced the successful closure of its Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP). The company has issued and allotted 11 crore equity shares of the face value of Re.1 each to qualified institutional buyers at an issue price of Rs 70 each (including a securities premium of Rs 69 per equity share), aggregating to Rs 770 crore.

1. 42 PM: Gold outlook

Expressing vies on Gold's near term outlook, Hareesh V, Head Commodity Research at Geojit Financial Services said,"Gold's safe haven demand remains on the higher side due to fears of a second wave of coronavirus spread in China and a weaker U.S dollar. Meanwhile, hopes of recuperating global economic sentiments as many countries eased lockdown restrictions likely to limit major gains in the commodity.

On its technical outlook (London spot), he added," Buying momentum is likely to continue as long as prices stay above $1710. However, strong resistances are seen at $1740 followed by $1780 levels. The immediate downside reversal point is $1645."

1. 30 PM: Tata Motors Q4 results today

Tata Motors is scheduled to announce the March quarter results on Monday and brokerages expect the company to post over Rs 2,600 crore loss. Sales may see a substantial negative impact due to the coronavirus crisis and weak performance of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the analysts said. Analysts at Kotak Securities expect the loss at Rs 2,667 crore for the quarter. The consolidated revenue is likely to fall 28.5 per cent on-year to Rs 61,803 crore, the domestic brokerage also said.

Tata Motors Q4 results: Brokerages expect Rs 2,600 cr loss as sales fall amid coronavirus crisis

1.25PM: Aarti Industries share price drops over 7%

Aarti Industries share price touched an intraday low of Rs 850.95, falling 7.32% on BSE today after the company announced that it has lost a high value contract as customer opts for sourcing API rather than manufacturing it.

1.12 PM: Nifty outlook

Technical indicators suggest that markets may see further consolidation and Nifty index could range between 9,600-10,300. Where Selling zone of the index lies around 10050 - 10100, its buying zone trades around 9850 - 9750.

12. 59 PM: SBI Life offer for sale to open today

Expressing vies on SBI Life offer for sale that opens and closes today, Angel Broking in its report said," SBI Life, with its strong brand name and wide distribution network, is one of the best plays for Indian Life Insurance industry. Further, historically, insurance products have seen growth post pandemic scenario."

It added," At the cut off rate Rs 742.6, the offer for sale is offered at 2.7x its Embedded Value of Rs 27,640 crore. We believe SBI Life will continue to gain market share considering its bancassurance strength and operational efficiency. Hence, we recommended investors to "SUBSCRIBE" to the issue with long term perspective."

12. 44 PM: Saudi Aramco to reduce volume of July-loading crude

World's largest oil exporter Saudi Aramco has reduced the volume of July-loading crude that it will supply to at least five buyers in Asia, seven sources said on Monday. The cuts were mainly for medium and heavy grades and were seen at refineries in countries such as China, the sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Oil major Saudi Aramco cuts July crude supplies to 5 buyers in Asia

12. 34 PM: Oil falls today

International oil benchmark Brent crude futures fell 2.01 per cent to USD 37.95 per barrel.

12. 15 PM: Market capitalisation on BSE falls to Rs 132.24 lakh crore

Indian markets started first trading session of this week on a weak note with Sensex tumbling 783 points and Nifty losing 225 points in early trade today. That led to a fall in investor wealth by Rs 1.76 lakh crore. Market capitalisation on BSE fell to Rs 132.24 lakh crore compared to Rs 134 lakh crore on June 12. Sensex and Nifty followed their Asian counterparts which were hit by resurgence of coronavirus cases in China and Wall Street posting its worst week in nearly three months.

Why Sensex fell 800 points in early trade today

12.00 PM: Rupee slips 13 paise to 75.97 per dollar

The Indian rupee depreciated 13 paise to 75.97 against the US dollar on Monday amid weak domestic equities and sustained foreign fund outflows that weighed on investor sentiments.

Fresh cases of COVID-19 globally further waned off risk appetite.

At the interbank forex market, the rupee opened weak at 75.93, down 13 paise over its last close of 75.84 against the US dollar on Friday.

Rupee slips 13 paise to 75.97 per dollar amid weak domestic equities, sustained foreign fund outflows

11.46 AM: Eicher Motor share price gains over 3%

Eicher Motors share price rose in early trade today despite the Royal Enfield maker posting a 44.15 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit for the quarter ended March 2020. Eicher Motors share price gained 3.01% to touch an intraday high of Rs 17,367 on BSE. The share is trading higher than 5 day, 20 day, 50 day and 100 day moving averages but lower than 200 day moving averages.

Eicher Motors share price gains 3% despite weak Q4 earnings

11.34 AM: Coronavirus toll

India saw a jump of over 11,000 cases for the third consecutive day on Monday, taking the total number of infections to over 3.32 lakh, while the death toll rose to 9,520 with 325 more fatalities, the Health Ministry said.

Globally, the number of cases linked to the disease has crossed 79.12 lakh and the death toll has topped 4.33 lakh.

11. 27 AM: Market update

Market indices Sensex and Nifty fell majorly by the second hour of session and dropped over 2% each, amid weak global equities. Domwstic markets were in trading on a bearish note on Monday, in line with weak Asian counterparts and oil prices amid concerns of a rise in domestic coronavirus cases and second wave of coronavirus arising out of Beijing. Sensex fell 738 points lower to 33,042, and Nifty fell 203 points lower to 9,769.

11.19 AM: Top losers and gainers

IndusInd Bank, followed by Tata Steel, Bajaj Finance, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, NTPC, SBI, HDFC Bank and SBI were among the top laggards in the Sensex pack. On the other hand, Sun Pharma, Infosys, Nestle India and Asian Paints were among the top gainers.

11.00 AM: Earnings Today

Tata Motors, Ashoka Buildcon, Can Fin Home, CSB Bank, JK Tyre, Pfizer, Shalby, Shoppers Stop and Ramky Infra among others are the companies that will announce Q4 results today.

10. 45 AM: Reliance Industries' partially paid rights share debuts at Rs 690

Reliance's partially paid rights issue Rs 690 per share in today's session on NSE, as against the base price of Rs 646. The stock hit an intraday high of Rs 710.65 and low of Rs 671.55. On the BSE, it was trading at Rs 684.

On June 11, the allotment of partly paid-up shares to the demat accounts of the shareholders was completed by RIL. "Effective from Monday, June 15, 2020, the new securities of Reliance Industries Ltd (Scrip Code: 890147) shall be listed and permitted to trade on the Exchange in the list of 'A' Group of Securities," BSE said. The part right shares of Reliance Industries were listed on the stock markets under the name of RELIANCEPP, with an ISIN number of IN9002A01024.

Reliance Industries' rights issue share debuts at Rs 690

10. 30 AM: Rupee falls past 76 per dollar

Rupee, the Indian rupee, fell 21 paise at 76.05 per dollar as against the last close of 75.84 per dollar

10. 15 AM: BHEL stock price declines over 9% porst results

BHEL stock price opened with a loss of 7.63% today and later fell to an intraday low of Rs 28.45, falling 9.54% on BSE after the firm announced its Q4 results.

The company on Saturday reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 1,468.35 crore for FY20 as against a net profit of Rs 1,002.42 crore in FY19. Total income decreased to Rs 22,054.31 crore from Rs 31,102.90 crore in the previous fiscal, BHEL said in an exchange filing on Saturday.

BHEL posts net loss of Rs 1,468 crore for FY20, total income falls

10.10 AM:DLF share price falls over 2%

DLF share price touched an intraday low of Rs 151, falling 2.01% on BSE after the company announced waiving up to 100% of base rent for tenants amid coronavirus crisis. While the rent will be as per billed terms for March until lockdown, zero MG rent has been proposed from start of lockdown until June 15, 2020.

DLF to waive up to 100% of base rent for tenants amid coronavirus crisis

10.00 AM: Market Update

Market indices Sensex and Nifty traded on a bearish note on Monday, backed by weak Asian counterparts and oil prices amid concerns of second wave of coronavirus arising out of Beijing. Sensex fell 361 points lower to 33,420, and Nifty fell 110 points lower to 9,826.

9.45 AM: Wall Street ended higher

Stocks rose broadly on Wall Street on Friday, following a drastic drop in prior session. The benchmark indices after posting its worst week in nearly three months headed for a weekly loss following three weeks of solid gains.

The rebound for stocks is a reversal for the market, which sold off for three days in a row as a rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and a discouraging economic outlook from the Federal Reserve dashed investor optimism for a quick economic recover as states lift stay-at-home orders and businesses reopen.

Wall Street stocks bounce back up a day after big rout

9. 35 AM: Asian equities fall amid surge of COVID-19 cases in Beijing

Asian shares were falling on Monday, in line with oil prices as fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections in Beijing kept investors cautious and kept the demand for safe-havens high. Meanwhile, underwhelming data from China further weighed on investors' sentiment.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.3% with Australian shares off 0.1% and South Korea easing 0.3%. Japan's Nikkei faltered 0.7%. Chinese shares opened in the red with the blue-chip index down 0.1%.

Asian stocks, oil prices slip amid concerns of second wave of coronavirus infections in Beijing

9. 16 AM: Opening bell

Market indices Sensex and Nifty opened lower on Monday, backed by weak Asian counterparts and oil prices amid concerns of second wave of coronavirus arising out of Beijing. Sensex fell 220 points lower to 33,458, and Nifty fell 53 points lower to 9,919. SGX Nifty also traded 35 points lower, indicating negative trend in domestic grounds today. Markets globally traded on a bearish note today, as investors sentiments were stance over the fears of a second wave of coronavirus.

9.05 AM: Stocks to watch today on June 15

Hindalco Industries, Dr Reddys, Lupin, PNB Housing, BHEL, UTI AMC, Eicher Motors, RIL, MCX among others are the top stocks to watch out for in Monday's trading session

Stocks in news: Hindalco Industries, Dr Reddys, Lupin, PNB Housing, BHEL, UTI AMC, Eicher Motors, RIL, MCX

8. 50 AM: Earnings today

Companies set to announce their earnings are Tata Motors, Ashoka Buildcon, Can Fin Home, CSB Bank, JK Tyre, Pfizer, Shalby, Shoppers Stop and Ramky Infra among others.

8.40 AM: Market Expectations

Market indices Sensex and Nifty are likely to open lower on Monday, backed by weak Asian counterparts.SGX Nifty also traded 35 points lower, indicating negative trend in domestic grounds today. Markets globally traded on a bearish note today, as investors sentiments were stance over the fears of a second wave of coronavirus.

8.30 AM: Coronavirus Toll

India saw a record single-day spike of 11,929 coronavirus cases, taking the total to 3.21 lakh cases, including 1.63 lakh cured cases and 9,195 deaths.

8.20 AM: Rupee Closing

On the currency front, Rupee ended lower at 75.84 per dollar as compared to its last close of 75.79 against the US dollar on Thursday.

8.10 AM: FII/ DII action

On a net basis, FIIs offloaded Rs 1,311 crore, while DIIs bought Rs 1,945 crore worth in equities on Friday

8.00 AM: Closing bell

On Friday, BSE Sensex ended 242 points higher at 33,780 and NSE Nifty closed 70 points higher at 9,972.

Sensex ends 242 points higher, Nifty at 9,972 amid recovery in overseas equities
France launched a coalition of West African and European allies on Friday to combat extremism in the Sahel region, with sources saying the increased cooperation would help secure a military victory despite rising jihadi violence.

The coalition, first announced at the Pau summit in January in the wake of attacks killing over 200 soldiers, was ratified during virtual meetings of more than 40 defence and foreign ministers.

It aims to strengthen the capacities of African armies and their coordination with French and international forces, with action concentrated on the so-called "three borders" area between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

We express our determination to work for the security and development of the Sahel by supporting the efforts of the G5, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a tweet Friday.

The new structure brings the so-called G5 Sahel states of Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Mauritania, plus France's 5,000-strong force and any future troops under a single command.

Multilateral approach

Countries that have signed up include Canada, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, whose role will be to provide support to regional armies and financial aid.

This is a good example of the new multilateralism that the world needs today, Le Drian said.

Paris has long sought more support from other European countries and cooperation between Sahel states.

The former colonial power has deployed thousands of soldiers in the arid region south of the Sahara desert since 2013. But it has so far been unable to stifle violence by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

"The seriousness of the crisis in the Sahel, the urgent need to act and the scale of the needs require a stronger, more inclusive response," according to the foreign ministry's website.

Border attack

An attack Thursday on Cote d'Ivoire's border with Burkina Faso was a poignant reminder of the gravity of the crisis and the difficult task facing the coalition in securing peace.

Story continues

The attack by suspected jihadists killed around 10 people and was the first assault by Islamist extremists on Ivorian soil since March 2016, when a raid on the southeastern beach resort of Grand-Bassam left 19 people dead.

Despite this latest setback, Paris and its partners want to put their woes behind them.

"Today in the Sahel, victory is possible. And it is the perception that is taking hold among our partners," a source at the Elysee told reporters.

Last week, France and Sahel forces killed Al-Qaedas North Africa chief Abdelmalek Droukdel, the historic head of jihad in the Maghreb and a mentor of several Sahelian jihadist groups.

Rights abuses

However, such gains have been overshadowed by allegations of extrajudicial killings of civilians by national armies.

Soldiers in Mali are suspected of killing 43 people in two villages last week.

If there are exactions against civilians, you cannot expect their collaboration, Drissa Traore, a Malian human rights activist, told a news conference on Thursday.

Malis Foreign Minister Tiebile Drame said recent allegations would go to tribunals, while Le Drian urged accountability.

The return of national forces (...) must take place in an atmosphere of trust," he insisted.

"As allegations of abuses continue to grow, it is therefore crucial to fight firmly against any form of impunity".
The Earth Empusa threat group is distributing new Android spyware, dubbed ActionSpy, through watering hole attacks to targets Turkic minority group.

Researchers warn that the Earth Empusa (aka POISON CARP/Evil Eye) threat group is targeting the Uyghurs, a Turkic minority ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia, with new Android spyware dubbed ActionSpy.

The threat actors are spreading the malware through watering hole attacks targeting Tibet, Turkey, and Taiwan,

The malware was first spotted in April 2020, but experts believe the ActionSpy spyware has been active at least since 2017.

The spyware leverages a sequence of iOS exploits in the wild since 2016, since April 2020 ActionSpy is being spread via several pages distributed in the wild via phishing emails disguised as a download page of an Android video application that is popular in Tibet.

ActionSpy, which may have been around since 2017, is an Android spyware that allows the attacker to collect information from the compromised devices, reads the report published by Trend Micro. It also has a module designed for spying on instant messages and collecting chat logs from four different instant messaging applications.

Attackers injected the malicious code to deploy the spyware in websites, some of them were actually fake. One of the pages used to deliver the malicious code replicated news pages from the World Uyghur Congress website.

The pages were injected with a script to load the cross-site scripting framework BeEF used to selectively deliver their malicious script.

Unfortunately, Trend Micro researchers were not able to detect any script while accessing the phishing pages employed in the watering hole attacks.

In addition, we have also identified a news website and political party website in Turkey that have been compromised and injected with the same attack. In a more recent development, we found the same injection on a university website as well as a travel agency site based in Taiwan in March 2020. continues the analysis. These developments have led as to believe that Earth Empusa is widening the scope of their targets.

The configuration of the ActionSpy is encrypted by DES and the decryption key is generated in native code, it includes the C&C server address. The traffic between C&C and ActionSpy is encrypted by RSA and transferred via HTTP.

Every 30 seconds, ActionSpy will collect basic device information, including IMEI, phone number, manufacturer, battery status, and send it to the C&C server. The server, in turn, may send some commands to the compromised device.

ActionSpy supports multiple modules that allow the spyware to implement a broad range of capabilities, including collect device location, contact info, call logs and SMS messages, make a device connect or disconnect to Wi-Fi, take photos with the camera and screenshots of the device and get chat logs from messaging apps (WhatsApp, China messaging services like QQ and WeChat, and Japanese messaging tool Viber).

ActionSpy prompts users to turn on the Android Accessibility service claiming that it is a memory garbage cleaning service.

Upon enabling the Accessibility service, ActionSpy will monitor AccessibilityEvents on the device.

We have observed these injections on multiple Uyghur-related sites since the start of 2020. In addition, we have also identified a news website and political party website in Turkey that have been compromised and injected with the same attack. In a more recent development, we found the same injection on a university website as well as a travel agency site based in Taiwan in March 2020. concludes the report. These developments have led as to believe that Earth Empusa is widening the scope of their targets.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs  Earth Empusa, cybersecurity)
Capt Amarinder and Narendra Modi

Chandigarh: Stressing that the coronavirus challenge is likely to stay for long, the Punjab government sought a fiscal aid of over Rs 80,000 crore from the Centre to save lives and secure lovelihoods'.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed towards a 'large-scale devastation and distress' caused to the state due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Capt Amarinder Singh and Narendra ModiThe Centre's urgent intervention was needed to avert any major socio-economic upheaval in the coming future, as also to assure our next generations of safe living and security of livelihood, said the CM demanding an aid of Rs 80,845 crore.

Singh also emphasised the need for 'administrative, structural and even statutory changes' to ensure the safety and security of people in the new normal, given that the pandemic is here to stay for a long time.

The Punjab government feels that states alone cannot meet the new challenges, therefore, in the true spirit of cooperative federalism, needs the Union government to assist them in an unusually big way, which the country has never seen since the Independence in 1947, the CM said.

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The Punjab chief minister in a statement said a direct fiscal stimulus of Rs 26,400 crore and the waiver of the long-term CCL (cash credit limit) debt was extremely necessary for the fiscal recovery of the state.

Punjab Government Additionally, all central schemes should be 100 per cent funded by the Centre in 2020-21, the CM urged.

The Punjab government also sought Rs 6,603 crore for improvement in the state's public health infrastructure.

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Besides, the state will need an estimated Rs 15,975 crore for the upgrade of farm-gate infrastructure, one-time debt waiver, providing income support and interest subvention.

To contain the Covid-19 contagion in the rural areas, Rs 5,068 crore will be required for liquid and solid waste management in the villages, the CM demanded.

Capt Amarinder SinghTo meet the post-Covid online and other educational needs, the state has sought an assistance of Rs 3,080 crore, with another Rs 8 crore for online training and stipend at Rs 1,000 per month for students during the lockdown period.

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The government also sought Rs 757 crore for new and renewable energy sector, Rs 571 crore for border area development and Rs 326 crore for the transport sector.

Besides seeking Rs 5,040 crore as fiscal assistance for the welfare of migrant labourers, the CM demanded that the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act should be revamped to safeguard their interests and basic rights.

The government also sought support for trade and industry, especially micro, small and medium enterprises.
Ector County reported 22 more cases of coronavirus on Monday, making the total 260. Two of the new cases are inmates at Ector County jail.

There are 63 probable cases at this time, according to the health department website. ECHD reported that 167 people have recovered. There have been 3,415 tests taken, with 3,000 negative results and 155 pending results. ECHD has contacted 2,306 people during contact tracing.
Amazon Said to Consider Site in Syosset for New Warehouse

Business & Finance

By Ls Cohen Published: June 15 2020

The Cerro Wire property under consideration has been abandoned for decades.

After it was vacated in the mid-1980s, the site of the former Cerro Wire factory lay dormant, waiting for the right mix of ideas and community buy-in for it to be developed. The latest, according to an exclusive report recently published in Newsday, is an Amazon warehouse.

Supervisor Joseph Saladino said last week that he had seen plans for a 200,000-square-foot warehouse on the site, though Amazon officials declined to comment on whether they were looking at the site, the paper reported.

The warehouse would be a jobs-creator for the area.

The Cero Wire site had been mired in controversy due to possible toxic contamination at the site, as reported in a 1992 New York Times story.

The company disposed of more than a million gallons of toxic waste water on its own property, the paper reported.

Over the years, there have been attempts to develop the site, all of which failed.

Nearly 40 acres of the property was once home to a plant for the Cerro Wire and Cable Corporation, which manufactured and improperly disposed of copper rods and cables for decades, reported Richard Murdocco, a public policy and planning expert who teaches in the public policy graduate program at Stony Brook University.

After the plant closed in 1986, the Tribune Company bought the property three years later with the intention of building a printing plant for the New York Daily News," he wrote. "But that project never got off the ground and Tribune turned over control of the parcel to Taubman Centers, a suburban Detroit-based shopping center REIT.

In February, LongIsland.com reported that the online shopping behemoth was looking at a property in Carle Place for its latest last mile distribution center on Long Island. The site at 2 Westbury Avenue was formerly the home of a Waldbaums grocery store but has been vacant for several years.

You can read the full story here.

Last mile distribution points are important to Amazons strategy in that it allows for quicker delivery of popularly purchased items to customers. It serves as the hub for goods shipped to their final destination, usually your front door. This network of distribution centers is what makes it possible for Amazon to ship items the next day or even the same day.

Amazon was tightlipped on its future plans on Long Island.

According to reports, Amazon had already signed a 15 year lease on the Carle Place property and they expect to be up and running by Fall 2020 although Covid-19 would most likely push those plans back.
TCN News

66 members of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) have demanded the immediate release of JMI activist, Safoora Zargar.

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The official solidarity statement has come after the five months pregnant Safoora was denied bail for the third time last week by New Delhis Patiala Court. IIM-B is the latest in addition to the increasing voices in condemning her current detention at Tihar Jail. A couple of days back, American Bar Associations Center for Human Rights had urged the Indian government to order her immediate release as it was against international law to detain a pregnant woman unless serious charges are found against her, which in Safooras case the Center ruled the detention does not appear to meet international human rights standards.

Individual signatories of the IIM-B statement alleged that Safoora and other students who were actively protesting against the draconian CAA have been languishing in jails under false charges. The list of anti-CAA protestors arbitrarily detained includes professors as well as senior citizens, who are more susceptible to catching the COVID-19 infection in already over-crowded prisons.

The statement has accused the government of selective outrage as the real perpetrators that incited violence in Delhi, including a union minister, have gone scot-free. The signatories have further mentioned that the government has refused to pay heed to constant appeals made by them to release the activists.

The Human Rights Center of American Bar Association had demanded the Indian judiciary to uphold Indias moral and legal obligations given the pandemic and order the immediate release of Zargar.
The graph database was developed to disrupt the big data market by providing an ability to meet the biggest data information discovery needs of the worlds largest organizations.

VEsoft Inc., the developer of the Nebula Graph database, today announced it raised $8M in a series pre-A funding round. The lead investor is Redpoint China Ventures. Matrix Partners China, who previously contributed as an angel investor, also contributed to this series pre-A round. The funding will be used for additional product development and to bring Nebula Graph to market in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Nebula Graph will soon be offered as a cloud service. The graph database was developed to disrupt the big data market by providing an ability to meet the biggest data information discovery needs of the worlds largest organizations. At launch, Nebula Graph will empower users to store and process billions of data points with trillions of relational connections.

There are many business and societal possibilities behind big data that remain untapped, trapped behind limitations of existing database capabilities, said Sherman Ye, CEO and founder of VEsoft, Inc. The idea behind Nebula Graph is to unleash that hidden intelligence and were excited that Redpoint Ventures and Matrix Partners are aligned with us to do so.

About the Database Market

Graph databases are disrupting the near $50 billion market for the traditional Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). This is because large organizations today require big data and business analytics exceeding RDBMS capabilities.

Funding for graph databases like Nebula Graph has been strong. In the last two years alone, more than $130 million has been pumped into four competing graph databases. Graph databases are different from RDBMS databases because they store deep relationship characteristics about data within data itself. A graph database is capable of efficiently managing millions of transactions or more to uncover how data sets relate to each other. They essentially remove the six degrees of separation that exists within scattered data to uncover intelligence hidden within.

With a rapid growth of informatization, massive data has generated large-scale relationship networks, said David Yuan, founding and managing partner, Redpoint China Ventures. Gartner indicated that the global graph database market will grow to nearly $10 billion at a CAGR of 100 percent in the next two to three years. This provides a huge opportunity for start-ups. Since its establishment and open-source availability in May 2019, the Nebula Graph team has demonstrated strong abilities, including in-depth industrial understanding and experience in product development. The team released its first beta version of the database product in June 2019, which has been quickly accepted and recognized by some leading Internet platforms. We have great confidence in Nebula Graph's future."

About Nebula Graph

Nebula Graph is an open-source graph database. It was developed by VEsoft Inc. engineers that collectively have many years of leadership experience at some of the worlds most recognizable technology companies, such as Alibaba, Facebook, Huawei, and IBM. Currently in beta mode, it will soon be commercially available.

The database is ideal for a CIO seeking to uncover the value of connected business data. Data Architects are another ideal user, who typically look to process connected data cost-effectively. Finally, Data Scientists will find it useful to explore the value buried in connected data. There are many markets that have large amounts of information that is meaningless stored in separate silos. Nebula Graph is ideal to mine and uncover meaningful relationships in such information.

About VEsoft, Inc.

VEsoft Inc. has created Nebula Graph, the worlds most capable database for big data analytics discovery. Nebula Graph provides an industry-best capability of storing and handling billions of vertices and trillions of edges, with just milliseconds of latency. Its shared-nothing deployment architecture, removing any single point of failure and allowing fast recoveries, enables the industrys best business continuity. The company has secured series pre-A funding of $8 million with investors Redpoint China Ventures and Matrix Partners China. To learn more, visit https://nebula-graph.io/.

About Redpoint China Ventures

Redpoint China was launched in 2005 focusing on early stage investments in consumer Internet, enterprise IT services, and frontier-tech opportunities in China. Redpoint China has invested in more than 80 companies, including Qihoo 360, iDreamSky, Domob, APUS, Bangcle and Qutoutiao. Since its inaugural China focused fund in 2016, Redpoint China Ventures has become an independent platform with headquarters in Shanghai and branch offices in Beijing and Shenzhen. Currently, the firm manages close to $1 billion across multiple funds in both USD and RMB denomination. For more information visit: http://www.rpvchina.com/.

About Matrix Partners

Matrix Partners China is an early stage venture capital firm in China which was founded in 2008. During the past decade, comprehensive performance of their fund has been consistently among the best. Matrix Partners China manages $5.6 billion in total, focusing mostly on Chinese startups. The firm is the series A investor of many successful companies: Didi (ride sharing), Ele.me (food delivery), Guazi.com (second hand auto marketplace), Momo (social), Yuanfudao (online education), VIPKID (online education), Xiaopeng (electric vehicle), Lixiang (electric vehicle), and more. Matrix Partners China combines local knowledge with global experience and vision to help funded companies. The firm is committed to building long-term relationships with outstanding entrepreneurs and helping them build significant, industry-leading companies.

Note: Whether noted or not, references to certain words may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
One silver lining of the lockdown has been that the city has found many good Samaritans. A Mumbai-based caterer, who until March was supplying food for major events, started organising and distributing food for the needy in Mumbai. Bandra-resident Ashfaaq Shaikh has been distributing 1,800-2,000 meals every day in areas around Bandra, including Behrampada and in Khar Danda.

When the lockdown was announced, we were quite devastated, considering the losses we will face, said Shaikh, who founded his catering business in 2015.

I thought about the countless others who would have lost their jobs. So I got in touch with my family and friends and started arranging for meals, he said.

Shaikhs team prepares meals like dal-rice, rajma-rice, khichdi, veg pulao and egg-biryani, which they then distribute among the needy.

Shaikh has also volunteered with Khaana Chahiye, a city-based initiative that has been providing food for migrant workers, the homeless and underprivileged residents of the city.

Shaikh (extreme left) with members of the Khaana Chahiye initiative.

Shaikh said, With the Khaana Chahiye team, we used to distribute close to 800-1,000 food packets in Mahim, Bandra, Vile Parle and Juhu.

Led by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Project Mumbai and the Litmus Test Project collective, Khaana Chahiye began its activities on March 29 and has distributed 37 lakh meals so far.

Chief executive officer (CEO) of Project Mumbai, Shishir Joshi said, With Khaana Chahiye, we grew a strong volunteer base of 150 people from diverse sectors who came out to help. We also created a map where people who could fill in details about those who needed help.

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Myanmar & COVID-19 Illegal Entry to Myanmar Amid COVID-19 Will Lead to Legal Action: State Counselor Warns

Myanmar migrants crossing back into the country at the Myawaddy-Mae Sot border checkpoint in Karen State receive temperature checks and health screenings on Monday. / Thant Zin Aung / Facebook

As Myanmars efforts to contain the coronavirus continue, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi warned on Saturday that anyone who has illegally entered the country and anyone aiding them will face legal action.

Those who come into the country illegally, those who receive them knowingly, and those who cover up will be dealt with strictly and severely according to the law, she wrote, reiterating the governments stance.

Prior to her warning, the National-Level Central Committee for Prevention, Control and Treatment of COVID-19 said Wednesday that some Myanmar nationals have reentered the country illegally, despite government efforts to process returnees at official reception centers in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

The committee warned that if anyone enters Myanmar through any unauthorized entry point from a foreign country and if such person has been accepted with the knowledge that such person has entered the country illegally, it is hereby notified that legal action would be taken in accordance with prevailing laws.

Health care staff and authorities have been conducting temperature checks and health screenings of returnees at international airports, ports and border entry points. Since mid-May, all returnees have been placed into 21-day quarantine and tested for the coronavirus before being released.

As of Sunday, 27,502 migrants have returned to Myanmar through land borders from Thailand since May 23 and thousands more have returned from China. Since April 30, 3,762 Myanmar nationals have returned on repatriation flights.

All of us need to prevent and severely restrict illegal border crossing, the State Counselor wrote on her Facebook. She added, regarding those who entered illegally and did not go into quarantine, that if they carry [COVID-19] disease, it could spread to others.

She said that conducting contact tracing for illegal returnees and placing those who were potentially exposed into quarantine is a huge burden for the country but a necessary measure for the peoples safety.

She urged people to inform ward or village administrative authorities if anyone knows about any incidents that could endanger the public. Giving this type of information does not mean that you are getting someone into trouble. This is just to prevent innocent people from falling into the COVID-19 abyss, she wrote.

As of Monday, Myanmar has 262 confirmed COVID-19 cases with six deaths and 167 recoveries.

The COVID-19 central committees move comes after a number of imported COVID-19 cases were detected among those who illegally entered into western Myanmar from neighboring Bangladesh.

Since June 4, Myanmar has seen six coronavirus cases related to illegal border crossing into Maungdaw, Rakhine State in western Myanmar. Five cases were returnees who entered illegally from the Rohingya refugee camps in Coxs Bazar District of Bangladesh.

The latest patient tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday. Identified as case number 262, he is a 63-year-old Rohingya man from Buthidaung Township in Rakhine State.

According to the Rakhine State Public Health Department, he is a resident of Buthidaung, who went to visit his family in Coxs Bazar in Bangladesh on May 2 and returned to Myanmar on May 22.

Authorities were not aware when he reentered Myanmar through Maungdaw Township on his way home to Buthidaung. He was placed on home quarantine after a neighbor reported his arrival to the authorities.

The mans swab samples were taken on Saturday. As the test came back positive, 19 of his close contacts, including family members, will be quarantined and tested for the coronavirus, according to Dr. Soe Win Paing, the deputy director of the Rakhine State Public Health Department.

The neighbors reported his return from Bangladesh, but he denied traveling to Bangladesh and refused to stay in facility quarantine, so we ordered him to home quarantine, said U Soe Aung, the Maungdaw district administrator.

U Soe Aung said those who defied local district orders as well as the Health Ministrys instructions could be charged under a number of different laws, including the Prevention and Control of Communicable Diseases Law, as well as articles under the Penal Code and immigration acts.

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File image

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday held a meeting with the heads of major private sector banks, and asked them to ensure effective rollout of Rs 3-lakh crore ECLGS for the MSME sector, hit hard by coronavirus-induced lockdown. The meeting -- also attended by CEOs of major non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) -- on Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) was held through a video conference.

The Finance Minister chaired a meeting through video conference with major private banks and NBFCs to ensure effective roll out of ECLGS and uninterrupted/ smooth liquidity to Indian MSMEs in this difficult time. Debasish Panda, Secretary, Department of Financial Services, was also present in the meeting, the finance ministry said in a tweet.

As of June 11, public sector banks have sanctioned loans worth Rs 29,490.81 crore under the 100 per cent Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme. Out of this Rs 14,690.84 crore has already been disbursed.

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.
YEREVAN.  A political decision has been made that the Prosecutor General enters the National Assembly on Tuesday with a petition to strip Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary immunity and involve him as an accused. Naira Zohrabyan, an MP of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), wrote about this on her Facebook page.

"RA [Republic of Armenia] Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan still has a chance not to carry out a political order," she added, in particular.

As reported earlier, the National Security Service (NSS) on Sunday morning searched PAP leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyans mansion, then summoned him for questioning, and Tsarukyan was at the NSS for more than eight hours.

Also on Sunday, the NSS issued statements on three criminal cases involving the PAP leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than 29 billion drams in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj communitywhere Gagik Tsarukyan residesof Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased, and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about 370 million drams were not transferred to Arinj's budget.
The US city of Baltimore is deploying a controversial method of surveillance that was developed for use in Iraq.

Each time someone leaves their home in Baltimore, Maryland, their every move could be recorded from above.

The city with one of the highest murder rates in the United States has launched the Aerial Investigation Research surveillance programme. Critics say it represents a frightening erosion of peoples right to privacy, including Brett Kaufman, senior staff lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Unions National Security Program. Al Jazeera journalist Patty Culhane is on The Take discussing the programmes significant consequences for the rest of the country.

For more:

US city deploys camera-equipped planes for surveillance

The team:

Ney Alvarez produced this episode with Priyanka Tilve, Dina Kesbeh, Alexandra Locke, Amy Walters, and Malika Bilal. Natalia Aldana is the engagement producer. Alex Roldan is the sound designer. Stacey Samuel is The Takes executive producer, and Graelyn Brashear is Al Jazeeras head of audio.

Subscribe:

New episodes of the show come out every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to The Take on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen.

Connect with us:

Follow The Take on Twitter, @AJTheTake, Facebook and Instagram @ajthetake.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek scored twice as Chelsea routed QPR 7-1 in a friendly at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

The midfielder has been out for more than a year after rupturing his Achilles during a friendly at New England Revolution at the end of last season.

Billy Gilmour also scored twice with Mason Mount, Willian and Olivier Giroud netting as Frank Lampard's side warm up for the Premier League's return.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Billy Gilmour both scored twice in Sunday's rout at Stamford Bridge

Midfielder Loftus-Cheek was back in action after more than a year out with an achilles injury

Loftus-Cheek, celebrating with Ross Barkley, has made a promising return to action

N'Golo Kante started having made his comeback to training later than the majority of the squad because of safety fears amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Chelsea go to Aston Villa on Sunday as the top flight resumes after being halted by the pandemic in March.

The Blues will be looking to keep hold of their coveted fourth spot as Lampard bids to keep the club in the Champions League in his debut season in charge.

Mason Mount, Willian and Olivier Giroud (above) were also on the scoresheet against QPR

Manchester United are breathing down their necks and sit just three points behind them in fifth, while surprise packages Wolves and Sheffield United are just five points behind.

Tottenham and Arsenal also remain a threat on 41 and 40 points respectively.

Chelsea already made a statement of their intent for next season by agreeing a deal to sign highly rated Leipzig forward Timo Werner despite huge interest in the German from top clubs around Europe.

N'Golo Kante started having made his comeback to training later than most of his team-mates
Ray Szarmach, Lake County Council attorney, previously said that the council is voting on a resolution, which includes an ordinance as an attachment, so that the Plan Commission can consider the project. Under state statute, the council can make recommendations to the Plan Commission, which would then either agree with the recommendation or recommend something else before sending it back to the council, he said.
Clapping hands, heart and crown emojis. Calls to defund the Hamilton police. Wishes for a Happy Pride. And countless, yas and slay queens.

Hundreds of those comments filled the space below Pride Hamiltons live stream on its Facebook page Sunday afternoon as the citys LGBTQ community gathered to celebrate this years Pride.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the annual celebration turn virtual due to physical distancing and gathering size restrictions.

Were very disappointed that we cant be together in person, said Cameron Kroetsch, a Hamilton Pride board member. This pandemic has meant challenges for everyone and we know its disproportionately affected folks in two-spirited and LGTBQIA communities.

Hosted by Ladybird Fancypants, the celebration included sets from Hamilton-based drag queens Jizzabelle, Kamilla Flores Kameleon and Irma Vep as well as Toronto-based drag queen Priyanka.

Touching on the likeness of an actual drag show, community members commented with dollar bill emojis.

There were also performances by Hamilton musicians including Darcy Feaver, Calvin Procyon as well as Nettish.

Despite celebrating through the small screen, the sense of community could be still be felt through the dozens of shares and thousands of views.

Sunday also marked one year less a day since the Pride 2019 celebration that ended in violence and a number of arrests when radical evangelical protesters crashed the annual picnic at Gage Park.

Lawyer Scott Bergmans independent review of how Hamilton Police responded to the violence before, during and after that day dominated the conversation throughout this years event.

Made public on June 11, Bergman provided the force with 38 recommendations to aid in the repairing of a damaged relationship with the LGBTQ community and to ensure they protect them against future anti-LGBTQ aggression.

Those recommendations included a formal apology, better operational plans, a diversity audit, enhanced media training for top brass, in-depth seminars on two-spirit and LGBTQ issues and creating a full-time LGBTQ liaison solely dedicated to the file.

Ruby Hye, speaking with the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion (HCCI), said she was beyond disappointed with the suggestions.

Pointing to the bathhouse raids of 2004 and Project Rosebud, Hye also questioned how a larger police presence at Pride would help queer folks feel safe.

It fails to address the needs of Black, Indigenous and racialized queer people and trans people, said Hye. If you really spoke to the most vulnerable of us, then how are you recommending more police at Pride? It does not make any sense.

Hye, who is also one of the organizers behind the call for the defunding of the Hamilton Police, reiterated that call on Sunday.

The group is hoping to see funds from the annual police budget moved to housing, mental health supports and anti-racism strategies.

Then, talk to me about wanting to support the queer community in this city, said Hye. Im tired, and I know the rest of my people are too.

Sahra Soudi criticized a number of recommendations that include the issuance of apologies from the force.

During the Hamilton Police Services Board meeting on June 11, Chief Eric Girt offered an apology for last years actions but it was described as insincere, by Lyla Miklos, who also performed Sunday.

Apologies and statements are useless and do absolutely nothing to genuinely bridge gaps in trust and address why it is that the community feels unsafe, said Soudi.

Local politicians were also part of Sundays dialogue, with Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, Hamilton Centre MP Matthew Green and Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann making an appearance.

We have a lot of work to do here in Hamilton and we must stand in our accountability to our residents, to ensure what happened here [Gage Park], never ever happens again, said Nann. I stand committed  to ensure that accountability takes place.
Lucknow, June 15 : The Special Task Force (STF) has arrested Pushpendra a.k.a. Raj, the main mastermind of the Anamika Shukla scam in which multiple teachers were found teaching in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) on documents of one applicant.

In a statement, the STF said that apart from Pushpendra, two others identified as Anand of Jaunpur and Ramnath of Kheri have also been arrested.

Police recovered a licensed pistol and seven cartridges, mobile phones and some documents from them.

The curious case involved teachers being recruited in state government schools on the basis of educational certificates of one woman -- Anamika Shukla -- who had cleared the eligibility test but could not join the job due to personal reasons.

The fake Anamika Shuklas, who got employed using her documents, drew lakhs in salaries from multiple schools.

The scam drew flak from opposition leaders including Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and last week, the state government handed over the investigation to its Special Task Force (STF).

Teachers had got jobs in Anamika Shukla's name at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) in Prayagraj, Amethi, Rae Bareli, Varanasi, Baghpat, Kasganj, Saharanpur, Ambedkar Nagar and Aligarh, according to earlier reports.

The probe found that the real Anamika Shukla of Gonda had applied for the post of a KGBV teacher in 2017 at Sultanpur, Jaunpur, Mirzapur, Basti and Lucknow. She got calls from Sultanpur, Jaunpur and Lucknow but due to her health, she did not take the job.

Her documents were misused and teachers in several districts worked in her name, the STF said. The real Anamika Shukla had lodged a FIR in this connection in Gonda on June 11.

The women arrested in this connection had named Pushpendra as the mastermind.

The STF received a tip off about Pushpendra's presence in Gomti Nagar on Monday night and he was arrested along with the two others.

During interrogation, Pushpendra said he got Anamika Shukla's documents from Anand in 2019. He then took Rs 2 lakh each from the candidates and got them appointment as teachers on fake documents.
Take a look at some of the biggest movers in the premarket:

BP (BP)  BP plans to take a writedown of up to $17.5 billion for the current quarter, after significantly cutting its long term outlook for oil and gas prices. BP is also now forecasting a faster transition away from fossil fuels. BP will issue its next earnings report on August 4.

Pilgrim's Pride (PPC)  Chief Executive Officer Jayson Penn is taking a paid leave of absence. Penn was indicted for participating in an alleged chicken price-fixing scheme, and the poultry producer said it would be in the best interests of both Penn and the company to allow him to focus on his legal defense. CFO Fabio Sandrias will serve as interim CEO.

AstraZeneca (AZN)  The drugmaker signed a contract to provide European governments with 400 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate. The vaccine is still in clinical trials, and if it proves safe and effective, deliveries would potentially start by the end of this year.

Starbucks (SBUX)  Atlantic Equities began coverage of the coffee chain's stock with an "overweight" rating, saying it would emerge from the pandemic with market share gains and a more efficient cost structure.

Mondelez (MDLZ)  The food producer was upgraded to "buy" from "hold" at Berenberg, saying that the food sector overall has the cheapest relative valuations in a decade and points in particular to strong organic growth trends at Mondelez.

Shopify (SHOP)  Walmart (WMT) is partnering with the e-commerce platform provider to expand its third-party marketplace site. Separately, Piper Sandler upgraded Shopify to "overweight" from "neutral," based on expectations that digital commerce penetration rates could double or even triple by 2030.

Hertz (HTZ)  Hertz won bankruptcy court approval to sell up to $1 billion in its stock. The car rental company is trying to take advantage of a recent rally in its shares.

Walt Disney (DIS)  Disney's Hong Kong Disneyland theme park will reopen on June 18, with a reduced number of visitors and enhanced health measures such as social distancing.

Nokia (NOK)  Nokia is partnering with Broadcom (AVGO) to develop chips for 5G equipment. Nokia had previously struck similar deals with Intel (INTC) and Marvell (MRVL).

Intel (INTC)  Intel was upgraded to "overweight" from "neutral" at KeyBanc, which said the chipmaker is in a strong position to take advantage of the next wave of computing beyond PCs, phones, and tablets.

FormFactor (FORM)  FormFactor was upgraded to "buy" from "hold" at Stifel Nicolaus. The maker of semiconductor testing equipment will benefit from its recurring revenue model even as demand remains uncertain, according to Stifel.

AT&T (T)  AT&T is seeking a sale of its Warner gaming unit, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to CNBC. They say Take-Two Interactive (TTWO), Activision Blizzard (ATVI), and Electronic Arts (EA) are all said to have expressed interest in the unit, and that it could fetch up to $4 billion.

Moderna (MRNA)  Israel is in advanced talks to buy Moderna's coronavirus vaccine that is in the final stages of testing, according to Israeli news site YNET. Moderna had said last week it will start a trial involving 30,000 people next month. CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC that the company was having discussions with multiple governments around the world but would not comment on this particular story.

SelectQuote (SLQT)  Credit Suisse began coverage of the insurance seller's stock with an "outperform" rating, saying the company is a beneficiary of the fast-growing Medicare Advantage market among other factors. SelectQuote, which went public on May 21, picked up new coverage at a number of firms including Morgan Stanley ("equal-weight rating"), Piper Sandler ("overweight"), Cantor Fitzgerald ("overweight"), and RBC Capital ("outperform).
Disgraced former NSW Labor minister Milton Orkopoulos was making bread in the bakery of Sydney's Long Bay jail at 5.30am on Monday when he was told he needed to sit down with police.

Hours later the convicted paedophile was charged with new historical child sex offences, including child prostitution, dating back to the 1990s.

Former NSW Labor Minister Milton Orkopoulos has been arrested and is being questioned by officers over historical sex allegations. Credit:Isabella Porras

The charges relate to two juvenile boys who were allegedly known to him, the youngest aged under 14. Police say the incidents occurred over many years in Lake Macquarie and on the Mid North Coast.

It is alleged he caused a child to participate in prostitution and committed an aggravated sexual assault of a child, among other offences.
Boris Johnson has announced he will establish a cross-government commission to examine all aspects of racial inequality in the UK.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, the prime minister acknowledged that Britain had much more to do to tackle racism.

He said the commission on race and ethnic disparities would look at all aspects of inequality  in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life.

Mr Johnson wrote: No one who cares about this country can ignore the many thousands of people who have joined the Black Lives Matter movement to protest peacefully, as most of them have, in the last few days.

It is no use just saying that we have made huge progress in tackling racism. There is much more that we need to do; and we will.

In separate comments to broadcasters, the PM added: What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

We stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success.

Thats where I want to get to but it wont be easy.

The announcement follows two weeks of protest across the country by the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing in the US of George Floyd who died as a white police office knelt on his neck.

However the announcement, which included little detail, was sharply criticised by opposition parties.

For Labour, shadow equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: We are in the midst of a global health pandemic that has sharply exposed deep structural inequalities which have long since needed urgently addressing.

That the prime minister now says he wants to change the narrative ... so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination is condescending and designed to let himself and his government off the hook.

Liberal Democrat equalities spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the commission was a welcome first step but said the government must go further.

Too many peoples lives are blighted by discrimination, inequality and injustice. The government must move further and faster to redress institutional racism in the criminal justice system and many other parts of our society, she said.

Black Lives Matter: London protests Show all 25 1 /25 Black Lives Matter: London protests Black Lives Matter: London protests Actor John Boyega speaks in Hyde Park at a Black Lives Matter protest. Demonstrations broke out across the US and world after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer Rex Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests Reuters Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests Rex Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Images Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Images Black Lives Matter: London protests PA

The Telegraph reported that the new commission will report directly to Mr Johnson and also be overseen by equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

The newspaper said that an independent chairman or woman would be appointed to oversee the body which would comprised of people with a mix of ethnic, social and professional backgrounds.

The prime minister also used his article to defend the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, which some protesters want pulled down, and to warn against attempts to photoshop Britains cultural landscape.

He lauded Churchill as one of the countrys greatest ever leaders, saying it was the height of lunacy to accuse him of racism.

I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better, he wrote.

He went on: It is not just that it is wrong to destroy public property by violence.

I am also extremely dubious about the growing campaign to edit or photoshop the entire cultural landscape.

If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history, like some public figure furtively trying to make themselves look better by editing their own Wikipedia entry.

Mr Johnson also condemned the counter protesters who clashed with police in London on Saturday as far-right thugs and bovver boys.

It was right that a good number should have been arrested. They were violent.

They were aggressive towards the police. They were patently racist.

There is nothing that can excuse their behaviour, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical need for robust scientific evidence to support policy decisions, such as around the effectiveness of various social distancing measures and the safety of drug therapies. Yet this need arises at a time of growing misinformation and poorly vetted facts repeated by influential sources. To address this gap, a group of scientists led by Kai Ruggeri, a professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and James Green, chief scientist at NASA, has introduced a new framework to help set standards for the quality of evidence used in policymaking.

Outlined in Nature Behavioral & Social Sciences, the Theoretical, Empirical, Applicable, and Replicable Impact (THEARI) system ranks evidence in five tiers: (1) theoretical (argument or possible explanation stated), (2) empirical (concept described but not utilized), (3) applicable (concept has been used to elicit effect), (4) replicable (effect has been repeated independently), (5) impact (effect has been appropriately replicated in practice with measurable value in real world). Unlike other evidence ranking systems used in medicine or technology, THEARI applies broadly across disciplines.

The authors say THEARI will help manage risks while also providing a reasonable pathway for applying breakthroughs in treatments and policy solutions in an attempt to stem the harm already impacting the well-being of populations around the world. They hope the system will be applied at two levels: (1) a post-publication as a badge similar to Open Access, and (2) within policy guidance materials. As an example, a cover note to policymakers might say, "we recommend using x approach, which currently has a three-star rating in THEARI. That means it may be useful, but more testing is necessary."

When Evidence Misaligns with Policy

The authors cite two examples from the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate the need for an evidence rating system like THEARI. First, they point to a 2007 paper by Cheng et al that warned of a re-emergence of SARS-like coronaviruses; yet despite providing ample high-quality evidence, the warning was unheeded. Second, note the United Kingdom's decision to delay social distancing measures due to fears of "behavioral fatigue" spreading throughout the population--despite the fact that there was little quality evidence to support the concept.

In the case of hydroxychloroquine, the controversial potential therapy for COVID-19, the authors say there is a lot of evidence about the drug as a therapy for other illnesses, little specific to COVID. Any rating system can only work if applied to the specific context, they note. While the two problematic journal articles on hydroxychloroquine were retracted, policy shouldn't rely on one or two studies unless genuinely life-or-death in the moment. And any rating system will work if journals have protocols in place to prevent the publication of faulty research.

Beyond COVID-19, the authors observe that climate change, which firmly established as fact in the scientific community, has until recently been presented by the mainstream media as a debate--contributing to delays in policies to address the problem. Opinions presented as theory only receive the lowest THEARI rating; opinions without a theory receive no rating whatsoever. This simplifies the process of understanding what has been studied (sometimes in extreme depth) versus what is simply a perspective, informed or not.

The authors outline several reasons beyond these sorts of mismatches between evidence and policy, including the growing volume of scientific evidence and complexity of political processes, the rapid diffusion of information and misinformation, and the high degree of uncertainties around the reliability and comparability of data.

"Behavioral science suggests that the policy interpretation of existing information can be particularly prone to biases in this context of scarcity of time and resources," the authors write. "Formulating evidence-informed policies appears to be most challenging right when we most need it."

The authors conclude: "In presenting THEARI, the ultimate benefit we envision is setting a common framework as a starting point for utilizing evidence in policy discussions, overcoming biases and the effects of inconsistent definitions or unreliable insights. This encourages policymakers to place more value on evidence by providing support for meaningful arguments that may otherwise be disregarded as incongruent with current thinking, even amongst scientists."

###

Authors include Kai Ruggeri, Columbia Mailman School; Sander van der Linden, Cambridge Social Decision-making Lab; Y. Claire Wang, New York Academy of Medicine (and past MSPH faculty); Francesca Papa, Junior Policy Analyst, OECD; Zeina Afif, World Bank; Johann Riesch, Max-Planck-Institut fur Plasmaphysik; and James Green, NASA.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 09:21:47|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Australian police were investigating a second case of vandalism on a statue of British explorer Captain James Cook on Monday, following a spate of similar attacks worldwide.

Over the weekend a statue of Cook in Sydney's Hyde Park was spray painted with the words, "no pride in genocide," while a second statue of Cook several kilometres away in the suburb of Randwick received a similar treatment.

Cook has become a divisive figure as one of the first British explorers to land in Australia, charting much of the country's east coast and paving the way for colonization soon after.

The monument in Randwick was emblazoned with the word "sovereignty" -- which is associated with the political push for Indigenous self determination and ownership of parts of Australia.

Two women have been charged over the first incident, having been apprehended nearby at around 4:00 a.m. local time carrying black masks and spray paint. Investigations were continuing into the second case.

Historical monuments in Britain and the United States have been targeted recently as part of Black Lives Matter protesters, with several being torn down, including images of men who worked in the slave trade.

Significant efforts have been made in Britain to protect a statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with the monument being encased in steel to stop potential vandalism.

In Australia, calls have repeatedly been made in recent years for statues of colonial-era settlers to be removed due to their emotional impact on First Nations People whose ancestors suffered due to the arrival of Europeans. Enditem
DALLAS, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Megatel Homes LLC, one of the largest homebuilders in the state of Texas, today announced the lot acquisition of a 29-acre parcel of land in the Dallas suburb of Mansfield. Once developed, the $40 million residential project, known as Mitchell Farms, will feature 112 single-family homes ranging in size between 1,700 square feet and 4,500 square feet which will be priced between $280,000 to $450,000.

"Despite the challenging economic climate created by the coronavirus pandemic for many real estate sectors, we've found residential real estate to be unwaveringly resilient in this growing market," said Zach Ipour, co-founder. "Many of the top market analysts concur that residential real estate will likely continue to weather the storm, and recent data clearly supports this view."

Industry analysts had predicted a dismal 22-percent decline in sales of new homes following the onset of the pandemic and resulting shelter-in-place and economic shutdown orders. In its most recent report on the market, however, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that new home sales increased nearly one percent in April compared to March.

Matthew Speakman, an economist at Zillow, commented, "The coronavirus pandemic has generated any number of nasty surprises over the past few months, but the unexpected strength in April new home sales may be the first pleasant surprise yet  and the clearest indicator so far that housing, so unlike the last time around, will be a source of relative strength during this downturn."

For many private homebuilders, tightened lending restrictions amid the pandemic has resulted in a lack of funding, which leads to halted construction, declines in new home starts and difficulty in acquiring new land.

Ipour explains that Megatel has a solution to this challenge in the finance vertical of their company, Megatel Capital Investment. "In homebuilding, how you react during market slowdowns can change everything. We knew our focus needed to be on maintaining a strong deal pipeline. Capital from MCI afforded us the opportunity to reevaluate and renegotiate deals, without struggling to access institutional funding."

The Mansfield suburb remains a highly desirable area for homebuyers due to its strong school system and proximity to large corporate employers, such as Bank of America, Capital One, Infosys, Southwest Airlines, Texas Instruments, and UT Southwestern Medical Center. In recent years, Mansfield has also experienced a substantial influx of corporate relocations. A scarcity of supply coupled with buyers placing even more value on finding a home that represents their sanctuary in the midst of mitigating the COVID-19 virus continues to fuel new home sales.

About Megatel Homes

Founded in 2006, Megatel Homes has emerged as one of the most successful homebuilders in the state of Texas. The company has had considerable growth, with more than 100 developments comprised of several thousand homes, completed since its founding. The company currently has more than 100 communities and is rapidly spreading throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Contact: Damon Elder

Spotlight Marketing Communications

949.427.1377

[email protected]

SOURCE Megatel Homes
- ODM leader Raila Odinga took the COVID-19 test at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) on Sunday, June 14

- The former premier urged Kenyans to continue observing the Ministry of Health's guidelines on the respiratory disease

- As of Sunday, June 14, Kenya had confirmed 3,594 infections with 103 deaths

The Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga has tested negative for the novel coronavirus that has infected 3,594 people in the country and claimed the lives of 103 others.

The opposition supremo took the test at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) on Sunday, June 14.

READ ALSO: MP Purity Ngirici wows internet with breathtaking youthful look on her birthday

Raila Odinga took the COVID-19 test at KEMRI on Sunday, June 14. Photo: Raila Odinga.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: CJ David Maraga dismisses claims he was romantically involved with female judge

The AU infrastructure envoy appealed to Kenyans to turn out in large numbers and get tested to confirm their status so as to curb the spread of the highly contagious disease.

"I took the COVID-19 test at KEMRI in Mbagathi earlier today. I took the opportunity to appeal to all Kenyans to go for testing. A COVID-19 certificate is becoming an important document as we continue battling the pandemic," he tweeted.

On Monday, June 15, Raila shared his results which he said came back negative.

"Just received my COVID-19 test results which came back negative. I commend KEMRI and Prof Matilu Mwau of the testing centre, for the professionalism and efficiency displayed. Once again, I appeal to Kenyans to take tests, sanitise and observe social distancing,' he said.

Cheeky Kenyans could not help but poke fun at the former premier noting it was the first time he had "accepted results".

Raila Odinga displays his COVID-19 certificate accompanied by health officials at KEMRI. Photo: Raila Odinga.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Mbunge aandamana na wake zake 4 na watoto 27 Bungeni kuthibitisha uwezo wake

Here were some of the reactions:

"This is the only result you accept okay,"Halkesh Elcaptain noted.

"Breaking news: Raila Odinga accepts COVID-19 results!," a netizen identifying himself as Pastor Ng'ang'a wrote.

The only results Baba has accepted since 1997,"Julius Choge sarcastically said.

"The Ministry of Health should issue a public warning that COVID-19 test results (certificate) is valid for utmost days seven days otherwise politicians doing their politics will mislead the public,"vocal Raila critic Kipchumba Murkomen opined.

The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Kenya on Friday, March 13.

Since then, the government has imposed tough measures including banning international flights, public gatherings and closing of schools to minimise the spread of the respiratory disease.

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.

Kamotho's mother disowns Tabitha, tells her to set her son free | Tuko TV

Source: TUKO.co.ke
The home secretary, Priti Patel, has described the politics of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as racist in the House of Commons.

Answering questions about recent protests linked to the death of George Floyd in the US, Ms Patel turned her fire on Keir Starmer for supposedly not breaking with the policies of his predecessor.

She said: Im saddened that the leader of the opposition has effectively failed to depart from the divisive, hateful, racist politics of its former leader.

Ms Patel did not make clear exactly which of Mr Corybns policies she regarded as racist.

Her allegation came in response to a question from the Conservative MP for Wakefield, Imran Ahmad Khan, in which he referenced a letter to Ms Patel last week from black and minority ethnic Labour MPs  including a number of members of Sir Keirs front bench  who accused her of using her own experiences of racism to gaslight the very real racism faced by black people and communities across the UK.

Black Lives Matter: London protests Show all 25 1 /25 Black Lives Matter: London protests Black Lives Matter: London protests Actor John Boyega speaks in Hyde Park at a Black Lives Matter protest. Demonstrations broke out across the US and world after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a white police officer Rex Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests Reuters Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests Rex Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests EPA Black Lives Matter: London protests AP Black Lives Matter: London protests AFP via Getty Images Black Lives Matter: London protests Getty Images Black Lives Matter: London protests PA

Mr Ahmad Khan said: The home secretary and I, along with other Conservative colleagues, have been subject to torrents of hateful prejudice and frankly racist abuse from the lefts legions outside  as well as, in the case of my right honourable friend, sadly from sources on the benches opposite  as we refuse to conform to their prejudices.

Does the home secretary agree with me that the leader of the opposition should condemn all these attacks and support the full weight of the law being applied equally to everyone no matter how righteous they believe their views are?

Ms Patel replied: He is absolutely right. We should be calling out collectively racist and intolerant behaviour and I am saddened that the leader of the opposition has effectively failed to depart from the divisive, hateful, racist politics of its former leader.

Last weeks letter came after Ms Patel told the Commons she would not take lectures from Labour MPs about her understanding of the issue of structural racism.

It must have been a very different home secretary who as a child was frequently called a Paki in the playground, a very different home secretary who was racially abused in the streets or even advised to drop her surname and use her husbands in order to advance her career, she told MPs. A different home secretary recently characterised  in The Guardian newspaper as a fat cow with a ring through its nose, something that was not only racist but offensive, both culturally and religiously. So when it comes to racism, sexism, tolerance or social justice, I will not take lectures from the other side of the house.

The letter was coordinated by the shadow community cohesion minister, Naz Shah, and signed by senior Labour MPs including Diane Abbott, Tulip Siddiq, Kate Osamor, Chi Onwurah, Seema Malhotra, Dawn Butler and Rosena Allin-Khan.

We all have our personal stories of the racism that we have faced, whether it has been being defined by the colour of our skin or the faith we choose to believe in, they wrote.

Our shared experiences allow us to feel the pain that communities feel when they face racism, they allow us to show solidarity towards a common cause; they do not allow us to define, silence or impede on the feelings that other minority groups may face.

The letter received a scornful response from Tory MPs, with the health secretary, Matt Hancock, dismissing it as divisive identity politics.
BERLIN - Mallorcas first tourists in 93 days touched down Monday, saying they feel safe in the popular Spanish island and ready to make the most of the beach and sunny weather without the hordes of visitors found there in normal times.

As borders opened up across Europe three months after closures that began chaotically in March, Spain prioritized the entry of a first batch of thousands of Germans who were allowed to fly to its Balearic Islands. The country waived its 14-day quarantine to test out with them the best practices in the coronavirus era.

Spaniards themselves are still not allowed to travel to the archipelago and it will take one more week for the rest of country, one of the hardest hit by the pandemic in Europe, to catch up with other countries in the region, where border checks dropped overnight on Monday..

The European Unions 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, arent expected to start opening to Americans, Asians and other visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly later.

Announcing Mondays reopening of borders and Paris restaurants, French President Emmanuel Macron said its time to turn the page of the first act of the crisis and rediscover our taste for freedom.

But he warned: This doesnt mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard. ... The summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.

That caution is widespread after more than 182,000 virus-linked deaths in Europe. The region has had more than 2 million of the worlds 7.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Even so, social distancing was in short supply as Londons Oxford Street shops reopened and crowds jammed the entrance to Londons Niketown store despite efforts by employees to have an orderly line. Paris bistros like Cafe Des Anges welcomed back regular customers.

Its very hard to get people who are sitting at the bar to respect social distancing, said cafe manager Virgile Grunberg. People have missed this, because they come in every morning before work, have a little coffee and a discussion, so of course its part of Paris.

The need to get Europes tourism industry up and running again is urgent, especially for Mediterranean nations like Spain, Italy and Greece, as the economic fallout of the crisis mushrooms.

In a sign of that anticipation, workers in a Mallorca hotel welcomed with cheers the bus ferrying the first guests from the airport. The visitors had gone through temperature checks on arrival and had to leave their contact information and health status registered with authorities.

We are totally happy that we can get out, said Martin Hofman, who travelled on the first flight from Duesseldorf, adding that his holiday couldnt be postponed and to stay in Germany was not an option.

Daniel Borgerding, who squeezed in the last-minute visit before his wife is due to give birth, said the couple was looking forward to having a quiet and relaxed time, empty beaches, restaurants, bars and a little more space than usual.

Regional officials have expanded the capacity of the archipelagos health system in case any tourists shows signs of infection. They said the lessons from the trial in the islands will be taken into account for the countrys full re-opening.

We have got the pandemic under control, (but) the reopening of our frontiers is a critical moment, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said over the weekend as he announced he was bringing forward Spains opening to European travellers by 10 days to June 21. The threat is still real. The virus is still out there.

On Monday, Greece welcomed the first international flights whose passengers didnt face compulsory COVID-19 tests to Athens and Thessaloniki. Direct international flights to regional Greek airports, including its sun-kissed islands, will begin on July 1. Visitors will be subject to random virus testing.

A lot will depend on whether people feel comfortable to travel and whether we can project Greece as a safe destination, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis acknowledged.

Europes reopening isnt a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March, when panicked, uncoordinated border closures caused traffic jams that stretched for miles.

Still, its a complicated, shifting patchwork of different rules, and not everyone is equally free to travel everywhere. Norway and Denmark, for example, are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a relatively high per-capita death rate. Other nations also have travel restrictions for Swedes.

In an interview with state broadcaster SVT, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven rejected the idea that Swedens strategy had failed, citing a continuing decline in hospitalizations and fatalities. While the rate of new infections has increased, officials say that reflects a long-delayed increase in testing.

German drivers queued up in long lines Monday to cross into Denmark, which is letting in German visitors but only those who have booked accommodation for at least six nights.

Britain, which left the EU in January but remains closely aligned with the bloc until the end of this year, only last week imposed a 14-day quarantine requirement for most arrivals, horrifying its tourism and aviation industries. As a result, France is asking people from Britain to self-quarantine for two weeks and several other nations are not letting British tourists in during the first wave of reopenings.

With flights only gradually picking up, nervousness about new outbreaks abroad, uncertainty about social distancing at tourist venues and millions facing record unemployment or pay cuts, many Europeans may choose to vacation at home.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz are both planning to vacation in their homelands this year.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

You can go abroad for your holiday again, Foreign Minister Stef Blok said. But it wont be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.

___

Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
Washington governor alarms increase of COVID-19 transmission

Global Times

Source:Xinhua Published: 2020/6/14 9:46:19

US state of Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued a statement on Saturday to alarm the increase of COVID-19 transmission.

The Washington State Department of Health on Saturday released the latest statewide situation report, which showed COVID-19 transmission continued to increase in eastern Washington as of the end of May, with a possible uptick in western Washington as well.

"The report estimates cases and deaths will soon increase substantially if COVID-19 continues to spread at current levels," Inslee said in the statement.

"Washingtonians have done the hard work to flatten the curve on COVID-19... But today's report shows us there is still reason for strong concern in parts of our state," he added.

"This is not the time to give up on efforts to protect ourselves, our families and our communities. We are still in the middle of a pandemic that is continuing to infect and kill Washingtonians," Inslee warned.

Inslee said that the cases in Benton, Franklin and Yakima counties are of particular concern. He joined the Institute for Disease Modeling Saturday morning as it shared data with leaders in these three counties. "This data will force us to look for some creative solutions and strengthen our strong local - state partnerships to address the disease activity," he said.

According to Inslee, residents must increase testing and mask-wearing, and maintain physical distancing to continue tackling the coronavirus.

He also stressed the importance of strengthening hospital capacity, as well as target interventions for high-risk populations such as long-term care facilities and indoors, including close proximity workplace operations, such as food processing and agricultural housing.

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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) London, United Kingdom  Mon, June 15, 2020 10:36 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdebd995 2 World Britain,Prime-Minister,Boris-Johnson,Racism,commission,anti-racism,anti-racism-protests,George-Floyd,racial-incidents,racial-divide,racial-discrimination,racial-issues,black-lives-matter Free

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a cross-government commission would examine racism and the disparities experienced by minority ethnic groups in education, health and the criminal justice system following Black Lives Matter protests.

Johnson said he could not ignore the strength of feeling shown by tens of thousands of people who had demonstrated in London and other British cities following the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

"We have to look at discrimination in the education system, in health, in the criminal justice system, we have to look at all ways in which it affects black and minority ethnic groups," Johnson said on Sunday.

"And so we're going have a big, big effort, which we will be announcing very shortly: a new cross-government commission to look at what is going on for black and minority ethnic groups and to champion their success."

He said progress in tackling racism and improving opportunities, such as significantly more black and ethnic minority students going to university, had been "slightly lost".

"What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative, so we stop the sense of victimization and discrimination," he said. "We stop the discrimination, we stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success, that's where I want to get to."

"But it won't be easy. We'll have to look very carefully at the real racism and discrimination that people face."
New Delhi, June 16 : A lawyer has moved the Supreme Court seeking direction to its Secretary General and registrar/officers "not to give preferences to cases filed by influential lawyers/petitioners" and stop discrimination against ordinary lawyers.

Lawyer Reepak Kansal, in the plea, claimed that there is no mechanism to address complaints against erring officers of the registry who favour some law firms/advocates for reasons best known to them. "There are many petitioners/lawyers have been suffering by unequal treatment by the registry as the cases filed by some law firms/influential lawyers are immediately listed by registry ignoring the cases of ordinary petitioners/ lawyers," said the plea.

The plea is likely to come up for hearing on June 18.

Kansal contended, in the plea, that there is violation of fundamental rights of litigants/ordinary lawyers/members of SCBA as guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution.

"No equal treatment is given to ordinary petitioners/lawyer by the registry of this court.

"There is no procedure followed by the registry i.e. filing application for urgent hearing or letter etc which was necessary for the urgent listing of the cases during national lockdown," the plea argued.

The lawyer contended that is impossible for the litigants to pay more court fee or printing charges as illegally demanded by registry. "There is no system to return the excess court fee/charges taken by registry. The Supreme Court Bar Association has also got various complaints against the malfunctioning of registry therefore, a Circular on May 29 was issued by SCBA in this regard," argued the plea.

The lawyer has urged the apex court to issue a direction to the Secretary General and others to give equal treatment to the cases filed by ordinary lawyers/petitioners. It also sought direction to the officials concerned not to point out unnecessary defects in cases of ordinary advocates/petitioners and refund the excess court fee and other charges.
Armenia should adopt a new constitution that could abolish the countrys Constitutional Court, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Monday.

Pashinian insisted that wants to establish an organic connection between the state order and the will of the people, rather than cement his hold on power.

Most Armenians, he said, do not feel such a connection because they played no part in the enactment of their countrys post-Soviet constitution and numerous amendments to it made by their former governments.

Im not one of those people who think that the countrys constitutions should frequently undergo changes, he told a government commission on constitutional reform formed early this year. But I must also say that especially at this juncture I am of the opinion that we need to not just enact constitutional changes but to adopt a de jure new constitution.

Pashinian stressed that the commission should not try to reverse Armenias transition to the parliamentary system of government which was controversially engineered by former President Serzh Sarkisian. It should work on other changes mostly relating to the judicial system, he said.

In particular, Pashinian suggested that the ad hoc panel very seriously consider drafting constitutional provisions that would merge the Constitutional Court with the Court of Cassation, Armenias highest body of criminal and administrative justice. He said that the two courts have offered different interpretations of Armenian laws on a number of occasions.

Over the past year, Pashinian has been at loggerheads with seven of the nine members of the Constitutional Court, accusing them of being linked to the former regime and impeding judicial reforms. The Constitutional Court chairman, Hrayr Tovmasian, has rejected those accusations, saying that the prime minister is simply seeking to gain control over the court.

In February, Pashinians government decided to hold a referendum on constitutional amendments that would replace Tovmasian and the six other judges. The referendum scheduled for April 5 was subsequently postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With no end in sight to the pandemic, the government is expected to cancel the vote altogether. Last month it asked the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe to help it end the standoff with the high court.

The government commission on constitutional reform was formed in January before Pashinians political team decided to hold the controversial referendum. It consists of 15 members, including Armenias justice minister, human rights ombudsman, a representative of the countrys judges, members of the three political forces represented in the parliament and legal scholars chosen by the Justice Ministry.

The commission chairman, Yeghishe Kirakosian, said in February that the panel will come up with a package of amendments and initiate public discussions on it by September 2020.

Kirakosian indicated on Monday that the process will take more time. He told Pashinian that the commission expects to draft constitutional reforms by June 2021.
BAC A BANKs loan rate reductions will simplify conditions for borrowers

The pandemic raging worldwide has taken a heavy toll on the global economy and the Vietnamese economy, bringing business production and activities to a standstill, with shrunken markets. This has been making serious dents in the revenue and profit of many enterprises, directly threatening the livelihood of millions of labourers.

With the motto of Providing the best services for customers for sustainable development, and in the current context of numerous difficulties, BAC A BANK has taken the initiative in implementing effective solutions to support enterprises to recover and develop their production and business, while overcoming damage caused by the pandemic.

The banks programme is being carried out from April 1 to June 30, with total loans valued at VND3 trillion ($130.43 million) provided at all BAC A BANK branches throughout the country. With this preferential credit package, the bank will offer a reduction of lending rate for loans.

Specifically, a maximum annual lending rate reduction of 1 per cent will be offered depending on the levels of reduction in borrowers revenue. Customers entitled to this initiative include enterprises in the list of the sectors the most vulnerable to the pandemic, such as agriculture and fishery; processing and production of food and beverages; transport and logistics; tourism service, hotels, and restaurants; as well as other business sectors indirectly it by COVID-19.

Meanwhile, BAC A BANK also provides new loans with a lending rate which is 0.6 per cent lower than the existing regulation on lending rates applicable to customers who have yet to have any transactions with BAC A BANK.

With simplified procedures, the bank will create the best conditions for borrowers to seek low-cost loans which are suitable to their performance situations as per appraisal of the bank.

Tran Thanh Hai, director of the Wholesale Banking Segment under BAC A BANK said, In response to the State Bank of Vietnams policy on removing difficulties of the economy, and ensuring social security in order to cope with the pandemic, BAC A BANK expects that this preferential credit package for pandemic-hit enterprises will be a good impetus for them to soon recover their production and business activities.

Via this programme, BAC A BANK wishes to continue supporting the domestic business community so that their operational effectiveness and growth can be always secured, contributing to the economic recovery of the country, Hai added.

At present, BAC A BANK is offering a wide range of savings products that can help maximise customer requirements, such as ordinary savings, as well as savings for the elderly, home builders, the armed forces, and for profitability and online deposit reasons. BAC A BANK is also considered among the lenders with the best customer care policies.

As a result, the bank has been attracting a great deal of customers over recent years.
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled Monday that an existing federal law protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees from workplace discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

In a surprise ruling for the right-leaning court, which became more conservative with the addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal justices in granting broad federal job protection for LGBT employees in the case, called Bostock v. Clayton County.

The Monday decision considered Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a persons sex, among other factors. The court ruled that the law also covers sexual orientation.

The Justice Department under President Donald Trump discouraged the Court from its ultimate conclusion, filing an amicus brief last fall that argued sex and sexual orientation are too dissimilar. It said, The ordinary meaning of sex is biologically male or female; it does not include sexual orientation.

It went on, An employer thus discriminates because of  sex under Title VII if it treats members of one sex worse than similarly situated members of the other sex. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, standing alone, does not satisfy that standard.

GLAAD, an advocacy group for the LGBT community, reacted with a statement from president & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis later Monday morning: The Supreme Courts historic decision affirms what shouldnt have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are. The decision gives us hope that as a country we can unite for the common good and continue the fight for LGBTQ acceptance. Especially at a time when the Trump Administration is rolling back the rights of transgender people and anti-transgender violence continues to plague our nation, this decision is a step towards affirming the dignity of transgender people, and all LGBTQ people.

Read original story Supreme Court Rules LGTBQ Workers Have Federal Job Protection At TheWrap
Andre Lynch III, 20, said he wore this Black Lives Matter mask to work at Wawa in Mount Laurel. On Friday, he was told to take it off or leave the store, so he quit. Read more

Wawa will examine its uniform policy after a former employee said he was prohibited from wearing a Black Lives Matter mask at a South Jersey store.

Andre Lynch III arrived at the Wawa on Route 38 in Mount Laurel at 5:30 a.m. Friday wearing the same mask he said hed worn to work several times since the killing of George Floyd.

Inscribed on the mask are Black Lives Matter, I cant breathe, and Say his name. The messages honor the memory of Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyds death has sparked anti-racism protests around the world.

Two hours into his shift, Lynch said, his manager told him he had to change into a plain mask or leave. So, the 20-year-old said, he quit.

Wawa said it could not comment on Lynchs story, which was first reported by NBC10, under the Delaware County-based companys policy to not discuss individual workers. But a spokesperson said Monday that Wawa was working to help employees show solidarity with the movement.

Wawa believes black lives matter, the spokesperson said, and its why we have posted signage sharing this message in our stores. Additionally, we have been working on ways through our diversity and inclusion efforts to enhance our uniform standards to enable our associates to express their support.

This week, the company will provide employees with pins to show support for Black Lives Matter within uniform guidelines, if they choose to, she said.

Lynch, however, said a small, company-provided pin wont amplify the voices of people of color.

Its like youre trying to tell somebody, Just shut up, he said.

Lynchs experience comes as corporations are publicly expressing their support of Black Lives Matter and promising to reckon with systemic racism and inequality. Some question whether these statements will actually lead to meaningful change  or amount only to empty promises.

While Starbucks publicly showed support for Black Lives Matter in internal communications, it prohibited employees from wearing Black Lives Matter clothing.

A Starbucks executive told employees, according to BuzzFeed News, that the apparel was prohibited because agitators who misconstrue the fundamental principles of Black Lives Matter could use the clothing to amplify divisiveness.

A few days later, the company reversed course, saying it would make 250,000 Black Lives Matter shirts available to stores in the United States and Canada. In the meantime, it said, employees could wear their own shirts or pins.

 READ MORE: Starbucks tells its employees not to show support for Black Lives Matter at work. Really? | Elizabeth Wellington

Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens said in an open letter this month that the company condemns all acts of racism, violence, or injustice and promises to listen even more carefully to our Black associates to better understand our own issues and work together to solve them. Wawa vowed to add more programs that support black communities and pledged $100,000 a year for the next several years to the National Urban League, a civil rights organization focused on economic equality for black and brown communities.

Lynch said a Wawa executive called him Sunday, apologized for what happened, and told him about the pins the company planned to give employees. Lynch said he was offered his job back, but he still wouldnt be able to wear any masks or clothing that showed support for Black Lives Matter.

Lynch, who worked at Wawa for more than a year, said he is deciding whether he wants to return.

Until Friday, he said, he had enjoyed his job and felt supported there. In fact, he received the Black Lives Matter mask from a Wawa customer whose friend designed it. When he wore the face covering during prior shifts, he said, customers would say I like the mask or We support you. Since he quit, hes received an outpouring of support" from his coworkers.

But as a black man, he said, he wants to show solidarity with people who have for weeks been protesting police brutality and systemic racism in Philadelphia and around the world.

His father, Andre Lynch Jr., said he felt an obligation to take his sons story public on Saturday with a Facebook post, which has been shared more than 1,500 times.

It didnt sit right with me, he said. I dont find it to be a political thing. Youre stating Black Lives Matter. Youre stating a human beings life matters.

His son, he said, should feel like his own life matters.
Dispatch from Crame No. 821:

Sen. Leila M. de Lima's Quick Reaction to the Guilty Verdict vs. Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos, Jr.

The decision to convict CEO Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher Reynaldo Santos, Jr. for cyber libel (while certainly appealable) is but another demonstration of the Duterte government's weaponization of law against those who dare speak truth to power.

Jailing me for over three years now is only one of the thousand sinister ways they are causing fear in the hearts of Filipinos who fight for what is just and right.

They will not stop at going after critics and human rights defenders. To them, journalists too must be silenced. But we will not allow it.

#HoldTheLine #DefendPressFreedom #CourageON
Addition of local French data strategy, architecture, governance, and implementation capabilities would help clients scale artificial intelligence

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has entered into an agreement to acquire Sentelis, an independent data consulting and engineering company, headquartered in France, that specializes in designing and scaling data and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Sentelis would join Accenture Applied Intelligence and complement its focus on helping clients build the right data strategy and foundation to industrialize AI across their businesses.

With a strong focus on industrializing AI and big data technologies, Sentelis has more than 50 highly skilled professionals, including data and AI advisors, architects and engineers. Since its founding in 2011, Sentelis has helped numerous clients, including some of the largest French companies, architect, engineer and scale adapted and secure data-centric architecture, enabling them to accelerate business innovation.

The combination of Sentelis's industry experience, particularly in financial services and retail, with Accenture's expertise in global large-scale artificial intelligence and machine learning engineering initiatives would provide highly differentiated end-to-end services to the European market.

"The addition of the strong technical talent of Sentelis's teams, combined with our AI and big data solutions, and deep industry expertise, would be a major opportunity to strengthen and broaden our ability to help clients scale AI across their businesses," said Olivier Girard, market unit lead, Accenture France and Benelux. "In addition to organically growing talent, Accenture's strategic approach to acquisitions is designed to ensure the right capabilities are in place to meet existing, as well as emerging, client needs with speed and scale. Together, we would be able to help a broader range of clients industrialize innovation in data strategy and AI."

"Our research shows that a strong data foundation underpins an organization's ability to successfully scale AI," said Athina Kanioura, chief analytics officer and global lead for Accenture Applied Intelligence. "Strategic acquisitions like Sentelis are bringing greater capacity and enhanced capabilities to our data and AI client work. Sentelis's data strategy, architecture and engineering skills align seamlessly with Accenture's focus on industrialized, end-to-end solutions. With the addition of Sentelis, we would see even greater opportunity to accelerate how our clients gain value from data and AI across their business."

"Today, smart businesses are adopting and pursuing digital transformation to balance innovation and industrialization at scale, and to allow their organizations to be seamlessly integrated with the wider ecosystem. To create an intelligent enterprise, it must be built around a mix of digital platforms, with data and AI at its core," said Isabelle Regnier and Jean-Baptiste Ceccaldi, respectively executive director and president of Sentelis. "This is why, in today's growing data-driven market, joining Accenture would be a unique opportunity to enlarge our approach to new sectors and help more organizations to leverage their information systems to accelerate their digital transformations."

This acquisition would strengthen Accenture's growing analytics, AI and ML/data engineering business in France. Global growth in AI client engagements has also served as a driver for Accenture's recent acquisitions of Analytics8 in Australia, Pragsis Bidoop in Spain, Clarity Insights in North America, Mudano in the UK and Byte Prophecy in India.

The acquisition requires prior consultation with the relevant works councils and would be subject to customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations, with digital capabilities across all of these services. We combine unmatched experience and specialized capabilities across more than 40 industries powered by the world's largest network of Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. With 509,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture brings continuous innovation to help clients improve their performance and create lasting value across their enterprises. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

Applied Intelligence is Accenture's approach to scaling AI for our clients. We embed AI-powered data, analytics and automation capabilities into business workflows to accelerate time to value. Our expertise in defining end-to-end strategy, combined with deep data infrastructure capabilities, cognitive services and industrialized accelerators help smooth clients' path to AI adoption, extending human capabilities and supporting clients in scaling AI responsibly. Recognized as a leader by industry analysts, we collaborate with a powerful global alliance, innovation and delivery network to help clients deploy and scale AI within any market and industry. Follow @AccentureAI and visit www.accenture.com/appliedintelligence.

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Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "believes," "estimates," "positioned," "outlook" and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For a discussion of risks and actions taken in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see "Our results of operations have been adversely affected and could in the future be materially adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19)" under Item 1A, "Risk Factors" in Accenture plc's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarterly period ended February 29, 2020. Many of the following risks, uncertainties and other factors identified below are, and will be, amplified by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). These risks include, without limitation, risks that: Accenture and Sentelis will not be able to close the transaction in the time period anticipated, or at all, which is dependent on the parties' ability to satisfy certain closing conditions; the transaction might not achieve the anticipated benefits for Accenture; Accenture's results of operations have been adversely affected and could in the future be materially adversely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19); Accenture's results of operations could be adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and political conditions and the effects of these conditions on the company's clients' businesses and levels of business activity; Accenture's business depends on generating and maintaining ongoing, profitable client demand for the company's services and solutions including through the adaptation and expansion of its services and solutions in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the evolving technological environment could materially affect the company's results of operations; if Accenture is unable to keep its supply of skills and resources in balance with client demand around the world and attract and retain professionals with strong leadership skills, the company's business, the utilization rate of the company's professionals and the company's results of operations may be materially adversely affected; Accenture could face legal, reputational and financial risks if the company fails to protect client and/or company data from security breaches or cyberattacks; the markets in which Accenture operates are highly competitive, and Accenture might not be able to compete effectively; changes in Accenture's level of taxes, as well as audits, investigations and tax proceedings, or changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, could have a material adverse effect on the company's effective tax rate, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition; Accenture's profitability could materially suffer if the company is unable to obtain favorable pricing for its services and solutions, if the company is unable to remain competitive, if its cost-management strategies are unsuccessful or if it experiences delivery inefficiencies; Accenture's results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; as a result of Accenture's geographically diverse operations and its growth strategy to continue to expand in its key markets around the world, the company is more susceptible to certain risks; Accenture's business could be materially adversely affected if the company incurs legal liability; Accenture's work with government clients exposes the company to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment; if Accenture is unable to manage the organizational challenges associated with its size, the company might be unable to achieve its business objectives; Accenture's ability to attract and retain business and employees may depend on its reputation in the marketplace; if Accenture does not successfully manage and develop its relationships with key alliance partners or fails to anticipate and establish new alliances in new technologies, the company's results of operations could be adversely affected; Accenture might not be successful at acquiring, investing in or integrating businesses, entering into joint ventures or divesting businesses; if Accenture is unable to protect or enforce its intellectual property rights or if Accenture's services or solutions infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others or the company loses its ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, its business could be adversely affected; Accenture's results of operations and share price could be adversely affected if it is unable to maintain effective internal controls; changes to accounting standards or in the estimates and assumptions Accenture makes in connection with the preparation of its consolidated financial statements could adversely affect its financial results; many of Accenture's contracts include fees subject to the attainment of targets or specific service levels, which could increase the variability of the company's revenues and impact its margins; Accenture might be unable to access additional capital on favorable terms or at all and if the company raises equity capital, it may dilute its shareholders' ownership interest in the company; Accenture may be subject to criticism and negative publicity related to its incorporation in Ireland; as well as the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed under the "Risk Factors" heading in Accenture plc's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this news release speak only as of the date they were made, and Accenture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this news release or to conform such statements to actual results or changes in Accenture's expectations.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005016/en/

Contacts:

Velislava Le Fevre

Accenture

+33 1 53 23 46 18

velislava.lefevre@accenture.com

Bonnie Olivier

Accenture

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Kathryn Rosati

Accenture

+1 917 452 6662

kathryn.rosati@accenture.com
Daily one progressive mayor after another crashes and burns. As talk of abolishing police increases, anarchists and criminals become more empowered. The failed mayor of Minneapolis sheepishly walked away from a rally after being harassed by a mob. No dialogue allowed.

Seattle is now a Mad Max scenario. From calling the chaos there the summer of love to declaring it patriotic, their progressive mayor is totally ineffective. Its no longer a protest against racism, the new name tells it all. Its an anarchist occupation. They dont want a southern border wall but the first thing they did was blockade the streets putting armed guards there to stop people from coming into their crazy-land. Last week 35 police officers resigned and more are expected.

The media in unison said people protesting against Michigans harsh quarantine were dangerous gun-wielding Nazis and right-wing extremists. Now the leftist media is gleefully euphoric about Seattles Autonomous Zone (Mike Baker, NY Times) ignoring how they openly brandish assault weapons. In Portsmouth, Va., a screaming mob pulled a statue down on one of their own putting him in a coma. These fanatics are dangerous and unsafe and progressives just want to pretend its a protest.

Progressives who studied political thought or Byzantine art have little skill or knowledge to deal with something chaotic in which theyve actually enabled. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in May (during a strict quarantine) 232 shootings and 85 homicides. Yet their progressive mayor wants to reduce their police force while foolishly engaging in profanity filled rants with members of City Council.

Democrat candidates struggle with how to respond but its certain they wont discuss specifics. They speak in generalities and slogans always including obligatory denunciations of privilege. When questioned by constituents they must explain defunding police really doesnt mean what you think it does. Thats progressivism in action or rather lets pretend.

Clinton operative, Terry McAulife, told a group in Virginia Joe Biden should just remain in his basement. Down in his cellar Crazy Joe babbles about Trump trying to steal the election and not leaving the White House if he loses. McAulife may really fear Biden might say you should just get a shotgun as hes said before.

Progressives also want to ban guns. Failed Presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg just a few months ago spoke about gun control. He said, its the job of law enforcement to have guns and to decide when to shoot. How does that fit with what they say today?

Anarchists have destroyed more property in the last two weeks in American cities than any result of the First or Second World Wars. And progressives want to ban guns and abolish police? Mike doesnt have to worry if that makes sense. He has armed security protecting him and his mansion.

We cant allow progressives to continue controlling any part of this nation. Weve seen how the cities and states they govern become chaotic and dangerous. Progressives and their schemes are unsafe.

Ralph Miller






A sign is posted in front of a Hertz car sales and rental car office on August 8, 2017 in South San Francisco, California.

Hertz said in a government filing Monday that it would sell up to $500 million in common stock. In that very same filing, the company said those shares won't be worth anything unless those with higher priority in a bankruptcy, such as the company's debtholders, are paid in full. And that, the company said, would only happen if there is an astounding change in the progress of Covid-19 and a significant turnaround in travel trends.

Hertz Global Holdings warned potential buyers in its common stock offering that it's almost certain that the equity will become worthless.

The company said the following in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

"Although we cannot predict how our common stock will be treated under a plan, we expect that common stock holders would not receive a recovery through any plan unless the holders of more senior claims and interests, such as secured and unsecured indebtedness (which is currently trading at a significant discount), are paid in full, which would require a significant and rapid and currently unanticipated improvement in business conditions to pre-COVID-19 or close to pre-COVID-19 levels."

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on Friday approved Hertz to sell up to $1 billion in stock in a last-ditch effort by the company to cash in on its volatile share price and haggles with the New York Stock Exchange to not be delisted.

As a company exposed to travel demand, Hertz has faced significant headwinds throughout the spring as Covid-19 and efforts to contain its spread have kept Americans at home and prevented the vast majority of everyday travel.

The stock sale is a rare move for a company going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy since common shareholders are last in line when assets are allocated during court proceedings. People and entities that hold Hertz's bonds will receive payouts first as debtholders receive priority during bankruptcies.

Also unusual is the volatility seen in Hertz stock over the last month, even after the company filed Chapter 11 on May 22. The share price, which bottomed around 40 cents per share on May 26, is up 475% since then at around $2.30.

But the shares dropped 19% on Monday.
Actor Sushant Singh Rajput's brother-in-law O.P. Singh, who is the Additional Director General of Police and posted as Special Officer in the Haryana Chief Minister's Office, suspected some foul play in the crime, it is reliably learnt on Monday. He is seeking a thorough probe into the incident.

"Sushant Singh Rajput has been murdered, he cannot commit suicide. I demand CBI enquiry into the matter," Jan Adhikar Party Chief Pappu Yadav told media persona at the actors residence in Patna, where his family resides.

#SushantSinghRajput has been murdered, he cannot commit suicide. I demand CBI enquiry into the matter: Jan Adhikar Party Chief Pappu Yadav, at the actors residence in Patna, where his family resides. (14.06.2020) pic.twitter.com/WNFlvLWirA  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

The 34-year-old actor was found hanging at his apartment in Mumbai's Bandra on Sunday.

His sister lives in Chandigarh.

State officials said Singh has left for Mumbai soon he came to know about the suicide incident.

Expressing condolences, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said actor Rajput's death is an "irreparable loss" to not only the film industry but also for the entire society.

It is reported that Rajput's last rites will be performed in Mumbai after his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna, according to a report in indiatoday.in.

If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:58:40|Editor: huaxia

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ISTANBUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Russian top officials postponed a visit to Turkey at the last minute on Sunday, highlighting their differences on the Libyan conflict, where the two countries have taken a lead in efforts to find a solution to the oil-rich nation's near decade-long conflict, analysts said.

Meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu planned in Istanbul will take place "at a future date," Turkey's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, a day after announcing that the two ministers were set to come for talks.

The Foreign Ministry in Moscow separately said the two sides are "actively working to support a settlement in Libya." No reason has been mentioned for the cancellation of this meeting where Libya was supposed to be the main focus.

Experts think that recent gains in Libya by Turkish-supported forces lay at the core of tensions amid statements from the United Nations that warring sides had begun new peace talks.

"This last minute cancellation is the signal of problems in Libya where Turkey has upped it stakes after recent battle victories on the field. It seems that Turkey's hand is stronger than before compared to Russia," Oytun Orhan, coordinator at the Ankara-based Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM), told Xinhua.

Ankara and Moscow support opposing sides in civil wars in Syria and Libya. Ankara is providing military and diplomatic support to Libya's United Nations-recognized administration, the Government of National Accord (GNA), while Russia backs rival militia commander Khalifa Haftar.

In Syria, the Russian-backed government aims to retake northern province of Idlib from Islamist militants, while Turkey has vowed to never let that happen, sending thousands of troops there to protect its national interests and avert a new influx of refugees on its soil.

"Turkey doesn't seem ready to any concessions in Libya where its hand is stronger now with battleground gains around the strategic town of Sirte," indicated Orhan.

Russia, on the other hand, he said, is trying to force Ankara to a compromise in Libya by using the Idlib card, organising air raids against Turkey-backed forces positions in northern Syria, Orhan stressed.

"There is an ongoing arm wrestling between Russia and Turkey in Syria and Libya," argued this expert, emphasizing that he doesn't expect these tensions to simmer in both war theaters into a direct confrontation.

In recent months, Russia and Turkey have taken the lead in efforts to find a solution to Libya's crisis, hoping in the process to carve out spheres of influence for themselves in the North African nation.

Turkish support for the GNA has allowed it to turn the tide and repel a year-long offensive by eastern-based renegade commander Khalifa Haftar, which Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt back.

The postponed Istanbul talks were supposed to broker a deal which would pave the way of a ceasefire in Libya.

This is not the first time that Russia and Turkey have attempted to broker a ceasefire in Libya, but this time with the United States showing interest to support its NATO ally, Turkey, in the oil-rich nation.

In January, GNA Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj and Haftar visited Moscow as part of Russian-Turkish efforts to secure a lasting ceasefire. However, Haftar, bolstered by his battlefield successes at the time, refused to sign the agreement.

The Moscow meeting was followed a week later by a separate summit, this time hosted by Germany.

Turkey's prime motivations for entering the war in Libya was a contentious maritime border demarcation agreement it signed with the GNA that expanded its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the resource-abundant eastern Mediterranean.

Several European nations have opposed Turkey's Libyan ambitions. France escalated over the weekend its stance towards Ankara in Libya, saying that it is "acting in an unacceptable way by using NATO, and France cannot tolerate this."

Observers think that both Ankara and Moscow have to make concessions at further stages in Libya to secure their gains and prevent an escalation of tensions that would be detrimental to both sides.

"Conditions have drastically changed in the Libyan theater since January and it's very obvious that Turkey and Russia should engage in a new round of talks if they intend to renew their joint commitment for peace and stability of Libya," political commentator Serkan Demirtas told Xinhua.

The GNA, backed by Turkey's military and drones, remarked this expert, is continuing its advance to gain the control of Sirte and al-Jufra airbase. It wants to expand its control along the shoreline and around the Oil Crescent to further consolidate its military gains. It won't likely stop until these objectives are met.

Nevertheless, Demirtas insisted that a renewed Turkish-Russian political dialogue seems to be the best solution to reach peace in Libya. "Just like in Syria, there is no military solution to the Libyan question either," he added. Enditem
Jennifer Aniston recently made an abundant donation worth $1 million to charity campaigning for anti-racism. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt is also getting involved with the charity, matching the generosity of his former wife.

The "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" actor, 57, has been associated with a charity setting forth the benefit of African-Americans through the "Friends" actress, 51.

Last week, according to Aniston, she offered the hefty sum to Color of Change after she was perturbed by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Pitt, who divorced "The Morning Show" actress in 2005, stated he will provide the same amount as Aniston's, reported Olt News.

Also, the Oscars award-winning actor, who has taken a cue from his former wife, sits at the 18th place on the ranking of the 25 richest actors and actresses across the globe.

According to a source, Pitt became involved with the organization because of his former wife.

Pitt was present at the emerging Black Lives Matter movement protestations in Los Angeles.

Color of Change is the largest racial justice charity on the internet in the United States, according to Elle. It is a non-profit civil rights-promoting group.

This week, the insider added that Pitt joined the demonstrations and was at Aniston's house the following day. Both are passionate regarding the cause.

Aniston's net worth stands at $300 million, whereas Pitt has acquired roughly the same amount.

She linked the organization's page to her Instagram page in order for followers to make donations as well.

Also Read: Brad Pitt Moves in With Actress, But Not Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie

Also, she posted footage of a 60-year-old African-American man questioning the amount of time it will take for the proposed progress to ensue. She wrote in her caption that this week has been devastating and that people need to acknowledge that the long-running racism and violence in the U.S. "As allies, who want equality and peace, it's our responsibility to make noise, to demand justice, to educate ourselves on these issues, and more than anything, to spread love. How much more time are we willing to let pass without change? HOW MUCH MORE TIME?"

According to the website for Color of Change, they counter injustice, hold leaders liable, elevate solutions for racial justice to help the globe evolve, and commission transitory inequality research.

Aniston provided the hefty sum to the organization that resonated with her upon being affected by George Floyd's death after a police officer forced his knee on Floyd's neck for almost 9 minutes.

Pitt and Aniston have remained friends and have spent time at Aniston's house recently, following 5 years of marriage.

Other celebrities nationwide have also donated generously to racial and social justice groups.

Pitt appeared riding his superbike upon joining the demonstrators in Hollywood and appeared to be donning a George Floyd emblazoned hoodie.

For the actor, it is not a standalone event as he had consistently made donations towards charity. Previously, he had been associated with charity organizations campaigning towards global development, humanitarian, and health causes.

Related Article: Brad Pitt Said Touching Words About Jennifer Aniston Before Affair With Angelina Jolie

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A police officer who was shot in the head during a Las Vegas Strip protest of the death of George Floyd has been left paralyzed from the neck down, on a ventilator and unable to speak, his family said in a statement.

Officer Shay Mikalonis, 29, was shot June 1 while attempting to detain demonstrators.

The family statement released on Twitter by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on Saturday said he is expected to stay on the ventilator. He has been tentatively accepted at a premier spine rehabilitation center.

Shay Mikalonis, 29 (left), was shot in the head June 1 while riots erupted after George Floyd protests. Police arrested Edgar Samaniego, 20 (right) in the shooting

The family thanked doctors, nurses and staff at University Medical Center in Las Vegas for their care and the community for support and fundraising.

A GoFundMe campaign launched by a retired police officer who is a friend of Mikalonis' step-father has drawn more than $130,000 in donations.

The organizer of the online fundraisers wrote in an update on Saturday that after learning that Mikalonis was a massive fan of the Golden Knights, members of the hockey team presented him with a signed jersey.

'Again, our family can never express our gratitude for all the support for Shay,' the unsigned family statement said. 'We are always Las Vegas Strong and so proud of our community.'

The suspected gunman, Edgar Samaniego, 20, has been charged with attempted murder, battery and gun charges.

A prosecutor in the case said Friday that police video shows 'visual evidence of the actual act' of Mikalonis being shot in the back of the head.

A judge who reviewed the evidence at a June 5 court hearing said that police video shows Samaniego 'walking by, taking out a gun and firing ... at officers.'

The bullet, which has since been removed, traveled through Mikalonis' spine before being lodged on the other side of his face.

Samaniego is being held in lieu of $1million bond. An appointed public defender, Scott Coffee, said after the hearing that Samaniego will plead not guilty.

Samaniego also is being held without bail on accusations that he violated the terms of release on separate misdemeanor driving under the influence and illegal drug possession charges.

The Golden Knights hockey team signed a jersey and gifted it to Mikalonis after learning he was a big fan

Mikalonis had been with the Las Vegas police department for four years when he was shot

Mikalonis on Tuesday had surgery to repair his shattered jaw, and was awake and able to recognize his relatives, they said.

But in an earlier statement tweeted by the Las Vegas police, the family said he remains on a ventilator and will remain so for the foreseeable future - perhaps for the rest of his life.

The family said they wanted well-wishers to know that the four-year veteran of the department was 'a fighter'.

'But he has a long hard fight ahead of him.'

They added: 'Our concern is for Shay and only Shay.

'We hope and pray that one day he will leave UMC Trauma and go to a rehabilitation facility [where] they can work on Shay's quality of life, whatever that may be.'

Samaniego, charged in the shooting, appears at the Regional Justice Center on June 3

Steve Grammas, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, thanked officers and supporters who have dropped off food and held vigils at the hospital.

'From the moment Shay got shot, the community has continued to support him and our officers,' Grammas told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 'We are thankful for it.'

In Las Vegas, demonstrations last weekend resulted in hundreds of arrests, and police used tear gas, pepper balls and beanbag projectiles to disperse crowds.

The same night Mikalonis was wounded, police shot and killed a man they said was armed with several guns and refused orders to leave an area near federal courthouses.

Protesters in Las Vegas on June 5, four days after Mikalonis was shot in the head
KUWAIT CITY, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Zain Group [Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN)] the leading mobile telecom innovator serving 49.5 million customers in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa today announces it is joining the highly innovative Hedera Governing Council.

Zain is the first company from the Middle East region to participate on the Council, joining a list of prestigious global innovators including Boeing, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, FIS (WorldPay), Google, IBM, LG Electronics, Magalu, Nomura, Swirlds, Swisscom Blockchain, Tata Communications, University College London, and Wipro.

Hedera Hashgraph provides a next-generation form of distributed consensus that is faster, fairer and more secure than traditional blockchains. It offers a new way for people or organizations who do not know or trust each other to securely collaborate and transact online without the need for a trusted intermediary. Through its participation on the Hedera Council, Zain Group will gain extensive early insights into the trends and applications in the distributed ledger technology (DLT) space and will be able to assess opportunities to develop services within its own field of operation.

Hedera's vision is to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet - one in which online communities can collectively create and evolve shared worlds in cyberspace, and on which developers can build trusted applications that enable people to play games and work together. End-users will also be empowered to buy and sell goods and services safely and securely, without entrusting a central organization with their data and privacy.

As a leading regional digital lifestyle operator, Zain consistently looks to ways technology can provide new solutions to its individual and business customers while also improving its own operating efficiency. Furthermore, the Hedera Hashgraph patented technology platform addresses the universally important issue of the environment as its power usage is super-efficient, utilizing a fraction of the electricity that blockchain platforms use. This is in line with Zain Group's membership of and commitment to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which provides a reporting framework and guidance to address climate change.

Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO, Bader Al Kharafi commented, "We feel a sense of purpose in joining the Hedera Governing Council, which has numerous blue chip, innovation-driven organizations all interested in driving the development of blockchains and the wider DLT space, which we have already noted has phenomenal potential. Council membership provides Zain first-hand exposure to cutting-edge and secure technologies that drive innovation, e-commerce and B2B across the region."

Al-Kharafi continued, "From our own perspective, the growing list of new services and applications we have and continue to develop in areas such as the Group API platform; mobile money and fintech; e-health; drones; the Internet of Things; and 5G all lend themselves to further enhancement through blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies. Our participation in the Council also speaks to another pillar of Zain's corporate strategy, which is to collaborate with leading industry players to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and thereby improve the products and services we can deliver to our customers."

Hedera aims to realize its vision to create a safer, fairer, more secure internet through a focus on addressing four fundamental challenges to the adoption of public DLT - technology, security, stability, and governance. For the vision to deliver impactful results, the network needs to be governed by representatives from a broad range of market sectors and geographies, each with world-class expertise in their respective industries.

Mance Harmon, CEO of Hedera commented, "We are delighted to have Zain Group join the Council, given the company's sound track record of innovation, and professionalism in the development and delivery of cutting-edge mobile services and applications. We believe the Council will be enriched greatly by this first organization to join us from the Middle East region, given Zain Group's eight country footprint. We hope Zain will take full advantage of the opportunity to immerse itself in hashgraph and distributed ledger technologies and gain first-hand knowledge of new technologies and use cases developed on the Hedera network."

The Hedera Governing Council's members contribute technical expertise to manage the technical roadmap, business expertise to advise on business operations, and legal expertise to help navigate the evolving regulatory environment.

About Zain Group

Zain is a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to over 49.5 million active customers and an annual turnover of circa US$5.5 billion as of 31 December, 2019. With a commercial presence in 8 countries, Zain operates in: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Sudan. In Lebanon, the Group manages 'touch' on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain has a 15.5% stake in 'INWI', through a joint venture. Zain is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN). We recommend the Investor Community download the "Zain Group Investor Relations" Mobile App. For more information please email [email protected] or visit: www.zain.com ; www.facebook.com/zain ; www.twitter.com/zain ; www.youtube.com/zain ; www.instagram.com/zaingroup ; www.linkedin.com/company/zain

About Hedera

Hedera Hashgraph is an enterprise-grade public distributed ledger for building decentralized applications. Developers can build secure, fair, blazing-fast decentralized applications on top of the Hedera platform. Dr. Leemon Baird, Hedera Hashgraph Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, and Mance Harmon, Co-founder and CEO of Hedera, patented the groundbreaking hashgraph technology after working together at the United States Air Force Academy and as founders of Trio Security, BlueWave Security, and Swirlds, Inc. For more information, visit https://www.hedera.com, or follow us on Twitter at @hashgraph, Telegram at t.me/hashgraph, or Discord at https://www.hedera.com/discord. The Hedera whitepaper can be found at https://www.hedera.com/whitepaper .

For Media Enquiries

Zain Group

[email protected]

Hedera Hashgraph

Zenobia Godschalk

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Hedera Hashgraph

Emily Kielthy

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+353 87 097 2754

SOURCE Hedera Hashgraph

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Popocatepetl volcano news & eruption update

Background:

Volcan Popocatepetl, whose name is the Aztec word for smoking mountain, towers to 5426 m 70 km SE of Mexico City to form North America's 2nd-highest volcano. The glacier-clad stratovolcano contains a steep-walled, 250-450 m deep crater. The generally symmetrical volcano is modified by the sharp-peaked Ventorrillo on the NW, a remnant of an earlier volcano.

At least three previous major cones were destroyed by gravitational failure during the Pleistocene, producing massive debris-avalanche deposits covering broad areas south of the volcano. The modern volcano was constructed to the south of the late-Pleistocene to Holocene El Fraile cone. Three major plinian eruptions, the most recent of which took place about 800 AD, have occurred from Popocatepetl since the mid Holocene, accompanied by pyroclastic flows and voluminous lahars that swept basins below the volcano. Frequent historical eruptions, first recorded in Aztec codices, have occurred since precolumbian time.

---

Source: GVP, Smithsonian Institution - Popocatepetl information
Collins, who faces a tough 2020 reelection bid, is among the most vocal Senate Republican supporters of LGBTQ rights. She is one of the lead sponsors of the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to other protected classes in federal law. After news of Mondays 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision was reported, she praised the ruling as a major advancement for LGBTQ rights and called for Congress to pass the Equality Act and amend the Civil Rights Act to expressly prohibit such discrimination.
A leading LGBT advocate in South Carolina says Monday's Supreme Court ruling protecting lesbian, gay and transgender people from discrimination in employment can lead to ensuring protections in other legal areas, as well.

"It seems to be signaling 'stop these cases, stop the discrimination,' " Charleston attorney Colleen Condon said.

Condon's comments come after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

"Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids," he added.

Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous," Alito wrote in the dissent. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of sex is different from discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.' "

Kavanaugh wrote in a separate dissent that the court was rewriting the law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, a job that belongs to Congress. Still, Kavanaugh said the decision represents an important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans."

Condon said it was significant the case was decided 6-3 in a conservative court, rather than a more split 5-4.

"Our Supreme Court clearly understands and clearly signals that any transgender or homosexuality issues come back to the very core of sex, which is a protected class," said Condon, who is a member of the National LGBT Bar.

The outcome is expected to have a big impact for the estimated 8.1 million LGBT workers across the country because most states dont protect them from workplace discrimination. An estimated 11.3 million LGBT people live in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA law school.

The Williams Institute estimates LGBT individuals make up about 3.5 percent of South Carolina's population.

Labor attorney Allen Holmes of Charleston-based Gibbs & Holmes called the decision a literal reading of Title VII, that no person should be discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation.

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Holmes, who primarily represents employers in legal disputes, said he didnt think the ruling will create headaches for business owners because many already have policies in place that ban such forms of discrimination.

Its not just a question of an internal policy anymore, he said. Its telling you this is what Title VII requires.

He also said it doesnt really affect South Carolinas status as an at-will state where employers can terminate workers for any lawful reason.

Thats true, but I cant fire them for unlawful reasons, he said, calling Title VII an exclusion to at-will employment.

The Supreme Court cases involved two gay men and a transgender woman who sued for employment discrimination after they lost their jobs.

Aimee Stephens lost her job as a funeral director in the Detroit area after she revealed to her boss that she had struggled with gender most of her life and had, at long last, decided to become the person that my mind already is. Stephens told funeral home owner Thomas Rost that following a vacation, she would report to work wearing a conservative skirt suit or dress that Rost required for women who worked at his three funeral homes. Rost fired Stephens.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the firing constituted sex discrimination under federal law.

Stephens died last month. Donna Stephens, her wife of 20 years, said in a statement that she is grateful for this victory to honor the legacy of Aimee, and to ensure people are treated fairly regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The federal appeals court in New York ruled in favor of a gay skydiving instructor who claimed he was fired because of his sexual orientation. The full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 that it was abandoning its earlier holding that Title VII didnt cover sexual orientation because legal doctrine evolves. The court held that sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.

That ruling was a victory for the relatives of Donald Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, N.Y., that required him to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an airplane. He tried to put a woman with whom he was jumping at ease by explaining that he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the womans boyfriend called to complain.

Zarda died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2014.

In a case from Georgia, the federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled against Gerald Bostock, a gay employee of Clayton County, in the Atlanta suburbs. Bostock claimed he was fired in 2013 because he is gay. The county argues that Bostock was let go because of the results of an audit of funds he managed.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Bostocks claim in a three-page opinion that noted the court was bound by a 1979 decision that held discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.

John McDermott of The Post and Courier and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Pakistan Says Its COVID-19 Cases Could Rise to 1.2 Million by End of July

By Ayaz Gul June 14, 2020

Officials in Pakistan have estimated that nationwide confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections could reach up to 1.2 million by the end of July, urging the nation to strictly comply with safety guidelines to help reverse the rising trajectory of new cases.

The national tally of infections has surpassed 140,000, with about 2,700 deaths, since late February when the coronavirus pandemic reached the South Asian nation of 220 million people.

Pakistani officials said Sunday the country has recorded more than 6,800 cases in the last 24 hours.

Asad Umar, the head of the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) directing Pakistan's battle against the virus, said Sunday the escalation in COVID-19 infections was a cause of grave concern for the government.

"Unless the current trend is reversed, our experts are telling us the number of cases could double by the end of June and could even reach one million to 1.2 million by the end July," Umar warned while addressing a news conference in Islamabad.

COVID-19 infections have particularly soared since last month when Prime Minister Imran Khan eased restrictions on commercial and public activities to help restore livelihood means for millions of poverty-stricken families.

Scores of government workers and national as well as provincial lawmakers have also contracted the virus while several others have died.

Umar said that despite a sustained government campaign to promote, among other safety measures, the use of masks in public places, a major chunk of the population ignored the instructions, leading to a rise in infections in Pakistan. This has forced the government to go for a "selective" or "smart" lockdown, he said.

"Now the government has decided to crackdown on people violating safety guidelines in high-risk areas or hot spots, to protect them against contracting the virus and to ensure they are able to conduct commercial activities at the same time," he said.

Hundreds of hot spots have already been sealed off in Pakistan, including parts of the national capital, over the past few days to contain the spread of the virus.

Khan has rejected calls for enforcing prolonged and complete fresh lockdowns, insisting such a move would hurt the poorest in a country where two-thirds of the population depend on day-to-day earnings.

The prime minister has from the outset argued that about 150 million people in the country would suffer from starvation and his cash-starved government cannot feed them beyond a few months.

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KYODO NEWS - Jun 15, 2020 - 18:04 | All, Japan, Coronavirus

A group of professors in Japan sent a petition to the education ministry Monday demanding it scrap "discriminatory" criteria for foreign students to be eligible for cash handouts to mitigate financial difficulties amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The petition was launched by nearly 40 professors after the government decided not to treat foreign and Japanese students equally over the support program.

For foreigners to receive up to 200,000 yen ($1,900), the ministry requires that they remain among the top 30 percent of students.

"I believe it is important for those who are working in universities to make an appeal so that there is no discrimination," said Maya Hamada, a Kobe University professor, who led the online signature campaign calling for support for all financially struggling students regardless of nationality.

"In a tough period, why are only foreign students being set apart by their academic results and receiving discriminatory treatment different from Japanese students?" said the petition, which received 1,701 signatures in the two weeks through June 9.

"We are concerned that the measure would make students hoping to study in Japan feel the country takes the human rights of foreigners lightly and discriminates against them," it said.

Under the support program, of the around 3.70 million students attending universities, colleges and other educational institutions, 430,000, accounting for just over 10 percent of the total, are eligible to receive the cash handouts.

In addition to the conditions imposed on Japanese students, foreign students must have attained a grade point average of 2.30 or higher in the previous school year, equivalent to the top 25 to 30 percent of students, according to the ministry.

"With many foreign students eventually returning to their home countries, we have set a condition to limit the handouts to promising talent most likely to contribute to Japan in the future," the ministry said last month in explaining the policy.

The tougher condition has sparked criticism because many students from abroad, like their Japanese peers, are facing difficulties paying for tuition and living costs.

Education minister Koichi Hagiuda has said those who do not meet the criteria may still be eligible for the handouts as the government has left the screening of eligible students to each institution.

But Hamada of Kobe University said many institutions are likely to comply with the criteria anyway and it will have an unfavorable effect on places of education.

Some university presidents said they will select recipients of the handouts on their own, without taking the criteria into consideration.

Yoshiaki Terumichi, president of Sophia University in Tokyo, questioned the criteria as the government has been promoting the acceptance of foreign students amid Japan's low birthrate and graying population.

"It is hard to understand what kind of message (the government) is delivering," Terumichi, who serves as a vice president of the Japan Association of Private Universities and Colleges, told reporters earlier this month.

Japan achieved its target of accepting 300,000 students from abroad in fiscal 2019 ended March. In Sophia University, the number of international students totaled 2,718 in fiscal 2018, doubling from fiscal 2013.

Terumichi said the university will not distinguish foreign students from Japanese students, adding he wants the government pay considerable attention to them by implementing special measures for them "in a visible manner."

Such a view is also held by Kyoto City University of Arts President Tamame Akamatsu, who said in a message posed on its website it will support students who apply for the cash handout program regardless of whether they are Japanese or foreign.

"Foreign students are important people, who allow us to learn about the importance of diversity," Akamatsu said. Of the around 1,000 students studying at the arts university, about 60 are from abroad.

A painter herself, Akamatu said she was not an excellent student during her university days and the criteria "should not be a hurdle for the support."
The Paycheck Protection Program worked in May, helping retailers, restaurants and construction companies hire back employees as states lift restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The new coronavirus, though, continues to spread, with daily infections in Texas climbing along with the death toll. Consumers, still fearful of the pandemic, have changed behaviors in ways that will likely forever transform business, particularly retail.

In the last week of May, 85 percent of Americans said the pandemic had changed their shopping behavior, according to a survey by Numerator, a retail data collection and consulting firm. They were split on reopening, with 67 percent agreeing and 33 percent saying it was too fast.

Ask people how much risk they are willing to take, though, and the answers are quite different. Only 45 percent said they would go back to a store closed during the pandemic, and 67 percent say they are unlikely to get on a plane. Only 47 percent are comfortable going to their hairstylist or barber.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Forget COVID, go full speed ahead with real estate trends

When it comes to retail, the pandemic is speeding up the transition to online shopping. Online ordering of ice cream is accelerating nine times faster than trends would have predicted before the outbreak, Numerator calculated.

J.C. Penney and Neiman Marcus were going to declare bankruptcy, COVID-19 just hastened the collapse. Retailers with brick-and-mortar locations need to offer more services.

Customers are asking for more options than ever to buy whatever, wherever, however and whenever they want. When customers want a knowledgeable salesperson, they expect a storefront. If they want home delivery, they want to shop online. If they want their purchase put in a car trunk, they expect both.

Nearly half of Americans report buying things online they would typically have purchased in a store, Numerator found. Almost 50 percent more households shopped online in May than the year earlier. Shopping at beauty stores is down 77 percent.

Not surprisingly, consumers are making fewer shopping trips, both in-person and online, but spending more when they do.

Until there is a vaccine or herd immunity, fear of contracting COVID-19 will hang over many shoppers, so some of these behaviors will persist. If so, they will hurt efforts to hire people back.

Retailers rehiring staff accounted for a 375,000 of the 2.5 million jobs added in May, according to the Labor Department. But fewer people visiting stores, in the long run, will mean less need for sales staff and lower revenue-per-square-foot, both of which will have knock-on effects.

The government only provided so much money for retailers to retain their staff, and once that money runs out, so will the jobs unless consumers are filling stores again. Mays remarkable rehiring may not last, and millions may end up back on unemployment.

Lower revenue-per-square-foot means retailers may not make their rent. Or they will do what many have done already and simply refuse to pay. Either way, if retailers cannot afford their rent, landlords will begin to lose money and cannot pay their mortgages.

More than 7 percent of commercial mortgages bundled into securities and sold to investors are more than 30 days delinquent, my colleague R.A. Schuetz recently reported. The delinquency rate among mortgages on retail proeprties was 10 percent. When investors begin losing money, financial markets shrink.

Retailers of all stripes are also still suffering from the 21 million Americans who are still out of work. Forty-six percent of Americans report delaying purchases due to economic uncertainty, Numerator said.

TOMLINSONS TAKE: Got Spot helps small businesses share space as more work from home

Millions of Americans are still making first-time claims for unemployment insurance. Just as we are far from out of the woods where the virus is concerned, neither has the economy completely rebounded. Stock markets may be optimistic, but most Americans are not.

The answer for retailers of every type and scale is to do what they should always do: give their customers what they want.

Just as fine-dining restaurants have developed take-out menus and delivery services, retailers must also offer customers options that fit the mood. Maybe less lipstick and more face masks? If your customers will not come to the store, digitally deliver the store to them.

Independent retailers at San Antonios Hill Country Village rebooted old websites and started offering delivery. Brittany Guzman, a co-founder of the Rustic Modern Boutique, filmed how-to videos to keep connected to clients and attract new customers, Madison Iszler reported.

The pandemic and the recent protests against police brutality have created a stronger sense of community. Consumers want to support their neighbors; they need a convenient method of keeping the community vibrant.

Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and policy.

twitter.com/cltomlinson

chris.tomlinson@chron.com
The Small Business Administration has processed 4.5 million loans worth $511 billion on a program designed to help struggling businesses keep workers on the payroll as the U.S. economy has been jolted by the worst pandemic in a century. Under the Paycheck Protection Program, those loans can be forgiven if the participating business live up to their commitment to keep workers on the payroll.

Its a huge investment of taxpayer money, but is it working as intended? In reality, there is no way of knowing. The SBA has provided only top-line data such as the sum of loans that have been awarded.

For a while, the SBA was deflecting questions from Congress, journalists and public-interest groups about where, specifically, the money was going. It cited a priority of getting the relief funds into the hands of employers to save jobs. Transparency would have to wait.

The wait is officially over. Public accountability is not coming. In testimony before Congress last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the names of recipients and the level of loans they received is proprietary information and thus confidential.

This is utter nonsense.

The potential for abuse of a government handout of this magnitude is not theoretical.

American taxpayers already know from journalists reviews of data from securities filings that large chunks of the relief money went to companies that hardly fit the profile of small businesses that otherwise might not have the means to keep workers on the payroll. A May 1 report in the Washington Post noted that 43 of the companies had more than 500 employees, the maximum typically allowed by the program. Some of those companies, once publicly shamed, returned the money. That list included the restaurant chains Shake Shack ($10 million) and Ruths Chris Steakhouse ($20 million).

It should not require investigative reporting for taxpayers to learn where these dollars are going. The Trump administration should be up front with the money spent so far  and Congress must attach transparency provisions to any future coronavirus relief.

Mnuchins insistence that the loans are proprietary drew harsh condemnation from public-interest groups and members of the House and Senate. His Treasury Department has the ultimate authority over the program administered by the SBA.

Even by the Trump administrations infinitesimally low standards for accountability and oversight, this announcement was draw-dropping, the nonprofit consumer rights group Public Citizen alerted on its website. It added: What are they hiding? Are massive corporations masquerading as small businesses receiving funds? Are President Donald Trump and Mnuchins pals getting money when they shouldnt be?

As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer said Friday, the lack of transparency only serves to raise further suspicions. Hes right.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who chairs a House subcommittee overseeing the administrations coronavirus response, promised to push for greater public accountability of these loans. American taxpayers deserve to know if their money is being used to help struggling small businesses, as Congress intended, or instead is being siphoned off through waste, fraud and abuse.

The initial delay in making public the recipients and size of each loan might be forgivable in view of the rush to save jobs. The notion that Americans have no right to this information is not. Republicans and Democrats should unite to demand a full accounting.

This commentary is from The Chronicles editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:04:24|Editor: huaxia

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CHONGWE, Zambia, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Zambia-China Association (ZCA) had provided Evergreen primary school in Chongwe district of Lusaka province in Zambia with medical supplies, a Zambia government official said on Monday in an interview.

The assorted materials included face masks, gloves, hand washing soap and hand sanitizers. The association also donated sanitary towels to be distributed to girl pupils. The donations were valued at about 37,000 Zambian Kwacha (about 2,000 U.S. Dollars).

Chongwe district commissioner Robster Mwanza told Xinhua that the donations would help the rural school in Kanakantapa village in Chongwe in preventing the spread of COVID-19. He also noted that the sanitary towels would help improve on school attendance by the girls who might have a challenge in purchasing the items due to the economic challenges during the pandemic.

He described the donations as timely and thanked the association for its continued support to the rural school which is identified as a beneficiary of its goodwill. He was hopeful that the donated items would make a significant difference in preventing the pandemic at the rural school.

The association's treasurer Francis Zulu stressed that the association donated the items in its quest to assist the school in fighting the pandemic. He observed that the association remained committed to lending a hand to the rural school because of the many challenges that the community was faced with. Enditem
COVID-19 has shown us how the current constitutional framework impedes cooperative federalism on the subject of public health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the shortcomings which plague the public health system in India. The Central government with the aid of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, an archaic, colonial legislation, and the National Disaster Management Act, 2005, a legislation which has given the executive a carte blanche, has been imposing a uniform set of directions across the country to battle the pandemic, while some states have been issuing directions contrary to those recommended by the Centre.

The pandemic has unveiled and exacerbated the friction between the Centre and the states. This can be evinced from the Centre sending inspection teams to states without the concurrence of their respective governments, the state-Centre debate on the identification of hotspots, and the demand made by states for receiving funds, personal protective equipment kits and testing equipment from the Centre to tide them out of this distress.

To successfully clobber a pandemic in any democracy, the cooperation between the Centre and the states is a sine qua non, and the absence of this in India currently indicates broad fault lines in the constitutional framework, specifically in the domain of public health.

Structured governance and a sizable allocation of budgetary resources for public health are apparent fixes to the health crisis that is unfolding before us. However, despite this relatively simple solution, India is struggling in its governance of public health, primarily because of the lack of cooperative federalism between the Centre and states, and the limited mandate carved out in the Constitution for the Centre to constructively participate in the governance of public health.

Constitutional competence vs. fiscal and institutional strength

Public health and allied subjects, such as sanitation, hospitals and dispensaries, are the exclusive responsibilities of state governments under the Seventh Schedule of the Indian Constitution whereas the prevention of the spread of infectious or contagious diseases from one state to another falls under the Concurrent List of the Constitution, making it the shared responsibility of the Centre and the states.

This demarcation has limited the constitutional role of the Centre in the governance of public health and made states primarily responsible. Whereas in practice, due to the fiscal and institutional constraints experienced by states, the Centre has consistently played an active role in shaping public health policies. This has led to an absurd situation where the identification of who is truly responsible for the governance of public health has become difficult.

Indias fiscal expenditure on public health has been caught in the tangled mess of the current constitutional framework, with the Centre spending only about 3.6 percent of its GDP in the past year on health, leaving India to rank an abysmal 176 out of 191 countries in health expenditure.

The Central government has attributed this to its lack of constitutional mandate and to the fact that states are the primary custodians of public health under the Constitution. Despite its limited spending on public health, the Centres contribution to the states continues to outstrip each state's individual allocation of budgetary resources to public health.

The Central government is also technically better equipped to come up with such schemes because it has the assistance of multiple research bodies and departments dedicated to the management of public health. States on the other hand do not have the technical expertise to independently design comprehensive public health policies.

Basis its expenditure and expertise, the Central government has prepared several schemes on health issues such as tuberculosis, polio and HIV-AIDS and directed state governments to comply with their instructions in enforcing the schemes, thereby determining the last mile usage of the funds devolved.

Therefore, the Centre has assumed a more active role in determining public health policies despite a lack of defined constitutional obligation. By limiting public health exclusively to the domain of states, the Constitution ignores this reality. The state is reduced to a toothless tiger. Although it is exclusively given the responsibility of public health, it is not adequately provided with the fiscal power or the institutional support to effectively make or implement policies.

It may, therefore, be time to re-think the distribution of constitutional power with respect to public health and adopt an approach whereby the states and the Centre can work cooperatively.

Constituent Assembly on public health

The intention behind the Constituent Assembly placing public health under the State List is evident from the Constituent Assembly debates, with members in favour primarily desiring decentralisation. However, during the debates, various members raised concerns of placing it exclusively under the State List citing reasons such as the limited finances of states and the difficulty for the Centre to coordinate national health programmes.

Contributions of Frank Anthony and HV Kamath, who sought to move public health from the State List to the Concurrent List, are noteworthy in this regard.

Anthony, a nominated Anglo-Indian member felt that in three particular matters, police administration, education and health, a recognised degree of Central control was crucial along with that of the states. Kamath, known for his vocal opposition against granting the army extraordinary powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, stated that health schemes that are launched by provincial Governments while commendable as regards their good intentions- fail to achieve the desired consummation, because of the lack of direction and coordination from the Centre.

He also reminded the Constituent Assembly of how the health minister during Indias first budget session had pleaded for more powers for the Centre to coordinate and initiate various health schemes in the provinces so that national health standards can be raised effectively.

This discussion in the Constituent Assembly is especially relevant during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Central government's ability to use its fiscal power to usurp constitutional powers of the states, even if it is well-intentioned, is likely to cause a breakdown in the Centre-State relationship.

It is not a distant impossibility to see state governments in the future cite the lack of a constitutional basis to refuse to implement Central public health schemes, to retain autonomy in public health governance. On a subject as crucial as public health, it is imperative for states and the Centre to cooperate and have specific responsibilities earmarked.

Towards cooperative federalism

A high-level committee on health constituted to advise the 15th Finance Commission strongly suggested a shift of public health from the State List to the Concurrent List to balance the power play between the Centre and the states in such a manner that the states commit to the Central governments goals and also preserve their autonomy to design the implementation of public health policies within their respective borders.

Currently, various health-related subjects such as food adulteration, drugs and poisons, population control, family planning and medical profession reside in the Concurrent List, allowing the Centre to determine national standards and governance frameworks while ensuring that states oversee implementation of the policies regarding these subjects.

The Supreme Court in the case of Security Association of India vs. Union of India in 2014 held that constitutional doctrines must be designed to reconcile the legitimate diversity of regional experimentation with the need for national unity, and if such appropriate balance is struck, it would be in pursuance of cooperative federalism.

To enable a welfare-oriented governance framework in line with cooperative federalism, legislative subjects, especially welfare subjects, require both national and state vision.

One such experiment of balancing national and regional goals was undertaken in the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution which enabled a shift of education from the State List to the Concurrent List. While former prime minister Indira Gandhis objective behind this amendment may be questionable, some scholars note that the shift of education to the Concurrent List has improved the state of education by recognising a defined role for the Central government and mandating it to cooperatively work with states.

This approach is not uncommon, with other commonwealth countries such as Australia and Canada, allowing for shared responsibility between Centre and state governments on public health. Specifically, in the case of Schneider vs. the Queen, the Supreme Court of Canada in 1982 held that health as a subject should not be subject to specific constitutional assignments but should be addressed by both federal and provincial legislatures according to the nature and scope of the health problem.

COVID-19 has shown us how the current constitutional framework impedes cooperative federalism on the subject of public health. Shifting public health from the State List to the Concurrent List would not be antithetical to the concept of decentralisation as it would provide states with a better bargaining power for finances for public health from the Centre, and would empower them to hold the Centre responsible for improper disbursement of resources.

It would also enable states to design localised public health responses while complying with national goals. Though the process of re-shaping the constitutional structure for public health is fraught with political and social challenges, the COVID-19 outbreak has made us realise that it is time we begin discussing it.

Stuti Shah and Shashank Atreya are both advocates practising in Karnataka.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has accused the US government of using further threats and coercive actions, including financial measures, against the Court and its officials.



On Thursday, in retaliation for the ICC proceeding with investigations into war crimes committed in Afghanistan by all forces, including those from the US, Washington imposed visa restrictions on families of ICC officials who are already under American government sanctions.



The US Attorney General, William Barr, also announced that the Trump administration was launching an investigation into alleged corruption at the Court.



The US is not a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC.



A Court statement condemned the US action.



These are the latest in a series of unprecedented attacks on the ICC, an independent international judicial institution, as well as on the Rome Statute system of international criminal justice, which reflects the commitment and cooperation of the ICC's 123 States Parties, representing all regions of the world, the statement said.



These attacks constitute an escalation and an unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Courts judicial proceedings.



They are announced with the declared aim of influencing the actions of ICC officials in the context of the Courts independent and objective investigations and impartial judicial proceedings.



An attack on the ICC also represents an attack against the interests of victims of atrocity crimes, for many of whom the Court represents the last hope for justice, the statement added.



The ICC said that it stands firmly by its staff and officials and remains unwavering in its commitment to discharging, independently and impartially, the mandate bestowed upon it by the Rome Statute and the states that are party to it.



The President of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), O-Gon Kwon, also rejected the measures announced by the US.



These measures are unprecedented., he said.



They undermine our common endeavour to fight impunity and to ensure accountability for mass atrocities.

I deeply regret measures targeting Court officials, staff and their families.

Mr Kwon, who is South Korean, added: I will convene an extraordinary meeting of the Bureau of the Assembly next week to consider how to renew our unwavering commitment to the Court.



The Bureau consists of a President and two Vice Presidents and 18 members elected by the Assembly for three-year terms.



The ASP, the management oversight and legislative body of the ICC, and the Court have begun a wide-ranging review of the Rome Statute to strengthen it powers to ensure effective and efficient accountability for atrocity crimes.



The ASP comprises representatives of states that have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute.



Mr. Kwon was elected President of the Assembly for a three-year mandate in December 2017.



Crucial elections are scheduled for December at the next ASP meeting in New York when six judges and a new Prosecutor will be elected.

Source: GNA









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It's always a huge deal when a car manufacturer makes its one-millionth vehicle for the first time. But for Volkswagen, reaching just one million is just the start. especially when you've reached that important milestone three times already.

Allow us to give you a rundown of where these milestones took place:

Volkswagen Wolfsburg, Germany

Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga

Volkswagen Wolfsburg might not ring a lot of bells when you hear them, but what they made after World War II would make a mark in the world as one of the best-selling vehicles that has ever been made.

The vehicle was the ever-lovable Volkswagen Beetle. Officially called Volkswagen Type 1, Kafer (meaning "beetle" / Lady Bug Coccinellidae) and Coccinelle (in France), this two-door, "people's car" was actually Adolf Hitler's brainchild during his reign in Germany. It was conceptually designed by Bela Barenyi in 1925, and finalized by lead engineer Ferdinand Porsche and his team.

The Beetle's influence not only made affordable yet quality cars accessible, but it also marked a significant trend in automotive innovation. For instance, it made rear-engine, real-wheel-drive a household name in continental Western Europe in the 50s. Moreover, it influenced General Motors' air-cooled, rear-engine vehicle, the Chevrolet Corviar, and even has a similar flat engine and swing axle architecture like the Beetle's.

Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga

The Beetle's popularity eventually carried over in the United States, and by 1955, it would go on to become one of the best-selling vehicles ever. Volkswagen Wolfsburg was the first one to manufacture its one-millionth Beetle. And to commemorate this event, the factory painted the vehicle gold, with bumpers lined in rhinestones to add a dash of glamour and drama.

Today, this one-millionth Beetle resides in the Wolfsburg's AutoStadt Museum.

Volkswagen Puebla, Mexico City

The Beetle's popularity was so great that Volkswagen decided to open its first factory in Puebla, Mexico City.

Story continues

Known as "vochos", the Beetle stopped being sold in the United States in the 70s, but was still a viable choice in Mexico. During the 80s, Volkswagen Puebla introduced its one-millionth red Beetle at the factory. This festivity was attended not just by Volkswagen executives, partners, and its employees, but also Mexican government officials.

Volkswagen Chattanooga, USA



Situated in Hamilton County, Tennessee, Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant achieved its one-millionth vehicle with the Aurora Red Metallic 2020 Volkswagen Passat R-Line.

Red Volkswagen Passat

The Passat marked Volkswagens return to assembling vehicles in America, after the Westmoreland facility in Pennsylvania stopped operations in 1987. It was specifically created for the North American market, which prefers the kind of interior and trunk space that mid-sized sedans offer to its passengers.

Photos from Volkswagen

Also Read:

Looking Back at the Volkswagen Beetle: A Brief History

Volkswagen to "Exterminate" the Iconic Beetle This 2018
Decarbonization and the energy transition used to be a topic for environmentalists and leftist politicians. Not so long ago photovoltaic cells and wind turbines were produced on a limited scale. In recent years, however, a remarkable shift has occurred where renewables have become increasingly competitive, and in regions with favorable conditions, even cheaper than conventional power plants. German politicians have become aware of the economic potential and are about to unleash the countrys formidable industrial resources towards the development of hydrogen-related technologies.

The turning point

The green movement has historically been strong in Germany. Despite its strength, external developments have accelerated an ongoing process. The Energiewende or energy transition strategy was approved in 2010, but the nuclear disaster of Fukushima sped up the phasing out of coal and nuclear power. In recent years a massive amount of wind turbines and solar panels have been installed across the country. In 2019 renewables made up to 46 percent of the countrys electricity production.

Decarbonization of electricity production, however, is the first and relatively easy part of the energy transition. The majority of the worlds energy consumption is based on molecules instead of electrons meaning primarily oil and gas. The industry needs an awful lot of energy for high-temperature appliances which cannot be replaced by electricity. Hydrogen could be a solution.

The global attention for hydrogen can be explained by its versatility. The H 2 molecule seems to be the holy grail of the energy sector because it links many appliances within the value chain. Hydrogen can be produced through the process of electrolysis, which can be used to produce synthetic kerosene. In its original form, it can also power vehicles containing a fuel cell in a co-called fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). Related: IEA: The Energy Sector Will Never Be The Same Again

The Germans have woken up to hydrogen's potential due to several factors. First, the availability of large quantities of cheap electricity due to the installment of wind turbines and solar panels improves the business case for green hydrogen. Second, Germany requires green hydrogen to decarbonize its industry. Thirdly, Berlin is aware of the watershed moment and the potential to become a global powerhouse for hydrogen-related technologies. Therefore, policymakers recently unveiled a 9 billion (approximately $10.2 billion) economic stimulus package to kick-start the hydrogen economy.

Playing catch up

Berlin doesn't only intend to become a hub for hydrogen-related technologies, but Europe's foremost industrial country aims to become the world's leading hydrogen power. Several Asian countries have been investing in their hydrogen economy for years. Primarily Japan and South Korea have a strong track record.

Tokyo and Seoul were not only motivated by economic reasons, but the countries bad luck concerning the availability of natural recourses has induced them to develop alternative tecchnologies. The two Asian countries are some of the worlds biggest buyers of oil, coal, and natural gas. Japans import dependence even stands at an incredible 93 percent. Hydrogen could offer an opportunity to strengthen energy security by decreasing import dependence.

Before the novel Coronavirus outbreak, Tokyo intended to put the country's hydrogen technology capabilities in the spotlight by dubbing the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as the Hydrogen Games. The South Korean hydrogen strategy has motivated its auto industry to take advantage of the opportunity. Koreas Hyundai Motor is increasing investments in FCEV and the necessary infrastructure.

Germanys 9 billion bet

The looming economic crisis offers opportunities to the German federal government. The countries financial stimulus package is one of the biggest in the world both in absolute and relative numbers. Berlin announced it will be spending 130 billion. Furthermore, the sum of all measures adds up to a whopping 30 percent of the countrys GDP which is one of the highest in the world. This includes 7 billion for the ramp-up of hydrogen technologies and 2 billion for international partnerships. Related: Asian Oil Markets Tighten After Saudi Aramco Cuts Supply

The strategy intends to increase green hydrogen production to 5 GW by 2030 and an additional 5 GW for the period until 2035. This should lead to the rapid growth of hydrogen production and consumption where Germanys central position in Europe could kickstart supply chains across the continent.

Before the strategy's publication, German pipeline operators already presented plans for the worlds largest hydrogen grid. The 1,200 km grid could be ready by 2030 and would cost $715 million. German companies, in the meantime, are not sitting idle. Energy giant RWE, for example, is developing a 100 MW electrolyzer to produce green hydrogen for a steel mill.

The right framework

While German policymakers can be accredited with having ambitious goals, innovations and investments eventually are made by the private sector. However, Berlin is laying down the right framework for the rapid development of hydrogen technologies. The coherent and broad strategy is not solely Germany-focused as Berlin intends to make hydrogen a top priority for its 6-months chairmanship of the European Council starting in July.

Already transnational cooperation frameworks are unfolding. The Dutch and German Ministries of Economic Affairs and Germany's largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, are looking into the option to transport green hydrogen produced by offshore wind turbines and transported through existing infrastructure in the Netherlands.

It is a far to early, but Berlins ambitious strategy comes at the right moment to provide the German industry with the impetus to invest in future technologies.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Citizens entering mainland Ukraine must self-isolate for two weeks.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) says three entry-exit checkpoints on the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, namely Kalanchak, Chonhar, and Chaplynka, resumed operations on June 14.

Read alsoUkraine changes quarantine rules: New border crossing procedure

"The checkpoints on the administrative border with Crimea resumed their work in the past day, there was no rush. Over the past 24 hours, about 120 citizens were allowed to enter mainland Ukraine, while about 50 citizens left for temporarily occupied Crimea," the agency's press service told UNIAN on June 15.

According to the SBGSU, the passenger flow on the administrative border with Crimea remains the same as it was amid a lockdown. Border guards then allowed passage for Ukrainian citizens and their families whose residence was registered in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. At the same time, they allowed entry to mainland Ukraine for Ukrainian nationals whose place of residence was registered outside the peninsula.

"The only thing that has changed is the following: all citizens who intend to enter mainland Ukraine are required to install the 'Dii Vdoma' ['Act at Home'] government app and self-isolate for two weeks. This norm is authorized by the government," the press service added.

As UNIAN reported earlier, on June 12, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, one of Ukraine's envoys to the Trilateral Contact Group for the Donbas settlement in Minsk Oleksiy Reznikov said that checkpoints on the administrative border between mainland Ukraine and temporarily occupied Crimea would reopen from June 15.
Bob Heil K9EID online talk June 17

Bob Heil K9EID CEO of Heil Sounds and host of Ham Nation TV will be giving an online talk to radio amateurs in the UK on Wednesday, June 17, at 7:30pm (1830 GMT)



Bob is going to talk about the huge importance of Articulation in speech modes.



The talk is being organised by the Denby Dale Amateur Radio Society. If the Zoom meeting is over subscribed they will stream it live on their YouTube channel for any who are unable to join the Zoom meeting.



The Zoom meeting ID is 278 609 9353

https://zoom.us/j/2786099353



For further information see

http://www.ddars.net/



Recordings of earlier Denby Dale online talks can be seen at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq9nFTkJJAjOdPZVytoPOcg
A three-year jail term has been imposed on a man who jabbed a broken bottle 15 times into another mans face in Cork city.

Garda Shane Coakley who investigated the assault said that after the victim was stabbed 10 times in the face he fell to the ground and was then stabbed another five times.

Judge Sean O Donnabhain imposed the jail term on 48-year-old Paul McCarthy at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

McCarthy pleaded guilty to the charge of assault causing harm.

Judge O Donnabhain said: The plea is a significant matter. It allows me to deal with it in a manner other than I would have.

This was a deliberate and dangerous assault with a bottle.

"The deliberation was that he broke the bottle first and then struck the unfortunate victim with it.

He is entitled to the benefit of that plea but I have no doubt about it, this was a very serious offence. To go after a person with a broken bottle and strike him on a continuous basis in and about the face.

Initially, the injuries were nasty enough but the injured party made a good recovery. I will bear that in mind.

The accused has an appalling history of offences. I take that on board  bad and complicated from the get-go.

The judge backdated the sentence to November when McCarthy went into custody.

Garda Shane Coakley gave evidence of the crime scene at St Patrick Street on November 28, 2019, where he found a man lying on the ground bleeding heavily from the face.

While at the scene I approached Mr McCarthy outside the SuperDry shop. Mr McCarthy was lying down on the quilt and there was blood on the quilt and he had a cut on his right hand.

Gardai downloaded CCTV which showed Mr McCarthy going over to a bollard and smashing a glass bottle on it. He then hit the injured party in the face 10 times with the broken bottle.

He then stands over him and hits him five more times in the face when he was standing over him. In the CCTV the smashed green glass bottle can be seen coming from his hand.

The injured party had to get 25 stitches to his face. Mr McCarthy is clearly identifiable from CCTV.

The accused had 138 previous convictions, including one for assault causing harm, two for having weapons, one for producing a weapon while making threats to kill, one for robbery, three for burglary and six for causing criminal damage.

Emmet Boyle, defence, barrister, said of the defendant: He was minding his own business bedding down for the night in a doorway with a lady, and a man with a disability, bedding down for the night, when the injured party came over and pushed him."

Garda Coakley confirmed that the injured party, a Dublin man, did push Paul McCarthy, knocking him from a sitting position to one where he was lying on the ground.

This man then walked away. McCarthy got up, broke a glass bottle against a bollard and used the broken bottle to stab him repeatedly.
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Simulations have revealed how a "payoff transfer system," rewarding individuals who cooperate the most with their local communities, can improve social benefits.

Many goods and service providers in China rely on supplies from local governments, but these are often limited by financial budgetsespecially in rural villages. Members of the public must cooperate with their governments and each other in order for this system to run smoothly, but unfortunately, this balance is threatened by a small proportion of individuals who take in welfare without contributing fairly to their communities. In new research published in EPJ B, Ran Yang and colleagues at Tianjin University, China, introduce a new simulation-based approach which could help to solve this issue, through a cost-effective system which rewards individuals who use welfare systems responsibly.

The team's work could help to improve the efficiency and fairness of goods and service operations in China, without requiring external funds for reward and punishment systems. Their system works by assigning ranked reputation scores to individuals, which are quantified by their previous levels of cooperation and made known to the public. When payoffs are made by local governments, lower-reputation individuals will be required to transfer some of this welfare directly to those with higher reputations. This provides a significant incentive for people to improve their reputations.

Yang and colleagues designed the system using computer simulations of a "public goods game." By tuning the parameters of the simulation, they explored how various mechanisms of payment transfer between players of differing reputations would cause public cooperation as a whole to evolve over time. This allowed them to determine how these transfers could be optimized to ensure as many players as possible came to improve their reputations, without incurring any significant costs. The study could ultimately provide useful insights for local governments and organizers as to how they can ensure that their supplies to public goods and services providers can benefit their communities the most.

Explore further Freeloaders beware: Incentives to foster cooperation are just around the corner

More information: Ran Yang et al. Promoting cooperation by reputation-based payoff transfer mechanism in public goods game, The European Physical Journal B (2020). Journal information: European Physical Journal B Ran Yang et al. Promoting cooperation by reputation-based payoff transfer mechanism in public goods game,(2020). DOI: 10.1140/epjb/e2020-100618-x

Provided by SciencePOD
Im a member of what is likely a reasonably sizable informal group of people who trained to be a CEO but declined the job  in my case, several times. So I dont envy the position that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is in as he tries to figure out a way to do the right thing concerning the spread of false information and defend his company against an attack by the designated leader of the free world.

Ive been receiving email and social media queries asking me to use my influence to get Jack to do the right thing. There are two issues with this: 1) I dont know Dorsey personally, and 2) I understand and appreciate that the guy is between a rock and a hard place concerning doing what is right and ensuring the survival of Twitter.

Ill delve into some of the challenges he faces and then close with my product of the week  AMD and Dells fascinating joint effort that resulted in one of the best values in gaming notebooks, the Dell G5.

The Duties of a CEO

Most people who never have studied to be or served as a CEO think it is a dream job. You can do what you want, you dont have any bosses to keep happy, and you can just sit around and give orders. Ive seen new CEOs try to operate with this theory, and Ive never seen that end well.

As the CEO of a public company, you dont have one boss  you have a lot of them. You report to a board that represents your investors, and on that board are people who hold or control a lot of the firms stock. These people often dont have the same agendas, but they collectively have the power to fire you.

Also, you have to contend with the actual stockholders. If they dont like you they will sell their stock, driving down the value of the company and prompting those who are on your board to fire you. You have your large customers and pools of smaller customers who control your income, and if enough of them dont like what you are doing, they can stop buying so your firms revenue dries up  and yes, once again, you get fired.

You have the SEC. If the commissioners dont like what you say, or they think you are misbehaving, they can have you removed from office and incarcerated. You have your CFO who reports to you and the board. A CFO who doesnt like you can move behind your back to get you removed from office (Im running out of creative ways to say fired).

Yes, the job pays well, and those who fail generally get a golden parachute that makes anyone elses severance package look incredibly anemic. Still, once youve served as a CEO, you are usually thought to be overly qualified for any other job, and failed CEOs who then succeed as advisors, board members, or consultants are rare. You are pretty much done, and since most CEOs value status highly, the massive loss of status can be personally catastrophic.

As CEO of a large public firm, thousands are dependent on your doing the job well. If you dont, you could face strikes  or in extreme situations, attacks. When at NCR, Mark Hurd had his tires slashed. When one of the CEOs I worked for was burned over most of his body in a plane crash, there was speculation that the collision wasnt accidental (though that was never proven).

You are the face of the company, so if people get pissed off at your firm, they may take their anger out on you. Further, given your income, you and your family could be targeted by blackmailers or kidnappers.

Finally, you tend to be a minor celebrity, so if you decide to have dinner with a subordinate, customer or stockholder of the opposite sex, there is a high probability youll be accused of having an affair. Should you actually have an affair, it may cost you your job and make you unemployable.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Far from enjoying the ultimate freedom, CEOs generally find themselves bound by rules they dont understand full. Their responsibilities may far exceed their capabilities, and they might face internal and external threats that arent associated with any other job in the private sector. Oh, and I should point out that when done right, the job requires a level of commitment that has a history of destroying families. At the end, CEOs may have a ton of money and a lot of personal regrets.

Twitter Chief Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey is CEO of not one company but two. In addition to Twitter, he runs Square, the leading mobile payments company. If you are buying services, you probably are paying for them over Square (it probably should merge with PayPal). Currently, one of the most powerful investors in Twitter is moving to have Dorsey fired, so he is also at personal risk.

With Twitters ad revenue falling broadly, thanks to the pandemic, the firm is at financial risk. In short, Dorsey isnt Steve Jobs at Apple. (And though it seemed Jobs could do most anything, even he got fired once.)

Dorseys exposure means he cant afford a war with anyone, let alone the president of the United States, given that Twitter is an unlimited company. In terms of power, even the most powerful company tends to be overmatched when fighting a government. Even Google was forced out of China, and Google is nearly as powerful as a small country. It now is at risk of being broken up by the U.S. or the EU.

So if Twitter goes to war with the U.S. government, it will be overmatched, and Dorsey currently is at risk as to its CEO.

Dorsey could cut President Trump from Twitter, as some have suggested. However, its likely he wouldnt survive as CEO, and his successors first act of self-preservation likely would be to reverse that decision  assuming Twitter survived as a company.

As a result, there is little Dorsey can do that wont result in his termination and the likely reversal of anything he might do that would materially impact the presidents ability to post falsehoods on the site.

The Recommended Fix

This problem  the inability to ensure the validity of content from the very powerful  is something that surrounds all of the social media players. If it doesnt get addressed, there is a high likelihood that one or more of them will get nationalized, broken up, over-regulated or shut down.

The firms most at risk are Facebook, Google and Twitter. Now Im an analyst, and my job isnt to complain about things but to analyze the problem and suggest a fix that will stand in the face of the threat.

I think the closest model is Underwriters Laboratories, which is a third-party industry-funded quality assurance organization. The organization is one of the strongest providers of proactive protection against liability for unsafe products.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

It isnt perfect, and there have been products that passed UL tests but performed poorly. Still, it has been far more successful over time than internal quality control when it comes to protecting companies from liability. UL does have a positive impact on overall quality.

It is a science-based organization focused on quality, suggesting its mission might be broad enough to assume responsibility for ensuring the quality of social media posts. It would be a considerable stretch, though, and staffing would be more connected with fact-checkers than systematic hardware and software testing. So you might start with them for the general model but then move to create another fact organization mainly focused on the veracity of information.

Funded by social media companies, the organizations goal would be to provide a remedy to the spread of false information and protect the firms supporting it from excessive government interference, liability and extreme penalties.

It would need not only fact-checking elements but defensive litigation elements, so that it could both ensure and protect the decisions it makes concerning content and banning users. Bans could cross all social media platforms. Its efforts could include identity solutions that would monitor behavior to identify banned users who tried to reenter using new IDs.

Instead of going after the social media companies individually, governments would be forced to challenge an organization explicitly designed to weather these kinds of attacks. For example, if the president were banned, he likely would be banned on all major platforms.

His recourse would be to attack the regulatory body that already would be ramped for defense. Further, it would have access to both the major news organizations and social media platforms, along with the courts, for to mount itd defense.

If set up properly, it could call on the resources of the combined social media companies to defend their decision and protect their mission.

This group could be focused on addressing other problems, like illegal or illicit behavior on the platforms, with a high probability of mitigating or preventing that behavior before traditional law enforcement got involved, avoiding damage to the related brand image and significantly reducing harmful behavior.

Wrapping Up

We have a plague of false information, and it costs lives. There is little doubt that once this pandemic settles down, the amount of civil litigation that will result will be unprecedented, and networks that have been promoting false information, as well as the social media networks that have spread it, may face unprecedented liability.

News organizations do have protections that social media companies dont. Still, I doubt theyll hold given the massive number of deaths. At an estimated liability of $10M per case, there arent a lot of countries  let alone companies  that could bear the economic burden. Creating a collective firewall against that eventuality now could reduce liability significantly. More importantly, by ensuring that information provided is accurate, a significant number of lives could be saved.

What Im suggesting is adoption of the Underwriters Labs model for information accuracy, with enhanced enforcement and the ability to requisition resources from participating companies to form a defense against powerful politicians who compromise the platforms and put them at risk. The organizations mission would include the identification and elimination of illegal activity on the platforms as well.

We refer to the Internet as the Wild West. To address crimes in that era, marshals were established as a locally funded law enforcement agency that reduced the need for government-funded law enforcement.

Jack Dorsey and Twitter cant fight off the president alone, but the technology industry collectively could. It is past time for it to step up to this responsibility, because this pandemic has showcased that the effective use of fake news has put the industry and the nation at mortal risk.

Currently, AMD is unique in the market. Like Qualcomm does for smartphones, AMD provides both high-performance CPU and GPU technology to the platform. As a result, it can create synergy between core elements to provide extra performance. However, this advantage works only if the total solution is implemented. Sadly, that is rarely the case.

Im into cars, and I just received a reminder of why it is essential to have a single entity undertake the solution. In my case, instead of using an engine builder to create a high-performance engine, I had my mechanic slap together a bunch of high-performance parts, and the result is that Im around 125 HP off from where I should have been.

Now, this isnt a typical mistake for me, but it resulted from finding out too late that my existing engine was crap, and I didnt want to toss out the work wed done and start over, even though in hindsight, that is what should have happened. In my defense, Id wanted to do that, but my mechanic convinced me it would be a waste of money. I now have a new mechanic.

The Dell G5 15E is one of the rare exceptions in which the performance components were specified mainly by AMD against a Dell requirement. The result is a gaming laptop that performs in line with other gaming laptops, costing half-again as much.

Dell G5 15 Special Edition Gaming Laptop

Should you ever make it back into an office, this laptop looks like a business machine, so it doesnt carry the stigma that bringing a more traditional gaming laptop into the office might create. What also makes this laptop unique is that Frank Azor, known for Dells highly successful Alienware and XPS efforts, left Dell and joined AMD during the development of this product and formed a powerful bridge between the firms.

I think efforts like this are critical to returning excitement to this segment. Much like the Corvette C8 is making supercars affordable, for example, it will help make PCs exciting again. Oh, and it is a bargain, so it is a natural candidate for my product of the week.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.
On June 13, unknown culprits ripped off and desecrated a panel picture on the back side of the memorial in Svalyava, Zakarpatrtya region; the Minister hopes the perpetrators will be found and punished

Vandals in Svalyava memorial park, June 2020 suspilne.media

A provocation and an act of vandalism. This is how Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the recent incident in Svalyava, Zakarpattya region, westernmost Ukraine.

"Sad news appeared this weekend, information about the act of vandalism in the place that is crucial for Ukrainian Hungarians. It occurred at the Wailing Wall in Svalyava memorial park. This act of vandalism is a provocation, which aims to destabilize the situation in Zakarpattya; someone wants to get in our way as we overcome arguments with Hungary", Kuleba posted on his Facebook page.

Law enforcers are now looking into the incident.

"I'm sure the guilty ones will be definitely found and punished, the way it happened to the arsonists of Hungarian House in Uzhgorod", Kuleba said.

The Minister expressed hope that in spite of all verbal and physical provocations, Ukraine and Hungary are capable of coming to mutually beneficial solutions so as to settle all arguable issues, without crossing red lines by any of the sides.

"Ukraine's Hungarians, just like representatives of other national minorities are an important and integer part of the Ukrainian society. And I understand that they are just as important for Hungary. One cannot let people use provocations for another boost of the topic of anti-Ukrainian views in Hungary and amassing pressure in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations", Kuleba wrote.

Local media reported the incident on June 13, referring to Gyorgy Dupko, the Secretary of Svalyava Memorial Park. According to the official, the unknown culprits ripped off and desecrated a panel picture on the backside of the memorial in Svalyava, Zakarpatrtya region.

Dupko appealed to the police. He reiterated that the memorial and that panel picture represented the tragedy of Zakarpattya of 1944, which incorporated Soviet crimes against Hungarians and Germans. In autumn 1944, German and Hungarian men who resided there were forcefully taken to Soviet labor camps. Besides, back then, Communist officials who supervised the courts sentenced thousands of people to death in that particular region.
Turkish military late on Sunday launched air strikes on outlawed Kurdish rebels' bases in northern Iraq, the defence ministry announced. "Operation Claw-Eagle has started. Our planes are crushing the caves of terrorists," the ministry tweeted.

The air raids targeted Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq including in Kandil, Sinjar and Hakurk, it added.

The PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the state since 1984, is banned as a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies. The group has rear bases in northern Iraq.

Turkish military launches regular raids against Kurdish militants in the southeast of the country as well as in northern Iraq.
African countries called Friday on the UN Human Rights Council to urgently debate racism and police brutality in the wake of the global protests that followed George Floyds killing by an officer in the US.



In a letter written on behalf of 54 African countries, Burkina Fasos ambassador to the UN in Geneva asked the UNs top rights body for an urgent debate on racially inspired human rights violations, police brutality against people of African descent and the violence against the peaceful protests that call for these injustices to stop.



The letter, addressed to rights council president Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger of Austria, requested that this debate be held next week, when the councils 43rd session resumes, after it was interrupted in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.



It pointed to the case of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25 after a white officer, who has since been charged with murder, pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.



call came after Floyds family, along with the families of other victims of police violence and over 600 NGOs this week called on the council to urgently address systemic racism and police impunity in the US.



For the council to consider such a request, it needs to have the backing of at least one country.



With the request now coming from a large group of states, that increases the chances it will take place, a council spokesman told AFP. Floyds death, which was caught on video and has sparked massive protests across the United States and around the world, is unfortunately not an isolated incident, with many previous cases of unarmed persons of African descent suffering the same fate due to unchecked police brutality, the letter said.



Sadly, the fates of many other victims attracted no attention, as they were not captured on social media for all to see, Ambassador Dieudonne Desire Sougouri wrote on behalf of the African Group at the council.



While the letter called for a debate on racism around the globe, it in particular highlighted the situation in the United States.



The protests the world is witnessing are a rejection of the fundamental racial inequality and discrimination that characterise life in the United States for black people, and other people of colour, it said.



A number of countries are expected to address Floyds killing and concerns about police violence and racism in the United States during the resumed 43rd council session even without a special debate.



But since the deadline for tabling fresh resolutions during this session expired back in March, they will only be able to call for concrete actions within the confines of this extraordinary debate.

Source: France24.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Today, were tasting whiskies from a lesser-known Japanese producer, including a couple that are distinctly affordable. Not something you hear that often when the words Japan and whisky are put together.

Its well-known that Japanese whisky is based on the Scotch industry, dating back to when Masataka Taketsuru visited Scotland in 1919, and brought distillation and ageing techniques back home. But did you know that much Japanese whisky is based on Scotch a little more literally?

Yes, its something of an open secret that many blended Japanese blended whiskies contain some Scotch. Japanese whisky regulations are almost non-existent, and a whisky can be labelled as Japanese even if it contains foreign-distilled spirits. In the past ten years, demand for Japanese whisky has exploded, and at the same time bulk imports from Scotland (and Canada) have increased dramatically. According to SWA figures, there was a four-fold increase in bulk exports from Scotland to Japan between 2013 and 2018.

Many Japanese blends, even those imported into the EU and USA, contain Scotch. One hears all sorts of rumours but its hard to know which producers are involved. One brand, however, is open about its use of Scotch malt in its blends: Mars.

I met with Cristian Cuevas, the UK brand ambassador for Mars before lockdown to taste through the range. The venue was an amazing bar in London by Old Street roundabout called Bull in A China Shop that specialises in Japanese whisky. They have Karuizawa at 55 a glass. According to the owner, Stephen Chan, many people who order it are collectors who have a bottle at home but have never tried it.

Mars has a pretty convoluted history. Its parent company Hombo has been making shochu since the 19th century, as well as that uniquely Japanese style of wine, Koshu. After a few false starts with distilleries around the country, in 1985 it opened a single malt distillery, Mars Shinshu at Miyata in Nagano province just in time for the Japanese whisky crash of the late 80s and early 90s. The distillery closed in 1992, but reopened again in 2011 when the market picked up. It was completely refitted with new stills of the same shape as the old ones, but larger. At 800 metres above sea level, this is the highest distillery in Japan. Some grain whisky is now made here too.

In 2016, the company opened a second distillery, Mars Tsunuki, in Kagoshima prefecture. Both distilleries produce unpeated, lightly peated and heavily peated whiskies, and they use mainly ex-bourbon casks with some ex-shochu and Yamanashi wine casks, and mizunara oak as well as various fortified wine barrels. They only operate around half the year in the cooler months. Mars has three warehouses including one at Yakushima in the far south of Japan where its extremely hot. The team moves barrels around so that the whisky ages at different rates.

Because of those closed years, the company has something of an inventory problem with small stocks of very mature whisky, plus younger casks from the post-2011 rebirth. Scotch whisky is used to plug this gap, which it does seamlessly. And no wonder, as raw materials (much Japanese whisky uses imported malted barley from Scotland) and production methods are pretty much identical for Scotch and Japanese whisky. As long as producers are open about it, were all for this blending of two great whisky nations.

Right, lets try some whiskies!

Mars Kasei

This is a special blend created for Le Maison du Whisky in France. The name means Mars in Japanese. Sneaky. Its a mixture of Japanese malt and grain with, according to Teddy Althape Arhondo from LMDW, some whisky from Scotland. Its aged in a mixture of new American oak, ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, and bottled at 40% ABV. On the nose theres a little smokiness with some lavender, honey and green apple. Its fruity with sweet vanilla on the palate but with that smokiness lingering underneath. Delicious, drinkable and deceptively complex, it might be the ultimate Highball whisky.

Mars Maltage Cosmo

The name is a clever portmanteau of malt and age. Its a blend of Japanese malt, approx 80%, and Scotch single malts. A plethora of different cask types are in here: bourbon, Madeira, sherry cask and Port. Its bottled at 43% ABV. The flavour profile is classic sherry bomb. There are lots of fruitcake aromas and a distinctive spicy note like cardamom. On the palate, its rich and round with orange peel, dark cherry and chocolate. Very long finish. This is a luxurious dram that will appeal to lovers of Tamdhu or Glenfarclas. Cigars at the ready!

Mars Komagatake single malt (2019 release)

Every year, Mars releases a small batch single malt from Shinshu, combining young casks with mature pre-1992 malts. This gives you a taste of the old Shinshu distillery before it was refurbished (there are also some old single cask bottlings which tend to be very expensive). This 2019 release was aged in bourbon casks, apparently, though it does taste as if theres some European oak in there. Its a rich, spicy whisky with ginger, dark cherries, dried apricots and aromatic notes of cedar and tobacco. Lovely mix of sweet and spicy balanced by smoke and fruit. Its bottled at 48% ABV. Absolutely superb and for a Japanese single malt, good value for money.
The Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Delhi government to respond to a plea by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which sought the quashing of an FIR lodged by the Delhi Police against it for allegedly violating Covid-19 regulation norms. The FIR was based on a complaint filed by the city government.

Justice C Hari Shankar issued a notice to the Delhi government and said that it would hear the interim application seeking a stay on the proceedings of the FIR on Tuesday.

Appearing for the hospital, advocate Rohit Aggarwal told the court that they were seeking the quashing of the FIR lodged on June 5 at Rajendra Nagar police station under Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) of the Indian Penal Code and the proceedings initiated thereafter.

He contended that the FIR registered against them was vague and did not show that any offence was committed under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He said that the FIR did not say as to how disobedience, as alleged by the Delhi government, caused obstruction, annoyance or injury to any person.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, standing counsel (criminal) for the Delhi government, sought some time from the court, following which the argument on the stay application was listed for Tuesday.

The Delhi government had filed an FIR against the medical superintendent of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Rajendra Nagar for not following protocols for testing patients with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). The FIR was filed in June on the basis of a complaint by the deputy secretary of Delhis department of health and family welfare, Amit Kumar Pamasi.

The FIR has been filed under Section 188 of the IPC that allows the punishment of one months simple imprisonment and/or 200 fine or six months imprisonment and/ or 1,000 fine if the offence puts human life at risk. The section of the IPC can be invoked under the Epidemic Diseases Act that has been in force in Delhi since mid-March as the city battles the Covid-19 pandemic.

On June 3, the hospital was asked by the Delhi government in an order to stop Covid-19 testing, citing violations of ICMR guidelines. However, on Saturday, the Delhi government had again granted them permission to start testing.
15th June 2020

Runtime 15:47





Columbus Energy Executive Chairman Leo Koot is convinced Columbus Energy's merger with Bahamas Petroleum #BPC is in the best interests of #CERP shareholders. "I understand its come as surprise, we've kept it well under wraps, but it allows us to weather the Covid storm and also to create shareholder value. I do believe its a clever, intelligent deal."

So, were Columbus short of financial firepower I asked Leo? "We have an exciting portfolio which needs cash. We can go it alone and go slow, and in this oil price environment your free flow of cash is obviously reduced. We looked at many options and opportunities, thought this through very carefully, and we think this is the best one, and that's why we did it."

Leo explains that the board opted for a paper deal in order to allow shareholders to make their own decision and give them the freedom to sell if this isn't for them. Secondly, he believes it is best to preserve cash for the business and to grow the business with that cash rather than effectively say "we are giving up" because "that's the last thing we are going to do".

In essence, Leo thinks the BPC Perseverance well is a great opportunity. "They have great seismic which shows multiple massive structures and is 90 kilometres long - its massive. What I see in offset wells is that there are hydrocarbons in the system, there have been shows of gas and oil, there are reservoirs and there are traps all over the place." "When we did the pre-drills for Saffron there was 11 million, with Perseverance there is 700 million. So this gives Columbus shareholders an opportunity to be part of something much bigger.

The scale of the project is so tantalising that it justifies the risk profile." "I'm honourered and flattered by shareholders loyalty to me and the company, and that's mutual. I will never do a runner and look after my own interests. However we are aligned as I probably will end with 1% of the merged entity, which is lot of my personal capital." Will Perseverence require a farm-in given it is such a large project? "Possibly. I'm convinced that drilling that well is the turning point for our shareholders. Eventually I think that Big Oil is going to develop this given the size and scale." Next week we interview Tony Hawkins the Columbus energy CEO and get his take on the merger.
Eyewitnesses of Nepal border firing on the Indian side has called it an unfortunate and shocking incident. They has revealed that 18-20 shots were fired for over one hour and they are still in shock.

Eyewitness accounts from locals in Bihars Sitamarhi district recount the horrific brutality and intimidation by Nepals security personnel who on June 12 had resorted to unprovoked firing on a group of people at the international border, which left one Indian dead and two others injured. 18-20 shots were fired for over one hour and everyone is reeling with shock even now, said Nitish Kumar, a resident of Jankinagar recalling the incident that took place early on Friday morning.

Nepals Armed Police Force (APF) opened fire at the Lalbandi-Jankinagar border in which three persons, identified as Vikesh Yadav, Umesh Ram and Uday Thakur sustained gunshot injuries. Yadav succumbed to his injuries on Friday itself. Another person Lagan Kishore, who was at the border with his family to meet his daughter-in-law, a Nepali national and her family, said he was detained by APF personnel who dragged him to the other side of the border.

Kishore said that the Nepali personnel abused and hit him with rifle butts and even abused his son and later resorted to firing. Several residents of Jankinagar, whom ANI spoke to termed the incident as unfortunate and shocking.

Also Read: Nepals Upper House endorses proposal seeking consideration to update countrys new map

Also Read: Imran Khans relationship with Pak Army on the rocks

According to Nitish Kumar, A family was here to meet their in-laws (Nepali nationals). The daughter-in-law was talking to her family while her husband and her father-in-law sat a little distance away. Suddenly I saw Nepali personnel abusing her husband who complained about it to his father. All of a sudden the Nepali forces started thrashing them and then opened fire. They also took the father into custody. We were all shocked. I could hear about 18-20 gunshots fired over a period of one hour, Kumar said.

Another local who identified himself as Ajit Kumar said he was perplexed with the behaviour of the Nepali Police. There used to be no problems earlier. We dont understand what happened to Nepal Police that day. The firing is unfortunate. If this continues, how will people in the border area live? he questioned. Kumar stated that such an incident has taken place for the first time.

People from here go to work in fields in Nepal and their people come to work in our fields. Such a thing has happened for the first time. About 80 per cent of our people are married to Nepalis, he said. Many people who live in the adjoining districts of Bihar, which shares over 600 kilometres of border with Nepal, have relatives on either side of the border.

Meanwhile, Nepali police have claimed that Lagan Kishore, who was taken into custody following the firing by APF and handed over to Indian Security Forces at no mans land on June 13, was detained for trying to snatch a weapon from one of their personnel during an altercation. However, both Kishore and his family have denied the claims and said he was dragged across the border and was beaten.

Kishore said that during the firing he had rushed towards the Indian side but Nepalese personnel hit him with rifle butt and took him to Nepals Sangrampur. He was also asked to confess that he was taken into custody from the Nepali side. We ran to return to India when they started firing, but they dragged me from the Indian side, hit me with a rifle butt and took me to Nepals Sangrampur. They told me to confess that I was brought there from Nepal. I told them you can kill me but I was brought there from India, said Kishore.

Kishores son also said that Nepali personnel started abusing them and hit him and his father. Speaking to ANI, Kishores son said, We went to meet my brother-in-law. Security personnel started abusing me but I could not understand their language. However, my brothers wife asked them to not abuse. After that, they came to the Indian side and hit me. I told my father about the incident and he confronted them.

They started beating him and called fellow personnel who started firing and dragged my father from the Indian side, hit him with a rifle butt and took him to Nepals Sangrampur, he said. Relations have become strained between India and Nepal after the latter released a map showing parts of Indian Territory-Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as its own.

Also Read: Nepal border firing: India takes up killing of its national at border with Nepal govt

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In the latest of global investments in Jio Platforms, Reliance Industries has announced an investment of Rs 1,894.50 crore by L Catterton, one of the worlds largest consumer focused private equity firms. This investment values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.16 lakh crore. L Cattertons investment will translate into a 0.39% equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis. With this investment, Jio Platforms has raised Rs 104,326.95 crore from leading global investors, including Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, ADIA, TPG and L Catterton since April 22, 2020.

Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, is a next-generation technology platform focused on providing high-quality and affordable digital services across India, with more than 388 million subscribers. Jio Platforms has made significant investments across its digital ecosystem, powered by leading technologies spanning broadband connectivity, smart devices, cloud and edge computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and mixed reality and blockchain. Jios vision is to enable a Digital India for 1.3 billion people and businesses across the country, including small merchants, micro-businesses and farmers so that all of them can enjoy the fruits of inclusive growth.

Founded in 1989, L Catterton is the investment partner of choice for leading consumer-focused brands around the world. With a 30-year track record of leveraging its operational expertise, deep sector insights, global network of resources, and its unique partnership with LVMH and Groupe Arnault, L Catterton has successfully invested in and helped build some of the most innovative brands at the forefront of the evolving consumer landscape, including Peloton, Vroom, ClassPass, Owndays, FabIndia, and more.

Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, I am delighted to welcome L Catterton as a partner in our journey to unleash the power of digital for India while providing a consumer experience that is among the best in the world. I particularly look forward to gaining from L Cattertons invaluable experience in creating consumer-centric businesses because technology and consumer experience need to work together to propel India to achieving digital leadership.

Michael Chu, Global Co-CEO of L Catterton, added here, Over our more than 30 year history, we have established a track record of building many of the most important brands across all consumer categories and geographies, from retailers, omni-channel and digitally native brands. We are strong supporters of fostering growth through product development, enhanced digital capabilities and strategic alliances. We look forward to partnering with Jio, which is uniquely positioned to execute on its vision and mission to transform the country and build a digital society for 1.3 billion Indians through its unmatched digital and technological capabilities.

The transaction is subject to regulatory and other customary approvals.

Morgan Stanley acted as financial advisor to Reliance Industries and AZB & Partners and Davis Polk & Wardwell acted as legal counsels.
The Union health ministry on Sunday relaxed the guidelines on handing over the bodies of suspected COVID-19 cases to relatives for cremation to ensure that they do not have to wait for laboratory confirmation of the infection.

IMAGE: Family members pay their last respects before burial of a deceased COVID-19 patient in New Delhi. Photograph: PTI Photo

The ministry on Sunday wrote to the Delhi government, saying the bodies of suspected COVID-19 cases should be handed over to their relatives without waiting for laboratory confirmation but the mortal remains should be treated as per the government guidelines.

The letter, signed by Directorate General of Health Services Dr Rajiv Garg and addressed to Delhi chief secretary Vijay Dev, was posted on the Twitter handle of the health ministry's website after Union home minister Amit Shah held two high-level meetings on management of the worrying COVID-19 situation in Delhi on Sunday.

"In a letter issued by #DGHS to #Delhi Govt, guidelines on handing over of #dead bodies of suspect #COVID19 cases to relatives for #cremation have been relaxed to ensure that families do not need to wait until the result of lab report," Union health minister Harsh Vardhan tweeted.

The first meeting was attended by Delhi's Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Vardhan and top officials of the Union home and health ministries, while the second was with mayors and commissioners of Delhi's three municipal corporations.

Baijal, Kejriwal and Vardhan also attended Shah's meeting with mayors and municipal commissioners.

"Please refer to the issue raised regarding deaths of suspect COVID-19 patients and bodies not being handed over to the relatives pending confirmation of test report by hospitals.

"I would like to clarify that the dead bodies of such suspected COVID-19 cases should be handed over to their relatives immediately and laboratory confirmation of COVID should not be awaited," Garg said in the letter.

These bodies can as a matter of abundant precaution be disposed as per the guidelines on dead body management issued by the health ministry.

If such cases test positive eventually then the requisite action for contact, tracking should be carried out subsequently, the letter stated.

Vardhan also posted an official order according to which three teams have been constituted by the Centre to inspect Delhi hospitals to guide them on clinical management of COVID-19 cases.

"Pursuant to consultations between the central government and the Delhi government it is felt that a rapid assessment should be made of the existing capacity, patient care amenities, and associated aspects of COVID- Care facilities in the Delhi government in order to inform efficient and timely decision making," the order stated.

Teams of domain knowledge experts comprising doctors from AIIMS, Delhi, DGHS, Union health ministry and the Delhi government assisted by officers from the municipal councils have been constituted.

The teams will inspect the major dedicated COVID facilities under the Delhi government and suggest specific measures for betterment of facilities and patient care services.

The doctors from All India Institute Of Medical Sciences and Directorate General of Health Services are empowered to co-opt other doctors from their institutes or organisation to assist them in their endeavour, the order said.

The number of COVID-19 cases has rapidly approached the 39,000-mark in Delhi.
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/AP Photo)

Republican Sen. Tim Scott: There Is a Way Forward for Bi-partisan Police Reform

Republican Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is leading the GOP effort to draft police reform legislation in response to protests and a huge police reform package from Democrats. The South Carolina Senator said Sunday that he does see a path forward for a bipartisan police reform bill.

So the question is, is there a path forward that we take a look at the necessity of eliminating bad behavior within our law enforcement community? Is there a path forward? I think well find that, Scott said Sunday on NBCs Meet the Press.

In the wake of national protests that followed the death of George Floyd on May 25, House and Senate Democrats unveiled legislation on June 8, that would bring about wide-ranging reforms to police departments across the country.

Currently, the Republicans are drafting their version of a police reform bill, which must address the use of force.

For use of force, there are millions of scenarios that play out. Its one of the reasons why what we have tried to achieve through the legislation is finding the best practices around use of force around the country, and then provide that clarity, and guidance for those departments who may need to have a better perspective on use of force. So, were getting at it, but Im not sure were going to ever codify in law a use of force standard, he said.

Scott cited that less than half of police departments in the U.S. report their use of force, which is why he has been working to get 100 percent data collection in this area. We need 100 percent as relates to serious bodily injury and death. When the officer uses force, we need to have all the information.

The second thing we have to do is look at training and tactics, if we do that, we can certainly de-escalate the situation and make sure that the officer and the suspect, go home, he added.

In addition, Scott said that Republicans have been studying the use of force, via a commission, which is made up of police officers and civilians to help us discern what it looks like to have effective policies that lead to better outcomes in those intense split-second decisions. Thats what were achieving through our commission that studies the use of force and the best practices around it.

He said that banning chokeholds is an issue that Republicans and Democrats agree on, with specifics of how to enforce the standard varying.

So, the House bill reduces money or takes money away from states on the chokehold issue, we take it department by department, Scott said.

This is a policy whose time has come and gone, and we try to tackle that on the local level, the house policy tackles that on the state level. I think the Presidents looking at a national perspective on that from this executive order but every single aspect of all three leavers want to tackle the issue of chokeholds, and thats part of that entire conversation around the de-escalation of force, he added.

No-knock warrants became a major reform issue after Louisville Metro Police officers fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her apartment in a no-knock warrant drug case. Democrats want to end no-knock warrants being used in such cases, but Republicans are not so sure.

The South Carolina Senator said Republicans will be seeking more data on no-knock warrants before they can make a conclusion on when they should be used.

So I want to take the Breonna Taylor case and have an Act that requires more data to be provided so that we can actually come out with policies that are consistent with the best use of no-knocks or the elimination of no-knocks, we just dont have the information to get there, he said.

I know that the House bill says, lets just eliminate it for drug cases but we have no information that supports that that is the best way to go. Im interested in having that conversation, Scott said.

A potentially bigger hurdle to bipartisan police reform is the qualified immunity doctrine; Democrats have called to eliminate the immunity while Republicans are opposed, calling it a poison pill.

From the Republican perspective and the president sent the signal that qualified immunity is off the table. They see that as a poison pill on our side. We could use a de-certification of officer, except for the law enforcement unions say thats a poison pill. So, were going to have to find a path that helps us reduce misconduct within the officers. But at the same time, we know that any poison pill in legislation means we get nothing done. That sends the wrong signal, perhaps the worst signal, right now in America, Scott said on Face the Nation Sunday.

Scott reiterated his optimism of meaningful reform being enacted if partisanship can be put aside.

It is important that all three levers of government work together to solve what is, in fact, the original sin of this country. If we do that, I think the American people will celebrate, neither party, but the fact that weve worked together as one country, he added.
A 70-year-old Portland man was bitten in the neck by his dog, a two-and-a-half-year-old mastiff, in April. The man died from his injuries and the dog was euthanized the next day.

Records show that on the night of Saturday, April 11, police were called to the Southeast Portland home where Frederick Shew lived with two housemates.

According to officials, housemates told Portland police officers that they heard a loud thud and went to check on the sound.

Shews housemate, Kenneth Miller, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that after he went to bed, he heard a thump outside his door.

He then found Shews dog, an intact male named Thor that Miller estimated weighed around 160 pounds, shaking Shews neck like a ragdoll.

He was sitting there, Miller said, and blood was shooting out of his neck.

Immediately Miller tried to save his housemate, who Miller estimated weighed less than 100 pounds.

Miller was able to wrestle Thor away from Shew, he later told county officials, and put the dog in his bedroom.

Then, Miller told officials, he called for other housemates to wake up and get towels to try to stop the bleeding.

Another housemate called 9-1-1.

I was beating the dog off him and trying to get Fred taken of, Miller said. I was just too late.

He bled out right in front of me, Miller said. His last words were Dont call 9-1-1.

Miller speculated that Shew didnt want 9-1-1 called because he didnt want to lose Thor, who he had purchased for $3,500 as a 4-month-old puppy two years earlier.

But Miller said he knew the dog was dangerous. Just a month before Thor killed Shew, the dog about took my nose off my face, Miller said.

Before that, Miller said Thor, bit me through the hand.

Miller told officials about those incidents, which were not previously reported, the day after Shew died.

Fred wouldnt get him neutered. He wouldnt take him to obedience classes, Miller said. He couldnt even walk the damn thing, he was just too strong.

Miller said it felt like forever before paramedics arrived at the Southeast Portland home.

After they arrived, medics pronounced Shew dead.

Multnomah County Animal Services officials went to the house the next day to pick up Thor and took statements from the housemates. While officials were picking the dog up, he managed to escape and Miller had to chase him down.

Ultimately, they were able to load Thor into a county vehicle.

They also contacted Shews daughter, who gave county officials permission to euthanize the dog.

Thor was transported to Multnomah County Animal Services offices, and after the Oregon State Veterinarian Dr. Emilio DeBess and animal services director Wade Sadler approved his euthanization, the dog was euthanized.

Theres not much to say, Miller said. I still see him every day when I wake up. It was just a sad night.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052, lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.
By Express News Service

KOLKATA: Two persons, who tested positive for Covid-19 in Chennai two days ago, travelled to Kolkata in a private airline on Monday morning and went straight to a hospital in East Midnapore district which is designated for infected patients.

State transport minister Subhendu Adhikary hit out at the Centre and accused the civil aviation ministry for its gross negligence for allowing the patients to travel with other passengers.

Adhikary said a 25-year-old youth and another in his early thirties came to Boroma Hospital on Monday morning.

"When the hospital staff enquired, they showed the reports of their Covid-19 tests which were positive. They said they wanted to get admitted to the hospital," Adhikary said, adding, "Swabs of the two persons were collected on June 12 and it was tested in a laboratory in Chennai. The reports of the tests came positive the next day. They boarded the flight on June 14. How could they skip the surveillance at the airport? Besides, why they were not admitted to a hospital in Chennai immediately after their reports came positive."

The minister also accused the ICMR for the lapse saying the laboratory which conducted the tests functions under it.

The airport authorities in Kolkata said they do not have any system in place to identify travellers who are Covid-19 positive.

"If an asymptomatic patient does not declare his or her test report, we have no system to identify him or her. Besides, we received no communication from our counterparts in Chennai," said an official of Kolkata airport.
New Delhi: Amid speculation of whether another lockdown is being planned in the national capital in view of a spike in coronavirus COVID-19 case, Delhi Chief Minister on Monday (June 15) clarified that the government has no such plan for now.

"Many people are speculating whether another lockdown in Delhi is being planned. There are no such plans," Kejriwal tweeted.

The latest tweet on government's lockdown extension plan in the capital by Kejriwal comes shortly after Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired an all-party meeting today. The meeting, third to be held within 24 hrs, was attended by representatives across party lines.

After the meeting, AAP MLA Sanjay Singh said that the Delhi government would ramp up the testing in the national capital and would conduct about 18,000 tests daily starting June 20.

"During the all party meeting it has been decided that 1,900 beds in state government hospitals, 2,000 beds in central government hospitals and 1,078 beds in private hospitals will be added for Covid-19 patients," Singh said.
A woman without a ticket or government-issued ID walked past a Transportation Security Administration agent and entered a terminal at Orlando International Airport in October by blending in with a group of people, a report said.

She then boarded a Delta flight bound for Atlanta by pretending to be a wheelchair passenger, according to a TSA report.

The plane had departed the gate and was on the tarmac before employees realized the woman had slipped past them, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The Sentinel obtained police video of authorities interviewing the woman, who was identified last fall as Sylvia Rictor.

Body cam footage filmed by an Orlando police officer shows airport officials question a woman (far right) on October 5 at Orlando International Airport

The woman, who was identified in news reports at the time as Sylvia Rictor (right), boarded an Atlanta-bound Delta Air Lines flight that was just moments from taking off even though she didn't have a boarding pass or any government ID

Passengers aboard Delta Flight 1516, which was about to take off for Atlanta on October 5, took photos with their cell phones of Rictor refusing to get off of the plane for some 45 minutes before she was removed by police.

Rictor is said to have refused to move after ticketed traveler Jenni Clemons found her sitting in her assigned seat for the journey.

Clemons said she found Rictor in her rightful seat, 15A.

She told WFTV: 'She said very bluntly, "I'm not moving".'

It took roughly 45 minutes to get the woman to exit the aircraft with even the pilot coming to negotiate with the woman, authorities said.

Clemons added: 'They eventually told her, "You're breaking federal law".'

Rictor pretended to be a part of another family to get past TSA agents, Spectrum News 13 reports.

Cell phone audio recordings of the incident show the woman telling the flight's personnel that she had thrown away her boarding pass before getting on the plane.

When asked for identification, the woman showed the flight crew a photo of herself on her phone.

'Well, I'm showing you a picture ID,' the woman told the flight attendant.

'Ma'am, that's not a government-issued ID. That's a photo,' the stewardess replied.

'Well, this is just as good,' the troublesome passenger rebutted.

'No, ma'am, it's not just as good,' the flight attendant fired back.

Some time later the plane's pilot called Orlando police.

After taxing down the runway Clemons said: 'We were stopped pretty quickly, and the pilot explained it was because the lady was not cooperating with TSA (the Transportation Security Administration), and she did not have a ticket to any airline at all. They could not figure out how she even got on the plane.

'The plane was searched by dogs and TSA agents. Every single passenger had a pat-down, and all of our bags were searched again.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to Delta and the TSA for comment.

A TSA spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'The individual was screened in TSAs Advanced Imaging Technology and her belongings were screened in the checkpoint x-ray machine before she entered the sterile area and therefore she was not in possession of any prohibited items.'

Passengers on board the flight took images on their cell phone showing Rictor being escorted off the plane just before takeoff

Ticketed traveler Jenni Clemons (pictured) said she found Rictor sitting in her assigned seat

A Delta spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'We dont have any additional comment on this other than there is nothing more important than safety and security at Delta.'

The TSA last week released the 30-page report after initially denying the Sentinel's request for documents.

The names of the people involved in the incident were redacted from the report.

Surveillance videos that show the woman slipping past security and getting on the plane were also withheld under a national security exemption, the newspaper reported.

That morning, the woman presented a JetBlue baggage receipt to a TSA agent checking boarding passes and IDs at the east terminal entrance.

The agent told her she needed to go to the JetBlue desk in another terminal to receive her ticket, the report said.

She returned 30 minutes later and skirted around two families who were showing their documents to agents, the report said.

She passed through the x-ray machine went to Gate 71, where people gathered to board the Atlanta-bound flight.

She lined up with wheelchair passengers during the pre-boarding process and went around them when the gate agent scanned their boarding passes.

She entered the jet bridge and a gate agent asked if she'd been scanned, the report said.

'I assumed she was with the wheelchair passenger and then allowed her to board,' the gate agent told investigators.

She selected a seat on the plane and was later confronted by a passenger with a ticket for that seat.

She refused to show a boarding pass, claiming she threw it away after getting on the plane, the report said.

The plane returned to the gate, the passengers were removed and re-screened.

When questioned by TSA officials and Orlando police officers, she showed them a selfie on her cellphone that she said she used for an ID, the report said.

'That's my face,' the woman told them. 'Can you make that out?'

A TSA spokesperson told DailyMail.com: 'The individual was screened in TSAs Advanced Imaging Technology and her belongings were screened in the checkpoint x-ray machine before she entered the sterile area and therefore she was not in possession of any prohibited items.' The above image from 2017 shows Orlando International Airport

DailyMail.com has also reached out to Delta Air Lines for comment

She was escorted out of the terminal. A few days later, authorities identified her through facial-recognition software.

The report said she has a history of mental health issues.

The FBI declined to press charges.

The TSA said in a statement that no employees were disciplined, but they underwent additional training.

Delta didn't comment on the report, but previously said it submitted its investigative report on the incident to authorities.

In December, the TSA sent the woman a letter saying she was being issued a 'warning notice,' which goes on her record in case she tries to do something similar again, the newspaper reported.

In a handwritten response, the woman claimed she bought a ticket and boarded the plane.

'I am so sorry,' she wrote.

'I don't know (what) else to say but don't blame me everything falls on your ... security.'
Aer Lingus chief executive Sean Doyle said its extremely regrettable that a document prepared by management that will see sweeping changes to workplace practices at the airline was leaked last week before discussions with unions were completed.

It is extremely regrettable that the document has been put into the public domain and that there has been media coverage of some of the detail of the document before these discussions fully concluded, he told staff this afternoon.

It had been my intention to wait until the discussions were fully finalised before communicating the detail directly to you, he added.

Unions have been given a deadline of 6pm today to indicate whether or not they will back the proposals from management. While Siptu said it could not ballot members, Forsa said that it is balloting cabin crew members via post, and will make the outcome known to Aer Lingus on Monday next week.

Mr Doyle said he received emails over the weekend from some staff members which indicated that there were some misunderstandings about what management proposals entail.

Discussions have taken place over many weeks with the group of unions, he said. During this time, we have continued to pay all of our staff at 50pc, despite our level of operations continuing at approximately 5pc.

Mr Doyle said it was clearly understood between Aer Lingus and the group of unions that the full discussions process needed to conclude by the end of last week, so that either the agreed outcome or the alternative of pay cuts and layoffs could be implemented from June 21.

He added that there was no question of the process continuing into this week for a ballot or any other purpose.

The chief executive said the measures planned for the airline will support it through the crisis and help it through a rebuilding process that will be required for many years to come.

Aer Lingus is planning changes for work practices in ground operations, maintenance for cabin crew.

In the context of the unprecedented crisis we face, these are a very balanced, limited and reasonable set of measures, said Mr Doyle.

He said that under the proposals, pay for staff will be maintained at 50pc for all staff previously advised of a layoff. For staff previously advised of a reduction to 30pc of pay, it will also be maintained at 50pc.

Pay will increase as the level of work at the airline increases, said Mr Doyle, meaning that if operations move to 60pc of normal, pay will increase to 60pc, and so on.

The idea that pay if frozen at 50pc until 2022 is not correct, he said. Pay will continue to be restored up to 95pc of pay.

A mechanism for dealing for the recovery of any overpayments will be thrashed out before the final 5pc is restored.

There will also be discussions in late 2021 to finalise the financial recognition to apply in early 2022 to recognise the contribution of Aer Lingus employees in delivery the required changes in the proposal, said Mr Doyle.

He added that the timing of when pay will be restored will be based on a number of factors, including the lifting of the 14-day quarantine period that applies in Ireland, the easing of travel restrictions in Ireland, the pace at which demand for our services returns, the reintroduction of more scheduled flights and the need for increased working hours to meet that future demand and restoration of the airlines services
- Industry Fears Loss of Major Festival Brands -

- Half of event businesses face losses of 100,000+ -

- 65% of companies planning redundancies, affecting over 589,000 employees -

BRISTOL, England, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The festival and events industry as we know it is on the brink of permanent demise according to research from the National Outdoor Events Association* (NOEA). In a report out today, the organisation reports that 84% of all organisers questioned have seen their entire events programme wiped out for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the industries peak summer months.

The NOEA is warning both attendees and government departments that the loss of these businesses could permanently change the shape of the festival and event industry and lead to the closure of some of the most recognised festival, sporting, cultural and event brands in the UK.

According to the research, the average loss to event businesses is 539,431 with over half suffering losses of 100,000 or more. The outdoor event and festival market contributes over 30.4bn to and with over 141.5 million people attending UK events annually**. Jobs within the sector are also under severe threat, the industry provides employment for over 589,000 people, many within small SME companies or as freelancers with historically low margins. Three quarters of the companies surveyed have taken advantage of the staff furlough scheme, but over 65% are planning redundancies.

In addition, 51% of have said that without further support they will not see the end of 2020. Of those surveyed, 65% only have liquidity for 6 months or less and 41% only have enough for the next 3 months. However, whilst 65% of those surveyed have already applied for government grants 80% have yet to receive anything.

Notes to editors:

* Source: National Outdoor Events Association membership research May / June 2020. Research conducted across association's membership of 480 event-based companies.

** Source: Event Industry Forum, Value of the Outdoor Events Industry Report, created in conjunction with Bournemouth University.

Photography and spokespeople are available on request.

Contact:

Alistair Turner

+44-(0)7801-710238

alistair@eightpr.co.uk
Photograph: Bastiaan Slabbers/Reuters

In the weeks since George Floyd died under the knee of a white police officer Americas institutions  from boardrooms and newsrooms to locker rooms and classrooms  are publicly addressing systematic discrimination and demanding reforms.

With a reckoning over race compounded by a pandemic and an economic collapse, Donald Trump and his would-be Democratic opponent Joe Biden are charting starkly different courses for the nation that could determine which one of them wins the White House in November.

But in tone, tenor and leadership style, it is Biden who currently appears well positioned to harness this political moment.

Biden has sought to cast himself as a champion of racial equality, encouraging peaceful protest and vowing to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country.

This is a battle for the soul of America, he said at an economic roundtable in Philadelphia last week. Who are we? What do we want to be? How do we see ourselves? What do we think we should be? Character is on the ballot here.

As public attitudes shift quickly on race, Biden appears emboldened by the changed political landscape, embracing a far more ambitious reform agenda than he entered the race for president. By contrast, Trump, with his hostility to the protesters and resistance to their demands for reform, has found himself on the wrong side of the American public at a particularly perilous moment for his presidency and his re-election prospects.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 61% of Americans disapprove of the way Trump handled the protests while just 35% approve. When asked what type of president they preferred at this moment of racial strife, half said they would prefer a leader who can address the nations racial divisions, compared with 37% who said they would prefer a leader who can restore security by enforcing the law.

Joe Biden speaks about the unrest across the country from Philadelphia. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

People are finally seeing through the fog that has blinded them for too long, said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina. They are realizing that the system is broken and Donald Trump is not going to fix it.

Story continues

Public opinion on race has been moving leftward since the Black Lives Matter movement emerged in the wake of Trayvon Martins death in 2012. White Democrats in particular have become increasingly more concerned about issues of racial inequality, even registering to the left of African Americans voters.

But the recent shifts represent a sea change so sudden and deep that pollsters were left grasping for parallels.

A Monmouth poll conducted after Floyds killing found that for the first time a majority of Americans  57%  and 49% of white Americans believe police are more likely to use excessive force against African Americans.

When Eric Garner was killed by a police officer in New York City in 2014, just 33% of Americans and 26% of white Americans say African Americans were more likely to be subject to excessive use of force by the police. The same poll found that 3 in 4 Americans consider racism and discrimination a big problem.

Support for Black Lives Matter has also jumped, according to Civiqs Polling, that found voters from across the ideological and demographic spectrum embrace the movement.

This is big, tweeted Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster who said he hadnt seen anything like it in more than three decades of polling. This is Beatles on Ed Sullivan big.

Ample research has found race and identity were critical to Trumps victory in 2016.

During the campaign, he brazenly stoked white racial grievance that had been building since the election of the nations first black president, promising to restore Americas past glory and Make America Great Again.

As president, Trump said there were good people on both sides of a deadly white supremacist rally. He disparaged four congresswomen of color with a racist taunt. And recently, he has responded to the most significant racial upheaval in a generation by describing protesters as thugs and terrorists, threatening to unleash the army to quell demonstrations and defending military bases named after Confederate leaders.

In response to the protests, Trump has declared himself the president of law and order, appealing to a base that is predominantly white and conservative. This week he held a roundtable with law enforcement officials in Dallas, where he dismissed police brutality as the misconduct of a few bad apples and warned that falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots would not improve race relations.

Joe Biden prays as he meets religious leaders in Wilmington, Delaware, on 1 June. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Some observers have compared Trumps approach to Richard Nixons 1968 election strategy, when he ran as the law-and-order candidate after a summer of riots  and won.

But there is reason to believe 2020 may be different from 2016 and 1968, said Michael Tesler, a political scientist at the University of California at Irvine and author of Post-Racial or Most Racial? Race and Politics in the Obama Era.

While law and order can be a powerful message in the midst of national upheaval, Tesler said, its a much harder case to make as an incumbent whose governing style over the last three and a half years has contributed to that chaos.

The country views Trump as a racial arsonist at a time when racial reconciliation is needed, he wrote in an email.

And far from boosting Trump in November, the protests are likely to mobilize and energize Democrats, says Daniel Gillion, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy.

Throughout modern American history, protests have not only succeeded in influencing public policy but impacted electoral outcomes for the party ideologically aligned with their cause, according to Gillion.

His research found African American turnout in 2016 was higher in cities that saw Black Lives Matter protests, even as it declined elsewhere. But the effect is geographically concentrated and the protests were limited.

Now that protests are happening in everyones backyard its likely there will be a snowballing effect, he said. And based on what Ive found, one can only expect that Democrats are going to be more mobilized to vote in November because of whats taking place.

Heather McGhee, co-chair of the political advocacy group color of change, said the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis caused by efforts to control it, which have disproportionately impacted African American communities, primed the nation for this tectonic shift in attitudes on racism in America.

It became very clear once the pandemic is that we were all suffering from the same storm, but we werent all in the same boat, said McGhee.

McGhee described Biden as a weather vane for the Democratic party.

During the primary, he offered himself as a pragmatist who once assured donors that under his administration nothing would fundamentally change. But that was when Democrats top concern was ousting Trump. Now, as inequalities in public health, the economy and race are laid bare, Bidens sudden desire for systemic change is telling.

The band-aid has been ripped off, Biden said recently during a virtual appearance, explaining that more Americans are connecting the dots and exposed deep-rooted social ills. The scar is apparent and I think theyre ready to do something about it. I think theyre ready to see some real institutional change.

Joe Biden meets with clergy members and community activists during a visit to Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

A majority of Americans, including among Republicans, agree some changes to policing are needed. But growing calls from activists to defund the police has little support.

There is a danger that lurks there for Biden and the Democrats, warned Ruy Teixeira, a political demographer at the Center for American Progress, a liberal thinktank in Washington. There are scenarios in which you could see Trump making a successful law and order appeal, particularly to these white non-college [educated] voters who are sensitive to the issue.

Biden, who faced criticism during the primary over his legislative record on criminal justice and race, has embraced an overhaul of policing.

Though he and Democratic leaders in Congress have flatly rejected growing calls to defund the police it has not stopped Trump and his Republican allies from seizing on the issue in an effort to drive a wedge between activists and moderate Democrats.

Trumps electoral strategy hinges on his ability to drive up turnout among his base of support, which is predominantly white, older, less educated and conservative. While their share of the electorate is shrinking, this cohort holds outsized influence in the handful of states that will likely determine the election.

Bidens task is to stitch together a coalition that is increasingly multicultural, young, educated and liberal. Diverse battleground states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas, once bastions of conservatism, are now competitive.

Biden won the primary on the strength of his support among African Americans, but he struggled to appeal to the young voters now leading the protests, said Steve Phillips, host of Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips and the author of the book Brown Is the New White.

Theres a bigger risk of failing to inspire and galvanize younger voters and people of color than there is alienating moderate voters, he said.

Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who advised Hillary Clintons campaign in 2016, said Biden must treat black voters like swing voters.

Choosing a black woman as his running mate would be one way of emphasizing black voters importance to the Democratic party.

History is telling us that in this moment we need to lift the voices of black Americans, she said, and especially the voices of black women.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 06:16:33|Editor: huaxia

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NEW YORK, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The New York City Police Department (NYPD) will transition some 600 plainclothes anti-crime officers to other assignments including neighborhood policing and detective work, the NYPD commissioner said on Monday.

At a press conference at the NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan, Commissioner Dermot Shea said it is "a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city."

Officers of the anti-crime unit specialize in undercover operations and perform patrol services in unmarked vehicles, in an attempt to spot criminals of usually violent crimes.

The unit has caused some tension between the NYPD and the community. According to The New York Times, it has been involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings.

The overhaul is also "in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of stop-question-and-frisk," said Shea, referring to a controversial policing practice that often targets minorities.

"What we always struggle with, I believe, as police executives, is not keeping crime down -- it's keeping crime down and keeping the community working with us," said the commissioner.

"I think it's time to move forward and change how we police in this city. We can do it with brains. We can do it with guile. We can move away from brute force," he added.

The announcement came after weeks of protests against police brutality in the city, during which a number of officers were disciplined for using heavy-handed tactics toward largely peaceful protesters, and one was charged with assault, criminal mischief, harassment and menacing for shoving a woman to the ground.

However, Shea noted on Monday that it is a policy shift "coming from me personally" instead of any reflection on NYPD officers, adding that discussions about the overhaul had occurred for about a year.

Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a police reform agenda that would ban chokeholds by police and allow for transparency of offices' disciplinary records, among other reforms. Enditem
Midland County and surrounding areas are one step closer to possibly receiving federal financial help after the devastating flooding in May.

On Monday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer emailed a 16-page letter and 34 pages of supporting documents, including maps and photos, to President Donald Trump, requesting a major disaster declaration for the State of Michigan in response to the flooding in Midland, Saginaw, Gladwin, Arenac and Iosco counties.

A major disaster declaration would make Michigan eligible for financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The flooding in Midland and Saginaw counties and northern Gladwin County resulted from the failure of the Edenville Dam and the consequent failure of the Sanford Dam.

Whitmer's email was sent through the office of FEMA Regional Administrator James Joseph, who is based in Chicago and who visited Midland shortly after the flooding. The letter begins as follows:

"Dear Mr. President:

"Under the provisions of Section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C.  5121-5207 (Stafford Act), and implemented by 44 CFR  206.36, I request that you declare a major disaster for the State of Michigan as a result of widespread and severe flooding and dam failures that struck the counties of Arenac, Gladwin, Iosco, Midland, and Saginaw, starting on May 17, 2020."

Another portion of the letter reads:

"Without significant assistance from the federal government, residents will suffer financial hardships for years as they attempt to repair and restore their damaged homes to pre-flood condition, repair or replace mechanical and electrical systems, take measures to ensure their homes are free of mold and other health hazards, and replace personal belongings. The inability to afford repairs could ultimately lower the property value of residences and, subsequently, regional tax revenue. Residents may need to devote their discretionary income and savings to unplanned expenses for removing debris, restoring their homes, and replacing personal belongings instead of supporting area businesses."

Whitmer also addressed the impact of the flooding on roads and bridges:

"One of the most significant impacts to the community were the effects of the flooding on road travel throughout the disaster area. Many segments of road were inaccessible due to damages and standing water, and the biggest challenge for travel across the area arises from the impacts that river flooding had on many bridges, which had to be temporarily closed, have been permanently damaged or were destroyed. These damages have created the challenge that long stretches of rivers could not be crossed. For example, in Gladwin County, there was no crossing over the Tittabawassee River for a stretch of 30 miles. In Saginaw County, the impacts to all four bridges crossing the river caused detours of up to one-and-a-half hours for trips that might normally only take minutes. The bridge outages separated entire county areas from each other, impacting travel for commutes, business and commerce, and day-to-day activities of residents, and increased emergency vehicle response times."

Whitmer's entire letter to Trump can be found at the following link: https://bit.ly/3fqISP1

Whitmer and Trump have been in communication often since the coronavirus pandemic started to spread in Michigan in March.

The flooding has resulted in more than $190 million in losses for residents and over $42 million in damages to public buildings and infrastructure, according to Whitmer's office.

The flood damage assessments sent to Whitmer's office by Midland County alone totaled $175 million in damage to homes, businesses and nonprofits, and $34 million in public property damage and emergency response costs.

Last months flooding and dam failures upended the lives of thousands of Michigan families and business owners at a time when we were just beginning to reopen our economy following weeks of working to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," Whitmer said in a news release. This natural disaster, coupled with a global health pandemic, has created enormous stress and emotional trauma for these residents, and they need the federal governments help to begin rebuilding their lives.

In May, Whitmer declared a State of Emergency for Midland and Gladwin counties and requested and received aid from FEMA to help in the cleanup effort.

This 500-year disaster has impacted everyone from homeowners and renters to businesses and farmers throughout mid-Michigan, and I urge the federal government to provide the resources necessary to ensure they dont suffer financial hardships for years as they attempt to repair and restore their damaged homes and businesses, Whitmer said. We will get through this together and will emerge stronger on the other side.

Moolenaar announces support for Whitmer's request

U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, whose Fourth Congressional District includes Midland and Gladwin counties and part of Saginaw County, released the following statement in a news release Monday right after Whitmer had sent the request to Trump:

"The devastation caused by this historic flooding destroyed homes and upended the lives of so many residents. These residents need assistance that goes beyond what local and state government can provide, and I hope that the federal government will quickly approve the request so additional resources will be available for those in need. I have been communicating with federal officials throughout this process and I am encouraged by what I have heard from FEMA.

"Finally, I want to thank all of the residents who filled out the property damage assessments. Their documentation was vital to our state and local leaders in making this request to the federal government."

The release states Moolenaar is leading an upcoming bipartisan, bicameral letter from members of the Michigan Congressional delegation in support of Whitmer's request for a major disaster declaration.
A video leaked Friday shows the moment a man was executed by two masked men at a convenience store in northwest Mexico.

The disturbing altercation took place May 17 at an Oxxo convenience store in the Durango municipality of Atotonilco de Tula.

The victim, whose name was not released by authorities, was waiting behind a female customer to pay for an item when two men walked into the shop and fired a shot at the counter area as both female employees dove for cover.

Surveillance video footage that was leaked on social media Friday captured the moment a male customer (center) was executed at a convenience store in Durango, Mexico, on May 17. No arrests have been made

The shooting victim (pictured lying on the ground) tried to lift himself up by holding on to a stand after he had been shot at before a second assailant (pictured right wearing a red sweater) shot him at least five more times

One of the assassins subsequently fired at least four shots at the man while he was on the ground. The wounded man attempted to stand up as he held on to a shelf before the second shooter walked up to him and unloaded at least five shots.

The killer snatched off the man's necklace while the other suspect took his cellphone.

One of the shooters (right) reaches for the victim's phone after the second assailant snatched the man's necklace

Shooter (pictured wearing a black sweater) points his gun at the male victim (pictured lying on the ground) before he and his accomplice fled with the man's necklace and cellphone. Mexican authorities have not determined the motive for the deadly assault

Both shooters took several steps towards the exit before turning around and firing at least four more shots.

The men fled on a motorcycle, according to the store employees.

Local Mexican news outlets have reported that authorities have not determined if the incident was related to Mexico's ongoing violence involving local gangs and cartels.

No arrests have been reported since the attack.
After Chinas attempt to take management control of Imagination, now its having a go at Arm.

On Wednesday Arm sacked the CEO of Arm China, Allen Wu. On Thursday Arm China said Wu was still CEO.

Arm had replaced Wu with two execs but yesterday Arm China claimed one of them was sacked last month.

Its the latest folly in the saga of Arm beginning with the UK government agreeing the sale of the company to Japans Softbank in 2016, succeeded by the folly of selling 51% of Arms China operation to Arm China in 2018 at a time when problems were brewing with the tech trade with China.

Click here to read more ...




CARLSBAD, Calif., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Device Designation to Thermo Fisher Scientific's Oncomine Precision Assay to identify low-grade glioma (LGG) patients with isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 and 2 (IDH1 and IDH2) mutations who may be eligible for vorasidenib (AG-881). The assay, first introduced to the market as a research product in November 2019, is designed to run on the new Ion Torrent Genexus System, the first fully automated next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform with a specimen-to-report workflow that delivers comprehensive genomic profiling results in a single day.

Thermo Fisher recently announced it had expanded its strategic partnership agreement with Agios Pharmaceuticals to co-develop the companion diagnostic (CDx) for vorasidenib, an investigational, oral, brain-penetrant, dual inhibitor of mutant IDH1 and IDH2 enzymes currently under evaluation in the Phase 3 INDIGO study for IDH mutant LGG. Over time, Thermo Fisher seeks to receive premarket approval (PMA) for the Oncomine Precision Assay as a companion diagnostic for multiple therapies, as well as approval for liquid biopsy tumor profiling in lung cancer and solid tissue tumor profiling in multiple cancer types.

"Access to timely, comprehensive genomic profiling data that supports well-informed treatment decisions can be challenging under the current cancer-testing paradigm," said Dr. Alain Mita, Associate Professor of Medicine, Co-Director of the Experimental Therapeutics Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "The possibility of having multi-biomarker profiling that is generated onsite and available in about a day is game-changing for the manner and speed in which oncologists are able to determine and prescribe the most appropriate treatment for their patients."

The goal of the FDA's Breakthrough Device Program is to provide patients and health care providers with timely access to medical devices by speeding up their assessment and review, while preserving the agency's statutory standards. Once cleared under PMA, the Oncomine Precision Assay will maximize detection of guideline-recommended biomarkers, such as EGFR, ALK, KRAS, BRAF, ROS1, NTRK, RET, HER2 and others.

When combined with the Genexus System, molecular testing laboratories can generate comprehensive NGS results within the same timeframe as single-gene tests. Additionally, these features set the stage for molecular pathologists in the future to analyze NGS information in parallel with first-line testing modalities, such as immunohistochemistry (IHC).

"Breakthrough designation for the companion diagnostic is a big step forward in our endeavor to ensure that more clinicians can have quicker access to comprehensive genomic information," said Garret Hampton, president of clinical next-generation sequencing and oncology at Thermo Fisher Scientific. "Receiving this insight at the speed that the Genexus System enables can help expedite patient therapy selection, which is a critical need in the clinic today."

With its unprecedented speed to results, the Genexus System is positioned to accelerate a broad range of application areas, including oncology, infectious disease, inherited disease and reproductive health, among others. Since its launch in November 2019 as a research only solution, the integrated sequencer has also been enabled to analyze SARS-CoV-2 samples to support epidemiology or contact tracing studies.

About Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is the world leader in serving science, with annual revenue exceeding $25 billion. Our Mission is to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. Whether our customers are accelerating life sciences research, solving complex analytical challenges, improving patient diagnostics and therapies or increasing productivity in their laboratories, we are here to support them. Our global team of more than 75,000 colleagues delivers an unrivaled combination of innovative technologies, purchasing convenience and pharmaceutical services through our industry-leading brands, including Thermo Scientific, Applied Biosystems, Invitrogen, Fisher Scientific, Unity Lab Services and Patheon. For more information, please visit www.thermofisher.com.

Media Contact Information:

Mauricio Minotta

Phone: 760-929-2456

E-mail: [email protected]

Jen Heady

Phone: 617-275-6547

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Thermo Fisher Scientific

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In 2017, doctors diagnosed Jennie and Gary's two sons, Benny, 13 months, and Josh, two weeks, with Canavan disease. It is a rare brain disease that is both degenerative and fatal. The disease breaks down the white matter in their brains. It causes the kids not to be able to eat, talk, walk, and do things on their own like any other kids.

Jennie Landsman told People that she has so much to do right now. She is doing everything she can to save her now three and four-year-old sons. She has been staying up until two in the morning then sleeps for only three hours to share their story to ask for help.

Couple spent years for treatment of rare disease

The couple also has two other children, Michael, 10, and Evan, 1. They are living in Brooklyn, New York. Jennie is working as a yoga instructor while Gary owns Taste Wine Co. in East Village of Manhattan. They spent years trying to find and fund a cure for their two son's rare disease. They also need to obtain FDA approvals to treat up to ten children for trial use.

Renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Paola Leone developed the groundbreaking gene therapy. She said that companies do not want to develop drugs to treat rare diseases because they are expensive. Gene therapy drugs cost even more.

Half a million dollars for treatment

Dr. Christopher Janson, a neurologist who has worked with Dr. Leone for years, noted that only a few weeks are left for the boys to get their life-changing treatment. The only problem now is that they need to raise $560,000 for the boys' surgeries and hospitalizations.

Other than that, they also need $280,000 for the other six to eight children in the trial. The total amount for the rest of the kids is $2.2 million. Jennie started a charity Cure Canavan Fund and a GoFundMe page to raise money for all the kids with the rare disease.

Read also: Teen Successfully Battled New COVID-19 Syndrome

Sons are happy despite the struggle

The 36-year-old mother feels blessed with their sons' easy-going, affectionate dispositions. She said that Benny and Josh are so sweet. Even though their sons have to work so hard for everything, they are so happy and do not complain.

She dreams of the day when they could become just like any other kids.

Read also: Boy Dies of Drug Overdose, Mom Blames Pandemic for His Depression

Jennie thanks donors

The couple could not believe how much they have raised so far. Since the insurance does not cover the treatment for the rare disease, the pair have to raise $5 million for the past three years. Jennie could not thank enough thousands of good-hearted people.

She said that beyond those who gave significant donations, the tens of thousands of people who donated $5 and $10 also made a difference. After their story came out on May 20, 2020, in People, the couple had 7,000 new donors.

The couple has received $200,000 from donations, which are a third of the lab treatment for surgeries. Jennie shared that one woman from Canada donated $9,500. She also said that if the gene therapy works, scientists believe that Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and ALS will become treatable too.

Jennie almost gave up in the last three years because she was overwhelmed with everything. Her two sons and the other children with Canavan kept her going and helped her succeed. She said that they are grateful to all the people who have helped them.
Demonstrations against police brutality and calling for racial equality are planned to continue Monday, three weeks after the death in police custody of George Floyd in Minnesota and days after police shot dead Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.

Mondays demonstrations include a march on the Georgia state capitol and protesters gathering in Lafayette Park, across the from the White House, where two weeks ago law enforcement forcefully cleared a peaceful crowd shortly before President Donald Trump walked through the area for a photo opportunity at a nearby church.

Sunday brought protests in numerous cities, including Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Miami.

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best said on CBS televisions Face the Nation Sunday she hopes officers can move back into a section of the city taken over by peaceful protesters without resorting to something that devolves into a force situation.

Protesters have peacefully occupied a four-block part of the city which theyve named Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Organizers say they want a neighborhood without police. A huge Black Lives Matter mural covers the areas main thoroughfare.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the occupiers ugly anarchists and said the city should take back the zone.

But Mayor Jenny Durkan last week likened the zone to a block party atmosphere and no threat to the public but said it will be restored to the city at some time.

Anti-racism marches inspired by George Floyd's death continued all weekend in some large European cities.

Demonstrators in Berlin formed a 9-kilometer long chain that began at the Brandenburg Gate.

In Paris, it was the police who protested what they say are unfair accusations of racism and brutality.

Shortly after 15,000 people demonstrated in the French capital, about 50 officers and their police cars surrounded the Arc de Triomphe.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday racist thuggery has no place in British streets after right-wing extremists attacked protesters against racism. About 100 people were arrested.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan blamed the violence solely on the rightwingers and he thanked police for doing a fantastic job in restoring order.

Also Sunday, hundreds marched through Tokyo, holding banners reading Black Lives Matter.

Thousands also demonstrated Sunday in New Zealand and took a knee for a moment of silence for George Floyd in front of the U.S. consulate.
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(Kitco News) - Kinross Gold Corp. (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) has reached an agreement on several issues with the government of Mauritania to enhance the partnership between the two, the company said Monday;.

The terms provide reasonable commercial trade-offs intended to provide certainty and resolution of outstanding matters, the company said in a prepared statement. Kinross said the agreement remains subject to definitive documentation and a culmination of discussions that balance the interests of both parties.

The terms call for the company to get a 30-year exploitation license for Tasiast Sud under the 2008 Mining Code and the 2012 Mining Convention, granted with expedited permitting and the possibility of early mining, Kinross said. The deal also provides for the reinstatement of a tax exemption on fuel duties and the repayment by the government to Kinross of $40 million in outstanding value-added tax refunds with an agreed payment schedule through 2025.

Meanwhile, Kinross will make a $10 million payment after completion of the definitive agreements to resolve disputed matters on fuel use and tax exemptions. Also, upon receiving the exploitation license for Tasiast Sud, Kinross will make a $15 million payment to resolve disputed matters arising out of Kinross prior application to convert the exploration license into an exploitation license, the company said.

At Tasiast, Kinross has also volunteered to update its fixed 3% royalty payable under the 2006 Tasiast Mining Convention. Kinross said it was appropriate to pay an escalating royalty tied to the price of gold that aligns with the 2008 Mining Code and the 2012 Mining Convention, plus what is comparable with other royalties in the region.

A renewed partnership approach for Tasiast Sud contemplates the government receiving a 15% free carried interest in Tasiast Sud with an option to purchase an additional 10% participating interest in the project after additional feasibility work is completed, Kinross said.

The parties also agreed to enhanced exploration programs at Tasiast Sud and Kinross-held concessions north of the current mining area. In particular, exploration program at the Tasiast Sud property is expected to focus on upgrading existing indicated resource estimates of 193,00 gold ounces and inferred resource estimates of 817,000 ounces to enhance the probable-reserve estimate of 144,000 ounces.

The government will have the right to nominate two observers to the board of directors of the Kinross subsidiary operating the Tasiast mine and will also have a right to nominate one representative and one observer to the board of the Kinross subsidiary that will operate Tasiast Sud, the company said.

We are pleased to see further development of a positive foreign investment climate in Mauritania with this successful outcome of our discussions with the government, along with the IFC-led Tasiast project financing signed in December 2019, said a prepared statement from J. Paul Rollinson, Kinross president and chief operating officer. This balanced agreement will deliver increased stability, position Tasiast for long-term success, and provide enhanced benefits to Mauritania and its people.
By the 90s, Harrison Ford was already the star in three major movie franchises.

But even that couldn't protect him from what was almost a terrible accident with a car.

Star Trek: Voyager actor Garrett Wang revealed that in 1994 he nearly ran-over the Star Wars actor in a movie studio parking lot.

Almost accident: Harrison Ford was nearly run-over by Star Trek: Voyagers actor Garrett Wang in 1994 on the Paramount Studios Lot (Ford pictured in 2020)

Speaking on his new The Delta Flyers podcast, with fellow Voyager's cast member Robert Duncan McNeill, Wang spoke of the incident which he said would have made him 'hated by nerds everywhere.'

The incident happened as the actor was late for an audition and was in a rush.

'Im actually speeding around the [Paramount Studios] parking lot,' he said. 'And I come around this one bend, and this guy in a suit walks between two cars right in front of my car, so I slam on my brakes.'

Continuing, he said: 'You know when you almost have an accident; your heart is beating a thousand miles a minute? I lock eyes with this dude in the suit, and its Harrison Ford!'

New reveal: Speaking on his new The Delta Flyers podcast, with fellow Voyager's cast member Robert Duncan McNeill, Wang spoke of the incident which he said would have made him 'hated by nerds everywhere' (pictured in 2019)

Shocked to see Ford on the other end of the almost-accident he said: 'I look at him, and I go "Oh my god! I almost killed Han Solo!"

Wang joked that if he didn't slam on his brake he 'would have been hated by nerds everywhere!'

The actor, who would go on to play Ensign Harry Kim on Voyagers, would later discover why Ford was on the lot that day.

Surprise: Continuing, he said: 'You know when you almost have an accident; your heart is beating a thousand miles a minute? I lock eyes with this dude in the suit, and its Harrison Ford' (pictured in 2017)

1994 release: 'I remember reading the Variety paper, our Hollywood trade paper, the next day,' he said. 'And on the front page was a photo that said "Harrison Ford at Paramount Studios for the Clear and Present Danger screening"' (Ford onscreen in Clear and Present Danger 1994)

'I remember reading the Variety paper, our Hollywood trade paper, the next day,' he said. 'And on the front page was a photo that said "Harrison Ford at Paramount Studios for the Clear and Present Danger screening."'

At the time, in 1994, Ford was starring in the second installment of his Jack Ryan series.

'He was there for that, based on the Tom Clancy novel, wearing that same suit I almost maimed him in,' Wang said. 'He could have been a cripple, because of me.'

Ford became a household name for his role as Han Solo in the Star Wars series, and as Indiana Jones in the namesake series.
TIME reported China is seeing a rise in new and fresh COVID-19 cases for two months since the conception of the coronavirus, prompting the capital city Beijing to intensify its measures.

Following the seafood market outbreak in Wuhan, the local health officials recorded 57 official new cases within a day after one of the districts declared itself in "wartime" Saturday following the quick rise in infections, particularly at the Xinfadi market.

The cluster of cases, the first in Beijing, increased in mainland China, going at around 83,000. Deaths are now at almost 5,000 in China, the country where the pandemic came from in December 2019.

READ ALSO: [BREAKING] 18 Dead, Over 180 Injured on China Truck Explosion, Causing 10-Meter Crack on Highway

South Korea infections

Meanwhile, in South Korea, COVID-19 cases are also on the rise after easing the lockdowns out of a highly-recognized testing and tracing process. South Korean health officials reported 34 new cases on Sunday, adding in the current upward trend. There are now a total of about 12,085 cases in the country.

In the greater Seoul area, there are 30 new coronavirus cases. This is the area where half of the nation's 51 million people are residing. The rise of new cases has been linked to party-goers at night, church mass gatherings, eCommerce warehouses, and door-to-door transactions.

This results in new efforts from the government to revise preventing measures, further implementing stricter control, and asking for the public not to forget wearing face masks and avoid large gatherings.

Around the world

Across the globe, the pandemic is bringing in more cases and infections in the continent of South America and South Asia. In Brazil, coming in second to the United States in terms of the number of infections, there are now about 43,000 deaths.

Meanwhile, in Chile, health minister Jaime Manalich has resigned over controversies surrounding the death toll, which is now more than 3,000, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

India is also recording a large jump in the cases on Saturday, with more than 11,000 new cases, taking the total to more than 300,000, health ministry information revealed.

On Sunday, the total number of coronavirus cases is now approaching 7.8 million, with some nations in the European Union seeking to reopen internal borders after the authorities urged for a "relaxation of restrictions," the report added.

In the United Kingdom, some businesses planned reopening on Monday, provided they will adhere to the COVID-19 measures. The prime minister, Boris Johnson expressed his desire to restart the economy that has been shut down since the country was placed in lockdown since March.

In the countries of Ireland, Denmark, Spain, and Belgium, the authorities have relaxed rules, loosening limitations on public gatherings, with the opening of some restaurants and bars. Across the United States, establishments are gradually re-opening, but after the increase in the cases, states like Oregon and Utah postponed the re-opening. In New York City, people have been returning to work.

RELATED STORY: Shocking Coronavirus Update: COVID-19 Can be Transmitted to Online Items Even After 9 Days - Study

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In order to divert those of you who, like me, are sticking close to home these days, Ive been posting images of some of the prints and paintings that hang on the walls of the Manhattan apartment that I shared for many years with my late wife Hilarythe Teachout Museum, as a friend calls it.

The latest of these images is of Dock at Newport, an 1893 etching by, my favorite American impressionist, whose paintings hang in every major American museumthe Phillips Collection owns six of his paintings and pastelsbut who is not nearly so well known to the general public as he deserves to be. Ive yet to see a museum retrospective of his work, which is too bad, since he is, in my opinion, the only American impressionist whose work is consistently comparable in quality to that of his more famous French counterparts. Indeed, Duncan Phillips went so far as to call him a great master whose paintings are all modern in mindand serve as connecting links between the past and the present.

Twachtmans paintings, alas, are far beyond my means, but he was also superbly accomplished at etching, and his efforts in that medium remain affordable, if rather less so than when I first started collecting. Dock at Newport was the second work of art that I purchased, all the way back in 2003, and if memory serves, I bought it from a print dealer for a modest three-figure sum. That surprises me now, since Dock at Newport exists in only thirty lifetime impressions and has always been regarded by critics as one of his very finest etchings. It was, for instance, singled out for extended mention in what appears to have been the first review of Twachtmans etchings, written by Margery Austen Ryerson and published in Art in America in 1920, eighteen years after the artists death:

The Dock at Newport is full of the delicate evanescent light effects that he loved.We see here too his sense of rhythm. He plays or he gently dances his values. It is darkest just where it makes the print more beautiful to have it darkest and it grows lighter just where it will bring all into a harmony. We notice the same fine sense of gray in this work that is in his paintings of snow and water and mist.

Like many noteworthy prints, Dock at Newport is based on a preexisting painting, The Landing, Newport, which was done in 1889. Its not as good as the later etching, which probably explains why it remains in private hands to this day: Twachtman was still working out his mature style, in which French and Japanese influences clearly played a part but which was nonetheless entirely his own. His twenty-nine etchings, of which Dock at Newport was his last, are more clear-cut than his later paintings, a few of which teeter on the edge of abstraction, but they are no less individual, and you can see from looking at the earlier painting how he had become himself by the time he created Dock at Newport.

Dock at Newport hangs in the passageway that leads from the dining room to the kitchen of my apartment in Manhattan, where it keeps company with a watercolor by Jane Wilson and prints by Childe Hassam, Alex Katz, Louis Lozowick, and John Marin. I look at it every day, as I have ever since I acquired it seventeen years ago. It is a little masterpiece at whose simple, almost spare elegance I never fail to marvel, and now that I no longer have a companion with whom to share it, I find a measure of consolation in its timeless beauty.
Aizawl:

A mob on Thursday pelted a district court in south Mizoram's Lunglei town with stones after they found that a man, accused of murdering a boy of their locality, was not brought there for production, the police said.

The group surrounded the court premises and pelted stones smashing window panes of offices of judges who were still inside.

Lunglei Sub-Divisional Police Officer D Laldingngheta said two persons were injured when police personnel baton charged them to control the situation.

A group of people from Zohnuai area in Lunglei congregated near the court premises to see a man who was recently accused of murdering a boy from that locality, the SDPO said.

They got furious after coming to know that a judge was holding a camp court inside the district jail, where the accused was lodged, to hear the case apprehending violence.

The mob is still surrounding the court premises while the judges and magistrates were stranded inside either their offices or in court rooms, Laldingngheta said.

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Iffath Fathima By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Doctors at Victoria Hospital here, who are on the front lines in the war against Covid-19, are fighting a battle on another flank too  dealing with shortage of blood. Due to the lockdown, no blood donation camps were held over the past few months and blood banks across the city were facing a severe shortage.

The one at Victoria Hospital was left with only six bags of blood on June 6. Realising the gravity of the situation, the resident doctor, along with other undergraduate and postgraduate students at the hospital, took the lead to donate blood.

Though the hospital did not require blood, as it has become a designated Covid-19 hospital, the demand from other hospitals was high and other blood banks were running short of blood.



The moment the doctors were alerted, they decided to form groups and donate blood. Over the past week, the Victoria Hospital blood bank has collected about 35-40 pints of blood.

Doctors form groups to donate blood

Dr Nandish Kumar S, from the Community Medicine Department at the hospital, said, We got to know that we had blood shortage in hospital, with only six bags left. Vani Vilas Hospital too, which requires blood for cases like anaemia during pregnancy or maternal and child health cases, was facing a shortage. Many other hospitals are also facing severe shortage of blood as blood donation camps are not being held. So, we formed groups and went ahead with the donation. We are glad that the blood bank has some stock now.



Dr Dayanand Sagar, president of the Karnataka Resident Doctors Association said, Patients with thalassemia, haemophilia, chronic illnesses, infections like dengue or even the trauma centre, need a lot of blood. When we realised there is a shortage, we thought of having a blood donation camp. But we decided against it due to the possibility of crowding and instead, we donated blood ourselves.



Doctors on Covid-19 duty are not allowed to donate blood. But after completing their turn, they too are coming forward now. All the resident doctors are participating and more than 20 doctors have donated blood in the past week, he added.
The Trump administration is launching what could turn out to be the biggest attack in a century against the giants of Americas meat industry, which already faced uproar over employee treatment during the coronavirus pandemic.

The United States Justice Department is bringing criminal charges in the poultry industry just as it opens a formal probe of beef companies. Regulators are also scrutinizing potential price manipulation, and on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are clamoring for a crackdown.

The threat from Washington is casting further spotlight on the industry after coronavirus outbreaks saw thousands of workers get sick, forcing plants to shutter. U.S. President Donald Trump in early May said hed have the Justice Department look into beef prices, which more than doubled in about a month.

The timing of the moves is interesting given that farmers have long complained about the dominance of just a handful of companies in beef and poultry markets, but antitrust enforcers havent before taken significant action against the companies. The heightened scrutiny comes less than five months ahead of Novembers presidential election. Action by either the Justice Department or the Department of Agriculture could shore up U.S. farmers, a key Trump constituency thats been battered by his trade war with China.

The markets been broken for a long time, and the pandemic has just made it worse. Meatpackers are making record profits, and the ranchers are going out of business, said Ben Gotschall, the interim executive director for the Organization for Competitive Markets, an advocacy group that opposes consolidation in agriculture. Whatever Trumps motivation might be, if he does the right thing you have to take it. I hope its more than just lip service.

At issue is whether meat behemoths are thwarting competition in violation of antitrust laws. Prosecutors at the Justice Department this month said executives at two chicken producers, including the second biggest in the U.S.  Pilgrims Pride Corp.  illegally conspired to fix prices, and they hinted at additional charges in the industry.

The department is also setting its sights on beef companies in a separate antitrust investigation, issuing subpoenas to the four biggest producers  Tyson Foods Inc., JBS SA, Cargill Inc. and National Beef Inc. They control more than two-thirds of all U.S. beef processing.

Cargill and Tyson declined to comment on the probes and livestock pricing. National Beef didnt respond to emails seeking comment. JBS, which also owns Pilgrims Pride, didnt respond.

The power of the meatpackers today echoes the early 20th century when the industry was dominated by a handful of companies known as the beef trust. A report by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 1919 found the five biggest companies, controlling about 82 per cent of cattle slaughter, monopolized the market and crushed competition. The findings helped lead to an antitrust settlement against the industry in 1920 aimed at protecting competition.

If the Justice Department finds evidence in its current investigation that meatpackers are violating the antitrust laws, it can sue the companies to stop the conduct or negotiate a settlement like it did in its probe a century ago, when the companies agreed to restrictions such as not owning stockyards or retail meat businesses. The investigation could also be closed without action, which the department did earlier this year when it abandoned a probe into automakers over an emissions agreement with California.

Criminal investigations like the one involving chicken processors carry higher stakes  executives can go to jail and companies can be criminally fined.

Meat company shares have underperformed in the wake of the probes and the scrutiny of the industry. Since March 31, Tysons stock is up a little more than five per cent, while Pilgrims Pride slid about two per cent. Sao Paulo-based JBS rose about seven per cent in Brazilian trading. The S&P 500 Index has jumped about 17 per cent this quarter.

Tyson, Americas top meat producer, said its co-operating in the chicken price-fixing probe with the Justice Departments antitrust division through its leniency program, which allows companies that report misconduct to avoid charges in exchange for co-operation. The company has declined to comment on how long it has been working with the Justice Department and whether its also co-operating in the beef probe.

Jayson Penn, the now-CEO of chicken giant Pilgrims Pride who faces as many as 10 years in prison in the chicken probe, entered a not-guilty plea June 4 in Colorado federal court. Penn went on a paid leave of absence and chief financial officer Fabio Sandri took over as interim CEO, the company said in a statement Sunday.

Its not just the Justice Department taking action.

Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are also raising alarm bells. Last month, 19 senators, many from agriculture states, asked the Justice Department to look into whether the companies are suppressing prices paid for cattle. They warned that market conditions could lead to widespread collapse of the ranching industry and open the door to meatpackers acquiring cattle operations.

Lawmakers also are pushing federal officials to ease regulations on meat processing, which could help reduce costs and lower the bar for new smaller entrants into the industry. Legislation has been proposed that would allow, for example, meat plants that are inspected by state officials to sell products across state lines.

Weve not seen this kind of attention since the early 1900s, said Bill Bullard, the chief executive officer of R-CALF USA, a trade association for ranchers that says the big packing companies are hurting cattle producers. Were in a precarious position now that necessitates congressional intervention.

Meat plant shutdowns in April and May sparked shortages at grocery stores and even Wendys Co. dropped burgers from some menus. Though it was just about a dozen plant closures, producers have such a stranglehold on output that it leaves few remedies when even a handful of facilities are down.

The shutdown of a single large beef processing plant can result in the loss of more than 10 million servings of beef in a single day, the White House said in a statement outlining Trumps late April executive order directing meatpackers to keep facilities running.

In total U.S. commercial cattle slaughter, the top four companies in 2018 had market share of 71 per cent, up from 57 per cent in 1987, according to Steve Kay, editor of the trade publication Cattle Buyers Weekly.

The total number of livestock slaughtering plants has plummeted about 70 per cent since 1967, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Given the high concentration of meat and poultry processors in a relatively small number of large facilities, closure of any of these plants could disrupt our food supply and detrimentally impact our hardworking farmers and ranchers, the White House statement said.

Modern scrutiny of the industry isnt new. During the Clinton administration, the same concerns about concentration and prices paid to ranchers sparked a Justice Department inquiry. Department officials visited rural areas to get the message out that they were looking for evidence of anticompetitive conduct, said David Turetsky, who was a deputy in the antitrust division at the time. Ultimately, they didnt find enough to bring a case.

In industries that are as highly concentrated at this one, its not surprising at all to see concerns, said Turetsky, now at the University at Albany.

Its not clear what conduct the Justice Department is focused on now in the beef investigation. A class-action lawsuit brought by R-CALF and the National Farmers Union last year accuses the companies of colluding to reduce the volume of cattle purchased for slaughter in order to drive down prices.

Ranchers woes grew more acute in the pandemic as slaughter plants shuttered. They grappled with low prices for cattle, while meat prices paid by consumers at the supermarket spiked.

Wholesale beef more than doubled from early April to mid-May. Prices have now quickly come back down from the peak, but are still about 10 per cent higher since the start of the year even as shutdowns for restaurants meant a loss of demand. Meanwhile, most-active cattle futures traded in Chicago have lost 24 per cent in 2020. Data tracking meatpacker margins soared.

A similar situation happened last year when a major Tyson plant in Kansas saw a production stoppage after a fire.

Still, margins dont tell the whole story, said Jayson Lusk, head of the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University. They are a simple calculation of the spread between animal costs and meat prices and dont necessarily reflect actual company profits.

In one case, a plant burned down. In the other case, its workers getting sick. Packers, at least, are not completely in control, Lusk said. What happens in both of these cases is that its quite clear that livestock producers are worse off. Whether the processors are worse off is hard to tell  we cant see their costs.

Most cattle are sold to meatpackers through longer-term contracts, rather than on the spot market. Ranchers complain that this structure reduces transparency and gives the packing companies a mechanism to pressure prices. Thats because the cash market helps to underpin terms in the contracts. So by reducing their purchases on the spot market, where trading is thin, the companies can drive down the price paid through contracts, according to the class-action complaint.

Legislation introduced last month by a bipartisan group of senators from rural states would require meatpackers to buy a minimum of half their weekly volume on the spot market.

The flip-side of consolidation in the market is larger, more efficient facilities that operate with lower costs, which in turn means cheaper prices for consumers, said Glynn Tonsor, a professor in the department of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.

Those efficiencies also benefit ranchers who sell to the plants, Tonsor said. With lower costs, the meatpackers can pay more for cattle than they would otherwise. But the bargaining position of ranchers depends on the supply of cattle relative to processing capacity. When supply is low, theyre in a better position than when its high, he said.

Tonsor said its a mistake to assume that a less concentrated market with more competitors would necessarily mean a more resilient food-supply network in the U.S. that is less prone to bottlenecks caused by plant shutdowns.

What we know with certainty is the efficiencies we have due to economies of scale would be gone, he said.

Yet antitrust enforcement today is undergoing a rethink. Economists and lawyers are questioning whether theres been too much focus on how mergers affect prices paid by consumers and not enough on prices paid to sellers. The buying power of companies is rightly getting more attention today, and the Justice Department should be scrutinizing the issue in the meatpacking industry, said Michael Kades, the director of markets and competition policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Agriculture in general is an area where there is lot of market power to the detriment of consumers on one side and small producers and farmers on the other, he said.
Thousands of tenants who recently lost their jobs because of the pandemic shutdown can no longer afford to pay their rent or will soon lack the money to do so. Theyre able to stay in their homes for now because of an emergency moratorium on evictions. But the ban ends 60 days after Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) lifts the public health emergency, and evictions are likely to surge, according to officials and advocates for tenants.
A source close to Andrew said the interview was a source of regret. (Getty Images)

Prince Andrews accuser has called him a toad after it emerged he regretted an interview about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein that led to him stepping back from senior royal duties.

Virginia Giuffre, who says the Duke of York had sex with her three times when she was trafficked by Epstein, shared her furious reaction soon after she also revealed she is in hospital with bacterial meningitis.

Andrew, 60, stepped back from royal duties in November after admitting his friendship with disgraced financier Epstein had caused a distraction to his familys work.

It was a BBC Newsnight interview in which he said he didnt regret the friendship that caused the most harm.

Read more: Prince Andrew accuses US prosecutors of seeking publicity instead of answers

Virginia Giuffre holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually. (Getty Images)

A source close to the duke told The Sunday Times: I dont think he regrets the intention behind the interview, which was to clear the air for his family, the royal family and the institution.

But the fact he was unable to appropriately or sufficiently convey his sympathy for the victims of Epstein, is of course a source of regret.

Giuffre, who now lives in Cairns, Australia, with her husband, tweeted: Oh the gull of this toad- he regrets the BBC interview but not his friendship with Epstein because it gave him great contacts and much more.

She added: This man is not a prince but a facet of insidiousness who has proven to get away with it all.

She says she was 17 on one of the occasions that the duke had sex with her, and so a minor under US law.

Andrew denies all the allegations.

Geoffrey Berman, attorney for the Southern District of New York, announces charges against Jeffery Epstein in 2019. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Read more: Prince Andrew has 'very little credibility' says lawyer of Epstein victims

The fallout from Andrews friendship with Epstein continues as the dukes private legal battle with American authorities became more public at the end of last week.

Having stayed quiet in the face of accusations that he was uncooperative, the duke issued a statement through his lawyers in which he said he had offered help on three occasions.

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He accused American authorities of seeking headlines instead of help.

Read more: Prince Andrew repays 355,000 as charitable trust found to have breached rules

US attorney Geoffrey Berman, who is leading the investigation into the disgraced financier, responded by accusing Andrew of attempting to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate.

Giuffre is in hospital in Australia where she is being treated for bacterial meningitis, which she speculated might have been in part down to an immune system deficiency and stress.

She tweeted: Back in the hospital- Again. This time bacterial meningitis. Went to the rainforest for the weekend with the fam and came back with something from the jungle. Day 3- just had to get a spinal tap- talk about pain! Pls send me some love vibes from all my friends on Twitter.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:52:01|Editor: huaxia

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KUNMING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Police in southwest China's Yunnan Province have cracked a case of drug trafficking, catching two suspects and seizing 23.64 kg of drugs.

After receiving a tip-off, police in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture dispatched a task force to investigate the case.

On June 5, two suspects were nabbed in an underground parking lot in the city of Qujing, and the drugs were also seized on the spot.

Further investigation is underway. Enditem
Strategass Jason Trennert has pointed out over the years that ADP, a payroll processing company, produces at no cost to the taxpayer an extraordinarily thorough accounting of U.S. employment before the Bureau of Labor Statistics does. ADP is very much in the business of knowing what the BLS spends hundreds of millions to know.

This column has pointed out that Visa produces endless reports on consumer spending, borrowing, levels of debt, debt in arrears, etc. Well, of course it does. As a credit card company theres a reason for Visa to know these things, and to know them as far in advance as possible. Translated, Visa doesnt wait for the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis to calculate consumer spending. Neither do sophisticated investors. Bank on it.

All of this should offer a clue to readers of something thats not been said enough over the last several months. Markets dont wait. The new coronavirus was a news item in January. It was known then that the virus had originated in China. U.S. companies derive enormous amounts of sales from the very Chinese customers who produce so much for American consumers. To export is to import, by definition. This is a long, or short way of saying that investors had a good sense long before politicians panicked in March that irrespective of the growing alarmism among politicians and doctors, the virus wasnt terribly lethal. If it had been, theres no way that U.S. equity markets would have reached all-time highs in late February. Again, markets dont wait for politicians to respond, nor do they wait for doctors and entities like the CDC.

This truth brings to mind what Ken Fisher routinely tells audiences he speaks to. What you know, assuming its true, is already priced. Markets are relentless processors of information, good and bad. What you think, or what someone told you at a party to think is, if valid, already processed.

This is worth a thought in consideration of the growing investor focus on volatility. As the Wall Street Journals Gunjan Banerji explained it on Saturday, In recent years, volatility has gone from a specialty of derivatives traders to a vehicle for trading in its own right. Investors big and small are wagering hundreds of billions of dollars on volatility. Call it the politics trade.

Volatility speaks to big lurches in market sentiment rooted in surprise. Since markets are on their own feverishly processing information, its not as likely for the day-to-day vicissitudes of life to produce too much surprise. Markets yet again dont wait, so its logically true that news about unemployment, shrunken sales, mild or lethal viruses, and reduced production in Bangalore is already known and priced well ahead of when we read about these things in newspapers.

To offer up yet another example, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was known to call FedEx CEO Fred Smith with great regularity. To export is to yet again import, so Smith has a keen sense of global economic activity based on shipments, and well before official figures are released.

Notable about Smith, and as was pointed out here a few weeks ago, his company has a big, 907 employee operation in Wuhan. Smith knew long before the hideous lockdowns that the virus had thankfully not killed any of his Wuhan employees. Had it proved extraordinarily lethal, we consumers of news would have known this truth long before March given the exposure of all-too-many public companies to China, along with Wuhan, the viruss epicenter. These realities, good or bad, would have reached equity prices first, only for them to reach newspapers and news organizations after. Professional investors are paid not for being late to information, but for being early. That there was no market alarm in January or February about the coronavirus should once again have readers wondering.

Bringing it back to the Journals Banerji, he contends that markets were once dominated by bulls who thought stocks would go up and bears who thought they would go down. Investors focused on volatility dont much care about the direction of shares as much as they care about big movements. In short, volatility traders are focused on politics.

Politicians are the wildcard. Way-too-powerful responders to news that markets have already processed, their responses to information that investors have been pricing for a lot or a little time helps create the volatility that is increasingly a trade. Because politicians are powerful, their decisions have economic impact.

But since politicians are members of the human race, its not always predictable what theyll do. If it were, or if their power was limited, they couldnt create volatility. Unfortunately its neither true that their actions can always be known in advance, nor is it true that their power is so hemmed in that their actions dont matter.

Which to a high degree explains volatility. Big market movements are a function of surprise, and politicians responding to yesterdays news create the surprise.

Imagine then, the economic growth lost to the volatility trade that is in so many ways a politics trade. Think how much further along the global economy would be if hundreds of billions werent directed toward hedging the volatility of statesmen, and instead toward the ideas and businesses that drive progress. Most of all considering the troubled present, imagine where the global economy would be today if politicians had listened to the markets over their own, highly emotional and vain, selves.
Open the emergency exit and jump on the slide to bail out? Or fasten your seat belt for a bumpy ride?

Thats the high-stakes choice for shareholders of Cathay Pacific Airways after it unveiled a US$5 billion government-led bailout plan aimed at keeping the carrier aloft for at least another year.

The recapitalisation plan to pull Hong Kongs flagship airlines shares out of a nosedive comes after seven months of anti-government protests and a pandemic that has left it burning through HK$2.5 billion to HK$3 billion per month since February.

Under the plan, the government will purchase HK$27.3 billion worth of shares that would amount to a 6.08 per cent stake it would keep for between three to five years. In addition, 2.5 billion new shares will be offered to existing investors through a so-called rights issue programme, which aims to inject an additional HK$11.7 billion into the company.

Is betting on Cathays plan a good deal for investors? The advice from experts following the stock is mixed.

Shareholders have three options.

They can purchase seven new shares for every 11 shares they already own at a price of HK$4.68 a piece, a 44 per cent discount to its closing price of HK$8.3 on Friday. But that means pouring money into huge uncertainties.

They also could hold onto their original Cathay shares and not subscribe for new ones, despite the huge dilution of stake.

Or, they can bail out and likely absorb a big loss, given that the price has fallen by nearly 60 per cent over the past five years and 25 per cent in the past year, as of Fridays close.

They have until July 14 to decide, after which the stock will trade in its new form.

Existing investors will have to carefully consider the options and whether they want to increase exposure to Cathay, a company with still strong fundamentals but increasingly uncertain outlook, said Luya You, transport analyst at Bocom International.

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Of eight analysts tracked by Bloomberg who weighed in since the announcement, three lowered their rating of the stock  including Daiwa Capital Markets and Morningstar, which reduced it from hold to sell  and a total of six dropped their target price for where they expect the stock to land over the next 12 months. Daiwa Capital lowered its target price by about 24 per cent.

We believe its share price will come under pressure due to the resultant dilution, but also see liquidity concerns removed given the airlines HKD2.5-3 billion per month cash burn, wrote Daiwai Capital Markets analysts Kelvin Lau and Frank Yip.

The stock fell three straight days after the announcement, for a total decline of 5.8 per cent. But that isnt a big fall, given a sour mood that overtook the overall market in which the Hang Seng Index also declined on those days.

For Cathay Pacific, which occupies over half of Hong Kong airports seating capacity, issuing new shares to existing investors has many advantages compared to other financing means.

It would lower the companys net debt-to-equity ratio to 0.5 times from 1.3 times, which would make it easier to borrow more in the future if necessary, according to James Teo, Asia transportation and logistics analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

Meanwhile, existing shareholders are more likely to lend a helping hand than new investors at this time of extraordinary difficulty, as the capital injection could dramatically improve the airlines financial health, and they have confidence in the companys future trajectory despite the short-term liquidity crunch, said Bocom Internationals You.

We already know that Cathay has attempted multiple bond issuance on the wider market which met little interest, she said.

Airlines around the world have taken a similar path over the past few months, as the global aviation industry is forecast to lose up to US$84 billion this year by the International Air Transport Association in the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Singapore Airlines earlier this month raised S$8.8 billion (US$6.3 billion) through a rights issue, backed by existing shareholder Temasek Holdings. Korean Air, South Koreas largest airline, is also set to issue around 1 trillion won ($830 million) worth of new shares to relieve its financial strain.

Its a good way to signal to their key stakeholders that its now or never for their investment: either provide critical funding or watch your investment potentially go down the drain completely, said You.

This gave Cathays major shareholders  as well as the Hong Kong government, worried over the citys status as a global aviation hub  enough incentives to provide the much-needed cash. They include Hong Kong conglomerate Swire Group, Beijings unofficial flag carrier Air China and the state-owned Qatar Airways.

But for Cathays minority shareholders, the story is less compelling. If they choose not to subscribe to the rights issue, they could face their share in the company being diluted by up to 43 per cent, as the big shareholders up their stakes, according to analysts.

If they choose to subscribe, they would suffer less dilution at around 6 per cent, according to Teo. But the cost is forking out a substantial amount of money to keep their stake largely intact, while the future of Cathay remains more unclear than ever.

Given the troubles of Hong Kongs slipping economy and political storms ignited by Chinas recent introduction of a national security law, the risks are apparent.

While prices are attractive and can yield handsome returns if the industry and Cathay can rebound like normal post-Covid, there is still substantial risk in this assumption, said You.

We dont know exactly what the global aviation industry will resemble in the immediate years following the pandemic. Few industry experts can give a reliable forecast for the industry at present, and this means much higher risk for your average investor.

Ajith Kom, analyst at UOB Kay Hian, reiterated a hold for the stock and set a post-rights issue price target for Cathay at HK$7.6, compared to a prior target of HK$9.46. He advises investors to subscribe to the shares to avoid having their stake being diluted. Still, investors should be comforted that the Hong Kong government will be funding 70 per cent of the HK$39 billion cash infusion, he said.

While the company has made a few missteps, including a massive oil fuel hedging mistake in 2015 that cost billions of dollars in the years following, the fortune of Cathay will be closely tied to the future of Hong Kong.

A potential return of street protests  which affected Cathay more than other airlines last year  as well as uncertainties in the progress of the global fight against the virus and passengers future demand for air travel are some of the biggest risks.

The aviation industry still offers plentiful opportunities after Covid-19, but it will be more important than ever to distinguish between the eventual winners and losers who may not survive in the end, said Bocom Internationals You. The stakes are much higher at this critical juncture.

Sign up now for a 50% early bird discount on the 100+ page China Internet Report 2020 Pro Edition, which includes deep-dive analysis, trends, and case studies on the 10 most important internet sectors. Now in its 3rd year, this go-to source for understanding China tech also comes with exclusive access to 6 webinars with C-level executives. Offer valid until 30 June 2020.

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Abdul and Aleksandra Wahab are charged with murder and causing or allowing the death of Nadia

Either a husband or wife accused of killing their daughter must be innocent, a court heard today.

The little girl was discovered at the family's home in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim in December last year.

Examinations confirmed she had sustained head and abdominal injuries which prosecutors have likened to forces exerted a in road traffic collision.

Evidence of multiple fractures at various stages of healing was also found.

Abdul Wahab, 32, and Aleksandra Wahab, 26, are currently in custody jointly charged with murder, causing or allowing the death of a child, and grievous bodily harm with intent to Nadia over a year-long period.

The husband and wife, originally from Pakistan and Poland respectively, emphatically deny all allegations against them.

They claim Nadia sustained the fatal injuries when she fell down a flight of stairs at their Fernagh Drive address in the middle of the night.

At Belfast Magistrates' Court today a solicitor for Abdul Wahab said senior counsel now instructed in the case has expressed "serious concerns".

Danny McNamee submitted: "We have two people charged with the murder of the infant child.

"There doesn't appear to be any indication from the police or anyone else that both these people were involved in this assault.

"His (senior counsel's) concern is very simple: it must be blatantly obvious to all involved in this case that at least one of these people has to be innocent."

Aleksandra Wahab's barrister, Gavyn Cairns, revealed that she is now heavily pregnant.

Based on her condition, and indications that it could take up to 10 months to obtain a full post mortem report, renewed bail applications are anticipated.

District Judge Fiona Bagnall agreed to adjourn both defendants' cases for two weeks.
A queue of cars roughly about five kilometers (just over three miles) long formed on Monday morning at Bulgaria's main border crossing with Greece, after Greece reopened its border to tourists.

Greece had announced it was reopening to visitors Monday, leading many to believe the border crossing would be open at midnight Sunday to Monday.

Instead, the Promahonas crossing was due to reopen at noon, leading to a long tailback of waiting cars.

Officials opened the border nearly an hour earlier due to the waiting travelers, and the line was easing shortly after midday, authorities said.

Health officials were conducting randomized coronavirus tests on those entering, with roughly one person in every 15 checked.

Greece's border with North Macedonia remains closed to tourists and is only open to those for travel deemed essential, leaving the Bulgarian crossing as the only convenient alternative for tourists from the Balkans to drive into Greece.

The country's two main airports _ one in Athens and one in the northern city of Thessaloniki _ also reopened to tourists Monday, while international flights to regional airports will restart on July 1.
Pentagon asks congress for 'Double-Digit Billions' in COVID-19 relief for military contractors

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 2:17 AM

US military's top weapons buyer has warned Congress to either come up with "double-digit billions of dollars" to reimburse arms contractors for their costs related to the COVID-19 pandemic or face the danger of a degradation in the country's military readiness.

The US Defense Department's Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord said at a House of Representative's Armed Services Committee hearing that the $688 million to assist military contractors and subcontractors in the recently passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was nowhere near enough.

According to a Friday report by the US-based Military.com news outlet, Lord further pointed to one unnamed prime military contractor that estimated its coronavirus-related costs at more than $1 billion, calling on the Congress to consider passing a supplemental bill to provide further funds to assist the country's Defense Industrial Base.

She went on to assert that a section of the CARES Act "authorized" Congress to fund offsets to the so-called "COVID penalty" for American military contractors, but did not "appropriate" the money, noting that Pentagon itself "does not have the funding to cover these costs."

In response to a question by a lawmaker regarding an estimate of the funds needed to make up for the COVID-19 penalty, Lord said; "Double-digit billions of dollars."

According to the report, during the congressional hearing, the expenses accrued by US military contractors during the pandemic were described as "layoffs, paid leave, sick leave, work stoppages and the associated costs of work slowdowns, cleaning workspaces and rearranging job sites to allow for social distancing."

"You're telling us today there's not the money to do that" and there will "have to be some sort of supplemental funding," said Texas Republican Congressman Mac Thornberry, a ranking member of the committee supported Lord's call to support US weapons makers.

"Correct," she answered.

"Otherwise, these contractors are going to have to eat several billions of dollars, which could well come at their employees' expense, which is what [the CARES Act] was supposed to help to begin with," Thornberry then underlined to highlight the case.

"There's a choice there," Lord said, "whether we want to eat into readiness and modernization" that would come as a result of a slowdown in contract deliveries "or whether we want to remedy the situation in the next six months or so" with increased funding.

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Reconstruction of the Yarmouk Camp planned, another US convoy enters Syria, anti-government protests in Suwedia and anti-US sanctions protests in Lattakia. Catch up on everything that happened over the weekend.

1. Syrias Local Administration and Environment Minister Hussein Makhlouf revealed that the Damascus Countryside Governorate will remove the rubble in al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood, southern Damascus, to secure the return of displaced residents, adding that work is underway for the return of the residents of Yarmouk Camp, reported SANA. Makhlouf added that a low cost and quick method for rehabilitating Yarmouk Camp has been chosen.

2. The US military sent a large convoy to northeastern Syria on Saturday amid reports of an increased buildup in Hassakeh Governorate. According to Al-Masdar, the US forces entered northeastern Syria via the illegal al-Waleed Crossing that links neighboring Iraq to the Hassakeh Governorate. The US convoy reportedly consisted of tens of vehicles that carried both logistical and military equipment.

3.Hayat Tahrir al-Sham members killed a civilian and injured two children while storming a house in the town of al-Azmo, west of the city of Aleppo, according to Smart News. Tahrir al-Sham is an Islamist opposition faction previously known as the al-Nusra Front, consisting of fighting groups including the Haqq Brigade, Jabhat Ansar al-Din, and Jaish al-Sunnah. On Friday, the brother of the victim said that at night, Tahrir al-Sham members stormed the house of his brother, Abdul Qader al-Shami, and targeted him with gunfire as he attempted to escape.

4. On Saturday, hundreds of people demonstrated in the Syrian government forces-controlled city of Suweida, southern Syria, demanding the overthrow the Syrian regime, Smart News reported. On social media accounts, activists posted videos showing hundreds of demonstrators in a square, crying out and demanding to overthrow the Syrian regime. The demonstrators also demanded release of Raed al-Khatib, who was detained recently for participating in demonstrations. The demonstrators cried out for freedom and the unity of the Syrian people, in addition to slogans, such as, Freedom for detainees, In Suweida the Syrian regime is overthrown, and, Live long Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad.

5. On Sunday, the Lattakia Bar Association organized a protest in front of the Justice Palace building to condemn the so-called Caesar Act and to reject the unjust coercive economic measures imposed on the Syrian people. Ayman Shabani, Chief of the Bar Association in Lattakia, told SANA that the protest was an expression of the unity of the Syrian people and their commitment to their leadership and their army in the face of all those who are trying to target their country.

6. SANA reported that Turkey increased its hostile actions of, Turkification in the Syrian areas occupied by its forces in the countryside of Aleppo, Hassakeh, Raqqa, and Idleb. Local sources in the countryside of Aleppo, Hassakeh, and Raqqa told SANA that after settling the family members of terrorists, in the homes of citizens who were displaced by force in order to make a demographic change, a post establishment affiliated to Turkish regime began establishing branches in the occupied areas in the countryside of Aleppo and Idleb.

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.
Fianna Fails finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath, has said that the leadership of his party is not in question and that he expects Micheal Martin to be Taoiseach in the new government.

Speaking on RTE radios Morning Ireland Mr McGrath said that while there are some outstanding issues that need to be resolved this morning on the final shape of the plan for government, he expects the deal to be signed off today.

I am not expecting any major difficulties, but it is important that everyone is satisfied with the final agreement and can sign off on it.

Mr McGrath said he was looking forward to introducing the document and explaining it to his own parliamentary party and to then move onto the different ratification processes of the individual parties.

The final details of issues such as the pension age will be confirmed, he said, but he was satisfied with the shape of what had been agreed.

There will not be an increase in the pension age this year. This was a complex issue, he added, that will need to be teased out through a Pensions Commission.

Fianna Fails imprint on the programme for government will be evident across a number of areas, he said, especially with regard to health care and reform.

There is a need for additional capacity and the pre-Covid situation of one million people on waiting lists was not acceptable.

We need to tackle that. It made sense to use the additional capacity in the private sector to get treatment, said Mr McGrath.

There will be a need to kick start economic activity in line with public health advice.

When asked if Micheal Martin would be the first Taoiseach of the new government, Mr McGrath said that the issue of Taoiseach will be decided shortly, but that he expected Mr Martin would be Taoiseach.

On the question of whether Mr Martin would remain leader of Fianna Fail for the duration of the new government, Mr McGrath said that the leadership of the party was not in question.

Last night, party leaders Mr Martin, Leo Varadkar and Eamon Ryan met for over six and a half hours in Government Buildings to finalise a formation deal, but talks ended without resolution

Speaking to reporters late last night, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe says that there has been "a lot of great work" done, but that agreement has not yet been reached. He said that progress had been made on a number of issues, but said that there would be an update on Monday.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The number of Turkish citizens looking for job in Azerbaijan from January through May 2020 has significantly increased, Turkish Employment Agency (ISKUR) told Trend on June 15.

In the reporting period, the number of Turkish citizens visiting Azerbaijan to find work through ISKUR surged by 11.7 times compared to the same period in 2019.

From January through May of current year, 100 Turkish citizens visited Azerbaijan through ISKUR.

In general, 4.288 Turkish citizens went abroad via ISKUR during the reporting period, which is 50.2 percent less compared to the same period in 2019.

In May 2020, 41,235 citizens were provided with jobs through this agency in Turkey.

Some 35.6 percent of the total number of employed citizens accounted for women and 64.4 percent for men.

In May 2020, 97.1 percent of the total number of citizens provided with jobs accounted for the private sector, ISKUR said.

The number of unemployed in Turkey in the reporting month amounted to over 3.5 million people, 48.4 percent of which are women, and 51.6 percent are men.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
ALTON  Several hundred people marched Northside Park to the community center at Alton Acres for a Black Lives Matter rally late Sunday afternoon.

Confirmed were at least several hundred, and as many as 500 participated in the march, organizers said.

We want to bring the community together, said Andy Hightower, president of the Alton Branch of the NAACP and one of the organizers.

The event was held under the banner of Solidarity in 2020.

A similar event took place in Jerseyville, which started at approximately 4 p.m. in front of the courthouse there with approximately 200 participating. Other protests or rallies occurred in Alton, Edwardsville, Granite City, Collinsville and other communities over the past few weeks.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, of Illinois, attended the Jerseyville rally, organized by Jaymisen Leigh-Ann Bushong, who organized an Edwardsville rally that occurred May 31 and according to her Facebook profile works in Jerseyville, and Laylhany Davis.

Coalescing around the death of George Floyd and other black citizens at the hands of police nationwide, locally the rallies have emphasized the need for awareness, as well as reform.

Another thing seen, at least locally at several events, were voter registration drives.

Hightower, in Alton, noted that voter registration is high on the NAACPs priority list.

He noted that in the 2018 spring elections voting was down dramatically in Alton. Countywide, only 11% of voters came out for that election, about which a number of officials and others have been outspoken.

Rita Young was among several volunteers Sunday in Alton registering voters and taking NAACP memberships.

Most of these people out here are probably registered, but were here to accommodate anybody that needs it, she said.

This is an election year. We all need to have our say and we need to change a few things in the meantime.

She also said registering new NAACP members is important.

Im just so glad to be a part of this great organization, Young said.

We are a people of color, and we want to be heard, like, everybody else. We want to do what everybody else is doing and what everybody else is entitled to.

The Alton march began at approximately 5 p.m. Sunday at the park at 201 Rozier St., then worked its way to Alton Acres.

Rev. David Goins, a retired police officer and Alton school board member, opened the Alton rally with prayer, but also noted that recent events have brought both blacks and whites together regarding the need for reform.

Hightower then spoke briefly, spending most of his time noting that it was an election year and introducing candidates in the November election, both Democrats and Republicans, to the crowd.

Ed Hightower, representing the Leadership Council of Madison County, a coalition of black advocacy organizations, was also among the speakers.

He said America has had enough of the systemic racism, brutal and unnecessary deaths to black Americans.

Millions and millions are giving voice to the grief and anger that generations of black Americans have suffered at the hand of the criminal justice system, Hightower said.

The country has reached a tipping point, and is now saying, We dont need to close our eyes and imagine how black and brown people are treated. We are now seeing those brutal acts through unedited video.

He also noted that although there are many good police officers, there still is a need for reform, including hiring more minority officers, increased training, especially in de-escalation, as well as appropriate force techniques, specific requirements for the use of body cameras and penalties for not following those procedures.

Hightower also noted that in 2016 there was an initiative to build trust between law enforcement and minority communities in Madison County, and one of the results of that and other efforts has been the hiring of almost a dozen black police officers.

Every day is a chance to do better, he said.

The rally included other speakers, as well as some poetry readings.
By Express News Service

Creatif Films is Sahil Aroras artistic endeavour. Playing with camera equipment from a young age at Shanti Studios  his father, Rakesh Kumars photography venture, the enthusiasm for photography and videography comes naturally to him. Arora uses Sony R IV with 24-70mm 2.8 and 85mm 1.4 for photography. Here, he talks about capturing his brothers wedding in lockdown.

Sahil Arora and Rakesh Kumar

The engagement took place a few days before the lockdown so we were lucky in that sense. But as we live in Chandigarh, we had to secure a pass to travel to Delhi where the wedding was planned. We got lucky the third time in securing the pass and married Nitin and Chaitali on May 2 in Ghaziabad.

The wedding was an intimate affair. It was planned at Chaitalis home. A girl deeply connects with her home as this is where her memories are born and stay with her forever. She wore her mothers sari and her grandmothers choker.

Unlike a number of guests and huge decorations, this wedding had just a handful but it was a grand affair in our hearts. We couldnt find a pandit for getting the two of them married so that was also a last minute arrangement. All of us couldnt decipher the meaning of what he was saying and as the words were too difficult to follow, it cracked us all up and as one can see in the photos, the bride and groom are laughing incessantly. Everyone wore masks and had to remove them due to the laughter.

Chaitali and Nitin share a laugh

I couldnt take my team for shooting due to the restriction in the number of guests. So, I did all the still photography and videography with the help of my father. The business has suffered as much as leaving us with one-third of the price money as compared to earlier time. But in my opinion this is temporary, maybe for six to eight months, we will suffer more because us Indians spend only on weddings and houses.
China said recently released court documents in Canada showed the detention of a senior Huawei executive in 2018 was a "political plot" by the United States.

Zhao Lijian, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said Monday that the documents "fully exposed the political plot of the United States to deliberately suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises and Huawei."

"Canada played the role of an accomplice of the United States," added Lijan.

A Canadian judge ruled in May that the U.S. extradition case against Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder and chief financial officer of the company, can proceed to the next stage, a decision that is expected to further harm relations between China and Canada.

The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa later warned Canada to drop the case and accused the United States of trying to bring down the Chinese tech giant.

Canada arrested Meng at Vancouver's airport in late 2018.

The U.S. wants her extradited to face fraud charges. Her arrest infuriated Beijing.

Canadian officials have emphasized the country's judicial system is independent.

The U.S. accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

It says Meng, 48, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company's business dealings in Iran.

Meng's lawyers argued during a hearing in January that the case is really about U.S. sanctions against Iran, not a fraud case.

They maintain that since Canada does not have similar sanctions against Iran, no fraud occurred under its laws. The judge disagreed.
[June 15, 2020] PG&E Providing Grants to Fund the Operation of Cooling Centers

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E (News - Alert)) continues to provide financial grants to fund the operation of existing county- or city-run cooling centers. The centers provide a safe, comfortable location with air conditioning for those who need it. Many organizations are updating and modifying their approach to cooling centers this year to take into account the impacts of COVID-19 and the need to physically distance and/or wear masks or personal protective equipment (PPE). PG&E has long-supported cooling centers in locations in its service area where summer temperatures typically reach triple digits. These centers help fill a critical need for those who might not have the financial means to cool and shelter themselves from dangerous and prolonged temperatures. PG&E is providing grants to the cities of Arvin, Fowler, Fresno, Madera, San Jose, Sanger and Stockton as well as to the Kern County Aging and Adult Services, Kern County Parks and Recreation and the Merced County Office of Emergency Services. The more than $80,000 in total grants help ensure customers have a safe, cool place to escape the heat and an opportunity to save on energy bills. "Cooling centers are a critical resource for customers during the summer months, particularly those among the at-risk populations, like seniors. Safety precautions are being implemented to further protect visitors including enhanced cleaning and disinfecting amid the coronavirus pandemic," said Laurie Giammona, PG&E Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer. The grants can be used to purchase PPE as well as hand sanitizer and masks to enhance safety at the centers, among other items. Visitors and staff at the cooling centers may be encouraged or required to wear face coverings, practice social distancing, and conduct a health screening before entering. The use of some recreational equipment and games my be restricted depending on the location of the center.



Cooling centers will be open to the public when the temperatures are forecast by the National Weather Service to exceed thresholds set by each area. PG&E began funding cooling centers as part of a pilot project in 2007 following a 2006 heat wave in the state.

Since 2007, PG&E has provided more than $500,000 to support established cooling centers, most located in local government-run senior centers or neighborhood parks and recreation centers. To find a Cooling Center near you, please call your local city or county government, or call PG&E's toll-free Cooling Center locator line at 1-877-474-3266 or visit pge.com/coolingcenters. PG&E is interested in funding the operation of more local Cooling Centers throughout our service area. For more information please contact PG&E at [email protected]. PG&E Tips to Stay Safe and Cool Plan ahead : Check the weather forecast to prepare for hot days.

: Check the weather forecast to prepare for hot days. Keep an emergency contact list : Keep a list of emergency phone numbers.

: Keep a list of emergency phone numbers. Have a buddy system : During a heat wave, check in on elderly or frail people.

: During a heat wave, check in on elderly or frail people. Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of water, even when you are not thirsty.

Drink plenty of water, even when you are not thirsty. Stay cool: Take a cool shower or bath and wear lightweight, loose, light-colored clothing.

Take a cool shower or bath and wear lightweight, loose, light-colored clothing. Stay safe: Stay out of direct sunlight and avoid alcoholic or caffeinated beverages. About PG&E Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric energy companies in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with more than 23,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit pge.com and pge.com/news. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005686/en/

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Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis meetings with Chief Ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the future Covid-19 strategy, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched yet another scathing attack on the government, this time using a quote by famous scientist Albert Einstein.

Posting a graph that showed the sudden fall in economy and the rise in fatalities from the beginning of of March, he said, This lock down proves that: The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. Albert Einstein.

This lock down proves that:The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.Albert Einstein pic.twitter.com/XkykIxsYKI Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) June 15, 2020

The Congress leader has been attacking the government over its taclking of the Covid-19 pandemic

He had shared a similar graph last week, accusing the Narendra Modi government of imposing a sudden, harsh lockdown that severely affected the economy. India is firmly on its way to winning the wrong race. A horrific tragedy, resulting from a lethal blend of arrogance and incompetence, Mr. Gandhi tweeted last Friday with the graph that mapped Indias rise in COVID-19 cases.

He has been holding discussions with intellectuals and policy makers such as former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, dormer US diplomat Nicholas Burns, Harvard professor Ashish Jha and industrialist Rajiv Bajaj to discuss the handling of the Covid-19 crisis and the future of Indian economy.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the country has gone up to 3,32,424 after 11,502 fresh infections were reported in 24 hours, according to figures released by Ministry of Health today morning. As many as 325 deaths were reported in 24 hours, taking the overall fatalities to 9,520.

Concerned over the mounting number of Covid-19 cases, the Telangana government on Sunday decided to conduct 50,000 tests in and around Greater Hyderabad over next week to 10 days. Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao announced that these tests would be conducted in 30 Assembly segments of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Vikarabad, Medchel, and Sangareddy districts.
New Delhi, June 15 : Air India is likely to grant a no-objection certificate (NoC) and drop the investigation against the employee, who drew salary from both the national carrier and the DGCA for two years after being deputed at the aviation regulator.

The official's term with the DGCA ends on June 30 and for him to carry on with the regulator, he requires an NoC from the national carrier. If this is provided, Air India will not be able to probe him, as per reports citing sources.

According to people in the know, Air India is expected to provide the NoC, since a resolution to the matter has already been initiated.

However, reports citing sources said that such a move might be contemplated to stall an investigation by the airline.

As per reports, the employee concerned was a joint manager in the national carrier till January 2017 and was then deputed in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. The alleged scam came to light in January last year.

Following the claims, Air India conducted an internal enquiry before urging the DGCA in June last year to relieve the Chief Flight Operations Inspector (CFOI) so that the airline could bring him back and investigate the allegations. However, the DGCA did not agree to the request.

Now is the opportunity, sources in the report said, citing the expiry of the DGCA contract, when Air India can actually bring back the person and investigate the allegations of fraud.

Contacted by IANS, the official concerned refused to comment on matter.

There are, however, contradictory opinions within the establishment. A person in the know of the matter said: "This is a matter that has been resolved internally in the airline. When the pilot is returning the extra payments he had received, then there is no point of an investigation left." The money owed by the official concerned is also disputed. Air India last year issued a showcause notice to the CFOI for receiving a gross salary of Rs 2.8 crore from the airline, when he was employed with the DGCA.

Sources, on the other side of the divide, also said that the official concerned has paid around Rs 90 lakh to Air India in two instalments after the alleged scam came to light and the airline expects to make full recovery soon.

Asked about the possible grant of NoC for extension of the official's service in the DGCA, a source said: "These are two very separate issues and cannot be clubbed or looked at from a single perspective."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 14:35:46|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, further expanded in May as factory activities continued to pick up pace amid COVID-19 control, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Monday.

The value-added industrial output went up 4.4 percent year on year in May, extending the rebound and up 0.5 percentage points from April, NBS data showed.

As of May 27, about 67.4 percent of the surveyed enterprises were back to 80 percent of their normal production levels, up 6.6 percentage points from late April, the NBS said.

In May, output by the manufacturing industry registered the fastest growth by expanding 5.2 percent year on year.

Output of industries in the production and supply of electricity, thermal power, gas and water reported a year-on-year increase of 3.6 percent, while the mining sector saw output up by 1.1 percent.

In the first five months, industrial output went down 2.8 percent year on year, with the rate narrowing by 2.1 percentage points from the January-April period.

In a breakdown by ownership, output by the private sector went up 7.1 percent year on year in May, according to the data.

The output of state-controlled enterprises rose 2.1 percent, that of joint-stock companies rose 4.8 percent, and that of overseas-funded enterprises rose 3.4 percent.

Despite the recovering momentum, China's industrial activities still face many challenges and uncertainties, the NBS said in a statement.

Recovery in production was seen in most sectors, with new products maintaining high-speed growth, said NBS official Jiang Yuan, citing the over 70-percent growth of tech-intensive devices including 3D-printing equipment, smart watches and charging poles.

The industrial output is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.82 million U.S. dollars).

Monday's data also showed improvements in other readings of economic indicators. Fixed-asset investment totaled 19.92 trillion yuan in the first five months, down 6.3 percent year on year but narrowing by 4 percentage points from the first four months.

China's retail sales of consumer goods declined by 2.8 percent to 3.2 trillion yuan last month, recovering from the 7.5-percent drop in April, NBS data showed. Enditem
Savannah Manning doesnt know how to slow down.

The statewide school closure order and social distancing guidelines that Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered in an effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus scrubbed her schedule clean.

Poof went the hours she relished in the classroom.

Gone were dance rehearsals and track-and-field practices.

And forget about cheerleading.

But for every obstacle the new normal placed in Mannings way, the St. Helens High School graduate leapt right over it.

Manning, 18, rehearsed dance moves in her bedroom. She kept working out at her high schools track to stay in competitive shape and logged her own personal records using a smartphone app in the hopes that school would resume as normal before the end of the year.

I just did what I could, Manning said. I knew I could do better and I wanted to be able to have the opportunity when school started off again to start where I left off.

The school doors never re-opened for her. But Manning kept just as busy throughout the closure as she would have even if a pandemic hadnt upended life for her and the other 2,800 students in the St. Helens district.

In a typical day, Manning would tackle an array of schoolwork, including her AP chemistry assignments, among the most rigorous of her academic load. Then shed take to the track to run and leap into the long-jump pit.

Some evenings, shed babysit and tutor three of her neighbors. Manning also recently began working at Roof, a restaurant overlooking the Columbia River.

And between all of that, she also tutored her younger brother, a seventh grader at St. Helens Middle School. That, Manning said, may be one of her proudest achievements during the pandemic.

Watching my little brother learn and grow was so fulfilling, she said.

Manning graduated on June 5. The socially distant ceremony called for families to ferry their graduating seniors to the Columbia County Courthouse, where each student ascended the steps to receive their diploma and place a bookend on the last 13 years.

Days later, Manning was on the same courthouse steps, this time relaying the sorrow she felt seeing her a community shut down an event shed seen as an outlet for the frustrations shed long felt.

Two of her classmates organized a protest and march in support of the Black Lives Matter movement as similar demonstrations unraveled across the state and nation. The event invitation struck a chord with Manning  shed always felt like an outsider in an overwhelmingly white city and district.

According to state figures, Manning was one of just 21 black students enrolled in St. Helens schools this year.

I always struggled trying to make friends without sacrificing who I am as a person, she said.

So when her classmates canceled the march citing a hostile response by some Columbia County residents, Mannings heart sank. She recalled how, as a fifth grader, a group of white classmates turned her away when Manning tried to join them for lunch.

She saw the Black Lives Matter march as a way to relay her experiences to the community. So when it was canceled, Manning took to Facebook.

My name is Savannah Vivian Manning. I am black. I am Native American. I am strong. I am proud, began her 1,200-word post.

She poured her heart out to the community at large, lamenting the loss of an event that encapsulated the grief shed long felt.

The same community that effectively shut down a march over concerns that it would invite property damage and looting rarely, if ever, made her feel like her voice mattered, Manning wrote.

I pray that the City of St Helens will change, and I pray that our country will change, Manning wrote.

One of her fellow St. Helens residents agreed. The same day Manning published her post, Shana Cavanaugh began negotiating with local police to make the march happen after all.

Hundreds gathered in St. Helens on June 3, 2020 to protest the death of George Floyd. The demonstration was initially canceled when the teenaged organizers felt intimidated by internet comments threatening to hurt protesters but was revived when a neighbor offered to negotiate with local police.Photo by Eder Campuzano/Staff

The event was reinstated. But this time, Manning was added to the list of speakers.

She shared her frustrations with about 500 people in front of the Columbia County Courthouse on a sunny afternoon earlier this month, echoing much of what she wrote on Facebook days earlier.

Manning told the crowd about the boys who turned her away from the lunch table because of the color of her skin and the numerous times shed been told go back to your own country by classmates.

We need to come together as a community to help educate all generations, on racial and social equality, she said. We need to come together as a community and help bring justice in a peaceful way. We need to come together as a community and talk about our experiences.

Mannings speech was punctuated by cheers. Rally attendees approached Manning to thank and congratulate her as she stood on the courthouse steps and watched other speakers take the mic.

I thought people would put my speech down. And when I found out a lot of people were supportive, I was shocked, she said.

And as Manning walked to a nearby gazebo to continue the days demonstrations, she couldnt move two feet without another rally-goer stopping her to offer words of support.

Manning thanked each and every one, declining handshakes and pointing to her face mask as she offered well-wishers her gratitude.

When I was gazing across the crowd and I saw so many people carrying signs and smiling, I think my perspective did change a little bit, she said. I was happy to see how many people in my community really cared about my experience.

Manning looks back at the protest as proof of her ability to spur change. And with graduation in the rearview, shes looking forward to starting the dental hygiene program at Portland Community College.

Beyond that? She wants to become a Blazers Dancer.

After all, thats what all those bedroom dance rehearsals were working toward.

--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.

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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.
Judge Jock Zonfrillo controversially claimed that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining' during Sunday night's episode of MasterChef: Back to Win.

And on Monday, ousted favourite Khanh Ong addressed the drama on The Project.

Asked if he agreed with what Jock said, Khanh, 27, was very diplomatic - but admitted he disagreed to an extent.

Speaking out: Judge Jock Zonfrillo controversially claimed that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining' during Sunday night's episode of MasterChef: Back to Win. And on Monday, ousted favourite Khanh Ong (pictured) addressed the drama on The Project

'I think what he's saying, what we need to take from that, is the word 'automatic'. And that's right,' Khanh said, explaining that he agrees Asian cuisine isn't 'automatically' seen as fine dining.

He went on: 'With Asian cooking, we do a lot of fine dining. It is a harder push. That's where I found myself. I was pushing hard to make that dish. '

Khanh added with a laugh: 'I had a bone in mine which wasn't fine dining!' before adding that he felt his elimination was a 'fair cop'.

Speaking up: Asked if he agreed with what Jock said, Khanh, 27, was very diplomatic - but admitted he disagreed to an extent. Pictured on The Project

Caveat: 'I think what he's saying, what we need to take from that, is the word 'automatic'. And that's right,' Khanh said, explaining that Asian cuisine isn't 'automatically' seen as fine dining

He went on: 'With Asian cooking, we do a lot of fine dining. It is a harder push. I was pushing hard to make that dish. I had a bone in mine which wasn't fine dining!'

Fan favourite Khanh was eliminated from the competition on Sunday.

The chef was sent home after failing to impress the judges with his quail dish, which had bones left in it.

When given the option to create a fine-dining dish that represented any country, Laura Sharrad and Emilia Jackson chose France, while Khanh went with Vietnam.

Divisive: Khanh decided to stay true to his Vietnamese roots for a fine-dining challenge Sunday

Comments: However Jock, 43, (pictured) said that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining'

Khanh decided to stay true to his Vietnamese roots for the challenge, but Jock, 43, controversially said that Asian food 'doesn't lend itself to fine dining'.

Outraged viewers of Channel 10's competitive cooking show flocked to Twitter to label the chef's comments 'ignorant and highly problematic' while others called for the 'Eurocentric definition of fine dining to be dismantled'.

'I find it highly problematic that on tonight's MasterChef, Jock thinks that Asian cuisine and 'fine dining' are mutually exclusive and the other judges appear to agree,' one person Tweeted.
At KRCL, we are passionate about being there for our clients when they need us most. Whether being pragmatic problem solvers or having to take the proverbial hill, its an honor to be considered their go-to law firm. This recognition is always gratifying.

Six attorneys from the Dallas office of Kane Russell Coleman Logan were honored among D Magazines Best Lawyers in Dallas for 2020. The distinguished lawyers were selected by their peers in the legal community for their unparalleled counsel in one of 34 areas of law. This year, KRCL attorneys were selected in five categories, demonstrating the firms wide-ranging services and legal knowledge.

Douglas Bracken is a board-certified employment law attorney with over 25 years of experience and an in-depth knowledge of employment regulations. Doug, a director of the firm, also advises and defends nonsubscriber employers who have opted out of the Texas Workers Compensation Act on both negligence and ERISA issues. He is recognized by D Magazine for his work in Labor and Employment for the second year.

Joseph Coleman has been named to the list in the Bankruptcy and Workout category for the eighth consecutive year. Joe is a founding director of the firm and chairs the Bankruptcy, Insolvency & Creditors Rights Section at the firm. He has represented 40 Creditor Committees in 17 states, confirmed more than 12 plans of reorganization representing both private and public debtors, and served as counsel for many lenders and other secured creditors in Chapter 11 and other insolvency-related matters.

John Kane has been recognized for his representation of clients in Bankruptcy and Workout for the fourth year. A director of the firm, John has extensive experience in all facets of bankruptcy cases and has represented secured and unsecured creditors, bankruptcy trustees, creditors committees, corporate debtors, and parties interested in purchasing claims and assets out of bankruptcy cases.

Raymond Kane is a founding director of the firm and the head of the Real Estate section. He represents developers and operators in all aspects of development transaction, including land use, planning, construction and lending matters, as well as the representation of landlords and tenants in retail, office and industrial development and leasing transactions. Ray has been a consistent presence on the Best Lawyers in Dallas list, with this being his seventh year to be recognized in the Real Estate category.

Scott Riddle has been named to D Magazines Best Lawyers Under 40 List for his work in Business/Commercial Litigation for the third consecutive year. Scott represents clients in litigation, investigations, regulatory matters, crisis planning and management, and other complex business matters. He has advised manufacturers, motor carriers, railroad companies, an international airliner and others in the transportation industry.

Gordon Russell was selected for his representation of clients in Banking and Finance. A founding director of the firm, Gordon concentrates his practice on banking and financial institutions and real estate, including resolution of distressed CRE, C&I and energy assets. He has been recognized by D Magazine for the seventh year.

It is an honor for me and my colleagues to receive this vote of confidence from our peers, said Joe Coleman. At KRCL, we are passionate about being there for our clients when they need us most. Whether being pragmatic problem solvers or having to take the proverbial hill, its an honor to be considered their go-to law firm. This recognition is always gratifying.

A leading media outlet in North Texas, D Magazine determines its annual Best Lawyers in Dallas list based on an extensive peer review process in which local lawyers nominate their peers with the following question in mind: Which Dallas lawyers, of those whose work you have witnessed firsthand, would you rank among the current best? These nominees are then evaluated and voted on by an anonymous panel of attorneys and the magazines editorial staff. The resulting list represents a collection of highly regarded, local attorneys and is published in D Magazines May 2020 issue.

Kane Russell Coleman Logan is a full-service law firm with offices in Dallas and Houston. Formed in 1992, the Firm provides professional services for clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to medium-sized public and private companies to entrepreneurs. KRCL handles transactional, litigation and bankruptcy matters in Texas and throughout the country.

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Rebecca Gibney has addressed her former co-star Jessica Marais' personal struggles and departure from the Packed to the Rafters reboot for the first time.

The New Zealand-born actress, 55, revealed that while the 35-year-old had her 'struggles', she would inevitably bounce back and 'surprise them all' both personally and professionally.

She told TV Week on Monday: '[Jessica] is doing really well and I'm in constant contact with her. She is truly one of those unique talents!'

'She'll surprise us all!' Rebecca Gibney (left) has addressed her former co-star Jessica Marais' personal struggles and departure from the Packed to the Rafters reboot for the first time

Rebecca had nothing but kind words for South African-born Jessica, who announced in February that she would be pulling out of Amazon Prime's Back to the Rafters due to 'personal reasons'.

The actresses portrayed mother and daughter for five seasons on Channel Seven's original series, Packed to the Rafters, from 2008 to 2013.

It has been a tough few weeks for mother-of-one Jessica. Last month, emergency crews were called to her home in Sydney's eastern suburbs for a welfare check.

On the afternoon of Saturday, May 2, she was walked to an ambulance where she was put on a gurney and taken to the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick.

'She's doing well!' The New Zealand-born actress (centre) revealed that while Jessica (second from right) had her 'struggles', she would inevitably bounce back and 'surprise them all'. Pictured with the cast of Channel Seven's Packed to the Rafters

A witness told Daily Mail Australia she was not wearing any shoes, her hair was a 'dishevelled mess' and she was in a 'visibly distressed state'.

Fortunately, she appeared happy and healthy several weeks later as she spent time with her Packed to the Rafters co-star Hugh Sheridan.

Earlier this month, Jessica shared a heartfelt open letter about 'loneliness and growth' following her hospitalisation.

Troubles: Last month, emergency crews were called to Jessica's home in Sydney's eastern suburbs for a welfare check. She was escorted to an ambulance and taken to the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick. Pictured at the 2017 Logie Awards in Melbourne

'Speak my truth': Earlier this month, Jessica shared a heartfelt open letter about 'loneliness and growth' following her hospitalisation

She told fans she now 'has the courage to speak my truth' before reflecting on her positive growth as a person.

Jessica concluded the note by asking her followers to help her find the wisdom to know 'where freedom resides' and how to 'survive carelessly' while 'not [being] afraid of death, loss, grief, pain, fear, unemployment, love, abandonment and finances'.

While Jessica has bowed out of Back to the Rafters, Rebecca is preparing to film new scenes for the show, which is set six years after Packed to the Rafters' final season.
For Sara Usman, the experience of violation was nothing short of horrific.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

For Sara Usman, the experience of violation was nothing short of horrific.

In April 2018, Usman discovered her ex-husband had broken into her home and installed hidden cameras. Usman said his family threatened to release intimate images of her without her consent.

She used the experience to create the Shameless Circle, a non-profit, volunteer-led community organization that offers support to women who, given any set of circumstances, are experiencing shame, and seeking a sense of belonging.

In July 2019, a few months after her ex-husband pleaded guilty to break, enter, commit mischief and breaching a recognizance, Usman had the publication ban on her name lifted, with the desire to get her message out to women who have gone through similar experiences.

"I wanted to reach out to more women and tell them theres always hope of regaining life, even when you think youre not able to go on further after the incident," says Usman, 32.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Shameless Circle (theshamelesscircle.org) held a gathering each Sunday at Daniel McIntyre/St. Matthews Community Association on Ellice Avenue.

In the last few months, the Sunday gatherings have moved online, with the group meeting via Zoom.

In addition to providing participants with an opportunity to socialize and receive support, the gatherings include workshops on a variety of topics, including body image and self defence.

"Since I went public with my story, we have seen an abundance of messages from women who have said theyve gone through the same experience," Usman says. "That tells me theres so much more we need to do when it comes to advocacy and awareness about the non-consensual distribution of intimate images."

The Shameless Circles work is gaining traction.

Cathy Cox, provincial minister responsible for the status of women, partnered with the organization to declare April 14, 2020, Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images Awareness Day.

Weeks earlier, Volunteer Manitoba and Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries Corp. announced Usman would receive a Mayors Volunteer Service Award as part of the 37th Annual Volunteer Awards.

'Since I went public with my story, we have seen an abundance of messages from women who have said they've gone through the same experience. That tells me there's so much more we need to do' Sara Usman, founder of the Shameless Circle

"Im completely honoured, but I have barely started (this work)," she says. "I think this award goes to the team, because its a team effort."

One of those team members is Keziah Toews. The 21-year-old, who is finishing a degree in conflict resolution at the University of Winnipeg, started volunteering with the Shameless Circle last year.

As part of the Shameless Circles board of directors, Toews works on fundraising and team management. Previously, she led workshops on conflict resolution.

Toews said volunteering with the Shameless Circle has been a chance to put into practice what shes learned in the classroom.

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"I appreciate the opportunity to use what Ive learned about healthy communities and interactions in the planning of programs and goals for the Shameless Circle," she says.

Francis Arevalo started volunteering with the Shameless Circle at the beginning of 2020, working on the organizations marketing. The 24-year-old nursing student says hes been amazed by what he has witnessed in the past six months.

"I really like the enthusiasm that everyone has, and you really feel the group dynamics when it comes to community outreach and involvement," Arevalo says. "Sara is that transformative leader that you really look up to because she encourages creativity and proactivity."

Usman says she loves her work with the organization.

"The Shameless Circle has given me a reason to move on with my own life," she says. "Seeing the ability of women to overcome their feelings of shame and take their power back truly makes my day."

If you know a special volunteer, please contact aaron.epp@gmail.com.
PRISTINA -- The U.S. special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo negotiations says he has received commitments from both countries to meet in Washington on June 27 for talks aimed at leading to a normalization of relations.



The envoy, Richard Grenell, said Kosovo and Serbia had committed to "temporarily pause the derecognition campaign and the seeking of international memberships" in order to meet at the White House to try to resume talks that have been on hold for more than a year.



"If either side is unsatisfied with the June 27 discussions then they will go back to the status quo after they leave Washington," Grenell said on Twitter.



"As we have consistently said, we must first make progress on growing the economies. This is the focus." he added.



Neither government confirmed Grenell's announcement, but the president and prime minister of Kosovo welcomed the invitation.



"U.S. leadership & support has always been decisive for the prosperous future" of Kosovo, President Hashim Thaci wrote on Twitter.



Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti tweeted that the "continuation of the dialogue is a key step for the normalization of relations and mutual recognition!

The European Unions special envoy to Serbia-Kosovo talks, Miroslav Lajcak, is expected to arrive in Pristina on June 16 to begin discussions on the timing and other details of the resumption of the dialogue, Dinka Zivalj, spokeswoman of the EU office in Kosovo, told RFE/RL.



Hoti, of Kosovo's center-right Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), became prime minister on June 3 after winning a vote in parliament by a razor-thin margin.

Three days later the new government scrapped all trade sanctions against Serbia, a move that opened the door to the restart normalization talks with Belgrade.



Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic welcomed Pristinas move to remove all trade barriers, calling it a "good decision."



The tariffs, imposed on Serbia in November 2018, came in response to Belgrade's diplomatic campaign to encourage some of the 110-plus countries that have recognized Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 to reverse their position.



The tariffs had been partially lifted earlier this year under former Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the leader of the leftist-nationalist Vetevendosje (Self-Determination) party.



The United States and EU had demanded that the punitive fees be lifted in full.



Kurti has accused Grenell of rushing to reach a deal with Serbia to score political points for U.S. President Donald Trump, who is seeking reelection this year. He has said such a deal would include a territorial exchange."



Grenell has repeatedly denied the allegations.








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The Canada-U.S. border is supposed to be closed to all non-essential travel for another month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called this the right thing to do. He is cautioning that it could be months still before non-essential travel is allowed.





But this has not stopped Americans who could have the coronavirus getting legal entry to visit Canada by claiming to Canadian border control officers that "they are on their way to Alaska".





One Texas family was seen wondering around Banff, Alberta which is in no way a thoroughfare to Alaska, U.S.A.





No one can exploit a loophole better than an American. Why do you think their contracts have such excessive fine print?



"Transiting travellers will be asked to limit stops along the way and practice social distancing when making essential stops (i.e. facilities use)," said Ashley Lemire, media relations manager with the CBSA in an email.







"As per the handout provided upon entry into Canada, travellers should use a drive-thru to stop for food and pay for gas at the pump whenever possible. Additionally, for any period of time in which they are not travelling, for example, if required to spend the night in a hotel, then travellers are required to quarantine."





And, who's going to regulate that?



"They are now wandering around Banff, no masks, no distancing, no 14-day quarantine. There was also another similar incident same loophole used for another group of visitors from Seattle," the post reads. "This is more than alarming!"When asked about the situation, the Canada Border Services Agency told CTV News that "healthy, non-symptomatic foreign nationals" are allowed to drive through Canada for "non-discretionary purposes," including going to Alaska.
Brueckner was first publicly linked to Madeleine two weeks ago when Braunschweig police made an appeal for more information on his whereabouts the night she went missing.

But they have repeatedly refused to share specific details with her family of what the evidence is until they are able to charge their prime suspect, Christian Brueckner.

Police in the northern city of Braunschweig are investigating the disappearance of the British three-year-old and have said they have "concrete evidence" she is dead.

Braunschweig: German prosecutors have written to Madeleine McCann's parents to say "getting the culprit is more important than putting our cards on the table".

The authorities are unable to charge the 43-year-old convicted paedophile with Madeleine's murder with the evidence they currently have, but have insisted their case against him is "90 per cent" there.

British girl Madeleine McCann before she went missing from a Portuguese holiday complex in 2007.

Hans Christian Wolters, one of the German prosecutors leading the investigation into Madeleine's case, said he "sympathises" with Kate and Gerry McCann's desire to know what new evidence has been recovered on their daughter's fate, but a successful case against Brueckner is "more important".

Speaking in his Braunschweig office on Monday, Mr Wolters said: "We have written to the McCanns again because we are closely following and monitoring what has been going on in the media. We have really considered the fact that it is going to be very hard for the family when we tell them that we assume Madeleine is dead.

"But we can't say why she is dead. It is more important that we are successful and we are able to get the culprit as opposed to just putting our cards on the table and tell them why we think she might be. I know it would be of relief to the parents to know how she died but it would hamper the investigation if we give away too much information."
 Flash

In a televised address to the nation on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron declared "a first victory" over the coronavirus epidemic, announcing a return to normalcy from Monday across French regions, except for overseas territories.

"From tomorrow, we will be able to turn the page on the first act of the crisis we have just gone through," Macron said. "The new stage which opens from tomorrow will accelerate the recovery."

"So, we will be able to find again the pleasure of being together, to fully resume work, but also to have fun, to cultivate ourselves. We will rediscover our art of living, our pleasure of freedom," he added.

Almost full exit from lockdown

The remaining restrictions would be lifted in Ile-de-France which have so far lagged behind the rest of the country's easing programme. Bars, cafes and restaurants will be allowed to receive clients.

All nurseries, schools and colleges will reopen from June 22 when all students have to attend courses, the president announced.

From Monday, European travellers will be able to enter French territory without restriction, while those from countries outside Schengen area will have to wait until July 1.

Visits to nursing home will be permitted and the second round of the municipal elections will take place on June 28. Meanwhile, large gatherings will remain "tightly controlled" despite improved epidemic indicators.

"We will have to live with (the virus) for a long time yet, respect the rules of physical distance...and follow the evolution of the epidemic to be prepared if it strongly resurges," the president warned.

"The fight against the epidemic is therefore not over, but I am happy for this first victory against the virus," he said.

As of Saturday, France registered 24 new deaths from COVID-19, bringing the country's toll to 29,398, according to figures released by the National Public Health Agency.

The latest single-day deaths were fewer than the 28 fatalities recorded a day before. Saturday also saw 526 new cases of infection, down from Friday's 726, taking the tally to 156,813.

Hospital admissions continued to decline for the second month in a row. Some 10,909 people remain hospitalized for coronavirus infection, compared with 11,124 recorded on Friday. Patients who needed to be put on ventilator dropped by 8 to 871.

Post-COVID reconstruction

In his fourth prime-time address since the coronavirus outbreak in early March, Macron acknowledged that the unprecedented health crisis has revealed France's "flaws and weaknesses", such as dependence on other continents for certain products, cumbersome organization, social and regional inequalities.

"Our strengths, we will reinforce them, our weaknesses, we will correct them quickly and strongly," he pledged. "I want us to learn all the lessons from what we have experienced."

"The moment we are going through...forces us to open a new stage in order to regain full control of our lives, our destiny, in France and in Europe," he said.

Laying out the economic and social agenda for the next two years, Macron stressed that the "first priority is to rebuild a strong, ecological, sovereign and united economy."

With the aim, he vowed to bolster research and improve the attractiveness of the country's technological, industrial and agricultural sectors, with a major focus on green activities to create the jobs for the future.

Furthermore, the head of state pledged "a massive investment in education, training, and jobs for youth," and more "stimulus that will better protect seniors and the poorest."

Macron said he will address the nation again in July to "launch the first actions" of the "new path" for the final two years of his mandate.
Hollywood has seen many talented actors and actresses over the years. Tom Hanks, Will Smith, and Meryl Streep are just a few of the most beloved names and faces that are praised for their acting performances. There have been countless amounts of award-winning films produced thanks to the contributions and skills of these talented individuals. Brad Pitt is one of the many famous celebrities that so many people have grown to love. Take a look at Pitts journey in the spotlight and what he is best known for when it comes to the film Fight Club.

A look back at Brad Pitts career

Brad Pitt | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

RELATED: MCU: Was Brad Pitt Ever Close to Playing Thor?

Some of Pitts fans may be surprised to learn that he is an Oklahoma native. Pitt enjoyed performing at a young age and got involved in musicals when he was a high school student.

The young actors journey in the spotlight first began in 1964 when he accepted a role on the soap opera Another World. For a while, Pitt tried to catch his next big break by taking on guest appearances.

In 1992 he was featured in A River Runs Through It, and from there, his career seemed to be on the upswing of things. 12 Monkeys, Troy, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith are just some of his more popular movies. However, some of his fans might remember him best from Fight Club.

What role did Brad Pitt play in Fight Club?

Brad Pitt in Fight Club | Fox

Some people may be surprised to learn that the movie Fight Club is actually based on Chuck Palahniuks novel. Luckily for Pitt, he managed to land a lead character in the award-winning film.

Pitt took on the role of Edward Norton in the popular drama-based production. Edward Norton is the narrator of the film that leads the audience down the wild story and journey of how the fight club came to be.

Though Fight Club had mixed reviews when it was in theaters, it ended up becoming one of the most legendary films of Hollywood. Pitts career and reputation benefited as a result.

What did Brad Pitt volunteer to do for the popular film Fight Club?

[the plot of Fight Club]



Edward Norton: I really like fighting



Brad Pitt: I really like fighting too



Edward Norton: OMG are we the same person??  Ken Cheng (@kenchengcomedy) May 21, 2020

Pitt is well-known as the charming and compelling narrator from Fight Club. Pitt seemed like a perfect fit for the role, or perhaps, he made himself the perfect fit for it. It goes without saying that there was a lot of fighting in the movie. Pitts dedication to a character reached an all-new level in Fight Club.

Cindy Guagenti, Pitts publicist at the time, went on the record to share some intense details about Pitts time preparing for the film. According to Guagenti, Pitt was willing and ready to chip his teeth to create a more authentic appearance to fit the role of the character.

Not many people would be willing to chip their teeth, but Pitt figured it was no big deal to return to the dentist when filming was done to get the damage fixed. Talk about commitment and dedication.

Even though Fight Club was released in 1999 it is still a very popular film in todays day and age. Pitt is notorious for his role as the narrator of the action-packed film.

By chipping his teeth for his role in the film Pitt was able to show his co-workers and the audience just how serious he was about acting. It seemed to work. Fight Club is just one of the many memorable performances for Pitt. Based on Pitts career, reputation, and success, he clearly knew what he was talking about. Pitts fans and viewers are looking forward to what the talented actor does next.
Unrepresentative commission

The Representation Commission has decided to call our electorate Kaipara ki Mahurangi rather than Helensville (MM May 20). Northern Action Group submitted that the Rodney name should apply as the area is largely now aligned with the Rodney Local Board area. Seventy-five per cent of objectors to the name Kaipara ki Mahurangi preferred the name Rodney, but they were ignored. The commission correctly noted that there were a number of suggestions made in the objection process, most of which supported the name Rodney, reflecting the Rodney Local Board area included in the electorate, but did not also mention that the name Rodney has a long association with the area. Then the report says it was the commissions clear view that calling this new electorate Rodney would be highly confusing. But there is no evidence that would be true for most electors in the area who commonly use Rodney for the local board area. The commission contradicts its own comment on why most people supported the traditional name. The commission implied that the name Rodney for the electorate might be confusing for 54,000 people who were previously in the Rodney electorate, but has surely removed any confusion by renaming their new electorate Whangaparaoa, although many locals preferred the business communitys name, Hibiscus Coast. There was only one submission for the name Kaipara ki Mahurangi, from a community group with voting representation separately provided for in the local Maori electorate, Te Tai Tokerau. If the commission seeks to give Maori names to non-Maori electorates in place of traditional European names, even though the majority of electors might not support the at, then it should just say so.

William Foster, Leigh

Allegations unfounded

This is in response to Trevor McKinneys letter (MM May 20). To the best of my knowledge in the past decade there has been no dying or disappearance of shore-front pohutukawa along the Snells Beach beachfront, either in front of beachside properties or in front of the Sunburst Reserve. Most local residents would welcome further tree planting in the area to replace the trees cut down for recent property development  more green than concrete bases for fishing shelters. The Sunburst Reserve carpark has five spaces specifically marked for overnight campervans. During my walk today, three of these spaces were occupied. Does this amount to scared away motorhomes? I think not.

Diane Taylor, Snells Beach

Tunnel vision

In your recent Mahurangi Matters (MM June 3) it states that Dave Parker hit on the idea of a tunnel dinner. While Dave has done many things for the community, that dinner was not one of his ideas. NZTA had asked the Orewa Rotary Club to organise it. When that fell through, they came to me as the Mayor and asked that I take it on. After discussions with the councillors, one of whom was Dave, we asked the three Rotary Clubs of Warkworth, Whangaparaoa and Kumeu to assist. Many volunteers under the direction of my husband, Malcolm, organised a great night, which NZTA said was one of the best ever. One of the local vineyards created a special wine label and ran the bar. The profits were divided between the clubs to be used on youth initiatives.

Penny Webster, former Rodney Mayor

Too many tolls

The proposed extra motorway toll (MM June 3) will increase traffic on one of the most dangerous stretches of road in New Zealand, from Puhoi to Warkworth  the latter a town slated for extensive future growth by Auckland Council. This new charge will undoubtedly lead to an increase in deaths and injuries simply by deterring many from using a safer road. Residents will in effect be paying two tolls for using the same road, something that doesnt happen anywhere else in New Zealand. In fact, I understand there is only one other toll road anywhere in the country. Will every extension to this motorway be tolled?

That trip to Cape Reinga could get mighty expensive. Warkworth has an elderly population, with a lower per capita income than many other areas of Auckland, whose residents can use their roads and motorways for free. So, for example, when a north Rodney person goes to a city hospital, they face a $10-plus charge under this proposal.

When an aged north Rodney persons relative wants to visit them, they also face this charge. This would not be just a once a month fee for many, but several times a month, daily in some some cases, and quite a burden for those on limited incomes. Not everyone owns a holiday home in Omaha! Is it a coincidence that restrictions are planned for the existing free route, or is my cynicism well founded? Will on-ramp metering be used on SH1 where it joins the new motorway as some have suggested? And why was this toll not flagged when the motorway extension was proposed? It may well have led many to reconsider their support. Finally, along with this proposal and the incredibly irresponsible plan to relocate a major landfill site off the already dangerous Dome Valley, does anyone else think we are being shafted by Auckland Council and let down by our local board? We are regarded as a sleepy little town. It is time to wake up.

Peter Eley, Sandspit
George Floyds burial in Houston last week marked the beginning of a recharged push for police reform nationwide, and activists and politicians in his hometown vowed Sunday to continue calls for much-needed changes to oppressive law enforcement practices.

The Third Ward residents death on Memorial Day at the hands of Minneapolis police officers  and the recent fatal police shooting of another black man, Rayshard Brooks, in Atlanta  served as the backdrop to the anti-racism rally Sunday night at NRG Park.

The rally was billed as a launch event for One Family One Future, an organization founded by Bishop James Dixon II. Faith leaders from around the city urged unity through gospel songs and prayers. Mayor Sylvester Turner and county commissioners Rodney Ellis and Adrian Garcia delivered remarks to a crowd of about 200 people who practiced social distancing by staying in their cars and listening to the speakers over the radio.

While the event touched on an array of issues outside of police brutality  human trafficking, immigration discrimination  the recent police shootings consumed most of the conversation.

Lets not let this moment pass us by, Ellis said to the crowd, which honked horns in support. Its been 20 days of demonstrations across the country  the question is, Can we sustain this? 

Ellis highlighted the recent police killing in Atlanta, where a white police officer shot Brooks outside a fast-foot restaurant following a struggle. Police were called because Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in a drive-thru.

Ellis pointed out that police in Atlanta released body camera footage shortly after the killing. He urged Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo and other law enforcement officials to do the same after fatal officer-involved shootings in their jurisdictions.

Release the tapes in this (community) and this city, he said.

Acevedo, who also spoke at the event, has been criticized recently for not releasing body camera footage in six fatal officer-involved shootings earlier this year, despite his own public support for reform. He also gained national attention for his participation in protests and public condemnations of Floyds killing.

He characterized the weeks of civil unrest across the country as spiritual warfare. He also commended Turner for signing an executive order last week aimed at curtailing police violence. Much of the new laws, such as banning the use of chokeholds, were already a common practice among Houston police, according to earlier reports in the Chronicle.

Still, Acevedo emphasized the need to have those policies in writing.

So that no chief can come in . and change a critical policy about respect and the sanctity of human life, he said.

During his comments, Turner acknowledged that the demonstrations have made it uncomfortable for all those in power. He advocated for more fundamental changes to policing, beyond creating new laws.

I want all the police officers (in Houston) to recognize that part of the job is customer service, he said. These are men and woman with husbands and wives and children in the community.

While the rally attracted politicians and police leaders, public demonstrations continued elsewhere in Houston. Local activist Dav Lewis, founder of a nonprofit that helps people after incarceration, led about a dozen people in a peaceful protest at Emancipation Park.

The demonstrators laid on the ground in silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds  the length of time that Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground by his knee  before marching to the Turkey Leg Hut.

Lewis said he wanted to see more specific changes in government, including more of a willingness to release body camera footage and an independent police review board with subpoena power.

We continue to lost trust in the community because theres no transparency, he said. We dont see anything thats happening.
The Commerzbank AG logo sits on an illuminated sign outside a bank branch as the bank's headquarters stand beyond at dusk in Frankfurt, Germany, on Monday, Feb. 5, 2017.

Commerzbank will announce "considerably" more branch closures and job cuts when it lays out its strategy review in August, a member of the bank's supervisory board said on Monday.

Stefan Wittmann, who represents labor on the supervisory board and is a trade union secretary at the Verdi union, also criticized a public campaign for change by top investor Cerberus launched last week.

Cerberus is demanding two seats on the supervisory board at Germany's second-biggest bank, as well as cost cuts and a strategy shift. Commerzbank rejected the demands for the board seats.

"Cerberus' approach is rude and inappropriate," Wittmann told Reuters.

Commerzbank is currently in the process of identifying more cost cuts and will announce plans when it releases second quarter earnings in August.

Wittmann gave a sense of what is to be expected.

"There will be considerably more branch closures and more job losses than previously announced," he said.
Upcoming Apple Car Key feature is expected to offer a convenient way of adding a car key on your iPhone. The Car Key feature will let you unlock the car, and control other features without having to carry a physical key. On iOS 13.6, Apple has added details about how one could add Car Key to Apple Wallet.

Needless to say, Apple is likely to launch a Car Key with iOS 13.6 and not wait for iOS 14. Our guess is that Apple might announce this feature at the upcoming WWDC. The Car Key screenshot is in German and below is a translation of the same.

Wallet allows you to add and share car keys for certain vehicles. You can add a car key by logging into the vehicle manufacturers app or by entering a coupling code in Wallet to assert your claim as a vehicle owner and to pair your device with your vehicle. If the connection is successful, your device sends a one-time redemption token for the holder to Apple. Apple uses the redemption token, information about your Apple account and device, and your location details at the time of deployment (when location services are enabled) to prevent abuse.

Apple will work in tandem with the vehicle manufacturer and share a unique device ID with them. The device ID is unique for each vehicle and the manufacturer will link the device ID with other details. As we have already learned, you can share the Key with family members by using the Invite feature. Furthermore, Apple will generate and share yet another unique device ID for the card recipient with the vehicle manufacturer. As previously seen, you will be able to grant multiple access modes for the Car Key invite.

Our Take

Apples Car Key feature is likely to use ultra-wideband chip which is present in the iPhone 11 series. Meanwhile, NFC might be used for older generation iPhones. The description addresses privacy concerns and says Apple does not collect or keep any data about vehicle use, such as when the card for the car keys was used to unlock or lock the vehicle. Your vehicle manufacturer can collect usage data of your vehicle in accordance with the agreements made with you.

[via iPhone-Ticker
A few thousand protesters led by Serbian Orthodox Church clergy gathered in Podgorica and other cities in Montenegro on Sunday to protest against a religious law that critics say would strip the church of its property.

The protests were resuming again after an interruption of almost three months due to the coronavirus.

The protests started in December last year after Montenegro's Parliament adopted the law that envisages that religious communities in the country would would need to produce evidence of ownership over their property from before 1918, when Montenegro joined a Balkan kingdom.

The government has denied that it plans to strip any community of its property, but the Serbian church in Montenegro insists the state wants to impound its assets, including medieval churches and monasteries.

Montenegro's pro-Western president has accused the church of promoting pro-Serb policies in Montenegro and seeking to undermine the country's statehood since it split from much larger Serbia in 2006.

Montenegrins remain divided over whether the small Adriatic state should foster close ties with Serbia or continue on its independence course.

Montenegro's population of around 620,000 people are predominantly Orthodox Christian and the main church is the Serbian Orthodox Church.

A separate Montenegrin Orthodox Church isn't accepted by other Orthodox Christian churches.
New Delhi, June 15 : Saudi Arabias sovereign wealth fund, PIF, is all set to pick up a stake in Jio Platfoms which would complete 25 per cent of Jios equity dilution to the investors, said a report by the Gulf News.

Jio Platforms is part of the Reliance Industries empire owned by Mukesh Ambani. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) will acquire 2.33 per cent for an estimated $1.5 billion, the report said.

With PIF coming on board, Jio Platforms would have diluted 25 per cent of its equity. That's the maximum they intend to dilute to financial investors, which includes Mark Zukerberg's Facebook.

Any new investors coming on board in future will have to be "strategic investors, a tech giant, for instance," said a source who was part of the deal-making process, the report said.

In recent days, Jio Platforms, which will merge telecom, content streaming, gaming and ecommerce features into its app, has seen Abu Dhabi's Mubadala and ADIA pick up significant stakes amounting to $1.2 billion and $750 million, respectively.

Reliance Industries' owner, Ambani, Asia's richest man, has been on an investor acquisition spree, with the likes of Facebook and private equity majors such as KKR and Silver Lake Capital investing in Jio Platforms.

The contours of the deal with Saudi Arabia's PIF was finalised during Ramadan. "It was always Mukesh Ambani's wish to have a special relationship with Saudi Arabia and the UAE," said Anshuman Mishra, a London-based confidante and family friend of the Ambani family of longstanding, Gulf News quoted as saying.

He has also worked extensively with Gulf sovereign wealth funds over the years.

"Saudi Arabia's coming in to close the financial investor round in Jio is indicative of the special nature of the relationship. This is also indicative of the multi-billion dollar partnership announced last year with Saudi Aramco.

"This is a major success for the present Indian government's foreign policy initiative in the gulf and symbolic of India's significance in the GCC," it said.
After more than two months of closure of all educational institutions to contain COVID-19, the Tripura government decided to form a high-level committee to examine the timing and modality of re-opening these educational institutions.

The committee would be comprised of 32 members including Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath as its head.

 In our 32-member committee, we have members from different fields, including the education department officials. Six parents will be in the committee as invited members. We will examine the timing for re-opening of all the educational institutions.  Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath told the media on Monday evening.

He also informed that results from Class 1-9 and Class 11 would be declared by this month.

 Students of Class 1 and 2 would get their results by June 25, Class 3-5 students to get on June 19, Class 6-8 students on June 20, Class 9 students on June 18 and Class 11 on June 16, he said.

He added that 92% Class 3 students , 93% each from Class 4 and Class 6, 90% Class 5 students , 94% Class 7 students, 86% Class 8 students , 70% Class 9 students, and 96% Class 11 students were qualified in the final examinations.

 Re-examinations would be conducted for Class 5,8, 9 and 11 students who are not qualified. It will be held within a month of announcement of their results, he said.
Eight peers from Northern Ireland have complained that they have only been given 13 minutes between them to speak on new abortion regulations here in the House of Lords today.

The unionist and nationalist members of the Upper House have jointly appealed to the Government to allow them to speak for at least five minutes during the only Lords debate on the new rules.

Some 33 peers from Britain, where the legislation does not apply, will be allowed to speak during the 90-minute debate.

MLAs recently voted by a majority to reject the abortion legislation, which allows terminations to be carried out up to 12 weeks on request, and up to 24 weeks if the mother's mental or physical health is jeopardised. In cases of fatal foetal abnormality or impairment, no time restrictions apply.

Peers will vote on the regulations today, while MPs in the House of Commons will address them on Wednesday.

The local peers - among them former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O'Loan; former SDLP leader Baroness Ritchie; former Assembly Speaker Lord Hay, and former Ulster Unionst MPs Lord Kilclooney and Lord Maginnis - have queried the time limit in an open letter.

The letter states that if they are denied this "basic courtesy", it would "constitute the gravest insult to the people of Northern Ireland".

Disability rights campaigner Heidi Crowter is calling on peers and MPs to "reject this discriminatory legislation" given the change in social attitudes towards disability in recent years.

Meanwhile, reproductive rights group Alliance For Choice has told The Observer newspaper that women have been forced to order abortion pills online or travel overseas to have a termination because some GPs and healthcare professionals in Northern Ireland are refusing to refer women here to abortion services.

Letters, page 19
MISSOULA  The University of Montana has created a new undergraduate degree program: Environmental Science and Sustainability.

Housed in the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation, the ESS program provides an innovative, interdisciplinary education focused on environmental science and a range of problem-solving skills to prepare students for careers in this growing field. This Bachelor of Science degree connects science and practice, so students graduate with the knowledge and skills to solve complex environmental problems and advance sustainability.

The new program brings together courses and expertise from all four departments in the forestry college, building on its 100-year history of teaching and practicing environmental science and sustainability. Students take courses across relevant disciplines, learning from experts in ecology, environmental planning, climate science, environmental policy, natural resource conservation, water management and more.

Montanas Constitution includes the right to a clean and healthful environment, and the states leading industries, from agriculture to tourism, depend on sustainable use of natural resources, said Chad Bishop, interim dean of the college. Environmental science supports evidence-based practices that ensure we manage and use resources in ways that sustain our communities, economies, resources and ecosystems.

As the state of Montanas only college of forestry, we are uniquely positioned to deliver coursework focused on the most important environmental and natural resource issues in the state, Bishop said. The courses in this curriculum and the research conducted by our faculty build the capacity of the state to tackle key issues such as energy and natural resources, fire and rural communities, land and water management, and drought and agriculture.

Connecting science to management and policy is at the heart of environmental science and sustainability, and ESS graduates will be trained to understand and use science to address fundamental societal challenges.

ESS students can specialize in ecosystem science and restoration, environmental policy and planning, climate science and environmental change, sustainable livelihoods and communities, and water resources. Or they can use the highly flexible resource conservation option to work closely with a faculty adviser to design an individualized program of study based on their interests and goals.

Students in the program also can specialize by completing a minor or certificate in the Franke College in fire science and management, geographic information systems, geography, outdoor leadership, wilderness studies or wildlife biology. ESS students participate in field labs, field courses, internships, study-abroad programs, capstone projects and independent research to better understand how science and practice come together to build a more sustainable world.

Environmental science and sustainability is a growth area across the U.S., with the number of programs and courses at the university and high school levels on the rise, said Laurie Yung, ESS program director. The demand for students with the training to connect science to sustainability challenges is also growing. The ESS program will provide students with the skills to connect scientific evidence to problem-solving for the betterment of communities in Montana and beyond.

ESS merges two existing Franke College programs into one degree, the B.S. in Ecosystem Science and restoration and the B.S. in Resource Conservation. This change will not impact students currently enrolled in Ecosystem Science and Restoration or in Resource Conservation degree programs. ESS now is enrolling its first cohort of students for fall 2021.

###

Contact: Laurie Yung, UM Environmental Science and Sustainability program director, 406-243-6934, laurie.yung@umontana.edu.
Pandemic response critics trumped by facts By Dr. Robert Owens

In the waning days of 2019 before the onset of the Social Security Flu, according to two separate studies the United States was ranked the nation best-prepared to deal with a pandemic. Refuting the outlandish and false claims of the Democrats, Fox News reported both the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHCHS) based on Global Health Security Index found that out of all the countries on this planet, America led by the Trump administration, was more prepared to deal with an international pandemic than any other. Fox News added this description of the Global Health Security Index, "It was developed with guidance from an international panel of experts from 13 countries, with research by the Economist Intelligence Unit from 2018 to 2019. And as reported ln 2019 by the Washington Post, the Global Health Security Index was compiled by a large group of experts stating, "More than 100 researchers spent a year collecting and validating publicly available data. John Auerbach, president of the nonpartisan Trust for Americas Health, an organization that works with the government to improve the nations response to health crises stated, The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions response has been excellent, as it has been in the past. Mr. Auerbach then added, The CDCs top scientific ranks have remained stable during the past three years. This is another instance of the facts presenting the exact opposite of numerous charges amplified by the Democrats who identify as journalists that the nations public health leadership was removed by the Trump Administration. Nancy Pelosi and others in the Democrat leadership have also broadcast through their media megaphone that President Trump drastically cut the CDC budget. In fact this was the usual smoke and mirrors Democrats use to set the stage for their repetitive and spurious claims that Republicans are plotting to through Grandma over the cliff, starve children, and in general kill anyone they can. First, they make outlandish proposals for budget increases they know will never pass. Then, when a more reasonable amount is mutually agreed upon they point the finger and scream, The Republicans have slashed the budget! which is dutifully repeated over and over in the echo chamber of the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media. According to the facts, the budget for the CDC and other health organizations and agencies has increased under President Trump. Some public health experts contend the real area for concern is a steady decline of a CDC grant programs for public health emergency preparedness awarded to state and local governments. Once again returning to those inconvenient facts Fox News reported these reductions in Americas efforts to detect and combat new disease began because of a congressional budget measure, a measure from before Trump entered the White House. In other words, despite the flatulence that passes for headlines it was the Obama administration that cut these funds. And now for something completely different thats just the same, the Biden campaign repeatedly accuses President Trump of referring to coronavirus as a "hoax." This scurrilous charge has been proven false by numerous fact-checkers, including by the left-leaning Washington Post. In point of fact it has been shown that President Trump was instead referring to Democrats' continued efforts to blame him for the pandemic. He was not referring to the virus itself. Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  2020 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens Home
President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea on June 30, 2019. (Susan Walsh/AP)

South Korea Urges North to Uphold Deals Amid Rising Animosities

SEOUL, South KoreaSouth Korea on June 14 convened an emergency security meeting and urged North Korea to uphold reconciliation agreements, hours after the North threatened to demolish a liaison office and take military action against its rival.

Theres concern that North Korea could turn to provocation to bolster its internal unity and wrest outside concessions as nuclear talks with the United States remain deadlocked. Observers say North Korea desperately needs sanctions relief in the face of harsh U.S.-led sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

South Koreas national security director, Chung Eui-yong, held an emergency video conference with ministers in charge of security and military generals on the morning of June 14 to discuss the latest situation on the Korean Peninsula and the governments possible steps, the presidential Blue House said in a statement.

The Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, later said that both Koreas must strive to abide by all agreements they have reached. The Defense Ministry said separately it closely monitors North Koreas military and maintains a firm military readiness.

Both ministries said the South Korean government views the current situation as grave.

On the night of June 13, Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, warned that Seoul will soon witness a tragic scene of the useless North-South liaison office (in North Korea) being completely collapsed. She also said she would leave for North Koreas military the right to take the next step of retaliation against South Korea.

North Korea earlier suspended communication lines with South Korea and threatened to nullify 2018 agreements that led the Koreas to halt firing exercises, remove some land mines, and tear down guard posts in front-line areas.

The North has linked its recent series of threats to Seouls failure to prevent activists from launching propaganda leaflets across their borders. But some experts say North Korea is deeply frustrated that South Korea hasnt done enough to revive lucrative joint economic projects as well as over a lack of progress in its nuclear talks with Washington.

The negotiations have made little progress after the second summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump in early 2019 fell apart because of disputes over how much sanctions should be lifted in return for Kims dismantling his main nuclear complex.

Kim later vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal, introduce a new strategic weapon, and overcome the U.S.-led sanctions that he said stifle his countrys economy.

He also pushed South Korea to resume the operations of the two big inter-Korean projectsa factory park and a tourism site, both in North Koreabut South Korea was unable to do so due to the sanctions.

Kims struggle to address economic woes has likely faced setbacks as the coronavirus pandemic forced North Korea to close its border with China, its biggest trading partner. North Korea says it hasnt reported a single outbreak, but foreign experts question that claim and warn a pandemic in the North could be dire due to its fragile health care system.

Some observers say the end of the 2018 deals could allow North Korea to send ships across the disputed sea boundary, float down mines on a border river or take other provocative steps at the border area. The South Korean Defense Ministry statement said the 2018 deals must be maintained to prevent accidental armed clashes and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Its still unclear if the North would go ahead with its threat to destroy the liaison office, which was built at a North Korean border town following a 2018 summit between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Such a move could deepen anti-Pyongyang sentiments and make it difficult for the North to restore ties with South Korea when needed.

By Hyung-Jin Kim
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:05:25|Editor: huaxia

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BUDAPEST, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Hungary has been successful in completing the first phase of its defense against the novel coronavirus epidemic, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said here on Monday.

"Hungary has successfully completed the first health phase of protection against the coronavirus epidemic," Szijjarto told the Hungarian Parliament, adding that "Hungary took the right steps in time, and while procuring the necessary protective equipment from China, it also built up domestic production capacities."

The lifting of restrictive measures can only continue responsibly if it goes hand in hand with the development of health capacities in such a way that they are ready for a possible second wave of the pandemic, according to the minister.

Szijjarto noted that the epidemic has endangered not only people's lives and health, but also their jobs, so it is the duty of the government to create at least as many new jobs as the crisis destroyed.

He concluded by declaring that Hungary would use the current difficult economic situation to its advantage: "While negative news are pouring from the world economy, 806 companies in Hungary will invest 377 billion forints (1.22 billion U.S. dollars) with government support in the coming months," he said.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Hungary stood at 4,076 on Monday, with 2,485 recoveries and 563 fatalities. (1 U.S. dollar = 308.17 Hungarian forints) Enditem


Someone left a package of gold bars worth $190,000 on a Swiss Federal Railways train on its from St Gallen to Lucerne. Authorities have spent nine months trying to find the rightful owner to no avail. Now, the public prosecutors office is seeking the public's help in finding the absent-minded individual who left them behind. From CNN:



In a bulletin dated June 2, officials said the owner has five years to make a claim for the treasure.



A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office told CNN that several inquiries had been made about the gold and were being checked. Not details about the nature of the checks were given.
Opinion Article

15 June 2020

With all the uncertainty that remains around the duration and outcome of this pandemic and its' prolonged impact on the hospitality industry in particular; we are pleased to share the findings of the "HVS Hotel Owner and Investor Survey". The goal of the survey was to understand the hotel's operational status and challenges since the outbreak of COVID-19 as well as hotel owners' ability to survive in the hope that there will be some easing of restrictions and return to some normalcy and activity in the tourism sector. We also evaluate further the impact that the recent events have on the investment appetite of hotel investors.

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The survey sample, which counts key developers and investors in this region, represents 206 branded hotels and approximately 65,000 hotel rooms across the following countries: Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman. The survey was completed by HVS Middle East clients between 13 and 21 May. As always, we are grateful to the trust and relationship we have built with our clients over the years and we make this information available to further support our partners in the industry.

The findings, which have been presented in two sections- Hotel Owner and Hotel Investor- are quite telling and paint a true picture of the current status of hotels and the owners and investors sentiment.

We continue to believe in the tourism potential in the region and we strongly encourage further support from governments and brand managers to allow owners to minimize further losses and support the recovery.

At the time of analysing the survey results, all countries considered for our analysis, with the exception of Qatar and Bahrain, were still experiencing strict curfews, increasing number of COVID-19 patients, and operational limitations. Currently, none of the regional airports have resumed normal commercial flights.

Hotel Owner

Question 1: Where is your firm based in?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Question 2: Which of the following best describes your investor profile?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

The majority of hotel owners in our survey are based in the same country where their hotels are located. Few owners have properties outside of their home country, reflective of the owning structure in this region as well as GCC regulations pertaining to foreign ownership. This is important to consider when reviewing these findings and the responses that characterize the owning/investment profile of respondents.

Of the 65,000 rooms included in this survey, 49% of the hotel rooms are located in Saudi Arabia and 42% are across the UAE.

The survey includes existing hotels that are either under a franchise or management agreement with an international or regional operator.

The sample size is considered to provide a fair representation of the hotel market in those respective cities.

Real Estate and Hotel Investment Company own 71% of the hotels in our sample while 14% is owned by Private Investors/Owners.

Question 3: What is the current operational status of your hotel(s)?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Approximately 7%, or 4,000 hotel rooms are fully operational while other hotels are starting to consider re-opening due to the current easing of restrictions in certain markets.

7% of hotels were converted to quarantine facilities during the months of March and April while a number of other hotels opted not to convert their facilities based on an income-cost analysis and the overall associated risks.

While 29% of hotels are fully closed, it is reasonable to assume that the total number of rooms may have exceeded 30,000 rooms, when considering the partially operational hotels.

Currently, hotels that are operational have restricted the number of available rooms in order to comply with the health and safety regulations and most of the partially operational hotels have limited service offerings. Meeting space and spa facilities at hotels remain closed.

The actual number of hotels that will re-open is yet to be assessed as the cost of reopening coupled with expected low number of guests until the end of 2020 may deter many owners from re-opening immediately.

18% of "multiple asset" owners indicated a similar trend amongst their properties. Only a few properties continued to be fully operational while the remaining were partially operational or converted to a quarantine facility.

Question 4: Should the current pandemic persist, how long will your hotel(s) be able to meet its liabilities (i.e. operational expenses, debt obligations, operator fees, retain talent etc.)?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

68% of owners have the ability to meet their liabilities up to 6 months, while only 7% are unable to meet their liabilities beyond 1 month. Considering the owning structure of hotels in this region in particular, it is also worth noting that approximately 25% of respondents will be able to meet their liabilities beyond six months.

While governments have supported this sector by using hotels for quarantine purposes or provided some stimulus relief packages; it is our view that more tangible and drastic measures are required in order to minimize the financial burden and support hotels to remain open. Some immediate relief measures would include but not limited to:

Waiving off utility charges and employee related visa expenses;

Subsidizing employee related costs, notably accommodation and related expenses;

Deferring and rescheduling debt payments;

Refinancing loans at preferred borrowing rates that will substantially improve owner's ability to meet their debt obligations;

Deferring or waiving off VAT and Municipality fees and other tourism related charges.

Question 5: How long is it likely to take for the hotel asset net operating income (EBITDA) to rebound to pre-pandemic performance levels?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

There is an overall agreement that recovery will take time even though some of the operational hotels have enjoyed relatively better performance and in certain instances exceptional performance due to the following:

Converted to quarantine;

Been utilized by guests for self quarantine; mostly resorts;

Occupied by guests that were stranded and awaiting to return back to their home country.

78% of respondents consider that it will take more than 12 months for EBITDA to recover to pre-pandemic levels while 18% consider it likely to be between 6 and 12 months.

We take the view that while these hotels may experience high demand in the next couple of months on the back of revenge hotel bookings or taking advantage of the summer break, hotels' EBITDA will require at least 24 months to stabilize at pre-pandemic levels or potentially longer depending on the recovery of the source markets, type of visitation and air travel regulations and policies.

Question 6: What is the current drop in hotel values?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Approximately 43% of respondents consider that since the start of the pandemic, hotel values have declined between 20% and 40% while 25% believe this drop exceeds 40%.

14% consider there to be no change to hotel values and on the other end of the spectrum 18% consider that hotel values have dropped by more than 50%.

Between 2008 and 2018, we have observed approximately 30% decline in the hotel values in the key GCC markets and anticipated a further decline in 2020 due to lower Gross Operating Profit margins (GOP) and additional new supply, which in the last few years was not sufficiently offset by demand growth.

With the current pandemic forcing hotels to close and travel to stop, we take the view that if travel and tourism resume before end of the year, current hotel values will remain approximately 25%-30% lower than 2019 until a recovery is established. Any further worsening of the situation will impact further hotel values.

Question 7: Are you planning to do refinancing?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Question 8: If you already opted for refinancing, were you able to get a refinancing offer?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Approximately 29% of the respondents are looking to obtain refinancing. 54% of those planning to do refinancing have received an offer.

When considering the hotel owning structure in graph 2, 14% of respondents were individual hotel owners which may represent the majority of those that have considered refinancing in order to meet their obligations.

71% of respondents do not intend to do refinancing, which could be explained by the ownership structure of these hotels which benefit from owning multiple assets.

This may likely change if the situation persists and the cash reserves are exhausted. On the other hand, it is also likely that some owners may not have large debts on their assets or are holding back until there is more clarity on the complexity and longevity of the current events.

Hotel Investor

Question 9: Please rank in order how the following factors influence your investment decisions? (1=most influential 4=less influential)

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

While approximately 36% of respondents consider the availability and cost of debt to be of prime influence on their investment decision, 46% consider oil, gas, and energy prices to be the least influential factors.

In an order of influence on investment decisions, availability and cost of debt was the most influential factor followed by the political environment.

Oil, gas and energy prices were considered to be the least influencer in the investment decision process while the social environment carried slightly more of an influence ranking 3rd .

Question 10: Please rank the following factors in order of concern relating to future hotel investments? (1=Most concerned 5=Least concerned)

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

The findings suggest the following factors ranking in terms of most concerned to least concerned: Global Economic Shock, Local Economic Shock, Hotel Industry Uncertainty, Overbuilding and Change in Government Policies.

39% of respondents have ranked the global economic shock undermining roomnight demand to be the most concerning factor pertaining to future hotel investments and an additional 43% of respondents have weighed the local economic shock undermining room-night hotel to be the second most concerning factor.

Also, 39% of respondents consider a change in government policies to be the least concerning factor in future.

25% consider the hotel industry uncertainty to be a concerning factor and 29% of respondents consider overbuilding leading to excess supply to be also a concern for future hotel investments, though to a lower extent.

Question 11: What is your hotel investment strategy over the next 12 months?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

While 11% of investors will continue to develop hotels, 7% of investors are currently looking to buy hotels. It is our view that the next 12 to 18 months will present opportunities for acquisitions as some hotel owners will look to exit their investments and minimize their losses.

Owing to the current ownership structure, the number of distressed assets may not be excessive as only 4% of the investors are considering to sell and 68% are looking to hold their assets.

There will be however a few opportunities for those that are eyeing further developments in the GCC region, and possibly Saudi Arabia in particular.

As these times are unprecedented, it is reasonable to assume that a more cautious approach will be taken by hotel owners and investors in evaluating their investment strategy.

Question 12: What is your main motivation for investing in hotels in the future?

* Totals do not add up to 100% as asset classes were selected. Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

39% of respondents expressed no immediate interest in investing in hotels. This cautious approach will allow existing hotels to recover as supply and demand imbalances are experienced in a number of key markets resulting in less attractive returns than typically observed in the past.

29% of respondents considered that hotel assets value appreciate better than other assets, especially as both the retail and office developments have recently become less attractive and many of those new developments struggled to find tenants and attract the necessary footfall to secure attractive returns.

In line with the capital growth being a key motivation for investment, 21% of investors considered that hotel developments yield better returns than other real estate assets.

Question 13: Which market(s) are you most likely to invest in?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

64% of investors have specified three attractive investment markets in Saudi Arabia: Riyadh, Jeddah and Makkah. All three markets have achieved a higher than average performance in 2019 notably in terms of RevPAR. This was supported by the roll out of Saudi Vision 2030 and the support of the government in transforming and developing the hospitality offering in Saudi. A number of other initiatives were implemented such as the e-visa.

14% of investors continue to eye Dubai for attractive opportunities while only 4% of investors will consider Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Doha for future investments.

In Egypt, Cairo is becoming more attractive for new investments and/or acquisition and 11% of the investors will look to invest in Cairo. Similarly, Ras AL Khaimah, Madina and Muscat remain on the investment horizon of our respondents.

In addition to the cities in the graph, 32% of investors are looking to invest outside of the GCC, notably in Europe (Italy, France, Greece), USA, Turkey. A few investors mentioned Kuwait and Sharjah in their investment plans.

Question 14: Which asset class(es) are you likely to buy or develop?

* Totals do not add up to 100% as asset classes were selected. Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

The last few years has seen a rise in the number of budget and limited service hotels. International operators have been successful in introducing and rolling out brands that could well serve the growing price sensitive guests and extended stay demand.

We have also observed over the years that serviced apartments, budget and midscale hotels perform better than other hotel assets during a downturn/recession as well as during major growth and transformation in the tourism landscape.

39% of investors are likely to invest in budget and limited service hotels (68% combined) and 36% will invest into serviced apartments.

Few investors are looking to invest in five-star hotels while 36% will continue to develop resorts. With the expected shift in consumer preferences and travel purposes we consider these findings to be inline with the potential growth in demand and future returns.

Question 15: What is your overall outlook for hotel investments?

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

While 32% of respondents are neutral in terms of the outlook for the industry, 43% of hotel owners/investors remain positive. Combined, 25% of respondents have a negative outlook.

Question 16: Please share any additional thoughts/challenges/opportunities that you deem relevant and will ultimately impact the hospitality industry since the occurrence of COVID-19.

Source: HVS  Photo: HVS

Concluding Thoughts:

These are undoubtedly very unusual times that are coupled with oversupply situation in certain markets, a negative political outlook, and a global and regional economic slow down. But we equally know, that despite those challenges and the overall uncertainty that is troubling us on both personal and business levels; there will be better times and that the hospitality and travel market will eventually come out stronger and continue to grow.

The future winners are those that will create an ecosystem that is built on ethical principles and promotes a behavior that reflects a good corporate citizenship. Finally, a strong risk mitigation approach, flexibility and innovation will remain key traits of successful organization.

Disclaimer:

HVS does not provide legal or other regulated advice or guarantee results. The survey findings reflect general insight based on information available to us by the participants. These findings should be viewed as indicative only and not relied upon for future course of action. These findings may be subject to change and therefore HVS has no obligation to update these findings and makes no representation or warranty and expressly disclaims any liability with respect thereto.
A 56-year-old IRS officer allegedly committed suicide by drinking an "acid-like substance" in his car in Delhi's Dwarka area on Sunday, police said.

A suicide note recovered from his car mentioned that he feared that he might "spread COVID-19" to his family and does not want them to suffer because of him, they said.

He had got himself tested for COVID-19 a week ago and the report came out negative but he was scared that his family might get infected of the deadly virus because of him, a senior police officer said.

The incident was reported at Dwarka South police station regarding a man lying unconscious in a car, police said, adding that he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was declared brought dead, police said.

Initial investigation suggested that he drank "an acid-like substance" sitting inside his car and also left a suicide note in which he mentioned that he was killing himself "as he feared that he might spread coronavirus", he said.

He seemed very upset with the situation around and feared his family might get infected with the deadly virus too, the police officer said.

The case is under investigation and police will talk to other family members regarding it, he added. The body will be handed over to the family on Monday after conducting post-mortem, the police said.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15



By Jeila Aliyeva - Trend:

Turkmenistan and the US have discussed the current state and prospects for the development of bilateral partnership in such areas as politics, economy, as well as joint measures to overcome the impact of COVID-19, Trend reports with reference to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan.

The mentioned discussion was held during a videoconference dedicated to the semi-annual review of the Turkmen-American political consultations.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Vepa Hajiyev and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Central Asia Affairs, Public Diplomacy and Press Jonathan Henick participated in the meeting.

The parties have developed effective mechanisms of partnership within the framework of political and diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Also, states are cooperating in C5+1 multilateral interaction format, created between the Central Asian countries and the US, the report says.

The parties considered the implementation of previously reached agreements within the framework of the Turkmen-American Business Council.

During a videoconference, due to coronavirus situation in the world, the Turkmen side offered to hold a business videoconference with the participation of the heads of American companies and Turkmenistans industry departments in the fall of this year

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @JeilaAliyeva
The decision involved two cases in which men said they were fired after their employers learned they were gay and one in which an employee lost her job after announcing she was a transgender woman. By a 6-3 vote, the court found that none of the workers would have been dismissed except for their sex. Given that, the employers were in violation of Title VII of the law, which says they may not fire or discriminate against anyone because of such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Press Release

June 15, 2020 Gatchalian: Meralco should incentivize online customers Senator Win Gatchalian calls on the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) to incentivize customers moving into online transactions. Meralco initially waived the 47 peso-convenience fee during the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) but the largest distribution utility in the country has recently announced that it will resume collecting the said fee from consumers who wish to pay their bills online after Metro Manila and other cities started reopening payment and business centers. "The 47 peso-convenience fee is a disincentive for consumers moving online. Why will Meralco resume collecting 47 pesos from every household when many of our ordinary kababayans have just returned to work trying to recover financial losses? This should not happen! The public has been inconvenienced enough," stressed Gatchalian, Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. Meralco has earlier clarified that the fee does not go to its coffers and that payments go through a payment gateway operated and maintained by an online third-party service provider. Because of this, Gatchalian urged the ERC and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to look into the fees being charged by third-party service providers. Even with the easing of community quarantine, Gatchalian pointed out that the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic remains and that many customers may still be unable to visit business centers due to limited transportation. "Baka nakakalimutan ng Meralco na nandyan pa rin ang banta ng COVID-19 sa kalusugan ng bawat mamayan sa kabila ng pinaluwag na quarantine. Kaya nga natin sinusulong ang paggamit ng online platforms sa pagbayad ng mga bills ay upang hindi na lumabas ng bahay at makipagsapalaran sa mga bayad centers at iba pang establisyemento ang mga tao, pagkatapos ay pababayarin din pala sila ng dapat na pang serbisyo publiko na lang. Huwag nating pahintulutan ito," the lawmaker said. "We don't want other distribution utilities to get an idea in coming up with a similar setup, to the detriment of power consumers. We don't want to create undue stress to our consumers," he added. Meanwhile, Gatchalian expressed support to the ERC for issuing a Show Cause Order against Meralco for not complying with its advisories by not clearly stating the word "estimate" on the consumer bill and that the instalment payment should have been explained to the consumers well. The senator has implored the ERC and the Department of Energy (DOE) last month to conduct an inquiry on matters concerning electricity bills to provide clarity and relief to customers given the financial strain caused by the ECQ.
(Natural News) One by one, all across America, mayors and other public officials are pushing to slash funding for their police departments as a virtue signal that black lives matter. And in many cases, they are doing this in direct response to Twitter mobs that are demanding some kind of government action in response to the George Floyd saga.

Rather than carefully considering how major policy decisions like this might impact their actual constituents, these corrupt and spineless politicians are instead bowing to the demands of random social media trolls who are now dictating the future of America with screams of #defundthepolice, this being one of the top trending hashtags in recent days.

The Minneapolis City Council, as perhaps the most prominent example, recently pledged 9-3 to not only defund but completely dismantle its police force. And because this 9-3 vote represents a veto-proof majority, Mayor Jacob Frey has no say in the matter, despite disagreeing with the mob about this one.

According to some liberals, even just calling the police comes from a place of privilege, which means that it, too, has to go. In order to stamp out systemic racism in the new Disunited States of America, police officers can never be relied upon to serve and protect or keep the peace.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appears to be on board with this new progressive line of thinking, which is why he recently decided to trim $150 million from the citys law enforcement budget. And once again, this came about not because Los Angeles voters called for it, but because Twitter mobsters demanded it.

The New York Citys politburo, Comrade de Blasio, also promised to make substantial cuts to the NYPD budget, writes Simon Black for Sovereign Man. Other local governments across the country, from San Francisco to Philadelphia to Baltimore, are considering similar moves  And Congress has a stack of bills that its furiously moving forward.

Listen below to The Health Ranger Report as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about how all of this left-wing terrorism will win reelection for President Trump:

Who holds the most power in steering society in 2020? Twitter users, and especially those with blue checkmarks

Perhaps the biggest irony in all of this is the fact that the very same people who have been screaming the loudest about how the Trump presidency threatens democracy are now themselves completely dismantling the democratic process and replacing it with what amounts to Twitter mob rule.

What ever happened to actual voting through legitimate means? Have we fallen so low as a country that public policy is now crafted by people who block traffic, destroy historical monuments, burn down local businesses, and go on 280-character Twitter rants?

It would appear as though registered voters are no longer in charge of the political process, and that those who make the most noise on social media are now deciding where our country goes next. If you can effectively scare a weak-willed politician into ending the police, then you now hold more power than the entire voting collective.

Even Mayor Frey, who was praised by the left for faking a weep-fest in front of George Floyds mysteriously closed casket, has since been burned at the stake by the fascist left after he dared to express opposition to abolishing the entire Minneapolis police force.

Civil discourse is an impossibility, Black adds about the new leftist mob mentality calling all the shots. You cannot have a respectful exchange of ideas or a discussion of values  If you dont grovel to the Twitter mob, even when theres no consensus what the mob wants, youre a white supremacist who deserves to be dead.

More of the latest news about the breakdown of American society is available at Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

SovereignMan.com

NaturalNews.com
15.06.2020 LISTEN

It must be imperative upon the government of Ghana, opinion leaders, property owners and all concerned citizens to coerce Nananom (the Chiefs), who are presiding over the bounty through the sales of land, the land which they inherited from our forefathers, to use some of the billions of cedis they acquire to develop the streets within the new suburbs.

It would be important for Nananom to learn from Nana Boakye-Ansah Debrah, the chief of Asokore Mampong, in the Ashanti region. Asokore Mampong, which is a suburb of Kumasi, has well- defined roads and streets of which about 98% of the streets are constructed or tarred and have well-defined gutters and bridges. Of course, some of the glory goes to Alhaji Muntaka Mubarak, the MP for Asawase Constituency who is committed to the development of his constituency.

If you live at Duase-New Site, Ahenema Kokoben New-Site, Abuakwa-Manhyia, Santase New-Site, Atonsu-Dompoase, just to mention a few communities in the Ashanti region, you will realise how torrential rain waters have eroded the streets and created artificial sink holes that are death traps to people in the communities as well as strangers. During heavy downpours, the speed at which the streams of muddy-rain waters flow, the force and the gutters they create cannot be over emphasised.

It is about time the government of Ghana redefines the mandates of the Lands Commission and Town Planners. Their mandates must include the authority to sanction chiefs who sell demarcated roads and market places. It is sometimes very appalling to see a defined street narrows up into a tiny pathway if not a gutter. Navigating around some neighborhoods is sometimes a tussle. Accessing a place which shouldn't take a minute may take ten minutes because what is supposed to be an access street is filled with houses, so one needs to turn around and around.

We implore the traditional rulers to commit to the development of their communities. It is time! "Nananom", render generosity to your people. Plan our communities and make roads. The government of Ghana alone is not tarring the streets within the ever-expanding New-Site communities.

Kwaku Manu was 2 years old when his parents moved to Abuakwa-Manhyia New-Site. At the moment, Kwaku is 22 years old and has completed a degree from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The neighborhood streets are still spraying dust into the atmosphere every time a vehicle passes by and every time the wind blows. When quizzed about his greatest wish for his community, he said: Well-constructed streets. I wouldnt like to see another 20 years of muddy-dusty and erosion turnabouts.

Some concerned citizens want the government to coerce the chiefs to commit to constructing roads directly or by paying a portion of their royalties into a Community Roads Fund. Alternatively, the government must set up the Community Roads Authority. Each community must have its own authority that is independent but supervised by the Ministry of Local Government. Contributions to the Community Roads Fund must be as follows:

Chiefs-30%, Property owners (landlords)-40% and Govt- 30%.

Lets make Ghana a better place to live.
Bengaluru, June 15 : Amid rising Covid cases in Karnataka, the state government has tweaked its entry rules for different states yet again, mandating a week's institutional quarantine for people arriving from Maharashtra, said an official on Monday.

"Persons coming from Maharashtra shall be placed in 7-day institutional quarantine, followed by 7-day home quarantine," said Chief Secretary, T.M. Vijay Bhaskar.

Nowadays, most of the infections in this southern state are people coming from Maharashtra.

For people coming from Delhi or Tamil Nadu, another two Covid hotspots, three-day institutional quarantine has been prescribed.

"Persons coming from Delhi or Tamil Nadu shall be placed in 3-day institutional quarantine followed by 11-day home quarantine," said Bhaskar.

However, people coming from all other states, other than these three states will be placed under a fortnight's home quarantine.

"The registration on Seva Sindhu portal is mandatory for all persons coming in or transiting through Karnataka by providing correct information about their contact number and destination address," he said.

The Chief Secretary directed all transport operators such as airlines, railways and road transport companies to ensure that the passengers register on Seva Sindhu portal, specifying their mode of transport before embarking on the journey.

"Any violation of the quarantine norms or failure to register on Seva Sindhu portal or giving of incorrect information by the incoming persons or carrying of passengers by the transport companies without registration on the portal shall attract penal action," said Bhaskar.

He invoked Section 51 (b) of the Disaster Management Act 2005 and IPC Section 188.

--IANS sth/arm

A
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 05:34:07|Editor: huaxia

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GENEVA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on Monday urged the United States to make immediate structural reforms to end racial discrimination and to uphold its obligations under the relevant international conventions.

In a formal statement published Monday, the committee called on the U.S. government to fully respect the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the U.S. ratified in 1994, and to ensure a wide understanding of the Convention among its law enforcement officials.

The committee, composed of 18 independent experts, expressed its deep concern at the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the recurrence of killings of unarmed African Americans by police officers and individuals over the years.

The committee also urged the U.S. government to publicly recognize the existence of structural racial discrimination in society, as well as to unequivocally and unconditionally condemn racially motivated killings of African Americans and other minorities.

"Systemic and structural discrimination have permeated government institutions for centuries, stripping African Americans of their rights to equal treatment before the tribunals, threatening their personal security, and depriving them of their civil, economic, social and cultural rights embodied in the Convention," said Noureddine Amir, chairperson of the committee. Enditem
One teenager in Portland, Oregon, is helping high-risk senior citizens around his state to get groceries amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Neel Jain, 16, said the idea came to him when he offered to buy groceries for his grandmother.

"She has asthma and she's in the at-risk category, and I was glad to help her shop," he told TODAY Parents. "But then I realized that there are many other people in the community who don't have that family support."

Teenager Neel Jain purchases groceries to deliver to senior citizens in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. (Courtesy of Neel Jain)

In mid-April, Jain launched PDX Concierge, a shopping and delivery service operated by high school students on a completely volunteer basis. Originally, the service only existed in the Portland metropolitan area, but Jain quickly branched out, recruiting friends and volunteers from schools in several cities. Now, seniors in seven cities in Oregon can reach out to the group for free grocery delivery.

Regina Brody, 73, said the PDX Concierge service has been extremely helpful while she and her husband quarantine in an effort to stay safe from the virus. Her husband has multiple medical conditions and is considered to be in the highest-risk category.

"When I found out about this service ... it was like, 'Oh, what a relief, I can have somebody do the heavy-duty grocery shopping for me,'" said Brody, who has used the service multiple times.

Download the TODAY app for the latest coverage on the coronavirus outbreak.

The drop-off is contactless and simple, according to Jain. Unlike some delivery apps or services, PDX Concierge does not collect any fees or payments for deliveries; recipients only pay for the supplies they order.

"First, someone who wants to have a delivery done will (contact us)," Jain explained. "I or a volunteer go buy the groceries, wearing gloves and masks. The volunteer will call the recipient about 10 minutes before they're at their homes to let them know the total cost of the groceries, (and) the recipient will leave payment at the door."

Story continues

Grocery deliveries bring necessities like food and toilet paper to the front doors of immunocompromised older people who are avoiding shopping during the coronavirus pandemic. (Courtesy of Neel Jain)

Brody noted that Jain and the other volunteers have been very flexible, calling her in case any substitutions or changes need to be made to her orders.

In addition to supplying older residents with necessary food and supplies, PDX Concierge also adds a personal touch.

"We sometimes write a handwritten card to let them know we're here to help them," Jain said. "After the groceries have been delivered, the volunteer will call the recipient to check in and make sure things are going well."

Jain said the notes are also a way to "encourage (recipients) to keep staying safe."

So far, the service has made approximately 60 deliveries and has many repeat customers.

"People have definitely loved our service," he said. "Every time we deliver, when we drive off I can see the smile on their face. (Recipients have) given us a lot of thank you notes and flowers. You can really see how a small act of kindness can go a long way, and I've built a lot of friendships."

Handwritten notes from Neel Jain and his team of volunteer teenagers are meant to encourage seniors who are self-isolating. (Courtesy of Neel Jain)

Brody said she's loved the handwritten notes she's received in her orders.

"It was just wonderful," she said. "My husband and I married late and we dont have children or grandchildren, but if we had any Id want them to be like Neel. ...

"It just is amazing that they would feel for and think about people our age that are a little bit weaker and more vulnerable and want to help out."

Related video:
A committee representing around 400 private schools in the national capital on Monday wrote to Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia requesting the release of pending reimbursements for the expenses they incurred for students enrolled with them under the economically weaker section (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG) categories.

The committee said that the payment of as many as 105 private schools is pending for the academic year 2018-19 and 2019-20. The range of pending reimbursement varies between 8,00,000 and 35,00,000, the committee has estimated.

The committee also stated that some of these schools have not received reimbursements since the academic session 2014-2015.

According to the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, 25% of seats in entry-level classes Nursery, KG and Class 1 are to be reserved for children from EWS/DG families. The Delhi RTE rules specify that students enrolled under the EWS/DG categories in private schools are entitled to free textbooks, writing material and uniforms, for which the government reimburses a fixed amount.

In a letter addressed to Sisodia, the president of the action committee of unaided recognised private schools SK Bhattacharya wrote that several schools were going through a financial crisis amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The fee collection has consistently diminished throughout the months of March, April, May and June 2020, leaving the schools struggling to honour their financial obligations. As a result of this, the school fee falls short of meeting the monthly outflow on salaries, he wrote in the letter.

HT had, on June 10, reported that nine of 10 parents did not pay their childrens fees in April in around 48% of 170 private schools in Delhi due to the economic slowdown triggered by the Covid-19 lockdown. The proportion worsened in Mayto 64% of the schools.

The committee said that many private schools built on government as well as private land have been waiting for the release of outstanding dues towards EWS/DG students. The majority of the schools built on Delhi Development Authority (DDA) land are awaiting the release of outstanding dues towards EWS/DG students. The said dues are pending from the academic session 2014-2015 onwards

Many schools on private land are also waiting for the EWS reimbursement for the sessions 2018-19 and 2019-20. That an immediate release of payments from the Directorate of Education (DoE) at this time will ease the burden for many schools, who would be unable to make salary payments for the month of May 2020, the letter read.

Binay Bhushan, the director of the DoE, said that the government has released the reimbursement amount for a majority of the private schools. There could be a delay in the payment of last years reimbursement in case of some schools because all the deputy directors got busy with Covid-19 related work in March. We will look into this and direct the deputy directors to release the money at the earliest, he said.

A senior official from Sisodias office said, Many schools do not submit the complete documents and bills on time and thats why there is a backlog. The DoE always tries to release the funds on time. The government will look into the request received on Monday.

While the majority of the principals refused to comment on the matter, some said that they will not be able to pay salaries to their employees for the month of May. We have not received even 10% of the students fee in April and May. If we get the pending reimbursement now it will help us pay the salaries of our employees, said the principal of a private school in east Delhi on the condition of anonymity.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fareeha Iftikhar Fareeha Iftikhar is a principal correspondent with the national political bureau of the Hindustan Times. She tracks the education ministry, and covers the beat at the national level for the newspaper. She also writes on issues related to gender, human rights and different policy matters. ...view detail
This is the dramatic moment a giant crane weighing 10 tonnes gets overturned by high winds before slamming into the sea in eastern China.

Terrifying footage shows the heavy machine being pushed along its rails by the freak winds before tearing through its brake clamps in the coastal city of Taizhou, Zhejiang province.

The crane operator miraculously survived after escaping from the machine in the nick of time by jumping into the waters.

This is the dramatic moment deadly winds overturn a giant crane weighing 10 tonnes before the huge structure crashes into the sea in eastern China. Pictures above show the giant structure being overturned by freak winds in the coastal city Taizhou on Friday

The incident took place on Friday, a day before Typhoon Nuri - the second-level tropical storm - made landfall in southern China.

The wind was said to be at least force 10, a storm-like gale travelling 5563 mph, according to the local press.

As the rig topples into the water, its operator is seen rushing down the steps before the tiny figure is seen leaping into the water to safety.

The crane operator (pictured right) miraculously dodged death after he escaped in the nick of time by jumping into the water. The picture left shows the huge crane falling into the sea

The worker was rushed to hospital after being rescued from the sea. He is in stable condition, a company spokesperson has told reporters.

Another gantry crane nearby was also reported to be torn down by the freak winds.

Thousands of Chinese web users were horrified by the incident after the video was shared on social media.

One commenter wrote: 'Omg this is so scary! How did they allow people to work in such condition?'

Another said: 'Hope everyone was safe. This is terrifying.'

The local government is yet to release a statement following the accident.
Fast spread of Covid-19, Pakistan imposes lockdown in 1,300 localities

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, June 14, IRNA -- Despite numerous warnings by the officials in Pakistan, people have been ignoring Covid-19 precautions, which forced the government to impose smart lockdowns in 1,300 localities across the country to prevent further spread of the pandemic.

According to official statistics 6,825 new coronavirus cases have surfaced in the country over the past 24 hours taking the total tally to 138,912.

The death toll from the virus stands at 2,632 with 81 deaths reported over the past 24 hours. 29,546 corona tests were also carried out during this period.

Pakistan has so far conducted 868,565 coronavirus tests. 51,735 coronavirus patients have recovered from the disease whereas many are in critical condition.

To contain the spread of novel coronavirus, a total of 308,600 people now remain under the restrictions in various parts of the country.

A meeting of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) chaired by Planning Minister Asad Umar, was informed that over 13,116 violations of health guidelines were observed across the country over the past 24 hours and punitive actions were taken against 1,541 markets and shops, 33 industrial units and 1,429 vehicles.

It was also informed that the federal and provincial authorities were ensuring compliance with the health guidelines and instructions, particularly regarding workplaces, industrial sector, transport, markets and shops, besides pursuing the Track, Trace and Quarantine (TTQ) strategy.

According to the data, 3,858 health workers, treating the virus coronavirus patients, have also fallen victims to this pandemic. The disease has so far, claimed the lives of 36 health workers.

The government of Pakistan has urged citizens to self-quarantine and keep physical interaction to a minimum as the number of cases continues to soar every day.

The Covid-19 respiratory illness caused by the mysterious contagion has so far killed thousands of people and infected tens of thousands of others across the globe.

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The COVID-19 outbreak messed with Microsoft's plans more than once forcing the company to postpone its Windows 10X launch. One would think that the much-anticipated Surface Duo Android device is also being delayed but according to a new report, the company might actually be ahead of schedule.

Microsoft is allegedly rushing things to announce the device before the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2, which is coming on August 5.

That would mean the announcement will happen in the following weeks, so Microsoft has enough time to build some hype ahead of the market release.

Of course, it's hard to verify the report and Microsoft still hasn't announced any changes to its plans, which were for a Holiday quarter release. We will be on the lookout for more information.

Source
Woolworths have removed all restrictions on supermarket products after panic buyers stripped the shelves during the peak of the coronavirus.

Customers will be able to buy unrestricted amounts of antibacterial wipes, hand soap and frozen fruit from Monday, as the supermarket eliminates the last of the product limitations introduced during the pandemic.

Woolworths supermarkets managing director Claire Peters said the move is a positive sign.

'This is a big milestone and a positive sign following months of hard work from our teams and significant support from our suppliers to ensure the replenishment of our shelves during a period of extraordinary demand,' she said in a statement.

Toilet paper was one of the most sought after products during the pandemic. Customers were restricted to one pack per person

'We are thankful to everyone for their patience with us over these last few months.'

A two-tin limit on baby formula is the only restriction that remains, which was in place prior to the pandemic to stop shoppers buying the product in bulk to sell for a profit online to China.

Woolworths, Coles and Aldi imposed limits on products favoured by pandemic panic-buyers after loo rolls and canned food started flying off the shelves in March.

Tinned food was restricted to two per person and toilet paper was limited to one pack per person to combat shortages.
(Photo : Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters) After the successful live event, there are more projects BTS is lined up to.

K-pop fans and followers of the popular group BTS will love this new Galaxy S20+ 5G phone, BTS-themed, The Verge reported. The multinational tech company recently inked a deal with the Korean pop superstars for the Galaxy Buds+ BTS Edition. Available on July 9, it will feature earbuds with a purple heart.

The Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G BTS Edition will have a purple-colored glass and is made with metal. It also comes with photo cards of the K-pop group, stickers, and pre-installed BTS-inspired themes, plus the Weverse fan social community platform. It is interesting to note that BTS banks on its fans for their worldwide success.

The charging case will also be in the color purple, with the BTS logo and the photos. Pre-ordering this phone from the official online store of Samsung gives customers a 50% discount on the earbuds, with a limited edition of the poster.

Moreover, pre-ordering both the Buds and the phone will get you with two posters. Pre-ordering the Buds gives you with free BTS wireless charger.

BTS is currently in a partnership as the official endorser of the brand, which is also based in South Korea.

Launch dates

With Samsung's annual Unpacked launch event for new wearables and information about its gadgets, there are rumors about these products' details. The newest smartwatch about to launch, the Galaxy Watch 3, is speculated to arrive in July, but prior to the launch event.

The tech giant is also announcing the Galaxy Buds Live, the newest wireless earbuds in the line. These are proposed to be launched next month, but both this watch and the earbuds will be available in the market around the same week as Unpacked. It also includes the launching of Galaxy Note 20, Fold 2, and Z Flip 5G phones.

Contrary to what fans expect, there will be no Galaxy Watch 2, but Samsung revealed there will be Galaxy Watch Active 2 before the launch. Competing with AirPods by Apple, the Galaxy Buds recently received an update.

A company spokeswoman revealed in the report, "Samsung doesn't comment on rumors and speculation."

Samsung to unveil Note 20, and more

The company is not letting the coronavirus take them from launching their biggest phones and other products. There will be three anticipated models to be launched virtually. These are the Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Fold, and the Galaxy Z Flip 5G version, all launching on Aug. 5.

Tech influencer Jon Prosser has leaked several divides recently, including the iPhone SE launch for Apple. Prosser also revealed how these devices will be out in the market by Aug. 20, a quicker turnaround time than previous launches.

There are also speculations saying that Samsung might have three versions of their Note 20 this year, following what they did with their S20 5G brand earlier in 2020.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Reaching Within: What traditional art offers the heart

Recent events concerning the death of George Floyd have unleashed anger across the United States. Peaceful protests are being conducted, but unfortunately, these are often overshadowed by the looting and rioting of a few instigators.

Everyone is expressing their anger: either at George Floyds death, racism, the protests, or the looting and rioting. Im of the opinion that, irrespective of race, we become what we practice. Im left asking a potentially unanswerable question: What are we practicing, and where will it lead us?

Painting Freedom and Truth

I was recently reminded by Norman Rockwells painting Golden Rule that, despite our differences, we have a lot in common with each other. Norman Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator, who for 47 years painted 321 covers for The Saturday Evening Post. He, in pursuit of freedom and truth, depicted the honest nuance of American life during his time.

Race relations became tense in the mid-20th century in the United States, and Rockwell wanted to complete paintings about this issue. The Saturday Evening Post, however, had a strict policy that limited what he could paint to mostly white people, a policy that eventually caused Rockwell to leave his position at the Post for one at Look magazine.

Before he left, however, The Saturday Evening Post did begin to relax its stance on the depictions of races other than white people. One of the first multiracial images to grace the cover of the Post was Rockwells Golden Rule, painted and published in 1961.

A Rule in Common

In the Golden Rule, Rockwell did his best to represent as many different ethnicities and cultures as possible. In 1955, he traveled around the world and took pictures of many different people engaging in the traditional aspects of their cultures.

He also began to read about the belief systems of different cultures and found that the golden rule was something familiar to many of them:

Id been reading up on comparative religion. The thing is that all major religions have the Golden Rule in Common. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Not always the same words but the same meaning, according to the Norman Rockwell Museum website.

Rockwell took the information he gathered from his research, along with the pictures he took of people and cultures around the world, and decided to use it as inspiration for Golden Rule. He picked up a few costumes and devised some from ordinary objects in his studio, such as a lampshade as a fez. Many of Rockwells models were local exchange students and visitors, the website states.

Shortly after revealing the painting, Rockwell talked about the people he used as models: [The man in the upper right corner is] part Brazilian, part Hungarian, I think. Then there is Choi, a Korean. Hes a student at Ohio State University. Here is a Japanese student at Bennington College and here is a Jewish student. He was taking summer school courses at the Indian Hill Museum School [The rabbi is] the retired postmaster of Stockbridge. He made a pretty good rabbi, in real life, a devout Catholic. I got all my Middle East faces from Abdalla who runs the Elm Street market, just one block from my house.

Rockwell was inspired to depict as many different representations of people as possible. He found, in his community, people of all races and backgrounds and united them under a statement that has served as a cornerstone for compassion: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. He not only represented this idea, but, in representing it, he also practiced it.

The Practice of Kindness

Seeing all of these beautiful figures of different ethnicities and backgrounds painted with respect and united by a statement encouraging compassion stirs within me a joyful solace. It also makes me consider the Confucian saying, Dont do unto others what you dont want done unto you.

Here, we have what Ill call both active and nonactive kindness. As human beings, we want respect, and we dont want disrespect. We all want to be respected and heard despite our differences. We also dont want ourselves or our families disrespected because of perceived differences. Where is freedom when difference is absent and/or suppressed?

As a black, representational artist, I have to consider color daily. Im a black person with a lighter complexion, and Ive lived in a liminal space where my lightness brings my blackness into question, but Im never considered light enough to be white. The absence of clearly belonging to one race or the other, initially agonizing, resulted in my trying to live by a creed of personal authenticity for which I am now grateful.

The consideration of color in my art is also the process of my trying for harmony among the colors I choose, a harmony I want extended through the colors that make up the human race, an assemblage of lights and darks of muted orangethe paint color that is the basis of all flesh tones.

For me, Rockwells painting serves as not only a call to action, a directive, but also a reminder of what we deeply desire irrespective of our differences: kindness. What else is there to practice other than what we wish for ourselves?

For more information about Norman Rockwell and his work, please visit the virtual Norman Rockwell Museum, as the museum proper is currently closed due to the lockdown.

Art has an incredible ability to point to what cant be seen so that we may ask What does this mean for me and for everyone who sees it? How has it influenced the past and how might it influence the future? What does it suggest about the human experience? These are some of the questions I explore in my series Reaching Within: What Traditional Art Offers the Heart.

Eric Bess is a practicing representational artist. He is currently a doctoral student at the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts (IDSVA).
George Floyd, through his murder, has done more to unify this country, more to unify the whole world, that any other person or pandemic could possibly have done. Trump politicized the coronavirus through finger-pointing and fault-finding, removing its potential to bring the world together. But he could not politicize this murder, though he has tried. The people against whom these crimes have been committed for years and decades would not allow it, and neither would any of the other compassionate people of the world. The fact that they are demonstrating in London and Vienna and so many other cities of the world, is heart-warming.

The cops will not get away with this one, and neither will Trump and his band of "outlaws," even if they hole up in a bunker or hide behind fences around the White House or stand outside a church and wave an upside-down Bible. They will be soundly defeated at the polls. (They will not go peacefully, however).

George Durant, Beaverton
MISSOULA  Nicholas Fry, a graduate of the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Iceland during the 2020-21 academic year.

Fry is one of six current and former UM students to earn a Fulbright Scholarship this year. He will use the award to complete his masters thesis at Reykjavik Universitys Iceland School of Energy. Iceland uses geothermal energy widely, and Fry studies how well that model could translate to Montana.

Nicholas Fry

I am researching geothermal district heating potentials across lower heat-demand density communities in Montana, he said. This means, where feasible, Montana towns in proximity to low-temperature resources could convert about 60% of their household energy expenses to lower-cost, non-fossil sources.

While federal dollars have been continuously appropriated to oil and gas exploration over the last 40 years or more, the last time Montana geothermal resources had similarly scaled investment and investigation was in the late 1970s and early 80s, Fry said. Materials technology and design have come a long way since then.

It is up to individual research projects to attempt to close the gap, he said. I hope my effort contributes to that equalization and potential realization that low-cost clean energy is right in our backyards.

In contrast, he said, Iceland has never stopped government funding of geothermal exploration since the 1970s oil crises. The country now enjoys geothermal district heating across most of the country, with a further 30% of their electricity generation originating from higher temperature geothermal reservoirs.

Icelands clean energy transition, largely based out of necessity, has increased national energy security and directly correlates with its rise to the top of world-wide individual income rankings, Fry said. Where we source our energy matters, and I hope to learn the good and bad from the Icelandic energy model.

Fry and his partner, Holly Gumz, a Montana State University graduate, left for Iceland a year ago. He started training in energy sciences, economics and engineering, and she works as a nurse at the national hospital.

We have learned to enjoy longer winters, a new language and Nordic hospitality, he said. We are very grateful for how much of an impact Montana has had on our lives and hope to find our way back someday soon.

Fry and the other recipients continue UMs legacy of securing Fulbright Scholarships, said Clint Walker, the UM Fulbright adviser and an associate professor of Russian.

We had a 50% success rate this year, Walker said. This percentage is well above the national average and speaks to the high quality of our UM applicants for Fulbrights.



The Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide.

For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/.

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Heeding calls from residents and community leaders concerned about coronavirus economic fallout, the city of Beaumont is pursuing the allocation of $1.2 million to help qualifying residents recover.

The majority of the money, $801,000, comes from the citys allocation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, said Beaumont Planning and Community Development Director Chris Boone.

He said the city determined it wouldnt need the money to pay for COVID-19-specific medical response, such as establishing medical facilities or conducting public testing. It started looking at the allocation as it could be used to mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.

The other $400,000 comes from the citys annual federal grant allocation that was being used for a sewer line replacement program.

Because only a small number of people have qualified for the program, the city council authorized city staff to reallocate a portion of that money to respond to homeless issues.

Guidance from the CARES Act was very specific that the homeless population is particularly vulnerable to the virus, Boone said.

The CARES-specific money would provide rent and utility assistance to individuals and a donation to local food banks. The city hopes to have that money ready for distribution by the end of this month, Boone said.

The city still needs approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to move forward with the program as well as signed contracts with local nonprofits that Boone expects will actually administer the funds.

At this time it looks like the $500,000 allocation could help about 500 households.

Boone said he expects the households will be eligible for up to three months of rent and/or utility assistance as long as they can prove that the economic hardship is the result of coronavirus.

The city is also working to determine whether the money could be used to help people who are behind on mortgage payments as a result of the pandemic.

The city has had preliminary conversations with local nonprofits, but it expects Some Other Place will ultimately distribute at least a portion of the money.

Executive director Paula ONeal said shes heard rumors that money is coming, but she doesnt know when, how much or what the eligibility requirements will be. At this time, the only money the organization has for its year-round rental assistance program comes from private donations.

ONeal said Some Other Place must stretch those dollars to help the largest number of people possible.

Should the city start a temporary program, she said, she hopes to see a tracking mechanism to ensure people cant double dip with other organizations that might be offering assistance. Shes also concerned that people who need the help may not rent from landlords who have experience providing the type of documentation required for federal funds.

Once we know what we get, if we do get money, we will help as many people as we can, she said.

Councilman Mike Getz compared the program to a Band-Aid for people who are unable to pay rent or utilities.

Boone agreed, noting that these are unexpected hardships brought on by virus-related blows to the economy.

Thats the idea, he said, that youre preventing homelessness by providing this.

The city would use $140,000 for local food banks to distribute food to local families and $61,000 to hlep with administrative costs for both programs.

The remaining funds would be split almost evenly between Henrys Place and the Salvation Army to enhance their facilities that serve people experiencing homelessness.

Henrys Place needs foundation repairs, an additional shower and other fixes, ONeal said.

On any given day, the day shelter sees between 50 and 60 people experiencing homelessness, some of whom stop for breakfast, to wash their clothes or take a shower, among other tasks.

While the building cant be expanded, she said, the requested upgrades would allow it to serve more people.

The Salvation Army would establish a new shelter in hope of moving out of the facility on Interstate 10. That building would then be converted into a Boys and Girls Club, said Capt. Jason Moore. At this time, because of the proximity to the childrens center, the organization has to be careful about who can stay at the shelter.

The new shelter actually has been owned by the Salvation Army for years. The buildings at 1078 McFaddin were closed in 2004 due to a lack of funding.

Its continued to be owned by the Salvation Army  its basically been in mothballs ever since then, Getz said. Its persevered amazingly well.

In fact, when I went in, its like they walked out one day prepared to come back the next and just didnt. Theres still sheets on the beds. Theres beds there. Theres pots in the kitchen.

Moore wasnt sure how many people could stay at the facility once renovated, but Boone said there are about 20 rooms. Moore, who said the current shelter could fit about 52 people, expected people would have roommates at the McFaddin shelter.

He said people would likely be separated into three groups: One house for veterans, one for families and potentially the construction of a third structure to have two separate living spaces - one for men and one for women.

Boone said if the city had multiple shelters or the circumstances were different, it might handle the allocation of funds differently.

But the speed is critical. Because these are the two providers we deal with and were aware of their immediate need, we can do that instead of just a broad call, he said. Weve submitted our amendments to HUD in Houston. Theyve been quick to respond recently, so hopefully well get their approval in a week or two and then well work on implementing.

kaitlin.bain@beaumontenterprise.com

twitter.com/KaitlinBain
Thousands of people emerged from lockdown to stand in long queues outside shops and malls as the Boris Johnson government, keen to kick-start an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, allowed non-essential shops to re-open in England on Monday.

Experts and others sounded a note of caution, that the virus has not gone away, but reports from Manchester, Birmingham and elsewhere said many people joined queues with social distancing long before opening times, reflecting lockdown ennui among many.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak visited a London bookstore and said: From Monday, shops selling books, clothes, and electronics are able to open for business for the first time in more than two months, as part of our plan to gradually and safely reopen the economy.

There are nearly 7,000 high streets across the country, each providing a valuable service to their community. They will be vital in helping kick-start the economy as we recover from the virus, he added. The shops have re-opened in England, not elsewhere in the UK.

The shops need to ensure they are Covid-19 secure before opening, which includes barriers for queues outside, one-way routes inside shops and several posters inside to remind people to maintain at least 2 metre-distance from others.

Officials said the non-essential retail sector employs 1.3 million people, accounting for 46.6 billion to British economy, which has seen its GDP plummet 20 per cent in April. The shops can re-open after meeting the five tests set out by the Prime Minister Johnson.

The five tests are: That the National Health Service can continue to cope; that the daily death rate falls sustainably and consistently; that the rate of infection is falling; that the operational challenges have been met; and most importantly, that there is no risk of a second peak.

On Sunday, the UK recorded its lowest daily death toll of 36 since the lockdown began on March 23, besides dwindling number of news cases, encouraging the government to gradually re-open parts of the economy.

However, London mayor Sadiq Khan joining experts to caution the people that the lockdown has not been lifted: The virus is still out thereStay at home as much as possible and avoid public transport.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI - After closing to the public in March to help slow the spread of COVID-19, the Grand Rapids Public Museum will reopen on Monday, July 6.

The museum, located at 272 Pearl St. NW, plans to welcome its members back over three days beginning Wednesday, July 1.

All visitors will be asked to wear masks, and many new processes are in place to maintain public health, according to the Monday, June 15 press release.

We look forward to welcoming our community back to our space after nearly four months of being closed, said President and CEO Dale Robertson, in the press release.

Our team has taken many steps and precautions to limit risks associated with COVID-19 transmission in our spaces.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmers stay-at-home order, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, required many non-essential businesses to temporarily suspend operations in March. She lifted the order June 1.

Visitors will have to buy tickets in advance in order to go through a contact-free entry process, and they will be asked to wear face masks unless they are medically unable to tolerate a face covering, according to the release.

Exhibition rooms will be organized to impose capacity limits and maintain six feet of social distance between visitors, the press release further states, and some exhibits with touchscreen and other forms of shared surfaces will not be open.

Cleaning procedures have also been increased, and hand sanitizing stations have been established throughout the museums.

Visitors will be able to see the Bodies Revealed exhibit, which has been extended to Sunday, Sept. 27, according to the release. That show displays real human bodies and organs to teach visitors about human anatomy.

Michigans oldest museum, Grand Rapids Public Museum is home to local history exhibits, world artifacts, and interactive educational zones.

The museum has been host to a variety of nationally touring exhibitions, like Bodies Revealed and the upcoming Sean Kenneys Wild Connections Made with LEGO Bricks, which has been pushed to open on Nov. 7.

The museum is also home to a planetarium and carousel, which remain closed. The museums gift shop and cafe will reopen on July 6, with capacity limits and pre-packaged food and drinks.

Read more on MLive:

Holland police identify victim in overnight motorcycle crash

Michigan mandates testing after confirming nearly 2,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes

Grand Rapids first stand-alone medical marijuana grow center holds Zoom ribbon-cutting
We know that a bad economy tends to hurt the electoral prospects of incumbent presidential candidates. But what about a crisis of national security or American safety? Although the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented in most ways, as is the Trump presidency itself, there may be historical lessons from other situations.

Im thinking of one in particular: The American experience in Iraq leading up to the face-off of 2004 between George W. Bush and John Kerry. It provides a cautionary note for those who assume that because President Trump has made numerous mistakes during the coronavirus crisis, he will be the underdog come the fall.

In spring 2004, it looked like a tight race, and the challenger led the incumbent in some early polls. Yet Mr. Bush ultimately won the fall election by some three million popular votes and by an Electoral College tally of 286 to 251. The economy was not in collapse at that time, as it is today. But the nations top national safety and security problem  the Iraq war  was in a bad state and getting worse. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in early April 2003 and Mr. Bushs infamous mission accomplished speech aboard the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier on May 1, Iraq spiraled consistently downward over the months leading up to Election Day.

By the summer of 2003, it was becoming apparent that resistance forces in Iraq were not just what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called dead enders  leftovers from the Hussein inner circle who would soon be rounded up. The first big car bombings took place in August, taking the lives of a top Iraqi cleric and the United Nations special representative to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. U.S. fatality rates remained stubbornly in the range of about 30 to 40 troops a month. Earlier predictions by Bush administration officials that most American forces would soon be home were recognized as fantasies. As the year ended, U.S. monthly troop fatality rates climbed into the 40s, even after Mr. Hussein was captured.
According to intelligence reports, one member of Russia-led forces was killed on June 14.

Russia's hybrid military forces on June 14 mounted 15 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 15 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 15. "As a result, one Ukrainian serviceman was wounded in enemy shelling."

Read alsoUkraine commemorates crew, paratroopers killed in Il-76 downing over Luhansk (Video)

Russian-led forces opened fire from proscribed 120mm mortars, as well as cannons installed on infantry fighting vehicles, grenade launchers of various types, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, and small arms.

Under attack were Ukrainian positions near the towns of Avdiyivka and Maryinka, and the villages of Luhanske, Orikhove, Travneve, Khutir Vilny, Kamianka, and Pisky.

Joint Forces returned fire to each enemy attack.

According to intelligence reports, one member of Russia-led forces was killed on June 14.

The enemy did not attack Ukrainian positions from 00:00 to 07:00 Kyiv time on June 15.

No Ukrainian army casualties have been reported since Monday midnight.
An Australian woman who couldn't afford new tiles or cabinets in her bathroom has transformed the room with paint.

The Perth-based amateur designer wanted to reinvent her 'horrible beige ensuite' on a budget, so she decided to paint the floor with a navy stencil, paint the countertop and shower white and the cabinets a deep navy blue.

'It feels like such a different space now,' she said, sharing photos of the end result on Facebook.

So how did she do it?

An Australian woman who couldn't afford new tiles or cabinetry in her bathroom has transformed the room with paint she bought

The decaying shower tiles were cleaned and sanded before being painted over by Rustoleum Tub and Tile, which was had specific instructions on how to prepare for application

'I painted the existing tiles with a white base coat and then navy using a $21.95 20cm by 20cm tile stencil from Gemini creative. Then I used Valspar Industrial enamel paint from a specialist paint store,' she said.

She was even more creative with the walls, fashioning a towel hanger using a piece of pine covered in hessian and attaching hooks to it from Bunnings to make it a practical piece of furniture.

Two wooden shelves from Bunnings were attached to the walls and now hold up a picture frame, candles and plants.

AFTER: 'It feels like such a different space now,' she said, sharing photos of the end result on Facebook

She was even more creative with the walls, fashioning a towel hanger using a piece of pine covered in hessian and attaching hooks to it from Bunnings to make it a practical piece of furniture

The decaying shower tiles were cleaned and sanded before being painted over by Rustoleum Tub and Tile ($78.10 each), which had specific instructions on how to prepare for application.

'A kit gives you enough for two coats but I needed to buy a second kit and did four coats to get a nice even coverage. It's also really fumey so you need to wear a respirator and it needs to cure for three days before you wet it,' she said.

The woman primed the white countertop with Dulux maximum adhesion primer ($37.60) and top coated with Dulux renovate laminate paint ($69.90), before adding a wood trim to the existing cabinet doors.

AFTER: She created a window curtain that can be pulled down and up at the bathroom occupant's leisure

'I painted the existing tiles with a white base coat and then navy using a 20cm by 20cm tile stencil from Gemini creative. Then I used Valspar Industrial enamel paint from a specialist paint store,' she said

The products she mentioned, and their prices, totalled $285.65, but the entire renovation would have cost less than $400.

Commenters on social media were quick to praise the transformation as nothing short of 'amazing'.

'This is so awesome I think I might have to do this to my bathroom because it looks like its from the bloody 70s even though the house was built in 1992,' one woman said.

'I'm speechless, it's awesome and you are very clever indeed,' said another.
A Nigeria-born convicted drug dealer has been allowed to remain in the UK to support his stepdaughter who is seeking gender reassignment surgery and has mental health difficulties.

The man, who is in his early 30s, had been given a 27-month jail term after being convicted of conspiring to supply cannabis seven years ago.

Ministers said he should be automatically deported. But the man said that would be 'unduly harsh' on his British family.

He said his stepdaughter had been experiencing significant mental health difficulties and was in the process of seeking gender reassignment.

A Nigerian-born convicted drug dealer has been allowed to remain in the UK to support his stepdaughter who is seeking gender reassignment surgery and has mental health difficulties. An immigration tribunal ruled in his favour last in 2019, and a judge has now dismissed a Home Office (stock image, pictured) appeal

She needed a high level of support from her family and was 'particularly close' to him, the man claimed.

An immigration tribunal ruled in his favour last in 2019, and a judge has now dismissed a Home Office appeal.

The tribunal ruled that the man's 'continuing support' was 'essential' to his stepdaughter's 'emotional and psychological well-being' and that the 'impact of his deportation' would be 'unduly harsh' on her.

Judge Gaenor Bruce has upheld that decision after concluding that lawyers representing the Home Office had not established that the tribunal decision was 'flawed for error of law'.

Lawyers representing the Home Office had said the man's wife could care for the children, as she had done while he was in jail.

The man, who is in his early 30s, had been given a 27-month jail term after being convicted of conspiring to supply cannabis seven years ago (stock image)

They argued that the best interests of a child should not be treated as routinely outweighing the 'strong public interest' in deportation.

The man said the distress which would be experienced by his stepdaughter if he was deported 'elevated' the case above the 'commonplace'.

Judge Bruce, who published a ruling on Monday following an appeal tribunal hearing, also ruled that the man could not be named in media reports of the case.

She said the man was a 'foreign criminal' who would not 'ordinarily attract any right to the protection of anonymity'.

But the judge said she was concerned that his children's identities might become known if he was named.
Jens Spahn,Federal Minister of Health, speaks in a press statement May 6, 2019. Kay Nietfeld | picture alliance | Getty Images

European governments are forging ahead with the rollout of apps to trace the contacts of coronavirus patients, with the U.K. at risk of falling behind in launching its own platform. In Germany, a contact-tracing app using Bluetooth technology will be launched later this week. "It's coming this week," Health Minister Jens Spahn said over the weekend. Such apps are designed to alert users when they've come into contact with someone who has Covid-19. Germany appears to have done a better job than other European nations at managing the pandemic, recording 8,804 deaths from the virus and a total of 187,682 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Its app is being built with the help of Deutsche Telekom and SAP, and makes use of the privacy-focused application programming interface (API) technology developed by Apple and Google. The API is a system for app developers to integrate so that they can send out notifications when a user comes into close proximity with someone. Apple and Google's mobile operating systems run on 99% of the world's smartphones.

A person using Italy's new Covid-19 contact tracing app Immuni. Nicolo Campo | LightRocket via Getty Images

Italy's government has also launched an app based on the Apple-Google model. Called Immuni, the app was made by local developer Bending Spoons. It's seen more than 1 million installs on Google's Play app store. Italy, once at the heart of Europe's coronavirus pandemic, has seen its rate of new infections and deaths slow in recent weeks. However, it remains one of the worst-affected countries globally, with a death toll of 34,345 and 236,989 infections. Experts say contact tracing will be a significant part of countries' reopening strategies, by getting people to self-isolate if they're found to have been near a coronavirus patient and therefore exposed to the disease.

Apple-Google model

Division has emerged in Europe over whether or not to adopt Apple and Google's "decentralized" approach, which processes exposure notifications without storing them on centrally-controlled servers. According to the Financial Times, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Austria and Switzerland are all using the tech firms' software to develop their apps. But countries like the U.K., France and Norway have all opted for a more centralized model that gives health authorities central control over the tracing data. The U.K., which has the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe, has given mixed signals about its contact-tracing app. One minister claimed the service could be ready by the end of the month, but there are doubts over that timing. The BBC reported that British ministers are considering switching the country's NHS COVID-19 App to one based on Apple and Google's tech, as there have been delays in rolling the current version out. The National Health Service has tasked a Swiss IT firm with exploring the option of switching to the Apple-Google model.

An advertising board displaying official coronavirus test-and-trace advice from the U.K. government. Mike Kemp | In PIctures via Getty Images

The U.K. has already been testing its app on the Isle of Wight, an island just off the south coast of England. A spokesperson for the government's health department told CNBC the app had racked up more than 54,000 users so far  which represents around 38% of the island's nearly 142,000 inhabitants. "There has been a hugely positive reception to the app on the Isle of Wight," the spokesperson claimed. "Their feedback has been invaluable ahead of rolling out the app nationally soon." They said the app would "complement" the government's existing Test and Trace program, which has hired thousands of human contact tracers.
The UNs top rights body Monday agreed to a request from African countries to urgently debate racism and police brutality this week following unrest in the US and beyond over George Floyds death.

As the 43rd session of the UN Human Rights Council resumed after breaking in March over the coronavirus pandemic, council president Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslbergers suggestion to hold the debate on Wednesday afternoon was met with no objections from any of the 47 council members, and passed by consensus.
Japan seems like a thriving country. You may have heard about people living in ultra tiny apartments, and sleeping in capsule pods in Tokyo, and this may have led you to believe that Japan is a country in which space is at a premium, and that the population is booming. There is some truth in that sentence. Depending on where you are in Japan, space can be in short supply- at least affordable space-but the population is no longer bursting at the seams. Japan presently has a rapidly shrinking population as well as an aging one. According to Nippon.com, the population has now been falling in size for nine years in a row.

In October of 2019, about 126,167,000 were recorded living in the country, with the majority of people being between the ages of 15 and 64. Those in the 65-and-over age range are increasing every year, however. In the year 2000, this group consisted of about 20 million people. By 2019, that number has almost doubled. The 15-64 year olds have been shrinking in number.

What about the kids under 15? This group is also growing smaller. It is plain to see that Japanese people are growing older and that the younger ones are not having many kids. Here are five factors contributing to the countrys rapidly aging population.

An everyday scene in Japan with busy people rushing off to their workplaces. The Japanese are known for their hard-working nature. Image credit: StreetVJ/Shutterstock.com

A Declining Birth Rate

A group of Japanese elementary schoolchildren. Image credit: Milatas/Shutterstock.com

Researchers estimate that by the year 2036, one third of people living in Japan will be elderly, if things keep up as they are. In 2019, the countrys health ministry stated that the number of babies born in Japan fell by almost 6% in one year. There were 864,000 babies born in the country in 2019. That may sound like a lot but this marks the first time since the government began keeping track of data in 1899 that the number of babies born annually has dipped below 900,000. Without enough newbies to replace the older generation, the country is certainly aging.

Young People Are Not In Relationships

The factors contributing to Japans low birth rate are multifaceted. One reason is that many young people of dating age in the country remain single. Of course, a woman need not be in a relationship to have a child but it certainly helps increase the odds of this happening. Japanese young people seem to prefer their own company at the moment. According to The Japan Times, researchers found that nearly 70% of men and 60% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 in the country report not being in a relationship. They do not seem to have plans to start one, either. The Guardian.com reports that, according to Kunio Kitamura who is head of the Japan Family Planning Association (JFPA), the demographic crisis is serious enough that the country might eventually perish into extinction.

Not Having Sex

Not only are Japanese young people avoiding relationship commitment, many are actually avoiding sex as well. Some are calling this Japans celibacy syndrome. A report in The Guardian.com states that about 45% of Japanese women aged 16-24 say they are not interested in or despise sexual contact, and surprisingly, over 25% of men the same age say they feel the same way. In order for change to take place and the population to flourish, some major attitude shifts would be necessary, experts say.

Economic Insecurity

It may seem like a strange phenomenon to hear that a large portion of an entire society no longer desires to procreate, but when you consider the economic security some younger Japanese people face, the scenario makes a bit more sense.

According to some sources, Japans strict and at times punitive corporate environment makes it virtually impossible for women to have a career after they marry. They are expected to remain at home, and have kids. The catch 22 is that prices are so high in Japan that most households need both parents to be working in order to afford to have kids. Japan has also experienced twenty years of economic stagnation, which can make it hard for some men to feel they could ever work hard enough to earn the money needed to support an entire family. This pressure is so great that most are not willing to bear it.

Strict Social Standards

"Marriage is a woman's grave." This is an old Japanese saying, and it refers to the trend of Japanese wives being ignored by their husbands in favour of a mistress. Things have changed a bit in the country, but for women now, this grave is one that houses their careers.

Strict social standards result in women being expected to stop working if they marry, in Japan. Of course, there are always some exceptions, but women who have worked hard to have successful careers are now standing up for themselves. They are simply not willing to give it all up and stay home. Consequently, these women are said to be avoiding romantic relationships altogether.

It is reported that about 70% of Japanese women leave their jobs after giving birth to their first child. There is a term for a woman who is married and working in Japan, and it is not favorable. It is oniyome, and it means "devil wives".

It is easy to see then why, according to Japan's Institute of Population and Social Security, 90% of young women in the country report that staying single is, in their opinion, preferable to what they imagine marriage to be like.

The situation is so dire that the World Economic Forum has repeatedly ranked Japan as one of the world's worst nations for gender equality in the workplace.

Caption

Immigration And The Future

Japan was once a largely homogeneous country, but that is slowly changing. In 2017, the government adopted fast-track permanent residence for skilled workers, and in 2018, it passed a new law that will greatly increase the number of blue-collar work visas, and provide these workers with an opportunity to live in Japan permanently, if they wish. As long as non-immigrant Japanese people chose to remain celibate, it seems as though immigration will be the answer to sustaining the countrys future population.
Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

As COVID-19 cases in California continue to climb, and the death toll tops 5,000, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday defended his administration's decision to allow counties to ease the stay-at-home order and other restrictions.

Newsom said COVID-19 hospitalizations in the state remain stable weeks after restrictions started to be modified, during a period that included the busy Memorial Day weekend, and maintained that the safeguards in place continue to effectively slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The governor said requiring residents to remain isolated would threaten their overall well-being, including physical and mental health and finances. More than 5.5 million Californians have applied for unemployment benefits during the pandemic.

"When you have people that are struggling and suffering with severe mental health and brain health issues, when people are not attending to their physical and emotional needs, those social determinants of health also must be considered," Newsom said during a COVID-19 briefing Monday in Sacramento. "We have to recognize you can't be in a permanent state where people are locked away  for months and months and months and months on end  to see lives and livelihoods completely destroyed, without considering the health impact of those decisions as well."

Newsom in mid-March issued the nation's first stay-at-home order, arguing at the time that the restrictions were necessary to slow the spread of the virus. The Democratic governor acknowledged the economic and public health consequences of a continued shutdown on Monday as he sought to justify his decision to allow businesses to open across California while deaths and confirmed cases are on the rise.

The governor said the willingness of Californians to heed that order ensured that the state's hospital system would have enough capacity to care for those stricken with the virus. The shutdown period also allowed the state to procure enough ventilators and protective gear for healthcare workers should there be a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Story continues

"We never made the case that the stay-at-home order was a permanent state. We wanted to buy time. We wanted to mitigate a peak and a spike," Newsom said. "We ultimately wanted to save lives and prepare for a pandemic that needs to take its course until, ultimately, we have immunity, until we have a vaccine."

Newsom has made it clear that adherence to the reopening standards is the responsibility of the counties  not the state  repeating his oft-used catchphrase localism is determinative.

"We put up guidelines, but guidelines don't mean go," Newsom said. "We put up guidelines that create a framework of how we believe we can reopen the economy safely, but we don't prescribe when. We maintain because of the size, scope and scale of the state of California, that those decisions should be made with a local lens."

Still, it was the Newsom administration that established the variance process in May, requiring counties to prove to the state that COVID-19 hospitalizations had stabilized and to ensure that medical centers, nursing homes and other essential services had adequate protective equipment and were prepared to accommodate and care for a surge in patients affected by the virus.

Thus far, the Newsom administration has allowed 52 of the state's 58 counties to accelerate the reopening of their economies, including Los Angeles County, Californias biggest COVID-19 hot spot, with more than 2,900 confirmed deaths out of the roughly 5,083 reported statewide.

Despite those figures, L.A. County last week took another step toward easing stay-at-home rules, allowing gyms, fitness facilities, museums, swimming pools and hotels for leisure travel to reopen. Music, film and television production were also allowed to resume.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of California's Health and Human Services Agency, said the Newsom administration is assisting 13 counties that have exceeded criteria set by the state to address the pandemic, including thresholds for hospitalizations and positive COVID-19 tests.

The counties being monitored by the state include Los Angeles, Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura. State health officials also contacted four other counties that missed a state COVID-19 threshold on at least one day, but they have not been placed on the state's official monitoring list.

Kern County reported an average transmission rate of 79.8 cases per 100,000 residents over the past 14 days, which far exceeds the state's threshold of 25 per 100,000 residents. L.A. County reported 162.5 cases per 100,000 residents. Ventura County reported a 13.2% increase in COVID-19 patients being hospitalized for three days, surpassing the state threshold of 10%.

Ghaly said the Newsom administration is working with health officials in those 13 counties to ensure they receive state support, whether that means sending additional healthcare workers or ventilators or moving COVID-19 patients to other counties.

"These 13 counties, for one reason or another, we have a little bit of concern about the data, and we feel like early and frequent engagement around what's going on locally with that added support at the state level  whether those are staff or ventilators or helping move some other patients into other counties to make sure that Californians get the care they need.

"We're getting in front of issues early and trying to help support counties so that as we look to reopen, we stay very vigilant around the data points that matter, and we can support counties," Ghaly said.

Newsom on Monday also urged Californians to remain personally vigilant in stopping the spread of the coronavirus by continuing to socially distance, wear face coverings and frequently wash their hands. He warned of the possibility of a second wave of the virus in the fall and potentially in the spring, similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which eventually killed 675,000 in the United States and an estimated 50 million worldwide.

"It's our decisions that determine our fate and future," Newsom said.

Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.
Coronavirus is capable of infecting cells in the human brain and multiplying, a new study suggests.

Researchers found once the virus entered neurons in the brains, it was able to increase its number of copies by ten-fold.

What's more, it achieved this feat in just three days, reported The Financial Times.

The team, from Johns Hopkins University, says the findings could lead to treatments that prevents the virus from multiplying or that crosses the blood-brain barrier, which protects the organ from infections.

Within three days, the number of copies of the virus was 10 times greater than it had been at the start (pictured)

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University infected lab-grown 'mini-brains' with low levels of coronavirus to study the effects. Pictured: Paula Johnson, a registered nurse, administers a deep suction tube into the lungs of a coronavirus patient in the ICU of Roseland Community Hospital on Chicago, Illinois, April 22

'It is really critical to know that our most precious organ can be directly affected by the virus, ' Dr Thomas Hartung, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Financial Times.

The effect of the coronavirus on the human brain - if any at all or how much - has been one of the most challenging questions for scientists to answer.

An April 2020 study from Wuhan, China - where the virus originated - found that about one-third of 214 patients had neurological problems.

This included strokes, aneurysms, dizziness and unconsciousness, and mostly in those who were severely ill.

Another report, from Spain, found that half of patients admitted to two hospitals in the country developed neurologic symptoms.

For the new study, being peer-reviewed in the journal Altex, the team added small amounts of the virus to lab-grown 'mini-brains'.

Made of human cells, these miniature brain models are nearly invisible to the naked eye, but have mechanisms that mimic a typical human brain.

Results showed the virus infected the brains' neurons through the typical pathway: ACE-2 receptors on the surface of cells.

The virus then began making copies of itself. In fact, in just three days, the number of copies was 10 times greater than it had been at the start, reported The Financial Times.

The researchers stress, however, that it's not clear where the virus itself directly causes neurological problems or if they occur due to other bodily damage.

Additionally, it remains unclear if coronavirus is capable of breaching the blood-brain barrier, the tight walls of blood vessels that protect the organ.

'To be very clear, we have no evidence that the virus produces developmental disorders,' Dr Hartung told The Financial Times.

'But clinicians need to know about this research, because it has consequences about [being] cautious and preventing infection during pregnancy.'

In the US, there are more than two million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 115,000 deaths.
Spains airport operator, Aena, announced on Monday that it will increase operations in the countrys main airports from July 1, when travel restrictions into the European Union will be gradually lifted.

Since March, travel to Spain has been tightly restricted due to the coronavirus crisis, with only essential travelers and residents allowed into the country. This led to a sharp drop in flights to Spain and forced many airports to close or suspend operations.

These restrictions are set to ease as the country relaxes the coronavirus lockdown. Nearly 11,000 visitors from Germany on Monday began to fly to Spains Balearic Islands as part of a tourism pilot scheme. Tourists from the EU and the Schengen free-travel area  including the United Kingdom  will officially be allowed from June 21, with the exception of Portugal. And on July 1, other international travelers will be allowed to enter Spain as part of the EUs coordinated move to lift travel restrictions. But this will be contingent on a reciprocal agreement and taking into account the epidemiological situation in the countries of origin, among other factors.

In preparation for the expected surge in tourists, on Monday Aena released a plan to resume activity in Spains main airports that includes reopening terminals and facilities that have been closed due to the pandemic.

German tourists arrive in Palma de Mallorca on Monday as part of a tourism pilot scheme. ATIENZA (EFE)

In Madrid, only Terminal 4 (T4) is currently in operation at the Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas airport. Terminal 1, which has been closed since April, will reopen on July 1. And in the next few weeks, Aena will decide when to reopen T2, T3 and the satellite terminal (T4S). This decision will depend on the ongoing health and economic crisis, the restrictions on movement and the developments in air traffic, which are still unknown factors.

In Barcelona, Aena will progressively increase operations at the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat airport as airlines resume flights to the city. The T1 side dock is set to reopen in July, joining zones A and D, which have remained operational during the coronavirus crisis. The terminals T2A and T2B will reopen in August, when a rise in passengers and flights is expected.

In Palma de Mallorca airport in Spains Balearic Islands, one third of Terminal C is expected to open on June 15 to coincide with the beginning of the tourist pilot scheme. Of the 47 flights scheduled to arrive in the archipelago over the next two weeks, 38 will land in Palma de Mallorca, eight in Ibiza and one in Menorca. More of the airport will resume activity in August, with Terminal C and A set to be completely operational in September.

Aena will progressively reopen the rest of Spains airports as the state of alarm comes to an end on June 21 and travel restrictions are lifted. This plan is part of a broader project to reorganize the airport network as Spain enters the so-called new normality following a prolonged coronavirus lockdown and deescalation process.

Coronavirus safety measures

Over the last few weeks, Aena has been implementing coronavirus safety measures to ensure that the travelers can fly safely. Informational posters have been placed in key areas of airports, and hand sanitizer dispensers, floor markers to indicate safe distances and protective screens have also been introduced. Whats more, reminders to wear face masks and keep apart from other travelers are emitted every five minutes over the airport loudspeakers.

From July 1, Aenas airports will screen for potential coronavirus cases using thermal-imaging cameras, which can check the body temperature of several people simultaneously, an improvement from doing it one at a time with a thermometer pointed at a persons forehead.

Travelers will also have to complete a Passenger Location Card (PLC), which they must fill in with information about any coronavirus symptoms they might have, and their contact address during their stay in Spain. These forms, which are currently handed out, will be computerized to make the process faster and avoid large gatherings in airports. Similar measures have been included in the tourism scheme in the Balearic Islands.

Aenas plan has been developed following the recommendations set out by the European Commission and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and in collaboration with EU member states, the airport association ACI Europe and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

English version by Melissa Kitson.
A woman managed to call police from the boot of a car after she was allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint and assaulted.

One woman and two men were arrested after the woman called triple zero just before 1am on Saturday.

She was still tied up inside the boot of the Mitsubishi sedan when police arrived at the home in Elizabeth Park, northern Adelaide.

Police will allege the victim met one of the accused at Para Hills earlier in the evening, before she was threatened with a gun and forced to drive to the home.

The woman claimed she was threatened and kidnapped at gunpoint. Police later found a replica gun in the home

There, police believe she was taken inside and assaulted, before being tied up and dumped in the car.

During the short phone call, the woman was able to lead police to the home by offering vague details of the alleged incident and her whereabouts.

When police arrived, they found the victim's purse, clothing and jewellery inside the home along with a replica handgun.

Three people were arrested at the scene; a 33-year-old woman from Elizabeth Park, 33-year-old man from Valley View and 39-year-old man from Para Hills.

They were all known to the victim, police claim.

The trio have all been charged with kidnapping, threatening to kill and aggravated assault causing harm.

Three people were arrested at the scene; a 33-year-old woman from Elizabeth Park, 33-year-old man from Valley View and 39-year-old man from Para Hills

Police are looking for a fourth person who they believe is connected to the alleged incident.

The woman was taken to Lyell McEwin Hospital, where she was treated for several injuries including a fractured eye socket.

All three accused were refused bail to appear before Elizabeth Magistrates Court on Monday afternoon.

Detectives are now appealing for anybody with information, or who may have seen the black Misubishi Magna sedan on Friday night, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

They believe the car may have been travelling through the northern suburbs of Adelaide erratically between 7pm on Friday and 1am on Saturday.
Pune, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global paper slitting machine market is anticipated to gain traction from the rising initiatives by several organizations to lower energy consumption of the paper slitting machine by surging production capacity and bringing in digitization. This information is given by Fortune Business Insights in a recently published report, titled, Paper Slitting Machine Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Blade Type (Razor Blade, Shear Blade, and Air Score Blade), By Technology (Manual, Semi-Automatic, and Fully Automatic) and Regional Forecast, 2020-2027. The report further mentions that the paper slitting machine market size was USD 417.4 million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 548.6 million by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.5% during the forecast period.





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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.

Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/paper-slitting-machine-market-102919







This Report Answers the Following Questions:

What are the growth drivers and trends of the market?

How will the companies boost sales of paper slitting machine in the near future?

Which region would lead the market by generating the highest revenue?

What is the competitive scenario of the market?

Drivers & Restraints-

Rising Digitization of Production Process to Drive Growth

Several prominent paper slitting machines manufacturers are gradually inclining towards automated solutions to achieve high efficiency and increase productivity. They are conductive extensive research and development activities to refine the entire production process of paper slitting machines. This would help them in reducing the waste generated by these machines, as well as in boosting the output. Therefore, it would lower the expenditure of such manufacturers. Also, the productivity of several manufacturers has surged owing to the digitization of their production process. However, the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic is likely to hamper the paper slitting machine market growth as the governments of many countries have decreased the trade of non-essential products globally.

Segment-

Shear Blade Segment to Gain Maximum Share Owing to Their High Accuracy

In terms of blade type, the market is segregated into air score blade, shear blade, and razor blade. Out of these, the razor blade segment held 31.9% paper slitting machine market share in 2019. The shear blade segment is anticipated to generate the highest share during the forthcoming years backed by its ability to provide high accuracy during the cutting process.





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Regional Analysis-

Availability of Labor at Low Cost to Accelerate Growth in Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific procured USD 196.5 million in 2019 in terms of revenue. This growth is attributable to the availability of labor at cheap rates. Also, the densely populated countries, such as India and China house several paper slitting machine manufacturers for their lower capital costs. Both the countries are considered to be the major manufacturing hubs for a wide range of paper products. Europe is expected to generate a considerable share fueled by the existence of multiple industry giants in this region. Besides, the regulatory bodies in this region are investing hefty amounts of money in a number of manufacturing projects.

Competitive Landscape-

Key Companies Aim to Increase Sales by Providing Innovative Technologies

Reputed companies present in the market are enhancing their research and development activities by investing huge sums. They are striving to equip the paper slitting machines with unique technologies. Below are two of the latest industry developments:

October 2019 : Atlas Converting Equipment Ltd. unveiled ER610-DT, its next generation compact turret slitter rewinder. It is capable of processing web widths up to 1650mm. It has a speed of 600m/min.

: Atlas Converting Equipment Ltd. unveiled ER610-DT, its next generation compact turret slitter rewinder. It is capable of processing web widths up to 1650mm. It has a speed of 600m/min.



April 2018: GOEBEL IMS announced the expansion of its service portfolio by opening MyLab. It is the companys latest 800sqm customer innovation and application centre to serve their clients efficiently.

Fortune Business Insights provides a list of all the paper slitting machine manufacturers operating in the market. They are as follows:

Parkland Machines Ltd (England)

ASHE Converting Equipment (England)

SOMA (Czech Republic)

ATLAS CONVERTING EQUIPMENT LT (United Kingdom)

GOEBEL Schneid und Wickelsysteme GmbH (Germany)

Kampf Schneid- und Wickeltechnik GmbH & Co. KG (Germany)

Euromac S.r.l. (Italy)

Parkinson Technologies, Inc (United States)

Pasquato cutting machines (ITALY)

Universal Converting Equipment (United Kingdom)





Quick Buy  Paper Slitting Machine Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/102919







Detailed Table of Content

Introduction Definition, By Segment Research Approach Sources

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Drivers, Restraints and Opportunities Emerging Trends of Market

Key Insights Macro and Micro Economic Factors Consolidated SWOT Analysis of Key Players Porters Five Forces Analysis Impact of Covid-19: Paper Slitting Machines Industry Analysis

Global Paper Slitting Machine Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2016-2027 Key Findings / Summary Market Sizing Estimations and Forecasts  By Blade Type (Value) Razor Blade Shear Blade Air Score Blade Market Sizing Estimations and Forecasts  By Technology (Value) Manual Semi-Automatic Fully Automatic Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast  By Region (Value) North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa Latin America



TOC Continued..!!!







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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 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.
Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness said it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close 100 locations around the United States, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. (Google Maps)

24 Hour Fitness Files for Bankruptcy, Closes 100 Locations

Gym chain 24 Hour Fitness said it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will close 100 locations around the United States, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Months ago, a number of governors ordered the closure of non-essential businesses, which includes gyms, to slow the spread of the virus.

In a news release on Monday, the chain said it is continuing to reopen clubs in a phased approach and welcome members in locations nationwide, carefully following state and local government and public health agency guidelines.

The company expects to reopen the majority of its footprint by the end of June. During the time of phased club reopenings, all club members will have access to any available 24 Hour Fitness club through the end of 2020, regardless of membership level, the release said.

But in a notice on its website, 24 Hour Fitness said it will shutter about 100 locations nationwide, noting that it has made the difficult decision to close the following locations.

CEO Tony Ueber placed most of the blame on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic for the bankruptcy filing and closures.

If it were not for COVID-19 and its devastating effects, we would not be filing for Chapter 11. With that said, we intend to use the process to strengthen the future of 24 Hour Fitness for our team and club members, as well as our stakeholders, he said.

Ueber added: We expect to have substantial financing with a path to restructuring our balance sheet and operations to ensure a resilient future. The COVID-19 environment has proved that attention to health and fitness are more important now than ever before. As a result of this restructuring, we will gain financial strength and flexibility to accelerate our business transformation plan, which includes reinvestment in our existing clubs, opening new clubs, and introducing several new innovative products and services that will enhance the fitness experience for our club members and guests for many years to come.

Golds Gym, a similar gym chain, filed for bankruptcy in May, while noting that the CCP virus affected it in many ways, including the temporary closure of hundreds of locations.

Earlier this month, storied retailer JCPenney announced it would shut down 154 locations across the United States over the coming summer. It came days after the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

While closing stores is always an extremely difficult decision, our store optimization strategy is vital to ensuring we emerge from both Chapter 11 and the COVID-19 pandemic as a stronger retailer with greater financial flexibility to allow us to continue serving our loyal customers for decades to come, Chief Executive Jill Soltau said in a statement about the closures at the time.
Two Indian high commission staffers posted in Islamabad have gone missing on Monday morning, people familiar with the developments told Hindustan Times. It is suspected that the two staffers may have been picked up by Pakistani security agencies to frame them as spies.

India has very strongly raised the disappearance of the two staffers, both in Pakistan and New Delhi, a senior official said. The Pakistani side has claimed that they are still looking into the matter, a senior government official said.

ALSO WATCH | India expels two Pakistan High Commission officials over espionage charges

The Pakistani move is seen as a tit-for-tat for the expulsion of two Pakistan high commission officials who were recently caught for spying.

Officials said the two Indian staffers posted at the Islamabad mission had stepped out for some work on Monday morning. When they did not reach their destination, high commission officials informed New Delhi and Pakistans foreign office.

The Pakistani action comes just about a fortnight after Delhi Police caught three staffers of the Pakistan high commission in Delhi on a charge of trying to obtain classified information on the Indian security establishment.

Abid Hussain Abid, 42, an assistant in the Pakistani mission and Mohammad Tahir Khan, 44, a clerk, were expelled following their detention. The third was a driver, Javed Hussain, 36.

They had been in touch with three army personnel and one railways official and were trying to get information about Indian army troop movements.

Abid and Khan, who both work for the visa section at the Pakistani mission, were expelled from the country on May 31.

Officials said Pakistani agencies started harassment of high commission officials in Islamabad soon after.

Indian diplomats, including charge daffaires Gaurav Ahluwalia, have been harassed and aggressively tailed by Pakistani security personnel. High Commission officials have also complained about intimidating behaviour by the Pakistani personnel outside their residences.

India has been shooting note verbales to Pakistans foreign office ever since, reminding Islamabad that the behaviour of its security personnel violates the letter and spirit of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 and the 1992 pact between the two countries that lists the code of conduct for treatment of diplomatic and consular personnel. The last one was sent on Friday.

A senior official in New Delhi said Pakistani intelligence personnel were notorious for using strongarm tactics including use of physical assault, a sharp contrast to the detailed investigations that were carried out in New Delhi before ordering expulsion.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shishir Gupta Author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (2011, Hachette) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (2014, Hachette). Awarded K Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) and the 2011 Ben Gurion Prize by Israel. ...view detail
Mumbai, June 15 : A day after Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput hanged himself, the police have launched a probe into the suicide from various angles even as his last rites were performed, here on Monday.

The report of the autopsy, which was conducted on his body at the Dr R.N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital late on Sunday, was received on Monday.

"The provision post-mortem report has cited asphyxia as the cause of death," Deputy Commissioner of Police Abhishek Trimukhe told mediapersons, even as police have tentatively ruled out any possibility of a foul play.

The police have also quizzed Rajput's friends Rhea Chakravarty and Mahesh Shetty on the incident, and some more persons are likely to be questioned, sources said.

"As we are all deeply pained and shocked to hear about Sushant Singh Rajput's untimely demise, so is Mahesh Shetty. He has lost a brother, a very dear friend and is still coming to terms with the shock and reality and is completely heartbroken. We, his team, request the media and all of you, on his behalf, to please give him some privacy and let him grieve for his loss," said Shetty's team in a social media post.

As part of the probe, separate teams from the Bandra Police Station, the Crime Branch-CID and the Forensic Department visited Rajput's Bandra flat.

Earlier on Monday morning, Rajput's family reached Mumbai from Patna, visited his home in Bandra and later claimed his body.

It was subsequently taken for the funeral ceremonies at the Vile Parle Crematorium in heavy rains with a large number of mediapersons, police and a few fans present.

On Sunday (June 14) Rajput, 34, ended his life by hanging himself in the bedroom of his home and was found by his domestic help who alerted the police.

As the news of the suicide spread, Bollywood and thousands of his fans were plunged into grief amid widespread speculation of the reasons hurtling him to resort to the ultimate step.

Latest updates on Sushant Singh Rajput Death Mystery

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
Islamabad/New Delhi, June 16 : Two Indian High Commission staffers in Pakistan, who were presumed missing since Monday morning, have been handed over to Islamabads secretariat police station late on Monday night. They were arrested by Pakistani police for their alleged involvement in a road accident in Islamabad.

The staffers were handed over to Indian High Commission officials, who had gone to take their custody.

The two staffers went missing at 8:30 a.m. and since then they were untraceable. India has since taken up the matter with its Pakistani counterparts to ensure the safety of the Indian officials.

Sources in Islamabad said "two Indian diplomats have been arrested by police authorities" after they were allegedly "involved in a road accident". Both are security officials of India's Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), assigned as security to the High Commissioner and other diplomats. The officials, as per police sources, "were over speeding when the accident occurred." However, there was no official communication from Pakistan.

At least one person has been injured in the accident, sources said, adding that as the two Indian staffers tried to flee, the locals stopped them. Later the police arrived and arrested both of them.

Sources said that both the Indian High Commission staffers were out on duty in Islamabad and did not reach their destination.

Sources in New Delhi said that Pakistan's charge d'affaires Syed Hyder Shah was summoned to the Ministry of External Affairs and demarched on the reported arrest of two officials of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

India, in its protest against the arrests, has made it clear that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials. The responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities, the government had conveyed to Pakistan.

Pakistan's spy agency ISI has been harassing and intimidating India's top diplomats in Islamabad ever since the two officials of the Pakistan mission in New Delhi were deported for indulging in espionage activities.

The ISI has deployed several spies in cars and bikes outside the residence of India's charge d'affaires Gaurav Ahluwalia. Since May 31, after the two Pakistani mission officials were caught spying and were deported from New Delhi, ISI spies began chasing Ahluwalia's vehicle.

Indian law enforcement agencies had caught red-handed two Pakistani officials, Abid Hussain and Mohammad Tahir, for spying on the Indian Army on May 31. The duo used to meet Indian defence personnel as "businessmen" to get information. Both were declared persona non grata and were expelled from India.

Amid this, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad is finding it difficult to resume normal functioning as Indian diplomats and consular officials are facing aggressive tailing and surveillance.

Last Friday, India registered a protest in the form of a note verbale to Pakistani authorities. India asked Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of the Indian High Commission and its staff and to allow them to resume their activities in keeping with the Vienna Convention.

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Benjamin Gantz, Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister in Israel's new national unity government, addressed the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Global Forum today.

In a conversation with Avital Leibovich, Director of AJC Jerusalem, Gantz discussed threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies, U.S.-Israel relations, EU-Israel ties, and his vision for Israel and relations with the Diaspora.

"Iran is practicing regional aggressiveness all the time. It is the cornerstone of any negative activity and instability that we see around the region," especially with Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said Gantz.

He delivered a stern warning to Hezbollah, as well as to Lebanon and Syria, that they would "pay a huge price" for any action the Iranian-sponsored terrorist organization takes against Israel. "We demand from Lebanon, as much as we demand from Syria, statehood responsibility. If something happens to Israel from the soil of Lebanon or Syria, the hosting countries will have to pay the price," Gantz declared.

Gantz hailed the strong, "unique" U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship that is "based on shared values, shared interests, and the fact that we are two democratic countries."

"The United States is the biggest, strongest, and most reliable ally of the State of Israel," said Gantz, adding that "bipartisan support from the U.S. to Israel should be strengthened and we should not take it for granted."

On the U.S. peace proposal, Gantz, who met with President Donald Trump before its public release, said the plan "gives us a realistic approach" to achieving a stable future, and that he intends to promote it.

"It's a great plan," he said. "We have to work on the basis of it and move forward with regional partners, with local partners, of course with consensus within the Israeli society, and with full coordination and backup with the United States."

Turning to Europe, Gantz said EU-Israel relations are "very important," not only in trade  the EU is Israel's largest trading partner  but also in "the international support we should get there." Europeans and Israelis are facing "the same threats and challenges," for example, from Iran. "We should work together," said Gantz, who already has had meetings and phone calls with European representatives. "I am sure we can find a way to promote Israel-EU relations."

Regarding Israel's all-important relations with American and other Jewish communities in the Diaspora, Gantz said he would like "the Diaspora to see us as their home and for us to see them as partners."

"From my perspective," Gantz continued, "ultra-Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or secular, they are Jewish. And as I've declared before, the Western Wall is long enough to have a place for everybody."

"AJC," he told the audience, "is an important strategic partner of the State of Israel. Its activities around the globe are very important. It was important in the past, it's important in the present, and it will continue to be important in the future, so never stop!"

Gantz's vision of the state of Israel is based on four foundational pillars: "A Jewish country, a secure country, a prosperous country, and a fair and noble society." Combining those four elements, he said, forms "a national home for the entire Jewish people"

He went on to share his desire to create a new national service framework for Israel, including both military and civilian service options, in which "all Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, religious and secular" would participate. "Every citizen should give something for the country," he said.

The AJC Global Forum is the global Jewish advocacy organization's signature annual event. Originally scheduled to take place this week in Berlin, Germany, the venue was changed to an online meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 6,500 people are attending the Virtual Global Forum, June 14-18.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


In a March 27 letter, Knight thanked Bolton for his efforts to address the classification issues, but said additional edits were required to ensure national security information was protected. She outlined her concerns in 17 single-spaced pages of typed comments, Cooper said. He said Bolton worked through that weekend and sent Knight a response the following Monday. Bolton accepted most of Knights suggestions and proposed alternative solutions to others, Cooper said.
Turkish authorities are blocking NATO's implementation of a new defense plan for Eastern Europe - in particular for the Baltic states and Poland, DPA reported referring to sources.

Ankara requires wider support of its interests in the region in exchange for approval of the plan.

Turkey, for example, wants the rest of the alliance to include the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and the Kurdish National Self-Defense Forces in the list of terrorist organizations. Some NATO partners refuse to do so.

The alliance plan describes in detail what support can be provided to members in the event of an attack or aggravation of the security situation.

According to DPA, there were no obstacles to the implementation of plans at the NATO summit in London last December, TASS reported.
[June 15, 2020] Fortanix Expands Operations in Asia Pacific Region to Continue Meeting Growing Global Demand for Data Security Solutions

Fortanix Inc., a Runtime Encryption company, today announced the expansion of its operations in the Asia Pacific region to continue meeting the growing global demand for its data security solutions. The company has invested heavily in Asia Pacific, and today unveils a new in-region staff and a growing ecosystem of channel and distribution partners enabling Asia Pacific organizations to improve on-premises and cloud data security, all while lowering costs and reducing complexity of legacy systems. Fortanix has opened a new office in Singapore to support its growing Asia Pacific customer base and attract local channel partners and distributors to its growing partner programs. The company recently named Gerry Sillars as Vice President Asia Pacific, who most recently ran Asia Pacific for Skybox Security. Already seeing significant interest and growth in the region, Fortanix now has customers in all focus geographies in the region. "We were looking for a way to protect our expanding digital assets across multiple cloud environments and PaaS offerings," said Saleem Javed, Founder & CTO at Human Managed, which is running Fortanix on the new Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure Confidential Computing Platform. "We selected Fortanix because of its simplified User Experience (UX) and ability to provide an integrated data security platform covering key management, hardware security modules, tokenization, and secrets management from an intuitive User Interface (UI). With the new Singapore presence, Fortanix is providing exceptional technical and sales support." Today, companies choose to keep sensitive data on-premises, missing out on advantages of scalable cloud processing. In some cases, data security is siloed between separate on-premises and public cloud systems. Fortanix Self-Defending Key Management Service (KMS) provides a cloud-native data security platform with cryptographic services, shared secrets and tokenization across cloud and on-premises environments from a single centralized point of management and audit. "Fortanix recognizes the significant opportunity tht the Asia Pacific region represents and we have made a significant early investment to support that opportunity and our global customers, creating a major initial footprint in the region," said David Greene, CRO of Fortanix. "We have recruited an experienced team led by Gerry Sillars with a strong track record of successfully taking new cybersecurity technologies to the region to help us meet our aggressive revenue and growth goals."



Fortanix has established a two-tier channel model to help it meet its aggressive revenue goals for Asia Pacific. The company has already signed distribution contracts with NextGen (News - Alert) Distribution Australia; NextGen Distribution New Zealand; ACA Pacific covering Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore; Vietsoft covering Vietnam; i-Value covering India; and SAARC and Info-Works covering Korea. Distribution agreements in Japan and the Philippines will be set soon. Fortanix also recently established a certification program for Value Added Resellers/Systems Integrators, with Solista of Australia being the first partner to have completed the program. "ACA Pacific is very excited about being recently appointed as the regional distributor for Fortanix," said Craig Gledhill, CEO at ACA Pacific. "We believe the solutions and technology Fortanix provides will transform the data security segment. This transformation will allow customers to deploy and manage encryption technology more cost effectively with no compromise on security capabilities. For ACA Pacific's partner community, Fortanix will provide them with the opportunity to give their customers a solution to a technology area that has seen little innovation in many years."

"The requirement for data encryption runs deep within the region across all verticals; more so now than ever as perimeter dissolution has been realized through rapid adoption of work from home models," said James Walters, business manager at NEXTGEN Distribution. "The Fortanix solution denies any opportunity for data to be exposed - addressing the 'encryption gap' which has, until now, been a key threat vector. The Fortanix web-scale architecture delivers high scalability and availability, allowing the solution to be adopted across all networks regardless of complexity. Fortanix has been key to strengthening NEXTGEN's security portfolio. It was purposefully targeted with NEXTGEN's advanced enterprise security distribution strategy as a key vendor, enabling us to provide a cohesive security fabric, underpinned by a ZTX framework, thus empowering our partner community to transform security across organizations within the region." About the Fortanix Asia Pacific Channel Partner (News - Alert) Program Fortanix is recruiting partners across all Asia Pacific regions and provides an opportunity for partners to offer new innovative data security solutions to their customer base, while creating new revenue streams. For more information, or to become a Fortanix Asia Pacific channel partner, see https://www.fortanix.com/partners/. About Fortanix Fortanix unlocks the power of organizations' most valuable data by securing it throughout its lifecycle, on premises and in the cloud. Fortanix provides unique deterministic security by encrypting applications and data everywhere - at rest, in motion, and in use with its Runtime Encryption technology built upon Intel (News - Alert) SGX. Fortanix secures F100 customers worldwide and powers IBM Data Shield and Equinix SmartKey HSM-as-a-service. Fortanix is venture backed and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information, see https://fortanix.com/. Fortanix and Runtime Encryption are registered trademarks of Fortanix, Inc. Self-Defending Key Management Service is a trademark of Fortanix, Inc. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005132/en/

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South Carolina's Confederate past is clashing with a recent movement to rid racist names, imagery and symbols in the military.

Department of Defense officials, military leaders and a bipartisan group of lawmakers are debating whether to rename prominent bases named after Confederate officers. One of the Palmetto State's largest Confederate groups, with more than 3,000 members, is lashing out at the notion.

Jamie Graham, the S.C. Division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and a retired Army sergeant, said the idea of renaming the bases is misguided.

"The Confederates have been a long part of American history," he said. "I think it's a travesty to change the names of these bases. You're singling out one group."

The military has historically recognized the Confederacy over the years. Three of the largest bases in the world  Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Benning in Georgia  are named for Confederate generals.

Ten Army bases have been named for Confederate leaders. A 2017 study by the Congressional Research Service found there were no Navy or Marine Corps bases named for Confederate military leaders.

South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860 and was one of the founding members of the Confederacy. The attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was the first major engagement of the Civil War. Many battles were fought in the Palmetto State and, even following Union victory, monuments and memorials are located in many cities and towns.

But none of the state's prominent military bases are named for Confederate leaders.

Columbia's Fort Jackson, the Army's largest basic training base, is named for Carolina native and former President Andrew Jackson. The seventh president is often criticized for his racist policies discriminating against Native Americans. In 2016, efforts were announced to phase out his image on the $20 bill and replace it with abolitionist Harriet Tubman by 2020. Under President Donald Trump's administration, the release of the bill has been delayed nearly a decade.

The debate to rename American military bases comes after the death of George Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis whose death at the hands of police was captured on video. After the clip gained widespread attention, protests happened all across the country, including South Carolina.

A long-awaited dialogue on police brutality, systemic racism and equality was sparked. The namesakes of America's military bases were swept into the conversation. Bipartisan proposals in the House and Senate emerged last week to change the names.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group, issued a statement praising the movement in Congress stating "the names of traitors to our country should not be prominently placed in public spaces, such as government land, schools, and parks, and especially not recognized by any military assets.

Sign up for our SC Military Digest newsletter Get exclusive military reporting, updates from Palmetto State bases, headlines from around the globe and more delivered to your inbox each Tuesday. Email

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Trump, however, may be a roadblock to the campaign. The commander in chief took to Twitter to shut down the debate about renaming bases.

"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," Trump tweeted last week. "Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations."

Even Trump administrators, namely Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, have stated they are "open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic."

The debate comes amid a push within the military to identify and curb racism in the ranks.

Despite the fast-moving movement to rename the bases, Graham said he is unfazed. He was in the Army for 10 years and he served at North Carolina's Fort Bragg, named for Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.

"No matter what you changed the name to, I still served at Fort Bragg," he said.

A February survey by the Military Times revealed more than one-third of all active-duty troops and more than half of minority service members say they have personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideologically driven racism within the service.

In March, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger asked officers to create a policy to remove Confederate-related paraphernalia from all of the branchs bases.

This month, both the Navy and the Marines finalized orders to ban the display of the Confederate flag.

At the end of May, the S.C. National Guard made a statement announcing it was conducting a military investigation after a staff-member's racist social media posts were brought to its attention.
New research indicates that South Africans are more worried about unemployment and the economy than the COVID-19 coronavirus.

This is according to new Consumer Pulse research from GfK South Africa into the behaviours and sentiment of local consumers during the last weeks of the level 4 lockdown.

86% of respondents said they were extremely concerned about unemployment, compared to 80% in a survey conducted during the level 5 lockdown.

66% said they were extremely worried about COVID-19, compared with 80% in level 5. Conversely, 74% of South Africans surveyed said they were extremely concerned about an economic crisis during level 4.

Most South Africans have had their professional lives drastically changed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown regulations.

25% of South Africans said they were working reduced hours during the lockdown, and 7% of respondents said they had been retrenched. Additionally, 69% of South Africans said their income had decreased as a result of the lockdown.

While growing numbers of South Africans or members of their families have been exposed to COVID-19, larger numbers are directly experiencing the economic fallout of the virus and the lockdown, said GfK South Africa Insights Director Rachel Thompson.

With the majority of consumers reporting decreased income and higher prices, South Africans are feeling the financial pressure.

The number of South Africans who believe that the economic impact of the coronavirus will be a short-term problem is also declining, the research stated.

Widespread fear and sadness

GfK South Africa found that 70% of South Africans reported negative feelings such as fear and sadness during the level 4 lockdown.

43% of South Africans said they were bored, and 42% said they were anxious.

Locals are also cognizant of the benefits of social distancing, with 60% stating that they would maintain social distancing for a time or be cautious in their social behaviour.

However, 16% of respondents said they cant wait to get back to all the things I did before social distancing regardless of any remaining risk.

Despite their eagerness to go back to the activities they love, consumers also appear to be resigned to a deep change in their lives, not much of it positive, GfK said.

Almost half (46%) told us they expect their work situation to be worse after the crisis and 68% expect many small businesses to close. Most (79%) predict that working from home will become the norm.

Post-pandemic activities

The survey found that South African consumers were looking forward to the following after the pandemic had run its course:

Shopping  43%

Dining at restaurants  47%

Socialising outdoors  49%

14% of South Africans said they would avoid physical stores and shopping malls after the pandemic, and 27% said they would rely on home delivery more often.

When it comes to ecommerce and deliveries, South Africans said they expected the following from local companies:

Free delivery  60%

Fast delivery  64%

Click-and-collect  56%

Telephonic support  55%

Many local buyers also reported negative retail experiences during level 4 lockdown, with 52% stating that prices for the items they usually bought were higher than normal.

51% said the goods they were looking for were out of stock, and 32% said they had to purchase brands they would not usually buy.

The infographic below details the findings of the GfK survey.
Press Release

June 15, 2020 Villar: Duterte's announcement against Manila Bay reclamation encouraging for a pro-environment #NewNormal Sen. Cynthia Villar said President Rodrigo Duterte's repeated announcement expressing his stance against the reclamation of Manila Bay indicates how the government remains true to its commitment to rehabilitate and protect the bay. Villar, chairperson of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, noted that in various times during his public address briefing the people on the state of the country under quarantine, the President gave the assurance that he will not allow the reclamation of Manila Bay even in the face of the urgent need to fund the COVID-19 pandemic response. She also noted that the President has advised private individuals lobbying for these reclamation projects to wait for the next presidency. "Going into the new normal, there are a lot of things that will have to cease to exist but I am glad the policies that will help us achieve our goals for the preservation of our biodiversity, especially the protection and the rehabilitation of Manila Bay will continue," Villar said. On January 27, 2019, the "Battle for Manila Bay" was launched to reinforce the Supreme Court continuing mandamus issued on December 2008, which directs 13 agencies and private entities to clean up, rehabilitate, preserve, restore, and maintain the waters of Manila Bay to a level that is fit for swimming, skin-diving, and other forms of contact-recreation. Also on the basis of the continuing mandamus, Duterte signed Administrative Order No. 16 creating the Manila Bay Task Force on February 19, 2019. Even before her election as senator, Villar has been in the forefront of the fight against Manila Bay reclamation. In 2012, together with more than 315,000 residents of Las Pinas, Paranaque and Cavite, she petitioned for a Writ of Kalikasan to block the reclamation of the Las Pinas-Paranaque Wetland Park, a Ramsar-listed Wetland of International Importance. Villar said reclamation of Manila Bay will exacerbate flooding in nearby areas and will destroy the source of fish supply of NCR and parts of Cavite and Central Luzon. It will also affect the livelihood of over 300,000 fisher folk. "After successfully protecting the wetland from the threat of reclamation, we are now highlighting its natural biodiversity and creating awareness on the park's importance as a sanctuary of migratory birds and haven of flora and fauna," Villar said. Villar also envisions making the 175-hectare critical habitat the premiere learning environment for urban wetlands in the Philippines and a model of sustainable eco-tourism. Towards this end, the senator developed the park and built the Wetland Center, Visitors' Center, bird hides, boardwalk and view towers. As her contribution to improve water quality in the areas of Manila Bay with the highest coliform levels, aside from the holding of regular coastal clean-ups, Villar initiated a project to stop open defecation at Baseco Compound in Manila. Together with the Department of Health, she worked to provide toilet facilities to residents.
ABC NewsBy JACK ARNHOLZ, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- A key sponsor of an upcoming GOP-backed police reform bill said there should absolutely be a ban on the police use of chokeholds, the restraint an officer used when George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.



"That was one of the things that we should have engaged in a long time ago," Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on This Week Sunday.



Many departments around the country have already banned chokeholds, he said. There's been a longstanding principle out there that that is not needed.



While the senator did not disclose whether a chokehold ban would appear in the upcoming legislation, he teased other components of the bill, which he has said Republicans expect to unveil Wednesday.



"Our focus is on basic things like transparency, Lankford said, citing plans to increase access to police disciplinary records, ensure consistent use of body cameras and sending all reports of in-custody deaths to the FBI.



A national chokehold ban is a key feature of the sweeping legislation introduced by congressional Democrats last week. The plan, introduced in the House, would also limit the transfers of military weaponry to state and local police departments.



The Oklahoma senator's comments come after President Donald Trump told Fox News on Friday, I dont like chokeholds and said, generally speaking, it should be ended.



Any piece of legislation will likely require the support of Trump, who says the White House is finalizing an executive order on policing.



The upcoming GOP-backed police reform effort comes as another debate has emerged from the nationwide protests: whether Confederate leaders should still be honored with statues or with their names on military installations.



Stephanopoulos pushed Lankford on whether he agrees its time to rename those military bases.



I do, actually, Lankford said, adding that he recommends studying the issue before making the changes.



That puts Lankford at odds with the president, who wrote on Twitter, "our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with."



Lankford told Stephanopoulos he still plans on attending Trump's upcoming campaign rally in the senators home state on June 20.



The campaign had originally scheduled the event for June 19 -- the same day as the Juneteenth holiday celebrating the end of slavery -- in Tulsa, a city notorious for one of the worst episodes of violence against black Americans in the country's history.



Lankford said he encouraged the president to postpone, telling Trump he thought it would be more respectful. And when the president announced the date change, he said it was out of respect for the holiday.



However, many infectious disease experts, including like Dr. Anthony Fauci, have warned that attending large rallies may increase the exposure risk to coronavirus.



When pressed by Stephanopoulos on how the campaign can safely put on a rally with 19,000 to 20,000 people in attendance, Lankford said, "I don't know how they're going to handle that, actually.



That will up to be the city of Tulsa, ... the governor of Oklahoma and the Trump team itself to be able to figure out how they want to be able to manage that," he continued.

Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
Actor, director and producer Tyler Perry will be paying for the funeral of Rayshard Brooks, the black man fatally shot to death by police outside of a Wendy's in Atlanta on Friday.

The announcement was made during a press conference by Chris Stewart, the attorney representing Brooks' family. The family also spoke of Brooks as a loving and dependable family man who has been left traumatized by his death.

Perry has not made a public comment on his gift to the family.

In the aftermath of Brooks death, Atlantas police chief resigned and one of the officers involved in the incident was fired. Another was placed on administrative leave. Protests broke out anew in the city.

An analysis by the New York Times released Sunday used video from witnesses, bodycams and security cameras to piece together the sequence of events leading to Brooks death.

RELATED:

Atlanta officer fired after fatal shooting of black man

Fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks by Atlanta police sparks new protests, shuts down freeways

Atlanta police chief resigns after cops fatally shoot black man at a fast-food restaurant

Actor Tyler Perry pays for groceries during coronavirus senior hour at several supermarkets
In this article DIS

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The number of coronavirus cases globally jumped past 8 million on Tuesday during Asia time. China reported 40 new cases as a new cluster in Beijing continued to grow. That new cluster, linked to a wholesale market in Beijing, could impact food shipments into China. New coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in a handful of U.S. states, prompting warnings from some health officials that greater precautions might be necessary to keep the health systems from being overwhelmed. As people grow fatigued from social distancing and other precautions, pharmaceutical and biotech companies are racing forward to develop treatments and a vaccine for the virus. 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 8.01 million

Global deaths: At least 436,306

U.S. cases: More than 2.11 million

U.S. deaths: At least 116,135 The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University as at 9:45 a.m. Singapore time.

Switzerland's economy could reportedly lose more than $100 billion due to virus

Switzerland's economy could lose more than $100 billion in output due to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the government said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The government expects 2020 gross domestic product (GDP) to be around 652 billion Swiss francs ($687.26 billion), down from a forecast for 712 billion francs made in December. "On a per capita basis the downturn is going to be as bad as the mid-1970s, if not worse," said government economist Ronald Indergand said, Reuters reported. "It is going to take years to get over this. The economy is only going to get back to its previous level by 2022." Earlier Tuesday, government economists forecast a 6.2% fall in GDP in 2020 and for unemployment to average 3.8% over the year as a whole. "This would make it the lowest economic slump since 1975," the government report said.  Holly Ellyatt

IEA sees largest drop of oil demand in history in 2020

09:30 a.m. London time: Oil prices have tumbled around 40% year-to-date, as lockdown measures designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus created an unparalleled demand shock in energy markets. The International Energy Agency said on Tuesday that it expects the fall in oil demand this year to be the largest in history, but believes there are signs the market could reach "a more stable footing" over the coming months. International benchmark Brent crude futures traded at $40.51 on Tuesday morning, up almost 2%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures stood at $37.72, around 1.6% higher.  Sam Meredith

Ride-hailing firm Grab cuts hundreds of jobs

2:50 p.m. (Singapore time)  Southeast Asian ride-hailing company Grab announced that it would be cutting 360 jobs, or about 5% of its headcount. The Singapore-based company, which has a presence in eight countries, said the move was due to the impact of the coronavirus. In a note addressed to its employees, Chief Executive Anthony Tan said: "We tried everything possible to avoid this but had to accept that the difficult cuts we are making today are required, because millions depend on us for a living in this new normal."  Weizhen Tan

New Beijing cluster at wholesale market could impact food imports

2:16 p.m. (Singapore time)  A new cluster linked to a wholesale market in Beijing could impact food shipments into China. According to local media, the virus was found on chopping boards used for imported salmon at the Xinfadi market. On Monday, the World Health Organization said that the claim the new cluster might have originated from salmon imports or their packaging was not the "primary hypothesis," Reuters reported. The situation would be "difficult" if the cluster is traced back to imported meat as China needs imports to keep meat inflation under control, Darin Friedrichs, senior Asia commodity analyst at trading house INTL FCStone said in a report on Monday. Any additional safety measures in the handling and process of imported meat could also be disruptive to the industry. Even if it is determined that the new cluster was not triggered by imported meat, the reports may have already hit consumer sentiment. If that triggers a shift in preference for domestic pork, that could drive up food inflation.  Huileng Tan

Singapore set to move into next phase of reopening

9:55 a.m. (Singapore time)  Singapore is set to lift most restrictions on Friday. People will be allowed to dine out at restaurants, and social gatherings of up to five people will be permitted. Shops, sports facilities, fitness studios, and parks will also be allowed to reopen. However, bars and nightclubs will remain closed, and religious congregations, conferences are still not allowed to take place.  Weizhen Tan

New cluster in Beijing continues growing

9:20 a.m. (Singapore time)  China's National Health Commission reported 40 new cases, with 27 of those in Beijing as a new cluster in the city continued to grow. Overall, there were 32 locally transmitted cases and 8 imported cases. There were no additional deaths. China's total number of reported cases is now 83,221. Beijing had no new confirmed cases for almost two months until an infection was reported on June 12, according to Reuters. The new cluster in Beijing has been linked to a wholesale food market. The city began imposing restrictions again, such as closing schools and sports venues, as well as ordering people to get tested for the coronavirus. The first cases of the virus were first reported in December in China's Wuhan city, also at a seafood market. Cases of Covid-19 have now spread globally, with more than 8 million infections according to Johns Hopkins University data.  Weizhen Tan

FDA warns against taking hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir together

7 p.m. ET  Taking hydroxychloroquine along with remdesivir may weaken the effectiveness of the latter drug, the Food and Drug Administration warned, citing a recently completed non-clinical study. Remdesivir was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA to treat hospitalized patients sickened with Covid-19 in May. Hydroxychloroquine had also been granted a EUA for the coronavirus, but the designation was revoked earlier in the day after the FDA found it was unlikely to be effective. The news by the FDA of the potential drug interaction is likely to further dampen hopes that hydroxychloroquine is helpful against the coronavirus. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

JPMorgan to bring more workers into NYC office next week

A person on a scooter rides past a JPMorgan Chase & Co. bank branch in New York, U.S., on Thursday, June 11, 2020. Jeenah Moon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

6:20 p.m. ET  JPMorgan Chase is planning to bring more traders back to its headquarters in New York City on June 22, according to someone with knowledge of the bank's plans. Around 20% of the division's staff has worked from offices during the pandemic, but that number could rise to 50% by mid-July, CNBC's Hugh Son reports.



JPMorgan will institute safety measures like requiring employees to wear masks in common areas and marking desks with colored stickers to indicate where workers can sit. Phasing in the trading division staff will be an early test to see how the company can safely increase in-person attendance. Hannah Miller

Sacramento Kings exploring breathalyzer concept to detect Covid-19

5:30 p.m. ET  Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive said his organization is experimenting with a breathalyzer device to detect Covid-19. "You'll be able to blow into a tube and test whether somebody has the virus by looking through a spectroscope," Ranadive told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Monday. Ranadive said the Kings are exploring numerous "elimination of friction efforts" to avoid spreading the virus throughout the more than $500 million Golden 1 Center, including access to temperate gauges. Researchers at UCLA and Ohio State University have been awarded grants to test the Covid-19 breathalyzer concepts, one of which could produce results in 15 seconds. The testing system would be able to take certain compounds of an individual breath to detect coronavirus. The National Basketball Association approved plans on June 4 to resume its season after suspending operations due to the pandemic on March 11.  Jabari Young

WNBA finalizing plan to start 2020 season

5 p.m. ET  The Women's National Basketball Association said it is finalizing a plan to start its 2020 season in July. The league originally delayed its season start date of May 15 because of the pandemic. The plan calls for the season to include 22 regular games and a traditional playoff format. They would take place without spectators at IMG Academy, a sports academy in Bradenton, Fla. Players from all 12 WNBA teams would also live and train at the facility. The WNBA's announcement follows the National Basketball Association's approval of a plan that would restart its season on July 31 with 22 teams. The Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla. would host all games and players under the plan. Hannah Miller

California sees decline in positive coronavirus tests

Medical staff attend to a patient suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), at Scripps Mercy Hospital in Chula Vista, California, U.S., May 12, 2020. Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

4:30 p.m. ET  California Gov. Gavin Newsom gave an update on the state's Covid-19 response and said he is continuing to allow counties to tailor their reopenings to their specific needs and that they can decide themselves when to lift restrictions. "Those decisions should be made with a local lens," Newsom said at a press briefing. He said that as testing has increased in California, the rate of positive results has dropped dramatically from just over 40% in early April to 4.5% by the end of last week. The state has not yet seen a spike in cases after protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd. However, Newsom said the state is not yet "out of the woods," and is bracing for a potential increase in coroanvirus cases as California reopens further. "This pandemic is not going away," he said. "You're seeing an increase in numbers all across this country." Hannah Miller

Chinese government donates to struggling U.S. communities

Employees make face masks on a production line at a glove factory, which has started producing face masks as overseas orders for masks at an all time high amid the coronavirus outbreak, on May 16, 2020 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province of China. Yu Haiyang | China News Service via Getty Images

3:21 p.m. ET  The Chinese government has donated personal protective equipment and free meals to health care workers in struggling communities across the U.S., NBC News reports, in what some call "mask diplomacy." Critics say the donations, while legal and in some cases needed, are an attempt to garner good publicity as tensions between to the U.S. and China escalate. Chinese consulates in Chicago, San Francisco and Houston, among others, have donated free meals and face masks numbering in the thousands. Some lawmakers are denouncing the donations. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told NBC News that the donations are a way to make people think of China "as a leader on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic they caused." Alex Harring

WHO calls for more 'systematic, thorough investigation' on clusters in response to Beijing outbreak

3:06 p.m. ET  The World Health Organization urged scientists around the world to investigate disease clusters to understand the origin and cause of the coronavirus infection. The comments come after officials in Beijing reported a total of 79 confirmed cases of Covid-19 originating from Xinfadi, the biggest wholesale food market in Asia, since June 11. The market is more than 20 times larger than the seafood market in Wuhan where the coronavirus outbreak was first identified. The WHO said in a statement on Saturday that all confirmed cases are in isolation and under care. Health officials are currently tracking the origin of the new clusters in Beijing and closely monitoring the oubtreak. "The answers lie in careful, systematic, exhaustive investigation of disease clusters to really look at what is happening in these situations and what is causing the amplification of the disease in the human context," said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's emergencies program, during a press conference at the agency's Geneva headquarters. "If we get that, we will build up a much better picture of the public health advice we need to give to our communities on what behaviors to avoid, what places to avoid, and what circumstances to avoid," he said. Jasmine Kim

Back-to-work bonus could replace extended unemployment benefits

People who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, U.S. April 6, 2020. Nick Oxford | Reuters

2:32 p.m. ET  The Trump administration doesn't want to extend enhanced unemployment benefits past their scheduled July 31 end date, according to White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow. Instead, the administration and congressional Republicans want to replace the $600 a week in extra jobless benefits with a cash bonus that would pay a temporary, smaller weekly sum to Americans who find a new job. Democrats want to extend the $600 payments, arguing that high levels of joblessness will persist past July. Greg Iacurci

Democrats demand transparency on PPP loans

1:54 p.m. ET  House Democrats wrote to the chief executives of some of the country's largest banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, demanding documents pertaining to the paycheck protection program. The Democrats, led by House Majority Whip James Clyburn said they are investigating whether the program has favored "large, well-funded companies" over the smaller ones the program was intended for. Among the documents they want, they asked for "all internal communications" and policies pertaining to the program and correspondence with the Treasury and Small Business Administration. They also wrote to the Treasury, demanding a detailed list of everyone that applied and received loans from the program. They chastised both the Treasury and SBA for not making the need to prioritize loans for underserved communities a part of the program's guidance, despite what they say was the original intent of the CARES Act that established the program. Lauren Hirsch

San Francisco moves further into reopening

Customers of Mission Rock restaurant interact with their waitress on Friday, June 12, 2020, in San Francisco. Ben Margot | AP

1:28 p.m. ET  San Francisco has moved into Phase 2B of its reopening, joining other Bay Area counties in easing coronavirus restrictions. The city now allows outdoor dining, indoor shopping at retailers, non-emergency medical appointments and small gatherings, including religious services and ceremonies. Professional sports can resume for broadcast, but cannot have in-person spectators. Summer camps can also open in San Francisco. Hannah Miller

Trump-backed hydroxychloroquine 'unlikely to be effective,' FDA says

A pharmacy tech holds a bottle and a pill of Hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020. George Frey | Getty Images

1:04 p.m. ET  The Food and Drug Administration announced it is ending its emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, the drugs backed by President Donald Trump. The move by the agency comes nearly two weeks after a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found hydroxychloroquine was no better than a placebo in preventing infection of the coronavirus. The FDA, in its notice, said the drugs were "unlikely to be effective" in treating Covid-19 for the authorized uses in the EUA. The FDA had warned consumers in April against taking the drugs due to the risk of "serious heart rhythm problems" in some patients. Even though hydroxychloroquine is not a proven treatment for the coronavirus, some people across the world took it after a handful of small studies published earlier in the year suggested it could be beneficial and Trump promoted the drug as a potential treatment for the virus. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

Texas hospitalizations continue to climb

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12:40 p.m. ET  The number of patients sickened with Covid-19 across Texas' hospitals continues to climb with the state reporting its sixth new daily high in less than a week. Texas was among the first states to relax its statewide stay-at-home order. In the past week, Wednesday was the only day that Texas didn't set a new record for hospitalizations. It's likely to add to scrutiny from some U.S. lawmakers that some states, including Texas, opened businesses too early. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that states may need to reimplement the strict social distancing measures that were put in place earlier this year if U.S. coronavirus cases rise "dramatically." Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

Mnuchin says he will talk to lawmakers about small business bailout disclosure

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin exits the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after meeting with McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence at the U.S. Capitol on May 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer | Getty Images

12:22 p.m. ET  Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealed that he is planning to discuss small business bailout disclosure with members of the Senate. Mnuchin said he and the Senate will speak on a "bipartisan basis" about reaching a potential deal that protects the privacy of recipients of small business loans while ensuring proper oversight of the funds. Mnuchin announced the news in a tweet, saying he will be "having discussions" with the Senate Small Business Committee "to strike the appropriate balance for proper oversight" of the Paycheck Protection Program loans "and appropriate protection of small business information." Yelena Dzhanova

The Creative Arts Emmys will be hosted virtually this year

10:10 a.m. ET  The Television Academy announced the precursor ceremony to the Primetime Emmy Awards will be held virtually this year as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus. The event, which had been scheduled to take place on September 12 and 13, awards those behind-the-scenes working in production, design, set decoration, editing, casting and sound. The Governors Ball, the official afterparty for the Emmys, has also been canceled. The Television Academy still plans on hosting the Primetime Emmys on September 20, however it is evaluating safety measures for the ceremony. Sarah Whitten

U.S. hot spots could 'quickly get out of control,' former FDA chief says

9:48 a.m. ET  Without ramped up contact tracing and targeted mitigation strategies, U.S. hot spots could "quickly get out of control," former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC. Arizona, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas and a handful of others have seen an increase in cases in recent weeks. While some attribute the rise in cases to increased testing, hospitalizations, which are not tethered to the availability of testing, has also risen in a number of states. "What these states need to do, what these cities need to do is good contact tracing, not to find every individual who's infected, but to find the sources of infection, the activities that lead to the infection and take targeted mitigation steps," Gottlieb said. When reached for comment on Friday, Arizona's Maricopa County Public Health spokeswoman Sonia Singh told CNBC that it adjusts staff for "contact tracing up or down as needed in response to case count trends." She added that 90 additional staff are on the way, half of whom have already started. Gottlieb added that Arizona could take responsibility for contact tracing efforts away from the counties and centralize the effort under state leadership. William Feuer Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina.

U.S. restaurant industry lost $120 billion in sales due to pandemic

9:42 a.m. ET  From March through May, the restaurant industry lost $120 billion in revenue, according to the National Restaurant Association. The latest sales data from the trade group paint a bleak picture of the industry, which is expected to lose $240 billion by the end of the year. Restaurants across the country are reopening, but capacity limits and new rules to maintain social distancing constrain dining room sales. Three-quarters of restaurant operators say that it's unlikely that their restaurant will be profitable within the next six months. The NRA surveyed more than 3,800 U.S. restaurant operators between May 15 and May 25. Amelia Lucas

Dow drops more than 600 points, adding to last week's sharp losses

9:36 a.m. ET  Stocks opened lower as investors grappled with signs of a second wave of coronavirus cases amid the U.S. economy reopening, reports CNBC's Fred Imbert and Yun Li. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 608 points at the open, or 2.4%. The S&P 500 slid 1.9% while the Nasdaq Composite traded 1.4% lower. Melodie Warner

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Red Cross to test all donations for Covid-19 antibodies

Robert Becerra a Mobile Unit Assistant (MUA) for The Red Cross scans the bags and tubes filled with blood at Pechanga Arena on April 14, 2020 in San Diego, California. Ariana Drehsler | AFP | Getty Images

9:33 a.m. ET  The American Red Cross will test all donated blood, plasma and platelets for Covid-19 antibodies for a limited time. The blood bank is not testing for Covid-19 itself and said people who believe they may be ill with Covid-19 should not offer to donate until they are symptom-free for 28 days and are feeling well and healthy. Donations given before Monday will not be tested. The organization expects to offer the testing throughout summer months and testing may be extended into the fall. Results will be available around seven to 10 days after donating. Alex Harring

Delta gets Shanghai government approval to resume flights

9:19 a.m. ET  Delta Air Lines has received approval from the Shanghai government to resume flights from June 18, according to a Reuters report citing a company spokeswoman. The airline is still waiting for the Civil Aviation Administration of China to decide on how many flights it can resume and when it can do so, Reuters reported. China's aviation authority has said it would allow foreign airlines to increase flights between the country and other regions from June 8. Melodie Warner, Reuters

Europe starts rolling out contact-tracing apps as UK plans remain unclear

Jens Spahn,Federal Minister of Health, speaks in a press statement May 6, 2019. Kay Nietfeld | picture alliance | Getty Images

8:50 a.m. ET  Germany will launch an app to trace the contacts of coronavirus patients this week, Health Minister Jens Spahn said over the weekend. The country's app is being built with the help of Deutsche Telekom and SAP and relies on privacy-focused technology developed by Apple and Google. Italy's government has also launched an app based on the Apple-Google model, called Immuni. The U.K., on the other hand, says it will launch its own app "soon," but the timing of its launch remains unclear. There has been a rift in Europe over whether to use Apple and Google's "decentralized" approach, with Britain, France and Norway opting for a more centralized model. Norway announced on Monday that it was pausing work on its app after its data protection regulator flagged privacy concerns. Ryan Browne

U.S. hot spots persist

8:01 a.m. ET  Nationwide, about 21,000 people are infected with the coronavirus in the U.S. every day. But that national figure masks regional trends, which indicate that while the virus is slowing in the Northeast and Midwest, it's rising in the South and the West, CNBC's Meg Tirrell reported, citing data from the Covid Tracking Project. While some continue to attribute the rise in cases to increased testing, data on hospitalizations, which is not tethered to the availability of testing, is also on the rise in a number of states, including Arizona, Texas and North Carolina. Some states, such as Florida, do not report hospitalizations. The cities seeing the fastest case-doubling time are Yakima, Washington; Phoenix, Arizona; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Tampa, Florida, Tirrell reported, citing data from investment banking firm Evercore ISI. State officials have responded to the increase of infections in a variety of ways. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has insisted the state's hospitals are well prepared for a surge in patients. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has paused the state's reopening for seven days while health officials reexamine the data and trends. Will Feuer

European nations to pay $843 million for vaccine doses

A pedestrian walks past signage outside an AstraZeneca Plc research and development facility in Shanghai, China, on Monday, June 8, 2020. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

7:24 a.m. ET  Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and France have agreed to pay an initial 750 million euros ($843.2 million) for 300 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine against Covid-19, a spokesperson for Italy's health ministry said according to a Reuters report. The countries will have the option to buy a further 100 million doses, the health ministry said, according to the news agency. Italy itself will pay 185 million euros for 75 million doses of the vaccine, which is being developed by Oxford University. AstraZeneca announced on Saturday it had agreed with the four countries to supply up to 400 million doses of the vaccine, with deliveries starting by the end of 2020. The pharmaceutical said it was building a number of supply chains in parallel across the world and is seeking to expand manufacturing capacity further. Total manufacturing capacity currently stands at 2 billion doses, the company said. The vaccine is undergoing phase two and three clinical trials with around 10,000 adult volunteers taking part in the late-stage U.K. trial. In a statement Saturday, AstraZeneca said it "recognises that the vaccine may not work but is committed to progressing the clinical programme with speed and scaling up manufacturing at risk." Holly Ellyatt

Greece reopens to some foreign visitors in bid to kick-start tourism

People walk in the empty alleys in the town of Oia in the island of Santorini on June 14, 2020 as the country prepares for the return of tourists to Greece from around 30 countries by air, sea and land. Aris Messinis | AFP | Getty Images
The United States has got its largest Hanuman statue, at 25 feet high, built in Delaware. It is the tallest statue of a Hindu God in the country, and has been carved from a solid block of black granite. The Hanuman statue weighing 30,000kg took over a year to be completed.

READ | New Mexico reports 104 new virus cases, 4 new deaths

After a statue is delivered to the Delaware Temple the priests, as per their tradition conduct 5 to 10-day rituals. During this time the community is also invited to bond with the statue, Patibanda Sarma, president of Hindu Temple Association in Hockessin said.

"Once the statue is made according to a prescribed process by an artisan and is delivered to the temple, the temple priests normally conduct a 10 day, a 5 to 10-day rituals, mostly involving fire offerings and other rituals. And also the community is invited to bond with the statue," Patibanda Sarma, president of Hindu Temple Association in Hockessin told the Media in Delaware.

READ | Chandrababu Naidu accuses Andhra CM Jagan of 'taking revenge' against 'rival' TDP leaders

According to the Hindu rituals 'Yantra Pratishtha' and 'Prana Prathishtha' are done for the precise installation of the statue, Sarma said. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be no much gathering of the public during these ceremonies, he added.

The statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace at Holy Spirit Church in New Castle is the largest religious statue in the country and the latest Hanuman statue in Delaware will be second in the list of largest religious statues US.

READ | Sushant Singh Rajput's death irreparable loss to not only film industry but also for society:Khattar

READ | Putin on US protests, fight against coronavirus

(With inputs from ANI)
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian addressed a letter to leader of the Qatar Foundation, chairwoman of the Education Above All, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, welcoming her personal efforts on declaring September 9 as the International Day To Protect Education From Attack, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

Its very vital for schools to be safe and conflict-free places. As a country that ratified the Safe Schools Declaration, Armenia reaffirms its commitment to the global efforts aimed at the constant education and security for educational facilities and their whole staff during conflicts.

I am confident also that we will be able to ensure the safety of school environments only with joint efforts at this difficult period facing the humanity, the Armenian President said in the letter.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
KANAZAWA, Japan, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Researchers at Kanazawa University report in the Biophysical Journal that the process of cell removal from an epithelial layer follows from an inherent mechanical instability. Moreover, the forces generated by an extruding cell can drive the extrusion of other cells in a particular direction.

The outer or inner boundaries of organs in the human body are lined with so-called epithelial sheets. These are layers of epithelial cells that can individually change their 3D shape  which is what happens during biological processes like organ development (morphogenesis), physiological equilibrium (homeostatis) or cancer formation (carcinogenesis). Of particular interest is the process of cell extrusion, where a single cell loses its 'top' or 'bottom' surface and is subsequently pushed out of the layer. A thorough understanding of this phenomenon from a mechanical point of view has been lacking, but now, Satoru Okuda and Koichi Fujimoto from Kanazawa University have discovered that there is a purely mechanical cause for cell extrusion.

Mechanically speaking, a simple (single-layer) epithelial sheet is analogous to a foam, and can be represented as a layer of interconnected polyhedra. Okuda and Fujimoto used such a foam model to describe a monolayer of epithelial cells, with each cell a polyhedron with average volume V. Every cell is further characterized by the number of neighboring cells n, the area of the apical ('top') and the area of the basal ('bottom') surface. The model, taking into account mechanical forces between neighboring cells, leads to a formula for the total mechanical energy of an epithelial sheet as a function of only a few parameters, including V and n, as well as the in-plane density and a quantity called sharpness, which can distinguish between situations where basal and/or apical surfaces are present or not. (A vanished apical surface implies basal extrusion and vice versa.) By studying how the energy changes by varying these few parameters, the researchers were able to obtain valuable insights into the mechanics of an epithelial sheet.

The key finding of Okuda and Fujimoto is that the system exhibits an inherent mechanical instability: small changes in cell topology or cell density can cause cell extrusion without additional forces being applied. Furthermore, it turns out that a cell undergoing extrusion generates forces within the layer, which can direct the extrusion of other cells to either side of the layer.

The scientists also found many agreements between the outcomes of their model and observations in living systems, such as the occurrence of different epithelial geometries (e.g. 'rosette' or pseudostratified structures).

The model admittedly has limitations, for example the assumptions that the whole sheet and the individual cell surfaces are not curved but flat. However, quoting the researchers, "despite its limitations, [the] model provides a guide to understanding the wide range of epithelial physiology that occurs in morphogenesis, homeostasis, and carcinogenesis".

Background

Epithelial cells

Epithelial tissue, one of four kinds of human (or animal) tissue, is located on the outer surfaces of organs and blood vessels in the human body, and on the inner surfaces of 'hollow spaces' in various internal organs. A typical example is the outer layer of the skin, called the epidermis. Epithelial tissue consists of epithelial cells; it can be just one layer of epithelial cells (simple epithelium), or two or more (layered or stratified epithelium). Satoru Okuda and Koichi Fujimoto from Kanazawa University have now modeled a simple epithelium as an arrangement of polyhedra in order to study its mechanical properties and specifically the process of epithelial cell extrusion.

Cell extrusion

In epithelial tissue, cell extrusions happen  the processes whereby epithelial cells are 'pushed out' of the epithelium. Cell extrusion is an important biological process, regulating for example the removal of apoptotic (dead) cells, tissue growth and the response to cancer. Okuda and Fujimoto looked at a simple epithelium from a mechanical point of view. Modeling the epithelium as a layer of interconnected polyhedra, they found that cell extrusion  whereby the top or bottom surface of a polyhedron shrinks to a point and then vanishes  can be considered a purely mechanical property. An inherent instability, present in homogeneous sheets, can lead to cells being extruded due to small changes in density or topology.

Reference

Satoru Okuda, and Koichi Fujimoto. A Mechanical Instability in Planar Epithelial Monolayers Leads to Cell Extrusion, Biophysical Journal 118, 2549 (2020).

DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2020.03.028

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2020.03.028





About Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI)

https://nanolsi.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/en/



Nano Life Science Institute (NanoLSI), Kanazawa University is a research center established in 2017 as part of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The objective of this initiative is to form world-tier research centers. NanoLSI combines the foremost knowledge of bio-scanning probe microscopy to establish 'nano-endoscopic techniques' to directly image, analyze, and manipulate biomolecules for insights into mechanisms governing life phenomena such as diseases.



About Kanazawa University

http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/



As the leading comprehensive university on the Sea of Japan coast, Kanazawa University has contributed greatly to higher education and academic research in Japan since it was founded in 1949. The University has three colleges and 17 schools offering courses in subjects that include medicine, computer engineering, and humanities.



The University is located on the coast of the Sea of Japan in Kanazawa  a city rich in history and culture. The city of Kanazawa has a highly respected intellectual profile since the time of the fiefdom (1598-1867). Kanazawa University is divided into two main campuses: Kakuma and Takaramachi for its approximately 10,200 students including 600 from overseas.



About WPI nanoLSI Kanazawa University

Hiroe Yoneda

Vice Director of Public Affairs

WPI Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI)

Kanazawa University

Kakuma-machi,

Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +81 (76)-234-4550



SOURCE Kanazawa University
Shippensburg University is among the colleges and universities that have announced they will be open for classes once again in the fall with new restrictions in place due to the coronavirus.

The guidelines posted on Shippensburgs website outlines a plan to maintain awareness for COVID-19 risk among their student body and staff, limiting population density on campus and in classrooms, and creating a flexible environment to adapt to updates on the virus.

The classes for the fall 2020 semester will begin on August 17 and end on November 20, with a majority of coursework planned for in-person classes but supported by remote learning. Fall break has been moved to November 23-24, and finals for all courses would take place remotely following Thanksgiving.

All students and staff would be required to wear masks while on campus, perform daily self-checks for COVID-19 symptoms, participate in contact tracing as needed, and maintain staggered schedules for crowded areas like dining halls.

According to the plans posted to Shippensburgs website, residents will enjoy suite-style living, with each suite viewed as a 'family unit in cases of infection, quarantine, and isolation.

In addition, personal protective equipment and COVID-19-compliant access to campus activities, service and events would be provided to members of the campus community. The university would also install additional sanitizing stations on campus, as well as installing Plexiglass barriers where appropriate, and add signage to remind people to maintain safe distance.

The list of guidelines and amended fall schedule are similar to those measures announced by Penn State University on Sunday.

To read all of the new guidelines announced by Shippensburg University, visit their official website here.
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Linkedin Park Yuna (The Korea Herald/Asia News Network)  Mon, June 15, 2020 20:00 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee8ed1 2 Lifestyle tattoo,South-Korea,Youth Free

Showing tattoos in public has long been taboo in South Korea, where there are still many negative stereotypes about inked skin. In the past, tattoos were seen as gangster symbols. Also, the deeply rooted Confucian culture discouraged people from altering the bodies they received from their parents.

While tattoos are part of a subculture in this conservative country, the art form has gradually gained mainstream attention in recent years as softer and more delicate designs began appearing on the scene. These designs are breaking preconceptions about tattoos supposedly celebrating violence.

A Korean-language search for sentimental design brings up a number of tattoo images on social media, including nearly 800,000 on Instagram.

Kim Jin-hwan, a 31-year-old tattooist who goes by the name howdy, says nearly 80 percent of the customers at his tattoo parlor in Mapo, northwestern Seoul, are foreigners who want Korean-style sentimental tattoos.

Some of them travel all the way to Seoul just to get tattoo services or stop by our parlor while traveling in Korea, said Kim, who studied Western painting in college and opened his business four years ago. The so-called sentimental tattoos have been in fashion for a couple of years among the younger generation in Korea and are considered quite unique among foreigners.

Kim said tattoos based on family photos are popular among customers from home and abroad. Some customers want a permanent reminder on their skin to honor a beloved pet.

Read also: Probably not a good time to get that tattoo you want

Criminalizing tattoo artists

Though tattoos are growing more popular, Korea is one of the few countries that ban tattoo services unless they are carried out by medical practitioners. In 1992 the Supreme Court ruled that tattooing is a medical procedure -- effectively criminalizing the majority of tattooists.

Many tattooists say the law is outdated. In Korea, tattooists with no medical background often work at dermatology and plastic surgery clinics, where semipermanent eyebrow and eyeliner tattoos are widely sought out.

Tattoo has become a pop culture in Korea, and the so-called sentimental tattoo is at the center of it. We have put in efforts for years to revise the law to classify tattoo as an act of art rather than medical practice, said Lee Eun-kyung, vice president of the Korea Tattoo Association.

She added that at least 20,000 people in Korea worked in the tattoo industry as of early 2020, and the tattoo market is estimated to be worth around 2 trillion won ($1.68 billion), according to the associations data.

When Lee Yoon-seo, a 27-year-old tattooist who goes by the name May, traveled to the US last November, she was surprised to see tattooists from different countries showing interest in a tattooist from Korea.

It seems the Korean tattoo, which is also called the sentimental tattoo, has become a new genre globally, she said. They were really surprised to hear that tattoos are illegal in Korea unless the tattooists have a medical license.

Doy, who has been in the field for 13 years and launched Koreas first labor union for tattooists in February, says a tattooists work is closer to art than medical practice since it requires an aesthetic sense for drawing and coloring.

Tattooists from the younger generation laugh at the fact that working as a tattooist is illegal and requires a medical license, he said. Many Korean tattooists are recognized abroad, and some of them are working at major tattoo shops and working with Hollywood stars with their aesthetic sense and deft skills appreciated.

Kim Se-young, a professor at the Christian College of Nursing, said there should be a more active discussion on whether to legalize the services of tattoo artists, as well as discussions with doctors, as tattoos are becoming more popular in Korea.

We should not neglect the rising culture of tattoos, otherwise problems such as side effects, hygiene and safety can arise, Kim said.

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This article appeared on The Korea Herald newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
This is an opinion column.

I was 12 years old at the time, admittedly not yet woke. Though definitely aware, deeply curious, and always absorbing.

I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, smack in between the nations epicenters of unrest. Miles from the deepest corners of the South, where embers of hatred still smoldered from the civil rights battles fought there. Even farther from the west coast, where a band of young brothers in spikes was stirring a new, young movement against racial injustice that would produce a moment that still endures.

Just four years before, I still recall, my father took us to a restaurant downtown where we had not been allowed to eat until, on July 2 of that year, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing racial discrimination and legal segregation in schools, the workplace, and public spaces. Spaces like that Piccadilly Cafeteria where we ate that day.

The year 1968 didnt begin well for me; my father died in January, losing a long battle with prostate cancer. By the end of the year, our whole nation was in pain. We were all grieving. All angry.

Racism, injustice, and inequality  then and now.

Grieving and angry that racism, injustice, and inequality was still an infection that had not been cured, that it was a divisive virus that choked racial equity and opportunity and tried to murder hope.

Grieving and angry at the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert Kennedy, at a time we most needed them both.

Grieving and angry at the Vietnam War, which escalated to its deadliest depths that year with the deaths of 16,592 American soldiers and a cost to taxpayers of $77.4 billion, the most spent in any year during the ill-conceived war.

Grieving and angry after Chicago police officers, buoyed by U.S. military troops, battered young protestors (some removing their badges before so as not to be IDed) with nightsticks and tear gas during the Democratic National Convention, sparking four days of rage and outrage. Six hundred sixty-eight Americans were arrested, 425 protestors were injured; 192 police officers were hurt.

A police officer is seen squirting mace, a body-disabling chemical, at a crowd of anti-war demonstrators outside the Hilton Hotel in Chicago on August 29, 1968. Hundreds were injured in the bloody clash outside the Democratic Convention headquarters for Hubert H. Humphrey. (AP Photo/Michael Boyer)ASSOCIATED PRESS

Grieving and angry such that near the end of that year, we elected a demigod as President because he promised to squash the outrage with law and order  only to see him disgraced and shown the door due to his own misdeeds.

Grieving and angry after Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two members of the U.S. Olympic Track & Field team, removed their spiked shoes revealing black socks, raised two gloved fists towards the skies over Mexico City and lowered their heads in prayer atop a victory podium. Grieving and angry that their gesture was greeted with such scorn and retribution that it impacted their entire lives.

And impacted us, as a nation, barely at all.

(Watch Fists of Freedom before it leaves HBO Now at the end of June.)

Sound familiar?

Well, here I am now. Here we are now  52 years later. Grieving and angry still. Because 1968 seems all too familiar. All too now.

Yes, there was progress after 1968  a modicum of such that allowed some among my generation to wage battles in spaces our parents were not allowed to tread.

Not enough, though. Not enough that we are not still grieving and angry  at inequity, injustice, and racism. Grieving and angry at the brutality of too many among our police and a system that too often refuses to hold them accountable.

Grieving and angry that we still must scream: We matter!

This time, we must do better.

This time, we must transform our grief and anger into true, impactful, and sustainable change.

Change, this time, that matters.

Some of the challenges we must overcome are the same that stood before us in 1968  starting with an occupant of the White House who is either oblivious to what matters to people unlike him or just doesnt give a damn about it. Maybe both.

We must also overcome potential internal discord and petty disputes, debates over whose fist rises highest, over whos more woke. (Factors that contributed to diffuse the long-term effectiveness of the 1968 protests.)

And we must be informed and focused, laser-focused, and prioritize efforts in four key areas:

Police reform and community investment. Until two weeks ago, I was not yet aware of the movement to defund police departments and its aim to transfer money from police budgets into programs that effectively address crime in our communities. Lets get this right, this time, with all affected parties at the table and committed to a positive outcome. Deep police reform is a must, this time. Reform that looks at all aspects of policingfrom recruiting and training to de-escalation strategies and weaponizing to accountability. Some cities and states, like Iowa, have already committed to embracing an 8-point Reform that departments should embrace. Reforms police unions should embrace. Reforms that keep everyone alive.

Heath disparities. If black lives really matter, then we would not be dying from COVID-19 at twice the rates of whites. The virus exposed decades of depriving black and brown citizens, especially the poorest among them, of equitable access to quality health care. Decades of closing hospitals and health centers in or near black neighborhoods. Decades of closing grocery stores offering healthy food options. Decades of refusing to invest in quality prenatal care for African American women, who are up to three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related matters than white women and whose infants are twice as likely to die within the first year than white infants. Including right here in Alabama.

Corporate accountability. Okay, we get it: Black Lives Matter, you tell us every day. Now, show us just how much by accessing the composition of your C-suite and board, among your leadership team and workforce. (And yes, we went through this assessment as far back as the 80s, yet look at where we are.) Show us your intolerance for poisonous voices, particularly among those responsible for promotion, retention and innovation. Show us, too, that you are investing in the communities where your customers live  in their youth, in their careers, in their future.

Poverty. Admittedly, this may be the most challenging of all and intertwined in each of the aforementioned areas of need. Since the onset of COVID-19, communities have converged to ensure those most in need did not go hungry. Especially families with children. Thousands of boxes of food were distributed nationwide, including Alabama. Now, and my biblical friends will hear me: Instead of merely feeding those in need, lets teach them to fish, offering the tools and knowledge to do so. Lets strive to eliminate food desserts and create jobs in long-abandoned communities that pay more-than-just-living age. If not now, when?

Of course, the glaring elephant missing from the room is crime. Its something no one likesespecially those living in neighborhoods most affected by it. I have more to say about it and will. For now, know this: If we successfully impact the four areas outlined, crime will fall.

If people believe police officers they encounter will truly protect and serve, if they are healthier because quality care is around the corner not across the county, if corporations are not just a skyscraper in the distance but are present in the community and accessible to the community (especially its youth) and if parents can put food, healthy food, on the table every day, for their children, crime will diminish.

Right now, we are still grieving and angry. Almost all of us are  no matter our age, race, gender, or sexual orientation. Unlike 1968.

Which is why we must get it right. This time.

If any of us matter at all.

A voice for whats right and wrong in Birmingham, Alabama (and beyond), Roys column appears in The Birmingham News and AL.com, as well as in the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register. Reach him at rjohnson@al.com and follow him at twitter.com/roysj
Seoul, June 15 : South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday urged North Korea not to backtrack on agreed-upon peace efforts, making his first official remarks on Pyongyang's latest threats.

"The direction the two Koreas should go together is clear," Yonhap News Agency quoted Moon as saying during a weekly meeting with senior presidential aides.

"We should not stop the current inter-Korean relations again, which have overcome a long-time severance and the crisis of a war with difficulty." His address came as the two sides marked the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration adopted in a historic summit between the late leaders of the two Koreas -- Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il.

Moon said he's commemorating the anniversary with a "heavy heart", apparently referring to frosty inter-Korean ties highlighted by Pyongyang's decision to cut all communication lines with Seoul and even a threat of military action.

Moon cited his own summit deals with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018, one reached at the truce village of Panmunjom and the other in Pyongyang.

He said his government would make "incessant" efforts to implement summit agreements.

"(We) can't let the promise of peace on the Korean Peninsula, which I and Chairman Kim Jong-un made in front of 80 million Koreans, revert," Moon stressed.

The April 27 Panmunjom Declaration and the September 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration represent a "solemn promise" for both South and North Korea to implement faithfully, Yonhap News Agency quoted the President as saying.

Noting that denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang were in a drawn-out stalemate, Moon proposed that the two sides make it their initiative to produce a "breakthrough" in the peace process.

Over the weekend, Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong issued yet another provocative statement saying that the military would be in charge of a next step to respond to the distribution of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets by some activists here across the border.
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Linkedin Naimul Karim (Thomson Reuters Foundation) Dhaka, Bangladesh  Mon, June 15, 2020 18:30 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee1943 2 SE Asia Rohingya,Myanmar,Rohingya-Muslims,Rohingya-people,refugees,human-trafficking,ransom,Malaysia,Bangladesh Free

Rohingya refugees attempting to reach Malaysia by boat from Bangladesh are being held hostage by human traffickers who have demanded large ransoms from their relatives with threats of violence, according to several families and aid organizations.

About a dozen Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation they had received phone calls from traffickers demanding money to stop relatives from being abandoned at sea and, in some cases, raped or killed.

More than a million mostly Muslim Rohingya reside in camps in Bangladesh, with the majority having fled a 2017 army-led crackdown in largely Buddhist Myanmar.

With the refugees fearful of returning to Myanmar and frustrated with life in the camps, smugglers and traffickers have capitalized by charging for places on boats to Malaysia - a favored destination for Rohingya seeking better lives.

Long viewed as a smuggling issue, where people willingly pay to cross borders illegally, activists said examples of extortion of the Rohingya were instead a sign of human trafficking which involves individuals being exploited through force or deception.

"I don't know if she is alive or dead," said Abdul Hakim, a Rohingya refugee, who last saw his 17-year-old sister in March before she left their camp to take a boat destined for Malaysia.

"A broker called me from the ship a month after she left and asked me to pay 100,000 taka ($1,180) if I wanted her to stay alive and enter Malaysia. We already paid 45,000 taka for the journey through loans. Where will I get so much money?"

None of the 12 families interviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation said they had been able to meet the ransom demands.

Hundreds of Rohingya are estimated by aid agencies to be stranded at sea, with Malaysia refusing to accept them after tightening its borders due to coronavirus and Bangladesh saying last week it was not in a "position to take any more Rohingya".

Last week, Malaysian authorities detained 269 Rohingya when they tried to enter the country on a damaged boat. In April, a trawler that was at sea for weeks after it failed to reach Malaysia returned to Bangladesh with 396 starving Rohingya.

Survivors of recent failed boat crossings have recalled overcrowding, beatings, and people dying of hunger and thirst, and charities fear violence and deaths will increase as traffickers take advantage of the impasse to demand ransoms.

"We interviewed at least 30 family members ... from 14 Rohingya camps who were asked to pay by traffickers if they wanted to see their relatives alive," said Jishu Barua, anti-trafficking lead for the charity Young Power in Social Action.

"There could be more (examples of ransom demands)," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Police superintendent Iqbal Hossain said he was not aware of such extortion but urged the Rohingya to report any incidences.

"We will definitely take steps to prevent this," he said by phone from Cox's Bazar, the region that hosts the refugee camps.

"Similar to slavery"

Aid agencies said a growing number of Rohingya in Bangladesh had taken boats headed for Malaysia in recent months due to calm seas and fears over COVID-19 in the camps at Cox's Bazar, which have recorded at least 35 cases and three deaths since mid-May.

A recent Interpol report said smuggling by sea had tripled from March to April, but did not provide any specific figures.

"The sudden increase was likely due to the fear of COVID-19 contagion in refugee camps fostered by migrant smugglers to boost demand for their services," the global police body said.

John Quinley III, senior human rights specialist at Asia-focused charity Fortify Rights, said traffickers had treated Rohingya as property through exploitation "similar to slavery".

The group said it had documented several cases since April where Rohingya families were pressured to pay ransoms, often more than double the original fee agreed upon for the journey.

The United Nations' migration agency (IOM) said it had also received reports from Rohingya in the camps about being charged "a fee" to prevent their relatives being stranded at sea. The IOM said it was unclear whether paying the fee had any impact.

The Bangladesh government said it was working to prevent trafficking in the camps, and its coastguard had reported rescuing about 750 Rohingya from traffickers since 2019.

"We have to find the syndicates, this (trafficking) has to be addressed," said Mahbub Alam Talukder, the country's refugee commissioner who oversees the camps in Cox's Bazar.

Mobina, whose 17-year-old son headed for Malaysia more than two months ago, said the teenager wanted to study abroad and was desperate to leave their camp to make something of his life.

"I told him not to go. I told him it would be dangerous," said Mobina, who did not give her surname for fear of reprisals after traffickers demanded 300,000 taka to keep her son alive.

"Now I don't know if I will ever see him alive again."




From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

In Sweden, scientists are looking to a farm animal to help them find a treatment or vaccine against the new coronavirus.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute, a medical university near Stockholm, are putting their hope in a 12-year-old alpaca from Germany. Alpacas belong to the camel family.

The scientists started by recreating the so-called spike protein that permits the coronavirus to infect human cells. They then injected the spike protein into the alpaca, whose name is Tyson.

The team is collecting blood samples to see whether the alpaca can develop antibodies against the spike protein. Extremely small antibodies, known as nanobodies, stick to the same part of the virus as human antibodies.

In a statement to the press, the researchers called them neutralizing antibodies. If you neutralize something harmful, you take away its ability to cause harm.

The head of the research team in Sweden is Gerald McInerney. He said the hope is that the neutralizing antibodies will be able to effectively block the virus protein -- and thereby the coronavirus -- from entering cells and spreading.

The results could be used to develop drug treatments or possibly a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. While the scientific work is still at an early stage, McInerney said his team has seen evidence it could work in people.

In a Reuters interview McInerney said, In principle, all the evidence would suggest it will work very well in humans. He added however, that it is a very complex system.

McInerney noted that the coronavirus mutates quite easily. So, researchers need to be prepared to develop several different kinds of antibodies.

COVID-19 has killed more than 400,000 people around the world.

McInerney explained that his team began its research back in January. At that time, they say they believed the coronavirus could become a serious pandemic. The researchers also knew it would take a long time to develop a vaccine, as well as drugs to slow the progression of the disease and save lives, he added.

But why use an alpaca?

Studies have shown that alpacas and other members of the camel family are known to produce nanobodies. Nanobodies are easier for scientists to work with. Sharks have also been found to produce nanobodies. But sharks are not as easy to work with as alpacas.

When will we have a vaccine?

Scientific experts say it will likely take some time to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.

The team in Sweden is moving on to the next step, which could involve testing with other animals, such as mice or hamsters. The scientists say they hope their results can be used as a model for future COVID-19 research.

As for Tyson the alpaca, the researchers say his job is done.

Tyson is 12 years old, I believe, and he may be looking at retirement soon, McInerney told Reuters. So, hell live out his life on his farm back in Germany.

And thats the Health & Lifestyle report  Im Anna Matteo.

For Reuters: reporting by Philip O'Connor; writing by Simon Johnson; editing by Peter Graff. Anna Matteo adapted it for VOA Learning English with additional information from the Karolinska Institutes website. Bryan Lynn was the editor.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

antibody  medical n. a substance produced by the body to fight disease

principle  n. a basic truth or theory : an idea that forms the basis of something : a law or fact of nature that explains how something works or why something happens

mutate  v. to cause (a gene) to change and create an unusual characteristic in a plant or animal : to cause mutation in (a gene)

pandemic  n. occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population
Indonesian Air Force personnel stand guard near the tarp-covered wreckage of a Hawk 209 fighter jet that crashed in a residential area on Sumatra Island, June 15, 2020.

An Indonesian Air Force fighter jet crashed on Sumatra Island during a training flight Monday morning, reigniting questions about whether the military properly maintains its aircraft following a series of accidents since 2015.

Mondays crash in Riau province was the second in nine days that involved an Indonesian military aircraft. The British-made Hawk 209 was preparing to land when it crashed into two houses in Pekanbaru, the provincial capital, about two km (1.2 miles) from Rusmin Nuryadin Air Field, official said.

The aircraft was badly damaged. It was a total loss, Air Force spokesman Fajar Adriyanto said in a statement.

The pilot, 1st Lt. Apriyanto Ismail, ejected from the aircraft and was uninjured, Adriyanto said, adding there were no casualties on the ground because the houses were empty.

Air Chief Marshal Fadjar Prasetyo said he had ordered all Hawk 200-series jets grounded for the time being. The Indonesian military has acquired 32 of the aircraft since 1996 but it was not clear how many remain in service.

We have suspended the operations [of the aircraft] pending an investigation, which is expected to last for two weeks, Fadjar, who was appointed Air Force chief of staff last month, told reporters during a news conference broadcast by MetroTV.

Fadjar said the jet was airworthy and had flown without any issues a few days earlier.

He said the pilot had reported an engine problem followed by a warning light as the plane approached the runway.

After that the engine lost power. Communication was still normal, Fadjar said, adding that the fighter jet did not explode in mid-air.

The crash came more than a week after a Russian-made Mi-17 Army helicopter crashed and burst into flames in Central Java, killing five troops and injuring four others.

Last June, another Army Mi-17 helicopter crashed into a mountain while on a mission to distribute food in Papua province, killing 12 troops. Papuan separatist rebels claimed they shot down the chopper, whose wreckage was only found in February 2020. The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) declined to comment on the insurgents claim but have yet to issue a statement to explain what caused the Mi-17 to crash.

And in June 2015, in one of the deadliest crashes involving an Indonesian military aircraft, an Air Force Hercules C-130 smashed into buildings in the city of Medan, killing all 113 on board and at least three people on the ground. The next year, the government reported at least five crashes involving military aircraft that led to the deaths of more than 20 people.

House member seeks investigation

The latest crash led Willy Aditya, a House of Representatives (DPR) defense commission member, to urge the Ministry of Defense to order an independent investigation of military equipment.

I think the DPR will approve increasing the defense equipment budget if a comprehensive audit has been carried out, including the results of investigations into a number of accidents, he said in a statement.

The Defense Ministry was issued a 131 trillion rupiah (U.S. $9.25 billion) budget this year, the highest among government ministries and an increase of 21 trillion rupiah ($1.48 billion) from last year.

The Finance Ministry said 30 percent of the budget was to be used for purchasing and maintaining defense equipment. Defense ministry spokesman Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak did not immediately respond to a BenarNews request for comment.

Khairul Fahmi, a researcher at the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies (ISESS), raised the possibility of poor maintenance contributing to the crashes, along with weather conditions and potential human error.

The question most often raised by us is how maintenance is carried out, Khairul told BenarNews. Now we have to talk about how they maintain [the aircraft]. Has maintenance been carried out regularly and in a disciplined manner according to operational standards?

Indonesia began its drive to modernize the military during the administration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the immediate predecessor of Joko Jokowi Widido.

In December 2019, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto and his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo agreed to a joint project to develop a next-generation fighter jet, even though Indonesia had failed to pay an installment to Seoul before the agreed to deadline three months earlier.

Under the agreement, Indonesia was to shoulder 20 percent of the development cost of the $7.36 billion KF-X project, but it failed to pay $255 million by the end of September, according to data from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, the state-funded South Korean news agency Yonhap said.

In 2018, Indonesia agreed to purchase 11 fighter jets from Russia, valued at $1.14 billion, while Russia agreed to buy Indonesian commodities valued at $570 million.

That deal has been up in the air over because of the Countering Americas Adversaries through Sanctions Act signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in August 2017. The act could allow sanctions to be imposed on countries doing business with Russia.

Meanwhile last October, then-Indonesian Air Marshal Yuyu Sutisna announced a plan to acquire two squadrons of F-16 Block 72 Viper fighter jets from the United States. Indonesia to take delivery of the first batch of these warplanes later this year, the Jakarta Globe newspaper reported on Monday.
A far-right thug who knocked over a police sergeant with an 'enormous' kick to his back was identified on video by his luminous green shorts and arrested, a court has heard.

Daniel Allan, 35, was filmed running up behind Sgt Richard Lambert and booting him to the ground next to Big Ben during the Black Lives Matter counter-protest in London on Saturday.

A mob of Allan's fellow 'protect the statues' protesters then set upon on the officer as he struggled to stand up, kicking and striking him repeatedly.

Father-of-two Allan, who travelled from Sunderland on Saturday, was arrested after police shared a video of a bare-chested thug kicking Sgt Lambert while wearing distinctive luminous shorts.

He was quickly identified and the electrician admitted violent disorder today and was remanded into custody ahead of sentence at Southwark Crown Court.

He faces two or three years in prison, a judge warned.

Jennifer Gatland, prosecuting, said: 'Police had been deployed in order to prevent public disorder in relation to protests taking place within central London.

'Specifically there were concerns about demonstrations that had been labelled as 'right wing', in fact there was the intention they had to protect public statues which had been targeted in previous demonstrations and prompted counter demonstrations.

'Throughout the day police fought running battles with demonstrators. A small group of officers were walking in a group through the demonstrators on Bridge Street received verbal abuse and had projectiles thrown at them.

'Suddenly and without provocation Mr Allan kicked out at police sergeant Richard Lambert in his back with his right foot causing him to fall to the ground.

'This prompted the rest of the group to attack the officers. He was again kicked while picking himself up but that person wasn't arrested.

'Officers circled to protect their colleagues and Mr Allan ran back into the crowd, however he had a distinct appearance and footage of the incident was uploaded and it was circulated.

'Mr Allan was captured after other officers saw the footage and recognised Mr Allan wearing luminous shorts.'

Sgt Lambert said in a statement read to the court: 'I felt an enormous kick to the small of my back, I fell to the floor with immediate pain to the lower back due to the kick.'

The man, Daniel Allan, kicking police sergeant Richard Lambert in the back, sending him to the floor

The police officer crashed to the ground, while Mr Allan, bare-chested, fled from the scene

Other far-right thugs then started attacking Sgt Lambert as he struggled to get back to his feet after the assault

Mr Allan's attack sparked violent clashes between the 'statue defenders' and police officers

Eleanor Fraser, defending, said: 'Mr Allan was struck by a police officer's baton, he showed the mark in interview, which was something of a retaliation but he accepts that it was unjustifiable.

'Upon arrest he had a panic attack and has had a further six panic attacks in custody.'

District Judge Nicholas Rimmer told Allan: 'You have pleaded guilty to the matter of violent disorder, the guidelines put the starting point at either three or two years for this serious episode of conduct therefore I commit you for sentence at Southwark Crown Court.

'The seriousness of conduct consists of being part of a wider protest in which missiles were being thrown, you personally kicked out at police sergeant Richard Lambert to his back, that seems to have caused further violence.'

Allan admitted violent disorder and was remanded into custody ahead of sentence at Southwark Crown Court.
Texas EquuSearch

A Crosby firefighter remains missing a day after he was ejected from a Jeep that crashed on the Galveston Causeway, authorities said.

Kent Zavala, 20, was riding in the soft-top Jeep around 8:15 p.m. Sunday with his dog and two passengers when the vehicle crashed into a guard rail, police said. Zavala and his dog were ejected, but authorities later rescued the dog.
When New Orleans City Councilman Jared Brossett on Monday announced he was enrolling in rehab after an alleged drunken crash a day earlier, it was not the first time a DUI arrest drove him into a program aimed at helping people struggling with substance abuse.

Brossett, now 37, completed an alcohol and substance-abuse education course following a 2006 DUI arrest in Miami, to which he pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of reckless driving, according to Florida court records.

Motorist hit head-on by Councilman Jared Brossett declined EMS treatment Though he lay immobile on the neutral ground after the wreck and didnt answer when a witness asked if he was still alive, the man hit head-on

Details about what led to his May 14, 2006, arrest werent immediately available Monday. But the city of New Orleans code enforcement director at the time, Winston Reid, posted Brossetts $1,000 bond, according to records. And records show the reckless driving plea came after Brossett agreed to participate in a DUI education program, perform community service, attend a victim-impact panel and complete probation.

The presiding judge issued a warrant calling for Brossetts re-arrest at one point, after a missed court appearance. But he was eventually able to complete his probation successfully by Oct. 25, 2007, records show.

Two years later, at the age of 26, Brossett won a seat in the state House of Representatives, and then he was elected as the City Councils District D representative in 2014. He won re-election to his council seat in 2017.

He was driving a city-owned sport-utility vehicle when he collided head-on with another motorist early Sunday after crossing the wide neutral ground in the 2400 block of Elysian Fields Avenue. Officers said they smelled alcohol on his breath, and he performed poorly on a field sobriety test given to him at University Medical Center, before they booked him on one count each of driving while drunk and reckless operation of a vehicle.

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The other motorist, a 33-year-old man whose car appears totaled in a cellphone video shot by a bystander, refused treatment from city paramedics.

Brossett on Monday issued a statement apologizing to his loved ones, his council colleagues and the city. He also said he was entering an in-patient rehabilitation program, and noted that his decision came after discussions with his doctor and his family.

+2 Councilman Jared Brossett says he'll seek treatment after DWI arrest: 'I want to sincerely apologize' A day after he was arrested for driving drunk and barreling his city-owned SUV into another vehicle, New Orleans City Councilman Jared Brosset

To all those that I have let down, I cannot express how profoundly sorrowful I am, Brossett said. During this extremely difficult time I ask for your prayers as I commit myself to the hard work of becoming a better person.

Brossett was released on his own recognizance later Sunday morning. His arraignment in the case is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 10.

Brossetts career in public office came after he worked as a legislative aide to City Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell, who was the District D rep for nearly a decade. The district encompasses Gentilly, a section of the lakefront, a sliver of New Orleans East, and parts of the 7th Ward and Mid-City.
Britt Stokes saw the first baffling tweet on Monday, June 1st. It showed two images of bricks stacked with a delivery tag from Acme Brick, where Stokes is director of marketing. The Twitter post suggested the company left the bricks intentionally to be used in protests in Frisco, a Dallas suburb.

Stokes tracked the order and discovered it was an earlier shipment, sent to a homeowner's association to repair a fence. Frisco's police department put out a statement confirming the same details.

Acme Brick is part of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett's $US436 billion conglomerate. Credit:AP

That didn't stop a torrent of unchecked rumours about Acme Brick from spreading online. More tweets with similar claims poured in. People pasted the Tweets to Facebook, where they spread on their own. From Facebook, the theories about Acme Brick jumped to YouTube and TikTok, then ricocheted back - all casting the small building supplier at the centre of a conspiracy involving antifa, the pandemic and some of the wealthiest men in the world.

Each major internet platform - YouTube, Facebook and Twitter - has worked to curb inaccurate information spreading on their own sites. But online rumours often bounce from one platform to the next, creating a vexing problem that is nearly impossible for the targets to combat, regardless of the resources they have at their disposal. Acme Brick is part of Berkshire Hathaway, the $US436 billion ($639 billion) conglomerate.
My father was not quite 20 years old in the fall of 1937 when he set out on a thousand-mile trek across China. He didnt do this on his own, but rather with staff and students from the evacuated Nanjing Universityand his school wasnt unique in doing this, either. Across China, students, professors and staff crammed as much as they could into carts, wheelbarrows and their own backpacks. They packed up supplies, books, lab equipment and machinery. Some even brought along valuable imported livestock from animal husbandry programs.

Japan and China had entered the Second Sino-Japanese war, and cities in eastern China were in danger of attack. In 1937, Chinas population stood at 500 million but only 43,000 were university students, a brain trust the Chinese government was desperate to protect. When universities were ordered to evacuate west, toward the relative safety of Chinas interior, 77 abandoned their home campuses. It was an exodus unlike any other, yet it remains a chapter in history virtually unknown outside China.

Even less known is the tale of a singular journey that took place during this time to safeguard one of Chinas greatest library treasures.

Before Wikipedia

In 1771, the 36th year of his reign, the Qianlong Emperor decreed the creation of an encyclopedia of classical Chinese literature, a work that would outshine a scholarly masterpiece from the preceding Ming dynasty, the massive Yongle Dadian encyclopedia. Named after the Yongle Emperor and completed in 1407, it had contained 370 million words, the largest encyclopedia in the world.

The Imperial libraries already owned vast collections of literature to draw from, yet the emperor asked for contributions from private libraries. The Qing dynastys Manchu rulers, conscious that the Han Chinese population considered them foreign usurpers, had conducted several literary inquisitions over the decades, burning books with anti-Manchu sentiments and punishing their owners. So when the encyclopedia project began, the empires Han Chinese subjects were understandably reluctant to respond. The emperor then issued decrees that all books donated to the effort would be returned and their owners immune from penalties even if their books contained Evil Words. After this, more than 10,000 books were handed in.

Story continues

A decade later, in 1782, the Siku Quanshuwhich can be roughly translated as Complete Library of Four Branches of Literaturewas complete. It comprised 35,381 volumes and approximately 800 million characters. It would be 225 years before another encyclopedia surpassed this numberin 2007 when English Wikipedia approached a billion words.

But after all that knowledge had been gathered into one place, the Qianlong Emperor reneged on his promise. His censors destroyed some 3,000 works for being anti-Manchu and their owners were executed.

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Destruction and Restoration

Seven hand-copied sets of the Siku Quanshu went to seven specially built libraries: four for the emperor, located in four Imperial palaces, and three for public use. One of the three was the Wenlan Ge library in the city of Hangzhou; the collection became known as the Siku Quanshu Wenlan Ge.

The books were nearly lost when rebels stormed Hangzhou during the Taiping Rebellion in 1854. The Wenlan Ge was heavily damaged and its books stolen, some by looters, some by book lovers. Eight years later, a book collector named Ding noticed a shopkeeper at the market wrapping peanuts in paper cones made out of pages from a book. He realized they were pages from the Siku Quanshu. He and his brother, also a bibliophile, began tracking down lost volumes, buying back books when necessary, and re-copying missing sections. The project passed into the hands of Zhejiang Library, which by the 1920s succeeded in restoring all the volumes; today it is the most complete of the four surviving copies of the Siku Quanshu.

Traveling with a Priceless Library

As Zhejiang University in Hangzhou planned for evacuation, Chen Xunci, Head Librarian of Zhejiang Library, asked the university to take the valuable collection from the Wenlan Ge with them. The school chancellor agreed, even though it added another 230 boxes to their cargo.

Chen promised to get funding for the librarys transportation, but couldnt persuade the education ministry to give him any, even as a loan. He borrowed from family and friends, and before the war ended, had sold his own property to ensure the Siku Quanshus safety.

Thus began the librarys journey. The universitys route diverged at times from that of the books, which they tried to move by boat or truck whenever possible; otherwise, they would pack the boxes into carts and wheelbarrows, and pay local laborers to move the books. At times the students carried some of the books in their backpacks. In one near-disaster, a container of books overturned while crossing a stream. The box was taken to the nearest town, where the books were spread out to dry in the wide courtyard of the local City Gods temple.

All the schools in exile faced danger and hardships. There was the endless trudging each day, under threat of aerial attacks. They were always tired, cold and hungry. They slept in temples when no other lodgings were available. Professors did what they could to continue classes if they stopped to rest for more than a few days. Cut off from their families, students had to make do with a small government stipend. My father recalls times when, rather than spend his money on fuel, he would take a tin can and poke around abandoned cooking fires to find remnants of coal.

Yet despite it all, they were generally cheerful, he said, because everyone was suffering the same hardships. They were touchingly optimistic, trusting their professors to bring them safely through a war zone.

And they were young. Memoirs by Zhejiang University students include accounts of unrequited love (young men outnumbered the women five to one), with many women complaining about the truly terrible love poems they received from admirers. When they were able to stay in one place for weeks or months, the students enjoyed outings and sports. In rural areas, women in short skirts and bathing costumes had never been seen and the female students caused a scandal.

It wasnt until the New Year of 1940, after 1,400 miles on the road and 28 months of makeshift classrooms and dormitories, that the 800 members of Zhejiang University arrived at their final wartime campus in Zunyi, a small town in Guizhou province.

Yet with aerial attacks now moving deeper into China, the Siku Quanshu was still not safe. Guizhou is famed for its spectacular karst caves and the chancellor moved the books to a cave outside Zunyi. Two university servants stayed behind to guard and care for the books. The volumes survived the war in surprisingly good condition and were sent back to Zhejiang Library.

The story of the Siku Quanshu Wenlan Ge is inseparable from the story of people who risked all to protect a cultural legacy, from the librarian who sold off his house to the students who would not abandon the heavy boxes that slowed their travel.

As a final note, in 1994 a professor from Zhejiang University was in Kyoto looking through Japanese war records when he found a note dated after the fall of Hangzhou. It stated that on February 22, 1938 the Occupied Area Literature Procurement Committee sent nine agents from Shanghai to Hangzhou to search for books from the Wenlan Ge.

If the books had not been moved, the fate their keepers feared could have easily come to pass. But by the time Japanese agents reached Hangzhou, the Siku Quanshu was already on its long march to safety.

William Morrow

Janie Chang is the author of the novel The Library of Legends, available now from William Morrow. The Library of Legends draws from family history and is set during the evacuation of Chinese universities at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Two Indian high commission staffers who went missing on Monday morning have been handed over at Islamabads secretariat police station, barely 2 km from the Indian mission. The two staffers have visible injury marks, people familiar with the development told Hindustan Times.

They were handed over to two Indian high commission officials who had gone to Islamabads Secretariat police station to take their custody. The two staffers, who had gone missing soon after they stepped out of the high commission on Monday morning, shall undergo a medical examination to confirm that they are well and record their visible injuries.

Pakistan had claimed, nearly seven hours after the two staffers had gone missing, that they had been arrested in a hit and run road accident case.

For most of Monday, Pakistans foreign office and its diplomats in the Indian capital told New Delhi that they were looking into the matter.

The claim that the embassy staffers - a driver and a Central Industrial Security Force personnel - had been detained in a road accident case was reported in the Pakistani media several hours later. Quoting police sources, Pakistans SAMAA TV said the high commission car had been involved in a road accident and the two occupants were caught by the public when they were trying to get away.

It is after reports in Pakistani media on these lines emerged that New Delhi decided to summon Pakistans charge daffaires Syed Haider Shah to the external affairs ministry and reminded him that it was the responsibility of the government of Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of the diplomatic missions personnel.

Haider Shah was also told that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials.

The Pakistani side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately, a government source said.

Indian officials said the sequence of events that led to the arrest of the two staffers would be available only after their de-briefing. We will then also know if they were mistreated by Pakistani security officials, one official said, adding that prima facie, the staffers appear to have been assaulted.

The detention of the two staffers is seen as a retaliation for the expulsion of two officials posted at Pakistans high commission in Delhi on a charge of espionage a fortnight back. The three Pakistan high commission staffers were caught in central Delhis Karol Bagh market for trying to procure classified information relating to the movement of army troops.

Already, Pakistans security personnel had been harassing and obstructing Indian diplomats in Islamabad from discharging their duties after the expulsion of its staffers for espionage. Pakistani security and intelligence personnel have been aggressively tailing vehicles of Indian diplomats including charge daffaires Gaurav Ahluwalia, and behaving in an intimidating manner outside their residences in Islamabad.

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Qatar to Host Intra-Afghan Peace Talks

By Ayaz Gul June 14, 2020

Afghanistan's warring sides have agreed to open long-awaited peace talks in Qatar, possibly later this month, to negotiate a sustainable cease-fire and political settlement to years of conflict in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Taliban insurgency on Sunday confirmed to VOA the breakthrough development but did not say when will the dialogue begin.

An Afghan government source told VOA that President Ashraf Ghani has accepted a Qatari government proposal for hosting the intra-Afghan talks in Doha, the gulf state's capital, where the Islamist Taliban maintains its political office.

"The Afghan government has only agreed for a first meeting to take place in Doha, there has not been any agreement yet on the venue of the direct talks," Ghani's spokesman Sediq Sediqqi tweeted Sunday.

Qatar also hosted the Taliban's talks with the United States that led to the February 29 landmark agreement between the two adversaries aimed at ending the nearly 19-year-old Afghan war, America's longest. The pact required Afghan parties to the conflict to open peace negotiations to permanently end decades of hostilities in the country.

"Yes, I confirm that the upcoming intra-Afghan talks will be held in Doha following the release of our prisoners," Suhail Shaheen, who speaks for the Taliban's Doha office, told VOA.

Under tenets of the U.S.-Taliban pact, the Afghan government is required to free up to 5,000 insurgent prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security personnel being held by the Taliban.

Kabul has already set free 3,000 inmates, with Ghani promising last week to let go the remaining 2,000 "within a very short period."

The Taliban has so far released fewer than 600 detainees and it is committed under the agreement with the U.S. to participate in intra-Afghan talks within one week of the prisoner swap.

Meanwhile, Afghan officials alleged Sunday while speaking to reporters in Kabul that increased Taliban attacks across the country have "killed and injured" more than 400 government security forces in the last week alone.

They also accused the insurgents of playing a role in recent mosque bombings that killed high-profile Afghan clerics.

The Taliban has denied involvement in the mosque bombings but the group has taken credit for launching attacks against Afghan forces, saying the battlefield cease-fire would be on the agenda when both sides come to the negotiating table.

The U.S.-Taliban agreement binds Washington to withdraw from Afghanistan all American troops, its allies, and coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel within 14 months. The U.S. military has already pulled out several thousand troops from the country since sealing the deal.

In return, the Taliban is bound to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State from using insurgent-held Afghan areas for attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

U.S. officials maintain, however, their troop drawdown process would be "conditions-based" and they would be closely monitoring whether the Taliban is upholding its commitments outlined in the agreement.

President Donald Trump has promised repeatedly to bring all American forces back home reportedly as early as by the U.S. presidential election.

"It is not the duty of the U.S. military to solve ancient conflicts in far away lands, that many people have never heard of When we fight, from now on, we will only fight to win," Trump said on Saturday in a commencement address to graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

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Adebayo Oshinowo, the senator representing Lagos East in the National Assembly, died on Monday in Lagos, from a yet-to-be disclosed ailment.

Here are ten things you need to know about him.

1. He was a native of Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.

2. He was the Ogun State Youth Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria in the Second Republic, in 1979.

3. He was a four-term lawmaker (from 2003  2019) representing Kosofe Constituency 1 in the Lagos State House of Assembly.

4. He served as chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Lands and Housing for 11 years.

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5. He held a Diploma in Building Technology at the Instituto per Geometri, Rome, Italy. He also studied Italian Language.

6. He also held a Masters Degree in Mass Communication from the Urbaniana University in Rome, Italy,

7. He was married with three children, two of them medical doctors.

8. To emerge as the Lagos East senatorial zone candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the partys primaries in 2019, he polled 247,743 votes to defeat the incumbent senator, Gbenga Ashafa, who got 20,385 votes.

9. He was more popularly known as Pepper or Pepperito. He was also known as Unifier and Stabiliser.

10. He was first nicknamed Pepper Eyes while in secondary school due to his red eyeballs. It was later shortened to Pepper.
Two companies have been fined after a man broke his back by falling through a garbage chute on a Brisbane construction site.

Benjamin Said was working on the second floor of a unit block in West End on March 7, 2018, when he stepped backwards looking for a screw.

He fell through floorboards covering the chute, dropping about three metres.

Ultrafloor Australia and RGD Constructions exposed workers to the risk of death or serious injury, Brisbane magistrate Stephen Courtney said in handing down his judgment on Monday.

"The consequences of the risk could have been catastrophic," he said.
(Newser)  A former US Marine just got handed a 16-year prison sentence in Russia for spying. Paul Whelan, 50, insists he's innocent and was set up in a bogus sting operation, reports the BBC. On Monday, he held a sign in court reading "sham trial!" Whelan was arrested in December 2018 in a hotel room in Moscow with what prosecutors say was a flash drive filled with classified information. Whelan's explanation: A Russian friend gave him what he thought was a drive filled with family photos. Whelan holds passports for the US, Britain, Canada, and Ireland, and he works as director of global security for US automotive parts supplier BorgWarner, the company tells NPR.

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"This secret trial in which no evidence was produced is an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms," said a spokesman for the US embassy in Moscow. US ambassador John Sullivan called it a "mockery of justice" and warned that it would hurt US-Russian relations. A Reuters report suggests that Whelan might be part of a prisoner swap for a Russian national jailed in the US. Details were scarce, but Moscow has been pushing for the release of two men in particular, Viktor Bout, convicted of arms dealing, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted of cocaine smuggling. (Whelan previously complained about abusive conditions in prison.)
American citizen Paul Whelan attends a sentencing hearing at the Moscow City Court on charges of espionage against Russia.

A Russian court found ex-U.S. marine Paul Whelan guilty of spying for the United States on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in jail after a closed trial which U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque.

Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, has been in custody since he was detained by agents from Russia's Federal Security Service in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 2018.

Moscow says Whelan, 50, was caught red-handed with a computer flash drive containing classified information.

Whelan, who pleaded not guilty, said he was set up in a sting and had thought the drive, given to him by a Russian

acquaintance, contained holiday photos.

U.S. diplomats have described the case as a "significant obstacle" to improving already poor bilateral ties and have repeatedly said there is no evidence against him and asked Russia to release him.

State prosecutors, who accused Whelan of being at least a ranking U.S. military intelligence colonel, had asked the court to sentence Whelan to 18 years in a maximum security prison.
The California Supreme Court has overwhelmingly upheld criminal verdicts in cases challenged on the basis of alleged jury discrimination, a report found. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

A UC Berkeley study released Monday found that prosecutors often routinely strike Black and Latino prospective jurors and that appellate courts have failed to rein in the practice.

The study, "Whitewashing the Jury Box," was spearheaded by UC Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel, who runs the law school's Death Penalty Clinic. The report examined, among other things, nearly 700 cases decided by the state's Courts of Appeal from 2006 through 2018 that involved appeals of prosecutors' jury strikes.

In about 72% of the cases, prosecutors used their peremptory challenges to remove Black prospective jurors, the study found. Prosecutors struck Latinos in about 28% of the cases, Asian Americans in less than 3.5% and white people in only 0.5%.

Semel acknowledged that part of the study was limited in that it looked at only appeals of non-death-penalty verdicts involving peremptory challenges. It is not surprising that most or many of those appeals would involve the striking of people of color. But Semel said the evidence of prosecutors overwhelmingly striking Black people was consistent with other studies of appellate decisions.

More important, she said, were the reasons prosecutors gave for striking Black and Latino potential jurors and the success they have in getting courts to uphold these strikes. She said the report will eventually be submitted to a law review journal.

Intentional discrimination in jury selection is against the law, but prosecutors can justify strikes by offering explanations that aren't based on race. Most often prosecutors claim the person's demeanor was at issue, the report said, followed by the person knowing someone involved in the criminal justice system, expressing a distrust of law enforcement, or expressing a belief that law enforcement is biased by race and class.

"Prosecutors in these cases successfully used their peremptory challenges against African Americans because they had dreadlocks, were slouching, wore a short skirt and 'blinged out' sandals, visited family members who were incarcerated, had negative experiences with law enforcement  or lived in East Oakland, Los Angeles Countys Compton, or San Franciscos Tenderloin," the report said.

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Prosecutors successfully struck Latino prospective jurors, the report said, for frowning, appearing confused, wearing large earrings, stating that a loved one had been wrongfully accused of a crime and expressing a belief that the criminal legal system treats people differently based on their race.

The report also focused on prosecutors' training. It said that prosecutors are instructed to identify the ideal juror as an educated, stable professional and are advised to avoid jurors who are less educated, blue collar or unemployed or underemployed. Prosecutorial training also instructs the lawyers to strike prospective jurors who have had or whose family has had negative experiences with law enforcement, the report said.

"They are, in other words, instructed to exploit the historic and present-day differential treatment of whites and people of color, especially African Americans and Latino people, by the police, prosecutors, and the courts," the report said.

California's appellate courts rarely overturn convictions based on challenges of racial bias in jury selection. During the last 30 years, the report said, the California Supreme Court has reviewed 142 cases with jury discrimination claims and found violations in only three.

California's Courts of Appeal, which follow the state Supreme Courts precedent, also rarely conclude there was racial bias in jury selection. In the Court of Appeal decisions the study examined from 2006 through 2018, the courts found legal error in only 18 of 683 cases.

California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin H. Liu has frequently called for reforms to reduce or eliminate bias in jury selection. In late January, Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye announced that a jury selection work group would study whether modifications or additional measures are needed to guard against impermissible discrimination in jury selection."

A spokesman for the court said the appointment of members to the group was delayed because of the coronavirus crisis.

This year, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) introduced a bill, AB 3070, to change the ground rules for challenges of strikes based on race. The bill has passed the Assembly.

The California District Attorneys Assn. did not respond to a request for comment.
SALT LAKE CITY, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Mercato Partners today announced participation in the $28 million series B financing of Kalderos, led by Bain Capital Ventures. Mercato Partners led the initial $7 million series A funding of Kalderos in 2019.

With the goal of eliminating noncompliance from drug discount coordination, Kalderos has built the only real-time, compliant, point-of-sale chargeback solution for the prescription drug market. Combining industry expertise, data science, and comprehensive, deep-data libraries, Kalderos identifies previously undetected errors, ensuring the right discounts are applied to the right transaction.

"Industry figures highlight the level of waste in the drug discount marketplace, with $8.5B in non-compliant drug discount claims in 2018 alone," said Micah Litow, President and COO of Kalderos. "In an era of ever-rising healthcare expenses, these noncompliant drug discounts do not benefit the patients they are intended to help and are inconsistent with our need for a sustainable healthcare system. We help providers, payers and drug manufacturers spend more time improving patients' lives and less time addressing drug discount compliance. We are grateful our original investor, Mercato Partners, returned to support this series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures."

Founded in 2016, Kalderos released its first SaaS platform that detects problems in the complex financial interplay between pharmacies, insurers, manufacturers and payers. Current customers include nearly half of the 15 largest drug manufacturers.

"Since our initial series A investment, we have been very pleased with the progress Kalderos has made executing its timely and compelling vision to eliminate noncompliance and inefficiency in the U.S. healthcare system," said Joe Kaiser, Director at Mercato Partners. "With this new round of funding, the excellent team at Kalderos will be able to grow their footprint to ensure drug discount programs finally work as intended on behalf of patients. The company's data-driven, objective approach to drug discount management has real momentum and is redefining how the business of healthcare performs."

About Mercato Partners

Mercato Partners is a multi-practice growth firm providing both capital and guidance to founders and companies in a range of stages and a variety of industries ranging from technology firms to food and beverage operations to branded consumer companies. The experienced Mercato team of investors, analysts, and in-house performance operators combine forces with an extended network of advisors and service providers to accelerate growth and create lasting enterprise value. For more information, please visit www.mercatopartners.com .

About Kalderos

Kalderos combines industry expertise, design thinking and technology to target waste and to improve efficiency as the category leader in healthcare financial network management. Its initial SaaS product is the world's first drug discount management solution, which identifies, checks and resolves non-compliance. Using sophisticated models and machine learning processes, Kalderos detects inconsistencies overlooked by current methods, providing material benefits by eliminating waste. Based in Chicago, Kalderos was founded in 2016 by a team firmly rooted in the belief that it is essential to fix this problem in order to help patients and reduce inefficiencies. More information can be found at www.kalderos.com.

SOURCE Mercato Partners
Beijing has recorded 36 new locally-transmitted coronavirus cases, amid fears of a second wave in the Chinese capital.

Another 36 cases were also recorded on Saturday. The city had previously seen no new cases in more than 50 days.

The country's Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called on officials to take "decisive measures", warning that the risk of further spread remained high.

The outbreak has been linked to the city's largest wholesale market.

The general manager of the market has been dismissed, along with other local officials.

Three other provinces - Liaoning, Hebei and Sichuan - have also reported confirmed or suspected cases connected to Beijing.

Local media reports say the virus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported salmon at the market, prompting major supermarkets in Beijing to pull the fish from their shelves.

According to China's National Health Commission, Beijing recorded one new virus case on Thursday and six on Friday - the first cases in almost two months.

On Saturday, 36 new local cases were recorded in Beijing, all related to Xinfadi market - which has been described by state media outlet CGTN as the biggest wholesale market in all of Asia.

The market was quickly placed under lockdown and restrictions were imposed in 11 nearby neighbourhoods.

On Monday, ten more neighbourhoods around the market were restricted, said CGTN. No visitors or deliveries are allowed, but residents can come and go.

Schools and nurseries near the market were told to shut and the re-opening of primary schools, originally scheduled for today, has now been postponed, reported the Global Times.

The number of infections may not sound huge at the moment.

But, after more than 50 days with no cases at all, the authorities here are worried this could easily turn into a full-blown coronavirus second wave in the city.

This is especially the case given these infections are being traced back to a massive wholesale market which has tens of thousands of visitors every day, supplying 80% of Beijing's meat and vegetables.

In the response, we are again seeing the best and worst of China's Communist Party under Xi Jinping.

The speed and scale of isolation measures and mass testing has been impressive. However, the dismissals - not so much.

The deputy head of Fengtai district government has been removed, as has the local party secretary for Huaxiang area.

The general manager of Xinfadi market has been dismissed and other officials from the market summoned by the party's discipline inspection commission.

Here's a question: if you really wanted to encourage a culture with cover-up as your default setting, where fear trumped openness, how might you achieve that?

One way would be to sack any leader with a cluster of coronavirus cases suddenly appeared - because the arrival of this invisible killer must be their fault.

The chief epidemiologist of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the virus strain found in Beijing did not resemble the type circulating across the rest of the country, suggesting it might have been brought in from elsewhere.

Some 10,000 market staff will be tested for the virus.

This potential new wave of cases came as normal life had begun resuming across Beijing and most parts of China.

People had cautiously returned to workplaces and students back to schools - though virus restrictions still remained in place. BBC
One hundred and one years ago in Phillips County, Arkansas, in the flat Mississippi Delta downstream from Memphis, African-American sharecroppers met with union organizers.

Aware they were risking the fury of landowners, they planned the meeting in strict secrecy, scheduling it for 10 pm at a remote plank church. Armed guards were posted outside.

But a black trusty at the local jail alerted authorities. Two white men, a deputy sheriff and a railroad detective, drove to the church and shot it up. They didnt suspect the presence of the guards, who fired back.

The railroad detective was killed. Word quickly spread. Armed white men poured into the region from all over the Delta. Contemporary newspapers estimated the number of vigilantes at 600 to 1000. Reprisal killings began at once. The governor begged Washington to send in troops, and after a days delay the Army dispatched five hundred regular soldiers. But that only accelerated the killing.

A black dentist who practiced in Elaine, the nearest town of any size, returned from a hunting trip with his three brothers. Suspecting nothing, they drove into town and were literally shot to pieces, according to the NAACPs newspaper The Crisis.

Ive drawn these details from lawyer Grif Stockleys Blood in their Eyes: The Elaine Race Massacres of 1919. While numerous eyewitnesses described bodies lying in the streets and the canebrakes, and perpetrators afterward bragged about the tortures they inflicted, the exact number of victims is unknown. A white man writing in 1925, whose open racism gave him no reason to exaggerate the suffering of African-Americans, said 856 blacks were killed. Most historians put the number much lower, with 237 a consensus estimate.

As soon as the shooting stopped, an all-white grand jury  there wasnt any other kind in Phillips County  indicted 122 African-Americans for planning an armed uprising. In essence, the black people of Phillips County were accused of conspiring to do to whites what the whites actually did to them. Scores were imprisoned. Twelve were sentenced to death. One trial, which resulted in death sentences for six men, lasted just 45 minutes.

Their case, eventually known as Moore v. Dempsey, made legal history. Fifty-five years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the United States Supreme Court for the first time allowed it to be used to protect the civil rights of black defendants. The justices granted the condemned mens petitions for habeas corpus, ordering new trials. In the years that followed, habeas corpus became a relief valve mechanism for victims of racial injustice, allowing a tiny percentage to obtain legal redress.

The marauding mass murderers of Phillips County didnt think of themselves as criminals, even as they shot unresisting black people in their homes. On the contrary, they saw themselves as restoring order, which in the Arkansas of their day meant a strict social hierarchy based on race.

I was reminded of the Arkansas pogrom by the op-ed piece that the New York Times editorial board recently solicited from Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, published online and then disavowed in a cascade of bad decisions.

The Times gave the op-ed a stirring headline: Send in the Troops. In it, Cotton imagined a nationwide uprising of violent anti-fascist forces every bit as lurid as the insurrection conjured up by the Phillips County fantasists. He urged exactly the same remedy: an overwhelming show of force by the United States military against American citizens.

Of course, a show of force means little unless accompanied by the political will to use it. On Twitter, Cotton demanded no quarter for  anarchists, that is, summary execution for adherents of a political philosophy. He demanded the same treatment for insurrectionists, rioters, and looters.

Cottons calls for violence, set against the historical backdrop of anti-black violence in his native state, reveal an element too often missing from more general discussions of violence in our society. Interpersonal violence isnt disorder. On the contrary, it tells us whos in charge.

Whenever a horrible act of violence occurs, somebody somewhere is bound to call it senseless. But violence is never senseless from the perpetrators point of view. Otherwise they wouldnt do it. There is always a reason. This remains true whether society views the violence as criminal or (as in Arkansas, a century ago) laudatory.

A societys readiness to regard violence as laudatory goes a long way toward explaining the frequency with which its citizens engage in it. And, no surprise, Arkansas remains one of the most violent states to this day.

But right alongside it in any ranking of the top 10 most violent states is New Mexico.

One question New Mexicans need to answer, and to which this column will occasionally return, is why our crime statistics bracket us with the states of the South, with which we otherwise seem to have so little in common. Why arent we more like our comparatively peaceful neighbors Colorado, Texas and Arizona?

Joel Jacobsen is an author who in 2015 retired from a 29-year legal career. If there are topics you would like to see covered in future columns, please write him at legal.column.tips@gmail.com
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A restaurant beloved by Princess Diana and a host of A-list stars including Elton John and Tom Cruise will not be reopening after lockdown is lifted.

Le Caprice, in Piccadilly, London, described as Princess Diana's 'favourite', is now permanently closed after 38 years in its current location.

It is one of several exclusive London restaurants that will not be reopening post-lockdown.

The restaurant was initially opened in 1947 by Mario Gallati, a former maitre d' at The Ivy, who ran it until 1975.

In 1981, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King  now of The Wolseley and Brasserie Zedel fame  took over the restaurant and restored it to its former glory.

It went onto become a haven for the stars, including Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as royals like Princess Margaret and Princess Alexandra before being bought by its current owner, businessman Richard Caring.

Princess Diana was a regular customer at Le Caprice, here pictured leaving the central London restaurant in January 1994

The exclusive Le Caprice, in Piccadilly, London, beloved of Princess Diana, is now permanently closed after shutting its doors when lockdown was announced

Other royals also frequented the establishment, such as Princess Margaret pictured leaving Le Caprice restaurant in London with Ned Ryan in 1995

Princess Margaret leaving the restaurant in 2001 (left). Elton John visiting the establishment in 1994. The venue was popular with stars and royalty alike

Hollywood star Tom Cruise pictured visiting the exclusive restaurant in 1994, one of several stars to have dined there

It would lead to his Caprice Holdings restaurant empire, which now includes the likes of The Ivy, Sexy Fish and Scott's, as well as exclusive club Annabel's.

Though there are 'early plans' to open the restaurant in a new location, they are thought to be at a preliminary stage.

A spokesperson for Le Caprice told MailOnline: 'Le Caprice has occupied the current site for 38 years and now the lease is coming to an end. The iconic restaurant within the London dining scene will be reborn at a new location currently under negotiation.

'We thank our clientele for their loyalty and support over the years and assure them that they will be as excited as us with the new plans for this historic brand.'

Caring launched a blistering attack on the government yesterday, warning that Boris Johnson's 'weakness and indecision' on reopening restaurants, pubs and cafes will cost more than two million workers their jobs.

In a rare interview, restaurateur and private members' club mogul Caring warned the Prime Minister he was 'killing the country' by failing to outline when hospitality venues could reopen and whether they would have to abide by the two-metre social distancing rule.

Joan Collins and her husband Percy Gibson visiting the restaurant sometime in the early 2000s, one of a litany stars to visit

George Michael pictured leaving the restaurant in 1993 (left). Victoria Beckham pictured on a night out at the Vogue Magazine Party at Le Caprice restaurant in 2009 (right)

Sting and wife Trudie pictured leaving restaurant Le Caprice after celebrating their marriage at Camden register office in 1992

Bill Clinton pictured leaving the restaurant in 2006 (left). Cilla Black leaving Le Caprice, London (right) on an unknown date

The Duchess of Kent, Princess Alexandra, and Sir Noel Coward pictured leaving Le Caprice together back in 1959

Sean Connery pictured with his wife Micheline Roquebrune going to the exclsuive restaurant Le Caprice in Mayfair in 1994 (left). Pictured right, on an unknown date, are Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Denise Van Outen

Caring, whose staff have now delivered a million and one freshly cooked free meals to NHS workers and vulnerable people in lockdown, said ministers had grossly underestimated the permanent damage being done to Britain's 26,000 restaurants.

Businessman Richard Caring is the owner of Le Caprice

He told The Mail on Sunday that thousands of businesses and their employees were in the 'eye of a storm'  surviving thanks only to the Government's taxpayer-funded furlough scheme that pays staff wages, and a pause on rent and business rates tax bills.

As soon as state aid measures are withdrawn, Caring warned, as many as '50 per cent or 60 per cent' of the four-million-strong hospitality workforce could be laid off and restaurants, cafes and bars shuttered for good.

He said the wave of redundancies would be 'like a volcano' erupting, with the worst of the pain coming in September and October when the furlough scheme ends.

Calling for urgent action to avert the looming jobs crisis, Caring said: 'The beginning of the lockdown gave us an initial shock.

'Now it's quite calm because people are furloughed, businesses are not paying staff, they are not paying rent, they are not paying rates and staff don't have the expense of going to work and the expense of going out.

'So as a restaurateur, you believe you can sit tight and survive, and that's what everyone's doing. But the big problem that people shy away from is that we're in the eye of a storm.

'The fact is, down the road there's a volcano that is going to bubble over.

'I don't think people can see it yet, but everyone in hospitality is beginning to realise they will have to make heavy cuts.

'This volcano, unless we wake up to it now, it's going to be horrendous. It's just going to explode, spewing out unemployed people. The pain and suffering it is going to cause is horrific.

Katherine Jenkins and Raymond Blanc leaving the restaurant in 2013 (left). Catherine Zeta-Jones visited the restaurant with husband Michael Douglas in 2002 (right)

Liz Hurley pictured shortly after leaving the restaurant in December 2001 - one of several big names to visit the restaurant over 38 years

Bianca Jagger and Tracey Emin at a private dinner celebrating the 30th anniversary of iconic London restaurant Le Caprice on October 4, 2011

Duchess of Kent and Martin Lewis leaving Le Caprice restaurant - though the date is unclear, the restaurant was popular with royals

Lady Sarah Chatto leaving the restaurant in 1996 (left). Lady Victoria Hervey leaving Le Caprice in 2001 (right). It seemed popular with royals

Picture shows Serena Stanhope driving husband Lord Linley (front right) after dinner with Princess Margaret at Le Caprice

Several exclusive and popular restaurants across central London will not be reopening following the lift of lockdown

The restaurant was initially opened in 1947 by Mario Gallati (left), a former maitre d' at The Ivy, who ran it until 1975. In 1981, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King (right)  now of The Wolseley and Brasserie Zedel fame  took over the restaurant and restored it to its former glory

'There are estimates saying we could have up to five million unemployed. It's not going to be five million  it's going to be more. I don't think we've seen anything yet. The Government is killing the country right now and the hospitality industry is the frontline disaster.'

Le Caprice, a restaurant loved by royalty and the showbiz elite Le Caprice, in Piccadilly, London, will now permanently close after 38 years in its current location. The restaurant was initially opened in 1947 by Mario Gallati, a former maitre d' at The Ivy, who ran it until 1975. In 1981, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King  now of The Wolseley and Brasserie Zedel fame  took over the restaurant and restored it to its former glory. It went onto become a haven for the stars, including Mick Jagger and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as royals like Princess Margaret and Princess Alexandra before being bought by its current owner, businessman Richard Caring. It would lead to his Caprice Holdings restaurant empire, which now includes the likes of The Ivy, Sexy Fish and Scott's, as well as exclusive club Annabel's. Though there are 'early plans' to open the restaurant in a new location, they are thought to be at a preliminary stage. A spokesperson for Le Caprice told MailOnline: 'Le Caprice has occupied the current site for 38 years and now the lease is coming to an end. The iconic restaurant within the London dining scene will be reborn at a new location currently under negotiation. 'We thank our clientele for their loyalty and support over the years and assure them that they will be as excited as us with the new plans for this historic brand.' Advertisement

Bloomberg's Richard Vines revealed on Twitter that Le Caprice, a Caprice Holdings property, would not reopen after lockdown.

Other restaurants in the empire, Scott's, Sexy Fish and 34 Mayfair are all offering delivery services for the first time.

The closure has not been explicitly linked to the pandemic, though several high profile restaurants have been forced to permanently close their doors amid the crisis.

Among them is the two Michelin-starred restaurant The Ledbury, with chef Brett Graham admitting he cannot operate the establishment with social distancing measures.

The landlord and the suppliers have been paid in full and the staff have been made redundant.

Siren at the Goring, a seafood restaurant inside the Belgravia hotel, will also not be reopening, despite only launching last year.

After arriving in the capital after much fanfare last year, Wahlburgers, the London branch of Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg's burger chain, will also not be coming back.

Texture, a Michelin-starred Scandinavian-influenced restaurant in Marylebone run by Agnar Sverrisson, has also closed permanently.

The Frog Hoxton, run by critically-acclaimed chef Adam Handling, has also shut its doors.

Meanwhile, away from food, the historic Ritz Club and Casino will also not be reopening after lockdown is lifted.

In April, top chef Yotam Ottolenghi warned that thousands of restaurants may never reopen.

Mr Ottolenghi told BBC Radio 4's programme: 'The biggest worry that we have is rent. When corona started and we were asked to close our doors, which is totally understandable because of safety, nobody really addressed the issue of the rents

'Many, many have not been paying rents. Others have got into arrangements with their landlords, but this has not been solved.

'Some landlords have been threatening to prosecute and other legal actions against the tenants at restaurants in such a time because they are not paying their rents, and landlords, many of them, rely on the rent to pay their own debts.'
The Nzema Youth Association (NYA) in the Western Region has donated some preventive items to some health facilities in the area to support the fight against the novel Coronavirus pandemic.

The items include 30 pieces of nose mask, boxes of Kasapreko hand sanitizer, 5 litres of liquid soaps, 5 litres of power zone, bundles of tissue, one washing bowl, one dustbin, one box of disposable hand gloves and one Veronica bucket to each facility.

The beneficiary health facilities are Samenye and Twenene health centers in the Jomoro Municipality, Atuabo and Asasetre health centre in the Ellembelle District and, Bamiango health center and Kegyina CHPs compound in the Nzema East Municipality.

The Nzema Youth Association is expected to continue the donation to other health facilities in the area.

Speaking at Asasetre Health Center, the President of Nzema Youth Association (NYA), Eric Somiah Andoh disclosed that they (executives) solely contributed money to procure the items.

He added that during the Ebola outbreak broke in West Africa, the Association embarked on "Ebola Awareness Campaign" in Nzema.

"...but today we can all admit that Nzema and Ghana as a whole, Coronavirus has visited us. So upon this that we the youth have decided to help to support health professionals here and that is why we the Youth have contributed cash to support the fight".

Eric Somiah Andoh lamented that none of the politicians and other stakeholders they contacted supported them in cash or kind to embark on the gesture.

"When we decided to embark on this exercise we invited so many politicians and other stakeholders in Nzema to help us but we have not heard from anybody", he worried.

He, therefore, seized the opportunity to appeal to other benevolent organizations and public-spirited individuals to support the Association to continue with their exercise.

He stressed that the Association would continue to sensitize the residents of Nzema on the safety protocols.

He also called on the residents to continue to wash their hands with soap under running water and observe other protocols.

Receiving some of the items, the Deputy Physician Assistant of Asasetre Health Center, Mr. Cosmos Ehonea Nda thanked the Nzema Youth Association for the kind gesture.

According to him, they never thought the youth group could think about them by donating such preventive items to help them contain the spread of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic in the area.

Mr. Ehonea Nda seized the opportunity to appeal to other benevolent organizations to construct a laboratory for the facility.

Coronavirus Cases in Western Region

Western Region has recorded 778 positive cases of Coronavirus as of Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

District breakdown

1. Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis = 202 to 277

2. Tarkwa-Nsuaem = 187 to 250 to 275

3. Effia Kwesimintsim = 74 to 88

4. Prestea Huni-Valley = 32 to 54

5. Ahanta West = 23 to 25

6.Nzema East Municipality = 10 to 19

7. Shama District = 10 to 17

8. Ellembelle District = 13

9. Mpohor District = 4

10. Jomoro Municipality = 4

11. Amenfi West = 1

12. Wassa East District = 1

13. Amenfi East = 0

14 Amenfi Central = 0

Total = 769 to 778

Note the following facts

Total of 4,778 pending results

10 recoveries

1 death

Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality has the highest pending results of 1,357

Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis has 906 pending results

As of Tuesday, June 9, 2020 Western Region records 9 new positive cases and all the 9 cases were recorded in Nzema East Municipality.

Source: Daniel Kaku, Contributor
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 15, 2020) - Ely Gold Royalties Inc. (TSXV: ELY) (OTCQX: ELYGF) ("Ely Gold" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that Nevada Select Royalties Inc., a subsidiary of Ely Gold, has entered into an Option to Purchase Agreement (the "Option Agreement") with Provenance Gold USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Provenance Gold, Inc. (CSE: PAU) (collectively "Provenance" ) to acquire thirty (30) unpatented lode mineral claims on the White Rock Gold Project (the "White Rock") located in Elko County, Nevada. At the conclusion of the Option Agreement, Ely Gold retains a 2.0% Net Smelter Returns Royalty ("NSR") on any future production at the White Rock.

The Agreement

The option payments amount to US$250,000 over four years (the "Option Period") as follows:

$10,000 on closing the option agreement;

$25,000 on the first anniversary of closing;

$40,000 on the second anniversary of closing;

$50,000 on the third anniversary of closing; and

$125,000 on the fourth anniversary of closing (the "Option Exercise")

Upon signing the Option Agreement, Provenance becomes responsible for all lease costs associated with the Property and is entitled to carry out a full exploration program with right of access to all historic data. Completion of the acquisition may be accelerated by bringing forward annual option payments. There are no work commitments associated with the Option Agreement. Relinquishment can be affected by Provenance during the Option Period without penalty. The Option Agreement includes a two (2) mile area of interest. Upon Option Exercise, Ely Gold will retain a two percent (2%) NSR which includes a US$25,000 annual advance minimum royalty payment.

THE WHITE ROCK GOLD PROJECT

White Rock is located in the Goose Creek Mountains along the Nevada-Utah border in the Delano Mining District. The terrane in the White Rock area is composed of a Permian-age bedded sequence of limestone, chert, siliceous siltstone, and cherty limestone. A northeast striking fault system forms the boundaries of a large graben where Permian sedimentary rocks are exposed in topographic highs on either side of the graben. Within the graben both Tertiary volcanic and Permian sedimentary rocks are exposed and mapped alteration effects in the siliceous siltstone include bleaching, silicification, quartz veining, iron oxide staining, and brecciation.

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White Rock was originally located and explored by AMAX Gold in 1984. Drill programs were conducted by AMAX and later by Kennecott Copper (now Rio Tinto Kennecott) that reportedly generated an historic resource which will now be the focus of Provenance's exploration program. Ely Gold has provided Provenance with all available historic data on White Rock.

Qualified Person

Stephen Kenwood, P. Geo, is a director of the Company and a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Kenwood has reviewed and approved the technical information in this press release.

About Ely Gold Royalties Inc.

Ely Gold Royalties Inc. is a Nevada focused junior gold royalty company. Its current portfolio includes royalties at some of Nevada's largest gold mines, including Jerritt Canyon, Goldstrike and Marigold, as well as the Fenelon property in Quebec operated by Wallbridge Mining. Ely Gold's key assets includes several advanced projects that are scheduled for production by 2023. The Company continues to actively seek opportunities to purchase producing or near-term producing royalties. Ely Gold is also generating development assets, through property sales, on projects that are located at or near producing mines and exploration assets with active drill programs. Management believes that due to the Company's ability to identify and purchase third-party royalties, its successful strategy of organically creating royalties, its gold focus and its commitment to only the most stable mining jurisdictions, Ely Gold offers shareholders low-risk leverage to gold prices and low-cost access to long-term gold royalties.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Signed "Trey Wasser"

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

For further information, please contact

Trey Wasser, President & CEO

trey@elygoldinc.com

972-803-3087

Joanne Jobin, Investor Relations Officer

jjobin@elygoldinc.com

647-964-0292

FORWARD-LOOKING CAUTIONS: This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the use of proceeds of the Offering. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts; they are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "projects," "aims," "potential," "goal," "objective," "prospective," and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will," "would," "may," "can," "could" or "should" occur, or are those statements, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Factors that could cause future results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements include changes to the operational needs of the Company. The reader is urged to refer to the Company's reports, publicly available through the Canadian Securities Administrators' System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (SEDAR) at www.sedar.com for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effect.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider 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/57867
Congress general secretary Avinash Pande said on Monday that the legislators who are supporting the Ashok Gehlot government in Rajasthan would continue to stay together at a hotel till the Rajya Sabha election due to the alleged poaching threat from the BJP.

Pande said the legislators had been staying like a family and various, adding that brainstorming sessions and discussion on the future roadmap for the development of the state were being held at the hotel, where the legislators have been kept after discussion with them.

According to Pande, special operations group of the Rajasthan Police is investigating the alleged attempts to poach and destabilise the state government, and the report is likely to come soon.

Pande said the Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties had supported the government, which took the number to 125 (including 107 Congress MLAs) in the House of 200.

"It was decided that the legislators will stay together so that the BJP's attempts, which the party did in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, could not succeed in Rajasthan," he told reporters at the JW Marriott hotel in Jaipur. "We are staying like a family and this is a blessing in disguise."

Asked about the Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ramesh Meena's absence, Pande said the Sapotra MLA was away due to some "personal reasons", but he was in touch and would will follow the party directions.

Meanwhile, a letter written to Pande by a MLA Bharat Singh surfaced on Monday, in which the legislator had pointed out that most of the Rajya Sabha MPs "do not even recognise" the legislators, who elect them.

Singh alleged that the upper House MPs had nothing to do with anyone after the elections get over.

In the letter written on June 11, the former minister said senior leaders of the party were focusing on the Rajya Sabha elections with seriousness despite the fact that two seats were sure to be won by the party.

He pointed out that the Congress could win the Lok Sabha election, too, if the party leaders started working in the same manner.

Asked about it, Pande acknowledged that Singh had written the letter and expressed his sentiments in a "positive way". On the cabinet expansion, Pande said discussion would be held at the right time.

Government chief whip Mahesh Joshi, who filed complaints alleging attempts to destabilise the state government said he would elaborate on it once his statement is recorded by the Special Operations Group of the police.

Sources said Joshi had handed over some evidence in connection with the attempts. The MLAs were taken to a luxury resort last week for discussion on the June 19 Rajya Sabha election and later they were shifted to JW Marriott on Friday.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has alleged that the BJP was conspiring to poach the MLAs in order to destabilise his government, a charge denied by the saffron party.

Elections to three Rajya Sabha seats will be held on July 19 for which the Congress has nominated K C Venugopal and Neeraj Dangi, while the BJP has fielded Rajendra Gehlot and Onkar Singh Lakhawat.

In the assembly of 200, the Congress has 107 MLAs and has the support of Independent MLAs and legislators of other parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal, CPI(M) and the Bhartiya Tribal Party, taking the number of legislators on its side to 125.

The ruling Congress has more than enough majority to win two seats and the BJP, which has 72 MLAs and support of three Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MLAs, has the numbers to comfortably win just one seat.
Sarah Djato, right, listens to speakers during a news conference calling for the removal of police from the Los Angeles school system on June 8 in Los Angeles. (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times)

In the midst of the 1980s war on drugs and in the wake of devastating mass school shootings throughout the country, bolstering school police in Los Angeles was seen as a safety imperative by many educators and parents.

But for the last decade, a number of student advocacy groups have pushed the school board to reduce police presence in their schools, saying Black and Latino children are targeted for discipline more than others.

The Los Angeles School Police Department now employs about 470 officers and civilians, including placement of an armed and uniformed officer at every high school. In a highly publicized turn last week, the leadership of the Los Angeles teachers union voted to support the elimination of the $70-million school police budget.

The union's public announcement on the steps of City Hall  compelled by two weeks of protests and outrage over police brutality against Black people and the killing of George Floyd  has increased the urgency of the debate within the nation's second-largest school district. The union leadership joins a number of community-based organizations who say the $70-million school police budget should be used to hire more counselors and build restorative justice programs.

"This moment is different because if you all remember a couple weeks ago, people acted like ... the call to defund police was a radical call," said Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah, a Cal State Los Angeles professor of Pan-African Studies and an L.A. Unified parent. "We're at a moment when all of a sudden, our most radical imaginings are possible. We can end the system of policing as we know it. We can defund the police. And we have to begin with our children."

The Los Angeles schools movement comes as school districts and universities throughout the country have joined city debates over defunding or reorganizing police departments.

Ultimately it's up to the school board, which authorizes police spending, to decide whether to take action  two of seven school board members said they did not support the move, one said the issue should be discussed during budget deliberations and four others either declined or did not respond to requests to comment.

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Any move to change the school police workforce is subject to collective bargaining with the police union. L.A. School Police Assn. President Gil Gamez said officers are necessary to keep the peace on campus and are trained to deescalate situations among students. In addition, the department has shared on social media a petition circulating to keep the department intact.

A newly formed coalition of Black school police officers said they support reform, but not elimination of the department. "We are also hurting; and as police officers we understand and accept that there needs to be meaningful change. We are committed to comprehensive, institutional reforms to help eradicate the legacy of systemic racism and violence within law enforcement."

Groups that have worked for years to reduce police presence on campuses and decrease punitive discipline measures include the South L.A. parent organizing group CADRE, Youth Justice Coalition and the Labor/Community Strategy Center.

"Since this is such a political issue, the reason why you havent heard as many calls to completely eliminate the police is because there hasnt been broad support around it," said Amir Whitaker, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has long supported disbanding school police.

Over the years the organizing groups have scored wins  L.A. Unified police agreed in 2014 to stop citing students for minor offenses, such as tardiness or dress code infractions. Between then and 2016, the department returned the military-grade weaponry it had received from the federal government  including grenade launchers. Last year, the school board voted to stop random student searches. Although not performed by school police, the searches were viewed as unfair.

An analysis of L.A. school police data from 2014 to 2017, conducted by Kelly Lytle Hernandez, a UCLA professor of history, African American studies and urban planning, showed that Black students had disproportionate rates of interactions with officers, including arrests and "diversions," a citation meant to funnel students into counseling.

Its part of a pattern," said Lytle Hernandez, who was awarded a 2019 MacArthur Foundation genius grant for her body of research. "Its part of a culture we have to break that sees these young kids as more of threats than humans to be invested in."





How did police end up on school campuses?







By the time Black and Chicano students led walkouts at their schools in the 1960s, demanding better learning conditions, armed guards patrolled some schools, and increasingly local police officers were assigned to their campuses, he said. When conservative state leadership allowed schools to deputize their own police forces, L.A. Unified codified its force in 1984.

In the years following the Columbine High School shooting and as mass school shootings continued to convulse campuses, school safety rose to the top of parental concerns, and officials nationwide beefed campus law enforcement. In 2018, after the shooting in Parkland, Fla., the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a federal grant program would prioritize funding more school resource officers.

Yet some students and their advocates are concerned about recent instances of police use of force in schools.

Sarah Djato, a Dorsey High School student, said she watched from a campus balcony as L.A. School Police pepper-sprayed classmates during a fight and believes police presence on campus is detrimental to her learning and to Black students' understanding of the world they live in.

When youre having this continuously happen ... to Black students, it becomes in our minds that that is normal and thats the way were supposed to treat situations and you defuse it by force, and that violence is OK and violence is normal, said Sarah, 16, an organizer in the local youth activism group Students Deserve.

Rebecca Gonzalez, a Fremont High School student, said she, too, saw police use pepper spray at her school during a fight in November. Instead of officers, peacekeepers who are community members, or mental health workers, should staff the schools to preempt fights, both students said.

Both she and Sarah said it was clear from social media and the interactions between students involved that the situations at their schools were escalating far before fistfights erupted. She has hope that the current movement will get more adults  especially teachers, many of whom are white  on board.

I feel like people are starting to be more aware than they were before. People are starting to take the time to educate themselves, especially white people. Because its new to them, its not new to us," said Rebecca, who is Black and Latina. "Ive never seen so many white people holding themselves accountable.

L.A. School Police used pepper spray on at least five students during the 2018 calendar year, seven in 2019, and one thus far in 2020, an L.A. Unified spokeswoman said Sunday. The district did not release the names of the school or schools where the incidents took place or the number of instances in which police used pepper spray, except for Hollywood High School in March 2020. School officials are looking through police reports for potential additional incidents, said L.A. Unified spokeswoman Shannon Haber.

During the 2019-2020 school year school, police responded to reports of 403 "assaults-battery," 369 burglaries, 155 mass shooting threats, 95 robberies, 63 assaults with a deadly weapon, seven bomb threats and five rapes, according to the school district.

Supt. Austin Beutner declined to comment regarding the union's call to defund police and is expected to discuss school police Monday during his pre-recorded weekly briefing.

Two school board members recall seeing reports that correspond to varying degrees with the accounts of students. Board member George McKenna said he remembers being alerted of a melee at least once.

The Fremont High School incident was widely reported on because 30 Los Angeles Police Department officers responded in riot gear to reports of multiple fights on campus. There also were school police officers at the scene. It was the LAPD that used the pepper spray, said Dulce Lopez, deputy chief of staff for board President Richard Vladovic.





The complications of eliminating a police department







Given the violence on some campuses and the possibility of school shootings anywhere  to not have a school police officer there makes you much more vulnerable," he said. "Its a deterrent more than anything and mostly a deterrent for the outside threat.

School board member Nick Melvoin said he would be open to reforming the department, but does not support shutting down police presence completely. Vladovic, who has maintained a working relationship with the employee unions on each side of this issue, said "there needs to be an open and honest debate...and I believe we need to address institutional racism wherever it exists.

In addition, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said last week that he does not support eliminating school-based police departments completely.

"We need to have standards for school resource officers," Thurmond said. "Those standards mean that we should never ever at any school expect a police officer to be the dean of students ... who disciplines a student for doing things that students do."
New Delhi: A Delhi-based businessman hired four people for his own murder to get insurance money for his family, claimed Police on Monday. Deputy commissioner of police (outer) A Koan said that the deceased businessman Gaurav, a resident of Delhi, was going through depression due to loss in business and also taken a personal loan of Rs 6 lakh and himself planned conspiracy to get murdered for insurance money.

Giving details about the case, Koan said, "A complaint of missing was received from his wife at Anand Vihar Police Station on June 9 at around midnight 12:30 AM. In the complaint, she stated that her husband who left the home at 10:00 am in the morning, is the owner of a grocery shop at Karkardooma village and his phone isn`t reachable," he said.

"Next Day, Delhi police got PCR call, an information was received at PS Ranhola about a body hanging on a tree with rope on a tree near the banks of Jheel. His identity is revealed to be Gaurav Bansal and was he was the same reported missing in PS Anand Vihar," he added.

Delhi police registered a murder case and started the investigation. On the basis of intelligence, a suspect namely Suraj was apprehended. On the instance of accused Suraj, co-accused Manoj, Sumit, and one juvenile were apprehended.

During the inquiry, the juvenile revealed that the deceased had paid him for his own murder. The accused persons committed this act of murder by hanging Gaurav near Khedi Baba Pul, Najafgarh Drain.

The accused persons revealed that they had received money for this act from Gaurav (the deceased). They further revealed that the deceased had told them if they kill him then his family will get insurance money. Further investigation is in progress, police said.
Sitamarhi (Bihar) [India], June 14 (ANI): Family members of the deceased, who was killed in firing by Nepalese security personnel, have urged the state and Central governments to provide them justice.



Santosh Kumar, whose elder brother was killed in the firing on Friday, said: "I was there. Nepal Police fired and my brother lost his life...We demand justice. SP, BDO, SDO came here. We have been given Rs 23,000."

Kumar requested the "state and Central governments" to provide justice to his elder brother's wife, who is expecting a child. He informed that his elder brother got married in 2018.

He further slammed Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) for "careless attitude" saying his brother's life could have been saved if they had arrived on the site.

"SSB jawans were stationed 200 m from the site of the incident. They saw the incident but still did not go there. My brother's life would not have been lost if SSB reached on time," he said.

According to him, Nepal security personnel came inside the Indian border. "They were 20-25 people," he said.

Politicians visited the victim's family to express their sympathies with the kin of the deceased.

BJP leader, Gayatri Devi said: "This is tragic. We are saddened. I am a woman too and I can understand what a woman goes through."

She condemned Nepal Police for the incident. "What Nepal Police has done is condemnable. They have done it at the behest of China. For us, with Nepal, it was a question of "Beti-Roti". The incident has taken place because of China," she said.

A Youth Congress leader, while speaking about the incident said: "This is very unfortunate as India-Nepal shares "Beti-Roti" relationship. India has always helped Nepal whenever the need arises. People from Nepal come for treatment. Nepal's economy is also heavily dependent on India." (ANI)
 Read the full article on Motorious

Here are some examples of classics that can get you into the hobby, without the typical high price tag.

The Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) is one of the most prestigious organizations in the classic automotive field. They are well-known as an authority on automotive history, and more importantly, prestige when it comes to the caliber of vehicle they stand behind. Because of their high standards when it comes to the automobile, many see being a part of the club as a pricey venture, requiring a car worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, but that's not always the case. As Motorious has joined forced with the CCCA to host their first ever online auction, we couldn't help but notice some fine vehicles for sale, with low starting bids and/or estimates. Not only will this get your classic collection started, if you buy one, you get exclusive access to the CCCA with a one year memebership, totally free of charge. Check out these classic bargains in the CCCA auction that ends tomorrow.

*Please note that current bids are those listed at the time this article was written, and are not guarantees of that price.

1928 Lincoln Model L Sedan

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $15,000

Check out this barn find condition Lincoln Model L. Peeling, crazed, dimpled paint, imperfections in the chrome, a faded interior do not detract from this automobile, but instead add to its originality and charm. Lincoln was not peer of Ford, and they were determined to make this their line for the well-heeled, in the form of a high-end limousine if you will, certainly to be driven by a chauffeur.

1948 Lincoln Continental

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $17,500

Here is a a car from an era where status was measured by the inch, and net worth was shown off by the amount of chrome that could be attached to a car. This car has both the length and the chrome, so its original owner was probably an important person, and had the scratch to back it up.

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1941 Packard 1907 5 Passenger Sedan

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $10,000

The car has a new Rhode Island wiring harness installed, the Steering wheel has been recast, Brake system is all brand new, Fuel system is all brand new and carb has been rebuilt. The car does have the glass taillights, wood door garnishes have been professionally restored. The engine has a bad lifter that needs to be replaced, however it does run and drive.

1933 Rolls Royce 20/25 GSY15

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $25,500

This classic Rolls Royce was pictured in Tom Clarke's book "The Rolls-Royce 20/25", page 236. It is an outstanding car, and low price way to own the prestige brand of cars, and includes many extra parts, a handbook, and has recently had a fresh tune-up.

1941 Cadillac Sixty-Special Fleetwood Imperial

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $29,500

Purchased from the former owner/curator for the past 36 years here in Missouri, this very well preserved car remained nearly 100% original throughout upon acquisition. Although, the original interior upholstery had survived rather well being covered in plastic for many years, we felt this extremely rare Imperial deserved a new interior. It was completely removed in late 2015 and professional refinished by our very own Danny Slivinski here in-house.

1935 Packard 1200 Sedan

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $30,000

Originally owned by wealthy farmers from Arkansas, this Senior Series car has spent its life in the non-snowy, free of road salt environment in the south. It can be traced back through time to yield it has had 4 owners in its life, some of them spending serious money to keep it in shape. The car currently is not perfect, but a well working example of the 1200 series with no rust on the body, and looking visually, much like it originally did when it was driven out of the dealership on September 9th, 1935.

1925 Cadillac Type V63

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $30,000

This 1925 V-63 Phaeton is a rarely-seen example of Cadillacs technological tour de force. According to factory records, this car left the factory on the 21st of May, 1924, destined for Munger Auto Co. of Dallas, Texas. Copies of the original ledger show the first owner was J.A. Russell, also of Dallas. This car remained in Texas for nearly all of its life, trading hands early on to Earnest McCanless, another local resident, who owned the car from the mid-1920s through 1942, when he sold it to Charles Gharis. In 1966, Gharis sold the Cadillac to Charles Matthews of Waxahachie, Texas who restored the big V-63 and enjoyed it for many years. In the 1970s, Matthews parked the Cadillac in his barn, and it remained there until after his passing. In 2010, the Campbell family (also of Texas) acquired the Cadillac from the Matthews estate and treated it to a high-quality cosmetic restoration including a new top, interior, and restored artillery wheels.

1930 Lincoln 170 63179

Image Credit: CCCA

Current Bid: $31,000

In the 1980s, this one of only 40 built classic Lincolm was a 97 to 98 point car. This California resident car was also one a trophy winner at Pebble Beach. It has not been running for eight years, but preservatives in all fluids. Still beautiful paint, leather, upholstery, and chrome. Pro-rebuilt engine, and waiting for an owner to give it a proper restoration.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  The government has extended nearly 1.5 billion worth of cash aid to thousands of overseas Filipino workers and brought home more than 50,000 migrant workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Malacanang said Monday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the government has distributed financial assistance to 155,230 OFWs under its Abot Kamay ang Pagtulong for OFWs or AKAP program, which has received an additional 1 billion funding to cover 250,000 workers. The initial 1.5 billion budget already reached 139,000 beneficiaries who received a cumulative 1.44 billion, as they got $200 (about 10,000) each through overseas labor offices to help them cope with the pandemic.

The program received 418,142 applications, of which 145,472 were approved, Roque said as he cited data from the Department of Labor and Employment.

At least 169 million released from the additional fund has so far covered 16,230 OFWs. Roque said 45,748 petitions for relief have been approved out of 92,555 applications. In total, the funds should cover up to 250,000 OFWs.

Meanwhile, Roque said that some 50,105 OFWs who were forced to fly home due to the global coronavirus crisis have been ferried to their home provinces in the past month. This comes after President Rodrigo Duterte gave a one-week deadline to send home all returning OFWs to their hometowns, following the congestion in quarantine centers.

The government is also grappling with the need to send home locally stranded individuals as it looks to implement the "Balik Probinsya" program, which encourages Filipinos to return to rural areas to decongest Metro Manila, the country's main commercial hub. Some 764 passengers looking to catch a flight or bus ride home have been transferred to the Villamor Air Base Elementary School and the Philippine State College of Aeronautics for temporary shelter, Roque said, after some were found sleeping near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and even under the NAIA Expressway.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development has also extended a 2,000 subsidy for 539 LSIs, he added.
(TNS)  Grossmont College will host a free virtual summer career academy next month for students, their parents and guardians.The academy will include interactive activities, industry panels, campus resources information, employer information sessions and breakout sessions. The two-day event is set for 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, and Wednesday, July 15, and will be held via ZOOM.The academy will provide a way for new and current students to explore careers with experts available to present and discuss career options and services.Careers and education topics that will be part of the academy include Administration of Justice; Business Communication,; Business Office Technology; Computer Science and Information Systems; Child Development, Education and Family Studies; Culinary Arts; Drone Technology; Hospitality and Tourism; International Business; Marketing; Management; and Programmable Logic Controller.For information, visit https://bit.ly/2XCQc4b and to register, visit https://bit.ly/3gUEwBk
Aflame: A protester holds a sign saying 'Prosecute the Police' at the fast-food restaurant in Atlanta where Rayshard Brooks died. The building was set on fire by a protester. Photo: Ben GrayAtlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

America was hit by a fresh wave of protests over the weekend following the killing of a 27-year-old black man by a white police officer in Atlanta on Friday night.

The shooting of Rayshard Brooks (27) brought demonstrators onto the streets. On Saturday night, protesters blocked a freeway and the Wendy's fast-food restaurant where Mr Brooks was shot dead was burned down.

In California, hundreds of demonstrators gathered to demand an investigation into the death of another black man, Robert Fuller, whose body was found hanging from a tree last week.

They called for an independent autopsy, challenging the official verdict that Mr Fuller had killed himself.

Expand Close Anger: A protester shouts at a rally in Palmdale, California, for Robert Fuller whose body was found hanging from a tree. Photo: REUTERS/Ringo Chiu / Facebook

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Whatsapp Anger: A protester shouts at a rally in Palmdale, California, for Robert Fuller whose body was found hanging from a tree. Photo: REUTERS/Ringo Chiu

The death of Mr Brooks dashed hopes that the protests across the world sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis were dissipating.

Police were called to the Wendy's drive-through after complaints that Mr Brooks had fallen asleep at the wheel and was blocking one of the lanes.

According to video footage, what began as a routine breath test - with no sign of aggression from either the police or Mr Brooks - escalated after the officers attempted to arrest him for drink-driving.

During the struggle, Mr Brooks fled, having grabbed a police taser. Then he appeared to turn and aim the taser at the pursuing officers. One of them, Garrett Rolfe, opened fire. Mr Brooks died in hospital after surgery.

As tension mounted, city police chief Erika Shields resigned on Saturday night. Officer Rolfe, who was hired to the force in 2013, was sacked yesterday and his colleague, Devin Brosnan, placed on administrative leave.

More than 40 minutes elapses between the time Officer Brosnan first knocks on Mr Brooks's car door while he's in Wendy's drive-thru and when gunshots ring out; Officer Rolfe arrives on scene about 16 minutes in.

Expand Close New tragedy: This bodycam photo shows Rayshard Brooks speaking to police officer Garrett Rolfe during the inciden. Photo: Atlanta Police Department via AP / Facebook

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Whatsapp New tragedy: This bodycam photo shows Rayshard Brooks speaking to police officer Garrett Rolfe during the inciden. Photo: Atlanta Police Department via AP

The shooting is audible in footage from Mr Rolfe's dash camera and both officers' body cameras, but wasn't captured on any of the four recordings provided by police. Both body cameras fall off during the struggle that ensues when Mr Rolfe moves to handcuff Mr Brooks after speaking to him for about 20 minutes, although Mr Brooks is briefly glimpsed being Tased before he's shot.

Atlanta's mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, who has been tipped as a possible presidential running mate for Joe Biden, condemned the latest shooting. "I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force," she said.

Stacey Abrams, a Georgia Democrat and another potential Biden running mate, tweeted: "Sleeping in a drive-thru must not end in death."

The latest killings have renewed the focus on police tactics in the US, with senior politicians in both parties calling for reforms.

"It's another reminder that police can't continue to be judge, jury and executioner," said Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar on CNN's 'State of the Union'.

On the same programme James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma, called for a ban on chokeholds as a method of restraint.

Expand Close A Swat officer draws his weapon during a protest in Atlanta about Mr Brooks' killing. Photo: REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage / Facebook

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Whatsapp A Swat officer draws his weapon during a protest in Atlanta about Mr Brooks' killing. Photo: REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

A ban on chokeholds was included in a police reform bill passed by the Democrat-controlled House last week.

It is likely to form part of a police reform bill that will be introduced in the Republican-controlled Senate this week by Tim Scott, the African American senator for South Carolina.

Some Democrats are pushing for radical action including "defunding" - or scrapping - police departments.

However, Mr Biden has distanced himself from that, as did Ms Abrams, who said supporters were being drawn into a "false idea".

Speaking on ABC's 'This Week', she said, "We need reformation of how police officers do their jobs."

L Chris Stewart, a lawyer for Mr Brooks's family, said the officer who shot him should be charged for "an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder". He said Mr Brooks was a father of four and had celebrated a daughter's eighth birthday on Friday before he was killed.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
By Andrew Osborn and Susan Heavey

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian court convicted former U.S. marine Paul Whelan of spying for the United States on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in jail, a ruling that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said outraged Washington.

Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained by agents from Russias Federal Security Service in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28, 2018 as he prepared to attend a wedding.

Russia says Whelan, 50, was caught with a computer flash drive containing classified information. Whelan, who pleaded not guilty, said he was set up in a sting operation and had thought the drive, given to him by a Russian acquaintance, contained holiday photos.

"This is all political theatre," said Whelan, who watched proceedings from a glass box inside the Moscow city courtroom.

He told the judge he had not understood the verdict as proceedings were conducted in Russian without translation.

Whelan had held up a piece of paper on which he denounced the proceedings as a "sham trial" and asked for U.S. President Donald Trump and the leaders of Britain, Canada and Ireland to take "decisive action".

Whelan's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said an appeal would be made against the verdict. Questioning the court's independence, Whelan's family said in a statement "Russian judges are political not legal entities".

Pompeo said Washington was furious and wanted Moscow to immediately free Whelan.

"The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses," said Pompeo.

"The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling. Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends."

Story continues

John Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Russia, told reporters that no evidence had been produced to prove Whelan's guilt during what he called a mockery of justice. The ruling would not have "a good impact" on ties between Moscow and Washington - already strained by a range of issues - but that dialogue would continue, he said.

PRISONER SWAP?

Zherebenkov said Whelan was told when he was detained that he would be part of a prisoner swap with the United States and that he believed this was what Moscow now wanted to do.

The Russian Foreign Ministry told the Russian news agency RIA it had proposed detailed prisoner swaps to Washington many times but gave no further details.

Moscow has called for the release of two Russians jailed in the United States - arms dealer Viktor Bout, who agreed to sell weapons to U.S. undercover agents posing as Colombian guerrillas planning to attack American soldiers, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, who was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.

Zherebenkov said he believed Moscow wanted to do a deal involving Bout and Yaroshenko. Whelan did not oppose the idea of formally asking Russia to pardon him, Zherebenkov said, but wanted to appeal against the verdict first.

Bout's wife, Alla, told the RIA news agency on Monday she was ready to pen an appeal to U.S. authorities asking them to swap her husband for Whelan.

A New York court in 2012 sentenced Bout, subject of a book called "Merchant of Death" and inspiration for the film "Lord of War" starring Nicolas Cage, to 25 years in jail.

Whelan will serve his sentence in a maximum security prison, the court said. State prosecutors had sought an 18-year term.

(Additional reporting by Alexander Marrow and Anton Kolodyazhnyy in Moscow; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff)
Russian Military's Cathedral Consecrated Without Mosaic Featuring Putin

By RFE/RL June 14, 2020

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has consecrated the main cathedral dedicated to the armed forces, built to mark Victory Day in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.

Religious leaders, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, his deputies, guests, and hundreds of uniformed soldiers attended the ceremony on June 14 at the newly constructed Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, located some 60 kilometers outside of Moscow.

The church was originally due to be opened on May 9 as part of a grand celebration to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. But the opening was postponed due to the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

The massive cathedral, one of the largest in the world, sparked controversy earlier this year when leaked photos showed a partially completed mosaic featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, Defense Minister Shoigu, General Valery Gerasimov, and several other Russian officials.

The plan to display the mosaic was later canceled following criticism and after the Kremlin leader reportedly expressed opposition to the idea.

"This is an unprecedented event for the soldiers and for all of the the citizens in the whole country," Gerasimov, the current chief of the General Staff of the armed forces, said ahead of the event.

The construction of the church cost 6 billion rubles (about $86 million), according to media reports.

The church was supposed to be paid for entirely through donations, but according to Russian reports almost 3 billion rubles (about $40 million) came from the Kremlin budget.

With reporting by dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-military -cathedral-consecrated-without-mosaic- featuring-putin/30670120.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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COLLINSVILLE  Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Zone 6 officials are requesting via the Washington Park Police Department to investigate the discovery of human remains in an advanced state of decomposition in a secluded, heavily wooded area of northern Washington Park.

The remains, found earlier this month, were taken to a forensic pathologist for examination with findings returned to investigators June 12. The body is described as a black male between the age of 50 and 75, standing between 5-feet and 5-feet-6-inches tall. The shirt found on the remains is described as a Spiderman pajama-type shirt.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will on Monday announce $1.5 billion AUD ($2 billion) in new infrastructure funding as his government seeks to kick-start an economy emerging from the coronavirus lockdown.

The funding will be used to immediately start work on small priority projects identified by the states and territories, Morrison will say in a speech to a conference hosted by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. About $1 billion will be allocated to shovel-ready projects, with the balance to target works to improve road safety.

Morrison is seeking to reopen most parts of the economy by the end of next month, helped by success in containing the spread of the coronavirus and keeping the rate of new daily infections to below 0.2 per cen. The lockdown has ended Australias almost 29-year recession-free run, the developed worlds longest uninterrupted economic growth streak.

We need to bring the same common sense and co-operation we showed fighting COVID-19 to unlocking infrastructure investment in the recovery, Morrison said.

The government has already committed nearly A$180 billion to infrastructure over the next decade and since November has brought forward or injected almost A$7.8 billion in investment, Morrison will say. Some 15 major projects will be fast-tracked to support more than 66,000 jobs.

The list includes -Inland rail from Melbourne to BrisbaneMarinus Link, a subsea power cable between Tasmania and VictoriaOlympic Dam extension in South AustraliaEmergency town water projects in New South WalesRoad, rail and iron ore projects in Western Australia.
WhatsApp tested the payment system in India beginning in 2018. The Brazil launch will be the first nationwide rollout and will introduce the ability to directly pay a business.

The company has over 120 million individual users in Brazil, its second-largest market behind India.

"WhatsApp is heavily used there, both by people and small businesses," Matt Idema, chief operating officer of WhatsApp, said of Brazil.

"We think we can help grow digital payments, help grow the digital economy with small businesses, and help support financial inclusion," he told Reuters in an interview.

Many of Brazil's small businesses already use WhatsApp as a marketing tool to answer questions or send catalogs, Idema said.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in April that the company was expanding tools for businesses in WhatsApp.

The rollout in Brazil was long planned, but may help users who are shut in during the coronavirus pandemic, Idema said.

"We can't have the kind of interactions with each other that we normally would, if you want to lend someone cash or if you want to buy something from a local business," he said.

The payment system will use Facebook Pay and be free to individual users, while charging businesses a fee for receiving payments.

Initially, the system will accept payments from debit and credit cards from Banco do Brasil, Nubank and Sicredi, and is working with Cielo to process the payments.

Idema said the company was planning to bring the payment system to several other countries, but he did not specify which ones.

Also Read: Delhi's coronavirus tally climbs by 10,000 in just six days; more than 41,000 cases reported

Also Read: Coronavirus: Record 11,929 cases, 325 deaths in a day; India's tally 3.32 lakh
Kids clothing retailer The Childrens Place announced plans to close 300 stores over the next 20 months to dramatically reduce its brick-and-mortar portfolio.

The company said its store closings plan has significantly increased due to the coronavirus pandemic accelerating e-commerce demand, according to a conference call transcribed by The Motley Fool.

The Childrens Place stores will mostly be leaving malls, with about 200 stores closing this year and 100 in 2021. There are 18 The Childrens Place locations in New Jersey, but it is unknown if any will be impacted.

A Childrens Place spokesperson didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

RELATED: Wayfairs huge clearance sale has discounts up to 80%. Here are the best deals.

Select stores that have been temporarily closed will hold liquidation sales, depending on inventory, while others will remain closed, the transcript said. The Childrens Place is currently holding an online summer sale with items up to 80% off.

The companys total sales decreased by 38.1% compared to 2019 as a result of the temporary store closures, which began March 18, while e-commerce sales increased about 12%.

The Childrens Place announced in October that it acquired Gymboree after the former rival filed for bankruptcy and closed all stores in 2019. The Gymboree brand has since relaunched.

The brick-and-mortar retail industry already had been suffering, but the coronavirus has wreaked additional havoc on chains. Starbucks, Signet Jewelers, Nordstrom and JCPenney are among the companies that have recently announced store closures.

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This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby could not hide her emotion as she shared photos of families reuniting  admitting how much she misses her own parents.

Social distancing due to the coronavirus lockdown has meant people up and down the country have been unable to spend time with loved ones.

New measures introduced by Boris Johnson mean certain people are able to form support bubbles and see another household, meaning families have been reuniting across the nation.

Read more: Holly Willoughby says 'This Morning' mistakes are down to dyslexia

Reporting on the meetings, This Morning showed touching photos of parents taking children to see grandparents and families hugging, but the images proved too much for Willoughby.

Holly Willoughby attends the National Television Awards 2020 at The O2 Arena on January 28, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

The presenter said: Claire says, I lost my mum in September last year so these past few months have been hard on us all, but now my dad has become part of our bubble.

Claires children were then seen hugging their grandfather, which led to an audibly chocked up Willoughby commenting: Oh my gosh I can feel that hug.

Co-host Phillip Schofield then read out another message.

He said: Jane said, We finally got to hug my mum.

Which Willoughby responded to by saying: Im so jealous. I just feel like, I know its so lovely and Im so happy for them, but I just want to hug my mum so bad and my dad.

It isnt the first time the mum-of-three has shared how much she misses her mother.

Read more: Holly Willoughby quits Celebrity Juice

She posted a sweet photo of them together before lockdown while wishing her happy birthday last month.

Willoughby captioned the image: Happy birthday to my beautiful mumma. Miss you so so much, cant wait to cuddle you again, love you.

This Morning airs on ITV on weekdays between 10am and 12.30pm and is available to stream on the networks catch up service.
WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej Duda on Sunday asked international media to 'stop distributing fake news' after extensive coverage of a campaign speech in which he compared what he called LGBT 'ideology' to Soviet-era communist indoctrination. LGBT rights have become a hot-button issue ahead of a June 28 presidential election in Poland, with Duda arguing that the promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights needlessly sexualizes children and harms families. 'Yet again, as part of dirty political fight, my words are put out of context.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej Duda on Sunday asked international media to "stop distributing fake news" after extensive coverage of a campaign speech in which he compared what he called LGBT "ideology" to Soviet-era communist indoctrination.

LGBT rights have become a hot-button issue ahead of a June 28 presidential election in Poland, with Duda arguing that the promotion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights needlessly sexualizes children and harms families.

"Yet again, as part of dirty political fight, my words are put out of context. I truly believe in diversity and equality," Duda tweeted in English on Sunday, tagging media organisations including Reuters, the Associated Press and the Financial Times.

He did not say how his remarks had been misrepresented.

Duda is an ally of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), which dismisses LGBT rights as an invasive foreign influence undermining Poland's traditional values.

PiS has attacked Rafal Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw who is also the presidential candidate of the main opposition party Civic Platform, for introducing a sexual education programme in the capital designed to include teaching about LGBT issues.

On Saturday, Duda said such teachings were a form of "neo-Bolshevism" in a campaign speech in the southwestern town of Brzeg, saying his parents' generation had not fought communist ideology for decades only for Poland to face a "new ideology (of LGBT rights) that is even more destructive".

The comments were widely reported by the local and international press, including Reuters.

"Truth has become a scared little creature," Duda said on Sunday in a series of English language tweets criticising the international media for their reporting of his speech.

Duda said he wanted to see a world "where we can speak our mind, where words are not twisted. I believe in tolerance to any views, so please stop distributing fake news".

(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alicja Ptak; Editing by Gareth Jones)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
A young girl looks at tributes to the victim near the scene where Lorcan O'Reilly was killed

A major garda alert will be put in place for the release of a teenager who stabbed innocent Lorcan O'Reilly to death and is due to walk free from prison in the coming days.

The 19-year-old thug - who has close links to convicted gangland murderer 'Fat' Freddie Thompson - has been serving the closing months of his sentence with Thompson in Ireland's highest security prison in Portlaoise.

Since being sentenced to four and a half years for the brutal knife slaying in February 2017, the killer was first detained at the Oberstown facility for juveniles before being moved to the Kinahan cartel wing in Mountjoy Prison in November, 2018, when he turned 18.

"He has had a few disciplinary scrapes while in the prison system but nothing major," a jail insider said last night.

Gardai are expected to draw up a special policing plan ahead of his release later this month because it is expected to increase tensions in the south inner city.

"He will be closely monitored by gardai, but they are also hoping that he will interact with the probation services and perhaps finalise his education," a senior source told the Herald.

"He is young enough to be at a crossroads in his life - if he wants to make a change.

"A number of his local associates in the Kinahan cartel such as Liam Brannigan, Nathan Foley and, of course, Freddie are now locked up serving lengthy sentences, so this may be a chance for him to turn his life around without being under their influence.

"However, there is no guarantee that he can turn his life around and there are serious concerns about him being back on the streets. After all he is a very lucky boy that he is not serving a life sentence for the murder of Lorcan O'Reilly."

Fight

The thug, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was aged 14 when he stabbed Lorcan (21) to death. The innocent victim was killed after stopping a fight.

After killing Lorcan, he fled the country with his mentor Thompson but eventually returned and presented himself to gardai.

He was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Senior members of the deadly Kinahan cartel were involved in a brutal campaign of intimidation of witnesses against the teenager, who was convicted of the fatal stabbing at the Oliver Bond flats in Dublin during the early hours of November 1, 2015.

The teen was classified as a "foot-solider" in the deadly cartel by gardai and has been on the radar of detectives since his primary school days.

A number of witnesses to the killing were given detailed security advice by gardai and others had to move away from their south inner city homes because of the threats.

In the build-up to his proposed murder trial, it emerged that potential witnesses were warned that they would "get a bullet in the head" if they testified against the teen.

Officers said at the time that they were aware of the "constant threats" which had been issued in a number of inner city pubs and detectives "monitored the situation".

Gardai from Kevin Street and Kilmainham Garda Stations investigated the sinister death threats but no-one made an official statement against the gangsters who carried out the campaign of terror.

The violent teenager was quickly identified in the case and it immediately became clear that he has close links to the Kinahan cartel.

However, he became a figure of hate to some associates of tragic Lorcan and was hospitalised after he was given a severe beating in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2016.

A number of youths attacked the then 15-year-old shortly after 4am on New Year's Day, and the teenager suffered a number of serious kicks and punches to the head.

He was brought to St James' Hospital where he was treated for a number of hours before being discharged.

Hours later, he fled Ireland in the company of a gangster to Germany and then Holland before he returned home.

He was arrested and charged by gardai a number of weeks later.

He had previously presented himself for questioning at Kevin Street Garda Station with his two grandmothers a number of days after the stab attack.

However, officers declined to take a statement from the teenager before questioning him about the murder because they were awaiting more evidence to build a case.

At his sentencing hearing, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said the killer was guilty of "a very grave offence".

Describing the events that led to the stabbing, the judge said: "Approximately 23 people were congregated in the area and, during the course of the evening, an altercation occurred between the deceased and the accused."

The judge said that during the row the accused, then 14, had a hurley but left the scene after it was taken from him by Mr O'Reilly.

The boy returned a short time later with a knife and stabbed Mr O'Reilly in the chest.
New Delhi: Two Indian High Commission officials in Pakistan who went missing and were reportedly arrested on Monday (June 15), were released by Pakistan authorities and returned to Indian mission at Islamabad, ANI sources claimed.

Barely a few hours back, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had summoned Pakistan's Charge d'affaires to India Syed Hyder in the national capital and made a strong demarche stating that its the responsibility of the Pakistan government to ensure the safety and security of Indian officials stationed there.

The sources said the demarche made it clear that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials and the responsibility for the safety and security of the concerned diplomatic personnel lay squarely with the Pakistani authorities. Pakistan was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately.

Nearly eight hours after the two Indian High Commission staffers went missing, Pakistani media reported that the two officials were arrested for their alleged involvement in a 'hit and run accident'.

It is learnt that both the Indian High Commission staffers were CISF drivers and they went missing at around 8:30 am while they were out on duty in Islamabad.

The development comes a few days after India had expelled two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi after they were caught red-handed for spying against India. The two Pakistani officials worked in the visa section of the High Commission in New Delhi.

On May 31, the Indian authorities had nabbed two Pakistani High Commission officials in Delhi's Karol Bagh while they were trying to source a sensitive document. For this act of espionage, India had declared them as persona non grata and both were sent back to Islamabad on June 1.

It is alleged that the two had assumed fake Indian identities. The authorities had also recovered a fake Aadhaar card by the name of Nasir Gotam, resident of Geeta colony from them. Also, two Apple iPhone and Rs 15,000 in cash were recovered by the authorities.

The two officials, Abdi Hussain Abid, aged 42 and Tahir Khan, aged 44 had come in a Pakistani diplomatic car. After probe it was revealed that the Pakistan High Commission was in the process of selling the car.

Earlier on June 5, it was reported that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been harassing and intimidating Indias top diplomat in Islamabad. The report stated that ISI had stationed multiple persons in cars and bikes outside his residence to harass and intimidate him.
The Big 5 Saudi, the meeting place for Saudi's construction industry, will be moving from Jeddah city to capital Riyadh for 2021 edition.

It will be held from March 7 to 10 at the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center.

Holding the event in the nations capital will drive vital business connections by bringing stakeholders closer to the heart of Saudi Arabias $1.2-trillion projects market, helping the kingdom to achieve its ambitious Vision 2030 objectives, said the organisers.

Alongside the move, the show will introduce a wealth of new value-added features for its international and local visitors/exhibitors, ensuring that the event continues to reflect the country's growing attractiveness in the global construction area, they stated.

According to the organisers, for the first time, the 2021 edition will be co-located with Stone & Surface Saudi, and will see the urban design, landscape, and solar product sectors alongside the existing realm of product categories on offer at the event.

It will also include new features such as the Festival of Construction Innovation and a dedicated Awards ceremony, each set to celebrate ground-breaking technologies and processes supporting the kingdom's ambitions, they added.

Riyadh is the commercial and financial hub of Saudi Arabia, and bringing the event to the capital will allow visitors/exhibitors to elevate their business to the next level.

It has over 30 active projects worth $1 billion or more, of which $44.3 million worth of projects are in the early stages of construction, said the organisers.

More than 25% of all construction activities are taking place in Riyadh, they added.-TradeArabia News Service
As gas continued to flow uncontrollably and a fire raged on at a natural gas well of OIL in Assam's Baghjan, the Army on Monday joined efforts to douse the blaze after the civil administration sought its help in constructing a bridge over an adjoining water body.

The state-run Oil India Limited (OIL), in the meantime, continued to face public ire over the tragedy and its production was getting affected in a big way with the company losing 5,386 MT of crude oil and 7.04 MMSCM of natural gas output in the last 20 days due to bandhs and blockades.

"In view of the urgency of the operation to control the well, Bhaskar Pegu, Deputy Commissioner, Tinsukia requested the service of the Army (2nd Mountain Division) to construct a bridge of around 150 metre length over a water body adjacent to the blowout well," Oil India Ltd (OIL) said in a statement.

Accepting the request of the civil administration, the Army is carrying out mobilisation of material and personnel to the Baghjan site from Misamari and Tezu, it added.

OIL said testing is complete for one of the two high-discharge water pumps of capacity 2,500 GPM to be used for well control operation.

Besides, the civil work of extension of the second water reservoir of 12,000 KL capacity, development of debris lay down, bunkhouse and kill pump area are in progress.

"Fabrication job of heat shields required for reducing heat hazards to working personnel at site is in progress at OIL's engineering workshop at Duliajan. Joint inspection of equipment mobilised from ONGC by Alert and ONGC team at OIL yard is in progress," the company said in a release said.

It also informed that the vehicles carrying heavy equipment from ONGC's Rajahmundry facility are in transit.

Talking about production loss due to stir by the locals and some groups, OIL said there was an output cut of 487 MT of crude oil and 0.45 MMSCM of natural gas as reported on Sunday.

"Cumulative production loss since May 27, 2020 due to bandhs and blockades: 5386 MT Crude oil, 7.04 MMSCM of natural gas," it added.

Meanwhile, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal met senior scientists from IIT-Guwahati and CSIR-North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST) and requested them to start their job of conducting a study on the tremors at Baghjan following the blowout on emergency basis.

OIL said a visit was carried out by a team from NEIST on Sunday to identify the location for installing broadband Seismographs at various radial distances from the well.

"Five broadband Seismographs will be deployed by CSIR- NEIST, Jorhat at five recording sites for data to be recorded tentatively for 7-10 days. Locations have been identified and preliminary civil work for deployment of the instruments is in progress," it added.

Besides, a team from TERI, Delhi is likely to arrive on Tuesday to measure and monitor the noise and air quality in the area, which is suspected to be polluted due to spewing of gas and condensate droplets for several days.

During the day, OIL Chairman and MD Sushil Chandra Mishra handed over cheques of Rs 30 lakh each to the wives of the company's deceased firefighters -- Tikheswar Gohain and Durlov Gogoi -- under the company's social security scheme.

Assam Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna held a meeting of various departments to initiate the process to implement a number of schemes announced by Sonowal on his visit to Baghjan, along with Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Sunday.

Leader of the Opposition in Assembly Debabrata Saikia wrote to Assam Assembly Speaker Hitendra Nath Goswami requesting him to urgently lead an all-party delegation of legislators on a fact-finding tour to the affected areas.

Saikia alleged that in view of the adverse situation created by the central government's recent steps to allow fresh mining and drilling activities in various National Parks, biosphere reserves and other eco-sensitive zones of Assam, there have been adverse reactions and protests among the people.

He said in a statement that "immediate intervention of elected members of the House has become imperative because this sensitive issue would have considerable impact on the political, economic and social scenarios of Assam in the time to come".

The well no. 5 at Baghjan in Tinsukia district of Assam has been spewing gas uncontrollably for the last 20 days and it caught fire on June 9, killing two of OIL's firefighters at the site.

The blaze at the well is so massive that it can be seen from a distance of more than 30 kms with thick black smoke going up several metres high, endangering the local biodiversity in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park following the blowout on May 27.

Though there is no fire in the periphery of the well site at present, the company has declared an area up to 1.5 km of radius as "red zone" to avoid any untoward incident and damage to the general public.

At present five inquiries are taking place to find out the facts -- a three-member probe by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, a one-member probe by Assam Chief Minister and an internal five-member inquiry by the OIL.

Besides, two more crucial independent investigations of technical nature are being carried out by Directorate General Of Mines Safety (DGMS) and Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD).
Are you a man? Then you should have a human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion there? Do you never feel anothers pain? . . . When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the Great GOD deal with you, as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands.
Update:

On Monday, H-E-B said four more employees in San Antonio have tested positive for COVID-19.

Here are the four H-E-B stores with COVID-19 cases.

- Potranco and 1604 HEB plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 10718 Potranco Rd. on Sunday, June 14.

- Babcock HEB: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 5910 Babcock Rd. on Wednesday, June 10.

- South Flores Market HEB: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 516 S. Flores St. on Wednesday, June 3.

- Kitty Hawk HEB: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 910 Kitty Hawk Rd. on Saturday, June 13.

It is unclear when the employees tested positive.

Original:

Last week, H-E-B confirmed on its website that employees at four of its San Antonio stores have tested positive for COVID-19.

One store is located on the Southwest Side while the other three are located on the city's South Side. H-E-B said it has cleaned and sanitized all stores multiple times. Employees who had contact with the infected employee have been notified, the grocery chain said.

RELATED: H-E-B employee at North Side store tests positive for COVID-19

Here are the four H-E-B stores with COVID-19 cases, according to H-E-B's website.

- Nogalitos H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 1601 Nogalitos St. on Wednesday, June 10.

- Zarzamora and Military HEB plus!: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 6818 S. Zarzamora St. on Thursday, June 11.

- Military and Pleasanton H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 735 SW. Military Dr. on Saturday, June 6.

- Military and Goliad H-E-B: The employee who tested positive for COVID-19 was last working in the store on 3323 SE. Military Dr. on Thursday, June 11.

It is unclear when the employees tested positive.

On June 6, H-E-B said an employee working in the Alon Market H-E-B in the North Central area of the city, located at 8503 NW Military Highway, tested positive for COVID-19. In May, six others in San Antonio tested positive and another at a store in New Braunfels.

H-E-B is no longer requiring customers to wear face masks to enter its stores. However, the company is encouraging its grocery shoppers to wear a face-covering.

Priscilla Aguirre is a general assignment reporter for MySA.com | priscilla.aguirre@express-news.net | @CillaAguirre

MORE CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE:
A people trafficker who hid two men in a secret coffin-like compartment of his truck has been jailed for two and a half years.

Border Force officials found two Albanian men behind a wooden panel that had been bolted into the back of Stefan-Gabriel Bucur's flatbed truck at the Port of Dover in February.

When officers conducted an external search of the vehicle they spotted additional metal supporting strips running along the underside of the flatbed.

Border Force officials found the boards of the flatbed truck had been bolted down to hide a compartment underneath where two Albanian men were 'effectively trapped'

The two Albanian men, who were found in the 'coffin like hideaway' were passed on to immigration authorities

Looking closer, officers discovered a gap had been created beneath the floorboards for each of the Albanian men to hide in.

Border Force Deputy Director Martin Coates said: 'The men had been bolted into the cavity in what was a coffin like hideaway. It took officers more than 20 minutes to remove the bolts and get the boards lifted.

'Fortunately the men were in good health when we recovered them, but the risk to life of such a concealment - the men were effectively trapped, with no means of independent escape - are plain.

'We will continue to work with law enforcement partners to bring people smugglers like Bucur to justice.'

Officers said Bucur appeared nervous as officers worked to release the men.

When officers searched the cab of his vehicle they found drawings with measurements matching the concealment dimensions on the van.

Bucur, of no fixed UK address, was arrested and the case passed to Immigration Enforcement's Criminal and Financial Investigation (CFI) team.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of facilitating illegal entry into the UK when he appeared for a pre-trial hearing at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday.

He was sentenced immediately. Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts Chris Philp said: 'For criminals like Bucur, the people they are smuggling are little more than a commodity whose value is assessed solely in financial terms. He clearly gave no consideration to the safety of the men he was transporting.

Stefan-Gabriel Bucur, 20, was jailed for 30 months on Friday after admitting to facilitating illegal entry into the UK

'I hope his conviction sends a clear message that those who engage in this kind of offending will be caught and prosecuted.'

The Albanian men are being dealt with in line with the immigration rules.

Minister for Immigration Compliance and the Courts Chris Philp said: 'For criminals like Bucur, the people they are smuggling are little more than a commodity whose value is assessed solely in financial terms.

'He clearly gave no consideration to the safety of the men he was transporting.'
A peeping Tom was caught filming women showering and getting dressed because he had become 'bored' of porn.

Ryan Oliver, 23, filmed five different women, including his friends and ex-girlfriend, when they stayed with him at his house in Raymond Terrace in the NSW Hunter Region.

Between April and December of 2018 he lurked outside bedroom windows and filmed the women naked as they walked out of the shower and got dressed.

Raymond Terrace Local Court heard he also kept videos of a woman from August 2017 showing her showering.

Ryan Oliver, 23, filmed five different women, including his friends and ex-girlfriend, when they stayed with him at his house in Raymond Terrace in the NSW Hunter Region

Oliver also had multiple naked 'intimate' photos of her in her bedroom of her home in Mudgee, The Newcastle News reported.

When he lived in Bathurst he also recorded another woman as she was showering, police facts state.

The collection of videos and images were found by his former girlfriend on January 10 as she went through Olivier's room and belongings.

The former girlfriend reported the incident to police and Oliver showed them how he filmed the women - sitting his phone on the window ledge to record.

Oliver told police he filmed the girls as watching porn got too boring.

The 23-year-old pleaded guilty to nine charges of intentionally recording intimate images without consent in court on Monday.

Oliver's lawyer Lauren O'Brien told the court he had shown 'honest remorse' and understands how his actions caused his victims to become distressed.

Raymond Terrace Local Court (pictured) heard he also kept videos of a woman from August 2017 showing her showering

Magistrate Brett Shields told Oliver his behaviour was 'reprehensible' and an invasion of the women's privacy.

'Everybody has the right to be within their homes, to go about their lives without this intrusion. It is very troubling,' he said.

Oliver was sentenced to a three year Intensive Corrections Order and 300 hours of community service.
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

So, the natural question for Carpentaria Resources (ASX:CAP) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of 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.

Check out our latest analysis for Carpentaria Resources

How Long Is Carpentaria Resources's Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at December 2019, Carpentaria Resources had cash of AU$1.9m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$2.0m. Therefore, from December 2019 it had roughly 12 months of cash runway. To be frank, this kind of short runway puts us on edge, as it indicates the company must reduce its cash burn significantly, or else raise cash imminently. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

ASX:CAP Historical Debt June 15th 2020

How Is Carpentaria Resources's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Carpentaria Resources didn't record any revenue over the last year, indicating that it's an early stage company still developing its business. Nonetheless, we can still examine its cash burn trajectory as part of our assessment of its cash burn situation. Cash burn was pretty flat over the last year, which suggests that management are holding spending steady while the business advances its strategy. Carpentaria Resources makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.

Story continues

Can Carpentaria Resources Raise More Cash Easily?

While its cash burn is only increasing slightly, Carpentaria Resources shareholders should still consider the potential need for further cash, down the track. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.

Carpentaria Resources's cash burn of AU$2.0m is about 36% of its AU$5.5m market capitalisation. That's fairly notable cash burn, so if the company had to sell shares to cover the cost of another year's operations, shareholders would suffer some costly dilution.

So, Should We Worry About Carpentaria Resources's Cash Burn?

Carpentaria Resources is not in a great position when it comes to its cash burn situation. Although we can understand if some shareholders find its increasing cash burn acceptable, we can't ignore the fact that we consider its cash burn relative to its market cap to be downright troublesome. Summing up, we think the Carpentaria Resources's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 3 warning signs for Carpentaria Resources you should be aware of, and 1 of them is concerning.

Of course Carpentaria 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.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday said his government will be able to provide facilities for up to 5,000 coronavirus tests per day, if required, to the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Delhi. Ashok Gehlot said testing capacity was earlier zero but has now increased to more than 15,000 tests per day in the state.

"Our government is ready to support neighbouring states to test for coronavirus in this time of trouble," Ashok Gehlot said in a statement. In a high-level meeting here, Ashok Gehlot reviewed the status of the novel coronavirus infections and said that it is the government's top priority to save people's lives in this critical time of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ashok Gehlot said the situation of coronavirus infection is currently under control in Rajasthan and directed officials to continue with the system of screening further in the state. Ashok Gehlot said that after "Unlock-1", it has been seen that people are not keeping up with the seriousness of the health protocols.

Ashok Gehlot directed that anyone who violates other rules, including wearing of face masks and social distancing norms should be strictly dealt with. They should be warned that legal action will be taken against them for disobeying the rules. Ashok Gehlot said that a special campaign will be launched in the state from June 21 to 30 to create awareness about coronavirus.

Ashok Gehlot also reviewed the status of the employment of workers under the MGNREGA scheme.

Also read: Delhi govt reverses order to turn nursing homes into coronavirus facilities
Teagasc announce details of Virtual Pig Week

The latest research and the best technical advice and information for pig producers will be broadcast live from Teagasc Moorepark at 1.30 pm each day from Tuesday 20 October until Friday, 23 October. The Virtual Pig Week is being organised by the Teagasc Pig Development Department.

Teagasc announce details of Virtual Pig Week

Each day will feature an interactive online event from 1.302.30 pm focusing on a range of topics in pig production; from key husbandry practices, to a webinar on the role of feed ingredients in disease transmission, a visit to a progressive pig farm and virtual tour of the Teagasc Moorepark Pig Research Facility.

Speaking in advance of the Virtual Pig Week, Edgar Manzanilla, Head of Teagasc Pig Development Department said: A variety of contributors will share their expertise and experience including Teagasc farm staff and researchers along with pig producers and international experts. I would encourage all pig producers and those involved in the sector to tune in each day at lunchtime for the latest and most up to date research and advice.

Each event will feature a live discussion panel, who will host questions and answers sessions where you can submit your questions to be answered live during the event.

To join the live stream each day visit www.teagasc.ie/virtualpigweek to register.

Programme for Virtual Pig Week

Tuesday, 20 October - Virtual Tour of Teagasc Moorepark Pig Research Facility

On day one, Tuesday 20th October, join Tomas Ryan, farm manager at Teagasc Moorepark Pig Research Facility, as he takes us on a tour of the unit. Tomas will walk us through the 200 sow unit, from the breeding building to the finisher building stopping along the way to speak about some of the farm practices at Moorepark and highlighting facilities found in the unit which aid both production and research.

The live panel for this event will be hosted by Emer McCrum, Teagasc Pig Development Department Specialist Advisor.

Wednesday, 21 October - Key husbandry practices in pig production

On day two of Virtual Pig Week the focus will be on key husbandry practices in pig production. Teagasc Pig Development Department researchers and farm staff will share some of their key husbandry practices and tips. Focusing on the areas of weaning, farrowing and feeding, they will discuss topics including weaning pigs in intact litters, inducing sows to farrow, wet feeding and particle size in pig feed.

The live panel for this event will be hosted by Louise Clarke, Teagasc Pig Development Department Specialist Advisor.

Thursday, 22 October - Biosecurity & Energy use; Farm visit

On day three join us on a virtual farm visit to Eugene & Ciaran Sheehans progressive pig farm in Co. Cork. Eugene and Ciaran will tell us about how improving biosecurity on their pig farm has led to great improvements in production and reduced antibiotic use. They will also discuss their use of alternative energy, solar and biomass, on their farm and the benefits they have seen since switching.

The live panel for this event will be hosted by Gerard McCutcheon, Teagasc Pig Development Department Specialist Advisor

Friday, 23 October - The role of feed ingredients in disease transmission; webinar with Dr Scott Dee, Director of Research for Pipestone Applied Research, Minnesota USA

Dr Scott Dee, Pipestone Veterinary Services, joins us from the US for a presentation on disease the role of feed ingredients in disease transmission. Dr Dee joined Pipestone Veterinary Services in July of 2011. Before joining the clinic Dr Dee was a swine practitioner in Morris, Minnesota for 12 years and for the last 12 years a professor at the University of Minnesota where he conducted research in the areas of PRRSv transmission and biosecurity. Currently he serves as Director of Research for Pipestone Applied Research conducting research in the areas of viral transport and transmission in feed, feed biosecurity, and antimicrobial resistance.

The live panel for this event will be hosted by Ciaran Carroll, Teagasc Pig Development Department Head of Knowledge Transfer

To register visit www.teagasc.ie/virtualpigweek
Years ago, relatively innocent to the ways political parties could chew up and spit out those with hopes and ideals, I spent an instructive evening with a colleague who once had harboured the ambition of becoming a member of parliament, like his father.

Presenting himself to the headquarters of the Australian Labor Party in Sydney, he was greeted by a crusty party chief who declared he had just the job for the wide-eyed boy.

"Get out to Rookwood Cemetery," he said.

Labor didn't talk much about factions until Bob Hawke won power in 1983. Credit:Paul Mathews

The young hopeful was instructed to search for new graves and to take down the names of the deceased. The names would then be cross-referenced with the Electoral Roll, and if they had not yet been removed, he was to pass the information to headquarters.
BEIJING (AP)  China on Sunday reported its biggest one-day jump in coronavirus cases in two months after closing the biggest wholesale food market in Beijing and locking down nearby residential communities.

The 57 new confirmed infections included 36 in Beijing.

The Xinfadi market on Beijings southeastern side was closed Saturday and neighboring residential compounds locked down after more than 50 people in the capital tested positive for the coronavirus. They were the first confirmed cases in 50 days in the city of 20 million people.

China, where the pandemic began in December, had relaxed most of its anti-virus controls after the ruling Communist Party declared victory over the disease in March.

Authorities locked down 11 residential communities near the Xinfadi market. Police installed white fencing to seal off a road leading to a cluster of apartment buildings.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

BANGLADESH SEES OVER 3,000 NEW CASES: Bangladesh reported 3,141 new cases and 32 more deaths from the coronavirus on Sunday, raising its total caseload to 87,520, including 1,171 fatalities. Nasima Sultana, additional director general of the Health Directorate, said a junior minister from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas Cabinet and a former health minister and close aide to Hasina both died of the virus on Saturday in Dhaka, the capital. Bangladesh's main state-run hospitals are overwhelmed, with many critical COVID-19 patients being deprived of intensive care beds and ventilators.

SOUTH KOREA REPORTS 34 NEW CASES: South Korea has confirmed 34 new cases of the coronavirus, mostly in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area. South Korea has confirmed 12,085 cases, including 277 deaths. The new cases have been linked to nightlife establishments, church services, a large-scale e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door salespeople. In late February and early March, South Korea was reporting hundreds of new cases each day before improving the situation significantly with aggressive contact tracing. That's now proving to be more challenging as authorities ease up on social distancing rules.

___

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
The whereabouts of the missing 100.10 grammes of a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine which was part of the illegal drug seized at the Kpoglu Border in the Ketu South Municipality in the Volta Region on June 5, this year is turning cannot be found.

The two institutions at the centre of the saga  the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) are at each others throat as to which of them should be held liable.

In the latest twist, the GRA said it had no hand in the missing parcel and that NACOB was on a deliberate mission to blame the division, when the reality pointed to the contrary.

Reacting to assertions made by the acting Director-General of NACOB, Mr Francis Kofi Torkornoo, in an interview he granted the Daily Graphic, during which he brought out news about the missing parcel, the GRA said: If anything, it is NACOB that has questions to answer over the missing drug because of the attitude of its officers in the events.

In a report to the Commissioner, GRA Customs Division, the Aflao Sector Commander of Customs, Chief Revenue Officer, Mr Majeed Amandi, had suggested that the parcel might have dropped and mistaken for rubbish and accidentally cleared with the rubbish.

"In view of the small size of the particular parcel, it is our observation that possibly the parcel could have dropped in the midst of the disorderliness of the examination process at the conference room and been swept away with the rubbish unnoticed or even pilfered by any of the NACOB officers who handled the substances during the examination for their diabolical inventions," the report, a copy of which the Customs Division gave to the Daily Graphic, stated.

NACOB stance

In the interview published last Friday, Mr Torkornoo had said the substance was detected missing, two days after the seizure, when the Customs Division invited all agencies at the border post to verify the exhibits NACOB left in the custody of Customs before they were escorted to the headquarters of the GRA in Accra.

The verification exercise revealed that Parcel (h), a 100.1g parcel of whitish substance wrapped in transparent polythene suspected to be cocaine, was missing, he had told the Daily Graphic.

Representation

However, a report from Chief Revenue Officer Amandi, dated June 12, rejected the implication of Customs officials, indicating that there was heavy escort for the vehicle carrying the stuff after it was intercepted and sent to Aflao.

It said on the arrival of the exhibit at Aflao, the sector commander constituted a team of Customs officials, with representatives of all the security agencies, made up of NACOB, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the National Security, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), to determine the cargo of the vehicle.

"However, before examination could commence at the VIP Lounge, two NACOB officers who had arrived from Accra demanded that the vehicle with its cargo be handed over to them, even without physical examination, a request which was immediately declined," the report said.

It further indicated that at the Customs Conference Room, where the packages containing the suspected illicit drug were opened for examination, six officers from NACOB were present.

Physical examination

According to the Customs, the physical examination exercise assumed a "disorderly manner due to the high number of examination officers, especially from NACOB".

It said the conduct of the NACOB officers during the examination was such that it was virtually impossible to monitor effectively the quantities, weight and, more importantly, the number of parcels and/or pebbles of particular substances.

"For instance, at a point during the packing of the substance into a bag, one pebble was discovered under a table and the whole consignment had to be unstuffed and repacked to include the discovered pebble," it said.

"The conduct of the NACOB officers present during the examination was so disruptive that it became obvious that they had an agenda to frustrate officers and/or sabotage the operations," it added.

Discovery

The report said after the examination, the parcels were sealed and handed over to Customs officers to be deposited at the Armoury at Aflao.

It said statements submitted by Customs officers at Aflao indicated that at no point did any unauthorised officer had access to the Armoury, and further to that the only officers who visited the Armoury on Sunday (June 7) were escort officers to withdraw weapons purposely to escort the exhibits to headquarters".

It said it was only that day (Sunday) when the examination team reassembled to prepare the exhibits for escort that it was realised one parcel weighing 100.1g was missing.

"All efforts have been made to discover whether it dropped in the conference room unnoticed during examination and, therefore, swept out with the rubbish, but to no avail, Chief Revenue Officer Amandis report said.

The report maintained that the stuff could not have been stolen from the Armoury "because any one intending to steal something from the bag in the armoury would logically go for either a bigger parcel or the cash of $200,000 [which was impounded together with the suspected drug].

It called for the installation of CCTv cameras at the conference room at the border post at Aflao where all suspected exhibits were examined.

---graphic.com.gh
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 06/15/2020



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COLT

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ANGELA AND MICHAEL

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KALANI AND ASUELU

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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.

: Happily Ever After?'s fifth season premiered with Colt Johnson introducing his new girlfriend Jess to the world behind mother Debbie's back, Andrei Castravet dropping a bomb on Elizabeth Potthast 's family, Angela Deem fighting with Michael Ilesanmi Kalani Faagata 's father chewing out Asuelu Pulaa , and Larissa Dos Santos Lima planning to apply for a Green Card during Sunday night's episode on TLC.: Happily Ever After?'s fifth season will also feature Tania Maduro and Syngin Colchester as well as Paul Staehle and Karine Martins , although neither couple made an appearance in Episode 1.Happily Ever After? documents couples -- engaged, married or divorced -- navigating life, hardships, family, children and unexpected obstacles.The new season is sure to feature cultural differences, in-law arguments, scandals, confrontations and tears.Below is the latest on each couple or cast members, according to the debut episode of : Happily Ever After?'s fifth season.Colt, a 34-year-old from Las Vegas, NV, is still living with his mother Debbie, whom Colt considers his best friend. Colt said he's been focusing on himself and trying to rebuild his life after his very "complicated" breakup and divorce with Larissa.Colt had met Larissa online a year ago when she was living in Brazil. He called her his "dream girl" and thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.After spending only five days with Larissa in person in Brazil, he decided to bring her over to the United States on a K-1 visa. Colt then proposed marriage and the couple wed.But four days before his wedding, Colt said things "took a turn for the worse" when the couple got into an explosive fight and Larissa was arrested. Colt, however, was still in love with Larissa and so he went through with marrying her."I pretty much paid for everything Larissa wanted. I wanted her to be happy," Colt said in a confessional."Her happiness, however, was short-lived, and Larissa had yet to accept my relationship with my mother. So finally, I decided I couldn't take it anymore."Colt therefore filed for divorce from Larissa after Larissa was arrested for domestic violence for the third time. Since then, his divorce has been finalized.Colt said he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with Larissa and so it made him "very sad" to think he never got to enjoy being married.But at the Tell-All special, Colt started feeling love for Larissa again, but she had moved on with a new boyfriend, Eric Nichols. When Larissa mocked and made fun of him, Colt said any love he had left for her at that point was "dead."Debbie told Colt the divorce wasn't his fault, and then Colt shared with his mom he was ready to begin dating again."It's way too soon for Colt to start dating. His heart has been broken and he's not going to make any good decisions," Debbie told the cameras."To be honest, I'm lonely and I want someone to spend my life with," Colt said.Little did Debbie know however, Colt had already started dating someone new -- and he didn't think Debbie would approve."I wasn't looking for anything specific, but this gorgeous little red head reached out to me named Jess," Colt shared. "Jess is beautiful. She is 26 years old, she has a rocking body, she has glasses, and she loves cats!"Colt said while Jess lives in Chicago, they met once in Las Vegas when she was visiting and spending time with some friends. Colt said they really hit it off and she's fun and likes to party.Colt was heading to Chicago to spend the weekend with her, revealing she's an au pair from Brazil living in the United States on a visa. Colt insisted he had never intended to date another Brazilian like Larissa, but Jen just sort of fell into his lap.Colt admitted the fact Jess is Brazilian was part of the reason why he had been keeping his relationship a secret from his mother, but he said he could picture himself having a serious relationship with Jess.Debbie was "a little suspicious" when Colt suddenly packed his bags for a weekend trip and said he was visiting "friends."Meanwhile, Colt was excited to spend more time with Jess and get to know her better. He wanted to make sure they could connect and that Jess didn't have secrets or skeletons in her closet.Colt and Jess met at a restaurant, and Jess wore a black lace dress. She said her J-1 visa expired in six months but she wanted to stay in America longer because "it's amazing."Colt said he appreciated being invited to Chicago, and Jess gushed Colt was smart, funny and beautiful. Jess talked about her cats, Bento and Antonio, and she even had a cat tattoo on her arm.Colt said Jess was like "a breath of fresh air" and she had given him life again. Jess told Colt that she wanted to teach him some things about Brazilian women, such as how they like to have sex sometimes on the first date. Colt said they were on the same page when it comes to intimacy."After Larissa, thank God," Colt said with relief.Colt then asked Jess if she would be up for sex later that night in his hotel room, and the pair chugged beers so they could rush out of there."I love Colt and he's my boyfriend now," Jess gushed. "He is good for me."The couple then headed to Colt's hotel and he said he was "excited to get laid" because it had been a while. Colt told Jess that she was his girl and he was so happy about visiting her.But Colt admitted he wasn't ready to announce Jess as his girlfriend to the world yet, especially to his mother. Jess said it was "a problem" that Colt was hiding her just because she's Brazilian, and Jess insisted she's different from "crazy" Larissa."I want to date you, I want to be with you, I want to learn more about you. But I don't want to rush into anything," Colt told Jess.Jess got angry, but Colt assured her that patience and taking things slowly wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Colt said Debbie didn't know everything about him and he was just trying to be "careful" since his last relationship "almost destroyed" him."I'm falling hard for Jess... but I don't really know Jess that well. I don't want to go into another relationship like my marriage was. At the end of the day, I can't do the same thing I did with Larissa," Colt said in a confessional.Angela, a 53-year-old from Hazlehurst, GA, was shown working out at a dance class with her daughter Skyla.Angela admitted she thought she was done with Michael, a 31-year-old from Lagos, Nigeria, but clearly not.When the pair first started talking, Angela said she never imagined she'd fall in love with him, but once they met in person, she fell hard and fast.Michael said meeting Michael was "amazing" but he lied to her about going to a club with his friends, and so she realized she couldn't trust him anymore. More arguments ensued, and Angela noted she and Michael fought a lot but made up a lot."But we love each other and are going to be together. Once we got engaged, we started the K-1 visa process," Angela said, adding that she had agreed to try for a baby considering it would make Michael and his mother happy.Angela acknowledged it was going to be "very difficult" to get pregnant and carry a baby but she would try for the sake of their relationship and future together.Angela recalled how Michael's K-1 visa had been rejected following his final interview but it wasn't an official denial. Angela therefore had to wait to receive an update on Michael's K-1 visa, so while waiting, she took another trip to Nigeria.During her stay in Nigeria, Michael suggested they marry in his home country and apply for a spousal visa instead, but Angela really wanted to get married in front of her mother and family in the United States.On Happily Ever After?, Angela was still waiting for K-1 to be approved."Michael and I made a deal. If I hear anything about the K-1 visa, Michael will come to the U.S. and we'll have our 90 days and have a wedding here," Angela said in a confessional."But if the K-1 visa doesn't come through, I'm going to be marrying Michael in Nigeria because I love him and want to do whatever will get Michael over here in the quickest way possible."Skyla advised Michael to wait for the K-1 visa so Michael could meet their family and Angela could determine whether he's even good and responsible with her many grandchildren.Angela told Skyla that she needed a witness for her wedding in Nigeria and asked if she would travel with her, but Skyla said, "No," and Angela called her "a witch." Skyla told her mom that Angela didn't know what she was getting herself into.Skyla warned Angela that Michael might be able to control all of her assets, so she agreed to potentially make the trip over to Nigeria as long as Angela would agree to meet with a lawyer and ask questions about how her life and financial situation might change if she marries a guy in Nigeria.Angela didn't like talking about divorce before she was even married, and she told Skyla that she was pissing her off. Angela needed Skyla to be her witness, and so she just hoped her daughter would come around.Angela, her six grandkids and her mother had moved into a new house, and Angela said there was enough space for Michael and a new baby as well. Angela thought Michael would really like it.Angela then FaceTimed with Michael and let him know that she had a cold as well as her period. It had been two years since Angela last had a period, but Michael said it was a good thing, and Angela agreed it gave her hope she could have her own biological child with Michael.Angela told Michael that her mother was getting better, but she had been sick for a while. Angela was apparently taking care of her mom.While Angela was giving Michael a tour of her house, his second phone made a noise and Michael told Angela that it was a ringtone. Michael claimed he didn't know what the ringtone was for, and Angela got angry, saying people set ringtones for special people to know when they're calling.Angela didn't recognize the ringtone, and she claimed Michael was nervously trying to shut the sound off. Angela asked whom the ringtone was for, and Michael insisted it was just a general one. Angela didn't believe what Michael had to say, and she got very upset."Why are you denying it?! B-tch please," Angela vented, before telling Michael he's "full of sh-t... I'm done with you. Go play with your f-cking ringtone."Angela felt Michael must have thought she was stupid because her fiance had put a ringtone on one number and he allegedly didn't even have a ringtone for Angela. Michael called Angela back and asked her to calm down, and then Michael said his ringtone had been set to his mechanic's number.Angela said Michael had told her plenty of big and little lies, and so it was difficult for her to trust him. Angela determined talking to a divorce lawyer would be the best thing she could ever do after this situation with Michael.Andrei, a 33-year-old from Chisinau, Moldova, and Elizabeth, a 29-year-old from Tampa, FL, had an eight-month-old daughter Eleanor at the time of filming. They had been married for three years.Elizabeth said they had moved into a single-family home and she was back working with her father in real estate full time. Andrei revealed he wasn't working and was a stay-at-home dad.Their financial situation apparently hadn't improved, but Elizabeth said it was nice they at least saved money on childcare. Elizabeth also liked Eleanor got to spend a lot of time with her father.Elizabeth and Andrei met on a dating app when she was planning a trip to Ireland. She said they "matched" and got into a fight the first time they started talking on the phone but things ended up working out.After filing for a K-1 visa, Andrei moved to the United States, and Elizabeth said she was "so excited" to be engaged and their wedding in America turned out to be "beautiful" and "enchanting." Things moved quickly for the pair, when they found out Elizabeth was pregnant six months after they had tied the knot.Elizabeth said she and Andrei were over the moon, but there was still tension between the couple because Andrei felt Elizabeth's family didn't have boundaries or truly respect him. Andrei's problems with her loved ones caused them to fight sometimes, and that apparently hasn't changed.Elizabeth admitted being pregnant was stressful but she still enjoyed it, and Andrei was happy his father could be in America for his daughter's birth. Andrei promised his father he and Elizabeth would have a second wedding in Moldova, but it had yet to happen.Elizabeth and Andrei were then shown getting ready for her father's birthday, but Andrei admitted his relationship with Elizabeth's family was "nonexistent" and his "biggest issue" with them was that they'd "double-faced" and allegedly don't help him out when he needs it.Elizabeth and Andrei arrived late to the celebration, which didn't surprise her sisters. One of Elizabeth's sisters taunted Andrei by saying, "Happy wife, happy life," but Andrei insisted "when the man is happy, everyone is happy," and "what the man says goes."Andrei then announced he was organizing a wedding in his country in "about a month" and all of Elizabeth's relatives would be invited.Elizabeth told the cameras they were "way too early" in their planning stages to invite people and talk about the wedding, but Andrei was excited and noted it was going to be "a hell of a party."Elizabeth told the cameras she was "dumbfounded" and mad that Andrei had brought the second wedding up prematurely, without talking to her first. Elizabeth claimed she had "no idea" Andrei wanted to have a second wedding "so soon."Elizabeth's family complained that Andrei should have given them more time to plan. Elizabeth explained the wedding had to happen soon or else they couldn't baptize Eleanor in Andrei's church. Andrei also looked forward to more of his family meeting Eleanor for the first time, like his mother.Andrei told Elizabeth's family that he wasn't going to wait for them and if they couldn't make it, the wedding was going to happen anyway. Elizabeth's family was upset about Andrei's expectations and the "unrealistic timing" of his wedding.Elizabeth's brothers Charlie and Dan weren't even sure Moldova was a safe place to visit. Elizabeth's father Chuck also couldn't believe his daughter and Andrei were planning an extravagant wedding in a different country when their life in the United States wasn't even set.Chuck didn't want to get stuck with another bill, saying he hoped Elizabeth and Andrei wouldn't ask him for money. Elizabeth said Andrei made her father's birthday all about Andrei, and Elizabeth felt guilty because she wasn't even involved in this plan to begin with."Andrei has a bad track record, and now my family is going to be even more pissed," Elizabeth noted.On the drive home, Elizabeth vented to cameras it seemed like she didn't have a say in her own wedding. She told Andrei they had only "halfway discussed" what they were going to do, but Andrei said "later" was "now" because they had already been married for two years and he wasn't willing to wait any longer."You actually don't want this wedding at all. That's how it seems from my side," Andrei noted.Elizabeth assured Andrei that she wanted to marry him but she didn't want to rush their wedding like the last one. Elizabeth wanted to really enjoy the experience, and she was also worried about money."The father of the bride needs to pay for the wedding," Andrei told his wife, as her jaw dropped to the floor."My dad already cut us off," Elizabeth reminded him.Andrei said Chuck was "obligated" to do this because he had given Elizabeth's sisters the wedding of their dreams. Elizabeth refused to ask her father for more money given they had borrowed from him before, but Andrei argued it was tradition and "foolishness" for Elizabeth to disagree.Andrei's heart was set on having a wedding in Moldova soon, so Elizabeth didn't feel like she could negotiate with him. Elizabeth acknowledged she had "a lot to think about."Larissa, a 33-year-old Minas Gerais, Brazil, was shown cleaning bathrooms and complaining about the smell. She said she's very sensitive to "poopie and pee."Larissa had been in America for one-and-a-half years at the time of filming, and she said living with Colt and Debbie was "hell" and "a nightmare." She had been arrested for domestic violence three times during her stay in America.Larissa said after her third arrest, she moved in with her pal, Carmen, and then met Eric, who was young, sexy and dreamy.Larissa was apparently afraid at the time she was going to be deported, but Eric helped her out with her legal issues and she was never charged for domestic violence.However, Larissa's case was still open and she had yet another court appearance coming up. Larissa said she had finished her community service and hoped her charge would be reduced to disorderly conduct.After Larissa left Colt's house, she lost weight and got a lot of plastic surgery on her face, including a nose job and work on her cheeks."I am a new woman, and I feel very happy," Larissa told the cameras.Larissa was then shown meeting with two girlfriends and revealing she and Eric had broken up because they were like "two friends hanging out" and weren't having sex.Larissa said she missed how Colt found her attractive because Eric allegedly never complimented her. Larissa said her relationship with Eric only lasted eight months and he's "a cheap man."Larissa thought she deserved better, and her pals advised her to make better decisions when it comes to men. They also said they'd like to see her with "a sugar daddy."Larissa wanted to find herself before getting into another relationship, but her friends pushed her to have fun and live the American dream. But then Larissa revealed Colt had canceled her affidavit of support and canceled her Green Card."I have to find another way to stay here. I don't know what's going to happen to me, and I'm very scared to get arrested again and be deported forever... My master plan was come to America, fall in love, and one day bring my kids here and have the family that I dreamed of, but that is really fading away," Larissa admitted.Later on, Larissa and Carmen, her friend of 10 years whom she had originally met in Brazil, made a turkey together for Thanksgiving. Larissa gushed her turkey was "beautiful" while preparing it, and Carmen admitted she was worried about her friend getting deported.Larissa feared this would be her last holiday in the U.S. because she didn't know about her immigration status. Larissa was thinking about her options for filing for a Green Card and called her situation "complicated."Larissa told Carmen that she had a lot working against her, like her arrests, and so she worried her application would be denied. Carmen told Larissa to stay positive because she had "a good chance" and she should fight for what she wants.Larissa said she could make more money in America and create a better life for her family, but there was a chance she could be denied for a Green Card.Larissa was then shown going to a cafe and FaceTiming with her father Jonas to ask for advice."In Brazil, I have my daughter and my son but I just have contact more with my daughter because she lives with my parents and it's easier. I really miss my family in Brazil every day," Larissa said in a confessional, adding her mother is strict.Larissa told Jonas that she and Eric had broken up, and he was surprised to hear this news after a short period of time. Larissa told her dad that Colt wanted to destroy her and get her deported.She asked Jonas whether she should try to stay in the United States or return to Brazil, and Jonas reminded her that her children are in Brazil, although she was trying to live out her dream in America. Jonas said Larissa could help her children more by living in the U.S., and she was glad to have her father's support.Larissa knew the fees of applying for a Green Card are expensive and she didn't have much money since Colt had allegedly cut her off. Larissa therefore asked her father to borrow $5,000, and he said he could check his accounts but at least send half of it immediately.Larissa said she was so happy her father was going to help her pay for her Green Card application, and all she could do was wait.Kalani, a 31-year-old from Washington, UT, and Asuelu, a 24-year-old from Utulaelae, Samoa, are still married with two children. Asuelu was shown working by passing out free samples at a frozen yogurt shop.The couple had been married for one year and three months at the time of filming.Kalani said they had met while she was on vacation in Samoa and there was an instant attraction. Kalani was a virgin when they met, but she chose to have sex with Asuelu because she really liked him -- which resulted in a pregnancy.Kalani and Asuelu had only spent two weeks together in Samoa, but she wanted her child to have a father, and so Kalani applied for the K-1 visa so Asuelu could move to the United States.Kalani's family did not support their relationship in the beginning, and Asuelu admitted meeting Kalani's father was "scary." Kalani's father didn't want to see his daughter with a Samoan man, and her sister was very vocal about not wanting Kalani to marry Asuelu.Asuelu had a lot of adjusting to do since he had moved from a small island, and Kalani initially worried about what kind of father Asuelu would turn out to be. Asuelu said being a parent in the United States is "very different" and he and Kalani had communication issues for a while.Right when Asuelu and Kalani were starting to figure things out, Kalani got pregnant for the second time. Kalani was nervous about telling her family she was pregnant again, and the news didn't go over well with her sister or other relatives.But love conquered all, and Kalani and Asuelu ended up getting married on Asuelu's K-1 visa. The couple has two sons -- Oliver, 2, and Kennedy, 6 months -- and Kalani said having two kids was very hard and she didn't have time for anything but her children.Kalani suggested her marriage was suffering and she was exhausted all the time, but Kalani's parents moved in with the couple to help them out with Oliver and Kennedy.Kalani said she wanted Asuelu to help out more with the babies and also help out more around the house. Kalani told Asuelu it was very hard to have two children under age 2 due to the nonstop feeding and screaming, but Asuelu believed the mother typically looks after the kids and cleans the house.Kalani said Asuelu would play volleyball or video games after work."If you're not contributing to our household, you don't have the right to leave for hours at a time," Kalani vented to the cameras, but Asuelu told his wife it was important that he makes friends.Kalani asked Asuelu when they last spent time together alone, and Asuelu said they had watched movies together the other night -- but Kalani argued that was four months ago.Asuelu told the cameras he didn't think he and Kalani needed to go on dates anymore because it was nice to spend time with their sons together."I just wish that Asuelu and I could get back to the point where we were in the beginning of our relationship, where we loved to be around each other. I just miss that, and if Asuelu refuses to change, I don't know if I can keep doing this anymore," Kalani said in a confessional.Kalani said she loved her parents living with her although Asuelu didn't really like it because he was no longer the man of the house. However, Kalani hoped the opportunity would allow Asuelu to develop a better relationship with her father.Kalani's dad said he was "still waiting" for Asuelu to "step up" and provide for his family. Kalani's dad said Asuelu's job was good for a high school kid, and Asuelu admitted he worked part-time and didn't make a lot of money.Asuelu said it was difficult for him to find a full-time job because he had dropped out of college and didn't have much work experience. Asuelu said he wanted his children to become better men, but Kalani's dad said Asuelu needed to "act better" in order to make that happen.Kalani's dad worried Asuelu was more concerned about hanging out with his friends than taking care of his family, and he told the cameras Asuelu wasn't quite "a man" or family man yet.Asuelu told the cameras he was just playing volleyball for an hour or two and wasn't going to clubs, drinking or partying. I get concerned, you're going to have a problem. There's no more f-cking around," Kalani's dad told Asuelu. "I'm going to be keeping an eye on Asuelu. If he doesn't change what he's doing now, he's either going to get his ass whooped or sent back to Samoa."Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
Description

GIS - 15 June, 2020: Government is coming up with new regulations and appropriate measures which are necessary for a safe return to work and a gradual restart of business activities, stated the Minister of Labour, Human Resource Development and Training, Mr Soodesh Callichurn, on 12 June 2020, at the National Assembly during his intervention on the budget debates.

He indicated that these regulations will provide for employers to devise and update their policies on safety and health. They will also provide for suitable and sufficient risk assessment to identify the risks of infection and implement appropriate preventive and protective measures, he said. Furthermore, t raining and placement programmes for the youth, workers and women will be reinforced.

Mr Callichurn also dwelt on the importance of offering training which is most compatible with employability adding that the Mauritius Institute of Training and Development (MITD) and the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) are key institutions that will encompass this philosophy. He stated that both institutions will be revamped, including improving their structure and training programmes. The National Apprenticeship Programme will also be revisited to cater for unemployed youth and redundant workers, he said .

Speaking about the Plan de Relance following COVID-19, the Labour Minister highlighted that a Support to Company Scheme has been set up through different organisations. The financial assistance provided to companies, he added, is aimed at sustaining operation expenses including wages.

He stated that Government has come up with the above schemes rather than opting for technical unemployment or reduction of wages which would have rendered employment more precarious. To harness this measure, the Workers Rights Act will be amended to make it a prerequisite for employers to avail themselves of these financial assistance schemes before lay-off of workers, he pointed out.

Thus no employer shall have the right to give notice of intended reduction of workforce to the Redundancy Board unless an application has been made for financial assistance and the application has been turned down. Subsequently, any termination of employment shall be deemed to be unjustified where and when this procedure has not been followed.

P olicy responses to curb effect of Covid-19 on the economy and labour market

As regards those companies which will not be able to sustain the shock and will have to close down, Mr Callichurn underlined that where termination of employment is justified, a worker will be entitled to 30 days wages in lieu of notice and will also benefit from the payment of an End of Year Bonus computed on the basis of the number of months he has been working during the year.

He will also be refunded the remaining balance of his annual leave. In addition to the above, the employer would have to fulfill his obligations under the Portable Retirement Gratuity Fund, that is, he/she will be under the obligation to pay gratuity on retirement of 15 days per year of service to the laid-off worker or contribute same in the latters individual account held by the Mauritius Revenue Authority.

Furthermore, the Workers Rights Act is also being amended to entitle laid-off workers reckoning more than 180 days (6 months) to benefit a Transitional unemployment assistance of 90% of the basic wage up to the NPF ceiling for a period of 6 months instead of 3 months, as it is the case presently, and 60% for the next 6 months instead of 30% for the last 6 months.

Support to sectors which create productive employment

Budget 2020-2021 outlines that in line with the International Labour Organizations advocacy to support sectors that are able to create decent and productive employment, Government has imposed a minimum shelf space of 10 % for locally manufactured goods in supermarkets. Furthermore, ministries and Government bodies will be required to have a minimum domestic content of 30% in their purchases, which will help boost entrepreneurship and job creation.

Minister Callichurn emphasised the need to have a competent local workforce that will enable the country to depend less on foreign labour. To this end, he said, the MITD will be called upon to mount specific training courses to bridge the skills mismatch in the labour market.

Other measures include:

 Preparation of an updated National Occupational Safety and Health Profile under the Decent Work Country Programme to identify existing and emerging challenges in occupational safety and health.

 Extension of the Workforce Programme in the form of a skills development component to be supported jointly by the HRDC and the MITD to re-skill and to improve the employability of intended beneficiaries.

 Under the Portable Retirement Gratuity Fund, employers will be obliged to pay 15 days remuneration per year of service as gratuity on retirement and contribution equivalent to the mentioned formula in case of termination of employment.
Conditions in California prisons have been dismal enough in the past decade to prompt U.S. Supreme Court intervention. The situation has gotten worse in many prisons during the coronavirus pandemic, but for thousands of physically and mentally disabled inmates, according to a recent court filing, things are downright terrifying.

Citing more than 100 sworn declarations from inmates, lawyers told a federal judge in Oakland on June 3 that prison staff routinely use unnecessary and excessive force against people with disabilities, often resulting in broken bones, loss of consciousness, stitches or injuries that require medical attention at outside hospitals.

Among the alleged atrocities by prison officers and staff:

 When a mentally disabled inmate at Corcoran State Prison in Kings County tried to file a grievance about a search in September, officers beat him, knocking him unconscious multiple times and breaking his jaw, resulting in his jaw being wired shut for three months.

 In April, officers at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, also in Corcoran, threw a hard-of-hearing (inmate) with broken hearing aids to (the) ground for being unable to hear an order to come out of his cell.

 Officers at the state prison in Lancaster (Los Angeles County) threw an individual out of his wheelchair for requesting help cleaning up (his) cell after his catheter bag broke and leaked urine and blood in June 2018.

 Staff at the same prison in March pushed a (mentally disabled inmate) head first into the floor after the individual refused to be housed in a cell with a person suspected of having COVID-19.

These and similar allegations come to light as Gov. Gavin Newsom has withdrawn funding for surveillance cameras at three prisons, citing the states pandemic-induced fiscal crisis.

The lawsuit is one of several long-running cases by inmate advocates complaining of substandard health care and mistreatment of vulnerable populations in the nations largest prison system. In 2011, the Supreme Court ordered California to lower the inmate population by 30,000 to reduce overcrowding that made adequate medical care virtually impossible.

Disabled inmates filed their lawsuit in 1994, accusing the state of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. They won federal court orders in 2001, 2007 and 2012 finding that California failed to comply with the law and ordering the prisons to investigate complaints and improve their practices.

Michael Freedman, a San Francisco attorney representing the inmates, called the case one of the groundbreaking lawsuits under the ADA because it established that the federal civil rights law applied to prison systems and required California prisons to accommodate people with a range of disabilities.

But over the past few years, Freedman said, disabled inmates have been reporting attacks and intimidation by prison staff that have undermined past court orders and made prisoners fearful of asking for help.

His co-counsel, Gay Grunfeld, also in San Francisco, said, If youre in a wheelchair and you ask for help and they throw you out of the wheelchair, its not just assault, its a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She said inmates who file those complaints are often met with retaliation and violence.

Dana Simas, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, declined to comment on the lawsuit or the allegations in recent filings. We take the safety and security of inmates very seriously, and will be carefully reviewing the complaint, she said.

Freedman said the incident involving the inmate who refused to be housed alongside a coronavirus sufferer appeared to be a rarity, as the prisons are seldom transferring inmates to new locations during the pandemic. But he said there was another, less encouraging comparison with current events: the absence of cameras to record prison assaults.

It was the video of the death of George Floyd with a Minneapolis police officers knee on his neck that led to global protests and demands for police accountability, Freedman said. He said inmates were hoping for similar accountability when state officials, in response to recent filings in the lawsuit, agreed to install surveillance cameras at three prisons, and Newsom proposed $21.6 million to pay for them. But Newsom withdrew the funding, and canceled the project, in budget cuts last month to address the states $54 billion deficit.

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 prison system is a black box, Freedman said. The court filing included a declaration from Jeffrey Schwartz, an expert on use of force, who said there was one stark difference in the George Floyd case: The nation is outraged by the conduct because a video of the misconduct exists. Unfortunately, we do not have video of alleged misconduct at (California prisons), and that is a travesty.

Now, the inmates lawyers want U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to order the state to install cameras at eight prisons, to require prison guards to wear and use body cameras, and to improve staff supervision and training. Wilken has scheduled a hearing for July 21.

Inmates lawyers said the department has fired nine prison staff members for mistreatment of prisoners in five incidents since the start of 2017, all of them involving prisoners with disabilities. But during that period, the lawyers said, they presented more than 140 reports of misconduct against disabled inmates at a single prison, in Lancaster, and the department apparently has not disciplined any officers or changed any practices at the prison.

To the contrary, the court filing said, officers have harassed non-custody staff who show any kindness and compassion toward incarcerated people, such as a social worker at the prison in San Diego who, according to a sworn declaration, quit because of intolerable working conditions.

Last month at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano (Kern County), the filing alleged, a guard threatened to kill an inmate who reported misconduct to the lawyers.

In another incident this year, Rodney Gravesbey, a 68-year-old inmate with mental illness, and his cellmate at Richard J. Donovan State Prison in San Diego were feuding, the lawyers said. They said multiple witnesses reported that the inmates repeatedly asked guards to assign them to separate cells for their safety  but that the guards repeatedly responded, in coarse language, that they should get along or fight to prove they couldnt.

When they came to blows in their cell on Feb. 4, the filing said, guards did not respond for 15 to 30 minutes. Gravesbey died of his injuries 15 days later.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
YEREVAN, JUNE 15, ARMENPRESS. 75 servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces have already arrived in the Russian capital of Moscow to participate in the military parade dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, Armenian defense ministers spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan told Armenpress.

Yesterday 75 servicemen of the Armenian Armed Forces departed for Moscow to take part in the military parade dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War on June 24. The staff is already on the scene, has passed a respective medical examination and is ready for the military parade. The servicemen currently are engaged in joint exercises and preparation works, she said.

The Armenian servicemen will carry Armenias and the Tamanyan divisions flags during the military parade.

Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic this years Victory Day celebrations in Russia scheduled on May 9 were postponed and will take place on June 24.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will also visit Russia to attend the military parade.

Reporting by Norayr Shoghikyan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
Morgan Stanley doubles down on 'V-shaped recovery' and raises stock market forecast

Published Mon, Jun 15 2020 7:13 AM EDT Updated Mon, Jun 15 2020 8:37 AM EDT
A minister admitted last night he knew he was saving a Tory donor tens of millions of pounds in approving a 1billion property scheme.

Robert Jenrick faces claims of cash for favours over his dealings with former newspaper tycoon Richard Desmond.

He over-ruled the local council and a planning inspector a day before the introduction of a community levy that would have cost the billionaire between 30million and 50million.

Robert Jenrick faces claims of cash for favours over his dealings with former newspaper tycoon Richard Desmond

Just two weeks later Mr Desmond gave 12,000 to the Conservative Party.

Mr Jenrick had to quash his decision to give the plan the green light following a High Court challenge from Tower Hamlets council.

Yesterday he insisted all the rules were followed over the 1,500-home development in east London.

But he told MPs he knew that the timing of his decision would save the businessman a fortune.

Steve Reed, Labours housing spokesman, urged Mr Jenrick to make a full Commons statement, publish all correspondence and disclose all conversations with all Government ministers and officials.

In response, the Cabinet minister said information relating to the decision has now been passed to Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill.

Mr Jenrick had to quash Richard Desmond's (right) decision to give the plan the green light following a High Court challenge from Tower Hamlets council. Desmond pictured with Joy Canfield

I have taken, and will take again, advice from my permanent secretary about what further documentation we might be able to publish, he told MPs.

Mr Jenrick said he took the planning decision in good faith with an open mind and insisted it was commonplace for a Housing Secretary to overrule local councils and the Planning Inspectorate.

Mr Jenricks decision in January came two months after he and Mr Desmond sat on the same table at a Tory fundraising dinner.

The property developer, who previously owned the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers, then went on to donate 12,000 to the Conservatives on January 28.

Asked yesterday why he did not withdraw from deciding on the planning application following the dinner, Mr Jenrick said he had made Housing Department officials aware of it.

He said: My department knew about my attendance at the event before I went to it, they knew about the fact I had inadvertently sat next to the applicant.

I didnt know who I was going to be seated by until I sat at the table, and I discussed and took advice from my officials within the department at all times.

Labour MP Sarah Jones pressed Mr Jenrick on whether he knew that the levy would come into force the day after he signed planning consent.

He replied: That was a matter of public record referred to in the Planning Inspectorates report that my department received in November so all parties would have been aware of that.

The SNPs Tommy Sheppard challenged Mr Jenrick over his entirely unsatisfactory answers, adding: Will he now explain to this House... why he thinks it is appropriate for him to remain in post while the police investigation into his behaviour is ongoing?

But the minister criticised the MP for making factually incorrect points, adding: I understand that a Labour member of the House of Lords did make an allegation to the police.

Mr Jenrick said he took the planning decision in good faith with an open mind and insisted it was commonplace for a Housing Secretary to overrule local councils and the Planning Inspectorate

That was swiftly assessed by members of the Metropolitan Police and they informed that there were no criminal matters to investigate.

Mr Jenricks appearance in the Commons yesterday for his regular departmental questions came after he failed to turn up to respond to an urgent question on the matter last week and instead sent a junior housing minister.

The timing of Mr Jenricks planning decision meant Mr Desmond would have avoided paying the levy, depriving one of the countrys poorest boroughs of funds.

Money collected through the levy can be used by council to fund a wide range of infrastructure, including transport, flood defences, schools, hospitals, and other health and social care facilities.

According to legal documents filed as part of the High Court challenge by Tower Hamlets, the council was informed by the Planning Inspectorate last November that Mr Jenrick would issue his decision on or before February 20.

But it was unexpectedly published on January 14, a day before the council was due to approve the new levy.

After the High Court challenge, Mr Jenrick accepted his original decision had been unlawful by reason of apparent bias and said he would take no further part in the matter.

Mr Jenrick has faced controversy in recent months after he travelled 150 miles from London to a property he owns in rural Herefordshire during the coronavirus lockdown.
Desperation for a way to keep economies from collapsing under the weight of covid-19 could mean settling for a vaccine that prevents people from getting really sick or dying but doesn't stop them from catching the coronavirus.

Although a knock-out blow against the virus is the ultimate goal, early vaccines may come with limitations on what they can deliver, according to Robin Shattock, an Imperial College London professor leading development of an experimental shot.

"Is that protection against infection?" Shattock said. "Is it protection against illness? Is it protection against severe disease? It's quite possible a vaccine that only protects against severe disease would be very useful."

As countries emerge warily from lockdowns, leaders are looking to a preventive shot as the route to return to pre-pandemic life. Fueled by billions of dollars in government investment, vaccines from little-known companies like China's CanSino Biologics and giants like Pfizer and AstraZeneca are in development.

At least one of the fastest-moving experimental shots has already advanced into human trials after showing an impact on severe disease -- but less so on infection -- in animals. Experts say such a product would probably be widely used if approved, even if that's as much as it contributes, until a more effective version comes to market.

"Vaccines need to protect against disease, not necessarily infection," said Dennis Burton, an immunologist and vaccine researcher at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California.

There are drawbacks, though. While holding the potential to save lives, such vaccines might lead to complacency in lockdown-weary nations, said Michael Kinch, a drug development expert who is associate vice chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis.

"My guess would be that the day after someone gets immunized, they're going to think, 'I can go back to normal. Everything will be fine,'" he said. "They're not going to necessarily realize that they might still be susceptible to infection."

Covid-19 is already thought to be spread by people without symptoms, and a symptom-preventing vaccine may create even greater numbers of them.

Vaccines are among the most effective weapons against infectious disease, and prevent up to 3 million deaths a year, according to the World Health Organization. Yet few, if any, are 100% effective in all people who get them. For example, about 3% of people who get measles vaccine develop a mild form of the disease, and can spread it to others.

In their attempts to confront a rapidly growing threat, developers are turning to technologies that have never been used successfully in humans. More than 130 shots are in the works for covid-19 prevention, according to the World Health Organization.

Vaccines work by presenting the immune system with a form of a germ -- or a key part of it -- preparing the body to respond when a real exposure occurs. When that happens, immune proteins called antibodies glom onto the virus, halting its entry to cells. Sometimes vaccines ramp up immune T-cells, which don't do as much to prevent infections, but can slow and eventually stop their progression.

---

A common approach to raising levels of antibodies is with injection of a virus that's been inactivated or killed. About nine of these are in experimentation: One, made by China's Sinovac Biotech, led to high levels of covid-targeted antibodies in monkeys.

Another shot developed at the University of Oxford uses an innovative approach in which covid genes are inserted into a different, harmless virus. Those make proteins that are recognized by the immune system, which raises defenses against a real infection.

About a quarter of the experimental shots listed by the WHO, including two already in human studies, follow the same approach as the Oxford vaccine. One of the advantages of the technology is its speed. AstraZeneca, which is partnering with Oxford, has said it will begin delivering doses for the U.K. as soon as September, and will have doses for the U.S., which helped fund development, the following month.

Over the weekend, AstraZeneca and four European Union countries said they reached an agreement to distribute hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine.

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How the shot affects infections and infectiousness still isn't clear. William Haseltine, a former HIV researcher at Harvard University, pointed out in a blog for Forbes that animals had roughly the same amount of viral genetic material, called RNA, in their systems, whether or not they'd received shots. Levels of antibodies against the virus weren't as high as in very protective vaccines, he said.

However, clinical signs of severe infection, like high breathing rate and pneumonia, were better in vaccinated monkeys. That might still make such a shot useful, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"That vaccine doesn't look like it's a knockout for protecting against infection, but it might be really very good at protecting against disease," Fauci told the medical news website Stat.

The vaccine will be a success whether it heads off infections or severe symptoms, AstraZeneca Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said in a BBC interview. The vaccine's progress to advanced studies was approved by an independent scientific panel, and the company is waiting to see how it performs, a spokesman said.

Fauci's NIAID is partnered with Moderna on a covid vaccine test whose primary goal is to show their vaccine prevents people from developing symptoms, the company said June 11. Preventing infections is a secondary goal.

Successful preventives must also bar onward transmission, said Daniel Barouch, a researcher at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard University. Effective shots may allow some cells to become infected, but control the growth of the virus before it can be passed on to others, said Barouch, who is developing a vaccine with Johnson & Johnson.

---

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering options for a vaccine that prevents illness.

"We would potentially consider an indication related to prevention of severe disease, provided available data support the benefits of vaccination," FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum said in response to questions. "For licensure we would not require that a vaccine protect against infection."

Licensed vaccines including some against whooping cough have not been demonstrated to protect against infection with the pathogen that causes the disease but have been demonstrated to protect against symptomatic disease, Felberbaum said.

The notion of using imperfect vaccines and therapies is "fine," Kinch said. "That's just practicality. And we may follow those up with more-perfect. There will never be a truly perfect vaccine."
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 15:08:18|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL, June 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in offered Monday to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) finding a breakthrough together through dialogue, according to the presidential Blue House.

"I know well about Chairman Kim Jong Un's determination and efforts to change the Korean Peninsula situations in an epoch-making way. I also feel very sorry that progress hasn't been made in the DPRK-U.S. and the inter-Korean relations as expected," Moon told a meeting with his senior aides.

"It is high time that the South and the North go to find a breakthrough together. The time has come that (the two Koreas) would no longer sit and wait for improved conditions," said Moon.

Moon said he wished to actively find and put into practice the projects that the two Koreas can choose and push for on their own, vowing to continue efforts to gain consent from the international community.

He expressed his anticipation that the DPRK would open its door for dialogue and put ideas together.

Moon's comment came after Kim Yo Jong, first vice department director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and younger sister of top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement Saturday night that she had given instructions for decisive action to be taken.

"If I drop a hint of our next plan the South Korean authorities are anxious about, the right to taking the next action against the enemy will be entrusted to the General Staff of our army," She said, adding that the army "will determine something for cooling down our people's resentment and surely carry it out."

The DPRK has repeatedly lashed out at South Korea since last week in protest against anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent by defectors and activists across the border. Pyongyang has also closed its joint liaison office and cut off all communication lines with the South. Enditem
Mumbai, June 15 : It seems actress Kajol is having 'good hair days' lately. On Monday, she posted a picture where she is seen flaunting brown locks.

"#hairyselfie . This lockdown is changing the way we think about hair," she captioned the image.

Kajol's sunkissed "hairy selfie" has impressed her fans on social media, naturally.

A user commented: "So gorgeous." Another one wrote: "Beautiful hair." She teamed up her look with red bold lipstick.

On the work front, Kajol will be seen making her digital debut with the film "Tribhanga", which is directed by Renuka Shahane. It is drama set in Mumbai, weaving a complex tale that goes back and forth through three generations of the same family, from the late 1980s to modern-day. Mithila Palkar, Tanvi Azmi and Kunaal Roy Kapoor also play pivotal roles in the Netflix release.
The narrative of Prince William's gradually failing vision is the headline of National Enquirer's recent piece released. However, this was debunked by celebrity news fact-checker Gossip Cop.

The future King, 38, has been cautioned that he is slated to lose his sense of vision in a mere 5 years.

He publicly divulged that his vision is slowly ailing. "The palace is desperately trying to keep William's health struggle secret, but he let the cat out of the bag himself," a supposed high-level courtier divulged, Magzter reported.

The anonymous courtier alleged that the Duke of Cambridge is in a dire position seeking help from top doctors to alleviate the eventual blindness. He added that the duke is fearful of the probable blindness.

Prince William apparently attempted to downplay the illness by joking that "it made it easier for him to conquer stage fright because the audience is 'just a blur.'"

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's renouncement of their positions as senior working members of the British royal family was also dragged into the narrative. Another senior royal insider source said, "It's no secret William and his wife, Kate, are furious at their in-laws for selfishly quitting."

Middleton is reportedly publicly putting on a brave face, but the said source fears that her personal world is falling apart.

Eagle-eyed Gossip Cop thinks that the narrative was inspired by Prince William's interview two weeks ago. He confessed in the interview that one way he tackled anxiety while talking to crowds previously was by not being able to see the audience clearly.

Also Read: Stepping Down the Royal Family Saved Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's Marriage

The Duke of Cambridge explained, "When I gave speeches, I couldn't see anyone's face... actually that really helped with my anxiety."

Recent happenings had made it transparent where the Cambridges stand. According to Tatler, despite the brave face, the duchess was mad at the Sussexes behind closed doors for the Sussexes' self-centered attitude.

Kensington Palace transmitted legal papers to the tabloid demanding the article to be taken down. They denounced the story as a "swathe of inaccuracies and false representations."

Prince William and Kate Middleton Being Watched Sternly by the Queen and Prince Philip

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip want to alleviate making serious mistakes as learned from the "younger royals." This is due to the royal family witnessing a series of changes since early 2020.



According to royal expert Tom Quinn on Channel 5's "William & Kate: Too Good to Be True?," the royal family members want to ensure that the Cambridges would not repeat bad decisions made by other young royals.

It can be recalled that the world was stunned with the advent of Megxit because Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were the first-ever royal members to renounce their titles and duties.

Prince William and Middleton attracted increased attention on them with the prince being an immediate heir to the throne as King after Prince Charles.

Related Article: Meghan Markle Accused of Stealing Princess Diana's Jewelry Worth $10M She Worn in her Wedding

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Ziguinchor, Senegal (PANA) - Two Senegalese soldiers were killed and two others slightly wounded Monday around 14h GMT when an anti-tank mine exploded in the southern region of Ziguinchor, military sources told PANA here
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With the beautiful weather and antsy sentiment after three months of quarantine, New York City restaurants buzzed over the weekend. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo was not happy and expressed his displeasure.

Concerned about the long wait to reopen dining rooms becoming a longer wait, restaurant owners sounded off.
Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan today participated in the session of the Council of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA) via video call.

In his speech, the parliamentary speaker touched upon Azerbaijans ceasefire violations.

The fight against the pandemic must become an opportunity for reconciliation of peoples, and I believe we all agree with this idea of the United Nations Secretary-General.

Nevertheless, in spite of the call of the United Nations Secretary-General and the global humanitarian crisis which we are all fighting against, these days, Azerbaijan continues to lead its policy of sabotage and opening fire at peaceful civilians.

Such actions are inadmissible, and I expect condemnation of those actions in order to maintain stability in the region, Mirzoyan said.
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SEATTLE  Gov. Jay Inslee named Bill Rumpf, recently retired president of Mercy Housing Northwest, as the new chair of the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.

Rumpf will start his term June 15 as current chair Karen Miller retires after serving since 1999, according to a press release from the WSHFC. Miller is the commission's longest-serving member and chair, originally appointed by Gov. Booth Gardner in 1997 and named chair two years later.





. . .
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio called out sick Monday morning prompting his office to cancel all of his planned events today at the last minute.

But City Hall insists the mayor does not have the coronavirus. He has also not been tested for the virus over the course of the pandemic, nor does he have any plans to do so anytime soon.

The mayor woke up under the weather, said mayoral spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein. Hes taking the day to recuperate and we should be back to normal programming tomorrow.

Based on what hes experiencing he does not believe theres a need to be tested, she said.

Goldstein said the mayor is not getting tested for the coronavirus at this time and that they do not believe he has the virus. She said the mayor has a stomach bug.

Goldstein said the mayor has never been tested for the virus during the pandemic because he has not shown any symptoms. She also pointed out it was only just recently that the city opened up testing for those not experiencing any symptoms.

The mayors sudden illness comes after he went out to a protest and into the community over the weekend.

Marching with @etcnyorg during todays East Harlem Pray and Protest, I felt the urgency and pain of this moment  but also confidence that change will come because of the spirit of this movement and because in this city we affirm that #BlackLivesMatter. pic.twitter.com/XlgqzZ4pxt  Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 14, 2020

On Saturday, he spent time with members of Cure Violence in Jamaica, Queens. On Sunday, the mayor joined a protest in East Harlem.

City Hall cancelled the mayors daily coronavirus press briefing, and appearances on CNN and NY1 Monday because of his illness.

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ON TWITTER.
LONDON  Four months after an election that brought down its government but settled little else, Irelands two main parties struck an agreement Monday to govern together for the first time, opening an unpredictable chapter in Irish politics as the country faces the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Leaders of the parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, signed off on a draft agenda for a coalition government that will include a third party, the Greens, but not Sinn Fein, a party the coalition partners were eager keep out of the government. The two parties will rotate the prime ministers job, with the Fianna Fail leader, Micheal Martin, initially replacing the current prime minister, Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael.

The deal, after several weeks of tortuous negotiations, attests to the diminished stature of the parties and the fractured state of Irish politics. With shared roots in Irelands struggle for independence and similar center-right politics, Fianna Fail or Fine Gael has led every Irish government since 1927, sometimes supporting each other in Parliament but never governing in a formal coalition.

In February, voters delivered a rebuke to both parties, leaving the governing Fine Gael and the opposition Fianna Fail essentially deadlocked in Parliament with the Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein. Faced with the unpalatable prospect of going into a coalition with Sinn Fein, the two sought refuge in each other.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin arrives at Government Buildings in Dublin to discuss outstanding issues, as leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party are set to formally agree a draft programme for government between their parties later.

Government formation talks will continue on Monday morning as the leaders of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Green Party are set to formally sign off on a draft programme for government between their parties.

The parties were on Sunday evening edging towards agreement on forming a coalition government for the next five years, having overcome hurdles in the negotiations that have gone on for almost two months.

The leaders had expressed confidence that the deal would be signed on Sunday night but members of negotiating teams emerged after hours of talks to say they would resume in the morning.

Speaking at Government buildings tonight, Fine Gael Minister Paschal Donohoe said: There is a lot of work going on to be in a position, I hope tomorrow, to bring this to a conclusion.

I am satisfied that the issues that are important for my party are contained within the programme for government.

Expand Close (left to right) Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan and Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe arrive at Government Buildings (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp (left to right) Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan and Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe arrive at Government Buildings (Niall Carson/PA)

We are in a situation where there are thousands of people waking up tomorrow who dont have a job and we have challenges in relation to how we deal with housing and health.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said he is confident the final Programme for Government document can be signed off in the morning.

He said: We made good progress today, we should be in a position tomorrow morning to sign off on it.

A lot of people are working long hours over the last couple of weeks and tonight.

I think the work represents a significant departure in terms of Irish politics and also in terms of the type of society we will have in the future. We have very challenging times ahead of us, he said.

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Whatsapp Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin (centre) arrives at Government Buildings (Niall Carson/PA)

There are still outstanding issues between the parties that need to be resolved.

Fianna Fail has insisted that the pension age should not be increased to 67 until next year while Fine Gael has said taxes should not be increased for workers as the country faces a deep recession.

A Green Party source said a ban on fracked gas imports would likely see deputy leader Catherine Martin backing the deal, which could help to persuade two thirds of its party members to approve the agreement.

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The Green Party has the highest bar as their rules state that two thirds of their 2,700 members must support the deal.

It is expected that Mr Martin would become taoiseach for the first half of the new governments term but he refused to be drawn about it.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Deputy Fine Gael leader Simon Coveney said the draft coalition government deal was good for the country.

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Mr Coveney, leader of the Fine Gael negotiating team, said: We did a lot of good work last night and we effectively have a text for a government with a need for the leaders to finalise a very small number of issues.

Negotiating teams have done their job. I think the text that will be going to the leaders today is good for the country and I hope and I am confident that the three leaders will be able to sell it within their parties and to the public.

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The programme for government could run to more than 100 pages. If agreed, it will then have to be put to the membership of each of the three parties for consideration.

If members pass it, a government could be in place for the end of June or early July.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: Leader of the Opposition and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu held an online video conference with his partys village committee leaders on Sunday and said the State government had adopted a vindictive attitude towards the Opposition, which was evident from the false cases being foisted against the party leaders and MLAs.

Chandrababu Naidu staging a protest

against arrest of TDP leaders at

his residence in Undavalli on Sunday

Pointing out at the arrests of Atchannaidu on Friday, JC Prabahakar Reddy, his son Asmit Reddy on Saturday, arrest of former MLA Chitamaneni Prabhakar and cases filed against Yanamala Ramakrisnudu and Chinna Rajappa, he said Jagan was targeting political families having large public following.

Kinjarapu Yerran Naidu family in North Andhra and JC brothers family in Rayalaseema have large following. Quoting Fidel Castro, he said when a criminal becomes a ruler, innocent will be in jails and it is clearly visible in Andhra Pradesh nowadays. All Atchannaidu did was to confront the YSRC government on their policies which are not in public interest.

Ignoring the health condition of a person, who underwent a surgery, he was moved in a vehicle for long distances. We will lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, he said. TDP chief claimed that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, out of frustration over court verdicts against the government in different cases, was resorting to such tactics against the Opposition.

The company given the contract of Telemedicine and accused in the ESI scam was paid `3 crore by the YSRC government. Will they arrest the minister concerned? the former chief minister sought to know.

Describing the recent arrests as a trailer before a movie could only be described as the peak of their sadism, he observed.

Reiterating his allegation of various scams against the YSRC leader, TDP chief said Jagans party leaders were claiming that some big wigs in the party were involved in illegal sand mining. The TDP does not fear such scare tactics and it will always stand by truth, he asserted. Later in the evening, Naidu and his party leaders staged a protest against the arrest of TDP leaders at his residence.

TDP to give Rs 7.5 lakh aid to gas tragedy victims

The TDP chief directed party leaders to deposit Rs 50,000 as financial aid to 15 LG Polymers gas tragedy victims by Monday. A total Rs 7.5 lakh will be deposited in the bank accounts of the kin of gas tragedy victims.
ATLANTA (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.

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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.
"Longleaf Advisors is known for being a firm that understands their clients needs and provides them with the attention and care that helps drive success, Their level of dedication to collaboration and growth is foundational to UBA.-- UBA Board Chairman, Gary Jurney.

United Benefit Advisors (UBA), the nations leading independent employee benefits advisory organization, welcomes Longleaf Advisors to its community of Partners. Headquartered in West Columbia, South Carolina, Longleaf Advisors unites with UBA to continue serving as trusted advisors to their clients and and draw on the depth of a large national organization while remaining independent.

In addition to assisting their clients with employee benefit plans, Longleaf Advisors serves as a trusted advisor on tax management, retirement plans, succession planning, risk management, and personal financial planning. Their mission for 80 years has been to help clients make principled financial decisions that are right for their goals and risk tolerance.

"Longleaf Advisors is known for being a firm that understands their clients needs and provides them with the attention and care that helps drive success," said UBA Board Chairman, Gary Jurney. "Their level of dedication to collaboration and growth is foundational to UBA.

Longleaf Advisors is one of the newest Partners to join the UBA community of independent employee benefits advisory firms that serve employers of all sizes across the United States and internationally. As a combined group, UBAs annual employee benefit revenues rank it among the top ten employee benefit advisory organizations globally.

Longleaf Advisors is excited to join United Benefit Advisors, the premier independent benefits advisory firm in the country. The combination of our years of service to our clients, along with the knowledge, expertise, and tools of United Benefit Advisors, will take our ability to serve our clients to an entirely new level, said Blake Amick, President of Longleaf Advisors. We look forward to many years of helping clients get the best available options, at the best available pricing, with world class administration!

About Longleaf Advisors

Founded 80 years ago, Longleaf Advisors offers a full spectrum of financial services to both individual investors and businesses. Serving more than 150 business owners and their families, Blake and Will Amick continue the firms passion for helping people with tailored guidance and principled strategies to help individuals and businesses succeed with employee benefits, estate and business succession planning, and investment management. To learn more about Longleaf Advisors, visit http://www.longleafadv.com

About United Benefit Advisors

United Benefit Advisors (UBA) is the nations leading independent employee benefits advisory organization with more than 200 offices throughout the United States, Canada, England and Ireland. UBA empowers more than 2,000 Partners to both maintain their individuality and pool their expertise, insight, and market presence to provide best-in-class services and solutions. Employers, advisors and industry-related organizations interested in obtaining powerful results from the shared wisdom of our Partners should visit http://www.UBAbenefits.com.


The National Womens Business Council (NWBC), a non-partisan, federal advisory committee that serves as an independent source of advice and policy recommendations to the President, Congress, and the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration on issues that affect women business owners and entrepreneurs, is partnering with the Association of Womens Business Centers (AWBC) for a webinar on financial literacy.

The webinar will take place Wednesday, June 17, 2020 from 12:00 PM  1:00 PM EDT.

It will include an in-depth conversation between NWBC Council Member and CEO of Grand Rapids Opportunities for Women (GROW), Bonnie Nawara; Klassi Duncan, Director of Women Business Resource Center, Urban League of Louisiana; and David Ramos, Community Affairs Specialist for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

"This is a critical time to help underserved entrepreneurs prepare for recovery by taking full advantage of free and tested financial literacy resources, said Liz Sara, Chair, NWBC. As women business owners and entrepreneurs across the country adjust to the new normal, it is paramount that they are better prepared to access the funding they need to not only save their business, but also ultimately grow it.

They will discuss the importance of the Money Smart for Small Business program and curriculuma collaborative business development initiative between SBA and FDIC. The participants will also examine how to leverage the curriculum, and other federal resources, to help eliminate disparities in underserved communities and build generational wealth.

Womens Business Centers understand the necessity of financial literacy for women business owners to be successful and the network of 150+ locations nationwide offer a variety of programs to suit their client and community needs, said AWBC CEO Corinne Hodges. The Money Smart program is used by many Womens Business Centers and provides a solid foundation for what women need in life and in business.

This conversation will also feature remarks from Allen Gutierrez, Associate Administrator of the Office of Entrepreneurial Development, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), who will provide key insights on SBAs efforts surrounding financial literacy and education and its importance in the small business community.

NWBC's #WebinarWednesday is a monthly, multi-series webinar that serves as a platform for women entrepreneurs and business owners, to connect them to key advocates, experts, and useful resources that can help bolster their knowledge and skills and elevate their entrepreneurial potential. At NWBC, we will continue to prioritize this challenge and strive to make inroads for women-owned businesses in starting and growing their business. The Council regularly convenes women business owners and entrepreneurs from across the country to connect their voices to policymakers in Washington, D.C.

About the National Womens Business Council

The National Women's Business Council (NWBC) is a non-partisan federal advisory committee created to serve as an independent source of advice and policy recommendations to the President, Congress, and the U.S. Small Business Administration on economic issues of importance to women business owners. To learn more, please visit: http://www.NWBC.gov

About The Association of Women Business Centers

AWBC is a national non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1998. The AWBC works to secure economic justice and entrepreneurial opportunities for women by supporting and sustaining a national network of over 100 Women's Business Centers (WBCs).

WBCs help women succeed in business by providing training, mentoring, business development and financing opportunities to over 150,000 women entrepreneurs each year.

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US military operations in the Middle East will get support from US Air Force F-35s that range from escort, intimidate enemies, recon missions, and back up attack missions in the US Military's Central Command region.

According to the US Air Force, this is the latest squadron of top-line F-35A Lightning IIs that have been thrust into operations to join other services, the 3rd time in 12 months that the new fighter has been deployed for combat, reported in Fox News.

Air force representatives stated that the 421st Fighter Squadron has left Hill Air Force Base (AFB) to a staging area in Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates citing Wikipedia. Their function is to air support for the United States Air Force Central Command in the Middle East.

A more precise description of the mission is the less emphasis on attacking the Islamic State or the Taliban, but more in training, stopping potential attacks, protecting US assets, and last escorting ships in the Gulf, also working with other nations in war exercises. This mission of the 421st is important to US Military efforts in the Middle East.

F-35 and Close Air Support (CAS) missions

The multi-role plane's first mission was attacking the Taliban, and observers noticed that it excelled in close air support (CAS). One of the US Air Force intentions is the use of the Lightning II as ground-attack aircraft, the Pentagon decided the F-35 was a worthy successor to the aged A-10 Warthog that was subsonic compared to it, mentioned in Business Insider.

Also read: Italian Minister of Defense Declares Commitment to Acquire Advance F-35s After Others Call to Stop Purchase

But some think the F-35 is a bit too much in its emphasis on ground attack, with its thinner armor compared to the A-10 flying tank. Yet, despite the age, some are preferring the A-10 to be retained as CAS. According to Air Force developers, the Lightning has the advanced sensors, targeting systems, hi-caliber auto-cannon, and its speed that makes up for its thin skin.

Unlike the A-10, the Lightning II has a new suite of sensors that sense ground targets at better standoff ranges without getting too close to bristling enemy fire. The lightning IIs are made for high speed maneuvering, for improved evasion and attack of ground targets. It's 25-millimeter cannon, sensors that are drone like, surveillance, recon for better versatility. The combat suite will point targets, terrain sensing, and pinpoint attack on ground forces with close quarter capability to fight with ground assets.

Compared to the A-10, the F-35 Lightning II will be up to date on enemy movement to act quickly, such as a switch to air to air combat to change engagement. Its sensors will designate enemies that will be targeted by it or other combat systems. One edge of the Lightning II is better weapons loadout and precision technology for targeting ground forces. Although use of newer aircraft to attack ground targets is not cost effective when US air supremacy is not needed, according to We are the Mighty.

Sending the F-35s to deter CAS is just the tip of the iceberg, but most times the US Air Force has air superiority in most theatres of combat in the Middle East. The Lightning IIs role will more likely extend to interdicting Iranian air missions, and attack ICBM sites and attack nuclear weapons facilities.

Related article: US Air Force Sends Spy Drones as Eyes Over South China Sea

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Just a week before the much-awaited book by President Donald Trumps former National Security Advisor John Bolton is set to go on sale, the Trump administration is expected to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction to block the book from being released in its current form, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the coming days and could come as soon as today, sources said, cautioning that some details are still being worked out.

Bolton, who departed the Trump administration last fall, was originally supposed to publish his book, The Room Where It Happened, earlier this year, but it was met with delays from the White House as the book went through a standard prepublication security review for classified information by the National Security Council.

MORE: John Bolton's book recounts chaos, turmoil in Trump White House

PHOTO: National security adviser John Bolton adjusts his glasses as President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters, File)

Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, Trump said Bolton would be breaking federal law if his book is published in its current form.

I will consider every conversation with me as president highly classified," Trump said. "So that would mean that if he wrote a book, and if the book gets out, hes broken the law. And I would think that he would have criminal problems, I would hope so.

Theyll soon be in court, Trump added.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials, June 8, 2020, in the State Dining Room of the White House. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Sitting beside the president, Attorney General Bill Barr said the Justice Department is focused on ensuring that Bolton makes "the necessary deletions of classified information." Barr called Bolton's book "unprecedented."

"I dont know of any book that's been published so quickly while the officeholders are still in government, and its about very current events, current leaders and current discussions of current policy issues, many of which are inherently classified," Barr said.

In a description of the coming book, Boltons publisher says, What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.

Story continues

According to the description, posted online, Bolton details potentially impeachment-worthy transgression across the full range of Trumps foreign policy.

Bolton's first interview about the memoir, with ABC News Chief of Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz, is set to air in a one-hour special Sunday, June 21 at 9 p.m. ET on the ABC Television Network.

Hes the man the president doesnt want you to hear. I just sat down with John Bolton, Pres. Trumps former trusted adviser, for an exclusive one-on-one interviewwith no question off limits. Watch the special event Sunday at 9/8c on ABC. pic.twitter.com/VAdtK30f3Z  Martha Raddatz (@MarthaRaddatz) June 15, 2020

The NSC and Boltons team have been at odds about the information in the manuscript, according to letters exchanged between the two and provided to ABC News by Boltons attorney, Chuck Cooper, and the White House.

The NSC claimed the book continued to contain significant amounts of classified information, but Boltons lawyer pushed back, claiming that none of it could reasonably be considered classified.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, Cooper wrote that on June 8 White House lawyer John Eisenberg asserted in a letter that Mr. Boltons manuscript contains classified information and that publishing the book would violate his nondisclosure agreements.

This last-minute allegation came after an intensive four-month review, after weeks of silence from the White House, and -- as Mr. Eisenberg admits in his letter -- after press reports alerted the White House that Mr. Boltons book would be published on June 23, Cooper wrote.

"This is a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import," he wrote. "This attempt will not succeed, and Mr. Boltons book will be published June 23.

In a related press release, the publisher said that in the weeks before Bolton's book was printed, Bolton worked with the NSC to address NSC's concerns, and the "final, published version of this book reflects those changes."

The White House and the Justice Department did not respond to a request seeking comment for this report Monday.

Trump administration expected to attempt to block John Bolton's book: Sources originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
We are faced with challenges that test us to be better everyday. One example is the Ramadan fasting period that many Indonesians have experienced recently.

Ramadan, and its ending celebration, Eid Al Fitr, has a special place for Indonesians. Centered around fasting and giving back, F&B brands often capitalize on this occasion to promote their products and release limited edition packaging for Eid. However, it is not an easy moment for companies like P&G to weigh in and do the same thing. This year, P&G needed to connect deeper with consumers and stay relevant during Ramadan  and this is where Maaf Ibu came in.

P&G Indonesia awarded the annual Maaf Ibu campaign to BBDO Indonesia this year, and they gave it a much deeper meaning than before. BBDO decided to create a campaign about "The Tests of Life", encouraging us to reflect on and appreciate the unseen yet definitive role of mothers in helping us cope with many trying and lifechanging moments that we experience.

The collaboration between P&G and BBDO launched the #MaafIbuDiHidupku (Mothers Forgiveness In My Life) campaign in its fourth consecutive year, making it even more relevant to the audiences as 2020 brought forth unforgettable and unanticipated tests of life for the people of Indonesia.

"We see 2020 as a year where people globally experience various forms of life tests that are very diverse and special. As many Indonesians celebrated the first-of-its-kind #StayHome Eid, we were reminded that our hearts are closer despite the distance. P&G humbly presented the #MaafIbuDiHidupku campaign for Indonesians with a strong message in the spirit of Ramadan and Eid: Even though the challenges separated us and forced us to #StayHome, the role and prayers of our mothers always remain with us," said Aldrich Gopal, Head of Marketing for P&G Indonesia.

The campaign was launched with the #MaafIbuDiHidupku video on Pantene Indonesia YouTube channel https://youtu.be/AmOyeGc45sg on April 23, 2020. Today, it has reached more than 27 million viewers. This video beautifully captures how our mothers are always with us to help shape our perspectives, values, and persistence to pass through the Tests of Life.

P&G and BBDO Indonesia collaborated with media partner MRA Indonesia Media Group for the Ramadan Maaf Ibu Campaign to build more stories about the role of mothers during this pandemic. P&G and BBDO also held a virtual press conference for the first time to share news about P&Gs Ramadan Maaf Ibu 2020. It was a successful virtual press conference, attended by 30 media publications and 60 moms community members with enthusiasm from attendees sharing their opinion about a mothers role during Ramadan 2020.

Syeda Ayesha, Executive Creative Director of BBDO Indonesia expressed her enthusiasm on BBDO Indonesia being entrusted to lead this campaign. "I am humbly delighted to have led the creation and execution of #MaafIbuDiHidupku and proud that BBDO Indonesia was once again trusted by P&G to craft this campaign. From ideation to production, this has been an amazing emotional journey, making us realise and acknowledge the unwavering support and love of our mothers  wherever they may be  that help us pass the tests of life, including the current #DiRumahAja. Maaf Ibu is one of BBDO Indonesias finest creative output that underpins our 2020 mantra of #AspireBBDOID," said Ayesha.

Ezra Nathannael, Head of Planning of BBDO Indonesia said, The core insight of this campaign really hits home and resonates with all Indonesians. A mothers role in supporting her children to pass the test of life is undeniably true and often overlooked. We hope that this campaign served as a reminder, especially during Ramadan, to not take our mothers for granted, express our gratitude and ask forgiveness from them. We also hope that #MaafIbuDihidupku brought us closer to our families during #DiRumahAja moments, regardless of physical distances.

Maaf Ibu literally translates to Sorry Mother, a local derivative inspired from P&Gs Global Thank You Mom campaign. It encapsulates two Indonesian traditions of Ramadan; firstly of thanking mothers for their unconditional love and affection and secondly of sungkem - seeking forgiveness from parents and elders. P&G found its way into conversations through the role of a mother in a family, and after 3 successful Maaf Ibu campaigns (i.e. 2017 Musical Concept Maaf Ibu, 2018 Asian Games Maaf Ibu and 2019 Election Maaf Ibu), BBDO helped P&G make 2020s Maaf Ibu even more relevant to the audiences than before.
The intra-Afghan dialogue will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after years of fighting.

The Afghan government and the Taliban group have agreed that Qatars capital, Doha, will be the venue for the first meeting in their peace talks, both sides said.

The talks, known as the intra-Afghan dialogue, will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after years of fighting.

No date has been announced for the meeting, but it is expected to take place after the two sides settle differences on the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government, which could be as soon as the end of next week.

The first intra-Afghan meeting will happen in Doha, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the Reuters news agency on Sunday.

He added that the armed group was ready to hold intra-Afghan talks within a week of the completionof the prisoner release.

The Afghan government has released 3,000 Taliban prisoners so far under an agreement signed between the United States and the armed group in February.

The US-Taliban deal outlined a plan for withdrawing all foreign forces from Afghanistan and resuming intra-Afghan talks to end the 19-year war.

The government wants the talks to begin as soon as possible but has issues with the release of a few hundred high-profile Taliban prisoners, a senior government official told Reuters.

The official said the government had offered an alternative prisoner release list to the Taliban.

The spokesman for the Afghan Presidential Palace, Sediq Sediqqi, said on Twitter that Doha had been agreed as the venue for the first talks but said no permanent venue had been agreed.

The Qatari capital was the venue for signing the deal between the US and Taliban. The armed group has had a political office in Doha since 2013.
BRIDGEPORT  Protesters spent the weekend camping outside Bridgeport police headquarters calling for changes in departments budget and policy.

The group- Justice for Jayson  is demanding to meet with the City Council and remained camped out in front of the police station as of about noon Monday.

The group was formed after Jayson Negron, 15, was shot and killed by a Bridgeport police officer on May 9, 2017.

We are demanding the City Council meeting to be held publicly at City Hall. We will be here expecting to be met so our demands can be heard and addressed.

On Monday morning, the group posted on its Facebook page, A legal observer heard the police are trying to push us out with force in the morning. We need people to come to Bridgeport. Come to the Bridgeport Police Department and stand with us. We need everyone to come join us and we need everyone to call blast the personal numbers of all City Council members.

Tell them this: stand BPD down and meet with the community immediately. We are out here occupying the police department because City Council is refusing to meet with the community in a time of crisis. That police are prepared to arrest and brutalize us proves what were saying. Police are a threat to us, to our community, and need to be disbanded immediately.

The group posterd Sunday, We are here in Bridgeport occupying the police department to push City Council to this: a city without police. Bridgeport has one of the most violent police forces in the state. Many of the police murders we know of were by Bridgeport police. Every day they are a violent occupying force who stalk our youth throughout the city and put them in their gang databases. We know of so many beatings and arrests of our youth, who police deliver to death or to prisons.

Even our schools have police and collaborate with Bridgeport police to surveill arrest criminalize and punish our children. The only way to end their occupation and violence is moving towards their abolition. In the words of Assata Shakur it is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. Please join our occupation of the Bridgeport Police Department.
TUCSON, Ariz.  Firefighters battling a large wildfire in the foothills and mountains north of Tucson were more confident they could protect homes Sunday but said high winds will continue to push the blaze into higher elevations where they cant safely put crews.

The fire is one of several burning across the state amid hot, dry and windy conditions. A blaze on the Grand Canyons North Rim is threatening the resort community of Jacob Lake, and a blaze on the Tonto National Forest has closed a major highway between Phoenix and Payson.

Efforts to protect homes in an area north of Tucson known as East Golder Ranch are ongoing, but a spokesman for the team fighting the growing blaze said they believe they are in less danger now. That area is on the northwestern side of the fire.

Crews were very successful yesterday and overnight in securing this piece and limiting the spread potential or threat to that community, Travis Mabery of the Southwest Incident Management Team said at a media briefing early Sunday morning. At this time the threat to the community were feeling very good about.

Evacuations are still in place in the Golder Ranch area and other areas have been warned to be ready to leave if the fire approaches.

On the southern edge of the fire, in Tucsons Catalina foothills, there is still a potential for spread that could endanger homes, but Mabery said after more than a week of work thats less of a threat.

The fire, which lightning started on June 5, increased to 19 square miles (49 square kilometers) as of Sunday and was only about 11% contained. It is burning in the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Coronado National Forest. More than 550 people are assigned to battle the blaze.

The big issue Sunday will be winds pushing the flames into the higher elevations, where it is unsafe to put crews on the ground because of rugged terrain.

We cant get folks out of there. We cant extract someone if something were to go bad or injury happen up there, Mabery said. Todays another critical fire weather day  very strong winds for us out of the southwest. We expect to see some of that fire moving upslope.

To prepare for that, crews are being sent to the mountaintop resort community of Summerhaven on Mt. Lemmon to begin work to protect it in case the fire gets that far.

In northern Arizona, Grand Canyon National Park officials said the North Rim remained closed due to a wildfire in part of the Kaibab National Forest that is threatening the community of Jacob Lake. Authorities evacuated the hamlet Friday after winds pushed the fire forward about 10 miles (16 kilometers).

The fire has now consumed nearly 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) of forest and was just 2% contained on Sunday morning.

A second day of high winds Sunday is continuing to push the fire as crews work to beef up lines about structures in the community. Crews worked all day Saturday and into the night to strengthen existing fire breaks near the community.

The Forest Service has for years allowed small fires to burn on the North Rim to thin heavy stands of trees and brush and limit the risk of a catastrophic fire.

Jacob Lake has campgrounds and an inn with a gas station and cabins, officials said.

East of Phoenix, crews have no containment on wildfire that broke out Saturday and has burned about 12 square miles (30 square kilometers). State Route 87 connecting Payson to metro Phoenix is closed, forcing weekend visitors to the states high county to take long detours to get back home. No homes are threatened, but recreation sites are closed.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 and Galaxy Z Flip 5G color options have been revealed. This information comes from Ishan Agarwal and Jon Prosser, a well-known tipster. Both of them went to Twitter to reveal the information.

These are the Galaxy Note 20 & Galaxy Z Flip 5G color options

The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G will ship pin Gray, Green, and Copper color options. The Galaxy Note 20+ and Ultra 5G will arrive in Copper, White, and Black color options.

In terms of the Galaxy Z Flip 5G, you can expect Black, Copper, and Gray color options. The Galaxy Z Flip 5G is also expected to arrive alongside the Galaxy Note 20 series in August. It will be the same as the 4G variant, but it will support 5G, it seems.

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It is worth noting that Ishan Agarwal said that there may be more color options, but these are the ones that he can confirm at the moment. Mr. Prosser shared the same information, pretty much.

The Galaxy Note 20 series is expected to arrive on August 5. That is the rumored launch date for the devices, though Samsung still did not confirm anything.

That will be a pretty busy day for the company, it seems. Samsung is not only expected to announce three Galaxy Note devices then, but also the Galaxy Z Flip 5G, and the Galaxy Fold 2.

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The Galaxy Fold 2 will launch alongside the Galaxy Note 20 series

Yes, the companys next-gen foldable smartphone is also coming in August. Everything points to the same launch date as for the Galaxy Note 20 series. That will be a lot of information to take in at one time, thats for sure.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 20 series is expected to look like a cross between the Galaxy S20 and Note 10 series. It will probably include a centered display camera hole, and a more square-ish design.

The devices will be made out of metal and glass, most probably, though the Ultra model may utilize ceramic instead of glass. The Snapdragon 865 will fuel them in the US and China, while the Exynos 990 will probably do the same elsewhere unless Samsung releases the rumored Exynos 992 chip.

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The S Pen stylus will be included with the Galaxy Note phones, but not the Galaxy Fold 2. The Fold 2 was rumored to include the S Pen, but due to hardware limitations of its display, that wont be possible, it seems.

The Galaxy Fold 2 will include high-end specifications as well. The phone will probably utilize the Snapdragon 865, and the camera setup from the Galaxy S20+.

It will look better than its predecessor, and Samsung is also expected to make a number of design improvements as well.
ISTANBUL, June 11 (Xinhua) -- Chinese consul general in Istanbul on Thursday discussed cooperation with the mayor of one district of Istanbul.

Consul General Cui Wei and Haydar Ali Yildiz, mayor of Beyoglu, one of Istanbul's most crowded districts, exchanged ideas about the latest situation in the fight against the coronavirus via a video conference, the consulate said on its Instagram account.

Cui Wei and Yildiz agreed to develop their cooperation in various fields in the upcoming period, it added.

The consulate also mentioned several restaurants located on the well-known Istiklal Avenue on its post. As one of the most popular locations in the Beyoglu district, Istiklal is packed with stores of famous brands, cafes, bars and restaurants.

Turkey and China have supported each other in the fight against COVID-19. Chinese medical experts have shared their experience in treating coronavirus patients, protecting medical workers, and controlling the spread of the virus with their Turkish counterparts in several video conferences.
New Delhi, June 15 : South Korean tech giant Samsung on Monday confirmed that Galaxy A21s will launch in India on June 17. The device may come in Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 range and would be sold across Samsung's offline and online channels.

The device will feature a 6.5-inch Infinity O display, 48MP quad camera and a 5000mAh battery. Galaxy A21 is likely to come in two variants - 4/64GB and 6/64GB.

Galaxy A21s will be Samsung's fourth Galaxy A Series smartphone to arrive in India this year.

Samsung earlier launched Galaxy A51, A71 and A31 in India, which did quite well. Galaxy A51 has emerged as a global best seller, according to Strategy Analytics.

Galaxy A21s will be Samsung's fourth smartphone to launch in India since the nationwide lockdown saw relaxation last month.

The phone packs a large 5000mAh battery with 15W fast charging support and runs Android 10 with One UI on top.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Karnataka | Thermal screening of passengers being done before their entry into airport terminal building at Kempegowda International airport, Bengaluru. (Image: ANI)

It has been over two weeks since domestic flying re-started in India after a surprise announcement on Twitter from the minister of civil aviation. It has been challenging for the airlines to get up and running within days after grounding over 650 commercial aircraft on March 25. This was coupled with state governments wary of accepting passengers from other states leading to delay in opening up of certain airports like Kolkata. Even today, there arent any flights between Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. No sooner had this confusion settled, a new one started  this time with the data which was published which mixed up departures with air traffic movements.

As airlines increase presence, this article goes behind the numbers for one single day  looking at the planes, utilisation, presence and more.

Mondays and Fridays have traditionally been the busiest days in the skies. For this calculation, I looked at Friday, June 12, to see what airlines are doing in an environment which is not only highly challenging but also regulated  artificially!

Since the day of grounding to the day or re-start and beyond, airlines have been involved in repatriation flights, cargo as well as carrying passengers to isolation facilities across the country. While these continue, it is prudent that such are exempted from the calculation.

How many planes are in the air?

Airlines in India have a little over 650 aircraft for commercial operations. While a small portion of those is the Air India wide-body aircraft which primarily operate on international routes, 13 B737 MAX of Spicejet have been grounded since last year in line with the global grounding of the aircraft.

The government allowed a maximum of 33 percent of capacity by airlines, in proportion. A few states and airports have further capped this capacity but airlines have been operating anywhere between 220 and 230 planes on a given day. This does not include the planes committed by Air India for the Vande Bharat Mission or the charters operated by private airlines, outside the purview of Vande Bharat Mission.

The interesting stats come from the smallest airlines  Star Air and Trujet  that are operating most of their flights under UDAN, if not all. The RCS-UDAN routes have their own fare cap, unlike the one proposed by the government post-COVID-19 and the airlines also are entitled to subsidy. While Spicejet, IndiGo and Air India regional are also operating RCS-UDAN flights, this constitutes a smaller percentage of their total flights.

What is the capacity share and utilisation?

Most airlines except Go Air are operating in line with the market share and capacity share they had pre-COVID. IndiGo operated 47 percent of total domestic flights on June 12. While Vistara and AirAsia India operated 6 percent each. Spicejet operated 15 percent of total flights with Go Air contributing just 3 percent of the total flights, lesser than Air India regional.

However, this translated to over 50 percent capacity by seats deployed for IndiGo as the airline also deployed its A321neos which seat 222. While Air India regional with its all ATR operations had 9 percent of the flights, by capacity the number dropped to 4.1 percent.

For years, airlines have put the focus on utilisation and having a lot of red-eye flights. Increased utilisation helps distribute costs over more flights and block hours helping the bottom lines for an airline. However, utilisation has touched new lows with an average of three flights per aircraft. For the low-cost carriers, this is less than half of what is usually planned. This also indicates that more aircraft are being utilised than needed to operate  which is probably done to cater to crew requirements and engineering requirements and averaging the utilisation across multiple aircraft to push engineering expenditure to a later date.

IndiGo  the countrys largest airline by fleet and domestic market share had stated that it would continue to induct the A320neo family aircraft and would phase out the older A320ceo aircraft in fleets. A look at the utilisation details clearly shows the intention with some aircraft movements indicating preparations for re-delivery.

Go Air operated all its flights with the A320neo, while keeping all its A320ceo grounded. As for IndiGo, of its total A320 family operations, 65 percent were with the A320neo family.

Which routes are experiencing traffic?

The interesting bit since the start of operations has been the routes. There have been routes which have seen one-way traffic and there have been routes which have seen single-digit passengers in the flight. The busiest route by frequency has been DelhiKolkataDelhi with 11 frequencies each way, followed by DelhiPatnaDelhi with 10 frequencies. This is followed by routes like DelhiPune and HyderabadDelhi. Interestingly, DelhiMumbaiDelhi, the busiest route in normal times saw only 4 frequencies across airlines and there were 213 sectors which saw just one flight.

The route mix is a dynamic thing with airlines operating certain routes with a gap of a few days, mostly due to a lack of consistent demand. Like aircraft which are being utilised in rotation, routes are also being operated by rotation.

However, with a near 60 percent average occupancy  on most flights social distancing norms and a possibility of middle seat remaining empty would take care of the customer apprehensions.

What are the challenges?

With just 34 percent of the fleet operating, Indian airlines are definitely looking at an excess of capacity in the skies. Without any clarity on when more flights will be allowed and with ever-increasing cases of COVID-19 in the country, recovery isnt going to be quick.

The situation is anything but normal and while the government has also pushed for RCS-UDAN flights to be operational, the current spate of fliers still seem to be those who were stranded or have a long pending trip due to family reasons. Until business and leisure travel returns, airlines will find it hard to continue.

While IndiGos CEO Rono Dutta was optimistic about the loads and future, I remain cautious because we dont know just yet how the COVID-19 pandemic is spreading across the country and when the business and leisure demand would retain  which remains the backbone of the aviation industry in the country.

Note to readers: The data has been sourced from social media, flightradar24 and analysed by Network Thoughts.

Ameya Joshi runs the aviation analysis website Network Thoughts.
My Kitchen Rules star Colin Fassnidge is offering a helping hand to those struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the chef, 45, was spotted giving out free meals to the locals in Banksia, Sydney.

Colin, who heads up trendy eateries 4 Fourteen in Surry Hills and Banksia at the Banksia Hotel, handed out the takeaway meals to families that are doing it tough.

A helping hand! My Kitchen Rules star Colin Fassnidge (pictured) offered free meals to those struggling in Sydney on Monday

Doing his part: The chef, 45, was spotted giving out free meals to the locals in Banksia, Sydney

The celebrity chef looked stylish in blue jeans, a matching coloured T-shirt and a buttoned shirt.

He completed his outfit with a pair of white sneakers and wore a pair of sunglasses to shield himself from the sun.

Colin handed out meals stored in brown paper bags to the locals and he also had a basket filled with free bread.

This isn't the first time the chef has helped his fellow man during the coronavirus pandemic.

Talk of the town: Colin was spotted chatting to the locals as they stopped to take a bag of food

Style: The celebrity chef looked stylish in blue jeans, a matching coloured T-shirt and buttoned shirt

Accessories: He completed his outfit with a pair of white sneakers and wore a pair of sunglasses to shield himself from the sun

In March, the My Kitchen Rules star shared a video to Instagram to let fans in the area know that he can offer them a free feed.

He said in the Instagram video: 'Everybody is doing takeaway. We're doing takeaway from our two places.

'But what we realised was a lot of people who have been coming in soon won't be able to afford takeaway or meals and have families that are doing it tough.'

Helping out: This isn't the first time the chef has tried doing his best to help his fellow man

Free food: In March, the My Kitchen Rules star shared a video to Instagram to let his fans in the area know that he can offer them a free feed

Support: The Irish-born chef went on to say he doesn't want anything in return, he just wants to help those struggling

'Our locals are looking after us, so what we'd like to do is if you can't feed your family and you live in the local area of Banksia, DM me on here and we'll sort you out with food,' he added.

The Irish-born chef went on to say he doesn't want anything in return - he just wants to help those struggling.

The TV star told his fans: 'We just want to look after our local community because you look after us.'

'There won't be a big deal made about it, but we'll look after each other in the future' he added.
Bollywood is not for everyone.

Some realise it sooner and tread different paths to make different achievements in life, while others keep trying till the industry throws them off.

In this giant rigmarole of realisations and refusals, we have seen many of our beloved celebs fading out into oblivion, leaving us wondering, where are they, how are they...?

This Missing Report series digs deep into the untold stories of such missing stars, and today we are covering Mamata Kulkarni.

Mamta Kulkarni in "Karan Arjun"

The girl from a middle-class family had no interest in the glam world but was driven by her mothers high aspirations. So coy, a teenager Mamta had teared up when asked to drop her dupatta during a screen test.

She booked her debut in 1991 with a Tamil movie, Nanbargal, directed by Chandrashekar who introduced the actress to Bollywood the following year with the Hindi remake of the same movie that released as Mera Dil Tere Liye. But, it was with Tirangaa that hit the theatres with an assorted star cast of Raaj Kumar and Nana Patekar in 1992 that gave her countrywide recognition.

With Akshay Kumar in 'Sabse Bada Khiladi'

The actress went on to work in several films, starred opposite the likes of Aamir Khan in Baazi, Akshay Kumar in Sabse Bada Khiladi, Salman Khan in Karan Arjun, and Saif Ali Khan in Aashiq Awara. However, none of these films fetched her any reputation as an actress; her presence in most was relegated to being the love interest of the hero who would drive the story framed around him. There wasnt much for the heroines to do but circling trees standing tall amidst lush green expanses.

An image that she successfully established for herself was that of being uber-bold, and posing topless for the Stardust mag concreted it further. The 90s werent prepared for that kind of a brave statement and a pack of activists descended upon her home to throw some garments at her.

She wobbled through these troubled waters some more, but after she accused director Raj Kumar Santoshi of making undue advances toward her boomed into a massive controversy, her career was done with for good. The last remembered movie of her is China Gate, but an average audience reminisces over it more for Urmila Matondkars chart-topping item number chamma-chamma, overlooking the leading actress who was left fuming over her scenes chopped in the editing room.

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With Sanjay Kapoor in 'Chhupa Rustam'

Her subsequent films, like the Malayalam Chandamama or the musical thriller, Chhupa Rustam, did little to support her tumbling career. In 2003, she was seen in a Bangladeshi film, Shesh Bongsodhar which marks the end of her acting stint. What followed after her disappearance from the industry was rather exciting for the suspense it carried. After keeping herself hidden behind obscurity for over a decade, Mamta Kulkarnis name hit the headlines again in 2016.

Being married to Vikram Goswami, who was accused of running a global drug cartel the former actress was suspected of being actively involved in the dealings. The couple was arrested by Kenya police and there were speculations about the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration looking out for them. Also known as Vicky, the alleged drug lord was serving long-term imprisonment in Dubai. It was then when Mamata married the jailbird after converting to Islam, and eventually was set free.

Mamata Kulkarni in 2016

However, speaking to a new channel for a televised interview, the Beqabu actress asserted, "The reason behind his arrest was not because he was involved in drug trafficking. Instead, it was a family dispute and Vicky just happened to get dragged into it.

Though she denies her husbands involvement in drug dealings, Thane Police named the kingpin of an international drug operation after ephedrine worth 2,000 crores were recovered in a drug haul in 2016. Two years later, she lost possession of three plush apartments in Mumbai after failing to appear in the court for this case and both were declared proclaimed offenders. Mamta who had fled India long back hasnt been heard of since then, but if you would want to go by reports published in Gulfnews, the former Bollywood sizzler is perhaps staying in Canada these days.
Azerbaijan marks the National Salvation Day on June 15.

Azerbaijan gained independence in October 1991. The first years of the country's independence were characterized by the crisis within the country and in the government. Chaos took over all the spheres of social life. The situation in the army worsened and the number of deserters increased.

Armenian aggression was increasing day after day. Azerbaijan was facing the crisis of power. Separate groups and individuals were fighting for control.

After coming to power on May 14, 1992, the Azerbaijani Popular Front Party showed a complete inability to run the country with its ill-determined management.

There was a real threat of a civil war in Azerbaijan in the summer of 1993.

In these difficult times, Azerbaijan's outstanding son Heydar Aliyev accepted the persistent invitation of the people and came to Baku June 9. He succeeded to prevent the civil war in Azerbaijan in a very short time.

On June 15, 1993, he was elected chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan and this date entered the country's history as the National Salvation Day.

With the insistence of the people, in June 1997, Azerbaijani Parliament declared June 15 as a holiday.
Comic writer, Leah Moore, will be writing the history of The Doors in a brand new comic in honour of the 50th anniversary of the 1970 record, Morrison Hotel.

Moore recalled the first time hearing the band via the 1987 'The Lost Boys'. Later in 1992, she managed to convince her physics teacher to take her school class to visit Morrison's grave during a class jaunt to Paris.

"It was pouring with rain, absolutely battering it down, and there was us, a really unpromising gang of nerdy 13- or 14-year-old kids in raincoats, but standing there at his grave felt monumental, truly epic," she told Rolling Stone. "All the flowers, and the incense sticks, and the graffiti."

Fast forward to today, the comic writer has been tasked with writing the history of her favourite band in a form of a comic book.

The Z2 Comics graphic novel promises to cover the Morrison Hotel album and the band's history before it including the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, the moon landing, the Charles Manson murders plus the gigs that the band played and the numerous times when they were arrested. A number of iconic musicians will also make a cameo in the graphic novel, including Beatle John Lennon.
A pair of entrepreneurs who were forced to cancel a series of boutique food festivals when the pandemic hit are instead bringing the event to your door.

Dominic Cools-Lartigue and Bejay Mulenga have signed up 50 restaurants, chefs Nuno Mendez and Ollie Dabbous, and DJs such as Goldie, Groove Armada and Don Letts for their entirely delivery-based Great Feast of London.

They decided to press the button on the event, which takes place over the first weekend in July, after their plans for a series of boutique festivals in Brixton had to be scrapped because of the pandemic.

Mr Cools-Lartigue, 46, said Great Feast of London had originally been planned for one of the capitals parks next summer, but lockdown inspired them to bring it forward and make it an entirely virtual event.

It runs from July 3 to 5, with food delivered hot within a three-kilometre radius of restaurants or ready to be heated up to anywhere within the M25.

Delivery charges start from 2. Food and drink orders can be made from today until 24 hours before the delivery time.

Mendez and Dabbous, as well as a third as-yet-unannounced chef, will be creating three-course supper-club menus for up to 100 people.

There will also be kits for barbecue meals from Indian restaurant Kricket, and tacos from Taco Queen in Peckham.

The festival will feature online cookalong and yoga and breathing technique classes, talks from speakers such as US author Charles Eisenstein, and music gigs broadcast through dedicated live and on-demand channels and by Soho Radio.

Mr Mulenga, 24, a panellist at the Standards Young Progress Makers event in 2017, said they were aiming for 12,000 orders over the weekend.

Every meal ordered will be matched by one donated to the pairs A Plate for London charity, which will also receive 20 per cent of the festivals profits.

Orders are expected to range from 10 to 50. Mr Mulenga said: I dont think people online are going to be putting in 200 orders, it is not an exclusive festival, its a festival for all of London.

Mr Cools-Lartigue added: A city is nothing without its people, so across the weekend the Great Feast of London will be feeding and entertaining the people who make this city what it is.
Samsung revealed its first Odyssey gaming monitors back at CES 2020, and the acute curves and wild designs definitely made an impression on us. We also learned the specs, including the 240Hz refresh rate, 1-millisecond response time and HDR capability of the QLED and VA panels. What we didnt know then was the US pricing, but Samsung has finally revealed that crucial information today.

Samsung

The flagship model is the 49-inch Odyssey G9, with dual-quad (5,120 x 1,440) 32:9 display, 1000r curve and HDR1000 (1,000 nit) brightness levels. Unlike the others, it uses Samsungs QLED display tech that allows for the extra brightness and wider viewing angles. Available in white with black accents, its now shipping for $1,700 at select retailers and Samsung.com.

If thats too much either in size or budget, you can opt for the Odyssey G7 in 27- and 32-inch sizes (shown below). Both are VA panels with HDR and very good 600-nit brightness levels, running at 2,560 x 1,440 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Like the G9, they have subtle rear blue lighting and come with a matte black exterior. The Odyssey G7 is now available at Samsung.com and select stores for $700 (27-inch) and $800 (32-inch).
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A derelict Grade II listed mansion sold for 1.3million at auction despite needing extensive renovations and being barely livable in its current state, it has been revealed.

Troy House in Monmouthshire was built in the 17th century for the family of the Duke of Beaufort, with its imposing facades sitting in six acres of rolling countryside.

The neoclassical house was part of the Duke impressive property portfolio, alongside Badminton House in Gloucestershire and the nearby Great Castle House, in the town of Monmouth.

But after spells as a school and a hostel, the 33-bedroom property has been left in a dilapidated state, requiring extensive repair to return its to its former glory.

The 44,000 square-foot stately pile was put up for auction on May 28 with a guide price of just 200,000. However auctioneers told Country Life it sold for more than six times the amount after a bidding war between 23 buyers.

Troy House in Monmouthshire, pictured, went under the hammer in an online auction on May 28 with a guide price of 200,000. Speaking to Country Life, the auctioneers revealed it sold for 1.3million

Despite the magnificent exterior, the inside of the mansion is very dilapidated and requires extensive modernisation. Pictured: An extension of the original property built for the school in the 20th century

Auctioneers Allsop said the 33-bedroom house 'is presented in poor condition and requires extensive works of modernisation and refurbishment'. Pictured, a crumbling toilet

Having once hosted royalty, the house most recently was a school and a convent for a group of French Catholic nuns. Pictured, one of the large dilapidated rooms in the property with its broken floor tiles and graffiti walls

The house was originally built by the 1st Duke of Beaufort for his son Charles Somerset as a wedding gift. Pictured, one of the rooms that appears to have previously been used as a school hall

Richard Adamson Partner and Auctioneer at Allsop, told the publication: 'Troy House in Wales received an exceptional amount of interest in the lead up to the auction, which converted to fierce competition on the day.

'We saw competitive activity right up until the final minute from 23 different bidders, with the property achieving a sale price of 1.356m  over six times the original guide price.

'This property demonstrates the continued demand for well-priced assets in a challenging market landscape.'

The history of Troy House August 1502 - King Henry VII and his wife, Queen Elizabeth of York, visit an earlier version of Troy House during a trip to Wales. Parts of these buildings were later incorporated into the current mansion. During the English Civil War, it was reported that Apricots grown at the grounds of Troy were given to King Charles I at nearby Raglan Castle, where he was taking shelter following his defeat at the Battle of Naseby. 1667 - Henry Somerset succeeds his father to the title of Marquess of Worcester. A staunch supporter of Charles II, he restored the family fortunes and built a series of residences to replace the ageing Raglan Castle. Circa 1672 - Troy House is pictured in a panorama of Monmouth painted by Hendrick Danckerts. 1673 - Henry Somerset builds Great Castle House in the town of Monmouth, and later builds Badminton House in Gloucestershire. 1682 - Henry has The Dukedom of Beaufort bestowed upon him by King Charles II, a title which his family continue to carry to today. 1682 - Henry's son Charles Somerset married Rebecca Child and acquired the title of Marquess of Worcester, he expands the grounds of Troy House and rebuilt the facade in neoclassical style. 1899 - Following the death of Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, the family consolidate their estates around Badminton House, and auction off Troy House. 1904 - The Good Shepherd Sisters purchase the property and convert it into a convent school. The nuns expanded the estate buildings with a chapel, a hostel and service buildings. 1980s - The school buildings gradually deteriorated, and the convent eventually moves out. Without an occupant, the once decadent halls fall into disrepair. Advertisement

Photos shared ahead of the auction show how decadent plaster ceilings have fallen through, and parquet flooring has been ripped up as the property suffered with an occupant.

The modern extension and chapel built during its days as a convent school in the early 20th century have shown as much wear as parts built hundreds of years before.

The current house was built in the 17th century, but earlier versions hosted Henry VII.

The oldest part of the house was built in the 1680s by Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort.

Historian Dr Ann Benson, author of 'Troy House: a Tudor estate across time', has information on the royal visit in August 1502, where Henry VII and his wife were hosted for five days while they travelled in Wales.

The house was later owned by an order of French Catholic nuns who used the building as a convent and a girls' school.

Most recently it was a special school for boys.

The house is located between the A40 and the M50. The M5 and M4 are also nearby as well as rail services to Cardiff and Bristol.

According to the promotional material supplied by auctioneers Allsop: 'The property is presented in a poor state of repair and requires extensive works of modernisation and refurbishment.

'The property may afford possible potential for redevelopment and/or a number of alternative uses, subject to obtaining all necessary consents.'

The house was built as a wedding present to Charles Somerset from his father, 1st Duke of Beaufort. Beaufort's fortune was restored by Charles II for his support for his father Charles I when the monarchy was restored in 1660

In 2015, property developers planned to build an extension to the property and convert it into flats, but these plans were blocked by the Welsh government.

Speaking ahead of the auction, Richard Adamson, Partner and Auctioneer at Allsop said: 'Troy House has received a significant amount of interest with over 100 enquiries regarding the property, in just over a week of coming to the market.

'We have seen a mixed-bag of inteest from people who could use the property for multiple uses including as a private home, converting into a boutique hotel and spa or refurbished into luxury apartments, subject to planning.'

The plans of the successful buyer have not yet been revealed.

The 44,000 square-foot stately pile received 'a flurry of interest' from potential buyers looking for the ultimate do-er upper. Pictured: The grand staircase in the main house

The property will require an incredible amount of refurbishment as it has been neglected for many years

The sales agents say the property could be redeveloped as a family home, individual apartments or maybe a luxury spa, depending on the agreement of planning authorities. An earlier plan to redevelop the site was blocked by the Welsh government

The house was bought by an order of French nuns in the last century and was used as a convent and a school for girls

A property developer had planned to turn the building into luxury apartments but this was blocked by the Welsh government

The building is Grade-II listed and requires major work to return the historic property to its past glory

According to historian Dr Ann Benson, the property was used as an administrative centre by the Somerset family from the late 1600s until its auction in 1901 when it was purchased by a French religious order
Research News

Leveraging powerful weapon in fight against COVID-19: Ontology

By BERT GAMBINI

Its nearly impossible, unless youre an expert in multiple separate disciplines, to join data deriving from multiple different sources. 

The mass of growing and constantly changing data resulting from multiple disciplines represents one of the biggest challenges researchers and public health officials must confront while trying to manage the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

But several centers across the country, including UBs National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR), are working to develop ontologies to assist in efforts to control the current outbreak, accelerate data discovery in future pandemics, and promote reproducible infectious disease research, according to Barry Smith, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and director of NCOR.

Smith is among co-authors of a new paper discussing how ontologies can assist in the fight against COVID-19.

To realize the scope of the challenge faced by scientists confronting COVID-19, consider the disciplines involved in the fight  everything from immunochemistry to behavioral population modeling. All the data collected by biologists, pathologists, sociologists, geographers, physicians and epidemiologists require integration, but the relevant information is captured using discipline-specific terms and is often stored in ways that are accessible only to those working in the fields in which they originated.

Ontology was designed to address that problem by creating common controlled vocabularies for data descriptions that everyone can use, says Smith, who was named one of the 50 most influential living philosophers in 2016 by TheBestSchools.org. Its nearly impossible, unless youre an expert in multiple separate disciplines, to join data deriving from multiple different sources. This problem is especially acute in the face of a novel pathogen such as SARS-CoV-2, where no one can anticipate which combinations of factors will prove crucial in understanding how it affects its human hosts.

Accessing and integrating massive amounts of information from multiple data sources in the absence of ontologies is like trying to find information in library books using only old catalog cards as our guide, when the cards themselves have been dumped on the floor.

Ontologies are data-sharing tools that provide for interoperability through a computerized lexicon with a taxonomy and a set of terms and relations with logically structured definitions.

Smith has been working for some 15 years with biologists and bioinformatics specialists to create a suite of ontologies to cover all the life sciences. The paper  with Shane Babcock (Niagara University), John Beverley (Northwestern University) and Lindsay G. Cowell (University of Texas Southwest Medical School)  has not yet been accepted for publication. However, in light of the urgency of the pandemic, it appears already on the preprint repository of the Open Science Foundation.

It presents, first, an Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) Core, which contains terms relating to infectious diseases generally before describing how this IDO Core has been extended in a number of ontologies relating to specific infectious diseases, such as malaria, staph and flu. The paper concludes with a treatment of IDO ontologies for viral infectious diseases in general, for coronavirus infectious diseases, and for COVID-19, specifically.

These ontologies help to fill the need for standardized terminology in describing coronavirus data and information, and because they are all constructed in the same way, they make it easier to compare COVID-19 data with data pertaining to other coronavirus diseases, such as SARS and MERS  and the novel coronavirus diseases of the future.

An infectious disease ontology can also contribute to solving the problem of reproducibility, says Smith.

Reproducing the results of experiments as part of the research process requires a precise description, not merely of the results achieved, but also of the protocols, statistics, equipment, samples and tests used.

We believe that, when used in combination with other life science ontologies such as the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations, the IDO framework provides a promising strategy for the creation of comparable, integratable and discoverable provenance metadata for the data generated in infectious disease research, Smith says.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 15, 2020) - Pharmadrug Inc. (CSE: BUZZ) (OTC: LMLLF) ("Pharmadrug" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has completed its previously announced (see press release dated May 25, 2020) acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding shares of privately-held Interrobang Ltd. (doing business as Super Smart). ("Super Smart"). The acquisition was completed by way of a three-cornered amalgamation between Pharmadrug, Super Smart and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pharmadrug (the "Transaction"). Following completion of the Transaction Super Smart is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pharmadrug.

Super Smart

Super Smart is an early-stage retail company focused on consolidating the fragmented Dutch smartshop market. Smartshops are retail establishments in The Netherlands that specialize in the sale of psychoactive substances including psychedelic truffles, which are an underground grown version of magic mushrooms that have psilocybin and are legal in The Netherlands. Super Smart will seek to acquire smartshops and deploy disciplined business expertise, retail best practices and consistent branding across multiple locations to capture in market share and improve margins in this rapidly growing segment. Super Smart's management team is well suited to pursue the smartshop consolidation strategy and brings a proven track record in retail, marketing, brand building, web sales and customer education.

The Company views the Transaction as a complementary acquisition of a proposed business which the Company anticipates will be synergistic with Pharmadrug's existing European cannabis distributions business. The Company currently operates as a Medical Cannabis distributor in Europe and views psychedelics as part of the emerging natural based medicine trend. The Company is fully committed to its business in Germany and considers it to be the hub of its business activities in Europe. As mentioned in the press release dated April 24, 2020, the Company's German operations are seeing volume growth and the Company expects volumes to continue to grow with the introduction of new supply in the next quarter or two. The Company also plans to introduce medical cannabis under its own brand before year end. The acquisition of smartshops in The Netherlands is seen as a move towards vertical integration of its existing cannabis business insofar as smartshops act as retail outlets for cannabis products such as CBD products and cannabis paraphernalia. Furthermore, the Company believes the acquisition provides an opportunity to expand its existing operations into the psychedelics space as permitted by law. Management believes the Transaction is also a platform to potentially acquire synergistic assets.

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At the time of the Transaction, Super Smart's assets consisted of a brand and strategy to acquire smartshops in The Netherlands and approximately CAD $2.6 million of cash with liabilities of CAD $1.479 million consisting of convertible debentures that were amalgamated into Pharmadrug's capital structure as per terms discussed below.

Terms of Acquisition Agreement

Pursuant to the terms of the Transaction, each issued and outstanding share of Super Smart (a "Super Smart Share") was exchanged for one common share in the capital of the Company (a "Pharmadrug Share"). At the time of the closing of the Transaction, Super Smart had 64,420,000 Super Smart Shares issued and outstanding together with $1,479,000 principal amount of senior secured convertible debentures (the "Super Smart Debentures"), 33,000,000 common share purchase warrants ("Placement Warrants") and 3,478,400 finder options (the "Finder Options").

The Super Smart Debentures were exchanged pursuant to their terms into debentures of Pharmadrug (the "Pharmadrug Debentures") which bear interest at a rate of 12% per annum from the date of issue payable monthly in cash and ranking pari passu with one another. The Pharmadrug Debentures are secured by first ranking security of Super Smart and second ranking security of Pharmadrug. $1,190,000 principal amount of Pharmadrug Debentures mature on May 19, 2023 and $289,000 principal amount of Pharmadrug Debentures Mature on May 22, 2022 (each a "Maturity Date"). Pharmadrug has a right to prepay or redeem a part or the entire principal amount of the Pharmadrug Debentures at par plus accrued and unpaid interest at any time by providing written notice of the date (the "Redemption Date") for such redemption to the holder at least a minimum of 30 days and a maximum 60 days' prior to the Redemption Date. Each Pharmadrug Debenture will be convertible into units (each, a "Unit") at the option of the holder at any time prior to the close of the third business day prior to the earlier of: (i) the Maturity Date and (ii) the Redemption Date at a price of $0.05 per Unit with each Unit consisting of one common share of Pharmadrug (a "Pharmadrug Share") Share and one-half of one Pharmadrug Share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one Pharmadrug Share at an exercise price of $0.05 for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance of the Pharmadrug Debentures. In the event that the Pharmadrug Shares have a closing price on such exchange on which the Pharmadrug Shares may be traded at such time of greater than $0.15 per share for a period of 10 consecutive trading days, Pharmadrug will be able to cause the Pharmadrug Debentures to be converted into Units.

In addition to the outstanding Super Smart Shares and Super Smart Debentures, Super Smart also had outstanding prior to closing (i) 3,478,400 Finder Options which entitled the holder thereof to acquire one Unit at a price of $0.05 at any time on or before June 12, 2023 and (ii) 33,000,000 Placement Warrants issued in connection with a private placement of units of Super Smart with each such Placement Warrant entitling the holder to acquire one Super Smart Share at a price of $0.05 at any time on or before June 15, 2023. Each Finder Option and Placement Warrant, following completion of the Transaction, entitles the holder thereof to acquire equivalent securities of Pharmadrug in place of the securities of Super Smart.

Following completion of the Transaction the security holders of Super Smart and the Company immediately preceding the Transaction hold approximately 47% and 53%, respectively, of the fully diluted share capital of the Company.

All Pharmadrug Shares issued (or becoming issuable) pursuant to the Transaction, except those issued to U.S. persons, are freely tradable under applicable Canadian securities legislation.

Management and Board of Directors

The Company did not make any changes to its Board of Directors in connection with the Transaction. Daniel Cohen remains as Chairman and CEO and Keith Li continues in his role at CFO. Together, they will continue to oversee general corporate activity, the running of Pharmadrug GmbH in Germany as well as the integration of Super Smart into the combined corporate strategy.

Harry Resin who is the current CEO of Super Smart will join and continue to run the Super Smart division within Pharmadrug. We believe Mr. Resin is uniquely positioned to run the Super Smart strategy. As a founding member of an original Amsterdam seed company, Mr. Resin dealt extensively with and provided consulting work to Amsterdam's smartshop industry. He has a deep established network and a fundamental understanding of the smartshop business model. Mr. Resin has also served as a staff writer for High Times and also wrote for numerous cannabis publications including Cannabis Now, Skunk and a Medical Cannabis Journal.

Super Smart Update

As mentioned in the press release dated May 29, 2020, Super Smart's goal will be to purchase approximately ten smart shops within the first 12 months of operation. The Company has already begun discussions with owners of several Smart Shops across the country. Locations include Amsterdam, Central Holland and a few border towns. These discussions haven't all lead to us having an interest, but a couple of the stores seem quite attractive and their current owners are receptive. Moreover, these discussions and initial scoping of the landscape has increased management's confidence in achieving its acquisition goal for the next 12 months.

About PharmaDrug Inc.

PharmaDrug Inc. is building an international controlled substance and natural medicine company with a focus on Europe. The Company owns 80% of Pharmadrug GmbH, a German medical cannabis distributor, with a Schedule I European Union narcotics license allowing for the importation and distribution of medical cannabis to pharmacies in Germany and throughout the EU. The Company also owns 100% of Super Smart, an early-stage retail company focused on consolidating the fragmented Dutch smartshop market. Smartshops are retail establishments in The Netherlands that specialize in the sale of psychoactive substances including psychedelic truffles.

For further information, please contact:

Daniel Cohen, CEO

dcohen@pharmadrug.co

(647) 202-1824

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. Forward looking statements in this press release relate to the integration of the Smart Shop business, anticipated volume growth in the Company's German business and the introduction by the Company of its own brand of medical cannabis. 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 locate additional supply of medical cannabis, owning interests in companies or projects that are engaged in activities currently considered illegal under United States federal law; changes in laws; limited operating history, reliance on management, requirements for additional financing, competition, hindering market growth; regulatory and political change. 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.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/57885
Detectives believe a married man and his female friend who disappeared on a camping trip are likely to have been murdered - as fresh pictures emerge of their campsite after it was destroyed by fire.

Russell Hill, 74, from Drouin, and Carol Clay, 73, from Pakenham, Victoria, went missing on March 20 after going on a trip together in the Wonnangatta Valley in the state's east.

After more than three months of active searching in the valley, baffled police have found no trace of the pair apart from their abandoned, burned out campsite.

Detective inspector Andrew Stamper, who is leading the investigation, believes the lack of evidence found by the searching officers points to foul play.

'My belief is there's been a third party,' he told A Current Affair.

New images of Russell Hill and Carol Clay's burnt abandoned campsite have been released, showing their belongings locked in Mr Hill's Toyota LandCruiser (pictured)

'The belief is if Russell and Carol were still there they (searching officers) would have found them or they would have found some trace of them.

'We have found no trace whatsoever.'

Detective Stamper has written off the theory the pair vanished on purpose to start a new life together.

'The strongest theory is that it would be something that has happened in the valley that has maybe escalated and resulted in something bad happening to them,' he said.

'Russell and Carol have disappeared to nowhere... they've either been removed from the valley or concealed somewhere in the valley.

Police have no suspects and the cause of the fire that destroyed the pair's campsite in unknown.

Detective Stamper's theory is supported by many of Mr Hill's camping friends who say the experienced mountaineer would not have ventured off without radio contact.

Never-before-seen images of the pair's burnt out campsite and Mr Hill's white Toyota LandCruiser have been released.

One shows Mr Hill's hat sitting on the dashboard of his locked car.

Friends of Mr Hill believe foul play is involved in his disappearance as the experienced camper would not have ventured into the mountains without a radio

Russell Hill and Carol Clay were last heard from on March 20, with Mr Hill's wife unaware he was travelling with another woman

Arson chemists have been unable to determine the cause of the blaze at their accommodation.

Mr Hill's wife Robyn had no idea police were treating his disappearance as a murder - until her daughter saw it on TV.

'The police haven't spoken to me about it,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Mrs Hill said she was unaware police were now effectively running her husband's disappearance as a homicide investigation.

'I've got no idea. You know as much as I do,' she said. 'I did find out from my daughter, but I've got nothing more to say about anything,' she said.

Mr Hill's wife of 50 years has previously said she had no idea her husband had gone camping with another woman.

She said her husband had been friendly with Ms Clay for decades but was unaware they were travelling together.

Arson chemists have been unable to determine what sparked the fire at their campsite

It is understood police are now probing what happened in the 18 hours between Mr Hill making a chilling last radio call and their campsite being discovered abandoned the next day.

Possessions belonging to the pair have been found still inside Mr Hill's vehicle, while a drone owned by Mr Hill is missing.

Experienced search and rescue officers do not believe the couple would have ventured beyond the eventual search area.

Investigators still want to speak with up to 200 people who had been in the area but were yet to contact Crime Stoppers following a recent appeal.

Detective Stamper is confident police will uncover more details in the pair's disappearance.

'We want to identify and eliminate anyone that was in the valley at that time,' he said. 'We are building a picture of everybody that was there and trying to place on a map where everybody was.'

Last month a lone camper ominously known as 'the Button Man' became a person of interest, after concerns about his odd behaviour were raised by worried locals.

Police are reported to have had a long chat with the man, but discovered no new information about numerous local missing persons cases.
Onus of creating atmosphere for talks lies with Oli govt: Sources on map row with Nepal

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, June 15: The onus of creating a conducive atmosphere for talks between India and Nepal on the border row lies with the K P Sharma Oli government in Nepal as it was responsible for creating a difficult situation by releasing a new map that included Indian territories, authoritative sources said on Monday.

According to India's assessment, the release of the new political map by Nepal and obtaining a legal backing to it from the lower house of Nepalese Parliament were part of a "myopic" agenda to gain mileage in domestic politics, they said.

The sources rejected Nepal's contention that India did not respond to its proposal for talks on the boundary issue. India, they said, conveyed to Nepal multiple times its readiness to hold talks on the issue in the recent weeks including between the foreign secretaries of the two countries just before the Nepalese government brought out a Constitution amendment bill on the new map.

Chennai: Intense lockdown in Chennai from June 19th, no Sunday break | Oneindia News

"When the Constitution amendment bill was being tabled and before that too, India offered a phone call and a video-conference between the foreign secretaries and visits of the foreign secretaries. However, the Nepalese side didn't respond to the offer," said a source.

The sources described the release of the map and subsequent developments as "self serving" actions that were aimed at furthering a limited political agenda. It also wasn't clear why the Oli government did not tell the Nepalese people about India's offers for talks, they said, adding the onus is now on Prime Minister Oli to take positive and concrete steps to create a conducive atmosphere for dialogue.

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 May 8.

Nepal reacted sharply and days later came out with a new political map of the country featuring disputed areas of Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura which India has been maintaining belong to it.

Bound by roti and beti, Singh on relations with Nepal

The communist government headed by Oli on Saturday managed to get a unanimous approval of the lower house of the country's parliament to the new map, prompting India to say that such "artificial enlargement" of territorial claim is untenable.

The sources said the release of the new map by Oli government was an attempt to politicise the boundary issue with India and that the move reflected that Kathmandu was not serious in resolving the decades-old issue through dialogue.

The Nepal government's unilateral act of updating the map and the hasty effort to amend the constitution reflected the intention of Prime Minister Oli and his government to politicise the boundary issue," said the source.

They also wondered why the Nepal government decided to form an expert panel to collect evidence to establish ownership of Kalapani and Limpiyadhura after publishing the map and passing the Constitution amendment bill in the lower house of parliament.

"The release of the map and getting legal backing to it is a clear enough indication that the new map is a tool for political gain as it is neither supported by facts nor evidence," the source said.

The sources said that around 98 per cent of the over 1,750-km border between the two countries has been delineated and both sides had differences in Kalapani and Susta.

The sources also rejected Oli's claim that there was a surge in COVID-19 cases in Nepal due to the people who had gone back to the country from India.

It is a false and distorted claim, they said. Notwithstanding the border dispute, the sources said India remained committed to help Nepal in various areas including in containing COVID-19.
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Linkedin Yunindita Prasidya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 16:16 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bded7dd7 1 Business Kookmin-Bank,bukopin,OJK,shares,acquisition Free

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has confirmed that one of South Koreas largest banks, KB Kookmin Bank, is currently finalizing its acquisition of publicly listed Bank Bukopin, which had been struggling with liquidity issues for years.

Kookmin Bank, which currently owns 22 percent of Bank Bukopin, deposited US$200 million into an escrow account on Thursday as part of its commitment to acquiring the Indonesian banks shares, according to the OJK.

At the moment, [Kookmin Bank is] finalization the legal and administrative part of the acquisition, after gaining principal approval from the OJK for it to become the majority shareholder of Bank Bukopin, OJK public relations and logistics deputy commissioner Anto Prabowo said in a written statement published on Monday.

As the next step, Bank Bukopin will hold a general shareholders meeting to officiate Kookmin Bank as its majority shareholder, the statement also reads.

Holding company PT Bosowa Corporindo currently owns a majority stake in Bank Bukopin with 23.39 percent of total shares.

OJK support stems from the capital issues suffered by Bank Bukopin over the years, as its third-party deposits have nosedived by Rp 15.67 trillion ($1.1 billion) since December 2019, OJK data show.

The financial authority said in a statement that the unresolved liquidity issues may endanger the stability of the financial system.

Bank Bukopins third-party deposits stood at Rp 80.81 trillion by the end of 2019, a 6.12 percent increase from the previous year, before declining by Rp 4 trillion in March.

Meanwhile, its non-performing loans (NPL) ratio stood at 5.39 percent as of March 31, higher than that of Indonesias aggregate banking industry, which recorded an NPL rate of 2.77 percent during the same period.

Over the years, the bank continued to book an NPL rate higher than the industry average. By the end of 2019, its NPL was recorded at 5.99 percent and in 2018, 6.67 percent. The banking industrys NPL was at 2.53 percent and 2.37 percent, respectively.

The banks capital adequacy ratio, which measures a banks financial strength, fell from 13.41 percent in 2018 to 12.59 percent in 2019, which lower than the banking industrys 23.40 percent.

Bank Bukopin operations and IT director Adhi Brahmantya said in a written statement published on Thursday that Kookmin Banks acquisition process was ongoing as it was still coordinating with regulators in Indonesia and South Korea.



Piter Abdullah, research director of the Center of Reform on Economics (Core) Indonesia, told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the proposed acquisition was positive as Kookmin Bank could help bring out Bank Bukopins potential.

Investors are not looking at the current unsafe condition, rather, they are looking at future potentials by considering what Bukopin has right now and what they can act upon, Piter said over the phone.

He added that the banking industry was prone to a domino effect, so the countrys regulator should focus on solving the problem.

Aviliani, a senior economist of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), told the Post on Friday that capital injections from foreign banks into the countrys banking industry was needed amid sluggish growth in the formers capital.

In our country, financial literacy is lacking. But on the other hand, we need a lot of funds to finance investment, be it state-owned or private.

Aviliani noted that Indonesian banks net interest margin (NIM), an indicator of banks profitability and growth, was still considered attractive, despite the downward trend. Hence, foreign banks were still willing to pay handsomely for ownership in local banks, she said.

According to OJK data, Indonesias NIM was at 4.31 percent in March, down from 4.81 percent in February.

Investors responded positively to the news of Kookmin Banks acquisition of Bank Bukopin.

Following the publication of the OJK and Bank Bukopins announcement on Thursday, Bank Bukopins shares, traded on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) under the code BBKP, soared by 22 percent to Rp 206 apiece, becoming one of the biggest market movers of that day.

On Monday, the stock dropped into the red zone by falling 3.4 percent at 13:55 p.m., while the JCI was down by 1.04 percent.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:25:02|Editor: huaxia

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DAMASCUS, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Syria's assistant health minister Ahmad Khleifawi has said that Syria has benefited from China's experience in fighting COVID-19.

Speaking to Xinhua in an interview, the Syrian official said that the Chinese experience in dealing with COVID-19 was so important that the Syrian government has benefited from it in dealing with the pandemic.

"We have benefited from what has been concluded in the Chinese experience and experiences in other countries as well as the recommendations from the World Health Organization," he said.

Khleifawi noted that there is "ongoing coordination" with China regarding ways to confront the COVID-19 cases in the war-torn country.

He mentioned several online video conferences were held between Chinese and Syrian doctors to exchange experiences and benefit from each other's experiences.

The cooperation aims to enable the Syrian side to get to know the opinions of the Chinese doctors and the Chinese experience in dealing with COVID-19, the assistant health minister said.

"For sure, these meetings have resulted in increasing the experience and knowledge of Syrian doctors in dealing with this disease," Khleifawi said.

He added that there is also coordination with the Chinese side in terms of aid that supports the Syrian health care system to be able to confront the pandemic.

"What has been so far implemented in the treatment centers using the current protocol has yielded positive results," he pointed out.

The Syrian official said that the health sector in Syria has been affected by the prolonged war and Western sanctions.

He said the medical institutions have been targeted as well as hospitals, emergency units, and medical teams.

"The health system in Syria needs a lot, particularly in light of the economic war waged against Syria such as the Western sanctions. So, any help could support this system," he said.

Khleifawi said any help would be a positive step to enhance the service of the medical sector.

Earlier this month, the Syrian Health Ministry received a new batch of Chinese medical equipment as part of the cooperation to fight the COVID-19 pandemic between the two countries.

Masks, overalls, and disinfectants were among the new batch of aid presented to the Syrian side by the Chinese embassy in Damascus.

On April 15, China donated another batch of COVID-19 test kits to Syria to help its fight against the virus.

Meanwhile, the Syrian official said that the spread of the COVID-19 virus is still under control in Syria.

The health ministry in Syria has so far recorded 177 COVID-19 infections, including 74 recoveries and six deaths.

"We have created a plan adopted nationally to deal with this virus to stop its spread, starting from measures taken at border crossings to measures taken inside institutions and health care centers to deal with suspected cases," Khleifawi said. Enditem
About half of Earth's ice-free land remains unaltered by humans and can still be protected with swift conservation measures, a new study shows.

US researchers compared four recent global maps showing the conversion of natural lands to 'anthropogenic land'  land that has been exploited by humans.

Encouragingly, about half, or somewhere between 48 and 56 percent, of the world's land that is not covered with ice shows 'low' influence of humans.

The more impacted half of Earths lands, meanwhile, includes cities, croplands and places that have been intensively ranched or mined.

But researchers say humans have the opportunity to conserve about half of Earths land for good, rather than exploiting its natural resources.

This map compares low human impact areas (green) with high impact (purple). Map shows the level of agreement between the four input datasets. Full indicates all four datasets are in full agreement and all identify that cell as low human influence, while none indicates zero of the datasets identify that cell as low human influence. Majority reference areas where three out of the four, Mixed two out of four and Minority one out of four datasets identify that cell as low human influence

Aerial view of a vast boreal forest, a low impact area. Boreal forests are defined as forests growing in high-latitude environments where freezing temperatures occur for 6 to 8 months

Intact natural lands can help purify air and water, recycle nutrients, enhance soil fertility and retention, pollinate plants and break down waste  services worth trillions of US dollars annually.

The encouraging takeaway from this study is that if we act quickly and decisively, there is a slim window in which we can still conserve roughly half of Earths land in a relatively intact state, said lead author Jason Riggio at the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology.

Approximately 15 per cent of the Earths land surface and 10 per cent of the oceans are currently protected in some form.

However, governments have been asked to commit to protecting 30 per cent of the land and water combined by 2030 and 50 per cent by 2050.

Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 15 The Conference of the Parties is the governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral treaty signed in the early 1990s. The convention's governing body is the Conference of the Parties (COP), consisting of all governments that have ratified the treaty Among the meeting's goals is to establish specific targets for land and water protection. This year's historic meeting was scheduled to occur in China this autumn but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) will be held in Kunming, China, in the second quarter of 2021. Advertisement

Leading up to the Convention on Biological Diversity Conference of the Parties 15, there is momentum around setting bold conservation targets, according to the research team.

This meeting was scheduled to take place in China this autumn but was postponed to the second quarter of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the meetings goals was to establish specific targets for land and water protection.

However, it had remained unclear how much of Earth's land area remains without significant human influence and where this land is located  something this new study set out to clarify.

The team used four different methods of spatial assessment to estimate percentages of the Earth's terrestrial surface.

Overall, 20 to 34 per cent of planets land area was shown to have very low human influence, while 48 to 56 per cent in total showed low human influence.

Three out of four spatial assessments, each with different datasets, agreed on 46 per cent of nonpermanent ice or snowcovered land as having low human influence.

Among the largest low-impact areas are broad stretches of boreal forests and tundra across northern Asia and North America, and vast deserts like the Sahara in Africa and the Australian outback.

Boreal forests are defined as forests growing in high-latitude environments where freezing temperatures occur for six to eight months  and therefore occupy the high northern latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.

Low impact places, such as the vast Astralian Outback, tend to be drier and less fit for agriculture. Pictured; Kata Tjuta, a group of rock formations in Northern Territory, Australia

These areas were low impact because they tend to be colder  in the case of boreal forests  and drier  in the case of deserts  and are therefore less fit for agriculture.

What was concerning, however, was the finding that less than 1 per cent of temperate grasslands, tropical coniferous forests and tropical dry forests have very low human influence across most of the datasets.

Tropical grasslands, mangroves and montane, or 'high altitude' grasslands, also have less than 1 per cent of land identified as very low influence across all datasets.

Human land use is increasingly threatening Earth's remaining natural habitats, especially in warmer and more hospitable areas, but nearly half of Earth still remains in areas without large-scale intensive use.

Areas with low human influence do not necessarily exclude people, livestock or sustainable management of resources  meaning they could be exploited in the future.

A conservation response that balances agriculture and resource needs with the protection of the ecosystem and biodiversity is essential, the research team warn.

Achieving this balance will be necessary if we hope to meet ambitious conservation targets, said Riggio.

An Autumn tundra in the Arctic. Much of the very low and low influence portions of the planet are comprised of cold landscapes - boreal forests, montane grasslands and tundra - or arid landscapes (like deserts)

But our study optimistically shows that these targets are still within reach.

Researchers say the coronavirus pandemic illustrates the importance of maintaining natural lands to separate animal and human activity.

SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, is a zoonotic virus, meaning its been passed from animals to humans.

Human risk to diseases like Covid-19 could be reduced by halting the trade and sale of wildlife, and minimizing human intrusion into wild areas,' said senior author Professor Andrew Jacobson at Catawba College in North Carolina.

The study has been published in Global Change Biology.
In brief: Although most of its consumer electronics are limited to the Chinese market, Xiaomi is globally known for its high quality, highly affordable products. The company's latest value for money offering is the 30,000mAh Mi Power Bank 3 that goes on sale later this week at Jingdong, China's largest retailer, for just 169 ($24).

Power banks can be a lifesaver for frequent travelers, and even those not always on the move benefit from being able to charge and use their devices without being stuck to a wall. That freedom ultimately comes down to the pack's battery capacity, which in the case of Xiaomi's Mi Power Bank 3, should result in plenty of freedom.

Weighing in at 657 grams, the Mi Power Bank 3 is Xiaomi's biggest battery bank yet. It also won't be making it to a flight anytime soon because it's 30,000mAh capacity and 3.7V operation make for a 111Wh power rating. That's bigger than what's found in most laptops and is 11Wh over the currently allowed limit for lithium-based batteries.

In terms of ports, the Mi Power Bank 3 features 2 x USB Type-A, 1 x USB Type-C, and 1 x Micro USB. The Type-A and Type-C ports can output up to 18W for fast charging three devices at the same time, though expect it to quickly drain juice at this rate.

There's also a low-power mode for recharging sensitive devices like smartwatches, bands, and Bluetooth headsets. Double-pressing the gadget's check power button switches on its low current charging mode, complementing the in-built protection against over-current, over-power, and short-circuiting.

A power bank of this capacity will also take considerable time to recharge. The Mi Power Bank 3 is said to reduce that somewhat with support for 24W high-power input through its Type-C port, taking around 7.5 hours for a full recharge. The same can be done in 10 hours via its 18W micro USB input port.

As with Xiaomi's recently announced $559 AMD-powered RedmiBook, this hardware will also be exclusively available in China for now. It's set to go on sale on June 18, although reservations seem to be sold out at this time.
Iran has moved to limit family planning services at government run medical centres in a bid to increase the population.

Services such as vasectomies and female contraception will no longer be state-run under the new measures, but will still be available at private hospitals.

The move comes as the country's annual population growth dropped to below 1 per cent and statistics show Iran's marriage and birth rates have fallen, state-run news agency Irna reported.

Iran has moved to limit family planning services at government run medical centres in a bid to increase the population. Above, citizens wear medical masks as a precaution against coronavirus in Tehran

Vasectomies will no longer be available at state-run medical centres, while contraceptives will only be offered to women for medical reasons, under the new measures, according to a report in the BBC.

According to Deputy Health Minister Seyed Hamed Barakati, the marriage rate had dropped by 40% in a decade.

'With this trend, we will be one of the oldest countries in the world in the next 30 years,' he said.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for Iran's population to grow from 80 million to 150 million.
The Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has lashed out at the Nigeria Governors Forum, describing it as being a beggars forum.

Mr Wikes attack on the forum, of which he is a member, is apparently in connection with the travails of Governor Godwin Obaseki who has been disqualified by the All Progressives Congress (APC) from contesting the forthcoming governorship primary of the party in Edo state.

Mr Obasekis disqualification on Friday climaxed the protracted political battle between him and his predecessor, Adams Oshiomhole, who is the APC national chairman.

There have been speculations that Mr Obaseki is planning to defect from the APC to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The speculations have been fueled by Mr Obasekis visit to Mr Wike on Sunday.

Shortly after his meeting with Mr Wike in Port Harcourt, Mr Obaseki travelled to Uyo where he also met with the Akwa Ibom governor, Udom Emmanuel.

Both Mr Wike and Mr Emmanuel are members of the PDP.

Before 2015, the Governors Forum used to be very powerful as symbols of their respective states but APC killed it because they were protecting the interest of the ruling party, Governor Wike said on Monday during a press briefing in Port Harcourt.

During one of the rerun elections in this state, my security aides were withdrawn thus exposing me to danger, the Forum did not say anything because the chairman was a member of APC.

I told them then that what they were doing was wrong. Now they have become a beggars Forum even when there are constitutional infractions.

You can see that APC governors say that they are progressive. You can see how progressive they are when they keep quiet when a fellow sitting governor is disqualified from contesting elections.

The governors remarks at the press briefing is contained in a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information in Rivers state, Paulinus Nsirim.

READ ALSO:

Adams Oshiomhole campaigned for Governor Obaseki four years ago. The same man has turned around to say that Obaseki has a defective certificate.

Has Oshiomhole apologised to Nigerians that he supported someone with a defective certificate? Who is saying that a sitting governor has a defective certificate? Is it a man that does not have a certificate?

Mr Wike, who said the APC national chairman should practise what he preaches, and accused the APC of wanting to perpetuate impunity in Edo state.

They think because they have the army, police and INEC, they can do anything and get away with it.

They tried it in Rivers State but God gave us the will to say no. I hope Edo people will also say no to their impunity, Governor Wike said.

The governor said he would be happy to receive Mr Obaseki if he defects from APC to PDP, but said he could not guarantee him an automatic ticket in PDP as that is left for the Edo people to decide.

Edo PDP have a role to play. There is nothing like endorsement, he said. But I must tell you that I am not happy the way he was disqualified by the APC because it will affect his integrity.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Mr Wike, earlier on Monday, tweeted, Obaseki was disqualified by someone who doesnt have a certificate.
Southwest monsoon has further advanced into some more parts of the north Arabian Sea, Gujarat, Diu, some more parts of Madhya Pradesh, remaining parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar and some parts of east Uttar Pradesh, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday.

According to news agency ANI, the weather bureau has said the conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of east Madhya Pradesh and east Uttar Pradesh during the next 48 hours.

East-west trough (a low-pressure area) runs from northwest Rajasthan to Gangetic West Bengal at lower tropospheric levels and the east-west shear zone is seen from sub-Himalayan West Bengal to north Konkan across cyclonic circulation over UP, south MP, north-central Maharashtra between 3.1 and 5.8 km above mean sea level, the agency quoted the weather office as saying.

The weather bureau has issued a warning of scattered heavy to very heavy rainfall isolated extremely heavy rainfall over Konkan and Goa, isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall over Maharashtra, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim and Odisha.

It also predicted isolated heavy rainfalls over Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal during the next two to three days.

Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall very likely to continue over Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Sikkim, Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar during the next two to three days under the influence of these systems, IMD said.

IMD had on Sunday declared the onset of the southwest monsoon over Mumbai and remaining parts of Maharashtra. The monsoon arrived three days late in Mumbai from its normal onset date of June 11.
The Crossroads of Empire project recognised as demonstrating "remarkable heritage achievements"

This week Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies project, The Crossroads of Empire, was awarded a Special Mention in the Research category at the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards 2020 by Europa Nostra and the European Commission.

The Special Mentions are granted to initiatives which have contributed to the enhancement of Europes cultural heritage.

The project was recognised by the Jury for its success in enhancing once abandoned sites that bear witness to European cultural exchange in medieval Europe.

Dr. Daniel Reynolds, co-director of the project, said: It is a privilege to have the project commended by the Europa Nostra jury and I am delighted that these important Longobard sites are receiving international recognition. My deepest thanks go to my project collaborators in the UK and Italy, the Communi of Montecorvino Rovella and Olevano, my colleagues in SHAC and the students who participated in the Postgraduate and Undergraduate Research Scholarship Schemes, who have all contributed to making this project such a success.

The Crossroads of Empires Project is a collaborative venture between archaeologists, historians and art historians in the Czech Republic, Italy and the United Kingdom. The project draws together the results of a decade of excavation and historical research between international partners on two unique Longobard-period sites in the province of Salerno in Italy. The project brings to light these two uniquely preserved examples of Longobard ecclesiastical structures which represent the dynamism and multicultural nature of Longobard culture and their significance as cultural mediators between Byzantium, the Islamic world and the emerging powers of Medieval Continental Europe.
Across Melbourne debate is raging over how best to keep well separated in pubs, on public transport and at the football but at the State Library of Victoria there is space aplenty.

Devotees expressed joy and relief at the 164-year-old Swanston Street institutions re-opening after three months' closure on Monday.

Just like home: State Library of Victoria regular Michael Monty is happy it's re-opened. Credit:Justin McManus

But for now, just 45 visitors are allowed at any given time across the cavernous rooms currently open including the ground floor information centre, Hansen Hall and the Cowen Gallery.
Watch out Meghan Markle. Prince Harry is said to be keenly interested in a Hollywood A-lister.

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had a private dinner with power couple Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez early this year, one report said that Prince Harry was "drooling" over the "Jenny from the Block" hitmaker.

One source told New Idea, "Harry spent a lot of the night chatting with her, who is not only even more stunning in person but also extremely charismatic. Most men are totally captured by her, and Harry is only human."

As per the source, Meghan Markle was not happy as she left the dinner table feeling "very jealous."

The Duchess of Sussex has never talked about her jealousy to the Duke, who is said to be gladly suggesting that they will have another dinner with J.Lo and A-Rod, as they have already settled into their $18 million-dollar rented mansion.

"Meghan doesn't quite know how to deal with this one. On the one hand, entertaining the likes of J.Lo is all part of her grand plan to reach the top tier of celebrity."

But this is not the first time it was reported that Meghan Markle is afraid that Prince Harry will soon leave her for his ex-girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.

Meghan Markle Still Jealous of Prince Harry's ex, Chelsy Davy

As per Woman's Day, the 38-year-old mother wasn't happy when she discovered that her husband had a secret Facebook account.

It hurt even more for the Duchess, seeing that Prince Harry's profile photo was a picture of him and Chelsy.

The unnamed source told the magazine that the former "Suits" star has been keeping an eye on her husband's "the one that got away." Further, the source alleged that Prince Harry and Chelsy are still in touch.

"Meghan has always feared that given the chance, Harry would have picked Chelsy over her, and news of this secret account has sent her head spinning."

"She's wondering if he still has any secret Instagram or Facebook accounts, and whether he uses them to chat with Chelsy," the source alleged.

The jealousy of Meghan Markle towards Chelsy Davy is one of the reasons why the couple didn't invite Chelsy to their wedding reception. However, it is worth noting that she was invited to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal wedding.

Just before the royal wedding, Vanity Fair reported that Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy had one final call the night before.

During their final conversation, the publication said that the 35-year-old Prince told his ex that he was finally moving on.

"It was their final call, a parting call in which they both acknowledged Harry was moving on. Chelsy was quite emotional about it all; she was in terms and almost didn't go to the wedding," the insider told Vanity Fair.

"In the end, she went and promised Harry she wouldn't try and gatecrash the party."

Prince Harry and Chelsy Davy dated on and off for seven years, but in 2010, they finally called it quits.

The Reason for Chelsy Davy, Prince Harry Split

In 2016, Chelsy told The Daily Mail that it was hard for her to cope with the demands of being in a relationship with a royal family member.

"It was so full-on crazy and scary and uncomfortable."

Chelsy was also hounded by the paparazzi, and the British tabloids also said negative things about her, but she has gotten her way out.

"I found it very difficult when it was bad, and I couldn't cope. I was trying to be a normal kid, and it was horrible."

READ MORE: Meghan Markle Failure: Palace Sees Danger Signs JUST Days After Prince Harry Wedding
What does this mean for Daniel Andrews?

It's a political mess, a big one which will be around for the foreseeable future. Sacking Adem Somyurek and booting him out of the party doesnt come close to ending the matter. Andrews has a cabinet minister with the gaming and liquor portfolio under investigation by police and the anti-corruption authority, as well as at least one backbencher. Those probes take time, maybe years. This scandal is likely to be with Andrews all the way up to the 2022 state election and probably beyond, win lose or draw. The constant drip of stories that we can expect will give Michael OBriens Coalition plenty to work with. Andrews also now has a gaping hole on his frontbench and filling it is not straightforward.

Premier Daniel Andrews after sacking Adem Somyurek on Monday morning. Credit:Eddie Jim

How secure is his leadership?

Quite secure. Theres no obvious challenger or even appetite for change among Labors caucus, where memories of that 2018 landslide are still fresh. The removal of Somyurek, a constant thorn in Andrews side throughout his time in government, is a silver lining for the Premier and a huge boost for his Socialist Left faction. But some of Somyureks more indiscreet comments revealed on Sunday night will fuel those persistent rumours that Andrews is planning an early exit from the top job.

Who else will be affected in the fallout?

Everyone in Victorian Labor, for better or worse, and quite a few in the federal set up, too. There are quite a few state MPs  people such as Meng Heang Tak, Vaghela Kaushaliya and Kieu Tien  as well as party officials who owe their positions to Somyureks patronage. Their political futures look a little shaky now. In Federal Parliament some of the stars of Labor's past, including Bill Shorten, will be looking to put daylight between themselves and Somyurek, while up-and-comers Tim Watts and Josh Burns will be trying hard to live down some of the less-than-flattering mentions they received in Sunday nights revelations.
Light exerts a certain amount of pressure onto a body: sun sails could thus power space probes in the future. However, when light particles (photons) hit an individual molecule and knock out an electron, the molecule flies toward the light source. Atomic physicists at Goethe University have now observed this for the first time, confirming a 90 year-old theory.

As early as the 16th century, the great scholar Johannes Kepler postulated that sunlight exerted a certain pressure, as the tail of the comets he observed consistently pointed away from the sun. In 2010 the Japanese space probe Ikaros used a sun sail for the first time in order to use the power of sunlight to gain a little speed.

Physically and intuitively, the pressure of light or radiation can be explained by the particle characteristic of light: light particles (photons) strike the atoms of a body and transfer a portion of their own momentum (mass times speed) onto that body, which thus becomes faster.

However, when in the 20th century physicists studied this momentum transfer in the laboratory during experiments on photons of certain wavelengths which knocked individual electrons out of atoms, they were met by a surprising phenomenon: the momentum of the ejected electron was greater than that of the photon that struck it. This is actually impossible - since Isaac Newton it has been known that within a system, for every force there must exist an equal but opposite force: the recoil, so to speak. For this reason, the Munich scientist Arnold Sommerfeld concluded in 1930 that the additional momentum of the ejected electron must come from the atom it left. This atom must fly in the opposite direction; in other words, toward the light source. However, this was impossible to measure with the instruments available at that time.

Ninety years later the physicists in the team of doctoral student Sven Grundmann and Professor Reinhard Dorner from the Institute for Nuclear Physics have succeeded for the first time in measuring this effect using the COLTRIMS reaction microscope developed at Goethe University Frankfurt. To do so, they used X-rays at the accelerators DESY in Hamburg and ESRF in French Grenoble, in order to knock electrons out of helium and nitrogen molecules. They selected conditions that would require only one photon per electron. In the COLTRIMS reaction microscope, they were able to determine the momentum of the ejected electrons and the charged helium and nitrogen atoms - which are called ions - with unprecedented precision.

Professor Reinhard Dorner explains: "We were not only able to measure the ion's momentum, but also see where it came from - namely, from the recoil of the ejected electron. If photons in these collision experiments have low energy, the photon momentum can be neglected for theoretical modelling. With high photon energies, however, this leads to imprecision. In our experiments, we have now succeeded in determining the energy threshold for when the photon momentum may no longer be neglected. Our experimental breakthrough allows us to now pose many more questions, such as what changes when the energy is distributed between two or more photons."

###

Publication: Sven Grundmann, Max Kircher, Isabel Vela-Perez, Giammarco Nalin, Daniel Trabert, Nils Anders, Niklas Melzer, Jonas Rist, Andreas Pier, Nico Strenger, Juliane Siebert, Philipp V. Demekhin, Lothar Ph. H. Schmidt, Florian Trinter, Markus S. Schoffler, Till Jahnke, and Reinhard Dorner: Observation of Photoion Backward Emission in Photoionization of He and N2. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 233201 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.233201

Further information:

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Dorner

Institute for Nuclear Physics

Tel. +49 69 798-47003

doerner@atom.uni-frankfurt.de

https://www.atom.uni-frankfurt.de/

Current news about science, teaching, and society can be found on GOETHE-UNI online

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The Mumbai port has handled 321 ships and nine million metric tons of cargo during the coronavirus-induced lockdown period, a top official said tonight. The port is fully operational now, the official said.

Six cruise liners have arrived in the port since June 12 and some more are scheduled to dock to disembark Indian crew members stuck on these "floating luxury hotels" after the pandemic halted their operations at various places across the globe. A total of 14 cruise liners are to dock at the Mumbai Port Trust to disembark 10,000 Indian crew members by June 28, Sanjay Bhatia said in a statement.

"During the lockdown period, Mumbai Port has continued to handle large range of cargo such as steel, sugar, pulses, fertilizers, cement, motor vehicles, crude oil and chemicals, among others, at its berths in Indira Docks, Marine Oil Terminal-Jawahar Dweep, Chemical Terminal-Pirpau, and midstream. The port handled 9.6 million metric tons of cargo from 321 vessels," Bhatia said.

He also said the port also continues to handle cruise liners at its facility, enabling signing off of Indian crew on board cruise ships around the world. "The port has been in the forefront in supporting the seafarers by helping them sign off at Mumbai Port," Bhatia added.

"Till date, six cruise vessels (have) berthed in the port and more than 1,000 Indian crew (have been) handled. One of the huge cruise ships -- Ovation of the Seas -- was (also) docked in the port," Bhatia added.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput death: 'Bright, young actor gone too soon,' says PM Modi

Also read: Monsoon advances in Gujarat, heavy rain likely over next few days
AirAsia India pilot and popular vlogger Gaurav Taneja has claimed that the airline has suspended him for "standing up for safe operations of an aircraft and its passengers".

Taneja had alleged earlier that the airline was violating safety protocols that have been introduced to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, which could endanger the lives of hundreds of AirAsia India passengers.

He also urged his more than two lakh followers to call out his employers and stand by him.



Today I have been officially suspended from @AirAsiaIndian for standing up for safe operations of an aircraft and its passengers.@AwakenIndia #SabkeLiye

 Gaurav Taneja (@flyingbeast320) June 14, 2020

Taking to Twitter, Taneja wrote:

Taneja's tweets gained traction and #BoycottAirAsiaIndia started trending on Twitter.

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

Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued a statement on June 15 stating it has taken note of the "concerns raised by some stakeholders against a particular airline and its approach to safety".



DGCA has taken note of the concerns raised by some stakeholders against a particular Airline and its approach to safety. DGCA has already started an investigation into the issues flagged and shall take appropriate action based on the outcome of the said investigation.

 DGCA (@DGCAIndia) June 15, 2020

The DGCA has reportedly started investigating the issues flagged by Taneja and will take appropriate action against the airline if his allegations stand true.

An AirAsia India spokesperson has informed that the allegations are being internally investigated, according to a report in Mint. An AirAsia India official said Taneja was suspended on disciplinary grounds for reporting sick frequently and has nothing to do with him flagging the safety lapses.

"There are some disciplinary issues due to which he has been suspended. This issue is being dealt with internally," he said.
The actor paid a visit to his alma mater in 2019 and seemed extremely happy to be there. Yogesh Singh, DTU vice-chancellor, spoke about his visit to a leading daily. He said, It is very shocking that he has committed suicide. There are many alumni, who were in close contact with him. It is shocking for all of us. He had joined in 2003 and was there for almost three years. His all-India rank was seventh when he got admission. He was a very bright and intelligent student.



The year 2020 continues to be a tragedy. Bollywood lost yet another talent in Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor, who only was 34, was confirmed dead by the Mumbai Police yesterday. Soon after the news broke, Bollywood celebrities shared their condolences and remembered their interactions with the actor.And now, the folks at the(DTU), where Sushant studied engineering,. The university put out a statement which read, DTU family is extremely shocked and sad at the sudden demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput who was our Alumnus (Batch of 2003, Mechanical Engineering). He was not only a popular actor but was also a popular student of DTU-DCE. This news has come as a great loss to the institution as a bright Alumnus and proud DTU-DCEite has left for the heavenly abode. Our sincere prayers go out to his family in this difficult time.
WATERLOO REGION  The provincial government says conservation authorities core mandates need to be more narrowly defined, but for now no one knows what this means

Conservation authorities like the GRCA are more than park operators. They are expected to keep people and property safe from flooding and erosion by monitoring flood levels, operating flood infrastructure like dams, and limiting development in floodplains.

They are also expected to play leadership roles in environmental conservation, and to keep drinking water sources safe and plentiful. They also manage all their land holdings. In Ontario, 95 per cent of the population lives in an area managed by a conservation authority.

A year ago the act that governs conservation authorities was revised by the province.

Then in August the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks sent a letter warning conservation authorities to prepare to wind down activities that fall outside the scope of their core mandates.

This sparked a debate about the function of conservation authorities.

The Province says the authorities core mandate should be preparing against natural hazards, maintaining conservation land and drinking water source protection.

Conservation Ontario, the nonprofit representing all 36 authorities, divides a conservation authoritys mandate into two areas: protecting people and property from flooding and erosion, and also conserving natural resources for economic, social and environmental benefits.

Part of the debate stems from how conservation authorities are organized. They are not branches of a unified provincial ministry. Instead, each operates independently to protect its watershed. They are loosely affiliated with each other and represented by Conservation Ontario.

Though the authorities are governed by the Province, they are funded mainly by levies on municipalities and self-generated revenue from activities like operating parks or providing education programs for schools. Half of the Grand River Conservation Authoritys budget comes from self-generated revenue, for example. Each conservation authority has its own board of directors appointed from the municipalities within it.

Each conservation authority has different resources and funding available depending on the population density within its boundaries. Some have millions of people to fund activities and programs, some only a few tens of thousands.

The authorities each also have their own approach to watershed management and conservation work and interpretation of the variety of legislation that governs their actions. At least six pieces of provincial legislation affect the work of conservation authorities.

The conservation authorities and many organizations who interact regularly with them such as Ducks Unlimited, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture argue the authorities work can only be carried out on a watershed level, and only when conservation authorities have autonomy to decide how best to do it.

Environment Minister Jeff Yurek has not indicated his next steps for determining conservation authorities mandated activities. He could allow them to continue running activities and programs as they see fit, or prescribe what they do more precisely.

Changes we made through Bill 108, the More Homes, More Choice Act, will provide conservation authorities with an opportunity to work in a more transparent and open way with municipalities, so the public understands what is being paid for, says Gary Wheeler, a spokesperson for the ministry.

Our review will clarify the core mandate of conservation authorities and update how they use municipal levies and fees to pay for programs and services, says Wheeler.

Some stakeholders, such as the Ontario Home Builders Association, feel prescribing authorities duties will mean a more efficient and clarified system.

Michael Collins Williams, director of policy for the OHBA, feels there is jurisdictional creep and overlap between Conservation Authorities and municipalities, and minimal timelines and accountability for conservation authorities.

The OHBA feels that conservation authorities role should be, clearly articulated to be scoped to hazards and flood protection.

Some fear if the authorities are not allowed to run revenue-earning programs and are micromanaged, they will be unable to carry out their work.

Kim Gavine, general manager of Conservation Ontario, worries if the mandate is too prescriptive the risk is that it will restrict conservation authorities since each authority problem solves issues unique to its watershed.

The Ministry hosted in-person consultations across the province in February and March, as well as an online survey asking for public input.

The MECP will be posting the results of the online survey and in-person consultations at ontario.ca/page/consultation-ontario-conservation-authorities.

LG Leah Gerber s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report on stories about the Grand River Watershed. Email lgerber@therecord.com

Resources

Conservation Authority Act

2019 Ontario flood review

Minister Yureks August 2019 letter to conservation authorities

Bill 108, The More Homes, More Choice Act
Ukraine at the Trilateral Contact Group has stressed the need to fully restore Ukrainian legislation in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, to renew taxation and settlements systems within the Ukrainian legal framework, as well as to conduct an inventory of property.

This was discussed at the continuation of the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE) on Monday, the press service of the Office of the President of Ukraine informs.

"The Ukrainian delegation underscored the need for full restoration of the Ukrainian legislation in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, the renewal of taxation and settlements systems within the Ukrainian legal framework," the statement reads.

In addition, the Ukrainian side pointed to the need to conduct an inventory of public and private property in the territory of occupied Donbas.

"We are talking about the state of enterprises of all forms of ownership, including branches of banking institutions," the Office of the President explains.

The representatives of Ukraine also insisted on ensuring the activity of Ukrainian mobile operators in these territories, emphasizing that this is primarily a matter of meeting humanitarian needs.

In addition, it is noted that Ukraine considers water supply to consumers in Luhansk region to be extremely important.

"The Ukrainian delegation has stressed that the issue of ecology is important for Ukraine and reaffirmed its readiness to discuss this issue during the next consultations of the social and economic subgroup," the statement reads.

As reported, on June 10, a regular meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE) was held in the video conference format with the participation of representatives of certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine as part of the Ukrainian delegation. Then, at the suggestion of Heidi Grau, the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group, a break for technical reasons was announced until Monday, June 15. On June 10, a number of issues were discussed within the security, political and humanitarian subgroups of the TCG.

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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

It is important to acknowledge and understand the changed habits which have arisen out of the last several months of Australians social distancing and operating largely out of their homes, according to one non-bank lender.

Life today looks very different from the way it did six months ago. While lockdown restrictions are easing, many Australians are relying on social media for important updates as well as social support  and we are more tuned in than ever before, said John Mohnacheff, group sales manager at Liberty.

For brokers, this means that there is an even greater opportunity to connect with customers electronically and engage with them in a way that is both meaningful and authentic.

Whether through spending more time being part of your digital community on social media, or simply checking in on customers by email or SMS, there are many ways to achieve this.

Now that much of the intense concern over COVID-19 has diminished within the country, some borrower behaviour seems likely to further shift still, while other new habits are here to stay.

While job security and employment prospects are still front of mind for some, most people who have been financially affected by COVID-19 have had time to process the change. These customers are now looking for ways to improve their situation and are turning to brokers for specialist support, explained Mohnacheff.

Although social distancing requirements are beginning to relax, were seeing that some customers may feel more comfortable continuing to communicate digitally rather than in person.

Its important to highlight that you have the flexibility to liaise with them in whichever way they are most comfortable without hindering the personal experience.

Continuing to market during challenging times is a crucial business strategy, but it requires careful consideration to strike the right balance.

Although Australia has had a great deal of success in flattening the curve, the impact of COVID-19 is still very real, and the last thing you want is to come across as insensitive, Mohnacheff said.

The most obvious solution to how brokers can market their services while addressing potential borrowers' anxieties is to put themselves in their shoes, act with empathy and consider their individual needs.

Showing the customer that you understand their concerns and helping guide them through the options remains a highly valued service.
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to stand firm against racism but insisted France wouldn't take down statues of controversial colonial-era figures.

Since George Floyd's death in the US, several rallies have taken place in France over racial injustice and police brutality, particularly toward minorities from France's former colonies in Africa.

Unusually for a French leader, Mr Macron acknowledged that someone's "address, name, colour of skin" can reduce their chances at succeeding in French society, and called for a fight to ensure that everyone can "find their place" regardless of ethnic origin or religion.

He promised to be "uncompromising in the face of racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination".

However, he insisted France would not take down statues of controversial, colonial-era figures, as has happened in some other countries in recent weeks.

Amid calls for taking down statues tied to France's slave trade or colonial wrongs, Mr Macron said "the republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history, it will not take down any statue".

"We should look at all of our history together" including relations with Africa, with a goal of "truth" instead of "denying who we are," Mr Macron said.

He didn't address accusations of police violence but said forces of order deserved "the nation's recognition".

His government is facing growing pressure to confront racism and police violence.

At least 15,000 people demonstrated in Paris on Saturday, the latest in a string of French protests galvanised by Mr Floyd's death in the US and the Black Lives Matter movement. Increasingly, the rallies have focused on France's own tensions between police and minorities.

In response, the government banned police chokeholds and vowed to stamp out racism among police - but that has now angered police unions, who say they're being unfairly painted as white supremacists and staged protests of their own.

Calls are also mounting to reassess France's colonial legacy, causing division within Mr Macron's own camp. Over the past two days, the culture minister denounced the decision to cancel a Paris showing of 'Gone With the Wind' - a film long criticised as romanticising slavery - as contrary to freedom of expression. He firmly condemned activists who tried to take a piece of African art from a Paris museum dedicated to artwork from former colonies.

But government minister Sibeth Ndiaye - a close Macron ally and the most prominent black figure in current French politics - wrote an unusually personal essay on Saturday in 'Le Monde' calling for France to rethink its colourblind doctrine, which aims at encouraging equality by ignoring race altogether.

"We must not hesitate to name things, to say that a skin colour is not neutral," she wrote. She called on the French to "confront our memories" about their history and find a "shared narrative" with former colonies.
There's anger and fiery protests on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia, after Rayshard Brooks, a Black man, was killed by police, sparking renewed outrage over police brutality and racial inequality. As Jennifer Johnson reports, Atlanta's police chief has also stepped down as demonstrations escalate.
Washington, June 16 : US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the number of US troops deployed in Germany would be reduced to 25,000 due to Germany's insufficient defence spending.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump confirmed the number of US soldiers in Germany would reduce to 25,000, Xinhua reported.

"Germany as you know is very delinquent in their payments to NATO," Trump told reporters at the White House, adding that US troops would redeploy to Germany until it pays.

Currently, there are about 35,000 US troops deployed in Germany.

Former US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told German media outlet Bild Live last week that "American taxpayers no longer feel like paying too much for the defence of other countries." "There will still be 25,000 soldiers in Germany, that's no small number," added the Trump loyalist.

US media reported early this month that Trump had directed the Pentagon to reduce US military presence in Germany by September, which drew oppositions among US lawmakers.

Last week 22 Republican members of Congress warned Trump that a significant force drawdown in Europe would serve Russia's interests at the expense of US national security.

The reduction might further strain the relations between Washington and Berlin. The two allies have been at odds with each other on Iran nuclear issues, Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, and defence burden-sharing, among others.

Trump has been repeatedly complaining that US allies exploited his country on defence spending. In his remarks to graduates of the United States Military Academy over the weekend, Trump emphasized the US military is not the policemen of the world.
Cancelled: The Classical and Byzantine Greek Summer School

Location Arts Building, University of Birmingham Dates Sunday 12 July (09:00) - Saturday 8 August 2020 (17:00) Contact Dr Theofili Kampianaki: T.Kampianaki@bham.ac.uk Add to my calendar

Unfortunately the summer school for 2020 has been cancelled.

The Birmingham Classical and Byzantine Greek Summer School, hosted by the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology and the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies offers participants the opportunity to study either Classical or Byzantine/Medieval Greek at all levels (beginners, intermediate, advanced).

This summer school will take place on the beautiful Edgbaston Campus, and affordable accommodation is available within walking distance. The course is aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and at teachers who wish to learn Ancient Greek or improve existing skills. As well as intensive tuition over up to four weeks, the summer school offers a range of workshops and evening lectures, and opportunities to work with the outstanding collections of ancient artefacts and coins housed in the Archaeology Museum, and at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

The courses

The Level 1 course (Weeks 1 and 2) is intended for absolute beginners. No previous knowledge of Greek is required. The course will start with the Greek alphabet and then focus on basic rules of grammar and syntax as well as basic vocabulary. By the end of the course, participants will be able to translate simple Greek texts independently. Applicants with some basic background knowledge of Greek may be able to apply for the second week of the course only. If so, please state this clearly in your application. You may see the content for each week of the beginners course here.

The Level 2 course (Weeks 3 and 4) aims to develop command of Greek at an intermediate level. Participants with some prior knowledge of Greek may decide to take the Level 2 course only. The Level 2 course will acquaint participants with the full range of the Greek grammar and syntax and also with texts of various genres. Provided that there is a sufficient number of participants in Level 2, the course will be taught in two groups: one group dedicated to Classical Greek and one to Byzantine Greek. By the end of this course, participants will have good working knowledge of Greek and will be able to translate a relatively complex texts, roughly equivalent to GCSE level.

The Level 3 course (Weeks 3 and 4) is the advanced-level course and is addressed to those with substantial background knowledge of Classical or Byzantine Greek. It will be taught in two groups, one dedicated to Classical Greek and one to Byzantine Greek. The course will consist mainly of reading classes, during which the instructors will revise Greek grammar and syntax. In each group, participants will study Classical and Byzantine texts which fall into a wide range of genres and linguistic registers (such as epic texts, historiography, rhetoric, lyric poetry, tragedies and comedies in the Classical Greek group, histories and chronicles, poetic texts and hymns, saints lives and texts in the vernacular in the Byzantine group). By the end of this course participants will be familiar with a range of genres and confident in translating a variety of texts. Participants will be asked to suggest specific texts or extracts in which they are interested; these texts will be studied during the course.

For advice on appropriate levels applicants are encouraged to contact the organiser, Dr Theofili Kampianaki at T.Kampianaki@bham.ac.uk .

Schedule

The courses will be very intensive, with 6 hours of teaching, from Monday to Friday (09.00-12.00 and 14.00-17.00 every day, with two coffee breaks and a lunch break).

Workshops

Workshops dedicated to palaeography, numismatics and online resources available to Classicists and Byzantinists will be included as part of the Summer School programme.

Teachers of Greek-related subjects will be offered two special workshops: one on the use of material culture for teaching purposes and one on the new OCR Classics specifications.

Instructors

Dr Theofili Kampianaki specialises in the Byzantine Greek Language and Literature, having completed her Masters and DPhil at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. She studied Classical Greek and Byzantine Greek as an undergraduate student at the University of Athens. Her doctoral thesis dedicated to the twelfth-century chronicle of John Zonaras, one of the best-sellers of the Greek-speaking world during the Middle Ages, will be published by Oxford University Press. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Birmingham Research Institute of History and Cultures, in charge of coordinating outreach activities connecting Classical Studies at the University of Birmingham to secondary schools in the UK. She has taught Byzantine Greek and Byzantine Literature at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham, and has run a series of educational programmes at the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation.

Dr Daniel Reynolds is a Lecturer in Byzantine History at the University of Birmingham, with research interests in the material and visual culture of the early Byzantine Empire. He holds an MA and a PhD in Byzantine Studies from the University of Birmingham. Prior to his appointment as a Lecturer, he was a Teaching Fellow in the School of History and Cultures and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies. He has taught a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Late Antique and Byzantine Studies. In the Summer School, he will teach particularly Late Antique and early Byzantine texts.

Dr Angeliki Roumpou completed a PhD in Classics at the University of Nottingham. She graduated from the University of Athens with a BA in Classics, Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, and with an MPhil in Classics. She has been working as a Teaching Associate in the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham for several undergraduate and postgraduate modules on Greek and Latin language at different levels. She is also actively engaged in outreach activities by giving lectures in high schools around the UK on Greek and Roman culture and civilisation, and by working as museum facilitator in the University of Nottinghams Museum of Archaeology designing and teaching activities for pupils to engage with language, literature and material culture.

Dr Foteini Spingou holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and specialises in the cultural and intellectual history of Byzantium (ca 8001350). Her monograph, to be published in 2022 by Oxford University Press, includes the first edition of two major poetic collections that shed new light on the political and cultural history of the Mediterranean world during the twelfth century. Dr Spingou has edited a comprehensive sourcebook on Byzantine art and aesthetics, which makes readily available editions and translations of more than a hundred and forty texts in eight medieval languages (Readings in the Visual Culture of Later Byzantium [1081-1330s], CUP 2020). She has taught Greek and Medieval Latin courses at Oxford University, as well as courses on ancient, late Antique and Byzantine history and culture at Edinburgh University, Oxford University, the Hellenic Open University and the Open University of Cyprus.

Resources available to participants

All participants to the IBGSS will have access to the University of Birmingham Library and its online resources, including e.g. the TLG (the electronic database of Ancient and Byzantine Greek texts). The Library has already acquired all latest bibliography essential to the participants of the Summer School, most notably The Cambridge Grammar of Medieval and Early Modern Greek, published in early 2019.

Tuition fees

The course fee for two weeks (Level 1 or Level 2 or Level 3) is 400.

The course fee for all four weeks (Level 1 + Level 2) is 800.

Bursaries

A number of bursaries will be provided to teachers of state schools thanks to the generous support of the Classics For All charity. For more information on the application process for a bursary, please contact Dr Polly Stoker at: P.Stoker@bham.ac.uk.

Accommodation

The organising committee has reserved a number of rooms for the participants to the Summer School at the University Campus (Aitken block, Vale village). The accommodation is self-catered. The cost is 25.00 per room per night. Accommodation will be provided at first come first-serve basis.

Application process

Candidates interested in applying to the Summer School can download and complete the application form below. Once completed, the application form should be sent by email to Dr Theofili Kampianaki at T.Kampianaki@bham.ac.uk .

The deadline for applications is 29 May 2020.

Candidates who apply prior to this deadline will receive a response to their application sooner, no more than two weeks after the submission of their application.

Important notice: Applicants who will require a visa to attend the Summer School are encouraged to apply as early as possible.

Further information

For general enquiries on the application process, the content of the courses or practical matters (accommodation, funding, visa applications, transport etc.), please contact Dr Theofili Kampianaki
Paul Whelan awaits the verdict of his trial for espionage - KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP

A Russian court has sentenced a British-American citizen to 16 years in prison, raising speculation of a potential prisoner swap between Russia and the United States.

Russian courts have convicted several foreign nationals of spying in recent years but the case of Paul Whelan is the first for a British or an American citizen since the Cold War, putting a further stain on ties between Russia and those countries.

Judge Andrei Suvorov on Monday convicted Whelan, 50, of spying and sentenced him to 16 years in a high-security prison, a year and a half after the former US Marine was detained in an upscale Moscow hotel.

Prosecutors claimed during the trial which was held behind closed doors that Mr Whelan was caught red-handed with documents containing state secrets. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

This is all a political theatre, Mr Whelan, a bespectacled man dressed in a grey jumper, said from the defendants glass cage upon hearing the sentence, adding that he did not understand what was being said in the room since he was not provided with translation.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, David Whelan, Mr Whelans brother, said in an emailed statement after the verdict, adding that his family only counts on direct negotiations between Russia and the United States to secure his release.

John Sullivan, US Ambassador to Russia, described Mondays verdict as a mockery of justice.

If it can happen to Paul, it can happen to anyone, Mr Sullivan said outside the court on Monday.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin, on Monday refused to describe Mr Whelan as a political hostage, insisting that he was convicted on the charges that were proven and upheld in court.

The ordeal for Mr Whelan, who holds British, American, Irish and Canadian passports, began in December 2018 when he was visiting Russia for a wedding.

Story continues

Russian investigators do not reveal the details of the indictment, citing secrecy, but Mr Whelans attorney claims that his client has been framed after he was given a flash drive with documents containing state secrets right before he was arrested in an upscale hotel in central Moscow.

Mr Whelan, who during the last few years before he was arrested travelled frequently to Russia, has insisted that an acquaintance who later turned out to be an intelligence agent gave him a USB stick, saying it contained pictures of his recent holiday.

Paul Whelan, right, stands in a Moscow courtroom awaiting verdict - Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE

Speculation was raised almost immediately after Mr Whelans arrest that he could be exchanged for a Russian woman held in the US charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent. However, she was deported back to Russia last year.

Mr Whelans attorney Vladimir Zherebenkov confirmed on Monday that he has been approached about a potential prisoner swap but said he was not at liberty to disclose certain details.

Mr Zherebenkov said that Mr Whelan is not opposed to the idea of formally asking for presidential pardon, which could pave the way for the exchange.

There are several high-profile Russian prisoners in the US that Moscow has wanted to get back for years including Viktor Bout, the notorious Russian arms dealer convicted for 25 years in a US prison.

Mr Zherebenkov said on Monday that his client was told by a Russian intelligence officer upon arrest in 2018 that he would be swapped for Mr Bout.
Norway will delete all the data captured through its coronavirus track and trace app after its data watchdog warned it was too invasive.

Health authorities said on Monday they had suspended Smittestopp ('Infection stop') which was set to collect movement data to trace the spread of COVID-19 and inform users if they had been exposed to someone carrying the disease.

On Friday, the data agency, Datatilsynet, issued a warning that it would stop the Norwegian Institute of Public Health from handling data collected via Smittestopp.

Datatilsynet said the limited spread of coronavirus in Norway, as well the app's limited effectiveness due to the small number of people actually using it, meant the invasion of privacy resulting from its use was disproportionate.

Health authorities said on Monday they had suspended Smittestopp ('Infection stop') which was set to collect movement data to trace the spread of COVID-19 and inform users if they had been exposed to someone carrying the disease

Camilla Stoltenberg, the public health institute's director, said she did not agree with that assessment, but the institute would now delete all the app's data and suspend its work.

Some 600,000 of Norway's 5.4 million inhabitants had been using the app

Stoltenberg said this weakened Norway's response to the spread of coronavirus.

'The pandemic is not over,' she said.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) said: 'We will, as a result, weaken an important part of our preparedness against a spread in infection, as we now lose time for development and testing of the app.'

Some 600,000 of Norway's 5.4 million inhabitants had been using the app.

Norway, where the coronavirus deaths totalled 242 as of last week, is now seeing only a handful of new infection cases a day.

Developed in Norway and downloadable on a voluntary basis, the application used centralised data storage, as is planned in France and the UK.

The NHS version in the United Kingdom has suffered repeated setbacks since Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced it the nationwide system would be running by mid-May.

Boris Johnson later signalled it wouldn't be ready until the start of June and the government's boss for the app, Dido Harding, has since said it won't be rolled out until the end of the month.

Amnesty International said Norway's example should serve as a warning to other countries seeking to set up such apps.

Long queue on the City Hall quay in Oslo to take the boats to the islands in the Oslo Fjord on May 31

Claudio Guarnieri, Head of Amnesty International's Security Lab, said: 'The Norwegian app is deeply intrusive and put people's privacy at risk. It is the right decision to press pause and go back to the drawing board to design an app that puts privacy front and centre.

'We were so alarmed by how invasive the app is in its current form that we shared our findings with the Norwegian authorities and urged them to change course. There are better options available that balance the need to trace the spread of the disease with privacy, and we hope the authorities take this opportunity to do just that.

'This episode should act as a warning to all governments rushing ahead with apps that are invasive and designed in a way that puts human rights at risk. Privacy doesn't need to be a casualty in the roll-out of these apps.'
Sohar International, a leading bank in Oman, is hosting Lord Gerry Grimstone of Boscobel Kt, the Minster of Investment in the UK for its first virtual session and sixth edition of Viewpoints  Sohar International Chairmans Forum.



The guest speaker will address the topic Has everything changed? - The post Covid-19 world in an insightful and thought-provoking session that will be streamed live via the banks YouTube channel on June 15, starting at 7:30pm.



The 6th edition of Viewpoints is taking place in the backdrop of Covid-19 that has jolted economies and governments worldwide. After a deep freeze, countries across the world are now beginning to take gradual steps to reopen their economies.



With his vast experience spanning private and public sectors, Lord Gerry Grimstones address on a key topic is slated to offer a complete picture of the changes that will shape the state of the world in a post Covid-19 world.



Speaking on the 6th edition of Viewpoints  Sohar International Chairmans Forum that is being held in a virtual format for the first time, Mohammed Mahfoudh Al Ardhi, Chairman of Sohar International, said: As economies around the world continue to grapple with the diverse challenges and economic implications of Covid-19, we are pleased to welcome Lord Grimstone, the UKs Minister of Investment to this fully virtual, webinar-style session of the Sohar International Chairmans Forum.



He will address a plethora of Omans political and industry leaders and dignitaries, and offer valuable insights on the challenges and opportunities governments and corporations around the globe can expect to address in navigating a post Covid-19 world.



Lord Grimstone of Boscobel Kt is the Minister for Investment jointly at the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the UK. His responsibilities include developing a new investment strategy and promoting investment across all sectors.  TradeArabia News Service
A mother of four who smothered her teenage daughter in an "exorcism" has walked free on a suspended prison sentence and said she would be "celebrating with her children tonight".

Kylie Anne Weinbrecht, 34, was charged with attempted murder following the 2018 incident in the family's backyard that involved her sitting on her 13-year-old and suffocating the girl with a towel, forcing her into unconsciousness three times.

Kylie Anne Weinbrecht leaves court on Monday morning. Credit:Kate Hedley

Weinbrecht was only stopped when another daughter  the intellectually disabled twin sister of the victim  managed to pull her mother off the girl.

The court previously heard Weinbrecht had a history of untreated mental illness and had been punishing her daughter that day for letting health workers into the family's Safety Bay home.
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The African Union Peace and Security Council has expressed serious concern over the continuing crisis in Libya, denouncing outside interference in the affairs of the country
[June 15, 2020] Winbond Introduces a New Unique and Innovative Product QspiNAND Flash for Use With the Qualcomm 9205 LTE Modem

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, today announced a new version of QspiNAND Flash designed for use with the Qualcomm 9205 LTE (News - Alert) Modem. The industry's first 1.8V, 512Mbits (64Mega Bytes) QspiNAND Flash from Winbond Electronics offers the right density for designers of New Cellular NB-IoT Modules. "As the Internet of Things expands to 50 billion connected devices by 2020, Quad SPI-NAND adoption rate may increase 4-5 fold within a few years," said Alan Niebel, president of WebFeet Research, an independent market-research firm. "Winbond's 1.8V QspiNAND Flash is suitable for both Automotive and IoT segments. NB-IoT is poised to grow in this new connected world with shipments that may reach 685M units worldwide by 2023." "Winbond is proud and committed to innovate and differentiate by designing our QspiNAND Flash KGD solution for use with the Qualcomm (News - Alert) 9205 LTE Modem from Qualcomm Technologies," said Syed S. Hussain, Director Segment Marketing, Winbond Electronics America Flash Business Group. "We continue to work closely with Qualcomm Technologies on the Memory components for the next-generation LTE Modem solutions for IoT applications." Winbond expands its reach from traditional QSPI-NOR Flash to QSPI-NAND Flash, giving customers the flexibility to choose their Code Storage Feature-Set to expand with minimal cost. This is done by using the same 6-pin signals and QSPI command-set for SLC NAND Flash densities without compromising performance by utilizing the new Continuous READ feature at 104MHz Read Speed. "Qualcomm Technologies has tested and qualified the Winbond QspiNAND Flash as a stacked KGD solution with the Qualcomm 9205 LTE Modem, allowing our OEM customers to create extremely small form factor systems," said Vieri Vanghi, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Europe Inc. "We are proud of our long-standing collaboration with Winbond, and look forward to continuing to provide leading IoT technology solutions together." W25N QspiNAND Flash family devices are offered in space-saving 8-pin packages which was not possible in the past for typical SLC NAND Flash memory. W25N512GW is a 512M-bit memory array organized into 32,68 programmable pages of 2,112 bytes each. W25N512GW provides a new Continuous Read mode that allows for efficient access to the entire memory array with a single Read command that is ideal for code shadowing applications.



Clock speeds of 104MHz allow equivalent 416MHz (104MHz x 4) speed for Quad I/O performance when using the Fast Read Dual/Quad I/O instructions. To provide better NAND Flash memory manageability, an on-chip feature is provided to perform bad block management. To ensure meeting the growing global demand for high-volume solutions, Winbond QspiNAND Flash memories are manufactured in the company's 12-inch wafer fabrication facility in Taichung, Taiwan. Winbond is expanding capacity to meet and to ensure support for new business growth anticipated in both Automotive and IoT Segments.

"Expanding the SpiFlash family to include QspiNAND Flash will benefit the NOR market and SLC NAND Flash conversion from both QSPI-NOR Flash and Parallel NAND Flash," said J.W. Park, Technology Executive of Winbond Flash Memory. "Winbond jointly-developed this new 512Mb QspiNAND Flash with Baseband Engineering-Team in delivering high performance with cost-benefit in mind." The 1.8V QspiNAND Flash memories feature: Low Power, Wide Temperature Range Single 1.75V ~ 1.95V supply

25mA active, 10A standby, 1A Deep Power Down

-40C to +85C operating range, Industrial GRADE

-40C to +105C operating range, Industrial plus and Automotive GRADE Unique Memory Architecture Page Read Time with ECC Enabled: 60s

Page Program Time: 250s (typ.)

Block Erase Time: 2ms (typ.)

Fast Program/Erase performance

Supports OTP Memory Area High-Performance QspiNAND Flash QSPI implementation in 46nm process technology

More than 10-years data retention

104MHz clock frequency that can support up to 52MB/S continuous data transfer rate Space Efficient Packaging WSON8 6x8mm

WSON8 5x6mm

TFBGA24 6x8mm

KGD (Known Good Die) W25N512GW is available now. For QspiNAND Flash specific details, please contact www.winbond.com. About Winbond Winbond Electronics Corporation is a total memory solution provider.

The Company provides customer-driven memory solutions backed by the expert capabilities of product design, R&D, manufacturing, and sales services. Winbond's product portfolio, consisting of Specialty DRAM, Mobile DRAM and Code Storage Flash, is widely used by tier-1 customers in communication, consumer electronics, automotive and industrial, and computer peripheral markets.

Winbond is headquartered in Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP) and it has subsidiaries in the USA, Japan, Israel, China and Hong Kong.

Based on Taichung and new Kaohsiung 12-inch fabs in Taiwan, Winbond keeps pace to develop in-house technologies to provide high-quality memory IC products. Qualcomm 9205 LTE Modem is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Qualcomm is a trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries. SpiFlash is a registered trademark of Winbond Electronics Corporation. All other product names that appear in this material are for identification purposes only and are acknowledged trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005006/en/

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[June 15, 2020] Associated Capital Group, Inc.'s Investment in Gabelli Value Plus+ Trust

Associated Capital Group, Inc. ("AC" or the "Company") announces a scheduled meeting of its Board of Directors on June 29, 2020 to discuss the Company's investment in the Gabelli Value Plus+ Trust ("GVP" or the "Trust"). This meeting has been organized in response to the GVP Board's request, as it prepares for the proposed Continuation Vote planned at GVP's forthcoming Annual General Meeting. AC invested in the initial public offering of GVP on the London Stock Exchange in February of 2015 and has been supportive of its mandate and structure; AC recently announced additional share purchases in the open market. AC and its affiliates including Mario Gabelli, the Company's Chairman, hold approximately 27.8% of the share count as of its most recent filing. As a UK PLC operating as an investment trust, GVP delivers a differentiated long term investment for AC's value oriented portfolio. The Trust brings the U.K. market the Gabelli time-tested Private Market with a CatalystTM methodology in a concentrated and active U.S. event-driven value portfolio with a preference towards smaller companies. Reflective of the Gabelli organization's deep bottom-up research capabilities, the Trust uniquely maintains a significant concentration in many 'less liquid' small and micro-cap holdings, coupled with announced merger and other special situation investments oriented toward generating total returns. Associated Capital views this investment trust vehicle as an attractive closed-ened structure, owing to the London Stock Exchange's established and historical market structure and favorable company rules.



In previous communications with the GVP Board, Associated Capital had voiced its support for measures which it believed would have served to enhance shareholder value and effectively provide temporary liquidity during supply/demand imbalances when reflected in the Trust's share price discount to NAV. AC has been, and continues to remain, supportive of an active share buyback policy. This policy was highly effective when in place from the IPO through the second quarter of 2019. The policy was halted in June of 2019, accommodating other interests and absent in temporarily supporting imbalances. AC had also proposed other initiatives to the GVP Board, including a 5% per annum distribution policy. Based upon a review of publicly available ownership information, AC believes one local and one international activist entity might own approximately 30% of GVP on a combined basis and might be acting in concert with one another. These coordinated efforts appear to be seeking short term gains by anticipating a possible liquidation and wind up of GVP, which is contrary to the long term objectives of the Trust.

As a unique exchange traded investment product, the U.K. investment trust is well suited for many shareholders, including Associated Capital. The purpose of the AC Board of Directors meeting scheduled for June 29, 2020 is to conclude whether current dynamics at GVP dilute the long term investment benefits of the GVP value strategy. AC's Board may decide to accelerate buying businesses and redeploy assets, even from investments such as GVP, which provide what Warren Buffett cherishes - compounded, long-term gains. About Associated Capital Group, Inc. Associated Capital, based in Greenwich Connecticut, is a diversified global financial services company that provides alternative investment management through Gabelli & Company Investment Advisers, Inc. ("GCIA" f/k/a Gabelli Securities, Inc.). We have also earmarked proprietary capital for our direct investment business that invests in new and existing businesses. The direct investment business is developing along three core pillars: Gabelli Private Equity Partners, LLC ("GPEP"), formed in August 2017 with $150 million of authorized capital as a "fund-less" sponsor; the SPAC business (Gabelli special purpose acquisition vehicles), launched in April 2018; and Gabelli Principal Strategies Group, LLC ("GPS") created to pursue strategic operating initiatives. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005180/en/

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Representative Image

Aditi Bhaduri

United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad is back in the region for a third time during this COVID-19 pandemic to advance the peace deal signed with the Taliban and accelerate intra-Afghan negotiations.

Khalilzads visit comes on the heels of the recent report by the UN Security Councils Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team. The report reveals that the Taliban continues to maintain links with the al-Qaeda, which is active in 12 of Afghanistans 34 provinces. The US-Taliban agreement, signed on February 29 in Doha, requires the Taliban to take a number of steps to prevent any group or individual, including al Qaida, from using the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.

The NATOs Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan is on record saying that in March the Taliban refrained from attacks against Coalition Forces; however they increased attacks against ANDSF [Afghan National Defence and Security Forces] to levels above seasonal norms. Indeed, throughout March, Afghanistan has seen violence with increasing brutality.

The fact remains that even as the President Ashraf Ghani-led government is all set to sit down for the much-awaited talks with the Taliban, the signs are ominous. Also, the fact that Khalilzad is again back in the region testifies that in spite of the UN report the US-Taliban peace accord will hold.

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

While the world has primarily been focussed on violence, the role of ideology has not been sufficiently discussed. Jihadist groups such as the al-Qaeda, ISIS-KP, and the LeT are jostling for space in Afghanistan, there are others such as the Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks to revive a caliphate, that is slowly but steadily infiltrating Afghan civil society. One thing is near certain  any peace deal and intra-Afghan understanding hammered out will result in establishing radical religiosity in the country.

In the midst of these developments, India, which has given developmental aid of more than $3 billion, finds itself sidelined in Afghanistan. Both Khalilzad and Russian Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov have called on India to engage with the Taliban, but New Delhi is weighing its options.

India should opt for a regional approach, involving the Central Asian Republics (CARs)  Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Too often the role and scope of these countries in Afghanistans stabilisation and future are neglected. Afghanistan shares its longest border of 2,800 km with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. This proximity, along with historical and cultural linkages, makes the CARs a direct stakeholder in Afghanistans peace and stability.

The primary threat is of jihadist violence spilling over into the CARs. The region has seen many residents flock to join the ISIS. In case the ISIS-KP embeds itself in Afghanistan, there is a fear that jihadists from the CARs would take the jihad back home. Groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan continue to pose a threat to the region, and any signs of religious radicalism is immediately put down with a heavy hand in the CARs.

The second threat is that continuing instability within Afghanistan threatens to destabilise the region, with violence spilling over into the neighbouring countries, such as Tajikistan which has already suffered a civil war. Yet another headache is the drug trade which, emerging from Afghanistan, encompasses Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and further on Russia and Europe.

With so much at stake, the CARs, which was initially hesitant to play an active role, has increasingly become focussed on Afghanistan. The CARs has also realised the potential of Afghanistan to be a beneficial neighbour. It has also initiated infrastructure projects and developmental aid in Afghanistan.

It is common knowledge that stabilising the Afghan economy and integrating it into the regional economy would go a long way in stabilising the country. In particular, Afghanistans potential as a lucrative transit country to the markets of South and Southeast Asia has seen the countries engage in a number of economic initiatives and connectivity project, such as the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, the Lapiz Lazuri Route Agreement, the Heart of Asia Process and so on. In the same spirit projects such as the CASA-1000 and the TAPI pipeline, in which India is involved, were initiated. Today, more than 50 percent of Afghanistans trade is with its immediate neighbours.

In March 2018, Uzbekistan hosted a conference on Afghanistan in which more than 20 countries including India participated, paving the way for intra-Afghan talks. All the CARs view Taliban as an important stakeholder in Afghanistan.

India has good ties with the CARs and together participate in the common platform  the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. While Russia and China are embroiled in differences with the US, the CARs enjoys cordial ties with the US.

This is why in the 2019 India-Central Asia Dialogue held in Samarqand in Uzbekistan, there was an Afghan component too. India and the CARs pledged to assist Afghanistan through the implementation of joint infrastructure, transit and transport, energy projects, including regional cooperation and investment projects.

India will find more common ground with the CARs regarding Afghanistan than with any other country. Kabul views Tashkent as central to its peace process, which would help reduce Islamabads influence. Co-ordinating with the CARs could help counter Pakistans role and influence in Afghanistan, even as it can incentivise Pakistan to pursue peace and cease to view Afghanistan through an Indian lens.

Finally, the CARs would act as the model Muslim State for Afghanistan to emulate. All of them are Muslim-majority countries with high levels of education, rule of law, womens empowerment and respect for diversity, practicing moderate Islam  the perfect foil to ideologies of murderous religiosity. For war, after all, begins in the minds of men.
The decision was made following a phone call between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu kremlin.ru

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu postponed a visit to Turkey due to the current political differences between the countries, Bloomberg reports.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry stated that the meetings would take place at a future date. Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in its turn, said that two sides were actively working to support a settlement in Libya.

It is worth noting that Turkey and Russia stand for opposing sides in the civil wars that are raging in Syria and Libya: Ankara is currently providing military and diplomatic support to Libyas United Nations-recognized administration, Meanwhile, Russia backs rival militia commander Khalifa Haftar.

Speaking on the conflict in Syria, the Russian-backed government aims to retake Idlib from Islamist militants, while Turkey has vowed to never let that happen.

As we reported earlier, U.S. Africa Command observed the movement of Russian combat aircraft at Khmeymim Air Base in Syria.

It appears that the planes landed there before departing to Libya, where they could "support forces aligned with rogue Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, who has been fighting for years against the country's U.N.-recognized government".
House Democratic Whip James Clyburn rejected calls within his party to defund police departments, aligning with more moderate proposals as Congress works on a response to nationwide protests against police brutality and racism.

"Nobody is going to defund the police," Clyburn said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "We can restructure the police forces" to ensure that young African Americans don't have to fear them, he said. "This is a structure that has been developed that we've got to deconstruct."

His comments contrasted with Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, a leader of the defunding movement, who criticized likely Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden for suggesting increased funding for police. Departments that are "beyond repair," including the one in Minneapolis, should be dismantled "as we look for a new way forward" to provide public safety, she said on CNN.

Tension over policing and how to address perceived excesses in law enforcement that erupted after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis policy custody reignited after a white police officer shot an African American man in Atlanta. That prompted protests and the resignation of the city's police chief on Saturday.

While Democrats are calling for measures ranging from fundamental overhauls to targeted reforms, Senate Republicans are weighing proposals including racial bias training, increased use of body cameras and finally enacting the first federal anti-lynching law. Clyburn suggested there was room for a bipartisan compromise on legislation.

Oklahoma Republican James Lankford echoed that optimism, saying agreement a national ban on police use of chokeholds should be straightforward.

"We absolutely have to be able to find common ground with the House," he said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., suggested any legislation is unlikely to a include a national standard on the use of force. The goal is "finding the best practices around use of force around the country, and then provide that clarity and guidance for those departments who may need to have a better, better perspective on use of force," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He signaled that how to punish transgressions - whether by reducing the immunity of police officers or decertification - remains in dispute.

President Donald Trump last week rejected calls to overhaul law enforcement or cut officers' funding. Instead, he backed new training programs as well as economic development, school choice and improved health care in minority communities.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that will create a national system for police departments to report instances of excessive use of force.

Police departments that do not report the information would not be eligible for discretionary federal grants, the executive order states. The database will include terminations or de-certifications of law enforcement officers, criminal convictions of law enforcement officers for on-duty conduct, and civil judgments against law enforcement officers for improper use of force. The U.S. Attorney General will regularly report aggregated data from the database to the public.

The order also makes discretionary grants available only to state and local law enforcement agencies that are independently credentialed, or in the process of getting credentialed, from a reputable body certified by the Justice Department. Credentialing  also known as accreditation  must include a review of the departments use of force policies and ensure they prohibit the use of chokeholds except in situations where deadly force is allowed by law.

Chokeholds will be banned except if an officers life is at risk, Trump said at the White House Tuesday afternoon.

The order will also incentivize police departments to employ social workers, with federal funding, to respond with officers to non-violent calls involving mental health, substance abuse and homelessness issues. The order states that all officers should be properly trained to deal with mental health, addiction and homelessness issues.

"While the president has finally acknowledged the need for policing reform, one modest executive order will not make up for his years of inflammatory rhetoric and policies designed to roll back the progress made in previous years," said Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

Unfortunately, this executive order will not deliver the comprehensive meaningful change and accountability in our nations police departments that Americans are demanding," Schumer added. "Congress needs to quickly pass strong and bold legislation with provisions that makes it easier to hold police officers accountable for abuses, and President Trump must commit to signing it into law.

Trump said he is committed to working with Congress on passing further reforms. Democrats have responded to weeks of protests against police brutality with a hefty proposal called the Justice in Policing Act. House Democrats will try to pass the measure as soon as next week.

The White House has said one of its provisions  reforms to qualified immunity  is a non-starter. Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine shaped by judicial decisions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, that shields government officials and police officers from liability associated with violating someones civil rights during the course of their official duties, even if the conduct is later found to be illegal.

Republicans in Congress will put forward their own policing reform package on Wednesday.

Before a Senate hearing on police use of force, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday he wants to work quickly to reconcile Republican and Democratic proposals. He voiced support for limiting police use of lethal force, banning chokeholds, and creating a national police misconduct registry  ideas included in Democrats bill and Trumps executive order. Graham also said he wanted to work with Democrats on reforming qualified immunity.

U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, called the president's order an important step to improving police tactics and community relations.

"As we come together in support of equality and justice, President Trump sent a clear signal to our nation that police brutality will not be tolerated," Stefanik said. "Our North Country law enforcement do an important and difficult job by serving our communities and protecting us and we must ensure police forces across the country have the resources they need to effectively and safely do their jobs."

U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam, slammed the executive order as a "half-hearted" attempt to solve the issues.

"Real leadership from the president in this moment would include banning choke-holds, establishing meaningful accountability to break cycles of abuse where we find them, scaling up deescalation training and reducing Pentagon military equipment sales to local police departments," Tonko said.

Prior to announcing his executive order, Trump met privately with the families of individuals killed by police, including the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Botham Jean, Antwon Rose, Jemel Roberson, Atatiana Jefferson, Michael Dean, Darius Tarver, Cameron Lamb and Everett Palmer.

All Americans mourn by your side. Your loved ones will not have died in vain, Trump said. I can promise to fight for justice for all of our people.

Trump has been working on the order for weeks with law enforcement officials and the families of people slain by police, senior administration officials said. Last week, Trump met with police chiefs and attorneys general at the White House to discuss police reforms.

Trump said his administration will investigate new, advanced less lethal weapons to use in police encounters.

He also blamed former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden  who is Trumps 2020 Democratic challenger  for not addressing policing issues.

President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight year period, Trump claimed. They had no idea how to do it. And it is a complex situation.

After the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, Obama signed an executive order creating the Presidents Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The task force issued recommendations on improving policing including more data collection and removing policies that incentivized arrests.

The task force also issued guidance on how state and local law enforcement could implement the recommendations but it was left as optional for police departments.

In his speech, Trump emphasized that he supports restoring law and order around the country, particularly in areas where looting has accompanied protests that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd as he was kneeled on by a Minneapolis police officer.

"Americans want law and order," Trump said. "They demand law and order. They may not say it, they may not be talking about it, but that's what they want. Some of them don't even know that's what they want, but that's what they want. And they understand that when you remove the police, you hurt those who have the least, the most."

He said police misconduct is only committed by a tiny percentage of officers, most of whom are courageous and selfless. He suggested many police departments are underfunded and understaffed.
The United States is demanding the immediate release of a former soldier jailed in Russia for spying.

The United States is demanding the immediate release of a former soldier jailed in Russia for spying.

A closed-door court in Moscow sentenced Paul Whelan to 16 years in prison.

He says police planted a flash drive containing classified information while he was at a friends wedding two years ago.

The US ambassador in Moscow says the businessman is innocent and describes his secret trial as a mockery of justice.

Daragh McDowell, principal Russia analyst at the global consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft, talks to Al Jazeera.
NEWPORT, Ky., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ethos Laboratories has entered a strategic partnership with Genscript to offer the first quantitative surrogate Viral Neutralization Test (sVNT) to evaluate COVID-19 protective immunity in the United States. This test, marketed as Tru-Immune, will measure and quantify the neutralizing capacity of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Unlike other tests currently on the market, Tru-Immune detects the presence and magnitude of neutralizing antibodies that prevent infectivity of the COVID-19 virus.

The Tru-Immune lab test will identify patients with the most effective antibody response capable of inhibiting virus replication. This information has not previously been available and will pave the way for blood centers across the US to recruit patients who have recovered from COVID-19 and exhibit the greatest potential to inhibit the virus.

The commercialization of the new serological test, marketed by Ethos Labs in the US, will assist government officials and medical authorities to determine population health immunity levels for re-entry into the workforce and establish a "new normal" for American society. In a recent article published by Johns Hopkins University, authors state "neutralization assays are the gold standard for determining if a patient has effective antibodies and protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2. The ability of antibodies to prevent viral replication and clear infection is determined through neutralization assays." 1

According to Joshua Gunn, CSO of Ethos Research and Development, "Tru-Immune is the first test to evaluate protective immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that does not require the use of live virus, cell culture or even pseudovirus. These significant technical innovations allow us to process samples in less than 3 hours whereas traditional viral neutralization tests can take 3-5 days to produce results. Serological assays capable of detecting anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies have flooded the market but are not capable of measuring the viral neutralizing capacity of these antibodies."

Tests that are "prefabricated" to detect certain antibodies such as IgG, IgM and IgA, can limit sensitivity, while the Tru-Immune test detects all antibody neutralizing capacity and provides quantitative data on how effective your antibodies are at preventing the virus from interacting with its cellular target. If test results indicate the presence of neutralizing antibodies, then you have been exposed and your immune system is capable of inhibiting the virus if exposed again. Longitudinal studies and serial testing will be required to better understand how long the protective antibody response lasts in recovered patients and this information will be key for developing effective vaccine strategies.

"We are excited to offer the first quantitative surrogate viral neutralization test to evaluate Immunity to COVID 19," said Todd Bladel, COO of Ethos Laboratories. "This test was validated using PCR confirmed positive control samples and exhibited sensitivity and specificity of 100%. Tru-Immune will provide a level of actionable data that has not been previously available. We feel strongly that this novel test will play a central role in the penultimate chapter of COVID 19 by providing quantitative information about protective immunity, aiding vaccine development, and guiding patient selection for convalescent plasma therapies to treat the critically ill."

To request more information about the Tru-Immune test, please visit www.tru-immune.com .

1 https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/publications/developing-a-national-strategy-for-serology-antibody-testing-in-the-US

About

Ethos Laboratories is a clinical diagnostic laboratory located in Newport, Kentucky, dedicated to improving the lives of patients suffering with pain, providing personalized diagnostic services through cutting-edge testing and continuous innovation. Turn-around is among the fastest in the industry, presenting novel levels of transparency, honesty, excellence, and integrity in the laboratory industry. The company focuses on providing excellent quality, service, and support for every customer, and the highest standards for accuracy and efficiency. The laboratory has created innovative tools, resources, and processes that have improved provider insight into sources of pain, increased understanding of medication compliance and management, and fuels the pursuit of continuous improvement including launching a telehealth integration platform.

GenScript is a biotechnology group founded in New Jersey in 2002. The company is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Media Contact for Ethos:

Tim Adams

CFO

+1 (916) 616-2893

[email protected]

http://tru-immune.com

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Amanda Pennington, ARS Cares Healthcare Heroes Program Winner in Atlanta Atlanta healthcare workers have been working tirelessly to ensure our safety; recognizing their efforts by installing a new water heater was an easy way we could ensure they have a comfortable and safe environment to return home to, said Jack Reeves, GM of ARS/Rescue Rooter of Atlanta.

ARS/Rescue Rooter of Atlanta, a local Plumbing provider and part of the American Residential Services (ARS) Network of Brands, provided a new water heater to Amanda Pennington, a deserving Nurse, as part of the ARS Cares Healthcare Heroes program. The program is an extension of the year-round, company-wide ARS Cares initiative, and is rewarding more than 50 free home services makeovers to healthcare professionals across the country during the current COVID-19 crisis.

Atlanta healthcare workers have been working tirelessly to ensure our safety and recognizing their efforts by installing a new water heater was an easy way we could ensure they have a comfortable and safe environment to return home to, said Jack Reeves, General Manager of ARS/Rescue Rooter of Atlanta.

Amanda graduated from Emory University with a BSN in 2014, at the age of 37. She started working at Gwinnett Medical (now Northside Gwinnett) in 2015, and hasn't looked back. As physically and mentally hard as it is especially during COVID-19, she says that working with the patients and her fellow nurses is the most rewarding part of being a nurse on the floor. She continues to use the skills she has learned to help improve the quality of care offered at Northside Gwinnett. The installation of Penningtons new water heater was completed on June 11th.

Following the announcement of the ARS Cares Healthcare Heroes program on May 13, family, friends, and co-workers were invited to share stories of why an Atlanta frontline worker was deserving of home improvements that would deliver relief and relaxation. ARS received more than 400 nominations.

The ARS Cares initiative was launched in 2016 to cultivate positive relationships with communities where we live, work, and play. Since that time, more than 90 home services makeovers have been completed, donating more than $500,000 of HVAC systems and water heaters to deserving recipients. To learn more about ARS Cares and view official Terms & Conditions, visit ars.com/ars-cares.

ABOUT AMERICAN RESIDENTIAL SERVICES

Based in Memphis, Tenn., privately-owned ARS operates a network of more than 70 locally-managed service centers in 24 states, with approximately 7,000 employees. The ARS Network features industry-leading brands including, 4 Eco Services, A.J. Perri, Aksarben ARS, Allgood, Andy's Statewide, ARS, Aspen Air Conditioning, Atlas Trillo, Beutler, Blue Apple Electric, Blue Dot, Blue Flame, Bob Hamilton, Brothers, Columbus Worthington Air, Comfort Heating & Air, Conway Services, DM Select, Florida Home Air Conditioning, Green Star Home Services, Hauser Heating & Air Conditioning, McCarthy Services, Rescue Rooter / Jack Howk, Rescue Rooter, RighTime Home Services, RS Andrews, TempRite Air Conditioning and Heating, Unique Services, "Will" Fix It, and Yes! Air Conditioning and Plumbing. As an Exceptional Service Provider, the ARS Network serves both residential and light commercial customers by providing heating, cooling, indoor air quality, plumbing, drain cleaning, sewer line, radiant barrier, insulation, and ventilation services. Each location has a knowledgeable team of trained specialists. ARS requires background checks and drug tests on all employees. We hire professionals with the highest level of integrity. Providing exceptional service and ensuring the highest standards of quality, ARS has the experience to do any job right  the first time, with all work fully guaranteed. ARS: "Making it work. Making it right."
4 in 10 evangelical voters believe Trump is 'religious,' over half of all Americans disagree: poll

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A plurality of evangelical Christian voters does not believe that President Donald Trump is religious and is in agreement with over half of all registered American voters despite the presidents attempts to appeal to people of faith, a new survey suggests.

Following Trumps controversial photo session at St. Johns Episcopal Church near the White House in Washington, D.C., early this month, 1,992 registered voters were surveyed between June 6 and 7 about their thoughts on the presidents spirituality for a poll released by Politico and Morning Consult.

Even after nearly 3 in 4 voters saw coverage of President Trumps photo-op at St. Johns Episcopal Church last week, only about 1 in 4 believe hes religious, Morning Consult Vice President Tyler Sinclair told Politico.

According to the survey, only 27% of registered voters agreed with the statement that Trump is religious. About 10% strongly agree and 17% somewhat agree. Meanwhile, 16% somewhat disagree and 41% strongly disagree.

Almost two in 10 respondents (18%) said that they dont know.

When broken down by religious affiliation, just over one-third of Christians agree that the president as religious, while half of Christians said they do not agree that the president is religious.

About 40% of self-identified evangelicals said they agreed with the statement that Trump is religious, with 16% saying they strongly agree and 24% saying they somewhat agree. A total of 43% of evangelicals said they disagreed (29% strongly disagreed) with the statement that Trump is religious.

Among all Christian respondents, 34% agreed with the statement (22% somewhat agreed), while 50% of Christians surveyed disagreed in some form with the statement (35% strongly disagreed).

While 23% of all religious non-Protestant or Catholics surveyed agreed with the statement, 62% disagreed with the notion that the president is religious.

Conservative respondents were the most likely to agree that Trump is religious (55%). About 31% of conservatives disagreed with the statement. Meanwhile, among liberals, 9% agreed and 79% disagreed with the statement.

The results come as the president has received much criticism over his June 1 photo session at the historic St. Johns Episcopal Church, where Trump posed with a Bible for photographs.

The photo session occurred minutes after law enforcement was used to clear protesters demonstrating after the death of George Floyd from Lafayette Square, the park that sits between the White House and the church.

Over the weekend, the Secret Service admitted that it used pepper spray in its operations to clear Lafayette Square. The clearing of protesters drew the ire of some left-leaning religious leaders.

In an interview with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer two days later on June 3, Trump said he got the idea for the church visit after somebody suggested it was a good idea.

Trump contended that religious leaders loved it and everything was handled really well. Yet, the president is being sued for allegedly violating the First and Fourth Amendment rights of protesters. Also, an investigation is underway into U.S. Park Police officers who were involved in an altercation with two Australian reporters near Lafayette Square.

In the interview, Trump was asked if he believes he has grown in faith while he has been in office.

Trump responded: I think maybe I have, from the standpoint that I see so much that I can do. Ive done so much for religion.

Throughout his time in office, Trump has made a concerted effort to appeal to Christian conservatives through his administrations policies on abortion and religious freedom as well as through his conservative judicial nominations.

Trump, who grew up as a Presbyterian, made headlines when he decided to place his hand on two Bibles instead of just one during his January 2017 inauguration ceremony.

His administration has held various events and briefings for conservative evangelical leaders, including a state-like dinner for over 100 evangelical leaders and their spouses.

Trump has also visited some churches around the country, including when he held the launch of the Evangelicals for Trump coalition at a Miami megachurch.

Last June, he made headlines when he unexpectedly showed up at McLean Bible Church in the Washington suburbs of Virginia and was prayed over by Baptist Pastor David Platt.

Among other things, Trump signed an executive order in 2017 ordering federal agencies to review and create guidelines to ensure that religious freedom is protected both domestically and internationally.
European countries ease some border controls on Monday after coronavirus lockdowns, but Spain's continued closure, a patchwork of restrictions elsewhere and new ways of working mean pre-pandemic levels of travel are a long way off.

The Schengen area of 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland operates control-free crossings, but they have been mostly closed for three months to all but goods traffic and critical workers.

European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson urged Schengen members last week to lift internal border controls by Monday, to allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July.

The move could help salvage the part of the summer season for Europe's battered travel and tourism industry. With recreation and culture, the sector makes up almost 10% of the EU economy and an even bigger chunk in Mediterranean countries, some hit of which were hardest by the pandemic.

From Iceland to Greece, many restrictions for EU and Schengen visitors will ease on Monday, but it will not be a return to unfettered travel for the Schengen area's 420 million inhabitants.

Spain will allow no foreign tourists until June 21, with exceptions on some Spanish islands.

Elsewhere, the right to travel will depend on where you live and where you are going.

Greece will mandate quarantines for those arriving from a string of airports in eight EU countries. The Czech Republic has a traffic-light system, barring entry for tourists from 'orange' or 'red' countries such as Portugal and Sweden.

Denmark will allow in tourists from Iceland, Germany and Norway, but notably not Sweden, on condition they book at least six nights' accommodation.

Britain's mandatory two-week quarantine for visitors means Brits will face the same confinement in France.

Before the crisis, an average of 3.5 million people crossed an internal EU border every day, according to a European Parliament report last year, some 1.7 million of the commuting to work.

Many of the latter are now working from home, while continued restrictions and health concerns are expected to curb tourism and business travel.

At Brussels Airport, day one of the reopening will see around 60 flights operating, 10% of the normal 600.
"This decision sends an unambiguous message that equal protection under the law applies to all and that an employee's failure to adhere to an employer's gender stereotype is not a licence to discriminate," Kristen Browde, co-chair of the National Trans Bar Association, said in a statement.

The two other plaintiffs in the cases have died. Bostock said that he was sure they were "in heaven on a big cloud, smiling down."

"I've just been on a high ever since," Bostock said.

"This has been a long seven years as you know," Bostock said. When the decision came out, Bostock said, "I went into shock. My partner and I embraced. I was thinking this has to be good, this has to be good."

Bostock was fired from his job as a child welfare services coordinator in 2013 after joining a gay softball league.

Gerald Bostock, one of the plaintiffs, said in an interview he was "elated."

Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, a fellow conservative, and the court's liberal wing, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

The cases were brought by three workers who said they were fired from their jobs because they were gay or transgender. They argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which says that employers may not discriminate based on "sex," also applies to sexual orientation and gender identity.

While workers in about half the country were protected by local laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, there was no federal law that explicitly barred LGBT workers from being fired on that basis.

"An individual's homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions," Gorsuch wrote in the decision, which applied to three separate cases. "That's because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex."

The Supreme Court said Monday that workers cannot be fired for being gay or transgender, a blockbuster ruling for LGBT rights.

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, said the decision "affirms what shouldn't have even been a debate: LGBTQ Americans should be able to work without fear of losing jobs because of who they are."

Apple CEO Tim Cook, the first Fortune 500 chief executive to come out as gay, tweeted that he was grateful for the ruling.

"LGBTQ people deserve equal treatment in the workplace and throughout society, and today's decision further underlines that federal law protects their right to fairness," Cook wrote.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said the court's move "confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity."

Later Monday, Trump said at a White House event that "some people were surprised" with the top court's decision but "they've ruled, and we live with their decision. That's what it's all about. We live with the decision of the Supreme Court."

The court's opinion, which was released only online as a precaution against Covid-19, did not immediately load in its entirety, possibly a result of high traffic to the Supreme Court's website.

Gorsuch wrote that discriminating against an employee because they are gay or transgender is by definition discrimination on the basis of sex.

"It doesn't matter if other factors besides the plaintiff 's sex contributed to the decision. And it doesn't matter if the employer treated women as a group the same when compared to men as a group," Gorsuch wrote.

"If the employer intentionally relies in part on an individual employee's sex when deciding to discharge the employeeput differently, if changing the employee's sex would have yielded a different choice by the employera statutory violation has occurred," he wrote.

Alito, in a dissent joined by Thomas, wrote that there was "only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation."

"Title VII prohibits discrimination because of sex itself, not everything that is related to, based on, or defined with reference to, 'sex,'" he added.

Kavanaugh wrote that the policy arguments for amending Title VII were "very weighty."

"But we are judges, not Members of Congress," he wrote. "As written, Title VII does not prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation," he added, noting in a footnote that the legal analysis would apply in a similar way to discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

The workers who brought the cases are Bostock; Donald Zarda, who was fired from his job as a skydiving instructor after revealing his sexual orientation to a female client; and Aimee Stephens, a transgender funeral director who was fired after announcing her intention to present as a woman.

Only Bostock lived to see the cases decided. Zarda died before the case was argued and his challenge was pursued by his family. Stephens died last month at her home in Detroit from kidney failure, according to her attorneys.

Bostock said that if he got the chance to speak with himself seven years ago, knowing what he knows today, he would tell the younger version of himself that "it's going to be OK."

"I'm not the type that lies down quietly, and I feel like I've been pushed down, and honestly I came up swinging when this happened to me," he said.

Gorsuch hinted at his feelings about the cases during oral arguments in October, telling Stephens' attorney David Cole that he was "with you" on the text of the Civil Rights Act. But he warned that the case could lead to "massive social upheaval."

In his opinion, Gorsuch made it clear that he viewed the text as the deciding factor.

"Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they weren't thinking about many of the Act's consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees," Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch added: "But the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands."

Tom Mew, Bostock's attorney, said in an interview that "it's important for people to remember that while Gerald's journey has been a very long one to get to this day, it is early days, in a legal sense, in Gerald's underlying case."

An attorney for Clayton County, Georgia, Bostock's former employer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Saul Zabell, an attorney for Zarda's former employer Altitude Express, said in a statement that he was surprised by the decision.

"The court clearly worked very hard to make sure that congressional inaction on LGBTQ+ rights would not go unrepaired," Zabell said.

"We no longer live in a society where a Gay couple can be married on Friday and fired for that marriage on Monday."

He added that Altitude Express maintained that Zarda was fired "for inappropriately touching a female customer" and said "we look forward to having a second jury clear Altitude Express of any wrongdoing, just as the first jury trial revealed."

Gregory Antollino, an attorney for Zarda, countered that "Don Zarda was a gay man who work in skydiving were close contact is required. The idea that a man with a perfect safety record would grope a woman, is a grotesque lie."

"Notably, when my client filed for unemployment benefits, the employer did not make this defense when presumably it would have been in its economic interest. Instead they told the unemployment insurance that Mr. Zarda had revealed 'personal information' to a client," Antollino said in a statement.

"I think the first response is the best, because it reveals discrimination  that Don Zarda said he was gay. That's what got him fired," Antollino added. "Furthermore, while I understand Mr. Zabell's disappointment that he lost, had the Court come down the other way, we would have expressed disappointment, but not disparaged six Supreme Court justices as did Mr. Zabell."

John Bursch, an attorney for the funeral home that employed Stephens, said in a statement that the decision was disappointing.

"Redefining 'sex' to mean 'gender identity' will create chaos and enormous unfairness for women and girls in athletics, women's shelters, and many other contexts," Bursch said. "Civil rights laws that use the word 'sex' were put in place to protect equal opportunities for women. Allowing a court or government bureaucrats to redefine a term with such a clear and important meaning undermines those very opportunitiesthe ones the law was designed to protect."

The cases are Gerald Lynn Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia; Altitude Express v. Melissa Zarda; and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
-- As heavy rainfall continues to batter flood-hit south China, Chinese authorities devote all-out efforts to combat rain and flooding.

-- Based on the early warnings of geological disasters triggered in the flood season, pre-disaster measures were taken to protect people's lives.

-- In regions affected by flooding and waterlogging, post-disaster reconstruction has been carried out in an orderly fashion to help the flood-stricken return to normal life.

BEIJING, June 14 (Xinhua) -- As heavy rainfalls continue to batter flood-hit south China, Chinese authorities have mobilized dramatic rescue efforts to fight the floods and protect people's lives and property.

More than 20 people were killed or remained missing after torrential downpours unleashed floods, mudslides and landslides in south China, according to a count based on local official reports.

The rain-triggered floods affected some 2.63 million people in 11 provincial-level regions as of Tuesday, said the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The heavy rains also forced relocation of about 228,000 people, destroyed over 1,300 houses and brought direct economic losses of over 4 billion yuan (about 566 million U.S. dollars), according to the ministry.

TIMELY RESPONSE

By 5 p.m. on Friday, floods and geological disasters reported in 66 county-level regions in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region had affected nearly 1.6 million people, according to the local department of emergency management.

Aerial photo taken on June 8, 2020 shows the flooded Lijiang River in Yangshuo County of Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Lu Boan)

A total of 3,000 emergency relief tents and 3,000 foldable beds were allocated to Guangxi on Thursday to support local disaster relief work and to ensure the basic livelihood of flood-stricken people, said the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The extreme weather has also dealt a hefty blow to the region's tourism sector, which is still reeling from the COVID-19 epidemic.

In Yangshuo, a popular tourist destination known for its karst mountains and picturesque rivers, the water levels of the rivers rose sharply and trapped residents and tourists in the floods as torrential rain had been pouring since the early morning of June 7.

A rescue team rushed to the scenic spot of Darongshu and spent nearly eight hours piloting rubber boats from door to door to search for flood-trapped residents and tourists. All the 62 stranded people were evacuated in time.

"When people are in need, it is our duty to step forward in time," said Fang Yang, a member of the rescue team.

First response team members prepare for a rescue task after a flood in Yangshuo County of Guilin, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, June 7, 2020. (Xinhua/Lu Boan)

EARLY WARNING

Based on the early warnings of geological disasters triggered in the flood season, pre-disaster measures were taken to protect people's lives.

In the city of Guilin, Guangxi, the local government organized on June 7 two early evacuations involving 661 people threatened by landslides after the early warning system forecast potential geological hazards.

In Hunan Province, since the main flood season started on June 1, the persistent rain has affected 321,000 people in 21 counties and cities.

Before the rain came, officials in Zhongba Village, Shuitianhe Township, conducted a thorough investigation to clear up hidden dangers, launched an emergency response and warned villagers not to fish in nearby rivers.

Staff members check the electric-powered drainage system at a pump station in Jiangxiang Township of Nanchang County, east China's Jiangxi Province, June 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Peng Zhaozhi)

After the heavy rain, no one was trapped or injured in the village owing to the early preparation, according to Long Anxie, deputy head of the township.

POST-DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION

In regions affected by flooding and waterlogging, post-disaster reconstruction including restoring power and repairing water supply facilities has been carried out in an orderly fashion to help the flood-stricken return to normal life.

Agricultural technicians in Baojing County, Hunan, rushed to help save crops in the flood-drowned fields. In a watermelon greenhouse of Ganxi Village, agronomists showed the farmers how to maintain the seedlings.

In the city of Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, one of the hardest-hit areas, the local government helped farmers clean up the silt and damaged crops for subsequent replanting.

Staff members patrol a dyke along the Ganjiang River to make sure it is safe from floods in Jiangxiang Township of Nanchang County, east China's Jiangxi Province, June 11, 2020. (Xinhua/Peng Zhaozhi)

Torrential downpours are expected to enter the central regions of China in the near future, according to the National Meteorological Center.

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.
CAMDEN, N.J.  To Scott Thomson, changing the culture of policing in America is a relatively simple process.

Its just not an easy one.

Thomson led a tumultuous police department makeover in Camden, New Jersey  a poor city of mostly brown and black residents just across the river from Philadelphia  in 2013.

After state officials disbanded the old department and started anew, Thomson transformed policing in Camden from the law-and-order, lock-em-up approach of the 1990s to a holistic, do-no-harm philosophy thats put the long-maligned city in the spotlight during the national reckoning over race and police brutality.

While police elsewhere clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters outraged by the latest death of a black man detained by police, Camden officers marched calmly with residents and activists.

Our actions can accelerate situations. What we should be trying to do is de-escalate them, said Thomson, a past president of the Police Executive Research Forum who retired from the Camden job last year. The last thing we want is for the temperature to rise, and for situations to go from bad to worse because of our failed tactics.

But if the recent protest was peaceful, the county takeover of the Camden Police Department was contentious. More than 300 officers lost their jobs. Only half joined the new force.

Along with the switch to community policing came a reliance on high-tech, city-wide surveillance, more patrols, and younger, cheaper, less diverse officers who often arent from Camden. Their average age today is 26.

That is a very different vision of what a new police force looks like than were hearing from protesters, who want less policing, said Stephen Danley, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University-Camden.

___

Ashly Estevez-Perez, 21, has spent most of her life in Camden, which is now about half Hispanic and 40% black. She remembers when children were rarely allowed to leave their front stoops given the threat of gunfire.

The new police force came in, and you saw cars everywhere.  Everyone was kind of taken aback, she said of what some would call over-policing.

Growing up in the city, I dont see what other alternative works, said Estevez-Perez, a recent Rutgers-Camden graduate.

Activist and entrepreneur Sean Brown, 37, who is black, said the surveillance solves the wrong problem.

If we had economic justice in our community, where anybody who needed a job could get a job, we would be in a different space, said Brown, who is raising two young sons in the city.

Once a busy manufacturing town, Camden in the past few years has added enviable luster to its commercial corridor as generous state tax breaks lured Subaru, American Water and the Philadelphia 76ers (who built a practice facility) to town.

They join earlier development that transformed Camdens downtown and southern waterfront, including a concert venue. The estimated $3 billion in development attracts suburbanites and employs some Camden residents. But locals debate just how many.

I dont know one person who works in any 76er job, any Holtec (International) job, any Subaru job, said teachers union president Keith Eric Benson. Neighborhoods have looked really similar today as they did 10 years ago.

The police changeover followed state budget cuts that had forced Camden to slash municipal services in 2011. Nearly half of its 360 officers were laid off. Crime surged.

Then-Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., joined local Democratic power brokers in engineering a plan to eliminate the department, shed its costly union contract and create the Camden County Police Department.

Thomson remained at the helm.

Over time, his philosophy evolved from a broken window approach that famously saw the department cite people for failing to have bicycle horns to a friendlier approach that sends officers into the community to host barbecues, hand out ice cream and shoot hoops.

I think were received a lot better than we used to be, said Sgt. Dekel Levy, 41, as he helped distribute diapers to a steady stream of young mothers Thursday afternoon at Guadalupe Family Services in North Camden.

The neighborhood, long one of the citys poorest and most dangerous, shows signs of progress. The state prison that dominated the nearby waterfront has been replaced with a park. Aging schools have been spruced up.

Crime rates have fallen  whether due to the police engagement, the increased investment, the booming Philadelphia economy or the national decline in violent crime.

According to police department data, Camdens annual homicide tally has fallen from 67 in 2012 to 25 last year; robberies from 755 to 304; and assault with a gun from 381 to 250. The city, with about 73,000 residents, spends $68 million per year on policing, far more than some comparable cities.

There is no doubt that Camden is safer than it was in the austerity era. Theres a lot of doubt about whether thats directly due to the new police force, Danley said.

___

As Estevez-Perez marched in Camdens Black Lives Matter protest May 30, Police Chief Joe Wysocki helped carry the banner at the front of the pack.

I just felt I had to do it. George Floyds death was very difficult to watch, and it was horrifying what he went through, Wysocki, who is white, told The Associated Press on Thursday. I think every cop that watched that  every good cop  had a knot in their stomach.

Across the bridge, Philadelphia police in riot gear that day clashed with protesters as police cruisers were set on fire and storefronts vandalized.

Its a huge sigh of relief that the city of Camden was not devastated over the past couple of weeks, said Sister Helen Cole, a Roman Catholic nun who runs Guadalupe Family Services.

Cole, the daughter of a Philadelphia police officer, has seen tensions erupt and the city set ablaze during nearly 30 years in Camden.

Today, she cheers officers who work with troubled teens and department figures that show a sharp drop in excessive force complaints  in the wake of a strict use of force policy  from 65 in 2014 to three last year.

Its not like officers are the enemy anymore, Cole said.

Still, Brown, the activist and entrepreneur, laments that too few Camden residents make it onto the new force, which is 54% minority. Wysocki concurred, saying state civil service rules thwart his efforts. He hopes a recent salary boost, to $51,000 annually after training, will help with retention.

The same political will that went to dismantling and rebuilding the police department has to go into these other issues  job development and housing, as well, Brown said. The momentum has to continue for us to get where we need to go.
Manipur Class 10th Result 2020: The Board of Secondary Education, Manipur (BSEM) on Monday announced the results of the High school leaving certificate or class 10 examination 2020 on its official website. A total of 65.34% of students have passed the Manipur HSLC examination. The pass percentage for male candidates (regular) is 70.88% and 66.75% for female candidates (regular).

This time a total of 25,084 students out of 38,390 students, who appeared in the examination which was conducted across 140 examination centres in the state from February 17 to March 5,2020, passed the examination.

Reshmi Nandeibam of Pitambara English School, Kwakeithel, Imphal secured the first position in the Manipur HSLC examination with 579 out of 600 marks.

Huidrom Rohid Singh of St Johns school, Nambol, bagged the second position with 578 marks while Khumanthem Bobosana Singh of Eureka Academy, Thounaojam, and Rahul Naorem of Catholic school Cachipur jointly bagged the third spot with 572 marks.

Students who have appeared in the HSLC examination can check the results at the Boards official website (i) www.bosem.in and (ii) www.manresults.nic.in after 2 pm, officials added.

Manipur education minister Dr Th Radheshyam led department officials including the chairman Th Kirankumar and Secretary Dr Chithung Mary Thomas of BSEM declared the results of the examination by releasing the abstract copy of the examination results at the BSEM conference in Imphal around 11, officials said.

Regarding the decline in the pass percentage, Manipur education Minister Dr Radeshyam said that strict measures taken up by the state authority during the examination could be the reason. He also said that around 102 students were expelled (while 5 others were withheld) from the examination this year for using unfair means. Unlike the previous year, form submission and issuance of admit cards were introduced for the first time this year, the minister said.

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AVON, Ohio -- Praise for a peaceful protest came to Avon High School students after they organized a calm, successful rally June 6 in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy in Minnesota.

Avon Police Chief Richard Bosley commented later, My overall reaction to the protest was with the large turnout and how the event organizers did an amazing job at keeping the protest on point to their message, keeping the protesters focused and positive on the opportunity for change and equality.

Many of the hundreds attending the protest carried signs proclaiming the need for peace, as well as justice for Floyd, who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer May 25.

Recent graduate Jenna Mintzlaff, with five other students, coordinated the protest on justice issues. The group named the protest The Changes We Seek. The whole event was planned only one week in advance.

We used Instagram and Snapchat, Mintzlaff said. Word just spread throughout the community.

The large group gathered in the Avon Aquatic Centers parking lot to listen to some speakers, including Mintzlaff and her cohorts.

The group then exited and walked the several blocks to the intersection of Detroit Road and Ohio 83, where other protesters were already demonstrating. Police officers controlled the crowd, keeping them off the street and escorting them when they wanted to cross over to another corner of the intersection.

(The organizers) had a message they wanted to get out, said Bosley. They were willing to come in and meet with us to share their message and work together with them to help them provide a safe environment to hold their protest and express their grievances.

Lt. Sean Bockelman, currently interim chief of police in Avon Lake said: I am extremely pleased I was invited by an Avon student, and I think we are doing our part. We are happy to come and support a peaceful movement.

Bosley noted how important communication was in the run-up to the event.

These young women who organized this protest deserve the credit for the success of the event," he said. "Their willingness to keep open lines of communication between us and them throughout this process, I believe, went a long way in keeping the protest peaceful and getting their message out further.

Open and honest lines of communication cannot be overstated, especially when dealing with things which stir up so much emotion in all of us, Bosley said.

Read more from the Sun Sentinel.
Scientists in Japan and the Netherlands have independently developed anaerobic soil disinfestation, also known as biological soil disinfestation or reductive soil disinfestation to kill off pathogenic bacteria, parasitic nematodes and even weeds in soils without using pesticides. By covering the soil with plastic to cut off access to oxygen, unwanted organisms suffocate and do not need to be chemically fumigated.

A research team led by Kazuki Fujita formerly of Shinshu University and Takashi Kunito currently of Shinshu University focused on the phosphorus dynamics and microbial phosphorus acquisition during anaerobic soil disinfestation in Andosols. Andosol comes from the Japanese word, "an" which means dark, and "do" which means soil. Japan is lucky in that about half of its landmass is covered in this rich, black, productive soil. However, this soil absorbs phosphorus considerably making them unavailable to plants to use as nutrients. The team at Shinshu University were able to demonstrate that phosphorus can become more available in arable Andosols by giving them the anaerobic soil disinfestation treatment.

The group evaluated the availability of phosphorus using biological indicators. They first applied the resource allocation model for enzyme synthesis. This was because there were conflicting indicators from the initial chemical extractant tests. One interesting finding from the study was that a less diverse bacterial group might produce more alkaline phosphomonoesterase in soils by alkaline phosphomonoesterase gene harbored by microbial communities, or phoD.

When a field is filled with water, as are rice paddies in many parts of Asia, it had been known that the phosphorus leaks out and turns into a form easily available to plants. However, when the soil is then dried, it becomes unavailable again. The researchers looked into the mechanism of this process.

The increase in availability of accessible phosphorus may be effected by drying treatments after anaerobic soil disinfection. The researchers hope to continue their studies to learn of other factors that influence phosphorus dynamics. This experiment was conducted in an indoor lab, so the researchers hope to continue their experiment in real world environments, and also look into why the phosphorus did not increase in one of the samples.

###

Please read Anaerobic soil disinfestation using diluted ethanol increases phosphorus availability in arable Andosols for more information.

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Tsuyoshi Sato (Nagano Prefecture Vegetable and Ornamental Crops Experiment Station, Japan) for providing soil samples.
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Cadila Healthcare rose 2.09% to Rs 381.80 after the company signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences Inc., for the manufacturing and distribution of Remdesivir.

The announcement was made after market hours on Friday, 12 June 2020.

As part of the non-exclusive agreement, Zydus will receive the manufacturing know-how from Gilead Sciences Inc., to manufacture the API for Remdesivir and the finished product and market it in 127 countries, including India. Under the agreement, the license is royalty free until another pharmaceutical product or vaccine is approved for the treatment or prevention of COVID 19 by the USFDA or EMA or the WHO announcing the end of the public health emergency. Zydus will leverage its ability to scale up production to reach patients across India and across the 127 countries in Gilead's Global Patient Solution region.

Remdesivir is the investigational drug which has been issued an Emergency Use Authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat patients suffering from severe symptoms of Novel Coronavirus. Zydus has been supporting the fight against COVID 19 with therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics.

Remdesivir is an investigational nucleotide analog with broad-spectrum antiviral activity both in vitro and in vivo in animal models against multiple emerging viral pathogens, including Ebola, Marburg, MERS and SARS. In vitro testing conducted by Gilead has demonstrated that Remdesivir is active against the virus that causes COVID-19. The safety and efficacy of remdesivir to treat COVID-19 are being evaluated in multiple ongoing Phase 3 clinical trials.

Zydus Cadila is an innovative, global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of healthcare therapies.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Mr Modis letters are described as conversations with Mother Goddess and his feelings of fear and anxiety

Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi constantly runs down Jawaharlal Nehru, he is obviously keen on emulating him.

This is the interpretation given by Congress insiders to the news that a collection of letters written to Mother Goddess by Mr Modi as a young man are to be published this month.

Translated from the Gujarati Saakshi Bhaav by Bhawana Somaaya, the concept of Letters to Mother appears to be borrowed from the collection of letters written by Nehru to his daughter Indira in 1928 when he was in jail. Titled Letters from a Father to his Daughter, this collection was translated into Hindi by well-known writer Munshi Premchand.

While Nehrus letters provide an insight into the evolution of mankind and natural history, Mr Modis letters are described as conversations with Mother Goddess and his feelings of fear and anxiety.

The ordinary feelings of an ordinary man. According to the publishers HarperCollins, young Modi had got into the habit of penning a letter to Mother Goddess every night but he would invariably destroy his letters subsequently.

However one diary survived and has now been published. And to avoid any comparisons with Nehrus work, Mr Modi confesses that he is no writer and that the letters are reflections of my observations and sometimes unprocessed thoughts, expressed without filters.

Luck really seems to be favouring Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. A recent survey, conducted by a private research organisation on the performance of Bharatiya Janata Party chief ministers, placed Mr Rawat at the bottom of the list.

But Mr Rawat is sitting pretty as all his rivals are conveniently out of the way.

Bhagat Singh Koshiyari is well ensconced at the Raj Bhavan in Maharashtra, Ramesh Pokhriyal is busy handling the human resource development ministry in Delhi while party media chief Anil Baluni is recovering from an illness.

The party leadership in Delhi has no time to focus on the state as it is busy managing the Covid-19 pandemic and with the coming Bihar Assembly polls.

Even his political opponent, former chief minister Harish Rawat, is giving him an easy ride.

On the other hand, former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scinida has had a run of bad luck in recent months.

He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on the promise of a Rajya Sabha seat from his home state Madhya Pradesh and a ministerial berth in the Modi Cabinet.

But the election to the Upper House had to be deferred because of the Covid-19 pandemic, thus delaying his induction into the Union Cabinet.

And now that the election has been fixed for June 19, Mr Scindia tested positive for coronavirus and is currently undergoing treatment in a Delhi hospital. Furthermore, reports from Bhopal say there is trouble brewing in the BJPs state unit as party legislators are upset that Scindia has not bothered to meet them to seek their support for the June 19 election, considering they are the voters in a Rajya Sabha poll.

In fact, the BJP MLAs have been unhappy ever since Mr Scindia and his loyalists joined their party as the newcomers have been promised ministerial berths which will obviously scuttle their chances of being upgraded.

Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jhas recent column criticising the party for lack of internal democracy and its inability to develop a sound political strategy for revival, has put the proverbial cat among the pigeons.

A number of younger leaders, who have been sidelined by the Congress old guard, apparently called Mr Jha to say that though they privately agree with him, they had no choice but to criticise him publicly.

On the other hand, there is a section in the Congress which was quick to point out that Mr Jhas public outburst showed that it does not pay to promote what they describe as lateral entrants who have no grassroots base.

This has led to a growing internal demand that such paratroopers should not be fielded to speak for the Congress on television channels, and should definitely not be given any important position in the party organisation.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has a lot on his plate these days. He has to manage the influx of migrants who have returned to their villages from the cities where they had gone to earn a livelihood.

Then he has to deal with the spurt in the coronavirus cases and also begin preparations for the coming assembly polls. Despite all these preoccupations, Nitish Kumars litchi diplomacy continued unhindered.

There was no stopping the annual ritual of sending baskets of the states famous Jardalu mango and Muzaffarpur shahi litchi to his political friends and Bihari journalists based in Delhi.

Though all top BJP leaders are on Nitish Kumars list, no one is close to the late Arun Jaitley when it comes to appreciating the delicious fruit from Bihar.

Jaitley often spent hours talking about the juicy and flavourful litchi from Muzaffarpur.
The United States is finally doing a better job of identifying Americans who are infected with the novel coronavirus.

But its capacity to contact and warn the web of people they potentially exposed to the virus is sorely lacking.

Contact tracing - in which those who had contact with infected people are notified and asked to self-isolate - is a key tool in keeping the highly infectious virus at bay as states reopen and Americans start visiting restaurants, shopping at retailers and going to their offices again.

Yet states and localities largely haven't assembled the teams necessary to carry this out on a scale that public health experts say is necessary. Many are short on funds to scale up their contact tracing capacities, and those that have invested heavily are still finding it hard to reach the people they need to warn.

"Right now, we haven't been able to trace [spread of the virus] back to the source because we don't have all that track and trace work in place," Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said yesterday on CBS's "Face the Nation. "And so that's a challenge for public health officials."

Infections are increasing in at least 21 states across the South and West, as states allow businesses and individuals to gradually resume some semblance of normal life after shutdowns. While some governors have delayed reopening measures in response, it's unclear whether there is wide political will to do so - and President Donald Trump has said there won't be a return to shutdowns even in the case of a second wave.

"Alabama, Oregon and South Carolina are among the states with the biggest increases," The Washington Post reported over the weekend. "Alabama saw a 92% increase in its seven-day average, while Oregon's seven-day average was up 83.8% and South Carolina's was up 60.3%."

And in New York, which is reopening after the highest death toll from the virus in the country, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) threatened Sunday to shut down Manhattan and the Hamptons if local governments don't observe social distancing guidelines. "We're not going to go back to that dark place because local governments didn't do their job," he said, according to the New York Post.

Contact tracing failed to stem the first wave of coronavirus infections, which spiked in the United States back in March. Congress has since provided $631 million to state and local health departments for surveillance, including contact tracing, in coronavirus relief legislation.

But that's far short of the $3.6 billion needed for the effort, according to an estimate by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. With infections now spread across the country, contact tracing is an even more extensive undertaking requiring 100,000 or more trained tracers to get in touch with strangers and persuade even some without symptoms to stay at home, The Washington Post's Frances Stead Sellers and Ben Guarino report.

"Health departments in many of the worst-affected communities are way behind in hiring and training those people," they add. "The effort may also be hobbled by the long-standing distrust among minorities of public health officials, as well as worries about promising new technologies that pit privacy against the public good."

In Arizona, where cases are rising, the governor reopened businesses before local health departments had hired and trained its new contact tracers.

"We flattened the curve. Then, by the time we ended, the contact tracers weren't up and running yet," Will Humble, former director of the state's health department, told The Post.

Humble said health departments in the state's hard-hit urban counties have been repurposing staff and making new hires using federal dollars and support from an Arizona-based nonprofit group, the Crisis Response Network. But he said leaders could have tied each region's reopening to its hiring of adequate contact tracers.

"We didn't do that here," he said. "Now we have to ramp up a contact-tracing workforce that isn't going to get to everything, probably."

Texas and South Carolina are also working to ramp up contact tracing but haven't met their goals yet.

Both states are also seeing surges in cases. Texas has hired about 3,000 of the 4,000 contact tracers Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said he planned to have in place, The Post reported.

Michael Sweat, director of the Center for Global Health at the Medical University of South Carolina, said the state's health department is putting a lot of effort into training and deploying contact tracers but said that "they are still getting their footing."

Contact tracers in Louisiana's dramatically ramped-up program successfully reached fewer than half of the people with exposure to the virus they called between May 15 and June 2, the state's health department reported last week.

Many people the tracers called simply didn't answer their phones, raising questions about how effective contact tracing can be when it hinges on mass cooperation from the public.

Massachusetts has deployed a 1,000-person contact tracing task force. But the state is still seeing such rapid growth in cases - more than 1,000 new cases daily - that reaching everyone necessary to make a real difference could be a challenge even for that large team.

There's wide variety in efforts across the country to scale up contact tracing. A few examples from The Post:

The University of California at San Francisco has been tapped by the state to create a Pandemic Workforce Training Academy that will train as many as 3,000 people for the state's 58 county health departments, many of them focusing on low-income communities where requests to quarantine can be financially devastating.

In Fairfax County, Va., the county health department has subcontracted to a private company, GattiHR, to create a 400-strong, largely remote contact-tracing team, looking for people with "empathy, attention to detail, resilience [and] investigative skills," and finding successful applicants among those furloughed from the hospitality industry.

In Rhode Island, Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) unveiled a voluntary app health officials hope will prove more reliable than people's memories in re-creating their recent contacts - one of numerous cellphone tracking innovations, including the Apple-Google exposure notification system, that have prompted privacy concerns from civil libertarians.

In Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been working urgently with Doctors Without Borders to win the confidence of migrant workers, where 37% of those tested at pop-up clinics were positive. Their goal is to slow the virus's spread before farmworkers leave for summer jobs in Georgia, South Carolina and beyond.
An unusual brass wine coaster just landed in the gift shop at the Glass House, the Philip Johnson residence in New Canaan, Conn., thats now a museum. It has a bulge in the middle to fit the punt, or depression, at the bottom of most wine bottles, making it look, ever so slightly, like the sculpture of a fried egg. Eventual scratches are said to be part of its charm. It was created by Claesson Koivisto Rune, a Swedish design group, for Skultuna 1607.

Basso Bottle Trivet, $135, designstore.theglasshouse.org.

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Mumbai: The first thing noticeable about Izhaar Hussain Shaikh is the fatigue marking his youthful face. The second thing is that his phone constantly buzzes.

The 30-year-old ambulance driver works for HelpNow, an initiative started by three engineering students in 2019 to help the stretched services of first responders in the Indian coastal city of Mumbai. It charges patients, but services are free for the city's administrators, police force, medicos and the poor.

Izhaar Hussain Shaikh, left, picks up a COVID-19 patient from his home in Mumbai, India. Credit:AP

In a city with a history of ambulance shortages and where the coronavirus pandemic has claimed nearly 1300 lives, putting the healthcare system under immense strain, every bit of help counts. And people like Shaikh  working tirelessly, dodging health risks  are helping to ease that burden.

"My family, neighbours, everyone is scared. I am frightened too," said Shaikh. "But I keep telling them and myself that it's our way of helping people during this time."
Otherwise healthy young patients are falling seriously ill with largely unknown PMIS, which seems to follow COVID-19.

David Vargas loves to draw fellow New Yorkers.

He lives in the Bronx, and uses public transport to visit parks in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He draws people on the subway, and gets lost in the details, like their shoes.

New Yorkers who ride the subway wear so many different shoes, they hold their feet in so many different positions, and sketching shoes is far less awkward than staring a stranger in the face as the train rolls from station to station.

Does he ever miss a stop in order to finish a portrait? Vargas reflects, but then quickly starts laughing, yes, all the time, he says.

When Vargas got the coronavirus, the illness was swift and mild. He is 17, and thought nothing of it. A few days later, he felt terrible.

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Ive never felt anything like it, he says.

In the evenings, pain started in his chest, but he could not say whether it was coming from his skin, his bones, or his heart. I didnt know what was happening to me. After keeping quiet about it for two days, he told his parents, who took him to the emergency room.

Vargas was one of the first young New Yorkers to experience a rare new illness that appears in children weeks after COVID-19 cases peak in the vicinity, which doctors are calling paediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or PMIS (but other variations of the name include MIS-C, or simply MIS).

The condition  which affects children, from toddlers to teenagers  is defined by a serious inflammatory syndrome affecting multiple organs, and a proven connection between the patient and the virus that causes COVID-19: SARS-CoV-2.

But PMIS is not COVID-19  it is something that seems to follow it.

A clue in the dark

In New York, where almost 400,000 people have been infected by the coronavirus, just more than 200 PMIS cases have been observed since late April. Scientists are beginning to understand its features and search for its causes.

At first, Vargas did not know what he had, but after spending one night at a local hospital, he was moved to Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital in Manhattan.

Dr George Ofori-Amanfo, a cardiologist and intensive care physician, leads the paediatric ICU at Mount Sinai. When PMIS children began arriving, he and his team set two goals: treat them, and understand what they were suffering from. In the beginning, all they knew was that the cases were serious.

Its an exaggerated, uncontrolled immune response to COVID exposure. By that definition, it could affect any organ of the body, including the heart, Dr Ofori-Amanfo says.

Dr George Ofori-Amanfo and David Vargas [Photo courtesy Mount Sinai Kravis Childrens Hospital]

Vargas would stay at Mount Sinai for a week, spending much of that in the ICU.

To find out I had a cardiac issue was  very scary, he says. Each day he met a new nurse or doctor. Every six hours, they would take a blood test  to measure the level of a specific protein in my blood, Vargas recalls.

Of particular interest were interleukins, proteins that modulate immune responses within and between cells. Certain interleukins were elevated in these children: it was a clue in the dark.

Dr Ofori-Amanfo watched his patients charts in real time. While tracking Vargass recovery, the scientists around him were building a pool of data to [use for] the statistical analysis, and to see the trends, Dr Ofori-Amanfo explains.

Meanwhile, Vargas rested, talked with the doctors and his family, and drew pictures. For the first few days  I had a general understanding of what was happening to me, but I got the sense that not even the doctors knew what was happening.

Dr Ofori-Amanfo hoped to answer a more vexing question about the children in his ICU, some of whom were very sick. Why does Patient A get this syndrome, and Patient B does not? How can we understand that phenomenon?

[Sketch by David Vargas]

Solving the mystery

In a lab 20 minutes drive downtown, scientists are following two paths to pursue this mystery.

Some patients who have recovered from PMIS are enrolled in a study that aims to identify rare gene mutations that may amplify the syndrome. They look for unique genes shared by the most sick, hoping to illuminate the biological pathways that PMIS  and even COVID-19  exploits.

The New York Genome Center is the first stop for samples from Dr Ofori-Amanfos patients and others who have volunteered to be anonymously analysed. The centre rapidly translates the protein-coding parts of a patients DNA and writes the data onto an encrypted hard drive, about 150 gigabytes per patient, which is delivered to the St Giles Laboratory at Rockefeller University, near the Hudson River. Scientists immediately dive into the load: millions of letters of more than 20,000 human genes.

Everyone is working around the clock. I cant stress enough, we couldnt be doing things faster, said Dominick Papandrea, who manages the volunteers and the incoming samples.

The data is analysed on two tracks. In the first  called the dry lab  software compares whole genomes between patients, and spotlights rare gene mutations that appear across multiple people. These candidate genes are flagged, indicating targets for further research.

The dry lab is unbiased, ploughing into the raw data without any expectations for what it is looking for. It is also a relatively recent tool in the history of medicine; made possible by the dual breakthroughs of faster computer processing and the capability to work through an entire genome at once.

In 2020, the time between blood withdrawal and data processing is only a few weeks, a speed only imagined 20 years ago. Once the lab receives the data, preliminary findings could come within days.

Dr Qian Zhang works in the wet lab [Photo courtesy Dr Zhang]

The wet lab is where the scientific process unfurls. Here, researcher Dr Qian Zhang begins with a hypothesis about the biochemical pathways most likely implicated in PMIS (and extreme COVID-19). Using the patients cells as her toolbox, she prods for weaknesses that begin at a single misspelled gene, testing up the ladder through poorly functioning proteins and missing cells. She can analyse the blood, the immune cells or other pathways. She can induce stem cells to become tissues that were not donated, like neurons or lung cells, and submit them to further scrutiny.

For PMIS, she is beginning with the blood, suspecting that some answers will be hiding there. PMIS shows its most dangerous effects near the heart muscle and in organs critical to the circulatory system. If her colleagues across the partition identify a signal from an unexpected gene, they flag it to her, and she investigates the pathway.

Its very difficult to predict how long it takes [to reach results], Dr Zhang says. For the severe infection [of COVID-19] we have already seen very promising [gene] candidates, [and] we started in January. For PMIS, its just started to come in and my prediction is it will take a couple of months before we can really start to see the mutations that we are confident in.

A faulty gene?

Dr Jean-Laurent Casanova coordinates this global search. He runs this laboratory in New York, a similar lab at the Institute Imagine in Paris, and since February has built a network that includes dozens of centres on six continents called the COVID Human Genetic Effort.

There are two lines of research that have converged in recent weeks, he told Al Jazeera last month. Dr Casanova has tried to find genetic causes behind Kawasaki Disease, the syndrome PMIS is closest to, but after searching for more than 10 years, answers remain elusive.

With coronavirus, he has one viral culprit to tie everything back to.

The human body maintains an arsenal of defences against constant bombardment by foreign infectious agents, like viruses and bacteria. But if a faulty gene for building one component (a protein) is inherited from one or both parents (with misspellings or misplacement of genetic letters), those patients will become sicker than normal patients.

[Sketch by David Vargas]

Dr Casanovas work aims to pinpoint these unique cases, to connect one gene, one infection where possible, and discover interventions to supplement missing pieces. Over 25 years of work, Dr Casanova and his team have identified genes that cause a minority of people infected by tuberculosis to become seriously ill, discoveries that led to novel interventions. Now, everyone is focused on COVID-19.

You dont need many patients to do genetics. Its a misconception. You need many patients to do biometrics, [to find] a signal in the midst of a background. But thats not genetics. For genetics, one patient is enough, Dr Casanova explains.

Computation is so powerful in 2020 that a thorough look at one persons genome could alert scientists to a unique faulty biochemical pathway and suggest a repair. This clue could reveal a target against the disease process itself. More than 300 so-called primary immunodeficiencies have been identified, genetic errors leading to rare and serious illnesses from pathogens like herpes, influenza, hepatitis and others.

Learning and intervening

Two months after the first PMIS cases were observed, medical teams on both sides of the Atlantic are better prepared to receive it, children are recovering, and scientists are publishing their first broad descriptions of larger groups of patients.

Dr Mike Levin, whom Al Jazeera interviewed in May, has learned that children with PMIS can be broadly separated into three groups, with some at the highest risk for heart injury.

In a paper published in June, his team wrote that the illness might be provoked by the bodys own immune response, suggesting (but not yet proving) that the antibodies tuned to target the SARS-CoV-2 viruss infamous spike protein may cause the immune system to backfire, enhancing the capacity of the virus to enter and harm cells (a surprising outcome that has been seen before in dengue fever).

[Sketch by David Vargas]

Dr Ofori-Amanfo has learned how to assess risk among incoming patients, how to target specific treatments and how to follow-up to ensure their hearts remain healthy. He is from Ghana, and collaborates regularly with physicians there. Though his colleagues have not yet seen PMIS in their hospitals, Dr Ofori-Amanfo is becoming more confident that some universally available interventions could be deployed quickly should they be needed, even in developing world contexts.

David Vargas is back at home, preparing for senior year and thinking about university. College applications are expected in the autumn, and he wants to study engineering, architecture or interior design. For now, with summer sport and activities mostly cancelled because of the coronavirus, he will focus on art.

On being one of the first to have had PMIS and recovered, he says: I dont think about it that much, but I have thought about it. Im one of the first cases of this mysterious syndrome.

To see that coronavirus did a 180 [degree turn] and is starting to get little kids and teenagers sick, he adds, this virus is completely unpredictable.
The coroner's office has completed an autopsy but is awaiting toxicology results, Lucas said. Investigators are also looking at Fuller's medical history. Homicide detectives also plan to analyze the rope and its knot, canvass the area for video footage, interview Fuller's social services case worker and speak to anyone who had recently interacted with him.
Kyrgyzstan added on Monday 87 new COVID-19 cases, raising the total number of infections to 2372, Trend reports citing Kabar.

Nurbolot Usenbaev, the countrys deputy health minister told a news briefing that over the past day 2278 laboratory tests were carried out.

Of the new confirmed cases, 64 cases were identified among the contact persons, 23 are unknown sources, he said.

Usenbaev said that among the newly infected 22 are medical workers, bringing the total number of contracted medical workers to 460, including 354 recoveries.

The official reported one new virus related death.

22 were recovered and discharged from hospitals in the past day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 1813.

Currently, 531 people remained hospitalized, and 4 patients are in intensive care.

In addition, 2041 people who have had contact with infected patients are under medical observation and another 10013 people are in home quarantine under the supervision of doctors.

The epidemiological situation in the country remains tense. There is a possibility of an aggravation of the situation. I would like to note that a lot of work is being done to combat the spread of coronavirus and I would like to encourage citizens to be serious and comply with all recommended sanitary and epidemiological requirements. Therefore, there is a risk of the spread of infection, said Usenbaev.
Youth digital conference in the Philippines energises biodiversity conservation

June 15,2020 | Source: PIA

Imagine this: members of a coastal community in a festive mood with their drums and buckets as they await the fishing net to be hauled back to the shore. The fisherfolks pulled the heavy net, only to find hundreds of jellyfish inside. The only fish caught was not enough to fill a bucket.



ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) Executive Director Theresa Mundita Lim shared this story at the 1st Digital Environment Conference 2020: Youth and Biological Diversity to illustrate the need for conservation and sustainable use of marine resources.



The webinar, which was held on 9 June 2020 and organised by the Youth Advocates of the Philippines, aimed to inspire the youth to participate in conservation initiatives and biodiversity mainstreaming efforts of youth organisations at the national and international levels. The fourth day of the virtual discussion focused on marine conservation efforts in celebration of the Coral Triangle Day on the same day and the World Oceans Day on 8 June.



The ASEAN region has a rich marine biological diversity, including abundant reef-building stony corals and we have 40 per cent of the worlds reef fishes, said Lim.



Overfishing and poaching of marine predators, however, can lead to ecological imbalance. From her previous community visit, Lim found out that sea turtles, the jellyfishs natural predators, have disappeared, resulting in the overpopulation of jellyfish and affecting the food security of the community.



Lim emphasised that local, national and regional cooperation is important in marine biodiversity conservation since species such as the sea turtles move around the regions waters regardless of national boundaries.



Global efforts on coastal and marine conservation are ongoing. To date, 5.3-7.45 per cent of the 10 per cent target marine protected areas (MPAs) have been established and are being managed through legal or other effective means. Recently, the UN Convention on Biological Diversitys zero draft of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework proposed to increase the MPA targets to at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030, dubbed as the 30by30 ambition.



We need to establish more MPAs, and manage better those that we already have, said Diovanie De Jesus, a Campaign and Science specialist from Oceana Philippines. Mangroves and wetlands conservation also fall under possible MPAs expansion, but these are threatened by reclamation and other sea-use conversion projects.



MPAs must be managed as a network, and it must include socio-economic considerations for the communities, said Ronald Olavides, Chief Marine Scientist from Bluenomads.Org Survey Philippines. He noted that one of the challenges in MPA establishment is providing sustainable alternative livelihoods to community members who are dependent on marine resources. Do not agonise, organise, is the way to win the participation and involvement of the community in biodiversity conservation, he said.



Marine conservation work should be done across sectors; it cannot be the responsibility of the environment sector alone, said Lim. We want to engage the youth so that when you become leaders, environment and biodiversity will be imbibed and integrated into the sectors that you will work in.



Empowering and capacity-building of the youth is among the ACBs programmes. The ASEAN Youth Biodiversity Programme (AYBP) engages and trains Youth Biodiversity Leaders (YBLs) who are actively involved in conservation and lobbying efforts in their respective countries. The ABYP is supported by the European Union through the Biodiversity Conservation and Management of Protected Areas (BCAMP) project.



In closing, Lim reiterated the important role of the youth in biodiversity conservation: Transformational change is easier with the youth. You are the hope of nature. You are the hope of One ASEAN.

 2020 Philippine Information Agency

Theme(s): Others.
Police brutality sparked mass protest in the US, but it's time for Scotland to take a look at racism closer to home

Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old high school student, had been taking her nine-year-old cousin to a food store near their home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when she encountered George Floyd being restrained by police. She turned on her phone and began to film what happened, as Floyd was dragged to the ground.

Three officers handcuffed him and pressed him face down into the road. One of them, 44-year-old Derek Chauvin, began to push his knee down on Floyds neck.

Please, please, please, Floyd said. I cant breathe.

The video lasts ten minutes. It clearly shows Floyd was unarmed, with Chauvin pressing his knee down on the 46-year-olds neck for nine minutes. At the end, the police officers walk away. Floyds body was put onto a stretcher. He died hours later in hospital.

A lot of the time when we get BAME representation  its despite the political party, rather than because of the political party

The footage was unambiguous. The scenes, proof of naked police brutality towards a black man. They spread across the world in hours. The protests followed shortly after.

Demonstrations spread quickly across the US, where, despite Donald Trumps relentless calls for more aggressive treatment of his own countrys citizens, protest spread to every state, in both cities and towns.

Yet police violence didnt let up, with video after video emerging of peaceful demonstrators being beaten, tear-gassed and restrained by police and the national guard. Journalists were arrested.

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar made the decision to stay away from the Black Lives Matter protests in Scotland due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19. He joined with Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf, human rights lawyer Aamer Aanwar and Kadi Johnson  the sister of Sheku Bayoh who died in custody in Fife in 2015  to call on people to join an online demonstration organised by the STUC instead. But missing the demonstrations was clearly a difficult decision.

A policeman, the law, is kneeling on a black persons neck, for the sole reason that he is black. How can we justify that?

Sarwar told Holyrood: I change between anger, loneliness and distress. Anger when you see these scenes of injustice, of course you are going to get angry. The tragic thing is when I look at those young people, they arent the first generation fighting against racism, and the sad reality is they wont be the last generation fighting against racism. Thats a really hard thing to feel and say, but it is sadly true.

The distress comes because you want to be out there. You want to be out there raising your voice, and protesting, and showing solidarity, but we have to recognise we are in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately affects Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities. It just didnt feel right to go out to protest, though my heart and my mind wanted to be there.

The reason I say loneliness is because for people who have been speaking out and challenging racism, in all forms, whether in politics or public life or in individual institutions, theres a frustration.

In London, huge crowds gathered in Parliament Square and outside Downing Street. Prime Minister Boris Johnson released a video address, saying he recognised the incontrovertible, undeniable feeling of injustice which sparked the protests, while condemning those who ignored social distancing during a time of national trial.

Inevitably, questions over racism and discrimination towards BAME people in the UK followed. It is just two years since Amber Rudd was forced to resign as Home Secretary following the Windrush scandal, which saw the UK Government wrongly detain and deport people who had lived in the UK, legally, for decades. All people of colour, their own government had worked to have them removed from their own country.

In Scotland, thousands gathered in Edinburgh and Glasgow to lend their voices to the calls for justice, despite warnings to adhere to social distancing measures and stay at home. In Holyrood Park, a stones throw from the parliament, thousands gathered, spread out over the grass and up the side of Arthurs Seat, holding placards with Black Lives Matter and I cant breathe to listen to speakers address a problem Scotland would prefer to ignore.

Addressing the crowd, Sir Geoff Palmer, Professor Emeritus at Heriot-Watt University, spoke of the protests as an opportunity to atone for the horrors experienced by those forced into slavery.

Today is their hope come true, he said. Come true that in fact the world will recognise that, for no reason, other than having a black skin, they were enslaved for hundreds of years, beaten and killed. What is very sad is that after 300 years they are still being killed in the United States.

A policeman, the law, is kneeling on a black persons neck, for the sole reason that he is black. How can we justify that?

A couple days later, in the Scottish Parliament, Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf closed the Scottish Parliament debate on showing solidarity with anti-racism by quoting the last words of George Floyd.

I cant breathe, he said.

And clearly racism exists in Scotland too, even if the country can be reticent in acknowledging that reality. The facts speak for themselves.

As Sarwar pointed out in his address to parliament, every chief executive of every council and every government department is white. Every director of a department. Every principal of every college or university. Every headteacher is white. Every chair of a public sector body is white. Every High Court judge is white. Every prisoner governor is white. Every editor of a news organisation.

Since the opening of the Scottish Parliament there have been 306 MSPs elected. Four have been from BAME backgrounds and none have been women of colour. There have been as many members of the Ewing family elected as people from BAME backgrounds.

Put simply, public life, in Scotland, remains overwhelmingly white.

Talat Yaqoob, chair and co-founder of feminist campaign group Women 50:50, told Holyrood: Work needs to be done by the parliament and councils on accessibility and methods of opening up the doors of participation to everyone. Political parties need to make this a focus, not just when they are looking for candidates, but because they see equality as a cornerstone of their work. That means investing in outreach to engage more diverse members, creating better reporting mechanisms for members to report racism, sexism, ableism and any bigotry, and crucially, actually taking action on these reports to change their cultures from within.

In our work, we regularly hear from women who experience disproportionate abuse on social media but also directly in person, for women of colour this is even worse. These experiences have to be taken seriously, and real action needs to be taken against perpetrators and to support women in public life. Whilst this disproportionate abuse exists across society, we will continue to see the under-representation of women of colour. We need wholesale change, across multiple areas of society.

We cant kid ourselves on that there isnt everyday racism happening right here in Scotland as well.

But it is not simply a numbers game, it is about changing how decisions are made and how politics works, we want to see the doors of politics open to all women, but we also must see progressive policy making which is anti-racist, anti-sexist and takes seriously the realities of institutionalised inequality. If we have policy-making of this kind, then politics will feel relevant for so many more people and we will see better representation as a result.

Sarwar too highlighted the failure by political parties and parliaments and councils to help people from BAME backgrounds enter politics.

He told Holyrood: All of our parties have a responsibility. I am really proud that the Labour Party used mechanisms in our selection process to ensure we had 50-50 representation from the outset of the parliament. Thats fantastic. I am also proud that Labour and the SNP are the only parties that have had BAME representation. But if Im going to be bluntly honest, a lot of the time when we get BAME representation  its despite the political party, rather than because of the political party. More often than not its because it has taken ethnic minority communities to organise, mobilise and help elect and select BAME candidates. Quite often that has been against resistance from political parties, rather than encouragement from political parties. They still need to think about that. Why is it so hard for BAME candidates to come forward?

Sarwar added: Solidarity is welcome. Warm words are welcome. Positive tweets and Facebook posts are welcome. People using the Black Lives Matter hashtag are welcome. But we cant kid ourselves on that there isnt everyday racism happening right here in Scotland as well.

I say this to leaders of all political parties, all institutions, all organisations: thank you for your solidarity. Thank you for tweeting. But you see when Black Lives Matter is trending? Its pretty easy to tweet. Its pretty easy to post messages. The harder thing is reflecting on your own organisation and yourself. To say, what is it about my own institution, my own organisation, my own political party, that I need to change to make it better? Because ultimately, while we all thank you for your solidarity, we will judge you for the actions you take and the decisions you make, when it isnt trending around the world.

Unless our institutions, our organisations and our political parties think about why that happens, and what they are going to proactively do to address it, then we can have all the protests in the world, but fundamentally nothing is going to shift and nothing is going to change. Thats a much harder conversation.
Older men who have a weak or irregular circadian rhythm guiding their daily cycles of rest and activity are more likely to later develop Parkinson's disease, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences who analyzed 11 years of data for nearly 3,000 independently living older men.

The scientists said their discovery of the link between circadian rhythms and Parkinson's -- a disease characterized by loss of control over movement, balance and other brain functions -- suggests these circadian disruptions may reflect neurodegenerative disease processes already affecting the brain's internal clock well before a Parkinson's diagnosis, and that they could be considered an early warning sign of the disease.

"The strength of the circadian rhythm activity seems to have a really important effect on health and disease, particularly in aging. In this latest study we found that even small changes in circadian rhythm in older men were associated with a greater likelihood of getting Parkinson's down the line," said study senior author Kristine Yaffe, MD, the Roy and Marie Scola Endowed Chair and vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF, a professor of psychiatry, neurology, and epidemiology and biostatistics, and a member of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center.

The results -- published June 15, 2020 in JAMA Neurology -- merit follow-up, according to the study authors, to investigate whether physiological changes set off by disruptions in circadian rhythms might themselves be a trigger for neurodegeneration, and whether strengthening these rhythms could lower risk for developing Parkinson's.

Parkinson's is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer's disease. 500,000 individuals in the United States have been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and many with the disease are undiagnosed, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Most who have Parkinson's are diagnosed after age 60. There are no drugs known to prevent the disease, but there are a growing number of treatments to relieve symptoms.

Among older adults, weakened or irregular circadian rhythms of rest and activity are common, according to study lead author Yue Leng, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UCSF. Other conditions -- constipation or deficits in the sense of smell -- have also been associated with increased likelihood of developing Parkinson's later on.

"Parkinson's is a disease that probably takes decades to develop, and apart from changes in movement, earlier signs might be critical in understanding the disease and its mechanisms," Leng said. "This is the first large, long-term study to find that disrupted circadian rhythms might be linked to Parkinson's that emerges years later."

The study, which enrolled 2,930 men with an average age of 76.3 when the research began, was part of the larger, population-based Osteoporotic Fractures in Men Study (MRoS), which began in 2000 and enrolled men at six medical centers nationwide. None of the participants in the subset of the MRoS cohort initially had Parkinson's, and all were living in community-based settings (i.e. not in nursing homes). Their status for many health-related factors was assessed at the start, and they were monitored through follow-up visits and questionnaires.

As part of the study, researchers monitored circadian rhythms of rest and activity over three separate 24-hour periods by having participants wear an actigraph -- a watch-like device that detects and records even slight wrist movements. The data collected from these devices were independently associated with the later development of Parkinson's.

In a previous study, Leng and Yaffe identified an association between daytime napping and the later development of Parkinson's. But the link between circadian rhythms and Parkinson's is not just a matter or disrupted sleep, according to the new study. The association held true even after accounting for indicators of sleep disturbances -- including loss of sleep; sleep inefficiency (time spent asleep after turning off the lights); leg movement during sleep; and the chronic, temporary cessation of breathing known as sleep apnea.

In drawing this conclusion, the researchers took into account numerous other variables collected as part of the MRoS study, including regional differences in study sites and participant demographics, education, baseline cognitive performance, chronic diseases, physical activity, symptoms of depression, body mass index, smoking, and use of benzodiazepines, alcohol, and caffeine.

Leng and Yaffe evaluated four parameters of participants' rest-activity rhythms as measured by actigraph: amplitude, the difference between the period of greatest to least activity; mesor, the average activity; robustness, how well the measured cyclical rest-activity matched a regular curve similar to a cosine wave; and acrophase, a measure of advance or delay in the 24-hour cycle relative to the population average.

During follow-up, 78 of the 2,930 study participants were diagnosed with Parkinson's. Those who scored lowest in actigraph amplitude, mesor or robustness had triple the risk of developing Parkinson's compared to those who scored highest. The researchers did not find an association between acrophase and Parkinson's risk.

Animal models of Parkinson's have shown that cells controlling the brain's circadian rhythm pacemaker often begin to degenerate even before cells in the part of the brain that are traditionally associated with Parkinson's symptoms, suggesting that weakening of circadian rhythm may in some cases represent an early stage of disease.

Leng also does not rule out the possibility that disruptions in circadian rhythm, already known to cause metabolic changes and inflammation, might themselves contribute to neurodegenerative disease. Leng hopes to investigate whether weakened circadian rhythms trigger inflammation or the abnormal accumulation of proteins seen in affected brain tissue in both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

"These neurodegenerative diseases are not reversible," she said. "But if research points to sleep or circadian problems being risk factors for neurodegeneration prior to traditional symptoms, then we may be able to use that information for early detection and diagnosis, or we might be able to intervene in ways that prevent development of neurodegenerative loss of function."

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Authors: Yue Leng, MD, PhD, and Kristine Yaffe, MD, of UCSF; Terri Blackwell, Peggy Cawthon, PhD, and Katie Stone, PhD, of the California Pacific Medical Center; and Sonia Ancoli-Israel, PhD, of UC San Diego.

Funding: The study was supported by the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. For full funding details, see the published paper.

Disclosures: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.
MISSOULA  Documenting the lives of Mexicans impacted by immigration and teaching her subjects how to tell their own stories is a project University of Montana alumna and filmmaker Alyson Spery knows intimately.

The latest UM grad to win a Fulbright Scholarship, Spery will take her passion to three rural communities in Tlaxcala, Mexico, to share a more nuanced and authentic story about the impacts of immigration. While there, she will complete her docuseries Sister Cities and show first-time filmmakers how to direct their own short documentaries in community classes.

Alyson Spery

Spery studied public policy and philosophy at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and earned her Master of Fine Arts in Media Arts at UM in 2019. Raised in Salisbury, Maryland, she has lived in Montana and Wyoming for more than 15 years.

Sister Cities began in Jackson, Wyoming, where Spery taught filmmaking to first- and second-generation Mexican Americans, encouraging them to share their stories, passions and fears. Many immigrants to Jackson Hole come from Tlaxcala.

The films made in Mexico will add to the collection of films shot and directed by my students in Jackson, Spery said. I will pass the camera (and therefore the control of the narrative) to those who have lived it.

Spery said she is surprised and thrilled that the Fulbright Committee, a branch of the U.S. State Department, has invested in a contentious subject like immigration.

This is not just monumental for me, but for the people whose lives are at the mercy of border relations between the U.S. and Mexico, she said. This opportunity demonstrates an interest in the experience of immigrants and the communities forever changed by those who emigrated.

Last year, Spery founded the nonprofit film production and educational organization, DIY Docs, to create more community media, and she hopes Sister Cities is just the beginning of documenting communities around the world.

I feel so honored to be entrusted with the support of both communities in Jackson and Tlaxcala and for peoples willingness to collaborate on this project, she said.

Spery joins five other UM grads and students in receiving a 2020-21 Fulbright Scholarship. The recipients continue UMs legacy of securing large numbers of Fulbright Scholars, said Clint Walker, UM Fulbright adviser and associate professor of Russian.

We had a 50% success rate this year, Walker said. This percentage is well above the national average and speaks to the high quality of our UM applicants for Fulbrights.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide. For more information, visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/.

Due to COVID-19, Spery will embark on her Fulbright adventure in January 2021 instead of this August as originally planned.

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Borders were thrown open across Europe today as a raft of countries including Germany and France lifted three months of coronavirus checks.

Motorists were queuing to enter France from Italy and Germany from Denmark this morning after emergency checks were lifted overnight.

While Spain announced it will scrap the travel restrictions on Britain and most of its European neighbours from Sunday, with thousands of Germans already permitted to fly to the Balearic Islands from today in a trial run for resuming its tourist season.

However, several countries including Greece are still excluding Britons because of the UK's high death rate while Swedes are similarly unpopular in many countries.

Britons are allowed into Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy but not Greece, the Netherlands or Austria and will have to quarantine in France, and the Foreign Office is still advising against unnecessary travel.

In addition, most of the continent is still closed to visitors from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas - although Greece is allowing some tourists from further afield.

GERMANY-DENMARK: Cars queue on the Danish side of the border in Krusaa this morning after both countries eased their travel restrictions

This map shows the European borders that are still closed (in red) and those that are open again (in green). Spain is planning to throw open its borders in the next two weeks, while Sweden's borders have been closed against its will because of its stubbornly high infection rate. The UK and Ireland are both enforcing two-week quarantines. The EU's external border is still generally closed, as seen in Eastern Europe

GERMANY: A TUI flight attendant gives safety instructions to German tourists on the first flight from Duesseldorf to Mallorca in a Spanish tourism pilot project

BRUSSELS AIRPORT: Flight attendants wearing face masks sanitise their hands inside a plane at the Zaventem International Airport today

SWITZERLAND: Two border guards in the town of Thonex open the barrier that closed access from France as the country lifts its travel restrictions today

Which countries are allowing British visitors and which are not? AUSTRIA - Flights from UK remain banned, borders open to 31 countries from tomorrow but not Britain BELGIUM - Borders open with Britain from today BULGARIA - Britons subject to 14-day quarantine, unlike most EU countries CYPRUS - Britons currently excluded, but likely to be admitted again from July DENMARK - Tourists only allowed from Iceland, Germany and Norway - notably not Britain or Sweden FRANCE - Arrivals from UK subject to 14-day quarantine because of Britain's own quarantine rules GERMANY - Britons no longer need reason for entry from today, all land borders now open GREECE - UK visitors excluded from resumption of tourist season starting today ITALY - Travel to and from Britain allowed since June 3 NETHERLANDS - Britons and Swedes remain banned SPAIN - Borders will open to EU countries and Britain on June 21 SWEDEN - Has never closed borders SWITZERLAND - Travel restrictions for EU and Britain lifted from today Advertisement

Spain will be open to British tourists from June 21, the country confirmed today.

Border controls will be lifted for EU member states from Sunday - and the Spanish foreign ministry has confirmed that this includes transition-period Britain.

'It's considered that the UK is included in the announcement and can return to Spain along with EU nationals when border controls are lifted from June 21,' a statement said.

However, the UK Foreign Office is still advising against all 'non-essential international travel' and anyone returning to Britain is subject to a 14-day quarantine.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez has brought forward the resumption of the tourist season by 10 days to this Sunday, saying that 'the recovery of tourist activity is key for this government'.

However, Spain's Balearic Islands are welcoming 11,000 Germans from today in a pilot project for the revival of the crucial tourism sector.

'This pilot programme will help us learn a lot for what lies ahead in the coming months,' Sanchez said.

'We want our country, which is already known as a world-class tourist destination, to be recognised as also a secure destination.'

Spain's land border with Portugal will remain closed until July 1. Portugal has suffered a much lower death rate than Spain from the coronavirus epidemic.

France's borders are open for travel within Europe, but Paris is insisting on reciprocity - meaning a 14-day quarantine for British visitors.

The French government has criticised the 'uncoordinated fashion' in which Britain imposed the quarantine after initially saying that France would be exempt.

At present, the UK Foreign Office is still advising Britons against 'all non-essential international travel' in any case.

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders, French president Emmanuel Macron said it is time 'to turn the page of the first act of the crisis' and 'rediscover our taste for freedom'.

But he warned: 'This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard... the summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.'

SPAIN: German tourists board a bus in Spain today as the Balearic Islands carry out a trial run for resuming their tourist season

SPAIN: A German holidaymaker puts down a beach towel in Palma de Mallorca today after thousands of Germans were invited to resume the Spanish tourist season

SPAIN: German tourists rest at the swimming pool of the RIU Concordia hotel in Palma de Mallorca today after they flew to the Balearic Islands in a pilot project

SPAIN: A police officer wearing a mask explains the rules for using the Levante beach in Benidorm today as it re-opened following the coronavirus pandemic

SPAIN: A handful of tourists soak up the sun in roped-off areas of a beach in Benidorm today - where beaches partially re-opened on Monday with designated spaces for over-70s and a maximum of 25,000 visitors at a time

SPAIN: People on a beach buggy make their way along the promenade of Levante beach on Monday after the town's beaches were reopened following three months of closure

This map from flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows air travel resuming across Europe as many countries throw open their borders following months of restrictions

GREECE: A plane arriving from Germany is sprayed with water after landing in Thessaloniki today, as Greece re-opened its two main airports to arrivals from 29 countries

Passengers get off their plane in Thessaloniki after arriving from Germany, whose citizens have generally been treated favourably after the country limited its virus deaths

Germany and Belgium among those opening their borders today in line with an EU directive to resume travel by mid-June.

All nine of Germany's land borders are open and the country is allowing flights from Italy, but not Spain until June 21. Some flights to London have continued all along and UK travellers are not banned.

Germany and the Netherlands have both lifted their warnings against non-essential foreign travel in Europe, although Germany is advising against travelling further afield until at least August 31.

Austria has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours and will lift travel restrictions for 31 countries tomorrow, but not including the UK or Sweden.

FRANCE-ITALY: French gendarmes approach a car driver at the border check point Saint-Ludovic at the Franco-Italian border, after France reopened its border to Italians

FRANCE-ITALY: A view of the border checkpoint at Saint-Ludovic today after France lifted its travel restrictions - although it is insisting on reciprocity, meaning a quarantine for Britons

SWITZERLAND-ITALY: Italian police officers carry out checks at the Italian-Swiss border as seen from the Italian side near Como today

PORTUGAL-SPAIN: Workers re-open the border with Portugal in the Spanish village of Salvaterra Do Mino today, in a move to ease travel restrictions for workers - although visitors will remain banned until July 1

What European summer holidays will look like In France, the world's number one tourist destination, the government is banking on the French taking their holidays at home to boost the tourism sector. Paris, Europe's most visited city, has gradually begun coming back to life, with cafe terraces open again. The Eiffel Tower reopens on June 25, albeit with limits on the numbers of visitors. The Mona Lisa and other artworks will again be on view at the Louvre from July 6. Spain's borders remain closed today as it goes through the final stages of rolling back one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. However, Germans are allowed to visit the Balearic Islands as part of a pilot project. Travellers will have their temperature taken on arrival under the scheme, which will be conducted according to 'strict health guidelines', the region has said. Tourism on the mainland will resume in July but masks will remain compulsory in public and closed spaces until the virus is defeated, authorities have warned. Italy reopened to travellers from Europe on June 3 and many of its historic sites have been reopening since May, including Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and Rome's Colosseum. But, just like Venice's canals where gondolas await punters, the landmarks currently remain quiet. With tourism making up 13 percent of GDP, authorities are keen to push the Italy brand. Switzerland and Austria have agreed to re-open their borders with northern Italy, throwing open the Brenner Pass which is a major axis for north-south travel. Greece is re-open its borders to the majority of European tourists, as well as those from certain other parts of the world, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand. However, anyone from a region particularly badly hit by the virus will have to undergo mandatory tests and spend their first night on Greek soil in a designated hotel. These include the Paris region, Madrid and Italy's northern Lombardy region, among others. Britons are currently excluded altogether. Across the country, tourists will have access to all of Greece's tourist gems, including archaeological sites and museums, with systems in place to filter visitors at the entrance. While open-air cinemas, nightclubs and tavernas are already open, and parasols and beach towels will have to be kept well spaced out on the sand, there is one downside - buffets are off the menu in hotels. Advertisement

German chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz are both planning to holiday in their homelands this year.

'The recommendation is still, if you want to be really safe, a holiday in Austria,' Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg told ORF television, recalling the scramble in March to bring home thousands of tourists as borders slammed shut.

'In Austria, you know that you don't have to cross a border if you want to get home, and you know the infrastructure and the health system well,' he said.

The Dutch government said its citizens can now visit 16 European nations, but urged caution.

'You can go abroad for your holiday again,' foreign minister Stef Blok said.

'But it won't be as carefree as before the corona crisis. The virus is still among us and the situation remains uncertain.'

Greece has gone further, allowing travellers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, Israel and Lebanon - but not Britain.

Greece's two main airports in Athens and Thessaloniki will reopen to arrivals from 29 countries from Monday, the start of the tourist season. Sea connections with Italy and land borders with the Balkans are also re-opening.

Spain will only start to lift travel restrictions on June 21, re-establishing free travel with some of its fellow EU countries.

Denmark opens its borders to Germany, Norway and Iceland for visitors from Monday as long as they can show they plan to stay outside the capital Copenhagen for at least six consecutive nights.

Norway and Denmark are keeping their borders closed with Sweden, whose virus strategy avoided a lockdown but produced a high per capita death rate.

Romania has not yet announced when it will re-open its borders to foreigners without restrictions.

Italy, which has been among the world's hardest hit by the new coronavirus pandemic, reopened its borders on June 3, lifting all restrictions for travellers from within Europe.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia have also already begun to lift restrictions for foreigners entering their countries but excluded those from nations they deem as not safe.

Poland has reopened its borders to all fellow EU members and the UK from June 13. Sweden meanwhile never closed its borders to EU countries.

Neither did tiny Luxembourg - but quickly found all its neighbours closing their borders instead.

GERMANY-DENMARK: A queue of vehicles line up to cross the border into Germany at a checkpoint in Froeslev in Denmark this morning

GERMANY-DENMARK: A police officer watches cars queue to cross the border into Germany this morning as Germany re-opened all nine of its land borders
Bahrains Spectrum Strategy and Coordination Committee has approved the National Frequency Plan, based on the findings of the World Radio Conference (WRC-19) and the needs of the ICT sector in the Kingdom.



The second meeting of the Committee, which was held remotely and attended by representatives of nine entities, was chaired by Mohammed Ali Al Qaed, Chief Executive of Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA).



Despite the current challenging circumstances, the Committee has continued to meet and work towards streamlining frequency spectrum-related services, developing policies for planning and distributing resources to better serve the Government Action Plan. Al Qaed welcomed the committee members and advised to make use of the current challenges to be able to turn them into opportunities.



Organized frequency distributions allow for greater flexibility in assignment of frequencies, keeping pace with rapid development within the sector and meeting current and future needs. The Kingdom of Bahrain is one of the first Arab countries to adopt a four-year plan in line with global and local requirements. National plans such as these contain essential spectrum management guidelines required for the sector to thrive.



The committee also approved new maritime radio service regulations better aligned with recent global radio communications and maritime radio navigation developments. The protection of maritime radio communication frequencies and radio navigation is ensured through provisions in the Radio Regulations (RR) of the International Telecommunication Union. Accordingly, it is necessary for governments to issue regulations on the use and interoperability of marine equipment.

The two documents will offer a clear and transparent guide for radio communication sector manufacturers and investors, with guidelines aimed at regulating the sector and supporting the national economy.



The committee also discussed national telecommunications services regulatory frameworks and related legislation, in addition to machine-to-machine applications and Internet of Things  IoT within the frequency bands used for terrestrial and satellite services, noting the importance of studying emerging technologies and working on a national strategy that contributes to the creation of a regulatory framework that meets the requirements of all stakeholders.  TradeArabia News Service
Jaguar poaching is on the rise in Central and South America, largely driven by new interest in the animal from Chinese consumers.

A new study published in Conservation Biology documented more than 800 jaguars caught and killed by poachers, which were later intercepted by law enforcement.

That figure represents a 200-fold increase in the number of jaguars caught by law enforcement in the last five years, suggesting a major surge in big cat poaching is underway.

Researchers documented more than 800 poached jaguars intercepted by law enforcement in Central America and South America over the last five years, a 200-fold increase

'What we can learn from this is that the patterns we saw in Asia and then in Africa are now starting to emerge in South America,' Oxford Brookes University's Vincent Nijman told the New York Times.

'If there is demand, it will be fulfilled, even if you go to another continent on the other side of the world.'

The most prized item taken from jaguars were the teeth, of which more than 2,000 were captured by law enforcement, mostly en route to China where they're used in jewelry.

They also found attempts to smuggle jaguar bones pulverized into a fine powder via powdered milk containers, presumably to be used in a medicinal paste popular in some parts of China.

Authorities also captured smuggled jaguar skins, skulls, claws, and even meat, which is sometimes sold as an off-menu delicacy in restaurants.

More than 2,000 jaguar teeth were captured, a popular item for jewelry in China, along with pulverized jaguar bones smuggled in powdered milk containers, which can be used to make a medicinal paste

In the 1950s and 1960s, big cats drove a thriving international trade industry - the US imported 23,000 jaguar skins in 1968 and 1969 - but the practice was banned in 1975 after big cat populations began to plummet.

Researchers estimate there are 173,000 jaguars left around the world, and in Central and South America, they've lost more than 50 per cent of their natural habitat due to human development.

Part of that development is believed to be driving the new rise in poaching, with an influx of Chinese development projects across Latin America opening up new trade links for illicit goods.

Jaguars have lost an estimated 50% of their natural habitat in South and Central America, and just 173,000 jaguars are believed to be alive worldwide

'These countries that have stronger ties with China, combined with weak governance, combined with high levels of corruptionits almost like a recipe for an increase in illegal wildlife trade,' co-author Vincent Njima said in an interview with National Geographic.

While the numbers of jaguars intercepted by law enforcement has skyrocketed, the team believes the real numbers are likely even higher as most make it out of the country without detection.

According to Esteban Payan, of the conservation group Pathera, South American and Central American governments have traditionally focused their customs and border control efforts on drugs and weapons trafficking, but it may be time for a change.

'This whole phenomenon is really forcing us to train customs to look seriously at animal parts,' Payan said.
Commitments Toward Social Justice

Dear members of our Northwestern community,

As a university and as a nation, we are grappling with fundamental truths about our world marked by heinous acts of violence and inequitable policies inflicted upon and directed at black, brown, indigenous, LGBTQIA+, and other marginalized people.

Northwestern Professor kihana miraya ross recently published an article in The New York Times titled Call It What It Is: Anti-Blackness. Professor ross wrote that Anti-blackness describes the inability to recognize black humanity. It captures the reality that the kind of violence that saturates black life is not based on any specific thing a black person  better described as a person who has been racialized black  did. The violence we experience isnt tied to any particular transgression. Its gratuitous and unrelenting.

Let us be clear: Northwesterns commitment to racial and social justice must be equally unrelenting. We vehemently oppose anti-blackness and police brutality. It should not be a controversial or a political statement to declare that Black Lives Matter.

We promise to work, as individuals and as an institution, to seek justice and to better support our black students, staff, and faculty. We need to identify and address all forms of implicit and explicit racism and bias on our campuses. We must, and we will, do more.

Toward that end, we have asked leaders across the University to develop strategies for implementing the following commitments:

We commit to increasing diversity within our community. We will work to ensure that our underrepresented students, faculty, and staff members thrive in a fair, open, accountable, and supportive environment with more opportunities for personal and professional growth. We plan to raise specific funds to support the diversification of our student body and of our faculty. We will be proactive in recruiting black and other underrepresented students and scholars at all levels by immediately providing resources to schools and departments so they can meet this commitment. We will also utilize the ongoing collaborative work of the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, Division of Student Affairs, Office of Equity, and Office of the Provost to develop a comprehensive set of resources and training opportunities to equip our faculty to create more inclusive teaching and learning environments.





We will work to ensure that our underrepresented students, faculty, and staff members thrive in a fair, open, accountable, and supportive environment with more opportunities for personal and professional growth. We plan to raise specific funds to support the diversification of our student body and of our faculty. We will be proactive in recruiting black and other underrepresented students and scholars at all levels by immediately providing resources to schools and departments so they can meet this commitment. We will also utilize the ongoing collaborative work of the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, Division of Student Affairs, Office of Equity, and Office of the Provost to develop a comprehensive set of resources and training opportunities to equip our faculty to create more inclusive teaching and learning environments. We commit to hiring, advancing, and supporting staff from marginalized communities. Before the new fiscal year begins on September 1, 2020, we will establish an institutional policy requirement for diversified candidate slates for every staff position, including searches conducted externally. By that date we will also establish an inclusivity consultation team of administrators and faculty. Before the end of this calendar year, we will publicize the standards and methods by which we determine compensation for staff and faculty. We will also publish annually a workforce diversity and social impact report beginning in August 2021.





Before the new fiscal year begins on September 1, 2020, we will establish an for every staff position, including searches conducted externally. By that date we will also establish an inclusivity consultation team of administrators and faculty. Before the end of this calendar year, we will publicize the standards and methods by which we determine compensation for staff and faculty. We will also publish annually a workforce diversity and social impact report beginning in August 2021. We commit to expanding diversity training and anti-racism programs and curricula for all faculty, staff, and students. Senior administrators and academic leaders will undertake anti-racism training this summer and will develop and sponsor mandatory training sessions and programs for all campuses.





Senior administrators and academic leaders will undertake anti-racism training this summer and will develop and sponsor mandatory training sessions and programs for all campuses. We commit to expediting the renovation of The Black House, a critical space for black students on our Evanston campus . With the recent shift to Phase 3 in the states Restore Illinois plan, we have already reactivated The Black House renovation project. We will share the new project timeline as soon as possible.





With the recent shift to Phase 3 in the states Restore Illinois plan, we have already reactivated The Black House renovation project. We will share the new project timeline as soon as possible. We commit to a national search for the hiring of our next Chief Diversity Officer with student representation on the committee. This position will be a crucial part of ensuring that our entire Northwestern family, not only our communities of color, is engaged in these efforts.





This position will be a crucial part of ensuring that our entire Northwestern family, not only our communities of color, is engaged in these efforts. We commit to reviewing the operations of Northwesterns police department (NUPD) to ensure that all of our students, faculty, and staff are safe and protected . We will reexamine all of NUPDs approaches and functions, including its use of force policy, in particular relating to reporting protocol and impartial third-party review; its bias-free policing policy, to improve accountability; and law enforcement professionalism standards. We will supplement and reinforce annual training on de-escalation and responses to individuals in crisis. The NU Police Advisory Board  which comprises a diverse group of students, staff, and faculty  will be integral to reassessing programs and communications regarding public safety concerns, along with our relationships with the Evanston and Chicago police departments.





. We will reexamine all of NUPDs approaches and functions, including its use of force policy, in particular relating to reporting protocol and impartial third-party review; its bias-free policing policy, to improve accountability; and law enforcement professionalism standards. We will supplement and reinforce annual training on de-escalation and responses to individuals in crisis. The NU Police Advisory Board  which comprises a diverse group of students, staff, and faculty  will be integral to reassessing programs and communications regarding public safety concerns, along with our relationships with the Evanston and Chicago police departments. We commit to reviewing our overall approach to community safety. In addition to our commitment to assessing police oversight and operations, we will review our university policies, procedures, and processes related to creating and supporting a safe and healthy community. This encompasses the student code of conduct, residence hall policies and procedures, and overall university policies to ensure that these guidelines do not disproportionally impact our marginalized community members.





In addition to our commitment to assessing police oversight and operations, we will review our university policies, procedures, and processes related to creating and supporting a safe and healthy community. This encompasses the student code of conduct, residence hall policies and procedures, and overall university policies to ensure that these guidelines do not disproportionally impact our marginalized community members. We commit to revisiting the work of past task forces and student social-justice activities to assess past recommendations that have not yet been realized. This includes reexamining recommendations presented in the Bursars Takeover proposals and the 2016 Black Student Experience Task Force Report, as well as tracking progress relating to the GQNBT Task Force report from earlier this year.





We commit to allocating $1.5 million for Fiscal Year 2020-21 toward advancing social justice and racial equity in Evanston and Chicago. Having recently concluded a five-year Good Neighbors Fund commitment for a variety of community needs in the Evanston area, we will now shift  and increase by $500,000  our investments toward programs that dismantle systemic barriers faced by historically marginalized communities. Our commitment here is not simply financial; crucial to this initiative is the active partnership between our students, faculty, and staff and our surrounding communities. We will also begin reporting on local minority- and women-owned businesses hired as contractors through our facilities, construction, and procurement units.





Having recently concluded a five-year Good Neighbors Fund commitment for a variety of community needs in the Evanston area, we will now shift  and increase by $500,000  our investments toward programs that dismantle systemic barriers faced by historically marginalized communities. Our commitment here is not simply financial; crucial to this initiative is the active partnership between our students, faculty, and staff and our surrounding communities. We will also begin reporting on local minority- and women-owned businesses hired as contractors through our facilities, construction, and procurement units. We commit to building on our social reform and advocacy work. We are expanding the Northwestern Prison Education Program, as well as bolstering the many legal reform programs within the Bluhm Legal Clinic, including the Center on Wrongful Convictions. We will also continue to grow the Northwestern Academy, a program that supports local public school students.

Over the course of this summer, you will hear from University leaders  including members of our faculty whose scholarship and research have long been committed to solving societal injustices  about specific plans and proposals related to each of the above commitments and how members of the Northwestern community can become involved.

We will be transparent about our progress and report regularly to our entire community on areas of improvement and on those that need further attention.

Northwesterns Mission Statement promises excellent teaching, innovative research, and the personal and intellectual growth of its students in a diverse academic community. Words are nothing without actions, and we pledge to act decisively to uphold the standards of this university and to ensure that each of its members is treated with the dignity and respect that we all deserve.
LENOX, Mass.  Tanglewood Music Center will offer dozens of virtual performances this summer, many newly recorded live at the venue specifically as replacement offerings for on-stage concerts originally scheduled for this summer, including eight concerts streamed on Saturday nights by classical luminaries including Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham and Pinchas Zuckerman.

The full schedule is available now at tanglewood.org. Prices range from $5 to $12 for a single stream, $8 to $90 for multiple-stream packages. Stream purchases are also available through the Tanglewood website. Many other online performances and additional programming and offerings will be available for free.

Additionally, performances from recent seasons by the Boston Symphony, Boston Pops and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra will be available for the first time on video and audio streams. And Berkshires resident and longtime Tanglewood favorite James Taylor will host "Best of Tanglewood on Parade," a video stream of highlights from recent TOP concerts with the BSO, the Pops, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Tanglewood Festival Chorus and Boston Symphony Childrens Choir, in selections led by conductors Andris Nelsons, Keith Lockhart, John Williams and James Burton, among others. The program, scheduled for an August date to be announced, will include the traditional "1812" Overture.

Guide to virtual arts, music and cultural events in the Capital Region

The summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937, Tanglewood announced in May that it was canceling live performances with audiences due to continuing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.

We explored every possible scenario to try to save all or part of our concert schedule, but with the health of the greater Tanglewood community as our highest priority, performances with audiences are not possible, Mark Volpe, the BSOs president and CEO, said last month. The cancellation affects performances and education programs originally scheduled from Friday through Aug. 27.

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In related news, Tanglewood, the site of many graduations over the decades, will honor 1,072 Berkshire region high school graduates from 12 public high schools by listing their names on scrims placed on the panels enclosing the Koussevitzky Music Shed. The printed panels will also include a selfie spot for graduates and their families with a life-size image of the Shed stage. The Shed scrim panels will also feature original art by students working with IS183 Art School of the Berkshires as well as from other local artists and organizations in the region.

The Tanglewood grounds will be open to the public free of charge via the Main Gate, as conditions allow, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends and 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesdays from July 5 through Aug. 23. There will be a limit to the number of cars admitted to the grounds each day, as there will be a cap of approximately 500 to the number of visitors allowed on the grounds at any one time; visitors will be asked to limit their time on the grounds to 90 minutes. Accessible parking, but no services such as wheelchair escorts or jitney rides, will be available for registered visitors with mobility impairments. Grounds visitors must register in advance at tanglewood.org.

Tanglewood typically draws an attendance of approximately 340,000 people and is estimated to contribute more than $100 million in economic activity annually to the Berkshires, according to the BSO.
PPP bigwig, Nana Ofori Owusu has admonished President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to close schools for final year students.



President Nana Akufo-Addo, in his 11th update on COVID-19, reiterated the reopening of schools for final year students.



He was also cocksure the preventive measures by his government will help consolidate the health of the students and their school authorities as well as non-teaching staff.



"Some argue that we are putting the lives of our students, teachers and non-teaching staff in danger by this re-opening, citing the examples of other countries, who have done so and recorded spikes in their infection case counts. I have stated, on several occasions, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the resolution of this pandemic. We have our own unique situation in the country, and we have always taken that it into account in dealing with this disease, much as we are prepared to learn from the examples of others," the President argued.



He added that to aid in the fight against the pandemic "a total of six hundred thousand (600,000) face masks have been distributed to the tertiary institutions. This is to enable every student, teaching and non-teaching staff to have three (3) reusable face masks. In addition to this, one thousand seven hundred (1,700) Veronica buckets, two hundred thousand (200,000) litres of hand sanitizer, three thousand, four hundred (3,400) litres of liquid soap, and nine hundred (900) thermometer guns have been distributed, with the transportation and delivery of these items being overseen by the special logistics team of the Government Committee, chaired by the sagacious, experienced politician, the Senior Minister, Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, that is supervising the re-opening of the schools''.



But Nana Ofori Owusu strongly believes it is a bad move to open the schools and has cautioned the President not to think his measures are infallible.



The Director of Operations of the PPP, who is also aspiring to be its National Chairman, alluded to world statistics on the COVID-19 pandemic and feared there may be a spike in the number of infections in the country when final year students return to their various campuses.



Citing countries which permitted their schools to resume only to close them again because they recorded higher numbers of infections among the students, he appealed to the President to reconsider his decision.



He asked President Akufo-Addo if Ghana is better than Israel, comparing the two country's technical know-how.



"The statistics of the world show us that when we open schools, the numbers of COVID-19 infections increase. It is there; it's staring us in the face . . . Israel is a highly knowledgeable society. I am quoting Israel because of the propensity for the average citizen in Israel to be conscious but Israel opened schools and Israel closed the schools. Are you saying that we're more conscious as a society than Israel? It can't be the case. The argument will not hold. Any attempt to make that argument is on a slippery slope because we learn from best practices of the world," he said on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo'.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Kim Jong-un's Sister Reportedly Bashes South Korea, Warns of Possible Military Action

Sputnik News

16:57 GMT 14.06.2020

While Kim Yo-jong stated that she ordered the department in charge of relations with "the enemy" to "decisively carry out the next action", she did not elaborate on what exactly that action might be.

Kim Yo-jong, sister of the North Korean head of state Kim Jong-un, has recently directed some rather harsh words towards Seoul, ABC Online reports citing a statement issued by KCNA news agency.

According to the media outlet, Kim Yo-jong made her declaration as tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul have escalated recently over the activities of North Korean defectors.

"By exercising my power authorised by the Supreme Leader, our party and the state, I gave an instruction to the  department in charge of the affairs with [the] enemy to decisively carry out the next action," she said. "Our army, too, will determine something for cooling down our people's resentment and surely carry it out, I believe."

Kim, however, did not elaborate on what exactly said "next action" might be.

As the media outlet points out, Kim's statement comes mere days after the South Korean government announced that it will press charges against for allegedly violating the law by "sending unauthorised materials to North Korea with balloons".

Earlier this month, South Korean authorities voiced their intent to introduce new laws that would bar activists from launching propaganda leaflets across the border to North Korea, as while police officers are sometimes dispatched to block such activities, Seoul never fully banned them, arguing that the activists were merely exercising their freedoms.

In the meantime, the DPRK, which has criticized South Korea's apparent reluctance to halt the actions of North Korean defectors on numerous occasions, has decided at a Central Committee meeting to start treating Seoul as an "enemy."

Pyongyang has also cut all communication lines, including military hotlines, with South Korea, saying it had nothing more to discuss with Seoul.

In response, South Korea's Unification Ministry suggested that Seoul and Pyongyang "should try to honour all inter-Korean agreements reached".

A Sputnik

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Insurance broker Marsh announced two senior appointments within Marsh JLT Specialtys Renewable Energy team, as part of its continued expansion in the global renewable energy sector.

Joanne Silberberg has been appointed as Canadian Renewable Energy leader. Silberberg joined Marsh in 2004 as part of the graduate program, and since then has worked in a number of specialist roles within Australia, primarily focused on the Energy & Power industry.

In January, she relocated to Calgary to be part of the leading Energy & Power team. In this newly created role, Silberberg will report to Richard Doherty, head of Marsh JLT Specialty, Canada, and Amy Barnes, Energy & Power Practice leader, U.S. and Canada.

Dan Gumsley joins Marsh as an account manager in the Renewable Energy team and will focus on the growing offshore wind market in the UK. Gumsley has over 20 years insurance experience, both as a broker and an in-house insurance manager, and joins the business from one of Europes leading offshore wind developers.

Based in London, Gumsley will report to Hamish Roberts, Power leader.

As the world begins to emerge from lockdown restrictions, many countries are considering how, as a consequence of the pandemic, they may accelerate their decarbonization programs to take advantage of the recent lower demand for traditional power sources and petroleum, said Andrew George, global head of Energy & Power, Marsh JLT Specialty.

Depending on the location, the renewable energy sector can offer countries flexible, reliable, and proven technologies  including solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, bio-mass, hydro and battery power, he continued.

Working as part of our global Renewable Energy team, Joanne and Dan will play key roles in delivering the services and solutions to support our energy clients in Canada and the UK as they transition towards more sustainable and carbon-neutral futures, George said.

Source: Marsh JLT Specialty

Topics Energy Canada
The United States on Monday demanded that Russia immediately release U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, after he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for espionage.

The U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan, who was present at the Moscow courthouse, condemned the trial as a miscarriage of justice, saying no evidence had been produced.

In a statement released by the U.S. embassy, Mr Sullivan said the United States demands that U.S. citizen Paul Whelan be released immediately. His conviction is a mockery of justice. The world is watching.

Mr Whelan, a former U.S. marine, was accused of having obtained classified Russian state information, the nature of which has not been disclosed.

Mr Sullivan described it as a secret trial in which no evidence was produced.

He denounced the proceedings as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms.

Mr Whelan, 50, has been in Russian custody for the past year and a half after being detained in Moscow in December 2018.

State media reported that he underwent surgery two weeks ago for an abdominal hernia.

READ ALSO:

The U.S. embassy said it was an emergency surgery, performed because the condition had become life-threatening.

A flash drive and documents were confiscated from Whelan while he was detained on a trip to Moscow. No further details about the evidence have been revealed.

Mr Whelan has insisted that he is innocent. His family has said he was visiting Russia to attend a wedding.

State media, however, reported that his legal team vowed to appeal Mondays verdict.

Mr Whelan, born in Canada to British parents, is also a citizen of Canada, Britain and Ireland. He was employed by U.S. auto parts supplier BorgWarner, when he was detained.

(dpa/NAN)
New Delhi, June 15 : The Congress has attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the PM CARES fund as the party alleged that the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) refused to share details of the fund under the Right to Information Act (RTI).

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demands accountability for 70 years from the Congress but when the PM CARES fund details are sought, they feel bad.

"True picture is -- PMO denied sharing details under RTI and no CAG audit-Fund is built with bricks of secrecy with the nameplate 'Khaunga & Details Nahi Bataunga'," said Shergill.

"India is in unlock mode and considering this even the BJP govt should unlock the expenditure details of PM CARES fund," he said.

The Congress attacked the BJP for sharing a picture of a ventilator with the PM CARES sticker and said to justify Rs 10,000 crore donation is like finding a "needle in a haystack".

Minister of state for Finance Anurag Thakur had shared the video picture of a ventilator on his Twitter handle which has PM CARES written on it.

The Congress has been demanding an audit by the CAG of the fund which was established to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Two months after it made the announcement, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has finally notified that donations made by companies to the Prime Minister's Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM-CARES Fund) will be considered as expenditure on corporate social responsibility.

The ministry late on May 26 notified that it has amended Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 by including contributions to PM-CARES Fund as valid CSR activity along with the earlier insertion of the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said Monday that 28 members of the Graystone Baptist Church in Greenbrier County tested positive for coronavirus, ABC affiliate WCHS-TV reports.

Why it matters: Significant coronavirus outbreaks in other states and around the world have also been linked to religious services, including an incident in Arkansas in March that saw nearly 40% of the attendees at a single church over roughly a week fall ill.

The CDC warns that religious services, like all events involving large crowds inside a closed space, "present a risk for increasing spread of COVID-19" and recommends that people practice their beliefs while wearing face masks, social distancing and routinely sanitizing their places of worship.

The big picture: West Virginia's health department announced over the weekend that a total of five coronavirus outbreaks had been traced to churches in the state.
Coronavirus patients with underlying conditions are more likely to suffer major complications, a new report finds.

Those with pre-existing health issues were six times more likely to be hospitalized researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed on Monday.

What's more, patients suffering from the virus and chronic illnesses such as diabetes and lung disease were 12 times more likely to die.

A new CDC report found that coronavirus patients with underlying conditions are six times more likely to be hospitalized and 12 times more likely to die. Pictured: Nurses Albert Legayada (left) and Fred Bueno care for a COVID-19 patient in the ICU at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, California, May 6

For the report, the CDC looked at data from 1.7 million cases reported to the federal health agency between January 22 and May 30.

Among the cases studied were 287,320 - about 22 percent of the total - on individuals with pre-existing health conditions.

Researchers found that the most common underlying health conditions were, in order, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and lung disease.

About 32 percent had cardiovascular disease, 30 percent had diabetes and almost one in five had lung disease.

Less common chronic conditions included liver disease, immunocompromised illnesses and neurological disabilities.

Male patients were slightly more likely than females to have underlying issues, but not enough to be statistically significant.

Hospitalizations were six times higher among patients with pre-existing conditions, with 45.4 percent hospitalized compared to 7.6 percent who didn't have any.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the number of ICU admissions was highest among those with underlying conditions in the 60-to-69 age bracket at 11 percent and in those between ages 70 and 79 years at 12 percent.

Meanwhile, deaths were 12 times higher with 19.5 percent of patients with reported underlying conditions dying compared to those without reported conditions at 1.6 percent.

Fatalities were most common among those aged 80 and above, regardless of pre-existing conditions, but about 50 percent of all deaths were in that age groups with a chronic health illness.

The CDC says the findings suggest doctors and other healthcare providers need to pay close attention to patients with underlying conditions so they don't become severely ill.

'Surveillance at all levels of government, and its continued modernization, is critical for monitoring COVID-19 trends and identifying groups at risk for infection and severe outcomes,' the authors wrote.

'These findings highlight the continued need for community mitigation strategies, especially.

In the US, there are more than two million confirmed cases of the virus and more than 115,000 deaths.
In May 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, has sparked public outrage that leads to a series of protests around the world.

In June 2020, while protesters around the United States continued to fight racism and police brutality, a picture of a woman named Aracely Henriquez, who was allegedly brutally assaulted by Floyd in a robbery, surfaced online.

Fabricated story

George Floyd was arrested in May because he allegedly paid a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store, and it has nothing to do with his alleged criminal history.

Also, the claims made in the article about Aracely Henriquez are either fabricated or exaggerated. Floyd was arrested for his involvement in a home robbery back in 2007, but there was no evidence that shows that Floyd assaulted Henriquez, that he threatened to kill her and her baby, and there was also no evidence that Henriquez was pregnant at that time. It is true that Henriquez was injured during the robbery back in 2007.

However, according to the police report, the injuries that she got were inflicted by a different man and not George Floyd. However, the alleged picture of Henriquez circulating online does not show the extent of her injuries because the woman in the article is not Henriquez.

Also Read: Ex-Police Officer Charged with Death of George Floyd Still Eligible for $1M Pension

The true story

The woman in the picture is Andrea Sicignano from 2018, who was a student in Madrid, Spain, she was assaulted and raped. Sicignano posted the images of herself on her Facebook account, along with a caption that detailed her attack.

According to El Pais, a Spanish news site, the woman was attacked and raped by a man close to the bus station in the Aluche neighborhood in the south of Madrid.

Sicignano, who lived in Madrid for six months before the attack, described what happened to her as she returned home after going out with a friend. She said that as soon as she realized what was happening, she tried to leave but the man became violent and forceful.

Sicignano said she fought but the man started to beat her. She screamed and fought with all of her power and she desperately tried to reach for her phone but he had her phone.

The victim continued that she thought he was going to kill her, she closed her eyes and hoped that the man would stop beating her. She also pretended to be dead and she prayed that when she opened her eyes he would be gone. She did not know how much time passed before she finally opened her eyes, and when she did, the man was already gone. She also said he raped her.

Basically, the woman in the article who was brutally assaulted is not connected to Floyd's case. The article also exaggerated and fabricated details about the robbery arrest of George Floyd in 2007.

In 1998, Floyd also had a run-in with the law, as he was convicted with theft. During his arrest in 2007 for robbery, it is not true that he was high on meth.

Related Article: Another Lynching? Black Man Found Hanging from a Tree in Victorville, California

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A woman passes a mural on the side of a hair salon in Dublin as lockdown continues

A post-lockdown divide shows Dublin continues to witness more virus deaths and new cases per week than other counties.

It was the only county to record more than five deaths a week from Covid-19 over the course of a month.

It remains the hardest hit by the virus as the number of people dying across the country has fallen for the seventh successive week up to June 5.

When it comes to new cases, Dublin was the only county to see 20 more people struck by the virus in the same week.

Tragic

Cork was the only other county to record more than 10 new cases during that week.

Donegal, Laois and Kerry recorded fewer than 10 new cases in five weeks, the analysis from the Central Statistics Office showed.

Meanwhile, Sligo and Waterford have had the longest stretch of fewer than 10 new cases a week for six weeks.

The Department of Health reported one death from the virus yesterday, bringing the tragic total to 1,706. A further eight newly diagnosed cases of the virus were announced, meaning 23,303 have contracted the virus here since it first struck.

The virus has claimed the lives of 34 more men than women and it continues to impact the older age groups, with 65pc of all confirmed Covid-19 deaths to date aged 80 years or over.

The latest trends come as nursing homes - which are 28 days free of the virus - announced they will be able to accept visits to residents from today.

Just one person can visit at a time and there are strict regulations implemented, with visits restricted to 30 minutes.

Decisions will be made this week on whether to reduce the two-metre physical-distancing rule to one metre in some areas of hospitality, including pubs, which are expected to be allowed to open from June 29 if they serve food.

Prof Philip Nolan of Maynooth University, who is overseeing the team tracking the virus, told RTE radio yesterday that it may be possible to implement bespoke solutions to distancing.

Health Minister Simon Harris said that a custom-made approach will be needed for the reopening of schools.

He said that "last Thursday we sent draft public health guidance to the Department of Education. They are going to give their input into that this week and hopefully over the next week or two the minister for education will be in a position to publish plans".

Meanwhile, the number of clusters of virus cases in private homes continues to increase.

The number of close contacts reported by people newly diagnosed with the virus has risen to an average of six, up from three in May.

Meanwhile, the HSE is to issue letters to more than 5,000 people in Sligo and Dublin today inviting them to give blood samples to find out if they had contracted coronavirus.

The test will look for antibodies which people who have had the virus can develop.

Those tested will get their results in late August.

The aim is to measure the prevalence of the infection in the State.

The study to investigate Covid-19 infection in people living in Ireland (Scopi) hopes to attract people representative of the wider population in a county with a lot of cases, like Dublin, and Sligo, which has low levels of infection.

The study will be repeated in other areas during the year.
150 fishers back in Negros Oriental, the Philippines, after extended 21-day quarantine

by Raffy Cabristante

The 150 fishermen from Negros Oriental in the Philippines who were stranded aboard a vessel, helmed by a captain who tested positive and eventually died of COVID-19, have been sent home after completing their 21-day quarantine at a school here on Friday.



The fishermen had been isolated since May 21 after being stranded onboard the fishing vessel Phillip D.R. which came from a fishing expedition in Luzon.



The captain of the vessel had died of the severe respiratory disease in Manila.



With 13 of their companions also testing positive for the new coronavirus, the fishermen were quarantined for 21 days instead of the usual 14 days.



Upon release, they were given clearance certificates and relief goods before being sent back to their respective hometowns.



Dr. Liland Estacion, assistant provincial health officer, said it would be up to their local government units (LGU) to decide whether or not the fishermen would undergo other health protocols of their own.





One LGU, she said, opted to let the returning fishermen undergo another 14-day quarantine.



Estacion, however, assured neighbors of the fishermen that they were all cleared of the new coronavirus.



Before we dispatched them, we had screened and observed them properly while they were under quarantine. Let us not discriminate against them because it will only create panic and conflict, Estacion said.



As of Friday evening, 12 other fishermen were still under quarantine here.



One fisherman, who had tested negative of the virus twice, was transferred to another facility intended for recovering patients.



Estacion said health authorities are now widening the investigation on the latest coronavirus infection in Negros Oriental involving a 39-year-old female patient from Barangay Bagacay in Dumaguete City.



The health officer said they had yet to trace how the patient got the coronavirus. She is neither an overseas Filipino worker nor a locally stranded individual repatriated to the province. She also has no travel history outside Dumaguete City.



Negros Oriental currently has 18 active coronavirus infections.

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Police in Nepal arrested three men on suspicion of gang raping a woman quarantined alone in an empty school, a case that has added to public anger over unsafe conditions for thousands of migrant workers forced into confinement over the coronavirus.

Nepal requires those arriving from abroad to spend 14 days in quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease. But activists say the converted schools and other buildings used for the purpose are often unsafe, putting tens of thousands of migrant workers at risk.

Police fired water cannons, charged with batons and lobbed teargas shells to break up protests in Kathmandu last week demanding better quarantine facilities.

In the latest case, police said the 31-year-old woman, a migrant worker returning home from India's tech hub of Bengaluru, was attacked after she was left alone in the quarantine center in Lamkichuha, a village 430 km (230 miles) southwest of capital Kathmandu.

The men forced their way into her room, Superintendent of Police Anup Shumsher J.B. Rana said by phone from Kailali district, where the quarantine center is located.

"We have arrested one health worker and two volunteers looking after the quarantine (center) after the woman complained that she was gang raped by them," Rana said, adding that police were investigating the case.

The woman, whom police did not name, was now with her family, Rana added. On Sunday, about 150 locals protested near the quarantine center demanding action against the three men.

Reuters was not able to contact the men. A local police official, Gyanendra Bahadur Pandey, said they did not have lawyers yet.

The government says it is committed to improving facilities. Nepal reported 6,211 cases coronavirus and 19 deaths as of Monday.
The United States on Monday reacted with outrage to the sentencing of an American businessman by a Russian court to 16 years on charges of spying, at the end of a trial held in secret.

The United States is outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict US citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a statement.

Pompeo went on to allege Whelan has bene treated poorly in Russian prison and demanded his immediate release.

A Moscow city court has sent Whelan to a maximum security prison.

Whelans twin brother David Whelan has said they will appeal the verdict. The courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, the statement said. We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.

Whelans lawyer and brother have said he was arrested in a sting operation. The American businessman, who is in corporate security, was arrested from outside a Moscow hotel in December 2018. His lawyer has said he had been handed a thumb-drive, which had confidential information that he did not know about. Whelan is an ex-Marine and holds Canadian, British and Irish passports.

There has been speculation in US media that Whelan was arrested for a swap in which Moscow would like to exchange him for Russians in US custody, which would be one of the two  Viktor Bout, a gun-runner who was arrested in Thailand in 2008 and extradited to America in 2010; and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot arrested in 2010 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.

There was a third candidate earlier, Maria Butina, who called herself a gun rights activist and had infiltrated conservative circles. She was arrested in July 2018, six months before Whelan, and convicted subsequently for acting as a foreign agent (which is different from spying). She was deported last October.

Media reports indicate Russia may be interested in a swap involving Yaroshenko, who is serving a 20 year sentence. His American lawyer has asked for his release citing the Covid-19 pandemic because he has several medical conditions. Russian ambassador to the US wrote to Attorney General William Barr in April seeking humane treatment of the incarcerate pilot.

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The first officer to respond the 911 call that resulted in the death of Rayshard Brooks considered just letting the incident go but decided to check one more time on the man whom he found drunk and asleep at the wheel, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Brooks was shot dead on Friday June 12 after police were called to the Wendys on University Avenue, Atlanta.

Rayshard Brooks was shot dead on Friday June 12 after police were called to the Wendys on University Avenue, Atlant.

An autopsy showed he sustained two gunshot wounds toz his back as a stop that had started peaceably escalated into a violent altercation during which Brooks punched one of the officers, stole his taser and started to run.0

His death has been ruled a homicide. Garrett Rolfe, 27, the officer who fired the fatal shots has been fired while Officer Devin Brosnan, 26, the first to arrive on the scene, has been placed on administrative duty while the incident is investigated by Georgia Bureau of Investigations.

Now, bodycam footage reviewed by DailyMail.com, has revealed just how close Brosnan came to letting the incident slide as he can be heard asking himself, Do I want to deal with this dude right now? before reluctantly getting out of his patrol car.

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Officer Garrett Rolfe (left), who pulled the trigger, was fired but has not been charged. Prosecutors say he may be charged as soon as Wednesday. Devin Brosnan (right) has been placed on administrative leave. Brosnan watched as Brooks overshot the parking space into which he pulled. The officer got back into his patrol car and asked himself, Do I want to deal with this dude right now?

Brosnan had just witnessed Brooks ploughing over the curb of the parking space into which he asked him to pull. He had already had to wake him twice having found Brooks asleep at the wheel of his car in the drive-thru lane.

Bodycam footage of the first minutes of the call-out showed Brosnan trying to wake Brooks before asking him to pull into a parking space to allow traffic to flow.

Brosnan returned to his car and waited only for Brooks to fall asleep once more. He later told Officer Rolfe that he could immediately smell the alcohol on Brookss breath.

Brosnan watched as Brooks then overshot the parking space into which he pulled. The officer got back into his patrol car and asked himself, Do I want to deal with this dude right now?

After one minute he walked over to Brooks car, looked in the window and saw that he was asleep once more.

The officer got back into his patrol car and hesitated for a full two minutes before sighing and deciding that he had to check on Brooks once more.

He returned to Brooks and asked, Hey man, are you good? Because you were passed out before. I just want to check youre okay. Why did you fall asleep?

Brooks responded semi-coherently, I was doing about fifty.

Which prompted Brosnan to ask, How much have you had to drink tonight?

Across the rest of the stop  which lasted approximately twenty minutes and during which Officer Rolfe arrived at around 10.56  Brooks made a variety of conflicting statement regarding his alcohol consumption.

Asked repeatedly he said by turns that he had had one margharita, one and a half margheritas, no margheritas, a daiquiri and no daiquiri.

He was unable to state where he was, initially believing himself to be in Forestpark, Clayton County some nine miles away and claimed to have not been driving at all despite the fact that he had been found alone in the car, behind the wheel.

Rayshard Brooks' widow Tomika Miller said on Monday that it would take a 'long time' for their family to heal. She spoke while holding one of his three daughters

Though muddled he remained polite throughout questioning and compliant during both a field sobriety test and preliminary breathalyzer.

But when Rolfe began to cuff him having stated, I think youve had too much to drink, the footage showed Brooks suddenly struggle and scuffle ensued during which an officer can be heard shouting, Hands off the f***ing taser. Hes got the taser!

Surveillance footage taken from the Wendys drive-thru showed Brooks attempting to run with Rolfe in pursuit. Brooks appeared to turn and shoot the taser at which point Rolfe can be seen dropping his own, unholstering his gun and firing.

The death has caused outrage, coming as it does in the wake of 46-year-old father of five, George Floyds killing which has seen protests and calls to defund the police have swept the nation.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard has said that having reviewed the evidence so far it would be hard for Rolfe to argue self-defense in his use of lethal force.

'There's one good thing about video,' said Howard, referring to surveillance camera footage obtained by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI).

'Because in the video we actually get a chance to hear the officer's first statement after the shooting took place.

'And what the officer said is not that his life was saved.

As he's running away from Rolfe, Brooks (right) is seen turning around and pointing a Taser gun at the cop. That is what prompted Rolfe to shoot him twice in the back

'What his statement was, he said: "I got him".'

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Howard said '(Brooks) did not seem to present any kind of threat to anyone, and so the fact that it would escalate to his death just seems unreasonable.

'If that shot was fired for some reason other than to save that officers life or prevent injury to him or others, then that shooting is not justified under the law.'

Howard said there were three charges which were 'relevant' in the case and could be filed.

'One would be the murder charge in the state of Georgia,' he said.

'That charge is a charge that is directly related to an intent to kill.

'The second charge is felony murder. And that is a charge that involves a death that comes as a result of the commission of an underlying felony, and in this case, that underlying felony would be aggravated assault.'

He said his office was unlikely to pursue the third charge, aggravated assault.

'I believe in this instance, what we have to choose between  if theres a choice to be made  is between murder and felony murder.'

Brooks was running from the cop when he turned, pointed the Taser gun, and was shot dead

Rolfe was reportedly heard shouting 'I got him!' after shooting Brooks dead

Brooks with Miller and three of his four daughters. She said she now feels like a 'statistic' having been rendered a single black mother by the cops' killing her husband

Rolfe had been recently trained in de-escalation tactics, according to his department record.

In addition to the de-escalation training, he took coursework in April in cultural awareness. This past January, he passed a course entitled 'Use of Deadly Force.'

Rolfe has also had multiple courses in tactical team operations and firearms training.

Brosnan was employed by Atlanta Police Department in 2018. Before that he served as a Campus Police Officer at Cape Cod Community College, Massachusetts.

Brooks was a married father of four children - three girls of his own, aged eight, two and one, and a 13-year-old stepson.

His attorney, L. Chris Stewart, said that on Friday, shortly before his death, Brooks was celebrating his eldest daughter's eighth birthday with her at an arcade
The night he got killed, he had had a few drinks and he was heading back. He had called me and he was telling me about the birthday party, and how he was glad to be with the kids. I asked him, How are you and your wife coming along? and he said, Im back in good graces. And I told him, Thats where you need to be,  Barbine said.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

Courtney Lynch once said "Leaders inspire accountability through their ability to accept responsibility before they place blame. This quote shows the essence why leaders should be accountable to their subordinates. Elections are won and lost based on how accountable the incumbent government is. A government's performance in delivering what they promised to do is key factor in determining whether they will be retained or voted out of power.

In Ghana the incumbent NPP government have always blamed their inactions on the NDC . It seems they have forgotten that , the NDC was booted out from the flag staff House due to their failure. Every government inherit a country's assets and liabilities. Therefore it is incumbent upon the government to make the wrongs of the previous administration right and not to apportion blames.

Louis Nizer once asserted that "When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself. " The NPP government, in opposition ,lashed Mahama-led administration for their inactions. Now the tables have turned to their favour, have they managed to right the wrongs of the NDC?. It is a public knowledge that political parties in opposition mostly coin their manifesto to correct the lapses of the ruling government . Have the NPP been able to practice what they preached? Fast forward , the NDC is set to put the ruling party's 2016 manifesto under the microscope.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is set to put the ruling New Patriotic Party's 2016 manifesto to perspective. The NDC will hold their third edition of weekly press briefing tomorrow. Their briefing is themed "NPP manifesto in perspective: claims, deception and reality." It is an interesting development and laudable one of course . We can't entrust our resources into the care of a group and not demand accountability from them.

Do we have a short memory as ex-president Mahama said? Why are we not holding them accountable?

It seems politicians in Ghana do take the citizens as a joke looking how they make non- feasible promises. They always come back to tell us that their four -year mandate is not enough. Demanding accountability from will put them on their toes. Should we always wait till elections to voice out our pent up anger by voting against them?

Wes Fessler once said "Good men are bound by conscience and liberated by accountability." If indeed the NPP government's boast of unprecedented achievements they will surely be liberated when they fulfil their own manifesto. Although a government is not only measured with their documented aims to achieve but also how they can manage unforeseen circumstances. Have the current government performed well in fighting this hanging COVID19 pandemic?

The ruling NPP's manifesto was themed " Change and Agenda for Jobs. Creating prosperity and equal opportunity for all."

The NPP's 2016 Manifestoes' prologue is a vision statement by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo which states that" My Vision for Ghana Our nation is in crisis: a crisis created and sustained by the mismanagement, incompetence and corruption of the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress (NDC) government. Economic conditions are worsening by the day and there is so much suffering in the land. But Ghana does not have to be like this. Ghana deserves the best! I have dedicated my life to public service to change Ghana for good. As President, with the help of the Almighty God, I will be committed to a different kind of government, one that governs in the national interest, not for private gain."

Based on the vision statement of President Nana Akuffo-Addo, Has the NPP government managed the economy well as they claim? Have they been competent enough to curb corruption canker they lambasted they previous government for ? You can add your question and comment in the comment section.
BEAVER, Pa. and ASHBURN, Va., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dutch Ridge Consulting Group, LLC (DRCG), headquartered in Beaver, Pennsylvania is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a 10-year, Prime Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) contract to provide cyber security and IT related services to enhance and execute the mission of the Department of Justice (DOJ). The contract has an estimated total program value of $1.9 billion.

Dutch Ridge Consulting Group, LLC

DRCG is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) with offices in Beaver, Pennsylvania and Ashburn, Virginia. DRCG offers expertise in Cybersecurity Engineering and Operations, IT solutioning, Program Management, Policy, Planning, Communications and Compliance Support, Cyber Threat Intelligence, workflow solutioning, Insider Threat Prevention and Detection and professional business consulting services. DRCG's technical approach optimizes client investments by leveraging expertise in managing growth and transformation of existing IT environments. DRCGs proprietary approach optimizes client investments by leveraging expertise in managing growth and transformation of existing IT environments.

"We are humbled and honored by this award announcement," said Doug Ingros, CEO and President of DRCG, "and are very excited at the opportunity to assist the DOJ in its mission."

A total of 14 awards were made under this BPA which includes two distinct competitive tracks: a SDVOSB track and an Unrestricted track. DRCG is a prime contractor for the SDVOSB track.

The contract award includes the following functional areas:

Strategic Communications and Operations Support

Policy, Planning, and FISMA Support

Cybersecurity Engineering and Project Management Support

Security Operations Center Support

This BPA is available for use throughout DOJ and its component agencies and may also be utilized to provide services to other government organizations.

The DOJ is comprised of more than 40 components with distinct and diverse missions, and technology platforms. Historically, the information technology infrastructures of these organizations evolved and operated largely independent of one another. However, changing missions and constrained budgets emphasized the need for shared solutions and collaboration throughout.

For more information about DRCG, please contact us at,

Media contact

Kelly Badgett

724-923-6057

[email protected]

SOURCE Dutch Ridge Consulting Group, LLC
Kim Jong-un and Kim Yo-jong - Korea Summit Press Pool/Pool via Reuters/File Photo

Two years ago, the world was fixated on a historic summit between the reclusive Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the first sitting US president to agree to meet a North Korean leader.

Today, the US president is absorbed with domestic battles, North Korea has just blown up an inter-Korean liaison office in apparent retaliation over defectors sending anti-Pyongyang messages across the border, and striking peace on the peninsula is once again a distant prospect.

The destruction on Tuesday of an office set up in 2018 to facilitate closer ties between North and South was a sharp escalation in what has already been a tense and torrid week for inter-Korean relations.

Over the weekend, Kims ever more powerful sister Kim Yo-jong threatened Seoul with military action in the latest of a sudden series of threats ostensibly linked to North Korean ire over defector groups in the South who have been sending messages and supplies across the border via balloons and other means.

It followed Pyongyangs decision last week to cut off communications with Seoul, and refusal to pick up a phone line that had been used for a twice daily call.

Stung by the snub and anxious to cling to the faint hope of reviving peace talks with the North, the South took legal action against defectors violating the Inter-Korean Exchange and Co-operation Act by sending the leaflets, as well as aid like rice and medicine.

North Korea, which on Tuesday morning threatened to advance its army into demilitarised zones on the border before exploding the liaison office appears not to have been appeased.

This suggests that the long-running issue of clandestine border activism is a smokescreen that hides much deeper grievances being harboured by Pyongyang.

Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics and North Korea expert at the University of Oxford, said the issue was an irritant masking North Koreas exasperation with the lack of progress in mending diplomatic ties with the South and the US. They want the international community to take them seriously, he said.

Story continues

Two years since the Singapore Summit, and numerous inter-Korean summits, and from North Koreas perspective, it has gained little, he said.

As demonstrated by Kim Yo-jongs recent statements, North Korea looks to take an increasingly hard-line approach towards South Korea and the US. It does not want to be seen as pining for dialogue if nothing tangible will be gained; rather, it will continue to provoke.

The destruction of the liaison office showed that Pyongyangs statements were not all bluster and the North would likely follow through with its warnings of military maneouvres, Mr Howell added.

The seeds of current discontent were sown last February at the failed summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Vietnam when the North expected a concession of sanctions relief to reciprocate its own moves towards dismantling its nuclear and weapons programmes.

Disappointment over the collapse of the summit morphed within a few months into rising hostility and the resumption of short-range missile tests.

Andray Abrahamian, a visiting scholar at George Mason University Korea, said it was difficult to draw definitive conclusions over the Norths current strategy and motives.

It's always important to remember that a lot of what Pyongyang does is driven by internal factors, whether elite or mass politics, he said.

On the outside, we tend to overvalue strategic explanations because we can make a good narrative out of those. The internal objectives are often obscured from us so we just don't incorporate them into how we explain what's going on.

It was clear overall that Pyongyang was annoyed that Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, had been unwilling to push back against US objections to inter-Korean cooperative projects, instead proposing only aid-type support, he said.

Pyongyang appears to be creating a bit of a crisis in order, perhaps, to create another breakthrough moment. Crises moments have spurred diplomacy on the Korean peninsula in the past, said Mr Abrahamian.

But the fixation on leaflets being sent across the border made the Moon administration look weak for clamping down so fast and the Pyongyangs approach appear scripted.

The action taken against defector groups at the behest of an authoritarian regime has raised obvious questions about freedom of expression in democratic South Korea.

It's important to remember that these leaflets are both a freedom of speech and national security/international politics issue for Seoul, and it isn't easy to balance the two, said Mr Abrahamian.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that sometimes they should be stopped in order to pursue dialogue with Pyongyang, but I wish the Moon Administration had pursued a more consensus-driven approach than what we saw this past week.
There was one transformative event in the Indian political scene post the elections of 2019. While the 2014 polls resulted in the formation of a BJP government, the 2019 polls led to the creation of a Modi Sarkar. The two are distinctly different and those who believe that they are still governed by a political party that adheres to democratic norms are grievously wrong. The party apparatus was used as a ladder to climb up to power and has long been kicked out.

Initial but firm steps toward a Modi Sarkar were taken soon after the elections of 2014 when the old guard of the party was unceremoniously kicked upstairs to sinecure posts into a Marg Darshak Mandal. On August 26, 2014, the partys newly elected president Amit Shah announced the constitution of a new Parliamentary Board without three of its founding members -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee (he had suffered a stroke in 2009 that affected his speech and mobility and later slipped into a coma), LK Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi (the last two were sitting MPs in Lok Sabha and, interestingly, Joshi had vacated his seat in Benares for Narendra Modi and contested from Kanpur).

Subsequently, some more old guards of the party -- Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Shatrughan Sinha -- left the party and those that remained, like Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh, were sidelined during the last term. Soon, it was made clear to them that they were in the Union Cabinet only because of PM Modis grace.

The party was reshaped on different lines. During PM Vajpayees tenure, nobody professed personal loyalty to him but were in the government because they had served the party or the nation for long and had some merit to be in the jobs that they were assigned. Now, the rules of engagement were different and they were clear from day one. You are in the government or the party or in the legislature on the sufferance of the Great Leader and not because of any intrinsic worth you may have, because nobody got elected on their own popularity but of the Leader alone. That was the narrative and the belief system that soon percolated downwards.

Just as the party was being reshaped, government institutions, including Constitutional bodies, were bent to the political will and suborned. This process affected the RBI, the Election Commission, the CBI, CAG, Indian Statistical Organisation and others. Never before had so many powerful institutions been subverted. And never before has the IAS cadre of one state, Gujarat, acquired so much clout in Delhi as in the last six years. In an RTI reply in August 2019, it was revealed that 370 IAS officers from Gujarat cadre were in the central government above the rank of Joint Secretary. This is the real Gujarat Model -- you worked with the then CM, now you will be heading a key post in the Government of India, not only because you know the PMs style of functioning but also because you know how to get things done for him. Rules and procedures are not to hinder the obedience to orders, that is the key.

This is a deliberate and planned process of hollowing out the State. Hollowing out the State has two aspects. First, destroy the impersonality and objectivity of an institution and personalise it and subordinate it to your command. Have your handpicked officers in all key posts. The second, and more devious objective, is to challenge the very purpose for which those institutions are built, such as keeping a check on the Executive, or serving the interests of all citizens. You question that fundamental premise how dare you check my authority or how dare you serve the interest of all citizens, you are here to serve my interests alone. This belief is justified by a sense of perceived grievance of a community over a long period, however false it is, as seen in Modis remark that Hindus have suffered slavery for 1,200 years.

The 2019 election threw up another important and revealing slogan -- Modi hain tho mumkin hain. Whether its hitting back at Pakistan through a surgical strike or taming the aggressive minority at home, or overcoming terrorism in Kashmir, or Make in India, or taking India to a $5 trillion economy; its all possible only with Modi in power, we are told.

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic gave another twist to the projection of the Great Leaders power. The Leader put his power to test, not once but thrice and found that the entire country obeyed his diktat like one man. Not only did they obey him on the need for the lockdown when it was announced, but they also obeyed his call to clap hands and light lamps. Thanksgiving to the Corona warriors may have truly impelled the people, but the messaging and the ordering of a mass drill for 1.3 billion people served another purpose. The Great Leader demonstrated that he controlled and directed his people like a puppeteer. No Leader had done such a thing in the history of this nation. This is a scary prospect as such power could be unleashed again, and not necessarily for a benign purpose.

Now, as the pandemic curve rises and the economys curve falls precariously, the Great Leader has to be shielded from public view and saved from peoples anger. His charisma is too precious to be used often. When you see President Trump on TV every day and if your first reaction is what a jerk, thats bad for the Leader, right?

(The writer, a former Cabinet Secretariat official, is presently Visiting Fellow, Observer Research Foundation)
A glider pilot stuck in a tree. A deadly crashed Wanderer, whose body must be recovered. Forestry workers who have been injured at work in the mountain forest. All cases for the mountain rescue, which celebrates the anniversary  it will be 100 years old. 14.In June 1920 it was founded in the Munich Hofbrauhaus, as part of the Alpine club. The great ceremony for the anniversary of the corona, the result was.

Even if the mountain rescue today, the mountain and cave rescue in Alpine and impassable terrain and the disaster-related aid as their core tasks is called, have emerged only gradually out. Because first of all, the mountain was waking up a moral police. After the end of the First world war, more and more people flocked to the mountains, and not every one of them behaved so, as the vision of the successful climbers. "The mountain rescue team was founded under the idea to address the Nature of violence and the excesses of the emerging tourism relating to morals and decency," says Heinz Neiber, the willingness of the head of the mountain rescue Munich. Against the reckless behavior of the mountain friends in the trains, the mountain had squads wakes up the same as against the radical sun-worshippers who gave their body to freely, or against plant predators, garbage, sinners, and wild disturber, writes Nicholas Milan, in his history of the mountain city of Munich. From the idea of Nature protection, the support for afforestation remained until the present work, the rock purges, and the work of enlightenment.

The mountain wachtler of the first hour were confronted in their many forays soon with first aid and rescue from distress in the mountains. These tasks they took over increasingly from the Alpine Rescue of the Alpine club. This led to the end of the Second world war, the mountain rescue service  because of the German Alpine Association as a national socialist organization was banned due to a community of the Red cross. Ten mountain-rescue-country associations, there is therefore today in Germany, from the resin on the black forest to the Alps, they have their own application areas. The largest country in the Association of the mountain is waking up Bayern with 3500 forces. A total of around 12000 mountain rescuers inside and a mountain rescuer in Germany according to the German Red cross. Today you will be exercises in addition to regular Use, even with the help of digital learning platforms and a state of the art helicopter simulator in the mountain centre in Bad Tolz wakes up prepared for your missions.

Updated Date: 15 June 2020, 03:20
This graphic with Black Lives Matter signs will be used for new Starbucks T-shirts. The coffee giant announced, June 12, 2020, that it is creating its own Black Lives Matter shirt that will soon be sent to more than 250,000 workers for employees to wear if they choose. The move comes after Starbucks reportedly banned employees from wearing Black Lives Matter gear. (Starbucks)
Sheep farmers have called for small and low throughput abattoirs to be protected from closure amid Covid-19 and its impact on the food supply chain.

Localised meat supply chains retailing through farm shops, butchers, and home deliveries have provided a 'service' to customers during lockdown.

This is according to the National Sheep Association (NSA), which has welcomed a new report - released earlier this week - on the future of small abattoirs in the UK.

Figures show that a third of small abattoirs have closed in the last ten years alone - with only 62 now left in the UK.

The most recent closure was only two weeks ago and many more are thought to be on the brink, struggling for survival.

The NSA said the report was 'crucial' as it came at a time when 'big decisions' were being made regarding food and farming policy.

It said small abattoirs and localised meat supply chains 'added value, retained margins, and created a close relationship with the public, for producers'.

NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said: "Many farm shops have reported meat sales up by a factor of three or four during this period.

"There are clear opportunities to be gained by holding onto this growth as we move forward, and potentially growing further.

The group said it was 'concerned' that this 'thriving area' would not be able to sustain without use of smaller and local abattoirs.

Mr Stocker added: This cant be done without sufficient abattoir facilities that provide a high quality and affordable local service.

"There is no doubt that most people who choose to buy their meat locally also want to see the entire supply chain as local as possible."

The report highlights key actions that need to be taken to retain, and expand where appropriate, abattoirs facilities.

As a step to achieving this, the report recommended that abattoirs are recognised in the Agriculture Bill, which has its second reading in the House of Lords this week.

Other recommendations include a regulatory framework that is appropriate to the size of the business, a Competition Inquiry into the waste collection market, support for apprenticeships and training, a local food label to showcase provenance and support for mobile abattoirs.

With many small and low throughput abattoirs having been lost, and those remaining still under immense pressure, the only thing more crucial than this report is to get its recommendations implemented quickly, Mr Stocker said.
Staff, prisoners and volunteers have delivered an 'outstanding' response to the Covid-19 threat by keeping the virus out of jails in Portlaoise and other parts of Ireland, according to Laois Offaly TD and Minister Charlie Flanagan who also confirmed that work has started on the resumption of visits.

Speaking on the publication of the Irish Prison Service (IPS) annual report Minister Flanagan praised the work of all IPS staff and prisoners in keeping the virus out.

A statement from the Department of Justice said that to date, no prisoner has been infected with Covid-19. It said the IPS has been internationally recognised for its work in controlling the spread of the virus.

The Department said the IPS has now shared their experience with other countries through the submission of a paper to the World Health Organisation on its approach to the outbreak.

The Minister drew attention to the establishment an infection control policy in 2019 and pointed out the extent to which that work helped to handle the pandemic in jails.

"I want to publicly recognise the outstanding collective efforts that have been made to-date by Irish Prison Service staff, management, prisoners and Red Cross Volunteers during the COVID-19 pandemic and thank them for the great work they have done to ensure our prisons continue to operate smoothly.

The new infection prevention and control teams that were put in place in all prisons in 2019 have made a significant contribution to the successful handling of the virus and this work is something which should be particularly commended. It is vitally important these efforts should continue in order to maintain this remarkable safety record, he said.

In line with the Government Roadmap, and with infection control in mind, the Minister also noted that the IPS has started to assess the ability of each prison to plan for the resumption of some family visits with appropriate safeguards in place.

The IPS is committed to reintroducing physical visits as soon as it is safe to do so. While no date has been agreed, we all fully understand how important contact with family is. Arrangements that will be put in place have yet to be finalised, but our colleagues in the IPS will provide further information, and a date for the gradual recommencement of visits, to prisoners and their families in the coming weeks, he said.

A statement said that the Minister also noted that the service will provide further updates on the measures that will be put in place to ensure that visiting a prison will be safe for prisoners, families, staff and other service providers, once those physical visits recommence.
A pharmacy tech holds a bottle and a pill of Hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, on May 20, 2020.

The Food and Drug Administration warned Monday that Covid-19 patients taking anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine along with antiviral drug remdesivir may weaken the effectiveness of the latter.

The FDA is revising its fact sheet for health-care providers that accompanies remdesivir to state "that co-administration of remdesivir and chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate is not recommended as it may result in reduced antiviral activity of remdesivir."

A recently completed nonclinical study discovered the potential drug interaction, the agency said in its notice published Monday evening.

"The agency is not aware of instances of this reduced activity occurring in the clinical setting but is continuing to evaluate all data related to remdesivir," the FDA wrote.
I had [acute] paranoia and depression off the roof, said Marcell, 46, who asked to be identified only by his first name because he wanted to maintain confidentiality about some aspects of his illness.

Marcells depression was so profound, he said, he didnt want to move and was considering suicide.

Things were getting overwhelming and really rough. I wanted to end it, he said.

Marcell, diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder seven years ago, had been this route before, but never during a pandemic. The Detroit area was a COVID-19 hot spot, slamming hospitals, attracting concerns from federal public health officials, and recording more than 1,000 deaths in Wayne County as of May 28. Michigan ranks fourth among states for deaths from COVID-19.

The crisis enveloping the hospitals had a ripple effect on mental health programs and facilities. The emergency room was trying to get non-COVID patients out as soon as possible because the risk of infection in the hospital was high, said Jaime White, director of clinical development and crisis services for Hegira Health, a nonprofit group offering mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. But the options were limited.

Still, the number of people waiting for beds at Detroits crisis centers swelled. Twenty-three people in crisis had to instead be cared for in a hospital.

This situation was hardly unique. Although mental health services continued largely uninterrupted in areas with low levels of COVID-19, behavioral health care workers in areas hit hard by COVID-19 were overburdened. Mobile crisis teams, residential programs, and call centers, especially in pandemic hot spots, had to reduce or close services. Some programs were plagued by shortages of staff and protective supplies for workers.

At the same time, people battling mental health disorders became more stressed and anxious.

For people with preexisting mental health conditions, their routines and ability to access support is super important. Whenever additional barriers are placed on them, it could be challenging and can contribute to an increase in symptoms, said White.

After eight hours in the emergency room, Marcell was transferred to COPE, a community outreach program for psychiatric emergencies for Wayne County Medicaid patients.

We try to get patients like him into the lowest care possible with the least restrictive environment, White said. The quicker we could get him out, the better.

Marcell was stabilized at COPE over the next three days, but his behavioral health care team couldnt get him a bed in one of two local residential crisis centers operated by Hegira. Social distancing orders had reduced the beds from 20 to 14, so Marcell was discharged home with a series of scheduled services and assigned a service provider to check on him.

However, Marcells symptomssuicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, auditory hallucinations, and poor impulse control and judgmentpersisted. He was not able to meet face-to-face with his scheduled psychiatrist due to the pandemic and lack of telehealth access. So he returned to COPE three days later. This time, the staff was able to find him a bed immediately at a Hegira residential treatment program, Boulevard Crisis Residential in Detroit.

Residents typically stay for six to eight days. Once they are stabilized, they are referred elsewhere for more treatment, if needed.

Marcell ended up staying for more than 30 days. He got caught in the pandemic here along with a few other people, said Sherron Powers, program manager. It was a huge problem. There was nowhere for him to go.

Marcell couldnt live with his girlfriend anymore. Homeless shelters were closed, and substance abuse programs had no available beds.

The big problem here is that all crisis services are connected to each other. If any part of that system is disrupted, you cant divert a patient properly, said Travis Atkinson, a behavioral consultant with TBD Solutions, which collaborated on a survey of providers with the American Association of Suicidology, the Crisis Residential Association, and the National Association of Crisis Organization Directors.

White said the crisis took a big toll on her operations. She stopped her mobile crisis team on March 14 because, she said, we wanted to make sure that we were keeping our staff safe and our community safe.

Her staff assessed hospital patients, including Marcell, by telephone with the help of a social worker from the emergency room.

People like Marcell have struggled during the coronavirus crisis and continue to face hurdles because emergency preparedness measures didnt provide enough training, funds, or thought about the acute mental health issues that could develop during a pandemic and its aftermath, said experts.

The system isnt set up to accommodate that kind of demand, said Dr. Brian Hepburn, a psychiatrist and executive director of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.

In Detroit and other hard-hit states, if you didnt have enough protective equipment, you cant expect people to take a risk. People going to work cant be thinking, Im going to die, said Hepburn.

For Marcell, it was bad timing to have a mental health crisis, said White, the director at Hegira.

At one time, Marcell, an African American man with a huge grin and a carefully trimmed goatee and mustache, said he had a family and a pretty good job. Then it got rough, he said. He made some bad decisions, lost his job, and got divorced. Then he began self-medicating with cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol.

By the time he reached the residential center in Detroit on April 1, he was at a low point. Schizoaffective disorder comes out more when youre kicked out of the house and it increases depression, said Powers, the program manager who along with White was authorized by Marcell to talk about his care. Marcell didnt always take his medications, and his use of illicit drugs magnified his hallucinations, she said.

While in the crisis center voluntarily, Marcell restarted his prescription medications and went to group and individual therapy. It is a really good program, he said while at the center in early May. Its been one of the best 30 days.

Hepburn said the best mental health programs are flexible, which allows them more opportunities to respond to problems such as the pandemic. Not all programs would have been able to authorize such a long stay in residential care.

Marcell was finally discharged on May 8 to a substance abuse addiction program. I felt good about having him do better and better. He had improved self-esteem to get the help he needed to get back to his regular life, Powers said.

Marcell left the addiction program after only four days.

The [recovery] process is so individualized, and oftentimes we only see them at one point in their journey. But recovering from mental health and substance use disorders is possible. It can just be a winding and difficult path for some, said White.

Seeking Help

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. Below are other resources for those needing help:

National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or https://FindTreatment.SAMHSA.gov

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Disaster Distress Helpline: 1-800-985-5990 or text TalkWithUs to 66746

Cheryl Platzman Weinstock is an award-winning journalist who reports about health and science research and its impact on society. This article was originally published on Kaiser Health News.
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced this month that he will remove the Lee statue from state property, saying Virginia can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of enslaved people. A judge has temporarily halted the effort because of a lawsuit, and two other suits have been filed against the removal, including one Monday that was referred to federal court. The delays have prompted demonstrators to pull down three other statues in the city. But Lee  towering 60 feet  would be a challenge for even the largest and most energetic crowd.
The two Indian high commission officials in Pakistan who had gone missing early on Monday will be released soon, the Indian mission has been told by Pakistani authorities, people familiar with the development told Hindustan Times on Monday. Pakistans decision to hand over the two Indian staffers was conveyed minutes after Pakistans charge daffaires Syed Haider Shah was summoned to the external affairs ministry in New Delhi and told that it was the responsibility of the government of Pakistan to ensure the safety and security on the Indian staffers.

Nearly seven hours after they went missing, reports emerged in the Pakistani media that the two officials had been arrested in a hit-and-run road accident.

WATCH | 2 Indian officials missing in Pakistan: Imran Khan govt relents after summons

In a strong demarche that referred to media reports on the arrest of the two high commission staffers, the external affairs ministry had told Haider Shah that there should be no interrogation or harassment of the Indian officials. India also underlined that it was Pakistans responsibility to ensure safety and security of the Diplomatic Missions personnel.

The Pakistani side was asked to return the two officials along with the official car to the High Commission immediately, a government source told Hindustan Times.

Soon after, the Indian high commission received word from the authorities that the two staffers were being held at a police station in Islamabad. It has been conveyed to the high commission that they can pick up the two Indian officials, the source said.

The two officials were reported missing by the Indian high commission earlier on Monday morning after they left the mission premises in a car but did not reach their destination. For the next six to seven hours, the external affairs ministry in New Delhi and the high commission in Islamabad repeatedly flagged the case to Pakistans foreign office. But Pakistani foreign office did not give any details, claiming that they were still looking into the matter.

The first confirmation that the two officials had been picked up by Pakistani security agencies came on Monday evening after Pakistan media reported the detention of the two staffers in what was described as a hit-and-run case.

Indian officials had suspected that the high commission staffers had been picked up by Pakistans security agencies when they went missing earlier in the day. Their detention was suspected to be a case of tit-for-tat since New Delhi had expelled two officials posted in Pakistan high commission for espionage.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shishir Gupta Author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (2011, Hachette) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (2014, Hachette). Awarded K Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 by Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA) and the 2011 Ben Gurion Prize by Israel. ...view detail
Starbucks to close up to 200 Canadian locations, June 11

The news that Starbucks is planning to close up to 200 Canadian coffee shops across Canada, making way for more pickup locations, has the prospect of both good news and bad news.

First, the bad news: No more free unlimited Wi-Fi and electrical outlets for mooches taking up too much seating space while managing to nurse a cappuccino or bottled water for several hours while working away on their laptops.

Second, the good news: No more free unlimited Wi-Fi and electrical outlets for mooches taking up too much seating space while managing to nurse a cappuccino or bottled water for several hours while working away on their laptops.
WASHINGTON - Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has long believed that the federal government should have little to do with education.

This spring, with schools facing their most significant crisis in decades, DeVos has stuck to that core conviction. She hasn't weighed in on how schools might teach remotely. She's said little about what they should consider when reopening beyond the need to consult health authorities.

And through it all, she has pressed her central agenda: that students and families should have choices beyond their traditional public schools, and that tax dollars should follow those choices. She calls it "education freedom."

The coronavirus, she has said, offers a"silver lining," showing Americans that traditional schooling is not the only way. "This really is a moment for transformation," she told conservative talk show host Glenn Beck in April.

"Education freedom" is also part of the solution to issues raised by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, President Donald Trump and DeVos said last week. Trump - at the urging of his education secretary, according to a DeVos aide - called on Congress to pass a school choice program, citing it as an example of how he is "leading efforts to revitalize America's underserved communities."

"School choice is a big deal because access to education is the civil rights issue of our time," he said in Dallas.

Teachers unions and many Democrats oppose school choice plans because they divert money from public schools to private and religious schools, some of which discriminate on the basis of religion or sexual orientation.

DeVos, though, was thrilled with Trump's shout-out to her $5 billion tax credit proposal, which would fund scholarships to private schools and other expenses. "The time for action is now!" she wrote on Twitter.

And while that proposal has gone nowhere in Congress, DeVos has, throughout the pandemic, found smaller ways to press her priorities.

When Congress passed its pandemic relief package, it included $13.5 billion for K-12 schools, most of it to be distributed using a formula that favors high-poverty schools. But DeVos chose to distribute the money using a calculation that diverts millions of additional dollars to private schools - and away from high-poverty public schools. She said the law allowed her the flexibility to do so.

Leading Democrats and school leaders lambasted the move. Even Sen. Lamar Alexander (R.-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Education Committee and a DeVos ally, disagreed. A GOP congressional aide said lawmakers never contemplated the secretary's move, and said her interpretation will make it difficult to get any money for private schools in the next relief bill.

After the pushback, DeVos doubled down, saying she would write her interpretation into a regulation, a step up from her nonbinding guidance.

Shealso used $180 million of the federal relief money to create a "microgrant" program that will allow parents to pay for educational expenses, including private school tuition. Critics say the grants are akin to vouchers, though the department notes states are free to use the money in a variety of other ways, too.

"The problem is here she is again standing up for private schools, and public school folks feel like she's never protected or cared about them," said Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. "As far as I can tell, she's pretty much played to type."

Nate Bailey, DeVos's chief of staff, said the criticism is out of proportion, given that the money given to private schools, and the pot that may be used for vouchers, is a sliver of the $13.5 billion given to states for K-12 education. And he said her job is to protect children in all kinds of schools.

"By mission statement and long-standing practice, she is not the secretary of public education," he said. "She is an advocate for all students. Private schools are facing just as much trouble as public ones."

DeVos declined a request for an interview, but she's made her viewpoints clear in a series of conversations with conservative radio and television talk-show hosts. One host echoed Trump's label of the coronavirus as the "China virus." Another declared his belief that Trump would be reelected and asked if DeVos would consider serving another term. "I don't want to get ahead of myself or certainly ahead of President Trump," she replied.

In each case, DeVos said the remote education forced on schools this spring has taught people there is more than one way for students to learn. She spent less time discussing the challenges of students, parents and teachers who have tried but struggled under this system, or the challenges faced by schools and families with less money or less access to tools to make remote learning work.

In a conversation last month on Sirius XM radio, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, asked DeVos if she was trying to "utilize this particular crisis to ensure that justice is finally done to our kids and the parents who choose to sent them to faith-based schools."

"Yes, absolutely," she replied.

DeVos has also faced criticism from higher-education advocates. The federal relief package, known as the Cares Act, provided $350 million for colleges with the greatest unmet needs. DeVos used it to direct hundreds of thousands of dollars to yeshivas, Bible schools and seminaries, regardless of their needs. After Democrats protested, the department reversed course.

She also took criticism for barring undocumented students from receiving emergency aid. Her interpretation is being challenged in court, and the Congressional Research Service said in a report that her rules were not supported by the statute. Nonetheless, last week she wrote her interpretation into a binding regulation, which officially bars millions of college students from pandemic relief grants.

Other moves since the start of the pandemic have drawn praise. She's helped states opt out of annual student tests and created flexibility for how districts can deploy federal funding. She stood up for disabled student rights, saying districts cannot use the pandemic as an excuse not to provide legally required services.

She also halted collection and wage garnishment for past-due student loans. Critics say the department has been slow to implement the loan relief, but the decision still won kudos.

"I know I often criticize you," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote on Twitter, "but this is really really good."

DeVos has not, however, taken on a public leadership role as districts grapple with how to make remote learning work, or where and how to reopen schools. She has said she wants to see schools open again but that those are local decisions, aides say. She also defers to federal health experts, including the CDC, and state officials.

Her aides say she's done enormous outreach: Since mid-March, she has spoken with more than 65 governors and state education officials, as well as at least a few big city district leaders, according to a partial list of calls provided by an aide. She's also participated in several conference calls and meetings with groups of education leaders. This month, the department invited education officials to a panel discussion on the practical applications of virtual learning.

But critics say she should do more - that DeVos is missing a valuable opportunity to guide schools through a historically challenging period.

"Districts have been pretty much completely on their own in trying to figure out the most massive logistical challenge they've ever faced," said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington at Bothell, who has been studying district plans during the pandemic. "There's no road map, and leadership is needed."

Asked if DeVos was capable of filling that role, Lake said, "I honestly don't know because I haven't seen her try."

Sasha Pudelski, advocacy director for AASA, the lobby group for superintendents,said the federal agency could help districts avoid duplicating efforts when time is short.

"Why should every district be tasked with trying to answer some of the same questions?" she asked. "It's foolish to put that burden on districts."

Even some allies say she's been too quiet. Jeanne Allen, chief executive for the Center for Education Reform, strongly supports the school choice agenda. To that end, she said DeVos should do more to lift up programs such as Success Academy, a charter school network in New York City, while shining a light to "shame" those who are failing.

"The bully pulpit remains one of the most important things," Allen said. "When you're not using the bully pulpit . . . you're not getting as much out of the office as you could deliver."

- - -

The Washington Post's Danielle Douglas-Gabriel contributed reporting.
South Africa made it clear it wasnt seeking any type of debt suspension to fight the coronavirus pandemic, with such measures likely hurting more than they would help due to the high domestic ownership of securities.

There are a few countries, such as Egypt and South Africa, that arent among those seeking to be involved in debt standstill talks being coordinated by the Institute of International Finance, special envoy Trevor Manuel said in response to emailed questions. South Africa has primarily borrowed from domestic capital markets.

While South Africa isnt eligible for the G-20 plan, as it doesnt belong to the worlds 73 poorest nations, Manuels arguments highlight the risks some countries need to consider when asking for a deferral of obligations.

Meanwhile, Zambia, which has hired Lazard to advise on a potential debt restructuring, has made an official request to the Paris Club to suspend payments on official obligations.

Key Developments:

A G-20 initiated plan to suspend debt payments for low-income nations is likely staying within the bounds of official loans, as governments stay clear of the default risk from renegotiating Eurobonds

31 countries, including 22 in sub-Saharan Africa, have applied to the Paris Club of official creditors as of last week

With a recovery in global risk appetite, many nations may not need immediate help and will opt to raise new funds as markets re-open

The medium-term outlook remains dire for countries carrying the burden of a decade-long debt binge

Earlier:

China said it has signed off on a debt suspension for 77 nations as part of the G-20 deal and has pledged to provide $2 billion to help countries respond to the pandemic

Ghanaian Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has campaigned for a longer debt suspension of three years, with African economies unable to replicate the money-printing stimulus of developed nations

Now read: Stella is back with a bang
After three months of shutdown, the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company will be back in front of audiences again on Friday at 7 p.m. The companys performance, titled As Close As We Can, will stream via YouTube and will include previously recorded sectionsbut Sinopoli didnt have to dig into the video archives to find them.

I didnt want to show existing video, Sinopoli said. Instead, we selected solos for each of the dancers from the repertory and they were responsible for rehearsing them.

The dancersin costumewere filmed last week in a large rehearsal space that allowed for social distancing; those videos will be featured in the virtual show in addition to the dancers reflections about preparing their solos, an update from Sinopoli on how the company is adapting and a Q&A with viewers.

Its a way of letting people know that were still here, and gives the dancers an opportunity to dance, Sinopoli said.

Audience members will also get a glimpse of what it looks like when a dance company improvises together via Zoom, and a look at the troupes arts-in-education work, which has continued throughout the spring.

Of our four education and outreach residencies, only one [for adults with special needs at the Center for Disability Services in Guilderland] was put on hold, Sinopoli explained. For the three schools where we are, weve been able to redesign the residencies, creating short videos of the creative movement workshops so children can do them on their own rather than with a group.

For students at the Abram Lansing Elementary School in Cohoes, where the company has a multiyear residency funded by the state arts council, the dancers have created videos that bring playful movement into the learning process. In videos that complement the third-grade social studies curriculum, dancer Laura Teeter invites kids to stalk like jaguars and hop from leaf to leaf like insects in the Brazilian rain forest; for a lesson about tsunamis in Japan, Erin Dooley uses her whole body to illustrate how tectonic plates shift. Percussionist Brian Melick provided soundtracks using culturally appropriate instruments.

In lieu of in-school programs presented at 16 schools through SPACs Classical Kids program, the company contributed a Stories in Motion series to the Saratoga Performing Arts Centers online Learning Library. Sinopoli describes the series as movement story hours for young children. The company also reimagined a Science in Motion project designed for Park Terrace Elementary in Gloversville, including making videos that guided students through the process of learning a short piece, each in their own home.

The dancers have been extraordinary as far as all the work theyve put into this whole new concept of video teaching, and its really been exciting for them, Sinopoli said. I would like to see this concept continue, so that some residencies would be done going into schools, and some new ones might be set up remotely.

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Arts-in-education projects have provided meaningful work for the dancers, Sinopoli says, as spring and summer performances were cancelled one after the other, including the companys annual gala at The Egg in May. Among the projects put on hold were an expanded version of a work premiered at the University at Albany in 2018, a new work by dancer Sara Senecal for The Egg Kids Project and a site-specific performance in conjunction with a sculpture exhibit by John Van Alstine at the Hyde Collection, which has been rescheduled for next summer.

Its hard on the dancers, said Sinopoli, who continues to hold company class twice weekly via Zoom. Its not ideal but its a way to see each other and work together. Ive been forced to become a little more astute technologically.

As the company approaches its 30th anniversary, there are more questions than answersfor Sinopoli in particular and for the dance world in generalabout how the art form will adapt and how long-term social-distancing guidelines will affect performers, choreographers and audiences.

To be honest, I dont have a clue as to how Im going to create in this situation, but if it continues I obviously will, Sinopoli said. A lot of things are up in the air, we dont know what will happen in the fall, but my dancers are itching to get back, and well figure it out.

Tresca Weinstein is a frequent contributor to the Times Union.

When: 78:30 p.m. Friday

Tickets: $25 suggested donation

Info: http://www.sinopolidances.org/VirtualPerformance.html
PISCATAWAY, NJ - It's not just heavy drinking that's a problem -- even consuming alcohol within weekly low-risk drinking guidelines can result in hospitalization and death, according to a new study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Moderate drinkers "are not insulated from harm," write researchers led by Adam Sherk, Ph.D., of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

The Canadian government's low-risk drinking guidelines state that women should consume no more than about 10 drinks per week and men no more than 15. (A "drink" is 12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine, or 1.5 oz. of liquor.) These limits are slightly higher than those in the United States and exceed those of most other high-income countries.

In their research, Sherk and colleagues found that, in British Columbia, a significant portion of alcohol-caused death and disability was experienced by those drinking within these guidelines. For example, more than 50 percent of cancer deaths resulting from alcohol use occurred in people drinking moderately. Further, 38 percent of all alcohol-attributable deaths were experienced by people drinking below the weekly limits or among former drinkers.

However, for women, alcohol consumption within the guidelines did offer some protection from death from heart attack, stroke and diabetes. Nonetheless, "[t]his protective effect did not appear to hold for men," the authors write, "who experienced harm at all drinking levels."

For their study, the investigators used a new, open-access model -- the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies (InterMAHP) -- which can be used to estimate alcohol harms in a country or state, in total or by drinking group. They used British Columbia-specific alcohol exposure data from substance use surveys, hospital data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information and mortality data from Statistics Canada's Vital Statistics. These sources were nonidentifying and for 2014.

Because of these results, Sherk and colleagues say that some national drinking guidelines, which are published by many countries to help drinkers make informed health decisions, may be too high. This may be particularly true in Canada, where the research was conducted.

Sherk suggests that guideline limits should be lowered to match those in the Netherlands: "Don't drink or, if you do, drink no more than one drink per day."

Overall, he says, the best advice for drinking is to err on the side of caution, "When it comes to alcohol use, less is better."

###

To learn more about The International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies (InterMAHP), visit http://www.intermahp.cisur.ca.

Sherk, A., Thomas, G., Churchill, S., & Stockwell, T. (2020). Does drinking within low-risk guidelines prevent harm? Implications for high-income countries using the international model of alcohol harms and policies. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 81, 352-361. doi:10.15288/jsad.2020.81.352

To arrange an interview with Adam Sherk, Ph.D., please contact Amanda Farrell-Low at farlow@uvic.ca or 250-472-5445.

The Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (jsad.com) is published by the Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies (alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu) at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. It is the oldest substance-related journal published in the United States.

To learn about education and training opportunities for addiction counselors and others at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies, please visit https://education.alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/education-training.
New Delhi, June 15 : The Amitabh Bachchan-Ayushmann Khurrana starrer "Gulabo Sitabo" shows that the direct-to-digital-release way can profitably work for Bollywood films made at a restrained budget, at a time the industry is reeling under the after-effects of shutdown owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, big ticket Bollywood entertainers are still maintaining distance from OTT release, and would prefer to wait for cinema halls to reopen.

Lined up for OTT premieres after "Gulabo Sitabo", over the next several movies are small to medium budget films such as the Vidya Balan-starrer "Shakuntala Devi" and "Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl".

Other films whose names are doing the rounds are the Alia Bhatt-starrer "Sadak 2", Ajay Devgn's "Bhuj: The Pride Of India", Anurag Basu's "Ludo", "Khaali Peeli" starring Ishaan Khatter and Ananya Panday, "Shershaah" starring Sidharth Malhotra, the Abhishek Bachchan-starrer "The Big Bull", "Mimi" starring Kriti Sanon, the Kunal Kemmu-starrer "Lootcase", the Kiara Advani-starrer "Indoo Ki Jawaani", and "Roohi Afzana" featuring Janhvi Kapoor.

The late actor Sushant Singh Rajput's upcoming film "Dil Bechara" was also being considered for a direct to OTT release, according to reports.

Unconfirmed reports have also indicated that the Akshay Kumar-starrer "Laxmmi Bomb" is in line for a direct-to-OTT release, although nothing is confirmed. Rumours suggest the makers of the film are asking for a steep price of well over Rs 100 crore to sell the right for direct OTT premiere, owing to the presence of superstar Akshay.

In fact, streaming platform Amazon Prime Video, in a bid to revolutionise the way we might watch films in the future, recently confirmed films across five Indian languages for digital release.

Their direct-to-home menu features the recently-released Tamil legal drama "Ponmagal Vandhal" starring Jyotika, the Keerthy Suresh starrer "Penguin" (Tamil and Telugu), "Sufiyum Sujatayum" (Malayalam) starring Aditi Rao Hydari, "Law" (Kannada) starring Ragini Chandran and Siri Prahlad, and Danish Sait's next film "French Biryani" (Kannada).

A small and moderate budget is the string that connects the films switching to OTT route as cinemas remain shut amid the virus crisis.

One report claimed that the OTT platform bought the premiere rights of "Gulabo Sitabo" for Rs 60-65 crore, which means that the makers made profit of around Rs 30-35 crore with the film, said to be made on an approximate budget of Rs 30 crore.

"The value or the impact will not get lost because it was released on a digital platform instead of theatre.. Yes, I started the film with an aim to release on a cinema platform, but the situation is like this that I had to experiment with the digital platform.. At some point I had to experiment with digital and I was looking for it. Every film has its own destiny and the destiny of 'Gulabo Sitabo' was a digital premiere at Amazon Prime Video," director Shoojit Sircar told IANS.

Digital world, however, does not seem to be enticing the biggies. Makers of much-anticipated films such as "83" and "Sooryanvanshi" have assured cinema owners that they will release their films in theatres first.

"That's because they get good revenue from theatres," Raj Kumar Mehrotra, general manager at Delhi's Delite Cinema, told IANS.

To this, trade analyst Girish Johar added: "The films that are coming on OTT are somewhat premium content. These are not big tentpole releases. Hollywood is following the same thing. Marvel Studios has pushed all the tentpole movies to 2021. OTT can't be a revenue platform for buying Rs 200 crore film. In the case of OTT platforms, it is the time when they can get maximum subscribers as everyone is at home, that's why they are buying new films. Cinemas need not fear as there would be jump once everything is normal, and the window will be respected by the makers as well.

"Once lockdown is over and safety precautions in place, theatrical revenue will jump by more than 20 per cent because there is a lot of pent up demand," Girish added.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
[June 14, 2020] Skillsoft Enters Into Agreement with Lenders to Significantly Reduce Debt and Position Company for Long-Term Success

Skillsoft Corporation ("Skillsoft" or the "Company"), a global leader in corporate learning, today announced that it has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement ("RSA (News - Alert)") with an overwhelming majority of its first and second lien lenders. The RSA is expected to result in a comprehensive de-levering of the Company's balance sheet by reducing the Company's existing first lien and second lien debt to $410 million from approximately $2.0 billion, with total debt (including working capital financing) aggregating $585 million, lowering the Company's annual cash interest by approximately $100 million (the "Restructuring"). As of the date of this release, holders representing approximately 81% in value of the Company's first lien debt and 84% in value of the Company's second lien debt have executed the RSA, indicating their commitment to support the Restructuring. The Restructuring is expected to provide the Company with significant additional liquidity and a right-sized pro-forma capital structure, while minimizing operational disruptions by ensuring all holders of general unsecured claims, including the Company's vendors, suppliers, and other trade creditors, will be paid in full. Additionally, it is expected that no employees will be affected as a direct result of the Restructuring, ensuring that Skillsoft customers continue to be well-served. The RSA provides, among other things, that: Holders of the Company's first lien debt will receive their pro rata share of approximately $410 million in takeback first lien debt and 96% of the equity in the reorganized company;

Holders of the Company's second lien debt will receive their pro rata share of approximately 4% of the equity in the reorganized company, as well as warrants that will provide them with the opportunity to purchase up to 15% of the equity in the reorganized company at various price thresholds based on first lien debt holders achieving certain recovery levels; and

Holders of general unsecured claims, including vendors, suppliers and other trade creditors, will receive payment in full in the ordinary course of business. John Frederick, Skillsoft's Chief Administrative Officer, said, "Today's announcement marks an important step forward in significantly strengthening Skillsoft's capital structure and positioning the Company for long-term success. This is an exciting time for digital learning, and Skillsoft provides best-in-class learning solutions to thousands of customers around the world, including 65 percent of companies in the Fortune 500. While our core business remains strong, with attractive profitability and cash flow characteristics, our debt levels are too high. We need to invest further and that requires our debt levels to come down to free up cash to further enhance our offerings. We look forward to benefitting from a stronger balance sheet and enhanced financial flexibility as we continue investing in new products, solutions and content to drive value for our customers and growth in the business. We appreciate the broad support of our lenders, who will become the new owners of the Company and recognize the inherent value in the Skillsoft brand. We also thank the entire Skillsoft team for their ongoing hard work and commitment to our company and our customers and are grateful to our vendors and business partners for their continued support." To efficiently implement the Restructuring, Skillsoft and certain of its affiliates have voluntarily filed "pre-packaged" Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The Company anticipates commencing ancillary proceedings in Canada under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) seeking recognition of the U.S. Chapter 11 proceedings in Canada. Skillsoft intends to move through this process as quickly and efficiently as possible and, pursuant to the terms of the RSA, anticipates emerging from Chapter 11 on an expedited basis. Skillsoft is operating as normal and expects to continue operating in the normal course during and following the restructuring process, without material disruption to its vendors, partners, or employees. In conjunction with the court-supervised process, Skillsoft has received a commitment for $60 million in debtor-in-possession ("DIP") financing from certainof its first lien lenders. Following court approval, this financing, together with cash generated from ongoing operations, is expected to provide ample liquidity to support the Company during the restructuring process.



Certain of the Company's first lien lenders have also committed to provide the Company with additional liquidity upon exit from the restructuring process in the form of a $110 million exit facility, less any amounts outstanding under the DIP financing, which will be rolled into the exit facility upon emergence. The Company expects to have liquidity of approximately $50 million upon completion of the restructuring process, with leverage at approximately 3.5x net debt-to-LTM EBITDA. The Company remains focused on providing customers with state-of-the-art corporate learning solutions, best-in-class performance support resources and Live events. The Company noted that there are no planned changes to Skillsoft's leadership team or organizational structure as a result of the Restructuring.

Skillsoft has filed a number of customary first day motions with the court seeking approval to operate its business in the normal course during the court-supervised process, including the continued payment of employee wages and benefits without interruption. The Company expects to receive court approval for these requests. Additional information regarding the Company's court-supervised process is available on Skillsoft's restructuring website, www.AdvancingSkillsoft.com. Court filings and other information related to the proceedings are available on a separate website administrated by the Company's claims agent, KCC, at www.kccllc.net/skillsoft, or by calling KCC toll-free at 877-709-4752, or 424-236-7232 for calls originating outside of the U.S. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP is serving as legal counsel to Skillsoft, Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. is serving as investment banker, and AlixPartners LLP is serving as financial advisor. About Skillsoft and SumTotal Skillsoft delivers online learning, training, and talent solutions to help organizations unleash their edge. Leveraging immersive, engaging content, Skillsoft enables organizations to unlock the potential in their best assets - their people - and build teams with the skills they need for success. Empowering 36?million learners and counting, Skillsoft democratizes learning through an intelligent learning experience and a customized, learner-centric approach to skills development with resources for Leadership Development, Business Skills, Technology & Development, Digital Transformation, and Compliance. SumTotal provides a unified, comprehensive Learning and Talent Development suite that delivers measurable impact across the entire employee lifecycle. With SumTotal, organizations can build a culture of learning that is critical to growth, success, and business sustainability. SumTotal's award-winning technology provides talent acquisition, onboarding, learning management, and talent management solutions across some of the most innovative, complex and highly regulated industries, including technology, airlines, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. Skillsoft and SumTotal are partners to thousands of leading global organizations, including many Fortune 500 companies. The company features three award-winning systems that support learning, performance and success: Skillsoft learning content, the Percipio intelligent learning experience platform, and the SumTotal suite for Talent Development, which offers measurable impact across the entire employee lifecycle. Learn more at?www.skillsoft.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements." Statements that are not historical fact are forward-looking statements. Certain of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "believes," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "estimates," "assumes," "may," "should," "could," "shall," "will," "seeks," "targets," "future," or other similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors, and our actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from future results, performance or achievements expressed in these forward-looking statements. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements relating to: the terms of and potential transactions contemplated by the RSA; the chapter 11 cases; the DIP financing; and management's strategy, plans, opportunities, objectives, expectations, or intentions and descriptions of assumptions underlying any of the above matters and other statements that are not historical fact. These forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current beliefs, intentions and expectations and are not guarantees or indicative of future performance, nor should any conclusions be drawn or assumptions be made as to any potential outcome of any potential transactions or strategic initiatives the Company considers. Risks and uncertainties relating to the proposed restructuring include: the ability of the Company to confirm and consummate a plan of reorganization in accordance with the terms of the "pre-packaged" chapter 11 cases; the ability of the Company to comply with the terms of the RSA and DIP financing; the Company's ability to obtain requisite court approvals; the impact of COVID-19 on the Company's operations, including its financial condition and liquidity; the ability of the Company to successfully execute the transactions contemplated by the RSA without substantial disruption to its business; and the effects of disruption from the proposed restructuring on the Company's operations, including its financial condition and liquidity, and the difficulty to maintain business, financing and operational relationships. These factors, risks and uncertainties are difficult to predict, contain uncertainties that may materially affect actual results and may be beyond the Company's control. New factors, risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and therefore any of these statements may prove to be inaccurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation by the Company or any other person that the results or conditions described in such statements or the Company's objectives and plans will be achieved. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date such statements were made or any earlier date indicated, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in underlying assumptions or otherwise. If the Company were in any particular instance to update or correct a forward-looking statement, investors and others should not conclude that the Company would make additional updates or corrections thereafter. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200614005039/en/

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I see Bone Spurs lapdog attorney general Billy Barr goes on national television and tells the whole country that pepper spray is not a chemical agent on the people. Im sorry, but the attorney general  the lead law enforcement official of this great nation  should know that pepper spray is and always has been considered a chemical agent. But, he can go on national television and lie to this country and no one makes him come back and say he was wrong and he lied. He seems to be able to get away with that, just like Bone Spur does. He goes on national television and lies every time he opens his mouth, and no one says anything. But now even some Republicans are starting to see through that facade, and I think his days are numbered because I do believe the old boy is about to crack. I will wait for my answer.
Harry and Meghan have delayed the launch of Archewell. (Getty Images)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are delaying the launch of their non-profit organisation until next year amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the momentum gained by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Harry and Meghan confirmed their intentions to start a project called Archewell, inspired by the same word which inspired their sons name, earlier this year, having stepped back as senior members of the Royal Family.

The couple had already pressed pause on the launch because of the coronavirus pandemic, but will wait longer as they redirect their efforts to support the BLM cause, its been reported.

The Telegraph reported there wont be any public announcements or projects until 2021.

Read more: Liza Minnelli denies she's helping Prince Harry settle into LA life

A source told The Daily Telegraph: Whats absolutely clear is that they want to get it right and theres no point in rushing.

They are settling into a new life, a new era. This is about getting it right and making sure they are able to make the difference they want to make.

According to the source, the couple will take a more active role in the BLM movement in the coming days, having taken time to have meetings with community leaders to understand the situation.

Meghan, 38, has already spoken about the movement as she gave a speech to the graduating class of her former high school, Immaculate Heart.

In the message, she said: As weve all seen over the last week, what is happening in our country and in our state and in our hometown of LA, has been absolutely devastating.

And I wasnt sure what I could say to you.

I wanted to say the right thing and I was really nervous that I wouldnt, or that it would get picked apart, and I realised the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.

Because George Floyds life mattered and Breonna Taylors life mattered and Philando Castiles life mattered and Tamir Rices life mattered.

Harry and Meghan stood back from their royal duties in the spring. (WireImage)

Read more: Meghan Markle shares devastation at George Floyds death in graduation speech to LA school she attended

Story continues

When the couple stepped back from their senior roles, they hoped for a spring transition, as they formally stopped being working royals on 31 March.

The couple registered Archewell Inc in Delaware earlier this year, and appointed Catherine St-Laurent, who used to work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

While they mothballed their Sussex Royal social media accounts they have been popping up on other accounts to give their support to different charities.
When Elon Musk said in April he was dropping the insurance policy that protects Tesla Inc.s board from shareholder lawsuits, it got Skip McBrides attention.

To McBride, who used to manage law firm Bracewell LLPs malpractice exposure, Musks decision to insure Teslas directors out of his own pocket was a firstand a risky move.

But it was also the latest sign that companies are hunting for creative workarounds as rates for directors-and-officers insurance skyrocket amid a surge in lawsuits by plaintiffs seeking to sue as a group. That litigation is now driven by a rash of claims that companies bungled the response to the coronavirus outbreak and the economic lockdown that followed. Prices for D&O coverage are up by almost half and, by one reckoning, are headed for a triple-digit increase.

The galloping rates are clearly related to litigation over the Covid-19 outbreak and a several-year increase in the number of securities cases against directors and boards, said McBride, who is now of counsel at the Lanier Law Firm and sits on five boards himself.

Im not about to serve on a board where I have to rely on a single individuals wealth to guarantee I have directors-and-officers coverage, he added. Theres just too many unexpected things that can happen.

How Coronavirus Could Further Stress an Already-Stressed D&O Insurance Market A.M. Best predicts the D&O insurance market will see radical changes based on 2019 results and the unprecedented turbulence created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Oil & Gas Companies Seek More D&O Insurance as Bankruptcies Loom Companies at risk of insolvency have been looking to purchase additional insurance to cover claims. Insurers Worry About D&O Claims Against Executives From Coronavirus D&O insurers are considering excluding the virus from policies which protect the bosses.

Tesla didnt respond to emails seeking comment on Musks D&O arrangement.

Teslas board may be expensive to insure, given Musks Twitter missteps and run-ins with regulators, and his new insurance setup creates the potential for conflicts of interest. But the burgeoning litigation and higher rates are widespread, and companies are pressing insurance brokers for solutions.

More corporations are inquiring about covering risks to the board by using a captive insurer, an entity funded solely by the company and dedicated to indemnifying it against risk, according to Sarah Downey, a D&O specialist at Marsh & McLennan Cos. insurance brokerage. She declined to cite examples.

Since February, investors have sued more than a dozen boards of companies ranging from cruise lines to drug makers chasing a coronavirus vaccine, alleging they were asleep at the switch as the crisis decimated their businesses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

I think the run to the courthouse has really only just started, Downey said.

Investors in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. sued company directors in March over alleged efforts to downplay the risk the virus posed to customers. Bookers were instructed to tell callers the pathogen can only survive in cold temperatures, according to court filings. Norwegian now faces other securities cases targeting directors over its handling of the virus. Its stock is down 65% for the year.

Norwegian didnt return a call and emails seeking comment.

Plaintiffs filed 428 new securities cases seeking class action status in federal and state courts last year, the most on record and nearly double the average from 1997 to 2018, according to a Cornerstone Research report. Evan Greenberg, chief executive officer of insurance giant Chubb Ltd., has repeatedly addressed the wave of suits in his annual letter. This year he called excessive litigation a tax on society and business.

Whether the lawsuits spurred by the pandemic will succeed remains to be seen. A volatile stock market generally translates into more securities class actions, but the breadth of the markets decline might make it harder to prove it was a companys response to the virus that caused its travails, Travelers Cos. CEO Alan Schnitzer said in April.

Rates Rising

In the meantime, rates on D&O policies in the U.S. rose 44% in the first quarter from a year earlier, with 95% of clients experiencing an increase, according to a report by Marsh. AM Best said last week that the pandemic could push those increases to three digits.

Covid-19 will ensure that we will see these kinds of increases for the foreseeable future, said Ty Childress, an insurance lawyer at Jones Day.

Tesla officials decided not to renew the D&O coverage due to disproportionately high premiums quoted by insurance companies, and Musk personally agreed to provide coverage equivalent to such a policy for a one-year-period, according to an April securities filing. Tesla said the board doesnt expect Musks arrangement to threaten the independence of its other members, because the new structure is governed by a binding agreement with Tesla and is intended to replace an ordinary insurance policy.

Not everyone sees it that way. Hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who has long bet against Tesla shares, said last month the structure creates an obvious conflict of interest that hinders the boards ability to curtail Musks behavior.

The setup is dependent on his financial ability to honor his commitment, Kevin LaCroix, a liability insurance expert at RT ProExec, wrote in his D&O Diary blog in April. He warned that if the economy takes another dive, the directors need for coverage could arise in a set of circumstances that could itself undermine Musks ability to honor his commitment.

Its a risky board to sit on. In January, Teslas insurer paid out $60 million to settle investor claims that directors allowed Musk to dupe the company into overpaying for solar panel maker Solar City. The accord covered all the directors except Musk; his trial is set for July. Musk faces other litigation over controversial tweets about taking Tesla private and rosy predictions about initial production rates for the Model 3 sedan.

Captive Alternative

Captive insurers have their uses, said the Lanier Law Firms McBride. Johnson & Johnson, for example, set up Middlesex Assurance Co. in 1970 to address a profusion of exposure, according to securities filings. Over the years, Middlesex has helped cover litigation costs tied to liabilities including those from the companys talc-based baby powder, which has been blamed for causing cancer. J&J took the talc-based version of the powder off the market last month.

Kim Montagnino, a J&J spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether J&J has used Middlesex to self-insure its coverage for the companys directors, who include former Citigroup Inc. chairman and CEO Charles Prince and former Aetna Inc. chairman and CEO Ronald Williams.

Captive insurance is generally trickier with D&O coverage because of potential conflicts of interest, said Marshs Downey. The inquiries shes received havent necessarily translated into action, she said.

Musk may be at the leading edge here, as he is in electric cars and space travel, but dont expect a stampede, said McBride, whose five boards include Blue Bell Creameries. Directors are always going to want to have another pocket of money they can rely on, he said, in case their interests and those of the company diverge.

And if he were invited to join Teslas board? First hed need to cut his own deal with Musk.

Im crafting that agreement, and you can be sure it will be airtight, he said. Mr. Musk would have no out when it came to my coverage.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Lawsuits Trends Agencies Tesla
Excavators, excavators, excavators!

You would be forgiven if you thought that Ghanaians had had enough of excavators.

Excavators seized from galamseyers are found parked at all sorts of places. When the media raises a hullabaloo about them, no satisfactory explanation is offered. And as usual, the matter is allowed to die down.

And as can be expected in a country in which matters just die down, the phenomenon has occurred again.

Read this:

QUOTE: Excavators Fly Back To Galamsey Site As Angry Lands Minister Fingers Suaman DCE, Police Commander

[The]Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, [Mr] 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 [galamsey].

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... 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 [ago]...he led a team of 32 police officers and security operatives to confiscate nine excavators from illegal miners in the area.... The excavators were placed in the custody of the DCE and the Police Commander.

[But] ... after some days, [the Minister] returned to the area with some 10 soldiers  [to find]... police officers with AK47s, guarding the excavators.... Major parts were missing [from] the excavators, making it impossible for [the Minister's team] to transport them from Suaman. [Yet],,, at the material time of the seizure 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 [found operating] 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 [stated] that at the next national security meeting on June 17 or [the] next Cabinet meeting, he would

raise the matter [with the President] for disciplinary action to be taken against the DCE and the police chief.

Mr Asomah-Cheremeh [was] visibly upset upon realizing that about 100 acres of land at Tugakrom [had] been destroyed by the illegal miners, who are believed to be Chinese..... He [urged] Ghanaians who are desirous of mining, to apply for small-scale licences, instead of conspiring with foreigners to engage in illegal activities UNQUOTE

In a comment on this story, a reader, wrote to the Daily Guide as follows: HEAVY EXCAVATORS flew away mysteriously! How many did the Minister say have landed safely? .If you know the GARGANTUAN PRICE of just 1 EXCAVATOR, you will know the level of rottenness in this corrupt case. It runs into several billions of dollars.

I am afraid the story merits the ridicule that this reader and others have heaped upon it in the media. In the first place, these excavator tales, always couched in the genre of Kwaku Ananse stories, are just getting on everyone's nerves. Excavators have been involved in the galamsey story from Day One.

The Police allow them to freely cross the many Police checkpoints, without detaining them, despite the full knowledge by the Police that they are going into the bush solely for one reason: to carry out galamsey.

The Police could, if they were really interested, ask the excavator drivers to produce evidence that they were travelling into the interior of the country for legitimate purposes,.Were they going to be used in building roads, bridges, schools or clinics? If so, under what contracts?

The Police don't ask for such evidence because, as many citizens suspect, they are settled (bribed) by the excavator owners, before the machines reach the police checkpoints.

Another question is this: under the new GALAMSTOP roadmap adopted by the Government to eliminate galamsey, all excavators were to be fitted with special equipment that could tell the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Mining [IMCIM] officials their whereabouts.. What's happened to this idea? If it have to engage in personally arresting excavators at galamsey sites, only to have them flown back to the galamsey sites by the very officials charged with the duty of guarding the excavators?

These embarrassing events are symptomatic of a major failure in the Government's approach to the galamsey issue  the Government's methodology HAS NO TEETH!

A draconian law has been hurried through Parliament

to stiffen considerably, the sentences that can be attracted by galamsey operations and its ancillary offences which now constitute the offence of aiding and abetting galamsey. Yet, NOT A SINGLE PERSON has been charged and taken to court under the new law.

How can anyone take the law seriously if it is only to remain on the statute book as one of our unenforced laws?

You might imagine that no-one has been charged under the law because Ghanaians have seen sense, changed and stopped doing galamsey?

Haha! Dear reader, please, go and look at the condition of the Ankobra River today.

Go to Nkroful, the birth-place of ex-President Kwame Nkrumah and ask the people what harm galamsey is doing to their dwellings and schools; ask them how difficult it is for them to get clean water to drink, wash their things or cook with.

The Government was elected to rule to save these Ghanaians from death through blatant

environmental destruction.

Our Government MUST NOT allow itself to fail in that task -- for whatever reason.

The future of Ghana is more important than anything else, for sure.


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - After seeing initial strength, treasuries pulled back over the course of the trading day on Monday before ending the session roughly flat.



Bond prices turned negative late in the session before climbing back near the unchanged line going into the close. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, crept up by less than a basis point to 0.702 percent.



Treasuries initially benefited from their appeal as a safe haven amid concerns about a second wave of coronavirus infections after Beijing recorded a spate of new Covid-19 cases in a major wholesale food market.



Data compiled by the New York Times also showed a recent increase in coronavirus cases in more than 20 states, including California, Florida, and Nevada.



Texas and North Carolina also reported a record number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Saturday, adding to worries that businesses reopening may drive a second wave.



Buying interest waned over the course of the morning, however, as traders continued to express optimism about the economy as the New York Federal Reserve released a report showing regional manufacturing activity steadied in June after seeing sharp contractions in April and May.



The New York Fed said its general business conditions index spiked to negative 0.2 in June from negative 48.5 in April. A negative reading indicates a contraction in regional manufacturing activity.



The jump by the index far exceeded the estimates of economists, who had expected the index to surge up to negative 27.5.



Treasuries continued to give back ground after the Federal Reserve announced plans to begin buying a broad and diversified portfolio of corporate bonds to support market liquidity and the availability of credit for large employers.



The Fed said it will buy up to $750 million worth of corporate bonds to create a corporate bond portfolio that is based on a broad, diversified market index of U.S. corporate bonds.



The index will be made up of all the bonds in the secondary market that have been issued by U.S. companies that satisfy the facility's minimum rating, maximum maturity, and other criteria.



Trading on Tuesday may be impacted by reaction to reports on retail sales, industrial production and homebuilder confidence.



Following today's announcement by the Fed, traders are also likely to keep an eye on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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In the third court hearing of a major corruption case in Iran, more revelations were made about a fugitive judge who fled the country last year and is now in Romania.

One witness told the court, "We offered Judge Gholamreza Mansouri half a million euros (about $562,000), but he demanded more."

The Media Center of the Islamic Republic Judiciary cited the witness as saying that he initially met Judge Mansouri in the office of the primary defendant, former Deputy Head of the Judiciary, Akbar Tabari.

Judge Gholamreza Mansouri, who is accused of receiving more than half a million dollars bribe, left Iran in August 2019 and is currently in Romania. Iran has reportedly asked for his extradition, but a court in Bucharest has given the Islamic Republic until July 10 to present documents needed to justify extradition.

Presiding over the township of Lavasan, in a posh area of the capital city, Tehran, Judge Mansouri was notorious for issuing harsh verdicts against journalists.

Following the release of the pictures of Mansouri in recent days, a significant number of journalists have come forward on social media saying that the notorious judge was indeed responsible for their arrest and imprisonment.

Many Iranian journalists, activists and human rights advocates have called for Judge Mansouri's arrest in Europe.

They have compared Mansouri's case with a legal suit against another Iranian judge, Hamid Nouri, who is currently behind bars in Sweden. Nouri was accused of issuing numerous death sentences during the Islamic Republic's secret mass executions of political prisoners in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General and Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Christophe Deloire, announced that RSF has filed a legal suit against Judge Mansouri in Bucharest, Romania.

Gholamreza Mansouri, currently released temporarily, does not have the right to leave Romania, a local court has ruled and will remain under police watch until final decisions are made about his legal status.
A Sweden-based, nonproliferation think tank says nuclear powers have continued to modernize their arsenals despite a decrease in the number of nuclear warheads.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report released on June 15 that nine nuclear-weapon powers -- the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea -- together possessed an estimated 13,400 nuclear weapons at the start of 2020.

The number is down by 465 nuclear weapons in "a marked decrease" from the previous year, when the nine states possessed a combined estimated total of 13,865 nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI.

The decrease "was largely due to the dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons by Russia and the U.S. -- which together still possess over 90 percent of global nuclear weapons."

U.S. nuclear warheads dropped by 385 and Russia's declined by 125. Those large reductions were offset by slight increases in the nuclear forces of China, Britain, India, and North Korea.

The reductions in U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces were required by the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START) and completed in 2018. In 2019 the forces of both countries remained below the limits specified by the treaty.

Extending the New START treaty is the subject of arms negotiations that the top U.S. envoy for arms control said would begin with Russia later this month. The United States has also invited China to take part in the talks.

"The deadlock over New START and the collapse of the 1987 SovietU.S. Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty) in 2019 suggest that the era of bilateral nuclear arms-control agreements between Russia and the USA might be coming to an end," said Shannon Kile, director of SIPRIs Nuclear Disarmament, Arms Control, and Nonproliferation Program.

The INF Treaty was abandoned last year after the United States officially withdrew from it over accusations of Russian violations. Russia denied the accusations and in turn suspended its participation in the pact.

"The loss of key channels of communication between Russia and the USA that were intended to promote transparency and prevent misperceptions about their respective nuclear force postures and capabilities could potentially lead to a new nuclear arms race," Kile added.

New START, the last major arms-control treaty between the United States and Russia, is scheduled to expire in February 2021. The accord caps the number of nuclear warheads and so-called delivery systems held by the two countries.

While Moscow has pushed for a five-year extension, Washington has balked, saying it wants the deal to be broadened to include China.

China, whose nuclear arsenal is a fraction of the size of Moscow's and Washington's, has said it was not interested in participating in such talks.

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, which according to Bloomberg will take place on June 22 in Vienna.

SIPRI said in its report that China was in the middle of a significant modernization of its nuclear arsenal.

"It is developing a so-called nuclear triad for the first time, made up of new land- and sea-based missiles and nuclear-capable aircraft."

SIPRI also said that India and Pakistan were slowly increasing the size and diversity of their nuclear forces, while North Korea continues to prioritize its military nuclear program as a central element of its national security strategy.

It noted that North Korea provided no information about its nuclear weapon capabilities, while Israel has a long-standing policy of not commenting on its nuclear arsenal.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:58:08|Editor: huaxia

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Members of the Beijing Blue Sky Rescue(BSR) team take a rest after a disinfection operation at a community in Fengtai District in Beijing, capital of China, June 16, 2020. Beijing has strengthened community-level disease prevention and control in response to the resurgence of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases. (Xinhua/Chen Zhonghao)

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has strengthened community-level disease prevention and control in response to the resurgence of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases.

Nearly 100,000 community workers in 7,120 residential communities and villages in Beijing have thrown themselves into the battle against the disease, Xu Ying, an official with the Beijing municipal committee of the Communist Party of China, told a press conference Monday.

More than 8,000 dealers and workers at the Xinfadi farm produce market, in close relation with most of the new cases, received nucleic-acid tests in the early morning of Sunday and have been under medical observation, Xu said.

About 200,000 people who had visited the market since May 30 were interviewed via door-to-door inquiries, calls, social-media platforms and other methods. Nucleic-acid tests for these people are underway while they are asked to stay at home for medical observation.

Closed-off management has been implemented in a total of 21 residential communities around the Xinfadi market and the Yuquandong market, with tests for 90,000 residents in process, Xu said.

Beijing reported 36 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and six new asymptomatic cases on Sunday, the municipal health commission said Monday.

Thirty-four of the new cases were confirmed as being related to Xinfadi, a large wholesale market for fruit, vegetables and meat in south Beijing's Fengtai District, while two cases are currently under epidemiological investigation. Enditem
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused well over 7.84 million cases and 431,000 deaths, worldwide, in less than six months. The disease is caused by a novel coronavirus now named the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), which results in mostly asymptomatic or mild infection. However, in about 20% of patients, the virus can cause severe or even critical disease, including pneumonia, respiratory failure, and death.

Unfortunately, there is neither an effective vaccine nor have any therapeutic drugs been discovered so far. Thus, scientists are still searching for clues to the effective treatment and prevention of this infection.

Many infectious agents cause asymptomatic disease in a high percentage of individuals, and even in infected people, there is significant variability in the symptoms. This is true of COVID-19 as well. The search for predictors of severe disease has been going on, and some studies show that inflammatory mediators are higher and the counts of lymphocytes lower in those with severe disease.

The question is, what determines the hosts response to the infecting virus? Some researchers have reported that genetic factors play a significant role in this process, judging by the host response to other viruses like HIV, HBV, HCV, SARS-CoV, and the influenza virus. The HLA genes, interferon-stimulating genes (ISG), and other genes that affect viral replication all show that the genetic background partly determines, at least, how the organism manifests the infection.

Genetic Factors Predicting Severe COVID-19

A UK twin study shows that heritability characteristics for self-reported symptoms and the predicted onset of disease comprise 30% to 50% of the variability in the manifestation of and susceptibility to the disease. A recent large scale international study showed that blood group O was linked to a lower risk of COVID-19 and blood group A to a higher risk.

Other researchers have studied mutations in important genes like ACE2 and TMPRSS2, and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) indicate some other genes. Meanwhile, SARS-CoV-2 genomes are being sequenced, and the sequences shared worldwide through international databases.

The Study

Now, a new paper published on the preprint server medRxiv* reports the results of an analysis of the association between the genetic variants in the patients and the clinical progression of the disease. The study included 332 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in a single-center, with widely varying laboratory and clinical features. There were 25, 12, and 17 patients with asymptomatic, mild, and critical disease. The largest number had moderate symptoms (225), followed by severe disease in 63 patients.

Asymptomatic, mild, and moderate disease refers to the presence of no or mild pneumonia. Severe and critical disease refers to impaired lung function and blood oxygenation, with multi-organ dysfunction, septic shock, and respiratory failure.in the latter group.

Risk factors for severe and critical disease include older age, longer duration of disease, male sex, and underlying disease conditions.

The researchers carried out deep whole-genome sequencing, which allows the effects of even rare and loss of function variants to be estimated. The process allowed for the detection of over 22 million variants, both common and rare.

Using these variants, the investigators then related them to the host factors using GWAS with both single variants and genes. They also examined the difference in frequency of the alleles that led to the truncation of proteins, and the HLA alleles, in the patient groups. They also called other publicly available and selected genomes to aid their search for potential genes that affect the genetic susceptibility to this infection.

LD, allele frequency and pleiotropic effects of the TMEM189-UBE2V1 signal suggestively associated with COVID-19 patient severity. A) Locuszoom plot shows the p-value of the SNPs centering the lead SNP rs6020298 and the recombination rate. Color of the dots indicate linkage disequilibrium r2 metric. B) Allele frequency of s6020298 among the 1000 genomes populations. The allele frequency of the reference and alternative allele is visualized by the geography of genetic variants browser developed by the university of Chicago. C) P-value of the single variant genome-wide association test for the sixty-four laboratory assessments at the lead SNP rs6020298.

No Single Gene Predicts Disease Manifestation

The most important finding from this study is that changes in a single gene do not predict the clinical severity of COVID-19. The researchers found almost 4,900 mutations predicted to cause loss of function, for an average of 200 such per patient. Severely ill patients typically had a more significant number of loss of function insertions compared to the mildly ill group.

When they narrowed down their search to mutations involving loss of function or missense variants for the ACE2 receptor, the TMPRSS2 protein primer gene, and other genes that are predicted to play a role in the interaction of host and virus, no significant association was found. A missense mutation in TMPRSS2 is actually less common in critically ill patients than in others. This may be because the substitution of valine by methionine causes instability of the TMPRSS2 and reduces viral binding to ACE2.

ACE2 acts as a cellular doorway  a receptor  for the virus that causes COVID-19.. Image Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

Study of the HLA genes associated with severe disease showed that a higher prevalence of the haplotype HLA-A*11:01, 341 B*51:01, and C*14:02. This comprises three HLA alleles with strong linkage equilibrium and which were individually significantly linked to severe disease compared to mild manifestations.

A gene locus related to cytokines in the IL-1 pathway contains one risk allele that is more common in the severely ill patients and may be potentially related to the clinical manifestation of COVID-19.

Limitations and Implications

The study is limited by the lack of power to identify significant genome-wide genetic variants that have minor allele frequency of more than 0.2, because of the small size of the sample. The low percentage of asymptomatic patients is another factor that requires much more work to find the host factors more prevalent in individuals who have successfully resisted symptomatic COVID-19.

The researchers sum up: Our results highlight several genetic factors involved in the immune responses. The summary statistics will encourage international collaborative efforts to understand the host-pathogen interaction and to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

*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.
Roof Koreans: How civilians defended Koreatown from racist violence during the 1992 LA riots

By Sam Jacobs



The riots of the spring of 2020 are far from without precedent in the United States. Indeed, they seem to happen once a generation at least. The 1992 Los Angeles Riots are such an example of these generational riots. And while most people know about the riots, less known  though quite well known at the time  were the phenomenon of the so-called Roof Koreans.

The Roof Koreans were spontaneous self-defense forces organized by the Korean community of Los Angeles, primarily centered in Koreatown, in response to violent and frequently racist attacks on their communities and businesses by primarily black looters and rioters during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. Despite their best efforts, over 2,200 Korean-owned businesses were looted or burned to the ground during the riots. It is chilling to imagine how many would have suffered the same fate had the Koreans not been armed.

Standing on the rooftops of Koreatown shops they and their families owned, clad not in body armor or tactical gear, but instead dressed like someones nerdy dad, often smoking cigarettes, but always on alert, the Roof Koreans provide a stirring example of how free Americans of all races can defend their own communities without relying upon outside help.

The Koreans of Los Angeles were the ultimate marginalized minority group. They were subject to discrimination and often victimized by the black community of the city. Due to language barriers and other factors, they lacked the political clout of other minority groups, such as the large Mexican community of Los Angeles County. This in spite of their clear economic success in the city beginning in the 1970s and 80s.

The reasons for the tensions between the Korean and black communities of Los Angeles pre-dates the riots, which were largely just the match that ignited the powder keg that had been this region of Los Angeles for years. To understand what happened in Koreatown in 1992, it is necessary to understand much more than simply the Rodney King trial and the resulting riots.

The Roots of Korean Business Ownership in Black Communities

How is it that the Korean-American community of Los Angeles ended up owning so much property in what were largely black neighborhoods? The answer, ironically, lies in a previous riot, the Watts Riot of 1965. This riot, which included six full days of arson and looting, was kicked off when a black man was arrested for drunk driving.

The riots occurred roughly at the same time that the Koreans started showing up in America. This meant that, among other things, businesses and real estate were very cheap to purchase. The newly arrived Korean immigrants began buying up the businesses that no one else wanted. By the 1980s, it wasnt limited to Los Angeles  Koreans were dominating the mom-and-pop shops from coast to coast. But the resentment in the City of Angels was growing.

Prologue: The Death of Latasha Harlins

While it was not the start of tensions in the city between these two communities, the killing of Latasha Harlins in 1991 certainly ratcheted the situation up to a new level.

Harlins, whose personal life is a hard-luck story that does not bear repeating here, was 15 at the time when she was shot and killed by Korean shopkeeper Soon Ja Du, a 51-year-old woman born in Korea. Du generally didnt even work in the store, a task that typically fell on her husband and her son. However, that day she was covering for her husband who was outside in the familys van.

Du claimed that Harlins was trying to steal a $1.79 bottle of orange juice, but witnesses said they heard Du call Harlins a slur and heard Harlins say she planned to pay for the juice, with money in hand. After reviewing video tape footage, the police agreed with the witnesses. Video footage further showed Du grabbing Harlins by her sweatshirt and backpack.

Harlins responded by striking Du twice, which knocked the latter to the ground. Harlins started to back away, prompting Du to throw a stool at her. The two struggled over the juice before Harlins went to leave. Du went behind the counter and grabbed a revolver, firing at a retreating Harlins from behind from three feet away. Harlins was killed instantly by a bullet to the back of the head.

Billy Heung Ki Du, Jas husband, rushed into the store after hearing the gunshot. His wife asked where Harlins was before she fainted. Mr. Du then called 911 to report an attempted holdup.

Mrs. Du was charged with voluntary manslaughter, a charge that can carry up to 16 years in prison. At trial, she testified on her own behalf. The jury recommended the maximum sentence, which the judge rejected, instead giving Mrs. Du time served, five years probation, 500 hours of community service and a $500 fine. The California Court of Appeals upheld the sentence about a week before the riots began in a unanimous decision. Harlins family received a settlement of $300,000.

The case wasnt the first example of tensions between the two communities, but it was a microcosm for them and perhaps the worst from an optics perspective. In 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported that there were four shootings in the span of just over four months involving a Korean shooter and a black target. The store was eventually burned down during the riots, never to reopen.

That same year, there was an over 100-day boycott of a Korean-American-owned liquor store that ended when the owner was effectively bullied into selling his store to a black owner. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley, who many blamed for the riots, was instrumental in coming to this settlement which chased a Korean owner out of the area.

The Rodney King Verdict: The Riots Begin

The other relevant background story is the trial of Rodney King. This was what touched off the LA riots. The short version of the story is that Rodney King led the police on a high-speed chase going up to 115 miles per hour. He was evading them because he was driving while under the influence and was on parole at the time. His two passengers were loaded into the squad car first, with King exiting the car last.

King was beaten for approximately two minutes straight on a 12-minute tape recorded by a nearby civilian. He was also tazed. King repeatedly attempted to get up despite instructions to stay down. Officers later testified that they believed he was on PCP at the time, but his toxicology test ruled this out. The tape became a national sensation and then-Chief Daryl Gates described himself as being in disbelief when he saw the tape.

Four of the five officers on the scene were charged. The jury, which contrary to popular belief, was not all white, but did not include any black members, acquitted the four officers on assault, acquitted three of them on excessive force and resulted in a hung jury on the fourth charge after seven days of deliberation.

At 5 p.m. after the verdicts were announced, Mayor Tom Bradley gave a press conference interpreted by many, including Assistant Los Angeles police chief Bob Vernon, as effectively giving permission to riot. Vernon stated that police incidents increased noticeably after the mayors statement.

The event credited with touching off the riots was the arrest of 16-year-old Seandel Daniels at 71st and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. The rioters began attacking Koreatown on the second full day of rioting.

Koreatown Gets Attacked During 1992 LA Riots

Koreans began moving to Los Angeles in large numbers after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a radical departure from previous immigration laws that dramatically changed the demographic character of the nation, including Los Angeles. Many Koreans opened successful businesses in the area, but incurred resentment and racism from black residents, which is documented in popular culture of the time such as Do The Right Thing and Ice Cubes Black Korea off of Death Certificate.

When the riots spread throughout the city, the LAPD blocked roads going through Koreatown into more affluent neighborhoods. This was seen by many residents as a containment that effectively left Koreatown residents trapped inside the riot zone. Whats more, the police and other first responders ignored the pleas for help coming from within Koreatown.

Of the nearly $1 billion in damages done during the riots, over half of it was done to Korean-owned businesses.

Enter the Roof Koreans

The Korean community of Los Angeles did not simply sit by and allow their neighborhood and businesses to be destroyed by rioters without lifting a finger. On the contrary, the images of Korean shopkeepers and their families defending themselves from the rooftops of their buildings soon became one of the most iconic images of the riots. Live footage of gun battles were circulated on cable news and elsewhere. The images still resonate with freedom lovers to this day  what image could be more powerful than an ethnic minority refusing to subject itself to a pogrom, instead taking to the rooftops to defend themselves with deadly force, if necessary?

For firearms collectors, the Roof Koreans present another avenue of interest: They used many cool weapons that largely left the market after the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 was passed. The Intratec TEC-9 and the A.A. Arms Kimel AP-9 are just two of the weapons used by the Roof Koreans, alongside more standard weapons such as the Daewoo K1, standard issue for the Republic of Koreas military.

The Republic of Koreas military is another key part of the story with regard to the Roof Koreans. Far from an untrained mob of men who took up with arms sans training, the Roof Koreans were, by virtually any definition, a well-regulated militia. Many of them had experience in the South Korean Army, as South Korea has conscription with very few exceptions.

Its worth noting that virtually every weapon used by the Roof Koreans to defend themselves, their businesses, their communities and their families would be against the law or, at least, highly restricted today. High capacity magazines (anything over ten rounds) are against the law and there is a 10-day waiting period for all firearms purchases. As the riots lasted five days, this would have put anyone who had not already purchased a firearm in a seriously precarious position.

The Lessons of the Roof Koreans

Kurt Schlichter was in Inglewood at the time of riots, one of the hardest hit areas. He speaks eloquently on the topic of the Roof Koreans (or Rooftop Koreans as he calls them) and the need of communities to defend themselves. His account of defending Los Angeles against riots is worth reading, despite the fact that he was not in Koreatown.

He makes the case that it is not just wise, but the responsibility of all Americans to prepare themselves for such events. And while we would not go as far as him to suggest that people ought to be legally required to prepare for such an event, we do agree with him that everyone is their own first responder. More than that, there is a solid argument to be made that we have a duty to our community to prepare for those times when individual defense is not enough, but a common defense is necessary.

The Roof Koreans provide a perfect, real-life counter argument to the idiotic question of gun grabbers that free men justify why they need certain arms to defend themselves. If ever anyone needed a fully automatic rifle with a 100-round magazine, it was the Korean community of Los Angeles.

Sam Jacobs is a writer for Ammo.com where this originally appeared.
They join many Americans who are similarly outraged by what transpired and we have seen them express their shock, grief, frustration, and anger in many parts of the United States, said a statement on the embassy website. We in the U.S. Mission are not immune to these feelings and like the Secretary of State we find the actions that led to the death of Mr. Floyd abhorrent. His death was a tragedy and never should have happened.
Places of worship across the UK reopened for private prayer on Monday with worshipers sat in socially-distanced pews and clergymen wearing personal protective equipment - but weddings and full services are still not allowed.

The government gave approval for church buildings to open up for supervised individual prayer for the first time since they closed their doors on March 24, as part of a wider easing of restrictions that has seen non-essential stores also reopen.

This has has seen the collapse of social distancing at Nike's flagship store while outside Primark some slept outside or arrived before dawn to be first in amid huge queues at shops across the UK.

At Salisbury Cathedral, the Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos could be seen wearing a full face visor, with strict social distancing and hygiene measures meaning worshipers at Westminster Cathedral sat separately in distanced pews.

Worshipers sit on seats arranged for social distancing at Westminster Cathedral in London

The Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, holds private prayer sessions

Places of worship are allowed to reopen from Monday as lockdown restrictions ease further

CHURCHES REOPEN What can churches offer? Only individual prayer is currently permitted in church buildings. What safety measures are in place? Signs are placed on doors and hand sanitizer has been made available. Can prayer books be left out? The Government guidance is clear that books should not be left out. What about lighting candles? The lighting of candles with reusable lighters or similar should not be encouraged. Advertisement

New rules on wearing face coverings on public transport have also come into effect, while Years 10 and 12 pupils have returned to class and EasyJet have resumed some flights - amid World Health Organisation warnings over easing too quickly.

The Recovery Group, set up by the Church Of England to guide the reopening of its churches, said in guidance issued to its churches:

'Only individual prayer is currently permitted in church buildings.

'No public worship, streamed or otherwise, should take place whilst the building is open to visitors.

'Please put notices on the door reminding people about hygiene and physical distancing measures.

'The includes stressing the critical importance of using the hand sanitizer.

This is for both going in and going out of the church building.

'Supplies of hand sanitizer should be available in the porch/inside the main door (or water, soap and paper towels).

'You should consider whether there is anything you can do in terms of seating to enable physical distancing.

'For instance by marking places where people can sit or removing some chairs for churches with movable seating.'

Vicars as well as worshipers must wear face masks while they pray under the guidelines

The Church Of England set up a Recovery Group to guide the staged return of services

Strict social distancing and hygiene measures will remain in place inside the churches

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick labelled opening places of worship as a priority because their 'contribution to the common good of our country is clear'.

He said: 'People of all faiths have shown enormous patience and forbearance, unable to mark Easter, Passover, Ramadan or Vaisakhi with friends and family in the traditional way.

'As we control the virus, we are now able to move forwards with a limited but important return to houses of worship.'

Signs have been placed around Salisbury Cathedral outlining the new rules in place

Private worship is now allowed but public services are still yet to be authorised again

A worshiper sits alone at Salisbury Cathedral as one of the first to enter since reopening

Despite the new rules, several places of worship - including mosques - have been advised by their faith leaders not to open.

This is largely down to ongoing concerns about maintaining appropriate safety measures inside the buildings.

Suleman Nagdi, the spokesman for the Federation of Muslim Organisations said: 'We are of the view that the decision does not go far enough in accommodating the religious requirements of the Muslim community and other faith groups for whom a Mosque or a public place of worship's primary purpose is to facilitate led congregational or communal prayers.'

 Slide me  Spot the difference: The junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street as shops opened again today - slide to see it empty in April after Boris Johnson imposed lockdown

Socially distanced queues of people formed around the Fenwick store in Newcastle

The move to allow places of worship to reopen comes as other restrictions are also eased across the UK.

Tens of thousands more people also flooded on to public transport as masks became mandatory and secondary schools welcomed students for the first time in more than three months this morning.

Shoppers desperate to hit the high street formed huge socially distanced queues after dawn today as the majority of stores reopened this morning - but it was so busy at the Nike store on Oxford Circus it opened an hour early as the two-metre rule went out the window when people jumped the queue and tried to force themselves through the door.

A shopper wearing a PPE suit arrives at Primark in Birmingham as non-essential shops open

Customers, many not wearing masks rushed to enter the Nike store in London as it reopened

Tom Jackson, 19, was hoping to buy some Air Jordan 1 trainers, told MailOnline: 'The problem is that people have been pushing in. Weve seen a few people jump the queue at the front, which isnt really fair. Its been a bit chaotic to be honest. Im not very impressed.

His sister Anna added: We are trying to observe a two metre distance from everyone else but its proving impossible because if we do leave a gap, people start pushing in.

'We have face masks on, as do most people in the queue, but it cant be good for us to be grouped together so closely when we are still in a pandemic.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese was blindsided on Monday night by a question over a camera hidden in a Federal MP's office, as Victoria Labor reeled over explosive corruption allegations.

The Federal Labor leader appeared on the ABC's 7.30 in damage control mode during a horror day which saw Victoria lose two Labor ministers after secret tapes exposed a branch stacking scandal.

An investigation by The Age and 60 Minutes alleges Adem Somyurek handed over thousands of dollars in cash and used parliamentary employees to create fake branch members and amass political influence within the party.

The tapes showed the Labor powerbroker and Victoria's former Small Business Minister making foul-mouthed comments about colleagues, including calling young staff members 'little passive-aggressive f***ing gay kids'.

Journalist Leigh Sales challenged Labor Leader Anthony Albanese with hard-hitting questions over how far 'the rot' had spread, and which MP's office had the camera filming the expose?

7.30 host Leigh Sales pointed to a section of the explosive tapes where a voice asked: 'Who'll protect Albo', and questioned if that meant Adem Somyurek's reach extended to Canberra.

'That's just not true, he's someone I've barely met,' Mr Albanese said.

Mr Albanese distanced himself from what Sales described as 'the rot' within the party, saying he had zero tolerance for corruption and that it would be dealt with.

'What we saw today was strong action from Premier Andrews, who dismissed Adem Somyurek as a minister, and then wrote to the national executive indicating that he would charge him and seek to expel him from the party,' he said.

'And those issues have all been dealt with.'

Sales then asked how a camera from the expose came to be located in a Federal MP's office.

Labor Leader Anthony Albanese distanced himself from disgraced Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek, saying he was someone he had 'barely met'

'In some of the footage you can see a computer with an Australian Parliament House screen saver, which means it was filmed in the office of a federal Labor MP - whose office was it?' asked Sales.

Surprised, the Member for Grayndler barely moved to deflect.

'Oh look, I'm not aware of all the details of that, that's a matter for Channel Nine and 60 Minutes,' he said.

When Sales pressed the question and asked why he wasn't curious about it, he tried to change the subject.

'What I'm concerned about here, Lee is the outcomes. What I'm concerned about is making sure the Labor Party is match fit in Victoria.'

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) on Monday sacked the state's Small Business Minister Adem Somyurek, a Turkish former taxi driver, over the branch stacking expose

Adem Somyurek pictured in May, 2019. He is said to have controlled two thirds of Victoria's Labor Party through branch stacking

Sales promptly cut him off to point out many MPs would hold sensitive discussions in their offices including on national security and intelligence.

'Will you be investigating further to find out whose offices it was, and if any of the information of that nature might have been compromised?' she asked.

Mr Albanese responded that it was not his job to investigate, and that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had forwarded investigations to Victoria's anti-corruption body and police.

What is branch stacking? Branch stacking involves recruiting or signing up members for a local branch of a political party for the purpose of influencing the outcome of internal preselections of candidates for federal and state parliament. Advertisement

'I'm just surprised that you don't find that's something you'd like to know if there are hidden cameras in the office of Federal Labor MPs,' Ms Sales said in closing.

'Well the police and the appropriate authorities are investigating all of these matters,' Mr Albanese responded.

It capped off a horror day for Labor after the airing of shocking footage that claimed the scalps of two Victorian ministers with more expected to follow.

Mr Somyurek, a member of the ALP national executive, was exposed as having allegedly conducted a 'stackathon' that funnelled hundreds of fake members into local ALP branches.

He was caught on secret camera withdrawing money from an ATM on two separate credit cards, and handing it over along with dozens of party memberships in a blue folder to a Labor staffer to take back to headquarters.

Mr Somyurek was caught on audio tape bragging that he was more powerful than Premier Andrews, and he would be the one to say who is premier.

He was also secretly recorded calling a female colleague a 'stupid b****' and describing staff members as 'slimy little gay f***ers'.

Pictured (left to right): Jaclyn Symes, Gabrielle Williams, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Melissa Horne and Adem Somyurek in 2018

Mr Andrews sacked Mr Somyurek on Monday, moved to expel him from the Labor Party and referred him to the state's police and anti-corruption commission.

Victoria's Assistant Treasurer Robin Scott resigned on Monday just hours after the sacking.

The Age investigative reporter Nick McKenzie told Channel Nine on Monday afternoon 'more recordings' and 'more evidence' in relation to Mr Scott would be released.
(FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Pichi Chuang)

By Michelle Jamrisko, Debby Wu and Enda Curran

(Bloomberg) -- Global trade data in the Covid-19 era has been generally abysmal, but look a little closer and the electronics sector that fires Asias trade engines could be headed for a pretty good year.

In South Korea, semiconductor exports rose in May and imports of equipment used in producing semiconductors surged 168%, trade ministry data show. Taiwans electronic-component exports, which include chips, grew 13.2% in May to US$10.2 billion, even as total exports fell 2% from a year earlier.

The electronics industry is holding up relatively well amid the pandemic as companies adopt new technologies -- including 5G equipment and automation tools -- that make it easier for employees to work remotely. A sustainable boost will depend on whether consumers return with similar vigor, and whether other factors such as U.S.-China tensions dont interfere with digital demand and supply.

The tech industry seems to have decoupled from the overall economy somewhat, as the tech industry is still growing well and has been relatively immune to Covid-19, Mark Liu, chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., said at a shareholder meeting June 9.

TSMC, the main chipmaker for Apple Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co., still plans to spend as much as US$16 billion on capacity upgrades and technology this year, and expects revenue gains in the mid- to high-teens, Liu said. Covid-19 has helped drive some budding technologies related to remote work and education and social distancing, he added.

TSMC shares have risen 25% since their lowest close for the year on March 19, less than the 30% gain in Taiwans benchmark Taiex stock index in that time. TSMC shares were down 2.2% as of 1:32 p.m. Monday, compared to a 0.98% drop in the Taiex.

Amid generally awful export figures from the region, the one bright spot is semiconductors, said Trinh Nguyen, a senior economist at Natixis SA in Hong Kong. A lot of this reflects the product cycle and also the global lockdown and suppression that favor the digitalization of economic activities, driving demand for electronic goods like chips.

Story continues

Budding Technologies

For economies like South Korea and Taiwan that rely on tech exports, the upturn in demand for electronics has been a pillar of support amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Lloyd Chan, an economist at Oxford Economics Ltd.

However, the improvement in the tech sector wont be able to offset significant demand weakness in non-electronic exports, he said, adding that even the surge in PC demand could be a one-off, attributable to the sudden shift to telecommuting during the pandemic.

Still, it helps that some of Asias most tech-focused economies have had relative success in containing the virus: Taiwan has reported just seven virus deaths, South Korea flattened its curve fairly early and Singapores fatality rate is among the worlds lowest. That gives momentum to efforts to restart tech engines and get consumers used to new ways of doing business.

Were seeing more countries pledging economic reforms, and theres increased urgency for a stronger technology push to lead the economic recovery, said Zhao Defa, an economist at Continuum Economics in Singapore. Given that South Korea and Taiwan are the worlds main semiconductor producers, they will be beneficiaries.

Some of the boom is specific to the health crisis, amid a global scramble for medical equipment and demand for video-conferencing and other technologies as work and school shift more to peoples homes.

Chinas medical exports and shipments of high-tech electronics jumped in both April and May, for example, while Singapores pharmaceutical shipments surged 174% in April from a year earlier. Further gains may not be as pronounced.

Consumer demand is still lagging, though. South Korean shipments of computer products jumped 83% in May, their eighth straight monthly gain, but sales of smartphones dropped 22% and consumer appliances fell 37%. Globally, smartphone shipments are expected to fall 11.9% this year -- their biggest annual drop ever, according to data from research firm IDC.

While 5G, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence will all create demand for Taiwans exports, setbacks from Covid-19 and U.S.-China tech tensions could constrain that progress, Beatrice Tsai, director-general of the statistics department at Taiwans Ministry of Finance, said June 8.

Still, analysts at Citigroup Inc. see a risk that U.S.-China tensions will weigh on chip demand. Chinas buildup of chip inventories was intended partly to get ahead of a U.S. ban on Huawei set to take effect later this year.

Chinas export orders have taken a hit from lockdowns in the U.S. and key European markets, said Rajiv Biswas, APAC chief economist at IHS Markit. A second-half recovery in those economies, as well as Christmas orders, could drive a rebound in tech exports, he said.

Governments have tried to stay focused on the long view, aiming to take advantage of the tech sectors relative advantage in the pandemic by providing special support for electronics firms and new technologies. Singapore pledged S$500 million ($360 million) last month to help businesses in their digital transformations, including moving hawker center stalls to e-payments, and is spending another S$3.5 billion on information and communications technology to mitigate the virus outbreak.

When the viruss spread threatened Vietnams burgeoning tech industry, the government granted an exception to its otherwise strict lockdown measures: Samsung Electronics Co., which makes about half of its smartphones in factories near Hanoi and is one of Vietnams largest investors, was allowed to shuttle in more than 1,000 engineers from South Korea.

The recovery will be digital, Anand Swaminathan, senior partner and head of McKinsey Digital in Asia, said in a June 9 interview. Asian governments are all starting to figure out what their investment strategy is on digital.

 2020 Bloomberg L.P.
The Supreme Court on June 15 criticised auto dealers and Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (FADA) for flouting norms related to the sales and registration of BS-IV vehicles during the relaxations granted by the court during the lockdown.

The court had in March allowed the sale of BS-IV vehicles for 10 days post the lockdown.

The apex court observed that it had allowed the sale of 1.05 lakh vehicles, but reports now suggest 2.55 lakh vehicles were sold during the period.

The court directed the government to submit details of all the BS-IV vehicles sold in the 10-day window allowed by the SC.

The apex court has also directed FADA to submit sale, registration details by June 19.
A group of over 50 councillors have launched a campaign to defeat the newly agreed programme for government.

In a statement, the group calling themselves Fairer Future insisted the agreement will not deliver change.

The councillors from Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Leitrim, Louth, Meath, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford and Wexford said the document confirmed their fears that he new government will be a continuation of status quo politics.

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In a statement, Cork County Councillor Deidre Kelly said: We know that at our best Fianna Fail can transform communities and the country in the interests of working people.

After nine years of Fine Gael rule Ireland needs real change. This programme for government will not deliver change. It will do nothing to address the quality of life issues facing so many people in Ireland. Weve seen the reality of Fine Gael in Government and we dont believe Fianna Fail should sign up to a deal that means a continuation of the status quo on housing and rural life. This is not what people voted for, she added.

Roscommon County Councillor Orla Leyden said the programme for government was just a series of reheated policies and added that the future of our movement is at stake.

So too are our values of equality of opportunity, good housing, protecting the vulnerable and the prioritisation of education. These issues, and so many more, are on the ballot paper. We know that this is a difficult decision for members across the country. It was only after much thought and discussion that I have decided to urge you, our fellow party members, to Vote NO and reject this deal, she added.

The campaign was launched shortly before Fianna Fails parliamentary party gave the nod this evening to the proposed programme for Government.

After a meeting that lasted three hours, party leader Micheal Martin said the deal will now be put to the partys members in a postal vote in the coming days.

He described the meeting as very constructive in which speakers discussed key issues they want to see addressed by the next Government, including dealing with the ongoing housing crisis, as well as what he described as a very strong endorsement of proposals to increase the number of cycling and walking routes nationwide.

He said there was also a strong emphasis on the need for Government to support small and medium businesses  in a new job initiative next month, especially those in the hospitality and retail sectors  that have been hard hit by the pandemic.

Overall it was a very constructive meeting with a very strong endorsement of the programme for Government, he told reporters.

Asked about a coalition of party councillors who want to see the deal scrapped, he said that finding universal acceptance is a challenge in any party.

But he said now is not the time for division, although he conceded there were some voters from the party last night who were opposed to the deal.

However, he said I think the vast majority will be asking their party members in their constituencies to support it.

We are in a very surreal situation with Covid-19 and our focus is the job at hand, he said of forming the next Government.

In the aftermath of the General Election there is an onus to set up a government to deliver meaningful change, he said.

Meanwhile, Laois Offaly TD Barry Cowen said he is also reasonably optimistic the party will support the deal.

Its a huge undertaking on the part of the three parties to come together, but in the main it suits the country and the space the country is in presently, he said.

He said the immediate priority is to address the ongoing issues over the Covid-19 crisis and the economic impact it will have on the country.

But overall, he believes the party will support the deal, he said.

Wed like to think weve responded positively, he said.

Finance Minister Michael McGrath was also upbeat as he headed to the meeting.

This is an important step. Every member of the parliamentary party and party has a very important role to play in the next week, so its an exciting time and I very much look forward to an exciting debate.

Asked about Mr Martins prospect as Taoiseach, he said: I have full faith in his ability in what will be a very challenging time.

The Fairer Future website features quotes from senior Fianna Fail TDs - Eamon O Cuiv and John McGuinness, both of whom this evening distanced themselves from the campaign.

The website quotes Mr O Cuiv as saying: I can't see a coalition with Fine Gael.

It is noting to do with historical issues but, in my view, they are very right wing  right wing economics, right wing attitude to people.

They lack, in my view, the acceptance of people, the way people really are with all their issues. I feel Fianna Fail would do a better job. We are not compatible with Fine Gael.

And the website quotes Mr McGuinness as saying: There is a consensus across the country that has grown since polling day within the membership, and indeed unspoken within the parliamentary party, that would say we do need to talk to others  including Sinn Fein."

Mr O Cuiv did today urge the rejection of the government deal saying it lacks any detail on the Irish language, Irish-speaking areas, and the off-shore islands.

But he told Independent.ie he has had no contact with the Fairer Future organisation.

He said he is not involved in their campaign and they did not ask my assistance.

Mr McGuinness said: I havent given anyone a quote on my position on this document.
Yeol Chan and Man Sic went to another small island to explore and discover any special menu. The other staff remained on the main island as they waited for their return.

However, due to the bad weather, the boat that was supposed to take them back did not arrive at the port. The villagers advised that they won't be able to know when it will come. Yeol Chan and Man Sic got stranded without any place to stay.

As darkness covered the sky, Yeol Chan and Man Sic preferred to stay near the shore to watch any barge that arrives. Yeol Chan was worried as they had no more money to sustain them. There was no mobile reception, too.

To his surprise, Man Sic brought supplies like ramyeon, water packs, power bank, blanket, and many others. He was well-prepared and carried the items in his backpack. The supplies allowed them to feed their stomach for a few days.

Meanwhile, on the main island, Namgoong, Tae-Ri, and Yoon Soo enjoyed their free time. They drank and dined out while waiting for Yeol Chan and Man Sic. Namgoong fell to the sea while making fun at the bridge, and Tae-Ri jumped into the water to save him. As she dried herself, her hair turned curly. Yoon Soo and Namgoong laughed at what they discovered. Namgoong spied with the two interns in what they do in the office. He wanted to find any mistakes that will bring Yeol Chan down.

The barge arrived and brought Yeol Chan and Man Sic back to the main island. They met the team, and they headed back to Seoul.

In the marketing department, they are pressured to produce a new ramyeon product. Yeol Chan started mixing ingredients in the lab room. The team would taste after all are cooked. They can't agree with Yeol Chan's finished product, and this disappointed him.

Yeol Chan got sick after a few days of working hard in creating a new product. Man Sic brought him to the hospital and got treated for his gastric ulcer. He was banned from eating spicy food in the meantime.

Chairman Pyo visited Yeol Chan, in the hospital and got offered a gift tax. Namgoong was furious about the way his father treated Yeol Chan. He needs to make plans to eliminate him.

After a few days, Yeol Chan returned to work and continue to mix new ingredients. With the help of Tae-Ri, they produced a new flavor. The product is "spicy webfoot octopus" which came as a big hit in the market. The sales went up, and Chairman Pyo praised Yeol Chan for success. Namgoong, nevertheless, was bound to cause any trouble to Yeol Chan.

The health department found out the new product "spicy webfoot octopus" contains dangerous ingredients that will poison the consumers. The factory who made the dry packaging of the noodles has discontinued manufacturing. The Joonson company was at risk as they recall all their supplies in the market. Namgoong was amused with the news as it will destroy Yeol Chan's image.

Man Sic helped Yeol Chan to get another laboratory to test their product, but it showed unsuitable for market consumption. The owner of the manufacturing company encountered machine problems, which resulted in mixing the ingredients incorrectly.

The man tried to commit suicide, but Yeol Chan and Man Sic just in time rescued him.

Meanwhile, Yoon Soo found the intern evaluation performance. It showed that Tae-Ri and Man Sic passed, but he got the lowest score. He called Yeol Chan to meet outside his house. He asked Yeol Chan about the man he killed in the past.
Volatility is the name of the game right now. Last week, markets had their worst close since March, despite a Friday rally. The S&P 500 lost 6% on Thursday, the indexs worst trading day in three months, and finished the week down 4.8%.

Worries about a new spike in coronavirus cases, along with racially charged urban rioting, have put investors in a selling mood. But remember the old cliche, that the Chinese word for crisis is composed of the symbols for danger and opportunity? The markets gyrations these last few trading sessions have given income-minded investors an opportunity, if they are willing to shoulder some risk.

The question for investors, of course, is where will the market head next? Are the gains returning, or is this just the next hill of the roller coaster? Uncertainty is the only certainty, making defensive moves, toward dividend stocks, a smart play for investors.

Using the TipRanks database, weve pulled up three Strong Buy stocks that show a combination of dividend yields from 7% to 11% and considerable upside potential. While buying into stocks during a downturn is inherently risky, the upside on these three  and their high-yielding dividends  makes the risk worthwhile.

Brookfield Property Partners (BPY)

Well start in the real estate business, where Brookfield holds one of the worlds largest portfolios in office, retail, multifamily dwellings, industrial parks, hospitality, student housing  there is hardly a sector that Brookfield does not have a finger in. The company owns high-end office space in New York and Los Angeles, as well as London, Sydney, and Toronto. The student housing portfolio includes 5,700 beds in the UK university system. The retail segment includes Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Manhattan.

So, Brookfield is not an ordinary real estate company. Its highly diversified portfolio provided some insulation from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the company reported $309 million in total Funds From Operations (FFO) in Q1  in line with the year-ago results. General depreciation in the real estate market pushed the net income into negative territory, and BPY showed a loss of 49 cents per share for the quarter.

Story continues

At the same time, Brookfield has maintained its dividend payment. Even facing a severe net loss, management remains committed, for the time being, to its shareholder return policy. The current dividend, at 33.25 cents per share quarterly, gives an annualized payment of $1.33 and an impressive yield of 11.9%. Compare this to the 2.2% average yield among financial sector peer companies, or the 2% average yield found on the S&P 500, and the attraction is clear.

CIBC analyst Dean Wilkinson acknowledges Brookfields tough business landscape during the pandemic  but points out that April rent collections in the office and multifamily portfolios averaged above 90%. While retail collections were about 20%, it is important to note that lease obligations are contractual agreements; retailers cannot simply walk away from rental payments, and we expect that a material portion of the 80% of uncollected rent to date will, in time, be honoured through payment plans that are currently in negotiation.

Wilkinson's $18 price target on BPY stock implies a one-year upside potential of 62%, and fully supports his Buy rating on the stock. (To watch Wilkinsons track record, click here)

Overall, Wall Street appears to agree with Wilkinson here. BPY shares have 5 recent analyst reviews, and of those 4 are Buy and only 1 a Hold  making the analyst consensus view a Strong Buy. Shares are priced at $11.13, and the average price target of $15.05 suggests the stock has room for 35% upside growth in the coming year. (See Brookfield stock analysis on TipRanks)

Brigham Minerals (MNRL)

The next stock on our list, Brigham Minerals, is mineral rights acquisition company focused on the oil and gas sector in the US. Brighams portfolio includes large acreage in the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, as well as the Delaware and Midland basins of Texas. These are the formations that put North American hydrocarbons on the map in the last decade, and their output has transformed the US into a major energy exporter.

MNRL saw earnings dip in Q1, mainly due to the coronavirus-inspired shutdowns, but EPS remained positive at 14 cents per share. Quarterly production rose by 8% sequentially, to 10,400 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day. The company saw royalty revenue of $28.4 million, with nearly two-thirds of that total coming from Permian holdings.

Brigham has been adjusting its dividend over the past year, with the current quarterly payment set at 37 cents per share. This annualizes to $1.48, and gives the stock a dividend yield of 11.5%. Peer companies in the energy sector average a yield of just 1.9%, while Treasury bonds, the traditional safe investment, are yielding below 1% up to 10-year terms. MNRLs return simply blows away the alternatives.

SunTrust analyst Welles Fitzpatrick sees MNRL as a clear choice for investors. He writes, MNRL turned in a 1Q beat on higher than expected lease bonuses, and in contrast to the rest of the industry paid out all its discretionary cashflow. The company's timely offering in 4Q allows the unlevered balance sheet to shine. While MNRL will see declines in rigs and production this year the company should be able to maintain a high percent of CF distributed.

Fitzpatricks Buy rating on the stock is supported by his $16 price target, suggesting a solid 24% upside potential. (To watch Fitzpatricks track record, click here.)

The analyst consensus here, at Strong Buy rating, is based on 6 Buy and 2 Hold reviews set in recent weeks. MNRL shares are trading for $12.85; the average price target, at $14.57, indicates a 20% upside for the stock. (See Brigham Minerals stock analysis on TipRanks)

Umpqua Holdings (UMPQ)

Last on our list for today is Umpqua, a holding company based in Portland, Oregon. Umpquas main subsidiary is Oregons Umpqua Bank. The bank provides asset management, mortgage banking, and general financial services in commercial and retail banking for corporate, institutional, and individual customers. The bank has locations across Oregon, as well as Washington State, Idaho, Nevada, and California.

The first quarter  the coronavirus quarter  was hard on Umpqua. The company reported a net loss of $28.3 million, or 13 cents per share. Management laid the loss  the companys worst report after a two-year run of profitable quarters  squarely on the COVID-19 pandemic and crisis. The company has been able to switch many non-customer-facing employees to remote work, while keeping over 95% bank branches open. Looking ahead, UMPQ is expected to show a 17-cent EPS profit in Q2.

Through the coronavirus crisis, UMPQ has kept up its dividend. The company has a 7-year history of reliable dividend growth, and announced its most recent dividend payment back in March. They payment, made in April, was 21 cents per share. At 84 cents annualized, this gives UMPQ shares a dividend yield of 7.15%. This is more than 3.5x the average found among S&P listed companies, and also significantly higher than most peer companies payments.

Reviewing the stock for SunTrust Robinson was analyst Michael Young. He backed his Buy rating on the stock with a $13 price target, showing confidence in a 11% upside potential. (To watch Youngs track record, click here)

Backing his stance, Young looked closely at the banks loan portfolio, writing, Very granular portfolio, average loan size is under $1 million. The loan portfolio consists of very low leverage clients relative to competitors according to management... We do note that UMPQ has a larger multifamily loan concentration, but this is also likely one of the best performing CRE asset classes through a recession.

Overall, Wall Street analysts are thoroughly impressed with UMPQ. It boasts 100% Street support, or 3 Buy ratings in the last three months, making the consensus a Strong Buy. Meanwhile, the $13.67 average price target implies that shares could surge nearly 22% in the next twelve months. (See Umpqua stock-price forecast on TipRanks)

To find good ideas for dividend stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks equity insights.
A network of youth volunteers under the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) is helping raise awareness about Covid-19 pandemic through street art and wall paintings. The NYKS comes under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and has a network of 8.5 million youth spread across 623 districts in the country. This community outreach is not just happening in the Capital, and is spread in various cities. Crisp messaging, colourful visuals and catchy slogans have made these walls a symbol of our fight against coronavirus and will go down in the citys history as a reminder of our resilience.

We have a pool of volunteers across our nine offices in Delhi. These National youth volunteers are part of our community outreach programmes under the guidance of our district officers. When this pandemic spread, we tapped into social media to help create awareness and extend help. After lockdown relaxations, our volunteers started distributing food, making posters, and painting walls with the support of the district administration, says Nand Kumar Singh, state director, NYKS Delhi.

Read: 86-year old Delhi resident shines a ray of hope in these grim times by defeating Covid 19

These volunteers are in direct contact with the community and work at the grassroots. To become a volunteer, it is necessary to have passed the class X CBSE exams, and the age cap is 29 years. The idea is to hone rural youth physically, mentally and morally, and to integrate them with the mainstream so that they become responsible citizens.

A youth volunteer painting a wall in New Delhi district.

Vikas Kumar, an 18-year old volunteer from North-East Delhi district, was 14-years old when he started volunteering for NYKS. He completed his higher secondary education from Kendriya Vidyalaya and is currently working with five other volunteers. We made paintings in Ganga Vihar, Amar Colony, Tunda Nagar and Johri Pur. We were told that we have to spread awareness about coronavirus and it was upto us to decide how to go about it. We went door-to-door making announcements, distributing masks and talking to residents about their problems. I have always wanted to be involved in this kind of work and help others, he says, sharing that there is still a long way to go before stigmas around the virus are removed.

Wall paintings are an effective tool of communication, because they dont just beautify a place, but also catch more eyeballs. Nisha Kumari, district youth coordinator for New Delhi district, says, We have covered the areas of RK Puram, Chanakya Puri, Delhi Cantonement. Wall paintings look very attractive and draw the attention of passers-by. It is something that elicits feelings of happiness and you cant miss it, she says.

A youth volunteer working on a wall in one of the areas in North Delhi district.

Volunteers are allocated as per the requirement of the districts. Poonam Sharma, district youth coordinator for North district, says, I have 11 volunteers who are involved in making posters, painting walls and helping the elderly. We are conducting slogan-writing competitions and mask-making drives to engage with the community. Dry ration and cooked food is being distributed by these volunteers, she explains. The response has been fairly positive in her district, save for some who are the worst-hit by the pandemic. Many of them didnt have ration cards so our volunteers helped get their e-ration cards, she adds.

Read: Mumbaiwale: The 20 coolest city chroniclers on Instagram

Rajesh Kumar Jadon, district youth coordinator for Central district is working with 13 volunteers at present. We are working in Yamuna Bazaar, Karol Bagh and Paharganj. Our volunteers have enlisted the help of some painters to help polish the walls because not everyone is comfortable trusting just about anyone to paint their walls, he says. His volunteers stitched 1,500 masks, cooked and distributed food, and provided stationery to kids who are studying at home. One of our volunteers got a sanitization machine and sprayed around 50 houses for eight days, he shares.

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Hollywood actress and producer Kate Walsh (Greys Anatomy, Private Practice) wants to produce US television in Western Australia.

Walsh has been quarantined in Cottesloe for the past 3 months, after visiting Perth in March and opting to stay rather than return to Hollywood.

Last night she told Sevens locally-produced current affairs program, Flashpoint, she believes US television and movie productions will be closed for business until at least 2021.

Walsh sees Western Australia as being in a unique position, being virtually virus free, with varied landscapes, a favourable dollar and local actors and crew.

She has already had positive discussions with the WA Minister for Culture and Arts, David Templeman, and is due to meet with the WA Treasurer, Ben Wyatt, later in the month in an effort to convince the state it needs to invest in a world-class production hub  servicing all stages of the production process, as well as a state-of-the-art sound stage. An investment NSW, QLD, VIC and SA governments have already made.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, June 15, 2020 18:12 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee078d 1 National Python,Southeast-Sulawesi,snake-bite,Snake Free

A 16-year-old junior high school student was killed by a 7-meter-long python, which strangled him to death, while hiking in Bombana regency, Southeast Sulawesi, on Sunday.

The student, identified as Alfian, was attacked by the snake on the way to a waterfall in Kahar mountain, Rumbia district, with four friends.

The python attacked Alfian when he was separated about 10 meters from his friends, said Rumbia Police chief First. Insp. Muh. Nur Sultan.

Read also: Teacher captures python with bare hands in West Sulawesi

"After they were separated, Alfian's friends heard him screaming. When they found him, the python had bit one of his thighs and was wrapped around his neck," Muh Nur told kompas.com on Monday.

Muh Nur said two of Alfian's friends tried to help him by hitting the snake. However, they were instead attacked and bitten by the python.

They then decided to seek help from locals, who killed the python with machetes. But by the time they managed to free Alfian from the snake, the student had died.

Muh Nur said two of Alfians' friends who had been bitten had been taken to a local health community center (Puskesmas) and allowed to go home afterwards. (nal)
Pawan Jhabakh and B Arvind Srevatsa By

The COVID-19 pandemic, apart from disrupting the global economic balance, has severely dented and affected employer-employee relationships. Businesses have dwindling revenues resulting in severe depletion of cash flows which are now insufficient to service employee payments. In some cases, employers have engaged in mass lay-offs.

In light of such circumstances, with an intent to protect employees, it is worth noting that the Ministry of Labour and Employment issued an advisory dated 20th March, advising all public and private establishments to extend their cooperation by not terminating employees or reducing their wages, particularly casual workers even before the lockdown was announced by the Department of Health & Family Welfare on 24th March.

The Ministry of Home Affairs issued an order dated 29th March, which stated amongst other measures that all employers shall pay their workers at their workplace on the due date without any deduction for the period under lockdown. The order dated 29th March has been withdrawn with effect from 18th May by a subsequent order of the Ministry of Home Affairs dated 17th May.

The Ficus Order and the grounds of challenge

While things stood thus, a batch of writ petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court of India by various employers, challenging the constitutional validity of the orders dated 20th March and 29th March, referred to above, in the case of Ficus Pax Private Limited & Others v. Union of India & Others (Ficus Order). The Supreme Court has heard arguments and passed an order dated 12th June, by way of an interim arrangement till the matter is heard further and the case has been adjourned to the last week of July.

ALSO READ | Law and COVID-19: Companies don't have blanket protection from discharging responsibilities!

The grounds on which the two orders were challenged are: (a) The orders are beyond the scope of the powers of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (b) The orders were meant for the limited purpose of emergent issues regarding migrant labourers and they cannot be applied to the entire country (c) The orders are violative of the right to practise any profession, trade or business as guaranteed under Article 19(1) (g) of the Constitution (d) Right to equality is violated because the two orders do not draw a distinction between working and non-working employees during the said period and (e) The orders are contrary to basic principles of labour law, namely equal pay for equal work and no work- no wages. It is pertinent to point out that the Bombay High Court, in its recent decision in Rashtriya Shramik Aghadi v. Maharashtra, vide its order dated 12th May, has held that the principle of 'no work no wages' cannot be made applicable in such extraordinary circumstances.

It is interesting to note that apart from challenging the orders, some aggrieved parties have sought directions for balancing rights of employers and employees with respect to Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and subsidizing 70-80% per wages and utilisation of Employees State Insurance Corporation Funds (ESI), PM Cares Fund or similar government schemes.

Counter by the government and the order of the SC

The Union government defended the orders issued by firstly submitting that the issuance of the order dated 29th March was within the scope of the Disaster Management Act. Secondly, it said that the order has been issued in larger public interest keeping in the mind the interest of employees, labours and workers. Thirdly, it said the argument of financial hardship or incapacity to pay is an untenable argument and finally that the order dated 29th March has been subsequently withdrawn and was live only for 54 days.

The Supreme Court, while observing that industry and labourers need each other, has passed an order stating that:

(i) Private establishments may initiate negotiations with their employees organization/union regarding payment of wages for either the 50 days in question or for any other period. On successful negotiations, parties may settle;

(ii) In the event that they are unable to settle the dispute amongst themselves, they may submit a request to the labour authorities constituted as per law, to conciliate the inter se disputes, by calling upon the concerned employees trade union/workers association/workers to appear on a date for negotiation, conciliation and settlement. In the event a settlement is arrived amongst parties, that may be acted upon by the employers and workers irrespective of the order dated 29th March;

(iii) The inter se negotiation can also be adopted by institutions which were working during period of lockdown.

(iv) Establishments may permit willing employees to work without prejudice to their rights with respect to the unpaid 50-day period.

Implications of the Ficus Order: Arriving at a settlement to avoid unnecessary litigation

The primary object of the order is to avoid multiple litigations and strike a balance between parties who are in a predicament due to factors beyond their control. The Supreme Court has encouraged a negotiation by which the interest of both stakeholders, namely the employers and employees, are protected by entering into a settlement.

In the event of the negotiation failing, the employees are at liberty to move before the labour authorities. An employee continuing to work with the establishment has been provided adequate protection under this order, as his/her consent to continue employment would not be considered as a waiver of claims for the 50-day period.

Employers would argue that they are incapacitated in such extreme and dire economic circumstances which are beyond their control whereas employees would argue that the obligation to pay would subsist irrespective of the financial capability of the employer as they are contractually bound and their life/livelihood is dependent on such income.

Keeping the interests of both parties at an equilibrium, the observation of the Supreme Court appears to be ideal to achieve a level playing field and progress towards recovery.

The necessity to re-negotiate employment agreements

The balance between public interest and economics of business has to be achieved in such desperate times. The employment agreement is the foundation for such employer-employee relationships. The lockdown would now greatly impact such agreements, under which the employer and the employee have agreed on various terms and conditions which were executed as a matter of a ritual in the usual course.

The employer without doubt would be under a contractual obligation to make payments to the employee and very seldom would a contract contemplate this predicament which exists in the country today. It would be best that the concerned parties negotiate or restructure the payment structure which may either be disbursed by the employer through a phased manner or can be linked to an incentive threshold which would be beneficial to all concerned.

Laying off by employers or termination of contracts by employees would not help each others cause, even more in the case of employees as job security would be of grave primacy and job opportunities would be scarce. It would be ideal that parties negotiate and arrive at a mutual consensus/settlement considering all the above factors and avoiding time in litigation, incurring litigation expenses and thereby protecting their livelihood.

It is also worth noting that apart from this, the government of India as part of its economic package has reiterated sweeping changes of consolidating 44 labour legislations in four codes which was initially proposed in July 2019. We now wait for the next day of hearing before the Supreme Court and these wholesome legislative measures proposed in the interest of employees.

(The authors are advocates practising in the Madras High Court.

The views expressed are personal.)
Guatemala has declared a state of "maximum alert" in four administrative regions as over 354 new cases of the novel coronavirus were detected, and 14 deaths from the COVID-19 disease were recorded in the past 24 hours. Country's President Alejandro Giammattei announced on June 14 that four regions of Guatemala, El Progreso, Sacatepequez, and San Marcos will have the restrictions back in place due to mounting health concerns in an address on the National Radio and Television Network from the Presidential House.

In an address to the Guatemala citizens, President Giammattei said that the new measures will last for 15 days, which included full-day curfews on Sundays from 6 p.m. until 5 am. Further, he informed that during the rest of the week, vehicles with odd and even number plates could move on alternate days for the essential movement only. In his tweets, Giammattei advised the citizens to do only essential movements such as to the grocery stores and pharmacy in order to avoid contracting the novel coronavirus. The instructions come after the country recorded 9,845 confirmed cases overall since it had been on the high alert from February 25.

Read: Coronavirus Clusters In Japan Linked To Young, Asymptomatic People: Study

Read: Thailand Lifts Nationwide Curfew As It Marks 21 Days With No Local Coronavirus Cases

186 deportees tested positive for COVID-19

Last week, the United States resumed deportation flights to Guatemala, nearly a month after the Central American country refused to accept them due to mounting the COVID-19 crisis, as per media reports. A flight from Alexandria, Louisiana landed in the Guatemalan capital that brought 40 adults and 10 children who have been the migrant workers in the US.

As many as 186 Guatemalan deportees have tested positive for COVID-19 even after US assurances that they were healthy that stirred the controversy in the nation. Guatemalas president fumed and questioned the United States, revealing frustration over the US continuous dispatch of the deportees infected with COVID-19 to a country struggling to manage the crisis. Even as Guatemala suspended the deportation flights on several occasions after infected passengers were detected, the US resumed the flights calling people healthy onboard.

Read: 4 Coronavirus Patients Succumb To Infection In J&K, Death Toll Rises To 60

Read: France Lifts Most Coronavirus Restrictions, Allows Inter-Europe Travel

(Image Credit: AP)
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 11:45:51|Editor: huaxia

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SYDNEY, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia's two most populous states have outlined a further easing of COVID-19 restrictions, including on gyms, cinemas and music festivals, despite new cases still being recorded.

Officials in the state of New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria said on Sunday that the COVID-19 shutdown would be progressively wrapped up over the coming months, giving local economies a chance to recover.

From July 1, all businesses in the state of NSW, including cinemas, theaters, amusement parks, show grounds, among others, will be allowed to reopen with social distancing measures in place.

The only exception will be night clubs which have been the source of cluster outbreaks elsewhere in the world, however officials suggested that they too will potentially reopen in August given low infection rates.

NSW officials also revealed that effective immediately the cap on funeral attendees would be lifted as long as mourners stick to the blanket limitation of one person per four square metres of floor space.

Meanwhile in the neighboring State of Victoria, limits on the number of people allowed in pubs and restaurants will be increased from 20 to 50, in line with regulations already in place in NSW, starting next week.

Public facilities in Victoria such as campgrounds, gyms, swimming pools, and gaming venues will reopen from June 22, while community sport, including full contact, will take place from mid-July.

The announcement comes after a dramatic reduction in the number of cases nationwide, however with over a dozen positive tests since Friday, some are worried the easing of restrictions may be premature.

On Monday, two schools in the Victorian State capital of Melbourne were closed after four students tested positive for COVID-19.

State officials said that they would implement a more targeted approach to testing in order to maintain a barrier against potential clusters, including ramping up testing in areas where numbers are low.

As of Monday, Australia had 7,320 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 6,838 of which had recovered and 102 had died. Enditem
Georgia will no longer require aspiring teachers to pass the performance-based licensing test edTPA, calling it a barrier to entry.

EdTPA is the first standards-based assessment for teacher-candidates to become nationally available, and is meant to ensure that new teachers are effective from day one. Supporters said it would raise the bar for the teaching profession, but critics have long worried that it has forced colleges of education to teach to the test and has pushed aspiring teachersespecially those from marginalized backgroundsout of the profession.

In Georgia, edTPA became a requirement for program completion and certification in 2015. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission, which oversees teacher-preparation programs, unanimously voted Thursday to drop the statewide requirement, although individual programs can still require candidates to take the edTPA. The decision goes into effect on July 1.

We recognize ... that while we have gained much from edTPA, we, as an agency, need to be as responsive as possible to the expressed needs of schools related to staffing and capacity, said Matt Arthur, the executive secretary of the commission, in a memo.

And in a statement, Georgias State Superintendent of Schools, Richard Woods, praised what he called a common-sense decision that will help strengthen the states pipeline of teachers.

Now more than ever, we should be removing barriers that make it harder for qualified individuals to join the teaching profession, he said. The COVID-19 crisis has made clearer what many of us already knew: measuring a teachers preparation and skill is more complicated than a high-stakes assessment tool can capture. The edTPA assessment served a purpose, but it has become clear over time that it caused unintended barriers and burdens for teachers entering the profession.

The edTPA costs $300 to take, and many students have had to retake the test multiple times before passing. Candidates must submit a portfolio of materials for review, including a series of lesson plans, a video of themselves teaching, and written analysis of their instructional practice.

At its base, the edTPA essentially asserts that every child deserves a well-trained, highly competent teacher, said Raymond Pecheone, the executive director of the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, which developed the assessment in 2009. Thats always been the mission of the edTPAto create a system of assessment where regardless of ZIP code, teachers in the state will be held to a common standard.

Most states have at least one teacher-preparation program that participates in edTPA, and at least 20 states have approved edTPA to count for their program completion and licensure requirement.

Diversity Concerns

Studies have shown that candidates of color are less likely to pass the edTPA than their white peers, prompting concerns that the licensing test is contributing to an already overwhelmingly white profession.

Pecheone said SCALE is working with states to consider an approach to setting standards for licensure that uses multiple measuresa combination on how the candidates perform on the edTPA and how they perform in student-teaching, as determined by their teacher-preparation program. That way, a candidate who doesnt pass the edTPA but has succeeded in clinical experience could still become a teacher.

Oregon, New York, and Wisconsin already use other data in their licensure decisions, Pecheone said, and California is working on similar processes.

SCALE is currently compiling insights and best practices from universities that have narrowed or closed the gap in pass rates, he said. Those case studies are expected to be released in the fall. Also, in partnership with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, SCALE has created a library of resources to support both candidates and programs, Pecheone noted.

Even so, the edTPA has been unpopular among teacher educators in Georgia, especially those who work at historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, said Marsha Francis, who works with preservice teachers in the Fulton County school district and is a site visitor for the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. (Francis, who is one of Education Weeks Leaders to Learn From , used to be the edTPA coordinator for Spelman College, a historically black womens college in Atlanta.)

You have this asssesment that feels thrust upon the different programs and the candidates, and its been used to say XYZ about a school, and they feel as if those scores are maybe not the best picture of the types of candidates they produced, she said.

Research on whether the test predicts good teaching has been mixed: A 2016 study from the American Institutes of Research found that the students of teachers who passed edTPA on their first try scored higher in reading than students whose teachers didnt, but passing the test didnt have any effect on students math scores. And in a 2018 study that asked teacher-candidates how they perceived the assessment process , some said they thought the test helped them reflect on their practice, develop effective assessments, and analyze student data, while 40 percent said the edTPA didnt help them grow at all as educators.

Maintaining a High Bar

EdTPA has also been criticized for how the assessments are scored. Recently, a study published in the American Educational Research Journal argued that the results are not always reliable or precise , and can even be misleading. (The developers of the exam have disputed the studys conclusions.)

Francis said she worries that the context of individual schools is lost during scoring, and that the process can lead to biases. Do we feel comfortable having someone in Idaho judging my teaching in metro Atlanta? she said.

Pecheone said to the degree possible, raterswho are teacher-educators, National Board-certified teachers, and other experienced teachers who have worked with preservice teachersscore portfolios from teacher candidates who are in the same setting as them. (Urban teachers are matched with urban scorers, rural with rural, and suburban with suburban.)

The rigorous implementation of the edTPA has improved teacher quality across the state of Georgia, Pacheone said, and hes worried that removing this standard could lead to unqualified teachers entering the classroom, which could cause students to fall significantly behind.

Im concerned that the hard-fought standards for teacher performance and accountability [developed over] the last two decades could be rolled back, Pacheone said, adding that other professions have rigorous licensing tests.

But Francis said she hopes removing the requirement will send a message to prospective teachers that Georgia is invested in their success.

As a teacher educator, I know the importance of preparing thoughtful, highly competent educators, she said. I think that as we continue to work together, we can find ways to ensure that the expectations and standards we have for strong teachers dont eliminate first-generation college students who choose to be teachers, minority students who choose to be teachers, and students who dont have the resources to be retaking expensive testsso that theyre able to go into the classroom because they have gained the knowledge and skills to be effective to meet the needs of kids who look like them.

Image via Getty
About 43,000 pounds of ground beef sold at stores across the country, such as Walmart, is being recalled due to a possible E.coli contamination, the United States Department of Agriculture announced over the weekend.

Lakeside Refrigerated Services of New Jersey produced the beef on June 1 under brand names Marketside Butchers and Thomas Farms.

The ground beef included in the recall include the establishment number EST. 46841 inside the USDA mark of inspection. The issue was discovered during routine testing, the USDA said. There have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.

The following packages are ground beef are subject to recall:

1-pound vacuum packages containing Marketside Butcher Organic Grass-Fed Ground Beef" and a use or freeze by date of 07/01/20 and lot code P-53298-82.

1-pound vacuum packages containing four  pound pieces of Marketside Butcher Organic Grass-Fed Ground Beef Patties and a use or freeze by date of June 27, 2020 and lot code P-53934-28.

3-pound vacuum packages containing three 1 pound pieces of Marketside Butcher Organic Grass-Fed Ground Beef 93% Lean / 7% Fat and a use or freeze by date of 07/01/20 and lot code P53929-70.

1-pound tray packages containing four  pound pieces of Thomas Farms Grass-Fed Ground Beef Patties 85% Lean/15% Fat" and a use or freeze by date of 06/25/20 and lot code P53944-10.

4-pound tray packages containing 10  pound pieces of Thomas Farms Grass-Fed Ground Beef Patties 80% Lean / 20% Fat and a use or freeze by date of 06/25/20 and lot code P53937-45.

1-pound vacuum packages containing four  pound pieces of Thomas Farms Grass-Fed Ground Beef Patties 85% Lean / 15% Fat and a use or freeze by date of 06/27/20 and lot code P53935-25.

1-pound vacuum packages containing Value Pack Fresh Ground Beef 76% Lean/24% Fat and a use or freeze by date of 07/01/20 and lot code P53930-18.

Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a healthcare provider. E.coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause dehydration, bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps 28 days (34 days, on average) after exposure the organism. While most people recover within a week, some develop a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). This condition can occur among persons of any age but is most common in children under 5-years old and older adults. It is marked by easy bruising, pallor, and decreased urine output. Persons who experience these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately.

Consumers and members of the media with questions about the recall can contact the Lakeside Processing Center Call Center at (856) 832-3881.
CCP Virus Paralyzes Public Security Bureau in Shulan City

Honest News Straight to Your Home. Try the Epoch Times yourself, and get a free gift.

Shulan city, located in Chinas northeastern region, has locked down since the first confirmed case of the CCP virus infection was identified. At least 34 cases have since been identified in Jilin province. All reportedly confirmed cases in Shulan are linked to a 45-year-old laundry worker for the Public Security Bureau in Shulan.

Introduction: A local resident of Shulan revealed that a local hospital has been designated for accepting patients with the CCP virus infection.

Female:

The entire city is locked down. No one is allowed to enter or leave. The local residential complexes are also locked down.

The city mandated testing for anyone who has come into contact with the laundry worker and her family.

I believe the leaders in Shulan have contracted the virus. The city party chief has been dismissed. The deputy party chief has possibly been dismissed already. The mayor might be the next to be fired. I think theyre all going to be gone, including the head of the public security bureau.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan came to Shulan in the evening after she visited Heilongjiang and then she went to Jilin city. Shulans public security bureau has been paralyzed. It is said that police have been deployed from the province to Shulan. Shulans local police have nearly all been idled.

Shulan is now the second Wuhan. The vice premier came for a short inspection. Who would stay in the epicenter? Sun Chunlan had stayed there for only two months.

The Shulan Mining Bureau General Hospital has been converted to a makeshift hospital.

It was said that new medical machines were ordered a few days ago. I think the equipment has arrived.

The interview was conducted by Luo Ya from the Chinese-language Epoch Times.
Russian Missile Forces in Baltic Region Conduct Drills Amid Ongoing NATO Exercises Nearby

Sputnik News

11:25 GMT 14.06.2020(updated 11:34 GMT 14.06.2020)

US and Polish forces kicked off large-scale ground-based drills dubbed 'Allied Spirit' in northwestern Poland on June 4, while a NATO maritime exercise called 'BALTOPS 20' in the Baltic region got underway on June 7.

Iskander missile units from the Russian Baltic Fleet's coastal defence forces have carried out mock conventional missile strike drills.

"As part of planned combat training activities of Baltic Fleet forces in the Kaliningrad region, training in the delivery of mock conventional missile strikes was conducted using Iskander operational tactical units. The Baltic Fleet's combat training activities were held against the background of the NATO BALTOPS 20 naval exercises taking place in the Baltic Sea," the fleet said in a statement on Sunday.

The drills were said to have involved the covert deployment of the missile launchers to their designated areas and, once deployed, mock electronic single and group launches on targets simulating enemy missile launchers, military airbases, defended targets and command posts. After performing the launches, the units quickly changed their position to avoid a simulated retaliation.

Additionally, the combat units worked under conditions of simulated radiation and chemical contamination of the area, and in the repelling of an attack by enemy sabotage and reconnaissance units.

"Special attention was paid to improving the coordination of crews and units, the professional skills of personnel when moving to the designated areas and disguising their military vehicles," the Fleet said in its statement.

Over 200 military personnel and about 20 pieces of military equipment were said to have been involved in the drill.

The Iskander missile system is a road-mobile short-range ballistic missile carrier with a range of 50-500 km, and can be armed with a variety of conventional and nuclear charges, as well as an EMP charge.

Nearby, NATO is continuing its BALTOPS 20 drills, which began on June 7 and are set to run until June 16 in the Baltic Sea region. The maritime-focused exercises are thought to involve some 28 warships, over two dozen aircraft and 3,000 personnel from 17 NATO countries, as well as Finland and Sweden. The drills are being commanded from NATO's 'Naval Striking and Support Forces' headquarters in Portugal.

Meanwhile, in Poland, US and Polish forces kicked off the 'Allied Spirit' airborne and division-size river crossing drills on June 5, with the drills expected to run until June 19. Those exercises are said to involve some 4,000 US troops and 2,000 Polish army personnel, along with 100 main battle tanks, 230 other armoured vehicles, artillery and aviation.

On Thursday, the Baltic Fleet staged a separate, aerial drill involving a dozen Su-24, Su-27 and Su-30 aircraft against simulated maritime targets in the Baltic Sea.

The resumed NATO drilling near Russia's borders comes following the scaling down of plans to deploy some 37,000 troops, including some 20,000 US troops airlifted from the United States, for exercises in Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries earlier this year. Those drills, dubbed the Defender Europe 20, were put on hold in March amid fears that they would cause a spike in coronavirus infections among military personnel.

On Friday, the US Army said it still plans to engage up to 1,000 US troops in a second phase of the Defender Europe 20 drills in Germany later this summer, along with several other exercises on the continent.

A Sputnik

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Internationally acclaimed Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr., a former staffer at Rappler, the online news service founded by Ressa, where she serves as CEO and executive editor, were found guilty of cyber libel by a Manila trial court in the Philippines on Monday. Ressa and Santos were hit with prison sentences of six months and one day to up to six years and ordered to pay around $8,000 in moral and exemplary damages.

Ted Te, one of Ressa's attorneys in the Philippines, said they will appeal the cyber libel ruling. Ressa and Santos posted bail and can remain free while they appeal the verdict.

"It is a blow, but it is also not unexpected," said a defiant Ressa as she emerged from the courtroom.

Ressa founded the online news site Rappler in 2012 and has received international acclaim for her reporting in the face of personal and legal threats. Rappler the company was found to not be liable in the lawsuit.

Ressa and human rights groups believe the government of Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial president of the Philippines, has targeted Rappler and Ressa in retaliation for its critical reporting, including its coverage of Duterte's deadly "war on drugs," which has led to the violent killing of thousands of Filipinos.

The Philippines ranks 136th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index put together by Reporters Without Borders, whose analysts say journalists there face threats of violence, legal charges, and online harassment. In May, the country's biggest broadcaster, ABS-CBN, was forced off the air.

"If we can't hold power to account, we can't do anything," Ressa said at a press conference after the verdict was handed down. "If we can't do our jobs, then your rights will be lost."

Amal Clooney and Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, who led Ressa's legal defense team, both condemned the verdict.

"Today a court in the Philippines became complicit in a sinister action to silence a journalist for exposing corruption and abuse," Clooney said in a statement. "This conviction is an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines."

Story continues

"Maria Ressa's conviction on baseless charges, for an article she did not write, under a draconian law which did not exist when the article was published, is an ugly stain on the Philippines' reputation," Ghallagher added. "The international community must condemn this grave attack on independent journalism and media freedom in the strongest terms."

In a CBSN Originals documentary, "Fake news, real consequences," Ressa described tactics by Duterte's supporters to use social media platforms to spread lies and silence critics.

"To think that we would buckle, that we would throw away a lifetime's work of journalism because we're afraid? I think they don't know what real journalists are," Ressa said Sunday in an interview on Manila-based online media platform, "Now You Know," hosted by Barnaby Lo, a producer for CBS News.

Since 2018, Rappler and Ressa have faced at least 8 charges by different government agencies, including for tax evasion and libel. At one point, Ressa said she had to post bail six times in a period of less than two months.

"It's just the bad luck of the Duterte administration that they chose a journalist who's been around for a long time," Ressa said. "I know who I am, I know why I do what I do. I know the standards and ethics of journalism. You can't really bully me into changing that."

In 2012, Rappler published a story that raised questions about a former chief justice in the Philippines  who was going through an impeachment trial at the time  using a luxury vehicle owned by businessman Wilfredo Keng.

Over five years later, in October 2017, Keng made a complaint to the cyber crime unit of the Phillipine's National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). In March 2018, the unit recommended that Rappler be prosecuted for "cyber libel," a crime that carries a possible prison sentence of up to seven years, and in February 2019, warrants were issued for the arrest of Ressa and former Rappler writer/researcher, Renaldo Santos Jr.

The judge, Rainelda Estacio-Montesa, ruled that there was no substantive effort on the part of Rappler journalists to verify claims in an intelligence report cited in the article that implicated Keng in criminal activity, and air Keng's side.

She said Ressa and Santos cannot hide under the shield of press freedom.

Ressa argued that the cyber libel law had not existed at the time that the article was written in 2012 -- and that it could not be applied retroactively. However, prosecutors said that the fact that edits were made to the article in 2014 meant the law could apply. Rappler says the edits were not substantive.

"Essentially, because someone at Rappler changed a typo, fixed a misspelling, we are now sentenced to jail," Ressa said at Monday's press conference.

"This is politically motivated, it is meant to harass us, it is meant to light the online attacks, and pound us into silence," Ressa said prior to the verdict being announced. "We (will) keep doing our jobs, and I'm hoping that by doing that, by holding the line, that our counterparts in government will realize that we are actually working for the same thing, which is to make a better society, to find answers to the same questions."

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Srinagar, June 15 : Pakistani wives of former Kashmiri militants, who returned to the Valley through Nepal under a government rehabilitation scheme, staged a protest, here on Monday, demanding citizenship and alleging non-fulfilment of promises.

"We appeal the government to provide us facilities and travel documents to help settle with our families in the Valley," one protestor said. "The future of our children is dark. They too don't have documents," she added.

Scores of Kashmiri youth went to Pakistan, crossing the line of control (LoC), for arms training after militancy erupted in early 90s. Some of them married and settled down there.

Many, however, returned to Kashmir via Nepal with their families after the Omar Abdullah government in 2010 announced a rehabilitation scheme for surrendered militants.
Sofia Richie took a stand against systemic racism and police violence on Sunday when she attended the All Black Lives Matter protest in Hollywood.

The 21-year-old model shared photos of herself and her friends at the protest to her Instagram Stories.

'Racism Stops At MY Generation,' read her colorful handwritten sign.

Making her voice heard: Sofia Richie, 21, took a stand against systemic racism and police violence by joining the All Black Lives Matter protest in Hollywood on Sunday

Sofia was dressed for comfort in a gray tank top and distressed high-waisted jeans.

She wore a hardy pair of black combat boots for a day on her feet, and she kept some necessary supplies in a small gray backpack slung over one shoulder.

One photo from the protest showed Sofia holding her sign aloft with her friends, one of whom quoted Martin Luther King Jr.: 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'

Another simply wrote, 'Love is love!'

Ending racism: Sofia was dressed for comfort in a gray tank top, distressed high-waisted jeans and black combat boots. Her sign said, 'Racism Stops At MY Generation'

Earlier in the day, she shared a photo of herself and her friends driving to the protest.

The group didn't appear to be practicing social distancing, but they all wore masks.

Sofia rocked a stylish olive patterned scarf around her face, and she also wore pink gloves for added protection.

She also shared another shot of the posters, including one that said, 'If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.'

Safety measures: All of Sofia's friends wore masks to help slow the spread of the coroanvirus, though they didn't social distance. Sofia also wore pink gloves

Classic: A photo of the signs before the protest revealed one that said, 'If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything'

Sofia filmed a short clip near Hollywood Boulevard with the iconic Chinese Theatre in the background.

She chanted, 'All Black lives matter!' with the crowd in response to a speaker out of sight.

In another short clip, the daughter of Lionel Richie zoomed in on another protestors sign saying, 'Racism is not getting worse  it's getting filmed.'

Unlike other recent protests, the one was labeled 'All Black Lives Matter' to explicitly include LGBTQ members of the Black community, though the Black Lives Matter movement doesn't exclude them.

To commemorate the massive peaceful protest, 'All Black Lives Matter' was painted along Hollywood Boulevard in colors representing members of the LGBTQ community.

Immortalized: To commemorate the massive peaceful protest, 'All Black Lives Matter' was painted along Hollywood Boulevard in colors representing members of the LGBTQ community

Loud and clear: Sofia shouted, 'All Black lives matter!' along with a speaker out of view in a short video taken near the iconic Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard

Late last month, Sofia showed her solidarity with the movement by posting a quotation from Nelson Mandela on her Instagram account, and she also participated in #BlackOutTuesday at the start of June by posting a simple black square.

Sofia joined the protests following an insider report in People that Sofia was still communicating with her ex-boyfriend Scott Disick, 37, though a reunion was unlikely.

'Scott is in touch with Sofia, but as of now, they don't plan on getting back together. Sofia seems OK with them being apart,' the source said.

Their split was reportedly due to issues that led to Scott checking in to a rehab center in Colorado in April.

Single time: Sofia was out protesting amid reports that she's in touch with her ex Scott Disick, though she doesn't have any plans to get back together soon

'Scott and Sofia are on a break until Scott straightens himself out more,' an insider told Us Weekly.

'Scott is in an OK place right now and is trying to get better and focus on work, but he has to prove himself.'

Though the Flip It Like Disick star has suffered from substance abuse issues in the past, his rehab stay reportedly had more to due with his difficultly coping with the coronavirus pandemic quarantine.
Camden, N.J.

To Scott Thomson, changing the culture of policing in America is a relatively simple process.

It's just not an easy one.

Thomson led a tumultuous police department makeover in Camden, New Jersey  a poor city of mostly brown and black residents just across the river from Philadelphia  in 2013.

After state officials disbanded the old department and started anew, Thomson transformed policing in Camden from the law-and-order, lock-'em-up approach of the 1990s to a holistic, do-no-harm philosophy that's put the long-maligned city in the spotlight during the reckoning over race and police brutality.

While police elsewhere clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters outraged by the latest death of a black man detained by police, Camden officers marched calmly with residents and activists.

"Our actions can accelerate situations. What we should be trying to do is de-escalate them," said Thomson, a past president of the Police Executive Research Forum who retired from the Camden job last year. "The last thing we want is for the temperature to rise, and for situations to go from bad to worse because of our failed tactics."

But if the recent protest was peaceful, the county takeover of the Camden Police Department was cataclysmic. More than 300 officers lost their jobs. Only half joined the new force.

Along with the switch to community policing came a reliance on high-tech, city-wide surveillance, more patrols, and younger, cheaper, less diverse officers who often aren't from Camden.

"That is a very different vision of what a new police force looks like than we're hearing from protesters, who want less policing," said Stephen Danley, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University-Camden.

Ashly Estevez-Perez, 21, has spent most of her life in Camden, which is now about half Hispanic and 40 percent black. She remembers when children were rarely allowed to leave their front stoops given the threat of gunfire.

"The new police force came in, and you saw cars everywhere. ... Everyone was kind of taken aback," she said of what some would call "over-policing."

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

The police changeover followed state budget cuts that had forced Camden to slash municipal services in 2011. Nearly half of its 360 officers were laid off. Crime surged.

Then-Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., joined local Democratic power brokers in engineering a plan to eliminate the department, shed its costly union contract and create the Camden County Police Department.Thomson remained at the helm.

Over time, his philosophy evolved from a "broken window" approach that famously saw the department cite people for failing to have bicycle horns to a friendlier approach that sends officers into the community to host barbecues, hand out ice cream and shoot hoops.

Crime rates have fallen  whether due to the police engagement, the increased investment, the booming Philadelphia economy or the national decline in violent crime.

According to police department data, Camden's annual homicide tally has fallen from 67 in 2012 to 25 last year; robberies from 755 to 304; and assault with a gun from 381 to 250. The city, with about 73,000 residents, spends $68 million per year on policing, far more than some comparable cities.
Gov. Tom Wolf hailed the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling that LGBTQ employees are protected from discrimination at the workplace under federal civil rights law.

The governor also said Monday there is plenty of work to be done to ensure protections for the LGBTQ communities in Pennsylvania.

Wolf described the ruling as a cause for celebration and a call to action.

Unfortunately, as the tragic murder of transgender woman and LGBTQ+ rights activist Dominique Remmie Fells shows, Pennsylvanians are still not free from discrimination against sex or race," Wolf said in a statement. Todays Supreme Court ruling will provide more protection inside the workplace, but discrimination remains in other areas, such as housing and public accommodations.

This ruling is a cause for celebration, but it is also a reminder that there is still work to be done in ensuring every American and every Pennsylvanian has equality. I will continue to work with the legislature to advance comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for Pennsylvanians who are LGBTQ+, and I wont stop until every Pennsylvanian can live and work with the same basic civil rights.

Advocates have hailed the Supreme Courts ruling and its significance for Pennsylvania, which doesnt have a state law protecting workers from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. LGBTQ advocates have long bemoaned the fact that state law doesnt specifically bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

Wolf said the high courts ruling will be critical in deterring discrimination at the workplace.

And itll be good for business, he said.

By recognizing that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects against the discrimination of workers who are LGBTQ+, we will all benefit from the contributions of these hardworking, skilled, talented individuals, Wolf said in his statement. Our workforce will be stronger, our businesses will be stronger, and our economy will be stronger.

Jason Landau Goodman, executive director of the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, said the Supreme Court ruling has been the result of generations of work. The youth congress advocates for LGBT Pennsylvanians.

Although this groundbreaking decision will help countless LGBT people, we have significant work to do in order to ensure all LGBTQ people have basic protections from violence and discrimination in both housing and public places as well, Goodman said in a statement. We need the Pennsylvania General Assembly and Congress to catch up with the courts and citizens of our commonwealth and nation.

Ciora Thomas, executive director of SisTers PGH and co-vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, issued a statement calling the Supreme Court ruling long overdue.

It is important to remember in this much needed time of joy and celebration that there is still so much work to be done," Thomas said in the statement. Discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people, especially Black trans women, is all too present in our society, from the streets to the criminal justice system. It is a systemic problem, and it will require a systemic response.

The death of Fells has garnered national attention and calls to address the violence directed toward transgender people, particularly those who are members of minority groups. Fells dismembered body was found last Monday on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia.

Fells, who was 27, had been living in Philadelphia but was originally from York, the York Daily Record reported.

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Joe Haliti doesnt give a second thought to handing out 2,000 free meals. Hes done it before and hell probably do it again.

Haliti, the owner of Joes Italian Restaurant in Conroe, has given away hundreds of meals to first responders since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Montgomery County in March. On Monday, Haliti continued that generosity by giving away free meals to anyone who works for a school district in the county. Teachers, administrators, bus drivers, all were treated to a free meal from Joes.

Since the pandemic began, he said hes been wanting to give back to educators, and finally had the opportunity this week.

I know it hasnt been easy for them, he said, of teachers and school staff working to keep education going despite COVID-19. I had an opening and I was like We definitely have to do something for them. Its very important and we just want to thank them for what theyve been doing for all these months.

The community has been generous in return, Haliti said. His business is doing alright, given the circumstances, and he said he has not had to let go of any of his staff.

The community has been very gracious, he said. Weve been here for 14 years now and the love and support has been wonderful from them and we just want to give back.

If any of the prepared meals arent given away to school district members they will be given away to some other cause. Haliti promises the food will not go to waste.

Over the last 14 years, Haliti has gotten to know dozens of the local leaders, and when he puts out the call, they show up. When Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon heard that Haliti would once again be serving free meals, he came to offer his services in the kitchen preparing meals.

Anybody who knows Joe would not be surprised with Joes care and concern for Montgomery County, Ligon said.

Most people dont know the full extent of what Haliti has done for the community, Ligon said. It doesnt surprise the DA at all the Haliti chose to give away meals to teachers, who he believes are on the front lines these days, helping their students from afar.

During this pandemic, Ligon believes there are millions of Americans with a renewed appreciation for what teachers do. His kids are going through the Montgomery Independent School District currently.

If anybody ever didnt really understand or appreciate a teacher, all they had to do was start educating their own kids during COVID, during the lockdown, Ligon said. I think if anything, theres probably 330 million Americans that are more grateful for teachers now, having had their kids home with them.

Willis ISD board member Michelle Bischof decided to volunteer her time at Joes Monday because teachers have had a difficult year in ways they never could have expected. But they have adapted quickly and Bischof argues that this just shows how extraordinary teachers and school personnel are.

To go from one day in a classroom to the next day doing everything online - and I know they've missed their kids - so Im thankful that places like Joes give back to our teachers and our educators and everyone who works in the school, she said.

When she saw the call for volunteers online she signed up immediately. Throughout the lunch giveaway, she saw several familiar Willis faces.

To teachers, she says thank you, and rest up because Who knows what next year will look like!

jamie.swinnerton@chron.com
Erika Shields was not your old-line, law-and-order police chief.

She came into office in Atlanta in 2017 promising to clean up the mess we created in the judicial system in the 80s and the 90s by arresting too many people, especially young black men. She imposed a zero-chase policy after high-speed pursuits ended in fatalities. She was the first openly gay chief in Atlanta, and the second woman to lead the department.

In recent weeks, she was praised for firing two officers who had pulled two college students from a car and Tased them  and for walking into a sea of protesters against police violence to hear their complaints in person.

And now, after Atlanta officers fatally shot a man in a Wendys parking lot on Friday night, she is out of a job.

With her voluntary resignation Saturday, she joined a long and growing line of progressive, reform-minded police chiefs who have stepped down or been fired, often after high-profile episodes of police violence.
The great Australian diplomatic challenge in the coming decade will be building a counterweight to an increasingly powerful and assertive China. But roping Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in on our side is the wrong way to go about it.

The idea of rapprochement with Mr Putin has been gaining support in strange quarters of late.

US President Donald Trump last month suggested inviting him  along with Prime Minister Scott Morrison  to an expanded meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven industrialised countries later this year after the pandemic eases.

At the weekend, the member for Wentworth, Dave Sharma, backed the idea in an opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald. Mr Sharma, a former diplomat and serious voice in foreign affairs, likened it to Richard Nixons inspired deal with Mao Zedongs China in 1972 against the Soviet Union. Mr Sharma argues that talking to Mr Putin would give the US and its allies strategic options in its dealings with China.

For Australians, Mr Putin is best known in connection with the deaths of the 298 people, including 38 Australians, shot down on Malaysian flight MH17 by a Russian-made missile over Ukraine.
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Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Chairman Anil Kumar Chaudhary and 39 other employees, including a group of executive directors, who were posted at the companys head office at Lodhi Road in New Delhi, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, The Financial Express reported.

According to the report, all the COVID-19 positive employees are asymptomatic and are under home quarantine, except two who had to be hospitalised.

On June 3, the state-run steelmaker had said five of its employees had been found to be COVID-19 positive since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the report said, citing a company statement. The infected employees were immediately asked to home quarantine themselves, it said.

After finding COVID-19 cases in the office, the company had engaged a government-appointed agency to carry out extensive fumigation for two days starting with June 3. However, the number of infected persons only kept on increasing.

Now, the report confirmed around 40 employees tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

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

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

On June 10, SAILs Director (Personnel) Atul Srivastava died at Apollo Hospital, the reason of which was attributed to cardiac arrest by SAIL.

The next day, SAIL said Srivastava was admitted to Apollo Hospital, with which it has tied up to provide healthcare services to its employees and their families amid the COVID-19 pandemic, after he complained of difficulty in breathing. He also had high fever for the past few days.

However, Srivastava's COVID-19 test report had come negative, the company said.

Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, SAIL has now come out with a number of dos and donts for its employees, like restricting movement to floors other than their workplace, eating lunch together, etc. The company has also tied-up with two renowned private hospitals to facilitate testing of employees who require the same, the report added.

Follow our full coverage on COVID-19 here
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:39:44|Editor: huaxia

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GAZA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- An official of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday that the global agency is to extend its services to more refugees in the Gaza Strip.

Adnan Abu Hasna, the media advisor of UNRWA in Gaza, told reporters that "despite the financial crisis of UNRWA, I expect that the agency will provide its services to 100,000 more refugees in Gaza."

"The number of Palestinian refugees, who receive UNRWA's services, will reach 1.2 million in the Gaza Strip," he said.

Abu Hasna warned of the fast and big collapses of the social and economic sectors amid the Israeli blockade which has been imposed on the coastal enclave since 2007.

He also warned that the financial crisis that UNRWA is passing through "would influence the Palestinian refugees' situations, mainly in the Gaza Strip, which suffers from high rates of poverty and unemployment."

Abu Hasna clarified that UNRWA needs a budget of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars for this year, but so far received "416 million dollars only, which will harm UNRWA's humanitarian programs."

UNRWA's financial crisis started when U.S. President Donald Trump decided in early 2018 to cut 360 million dollars from the annual budget of the humanitarian agency, which represents 30 percent of the entire budget of UNRWA. Enditem
Winston Churchill had controversial views on Indias freedom struggle and Mahatma Gandhi, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday claimed the man many consider as the greatest Briton changed his view of India in later years.

Churchill, who once opposed Indias independence and as prime minister contributed to famine in India in 1943, is at the centre of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests. His statue in Parliament Square has been boarded up after protestors wrote was a racist below it.

Johnson, who has opposed attempts to remove statues of historical figures demanded by BLM protestors, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that much has changed in the UK on race, but admitted that there is much more than needs to be done.

Author of a 2014 book on Churchill, Johnson wrote that his predecessor was a hero but one who expressed all sorts of views during his political career.

As it happens, he generally changed with the times. He changed his view on India, and her capacity for independence; and whatever he may have said about Islam in the 1890s, he also built the Regents Park Mosque in the 1940s, he wrote.

And above all  as so many have rightly pointed out  it is the height of lunacy to accuse him of racism, when he stood alone against a racist tyranny that without his resistance would have overwhelmed this country and the rest of Europe.

Labour and anti-racism campaigners promptly dismissed Johnsons brief announcement in the article  with little detail  to set up a cross-departmental commission to look into inequalities in employment, health and other aspects of life

Shadow justice secretary David Lammy said that if Johnson were serious about wanting to address racial inequalities, he should implement the recommendations of the many reviews already conducted instead of setting up a new commission or inquiry.

He said: I made 35 specific recommendations in the Lammy review. Implement them. There are 110 recommendations in the Anjiolini review into deaths into police custody. Implement them. There are 30 recommendations in the Home Office review into the Windrush scandal.

Implement them. Twenty six into Baroness McGregors review into workplace discrimination. Implement them. Thats what Boris has to do. And the Black Lives protests can stop and we can get on with dealing with the coronavirus, he added.

Johnson reiterated in the article his opposition to statues being pulled down, stating that he would resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove Churchills statue in Parliament Square.

He wrote: It is not just that is wrong to destroy public property by violence. I am also extremely dubious about the growing campaign to edit or photoshop the entire cultural landscape.

Would it not be better and more honest to ask our children to understand the context, to explain the mixture of good and bad in the career of Churchill and everyone else?
Voice Match is quite a useful feature offered by the Google Assistant, specially for household with multiple users. In an APK teardown of the Google Search app v4.2 for Android TV, deeper integration of the Google assistant was spotted, including the Voice Match feature.

With Voice Match, the Google Assistant will maintain separate profiles for each user who share the same Assistant devices like smart displays and speakers in a household. When the Assistant is given a command, it can use Voice Match to respond to the user with personalized results and help.

At the moment, triggering the voice assistant on Android TV will only personalize the results according to the user that is signed in. With Voice Match, multiple users can use the Assistant, which will provide results specifically for them. This can be useful in scenarios like signing into different Netflix accounts or signing into different Stadia accounts in the future.

Recently, a leak containing renders of Googles upcoming Android TV dongle surfaced. It was codenamed Sabrina and was rumored to run a full-blown version of Android TV instead of just being a shell for Chromecast. It is possible that Google could be preparing to launch the Voice Match feature along with the new dongle in the near future.

Source
A new study by scientists from the U.S and U.K. and published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in June 2020 reports that there is no evidence of efficacy for the drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) against infection with SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters or macaque models. This finding does not support the current widespread prophylactic and therapeutic use of HCQ in COVID-19.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has been spreading around the world for nearly six months, it remains a mystery in many ways. Many drugs, including HCQ, azithromycin, lopinavir/ritonavir, dexamethasone, and tocilizumab, are being used in many countries in an attempt to bring down the number of severe or critical cases.

Testing Hydroxychloroquine Effect in COVID-19

Intensive research is ongoing to discover effective drugs to arrest the mortality rate due to this infection, which is high among the elderly and those with certain underlying medical conditions. The current trial assessed the use of HCQ in hamsters and macaques exposed to the SARS-CoV-2, to prevent infection.

HCQ has been given emergency approval for use in COVID-19 patients, based on published data showing its inhibitory effect on viral replication, and some early trials using both HCQ and azithromycin in combination in this disease. However, there is currently not much data on the efficacy of HCQ in this condition in humans.

Hamster Study

The researchers first tested the drug for efficacy in cell cultures and confirmed that it inhibited viral replication. The next step was to use the drug in Syrian hamster models by injecting a single dose into the abdominal cavity at two dosages.

The first was the standard human dose for malaria prevention or treatment. The second was a much higher dose. In both cases, control hamsters were also used. The hamsters were then infected after 24 hours by a dose of virus intranasally.

Another set of two groups was first infected and then put on treatment with HCQ at the same two dosages, starting after 1 hour of infection, for three days.

For both the prevention and treatment groups, qRT-PCR was carried out on oral and rectal swabs on day 2 and day 4. The animals were euthanized on day 4, and post-mortem lung samples were also examined.

The researchers found that all animals showed the same high level of viral replication and shedding in oral swabs, with a lower load in rectal swabs. The viral loads showed a reduction in all the groups over time. The disease symptoms and signs remained consistent over the study period.

The lung specimens on autopsy showed focal but widespread areas of pneumonia. The viral loads in this tissue were very high in all four groups of treated hamsters. Similarly, the lung to bodyweight ratios was comparable in all groups.

Thus, the hamster model failed to show any significant difference between the groups following the preventive or therapeutic use of HCQ. This indicates that the drug does not inhibit either viral replication or shedding; neither does it mitigate the clinical features of the disease in this animal model.

Macaque Study

The second step of the experiment was carried out in the rhesus macaque, which is a recently developed nonhuman primate (NHP) model that develops mild to moderate features of COVID-19 after infection. The same study design was followed, with 5 macaques in the control and prophylactic groups. Both were given either vehicle or HCQ three times at intervals of a week, by oral gavage. All animals were infected on day 0, by four routes in combination  oral, intranasal, intratracheal and ocular.

Another two groups were formed with 5 members each in the control and HCQ treatment groups and treated by oral gavage from 12 hours after infection. The doses were repeated at 18, 36, 60, 84, and 108 hours after infection.

Rhesus macaque model  gross and histopathology. Macaques were infected with SARS-CoV-2 as described in the legend of Figure 2. Animals were euthanized on day 7 post368 infection for gross pathology and histopathology. (A and B) Gross pathology with consolidated lower left lung lobe and area of post-mortem-BAL in the lower right lung lobe (asterisk). (C) Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining revealed multifocal, minimal to moderate, interstitial pneumonia frequently centered on terminal bronchioles. Alveolar edema and fibrin with the formation of hyaline membranes was only seen in lungs with moderate changes. Multifocal perivascular infiltrates of small numbers of lymphocytes that form perivascular cuffs. The left 3panels show areas of unaffected lung tissue. Note: PS, prophylaxis; TS, treatment.

At 7 days from infection, all animals were sacrificed and autopsied. Until this point, twice daily monitoring was done for clinical signs and other investigations, including imaging and blood tests, as well as nasal and rectal swabs. The metabolites of the drug were also measured in the plasma and lung tissue to confirm that it was present in therapeutic concentrations.

The HCQ levels in both plasma and lung tissue were within the therapeutic range for humans. Both prevention and treatment arms showed symptoms on day 1, peaking the next day. All animals remained sick to a mild or moderate degree until day 7 when the study was ended. Lung changes in radiologic imaging were minimal in all groups.

The viral swabs were positive in all animals, with the highest viral load on day 1 and slowly decreasing up until day 7. Nasal swabs had higher loads than oropharyngeal swabs. There was no difference in viral loads between the groups. The autopsied lung specimens showed pneumonic changes in all the animals. The highest viral loads among body tissues were in the lung tissue. Thus, no HCQ effect was seen with respect to either prevention or treatment of COVID-19.

No Evidence of Hydroxychloroquine Efficacy

While convincing in vitro evidence of the inhibitory effect of HCQ on viral replication is available, in vivo proof is lacking. This finding is repeated in the current study using two accepted animal COVID-19 models. The researchers point to the inconsistency in the ongoing large-scale trial of HCQ despite the lack of evidence of efficacy. They also provide a reminder of its potential adverse effects, notably cardiac arrhythmias and liver failure.

The investigators sum up: Independent of the safety issues associated with HCQ, the preclinical data presented here does not support HCQ and likely other 4-aminoquinolines as being either an effective prophylactic treatment to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infection or therapeutic for use in COVID-19 patients.

*Important Notice

bioRxiv 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.
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (LN:PSHD) (NA:PSH) ("PSH") today announced that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's Public Shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Trading Venue: London Stock Exchange Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 15 June 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 16,246 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 1,856 pence 23.28 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 1,818 pence 22.80 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 1,844 pence 23.13 USD Ticker: PSHD Date of Purchase: 15 June 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 22,687 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 23.15 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 23.15 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 23.15 USD Trading Venue: Euronext Amsterdam Ticker: PSH Date of Purchase: 15 June 2020 Number of Public Shares purchased: 28,426 Shares Highest Price Paid Per Share: 23.40 USD Lowest Price Paid Per Share: 22.80 USD Average Price Paid Per Share: 23.19 USD

PSH will hold these Public Shares in Treasury. The net asset value per Public Share related to this buyback is 35.74 USD 28.08 GBP which was calculated as of 9 June 2020 (the "Relevant NAV"). After giving effect to the above buyback, PSH has 196,348,682 Public Shares outstanding, or 202,304,101 Public Shares calculated on a fully diluted basis (assuming that all Management Shares had been converted into Public Shares at the Relevant NAV). Excluded from the shares outstanding are 14,608,068 Public Shares held in Treasury. The prices per Public Share were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the one special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) have not been affected.

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/20200615005695/en/

Contacts:

Camarco

Ed Gascoigne-Pees Hazel Stevenson +44 020 3757 4989, media-pershingsquareholdings@camarco.co.uk
[June 15, 2020] Patterson Foundation Awards More Than $105,046 in Grants to Oral Health Organizations

The Patterson Foundation recently announced $105,046 in Q1 Grant Funding to 10 non-profit organizations in the oral health and animal health fields. These organizations were selected based on their value to the community and the importance of their continued operations and functions during the COVID-19 pandemic. "This quarter was different than others, as we really wanted to focus on organizations that needed help during the pandemic," said Lindsay Stewart, Sr Foundation Manager. "It's important that the emergency procedures these non-profits provide to under-privileged individuals continue to be available during this time." The 10 organizations include: Animal Health: - Retrieving Independence (Nashville, TN) Dental: - Cahaba Valley Health Care (Birmingham, AL) - Free Clinic of Southwest Washington (Seattle, WA) - Interfaith Dental Clinic (Nashvlle, TN)



- Community Volunteers in Medicine (Philadelphia, PA) - Holland Free Dental Clinic (Grand Rapids, MI)

- Hope Dental Clinic (St. Paul, MN) - Conejo Free Clinic (Thousand Oaks, CA (News - Alert)) - American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry Charitable Foundation (Madison, WI) - Central AZ Dental Society Foundation (Phoenix, AZ) In 2019, Patterson Foundation gave more than $1.3 million in grants and scholarships, resulting in 45 non-profits receiving funds, and 138 students (36 new and 102 renewed) receiving tuition assistance. "Patterson is thrilled to be able to give back in any we can. Especially right now," said Stewart. About the Patterson Foundation

Patterson Foundation is a private grant-making foundation that awards higher education scholarships to the children of Patterson Companies employees and provides grant funding to nonprofit organizations. Its grants are focused on programs that provide dental care to disadvantaged communities and assistance dogs to veterans and people with disabilities. The Patterson Foundation is funded primarily by current and former employees of Patterson Companies Inc., a global leader connecting dental and animal health customers in North America and the U.K. to the latest products, technologies, services and innovative business solutions that enable operational and professional success. Visit pattersonfoundation.net for more information. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200615005631/en/

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DUBLIN, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The "South Africa Gift Card and Incentive Card Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics (Databook) - Market Size and Forecast (2015-2024) - Covid-19 Update Q2 2020" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report details the impact of the economic slowdown along with changes in business and consumer sentiment due to the disruption caused by Covid-19 outbreak on gift card industry in South Africa.



Historically, the gift card market in South Africa has recorded a steady growth with a CAGR of 19.0% during 2015-2019. However, the gift card market in South Africa is expected to be impacted across retail and corporate segments due to disruption caused by Covid-19 outbreak.



Though growth of gift card industry will be impacted due to the pandemic, there are certain segments such as self-use which will gain significant market share. Adoption of e-Gift cards is also expected to increase significantly over the next 4-6 quarters. There are interesting trends emerging across various segments, which are expected to fundamentally reshape the gift card industry dynamics.



Despite near-term challenges, the medium to long term growth story of gift cards in South Africa remains strong. The gift card industry in South Africa will continue to grow over the forecast period and is expected to record a CAGR of 14.8% during 2020-2024. The gift card market in the country will increase from US$ 815.4 million in 2019 to reach US$ 1,378.9 million by 2024.



The growing e-commerce market in the country is one of the factors that is driving the market growth in South Africa. With online sales growing at 25-30% annually and the e-commerce market expected to reach US$ 6 billion by 2022, the spending on gift cards is also expected to increase.



The rising trend of gift card usage has drawn foreign companies to explore the market in South Africa. For instance, in March 2020, InComm , a payments technology company, launched its gift cards in partnership with Flash and Pepkor Group. The gift cards include gaming, ride-sharing, content, and streaming gift cards via Flash and Pepkor's retail network effectively making these cards available in every South African region.



This report provides a detailed data centric analysis of gift cards and corporate incentive cards market along with consumer behaviour and retail spend dynamics in South Africa. With over 200 KPIs at country level, this report provides comprehensive understanding of gift and incentive card market dynamics. The report includes raw data along with structured dashboards, charts, and tables in an interactive Excel format.



Key report features:



Provides detailed view of overall spend on gifts, broken down by retail and consumer segments. For both retail and consumer segments, this report provides a breakdown of spend on gifts by product categories and retail sectors.

Provides in-depth analysis of opportunities in both open loop and closed loop prepaid gift card categories. Assesses consumer behaviour by type of consumer, gifting occasion, digital gift card and market share by retail sectors.

Details six essential KPIs: number of cards in circulation, load value, unused value, average purchase value, average value per transaction, and value of transactions.

Provides detailed market dynamics of corporate incentive cards, broadly segmented in three categories - consumer incentive card, employee incentive card, and sales/partner incentive card. It details market size and forecast at category level, by functional attribute and by corporate consumer segments.

Provides market size and forecast for digital gift cards, broken down by retail and corporate buyers. It also includes gift card spend by occasion and digital gift card adoption by company size.

Provides market estimates and forecasts to assess opportunities in open loop and closed loop gift and incentive card segments across consumer segments.

Identifies and interprets key KPIs related to gift card dynamics including spend by age, gender, and income level.

Breaks down retail spend across retail sectors to provide detailed insights on consumer behaviour and changing dynamics of gift card spend.

Provides market share of closed loop gift cards by key retailers in South Africa .

. Provides market share by distribution channel - online vs offline sales and 1st party vs 3rd party sales.

Companies Mentioned



Shoprite Holdings Ltd

Pick 'n' Pay Stores Ltd

Internationale Spar Centrale BV

Wal-Mart Stores Inc

Woolworths Holdings Ltd



Edcon Holdings Ltd

Pepkor Holdings Ltd

Steinhoff International Holdings Ltd

Mr Price Group Ltd

Clicks Group Ltd

Foschini Group Ltd, The

Truworths Group Pty, Ltd

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/1wrxqu

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Research and Markets also offers Custom Research services providing focused, comprehensive and tailored research.



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron both pushed back on Sunday against calls from Black Lives Matter protesters to remove colonial-era statues  with Johnson insisting you can't "photoshop" history.

Why it matters: Weeks of anti-racism protests triggered by Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the U.S. and across the world have brought to the fore the racist legacy of the colonial past of several countries.

A tweet previously embedded here has been deleted or was tweeted from an account that has been suspended or deleted.

Driving the news: Colonial-era memorials have been toppled, defaced or removed in response to rallies in countries including the U.K., Belgium, Australia and New Zealand in recent days.

Calls are growing to remove more tributes to historical figures, with Black Lives Matter protesters in France calling on authorities to remove honors for those involved in the slave trade or who were linked to injustices in the country's former African colonies.

Local authorities in the U.K. have announced plans to review all statues, street names and other monuments. But several leaders have pushed back on the moves.

Of note: Authorities erected fences to protect from becoming a target a statue in London of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who led the U.K. to victory in World War II.

Churchill supported eugenics, described "British imperialism as being for the good of the 'primitive' and 'subject races' and opposed Indians' bid for independence, calling Indians "beastly people with a beastly religion," the Independent notes.

But Johnson defended Churchill in an article for the Telegraph, calling the defacing of Churchill's statue twice "absurd and deplorable."

"He was a hero, and I expect I am not alone in saying that I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square," Johnson wrote.

What else they're saying: Johnson, who announced Sunday a commission to examine racial inequality, wrote in his Telegraph column, "If we start purging the record and removing the images of all but those whose attitudes conform to our own, we are engaged in a great lie, a distortion of our history."

Macron denounced racism in a televised national address earlier Sunday, Per Reuters. But he added: "The Republic won't erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its artworks, it wont take down statues."

denounced racism in a televised national address earlier Sunday, Per Reuters. But he added: "The Republic won't erase any name from its history. It will forget none of its artworks, it wont take down statues." Belgian Prince Laurent told Sudpresse this week after statues of King Leopold II were removed over the deaths of some 10 million people when his ancestor ruled over the Congo, "He never went to the Congo. I don't see how he could have made people suffer on the ground."

Prince Laurent told Sudpresse this week after statues of King Leopold II were removed over the deaths of some 10 million people when his ancestor ruled over the Congo, "He never went to the Congo. I don't see how he could have made people suffer on the ground." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this week protesters calling for statues and place names of 18th century explorer Captain James Cook should "get a bit of a grip," and he incorrectly claimed that slavery never existed in Australia (he later apologized for making the claim.)

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said this week protesters calling for statues and place names of 18th century explorer Captain James Cook should "get a bit of a grip," and he incorrectly claimed that slavery never existed in Australia (he later apologized for making the claim.) New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told RNZ on Monday after a statue was removed of a colonial-era captain that the decision to take down monuments should be left up to local communities.

Go deeper: The bottom-up revolution goes global, viral

Editor's note: This article has been updated with more details, comments from world leaders and context.
A military general was released Monday afternoon after he was abducted over the weekend in central Mexico.

Jose Guillermo Lira, a brigade general with the Secretariat of the National Defense, was first reported missing Saturday afternoon by his family after failing to show up a relative's home.

Lira had left a military academy in Mexico City and was headed to the Puebla municipality of Izucar de Matamoros when his Audi A3 was intercepted by gunmen on a road in the town of Tepexco.

Brigade general Jose Guillermo Lira (pictured) was freed Monday, two days after he was kidnapped in Puebla, Mexico. It is unknown if a cartel or a local gang was involved in his abduction

The family of Jose Guillermo Lira (pictured), a brigade general with the Secretariat of the National Defense, reportedly paid his captors a fraction of the $225,000 they were seeking for his release after he was kidnapped in Tepexco, a city in the central Mexican state of Puebla

Mexican newspaper El Financiero reported that the family contacted authorities approximately at 4:20pm local time to report the general missing.

The captors contacted his wife about four hours later and demanded 5 million Mexican pesos [$255,000] for his prompt release.

Proceso also reported the family paid a portion of the ransom that the kidnappers has been seeking.

Lira was located in Autlautla, a municipality located in the southeastern end of Mexico State.

A photograph of brigade general Lira showed that he had been beaten during his captivity. His left eyelid was slightly shut and his nose and the area above his right cheekbone was bruised.

While talking to the media Monday morning as part of his daily briefing, Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he was not aware of any updates regarding Lira's disappearance and that an update would be provided Tuesday.

However, the Mexican government had positive news hours later on the missing military official when Puebla governor Miguel Barbosa shared during his own press briefing that Lira had been freed.

Jose Guillermo Lira (center) was found in Autlautla, a municipality located in the southeastern end of Mexico State.

Lira was placed in custody of the Puebla state attorney general's office before he was set to be reunited with his loved ones.

It is unknown if a local gang or a cartel was responsible for Lira's abduction.

Lira's kidnapping took place just a day after Barbosa said in a press conference that no major cartels were operating in his state.

'For us there is no national drug cartel operating in Puebla,' Barbosa said last Friday. 'There are criminal groups that, by the way, can be as violent as the national ones, they have no difference. Many local criminal groups assume themselves as national cartels to scare, anyone [can say they are members of] the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.'

The Jalisco faction is considered to be the most powerful criminal organization in all of Mexico.

According to data released by non-profit agency Alto al Secuestro [Stop Kidnapping] in May, the state of Puebla ranked fourth in Mexico with 119 kidnappings reported from December 2018 to April 2020.
Lucknow, June 15 : The corona crisis has made it clear that the election campaigning in the coming months will have to adapt to the changing circumstances.

While the BJP has already started the trend by holding virtual rallies, the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh has started distributing face masks with its election symbol, the bicycle, printed on them.

Former minister and general secretary of the Samajwadi Party, Arvind Singh Gope, has distributed over 5,000 face masks with the party's symbol, bicycle, printed on them in his constituency Barabanki.

He said that in two months, lakhs of SP workers had fanned out in various districts of the state to distribute food grains, masks and sanitizers among the migrants.

"Not only SP workers, but our national president Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple have also reaching out to migrants," Gope said.

He emphasized that the idea of printing the SP symbol on the face masks was not driven by the idea of election campaigning.

"We just wanted the people to know that it is the SP which is providing them with necessary safety equipment," he said.

Gope further said that the ruling BJP had been blaming the opposition for not playing a constructive role in the corona crisis.

"Now when they see people wearing our masks, they will know how the SP has worked for the people without shouting about it from rooftops," he added.

The Congress is also planning to use the hand symbol on face masks.

A senior party functionary said that the initial consignment of one lakh face masks, sent by Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, for distribution in Uttar Pradesh comprised plain masks.

"We have now suggested that masks should have the Congress symbol printed on them. When the next consignment comes, we may have masks with the 'hand' symbol printed on them," said a Congress leader.

The BSP is also enthused with the idea of distribution blue masks with the elephant symbol printed on it but party president Mayawati has not even said a word on distributing face masks.

"I do not think the party will start mask distribution but aspiring candidates who want to contest on a BSP ticket in the 2022 Assembly polls, may start distributing blue face masks to register their presence among voters," said a senior BSP legislator.

The BJP is also said to be planning a similar exercise in Uttar Pradesh.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
The global Islamic finance industry will show at best stable total assets or low-single-digit growth in 2020-2021 after strong performance in 2019 underpinned by a more dynamic sukuk market, said S&P Global Ratings in a new report.



This follows 6.6% growth in 2019 thanks to good performance in the GCC, it added in the latest RatingsDirect report.



The significant slowdown of core Islamic finance economies in 2020, because of measures implemented by various governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and the expected mild recovery in 2021, explain our expectations, the report said.



At the same time, we see an opportunity in the current environment for accelerating and unlocking the long term potential of the industry. Stakeholders are realizing the importance of standardization as government coffers are depleted and access to sukuk remains time consuming and more complicated than conventional instruments. Lockdown measures have also shown the importance of leveraging technology and creating a nimbler industry, it added.



Furthermore, industry players have been discussing the potential use of social instruments to help companies and individuals economically affected by the pandemic. With the right coordination between different Islamic finance stakeholders, we believe the industry could create new avenues of sustainable growth that serve the markets.



Malaysia, and to a lesser extent Turkey and Indonesia, but a declining contribution from Iran amid the deep recession reported by the IMF. In 2020, S&P expects a slowdown spurred primarily by measures implemented by various governments to control the COVID-19 pandemic.



This slowdown will be somewhat counterbalanced by strong liquidity injections from various central banks to help their banking systems navigate the difficult environment. However, this, together with complexity and lower investor appetite, will contribute to a sukuk market slowdown in 2020.



We project the volume of issuance will reach $100 billion in 2020 compared with $162 billion in 2019--when Turkey, returning GCC issuers, Malaysia, and Indonesia supported the market. The market was, in fact, poised for good performance in 2020 but the pandemic and lower oil prices changed the outlook.



Amid tougher conditions, we also don't see core Islamic finance countries using sukuk as a primary source of funding despite their higher financing needs. However, we think that Turkey might try to tap the market aggressively in 2020 to use all of its available funding options. More broadly, we continue to see the takaful sector expanding at mid-single-to-high-digit rates, while the funds industry might see some negative effects from market volatility.



Overall, we believe low-to-mid-single-digit growth for the overall industry is a fair assumption over the next two years. However, in our view, COVID-19 offers an opportunity for more integrated and multifaceted growth with higher standardization, stronger focus on the industry's social role, and greater use of fintech. This can be achieved through higher coordination between the industry's different stakeholders.



Covid-19 is causing a significant slowdown in core Islamic finance markets and a spike in unemployment. Although the predominantly migrant population structure in the Gulf and governments' support packages could absorb some of the shock, several stakeholders will lose a portion of their income. We think four Islamic finance social instruments in particular can help core Islamic countries, banks, and corporations navigate the current situation, the report said.- TradeArabia News Service
New Delhi, June 15 : Two diplomatic officials of the Indian High Commission in Pakistan went missing under mysterious circumstances early on Monday, sources said. Their whereabouts have been untraceable, the sources said, adding that India has taken up the matter with Pakistani counterparts to ensure safety of the officials.

"A vehicle with two Central Industrial Security Force drivers had gone out for duty, did not reach the destination. Since then they are missing," sources said.

This comes just days after India's Charge d' Affaires, Gaurav Ahluwalia was chased in the Pakistan capital Islamabad by bike borne people suspected to be from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Ahluwalia has been subjected to aggressive tailing and intimidation. The incident took place on June 4.

After the incident the matter of harassment of the Indian High Commission officials and obstruction in discharge of their normal functioning was taken up through established diplomatic channels.

Ahluwalia, and other Indian High Commission officials were chased and harassed in Pakistan following India's expelling two Pakistan embassy officials after they were caught red-handed for espionage.

Thereafter, Pakistan has been trying a tit-for-tat, targetting to expel Indian High Commission officials from the country for one reason or another.

Amid this, the High Commission is finding it difficult to resume normal functioning. The Indian diplomats and consular officials are facing aggressive tailing and surveillance.

Last Friday, India registered protest in the form of a note verbale to Pakistan authorities. India has asked Pakistan to ensure the safety and security of the Indian High Commission and its staff and to allow them to resume their activities in keeping with the Vienna Convention.

India told Pakistan that the behaviour of its agencies violated Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 and also the bilateral 1992 Code of Conduct which the two countries signed to provide diplomats immunity from hostilities in ties.

On May 31, in New Delhi, India declared two officials of the Pakistan High Commission as persona non grata on charges of espionage and ordered them to leave the country within 24 hours.

Also Pakistan's Charge de Affairs was issued a demarche in which a strong protest was lodged over the activities of the two officials against India's national security.


Dating back to the 19th century, occultists, engineers, and hoaxers have employed new audio technology to communicate beyond the grave. This includes wax cylinders, white noise generators, AM radios, hacked phonographs, and other curious contraptions. Even Thomas Edison got in on the phone, making a machine to communicate with the spirit world. He later admitted it was a joke but, of course, his phonograph does enable anyone to hear from those who have passed on (and left a recording behind). Over at the Daily Grail, John Reppion surveys the history of "Ghost Boxes and Psycho-Phones":



In 1957 a Swedish painter by the name of Friedrich Jurgenson  a man so famed for his artistic ability that Pope Pius XII had a total of four portraits painted by him at his personal request  purchased a reel to reel tape recorder. Jurgenson only wished to record his own voice singing but, listening back to the tapes, he began to notice strange fadings in and out. In 1959 he and his wife went to spend the summer at a cottage they owned in the countryside, and Jurgenson took his tape recorder along. The machine had been left running outdoors to record the bird song, but on listening back hardly any birds could be heard. What sounded like a thunderstorm of static was, shockingly, interrupted by a loud trumpet and then a voice speaking in Norwegian. Friedrich was amazed to realise that it was the voice of his own long-dead father, seemingly speaking directly to him through the machine. Soon after his deceased mother's voice also appeared on tape, and this was enough to convince Jurgenson to give up painting and devote the rest of his life to spirit recordings. Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) is the name now commonly given to recordings which are believed to contain communications from ghosts, extraterrestrials, or other entities.
(Newser)  Update: The Saudi princess who spent three years in state prison despite no charges having been filed against her is now free. Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, an outspoken human and women's rights advocate and critic of her cousin the crown prince and the country's government, was released Saturday, her lawyer confirms. The 57-year-old's daughter, who was arrested with her, was also released, the Guardian reports. Both are home, and the princess, who expressed health concerns during her detention, will seek medical care, her lawyer says. It is not clear, however, whether she will be allowed to travel abroad to do so, the New York Times reports. Other prominent Saudi dissidents, activists, and even other members of the royal family are still detained; others who've been released are not allowed to go abroad. Our original story from June 15, 2020, follows:

story continues below

The family of a Saudi princess who vanished in early 2019 and is believed imprisoned now has a new concern: that her health is failing, or even that she may not be around anymore. "[If] she's dead or alive, we have no idea, we literally have no single clue," a source tells NBC News, which noted it got no response from Saudi authorities about what's happened to 56-year-old Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. It's widely thought Basmaha cousin of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and an outspoken women's rights advocateand her daughter were detained in March 2019 while trying to travel to Switzerland for what the princess said was medical care. She'd had sporadic contact since with relatives, but it wasn't until April, at the start of Ramadan, when she revealed via Twitter that she was being held against her will.

In her tweets and on her website, she begged the crown prince and King Salman to release her from prison, the South China Morning Post reported. Insider notes that the king pardons "hundreds" of prisoners during Ramadan each year "as a gesture of goodwill," but Basmah was apparently not among those recipients, and a source says her communications with the public were cut off soon after her plea. Just days before she made her online appeal, the source tells the NBC, she'd been "in a very bad condition [and] ... couldn't get out of bed," with contacts curtailed so she could correspond only with her daughter, thought to still be detained as well. Now, with outside contact cut off, those close to the princess are more worried than ever. The source, who says Basmah had part of her colon removed previously, says she's been hospitalized several times. (Read more Saudi Arabia stories.)
Mr Kizito Ballance, Chief Director at the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, has expressed fears that the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and its attendant impacts on family incomes could undermine efforts and gains made in eradicating child labour.



According to him, the COVID 19 pandemic had wreaked havoc on households and made children susceptible to many risk factors of abuse which required urgent attention.



In a speech read on his behalf at a ceremony to commemorate this years International Day Against Child Labour in Cape Coast, Mr Ballance said strategic measures must be put in place to tackle specific underlying conditions that might push children into child labour in the period of COVID-19 and beyond.



The event was held on the theme, COVID-19: Protect Children from Child Labour, Now More than ever.



It was organised by Hen Mpoano, the Central and Western Fishmongers Improvement Association (CEWEFIA) and Challenging Heights, the implementing partners of the Securing Child Rights in the Fisheries Sector (SECRIFISE) Project.



The SECRIFISE Project is being carried out in the Central Region and along the Volta Lake with funding from the European Union (EU).



The three year Project is aimed at securing child rights in the fisheries sector by galvanizing public support to eliminate child labour and trafficking (CLaT).



It also seeks to implement community-based initiatives for integrating victims in mainstream society.



Mr Ballance said the COVID-19 situation could have dire socio-economic and psychological impact on children.



For instance, he posited that the vulnerability and inability of individuals and households to cater for their families this crucial period due to collapse of businesses and job losses, could compel children to engage in child labour to support their families.



The International Labour Organization (ILO) had projected that between 42 to 66 million children were likely to be pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 in addition to the estimated 386 million children already in extreme poverty in 2019.



This, Mr Ballance, feared could increase significantly if all did not get involved in the coordinating efforts to fight the situation.

The continuous stay of children at home could further expose them to all kinds of abuses, particularly girls, who may be burdened with domestic chores and may be predisposed to sexual abuses, he added.



Mr Ballance rallied the support of all stakeholders and partners for the implementation of the National plan of Action (NPA2) for the Elimination of the Worst Form of Child Labour in Ghana.



He mentioned some of the efforts by the Government to end child labour as the launching of protocols and guidelines for establishing child labour free zones in Ghana.



This, he said, was to strengthen efforts to uphold the constitutional provision on the fundamental rights of children to be protected from work that constituted a threat to health, education and total development.



It as well encouraged stakeholders to consciously commit resources and own child labour eradication efforts.



Mr Daniel Wallace Akeampong (Akeampong), Head of Central Regional Child Rights Promotion and Protection Department of the Social Welfare admonished parents and communities to help create better future for children.



Mr Martin Datsomor, Acting Regional Director of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), urged all to protect the rights of children and to help protect them from abuse.

Source: GNA









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Three restaurant workers test positive for COVID-19, raising public concerns

Global Times

Source:Globaltimes.cn Published: 2020/6/14 22:28:02

Three restaurant workers are among the eight confirmed COVID-19 cases reported on Sunday in Beijing, said Beijing health authorities, raising public concerns about the safety of dining out.

A 37-year-old male restaurant worker who shopped at the Xinfadi wholesale food market on June 4 developed symptoms of COVID-19 on June 8, according to the authorities.

One of his close contact, a 35-year-old woman from North China's Hebei Province, also developed fever and other symptoms on Friday and has tested positive for COVID-19. Some branches of the restaurant named Dahaiwan have closed off.

A 34-year-old female employee of a Sichuan cuisine restaurant in Fengtai district, where the Xinfadi market is located, also tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday. One of her restaurant's ingredients is from the Xinfadi wholesale food market, which was closed after the coronavirus was detected on a fishmonger's chopping board used for imported salmon.

The patient developed symptoms of fatigue and body soreness on June 8, and tested positive for the coronavirus twice at local hospitals on Wednesday and Friday, according to the authority.

The owners of the restaurant are asking all their recent guests to be tested for the virus, although it has not yet been ordered to close. The restaurant now has five employees and four others are under quarantine.

The Beijing Haidian Catering Service Trade Association issued a notice on Friday night calling for a halt to group dinning. The Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau has raised prevention and control measures for food industry to level II.

Restaurants are required to monitor visitors' body temperature and ask dinners to keep at least one meter away from each other.

"These infection cases will hit the entire restaurant industry very hard. Most people are now concerned about the risk of eating at restaurants in Beijing and are minimizing their restaurant dining," a Sina Weibo user wrote.

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Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations Julien Barnes-Dacey gave his views on the current situation in the Middle East to Suzy Elgeneidy

Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview with Al-AhramWeekly that European foreign policy on the Middle East had become short-sighted and reactive and did not suitably address the issues fuelling the increased emigration and terrorism in the region.

Attending the Core Group Meetings of the Munich Security Conference in Cairo recently, he added that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad had essentially won the civil war in Syria, though with significant foreign intervention, but that the challenge now would be to move forward towards meaningful stability.

A former journalist who has himself worked in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, Barnes-Dacey said that US President Donald Trump had shown himself unwilling to confront the Iranians in the region and that this was forcing other actors to look for some kind of accommodation, fearing they could pay a high price for any escalation.

What is the role of the European Council on Foreign Relations?

The European Council on Foreign Relations is a European think-tank with offices across Europe. We work to inform coherent European foreign policy towards the rest of the world, and I work as the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. Together with my colleagues, we look at what the Europeans could be doing across the Middle East and North Africa region.

In the context of a situation in which the European Union lacks relevance, there is nevertheless a lot happening in the Middle East with severe implications for European interests, and yet the Europeans are standing aside from many of these. So, we are trying to push for the European Union to be more relevant and to play a more impactive role working in the region with regional governments and the peoples of the region to have more positive impacts.

Does the EU concentrate mostly on the emigration issue in its policies towards the Middle East?

I think the key part of the European policy towards the region is driven by issues of emigration and terrorism, and those are the two issues that are dominant across the European political landscape and are shaping European political developments on a day-by-day basis. But, of course, the risk is that European foreign policy towards the region becomes very short-sighted and very reactive as a result and that it doesnt really address the issues that are fuelling the conditions that lead to increased emigration or terrorism. It means that Europe isnt really addressing the structural issues that need to be rectified if the region is to be meaningfully stabilised.

You have worked as a journalist in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. How do you view the changes happening in the region?

I think there is a deep structural problem in that countries and governments are struggling to provide for the legitimate needs and aspirations of their populations, whether they be social or economic in nature, to do with the right to a life where your needs are being met, or to do with border issues of dignity and the relationship between state and people. Those are the factors that have created inequality, instability and a kind of vacuum of governance across the region that has fuelled a lot of the conflicts that we are seeing today.

You worked in Syria from 2007 to 2011. How do you view the Turkish intervention in the conflict in Syria and the current situation?

The Turkish intervention in Syria is just the latest in a long stream of interventions by foreign powers. Now that Syria has clearly become a playground for a broader geopolitical war or series of wars that are flooding across the region, Turkey is now clearly motivated by trying to ensure that the Kurds are unable to establish an autonomous entity on the northern piece of the country in the same way as some other countries, whether Iran or some of the Gulf states, have also intervened over the course of the conflict, with the Russians or the Americans also wanting to further their geopolitical goals.

I think it is clear that so long as Syria remains a battleground for competing visions of the region, it will be very hard to imagine any stability returning to that country. Clearly, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has essentially won the civil war, even with the Turkish intervention, and we are seeing a move towards a Russian-mediated accommodation between Al-Assad and Turkey. But I think that even though Al-Assad may have won a victory, moving forward towards any meaningful stability is going to be a big challenge that is likely to elude him and that the sad Syria story still has a long way to run.

I visited the Turkish-Syrian border in 2011 as a journalist. The Turkish side was speaking about a demilitarised zone that it controlled on Syrian territory. Do you think the Turkish military wants to stay in this zone?

I think there are a lot of countries that want to stay in Syria to be honest, which is part of the problem, and I think that so long as competing countries continue to carve out territory in Syria that will draw in other powers and ensure that it will remain a site for regional competition. Clearly, Turkey wants to ensure that the Kurds are unable to establish an autonomous zone there, and I think the challenge now facing the UN and other international actors is how to draw up some kind of political track, even one that accepts Al-Assad remaining in power, that will provide some space for a degree of political participation and autonomy for the different actors that can survive under the umbrella of a Syrian state and also addresses some of the concerns of the neighbouring states.

How do you view the US role in Syria?

I think the Americans are pulling out. I think its only a matter of time now. I think US President Donald Trump has made it clear for a long time that he wants to leave Syria: no one should have been surprised by the announcement that he was withdrawing from parts of the north-east of the country. I think that while he has stayed longer to guard the oil facilities, I see that as a short-term measure and suspect that the US presence is essentially not sustainable.

In terms of the broader context, I think Trump has driven a maximalist policy across the region, particularly vis-a-visIran, which has fuelled a very dangerous dynamic right across the region where competing actors have believed that they have had American support to push hard their agendas. So, I am actually slightly hopeful about a US withdrawal from the region and the fact that Trump is now pulling out from Syria and that he did not respond to some of the incidents in the Gulf by forcing regional players to retaliate.

We are seeing a new outreach between the United Arab Emirates and Iran, and we are seeing new contacts between Saudi Arabia and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and I think that these steps have been taken because the Americans have proven themselves incapable of meeting the demands upon them.

You think the American policy has been positive?

I think that the availability of a US withdrawal from the region preceded Trump and that it was already underway under former president Barack Obama, but that the cautious nature of Obamas policies made that much more dangerous. So, I think that given the polarising nature of the US role in the region under Trump, some form of renewed judgement is probably good for the region if it allows regional actors to take responsibility for assuming their own defence and forces them to reach out and make accommodations even with their adversaries for the sake of some kind of stability.

Do you think the Europeans and the Americans are leaving the arena to the Russians in the Middle East?

I think the Europeans are leaving the floor to whoever wants to fill it, and thats a real concern. If the Europeans have real interests at stake, then they need to be prepared to put political, economic and even military resources on the line in trying to address those issues.

As the director of a leading European think-tank, how do you view the EU role in the Middle East and Egypt?

Concerning the EU role at large, I think that the Europeans can do much more across the Middle East region. I think we are seeing French leadership, but other than that the Europeans are not relevant. Their interests are not being met by the US, on whom they had traditionally relied, and I think that they need to step up and take more responsibility to try to address some of their interests.

Concerning Egypt, the European-Egyptian relationship is not an easy one at the moment, but the Europeans clearly look to Egypt as necessary for stability across the region and hope that Egypt can play some kind of stabilising role.

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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 00:36:24|Editor: huaxia

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Photo taken on June 15, 2020 shows a temporary sampling site in Fengtai District of Beijing, capital of China. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has strengthened community-level disease prevention and control in response to the resurgence of domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases.

Nearly 100,000 community workers in 7,120 residential communities and villages in Beijing have thrown themselves into the battle against the disease, Xu Ying, an official with the Beijing municipal committee of the Communist Party of China, told a press conference Monday.

More than 8,000 dealers and workers at the Xinfadi farm produce market, in close relation with most of the new cases, received nucleic-acid tests in the early morning of Sunday and have been under medical observation, Xu said.

A medical worker from Beijing Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine collects samples for nucleic acid tests at a community in Haidian District of Beijing, capital of China, June 15, 2020. (Xinhua)

About 200,000 people who had visited the market since May 30 were interviewed via door-to-door inquiries, calls, social-media platforms and other methods. Nucleic-acid tests for these people are underway while they are asked to stay at home for medical observation.

Closed-off management has been implemented in a total of 21 residential communities around the Xinfadi market and the Yuquandong market, with tests for 90,000 residents in process, Xu said.

Beijing reported 36 new confirmed domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases and six new asymptomatic cases on Sunday, the municipal health commission said Monday.

Thirty-four of the new cases were confirmed as being related to Xinfadi, a large wholesale market for fruit, vegetables and meat in south Beijing's Fengtai District, while two cases are currently under epidemiological investigation. 
Victorian ALP minister and power broker Adem Somyurek has been sacked from state cabinet, following a 60 Minutes expose last night.

Nine screened secret recordings that alleged branch stacking.

The Age reports Somyurek issued a statement on Monday morning saying he will be calling for a police investigation into the covert recordings and said he would provide a rigorous defence.

It is clear that I was taped and surveilled in a federal electorate office without my knowledge and that this material was published without any knowledge of its existence or my consent, he said.

However, I accept and take full responsibility for the fact that my language on a number of occasions was simply not appropriate. While (Minister for Women Gabrielle Williams) and I have been at odds factionally for many years, I should not have used the language I did about her and I apologise to her unequivocally.

Further, I am deeply sorry for language I used regarding highly valued and exceptional young people who are members of the LGBTI community. These comments have rightly cost me my job.

Premier Daniel Andrews this morning confirmed Somyurek had been sacked by him at 9am.

There is no place in my government for him. There is no place in my team for him, he said.

He added, I dont think any fair-minded person could watch that program last night and not be shocked.

Premier Andrews said he would seek to have Mr Somyurek expelled from the Australian Labor Party and has referred the allegations to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) and Victoria Police.

Updated: Assistant Treasurer Robin Scott has become the second Victorian state Labor MP to resign in the wake of an expose into former Labor powerbroker Adem Somyurek.

Consumer Affairs Minister Marlene Kairouz has become the third minister to leave Victorian Premier Daniel Andrewss Cabinet following allegations of branch stacking.
New Delhi: India on Monday joined the league of leading economies including USA, UK, EU, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore to launch the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI or Gee-Pay).

GPAI is an international and multi-stakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth.

GPAI will be supported by a Secretariat, to be hosted by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, as well as by two Centers of Expertise- one each in Montreal and Paris.

This is also a first initiative of its type for evolving better understanding of the challenges and opportunities around AI using the experience and diversity of participating countries. In order to achieve this goal, the initiative will look to bridge the gap between theory and practice on AI by supporting cutting-edge research and applied activities on AI-related priorities, an official release said.

In collaboration with partners and international organizations, GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, governments, and academia to collaborate to promote responsible evolution of AI and will also evolve methodologies to show how AI can be leveraged to better respond to the present global crisis around COVID-19, it added.

India has recently launched National AI Strategy and National AI Portal and have also started leveraging AI across various sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare, e-commerce, finance, telecommunications with inclusion and empowerment of human being approach by supplementing growth and development.

By joining GPAI as a founding member, India will actively participate in the global development of Artificial Intelligence, leveraging upon its experience around use of digital technologies for inclusive growth.
Turkey launched a wave of airstrikes targeting positions of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, where the fighters have maintained presence for decades.

The Turkish military said on Monday it had destroyed 81 shelters and bunkers belonging to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraqs Qandil mountains and positions along the borders of Turkey and northeast Syria in what it has dubbed Operation Eagle Claw.

Our planes are bringing the caves down on the terrorists heads, the Turkeys Defence Ministry said on its Twitter page.

Numbers of dead and wounded remained unclear. A local official in the town of Sinjar said three members of a PKK-affiliated group were wounded in the strikes.

The fact that no universally recognised group controls and administers the Sinjar area adequately, and years of neglect from Baghdad, leaves the small PKK-aligned forces there open to bombing by Turkey with practical impunity, said Patrick Osgood, an Iraq specialist at Control Risks, a security consulting firm.

Video showed what a local described as a refugee camp on fire near the northern Iraqi town of Makhmour, an alleged result of the airstrikes. An official at the camp, which houses an estimated 12,000 Turkish citizens considered supporters of the PKK, told the Rudaw news agency that the airstrikes targeted positions near the camp and rendered several children unconscious, but there were no reports of any dead or wounded civilians.

Turkey has over the decades regularly launched airstrikes targeting PKK positions in northern Iraq but rarely with such intensity, across such a broad swath of territory and with scores of targets.

Last nights operation was the largest ever [in Iraq], said Selami Haktan, a Turkish journalist specialising in military affairs. He described 81 targets hit by at least 25 F-16 fighter jets and an unknown number of drones.

Tensions between Ankara and the formidable guerilla organisation  listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union  have ebbed and flowed over the decades.

Mr Haktan described this as a as a preemptive offensive ahead of an anticipated wave of Kurdish attacks.

The Turkish Armys operation targeting the PKK last night was in retaliation for the PKKs decision that it will increase its activities on the Turkish soil, said Mr Haktan. The PKK has been attacking the Turkish border forces for a while. We all knew that the PKK was in massive preparation, and waiting for its time to cross the borders.

The offensive comes at a time when Turkey has shown an increasing willingness to use its formidable armed forces to pursue international goals. In recent weeks, Turkish military support has turned the tide in the war in Libya in favour of the internationally recognised government in Tripoli. Using artillery, air power and allied ground forces, it has kept in check a Russian-backed offensive to bring northwest Syria under the control of the Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Though potentially risky, the military operations play well among Turkish nationalists and ramp up the profile of Turkeys arms industry, which exported $3 billion worth of weapons last year.

Although their returns in terms of popularity boosts for the government have decreased with time, there is no major constraint on these actions, said George Dyson, an analyst at Control Risks. Whats more, the use of domestically produced defence technology in these and other operations serves as advertising for the countrys defence industry.

The attacks also potentially add to Iraqs woes. Authorities in the Kurdish-led semi-autonomous north are grappling with the aftermath of an Isis attack on Saturday near the city of Khanaqin, just to the south of Iraqi Kurdistan, which left at least seven people dead.

The PKK and affiliated groups in Syria and Iraq were a key component in the five-year western-backed war to destroy Isiss self-proclaimed Caliphate, and many security analysts fear a resurgence of the group.

The Turkish campaign, if it continues, could bring pressure on the countrys newly named Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. He is consumed with several domestic crises, potentially a reason for Turkey to test the attitude of Iraqs new administration with this new operation, said Mr Osgood.

The strike coincides with rising tensions between Turkish Kurds and the government in Ankara, which has removed from office a number of elected officials affiliated with the Kurdish-led Peoples Democratic Party (HDP), a political cousin of the PKK. A protest march is to take place in Ankara today.

Operation Eagle Claw was also the name of the ill-fated 1980 attempt by US commandos to rescue hostages held at the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries.
Deposing before a special CBI court in the Babri demolition case, BJP leader Vinay Katiyar on Monday denied allegations of conspiracy to pull down the disputed structure.

"I was falsely implicated in the case as there was a Congress-led government at the Centre and due to political vendetta, I was roped in the case for ulterior reasons," deposed Katiyar before the court.

Katiyar was told to appear before the court as it started recording statements of the accused on June 4. The court has been conducting day-to-day proceedings in order to conclude the trial by August 31, as directed by the Supreme Court.

Katiyar had earlier appeared before the CBI court on June 4 but due to paucity of time, his statement could not be recorded.

On Monday, he appeared in the court along with his lawyer KK Mishra. To most questions, Katiyar either said he did not know or he was falsely implicated.

After recording the statement of Katiyar, Special Judge SK Yadav directed other persons, who are less than 65 years of age, to appear before it on Tuesday.

However, former deputy prime minister LK Advani, BJP leaders MM Joshi and Uma Bharti are already exempted from personal appearance till furthers.

The special court also directed its office to write to the Sonipat District Jail superintendent in Haryana to arrange for the recording of the statement of an accused, Ram Chandra Khatri, through video link on June 20.

It asked the office to furnish the copy of the letter to the Sonipat district judge for information and necessary action.

The court is at present engaged in recording statements of accused under section 313 of the CrPC, a stage in the trial which follows the completion of examination of prosecution witnesses.

The Babri Masjid was demolished in December 1992 by "kar sevaks" who claimed that the mosque in Ayodhya was built on the site of an ancient Ram temple.
There are Confederate symbols across the country, and they are back in the limelight once again in the wake of nationwide protests due to the deaths of unarmed black men and women like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

Protesters have taken aim at monuments honoring Confederate leaders like Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, spray painting graffiti on them and even toppling statues on their own. In Richmond, Virginia, demonstrators brought down statues of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.



But its not just protesters that are challenging Confederate symbols. NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from its races and properties. Darrell Bubba Wallace Jr., NASCAR Cup Series lone black driver, called for the ban of the flag saying the sport has no place for them. The U.S. Marine Corps banned depictions of Confederate battle flags from Marine installations.



U.S. army officials are considering the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from U.S. military bases. President Donald Trump said his administration will not even consider changing the name of any of those army bases.



Lawmakers in states that have Confederate statues erected are also responding to the protests. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered on June 4 the removal of the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue that stands four blocks away from the Davis statue.

Virginia Democratic State Senator Jennifer McClellan, a black woman, would drive by the Lee statue almost everyday en route to her Richmond home."I think this is a first step in beginning the process to heal wounds that have been festering for 400 years," she said of the Lee statue removal. "Now we can finally begin the process of healing that wound. This cannot be the only step."

The Confederate States of America existed only briefly -- for just four years, from 1861 to 1865 during the Civil War -- yet 150 years later, its symbols remain across the country.

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In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report to update its database on the number of Confederate emblems in the United States. The advocacy group presented its findings in 2016 following the Charleston church shooting that claimed the lives of nine people, all of whom were black. The attacker, Dylann Roof, was inspired by racist hate groups and told friends he wanted to start a race war.

The center said 143 Confederate symbols have been removed, relocated or renamed since the Charleston attack, and nearly 1,700 are still standing. Those symbols include schools, roadways and even city and county names across the country.



History has shown us that Confederate monuments were erected to intimidate black people, while preserving a revisionist history which romanticizes brutality and racism, said Lecia Brooks, chief workplace transformation officer for the SPLC.

Statues and other monuments dedicated to the Confederacy have been a point of contention for some time. Some say they are racist symbols of America's dark legacy of slavery and representative of traitors to the country. Others claim these monuments preserve the nations heritage and history.

Confederate symbols have increasingly become rallying call for white supremacists.

Confederate monuments and symbols have no place in the public domain. They must be removed in order for our nation to reconcile with the truth of its painful past and treatment of black people," Brooks said.
Pharma giant AstraZeneca has struck a deal with Europes Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

The alliance forged by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands to speed up production of a coronavirus vaccine is set to take delivery by the end of 2020 of a vaccine being tested by the University of Oxford. The agreement struck Saturday aims to make the vaccine available to other European countries that wish to take part.

Click here for full Covid-19 coverage

The cost is expected to be offset by funding from the governments.

AstraZeneca, an Anglo-Swedish company, recently completed similar agreements with Britain, the United States the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for 700 million doses. A license also has been agreed with the Serum Institute of India for another 1 billion doses.

Other companies, including Moderna and Sanofi, are racing to develop and produce a vaccine against the new coronavirus, a step experts say will be crucial to easing restrictions on public life and preventing additional waves of infections.
A crowd gathered at a corner of Higgins Avenue and Front Street in October 1909 to listen to a fiery 19-year-old woman rail against corporate dominance over the working class.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was arrested for her transgression, as were dozens of fellow Industrial Workers of the World activists who took her place. They filled the jails until, with the Western Montana Apple Show bearing down, the Missoula City council capitulated, saying the Wobblies could speak wherever and whenever they pleased as long as they didnt impede traffic.

It was, in a sense, Missoulas marching orders for the ages.

You can draw a line between what happened in Missoula then and recognition now of free speech during times of national distress, said Clem Work, a retired University of Montana journalism professor. We werent the only place that fought that fight, but Im kind of proud of the fact that it sort of got its birth in Missoula.

They probably dont realize it, but the hundreds of people whove lent their voices and time to the current Black Lives Matter demonstrations on the courthouse sidewalk have hopped back on Flynns figurative soapbox.

Sit-ins, stand-ins, marches and protest speeches, and invariably choruses of We Shall Overcome, became a fact of life in Missoula in the 1960s. They began in the early stages of the Vietnam War and in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when things got downright uncivil.

See if this rings a bell:

We are demonstrating because this is a part of the never-ending struggle of each individual to be accorded the dignity and recognition of being a human being.

Those were the words of Ed Waldrup, a sophomore history major at UM, from the steps of the main post office on East Broadway on March 18, 1965. One of the earliest protest marches from campus in the 60s was spurred by the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, an unarmed black man who was beaten and shot by state troopers in Selma, Alabama, at a peaceful voting rights march exactly a month earlier.

During the Selma-to-Montgomery marches that ensued, James Reeb, a white minister and civil rights activist, was beaten to death by white segregationists. Three men were tried but acquitted by an all-white jury.

We dedicate this march, Waldrup said in Missoula, to Jimmie Jackson, Reverend Reeb and all those who dare dream of the day when equality will become a reality in this country.

In 1969, history professor Robert Peterson, speaking at the Missoula Rotary Club, said Vietnam War protesters in Missoula and across the nation were in harmony with the American tradition, citing sympathy for the British in the Revolutionary War and the draft riots in New York during the Civil War.

Led by university students and faculty, Missoula protested the buildup of nuclear arms, degradation of the environment and social injustice.

Flo Chessin was a founding member of Missoula Women For Peace and what became the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center. Now 94, she happily calls herself a peacenik.

Chessin's late husband, Mike, was a UM botany professor who, along with fellow professor and internationally known scientist Bert Pfeiffer, was in the vanguard of many of Missoulas early protests and demonstrations.

I think it started probably in the 60s when the Beatles came, and you had Earth Day and the environmental movement, all those things, Chessin said last week. It just created a wonderful, different kind of culture, and then women started speaking out.

Shes tuned in to the Black Lives Matter protest but hasnt ventured over to it.

I used to go to every demonstration, but I just dont feel up to it these days, Chessin said.

In his retirement, Work is a charter board member of Soft Landing Missoula and a champion of the inroads made by Missoulas latest wave of refugees, most of them Congolese or Eritrean.

He covered protests and demonstrations in Denver for the Rocky Mountain News in the 1960s and 70s, and his book Darkest Before Dawn: Sedition and Free Speech in the American West was published in 2005. It led the following year to the posthumous pardons by Gov. Brian Schweitzer of 78 World War I sedition prisoners in Montana.

Work isnt a habitual protester, though he was happy to join hundreds in March 2016 for Missoulas pro-refugee March Against Hate in early 2016.

Like Chessin, he appreciates those who are undertaking the huge task of changing minds in the Black Lives Matter movement.

A lot of people in the world perceive that there is a great injustice about systemic racism, not only in this country but people are perceiving it in other countries as well, Work said. Clearly this is not the first time its come up, and each time people hope this will be the time therell be systemic change.

Its not that hes not optimistic, Work said, but "its an enormous struggle to bring about enough change to see even our own faults and react positively through politics, through business, through education.

I think weve come a little way in terms of public consciousness. But at the same time, clearly there are plenty of people who dont see it, dont agree and think its foolish.

Do protests make a difference?

I hope so. I think so, Chessin said. It takes time. It takes exposure to people listening to different points of view, to see the documentaries on TV and see what people have gone through."

She sees the Black Lives Matter protest and others as pushback to President Donald Trumps agenda and demeanor.

I just think Trump is destroying our country, Chessin said. But it has activated so many people with these demonstrations. Its absolutely amazing. I cant believe the number of people who are walking all the time.

There's a marker in front of the Florence Hotel at "Free Speech Corner" commemorating the IWW's free-speech victory of 111 years ago. It recounts Flynn, the 19-year-old firebrand; her husband, Jack Jones; and Frank Little coming to Missoula to spread "the glad tiding of a great revolutionary union" to the working class.

Work played Judge Harry Small in a 2009 centennial reenactment of the events. Small fined activists $1 and sentenced them to 15 days in jail before releasing them all at the behest of the acting mayor and aldermen.

In a way their protest backfired, Work pointed out.

After Missoula the Wobblies carried their free-speech movement to Spokane and West Coast cities.

People were killed, a lot of people were arrested, and they had money flowing in from IWW dues, so it raised their visibility and made them a significant force, he said.

America entered World War I in 1917, at the height of IWW influence. Little was lynched by henchmen in Butte that September.

The Wobblies were perceived to be behind the timber strikes and the copper strikes in Butte, and that led to the passage of the Sedition Law," Work said. "That wasnt a good thing. But ultimately the excesses of the Sedition Act led to recognition of protest and free speech rights.

Jump ahead to 2020 and Black Lives Matter protests at the Missoula County Courthouse, a couple of blocks from Free Speech Corner.

The cause is racial justice instead of economic parity, but the passion and convictions echo across the century.

Coincidence or not, one of the key lead voices in the Missoula movement is Morenike Akiwumi. Shes 19.

Photos: Protests in Missoula Through the Years

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The Pentagon reaffirmed Sunday its commitment to keeping a "robust" combined defensive posture to respond to any situation involving North Korea, after Pyongyang hinted at military action against the South.



On Saturday, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, threatened Pyongyang will take "a next step" against the South and gave an instruction for the army to take necessary measures. Seoul urged the North to comply with past inter-Korean agreements.






Donald Trump has argued frequently of late that China is rooting for Joe Biden come November's US presidential election. In Beijing, however, officials have come around to support four more years of Trump.

Interviews with nine current and former Chinese officials point to a shift in sentiment in favour of the sitting president, even though he has spent much of the past four years blaming Beijing for everything from US trade imbalances to COVID-19.

Brian Masotti, left, and Tracey Warren wave flags at the hundreds of boats idling on the St. Johns River during a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., celebrating President Donald Trump's birthday. Credit:AP

The chief reason? A belief that the benefit of the erosion of America's postwar alliance network would outweigh any damage to China from continued trade disputes and geopolitical instability.

While the officials shared concerns that US-China tensions would rise regardless of who was in the White House, they broke largely into camps of those who emphasised geopolitical gains and those who were concerned about trade ties.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 18:45:27|Editor: huaxia

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BERLIN, June 15 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 infections in Germany increased by 192 within one day to 186,461, remaining under last week's average, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) announced on Monday.

The number of people currently infected with the virus declined as well, standing at around 13,860 on Monday, and the estimated number of recoveries increased by around 400 within one day to 172,600, said the RKI.

The number of deaths increased by four to 8,791 on Monday, and the fatality rate remained unchanged at 4.7 percent, it said.

However, the RKI still assessed the health risk to the German population "overall as high and as very high for risk groups," it said in the daily situation report for Sunday.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the official COVID-19 warning app will be presented this week. On Sunday, the German Press Agency reported that the presentation of the app is scheduled for Tuesday.

On Saturday, government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said the use of the app is "based on complete voluntariness," but there are "many good reasons to use the app." Enditem
New York: The world of artificial satellites, silent in the void of space, might seem pacific. In fact it's a high-flying battlefield rife with jamming, snooping, blinding, spoofing, hacking and hostility among the planet's growing array of spacecraft and space powers.

Now, Chinese scientists report new progress in building what appears to be the first unbreakable information link between an orbiting craft and its terrestrial controllers, raising the odds that Beijing may one day possess a super-secure global communications network.

The 2016 launch of China's first quantum satellite, the Micius.

In the journal Nature on Monday, the team of 24 scientists describe successfully testing the transmission of a "secret key" for encrypting and decrypting messages between a satellite and two ground stations located roughly 700 miles (1100 km) apart.

The method enlists quantum entanglement, an idea of modern physics that seems ridiculously at odds with common sense. It posits that a pair of widely separated subatomic particles can still seem instantaneously linked: Measuring a property of one will simultaneously affect the measured results on its companion, even if the two are millions of light-years apart.
Hong Kong: Senior appointments made

The Government today announced the appointments for the posts of Director of Lands and Director of Administration.

Deputy Secretary for Financial Services & the Treasury (Treasury) Andrew Lai will become Director of Lands on August 5.

Deputy Secretary for Food & Health (Food) Daniel Cheng will take up the Director of Administration post on July 20.

Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip said the two appointees are seasoned Administrative Officers with proven leadership and management skills.

Mr Nip added he has every confidence that they will serve the community with professionalism in their new capacities.

This story has been published on: 2020-06-15. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
A bus with 64 migrants on board overturned after a tyre burst on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway here on Monday, resulting in injuries to 18 people.

Police said the bus was on its way to Bihars Muzaffarpaur from Delhi when its driver lost control over it due to the tyre burst near the Bilhaur area here. The bus hit a divider before it overturned, Bilhaur SHO Santosh Kumar Awasthi said.

On hearing migrants cries, locals rushed to the spot and informed police, Awasthi added. The injured were admitted to a community health centre (CHC), the SHO said, adding three people whose condition was said to be critical were shifted to Lala Lajpat Rai Hospital.
Guaido Says Rejects Supreme Court's Appointees to Electoral Council

Sputnik News

03:05 GMT 14.06.2020

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido has refused to recognize the new composition of the country's National Electoral Council appointed by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice without the participation of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, he said in a statement on Sunday.

"Our position has been clear since 2018, we do not participate in farce and we do not recognize an illegitimate electoral council", the statement read.

On Friday, the Supreme Tribunal appointed reshuffled the court's leadership and appointed Indira Alfonzo as its head, claiming that the Council's refusal to put forward names of its own candidates was unconstitutional and disrespectful.

Alfonzo took the oath immediately after the court announced her appointment.

The political situation in Venezuela derailed in January 2019 when Guaido proclaimed himself interim president, gathering a short-lived public protest. The United States and several other countries have sided with Guaido, while Russia and China, among other nations, have stood by the legitimacy of the incumbent president, Nicholas Maduro, who slammed Guaido as a US puppet.

 Sputnik

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CASS COUNTY, MI - A 27-year-old Indiana man has died after his car struck a tree north of the Michigan-Indiana border on Monday morning, according to local police.

Isaac Burkey, 27, of Elkhart, Ind., was driving west on U.S. 12, in Edwardsburg, a village of Ontwa Township, at about 11:45 a.m. when his car crossed the center line, according to a police report issued by Ontwa Township-Edwardsburg Police Chief Douglas Westrick.

Burkey overcorrected and lost control of his car, hitting a tree on the south side of the road, police said. Burkey was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the fatal crash, according to the release.

Officials with the Cass County Sheriffs Office, Michigan State Police, Edwardsburg ambulance and fire departments, and animal control assisted at the scene, according to the release.

Witnesses with information about this crash are encouraged to contact the Ontwa Township-Edwardsburg Police Department at 269-663-8444.

Read more on MLive:

Michigan mandates testing after confirming nearly 2,000 coronavirus deaths in nursing homes

Michigan surpasses 60K coronavirus cases

Where Kalamazoo children can get free meals this summer
(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. -- Hes a drummer.

No, wait, make that an Eagle Scout.

Sorry, we meant a special-effects guy.

Stop right there! Theres no wrong answer. St. Peters Ryan Chambers is all of the above and, by all accounts, does each thing well.

And where Chambers, indeed, recently became an Eagle Scout and has been a major player as a stage crew member (production) at the New Brighton school, he also had a role in reviving St. Peters Band while occasionally performing gigs with a band called RNR.

"We play songs by guys like Billy Joel and Elton John,'' said the 18-year-old Chambers, who is more than 50 years younger than the music legends. "And we play at places like The Kettle Black and Castleton Corners Pub and really enjoy it.''

College attending: Berklee College of Music in Boston

Favorite subject: "Math, because my teacher (James Tierney) has a superior method of teaching that made it click.'' Chambers has a 100 average in Calculus this year.

Extracurricular activities: Secretary of the National Honor Society (service-based); Production team (build sets, stage crew, special effects); SPs band.

One shining HS moment: St. Peters has a long-standing tradition of hosting a pre-Christmas Assembly in which The Dark Reader -- played by the aforementioned Tierney -- reads a stirring rendition of Twas the Night Before Christmas. Chambers was in charge of special effects the last two years. "The overall experience was great,'' he said. "Running the lights, sounds and effects and all the prep work that starts in September -- its just amazing.''

Something you might not know about me: "My end goal is (working something in) live sound or music production,'' the West Brighton resident said. "I love going to a concert and hearing something, like, the organ isnt loud enough and thinking I can do a better job. I just love it, little things like that.''
As the insurance industry faces litigation and questions over virus-related claim denials, it could soon be dealing with another business income hurdle due to the civil unrest that has taken place in many U.S. cities following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

This comes as insurance professionals say revenue benchmarks for business income claims due to civil unrest will be adjusted to reflect income loss from virus-related business shutdowns, which could leave some business owners feeling unfairly compensated.

I think that all business owners are going to feel that the amount reimbursed is insufficient for their losses, partly because of the COVID-19 situation and partly because BI is such an ill-defined and hard to understand concept, said Mike Vitulli, director of Risk Management Services at Boston, Mass.-based brokerage, Risk Strategies. Most businesses did not consider what it meant to have the coverage, simply assuming that if their business shut for any reason, they would be reimbursed.

Approximately 40% of small to mid-sized business owners, which are typically defined as companies with fewer than 100 employees and annual revenues of up to $5 million, have opted to purchase business interruption (BI) coverage, according to Mark Friedlander, director of corporate communications at the Insurance Information Institute. It will usually cover any losses incurred as a result of a riot, civil commotion and vandalism, which have been occurring in various U.S. cities as peaceful protests by day over the death of George Floyd have led to violence by night.

Property Damage

Demonstrations over police brutality and racial inequality began in Minneapolis, where police officers May 25 arrest of Floyd turned fatal, and quickly spread to other U.S. cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. Criminal activity including looting, arson and vandalism in the wake of the protests, however, has caused property damage and led to officials imposing curfews in some cities, raising questions of how business income loss will be calculated for business owners still reeling from the COVID-19 shutdowns.

Insurers determine BI loss based on a 12-month assessment of a business income beginning from the date of loss, Friedlander said. This means a business that has been shut down or operating at a limited capacity due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic may see a lower payout for any business income claims due to the recent civil unrest, Dan Corbin, director of research at insurance industry trade association, Professional Insurance Agents, explained.

The insurers obligation is to put the business back where it would have been with the income profit (or loss) that would have occurred during the period of restoration, Corbin said. If the business would have been operating at a loss, the recovery of continuing expenses would be adjusted to reflect that loss.

Larry P. Schiffer, senior partner at the New York office of the Squire Patton Boggs law firm, has a similar view.

Business interruption provisions have very specific valuation requirements for determining what the loss of income was. Those provisions will have to be followed. If a business was not open and the looting and vandalism took place, the loss of income will be calculated per the policy formula, which might result in a reduction of income depending on the formula in the policy, Schiffer told Insurance Journal.

Schiffer said the majority of the claims arising from the civil unrest will be actual property damage or loss of personal property claims that will be covered based on the value of the property and the business interruption claims should be much smaller compared to the actual damage claims.

Peter Halprin, partner in Pasichs New York office, said all of this could lead to even more pushback from business owners, some of whom are already frustrated by COVID-19-related claim denials under their business interruption policies.

Given the stance that insurers have taken on COVID-19, I think that they may have burned some bridges with their policyholders and fractured some trust, Halprin said. Policyholders may be more willing now to be aggressive and file lawsuits.

PPP Question

Another lingering question regarding the convergence of the pandemic with the riots in many cities, Vitulli said, is how the federal Paycheck Protection Program will factor into revenue calculations for BI claims.

The Paycheck Protection Program is a loan designed to provide a direct incentive for small businesses to keep their workers on the payroll during the COVID-19 crisis. The Small Business Administration (SBA) will forgive loans if all employees are kept on the payroll for eight weeks and the money is used for payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities, according to the SBA website.

There is not a lot of precedent for this situation in terms of how BI would be calculated, Vitulli said. While we believe these (PPP loans) should be treated as loans, not as income, and that payroll would be a covered expense under most property policy BI forms, it is certainly a debatable point.

Despite questions that remain, insurance professionals are confident that the industry is equipped to handle these two emergencies at once, for now.

It is my opinion that the resulting property damage from the protests is manageable today for most insurers, but if it were to continue unabated for weeks or months, the cost could be staggering and may impact their short term results, Vitulli said. Fortunately, property damage is relatively quantifiable and not a long-tailed liability, which would impact them for years to come.

David T. MacLachlan, agent at Syracuse, New York-based The Dominick Falcone Agency Inc. and chair of the board for Big I New York, agreed.

Im very confident that the industry nationwide is prepared because were in the business of dealing with really intense, unusual physical events, he said. Theres some new challenges, but were several months into the pandemic, so Im very confident that insurance companies will be prepared to address the claims as they come in.

For business owners, however, it could be a different story, Halprin added.

Stores that probably were planning to open in the near futurenow are faced with shuttering their doors for property damage, he said. These businesses are facing a double whammy, and its tragic.

Topics Carriers Claims USA Profit Loss New York Property
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ballast Equity Management is pleased to announce that Josh Freedman has joined the firm as Partner and Chief Operating Officer. Freedman will also assume the role of Chief Compliance Officer for Ballast. Josh has more than 25 years of industry experience and was most recently Chief Operating Officer of Elk Creek Partners. Roles prior to Elk Creek included serving as Partner at Platte River Capital and Research Analyst at Three Peaks Capital.

Josh Freedman, Partner and Chief Operating Officer, Ballast Equity Management

"Josh is an important addition to Ballast as we build operational and compliance expertise to support our service to clients," stated Ballast CEO Jeff Kautz. Kautz added, "Josh has considerable experience in operations, compliance and investment research and is uniquely qualified to contribute to the success of our business."

Ballast was founded in 2016 by two veterans of small and mid-cap stock fund management, Jeff Kautz and Randy Hughes. Kautz was previously CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Perkins Investment Management in Chicago. Hughes served as Perkins' Director of Research and Analytics. Kautz also served as the Co-Manager of the Janus Henderson Mid Cap Value Fund and the Janus Henderson Value Plus Income Fund. Kautz and Hughes have managed funds together for more than twenty years.

"Strong culture, investment excellence and exceptional client service are critical in building a strong investment business," Freedman noted, adding, "I have worked with each of Ballast's partners earlier in my career and am confident we have the right people and skills to build a successful firm."

About Ballast Equity Management

Ballast Equity Management is an employee-owned asset management firm that invests alongside its clients in high conviction portfolios of quality small and mid-capitalization businesses. Ballast manages these portfolios of publicly traded companies for individuals, family offices and institutions. Based in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, Ballast was founded in 2016 by Jeff Kautz and Randy Hughes, investment professionals who previously held senior roles at Perkins Investment Management and have invested together for over 20 years. More information may be found at www.ballastequity.com.

Media Contact: Dave Mertens

Ballast Equity Management, LLC

1815 S. Meyers Road, Suite 250

Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181

(630) 376-4392 (office)

SOURCE Ballast Equity Management, LLC
(Sharecast News) - Ferrexpo announced an interim dividend based on the iron ore pellet producer's higher sales in the first five months of 2020.



The FTSE 250 company declared a dividend of 6.6 cents a share payable on 3 July. Ferrexpo said Covid-19 had no adverse effect on its operations and that sales at the end of May were up 21% from the five-month period a year earlier.



The iron ore fines price has been resilient and lower freight and production costs have made up for weaker pellet premiums, Ferrexpo said.



"Higher sales have been driven by a strong production performance, de-stocking and the group's ability to offset weaker demand in Europe through increased sales to Asia," Ferrexpo said.




Recent protests around the world have brought renewed attention to demonstrations as a form of expression and call for change.

The year 2019 saw protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Gaza, France, Venezuela and other places. Worldwide, protesting slowed in early 2020 because of the spread of the new coronavirus.

That changed after the death of George Floyd.

Demonstrations around the world were held in support of Americans protesting the death of Floyd, a black man who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes.

In cities across the U.S., some protests turned violent, as people expressed their anger over the incident and their strong desire for change.

Historically, however, huge demonstrations rarely bring about results expected by those who take part in them.

The Associated Press recently looked back at some important protests from the past.

American civil rights

The AP says the recent protests in the United States are unusual because they have been largely leaderless. It notes that, while the protests are still evolving, the main issue has been the Black Lives Matter movement. Recent protests have invited comparison to the civil rights protests of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States.



In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march of 250,000 people to Washington, D.C. King and activist Malcolm X represented two different plans for protests. One supported large, peaceful demonstrations. The other wanted to get results by any means necessary.

During that period, major civil rights acts and the Voting Rights Act were passed under the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. But protests against social injustice and the Vietnam War continued into the 1970s, often becoming destructive and violent.

Democratic Party lawmakers this month proposed new measures to control local police departments in the United States. But the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has not supported recent calls by protesters across the country to defund the police.

President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have strongly criticized calls for defunding police departments.

The fall of the Soviet Union

In 1989 in Eastern Europe, protests were increasingly against rule by the Communist Party. One by one, countries like the former East Germany and Poland cut off influence of the former Soviet Union. The final Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, permitted the change to take place. The end of one-party rule in East Germany and Poland was largely peaceful.

The time period also included the Velvet Revolution which brought the end of Soviet influence in the former Czechoslovakia. The change took place about 20 years after similar protests against the Soviet Union in 1968 were crushed by hundreds of thousands of Soviet-led troops.

The Arab spring of 2011

More than 20 years later, a major wave of political protests overtook the Middle East and North Africa. The demonstrations were captured on social media. The movement, known as the Arab Spring, gave voice to people who demanded change in their governments.

In Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia, long-time rulers fell in 2011. But only in Tunisia has democracy lasted.



Since 2011, Egypts authoritarian rule has increased. Yemen and Libya continue to be involved in civil wars that have created humanitarian crises. Syria was also influenced by the Arab spring movement. But the civil war that soon followed continues today, with an estimated 500,000 dead and millions displaced.

More recently, protests in Lebanon and Iraq started last October against leaders considered corrupt and ineffective. But Lebanon has not been able to solve its political problems and faces a severe financial crisis.

In Iraq, many protesters have been killed and the countrys health care system remains unable to deal with the effects of the new coronavirus. In addition, money from the sale of oil has fallen sharply because of low oil prices.

2019 and 2020

Last year, huge protests against the rule of longtime Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir led to his ouster by the army in April 2019. Bashir now faces charges of genocide and war crimes. He has been replaced by a joint civilian-military sovereign council. But civilians struggle to assert control over important government ministries.



Huge protests in Hong Kong renewed one year ago. People gathered in support of democracy and against a proposed law that would send some Hong Kongers accused of crimes to mainland China for trial. The protests were met with harsh police action, but succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of the law.

However, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not backed down. Last month, Chinas National Peoples Congress approved a new national security law for the partly self-ruling territory.

The new law requires Hong Kong to enforce measures that will be decided by a top committee in Beijing. The law also permits Chinese intelligence agencies to operate in the city.

Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997 after years of negotiations. The two sides agreed that the territorys laws, known as the Basic Law, would remain in place until 2047.

But recent moves by the mainland government have raised questions about how long Hong Kongs self-rule may last.

Im Mario Ritter Jr.

And I'm Ashley Thompson.

Tamer Kakahany reported this story for the Associated Press. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

Editors note: the description of the protest movement in this story has been updated.

______________________________________________

Words in This Story

authoritarian adj. a form of government marked by not permitting personal freedoms

assert v. to demand that other people accept something

harsh adj. severe, having a harmful effect because of too much force

evolving --v. to change over time, to develop further
Photo: Sergei Malgavko\TASS via Getty Images

The UK needs pension superfunds to invest in green projects to help the country recover from the economic fallout of the coronavirus, think-tank The Social Market Foundation (SMF) said.

Ministers should encourage pension funds to merge into fewer, larger funds able to invest large sums in big long-term projects, the organisation said. These funds could be used to build roads, power sources and communications networks, whilst creating more jobs.

The report also said ministers should be ready to take risks and spend public money to support innovative infrastructure projects and new renewable energy markets in their early stages.

The SMF noted that the government had launched consultations on pension consolidation in 2018 and 2019 but despite Prime Minister Boris Johnsons previous support for the plans, ministers have yet to make a decision on this.

READ MORE: Regulator combats concerns over gold-plated pension transfers

The SMF said politicians must offer certainty and financial clarity to investors about the profits they can make from funding infrastructure projects.

It also emphasised the need for a cross-party commission with an independent chair to establish a vision of the UKs infrastructure needs over the next decade or so.

According to Richard Hyde, senior researcher at the think tank: The best way to support the infrastructure the country urgently needs in the long-run is to make better use of the billions of pounds held in pension funds that could be profitably invested in helping Britain on its way to a green recovery.
Business travellers from Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea could soon be allowed to fly to Australia as part of a secret government plan.

Under strict coronavirus restrictions brought in on May 20, no foreign travellers are allowed to enter Australia, and locals cannot fly abroad.

But a plan to boost tourism between Australia and Asian hubs is being cooked up by the government - with officials looking at ways to ease entry rules for corporate travellers.

This is despite no Australian being allowed to go on a foreign holiday, and the majority of recent cases being brought in from abroad.

The plan is being worked on by the Department of Home Affairs and senior members of Scott Morrison's government, the Daily Telegraph reported.

A passenger wears a face mask and gloves while waiting for a flight at Sydney Airport (pictured) on March 20 as the travel ban came into force

People are seen flying from Singapore's Changi airport to India on June 12 (pictured), with Singapore being discussed as a potential exemption to the coronavirus travel ban

The ban on Australia's leaving the country has been quietly extended last week until at least mid-September.

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was 'concerned' about dropping the successful quarantine and allowing exemptions.

The plan could see Australian officials test business travellers for coronavirus when flying between the two countries.

It applies to business hubs in the Asia-Pacific region which have low rates of the deadly respiratory infection.

Another plan could see business people allowed to quarantine for just seven days when they land in Australia, rather than 14.

Since March 18, Australian citizens and permanent residents have been taken to hotels to quarantine for 14 days, long enough to detect any coronavirus symptoms.

Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea are understood to be first in line for the special exemption, which would see them given an easier pass into the country than citizens.

Travellers are seen at Changi Airport in Singapore (pictured on June 10) with the nation being one of those who may soon be allowed to travel to Australia

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

The corporate travel exemption could start within months, but some are concerned that other countries do not have rigorous testing methods.

'We would be a bit concerned about that at this stage,' Ms Berejiklian told Sky News on Sunday night.

'I know the prime minister through our discussions in national cabinet also appreciates how well the quarantine system has gone.

'In NSW but for perhaps one or two exceptions in the last two or three weeks every single new case has come from overseas travellers coming back home.'

She explained that Sydney had quarantined 20,000 Australians to date, and around three-four per cent of them had the virus.

'About three to four per cent of people we test are having the virus,' the premier added.

'Which is quite high which means they are coming from countries where the virus is very widespread and of course we want to keep our citizens safe.'

Speaking on Sunday, health minister Greg Hunt explained there were 'two pathways' being looked at to resume foreign travel.

'One is to use our quarantine system with international students and appropriately with people who are delivering international benefit whether thats in business or other areas,' he told ABC.

Grounded planes at Sydney Airport as overseas travel is banned for Australians (pictured on April 30)

Returning overseas travellers are ushered into the Intercontinental Hotel for the beginning of their 14-day imposed quarantine in Sydney (pictured on March 29)

'Secondly is where we have a safe relationship with another country, and New Zealand is at the top of the list, having a non-quarantine approach which will open up borders.'

A trans-Tasman travel bubble with New Zealand has also been discussed for many months, with the country recently eradicating coronavirus on its shores.

The three-month emergency powers to ban travel were to expire next Wednesday but were on May 15 extended another three months to September 17.

The Health Department said the extension was to 'ensure the Australian government continues to have an appropriate range of powers available to manage the ongoing pandemic response'.

Defence Force and police officials are seen waiting for Australians returning from India to usher them to a quarantine hotel on May 8 (pictured) in Sydney

People are seen wearing protective masks in Singapore (pictured on June 11), one of the country's where business people may soon be able to fly from into Australia

'The outgoing travel restriction on Australian citizens and permanent residents is currently in effect for the duration of the emergency period,' it said.

'Amending these restrictions, for example to enable travel to New Zealand, is a decision for both governments that will be made in due course, when the public health risk is assessed as being sufficiently safe.

'The Australian and New Zealand governments continue to work together on this matter.'

The only positive for travellers in the ban being extended is that insurers will now have to pay up for flights booked in that three-month period.

A nearly empty Sydney airport is seen on June 5 (pictured) with international travel still banned
China Unicom has chosen Nokia to support the build-out of its 5G SA Core network in China.

Nokia has been awarded an approximately 10% share of China Unicoms 5G core network. The core network performs a variety of functions, including setting up connections, bandwidth management, scaling and securing the network, and, now with 5G, opening up the network to support new, software-enabled use cases such as network slicing.

The Nokia Cloud core products that China Unicom selected provide Unified Data Management, Session Management and User Plane functions, and are complemented by Data Refinery and NetAct. All products are deployed on Nokias CloudBand, with Unified Data Management handling all subscriber data and services.

The Session Management Function is responsible for interacting with the decoupled User Plane Function as well as subscriber session management. The User Plane Function delivers the packet processing foundation for the Service Based Architecture, by allowing packet processing and traffic aggregation to be performed closer to the network edge, thereby increasing bandwidth efficiencies while reducing costs.

The deal also includes products from Nokias Cloud Packet Core portfolio, including the Nokia Cloud Mobile Gateway. The product provides the 5G standalone Session Management Function and User Plane Function, in addition to supporting the 4G Serving Gateway and the Packet Data Network Gateway in China Unicoms network.

Nokia currently has a 17% market share in China Unicoms rapidly expanding VoLTE network, where it has deployed Nokias cloud-based vIMS platform. This deal will further enhance the long-term partnership between China Unicom and Nokia. The vendor has provided critical support in getting China Unicoms 4G network successfully established, and will continuously support China Unicom in its 5G networks up and running in the future leveraging its advanced core network solutions.

Markus Borchert, President of Nokia Greater China said: Nokia is very proud to expand our working relationship with China Unicom beyond 4G. We are looking forward to close collaboration with China Unicom on novel business models and 5G service innovation to enable an open 5G ecosystem.
"That's not what we do!"

Reuters photographer Dylan Martinez heard the words ring out during chaotic scenes in London on Saturday, when mostly peaceful anti-racist demonstrations turned into violent scuffles with counter-protesters in the area.

Then he saw the man who had uttered them  a Black protester emerging from the melee carrying an injured white man in a "fireman's lift" over his shoulder.

The picture he took has gone viral on social media and featured in news bulletins, capturing a moment of high drama that jars with the broader narrative of anti-racist and far-right protesters fighting each other.

"I saw a skirmish and someone falling to the ground," Martinez recalled of the moment near Waterloo Bridge, in central London, as he covered anti-racism protests that have flared up in the city.

The two men then appeared through the crowd.

"The crowd parted right in front of me. I was in the right place at right time, and incredibly lucky from that point of view. He came towards me walking briskly."

Martinez said the man being carried had injuries to his face, and Reuters journalists at the scene said he had been beaten in a skirmish with anti-racism protesters.

Some people in the crowd shouted out that the assault victim was a member of the far-right.

Reuters was not able to identify the victim or his political leanings. Police said they were aware of the incident and the photograph, but made no further comment when Reuters asked for details of the men's identity and what happened.

Image: Patrick Hutchinson, a protester, carries a suspected far-right counter-protester who was injured, to safety, near Waterloo station during a Black Lives Matter protest (Dylan Martinez / Reuters)

Protests have erupted across British cities and around the world after a Black man, George Floyd, died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

In some cases they have sparked counter-demonstrations by people who do not agree with all of their aims and methods, and these have included people from far-right groups.

British media identified the Black man as Patrick Hutchinson, a personal trainer. On his social media account, he wrote: "We saved a life today."

Story continues

Reuters spoke to the partner of Hutchinson's best friend, who confirmed it was him. Hutchinson did not reply to calls to his mobile phone.

He told British Channel 4 News on Sunday it was a "scary" scene. "It was pretty hectic, it was almost like a stampede.

"...The guys went in there, they sort of put a little cordon around him to stop him receiving any more physical harm. His life was under threat.

"So I just went under, scooped him up and put him on my shoulders and sort of started marching towards the police with him whilst all the guys were surrounding me and protecting me and the guy I had on my shoulder."

In a statement on Sunday police said 113 people had been arrested over the weekend and 23 officers were injured in the violence, none of them seriously.
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - A staff team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached staff-level agreement with the authorities in Senegal on economic and financial policies that could support approval of the first review of their three-year programme under the IMFs Policy Coordination Instrument (PCI) approved in January 2020
Burma Myanmar Extends Bans on Gatherings, Intl Flights as Imported COVID-19 Cases Rise

Travelers wait at a check-in counter at Yangon International Airport in March, shortly before the start of the COVID-19 international flight ban. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAYThe Myanmar government announced on Monday that restrictions on visas, international flights and public gatherings have been extended through June 30.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said the government has extended temporary entry restrictions for visitors from all countries to prevent the spread of COVID19, as Myanmar could still see an outbreak of the coronavirus from imported cases.

As of Monday, Myanmar has confirmed 262 cases of COVID-19, including six deaths and 165 recoveries. Of the 36 new cases reported since June 1, 33 are imported cases, mainly from India, Bangladesh, China, Italy, Thailand and Malaysia.

Since March, Myanmar has instructed all arrivals to the country, including Myanmar citizens, to quarantine in government facilities. Diplomats and UN officials must present a health certificate confirming that they tested negative for COVID-19 before entering.

Anyone seeking repatriation or flights for urgent official missions of foreign nationals, diplomats and United Nation officials, may contact the nearest Myanmar mission for a possible exception to the restrictions. Anyone who is allowed to enter the country still needs to follow preventive procedures, including a 21-day quarantine.

All visas and international flights to Myanmar have been suspended since May 14. In early June, the government extended the restrictions through June 15.

The government also extended the ban on public gatherings and orders to maintain social distancing until the end of June.

Until June 30, public and mass gatherings are not allowed, the 12-4 a.m. curfew remains in place and all citizens are ordered to practice social distancing. Schools and training centers are still closed and the government has ordered everyone to wear masks when going outside.

Long distance buses across the country have been allowed to operate again since early June but must limit the number of passengers on board. Restaurants, coffee shops, tea shops and markets are also open again with social distancing measures and limits on numbers of customers.

Hotels, bars, clubs and karaoke lounges, however, are not yet allowed to open.

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The United States has demanded the immediate release of Paul Whelan, calling the treatment and conviction of the former Marine for spying "appalling."

The Moscow City Court announced the conviction and handed Whelan a 16-year prison sentence on June 15 after a trial that was held behind closed doors because the evidence included classified materials and because of measures taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus.



The U.S. ambassador to Russia called the proceedings a "mockery of justice," while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was outraged by the trial and that the United States has "serious concerns" that Whelan was deprived of fair-trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide under its international human rights obligations.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said he was deeply disappointed by the verdict and sentence against Whelan, who also holds British, Canadian, and Irish citizenship, and expressed "serious reservations about the legal process."



Russia's Foreign Ministry rejected "claims about the unfairness and excessive harshness" of the sentence.



The 50-year-old former U.S. Marine was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 and in March this year went on trial, which was held in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and diplomatic protests. He had denied all charges.

'Sham Trial'



During the hearing, Whelan held up a paper from the glass enclosure where he sat with several messages, including a reference to the proceedings as a "Sham trial" and, in an apparent reference to emergency hernia surgery last month, "Meatball surgery!"

He also complained that he had been deprived of human rights and demanded "decisive action" from U.S. President Donald Trump and from the prime ministers of the other countries he is a citizen of.



Whelan told journalists afterward that he will appeal the court's decision, calling it politically motivated.



"It is a political trial, a political sentence," Whelan said.

Hours after the ruling, Pompeo said in a statement that the treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling.

"Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends," he added, noting that the ruling came "after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses."

In his statement, Raab said London "will continue to provide consular support to [Whelan] and his family, and press the Russian authorities to respect [his] basic rights, which include a fair trial and appeal process."

Russian prosecutors claimed that a flash drive found in Whelan's possession contained classified information.

On May 25, a prosecutor at Whelan's trial asked a Moscow court to find him guilty of espionage and sentence him to 18 years in prison.

Whelan says he was framed when he took a USB drive from an acquaintance, thinking it contained holiday photos, and that the allegations of spying against him are politically motivated.

He has also accused his prison guards of mistreatment.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said that he was "disappointed, enraged" by Whelan's sentence and called the trial a "mockery of justice," stressing that Whelan's conviction will harm U.S.-Russia relations.

Answering a journalist's question about a possible exchange of Whelan for Russian citizens held in the United States, Sullivan said that Washington was not seeking exchange but instead justice for Whelan.

Whelan's lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said separately that the issue of pardoning or an exchange of his client will be possible only in 10 days, when the court's ruling comes into force.

Whelan was head of global security at a U.S. auto-parts supplier at the time of his arrest. He and his relatives insist he visited Russia to attend a wedding.

Before the verdict, U.S. officials had urged Moscow to release Whelan following their criticism of Russian authorities for their "shameful treatment" of him.

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, AFP, and Reuters
Egypt and Poland have agreed on fast tracking the signing of a bilateral economic cooperation agreement in light of Egypts aim to deepen economic relations with Poland, whether through bilateral cooperation or through the Visegrad group, Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation Rania El-Mashat said.

Al-Mashat made her comments during a videoconference held on Monday with the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland Micha abenda.

The Visegrad group is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, that are members of the European Union (EU) and NATO for the purposes of advancing military, cultural, economic and energy cooperation with one another along with furthering their integration in the EU.

The Ministry of International Cooperation has managed to revive the Polish-Egyptian joint committee after a 27-year interruption. The committee is an instrument to enhance the bilateral economic ties between the two countries, according to a statement.

For his part, Ambassador abenda said that Poland is eager to boost economic cooperation with Egypt, with a special focus on agriculture, petrol, natural gas, transport, electricity, and power.

He added that Egypt is one of the important destinations for Polish tourists.

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With the applause received employee of the first German tourists in the Hotels of Playa de Palma. At the airport of Palma it looked at times as if a Journalist would be on each of the 189 passengers. Hardly the plane from Dusseldorf was landed about eleven o'clock with a slight delay, fought the first camera teams behind the barriers, about the German first impressions out of you before you had even left the airport. There was supposed to land in the afternoon, a second derecognised machine from Frankfurt.

Hans-Christian Roler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb, with its headquarters in Madrid.

F. A. Z.

On Board the aircraft, as the have on Mallorca holiday rentals were. Shortly thereafter, the Balearic Islands on messenger at noon, the entire political leadership, in order to present the pilot project in a hotel on the beach, among them diebalearische regional President Francina Armengol, the mayor of Palma and the Tui management Board member, Sebastian noble, who still hopes to a good season: "It is the objective of the Germans," said Sebastian noble.

In Mallorca you want to win back as quickly as possible the confidence of the tourists. For the economy of the Inselist tourism is important for survival: More than 75,000 inhabitants have already lost their jobs, 155.000 are in short-time work. After the outbreak of the pandemic had closed off the Balearic Islands almost completely and more quickly than other regions in Spain, the Virus is in get a handle on. On the island group, defendant 227 of a total of more than 27,000 dead. This success does not want to regional risk President Armengol through the Opening. "We are a safe destination," she said.

Updated Date: 15 June 2020, 16:20
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  Online news organization Rappler slammed the guilty verdict a Manila court handed down Monday on CEO Maria Ressa and former writer-researcher Reynaldo Santos in a cyber libel case involving businessman Wilfredo Keng.

"This ruling, coupled with the cybercrime law, has made the space for a free press, free speech, and free expression even tighter and narrower," Rappler said in a statement.

It said that the "historic" decision, handed down during a pandemic, was the first verdict on one of the many court cases faced by the news organization since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016.

"[Ressa] completed the trial in only 8 months, possibly the fastest libel trial in recent history," Rappler said.

"The decision today marks not the rule of law, but the rule of law twisted to suit the interests of those in power who connive to satisfy their mutually beneficial personal and political agenda," it added.

Media, public should stay vigilant

Rappler also called on the public, including media colleagues, to be on tighter watch for a free and independent press.

"This is not just about Maria or Rey or Rappler," it said. "This is about fundamental rights of every citizen who refuses to be intimidated by the powerful who do wrong and whom they dare criticize and expose."

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said in a statement that the guilty verdict "kills freedom of speech and of the press."

"But we will not be cowed. We will continue to stand our ground against all attempts to suppress our freedoms," NUJP added.

The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 found Ressa and Santos guilty beyond reasonable doubt for violating the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 over an investigative story linking businessman Wilfredo Keng to alleged illegal activities.

Ressa and Santos were sentenced to jail for six months up to six years. Rappler, which was originally charged in the suit, was declared to have no liability over the issue.

In its 37-page decision, the court denied its action curtails press freedom.

"The right to free speech and freedom of the press cannot and should not be used as shield against accountability," it added.

While the story was initially published months before the Cybercrime Prevention Act was passed, the prosecution had argued that the article was republished on February 19, 2014. Rappler maintained that it only made minor correction of typographical errors in the story at the time.

In a press briefing, Ressa said that the verdict is "not unexpected," but they will keep fighting.

"Are we a democracy or not? Let us do our jobs," she said.

"For someone who is doing his job, it could be not just me, but other people who are doing their jobs properly could be in the same situation that I am in right now," Santos added.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 18:20:21|Editor: huaxia

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BEIJING, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's job market remained generally stable in May, with the surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas standing at 5.9 percent, official data showed Monday.

The figure went down 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

A total of 4.6 million new urban jobs were created in the first five months of 2020, down 1.37 million compared with the same period of last year.

The surveyed unemployment rate among those aged between 25 and 59, the majority of the labor market, stood at 5.4 percent in May, down 0.1 percentage points from April.

Meanwhile, the surveyed rate in 31 major cities was 5.9 percent last month, up 0.1 percentage points from April, according to the NBS.

The surveyed urban unemployment rate is calculated based on the number of unemployed people who have participated in the employment survey in urban areas, including migrant workers in cities.

Fu Linghui, a spokesperson for the NBS, said the reasons for a drop in the unemployment rate were an improving economy, implementation of supportive policies, and more employees returning to their workplaces.

The recovery in production demand has laid the ground for job market expansion and stability, Fu said, citing positive trend in other May economic indicators including the value-added industrial output and service sector production.

He, however, acknowledged that the pressure on the employment situation cannot be overlooked, which stems from total employment pressure, underemployment, and the employment of key groups such as college graduates, which is expected to reach a historical high of 8.74 million this year.

China will give priority to stabilizing employment and ensuring living standards this year, aiming to add over 9 million new urban jobs and keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate at around 6 percent, according to the government work report. Enditem
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Black and female assistant principals are systematically delayed and denied promotion to principal, compared to their White or male counterparts, despite having equivalent qualifications and more experience on average, according to a new study. The findings were published in June in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed, open access journal of the American Educational Research Association.

For their study, authors Lauren Bailes at the University of Delaware and Sarah Guthery at Texas A&M UniversityCommerce assessed the probability of and time to promotion for 4,689 assistant principals in Texas from 2001 to 2017, using data from the Texas Education Agency. The authors identified assistant principals serving in their first year and analyzed their progress to promotion, if it occurred. While principal promotion processes vary by district, assistant principals in the study had earned a master's degree and acquired a principal's license, which are the minimal credentials needed to qualify for promotion to principal in Texas.

Bailes and Guthery found that after holding education, experience, school level, and school location constant, Black assistant principals were 18 percent less likely to be promoted than White candidates who were equally qualified. When the Black candidates were promoted, their average time to promotion was 5.27 years, while the average wait time for their White peers was 4.67 years, leaving a 0.6-year gap attributable to race.

The authors found a difference in promotion by gender when they looked specifically at high school principalships. While women comprised half of high school assistant principalsand nearly two-thirds of all assistant principalsin Texas, women were 5 to 7 percent less likely to be promoted into high school principalships than men. As women gained more years of experience as assistant principals, their likelihood of promotion, in fact, decreased relative to their male peers. Women who did become high school principals waited longer, spending 5.62 years as an assistant principal versus 4.94 years for men, leaving a 0.68-year gender gap.

"Even though more diversity in the teacher and principal workforce has been shown to improve teacher retention and student outcomes, our findings indicate that there are still systematic race- and gender-based inequities within the profession," said Guthery, an assistant professor of education at Texas A&M University-Commerce. "This is despite a teacher corps that is overwhelmingly female and becoming more racially diverse."

While prior research has identified gaps in promotions at the top levels of education leadership, such as principals and superintendents, Bailes and Guthery identified inequities much earlier in the education leadership pipeline by focusing on time to and probability of promotions once an individual has self-selected into the leadership track.

The authors found that women and Blacks had more years of experience even before becoming assistant principals. Men who became high school assistant principals had 1.25 years less experience on average than women who entered high school principalships. In elementary and middle schools, the gender gap was even larger, mounting to 1.62 years.

"At every point of promotion, the pool of candidates is whiter and more male, especially compared to the teacher workforce," said Guthery. "We find that diversity exists in the pipeline, but the pipeline tends to squeeze out women and Blacks much earlier than studies of school leadership usually capture."

Bailes and Guthery also examined the differences between women's promotions across elementary, middle, and high schools to identify the ways in which women are promoted within education careers. They found that even when women worked as assistant principals in high schools for a longer time and had more career experience than their male counterparts, they were more likely to be promoted to principal in elementary schools than in high schools. This had implications for their future opportunities in higher levels of leadership, according to the authors.

"Because a high school principalship is so often viewed as requisite for district leadership, women who lead elementary schools are less likely to be tapped for superintendencies and other district leadership positions," said Bailes, an assistant professor at the University of Delaware.

The authors note that considering the enormous influence that principals exert on teachers and students, the systematic non-promotion of Black principal candidates imposes consequences for Black teachers and students throughout the entire school system.

"Because principals and district leaders are more likely to identify educators of their own race for promotion, the underrepresentation of minority groups is likely to ripple throughout schools and districts," said Bailes. "Prior research also shows that hiring more Black principals can help close the achievement gaps between White and non-White students nationally."

According to the authors, the patterns of disparities in leadership identified in their study suggest that state and district policymakers should consider establishing metrics of success within their school systems that rate equity in promotion for equivalently qualified individuals who aspire to school leadership.

"Administrators, such as principals and district leaders, need to identify and actively nurture diversity in all levels of leadership," Bailes said. "It is crucial that districts monitor inequities in their promotion practices."

Explore further High principal evaluations predict student achievement

More information: Lauren P. Bailes et al, Held Down and Held Back: Systematically Delayed Principal Promotions by Race and Gender, AERA Open (2020). Lauren P. Bailes et al, Held Down and Held Back: Systematically Delayed Principal Promotions by Race and Gender,(2020). DOI: 10.1177/2332858420929298

Provided by American Educational Research Association
China recently revealed that all six of its Type 94 SSBNs (ballistic missile carrying nuclear subs) were built as, or upgraded to, the Type 94A standard. Improvements include a different shaped sail containing improved equipment. The aft (rear) end of the 94A s now has storage space for a towed sonar array. This type of passive (listen-only) sonar can be deployed behind the sub via a cable that supplies power and links the sonar with the onboard computers and digital libraries of known underwater sounds. The towed sonar operates in an environment where there are no noises from the sub to muddle the sounds detected and, improve the ability of the SSBN to detect other subs, particularly American Virginia class SSNs that might be tracking them or trying to. Another potential threat is quieter diesel-electric Japanese or South Koreans subs that can stay underwater for weeks at a time searching for Chinese surface ships and subs. The Type 94A upgrades included more powerful computers and additional data storage. There were also upgrades to the torpedo tubes and torpedo control systems as well as a long list of minor mechanical and electronic upgrades throughout the sub.

Two more 094s were completed in 2019 as Type 94A and are being readied for sea trials. It was known that some of the earlier four Type 94s were being upgraded and now it has been confirmed that all of them were. The Type 94 is an 8,000 ton (on the surface) sub that is 138 meters long. Construction on the new Type 96 SSBN has not started yet but is expected to get underway before 2025 and enter service by 2030.

The Type 94A is comparable to American Franklin class SSBNs that entered service in the late 1960s. These served into the 1990s when they were replaced by the much-improved Ohio class. China seems to be seeking to make a similar leap with the Type 97 SSBN, which will build on all China has learned about SSBNs in the last few decades.

The second generation Chinese SSBN, the Type 94, entered service in 2007 but was limited by its poor performance and the persistent problems with the JL-2 SLBM (sub launched ballistic missiles) it was designed to carry. China apparently hopes to avoid all this partial success with the Type 96 SSBN and Jl-3 SLBM. That approach often works for the Chinese, who are persistent in these matters and are willing to keep at it even after decades of partial successes.

The Type 94 SSBNs carry twelve JL (Julang) 2 SLBMs. The missile has had a lot of problems as have the SSBNs that carry them. The 42 ton JL-2 has a range of 7,500 kilometers and would enable China to aim missiles at any target in the United States from a 094 class SSBN cruising off Hawaii or Alaska. JL-2s are naval versions of the existing land-based 42 ton DF-31 ICBM. The JL-2 was supposed to have entered service 2015 but kept failing test launches. China decided that JL-2 was reliable enough and ordered it installed in all six Type 094 SLBMs. There is now an improved SLBM, the JL-2A, which is supposed to be more reliable and a range of at least 9,000 kilometers. No Chinese SSBN has ever gone on a combat cruise, because these boats, as well as the SLBMs, have been very unreliable. If the JL-2A is indeed reliable, as the Chinese claim, the first SSBN combat patrol may take place in 2020.

The current American Ohio class SSBNs are 171 meters long and displace 15,600 (on the surface) tons. They are being replaced with the new Columbia class SSBNs, which will be about the same length of the Ohios but about 5 percent larger in diameter and displace 18,500 tons. The Ohios were based on 1980s technology and, although upgraded over the years are showing their age. The Ohios entered service between 1981 and 1997. Originally there were to be 24 Ohios but only 18 were built. With the end of the Cold War in 1991 even fewer were needed and four were converted to SSGNs (carrying cruise missiles instead of SLBMs), a process that was completed in 2008. Originally built to last 30 years, it was later realized that this service life could be extended to at least 42 years. That means the Ohios will begin reaching retirement age in 2023 and the entire class will be gone by the late 2030s. If no replacement class of SSBNs is built the SSBNs will be gone.

The first American SSBNs were the five 6,000-ton boats of the George Washington class. These were basically an SSN design that was enlarged to add the missile compartment for 16 Polaris missiles. The first of these boats entered service in 1960 and was soon joined by five of the 6,900-ton Ethan Allen class, which was designed from the start as an SSBN. These entered service in the early 1960s. Basically, this was an improved George Washington class. Next came nine 7,200-ton Lafayette class boats, with the first entering service in 1963, and the last one decommissioned in 1994. The next two classes (James Madison and Benjamin Franklin) were similar, with incremental improvements. The incremental improvements were not trivial. The Benjamin Franklins had much quieter machinery, better electronics and enough room to handle the Trident 1 missile. The last of the Franklins was decommissioned in 2002, after over 30 years of service, leaving just the Ohios.

In their first fifty years, U.S. SSBNs have made nearly 4,000 deployments (gone to sea for 11-12 weeks at a time). By 2009 the Ohios completed their 1,000th deployment. After the late 1990s, the number of deployments each year declined by about half in large part because the need (potential for nuclear war) greatly decreased.

One area where China is still way behind is the design and construction of SLBM but they are working hard to close the gap with American SLBMs. In December 2018 Chinese media announced that China had successfully tested a new JL-3 SLBM in November. This SLBM apparently worked and demonstrated it had a range of 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles). That is nearly 30 percent farther than the earlier and less reliable JL-2. The success of the JL-3 coincides with revelations that here is now an improved SLBM, the JL-2A, which is supposed to be more reliable and a range of at least 9,000 kilometers. Ultimately the JL-3 range is supposed to be 11,000 kilometers. JL-3 is larger than the JL-2 and wont fit in the Type 94A SSBNs.

The JL (Julang) 3 may be the first Chinese SLBM reliable enough to use regularly in Chinese SSBNs and allow them to operate at sea frequently and reliably. The success of the JL-3 may be good news for the troublesome JL-2. Either the JL-2 is going to get more reliable or the improved Type 94 SSBNs are going to be modified to carry a small number of JL-3s.

Development problems also delayed the first Chinese SLBM, the JL-1, from entering regular service. Work on the JL-1 began in the late 1960s and it was designed as a 14.5 ton solid fuel ballistic missile with a range of 1,700 (later 2,500) kilometers. It carried one nuclear warhead. Its first test launch at sea occurred in 1982. Meanwhile, work was underway on the first Chinese SSBN, the Type 92, which was not a success. The single Type 92 was built in 1981 and entered service with JL-1 SLBMs in 1987. Neither the Type 92 nor its JL-1 SLBM ever performed well and the Type 92 only made one voyage beyond Chinese coastal waters. The Type 92 is technically still in service but has spent most of its time tied up at a pier and reportedly serving as a testbed for new submarine technologies. The JL-1 also served on Chinese Type 31 SSBs but never went far from Chinese coastal waters. The JL-1 was also modified to operate as the land-based DF-21 and that was a much more successful missile.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy is upgrading and refurbishing its current Trident II SLBMs so that these weapons will still be effective until 2040. There have already been upgrades to the electronics and mechanical components in the guidance system. Upgrades are underway to the reentry body (heat shield and such that gets individual warheads to the ground intact). Some of the upgrades are classified and details on all of them are kept secret for obvious reasons.

The Trident II is one of those rare complex systems that consistently perform flawlessly. They do exist. For example, test firings of production models of the Trident II have never failed. There have been 148 of these missiles launched each involving an SSBN firing one of their Trident IIs, with the nuclear warhead replaced by one of similar weight but containing sensors and communications equipment.

The test results for the Trident while in development were equally impressive, with 87 percent successful (in 23 development tests) for the Trident I and 98 percent (49 tests) of the Trident II. The Trident I served from 1979-2005, while the Trident II entered service in 1990 and may end up serving for half a century.

Trident II is a 59-ton missile with a max range of 7,200-11,000 kilometers (depending on the number of warheads carried). Up to eight W76 nuclear warheads can be carried, each with the explosive power equal to 100,000 tons of high explosives. Trident IIs cost about $31 million each.

The success of the Trident is in sharp contrast to the problems Russia and China have had developing SLBMs. The latest Russian SLBM, the Bulava (also known as R-30 3M30 and SS-NX-30), was almost canceled because test flights kept failing. The Bulava finally completed its test program entered service in 2013. But since then there have been failures during test launches. The Russians have no choice but to accept the less reliable Bulavas for their new class of SSBNs. China has tried to avoid the mistakes the Russians made and adopt the methods employed by the Americans. The Chinese are often successful at this but it is not an instant process. China often has to develop (or steal) new technologies and learn how to manufacture new components reliably. This takes time, but the Chinese are willing to be patient.
While recounting the harrowing experience, Kishore said that during the firing he had rushed towards the Indian side but Nepal Army personnel hit him with a rifle butt and took him to Nepal's Sangrampur.

IMAGE: People carry villagers injured in firing by Nepalese security forces in the bordering district of Saitmarhi on Friday. Photograph: ANI Photo

After months of separation due to COVID-19 induced lockdown, a Nepali woman who had married into an Indian family, wanted to meet her mother who lived at the India-Nepal border.

Little did she know that fate has something else in the store and her fateful journey would cost the life of her husband, for no fault of his.

The couple got married in 2018 and have a one-year-old child.

It is said that both the countries share a relationship of 'Beti-Roti' as the majority of men in villages from the area are married to girls hailing from Nepal.

Therefore, the unprecedented incident of firing on Indians that took place on Friday on the India-Nepal border has shocked the residents of Jankinagar, Lalbandi and several villages near the border.

Several locals in Bihar's Sitamarhi district recounted the horrific brutality and intimidation by Nepal's security personnel who had resorted to unprovoked firing on a group of people at the international border, which left one Indian dead and two others injured.

"18-20 shots were fired for over one hour and everyone is reeling with shock even now," said Nitish Kumar, a resident of Jankinagar recalling the incident.

Santosh Kumar, whose elder brother was killed in the firing, said, "Nepal security personnel came inside the Indian border. They were 20-25 people. I was there. Security forces fired and my brother lost his life."

Lagan Kishore, who was detained by Nepal's security personnel after the firing returned to Sitamarhi district of Bihar on Saturday was handed over to the Indian Security Forces at the no man's land on June 13.

While recounting the harrowing experience, Kishore said that during the firing he had rushed towards the Indian side but Nepal Army personnel hit him with a rifle butt and took him to Nepal's Sangrampur.

He was also asked to confess that he was taken into custody from the Nepali side.

"We ran to return to India when they started firing, but they dragged me from the Indian side, hit me with a rifle butt and took me to Nepal's Sangrampur.

"They told me to confess that I was brought there from Nepal. I told them you can kill me but I was brought there from India," said Kishore.

Kishore's son also recalling the incident said that Nepali personnel started abusing them and hit him and his father, who was later detained.

Speaking to ANI, Kishore's son said, "We had gone to meet my brother-in-law. Security personnel started abusing me but I could not understand their language.

"However, my brother's wife asked them to not abuse. After that, they came to the Indian side and hit me. I told my father about the incident and he confronted them."

"They started beating him and called fellow personnel who started firing and dragged my father from the Indian side, hit him with a rifle butt and took him to Nepal's Sangrampur," he said.
DRAPER, Utah, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HealthEquity, Inc. (HQY) (HealthEquity or the Company), today announced additional information regarding its 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the Annual Meeting). As previously announced, the Annual Meeting will be held on Thursday, June 25, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. MDT.



Due to the public health impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus), and in the interest of complying with various public health orders and recommendations limiting travel and the conduct of business activity, the Company will no longer hold the Annual Meeting in-person in Draper, Utah. Instead, the Company will hold the Annual Meeting solely in a virtual meeting format, and you will not be able to attend the Annual Meeting physically.

As described in the proxy materials for the Annual Meeting distributed previously, you are entitled to participate in the Annual Meeting if you were a stockholder of record as of the close of business on May 4, 2020. Whether or not you plan to attend the Annual Meeting, we urge you to vote and submit your proxy in advance by one of the methods described in the proxy materials for the Annual Meeting. You will not receive a new proxy card reflecting the change to a virtual meeting. The proxy card included with the proxy materials distributed previously will not be updated to reflect the change in location and may continue to be used to vote your shares in connection with the Annual Meeting.

Attending the Virtual Annual Meeting

To attend the virtual Annual Meeting, please visit: https://web.lumiagm.com/261252145. If you also want to vote at the meeting, please follow the instructions below and login with your unique 11-digit control number.

Voting at the Virtual Annual Meeting

For record owners: To vote during the Annual Meeting, login with your 11-digit control number (found on your proxy card, the stockholder meeting notice, or in an email you previously received from American Stock Transfer & Trust Company ("AST")). If prompted for an additional code, enter: hlthvirt2020. If you do not have your 11-digit control number, please contact AST at 1-800-937-5449 (outside the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico: 1-718-921-8124).

Story continues

For holders in street name: If you hold your shares through an intermediary, such as a bank or broker, and you wish to vote during the Annual Meeting, you must obtain a legal proxy from your bank, broker or other intermediary and then register in advance by submitting the legal proxy, along with your name and email address, to AST at proxy@astfinancial.com. You will receive a confirmation email from AST with a 11-digit control number, which may be used to login to vote during the virtual Annual Meeting. If prompted for an additional code, enter: hlthvirt2020.

About HealthEquity

HealthEquity administers Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and other consumer-directed benefits for our more than 12 million accounts in partnership with employers, benefits advisors, and health and retirement plan providers who share our mission to connect health and wealth and value our culture of remarkable Purple service. For more information, visit www.healthequity.com.

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding our industry, business strategy, plans, goals and expectations concerning our markets and market position, product expansion, future operations, expenses and other results of operations, revenue, margins, profitability, future efficiencies, tax rates, capital expenditures, liquidity and capital resources and other financial and operating information. When used in this discussion, the words may, believes, intends, seeks, anticipates, plans, estimates, expects, should, assumes, continues, could, will, future and the negative of these or similar terms and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking statements in this press release.

Forward-looking statements reflect our current expectations regarding future events, results or outcomes. These expectations may or may not be realized. Although we believe the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give you no assurance these expectations will prove to be correct. Some of these expectations may be based upon assumptions, data or judgments that prove to be incorrect. Actual events, results and outcomes may differ materially from our expectations due to a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors. Although it is not possible to identify all of these risks and factors, they include, among others, risks related to the following:

the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company, its operations and its financial results;

our ability to realize the anticipated financial and other benefits from combining the operations of WageWorks with our business in an efficient and effective manner;

our ability to compete effectively in a rapidly evolving healthcare and benefits administration industry;

our dependence on the continued availability and benefits of tax-advantaged health savings accounts and other consumer-directed benefits;

our ability to successfully identify, acquire and integrate additional portfolio purchases or acquisition targets;

the significant competition we face and may face in the future, including from those with greater resources than us;

our reliance on the availability and performance of our technology and communications systems;

recent and potential future cybersecurity breaches of our technology and communications systems and other data interruptions, including resulting costs and liabilities, reputational damage and loss of business;

the current uncertain healthcare environment, including changes in healthcare programs and expenditures and related regulations;

our ability to comply with current and future privacy, healthcare, tax, investment advisor and other laws applicable to our business;

our reliance on partners and third-party vendors for distribution and important services;

our ability to develop and implement updated features for our technology and communications systems and successfully manage our growth;

our ability to protect our brand and other intellectual property rights; and

our reliance on our management team and key team members.

For a detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, please refer to the risks detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent periodic and current reports. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. We undertake no intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Investor Relations Contact:

Richard Putnam

801-727-1209

rputnam@healthequity.com
President Hassan Rouhani has issued a warning to other members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on following the US plan to continue the arms embargo on his country.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting on June 14, Rouhani said, The issue of the end of arms sanctions in October is one of the important achievements of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and if the Americans want to undermine this achievement, other big nations know what Irans response will be. He continued, I am hopeful all of the countries of the Security Council and the board of governors are completely aware of all of Americas conspiracies.

As part of the JCPOA, the formal name for the nuclear deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany, a ban on selling arms to Iran and Irans ability to sell arms to other countries will be lifted in October. The United States, which exited the deal in May 2018, is seeking to reenter the deal and initiate a snapback on Iran that would keep these sanctions in place. Russia and China, both permanent members of the Security Council, have said they would oppose such US measures.

Rouhani did not specify what Iran would do if other countries go along with the United States on continuing the arms embargo. An article in Mehr News listed a few options Iran would have. The article suggested that Iran could limit International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections, increase uranium enrichments back to pre-JCPOA levels at 20%, stop the additional protocols the country is voluntarily implementing, leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the country entered in 1968 or completely leave the JCPOA.

Despite the stated opposition from Russia and China to the continuation of the embargo, the fact that Iran is taking seriously the ability of the United States to force its way on this suggests the country is worried it may go through.

While Iran is currently trying to fight off a UNSC decision on the arms embargo, it is also questioning the latest IAEA decisions to move ahead on an inquiry that was sparked by Israel. Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Irans Foreign Ministry, criticized the agency for an upcoming meeting to discuss claims about a secret Iranian nuclear site that was presented by the Israeli government. It is unfortunate that the agency, instead of relying on reliable documents and Irans high cooperation with the agency, relies on the claims of a regime whose animosity with the people and government of Iran is clear to everyone, Mousavi stated.

He continued, Our recommendation to the agency is to have some foresight and base your questions on issues that are more detailed and legal and not the claims of a regime that claims it received the documents from a spy.

The United States reapplied nuclear sanctions on Iran after its JCPOA exit, and Iran reopened parts of its nuclear program that it had closed under the JCPOA. While Iran has technically remained in the JCPOA, it is hopeful that European countries in the UNSC will help it evade US sanctions for its full return to the JCPOA.
On Sunday night, Justin Miller, a lawyer hired by the Brooks family, issued a statement where they condemned the police officers involved in the incident, claiming their first comment after striking the victim was "very disturbing", CNN reports.

According to Miller, the officer's first comment following the shooting was not that his life was saved, but "I got him." He also revealed autopsy results which showed Brooks was shot twice in the back, with his manner of death listed as homicide.

On Saturday night, Miller released a statement disputing the police department's official account of the incident. The lawyer claimed witnesses said they did not see the police officers conduct a sobriety test. He also claimed Brooks kept a "civil" profile while talking with the police.

Stewart claimed the law enforcement officers could have cornered and arrested the victim, instead of chasing him and opening fire. He further alleged the officers put on plastic gloves to pick up shell casings before performing first aid on the victim.

Shooting at Wendy's

An Atlanta police officer fatally shot a black man who fell asleep in his vehicle at a Wendy's drive-through, prompting a new wave of unrest. The victim was identified as 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks.

In a report by Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the officers responded to complaints of a man who was blocking the drive-thru after falling asleep in his vehicle. The victim was subjected to a sobriety test which he failed. During the arrest, Brooks allegedly resisted and grabbed a Taser from the officer. He was shot in the struggle over the stun gun.

A cellphone video circulating on social media showed the struggle between Brooks and the police, and the victim running away. A CCTV footage from Wendy's showed Brooks seemingly turning and pointing the Taser at the Atlanta officer. One of the cops retrieves his firearm from his holster and shoots, striking and killing Brooks.

The GBI revealed the bodycam of the police officer was knocked off during the physical struggle. Brooks was immediately transported to a nearby hospital where he died after undergoing surgery.

The police officers-identified as Garret Rolfe and Devin Brosnan-were fired and placed on administrative duty, respectively. On Saturday, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields resigned from her position, USA Today reported.

Kiara Owens, Brooks's 26-year-old half-sister, said the victim was working in construction and had five daughters, two of whom were stepchildren. He was also expecting a sixth child.

"All he wanted to do is work and come home to his kids," she said. "The kids have been asking like, 'Is Daddy coming home?' And I can't tell the kids nothing. I can't tell them."

Ensuing Demonstrations

The shooting left many in the city outraged. By Saturday night, a group of demonstrators blocked the roads and an interstate near Wendy's and set it on fire.

The National Guard troops, who were fully armed, arrived at 8:30 PM. The protesters began surrounding police cars, others surged on the troops without touching them. After a few minutes, the authorities threw canisters of tear gas into the crowd, causing the demonstrators to flee.





Read more here:
Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are considering offering spectrum, licence, tangible net assets and tax refunds as security in guarantee of payment, CNBC-TV18 reported citing sources.

The development comes after the Supreme Court last week asked the telecom operators to spell out the roadmap, timeline and security of payment.

The court was hearing a petition filed by the Department of Telecom on permitting the telecom operators to pay the remaining AGR dues in a staggered manner over a period of 20 years.

The apex court noted that a staggered payment schedule could not be provided without security or undertaking by the telcos.

"Telecom operators are assessing the value of tangible assets. Net assets will play a sizable role in functioning as the security that is being asked from them," a highly-placed source aware of the issue told CNBC-TV18.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source added: "In the court, the counsels of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had said that licence and spectrum can be cancelled on non-payment. NCLAT had ruled in favour of spectrum qualifying as an asset but that had been contested by the DoT."

The source further said that while the telecom operators are offering spectrum and licence as security, it remains to be seen if the Supreme Court will accept it.

"Another security being considered is the tax refunds due to the two telecom operators.

Tax refunds to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore are due to the telecom operators. Add to that pending payment by public sector units to the tune of approximately Rs 20,000 crore," another source was quoted as saying.

The value when seen together would be a sizeable relief, the source added. But personal or bank guarantees appeared very improbable.

"Bank guarantees are very difficult to furnish as the banking sector already has a high exposure to telecom operators and is unlikely to provide for further guarantees, the source said and added that "even if they do, current norms require 70-90% of the payment to be provided in the form of securities of the same value which will be difficult for the operators at this stage".

"Vodafone idea has already said that it cannot provide for bank guarantees," the source said.

According to the sources, the telecom operators in their reply may detail how it is impossible for publicly listed firms to give personal guarantees as it can cause disruption in shareholder value.

The companies will further have to provide a detailed estimation of the anticipated revenue and cash outflow, sources told CNBC-TV18.

"When telecom operators apply for spectrum, they furnish a detailed report on the past and current revenue growth and projection on revenue visibility for the coming years. That is how 20-year licences are given out to telecom operators. That should also play a key role," Rajan Matthew, Director General of the Cellular Operators Authority of India told CNBC-TV18.

The SC had some harsh comments on the idea of 20 years of staggered payment. Though 20 years is the preferred timeline, telecom operators are mulling asking for at least 10-15 years, if not 20 in their response, said the sources.

"The DOT has calculated the time frame based on what will leave the least dent on the balance sheet of the telecom operators, they may request and outline how 10-15 years is the minimum time frame they need to make the payment," they said.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have to now provide a reply by June 17, a day before the hearing on June 18.
SANFORD, MI  Kathy Parsch didnt expect to be gone long.

The Sanford resident heard about floodwaters encroaching on her Midland County community after heavy rains in mid-May. Parsch had moved into a home there one year ago near the banks of the Tittabawassee River.

Its a quiet area," she said. Hardware store, pizza place, gas station. Everything I needed was just right there.

The rain began on May 17.

Parsch was scheduled to work 10 hours, but she cut it an hour short and decided to head home.

There were people everywhere and there was chaos, she recalled. I wasnt sure what was going on. I was still able to drive in my driveway.

It was a short time later when friends, including a member of the local fire department, urged Parsch to get out of the house.

Kathy Parsch is pictured holding an urn containing the ashes of her late mother Mary Parsch. Kathy Parsch and friends had searched what's left of her Sanford home that was ravaged by flood waters eight times prior to the discovery on Sunday, June 14, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Karen Stephenson).

A few hours later, the water began its climb and Parsch was unable to leave.

My friend from the fire department said if you cant drive out, just hunker down and stay where you are, she said. You need to get out. If those dams break, youre screwed.

A boat was sent out in the early morning hours to grab Parsch, who had to wade out in waist-deep water. On the way out the door, Parsch grabbed some bills on the counter and stuffed a few outfits into a duffel bag.

When it happened, I just assumed I was coming back, she said on Monday, June 15. I didnt think I was going to grab my moms ashes or things that actually meant something to me.

She went to work on Wednesday when her phone rang and her neighbor broke the news.

I dont know how to tell you thisyour home is gone, recalled Parsch. That was kind of how I found out I didnt have a home any longer and its been chaos ever since.

The Edenville and Sanford dams failed, pushing millions of gallons of water into the river and over its banks, displacing residents across mid-Michigan.

Using a kayak, Parsch was able to make it back to the home a few days later and found out her home that had been raised three years earlier due to flooding concerns had been moved by the force of the water.

A tree near the corner of the home kept everything from being swept away, but her belongings were covered in sediment and mud.

Each time Parsch returned to the home with a group of friends, shes looked for the urn containing her mothers ashes through the muck and insulation.

Mary Parsch was a special education teacher in Mt. Clemens and Grosse Pointe for more than 20 years.

We had a great relationship and she developed Alzheimers five years prior to her death, said Kathy Parsch of her mother, who died Christmas Eve 2013 at 70. Watching her turn into a person you dont recognize anymore. It was heartbreaking.

On Sunday, during an eighth trip back to the home, Marge Charbonneau went to digging in the corner of the home. Charbonneau found the urn and placed it into her friends hand.

Letting out a few expletives in disbelief moments after the discovery, Parsch soon after broke down in tears.

Im still shaking on how that all happened, she said, thanking everyone who helped search and offered assistance in the days after the flooding. Im so elated and so grateful.

Kathy Parsch has moved into Charbonneaus Bay City home until she sorts things out. Shes keeping her mothers ashes close to her, she said.

Yesterday when Marge found her, I just never let go of her, said Kathy Parsch. I had her with me the whole time. I had a bonfire, we celebrated. I actually slept with her. I didnt want to let her out of my sight.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 04:46:34|Editor: huaxia

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CAIRO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Iran on Monday nudged 190,000. Meanwhile, a Chinese medical team visited a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Iran, which has re-emerged as the hardest-hit country by the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East region, reported 2,449 new cases, bringing the total number of infections to 189,876 on Monday.

The pandemic has so far claimed the lives of 8,950 people in Iran, up by 113 in the past 24 hours.

Besides, 150,590 have recovered and been discharged from hospitals while 2,765 remain in critical condition.

Meanwhile, a Chinese medical expert team on Monday visited a refugee camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

At the Amari Refugee Camp, the team visited a health center run by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), where health workers at the center briefed the team on their anti-coronavirus measures.

The Chinese experts also met with the Public Committee of Amari Refugee Camp, which is a social organization in charge of the public affairs of the camp, in coordination with the UNRWA.

During the meeting, health workers and officials of the Palestinian health ministry said the refugee camp's health situation is facing challenges due to the increasing demand for health services amidst the pandemic and the poor conditions in the camp.

On Monday, Palestine announced that 10 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the West Bank, bringing the total cases to 686.

China's efforts to help the Middle East countries fight against COVID-19 have been hailed by regional countries.

Syria's assistant health minister Ahmad Khleifawi has said that Syria has benefited from China's experience in fighting COVID-19.

"We have benefited from what has been concluded in the Chinese experience and experiences in other countries as well as the recommendations from the World Health Organization," the Syrian official said in an interview with Xinhua.

Khleifawi noted that there is "ongoing coordination" with China regarding ways to confront the COVID-19 cases in the war-torn country.

He mentioned several online video conferences were held between Chinese and Syrian doctors to exchange experiences and benefit from each other's experiences.

The cooperation aims to enable the Syrian side to get to know the opinions of the Chinese doctors and the Chinese experience in dealing with COVID-19, the assistant health minister said.

The health ministry in Syria has so far recorded 177 COVID-19 infections, including 74 recoveries and six deaths.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca on Monday reported 1,592 new novel coronavirus cases, making the total to 179,831.

In a single day, 18 people died, taking the death toll to 4,825, the minister tweeted.

Egypt reported on Monday its highest single-day COVID-19 deaths with 97 fatalities, taking the death toll in the North African country to 1,672.

According to the Egyptian Health Ministry, 1,691 new COVID-19 infections have been registered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases to 46,289.

The Israeli Ministry of Health reported 182 new cases on Monday, bringing the total to 19,237.

According to the ministry, the number of death cases has risen from 300 to 302, including a 26-year-old patient who died Sunday evening, the youngest coronavirus victim in the country.

Saudi Arabia announced on Monday 4,507 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, raising the total number in the kingdom to 132,048.

Meanwhile, the kingdom reported 39 more deaths, bringing the death toll to 1,011.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday announced 342 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 42,636.

The UAE's health ministry also confirmed two more deaths, pushing the country's death toll to 291.

The Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday recorded 1,106 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of infections to 21,315 in the country.

It said that 45 more people died from the coronavirus during the day, bringing the death toll to 652, while 9,271 patients have recovered.

The Qatari health ministry on Monday announced 1,274 new infections of COVID-19, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 80,876.

Meanwhile, the ministry said three new fatalities were reported, raising the death toll to 76.

Kuwait on Monday reported 511 new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths, raising the tally of infections to 36,431 and the death toll to 298.

Morocco's COVID-19 tally on Monday climbed to 8,885 as 92 new cases were confirmed in the last 24 hours.

The total number of deaths due to the COVID-19 infection stood at 212, as no new fatality was recorded in the last 72 hours.

The Omani Ministry of Health announced on Monday 1,043 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 24,524.

It also said four new deaths were reported, bringing the death toll to 108.

Lebanon's number of COVID-19 infections increased on Monday by 18 to 1,464, while death toll remained 32.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in Yemen's government-controlled provinces increased to 844 on Monday as 116 new cases were confirmed.

The Yemeni Health Ministry announced that the death toll from the deadly respiratory disease climbed to 208 in different areas under its control, including the southern port city of Aden. Enditem
AEFYT (Association of Cold Industry and its Technologies) has signed a collaboration agreement with BASE (Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy) which will promote the contracting of energy efficiency projects in refrigeration facilities.



BASE is a non-governmental organization located in Basel, Switzerland that develops instruments to unlock investment in sustainable energy and energy efficiency. The model developed in Europe for the promotion of energy efficiency is part of the European project ESI Europe (Energy Savings Insurance), belonging to the Horizon 2020 financing program, which is developed by an international consortium coordinated by BASE in cooperation with organizations in Spain, Italy and Portugal. It is a project that replicates a series of mechanisms that have already been successfully implemented by BASE in Central American countries. EnergyLab is a Technology Center that develops R & D & i activities in the field of energy efficiency and sustainability, and are the partners in Spain for the implementation of this European project.



"Go Safe with ESI" is the trademark under which this initiative is promoted to facilitate the realization and implementation of energy efficiency projects, proposing a contracting model that can be used outside the validity of the European project ESI Europe. GoSafe with ESI enables energy efficiency projects to be articulated around risk mitigation instruments, such as a standardized contract, a simplified external validation process, and insurance that covers the committed energy savings.



In this way, AEFYT associates, such as installers or suppliers of refrigeration equipment, will be able to guarantee their end customers a measurable and verifiable savings commitment that justifies the investment in energy efficiency they propose. GoSafe's approach is that, once the project is structured according to these elements, end customers can access green financing lines under more advantageous conditions.



New refrigeration systems have implemented important advances in energy efficiency in recent years. For this reason, we think it is interesting to provide our companies with tools with which to demonstrate to their clients how refrigeration can positively impact their sustainability objectives, said Manuel Lamua, manager of AEFYT.
A Kurdish refugee and advocate who worked to help others come to Canada is missing after the boat he was in capsized on Lake Winnipeg at Belair, Man., on Saturday.

Search and rescue crews spent hours looking for Nour Ali, 42, on Saturday. That continued on the water for much of Sunday, with about 50 loved ones and volunteers walking the shoreline looking for signs of Ali.

"We're just praying for Nour to be out there and alive," said Ali's good friend Hadji Hesso, director of the Yazidi Association of Manitoba, who planned to drive to Belair to be with the family Sunday.

Hesso described Ali as a tireless member of the community who dedicated much of his life in recent years to helping newcomers adapt to life in Canada.

Ali's father, who was also on the boat, is dead, friends and family at the scene confirmed.

Wildinette Paul/Radio-Canada

RCMP said Sunday that five people were on the boat fishing when it took on water and capsized. Three men, aged 37, 48 and 65, were rescued from the water and taken to hospital, according to a news release.

Several people on shore Saturday called 911 and tried to help, RCMP said. A 73-year-old man from Winnipeg was later found in the water, taken to shore and pronounced dead.

STARS Air Ambulance also landed at the scene Saturday but did not transport anyone to hospital.

About 50 friends and family continued to search for Ali Sunday.

Missing man spent years helping others

Ali fled Syria in 2006, and after spending time in refugee camps in China and Macao, he ended up in Manitoba with his wife and two daughters just over seven years ago.

Yachar Barakat, who, with Hesso, was among more than a dozen people to arrive at the boat launch Saturday evening, said Ali spent years helping others make the same journey.

Travis Golby/CBC

Ali's father had only been in Canada for about a year, he said, becoming a Canadian citizen not long before his father's arrival.

"He was like, 'Yes! I can officially vote and cast my ballot now that I am a Canadian citizen,' and he was so happy to do so," said Hesso.

Story continues

"The ethno-cultural community, he was one of the main people ... who supported newcomers."

Travis Golby/CBC

Jennifer Chen, a trustee in the Winnipeg School Division, said she had been planning an upcoming community event with Ali.

"I cannot imagine that next time when the community meets, he won't be there," she said.

"It's a devastating loss for the whole community. Nour gave everything he had to help others. When people asked, he was always there with his warm heart and helping hands."

Coast guard, military help in search

Members of the Canadian military, Canadian Coast Guard, RCMP, fire and paramedics took part in the search and rescue operations.

At about 7:45 p.m. Saturday, the capsized boat was towed to the boat launch, where several RCMP vehicles from Selkirk and Powerview were parked.

Bartley Kives/CBC

By dusk, most loved ones and searchers had left the boat ramp at the bottom of Yellow Brick Road, a gravel road that meets Lake Winnipeg, as the search wound down for the night.

Hesso was with that group. He was still holding out hope Sunday that a man he considers a brother would survive the ordeal, but he was bracing for the worst.

"There's not a day goes by without us talking about something," said Hesso.

"Nour was a great person and he did so much for the community in Winnipeg and Manitoba, and he advocated on behalf of so many people ... He's a great person."

Weather "certainly" a factor: RCMP

In an interview Sunday evening, RCMP Sgt. Bob Chabot, who is the service's marine coordinator in Manitoba, said the search had ended for the day around 5 p.m.

Chabot said crews conducted 57 lines of search in a grid around the precise location where the boat capsized and to the north.

A dive team will be called in to assist if the weather permits on Monday, he said.

For now, Chabot said searchers are using electronics that can be used for closer examination underwater.

Travis Golby/CBC

He does not know what caused the boat to go under, but weather was certainly a factor.

"There was some fairly high waves, there was some high winds, so we're looking at all those factors to determine what happened," he said.

"[Lake Winnipeg] they call it an inland ocean... the conditions can get very dangerous for boaters," he said.

Chabot did not have information about whether everyone on board the boat was wearing life jackets, but said at least one person who swam to shore was wearing a life-preservation vest.

"There's always hope. I really never try to lose hope," he said.

Some groups working with newcomers expressed condolences to the family and broader community on social media on Sunday.

The community of Belair is located 91 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, in the Rural Municipality of Alexander.
TDT Manama

Bahrain has become the first country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to ratify a key United Nations convention on electronic communications, helping to enable a new wave of digital business across the region and enhance investor protections.

The United Nations Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts (2005) aims to enhance commercial certainty by ensuring that contracts concluded and other communications exchanged electronically are as valid and enforceable as their traditional paper-based equivalents, and by introducing specific principles surrounding the use of technology during signing processes.

This will enter into force for Bahrain on January 1 next year. The principles of the treaty include defining terminology such as writing and signature so that all parties are protected legally when entering into a contract. The convention also aims to remove legal obstacles to the use of electronic communications in enacting previous treaties that were created before the widespread use of modern technology.

Bahrain became the 14th country globally to join the treaty, alongside major economies such as Singapore and Russia. Countries that have signed, but not yet ratified, the convention include China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. It comes after Bahrain made history in November 2018 by becoming the first nation to enact legislation based on the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) e-commerce model laws.

The move was part of a series of sweeping reforms aimed at bolstering the digital readiness of the GGC regions $1.5trillion economy. To build a truly digital economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it is essential that our regulation keeps pace with the latest developmentsparticularly at a time when more and more business is being conducted in the virtual realm, said Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) chief executive Khalid Humaidan.

Bahrain is leading the way on tech-driven reforms and is committed to supporting the needs of entrepreneurs and investors as they work to build long-term growth in our thriving e-commerce landscape. We look forward to continuing to work closely with the UN as we stay on the cutting edge of legislative developments. UNCITRAL Working Group IV (Electronic Commerce) secretary Luca Castellani hailed the development.

The accession of Bahrain to this treaty completes the significant work that the Government of Bahrain and the UNCITRAL secretariat have carried out together to provide the Kingdom with a modern, efficient and effective enabling legal framework for the digital economy, he said.

I am confident that this will encourage more countries in the region and worldwide to adopt the latest UNCITRAL texts in the field. UN Development Programme resident representative Stefano Pettinato said that by ratifying the UN Convention on electronic communications, Bahrain sets an example on how digital technology, international law, and multilateralism are enabling factors for the promotion of international trade and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through greener and more efficient protocols.
Our children are at risk on the streets in every community across the country. It is unnerving to watch police brutality continue toward the protesters over the past few days after George Floyds murder.

Injuring a 75-year-old man and not assisting him, police officers continuing to put a knee to the neck, shooting and killing a woman in her home, and tasing young teens in a car are just a few of the many incidents that demonstrate the racists views and actions of police officers.

They continue to display how they do not respect the lives and rights of others.

The statistics are startling.

In 2019, 24 percent of all police killings were of black Americans, when just 13 percent of the U.S. population is black.

These officers are the real criminals and they need to be held accountable.

The movement we are seeing now for racial justice has been needed for many years and people in places of power need to listen.

Systemic injustice is hurting everyone.

Police officers must remember that they are held to a higher standard. The police have a sworn duty to protect the lives and property of the communities they serve, and just like in any profession, you have bad and good officers.

Disciplining a police officer has been practically nonexistent. Aggressive and racist police officers have been allowed to remain in their positions, even when community members stand up against the atrocities. Many police officers have been allowed to literally get away with murder.

For the president of the United States to bring in the military to squelch protesters is more evidence that police brutality is supported and will continue.

People are afraid of the unknown or shy away from things that they arent familiar with.

This is one reason why a thorough vetting process for hiring police must be quickly implemented. The inner-city departments must hire men and women from their own communities.

Other communities must recruit and hire minority officers. The police training academies must look at how they are training the officers and implement a training module on how to serve minority communities.

The Police Review Board needs to be revamped and strengthened to address the officers that are not protecting and serving the communities. And a police watch group must have a strong presence in all communities.

So far, the past and present Norwalk police chiefs have focused on becoming part of the community and attend events that represent different cultures and races.

As any other community, Norwalk has its share of good and bad officers.

We have experienced issues in Norwalk with racial profiling and aggressive officers. Through the work of the NAACP, we have been able to bring concerns to the mayor and police chief to address problems and concerns in a timely manner before they seriously escalate.

We have to hold our leaders and police officers accountable. They must stand with us and not against us.

The code of silence, protecting their own and their brotherhood, is putting all of us at risk. Covering for an officer that is out of control or abusive is detrimental to our society.

The stereotypes, biases, and racist acts by the police must stop. Everyone should be viewed equally, officers should have empathy toward everyone and live up to their pledge.

If they cant, it is time to leave the force.

We are in this together!

Brenda Penn Williams is president of the Norwalk NAACP.

A note from James Walker: As a guest editor overseeing some of the content you will read as the nation grapples with the deaths of unarmed black people, I want to give a voice to the people of Connecticut at this crucial time in Americas history.

I hope the voices from our neighbors -- young and old and ethnically diverse -- will open the door to constructive and honest conversations on systematic racism and what we, as Nutmeggers, can do about it.

This is part of a national conversation taking place after the death of George Floyd sparked riots and protests and former officer Derek Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder for causing his death.

This series includes the voices of 11 people from some of our communities around the state. These are their experiences and thoughts on what is taking place in the country today.

I would also like to know your thoughts -- because all voices are needed regardless of point of view. Add your voice to the discussion by emailing me at realtalkrealpeoplect@gmail.com.
New Delhi/Kolkata, June 15 : In what is all set to be the latest Centre versus States flashpoint and Mamata Banerjee emerging as the face of the opposition, outshining the Congress party, provisions of the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020 have given reason enough for the West Bengal Chief Minister to shoot off a letter to key non-BJP Chief Ministers and prominent non-BJP leaders.

The move is to make a compelling case of alleged violations of federal structure by the Centre, say officials in the know. However, interestingly, Banerjee's move is also a strategy to counter Congress leader Rahul Gandhi emerging as a leading voice of criticism when it comes to the Centre's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, say Trinamool Congress insiders.

Banerjee has written to Congress Chief Ministers like Punjab's Amarinder Singh, Rajasthan's Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh's Bhupesh Baghel. She has also shot off angry letters criticising the Modi government's move to non-Congress, non-BJP CMs like Telangana's K Chandrashekhar Rao and Andhra Pradesh's Jagan Mohan Reddy too. She has also reached out to key political figures who are not in power like DMK supremo MK Stalin.

This letter writing spree comes in the wake of a letter by Banerjee addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself where she called for a status quo on the issue of power tariffs and criticised him for "not consulting" with states since power is a matter where both Centre and states share the responsibilities.

A senior leader of the TMC and a trusted aide of Banerjee told IANS, "Didi (Mamata Banerjee) considers it 'anti-people'. She has a natural flair for taking up issues of the poor since the Singur days. She is convinced, this amendment can be stopped." The problems arose from one provision from the Bill where the benefit of subsidy is to be granted directly to the consumer and the electricity providing company can charge the consumers as per the tariff determined by the commission. In other words, electricity bills will go up and the subsidy will be transferred directly to bank accounts of the consumer.

TMC argues, many consumers don't have bank accounts and even if they do have are not in a position to pay the steep bill in the first place. The Trinamool supremo has found a reason to corner the Modi government at a time when even the sustained lockdown seemed to have been unable to dent Modi's popularity ratings.

Moreover, the draft Bill proposes to form a regulatory commission to determine uniform tariff rates across India which leaves the states having no say as far as the tariff goes.

But this is not the first time, Banerjee has tried to unite the opposition. Last December, when the then Citizenship Amendment Bill was generating a lot of political discourse, Banerjee wrote a long letter to the NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Farooq Abdullah, and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi against the CAA and the proposed nationwide NRC.

"Today, I write this letter to you with grave worries in my mind. The citizens of this country irrespective of caste and creed, particularly the women and children, farmers, workers and members of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, OBCs and minorities are in the grip of fear and panic for the Citizenship Amendment Act and the proposed nationwide NRC. The situation is very serious," Banerjee had written back then which made the Modi government go easy on NRC.

Banerjee hopes to repeat the same this time as well. Sources say she is pitching for an opposition meet where party chiefs and opposition CMs attend to discuss the issue. While many see it as Banerjee's effort to emerge as the face of the opposition, it is also an endeavour to outshine the last opposition meet called by the Congress party which wasn't attended by all outfits from the opposition benches.

Question is, can Mamata Banerjee, whose 'Democracy under threat' letter made her the face of the opposition last winter and left the Congress the prime opposition party cornered, repeat the same with the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020? (Anindya Banerjee can be contacted at anindya.b@ians.in)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
PISMO BEACH, Calif., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Managing partners of WAV Group today announced public relations professional, Myra Jolivet, as the newest member of the WAV Group team. Myra brings more than two decades of strategic communications experience to the group.

Public relations professional, Myra Jolivet, is the newest member of the WAV Group team. Myra brings more than two decades of strategic communications experience to real estate's leading consulting team.

Myra is an award-winning storyteller whose work as television news reporter and anchor included delivering the initial reports of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy on CBS Evening News. She has served as a political appointee for Houston's first woman mayor, corporate spokesperson for Shell Oil and Texaco, Chief Marketing Officer for the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles, and Senior Account Executive at Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Myra was introduced to organized real estate when she joined the Houston Association of REALTORS as Chief Communications Officer. She has also served as Vice President of Public Affairs for the Pacific West Association of REALTORS in Los Angeles, CA, and Vice President of Public Affairs for MLSListings, Inc. in San Jose, CA.

Myra will provide WAV Group clients with a broad range of communications services from media relations and media training to public relations consulting and strategic planning. Her focus will be to help clients build crucial relationships with the media, the real estate industry, and a variety of influential communities. Myra is also a certified strategic planning professional.

WAV Group Managing Partner, Marilyn Wilson said, "We have known Myra since her years in Houston and have worked with her on communications projects throughout her career in working with MLSs and Realtor associations. Her positive energy, communications acumen and brilliance as a relationship builder will dramatically boost our communications services and offerings."

Myra joins Kevin Hawkins, President of WAV Group's communications division founded in 2014. WAV Group Communication supports many of real estate's leading Multiple Listing Services, associations, and the technology firms that serve them.

"Myra is one of the most gifted communicators in the business world, not just real estate," said Kevin. "WAV Group is known for helping others tell their best stories and helping firms become part of our industry's conversations. Myra does this better than anyone I know and now more firms in our industry than ever will benefit from her extraordinary talents," he added.

Myra has produced Emmy Award-winning specials during her broadcast career. In 2013, she was named to the list of the 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. She has served as a judge of the Emmy Awards and the Golden Mic Awards of Los Angeles. Myra has also served on several charity boards, including the American Red Cross, Teach for America, and Variety International. She is also a published author of murder mysteries.

Myra is a San Francisco Bay Area native and works out of the Sacramento area.

Media contacts:

Victor Lund (805) 709-6696

[email protected]

Marilyn Wilson (805) 748-9118

[email protected]

Kevin Hawkins (206) 866-1220

[email protected]

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Myra Jolivet Joins WAV Group

Public relations professional, Myra Jolivet, is the newest member of the WAV Group team. Myra brings more than two decades of strategic communications experience to real estate's leading consulting team.

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Student Experience

The University of Birmingham is a fantastic choice for your academic study. Our thriving campus with its beautiful grounds, friendly community and excellent facilities will quickly make you feel at home. We offer you a huge variety of exciting activities to get involved in outside of your studies, too.

Beautiful surroundings and fantastic facilities

When you step onto campus, you are immersed in our historic red-brick buildings and glorious green spaces. You'll find our Edgbaston campus both a peaceful and vibrant place to spend your time, whether it's studying on one of the lawns, or enjoying a hot drink in one our many cafes.

When you are on campus, you are in the heart of University life - it's the perfect place to meet friends, whether it's to have a bite to eat, discuss your seminar notes or meet up before heading off to a sports club or society.

You can also take advantage of our fantastic facilities on campus. Study in our state-of-the-art academic library with its stunning views over campus, or go for a swim after lectures at our brand new 55 million Sport and Fitness Club.

Student societies

Many nationality groups form student societies during their time at the University of Birmingham.

The student societies are an excellent way to keep in contact with home and also provide an opportunity to highlight your culture and customs in the UK. Student societies are also a useful point of contact for prospective students to Birmingham who may want to contact current students for information.

Careers

We offer dedicated support for international students, including an international careers consultant and a team of international student ambassadors. We will support you in developing the skills you will need to fully prepare for the working world or further academic study, whether this is in your home country or elsewhere.

Our Careers Network researches jobs all over the world. We host fairs, workshops and presentations, which are attended by many large, global companies that offer opportunities worldwide. We also offer a huge database of information on employers, vacancies and industry trends in a range of countries.

Alumni

The University of Birmingham has many strong alumni groups all over the world. Alumni groups are an excellent way of keeping in contact with the University and with other graduates from Birmingham who live in your country. Some alumni groups meet on a regular basis for social and professional events.

If you would like to meet up with University staff when they are in your country or you would be willing to help promote the university at education exhibitions, we would also like to hear from you. You can find out if there is an alumni group in your country or join our alumni mailing list on the Alumni website.
Chirang: The Indian Army along with Assam Police, 210 Cobra Battalion and 6 Battalion SSB on Monday (June 15) unearthed a massive amount of arms and ammunition in the Chirang district of Assam.

A joint operation was launched based on the information regarding the presence of illegal arms and ammunition in the forested area of Lal Pathar.

After toiling search for 12 days that involved deep search metal detectors, a suspected spot was located. On digging, a hidden cache of arms and ammunition was found.

A police official said, "This is the second-largest arms and ammunition recovery in the district after Panbari Forest Reserve in 2019."

He added, "7 pistols, 3 rifles, 192 grenades, 14 RPG shells, 28 pistol magazines, one AK-47 magazine, 200 rounds of AK-47, and 85 SLR ammunition were recovered."
Even as Facebook grappled this month with an internal revolt and a cascade of criticism over its refusal to take action on President Donald Trumps inflammatory posts, the social network was actively making other bets behind the scenes.

Late one Tuesday, as attention was focused on how Facebook might handle Trump, the Silicon Valley company said in a brief blog post that it had invested in Gojek, a super app in Southeast Asia. The deal, which gave Facebook a bigger foothold in the rapidly growing region, followed a $5.7 billion investment it recently pumped into Reliance Jio, a telecom giant in India.

The moves were part of a spending spree by the social network, which also shelled out $400 million last month to buy an animated GIF company and which is spending millions of dollars to build a nearly 23,000-mile undersea fibre-optic cable encircling Africa. On June 11, Facebook confirmed that it was also developing a venture capital fund to invest in promising startups.

Other technology giants are engaging in similar behaviour. Apple has bought at least four companies this year and released a new iPhone. Microsoft has purchased three cloud computing businesses. Amazon is in talks to acquire an autonomous vehicle startup, has leased more airplanes for delivery and has hired an additional 175,000 people since March. Google has unveiled new messaging and video features.

Even with the global economy reeling from a pandemic-induced recession and dozens of businesses filing for bankruptcy, techs largest companies  still wildly profitable and flush with billions of dollars from years of corporate dominance  are laying the groundwork for a future where they will be bigger and more powerful than ever.

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

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are aggressively placing new bets as the coronavirus pandemic has made them near-essential services, with people turning to them to shop online, entertain themselves and stay in touch with loved ones. The skyrocketing use has given the companies new fuel to invest as other industries retrench.

The expansion is unfolding as lawmakers and regulators in Washington and Europe are sounding the alarm over the tech giants concentration of power and how that may have hurt competitors and led to other issues, such as spreading disinformation. This past week, European Union officials were preparing antitrust charges against Amazon for using its e-commerce dominance to box out smaller rivals, while Britain began an inquiry into Facebooks purchase of the GIF company.

Some of the tech behemoths have made little secret of their intention to forge ahead in a recession that has put more than 44 million Americans out of work and that officials warn will be protracted.

Ive always believed that in times of economic downturn, the right thing to do is keep investing in building the future, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebooks Chief Executive, said in an investor call last month. When the world changes quickly, people have new needs, and that means there are more new things to build.

In doubling down on growth in a time of economic pain, the largest tech companies are continuing a pattern. In previous recessions, those that invested while the economy was at its most vulnerable often emerged stronger. In the 1990s, IBM used a recession to reorient itself from a hardware company into a software and services company. Google and Facebook both rose out of the dot-com bust about 20 years ago.

Apple, whose iPhones now dominate their market, doubled its research and development budget for two years during the downturn in the early 2000s. That led the company, which nearly went bankrupt in the late 1990s, to create its iPod music player and iTunes music store  and eventually the iPhone, the App Store and an unbridled growth streak, said Jenny Chatman, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ranjan Roy, a tech commentator for The Margins, an internet industry blog, said it was clear that the tech behemoths were unafraid to get more aggressive now and that the power they were accruing should give people pause.

Without any pushback from regulators, big tech companies would almost unquestionably come out of the pandemic more powerful, he said. So many additional parts of our daily lives are becoming dependent on their products, or they could just buy or copy the services they dont yet deliver.

Still, the companies are taking risks by spending in an uncertain period, said John Paul Rollert, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

To double and even triple down when the casino is on fire is a remarkable move, because they may not even be able to cash in their chips later on, he said.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which declined to or did not respond to requests for comment, have plenty of cash. Combined, they are sitting atop about $557 billion, enabling them to maintain a pace of acquisitions and investments similar to last years, when the economy was humming, according to a tally of financial disclosures. They have been among the top corporate spenders on research and development for most of the past decade, according to the accounting firm PwC.

The companies have ramped up their activity since March, when shelter-in-place orders began. As Amazon, Facebook and others adapted to their employees working from home, they experienced a spike in use. Messaging and other teleconferencing software soared in popularity.

That created opportunities. Microsoft, for one, started promoting its Teams videoconferencing service, which allows people to talk and collaborate online. Microsoft also snapped up three cloud computing companies in the past few months  Affirmed Networks, Metaswitch Networks and Softomotive  to offer more technology to businesses.

Google, too, updated products that people can use to work from home. In April, it said that its video chat service, Google Meet, would be easily available inside peoples Gmail windows and free to anyone with a Google account. It also said it would start making listings in its shopping search results mostly free, instead of having merchants pay for all their products to appear in the results, to bolster e-commerce searches.

Last month, Facebook bought the GIF company Giphy for an estimated $400 million. Giphy is to be integrated with Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook. And last week, the social network invested millions in Gojek. Based in Jakarta, Indonesia, Gojek makes an app for digital payments, transportation and other services that is used by more than 170 million people in Southeast Asia.

Facebook is now working on the new venture fund, which will help it spot new popular apps. The fund was reported earlier by Axios.

In driving the activity, Zuckerberg may be taking a cue from a Facebook board member, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. In April, Andreessen wrote a blog post titled Its Time To Build and said, We need to demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors.

Less than two weeks later, Zuckerberg said on the investor call that he was doing exactly that: building.

He said he felt a responsibility and duty to invest and added, Were in a fortunate position to be able to do this.

c.2020 The New York Times Company
(Photo : REUTERS/Sergio Perez) Visitors gather outside the Nokia booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 26, 2019. (Photo : cnsphoto via REUTERS ) Workers place a China Mobile 5G sign on an equipment as they set up a 5G network base station in Fenggang, Guizhou province, China May 26, 2020. Picture taken May 26, 2020.

Finland-based Nokia Oyj confirmed on Monday its partnership with American semiconductor company Broadcom to create chips for Nokia 5G equipment. The latter is the third company Nokia signed a deal with, after Marvell and Intel.

Initially, Nokia chose Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) chips for its 5G equipment. Although customers could reprogram this type of chip, issues of high costs and supply forced it to switch last year.

READ ALSO: [BREAKING] Huawei Warning: Global 'Shockwaves' May Happen After Huawei Founder's Daughter Arrested

"We still stand by the decision of going with FPGAs because it was the right thing to do at that time," Nokia's head of mobile networks marketing Sandro Tavares told Reuters.

Tavares also said that the market evolved faster after they announced the shift in strategy, so the company needed to "speed up the process of developing new suppliers."

Competing with Ericsson and Huawei, Nokia announced that its 5G products could not reach the market in time due to delays by one supplier, which was identified by analysts as Intel.

To address the cost issue, Nokia is now using cheaper custom chips while it is adding more suppliers to diversify the supply.

A key performance indicator for Nokia is reducing the cost of its chips. From about 10% last year, about 17% of its 5G equipment now has custom chips in the first quarter.

Meanwhile, it is not clear when Nokia's 5G equipment with Broadcom chips would hit the market or whether the company would have additional chip suppliers.

Nokia aims to increase 5G production with custom chips to over 35% by the end of the year and to reach 100% by 2022 while improving its gross margins.

Nokia to provide 10% of China Unicom's 5G Network

The Finnish telecom manufacturer also announced on Monday that China Unicom had selected it to supply about a 10% share of its 5G core network. The announcement confirmed an earlier statement by Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri furnished to Reuters.

"China Unicom has chosen Nokia to support the buildout of its 5G SA Core network in China, marking an expansion of Nokia's existing 4G working relationship with the Chinese communication service provider," Nokia said in a statement.

In an interview in April, Suri told Reuters that Nokia had won a 10% share of China Unicom's 5G core network, alongside rivals Huawei and ZTE.

The company also said that the core network performs various functions such as setting up bandwidth management, scaling, connections, and securing the network. With 5G added to its roles, Nokia would open up the network to support software-enabled uses, which include network slicing.

Nokia did not win any 5G radio network in larger China, which includes masts, antennas, and other equipment, although it continued to advance its core network sales in China.

According to Forbes, Nokia Oyj has a market worth of 20.5 billion USD, while its sales reach 25.8 billion USD as of last month. It ranked 95 among the Top 100 Digital Companies for 2019.

Read also: Microsoft Bans Face-Recognition Service to Police as False Matches Lead to Unjust Arrests

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
New Delhi: Actor Sushant Singh Rajputs father left for Mumbai from Patna to attend his sons last rites which is expected to be held later today. His father has been accompanied by some family members, including BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Babloo, who is also their relative. Meanwhile, some members of the family members arrived in Mumbai last night. They were spotted at Mumbais Kalina airport.

(ANI photo)

(Images Courtesy: Yogen Shah)

Sushant was found hanging in his Bandra residence on Sunday morning. He was said to be under stress and depression for the last few months.

"Sushant Singh Rajput has committed suicide, Mumbai Police is investigating. - DCP Pranay Ashok, Spokesperson Mumbai Police," a statement released by Mumbai Police on Sunday afternoon, read.

The actor's mortal remains were then taken to Cooper Hospital in the city for conducting post-mortem. The report confirmed he committed suicide.

Sushant hailed from Patna, Bihar. He did his schooling from Patna and New Delhi, before shifting to Mumbai.

After establishing himself on the small screen with Pavitra Rishta, he transitioned to the big screen with film Kai Po Chhe! and went on to do projects including Shuddh Desi Romance, the biopic MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Kedarnath and Chhichore, among several others.
The website elaborates on Taiwan's resilient pandemic preparedness strategies, efficient Healthcare system and many more models implemented to combat COVID-19

Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare launched a dedicated COVID-19 website detailing the prevention strategies implemented by Tawan to combat the deadly pandemic.

Ministry aims to share the strategies employed and formulated by the central and local governments to fight COVID-19 within local and international communities.

https://covid19.mohw.gov.tw/en/mp-206.html\

The website contains a wide range of contexts including;

The Taiwan Model (The timeline on how COVID-19 has been managed in Taiwan)

Key success factors in combating COVID-19

Healthcare system in handling COVID-19

Major policies announced in managing COVID-19 related issues.

The website shares epidemic prevention experiences on https://www.anti-covid-19.tw/

Also motivates other countries to take guidelines and to clarify their queries from Taiwan's experts regarding tackling the virus and the pandemic situation. https://fightcovid.edu.tw/
Just how Allen plans to navigate this issue will be known June 25, when he is to put forward any changes he wants to the police departments proposed half-billion-dollar budget. If they get through his committee, the budget goes to the Committee of the Whole and is reviewed and tweaked by the council chairman. The budget then needs two votes by the council to approve.
The United Nurses Association, one of the biggest unions of nurses from the private sector, has knocked on the Supreme Courts doors through an intervention application to seek recourse on adequate provision of personal protective equipment, payment of salaries, accommodation and insurance for health care workers. The United Nurses Association (UNA) has an estimated 3.8 lakh members affiliated to the union, most of them from the private sector. It has filed an intervention application in a case that was taken up suo moto by the apex court on the treatment of Covid-19 patients in designated hospitals and handling of bodies.

The community of health care workers who have been on the frontline battling the Covid-19 pandemic have seen large number of infections among nurses and doctors owing to their high risk and exposure. Nurses across a few Covid-19 designated hospitals have complained that at times proper accommodation is not provided when they are assigned duty in Covid-19 wards. To protect their family members, many nurses have demanded that they should be provided alternate accommodation.

In their intervention application, UNA has sought formulation of a national Covid-19 management protocol for addressing the serious concerns relating to imminent and extreme risks to workers throughout the country. In terms of resources and facilities, the union has said in its plea that adequate protection kits must be made available to every single health care professional working in Corona isolation wards or to those who work in close proximity of patients suspected to be infected with the virus.

Adequate and standard nutritious meals should be provided to the health care workers and proper accommodation should be provided in close proximity to the hospital or health care centre where they are discharging their duties and function, the intervention application said.

The application further seeks temporary expansion of infrastructure of hospitals and health care centres to provide separate and hygienic washrooms and expansion of the scope of personal accident cover under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package for Health Care Workers. It should include all health care workers across sectors, including those recruited on ad-hoc basis.

It also sought directions from the court to ensure full and timely payment of salaries to the health care workers in private hospitals and directions to prevent deduction of salaries in case a health care worker gets infected in the line of duty.

On June 12, the Supreme Court had suo moto taken cognizance of issues surrounding the poor treatment of patients in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital and deplorable condition of wards. During the hearing on June 12 a bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice Sanjay Kaul and Justice M R Shah issued notice to Centre, Delhi government and state governments of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Gujarat and LNJP Hospital on the grim situation in these states regarding the pandemic.

All these facts, which have been brought to the notice of the Court by the media reports, clearly indicate a very sorry state of affairs of the patients of Covid-19 in the Government hospitals in the NCT of Delhi as well as in other States. We, thus, issue notice to the Union of India, NCT of Delhi, States of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat as well as to the LNJP Hospital in Delhi. We shall also consider issuing notice to other states, Government and Private hospitals subsequently, the Supreme Court had said.

The court will hear the matter again on June 17.
While the British government insists it has been "guided by science" and has taken "the right decisions at the right time", the toll of 42,000 coronavirus deaths has fuelled criticism. Here are some of the reasons offered to account for Europe's heaviest official toll. - Late lockdown - The most frequent accusation levelled at Boris Johnson's government is that it took too long to announce a lockdown. Government adviser and epidemiologist Neil Ferguson told a parliamentary committee on June 10 that locking down a week earlier than March 23 would have reduced the death toll "by at least half". "We frankly had underestimated how far into the epidemic this country was," said the scientist. At the time, the official Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), of which Ferguson was a member, told the government not to lockdown. "Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak," said minutes of the group's March 16 meeting. Ferguson resigned from the panel in May after breaking lockdown rules. James Naismith, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute at Oxford University, said "during the exponential phase of the virus, even a few days can make a big difference". "The UK, like many other countries, struggled to properly understand the true extent of viral infection and were, as a result, slower to act," he said. - Undetected imported cases - British scientists initially thought two-thirds of cases coming from abroad were going undetected. But the latest data suggests the number was nearer 90 percent, according to Ferguson. According to official figures, only 273 of the 18.1 million people who entered Britain by air in the three months prior to lockdown were quarantined. Most travellers were instead just given a leaflet detailing the symptoms of the disease and the steps to be taken if they thought they might have it. Almost two thirds of cases in Britain came from just over 1,000 people travelling from Italy, Spain and France, who then infected others, found a study by researchers from the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and Birmingham. Scientists traced the genetic fingerprint of the virus and estimated that 34 percent of the cases came from Spain, 29 percent from France, 14 percent from Italy and 23 percent from the rest of the world -- with less than 0.1 percent coming from China. Travellers including British residents arriving in the country from June 8 are now subjected to a mandatory 14-day quarantine -- a measure heavily criticised by the aviation and tourism sectors, which have been devastated by the pandemic. The government's scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, admitted to the press that the quarantine was more political than scientific. - Retirement homes - Around 30 percent of deaths linked to the virus have occurred in British nursing homes, according to official data, although Ferguson claims it could be nearer 50 percent. Although comparable to other European countries, there are accusations that official decisions helped spread the disease in care homes. Not all of the 25,000 patients who were transferred from hospitals to nursing homes at the height of the pandemic -- between mid-March and mid-April -- were tested for the disease, according to a report by the National Audit Office, an independent parliamentary body. Unison union official, Christina McAnea called it "simply scandalous and accelerated the spread of the virus among an obviously high-risk group". The government insists that it made these establishments a "priority" from the start of the crisis. British scientists initially thought two-thirds of cases coming from abroad were going undetected, but the latest data suggests the number was nearer 90 percent
By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - Three Greece-based shipping firms said they have halted trade with Venezuela after the United States imposed sanctions on vessels under their management, as Washington ramps up commercial heat on Caracas.

The U.S. 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, sources told Reuters.

The U.S. Treasury said on June 2 it had imposed sanctions on four shipping companies for transporting Venezuelan oil.

Athens-based Dynacom Tankers Management, which manages the Chios I tanker, among the ships blacklisted, said in a statement on Monday it was "committed to refraining from any future business involving Venezuela".

It added that the tanker's owner Seacomber Ltd, which Washington also designated, was co-operating with U.S. authorities to resolve the matter.

NGM Energy SA, which manages another vessel blacklisted, the Voyager I tanker, said separately on Friday that it had implemented "a strict policy against servicing vessels intending to call at Venezuela or to load cargo of Venezuelan origin in the future, absent express U.S. authorization".

It said as a result, another tanker under its commercial management, the Commodore, had been "immediately diverted away from Venezuela, and will not return to that trade".

NGM added that it was fully cooperating with U.S. authorities to reach "a timely resolution" of the sanctions against the Voyager I and its owner Sanibel Shiptrade Ltd.

Another leading Greek ship firm, Thenamaris, said it was fully cooperating with U.S. authorities to resolve sanctions against the Seahero tanker that it manages and the vessel's owner Adamant Maritime Ltd.

Thenamaris said it had "adopted a firm policy prohibiting any carriage of crude oil from Venezuela for its vessels under management for as long as U.S. sanctions against Venezuela remain in place". (Editing by Jan Harvey)
Google Maps

A suspect in a west Houston burglary was shot and killed Sunday morning, and the man who shot him is recovering at a nearby hospital as Houston police look for two other burglars who tried to steal jewelry from an apartment.

An elderly woman living at The Crossing at Old Farm apartment complex at 2500 Old Farm Road woke up to her dogs barking around 5 a.m., and found a man standing next to her bed.
Filmmaker Shashank Khaitan, who has directed films such as Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Badrinath Ki Dulhania and Dhadak, has deactivated his Twitter account. Shortly before going off the microblogging site, he called it a breeding ground for hate and negativity.

Done with twitter... just a breeding ground for hate and negativity... very sad that a platform so powerful, could not be used to create a better world... praying for peace and love always... deactivating my account now ... @Twitterindia, he tweeted minutes before he quit Twitter. It is not known what exactly triggered the move.

In an Instagram post, Shashank wrote that he is inconsequential as an influencer but that he hoped Twitter could evolve and reform to spread love and happiness. He wrote, Finally deleted my twitter account... I am surely inconsequential, in terms of followers and reach for the platform... but I believe every voice is important... hope such a powerful platform can evolve and reform to spread love and happiness ... Praying for a peaceful world always

In January, Shashank announced that he was reuniting with Varun Dhawan for a commercial entertainer titled Mr Lele. The two have earlier collaborated on Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and its follow-up Badrinath Ki Dulhania. However, shortly after Mr Lele was announced, it was shelved. Recently, the filmmaker alerted everyone about a casting scam related to the film.

Also read | Shekhar Kapur says Sushant Singh Rajput would weep on his shoulder: I knew the story of the people that let you down so bad

URGENT- I have received many messages and emails from actors that someone, going by the name Nitesh Sharma Casting, is claiming to be a casting director for Dharma Productions and the film Mr Lele. He is asking for money for auditions and other favours. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS FALSE No one by this name works for Dharma. Also, we are not casting for Mr Lele, as the film is not happening at present, he wrote in an Instagram post last week.

Earlier in the day, Kriti Sanons sister Nupur Sanon lashed out at those sending her hate messages on social media for not paying tribute to Sushant Singh Rajput, who died on Sunday. Everybody has suddenly started talking about mental health on social media since yesterday...and then we have people harassing people who are actually in a state of shock,who are hurt,who are grieving ..by sending them disgusting tweets, msgs, comments for not posting on lnstagram !! she wrote in an Instagram post.

Nupur said that she has been flooded with messages like You are so heartless, ek post tak nahi daala (you did not even put out a post for him) and Tum logo ne ek reaction nahi diya kitne pathar dil ho tum (You did not even react to the news of his death, you are so stony-hearted). She angrily wrote, Aap ki permission ho toh sukoon se ro sakte hain (If we have your permission, can we please cry in peace)?? Please??

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"The dedicated team at PCL, particularly Yuxiao Wang, Viktoriia Slepeniuk and Sarah Worthington, have put in tremendous effort in these unprecedented times to scale up the company to offer COVID-19 immune response testing directly to the public," said company President and Chief Executive Officer, Carolyn Bonner." This test is well suited for the purpose of population screening and can help identify past or recent exposure to COVID-19 infection. It can also be used as a leading test in COVID-19 free workforce redeployment. "

Consumers from Across United States and elsewhere can order the test online by visiting www.parkwayclinical.com/COVID-19.

Parkway Clinical Laboratories (PCL) is a College of American Pathologists (CAP) accredited, CLIA-certified, specialty reference laboratory. PCL is focused primarily on serving addiction and pain management specialists. In response to COVID-19 pandemic, PCL is also offering Consumer Direct Access Immune Response Antibody testing. Conveniently located in Bensalem, PA, our primary facility is situated in the northeast suburbs, between downtown Philadelphia and the countryside of Bucks County. The laboratory has been a trusted partner delivering in-vitro diagnostic services for nearly 50 years.

For more information, contact COVID-19 Product Development Manager, Sarah Worthington, at [email protected].

SOURCE Parkway Clinical Laboratories

Related Links

http://www.parkwayclinical.com


In the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, tens of thousands of women took arms and killed the entire Tutsi community. One journalist, Natalia Ojewska, interviewed some of the female criminals locked behind bars.

Parents kill one another

One perpetrator, Fortunate Mukankuranga, was fetching water for their morning meal before the scene turned into a gruesome murder. Clad in bright orange, and speaking with a calm voice, she vividly recollects the events that occurred on April 10, 1994.

According to BBC, as Mukankuranga was on her way home, she saw several people assaulting two men in the middle of the road. She said that when the two men fell to the ground, she quickly picked up a stick and beat both victims. She admitted she was one of the murderers.

The incident was among the 800,000 victims of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus that were killed over 100 days, whose main perpetrator has been arrested.

After her role in the killings, Mukankuranga, who is an ethnic Hutu, travelled back to her home with her seven children and feelings of shame running rampant inside her. Images of the incident continued to haunt her in her daily life.

She said that she was a mother, but that she also killed the parents of other children.

A couple of days later, two horrified Tutsi children, after murderers butchered their parents with machetes, went over to her home, seeking refuge.

Also Read: Rwanda Finds Genocide Grave That Could Contain 30,000 Bodies

Upon seeing the children, Mukankurang did not hesitate to take them in and hide them in their attic, saving them from certain death. She stated that even after saving the lives of the two children, she failed to protect the two men that she killed.

Mukankuranga is among 96,000 women that have been convicted for their part in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. Some of the women killed adults, some also murdered kids, while others drove other men to commit rape and murder.

Another step towards justice

A French researcher has successfully gained access to ex-President Francois Mitterrand's archives in a protracted legal battle. The files contain detailed information on the bloody massacre that Kigali accused France of taking part in, as reported by Aljazeera.

France's top administrative court, the State Council, on Friday, ruled that the documents would assist researchers and Francois Graner figure out and reveal the truth behind the debate that has been the matter of public interest.

Presidential archives are commonly kept confidential for 60 years after the date they were signed. Under specific circumstances, however, they can be made public at an earlier time.

The State Council noted that there must be an equilibrium between protecting state secrets and informing the public of historical events. Patrice Spinosi, Graner's lawyer, said that the acquisition of the documents is not only a victory for the law but also history.

Researchers previously argued that there was only a small part of the classified documents that were made available. They also noted that a conclusive decision on France's hand in the genocide was yet to be determined.

Related Article: World's Most Notorious Murderer Arrested After 23 Years, Slaughtered 800,000

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Berlin:

Buoyed by India's plans to expand rail and metro network, Bombardier Transportation has exuded confidence over tripling its Indian business revenue to USD 1 billion in the next five years and plans to open an engineering centre in the country.

"Yes, we are very ambitious with that and we are working actively on it (achieving USD 1 billion revenue from India in next five years from the present level of USD 300 million)," Bombardier Transportation President Laurent Troger told PTI .

Describing Bombardier as a "major player" in India for metro projects, he said, "We are delivering very successfully for the metro in Delhi city. We are key player for the infrastructure... Our ambition is to continue to grow in India and in its cities."

"We want to design and manufacture the trains in India for India and so we are significantly increasing engineering capability in the country and plan to open engineering center in Hyderabad," Troger said.

Company chief country representative Harsh Dhingra said Bombardier is targeting the two areas in India railways and Metros rail projects and emphasised that huge opportunities lie in the segments with metro rail plans for all cities with a population of over two million.

Earlier, addressing the conference at InnoTrans 2016, Troger said, "We see InnoTrans as an opportunity to engage with our customers and better understand their needs.Today, countries and governments all across the globe are confronted with similar challenges: urbanisation, pollution, digitalisation and population growth, particularly in emerging markets."

"Rail is already playing a key role in solving these issues but it can do more. At Bombardier Transportation, building the future of mobility together with our customers is at the heart of everything we do," he said. Among other products, the company also showcased its 'MOVIA Maxx metro', which Troger said is designed to meet the unique needs of rapidly growing cities in terms of passenger capacity, acquisition cost and energy consumption.

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Linkedin Richard Carter (Agence France-Presse) Tokyo, Japan  Mon, June 15, 2020 08:09 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeaef06 2 Parents hug,hugs,scientists,Science,Japan,biology,research,children Free

In this era of social distancing and depressing news, we could all do with a good hug. Now scientists have analyzed what makes the perfect cuddle -- just don't squeeze too tight.

A team from Japan's Toho University measured the calming effect on infants of hugs of different pressures, and when given by strangers compared to from parents.

By monitoring heart rates for the infant and using pressure sensors on the adult's hand, the researchers assessed the baby's reaction to just being held, a hug with medium pressure, and what they called a "tight hug".

According to the results, published in the journal Cell, babies were soothed more by a medium-pressure hug than just being held but the calming effect decreased during a "tight" hug.

The researchers kept the length of the hug to 20 seconds as "it was almost impossible to avoid infant's bad mood during a one-minute or longer hold or hug," they admitted in their paper.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, for infants older than 125 days, the calming effect was greater when receiving a hug from a parent than from a female stranger.

So, the perfect hug is considered to be medium pressure from a parent, the scientists believe.

The infants are not the only ones who feel the benefits of a comforting hug, the research showed.

Read also: Babies' behavior could predict their personality more than 20 years later

Parents also exhibited significant signs of calmness while hugging their child.

It is known that a hormone called oxytocin, sometimes known as the "love hormone", is released during close physical contact but the researchers said the time period of their hug experiment was too short for this to play a role.

The scientists believe their research is the first time the physiological impact of hugging infants has been measured and say their work should advance knowledge of parent-child bonding and child psychology.

There could also be an application in the early detection of autism, Hiromasa Funato, one of the researchers on the team, told AFP.

The research centers on the various sensory inputs received during a hug -- this is what alters the heart rate, explained Funato.

"Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in sensory integration and social recognition," he said.

"Therefore, our simple hug experiment might be utilized in the early screening of the autonomic function (that regulates unconscious bodily processes), sensory integration, and development of social recognition in infants with high familial risk for ASD," concluded the scientist.

Topics : hug hugs scientists Science Japan biology research children
Though orders to wear masks have proven to be controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Surgeon General tweeted his reasoning for how they promote freedom over the weekend.

Sunday morning, Dr. Jerome Adams tweeted that if more people wear masks, there will be more freedom to go out due to the lessening of the asymptomatic spread of COVID-19. This will, in turn, result in more places opening sooner, he said.

Some feel face coverings infringe on their freedom of choice- but if more wear them, well have MORE freedom to go out.



Face coverings  less asymptomatic viral spread  more places open, and sooner!



Exercise and promote your freedom by choosing to wear a face covering! pic.twitter.com/3A4fW2qmN8  Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) June 14, 2020

In a follow-up tweet, he acknowledged that there are strong feelings all around, but that he hoped people were making their decisions by listening to the best available information, rooted in science.

Lots of strong feelings all around. Ultimately it is a choice we make, and I hope its made based on the best available/ current science, and a desire to do all we can to help others and ourselves/ our communities. Like vaccines, the more who participate, the greater the impact.  Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) June 14, 2020

Adams is the 20th U.S. Surgeon General or Nations Doctor through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

He has been using his Twitter to promote awareness about COVID-19 and ways to be safe during the pandemic.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has promoted wearing masks during the pandemic, and as many businesses around the state begin reopening, people are being required to wear masks inside businesses.

Read more on PennLive:
L-R, Deb Frecklington, Assistant Minister to the Premier, Lisa Newman(Premier's wife) , Queensland Premiere Campbell Newman and Tim Nicholls, QLD Treasurer at Qld Parliament House on January 6, 2015 in Brisbane, Australia. (Glenn Hunt/Getty Images)

Crisafullis Meteoric Rise in the LNP in QLD

A former Newman government minister in his first term in office, David Crisafulli has had a meteoric rise through Queensland LNP ranks (The Liberal National Party of Queensland).

He is now being touted as a potential future leader of the party if rumours of a backroom plan to topple Deb Frecklington are true.

This is despite him having served less than two terms in office.

He only entered state politics in 2012 when the LNP thumped Labor.

Before then he had worked as a journalist and chief-of-staff at a country TV station and then served as deputy mayor of Townsville for four years.

Then-Premier Campbell Newman saw enough in the fledgling politician to make him minister for local government.

However, Crisafulli became collateral damage when Newmans government was kicked to the kerb in 2015, with Labor winning back his Townsville seat of Mundingburra.

Not done with politics, the then-36-year-old packed his bags and family and headed to the Gold Coast to a four-bedroom waterfront home on Hope Island.

It was from here he returned to the corridors of power via the safe LNP seat of Broadwater at the 2017 state election.

He was pre-selected for Broadwater ahead of sitting LNP member Verity Barton.

While familiar to his electorate, Crisafulli has become more widely known across the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using his media skills to spin coronavirus stories, rarely has a week gone by that the 41-year-old has not either been seen on TV, heard on radio or had his name in print.

Hes been front and centre asking for borders to open, begging for restrictions to be eased for struggling Gold Coast businesses, and urging the government to allow pilots to perform flyovers on ANZAC Day.

His growing media profile has been to the detriment of Frecklington.

Her detractors say she is failing to cut through to voters and the LNP is headed for another election loss unless she is replaced.

They say the rising star in the LNP ranks is the media-savvy Crisafulli.

Former LNP member Jann Stuckey has agreed, saying Premier Annastacia Palaszczuks Labor party would be scared out of their wits if it was David Crisafulli who led the LNP to the polls in October.

Frecklingtons shadow cabinet and the LNP party room are meeting in Brisbane on June 15, ahead of parliament resuming on Tuesday.

Darren Cartwright
OKLAHOMA CITY, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Continental Resources, Inc. (NYSE: CLR) ("Continental" or the "Company") today highlighted its longstanding commitment to Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) practices and initiatives with the release of its 2019 ESG report.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/95419/continental_resources_logo.jpg

"Continental will continue to play a significant role in the American energy renaissance, providing a reliable and low-cost energy source for our nation and our world. We will continue to accomplish this in an environmentally and socially responsible manner, producing light, sweet crude oil the world needs to reduce emissions, while improving lives. In every credible scenario from government and independent forecasts, growth in demand for hydrocarbons is anticipated for the next several decades," said Harold Hamm, Executive Chairman.

Continental's 2019 report provides a comprehensive assessment of the Company's environmental, social and governance practices. The report utilizes a new and better framework that reflects the significant contributions hydrocarbons make to the human element of modern life, and the world's reliance on hydrocarbons for energy supply in the foreseeable future. The report provides the Company's stakeholders  employees, shareholders and communities in which it operates  a view of the Company's unwavering commitment to the low-cost and responsible development of hydrocarbon reserves.

In developing Continental's ESG report, the Company conducted a thorough assessment to identify and prioritize the most significant impact on the Company's stakeholders and operations.

Our assessment included:

Research Peer Benchmarking Interviews with Internal and External Stakeholders

"Long before there was an ESG movement, Continental was responsibly managing its operations. We continue those practices today. We are proud to be a leader in developing credible ESG standards and remain committed to delivering results in a clean, efficient manner, while at the same time powering the world," said Bill Berry, Chief Executive Officer.

For more information regarding the Company's ESG philosophy, as well as its 2019 report, please visit www.CLR.com.

Cautionary Statement for the Purpose of the "Safe Harbor" Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This press release includes "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. All statements included in this press release other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements, information, forecasts or expectations regarding the Company's business and future plans, including those relating to its share repurchase program, payment of dividends, debt reduction goals, free cash flow generation and liquidity expectations, and its expectations regarding the achievement of ROCE goals. When used in this press release, the words "could," "may," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "expect," "project," "budget," "target," "plan," "continue," "potential," "guidance," "strategy," and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such identifying words.

Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and assumptions about future events and currently available information as to the outcome and timing of future events. Although the Company believes these assumptions and expectations are reasonable, they are inherently subject to numerous business, economic, competitive, regulatory and other risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the Company's control. No assurance can be given that such expectations will be correct or achieved or that the assumptions are accurate. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, commodity price volatility; the geographic concentration of our operations; financial market and economic volatility; the inability to access needed capital; the risks and potential liabilities inherent in crude oil and natural gas drilling and production and the availability of insurance to cover any losses resulting therefrom; difficulties in estimating proved reserves and other reserves-based measures; declines in the values of our crude oil and natural gas properties resulting in impairment charges; our ability to replace proved reserves and sustain production; the availability or cost of equipment and oilfield services; leasehold terms expiring on undeveloped acreage before production can be established; our ability to project future production, achieve targeted results in drilling and well operations and predict the amount and timing of development expenditures; the availability and cost of transportation, processing and refining facilities; legislative and regulatory changes adversely affecting our industry and our business, including initiatives related to hydraulic fracturing; increased market and industry competition, including from alternative fuels and other energy sources; and the other risks described under Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors and elsewhere in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019, registration statements and other reports filed from time to time with the SEC, and other announcements the Company makes from time to time.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which such statement is made. Should one or more of the risks or uncertainties described in this press release occur, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, the Company's actual results and plans could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. Except as otherwise required by applicable law, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly correct or update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or circumstances after the date of this report, or otherwise.

About Continental Resources

Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR) is a top 10 independent oil producer in the U.S. and a leader in America's energy renaissance. Based in Oklahoma City, Continental is the largest leaseholder and the largest producer in the nation's premier oil field, the Bakken play of North Dakota and Montana. The Company also has significant positions in Oklahoma, including its SCOOP Woodford and SCOOP Springer discoveries and the STACK plays. With a focus on the exploration and production of oil, Continental has unlocked the technology and resources vital to American energy independence and our nation's leadership in the new world oil market. In 2020, the Company will celebrate 53 years of operations. For more information, please visit www.CLR.com.

Investor Contact: Media Contact: Rory Sabino Kristin Thomas Vice President, Investor Relations Senior Vice President, Public Relations 405-234-9620 405-234-9480 [email protected] [email protected]



Lucy Guttenberger

Investor Relations Analyst

405-774-5878

[email protected]



SOURCE Continental Resources

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Amid criticism from countrys Data Protection Authority, Norways Institute of Public Health has announced on June 15 that it would not only stop the functioning of COVID-19 track and trace mobile application but will also delete all the data collected so far. While the world is still witnessing an upswing on the number of coronavirus cases, Norwegian authorities had introduced the application to limit the transmission of the highly contagious disease in the country.

However, the data protection watchdog had said on June 12 citing the minimal spread of coronavirus in Norway that collecting data through the app by the government no longer seems reasonable amid privacy concerns. According to Johns Hopkins University tally, Norway as till now confirmed at least 8,639 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 242 deaths.

Therefore, NIPH has reportedly said that even though they do not agree with the evaluation of the watchdog, they feel it is necessary to delete all data and put the work on hold as a result of the concerns. NIPH also added that as a result of halting the COVID-19 track and trace app, the countrys preparedness against a spread in infection will be weakened because the government will lose time for development and testing of the app.

Read - Landslide In Arctic Norway Sweeps Away 8 Homes

Read - Norway: Destructive Landslide Drags Houses Into The Sea, Watch

COVID-19 app in Singapore

While initially smartphone applications were seen as one of the most significant methods to control the drastic spread of coronavirus, now many nations are moving away from its support. Norway announced the suspension of the COVID-19 application just a week after Singapore made a similar app optional for its citizens. According to reports, Singapores Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said in the parliament that the app called TraceTogether does not work well with both Android or iOS devices. The politician who is in charge of the Smart Nation initiative cited the suspension of Bluetooth activity in the devices because of the app running in the background. Therefore, the mandatory use of TraceTogether is now ruled out while the Singapore government is in touch with Apple Inc to find a satisfactory solution to the issues.

Read - Virus Strands Norway Racer In Alaska After Iditarod Win

Read - Urgent UN Debate On Racism After Floyd Killing

Image Source: AP
By Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's $1 trillion wealth fund could blacklist more companies from its investments, including those that make machine-controlled weapons, if proposals on Monday to modify its mandate are adopted, the head of a government-appointed commission said.

The fund should have a wider definition of corruption and of human rights abuses when considering whether to exclude a company from its investments on those grounds, the group said.

It should also stop investing in firms that manufacture lethal autonomous weapons, a new type of weaponry often nicknamed "killer robots", because the machine, rather than a person, decides whether to fire on a target.

"We signal that all human rights breaches, if they are gross and systematic, will be assessed," the head of the commission, Ola Mestad, told reporters. "For the corruption risk criterion, gross economic crime should now be included."

"This will probably lead to more exclusions," if the recommendations were adopted by parliament, Mestad later told Reuters.

The proposals will be sent for hearing, with the government planning its own proposals for next spring.

The fund does not invest in companies that produce tobacco and nuclear weapons or cause severe environmental damage, among other things.

As the fund holds about 1.5% of globally listed shares, its decisions are closely watched and often followed by other investors.

In May the fund excluded some of the world's biggest commodities firms from its portfolio for their use and production of coal and relinquished its investments in four Canadian oil firms for producing an "unacceptable" amount of greenhouse gas.

The commission also recommended creating a new reason for excluding a company: if it sold weapons to a state involved in an armed conflict where there is an "unacceptable" risk the weapons are used in military operations violating international humanitarian law. The breach must be "serious and systematic".

"Yemen is a conflict for which this could be on the agenda," said Mestad.

(Editing by David Evans)
One study promised that popular blood-pressure drugs were safe for people infected with the coronavirus. Another paper warned that anti-malaria drugs endorsed by President Trump actually were dangerous to these patients.

The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, were retracted shortly after publication, following an outcry from researchers who saw obvious flaws.

The hasty retractions, on the same day this month, have alarmed scientists worldwide who fear that the rush for research on the coronavirus has overwhelmed the peer review process and opened the door to fraud, threatening the credibility of respected medical journals just when they are needed most.

Peer review is supposed to safeguard the quality of scientific research. When a journal receives a manuscript, the editors ask three or more experts in the field for comments. The reviewers written assessments may force revisions in a paper or prompt the journal to reject the work altogether. The system, widely adopted by medical journals in the middle of the 20th century, undergirds scientific discourse around the world.
You may not be able to travel with the president or leap-frog between ocean oil drilling platforms, but if youre unlucky enough, you may be able to fly with the pilots who have done these things.

Craig Rush of rural Pike County and Joshua DeGrave of Waverly are pilots for the Air Evac Lifeteam crew based at Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville. Prior to joining the local air ambulance service, Rush was a pilot for the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and DeGrave made hundreds of landings delivering supplies and personnel to Gulf of Mexico drilling rigs.

The 53-year-old Rush, who lives on the family farm near Detroit, spent 21 years as a U.S. Marine Corps helicopter pilot, including a four-year tour of duty with the Presidential Helicopter Squadron during the term of President George W. Bush.

The president was always very respectful to all of us, every time he came on board the aircraft he always spoke to us and had a brief conversation, Rush said. There were times at Camp David or at his ranch down in Crawford, Texas, where we would get to interact with him. Camp David is a pretty small facility and you might be working out in the gym and he would come in to work out and youd have a brief conversation.

Rush estimates he flew President Bush at least 130 times in places across the country and overseas on Marine One, the helicopter equivalent of Air Force One. Prior to his presidential duties, Rush primarily piloted the Marine Corps heavy lift support helicopter, the huge CH-53E Super Stallion, on missions in at least 30 countries, including combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Rush wanted to return to the family farm when he retired from the Marine Corps and the Air Evac job allowed him to keep flying while staying close to home. Each Air Evac flight is different, but one flight during his nine years with the company stands out in Rushs mind.

I flew to Pike County for a trauma situation, we landed in a pasture area that I was familiar with, and then when they loaded up the patient, I realized it was a good friend of mine, Rush said. It always sticks in your mind when its someone that you know very well.

Rush has never had a crash, but has experienced all kinds of system failures and emergencies during his Marine Corps service. He said power lines are one of the greatest hazards while flying for Air Evac because he often has to land on roads to pick up accident victims.

The 39-year-old DeGrave, who has been with Air Evac for 12 years, agreed with the power line hazard assessment, and recalled one memorable landing he had to make on a bridge.

There wasnt a whole lot of room to move around, but there werent any other good landing spaces to pick up the patient, DeGrave said. We want to land that aircraft with the nose into the wind at all times and when you are sitting on top of a bridge you are kind of limited.

DeGrave attended civilian flight school in Beaverton, Oregon, and was a flight instructor at the Coles County Airport in Mattoon, supplementing his income by doing aerial agricultural work in that part of the state. Then he got the chance to go down south to fly for Rotocraft Leasing, a busy, busy job flying more than 1,200 hours a year to service oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

I operated pretty much the same helicopter as the ones used by Air Evac except the one I flew had floats, DeGrave said. I hopped from oil drilling platform to platform, moving tools, parts, people, anything they needed to get moved off of one platform to another. I was probably averaging about 120 landings per day.

After more than 2,000 flight hours with Rotocraft, DeGrave started looking for another piloting job and applied for a position with Air Evac. He operated as a fill-in pilot at various Air Evac bases until a permanent position opened at the companys Springfield base, which has since moved to Jacksonville.

I liked Air Evacs mission and the way they operated, their commitment to safety, DeGrave said. The most important thing about flying helicopters is you have to be as safe as you can all the time.

DeGrave pays close attention to weather patterns and trends before and during each flight. He works with a nurse and paramedic on each flight to arrive safely at the scene of the emergency, stabilize the patient, and get the patient to the closet appropriate hospital as soon as possible.

But its not the bad weather or tricky landings that stick out in DeGraves mind. Its the patients, especially if the person theyre picking up is a child.

A boy and his friend were out playing with a gas can and the kid was really badly burned. There was a question of whether he was going to make it or not, DeGrave said. It really affected all of us. We actually went out of service for a short period of time just to collect ourselves and deal with the stress of that flight.

About a year and a half later this kid and his mom showed up at the base and it was the most amazing feeling getting to see this child who pulled through it and what he dealt with, DeGrave said. That was probably one of the most rewarding moments of my career.

DeGrave grew up in Deer Creek, a small community near Peoria, and always wanted to fly the type of emergency air ambulances he would see taking off and landing at a Peoria hospital. Rush, his fellow Air Evac pilot, grew up with a private pilot father and also had a life-long desire to fly.

The 12-hour Air Evac shifts are usually 6 to 6, with Rush and DeGrave typically meeting each other as one is coming on duty and the other is going off. They discuss what occurred during the previous shift and any helicopter maintenance issues that may have occurred.

Both men had high praise for the nurses and paramedics who are part of the three-person Air Evac crew.

The work they do is amazing, DeGrave said. Many people are alive today simply because of their skill, dedication and caring.

Rush agreed, and compared the relationship with what he had in the armed forces.

We are very close with them because we work with them every day, Rush said. Its similar to the relationships we had with our Marine Corps crew chiefs and aerial gunners that we flew with, the bond that you have with each other when you fly those kind of flights.

Ive been flying for 30 years now and every time I take off I feel so fortunate to be able to do it, Rush said. It doesnt really seem like work a lot of times. Even after all of these years, I still love it as much as the first time I flew.

.

If you have a suggestion about someone who should be profiled, send their name and any contact information available to communitynews@myjournalcourier.com.
Two suspects have been arrested for poisoning and stealing 30 dogs and cats in a mountainous locality in Vietnam.

Police in Thanh Hoa Commune, located in the mountainous district of Nhu Xuan in north-central Thanh Hoa Province, confirmed on Sunday they had apprehended a man and a woman, who are both in their 40s and hail from northern Hai Duong Province.

Local residents first discovered that their dogs and cats had been killed by poison, with the animals bodies still warm, on the early morning of the same day.

Police officers in Thanh Hoa Commune were notified of the case and joined with the local residents to ambush and capture the suspects.

One of the suspects is captured for poisoning and stealing dogs and cats in Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, June 14, 2020 in this supplied photo.

They were able to catch the man and woman an hour later, carrying 20 dogs and 10 cats which had been poisoned.

The case files and suspects have been handed over to the police unit in Nhu Xuan District for further investigation.

In accordance with Vietnamese law, those who steal dogs and cats are charged for theft, which is punishable by a VND1-2 million (US$43-86) fine.

If the stolen property is worth between VND2 million and under VND50 million ($2,147), the penalty is six months to three years in prison.

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An Estonian hitman, who was jailed for his role in a Kinahan cartel murder plot and who is wanted over the murder of a Lithuanian pop star's lover, will challenge a bid to extradite him in October.

Imre Arakas (62) was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder James Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. He is currently serving his sentence in a segregated block in Portlaoise Prison.

Lithuanian authorities suspect that ex-wrestler Arakas was allegedly part of a three-man gang that conspired to murder a man who had an affair with famous Lithuanian pop star Vita Jakutiene.

Lithuanian police are seeking the surrender of Arakas, whose a last address in Sopruse, Tallinn, Estonia, to face charges, which include a count of murder as well as firearms and conspiracy-related charges in relation to the shooting of Deimantas Bugavicius. There is also another warrant for the sole charge of criminal damage.

Arakas was arrested by gardai in a holding cell at the Criminal Courts of Justice building in Dublin in February 2018, on foot of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) issued by Lithuanian authorities.

However, Arakas was jailed by the non-jury Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to murder Mr Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3 and 4, 2017. He was contracted by the Kinahan crime gang to assassinate Mr Gately and had boasted to his associates in coded text messages that he would take out his target with "one shot to the head".

Today, Ms Aoife O'Leary BL, responding for Arakas, told Mr Justice Paul Burns that additional information from the Lithuanian authorities had been sought and received, that affidavits had been filed in respect of her client and that two other men had now been charged in Lithuania.

Arakas, a former freedom fighter who was previously part of a movement to separate Estonia from the former USSR, was joined by video-link from Portlaoise Prison for the brief hearing.

Mr Justice Paul Burns fixed 9 October for the hearing with the matter in for mention on 20 July to resolve any outstanding matters.

Passing sentence at the Special Criminal Court in 2018, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said Arakas had agreed to the "vital role" of pulling the trigger for financial gain and he was prepared to offer his "own detail" on how the murder of Mr Gately was to be performed. The Estonian separatist told his associates in a text message that he would take out his target with "one shot to the head". The judge said the married father-of-two was "ready, willing and able" in his dedicated role.

Arakas had travelled to Ireland from Alicante in Spain on April 3, 2017 for the purpose of killing Mr Gately. The foreign national, who is in poor health, has been in custody in Ireland since April 2017.

Ms O'Leary told the court today that her client's sentence is due to expire in October 2029 and that she would be seeking a senior counsel in the case, as it was a "very significant matter of murder, firearms and criminal damage".

Arakas appeared by video-link but expressed a desire to be present in the court for his extradition hearing.

Sworn, written statements are to be submitted by 10 September with the applicant, the State, given two weeks to reply.
When the professed friends of God forsake the ministers of Christ, it is attended with circumstances peculiarly aggravating. The sweet counsel and communion they have taken together are now interruptedmutual confidence destroyedthe parties exposed to peculiar temptations, which renders it difficult to retain that forgiving spirit manifested by the holy apostle when all men forsook him: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

 Lemuel Haynes, from The Suffering, Support, and Reward of Faithful Ministers

Lemuel Haynes is a historical figureyou may not have heard about but should have. By any standard, his life was remarkable. Haynes, who was born in 1753, was an indentured servant as a child, a veteran of the American Revolution, and the first black man in the United States to be ordained to ministry. Known for his keen mind and quick wit, Haynes was a powerful preacher and abolitionist, drawing on his Calvinist theology to argue ...

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1
Boris Johnsons plan for a new racial inequality commission was written on the back of a fag packet to assuage the anger of Black Lives Matter protesters, the shadow justice secretary has said.

In an excoriating attack on the government, David Lammy said it was immature for the UK to still be holding discussions about whether racism exists and condemned Mr Johnson for announcing another review rather than taking action.

Mr Lammy also questioned why the prime minister promised a new cross-governmental commission into racial inequality in a lengthy Telegraph article, which focused mostly on the ongoing row over statues of controversial historical figures.

Mr Johnson also came under fire for saying that the government wants to stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination.

It feels that yet again in the UK we want figures, data, but we dont want action, Mr Lammy told BBC Radio 4s Today programme.

Black people arent playing victim, as Boris indicated. They are protesting precisely because the time for review is over, and the time for action is now.

He said: I dont know why hes announced a commission, behind the paywall, in The Telegraph, buried in the middle of yet another article about Churchill.

If he was serious, why are there no details about how it will be staffed, its remit, its terms of reference, its timetable.

Thats the question. Its because it was written on the back of a fag packet yesterday to assuage the Black Lives Matter protesters.

Get on with the action, legislate, move. Youre in government  do something.

Mr Lammy, one of the UKs most senior black politicians, said he felt like he was being gaslighted by questions of whether racism was an issue in Britain.

He said: Frankly, given all the art that has been made, all the writing that has been delivered  whether in reviews or black writing  all the comedy that has been made that has made people laugh, of course those things still exist in our society.

Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London Show all 5 1 /5 Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London A protester carries an injured counter-protester to safety near Waterloo station in central London during a rally against Black Lives Matter REUTERS / DYLAN MARTINEZ Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London A protester identified to the Reuters news agency as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator carries an injured counter-protester from a melee near Waterloo railway station in central London REUTERS / DYLAN MARTINEZ Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London A protester identified to the Reuters news agency as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator carries an injured counter-protester from a melee near Waterloo railway station in central London REUTERS / DYLAN MARTINEZ Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London A protester identified to the Reuters news agency as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator carries an injured counter-protester from a melee near Waterloo railway station in central London REUTERS / DYLAN MARTINEZ Injured protester carried to safety during violent clashes in London An injured counter-protester is carried to safety from a melee near Waterloo railway station in central London REUTERS / DYLAN MARTINEZ

The time now is frankly for majority culture to do something about it.

He added: It is deeply worrying and frankly immature that Britain is still having a conversation about whether racism exists.

Mr Lammy said it was only the Conservatives who were focused on the row over statues, which began with the toppling of a bronze memorial to the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.

But Shaun Bailey, the Conservative London mayoral candidate, said the Labour mayor Sadiq Khan was talking about rewriting Londons history by reviewing landmarks in the capital with links to the slave trade.

Mr Bailey, one of the most senior black Conservative politicians, said: It is very easy to remove the statue of a slaver, that we could all agree on.

But what are you going to do when you get to someone who is a hero to some and a villain to others?

Its just going to make our entire conversations about race.

Lord Woolley, the founder of Operation Black Vote and chair of the Race Disparity Units advisory group, said the prime ministers language about discrimination was frankly unhelpful.

He said: It is real discrimination and he knows that, thats why he said we need to tackle racism. Some of his language is frankly unhelpful but lets focus on what we agree on.

David Isaac, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said there had already been countless reports on the issues surrounding racial inequality and called for urgent action.

We know the scale of the problems we face to tackle the entrenched racial inequality in our country. It is not new, he said.

Now is the time for urgent action. We need to see a clear and comprehensive race strategy with clear targets and timescales from government.

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

The prime minister used his article to defend the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, which was vandalised during an earlier protest, and to warn against attempts to photoshop Britains cultural landscape.

He praised Churchill as one of the countrys greatest ever leaders and insisted it was the height of lunacy to accuse him of racism.

I will resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue from Parliament Square, and the sooner his protective shielding comes off the better, he wrote.
SHENZHEN, China  With glowing blue eyes and trusting feline features, a new robot cat by Chinese startup Elephant Robotics seems happily oblivious to the worries of CEO Joey Song as he shows it off at the companys lab in Shenzhen.

Elephant Robotics main business is the automation of factory assembly lines but revenue has plunged by a third this year due to the coronavirus, leading the company to cut staff by a fifth.

Its tough, said Song. Before, we had more than 30 people.

Due to the downturn, the firm is putting more energy into the robot cat project funded on Kickstarter in December.

Readying its first large batch of 1,000 cats for sale, it hopes that as more consumers work from home, interest in pet robots will grow.

If the industrial robots cant sell right now, we just focus on other robots to lower the risks, Song said.

Interest in robots has surged worldwide as the pandemic forces hospitals, manufacturing and services companies as well as governments to look afresh and with new urgency at ways to minimize human contact.

But in China, months ahead of many countries in reopening its economy and the worlds biggest market for industrial robots, new business seems largely limited to robots for warehouses and disinfecting.

Most clients are now too spooked by the uncertain business climate to invest in expensive factory gear, industry executives say.

Automation should be a way to fight virus consequences but on the other side if you want to invest, you need to know the market forecasts, said Vincent Bury, managing director at equipment maker CNIM China.

Nobody has a crystal ball now.

Chinas industrial robot sales tumbled by a fifth in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Shanghai-based consultancy Stieler Enterprise.

It predicts second-quarter sales will likely decline 15%.

While the pain is being felt widely, major players in China such as Switzerlands ABB, Japans Yaskawa Electric Corp and Germanys Kuka AG are expected to weather the storm.

But for domestic robotic startups that have hitched their prospects to a broad shift within Chinese manufacturing to more automated factory lines, the rest of this year could be make or break.

Access to fresh funding is tight as venture capitalists wait to see which firms will survive the immediate downturn.

Wed love to wait for another one or two months (before investing) to see how theyve recovered, whether its going to get back to normal, said the vice president of an investment firm with several interests in Chinas robotics industry.

He declined to be identified to protect business relationships.

Fingers crossed

For startups that either specialise in or have managed to pivot to cleaning or warehouse-related robots, prospects have become brighter after more than a month of lockdown disrupted Chinas supply chains and made fulfilling orders tricky.

Were struggling, luckily struggling, said Lawrence Han, chief technology officer at Triooo, a maker of industrial cleaning robots backed by Taiwans Foxconn and based in the high-tech hub of Shenzhen.

I think our product was delayed by almost three months.

Triooo is working to clear a backlog of orders and hopes to eventually sell in Western markets where its robots, used in places like hospitals and airports, are more cost effective due to higher labour costs there.

Beijing-based Geek+, a maker of robots that transport and stack goods in warehouses, opened its San Diego office in February just as supply chains in China ground to a halt.

After three months of uncertainty, it suddenly saw demand soar as the spread of the virus spurred consumers to shift most of their shopping online, said Mark Messina, chief operating officer of Geek+ Americas.

At Youibot, which specialises in robots for power stations and furnaces, the outbreak prompted the company to develop a robot that can patrol public spaces, scanning body temperatures and emitting a virus-killing ultraviolet light when people are not around.

The Shenzhen-based startup has found buyers in Italy, Singapore and Turkey, while the American Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery is also trialling a batch.

This products biggest value to us is that it gives us experience deploying robots overseas and provides us with different ways for our business to develop, said Youibot CEO Cody Zhang.
Actor Gulshan Devaiah has rejected the theory that Bollywood is a family. He was reacting to a statement by actor Meera Chopra, in which shed apologised on behalf of the film industry for not standing by Sushant Singh Rajput. Sushant was found dead at his Mumbai apartment on Sunday, at the age of 34.

In a tweet, Gulshan wrote, Really sorry to be doing this but Bollywood is not a family , it never was and never will be . If one thinks its a family .. there is the problem. Bollywood is an imaginary name for a place of work thats it . I am really not trying to put anybody down here & sorry if it seems.

Really sorry to be doing this but Bollywood is not a family , it never was and never will be . If one thinks its a family .. there is the problem. Bollywood is an imaginary name for a place of work thats it . I am really not trying to put anybody down here & sorry if it seems https://t.co/hoz30WiEOJ  Gulshan Devaiah (@gulshandevaiah) June 15, 2020

In her original post, Meera had written that several people in the industry had known of Sushants personal problems, but nobody came out and helped. She wrote that the industry can turn its back on an actor even if one movie of theirs flops. True, Bollywood is a small family, but a kind of family which is never there when you need them, shed written.

My apology to #sushant on behalf of the entire industry and a humble request to my industry folks!! pic.twitter.com/PJHhet6V6I  meera chopra (@MeerraChopra) June 15, 2020

Celebrity hairstylist Sapna Bhavnani had also shared similar sentiments on social media. Shed written, Its no secret Sushant was going through very tough times for the last few years. No one in the industry stood up for him nor did they lend a helping hand. To post about him today is the biggest display of how shallow the industry really is. No one here is your friend. RIP.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput was going through tough times, no one lent a hand: Sapna Bhavnani, Anubhav Sinha ask tough questions

On Sunday, many members of the film community such as Akshay Kumar, Karan Johar, Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Anushka Sharma, Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Sushants former collaborators such as Sara Ali Khan, Sanjana Sanghi, Abhishek Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra and others left condolence messages for the actor.

Sushant was known for his acclaimed performances in films such as MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya, Kai Po Che, and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, among others. The actor was to appear in Dil Bechara, a remake of The Fault in our Stars.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

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Andrew Cuomo is upset.

Seems no one is listening anymore to the media-vaunted governor of New York.

We have received 25,000 complaints of reopening violations.



Bars or restaurants that violate the law can lose their liquor license.



People with open containers in the street can be fined.



Police & protesters not wearing masks can be fined.



Local gov't must enforce the law.  Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 14, 2020

Maybe that's because he squandered his authority on wokeness. Mass protests and mass lootings, all excused in the name of "social justice," might just do that to ya.

"I believe this is a moment for national change and national reform," Governor Andrew Cuomo said during his daily press briefing on Thursday. Governor Cuomo said the last few nights of protests over the murder of Floyd have been relatively peaceful. "They're white people, they're African-American people, they're Latinos, they're young people," Cuomo said of protesters. "They're people who want change."

Never mind about those social-distancing rules, it seems. He would be there to cover:

Cuomo also announced that the state would be expanding its coronavirus testing criteria so that anyone at the protests can get tested for the virus. "If you have been at a protest, get a [coronavirus] test, please, he said.

His authority was also undermined by his own failure to practice what he preaches:

Do as I say not as I do! pic.twitter.com/bnSIrG0DA7  Cheryl Gilmer (@CherylGilmer5) June 14, 2020

Way to go, bozo. Lead by example.

Worse still, he has a believability problem  there's his history of truly lethal pandemic orders from him in the name of "safety," such as seeding the nursing homes with returning COVID-19 patients when huge hospital ships stood by to take them, an executive order that cost 5,800 vulnerable people their lives. Zero apology from him about that  it was all the nursing homes' fault. Why should anyone pay attention to him on "safety" after an order like that?

There are other reasons for his lost authority  like selective enforcement of lockdowns, such as in Jewish communities, when bigger instances were taking place elsewhere. Nor has his failure to remove incompetent Bill de Blasio as mayor, something he merely threatened to do and didn't.

And nice touch on being concerned about the bloody Maryfests over in the preppie Hamptons and glittery Manhattan. You can smell the fear.

Rest assured that Cuomo's not going to be bringing up the social distancing practices of Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, or the South Bronx, all of whose residents wouldn't dream of not socially distancing, or so his narrative goes.

The Hamptons? Isn't that where the rich and celebrities fled to? As a resident of Astoria, I can tell you that there is literally a block party on 30th Ave everyday with no masks and no social distancing. We watch the police sit in their cars and do nothing.  Angela Belcamino (@AngelaBelcamino) June 14, 2020

In any case, he's threatening the defund the police across New York state if they don't kowtow to his "wokeness" standards. The NYPD already has some of the most woke standards in the country, and none of its officers was involved in the police brutality incident in Minneapolis; he was just blaming them all for it. It's redolent of his threat to decertify nursing homes if they didn't take returning COVID-19 patients back into close quarters with the most vulnerable, a "mistake" that killed 5,800. Whom exactly does he expect to enforce his neo-lockdown threat over in the Hamptons?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will sign an executive order Friday that will require local police departments to develop new policies for use of force, community policing and bias awareness, among other areas, or they will lose state funding, adding to the list of sweeping police reforms being enacted following weeks of protest.

Seems every last bow he makes to wokeness undercuts his authority on lockdowns. Here's a sample of the general ratio-ing he got on Twitter:

You going to fine these protesters? https://t.co/TeOBF7tOyS  Interracials for Trump  (@sandyleevincent) June 14, 2020

But again... protesting without any regard to social distancing was perfectly allowed and advocated... https://t.co/5eT9A2Gtv8  Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) June 15, 2020

My grandmother, a Holocaust survivor died alone, she had no family around her, she was afraid, but @NYGovCuomo and @BilldeBlasio wouldnt allow her to be surrounded with family in her last moments.



But now those soulless thugs support thousands marching together in the streets.  Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) June 15, 2020

Illegal for owners to open their businesses to make a living.

Totally fine to loot their businesses.



Illegal to attend church.

Totally fine to torch the church.



Sound about right => leftists' lunacy.  Lacey Lance (@Asa789) June 14, 2020

How many complaints have you received regarding the violent looters? Or does NY have 25,000 Karens that only care about masks  Stacey (@Marcio28Stacey) June 14, 2020

Looters? Schmooters. Who cares. Theyre common and accepted! Its those non-mask wearers that are the Real danger to soceity.  Erwin Schaub (@erwinschaub) June 15, 2020

In New York, it's the New York way to dismiss bee-essers and blowhards. They even have a word for this kind of guy, a very recognizable one he fits to a tee: schmuck.

Take that act elsewhere, Andy.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot.
Mr. Barnier said last week that there had been no significant areas of progress at the last negotiating round. Mr. Frost said that progress remains limited, with negotiators reaching the limits of what could be achieved in formal talks.

Without key political decisions, the talks after four rounds were faltering. Mr. Johnson and Ms. von der Leyen have agreed on an accelerated series of negotiations to run through July and part of August. Both sides say that any agreement must be made before the end of October, to allow the British and all the European parliaments to ratify the deal and for both sides to prepare.

But that is not much time, and some believe that faced with the prospect of no deal, some form of modest extension could be arranged if the two sides were close to an agreement.

The two sides have adopted a posture of being open to an outcome with no deal, rather than to make too many concessions. Both want an agreement though, because the economic disruption of a brutal break would be significant.

Given comparable size and the flow of goods, it would probably be worse for Britain, which sends more than 40 percent of its exports to the European Union and gets more than 50 percent of its imports from the bloc. But the pain would be felt on the continent as well.

The remaining roadblocks to a deal are significant, both political and economic. Europe wants a comprehensive agreement, as suggested in the nonbinding political declaration both sides signed as part of the withdrawal agreement. Britain, especially with time so short, wants a more modest free trade agreement, with side deals to handle issues like fishing, which has a larger political than economic importance for both sides.
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BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua)  China has launched multiple activities to celebrate this year's Cultural and Natural Heritage Day, which falls on Saturday.

Across the country, over 3,700 activities will be rolled out to celebrate the day, with the majority to be held online, said Minister of Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang.

The offline events will be held with strict epidemic prevention and control measures, said Luo.

In the host city of Guilin in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, activities designed to celebrate the event kicked off Saturday.

A themed forum and a donation ceremony for cultural heritage protection will also be held as part of the celebrations, jointly held by the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) and the local government of Guangxi.

"Cultural relics are a dynamic source of confidence in our own culture, as well as an important platform for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations," said Liu Yuzhu, head of the NCHA. Liu said that historical relics have also enriched people's lives and promoted the development of areas home to old revolutionary bases.

More than 1,600 documentary films and pictures on intangible cultural heritage were promoted on eight popular online platforms.

Nearly 6,500 online shops on various e-commerce platforms including Alibaba, JD.com and Suning have joined a shopping campaign to sell items related to 4,500 different kinds of intangible cultural heritage.

Since 2006, China has celebrated cultural heritage day on the second Saturday of June. In 2017, it was renamed Cultural and Natural Heritage Day.

(Source: Xinhua)
When Im eating delicious Lebanese food with my cookery class students, I can forget about all the pain. I feel loved. As a Lebanese chef currently in the UK, I know that sharing food is what makes us human.

There has been a long road between my old life in Lebanon and teaching cookery students in the UK. I was shot twice by a member of the Shia opposition during the internal conflict which broke out in Lebanon between the Sunni and Shia Muslims, and it left me paralysed for life. Through all the pain and uncertainty, cooking has become my lifeline here in the UK.

I was 24 years old the day I became paralysed. I was on my way to work a night shift. I was just opening my car when a man pointed a gun at me. I put my hands in the air and said, Im Ahmed Sinno and I work for the Red Cross, please dont shoot me. Then I fainted. I woke up in the hospital. When I pulled the hairs on my thighs, I couldnt feel them. Thats when I realised the shooting had paralysed me.

I should never have left my house that night. We had heard warnings of the attack, but I was determined to get to work because I knew the Red Cross needed me. Also I should never have told the gunman my full name: Sinno is the name of one of the seven biggest families that support the prime minister and the Sunni regime. In case you dont know  the Shia Muslims want to take the power from the Sunni Muslims.

Eight years later, in 2016, I encountered a roadblock manned by the same gunman who had shot me. Later that day I was followed and shot at by a gunman on a motorbike. Following advice from state intelligence services who believed I was being targeted, I fled the country, leaving behind my fiancee and my job. Ive been in the UK since 2016.

Its been really hard. I loved my life in Lebanon. My fiancee has now gotten married to someone else. The second shooting happened in May 2016. I was going to get married to her that July, but I had to leave before then. Ive lost everything. Back in Lebanon I had a very senior position and a good salary.

I just really hope the Home Office will accept my refugee status soon. As an asylum seeker I cant work. I have no reason to wake up early. The only thing that keeps me going is my cookery classes  they give me something to plan for. I was shot right on the nerve in my back so I am always in a lot of pain. But when Im cooking I dont feel my pain anymore. Its therapy for me.

I also love that in my classes I am referred to as the Lebanese chef, rather than the refugee. This title has brought me dignity and helped me to keep believing in myself. Whats more, food has an incredibly ability to take me home. My mother used to make me these delicious cheese rolls for breakfast in Lebanon on special occasions. Every time I teach one of my students to make one of these rolls, it takes me back to those happy mornings with her.

When I arrived in the UK, I didnt know anyone. I felt so lonely. But when I joined Migrateful everything changed. They are my family now. A few months back the Home Office was threatening to evict me from my current housing, they wanted to leave me homeless. I rang up Jess Thompson, the Migrateful founder, and told her what was happening. She said, No one in the Migrateful family will ever be homeless, I will find somewhere for you to live. It made me cry because I knew I was going to be ok.

Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic Show all 12 1 /12 Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-1.JPG All images Paddy Dowling Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-2.JPG DEC/Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-3.JPG UNRWA/Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-4.JPG UNRWA/Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-5.JPG Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-6.JPG Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-7.JPG Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-8.JPG Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-9.JPG CARE International /Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-10.JPG CARE International /Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-11.JPG DEC/Paddy Dowling UNHCR Refugee crisis: Solidarity now more than ever amidst global pandemic refugee-crisis-paddy-12.JPG DEC/Paddy Dowling UNHCR

Its my 37th birthday next month. I just have one wish, the same wish Ive had for the last four years, ever since my exile started here in the UK.



I wish to live my life, like any normal human being, without the fear of being deported back to Lebanon, or the fear of being killed. Thats what I think about every night before I go to sleep.

Ahmed Sinno is a Lebanese chef for Migrateful: a social enterprise where asylum seekers and refugees teach their traditional cuisines to paying customers
WASHINGTON  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that a controversial pipeline could be built underneath the Appalachian Trail, giving the oil and gas sector relief from what some have described as a green wall to natural gas expansion along the East Coast.

With Democratic governors such as New Yorks Andrew Cuomo questioning the need for more pipelines when the planet is warming because of greenhouse gas emissions, the ruling was heralded by oil and gas companies as a rejection of environmentalists years-long campaign to block natural gas pipelines.

Now more than ever, its time for anti-energy groups to stop playing political games, said David Holt, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, a trade group representing energy producers and large consumers.

Environmentalists, he said, are using contorted legal theories that stretch credulity and good sense with the sole mission of stopping the development of energy infrastructure.

STAY ON TOP OF IT: Read the latest oil and gas news at FuelFix.com

The 7-2 ruling overturned a lower court decision that the U.S. Forest Service had incorrectly permitted the $7.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross underneath the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine. The pipeline is to be constructed 600 feet below the trail in rural Virginia.

The question of the permit was one of the last remaining regulatory issues facing the project, which will run 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina and can transport up 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Among the companies drilling in the gas fields of West Virginia and nearby Pennsylvania are Houstons Cabot Oil & Gas, EOG Resources and Southwestern Energy.

The decision was narrow, concerning the interplay of decision-making between the Forest Service and the National Park Service, which has authority over the trail. Still before the courts is the larger question of states authority to block pipelines, as Cuomo has done repeatedly through his veto power under the Clean Water Act.

Benefits will primarily be confined to projects that need right of way easements to cross the subsurface of lands where the U.S. Forest Service has granted a trail easement to the National Park Service, said Joel Johnston, an energy attorney in Denver.

FREE DELIVERY: Get energy news sent directly to your inbox

james.osborne@chron.com

Twitter.com/@osborneja
WBZ announced Sunday that the Phantom Gourmet will be on hiatus pending a review.

The television stations President and General Manager Mark Lund issued a statement Sunday, WBZ reports.

WBZ-TV is committed to our community, by working together, listening to one another, and supporting each other. After careful consideration, we have decided to place Phantom Gourmet on hiatus pending further review, Lund said in the statement.

The television station said viewers reached out to WBZ and WSBK after comments made by "Phantom Gourmet" CEO Dave Andelman were widely spread on social media.

Andelman, the co-host of the Phantom Gourmet and co-owner of Mendon Twin Drive-In, wrote a series of Facebook posts over the past few days mocking the protests against racial injustice sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

People on social media urged one another to contact the television station after Andelman made the posts. His personal Facebook page is now private.

Excited to open Chaz (formerly Seattle) Drive-in: Americas Most Looted Drive-In, Andelman wrote in one post over the past few days.

Another post from Friday read, We dont take a knee here. This is America, not Game of Thrones. Your desperate need for approval, from those who hate cops and country regardless, is pathetic. Have a great day!

Other posts mentioned defund potatoes, not police and suggested Back Bay restaurants offer touchless, curbside looting.

On Saturday night, Andelman issued an apology on the Phantom Gourmet Facebook page.

I want to apologize. I maintain my own Facebook Page, he wrote. I made comments on that page that were inappropriate, hurtful, and wrong regarding the Boston protests. I support everyones right to free speech and free assembly. I, too, desire racial and social justice. My record of philanthropy and business reflects this.

Andelman continued to say, I apologize. I feel terrible. We all make mistakes. And I ask for your forgiveness."
A border patrol agent covering a trail in New Mexico, has been found dead, according to US Customs and Border Protection.

Johan Mordan, who was a first year border patrol agent, disappeared on Saturday in New Mexicos Bootheel, after other agents lost communication with him.

A few minutes after agents lost contact with Mr Mordan, they found the 26-year-old, lying unconscious and unresponsive on the trail.

The agents performed CPR on Mr Mordan, as they waited for air assistance to arrive at the scene, but they were unable to revive him.

In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said: Agents worked exhaustively trying to save him, unfortunately BPA Mordan could not be revived.

Recommended Missing Mennonite woman found murdered 200 miles from New Mexico home

They added: All proper notifications and investigative protocols have been initiated.

Mr Mordan, who joined the Border Patrol on 8 July 2019, was part of the organisations El Paso sector, that covers New Mexico and some of Texas, according to the El Paso Times.

US Customs and Border Protection acting Commissioner Mark Morgan paid tribute to Mr Mordan, on Twitter.

It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of Border Patrol Agent Johan Mordan of El Paso Sector.

Mr Morgan added: He served his country and community with honor. Our thoughts are with his loved ones and the entire Border Patrol community during this time.

The cause of death has not yet been determined, and the authorities confirmed that they are awaiting the results of an autopsy.
About 20 years ago I took my children to see Washington, D.C. They wanted to see the White House first. As we walked by Lafayette Square there was a group of about 100 Native Americans holding a demonstration, as well as an anti-nuclear tent with two people that was more of a permanent fixture for many years.

I said to my children, If you remember anything from today, remember what you see here. Protestors and demonstrators are always in Lafayette Square. In what other country can you go and peacefully demonstrate in front of the leaders house without any fear? Former presidents, especially Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, had to listen to it daily for years. So did many others.

The presidents understood that our Constitutions First Amendment gave us the freedom of speech, to assemble peacefully, a free press and freedom of religion (whether or not they are Christian). They knew America was not about them (yes, even Nixon). It was about people. They had to let them have their say and let the press report it.

It seems today we forget about the First Amendment rights and only focus on the Second Amendment. There is a reason they are placed in that order.

I know my kids never forgot the lesson that day. I guess now we should rename it Trump Square or better yet, Tiananmen Square II. Wake up, America. The sun is setting.

Keith B. McCarthy

Forks Township
In a crisp, white open-neck shirt with the deep yellows and oranges of the island sunset melting into the Aegean Sea behind him, Greeces prime minister declared his country open for the summer.

Were ready to extend Greeces legendary hospitality and welcome the world again, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Saturday evening during a day trip to Santorini, the picture-postcard jewel in the crown of his countrys vital tourism industry. We feel we are taking an extremely calculated risk, he said. Its not an option to do nothing.

It marked a pivotal moment for Greece in the fight against the coronavirus, and one that other countries will be watching closely.

The land of azure waters, islands and breathtaking beaches has had a good crisis compared with rival summer destinations such as Spain and Italy. The government won international praise for its response to COVID-19, locking down its population quickly and keeping deaths to below 200. But if the country has won the pandemic war, it needs to make sure it can monetize that success. With that comes a gamble on tourism, the lifeblood of the economy.

The plan is to sell Greece as a safe place for sunseekers. The country reopens on Monday to foreign visitors with the first scheduled international flights set to arrive in Athens and Thessaloniki, the biggest cities, although with varying rules of entry depending on the place of origin.

From July 1, all restrictions will be lifted, with some possible exceptions for certain countries. Flights will be allowed to resume to regional airports including on islands such as Santorini.

Along with Cyprus further east, nowhere in Europe depends so much on foreign vacationers packing resorts and dining on octopus, sea bream and grilled meats in seafront tavernas as Greece. The question is whether inviting an influx of visitors ends up triggering a second wave of the pandemic and another costly lockdown.

Maintaining social distancing and the compulsory wearing of masks on all forms of transport as well as new rules for the operating of hotels and restaurants are all part of the mix. Mitsotakis said his government had enough data to feel comfortable about opening up to the world. Even small islands have received testing equipment, he said.

Gkikas Magiorkinis, an adviser to the government on how to address the coronavirus outbreak, acknowledged the possibility of an increase in cases even if everyone were to be tested for the virus before arrival.

We cant ask people to stay in a glass jar, said Magiorkinis, assistant professor of hygiene and epidemiology at the University of Athens. Our job is to contain the risk. There is no other solution.

While the financial fallout from coronavirus is international, Greece had only just emerged from its last economic meltdown. A decade-long crisis that saw the country need three bailouts and cost a quarter of its economic output. The danger is that the metrics start looking like the dark days again.

Tourism has been the very industry thats helped sustain Greece. It accounts for around a fifth of the economy and more than a quarter of jobs.

Historically, Britain and Germany are the main tourist source markets. While the government in Berlin implemented widespread testing to contain the pandemic, the U.K. is the worst hit country in Europe, with more than 41,000 deaths. Greece said on Friday it will maintain a ban on flights from the U.K. until June 30.

Its too early to reach any conclusions on how this season will be, but it wont look like previous years, said Alexandros Vassilikos, president of the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels. Our aim is not to have an empty 18-month period before the 2021 season. We are getting our hotels ready while being optimistic and responsible.

The scale of the downturn is huge. Overall, if there were 100 requests from foreign tourism agencies at this time last year, the number is now no more than a dozen, according to Lysandros Tsilidis, president of the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Tourist and Travel Agencies.

There is a gradual show of interest although at a very low rate from travel organizers and agencies worldwide, Tsilidis said. The fear of the virus exists and that fear is the big enemy. Demand will pick up after flights to all Greek airports restart on July 1, he said.

Mitsotakis arrived in Santorini at a time when the island would normally be heaving with tourists and day trippers arriving from cruise ships. Instead, many hotels were in wait-and-see mode with swimming pools empty. Only a few Greek tourists were eating at tavernas while locals sipped iced coffee as they waited for the first foreign visitors.

Their eventual arrival would be some reward for Greece as Mitsotakis, whose approval rating has risen during the pandemic, tries to stop the economy from tipping back into crisis.

After Greece reported its first death on March 12, the government closed bars and restaurants within four days. A lockdown followed a week later. By contrast, Spain had reported 136 deaths on March 14 when the authorities ordered people to stay at home.

Indeed, Greece has been Europes biggest untold success story during the first stage of the fight, in part because it was so unexpected, according to Francois Heisbourg, a former official in the French government.

Much of the credit goes to Mitsotakis, who understood the threat quickly when he saw what was happening in nearby Italy, locking Greece down even before Rome acted, Heisbourg said. There was also national pride to restore, after the pain and ignominy of the debt crisis.

When people are always looking at the Greeks as indebted layabouts, here was a chance to do something really remarkable  and they did, said Heisbourg, who also served on Frances pandemic preparedness committee in 2010. Mitsotakis found the right words for the moment: Weve faced worse crises than this.

On Saturday evening, the 52-year-old prime minister was again aiming to choose the right message as he prepared to leave Santorini. He said Greeces aim was to salvage what it could from 2020 and hope for a bumper season next year. A lot will depend on how safe people feel when travelling by plane or car to the country.

Im interested in making Greece the safest destination in Europe, not the first destination, Mitsotakis said. There is no risk-free approach in life and I feel very comfortable that we have a plan. But its not just up to us.

Read more about:
Days before the disturbing news of actor Sushant Singh Rajputs death, television actor Arjun Bijlani said he sensed that something was amiss and sent him a message to check up on him. In a heartfelt Instagram post, Arjun mourned the untimely demise of Sushant and fondly remembered him.

Arjun shared his last message to Sushant -- Hope all is well with u -- on Instagram and wrote, My last msg to him. Kuch toh feel hua tha yaar. Anyways tune ab padh liya hoga yaar. Humari balcony yaad rahegi .. khush reh ab . Hamesha bolta tha history likhoonga. Mujhe pata hai tu ab jahan hai khush hai (I felt something was amiss. Anyway, you must have read my message by now. I will always remember our balcony...hope you are happy now. You always said you would write history. I know you are happy wherever you are)... there is a lot of change that will happen because of you. Chal tc bhai . Like I always said. No rip for u.

Also read: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, found dead at Mumbai home

Sushant was found hanging at his Mumbai home on Sunday. The police said that no suicide note was found.

The actor started out on the small screen and established himself with the popular show Pavitra Rishta before setting his sights on Bollywood. Many from the television industry paid heartfelt tributes to him with social media posts.

Producer Ekta Kapoor, who gave him his first break on television, had lauded Sushant for his performance in Pavitra Rishta just a week ago. Sharing a screenshot of his comment thanking her, she wrote, Not fair sushi ! One week everything changed ! Not fair my baby!

Television actor Rashami Desai mourned the loss of her dear friend, while Krystle DSouza wished she could have protected him the way he protected her since 2008. Others such as Hina Khan, Rohit Roy and Urvashi Dholakia also condoled the demise.

Follow @htshowbiz for more
Ed Markey

Enough is enough. There have been more than 325 attacks, threats, arrests and instances of vandalism carried out by law enforcement authorities against journalists since the beginning of the George Floyd demonstrations.

That full-fledged assault on the First Amendment has spurred Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey to sponsor a resolution on June 15 condemning attacks against members of the media and re-affirming the centrality of a free and independent press and peaceful assembly to the health of democracy in the US.

We cannot protect our democracy if we do not protect our press, said Markey. Targeting the media and perpetrating violence against them or protestors is un-American and requires our full and vocal condemnation.

"This resolution is an unequivocal statement from the Senate that we support our journalists, recognize the critical value of their work, and will promote accountability for anyone interfering with their duties.

The resolution condemns any local, state or federal authorities that limit, restrict or prevent the media from performing their duties, which is collecting information that promotes government accountability, defends democratic activity and strengthens civil society.

Markey's resolution recognizes the bravery and courage of journalists "who put their own safety at risk in order to cover the demonstrations associated with the death of George Floyd and bring information to the people of the United States and the world."

Voice of America director Amanda Bennett and her deputy Sandra Sugawara resigned on June 15 as Michael Pack takes over the US Agency for Global Media, parent of the VOA.

Congressman Eliot Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs committee, thanked Bennett and Sugawara for their service and fired a warning shot at Pack, a conservative filmmaker and friend of former White House strategist Steve Bannon.

He wants to know if Pack, who was confirmed by the Senate on June 4, stands for the independence of the VOA or is interested in turning it into a mouthpiece of the White House.

President Trump has been a critic of the VOA, especially for its coverage of China during the COVID-19 crisis. He said on May 15: "Voice of America is run in a terrible manner. They're not the Voice of America. They're the opposite of the Voice of America."

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University reported June 12 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a blank denial of all VOA information requests.

Bennett on June 14 called on the CDC to immediately end the boycott of the federally funded VOA.

Engel is "alarmed by the silence from leadership at the United States Agency for Global Media about the CDC situation." But ringing the alarm bell doesnt cut it. Engel needs to back up his words with action to protect the integrity of the VOA.
BLOOMINGTON  A major fire was prevented Monday morning thanks to closed doors at downtown Bloomington restaurant Epiphany Farms, firefighters said.

The restaurant, 220 E. Front St., avoided major damage after heat generated by cleaning rags ignited and caused the fire to spread to linens in a laundry area sometime before firefighters responded to the scene around 8 a.m., said Eric Davison, Bloomington Fire Department public information-education officer.

Firefighters who were first on the scene said the fire burned out the laundry room but the building was saved because the room's doors were closed, forcing the fire to be snuffed out due to lack of oxygen.

3 more charged with Bloomington-Normal looting Three more people have been charged with various charges of looting Twin City stores nearly two weeks ago. So far, about 30 people have been charged in McLean County.

"It's an education moment," Davison said. "Keeping doors shut before a fire erupts can save a structure."

The first firefighters on the scene found the fire had extinguished itself but reignited when the doors to the room were opened. They were able to use a fire extinguisher to put out a small amount of flame that erupted.

All lanes of Front Street were closed as a number of fire units responded to the fire.

"If the fire had spread outside the room, we likely would have lost the entire building," said one of the first firefighters on the scene.

The restaurant is located in the city's former central station fire house that served downtown. The restaurant is known for its gourmet, organic recipes and is a major attraction for night life in the downtown area.

Davison said light smoke had filled the restaurant. Firefighters used a fan to clear the air. He said he did not anticipate a problem with the restaurant opening after the McLean County Health Department confirmed the safety of food operations.

Remember these Bloomington-Normal restaurants from years past?

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In May , Anhui province exported 6.41 billion yuan of labor-intensive products, up 48.8% from a year earlier, according to Hefei customs.

Exports of private firms reached 4.64 billion yuan, an increase of 55.4%. Exports of state-owned enterprises reached 1.2 billion yuan, up 67.8%. Exports of foreign-funded enterprises dropped 5.8% to 570 million yuan.

Exports to the United States increased 41.5% to 1.63 billion yuan. Exports to the European Union (excluding the United Kingdom) totaled 1.57 billion yuan, up 77.5%. Exports to Japan increased 130 percent to 570 million yuan. (By Li Renjian)




Beijing has reported a rising number of new COVID-19 cases for the second day running, raising fears about the re-emergence of the coronavirus in the Chinese capital.

Beijing health officials on Monday confirmed 36 new COVID-19 cases, the same increase as a day earlier, which was the citys highest daily infection count in nearly two months. There had been no new domestic cases in the city for 56 consecutive days, but since June 11 the capital has reported 79 new cases.

The new outbreak has been linked to a major wholesale food market in Beijing's southwestern Fengtai district.

The spike has put the district in "wartime emergency mode, shutting down the market and closing off 11 residential compounds in its vicinity as authorities try to identify people who have recently visited the market and their close contacts.

Image: People who visited or live near Xinfadi Market queue for a swab test at Guangan Sport Center in Beijing (Noel Celis / AFP - Getty Images)

Chinas top epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, told the Chinese state media outlet China News on Sunday that the authorities have yet to pinpoint the source of the infection in the Xinfadi market, adding that he believes the outbreak is still isolated and has not spread to the whole of Beijing, home to some 20 million people.

Beijing will not turn into a second Wuhan, spreading the virus to many cities all across the country and even needing a lockdown, Zeng Guang, the former chief epidemiologist at Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and currently a senior expert with the National Health Commission, said at the press conference on Sunday.

The coronavirus pandemic is believed to have originated at a seafood market in Wuhan, causing the city to go into a strict lockdown for 11 weeks starting in late January to slow the spread of the virus. However, the virus spread abroad, infecting nearly 8 million people worldwide and killing more than 430,000.

Restrictions in Beijing have only recently been eased and things began going back to normal, with some children going back to school and attractions reopening. But that has come to an abrupt end amid fears of a second wave of infections in the Chinese capital.

Story continues

The risk of the epidemic spreading is very high, so we should take resolute and decisive measures, Xu Hejiang, spokesman at the Beijing city government, said Monday.

Authorities are testing tens of thousands of people at testing sites set up at sport stadiums, hospitals and drive-through locations across the capital. Residents are also having their body temperatures checked.

Out of the 36 new cases recorded Sunday, 34 were either directly or indirectly linked to the Xinfadi market, including 19 people who worked there, Beijing's health commission said Monday.

City authorities said over 8,000 vendors, purchasing and managing staff at the market have been tested and transferred to designated areas for medical observation.

To date, the city has traced nearly 200,000 people who have visited the market since May 30.

Image: A worker arranges vegetable at the closed Xinfadi Market in Beijing (Noel Celis / AFP - Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Baoding, a major city near Beijing in Hebei province, launched wartime measures Monday to prevent an outbreak in the city, after three new cases, all related to Beijings Xinfadi market, were confirmed there.

The citys government said temperature checks will be conducted in shopping malls, residential communities, office buildings and on public transit. Stores and supermarkets must strictly control peoples movement, and medical institutions have been told to strengthen safety procedures around treating patients with fever.

The spike in Beijing, along with three cases in Baoding and 10 new cases imported from abroad have increased the total number of cases in China to 83,181 as of Sunday  far fewer than in Europe and the United States, where millions of people have been sickened by the virus.

The World Health Organization said Saturday its closely monitoring the outbreak in Beijing.

"All cases are in isolation and under care as needed, and contact tracing is underway," the WHO said in a statement. Genetic sequencing of samples is also underway and rapid sharing of these results is important to understand the origin of the cluster and links between cases."
Indian officials in Pak high commission released, visible injuries noticed

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: Two officials of the Indian High Commission in Pakistan have been released, official sources have said. The move comes in the wake of the strong demarche that India issued.

They were handed over to the two Indian High Commission officials. Sources said that they were injury marks on the two officials.

There has been marked tensions between India and Pakistan of late. Reports from Pakistan say that they were arrested by the police in connection with a hit and run case. The ISI too questioned them, the source also added.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Following the expulsion of 2 Pakistan officials from India on charges of espionage, the situation in Islamabad remains tense.

The two Indian staffers posted at the Islamabad mission had stepped out on some work on Monday morning. When both the officials did not reach their destination, high commission officials informed both the foreign offices in New Delhi and Pakistan.

Tit for tat: ISI hand in disappearance of two Indian officials in Pakistan

The Indian High Commission is finding it hard to resume normal functioning owing to aggressive surveillance of its officials by Pakistan.

India, it may be recalled had registered a protest in the form of a note verbale to Pakistan. The behaviour of the officials of Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, India had said.

It may be recalled that India's Charge d' Affaires, Gaurav Ahluwalia was chased in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad by a motor cycle borne person suspected to be from the ISI. The incident took place on June 4.

Sources tell OneIndia that this is clearly the handiwork of the ISI and is meant to avenge India's actions against its officials, who were caught trying to gather sensitive information about the movement of Indian troops.

India will now lodge a strong protest with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. The matter is being taken up with Islamabad, the source cited above said. The official also said that this action amounts to harassment and is aimed at obstructing the normal functioning of our officials.

The officer also said that Pakistan is trying to take revenge and is looking to expel Indian officials from Islamabad. We are prepared for such action will react accordingly the officer also noted.

After India declared two Pakistani officials as persona non grata, Pakistan had accused India of torturing its officials. The charge was however rubbished by India. The officials had been caught red handed, officials say, but they were not subject to any torture. Pakistan hasjust been making a ground, so that it can harass Indian officials in Islamabad.

India, it may be recalled had issued a demarche after the Pakistani officials were caught red handed trying to gather information against the Indian troops. India had investigated the matter and then asked the two officials to leave the country.
NEW DELHI : India has not ruled out talks with Nepal to resolve tensions over a new map of the Himalayan country that incorporates three areas that are part of Uttarakhand. But New Delhi has put the onus on Kathmandu to create an atmosphere that will be conducive to such a dialogue for restoring their unique and natural partnership," two people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

India also made it clear that it will not pull back on any efforts that will jeopardize people-to-people ties between the two countries. Development cooperation, connectivity projects and medical aid for people stricken by covid-19 in Nepal will continue, one of the people cited above said.

Signalling the underlying cooperation, India on Monday signed a pact to build a sanitation facility near the Pashupatinath temple complex. India will extend assistance worth Nepali 37.23 million for the purpose, according to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu.

The bedrock of our relations is people-to-people ties (besides) historical and cultural and economic linkages," the first person cited above said. All this translates into a unique and natural partnership which transcends the economic and political scenario at any given point in time."

The new map brought out by Kathmandu shows Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, that are part of Uttarakhand as lying within the boundaries of Nepal. It was cleared by the lower house of parliament on Saturday and given the go-ahead by the upper house on Sunday.

Responding to Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Olis charge that India did not respond to offers of talks from his government, this person said that India had told Kathmandu it was ready for talks to sort out the issue.

In 2014, the two sides had agreed on a framework for talks to sort out the boundary issue. While 98% of the 1,750 kilometre border has been delineated, two stretches one in Uttarakhand and another in Biharremain undemarcated.

New Delhi offered talks last year when Nepal protested a new map brought out by India, which had shown the areas disputed by Nepal as part of India. The offer was repeated before the Nepalese government tabled a constitution amendment bill to update its map this month, he said. The offer of talks included telephonic conversation between the two foreign secretaries, a video conference and also visits by the two foreign secretaries.

We dont know why Prime Minister Oli did not tell the Nepalese people and parliament about our offer of talks because we always keep hearing that we never offered talks," the person said. It points to the primary motivation that it (the new map) is driven by domestic political agenda," the person added

Oli and his government prejudged the outcome" and went ahead to get the map cleared by parliament, this person said. The reference was to political challenges faced by Oli within his Nepalese Communist Party. According to analysts, the stance against India is an effort by Oli to get his detractors to back him on an issue seen as nationalistic. It is up to them (prime minister Oli and the Nepal government) to create a conducive and positive atmosphere for further talks to take place."

On the road inaugurated by defence minister Rajnath Singh on 8 May that is seen as the trigger for the current tensions  the person said it had been under construction for almost a decade.

Even before the road, the route was used by Indians going the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage in China. At no point any objection was raised by Nepal," he said.

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The government has been accused of turning away from expert advice after a minister suggested that scientific and medical officials were staying away from Downing Street briefings on coronavirus because they had a huge amount of other work to do.

Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat acting leader, dismissed as risible the explanation offered by foreign secretary Dominic Raab for his solo appearance at the daily press conference on Monday. And he warned that ministers risked dismantling trust in the governments handling of Covid-19.

Boris Johnson is coming under pressure to explain changes to the pattern of appearances by key experts after The Independent reported that chief nurse Ruth May was dropped from a televised briefing when she refused to publicly back lockdown breaches by his top aide Dominic Cummings.

Mr Raab was the latest minister to appear at the lectern without experts since Englands deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam sparked headlines by saying that lockdown rules apply to all when asked about Mr Cummings. Prof Van-Tam has not appeared at the press conferences since 30 May.

The foreign secretary, who read out the latest statistics on infections and death rates (normally presented at the daily briefings by a medic or scientist), denied that experts were being edged out.

Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Show all 30 1 /30 Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff react outside Salford Royal Hospital in Manchester during a minute's silence to pay tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff inside Camberwell bus depot in London, during a minute's silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus NHS staff at the Mater hospital in Belfast, during a minute's silence to pay tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak. PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Shoppers observe a minute's silence in Tescos in Shoreham Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Firefighters outside Godstone fire station PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Salford Royal Hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Salford Royal Hospital PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Hospital workers take part in a protest calling on the British government to provide PPE across Britain for all workers in care, the NHS and other vital public services after a nationwide minute's silence at University College Hospital in London AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A school children's poster hanging outside Glenfield Hospital during a minute's silence Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A man holds a placard that reads "People's health before profit" outside St Thomas hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff members applaud outside the Royal Derby Hospital, following a minute's silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, Prime minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, stand inside 10 Downing Street, London, to observe a minutes silence in tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus University College Hospital, London Hospital workers hold placards with the names of their colleagues who have died from coronavirus as they take part in a protest calling on the British government to provide PPE AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff at Waterloo Station in London, stand to observe a minute's silence, to pay tribute to NHS and key workers who have died with coronavirus AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Medical staff at the Louisa Jordan hospital stand during a UK wide minutes silence to commemorate the key workers who have died with coronavirus in Glasgow Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus London An NHS worker observes a minute's silence at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London AFP via Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Belfast, Northern Ireland NHS staff observe a minutes silence at Mater Infirmorum Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Plymouth NHS workers hold a minute's silence outside the main entrance of Derriford Hospital Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus NHS Frimley Park Hospital staff at the A&E department observe a minute's silence Getty Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Mater Infirmorum Hospital People applaud after a minutes silence in honour of key workers Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Waterloo Station, London AP Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Wreaths laid outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A group of trade unionists and supporters standing outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus First Minister Nicola Sturgeon stands outside St Andrew's House in Edinburgh to observe a minute's silence in tribute to the NHS staff and key workers who have died during the coronavirus outbreak PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Staff stand outside the Royal Derby Hospital, during a minutes silence PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus London Police officers observe a minutes silence at Guy's Hospital Reuters Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus A woman standing outside Sheffield town hall PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Royal Derby Hospital PA Silence for key workers who lost lives to coronavirus Leicester, NHS workers during a minute's silence outside Glenfield Hospital Getty

In terms of presence at these press conferences, scientists and the chief and deputy medical officers will continue to come and attend these press conferences.

I think it is also true to say that as we go down the road map and start to talk about the changes we are making, whether it is to business, schools or other areas, we will also bring other independent experts along and make sure we can answer the full range of questions that people have.

He added: You are right to say the scientists and the medical adviser are important.

They will continue to attend these press conferences, perhaps not on a daily basis  theyve got a huge amount of other work to do  and undoubtedly the politicians need to answer the judgment calls we make based on the evolving science.

His comments came amid reports that some scientists are wary of becoming the fall guys for politicians in any inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sir Ed Davey said: The idea that senior experts in government are too busy to answer questions from the public and media is risible.

The Conservatives are deliberately turning away from expert advice and, in doing so, dismantling any trust people have in this government.

Asked about reports that Ms May was dropped from a coronavirus briefing, Mr Johnsons official spokesperson referred reporters back to the comments of transport secretary Grant Shapps, who said last Friday that he didnt think this was the case.

The spokesperson said that to the best of my knowledge, The Independents report  based on the testimony of two senior NHS sources  was not true. But he was unable to point to any specific inaccuracies.

Jonathan Bartley, Green Party co-leader, said he had received no response to a letter he wrote last week to Mr Johnson demanding an explanation for the sporadic and unpredictable appearances of expert officials including chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance since Mr Cummings was revealed to have broken lockdown by driving his family to Durham when he believed he and his wife had coronavirus.

But Mr Johnsons spokesperson said that both Prof Whitty and Sir Patrick had appeared at a press conference last week, adding that other recent televised briefings had featured other prominent medical figures.

The PMs spokesperson said the chief nurse may well appear again at the No 10 briefings and pointed to a message featuring her on the official Downing Street Twitter feed.

Munira Wilson, Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, has also written to the health secretary to demand an explanation.

Following Mr Raabs comments, Ms Wilson said: The image of the foreign secretary standing alone at the press conference was stark.

We have seen over the past week a deliberate move away from expert advice and transparency at the daily press conferences.

It is absolutely crucial that people have faith in the government through their handling of the coronavirus crisis, particularly as the lockdown is eased and people come into more contact with each other.
President Donald Trump claimed Monday that 'violent people' have taken over a large portion of Seattle as he and threatened to use federal power to break up the self-declared 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.'

Trump insulted the Democratic governor of Washington State and mayor of Seattle as he leveled his unexplained threat to take action. He brushed off talk of local negotiations when asked about the situation at the White House Monday.

'You know what theyre negotiating? Garbage removal,' Trump scoffed. 'These people have taken over a vast part, a major part, a very good part of a place called Seattle. Seattle is big stuff  that's a major city,' Trump said.

'By the way, these are violent people that took it over. These are not people who are nice people,' President Trump said Monday of people who declared the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in a six-block area of Seattle

'And we have a governor whos a stiff and a mayor who said oh this is going to be a love-fest,' he said, referencing Gov. Jay Inslee, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination for 2020.

'By the way, these are violent people that took it over. These are not people who are nice people,' Trump said, casting aside multi-faceted media reports of free granola bars, vegan pizza, and armed checkpoints at the six-block declared zone.

He told a Fox News correspondent who asked him about it: 'I saw on your network today  with the hitting and the punching and the beating and all the other things going on in Seattle. And you have a governor that doesn't do anything about it.'

Trump fumed: 'You have a governor that doesnt do a damn thing about it and you have a mayor that doesnt know shes alive. Shes talking about [how] its going to be a love-fest this summer. Now if they dont do the job Ill do the job and Ive already spoken to the attorney general about it. But if they dont do the job we will do the job.'

He was referencing Mayor Jenny Durkan's comment that this could be 'a summer of love,' when asked how long the protest might last.

Trump provided little information when asked what he might do to intervene.

'About ten different things, any one of which will solve the problem quickly,' Trump said. 'We don't have to go through any list. We can do a lot of things,' he said.

'There's no timeline. We're watching it very closely. These are violent people that are dealing violently. What I'd like to see before we do something I'd like to see the press get in and cover it,' Trump said, once again complaining about media coverage of Seattle.

Trump on Sunday accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd, and tweeted about the role of 'anarchists' in the protest.

In a tweet the president also suggested the 'same weak leaders' instead 'become radical' when it comes to keeping things closed due to coronavirus.

Protesters in Seattle have sealed off a six-block area that has become known as the CHAZ  or Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. The mayor there ordered police to abandon the area after near-daily clashes in the wake of Floyds death.

Tweeting on his 74th birthday Trump wrote: 'Interesting how ANTIFA and other Far Left militant groups can take over a city without barely a wimpier from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership, yet these same weak leaders become RADICAL when it comes to shutting down a state or city and its hard working, tax paying citizens!'

Seattles chief of police said earlier she wants her officers to return to the abandoned East Precinct building that was boarded up just before Black Lives Matter protesters began occupying a so-called autonomous zone near downtown.

But Police Chief Carmen Bests message appears at odds with Mayor Jenny Durkan, who has supported a more hands-off approach while saying that the protesters are exercising their First Amendment rights.

President Trump had already taunted Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and Durkan about the situation on Twitter and said the city had been taken over by 'anarchists.'

olice abandoned its East Precinct during protests against police brutality and the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after being pinned down by a white police officer in Minneapolis.The six-block area that has become known as the CHAZ  or Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone - is pictured Sunday

People walk past barricades on a street near Cal Anderson Park, Thursday inside the CHAZ

Donald Trump on Sunday accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd

Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best talks to media in front of the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct on Thursday, left. Best has been critical of the decision by Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan , right, to order officers to abandon the East Precinct, where protesters have set up their own police-free 'autonomous zone'

When asked by CNNs Chris Cuomo on Thursday how long she expected protesters to remain in the area before police return to the precinct, Durkan said: I don't know. We could have a summer of love.

Meanwhile, members of an armed left-wing group, the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club, have been spotted in the area after they were hired to provide security for some very prominent black voices who were giving speeches, according to The Daily Beast.

The clashes between demonstrators and police drew nationwide attention after law enforcement officials made widespread use of controversial crowd control tactics like stun grenades, pepper spray, and tear gas.

The massive unrest prompted the citys mayor, Durkan, to order police to abandon the East Precinct building, yielding it to protesters.

Despite reports of widespread lawlessness, the area appears to be largely peaceful, as authorities describe a 'block party atmosphere' where people are having cookouts, film screenings, art exhibits, and other cultural activities.

Protesters, however, said they plan on maintaining the 'no-police zone' until their demands for reform, including the cutting of funding to law enforcement, are met.

Protesters remove a man because he was bothering other protesters at the self-proclaimed Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) during a protest against racial inequality and call for defunding of Seattle police on Saturday

Mayor Durkans office on Thursday released a statement saying it was her decision to remove barriers around the East Precinct.

That came hours after Best posted a video criticizing the decision and implicitly accusing Durkan of caving to severe public pressure.

Best went public and distanced herself from the decision. She told her officers that she did not give the order to abandon the precinct.

I'm angry about how all this came about, Best said in the video.

Best said that SPD had solid information that led them to believe anti-government groups would destroy the precinct.

Best told KIRO-TV on Friday that she wanted to see her charges back in the precinct as soon as possible.

She said that 911 response times have increased threefold since the precinct was abandoned. Best said the department and city officials are now pondering their next steps.

A protester uses a scope on top of a barricade to look for police approaching the newly created CHAZ on Thursday

Trump taunted Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and Durkan about the situation on Twitter and said the city had been taken over by 'anarchists.'

'Take back your city NOW. If you dont do it, I will,' Trump tweeted.

The president continued his complaints in a Thursday interview with the Fox News Channel.

'If we have to go in, were going to go in,' Trump said, 'These people are not going to occupy a major portion of a great city.'

The president has sparred before with Inslee and Durkan - both liberal Democrats.

Inslee previously sought his partys presidential nomination.

Inslee tweeted Thursday that state officials will not allow threats of military violence from the White House.

'The US military serves to protect Americans, not the fragility of an insecure president,' he tweeted.

Donald Trump, pictured Saturday, accused the Democrats of doing nothing to stop the 'far left' bringing cities to a halt in the wake of protests at the death of George Floyd

Artists fill in the letters of a 'Black Lives Matter' mural on E. Pine Street as protesters establish what they call an autonomous zone while protesting against racial inequality and calling for the defunding of Seattle police

Protesters listen to a speaker as they sit in front of the Seattle Police Department East Precinct building, which has been boarded up and abandoned Thursday inside what is being called the 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' in Seattle

Seattle Police Assistant Chief Deanna Nollette and Assistant Chief Adrian Diaz are blocked by protesters from entering the newly created Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle, Washington on Thursday

The zone set up by protesters stretches a portion of Capitol Hill, where dozens of people show up to listen to speakers calling for police reform, racial justice and compensation for Native groups on whose land the city of Seattle was founded.

Signs proclaim 'You are entering free Capitol Hill' and 'No cop co-op' along sidewalks where people sell water and other wares.

On Thursday, speakers used a microphone to discuss their demands and how to address the police presence after they visited the precinct during the day.

Down the street, artists continued painting a block-long Black Lives Matter mural on the street.

Several individuals inside the CHAZ have been seen with assault rifles.

These armed leftists who are members of the PSJBGC describe themselves as part of an 'anti-fascist, anti-racist, pro-worker community defense organization committed to accountable, community-led defense in the Puget Sound region.'

A volunteer works security at an entrance to the so-called 'Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone' on Wednesday

Several armed individuals have been seen inside the CHAZ. A few belong to a left-wing group known as the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club

'There have been individuals with weapons - open carrying is legal in Washington State,' the mayor's office said in a statement when asked about armed protesters inside CHAZ.

'While the CHAZ is within the area of the City currently under a weapons ban, the Emergency Order establishing the weapons ban does not mandate enforcement.

'It gives officers the option to take certain actions (i.e., confiscate weapons) if they deem it necessary.'
Madrid, June 15 : The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Spain has been unchanged for a week now, at 27,136, according to the data published by the Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare on Sunday.

But the ministry also noted that there have been 26 deaths "in the past seven days," and that "a validation of the number of deaths is being carried out to allow us to correct the numbers, which will be updated weekly", Xinhua reported.

The Health Ministry also reported 48 new cases of COVID-19, drastically lower from the 130 reported 24 hours earlier, taking the tally to 243,928.

Meanwhile, Spain will reopen to travel from European Union (EU) countries -- with the exception of Portugal -- on June 21, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced at a televised press conference Sunday.

From June 21, Spaniards will be able to move freely in the country.

Spain's border with Portugal will reopen on July 1, at Portugal's request, while it will reopen for travel from outside the Schengen area as of July 11.

Sanchez explained the policy change, citing the positive evolution in the coronavirus situation in his country.

"It is a crucial moment that we have been preparing for," Sanchez said, adding that after July 1, there would be a "scaled" re-opening for travel from non-EU countries which are in an "equal or better epidemiological" situation and are willing to "act reciprocally."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
ANN ARBOR, MI - A $30-million gift from University of Michigan regent Ron Weiser and his wife, Eileen, will aid in diabetes research and development.

Pending approval from the UM Board of Regents, the Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute will aid in the development of diabetes therapies at Michigan Medicine, in collaboration with other UM schools and units for diabetes research.

The gift - named for Weisers daughter, who has two sons and a husband with Type 1 diabetes, - will advance UM faculty-led collaborative projects that have the potential for rapid clinical application, according to Michigan Medicine.

Elizabeth has been a relentless educator and advocate for people with diabetes and for diabetes research, Ron Weiser said in a news release. Our family hopes that the collaboration among physicians, researchers, innovators and advocates across campus will allow the work shes done - and continues to do - to be rewarded with cures for diabetes.

The Elizabeth Weiser Caswell Diabetes Institute will centralize and coordinate campus resources - anchored by a group of more than 250 researchers in diabetes, diabetic complications, obesity and metabolism - and allow UM to bring new depth and discovery to the quest for answers to diabetes.

Several national and international collaborators will work with the UM and Michigan Medicine teams, the health system noted.

This is one of the most important things that has happened for diabetes research, not just for the University of Michigan, but for the whole country, said Martin Myers Jr., director of the new institute. The institute is built on the idea that we cant only study one aspect of diabetes, but rather that we need to work together to attack every piece of this disease at the same time.

"Thus, we will simultaneously work toward making designer insulin-producing beta cells as a therapy for diabetes, seek to understand how to block the onset of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, and focus on how to improve clinical care and access to current lifesaving therapies.

To ensure a new generation of researchers are trained to continue investigations to lessen the impact of Type 1 diabetes, Caswell and her husband, Trey, also partnered with the Weisers to establish the Caswell Family Fellowship in pediatric endocrinology as part of the $30-million commitment.

Caswell has previously worked for the diabetes nonprofit JDRF and will be a member of the JDRF International Board of Directors and vice-chair of the JDRF Research Committee.

Diabetes doesnt allow anybody to shut down and forget about it; theres no break," Caswell said. "Fortunately, the team at Michigan Medicine has been there for us every step of the way - advising us on daily care, advances in treatment technologies, and opportunities for clinical research. Until T1D is cured, we are grateful for top-notch care at one of the best research institutions in the world.

UM President Mark Schlissel credited the Weiser family for its long history of championing the work of faculty at UM through a number of vital partnerships.

Earlier this year, Weiser announced a $10-million gift to establish a comprehensive real estate center at UMs Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

In 2018, the Weisers announced another $10 million gift toward establishing the Weiser Diplomacy Center a new to serve as a hub for engagement with the foreign policy community.

This gift will ensure that UM is able to translate scientific discoveries into treatments for diabetes that save lives in our community and beyond," Schlissel said. "I am personally touched by the way this family has translated their personal experience with diabetes into hope for all people, and grateful for their confidence in UMs promise to make a difference.

Overall, the Weisers have committed more than $100 million to the university to date.

READ MORE:

University of Michigan regent gifts $10M for new real estate center

$10M gift from regent brings diplomacy center to University of Michigan

McKinley founder Ron Weiser donates $50 million to University of Michigan
The World Health Organization estimates that 117 million people worldwide may have missed a vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Shutterstock

Although COVID-19 is a new illness caused by a new virus, the fallout from the COVID-19 shutdown may put the world at risk for outbreaks of old illnesses: ones that were practically eradicated through vaccination.

The World Health Organization estimates that 117 million people worldwide will miss out on vaccinations for preventable diseases due to COVID-19. Closer to home, the Canadian Paediatric Society is worried that Canadians will fall behind on their vaccination schedules. Vaccines are one of the most important public health tools at our disposal. Ignoring vaccinations can have dire consequences.

Lessons from 1918

I am a historian of medicine. I study the history of infectious diseases and vaccination. In recent months, I have focused my research on the understudied effects of the 1918 flu pandemic on public health in Canada.

The experience of the 1918 influenza should act as a warning for provincial public health programs. My research shows that in the years after the 1918 flu, Canada suffered a series of outbreaks of smallpox and typhoid after vaccination took a backseat to the pandemic.

Provincial governments need to have a plan to get children back on track when COVID-19 subsides, or run the risk of creating an environment ripe for outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles.

Establishing public health measures

Before the 1918 flu, local public health programs were temporary, and workers were volunteers. In 1923, the Health Board of Quebec provided financial support to create permanent public health units. As part of this, it instituted a hygiene week, when the government educated communities about the importance of public health measures, including vaccination. Ontario followed suit, in 1924, when the chief officer of health helped develop full-time public health units for the province.

Though it may seem that the 1918 flu directly spurred the development of permanent public health units and sophisticated routine vaccine programs, the truth is more complicated. My study of public health reports shows that after the 1918 flu, cases of smallpox and other preventable diseases spiked.

In 1920, Canada had 2,553 cases of smallpox, compared to a baseline of a couple hundred a year. Cases continued climbing to a peak of 3,300 in 1927, before declining to near zero in the 1940s. In 1923, Cochrane, Ont. had an outbreak of typhoid with 800 cases and 50 deaths. With a population of 3,400, cases represented almost a quarter of the population.

Outbreaks in the wake of 1918 flu

It is difficult to track vaccination uptake in the early 1900s, because records of vaccination during this period were spotty at best. Nonetheless, these lapses in public health expose failures to maintain adequate vaccination levels in communities across Canada in the wake of the 1918 flu, which interrupted many aspects of life including commerce, religion and vaccination.

After the 1918 flu, however, public health officers did not take measures necessary to make up for lost time and missed vaccinations. It was not until several outbreaks had occurred, such as the one in Cochrane, that public health authorities regained control over preventable diseases.

Getting infectious diseases under control meant ensuring shots were administered as part of routine vaccination programs. This was a messy process and it did not happen all at once. However, by 1940 Toronto acheived the distinction of being the first city with a population over 500,000 to report no cases of smallpox. Toronto achieved this by tracking vaccinations closely and by advertising smallpox vaccination at the same time every year.

Vaccine misinformation

Today, Canadian vaccination programs are threatened by vaccine misinformation, rejection and apathy. At the same time, a growing number of Canadians are hesitant to vaccinate. These factors leave Canada with slim margins on maintaining herd immunity, which refers to the point at which the percentage of people immunized ensures protection of the whole community from disease. Even before COVID-19, Canada has had outbreaks of measles in under-vaccinated communities. In 2019, Canada reported 113 cases of measles.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created many problems that will need attention. Already provinces are creating step-by-step plans to reopen their economies. What is needed now is for provinces to create step-by-step plans for identifying and contacting those who have fallen behind on their vaccinations.

Explore further Research on Spanish Flu teaches lessons about pandemics

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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If the recent proposals by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to limit the terms of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of private banks become a rule, HDFC Bank boss Aditya Puris record as the longest-serving private bank CEO will remain unbroken.

Puri has served as the CEO of HDFC Bank from 1994, meaning he has completed 26 years. Puris term is ending in October. The bank is yet to finalise a successor for the outgoing chief. The nearest contender to break Puris record is Kotak Mahindra Banks promoter and CEO, Uday Kotak, who has completed 17 years as bank chief. Kotak is the chief executive of Kotak Mahindra Bank since 2003-2004, when the bank started operations.

The RBI has proposed to limit the tenures of the promoters of private banks as CEOs and Whole Time Directors (WTDs) to 10 years if the person is from the promoter group and 15 years if from the non-promoter group. The RBI said it wants to do so to build a robust culture of sound governance practice, professional management of banks and to adopt the principle of separating ownership from management, it is desirable to limit the tenure of the WTDs (whole-time directors) or CEOs.

Also, the RBI has proposed to limit the upper age limit for CEO/WTDs of banks at 70 years. Going by this, Kotak had another nine years in the bank (he is currently 61). This would have meant that Kotak will match Puris tenure as CEO or even beat his record.

But, if RBIs new proposals are cleared as guidelines, Kotak will have to end his term by 2022 or 2023.

Shyam Srinivasan, MD&CEO of Kerala-based Federal Bank and RBL Bank MD& CEO, Vishwavir Ahuja, both will have time till 2025 as both officials have completed a decade in their roles as chief executives. Similarly, Chandrashekhar Ghosh of Bandhan Bank has completed five years as CEO of the Kolkata-based bank, meaning he will have ten more years (non-promoter CEOs are allowed for 15 years), before his term comes to end, which is 2030.

The RBI has promised two years, or till the expiry of their tenure, whichever comes later, to the whole time directors and CEOs from the date of guidelines to identify a successor. After their tenure comes to an end, the CEOs/WTDs need to wait till the expiration of three years before re-appointment. During this three-year period the individual shall not be appointed or associated with the bank in any capacity, either directly or indirectly, advisory or otherwise, the RBI said.

Earlier in 2020, Uday Kotak and RBI had a court battle over Kotak's promoter stake holding in the bank. The RBI norms stipulated that Kotak had to pare promoter stake below 20 percent before December 31, 2018 from around 30 percent.

To achieve compliance, in August 2018, the bank announced the completion of perpetual noncumulative preference share issue (PNCPS), which it interpreted as cutting the promoter stake to 19.7 percent. The bank claimed it is complying with the RBI licencing norms through this deal. But here the RBI posed a question.

The regulator said preference share allotment route wasnt sufficient to meet promoter dilution rule requirement. But the banks legal argument was PNCPS was part of the paid-up capital. With the impasse continuing and the deadline for stake dilution fast approaching, KMB finally decided to move the High Court of Bombay. In January, the RBI let KMB retain the 26 percent promoter stake with some riders.

The RBI said the promoters, Uday Kotak and family, while retaining 26 percent stake, need to cap the voting rights at 15 percent by April. KMB withdrew the case subsequently and some interpreted this as a win for Uday Kotak. In June, Kotak sold 5.6 crore shares for more than Rs 6,900 crore in a block deal, bringing down his stake to 26.1 percent, inching closer to the RBIs stipulated level.

While this was an out-of-court settlement, some interpreted this as a win for Kotak at the end of the bitter court battle. It is an irony that under the proposed CEO-term rules of the central bank, Kotak is the worst hit private bank promoter.

Also, it is worth noting that the RBI has set up an internal group to review the ownership and control of private banks.

The internal working group will examine and review the extant licensing and regulatory guidelines relating to ownership and control, promoters holding, requirement of dilution, control and voting rights, etc, the RBI said. The working group comprises Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, Director, Central Board of RBI, Sachin Chaturvedi, Director Central Board of RBI, Lily Vadera, Executive Director, RBI, SC Murmu, Executive Director, RBI, Shrimohan Yadav, Chief General Manager, RBI, the central bank said in a release on June 12.

It is likely that the RBI group will relook at the promoter holding which means that existing promoters will have to yet again tweak their stake holdings in the respective banks yet again.
ALBANY  A store employee was attacked by a customer Friday after trying to enforce COVID-19 safety regulations, according to Albany police.

Police were called to Hair and Wig Beauty Supply on Central Avenue around 5:30 p.m., where the victim had a swollen, bloody nose and lip.
A pilot is missing after an American fighter jet crashed into the North Sea while on a training exercise off the north-east coast of England.

The US Air Force F-15C Eagle, from the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, crashed at around 9.40am on Monday with one pilot on board.

A search and rescue operation is under way to find the missing US Air Force pilot.

The 48th Fighter Wing said in a statement: At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board.

The cause of the crash as well as the status of the pilot are unknown at this time, and UK Search and Rescue have been called to support.

The F15C, a single-seater air defence fighter, is a model of jet that has been used by the US Air Force since 1979.

An F-15C Eagle assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing has crashed into the North Sea (PA)

A @usairforce F-15C Eagle crashed at approximately 0940 today in the North Sea. The aircraft was from the 48th Fighter Wing, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board. https://t.co/1Psg3N1JCz  RAF Lakenheath (@48FighterWing) June 15, 2020

RAF spokesman Martin Tinworth said the aircraft has an "exceptional flight safety record".

HM Coastguard said in a statement that it received reports of a plane "going down into the sea 74 nautical miles off Flamborough Head" on the Yorkshire coast.

Read more: Long queues at Primark as shops reopen across England

"The HM Coastguard helicopter from Humberside has been sent along with Bridlington and Scarborough RNLI lifeboats," a spokesman said.

"Following a Mayday broadcast by HM Coastguard, other vessels nearby are heading to the area."

Earlier on Monday, RAF Lakenheath tweeted an image of three fighter jets in the sky.

The US Air Force said the pilot is still missing.

Story continues

In a video statement, Colonel Will Marshall, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath, said the cause of the crash was unknown, adding: Search-and-rescue efforts are currently under way, but the pilot of the aircraft is still missing.

Colonel Will Marshall, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath, issued a statement on Monday after the crash (PA)

We will provide updates as they become available while prioritising respect and consideration for the pilots family.

He said they remained hopeful the pilot will be found.

RAF Lakenheath is the "largest US Air Force-operated base in England and the only US air forces in Europe F15 fighter wing", its website says.

The 48th Fighter Wing, which has operated from the base since 1960, has more than 4,500 "active-duty military members".

The US fighter jet which crashed into the North Sea was based at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk (PA)

Its mission statement is to "provide worldwide responsive combat air power and support".

In October 2014, an F15D fighter jet based at RAF Lakenheath crashed in fields near Spalding in Lincolnshire.

Read more: World's largest shipping container arrives in UK

The pilot ejected safely, suffering only minor injuries, and no one on the ground was hurt.

A US Air Force investigation found that the crash was caused by the "angle of attack" of the aircraft and "imperfections" in the assembly of the jet's nose cap.

In October 2015, US pilot Major Taj Sareen died when his F-18 Hornet jet crashed on farmland near RAF Lakenheath.

A subsequent investigation found the 34-year-old did not report problems with his aircraft before take-off.
Tuesday this week, in South Africa, is National Youth Day and the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) Youth Office will host a virtual World Youth Day celebration.

Sheila Pires  Johannesburg & English Africa Service - Vatican City

South Africas virtual World Youth Day celebrations will be live streamed on the SACBC Youth & Young Adult Ministry Facebook Page, on Tuesday. The event is organised by SACBC in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Cape Towns youth ministry.

COVID-19, violence against women and Black Lives Matter

Explaining the event, Dominique Yon, assistant to the Youth Chaplain in the Archdiocese of Cape Town said there was no particular theme for the celebration. However, some Bishops are scheduled to speak on topical socio-economic issues such as COVID-19, violence against women and children and on matters connected with Black Lives Matter.

Videos and musicians from across the country

Youth Day is usually one of the biggest events in our year, and since it is being done digitally, we found no reason why we could not do it nationally and make it an inter-diocesan event. We will be incorporating videos and musicians from all over the nation. Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town will celebrate the Mass. Other Bishops will also be involved and will share reflections encouraging and motivating young people, said Dominique Yon who is also a member of the Vatican's International Youth Advisory Body.

South Africa is on COVID-19 level three lockdown with most businesses, schools and churches allowed to operate albeit on a limited basis.

Youth Day commemorates the Soweto Uprising

16 June, each year, is a public holiday in South Africa. The day has roots in the Soweto Uprising of 16 June 1976.

It is a day set apart to recognise the courage of protesters in Soweto, led mainly by high school students who demonstrated against the South African apartheid regimes compulsory introduction of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools.

The Apartheid Police reacted to the protests with a brutal crackdown setting-off a wave of protests and violent conflicts across South Africa. Twenty-three students were shot at by the Police, on the day. In all the death toll is generally given as 176.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Young Ukrainian adults are prompting us to rethink what we mean when we talk about people having a 'mother tongue', as many are working to shift the primary language they use from Russian to Ukrainian amid the ongoing UkrainianRussian War.

Much research to date on the embodiment of language sees languages as a fixed part of a person, such that the language(s) they speak are seen as part of them, always tied to their identity.

However, for my new book, Choosing a Mother Tongue: The Politics of Language and Identity in Ukraine, I interviewed Ukrainians in their 20s and 30s actively working to change their mother tongue, suggesting we should look to a more fluid understanding of the term 'mother tongue' that better captures people's lived experiences and complex, dynamic identities.

The 38 Ukrainians who took part in this researchwho live in Ukraine itself or as part of the Ukrainian diaspora in New Zealand, the United States and Canadashow not all people feel language is a fixed part of themselves, but rather it is more appropriate to think of language as something that can be negotiated and renegotiated, in the same way we have come to regard identity.

As a member of the New Zealand Ukrainian community and a Ukrainian-American with Ukrainian heritage on my mother's side, I am very familiar with how language, culture and politics are entwined in Ukraine. This has been so for many generations, always in complex and complicated ways.

By the fall of the Soviet Union, as a result of Russification, Ukraine had the largest Russian-speaking population outside Russia, and Russian remains the largest minority language in the country still today. However, since Ukrainian was declared the official state language in 1991, there has been a widespread increase in its use, albeit hugely varied, with Ukrainian dominant in Central and Western Ukraine but Russian still dominant in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.

The UkrainianRussian War following Russia's annexation of Crimea and occupation of Eastern Ukraine in 2014 has further fuelled use of Ukrainian by many Ukrainians as a marker of aligning with a Ukrainian national identity (as opposed to a previously dominant focus on regional and/or ethnic identities).

Those identifying with a national Ukrainian identity include those attempting to change their mother tongue (or dominant language they grew up speaking) from Russian to Ukrainianin terms of the language they speak, the language in which they think, and the language with which they most identify internally.

This transition for the people taking part reflects a commonly discussed belief in Ukrainian life (and internationally) that there is a strong link between experience and languageas stated by activist Sergiy Osnach in 2015: "Language and historical memory are two interconnected identities."

As a further example of this, one of the people I interviewed (Ilona, in her 30s, from Western Ukraine and now living in the United States), captured this ideological link when she talked about her ideal future self: "When I practise a conversation with my daughter in the future, I do it in Ukrainian, and it's just when I think of myself in the future or just in general, the self-image of me in Ukrainian, it's different than if I were to think of it in any other language. It just feels like home, feels natural as opposed to either Russian or English  It's home. The language, Ukrainian language, is home. It's childhood. It's the sun  The person that I want to be, the person that does everything right and does everything the way I want to be, is the ideal person I strive to be, she speaks Ukrainian."

The language situation in Ukraine has also taken a darker turn for some. Following the first demonstrations against then President Viktor Yanukovych's pro-Russian government in 2013, many people reported feeling that Ukrainians who spoke Russian were "traitors". From a political historical perspective, this is not entirely surprising, as language has been front and centre in Ukrainian politics for some time. For example, during the 2007 parliamentary elections, a billboard campaign in Crimea read: "Water. Roads. Language."

It is important to note, however, that the ability and willingness to speak Ukrainian is not a requirement in the eyes of all the Ukrainians I interviewed. In fact, most, no matter where they were from or now lived, said it was much more important a person internally and consciously feels Ukrainian, regardless of the language they use.

Those with this belief also positioned themselves as part of a new multilingual, multicultural Ukraine where a person can speak whatever language they are most comfortable with and others will accept this. For them, language and identity do not have a one-to-one connection; it is much more complex.

Considering the many ways people identify, and their experiences with and ideologies about language, these young Ukrainians bring us a timely reminder that our understanding of and assumptions about people need to be continuously revisited. As people and societies develop and change, so too should our ideas about them.

Explore further Apple says to 'carefully' examine Crimea map controversy
UW Survey: Most Comfortable Attending Large Outdoor Events, But a Third Arent

While a majority of Wyoming residents report that they would be comfortable attending outdoor events this summer and fall, a significant number would be uncomfortable doing so, according to a new survey by the University of Wyomings Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center (WYSAC).

Fifty-seven percent of residents say they are extremely or somewhat comfortable with attending outdoor events with up to 250 people in Wyoming this summer or fall. On the other hand, 33 percent say they are somewhat or extremely uncomfortable.

When considering events with more than 250 people, 52 percent of Wyomingites say they are extremely or somewhat comfortable attending. Alternatively, 38 percent say they are somewhat or extremely uncomfortable attending outdoor events of this size.

The survey, conducted Monday, June 8, is the fifth of multiple surveys WYSAC is conducting to measure public opinion on a number of topics related to COVID-19. A total of 498 Wyoming residents participated in the survey representing all Wyoming counties, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Moving forward, we will start measuring what factors will make more Wyoming residents feel comfortable attending outdoor events this year, says Brian Harnisch, senior research scientist in charge of the project at WYSAC. We hope this information will prove useful to not only state and local health officials, but also to event organizers around the state.

Here are some of the latest surveys key findings:

-- A quarter of Wyoming residents say they are not changing their daily routine specifically because of COVID-19, an increase of 9 points from one month ago.

-- Over half (58 percent) of residents say they are not attending public gatherings, a decrease of 12 percentage points since May. Fifty-eight percent also say they are washing their hands more frequently, a decrease of 8 points. A 10-point decrease was observed in those who say they are avoiding physical contact with others, going from 68 percent in May to 58 percent at present.

-- One-quarter of Wyoming residents say they always wear masks when in indoor public spaces, contrasting with 28 percent who say they never wear masks when in those spaces.

-- Thirty-eight percent of residents say it is very likely that they will be vaccinated for COVID-19 if a vaccine becomes available, a decrease of 11 points from one month ago. Just over a quarter (26 percent) say it is very unlikely that they will get the vaccine.

-- Fewer people are reporting difficulty purchasing household items, with 36 percent saying they have had difficulty in the past two weeks, a decrease of 15 points from a month ago. Similarly, 33 percent say they have experienced difficulty purchasing groceries or other food they wanted, a decrease of 13 points from a month ago.

-- Approval of the way Gov. Mark Gordon is handling the COVID-19 crisis remains high, with 70 percent saying they strongly approve or somewhat approve of the way he is handling things. Gordons net approval rating (approval minus disapproval) is at plus 46 percent.

-- Approval of the way President Donald Trump is handling the COVID-19 crisis has remained steady, with 56 percent saying they strongly approve or somewhat approve of the way he is handling things. Trumps net approval rating is at plus 17 points.

-- Regarding the way local government and health officials are handling the COVID-19 crisis, 68 percent say they strongly approve or somewhat approve of the way they are handling things. The net approval for these entities is at plus 42 percentage points, a decrease of 4 points from two weeks ago.

-- Approval of the way Congress is handling the COVID-19 crisis decreased 3 percentage points, with 32 percent saying they strongly approve or somewhat approve of the way Congress is handling things. The net approval rating for Congress is minus 26 percentage points.

To see the survey methodology, chart, figures and complete survey results, go to https://wysac.uwyo.edu/wysac/.
A convicted paedophile suspected of murdering Madeleine McCann is refusing to answer questions at this time, his lawyers have reportedly said.

Investigators in Germany believe Christian Bruckner killed Madeleine shortly after kidnapping her in Portugal more than 10 years ago.

His lawyers have said the suspect will refuse to answer questions because prosecutors must have evidence he was involved in her disappearance, The Times reported.

Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel, Friedrich Fulscher, Bruckners lawyer, said, according to the newspaper.

This is quite common in criminal proceedings. It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime.

He added: No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.

The 43-year-old suspect is in jail in Germany for drug dealing and is appealing against a conviction for raping a woman in Portugal in 2005.

He is reportedly being investigated over the disappearances of other children as well as Madeleine.

Bruckner was sent a summons letter in 2013  five years after Madeleine went missing  to appear for questioning over the case, which a former German police chief said was a huge mistake, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The move may have allowed Bruckner to destroy any evidence that may have existed, experts told German newspaper Der Spiegel last week.

Recommended Madeleine McCann investigators receive 400 tips after new appeal

A German prosecutor investigating Madeleines disappearance has said there is a little bit of hope she is still alive after previously claiming current evidence points to the fact she is dead.

Hans Christian Wolters said over the weekend there is no forensic evidence to support the idea Madeleine  who disappeared in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz - is dead.

Brueckner 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 a three-year-old Madeleine went missing in May 2007.

Portuguese police are said to be considering searching abandoned wells near a farmhouse rented by Bruckner on the outskirts of the resort in hope of finding clues into Madeleines disappearance, according to The Times.

Additional reporting by Press Association
There is a photograph taken in 1937 which shows Joseph Stalin walking along the Moscow canal with three lieutenants. Yet in a version issued 12 months later, only two lieutenants can be seen.

The missing man is Nikolai Yezhov, a Soviet commissar who, executed in a purge, had vanished not just from office, but from the photo, too. Plucked from history by Stalin.

I left the USSR and came to Britain in 1988. When I did so, I left a country of censorship, conformism and authoritarianism for a free-thinking land of rules and democratic debate.

Now I fear this nation is heading in the same direction as the one I left.

The comparisons are clearly visible: a zealous revolutionary spirit, an egalitarian ideology and the desire to rewrite national myths. After the November revolution, the Soviet Union set about erasing Tsarist history.

Statues were toppled, books were burnt and the Romanovs were themselves executed in 1918.

Under Stalin, the new Soviet Tsar, newspapers were muzzled and critical voices were silenced.

For ideologues, the ends justify the means  while history and culture are the most powerful tools of all.

After Stalins death, his legacy was whitewashed and the regime attempted to erase much of his rule from the records. For decades, we never knew the true extent of the gulags and the executions.

In the 1991 revolution, history repeated itself. Statues were pulled down and places renamed.

The apartment block in which I grew up on Romanov Lane was targeted by protesters. The plaques immortalising its famous Soviet residents were vandalised with swastikas overnight.

Millions are not dying in labour camps or civil war in modern Britain, yet worrying echoes of this censorship and groupthink abound.

And Im sorry to say that Black Lives Matter, a laudable movement for racial equality, risks abolishing freedom of thought and democratic debate in a land that has traditionally been its defender.

Statues are pulled down and plaques are graffitied by people who will not rest until our public spaces are free of any reference to our complex history.

Yesterday, we all saw the tragedy this has led to  the boarded-up statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square and far-right thugs patrolling the area spoiling for a fight.

In the eyes of Black Lives Matter protesters, Robert Peel and William Gladstone are no longer reforming liberal premiers, but villains through association with their slave-owning family. Our history is being re-written before our eyes.

Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Show all 16 1 /16 Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest The Edward Colston statue has been pulled down by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol. Colston was a 17th century slave trader who has numerous landmarks named after him in Bristol. Pictured is the statue covered up before it was pulled down Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Protesters pulling down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston William Want Twitter account/AFP Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Protesters pulling down a statue of slave trader Edward Colston William Want Twitter account/AFP Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest A protester presses his knee into the neck of the Edward Colston statue Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest The protest rally was in College Green, Bristol Ben Birchall/PA Wire Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest The Edward Colston statue is defaced Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest A crowd gathers Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Protesters dragging the statue of Edward Colston to Bristol harbourside PA Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest The statue is rolled along the street before being dropped into a nearby river SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Tom Wren / SWNS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Protesters throw the statue of Edward Colston into Bristol harbour PA Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest Ben Birchall/PA Wire Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest TWITTER/SELLOTTIE via REUTERS Slave trader statue pulled down and thrown in river at Bristol protest PA

Free individuals are forced to submit to the revolution. The pressure on individuals, organisations and brands to declare their support for a movement that aims to undermine British culture and history has been immense.

The removal of potentially offensive episodes of the comedies like Fawlty Towers and Little Britain from streaming platforms also demonstrates the one eternal truth of revolutions  zealots lack a sense of humour.

Lack of historical memory in modern Russia is serving to rehabilitate Stalin as a popular and strong leader, while the contributions of British military and civilian leaders are being distorted or overlooked. Todays heroes will be tomorrows villains.

To admit the flaws in our public figures should not mean covering up the immense contributions people like Churchill and Gladstone have made. I have seen for myself the perils of whitewashing history.

I fear that in the breakneck pursuit of equality and justice, some of what made Britain truly great will be lost. Let the people go uncensored, let the children see the complex reality of our history and let the monuments to the memory of those who came before us stay up.

As a child of the Soviet Union I can tell you one thing: the liberties you take for granted should be protected.
Israel said Sunday it was deporting the son of American media magnate Shari Redstone for violating the country's coronavirus quarantine rules while paying a secret visit to his model girlfriend.

Israel's Population and Immigration Authority said it had granted Brandon Korff an exceptional permit to enter the country on Friday to visit his brother, who is serving in the Israeli military.

It said Korff "violated the isolation orders from the moment he entered the country and met his Israeli partner and stayed with her in the same apartment. It said Korff, son of the chairwoman of ViacomCBS, was ordered to leave the country immediately.

The statement did not identify the partner. But Korff, who is in his mid-30s, is dating Israeli model Yael Shelbia.

The 18-year-old model, who is doing compulsory military service, has appeared in campaigns for Israeli clothing company Renuar and Kim Kardashian's KKW Beauty makeup line.

Israel banned entry to non-citizens or residents in March in an effort to clamp down on the spread of the novel coronavirus. Israel requires all individuals entering the country to remain in quarantine for two weeks following their arrival.

Last week, Israel's deputy director of the Health Ministry came under fire after an Israeli billionaire businessman was granted an exemption from the isolation orders. Teddy Sagi was then spotted attending a party with Israeli celebrities.
Rare gathering of US aircraft carriers 'to be met with Chinese countermeasures'

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/14 17:48:40

In a rare move, the US is sending three aircraft carriers to waters near China as bilateral tensions rise, a move interpreted by foreign media as a warning to China. Chinese military experts said on Sunday that the US move again exposed its hegemonic politics in the region, and China could counter it by holding military drills and showing its ability and determination to safeguard its territorial integrity.

China possesses aircraft carrier killer weapons like the DF-21D and DF-26 anti-ship ballistic missiles.

The three US aircraft carriers, namely the USS Theodore Roosevelt, USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan, together with other US naval warships and aircraft, are patrolling the Indo-Pacific waters, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

It has been nearly three years since so many US aircraft carriers have been simultaneously deployed in the region, the report said, noting this move comes as tensions between China and the US are rising over topics like COVID-19, Hong Kong's national security law and the South China Sea.

All three aircraft carriers were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, which left the US with no aircraft carriers in the western Pacific region for more than two months.

By massing these aircraft carriers, the US is attempting to demonstrate to the whole region and even the world that it remains the most powerful naval force, as they could enter the South China Sea and threaten Chinese troops on the Xisha and Nansha islands as well as vessels passing through nearby waters, so the US could carry out its hegemonic politics, Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert, told the Global Times.

China could counter the US move by enhancing its own war preparedness and holding corresponding drills, telling the US that China is capable of and determined to safeguard its territorial integrity, Li said.

Naval and aerial forces of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) have expelled many US warships that illegally entered China's territorial waters off the Xisha and Nansha islands in the South China Sea this year, according to PLA statements.

In addition to standard naval warships, aircraft and missiles, China possesses a wide range of weapons designed to sink aircraft carriers, like the medium-range anti-ship ballistic missile DF-21D that can cover the First Island Chain, and the intermediate range anti-ship ballistic missile DF-26 that can reach Guam. These missiles can attack medium-sized to large surface vessels from above at very high speeds, making them difficult to intercept, according to publicly available information.

Li also cast doubt over US aircraft carrier's combat readiness after their crews' recovery from the epidemic.

Just as US President Donald Trump is pushing for domestic work resumption, the aircraft carriers were also pushed to the frontlines, Li said, noting that the US military only cares whether they are deployed rather than if they are ready to fight.

"In this situation, it is also possible that another COVID-19 outbreak will take place on the US carriers," Li said.

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She recently gave birth to her first child - a daughter named Sienna - with her husband Hugo Taylor.

And Millie Mackintosh was every inch the doing new mum as she took her little girl for a stroll in her pram around west London on Sunday morning.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, looked radiant as she went make-up free for the outing and put on a busty display in a plunging grey vest top.

New mum: Millie Mackintosh was every inch the doing new mum as she took her little girl for a stroll in her pram around west London on Sunday morning

The reality star teamed her top with a pair of patterned gym leggings, and tied a navy hooded jacket around her waist.

Millie shielded her eyes from the rays with a pair of oversized cat-eye shades, while wearing her brunette locks in a loose, natural style.

On Monday, Millie switched her casual look for a pretty chic white dress as she showcased her collection with MILLIE X PITUSA.

Glowing: The former Made In Chelsea star, 30, looked radiant as she went make-up free for the outing and put on a busty display in a plunging grey vest top

Casual: The reality star teamed her top with a pair of patterned gym leggings, and tied a navy hooded jacket around her waist

The mother-of-one displayed one of her looks while posing in the street, wearing a chic white dress with button and tiered detailing.

She accessorised with a raffia handbag, a pair of slip on mules and quirky shades.

Millie recently finally unveiled the name of her baby daughter, five weeks after welcoming her first child with her husband in Hello! magazine.

She introduced little Sienna Grace to the world as she cradled her adorable girl in a stunning cover shoot.

Sunnies: Millie shielded her eyes from the rays with a pair of oversized cat-eye shades, while wearing her brunette locks in a loose, natural style

The blogger gushed she's 'on cloud nine' and praised sunglasses entrepreneur Hugo, 34, for being present during labour amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused most hospitals in the UK to allow only one birthing partner.

Revealing that the couple settled on Sienna Grace's name 'months' before the birth, Millie added of their first few weeks of parenthood: 'We've been on cloud nine; it's gone so quickly.

'We've been in our little love bubble at home, cherishing those newborn moments, whether that's her sleeping on me or just lapping up all the cuteness.'

Wow! On Monday, Millie switched her casual look for a pretty chic white dress as she showcased her collection with MILLIE X PITUSA

'Time has gone so quickly. She is so adorable, even down to the little noises she makes.'

Hugo added: 'Sienna has turned our world upside down. It's like first love all over again  that wondrous feeling of excitement, joy and endless possibility for the future. I can't wait to watch her grow.'

It's unclear whether Millie named her daughter after actress Sienna Miller, but she has made no secret of being a supporter of the thespian - having taken inspiration from her cropped haircut in 2013, and fangirled over her wearing her Nouveau Lashes to the 2015 Golden Globes ceremony.
Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat takes part in a meeting of a conservative research group in Westminster hall in London, UK on April 9, 2019. (TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)

UK Politician Calls Out Chinese Students Censorship Efforts on College Campus

Following media reports that Chinese international students at a British university blocked a student union motion to express support for Hong Kong protesters, a British member of parliament called for new immigration policies to encourage more students from democratic countries to study in the UK.

Back in February, the student union at University of Warwick, a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry, England, organized a motion to support Hong Kongs movement and protect freedom of expression on campus according to the universitys newspaper The Boar.

The vote was called in an effort to protect freedom of expression on campus, as some students from Hong Kong as well as the mainland claimed that they had received death threats on social media for showing support for Hong Kong protesters, according to The Times report on May 28.

But soon after, the Warwick Chinese Society, a student group for Chinese students, posted a tutorial for its members on how to vote against the motion.

Over 2,000 Chinese students ended up voting against it, overturning the student unions motion.

We merely advised Chinese students to vote Against in one particular motion but we did not force any students to do so, The Boar quoted the Warwick Chinese Society as saying.

The news brought up the issue of censorship on academic campuses.

Chinese students are often influenced by the Chinese regimes propaganda to toe Beijings line on political issues. In regards to Hong Kong, for example, Beijing has portrayed the pro-democracy protests to be a separatist movement incited by foreign countries.

Mainland Chinese studying at campuses around the world have been documented to harass supporters of Hong Kong protests, damage messages in support of the protests, and physically attack supporters.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street to attend Prime Ministers Questions at the Houses of Parliament in London, England on June 3, 2020. (Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

Student Visa Policy

Conservative member of parliament (MP) Tom Tugendhat penned an article about Chinas growing threats, published on the website Conservative Home on June 5.

Tugendhat is the leader of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.

In the article, Tugendhat warned that, We need a global China strategy if were to confront the biggest challenge to the liberal world since the end of the Cold War.

Tugendhat noted that British society is built upon an open system of education that encourages freedom of thought. However, this open system is under threat from China.

He explained that the UK should enact measures to counter Beijings influence on UK campuses, including how Beijing threatens to remove students or research grants.

At the same time, Tugendhat acknowledged that the tuition paid by large numbers of Chinese international students is a major source of revenue for UK universities.

According to the latest statistics released by the British Higher Education Statistics Agency, 342,620 non-European Union students enrolled in UK universities in the 2018/19 academic year. 35 percent of those non-EU students, or 120,385, were from China.

To diversify the student pool, Tugendhat proposed changing the UKs visa policy to encourage more students from democratic countries, such as India, to study in the country.

People walk past signage for Australian universities in Melbournes central business district on June 10, 2020, (William West/AFP via Getty Images)

In recent days, the Chinese regime again pressured students to toe the linewith regard to Australia.

The country has recently called for a full investigation into the origins of the pandemic in China, and also condemned Beijing for enacting a national security law in Hong Kong.

On June 9, Chinas education ministry issued a warning on the central governments website, urging all Chinese students not to study in Australia.
Today, the Supreme Court held in Bostock v. Clayton County that the words discriminate against any individual . . . because of such individuals . . . sex in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 mean discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status. There are many different angles here, some of which involve larger debates about the role of courts, how to read law, and what socially conservative voters expect from conservative judges. Id instead like to focus on two lessons Congress can take from the decision.

Be Careful What You Troll For

The word sex was added to the Civil Rights Act in an amendment proposed by an opponent of the bill, 80-year-old Dixiecrat Howard Smith of Virginia, the chairman of the House Rules Committee:

Opponents of Smiths amendment, led by Emanuel Celler, of Brooklyn, the seventy-five-year-old chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the bills floor leader, regarded it as either a prank intended to expose the limits of liberal egalitarianism or a poison pill that would make the bill more difficult to pass in the House. . . . Smith made his motion in a jocular spirit. He read a letter from a constituent who asked him to offer an additional amendment addressing the demographic imbalance between men and women  a grave injustice that abrogated the right of every woman to have a husband of her own. [Celler] replied that he knew all about equality for women. He had been married for forty-nine years, he said, and he usually had the last two words: Yes, dear. The jokes continued until [Representative Martha] Griffiths got the floor. If there had been any necessity to have pointed out that women were a second-class sex, she said, the laughter would have proved it.

Most of the vocal opposition to Smiths amendment came from liberal civil-rights supporters who feared that it would sink the bill, as a similar amendment had done in 1950, although a few determined women in the House backed it in earnest. There is some scholarly debate, which the majority opinion and the two dissents today noted, about exactly what to make of Smiths intentions and those of others voting for his amendment. Much of the debate in Bostock surrounded the split between Justice Gorsuch, who read the statutory language in fairly literal terms without much regard to what it would have been understood to mean at the time it passed, and Justices Alito and Kavanaugh, who argued that the majority had rewritten the original publicly understood meaning of the law.

Story continues

Regardless of which side of that debate you take, it is clear that a good deal of the responsibility for todays decision  and for the years of litigation and division in the lower courts that it took to get here  lies at the feet of Howard Smith. Congress in 1964 could have bothered to explain better what it was doing, but because sex was a one-word amendment offered by a bitter opponent of the bill, there was not really a serious effort to examine what the word meant. As Gorsuch wrote, Whatever his reasons, thanks to the broad language Representative Smith introduced, many, maybe most, applications of Title VIIs sex provision were unanticipated at the time of the laws adoption.

The King is Dead

Relatedly, the Court reiterated once again by its silence today that it does not regard its 2015 decision in King v. Burwell as law. King refused to read a provision of the Affordable Care Act to mean what it obviously said: that Obamacare subsidies went to exchanges established by states. In fact, it upheld an IRS regulation that explicitly applied such subsidies to exchanges regardless of whether theyd been established by states. The language in question, as in Bostock, undoubtedly caused a court fight because Congress had failed to do its job properly. The whole point of Chief Justice Robertss opinion in King was that the literal language of the statute had to give way to an understanding of the statutory purposes. As I noted in 2018, the Court, when presented with almost exactly the same issue in a less-controversial area of the law, unanimously refused to even so much as cite King as a precedent (even when lower courts in the case had followed it), and reached a directly opposite conclusion. The same happened today: Roberts and the Courts four liberals (all of whom were in the King majority) signed onto an opinion pronouncing:

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they werent thinking about many of the Acts consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters imagination supply no reason to ignore the laws demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, its no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

King was never mentioned, reflecting the tacit agreement among the justices who joined it that it shall not be spoken of again. In fact, Gorsuchs opinion specifically argues  again, in sharp contrast to King  that the Court should confine itself to examining the statutory language rather than considering the results of reading the language that way:

Rather than suggesting that the statutory language bears some other meaning, the employers and dissents merely suggest that, because few in 1964 expected todays result, we should not dare to admit that it follows ineluctably from the statutory text. When a new application emerges that is both unexpected and important, they would seemingly have us merely point out the question, refer the subject back to Congress, and decline to enforce the plain terms of the law in the meantime. That is exactly the sort of reasoning this Court has long rejected.

In other words, none of the justices who signed onto the King decision actually believed in it.

When Congress screws up, the Supreme Court is sometimes tasked with picking up the pieces. We should not be surprised when it applies different standards to do so in different cases, with conservative arguments getting the short end of the stick each time.

More from National Review
COVID-19 Updates

India PIB

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

Status of Remdesivir

Posted On: 14 JUN 2020 3:39PM by PIB Delhi

There are reports in a section of the media regarding the use of Remdesivir as part of the Clinical Management Protocol for COVID-19, and its availability in the country.

An updated Clinical Management Protocol for COVID-19 has been released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on 13th June, 2020 in which the drug Remdesivir has been included as an "investigational therapy" only for restricted emergency use purposes along with off label use of Tocilizumab and Convalescent Plasma.The said protocol also clearly mentions that the use of these therapies is based on limited available evidence and limited availability at present. Use of Remdesivir under emergency use may be considered in patients with moderate disease (those on oxygen) but with no specified contraindications.

This drug has still not been approved (market authorization) by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), where like India it continues only under an Emergency Use Authorization.

Restricted Emergency Use of drugs in the country for treatment of suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalised with severe disease is subject to the following conditions- Written informed consent of each patient required, results of additional clinical trials to be submitted, active surveillance data of all treated patients to be submitted, risk management plan along with active post marketing surveillance and reporting of serious adverse events also to be submitted. Additionally, first three batches of imported consignments are to be tested and reports submitted to Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

M/s Gilead had applied to the Indian Drug Regulatory Agency, namely CDSCO, for import and marketing of Remdesivir on 29th May, 2020. After due deliberations, permission under Emergency Use Authorization was granted on 1st June, 2020 in the interest of patient safety and obtaining further data.

Six Indian companies, namely M/s Hetero, M/s Cipla, M/s BDR, M/s Jubilant, M/s Mylan and Dr. Reddy's Labs have also applied to CDSCO for permission to manufacture and market the drug in India. Five of these have also entered into an agreement with M/s Gilead. These applications are being processed by the CDSCO on priority and in accordance with the laid down procedures.The companies are at various intermediate stages of inspection of manufacturing facilities, verification of data, stability testing, emergency laboratory testing as per protocol etc. Being an injectable formulation, testing for assay, identity, impurities, bacterial endotoxin test and sterility become very critical for patient safety and this data need to be provided by the companies. CDSCO is awaiting the data and is providing complete support to these companies. It has already waived off the requirement of local clinical trials for these companies by invoking emergency provisions. The regulatory processes are being facilitated and expedited by CDSCO.



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Last week ended yesterday on a tragic note of Sushant Singh Rajputs death by suicide. The news, of course, came around afternoon, but most people went to bed thinking about Sushant, who played Dhoni in MS Dhoni: The Untold Story. Sushant told Dhonis story masterfully well but why he did what he did remains an untold story. Speculation is useless so why get into the useless.

Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide on Sunday in Mumbai. (Photo: Facebook)

But do you know that the Bollywood star wanted to land on moon? Not just touch base and come back, but perhaps even stay there. Sushant bought lunar land in a region called the Mare Muscoviense or the Sea of Muscovy. The actor had a telescope installed at his Mumbai house to a keep a watch on the skies. Perhaps, also on the land he owned.

Sushant couldnt land on the moon, but his last rites were performed in Mumbai. We wish he rests in peace.

Mumbai, they say, never stops. Mumbai local stopped for all of 90 minutes each day after helping over 7.5 million commuters reach their destination daily in the Mega City. That was until the lockdown happened. Today, for the first day since March 24, Mumbais lifeline chugged again. The Mumbai local network spread over about 465 kms only slept between 2.05 am, when the last train reaches Borivali and 4.15 am when the first train leaves Western railways Churchgate station.

On July 11, 2006, however, the train network came to a halt. Remember why? Yes, a series of seven bombs went off in the local trains one after the other. All in a matter of roughly 11 minutes. All local trains were stopped in their tracks immediately. But locals are so critical to Mumbaikars that the services resumed within three hours  not completely, just partially. The entire operation was running to its full capacity in the next 16 hours.

In the times of corona, we do not know how long before we see operations back to the pre-Covid times. For now, locals are only going to ferry people whose travel is essential  people involved in essential services.

Before lockdown, over seven million people used to travel in the Mumbai local every day. (Photo: Reuters)

How long before normalcy returns? That is difficult to answer because cases are still rising. Data says the lockdown has slowed the pace of the spread. When the pace of the spread slows down, health services arent overwhelmed. This ensures more people get treatment and recover. According to the Union Health Ministry, the recovery rate has now crossed 50 per cent with 1,62,378 patients cured so far, leaving 1,49,348 cases active.

In fact, if this data is true, the recovery rate of Delhi and Mumbai is among the highest globally. Delhis recovery rate is 38.36 per cent, while Mumbais is 45.65 per cent. Lets compare this with the US. New York is the worst-impacted city of America. The recovery rate there is 21.23 per cent.

A cure for Covid-19 has been found. Its called prevention. They say it is the best cure. If you have your mask on and maintain social distancing, you may succeed in curing yourself without ever contracting the virus. So stay in your bubble. Forget those who say bubbles burst because social bubbles would ensure you stay protected and also get to socialise.

The model was followed in New Zealand and now, people are forming bubbles in another land  England. What is this bubble anyway? Social bubble is the coming together of people staying alone with people staying alone. Say you are staying alone and have a vehicle of your own. You can drive down to a friend of yours who stays alone. In England, such people are being allowed to meet, hug, visit someone's home and even stay overnight.

Dont do this unless you are absolutely sure that the other person is perfectly safe because there is a risk of the bubble bursting. So, choose your bubble smartly, and handle it delicately.Delicately reminds us that the strong India and Nepal relations, which Defence Minister Rajnath Singh says were bond by roti-beti (whatever that means), have suddenly turned delicate.

The Nepalese government has fast-tracked the passage of a Constitution Amendment Bill to update the countrys map. The updated map of Nepal shows three strategically key Indian territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepal.

Now, Nepal is running high on confidence. In 2017, the US committed to a US $500 million aid to Nepal for a power transmission line and the upgrade of 300 km of roads in Nepal. The Himalayan country is likely to reject the aid. That is, of course, because China has its leg on the Nepali leaderships neck.

Now, this is between the US and Nepal, but between India and Nepal is a map dispute.

Before we get to the dispute, lets get to the map. Not the physical map between the two countries but the word map. Map, our Word Of The Day, is derived from medieval Latin mappa mundi, meaning sheet of the world. Mappa means sheet, napkin and mundi of the world. Human race has a liking for shortening words. Perhaps, because it makes the use easier (also, cooler).

Though, we find mappa mundi cooler than map, but some people didnt and so map came to be the term defining a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world.

Nepal says the Indian map shows 'its territory' Kalapani as part of Indian territory (Screengrab from Govt of India map)

On the surface of the world, people are fighting over how much sea belongs to them. If only we would ask the fishes in there for their opinion. Now, no truce over sea or land should be signed without attaching a map to the agreement, whether with humans or the fish.

Thats exactly the mistake that was made in 1816. In 1814, British India and Nepal fought a war. Now fighting wars is a mistake too so you can say the mistake was made in 1814. But we want to tell you about the one made in 1816. In 1816, the war ended with the signing of the Segowli Treaty.

The Nepalis were sent back across the Kali River in May 1815. The Segowli Treaty that was signed on March 4, 1816, said: "The Rajah of Nepaul renounces for himself, his heirs and successors, all claim to or connexion with the countries lying to the West of the River Kali, and engages never to have any concern with those countries or the inhabitants thereof." Now, no map was attached to the treaty documents to show the exact alignment and source of the Kali river.

In 1961, Nepal signed another treaty. This time with China.

Article I (1) of the treaty defined the China-Nepal boundary, which "starts from where the watershed between the Kali river and the Tinkar river meets the watershed between the tributaries of the Mapchu (Karnali) river on one hand and the Tinkar river on the other hand..."

The Sino-Nepali treaty luckily attaches a map to it. That map shows that the location of the river on the map matches with the Indian map or the agreement reached in 1816. Nepal has planted evidence against itself by signing the 1961 deal with China. A dispute has still erupted. Blame it on the nature of disputes  they keep erupting.

That, of course, shouldnt stop negotiations from moving forward because moving ahead is what life is all about. This reminds us of a song penned by Rajkavi Inderjeet Singh Tulsi  Jeevan Chalne Ka Naam.

We will be back tomorrow.

Stay safe.

Also read: How India can combat Chinese guile in Ladakh
The new coronavirus has left its mark on Angkor Wat, the worlds top tourist attraction.

Foreign visitors are rare, the elephants are being rehoused and local businesses have gone bankrupt, but for Cambodians, its a chance to reclaim their heritage.

Authorities say the number of paying visitors have been measured by the dozens on any given day and all are among those who remained in the country after the coronavirus began crossing borders in late January, forcing lockdowns around the world and ending international travel.

That compares with more than 2.2 million tourists who last year paid almost $100 million to get through the gates of the 12th-century temple, which covers 208 hectares.

I find it very interesting without the tourists, because we usually have a lot of people out there and when we go there it's just like you are visitors, not the real people who own this country, but now its very good, Sreynath Sarum, a hospitality worker from Phnom Penh, said.

Cambodias tourism industry had blossomed over the last 10 to 15 years with Angkor Wat, the ruins and surrounding temples in the countrys northwest consistently winning international awards, and the nearby town of Siem Reap was rebuilt into a tourist hub.

Mass tourism also brought problems, though.

Long lines at the gate, endless rows of buses, lines of Chinese visitors with selfie sticks, and Westerners in Hawaiian shirts, shorts and joggers had turned a sacred religious site of Hindu gods and Buddhist traditions into a carnival theme park.

That doesnt always sit well with the monks and ordinary Khmers who value Angkor Wat as the foundation of Cambodian society, a reminder that this country was once a regional superpower and as a symbol of survival during 30 years of bloody civil war.

Lonely Planet author and filmmaker Nick Ray said if there can be a positive side to a pandemic, then it was Cambodians reconnecting with their spiritual side.

From an economic point of view, its pretty tragic to see the absence of tourists. We know what that means for the economy and how badly businesses are hurting, like hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, cafes, bars, its like a ghost town, really, he added.

But from a Cambodian perspective, its like theyve reclaimed the temples. Its Cambodian ancestry, its Cambodian heritage, its on the flag, Angkor is the spiritual symbol of a nation, and theyve really taken that to heart again.

Angkor Wat today is not unlike it was two decades ago when the archaeological site was serenely quiet with the Khmer Rouge disarming but bandits and the widespread theft of ancient relics by organized crime rings were issues that had to be dealt with before opening the temples up to global tourism.

Standards of living have also improved over the last 20 years, and amid the ruins, Cambodian children are now riding push bikes and playing in sandpits, while their parents pray at Buddhist shrines and hike through tropical forests.

I cant imagine a time when Cambodians could go to Angkor Wat and pray in peace without hordes of people, or play badminton or picnic with their families  and that was a really kind of special experience to see, travel writer Marissa Carruthers said.

But like I say, its quite stark seeing the temples and Siem Reap completely shut down.

The big bucks and crowds evaporated almost immediately as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, and getting them back as lockdowns end remains tricky.

The government has announced a complicated set of rules including COVID-19 tests, medical certificates, health insurance, and a new type of visa for future holidaymakers.

If a passenger on an inbound flight displays any COVID-19 symptoms and tests positive, everyone on board could be quarantined for two weeks. Moreover, every foreign visitor to the country must deposit $3,000 in a local bank account on arrival to cover any costs.

Money that is not spent is expected to be returned, but these are moves that have upset the dormant tourism industry as unnecessary obstacles to be negotiated by travelers, particularly those from the West who already require at least two flights to get here.

Thats pretty off-putting, to be honest, Ray said regarding the deposit.

Its almost akin to saying, You know, we are closed for business, he added.

Locals are also aware of the problems associated with COVID-19 and the harsh economic realities caused by the disease.

I would like to have the tourists come back because the people out there, they are struggling a lot, but slowly, slowly, not like a million people come back at the same time, Sreynath Sarum said.
A new Government campaign is underway to encourage people to wear masks on trains and buses to prevent the spread of Covid-19 but it is not mandatory to do so.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD, Minister for Health Simon Harris TD, Minister for Transport Shane Ross and Anne Graham, CEO of the National Transport Authority (NTA) have today launched a campaign on face coverings.

A statement said face coverings are recommended in situations where social distancing is not possible, for example in shops and on busy public transport, or if you are meeting someone who is vulnerable to the virus, for example, people who are cocooning. Wearing cloth face coverings may help prevent people who do not know they have the virus from spreading it to others.

Wearing of face coverings is recommended in the following circumstances:

- when staying 2 metres apart from people is difficult - for example, in shops, shopping centres or public transport

- by people visiting the homes of those who are cocooning

- by people who are being visited in their homes by those who are cocooning

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: Our message is simple; if you are in situations where social distancing is difficult, such as on public transport or in shops, please wear a face covering. Its also a good idea to wear one when you are visiting someone who is vulnerable to the virus. In this way, we can help to reduce the spread of the virus, which is more important than ever as our country continues to reopen.

Minister for Health Simon Harris TD said: Wearing a face covering will help you to protect those around you. It is not a magic shield, but it is an additional measure aimed at stopping the spread of this virus.

If you cannot keep a 2 metre distance, we recommend you use face coverings. We are strongly encouraging people on public transport to use them, in shops and supermarkets. And if you are visiting a loved one who is over 70 or someone who has a medical condition, we are asking you to wear a face covering and help shield and protect the most vulnerable.

Minister for Transport Shane Ross said: Its been a tough few months for everyone in the country, as we have stayed away from loved ones and friends in order to keep each other safe.

Id like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your efforts, for the sacrifices youve made which has enabled us to get to a place where we can start seeing each other again, albeit at a safe distance.

Weve worked so well together, and we can now all benefit from the results. So please, if you need to take public transport, go out shopping or are visiting older relatives or people who may be vulnerable or at risk, wear a face covering. Its an easy thing to do and you may save lives by this one simple act.

The campaign is a recommendation of the National Public Health Emergency Team.

Detailed content is available on gov.ie/facecoverings and HSE.ie with guidance on how to make and safely use face coverings.

Anne Graham, CEO of the NTA said: NTA very much welcomes the campaign being launched today and we would join with the Taoiseach and Ministers Ross and Harris in urging people to wear face coverings while on a bus, tram, train or taxi.

Doing so will increase protection for other customers and for public transport workers.We believe that this is an important part of the effort to rebuild confidence in public transport as restrictions are eased across the country.

People wearing face coverings are still advised to do the important things necessary to prevent the spread of the virus.

These include:

- washing your hands properly and often

- covering your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve when you cough and sneeze

- not touching your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean

- social distancing (keeping at least 2 metres away from other people)



Cloth face coverings are not suitable for children under the age of 13 and anyone who:



- has trouble breathing

- is unconscious or incapacitated

- is unable to remove it without help

- has a disability and who may feel upset or uncomfortable wearing the face covering
FAIRFAX, Va. (June 15, 2020) -- Data from one of the first clinical uses of augmented reality guidance with electromagnetically tracked tools shows that the technology may help doctors quickly, safely, and accurately deliver targeted liver cancer treatments, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting on June 14. The technology provides a three-dimensional holographic view inside a patient's body, allowing interventional radiologists to accurately burn away tumors while navigating to avoid organs and other critical structures.

"Converting traditional two-dimensional imaging into three-dimensional holograms which we can then utilize for guidance using augmented reality helps us to better view a patient's internal structures as we navigate our way to the point of treatment," said Gaurav Gadodia, MD, lead author of the study and radiology resident at Cleveland Clinic. "While conventional imaging like ultrasound and CT is safe, effective, and remains the gold-standard of care, augmented reality potentially improves the visualization of the tumor and surrounding structures, increasing the speed of localization and improving the treating-physician's confidence."

In this initial in-human pilot study, the technology was used to deliver a treatment known as percutaneous thermal ablation of solid liver tumors. To apply this technology, the physicians use multi-phase CT to record coordinate markers placed on a patient's body. This imaging data is added to a software application that allows for segmentation of the tumor and nearby structures within the marked coordinate space. This information is fed into a proprietary augmented reality application, which utilizes Microsoft's HoloLens technology, a virtual reality headset with transparent lenses, to project a segmented hologram of the patient's imaged anatomy directly onto the patient. The hologram is registered to the coordinate markers to ensure accurate location of the relevant anatomy.

Utilizing electromagnetic tracking, instruments including the ablation probe can also be visualized in the augmented reality space during the procedure, thus allowing for true holographic intraprocedural guidance. Interventional radiologists can then use the combination of the holographic images of the patient's anatomy and tracked tools to find the tumor in the patient's liver quickly, check for optimal targeting of the tumor by the ablation probe, and avoid key structures.

The study included five patients who were selected for microwave ablation of their liver tumors. For safety during this IRB-approved study, the gold standard of ultrasound was used for primary clinical decision making and probe guidance, with direct comparison to holographic guidance. Following ablation, images and video from post-procedural sonography, cone beam and multi-detector row CT, and HoloLens recordings were evaluated. In all five cases, intra-procedural holographic guidance was in agreement with the standard ultrasound-based guidance. Post-procedural imaging showed adequate tumor ablation, and no patients experienced tumor recurrence at the three-month follow-up. In this early phase pilot study, the authors anecdotally observed that the speed of tumor localization was faster with holographic guidance, and that their confidence in optimal ablation and critical structure avoidance was improved over standard imaging guidance. They are further attempting to quantify these findings as they continue to enroll patients in the study.

Beyond its use during treatments, interventional radiologists also see value in using this tool for clinicians' planning purposes and for improving patient engagement and understanding of the condition and treatment.

"This technique can be used intra-procedurally to check the accuracy and quality of the treatment, as well as pre-procedurally to engage with the patient in their own care," said Charles Martin, III, MD, FSIR, an interventional radiologist at Cleveland Clinic who is the principal investigator of the IRB and the senior author of the study. "We can change 2D images into holograms of a patient's distinct anatomy so that both the physician and the patient get a better understanding of the tumor and treatment."

Researchers continue to test this technology for ablations in the abdominal area with plans to expand to other types of procedures and in other areas of the body. The technology has only been tested for feasibility and therefore cannot yet be used as a standalone method for delivering a treatment.

Additional information about the clinical trial is available at ClinicalTrials.gov, using the identifier NCT03500757. This work was funded through internal enterprise grants from Cleveland Clinic, as well as the Ohio-based biotechnology startup, MediView.

Abstract 297: True 3D holographic visualization for performance of percutaneous thermal ablation of solid liver tumors (3D-HPA): An update on in-human evaluation. G. Gadodia; J. Yanof; K. West; S. Al-Nimer; A. Hanlon; C. Weunski; C Martin; Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic, John Carroll University, Cleveland, OH.

The research was originally scheduled to be presented in person at SIR's Annual Scientific Meeting, March 28-April 2, in Seattle before the meeting was canceled due to COVID-19 concerns. Visit sirmeeting.org for the latest information.

###

About the Society of Interventional Radiology

The Society of Interventional Radiology is a nonprofit, professional medical society representing more than 8,000 practicing interventional radiology physicians, trainees, students, scientists, and clinical associates, dedicated to improving patient care through the limitless potential of image-guided therapies. SIR's members work in a variety of settings and at different professional levels--from medical students and residents to university faculty and private practice physicians. Visit sirweb.org.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

The National leadership of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) dares the University of Ghana branch of the association over threats to impeach the National President, Professor Charles Ofosu Marfo.

UTAG-UG over the weekend gave indications that it has initiated an impeachment process against the national President of UTAG.

UTAG-UG accused Prof. Marfo of compromising UTAG's position on the controversial Public Universities Bill which is currently before Parliament.

At this emergency meeting held on Thursday, June 11, 2020, the University of Ghana branch of UTAG (UG-UTAG) resolve to initiate impeachment proceedings against the national president of UTAG for consistently misrepresenting and sidelining UG-UTAG's position on the Public Universities Bill 2020 in his public engagements, the UG lecturers said in a statement.

UG-UTAG has observed that the demeanour and public utterances of the national president suggest that he is not committed to carrying out the mandate of the public universities, which is, advocating for the withdrawal or rejection of the Public Universities Bill by the Executive or Parliament, respectively, it further explained.

But the National Vice President of UTAG, Dr. Otchere Addai Mensah said the threat should be treated with contempt.

There are laid down rules and regulations for the impeachment of national officers and I am sure that if they speak to lawyers, they would have known that that letter has been written and it serves against the provisions of the UTAG constitutions. UTAG remains a united front. The Dr. Charles Marfoled leadership has given UTAG one of sound and resolution leadership, Dr. Otchere Addai Mensah said.

About the Public Universities Bill

According to the framers of the Public Universities Bill, it seeks to harmonize the finances, administration and governance structure of public universities.

The Bill, when passed, will give the government power to appoint the majority of members of the University Council.

The Council then has the power to appoint and fire public university officials.

The Bill also gives the President the power to dissolve the University Council which will now have the power to appoint a chancellor.

It also gives effect to the University Council to control the finances of the university and determine the allocation of funds.

In addition, there is a proposal to rename four public universities after various personalities.

Calls for rejection of Bill

This has attracted wide public criticisms from stakeholders within the educational sector.

The University of Ghana lecturers contend that Vice-Chancellors could become puppets of politicians under the Public University Bill.

The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences has described the bill as poorly motivated.

Former Vice-Chancellors of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey and Prof. Ivan Addae-Mensah have all called for the Bill to be withdrawn from Parliament.

---citinewsroom
SHENZHEN, China, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently, Huawei and International Data Corporation (IDC) jointly pre-release their whitepaper on reshaping banking for the recovery era for 2020 during the Huawei Global Financial Services Industry Summit 2020. The Whitepaper is scheduled to publish globally in August. IDC believes that there will be five key stages of recovery and at each stage there will be opportunities to optimize new growth. The banking industry overall, stands in a strong position to weather the stresses of 2020 and that it should bet utilize this time to reinforce its overall capabilities and reassess priorities in terms of digital transformation.

Banking to utilize technology to accelerate recovery

The year 2020 has witnessed unprecedented systemic shocks triggered by COVID-19, but as with all other crises, both challenges and opportunities arrive at the same time. The whitepaper will analyze the responses of banks to the trials of current business conditions, dissecting the best responses from across the world in terms of both tactical and strategic responses, and establish a firm recovery framework that banks and other financial institutions can adopt to position themselves to better reach and serve their customer needs for the upcoming recovery phase.

IDC believes that the banking industry stands in a strong position to weather the stresses of 2020 and that using this period to build further capabilities and infrastructure in digital and data will enable them to create more relevant services and products which are not just digitally managed and delivered, but which have been born and incepted from digital roots.

Understanding the five key stages of recovery to optimize new growth

The IDC and Huawei whitepaper will map out the five key stages of recovery based on IDC's observations, covering the stages of COVID crisis, economic slow-down, recession, return to growth and next normal. For each of the stages, IDC will map out the impact and characteristics of each, and IDC's recommended direction and strategies that banks should implement in order to maximize the potential benefits that can be attained.

Banks reacting to the COVID crisis and economic slow-down phase have already rolled out a host of strategies including a focus on mobile app efficiency and features, behavioral analytics to capture new customer activity and behaviors during unusual times in order to rebuild models, and branch transformation to better service customers in the absence of physical locations in areas such as lending, further accelerating the transformation towards fully online banking products.

New capabilities and priorities already highly visible in the industry

The new capabilities the banks have equipped themselves with are in the context of the unique characteristics of this 2020 downturn, but are also brought about by the new technology and digital capabilities of our times.

For example, in the earlier stages of recovery, a real impact assessment of the crisis is necessary. The bank needs the ability to understand real capitalization, liquidity & credit positions through various possible scenarios. Stress-testing will have to be kicked into high gear, simulating scenarios based on data from crises of recent vintage. Ultimately, banks will be working towards a transparency of real-time liquidity positions  intra-day dashboards, for example, are now highly valued to give such intelligence. They give banks the ability to remediate quickly and decisively: canceling transactions, reducing outstanding contracts, or settling early.

Next, banks have to update their contingency plans especially for customer engagement. They need the ability to shift to new modes of working and new modes of customer engagement through digital technologies like mobile apps, co-browsing for advisory services, even chatbot services.

Bringing all these capabilities together as banks fight for market share, they need to have the ability to stand out through data-led customer engagement or to use Agile capabilities to iterate on new products and services that enable them to be more responsive to new dynamics post-COVID 19.

Essential reading for bank executives plotting their course for 2020 and beyond

Further expanding on these issues, the whitepaper will explore the future stages of recovery and map the unknowns which lie before the industry through the economic slow-down to next normal phases. The new guidance frameworks will utilize our Resiliency Index which scores banking industries at a regional level based in their ability to cope and rebound from the effects of the pandemic using categories such as 'channels', 'data and analytics', and 'workflow processing' in order to quantify best practices from around the globe as well as their business impact. The whitepaper will prove to be essential reading for global executives at banks as they seek to understand what can be done and what will deliver the most impact as they chart their course into new territory.

To date, Huawei has served more than 1,600 financial customers worldwide, including 45 of the world's top 100 banks. Huawei has also established comprehensive strategic partnership with more than 20 large-scale banks, insurance companies, and securities companies around the world. Huawei becomes a trusted strategic partner for the digital transformation of customers.

Huawei's annual Global FSI Summit is a global ICT event hosted by Huawei that is focused on partnerships and trends with the financial services industry. It was founded in 2013 and features thought leaders, consultants and experts from the industry. For more information, please visit: https://e.huawei.com/topic/finance2020/en/

Related Links

www.huawei.com/cn



SOURCE Huawei
To find food, dazzle mates, escape predators and navigate diverse terrain, birds rely on their excellent color vision.

"Humans are color-blind compared to birds and many other animals," said Mary Caswell Stoddard, an assistant professor in the Princeton University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Humans have three types of color-sensitive cones in their eyes -- attuned to red, green and blue light -- but birds have a fourth type, sensitive to ultraviolet light. "Not only does having a fourth color cone type extend the range of bird-visible colors into the UV, it potentially allows birds to perceive combination colors like ultraviolet+green and ultraviolet+red -- but this has been hard to test," said Stoddard.

To investigate how birds perceive their colorful world, Stoddard and her research team established a new field system for exploring bird color vision in a natural setting. Working at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Gothic, Colorado, the researchers trained wild broad-tailed hummingbirds (Selasphorus platycercus) to participate in color vision experiments.

"Most detailed perceptual experiments on birds are performed in the lab, but we risk missing the bigger picture of how birds really use color vision in their daily lives," Stoddard said. "Hummingbirds are perfect for studying color vision in the wild. These sugar fiends have evolved to respond to flower colors that advertise a nectar reward, so they can learn color associations rapidly and with little training."

Stoddard's team was particularly interested in "nonspectral" color combinations, which involve hues from widely separated parts of the color spectrum, as opposed to blends of neighboring colors like teal (blue-green) or yellow (green-red). For humans, purple is the clearest example of a nonspectral color. Technically, purple is not in the rainbow: it arises when our blue (short-wave) and red (long-wave) cones are stimulated, but not green (medium-wave) cones.

While humans have just one nonspectral color -- purple, birds can theoretically see up to five: purple, ultraviolet+red, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+yellow and ultraviolet+purple.

Stoddard and her colleagues designed a series of experiments to test whether hummingbirds can see these nonspectral colors. Their results appear June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research team, which included scientists from Princeton, the University of British Columbia (UBC), Harvard University, University of Maryland and RMBL, performed outdoor experiments each summer for three years. First they built a pair of custom "bird vision" LED tubes programmed to display a broad range of colors, including nonspectral colors like ultraviolet+green. Next they performed experiments in an alpine meadow frequently visited by local broad-tailed hummingbirds, which breed at the high-altitude site.

Each morning, the researchers rose before dawn and set up two feeders: one containing sugar water and the other plain water. Beside each feeder, they placed an LED tube. The tube beside the sugar water emitted one color, while the one next to the plain water emitted a different color. The researchers periodically swapped the positions of the rewarding and unrewarding tubes, so the birds could not simply use location to pinpoint a sweet treat. They also performed control experiments to ensure that the tiny birds were not using smell or another inadvertent cue to find the reward. Over the course of several hours, wild hummingbirds learned to visit the rewarding color. Using this setup, the researchers recorded over 6,000 feeder visits in a series of 19 experiments.

The experiments revealed that hummingbirds can see a variety of nonspectral colors, including purple, ultraviolet+green, ultraviolet+red and ultraviolet+yellow. For example, hummingbirds readily distinguished ultraviolet+green from pure ultraviolet or pure green, and they discriminated between two different mixtures of ultraviolet+red light -- one redder, one less so.

"It was amazing to watch," said Harold Eyster, a UBC Ph.D. student and a co-author of the study. "The ultraviolet+green light and green light looked identical to us, but the hummingbirds kept correctly choosing the ultraviolet+green light associated with sugar water. Our experiments enabled us to get a sneak peek into what the world looks like to a hummingbird."

Even though hummingbirds can perceive nonspectral colors, appreciating how these colors appear to birds can be difficult. "It is impossible to really know how the birds perceive these colors. Is ultraviolet+red a mix of those colors, or an entirely new color? We can only speculate," said Ben Hogan, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton and a co-author of the study.

"To imagine an extra dimension of color vision -- that is the thrill and challenge of studying how avian perception works," said Stoddard. "Fortunately, the hummingbirds reveal that they can see things we cannot."

"The colors that we see in the fields of wildflowers at our study site, the wildflower capital of Colorado, are stunning to us, but just imagine what those flowers look like to birds with that extra sensory dimension," said co-author David Inouye, who is affiliated with the University of Maryland and RMBL.

Finally, the research team analyzed a data set of 3,315 feather and plant colors. They discovered that birds likely perceive many of these colors as nonspectral, while humans do not. That said, the researchers emphasize that nonspectral colors are probably not particularly special relative to other colors. The wide variety of nonspectral colors available to birds is the result of their ancient four color-cone visual system.

"Tetrachromacy -- having four color cone types -- evolved in early vertebrates," said Stoddard. "This color vision system is the norm for birds, many fish and reptiles, and it almost certainly existed in dinosaurs. We think the ability to perceive many nonspectral colors is not just a feat of hummingbirds but a widespread feature of animal color vision."

###

"Wild hummingbirds discriminate nonspectral colors," by Mary Caswell Stoddard, Harold N. Eyster, Benedict G. Hogan, Dylan H. Morris, Edward R. Soucy and David W. Inouye, appears June 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1919377117). Their research was supported by Princeton University, the Princeton Environmental Institute, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering.
What sort of decrepit rock did you climb from under you absolutely hideous harridan? tweeted one of my critics last week. Youre in favour of all things wrong in society (statues of horrible b*****ds of history).

This chap is a member of the Shinnerbot army that stalks its enemies with the aim of intimidating them off social media.

They are finding me particularly annoying at the moment, for these days they are fanatically progressive on almost all issues  and to my usual crimes of being in favour of free speech and opposed to political violence and the bullying of people with unfashionable views. I applaud the writer JK Rowling for endorsing the truth that there is a difference between a biological woman and anyone who just self-identifies as female.

Oh, and I deplore Black Lives Matter, which is run by the hard-Left and revolutionaries who want to destroy western civilisation and has bamboozled millions of gullible people into believing that brutality from ill-trained American police is experienced exclusively by blacks and dished out only by whites, and that to say otherwise means youre a racist.

Scared politicians and corporates are giving their allegiance to an outfit which declares: Were guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world.

Oh, and they wish to defund the police and hand law and order over to the community.

Watch senior BLM activist Gary McFarlane of the Socialist Workers Party explain it on YouTube and then cheer yourselves up by watching the wise, funny and straight-talking Hodgetwins (self-declared as black American, not African-American) on their video Black Lives Matter is a Leftist Lie.

So, naturally, Im against mobs in a democratic society tearing down statues of which they disapprove.

I admit that I raised a celebratory glass in 2004 when the statue of Sean Russell, IRA chief of staff, was beheaded by anti-fascists who could not bear that Dublin was the only city in Europe that still had a statue honouring a Nazi collaborator.

But I plead mitigation: IRA freelancers blew up Nelsons Pillar in 1966, thus dishonouring someone without whom we might all have been enslaved by Napoleon.

I disagree with myself in retrospect, though. I am an historian who believes our job is to search for truth and therefore believe in the preservation of records of all kinds.

Its been bad enough watching Sinn Feins shameless and unscrupulous rewriting of history, but now you have well-educated people joining the bandwagon driven by bigoted ignoramuses that demand we suppress the ideas and history we dont like.

They are part of a new breed known as offence archaeologists, who wage ruthless war on anyone who expresses a view they dislike and try to expel them from society.

Nigel Farage is the latest victim, disgracefully sacked from his very popular radio show by his craven employers in LBS because he criticised Black Lives Matter.

Now, dramatically, the war has been extended to include all historical figures, and all of a sudden it is becoming a given that you judge Winston Churchill by the standards of an 18-year-old who never heard of him until yesterday when he was denounced as a racist. The BBC, which seems to have utterly lost the plot, told us yesterday that the statue of the countrys greatest hero, who saved the West from the Nazis, is controversial.

There are rational and sometimes overdue discussions to be held, though. For a long time Ive been in favour of putting explanatory plaques beside statues about which there are strong disagreements.

Think of the historical and ethical debates that could be raised in schools and elsewhere by having beside Bristolian Edward Colston an explanation that he was the citys outstanding philanthropist who had made all the money to finance his good deeds from the terrible slave trade.

Closer to home Id be fine about keeping in Newry the statue of John Mitchel, that great hero of Irish nationalist revolutionaries, if the public is also given the information that he was an enthusiast for slavery in the Confederate cause.

And in Belfast, the opposition of rabble-rousing Presbyterian clergyman Dr Henry Cooke to Catholic emancipation would be on the prosecution side of his plaque.

Accept the culling of statues on ideological grounds and George Orwells 1984 beckons: 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.
"The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump"

By Mary Jordan

Simon & Schuster. 341 pp. $28

- - -

One of my most treasured possessions is a collection of 14-inch dolls, 36 in all, portraying every first lady from Martha Washington to Jacqueline Kennedy, created by the doll impresario Madame Alexander. My late mother spent years amassing the collection; she was an immigrant, and I've often wondered if this was her way to bond with her adopted country.

The dolls have similar looks, build, skin color and facial features. Their distinction lies in what they wear. Each is outfitted in the dress she wore to her first inaugural ball, reflecting and defining a singular historical moment, if only by a swatch of fabric or the length of a hemline.

In some sense, the collection represents how first ladies have been regarded through the centuries: built in the same mold, expected to adhere to conventional notions of feminine beauty and behavior, only minor deviations tolerated. Some tried to break the mold and paid dearly for it. Others have been content to promote a worthy cause, project an individual style, protect their man and retain their doll-like composure.

For her three years in the White House, Melania Trump has seemed like a doll in my collection: not a hair out of place, wearing her best, saying little, doing what's expected, and sometimes not even that. But as Mary Jordan details in her fine new book, "The Art of Her Deal," this First Lady also has been as willing as her husband to break the mold - and the rules. As Jordan reports, Melania is only the second first lady, and the only one in modern history, to have been born outside the United States. Melania also made the exceptional decision after moving into the White House to retain her dual citizenship with her native Slovenia. Despite reports soon after her husband's election that she was unhappy at the prospect of serving as first lady, Melania had carried the dream with her for decades, even before she married the future president. And she knew what kind of first lady she wanted to be. "I would be very traditional. Like Betty Ford or Jackie Kennedy. I would support him," Melania Knauss told an interviewer in 1999, when her boyfriend Donald Trump was first publicly flirting with a presidential run.

The interview took place only months after Trump divorced his second wife, Marla Maples, and more than five years before Melania became wife No. 3.

As Jordan writes: "A common narrative about Melania is that she simply wanted to marry a wealthy man, and that she was horrified when Trump entered politics in 2015 and disrupted her comfortable world. But there is ample evidence that from the very beginning, Melania not only accepted and embraced Trump's political aspirations but was also an encouraging partner."

It could not have been easy to report and write this book, given the Trumps' disdain for real journalism, their aversion to transparency and obsession with controlling their images. But Jordan, a political reporter at The Washington Post, has assembled a solid narrative, written without embellishment or much editorial comment, allowing the facts to speak for themselves.

The Melania she presents is sympathetic occasionally, but not always. She is enigmatic, glamorous, secretive, strategic, a quiet loner and master compartmentalizer who made her deal with the devil and made it work because in many ways, deep down, she and Trump are cut from the same shiny cloth. Truth serves their own purposes, not the other way around.

"She works at remaining mysterious," Jordan writes. "In her own way, she is as complex and complicated as her husband. She is also much more like him than it appears." And later: "Both are avid creators of their own history."

Unearthing that history took years, Jordan says, her reporting stymied by the Trumps' aggressive attempts to erase her past. It took more than 120 interviews in five countries for this portrait to emerge - and it still leaves much unsaid.

Jordan says Melania had "the most unconventional path to the White House in history." I'm not sure that beats being the great-great-great granddaughter of a slave, as was her predecessor, but it certainly was unlikely that when Melanija Knavs was born in a small town in Slovenia 50 years ago, she'd become the second first lady - the other was Louisa Johnson, John Quincy Adams's wife - born outside the United States.

Her father, Viktor - who bears an uncanny resemblance to his son-in-law, only five years his junior - was a chauffeur. Her mother, Amalija, worked in a clothing factory.

From an early age, Melanija was aware of her beauty, her tall, lithe figure, perfectly erect stature, and startling blue eyes. Thanks to her mother's skill at sewing clothes, she and her sister were always impeccably dressed, unusual in drab, conformist, Communist Yugoslavia.

A good student, she began a competitive architecture program at the University of Ljubljana in the fall of 1989. Less than two years later, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, Slovenia declared its independence. But by then, Melanija had dropped out of college to pursue a modeling career; she changed her name to Melania Knauss and roamed through Europe seeking success, leaving few traces behind.

She immigrated to the United States with the help of an Italian modeling agent on a visitor's visa and then secured an H-1B work visa, normally reserved for "distinguished merit or ability." (She later received a green card through the elite EB-1 program, designed for those with "extraordinary ability.") Her career was hardly distinguished, and suspicion about her immigration status lingers because the Trumps have never made the documentation public, despite promises to do so.

This is a pattern in Melania's life, revealed by Jordan's careful reporting. As late as July 2016, Melania's official biography claimed that she graduated from university; she did not.

For decades, she said she spoke five languages, allowing others to point to her fluency as evidence of her intellect. But Jordan could find no evidence that she speaks anything other than Slovenian and English - even when presented with high profile opportunities to use French, Italian or German.

On becoming an American citizen in 2006, Jordan reports, Melania kept her Slovenian citizenship and subsequently ensured that her son Barron was also a dual citizen. Both renewed their Slovenian passports after moving into the White House. It is, Jordan notes, "very unusual for members of the first family to be citizens of another country."

As a citizen, she was able to petition to bring her parents and sister to the United States, participating in the very "chain migration" that President Trump has repeatedly derided and curtailed.

And that's the crux of the matter. Plenty of celebrities exaggerate and even lie about their past; reinvention is an American trope, after all, and it's often accompanied by a rewrite of personal history. But as described in this book, Melania repeatedly stretches and even abandons the truth if it's inconvenient for her, and her alone.

She is either unaware of the hypocrisy in such actions - of, for example, championing anti-cyber bullying when her husband is the world's No. 1 culprit - or, to paraphrase the infamous jacket she wore on a visit to the administration's deliberate humanitarian crisis on the Mexican border, she just doesn't care.

This would be of prurient interest and not public importance if she weren't, by all accounts, fully complicit in her husband's corrupt, dangerous presidency. Here is where I wish Jordan's book more deeply analyzed the consequences of Melania's behind-the-scenes behavior - whether and how she should be held accountable for supporting an administration that has broken democratic norms, endangered lives and ruined America's standing in the world.

Melania Trump has been one of the least visible first ladies in modern times. (She made eight speeches during her husband's first year in office, compared to Michelle Obama's 74.) Jordan says she is growing more comfortable in the White House and genuinely hopes for a second term for the man she praises above all else. No need to #FreeMelania. She is doing exactly what she wants.

- - -

Eisner is director of academic affairs at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
BRIDGEPORT  A local man charged with choking and raping a Massachusetts woman he met on an online dating website was the latest serious felony defendant to request release from prison because of the pandemic  even as the number of inmates with COVID-19 continues to decrease.

As of Friday, the state Department of Corrections reported that nine inmates had symptoms of COVID-19 and nine staff members are currently recovering from COVID-19 symptoms. At its peak in May, 792 inmates had tested positive for the virus.

Gimel Anderson, 25, of Hawley Avenue, is charged with aggravated first-degree sexual assault, first-degree strangulation, second-degree assault and first-degree unlawful restraint.

He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond.

His lawyer, Public Defender Brad Buchta, told Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton that his client had been seeking a speedy trial but since that couldnt happen because of the pandemic, he now wants to be released on a reduced bond.

Buchta said Anderson would live with his fiancee in Bridgeport while he awaits trial.

However, Senior Assistant States Attorney Colleen Zingaro objected.

The facts in this case are very serious, she told the judge. He was trying to kill her. She was begging for her life.

Judge Dayton denied Andersons request.

Im concerned for the safety of the community based on the allegations against him, she said.

On Oct. 20, 2018, Springfield, Mass., police were called to a hospital there for an assault victim. Police said a young woman had bruises on her face and throat and cuts on her head that required stitches.

Police said the woman told them she contacted Anderson through the dating website Tagged and arranged to come to Bridgeport to meet him.

The woman picked up Anderson at his home. Police said he was carrying a bottle of beer, got into the womans car and then directed her to drive to Seaside Park, ostensibly so they could watch the sunset.

However, once they parked there, police said, Anderson began choking the woman and hit her in the head with the beer bottle, then raped her.

Before leaving the victims car, police said, Anderson took a photo with his cell phone of her drivers license and threatened that he would come to her home and kill her if she went to police.

The woman then drove to the hospital near her home in Springfield.
A group of demonstrators in Portland has torn down a statue of Thomas Jefferson in front of a school bearing his name, fanning the flames of a growing cultural divide in the US as activists target landmarks deemed racist.

Around 1,000 people gathered at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon on Sunday to listen to speeches before setting off on a Black Lives Matter march across the city. Later in the evening, a crowd reconvened at the school and set their sights on a statue of the third US president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Two ropes were tied around the statues neck as the group labored to pull Jefferson off his pedestal  which had already been defaced with graffiti reading slave owner.

Videos show the group tugging on the ropes, eventually sending the statue falling onto the concrete steps in front of the school.

Tough time for slave owners  pic.twitter.com/m0lUWuYqVc  PDX Resistance  (@Pdx_resistance) June 15, 2020

The crowd then cheers as a man, apparently armed with an ax, strikes the bronze Jefferson several times. There were similar celebrations on Twitter.

A group removed the Thomas Jefferson statue at Jefferson High School earlier tonight. Protesters marched back to Jefferson High School later in the night and a speaker addressed the crowd: Were taking this city back. One school at a time. One racist statue at a time. pic.twitter.com/iOBUgUyW4S  Jamie Goldberg (@Jamiebgoldberg) June 15, 2020

Awww, poor guy tripped and fell,joked one comment. Thoughts and prayers,read a similarly sarcastic Twitter reply.

Although Jefferson was a slave owner, he is revered for his advocacy of religious tolerance and individual liberty  values which became foundational principles of the United States. For many, the act of vandalism was beyond the pale.

One disgusted observer accused the protesters of carrying out a barbaric act against history and demanded action from Oregon Governor Kate Brown.

Others argued that the vandals and rioters were doing a disservice to legitimate protests against racism.

Also on rt.com Black Lives Matter protesters who toppled a statue on their own heads have created the perfect culture war metaphor

On Saturday, demonstrators in Portland pulled down two statues honoring pioneers who settled in Oregon. Its not clear what their motive was, but local media said that the landmarks had been targeted in the past for their alleged glorification of white conquest.

Protests following the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of police have led to other acts of vandalism. Confederate statues and monuments paying tribute to Christopher Columbus have been attacked and toppled in several cities across the country.
AUSTIN, Tex.Award-winning adult star Johnny Sins has signed an agreement with Interactive Life Forms (ILF), makers of Fleshlight brand products, to serve as the newest Fleshlight Guy, with a custom Fleshlight dildo molded from him launching soon.

Weve launched some impressive names over the years, but no one in the Fleshlight office can stop talking about Johnny Sins, said Daniel Harvell, Fleshlight director of marketing. Women, men, gay, straighteveryone is crushing over Johnny Sins. Hes a legend of porn, a YouTube giant, and the face of so many hilarious memes. Johnny Sins can do it alland now that includes you!

The new Fleshlight dildo is part of the Fleshlight Guys brand, which spotlights adult male stars from straight porn such as Manuel Ferrara, Mick Blue and Ryan Driller. The toy was molded from Sins anatomy in January and is designed and produced in the U.S.A. As with all products under the Fleshlight brand, the toys will be made of 100 percent body-safe material.

Work hard until you get a sex toy molded after you, advised Sins, followed by laughter. Seriously, its an honor to be a part of the Fleshlight family. Theyve set the bar extremely high for sex toy quality, and they only work with the best in the adult industry. My fans have asked for this for years, and now they can take me home with them. I cant wait to spread even more loveand legsall over the world.
Residents near UCC who feel that their area has turned in to "Magaluf without regulations" this summer have welcomed the decision of Gardai, Cork City Council and the HSE to contact 40 landlords with 200 properties regarding a spate of Covid-19 lockdown parties.

A letter to landlords was signed by Dr Anne Sheahan Specialist in Public Health Medicine, and Director of Public Health HSE South (Cork and Kerry), John F McPolin, Chief Superintendent, An Garda Siochana, Cork City Garda Division and Ann Doherty, Chief Executive, Cork City Council.

The residents in the area are calling for the licensing of landlords as a matter of urgency. They want a "landlord NCT system" to be implemented immediately.

Resident Mary Doherty hasn't seen her grandchild in three months because of the travel restrictions. However, "day in and day out" she is walking past students whom she says are blatantly ignoring all the social distancing protocols.

"Not seeing my grandchild in Dublin is heartbreaking. And then you see young people behaving like this," she said. "I was coming down the road at twenty to eleven the other morning and I saw three young people. One was carrying a slab of Carlsberg at that hour of the morning.

"We are looking for long term solutions. We are willing to work with UCC and CIT management, students unions and so on. We will look at all options."

Rose O'Sullivan who has lived in Magazine Road for over 60 years, says residents are suffering from a lack of sleep because of the around-the-clock parties.

"I know one elderly person who is doubling up on her sleeping tablets at night because of the noise. That is dangerous. She could fall down the stairs or anything.

"Her daughter is very worried about her. She is just trying to get some sleep. To escape. The whole place is vibrating.

"There are five people in my area over 90. My father is 98. People were cocooning. But they were they were starting to go out around the block for a walk.

Then all these people came in with the screaming, the roaring and the thumping music. The (pensioners) had to go back in to their houses again.

Former Lord Mayor of Cork, Catherine Clancy, who lives locally says they welcome the authorities' commitment to contact landlords.

Following our meetings earlier this week with the Gardai, City Council and the HSE, we welcome the statement, which makes it blatantly obvious that that the current legislation on the management and upkeep of rented properties is minimal, outdated and in urgent need of change to make it relevant to 2020.

"No community should be left at the mercy of the personality of the landlord. We are calling for the licensing of landlords. There should be something along the lines of an NCT for rented properties where there is certain criteria to be checked and approved before they can be rented out.

"This needs to be a top priority for our legislators and most especially our new Government. Landlords who consistently abuse local regulations and facilitate the antisocial behaviour of tenants with respect to the community must face substantial fines.

"We need action now. Many residents in the area had another weekend of having to listen to music and shouting into the early hours of the morning. This is not fair and we need this to end now.
AAP MP Sanjay Singh and Delhi Congress President Anil Kumar Chaudhary were among leaders from other political parties, who are present in the meeting.

An all-party meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to review the management of COVID-19 situation in Delhi has concluded at the Ministry of Home Affairs. During the course of the meeting, Congress demanded that COVID-19 testing should be provided to all, as it is everyones right. The party has also demanded that Rs 10,000 should be paid to every family whose member is infected or in containment zone according to sources.

The sources added that Congress has also demanded that 4th-year medical students should be used as non-permanent resident doctors. Due to the crunch of healthcare staff, 4th-year students of Bachelor of Pharmacy or nursing should be used as alternate for health staff. AAP MP Sanjay Singh and Delhi Congress President Anil Kumar Chaudhary arrived for the meeting, among leaders from other political parties.

Earlier, Delhi BJP chief Adesh Kumar Gupta had said that he would give suggestions like slashing private lab rates for COVID-19 testing, centralisation of COVID clinics and hospitals and roping in NCC and NSS volunteers to fill the requirements of ever-dwindling medical support staff, during the meet.

Also Read: Two Indian officials missing in Paks Islamabad, MEA takes up matter

Also Read: Nepal border firing: Eyewitness narrate horrifying details, say 18-20 shots were fired over one hour

Shah, along with Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, chaired a meeting on Sunday in which Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were present. The meeting was also attended by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Health Secretary Preeti Sudan, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria and Members of NITI Aayog apart from other senior officers.

Later, Shah said that a comprehensive health survey of every person would be conducted in the containment zones of the national capital to check the spread of coronavirus.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajputs maternal uncle seeks police investigation on cause of death, says there seems to be a conspiracy

For all the latest National News, download NewsX App
This article, Is your T-Mobile service having issues? You're not alone, originally appeared on CNET.com.

If your T-Mobile service was having issues on Monday, you were not alone. The third-largest wireless carrier is seemingly having widespread issues around the country impacting the ability to make calls and text.

It is unclear what caused the issue or when it will be resolved. Users across the country took to Twitter to note the outage, with T-Mobile rising to the top spot on the site's US Trending Topics as of 5:01 p.m. ET.

The main issue appears to be with calls and texts, with users saying that data was working normally.

Neville Ray, T-Mobile's president of technology, acknowledged in a tweet that the carrier was having an outage and said that the carrier "hopes to have this fixed shortly."

Our engineers are working to resolve a voice and data issue that has been affecting customers around the country. Were sorry for the inconvenience and hope to have this fixed shortly.  Neville (@NevilleRay) June 15, 2020

In a tweet sent shortly after 6 p.m. ET, Ray says the carrier was still working to fix calls and texts, while recommending that users use apps like FaceTime, WhatsApp and iMessage to communicate.

Those apps, unlike traditional SMS text messages or voice calls, send messages and calls through the data side of the network which is still operational.

Teams continue to work as quickly as possible to fix the voice & messaging problems some are seeing.

Data services are now available & some calls are completing. Alternate services like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Facetime etc. are available. Thanks for your patience. https://t.co/uQiGSAFEAH  Neville (@NevilleRay) June 15, 2020

In tests in northern New Jersey, T-Mobile's data services appeared to be working normally, though I was unable to send text messages and had issues making calls on a OnePlus 8 5G .

A CNET editor in New York City was able to send texts and iMessage using an iPhone , but calls were not working on either device. An editor in the San Francisco Bay Area noted that calls were not working over Google Fi, the cell phone service offered by Google that relies on T-Mobile, Sprint and U.S. Cellular's respective networks. Data and texts over Fi, however, was working.

In addition to Google Fi, T-Mobile is the underlying network providing service for several other carriers such as its Metro prepaid brand as well as for Mint Mobile and Simple Mobile.

Downdetector.com, a site where users can report outages, noted issues with all major wireless carriers -- AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint.

AT&T and Verizon each say that their respective networks are operating normally and without issues. Tests in northern New Jersey on AT&T and Verizon phones showed no issues with calls, texts or data except when trying to text or call a T-Mobile phone.

"Verizon's network is performing well. We're aware that another carrier is having network issues," a Verizon spokeswoman told CNET in a statement. "Calls to and from that carrier may receive an error message."

The company also took issue with Downdetector's spreading that its network is having outages. "Sites such as Downdetector.com utilize limited crowdsourced data drawn from sample social posts which are often statistically insignificant or factually incorrect," the spokeswoman said.

"A lot of factors can contribute to a false report on a third-party website," adding that by simply aggregating this data "the result can be faulty reports of network performance interruptions causing wide-spread miscommunication for wireless users."

T-Mobile referred back to Ray's tweet when asked for comment. Sprint, which is now owned by T-Mobile, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story is developing...
European nations eased border controls on Monday (June 15) as parts of the continent tentatively reopens for business, following three months of lockdown.

That meant Germans being able to escape to holiday destinations including a lucky few to Spain and streams of French people heading into Belgium to buy cheap cigarettes.

Not everyone is free to move everywhere again though. Spain remains largely closed for another week, with many quarantine rules still in place meaning normal travel levels are a way off.

Greek airports are allowing more international flights as the country seeks to salvage its summer.

Roads into Denmark from Germany saw jams of 5 miles, as the tourists flocked in, while Italians headed into France to buy lottery scratch cards.

Varying levels of quarantining are still required for passengers arriving from countries seemed to be high risk.

For example, a 14-day period of isolation is mandatory for UK residents heading to Greece and France, and its currently the same rule for any visitor wishing to enter the Britain.

Before the crisis, an average of 3.5 million people crossed an internal EU border every day, according to a 2019 European Parliament report, almost half of them commuters.

European officials hope the lifting of internal border controls will allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July and resuscitate a tourism industry that flatlined during the lockdown.

Tourism and leisure activities make up almost 10% the EU economy and even more in Mediterranean countries, some of which were hit hardest in recent months.
Jason De Puy of West Hollywood attends the All Black Lives Matter march Sunday on Hollywood Boulevard. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Thousands of people filled the streets of Hollywood and West Hollywood on Sunday, in a march denouncing racial injustice and supporting LGBTQ rights.

They walked atop an enormous street mural on Hollywood Boulevard, where "All Black Lives Matter" was painted in rainbow colors and the pale pink, blue and white of the transgender pride flag.

Pedro Chavez dances on Hollywood Blvd with numerous demonstrators as George Floyd protests continue in Hollywood. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

They chanted "Prosecute killer cops!" They danced. Nearly all wore masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They carried signs: "Racism ain't a good look, honey." "Racists, sashay away!" "Less Karens, more caring."

The All Black Lives Matter march  held amid the pandemic that has canceled LGBTQ pride parades across the country  was the latest massive street demonstration for racial justice since George Floyd, a Black man, died last month after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

The spirited crowd on Sunday was huge, diverse and young.

Jolie Ruffin, 24, of Leimert Park, wore a blue surgical mask and carried a sign that read: To be a Black queer woman in Amerikkka is a triple threat ... and NOT in a good way. This was her first-ever protest.

Im a Black, bisexual woman in America, she said. Its intimidating to men especially ... Im hurt that Black people want to live their lives, and their lives are taken from them.

Hollywood Boulevard was closed to traffic, and there was little police presence. A portrait of Floyd flashed on a screen outside the legendary TCL Chinese Theatre. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a white woman with a rainbow flag draped over her shoulders blew bubbles as she passed David Hasselhoffs star, and a Black man passed with a cardboard sign that said, Black Trans Lives Matter.

Greg Austin, 31, said the massive turnout was evidence of a desire for change thats been building for years amid high-profile police shootings across the country.

Were not saying that every cop is bad. We just wish they would follow a different method, said Austin, who is gay and Black. This is an eye-opener for everyone."

Story continues

Eyvonne Leach stood on Hollywood Boulevard, wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and a pair of feathery, rainbow-colored wings.

As a Black lesbian, Leach, 40, of Inglewood, said she'd had to fight doubly hard against discrimination. It was rare, she said, that she got to make a statement for both parts of her identity.

You have to put your Blackness first, she said. My lesbianism, that comes later. Being Black and a woman in America, it is really tough.

Leach said she believed that because Americans were forced to put their lives on pause during the pandemic, they could not ignore Floyd's death and the racism the country has always struggled with.

I believe this is the universe working, she said. People are tired. If we werent forced to stay in the house, we wouldnt have seen what happened. ... It would have been another killing, another Black killing.

"It brings my heart much joy," she said of the march.

The All Black Lives Matter march, though, came about amid controversy.

Critics said they believed organizers appropriated the Black Lives Matter cause in order to hold a "mini Pride" after festivities for the 50th anniversary of LA Pride were suspended because of the pandemic.

The march was announced June 3 by Christopher Street West, the organization that produces LA Pride, as a solidarity march with Black Lives Matter.

But the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles group never endorsed the event, and numerous leaders within the Black LGBTQ community said Christopher Street West  long criticized for being too white and too corporate  did not communicate with them before announcing it.

"With Christopher Street West, you don't get to go from 0 to 10. This moment for Black Lives Matter is not going to exclude the white gay community and all their years of mistreatment and anti-Black behavior," said Jasmyne Cannick, a political strategist and longtime Black LGBTQ activist.

Cannick, 42, noted that the separate, annual Los Angeles Black Pride, founded in 1988, was created in large part because Black LGBTQ people had endured so much racism from LA Pride and within West Hollywood, which is mostly white. Cannick also criticized Christopher Street West for last year getting rid of its hip-hop stage, which she said was both a safe space for Black people and a paid gig for Black artists.

Christopher Street West also was denounced for trying to organize the "solidarity" march collaboratively with the Los Angeles Police Department at the same time protesters nationwide are decrying systemic racism within law enforcement and pushing to defund the police.

On behalf of Christopher Street West, event producer Jeff Consoletti had submitted a special-event permit application to the LAPD citing LA Pride's "strong and unified partnership with law enforcement."

Your support of this peaceful gathering is the key to its success and continues a LA tradition of support, advocacy and the peaceful right to protest for all," Consoletti wrote.

Under pressure, LA Pride said it would no longer organize the march and apologized.

A newly formed group, Black LGBTQ+ Activists for Change, or BLAC, whose board is composed entirely of Black LGBTQ people, organized Sunday's All Black Lives Matter march. But critics said it was still too closely tied to LA Pride, because BLAC board member Gerald Garth is the Christopher Street West board treasurer, and BLAC board member Brandon Anthony is an LA Pride event producer.

In an interview, Garth, 37, said that while "it started very rocky," the goal of the All Black Lives Matter march was to "amplify and highlight the Black LGBTQ experience."

"My whole life, I have experienced racism and homophobia," Garth said. "I'm Black. I'm 6 foot 4. Dark skin and 240 pounds. There's a certain perception people have when they hear certain identity markers. There's often a point where people need to check themselves."

Jeffrey King, founder of In the Meantime Mens Group, a South L.A. outreach organization for Black LGBTQ men that supported the event, said the conflict showed a generational divide. King, 61, said that while younger Black LGBTQ people may feel more comfortable attending LA Pride than in years past, there are "deep-rooted scars" among older people because of the racism they experienced.

"It was clear Pride was never for us," King said. He had drinks poured on him, was aggressively and inappropriately touched and had difficulty entering event venues, he said.

But King said he recognizes that many of the young Black LGBTQ people he works with have "different lived experiences" and that he supports what the All Black Lives Matter march represented. He said he has often felt he had to forgo the fight for LGBTQ rights in favor of fighting for equality of Black people.

"The Blackness comes first, and everything else follows," he said. "If someone sees me walking down the street, there will be no question I'm a Black man, but they won't always know the otherness of who I am.

"Most of us are taught to be certain ways for survival ... and we learn those very early in life. It's rare that you will find a large number of us who will prioritize being gay or our sexual identity, expression, who we love, over our Blackness."

On Sunday, Ammie Robinson, 37, of Huntington Park, walked down Sunset Boulevard with her girlfriend, Kimiko McCarthy, 31. Robinson said that as a Black and queer person and as a woman, she had a "triple whammy" when it came to fighting for her rights. Discrimination exists even within the LGBTQ community, she added.

Sometimes, theres not space for Black people, she said. Youre fighting for space in your own community.

McCarthy carried a cardboard sign that read, Hey WeHo Black Queers Exist!!! #MakeSpace. She said she had just spoken with a friend, another queer woman, who did not attend the march because she didnt feel comfortable there as a Black person.

I respect that, McCarthy said. I told her Id let her know how it goes. I heard about this weeks ago, and of course I wanted to be here to represent both sides of who I am.
We, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the European Union*, have joined together to create the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI or Gee-Pay). As the founding members, we will support the responsible and human-centric development and use of AI in a manner consistent with human rights, fundamental freedoms, and our shared democratic values, as elaborated in the OECD Recommendation on AI. To this end, we look forward to working with other interested countries and partners.

GPAI is an international and multistakeholder initiative to guide the responsible development and use of AI, grounded in human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation, and economic growth. In order to achieve this goal, the initiative will look to bridge the gap between theory and practice on AI by supporting cutting-edge research and applied activities on AI-related priorities.

In collaboration with partners and international organizations, GPAI will bring together leading experts from industry, civil society, governments, and academia to collaborate across four Working Group themes: 1) Responsible AI; 2) Data Governance; 3) The Future of Work; and 4) Innovation & Commercialization. Critically, in the short term, GPAIs experts will also investigate how AI can be leveraged to better respond to and recover from COVID-19.

GPAI will be supported by a Secretariat, to be hosted by the OECD in Paris**, as well as by two Centres of Expertise  one each in Montreal and Paris. The relationship with the OECD will bring strong synergies between GPAIs scientific and technical work and the international AI policy leadership provided by the OECD, strengthening the evidence base for policy aimed at responsible AI. The Centres will provide administrative and research support for the practical projects undertaken or assessed by Working Group experts from various sectors and disciplines. The Centres will also plan the annual GPAI Multistakeholder Experts Group Plenary, the first of which will be hosted by Canada in December 2020.

* Formal accession process ongoing

** The process to establish the GPAI Secretariat at the OECD is currently in its final stages.
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the American Red Cross began testing all blood, platelet and plasma donations for COVID-19 antibodies. During these uncertain times, the Red Cross hopes that testing for COVID-19 antibodies will provide its valued donors insight into whether they may have been exposed to this coronavirus.

The antibody test is authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and may indicate if the donor's immune system has produced antibodies to the coronavirus, regardless of whether an individual developed symptoms. For the next few months, Red Cross blood, platelet and plasma donations will be tested using samples obtained at the time of donation and sent to a testing laboratory, where the samples will also undergo routine screening and infectious disease testing. A positive antibody test result does not confirm infection or immunity.

"As a humanitarian organization and member of the broader health community, the Red Cross has adapted our services to help meet the needs of this extraordinary time," said Chris Hrouda, president of Red Cross Biomedical Services. "We recognize that individuals and public health organizations desire more information about COVID-19, and as an organization dedicated to helping others, the Red Cross is fortunate to be able to help during this pandemic."

There is an urgent need for blood donations right now, to meet the needs of patients in hospitals as surgical procedures and treatments that were temporarily paused earlier this spring in response to COVID-19 resume. At the same time, blood drives continue to be canceled, as many businesses and community organizations restrict the number of individuals at their locations creating challenges for a stable blood supply. It's important to remember that blood is perishable and cannot be stockpiled.

To schedule an appointment to give blood, visit RedCrossBlood.org, use the Red Cross Blood Donor App, call 1-800-RED-CROSS or activate the Blood Scheduling Skill for Amazon Alexa.

Red Cross donors can expect to receive the results of their antibody test within 7 to 10 days through our Red Cross Blood Donor App or on our donor portal at RedCrossBlood.org.

With the start of antibody testing, the Red Cross anticipates increased interest in blood donation appointments in the coming days. If there is not an appointment immediately available in a given area, donations in the days and weeks ahead are still critically important to ensure we can build a stable blood supply throughout the difficult summer months.

Blood Donation Safety during COVID-19

The Red Cross is not testing donors to diagnose illness, referred to as a diagnostic test. To protect the health and safety of our staff and donors, it is important that individuals who do not feel well postpone their donation.

It is important to note that walk-in donors may not be able to be accommodated at our drives due to social distancing, so we are asking that all donors schedule an appointment in advance. We are also requiring all donors to wear a face covering or mask while at the drive, in alignment with Centers for Disease Control public guidance.

Each Red Cross blood drive and donation center follows the highest standards of safety and infection control. To ensure the health of staff and donors, precautions include:

Checking temperatures of staff and donors before entering a drive to make sure they are healthy.

Providing hand sanitizer for use before entering the drives, as well as throughout the donation process.

Following social distancing between donors including entry, donation and refreshment areas.

Ensuring face masks or coverings are worn by both staff and donors.

Routinely disinfecting surfaces, equipment and donor touched areas.

Wearing gloves, and changing gloves often.

Using sterile collection sets and an aseptic scrub for every donation.

Learn more about COVID-19 blood donation safety protocols.

About blood donation

Thanks to Amazon, all those who come to give June 1-30 will receive a $5 Amazon.com Gift Card via email.*

In most states, individuals who are 17 years of age (16 with parental consent where allowed by state law), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate blood. High school students and other donors 18 years of age and younger also have to meet certain height and weight requirements.

To save up to 15 minutes at the blood drive, donors are encouraged to complete a RapidPass. With RapidPass, donors complete the pre-donation reading and health history questionnaire online, on the day of donation, from a mobile device or computer. To complete a RapidPass, follow the instructions at RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass or use the Red Cross Blood Donor App.

About the American Red Cross

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40% of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or cruzrojaamericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross.

* Restrictions apply. Additional information and details are available at RedCrossBlood.org/Together

SOURCE American Red Cross

Related Links

www.redcross.org


The National Security Service (NSS) on Monday released a video on the case of causing about 30 billion drams in damage to the state as a result of illegal business activities, and which involves parliamentary opposition Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) leader, MP, and business tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan.

To note, the NSS investigators on Sunday searched Tsarukyan's mansion and the enterprises belonging to him.

Then, the NSS issued statements on three criminal cases involving the PAP leader.

Accordingly, the first of these criminal cases is about illegalities at Casino Shangri La owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. According to the NSS statement, this gaming hall operated without a license, which caused more than 29 billion drams in damage to the state.

The second statement was about vote buying during the 2017 parliamentary election.

And while Tsarukyan was still being questioned, the NSS disseminated a statement on a third criminal case. Accordingly, the officials of Arinj communitywhere Gagik Tsarukyan residesof Kotayk Province had legalized the illegal structures on a 7.5-hectare agricultural land that was unlawfully leased, and then had illegally alienated this land to "New" LLC belonging to Tsarukyan. And as a result of this illegality, about 370 million drams were not transferred to Arinj's budget.
After another volatile week, leading benchmark indices fell sharply as markets feared a second wave of coronavirus with the re-opening of the economy adding to the risks. With relaxation in various restrictions, the virus is likely to resurface, leading to probable severe lockdown controls thereafter. The drop in indices largely spooked investors as most have been pinning hopes on consumer resilience in the domestic market. Furthermore, this sent a shockwave across markets that until now appeared to have factored in the element of uncertainty regarding the quantum of economic damage from the virus outbreak.



As investors employ a wait-and-see approach in a classic example of backing and filling in the market, they can benefit from cash cow stocks that garner higher returns. However, identifying cash-rich stocks alone does not make for a solid investment proposition unless it is backed by attractive efficiency ratios like return on equity (ROE). A high ROE ensures that the company is reinvesting cash at a high rate of return.



ROE: A Key Metric



ROE = Net Income/Shareholders Equity



ROE helps investors distinguish profit-generating companies from profit burners and is useful in determining the financial health of a company. In other words, this financial metric enables investors to identify stocks that diligently deploy cash for higher returns.



Moreover, ROE is often used to compare the profitability of a company with other firms in the industry  the higher, the better. It measures how well a company is multiplying its profits without investing new equity capital and portrays managements efficiency in rewarding shareholders with attractive risk-adjusted returns.



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In order to shortlist stocks that are cash-rich with high ROE, we have added Cash Flow greater than $1 billion and ROE greater than X-Industry as our primary screening parameters. In addition, we have taken a few other criteria into consideration to arrive at a winning strategy.



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Zacks Rank less than or equal to 2: Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) stocks are known to outperform irrespective of the market environment.



Here are four of the eight stocks that qualified the screen:



Seagate Technology PLC STX: Headquartered at Dublin, Ireland, Seagate is the second-largest manufacturer of hard disk drives in the United States. This Zacks #2 Ranked company has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 4.2%, on average.



CommScope Holding Company, Inc. COMM: Headquartered in Hickory, NC, CommScope is a premier provider of infrastructure solutions, including wireless and fiber optic solutions, for the core, access and edge layers of communication networks. The company has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 30.3%, on average. With long-term earnings growth expectations of 2.7%, it carries a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.



T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. TROW: Founded in 1937 and headquartered in Baltimore, T. Rowe is a global investment management organization that provides a broad array of mutual funds, sub-advisory services and separate account management for individual and institutional investors, retirement plans and financial intermediaries. This Zacks #2 Ranked firm has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 4.8%, on average. It has a long-term earnings growth projection of 9.3%.



The Allstate Corporation ALL: Founded in 1931 and headquartered in Northbrook, IL, Allstate is the third-largest property-casualty insurer and the largest publicly-held personal lines carrier in the United States. This Zacks #2 Ranked firm has a trailing four-quarter positive earnings surprise of 18.5%, on average. It has a long-term earnings growth projection of 7.5%.

Story continues

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Disclosure: Officers, directors and/or employees of Zacks Investment Research may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material. An affiliated investment advisory firm may own or have sold short securities and/or hold long and/or short positions in options that are mentioned in this material.



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Indian High Commission finds it hard to resume normal operations as situation remains tense with Pak

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: Following the explosion of 2 Pakistan officials from India on charges of espionage, the situation in Islamabad remains tense.

The Indian High Commission is finding it hard to resume normal functioning owing to aggressive surveillance of its officials by Pakistan. India, it may be recalled had registered a protest in the form of a note verbale to Pakistan. The behaviour of the officials of Pakistan violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, India had said.

India's Charge d' Affaires harassed by ISI in Islamabad

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

It may be recalled that India's Charge d' Affaires, Gaurav Ahluwalia was chased in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad by a motorcycle-borne person suspected to be from the ISI.

The incident took place on June 4.

Sources tell OneIndia that this is clearly the handiwork of the ISI and is meant to avenge India's actions against its officials, who were caught trying to gather sensitive information about the movement of Indian troops.

India will now lodge a strong protest with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. The matter is being taken up with Islamabad, the source cited above said. The official also said that this action amounts to harassment and is aimed at obstructing the normal functioning of our officials. The officer also said that Pakistan is trying to take revenge and is looking to expel Indian officials from Islamabad. We are prepared for such action will react accordingly the officer also noted.

After India declared two Pakistani officials as persona non grata, Pakistan had accused India of torturing its officials. The charge was however rubbished by India. The officials had been caught red handed, officials say, but they were not subject to any torture. Pakistan has just been making a ground, so that it can harass Indian officials in Islamabad.

India, it may be recalled had issued a demarche after the Pakistani officials were caught red handed trying to gather information against the Indian troops. India had investigated the matter and then asked the two officials to leave the country.
A statue of Thomas Jefferson outside an Oregon high school named for him was toppled over by a group of protesters during a demonstration this weekend.

On Sunday, a crowd of protesters gathered outside of Jefferson High School in Portland ahead of a march organized over the death of George Floyd.

As the crowd of more than 1,000 residents left for a nearby park, a smaller group of protesters reportedly arrived and pulled down the Thomas Jefferson statue.

Footage of the incident shared by PDX_Resistance shows at least nine people wearing face masks standing outside the high school near the statue.

It has since been removed from school property and district officials said they would decide whether or not to reinstate the stature after listening to the community, Fox12 reported.

Scroll down for video

A statue of Thomas Jefferson placed outside of Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, was pulled down by a group of protesters on Sunday (pictured)

A rope is tied around the statue's neck and one member of the group appears to use a hammer to loosen the structure.

After a few moments of tugging, the statue slams onto the concrete ground as the group cheers and applauds.

The statue fell onto its side and a dent was visible in the concrete where it landed, Oregon Live reports.

Earlier in the day, the base of the statue had been covered in graffiti reading 'Black Lives Matter' and 'George Floyd 8:46,' in reference to the amount of time an officer knelt on Floyd's neck.

A group of at least nine people were seen on video removing the Thomas Jefferson statue on Sunday outside the high school

George Floyd, 46, was an African-American man who died after a white officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes on Memorial Day in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

A number of protests opposing his death and systemic racism have broken out across the United States.

The exact time the statue was removed is unclear, but it was discovered when the large group of protesters returned to the high school that evening around 10pm.

The group had held the march in a historically black neighborhood that had been gentrified.

Portland Public Schools data has reportedly shown 32 per cent of students at Jefferson High School are black, the largest percentage of any high school in Oregon.

'Theres an interesting piece of history up here... Mr. Thomas is all beside himself,' one organizer quipped amid cheers.

The unidentified group used a rope and what appeared to be a hammer to loosen the statue's base

Protesters cheered and applauded when the Thomas Jefferson statue finally fell onto the concrete ground

'Were taking this city back. One school at a time. One racist statue at a time.'

Several monuments linked to the Confederacy and slavery have been downed in recent weeks as thousands protest racism and police brutality.

Jefferson was credited with writing 'all men are created equal' into the US Constitution, but during his life he owned more than 600 slaves.

Who was Thomas Jefferson? DNA evidence has proved that Jefferson (in a portrait above) fathered at least one child of his slaves Sally Hemings Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13 1743 at the Shadwell plantation outside of Charlottesville in Virginia. He was the third of 10 children to one of the most prominent families of Virginia's planter elite. Throughout Jefferson's life he was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect and philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president between 1801 and 1809. In his presidency he stabilised the country's economy and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War. He is also credited for doubling the size of the US by successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, motivating American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. Congress formally adopted the Declaration on July 4 1776, now celebrated as Independence Day. The Declaration famously reads: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.' But despite this, Jefferson is known to have kept more than 600 slaves throughout his life. He had said slavery was a 'moral depravity' and a 'hideous blot', yet Jefferson profited directly from it. Jefferson even wrote in his text Notes on the State of Virginia that he suspected black people were inferior to white people. He thought that white Americans and enslaved blacks constituted two 'separate nations' who could not live together peacefully in the same country. Through his 1772 marriage to Martha Wayles, Jefferson inherited two plantations and by 1776 was one of the largest planters in Virginia. Although Jefferson believed slavery was harmful to both slave and master, he expressed reservations over releasing them into freedom with no education or means to support themselves. He instead advocated for a gradual voluntary training and drafted legislation allowing owners to free slaves. By 1806 he officially called for anti-slavery legislation banning the import or export of slaves, a law that was passed in 1807. One of Jefferson's slaves was the mixed-race Sally Hemings, a half-sister of his wife Martha, who lived on his primary plantation in Monticello. No known portraits of Sally Hemings exist, but the one above is based on descriptions of her appearance Jefferson and Sally shared a relationship and DNA evidence proved he fathered at least one of her children, Eston Hemings, though rumours suggest he fathered six children in total. The pair's sexual relationship is believed to have started when Hemings was an underage teenager and Jefferson was in his 40s. She would not have been in a position to give or withhold consent given that Jefferson owned her, with many historians describing his treatment of Sally as rape. Very little is known of Sally, but one of the few accounts of her by an enslaved blacksmith named Isaac Granger Jefferson described her as 'mighty near white...very handsome, long straight hair down her back.' As a child, she was probably a nursemaid to Jefferson's daughter Maria, as enslaved girls from the age of six or eight were childminders and assistants to head nurses on southern plantations. Congress formally adopted the Declaration on July 4 1776, now celebrated as Independence Day Sally served as an attendant to Maria Jefferson, as well as Martha Jefferson, accompanying them on various trips to Paris. After her return to Virginia in 1789, Sally Hemings remained at Monticello and worked as a household servant. Sally's son Madison recalled that one of her duties was 'to take care of [Jefferson's] chamber and wardrobe, look after us children, and do light work such as sewing.' Sally was enslaved in Jefferson's house along with her surviving children, who Jefferson released as they each came of age. Sally, however, was forced to remain in the house as a slave until Jeffersons death on July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Advertisement

Although he referred to slavery as 'moral depravity,' by 1782 Jefferson had become the largest slaveholder in Albemarle County, Virginia .

Two other statues were downed at the University of Oregon on Saturday over their ties to white supremacy.

The Thomas Jefferson statue was one of three monuments pulled down this weekend in Oregon, with two other statues toppled over by protesters at the University of Oregon

Demonstrators hold their hands up in Portland during a protest over the death of George Floyd

Demonstrators hold their hands up in Portland during a protest over the death of George Floyd

The Pioneer statue was first erected in 1919 during a ceremony where the president of the Oregon Historical Society gave a speech praising the 'Anglo-Saxon race.'

The second statue, The Pioneer Mother, was placed at the university in 1932 and had similar racist backings.

Researcher Brenda Frink told The Register that the statue celebrated 'the expansion of American territory and the expansion of white occupation of that land.'

Other statues of historical figures, like Christopher Columbus and Robert E. Lee, have also been torn down.

In Kentucky, a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis was removed from the Kentucky State Capitol Building.

A statue of Jefferson Davis, a former president of the Confederate states, was removed from the Kentucky State Capitol building on Friday

The statue was removed over Davis' racist behavior, which included attempts to expand slavery and owning 113 slaves during his lifetime.

'African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social and a political blessing,' Davis once said.

A 11-1 vote by the Historic Properties Advisory Commission prompted the statue's removal on Friday.

'After calling for its removal and urging the Historic Properties Advisory Commission to act, today I pressed the button to bring it down,' Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrote on Twitter.

'Now, every child who walks into their Capitol feels welcome. Today we took a step forward for the betterment of every single Kentuckian.'


LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Catalent Inc. (CTLT) said Monday that it has signed an agreement with AstraZeneca PLC (AZN.L, AZN) to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.



Under the deal, Catalent Biologics will provide vial filling and packaging capacity to AstraZeneca at Catalent's 28,000 square-meter manufacturing facility in Anagni, Italy, and prepare for large-scale commercial supply of the University of Oxford's adenovirus vector based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, AZD1222.



The recombinant adenovirus vaccine technology was created by the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, and the vaccine candidate is currently in clinical trials.



The agreement will accelerate the rapid scale-up of capacity over the coming months to support the dedicated production of AZD1222, Catalent noted.



Catalent will prepare the facility so as to enable round-the-clock manufacturing schedules and supply hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine candidate from August 2020, and potentially through to March 2022 if the product is approved by regulatory agencies.



According to Catalent, it's Anagni facility has a proven track record in technical transfers and successful commercial product launches. The facility offers extensive capabilities in aseptic liquid filling for biologics and sterile products across multiple vial sizes.



The site also provides primary and secondary packaging solutions, including serialization, to support product launches for oral solids, sterile, and biologics products.



In addition to the Anagni facility, Catalent has sterile drug product manufacturing and packaging facilities in Brussels, Belgium and Bloomington, Indiana. The company also has additional facilities in Europe and the U.S. for manufacturing proteins, viral vectors for gene therapies and cell therapies, and biologics analytical services.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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MSMEs, considered the lifeblood of the Indian manufacturing sector, are struggling to stay afloat due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The government, on its part, has tried to alleviate their problems by announcing sops for the sector like the creation of a 'Fund of Funds' with a corpus of Rs 10,000 crore and making the sector a key stakeholder in the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

In an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and MSMEs, highlighted the measures taken by the government in helping the MSMEs recover from this major setback. He also spoke on the issue of migrant labourers and the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on road construction activities.

"We have started a web portal - CHAMPIONS - for MSMEs. Whenever there is a problem as far as the government policy is concerned and any MSME is facing issues, my humble suggestion to them is kindly post the grievances on the portal. We will go into the details, there is a committee and we will resolve the issue. The Prime Minister has also appointed a committee under the Chairmanship of Rajnath Singh to take the review of complete package," he said.

On the issue of outstanding PSU dues of MSMEs, he said: "There are dues of MSME with central government, central government ministries, and public undertaking belongs to Bharat Sarkar. That is one part. The second part is state government and their undertakings and the third part is with major industries. The Finance Minister is also taking the review meeting for that and already they issued order. I have requested all of them to give first priority to MSMEs."

Also Read | Nitin Gadkari Exclusive Interview: Read full transcript

As part of Unlock 1.0, he said around 70-80 percent MSMEs are slowly restarting their operations and also reiterated that the preventive measures taken by the government were in the best interests of the migrant labourers.

Gadkari admitted that road construction has taken a hit due to the COVID-19 outbreak but he has set a target of 40 kilometre per day after the monsoon.

Gadkari said work is in progress on setting up of the MSME stock exchange, which is expected to address capital woes of the sector.

"It is not a separate stock exchange. Now, I am going to call a meeting of all concerning stock exchanges and how it can be fix up the procedure for that that we are working on this line and definitely in due course certainly we will take the decision. We will add first at least up to 15 percent equity in the MSMEs and then they will go to the capital market. They will get equity and in the 2-3 years, our Rs 10 share will increase by 3-4 times. We will sell the equity and we will give that equity to other MSMEs. We are working on it," he said.

The buzz around electric vehicles has dimmed a bit in the recent past but Gadkari is confident of a seamless transition.

"TVS, Bajaj and other companies have electric bikes and scooters in India. In some of the corporations, they are running buses," he said.

With the country, especially Delhi and Mumbai, struggling to contain the spread of the virus, Gadkari said there is an urgent need to remove the negativity among people.

"I am confident in the due course of time we will get the vaccine, if once we take the vaccine there will be no problem and that will be true protection to everybody, so as early as possible to get vaccine is going to resolve our problems. But when the vaccine is not there in the situation, it is the time of the country, try to understand the people of the country that we have to live with coronavirus. We need to understand art of living with coronavirus to protect ourselves. There is no any other option, no shortcut from that," he said.

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A San Antonio police officer was hospitalized after crashing her vehicle on the North Side early Monday morning, according to the San Antonio Police Department.

Police said officer Abigail Macias was driving near Loop 1604 and Lockhill-Selma Road just before 3 a.m., when she stopped responding by radio. Officers rushed to the location, where they discovered the patrol vehicle had run into a telephone pole and some trees on the shoulder of the access road.
Beyonce, a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter, wrote an open letter to Kentucky's attorney general calling on justice for Breonna Taylor.

Honorary Latina and music icon Beyonce wrote an open letter to Kentucky's Attorney General Daniel Cameron on Sunday, asking him to uphold the value of a Black woman's life by providing justice to Breonna Taylor, according to a published article in TIME.

In the letter posted on her official website, Beyonce demanded that criminal charges be filed against the Louisville Metro police officers who fatally shot Taylor while executing a "no-knock" warrant on March 13.

At the bottom part of her open letter, Beyonce included two petitions for support in demanding Kentucky's Attorney General office to file the criminal charges and fire the police officers involved in the incident. These petitions are JusticeforBre and Stand with Breonna.

No Arrests Made After Three Months

Almost three months have passed since the fatal death of Breonna Taylor but zero arrests have been made so far and none of the officers involved in the crime incident were fired.

According to a published news article in CNN News, Beyonce wrote, "With every death of a Black person at the hands of the police, there are two real tragedies: the death itself and the inaction and delays that follow it. This is your chance to end that pattern. Take swift and decisive action in charging the officers. The next months can not look like the last three."

Moreover, Beyonce called Cameron to bring transparency to the investigation of Taylor's death and the practices that resulted in more deaths of unarmed African-Americans in the country similar to what happened to George Floyd and Robert Fuller.

Taylor's Family Express Gratitude to Beyonce





Beyonce has been a very vocal supporter of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, even in her artistic work, and has been also very vocal in demanding justice for Breonna Taylor.

Meanwhile, the Taylor family through their lawyer Lonita Baker expressed their gratitude to Beyonce and to other individuals who continually demand justice for Taylor .

Taylor's family also released a statement that says, "It has been more than 3 months since Breonna was murdered. Her killers are still in uniform. Meanwhile, Atlanta's mayor yesterday called for immediate termination of their officer, and criminal charges have been filed in Minnesota and Georgia. Here, we cannot even see an investigative file."

The family also added that this is now the time that leaders including Mayor Greg Fischer and Attorney General Daniel Cameron do the right thing by charging criminal cases and firing the police officers involved in Taylor's death.

Information You might Miss About Taylor's Death

Breonna Taylor, 26 years old, was an emergency medical technician who was killed by Louisville Metro Police Department who entered her apartment while she slept through a "no-knock" warrant that permits the police officers entering the home without announcing their presence.

Police officers fired more than 20 rounds according to the neighbors and Taylor was shot eight times while Taylor's boyfriend had shot the police officers because he thought they were intruders.

Check these out!
An airstrike from the Saudi-led coalition struck a vehicle carrying civilians in northern Yemen on Monday, killing 13 people, including four children, according to the Houthi rebels.

Yemeni tribal leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, confirmed that Saudi warplanes had targeted a vehicle in the Shada area of Saada province, a rebel stronghold, killing everyone inside.

The Saudi-led coalition has faced widespread international criticism for airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and hit non-military targets, including schools, hospitals and wedding parties. The Houthis have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia.

Yemens northwestern border with Saudi Arabia is a frequent target for Saudi warplanes, which closely track convoys in the region and have made many errors over the years.

The Houthi-run Health Ministry identified 11 victims, including a woman and four children, aged 12-14, on the northwestern highway. Ministry spokesman Youssef al-Hadri said another two bodies were burned beyond recognition.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition on the strike.

Yemens conflict erupted in 2014, when Houthi rebels seized much of the countrys north, including the capital, Sanaa. A U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to oust the Iran-allied Houthis and restore the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

The war has killed over 112,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, including 12,000 civilians. Aerial bombings and intense ground fighting have destroyed thousands of buildings, leaving half of Yemens hospitals dysfunctional.

The conflict has only escalated as the countrys devastated health system struggles to cope with a major coronavirus outbreak. On Monday, the internationally recognized government recorded 116 new infections, including 36 deaths, its biggest daily jump yet.

The Houthis have refused to release their coronavirus case count, saying such publicity causes panic. Although testing remains extremely limited nationwide, a dramatic spike in deaths among those suffering from COVID-19 symptoms indicates the pandemic is surging across the Arab worlds poorest country.

SOURCE: AP
Late in the winter of 2018, Feroze Ahmad Lone left for work at the Block Development Office in Gurez -- and then disappeared into the great sheets of snow and ice shrouding the mountains that surround the remote Kashmir town. For weeks, police scoured the area for the missing man, even sending patrols out into the forests to search for his grave, after rumours surfaced Lone had been murdered.

Then, last week, there was news: Lone and his neighbour from the village of Accho, one-time Territorial Army soldier Noor Mohammad Wani, had been arrested, Pakistani newspapers reported, and charged with espionage.

The allegation that my brother is a spy is an utter lie, says Lones brother Zafar Ahmad Lone, who runs a small cellphone repair store in Gurez. I do not say this because he is my brother, but because we have evidence.

If this was some big officer from Delhi, the whole media would be shouting and screaming, Lone adds, bitterly. But nobody cares about a poor villager from Kashmir.

I can only beg the government to please do something to protect my brother from being tortured, and make sure he has a lawyer to fight his case, he adds.

In Kashmir, both the Indian and Pakistani militaries as well as the intelligence services of both countries often recruit what are called border crossers to travel across the Line of Control and gather tactical intelligence. The border-crossers -- often small-time criminals, smugglers, arms-runners, or just villagers looking for a quick buck -- cost little to recruit and are easy to disown if things go wrong.

Even though both countries are bound, by international law, to give embassies access to arrested nations and facilitate legal assistance, violations are rife. A senior Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official said Islamabad had not formally notified India of Lones arrest.

There has been no credible account of how Lone actually ended up across the Line of Control, in Gilgit, as Pakistani authorities have claimed. But his bizarre story illustrates the devastating impacts the grey world of espionage across the Line of Control can end up having on local families, and the innocent.

Following Feroze Lones disappearance on August 14, 2018, Zafar Lone says the family waited a week before going to the police, hoping he would show up at the home of friends or relatives. Feroze used to administer local MNREGA projects, says Zafar Lone. so it wasnt unusual for him to be gone for a day or two, or to stay over at some village.

Then, on November 22, 2018, the family filed a complaint at the Izmarg police post, complaining that Feroze Lone was missing.

In Gurez -- heavily dependent on Indian Army-related work, contracts and public infrastructure for its survival -- the rare disappearance sparked a flood of speculation, family members told News18. Local rumour held, variously, that Lone had been murdered because of a feud with friends, or run off to join the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen jihadist group.

For weeks, the family worked with police to track down and interview every person Feroze Lones cellphone records showed he had been in touch with. The only person we couldnt speak to was his friend Noor Mohammad Wani, says Zafar Lone, referring to the Territorial Army auxilliary now also held in Pakistan. The army wouldnt let the police interview one of its soldiers, and later he was transferred to Kupwara.

Late in 2018, Zafar Lone filed a complaint with a grievance unit in the Jammu and Kashmir Governors office. Early next year, documents available with News18 show that the Governor received a reply from the Gurez police saying they had studied Feroze Lones cellphone records, questioned several individuals who had been in touch with him, and searched several premises.

No clue has been traced out, the police report said.

Lets just say Ive never heard of a spys family filing missing persons complaints with the police, one senior government officer told News18. Ive never heard of the police going around putting up pictures all over town seeking information on our own spies either.

Frankly, the whole thing is a bit odd," the officer said. "Theres obviously a lot of questions to be answered here, but till Feroze Lone can be questioned properly, theres no way to know."

Zafar Lones brother says, moreover, there are several inconsistencies in the newspaper accounts of his brothers purported confession. For example, newspaper reports record Pakistani authorities as saying he undertook his espionage mission after receiving a large cash payment.

Tell me, Zafar Lone says. If hed left Rs 1,00,000 with us and we thought he would bring home lots more money when he returned, why on earth would be going and filing police complaints?

Little clarity exists in the Pakistani media reports either on exactly when Pakistan claims Lone crossed the Line of Control and how long he was in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir -- all of which make it hard to account for the time between his disappearance in 2018 and his arrest the best part of two years later.

It isnt hard to invent plausible stories to account for this gap: Lone could be a spy, or a terrorist, or a cattle-rustler, or a heroin-smuggler. Theres plenty of cases though where people who werent criminals ended up in prisons on either side of the Line of Control.

Following the Uri terrorist strikes in 2016, two Pakistani teenagers were arrested and accused by the MEA of having facilitated the infiltration of a group of four Jaish-e-Muhammad cadre who carried out the Uri army camp attack.

Later, though, the National Investigation Agency established the two had simply fled to avoid a beating by the relatives of a girl one had a romantic relationship with and ended up on the wrong side of the Line of Control. The two juveniles were released.

Few actual spies receive recognition even after their return. In 2013, Surjeet Singh came across the Wagah border, at the end of 30 years and six months in a maximum-security Pakistani prison, an ageing, worn man wearing the full grey beard of the pious. Photographs taken just before he crossed the border in December 1981 show he used to wear a neatly-trimmed moustache, a smart tie and a well-fitted jacket.

I had gone to spy, Singh told journalists gathered to document his return. The government, however, has not acknowledged his service to this day.

Karamat Rohi, who claims he worked for the Research and Analysis Wing until his arrest in Pakistan in 1988, where he would remain in prison until 2005, had this to say after the government refused to officially acknowledge his services: I felt like a used napkin.

Gurdaspur resident Gopal Dass moved the Supreme Court after spending 27 years in a Pakistani jail, serving a sentence for espionage. In 2011, the court shot down his claim for compensation from the government, saying there was no legally-valid evidence he ever worked for Indian intelligence.
The Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Kwame Baffoe aka Abronye DC has stated that the various threats and acts of intimidation by elements of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) over the compilation of a new Voters register are clear indications of electoral defeat in this years general election.

I would like to state that, the war drums being sounded by Former President Mahama and his NDC cohorts are nothing but a sign of defeat. They feel the dwarf wind and the clouds of defeat all around them and therefore the unnecessary attacks on the Electoral Commission, Abronye D.C said at a Press Conference in Sunyani yesterday.

The press conference, he indicated, was in response to some wild allegations and falsehood peddled by the General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu-Nketia during his recent visit to some communities in the Bono East region and other places.

The NDCs chief scribes main aim of the tour was to galvanize the support of chiefs and people to kick against the up-coming voters registration exercise by the Electoral Commission but in the process threw dust into the eyes of his audiences in desperate attempts to win their sympathy, Abronye DC intimated.

NDC confirms foreigners in Ghanas electoral roll

He stressed that Mr. Asiedu-Nketia, among others, is reported to have told a gathering of chiefs and people of the Mo traditional area in the Kintampo municipality that the compilation a new voters register is an attempt to deny all foreign nationals from voting in the upcoming general elections.

This, according to Asiedu Nketia, has been necessitated because of the personal dislikes President Akufo-Addo has for foreigners.

In his response, Abronye DC, indicated that this statement by Asiedu Nketia is a clear admission that, the current register contains names of foreigners which is in clear breach of article 42 of the 1992 constitution. My simple but important question here is, Does the voter register belong to only Ghanaians eligible to vote or all foreigners resident in Ghana?

Mr Kwame Baffoe Abronye described the NDCs chief scribes comments as non-Ghanaian attitude and I therefore call upon all Civil Society Organizations to condemn such remarks because it has the tendency of plunging the country in chaos if it is the view of the NDC that, foreigners must be allowed to vote in this country.

The NDC since 2012 to present day has maintained that, His Excellency President Akufo-Addo has an enormous dislike for foreigners because his father passed the Aliens Compliance Order (1969). This claim is not only false but a clear display of lunatics.

All qualified Ghanaians can register

Touching on the eligibility of prospective voters in the up-coming voters registration, Mr. Kwame Baffoe clarified that the misconception by the NDC that, a person without either a passport or Ghana card cannot register and subsequently vote is palpably false, explaining that as long as the person is identified and known in that electoral area as a citizen, any qualified applicant can vouch for him/her to register.

He maintained that the NPP does not necessarily need new voters' register to win this years elections but it behoves on government to ensure that the country goes to polls with a credible register that would be acceptable by all well-meaning Ghanaians.

NDC most corrupt party

According to him, the NDC is rather hiding behind the shadows of a bloated and defective register to enable them rig the 2020 elections so that they can come back to power and continue to swindle and loot the state.

Chairman Abronye stated that the NDC party is the most corrupt political party in the history of Ghana, there is no doubt about that, and Ghanaians should not give them a chance to rule Ghana again. All what the NDC as a political party thinks about is how to develop tactics and plans that they can use to steal from the ordinary Ghanaian taxpayers pocket.

He said none of the NPP appointees in the fourth Republic has ever been convicted on corruption allegation but the same cannot be said of the NDC.
Police stand in front of the Roundhouse in Philadelphia while protesters chant and make speeches in front of them on Tuesday afternoon, June 9, 2020. The "March for the Abolition of Oppressive Systems" is in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police that sparked protests across the nation and world. Read more

In 1951, one year after I was born, an interracial group of Americans sent a petition to the United Nations. A core concern: police brutality against black people.

That petition charged the U.S. government with facilitating genocide against black people. Among the first typical cases of brutality listed in that petition were two fatal shootings by police in Philadelphia. Top federal officials quashed that petition and brushed brutality aside.

Federal government reaction to that petition evidenced a persistent problem in America: failure to forthrightly address abusive policing.

That failure is a reason why far more cities erupted across America recently over abusive policing than the 1967 riots in 25 cities triggered by police brutality. The presidential panel appointed to study those riots  the Kerner Commission  issued a 1968 report with recommendations for changes in police practices. Few cities implemented those reforms.

Abusive policing  from false arrests to fatal shootings  is a systemic fault Ive covered as a journalist since my first full-time reporter position in September 1975.

That reportage has included disgraceful firsts, like in 1979 when Philadelphia became Americas first city where the U.S. Justice Department sued the mayor and top officials for actively aiding abusive policing.

Months after a federal judge dismissed that unprecedented lawsuit on specious legal grounds, I reported on a mini-riot outside a police station in North Philadelphia. That clash arose from a policemans fatal shooting of a black teen under suspicious circumstances.

A few years after that riot, I covered another first  the first police urban bombing in America  where that police bomb sparked an inferno that killed 11 MOVE members (including five children). Local and federal prosecutors declined to indict any police personnel or city officials involved with that blatant brutality.

While racism is a rancid aspect of abusive policing, biased police practices arent exclusive to the avowedly racist.

Yes, Frank Rizzo, the Philadelphia police chief-turned-mayor sued by federal authorities in 1979, had a record of racism. But African American Philadelphia mayor, Michael Nutter, did not.

During Nutters two terms (2008-2015), Philadelphia police arrested 27,801 black people for marijuana possession, but just 4,809 whites, despite similar pot usage rates among races according to repeated studies. That arrest disparity arose partly from the stop-and-frisk police enforcement, championed by Nutter, that racially profiled African Americans.

A black police commissioner lobbied current Philadelphia mayor, Jim Kenney, to spurn his campaign pledge to end stop-and-frisk that annually targets thousands of law-abiding black males for harassing police encounters. (Surprisingly, stop-and-frisk removes few weapons from lawbreakers, failing its professed purpose.)

An April court-ordered report on Philadelphias stop-and-frisk found far too many police contacts lacked proper legal justification. Similar laxity in legal justifications was documented in a University of Pennsylvania Law Review examination of Philadelphia police practices, published in 1952  months after that genocide petition.

The George Floyd murder ignited fires this time. But more than 70 years of failure to earnestly address racial inequities like abusive policing fuels the fury.

Linn Washington Jr. is a professor of journalism at Temple University. He is a graduate of the Yale Law Journalism Fellowship Program who has reported on and researched abusive policing in the United States, Europe, and Africa.
Nigerian doctors have commenced a nationwide strike as coronavirus continues to ravage the country.

The Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) of Nigeria announced that they commenced a a nationwide indefinite strike on Monday morning, hours after COVID-19 cases in the country exceeded 16,000 with over 400 deaths.

Roland Aigbovo, the president of the ARD, confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES over the phone. He did not give further details.

On the day Nigeria recorded its third case of coronavirus in mid March, resident doctors in Abuja had threatened to embark on the strike action but later called it off after the Nigerian Medical Association advised them against it.

The doctors in Abuja were protesting among others, the failure of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to make complete payment of their over two months basic salaries.

The union attributed the salary irregularities and shortfalls to the migration to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) platform by the FCTA.

It is not immediately clear if the demands of doctors in Abuja are synonymous with that of others across the nation.

More details later
BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Export of electrical goods from Turkey to Azerbaijan increased by 0.67 percent from January through May 2020 compared to the same period of 2019, having amounted to over $66.1 million, Turkish Trade Ministry told Trend on June 15.

According to the ministry, Turkeys export of electrical goods to Azerbaijan reduced by 20 percent in May 2020 compared to the same month of 2019, making up $14.7 million.

In the first five months of 2020, export of electrical goods from Turkey to international markets decreased by 18.2 percent compared to the same period of 2019, amounting to $3.8 billion.

Meanwhile, the export of electrical goods from Turkey made up 6.2 percent of the country's total exports.

In May 2020, Turkey exported electrical goods worth $671.8 million to world markets, which is 35.5 percent less compared to May 2019.

Export of electrical goods from Turkey in May 2020 amounted to 6.7 percent of the country's total exports.

From May 2019 through May 2020, Turkey exported $10.3 billion worth of electrical goods.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
The reluctance to reenter the gun control debate was almost entirely due to retired justice Anthony M. Kennedy. He was part of the courts 5 to 4 majority in 2008s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision, which said the Second Amendment provided a right to gun ownership for personal protection apart from military service. But Kennedy had also insisted in language that presumed states and localities still had leeway to pass gun restrictions.
Lack of transparency and accountability and weak enforcement of regulatory laws in the Nigerian extractive industry sector are undermining the sector and the nations economy, experts in the industry have said.

They spoke during a webinar session on June 10 on The Effects of Violating the Petroleum Sector Regulatory Laws on Nigerias Socio-economic Development. The session was hosted by the Conflict and Fragility project of Connected Development (CODE).

While addressing the participants, the CEO of CODE, Hamzat Lawal, said the oil and gas sector, which accounts for roughly 80 per cent of the countrys revenue, is threatened by illicit financial transactions, resulting in a huge loss of revenue for the government.

Some violators are operating without licenses or local incorporation like Corporate Affairs Commissions registration. This leads to tax evasion and revenue loss to the Nigerian government needed for socio-economic development, Mr Lawal said.

There is also a breach of environmental standard, and we have seen environmental degradation in some explorations due to lack of comprehensive oversight, he added.

He called for strengthen the Beneficial Ownership Register in the sector to curb illicit financial flow and expose politically-corrupt cooperation and transactions.

Furthermore, he called on the law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute oil companies violating the relevant regulatory laws in the oil sector.

Lack of Transparency and Accountability

A lawyer, Nelson Olanipekun, in his presentation, said the sector lacks transparency and accountability.

He said a lot of the regulatory bodies are incapacitated and ineffective, observing that without proper regulation and accountability, N1 billion can be used to drink garri.

However, for a time now, we noticed that when NNPC and the companies go into business, at the end there are no profits, they dont declare their profits. This is because majority of the profit that comes from that Joint Ventures (JV) contracts go to the tax boys, and in order for them to avoid tax, they try to declare losses, Mr Olanipekun said.

He highlighted some ways companies in the extractive industry violate regulatory provisions. These include declaring negative revenue margin to avoid tax, inappropriate accounts of oil extraction, lack of transparency (subsidy scams), and other corrupt practices.

One of the ways to mitigate against the challenges in the extractive sector is section 94 of the CAMA which is the disclosure of Beneficial Ownership, he said.

Gross Neglect

Temitope Olaifa of the Department of Communication and General Studies, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, in her presentation, said there is gross neglect in the mining and fishery sectors with the government paying more attention to the oil and gas industry which is not giving us the emancipation that we desire.

While trying to gather data from the anti-graft agencies, Mrs Olaifa said only the EFCC was able to provide information on the number of persons prosecuted between 2013 and 2016.

She said, based on the data she collected, in 2013, 117 people were prosecuted for anti-graft offenses and seven of the offenders were violators of the extractive laws, mainly in the oil and gas sector, representing six per cent of the total no of persons prosecuted.

In 2014, 126 people were prosecuted, and 11 people were violators of the extractive laws, representing nine percent of the total number of people prosecuted.

In 2015, 103 people were prosecuted, four were from the oil and gas sector, representing four per cent of the total number of people prosecuted in the year.

In 2016, 94 people were prosecuted, and two were violators of the laws of the extractive sector, representing one per cent of the people that were prosecuted.

Mrs Olaifa said within the four years under review, 440 people were prosecuted, 24 of whom were violators of the laws of the extractive sector.

She said the gap shows the sector is grossly neglected.

Curbing Impunity

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The violators of this sector go scot-free if they do not get apprehended. It means we are entrenching a culture of impunity in our system, and because we do that it may be difficult to bring sanity into the sector, Mrs Olaifa noted.

We need to curb impunity, and this too should serve as a deterrent for intending violators, she added.

She lamented that the anti-graft institutions have not been effective in the prosecution of violators of laws guiding the extractive industries. There is a pervasive culture of impunity in the sector, the judicial system is too slow for justice, China is governing the mining industry in Nigeria, and nobody is checking their activities, Mrs Olaifa observed.

In her recommendations, she said Nigeria should revisit the codes and protocols guiding the activities of the anti-graft agencies and that the Petroleum Industry Bill should be passed into law without further delay.

She also recommended that the diversification of economic policy should be given priority attention particularly as it affects the extractive sector, violators of the extractive laws must be promptly and appropriately brought to book, anti-graft agencies should be depoliticised, and there must be appropriate planning towards economic growth and sustainable investment.
Final year students of universities, colleges and other tertiary education institutions are expected to return to campus on Monday, June 15, to prepare towards their exit examinations.



They begin a six-week period of learning to finish their respective programmes, operating with half their class sizes.



President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, updating the nation, on Sunday night, on the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures, said they would sit for their examinations in a period of four weeks.



However, some final year students would not return to school, as they have sat for their examination through virtual means.



These include students of the University of Professional Studies, Accra.



Ahead of the reopening of the institutions, the Government, through the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, has disinfected both public and private institutions.



Also, universities, with their own hospitals and clinics, have been equipped with the necessary personal protective equipment, and have isolation centres to deal with any COVID-19 positive cases.



All other institutions, without their own clinics and hospitals, have been mapped to health facilities.



President Akufo-Addo emphasised that there would be no mass gatherings and no sporting activities. However, religious activities, under the new protocols, would be permitted.

" Social distancing and the wearing of face masks must become the norm on campus," he stated.



To aid in this effort, the President said, a total of 600,000 face masks had been distributed to the institutions.

Every student, teaching, and non-teaching staff was s thus entitled to three reusable face masks.



Additionally, 1,700 Veronica buckets, 200,000 litres of hand sanitisers, 3,400 litres of liquid soap, and 900 thermometer guns had been distributed.



A special logistics team of the Government Committee, chaired by Senior Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo, which is supervising the re-opening of the schools, is responsible for the transportation and distribution of the logistics.



The President said at his Tuesday meeting with the Vice Chancellors of the universities, both public and private, they pledged their cooperation to ensure the success of the exercise.



"Our intention is to secure the lives of the nearly 200,000 students, lecturers and non-teaching staff, who will be returning to campus from tomorrow, and I appeal to them also to do their bit to help us succeed," the President said.



"I urge them to adhere to enhanced personal hygiene and social distancing protocols, wash their hands with soap under running water, refrain from shaking hands, and wear their masks to, in and from the lecture halls, and on the campus, generally".



The regional breakdown of the tertiary educational institutions are as follows: Greater Accra-57, Ashanti-31,Eastern-22, Northern-14 and Central-18.



The rest are; Volta-17,Western-11, Upper East-11,Upper West-11,Bono-14, Ahafo-9, Bono East six,Western North - five ,Oti- three, Savannah- four and North East-one.



The final year students of the Senior High schools, with the Second Year Gold Track students; and Junior High finalists would reopen on June 22 and June 29, respectively.

Source: GNA









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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During his wife Laura's desperate last few days in hospital, Antony Higginson did everything he could to communicate with her as she lay in intensive care on a ventilator.

'We had a squeeze code  she had to squeeze my hand once for yes, two for no,' he says, his voice breaking at the memory. 'But each time she was trying to open her eyes, getting very distressed. I'm haunted by it.'

Thirteen days after her admission to hospital with suspected pneumonia, Laura passed away in April 2017 aged just 30, leaving behind two heartbroken children, then aged nine and seven.

The cause of death was recorded on her death certificate as pneumococcal sepsis, multiple organ failure and Gitelman syndrome. Devastating enough  but the family's grief has been compounded by what has unfolded since.

Mother-of-two Laura Higginson (pictured with her children Stephen and Evie), from Widnes, Cheshire, passed away in April 2017 aged just 30 after being admitted to hospital with suspected pneumonia

Only in the months after his wife's untimely death did Antony discover from her medical records that she had been given a staggered overdose  an overdose over time  of paracetamol, which may have caused significant liver damage.

The error was spotted by doctors after three days, and an anti-toxicity drug was administered. Yet Antony insists none of this was disclosed to him at the time.

While Whiston Hospital in Prescot, Merseyside, have admitted the overdose, they deny killing her  and what has followed is a three-year battle to get to the truth, which resulted last month in the opening of a full inquest by a newly appointed coroner.

Merseyside Police have also opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Laura's death.

'All I know is that Laura had an overdose. The word paracetamol is written all over her medical notes,' Antony says. 'What I don't know is why. We have lost years fighting for something that should have been performed in 2017 and that is a proper open inquest.

'I am determined to get answers. I feel like I let her down in life by not asking enough questions and I am not going to let her down in death.'

Three years on and Laura's presence is everywhere at the family home in Widnes, Cheshire  in the photos on display and in the 'memory boxes' Antony has created for their children.

'I worry hugely about the kids long-term,' Antony, 45, says. 'We shouldn't be talking about her, we should all be talking to her.'

Mrs Higginson's (pictured with husband Antony) cause of death was recorded as pneumococcal sepsis, multiple organ failure and Gitelman syndrome but months later husband Antony discovered that she had been given a staggered overdose - an overdose over time - of paracetamol

The former soldier, who works as a product manager for IT firm Oracle and is studying for a PhD in computer science, met his wife in 2006 at a friend's wedding.

'I was the best man and she was the bridesmaid,' he says.

Aged 19 to his then 32 and a petite 5 ft 1 in, Laura had returned to her native North-West after a stint at Cambridge University studying law and was working as an office assistant.

'It was so easy to love Laura,' says Antony. 'She was witty, bright and the sort of person who brought out the best in you. She had a smile that lit up the room.'

Within 18 months Laura had given birth to their first child, Stephen, at Whiston Hospital.

'It was a complicated pregnancy,' says Antony. A standard blood test showed that Laura's readings for potassium and magnesium were particularly low but returned to normal after Stephen's birth 'and we were told that a second pregnancy would be easier'.

Instead, it was much worse. Laura's potassium levels were so low she spent much of the last few weeks of her pregnancy in Whiston's coronary care unit.

The mother-of-two was admitted to Whiston Hospital on April 5, 2017, after waking up with a pain in her side

Evelyn (Evie) was born in September 2009 but Laura didn't bounce back. 'She felt tired all the time and was also losing weight.'

A wearisome pattern followed. An increasingly-tired Laura would go to her GP, have a blood test and then be sent to hospital for more tests after which she would be told that her potassium levels were so low it was affecting her heart and explained the tiredness as it made her muscles weak.

On occasion, she had to be rushed to hospital by ambulance.

'She would have potassium administered via a drip. Her levels would come up and she'd be sent home,' says Antony. 'We kept having the same conversations with doctors.

'I lost count of the times we were told you don't get low potassium in your 20s. There was an assumption that she had an eating disorder and they asked her if she was anorexic or bulimic, which was very upsetting.'

Finally, Laura was referred to a kidney specialist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital where, in September 2010, tests revealed she had Gitelman syndrome, a rare kidney disorder that causes an imbalance of potassium, magnesium and calcium.

While it can be managed by drugs, in Laura's case these gave her 'terrible side-effects', such as wildly oscillating blood pressure, says Antony. The only recourse was potassium infusions, administered once or twice a week in hospital over up to nine hours.

It was a terrible blow for a young woman now juggling motherhood with studying for a law degree.

'I changed my working patterns so I could work from home and help with the kids,' says Antony. 'Laura had sacrificed her body to have our two children. The least I could do was step up.'

There were still frightening moments of sudden collapses and trips to hospital but, for a while, relative calm was restored. 'The hospital visits lessened, and Laura was getting more active because she knew what she could and couldn't do,' says Antony.

She had a training contract with a local law firm three days a week, a day at university studying her legal practice course and a day in Liverpool Royal University Hospital. 'She loved it. It made her feel normal again,' says Antony.

But in 2016 Laura started to suffer from sudden crashes in her blood sugar levels. 'Sometimes she couldn't wake up in the morning,' says Antony. 'It meant more ambulance calls.'

The couple were given a blood sugar monitor  a finger-prick test  enabling Antony to check his wife's blood sugar levels first thing in the morning and last thing at night and whenever needed.

'If your blood sugar levels crash, it affects everything else as your potassium levels are then compromised,' he says. 'There were times when she was in a sugar coma, the ambulance people would come and put a glucose drip in her arm, then she would wake up and have to go into hospital to get her potassium levels sorted out. It was hard for her.'

On April 5, 2017, Laura awoke with a pain in her side. 'She was also coughing up brown stuff,' says Antony.

He drove her to Whiston, where she was admitted and given pain relief. Records show Laura was given a full adult dose of paracetamol intravenously  not the reduced dose that someone of her low BMI would need. (She weighed 36kg (5 st 9 lb), meaning she was severely underweight.)

Independent medical experts who have examined her notes said the painkillers irreparably damaged her liver, Antony claims. Two days after Laura's admission, he arrived at the hospital to find her throwing up blood.

'I was holding her beautiful, blonde hair and she was looking at me with her big, blue eyes and begging me to do something,' he says. 'Suddenly, lots of doctors arrived and I could hear shouting at the nurses' station.'

Antony was told his wife was suffering from sepsis and needed to be moved to intensive care.

He says: 'I now know her liver had been damaged so much that it couldn't clean out the toxins. She was being poisoned.'

Courtesy of medical records disclosed as part of his civil claim against the hospital, he now knows that a paracetamol antidote was administered that same day.

Laura's condition continued to deteriorate dramatically, and late on the night of April 9 Antony received a call to tell him she was very distressed.

'I drove straight there,' he says. 'She was hallucinating, saying she could see the kids, accusing us all of being part of a conspiracy. She was trying to rip the cannula lines out of her arms. There was nothing I could do but get on the bed with her, cradling her and stroking her hair to calm her down.

'I asked the doctors if they should sedate her, and she was ventilated,' he says. 'That was the last time we ever spoke. I just wish we had had some hours beforehand to prepare. But the doctors never gave us that chance.'

Antony was subsequently given a diary to fill in by a ward nurse for Laura to read once she had recovered. 'The first entry had already been written by a nurse. It was very detailed synopsis of the care she'd received  but there was no mention of paracetamol at all,' he says.

He recalls, too, starting to look through her medical records, only for them to be closed shut by a nurse citing data protection laws.

On April 18, Antony received another late-night call to tell him that Laura had only a few hours

left. 'So, I had to wake the kids up to say goodbye to their mum,' he says, fighting back tears. 'We walked into that room and you could tell Laura was fighting for her life. Stephen and Evie sat on each side of her bed.

'Evie picked up her hand and was stroking her face. Stephen were asking why they couldn't fix her.'

The exhausted family returned home around two in the morning and received a call four hours later from Laura's mother telling them that she had died.

'The kids started crying, and Evie asked whether that meant Mummy was not coming home now,' Antony says. He was told that while there would be a hospital post-mortem examination, her case was discussed with a coroner but no inquest was opened.

'I had no reason to question it,' he says. 'I was grieving the loss of the woman I loved and trying to look after two damaged, grieving kids.' But a few months later, a visit to his GP would turn his world upside down.

'I went because I wasn't coping with my grief. He talked about Laura and asked if I had a copy of the post-mortem report, which he printed off,' he says. 'There right in front of me were the words 'staggered paracetamol overdose'  I crumbled. How could they not have told me?'

Antony appointed negligence lawyers Slater & Gordon  the start of an exhausting, complex and labyrinthine process to find out the truth about Laura's death, during which, he says, he has encountered 'smoke and mirrors' at every turn.

Now, finally, an inquest into Laura's death has been opened and adjourned. Last year, Merseyside Police opened up a criminal investigation.

A civil case against St Helens and Knowsley NHS Trust remains ongoing.

Antony will not rest until he gets answers. 'I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I did,' he says.

'It was me that drove Laura to the hospital, and it was me that left her there. I wish I had pushed a little bit further, asked more questions. But I am asking them now  and I won't stop.'

A spokesperson for Whiston Hospital said: 'The trust offers its sincere condolences to the family of the late Mrs Higginson. Following her death, an immediate and thorough investigation was carried out.

'The findings of independent clinical experts do not concur with the views of Mr Higginson and will be presented to the coroner during the inquest.'
New Delhi: Schools from the secondary level and colleges outside Covid-19 red zones will reopen in Maharashtra from July 1, the state government said in a statement on Monday and added classes for students of Class 6 to 8 will resume from August.

The decision to reopen the educational institutes was taken at a meeting that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray chaired. School education minister Varsha Gaikwad was among those who attended it.

The move comes days after the Centre announced a three-phase plan to lift stringent restrictions imposed over two months ago to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Centre has said in the second phase, it plans to reopen all educational institutes including schools and colleges after holding discussions with states and Union Territories.

Though in some areas, schools cannot be opened, the process of teaching cannot be stopped. The use of digital technology to reach out to students should be adopted, a government circular said.

Gaikwad said the government has stipulated certain hours of online teaching per week for students from Class 2 onwards and that there were demands for reopening all schools from August.

In Tripura, the state government has formed a committee to examine the timings and modalities of re-opening educational institutions. In the 32-member committee, we have members from different fields, including the education department officials. Six parents will be on the committee as invited members. We will examine the timing for re-opening of all the educational institutions, education minister Ratan Lal Nath said.

The Uttarakhand government has directed students to submit health certificates saying they have suffered from influenza-like illnesses over 14-days before taking board examination. The students will have to reach examination halls an hour early to ensure social distancing norms and carry personal sanitisers.

The Uttarakhand government released the date sheet for the remaining board exams from June 22-25.

R K Kunwar, the states school education department director, said the number of examination rooms has been doubled to ensure social distancing. Students with a fever will be able to write their papers in separate rooms.

In Rajasthan, the state education board has asked school authorities to have sanitisers in every examination room and have students reach there at least an hour before the start of the exams.
A Russian court sentenced Paul Whelan, a former American marine, to sixteen years in a prison colony on Monday, in a decision that laid bare continuing tensions between Moscow and Washington.

Speaking on the steps outside Moscow City Court, US ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan said he was outraged by the verdict. The case was a mockery of justice, he added, which would not have a good impact on bilateral relations.

Whelan, who also has Canadian, Irish, and British citizenship, was arrested in his hotel room during a trip to Moscow in December 2018. Russian authorities claim he was caught red-handed with a USB flash drive containing the names of secret agents. Mr Whelan denies any knowledge of the data and says he was set-up by a Russian security services agent he had believed was a friend.

The closed trial has raised questions from the start. Assigned a lawyer with historic connections to the security services, Mr Whelan was denied the opportunity to mount any significant defence. Prosecutors also failed to produce any evidence of espionage beyond the disputed USB disk.

Many security professionals believe the former marine was taken as collateral in negotiations to free Russian agents being held in US prisons. In particular, Moscow has been angling for the release of Viktor Bout, a convicted arms dealer, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot sentenced to 21 for smuggling cocaine.

On Monday, just before the verdict was handed, Whelan dismissed his trial as a political charade. He said had fallen victim to a political hostage-taking.

With conviction rates running at over 99 per cent in Russian trials, there was never much doubt how the trial would end once it had begun. In the event, the punishment was just less than the 18 years in a penal colony demanded by prosecutors.

In comments to journalists, lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov said his team intended to appeal the verdict, yet his own thoughts were focussed elsewhere.

When we are talking about spies, the recognised practice is to do an exchange, Mr Zherebenkov said.

Remarkably, the regime-connected lawyer suggested his client may even have been dealt a humane hand: Russia gave Whelan 16 years, but [Viktor] Bout got 25 years and [Konstantin] Yaroshenko got 20.

Speaking with The Independent, Paul Whelans British cousin dismissed the trial as a sham, and called on the British government to condemn it publicly. Up until now, the US has been leading efforts on the former marines behalf, with the UK taking a back-seat.

Its about time prime minister Boris Johnson and foreign secretary Dominic Raab make their positions known, Mark Whelan said.

We need that not only to help get Paul free but to make sure other independent British people travelling to Russia dont suffer the same fate.
Jayakumar Madala By

Express News Service

TIRUCHY: A fresh wave of shock hit Tiruchy on Sunday after a senior representative of a traders association tested positive for Covid-19, seeding doubts if the district administratio was doing enough to prevent a Koyambedu-like cluster from developing in the city.

In the wake of the development, officials in the district administration and city Corporation are on high alert as the traders leader had taken part in several meetings with traders and officials in the last few days.

Even as the State continues to reel under coronavirus clusters thanks to the Koyambedu market fiasco, a similar situation appears to have surfaced in Tiruchy. The Corporation will test traders attached to Gandhi market on Monday, according to officials.

A senior Corporation official told TNIE said, As a precaution, we are going to test all traders attached to the Gandhi market at the Thevar Hall on Monday morning. We are taking preventive measures so we could identify any cases as early as possible. Efforts are being taken to identify contact history even before testing.

The patient had participated in talks called by Corporation Commissioner S Sivasubramaniam on June 7 to discuss the strike called to reopen Gandhi market.

His participation has now set off alarm bells among officials. As many as 100 to 125 traders and officials participated in the meeting. We are testing immediately as they continue to set up stalls in G Corner grounds every day and sell vegetables to traders. We hope to prevent a Koyamebdu-type situation,

added the official.

Meanwhile, the news has put the spotlight on how temporary markets have been functioning in Tiruchy. TNIE on May 4 had reported on how temporary markets were not following social distancing or other precautions. Rockfort resident Gnanasekaran said, The temporary markets have been functioning without any regulation for a long time and no lesson has been learnt from Chennai. I hope officials now at least wake up to the situation.
As the already fiery debate about law enforcement in the U.S. is further fueled by the killing of a Black man fleeing from two white officers in Atlanta on Friday night, a term commonly known in police circles is likely to enter the mainstream: "lawful but awful."

Thats the phrase police apply to killings that may be technically legal but could have been avoided.

Surveillance video shows 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks was running away after resisting arrest in the parking lot of a Wendys restaurant when he was shot by officer Garrett Rolfe, who was fired Sunday. The Fulton County Medical Examiners Office said Sunday that Brooks died of two gunshot wounds to his back and ruled the death a homicide.

Atlanta protests: Rayshard Brooks shouldn't be dead 'because he was drunk at a freaking Wendy's'

After being questioned for falling asleep in his car in the restaurant's drive-thru line, Brooks had wrestled with the police when they tried to handcuff him and took officer Devin Brosnans Taser, firing it once at Rolfe as he pursued with his own Taser in hand.

Was shooting Brooks the best practice in that confrontation? Three experts consulted by USA TODAY said there were better options.

Kalfani Ture, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, served as a police officer in the Atlanta metropolitan area for five years. Ture said the Atlanta Police Department is highly regarded for its training, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported Sunday that Rolfe had taken a nine-hour course on deescalation alternatives in late April.

Ashley Dopson paints a picture of Rayshard Brooks in the parking lot of the Wendy's in Atlanta.

And yet, he decided to shoot.

Would I have shot Rayshard Brooks? My answer is no, Ture said. Its a questionable use of force, but there are many officers who may find this a lawful use of force. So, its one of those things we call in law enforcement lawful but awful, meaning that the officer could have taken alternative action that did not result in the civilians death.

Story continues

One might have been to pursue Brooks from a distance and call for backup.

Steve Ward, a retired California police chief, said he would run after suspects for long stretches knowing help was coming.

"My fellow officers were always there for me, and yet there were a few times that the violator got away," Ward said. "As a chief, I told this story and the new officers were astounded that I didnt use all my less lethal tools that were provided. I told them I did: Its called a radio and time."

Who was Rayshard Brooks? Father of 4 celebrated daughter's birthday hours before police shot him in Atlanta

But, he said, "I was not running after someone that had a police weapon in a parking lot of patrons."

While Ward said he was never in a situation in which "a subject overpowered two officers and took their weapon" during his nearly 30-year career, he still believed Rolfe reacted too quickly with force.

Asked if the Atlanta officer had better options, he said, "For me: Yes."

'Black people dont want to be taken into custody' because of distrust of police

The shooting of Brooks is not nearly as cut-and-dried an excessive use of force as the case of George Floyd, the Black man who died May 25 when a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, Ture said. Video of that killing precipitated global protests against racial inequality and police brutality.

Rolfe could have mistaken the Taser that Brooks aimed at him as he fled for a handgun, Ture conceded, although he pointed out this one was yellow and probably easy to recognize. Plus, Ture noted the officers had patted down Brooks after he stepped out of the car before taking and failing a sobriety test.

Part of what led to this tragic conclusion is the well-earned distrust African Americans have of police, who tend to treat Blacks and Latinos as especially dangerous, Ture said. The interactions captured on video between Brooks and the officers were cordial until they tried to handcuff him.

Black people dont want to be taken into custody, said Ture, who is Black, because theres always the fear that they may not come out on the other side.

Texas police chief cautions against use of force: 'Were living in a different world now'

Andy Harvey, a former Dallas police officer and current police chief of Ennis, Texas, said the officers didnt necessarily have to arrest Brooks despite him registering above the legal blood-alcohol limit for driving. The best approach, Harvey said, is to resolve problems at the lowest possible level of confrontation.

They could have taken other alternatives before getting to that point where they felt they had to take action, Harvey said. How do we resolve this? Is there a cab you could call, or a family member who can come pick him up?

Harvey has written a book titled "Excellence in Policing," and he hosts a podcast by the same name. He said police officers are taught their life may be in danger when a suspect takes away one of their weapons, and that might have contributed to Rolfe's decision to shoot Brooks.

A Wendy's restaurant burns in Atlanta after demonstrators set it on fire Saturday night following the death of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who was shot and killed by Atlanta police.

But Harvey said members of law enforcement need to realize the use of force has to be far down their list of tools, especially at a time when their actions are drawing scrutiny with a number of African Americans  often unarmed  dying at the hands of police.

Were living in a different world now. What the community expects from us has changed, Harvey said. When an officer does something egregious, theyre expected now to file charges against him, and even more so now with the sentiment around the country.

What does 'defund the police' mean? And why some say 'reform' is not enough

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms spoke out against the use of force in Brooks' shooting death Saturday night, hours after the resignation of Erika Shields, who resigned as police chief as the killing of Brooks sparked a new wave of protests in Atlanta amid turbulent demonstrations because of Floyds death.

"While there may be debate as to whether this was an appropriate use of deadly force, I firmly believe that there is a clear distinction between what you can do and what you should do," Bottoms said. "I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force."

The ACLU of Georgia on Sunday joined politicians, faith organizations and business and community leaders in Atlanta demanding structural changes in policing and a reimagining of public safety in the city.

Protesters gather at University Avenue at the Wendy's restaurant Saturday where Rayshard Brooks, 27, shot to death by Atlanta police late Friday after a struggle in the parking lot.

Our nation is based on constitutionally mandated due process under the law and provides for elaborate judicial proceedings to determine whether due process requirements have been met before life and liberty can be taken, the ACLU said in a statement provided to the Savannah Morning News of the USA TODAY Network. Yet, police officers continue to deny due process by acting with impunity as judge, jury, and executioner of unarmed Black citizens.

Atlanta officers are permitted to use force if it's 'reasonable and necessary'

Atlanta police officers, according to the department's standard operating procedures, are prohibited from using force unless it is "reasonable and necessary to affect an arrest, prevent an escape, necessarily restrict the movement of a prisoner, defend the officer or another from physical assault, or to accomplish other lawful objectives."

In regards to use of lethal or nonlethal weapons, the Atlanta Police Department's policy references Georgia law, which allows for use of force when a person reasonably believes that such threat or force is necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person against such other's imminent use of unlawful force.

If a person is suspected of a felony, the department's policy allows for use of deadly force, but only if the officer reasonably believes that the suspect is in possession of a deadly weapon or object that is likely to result in serious injury, or if the officer believes that the suspect poses an immediate threat to the themselves or others.

Additionally, deadly force is allowed if there is probable cause that the suspect has committed a crime that either caused or threatened serious injury or if the officer believes that if the suspects escape would threaten serious injury to others.

Contributing: Will Peebles, Savannah Morning News

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rayshard Brooks: Atlanta police killing lawful but awful, experts say
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Vatican City  Mon, June 15, 2020 08:31 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdeb0983 2 World Pope-Francis,Libya,violence Free

Pope Francis on Sunday urged international bodies as well as political and military leaders to stop the violence in Libya and to also end the plight of migrants, refugees and others trapped there.

Speaking from a window at his Vatican residence on St Peter's Square, the pope told the faithful he included his concerns in his prayers over recent days.

"I am following the dramatic situation in Libya with great apprehension," he said.

"I urge international bodies and those who have political and military responsibilities to recommence with conviction and resolve the search for a path towards an end to the violence, leading to peace, stability and unity in the country."

The pope also said he prayed for "the thousands of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced persons in Libya".

Alluding apparently to the coronavirus pandemic also hitting Libya, he said "the health situation has aggravated the already precarious conditions in which they find themselves, making them more vulnerable to forms of exploitation and violence."

He added "there is cruelty", urging the international community to take "their plight to heart" and find ways and means "to provide them with the protection they need, a dignified condition and a future of hope."

The oil-rich North African nation has been mired in chaos and violence since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

The UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) controls the west, including the capital Tripoli, while military strongman Khalifa Haftar holds the east and some of the far-flung oases and oilfields that dot the south.

War and division are now weakening Libya's fight against the novel coronavirus, with the government struggling to deal with an outbreak deep in the desert south.
Turkish military dispatches new convoy to northeastern Syria

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 9:25 AM

Turkish military forces have reportedly brought in new reinforcements to Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah, as Ankara is aggressively seeking to cement its military presence in the embattled region following a cross-border offensive earlier this year.

A convoy of nearly 40 vehicles crossed into the Syrian territory through the Kafr Lusin border crossing on Saturday, and headed towards Turkish positions, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced on March 13 that Russian and Turkish military officials had agreed on the details of a new ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone following four days of talks in Ankara.

Akar said the first joint patrol by Turkey and Russia on the M4 highway in Idlib would take place on March 15, and that Turkey and Russia would set up joint coordination centers in the area.

The announcement followed a telephone call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan the previous day to discuss the implementation of the agreements the two leaders had reached in Moscow the previous week.

"Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed the importance of continued close joint efforts, first of all between the Russian and Turkish defense ministries, in order to ensure a stable ceasefire and further stabilization of the situation," a Kremlin press release read.

"It was agreed to maintain a regular dialogue at various levels, including personal contacts," the statement added.

Turkish troops deployed to Syria test positive for COVID-19

Separately, a total of 140 Turkish soldiers and police officers deployed to the mainly Kurdish-populated northern Syrian city of Afrin and elsewhere in the country's Idlib province have tested positive for coronavirus.

Governor of Turkey's southernmost province of Hatay, Rahmi Dogan, said 120 police officers in Afrin and 20 soldiers at Idlib Air Battalion have been infected with the virus.

According to Dogan, there were no confirmed cases among civilians in those areas.

Turkish-backed militants torch crop lands in Hasakah

Moreover, dozens of hectares of vital crops and farmland have been set on fire by Turkish-backed Takfiri militants in Hasakah province.

Syria's official news agency SANA, citing local sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that wheat and barley fields have been burnt on the outskirts of the al-Arishah town.

Turkish-backed militants were deployed to northern Syria last October after Turkish military forces launched a cross-border invasion in a declared attempt to push the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militants away from border areas.

Ankara views the US-backed YPG as a terrorist organization tied to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984.

More than 200,000 people have been internally displaced by the Turkish offensive, according to the United Nations.

On October 22 last year, Putin and Erdogan signed a memorandum of understanding that required the YPG militants to withdraw from the Turkish-controlled "safe zone" in northeastern Syria within 150 hours, after which Ankara and Moscow would run joint patrols around the area.

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Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit since the Korean War in early 1950s. The historic summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was held in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000.

The South Korean government initially prepared a big anniversary ceremony, but officials now say it has been downsized due to the North's latest hissy fit.
Tonight in Foreign Correspondent No Justice, No Peace Sally Sara reports on #BlackLivesMatter.

What began as a hashtag seven years ago has transformed into a global movement for justice for black people. Sally Sara reports on #BlackLivesMatter, the force galvanising the rage and grief triggered by George Floyds death.

We are in a state of emergency. Black people are dying in a state of emergency Tamika Mallory, activist

Pictures of a white Minneapolis police officer killing unarmed black man George Floyd provoked an immediate and furious response.

Angry protests demanding an end to entrenched racism erupted in scores of cities across America.

Floyds last words I cant breathe have become a rallying cry.

White and black, young and old, across 50 states, have protested peacefully against police violence and racism.

Theres been looting and destruction too.

On display for the world to watch has been the often violent police response the protestors are fighting against.

Galvanising this mass outpouring of rage and grief is the Black Lives Matter movement, formed seven years ago after the killer of an unarmed, black teenager was acquitted.

Foreign Correspondents Sally Sara looks at how what began as a hashtag has transformed into a global force pushing for justice and equality for black people.

We revisit the people she met in her Black Lives Matter documentary five years ago and take the temperature of the nation after an extraordinary fortnight of grief, rage and finally, some change.

We speak with Tamika Mallory, the activist who delivered whats being called the speech of a generation days after Floyds death.

We cannot look at this as an isolated incident. The reason buildings are burning are not just for our brother George Floyd, she told the Minneapolis crowd.

Theyre burning down because people here in Minnesota are saying to people in New York, to people in California, to people in Memphis, to people across this nation, enough is enough.

We interview Art Acevedo, the Houston Police Chief who told President Trump to shut his mouth Because youre putting men and women in their early 20s at risk.

Acevedo tells Foreign Correspondent he understands the anger. Its about how he died. And he died at the hands of a police officer in circumstances where it shouldve never happened.

And we catch up with Baltimore photographer Devin Allen five years after the death in custody there of a young black man triggered violent riots.

You got to release that rage. It has to happen, say Devin. But thats just the first step.

Whats important is when the smoke clears, thats when the real work actually begins.

8pm Tuesday June 16th on ABC.
Mr Fred Tetteh Mills, the Assistant Secretary of the New Patriotic Party in the Ablekuma West Constituency, has called on party delegates and executives to endorse the candidature of the current Member of Parliament for the area.



This, he said, would send a strong signal to opposition parties about the strength of the party ahead of the December 7, general elections.



Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, the MP for the area, is expected to contest in the upcoming primaries of the party, slated for Saturday, June 20 unopposed.



In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on Monday, Mr Mills said the MPs development projects in the constituency placed her above any candidate to be presented by opposition parties.



He said even though the MP was contesting the slot unopposed, receiving an overwhelming support from all qualified delegates and constituency executives would further brighten her chances of retaining the seat for the party in the upcoming general elections.



When you talk about Ablekuma West, our MP, Mrs Owusu-Ekuful has done so much for the constituency and the constituents can actually attest to that.



Lots of the bad roads in the constituency have been fixed and a lot more are still in the process of being fixed. A lot of education facilities have been developed. The Ebenezer High School for instance, a lot has been given to them, including a library. Currently, there is an 18-unit classroom block, a three-story building being constructed at Dansoman Last Stop, among others. he said.



Mrs Owusu-Ekuful, who is also the Minister of Communications, has been the MP for the area for the past eight years, winning the seat for the NPP in the 2012 elections.



On preparations being made ahead of the primaries on Saturday, Mr Mills said constituency executives have put in place measures to reduce the number of delegates at polling stations in adherence to the COVID-19 protocols.



To this effect, he said, the primaries would be held at all ten electoral areas within the constituency to ensure that the social distance protocol was observed.



A total of 650 delegates, 18 constituency executives, five patrons and five Council of Elders are expected to acclaim the candidature of the incumbent MP.



He urged party faithful to remain united and ensure that it retained the seat come December 7.



On Saturday, June 20, the NPP is expected to hold parliamentary primaries for the 168 constituencies where it has sitting MPs.



Out of this number 20 are in the Greater Accra Region.



Sixty-five candidates are expected to contest unopposed, of which seven are in the Greater Accra Region.



They include: Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the incumbent MP for Ablekuma West; Mr Henry Quartey, the sitting MP for Ayawaso Central; Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, the MP for Ledzokuku and Mr Abu-Bakar Saddique Boniface, the MP for Madina.



The rest are: Mr Patrick Yaw Boamah, the MP for Okaikwei Central; Mr Moses Anim, the MP for Trobu; and Madam Tina Gifty Naa Ayeley Mensah, the incumbent MP for Weija-Gbawe.

Source: GNA









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Thomas said the National Park Services only role is to administer the 2,200-mile trail as an easement across land that Congress explicitly granted to the Forest Service more than a century ago.

Easements are not land, they merely burden land that continues to be owned by another, he said in the opinion, joined in whole or part by all of his colleagues except Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, who dissented.

The 21-page dissent asserts that the Appalachian Trail became part of the National Park System administered by the Park Service in a series of federal laws enacted from 1968 to 1973, which give Congress alone the authority to allow a natural gas pipeline to cross the national scenic trail on federally owned land.

By contrast, todays Court suggests that the trail is not land in the Park System at all, Sotomayor wrote in the dissent.

The decision represents a major victory for Dominion, which said the court upheld longstanding precedent allowing infrastructure crossings of the Appalachian Trail while not disturbing the trail or those who use it.




THE SPEAKER of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda has said Parliament will name and shame MPs who have not been attending parliamentary committee sittings, with some having a shocking zero attendance rate.





Some Ministers were also censored for failing to submit financial reports to Parliament in violation of the Constitution and standing rules and orders of the legislative assembly.





During the 2019 fiscal year, only 15 percent of ministries furnished portfolio committees with their quarterly reports while very few monthly and annual reports were tabled.





On the other hand, some MPs never attended a single session of parliamentary committee hearings out of the 28 that were conducted.





The revelations come out of Parliaments Liaison and Coordination Committee (LCC) retreat which started in Bulawayo last Friday and ended yesterday.





The LCC, which comprises all committee chairpersons, party whips and their deputies as well as the chairperson and vice chairperson and is the custodian of parliamentary reforms was meeting to review the performance of the first and second sessions of the 9th Parliament.





Adv Mudenda addressed the retreat last Friday and President of the Senate Mabel Chinomona delivered the closing remarks yesterday, with both expressing disappointment on the conduct of some members.





Adv Mudenda said the power of the legislature is derived from the people and can be taken away anytime by the citizenry if they fail to perform.





It is shocking that some members have zero attendance, while some have one or two out of 28 sittings. You have got to be ashamed of yourselves because you are not performing up to the expectations of the electorate nor to your oath of office that you will do your very best and work for the people of Zimbabwe in the context of the demands of the Supreme law and the general legislation, he said.





I was very disappointed to see that analysis and some of these members. I think it is best that as a measure of corrective action, a list must be compiled and given to the political parties where they belong so that we say here are your people whom you sponsored as a party but they are not performing. Forewarned is forearmed. We shall report to those responsible for sponsoring you to ensure that they take collective action.





Yesterday, Cde Chinomona said it was worrisome to note that some committees are driven to do their duties by monetary incentives more than the sacred mandate that they hold as the peoples elected representatives.





She said MPs should remember that they are chosen by the people not for self-enrichment but to stand for the hopes and aspirations of Zimbabweans.





It is sad that a committee will refuse to participate in an activity that will improve the lives of the people simply because there is no per diem that will line the members pockets. Do not get me wrong, while every effort will be made to provide allowances for committee activities, this must not and should never be the focus of our efforts as parliamentarians, said the President of the Senate.





She said MPs have been doing the country a disservice by abdicating their responsibility to follow up with ministries to submit and then subsequently analyse reports.





Earlier on Friday Adv Mudenda had said there is a need for LCC to act decisively and must not allow the behaviour by some Ministers not to table reports to continue unabated.





Standing order 26 (2) of the National Assembly explicitly notes that failure to respond to the reports constitute contempt of Parliament.





He said the Ministers conduct is an illegality which attracts severe censure.





He said during the 2019 fiscal year, only 15 percent of ministries furnished portfolio committees with their quarterly reports while very few monthly and annual reports were tabled.





Adv Mudenda also challenged MPs to ensure they call for accountability on resources mobilised for the Covid-19 pandemic.





The LCC is meeting to review the performance of the first and second sessions of the 9th Parliament.





Adv Mudenda said there is a need for LCC to act decisively and should not allow the behaviour to continue unabated.





It is sad to note that ministries do not comply with these constitutional statutory obligations. During the 2019 fiscal year, only 15 percent of ministries furnished portfolio committees with their quarterly reports and very few if any monthly and annual reports were tabled before the committees, he said.





Even those that were submitted had insignificant information to allow honourable members to fully carry out their oversight function. The Parliamentary Budget Office analysed 18 reports and presented 14 analysis reports before the committees in 2019.





Adv Mudenda said no report on the budget performance was tabled before the House in the first session.





This is unacceptable and unforgivable dereliction of duty by the LCC. The superintendence of the LCC should always remain clinical in this regard. Section 107 (2) of the Constitution as read in conjunction with Standing Order 36 of the National Assembly places a brutal obligation on Government to respond to the reports and recommendations made by portfolio committees, he said.





He said he had to write to President Mnangagwa appealing for his intervention so that Ministers and their ministries could respond to recommendations contained in parliamentary committee reports and there was some good positive response.





Adv Mudenda said Zimbabwe like the rest of the world, is facing a protracted deepening crisis owing to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, which has created an unprecedented health crisis and stifled economic growth. The nation looks to us as Members of Parliament to address these challenges in close liaison with the Executive so that they are able to respond robustly to the multifaceted impact of the pandemic, said Adv Mudenda.





That response has to be stubborn and resilient. Parliamentary committees must therefore be prepared to address mitigatory measures that call for innovation in pertaining to the devasting consequences of the pandemic including the employment of indigenous knowledge systems that may lead to the discovery of the vaccine to cure Covid-19.




Employees who come to work even though they are sick are a top concern for workers in Wisconsin, according to a new study released by Wisconsin Safety Council (WSC) and Rural Mutual Insurance Co.

WSC and Rural Mutual reported 85% of study respondents said they sometimes or often see a coworker come to work sick even though he/she should have stayed home. In the current environment, exposure to sick coworkers is the leading safety concern for workers in Wisconsin.

In an effort to identify top workplace safety concerns and provide solutions during National Safety Month in June, WSC and Rural Mutual polled more than 180 WSC members, the majority of whom are safety professionals working in Wisconsin trades, including contractors, manufacturers and construction workers. The study was completed in April.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we know businesses and organizations across the state are looking to create safer work environments now more than ever, Aaron Huebner, WSC executive director said in a media release. This study revealed safety professionals should focus on establishing initiatives that prevent the spread of infection and reduce exposure to employees who are sick.

The respondents indicated several other top safety risks in the workplace:

Interacting with hazardous materials (80%)

Driving for work-related activities (80%)

Standing for more than two hours in a row (79%)

Working in high noise levels where a raised voice is needed to talk to people less than four feet away (76%)

A new, free e-book from Rural Mutual and WSC is now available to help safety professionals and trade workers in Wisconsin address these leading safety concerns. The Work Safe in Wisconsin e-book offers easy to implement solutions for a safer and healthier workplace.

The e-book includes tips for those looking to create a safer workplace, including:

Foster a safety culture. Ensure all employees feel comfortable reporting a safety concern when they see it. See something, say something, do something.

Give employees a voice at the table. Before implementing a new safety initiative or when elevating existing safety programs, engage the frontlines and ask employees for their feedback.

Adopt a proactive, not reactive approach. If we wait until an accident happens to address a safety concern, we will never get ahead of the issue.

Source: WSC, Rural Mutual Insurance Co.

Topics Commercial Lines Business Insurance Wisconsin


I cannot think of a more radical definition of romantic love than the one taken by Lionel Trilling in The Last Lover, his 1958 essay on Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita. Here, Trilling argues that the defining criterion of real romantic love is scandal. Most crucially, love can only exist in opposition to marriage, which is a pragmatic arrangement about property, offspring, and communal and political alliance.

For scandal, writes Trilling, was of the essence of passion-love, which not only inverted the marital relationship of men and women but subverted marriage itself.

What then, was a modern writer to do if they wanted to write about such love? Adultery, which once threatened the sanctity of marriage to the point of appropriate scandal, does poorly in modern times: the very word is archaic; we recognise the possibility of its use only in law or in the past. While the recognition of the fear of marital infidelity did it for the audience of Othello, it doesnt cut much ice with modern audiences, for whom sexual jealousy is real but a moral assertion of that jealousy no longer sustainable. The word unfaithful, writes Trilling, which once had so terrible a charge of meaning, begins to sound quaint, seeming to be inappropriate to our moral code.

This paves the path for Trillings terrifying claim: that to maintain the true condition of passion-love, the writer must only tell the story that remains as far from marriage as possible, and widely out of the way of all practical consideration. Any working condition of mutuality would ruin everything, any concern for each others well being or prestige would make it look like a marriage, and hence out of bounds of true passion-love.

So that, Trilling reaches his conclusion, a man in the grip of an obsessional lust and a girl of twelve make the ideal couple for a story about love written in our time.

This is a dangerous claim at any time  which is exactly what Trilling declares his intent to be. But it is fated to come across as especially unsettling in an age where the hashtag #MeToo has deepened our awareness of patriarchal modes of sexual exploitation, and the manner in which they exclude women from the sphere of political and sexual agency.

Biographical facts may introduce disturbing tremors here: Trillings own gender, race, age, position of power and privilege  those of Nabokov perhaps, and why not that of Humbert Humbert? The disrupted equation of moral codes looks different surely when one is on the wrong side of the power game? Is it a whole lot easier to take aesthetic delight in the absence of mutuality as the marker of passion-love when the apple cart of power tilts in your direction?

What about spheres of love that have traditionally existed outside the normative codes of conjugal relation? Is their existence outside the very condition of their power? Perhaps not. The inquiry into their ethical condition of existence draws us into a black hole; neither is that Trillings concern. His real concern is that of artistic representation; the novel of romance, more precisely. The moral freedom, indeed, anarchy that nourishes the soul of transgressive art is risky business in life; it can set us back by centuries of hard-earned freedom and progress.

What happens, therefore, to literature when subjects outside the pale of normative behaviour win victories to gain proximity to the centre  legal, societal and otherwise? Literature itself maybe a tall order, its bundle of dark idiosyncrasies. But what about the literary sphere  the space of public discussion and reception, perhaps the Habermasian one?

Members and supporters of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community take part in Delhi's Queer Pride Parade on Sunday, November 25, 2018. (Amal KS/HT PHOTO)

Does the tenor of expectation from (erstwhile) works of transgressive romance change in an especially noticeable way when victories are won in societies that have been, for whatever reasons, slow to nurture conditions of liberation?

***

Same-sex love ceased to be a crime in the eyes of the law in India on September 6, 2018. The judges who struck down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code did so on the grounds that it criminalises consensual sexual conduct between adults of the same sex.

Eyes of law, yes. The eyes of society? Thats a longer draw  and a sadder, more nettlesome discussion.

The eyes of art? They caught on quickly too! The Rainbow Literature Festival, the first-full blown festival devoted to queer and inclusive culture, was held in Delhi in December 2018. The buoyant spirit of the age guided the excited arrival of new books. Two notable memoirs published in 2019 captured the light and shadow of secrecy and normalcy  Rangnekars From Straight to Normal, and Now You Know, by editor and book-blogger Vivek Tejuja. An intriguing work of collective biography followed: Gay Icons of India, edited by Hoshang Merchant and Akshaya K Rath, profiles of 22 leading English-speaking, urban, queer protagonists of different fields of art and activism.

If such books and collections were not new, the attention given to such books now began to feel different. The private literary voice often spoke in the language of Dont Let Him Know, the title of Sandip Roys moving diasporic story of closeted identity, even when communal coming together shouted Out, the title of Minal Hajratwalas 2012 collection of queer stories from India.

Read more: Review: The Scent of God by Saikat Majumdar

But in the post-2018 world, it felt like things had come a long way: from the underground cult of Riyadh Wadias Bomgay to the 2019 mainstream Bollywood movie Ek Ladki ko Dekha to Aisa Laga, a lesbian romance featuring Sonam Kapoor.

For Trilling, adultery stopped being a desirable subject for romantic literature the day it stopped shocking people. Non-heteronormative sexual identities are still a shocking matter for the majority of Indians, for whom the abolition of Section 377 remains a small technical matter that is easily ignored.

The dream remains for the day when a same-sex romance occupies the same space as heteronormative romance  for the day it no longer has to be marked different. But does it stand to lose a certain kind of artistic appeal when it is indistinguishable from the normative?

Saikat Majumdars most recent book is the novel The Scent of God (2019)
The world's automotive industry has endured a tough test during the coronavirus pandemic, but China has emerged from the sales decline in May, officials said at the China Auto Chongqing Summit on Saturday.

Wang Xia, chairman of the automotive industry committee of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said the pandemic has brought alarming damage to the auto industry across the globe.

Some global automakers had to reduce production, cut wages and jobs, and even withdraw from Chinese market.

Statistics show that China produced 7.79 million and sold 7.96 million vehicles in the first five months of 2020, down 24.1 and 22.6 percent year-on-year respectively.

More than 1,000 dealers applied for bankruptcy and some small car companies might not be able to recover from the outbreak.

Despite the heavy losses, China's car market has started revving up again, Wang said.

In May, sales increased 5.9 percent compared from April and 14.5 percent year-on-year.

"The long-lost double-digit growth showed that vehicle purchase demand is steadily releasing and the impact of the pandemic is ending," Wang said. Last month, vehicle exports declined 36 percent and the import of automobile components decreased 24 percent compared with same period last year.

And among the world's four largest auto markets-China, the United States, Germany and Japan, only China achieved a negative-to-positive reversal. Recovery in the overseas car markets will still take some time, Wang said.

The central government released a series of strategic measures for economic revitalization and the local governments have taken measures to boost car consumption, both of which are expected to mitigate the adverse effect of the pandemic.

Wang said that the deep impact of the pandemic on the auto industry should be understood.

The pandemic affects customers' requirements of the auto industry. In May, the premium vehicle sales increased more than 20 percent year-on-year, while the demand of vehicles under 80,000 yuan ($11,299) remained low.

"It shows people's pursuit of health, safety and quality of life," Wang said. "It can be argued that the pandemic pressed the conversion key of consumption upgrade and opened a new space of product quality and brand upgrade."

Chinese auto groups faced fiercer competition and sought opportunities to grow.

Xu Heyi, chairman of BAIC Group, said Chinese auto brands have comprehensive strength to compete with foreign brands in technology application, product quality and other aspects. The restructuring of the global auto industry has increased significantly and more resources will shift to China in the future.

He said that China is in the forefront of the global new energy transformation and equipped with the world's most mature new energy vehicle industry chain. With unique policy support, consumer groups with good acceptance of technologies and complete internet industry ecology, the country creates the optimal foundation for the development of intelligent network and autonomous driving.

Wu Song, deputy general manager of GAC Group, also believes that Chinese auto groups have opportunities to win in the intelligent new energy vehicle sector.

Chinese auto companies should promote product quality, strengthen brand building and promote independent innovation, Wu said.
Police rescued the billionaire founder of home-appliance giant Midea Group Co. after an abduction attempt at his home over the weekend.

He Xiangjian, Chinas seventh-richest person, was held hostage by the would-be kidnappers, who were carrying explosive materials, according to the Economic Observer, a local newspaper. The attempt failed after Hes son escaped and swam across a lake to raise the alarm, Forbes reported.

He has a net worth of about $24 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Police in Foshan, a city in the southern Guangdong province, said they received a report at 5:30 p.m. Sunday that someone broke into an apartment in a residential community owned by Midea and threatened the homeowners safety, according to a statement on their official WeChat account.

Five suspects were arrested early Monday, according to the police.

Midea Group reposted the police statement on its official Weibo account without elaborating. A company representative told Bloomberg the case is under investigation by police and that Midea had no other details to share.

Midea, founded in 1968, is known for its low- to medium-end appliances. He retired as chairman in 2012, after building the company into Chinas biggest exporter of air conditioners. The stock closed 3.3% after the close in Shenzhen Monday.

Worries about kidnapping have prompted more of the worlds richest people to spend millions of dollars on security in recent years.

Walls, fences or other barriers surrounding homes of the ultra-wealthy are typically equipped with motion sensors and monitored by cameras that can be programmed to recognize certain faces. Some are tailed by bodyguards at all hours. Typical measures inside residences can include ballistic windows, safe rooms as well as reinforced doors, walls and locks.

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Hundreds of protesters kneel for a moment of silence to honor George Floyd in Hermosa Beach this month. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Is this what a revolution feels like?

In just a few weeks, a slow and steady trickle has become a tidal wave with incredible, deceptive speed  global pandemic be damned. Racism is finally at or near the top of Americas agenda, and Im probably not the only one wondering: Why now?

Its as though for years weve stood, necks craned, eyes squinted at the horizon searching for change, only to find it suddenly lapping at our ankles and swamping our front doors, washing away entrenched debates like so much flotsam.

I think part of the reason is the tireless work of Black Lives Matter activists across the nation who have never stopped calling out police violence and mass incarceration and created a movement that refuses to die.

And sometimes the news delivers a combination of stories that connects the dots for us and illuminates a truth as obvious as any constellation in the night sky. The pandemic showed us that racial and economic disparities have lethal consequences. Amy Cooper, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd showed us that not only is police brutality against Black people lethal, but that some white people are aware of that disparity and willing and able to use it as a weapon, often without consequences.

These incidents happened in New York City, in the South and throughout Middle America. And everywhere it happened, it had happened before. And if those videos didnt do it for you, weve also seen countless videos of police across the nation acting like an affronted gang, using illegal force, shooting protesters and journalists in the groin and face, protecting a statue of a racist police chief and former mayor in Philadelphia, pushing down a 75-year-old man in Buffalo and leaving him to bleed in the street, and slashing tires of protesters cars.

But one of the biggest reasons this moment feels different is how white people are acting, as Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote about in the L.A. Times last week.

Some illusory dam has broken in the minds of white people. A Civiqs survey showed a 15-point gain in support for Black Lives Matter among white people in just the last few weeks, reflecting the first time in the three-year survey that a majority of white people polled supported Black Lives Matter.

Story continues

So this week I thought Id write about white Los Angeles. But I quickly found myself defeated by how vague and poorly defined our ideas about white people are. How can you write about something that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, that influences everything but is rarely directly named or discussed?

Ive searched for books, scholars or articles about white Angelenos as a group, but Ive found very little material. A search in L.A. Times archives also proved largely fruitless. In the news, white perspectives are treated as the default mainstream perspective, even though white people in Los Angeles have been a minority for several decades now.

Where is white Los Angeles? What do white Angelenos believe? What food do they eat?

Stymied in my research, last week I got in my car and drove up Fairfax to what seems to me to be the heart of white Los Angeles, toward Beverly Hills, where about 82% of the population is white. I parked at the Grove, where I saw columns of National Guard trucks and clusters of troops standing around with guns, called in two weeks ago to assist local law enforcement with policing the protests.

To me, it was an ominous sight. But there were also lines of people waiting for pictures with the National Guard, doing yoga poses in front of them and asking them to hold babies. Two white children biked by, cheerily thanking them for their service. Clusters of LAPD officers lounged around the historic and newly reopened Farmers Market, relaxing and talking quietly.

I suddenly found myself tongue-tied. One aspect of white Los Angeles that was immediately evident was how the community seems to have a favorable and trusting relationship with law enforcement. How do I interview these people about what seems to me to be an epidemic of racist police brutality when they treat the police like heroes? What good would it do for me to ask white people what it means to be white, when white people do not understand that for themselves, and might even find the very question itself offensive? What answers did I expect to get?

I had no idea, so I got back in the car. I drove past the Whole Foods, and I thought about the time a few years ago when I went inside to interview people about the drought, and a white woman thrust her soup cup into my hands and told me to throw it away.

Dutifully, I told her I was a reporter, and tried to hand her the soup cup back, but she refused it and walked away, telling me that she had a lot to do that day.

I found a trashcan about three feet away and threw away the soup cup. What else could I do? I grew up south of Nashville, and Ive lived among white people all of my life. I knew that throwing away the cup would be infinitely easier than convincing a rich white woman that what she did was racist.

But these last few weeks have been different. White people have started to think about what it means to be antiracist. Even corporations are trying to find the right words, filling our inboxes with painfully sincere statements of solidarity. Even NASCAR has banned the Confederate flag. And in one amusing indicator of the confused good intentions of this moment, Google searches of the phrase am I racist have skyrocketed.

Its been hard to laugh these past few weeks, but the image of millions of white people frantically asking a search engine algorithm to tell them if they are racist brought a real smile to my face.

And it was a reminder that presenting whiteness as an unspoken default worldview doesnt just hurt people of color  it leaves some white people utterly confused when presented with the reality of race in America. The author Toni Morrison once pointed out that a focus on the victims of racism prevents us from understanding how the structures of racism have shaped its perpetrators.

So a mea culpa to my white readers, if you have managed to read this far. This column has offered a poor representation of whiteness. But if you know better, I challenge you to say so.

The question of what whiteness means is essential in an age when white nationalism is on the rise. Donald Trump is sometimes called our first white president because he created an electoral majority by directly appealing to white nationalism and white fears about losing their place at the top of a racial hierarchy. White identity politics are dominated by conservatives, Republicans and Fox News.

But what if whiteness could be defined by the thousands of white protesters weve seen marching to protest police brutality?

Jennifer Hauge joins in a protest in Minneapolis on May 30. "It's important to come out and make sure our black brothers and sisters know their lives matter, and that George's life mattered," Hauge said. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Whiteness is undergoing a fundamental evolution from unmarked default" to racially marked, according to Nell Irvin Painter, a historian who wrote one of the only existing histories of white people in 2010.

Eliminating the binary definition of whiteness  the toggle between nothingness and awfulness  is essential for a new racial vision that ethical people can share across the color line," Painter wrote in a New York Times op-ed in 2015.

Only time will tell whether this is a moment or a movement. But what white people decide whiteness means will have a huge effect on the outcome.
Crews took advantage of cooler temperatures overnight to complete a burnout in advance of a wildfire to stop it from reaching homes near mountains adjoining metro Tucson, fire management officials said Saturday.

The burnout of vegetation to deprive the fire of fuel was conducted to connect with lines cleared by firefighters along washes and off-road vehicle trails, officials said.

The fire, which lightning started on June 5, increased to 16 square miles (41 square kilometers) as of Saturday and was contained around only 10% of its perimeter in the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Coronado National Forest.

Hampered by rugged terrain and triple-digit temperatures, 550 firefighters and other personnel were assigned to the fire, supported by aircraft dropping water and retardant.

On another front of the same fire, crews were working to stop flames from spreading deeper into mountains where the community of Summerhaven sits atop Mt. Lemmon.

Crews also worked to secure the fires southern flank overlooking Tucson, where residents of 350 under a voluntary evacuation notice were told Friday night they could return but needed to remain vigilant.

An evacuation notice was issued Friday night for about 80 homes in an area west of the fire, and neighborhoods in areas near the forest remained on alert status for potential evacuation.

No structures have been reported damaged. Fire managers report three minor injuries related to heat.

In northern Arizona, Grand Canyon National Park officials said the North Rim remained closed due to a wildfire in part of the Kaibab National Forest.

An evacuation notice was issued Friday for the hamlet of Jacob Lake at a highway junction serving the North Rim.

Authorities began evacuating Jacob Lake after winds pushed the fire forward about 10 miles (16 kilometers), blowing embers that ignited spot fires ahead of the main fire and breaching control lines, officials said Saturday.

Crews overnight conducted burnouts on sides of the fire to deprive of it fuel and cleared defensive areas around structures in Jacob Lake, which includes campgrounds and an inn with a gas station, officials said.

U.S. Highway 89A in the area was closed because of the fire, which as of Saturday had burned 17 square miles and was contained around only 2% of its perimeter, officials said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
COVID-19 peak in India likely to be witnessed in mid-November

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: The COVID-19 peak in India will likely be witnessed in mid-November, an ICMR funded study has said.

The nation-wide lockdown delayed the onset of the peak stage of coronavirus pandemic in India. It also gave time to prepare the health system, an open access study funded by the ICMR said.

The study is not peer reviewed and was conducted by researchers from an Operations Research Group constituted by the ICMR. The study says that the lockdown shifted the peak of the pandemic and smoothened the COVID-19 curse by an estimated 34 to 76 days. This helped bring down the number of infections by 69-97 per cent.

Coronavirus outbreak: Recovery rate of COVID-19 steadily improves in India

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

This allowed time for the healthcare system to ramp up resources and infrastructure, the study also noted. The findings also showed intensification of public health surveillance measures with 60 per cent effectiveness was estimated to reduce the cases at peak and cumulative number of infections by 70 per cent and 26.6 per cent respectively. The study noted that the requirement of ICU beds and ventilators would reduce by 83 per cent with intensified public health measures.

The ICMR, however, said that this refers to a non-peer reviewed modelling, not carried out by ICMR and does not reflect the official position of ICMR.
There are dueling petitions involving the name of Robert E. Lee High School in Midland.

One day after a Midland man created a petition calling for the high schools name to be changed, a man from Cypress in the Houston area has started his own Change.org petition to Lee High School alumni and the Midland ISD school board to Keep the name Robert E. Lee High School.

The man who created the petition is Bruce Carter, and according to the website, it was created about 10 a.m. Sunday. As of 6:05 p.m. Sunday, he had collected 415 supporters. A petition to change the name  which was created Saturday afternoon  had accumulated 1,145 signatures as of 6 p.m.

The petition states that the high school should retain the Robert E. Lee name because:

--Robert E. Lee was an honorable man  an abolitionist, a patriot that only fought on the side of the Confederacy because he refused to take up arms against his native state Virginia;

--generations of graduates of Lee High School have accomplishments and honors linked to the school;

--graduates who use their high school graduation as a reference for potential employment deserve better than to have no such school found on background checks by potential employers;

--the name change is nothing more than misguided white guilt that will do nothing in broad scheme of racial relations in this country.

We do not believe that renaming the school after a divisive leftist will do anything to improve race relations, the petition states. In fact, the backlash it creates may do more harm than good.

Two other petitions were created Sunday to keep the Robert E. Lee High School name. The petition to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott and Midland ISD had picked up 152 signatures as of 6:20 p.m. The other petition, by Estevan Ramirez to the Midland Independent School District, had been created about the time this story was being written.

There also was a petition started in 2017 by those interested in keeping the name of the school. The petition to Superintendent Orlando Riddick, Mayor Jerry Morales and the Midland City Council picked up 1,030 supporters, according to the Change.org website.

***

The following is the petition started by Bruce Carter to keep the name of Robert E. Lee High School in Midland.

We, the undersigned, believe that Robert E, Lee High School should retain its present name. Our reasons:

(1) We believe that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man, an abolitionist, a patriot that only fought on the side of the Confederacy because he refused to take up arms against his native state Virginia. His military record prior to the Civil War alone would more than make him worthy of the honor of having schools named in his honor.

(2) Generations of Robert E. Lee High School graduates have accomplishments and honors linked to the school - all of which would be erased and forgotten if the school got a new name.

(3) There are graduates that use their high school graduation as a reference for potential employment - based on the excellent education they have received. They deserve better than to have "no such school found" on background checks by potential employers.

(4) The name change is nothing more than misguided white guilt that will do nothing in broad scheme of racial relations in this country. We do not believe that re-naming the school after a divisive leftist will do anything to improve race relations. In fact, the backlash it creates may do more harm than good.

We oppose any name change for Robert E. Lee High School.
New Delhi: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who died on Sunday in Mumbai, was apparently planning a wedding in November. It is learnt that he had a conversation with his father KK Singh recently where he agreed for the wedding.

Meanwhile, sources said that some of his close friends have informed the cops that Sushant was having jerks in his relationship with a girl with whom he was supposed to get married. The name of the girl hasnt been revealed.

Sushant, 34, was found hanging in his residence on Sunday morning. He was said to be under stress and depression for the last few months. The post-mortem report states 'asphyxia' as the cause of death and the Mumbai Police also ruled out foul play in his death.

The bank account details accessed by police do not reflect any major loss in recent times. There is no trace of narcotics as per the preliminary post-mortem report. Police investigation eyes on his personal tragedies involving relationships and family.

Sushant Singh Rajput was the star of films such as Kai Po Chhe!, Shuddh Desi Romance, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Kedarnath and Chhichore, among several others. He was also a TV sensation with two hit shows - Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil and Pavitra Rishta  to his credit.

His last rites will be performed later on Monday in Mumbai. His father and family members are expected to arrive in Mumbai in the afternoon.
JERSEY CITY  Moudy Razek put two tables with a few chairs outside his restaurant on Saturday. By Sunday afternoon, no seats were left.

Razek, owner of Gypsy Grill in Downtown Jersey City, is one of the many restaurant owners who are preparing to welcome back customers to their storefronts this week. The reopening follows Gov. Phil Murphys executive order from earlier this month, which said eateries can offer in-person, outdoor dining on June 15.

Razek has headed the grills Jersey City location for the last 14 years. But on March 16, Murphy ordered all restaurants to close and limit services to delivery or takeout  a decision that Razek said was difficult.

Its been rough, Razek said. But if people can come back (here), then I think well be good.

On Sunday, one couple and a group of three occupied the tables Razek left outside as they ate food from the grill.

Some Downtown Jersey City restaurants are following the next steps in the state reopening.Adrienne Romero | The Jersey Journal

Razek said the store will continue following protocol as the state continues to reopen. Inside the restaurant, there are plastic barriers between the workers and customers; everyone inside is advised to wear masks.

On May 22, Mayor Steve Fulop announced that the city will be testing all employees of local businesses, provide a reopening package that includes personal protective equipment and sanitizer once the business is tested and an application for restaurants to expand to outdoor seating.

If we can go back to normal then, of course, Ill be happy, Razek said.

About two stores down was Helens Pizza, a restaurant thats been open for about 51 years Downtown. Alex Rivera was one of the few workers inside the shop preparing food and taking orders on Sunday. Caution tape, a sign and tables blocked what used to be the dining area.

Rivera, whos worked at the pizzeria for seven years, said the store is in the process of expanding to outdoor dining. There was a pair of empty tables in the front.

Despite the impact the pandemics had on local businesses, Rivera said their restaurant was busier when eateries became limited to delivery and takeout nearly three months ago.

But as Rivera and his co-workers continued checking on the pizzas in the oven on Sunday, it seemed evident theyre ready to do more than takeout.

Its been picking up, Rivera said. Itll be nice to have more business again.

On the block over, was Howard Kim, whos been working at BonChon Chicken for five years. Kim and another worker were behind the plastic-barriered counter as they prepared orders. Tables and chairs that normally fill the store were now piled up.

Kim said, unlike other restaurants, BonChon wont be expanding to outdoor dining on Monday.

It depends on how things go, Kim said. Well see what happens.

Kim added that though restaurant closings affected business, he understands because of the safety and health concerns COVID-19 has left around the world.

For now, BonChon is sticking to its delivery and takeout, Kim said.
Democrats say they are not receiving enough information about the loan disbursements and fear the Treasury Department has favored large, well-funded companies over smaller businesses in underserved communities. In the letters, the Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis request that the banks take immediate steps to ensure that remaining PPP funds are allocated to those businesses truly in need.
During COVID-19, economy hotels lead the way in housing essential workers

Economy and select-service hotels have emerged as leaders in the hotel sector, housing essential workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic while taking steps to keep guests and employees safe.

economy hotels

The amount of money it takes to keep economy hotels or a mid-scale hotels open is far less than what it takes to keep the lights on in luxury hotels.

First responders, such as healthcare workers, now constitute a significant portion of the demand in many hotel markets around the globe, says Geraldine Guichardo, Global Head of Research for JLLs Hotels & Hospitality Group.

Extended-stay hotels, particularly within the lower-priced segment, are seeing the most demand, Guichardo says.

In the U.S., these hotel sectors saw occupancy rates in the 40 to 45 percent range for the week ending April 4, compared to 20 percent for the overall U.S., according to JLL Research.

Governments, in many cases, are working directly with hotel owners to house workers, and are turning to economy and select-service hotels  including those aimed at extended stays  above other hotel categories.

Economy and select-service hotels are outperforming in the U.S. from an occupancy perspective due to medical-affiliated demand, including demand from the National Guard, Guichardo says. In areas across the globe, these hotels, often located in or near medical centers, provide much-needed private space for essential workers who do not want to risk exposing the people in their homes.

Serving first responders

Economy and select-service hotels are working directly with governments to service essential workers and those who need to quarantine.

In some U.S. states like New Jersey, and cities like Chicago and San Francisco, governments have secured hotel rooms for healthcare professionals, government workers and other first responders.

Hotel groups in the Philippines, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Jakarta are also working with governments to provide temporary housing options to essential workers.

Story continues

Australias state of Victoria launched a Hotels for Heroes program where both clinical and non-medical staff working in healthcare facilities can stay for free to isolate.

Some demand is related to government-mandated quarantining, says Sashi Rajan, Senior Vice President of JLL Hotels and Hospitality Groups Strategic Advisory and Asset Management, Asia, who is based in Singapore. Governments in the Asia Pacific region have recently tightened quarantine measures for returning residents, requiring them to spend two weeks in a hotel, rather than at home. In Singapore, it has been reported that the government has booked more than 7,500 hotels rooms for this purpose. Australia has taken similar measures.

With a drop in demand from international arrivals, hotel operators have to be open to considering any potential business, Rajan says. Every piece of business that offers to bring in cash flow and keep business running is a positive outcome under the current circumstances.

Cutting costs and keeping people safe

Select-service and economy hotels mainly draw investor interest from regional owner/operators.

The regional nature of the U.S. hotels is especially advantageous during this time, says JLL Managing Director Al Calhoun, a U.S.-based hotel specialist who has transacted within the select-service hotel segment for 35 years.

The amount of money it takes to keep an economy hotel or a mid-scale hotel open is far less than what it takes to keep the lights on in a luxury hotel, Calhoun says. Owner/operators with multiple select-service or economy hotels in one market can evaluate which of their hotels to keep open, how to adjust their labor load and how to keep costs down. Many of these measures happen to be exactly what is needed for guest and employee safety.

Closing restaurants or lounges and other common areas, reducing housekeeping visits to rooms where people are isolating, and re-assigning employee tasks accordingly lower costs while keeping people safe. Task sharing could mean that a front desk clerk also does laundry at night, and food service options are limited but delivered directly outside guests doorways.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19, some operators take steps to separate guests by floors, keeping those on the frontlines on one floor and those who have had potential known exposure separated on another, Calhoun says.

Economy and select-service hotels are positioned to cope better than others since they are built more efficiently and often have a smaller room count, which gives operators tremendous flexibility, he says.

A resilient sector

These advantages could be amplified during recovery, says Denny Meikleham, Managing Director, JLL, a U.S.-based hotels specialist. Select-service and economy hotels are positioned to recover first because of the commercial traveler, who needs them to work.

Until then, the focus is on filling as many rooms as they can safely.

This is a devastating thing thats happened, but the silver lining is that these operators have found a way to keep some of their properties open to serve the public, Meikleham says.

Mr Paul Ho, chief mortgage officer at iCompareLoan, said, At the peak of the Covid-19 crisis, the Singapore government several thousand hotels rooms for housing essential workers. The pandemic shows to some investors that putting money in economy hotels may be better that investing them in other kinds of properties.

He added, By putting money in such properties, you are more assured of getting returns even in tough times. It is true that the amount of money it takes to keep economy hotels or a mid-scale hotels open is far less than what it takes to keep the lights on in luxury hotels.

The post Economy hotels lead the way in housing essential workers in pandemic appeared first on iCompareLoan Resources.
Black American Rayshard Brooks was shot twice in the back, an autopsy investigation into his death has revealed, after shocking body cam video of him running from police during a scuffle with officers in a Wendys car park was shared online.

Mr Brooks, 27, died outside the fast-food restaurant on Friday night (local time) in Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said it was investigating the incident. Police said Mr Brooks resisted arrest after failing a field sobriety test.

An autopsy conducted on Sunday showed that Mr Brooks died from blood loss and organ injuries caused by two gunshot wounds to the back, an investigator for the medical examiner said in a statement.

Rayshard Brooks tells Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe he's happy to walk and leave the car behind. He's pointing towards where his sister lives. Source: Atlanta police via Reuters

The manner of his death was homicide, the statement said.

Mr Brooks death has sparked more anger during tense times in the US with protesters taking to the streets of Atlanta and the Wendys restaurant being burned down.

The night Rayshard Brooks died

Footage obtained by US news outlet NBC from Atlantas police department shows the final moments of Mr Brooks life.

In the video filmed by police officer Devin Brosnans body cam, Mr Brooks is asked if hes been drinking after police confronted him while he sat in a parked Toyota Camry.

He tells another police officer Garrett Rolfe he has been drinking, but is only going a few minutes down the road.

Officer Rolfe asks him to take a breath test.

Mr Brooks tells Officer Rolfe he can walk home and doesnt care about leaving the car, but the cop tells him he needs a yes or no as to whether he will submit to the testing.

Why would you walk home? he asks Mr Brooks.

I just dont want to be in violation of anybody. I can walk. My sisters home is right here, Mr Brooks says.

Officer Rolfe asks Mr Brooks if he would be in violation of anything if he chose to drive.

Mr Brooks tells Devin Brosnan, the officer wearing the camera, 'You're just doing your job', as he waits for a breath test. Source: Atlanta Police Department via Reuters

Mr Brooks explains if its okay for him to leave the car and walk home he will as his daughters are there.

My daughters birthday was yesterday, he says.

Story continues

Mr Brooks is again asked if he will take the test to which he replies: I dont want to refuse anything.

He then agrees to the test and waits for Officer Rolfe to retrieve one.

Youre just doing your job

Oh, man, he says to Officer Brosnan wearing the body cam.

The police officer tells him: Im sorry, just trying to make sure youre safe to drive thats all.

Mr Brooks acknowledges this and the officer tells him he wants to make sure hes okay after finding him sleeping.

I know, youre just doing your job, Mr Brooks says.

Officer Rolfe prepares to give Mr Brooks a breath test. Source: Atlanta Police Department via Reuters

Mr Brooks takes the breath test and says hes had one and a half drinks as he wanted to leave to get something to eat.

Well, I think youve had too much to drink to be driving, Officer Rolfe says.

Put your hands behind your back for me.

Stop fighting

The two officers then begin to handcuff Mr Brooks and a scuffle ensues.

The camera doesnt capture everything as it is dislodged, but the men can be heard yelling.

Hey, stop that, one of the officers says.

Stop fighting.

One of the dash cameras recorded the brawl. As Brooks fights to stand, Brosnan presses a Taser to his leg and threatens to stun him. Brooks grabs the Taser and pulls it away. He struggles to his feet, the Taser in his hand, and starts running.

Rolfe fires his Taser and a yelp can be heard above the weapons electric crackle. Rolfe runs after Brooks, and seconds later three gunshots sound.

Mr Brooks tries to break free of cops attempting to cuff him. Source: Atlanta Police Department via Reuters

Residents, who sound like they have witnessed what has just occurred, voice their disbelief.

They f***ing shot him? one man says.

Video shot from another angle showed Mr Brooks being restrained on the ground by the two officers, but he managed to escape them and ran.

Thats when the taser was deployed followed by the use of guns.

The police department later fired Officer Rolfe who allegedly shot and killed Mr Brooks, police spokesman Carlos Campos confirmed late on Saturday.

Officer Brosnan was put on administrative leave. Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields also resigned.

with Reuters and AP

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According to Stratistics MRC, the Global Breast Cancer Drug Market is accounted for $ 14.75 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $ 43.27 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 12.7% during the forecast period. High prevalence of breast cancer, growing R&D investments and rising healthcare expenditure and awareness are some of the key factors influence market growth. However, stringent regulatory guidelines and expiry of patented drugs is restraining the market growth.

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Breast cancer is most commonly diagnosed cancer in women worldwide and also is one of the leading causes of death. Breast cancer is a disease where uncontrolled growth of malignant cells in the breast tissue that is most commonly occurs in female than men. Breast cancer is the result of uncontrolled cell division of breast cells, most commonly cells of breast lobule and ducts.



Based on Drug, Chemotherapy Drugs segment growth is due to development in the fields of drug delivery and oncology, and increased government funding and initiative to create awareness about cancer diagnosis and treatment. By Geography, North America is going to have a lucrative growth due to prevalence of chronic diseases, growing focus of global pharmaceutical companies in this region.



Some of the key players profiled in the Breast cancer drug Market include Novartis AG, Celgene Corporation, Janssen Global Services LLC, Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., AbbVie, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Celldex Therapeutics, BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals, Inc., AstraZeneca, Merck & Co., Inc., Genzyme Corporation, MacroGenics, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and Biocon.



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Drugs Covered:

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 Chemotherapy Drugs

 Hormone Therapy Drugs

 Other Drugs



Drugs Covered:

 Clinics

 Online Pharmacies

 Ambulatory Surgical centers

 Hospitals

 Retail Pharmacies



Regions Covered:

 North America

o US

o Canada

o Mexico

 Europe

o Germany

o UK

o Italy

o France

o Spain

o Rest of Europe

 Asia Pacific

o Japan

o China

o India

o Australia

o New Zealand

o South Korea

o Rest of Asia Pacific

 South America

o Argentina

o Brazil

o Chile

o Rest of South America

 Middle East & Africa

o Saudi Arabia

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o South Africa

o Rest of Middle East & Africa

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A pregnant finance analyst was awarded 4,000 after her boss told her she was 'letting the team down' by attending an antenatal appointment.

Sali Jallow, 32, who was in her first trimester, had been having days off work sick due to her pregnancy and phoned her boss at insurance firm QBE Management Services to inform him the antenatal check-up was running late.

A tribunal heard 'unsympathetic' finance director Stephen Flack complained to her over the phone and criticised by saying the amount of time she was missing was hindering their output.

Sali Jallow was awarded 4,000 from an employment tribunal for pregnancy discrimination

Ms Jallow was left so 'upset' she rushed back to work, ditching the class entirely in March last year.

It was also heard Ms Jallow, who had been with insurance firm QBE Management Services since 2015, was also suffering withdrawal symptoms having been taken off depression medication following a miscarriage just months before

London Central Employment Tribunal Centre heard Ms Jallow had returned from maternity leave in January 2018 and also experienced issues with her company then.

Jallow told The Sun: 'It was only my second antenatal class and my boss told me I shouldn't go any more. It was horrible.'

QBE Management Services finance director Stephen Flack was 'unsympathetic' to Jallow

The mum of two gave birth to a healthy girl last August and has since left the company and works elsewhere.

Ms Jallow - who was told she was 'letting the team down' by Mr Flack - sued the London-based firm for pregnancy discrimination and won 4,000.

Employment Judge David Khan criticised QBE for 'compelling her to miss an antenatal appointment at an early and potentially critical stage of her pregnancy'.

A tribunal report, detailing the March, 2019, incident, said: 'On March 21, 2019, the claimant telephoned Mr Flack from hospital to report that her antenatal appointment was running an hour late.

'In her evidence to the tribunal, she said that Mr Flack told her that she had taken too many sick days and antenatal appointments, and this was affecting her output, and she was letting the team down.

'The claimant said that because of this she rushed back home to work and missed her appointment. Mr Flack was unable to recall this telephone call.

'In his evidence to the tribunal, he said that the claimant's sickness absence was not an issue at this stage and he could not recall ever telling the claimant that her sickness was affecting her work.

'He also said that this did not sound like something he would say, although he was unable to categorically deny it.'

Judge Khan said: 'We do not accept Mr Flack's evidence. We find that he complained about the amount of time that the claimant was taking on sickness absences and on antenatal appointments.

'We do not feel that the claimant would have taken this step lightly. Although her pregnancy was not at this stage deemed high-risk, she was in the first trimester and she had suffered a miscarriage in October 2018.

'She had discussed her miscarriage a week earlier with [another colleague]. She was clearly mindful of this. We find that she missed her appointment because she felt compelled to do so.'

He added: 'We also take account of Mr Flack's unsympathetic view that the claimant should not be paid for sickness absences as the business

had had no benefit from her on these dates.

'This is consistent with the claimant's evidence that Mr Flack was unsympathetic towards such absences as they were unproductive.

'We find that this was detrimental to the claimant. Not only did these comments upset her they compelled her to miss an antenatal appointment at an early and potentially critical stage of her pregnancy.'

Ms Jallow's other claims, which related to other pregnancy discrimination and flexible working detriment, were dismissed by the tribunal.

QBE was described as providers in 'specialist insurance and reinsurance' and is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Leo Varadkar is set to be Tanaiste, according to a draft programme for government document, while he will also get a strengthened role in the coalition.

There will be just two super juniors at Cabinet while the three leaders in the new coalition will form an inner circle to defuse rows and smooth out issues.

A wording for a section on how the new government will operate has been obtained by the Irish Examiner.

It specifically states that the position of An Tanaiste will be held by the leader of the largest party not holding the office of An Taoiseach. This means the role will initially fall to Mr Varadkar when Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin becomes Taoiseach.

The document also says there will be an enhanced role for party leaders not holding the office of An Taoiseach, suggesting that Greens leader Eamon Ryan's position will also be strengthened in government.

To avoid future rows, the three parties in the new coalition have agreed a set of principles about how ongoing work and potential disagreements will be resolved.

Each party leader will also be responsible for nominating their own representatives to each department and ministerial role.

There will only be two super juniors at Cabinet, the Irish Examiner can also reveal while the make-up of Cabinet for the three parties can be revealed:

The document adds:

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail will have an equal number of Government Ministers, six, and the Green Party will appoint three. The Chief Whip shall sit at Cabinet as shall two other Ministers of State.

Ministers of State shall be appointed by the Government within one week of the Government being formed and shall be allocated as agreed by the three party leaders.

A system of rotating the role of Taoiseach, as already flagged, has been agreed while leaders will also have the discretion of changing ministers halfway through the coalition's term. The document adds:

The leader of Fianna Fail will hold the office of An Taoiseach from that point until December 15th 2022 on which date he will offer his resignation to the President and all Parties and TDs supporting the Government will support the nomination of the leader of the Fine Gael Party.

Membership of Government and the roles of ministers will be continued save where agreed in advance by Party Leaders.

Each Party acknowledges that the leadership and ministerial nominations of their respective parties is entirely a matter for the Party concerned.

It now looks like Mr Varadkar will, in his new role as Tanaiste, move closer to government as part of the new coalition. The draft document adds:

In order to improve coordination and openness within Government, the Office of An Tanaiste will be re-established within the Department of An Taoiseach and based in Government Buildings.

Crucially, the party leaders will operate an inner circle where disputes and issues of the week are expected to be ironed out. Some comparisons with the previous Fine Gael-Labour economic management council have been made. The document adds:

A Government Coordination Cabinet Committee, comprising of the leaders of each party in Government, shall meet each week in advance of Cabinet, and on other occasions when deemed necessary

In addressing surprise issues and rows, leaders Mr Martin, Mr Varadkar and Mr Ryan have pledged to do their best to resolve issues in the new coalition. The document concludes:

We understand that it is the reality of government that situations arise which make partners in government uncomfortable and which have to be addressed in order to maintain confidence. We agree to adopt the approach of raising such concerns in confidence, as early as possible and in good faith, while at all times not going public to put pressure on partners.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

Accra, GHANA  On June 15, 2020, U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Stephanie S. Sullivan joined Ghanas Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in launching the Ghana Learning Radio: Reading Program. Developed in response to the closure of over 25,000 primary schools nationwide due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, the radio program will engage parents, caregivers, and students through daily broadcasts to support and improve reading among Ghanas primary school age students.

Because of the pandemic, millions of primary school students are out of school. To address this challenge, the Ministry of Education partnered with the U.S. government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to design a national radio program in reading. The program will provide distance learning instruction in English and the 11 official Ghanaian languages of instruction for Kindergarten Two through fourth-grade students.

The Ghana Education Service (GES), in collaboration with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), will start broadcasting interactive and easy-to-follow reading lessons on June 15, 2020. The lessons are adapted from USAID-supported instructional materials validated by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Broadcasts will also include health and safety behavior-change messaging that focuses on handwashing, social distancing, and child-protection as well as messages to parents and caregivers to encourage homework supervision, family health and hygiene, and the prevention of bullying, sexual assault, and early pregnancy.

All GBC radio stations will broadcast one-hour reading instruction sessions from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with repeat broadcasts of the lessons on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The United States continues to lead in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, illustrated by recent announcements of new foreign assistance that are made possible through the American peoples generosity and the U.S. Governments action. The American people have given more than $11 billion U.S. that will benefit the global COVID-19 response and continue to ensure that the substantial U.S. funding and scientific efforts on this front remain a central and coordinated part of the worldwide effort against the disease.

In Ghana, the United States has provided almost $17 million U.S. to address the immediate impacts of COVID-19 by helping to strengthen health systems and to continue to improve reading outcomes. The United States is also addressing long-term impacts by helping to develop environments for economic growth and conflict mitigation.

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About USAID

USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential. USAIDs activities and strategic partnerships support Ghanas journey to self-reliance and a Ghana Beyond Aid. Our work advances an integrated approach to development. It promotes accountability, sustainable systems, and inclusive development.
If youre trying to understand why the Black Lives Matter movement has ascended to another level, its helpful to think about an idea developed by the political scientist Christopher Wlezien: the thermostat theory of politics.

The American public resembles a thermostat, Wlezien has argued. When a president begins moving the country one way, many people worry that the shift is too big  and their views move the other way, much as a thermostat regulates a houses temperature. During Barack Obamas presidency, for example, public opinion moved right on gun control and taxes.

Donald Trump has been a president like no other, rejecting long-held standards and trying to push the country far in one direction. And so it makes sense that the thermostatic reaction has been stronger than normal.

Obviously, the publics recent shift on race is about more than Trump. Its a reflection of the horror of the George Floyd video and of coronavirus frustration. But keep in mind that this is the second time during the Trump presidency that the politics of a major issue have flipped. The MeToo movement was the first.
Karnataka Health Minister B Sriramalu attended the wedding of Hadagali MLA PT Parmeshwar Naik's son at Lakshmipura, Davangere, where he was seen without a mask or maintaining any social distance while exchanging pleasantries with other guests.

This is the second time the state health minister was seen openly flouting rules that in place to contain the spread of coronavirus that has claimed thousands of life across the country, including many in Karnataka.

On June 2, Sriramulu attended a function in Chitradurga district without a mask and where he was welcomed by a huge crowd with no adherence to social distancing.

The wedding on Monday afternoon was attended by a large number of guests, including several politicians cutting across party lines. Among them were Congress leaders and former chief minister Siddaramaiah, deputy chief minister G Parmeshwara and ex-minister Priyank Kharge. From the ruling camp, ministers Lakshman Savadi and Prabhu Chauvan were seen at the venue.

Questions are being raised about how the district authorities gave the permission for such a huge gathering at a time when the Ministry of Home Affairs has strictly mentioned about limiting guests to 50 individuals at a wedding amid the pandemic.

The police later registered a case in Harapanahalli Taluk of Ballari against Naik and his son after a complaint by the Tahsildar. Conditions like a cap of 50 attendees, social distancing and wearing of masks were not adhered to, police said.

Siddaramiah said it is hard to keep well-wishers away while hosting a wedding. "The law is same for all, but villagers have the tendency to come and greet even if they are uninvited" he said.

Deputy Chief Minister Ashwathnarayan, however, said that the authorities concerned should take necessary action else it would send out a wrong message to people.

"I have not seen any video clip. I am not aware of it, but whatever and wherever it might be, the DC concerned should ensure there is no scope for such lapses," he added.

Meanwhile, the Hadagali MLA expressed regret that so many people had turned up at the wedding to bless the couple despite him requesting them to not to so.

"I had sent a Whatsapp message to the villagers apologising that I would not be able to invite all of them in view of the COVID-19 crisis. They still came in large numbers. We have provided sanitisers and masks. I have got a notice from the police and I have expressed regret for it," he said.

The MLA explained that the wedding had been postponed from May to June due to the lockdown. The unavailability of 'choultrys' (wedding halls) forced the family to conduct the ceremony in Naik's ancestral village.

(With inputs from PTI)
In print: Sarah Corbett Lynch with brother Jack and aunt Tracey Lynch and her first book Noodle Loses Dad. Photo: Don Moloney

A teenage girl who lost her mother to a tragic asthma attack and her father to a brutal murder has made headlines in the United States with her book about dealing with grief.

Sarah Corbett Lynch (13) from Co Limerick wrote a best-selling children's book both to help process her loss and to aid other youngsters dealing with similar grief.

Now, Sarah's book, 'Noodle Loses Dad', has made headlines in the US.

It featured in a special documentary report on major TV channel Fox8, with Sarah revealing the inspiration for the book to help children deal with grief and loss came from her late father, Jason Corbett (39).

Such was the reaction to the story from viewers that US bookstores now want to stock the Limerick teen's book.

"He was the nicest person I knew - he used to make me laugh all the time," Sarah said as she recalled her late father. "He would smile just to make other people smile."

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Sarah was only three months old when her mother, Margaret 'Mags' Fitzpatrick, died from an asthma attack in Limerick.

She was only seven when her father was murdered by her stepmother, Molly Martens, and Jason's father-in-law, Tom Martens, leaving herself and her brother Jack orphaned.

Ms Martens had been nanny for the two children before marrying Mr Corbett in 2011 and persuading him to move to North Carolina from Ireland for a fresh start in life.

He was killed as he was preparing to bring his children back to Ireland amid mounting concerns over Ms Corbett's mental health and increasingly bizarre behaviour.

"I said goodnight to Dad before I went to bed. That was it. One day I was talking to Dad about moving home [to Ireland] and then that was it, he was dead."

Sarah drew inspiration for her best-selling book from the bedtime stories her father used to tell her each evening.

"I am 'Noodle' - I wanted to write my book to try to help other children who might be going through difficult times, whether it be divorce, blended families or losing someone they loved."

Sarah published her debut book last Christmas and performed an emotional reading at Daydreams Creche in Limerick, where her mother worked before her death. A portrait of her mother hangs proudly on the creche wall.

With her brother Jack (15), Sarah lost her adored father in August 2015.

He was beaten to death by Ms Martens, and her father, retired FBI agent Tom Martens, as he slept at his North Carolina home. Both are now serving 20-25 years in prison for the second degree murder, though they are appealing their convictions.

Sarah said she felt writing the book was helpful in processing her own thoughts and emotions, and she was inspired by the reaction of other children to her writing and stories.
by Nirmala Carvalho

The blaze burnt the thatched roof and doors of the Real Peace Gospel Church, which was built 10 years ago. The pastor, Rev Ramesh Jebaraj, believes it was premeditated. For the police, the cause is still unclear. GCCI president Sajan K George notes that extremists have continued to sow fear among Christians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chennai (AsiaNews)  Fire destroyed a Protestant church in Chengalpattu, a district in Tamil Nadu, last Saturday. The blaze burnt the thatched roof of the Real Peace Gospel Church, as well as its doors and part of the interior, musical instruments included.

The church was built ten years ago near the Palar River, about 110 km from the state capital of Chennai. The police have not yet determined the cause of the fire, but for Rev Ramesh Jebaraj, the pastor who runs the church, it was a premeditated act.

We don't suspect anyone in particular, he said. People of all faiths come here to pray. Someone may have done it out of jealousy, but we forgive them, he told local media.

Like Rev Jebaraj Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Christians of India (GCCI), believes that the incident in Tamil Nadu was arson.

We are alarmed by this attack while the government is grappling with the pandemic crisis, George told AsiaNews.

The GCCI president notes that during the pandemic, extremists have continued to sow fear among Christians.

"India is a secular democracy, and Christians are no threat to anyone he explained. We represent only 2.3 per cent of the population, and declining. Despite this, radical groups continue to attack and intimidate Pentecostals, burning their churches.
The Delhi Police's Special Cell on Monday sent a notice to Delhi Minority Commission Chairman Zafarul Islam Khan to join the probe in connection with a sedition case registered against him for his social media post in April, officials said.

Following the direction of the Delhi High Court, police have sent a notice to Khan and asked him to join the probe within two days, in connection with his "controversial" social media post, they said.

"On the court's directive, we have sent a notice to him to join the probe in next two days," a senior police officer said.

Speaking to PTI over phone, Khan said, "I have received a notice from the special cell to join the probe. I have been asked to give some details with regard to the investigation. I will be joining the probe at their Janakpuri office tomorrow."

An FIR was registered against Khan on April 30 under sections 124 A (sedition) and 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth) of the IPC after police received a complaint from a resident of Vasant Kunj.

This is the second notice which has been sent to Khan.

Earlier in May, a notice under section 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was sent to him by the special cell to hand over his device used for making the "controversial" social media post.

Khan had accordingly submitted his device.

In the FIR, the complainant had alleged that Khan's post was provocative and seditious and intended to cause disharmony and create a rift in society, the police said, adding that the case was being investigated by the cyber cell.

However, later, Khan had also sought an apology, while the BJP demanded his removal from the commission.

He had said that his tweet on April 28 thanking Kuwait for taking note of the "persecution" of Indian Muslims, in the context of the northeast Delhi violence, has "pained" some people which was never his intention.
The time has come to remove the last remaining memorial on municipal property in Maryland that pays homage to the Confederacy: the Talbot Boys statue in Easton. Located in front of the Talbot County Court House, the bronze likeness, built in 1916, depicts a man holding a Confederate battle flag. The Confederacy betrayed the country for a heinous, repugnant cause  thankfully, a losing one  and we should not celebrate such an immoral ideology by holding Confederates up as gallant heroes, especially in city and town centers and other prominent places. It is particularly galling and inexcusable that a symbol such as this, which was erected during the segregationist Jim Crow era, stands in 2020 in a state that remained in the Union and fought to end slavery.
Robert Jenrick should have resigned over a contentious decision to approve a major property scheme involving a Conservative Party donor, an anti-corruption expert has suggested as the cabinet minister told MPs he acted in good faith.

It comes as the housing secretary faced escalating pressure to explain his dealings with Richard Desmond  after it emerged the billionaire property developer made a cash donation to the Tories days after Mr Jenrick unlawfully approved one of his schemes.

Speaking on Monday, the minister said the cabinet secretary is now examining the decision and insisted he was confident all rules were followed.

But Elizabeth David-Barrett, a professor of governance and integrity who is also the director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, said: In most previous governments, Robert Jenrick would have resigned well before now.

The questionable conduct that is tolerated and defended in this current government is creating a dangerous new world in which standards in public life are seen as a concept from the past, and personal patronage and loyalty are now prized higher than combatting corruption, she said.

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Laois PA UK news in pictures 6 January 2022 People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London REUTERS UK news in pictures 5 January 2022 A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 4 January 2022 Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 3 January 2022 Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque PA UK news in pictures 2 January 2022 Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge Liverpool FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 January 2022 New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London EPA UK news in pictures 31 December 2021 Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year PA UK news in pictures 30 December 2021 Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland PA UK news in pictures 29 December 2021 The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket PA UK news in pictures 28 December 2021 Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London PA UK news in pictures 27 December 2021 A pedestrian walks past a winter sale sign outside a John Lewis store on Oxford street in London Getty UK news in pictures 26 December 2021 Riders take their bikes through the snow near Castleside, County Durham PA UK news in pictures 25 December 2021 Patrick Corkery wears a santa hat and beard as waves crash over him at Forty Foot near Dublin during a Christmas Day dip PA UK news in pictures 24 December 2021 People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London Reuters UK news in pictures 23 December 2021 Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester PA UK news in pictures 22 December 2021 The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge. 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Professor David-Barrett added: This is not inevitable or irreversible  but now is time for the government to show moral leadership if it wants to ensure that Britain retains its global reputation in such matters.

Although Robert Jenrick eventually reversed the decision on the Westferry scheme, under threat of legal action, this should not be the end of the matter.

If there is no subsequent investigation into alleged misconduct, then the message that sends is that ministers can do whatever they like and just reverse the decision if their actions are questioned. The system needs to be preventive and act as a deterrent.

Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Mr Jenricks opposite number Steve Reed said the housing secretary had been caught up in a cash for favours row that now reaches inside No 10 Downing Street as he tackled the minister on the issue.

Mr Reed also urged Mr Jenricks department to publish all correspondence regarding the Westferry development in east London, and disclose all conversations with all government ministers and officials.

In response, Mr Jenrick said the application was a highly contentious one that had been contested for many years but was brought to his department because Tower Hamlets had failed to determine it themselves.

I took that decision in good faith with an open mind and Im confident that all the rules were followed in doing so, he told MPs.

It isnt unusual for a secretary of state to come to a different conclusion to a local authority, it isnt unusual for a secretary of state to come to a different conclusion than a planning inspector.

He went on: All of the relevant information relating to this matter is with the cabinet secretary. I have taken and will take advice from my permanent secretary about what further documentation we might be able to publish. But as he says we want to ensure the correct processes of the planning system are followed.

Pressed again on the issue, Labour MP Liz Twist asked why Mr Jenrick did not immediately recuse himself from taking a decision on the Westferry development instead of unlawfully trying to force it though.

The cabinet minister replied: All of the parties to this application  and that include the mayor of London, the applicant and the Tower Hamlets Council  agreed to redetermine the case at my suggestion. The court consented to do that and that is now what will happen.

Referring to a Conservative fundraising event Mr Jenrick attended alongside Mr Desmond, he added: My department knew about my attendance at the event before I went to it, they knew about the fact I had inadvertently sat next to the applicant, I didnt know who I was going to be seated by until I sat at the table, and I discussed and took advice from my officials within the department at all times.

Last week, the Electoral Commission revealed Mr Desmond donated 12,000 to the Tories on 29 January  two weeks after Mr Jenrick gave the go-ahead to his plan to build 1,500 homes on the site of a former printworks on east Londons Isle of Dogs.

The decision overturned previous rejections by the local council and independent planning inspectorate and came just a day before changes to the system which would have cost the developers company Northern & Shell an additional 30m-50m.

After the council mounted a legal challenge in the High Court, Mr Jenrick accepted that his original decision had been unlawful by reason of apparent bias, quashed the decision and said he would take no further part in decisions about the application.
New Delhi, June 15 : After a long wait, trading of gas will finally start in the country with energy market platform India Energy Exchange launching the Indian Gas Exchange (IGX), the first nationwide online delivery-based gas trading platform.

Incorporated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the IEX, the IGX will enable market participants to trade in standardised gas contracts. It will provide fully automated web-based interface to customers for a seamless trading experience.

The gas exchange was infuriated by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, in an e-ceremony held on Monday, and trade on the platform commenced in his presence.

IANS had first reported in September last year that the proposed gas trading hub will come up in the country early next year (first quarter of FY21). Rating agency Crisil had been appointed to assist the regulator and the government in framing rules for the exchange.

Like other exchanges, IGX is expected to play a big role in competitive price discovery for the natural gas that will come from different parts of the globe and from within India. The competitive price discovery will facilitate availability of gas at lower prices for cross-spectrum of industries across India, stimulate demand and facilitate greater investments in domestic gas exploration.

The Indian Gas Exchange will offer six market products beginning from day-ahead market and forward contracts including Daily, Weekly, Weekday, Fortnightly and Monthly at three physical hubs - Dahej, and Hazira in Gujarat and Odoru in Andhra Pradesh to begin with - while it is planned to add more hubs soon.

Through its membership drive launched in March this year, IGX already has 12 members and more than 350 registered clients from prominent industrial segments.

The gas exchanges are expected to work on the lines of power exchanges, which determines the price based on supply and demand and market forces. The gas exchanges would also help small consumers to get short-term supply of fuel at competitive rates.

While long-term gas supply agreements are inked currently and these also are covered under regulations, short-term gas agreements are non-existent in the Indian market. Gas exchanges are expected to change this.

Currently, the Centre fixes the price of the bulk of domestically produced natural gas. The is derived using price prevalent in gas-surplus nations of the US, Canada, UK and Russia that keeps the gas price low. The cost of imported LNG into India is around $4-6 mmBtU.

The government is looking to unbundle marketing and transportation operations of gas in the country, a move that would end up splitting GAIL, which owns most of the nation's natural gas transportation network.

Unbundling is required for a uniform and competitive gas market as GAIL currently has the monopoly both in terms of marketing and transportation of gas. This creates conflict of interest and affects discovery of competitive gas pricing.

As part of its effort to build the gas economy in the country, the government is hoping to raise the share of natural gas in the country's energy mix to 15 per cent by 2030 from the current 6 per cent. It is also planning to double its gas pipeline network and gas import terminal capacity over the next few years.
A satellite built in Britain is readying to take the closest ever image of the sun.

ESA's Solar Orbiter is circling our star and today came within 47 million miles of its surface, around half the distance between the Sun and Earth.

It has equipment on-board specifically designed to take images and measurements of the Sun, experts say, but the ground-breaking image will not be ready until July.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which is also studying the Sun, launched in 2018 and edges even closer to the fiery ball at the centre of the Solar System.

But Parker does not possess telescopes capable of looking directly at the glowing orb.

In December, Parker released a grainy image from 16.9 million miles (27.1 million km) away which captured a coronal streamer belched out from the surface of the star.

However, this did not focus on the surface itself, which the ESA craft will do.

Scroll down for video

ESA's Solar Orbiter (pictured, artist's impression) is circling our star and today came within 47 million miles of its surface, around half the distance between the Sun and Earth. The mage it takes will not be ready until mid-July

Today is THE DAY! The day of Solar Orbiter's first perihelion. We are about 77 million km from the Sun's surface, half the distance between Earth and the Sun. No one has ever been closer with a camera to the beast. Read more: https://t.co/3MG3VUovZ7 pic.twitter.com/jG8uSAw2w2  ESA's Solar Orbiter (@ESASolarOrbiter) June 15, 2020

ESA scientists will test the spacecraft's ten instruments, including the six telescopes on-board, this week after perihelion, the closest point to the Sun in its orbit

A combination of the spacecraft's instruments will combine to give the closest look at the Sun ever, the researchers hope.

The image will not be available until mid-July due to delays in processing the vast amount of data.

This image from Parker Solar Probe's WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument shows a coronal streamer, but not the Sun's surface. Nasa said the Parker Solar Probe was about 16.9 million miles from the Sun's surface when this image was taken

ESA's Solar Orbiter 'accidentally' passes through the tails of Comet ATLAS ESA's Solar Orbiter probe will 'accidentally' passed through the tails of Comet ATLAS at the end of May. Scientists switched on four of the spacecraft's instruments especially to take advantage of this rare opportunity in order to conduct 'bonus science'. The encounter with ATLAS was not planned  the Solar Orbiter probe was launched in February to study the sun up-close, with a focus on the star's polar regions. Solar Orbiter mission scientists were altered to the window for data gathering by planetary scientist Geraint Jones of Britain's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The probe collected data on the separate trails of dust and charged particles released from the comet as it is slowly vaporised by the solar radiation from the Sun. The craft passed within 27.3 million miles (44 million km) of the comet's core, or 'nucleus'  passing through the ion tail on May 31June 1 and the dust tail on June 6. Advertisement

'We have never taken pictures of the sun from a closer distance than this,' said Daniel Muller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist.

'There have been higher resolution close-ups, e.g. taken by the four-metre Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii earlier this year.

'But from Earth, with the atmosphere between the telescope and the sun, you can only see a small part of the solar spectrum that you can see from space.'

The test is being carried out to prove that Solar Orbiter's telescopes are ready for future scientific observations.

Other instruments will also provide an insight into the environment around the spacecraft, such as the magnetic field and the particles making up the solar wind.

It comes as Solar Orbiter begins its cruise phase, which will last until November 2021.

After this, it will enter the main science phase, getting as close as 26 million miles to the sun's surface  beyond that of Mercury, the closest planet to orbit the sun.

'We have a nine-hour download window every day but we are already very far from Earth so the data rate is much lower than it was in the early weeks of the mission when we were still very close to Earth,' Mr Muller continued.

'In the later phases of the mission, it will occasionally take up to several months to download all the data because Solar Orbiter really is a deep space mission.

'Unlike near-Earth missions, we can store a lot of data on board and downlink it when we are closer to home again and the data connection is much better.'

Space Orbiter was constructed by Airbus in Stevenage and blasted off from Nasa's Cape Canaveral site in Florida on February 10.
Editors note: Easton Mayor Sal Panto delivered this statement to Easton City Council on June 10, 2020 .

By Sal Panto Jr.

During the last few weeks, our city administration has been extremely busy. First the COVID pandemic, then our business recovery plan to re-open our economy, then a haz-mat situation and more.

But the toughest issue we need to resolve, once and for all, is this countrys issue of systemic racism  not just because of the murder of George Floyd, but because of the light it has shown once again on the generational impacts of systemic racism.

While we are witnessing, sharing and experiencing more pain than any time I can remember, and I grew up in the 60s, there is also reason for hope. People are rising in cities across our nation to speak out, to protest and to demand change.

We need to build community, peacefully protesting, and calling for an end to police violence  where it exists  and the systemic structures that perpetuate it.

I am grateful for all those who peacefully marched and protested in Easton. By the thousands, we have seen people march, most of whom were peaceful. But as we all know, words hurt too  and some of the rhetoric against our police and the remarks and hand gestures were totally uncalled for against our department. Our police showed true professionalism as they were taunted to react by individuals. The rally leaders did nothing to stop the unpeaceful rhetoric.

This has been an incredibly painful two weeks for our country. One that is shining the light on hundreds of years of racism and injustice that has haunted our past and continues to our present. It is time to eradicate it from our future. It is a moment that summons all of us  including me  to do more and to do better.

While painful, because the trauma and impacts of systemic racism are both immediate and generations deep, I have deeply appreciated those conversations and peoples willingness to have them.

I believe we truly can, as one person said to me, build true, lasting generational justice and change.

We need to bring the same intensity and make the same commitment to cure the illness of racism that we have brought to stopping the spread of COVID-19.

While officers have been working under difficult conditions, de-escalation should be the number one priority and our Easton officers have been trained in de-escalation. De-escalation is critical in every interaction an officer has  from individual actions to crowd management.

I want to be clear with you  as I have with the chief of police  about my expectations for the police department. We made a lot of progress over the last 13 years. But we must work toward continuous improvement to ensure justice and equity for all of our residents.

These arent just my expectations; they are the expectations of our community and frankly, the expectations and core values that are embedded in Easton Police Departments policies and officers training. Most importantly, I know they are also the core values of Chief Carl Scalzo.

The Department of Justice investigated the Easton Police Department just before I took office in 2008. This investigation was because of the unconstitutional use of excessive force. As mayor, it is now my job to make sure that we stay committed to the policies and procedures that we have in place and to the accreditation certification that we received and renewed four times since I took office.

Cultural reform is what is most enduring, and we have built on that reform not only having the policies in place, but also having the fortitude to enforce those policies with discipline, including termination.

We have an opportunity to build on the lasting systemic changes that can transform policing and the department. The new EPD has shown itself to be a department that leads with de-escalation and does not use force unless it is necessary.

We have accountability systems that work and have proven effective. Most recently we won a court appeal of a former police officer.

I also must be held accountable, and I must hold Chief Scalzo and the department accountable.

I know that not every decision I make is always the right one, so my actions should be scrutinized also.

The actions both Scalzo, me and our local elected officials have taken are always for the interest and safety of the residents of Easton  all of the residents.

I know that safety was shattered for many by images, sounds and gas more fitting of a war zone, but that was not here in Easton. Our city did not look like a military zone. Officers were dressed in their normal uniforms, not riot gear. But they also have to respond to the reality on the ground to keep the officers and public safe. Our officers have the training to know that their job is to not escalate.

To all those who came peacefully and exercised their constitutional right to protest  you are welcomed in our city and I support your cause to finally put an end to systemic racism in our society.

To the actions of the handful of individuals seemingly intent on inciting violence between police and a small number of demonstrators with their signs, rhetoric and gestures  we will not allow you to discredit the law-abiding citizens who are peacefully protesting and we wont allow you to break the law.

We are listening to the members of our community who have taken to the streets to call for a better city and a better country. I believe our record proves this to be the case not only of the leadership but the entire police department.

The help of those on the frontline to maintain the peace is instrumental in ensuring everyone remains safe. I ask that demonstration leaders speak to those who arent displaying the peaceful protest and are displaying unacceptable behavior and please hold them accountable. I want to thank NAACP President Lance Wheeler for doing this on several occasions.

Our shared goal is to keep everyone safe. Wd we also have an obligation not to let the message of why the rallies are held be drowned out by a few.

But George Floyds murder is not the only reason thousands of people are taking to the streets. People are protesting a culture of systemic racism and police actions that exists in this country. Those killings remind us of the profound injustice of how they were failed by the system. We must do more to eradicate systemic racism from our society.

They are also protesting a culture of some that will use force before de-escalation, and they are protesting a culture that perpetuates systemic inequities that impact people of color.

People are rightfully protesting how we can be better as a society and make real changes, so I want to talk about what we have done in Easton.

When recruiting officers for the civil service test more than 150 notices are sent to minority organizations and individuals in the region. This year the fire department also started a fire academy at the Boys and Girls Club to get young adults interested in being a firefighter.

The Easton Police Department has been, for some time, equipped with both body cameras and in-car cameras deployed during all citizen contacts. The policy of the department is that cameras are to be initiated during calls for service while engaging with the public and shall not be turned off until the incident is complete and the officer is no longer engaged with those involved.

Training is an essential component of the success of any police agency. The EPD trains its officers every year on the issues of diversity, both in the workplace and in dealing with the community. Some of the training that every police officer received last year was:

Cultural awareness

Anti-harassment in the workplace

Anti-bias training for law enforcement

De-escalation in minimizing use of force

Ethics in law enforcement

Civil rights

Arrest, search and seizure

Communication skills

This training is just a sampling of the training our officers receive every single year and will continue to do so in the future. In 2018 every officer attended a cultural competence training conducted by Intersekt Alliance, led by instructor Guillermo Lopez. This instruction was conducted over the course of several months and consisted of several ride-along conversations, in-class training, and role-playing exercises. The department takes the responsibility of community relations extremely seriously, and the training efforts reflect this fact.

The EPD also trains yearly in defensive tactics, which focus specifically on the proper utilization of restraint procedures as well as control methods and equipment. Our officers are taught the appropriate way to utilize control methods to gain maximum compliance while minimizing pain or injury to resistors or assailants. Our policies have always included the one being talked about nationally like the chokehold, shooting at a moving vehicle, etc.

The expectation of the department is that every single officer, with no exception, treats every person with respect and professionalism at all times. We have worked hard to establish this reputation in the community and have done so by holding those officers who fail to follow this lead accountable for their actions. I am happy to report that our department is staffed by a group of professional, hard-working men and women with the combined purpose of serving their community with pride and honor. I assure you we are doing everything we can to make this department and this city an example of greatness.

These advances alone still do not address the systemic barriers that pervade our society.

Our collective failure to address racism and inequality is not just in the area of policing in America. It is in housing and home ownership. And health. And education. And economic opportunity.

True public safety means that everyone, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to build a better life without fear for themselves and their loved ones and has access to the services they need  healthcare, affordable housing, education and employment.

It is reflective of our deep problem that the governmental system needing the most reform is our criminal justice system. We need to change that. Reform is needed. Currently it is a system that creates criminals rather than rehabilitates them.

I make a point whenever speaking to other local elected officials that a city is not going to be able to establish fruitful relationships on the spot in a moment of crisis. It is the relationships we established prior to any incident that were critical in helping us respond to the situation at hand and ability to truly work with the community. For me it is a lifetime of relationships that I treasure every day. I am proud of my relationship with all segments of our community  both personally and as mayor.

As a young boy who grew up on the South Side in a neighborhood that was racially, ethnically and socio-economically mixed, I have difficulty understanding how some can treat people differently just because of their ethnicity, race or religion.

I pledge to all that I will continue to promote and encourage fairness and equality among all people and give our youth the type of community I grew up in  and ask that as they get older that they too work toward ending, once and for all, systemic racism.

Sal Panto Jr. is the mayor of Easton.
Water levels have returned to normal on the Barrow in Athy after work was carried out on a damaged weir on the Barrow Navigation waterway.

In early May, damage was caused to the secondary Weir at the Ardreigh Cut on the Barrow Navigation (between 28th and 29th locks) outside Athy.

The damage resulted in the level of the Barrow dropping by up to one metre in the area which had implications for fish stocks and the operation of the local marina.

Engineers for Waterways Ireland assessed the damage to the weir and works began soon after.

Locals said that the water level of the Barrow in the area had dropped by up to 30cm due to water escaping through the broken weir.

Fishermen had also complained that the water wasn't deep enough to maintain fish stocks or for boats to navigate safely in the area.
By David G. Savage | Los Angeles Times (TNS)

WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court declared Monday that the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects LGBTQ employees from workplace discrimination.

In a major victory for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers, the justices said the laws ban on job discrimination on basis of sex can be read to forbid bias against employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, appointed by President Trump, spoke for a 6-3 majority.

Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.

Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. Likely, they werent thinking about many of the acts consequences that have become apparent over the years, including its prohibition against discrimination on the basis of motherhood or its ban on the sexual harassment of male employees. But the limits of the drafters imagination supply no reason to ignore the laws demands. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, its no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

The decision is a remarkable example of a conservative justice following the words of a liberal law  in this instance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Gorsuch said it was not surely not intended to protect gay and lesbian employees, but its words prohibited employers from making hiring or firing decisions bases on sex, he said.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The All India Power Engineers Federation has appealed to the prime minister to put the draft Electricity (Amendment) Bill on hold as it is against the federal structure of the country wherein electricity is a concurrent subject.

The Ministry of Power had circulated the draft bill for feedback of the stakeholders in April this year. In a letter dated June 13 to the prime minister, the Federation said, a large number of states have raised serious objections to the proposed amendments as these are against the federal structure of the country.

The amendments seek to erode the working of Regulatory Commissions and dictate on issues of the tariff, DBT (Direct benefit Transfer), subsidy, Electricity Tribunal ECEA (Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority), payment security issues, etc, which are clearly in purview of the state policy, it stated.

Under such circumstances, the bill must be withdrawn. Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Kerala, Chhattisgarh,West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Puducherry have already expressed their strong objections, it said.

In view of objections from states, the bill would certainly require extended discussion and debate in both Houses of Parliament which would not be possible under constraints of virtual participation, the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) said.

It makes it all the more necessary and urgent that the bill must be referred to the Standing Committee on Energy so that states and stakeholders including consumer organisations and employee and engineers associations can submit their objections in detail, it said.

The amendments sought are far too draconian to be rushed through and certainly deserve the detailed feedback from states, it opined.

The amendments are further based on the agenda of privatization which is not justified for a key infrastructure such as electricity, it added.

AIPEF spokersperson V K Gupta said that on June 14 , the Federation had written to all the chief ministers urging them to represent to the prime minister that the proposed amendments to Electricity Act 2003 are not acceptable and that the bill must be put on hold.

The power ministry is trying to push through the draft amendments and acting against the spirit of democratic functioning without prior discussions, Gupta added.
The push for greater integration between Japanese carmaker Nissan and its alliance partner Renault could have prompted the takedown plan of Nissan's former chairman Carlos Ghosn. An email chain has now validated part of Ghosn's claims of a set-up by senior Nissan Motor executives to overthrow him.

The correspondence began more than a year before Ghosn was arrested in November 2018 on charges of financial misconduct, according to a Bloomberg report.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

Ghosn declined to comment via a representative when contacted by Bloomberg. Lavanya Wadgaonkar, a spokesperson for Nissan, the Tokyo prosecutor's office and a representative for Renault also declined to comment.

Ghosn, who was also the CEO of Renault, has denied four of the charges against him.

Japan is seeking the extradition of Ghosn, who fled to Lebanon in December 2019.

The email chain that revealed an attempt to oust Ghosn dates back to February 2018, Bloomberg reported.

The report said Hari Nada, who ran Nissan's chief executive's office, in an email said Nissan should act to "neutralize his initiatives before its too late".

The email, written in mid-2018, was sent to Hitoshi Kawaguchi, a senior manager at Nissan responsible for government relations, sources told the news agency.

Nada declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg, as did Kawaguchi, who left Nissan in December.
Berlin, June 15 : Thousands of German activists formed a human chain in Berlin to protest against racism while maintaining social distancing measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Several German cities were the scene of anti-racism protests on Sunday, an issue that has sparked a wide debate in the country, reports Efe news.

In the German capital, a group called Unteilbar attracted around 8,000 people, according to police estimates.

To minimize the risk of COVID-19 spread, protesters formed a 9 km-long human chain from the Brandenburg Gate to the multicultural district of Neukolln.

Participants were scrupulous in wearing face masks and formed the chain by linking themselves with ribbon to avoid any direct contact.

Their actions were praised by the city's police service after German authorities had urged demonstrators to exercise extreme caution.

Last week around 15,000 activists gathered in Alexanderplatz, a large square in central Berlin, without observing social distancing measures.

Anti-racist protests have spread around the world after the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African-American man who died in the US after a white police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

There has been an increase in daily COVID19 cases in Berlin in recent days with 87 new infections reported on Friday, the highest number since the end of April.

Although the German government has emphasized in recent weeks that the fight against racism is a priority objective, the question of whether racist incidents are individual acts or reflect a wider problem has polarized the country.

This was evidenced by a controversy unleashed after Saskia Esken, co-leader of the Social Democratic Party, complained of "latent racism" among German police.

Her statement was condemned by other politicians and in particular by representatives of the country's security forces.

A government spokesman said last week that an investigation will be carried out into possible racist tendencies in the police, following recommendations by a European Council report that warned of signs of racial profiling.

There has been an increase in the number of racist incidents reported in 2019, according to a report by Germany's Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.

The report also found a "persistent problem of racist discrimination" in the country.
Turkish FM says no technical disagreements despite postponement of talks that were scheduled for Sunday.

Turkey will continue talks with Russia over reaching a lasting ceasefire in Libya despite the postponement of talks on Sunday, Turkeys foreign minister said.

Speaking alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at a news conference in Istanbul on Monday, Mevlut Cavusoglu said the postponement was unrelated to any lingering issues on the core principles between the two sides on Libya and Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to continue working together to establish a lasting ceasefire in Libya, Cavusoglu said.

With Turkish military support, Libyas internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) has advanced for weeks against Khalifa Haftars self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which is backed by Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Heavy clashes have erupted as the GNA laid siege to LNA-held Sirte, close to major energy export terminals on the Mediterranean seaboard.

The push last week came despite a unilateral ceasefire proposal by Egypt, a backer of the LNAs Haftar, who has waged a 14-month campaign to try and capture the capital.

After launching a counteroffensive in March against attacks on Tripoli, the GNAs army recently retook strategic locations, including the Al-Watiya airbase and Tarhuna.

On Sunday, Russia and Turkey postponed ministerial-level talks that were expected to focus on Libya and Syria, where the two countries support opposing sides in long-standing conflicts.

Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov decided to put off the talks during a phone call, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.

Failed ceasefire

However, Cavusoglu said that it was important to prevent another failed ceasefire.

A previous truce attempt collapsed earlier this year and shortly afterwards the GNA began to register battlefield victories  with the help of Turkish military advisers and drones.

Cavusoglu also said it would be unrealistic for Turkey and Russia to make decisions without consulting the Libyans, especially the legitimate government.

He dismissed speculation of a link with the situation in Syria, where Turkey and Russia are also on opposing sides of the war.

Libya, a major oil producer, has been mired in turmoil since 2011 when longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising.

Last week, the United Nations said the warring sides had begun new ceasefire talks in Libya.
R obert Jenrick said he was "confident that all the rules were followed" when he approved a controversial property scheme two weeks before the developer donated 12,000 to the Tories.

The Housing Secretary faced awkward questions today over his approval of a 1bn property scheme led by former Daily Express owner Richard Desmond's Northern and Shell firm.

The Secretary of State has been under fire over the Westferry Printworks development, which includes plans for 1,500 homes on the Isle of Dogs in east London.

Mr Jenrick told the Commons: "I took that decision in good faith with an open mind. And I'm confident, confident that all the rules were followed in doing so."

He made the comments during his departmental questions session in response to Labour's shadow housing secretary Steve Reed who accused him of being caught up in a "cash for favours" row "that now reaches inside Number 10 Downing Street".

Mr Reed called on the Secretary of State to make a full Commons statement, publish all correspondence and "disclose all conversations with all Government ministers and officials".

Mr Jenrick approved the scheme one day before the local council was due to vote on changes to a community charge that would have cost the developer up to 50 million.

Fourteen days after approval, the developer gave the Conservative Party 12,000.

Mr Jenrick has since quashed the decision and admitted he had shown apparent bias in making the ruling in mid-January.

But he told the Commons it was not unusual for a Secretary of State to come to a different conclusion to a local authority and he was taking advice on what further documents can be published relating to the case.

He also said that the Met Police had informed him they would not be investigating allegations connected to the Westferry development.

However, this did not stop the criticism from opposition MPs including SNPs Tommy Sheppard who described his answers as "entirely unsatisfactory".

Labour's Liz Twist asked why he did not immediately recuse himself from taking a decision on the Westferry development instead of "unlawfully trying to force it through" while Sarah Jones asked if he knew a new levy costing the developer tens of millions of pounds extra would come into force the day after he signed planning consent.

Labour's shadow housing secretary Steve Reed accused him of being caught up in a "cash for favours" row / PA

It later emerged that Mr Jenrick had been sitting next to Mr Desmond at a Tory party fundraiser at the Carlton Club in November last year at which the businessman raised the planning application.

Labours Ruth Cadbury claimed that a whistleblower in Mr Jenricks department had said there was "no record" of a Tory fundraising dinner in official documents, adding: "This is potentially a serious breach of the ministerial code, especially as the Secretary of State himself has just admitted that it is a highly contentious application.

"So will the Secretary of State now confirm when and how he advised the department of this meeting, given the question of bias that this issue raises?"

But Mr Jenrick said he had already told MPs the department was "fully informed" of his attendance at the event, adding: "I discussed with my officials the applicant had raised the matter. Of course I advised the applicant I was not able to discuss it and so I think I've answered her question comprehensively."

Downing Street has said the Prime Minister had "full confidence" in Mr Jenrick and a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Housing has previously denied that there was any actual bias in the decision.

A Tory spokeswoman told the Times: There is no question of any individual influencing party or government policy by virtue of any donations they may give to the party or their attendance at party events.

Mr Jenrick said a different minister in the department will make the decision on the east London scheme in the future.
In brief: Google is always making tweaks to its Chrome browser to test new features, improve security, or hinder annoying ads. However, some of Google's experiments are a bit more unusual in nature -- take, for example, its latest test, which hides URL paths in Chrome's address bar.

This experiment, first spotted by Android Police in Chrome's Canary software branch, effectively hides everything that comes after a website's domain name in the address bar. Specific web page paths are not displayed.

There appear to be three slightly different versions of this feature available at the moment. The first will only show the full URL when the user clicks on the address bar to edit it, the second reveals the path when a user hovers over the address bar with their mouse, and the final variant doesn't hide the path at all until a user interacts with a web page.

Google is likely hoping that this change will boost security for less tech-savvy users. By focusing a user's attention on the domain itself instead of the URL as a whole, this functionality could help some individuals avoid potentially-dodgy or otherwise illegitimate websites.

To be clear, Google isn't forcing this feature on anyone just yet. Even those who choose to hop into dev or Canary builds of Chrome will need to enable the new URL-hiding function manually via the chrome://flags interface. However, if Google receives positive feedback on this change, it might consider rolling it out to the general public -- only time will tell.
This story was originally published by ProPublica. It was produced in partnership with The Business Journal, based in Youngstown, Ohio, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.

LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- The state of Ohio has put General Motors on notice that it may be forced to repay more than $60 million in public subsidies as a result of the automaker closing its massive assembly plant last year in Lordstown.

The states collection effort, initially outlined in a letter to GM in March, has not been previously reported, and the automaker itself has not disclosed the potential liability to shareholders in its corporate filings.

State officials say the Lordstown shuttering, which made national headlines and drew the ire of President Donald Trump, violated the terms of two state economic development agreements that GM signed more than a decade ago, according to documents obtained by The Business Journal and ProPublica through public records requests. In return for tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks, the company had pledged to maintain operations at the Lordstown site until at least 2027.

If the state were to claw back $60 million, that would be one of the biggest clawback events in U.S. history, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a national nonprofit that advocates for accountability in economic development. This is very significant, very interesting that it would come from a Rust Belt state from a very pro-business administration.

The state Development Services Agency, which oversees economic incentive programs, notified GM in March that it would recommend that the states tax authority terminate the companys tax agreements and collect a full refund. Spokesman Todd Walker said the authority would consider the matter at an upcoming meeting, though he declined to specify a date. The authoritys next session is July 27, according to its website. Provisions in GMs tax agreements allow for state regulators to consider market conditions and whether the company continues to maintain other operations in the state before issuing a final determination.

And GM is making its case. In a letter in April, the company urged the state to take into account the collapsing market for small cars  the hallmark of the Lordstown plant  and the economic downturn precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic. GM reported net income of $294 million for the quarter that ended on March 31, down from $2.1 billion during the same period last year, according to filings.

Cash preservation is critically important to General Motors to support a vigorous emergence from the economic and global health crisis, Troy D. Kennedy, the companys U.S. property tax manager, wrote to the Ohio Development Services Agency. We respectfully request your assistance to help us drive towards a full recovery by choosing not to require repayment of all, or a significant portion of, the tax credits.

GM also highlighted its six manufacturing and distribution facilities throughout Ohio, as well as a planned joint venture that would manufacture battery cells for electric vehicles near the Lordstown plant. On Monday, spokesman Dan Flores said in a statement, We are respectfully asking the state to consider our belief that a repayment of the tax credits would be inconsistent with our significant manufacturing presence in Ohio and the Mahoning Valley.

The fight over GMs corporate tax credits has played out quietly over the last few months and underscores the political bind facing leaders in Ohio and elsewhere as they struggle to revive their economies while also balancing their budgets. Last month, Gov. Mike DeWine ordered $775 million in budget cuts to plug a yawning hole in this years spending plan, and state officials are already estimating a $2.4 billion deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Taking on one of the countrys largest automakers would represent a shift for a state and region that has relied heavily on economic incentives to attract new employers and to retain its beleaguered manufacturing base. As The Business Journal and ProPublica reported last month, local governments like Youngstown have offered businesses free land, tax abatements, development grants, low-interest loans and other inducements to spur investment across Ohios Mahoning Valley.

General Motors has been one of the biggest beneficiaries.

In 2009, with gas prices soaring, the state offered the company massive tax breaks to help it expand and retool the Lordstown plant to produce a new, fuel-efficient model, the Chevrolet Cruze. Under the terms of the deal, GM got a 75% reduction in its income taxes over 15 years  worth $14.2 million  in exchange for agreeing to add 200 jobs and maintain operations at the site until 2039. A separate agreement awarded the company an additional $46.1 million in tax breaks on the condition that it retain 3,700 employees over 15 years and maintain operations at the site until 2027.

But eight years after signing those pacts, the small car market softened, and GM started to slash jobs at the plant. In January 2017, it eliminated the so-called third shift at Lordstown. A second shift was cut in June 2018, the same day the automaker announced it would build its new Chevrolet Blazer in Mexico. Together, the reductions resulted in the loss of more than 2,700 jobs, according to an economic impact report by Cleveland State University.

In November 2018, the automaker announced that it would end production of the Lordstown-built Cruze and place the plant on unallocated status, meaning a new product had not been selected for the factory. Trump, who had pledged to resuscitate manufacturing in Ohio and across the Rust Belt, lashed out. The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, he wrote on Twitter.

The president did not follow up on the threat, and the last vehicle rolled off the assembly line on March 6, 2019. The shutdown eliminated the remaining 1,500 jobs, while hundreds of other automotive supplier positions tied to the plant were also lost.

Officials were outraged. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said at the time that GMs decision was corporate greed at its worst.

Community groups held prayer vigils throughout the area in support of attracting a new vehicle, while children whose parents were employed at the plant wrote letters to GM CEO Mary Barra pleading to keep it open. A choir of middle school students even produced a video singing We Love GM! to the tune of Under the Sea from Disneys animated film The Little Mermaid.

It came to nothing. In October, after a 40-day strike was settled with the United Auto Workers union, GM announced it would officially close Lordstown and not award a new product to the plant. In a five-page letter to Ohio regulators in April, Kennedy, the GM official, called it an extremely difficult decision.

It had been our hope to keep operations at Lordstown going, he wrote, noting that GM had exceeded its job creation and retention targets through 2016. However, we have continued to maintain significant operations in Ohio and make important new investments in the Mahoning Valley.

Read More: Why a Struggling Rust Belt City Pinned Its Revival on a Self-Chilling Beverage Can

Welcome to Youngstown, Ohio, home of Chill-Can, the self-chilling beverage container youve probably never heard of. Officials have gambled millions of dollars and demolished a neighborhood for the product. Not one job has been created yet.

The company highlighted its sale of the Lordstown plant to startup automaker Lordstown Motors, which plans to introduce its first electric-powered pickup, the Endurance, next week and begin production in the first quarter of next year. The Business Journal reported in December that GM had provided $40 million in financing to the firm so it could purchase the facility and retool the operation.

GM also underscored its plans to build a $2.3 billion electric-vehicle battery plant in Lordstown, next to the shuttered auto facility. The automaker is partnering with Korea-based LG Chem as part of a new joint venture named Ultium. The new battery plant would employ about 1,100 workers earning between $10 and $17 per hour, lower than those who work in auto assembly.

GMs plans for the Mahoning Valley position Lordstown as a crucial manufacturing location for the electric vehicle supply chain, Kennedy said in his letter.

In the meantime, Lordstown is coping with the loss of GM as one of its biggest revenue generators. Eager for the new battery plant, its village council approved new tax breaks for the joint venture in February. The project will receive a 75% abatement on property levies for 15 years.

What we had to get done and needed to get done for General Motors, we did, Mayor Arno Hill said after the vote.

Dan OBrien is a reporter and associate editor of The Business Journal, based in Youngstown, Ohio. He has covered business in the Mahoning Valley for more than 20 years.

If you have something to share with us, heres how to do it:

 Via email: dobrien@business-journal.com

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 Via our online form: https://businessjournaldaily.com/submit-your-story/
The government is planning to roll out the service to more locations with the aim of reducing crowding at hospitals and improve access to coronavirus tests

Egypt has set up its first drive-through coronavirus testing centre at a university in Cairo in an effort to make it easier for people to access polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.

The country reported on Sunday its highest single-day rise in coronavirus deaths with 91 fatalities, which raises the death toll from the highly contagious disease to 1,575. A total of 44,598 positive cases have so far been reported by the health ministry.

The testing site will be operational as of Thursday, cabinet media advisor Hany Younis told Ahram Online.

The service, which is meant to prevent crowding at medical facilities, allows people to have their samples taken while inside their vehicles.

People looking to take the test can book the service through a mobile application to get an appointment at a drive-through testing site.

They only need to drive up to a testing point where their vehicles will be sanitised before a sample is taken at a designated window by a medical worker stationed in a protective booth.

The result of tests carried out at drive-through sites can be delivered within hours via the mobile application.

The government is planning to roll out the service to more locations to help with the early detection of the deadly disease and reduce critical cases and deaths, the cabinet said in a statement on Monday.

Five drive-through centres are scheduled to be set up at the campuses of the universities of Ain Shams, Cairo, 6 October, and Future University.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly along with Higher Education Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghafar and Health Minister Hala Zayed, toured the testing facility at Cairo's Ain Shams university hospital earlier on Monday.

A 200-bed field hospital for coronavirus patients at the university which was inspected by the officials is due to open its doors on Thursday.

The testing unit was developed in cooperation with privately-owned lab and diagnostic testing company Speed Medical (SPMD) as well as the country's higher education ministry.

Many countries around the world are implementing drive-through coronavirus testing services, including in the US, the UK, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to alleviate pressure on hospitals.

Around 6,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are conducted daily free of charge nationwide to detect coronavirus infections, according to head of the health ministry's Central Department of Laboratories Nancy El-Gendy.

Due to the soaring pressure on central laboratories, the health ministry recently adopted clinical examinations, chest x-rays, and other lab tests as a means of diagnosing suspected coronavirus cases, with those showing signs of the disease receiving treatment immediately until the result of the PCR test comes out, the health minister had said earlier.

Private laboratories are currently not authorised to carry out coronavirus tests, but private hospitals are allowed to collect swabs and send them to central labs to be analysed.

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No fresh cases have been linked to a US salon where two hairstylists who tested positive for COVID-19 saw 140 clients. The hairstylists who worked at Great Clips hair salon in Springfield, Missouri were symptomatic, CNN reported.

Follow our LIVE blog for updates on the COVID-19 pandemic

The hairstylists and customers were wearing face coverings, and chairs had been placed according to social distancing guidelines.

Out of 140 customers and seven staff who were potentially exposed, 46 took the test with negative results for infection, CNN reported. All the others were quarantined for 14 days.

County health officials said the 14-day incubation period is over and no cases have been linked to the two stylists, the report added.

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

Those who were not tested were called twice a day to enquire about symptoms, said Kathryn Wall, a spokeswoman for the Springfield-Green County Health Department.

"This is exciting news about the value of masking to prevent COVID-19," said Clay Goddard, the county's director of health, told the news organisation.

"All customers who were tested for COVID-19 after visiting a franchised Great Clips salon in Springfield have confirmed negative test results. Together with our 1,100 independent franchisees, we care deeply about the well-being of customers, salon staff and the communities we serve, and we are grateful for the health of these individuals," Great Clips said in a statement.

The US has recorded over 21.6 lakh infections and more than 1.17 lakh deaths due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Follow our full coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic here
A more recent publication of this set of statistics is available. Latest publication: Turnover of trade 2021, November

Published: 15 June 2020

Turnover and sales volume in trade fell in April

According to Statistics Finland, turnover in total trade adjusted for working days fell in April by 6.2 per cent from April 2019. Over the same period, the working day adjusted volume of sales, from which the impact of prices has been eliminated, decreased by 3.1 per cent. Turnover fell in all main industries of trade  in motor vehicle trade by over one fifth. The exceptional situation caused by coronavirus had an effect on the development of trade industries.

Annual change in working day adjusted turnover and sales volume in total trade (G), %

In wholesale trade, working day adjusted turnover decreased by 5.1 per cent in April, while the sales volume of the industry grew by 0.5 per cent year-on-year. Trade developed weakest in April in motor vehicle trade where turnover went down by as much as 22.3 per cent and sales volume by 23.1 per cent year-on-year. In retail trade, working day adjusted turnover fell by 1.3 per cent and sales volume by 0.6 per cent. As in March, retail trade was boosted in April especially by daily consumer goods trade, as the working day adjusted turnover of the industry concerned grew by 6.2 per cent. Turnover in specialised store trade contracted most of retail trade industries, down by 9.2 per cent from the year before. In department store trade turnover fell, in turn, by 5.2 per cent. The weaker development in turnover than in sales volume, especially in wholesale trade, is explained by fallen prices.

Annual change in working day adjusted turnover and sales volume in industries of trade, April 2020, % (TOL 2008)

Turnover and sales volume declined clearly from the previous month

Seasonally adjusted turnover in total trade fell by 3.1 per cent in April compared to March. Sales volume decreased by 1.9 per cent during the same period. In March, turnover fell by 0.7 per cent and sales volume by 0.1 per cent from the month before.

Change in seasonally adjusted turnover and sales volume in total trade (G) from the previous month, %

Trend of turnover and sales volume in total trade

The calculation of indices of turnover of trade is based on the Tax Administrations data on self-assessed taxes, which are supplemented with Statistics Finlands sales inquiry. The volume index of sales is calculated by removing the effect of price changes from the value index series.

The factors caused by the variation in the number of weekdays are taken into account in adjustment for working days. This means taking into consideration the lengths of months, different weekdays and holidays. In addition, seasonal variation is eliminated from seasonally adjusted series, on account of which it makes sense to compare observations of two successive months as well.

The data for the latest month are preliminary and they may become significantly revised particularly on more detailed industry levels in coming months.

Source: Turnover of trade, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Suvi Kiema 029 551 3509, Aki Niskanen 029 551 2657, palvelut.suhdanne@stat.fi

Director in charge: Mari Yla-Jarkko

Publication in pdf-format (290.9 kB)

Updated 15.06.2020

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Turnover of trade [e-publication].

ISSN=1799-0939. April 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 22.1.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/klv/2020/04/klv_2020_04_2020-06-15_tie_002_en.html
Yves here. In a bit of synchronicity, some readers yesterday were voicing skepticism over the claim of the efficacy of masks in reducing Covid-19 spread, despite the success of many large Asian cities in keeping infection levels way down post lockdowns or other restrictions. Even their outbreaks show total infections at a vastly lower level than US states with much smaller populations.

Taleb shows the impact of mask usage on infection levels. And I get a kick out of his jabs at libertarians.

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Originally published at Medium

Incompetence and Errors in Reasoning Around Face Covering

SIX ERRORS: 1) missing the compounding effects of masks, 2) missing the nonlinearity of the probability of infection to viral exposures, 3) missing absence of evidence (of benefits of mask wearing) for evidence of absence (of benefits of mask wearing), 4) missing the point that people do not need governments to produce facial covering: they can make their own, 5) missing the compounding effects of statistical signals, 6) ignoring the Non-Aggression Principle by pseudolibertarians (masks are also to protect others from you; its a multiplicative process: every person you infect will infect others).

In fact masks (and faceshields) supplemented with constraints of superspreader events can save us trillions of dollars in future lockdowns (and lawsuits) and be potentially sufficient (under adequate compliance) to stem the pandemic. Bureaucrats do not like simple solutions.

I want to travel this summer

People who are good at exams (and become bureaucrats, economists, or hacks), my experience has been, are not good at understanding nonlinearities and dynamics.

The WHO, CDC and other bureaucracies initially failed to quickly realize that the benefits of masks compound, simply because two people are wearing them and you have to look at the interaction.

Let us say (to simplify) that masks reduce both transmission and reception to p. What effect on the R0(that is, the rate of spreading of the infection)?

Simply the naive approach (used by the CDC/WHO bureaucrats and other imbeciles) is to say if masks reduce the transmission probability to , one would think it would then drop from, say R0= 5, to R0=1 . Yuuge, but there is better.

For one should count both sides. Under our simplification, with p=1/4 we get R0= p R0 . The drop in R becomes 93.75%! You divide R by 16! Even with masks working at 50% we get a 75% drop in R0.

Second Error: Missing the Nonlinearity of the Risk of Infection

The error is to think that if I reduce the exposure to the virus by, say, , I would then reduce the risk, expressed as probability of infection, by  as well. Not quite.

Now consider (Fig 1) that probability must follow a nonlinear dose-response, an S curve. In the convex part of the curve, gains are disproportionately large: a reduction of x% of viral exposure leads to a drop of much more than x in risk of infection. And, patently we are in the convex part of the curve. For example, to use the case above, a reduction of viral load by 75% for a short exposure could reduce the probability of infection by 95% or more!

Third Error: Mistaking Absence of Evidence for Evidence of Absence

There is no evidence that masks work, I kept hearing repeated to me by the usual idiots calling themselves evidence based scientists. The point is that there is no evidence that locking the door tonight will prevent me from being burglarized. But everything that may block transmission could help. Unlike school, real life is not about certainties. When in doubt, use what protection you can. Some invoked the flawed rationalization that masks induce false confidence: in fact there is a strong argument that masks makes one more alert to the risks and more conservative in behavior.

Fourth Error: Misunderstanding the Market and People

Paternalistic bureaucrats resisted inviting the general public to use masks on grounds that the supply was limited and would be needed by health professionals  hence they lied to us saying masks are not effective. They did not get the inventiveness and industriousness of people who do not need a government to produce masks for them: they can rapidly convert about anything into well-functioning protective face covering appendages, say rags into which one can stitch coffee filters about anything. Nor did bureaucrats heed the notion of markets and the existence of opportunists who can supply people with what they want.

Fifth Error: Missing Extremely Strong Statistical Signals

Many people who deal with statistics think in terms of either mechanistic concepts (say correlation) they dont quite understand, or local results; they fear to be presenting anecdotes, and fail to grasp the broader notion of statistical signals where you look at the whole story, not the body parts. For here, again, evidence compounds. We have a) the salon story where two infected stylists failed to infect all their 140 clients (making the probability of infection for bilateral mask wearing safely below 1% for a salon-style exposure)  we know the probability of infection for non mask wearers from tens of thousands of data points and the various R0 estimations) plus b) the rate of infection of countries where masks were mandatory, plus c) tons of papers with more or less flawed methodologies, etc.

Sixth Error: The Non-Aggression Principle

Libertarians (in brackets) are resisting mask wearing on grounds that it constrains their freedom. Yet the entire concept of liberty lies in the Non-Aggression Principle, the equivalent of the Silver Rule: do not harm others; they in turn should not harm you. Even more insulting is the demand by pseudolibertarians that Costco should banned from forcing customers to wear mask  but libertarianism allows you to set the rules on your own property. Costco should be able to force visitors to wear pink shirts and purple glasses if they wished.

Note that by infecting another person you are not infecting just another person. You are infecting many many more and causing systemic risk.

Wear a mask. For the Sake of Others.

Notes

1- I commend the very very very few writers such as Zeynep Tufekci who have been fighting the fight in the media.

2- I truly believe that the pseudolibertarians are sociopaths and misanthropes looking for a political party that they think fits their misanthropy.

1918
A pastor with the Light House Chapel International, has admonished journalists and media owners to stop hitting out at pastors and respect their work, or let them be.



His virtual message Sunday, June 14, 2020, centered on giving, Bishop Eddy Addy sought to inspire the act of giving as commanded in Luke 6:38 of the Holy Bible.



Learn to be a giver, giving is the key to unlock supernatural provision. Jesus taught us to give, he said.



Quoting the second part of the verse, Bishop Addy said, shall men give unto your bosom, but you wont give, thats why we believe in giving. Its not that we want to take peoples money. If we wanted to take peoples monies, this is not the job that Ill do.



Dwelling further on this, he noted how encouragement to give has over time led to direct attacks on some men of God by some media personalities and in some cases, owners.



You sit there as journalists, always facing pastors. But when you work, you expect that people will pay you for the work you do. When they come to your station, wont they have to pay to put their programmes on? When you advertise, is it free? But that one you are not collecting peoples money? When you make your newspapers and make news, dont you expect people to buy it? he queried.



Citing MP for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, who owns Net 2 Television, the Lighthouse Chapel preacher called for a stop of such harsh attacks. Their call is to help others in difficult times such as these, exactly why they (pastors) need support instead of condemnation, he reiterated.



What Im doing, Im helping people. People are depressed in the corona season. People are sad, Im showing them that theres a power; a power from God and you dont understand those things but you dont need to criticise my work. Im not criticising your work you too dont criticise mine. You put us on the spot and you are always criticising us, insulting us all the time, why?



Kennedy Agyapong and the others, every day, pastors! What have we done to you? Meanwhile, you also have a station and your station, youll fight for it. If you wont charge, then put me on for free. Prove that it is for free.



Because you own a tv station and every day you put pastors on board. Should I also stand up and put people who own TV stations on board and also face them? Is that how life is supposed to be?, he quizzed.



Meanwhile, Kennedy Agyapong says he has made it a point to expose pastors who are hiding behind their titles to trick people and commit misdeeds.









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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Brown-Forman (NYSE:BF.A)(NYSE:BF.B) continues to whittle down its spirits portfolio to concentrate on just the top brands. Today, it announced it is selling its Canadian Mist, Collingwood, and Early Times whiskeys.

Privately held Sazerac will acquire the brands for an undisclosed sum. The distiller is slowly amassing a broad portfolio of spirits through acquisitions, making it a formidable competitor to larger, more established rivals.

Placing a premium on growth

Brown-Forman generates most of its revenue from the sale of Jack Daniel's whiskey, the largest U.S. whiskey brand and the fourth biggest spirit, but it has been benefiting from the trend toward premiumization that's occurred across the alcohol sector. The distiller's high-end whiskey and tequila enjoyed double-digit growth in underlying net sales prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Analysts, however, have downgraded the prospects of distillers due to COVID-19's impact on the on-premise channel, or venues such as restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and hotels. With the travel and tourism industry not likely to bounce back quickly, the outlook for growth is muted.

But Brown-Forman sees premium spirits as the long-term sweet spot with consumer preferences, so it has agreed to sell off brands not in line with that strategy.

Brown-Forman acquired the Canadian Mist brand in 1971, marking the first time the distiller produced a spirit outside of the U.S. The 160-year old Early Times Kentucky whiskey was its first acquisition in 1923.

Sazerac may be best known for kicking off the cinnamon-flavored whiskey trend with its Fireball brand, which led to Brown-Forman creating its own version, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Fire, and then branching off with other derivatives, including its top-selling honey-flavored version, Tennessee Honey.
My sister-in-law recently sent a picture of herself on a socially-distanced sea swim near her Devon home. My heart leapt with joy for her, but also contracted a little. When will I next get a dose of vitamin sea?

I am a keen open-water swimmer. This summer, I was going to step it up with two of the Outdoor Swimming Societys distance challenges, the Bantham Boomerang and the Dart 10k. Both are now cancelled.

Still, some open-water facilities have cautiously resumed sessions.

One of my chattiest WhatsApp groups is drawn from Swim Doctor class attendees at my local lido. This outdoor London pool hopes to reopen, with socially-distanced measures for members-only, on July 4.

Patricia Nicol shared a selection of fascinating books featuring swimming, including Polly Samsons A Theatre For Dreamers (pictured left) and Monique Roffeys The Mermaid Of Black Conch (pictured right)

A few of us have squeezed into wetsuits to swim at Londons Royal Victoria Docks. Swimming in what is technically the Thames, in a well-run facility overlooked by the mothballed Excel NHS Nightingale, has provided one of my more surreal lockdown moments.

But, mostly, I can only read about swimming.

Polly Samsons transporting A Theatre For Dreamers is set on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. Erica, a bereaved young Londoner, heads there with a small inheritance and ends up hanging out with Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne. Hedonistic days are spent sprawled on sun-baked rocks, then leaping into the glittering Aegean. Heaven!

A Caribbean backwater is the setting for Monique Roffeys arresting The Mermaid Of Black Conch. Aycayia is drawn to the surface by fisherman Davids song. When she is hooked and hauled gasping from the ocean by an American angler, David seeks to save her. But where can Aycayia be most free, asks this truly original novel, deftly weaving myth, feminism, humour and social realism.

In the time-looping The Man Who Saw Everything, by Deborah Levy, historian Saul Adler goes swimming in 1988 in a cool, clear green lake reserved for East German bigwigs.

This is no time for reckless swimming but, if you can swim safely, then take a lucky dip. If not, dip into the pages of one of these.
The discovery of antibodies that block the most infectious elements of the coronavirus is helping Bay Area scientists unlock the many mysteries of human immunity, and could be crucial in the development of a vaccine.

Epidemiologists have found neutralizing antibodies in fewer than 5% of COVID-19 patients, but the ones they are now attempting to isolate are unique in their ability to prevent SARS-CoV-2  the specific coronavirus that causes the illness  from entering human cells.

It means anyone with these antibodies would almost certainly be immune to the disease and that their blood plasma could potentially be used to inoculate others, according to several studies published over the past month by research laboratories in the United States and China.

Dr. George Rutherford, a UCSF infectious disease specialist, said neutralizing antibodies attack the virus crown-like spikes, which are the genesis of the name corona, preventing them from poking into and hijacking human cells.

This particular antibody prevents the key from going into the lock, Rutherford said, referring to the spike proteins, which must latch onto a human cell before the parasitic virus can replicate itself. Thats what you want if you are going to have immunity.

The super-strength antibody is one of many discoveries over the past three months by scientists in laboratories, hospitals and universities searching for a way to neutralize COVID-19. One thing thats clear from the research is how inconsistent the human immune system is. Researchers say, for instance, that while some infected people develop killer antibodies, others have no antibodies at all.

Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle 2020

Between 10% and 20% of patients with COVID-19 show no antibodies in serological tests, Rutherford said. The remaining 75% or more of coronavirus patients develop antibodies, he said, but they arent the neutralizing kind, indicating immunity to the disease might not last long in most people.

The way I think about it, we have a certain amount of the population that, even if they have a history of infection, wont have any measurable antibodies and therefore wont have immunity, Rutherford said. Then there is a certain proportion who will have high levels of antibodies and some who have transient antibodies, where we dont know how long those antibodies will last.

Antibody tests, also called serological tests, can determine whether someone had the disease  even if the person never had symptoms. The antibodies researchers are looking for generally show up 11 or 12 days after infection and, although nobody knows exactly how long they remain in the body, they persist for quite awhile and are easily measured. Researchers have found that as people get better, their antibody levels rise. It is believed that repeated exposure to the virus may actually boost the antibody response.

The problem is, nobody knows yet whether someone with antibodies is protected from getting sick again. To date, there have been no verified cases of reinfection, so it appears there is some immunity in people who have gotten sick. But researchers want to know how long that resistance lasts.

When they are detected, neutralizing antibodies are generally found in low concentrations. So epidemiologists must figure out how to increase their numbers, create an effective serum and safely immunize people with it.

We are still trying to learn more about the nature of neutralizing antibodies, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of infectious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, who is using blood plasma from infected individuals to see if she can artificially inactivate the virus. We still need to determine how much do you need, how long does it last (and) does it protect you from infection.

Her team of researchers is trying to identify the specific white blood cells, known as B cells, that secrete the neutralizing antibodies. The plan is to clone the B cells, mass produce the antibodies and give them to people in trials to see if they reduce infection.

Another unknown, Maldonado said, is whether people who are infected but have no symptoms can still infect other people.

We now know that between a third and four-fifths (of infected people) are asymptomatic entirely, meaning not only do they not get symptoms, but they dont even know they got infected, said Eran Bendavid, a Stanford population health and disease modeling expert who conducted a study indicating that as many as 50 times more people have been infected with the virus than the number of cases reported.

Josie Lepe / Special to the Chronicle

The use of serological tests to calculate the number of unreported infections has been controversial, in part because of a high percentage of inaccurate results, and Bendavids calculations were challenged by many infectious disease specialists. But tests in other regions have come up with a wide range of infection rates, including some much higher than his model.

And there have been troubling reports of delayed inflammatory immune responses even in asymptomatic individuals, including fevers and heart inflammation in children more than a month after apparent exposure to the virus.

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.

Doctors at UCSFs Benioff Childrens Hospital recently saw dozens of children with reddish-purple lesions on the feet and hands known as acral perniosis that appeared weeks or months after exposure to adult relatives with flu-like symptoms, leading researchers to believe it is an inflammatory reaction to the coronavirus.

Studies of other viruses offer clues about the likelihood of developing immunity to COVID-19.

People who contract measles, for instance, develop lifelong immunity. But with other diseases, like mumps, immunity wears off over time. People can get influenza every year mainly because the virus mutates often, creating an infinite number of variations that can each cause a person to get sick.

Coronaviruses, which mutate only once or twice a month, are unpredictable in how they affect the human immune system. Studies of four seasonal coronaviruses that cause the common cold show that people develop antibodies, but the levels appear to decline slowly over time and people eventually become susceptible again.

The immune response may be stronger for lower respiratory viruses, like COVID-19. People sickened by the SARS coronavirus detected in China in 2002 developed immune responses that have lasted.

International researchers recently found that some rhesus macaques infected with the coronavirus developed neutralizing antibodies and could not be reinfected after they recovered.

Most virologists say it will be difficult to develop a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine by January 2021, the date the Trump administration has laid out in what it calls Operation Warp Speed. It normally takes about a decade to develop vaccines. The fastest ever was four years for the mumps vaccine, which was licensed in 1967.

But physicians and immunologists working on the problem say they have the building block they need to move forward.

To make a vaccine you need to have neutralizing antibodies, Maldonado said. We dont know if it makes them immune for life, but we know people are capable of producing them. Thats good news, but now we need to understand what that means.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite
Apple is following the footsteps of Google as the company recently made the Nearby feature available to users in India. The company expanded the Nearby feature to India that would allow users to find grocery stores, medical shops, restaurants, etc near them. The feature was initially available in the US.

This feature isn't new to the Indian users as Google was the first to introduce the Nearby feature in the country and it has been around for long. Now with Apple introducing the feature in India, a lot of Apple Maps users can rely on the app for the places around them. However, Google still remains way ahead of Apple Maps with an easy interface and more features.

When you click on the Nearby tab available on the Apple Maps, you would be able to find the establishments near you including the restaurants, delivery centers, grocery shops, hospitals, medical shops, petrol pumps, and shopping malls.

Along with India, Apple Maps has made the feature available in 30 other countries including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Macau, Mexico, Montserrat, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam

Earlier in January, Apple had introduced the much-awaited turn-by-turn navigation feature in India. Just like Google, the feature lets users move from one place to another. There are two modes available including the Drive and Walk modes. The app provides the usual details including the Estimated time of arrival and the distance between your location and destination. Apple claims to suggest the fastest route to the users just like how Google functions.

With Apple introducing all these features, Google might face stiff competition. However, considering there are more Android users in India than iOS, Google Maps would still be the preferred choice.

Interestingly, Google Maps has now made it simpler for its users to find COVID-19 testing centers. The company on Friday announced that now users can search COVID-19 testing centers on Google Search, Google Assistant, and Google Maps. Google has joined hands with the Indian Council of Medical Research and MyGov to provide the details of authorized testing labs to users. The feature is currently available in English and other regional languages including Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, and Gujarati.
OTTAWA - Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos says the prime minister wants to move "very quickly" to dismantle barriers that contribute to systemic racism.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

President of the Treasury Board Jean-Yves Duclos takes part in a press conference on Parliament Hill amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Ottawa on Monday, June 15, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA - Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos says the prime minister wants to move "very quickly" to dismantle barriers that contribute to systemic racism.

The government is making modest progress at diversifying the federal public service, but there is more work to do, especially in the senior ranks, Duclos told a media briefing Monday.

More broadly, he said, the government can and should help others remove barriers to progress for Canadians of different racial backgrounds.

Duclos says it's about empowering everyone to see the obstacles that others are facing.

He rhymed off a list of areas, including education, public safety and Indigenous relations, where advances in equity can be made.

"As elected officials and, more generally, as citizens, we do have both the ability and the responsibility to help," Duclos said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already engaged his team "to work very quickly and very efficiently" in coming up with a way forward, he said.

The government has come under pressure to spell out what it is doing to counter discrimination and entrenched racism in federal agencies following the police killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in the United States and a spate of confrontations between police officers and Indigenous Peoples as well as racial minorities in Canada.

Federal officials recently delayed a comprehensive response to the many recommendations of a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

Trudeau said Monday there had been "stacks of recommendations, of analyses, of reports on measures that can be taken" to address systemic racism, particularly against Indigenous Canadians.

"It is a question of picking which of those recommendations we should be moving forward with first," Trudeau said.

"And that's why we're working with Indigenous leadership and communities, working with the Black community, working with racialized Canadians to prioritize exactly what things we should do rapidly."

The federal government should immediately declare First Nations policing an essential service, rather than just a program, to ensure adequate funding and a legislative base, said Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Bellegarde echoed Trudeau in noting there had been many studies and reviews on justice to draw upon.

The lack of action on the various recommendations is what is "killing our people," he said.

As for the RCMP, Bellegarde advocates a zero-tolerance policy on excessive use of force.

"There are things that can happen immediately, short-term, within the existing systems that are there."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2020.

 With a file from Mike MacDonald in Halifax

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Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, claims that some traditional rulers are aiding bandits kill their own people in Katsina, the state President Muhammadu Buhari hails from.

Shehu stated this while speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Monday, while reacting to the recent attacks by bandits that have claimed a lot of lives and properties in Katsina.

According to him, Katsina traditional rulers help gunmen escape when security agencies are planning attacks because they are benefiting from the bandits.

It is not that we are making direct accusations on anyone but it is also true that even in the presidents native state of Katsina, some traditional rulers have been found complicit in collaboration with the bandits to harm their own people, he said. In neighbouring Zamfara, emirs and district heads, quite a number of them have been swept out of office. The thing is there are beneficiaries of whatever rotten system you have. At some point, the Nigerian Air Force had to put a number of aircraft in Katsina, they are still there. In the early part of that operation attacking Zamfara which then was the epicentre. They realised that once aircraft took off from Katsina airport, before it got to Zamfara for operation, telephone calls would have been made and targets would have disappeared. In the end we were forced to be flying from distant places like Kaduna and Kano in order to undertake operations in Zamfara.

Shehu said the president does not have the solutions to all the problems confronting the country, urging all and sundry to join hands to address the menace through provision of timely information about the activities of the killer bandits.

All of us as citizens have a duty to the nation to provide information to our armed forces, he said.

This is coming four days after 48 people were killed as bandits attacked Katsina Again just few hours after protesting over pepeated killings by the gunmen.
WWE legend John Cena took to Instagram to pay tribute to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, who was found hanging at his Bandra residence on Sunday. The wrestler has shared a monochrome image of the Kai Po Che actor. In the picture, one can see Sushant striking an intense pose.

The M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story actors fans have also expressed their grief in the comments section. Most people have written, RIP, Rest In Peace Sushant or have dropped in heartbreak emojis.

After the news of his death broke, many Bollywood celebrities took to social media to express their grief.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan took to micro blogging site Twitter to share a selfie with the Raabta actor. He wrote, He loved me so much...I will miss him so much. His energy, enthusiasm and his full happy smile. May Allah bless his soul and my condolences to his near and dear ones. This is extremely sad....and so shocking!! (sic).

Other actors like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Sonu Sold, among many others too expressed grief on the actor's untimely demise.

Read: Sushant Singh Rajput Dies At 34: Alia Bhatt to Priyanka Chopra, Bollywood in Mourning

Sushants alleged suicide came as a shock to his friends and fans alike. According to various reports, the Kedarnath actor was suffering from depression for the last six months.

While it is being reported that the 34 years old actor died of suicide, police are investigating the case. No suicide note has been found so far.

If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

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Under the draft law, financial incentives would be given in three fields  corporate income tax, import/export tax; finance and land; and accelerated depreciation.

Investment incentives are one of the most important issues of the draft amended investment law being discussed by the National Assembly as Vietnam is competing with regional countries to attract new FDI from investors leaving China and seeking new destinations.



Under the draft law, financial incentives would be given in three fields  corporate income tax, import/export tax; finance and land; and accelerated depreciation.



As Vietnam has become more selective in attracting FDI, the draft law shows the list of business fields in which Vietnam encourages investments.

Investment incentives are one of the most important issues of the draft amended investment law being discussed by the National Assembly as Vietnam is competing with regional countries to attract new FDI from investors leaving China and seeking new destinations.

These include high technologies; hi-tech supporting industry products; new material production, new clean renewable energy; electronics and key mechanical engineering, agricultural machines, automobiles and car parts; shipbuilding; IT and software; farm, forestry and seafood culture and processing; and waste treatment.



The business fields listed are in line with the investment encouragement policy stipulated in the Politburos Resolution No 50.



These are the business fields that can create high added value. If they can develop thanks to investment incentives, this will help accelerate economic restructuring associated with the changes of the growth model towards sustainability, bringing higher income to the state budget, said Vu Hong Thanh, chair of the National Assemblys Economics Committee.



Regarding the incentives, some experts believe that Vietnam should only offer outstanding incentives to some special business fields, especially high technologies, while it should only give normal incentives to the fields popular in Vietnam.



Vu Thanh Tu Anh from the Fulbright School for Public Policy and Management stressed that the policies, the implementation of the policies and Vietnams preparation will determine the quantity and quality of the FDI flow that the economy can attract.



He warned that if Vietnam doesnt have reasonable policies, it would only be able to attract the projects that do the outsourcing and use old technologies. If so, Vietnam wont be able to escape the outsourcing trap and this will aggravate the current structure and hinder efforts towards restructuring.



Nguyen Mai, chair of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises (VAFIEs), said that Vietnam needs to attract high-quality, environmentally-friendly and high-tech projects as stipulated in the Politburos Resolution No 50.



According to Hirai Shinji, chief representative of JETRO in HCM City, before the Covid-19 epidemic broke out, Vietnam was one of the three choices for Japanese investors.



The additional investment capital registered by Japanese investors in Vietnam saw the sharpest increases among existing foreign investors in Vietnam, above Chinese and Japanese.



Shinji said though it is still too early to assess the changes before and after the epidemic, Vietnam is still the top choice of Japanese enterprises.

Linh Ha
A rapid research project will launch this week - during Refugee Week 2020 - to assess some of the immediate impacts of COVID-19 for refugee communities living in camps in the Gaza Strip.

The four-month project, led by Dr Jason Hart and Dr Luisa Enria from the University of Bath's Centre for Development Studies with Dr Caitlin Procter from the European University Institute in Florence, seeks to better understand the barriers and enablers that stand in the way of public health messaging being applied within refugee camps.

The Gaza Strip is home to a population of approximately 1.9 million people, including around 1.4 million Palestinian refugees. Almost 600,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza live in the eight recognized Palestine camps.

For this population, COVID-19 presents unique and acute challenges in terms of access to healthcare, key resources and utilities.

For example, as part of the scoping for the work, the researchers learnt that face masks were regularly shared by up to 15 members of the same family (rotating usage of the mask for an hour each per day); that regular hand washing is severely hampered by limited access to water; and that some families have moved in together to care for the sick, increasing the numbers of people already living in one household.

Compounding these issues, the health sector in Gaza has been severely impacted by the blockade in place since 2007. This had already severely undermined basic hygiene, evident in the shortage of water and sewage treatment facilities, but now further hampers efforts to prevent the virus' spread.

Access to clean water and electricity remains at crisis level and clean water is unavailable for 95 per cent of the population.

On top of this, ongoing power shortages have severely impacted the availability of essential services, particularly health, water and sanitation services. Very limited medical supplies are allowed to enter Gaza, and there are only 70 ICU beds across the entire territory.

As of the 10 June, there were 72 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Gaza according to the World Health Organisation. However, given the limited capacity for testing in Gaza, the actual number of cases is thought to be significantly higher. When the first case was detected, the entire Gaza Strip was placed under an initial two-week quarantine by the Hamas government, which has been extended since.

Through a series of qualitative interviews, conducted remotely via Skype and other online platforms, the researchers seek to hear from those living in camps about how public health measures have been received and what the community response has been. It builds on work conducted by Dr Enria in Sierra Leone at the time of Ebola.

The key question they hope to better understand is how communications about the crisis is filtering down to those living in camps and, more broadly, how public health information and misinformation spreads and is propagated.

Dr Hart explained: "This project seeks to address the current lack of an evidence base on how refugee camp communities are responding to public health directives established in response to COVID-19 in Gaza."

Dr Procter noted: "We need insight into the consequences of a 'stay at home' message in overcrowded communities already under threat of on-going conflict related violence and economic strain. In these communities, where clean water supplies are severely limited, public health directives and policies around social/physical distancing, self-isolation and quarantine, as well as a 'no-touch' policy and the need for regular hand washing can lead to significant social disruption."

Dr Enria added: "Drawing on my experience from previous epidemics in humanitarian settings, we know that community buy-in to public health measures is critical to curbing the rate of virus transmission. For this to be possible however, and given the fragile situation before the outbreak, local practices and beliefs must be taken into consideration.

"Further, from the outset of a crisis, the broader protection concerns that can arise as a result of these public health measures must be understood, so that they can be mitigated to the greatest extent possible."

The research proposal has been developed with the support and coordination of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA): the main health, education and sanitation service provider in the camps.

The work is funded by ELRHA and the UK's Department for International Development.

The full research team involves Dr Luigi Achilli, EUI; Dr Nur Abdelkhaliq Zamora, IOD PARC; Dr Mohammed Al-Rozzi, University of Edinburgh; Christina Torsein, Proteknon.

It is designed to contribute directly to UNRWA communications with communities and UNRWA's protection activities during the pandemic.

This study will be conducted with Palestinian refugees in all eight refugee camps in Gaza: Shati, Jabalia, Burj al Buraj, Nuseirat, Rafah, Khan Younis, Deir el Balah and Maghazi Camp.

###
Final year students of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) who reported to school on Monday June 15 have expressed satisfaction about the COVID-19 protocols put in place by the university authorities.



More than 4,500 final students are expected to report at UCC to complete their respective courses.



The students, some of whom reported to school as early as 0700 hours were, however, left frustrated as they waited for hours to go through registration before they were granted access to their rooms.



Two students are to occupy a room which formerly accommodated four.



The Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the various halls of residence at the university and observed that only a hand full of students had arrived as of 1120 hours.



Artisans were seen fixing hand washing and other facilities as students waited patiently to go through registration process for re-allocation of rooms when the GNA visited the Oguaa hall.



The situation was not different from Adehye, Atlantic and Casford Halls.



It is normal just like we have gone for long vacation and returned but this time around, hand washing sinks and sanitizers have been provided and we are waiting for our three nose masks.  Im impressed, a student said.



Others were also skeptical as to whether the measures put in place would actually protect them from contracting the virus.



Enumerating the safety measures put in place, Major (Rtd) Baah Bentum, Director of Public Affairs of UCC, said the university started its preparation way ahead of the governments directive adding that the institution was much concerned about the safety of its students.



He said the university has received the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from government and distribution to students will be immediate.



He said a special room has been designated in each hall for quarantine and management of suspected cases by the universitys COVUD-19 Rapid Response Task-force.



He inter- hall movement would be limited unless it was critically important to do so and students would have their temperatures taken before entering into the halls and other facilities.



Additionally, he said, there would be no church services and other large gatherings adding that such measures would be reviewed when necessary.



Veronica buckets, soaps and hand sanitizers have been provided at entry points of halls of residence and other facilities, the GNA observed.



When the GNA visited the Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU) at about 1145 hours, quite a few had reported.



Mr Felix Opare-Baako, Public Relations Officer of CCTU, said the School was expecting 1,057 final year students who will be accommodated in the institutions hostels.



The university, he said, was strictly adhering to the established safety protocols and that students and other visitors without nose masks would not be granted access to the university.



The temperature of students and visitors were taken at the entrance while veronica buckets and other hand washing facilities have been fixed at vantage points, the GNA observed.

Source: GNA









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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 23:57:47|Editor: huaxia

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File photo taken on March 21, 2020 shows Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev (R) speaking at a governmental meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev has resigned following allegations of corruption, the government said on June 15. (Photo by Roman/Xinhua)

BISHKEK, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Kyrgyz Prime Minister Mukhammedkalyi Abylgaziev has resigned following allegations of corruption, the government said on Monday.

Before his resignation, Abylgaziev had taken a short-term leave to avoid interference with a corruption investigation over radio frequency resources.

Abylgaziev said in a statement that the accusations made against him by parliament have no basis.

The Kyrgyz parliament raised the issue of the sale of radio frequencies, which was followed by a number of deputies demanding Abylgaziev prove his innocence against allegations of corruption.

"During my two-week vacation, the investigating authorities did not contact me with any questions. I am sure that the investigation will put everything in its place and identify the true perpetrators of the violation of the law," he said.

Abylgaziev, 52, was appointed on April 20, 2018.
WATERLOO REGION  A group of students is calling on the public school board to include their voices as they review the police in schools program.

In an Instagram post, Students 4 Inclusive Schools said students voices should be predominant as trustees and Waterloo Region District School Board officials look into the program during its 20-year history.

Students across the region do not feel safe with the presence of armed police officers in their schools, the Instagram post said. It was released Monday afternoon.

The students, from schools such as Forest Heights, Cameron Heights and Eastwood, say their voices have never been listened to and now they are demanding school board officials pay attention.

Hafsa Said, a graduate of Cameron and one of six student leaders of the group, said schools are considered safe spaces and students shouldnt be made to feel afraid by seeing police in schools, particularly elementary schools.

Said, who hasnt had any personal interaction with police in schools, said officers in schools are often dealing with marginalized youth and students feel criminalized.

Its very clear that it makes Black students feel uncomfortable, said Said, who will be studying social development studies at the University of Waterloo in the fall.

School board trustee Scott Piatkowski plans to put forward a motion at a school board meeting Monday night asking staff to form a committee that will take a closer look at the School Resource Officer program.

Piatkowski said members of the Black community have asked for the review. He said the students voices and their alternatives to police in schools will be part of the review.

The African, Caribbean, and Black Network of Waterloo Region said they dont want officers in schools dealing with racialized youth. They say students have said they are not safe and that the program targets marginalized youth. Instead, nurses and social workers should be in schools, said the group.

Network member Fitsum Areguy said the calls for actions are entirely student led.

They are rising up and doing something inspirational, he said.

In the social media post, the student group said the review must capture the voices of students, particularly those at-risk, and Black and African students.

The group is also calling for data collected by Waterloo Regional Police, which runs the programs in the schools, be given to the board for a fulsome review.

The students say anti-racism and anti-oppression training must be held for all school board administrators, teachers, support staff and counsellors.

The group said disciplinary action should be replaced with a community-led alternative based in restorative justice with a focus on culturally-responsive support workers, crisis counsellors and mental health workers.

The students say the police in school program impacts marginalized youth the most. They are calling for the upcoming review to consult with the African, Caribbean, and Black Network of Waterloo Region.

The School Resource Officer program has existed for about two decades. Currently there are 10 officers in the program who are assigned to 240 secondary and elementary schools in the region. Officers are available to the public and Catholic school boards as well as private and independent schools, according to Waterloo Regional Polices 2019 annual report.
Editors note: This is story 8 of 14 in Laredo Morning Times Laredo Heroes Unmasked, where we will highlight members around the community that have been nominated by other locals for their efforts to help battle the COVID-19 national pandemic.

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment is essential. And two Laredoans have taken it upon themselves to do everything possible to make sure members of the community and frontline workers have adequate protection from the coronavirus.

Prior to the stay-at-home ordinances and lockdown, Sylvia Noyola had been asked to sew masks for a friends husband and coworkers. The concern over the COVID-19 virus had been present, but minimal. Regardless, Noyola sewed the masks to make sure they were prepared for work and continued to make masks for friends, family and anyone else who needed one.

Her masks were first used with fabric and ribbon, as it was the only material she could find. According to Noyola, mask material was scarce at the beginning of the pandemic, which resulted in her using any material she could get. From paying out of pocket to being helped by her grandson finding materials out of town, nothing stopped Noyola from making the masks.

At least one-third of my stimulus check went to buy fabric, Noyola said. I dont care what it takes, as long as my family, friends, relatives and even people I dont know can continue feeding their own family. To me it is a great satisfaction that I feel to be able to help.

As time went on, she honed her sewing skills and made better iterations of the masks. Each one was sewn by hand and completely free of charge.

I was worried about the people that put food on the table, for my family, my kids, she said. I think I made maybe 200 (masks) within that week, and I started distributing to everyone in the family.

That number then grew to 300 by the time the safety guidelines were enacted and ultimately resulted in over 550 masks for family, friends and members of the community. Those that received the masks needed to only ask, and she is still taking requests.

Noyola recalled a moment during these last 10 weeks where her electric sewing machine broke, which could have stopped her efforts and left many without protection. Fortunately, she was taught how to use a 49-year-old, non-electric manual sewing machine by her late mother, who had also given her one to use. As the only one in the family who knew how to sew, she had trouble getting it started, but she did not give up.

I can sew a little bit slower, but I can still solve all the needs for the people that need it, Noyola said. I should thank my mom because if it wasnt for her, I wouldnt have been able to help all these people.

She does not charge for the masks but is always looking for material and welcomes donations. Noyola said she still makes 5-10 masks a day, and from buying blankets, sheets and other material she can find, she is now ordering online and is preparing for the second wave of COVID-19.

I believe its going to continue  I want the people to know that I make them, she said. Im going to have more in case you need them. I know you can wash one and use the other one, but believe me, I have more.

Noyola was not the only community member making masks for Laredoans.

After promising a 1,000-mask donation, Lupita Rueda made good on that promise and provided hospitals with some much-needed PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic. She and her team of local Girl Scout Troops have since then manufactured over 2,000 masks.

She said that despite each mask taking 10 minutes to create, the manufacturing was quick due to her young helpers. Rueda and the rest of the volunteers were highly motivated and reached the goal quickly.

Rueda has also provided meals to medical professionals and over 300 facial masks for newborns and children between 3-6 years old at hospitals.

According to Rueda, material for the masks cost approximately 20 pesos, or a dollar. The masks themselves are reusable and were created based on disposable household products like plastic foam for the forehead and elastics used for clothing.

Once I gathered the products and began planning on how to make them, I made one, Rueda said. "And once the first one came out to be a success in terms of use, I began to create more for distribution."

On April 12, she started the mask deliveries and provided 200 masks to the Laredo Medical Center. She was thanked by the hospital for her commitment and contributions to the pandemic efforts.

Today was an exceptional day as we were able to deliver the masks to LMC and provide our little grain of salt to the situation as we had promised, and I felt good that I was told that the masks will definitely be use by personnel of the hospital, Rueda said after the donation. Practically all of the products we created are gone as all the ones that we had made were donated, and we have a huge demand to get more done.

Rueda was inspired to manufacture the masks after seeing Gustavo Canales 3D print masks and donate them to the Nuevo Laredo hospitals.

She said that the masks are essential, due to being reusable and not requiring people to have to hand wash them or put them in the laundry. Instead they can simply wipe these masks with disinfectant to be used again. She said that the masks can be cleaned as easily as a window.

As we continue helping other healthcare workers, I hope that our next venture will focus on helping grocery store employees -- or how I like to refer them to as the angels without wings -- as they are also at the frontlines of the situation, as they attend to us whenever we visit any of the major stores and have little protection as well, Rueda said.

Her contributions have not been limited to Laredo. Rueda has also sent face masks to the Alianza Latina Internacional in Houston.

I took two weeks off from my employment, which I could have just spent at home doing nothing, but I rather decided to do something for our community as little is being done, and we all need to work together in efforts to get out of this crisis, Rueda said. Continued good hygiene and staying home is something we should all do, but if we can do more, then we should.
James Juanillo hoped to inspire others when he started stenciling Black Lives Matter on the retaining wall of his Pacific Heights home in San Francisco.

But as the 50-year-old finished adding the chalk letters on Tuesday afternoon, June 9, a man and woman approached him to ask if the property belonged to him before accusing him of defacing private property. Juanillo recorded the incident and shared it with his 33 Twitter followers.

By Monday morning, the video had collected 16.1 million views, added more than 17,000 followers to Juanillos account and resulted in a financial services company reportedly firing one of the two people who wrongly accused Juanillo of breaking the law.

The incident also spurred the latest conversation about racism and a presumption of guilt being unfairly applied to people of color in a nation still reeling from the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and numerous other instances in which law enforcement have killed or beaten people under questionable or illegal circumstances.

Juanillo told The Chronicle in an interview Monday morning that he felt ambivalent about everything that happened over the past week.

On one hand, I want them to learn a lesson from this, he said. On the other hand, I am the first person to say that this was not as egregious as what Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd. It was never my intent, or my intention for them to lose their livelihoods.

I think it is sad. But they could have just kept on walking.

The nearly two-minute video starts with a woman in a white shirt and short shorts asking Juanillo if he was stenciling on his own property. He asks the woman and man why they were asking.

Because its private property, sir, says the woman, who identifies herself as Lisa.

Subsequent reports have identified the woman as Lisa Alexander, CEO of skin care line LaFace.

If I did live here and it was my property, this would be absolutely fine, Juanillo asks her in the video.

Totally, says a man with Alexander, who was later identified as Robert Larkin.

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

And you dont know if I live here or if this is my property, Juanillo asks.

We actually do know, thats why we are asking, Alexander responds.

Juanillo tells them they can call the police or the owners because they were accusing him of defacing private property. He refuses to answer their questions and encourages them to call the police.

Ill be right here, he says.

The pair then walks away, but they did apparently call the police.

Officers arrived within two minutes and recognized him, Juanillo told The Chronicle, adding that hes lived in the same home since 2002. Without blaring their sirens or exiting their vehicles, the officers complimented him on the stencil work and soon left, he said.

Juanillo said he waited by a window overlooking his chalk work and the couple returned. He waved at them, he said, but again they walked away.

They can come up to the front of the house, apologize, tell me it was a misunderstanding or what not, and this would have never happened, Juanillo said. I would have never posted the video. But instead they walked away.

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 Chronicles attempts to reach Alexander and Larkin for comment, as well as obtain an apology she reportedly issued Sunday, were unsuccessful.

Juanillo said most of the people who saw him stenciling expressed some kind of solidarity  from telling him, Good job, bro, to smiling and gesturing.

I thought it was a shame that these two people couldnt just ignore what I was doing, he said.

Now Playing: Pancho Kachingwe joined Oakland community members, artists and local businesses to paint Black Lives Matter across three blocks of 15th Street on Sunday, June 7. The 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

Raymond James, the company where Larkin reportedly worked, issued a statement early Monday saying an unnamed employee no longer worked with the company following a probe into a video alleging racism by one of our associates.

We have concluded that the actions of he and his partner were inconsistent with our values, and the associate is no longer employed with Raymond James, the statement said.

Now that he has a platform of more than 17,500 followers on Twitter, Juanillo said he hopes to find a path forward from the incident and share it with others. The pair left him a note Sunday with instructions to contact Alexander, Juanillo said, and he plans to reach out once hes in a better mental state.

He hopes the two who confronted him can realize they are part of a problem, even if they thought they had good intentions.

Our country is being torn apart right now, Juanillo said. I think a lot of people need to examine how this is going to be resolved. And I think we all need to work forward and toward forgiveness and empathy.

Alejandro Serrano is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: alejandro.serrano@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @serrano_alej
The Covid-19 infection tally reached 6,475 in Bihar on Sunday when 186 fresh cases were reported, while the death toll reached 36 on account of a casualty reported from Vaishali district, officials said.

Click here for full Covd-19 coverage

The state health department, however, could not provide details of the latest fatality from Vaishali which had earlier reported two coronavirus deaths and become the third district after Khagaria and Begusarai to have reported three deaths each.

Other districts in the state which have reported Covid-19 deaths are Bhojpur, Darbhanga, Jehanabad, Patna, Saran, Sitamarhi and Siwan (two each).

Districts with a single casualty each are Araria, Aurangabad, Bhagalpur, Jamui, Madhepura, Munger, Muzaffarpur, Nalanda, Nawada, East Champaran, Rohtas, Samastipur and Sheohar.

In terms of the total number of confirmed cases, Patna and Bhagalpur districts account for 324 each, followed by Begusarai (299), Madhepura (292), Khagaria (291), Rohtas (282) and Munger (270).

All 38 districts in Bihar have reported Covid-19 cases and 33 have tallies in excess of 100.

At a press conference, state Health Secretary Lokesh Singh, however, insisted that the situation has started looking up in Bihar as 289 people have recovered in the last 24 hours, which was significantly higher than the number of fresh cases reported during the period.

He said the number of people returning to Bihar from outside and testing positive since May 3 was 4,449, which is close to 72 per cent of the states aggregate.

Total number of samples tested in the state so far is 1.23 lakh.
School districts across Central New York and New York state will hold school budget votes on Tuesday, but unlike other years no one will be headed to the polls to vote.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this years voting was done by mail.

If you havent mailed in your ballot by now, its probably too late.

Mail-in absentee ballots must be received by 5 p.m. Tuesday  or they had to dropped off in person by 5 p.m. June 9. Ballots wont be accepted in person after that date.

About 670 school districts in the state will begin counting votes on proposed school budgets and board candidates at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Most school districts in CNY plan to have results Tuesday night, unless there are unforeseen delays.

The vote was originally set to be held last Tuesday, but the deadline for districts to receive the ballots was extended a week by an executive order issued by Gov. Cuomo because of some delays in districts vendors printing and mailing out ballots.

The proposed spending per student in Central New York ranges from $17,128 to $32,469.

Syracuse.com | The Post Standard also created a database where you can look compare per pupil spending for school districts across the state.

School districts sent absentee ballots with prepaid return envelopes to registered voters, and included postage-paid envelopes.

District officials said the votes cast by residents will be anonymous, as ballots will be removed from the envelopes, placed in a pile and counted without looking at the names.

Syracuse City School District residents do not vote directly on school budgets. Instead, the city school budget is part of the city budget determined by the Common Council and mayor.

An executive order signed by the governor says if a proposed school budget is not approved by voters, the process and date for any resubmission of the budget or revised budget proposal will be determined by another executive order. However, that vote wont occur prior to July 9, the order said.

Elizabeth Doran covers education, suburban government and development, breaking news and more. Got a tip, comment or story idea? Contact her anytime 315-470-3012 or email edoran@syracuse.com
Two bids to take moorland in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway into community ownership has reached a 'major milestone'.

The Langholm Initiative and Newcastleton and District Community Trust (NDCT) are being given 1.85m to purchase land owned by Buccleuch, which manages over 27,0000 acres of Scottish land.

It is part of the Scottish Land Fund - funded by the Scottish government - which has awarded more than 3.6 million to community groups and projects to secure land.

The NDCT, awarded 850,000, can now proceed with the purchase of 750 acres of land known as Holm Hill from Buccleuchs Borders Estate.

An offer of 1 million has also been made to the Langholm Initiative, a charity which wants to buy 10,500 acres of land including part of Langholm Moor.

They plan to create a vast new nature reserve as well as creating small-scale renewable energy projects.

The Langholm Initiative is currently embarking on a crowdfunding appeal to enable the community buyout to become reality.

Buccleuch said it was 'delighted' that both groups had been successful in their applications and paid tribute to the work that had progressed them to this stage.

Benny Higgins, executive chairman at Buccleuch, said: When we announced in May last year that we wanted to sell property on the Borders Estate, Buccleuch was fully committed to engaging with local communities to assess their appetite for purchasing the land.

"Todays announcement of funding for both NDCT and the Langholm Initiative is a major milestone for that process.

Both groups have different ideas of what they want to achieve but have shared a tenacity and willingness to cooperate that has made the discussions an enjoyable process."

Steve Hartley, chair of the NDCT, said community ownership of the land would give the area a 'bigger, brighter and more sustainable future'.

"This will continue to include farming, but the community also wants to develop new leisure and renewable sectors spreading the benefits of community ownership to everyone who lives here."
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenges to Legal Doctrine Shielding Police From Misconduct Lawsuits

The Supreme Court on June 15 declined to revisit a widely debated legal doctrineknown as qualified immunitythat insulates police officers from civil liability for their conduct.

The high court said it wont hear eight major cases (pdf) that presented opportunities for the justices to reconsider the qualified immunity doctrine, which shields government officials from liability for damages claims for harm caused by their actions as they perform official duties, even if those actions violated the U.S. Constitution but didnt contravene a clearly established rule.

Many legal circles, advocacy groups, and members of the judiciary on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about the doctrines application. In particular, the doctrines clearly established rule, which requires the party suing the official to show that the facts in their case were sufficiently similar to the facts in prior court cases, has been widely criticized.

The courts decision to reject these cases let stand lower court rulings, such as one that granted immunity to an officer who shot 10-year-old child while trying to shoot a non-threatening family dog (pdf) and another in which officers deployed a police dog against a suspect who was sitting on the ground with his hands up.

There is no shortage of outrageous qualified immunity cases for the Supreme Court to take, Institute of Justice attorney Patrick Jaicomo said in a statement.

It has refused to hear a case this year, but it can only avoid the issue for so long. The skewed incentives of qualified immunity guarantee that lower courts will continue to generate more examples of injustice, and we will keep bringing those examples back to the courthouse steps until we break through.

The Institute for Justice runs a Project on Immunity and Accountability that aims to challenge the qualified immunity doctrine and restore accountability for officials misconduct. One of its cases, West v. Winfield, that involved qualified immunity, was also rejected in the June 15 orders.

The courts decision wasnt entirely unanimous, with Justice Clarence Thomas, who has previously criticized the doctrine, writing in a dissent in one of the cases, Baxter v. Bracey (pdf), that he would have granted the petition to review the case. The Baxter case involves officers who released a police dog on a suspect to arrest him. In the process, the dog bit the suspect. The suspect alleged that he had already surrendered when the dog was released to arrest him.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush, sits with fellow Supreme Court justices for a group portrait at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, on Nov. 30, 2018. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

I have previously expressed my doubts about our qualified immunity jurisprudence, Thomas wrote in his dissent. Because our Section 1983 qualified immunity doctrine appears to stray from the statutory text, I would grant this petition.

In his dissent, Thomas also commented on the clearly established rule, arguing that there likely is no basis for the objective inquiry into clearly established law that our modern cases prescribe.

Leading treatises from the second half of the 19th century and case law until the 1980s contain no support for this clearly established law test. Indeed, the Court adopted the test not because of general principles of tort immunities and defenses, but because of a balancing of competing values about litigation costs and efficiency, he wrote.

Qualified immunity was created by the Supreme Court in 1982 as part of the top courts interpretation of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, commonly known as Section 1983, which provides a basis for people to sue state officials who violate a persons constitutional rights. However, under the Supreme Courts current interpretation of the law, it isnt enough to show that the rights are violated. Victims must also show that the action was clearly established, and if they fail, the official could be granted qualified immunity.

The rationale behind the doctrine is to afford government officials protection from undue interference and threats of liability while they perform their duties. It is meant to protect all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.

But legal experts say qualified immunity has routinely shielded those who are either incompetent and who knowingly violate the law.

Qualified immunity is a failureit is a failure as a matter of policy, it is a failure as a matter of law, and it is a failure as a matter of basic morality, Robert McNamara, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, previously told The Epoch Times.

McNamara and other critics see the doctrine as a free pass for police officers and other government officials to violate constitutional rights without having to face the legal consequences of the actions.

Meanwhile, Rafael Mangual, the deputy director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, wrote in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal that the argument in which qualified immunity undermines police accountability and encourage bad behavior may not hold ground when the doctrine is used only in a small number of cases.

It isnt successfully invoked that often, Mangual wrote in his op-ed, citing a 2017 Yale Law Journal study, which found only 3.9 percent of nearly 1,000 cases, where the doctrine could be asserted, were dismissed on immunity grounds.

The issue of qualified immunity came back in the spotlight in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who died while taking a knee to the neck by a Minneapolis police officer for nearly nine minutes during an arrest. His death sparked nationwide protests that called for changes in policing practices and police accountability. While many of the protests were peaceful, some cities experienced looting, arson, property destruction, and other violent activities.

Lawmakers have also taken up the issue and two bills have been introduced to limit or abolish the doctrine. One of the billsEnding Qualified Immunity Actintroduced by Reps. Justin Amash (L-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) seek to eliminate qualified immunity and restore Americans ability to obtain relief when state and local officials, including police officers, violate their legal and constitutionally secured rights.

Meanwhile, several lawmakers have introduced the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 that would bring reforms to qualified immunity to lift barriers for individuals from recovering damages when police violate their constitutional rights.
Careem will provide more investments and services beyond passenger rides, the company said

Dubai-based ride-hailing service Careem says it will pump more investments into Egypt, as it announced the official launch of its multi-service Super App in almost all the markets in which it operates.

Ibrahim Manna, Managing Director of Global Markets at Careem, said in a virtual conference on Sunday that Careem is committed to the Egyptian market due to its importance among markets in which Careem operates.

We will provide more investments and more services beyond passenger rides, Manna said, stressing that the leading ride-hailing app will continue its journey in Egypt.

Earlier on Sunday, Careem officially launched its Super App in the region as it looks to expand beyond its ride-hailing business amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The Super App, in which Careem has invested around $50 million, aims to provide the delivery of food and goods as well as online services to make life simple and hassle-free amid the pandemic.

The roll-out began in March 2020 and is expected to be completed by the end of June, with services gradually activated according to the services available in each country.

In Egypt, the services available through the Super App are planned to include transport by car and bikes, delivery services of products and goods, and e-wallet services including balance recharge.

More services are set to be rolled out in Egypt in the future under an expansion of its Super App business plan, Careem said.

Launched in November 2014, Careem currently operates in 17 cities nationwide: Cairo, Gouna, Tanta, Hurghada, Mansura, Port Said, Assiut, Ain Sokhna, Damietta, Ismailia, Alexandria, Suez, Banha, Sahel, Damanhour, Zagazig, and Minya.

Its vehicle types include Go, Go+, white taxi, Go Awfar, Airport cars, and City-to-City car, To Alex, and To Sahel.

Egypt, with a population of more than 100 million, is the biggest market in the region for ride-hailing services.

These services have faced multiple obstacles regarding regulations in the populous country, which is known for its red tape, the latest being a months-long conflict in 2019 with Egyptian regulators over the $3.1 billion merger deal between San Francisco-based Uber and Careem over fears of monopolisation.

However, Egypt's Competition Authority (ECA) approved the merger deal last December after it agreed to several controls proposed by Uber to reduce harm to competitors in the populous country.

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Beijing has reported a second consecutive day of record new numbers of coronavirus infections on Monday, adding urgency to efforts to rein in a sudden resurgence of the disease, known as COVID-19, in the Chinese capital.

The recent outbreak has been traced to Xinfadi, a wholesale food market that is said to be the biggest in Asia and provides 80 percent of Beijings farm produce supply from both domestic and overseas sources.

The market has been shut, tens of thousands of nearby residents are being tested for the virus, and a city-wide campaign launched to identify people who have recently visited the market or been in contact with people who have. Some schools have started to suspend classes.

The risk of the epidemic spreading is very high, so we should take resolute and decisive measures, Xu Hejiang, spokesman for the Beijing city government, said at a press conference on Monday.

At least 11 residential compounds neighbouring the market have been sealed off. Restaurants in the city have also been ordered to conduct tests on all their uncooked food.





Beijing officials confirmed 36 new COVID-19 cases for June 14, the same as a day earlier, which was the citys highest daily count since late March. Officials have now reported 79 cases over just four days, the biggest concentration of infections since February.

A number of neighbourhoods in the west and southwest of Beijing have been upgraded to medium-risk, which calls for measures such as the strict control of people and vehicle movements, disinfection and temperature checks.

Mass testing

One neighbourhood in the same district as the food market was raised to high-risk, denoting the most severe level of infection, with a warning to people to avoid it.

The city started testing en masse on Sunday, conducting 76,499 tests. At least 59 individuals tested positive, Gao Xiaojun, a spokesperson for the Beijing public health commission, said at Mondays briefing.

Samples from 8,950 people who were recently at Xinfadi had been collected as of early Monday, said Gao, adding that results from the 6,075 tested so far were negative.

The new Beijing cluster prompted governments in some cities and provinces to warn their residents against non-essential travel to the capital, and to implement isolation protocols and testing for some incoming visitors from the capital.

A worker in protective suit chats with a resident who likely lives near Beijings Xinfadi wholesale market, where new infections have been reported [Andy Wong/AP]

The northeastern province of Liaoning and northern Hebei province have reported a combined handful of cases connected to the Beijing infections. Sichuan in the southwest reported one suspected case on Monday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday it had been informed of the outbreak by Chinese officials who were investigating its source and extent, and that it underlined the need for thorough investigations.

Genetic sequencing from humans and environmental samples is ongoing, and WHO encourages the release of these sequences as soon as possible, WHO said in its statement.

Baoding, a city in Central China's Hebei Province, neighboring Beijing, has declared "wartime" status against COVID-19, after Beijing's recent infection cluster. pic.twitter.com/30QrfExHYX  Global Times (@globaltimesnews) June 15, 2020

An epidemiologist with the Beijing government said on Sunday that a DNA sequencing of the virus showed the Xinfadi outbreak could have come from Europe.

Our preliminary assessment is the virus came from overseas. We still cant determine how it got here. It mightve been on contaminated seafood or meat, or spread from the faeces of people inside the market, state media quoted Yang Peng as saying.
It has been announced that world champion Lather Up (p,4,1:46 [$1,917,935]) has completed his rookie breeding season and has bred a full book of 140 mares.

Lather Up is a son of Im Gorgeous (by Bettors Delight) and stands at stud at Sugar Valley Farm in Ohio for owners Gary and Barbara Iles, George Teague Jr. and Taylor Made Stallions.



Lather Up, pictured in victory.

Being the co-fastest Standardbred of all time, we had high hopes for Lather Up, and were thrilled with his full book, and especially the quality of the mares, said Sugar Valleys Joe McLead.

McLead said Lather Ups book included Mozzi Hanover, the dam of Wiggle It Jiggleit. Mozzi Hanover is owned by George Teague Jr. Inc.

All of the owners supported Lather Up, which is always of importance when youre standing a stallion, said McLead. All of the pieces are in place for Lather Up and his foals to make a big impact on the sport.

(Sugar Valley Farm)
The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, led by CU Innovations, has partnered with serial MedTech entrepreneurs Jonathan Gasson and Sharon Lake to form PreView Medical, Inc. PreView's clinically proven technology focuses on the diagnosis and treatment optimization of prostate cancer. The company's ClariCore System utilizes a patented optical biopsy needle combining both the optical spectra of tissue and machine learning to assess the prostate for cancer in real-time - ultimately minimizing the need for traditional core biopsies. Additionally, the company is developing an algorithm to create a high-definition 3D map of prostate tumors to enable accurate targeted focal therapy to treat cancer lesions. Focal therapy significantly reduces morbidity when compared with the current standards of care of either removing or irradiating the entire prostate.

Associate Vice-Chancellor, Biotechnology for CU Anschutz, Steve VanNurden, remarked, "We are encouraged by the positive clinical trial work already completed. A study of over 200 patients at eight sites validated high algorithm accuracy. Launching PreView is a testament to the hard work already completed." The CU Anschutz Office of the Chancellor supported the launch of the company by providing $250,000 in seed funding.

The concept of combining optical spectroscopy with a biopsy needle for prostate cancer diagnosis was originally developed by Priya Werahera, Research Associate Professor; John Daily, Professor at CU-Boulder; and E. David Crawford, Professor at CU Anschutz. While located at the Fitzsimons Innovation Community, Amir Tehrani led the development efforts of the ClariCore System. First-in-Man studies were performed by Dr. Crawford, and this was followed by an FDA approved clinical trial. Dr. Neal Shore at Carolina Urologic Research Center, an investigator in the FDA trial, commented, "PreView Medical's disruptive technology could enhance cancer detection in a very efficient and office-based process. The ClariCore System will enable patient treatment in the ambulatory setting. The implications for improved tumor detection and avoidance of unnecessary biopsies will have attendant patient benefit and potential healthcare resource savings."

The company plans to raise a Series A financing round to further develop the technology and engage in FDA trials for device clearance.

###

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 healthcare. 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 powered by more than $500 million in research awards. For more information, visit https://www.cuanschutz.edu

About CU Innovations

CU Innovations brings together industry partners, entrepreneurs, and investors to help CU Researchers create biomedical technology that improves the quality of life worldwide. With expertise in patents, copyrights, and licensing, CU Innovations translates discovery into impact through transparent, flexible, best practice intellectual property management services. Located on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, CU Innovations provides access to an extensive portfolio of biomedical technologies, clinical validation opportunities, and resources for startup development. https://www.cuanschutz.edu/cu-innovations.

ClariCore is a trademark owned by the Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate, and is being used under license.
Myanmars third general election in six decades is scheduled to take place amid coronavirus pandemic. It is reportedly a landmark development for the country's democratic transition. According to reports, However, Myanmar is also currently facing a sudden and steep rise in activities related to drug trafficking, violence and terrorism.

Drug trafficking, violence and terrorism on the rise

As per reports, authorities in Myanmar only recently seized 711,000 stimulants, worth over 1.4 billion kyats (over 1 million U.S. dollars) in Shan state. The Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC) announced the seizure of the stimulants on June 13. In a similar incident, the authorities had confiscated narcotic drugs worth 459 million kyats (306,000 US dollars) from two Bangladeshi women in Rakhine State.

According to reports, Myanmars President office in a release claimed that a total of 1,169 drugs-related cases were registered across Myanmar as of June 6, 2020. And 1,811 people connected to those case have been charged by the Drug Activity Special Complaint Department that was formed in 2018.

Read: Canadian Pastor Held In Myanmar For Flouting Gathering Rule

Read: 12 Insurgents Handed Over By Myanmar, 206 Others Test COVID Negative In Manipur

As per reports, terror and violence incidents have also increased alongside drug trafficking in Myanmar. In the recent weeks, six Arakan National Party (ANP) members in Taungup Township of Myanmar's Southern Rakhine State have been brought up on charges under the countrys Terrorism Law.

The Arakan Army and the Myanmar government have been reportedly been engaged is some of the countrys most intense conflicts in years. Tensions between the government have shown no signs of easing even amid the coronavirus pandemic and the branding of the Arakan Army as terrorists by the government is expected to make matters worse.

Read: China Turns Tide In Myanmar Politics, Suu Kyi Expected To Win Upcoming November Elections

Read: Myanmar Factory Shows 'new Normal' Operations

The past 18 months have also seen an increase in both the level of violence and intensity of the conflicts causing the civilian toll of the conflict to grow. Rakhine State has already been devasted by a separate crisis which say 700,000 minority Rohingya flee from their homes into neighbouring Bangladesh.

(With ANI inputs) (Image source: Representative/Unsplash)
The Council for Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) on Monday informed the Bombay high court (HC) that Class 10 and Class 12 students (in India as well as abroad) will not be forced to appear for the remaining board exams.

The board informed the bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice SS Shinde that if students do not wish to appear for the pending exams in July, they will be issued final results on the basis of their performance in internal exams or pre-board exams, or based on the results of the subjects they have already appeared for in the board exam.

The board said this decision will be communicated to all the 2,605 schools affiliated to it in India as well as abroad, and the option of every student will be ascertained. The schools would have to inform the option chosen by all their students to the board by June 22.

The statements came in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate whose son is appearing for the Class 10 exam, seeking direction to the board to cancel the remaining papers and declare results on the basis of gradation, past performance and performance in the subjects for which exams have already been held.

The PIL stated that the board declared its examination schedule in last year in December and the exams started as scheduled on February 27. All the papers till March 18 were held according to the declared timetable. However, on March 18, the board rescheduled the remaining exams due to restrictions imposed in view of the Covid-19 outbreak.

On May 22, the board declared that the remaining papers of Class 10 will be held between July 2 and 12, while those of Class 12 will be held from July 1 to 14.

Earlier, CISCE was keen on holding exams for the remaining papers. In its reply to the PIL, the board had pointed out that on June 7, it held a video conferencing with principals of 196 of the 226 schools affiliated to it in Maharashtra, of whom 84 were in favour of holding exams for the remaining papers.

The bench has now sought a clarification from the Maharashtra government on the boards stand, and posted the petition for further hearing on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands filled the Place de la Republique in central Paris on Saturday afternoon to protest police violence and demand justice for the killings of George Floyd in the United States and Adama Traore, a French youth killed by police during an arrest in 2016.

The police reported a significantly understated count of 15,000 people in Paris, the figure that has been reported in the media. Twitter videosshow that the real number was in fact several times larger. The Committee for Adama Traore, which organized the protest, claims that 120,000 took part.

The demonstration at Place de la Republique

The protesters were overwhelmingly young and encompassed people of every skin color and ethnicity. Protests also took place of between several hundred and thousand in every major French city, many of them organized by local groups of high school students.

This was the second mass protest in as many weeks in France since the protest movement launched in the United States over the killing of George Floyd, which has triggered demonstrations of hundreds of thousands from Europe to New Zealand. The family of Adama Traore has called protests over the last four years against the cover-up of his killing.

The killing of Floyd also coincided with the handing down of a counter-report by a medical expert requested by the Traore family on June 2. The report, authored by an unnamed medical specialist at a Parisian hospital, concluded that Traore had died of a cardiac edema, which it indicated was caused by positional asphyxiation during Traores violent arrest by three policemen, who put him face down on his stomach as they arrested him.

Who will protect us from the police

Adamas sister, Assa Traore, spoke at the protest and called for a continued mobilisation to demand that the police officers who killer her brother be prosecuted.

The death of George Floyd, this African-American killed May 25 in Minneapolis by a white police officer directly echoes the death of my brother, she said. Today it is the French people that is denouncing these actions. It is not just the Traore family, it is not just the families of the victims. It is the French people. No matter where you come from, what is your religious background or gender; no one can remain a bystander towards a death or to racist and social violence.

Assa also stated that new information had come out about the police officers who had arrested Adama, specifically that one of the three involved in the arrest had personally arrested Adama on at least three or four other occasions. She added that the family would continue to refuse requests from the government to meet with them until charges had been laid against the police officers involved.

Samira

They also included immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. Samira, an 18-year-old engineering student from Ivory Coast, said she came to the protest because When I heard about what had happened to Adama, I said to myself this could have happened to me. As soon as you dont have your papers on you, you can never feel relaxed. You know the police can ask you at any moment. When I go out my mother calls me and asks me if Ive brought my papers with me.

As on June 2, the police prefect declared Saturdays protest illegal to prevent people from attending. The organisers had announced that they would march from Republique to the Opera house, but police cordoned off all the exits with steel barricades to prevent the march from occurring. Videos on social media also show groups of riot police brutally attacking individual protesters, while tear gas was used throughout the afternoon.

The Macron administration responded to the eruption of protests by doubling down in defence of the same police forces that it has used to attack yellow vest protesters and striking workers over the past three years.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner initially announced empty and meaningless reforms, including pledges to prevent police from using the chokehold and to suspend officers who commit racist acts.

Even these cosmetic proposals, which would do nothing to reduce the repressive actions of the police, were denounced by the police unions, who organized demonstrations against the government. By Friday, Castaner had announced that while the choke hold would no longer be taught in police training schools, an internal commission would be set up to decide upon an alternative method for conducting arrests, which would include the expanded provision of tasers to the police. He stated that his earlier statements were stupidities and that he had misspoken. Investigations of racist acts by the police would be conducted by the police themselves.

Justice for Adama Traore_ Breona Taylor and George Floyd

The entire political establishment, including its nominal left flank in the La France Insoumise (LFI) of Jean-Luc Melenchon, is hostile to any struggle against the police and the capitalist state. Melenchon has participated in all of the major protests in order to seek to channel them in harmless appeals for a restructuring or reorganization of the police.

Speaking at the Saturday protest, Melenchon told BFMTV: We have the right to dream of a society without a police. Its not a forbidden dream, its a beautiful dream, but it must remain only a dream. There must be a police everywhere, but organized, disciplined, obedient, and which does not organize itself like a fortress set apart.

Along similar lines, Melenchons fellow LFI leader Francois Ruffin had earlier declared that he considered his primary political responsibility to be to avoid a war, a pitched battle between the police and the population. The breach of trust [between them] is clear from the statistics. How do we restore it?

Melenchon and LFI speak as the class-conscious representatives of the financial elite. Their defence of the police forces is produced by their understanding of the social function of the police, as the bodies of armed men tasked with protecting the wealth and property of the financial oligarchy from a revolutionary challenge by the working class.

The racism and pro-fascist outlook that is prevalent in the police forces can only be understood as the outcome of this class function. While black and foreign-born workers are statistically more likely to be targeted by the police, police violence is directed against the poor and workers of every background and skin colour.

While around three dozen people are killed every year in France by police, a number that is several orders of magnitude greater are maimed and violently assaulted. For the past three years, the Macron administration has used the police to suppress opposition to its austerity agenda and social inequality. Moreover, while thousands were arrested during the yellow vest protests and during the railway strikes against Macrons pension reforms; dozens lost eyes and hands to rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

The ruling class is acutely aware that behind the eruption of multi-ethnic protests over the police killing of Floyd and Traore lies widespread and growing anger in the youth and working class over state violence, war, militarism, and social inequalityconditions that have been intensified by the criminally negligent response of the Macron administration to the coronavirus pandemic.

Le Monde reported on Wednesday, in an article entitled After the deconfinement, the Elysee fears a wave of revolt: We cannot lose the youth, that At the heart of the executive, no one hides anymore the fear of seeing a wave of revolt in the youth. If the United States are not France, the George Floyd affair serves as a vector of the poor conditions of the youngest section of the population.
(Newser)  President Trump is scheduled to host a campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, but he's receiving anything but a warm welcome from the local newspaper and the top local health official. In an editorial, the Tulsa World argues that "a mass indoor gathering of people pressed closely together and cheering" is a terrible idea amid the pandemic. The newspaper says its stance is not anti-Trump and would apply to Joe Biden or anyone else planning such an event. "There is no treatment for COVID-19 and no vaccine," write the editors. "It will be our health care system that will have to deal with whatever effects follow." On another point, the editorial notes that Tulsa was the site of a deadly race riot nearly a century ago, making it the "wrong place" for a Trump rally amid the George Floyd unrest.

story continues below

Meanwhile, the director of the Tulsa City-County Health Department voices a similar sentiment on the coronavirus front in an interview with the Tulsa World. "I think it's an honor for Tulsa to have a sitting president want to come and visit our community, but not during a pandemic," says Dr. Bruce Dart. "I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well." The context to all this worry: On Saturday, state health officials reported 225 new cases of COVID-19 in Oklahoma, the highest daily figure yet. (Trump pushed the rally back a day so it wouldn't conflict with Juneteenth.)
Bell & Evans, the big Lebanon County poultry processor, touts its credentials on its website. From humane animal welfare to our 100% air chilled method, everything we do adds up to healthier, more flavorful chicken. No antibiotics. No added water.

But none of those practices prevented dangerous salmonella bacteria from contaminating the companys high-end organic chicken, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

A concern for decades, salmonella sickens more than one million Americans a year and leads to 26,500 hospitalizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. However, it wont cause infection if meat is cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

The amount of salmonella USDA inspectors detected in Bell & Evans chicken parts and ground chicken grew from a safe level late last summer, when those products received the best rating of 1, to a level well above government targets by April, resulting in a rating of 3, the worst score. The companys whole chickens met the government standard.

Nobody wants to be at a 3. Im sure theyre moving mountains and hills to get back to 1, said Gregory Martin, a poultry expert from the Penn State Extension who has visited Bell & Evans processing center and and knows the longtime owners of the business, the Sechler family.

To protect consumers, the company must quickly determine the source of the salmonella and take appropriate action" to eradicate it, he said.

The USDA publishes processors salmonella scores online each month, but the government cannot take action against companies with bad ratings. Thats because a landmark 2001 U.S. Court of Appeals decision classified salmonella as a naturally occurring bacteria that cant be regulated.

Bell & Evans did not respond to requests for comment. The company has also been silent about a recent report in The Inquirer that described a growing coronavirus outbreak among workers that has killed at least three people and sickened untold more.

The largest private employer in Lebanon County, Bell & Evans has expanded rapidly across Fredericksburg, a small town, opening over the last five years a massive processing facility and a modern hatchery.

In February, the fast-growing poultry company announced plans to add two manufacturing lines, each processing 140 chickens a minute, the fastest speed allowed under federal law without special waivers.

The latest federal food inspection data available show that 15% of all chicken products rated by the government were given the lowest grades of 3, or 112 product lines in all. Bell & Evans was the only Pennsylvania processor with 3s for two different products in April. That same month, the large Tyson Foods processing plant in New Holland, Lancaster County, earned top safety ratings for its broilers and chicken parts.

Salmonella spreads through chicken waste. Experts say many factors contribute to a processors salmonella ratings: the use of anti-microbial chemicals during production, when the chicken gets inspected by investigators, the cleanliness of plant water, and what happens when the live birds are trucked to poultry plants for slaughter.

Because of Bell & Evans New Age chicken-processing techniques, the company has attracted consumers who are willing to pay more. McCaffreys Food Markets in Bucks County, for instance, stocks a full line of Bell & Evans products, pricing the chicken a third higher than other brands. Top-of-the-line Bell & Evans organic boneless chicken breasts cost $10.99 a pound at McCaffreys, similar to a good steak.

Chicken processors such as Bell & Evans typically respond quickly to improve salmonella scores, fearful of losing market share either with consumers not buying their product or grocery chains choosing new plants to source from, food experts say.

When told of Bell & Evans ratings, Bill Marler, a Seattle food-safety attorney who brought lawsuits after the deadly E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants in the early 1990s, said that whether its grass-fed or lives in a condo or is petted before you kill it, it has salmonella, and the "greater the concentration, the more likely you will get sick.
Students starting at a newly constructed Sydney primary school next term will be learning in classrooms custom-made in Victorian factories.

More than 95 per cent of Jordan Springs Public School has been built off-site under a pilot of a new construction method that can deliver permanent buildings in shorter time-frames.

It is part of the state government's $6.7 billion commitment to accommodate surging populations in NSW schools.

The $50 million Jordan Springs school is the first of five to be built using the Design for Manufacture and Assembly construction method, which involves architecturally designed buildings being constructed in factories for more sustainable and efficient project delivery.
Around 40 Malian troops were dead or listed as missing after their convoy was ambushed in central Mali, military sources said on Monday, blaming the assault on jihadists.

About a dozen vehicles came under attack on Sunday at Bouka Were, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Mauritanian border, a senior military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

It was the latest in a string of assaults by jihadists who unleashed a revolt in northern Mali in 2012 that has spread to Burkina Faso and Niger despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops.

Some of the vehicles were able to extricate themselves from the ambush, but of the 64 troops who had been in the convoy, only about 20 were present at a roll call, the source said.

"A search is under way to determine the fate of soldiers who have been listed missing," he said.

Another military officer and an official in the nearby town of Diabaly, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed his account.

The Islamist insurgency, mainly led by groups linked to Al-Qaeda or the so-called Islamic State group, has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Violence in recent months has engulfed central Mali, an ethnic mosaic where the state exercises little control and jihadist atrocities feed tit-for-tat assaults among rival communities.

The al-Qaeda-linked group Katiba Macina, led by an ethnic Fulani (Peul) called Amadou Koufa, is recruiting among the Fulani herding community, which has long been at odds with the Bambara and Dogon farming groups. These groups, in turn, have created their own "self-defence" organisations.

On Saturday, two Egyptian soldiers with the UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA were killed when their convoy came under attack in northwestern Mali, the United Nations said.

Keita under pressure

The violence has weakened the hand of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who is facing a rising clamour of protest and demands for political renewal.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in the capital Bamako on June 5 on the heels of demonstrations in May over the outcome of parliamentary elections, which the president won, as well as over coronavirus restrictions.

More protests have been scheduled for this Friday.

Keita, who has been in power since 2013 in the former French colony, on Sunday reached out to the coalition behind the protests, saying, "My door is open and my hand always extended."

After jihadist attacks surged in February, Keita broke with precedent to say that he was seeking to forge a dialogue with certain rebel leaders.

"The number of deaths in the Sahel is becoming exponential and it's time that certain paths be explored," he said in an interview with French media.

However, Keita said at the time of his announcement that he had not received a response from jihadist leaders, and indications have yet to emerge that any such dialogue has developed.
A stay-at-home mum has hit back at critics who claim New Zealand was only able to beat coronavirus 'because it's small'.

New Zealand has stunned the world with its ability to eliminate the deadly virus. The country has no active cases and has gone 24 days without any new cases.

However, some critics have claimed the country was only able to successfully eradicate the illness because of its size and relatively small population.

Wendy Lester decided to respond to the criticism by sharing a map on Twitter, along with a message, which read: 'Good morning from New Zealand. Here's one for all of you ''tiny island'' people who keep jumping into my timelines'.

Wendy Lester decided to respond to the criticism by sharing a map on Twitter along with a message, which read: 'Good morning from New Zealand. Here's one for all of you ''tiny island'' people who keep jumping into my timelines'

The map illustrated New Zealand's land mass when compared to countries in Europe.

It showed that the length of the country is comparable to the distance from north of Copenhagen to southern France in Europe.

New Zealand is about 1,600 km long and has a population of about 5 million people.

Hundreds of social media users have praised her for her classy response.

One person pointed out how Colorado, which is about the same size and has nearly the same population, has more than 29,130 coronavirus cases, including 1,348 deaths.

Another highlighted how Norway, which has a population of about 5million, has 8,138 cases, including 242 deaths.

'Our major difference is that we have Jacinda Ardern, who formed us into a cohesive team of 5 million,' one person wrote.

'So sick of those comments, it is trying to negate that we all went through lockdown. Just because they perceive us as small, that doesn't change that we isolated for 7 weeks,' another person wrote.

NZ has had 1,154 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since recording its first infected person on February 28 (pictured: A woman being tested for the virus)

One person pointed out how Colorado, which is about the same size, and has nearly the same population, has more than 29,130 cases, including 1,348 deaths

New Zealand ended its strict coronavirus lockdown rules last week after the country recorded zero active cases.

NZ has had 1,154 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since recording its first infected person on February 28.

Almost 300,000 tests have been carried out, 22 people have died.

Moving to alert level 1 allows weddings, funerals, hospitality and public transport to resume without any restrictions. New Zealand's borders will remain closed.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the country had 'united in unprecedented ways to crush the virus'.

NZ Prime Minitster Jacinda Ardern smiles after an art gallery reopened. New Zealand has completely eliminated coronavirus from within its borders after the final patient with the disease recovered in Auckland last week

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the country had 'united in unprecedented ways to crush the virus'

Ardern said the sacrifices made by New Zealanders, including a drastic seven-week lockdown that helped curb infection rates, had been rewarded now that there were no active cases in the country.

New Zealand was forced into a strict four-week lockdown in March to slow the spread of the deadly virus.

The country had already shut its borders on March 19.

The government implemented four-tier alert system where restrictions were slowly eased as the infection rate began to slow.

The first stage of the lockdown kept Kiwis inside their houses, except for trips for health reasons or the supermarket.
[June 15, 2020] No Trade Conference? No problem. MSA launches Digital Week to Bring New Safety Technology to Firefighters

BERLIN, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- While the Coronavirus pandemic has put many of our daily routines on hold, for a firefighter, life is never "on hold" as emergencies and natural disasters never stop. Accordingly, MSA Safety Incorporated (NYSE: MSA) today announced the kick-off of a week-long event  called MSA: Connected  that will use digital technologies to provide firefighters and first responders with the the latest information on various product and technology-based safety solutions. This free online training series is accessible via MSAsafety.com and will take place the 15th to 20th June. "The timing of MSA: Connected is not a coincidence," said Yohan Morel, MSA Senior Marketing Manager, First Responder, Europe. "Interschutz, the world's largest trade fair focusing on fire service and security, was originally scheduled for this week in Hannover, Germany. Because we recognize the value and knowledge our customers gain by attending conferences like this in person, our vision is to create a unique experience for customers that helps them stay connected with the latest in firefighter safety technology." Among the many activities scheduled are a series of live webinars that offer participants the opportunity to connect directly with MSA safety technology experts. Topics for these sessions include voice communications, technology standards, best practices to help reduce contamination risk, among many others. The full MSA: Connected schedule is as follows:



15 June: "Changing Requirements for Firefighters." Learn why the right self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) is crucial for firefighter health and safety.

16 June: "Improve communication in the most dangerous environment." Learn how voice communication solutions from MSA can help help firefighters stay connected on the fireground.

17 June: "Stay at the forefront of safety, technology, and standards." Learn more about the modular design of MSA's M1 SCBA.

17 June: "Experience better physical protection." The M1 SCBA was developed with intelligent ergonomics, learn more about how it can be customized to provide enhanced physical protection.

18 June: "Best practices to help reduce firefighter risk." Learn how the unique features of MSA's M1 SCBA allow for a deeper, more efficient clean and easy service and maintenance without compromising on safety.

19 June: "Be ready for the future of breathing protection." Want to know what's coming next? Be sure to tune in for an outlook on the future of firefighting technologies. All MSA: Connected digital week activities will be held in both English and German. For more information and to register, please visit https://gb.msasafety.com/msa-connected. About MSA Safety

Established in 1914, MSA Safety Incorporated is the global leader in the development, manufacture and supply of safety products that protect people and facility infrastructures. Many MSA products integrate a combination of electronics, mechanical systems and advanced materials to protect users against hazardous or life-threatening situations. The company's comprehensive product line is used by workers around the world in a broad range of markets, including the oil, gas and petrochemical industry, the fire service, the construction industry, mining and the military. MSA's core products include self-contained breathing apparatus, fixed gas and flame detection systems, portable gas detection instruments, industrial head protection products, firefighter helmets and protective apparel, and fall protection devices. With 2019 revenues of $1.4 billion, MSA employs approximately 5,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered north of Pittsburgh in Cranberry Township, Pa., and has manufacturing operations in the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. With more than 40 international locations, MSA realizes approximately half of its revenue from outside North America. For more information visit MSA's web site at www.MSAsafety.com. Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190526/MSA_Connected_Digital_Week.jpg

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While no coronavirus vaccine has received approval as of yet, companies from across the globe have joined the search. Some companies such as Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have made headlines due to their progress in the research. Johnson & Johnson expects a corona vaccine to be approved by 2021, while AstraZeneca has signed a deal to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, closer home, Patanjali Ayurveda has said that they have found an Ayurveda cure for coronavirus.

Here's a look at the updates from coronavirus vaccine and drugs development from across the world:

INDIA

CEO of Patanjali Ayurveda Acharya Balkrishna said that the company has developed an Ayurveda medicine that has cured coronavirus patients within a span of five to 14 days. Balkrishna said that the trial was conducted on hundreds of patients and that the medicine has yielded "100 per cent favourable results".

"We appointed a team of scientists after the Covid-19 outbreak. First, the simulation was done and compounds were identified which can fight the virus and stop its spread in the body. Then, we conducted a clinical case study on hundreds of positive patients and we have got 100 per cent favourable results," said Balkrishna.

Also read: Coronavirus cure: Gilead signs pacts with 4 more firms for manufacturing of remdesivir

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry has included the use of antiviral drug Remdesivir as part of its investigational therapy for restricted emergency use. "As is the case with other anti-virals, this drug should be used as early in the disease course as possible to achieve any meaningful effect and should be avoided in patients with severe disease," the document read, further adding, "Use of these drugs is subjected to limited availability in the country as of now. Currently, these drugs should only be used in a defined subgroup of patients."

Meanwhile, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has also said that a coronavirus vaccine is likely to be discovered soon. "The corona crisis will not last long. Our scientists and scientists in other countries are working day and night to develop the vaccine. I am confident that we will get the vaccine very soon," Gadkari said on Sunday.

GLOBAL

AstraZeneca has signed a contract with European governments to supply 400 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine, developed by Oxford, is under the trial phases. When approved, deliveries could start as soon as the end of 2020. "This will ensure that hundreds of millions of people in Europe will have access to this vaccine, of course if it works and we will know that by the end of summer," company's chief executive, Pascal Soriot said. The deal has been signed with Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), a group formed by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to ensure that vaccine doses are available for all the member states as soon as possible.

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: Moderna to start final phase in July; AstraZeneca signs $87 million deal

Johnson & Johnson said that they are hopeful of receiving the green signal for the coronavirus vaccine by as early as 2021. Human clinical trial of the Johnson & Johnson corona vaccine candidate would begin by the end of July. "We remain committed to global access to our vaccine and are in discussions with many partners around the world to make this a reality. There is a lot of capacity in India. So, we are actively exploring what we can do all over the world, but a very logical place for capacity is India," said chief scientific officer Paul Stoffels to The Economic Times.

China's Sinovac has said that the coronavirus vaccine shot is safe and effective as it has successfully elicited immune responses during human trials. No side-effects have been caused and more than 90 per cent of people have induced neutralising antibodies two weeks after inoculation, the company said in a statement. The preliminary findings have come from trials in China that included 743 healthy people aged from 18 to 59 years.

Israel is in talks with Moderna to buy its coronavirus vaccine that is entering the final stage of testing, as mentioned in a Reuters report. However, the ministry spokesperson declined to comment. Moderna plans to start trials including 30,000 volunteers in July.

Also read: Coronavirus vaccine: Johnson & Johnson to start human trials in July; Eli Lilly aims to release drug by Sept
Consider, for example, an employer with two employees, both of whom are attracted to men. The two individuals are, to the employers mind, materially identical in all respects, except that one is a man and the other a woman. If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague.
Employees make face masks on a production line at a glove factory, which has started producing face masks as overseas orders for masks at an all time high amid the coronavirus outbreak, on May 16, 2020 in Shenyang, Liaoning Province of China.

As the coronavirus was lashing Louisiana last month, hospital workers in the small town of Monroe lined up before work for a free lunch from a nearby steakhouse  paid for by the Chinese government.

When the meals arrived in a big white truck, a local newspaper photographer was on hand to capture the moment as health care workers, still in scrubs, held up signs with big red hearts. The Chinese Consulate in Houston, working with a local World War II museum, had donated meals for everyone at Monroe's St. Francis Medical Center, which had been hit hard by COVID-19.

"Thank you for everything," a health care worker tells the Chinese Consulate in a video posted to Facebook.

Critics say the donations, while genuinely needed by the communities receiving them, come with strings attached in the form of propaganda value for China's government, just as President Donald Trump and China's government are locked in an escalating blame game over the virus, its origins and Beijing's response.

The displays of generosity to struggling communities are routinely accompanied by ribbon-cutting events with local officials, covered widely by Chinese state-run media outlets in multiple languages and showcased by the consulates and China's government on social media.

"We are absolutely being manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party," said Wisconsin state Senate President Roger Roth, whose state has been the subject of repeated overtures from China's consulate in Chicago. "We're in the middle of a crisis, and we're looking for whatever we can to help us through it, but there is a hidden agenda."

Roth, a Republican, said he became aware of China's attempts to shape the public narrative of the coronavirus in Wisconsin when Chinese diplomats asked him to pass a resolution praising China's response to the pandemic  a request he declined. He said other legislators have told him about being approached by Chinese officials about donations of personal protective equipment.

China's consulate in Chicago donated 10,000 masks last month in a ceremony in Chinatown attended by a state lawmaker. There was a similar ceremony in Redwood City, California, in front of a stack of boxes of protective equipment donated by the nearby San Francisco consulate, as well as an online ceremony in May to celebrate a donation of protective equipment to a Texas hospital organized by the Houston consulate.

"These things are always two-sided. There is a little bit of altruism, but because China is an authoritarian regime, they handle public relations differently," said China expert Anja Manuel, a former State Department official who runs the Aspen Security Forum. "Underneath it is a pretty transparent effort for China to be seen more positively."

More from NBC News:

China has carried out a similar strategy  burnishing its reputation through massive donations of protective equipment and ventilators  around the world since the pandemic broke out in what has become known as "mask diplomacy." The strategy has strong echoes of China's Belt and Road Initiative to invest hundreds of billions in infrastructure in countries across the developing world that then become beholden or indebted to Beijing, both financially and politically.

Two senior U.S. officials said the U.S. government has long been concerned about the political activity of Chinese consulates to target local communities and their leaders with propaganda. But they said the U.S. can't do much to stop it if Chinese officials aren't breaking the law.

"It's happening all across the country," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the National Governors Association in February. "Chinese consulates in New York, in Illinois, in Texas, and two in California, bound by the diplomatic responsibilities and rights of the Vienna Convention, are very politically active at the state level, as is the embassy right here in Washington, D.C."

A senior official said Beijing's donations of protective equipment around the world reflect how China's government is trying to persuade people that it's "rescuing people from a fire they started," referring to the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. There are also concerns about the quality of the materials donated by China, two U.S. officials said.

"There are several well-documented examples of the Chinese Communist Party exploiting its aid for propaganda purposes," a State Department official said, adding that the U.S. enthusiastically welcomes "high-quality, transparent, no-strings-attached contributions from foreign donors."

China's embassy in Washington didn't respond to several requests for comment. But as Trump has increasingly cast blame for Covid-19 on China, its diplomats have been stressing the need for the countries to cooperate to counter what they say is a surge in racist or xenophobic attacks targeting Chinese people in the U.S.

"China is doing whatever it can to support the United States and other countries in need," China's ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, wrote in an op-ed in April in The New York Times.

The consulates' activity has also attracted the attention of Congress, where several Republican senators have introduced legislation to potentially punish China with sanctions over its handling of the coronavirus.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a China hawk, said the donations by the consulates were China's attempt to push a "pretend narrative."

"Its current effort to provide aid to U.S. cities and counties is part of a broader global strategy to portray China as a leader on the response to the Covid-19 pandemic they caused," Rubio told NBC News.

The United States is also spending billions of dollars to donate coronavirus supplies to other countries, including thousands of ventilators the U.S. Agency for International Development is sending to Russia, India and South Africa. The State Department official pointed out that the U.S. has also provided assistance to China during the pandemic.

In New York, China's massive consulate along the Hudson River coordinated the Chinese government's donation of 1,000 ventilators, earning televised praise from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who called it a "big deal." The consulate said groups from China had donated 600,000 more masks, gloves and other supplies to New York, as well as to other states in the region.

In February, the New York consulate held a virtual handover ceremony for donated supplies via Zoom and got New York City's international affairs commissioner, Penny Abeywardena, to participate. Chinese state media covered the ceremony, quoting Abeywardena as thanking China and pledging not to "tolerate any harassment or discrimination of your community here."

China scholars said other donations from the Chinese government have been routed through "sister cities" and states  such as Wisconsin, which got 10,000 masks and 1,000 gowns from China's Heilongjiang Province.
Vigilante groups have threatened to "retake" the independent zone in Seattle where protesters have set up barricades to keep police out.

An event promoted on Facebook suggests more than 500 bikers plan to attack the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which they say is "illegally occupying public property and terrorising small businesses".

The zone, established a week ago, covers a six-block area surrounding the abandoned East Precinct police station. Some protesters are camping overnight and first aid stations, food stalls and sound systems have been set up.

The Facebook event, hosted by Prntly, a pro-Trump site, and scheduled for July 4, refers to protesters as "communist kids" and suggests that non-bikers with other vehicles could also join in.

Tweets and articles posted online have threatened the involvement of the Hell's Angels and Mongols motorcycle gangs, though it is not clear how credible these are.

Across the US, cars and lorries have been used as weapons during the wave of nationwide protests. Cars have been driven into crowds during two protests in Seattle, with some injuries reported.

The zone has become a target for pro-Trump social media users, who have called the protesters "terrorists" and claim they represent "Antifa", the loose affiliation of left-wing groups that has been blamed for the protests spreading across the US.

Right-wing vigilantes have posted pictures and videos online claiming to have "infiltrated" the zone, which is blocked off to traffic but is not performing checks on visitors.

While Mr Trump has threatened to "take back" the zone, Seattle's politicians have been more conciliatory.

Jenny Durkan, the Democratic mayor who visited the area last week, told the president "go back to your bunker" and said sending in the army would be unconstitutional.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
The airline strictly complies with current safety and healthy procedures including measuring passengers and crews body temperature, social distancing at the airport and on-board the flights. Passengers are required to wear the face mask throughout the journey.

Currently, Thai Vietjet is operating stable flight operation covering Thailand domestic network including routes between Bangkok and Chiang Mai/ Chiang Rai/ Phuket/ Krabi/ Udon Thani. Passengers are recommended to check the regulations and procedures upon arrival of each destination city and airports for smooth entry. The airline also continuously increases flight schedules and extends its network in response to rising demand.

Earlier, Thai Vietjet has offered 1-year complimentary travel to front line medical staff, including all members of Thai Covid-19 Prevention & Control Committee and all doctors and nurses of 160 appointed hospitals for treatment of Covid-19 patients in Thailand as a way to appreciate the heroes who have been working hard to prevent and control the outbreak until the situation is recovered.



The new-age carrier Vietjet has not only revolutionized the aviation industry in Vietnam but also been a pioneering airline across the region and around the world. With a focus on cost management ability, effective operations and performance, Vietjet offers flying opportunities with cost-saving and flexible fares as well as diversified services to meet customers demands. Vietjet is a fully-fledged member of International Air Transport Association (IATA) with the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certificate. As Vietnams largest private carrier, the airline was awarded the highest ranking for safety with 7 stars in 2018 and 2019 by the worlds only safety and product rating website airlineratings.com and listed as one of the world's 50 best airlines for healthy financing and operations by Airfinance Journal in 2018 and 2019.



The airline has also been named as Best Low-Cost Carrier by renowned organizations such as Skytrax, CAPA, Airline Ratings, and many others.

Kieu Duong
What would carers prefer? A nationwide clap to mark the 72nd birthday of the NHS or a living wage and guaranteed regular hours?

Im betting on the latter. While the claps that have taken place up and down Britain were well intentioned  and well deserved, given that some of the workers being applauded were, and sometimes still are, literally risking their lives  they havent yet changed the fact that 1.3 million of the recipients were in insecure work paying less than the real living wage.

By that, I refer to whats calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, based on what a worker requires to fund a decent basic standard of living. It currently stands at 9.30 an hour in most of the UK, 10.75 in London to reflect the higher cost of living in the capital.
Ghanaian Musician Shatta Wale says most female musicians have managers who sleep with them, threaten them, and beats them.

According to the musicians, who was speaking on United Showbiz show with host Nana Ama Mcbrown on Despite Medias UTV, female musicians have to cultivate the Shatta Wale spirit because he believes in the realities of life.

He advised the musicians to speak when they are in a path that is not right. "If you are a female musician and you find a path thats not right I believe you should speak about it, like most of them they have managers who are sleeping with them, giving them warnings, threats and even beating them, he stated.

He lamented that most female musicians have a lot of relationship problems and the fact that their manager put fears in them.

He added that women are soft and need to be given that encouragement because without that you nail them down.
The central teams visit comes following a demand for a special package for Maharashtra due to the heavy destruction caused by the cyclone

The central team, led by IAS Ramesh Kumar Ganta, will visit the Nisarga cyclone-affected parts in coastal Konkan region of Maharashtra from Monday and assess the damage caused by the storm during its two-day tour. After its study, the team will submit its report to the Centre.

Mr Ganta is the joint secretary and advisor of National Disaster Management Authority. His team will also have officials from the union rural development, finance, energy and agriculture departments.

The central teams visit comes on the backdrop of a demand for a special package for Maharashtra due to the heavy destruction caused by the cyclone. The Centre is likely to announce the aid after studying the report from the central team.

The Nisarga cyclone, which had made landfall in Raigad district on June 3, caused massive damages in parts of Raigad and Ratnagiri. It left a trail of destruction as many trees were uprooted and several houses damaged due to gusty winds causing heavy losses to people. Six people lost their lives due to the natural disaster.

The central team will land in Mumbai on June 15 and will head to Raigad district the next day to visit areas like Alibaug, Chaul, Murud and Shrivardhan. On June 17 it will inspect Dapoli and Mandangad areas in Ratnagiri district, said officials.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, after visiting the cyclone affected areas, has announced an immediate relief of Rs 100 crore, Rs 75 crore and Rs 25 crore to Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts respectively.
A police sergeant has been sacked and at least 17 other officers are under investigation over the sale of a t-shirt that reads: 'Don't wanna get shot, don't stab a cop'.

The 'highly inappropriate' shirts which also have the hashtag 'Blue Lives Matter' were printed by a 61-year-old Northern Territory officer who was dismissed on Wednesday.

The shirts refer to the death of Indigenous man, Kumanjayi Walker, 19, who was shot by police in November.

NT Police Constable Zachary Rolfe, 28, was charged with one count of murder over the shooting and has pleaded not guilty.

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

Rolfe's lawyers claim he and his partner were stabbed by Mr Walker before they shot him, the NT News reported.

One of the officers under investigation over the shirt is the 19-year-old son of the former police sergeant.

The other officers have been given notices over their knowledge or involvement in distributing the shirts.

Some of the police involved are believed to have purchased the singlets.

In a statement at the time NT Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker condemned the 'highly inappropriate content'.

The singlet referred to the fatal police shooting of indigenous 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker (pictured) in Yuendumu in 2019

'[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.'

NT Police Constable Zachary Rolfe, 28, (pictured receiving 2018 Clarke Medal from then Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrovewas) was charged with one count of murder over the shooting last November but intends to plead not guilty

Indigenous man David Cole shared a photo of the singlet and told National Indigenous TV at the time it 'exacerbates the trauma we feel when dealing with police.'

NT Police have confirmed the investigation is ongoing and a 'number of officers' have been 'directed to provide a response to allegations'.

It comes after protests erupted across the world following the death of unarmed, African American George Floyd who died in police custody.

Over the weekend marches were held in Darwin calling for an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody.
By Catarina Demony and Sergio Goncalves

LISBON (Reuters) - Negotiations between Portugal and Britain on an "air bridge" that would allow British tourists to dodge a mandatory COVID-19 quarantine upon returning home are still in progress and going well, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Monday.

Portugal's tourism-dependent economy has been hard hit by the pandemic and lockdowns at home and abroad, and authorities are trying to save at least part of the crucial summer season.

Britain, its leading source of tourism, introduced a 14-day self-isolation rule for travellers arriving from abroad on June 8, including returning nationals.

"Talks are going well," Costa told a news conference with foreign media, adding that Britons travelling to Portugal should feel safe. "We are working towards an agreement and will wait for it to happen."

Portugal has been hailed as a success story in its fight against the virus, but localised outbreaks in and around Lisbon have kept cases at a worrying plateau in their hundreds per day for the past month.

In 2019, more than 16 million foreign tourists visited Portugal, almost 20% of them from Britain.

The tourism sector accounts for nearly 15% of Portugal's gross domestic product and was one of the main drivers of its recovery from the 2010-14 economic and debt crisis.

Costa also said on Monday the European Commission's recovery plan, worth 750 billion euros ($845 billion), was robust and balanced enough to help tackle the impact of the crisis.

"Our opinion is the Commission's proposal is timely and smart," he said.

The plan aims to help economically weaker countries hit worst by the coronavirus to recover at a more equal pace with the stronger ones, preserving the unity of the European Union's single market.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Andrew Cawthorne)
Human remains found in a remote dam belong to a missing three-year-old Kaydence Mills

Human remains found in a remote dam belong to a missing three-year-old Kaydence Mills.

Detectives found the bones at Chinchilla Weir, about 300km west of Brisbane, in March.

Police announced on Monday that forensic testing proved the remains belonged to Kaydence, who went missing four years ago.

Her mother Sinitta Dawita, 28, and her fiance Tane Desatge, 40, were charged in February with one count each of murder, interfering with a corpse and torture.

Desatge is not the toddler's father but was in a relationship with Dawita at the time of the alleged murder.

The charges stemmed from a police investigation, that began in November 2019, into what happened to the little girl.

Kaydence was last seen in 2016, but police did not start searching for her until last year after members of her family expressed their concern to a guidance counsellor at the local school in Chinchilla.

Sinitta Dawita (left), 28, and her fiance Tane Desatge, 40, are accused of murdering her daughter Kaydence Dawita Mills (right)

Desatge is not the toddler's father but was in a relationship with Dawita at the time of the alleged murder.

Prior to the discovery of Keydence's bones, police also searched a Chinchilla home, where they excavated the backyard.

Cadaver dogs were used in the search, but no remains were not found

Some of Kaydence's family members described her to as a 'beautiful little girl' who walked with a limp.

Kaydence was the middle sibling of five children.

'There's a little girl and she's missing and we don't know what's happened to her,' the family member previously told the Daily Mercury.

'It needs to be brought out of the dark because it's been hidden in the dark for too long.'

Dawita and Desatge remain in custody and are expected to front the Dalby Magistrates Court later this month for a mention.

Crime Stoppers 1800 333 000
U.S.-Indicted Dealmaker For Venezuela's Maduro Detained On Way To Iran

By RFE/RL June 14, 2020

A Colombian businessman indicted by U.S. authorities as the chief money launder for Nicolas Maduro's regime in Venezuela has been detained in the African island archipelago of Cape Verde.

Alex Saab was detained on June 12 as his San Marino-registered jet made a refueling stop in Cape Verde on its way from Caracas to Iran.

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said on June 13 that Saab was arrested in Cape Verde on an Interpol red notice.

Maria Dominguez, Saab's U.S.-based attorney, confirmed his arrest.

The United States has no extradition treaty with Cape Verde and it was not immediately clear what would happen next.

The U.S. government accuses Saab of being the front man for a vast network of money laundering and corruption in Venezuela through shell companies in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Hong Kong, Panama, Colombia, and Mexico.

The U.S. Justice Department in July 2019 indicted Saab and another businessman for bribing Venezuelan officials and diverting some $350 million to overseas accounts.

The U.S. Treasury Department has also put sanctions on Saab for running a vast corruption network for a food-aid program that lined the pockets of the Maduro regime, which has overseen the economic collapse of the oil-rich country.

U.S. officials say the food scheme also includes Maduro's stepchildren as well as 13 companies in various countries.

"Saab engaged with Maduro insiders to run a wide-scale corruption network they callously used to exploit Venezuela's starving population," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in July 2019 while announcing the sanctions.

"They use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all the while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a number of fraudulent schemes."

More recently, Saab is suspected of getting involved in the oil business by helping Maduro buy fuel oil and supplies from Iran in exchange for gold in order to get around U.S. sanctions on both countries.

In May, Iran sent Venezuela several tankers of fuel oil that the U.S. government and Venezuelan opposition say were purchased with gold and by shell companies controlled by Saab.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza denounced the "arbitrary and illegal detention" of Saab, who he said was acting on behalf of the Venezuelan government to procure food, medicine, and other supplies to help the country against the coronavirus pandemic.

The Venezuelan opposition, headed by Juan Guaido -- who is recognized by dozens of countries including the United States as Venezuela's interim president -- welcomed Saab's arrest.

"Colombian boss Alex Saab is the main figurehead of the dictatorship; he manages opaque [Venezuelan state oil company] PDVSA businesses, gold, food, alliance with Iran, relations with cartels, and protects ill-gotten money from Maduro and [Maduro's wife] Cilia Flores," Julio Borges, a top opposition figure close to Guaido, said on Twitter.

"His capture is a hard blow to the structure of the regime, it shows that Venezuelans are not alone and that there is no future with Maduro, not even for those who support him," he said.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/maduro-venezuela-money -laundering-iran-/30669592.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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HOUSTON, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- KBR (NYSE: KBR) announced today it has been awarded a $570.3 million contract by NASA to develop and execute spaceflight operations at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. With this award, KBR has earned a sizeable footprint at Marshall providing highly technical, mission-focused, high-impact services. The cost-plus-award-fee contract has one base year followed by seven years of options and includes an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity component.

Under the Marshall Operations, Systems, Services and Integration (MOSSI) contract, KBR will perform International Space Station payload operations and support testing of the most powerful rocket ever builtthe Space Launch System. The work will support spacecraft, payload, satellite and propulsion systems operations, as well as multi-program facilities, including the Huntsville Operations Support Center, and is an exciting addition to our International Space Station operations work at Johnson Space Center.

KBR will provide the management, personnel, equipment and supplies for around-the-clock mission operations and ground systems development services. The company's work will bolster numerous NASA programs, payload developers, educational institutions, international partner space agencies and commercial partners.

"KBR is thrilled to have won this competitive bid to partner with Marshall Space Flight Center," said Stuart Bradie, KBR President and CEO. "This long-term contract further enhances our prominence in supporting space operations and we look forward to working with the amazing people at Marshall to advance their missions. This award demonstrates our ability to expand our portfolio and fuel continued organic growth."

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.

KBR provides space and mission solutions for astronaut training and health, satellite and human spaceflight ground control, mission operations, extravehicular activity support and more. As part of its work, it executes International Space Station operations, performing real-time human spaceflight command and control 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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

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The governor of Khuzestan in Iran has denied that the Islamic Republic security forces killed dozens of protesters during the widespread anti-regime unrest in November in a marshland near the city of Mahshahr.

Dismissing the mass killing as "fake news," Gholamreza Shari'ati said, "We have never had such thing as marshland [incident]."

"The marshland that they refer to is fundamentally a fake issue; it is an essentially false case in fact. We have never had a marshland issue or similar events," Shari'ati told the state-run Ensaf News on Instagram, Monday, June 15.

The mid-November protests shook more than 100 cities across Iran, including the city of Mahshahr in the oil-rich Khuzestan province.

Based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) forces stormed the township of Chamran and surrounding roads in Mahshahr on November 18, 2019.

As the protesters ran away and took refuge in a nearby marshland, the IRGC forces, armed with heavy machine guns, chased and showered them with bullets.

Numerous reports have been published so far about the massacre, including by Radio Farda and the New York Times.

Even the representative of Mahshahr in parliament rose up screaming and crying during a session in November about the widespread killings.

While providing shocking details of the attack, an eyewitness told Radio Farda that none of the people who had taken refuge in the marshland survived.

Nonetheless, Shari'ati, the controversial governor of Khuzestan has reiterated that such an event never happened, and there had been no "marshland" clashes.

Branding those who have reported about the massacre as "malicious" individuals with "grudges" against the country and its regime, Shariati maintained, "these people have problems with the establishment."

Dismissing all accounts and details so far given about the massacre, Shari'ati claimed, "We asked them to name fifty out of the 300 presumed dead in the event; give us forty names, identify thirty of them [but received no response]."

However, when Ensaf News interviewer challenged the Governor to disclose the death toll, Shariati notes, "I cannot do that. The relevant and responsible entities will finally announce the number, if necessary. But the event is fake and non-existent."

Nonetheless, Amnesty International (AI) notes that the death toll in the November protests is high, adding that it gradually releases the names of people confirmed killed during the protest rallies.

So far, AI has published the names of thirty people killed in Mahshahr and said that its investigation is underway to identify the other victims.

In the meantime, Reuters cited sources within the Islamic Republic's government as saying that the total number of deaths in November protests across Iran was estimated at 1,500.

However, Islamic Republic officials have denied the Reuters report as well as all other reports. Recently some officials mentioned figures around 200 or less, but so far no official numbers have been released.
The death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput on Sunday afternoon has opened the conversations around mental health conversations, which otherwise is still considered a stigma in our society.

With many people coming forward open about their battles with depression and mental illness, Bengaluru-based actor, radio host and comedian Danish Sait, too, opened up about his story of 'therapy and anti-depressants'.

Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone who has been vocal about her mental health, called it "heartening" to see people sharing their experience with mental illness as she came across Sait's account.

It is extremely heartening to see soo many of you coming out and sharing your experience with mental illness. https://t.co/BDArEVZ36b Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) June 15, 2020

Padukone, in another tweet, however, urged netizens to avoid naming their prescribed medication as it wouldn't fit all and had the potential to be misused by others. The actor was referring to one of Sait's tweets where he had mentioned a particular drug that he had been prescribed to him by his doctor.

However,I would recommend not naming the medication you are on and/or the specifics of the dosage.Simply because:-it is not a one rule fits all.- the information could potentially be misused. https://t.co/uDDjoZgvNb Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) June 15, 2020

Read: A Spike in Google Search for 'Depression Symptoms' After Sushant Singh Rajput's Death

In a Twitter thread, the actor wrote, "Depression doesnt look like anything, it makes you feel like nothing from within. Hard to describe, harder to understand. Doctors / professionals have been my only hope."

My 3rd year through therapy and anti depressants, I dont sleep at night without taking my cipralex tablet. Depression doesnt look like anything, it makes you feel like nothing from within. Hard to describe, harder to understand. Doctors / professionals have been my only hope.  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

On Google, people searched for 'depression symptoms' after the Mumbai police said they suspect Sushant Singh Rajput's died by suicide. The 34-year-old actor's demise has sent shocks in the entire film industry and got social media again to talk about mental illness including anxiety, stress, depression, suicidal thoughts and so on.

In a subsequent tweet, the comedian wrote, "Our trigger points are very different, for some its professional, some its personal. Sometimes, theres just nothing but a hollow feeling." He added that this entire feeling is like a "gas chamber where its hard to live and breathe. Medical help is the bomb! Do it, even if theres nothing wrong with you, its helpful."

Our trigger points are very different, for some its professional, some its personal. Sometimes, theres just nothing but a hollow feeling. A gas chamber where its hard to live and breathe. Medical help is the bomb! Do it, even if theres nothing wrong with you, its helpfu  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

He wrote that once you spend time with therapists and you realise theres a science to living life. "There are techniques that help us deal with everyday bull, people / situations / conversations cause trauma, cant blame them for being them, instead we work on ourselves to navigate around problems."

Danish described how a broken hand can never be fixed by a mechanic next door. Similarly, a broken mind needs a professional tool. "Self-fixing is hard,simple truth is were barely aware of ourselves," he said.

Spend time with therapists and you realise theres a science to living life. There are techniques that help us deal with everyday bull, people / situations / conversations cause trauma, cant blame them for being them, instead we work on oursvelves to navigate around problems.  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

A broken hand cant be fixed by a mechanic next door, it needs a professional. A broken mind needs a professional too. Self fixing is hard,simple truth is were barely aware of ourselves.  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

Emphasising on the importance of mental health awareness, Danish wrote, "Awareness to a problem is half the solution to a problem, my brain doesnt produce enough chemicals that keep me balanced, I induce them, it works for me. I work out, it works for me, I speak, it works for me. Fix yourself! Dont be shy, its all cool "

Awareness to a problem is half the solution to a problem, my brain doesnt produce enough chemicals that keep me balanced, I induce them, it works for me. I work out, it works for me, I speak, it works for me. Fix yourself! Dont be shy, its all cool  Danish Sait (@DanishSait) June 15, 2020

Read: Stop Using 'Commits Suicide' When Reporting on Sushant Singh's Death. It Implies Criminality

Danish's thoughts resonated with my many, who came forward to show their support for the actor and delved into a further discussion around mental health issues.

 Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) June 15, 2020

Im in the same boat. And I cant tell you how many people have tried to act as though I am doing something shameful because I am on medication, like cipralex is something evil  Anirban Blah (@anirbanblah) June 15, 2020

I wish I could help you.  Rajanikantha (@TalkToSpirits) June 15, 2020

More than anything you have done & said (yes, even more than the Mozzi bhaiiya-behen & bevarsi kudka) , I respect you for being open about this. Must have taken a lot to say this.   Sabina Basha (@SabinaBasha) June 15, 2020

More power to you Danish! Thank you for making us smile while fighting your own demons all this while.   TweetsByShrey (@amishrey) June 15, 2020

Incidentally, Danish has been the reason for many of our laughter during the lockdown as everyone was forced to be cooped up in homes to protect ourselves from the Coronavirus. His lockdown humour that was relatable gave the giggles to many. Danish's story is yet another reminder that too often we don't know what's behind that smile, behind that joke.

READ: Bengaluru Comedian is Making People Smile in Times of Stress

Note: This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).
As part of measures put in place by government to ensure that Ghanaians are duly informed on the right things to do during the COVID-19 pandemic, President Akufo-Addo addresses the nation as and when the need arises.

Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

The addresses which are mostly recorded and televised have taken a particular trend where it is broadcast in the evening.

The president in his latest address on June 14, 2020, which happened to be the 11th, made some very key points.

In case you missed it, YEN.com.gh has listed 10 highlights from the president's address.

READ ALSO: Nana Addo lists Ghanaian foods to help fight against COVID-19

1. Final year university students to return to school.

2. SHS students to return to school.

3.Schools to operate with half class size.

4. Still no mass gatherings as students return to school.

5. Veronica buckets and other relevant stuff to be provided at schools.

6. Increase in COVID-19 numbers indicates that the virus continues to spread.

7. Latest update on Ghana's case count.

8. Ghana has one of the lowest death rates in Africa.

9. President Akufo-Addo paid tribute to Takoradi Mayor who lost his life to the virus.

10. He also wished Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu a speedy recovery.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: 54 people have died from virus so far; 11,964 cases recorded

Meanwhile, President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday, June 14, 2020, announced that 54 COVID-19 patients have died so far in Ghana.

In his 11th COVID-19 address to the nation, President Akufo-Addo said the countrys case count has also shot up to 11,964 with 4,258 recoveries.

According to the president, the country has a total of 4,258 patients who have fully recovered and have been discharged and are now free of the virus.

READ ALSO: Ken Agyapong explains how he made his first million dollars at age 36 in 1996

Parts of Accra flooded after hours of rain | #Yencomgh

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Source: YEN.com.gh
Dirtiest cities (population of over 10 lakh) | Number 5: North Delhi, Delhi

The number of COVID-19 cases climbed by over 10,000 and breached the 40,000-mark in just six days in Delhi.

An average of over 1,600 fresh cases were reported on a daily basis during the period, a sharp spike from the 79 days it took to reach the 10,000-mark, according to a data analysis done by the Delhi government.

It took eight days for the number of cases to rise from 20,000 to 30,000, while the national capital took 13 days for the tally to progress from 10,000 to 20,000.

On June 9, the number of cases crossed the 30,000-mark and on June 14, it crossed the 40,000-mark.

Delhi recorded 2,224 fresh coronavirus cases in the highest single-day spike, taking the tally to over 41,000, while the death toll due to the disease mounted to 1,327 on June 14.

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

Follow our LIVE blog for the latest updates of the novel coronavirus pandemic

On June 13, the national capital had 38,958 cases, including 2,134 fresh ones, while the number of fatalities was 1,271. On June 12, the national capital had recorded the highest single-day spike of 2,137 cases, which had taken the tally to 36,824, while the death toll was 1,214.

On June 11, the national capital had recorded the highest single-day spike of 1,877 new cases, which took the tally to 34,687.

The previous highest single-day spike was on June 3, when the city witnessed 1,513 fresh coronavirus cases.

The national capital reported its first COVID-19 case on March 1, when a businessman in East Delhi was diagnosed with the disease after returning from Italy.

By May 18, the city had reported 10,054 cases at an average of nearly 127 instances of the infection daily. In the next 13 days, the tally rose to 19,844, the Delhi government data shows.

The number of deaths also saw a three-fold increase  from 160 till May 18 to 473 by May 31.

On May 28, the national capital recorded over 1,000 fresh cases for the first time. Delhi reported over 1,000 coronavirus cases for four days in a row from May 28-31.

On May 31, as many as 1,295 fresh cases were reported, while on May 30, 1,163 cases were detected. May 29 saw an addition of 1,106 cases, while the day before, 1,024 new cases were added to the tally.

On June 1, there were 990 new cases, but from June 2 onwards, the daily spike was above 1,000.

Amid the surge in coronavirus cases, the Delhi government has said the current doubling rate of the infection in the city is 14 days. By that estimation, it will see over 56,000 cases in the next two weeks.

The cases will explode to 5.5 lakh by July-end, the government has said.




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The reveals keep on coming today. Lexus just took the wraps off the 2021 Lexus IS sport sedan, the fourth generation of its small, sporty four-door. It may not look all that different on the outside, but Lexus is making heady claims that the driving experience is going to be the real head turner.

Well start with the looks, though. Lexus has only revealed the 2021 IS in F Sport trim, which is the most aggressive of all the models. The spindle grille again sits proudly in front. (Apparently, even non F Sport models have mini spindles within the grille design, so we hope you like spindles.) Youll also see a new air intake below that grille. Its meant to direct air to the brakes and assist in cooling. The slimmer headlights with a new LED pattern look sharp. Along the side, Lexus has implemented new rocker panels that kick up into the rear fender for a more aggressive stance. The view from the rear offers up the most noticeable change. Lexus has gone with the full-width taillight design, stretching the red element from one side of the trunk to the other. Those taillights feature more intricate sculpting, and the rear valance is finished in a glossy black. Lexus changed the exhaust tip look, too, opting for ovals this time.

But, onwards to the performance. The powertrain lineup hasnt changed a bit. A Lexus IS 300 with rear-wheel drive continues to be powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. It makes the same 241 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque as before, and is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission only. However, Lexus says its been updated for adaptive transmission control that is better at choosing the appropriate gear for the driving situation. An all-wheel-drive IS 300 is also available, but its equipped with the 3.5-liter V6 that makes 260 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. The all-wheel-drive IS 300 is also continuing to send the power through a six-speed automatic transmission exclusively. The system can send as much as 50% of torque to the front axle. The tip-top IS is the IS 350. Its equipped with a 3.5-liter V6 that makes 311 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque. With rear-wheel drive, its equipped with an eight-speed automatic, but the all-wheel-drive version is equipped with a six-speed auto. Lexus says the rear-drive IS 350 will get to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, while the all-wheel-drive car gets there in 5.7 seconds.

Story continues

None of that is particularly noteworthy, as its mostly just carryover from last year. Lexus attacked the chassis and suspension, however, with a heavy hand. For starters, Lexus made the body more rigid. Engineers reinforced the radiator supports, increased the number of front-side-member weld points and optimized the reinforcement structures from the C-pillars to the sides of the roof. Its fitted with new coil springs that are 20% lighter than before. Lexus is also using forged aluminum instead of steel for the A-arms (18% weight reduction) and made the suspension stabilizer bar from a new material) that results in a 17% weight reduction. New shocks are also fitted for improved damping in more conditions.

If you opt for the F Sports Dynamic Handling Package (DHP), youll also get new 19-inch matte black BBS wheels that are four pounds lighter than the standard 19-inch wheels on the F Sport models. DHP package cars also feature a re-tuned adaptive suspension, Torsen limited-slip differential (rear-drive only) and an even more aggressive Sport S+ mode accessible via the drive mode selector. Aesthetically, the DHP also includes a carbon fiber rear lip spoiler, side mirror caps, Lexus Card Key and contrast stitching on the center consoles knee pad.

Regular F Sport sedans have the wider tires (265-section-width) and a host of other upgrades. You get a cool air intake with sound generator, special F Sport exhaust and a diffuser. Lexus fits a unique front bumper and rear bumper, along with other minor changes and F Sport badges all around. On the inside, you get F Sport-specific seats (available in Circuit Red), an F Sport leather wrapped shifter, an F Sport instrument cluster display and aluminum pedals. Lexus claims its Active Sound Control system has been improved to enhance the sounds of the V6, but well see about that.

The interior features a couple other noteworthy new features. Lexus has moved the infotainment screen closer to the driver and given it touch control, just like the 2020 Lexus RX. The standard touchscreen is an eight-inch unit, but opt for navigation or the Mark Levinson sound system, and you get a 10.3-inch touchscreen. Both feature Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and Amazon Alexa integration. The Mark Levinson system has been upgraded with more speakers (17 speakers) and a more power amplifier.

Lexus full suite of driver assistance features round out the new tech found in the 2021 IS. You get it all, from Lexus adaptive cruise control to the Lane Tracing Assist thatll help keep you centered in your lane. It all comes as standard equipment. Hint, hint, Germans.

The new IS is slated to arrive in dealers come fall this year. Pricing hasnt been revealed yet, so look for it closer to launch.

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Egypt will reopen of its airports to international traffic beginning July 1, the aviation minister said Sunday, as the country gears up to welcome foreign tourists to a number of beach destinations.

Flights will resume "between Egypt and countries which have reopened their airspace, Mohamed Manar Anba said during a news conference. Egypt paused all international air travel on March 19 and has only allowed its airports to operate domestic flights.

Just three coastal provinces  the Red Sea, South Sinai and Marsa Matruh  will reopen for foreign tourism in July. Online newspaper Egypt Independent reports the first foreign flight will take place on July 4, bringing tourists from Belarus to the Red Sea town of Hurghada.

After implementing sanitation and social distancing measures, more than 200 hotels are allowed to reopen to guests. Most major tourist sites in Egypt, including Giza, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo and Luxor's Karnak temple, will reopen gradually.

"We are not in a hurry. We want to ensure everyone's health and our reputation as a tourist destination," Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled el-Anani said during the conference.

After 14 years of restoration work, Egypt reopened its oldest pyramid in Saqqara, south of Cairo, in mid-March. With visits to Egypts ancient monuments and sites suspended, the tourism ministry began to offer virtual tours in April.

Egypt suspended foreign tourism in March as part of its crackdown on the spread of the coronavirus. Al-Anani has estimated that losses to the countrys tourism sector, which accounts for 5% of Egypts gross domestic product, could reach $1 billion.

The government recently postponed parts of its planned reopening following a spike in infections. Health officials registered 1,677 new cases on Saturday, the highest single-day total since the countrys first reported case in mid-February.

The Arab worlds most populous country has now confirmed 44,598 cases and 1,575 deaths.

This story contains reporting from Agence France-Presse.
By Carl O'Donnell

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co on Monday said it was launching a study of its rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

The trial is one of several efforts by the U.S. drugmaker to help combat the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 400,000 people globally, according to a Reuters tally.

The drug is being tested to see if it can reduce deaths from the COVID-19 illness and lessen its severity. Scientists at Lilly believe that baricitinib could help suppress a potentially lethal immune response to COVID-19 called "cytokine storm" and reduce COVID-19's ability to reproduce in infected cells.

The trial began dosing patients last week and plans to enroll around 400 patients globally. Lilly could potentially obtain U.S. regulatory approval for the drug as soon as August, Patrik Jonsson, the president of Lilly Bio-Medicines, told Reuters in an interview.

Lilly has also been working with the National Institutes of Health to study baricitinib, which is branded Olumiant, in a pairing with Gilead Sciences Inc's antiviral drug remdesivir. That study began enrolling patients last month.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead's remdesivir emergency use authorization (EUA) last month, citing results from a U.S. government study that showed the drug reduced hospitalization stays by 31%, or about four days, compared to a placebo.

Lilly could potentially receive approval to use baricitinib in combination with remdesivir by as early as July, Jonsson said.

Seperately, Lilly could have an drug specifically designed to treat COVID-19 authorized for use as early as September if all goes well with either of two antibody therapies it is testing, its chief scientist told Reuters last week.

(Reporting by Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Michael Perry)
Phishing attacks could either be in the form of an email from a trusted source asking for personal information such as passwords, bank details and personal details, or it could mimic an existing website or webpage and trick a user into entering confidential information on the page.

Indias hacking ecosystem has seen manifold growth over the past few years.

And, today, there are thousands of hackers that are carrying out clandestine operations but have escaped the glare of cybersecurity experts.

Recently, BellTrox InfoTech Services, a little-known Delhi-based technology firm, which was at the centre of a hacking operation that targeted thousands of emails of high-profile people, had hogged the limelight.

Thousands of young people, mostly based in small Indian towns, often self learn how to hack or break into systems, devices and networks to figure out ways to make easy money.

The BellTrox incident is not surprising. Several companies or individuals who provide services like social media management to their clients may be asked to do some kind of hacking.

"The money is better in such work, but not everyone will agree to do it, said Rohit Srivastwa, a veteran of the cybersecurity industry who has recently published a book My Data, My Privacy, My Choice.

According to revelations by Canada-based Citizen Lab, and first reported by Reuters, the underlying technology Belltrox used to allegedly target thousands of individuals and organisations on six continents, including senior politicians, government prosecutors, chief executive officers (CEOs), journalists, and human rights defenders is phishing.

Phishing attacks could either be in the form of an email from a trusted source asking for personal information such as passwords, bank details and personal details, or it could mimic an existing website or webpage and trick a user into entering confidential information on the page.

These attacks have been getting increasingly more convincing and sophisticated. What BellTroxs clients provided it with were emails, personal connections, their habits and personal details.

Phishing accounted for 29 per cent of all fraud attacks in the first quarter of 2019 and India was second to the US on the list of top phishing hosting countries, according to cybersecurity firm RSA.

The technical aspect of what Belltrox did is not that difficult. It was just well planned because the clients gave them access to the right kind of information to make the phishing attack look convincing.

"The skill level required is not incredibly high but phishing itself has been getting more sophisticated, said Indrajeet Bhuyan, independent security researcher.

Even if you want to hack yourself, the process is neither obscure nor expensive.

A simple search will lead you to not just companies like BellTrox, but also tools and plugins which can help you to hack simple things like email and public social media accounts.

Skill is required for doing the kind of work Belltrox allegedly does, but hacking is often more like a personal hobby for some.

"Young people learn fast and they often do not see whether the task is right or wrong.

"They will look at how challenging it is and whether they are getting the right kind of money.

"Bigger cities are not hubs for such activity. Even smaller towns and cities have people skilled in hacking and its only a question of who gets caught when, said Srivastwa.

A popular tool on the open source repository GitHub, says Bhuyan, is called ShellPhish, and easily enables anyone without major technical skills to be able to generate a phishing page.

There are lots of tools available to mount a phishing attack. How convincing you can make an email or webpage look is your skill, he added.



Phishing techniques have also become more sophisticated over time and the market is expected to be worth over a $1 billion by 2022, according to research by marketsandmarkets.
ANN ARBOR, MI  City residents who vote in the presidential election this November will get new Ann Arbor-themed I voted stickers to show theyve done their civic duty.

The city clerks office has announced three winners of the citys sticker design contest.

Here are the winning designs:

In the K-6 student category, Sylvia DeBord of Bach Elementary School won a $100 prize for her design featuring a map of Michigan with Ann Arbor marked with a star.City of Ann Arbor

Among students in grades 7-12, Marcela Passos of Pioneer High School won a $250 prize for her design featuring the Michigan and State theaters and Burton Memorial Tower.City of Ann Arbor

Ward 5 resident Eric Oppitz was the citywide contest winner, netting a $500 prize for a silhouetted mashup of Ann Arbor landmarks, including the Big House, Michigan Theater and Burton Memorial Tower, as well as the Huron River.City of Ann Arbor

Winners were chosen by public voting after contest judges selected finalists.

These were the finalists:

K-6 finalists in Ann Arbor's "I voted" sticker design contest.City of Ann Arbor

Grade 7-12 finalists in Ann Arbor's "I voted" sticker design contest.City of Ann Arbor

Citywide finalists in Ann Arbor's "I voted" sticker design contest.City of Ann Arbor

Judges included Mayor Christopher Taylor and representatives from the clerks office, the citys citizens academy, Public Art Commission, Ann Arbor Public Schools and the University of Michigans Stamps School of Art and Design.

While physical stickers will be available to those who head to the polls in November, City Clerk Jackie Beaudry said digital versions will be shared with absentee voters via email. Those then can be shared on social media.

The city is considering other opportunities for distributing stickers via mail, such as including a sticker with an outgoing ballot, if the COVID-19 pandemic leads to a primarily vote-by-mail election, Beaudry said.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

Ann Arbor officials propose review of $30M police budget, more citizen oversight of policing

Ann Arbor Ward 2 candidates weigh in on racial justice, housing, key city issues

Affordable housing, racial justice discussed by Ann Arbor Ward 4 candidates

Ann Arbor Ward 3 council candidates discuss gentrification, racial justice and political factions

Ann Arbor DDA ups investment in affordable housing with Y Lot grant funding
This 2020 electron microscope image made available by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the spherical particles of the new coronavirus, colorized blue, from the first U.S. case of COVID-19. (AP-Hannah A. Bullock, Azaibi Tamin/CDC via AP/The Canadian Press)

Experimental Drug Targets Lung Damage and Fatal Blood Clots Caused by CCP Virus

Up to a third of the hospitalized CCP virus patients who are seriously ill are developing dangerous blood clots, according to a study conducted in the Netherlands, and an experimental drug to prevent them is about to be trialed in the United Kingdom.

The drug, a molecule known as TRV027, is set to be trialed in 60 patients with confirmed or suspected infection in hospitals in the United Kingdom, according to a release.

The trial, supported and funded by the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London, will follow patients for eight days during the period of intensive care, often when they are on a ventilator.

Without an effective vaccine for Covid-19, we urgently need to find new treatments which can reduce the damage caused by this virus, said Sir Nilesh Samani, the Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation.

CCP Virus Impact Hormones

Researches say the CCP virus impacts two hormonesangiotensin II and angiotensin 1-7and the balance between these two affects the blood vessels and blood pressure.

The CCP virus, or SARSCoV-2, impacts angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2), which maintains the balance between these two hormones.

In Covid-19, it is thought the balance tips towards too much angiotensin II which makes the blood become more sticky, leading to clots throughout the body, and in particular the lungs, noted the British Heart Foundation.

TRV027 is designed to save a patients life as it opposes angiotensin II activity and mimics angiotensin 1-7 activity, which opposes angiotensin II.

We need to move away from thinking of Covid-19 as solely a respiratory illnessit also has devastating effects on the rest of the body including the blood vessels and heart, said Dr. Kat Pollock, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Vaccinology and Honorary Consultant at Imperial College London.

A new drug for preventing lung damage and blood clots in people with Covid-19 is set to be trialled in UK hospitals with support from researchers at the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence @imperialcollege. https://t.co/7uPkaR0xAY  BHF (@TheBHF) June 15, 2020

Pollock, who is one of the two leading the study, said that people with heart and circulatory diseases are more at risk of CCP virus infection and that the research will help find potential treatment.

The researchers said that if the pilot study gives promising results, they will secure funding to conduct a bigger clinical trial.

This virus poses a huge challenge for researchers because so much about it is unknown. In order to fight it, we need a team effort. This project has brought together pathologists, virologists, pharmacologists, and researchers who usually focus on the heart and circulatory diseases, said Dr. David Owen, Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Clinical Pharmacologist at Imperial College London.

Drawing on this range of expertise will give us the best chance of finding a desperately needed treatment for Covid-19, said Owen who is the second lead of the study.
Employers across the country can advance reopening efforts with technology developed by the University of Rochester to check employees for potential COVID-19 symptoms before they report to work each day.

Software code at the heart of a "Dr. Chatbot" screening tool, first created for internal use among health care workers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), is now available free as open source software. Since April 9, about 9,000 URMC employees have been using the chatbot daily to self-check for COVID-19 symptoms before they report to work. The University's chatbot technology also is the foundation of a "ROC COVID" community screening tool recently launched in thirteen counties in the Finger Lakes, N.Y. region to track potential new outbreaks of COVID-19 cases.

Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bob Duffy said, "I commend the University of Rochester for making its Dr. Chatbot software available to the public at no charge. Its use in the ROC COVID health screening tool is playing a critical role in tracking and slowing the spread of the virus in the Rochester and Finger Lakes region. The platform is incredibly easy to use. It takes me less than five seconds to submit my information every day. The U of R's generous decision to make Dr. Chatbot technology available to employers can go a long way in helping them foster a healthy workforce."

University of Rochester's open source code includes:

A simple user interface accessible from an employee's smartphone, tablet, PC or other device

Seven avatars representing a range of friendly onscreen health professionals who conduct the daily symptom checks on a rotating basis

A survey with questions determined by individual employers. Examples could include potential COVID-19 symptoms such as a fever, sore throat, cough, body aches or loss of taste or smell

Depending on survey answers, employees receive a green check mark if they are cleared for work or a red "X" requiring other action. Employers will determine the call to action, which could be to call their manager, check with a health professional or get a COVID-19 test

Daily email or text messages to remind employees to complete the brief survey questions

The technology was developed by the University of Rochester Health Lab, which works to help transform care delivery through the use of smartphone mobile applications, virtual and augmented reality technologies, and the use of artificial intelligence.

"We developed Dr. Chatbot as an efficient way to screen front-line health workers each day and reduce the potential spread of infection inside our medical center," said Stephen Dewhurst, Ph.D., vice dean for research at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. "Based on tremendous interest in our technology from other universities and employers of all types, we realize that our tool can be beneficial far beyond our institution in fighting the spread of COVID-19. We are giving away our code for free to all employers who can use it as a way of giving back during this health crisis."

Michael Hasselberg, M.S., Ph.D., co-director of the University of Rochester Health Lab, called the screening tool a great success story for the project team led by senior software developer Daniel Hudy.

"Our chatbot technology gives employers an incredibly simple-to-use and convenient front-end solution to help keep their workplaces safe and healthy," said. "It will be especially beneficial in New York state, where Governor Andrew Cuomo requires employers to have a system in place for checking employees' health before they can reopen."

###

How to Access

Institutional IT departments or commercial software developers can use, modify or enhance the University of Rochester code to meet the needs of their organizations or customers. The code, which comes with the standard MIT License for unlimited use and a Read Me file, is accessible on the GitHub software development website on a page hosted by UR Ventures, which protects intellectual property developed by University researchers and helps them commercialize their discoveries. Employers interested in the health care screening technology can freely access the code at https://github.com/University-of-Rochester-URVentures/EmployeeChatBot.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 19:47:28|Editor: huaxia

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BEIRUT, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Monday urged security forces to arrest protesters who attempt to destroy public properties and attack security forces.

"The recent actions have a sectarian dimension. We will not accept such practices again," Aoun said during a meeting with the Higher Defense Council, according to a statement by his office.

Also at the meeting, Prime Minister Hassan Diab agreed that violent protests in the past days have disrupted the civil peace, security and stability.

"What has happened is very dangerous and it is no longer acceptable," he said.

Diab previously accused Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri of launching a campaign against the sitting government which took people back to streets.

"The current campaign caused a major crisis that pushed people onto the streets in order to prevent the cabinet from implementing its decisions to expose corruption," Diab said.

Nationwide demonstrations against the dire living conditions in Lebanon resumed on Friday evening.

Protesters set on fire Azarieh Building, a famous office building in the downtown of the capital Beirut. Enditem
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has its country office in Beijing, is yet to send a team to the wholesale market linked to the sharpest spike in Covid-19 cases in Chinas capital city. It has been four days since the first infection was detected.

The WHO is still waiting for China to share the genome sequence of the virus extracted from infected samples, which were picked up by Chinese scientists over the weekend from the Xinfadi market soon after it was shut down to the outside world.

To a Reuters question whether China has shared the gene sequence with WHO, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian said on Monday: China has maintained close communication with the World Health Organisation. As for the specific question you mentioned, I dont know the specific situation yet. Please inquire directly to the competent department.

Beijing has logged in as many as 79 new cases since June 11, the most significant flare-up in a major Chinese city that is home to Chinas political and business elite.

The WHO has not visited the Xinfadi market in relation to this cluster of Covid-19, with the first confirmed cases on June 11, the Organisation said in a statement to Hindustan Times on Monday, adding that it was receiving updates from the Chinese health authorities.

Dozens of residential communities have been locked down, schools have been closed and emergency response levels are being gradually raised across the citys districts after the rapidly spreading cluster infection emerged from the sprawling market.

Beijing is said to be preparing to test at least 90,000 people connected to the market and living in its neighbourhood.

The Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale market, which also deals in meat and seafood, is located some 25 km away from the WHO office in Beijing.

Until Monday evening, the WHO, the UNs specialised agency for international public health, had only received briefings about the new and fast spreading cluster from Chinese health authorities  without any first-hand knowledge about a worrying infection that has resurfaced in Beijing  which had zero cases since April -- after a gap of 55 days.

It was not immediately clear if Beijing is yet to give consent to the WHO, as per protocol, to send a team to the Xinfadi market in the southwest Fengtai district.

The market was shuttered over the weekend and scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, experts from its Beijing centre and the national health commission (NHC) have scoured the market, picked up samples and conducted preliminary tests.

According to state media reports, the virus was detected on a salmon chopping board.

The WHO did not answer HTs query whether it had asked Chinese authorities to visit the market but said it was receiving regular updates from health authorities.

The information thus far has come from Chinese national and municipal health officials, in briefings and exchanges with the WHO office in China and updates sent via the International Health Regulations mechanism, the statement said.

In our exchanges, the WHO has received a briefing on the preliminary investigation, offered support and technical assistance. Chinese health authorities have agreed to continue to exchange further information about the cluster and the investigations underway and planned, the statement said.

The organisation is yet to receive gene sequencing results.

The WHO encourages the sharing of this and other sequences on a publicly available website as soon as possible. We await more genetic sequencing to see how close this virus is to others. We have asked China for the genetic sequencing and to receive new data on the epidemic as the investigation unfolds; and our counterparts are committed to continuing to provide such data. The WHO is following up with Chinese officials for further detail, the statement added.

An Associated Press report released earlier this month said the WHO worked on minimal information during the beginning of the outbreak in China in December and January, alleging that Beijing was deliberately slow in sharing critical information.

Both China and WHO denied it.

The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has praised China for setting a new standard for outbreak response through swift and aggressive measures.

While the pandemic rages globally, China has sharply brought down the infection numbers across the country with the government saying that the outbreak has been effectively controlled, until the virus reemerged in Beijing last week.
On Monday, one of the biopharmaceutical industry's largest contract manufacturers signed an agreement that could lead to the production of hundreds of millions of doses of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) will work with AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) and Oxford University to develop AZD1222, an experimental vaccine to prevent people from being infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The process of developing a new vaccine can be a long, frustrating walk with hidden pitfalls lurking at every step. As a 2013 study from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America noted, fewer than 10% of all vaccine candidates succeed in clinical trials well enough to be licensed for use. While more than 100 organizations and companies are currently working on dozens of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, the Trump administration has selected a handful to receive extra support -- one of which is AZD1222.

Taking an unusual route to a COVID-19 vaccine

Given the odds against success, mass-producing a vaccine candidate before it's been rigorously tested is a good way to lose a lot of money, but AstraZeneca probably won't be putting its shareholders at risk in case of an expensive flop. In May, the company entered an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA); the agency can provide AstraZeneca with up to $1.2 billion to support scaled-up manufacturing and other facets of AZD1222's development.

Under the terms of the deal, Catalent will provide vial-filling and packaging capacity to AstraZeneca at a facility in Anagni, Italy. Catalent is still preparing to manufacture AZD1222 at scale, which presents some unusual challenges.

The vaccine candidate licensed from Oxford employs an adenovirus to deliver genetic blueprints for the spike protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to enter host cells. While this could be a great way to introduce immune systems to the coronavirus, we haven't yet seen any vaccines that work in this manner succeed in late-stage clinical trials.
A dashboard camera shows Rayshard Brooks (C) struggling with officers Garrett Rolfe (L) and Devin Brosnan (R) in the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant, in Atlanta, Ga., on June 13, 2020. (Atlanta Police Department via AP)

Atlanta DA Mulls Murder Charges Against Officer in Rayshard Brooks Shooting

An Atlanta-area district attorney said Sunday that the police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks may face a charge of murder.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told CNNs Fredricka Whitfield Sunday that he is considering one of three possible charges against former Atlanta Police officer Garrett Rolfe for Friday nights shooting death of Brooks during an arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated.

There are really three charges that are relevant: one would be the murder charge in the state of Georgia. That charge is a charge that is directly related to an intent to kill, Howard told CNN. The second charge is felony murder and that is a charge that involves a death that comes as a result of the commission of an underlying felony. In this case, that underlying felony would be aggravated assault.

Brooks was shot after seizing control of an officers stun gun and fleeing during an arrest attempt and, according to a police account, turning and firing it at an officer while escaping. Both of the responding officers body cameras were knocked to the ground in the struggle, and none of the four police cameras captured the shooting. Footage released from a Wendys security camera showed Brooks turn and point an object in his hand at one of the officers, who was steps behind him. The officer draws his gun and fires.

As I pursued him, he turned and started firing the Taser at me, Rolfe told a supervisor after the shooting in a videotaped conversation. He definitely did shoot it at me at least once.

Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles said Sunday she could not confirm whether Brooks fired the stun gun.

The killing of Brooks, a 27-year-old black man, in an encounter with two white officers rekindled fiery protests in Atlanta and prompted the resignation of the citys Police Chief Erika Shields, who in a statement said, It is time for the city to move forward and build trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve.

Howard said in a June 13 statement that the Fulton County District Attorneys Office is conducting an intense, independent investigation of the incident, alongside the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Members of the Fulton County District Attorneys Office were on scene shortly after the shooting, and we have been in investigative sessions ever since to identify all of the facts and circumstances surrounding this incident, Howard said.

While Howard told CNN a manslaughter charge could fit the facts of the case, he said he was leaning toward one of the two murder charges he specified earlier.

The only other charge that might make any sense at all would be some voluntary manslaughter charge. But I believe in this instance, what we have to choose between, if theres a choice to be made, is between murder and felony murder, Howard told CNN.

Atlanta Police video released Sunday showed a seemingly routine sobriety check outside a Wendys restaurant that spun out of control, ending in gunfire.

The two officers body cameras and the dash-mounted cameras in their patrol cars showed they spent more than 40 minutes peacefully questioning Brooks. The fighting erupted when they tried to handcuff Brooks.

Andy Harvey, chief of police of Ennis, Texas, who has written books and developed training on community policing, said such moments can turn in a split second.

The moment you put your hands on someone is when someone will decide whether to comply or resist, Harvey said. Thats what happened in Atlanta.

Howard said in a statement Sunday he hopes to reach a decision by midweek on whether to bring charges against the officers.

Police said Sunday the department terminated Rolfe, who fired the fatal shots, and officer Devin Brosnan was placed on administrative duty. Rolfe had worked for the department since October 2013, and Brosnan since September 2018.

Meanwhile, authorities announced a $10,000 reward for information finding those responsible for setting fire to the Wendys restaurant at the shooting scene. Flames gutted the restaurant late Saturday after demonstrations grew turbulent. The protests prompted 36 arrests.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Actress Rhea Chakraborty, who was a close friend of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, visited the Dr RN Cooper Municipal General Hospital in Mumbai on Monday afternoon to pay last respects to the deceased actor. Meanwhile, preliminary post mortem report of Sushant has confirmed that cause of death of the young Bollywood star was asphyxiation due to hanging.

Also Read | Why Sushant Singh Rajput's Alleged Suicide Has Sparked Off A Debate On Nepotism, Again

Also Read | Sushant Singh Rajput Died of Asphyxia Due to Hanging: Provisional Postmortem Report

Rhea arrived at the hospital on Monday afternoon dressed in a plain white salwar kameez. She wore a breathing mask due to the coronavirus scare.

In January, earlier this year, Rhea had posted a sweet birthday note for Sushant and had called him "boy with a golden heart."

Meanwhile, Sushant's father and close family members too arrived in Mumbai from Patna for performing their son's last rites in the city. The actor's family made their way out of the airport as seen in pictures from the location. Apart from his father, Sushant is survived by four sisters.

Sushant hailed from Bihar and was educated in Patna and New Delhi, before shifting to Mumbai.

After establishing himself on the small screen with Pavitra Rishta, he transitioned to the big screen with film Kai Po Che. He went on to do projects including Shuddh Desi Romance, the biopic MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Kedarnath and Chhichhore, among several others.

Sushant's last rites will be performed on Monday at Pawan Hans crematorium in suburban Vile Parle, Mumbai.

This news piece may be triggering. If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata).

Follow @News18Movies for more
An ancient Roman city has been fully mapped using ground-penetrating radar Ars Technica

Kerala could have avoided the deaths of two elephants if it learnt to kill wild boars scientifically Scroll

A nose-horned dragon lizard lost to science for over 100 years has been found Science News

What Happens When Sea Otters Eat 15 Pounds of Shellfish A Day NPR (David L)

Divorced general thinks bases should be named after officers who understand loyalty Duffelblog

UK marks anniversary of Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 Al jazeera

Twitter Users Share 29 Statues That Are Better Than The Ones Protesters Are Tearing Down Bored Panda

Black Injustice Tipping Point

The U.S. Embassy stands in solidarity with fellow Americans grieving and peacefully protesting to demand positive change. Our #BlackLivesMatter banner shows our support for the fight against racial injustice and police brutality as we strive to be a more inclusive & just society. pic.twitter.com/Y4Thr2MRdw  U.S. Embassy Seoul (@USEmbassySeoul) June 13, 2020

#COVID-19

Class Warfare

UK

Italy

China?

India

Big Brother IS Watching You Watch

The two-year fight to stop Amazon from selling face recognition to the police MIT Technology Review

Julian Assange

Trump Transition

2020

Keep telling yourselves Burisma has nothing to do with Biden. Indeed, when Hunter was bought onto the board, Burisma was a model of corporate governance, Zlochevsky was the Mother Theresa of Ukrainian oil & gas oligarchs.https://t.co/GrjmuCgQqY  Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) June 14, 2020

Syraqistan

The US is about to impose crushing new sanctions on Syria under the bipartisan Caesar measure. The sanctions punish Syrias civilians for the fact that US & allies lost the proxy war to overthrow their government. Years of pro-proxy war propaganda have laid the foundation.  Aaron Mate (@aaronjmate) June 14, 2020

Antidote du Jour. TF:

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Virtual office tour for Park Center Suite 450 in Dallas, TX Swivel helped us get virtual touring in place very quickly and at a competitive cost per square foot. Even as we begin returning to the office, we plan to continue to use this as one tool to help our leasing efforts.

Swivel, Inc., a digital leasing platform for office space, today announced Lincoln Property Company is using Swivel AgileView to virtually showcase physical office space to keep potential tenants and tenant brokers engaged and interested as businesses begin planning for a return back to the office.

Needing a cost-effective and flexible approach to keep activities moving when many tenants put their office search plans on pause, Lincoln Property Company (LPC) turned to AgileView to promote immersive 3D virtual tours that go beyond static photography to give customers a true, real world experience. With this digital approach to marketing space, LPC has been able to maintain leasing momentum which has resulted in multiple requests for in-person tours of its properties.

When physical tours for office space came to a halt, we knew we needed to get creative, said Dalton Stonger, leasing agent for Lincoln Property Company. Swivel helped us get virtual touring in place very quickly and at a competitive cost per square foot. Even as we begin returning to the office, we plan to continue to use this as one tool to help our leasing efforts.

With no camera or property visits required, Swivel AgileView created and currently hosts all virtual office tours for Lincoln Property Company. Tenant brokers and their customers can explore the virtual spaces and toggle between various layout choices and see the space fully staged including a lower density furniture package that supports social distancing. One-on-one tours can be scheduled with a Lincoln agent either online or in person.

Companies are planning their return to the office and as a result are questioning what their overall office space needs really are, said Swivel Founder and CEO, Scott Harmon. Digital leasing capabilities such as 3D virtual touring provide the agility that tenants, owners, and leasing teams need in the new office of today. Leasing teams that recognize this now will weather this downturn and be set up to accelerate deal flow in the future.

Companies can learn about agile office leasing directly at swivel.work. Find Swivel on LinkedIn and Twitter: @SwivelWork, and follow Swivels blog to stay on top of company developments, news, events and happenings.

About Lincoln Property Company

Lincoln Property Company (LPC), founded in 1965 by its chairman Mack Pogue, is a privately-owned real estate firm involved in real estate investment, development, property management and leasing worldwide. LPC has offices in all major markets of the U.S. and throughout Europe. The goal of LPC's third-party management and leasing division is to create long-term relationships with clients by providing increased leasing velocity, greater operational efficiencies, higher tenant satisfaction and enhanced value for their properties. LPC's leasing and management group currently oversees 433 million square feet of commercial real estate. Visit http://www.lpcdallas.com for more information.

About Swivel

We are on a mission to transform the entire office leasing experience. With its digital leasing platform, Swivel enables commercial real estate owners to harness the power of technology to transform the way they lease office space. Leasing teams that adopt digital leasing over traditional methods engage prospective tenants and get leases signed faster with less cost to owners and tenants. To learn more, visit http://www.swivel.work.
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One person was missing late Sunday after a single-car crash in Galveston, according to authorities.

Two other passengers were hospitalized in critical condition. A dog was ejected from the car with the missing passenger, but authorities only recovered the dog in the water as of Sunday night.
The Director of Communication at Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mrs Emma Akyea Boakye has lauded governments efforts in the fight against the coronavirus disease( also known as COVID-19).



She said the decision by the government to cause the disinfection of educational institutions nationwide had significantly helped to curb the spread of the virus.



Currently Ghanas case count had reached more than 11,000 with 48 deaths and almost 4,000 recoveries but Mrs Boakye who was speaking last Friday during a disinfection/fumigation exercise at the Universities of Education and Cape Coast said government had taken the fight against the disease a notch higher.



The Communication Director said Ghana had done well when compared with other countries that had been hard hit by the pandemic.



She noted that the country was not out of the woods and that it needed to intensify education on social distancing, hand washing under running water, use of acohol hand-based sanitisers and undertaking regular exercise.



Mrs Boakye reiterated the commitment of Zoomlion to providing quality services as the nation strove to contain the disease and ultimately find a cure.



For his part, Professor Isaac Galyuon, Provost, College of Education, University of Cape Coast underscored the need for behavioral change among students and members of the public if Ghana was to prevent the spread of the disease.



He said the university had put measures in place including the use of hand gun thermometers to check the temperature of students and visitors.



Prof Galyuon told journalists in an interview that management would ensure strict compliance with safety protocols when academic activities resume.



The waste management company fumigated the National Vocational Training Institute (Winneba) and the two campuses of University of Education.



Zoomlion Ghana Limited had earlier this year, carried out disinfection of markets, lorry stations, drains, schools including specialised facilities such as the Akropong School for the Blind, universities, technical institutions and many others.



The company was executing the project under the auspices of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.



Last month, Zoomlion fumigated more than 4,000 police facilities nationwide.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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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SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian state government leader said on Monday she was considering tougher laws to protect monuments after two statues of British explorer James Cook were vandalized in Sydney.

Two women were charged with defacing a statue with spray paint in downtown Hyde Park over Saturday night. Another statue was discovered spray painted in the eastern suburb of Randwick on Sunday morning in an unrelated attack, police said.

Cities around the world are taking steps to remove statues that represent cultural or racial oppression.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she would consider toughening laws to deter future vandalism.

I wish it didnt come to this and I want to stress that its only a very, very small percentage of the population thats engaging in this activity, the vast majority of us dont condone it, we think its disrespectful, its un-Australian, she told reporters.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week apologized for words he used last week to reject calls for his Sydney electoral district of Cook to be renamed.

Cook came ashore in the district in 1770 in what was to become the site of the first British colony in Australia.

Morrison apologized for saying Australia has been colonized without slavery after critics pointed out that tens of thousands of South Pacific islanders had been forced to labour on Australian sugar cane plantations in the 19th century and Australian indigenous people had been forced to work for wages that were never paid.

A part-time employee of the minor Greens party, Xiaoran Shi, 28, and her alleged accomplice Charmaine Morrison-Mills, 27, were released on bail from a Sydney court on Sunday on charges of damaging property and possessing a graffiti implement over the Hyde Park statue.

Greens state lawmaker David Shoebridge, for whom Shi works, said he was aware of the allegations.

They were not engaged in employment at the time of the incident which occurred well outside of work hours, Shoebridge said in a statement.
The shops are now open - but its not quite business as usual.

While you might be itching for some retail therapy after months of lockdown, stores are having to make changes to ensure the safety of shoppers.

From socially distanced queues just to get in, to changing rooms being closed - the new normal is going to present a whole other set of challenges.

So, how do you avoid buying loads of items that dont fit you, or dont suit you?

While most stores have extended their refund policy to 90 days, you'll want to avoid heading unnecessarily to and from shopping centres just to return items.

Here, award-winning personal stylist Susie Hasler, who runs Styled By Susie, which specialises in styling women on a budget, gives her top tips on how to buy the perfect items for you.

Award-winning stylist Susie Hasler gives her best tips on how to return to the shops and buy without trying clothes on once the shop re-open without fitting rooms after covid-19 (pictured: a woman carrying shopping bags, stock picture)

Shop preparation

It might sound a little OTT, but the better prepared you are to hit the shops, the less time youll spend browsing and lingering in stores.

Once youve made it into the shop of your choice, the last thing youll want to do is forget some of the items you wanted to buy, or just grab what you think will work - because I guarantee it will result in you having to make a second trip to return items.

A list is your friend. Have a specific idea in mind of what you want to shop for. Take a look through your wardrobe beforehand and identify any gaps you have.

Do you have lots of lovely summer skirts but no tops to go with them? If so, make a note of the colours of the skirts and which hues would complement them. Or do you need summer shoes?

Susie advises to make a check list before leaving home, refer yourself to size charts and bring a tape measure in order not to buy items you don't need or that don't fit

Have a style in mind - do you want flats, or sandals or wedges or trainers?

Add all these items to a list, so that the items you will be buying will make a complete outfit.

Then write down a list of shops you want to go to. Browse online to see whether they have anything you particularly like, and want to see in the flesh.

When are shops reopening? Most shops are re-opening on Monday 15 June, while restaurants, hotels, cinemas and hairdressers will remain shut until further notice. Safety measures in place to avoid the spread of the virus as shoppers return to the high street include: - A maximum limit on the number of customers allowed in the store at one time - Protective screens at tills and hand-sanitiser at the entrance to the store and near to escalators - Many fitting rooms are set to remain closed Shops will only legally be allowed to reopen if they are 'Covid-secure'. Shops opening Monday 15 June: - Indoor markets - Clothing and shoe shops - Toy stores - Bookshops - Furniture shops - Electronics stores - Photography studios - Tailors - Auction houses Advertisement

Take some screenshots on your phone so that you have everything at your fingertips, and you can easily find items when in store.

Also, remember that youll be queuing for longer than usual - just to get into stores and then when paying too.

Wear something comfy - you wont need to remove anything to try things off - take snacks and water, and perhaps download something to watch on your phone (especially vital for children if youre braving the stores with them).

Determine your body shape

There are at least four types of body shape - strawberry, rectangle, apples, pears and hourglasses. And each one suits different styles of clothing.

The best way to find out your body shape is to book an analysis with a stylist (like me!). We will also tell you what skin tone you are and give you a guide to which colours suit you the best. This means less of holding up items to your face to see whether you think itll suit you.

Its easy to be led by Pinterest photos and Instagram influencers who seem to be able to wear anything and make it work. It can then be disheartening when you try on the same item and it doesnt look as good!

So its beneficial to dress for your body shape and enhance the best bits of your shape.

A neckline can make a big difference. If you are conscious of your tummy or you have a fuller bust, choose V necks and scoop necks to slim the torso. If youre wider on the hips, opt for culottes, wide leg trousers and A-line midi dresses.

If you want to add curves to your frame, look at the statement tops around at the moment with exaggerated sleeves and frills around the neckline.

The shops are full of big, bold patterns and these can work so well for flattering a tummy or curvier frame.

Try to push your comfort zone and while its good to take inspiration from Instagram, see how you can make it work for your shape in your own way.

Analyse your skin tone

Without a colour analysis, the best way to see if an item suits your skintone in a shop, is to stand in very good lighting and hold it up to your face.

Does the colour of the item drain your skintone or enhance it?

A complementary colour will make your eyes, skin and hair more intense.

Red is one to wear to make an impact - it doesn't need to be a bright red dress, for example, it can be a subtle pop, such as lipstick, a scarf or earrings.

If you're looking for girl-next-door flirty, pink is your friend. It's fun and evokes sensitivity.

While black is perfect for work calls because it's a sophisticated colour, yellow is cheerful and happy - and there's a shade for everyone.

If in doubt, choose navy blue and burgundy because they suit all skintones.

Susie said to stick to colour that you know fit your complexion, and advises on buying only items you know you need rather than random bits

Check out size charts

As most stores sizes come up differently, and you wont be able to try on items in shops, this is going to be the trickiest challenge when buying clothes.

Before you hit the shops, check size charts online - and measure your leg length, hips, waist, shoulders and bust, to see how you fare in each store. Make a note of this in your list.

Then check your wardrobe for items you already have from these stores and note the sizes that youve previously bought that fit you. Its probably wise to play it safe and head to familiar stores while changing rooms are closed.

As a last resort, youll need to grab two of each item, the two closest sizes, and take them home to try them on. You may be able to send them back via post, but check with that store before doing so.

Shops such as Zara, H&M and Mango are less generous with their sizing, compared to Next and M&S. This means you might need to size up once or even twice.

Also check that the size noted on the hanger is the same as whats on the label - theres nothing more frustrating than buying an item only to find it has been placed on the wrong hanger.

If youve measured yourself at home, pop a tape measure in your bag and compare the items of clothes you want to buy to ensure theyll fit without having to try them on.

THE BEST SHOPS FOR YOUR BODY SHAPE Pears  Next: They will work well for your curvy hips as their jeans will fit well on the waist too. They are also great for smart trousers and summer shorts.  H&M: Great for tops that show off your lovely delicate shoulders and decolletage. Look for ones with detail on the shoulders and pretty prints. Apples  River Island: Their jeans will work well for your shape and they offer a great online Curve range if youre above a size 18.  Next: Great for jeans and basics that dont cling to the tummy.  Mint Velvet: A higher price point but their clothes flatter curves as well as a fuller bust. Hourglasses  Topshop: Their jeans work well for your curvaceous shape and will fit well on the hips as well as the waist. You may need to size up as Topshop sizing isnt too generous!  Dorothy Perkins: Their dresses work well for hourglasses as they accentuate your waist and skim over the hips. Rectangles  Zara and H&M work well for jeans and trousers because they are cut a little narrower on the hips.  H&M are great for rectangle shapes as they are cut well for their silhouette and they usually have a great choice of prints, patterns and fabrics. Try their slacks trousers which will fit well on your hips.  Mango is great if you like a more simple, chic look and its affordable too. Perfect for rectangle shaped ladies. Strawberries  New Look: Great for skirts that are cut a little narrower on the hips, therefore showing off your narrowest point.  Hush: A higher price point but their dresses and tops are cut generously for the strawberry top half.  River Island: Their jeans will show off those killer legs. Choose light colours and rips.  Warehouse: Great for tops and blouses that fit well on broader shoulders and a fuller bust. You may have to size up. Plus Sizes Unfortunately the in-store ranges are sparse for plus-sized ladies but there are many options online which work so well for my clients. Most shops have an online Curve range. Some of my favourites include:  Mango Violeta Range, New Look Curve, Very Curve, River Island Plus and Dorothy Perkins Curve  Yours Clothing for plus-sized ladies.  Evans have also become better in recent years and they are brilliant for stylish shoes in a wide fitting size Advertisement

Stop random buys

Shopping post-pandemic means an end to hours of browsing - for now. Youll also want to shop effectively, which is also good for the environment, and that means not just grabbing items of clothing for which you dont have an outfit in mind.

I have carried out hundreds of wardrobe declutters on women who have countless items still with the labels on as when they got them home, they realised they had nothing to wear them with.

You may opt for a pretty printed skirt, but when you get it home you realise you have nothing to wear with it.

Not having enough basic items is the reason behind the saying I have too many clothes but nothing to wear.

Basics are boring items  the T-shirts, vests, cardigans and knitwear - that act as the glue to pull so many more outfits together.

A basic white T-shirt, for example, can be worn with jeans, with a co-ord suit, tucked into a pleated skirt or under a pair of dungarees. Just that one T-shirt will give you at least four different outfits!

You cant beat a basic, and if you aim to stock up on vest tops and tees, you can be safe in the knowledge that they will go with anything you wear on the bottom half.

A striped Breton tee is also handy as you can clash that with patterns too.

If youre looking at pattern clashing, try to always ensure they have the same colourway.

For example, you can easily clash leopard print with camo print as they are similar earthy tones.

For more information, see www.styledbysusie.co.uk
Moscow  A Russian court found former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan guilty of espionage on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in prison. For his family, it was a predictable conclusion to the high-profile spy case that has been yet another strain on relations between Moscow and Washington. The U.S. Ambassador to Russia has ridiculed the verdict as a "mockery of justice."

Whelan, 50, was arrested at Moscow's Metropol Hotel in December 2018. Investigators claim he was caught red-handed after receiving a USB drive containing classified information.

The American, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, has maintained throughout the trial that he was framed by an agent from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), who gave him the drive. He pleaded not guilty during the trial and insisted he was not an American spy.

Verdict hearing of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, in Moscow

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, holds a sign as he stands inside a defendants' cage during his verdict hearing in Moscow, Russia, June 15, 2020. MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

"This is all political theater," Whelan said from inside a plexi-glass defendant's box in the courtroom on Monday. He noted that he hadn't even understood the verdict when it was read, as all the proceedings were held in Russian. He pushed a hand-written note up against the front of the box reading: "sham trial" at the top, along with other remarks mocking the proceedings. On it he also asked President Donald Trump to take "decisive action."

In a message released later Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. government was "outraged by the decision" of the Russian court. He said Whelan had been convicted in a "secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses."

"We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations. The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling," said the top U.S. diplomat, reiterating the Trump administration's long-standing demand for Whelan's immediate release.

Story continues

To appeal, or to deal

Whelan's family had expressed hope that the end of the trial might mean the U.S. could push harder for his return from Russia.

"We hope that the U.S. government and the Russian Federation will begin discussing Paul's release immediately, now that there will no longer be any procedural impediments," Whelan's brother David said in a statement emailed to CBS News last week.

In a new statement, released immediately after the sentencing on Monday, David Whelan said the family expected his brother's legal team to appeal the verdict within a couple weeks. Paul Whelan's Russian lawyer, however, suggested a deal between the U.S. and Russia could be another option.

Defense lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov said his team was preparing documents for a possible appeal, but that a meeting was expected with Whelan on June, 22 and they would make a decision after that on whether to file the appeal. Their thinking was that Whelan could be pardoned or included in a potential prisoner exchange between the two nations. Zherebenkov said the decision would have to be discussed at the highest levels of government.

Whelan himself dismissed the verdict as political, and said he would appeal it. Under Russian law, if the verdict is not appealed, it comes into force 10 days from Monday. If it is formally appealed, the sentence would only come into force if the verdict is upheld by an appellate court.

In the meantime, Whelan will be held at the Lefortovo prison's pre-trial detention center.

Prosecutors had sought an 18-year prison sentence in the case, and the charges carried a possible maximum sentence of 20 years.

"Mockery of justice"

"It was the Russian legal system that was found guilty of injustice" David Whelan said in his family's statement Monday. "The court's decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process. We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities."

Speaking outside the court, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan said he was "disappointed and outraged" by the outcome of the trial, but added: "I can't say I'm surprised." He called the trial "a mockery of justice," insisted no evidence had been presented in court and said Whelan was denied the opportunity to defend himself properly, or even to communicate with his family.

Verdict hearing of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, in Moscow

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan stands outside the verdict hearing of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, in Moscow, Russia June 15, 2020. MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

In a tweet sent by the U.S. Embassy's spokesperson, Ambassador Sullivan had previously criticized Russia for the "secret trial."

"Fair and transparent? No. Evidence produced? No. The world is watching," the ambassador said.

On Monday Sullivan said he would next "consult with my government in Washington, which, as I said, at the highest levels is extremely concerned."

Ambassador Sullivan: Today, #PaulWhelan was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison in Russia. This secret trial in which no evidence was produced is an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. @mfa_russia pic.twitter.com/cPCh3Sflfn

 Rebecca Ross (@USEmbRuPress) June 15, 2020

"This is not going to have a good impact on our relationship," Sullivan added about Washington-Moscow ties, which have been strained for years over Moscow's alleged interference in U.S. democracy, the war in Syria, and a host of other issues.

At the time of his arrest, Whelan was the director of global security for Michigan-based auto parts supplier BorgWarner. Before that he spent 14 years in the U.S. Marine Corps before being discharged in 2008 for bad conduct, according to the military. He served in Iraq for several months in 2004 and 2006.

ctm-0102-paul-whelan.jpg

A file photo shows Paul Whelan during his service in the U.S. Marine Corps

While most of the charges against the American remained sealed, Russian media reports said Whelan stood accused of trying to recruit a long-time Russian acquaintance to gain a list of names of employees of a Russian security agency. All of the hearings in the trial before the reading of Monday's verdict were held behind closed doors, under strict restrictions implemented to control the spread of the coronavirus in Moscow.

U.S. intelligence and State Department sources had told CBS News previously that they were confident Whelan wasn't a spy.

Whelan had visited Russia several times before his arrest in 2018. Last month he underwent an emergency hernia surgery at a Moscow hospital.

Atlanta police chief resigns after officer fatally shoots man

Protests held in Palmdale, California, after black man found dead hanging from a tree

Trump addresses graduating cadets at West Point
Edgewood Independent School District, one of the poorest districts in the state, is finally back in the hands of an elected board.

Its been a long four years since board dysfunction brought the business of this district to a standstill. Dysfunction and disarray prompted state intervention and resulted in the removal of the elected board and the appointment of a superintendent by Texas Education Agency.

The move back to normalcy with the installation of elected board members bodes well for the Edgewood community, especially during these uncertain times. There are tough decisions ahead as school districts across the state navigate distance learning and make budget decisions during the novel coronavirus pandemic and recession.

The removal of an elected school board, the appointment of trustees and hiring of a superintendent by the education commissioner are drastic measures taken only in extreme cases. In Edgewood, which serves about 11,000 students, the removal of the board came after months of a 3-3 vote deadlock that kept the district from replacing a trustee who had resigned and hampered efforts to hire a permanent superintendent.

The transition out of state control began in June 2018 with the hiring of Eduardo Hernandez to replace the state appointed superintendent. It followed with the replacement of some of appointed board members with trustees who had been elected, but had been waiting in the wings to assume their positions. Dina Serrano and Luis Gomez were recently sworn in as trustees completing Edgewoods transition to a fully elected governing board.

As a backstop, TEA will continue to have some oversight through the appointment of San Antonio businessman Roy Soto as a conservator. Soto had served as president of the appointed board.

Before the pandemic, Edgewood was battling high teacher turnover rates and declining enrollment. Those remain important priorities, but bridging the digital divide is also a major factor.

We urge the new elected Edgewood school board to maintain a high degree of transparency and a robust line of communication with families in the district. Social distancing makes it impossible to attend board meetings in person and the level of poverty in the district means many parents cant access meetings on the internet.

Regaining the publics trust will take time. The pandemic only makes this task more difficult.
Bengaluru:

Terming the Supreme Courts order directing Karnataka to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu till September 27 as unimplementable, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has called for a cabinet and an all-party meeting on Wednesday to chalk out the next step.



....the Supreme Court has passed an order, since we do not have water, it is very difficult to implement it. It is an unimplementable order, he said.



Siddaramaiah said Karnataka had placed certain facts based on ground reality before the Cauvery Supervisory Committee but it still passed an order directing the state to release 3,000 cusecs per day between September 21 and 30.



Noting the committee was constituted by the apex court only, he said it had given a direction on September 5 to Tamil Nadu to approach the committee and also asked Karnataka to file a response to the neighbouring states plea. Despite all this, the Supreme Court has passed an order on Tuesday, he said.



Siddaramaiah appealed to public to maintain peace, while assuring that the government is committed to protect the interest of the state and its people and farmers.



There is a cabinet meeting tomorrow, we will discuss, we are waiting for the copy of the order of the Supreme Court. The (state) cabinet will take a view, meanwhile we will consult legal experts also.I have also called an all-party meeting, in that meeting we will discuss the pros and cons of this order. After taking views and opinion of leaders from all parties we will proceed further, he added.



Karnataka will have to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to Tamil Nadu from tomorrow till September 27, the Supreme Court said today while raising the quantum fixed by the Supervisory Committee yesterday by 3000 cusecs.



A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and U U Lalit has also directed the Centre to constitute within four weeks the Cauvery Water Management Board (CWMB) as directed by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) in its award.



Apparently keeping in mind last weeks widespread violence over the Cauvery issue in Bengaluru, Siddarmaiah said, I appeal to the people, especially to people from Cauvery basin to maintain peace; they should not get carried away by emotions. Government is committed to protecting the interest of the state, its people and its farmers. Every one should cooperate...



Soon after the Supreme Courts order, the chief minister held meetings with senior state ministers and officials.

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The Tennessee Department of Education on Monday released the first five reopening tool kits in a series of 20+ topic-specific resources to help guide district leaders in local decision-making for school reopening this fall.

In addition to the Overview Guide for LEAs, which serves as a high-level guidance document to provide broad questions and considerations for local districts, there will be 26 tool kits released over the next two weeks focused on key topics to assist Tennessees district and school leaders as they make local reopening plans.

These reopening tool kits represent an incredible amount of work done across our districts and the department to gather best practices, recommendations, and information that will help spur critical and creative thinking about how our stateand our nationnavigates a completely new era of education, said Commissioner Penny Schwinn. We hope these tool kits provide our district and school leaders with considerations and guidance as they make the best local decisions for the upcoming school year.

The department will continue to update tool kits after release to reflect district practices.

These are the first five tool kits that are available for districts to utilize:

School Nutrition: By building upon experiences of the spring school closures in 2020, districts should inform strategies on how to ensure continuity of meal services through new and evolving contexts. This toolkit provides an overview for district leaders and local school nutrition directors on strategies and considerations to approach re-opening of schools, exploring alternative nutrition operations, and capturing the best practices from the spring closures.

Transportation: School transportation plays a key role in school operations and the opportunities to support student well-being. This toolkit provides an overview of considerations, strategies, and resources to help districts ensure that student transportation continues to play a support role to students in keeping them as safe as possible going to and from school.

Special Populations: Just as supporting our special populations during school closure required additional intentionality, such will be the case upon reopening. This toolkit focuses on reopening strategies for continuing educational opportunities and services regarding our special populations, including special education and English learners.

Finance: Faced with economic uncertainties that may impact district budgets, finance directors will need to rethink fiscal strategies, leverage federal grant flexibilities and opportunities, and pursue competitive grants while maintaining strong internal practices on data quality and fiscal controls. This toolkit will provide district leaders with financial-related action items and considerations for the reopening of schools.

Implementation Guide Templates:

Tennessee Department of Education Pathway Selection Tool: This tool is designed to assist districts as they review and make plans based off considerations in the reopening tool kits.

2020-21 School Calendar Template: This calendar workbook is a template designed to help school districts make decisions on school calendars for the 2020-21 school year.

The forthcoming reopening tool kits will also be robust resources to dig deeper into considerations, best practices, and recommendations around additional critical topics. The following tool kits will be released following this schedule:

Tuesday, June 16

Technology

Wellbeing & Mental Health

Counseling

Early Childhood

Consolidated Funding

Wednesday, June 17

Academics

Charter Schools

Nonpublic Schools

Access & Opportunity

Postsecondary Transitions

Thursday, June 18

Staffing

Professional Development

Assessing Student Learning

Governance

Friday, June 19

Health & Public Health

School Improvement

Safety & Operations

Procedures and videos

Monday, June 22

Continuous Learning Plans, Template, and Example

Expanded Planning Tool

The reopening tool kits, along with other guidance documents and resources, are available to schools and districts on the Tennessee Department of Educations reopening guidance webpage.
People gathered outside City Hall in Belfast in Northern Ireland at the weekend to the protect war memorials in its grounds. (Niall Carson/PA)

Northern Irelands deputy First Minister has said it is important for the policing of coronavirus regulations to be consistent.

Michelle ONeill was speaking after the PSNI was criticised from some quarters over the number of fines handed out at a gathering at the weekend.

Almost 70 fines were issued by officers to people taking part in anti-racism demonstrations in Belfast and Londonderry earlier this month.

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But no fines were handed out at a gathering last weekend by people who said they wanted to protect monuments at Belfast City Hall.

No more than 10 people may come together, according to regulations aimed at stemming the spread of coronavirus.

Ms ONeill said there must be consistency in terms of the policing approach to enforcing the regulations.

She said her party colleague Gerry Kelly had raised the matter with the Policing Board.

I know the Policing Board is looking at this but you need to be consistent in everything you do and so I think that its important that the police are also consistent, she added.

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First Minister Arlene Foster said she had discussed the matter with Chief Constable Simon Byrne earlier that day during a prearranged meeting.

The issue of policing of protests was one of the issues that we talked about, it is important of course to be consistent in the application of the law, she said.

He said that he would be giving a report to the Policing Board on the operational issues that he wanted to report on so I think it is a matter for the Policing Board to raise with the Chief Constable.

I know theres been a number of groups that have come together and we understand that people want to come to congregate together for different reasons, sometimes for social reasons, sometimes for issue of protests, but people need to remember that the regulations are still in place in terms of mass gathering.

At the moment theres only supposed to be 10 people for a purpose coming together outside and still socially distancing, so we would appeal to people to bear that in mind when they are out and about.
MEXICO CITY (AP)  A man accused of being a senior lieutenant in the Sinaloa drug cartel has been extradited to the United States, Mexican prosecutors announced Sunday.

U.S. officials had been trying for years to extradite Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, nicknamed The Engineer, who allegedly had overseen cartel marijuana operations in the mountainous northern state of Durango and part of Chihuahua before his arrest in 2011.

The official announcement of the extradition did not list his full name, but a federal official confirmed it, speaking on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to discuss it publicly.

Officials said he was considered one of the chief aides to convicted drug boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who is in prison in the U.S.

He faces charges of drug trafficking in the Northern District of Illinois.

At the time of his arrest, the Mexican Army7 said Cabrera and three of his brothers began as marijuana growers and that Cabrera rose through the Sinaloa ranks by using violence against his rivals.

A month after his arrest, one of those brothers was killed in a gunfight with soldiers in Durangoi.
INDIANAPOLIS -- Disease tracking is an important area of focus for health departments in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. A new study from Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University shows that using electronic health information exchanges (HIE) to prepopulate forms for notifiable disease reports increases reporting and completeness of information.

Typically, health departments wait for hospital, laboratory or clinic staff members to initiate the report, and it is commonly done by fax. This process can be burdensome to those charged with filing the paperwork and the public health officials who analyze it, leading to delays or gaps in reporting.

"Surveillance is the cornerstone of public health," said Brian Dixon, PhD, MPA, study first author and director of public health informatics at Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI. "The traditional way of reporting can potentially lead to delays in identifying outbreaks. This clinical decision tool leverages information that already exists in the HIE to simplify the process of reporting, ultimately helping to make surveillance more complete to inform public health decisions."

Using HIEs to facilitate reporting

The two-year controlled before-and-after trial analyzed reports submitted to a local health department for seven notifiable diseases. The research scientists compared "usual care," which is the use of paper and fax reports, with HIE-generated forms. They found that provider reporting rates for chlamydia and gonorrhea increased significantly in clinics using the HIE-generated forms, and completeness significantly improved for 4 of the 15 information fields on the reporting forms.

In addition, 75 percent of cases reported by intervention clinics contained a prepopulated form, which indicates that clinics are willing to use the tool.

To create the forms, the research team designed a clinical decision support tool that is triggered when an electronic laboratory message is examined by the Regenstrief Notifiable Condition Detector. The system extracts data from the Indiana Health Information Exchange and fills in the information fields on the official state reporting form. The form is delivered to an ambulatory care clinic using the HIE network, acting as a reminder for the clinician or staff member to review and submit the form to the local health department.

"We know that filling out forms can be challenging for providers and their staff for many reasons," said Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S., senior author and vice president for data and analytics at Regenstrief. "Our solution facilitates public health reporting, which is crucial, while also allowing providers to do what they do best -- providing care for their patients." Dr. Grannis is also a professor of family medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Benefits of HIEs and interoperability

The research team stressed the importance of continuing to build better integration between clinical and public health information systems.

"As demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, timely and complete reporting is crucial to enable quick response to outbreaks that threaten the health of the public," said Dr. Dixon. "As we continue to track the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases, interoperability will play a key role in informing decisions. The healthcare field must continue to push forward in its effort to refine technical and workflow processes to make public health surveillance more efficient."

###

Improving Notifiable Disease Case Reporting Through Electronic Information Exchange Facilitated Decision Support: A Controlled Before-and-After Trial was published in the May/June edition of Public Health Reports.

In addition to Dr. Dixon and Dr. Grannis, other authors on the paper are Zuoyi Zhang, PhD of Regenstrief Institute; Janet N. Arno, M.D. of the Marion County (Indiana) Health Department and University of Washington School of Public Health; Debra Revere, MLS of University of Washington School of Public Health; Joseph Gibson, PhD, MPH of the Marion County (Indiana) Health Department.

More about Brian E. Dixon, MPA, PhD

In addition to his role as Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI director of public health informatics, Brian E. Dixon, MPA, PhD, is a research scientist at Regenstrief and an associate professor of epidemiology at the Fairbanks School of Public Health. He is also an affiliate scientist at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development Center for Health Information and Communication, Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center.

More about Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S.

In addition to his role as the vice president of data and analytics at Regenstrief Institute, Shaun Grannis, M.D., M.S., is the Regenstrief Chair in Medical Informatics and a professor of family medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine.

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 the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI

Located on Indiana's premier research and health sciences campus, the Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI is committed to advancing the public's health and well-being through education, innovation and leadership. The Fairbanks School of Public Health is known for its expertise in biostatistics, epidemiology, cancer research, community health, environmental public health, global health, health policy and health services administration.

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.
Foreigners in Phuket now allowed to travel on interprovincial buses

PHUKET: Foreigners are now allowed to travel on interprovincial buses, the chief of Phuket Bus Terminal 2 has confirmed. The rule change was announced on Saturday and came into effect today (June 15).

COVID-19tourismtransport

By Tanyaluk Sakoot

Monday 15 June 2020, 05:38PM

A passenger has his temperature checked before boarding a bus at Phuket Bus Terminal 2. Photo: Supplied

A passengers has her temperatures checked before boarding a bus to Bangkok. Photo: Supplied

A passenger has his temperature checked before boarding a bus to Bangkok. Photo: Supplied

A passenger has her temperature checked before boarding a bus to Bangkok. Photo: Supplied

Chop Puttasupa, Chief of Phuket Bus Terminal 2, the main interprovincial bus terminal on the island, today confirmed, From today, all foreigners are allowed buy tickets and travel on interprovincial buses as long as they comply with the health regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Mr Chop explained that all foreigners were banned from boarding interprovincial buses under a nationwide order brought into effect months ago when the nationwide lockdown began.

At the time there were serious concerns about foreigners travelling between provinces, especially since it included foreign workers from Myanmar, Malaysia and other countries, he said.

So the Department of Land Transport issued its own nationwide order to ban all foreigners from travelling on buses between any provinces. But now, foreigners are allowed to enter or leave Phuket for any reason, he said.

All people travelling by bus must comply with the new health regulations to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Mr Chop noted, including wearing face masks at all times while at the bus terminals and while travelling.

All people arriving or departing Phuket by bus must register their travel with the Phuket Provincial Police via the web platform gophuget.com, Mr Chop pointed out.

They must also register their entry and exit of the bus terminals through the Thai Chana web platform, he said.

Further all people travelling by bus must complete a Tor 8 [tor bairt] form at the bus terminal before boarding their bus, Mr Chop said.

This is just basic travel information so if there is an incident health officials will be able to investigate and find out who might be affected, he said.

Ticket vendors will provide the Tor 8 forms when people buy tickets in person at the bus terminal, Mr Chop explained.

People who buy bus tickets online will be handed a Tor 8 form when they collect their ticket when they arrive at the bus station, he added.

More information please contact call 076-373193, Mr Chop said.

Additional reporting by Khunanya Wanchanwet
Gayathri Mani By

Express News Service

It all began in November last year when construction activities in the national capital were banned following rising air pollution levels in northern India.

The prohibition was completely lifted on February 14. Citys major government infrastructure projects received a further blow in the form of deadly coronavirus disease (Covid-19), followed by the nationwide lockdown on March 25, forcing lakhs of migrant workers to leave for their native places on foot, cycles, motorcycles and later, trains and buses.

The exodus hampered government efforts to streamline Delhis traffic flow and make roads safer for pedestrians.

The Public Works Department (PWD), on the other hand, is running out of funds. Although construction works have begun at some places as the city entered unlock 1.0, the shortage of labour force remains a matter of concern for contractors.

The infrastructural works in the national capital have been moving a snails pace since June 1 when the lockdown 5.0 began.

Major projects such as Ashram underpass, Barapullah extension phase-3 from Sarai Kale Khan to Mayur Vihar, redevelopment of ITPO Pragati Maidan, the 1.2-km-long tunnel between Purana Qila road near Mathura Road and the Ring Road, flyover in Shastri Park and Seelampur have been severely hampered by the Covid-19 lockdown.

Besides, the projects under the AAP governments pre-poll promises, including 2.1 lakh CCTV cameras and streetlights across the city for the safety of woman and children and streetscaping of the congested stretches that was expected to be completed by the end of this year, are also in limbo for the last nearly six months.

Construction works have resumed, but the PWD doesnt have enough money and the labour force. The budget for the quarterly period of April, May and June has been not released yet. It was to be released in the last week of March, that is when the lockdown was imposed. Thus, the amount has lapsed and some contractors have not even received the amount since January, says a senior PWD official on condition of anonymity.

A view of under-construction Ashram underpass (Photo | Anil Shakya, EPS)

Most of the migrant labourers are from UP, Haryana, MP, Bihar and Jharkhand. But due to the pandemic, many have left the city, leaving us with a massive shortage of workforce, the official adds.

According to an official record with the Delhi government, there were 5.5 lakh registered migrant workers till 2018.

Of them, officials said the Delhi government has already sent around 4 lakh migrants to their home states in May. A large number of migrants left the city on their foot.

Many of the projects are already behind their schedule, the official says. Besides, maintaining social distancing by labourers at construction sites is a big challenge for contractors.The streetscaping of Moolchand to Ashram Chowk was set to be completed by September. Now, with the works resuming after a long period, we aim to finish it by Diwali, but it will not be possible without money and manpower, says another PWD official.

Projects such as Ashram underpass and Barapullah extension phase-3 have already been delayed. The government itself has admitted that the big projects will be delayed by at least 1 or 2 years. Further, cost escalation will go between 25 and 50 per cent. More importantly, the government should infuse money to complete the projects. Even, if contractors receive any money upfront, the shortage of labourers will remain a challenge. We need a large number of labourers big projects, said S Velmurugan, senior principal scientist and former head of the traffic engineering and safety division, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).

Last month, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia has already said the government will release funds only for healthcare services and Covid-19-related works. The government has also sought an immediate assistance of Rs 5,000 crore from the Centre to pay salaries to its employees and meet its expenses as revenues have dried up during the lockdown.

Ashram underpass

The construction of the much-awaited 410-metre-long underpass, proposed by the PWD, at Ashram Chowk along the Mathura Road was started in December last year. The Rs 128.98-crore project also includes expansion of the Ashram flyover to the DND flyway to de-congest daily traffic jams on the route.The stretch sees more than three lakh vehicles every day and commuters are often stuck for about 45 minutes here.

But, sadly the underpass is facing obstacles ever since it started. First, the construction activity was banned due to the air pollution in Delhi-NCR, then the CAA protest in Shaheen Bagh and now, the coronavirus outbreak. Even during the lockdown, we had tried to continue the work, but could not manage it for more than 10 days. Amid the crisis, migrant workers had started to leave the city, says a senior PWD official.

The official says it may take another month before the six-lane Ashram flyovers construction resumes.

The four-lane underpass is expected to end 41 per cent of traffic on that stretch.

About the project

Cost of the underpass: Rs 78 crore

Extension of the flyover: Rs 128.98 crore

Started: December 2019

Expected deadline then: December 2020

Expected deadline now: End of 2021

2.1 lakh CCTV cameras

Installation of CCTV cameras was a flagship project of the AAP government. It was one of its pre-poll promises. The installation was officially started in June 2019.According to the government, till March, about 1.4 lakh cameras were installed across the city and the remaining one lakh are set to be installed by the end of 2020.

But, due to the lockdown, the project could not pick up the pace.A large number of CCTV cameras installed in Northeast Delhi were broken and damaged during the communal riots in February... The funds for the remaining cameras could not be released due to the lockdown, says a Delhi government official.

Mukhyamantri Streetlight Yojana

The project was launched by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal before the assembly elections in December with an aim to install about 2.18 lakh streetlights. According to officials, till now, only up to 6,000 automatic-LED streetlights have been installed under the scheme.The government had aimed to install about 50,000-60,000 streetlights by February.Maintaining social distancing is very difficult while installing streetlights. For instance, you need at least three-four persons to raise and install a pole. Also, there is a workforce crunch, says a PWD official closely working on the project.

Delhis first tunnel road

The 1.2-km-long tunnel is the most awaited project and was said to be completed by January 2020. The PMO in June last year had asked the PWD to finish the construction by the deadline.Around 3.5 vehicles use this stretch via ITO.The underground tunnel will go beneath Pragati Maidan and connect India Gate near Purana Quila road and will pass through the Pragati Maidan Thermal Power Station. The tunnel will provide signal-free travel to commuters travelling froM and to from Noida, Ghaziabad, East Delhi, Jangpura via India Gate. Further, it aims to end the traffic jams at the ITO signal.Seventy per cent of the work has been completed. Now, with the resuming of construction activity, the PWD expects to complete it by December-end, said another PWD official. The cost of the project is Rs 777 crore.

Seelampur, Shastri Park flyovers

These flyovers were proposed to end the bottlenecks and chaos in parts East and North East Delhi such as Kashmere Gate, Shahdra, Welcome, Shastri Park, Seelampur and Khajoori Khas. The construction for the projects had started in 2019 and was expected to be completed by March this year.Officials said 80 per cent of the work is completed. The communal riots and the coronavirus have halted the projects. But the flyovers are almost complete. The construction works have resumed and will be finished by Diwali, if everything goes according to the plan, says an official.

Barapullah phase-3

An extension of Barapullah phase-1, the Rs 1260-crore project would help reduce traffic congestion in East Delhi. The project, 3.5-km- stretch, was started in 2015 and was scheduled to be completed by 2017, but the project stalled due to a dispute over a land acquisition near Yamuna flood plains. In 2019, the government had also issued a gazette notification for the land acquisition. But, it got delayed due to various factors. Fifty per cent of the work is completed. The work here too has resumed, but the labour crunch poses a challenge, says a government official.

Streetscaping

Last year, the Delhi government had launched a streetscaping of 10 most congested stretches on the standards of American and European style. The stretches included Ashram to Naraina, Vikas Marg to Narwana Road, Moti Bagh to Naraina, Britannia Chowk and others. The cost of these 10 stretches is Rs 500 crore (approximately).

Construction workers

The Centre for Holistic Development (CHD), an NGO, said according to the Delhi Building and Construction workers Board, around 5.5 lakh registered migrant workers in the city.It is sad that the Delhi government has 7,786 registered contractors and has submitted in a court that there are about registered 40,000 construction workers. It has cited reasons that a labourer who has worked at least 90 days at a construction site will be eligible to get registered. But due to the lockdown, it could not register more workers. But my question is why didnt it renew their registrations. Due to this mistake, lakhs of workers have been left with no food and shelter, says Sunil Kumar Aledia, a founding member of the CHD.

Govts focus only on healthcare services

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has already said the government will release funds only for healthcare services and Covid-19-related works. Last month, he said even if the lockdown is totally lifted, no government project would take off for at least two to three months. The government has also sought an immediate assistance of `5,000 crore from the Centre to pay salaries to its employees and meet its expenses as revenues have dried up during the lockdown
On Monday, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch betrayed the Constitution and the great cause of equality for which so many civil rights leaders fought, according to a number of really distraught conservative judicial activists.

Joined by fellow conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the courts progressive wing, Gorsuch issued a landmark 63 ruling that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prevents employers from discriminating against workers because they are gay or transgender, paving the way for breakthrough employment protections for LGBTQ people around the country.

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As Mark Joseph Stern explained, the justices followed a straightforward legal theory that the portion of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits discrimination because of sex encompassed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Its impossible for an employer to discriminate against a gay or transgender person without taking into account the persons sex, which would mean discriminating on that basis, Gorsuch reasoned.

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This did not sit well with the conservative legal activists who put time, energy, and vast amounts of money into securing Gorsuchs confirmation to replace Justice Antonin Scalia at the start of President Donald Trumps term.

Gorsuchs Monday opinion apparently enraged Carrie Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network, an organization that reportedly spent $10 million to secure Gorsuchs confirmation in 2017 and promised another $10 million to secure Justice Brett Kavanaughs in 2018. Severino accused Gorsuch of ruling for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards in a brute force attack on our constitutional system.

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Justice Scalia would be disappointed that his successor has bungled textualism so badly today, for the sake of appealing to college campuses and editorial boards.



This was not judging, this was legislatinga brute force attack on our constitutional system. (1/x)  Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) June 15, 2020

Perhaps most offensive of all to Severino was that Gorsuch, in issuing his opinion, cited Scalias textualist judicial philosophy of seeking to interpret the plain meaning of the words of a statute at the time it was written. As she dramatically put it: This is an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy.

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Have no doubts about what happened today: This was the hijacking of textualism.



You can't redefine the meaning of words themselves and still be doing textualism. This is an ominous sign for anyone concerned about the future of representative democracy. (end)  Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) June 15, 2020

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And it wasnt just Severino who was worried about what would become of democracy now.

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New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmarimost famous for his position that liberal democracy is beginning to get in the way of conservatives ability to go about defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common goodwas frustrated as well.

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Today is a great day for men, not so great for women.  Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 15, 2020

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I hate to do this, but as the country ballad says, "I told you soooooo!" https://t.co/KKzqvCxnEb  Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) June 15, 2020

The joint frustrations of the conservative institutionalists vs. the anti-institutionalists resulted in a bit of maudlin backbiting over what exactly went wrong today.

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This wasn't originalism that failed us.



This was an imposter parading as originalism. https://t.co/sZwtKoVT9J  Carrie Severino (@JCNSeverino) June 15, 2020

Ahmaris arguments for the reactionary and anti-majoritarian politics of Trumpism seem to be gaining the upper hand after Monday. Daily Caller columnist Saurabh Sharma was calling for open defiance of Mondays ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County and other legal opinions adverse to the conservative cause of preventing equal rights for gay and transgender people.

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Also, to everyone impotently whining about how we should make the court less important today:



The only path to do that is open defiance of black-robed supremacy. Unless youre willing to endorse that, I dont want to hear your hand-wringing over the trajectory of our republic. https://t.co/7FhQevJtMe  Saurabh Sharma (@ssharmaTX) June 15, 2020

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The Courts were never going to save us. Our project as conservatives is to curb their worst excesses, get them out of our way, and when that fails, seek the ultimate vindication of our convictions by defying them in the name of constitutional order.  Saurabh Sharma (@ssharmaTX) June 15, 2020

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Historically, nullification has offered a mixed bag in terms of success, failing at the practical level of the ability to outright defy laws while occasionally pushing the courts toward judicial accommodations for those doing the defying that have long-lasting impacts.

Still, the concept was all the rage on Twitter on Monday. As the opinion editor of Newsweek, Josh Hammer, put it:

Going to re-up this call to defy judicial supremacy. https://t.co/0yq8T2JiRt  Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) June 15, 2020

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Hammer was similarly grave about the consequences of the decision for the legitimacy of particular justices who were recently put forward by the conservative movement:

The crisis moment for the conservative legal movement has arrived.



The Roe v. Wade of religious liberty is here, and it was delivered by golden boy Neil Gorsuch.



What comes next?  Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) June 15, 2020

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For the record, I wrote numerous pieces at the time arguing for Bill Pryor over Neil Gorsuch.  Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) June 15, 2020

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Indeed, he thought the whole thing was a joke:

Conservative LOLegal Movement  Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) June 15, 2020

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Meanwhile, senior editor at the Conservative Review Daniel Horowitz endorsed Hammers notion that the Republican Party writ largeas embodied by its choices of Supreme Court justiceshad failed the conservative movement.

To shield Democrats from the inevitable revolt the American people would organize against them and take the blame instead. https://t.co/dZmpnbZYhC  Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) June 15, 2020

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Hammer, for his part, was so angry about the news that he even attacked one of the dissenting justices, Brett Kavanaugh. Despite saying he would rule against the rights of LGBTQ people in this case, Kavanaugh apparently committed the sin in Hammers eyes of not being mean enough to them in doing it.

Kavanaugh wrote that notwithstanding my concern about the Courts transgression of the Constitutions separation of powers, it is appropriate to acknowledge the important victory achieved today by gay and lesbian Americans.  [They] can take pride in todays result.

As Hammer responded to these empty words in a since-deleted tweet:

So even one of the three dissenters feels compelled to flaunt his virtue for the mob. There are literally two good justices on the Court: Thomas and Alito. The conservative legal movement is a failure.

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Ultimately, though, the frustration of these conservatives seems very likely to be short-lived. The Supreme Court and its conservative majority are set this term to decide a raft of major cases, including one that could overturn a landmark abortion decision upholding and bolstering Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade that was decided just four years ago. There is more than enough time in the remainder of this term for Gorsuch to vindicate himself in the eyes of hisfor todayvery distraught benefactors.

For more of Slates news coverage, subscribe to The Gist on Apple Podcasts or listen below.
Falling coronavirus cases and low death rates mean the NHS is close to being able to resume its normal services, experts say.

Daily deaths from the virus remain low, with 38 recorded in the UK yesterday, bringing the total to 41,736 as of 5pm on Sunday.

The declining numbers of cases meant that, as of yesterday, only 390 critical care beds were occupied by coronavirus patients across England.

Daily deaths from coronavirus remain low in the UK, with just 38 recorded on Monday meaning the total sits at 41,736

The falling rate of deaths and total cases could mean the NHS is able to return to normal service, according to experts

A study by Imperial College London calculates that all routine surgeries could be reintroduced once critical care occupancy by Covid-19 patients falls to 320.

It suggests the NHS could start to clear its waiting list  which stands at more than four million  within weeks.

The Imperial team cautioned that it would take a while to clear the backlog of operations cancelled in March, April and May.

And they said the NHS will need to keep in place some of the emergency measures used during the crisis in order to clear the backlog  such as using private hospitals, keeping on retired staff who returned to work and employing final-year medical and nursing students.

But this aside, hospitals are close to being in a position to resume full services, they said.

It would mean hospitals (pictured) are close to providing full services once again, but they will keep emergency measures in place

Researcher Dr Katharina Hauck, of Imperial College London, said: It is impressive how the NHS adapted to provide life-saving treatment to Covid patients, but we have now many patients who are waiting for essential surgery.

Ruth McCabe, also of Imperial, said it was imperative that the emergency measures were sustained to resume elective surgery while allowing for potential future surges in Covid-19 patients.

Officials said the latest figure for Covid-19 deaths was further proof of a downward trend, though delays in processing fatalities over the weekend mean the daily totals are often lower on Sundays and Mondays.

Nevertheless, it is two thirds lower than a fortnight ago, when 111 deaths were recorded and at a similar level to March 21, two days before lockdown started.

Official figures show the number of those being put in hospital with the virus is also declining.

Some 430 were admitted on Saturday, down from 515 the week before, and a fraction of the peak of 3,432 on April 1.

The number being treated to hospital has also fallen by almost a fifth to 5,507, from 6,826 the same time last week, according to the Department of Health.

Those most severely ill, requiring ventilators, has fallen to 395 from 556 a week earlier and a peak of more than 3,000.

Has the virus burned itself out?

Analysis by John Naish

Nearly three months into Britains coronavirus pandemic and death and infection rates are falling steadily.

Elsewhere in the world, in countries that are some weeks ahead of us and where lockdown restrictions have been eased, there are as yet few signs of a dreaded second wave  although it is early days.

Now some scientists are suggesting  tentatively to be sure  that this strain of the coronavirus may be following a path beaten by other pathogens, whereby the murderous intruder evolves into a house-guest that lives peaceably inside us.

Three months into lockdown in Britain (pictured) and the number of deaths and daily cases are beginning to fall

Early evidence for this positive development comes from northern Italy which suffered the full force of the pandemic weeks before it hit us.

Late last month, Professor Matteo Bassetti, the head of infectious diseases at San Martino hospital in Genoa, told journalists: The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today.

'The majority of patients [seen] during March and April were very sick with acute respiratory distress syndrome, shock, multiple organ failure.

The majority died in the first days after admission. We no longer see these types of patients.

'Is this because the virus lost some viral potency? he asked. I dont know.

A positive sign in the European fight against coronavirus: Italian mayor of Gorizia (left) reopens the border with Slovenia in the north of Italy - one of the areas most devastated by the virus. It comes as Italian scientist say the virus is weakening

His observation is supported by an analysis of local death rates by Professor Lamberto Manzoli, an epidemiologist at northern Italys Ferrara University.

His results suggest that from March to April, mortality from Covid-19 across all ages fell by more than half.

Professor Manzolis paper has not yet been published in a reputable scientific journal and so has not been subject to peer review.

Scientists are still on a steep learning curve with this novel virus, but other observations feed into this theory.

In China, as far as we know, there have been localised spikes  including the current outbreak associated with a market in Beijing  but no widespread surge.

In France, Spain and Italy, where some semblance of normal life began two to three weeks ago, both new infections and deaths remain low.

In European countries such as France (pictured), a sense of normal life has returned with the number of cases and deaths remaining low

A similar apparent fall in lethality has been reported in America. Lee Riley, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, told the science publication Elemental that data from New York hints at an improvement in recoveries.

Every time a virus passes from one person to another it goes through mutations, he says.

These can accumulate and the virulence of the virus can ultimately lessen. Its in the nature of these viruses to get tired after a while.

While the world must hope and pray that the virulence is waning, there are some caveats, including two other possible explanations for the drop in deaths.

The first is that treatment has vastly improved as doctors have acquired experience of managing Covid-19.

Indeed, Prof Manzoli acknowledges that clinical protocols seem more effective now. In the early days, clinicians waited until the condition worsened before giving drugs and ventilation  the Chinese protocol. Now they start early, he says.

Alternatively, the virus might simply have infected and killed the most vulnerable first, with more resilient patients surviving.

UK experts are dubious, arguing that the genetics of the disease have not changed. Dr Oscar MacLean, a bioinformatician at Glasgow Universitys Institute for Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation, argues: Weve seen no evidence of widespread [reduction in its lethality].

UK scientists remain sceptical, however, with regards to the debate surrounding the reduction in the virus' lethality

He adds: The golden rule is that viruses tend to evolve over time to become less pathogenic, but that doesnt happen over a matter of a few months. Its more a matter of years.

Viruses can evolve to a point where they can indeed help their hosts (human or animal), establishing a symbiotic relationship from which both species benefit.

This may be the optimum state for the pathogen which has one purpose  to reproduce itself and infect new individuals and it can better achieve this if it does not kill its host (one reason why the Ebola virus outbreaks, with a 50 per cent fatality rate, tend to burn out).

Dr Frank Ryan, a British evolutionary biologist and author of Virolution, about the powerful role of viruses in evolution, calls the beneficial relationship aggressive symbiosis.

The herpes virus, for example, has developed symbiosis with the squirrel monkey, passing harmlessly from mother to baby.

If a rival species such as marmosets invades squirrel-monkey territory, the virus infects the challenger to devastating effect.

It is in the squirrel monkeys interest not to purge the virus, so its immune system views it as friend rather than intruder.

Perhaps this type of jungle immune system helps wild bats.

In fact, some ecologists have speculated on whether Covid-19 might be bats acquired defence against humans destroying their habitats and eating them.

Could we even ultimately develop a mutually beneficial relationship with coronavirus?

We know that nearly 10 per cent of the human genome comprises genetic material from viruses that invaded us in the past and this borrowed viral DNA does vital work  ranging from enabling us to digest starchy foods to, ironically, helping us to fight infections.

Conversely, the Covid-19 virus might never bring anything useful to the human genetic table.

But three months on, even the slightest hint that it is in retreat  and for whatever reason  is something to hold on to.
A recent study by Apartment List found that a significant share of Americans  three in 10 at last count  havent been able to make their housing payment on time amid the economic impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak. With states starting to reopen and mortgage rates hovering near all-time lows, however, some feel the worst may be over. But one expert warns that the road to recovery might be longer than expected.

Chris Salviati, housing economist for Apartment List and co-author of the study, pointed out that 37% of renters were worried that they would face eviction in the next six months, while 26% of homeowners worried about foreclosure.

Its certainly the case that the actual number of evictions that take place are nowhere near that 37% of renters or 26% of homeowners, Salviati told MPA. These numbers do seem pretty troubling to me, though. How many of these folks will actually find themselves in that situation is obviously a different question. But it speaks to the severe hardship that a lot of these folks are finding themselves in right now financially, and the fact that its likely something thats going to be ongoing for a lot of these folks. Its not going to be, These shelter-in-place orders lift and everything gets back to normal. I do think the recovery here is going to be more protracted than what people maybe hoped or expected at the beginning of all this.
The Acer Veriton N series PCs come with Windows 10 along with 6 USB ports with at least 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1. The Desktops are powered by Intel dual-core/quad-core processors. The machines also come with 4GB RAM expandable up to 8GB.

To cater to the needs of people working from home or attending classes and lectures from home, Acer has launched the Acer Veriton N series PCs in India with prices starting at Rs 9,999. Under the hood, the affordable Acer Veriton N series PCs are powered by the Intel dual-core processor. There is a quad-core processor option as well. The CPU is coupled with 4GB RAM expandable up to 8GB. The new Acer Veriton N series comes with Microsoft Windows 10, and WiFi b/g/n ac for wireless connectivity. It is a small form factor desktop with VESA mounts. This means that you can mount the PC behind a monitor to give you an AIO like setup helping with space management and ensuring you can maximize space utilization. For connectivity, the desktop comes with 6 USB ports with at least 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports. The Acer Veriton N series PCs will be available online and offline as well.

Speaking on this occasion, Sudhir Goel, Chief of Commercial Business Group, Acer India said, We are excited about the launch of the new Acer Veriton N series which is an affordable PC for meeting the rising demand of E-learning, Enterprises and Small-Medium Business across all segments. With lockdown and changing business strategies, there is a need of IT products to adjust the remote working requirements. To address the immediate task of keeping the workforce functional with minimum losses in productivity, Acer India launched this product that is enterprise-ready and delivers a smoother, more responsive, and fast computing experience. This launch will support the industry prediction on the rising demand for PCs in the enterprise segment for the coming quarters.

In other Acer news, the company recently launched the upgraded Nitro 5 series laptop in India with up to 10th gen Intel Core i7 processors and RTX 2060 GPU. The Nitro 5 is available in a couple of configuration options starting from Intel Core i5 processor with GTX 1650 graphics to Core i7 with RTX 2060 graphics with an option of choosing between a 15.6-inch or 17.3-inch display. You can take a look at the detailed specifications and pricing of the Acer Nitro gaming laptop here.

In other laptop news, Xiaomi entered the laptop space in India with the launch of the Mi NoteBook 14 and Mi NoteBook 14 Horizon Edition all of which are running on the 10th gen Intel processors. You can read more about the Mi NoteBooks here.
For China's leadership, the unification of Taiwan is more than a symbol of the final success of the Chinese Communist Party or an emotional appeal to some historic image of a greater China. It is a strategic imperative driven both by Taiwan's strategic location, and by the rising antagonism between the United States and China. Taiwan is the unsinkable aircraft carrier off the Chinese coastline, splitting China's near seas, and bridging the arc of islands stretching southwest from Japan with those from the Philippines south through Indonesia. Taiwan is crucial for both any foreign containment strategy, and for China's confidence and security in the East and South China seas  areas critical to China's national defense, food security and international trade.

China's Management of Taiwan

For decades, China has seen Taiwan reunification as an issue that can be delayed so long as Beijing could constrain the emergence of strong pro-independence forces. To achieve this, China has relied on a combination of tools, from conciliatory political and economic policies to more coercive military activities and international diplomatic isolation. For several years, particularly during the 2008-2016 administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, China eased off its more overt coercive measures, and instead sought greater economic and social interactions with Taiwan. This was intended to tie the islands' economic status so tightly to the mainland that it would tamp down political sentiment that bucked the cooperative trend, and perhaps ultimately lead to a peaceful unification under a one country, two systems model.

But the election, and then re-election, of President Tsai Ing-Wen  combined with the resurgent power of her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which leans more pro-Taiwan than pro-unification, and the island's changing demographics  have effectively erased any lingering expectation of Taiwan giving up its sovereignty and willingly joining with the mainland. Tsai and the DPP reject the 1992 Consensus, an arrangement between Taiwan and China that they would agree there is only one China (though each was able to have their own interpretation of whether that was the current communist People's Republic of China or the past Nationalist Republic of China), thus forming the framework for cross-strait interactions. More recently, Beijing has stepped up its link between the 1992 Consensus and the one country, two systems concept, thus asserting that any consensus is a recognition that mainland Communist China is the only China. In this context, even the island's Kuomintang party has backed away from the 1992 Consensus amid increasing political pressure inside Taiwan.

With President Tsai calling for a committee to review Taiwan's constitution, and pursuing a more assertive policy to sign trade deals with Western powers and expand relations with Southeast Asian states, Beijing is concerned that Taiwan may be laying the groundwork to move from de facto to de jure independence, even if not immediately. Taiwan's apparent success in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unfolding events in Hong Kong, are raising international sympathies for Taiwan at a time when Beijing is trying to tighten the island's political isolation. The United States' public recognition of Tsai's re-election and request for new arms sales, as well as its increased patrols in the South China Sea and through the Taiwan Strait, all point to a potential change in Taiwan's security and international status  and one that Beijing sees as a clear violation of its claimed sovereignty and a threat to its strategic security.

China's Taiwan Toolkits

China has five main toolkits it draws from for its Taiwanese policy: incentivize, disrupt, isolate, constrain and force. The first three (incentivize, disrupt and isolate) are largely a combination of economic and political tools, while the latter two (constrain and force) move more heavily into the military space. During Taiwan's previous administration under President Ma, China relied largely on the first tool (incentivize) while selectively drawing from the second two (disrupt and isolate).

But given the changes inside Taiwan, and in Taiwan's international ties, Beijing no longer sees the first as having much relevance, and is now shifting heavily toward the second two. At no time is China not using the fourth tool (constrain), shaping the future battlespace to limit Taiwan's options and ability to rely on external powers. The fifth, direct military action, is one Beijing wishes to avoid but sees as potentially necessary over the next decade due to the pace of change in Taiwan and shifting U.S. regional interactions.

1) Incentivize: Using primarily economic, social/cultural and political tools to encourage greater integration with the mainland to highlight the benefits of cooperation and eventual reunification. Examples include:

Offering economic benefits for Taiwanese companies operating in China.

Opening sectors of the Chinese economy to Taiwan, such as agricultural products.

Suspending dollar diplomacy competition between the Mainland and Taiwan.

Loosening opposition to Taiwanese presence in select international forums.

Encouraging tourism between Taiwan and the mainland.

Emphasizing Chinese cultural ties, and the strength of the Chinese market and economy.

2) Disrupt: Using economic, political and informational tools to disrupt social and political unity in Taiwan, and thus prevent the formation of a strong pro-independence bloc. Examples include:

Selectively applying regulations to Taiwanese business operations on the mainland.

Engaging in disinformation campaigns in Taiwan and countries sympathetic to Taiwan.

Carrying out cyber espionage and cyber attacks.

Adding complications to trade and tourism to create uncertainty, delays and economic loss.

Using military statements or exercises to create a sense of a less stable Taiwan.

3) Isolate: Reducing the international space for Taiwan to operate by influencing global organizations and foreign nations in ways that limit their interaction with Taiwan, or keep such interaction within tightly prescribed boundaries. Examples include:

Blocking Taiwanese participation in international forums, as it did in the recent World Health Assembly meeting.

Threatening or carrying out economic action against businesses from third-party countries that do not adhere to Chinese convention labeling Taiwan a province of the People's Republic, or that assist in Taiwan's defense.

Threatening or carrying out economic action against countries that either recognize Taiwan, or conduct political, economic or military actions that appear to support Taiwanese autonomy or independence.

Accelerate dollar diplomacy efforts to strip away Taiwan's remaining formal diplomatic ties.

4) Constrain: Shaping the physical environment around Taiwan and in China's near seas to increase Beijing's strategic posture vis-a-vis Taiwan, and increase the cost of intervention by foreign powers if China should shift to military action to coerce or conquer Taiwan. Examples include:

Increasing China's air, surface and subsurface maritime capabilities and reach.

Increasing missile range and deployments to raise the cost of foreign intervention in China's near seas.

Dominating key features in the South and East China seas and along strategic routes.

Weakening regional U.S. alliance structures through economic, political and military coercion and concessions.

Enhancing China's Marine Corps and military amphibious capabilities.

Increasing and regularizing Chinese naval operations in the waters around Taiwan.

5) Force: Using military force to isolate Taiwan from international economic and security connections, eroding Taiwan's governed space, disrupting or damaging critical Taiwanese infrastructure, degrading Taiwanese military capabilities, and/or (in the extreme) invading and occupying Taiwan. Examples include:

Disrupting key supply lines to Taiwan, including raw materials, machinery.

Conducting cyber attacks on Taiwanese government and critical infrastructure.

Naval blockade of Taiwanese ports.

Closing the Taiwan Strait and/or airspace around Taiwan.

Seizing outlying Taiwanese-controlled islands.

Selective missile/drone strikes.

Amphibious assault and occupation.

The Military Option

Although Beijing would prefer to avoid a military confrontation over Taiwan, it has never taken the military card off the table. The pace of China's military developments have far exceeded Taiwan's, and the balance has clearly tilted in favor of China, including even in several scenarios where the United States intervenes in a cross-strait conflict. But for Beijing, a potential victory in a military action to take Taiwan does not necessarily outbalance the numerous costs. An invasion risks not only jeopardizing Chinese soldiers and equipment, but prompting a global economic and political backlash.

Even If the United States was deterred from intervening in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Beijing would encounter a significant international economic and political response. And it is not clear a successful invasion would translate into a successful occupation, or the ability to capitalize on Taiwan's own economic capacity. So long as China retains some negative influence in Taiwan sufficient to deter active moves toward formal independence or foreign military occupation, it will likely delay direct military action.

That does not mean, however, that China is not actively preparing the battleground, both in the political realm to demonstrate the futility of Taiwanese independence, and as a concrete way to increase the likelihood of victory if there is a shift to open hostilities. This shaping takes several forms. First, China uses its economic heft to dissuade any significant foreign support for Taiwanese international space. Second, it similarly uses its political pressure to shape foreign companies and countries in their interaction with Taiwan. By isolating Taiwan diplomatically, China limits the strength of Taiwan, and reduces the potential for foreign intervention as Beijing shapes the physical environment.

It is the third component, the physical military space, that has been most notable in recent years. Beijing's construction and militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea create a Chinese defensive ring around Taiwan, allowing China to interfere with key maritime routes foreign powers would take to intervene in cross-strait tensions. Expanding the Marine Corps, increasing the supply of amphibious ships, and stepping up the training cycle provides the conceptual force for occupying outlying Taiwanese islands and for an invasion force of the main island. China's developments of anti-ship missiles, including work on hypersonics, further increases the cost of intervention by foreign powers. At the same time the United States is sailing ships and flying aircraft to assert freedom of navigation around Taiwan, China is also honing its capacity to deny the water and airspace to foreign powers. China will match these efforts to shape the future battlespace with continued activities to spread disunity within Taiwan through economic, political and informational means.

A More Contentious Region

For now, it is unlikely that Taiwan will seek formal independence, despite the ruling DPP. Taiwan is, however, seeking a larger international environment and is reaching out to Europe, Southeast Asia and India for improved economic ties. Taiwan is also seeking the weapons systems necessary to increase its own ability to counter-strike should China invade, including the ability to strike into the mainland to increase the cost of any Chinese military action. While reunification is largely off the table in Taiwan, the island's strongest propensity is for a continuation of the status quo of de facto, rather than de jure, independence.

We can anticipate, then, that China will pursue a policy to disrupt, isolate and constrain Taiwan over the next few years, offering very few conciliatory incentives unless there are clear opportunities provided by political or economic dynamics in Taiwan. This will include shoring up the current artificial islands in the South China Sea that serve as forward basing and interdiction of key maritime routes (there are rumors of Beijing even considering the use of floating nuclear reactors to both reduce resupply problems and disincentivize foreign military action against these military outposts); deploying more anti-ship and anti-air missiles in and around China's near seas, including hypersonic missiles; increasing training for its carrier battle groups and marine corps amphibious operations; and using its civil maritime and aviation organizations to maintain a consistent presence in its claimed areas to demonstrate effective control. We may, at times, even see China experiment with various forms of loose blockades to disrupt foreign economic and security connections to Taiwan.
A Federal High Court in Abuja will on Tuesday deliver judgement in a suit seeking disqualification of a House of Representatives member for providing alleged false information to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Musa Adamu, who was elected in a by-election on March 14, to represent Babura/Garki Federal Constituency of Jigawa State, is accused of forging his secondary school certificate and two court affidavits.

He has denied the allegations.

The by-election followed the death of the member representing the constituency, who was the father of Mr Adamu. Like his late father, Mr Adamu is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The pre-election matter is before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court.

The suit was instituted by Nasiru Dantiye, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the election.

Mr Dantiye had approached the Federal High Court, praying for declaration that the APC candidate was not qualified to contest the election because he presented false information and forged document to INEC in support of his credentials to contest the election.

Mr Dantiye and PDP alleged that the Senior Secondary School Certificate attached to the nomination form did not belong to Mr Adamu as the name written on the statement of result is Mohammed Musa Adam not Musa Muhammad Adamu.

Mr Dantiye through his lawyers claimed that checks conducted on the WAEC website revealed that the real name of the person with the examination number quoted on the statement of result is Muhd, Musa Adam.

The lawyers, led by Abdul Mohammed, also alleged that an affidavit purportedly sworn to by Mr Adamu claiming his name was wrongly written on his certificate was also forged.

This was allegedly confirmed by the Chief Registrar of the FCT High Court via a letter date March 12 addressed to Mr Dantiyes counsel, a copy of which was obtained by PREMIUM TIMES.

It is also alleged that the declaration of age purported to have been sworn by the father of Mr Adamu before the FCT High Court is also forged.

This was also allegedly confirmed by the Chief Registrar of the FCT High Court in his letter to the lawyers.

Another issue before the court is the allegation that Mr Adamu presented a false

information to INEC in his form when he stated that he resigned from his work on December 31, 2019, while the resignation letter he attached indicated that his resignation took effect from January 31, 2020.

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The suit is filed pursuant to the provision of the of Section 31 (5) of the Electoral Act, 2010 which mandates person who suspects false information to file a suit to challenge the candidacy of any person.

The legal team relied on the recent case of the deputy governor-elect of Bayelsa state in which the Supreme Court invalidated the APC victory.

The PDP candidate wants Mr Adamu disqualified and that he should be declared the winner.

But Mr Adamus lawyers led by Yakubu Maikyau, a senior advocate of Nigeria, are challenging the premise of Mr Dantiyes suit.

Mr Maikyau did not however answer phone calls for comments on the suit.

Mr Dantiyes lead counsel, Abdul Mohammed, declined comment saying that could be preemptive of the court.
The doctrine, created by the Supreme Court decades ago, allows civil suits only when it can be shown that an officials actions violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right. When determining whether the right was clearly established, courts consider whether a reasonable official would have known that the actions were a violation.
PORTAGE  A 62-year-old Portage woman faces a felony count of animal cruelty after attempting to neuter her dog by wrapping material around the animal's testicles, police allege.

Kimberly Oldham reportedly told Portage police a neighbor had informed her an elastic band would cause the dog's testicles to just fall off without causing the animal any pain.

"In speaking with Ms. Oldham, she again explained that she never intended on harming the animal, but after receiving numerous complaints about her dog not being neutered and not having the funds to do so, she took the advice of her neighbors," a police report states.

Oldham was arrested Sunday evening.

Police said they initially were called May 26 to the Hobart Animal Clinic in Hobart in response to a 3-year-old Terrier-Chihuahua mix brought to the facility by Oldham.

The dog was bleeding from his testicles as a result of the botched attempt at neutering, police said.

A veterinarian said he found the dog in pain and very dehydrated, police said. Upon closer examination, the doctor said "a dental floss like string was located wrapped around the base of the scrotum."
Is the aftermath of George Floyds killing the beginning of a lasting tide or a mere moment in time?

Hordes of white people suddenly want to learn all they can about black America. They seek a way past the turbulent weeks since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. Four men, the officer who put his knee on Floyds neck as he asphyxiated and those who stood by as Floyd pleaded for his life, have been charged.

Now, white America is seeking absolution. Many, no doubt, wish to rid themselves of any sense of white guilt, of being viewed as complicit in the horrors of racism. Others desire the designation of being an ally to people of color, or better yet, to be an anti-racist.

If you dont know what that means, dont fret. There are a growing number of resources available. Handy to-do lists, books to read, guidelines to follow, search results for questions like am I racist? Its like a national read-in of a CliffsNotes version of the last 400 years.

Its all good, a starting place, albeit a very early beginning that took a long time to come.

Even Merriam-Webster is getting schooled. Keepers of the authoritative and tony reference admit that they need to expand the definition of racism.

Its an important step. Because the inadequacies within the version that Webster uses now illustrate a common misunderstanding. One that often cascades into deeper problems that so many white people hope to avoid going forward.

Webster uses a shorthand definition for racism, one that merely skims the true weight of the term:

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.

Their mea culpa of verbiage came about through the advocacy of Kennedy Mitchum, a 22-year-old graduate of Drake University in Iowa. Mitchum, of Missouri, challenged the definition because it failed to note the deep ramifications of systemic racism.

Merriam-Websters keepers agreed with her.

People of all races have a tendency to conflate bias, prejudice and racism; as if the terms mean the same thing. But theyre actually not interchangeable.

Racism is about power and money, its what someone does with their bias, which we all hold. (And no, you cant be color-blind, no one is.) Prejudice, when leveraged, can cause great economic harm. And because over the centuries it has been allowed to grind into every aspect of life in America, weve created systems  educational, governmental, civic and social  that are often inherently harmful or less accessible to some, and more beneficial to others.

Thats systemic racism. And very good people can and do exist within these systems.

Its stunning how many white people cling to a version of the civil rights movement and current struggles as being all about black/white integration. Its a stand that manages to center around them.

Get this part straight: The legal victories that desegregated America were mere steps, necessary shifts on the path toward the broader dream of economic equality. The goal in Martin Luther King Jr.s day and now was/is equity, not to simply be with white people. Missing that point has encouraged all sorts of failed remedies  including a muddled grasp of what is meant by racism as opposed to bias.

Finally, here is another piece to reflect on: Where have you been, white America? Why did it take the widely disseminated video of a black man dying over the allegation that hed passed a fake $20 bill to bring you to the table?

If people honestly answer that query, and strive to do better, theyll find some of the solace they seek.

But no doubt, many of the people furiously speed reading or absorbing podcasts about race want just enough cred to sidestep any verbal mishaps, any gaffes where they might find themselves in the uncomfortable position of not knowing the right things to say. No one likes being called out, or worse, being labeled a racist.

But really, thats the point. To make any real progress, its going to be uncomfortable, America. So lets settle in.

Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn

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Emergency services at the site of a tanker explosion in China's Zhejiang. (Photo: STR/AFP)

China's emergency management department said on Sunday morning there were 189 injured people still being treated in hospital, after the accident near Wenling city in the eastern province of Zhejiang on Saturday.

Local authorities said the truck was loaded with liquefied gas.

Dramatic video footage of the accident published by state media showed an explosion. In one clip, a large piece of debris is seen flying into the air before crashing on some nearby buildings.

Another video showed the remains of the tanker and several truck tyres had smashed into a building, which had been reduced to rubble.

State news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday that there was a second blast when the truck fell onto a workshop near the expressway after the first explosion.

Emergency responders were still conducting search and rescue operations, it added.

The government commission responsible for safety production called for the investigation be completed within a certain time, state media reported, without specifying the period.

The report said the commission called for traffic police to step up law enforcement focusing on vehicles such as those carrying dangerous chemicals.
"As our communities come out of stay-at-home orders, we are seeing an increase in interest in our studios which have always had built-in physical distancing with more than six-feet between each personal workout station for class participants," said Club Pilates President Shaun Grove, "It is due to the passion of our members and the commitment of our franchise owners that we are able to open new locations through the COVID-19 pandemic. These new studios will help us service the demand for Pilates which continues to grow across the country and around the world."

The addition of these 21 studios elevates the brand to 615 studios across the country, along with studios in Canada, Japan and South Korea. The new studios include:

Club Pilates Arvada - 7705 Wadsworth Blvd., Suite 13, Arvada, CO 80003

Club Pilates Boynton Beach - 8855 Boynton Beach Blvd, Suite 320, Boynton Beach, FL 33472

Club Pilates Clermont - 2612 S Hwy 27, Suite 500, Clermont, FL 34711

Club Pilates Cross Roads - 11650 Hwy 380, Ste 150, Cross Roads, TX 76227

Club Pilates Delray Beach - 640 Linton Blvd., Suite 340, Delray Beach, FL 33444

Club Pilates Downtown Sarasota - 1413 - 1st Street, Suite #102A, Sarasota, FL 34236

Club Pilates Estero - 20321 Grande Oaks Shoppes Dr., Estero, FL 33928

Club Pilates Georgetown - 1225 S. IH 35, Georgetown, TX 78626

Club Pilates Hyde Park OH - 2692 Madison Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45208

Club Pilates Ironwood - 110 - 11380 Steveston Highway, Richmond, BC V7A 5J5

Club Pilates Knapp's Crossing - 2066 East Beltline Ave NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546

Club Pilates Lake Highlands - 9850 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 435, Dallas, TX 75238

Club Pilates Lakeland - 4747 S. Florida Avenue, Lakeland, FL 33813

Club Pilates Lake Pleasant - 24775 N Lake Pleasant Parkway, Suite 102, Peoria, AZ 85383

Club Pilates Largo - 10125 Ulmerton Road, Suite 3, Largo, FL 33771

Club Pilates Rogers - 4200 West Green Acres Road, Suite 303, Rogers, AR 72758

Club Pilates South Lafayette - 500 Settlers Trace Boulevard, Building C, Suite 9, Lafayette, LA 70508

Club Pilates Waco - 6500 Woodway Drive, Suite 117, Waco, TX 76712

Club Pilates Waterside Fort Worth - 5924 Convair Drive, Suite 448, Fort Worth, TX 76109

Club Pilates West Delray - 15084 Lyons Road, Suite 700, Delray Beach, FL 33446

Club Pilates Uptown - 6001 Magazine St, New Orleans, LA 70118

There are five additional locations in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and California that will open as soon as their corresponding counties reopen. Depending on local government mandates, Club Pilates studios, following the mandated shut downs, will re-open with additional safety measures in place, which may include reduced class sizes, increased cleanliness standards and adjusted contactless check-in procedures. To learn about Club Pilates reopening health and safety measures, visit: https://www.clubpilates.com/covid .

To find your neighborhood Club Pilates, visit https://www.clubpilates.com/location-search .

About Club Pilates:

Founded in 2007, Club Pilates is the largest Pilates brand, designed with the vision of making Pilates more accessible, approachable and welcoming to everyone. Based in Irvine, CA, Club Pilates has appeared in Entrepreneur Magazine's Franchise 500 list four years running, as well as The Fastest Growing Fitness Franchise by Inc. Magazine's Inc. 5000 and Inc. 500 two years running. Club Pilates offers extensive training certification for its instructors. Its 500-hour training program includes instruction on Pilates, barre, Triggerpoint, and TRX Suspension Trainers. To learn more about the franchise opportunity, visit https://www.clubpilates.com/franchise .

SOURCE Club Pilates

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Ten global partners of Alibaba beat the gong during the company's listing on the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Market on November 26, 2019.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index will likely be largely China-focused with a significant share of technology companies after the benchmark's revamp, according to American investment bank Jefferies.

In a major change announced last month, the 50-year-old Hang Seng index (HSI) will for the first time allow companies with primary listings overseas, as well as those with dual-class shares, to be included in the benchmark index.

Jefferies identified 31 Chinese companies currently listed in the U.S. that could potentially flock to Hong Kong. It said this "listing emigration" could attract up to $557 billion to the Asian financial hub.

Currently, companies listed in the U.S. can have a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. But, before the latest rule change, they could not be included in the benchmark HSI, and by default, in the index funds that track the HSI.

The U.S. Senate also passed a bill last month which could essentially ban many Chinese companies from listing on American exchanges. That could drive many of them to instead list at home  on mainland Chinese exchanges, or in Hong Kong, analysts have said.

"The bottom line is that the evolution of the Hang Seng Index over the next 18 months will largely shift the index to a pure China one with a significant tech, e-commerce and IT weighting," Jefferies wrote in a note on Sunday.
Normally, Ron Keefe would be wandering the sunny patio at Granite Brewery, greeting customers as they sipped one of his daughter Mary Beths house-brewed ales.

Instead, Keefe will have to wait at least another week after the provincial government announced Monday that Toronto, Peel Region and Windsor will still be stuck in Stage 1 of reopening from COVID-related restrictions.

Its really unfortunate, but I cant really say that Im surprised. Lately it feels like every time you stand up, you get knocked back down again, said Keefe.

Last week, the government let restaurant patios and hair salons open up across the province, with the notable exceptions of the entire Golden Horseshoe, and Windsor. This week, Hamilton, Niagara, Durham Region and York Region got the green light. As of Friday, Toronto, Peel and Windsor will be the only standouts.

Premier Doug Ford said Toronto would likely get the go-ahead very, very soon. He also asked anyone tempted to head out of town for a pint or a haircut to reconsider, and to stay safe if they do.

Dont let your guard down  Were not out of this by any means. Practice social distancing, Ford said.

Restaurant, bar and salon owners in Toronto were frustrated by Mondays announcement, but still hopeful theyll be back in action soon.

If this goes on another month, Ill probably have to close, said Janet Campbell, owner of Nannis Natural Hair Studio in Downsview.

Campbell, who says customers have been pleading with her to cut their hair, worries that some of the 75 people on her waiting list might drive five minutes north instead and get their hair cut in Vaughan.

Weve got some very loyal customers, so Im hoping they dont do that, but I dont know, said Campbell, who cant ever remember a struggle like this during her 25 years in business.

Were really feeling it, said Campbell. Health is the most important thing, though.

Since mid-March, when bars and restaurants closed, Keefe has been bringing some revenue in by selling beer out of the Granites retail shop, along with bakers yeast, flour and takeout food.

I guess this gives us a bit more time to get our plans in order, but its still frustrating, said Keefe, who estimated hes been pulling in about 40 per cent of his normal revenue.

The retail shop has been busier than usual, and weve been delivering, which has really helped. But its still not the same, said Keefe.

The Ontario regional director for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said small businesses who have been struggling since COVID-related shutdowns began in mid-March need any help they can get right now. The most recent stage of reopening makes it particularly unfair for businesses right on the border of Toronto or Peel.

With the first set of reopenings, people would have to drive a pretty long distance to get a haircut or go sit on a patio. Now they dont have to, said Ryan Mallough. When its happening across the country, its frustrating. When its happening across the street, its way beyond frustrating.
Women across Switzerland joined together on Sunday to protest against gender inequality, expressing their outrage by screaming for a minute.

Half a million people turned out for a protest last year against the countrys womens rights record, but this years Women's Strike was more subdued due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Nevertheless, thousands of people in Swiss cities including Geneva screamed for a minute at 3.24pm, the time after which women technically work for free because of Switzerlands gender pay gap.

Women typically earn a fifth less than their male colleagues, a disparity that is now larger than it was in 2000, according to government data. Thirty years ago, womens pay was around a third lower than mens.

Although Switzerland has a high quality of life, it falls behind other economically-developed countries in terms of workplace equality and pay.

As well as screaming, demonstrators staged a flash mob and kept a minutes silence in memory of women who have been killed by their partners.

Roxanne Errico, a 19-year-old student who was among the protesters in Geneva, said her mother had been killed by her violent boyfriend.

"For me it is emotional. Because I scream for me, but I also scream for my sisters and brothers, I scream for all the other children who lost a mother or a father, and I also scream for my mother, who would have screamed if she was still here," she said.

Speaking out about violence against women, another Geneva resident, Vani Niuti, 20, said: "I would love to walk at night wearing a skirt, shorts or leggings without being insulted, without being scared to be raped.

One protester, who is in her 70s and has attended womens strikes since 1991, expressed her optimism for the future of the protests.

Rose-Angela Gramoni said: "Now I can die in peace, the next generation is here to take over. But for a while, I was very sad. I thought we fought for many things, but we did not finish the job and nobody was here to finish it.

Additional reporting from Reuters
Delta Air Lines passenger planes are seen parked due to flight reductions made to slow the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.

Check out the companies making headlines midday Monday:

Alaska, United and Delta Air Lines  The stocks of the major U.S. airlines fell across the board Monday as reignited fears over the spread of Covid-19 weighed on companies with exposure to travel demand. United and Alaska Air fell 4.1% and 3.3%, respectively, while JetBlue and Delta lost 3.2% and 2.9%. Investors fear a resurgence in new coronavirus cases could lead governments to reinstitute travel restrictions and prolong a return to normal air travel trends.

Moderna  Moderna shares gained more than 3% after an Israeli news outlet said the country's government was buying the firm's coronavirus vaccine, which recently entered its final stages of clinical trials.

Shopify  The e-commerce stock rose 5.2% after Walmart announced a partnership that would allow Shopify's third-party sellers to list on the retail giant's website. Piper Sandler also upgraded the stock to overweight from neutral, forecasting strong revenue growth.

Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean  Shares of cruise lines dropped on Monday as investors ditched riskier stocks on concerns about a second coronavirus wave. Shares of Norwegian Cruise Line fell 4.9% and Carnival dropped 5.2%. Royal Caribbean ticked 2.9% lower.

RH  An analyst at Loop Capital upgraded RH to buy from hold, noting the home furnishing companies is "well positioned" for the "post-pandemic landscape." The analyst also hiked his price target on the stock to $300 per share from $250. RH shares traded 4.7% higher around $246 per share.

Six Flags  Shares of the theme park company jumped 3.5% after research firm B. Riley FBR upgraded the stock to buy from neutral and raised its price target to $31 per share from $27. The firm said in a note that it is easy for theme park operators to turn a profit even with limits on capacity due to health concerns. For Six Flags in particular, the analysts said a possible announcement of a restart of its China expansion could boost the stock.

BP  BP shares dropped more than 3% after the energy giant announced plans to take a writedown of up to $17.5 billion for the current quarter. CEO Bernard Looney said in a statement the coronavirus outbreak "increasingly looks as if it will have an enduring economic impact."

AstraZeneca  AstraZeneca rose more than 1% after the pharmaceutical giant signed a contract with European governments providing them with millions of doses of its coronavirus vaccine candidate.

SelectQuote  Shares of the life insurance company gained more than 3% after Credit Suisse began coverage of the stock with an outperform rating. SelectQuote went public on May 21 with an IPO pricing of $20 a share, and now it's trading above $28 apiece. The stock has gained a few recommendations from Wall Street analysts since its IPO, including Piper Sandler, Cantor Fitzgerald and RBC Capital.

Starbucks  Starbucks fell 0.8% in midday trading despite Atlantic Equities initiating coverage at the coffee chain at overweight and Citigroup reiterating its buy rating on the stock. Though both brokerages recommend investors own Starbucks' equity, Citi trimmed its price target on Starbucks to $87 per share from $89 per share. Atlantic set a target of $95 a share, which implies 24% upside from Friday's close.

CNBC's Yun Li, Maggie Fitzgerald, Jesse Pound, Tom Franck and Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
And that includes not only when you go hiking in a park or in the woods, but even in your backyard, he said. I live in Raleigh, and I can pick up lone star ticks in my backyard.

So checking for ticks, which can be brushed or washed away before they attach, is an important habit to adopt.

Williams also recommended wearing permethrin-treated clothing.

(Ticks) like to crawl up to areas where there are folds in the skin or where your clothing is tight against your skin, he said. Thats why if you treat your shorts with permethrin, theyre not going to be able to make that journey. Theyll fall off before they can find a place to attach.

Permethrin is an EPA approved insect repellant used to treat fabric, said Jason Griffin, president of Insect Shield International. The Greensboro-based company sells a 6-ounce can of permethrin spray for $9.95 to consumers to treat clothing for at home.

Ticks and other insects as well prefer to stay away from (permethrin), but it has no odor or any impact on humans, Griffin said.
DMCC, the worlds flagship Free Zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise, recently hosted a briefing call with the UAEs Commercial Attache to India via a virtual conference to discuss ways to further strengthen existing ties.



During the call, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Ahmad Sultan Bin Harib Alfalahi, UAEs Commercial Attache to India, commended the UAE government for showing exemplary leadership in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic since the very early stages.



Alfalahi and Bin Sulayem expressed their pride in the unprecedented level of collaboration between the leadership of the two countries. They also highlighted the long-lasting strategic bilateral relations between the UAE and India, and the major role that DMCC plays in the trade relationship.



The pair discussed ways to widen the range of commodity trade beyond diamonds, tea and coffee to include other goods such as pepper and chillies. Additionally, Bin Sulayem underscored DMCCs continuous commitment to bringing key industry events and expertise from India to the UAE, including hosting the International Pepper Conclave once again in Dubai in the near future and bringing the worlds hottest sauce from India to Dubai.



Ahmed Bin Sulayem said: The UAE and India enjoy strong historic ties that have transformed into a strategic partnership over the years. DMCC will continue to explore areas and opportunities for further cooperation between the two countries over the coming period. I look forward with great expectations to working with Ahmad Sultan Bin Harib Alfalahi and his team to further strengthen the bilateral relations between the UAE and India and bringing in new commodity opportunities to Dubai.



Ahmad Sultan Bin Harib Alfalahi said: The cultural, diplomatic and commercial ties between the UAE and India are stronger than ever before; and this is something to be celebrated. It was encouraging to hear more about the range of initiatives that DMCC is driving to strengthen Dubais status as a global trade hub. The UAE is India's third largest trade partner, and there is real scope to expand and exceed the 100 billion USD bilateral trade target set by both nations in the near future.



DMCC is hosting a series of briefings with Ambassadors of the UAE across key markets, such as the UK, China and Germany, to further strengthen bilateral relations, discuss ways to support ongoing trade ties and understand what businesses need in target markets.  TradeArabia News Service


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  A team of Purdue University innovators hopes its new technology provides a more business-friendly option to utilize sustainable cellulose nanomaterials for use in vehicles, food packaging and other manufactured items.

The Purdue team developed a new way for manufacturers to use nanocellulose  a green nanomaterial derived from natural sources such as plant matter. Normally to process nanocellulose, solvents or other dispersants are usually added to the mixture to improve the materials dispersion in polymers.

These methods can be very expensive for manufacturers, who must add additional processes and machinery to comply with emission standards that may be impacted by the use of the solvents, said Jeffrey Youngblood, a professor of materials engineering in Purdues College of Engineering.

The Purdue innovators created a method that involves mixing the nanocellulose in additives for the polymer material, such as plasticizer, and then compounding that mixture into the polymer instead of directly mixing them.

This technique could be applicable to a wide variety of polymers, including nylons used in the automotive industry and polylactic acid and ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer used in food packaging. It enables nanocellulose to be easily extruded or injection molded into useful products with better properties that are more sustainable.

We created a way to use the additives that are normally in polymers as the solvent to disperse the nanocellulose during melt processing, Youngblood said. In this way, you still have increased properties, but without the pieces of the manufacturing process that require additional emissions-lowering components. This makes the process of using the nanocellulose, which is biodegradable, more sustainable as well.

Youngblood said the main advantages to the Purdue technique for large-scale polymer production are:

Solvent-free compounding of nanocellulose into polymers.

Homogenous mixture of hydrophilic nanocellulose and hydrophobic polymer.

The innovators have worked with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization to patent the technology. They are looking for additional partners and those interested in licensing the technology. For more information, contact Dipak Narula of OTC at dnarula@prf.org and reference track code 68912.

About Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university's academic activities through commercializing, licensing and protecting Purdue intellectual property. The office recently moved into the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration in Discovery Park District, adjacent to the Purdue campus. In fiscal year 2019, the office reported 136 deals finalized with 231 technologies signed, 380 disclosures received and 141 issued U.S. patents. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2019 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Place from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. In 2020, IPWatchdog Institute ranked Purdue third nationally in startup creation and in the top 20 for patents. The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University. Contact otcip@prf.org for more information.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 6 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap at purdue.edu.

Writer: Chris Adam, 765-588-3341, cladam@prf.org



Source: Jeffrey Youngblood, jpyoungb@purdue.edu
By Bob Fernandez, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Bell & Evans, the big Lebanon County poultry processor, touts its credentials on its website. From humane animal welfare to our 100% air chilled method, everything we do adds up to healthier, more flavorful chicken. No antibiotics. No added water.

But none of those practices prevented dangerous salmonella bacteria from contaminating the companys high-end organic chicken, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show.

A concern for decades, salmonella sickens more than one million Americans a year and leads to 26,500 hospitalizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. However, it wont cause infection if meat is cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

The amount of salmonella USDA inspectors detected in Bell & Evans chicken parts and ground chicken grew from a safe level late last summer, when those products received the best rating of 1, to a level well above government targets by April, resulting in a rating of 3, the worst score. The companys whole chickens met the government standard.

Nobody wants to be at a 3. Im sure theyre moving mountains and hills to get back to 1, said Gregory Martin, a poultry expert from the Penn State Extension who has visited Bell & Evans processing center and knows the longtime owners of the business, the Sechler family.

To protect consumers, the company must quickly determine the source of the salmonella and take appropriate action" to eradicate it, he said.

The USDA publishes processors salmonella scores online each month, but the government cannot take action against companies with bad ratings. Thats because a landmark 2001 U.S. Court of Appeals decision classified salmonella as a naturally occurring bacteria that cant be regulated.

Bell & Evans did not respond to requests for comment. The company has also been silent about a recent report in The Inquirer that described a growing coronavirus outbreak among workers that has killed at least three people and sickened untold more.

The largest private employer in Lebanon County, Bell & Evans has expanded rapidly across Fredericksburg, a small town, opening over the last five years a massive processing facility and a modern hatchery.

In February, the fast-growing poultry company announced plans to add two manufacturing lines, each processing 140 chickens a minute, the fastest speed allowed under federal law without special waivers.

The latest federal food inspection data available show that 15% of all chicken products rated by the government were given the lowest grades of 3, or 112 product lines in all. Bell & Evans was the only Pennsylvania processor with 3's for two different products in April. That same month, the large Tyson Foods processing plant in New Holland, Lancaster County, earned top safety ratings for its broilers and chicken parts.

Salmonella spreads through chicken waste. Experts say many factors contribute to a processors salmonella ratings: the use of anti-microbial chemicals during production, when the chicken gets inspected by investigators, the cleanliness of plant water, and what happens when the live birds are trucked to poultry plants for slaughter.

Because of Bell & Evans New Age chicken-processing techniques, the company has attracted consumers who are willing to pay more. McCaffreys Food Markets in Bucks County, for instance, stocks a full line of Bell & Evans products, pricing the chicken a third higher than other brands. Top-of-the-line Bell & Evans organic boneless chicken breasts cost $10.99 a pound at McCaffreys, similar to a good steak.

Chicken processors such as Bell & Evans typically respond quickly to improve salmonella scores, fearful of losing market share either with consumers not buying their product or grocery chains choosing new plants to source from, food experts say.

When told of Bell & Evans ratings, Bill Marler, a Seattle food-safety attorney who brought lawsuits after the deadly E. coli outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants in the early 1990s, said that whether its grass-fed or lives in a condo or is petted before you kill it, it has salmonella, and the "greater the concentration, the more likely you will get sick.
Le Khanh Lam Deputy general director RSM Vietnam

In recent times, many companies have shut down their businesses due to government policies around the world. With this, the variable costs from the operation can be cut; however, the fixed cost may not be reduced immediately. In line with that, placed orders cannot be delivered to customers due to the export limitation policies from governments or cancellations from customers.

On the other hand, in many countries or industries, the demand of certain goods or services has sharply declined and even disappeared, during and/or after the time of shutting down. In order to protect market share, many companies have sold or provided goods and services to customers at a loss or increased marketing expenses to retain business objectives.

In many cases, the life cycle of some companies products can be suddenly turned from the maturity stage to the decline stage due to the impacts of the disease.

Amid the pandemic, RSM Vietnam will keep track of its impacts and help clients mitigate transfer pricing risks

However, companies may want to retain their products to offer a complete product line to customers by selling such products at a loss.

It can be seen that the impacts of the pandemic can increase the costs for business then turn down demand sharply at the global level, which will likely lead the world into an economic crisis.

Independent businesses incurring losses due to the extraordinary events under the global economic recession are inevitable. However, it can cause critical transfer pricing risks for businesses with related party transactions.

As suggested by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the United Nations, business losses will trigger certain scrutiny of transfer pricing issues depending on the reason and the nature of losses.

With the losses caused by the impacts of COVID-19, tax authorities will scrutinise the reasons of incurring loss. Therefore, RSM suggests companies should focus on three important aspects when explaining losses to tax authorities.

First, the impacts of the pandemic may vary from country to country. Companies in some nations may suffer many disadvantages; however, companies elsewhere may enjoy the complete opposite.

Second, the impacts of the pandemic may also vary across industries. While companies in certain industries may experience significant losses, groups elsewhere may not be hit by the pandemic at all.

And third, the sharing or absorption of losses at this time will also depend upon the risks assumed by companies. For example, the increasing marketing cost to protect market share should be borne by a company assuming significant market risk.

With the critical transfer pricing risks arising from losses or thin profitability, RSM Vietnam also suggests that companies with related party transactions should take several actions.

First, they should make assessments of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on their country or industry, i.e. whether the risks are significant or not. Next, they must record and quantify the impacts based on their operational and financial data.

Third requires separation of business results between the stage affected by the health emergency and other stages. Lastly, there should be a review to ensure that the reasons for losses due to the pandemic are in line with the risks assumed by companies.

The current global situation is continuing, and Vietnamese companies are also fighting against its impacts. But even as most Vietnamese companies get back to work and after discussed business risks, RSM Vietnam will still keep track of the potential impacts of issue on Vietnamese companies and take the initiative in addressing them earlier, in order to help clients mitigate transfer pricing risks.
Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, in an exclusive interview, speaks on the states preparedness to deal with the sudden rise in the number of COVID-19 infections, measures to rehabilitate the migrant labourers who returned to the state after the lockdown began in the country in late March, state recording one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country despite combating Naxalism and more

Chhattisgarh may have become synonymous with Left-Wing Extremism, but theres more to the state than long-standing insurgency. The central Indian state, carved out of Madhya Pradesh only 20 years ago, comprises one of the richest regions of India in mineral and natural wealth. Yet, it has for long remained one of the most backward states of the country.

Governed by the Congress since it came to power in late 2018 after toppling the 15-year-old Raman Singh government of the BJP, it has lent solidity to the Grand Old Party of India by being an oasis of political stability, unlike the neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, where the Congress government led by Kamal Nath fell within a year-and-a-half in office.

Although Chhattisgarh remained unaffected in the initial phases of COVID-19 infections in India, cases suddenly spiked during the fourth phase of the lockdown  1,549 positive cases as of now. Even though the death toll in the state due to coronavirus (eight so far) remains way below the figures from the most-affected states, the constant rise in the number of infections is alarming.

Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, in an exclusive interview, speaks on the states preparedness to deal with the sudden rise in the number of COVID-19 infections, measures to rehabilitate the migrant labourers who returned to the state after the lockdown began in the country in late March, state recording one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country despite combating Naxalism and more.

Edited excerpts follow:

During the first two phases of lockdown, the cases of coronavirus in Chhattisgarh were far lower than any other state in India. But from the fourth phase onwards, there has been a spike in positive cases. Why is this the case and what steps has your government taken to contain the spread in the state?

We are aware that the virus is not indigenous, but came from abroad. When it started spreading, we were quick to take preventive measures. Chhattisgarh was among the first few states that had decided to defer all public programmes, shut down schools and colleges, and observe the 'Janta Curfew'. We quarantined all people who came from abroad, then we isolated people who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat function in Delhi. We were very strict about sealing the borders. That is how we managed to contain the spread initially.

Similar to the way the nation got a shock due to demonetisation, this unplanned lockdown had the same effect on the people. If the lockdown and unlocking had been executed in a planned manner, the coronavirus wouldnt have spread in the manner it has now.

In fact, during the fourth phase of the lockdown, migrant labourers were returning to their home states from the states where they were stranded. During their travels, many labourers came in contact with infected workers. This obviously led to a spike in the cases of COVID positive patients, once they reached Chhattisgarh. But, I want to make one thing clear  the migrant workers are not responsible for this. Its the unplanned way in which lockdown was executed that led to this sudden rise in positive cases in the state and the labourers became poor victims.

However, when migrant labourers from all over the country started returning to their home states, we did consider the possibility of the rise in cases of infection, and hence, we prepared in advance.

We have built 21,014 quarantine centres for migrant labourers and made it mandatory for those returning to Chhattisgarh to stay for 14 days in these centres. Most of these labourers were kept in quarantine centres near their villages only. Nearly 2.5 lakh labourers have already completed the prescribed duration of quarantine and have returned home.

I strongly believe that we will be able to control the spread of this infection.

There are allegations that strict norms are not being followed at many quarantine centres, as people who have been kept in those centres have been found moving outdoors, interacting with outsiders.

The state government has made arrangements for all kind of facilities for the people staying in quarantine centres. More than four lakh labourers have availed of these facilities. Despite challenges and difficult circumstances, the officials of all the departments have done commendable work at ground level.

Managing several lakh people in quarantine centres is not an easy task; especially when they came back after sufferings for two months and troublesome journeys. We did receive a few complaints from certain quarantine centres, but those were resolved on time. However, these were isolated incidents that were resolved immediately.

What has the government done for the workforce and migrant labourers who are now at home?

It was a humongous task. No one was aware of the number of people working in other states  not only labourers, but many others. We started with collecting data and helping them then and there. After the second lockdown, they started coming back.

Nearly 3.13 lakh migrant labourers have returned to Chhattisgarh and they are being offered employment opportunities under MNREGA near their homes. When they were in quarantine centres, we offered them the opportunity to register themselves under MNREGA. Also, the BPL families with ration cards are being provided free 105 kg rice as three-month stock. The families who do not have ration cards are also being provided five kilograms of rice. Migrant labourers are also being provided skill development training as per their choice.

In this fifth phase of lockdown, which is more about unlocking  what steps has your government been taking in easing things?

All the decisions in the state have been taken in compliance with the guidelines issued. Relaxations for markets, business establishments, industries and other organisations have been given as per the guidelines. However, the restriction on the opening of malls, restaurants, clubs, educational institutions, ceremonies etc still continues to control the spread of the infection.

According to a survey by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Chhattisgarhs unemployment rate had hit a 12-month low of 3.4 percent in April  much lower than the national rate of 23.5 percent, which is commendable. How could the state achieve it?

When the lockdown was announced, we were aware that we have to fight the pandemic cautiously and at the same time we were worried about the employment prospects in the state. We had started planning it from day one. During the lockdown, the Chhattisgarh government provided employment to people in rural areas under MNREGA to save the rural economy. Presently, 23 lakh labourers on an average are working every day under various ongoing MNREGA jobs in our gram panchayats. There was a time in the second and third week of April when Chhattisgarh was generating almost 90 percent of the total MNREGA jobs in the country.

Apart from this, under the Farmer Insurance Scheme, Rs 900 crore has been transferred into the bank accounts of farmers. Even during the lockdown, we ensured that labourers in Chhattisgarh face no shortage of employment opportunities.

The RBI has also appreciated the steps taken in Chhattisgarh during the COVID-19 crisis. It has been stated in the RBI reports that economic development rate of Chhattisgarh is better than many other developed states. During this time, forest produce collectors have also been given relief. The support price of Mahua flower has been hiked from Rs 18 per kg to Rs 30 per kg. As many as 25 minor forest produces are being procured at support price in Chhattisgarh.

Your government has initiated the much talked about Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojna. How is it going to help farmers?

Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana is in a way a small component of the original NYAY scheme, a dream project of Rahul Gandhi. The theme is to transfer money into peoples pocket directly. Under Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojna an amount of Rs 5750 crore will be transferred into the bank accounts of over 19 lakh farmers. On 21 May  the day of Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, we transferred the first instalment of Rs 1,500 crore under the scheme into the bank accounts of farmers. This amount will prove extremely beneficial for farmers during this period of crisis, helping them to procure seeds, fertilisers, etc. Here I would like to mention that earlier, we had made record procurement of 83 lakh metric tonnes of paddy, which has led to a significant improvement in the rural economy of our state.

What steps has the Chhattisgarh government been taking to revive the states economy?

It is too early to assess how much effort we would have to put to bring the economy on track again because we can manage our state but we dont know how the markets around the state will respond post-COVID. We have taken several steps to revive the economy of Chhattisgarh.

As I told you, the transfer of additional amount into the accounts of farmers, first as payment for paddy procurement of 83 lakh metric ton and later under Rajiv Gandhi Kisaan Nyaya Yojana, has strengthened the rural economy of the state. In addition, we have paid nearly Rs 1,400 crore as wages to MNREGA workers. All the industries in the state have resumed work and they have been provided several packages. We have provided a concession of 30 percent in the guideline rates and two percent concession in the stamp duty to promote sale and purchase of land. The single window system has been launched to simplify the process of getting approval for housing schemes and other arrangements.

You have recently written to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that the state has been facing some hurdles in availing the additional five percent of GSDP borrowing from the Centre. Please elaborate.

Yes, I have written a letter and requested her to reconsider the Centres decision to link the increased borrowing limit of states to specific reforms and allow the states to enhance their resources during the COVID-19 crisis without any conditions.

Considering the demand of states, the Centre has allowed an additional borrowing limit of five percent of GSDP, but the state governments are unable to avail the benefit due to non-fulfilment of criteria. We have demanded that the states be allowed to avail the additional borrowing limit of two percent without any condition.

Is Naxalism the biggest challenge faced by Chhattisgarh?

This issue has been discussed enough. A part of the state is affected by Naxalism, but the Naxals have lost the trust of local people. Successful implementation of state governments welfare schemes has hit the right chord to solve this problem. We are committed to providing benefits of education, employment, health, and other schemes even in the remotest of the areas. Naxalism is one of the challenges, but not the main challenge before us. If I prioritise the challenges, I would say malnutrition, poverty, lack of education and healthcare facilities are bigger challenges. Our main aim and priority are to solve these problems.

The judicial commissions inquiry report of December 2019 proved that the 2012 Sarkeguda encounter during the previous Raman Singh government was fake and those 17 people killed were not Maoists. What is your next course of action, as you had said that a guilty in this case will not be spared?

We are examining the report and I have asked officials to come up with actionable points. As and when actionable points are ready, we will put the Action Taken Report in the House, and it will be made known to you too.
Eastenders stars Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright have been keeping their distance as they film behind the scenes for Secrets From The Square.

The spin-off show, which will be hosted by presenter Stacey Dooley, will plug the gap in classic episodes of the soap until filming can be resumed as normal.

Stacey will present the show from the soap's famous restaurant Walford East and will be joined by two members from the cast.

Comeback: Eastenders stars Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright have been keeping their distance as they film behind the scenes for Secrets From The Square

In the first instalment, she is joined by Danny Dyer and Kellie Bright to relive some of Walford legends Mick and Linda Carter's classic scenes as well as to spill some of the shows best kept secrets.

Asked about what fans can expect to see, Kellie said: Things I don't want people to know that I just blurted out.

'They will enjoy seeing the characters, seeing the actors behind the characters, seeing our relationships, and what it's like interacting with us, you'll feel like you're there sat down having a chat.'

Spin-off: The spin-off show, which will be hosted by presenter Stacey Dooley, will plug the gap in classic episodes of the soap until filming can be resumed as normal

Before: It comes after the BBC bosses announced episodes that were filmed before the coronavirus pandemic set to run out next week (pictured before the coronavirus crisis struck)

It comes after the BBC bosses announced episodes that were filmed before the coronavirus pandemic set to run out next week.

It is hoped that the cast will return to set to restart filming in late June when the soap will return with 20-minute episodes on four days a week.

Currently, only two pre-filmed EastEnders episodes have aired a week to make them last as long as possible after production was halted in March.

New normal: It is hoped that the cast will return to set to restart filming in late June when the soap will return with 20-minute episodes on four days a week

EastEnders executive producer Jon Sen said: 'Resuming production is incredibly exciting and challenging in equal measure.

'Since we postponed filming we've been working non-stop trialling techniques, filming methods and new ways of working so that we can return to screens four times a week - as EastEnders should be.

'Filming will inevitably be a more complex process now so creating 20-minute episodes will enable us to ensure that when we return, EastEnders will still be the show the audience know and love.'

Rationing: Currently, only two pre-filmed EastEnders episodes have aired a week to make them last as long as possible after production was halted in March
VALLETTA, Malta, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- OKEx (www.okex.com), the world's largest Bitcoin futures exchange, has announced a strategic partnership with leading peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplace Paxful (www.paxful.com). By joining forces, the two industry titans aim to further push the adoption of cryptocurrencies around the globe.

Paxful Kiosk will be integrated directly within the OKEx platform to allow new and existing users to benefit from a wide variety of payment options and advanced trading tools.

Paxful will act as a key fiat-to-cryptocurrency on-ramp for OKEx through the diversity of its payment methods for buying Bitcoin, particularly important in developing countries. The partnership will also provide OKEx users the opportunity to buy Bitcoin with more than 160 fiat currencies including the Turkish lira, the Indian rupee, and the Argentine peso, using convenient local payment methods enabled by the Paxful platform. These include bank transfers, domestic wires, online wallets, and gift cards, among others.

Paxful's CEO and co-founder, Ray Youssef, said in a statement about the partnership:

"At Paxful, one of our goals is to help grow the crypto community. We admire OKEx's work and know that our values and strategy are aligned. With this partnership, we hope to continue to build up the ecosystem together and make crypto more accessible as a real-world payment method."

Via the integration, users can instantly match with sellers that meet the criteria of their trading needs in terms of currency and payment method, either through the Paxful or OKEx platform. Overall, more than 100 million users will benefit from this integration, not just in terms of freedom of payment options but also through exposure to OKEx's high liquidity, cold storage features and a vast suite of trading products and tools.

For the first time, Paxful users will be able to access sophisticated trading options, such as spot, margin, and futures trading on OKEx. They can also take part in options trading through the OKEx DEX, giving them new possibilities in the derivatives markets that were not previously available to them.

Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx, also spoke to the importance of reaching more people with an array of on-ramp options, stating:

"We're extremely enthusiastic about our partnership with Paxful as one of the most widely used and respected peer-to-peer BTC marketplaces. We're firm believers in collaboration at OKEx and understand that we must work together to onboard more people to cryptocurrency. No one should work as an isolated island. The benefits of this partnership are huge both for Paxful and OKEx users. Together, we can reach and give more options to at least 100 million users."

The partnership marks a big step for OKEx in terms of its presence in the developing regions of the world, including countries like India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, Russia, and Argentina, where the cryptocurrency scene is growing quickly. Working together, the two companies will provide easier access to the global cryptocurrency market. This will be a win-win for existing Paxful and OKEx users who now have a wider variety of payment methods, trading tools, and increased functionality.

For more information or to access the Paxful Kiosk on OKEx users can visit: https://bit.ly/3hrnuLj

END

About OKEx

One of the world's largest and most diverse cryptocurrency marketplace, OKEx is where global crypto traders, miners and institutional investors come to manage crypto assets, enhance investment opportunities and hedge risks. We provide spot and derivatives trading  including futures, perpetual swaps and options  with major cryptocurrencies, offering investors notable flexibility in formulating their strategies to maximize gains and mitigate risks.

About Paxful

Paxful is a people-powered marketplace for money transfers with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Their mission is to empower the forgotten four billion unbanked and underbanked around the world to have control of their money using peer-to-peer transactions. The company, founded in 2015, has over 3 million customers globally who you can instantly buy and sell bitcoin withusing over 300 different payment methods.

As part of their mission Paxful also launched #BuiltWithBitcoin, a social good initiative with the goal of building 100 schools funded entirely by bitcoin all across emerging markets. Paxful was co-founded in 2015 by Ray Youssef, Chief Executive Officer, and Artur Schaback, Chief Operating Officer.

SOURCE OKEx
In each case, DeVos said the remote education forced on schools this spring has taught people there is more than one way for students to learn. She spent less time discussing the challenges of students, parents and teachers who have tried but struggled under this system, or the challenges faced by schools and families with less money or less access to tools to make remote learning work.
The onus is on the KP Sharma Oli government in Nepal to create a positive and conducive atmosphere for talks to resolve the border row over the Kalapani-Lipulekh region, people familiar with developments said on Monday.

The Indian side has repeatedly conveyed its readiness to discuss the issue, with the latest offer for talks between foreign secretaries of the two sides being made around the time the Nepal government tabled a constitutional amendment in Parliament on May 31 to give legal backing to the countrys new map, the people said on condition of anonymity.

The Indian side didnt receive any response to these overtures and it is now up to the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to create the positive environment needed for talks, the people said.

As recently as when the [constitutional amendment] bill was being tabled in [Nepals] Parliament and before that, India offered a phone call and a video-conference between the foreign secretaries and visits of the foreign secretaries. However, the Nepalese side didnt respond to the offer and went ahead with passing the bill, one of the people cited above said.

The onus is now on them to create a positive and conducive atmosphere for talks, the person added.

The people said Nepals unilateral action of issuing a new map that includes Indian territory has created a difficult situation and pre-judged the outcome of any talks. It also wasnt clear why Oli or his government hadnt told the Nepalese people or Parliament about the Indian offers for talks, they said.

Nepalese officials have said they made three offers for talks to India between last November and May but got no response.

The border row erupted last month after India opened an 80-km road to Lipulekh on the border with the Tibet Autonomous Region to facilitate pilgrims going to Kailash Mansarovar.

Nepal lodged a strong protest and the government issued a new map that showed Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura as part of Nepalese territory. A constitutional amendment to give legal backing to the map was passed by the lower house of Nepals Parlaiment last week and is set to be taken up by the upper house this week.

The people said almost 98% of the 1,750-km land and riverine border between India and Nepal has been delineated and differences remain only in the Kalapani sector in Uttarakhand and Susta sector in Bihar. Nepals shifting claims are contrary to the Treaty of Sugauli signed in 1815 by Nepal and the British, a ruling by the British governor general in 1817, and Nepals boundary treaty with China of 1961 and protocols signed by these two countries in 1963 and 1979, they added.

Their new map is not based on facts and evidence. The Nepal governemnt decided to form an expert team to find and collect evidence to establish its ownership in Kalapani up to Limpiyadhura and in Susta area after publishing the map and passing the bill in the lower house, the person cited above said.

Describing Nepals new map as a tool for political gains, the person added: The Nepal governments unilateral act of updating the map and the hasty effort to amend the constitution in Parliament reflect the intention of Prime Minister Oli and his government to politicise the boundary issue.

These actions do not reflect any seriousness on their part to resolve the issue through dialogue, and these actions are myopic and self-serving to further a limited political agenda.

Despite the border row, India remains committed to cooperating with Nepal on key humanitarian and connectivity projects, including rail links, and on the Covid-19 crisis, the people said. So far, India has provided medicines and equipment worth more than 4.5 crore to Nepal to fight the Coronavirus, they said.

The people also dismissed Olis repeated comments that Covid-19 was being spread in Nepal by people coming from India, describing them as false and distorted. Only a small portion of the 8 million Nepalese citizens living in India had returned home, they said. They noted that even as the constitutional amendment regarding the map was being discussed in Parliament, there were protests in Kathmandu over the Oli governments handling of the pandemic.

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Widespread hot extremes are seen across the world in recent years, causing heat-related mortality and harmed crops and livestock. In summer 2018, a record-breaking heat wave swept large areas of Northeast Asia. The China Meteorological Administration issued high-temperature warnings for 33 consecutive days. In Japan, at least 71,266 required hospitalization for heat stroke.

To make it worse, 2018 heat wave was probably not a random or an individual case according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

In the study, 2018 heat wave was used as a rear-view mirror to investigate what has caused more extreme summer heat event over Northeast Asia, and in particular, to look into the role of anomalous anticyclone over Northeast Asia.

An anticyclone is an area of high atmospheric pressure, which causes settled weather conditions, and, in summer, clear skies and high temperatures. But how much the anomalous anticyclone circulation would contribute to extreme heat events over Northeast Asia still remains unknown.

"Our study, for the first time, gave a quantitative estimation of the contribution of circulation to such a heat event over Northeast Asia, by using the flow analogue method," said Liwen Ren, the lead author, a Ph.D student from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. "We found that anomalous anticyclone over Northeast Asia was responsible for nearly half of the magnitude in extreme heat events of 2018."

The researchers found that such anomalous anticyclones similar to that in 2018 became worse and more common in recent decades (1991-2017) than the past (1958-1990).

Further, this kind of dynamical (anticyclone) change in recent decades, together with thermodynamical change (e.g. mean temperature shift towards to warmer state with increasing greenhouse gases) have made such kind of extreme heat events more likely happen over Northeast Asia.

"We also found that, the more extreme the heat event is, the larger contribution of thermodynamical change will be, with a contribution of at least 80%," said Prof. Tianjun Zhou, the corresponding author. "This implies that as long as global warming continues, we would face higher risk for extreme heat events over Northeast Asia in the next decades."

###

This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Latino high school students march at UCLA in 2008 in support of increased enrollment for people of color at University of California campuses. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

More than two decades after affirmative action was outlawed at public campuses, University of California regents on Monday unanimously supported the repeal of Proposition 209, the 1996 state initiative that banned preferential treatment by government bodies based on race, ethnicity or sex  and has been blamed for a decline in diversity at UC's most selective campuses.

With passionate remarks about the pernicious effects of racism, the regents endorsed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, which would repeal Proposition 209, clearing the way for affirmative action to once more be used in UC admissions and hiring.

The measure passed the state Assembly last week and, if ratified by the Senate by June 25, will be on the Nov. 3 statewide ballot.

UC Board Chairman John A. Perez declared that a "colorblind" model for society denies the reality of racism and quoted South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu's admonition that to remain neutral amid injustice is to choose the side of the oppressor.

"If we are going to be serious about creating a university that truly serves the public interest, we cannot be silent. We cannot be neutral," Perez said. "We must express ourselves in what we think [is] the best future for our university and our state."

The board's action represented a resounding repudiation of former regents, who voted in 1995 to make UC the first university system in the nation to ban affirmative action, a year before California voters did the same statewide for public education, government contracting and employment. At the time, all but one of 18 appointed regents were selected by Republican governors. The board's political makeup has nearly reversed itself today, with three-quarters of appointees chosen by Democrats.

"The very body that made this decision and helped create this wrong is prepared to do whatever it takes to correct it," said Regent Laphonza Butler.

The regents' vote on affirmative action comes just three weeks after they unanimously voted to phase out the SAT and ACT testing requirements for admission due to concerns that they unfairly disadvantage students based on race, income and parental education levels. Equity advocates said the two back-to-back votes demonstrate a new drive to take bold action to increase equity and access to the nation's top public research university system.

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"The regents recognized that they have been talking for years about diversifying their student body and now they've gotten serious about that," said Audrey Dow, senior vice president for the Campaign for College Opportunity.

But Crystal Lu, president of the Silicon Valley Chinese Assn. Foundation, called the regents' actions disturbing.

"This is a troubling trend where our public university in the state is taking backwards steps in history to allow racial favoritism in college admissions," she said.

The regents' vote amplified the sweeping support within the UC system to restore affirmative action. UC President Janet Napolitano, all 10 campus chancellors and the governing bodies for faculty, undergraduate and graduate students have expressed support for ACA 5.

"Despite nearly two decades of effort and experimentation with race-neutral admissions at UC, the Universitys enrollment of students from underrepresented groups and recruitment of faculty of color falls short of reflecting the rich diversity of Californias population," according to a memo from Napolitano's office.

The proportion of underrepresented groups  commonly defined as students who are Black, Latino, Pacific Islander or American Indian  dropped from 20% in 1995 to 15% in 1998, the memo said. Asian Americans and whites increased their share.

The UC system subsequently sought to restore diversity with race-neutral measures. In 2001, it began guaranteeing admission for all students who ranked in the top 4% of their high school class, ensuring that those in all neighborhoods would have an equal shot at a UC education.

UC campuses also revised their admissions review process from one that heavily relied on grades and test scores to a comprehensive evaluation that considers 14 factors, looking at how students perform academically given the opportunities in their schools and neighborhoods.

In addition, UC campuses increased outreach to underserved communities. UCLA, for instance, works with 20 Los Angeles Unified high schools and several Black churches in the Inland Empire to scout promising students and keep them on track. The strategy, spearheaded by Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, UCLA vice provost of enrollment management, has helped the campus increase the proportion of resident Black students admitted as freshmen from 3.7% in 2012 to 6.3% in 2019.

The measures have produced some progress. The share of admission offers to California freshmen who are Black increased from 4.3% in fall 2010 to 4.7% in 2019, while the Latino share grew from 22.9% to 34.3% during the same period. Asian Americans also increased from 33.9% to 35.72% while whites declined from 32.4% to 21.9%.

By way of comparison, the demographics of California high school graduates have changed during that time period. Black students decreased their share from 6.65% in 2010 to 5.3% in 2019, while Latinos increased from 42% to 51.8%, Asian Americans stayed roughly the same at about 14%, and whites declined from 34.4% to 24.7%.

But UC has not kept pace with the growing diversity of students in California K-12 schools or the overall state population, the memo said. In 2016, for instance, underrepresented students made up 37% of UC freshmen but 56% of high school graduates.

UC campuses also have not hired proportional numbers of female faculty in several fields, such as life sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, compared with the number of women with doctorates in those areas. The university has kept pace in engineering, computer science, education, arts and humanities, the board memo said.

Ahmad Mahmuod, a UC Berkeley incoming junior, said the constraints of Proposition 209 have hampered the ability to press for more Black students, faculty and services  such as earmarked scholarships  at his campus. He and a group of other Berkeley students took their concerns to Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), who has credited them for inspiring her to introduce ACA 5.

"We know when campuses are more diverse and reflect the community, everyone benefits," said Mahmuod, who is majoring in legal studies.

Reaction to ACA 5 is mixed among Asian Americans. Polls show that the majority of Asian Americans support affirmative action, and the measure is likely to increase the admission of students from some Southeast Asian subgroups and Pacific Islanders, according to Vincent Pan of Chinese for Affirmative Action.

Lu, however, said some Asian Americans are concerned they will be squeezed out of UC seats. She said many of her foundation members are immigrants who came to the United States "dirt poor" and succeeded through education and hard work. Allowing preferential treatment based on race, she said, will deny people the right to succeed through merit.

"Our skin color will become a scarlet letter," she said.

Both Asian American regents, William Um and Lark Park, voted to support ACA 5. Park said that it was "fantasy" to assert that race and gender don't matter. "We need to stop pretending that everyone has access to equal opportunity because they don't," Park said.

The debate over ACA 5 revives a four-decade battle over affirmative action in the UC system. In 1974, a white student named Allan Bakke sued the UC system, saying a special admissions program for minorities led to his rejection by UC Davis medical school and violated his constitutional and civil rights. In a landmark 1978 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial quotas but upheld the use of race as one of several factors in college admissions policy.

Even if ACA 5 wins passage, the UC and California State University systems would still need to decide how affirmative action would be implemented in their admission and hiring processes. In that event, Regent Sherry Lansing stressed, UC would not lower its high academic standards but merely add race as one of many factors in admissions decisions.
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Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 16:20:12|Editor: huaxia

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LOS ANGELES, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The Torrance Police Department has been looking for a 56-year old California resident called Lena Hernandez after her multiple anti-Asian hate speeches and actions.

Hernandez was caught on camera spewing anti-Asian hate speech at a young Filipino woman called Sherry Berry on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people gathered at the park on Friday to denounce racism after the video went viral.

Torrance Chief of Police, Eve R. Berg, told a conference the suspect has been identified and the police have been "actively searching" for her at her Long Beach residence and other addresses she's linked to.

But so far the suspect has eluded arrest.

According to Torrance Mayor Pat Furey, Torrance is "a fully diverse community" with 30 and 40 percent Asian and Pacific Islander population and a robust Asian-driven business community including more than 200 headquarters of Japanese businesses. The community also includes many Chinese and other Asian residents and companies.

Attorney Jessie Weiner told Xinhua that the actual words and the context would determine the degree to which the suspect can be prosecuted. But it can be hard to convict Hernandez due to the United States' unique freedom of speech protections under federal law.

Berg said the suspect had victimized other Asian residents, both verbally and physically.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-Asian hate crimes have increased, said Albert Y. Muratsuchi, a Democratic California State Assemblyman for the 66th District, which includes Torrance. Enditem
British counterterrorism police have appealed for more information about a chemical weapons attack that nearly killed Russian-born double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter two years ago.

It was the first official statement in 10 months on one of the biggest irritants in Britain's relations with Russia.

Britain blames to the attack on two Russian security service officers who allegedly entered Britain using false passports and poisoned Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury.

Russia denies the claims.

The Skripals spent days in a coma before recovering but local resident Dawn Sturgess died after picking up a discarded perfume bottle that was allegedly used to carry the poison.

Her partner, Charlie Rowley, spent weeks in hospital and a police officer also received a non-lethal dose of the Soviet-designed agent novichok.

The incident resulted in the largest ever expulsion of diplomats between Western powers and Russia.

UK counterterrorism police said late Sunday that the two Russians who entered Britain using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were still wanted.

But they said they could not piece together the full timeline of the attack.

"We continue to urge anyone who has information that they have not yet passed to police to do so," they said in a statement.

"In particular, we are keen to hear from anyone who may have seen the counterfeit Nina Ricci perfume box or bottle that was recovered from Charlie Rowley's address in July 2018."

Skripal and his daughter were found slumped unconscious on a park bench after eating at a local restaurant.

He was one of several suspected double agents involved in a spy swap that saw the United States return suspected spy Anna Chapman to Russia in 2010.

The New York Times said Skripal probably angered the Kremlin by continuing to provide information about Russian operations to Western security agencies after his return to Britain.

Russian officials say the chemical agent could have come from the British defence ministry's Porton Down lab near Salisbury.
Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, whose office oversees the Alamo, issued a warning to anyone targeting the San Antonio landmark.

"The Alamo is the Shrine of Texas Liberty. And it will be defended," Bush tweeted Saturday. "My office is close watching the social media posts and rumors from protestors who are threatening to come to The Alamo."

Bush, the grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, noted that Alamo Rangers have been deployed at the site in recent weeks along with San Antonio police and the National Guard.

The Alamo installed a temporary fence on June 3 amid protests against police brutality that followed the death of George Floyd.

"My message to the protesters is simple: Don't Mess with The Alamo," he wrote.

Bush repeated his warning during an appearance Monday on Fox & Friends, noting that anti-white supremacy slogans were sprayed on the Alamo Cenotaph on May 29. He said that the landmark had recently faced "an elevated threat from antifa."

The San Antonio Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for information about any such threats.

Protesters gathered at the Alamo on Saturday, but they were not there to voice opposition to racial injustice. The group was demonstrating against a plan to relocate the Cenotaph.

The 58-foot-tall monument to the fallen Alamo defenders is slated to be moved to the south end of Alamo Plaza later this year as part of $450 million overhaul of the plaza.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick responded to Bush's comments Monday, tweeting, "Nobody has put the [Alamo] at more risk than [Bush] with the outrageous 'reimagining' plan, lousy management, lack of transparency and moving the cenotaph."
The amount of goods exported out of Ireland decreased by 32% in April when compared to March, seasonally adjusted figures released by the CSO show.

Goods exports decreased by 5,400bn to 11,613m in April, according to preliminary figures.

Imports saw an 11% decline during the same period.

Seasonally adjusted goods imports decreased by 735m to 5,834m.

Exports of organic chemicals decreased by 14% to 1,666m in April 2020 when compared to April 2019.

Exports of professional, scientific and controlling apparatus decreased by 22%.

Exports of medical and pharmaceutical products increased by 260m to 4,872 million, accounting for 42% of total exports.

Exports of electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances increased by 182m (33%) to 738m over the same comparative period.

As for imports, the importation of transport equipment, including aircraft, decreased by 76% in April 2020 compared with April 2019.

Imports of petroleum decreased by 54% to 211m.

However, imports of professional, scientific and controlling apparatus increased by 83 million, up 51%, to 247 million, which was understandable given the Covid-19 pandemic.

Exports to Great Britain fell by 300m in April, however, imports from the UK were relatively unchanged, only decreasing by 2m (a 0.2% fall) compared to April last year.

The EU accounted for 4,186m or 36% Ireland's of total goods exports in April 2020, of which 1,310m went to Belgium and 1,092m went to Germany.

The USA was the main non-EU destination for Ireland's exports, accounting for 3,834m (33%) of total exports in April 2020.
LAGUNA HILLS, Calif., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The homeless population in California faces a grim challenge in the face of COVID-19. Deprived of easy access to hand washing options and social distancing protections, this group is especially susceptible to the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

Homeful Foundation an innovative not for profit organization that partners with homeowners to eliminate homelessness, is helping address this pressing and critical need of homeless families needing to isolate during the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing RV trailers for homeless families in three counties throughout California. Through a $500,000 donation from an Anonymous donor, Homeful has purchased 28 RV trailers to date.

In a major expansion of this initiative, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is donating $250,000 to purchase 12 additional trailers.

Homeful is coordinating its efforts with the State of California, the Governor's Office and the Office of Housing, Homelessness, Transportation, Infrastructure, CHP, High Speed Rail, DMV and Autonomous Vehicles with the latter agency choosing the most appropriate locations for the trailers. Presently, the RVs are housing families in Northern and Southern California towns including Salinas, San Bernardino and Santa Cruz.

"We're grateful to The Pfizer Foundation for helping us grow this effort which will provide some homeless families with shelter and privacy while, we hope, helping them elude exposure to the novel coronavirus," said Jeff Roos, Homeful's board president.

When medical experts widely acknowledge that the spread of COVID-19 is under control statewide, Roos envisions the trailers continuing as a potential transitional housing option. "We didn't envision this RV campaign as a stop gap measure; however, given the immediacy of the coronavirus threat, we sought an expedient approach that could be implemented quickly."

"Amid this global health crisis, we understand the need for immediate and significant philanthropic and private sector contributions to help sustain local partners who are working on the front lines to save lives," said Caroline Roan, President, The Pfizer Foundation and Vice President, Global Health & Patient Access, Pfizer Inc. "We believe it is our responsibility to help protect the most vulnerable from this disease and are putting the full weight of our resources behind our comprehensive COVID-19 response."

The RV shelter initiative is a scalable approach that can grow in breadth as additional funding arrives from other potential partners.

Past and ongoing Homeful activities are subsidized by a California-based home builder that designates a percentage of funds from each constructed home to the non-profit. Since 2016, that percentage, culled from approximately 40,000 new homes, has earmarked more than $10 million to homeless initiatives through Homeful.

About Homeful Foundation

Homeful is a visionary non-profit dedicated to solving homelessness once and for all. Through an innovative partnership between homebuilders and homeowners, Homeful has created a unique, ongoing and expansive source of giving that is transforming the fight against homelessness.

For more information, visit www.homefulfoundation.org.

About The Pfizer Foundation

The Pfizer Foundation is a charitable organization established by Pfizer Inc. It is a separate legal entity from Pfizer Inc. with distinct legal restrictions

SOURCE Homeful Foundation

Related Links

www.homefulfoundation.org


Photo: The Canadian Press

Temperature checks. Bigger lines. Fewer meals. No alcohol. And ultimately, higher prices.

Air travel  often a headache before the COVID-19 pandemic  is set to become even more uncomfortable, experts say, as increased in-flight personal space is offset by longer waits, higher airfares and more sterile environments.

Carriers, whose fleets have largely been grounded since mid-March amid global travel restrictions and extremely low demand for travel, now face the dilemma of generating enough revenue to stay afloat while keeping their passengers and employees safe.

In an effort to maintain physical distancing, Air Canada and WestJet Airlines Ltd. currently block the sale of immediately adjacent seats in economy class and throughout the entire plane, respectively.

Air Canada passengers currently receive complimentary kits that include hand sanitizer, antiseptic wipes, gloves, a water bottle and  in line with federal rules as of June 4  face masks.

To minimize customer-employee contact, pillows, blankets and alcohol are unavailable, with drink service limited to bottled water. Only travellers on international flights or in business class on journeys over two hours are offered boxed meals  no multi-course meals on the menu, even for "elite" flyers.

Infrared temperature checks will soon be required for all international passengers as well as those flying within Canada, with screening stations to be set up at 15 airports by September, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Friday.

Travellers with an elevated temperature  37.5 C in the case of Air Canada, which already conducts screenings  will be unable to board the flight, and barred from flying for at least 14 days.

Just how effective the checks are at virus detection remains up in the air.

"Thermography is only good for people who have the beginnings of a fever, or are somewhere along with a fever," said Tim Sly, epidemiologist and professor emeritus at Ryerson University's School of Public Health. "But we now know this virus is a stealth virus."

A recent study at Imperial College London found that the technique would not detect a heightened temperature in about half of those with the virus.

Passengers, flight crew and airport workers must wear non-medical masks or face coverings at all times, with exceptions for eating that include dining and children under the age of two, according to Transport Canada.

Passengers seated in the back now typically board first and those in the front board last to reduce the risk of transmission.

Airports in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary are also encouraging a "touch-free" baggage check where travellers check in remotely, print bag tags at an airport kiosk and drop off luggage at a designated spot.

Physical distancing rules at busy terminals could shrink capacity and cause congestion for arrivals and departures, making it harder for carriers to recoup their recent losses. Meanwhile, enhanced aircraft cleaning procedures will likely mean more time between flights, which combined with fewer passengers could badly dent their bottom lines.

"Cleaning up, safety procedures  that will delay flights. And it will have some level of expenditures," said Jacques Roy, a professor of transport management at HEC Montreal business school.

"But the most important thing would be to remove the middle seat. That would reduce capacity by one-third. To compensate you have to increase prices."

Jim Scott, CEO of ultra-low-cost carrier Flair Airlines, acknowledged that higher fares are likely on the horizon, though not immediately as carriers try to encourage travellers with lower prices.

"If you want that middle seat empty, probably you're going to have to pay more," he said.

In North America, physical distancing on board would push the average fare up by 43 per cent to US$289 from US$202 in 2019 just for airlines to break even, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

"Eliminating the middle seat will raise costs. If that can be offset that with higher fares, the era of affordable travel will come to an end," industry group director general Alexandre de Juniac said last month.

Higher ancillary charges  baggage fees, seating upgrades and other options  also present a potential path to higher revenues down the road, increasing a trend in place before the pandemic, said Jay Sorensen, who heads airline consulting firm IdeaWorksCompany.

While some adjustments may be easier to adapt to  ubiquitous disinfectant dispensers and plastic barriers in terminals, for example  others may be a little more difficult to accept.

Budget carrier Ryanair will require customers to make a special request to use the washroom to avoid what IATA calls a "congregation of passengers" in the cabin.

Nonetheless, the trade group, which counts Air Canada and WestJet among its almost 300 members, raised eyebrows last month when it announced that passenger face coverings have eliminated the need for physical distancing on board  washroom queues aside  and that aircraft seats serve as a barrier to viral transmission.

Airlines may be under pressure to make middle seats available soon as passenger volumes, which have fallen by more than 95 per cent year over year at Canadian carriers, start to rise again. WestJet said in an email it will reassess its no-middle-seat policy at the end of the month, while an Air Canada spokesman said that "it is not possible to speculate on the future possibilities."

For now, most regulators have not acted on IATA's push for middle seat occupancy, and airlines may find they need to entice passengers with rigorous health and hygiene protocols rather than filling each flight to capacity, said Dr. Paul Pottinger, professor of infectious diseases at the University of Washington's School of Medicine.

"The question, I think, is not one of viruses and infection, it's one of economics. Is that risk reduction small enough that people would be willing to pay a price in terms of the premium on their ticket?" he asked.

Ultimately, vigilance in physical distancing and sanitization are critical to containing coronavirus spread, no matter how it alters Canadians' flying experience, Pottinger said.

"It is a layer of protection that I envision for all of us regardless of whether you are squeezed into an aluminum tube or walking down the street. The virus doesn't care," he said.

"We just need to give each other a little more personal space. Doing it at the airport and on board? It's a real challenge."
A special aid package to protect journalists wages and support struggling media is to be introduced in North Macedonia thanks to the efforts of the union representing the country's media workers.

The North Macedonian government accepted wideranging proposals put forward by the Independent Union of Journalists and Media Workers (SSNM) to help journalists and media cope with the harsh conditions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) have congratulated their affiliate, the SSNM, in negotiating the plan.

Applicable to June, July and August, the plan will provide subsidies to all media employers who have not illegitimately fired employees during the crisis, including those who reduced employees salaries - under the condition that they repay the whole salary.

Media organizations, can also have part of their salary payments - the equivalent of the official minimum wage - subsidised by the state and receive financial support for broadcasting licenses and expenses  on the basis of demands from the SSNM and from the Macedonian Association of Journalists (AJM).

The SSNM said the main purpose of the package is to support media workers rather than employers.

Our demand for financial help for the employees in the media is based on the principle that only socially and economically secured employees in the media are able to professionally fulfil their duties  that is, to inform the public in a correct, unbiased and timely manner," declared the SSNM.

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: We welcome the North Macedonian governments decision to support media workers  this means more than just material help, it is a sign of respect for the institution of journalism, as well as for the precariousness of our profession. The IFJ congratulates the SNMM for securing this key support for media workers. It is an example to be followed.
As of early June 15, Ukrainian doctors confirmed 31,810 cases of Covid-19 disease across the country. 656 new cases were observed over the last 24 hours. Maksym Stepanov, the Healthcare Minister, reported that on at a briefing on Monday morning.

According to the official, 901 people have succumbed to the disease since the epidemic reached Ukraine. 14,253 people recovered.

Citizens refuse to obey the lockdown measures in the Ukrainian capital, and this is what caused the record-large number of Covid-19 cases in Kyiv on June 11. Volodymyr Bondarenko, the advisor of Kyiv mayor said so on the air of 112 Ukraine TV channel.

The official reiterated that certain public places, such as restaurants, cafes, and markets, are still dangerous for citizens. Kyiv city state administration urges the citizens to abide by quarantine restrictions.

"For most of our compatriots, weakened lockdown and the opportunity to get back to their jobs were somehow equal to ending of the quarantine, which is why they breach simple quarantine restrictions, such as wearing protective equipment and keeping social distance. So we begin to observe a massive spread. This is one of the reasons for the increasing numbers of infected people today", - Bondarenko said.

Earlier, medics confirmed 95 new cases of Covid-19 in Kyiv on June 11 alone. That number became the all-time record in this city since the epidemic reached Ukraine.
A salesman arranges raincoats and PPE suits on mannequins at a store after the authorities permitted opening of apparel stores, during the ongoing COVID-19 nationwide lockdown, in Bengaluru. PTI photo

With the influx of Maharashtra returnees to Karnataka there has been a spurt in the number of Covid cases and the doctors here believe that the numbers may breach 20,000 mark by the end of June.

June and July is a period of concern for the doctors as they believe that there will be a huge spurt in the number of positive cases. Dr CN Manjunath, director of Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and member of the Covid-19 task force believes though Karnataka is doing better than the other states it is premature to say we are containing.

Virus does not spread on its own but the people move it. In order to contain the virus we have suggested the government start with the random testing of the people in the containment zones, cab drivers, pourakarmikas, policemen and food delivery boys. We will get to know where we stand.

He explained that any new virus lives for a period of five-six months, out of which four months have been completed, hence the maximum concern will be in the period of June and July.

Challenges the medical fraternity is facing

Doctors who are treating the Covid patients undergo excessive physical and mental strain.

The entire fight against the virus is being carried out by the government hospitals and their doctors. It is more taxing for those who are in the ICU or casualty as they have to wear PPE kits round the clock. There have been some cases where the doctors in the middle of the operation have removed the kit to get fresh air and then get back to work. The junior doctors, interns and Post-Graduate doctors are working more, Dr Manjunath narrated the ordeal.

Moreover, the family members of the doctors are suffering from extreme fear psychosis as the doctors on returning home have to sleep in a separate room or rest at another floor.

The agony is catalysed when a volley of abuses doctors receive from the family members of the infected patients.

Doctors who are handling the ventilators are more vulnerable as the tubes have to be connected to the wind pipes and then aerosols are released, Dr Manjunath stated.

How doctors communicate with the patients

In the rural areas the remote monitoring system is kept at a bay from the ICU and through the gadgets which are attached to the patient's vital parameters are recorded.

At Bengalurus Victoria Hospital doctors communicate with the patients through a mike from a special room.

No Plasma donors: Challenge for the doctors to convince the discharged

While the doctors repose their faith in plasma therapy the donors are coming forward.

In convalescent plasma therapy a donor can save two lives. It is challenging for the doctors to convince the recovered patients to donate plasma. We can save lives through plasma therapy. The donors are not coming forward, Dr Sreelatha, HoD of blood transfusion, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI) stated.

Many do not come forward to donate blood as they're afraid. The BMRCI cater to 24 departments and they will be in need of blood but barring a couple of donors every day no one is volunteering on their own.

She suggested that lemon, turmeric, salt in a lukewarm water should be consumed daily to keep the disease at bay.
A US Air Force F-15C fighter aircraft has crashed in the North Sea, with a search under way for the pilot.

The jet went down near Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire, at around 9.40am on Monday.

The pilot is missing but the US Air Force said it was "hopeful" of a successful rescue operation.

In a video statement, Colonel Will Marshall, Commander of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath, said the cause of the crash was unknown, adding: Search-and-rescue efforts are currently under way, but the pilot of the aircraft is still missing.

We will provide updates as they become available while prioritising respect and consideration for the pilots family.

Confirming the crash, the US Air Force said in a statement: "A US Air Force F-15C Eagle crashed at approximately 0940 today in the North Sea.

"The aircraft was from the 48th Fighter Wing, RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom.

"At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on a routine training mission with one pilot on board.

"The cause of the crash as well as the status of the pilot are unknown at this time, and UK search and rescue have been called to support.

"As soon as additional details become available, they will be provided."

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HM Coastguard said in a statement that it received reports of a plane going down into the sea 74 nautical miles off Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast.

The HM Coastguard helicopter from Humberside has been sent along with Bridlington and Scarborough RNLI lifeboats, a spokesman said.

Following a Mayday broadcast by HM Coastguard, other vessels nearby are heading to the area.

The F15C, a single-seater air defence fighter, is a model of jet that has been used by the US Air Force since 1979.

RAF spokesman Martin Tinworth said the aircraft has an exceptional flight safety record.

Earlier, RAF Lakenheath tweeted a picture of three fighter jets which were understood to be on a training mission.
Australian former TV actor Karm Gilespie was sentenced to death in China on Saturday for smuggling 7.5kg of meth in his luggage at a Hong Kong airport in 2013

China has launched yet another withering attack on Australia as it defended its decision to sentence a Melbourne TV actor to death for drug smuggling.

Karm Gilespie was arrested in December 2013 at a Hong Kong airport with 7.5kg of meth in his luggage, before being sentenced to death by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court on June 10 this year.

Gilespie starred in the popular 1990s drama Blue Heelers before he moved into wealth and financial management.

The announcement of his verdict in Chinese local media has attracted strong criticism in Australia - with a friend of Mr Gilespie accusing the communist country's government of sentencing him to death without due process.

His family issued a short statement pleading for his friends and acquaintances not to 'speculate on his current circumstances' which they believe 'does not assist' his case.

On Sunday, state-owned newspaper The Global Times claimed Australia had 'disregarded rule of law' in a defiant justification of a 'just' and 'fair' death sentence verdict.

Pictured: Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 22. On Sunday state-owned newspaper The Global Times claimed Australia had 'disregarded rule of law' in criticising China's decision to sentence the Australian drug smuggler to death

'China is determined to crack down on drug trafficking in strict accordance with law, which should be respected and not intervened by Australia. Drug smuggling is a very serious and harmful crime that should be dealt with harshly,' the article read.

'Some Australian media outlets quoted positive comments about Gilespie from his acquaintances, describing this verdict as unfair and inhumane.

'They deliberately ignored the fact that the man they are defending is a drug trafficker who was arrested at Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou with 7.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in his check-in luggage.'

The strongly-worded piece also repeated claims the publication has made in recent months Australia is acting 'as a pawn of the US in confronting China' during the COVID-19 pandemic.

'If Australia refuses to face up to the issue and correct its policy, it will completely lose its appeal to Chinese students. It's time for Australia to face up to reality and be able to tell right from wrong,' the article finished.

The fierce editorial is the latest state-funded take-down of Australia amid a bitter war of words between the Chinese and Australian governments.

The article follows a story by the publication last week which claimed there had been a 'significant increase' in racial discrimination and violence against Chinese and Asian people.

Mr Gilespie was sentenced to death by a court in the Chinese city of Guangzhou almost seven years after he was arrested

His friend Roger Hamilton (left) posted a statement on Facebook telling how he had last seen Mr Gilespie (second from left) in 2013 at a financial forum (pictured), before he 'disappeared'

'It is Australia's unfriendly attitude, not the travel alert, that may really scare away Chinese tourists and students,' the article read.

The alert warning Chinese travellers not to visit Australia was announced last week by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Friends of Mr Gilespie, 56, have meanwhile expressed their shock at the news of his death sentence and told how they had been trying to find out information about his whereabouts since 2013 without luck.

American entrepreneur Roger Hamilton posted a statement on Facebook telling how he had last seen Mr Gilespie in 2013 at a financial forum, before he 'disappeared'.

The news comes at a time when diplomatic ties between Australia and China are at an almost all time low, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured with foreign minister Marise Payne) called for an inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic

'This is a photo of Karm Gilespie (in the red shirt) graduating from our WD Masters 7 years ago. Soon after, Karm disappeared,' Mr Hamilton wrote.

'He had been an active member of our community, encouraging others to be the best they could be. He was always there for others, which was why it was so strange that he suddenly disappeared.

'Today I heard the news of what had happened to him. He has been in a Chinese jail for 7 years and has now been sentenced to death.

'This is an Australian citizen who has been kept secretly in jail by a foreign government for 7 years before being sentenced to death with no due process.'

Mr Gilespie (right) had a recurring role on popular 1990s drama Blue Heelers before moving into wealth and financial management, which led him to spend an increased amount of time in Asia, away from his hometown of Melbourne

It is understood Mr Gillespie is married and has several children.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Daily Mail Australia they were providing consular assistance.

'We are deeply saddened to hear of the verdict made in his case. Australia opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances for all people,' a spokesperson said.

'We support the universal abolition of the death penalty and are committed to pursuing this goal through all the avenues available to us.'

According to some local media reports Mr Gilespie had left the Hong Kong airport in December 2013, only to be stopped by customs officers outside who allegedly found the methamphetamine in his checked luggage.

Australian and New Zealand citizen Peter Gardner (pictured) has also been in a Chinese prison since 2015 on drugs charges

Local news outlet Ifeng.com reports he was sentenced to death on June 10, but will now have an opportunity to appeal.

'On the morning of June 10, the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court made a first-instance judgment on the smuggling of drugs by the Australian defendant and sentenced him to death for the crime of drug smuggling,' the Chinese site said.

The news comes at a time when diplomatic ties between Australia and China are at an almost all time low, after becoming increasingly strained during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gillespie was allegedly carrying more than 7.5 kilograms of methamphetamine in his checked luggage (file image)

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, angering his Chinese counterparts.

A number of Australians are currently being detained in China, including a fellow convicted drug smuggler Peter Gardiner.

Mr Gardiner, a joint Australian and New Zealand citizen, has been behind bars since 2015 after he was caught allegedly trying to smuggle 30kg of methamphetamine into the country.

The Guangzhou (city pictured) Intermediate People's Court handed down the sentence on June 10

Two Canadians were handed death sentences by China in 2019 amid diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was handed death sentence after a retrial in January 2019.

Fan Wei was sentenced to death in the Jiangmen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong province three months later.

Canada accused the Chinese government of payback after Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver on behalf of the United States.

The United States had accused him of working to evade sanctions against Iran.

He is being detained under house arrest in Canada and fighting extradition to the United States.
AUSTIN, Texas, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Lion Street is pleased to announce two of its Top 10 Firms, Passerelle Partners and Midnight Financial Group, are joining forces. Led by Fernando Pou and Christopher Daniels, the merger unifies the team under the Passerelle Partners brand. The Firm caters to all segments of the advanced life insurance planning market, which includes both partnering with professional advisors and working directly with private clients. Passerelle Partners has a physical presence in Miami, Charlotte and Austin.

Lion Street stacked logo

"'If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,' is an African Proverb that is firmly embedded in Lion Street's culture," says Bob Carter, Founder and CEO of Lion Street. "The merger of these two Firms will create one of the industry's finest financial services operations, and we are excited to grow together with them."

Miami-based Passerelle Partners, Lion Street's leading Firm in 2019, is a boutique insurance advisory Firm, specializing in premium financed structures for U.S. and international clients. Led by Lion Street Owners Fernando Pou and Victoria Mayer, the Firm caters to entrepreneurial families, assisting with their asset protection, wealth transfer and succession strategies.

"Passion is the foundation of our business. It has allowed us to continuously adapt and innovate to evolve alongside our clients' needs," Pou says. "This partnership is a reflection of our core values and an integral part of our continued commitment to our clients and our industry."

Charlotte-based Midnight Financial Group, also a leading Lion Street Firm in 2019, is led by Lion Street Owner Christopher Daniels. As part of the merger, Daniels is now Managing Partner of Passerelle Partners, and heads up the Advisory Platform; working with advisors to explore, design, execute and manage premium financed strategies for their largest and most valued clients.

"This merger strengthens and expands the offering to our valued advisors  it brings additional capacity, knowledge, and access points. Further, we can now offer premium finance solutions for international clients from a leading team in the space," Daniels adds.

The integration of the teams bridges synergistic skillsets, access and experience to deliver a dynamic and powerful offering to the wealth advisory space. Discover the new Passerelle Partners at www.passerelle-partners.com.

ABOUT LION STREET

Lion Street is a leading financial services company based in Austin, Texas. Lion Street provides elite independent life insurance and wealth advisory firms access to the financial products, intellectual capital, and specialized resources they need to meet the sophisticated needs of high-net-worth and corporate clients. Every affiliated financial advisor is a stockholder of Lion Street. Together, Lion Street's Owner-Firms are strongly committed to building a fiercely independent, yet highly collaborative network of professionals. To learn more about Lion Street, please visit www.lionstreet.com or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Lion Street Contact:

Lisa Bynum, Director of Communications

512-776-8490 [email protected]

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SOURCE Lion Street
COVID-19: Iran Daily Deaths Exceed 100 For First Time In Two Months

06/15/20

Source: RFE/RL

The number of deaths from COVID-19 in Iran has exceeded 100 for the first time in two months, the country's Health Ministry said on June 14. Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari announced 107 coronavirus fatalities in the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll to 8,837. She said the number of infections had reached 187,427, with 2,472 new infections recorded in the past 24 hours.



Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari

Real numbers are believed to be significantly higher.



After gradually relaxing its lockdown since mid-April, Iran in recent weeks has seen a rise of new daily infections.

Speaking on June 13, President Hasan Rohani said that restrictions to stem the coronavirus pandemic will be reimposed in the country if citizens continue to disobey public health regulations.



Rohani said compliance with health regulations had been as high as 80 percent in mid-May. But he said compliance is now down to only about 20 percent.
India's trade deficit narrowed to $3.15 billion in May from $15.36 billion a year ago, mainly on account of drop in shipments by key sectors such as petroleum, textiles, engineering, gems and jewellery. Exports in the same month stood at $19.05 billion, while imports were seen at $22.2 billion, according to commerce ministry data released on Monday.

The exports fell 36.5 per cent and imports fell 51 per cent in the month, the data showed. They have contracted for the third straight month now. The trade deficit was at $6.76 billion last month.

In April, merchandise exports contracted by a record 60.28 percent to $10.36 billion amid the coronavirus lockdown. Imports too tumbled by 58.65 percent to $17.12 billion in April from $41.4 billion in the corresponding period of last year.

Trade deficit stood at USD 9.91 billion during the two months of the current fiscal.Oil imports stood at USD 3.49 billion in May - 71.98 per cent lower compared to USD 12.44 billion in the same month last year. Gold imports in May dipped 98.4 per cent to USD 76.31 million.

Also read: SBI's liquidity ratio at 143%: Either nobody wants money or bank doesn't want to lend

Also read:Reliance Industries' rights issue share debuts at Rs 690
Thank you for tuning in to episode 77 of The CUInsight Experience podcast with your host, Randy Smith, co-founder of CUInsight.com. This episode is brought to you by our friends at PSCU. As the nations premier payments CUSO, PSCU proudly supports the success of more than 1,500 credit unions.

For many low and moderate-income families across the country, Community Development Credit Unions (CDCUs) have been a vital support system throughout the COVID-19 crisis and resulting recession. On this weeks episode, Cathie Mahon, President and CEO of Inclusiv, and I dig into the importance of Community Development Credit Unions from coast to coast, as well as discuss the amazing work Inclusiv is doing to support these credit unions and their members now and going forward.

During our conversation, Cathie and I talk about many of the challenges and fragile dynamics that come with serving low-income households. She shares some of the incredible ways CDCUs have responded during the crisis to ensure their members have access to their funds and accounts. We also discuss why credit unions need to be more aggressive in reaching out to and serving unbanked individuals, and how this crisis is helping Inclusiv to build and maintain a more robust network of credit unions.

From there, Cathie and I chat at lenght about why she took the position at Inclusiv, how the inspiration has changed over the years, and why perfect is the enemy of the good. We also talk about building trust as a leader, what shes learned from her mentors, and some of the things she does to unwind.

During the shows rapid-fire section, we learn that Cathie was a bit of a troublemaker in high school and that she wanted to be a journalist when she grew up. She also shares some of her favorite books, including one she recently finished, and explains why Bill Clinton is the first person to come to mind when she hears the word success.

It was a blast getting to know Cathie better, and I hope to be able to cross paths with her again soon so we can continue this great conversation. Enjoy!

Find the full show notes on cuinsight.com

Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher

Books mentioned on The CUInsight Experience podcast: Book List

How to find Cathie:

Cathie Mahon

cathie.mahon@inclusiv.org

https://www.inclusiv.org

Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

Show notes from this episode:

A big shout-out to our friends at PSCU, an amazing sponsor of The CUInsight Experience podcast. Thank you!

Check out all the outstanding work that Cathie and her team at Inclusiv are doing here.

Shout-out: Randys mother

Learn more about how Puerto Ricos network of financial cooperatives came together after Hurricane Maria in this great article from Inclusiv.

Shout-out: Jill Nowacki

Shout-out: Michael Bloomberg

Shout-out: Cliff Rosenthal

Shout-out: CUES

Shout-out: Jonathan Mintz

Shout-out: Sheilah Montgomery

Shout-out: Lynda Milton

Shout-out: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY

Shout-out: NPR

Album mentioned: London Calling by The Clash

Album mentioned: Get Happy by Elvis Costello

Book mentioned: The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto Che Guevara

Book mentioned: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Book mentioned: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Shout-out: Bill Clinton

Shout-out: Clinton Global Initiative

Previous guests mentioned in this episode: Jill Nowacki (episodes 4, 18, 37 & 64)

In This Episode:

[02:25]  Cathie, welcome to the show!

[03:20]  Cathie shares how critical it is to have community development credit unions during these trying times.

[04:57]  What are some challenges the lower-income members are facing, and how are the community development credit unions helping?

[07:28]  Keeping branches open is just one way they are trying to help the communities.

[09:34]  Cathie believes that how members interact with their credit unions will be changed forever.

[11:42]  What do credit unions need to do to stay relevant to the pace of change that is happening now?

[14:40]  Cathie shares what she will be most proud to have accomplished a year from now.

[17:58]  Cathie and Randy speak about the experience of the PPP program.

[18:45]  What inspired you to take the position as CEO at Inclusive?

[20:23]  Cathie speaks about how the inspiration has changed with years on the job.

[22:28]  The perfect is the enemy of the good is something Cathies team has heard her say so much they can finish the sentence.

[23:51]  Making hard decisions is something Cathie has had to cultivate over the years.

[26:32]  Cathie debunks a common myth about leadership.

[27:51]  Is there a common mistake that you see young leaders make?

[29:46]  Cathie speaks about the mentors she has had and what she learned from them.

[32:24]  Cathie discusses what she likes to do to recharge when she has a day off.

[33:21]  What were you like in high school and do you remember the first time you got into memorable trouble?

[34:54]  Cathie says she wanted to be a journalist when she grew up.

[36:10]  She shares some daily routines she does to keep her day in sync.

[36:52]  What is the best album of all time?

[37:28]  What book do you think everyone should read?

[38:18]  Trying to figure out balance has become more important, and solving problems at work has become less important.

[39:19]  When you hear the word success, which is the first person who comes to mind?

[40:13]  Cathie shares some final thoughts for the listeners.

[40:54]  Thank you so much for being on the show!
London, June 15 : UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will join a video-conference with European Union (EU) leaders on Monday to push for progress in determining post-Brexit relations with the bloc, while officials in Brussels expect a little breakthrough.

Johnson, his chief Brexit negotiator David Frost, and Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove will hold "high-level talks" with Presidents of the European Council, European Commission, European Parliament Charles Michael, Ursula von der Leyen, and David Sassoli, respectively, reports Xinhua news agency.

Johnson will tell the EU leaders that the Brexit talks must be concluded by autumn "at the latest", because the public and businesses affected by Brexit need certainty, The Telegraph newspaper said in a report on Sunday.

At the video-conference, the Prime Minister will also demand a "high-quality Free Trade Agreement" that is "consistent with others the EU has agreed, as part of a balanced overall outcome", according to the Express newspaper.

Meanwhile, Brussels has warned that it would not brush aside the bloc's economic interests in a bid for a deal.

One senior EU official told the media that Monday's meeting was already scheduled in the withdrawal agreement, "so it is happening but no one expects much".

Michel Barnier, EU chief negotiator for Brexit, has said that while he is open to some compromises, any deal must be reached in the overall long-term political and economic interest of the bloc.

Last week, he accused the UK of "looking to maintain the benefits of being a member state" in the bloc.

The UK and the EU concluded their fourth round of talks last week, during which they made no progress on the most difficult areas where differences of principle are most acute, notably on fisheries, governance arrangements and the so-called level playing field.

Taking to Twitter on Friday, Gove said: "I formally confirmed the UK will not extend the transition period and the moment for extension has now passed. On 1 January 2021 we will take back control and regain our political and economic independence." The UK formally exited the EU on January 31 but is still following EU rules during the transition period until December 31 to enable a permanent future trade deal to be reached.

During this period, the UK would have to pay into EU funds but have no say on laws imposed by Brussels.
Petrol and diesel prices were raised in metros on Monday for the ninth straight day as state-run oil companies resumed daily rate reviews after a 12-week halt.

Petrol will now cost Rs 76.26 per litre after an increase by 48 paise and diesel 74.62 per litre after it was raised by 59 paise in Delhi. Petrol price was raised by 62 paise and diesel by 64 paise in the national capital on Sunday.

In Mumbai, petrol will now cost Rs 83.17 per litre and diesel Rs 73.21 per litre. Chennai residents will have to pay Rs 79.96 for a litre of petrol and Rs 72.69 per litre for diesel.

In Kolkata, petrol has been priced at Rs 78.10 for petrol and Rs 70.33 for diesel for every litre.

State-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has an SMS facility which can help you get information on the current prices of petrol and diesel on your mobile phones.

Heres how you can receive IOCs petrol and diesel prices on your phone:

You can send an SMS to 9224992249 in the following format:

RSP petrol pump dealer code

Heres are the dealer codes you can use to receive IOC prices in 41 cities:

The user is required to send an SMS to 9224992249

City SMS Text Agartala RSP 159850 Aizwal RSP 160181 Ambala RSP 102049 Bangalore RSP 118219 Bhopal RSP 169398 Bhubhaneswar RSP 124305 Chandigarh RSP 102790 Chennai RSP 133593 Daman RSP 177747 Dehradun RSP 161143 Faridabad RSP 102287 Gandhinagar RSP 218671 Gangtok RSP 159289 Ghaziabad RSP 154410 Gurgaon RSP 102082 Guwahati RSP 159571 Hyderabad RSP 134483 Imphal RSP 159875 Itanagar RSP 160647 Jaipur RSP 123143 Jammu RSP 108726 Jullunder RSP 108743 Kohima RSP 160154 Kolkata RSP 119941 Lucknow RSP 155054 Mumbai RSP 108412 New Delhi RSP 102072 Noida RSP 155444 Panjim RSP 125676 Patna RSP 166873 Pondicherry RSP 135299 Port Blair RSP 220191 Raipur RSP 169751 Ranchi RSP 166751 Shillong RSP 159828 Shimla RSP 109295 Silvasa RSP 112114 Srinagar RSP 109536 Trivandrum RSP 124923 Vijayawada RSP 127611 Visakhapatnam RSP 127290

SOURCE: IOCL.COM
A 57-year-old man has been jailed for a "vicious and frenzied" knife attack on his beauty therapist ex-girlfriend at her salon.

Gary Sadler, of Victoria Road, Poole, Dorset, was sentenced to 13 years in prison at Winchester Crown Court for wounding with intent to commit GBH and possession of a knife.

Sadler armed himself with a steak knife and launched the attack on his former partner Nahomi Ziraldo after she opened up the salon where she worked at the Dolphin shopping centre, Poole, on August 11 last year, the court heard.

Sentencing Sadler, Judge Jane Miller QC described how the defendant attempted to stab Miss Ziraldo many times, moving the knife towards her neck, before punching and hitting her.

But Miss Ziraldo had fought back using her martial skills and managed to break the knife, meaning she was not more seriously hurt.

Members of the public who heard the attack also managed to enter the premises through a fire exit and were able to stop the defendant, the court heard.

The victim suffered cuts and bruises and a damaged finger, meaning she could no longer carry out her work giving massages.

Sadler was sentenced at Winchester Crown Court / PA

The judge said Sadler had gone to the victims shop after she had missed an arranged meeting with him and he had become upset, believing that she had been teasing him.

Judge Miller told the defendant: This was a savage and sustained attack in which your victim suffered very real injuries, particularly psychological.

"You planned this attack and you took a knife to the scene and it is only by good fortune that Miss Ziraldo is still here."

Rose Burns, defending, said the incident happened after Sadler, who has previously been treated for a psychotic episode, had become subject to stress caused by his mothers death and his brother cutting off ties with him after not being a recipient of their mothers will.

Detective Constable Ben Swain, of Bournemouth CID, said: Gary Sadler was responsible for a vicious and frenzied attack.

"I would like to praise the victim for her bravery as this must have been a very frightening incident and it has had a significant physical and psychological impact on her life.

"I am also keen to thank the members of the public who intervened for their outstanding actions that stopped the victim from being further assaulted."
Senior Hamas official also calls for union of political leadership as Israel prepares to start annexation process.

Hamas has called for unity among Palestinians and resistance against Israeli plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank.

Senior Hamas official Salah al-Bardawil said at a news conference in the besieged Gaza Strip on Monday: Palestinian unity is the bedrock of national strength through which the [planned catastrophic] annexation can be resisted and foiled.

He called for popular Palestinian actions against planned annexations, such as demonstrations.

It is the duty of each free Palestinian citizen to rise up against this flagrant aggression on our land, he said.

Deep divisions remain between Hamas, which governs Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but Bardawil urged a union of the political leadership.

He called for a general meeting between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which includes various other Palestinian groups.

Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, after defeating forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a near civil war after Hamas won elections in 2006.

Both the PA and Hamas stand opposed to annexation in the West Bank, which forms part of a plan by US President Donald Trump.

Unveiled in late January, Trumps plan proposed the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on the remaining patchwork of disjointed parts of the Palestinian territories without occupied East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

The planned Israeli annexation would deprive Palestinians of key agricultural land and water resources, especially in the Jordan Valley region. It would also effectively kill the two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict that was based on the idea of land for peace.

Israels intention to press ahead with annexation has been met with warnings from the United Nations that such a move would likely spark violence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government aims to begin the process of annexation of West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley from July 1.

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights after capturing the territories during the 1967 war. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan heights in 1980 and 1981 respectively, although the moves were not recognised by the vast majority of the international community.

Last week, hundreds of international law professors and scholars signed an open letter condemning the Israeli plans to annex territory in the West Bank, calling it a flagrant violation of bedrock rules of international law, and would also pose a serious threat to international stability in a volatile region.

Kevin Jon Heller, an international law professor, told Al Jazeera the Israeli planned annexation is a clear and fundamental violation of international law that prohibits annexation of territories taken by force.

Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem coupled with international and Arab silence have emboldened it to take further action in that direction as its contemplating now, said Heller.
Was this Somyurek's brainchild or does it reveal what Labor is really like when you look under the bonnet? Michael Hassett, Blackburn A staggering multitude of revelations The multitude of revelations in The Age/60 Minutes report into the Victorian ALP (The Age, 15/6), are simply staggering. Hot on the heels of the ALP "red shirts" saga, government-employed staffers appear to be used on party branch stacking activities on a massive scale. Ministers' portfolios are labelled as nothing jobs, and the MP at the centre of the investigation appears to control who becomes a member of parliament and also who becomes a minister of the Crown. The very nature and direction of government seems to be steered by one man, which in turn has significant impacts on legislation and decisions made by government. If that is not enough, we hear that the Premier is going soon, and one man could decide who the next one is.

A high-powered investigation should be undertaken into the activities of this minister and his staffers. To simply allow the current situation to continue will see our democracy continue to be both diminished and denied. Victoria stands at the crossroads, Daniel Andrews should choose a path. Mathew Knight, Malvern East It's an institutionalised modus operandi Branch stacking in the ALP is an institutionalised modus operandi for any ambitious party member seeking to enter any one of our parliaments. There have been too many parliamentarians who have had a cushy career in Parliament courtesy of "the stack" in the last 50 years to count. What can be counted is the number of dollars in salary and superannuation they have taken from Australian taxpayers during their flawed careers.

Adem Somyurek is not the first sitting politician to be accused of branch stacking. Sadly for all Australians he is unlikely to be the last. Brian Sanaghan, West Preston THE FORUM Not a lot to choose from With the shocking revelations in The Age about Adem Somyurek's wheeling and dealings in the Victorian ALP, federal Coalition cabinet ministers allegedly using taxpayer funds to attend a fundraising function in Sydney, with governments oblivious to calls to alleviate the suffering of asylum seekers in detention, the ongoing battle by the homeless for safe and secure accommodation and the perpetual delays by the government to provide recognition for First Nations people, it is no wonder many are fed up with politicians and their shallow promises.

One can only describe the conduct in all of these areas as disgraceful. It is time for real leadership around the nation, but when one looks at who is available, sadly, there is not a great deal from which to choose. Bruce MacKenzie, South Kingsville Credit where it's due I want to give credit to Amanda Vanstone, with whom I rarely agree ("It's an insult to censor our viewing", Comment, 15/6).

Writing without political partisanship, with cogent arguments about why we should not destroy recordings of the truth of our past, as in film, books, or even statues she makes the case for keeping records so that we remember in the hope that we might undo past wrongs. As she says, "Erasing the past, however painful it may be to remember it, is a mistake." This is why #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo have arisen to recover memories and crimes of the past so that we can make changes. We need to learn from our history not silence it. Yvonne Hunter, Torquay A test is not sufficient

We need to go much further than giving a history test to a prime minister-elect (And Another Thing, 15/6). We must test all potential candidates before accepting their nomination for an election. As well as a clear-eyed understanding of Australian history, they need to demonstrate an understanding of their role as representatives, acting for the general good, not their personal advancement. Jim Spithill, Ashburton Pseudo arguments So called "pro-choice" anti-vaxxer advocates are the equivalent of the anti-seatbelt lobby of the 1970s. They present us with emotive, non-evidence-based pseudo-science arguments.

Being unvaccinated is equivalent to not wearing a seatbelt in a car. All is OK  until there is an accident. These people endanger not just themselves and their families, but others in the community. George Greenberg, Malvern An apology looks like this An apology cannot be conditional, it is: "a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another". So many times politicians and other public figures say "If I have offended, then I apologise ... "

The "if" means that they are equivocal about their statement, or not sure that it should be given, or a face-saving device, or simply a ruse to sit on the fence. Hence Prime Minister Scott Morrison's latest comment on the issue of slavery in Australia: "My comments were not intended to give offence and if they did, I deeply regret and apologise for that." Did he realise or not that offence was taken, and if not why not? An essential part of a sincere apology is that the action will not be repeated, and that restitution will be made. This should have read simply as: "I deeply regret and apologise for my comments." Andrew Leung, Richmond

Churchill's other side Yes, Winston Churchill, with the help of the allies, was instrumental in defeating the Nazi regime but let's not forget he compromised some nations of the Commonwealth, which he no doubt thought were dispensable. He worsened the the famine of India by exporting what little rice stocks they had to the war effort. He initially blamed the famine on crop failure which was partly true but added later that they were basically eating themselves out of house and home because they were "breeding like rabbits". This part of Churchill's history may be a contributing factor to people wanting to deface or remove his statue. Greg Bardin, Altona North

Batman is misunderstood If the Prime Minister cannot get his history right, the rest of us can at least not rewrite it. Debates about destroying old monuments are a case in point. John Batman, arriving in Melbourne, purchased (say respectable historians) 100,000 acres of land from local Aborigines. The cost was a pile of blankets, knives, tomahawks, looking glasses, scissors, handkerchiefs, shirts, jackets, suits, and flour. Was this fair? Hard to tell; there was no going price of land. Batman clearly did not see the terra as nullius, and some authorities have suggested that the agreement to sell the land amounted to a "treaty".

But the New South Wales and British governments went into cardiac arrest at the possibility Batman's deal undermined other NSW land deals. The Batman purchase was declared illegal. This undermined any Indigenous-settler agreement and Indigenous people, rightly, were upset at perceived white duplicity. Any chance of a peaceful local settlement  a dubious chance anyway given what had happened in NSW and Tasmania  was sunk. However we view what happened afterwards, pulling down John Batman's statue down would simply misunderstand the whole event. Max Liddell, Coburg Another secret trial The secret trial of convicted drug runner Karm Gilespie is to be condemned as it has been by many observers.

However I am sure those observers will not and have not been as critical of Australia's secret trials of Bernard Collaery and his client "Witness K" over the dreadful spying and undermining of Timor Leste's rightful oil revenues. Rob Park, Surrey Hills Time takes care of them Be wary of erecting statues. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said: "The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-trees, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls." Ray Peck, Hawthorn

He also damaged councils Adem Somyurek has done more than stack branches and threaten politicians. As Local Government and Small Business Minister he has overseen changes creating single-member wards in some council electorates (eg Bayside) that will make it much harder for councillors not affiliated with the ALP and the Liberal Party to get elected. (To those who say councils do not have ALP and Liberal party affiliated councillors  tell 'em they're dreaming ...) The strategy is designed to reduce election of independent and green councillors. Previous multi-ward elections resulted in a more accurate representation of the community. Here's hoping a more representative system can be restored. Margaret Beavis, Brighton Go figure

Thanks to free childcare, children of the poor have attended and thrived. Aboriginal communities report increased enrolment and engagement with learning ("Indigenous children 'thriving' in free care", The Age, 13/6). The government says it wishes to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. It insists free childcare ends at the end of the month. Go figure. June Factor, Ivanhoe A relevant footnote

We're told those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Two recent examples: first, the desire to remove statues of past figures whose exploits offend current sensibilities. (Where would this stop? You cannot just forget historical reality.) Then there's Scott Morrison's selective memory, trying to whitewash the blackbirding and then pretending to apologise. I'm sorry, Prime Minister, in order to apologise properly, you need to apologise for what you said in failing to recognise the historical record, not for causing offence if others didn't like what you said. The recent honours list provides a relevant footnote: we continue to erect statues for future generations to deface. Jenifer Nicholls, Armadale

Powerful disincentives It is a miracle that we still elect some competent, honest and well-motivated individuals to various parliaments. However, as long as preselection depends partly on the patronage of Labor Party factional warlords, or a few superannuated zealots in Liberal Party branches, the talent pool for the major parties will be limited. Once elected, the regular need to abandon previously held convictions in the name of party solidarity must be a further disincentive for good candidates to have a go  not to mention the quality of some leaders they are expected to follow dutifully. Norman Huon, Port Melbourne

The tip of the iceberg? With the latest details being published about what goes on behind the scenes in the Labor party, there should be little disbelief by politicians of all persuasions as to why the public is extremely cynical about them as a group. Adem Somyurek, now, is just one we know about, but is he just the tip of the iceberg? Why would people with high ethics, morals and a genuine interest in improving society want to participate in politics? How many potential candidates, who have the capacity to lead and make the country a much better place, don't put their hand up lest they become sullied by the experience? Greg Tuck, Warragul AND ANOTHER THING

Politics Labor branch stacker Adem Somyurek is out on a limb. Graham Cadd, Dromana It is time for the Labor Party to house clean and throw out Adem Somyurek and all his cronies.

Alan Inchley, Frankston We can walk and chew gum. The national cabinet needs to tackle the interlinked COVID-19 and climate crises Greg Curtin, Blackburn South Politics has been dodgy since the day it was invented. Other than the state opposition no one is really interested, surprised or concerned. Ian Powell, Glen Waverley

The more politicians talk about "common sense", the less sense they make. Bernd Rieve, Brighton Dealing with the past Maybe Vault could make a welcome return to a prominent position in the city? It is a statue without baggage. It can offend no one. Ray Kenyon, Camberwell

Oh the irony, Basil Fawlty is the voice of reason. Craig McArthur, Sunderland Bay Coronavirus The idea that a COVID-19 quarantine for international students arriving in Australia should be less than two weeks is medically indefensible, and puts the education dollar ahead of the health of every citizen of Australia. Anita White, Kew

The wearing of face masks in crowded places ("Masks could be the best defence from virus", 15/6) also serves as a visible and constant reminder that some members of society, for a number of reasons, are far more vulnerable to infection. Vikki O'Neill, Ashburton Finally Use your initiative, Daniel Andrews: Instead of demolishing the public housing in Ascot Vale, as owner, apply for the $25,000 renovation grant for each unit from the federal government, spend a further $125,000 per unit from state funds and by the end of the year the tenants will be back in good housing. Meg Paul, Camberwell
The United Nations top human rights body will hold an urgent debate on allegations of systemic racism, police brutality and violence against peaceful protests in the United States on Wednesday, a statement said.

The decision by the UN Human Rights Council followed a request last week by Burkina Faso on behalf of African countries, it said in a statement on Monday. The United States is not a member of the 47-member state forum in Geneva.

The death of George Floyd is unfortunately not an isolated incident, the letter said, referring to the unarmed black man who died on May 25 under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, igniting worldwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

The numbers of previous cases of unarmed people of African descent who met the same fate because of uncontrolled police violence are legion, the letter added.

The international outrage provoked by the death underlined the importance of the Human Rights Council discussing these issues, it said, noting that 600 activist groups and victims relatives had called last week for a special session.

Campaigners across the US have called on authorities to either de-fund, reform or abolish police departments after four weeks of street clashes between law enforcement and demonstraters.

Minneapolis councillors voted on Friday to pursue a community-led public safety system that will replace the police department following Floyds death.

Council president Lisa Bender also described the citys relationship with its police department as toxic, and called on lawmakers to rethink what policing is.

Our commitment is to do whats necessary to keep every single member of our community safe, and to tell the truth: that the Minneapolis police are not doing that, said Ms Bender last week.

That comes as anti-racism protests in Atlanta were reignited after police fatally shot Rayshard Brooks, a black man, on Friday night.

His death was ruled as a homicide on Sunday, with an examiners office confirming that he had suffered two gunshot wounds to the back.

Senior African leaders within the UN, including World Health Organisation head Tedros Ghebreyesus, have also called on the UN to use its influence to once again remind us of the unfinished business of eradicating racism.

In a statement, signatories to the letter argued that The shocking killing of George Floyd is rooted in a wider and intractable set of issues that will not disappear if we ignore them. It is time for the United Nations to step up and act decisively to help end systemic racism against people of African descent and other minority groups.
(Philadelphia, PA) - Cocaine is a highly addictive drug - some people are unable to walk away from it after just one use. And once addicted, users can lose control of their lives. Powerful cravings, caused by the drug's ability to hijack healthy brain circuits, drive users to seek out the drug at the expense of work, friends, and family. To break free from these cravings, healthy brain function and behaviors must be reestablished. Existing treatments attempt to do this, but they often fail to produce long-lasting recovery.

Researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) hope to soon change that, thanks to a new $1.77M grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) that will allow them to explore whether a drug called clavulanic acid can help patients recover from cocaine use disorder. Clavulanic acid is part of an existing therapy known as Augmentin. Augmentin combines clavulanic acid with the penicillin-related antibiotic amoxicillin and is used for the treatment of bacterial infections.

"Augmentin has been around since the 1980s, but interest in the clavulanic acid component as a form of treatment for drug addiction is recent," explained Mary Morrison, MD, MS, Vice Chair for Research, Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at LKSOM, and senior investigator on the new grant.

The idea that clavulanic acid could serve as a therapy for drug addiction emerged in 2014, from work carried out in the laboratory of Scott Rawls, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at the Center for Substance Abuse Research at LKSOM. Dr. Rawls is a co-investigator on the new NIDA grant.

"Much of the research in my laboratory centers on an excitatory signaling molecule in the brain called glutamate, transmission of which is significantly altered by cocaine use," Dr. Rawls said. "Our research has shown that increased glutamate transmission in the brain is associated with addictive-like behaviors." Drugs that normalize glutamate transmission are thought to be critical to reducing cocaine craving and vulnerability to cocaine relapse.

Clavulanic acid is a promising drug in this regard. In preclinical studies in animals carried out by Dr. Rawls and colleagues, clavulanic acid was found to enhance glutamate uptake in brain cells called astrocytes. It did so by increasing the expression of a specialized glutamate transport molecule known as glutamate transporter subtype 1 (GLT-1). Dr. Rawls's laboratory further showed in animals that clavulanic acid reduces cocaine-induced activation of biological reinforcement and motivational systems - the biological reward pathways that keep cocaine users engaged in drug-seeking behavior.

The preclinical data, by providing evidence that clavulanic acid might be repurposed to treat cocaine use disorder, laid the basis for the clinical study in human patients that will be funded by the new NIDA award. The clinical study will involve the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain in persons with recent cocaine addiction. "Spectroscopy will allow us to observe changes in glutamate levels in the brain, and adding fMRI will enable us to look at associated changes in cocaine craving," Dr. Morrison said.

The NIDA award provides support for Dr. Morrison's clinical study of clavulanic acid for one year. If the drug is found to reduce cocaine craving and is safe and well-tolerated in hospitalized patients, the research team will receive additional funding to pursue an outpatient treatment study. This second phase of the study, in which cocaine users would take clavulanic acid outside a hospital setting, would involve patients across multiple U.S. cities.

###

Other co-investigators on the award include fellow Department of Psychiatry, Center for Substance Abuse Research, and Lewis Katz School of Medicine colleagues Dr. Helene Khalid, NIDA Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychiatry; Dr. M. Ingre Walters, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Dr. Daohai Yu, Professor of Clinical Sciences; and Dr. Huiling Peng, Neuroimaging Supervisor. Collaborators from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University will provide neuroimaging consultation.

About Temple Health

Temple University Health System (TUHS) is a $2.2 billion academic health system dedicated to providing access to quality patient care and supporting excellence in medical education and research. The Health System consists of Temple University Hospital (TUH); TUH-Episcopal Campus; TUH-Jeanes Campus; TUH-Northeastern Campus; The Hospital of Fox Chase Cancer Center and Affiliates, an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center; Temple Transport Team, a ground and air-ambulance company; Temple Physicians, Inc., a network of community-based specialty and primary-care physician practices; and Temple Faculty Practice Plan, Inc., TUHS's physician practice plan comprised of more than 500 full-time and part-time academic physicians in 20 clinical departments. TUHS is affiliated with the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.

Temple Health refers to the health, education and research activities carried out by the affiliates of Temple University Health System (TUHS) and by the Katz School of Medicine. TUHS neither provides nor controls the provision of health care. All health care is provided by its member organizations or independent health care providers affiliated with TUHS member organizations. Each TUHS member organization is owned and operated pursuant to its governing documents.

It is the policy of Temple University Health System that there shall be no exclusion from, or participation in, and no one denied the benefits of, the delivery of quality medical care on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, disability, age, ancestry, color, national origin, physical ability, level of education, or source of payment.
The presence of a murder convict at Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans daughter Veenas marriage on Monday has kicked up a big controversy. The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it was a serious security lapse and sought an explanation from the CM.

The marriage of Veena Vijayan with CPI (M) youth wing president PA Mohammed Riyas was solemnised at a simple function at the official residence of the CM in the morning. After the wedding when photos were circulated, the BJP alleged that one of the invitees Mohamad Hashim was undergoing a jail term in a murder case and was out on parole.

The Supreme Court had sentenced him to seven-year jail in 2017. He was out on parole because of the Covid-19 pandemic. How can a convict come to the official residence and rub shoulders with the CM? It is a big security lapse, said BJP spokesman Sandeep Warrier.

Though the High Court had acquitted him in the case in 2017 the Supreme Court had awarded him 7-year jail term. Warrier said the party will move the court to cancel his parole.

Hashim said he was closely related to Riyas and he did not flout parole norms. But CPM insiders said many leaders are upset with the failure of the intelligence wing. The CM also holds the home portfolio.

There were less than 30 people at the wedding. Under Unlock 1 guidelines, a maximum of 50 people can attend a wedding. Veena is the managing director of Exalogic Solutions Pvt Ltd, a start-up company based in Bengaluru, and Riyas, an advocate and the president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). This is the second marriage for both Riyas and Veena.

Shashi Tharoor, Congress lawmaker from Thiruvananthapuram took to Twitter to bless the couple.

Finally, took the opportunity to convey my blessings for his daughters marriage tomorrow. Life must go on amid a pandemic, and love in the time of COVID carries a special joy! he tweeted.
If voters had to pick the next president today based on who is best for their personal finances, it could be a close race.

A survey from Bankrate.com finds that 36% of Americans believe President Donald Trump would be better for their finances, while 35% think former Vice President Joe Biden would be the top choice; 14% said neither and 15% said they don't know.

Those more likely to pick Trump based on this issue include white adults, baby boomers and the highest earners.

People who are more likely to select Biden include lower earners, Black adults, residents of Northeastern states and people who have four-year college degrees.

More from Personal Finance:

Additional stimulus legislation may be coming. Here's what could be in it

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Fed holds rates near zero  here's exactly what that means for your wallet

Voters likely to say neither Trump nor Biden would be better for their wallets include independents, millennials and the lowest earners.

The results show that not everyone feels OK about how well they are doing financially.

"There are a lot of aspects of the past 10-plus years, which was the length of the expansion, that didn't lift all boats," said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

The online survey was conducted between June 3 and June 4 and included 1,343 adults. Bankrate did not provide a margin of error.
Make room for the God who "does not remain in His blissful eternity and in His infinite light, but makes himself close, becomes flesh, descends into the darkness, inhabits lands alien to him". "Let each one of us be concrete and respond to this. 'Yes, yes, I would like Jesus to come but like this, that I do not have to touch him; this, no, and this yes...'. Everyone has his own sin - let us call it by name. And He is not afraid of our sins: He came to heal us. At least let us let Him see it, let Him see the sin".
A file photo of San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, attending the Pars Equality Center's Daryabari Iranian Community Center Opening in San Jose, Calif., on April 16, 2015. (Steve Jennings/Getty Images for Pars Equality Center)

Silicon Valley Leaders Discuss Police Reform

SANTA CLARA, Calif.Leaders in Californias Silicon Valley have made some reforms to law enforcement already following the calls for reform after George Floyd died in police custody. And they propose more, but caution against calls to defund the police.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said defunding the police would hurt the very people who have suffered the most from systemic racism in this nation. Americas wealthy will hire private security guards, he said in a June 8 press release, while everyone else will lack police protection.

He asked proponents of defunding to consider what programs the cuts would impact. Any police chief or city council will be loath to cut the lifeline 911 emergency response that patrol officers provide to communities in moments of distress, Liccardo said.

Early in June, he banned rubber bullets in crowds and granted more authority to the San Joses civilian independent police auditor. On June 11, he released a budget message to invest in the new changes. It included creating an Office of Racial Equity and increasing scrutiny of police use-of-force.

Safety from police violence is a civil right, Liccardo said. Safety from all violence is a human right.

The San Jose Police Officers Association joined two other police unionsthe Los Angeles Police Protective League and the San Francisco Police Officers Associationto release a national reform agenda on June 14.

No words can convey our collective disgust and sorrow for the murder of George Floyd, the unions stated. We have an obligation as a profession and as human beings to express our sorrow by taking action.

The agenda included a national use-of-force standard that emphasizes a reverence for life, de-escalation, a duty to intercede; an early warning system to identify where more training is needed; and ways to flag officers fired for gross misconduct so theyre not hired by other agencies.

In Santa Clara, the county sheriffs office has said its policies are in line with the 8 Cant Wait campaign, a call for eight key changes in law enforcement, the first of which is banning chokeholds.

Our current policies and training have always embraced our core values and are in line with all eight reforms, most of which have been our practice for years, the office said in a statement.

The sheriffs office recently removed carotid restraint from its use-of-force continuum.

Palo Altos police department has also recently banned carotid restraint. Police reforms have been debated in City Council hearings; the Palo Alto City Council passed a symbolic resolution in support of Black Lives Matter on June 8.

Police Chief Robert Jonsen said at the June 8 council hearing that receiving criticism from residents there was rough, but he defended his police force as already very progressive, reported Palo Alto online.

Are we capable of improving? Absolutely. Are we willing to improve? Always. That is what we strive for each and every day, Jonsen said.

At a press event in Oakland on June 9, reporters asked Governor Gavin Newsom if he believes in defunding the police.

He replied, If youre calling for eliminating the police, no. If youre talking about reimagining and taking the opportunity to look at the responsibilities and roles that we have placed on law enforcement  then absolutely I do think this is necessary.
Open source

During the meeting, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky ordered the government to pay the insurance to medics suffered from coronavirus as soon as possible as the Presidents Office reported.

I have already raised the issue of the insurance payments to the doctors suffered from the fight against coronavirus. There was time for bureaucracy; now, it is time to pay the aid. The Cabinet of Ministers should do it as soon as possible, Zelensky said.

The president also reminded that the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law, according to which, in the case of death of the employee of the state or public institution of the healthcare or state scientific institution due to the infection with coronavirus, this employee is equated to a military.

In their turn, the officials informed that the documents necessary for the insurances were prepared.

On May 7, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the law On amendment of Article 39, Law of Ukraine On protection of population from infectious disease (toward the extra guarantees of rights of medical and other workers involved in the sphere of the protection of the population from infectious diseases and members of their families).

In case of the determination of the disability group during a calendar year resulting from the infection with coronavirus disease under the condition that such infection is tied with the performance of professional duties in terms of the increased risk of the infection  the sum of the compensation depends on the determined disability group and degree of loss of the professional working capacity but not less than 630,600 hryvnia ($23,528) and in case of death 1,576,500 million hryvnia ($58,820).

Besides, the medics were paid up to 300% allowances for March for direct work with patients with coronavirus infection.
As a result of statewide school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, a staggering 779,000 K-12 public school educators lost their jobs throughout the US in the months of April and May. Over the same period, 239,000 public college professors and other employees and 424,000 educators at private K-12 schools and universities were laid off. The combined 1.44 million education-related job losses will in many cases be permanent and will have devastating repercussions for both educators and an entire generation of students.

These figures are based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly unemployment surveys for April and May, which reported a combined loss of 1.1 million public and private K-12 and higher education jobs in April, and a further 340,000 education jobs lost in May. As dire as these figures are, there are reasons to believe that the BLS is doctoring jobless figures in the interests of the Trump administration, and that the real number of educator layoffs is even higher than reported.

California teacher protesting budget cuts in San Diego

In both months, the BLS acknowledged that there were errors in collecting data, which caused the agency to underestimate the true rate of unemployment by 5 percent in April and 3 percent in May. The reported decline in unemployment in May was seized upon by Trump to falsely claim that an economic recovery had begun.

The astonishing figures on education-related layoffs have largely gone unreported in the mainstream press, with only a handful of articles indicating the massive assault on both public and private education jobs over the past two months.

There is no specific breakdown of how the layoffs have affected each section of education workersincluding teachers, custodial staff, counselors, cafeteria workers, social workers, nurses, paraprofessionals and othersbut the bulk of the layoffs have likely not impacted teachers, whose contracts typically protect their jobs through the end of the school year. In all likelihood, districts significantly cut custodial and cafeteria staff, paraprofessionals and office staff when schools began closing en masse in mid-March due to the pandemic.

These sections of school workers, who are paid less than teachers and far less than administrators, typically have less savings and live from paycheck to paycheck. They are generally members of trade unions, primarily the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), while teachers are members of either the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) or the National Education Association (NEA). Not one of these organizations has lifted a finger to oppose the massive assault on jobs, continuing their decades-long complicity in the attack on public education.

Most school districts across the US have deadlines in March to give layoff notices to educators, which is an annual occurrence in many districts. For example, in March, Sacramento City Unified School District officially laid off 11 full-time teachers and 46.5 full-time equivalent classified positions, including bus drivers, clerks, campus monitors, yard duty employees and instructional aides. These cuts had been planned for some time. Since the pandemic, undoubtedly many more layoffs across the district have gone unreported, as they have across the US.

As the World Socialist Web Site has reported, numerous states across the US have announced major budget cuts planned for the end of the school year and in the coming months, indicating that even further job cuts are on the agenda. In New York City alone, $185 million in K-12 education cuts have been implemented for the current fiscal year, primarily from the central office, and an additional $642 million are being planned for the coming year.

Charity, a former substitute teacher in multiple districts in the Sacramento, California, metropolitan area, who was furloughed from her position in mid-March, told the World Socialist Web Site, Im not surprised, but I know that the students, families, furloughed and terminated workers and their communities will be negatively impacted. Many students were already lacking adequate food, housing, and mental health care.

She continued, I think educators, parents, workers coming together to combat the coming austerity is what is necessary to right this horrible wrong, and its lots of work, righteous work, but lots of work.

She added, I am a socialist. Capitalism will not address the needs of the populace because it is not structured to do so. It is meant to extract as much profit as is possible. I think of the ventilators needed to save lives recently from the current pandemic. States were bidding against one another for their residents. That is ridiculous. So too, our schools should be equipped to teach future generations to maintain and advance our society. Capitalism doesnt want to pay taxes of any kind to support precious institutionsschools, hospitals, people.

A paraprofessional in Brookline, Massachusetts, where over half the teaching staff have received pink slips and over 300 paraprofessionals are now threatened with layoffs, told the World Socialist Web Site, It is truly saddening to see and hear so many educators are being laid off around the country. In times like these we truly need more educators, not less. It is baffling as to why this is happening right now.

He said that the layoffs in Brookline are troubling to say the least. This not only affects my colleagues and myself, but the students and families in Brookline who we work with.

Commenting on the broader political situation, he noted, Capitalism has failed, plain and simple. I have yet to hear how capitalism has helped anyone but the top 1 percent and it is insane. I am on the side of humanity, and I see no way capitalism can truly benefit that.

The elimination of 779,000 K-12 public education jobs in April and May by far surpasses the estimated loss of education jobs in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse, and the public school system never recovered from the previous wave of cost-cutting and job-cutting.

In September 2019, the number of local education jobs was 60,000 less than the same figure in September 2008, but given the 1,419,000 increase in enrollment over the intervening period, there was an estimated shortage of 300,000 education jobs at the start of this school year, a figure that has more than tripled in the past two months alone.

As a result of the legacy of austerity from the Great Recession, beginning in 2018 teachers and other educators initiated a powerful wave of strikes across the US. Since the wildcat strike of West Virginia teachers in February 2018, over 700,000 educators have gone on strike in over a dozen states, contributing to the largest upsurge of the class struggle in the US since 1986.

As indicated by the recent mass, multiracial demonstrations against police violence, there is a growing radicalization taking place among workers and youth, including many educators who have taken part in demonstrations. The militancy of educators at every point comes into conflict with the right-wing trade union apparatuses that have facilitated the mass layoffs and attacks on public schools.

The WSWS Educators Newsletter calls on educators to form independent rank-and-file committees at every school to begin organizing a systematic campaign against budget cuts and layoffs. The demand must be raised for full funding for education and all the social needs of the working class, to be paid for by heavy taxation of the rich and the reallocation of the trillions being funneled to Wall Street under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic.

In this struggle, educators can place no faith in the Democratic Party, which for decades has collaborated with the Republicans to destroy public education. In the CARES Act, which passed through Congress in two days with near-unanimous support from both parties, trillions of dollars were handed over to Wall Street, while states were left to starve and K-12 public education was allocated merely $13.5 billion.

The so-called HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives, and touted as the solution to the states budget crises, is a fraud perpetrated by the Democrats and their allies in the trade unions, and has been declared dead on arrival by Trump and Senate Republicans. The act allocates merely $60 billion for K-12 public education while states face deficits of at least $230 billion in education funding through the coming school year.

Educators are acutely aware of the assault taking place on public education, which will only intensify in the coming months. When the WSWS broke the news May 30 about devastating cuts to public schools in Randolph, Massachusetts, the article went viral and has now been read nearly 700,000 times.

The silence on mass layoffs of educators imposed by the corporate media must be broken. We appeal to all educators to send us your stories, expose layoffs that have taken place or are being planned in your district, and subscribe to our newsletter to follow developments. Ultimately, the defense of public education is predicated on the abolition of capitalism, which subordinates all social needs to private profit. We urge the most class conscious educators to make the decision to join the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) today and take up the fight for socialism.
New Delhi, June 15 : An exhibition showcasing masterpieces from London's National Gallery will open at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo on June 18, as part of its touring exhibition in Japan, and subsequently in Australia.

The exhibition of some sixty paintings, ranging from the Italian Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century, provides a comprehensive insight into the history of the Gallery's collection, and provides visitors in Japan and Australia with the opportunity to experience the quality and breadth of the National Gallery's Collection. Highlights include Rembrandt's Self Portrait at the Age of 34 (1640), Vermeer's A Young Woman seated at a Virginal (about 1670-2) and Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (1888), which will be seen in Japan for the first time.

It marks a significant moment in the Gallery's near 200-year history. It comprises the largest selection of its paintings to tour internationally. Sharing these exceptional works with Japan and Australia will enable visitors to get to know one of the world's greatest collections of art in the Western European tradition, it said.

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London says "We are delighted that our exhibition will finally be seen by visitors in Tokyo, Osaka and Canberra. This is the largest group of works to travel outside the United Kingdom in our history so this is an unprecedented opportunity to share the breadth of our collection and expertise with the world. We hope we will inspire in everyone who comes to the exhibition a passion for these great paintings." The display of an unprecedented loan of outstanding works spanning 450 years of art history was originally due to open on 3 March 3, but was postponed when the museum closed as a precautionary measure in order to contain the spread of coronavirus.

People can also explore the exhibition virtually with a 30-minute tour. After Tokyo, the paintings will travel to the National Museum of Art, Osaka and Canberra, concluding next year.

(Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in)
(Newser)  Chinese tycoon He Xiangjian tends to keep a low profilebut his $25 billion fortune apparently still attracted the attention of a group of kidnappers. Police say the 77-year-old was unharmed after five people broke into his luxury villa in the southern city of Foshan on Sunday, the BBC reports. According to reports in state media, the men were thought to be wielding explosive devices when they entered the billionaire's homebut He's 55-year-old son managed to elude them and swam across a river to call police. Authorities say all five suspects were arrested at 5am, almost 12 hours after they entered the home.

story continues below

He, founder of home appliance maker the Midea Group, is believed to be China's sixth-richest man and is No. 36 on Forbes' billionaires list for 2020. The South China Morning Post notes that there "were at least two security stations outside of He's villa, which also has its own 24-hour security guard," and it's not clear how the suspects got past them. Such crimesespecially brazen kidnap attempts in broad daylightare rare in China, though crime has been edging upward since the pandemic hit the country's economy, reports the New York Times. Authorities, who have made reducing unemployment a top priority, say the robbery count in April was more than twice what it was in March. (Read more China stories.)
(CORRECTIONS: Contrary to what appeared in the original story, the city will be considering installation of a traffic signal at this time for the intersection of Lynnfield Road and Chagrin Boulevard to determine if one is now warranted under current conditions. There was also a quote from City Planning Director Joyce Braverman about the Ohio Ethics Code and applicable revolving door statutes that was misattributed to Shaker Heights Planner Cameron Roberts. This online story has been corrected to reflect that and a printed correction will appear in the June 25 edition of the Sun Press.)

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Long-awaited crosswalk improvements at the intersection of Lynnfield Road and Chagrin Boulevard could be completed by years end, now that City Council has awarded a not-to-exceed $34,100 engineering and design contract.

Thats just over what the city had set aside in its budget before receiving word in April that the proposed safety enhancements had qualified for $200,000 in Cuyahoga County community development grants, which must be closed out by next March.

If all goes as planned, construction will get under way in October for work that could include:

-- Mid-block crosswalks

-- Curb extensions

-- Pedestrian safety islands

-- High-visibility signage

-- High-visibility pavement markings

-- Actuated pedestrian signals

-- Traffic signal

Mayor David Weiss noted that the intersection has been a center of concern and discussion from neighbors since a previous traffic light was removed in 2005 after being deemed "unwarranted" by the state.

At the same time, recent traffic counts have come in at 15,000 cars per day along Chagrin leading up to the hub of the Van Aken District -- making it difficult to walk or get a bike across the street, City Planning Director Joyce Braverman and Planner Cameron Roberts noted in a memo to council.

Councilwoman Nancy Moore asked at the June 8 special meeting if it might be time to consider again whether a full-fledged traffic light might be warranted, effectively undoing or duplicating the proposed crosswalk improvements.

Braverman said that a new traffic signal at the intersection will be considered again at this time to determine if it meets more current traffic warrants, including vehicle and pedestrian counts.

Meanwhile, the intersection is part of the route to and from St. Dominic Elementary School at Van Aken Boulevard and Norwood Road, residents and local officials noted earlier.

At an earlier Safety and Public Works Committee meeting, Councilman Rob Zimmerman asked if there were any potential conflicts of interest involved with former city planner Ann Klavora -- now an independent consultant who runs her own firm -- being part of the project design team.

Braverman said there were no legal issues, either through the Ohio Ethics Code or the states revolving door statutes.

As for the city getting only one response -- from GPD Group -- out of seven requests for proposals, officials reasoned that the contract was not for a lot of money.

With public meetings canceled since mid-March due to the coronavirus outbreak, the June 8 special council session was the first in Shaker conducted by Zoom video, along with the conference phone call that was also used again.

And with continued health concerns, the project timeline includes the possibility of two "virtual" public meetings in late June (to collect "baseline" information) and late July (to present preliminary design) before bids go out after that.

Van Aken rapid station upgrade

In other business on June 8, council awarded a $30,000 contract to WSP USA Inc. for design services on improvements to the GCRTA Blue Line rapid station in the Van Aken District.

Braverman and new principal planner Kara Hamley ODonnell, coming over from Cleveland Heights, explained in a June 2 council memo that GCRTA has already budgeted $1.6 million for track replacement, a new train waiting platform, catenary wiring upgrades, site work and a new comfort station and shelter.

In turn, Shaker has been allocated $1.5 million from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) for public realm improvements in 2023, which will include landscaping, lighting, fencing, benches, walkway, plaza, waiting environments, shelters, bike racks, public art and similar enhancements.

A 20 percent match of close to $400,000 will in turn be needed in Shakers 2023 capital budget; the WSP design services contract will help lay the groundwork for that.

Responding to a question from Councilman Earl Williams, officials said this phase of work will focus on the GCRTA Blue Line along Van Aken Boulevard, with no allocation out of that funding for the Green Line, which runs along Shaker Boulevard to Green Road.

Read more from the Sun Press.
A Windows 10 update released on 9 June 2020 has left a number of PC users unable to print.

The cumulative update released last week includes security fixes for various vulnerabilities in the operating system, as well as fixes and changes for a number of Windows 10 features.

These changes have resulted in major problems when connecting to printers manufactured by HP, Canon, Panasonic, Brother, and Ricoh.

A note published by Microsoft acknowledges this problem and states that the company is working on an update.

After installing KB4557957, certain printers may be unable to print. Print spooler may error or close unexpectedly when attempting to print and no output will come from the affected printer, Microsoft said.

You might also encounter issues with the apps you are attempting to print from. You might receive an error from the app or the app may close unexpectedly.

The company said this issue may also affect software-based printers such as printing to PDF.

Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update when more information is available, the company said.

Users on the Microsoft Answers forums and Reddit all began reporting problems with the update after it was rolled out to their systems.

Unable to print after installing update KB4560960 and/or KB4561608, one user complained on the Microsoft Answers forum. This is happening to every Windows 10 computer in our organization as updates install.

Users said that uninstalling the latest round of Windows 10 updates resolved the issue.

Windows 10 adoption

The adoption of Windows 10 continues to rise across the world as the number of people using Windows 7 declines.

Following a decline in market share in April, May market share statistics from NetMarketShare show that Windows 10 not only reversed this downward trend, but it now boasts more of the market than it did before last months blip.

Windows 7, which is the second most popular operating system in the world, continued its descent, with its market share slipping below the 25% mark.

This is a good sign for system security, as Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft except for those who pay for essential security updates.

This means that those who are still using Windows 7 on their computers without paying for essential security updates are at high risk of viruses and malware.
BP sent a signal to investors on Monday (UK time) that the economic shock of the pandemic would reverberate for years, and less gas and oil would probably be needed in the future.

The London-based oil giant told shareholders the company expected to write down as much as $US17.5 billion ($25.3 billion) of its oil and gas holdings in its next quarterly report.

The oil giant told shareholders the company expected to write down as much as $US17.5 billion of its oil and gas holdings in uits next quarterly report. Credit:AAP

The write-downs are an acknowledgment that the oil and gas fields on BP's books are not worth as much as they used to be, and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future. It reflects broad changes in the energy industry as companies are forced to adjust to a new environment.

"Everywhere I have been  inside BP, as well as outside  I have come away with one inescapable conclusion," Bernard Looney, the chief executive, said in a speech in February. "We have got to change."
Fake student ID card, four Rs 20 notes, a mobile phone, and a sachet of Pantene shampoo  the items that were allegedly recovered by Pakistani authorities when alleged Indian spies were arrested. Most items turned out to be fake  a university that doesnt exist, fake Indian currency. They were paraded before the local media and were forced to make a statement, which clearly appeared tutored. They claim they were given Rs.1 lakh in advance by Indian agencies to cross over and spy. What follows next is a classic web of lies that was first exposed by the Republic Media Network. Noor Md Wani and Firoz Ahmed Lone went missing in 2018 and crossed over in 2019. They were working as guides in Hizbul Mujahideen terror launchpads assisting terrorists to cross over.

Read: EXCLUSIVE: Not Indian Spies, Hizbul Workers Arrested In PoK's Gilgit-Baltistan Area

Here are the exclusive images of the fake recovery items:

Read: Pakistan Army Flooding Top Pak Bureaucratic Posts; Wants To Make Imran Fall Guy For Covid?

'It is a bizarre story'

In 2018, family members of Noor and Firoz filed a complaint with a grievance unit in the Jammu and Kashmir Governors office. Police records show that the Governor was informed that the police had carried out a thorough investigation by studying Feroze Lones cellphone records and had questioned several people who were in touch with him. In fact, sources say an unidentified woman came forward after the missing complaint was filed claiming to have killed Firoz. The woman was later released after no body was found.

Agency sources say, It is a bizarre story that has been weaved by Pakistan. No agency will send people across with evidence that could be linked back to them. And we have never heard of a case where the family members of spies lodge a missing complaint.

Read: Centre Working To Stop Water Of India's Share Into Pakistan: Nitin Gadkari

Speaking to local media, Firozs family members have rubbished Pakistans claim that they were spies. Firoz comes from a humble background with his 55-year-old father working as a casual labourer at the Block Development Office. With three sisters and two brothers, Firozs family finds it difficult to make ends meet. His family members say that if he was given Rs.1 lakh to cross over, he would have surely given some money to them before crossing over. If that was the case then they would have surely not been in the situation they are in right now. There are several other loopholes in the narrative peddled by the SSP of Gilgit Baltistan. He claims that the duo was arrested immediately after they crossed over. Police records show they went missing in 2018 and crossed over in 2019. But the SSP claims that they crossed over in 2020  a claim far from the truth.

The cross over story

Noor Md Wani and Firoz were in touch with one Mushtaq Lone through Facebook. Investigation reveals that it was a fake ID that was being run by Pakistani agencies. Mushtaq lured Firoz and Noor to join the Hizbul ranks. They crossed over to Gilgit through Nepal. They reached Gilgit in January 2019. The duo was working in the Taobat region for Hizbul. They started working as guides helping terrorists infiltrate. Noor and Firoz were repeatedly caught by HM trying to escape from Gilgit and subsequently were exposed as Indian spies. This happened days after India exposed Pakistan espionage plot in the national capital and two ISI agents were arrested in Rajasthan.

Read: French Court Sentences Six To Jail Over Kickbacks From Arms Sales To Pakistan, Saudi
New Delhi: Drug firm Pfizer Ltd on Monday reported a 5.90 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 103.01 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2020.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 109.47 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, Pfizer said in a filing to the BSE.

Revenue from operations stood at Rs 502.01 crore for the quarter under consideration. It was at Rs 535.66 crore in the same period a year ago, it added.

For 2019-20, the company's net profit stood at Rs 509.13 crore as against Rs 429.05 crore in 2018-19, Pfizer said.

The company's revenue from operations stood at Rs 2,151.65 crore for the fiscal year ended March 2020. It was at Rs 2,081.50 crore in 2018-19.

The company's board of directors have recommended a final dividend of Rs 10 per equity share of Rs 10 each for the financial year ended March 31, 2020, Pfizer said.

Shares of Pfizer Ltd on Monday closed 0.41 per cent higher at Rs 4,078.15 per scrip on the BSE.
Sitamarhi (Bihar): The family of Indian citizen Lagan Kishore, who was detained in Nepal, after Friday's firing incident along India-Nepal border and who returned to his hometown here after being freed on Saturday, said has said that Nepalese personnel hit him with rifle butt and took him from the Indian side to Nepal's Sangrampur.



Lagan Kishore was detained on June 12 morning by Nepal's Armed Police Force who resorted to unprovoked firing at a group of people at the Lalbandi-Jankinagar border. Kishore and his family were at the border to meet his daughter-in-law, a Nepali national and her family. One person, Vikesh Yadav was killed in the firing while two others identified as Umesh Ram and Uday Thakur sustained gunshot injuries.

Recounting the incident, Kishore said that during the firing he had rushed towards the Indian side but Nepalese personnel hit him with rifle butt and took him to Nepal's Sangrampur. He was also asked to confess that he was taken into custody from the Nepali side.

"We ran to return to India when they started firing, but they dragged me from the Indian side, hit me with a rifle butt and took me to Nepal's Sangrampur. They told me to confess that I was brought there from Nepal. I told them you can kill me but I was brought there from India," said Kishore.

Kishore's son also recalling the incident said that Nepali personnel started abusing them and hit him and his father, who was later detained.

Speaking to ANI, Kishore's son said, "We went to meet my brother-in-law. Security personnel started abusing me but I could not understand their language. However, my brother's wife asked them to not abuse. After that they came to the Indian side and hit me. I told my father about the incident and he confronted them."

"They started beating him and called fellow personnel who started firing and dragged my father from the Indian side, hit him with a rifle butt and took him to Nepal's Sangrampur," he said.

Kishore was released on Saturday, June 13 and was handed over to the Indian Security Forces at no man's land.
The Tucson Unified School District has created a new webpage with information about reopening schools in August.

Teachers, staff members, parents, students and community members can stay up to date and find out how to give feedback at the districts Next Steps 2020 page at tusd1.org/nextsteps2020.

This will have everything you need to know  your information center for where we are at with reopening schools, Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said.

The page is updated every Friday with information from committee meetings and feedback sessions and includes resources and information on upcoming virtual forums for parents, guardians and employees.

Suggestions and concerns can be sent to Answers2020@tusd1.org, which will be read daily by the districts leadership team, Trujillo said.

The district is planning both in-person and online options for the upcoming school year, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 6.

There will be a presentation of the major components and proposals of the reopening plan during the next governing board meeting on Tuesday and a final plan presented on June 23.

There is no project more important right now for every major operational department in the entire district than to mobilize for the opening of school, Trujillo said.

This is our No. 1 priority.

Schools chief assembles task force to address digital inequity
Schools have been urged to comply with a call by the Catholic Principals' Association to suspend academic selection.

Over 200 Catholic head teachers called for transfer tests to be scrapped until next year.

In an open letter, published in the Irish News, they pointed to "the inevitable emotional distress of primary school children during this pandemic" and the gap in teaching. The principals also asked all grammar schools to suspend the tests.

Sinn Fein education spokesperson Karen Mullan welcomed the intervention.

She said: "A growing number of grammar schools across the north have already shown leadership and announced they are suspending the use of academic selection tests this year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I would call on the remaining grammar schools which are still intent on using these unfair, unnecessary and unregulated tests to heed this call and abandon the use of academic selection this year and for good."

Unofficial transfer tests have been used since the abolition of the 11-plus in 2008 and are run by private test providers Association for Quality Education (AQE) and the Post-Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC).

So far, 11 Catholic grammar schools and the integrated school Lagan College have confirmed they will not use the test results to admit pupils in 2021.

The Catholic Principals' Association, which wants a complete end to academic selection, is also calling for the tests to be cancelled in future years due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Its chairman Kieran O'Neill said: "The grammar schools that have already made the decision to suspend the use for this year have led the way.

"And whilst that is to be commended, there are still a number of Catholic grammars and indeed other grammars across the province, that haven't done so.

Mr O'Neill added: "The current Year 5 children have just had something like four months out of school.

"Next year, following the formula suggested by Education Minister Peter Weir, they may have two days in school and two days off school and, depending how long this continues, they will receive 50% of their education for their whole P6 year."
Following a steep rise in coronavirus virus cases over the last few days, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said on Monday that Chennai and adjoining areas will be under lockdown from June 19 to 30 sans present relaxations and a full-scale shutdown on two Sundays.

The decision was taken after the chief minister held a meeting with a multi-disciplinary medical committee that recommended the move in view of the outbreak.

The government announced complete lockdown in Chennai and several areas that fall under the jurisdiction of Greater Chennai Police and situated in Tiruvallur, Chengelpet and Kancheepuram districts from June 19 to 30.

During the 12 day period, only essential services will be allowed with restrictions, he said, besides the full-scale shutdown without any relaxations on two Sundays (June 21 and 28).

Essential services, including grocery, vegetable and fruit shops and petrol pump stations will be open from 6am to 2pm for the next 12 beginning Thursday midnight.

Tea shops would remain closed, and so would other standalone and neighbourhood shops that do not fall in the essential category.

Hotels will be allowed to continue services via parcels and deliveries from 6am to 8pm. Food delivery services will also remain open, but employees would have to carry their ID cards.

Taxis, autos and private vehicles will not be allowed to operate for the next 12 days. Flights and trains arriving from other states would be allowed to enter the state during this period.

The four districts will observe a total lockdown on two Sundays in the lockdown period where nothing will be allowed except milk distribution, hospitals, pharmacies and emergency healthcare services.

The chief minister made a passionate plea to people in the state to not venture out unnecessarily and face action, considering the health emergency.
The Pakistani army on Monday violated ceasefire by unprovoked firing and shelling on forward areas along the Line of Control (LoC) in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, a defence spokesman said.

The firing with small arms and mortar shelling started from across the border in Sunderbani sector at around 2.30 pm, drawing a befitting retaliation from the Indian army, the spokesman said.

He said the cross-border firing between the two sides was going on when the last reports were received.

There has been a spurt in Pakistani shelling along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir this year with over 2,027 ceasefire violations reported till June 10.

Three army personnel have been killed in Pakistani firing in the twin sectors of Rajouri and Poonch in the past two weeks.
Islamabad: A Pakistani court here has directed the country's top investigation agency to register a case against Pakistan-based American blogger Cynthia D Ritchie for maligning late former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on social media, a media report said on Monday.

The direction by the Islamabad's District and Session Court to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) came after the city police last week refused to register a case against Ritchie, saying that it was a case of cybercrime and only the FIA was authorised to deal with it, Geo News reported.

Additional District and Sessions Judge Jahangir Awan has directed the FIA to register a case against the US blogger Ritchie, the report said. Petitioner Waqas Ahmad Abbasi submitted a written application last week against Ritchie, accusing her of maligning former premier Benazir on social media. But the Islamabad Police said the case needed to be investigated by the FIA.

Later, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Islamabad President Shakeel Abbasi approached the FIA with a complaint against Ritchie for making a slanderous tweet against Bhutto but it refused to take action.

The FIA on June 9 told the Islamabad sessions court to dismiss a plea against Ritchie as the petitioner, Shakeel Abbasi, was not an affected party. Ritchie alleged that Benazir condoned rape culture in Pakistan, according to Pakistani media reports.

The FIA, in its written response to the court, argued that according to its rules, only the aggrieved party - the targeted victim or their guardian - could lodge such a complaint with the agency.

On the other hand, the counsel for the petitioner argued that due to the nature of tweets, the PPP was the aggrieved party, the report said. To this, the court asked why the heirs of late Benazir Bhutto were not lodging a complaint.

Ritchi has also levelled allegations of harassment against the senior leaders of the PPP, including the former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and ex-interior minister Rehman Malik.

On June 10, Gilani sent a legal notice to Ritchie, seeking Rs100 million in damages and an apology. Separately, Malik also said he will serve Ritchie a legal notice after she accused that he raped her in 2011.
Small wedding ceremonies with socially distanced guests will be given the go ahead 'as soon as we can, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has said.

Lockdown measures eased further today, with thousands of Brits heading to High Street shops that have been closed since late March. Elsewhere more pupils have returned to the classroom, with Year 10 and Year 12 students heading back to school.

With life returning to a new normal, Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick was pressed by MP Laura Farris to announce a date for when summer weddings could take place.

Small, socially distanced weddings could return in time for the summer, as the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said the government would allow weddings to take place 'as soon as we can'

Mr Jenrick replied: 'I really appreciate the concerns Ms Farris raises, I know how important weddings are for venues and of course how many people's plans have now been disrupted.

'I can tell her that there is a significant effort across Government to allow people to hold weddings, in particular small ones with appropriate social distancing, as soon as we can. But this must be done safely.'

He added that he is working with the Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland and faith leaders on the issue.

Robert Jenrick, pictured at Downing Street last Tuesday, said the government was making a 'significant effort' to give weddings the go-ahead

MPs also called for more clarity on the rules for places of worship being allowed to reopen.

Places of worship across the UK reopened for private prayer, with worshipers sat in socially-distanced pews and clergymen wearing personal protective equipment - but weddings and full services are still not allowed.

Tory former minister Tim Loughton said members of the clergy were 'confused' by the guidelines.

Tory MP Tim Loughton warned some members of the clergy remain 'confused' by new social distancing rules

He said: 'One vicar said to me, so is it right that I can invite five members of my congregation to the church grounds for a barbecue and some beers but if we start saying prayers we'll get busted?

'So I suggested to him he could advertise his services as a barbecue with a very long grace.

How have lockdown measures eased today? Life took another step toward normality as lockdown measures were eased further on Monday morning. Places of worship across the UK reopened for private prayer, with worshipers sat in socially-distanced pews and clergymen wearing personal protective equipment - but weddings and full services are still not allowed. Pupils in Year 10 and 12 have returned to school as they prepare for GCSE and A-Level exams next year, but only a quarter of students are allowed on site at any given time. Thousands of Brits have headed to High Streets and shopping centres as retailers reopened for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close their doors. Advertisement

'We need much clearer guidance if we are to get our churches properly and fully back into use as soon as possible. They should never, frankly, have been put out of use in the first place.'

Mr Jenrick replied: 'The guidance was worked through by faith leaders in our task force, places of worship can open for funerals and Public Health England have previously published guidance on how to manage funerals safely.

'And as I said earlier, I very much hope we can set a date for weddings soon.'

Mr Jenrick later admitted the current rules which only allow places of worship to open for individual prayer have 'limited applicability' to members of the Muslim and Jewish communities.

Shadow communities minister Janet Daby said: 'The Secretary of State has announced the opening of places for individual prayer despite some faiths only practising communal prayer in their place of worship.

'This operation has caused confusion which turned to chaos when they only published the nine-page guidance on Friday.

'Why did the Government not provide clear and timely guidance to all places of worship regardless of their message of prayer?'

Mr Jenrick replied: 'I appreciate and am very conscious of the fact that the first step in this process, individual prayer, is much less relevant to some faiths than others - in particular, it has limited applicability to Muslims and to Jews in our communities.

'But I hope that they will see this as the logical first step towards a much broader reopening soon.'
Madeleine McCann went missing in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, in 2007 (PA)

The man suspected of murdering Madeleine McCann will not answer questions unless prosecutors prove he was involved, it has been reported.

The suspect, a 43-year-old German man named in reports as Christian B, is currently in prison.

His lawyer says he will refuse to answer questions about Madeleine until the German authorities provide proof he was involved in her disappearance, The Times reported.

German investigators believe Christian B killed Madeleine soon after abducting her from a holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007.

German police said there are people who may have information on where her body was left.

The Times said investigators are searching for a link connecting the suspect to an incident involving a 10-year-old British girl in the same resort in 2005, the same year he raped a woman at a villa nearby.

It reported that police were aware of nine sexual assaults and three attempts against British girls aged from six to 12 who were holidaying in the area between 2004 and 2006.

Read more: Madeleine McCann believed dead as German sex offender investigated

Christian Bs lawyer, Friedrich Fulscher, told the newspaper: Mr B is remaining silent on the allegation at this time on the advice of his defence counsel. This is quite common in criminal proceedings.

It is the duty of the state to prove that a suspect committed a crime.

No accused person has to prove his innocence to the investigating authorities.

German public prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters speaks to the media about the Madeleine McCann case earlier this month (Getty Images)

The 43-year-old suspect is in prison in Germany for drug dealing. He is appealing against a conviction for the 2005 rape.

Asked how his client will respond to reports linking him to other cases around Europe, Fulscher said: We are reviewing every article and will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to take legal action against the media concerned.

Meanwhile, a former German police chief has admitted it was a huge mistake to notify Christian B in 2013 that he was a person of interest in Madeleines disappearance.

Story continues

Read more: Madeleine McCann parents suffered 'some of worst bullying I've ever seen'

Police in Braunschweig, northern Germany, sent him a summons letter seven years ago to appear for questioning in relation to the missing persons case Madeleine McCann, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The move happened before a significant police investigation and may have allowed Christian B to destroy any evidence that may have existed, experts told the German newspaper Der Spiegel last week.

The apartment block in Praia Da Luz, Portugal, where Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007 (PA)

Ulf Kuch, the former head of police in the German city of Braunschweig, said sending the letter was a huge mistake.

Kuch said he did not know about the summons despite his role at the time as supervisor for the officer who issued the notice, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Portuguese police are said to be considering searching abandoned wells near a farmhouse rented by Christian B on the outskirts of Praia da Luz in the hope of finding clues into Madeleines disappearance, The Times said.
Samsung Galaxy A51 only held to the top for a single week as the Redmi Note 9 Pro shot past it in week 24. The Redmi Note 9S is still on the podium but had to settle for third this time around.

In fourth we have the OnePlus Z, which gains momentum despite still being a few weeks away from an official announcement.

This leaves the Redmi Note 8 Pro in fifth, just ahead of the newly announced Redmi 9. Another Redmi phone follows - the vanilla Note 8 is seventh.

The Samsung Galaxy A71 slipped to eight, while the Redmi Note 9 in ninth makes it six Xiaomi phones in the top 10. And with the Mi Note 10 Lite relegated they all belong to the Redmi sub-brand.

After four weeks in ninth the Apple iPhone SE (2020) has now dropped to tenth. This means the vivo X50 Pro+a and Samsung Galaxy M31 are the other two members of last week's top 10 not to make the cut now.
NEW YORK, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sonnedix, the global solar independent power producer (IPP), and Natixis have successfully closed senior facilities totaling US$87 million for an expected 100 MWp portfolio of approximately 20 solar photovoltaic ("PV") plants in Chile (the "Sonnedix PMGD Portfolio").

The Sonnedix PMGD Portfolio consists of solar photovoltaic projects that operate under Chile's special regime for distributed generation projects (the "PMGD" regime by its Spanish acronym). PMGD projects are entitled to be remunerated for their generation at a regulated stabilized price. The four initial solar PV plants in the Sonnedix PMGD Portfolio have total capacity of 25 MWp. The financing structure provides Sonnedix with the flexibility to add additional solar PV PMGD projects to the portfolio, subject to meeting pre-defined eligibility criteria. Sonnedix plans to add two new plants to the Portfolio, with combined capacity of 14 MWp, by June 2020, and projects with a further 61 MWp in combined capacity during the term loan availability period.

"This financing allows us to further expand our presence in the Chilean market and helps establishing Sonnedix as a strong contributor to the country's long-term commitment to renewables and stable regulatory environment," said Axel Thiemann, CEO of Sonnedix. "We continue actively seeking opportunities to invest and develop projects that will help achieve key strategic goals for the country's power system."

"This marks the fourth PMGD loan portfolio term financing arranged by Natixis over the past 12 months; these transactions further consolidate Natixis' leadership amongst financial institutions in the PMGD space," said Aitor Alava, Managing Director, Head of Infrastructure Finance, Latin America at Natixis.

The PMGD regime was created in 2005 with the goal of incentivizing greener and more distributed electricity generation. The Sonnedix PMGD Portfolio contributes these goals, and more broadly to the country's target of 20% of installed electricity generation capacity being from non-conventional renewable sources by 2025.

Natixis acted as Sole Lead Arranger, Hedge Provider, and Administrative Agent.

The legal teams of Milbank, Mayer Brown, Morales & Besa, and Guerrero Olivos supported the transaction.

About Sonnedix

Sonnedix Power Holdings Limited (together with its subsidiaries, Sonnedix) is an Independent Solar Power Producer (IPP) with a proven track record in delivering high performance cost competitive solar photovoltaic plants to the market. Sonnedix develops, builds, owns and operates solar power plants globally, including over 1GW of photovoltaic power plants in operation, as well as several hundred MW under development, in Italy, France, Spain, USA/Puerto Rico, Chile, South Africa and Japan. For more information, please visit www.sonnedix.com

Press contact: [email protected]

About Natixis

Natixis is a French multinational financial services firm specialized in asset & wealth management, corporate & investment banking, insurance and payments. A subsidiary of Groupe BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France through its two retail banking networks, Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne, Natixis counts nearly 16,000 employees across 38 countries. Its clients include corporations, financial institutions, sovereign and supranational organizations, as well as the customers of Groupe BPCE's networks. Listed on the Paris stock exchange, Natixis has a solid financial base with a CET1 capital under Basel 3(1) of 11.3 billion, a Basel 3 CET1 Ratio(1) of 11.4% and quality long-term ratings (Standard & Poor's: A+ / Moody's: A1 / Fitch Ratings: A+). (1) Based on CRR-CRD4 rules as reported on June 26, 2013, including the Danish compromise - without phase-in

Figures as at 31 March 2020

Press contact:

Meredith Zaritheny, Prosek Partners

646 818 9251. [email protected]

SOURCE Natixis
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Linkedin (Reuters) Tashkent  Mon, June 15, 2020 18:01 585 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdee001b 2 News uzbekistan,travel,coronavirus,COVID-19,Airlines,air-travel Free

Uzbekistan will reopen its borders to some air travelers from June 15 with quarantine procedures depending on their country of origin, the Central Asian nation's government said on Sunday.

The borders, closed since March, will reopen for diplomats, their family members, investors and medical tourists, as well as Uzbeks leaving the country for study or medical treatment, the cabinet said in a statement.

Depending on where they are coming from, visitors will be either quarantined, placed under observation at home, or just let in; the latter will apply to those arriving from China, Japan, South Korea and Israel.

The former Soviet republic has confirmed 4,966 COVID-19 cases with 19 deaths.
The UK economy is forecast to contract by 8% in 2023. (Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

The UK economy will experience a steep 8% contraction in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and will not fully recover from the blow until 2023, according to a new forecast from the EY Item Club.

Predicting a stark 15% decline in gross domestic product (GDP) during the second quarter, the report nonetheless predicts that the UK economy will start to recover in the third quarter.

It will still take until at least 2023 for the economy to return to its 2019 size, according to the leading forecasting group.

But the EY Item Club warns that a second wave of coronavirus infections, a risk of permanent damage from the countrys lockdown measures, and a failure to agree a trade deal with the EU could dent economic output further.

READ MORE: Second wave fears spark sharp sell-off for global stocks

Calling it a fundamental and particularly worrying downside risk, the group said that the UK economy could suffer significant scarring from firms going under in spite of government support measures, in turn holding back the recovery.

With the lockdown restrictions on behaviour being relaxed in the UK and daily deaths and case numbers apparently on a downward trend, the indicators suggest that economic activity is starting to pick up gradually, said Mark Gregory, EY UKs chief economist.

However, the levels are way below those we would normally expect, he said.

The 8% full-year forecast is a marked downgrade of the 6.8% the forecasting group predicted only six weeks ago. Downgrading its second-quarter estimate from 13% to 15%, it pointed to a torrid April, which saw an all-time record 20.4% contraction in economic output.

Assuming that the UK and EU will hammer out a post-Brexit trade deal, the group predicts a return to growth  of 5.6%  in 2021.

Even so, the economy is not expected to return to its Q4 2019 size until 2023, a report from the group says.

READ MORE: Economists warn 'way back will be much slower' for UK economy

The Office for National Statistics said on Friday that the UK economy shrank by 20.4% in April, the steepest contraction on record, as the countrys businesses reckoned with far-reaching coronavirus lockdown measures.

Story continues

Last week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the UK economy could be among the worst affected by the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

But OECD chief economist Laurence Boone said that it was difficult to accurately predict the precise impact, noting that the UK would experience a contraction similar to that of Spain, France, and Italy.

Even the Bank of England has been hesitant to issue clear-cut predictions. Though the bank last month suggested that the country was on the precipice of its worst recession in over 300 years, it decided not to issue its traditional forecasts.
Horror movies is usually the best genre to watch. Horror is not only difficult to make but also to view it and if a filmmaker nails the art of making an horror film that is scary, then it's easy to make any genre. They say usually horror and comedy are the two things that a performer needs to be really good at to be called a good actor. In India, we do not have too many horror films that can be touted as scary. A couple of them like Raat, Bees Saal Baad can be scary at night but some of these English films are so scary, they are good.

ipiccy

Best Horror Movies List 2020

Internationally, there have been psycho thriller films that will make you weak in the knees. So here's taking a look at these 9 Hollywood movies that were way better than expected some were so good they were even nominated for Oscars.

1. The Exorcist

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One of the scariest movies till date. The movie follows the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother's attempt to rescue her through an exorcism conducted by two priests. However, one realises that not one spiriti but multiples spirits reside in her. Some viewers had adverse physical reactions, often fainting or vomiting, to scenes such as its protagonist undergoing a realistic cerebral angiography and masturbating with a crucifix. There were reports of heart attacks and miscarriages; a psychiatric journal carried a paper on "cinematic neurosis" triggered by the film

2. Get Out

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It is the best horror movie of 2010. Get Out follows a young African-American man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his Caucasian girlfriend.

3. Hannibal

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Dr Hannibal Lecter, who was arrested for cannibalism, now lives at an unknown location under a new identity. One of the victims, Mason Verger, makes an elaborate plan to find him and avenge himself.

4. It

It

It got back the whole horror around circus and Joker once again. The whole atmosphere in the movie gets intense after a little one from a family gets missing. A group of friends get together to bring Georgie back and the ordeal they have to go through is next level scary. The horror movie is based on Stephan King's novel from 1986. The lightening and the dialogues used in the film shows their own real demons and the struggles around it. But Pennywise promises to give you sleepless nights.

5. The Cabin In The Woods

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The horror movie about five friends who go to a remote cabin to chill but that turns out to be scary than respite. It is part horror and part comedy but the movie leaves you stunned after discovering the truth behind the cabin in the woods.



6. Psycho

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It is one of Alfred Hitchcock's best horror movie till date and one of the best slasher films from earlier times. The movie that released in 1960. The film centers on an encounter between a secretary who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer and its aftermath.

7. The Ring

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A remake of the Japanese horror film, The Ring is a supernatural horror film that will give you goosebumps. Naomi Watts plays the role of a journalist who investigates a cursed videotape that seemingly kills the viewer seven days after watching it.

8. The Sixth Sense

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The film tells the story of Cole Sear, a boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist who tries to help him.

9. The Black Swan

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Black Swan can be considered as a psychological horror thriller film, Natalie Portman plays an ambitious ballerina straining to handle stardom. Black Swan can also be interpreted as a metaphor for achieving artistic perfection, with all of the psychological and physical challenges one might encounte.
The Blue State Blockade By Dr. Robert Owens

It took just three years for President Donald Trump to lead America from the perpetually stagnant New Normal of the Clinton/Bush/Obama Trifecta of Failure back to the Morning in America of the Reagan era. This was nothing short of an economic miracle that began the day after Americas blue-collar billionaire won the biggest upset in our political history when the stock market took off like a rocket. In a steady assault on the Deep-State Swamp President Trump hit the delete button on more regulations in three years than every other president in our history combined. He renegotiated the give-away trade boondoggles of the Trifecta and set off an avalanche of industrial growth and the return of prodigal corporations. He rebuilt our military after eight years of neglect. He re-started our space program. He required our NATO allies to quit freeloading on the gravy train and start making meaningful contributions to their own defense. He defeated ISIS, started negotiations to end the forever war in Afghanistan, pulled out of our incursion into Syria, and created a Trump Doctrine. He alerted the world that under his administration America would only commit forces to defend our interests; no more nation-building, no more free mercenaries carrying the water for others. Of course, the Deep-State Swamp creatures didnt just sit on their hands. The perpetually re-elected civil service protected corporately selected troika of politicians, bureaucrats, and media megaphones fought tooth and nail. They used the politically corrupted ranks of the FBI and the national security forces to first try to undermine the Trump campaign. When that didnt work the Obama Administration used the waning days of their regime to set in motion an attempt to thwart and if possible overthrow the incoming Trump Administration. For three years they beat America about the ears with their fake news of supposed evidence through illegal leaks, politically motivated highly coordinated whistleblowers, and secret hearings in the underground star chamber deep in the bowls of Congress. Recent revelations brought to light through Freedom of Information exposures revealed that Pelosi, Schiff, Mueller, and the rest of the gang that couldnt shoot straight knew from day one that there was no Russian conspiracy and that even the supposed hack of Democrat computers was a red hearing. Yet the luminaries of the left were on every available outlet of the ABCCBSNBCCNNMASNBCNPRPBS Cartel indoctrinating the low information voters with their propaganda day and night. Then came the Impeachment Hoax. Facts now show the Democrats were plotting to impeach Trump before he was elected. The Washington Post started calling for impeachment on the very day Trump was inaugurated. And the disloyal opposition have also admitted they had to impeach Trump as part of their 2020 election strategy. Talk about trying to interfere in an election! They impeached the President for things that were not criminal, that were built on false testimony, inaccurate and made-up reporting, and purely out of spite. Three years of attacks such as no other politician ever has survived, and President Trump not only survived but he thrived. Then along came COVID-19 and sat down beside him. Accepting the flawed models of Fauci, Birx, and other globalists the President erred on the side of caution when it came to American lives. He gave us a textbook example of crisis management along the way. Taking over the decrepit testing system left moldering in warehouses Mr. Trump quickly led us to the most dynamic testing regimen in history, directed manufacturers to make a surplus of the masks and respirators needed. He left the mechanics of the economic shutdowns in the hands of the governors of the States as is proper in our federal system. And America ground to a halt. Unemployment skyrocketed and stimulus money flowed to who knows where out of Washington as money was created out of thin air. The stock market cratered wiping out the savings of millions. Now we are socially distanced into isolation. As a natural contrarian President Trump has always gone against the grain. He was the first world leader to shut down travel from China. And early on he began to say, We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. Instinctively knowing there may be more deaths from the ramifications of stopping the greatest economy the world has ever seen than from the Social Security Flu. Now President Trump is the cheerleader for Making America Great Again Again. Certainly, there are obstacles. The Democrats who identify as journalists are spewing their disinformation and hate wall-to-wall online, on the air, and in print every day. The Democrat machine in Congress is threatening to impeach the President again and holding more hearings on conjured evidence heading towards preprogrammed conclusions. All this resistance aside the country is starting to open. The pent-up demand that follows any artificial roadblock to supply and demand will make the economy blossom. No matter how the Progressives try to get Americans addicted to free money. No matter how hard they try to turn the U.S. into a command economy sitting atop a submissive herd of regimented citizens the spirit of America cries out, Lets get back to work! So what is the political dam the Democrats seek to build across the flood of people returning to normalcy? I call it the Blue State Blockade. Thirty percent of Americas economy is in California and New York. Two States long controlled by entrenched Democrat machines. Both these Progressive sink holes have spent themselves into the failed state zone of economics. The federal government/taxpayers spent billions supporting these two Democrat fiefdoms during the COVID pandemic. We built them hospitals they demanded and never needed, we sent them hospital ships, and military personnel to meet needs that never materialized. And now theyre demanding we bail them out of the financial difficulties they created, and which existed long before anyone ever heard of the Social Security Flu. Like all Progressives they dont just ask for help. They demand it. Theyre holding the economy hostage saying they wont open their states until they get the money. And it isnt just the Big Two. Most of the other blue states are also demanding bailouts. These cynical power brokers believe that if they can keep the economy or at least as much of it as they control shut down long enough, they can cause a Greater Depression. They long to cast President Trump as the 21st Century Hoover so they can wheel Old Joe out of the basement as the new FDR and usher in the Green New Deal. Never in the History of the world has any society quarantined healthy people. Never in the History of the world has any society voluntarily shut down its own economy. We are in uncharted territory. What will it be? Will it be a return to Trumps Morning in America or a retreat to the Trifectas Mourning in America? We need to ask ourselves, Why would any political power see the destruction of our own economy and all the resulting problems that accompany poverty as a good thing? Now we should ask, How can anyone who has any respect for the dignity of people support such a cynical policy? Perhaps we should ask ourselves these questions the next time we get to vote? In this lost world we see through a glass darkly. Its hard to make predictions, especially about the future. I know what I would like to see. Kick out the jams and let the good times roll! Lets get back to work and get something done. However, I know that the fate of nations is in Gods hands. He has given us the formula for success if were wise enough to take it. If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Corporately thats it. Individually I know I can swear, And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Dr. Robert Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  2020 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens Home


By Christine Flowers





"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."  George Orwell, "1984"



When I saw people painting over the mural of former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo last week, I felt a lot of different emotions. Anger, mostly, at the destruction of a tribute to a man who, although imperfect, devoted his life to the city of his birth.



A man who integrated the police force. Who was beloved of many in the black communities he helped keep safe from the drug scourge. A man who made enemies, and friends who'd take a bullet for him.



The anger was accompanied by bemusement at the foolishness of the act, one that was as unnecessary as it was futile. Erasing Rizzo's face, or tearing down his massive metal effigy, will not remove him from our collective institutional memory. To tell us not to remember, to look away, is a guarantee that we will seek out that memory in defiance.



But the most visceral emotion was fear, tied to the increasingly successful efforts to turn George Orwell's prophecy into our current reality.



People on the left have been quite busy these days downplaying the significance of what is happening. To them, fascism can only be experienced on the right, and takes the shape and form of a president who fires tear gas into a crowd of "peaceful protesters."



But as Orwell expressed so well, fascism is not a partisan phenomenon, and can exist wherever and whenever a society decides to exert dominion over its citizens by usurping the one true thing that sets them apart as human: their independent minds.



Taking hold of a man's mind by denying him access to the truth can turn him into something less than human. It makes him into an unthinking, unquestioning half-creature that might breathe and eat and walk and work and even love, but who is a simple cog in the wheel of the state machine.



When I saw the aftermath of the Rizzo mural's destruction, a chill took over me. There was a blank place where there used to be color, where there was life and history.



Drained from that wall was the figure of a man who represented not only himself, but generations of Italians and their pride. That empty space was more upsetting than the graffiti on the Rizzo statue, because it was a first successful result of what I call the Crusade to Erase.



The irony is that the mural was on private property, and I've been told that the owner would have left it up but for the threats he started receiving. Other businesses in the neighborhood demonstrated their cowardice by signing a letter agreeing to have the mural destroyed.



But in good Orwellian style, they will insist it was an effort to honor black lives. This will be the new normal: Honor one culture by insulting another.



Now they say they are coming for Christopher Columbus, who has been caricatured as the great genocidal Satan. They are trying to teach our children that he was an evil man, crushing context, creating facts, conning the naive. Orwell knew the playbook and blueprint intimately, and wrote it down for us.



I have represented asylees and refugees from totalitarian states. They understand what it is to live in countries where society, either directly through the government or by the intimidation of special interest groups, tells you what to think. They fled their own private hells to escape, to find freedom.



I am horrified to have them see those tragic histories repeat themselves here.



And so, I will not say the appropriate things. I will not apologize for a guilt I do not bear. I will not engage in pithy, socially woke slogans. I will not grovel, bend the knee or worry that my words might get me ostracized, unemployed or even killed.



I choose to follow Orwell's warning. I hope I'll have company.





Christine Flowers (cflowers1961@gmail.com) is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times. Her commentary was distributed by Cagle Cartoons Inc. The view expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.




China Daily | Jun. 15, 2020

China's aviation regulator ordered on Sunday a four-week suspension of a China Southern Airlines flight from Dhaka to Guangzhou in an effort to prevent imported COVID-19 cases.

Seventeen passengers on the June 11 flight from the Bangladeshi capital to the provincial capital of Guangdong tested positive for the novel coronavirus, meeting the conditions for a "circuit breaker" suspension of the flight route, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement.

In keeping with an international flights adjustment policy announced on June 4, the administration issued its first "circuit-breaker" directive and announced the four-week suspension would begin on June 22.

Earlier this month, China eased restrictions on international passenger flights contingent on epidemic risks being under control. Authorities highlighted the "reward and circuit breaker mechanism" for the carriers to increase or have flights suspended in accordance with the companies' epidemic control work.

Under the policy, airlines must suspend flights on a route for a week if five passengers test positive for coronavirus. If the number exceeds 10, the airline must suspend the flights for four weeks.

As an incentive, carriers may increase the number of international flights to two per week on a route if for three consecutive weeks no passengers test positive for the virus in nucleic acid tests.

Many airlines have been scaling up their epidemic prevention and control measures to comply with the administration's requirements.

Since Friday, Sichuan Airlines has required all travelers on its Cairo, Egypt, to Chengdu flight to take a nucleic acid test 72 hours before the flight and to check in with a valid written report of the test results. Passengers who cannot produce the document or who test positive for the virus are not permitted to board.

Lately, United Airlines has required passengers to complete a "health self-assessment" as part of its check-in process to confirm that they have not been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past 21 days and that they haven't had symptoms such as fever, coughing, chills, muscle aches or sore throats in the past two weeks.

China registered 19 confirmed COVID-19 cases involving travelers from overseas on June 13, according to the National Health Commission. Seventeen of them arrived in Guangdong province.
LONDON (Reuters) - A small business group has launched a 40 million pound insurance claim against British insurer Hiscox <HSX.L> over disputed cover for business disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it said on Monday.

Law firm Mishcon de Reya is representing the group of small business policyholders known as the Hiscox Action Group. The law firm has written to Hiscox to trigger arbitration clauses in nearly 350 contracts, the action group said in a statement.

Lloyd's of London insurer Hiscox said it welcomed "all proposals to expedite resolution of any dispute."

Britain's coronavirus lockdown has triggered insurance claims from companies seeking compensation for having to shut down their activities.

Hiscox and other insurers have said that most contracts do not cover the pandemic but they aim to pay valid claims quickly.

Industry regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, is in the process of seeking clarity from the courts on whether the wording of some insurance policies should provide cover during the pandemic.

The arbitration claim by the Hiscox Action Group will take place alongside the FCA's test case against eight insurers, including Hiscox, the group said.

Small businesses in France and the United States are also fighting insurers over policies which did not pay out following government lockdowns due to the virus.

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn. Editing by Jane Merriman and David Evans)
(Newser)  The CEO of a cosmetics company issued an apology Sunday after a video was widely shared online showing her and her husband confronting a man and threatening to call police because he stenciled "Black Lives Matter" in chalk on his San Francisco property, the AP reports. The video, which has been retweeted 155,000 times, has sparked accusations of racism and led a cosmetics distributor to cut ties with Lisa Alexander, founder and CEO of LaFace Skincare. "There are not enough words to describe how truly sorry I am for being disrespectful to him last Tuesday when I made the decision to question him about what he was doing in front of his home," Alexander said in a statement. "I should have minded my own business."

story continues below

The video, which was first uploaded by James Juanillo, shows a couple asking him whether he lives in the house before asserting that they know he doesnt live there and is therefore breaking the law. Juanillo doesn't answer the couple, but invites them to call the police. The couple then walk away, with Alexander responding: "Yes, we will do so." The video stops short of showing what happens next. "She decided to call men with guns because of chalk art," Juanillo told CBS San Francisco. Juanillo, who is Filipino, told KGO-TV he believes the couple accused him of defacing private property because they didn't think he belonged in the wealthy Pacific Heights neighborhood.

(Read more Black Lives Matter stories.)
The Morrison government has accused Labor of reviving its "Mediscare" campaign tactics in a high-stakes row over Australia Post, with the Senate crossbench set to decide the fate of changes to letter deliveries that a union claims will threaten one in four postie jobs.

Labor says the government "deliberately deceived" the public when it announced regulatory changes in April that would reduce the frequency of letter deliveries to every second day in metropolitan areas and extend the required delivery time for intrastate letters from three to five days.

Australia Post is facing pressure over changes to letter deliveries. Credit:Justin McManus

A Labor disallowance motion that could sink the changes, set to be debated in the Senate this week, faces an uphill battle with One Nation signalling it may withhold crucial support. Amid a flurry of last-minute lobbying, the union representing postal workers accused Australia Post of using COVID-19 to reheat plans to cut jobs.

Justifying the changes that would allow posties to be redeployed to the booming parcel delivery business in response to the COVID-19 crisis, Australia Post said in April letter volumes had collapsed 50 per cent on some days and unaddressed mail, used by businesses as promotional material, had fallen 70 per cent.
Trumps June 1 phone call was intended to encourage the nations governors to take a tougher posture in quelling riots and violence that grew from protests over the death of George Floyd while in police custody, lawyers for journalist E. Jean Carroll noted in a new court filing. But in doing so, they said, the president contradicted his legal teams claim that New York City is an improper venue for the lawsuit because he now resides in Washington and has changed his primary residence from Manhattans Trump Tower to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
Ressa, who runs Rappler, sentenced to at least six months in jail for cyber libel, will appeal controversial ruling.

A court in the Philippines has found journalist Maria Ressa and former Rappler reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr guilty of cyber libel, in a controversial case seen as a major test of press freedom under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

In a decision issued on Monday, the court sentenced Ressa, the executive editor of the news website Rappler, and Santos Jr to a minimum of six months and one day to a maximum of six years in jail. It allowed them to post bail, pending an appeal. They are the first two journalists in the Philippines to be convicted for cyber libel.

Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa also ordered the payment equivalent to $8,000 for moral and exemplary damages to the businessman who lodged the complaint. The complainant originally sought an estimated $1m in damages.

In a press conference following the verdict, Ressa vowed to fight the case, saying the case of Rappler was a cautionary tale for the Philippine media.

It is a blow to us. But it is also not unexpected, Ressa said. I appeal to you, the journalists in this room, the Filipinos who are listening, to protect your rights. We are meant to be a cautionary tale. We are meant to make you afraid. But dont be afraid. Because if you dont use your rights, you will lose them.

"Although out on bail while she appeals the verdict, [#MariaRessa's] wrongful conviction sends a message to all journalists that you could be next if you report critically on President Rodrigo Dutertes government." @CPJAsia's Shawn Crispin #Philippines https://t.co/eFwvmiJOuN  Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom) June 15, 2020

Freedom of the press is the foundation of every single right you have as a Filipino citizen. If we cant hold power to account, we cant do anything, she added, as she fought back tears.

Santos said he was disappointed of the verdict and felt very sad at the outcome.

The case is the first of at least eight active cases filed against Ressa and her media organisation since Duterte came to office in 2016.

Following the verdict, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the court decision should be respected, adding that Duterte has never been behind any effort to curtail press freedom in the country.

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) called the decision a dark day for independent Philippine media and all Filipinos.

The verdict basically kills freedom of speech and of the press, the organisation said. But we will not be cowed. We will continue to stand our ground against all attempts to suppress our freedoms.

The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) described the latest development as a menacing blow to press freedom.





Amnesty Internationals Regional Director Nicholas Bequelin described the verdict as a sham that should be quashed.

The accusations against them are political, the prosecution was politically motivated and the sentence is nothing but political, Bequelin said in a statement.

This guilty verdict follows the shutdown of ABS-CBN, which remains off the air  also after coming under the Presidents attacks. The international community cannot remain silent in the face of this brazen vendetta against the press.

The cyber-libel case against Ressa and her publication stemmed from a 2017 complaint filed by a businessman over a Rappler story that was published in 2012, before the cybercrime law was passed.

The businessman, Wilfredo Keng, said he was defamed when he was linked to the then-Supreme Court chief justice, who was later removed from office through impeachment.

The libel complaint was dismissed in 2018, but the National Bureau of Investigation reversed the decision and recommended to the justice ministry that Ressa and the reporter, Reynaldo Santos Jr, be prosecuted. Prosecutors said they were only following the law.

Absurd case

Around the same time, Duterte had sought to close Rappler for alleged foreign ownership and tax evasion, allegations Rappler denied.

The news site had attracted Dutertes ire for its relentless coverage of the so-called war on drugs during which thousands of people have died. It also exposed a pro-Duterte network circulating alleged fake news on social media.

BREAKING. The Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 46 convicted Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher-writer Reynaldo Santos over cyber libel charges in a high-profile verdict handed down Monday, June 15. https://t.co/o7fgxV0ThN  Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) June 15, 2020

In addition to Rappler, Duterte has seemingly also targeted and forced the closure of ABS-CBN, the largest media company in the Philippines, while the owners of the countrys largest newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer, were forced to sell the publication to a Duterte ally after publishing news reports and editorials critical of the mounting deaths in the war on drugs.

In a statement, the International Center for Journalists condemned the state-sponsored legal harassment in the Philippines.

ICFJ will continue to support her and her team as they report the news  despite official attempts to silence them.

In a press conference following the verdict, Ressa vowed to fight on, saying the case of Rappler is a cautionary tale for the Philippine media [Aaron Favila/AP]

Ahead of the verdict, Carlos Conde, of Human Rights Watch in the Philippines, said the case against Rappler should never have been filed to begin with.

The absurdity of this particular case against Maria Ressa  prosecutors deemed the story in question republished after Rappler corrected one word that was misspelled  suggests the desperation of those behind it to silence her and Rappler, Conde said in a statement to Al Jazeera.

While the article in question had been published in 2012, a spelling correction had been made to one word in 2014, something the prosecutors dubbed a republication of the article that put it within reach of the cybercrime law.

During an online forum on Monday, Jose Manuel Diokno, a leading human rights lawyer, predicted a long battle ahead as the defendants moved to file an appeal.

This is not the end of it, said Diokno, a critic of the Duterte administration and opposition candidate for senator in 2019. Theres a strong need for us to generate a lot of public opinion, a lot of press on the government, on the courts, to look very deeply into this case. The ramifications of this case go deep into whether we can still call the country a real democracy.
(Natural News) As the nation watches in utter horror the takeover by Antifa of numerous city blocks in Seattle, The New York Times could not be more pleased about the liberated streets that have been turned into a homeland for racial justice.

In a recent piece, the Times offered a glowing take on what has come to be known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ, which it described as an area free of cops and authority. This total anarchy hotspot is apparently an ideal model of what the Times wishes could exist everywhere in America, if only all Americans valued racial justice to this high degree.

While decent and sensible Americans would never dream of allowing, let alone instituting, this type of mass chaos in their own neighborhoods, Times writer Mike Baker would seem to be shedding tears of joy over the prospect of total lawlessness becoming the new law of the land.

The entire area was now a homeland for racial justice  and, depending on the protester one talked to, perhaps something more, Baker wrote, explaining how the Antifa mobs occupying these streets reversed the barricades to shield the liberated streets and laid claim to several city blocks.

This space is now property of the Seattle people, Baker added about the words emblazoned on a giant Antifa banner that was strung up in front of a now-abandoned Seattle police station within the CHAZ.

Listen below to The Health Ranger Report as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, talks about how this is all part of a chaos agenda that involves abolishing the police and forcing everyone to turn in their guns:

CHAZ is supposedly some utopian street festival with speeches, poetry and music, according to Baker

While one half of the country is witnessing a bunch of filthy bums roam the CHAZ begging for soy burgers and other sustenance as part of their new sovereign state, Baker says such activity is more like a utopian street festival, complete with people sharing speeches, poetry and music.

To Baker, the CHAZ is some kind of paradise on earth filled with people who espouse a variety of differing viewpoints  a magical display of diversity, if you will, that the rest of the country could only be so lucky to encounter someday.

Perhaps we are exaggerating a bit, and maybe Baker deserves a bit more credit than that. He did present what some of these protesters were actually saying that contradicts the official narrative, including one self-described anarchist who says that there is a bigger issue in society than race.

The more we encourage and focus on the race thing, the greater our attention is not focusing on the fact that this is class warfare, this individual reportedly told Baker.

Another protester told Baker that the purpose of the CHAZ is to demonstrate how society really does not need police officers in order to maintain stability. This individual, who was wearing a stethoscope and various paramedic apparel while manning a makeshift health center, told the Times that we can fulfill the communitys needs without them.

Ironically, the Antifa mobs occupying the CHAZ are currently seeking out armed volunteers, also known as unpaid police officers, to guard the barricades surrounding their cop-free zone. They are also demanding free health care, free college, free public housing, and that all Seattle health care facilities employ black doctors and nurses specifically to help care for black patients.

After learning about the CHAZ, President Donald Trump tweeted that domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle, a city run by radical left democrats. He concluded this same tweet by calling for law and order.

To keep up with the latest news about the CHAZ, be sure to check out Chaos.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.com
People are sprayed with water by authorities during protests against the government of Sebastian Pinera in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 30, 2019. (Alberto Valdes / EPA-EFE/REX)





Tens of thousands took to the streets demanding justice and were met by heavily armed police and soldiers, with images of blood-spattered protesters going viral.

I cant see! emerged as a slogan among demonstrators, who said police targeted their eyes with tear-gas projectiles and rubber bullets.

The images are similar to some that have played out in recent weeks across the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police.

But this unrest occurred last year in Chile, where many here see parallels between the ongoing U.S. turmoil and months of civil disturbance that largely paralyzed the South American nation of 19 million.

The Chilean movement also went global, generating solidarity actions abroad backing expanded democracy and indigenous empowerment and denouncing violence against women.

It all felt too familiar, said Juan Pablo Cortes, 42, who is among many here likening the U.S. and Chilean scenarios. We were in the midst of a similar uprising like the one in the United States when the pandemic outbreak put everything on hold.

Protests were building anew in Chile this year in advance of a planned national constitutional referendum when the coronavirus hit, plunging the country into intermittent shutdown.

Cortes, an illustrator, recently penned a sketch now circulating on social media that depicts Floyd alongside Camilo Catrillanca, a 24-year-old indigenous Mapuche man fatally shot by Chilean police in 2018.

In Chile, though, it was a 3.7% transit fare hike in Santiago, the capital, that triggered last year's protests, rather than an incident of police violence or racism.

The fare increase prompted infuriated students already facing financial hardships to launch a social-media campaign in mid-October urging commuters to jump subway turnstiles.

That morphed rapidly into broad demands for social reform in a nation long hailed as a Latin American oasis of economic progress and political stability  but a country where half of all workers earn the equivalent of $500 a month or less.

Story continues

The students got fed up with seeing their parents pay more and more for transportation, food and health[care]," said Catalina Salazar, 26, a nursing student and former protester in the working-class neighborhood of Macul in southeastern Santiago. "And the government only began paying attention when people started looting and things got out of hand.

On Oct. 19, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera declared a curfew in the capital, a lockdown that soon expanded to other cities in an unprecedented move at a time of democratic governance. Images of soldiers in the streets evoked dark memories of the military junta of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which ruled from 1973 to 1990.

Like President Trump, Pinera signaled a hard line as violence and property damage mounted amid daily battles between protesters and police backed by soldiers.

"We are at war against a powerful enemy, who is willing to use violence without any limits," Pinera, a conservative billionaire businessman, declared on Oct. 20.

Five days later, more than 1.2 million people rallied peacefully on the streets of Santiago, rejecting the president's martial characterization of the street actions.

At least 31 civilians died in the Chilean protests, which continued through 2019, authorities say, mostly perishing in shooting incidents or fires, or after being struck by vehicles amid the mayhem.

Federal prosecutors say investigations continue into all 31 deaths, which included the apparent suicides of two protesters in police custody. At least 38 police and military personnel have been charged with brutality and other crimes, prosecutors say, while Chilean police commanders say they have fired 14 officers (known here as carabineros) and disciplined 83 others.

Chiles National Institute of Human Rights said that almost 4,000 civilians were injured, including 460 who suffered eye injuriesthe latter triggering charges that police intentionally sought to blind protesters, an allegation denied by authorities.

After Floyds death, Chilean filmmaker Sebastian Lelio  director of the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman  posted a montage online of U.S. and Chilean flags with the words, I cant breathe  I cant see penned in English and Spanish.

Property damage in Chile was estimated at $1.4 billion as looters ransacked shopping malls, supermarkets and pharmacies and vandalized more than 100 metro stations, including seven that were burned to the ground. More than 2,400 Chilean police were injured, authorities said, including 65 with bullet wounds and 85 with broken bones.

Although not directly related to race, the Chilean protests featured a strong subtext championing the countrys indigenous Mapuche minority, whose members say they suffer from discrimination and police repression.

Everything here has to do with inequality, which can be shown openly through racism or more secretly through [issues of] class, said Cortes, the Chilean illustrator.

As in the Floyd protests in the United States and Europe, Chilean demonstrators targeted historic statues. Protesters destroyed or defaced more than 300 public monuments, many of them depicting Spanish conquistadors, often planting in their place the Mapuche flag  blue, green and red, with a traditional drum (kultrun) in the middle.

The Chilean protests also galvanized global movements denouncing violence against women.

In the midst of the turmoil here, a feminist art collective called Las Tesis, from the port city of Valparaiso, staged a choreographed street performance titled "A Rapist in Your Path. Videos of the performance spiked on social media, and soon the performance was being replicated throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Last December, a group of more than 200 women performed the piece in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

As in the United States, the jury is still out on whether Chile's civil uprising will yield fundamental reform.

Authorities jettisoned the planned transit-fare hikes days after protests erupted. But sweepings demands for a more equitable society were left for later. The government's major concession was a nationwide referendum set for April 26 on whether to rewrite the nations Pinochet-era Constitution.

Coronavirus pushed back the date until Oct. 25. Many here fear further delays or diluted constitutional reform as Chileans focus shifts to emerging from the health crisis  Chile has recorded almost 170,000 coronavirus cases and at least 3,100 deaths  and rebuilding the pandemic-shattered economy.

Salazar, the nursing student who was among last years masked protesters confronting police and soldiers, can be found these days checking passengers temperatures at a bus terminal in the capital. Now, Salazar says,  Im at the front line of the health emergency.

Special correspondent Poblete reported from Santiago and staff writer McDonnell from Mexico City.
MISSOULA  Carly Zilge, a recent graduate of the University of Montanas World Languages and Cultures department, has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study in Russia during the 2020-21 academic year.

Zilge, who majored in communication studies with a minor in Russian, is one of six UM students to receive a Fulbright Scholarship this year. The recipients continue UMs legacy of securing large numbers of Fulbright Scholars, said Clint Walker, UM Fulbright adviser and an associate professor of Russian.

Carly Zilge

We had a 50% success rate this year, Walker said. This percentage is well above the national average and speaks to the high quality of our UM applicants for Fulbrights.



The Fulbright U.S. Student Program offers opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide.

Zilge, who is from Felton, California, said she plans to use her time in Russia  her second visit  to gain practical teaching skills, improve her Russian and soak in the Russian culture.

The last time I was in Russia was a year ago, and I remember thinking that it would probably be such a long time before I had an opportunity to return, she said. I couldnt be more thrilled that I get to go back so soon.

The Fulbright is not the only recognition Zilge received during her senior year at UM. She also won a Certificate of Commendation in the American Council of Teachers of Russian All-National Russian Essay Contest.

Because of COVID-19, the Fulbright program has been postponed until later this year or January 2021, but Zilge said the wait is worth the opportunity and that she is eager to get started. And when her Fulbright is over?

I eventually plan to continue my education in Russian, but immediately after the Fulbright program, I plan to take some time to teach English abroad and travel, Zilge said.

For more information about the Fulbright Program, visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org/.

###
This is the surprising moment a baby raccoon shows off his herding skills as he drives a tribe of goats into their pen.

The assertive creature was rescued by Robert Kadyk in Sarver, Pennsylvania, who christened him The Governor.

Mr Kadyk says The Governor has a lot of fun playing with the pygmy goats on the farm where he lives, and has even tried riding one.

At the beginning of the clip, the goats are scattered across the farm in Sarver, Pennsylvania, before The Governor starts to herd them in

He added: 'He lives with the goats and tried getting on one last week for a ride.'

The goats are scattered over a meadow before the raccoon starts running after them in the clip, filmed on June 5.

His owner says: 'Uh oh, Guvnor's herding them up again.'

The raccoon runs over the grass screeching at the tribe of goats and his owner yells encouragement to him, as though he is a dog.

He shouts: 'Get them in there Governor. Bring them in.'

The Governor keeps chasing after them until they all group together inside the pen. His owner asks 'Who needs a sheepdog?'

The Governor enjoys playing with the goats on the farm and last week tried to jump on one for a ride

He adds: 'Who needs a sheepdog?' The Governor keeps chasing after them until they all group together inside the pen.

The clip has been shared widely on social media, with thousands of positive comments.

One viewer wrote: 'That's a roundup you don't always see!'

Another wrote: 'I love this, so adorable.'

Others expressed amazement that The Guvnor is able to herd the goats without any training.

Several viewers remarked that it was 'the 2020 version of the movie Babe.'
Donald Trump may trail Democratic rival Joe Biden in the polls but Republican officials throughout the country are betting on his winning a second term, saying the 'teflon' president will have a 'landslide' in November.

'The more bad things happen in the country, it just solidifies support for Trump,' said Phillip Stephens, the Republican chairman in Robeson County, in the swing state of North Carolina. 'We're calling him 'Teflon Trump.' Nothing's going to stick, because if anything, it's getting more exciting than it was in 2016.'

'We're thinking landslide,' he told Politico.

Republican officials throughout the country see President Donald Trump winning a second term in November based on his economic performance

Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, is leading President Trump in the polls

More than 50 state, district and county Republican Party chairs told Politico they are banking on a second term for Trump, despite the tanking economy, the threat of the coronavirus and Trump trailing Biden by 8 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

The president has gotten a thumbs' down from voters on his handling of the coronavirus and for his response to the protests that sprang up around the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the black man who died in Minneapolis after a white cop knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

But voters still give him high marks on the economy and, in early June, campaign officials met with the president at the White House to give him an assessment of the race, telling him while his numbers were down they would return if the economy came back.

President Trump, from the start, had banked winning a second term on a strong U.S. economy. But the coronavirus saw unemployment numbers go as high as 13 per cent and sending the stock market on a downward spiral.

Trump has pushed states to reopen to get the economy and unveiled a new campaign theme of 'transition to greatness.'

With campaigning limited due to social distancing restrictions, caused by the coronavirus, the Trump has kept courting voters.

In Ohio in April, Women for Trump hosted a virtual 'Empower Hour' with state party chairwoman Jane Timken, according to the Columbus Dispatch. And Lara Trump came and spoke with Columbus-area women back in January before the coronavirus restrictions were in place.

And Trump has started his own re-emergence, going to Dallas last week for an economic roundtable and scheduling his first campaign rally since March for Saturday in Tulsa.

Democrats have also warned about Trump's ability to recover from what should be seemingly fatal blows - such as the leaked 'Access Hollywood' tape were he said would grab women 'by the p****' and his feud with a Gold Star family during the 2016 campaign.

'There is no one punch and you're done with him, ever,' said Amanda Renteria, who was Hillary Clinton's national political director, told the Boston Globe.

One number that could cause Republicans' concern: Trump's overall job approval is at a negative - only 42 per cent approve of his performance as president while 55 per cent disapprove, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

And this is the number most strategists look at to asses a candidate's ability to win another term.

Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush - the two modern presidents to lose re-election - had approval ratings just under 40 per cent.

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, is keeping their focus on Biden, trying to define him the way they successfully defined 'Crooked Hillary' in the 2016 campaign. Trump repeatedly calls Biden 'Sleepy Joe,' arguing he's too tired and frail to be president.

'Our internal data consistently shows the president running strong against a defined Joe Biden in all of our key states,' was the message Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh gave the media last week.

President Trump's campaign is trying to define Joe Biden like Trump defined 'Crooked Hillary' during the 2016 Trump-Clinton race

But a potential problem for the Trump campaign is that despite all their work trying to define their political rival, voters don't seem to be listening, instead distracted by the coronavirus, the economy and racial tension in the country.

'I've been through cycles since the '60s and there's never been less focus on a presidential election in modern American history,' Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, told the Boston Globe. 'Trump is trying to define Biden, but nobody's paying any attention.'

The 2020 election could actually end up being 'Trump vs. Trump,' he predicted.
Trump refuses to rename military bases, June 11

According to new figures, the death toll brought about by the Civil War is estimated to be approximately 750,000. U.S. President Trump does not want to change the names of some of the military bases named after Confederate leaders because he thinks it would be an act of complete disrespect toward the many soldiers who have trained there. He further adds that these very powerful bases have become part of a great American heritage, a history of winning, victory and freedom.

I wonder if Trump is familiar with Shakespeares line, A rose by any other name would smell as sweet? Because if he did, he would realize that the name of a military base has nothing to do with what it has produced. Rather, the name Fort Bragg gives credence to the savagery, ignorance and inhumanity of the confederates and their leaders who, because of their belief that Black people should be kept slaves, were willing to sacrifice the lives of 750,000 soldiers and civilians during that bitter, bloody and barbaric war.

I see nothing heroic nor worthy of respect.
Cairo, June 15 : Egypt will resume international flights from July 1 amid preparations to restart foreign tourism in three provinces with the least COVID-19 infections, the Civil Aviation Minister said.

"Flights will be resumed gradually with some states," Civil Aviation Minister Mohamed Manar said in a joint press conference on Sunday.

Egypt had suspended international flights on March 19 as a precautionary measure to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, reports Xinhua news agency.

"All planes have been comprehensively sterilized and only dry meals and canned beverages will be offered," Manar said, adding the distribution of any publications will be banned on board.

Meanwhile, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled al-Anany said foreign tourism will resume in the three coastal provinces with the least COVID-19 infections, namely South Sinai, the Red Sea and Matrouh.

South Sinai and the Red Sea have the popular resort cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada, which are among the most attractive tourist destinations worldwide.

All precautionary measures for the resumption of international flights and tourism are coordinated with the health ministry, the Ministers noted.

Egypt is currently adopting a coexistence plan to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming services, businesses and economic activities.

The most populous Arab country has already started gradual reopening of services and offices, and recently allowed operation of over 230 hotels for local tourists with 50 per cent capacity after they were given hygiene safety certificates.

Egypt has so far registered 42,980 COVID-19 cases, with 1,484 deaths and 11,529 recoveries.
No Beijing, only Delhi says former Nepal PM on ties with India

Nepals territorial claim could give China a geopolitical advantage in the region

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, June 15: New Delhi would find it extremely difficult to work with Nepal, which is all set to endorse its new map in its upper house as well.

On Sunday, the upper house of the Nepalese parliament accepted the proposal to consider the bill to amend the country's Constitution to endorse the new map which included the territory claimed by India- Lipulekh Pass, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani.

This territorial claim has become an irritant for India's relations with Nepal. This would also give China the advantage as it has been competing with India for geopolitical influence over Nepal.

Time to walk the talk, wait and watch rather than engage in verbal duel with Nepal

The developments come at a time, when India is holding talks amidst a tense stand off with China along the Line of Actual Control. India is also keeping a close watch on the developments with Nepal as it would also alter its standing at the SAARC.

Covid isolation coaches at Anand Vihar, station closes to passenger traffic | Oneindia News

Meanwhile, India has termed this development as untenable, the fact remains that this development in Nepal remains a mere formality. India has said that this exercise would seal dialogue with Nepal.

While Nepal has been accusing India of not offering dialogue, a top official in New Delhi tells OneIndia that an offer for foreign secretary-level talks and a video conference between the foreign secretaries were made. This was infact made even before the amendment bill was tabled in Nepal.

However, Prime Minister of Nepal K P Oli seemed disinterested in the offer. The reasoning behind this can be best answered by him, but sources say that he could be either dancing to China's tune or indulging in posturing to suit his own political cause.

India says that despite the offer, Oli went ahead with the amendment bill. It is now entirely up to him whether he wants to reciprocate or not, the officer cited above also said.

On the contrary, India would not issue any harsh statements. It is more pertinent that we settle the issue rather than engage in a verbal duel with Nepal, officials say.

India has reminded Nepal about the friendly relations it shared and has repeatedly stated that on the map, it has made its position clear.

India is also closely watching the timing of the developments in Nepal. It comes close on the heels of the standoff with China. We suspect that there could be a Chinese role in this aggression with India, the official cited above said.

The approach by India has been more of a calm one. India has subtly reminded Nepal of the humanitarian and development assistance it had provided, including medicines to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our multi-faceted bilateral partnership has expanded and diversified in recent years with increased focus and enhanced humanitarian and development assistance by the Government of India and connectivity projects in Nepal," Anurag Srivastava, MEA spokesperson said.

Nepal had alleged that India had encroached upon its territory by deploying soldiers, building a temple and creating an artificial river.

Nepal's Prime Minister, K P Oli said that India had built a Kali Temple, created an artificial Kali river and deployed Indian Army personnel in order encroach upon the Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura. He said that these earlier belonged to his country.
Alma Colleges move to distance learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic indirectly led to perishable food going uneaten  food that was originally intended for students living on campus.

Rather than let that food go to waste, it has been donated to various groups and causes in the Alma community.

During these tough times, its about doing whats right. Its not only about representing Alma College, its about serving the Alma community, said Burt McAtee, area general manager at Sodexo.

Its just a little way of showing our support through the pandemic, McAtee added. Just because we cant use it doesnt mean someone else shouldnt benefit from it.

The college has contracted with the food service company, and its predecessors Saga and Sodexho Marriott Services, for more than 65 years to provide dining services to students.

Among the most prominent ways Alma College dining services has given back, McAtee said, is through the Community Cafe at First Presbyterian Church in Alma.

Under normal circumstances, the cafe is a weekly event where people in need can socialize and enjoy a sit-down meal prepared by volunteers. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the cafe now offers to-go meals.

Sodexo regularly supports the Community Cafe during the school year and continued to do so during the pandemic.

McAtee said the cafe has come to rely on Alma College to donate meals once a month, a commitment the college kept in April. The college donated meals twice in May.

The Community Cafe is very near and dear to my heart, McAtee said. Im happy were able to keep giving back to this important community resource.

Alma College dining services has also continued to provide meals to families served by the Baptist Childrens Home in St. Louis, in part thanks to students who have donated meals they have accrued through their college meal plans.

We dont have any problem getting students to donate. At Alma, there are a lot of students who are socially minded  we have a lot of people who want to give back, McAtee said.
The Sector Commander of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) Customs Division, Majeed Amandi suspects that the 100.1 grams of suspected cocaine that mysteriously went missing may have been stolen by officials of Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) or swept away.

The Director-General of NACOC, Francis Torkornoo had earlier indicated Customs officers had refused to allow the transportation of the substance which was concealed in a vehicle impounded by NACOC, to Accra.

When they dropped the fuel tank, there was this false compartment under the vehicle containing various parcels and an amount of $200,000. After the inventory, as expected, NACOC wanted to the bring the vehicle to Accra for investigations to start, but the Customs officers refused, saying that they need to hear from their superiors from Accra, he said.

Mr Amandi, however, dismissed this explanation in a statement, intimating that, it was intended to discount the Custom officers handling of the intercepted substance.

It is my humble conclusion that there was a well-orchestrated plan intended to discredit the handling of intercepted narcotics by Customs. And further that NACOC officers have harboured a clear vendetta against Customs for numerous times that Customs have intercepted narcotic substances.

In view of the small size of the particular parcel concerned, i.e 100g whitish substance, it is my observation also that possibly the parcel could have dropped in the midst of the disorderliness of examination process at the conference room and was swept away together with the rubbish unnoticed or even pilfered by any of the NACOC officers who handled the substances during examination for their diabolical intentions.

He expressed his dissatisfaction with attempts by NACOC to sabotage Customs officers.

From the attitude of the NACOC officers before, during and after a physical examination of the intercepted cargo, it was clear also that, the sabotage of our operations cannot be ruled out. And also that misinformation, as well as a deliberate attempt to incriminate officers at the least opportunity, may not be ruled out.

Francis Torkono had earlier also expressed similar sentiments.

He said although NACOB maintains a friendly relationship with the Customs Division of the GRA, it has not been enthused about some incidents that have happened in the recent past.

He cited an incident where NACOC had seized some suspected banned substance and due to some actions by Customs including announcing in the media that it was them who seized the items and that it was cocaine, NACOC was unable to arrest some suspects who were behind the transportation of the banned substance.

He said his outfit has since written to the Commissioner of Customs to request the transfer of the vehicle to NACOB to allow them to conduct investigations.

As of now, we have not received any of the parcels to perform a close test to know that really the content has narcotic substances. And also if the items are handed to us, we will start our investigationsNothing has been given to us so we have formally written to the Commission of Customers to transfer the vehicle and all the contents to the Narcotics Control Commission. Hitherto, it was something we said they should keep, but they arrogated it to themselves to say that they need clearance before they will take it to their Headquarters before giving to us and it is something that is bizarre.

 citinewsroom
The issue of toughening quarantine measures throughout Ukraine is currently not being considered, decisions in the conditions of adaptive quarantine are made by regional commissions, said Viktor Liashko, the deputy minister of health, chief sanitary doctor of Ukraine.

"Now we are not considering the issue of returning to tougher measures at once, since adaptive quarantine is operating in Ukraine. There are three basic indicators, and if in a region one of these indicators exceeds the permissible indicators, the region is obliged to hold a meeting of the commission and determine the reasons why this is happening, to determine the scope of the economy that gives the greatest number of negative results regarding the spread of coronavirus in the region, and return to downward mitigation, which was at the previous stage, towards tougher standards," he said at a briefing on Saturday.

As an example, Liashko cited Zhytomyr region, where after a three-day excess of the incidence rate, the regional commission canceled the work of hotels and banned visits to catering facilities indoors.

"And there are such cases in every region," he said.
Nationwide, eyeing the possibilities with technology startup Plancks small commercial insurance data platform, has joined the companys latest financing round.

Planck recently raised $16 million in a Series B venture financing round led by Team8 Capital. All existing investors including Viola FinTech, Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads also participated. Nationwide and HDI Group also joined on as strategic investors.

Plancks technology uses artificial intelligence to help commercial insurers increase commercial premiums and streamline the underwriting process. The company says its technology provides real-time data insights for small-and medium-sized businesses, a premise that Nationwide said drew its attention.

AI assists underwriters in making faster and more efficient decisions, which accelerates the underwriting process and frees them up to spend time on things like rethinking coverage needs for their customers or building stronger broker and agent relationships, Tony Fenton, Nationwides vice-president of Commercial Digitization and New Product Development, said in prepared remarks.

Nationwide said that Plancks technology has helped sharpen underwriting for businesses including restaurants, bars, taverns, contractors, beauty salons, manufacturing and insurance lines such as workers compensation, general liability and employment practice liability.

To date, Planck has raised $28 million overall. Plans call for using the money to help accelerate the expansion of Plancks U.S. customer base and global reach, with plans to open in Germany in 2021. As well, the company will focus on developing new products.

Planck said it has worked with a number of U.S. commercial insurers, including Chubb, Great American Insurance Groups Republic Indemnity, AIGs Attune and others.

Planck launched in 2016. The insurtech startup is based in Israel with offices in New York.

Sources: Planck, Nationwide

Topics InsurTech Tech
Robert Gates, who served as defense secretary under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, joined a recent push among bipartisan lawmakers and some military leaders to rename bases that honor Confederate generals.

President Donald Trump last week said his administration will not even consider the renaming of up to 10 military facilities named after Confederate leaders. The stance put the president at odds with the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee, which approved an amendment by Sen. Elizabeth Warren requiring the Pentagon to remove Confederate names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia from all U.S. military installations within three years.

The Pentagon has been under increasing pressure to change the bases names amid protests over generations of racial injustice and the death of George Floyd. Several states and cities have removed Confederate statues in recent years, and the U.S. Marine Corps banned the display of Confederate symbols earlier this year. Several military leaders and Democratic and Republican lawmakers have recently called for renaming the facilities so they no longer honored traitors to the Union.

Gates told The New York Times on Sunday that Confederate symbols represent the dark side of our history.

Gates said Floyds killing, while pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, put the spotlight on racism at a time when the military is becoming more diverse.

The events since the killing of George Floyd present us with an opportunity where we can move forward to change those bases, Gates said. Its always puzzled me that we dont have a Fort George Washington or a Fort Ulysses S. Grant or a Fort Patton or a facility named for an African-American Medal of Honor recipient. I think the time has come, and we have a real opportunity here.

Gates noted that he was very sensitive to the notion of rewriting history.

But Confederate symbols and statues belong in a museum someplace so were not celebrating them, were learning from them and the mistakes they made," he said.

Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said last week that the bases should not be renamed because they are hallowed grounds where American soldiers were trained.

Fort Brag is known for the heroes within it," McEnany said. "Its an insult  to tell them that what they left was inherently a racist institution because of a name.

Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, in a recent piece in The Atlantic, said the bases were named after traitors who were by and large undistinguished, if not incompetent, battlefield commanders.

Related Content:
Introduction

With the beginning of the lockdown to control the Covid-19 outbreak, many educational institutions have started switching from traditional classroom teaching to online teaching to cope with the adverse situation. Tribhuvan University (TU), the largest and oldest university in Nepal, has also officially endorsed the virtual class model along with a guideline and circulated a notice among its institutions. Similarly, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has appealed to stakeholders to start classes through alternative systems. Various news media and relevant stakeholders have argued for the need for promoting such classes.

Nevertheless, there are some critical questions in the context of Nepal. Do all students have access to the quality internet to attend the classes without disturbance? Are the teachers well equipped and trained enough to run the virtual classes effectively? Moreover, are all the students able to use this opportunity of distance learning?

Here is an observation based on a recent experiment. We do hope this experience works as a part of remarkable feedback to concerned stakeholders to make their virtual class effective and organise with efficacy in this lockdown or any similar situation in the future.

In his efforts to examine such concerns, before the TU issued the detailed guideline on online classes, the first author had already started online classes for his bachelors level forest engineering students, using Zoom, on April 18, 2020. He completed a section of his course in 29 days, which in traditional classes would normally take 20 to 25 lecture hours only. The students average turnout was about 50% and the students interestingly received the class in a participative manner (Figure 1).

The class ended on May 16, 2020, by evaluating overall learning experiences and soliciting participants views on continuing such classes for other courses.

Evaluation

The polling option available on Zoom was used to solicit students perceptions of the class. The turnout during the poll was low perhaps due to power breakout in many students end. However, the opinion collected from 23 participants can be representative of all the students participated in the online class. The 10 questions, close-ended in nature, were asked in three main aspects such as students learning experience in current classes, status on students access and use of the internet, and their views on continuing online classes for other courses (Figure 2).

Results and discussion

The response on the students learning aspects shows that the level of learning is satisfactory despite this teaching method being new for them. The respondents have rated the teachers efforts to make classes productive as high(Figure 3).



Switching from a traditional classroom and face-to-face instructor training to computer-based training in a virtual classroom makes the learning experience entirely different for students. Their resistance to change does not allow them to adapt to the online learning environment. However, the tutor attempted to employ good practices to make the class interesting and the students fully cooperated. The main practices included planning for the class, preparing and mastering technology, stimulating discussions, keeping communication regularly with students, motivating to them and asking help and feedback from the students.

In the above scenario, it is not possible to run online classes for all the students. However, such classes for almost half of the students can be initiated followed by real classes for remaining students after the lockdown is over. This could help keep the students engaged in lockdown and minimise real class time later. Further, the tutors or students can share the recording of each session to their friends, who cannot join classes. Motivation and dedication are other factors that trigger students to participate in online classes.

Because this teaching method is new to them, students might lose attraction and subsequently give up the classes. Informal interactions with the participants of the classes reveal that the turnout could have been better had the class been announced as compulsory to all. It is, however, imperative to carry out feasibility analysis and identify the necessary challenges in a participative manner by the concerned stakeholders before launching such initiatives.

About the second aspect (the students access to the internet), the result (Figure 4) is not encouraging and this represents the normal scenario in Nepal. Nepal Telecommunications Authority in its recent report shows that over 72 per cent Nepalis have access to the internet, but a majority of them depend on mobile data with just 17 per cent of them having access to fixed broadband connections. Sound internet connectivity has been one of the most complained aspects and accessing online courses through mobile internet is expensive, which is unaffordable for many students.

Limited availability of technological infrastructures in academic institutions and at the homes and digital literacy among the stakeholders involved in the teaching-learning process are other obstacles that affect the effectiveness of online classes. In this context, these classes may lead to inequality within the student community as well as infringe on the right to education of those clusters of students who do not have access to the internet and are unable to manage computers or smartphones for individual purposes.

Regarding the respondents view on the preference of replacing the classroom teaching with online classes, more than half of them appeared to support this in the present unprecedented situation (Figure 5). Although they are concerned that some of their friends will be deprived of the opportunity, they apparently want to remain engaged, attending online classes during the lockdown.

Conclusion and recommendations

Three-quarters of the respondents feel that concerned academic authorities should officially initiate online classes regularly at the bachelors level also (Figure 6). The respondents might have opined this based on the present class experience in which both tutors and students worked together collectively for good learning experiences. Generally speaking, the teaching method is new for both teachers and students and the experience suggests that teachers have to prepare more and use the technologys potential to make the classes interesting and keep students focused.

The evaluation suggests that virtual classes could be an option to keep students occupied in their learning at this unprecedentedly difficult time. The concerns about some students being deprived of the opportunity are genuine and this requires some appropriate plan to address. In the situation of low broadband coverage in the country, students have to depend on mobile data and the cost is high. Hence, respective institutions should help them access low-cost student packages. The tutors digital literacy is important to make online classes attractive and more effective and this could require short training sessions to them.

The lockdown has certainly provided an opportunity to learn and master online communication. In addition, the situation has taught the government a big lesson to keep the communication sector more updated and emphasise digital aspects so that many hurdles can be combatted effectively even in critical situations.

All the writers are teachers.
Staunch member of the People's Progressive Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu has asked President Nana Akufo-Addo to reconsider his decision for final year students to resume school in the wake of the novel Coronavirus.



Giving his eleventh nation address on COVID-19, President Akufo-Addo rehashed his directive for the schools to open stating "from tomorrow, Monday, 15th June, the last batch of institutions in this phased approach, our educational institutions, will begin to re-open, with final year students in our tertiary colleges and universities returning to school to prepare for and take their exit examinations. As has been stated, final year senior high school (SHS 3) students, together with SHS 2 Gold Track students, will resume on 22nd June; and final year junior high school (JHS 3) students, the week after, on 29th June. The decision to include our schools in phase one of the easing of restrictions was taken advisedly".



The President was optimistic about the measures adopted by his government and stakeholders in the education sector to safeguard the students and their teachers.



"Some argue that we are putting the lives of our students, teachers and non-teaching staff in danger by this re-opening, citing the examples of other countries, who have done so and recorded spikes in their infection case counts. I have stated, on several occasions, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the resolution of this pandemic. We have our own unique situation in the country, and we have always taken that it into account in dealing with this disease, much as we are prepared to learn from the examples of others," he argued.



He also added that, as part of measures to prevent infections on the campuses, ''a total of six hundred thousand (600,000) face masks has been distributed to the tertiary institutions. This is to enable every student, teaching and non-teaching staff to have three (3) reusable face masks. In addition to this, one thousand seven hundred (1,700) Veronica buckets, two hundred thousand (200,000) litres of hand sanitisers, three thousand, four hundred (3,400) litres of liquid soap, and nine hundred (900) thermometer guns have been distributed, with the transportation and delivery of these items being overseen by the special logistics team of the Government Committee, chaired by the sagacious, experienced politician, the Senior Minister, Hon. Yaw Osafo Maafo, that is supervising the re-opening of the schools".



But Nana Ofori Owusu is not convinced by the President's efforts as he seeks to know if there will be frequent testing for the students and their teachers.



"Are we going to test them? How can we know those infected and are coming from their home? How can we know a supporting staff who cleans the place is infected from home? How can we the lecturer is infected? Where's the baseline statistics to show that as we have opened schools today, within two weeks, when we do another testing, we can understand that there's been a growth or reduction or we have contained it because the President says we can never know unless we test?" he questioned.







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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The House Judiciary Committee considered the bills one week after Black Democrats took control of the chamber to demand Republicans consider a host of reforms in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and widespread protests. Read more

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HARRISBURG  With bipartisan support, Pennsylvania lawmakers advanced two long-awaited police oversight reforms Monday, including a bill that would create a confidential misconduct database for officer background checks.

Democrats hailed the move as a first step after seeing similar legislation languish for months or even years without consideration in the GOP-controlled legislature.

One bill, sponsored by Rep. Harry Readshaw (D., Allegheny), would require all law enforcement agencies in the state to consult a new database with information on disciplinary actions, performance evaluations, and attendance records during a background check.

The legislation would also require an agency to disclose information about any investigations into current or former officers in writing. The effort, however, stops short of making misconduct records available to the public, a move recently taken in New York and New Jersey.

The other bill advanced Monday would create new types of training, mandate yearly use-of-force instruction, and require mental-health screenings after officers use deadly force.

The House Judiciary Committee considered the bills one week after black Democrats took control of the chamber to demand Republicans consider a host of reforms in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and widespread protests.

Gov. Tom Wolf endorsed the database legislation, as did Attorney General Josh Shapiro and the heads of powerful police unions for the state and Philadelphia.

The bills now move to the full House, which could consider them as early as next week, according to Mike Straub, a spokesperson for the House Republicans.

I feel like an honorary Republican today, said Rep. Chris Rabb (D., Phila.), whose own long-languishing database legislation was amended into Readshaws bill Monday. Accomplishments like this dont happen by accident or by one person It was also supported by Republicans who allowed these bills, as amended, to come to a vote.

Rep. Summer Lee (D., Allegheny) said she was surprised to see a Democratic bill taken up in committee and said she was excited to hear the panels chair, Rep. Rob Kauffman (R., Franklin), say Democrats should flag urgent bills they think should be considered. Lee said she looks forward to bringing more than a dozen bills to the chairs attention.

After a year we were finally able to get something that is a starting point we can build on, Lee said.

 READ MORE: N.J. police departments ordered to identify officers who are fired, suspended or demoted for misconduct

House and Senate Democrats last unveiled a package of reform bills in 2018, after a police officer shot and killed Antwon Rose II, an unarmed black teenager, in a small borough outside Pittsburgh. But the legislation, including a bill from Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D., Allegheny) to create a disciplinary database and require additional training and mental-health screenings for officers, languished in committees without a hearing.

Unfortunately, we cant get the leadership there to move the bill, Costa previously told Spotlight PA. It is my hope that in light of the protests, these folks will recognize that these are important, reasonable, and responsible measures. It is just training and maintaining information.

The action Monday represents a major shift for Pennsylvania, which has in recent years advanced bills that protect law enforcement from increased scrutiny, said Andy Hoover, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania ACLU. That includes a measure, passed with bipartisan support but vetoed by Wolf, that would have withheld from the public the names of officers who use deadly force.

Still, the state is far behind its neighbors New York and New Jersey, which are both taking steps to make misconduct information at least partially available to the public. The bill advanced Monday here would make the disciplinary database available to police departments, not the public.

The committee on Monday also unanimously approved a measure that would require police training on how to recognize and report suspected child abuse. It was amended to include training for municipal police officers on how to treat people of diverse backgrounds and require annual in-service training on use of force and de-escalation techniques.

Pennsylvania has increased mandatory training for officers in the past, including how to interact with someone who appears to have a mental health condition or intellectual disabilities.

But more training doesnt necessarily mean better outcomes. Hoover, of the ACLU, referenced the death of Osaze Osagie, a 29-year-old black man with chronic mental illness who was shot and killed by State College police in 2019.

"The officers had what is considered the gold standard of police training on [mental health] crisis intervention. And still they killed him, with no [mental health] professional on the scene, Hoover said. In that case, at least, more training failed to save Osazes life.

House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), who resigned Monday to pursue a job in the private sector, called the committees vote an important step in moving the issues of criminal justice reform and police reform forward.

These reforms help our police better perform their very challenging and difficult responsibilities," he said in a statement.

Turzai said he supported calls from Black lawmakers to schedule a special session to consider police reform bills. Wolf in turn requested the General Assembly pass a resolution showing support for such an effort, which has not occurred. In Pennsylvania, the governor can call a special session unilaterally or after being petitioned by a majority of the legislature.

On Monday, Wolf applauded the committees action but said he was still hesitant to call a special session because there is no guarantee substantive measures will be considered.

I dont think we need a special session. We need to pass bills, he said. The cons are, if the General Assembly really doesnt want to do it  they can gavel in and gavel out without doing anything.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated how a special session is called in Pennsylvania.

100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA relies on funding from foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results. If you value this reporting, please give a gift today at spotlightpa.org/donate.
Surveillance footage showed police officer fatally shoot 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks outside a Wendy's on June 12, after a struggle over a Taser.

YouTube/Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Rayshard Brooks died from "gunshot wounds of the back," which caused "organ injuries and blood loss," the Fulton County medical examiner's office ruled on Sunday.

Brooks died on Friday night after being fatally shot by a white police officer during a scuffle in an Atlanta parking lot. The incident was captured on bodycam and dashcam.

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said in a statement on Sunday that he hopes a decision about whether to bring charges against the officers will be announced midweek.

Brooks' death has inflamed protests in the city sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who died on Friday after being fatally shot by a white police officer during a scuffle in an Atlanta parking lot, died from gunshot wounds to the back, the medical examiner ruled on Sunday.

The Fulton County medical examiner's office said in a statement that Brooks' death has been ruled a homicide, The New York Times reported. According to the statement, the official cause of death was listed as "gunshot wounds of the back," which caused "organ injuries and blood loss."

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard Jr. said in a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday that members of his staff "had the unfortunate duty of witnessing the autopsy of Mr. Brooks as part of our continued investigation."

"Because this is a homicide investigation, there are several technical requirements that must be met before we are able to reach a decision. That includes the confirmation of the ballistics involved and obtaining a preliminary report from the medical examiner," his statement said.

Howard also said that his office is "still experiencing some difficulty in obtaining all of the bodycam and dashcam footage from the Atlanta Police Department" in relation to the investigation.

Story continues

"We are working around the clock to bring this investigation to a conclusion, and it is my hope to be able to announce our decision midweek," Howard said.

On Sunday, L. Chris Stewart, an attorney for the Brooks family, said that the officer responsible for the killing should be charged for "an unjustified use of deadly force, which equals murder," Associated Press reported.

Several outlets obtained bodycam and dashcam footage of the events leading up to Brooks' death on Friday evening.

Footage from the incident shows a police officer waking up Brooks, who fell asleep at the wheel of a vehicle at the drive-thru lane of a Wendy's restaurant. Officers conducted a sobriety test on Brooks, which he failed, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations said, adding that officers tried to place Brooks under arrest, during which a struggle ensued.

According to the bureau, witnesses reported that during the struggle, Brooks grabbed a taser from the officer.

Video footage of the incident shows officers telling Brooks to "stop fighting." Three gunshot wounds can be heard, though the actual shooting occurred off-camera.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigations said that Brooks was then transported to a hospital, where he died of his injuries.

Atlanta police chief Erika Shields resigned following the shooting. In a statement, Shields said she resigned "out of a deep and abiding love for this city and this department."

The Wendy's where the incident took place was burned to the ground on Saturday night. Authorities on Sunday announced a $10,000 reward for information that could help find the arsonists responsible.

Garrett Rolfe, one of the officers involved in the shooting, was fired, while officer Devin Brosnan was placed on administrative leave.

Brooks' death has intensified local Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, who was killed by white police officers in Minneapolis.

Read the original article on Insider
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Britons eager for a post-lockdown getaway are shelving their plans to fly abroad after pictures of crammed easyJet cabins left them horrified.

Passengers on the airline's first flight in three months declared it impossible to maintain social distancing while the middle seat remained in use.

Photographs of travellers bunched less that two metres apart appeared to fly in the face of claims from CEO Johan Lundgren that he would feel '100 per cent safe' because of measures taken by easyJet to mitigate contamination.

But he failed to convince aghast would-be holidaymakers who flooded social media to say they would not be making bookings.

The airline's decision not to cordon off the middle seat was a red line for many, with one person tweeting: 'Deal-breaker. I'm driving.'

The plane, from London Gatwick to Glasgow, landed just after 8am, as easyJet resumed mainly domestic routes between British and European cities. There are two foreign routes from Belfast to Faro and Gatwick to Nice.

While borders across Europe are being opened, a hoped-for travel recovery in easyJet's home market has been put at risk by a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals. The airline has joined its rivals, British Airways and Ryanair, in a legal bid to have the new rules overturned.

As Britain eases further out of lockdown:

Secondary school pupils with GCSE and A-level exams next year returned to classes, although only a quarter could be on site at once due to social distancing;

Millions of commuters returned to work on trains, Tubes and buses - watched by 3,000 extra police and transport staff enforcing compulsory face mask rules;

Shoppers desperate to hit the high street formed huge socially distanced queues after dawn today as the majority of stores reopened;

Britain's coronavirus death toll inched up by just 36 yesterday - the lowest since before full lockdown in a promising signs the outbreak is improving;

Families' staycation plans are in chaos over a lack of safety advice that could sabotage the reopening of holiday sites in the first week of July;

A decision on the two-metre rule will take 'weeks', ministers warned today - despite warnings of mass redundancies unless it is eased within days;

World Health Organization director again warns the UK not to lift lockdown too fast until contact tracing system is 'robust' and ready to be 'aggressively' scaled up.

 Slide me  Live data recorded more than a thousand planes over Europe this morning at around 10am, compared with just a few hundred at the same time during the height of the pandemic in April

Passengers at Brussels airport this morning, where people were wearing face masks to abide by new aviation safety requirements

Some Twitter users complained that the busy flight from Gatwick to Glasgow was 'complete madness' - but others said it was up to individuals to decide the level of risk they were willing to take as the economy opened up

One Twitter user predicted a 'second wave' of coronavirus cases. Advocates of the Government's strategy would point to the need to boost a shattered economy

EasyJet's first flight took off from London Gatwick at 6.53am and arrived just after 8am. Pictured are passengers being greeted onto the plane at Gatwick

Passengers wearing face masks walk across the runway at Gatwick this morning to board easyJet's first flight to Glasgow

Pictures from first flight this morning, posted by Good Morning Britain's Travel Expert Simon Calder, showed a fairly crowded service with no room for people to observe six-feet social distancing rules

When will other airlines start flying again? Ryanair: Irish carrier will begin 1,000 flights a day from July 1 - representing 40% of its usual capacity. This will mean restarting operations from 90 percent of the airports it usually uses, including 20 in the UK. British Airways: Chief Executive Willie Walsh says that he expects a 'meaningful return to service' in July at the earliest, but did not reveal any more details. Jet2: It plans to restart flights and holidays from July 15. Tui: All flights and trips have been cancelled up to July 10. Customers due to travel before the end of August can also cancel or amend their booking without charge. Virgin Atlantic: Flights will resume from Heathrow to New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Shanghai on July 20. Wizz Air: The cut-price carrier began some of its services on May 1, and expects to reveal a larger list of routes on June 16. Advertisement

Pictures from the first flight taken by Good Morning Britain's Travel Correspondent, Simon Calder, showed a crowded service with no room for people to observe social distancing rules.

Asked by Piers Morgan if it was possible for passenger to stay safely apart, Mr Calder replied: 'No, you absolutely can't.'

EasyJet boss Mr Lundgren said the Luton-based carrier has taken guidance from international regulators to develop an enhanced safety and hygiene regime for its resumption of flights on Monday.

Passengers and crew will be required to wear masks, aircraft will be regularly deep-cleaned and disinfection wipes and hand sanitiser will be made available.

EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic have banned alcohol on all flights to limit contact between passengers, while British Airways has suspended alcohol on short-haul trips.

EasyJet passengers will be limited to a glass of water, with food service also suspended.

Mr Lundgren said not operating a single flight in nearly three months has been 'devastating', and the airline is 'super excited' to resume.

He will travel on his first easyJet flight after the restart on Wednesday.

With no revenues for months, airlines have been cutting costs to try to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

EasyJet said in May it was planning to cut 4,500 jobs, or 30% of its workforce. It has said Britain's quarantine could lead to even more cuts.

The airline is planning to ramp up services as the summer progresses and by August has said it will be flying about three-quarters of routes but at a much lower frequency than last year.

Capacity will be at about 30% of usual in the busy July to September season, easyJet said. Bigger rival Ryanair plans to be flying 40% of capacity by July.

EasyJet's boss has insisted he would 'feel 100% safe' on packed planes thanks to new safety measures.

Passengers arrive at Belfast International Airport this morning after arriving on one of easyJet's first flights of the coronavirus crisis

Captain David Morgan, Director of Flight Operations and Captain Kate McWilliams in the cockpit on easyJet's first flight from Gatwick to Glasgow today

Passengers boarding easyJet flight EZY883 before it took off from Gatwick bound for Glasgow

Passengers begin to board a domestic flight from a UK airport this morning as the carrier begins to resume a limited service

No mask, no ride! 3,000 extra police and transport staff will stop passengers without face-coverings Thousands of extra police and staff have been deployed across England's public transport network today as new rules which make wearing face coverings compulsory come in to play. The strict new law means passengers on Tubes, buses, trains and planes must wear a face covering from today or risk being turned away, or being slapped with a 100 fine. But within hours of the rule coming in, passengers have already been seen attempting to enter stations without them, while one man who had a face covering was seen wearing it away from his mouth while sitting on a Tube. Police officers have also been seen handing out masks to those attempting to enter stations without one. One passenger who travelled on a tube today and saw 'everyone wearing a mask' said the measure was 'reassuring'. Advertisement

Mr Lundgren said: 'The recommendations that we've implemented have been defined together with international regulators Easa (European Aviation Safety Agency), ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) and also our own company's medical doctors and expertise.'

The Airbus A321neo  easyJet's largest aircraft  can seat 235 passengers.

Despite the 14-day quarantine policy and current travel restrictions imposed in the UK, Mr Lundgren said he believed summer holidays will be possible.

He went on: 'We would hope and would be really looking forward to restrictions being either lifted, or air bridges put in place where it made sense to do so, allowing UK customers as well as people in the rest of Europe to be able to go on a holiday.'

Air bridges would involve travellers arriving from countries where the risk of being infected by coronavirus is deemed to be low to avoid having to self-isolate for 14 days.

EasyJet's initial schedule will involve mainly domestic flying in the UK and France.

EasyJet announced plans to cut up to 4,500 jobs as it does not expect demand to return to 2019 levels until 2023.

Ryanair intends to restore 40% of its flights from July 1, while British Airways is due to make a 'meaningful return' to service next month.

Chief executive Johan Lundgren said he would feel '100% safe' travelling on an easyJet plane even if it was full

EasyJet restarted some flights today with new safety restrictions (file photo of easyJet planes)

Flight radar reveals how Europe's skies are getting BUSIER with hundreds of flights jetting across the continent as countries welcome back visitors after more than three months of lockdown

By Rory Tingle for MailOnline

New satellite images reveal the boom in air travel over Europe today as hundreds of planes take to the skies in response to loosening coronavirus restrictions.

Live data recorded more than a thousand planes over the continent this afternoon - compared with just a few hundred at the height of the pandemic in April.

It came as passengers flocked to airports across Europe, including London Gatwick, Brussels and Duesseldorf, where they were met by staff informing them about the latest safety measures.

Meanwhile, easyJet began its first flights - starting with a morning service from Gatwick to Glasgow - with all customers required to wear masks and go without food and alcohol.

Countries including Germany and France have opened their borders, but Britain is still insisting on a 14-day quarantine for all arrivals, including those from countries with far lower infection rates.

Passengers at Brussels airport this morning, where people were wearing face masks to abide by new aviation safety requirements

Spain is allowing thousands of Germans to fly to the Balearic Islands from today in a trial run for resuming its tourist season, after Germany lifted its travel warning for the EU.

However, several countries including Greece are still excluding Britons because of the UK's high death rate while Swedes are similarly unpopular in many countries.

Which countries are allowing British visitors and which are not? AUSTRIA - Flights from UK remain banned, borders open to 31 countries from tomorrow but not Britain BELGIUM - Borders open with Britain from today BULGARIA - Britons subject to 14-day quarantine, unlike most EU countries DENMARK - Tourists only allowed from Iceland, Germany and Norway - notably not Britain or Sweden FRANCE - Arrivals from UK subject to 14-day quarantine because of Britain's own quarantine rules GERMANY - Britons no longer need reason for entry from today, all land borders now open GREECE - UK visitors excluded from resumption of tourist season starting today ITALY - Travel to and from Britain allowed since June 3 NETHERLANDS - Britons and Swedes remain banned SPAIN - Borders will open to EU countries and Britain on June 21 SWEDEN - Has never closed borders SWITZERLAND - Travel restrictions for EU and Britain lifted from today Advertisement

Britons are allowed into Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy but not Greece, the Netherlands or Austria and will have to quarantine in France, and the Foreign Office is still advising against unnecessary travel.

In addition, most of the continent is still closed to visitors from Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas - although Greece is allowing some tourists from further afield.

France's borders are open for travel within Europe, but Paris is insisting on reciprocity - meaning a 14-day quarantine for British visitors.

The French government has criticised the 'uncoordinated fashion' in which Britain imposed the quarantine after initially saying that France would be exempt.

At present, the UK Foreign Office is still advising Britons against 'all non-essential international travel' in any case.

Announcing Monday's reopening of borders, French president Emmanuel Macron said it is time 'to turn the page of the first act of the crisis' and 'rediscover our taste for freedom'.

But he warned: 'This doesn't mean the virus has disappeared and we can totally let down our guard... the summer of 2020 will be a summer unlike any other.'

Germany and Belgium among those opening their borders today in line with an EU directive to resume travel by mid-June.

All nine of Germany's land borders are open and the country is allowing flights from Italy, but not Spain until June 21. Some flights to London have continued all along and UK travellers are not banned.

Germany and the Netherlands have both lifted their warnings against non-essential foreign travel in Europe, although Germany is advising against travelling further afield until at least August 31.

Austria has already opened its borders to most of its neighbours and will lift travel restrictions for 31 countries tomorrow, but not including the UK or Sweden.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz are both planning to holiday in their homelands this year.

The skies above Europe at 9am on March 2, 2020 - before most of Europe went into lockdown - and the same view at 9am on April 2

Brussels Airport: Flight attendants wearing face masks sanitise their hands inside a plane at Brussels Airport this morning

Germany: A TUI flight attendant gives safety instructions to German tourists on the first flight from Duesseldorf to Mallorca in a Spanish tourism pilot project

What British routes has easyJet now started flying? Belfast-Birmingham Belfast-Bristol Belfast-Edinburgh Belfast-Glasgow Belfast-London Gatwick Belfast-Liverpool Belfast-Newcastle Belfast-Faro Edinburgh-Belfast Edinburgh-London Gatwick Glasgow-Belfast Glasgow-London Gatwick Inverness-London Gatwick Isle of Man-London Gatwick Isle of Man-Liverpool London Gatwick-Belfast London Gatwick-Edinburgh London Gatwick-Glasgow London Gatwick-Inverness London Gatwick-Isle of Man London Gatwick-Nice Liverpool-Belfast Liverpool-Isle of Man Newcastle-Belfast Advertisement

EasyJet took to the skies again today for the first time since its planes were grounded on March 30 - with passengers facing a raft of new coronavirus safety measures including mandatory face masks and an alcohol ban.

Pictures from the first flight this morning showed a crowded service with no room for people to observe six-feet social distancing rules, prompting some Twitter users to complain it was 'absolute madness'.

However, the airline's boss Johan Lundgren said he would feel '100% safe' due to the steps it had taken to protect customers.

The plane, from London Gatwick to Glasgow, landed just after 8am, as easyJet resumed mainly domestic routes between British and European cities. There are two foreign routes from Belfast to Faro and Gatwick to Nice.

While borders across Europe are being opened, a hoped-for travel recovery in easyJet's home market has been put at risk by a 14-day quarantine rule for arrivals. The airline has joined its rivals, British Airways and Ryanair, in a legal bid to have the new rules overturned.

EasyJet Chief executive Johan Lundgren said the Luton-based carrier has taken guidance from international regulators to develop an enhanced safety and hygiene regime for its resumption of flights on Monday.

Passengers and crew will be required to wear masks, aircraft will be regularly deep-cleaned and disinfection wipes and hand sanitiser will be made available.

EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic have banned alcohol on all flights to limit contact between passengers, while British Airways has suspended alcohol on short-haul trips.

EasyJet passengers will be limited to a glass of water, with food service also suspended.

Mr Lundgren said not operating a single flight in nearly three months has been 'devastating', and the airline is 'super excited' to resume.

He will travel on his first easyJet flight after the restart on Wednesday.

EasyJet's first flight took off from London Gatwick at 6.53am and arrived just after 8am. Pictured are passengers being greeted onto the plane at Gatwick
When Myles Cooper went in for a recent coronavirus test, a health care worker stuck a long, flexible swab deep into his nostril, spun it around gently for 10 seconds, and pulled it out from all the way in the back of his throat.

My eyes started watering, I had to sit there for 30 seconds until I could see, said Cooper, 37, who lives in San Francisco.

Cooper, who tested negative, is one of millions of people who have gotten tested for the coronavirus with a long, uncomfortable nasopharyngeal swab, which has been the standard way to test for respiratory illnesses. It collects specimens from the nasopharynx, which is where the nasal cavity and throat meet. Many people have also been tested with a long throat swab, known as an oropharyngeal swab.

But in recent weeks, many coronavirus testing sites have started using shorter, less invasive swabs that dont go nearly as far into the nose. One type of swab, known as a mid-turbinate swab, penetrates about an inch to an inch-and-a half into the nostril until it hits resistance at the nasal wall. Another type goes into the front inside part of the nostril, called the anterior nares, about as far as someone would stick their pinky finger in to pick their nose.

The longer swab is still preferred by many health care providers, because questions remain about the accuracy of tests using the shorter swabs for asymptomatic people. But the shorter swabs are less unpleasant and in some cases can be used to collect samples by the patients themselves.

This is a significant development because if samples can be collected safely and accurately by patients themselves, it could make testing more accessible  opening the door for more home collection kits, and for health care workers at testing sites to use less personal protective equipment.

Swabs can be made from polyester, foam or nylon  and some health care providers say the materials used to make the shorter swabs are easier to obtain, given that longer swabs are still in demand around the world.

Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press

Experts say the less invasive swabs are about as good as the longer swabs at yielding reliable test results in symptomatic patients. But researchers are still studying whether they work as well in asymptomatic patients, who may have levels of virus in their nose that are too low to be detected in a test.

In late March, the CDC allowed health care providers to use the shorter swabs because the long swabs were nearly impossible to get at the time.

Verily, a South San Francisco life sciences company that has been contracted by the state to provide testing at 43 sites across California, began using shorter nasal swabs several weeks ago. Patients test themselves under the supervision of a health care worker. The company is transitioning from primarily using the longer swabs to primarily using the shorter nasal swabs because data indicates similar accuracy, a spokeswoman said. Having patients test themselves also reduces the risk of infecting health care workers because the longer swabs can prompt patients to cough or sneeze onto the health care worker whos swabbing them.

Some of San Franciscos city-run testing sites are also now primarily using shorter swabs.

They are more comfortable for many people and can be self-collected, which decreases the amount of (personal protective equipment) used by providers at collection sites, said Veronica Vien, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. As testing science and technology rapidly evolves, we will continue to improve our response and testing efforts.

OptumServe, a health services company contracted by the state to conduct testing in low-income and rural areas, is also using shorter nasal swabs for people 12 years old and younger.

Carbon Health, a San Francisco primary care company that is working with San Francisco to conduct much of the city-provided coronavirus testing, used long swabs at the start of the pandemic. It recently began using more of the shorter nasal swabs.

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.

Three recent studies indicate that nasal samples self-collected by patients using shorter swabs are as accurate, or similar in accuracy, at detecting the virus as samples collected by health care workers using long swabs.

One study in Washington state, published June 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that anterior nares swabs are just as accurate in diagnosing the coronavirus in symptomatic patients as nasopharyngeal swabs. It was published June 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine as a correspondence  a condensed form of reporting findings in the medical journal that is reviewed by the journals editors.

A second study, out of UCLA, found that oral and nasal specimens that were self-collected by patients using shorter mid-turbinate swabs generated results similar in accuracy to nasopharyngeal swab specimens collected by health care workers. The study, posted April 15, included mostly symptomatic patients. It is undergoing peer review.

Another study, published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that symptomatic patients using shorter swabs to collect their own nasal samples yielded test results that were as accurate as samples collected by a health care worker using nasal and oropharyngeal swabs.

But researchers are still trying to determine if shorter nasal swabs are as good for testing asymptomatic patients who have levels of virus in their nose that may be too low to detect in a test. Researchers at UCLA and Stanford are examining this issue.

So far its looking good. So far the problem, what were worried about, is if someone is asymptomatic, if you get nasal swab, will it be as likely to turn positive in a person who has a nasopharyngeal swab? said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford who led the JAMA study and is now studying whether shorter swabs are as good as longer swabs among asymptomatic patients. Is there enough virus in the nose youll detect infection there? You dont want to have a false negative. Thats what were doing now.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho
Toyota Motor Philippines (TMP) is extending a helping hand to the country's medical frontliners again. Previously, they activated their test units in Metro Manila and parts of Laguna. Now, they are donating cars to select hospitals in the same regions.

TMP has pledged to donate 30 Vios units to public hospitals around the Metro and Laguna. The car will be used to aid medical front-liners. With mobility proving a challenge at the moment, TMP's donation would prove valuable during these difficult times.

We consider it a privilege to provide mobility services to healthcare workers whom we consider heroes in the country's current battle with the pandemic, said the automaker.
[June 15, 2020] Islamic Research and Training Institute Partners with Samsung-backed Blocko's E24P to Launch Blockchain-based Smart Credit Management Platform to Boost Islamic Finance Sector

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group has partnered with the Samsung-backed blockchain technology firm Blocko to build a blockchain-based innovative credit enhancement system. The patented Smart Credit Management System minimizes the risks associated with credit financing to businesses and consumers through the use of new economic incentive models and advanced implementations of hybrid blockchain technology. The Smart Credit Management System will be based on smart contracts on the Aergo blockchain. The system, once completed, will be of great value to Islamic banks and other financial institutions. The system aims to: Ensure that credit assessments are performed in a provably transparent and responsible manner, whilst keeping the data and methodology used appropriately secure and confidential based on zero-knowledge proofs.

Allow creditors to reduce credit default rate to improve overall business performance and accelerate efforts in areas of financial inclusion.

Integrate siloed functions in the financing process including credit reporting, credit rating, credit history, and credit insurance to reduce costs and improve efficiency.

Act as an extensible architecture that can allow multiple banks to collaborate on a consortium network to manage credit and insurance in a decentralized, autonomous, and strictly-governed way. "The Islamic finance market is growing rapidly, with projections of a rise from around $2 trillion to an impressive $3.78 trillion by 2022. Yet certain technical and economic challenges have prevented the industry from truly flourishing," said Dr. Sami Al-Suwailem, Acting Director General of IRTI, on the new partnership. "Our new partnership with E24P aims to address this need by providing the infrastructure needed for the Islamic financial industry to deliver critical services to both the developed and developing world." The partnership aims to leverage the E24P blockchain teams' deep expertise in deploying blockchain systems to further the IsDB's mission of enabling greater financial inclusion, alleviating poverty, and accelerating the development of the Islamic financial industry. Commenting on the partnership, Phil Zamani, CEO of E24P, said: "We are honored to be working with IRTI to help them deliver a truly unique solution that has the potential to have a significant impact on the Muslim world. The implementation of blockchain systems in complex processes like credit and insurance has long been sought after by financal institutions around the world. Forward-thinking GCC countries, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have been especially progressive, implementing blockchain projects to accelerate their digital transformation agendas and smart city innovation strategies."



How the Smart Credit Management system works Shari'ah law prohibits banks from charging interest on loans to their borrowers. Islamic banks offer financing to individuals and businesses through real economic transactions such as joint ventures, deferred sale, and leasing agreements. In offering credit financing, Islamic banks need a mechanism to discipline debtors to pay on time. A common practice involves charging debtors with late fees which are then donated to charity. However, because Islamic banks are not allowed to incur any profit and in turn any benefit from these late-payment charges, they are not incentivized to collect these fees and distribute them to charitable organizations in a timely manner. At the same time, because debtors see these late fees as an act of charity, their sense of urgency to pay their debt obligations on time might diminish.

The new system being developed by IRTI and implemented jointly by IRTI and E24P will solve these problems through a novel incentive mechanism that encourages early repayment and contributes fees to an insurance pool that covers involuntary credit defaults. Such a system is not feasible through conventional arrangements but is facilitated through the use of high-performance blockchain technology. Why did IRTI partner with E24P? Many blockchain projects fail to move past the initial proof of concept (POC) stage due to a lack of end-to-end systems design know-how that is coupled with practical implementation of blockchain technology in highly complex industrial environments. The E24P team has the advantage of having already deployed over 38 large-scale private and government blockchain solutions, and this execution intelligence is needed to bypass cost, draw out POCs to fast track to business value implementations. About Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) The Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) is a Member of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group dedicated to knowledge creation and dissemination in Islamic Economics and Finance. With a track record of nearly four decades of delivering cutting-edge research and capacity development programs, IRTI works to develop innovative knowledge-based solutions and enhance human capacity in Islamic Economics and Finance for the sustainable development of IsDB member countries and Muslim communities in non-member countries worldwide. About Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Group is a multilateral development bank with over $50 billion in assets under management, operating in over 57 member countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa. The IsDB works to promote Shari'ah-compliant financing structures in Muslim countries, develop technology and innovation solutions that align with UN Sustainable Development Goals, build partnerships between the private and public sector, facilitate greater degrees of skills and knowledge sharing among member countries, and foster collaboration between nations to support sustainable development. About E24P Based in Abu Dhabi, E24P is a collective of technology experts, distributed financial services providers, state-level government sponsors, and leading research institutes in the UAE and the UK working with clients in high-growth economies and sectors across the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia. E24P delivers cutting-edge innovations in disruptive technologies to public and private sectors, generating economic opportunities that improve social outcomes, exploit new business models, and eliminate inefficiencies for governments through the creation of new digital ecosystems. E24P is deploying the next wave of high-scale, high-security blockchain use cases built on Aergo technology by leveraging bleeding-edge innovations in quantum computing, lattice cryptography, trusted computing, data custody, smart tourism and smart identities, cybersecurity and energy-efficient technologies. View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/islamic-research-and-training-institute-partners-with-samsung-backed-blockos-e24p-to-launch-blockchain-based-smart-credit-management-platform-to-boost-islamic-finance-sector-301076962.html SOURCE Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) and Blocko

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Those disparities have helped drive the influential University of California system  with highly coveted campuses in Berkeley, Los Angeles and seven other locations  to move forcefully away from the two exams. Last month, the UC governing board voted unanimously to make the SAT and ACT optional for all applicants for two years and then to eliminate the tests for in-state applicants after that. That represents a momentous leap to a policy known as test blind, in which schools dont consider scores at all. UC officials are also exploring the creation of a new test that they say would provide a better measure of achievement in Californias core high school subjects.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 14, 2020 | 09:50 PM | GRAVES COUNTY

A Graves County traffic stop Sunday night led to the arrest of a man on drug and gun charges.

The Graves County Sheriff's Office says a deputy conducted a traffic stop on KY 339 at Lee Road. When the deputy approached the vehicle, he allegedly saw drug paraphernalia inside the vehicle.

During a search of the vehicle, the deputy reportedly found marijuana and a handgun. Through a criminal history check, the deputy learned that the driver of the vehicle, 27-year-old Jeremy Foster of Valdosta, GA, was a convicted felon out of Tennessee.

Foster was arrested and lodged in the Graves County Jail. He's charged with speeding, possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, posession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.
Stacker compiled a list of the 26 most popular dog breeds that don't shed based on 2020 data from the American Kennel Club (AKC). The data was compiled from AKC's Hypoallergenic Dogs list; those that don't have a ranking are either not registered with the AKC or are newly registered this year.

This article was first published on Stacker
As Connecticut eases COVID-19 rules for public gatherings across the state, towns and organizations are reevaluating their summer camp programs. And while many towns have canceled their usual camp programs altogether, citing an inability to meet the states restrictions, others have found creative ways to have them anyway.

In Woodbury, Flanders Nature Center and Land Trust is moving ahead with its regular outdoor camp programs for children. Registration is open for the centers series, where children can explore nature, art, agriculture and ecology in a fun, healthy and stimulating outdoor environment, according to a statement.

Flanders summer camp runs from June 22-Sept. 1 and offers more than 60 programs for ages 3-13.

The programs are held at the Van Vleck Farm and Nature Sanctuary, 5 Church Hill Road. Morning and afternoon programs can be combined to provide a full-day, outdoor experience. There is an all day discount, and available extended afternoon as well as morning care. Programs are led by Flanders staff of experienced educators and naturalists on Flanders 200-acre campus of forest, field, farm and pond.

Summer series include Little Explorers for ages 3 to 5, Outdoor Adventures, Amazing Art Adventures, Kids in the Kitchen, Farming Fun, and Environmental Youth Leadership Habitat Investigations: Kids Explore. Each program provides daylong or half-day sessions and fees vary. Children can hike, do nature projects, cook with farm-grown foods and learn about healthful meals, meet and care for resident farm animals and learn about protecting the environment.

Flanders has also added three science academies, including Wetland Ecosystems, June 29-July 10; Landforms and Maps, July 20-24; and Animal Structures and Adaptations, Aug. 17-21. Campers are educated on the importance of water, ecosystems and wetlands; create their own maps using tools including compasses and binoculars; and study domestic and wild animals and how they survive.

Discounts are offered for full-day registration, and for registering before June 29. A further discount is applied for those families who are or become Flanders members at the time of registration. Registration continues, depending on availability, all summer long but families are encouraged to register early to ensure getting their top choices. For the complete summer catalog and details on programs and online registration, visit www.flandersnaturecenter.org or call 203-263-3711.

Flanders Nature Center & Land Trust became one of the first land trusts in the area in 1973, when it received its initial gift of land, the 6.5-acre Manville Kettle, located in the heart of Woodbury. Today, through direct ownership and conservation easements, Flanders manages more than 40 open-space properties, totaling more than 2,300 acres in Woodbury, Bethlehem, Middlebury and Southbury. These holdings include two popular nature preserves in Woodbury: the 200-acre Van Vleck Farm Sanctuary on Flanders Road and the 686-acre Whittemore Sanctuary on Route 64.

Audubons virtual approach

The Connecticut Audubon Societys summer camp is going virtual this year with Connecticut Audubon Adventures: The Not So Bummer Summer.

This camp alternative offers interactive, live, nature-themed explorations and activities for ages 6-10. The program of online and outdoor adventures, designed and run by a highly experienced team of summer camp directors and educators, is a way for kids to have fun at home this summer while connecting with the natural world.

The weekly programs run Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to noon, June 15-Aug. 21. The programs, adapted for online and backyards, will spark curiosity and sharpen thinking skills through experimentation, exploration, art and citizen science. There will be many opportunities throughout to share findings and socialize with others, according to a statement.

This year, Connecticut Audubon favorites such as Fantastic Flyers and Wacky Water Wonders are offered along with new programs: Nosy Neighbors and Digging In. For all subjects, a good balance of engaging hands-on activities, combined with investigative STEAM learning, ensure it will be the solution to a not so bummer summer experience that exercises minds while having fun, organizers said.

Camps are $150 per week for CAS members and $175 for non-members, with discounted pricing for additional sibling(s) or if registering for five weeks, or all ten. To view all the details, including descriptions of weekly topics, a program FAQ and how to register, visit www.ctaudubon.org/summer2020 .

Virtual jazz

The Litchfield Performing Arts Litchfield Jazz Camp is marking 2020 with two online sessions, July 13-17 and July 20-24. Litchfield Jazz Camp,Virtually Yours! was born out of the COVID-19 shutdown.

The staff at the 24-year-old institution has worked diligently for the past few months to work out the kinks and craft a virtual experience second to none for players age 13 to adult, members said in a statement.

Vita Muir, founder and director of Litchfield Performing Arts and producer of Litchfields jazz programs, wants to assure prospective students the Litchfield Jazz Camp, Virtually Yours! program is unlike anything else out there, she said.

Litchfield Jazz Camp faculty members will teach from their home studios, offering more than 20 hours of interactive, engaging instruction each week. Campers will learn jazz theory, the building blocks of all jazz improvisation, at their own level. Participants will determine their level with an online pre-session assessment and will learn the secrets behind the best practice routines. Master Classes will put students together with pros to work out issues unique to their own instrument. Among the participating summer faculty are guitarist Doug Munro, pianist Zaccai Curtis, trombonist Peter Mceachern, vocalist/pianist Nicole Zuraitis, alto saxophonist Kris Allen and tenor sax/flutist Don Braden.

Transcribing classes will help students score, learn, and play solos of the greats. Interactive listening classes will sharpen their critical skills. Late day concerts by top-notch musicians round out the camp day.

Virtually Yours! culminates in the free, live streamed Litchfield Jazz Festival July 25.

To learn more or register for Litchfield Jazz Camp, Virtually Yours! visit ljc2020.eventbrite.com. For updates, go to http://www.litchfieldjazzcamp.com or email info@litchfieldjazzfest.com.

Creativity in a box

In Washington, ASAP! is presenting Summer Connections Box, an online program that provides opportunities for children to connect with each other while at home. The camp runs from July 27-Aug. 7.

The Project ASAP! Summer Connections Box offers art and engineering projects, with supplies and instructions included; invites to a series of online meetups with teachers, and a pen-pal postcard program .

Each camper is invited to participate in a camp-wide collaborative mural project with locations in Torrington and Washington. ASAP will host a blog to follow the progress of the mural, and exhibit performances, photos, or show-and-tells that campers wish to share.

To register or for more information, go to https://asapct.org/2020/06/summer-camp .

Weekly outdoor themes

The Institute for American Indian Studies, 38 Curtis Road, Washington, has developed a modified summer camp program, with outdoor and educational activities in weekly sessions from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., June 26-Aug. 7. Programs are suitable for ages 6-13.

We decided to offer our camp programs because we feel it can be a gateway back to normalcy for children. We expect these experiences will help our young campers face new challenges with resilience, said Executive Director Chris Combs. This year, parents can definitely expect to see safety as the first and foremost focus at our camp. For all of our staff, the health and safety of our campers is paramount. All camp activities will be held outdoors and there will be regular sanitizing, social distancing, and smaller group activities as well as staggered arrivals and pick-ups, all in accordance with guidance issued by various state and federal agencies.

For more information, registration and protocols, visit www.iaismuseum.org/education-programs/summer-camp-2020 .

Each week, campers will join experienced educators on a journey through one of several themes that relate to the museums core mission, such as ecology, archaeology and traditional skills. While hiking in the woods, playing games and creating crafts, campers will practice survival skills, teamwork and problem-solving as they develop confidence while experiencing the great outdoors and making new friends. Campers will learn valuable skills and connect with a culture that has more than 10,000 years of history in this area.

For complete registration information, visit www.iaismuseum.org.

Summer sessions

Region 6 school district, which serves the towns of Goshen, Morris and Warren, recently released a list of summer camp programs in the area. Locations include Camp Mohawk in Litchfield, Eagle Rock Day Camp, Northwest CT YMCA camp programs, and local parks and recreation programs. Note that the town of Litchfields summer day camp has been canceled.

For details and contact information visit https://bit.ly/2Ytk8yJ or https://bit.ly/30Abn8Q.
Arrival of Students of the University of Education Winneba (UEW), Winneba Campus was not encouraging when Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the three campus (Central, South and North) in Winneba.



About 50 students had reported, as per survey conducted at the campuses as at 1100hrs on Monday.



However, information gathered from the Academic Affairs of the University indicated that final year students of the four campuses of UEW in the country were expected to report at their various campuses to continue with academic work and writing of their final examination.



A total of 9,675 final years students are expected to report at the four Campuses (Winneba 5,403, Ajumako 622, Mampong 934 and Kumasi 2,716).



At the main entrance of the various campuses in Winneba, security personnel checked the temperature of all people entering the premises of the University, amidst ensuring that the other safety protocols were adhered to, before being allowed entry.



Speaking to some of the students who had arrived on the Winneba campus, they expressed delight that they will be finishing their examination soon and assured that they will strictly adhere to the protocols to enable them to return to home safely.

Source: GNA









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STORRS  The University of Connecticut has launched an investigation into reports of racist social media posts made by current and incoming students, opening the door on the possibility that some may even have their admissions revoked by the school.

School president Thomas Katsouleas announced the investigation in a social media post Monday afternoon.

We are aware of the social media posts being circulated and are taking each of them very seriously, Katsouleas said in a Twitter post Monday. UConn is committed to racial justice and respect for all, and is reviewing the posts to assess potential action.

In the post, Katsouleas said the investigation will involve conversations with the individuals responsible. The students under investigation by the school will not be allowed to enroll, he said, until they have been cleared.

To be clear, the university has the ability to rescind admission and will do so if necessary to uphold our expectations of each other and the values of our community, he said.

Mondays social media statement was prompted by postings from at least one incoming student and at least one current students that appear to share disturbing and racists sentiments, a UConn student told NBC Connecticut.
Kashmiri journalist Yana Mir has expressed her views against Pakistan's increasing propagandist moves over Kashmir. She has further asked them to stop triggering Kashmiri youth with false information.

A woman Kashmiri journalist and social activist has lambasted Pakistan for spreading false propaganda against India on Kashmir. Yana Mir, the editor-in-chief of the Real Kashmir News, while interacting with Pakistani journalist and other panelists on webinar, said Kashmir is integral part of India and Pakistan is misleading the Kashmiri youth by sponsoring cross-border terrorism.

Over 90 per cent of terrorists are infiltrators who come from your side (Pakistan) with an aim to terrorise and radicalise our youth. Besides motivating the youth to achieve in studies, they are forcing them to take up arms. To stop the infiltration and terrorism, Indian security forces do carry out encounters in which civilians also get hurt. If you want this to stop, the cross-border infiltration needs to be stopped, said Yana Mir, who is a daughter of a retired police officer in J&K Police.

Yana categorically blamed Pakistan for running terror training camps in Pakistan occupied Kashmir from where the armed terrorists infiltrate into India.

She said, Everybody knows that terror training camps exist in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and they infiltrate into the Kashmir valley. Pakistan is deliberately tarnishing Indias image globally by raising the Kashmir issue. It is Pakistan who misleads the youth against our country. The Kashmiri youth is losing its identity with this propaganda. Pakistan must stop playing dirty politics against India and the Kashmiris. Pakistan is politically and militarily engaged in spreading misinformation about Kashmir.

The young Kashmiri journalist said that Pakistan must understand the UN resolution on Kashmir before demanding a referendum in Jammu & Kashmir. She said that the Instrument of Accession was signed by Maharaja Hari Singh and he agreed to accede to India. If J&K has Muslim majority, it doesnt mean that it cant have secular governance. Its propaganda by Pakistan which misleads the Kashmiri youth, said Yana.

I am against any referendum as I am proud as an Indian citizen. I know that if Kashmir gets independent, it will face danger. The way people in Gilgit Baltistan are eager to be part of India, people in Kashmir valley will be in the same situation. Pakistan and China will make our life as hell, she added.

In the best interest of Kashmiris, Kashmir will remain with India. Those who wish to go for a referendum; they must understand the United Nations mandate, said Yana by adding that the UN has clearly given three steps. Referendum comes at the last step. At the second step, India has to reduce its armed forces whereas at the first step Pakistan has to remove its army from the LoC.

The Kashmiri journalist said, It Pakistan does not agree to implement the first step, then why does it directly jump to the third step for a Referendum? If your army leaves the area, India will think about removing its forces. Then it will come to referendum, which is clearly mentioned in the UN mandate. If Pakistani media is not making it clear, then I have a right to say that Pakistan is doing propaganda in Kashmir.

For all the latest World News, download NewsX App
Scope Ratings says the heavy impact of Covid-19 and Brexit is testing the resilience of the UKs economy and public finances, although the UK (rated AA/Negative by Scope) retains important, counterbalancing fiscal strengths.

Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government faces a delicate balancing act of gradually re-opening the economy and easing physical distancing while avoiding a significant second wave of infection, as is the case for many other governments around the world, says Dennis Shen, lead sovereign analyst for the UK.

The UK has experienced a disproportionately heavy toll from the pandemic due in significant part to government mismanagement in the crisis, accounting for near 10% of global Covid-19 confirmed fatalities (according to Johns Hopkins University data) with 0.9% of the worlds population. The economy and health trade-off in this crisis is not such an obvious trade-off in the final analysis  as long as the virus is not brought under control, there cannot be a true normalisation of economic conditions, says Shen.

Brexit represents a second potential risk

The UK faces a second potential crisis: the looming end-June deadline in the Brexit process on whether to extend the standstill implementation period in the EUs single market and customs union beyond 2020  a deadline that UK negotiators are likely to let pass by.

If so, the UK would technically lose its option under the 2019 Withdrawal Agreement to avoid a disruptive no deal exit on 1 January 2021, says Shen. However, even if the deadline is ignored, we expect an agreement late in 2020 to extend the transition state and avoid hard Brexit. Such an extension would mean that the UK continues payments to the EU budget for the EUs 2021-27 financial period.

Beneath the rhetoric and Brexit posturing, we believe there is little real appetite from general publics for a no-deal exit on either side of the Channel in the middle of a severe health and economic crisis, says Shen. UK proposals for a temporary light-touch customs regime, in the case no trade deal is struck, are also unrealistic  as stated by the EU.

Story continues

Deep recession alongside fiscal deterioration

The UK economy is expected to be in a very deep recession in 2020. A significant weakening of the UKs public finances is foreseen with the budget deficit set to increase to above 10% of GDP in 2020 with public debt to climb above 100% of GDP from 85% in 2019, says Shen. Potential no-deal Brexit contingency planning late in 2020 is expected to add additional budget costs  as it did in 2019. Economic uncertainties tied to Brexit will damage investment and impede the recovery later in 2020 as well as in future years.

Public debt will likely continue to rise over the medium run toward 115% by 2024, as the UK economy recovers with the support of accommodative fiscal and monetary policies but deficits remain high as the Conservative government seeks to avoid a fresh round of austerity cuts, in line with a potentially more lax fiscal consolidation response globally after this crisis compared with after 2008-09. This also links to a weakened UK fiscal framework after attrition from the Brexit process.

With Labour gaining on the Conservatives in opinion polls, the government will want to provide fiscal support for households and business  likely forgoing significant tax increases and spending reductions for the foreseeable future, he says. The government has discussed treating debt accrued in 2020 as war debt, justifying a higher public debt ratio. Central bank QE has moreover granted governments greater fiscal space. Unfortunately, debts accrued during this crisis will, nonetheless, have to be repaid one day, says Shen.

However, the UK maintains economic and fiscal strengths

However, the UK has counterbalancing economic and fiscal strengths. As one of three economies with a Big Four central bank alongside an independent monetary policy  the others being the United States and Japan  the UK can issue gilts and raise borrowing with limited immediate concern regarding debt sustainability. UK yields are near historic lows: at or under 0% on the short to medium end and only 0.2% to borrow for 10 years (compared with near 5% at 2008 crisis heights). Similarly, UK interest payments are at their lowest since World War II, with debt interest to revenues of around 3.5%, well under a new fiscal rule set in case this ratio were to rise above 6%.

The 2020 public debt ratio remains well below that of similarly rated sovereigns such as France (AA/Stable) (at around 115% of GDP at end-2020) and the US (AA/Stable) (135-140%) despite the increase in the UK governments debt stock. Government annual gross financing needs are also significantly below those of such sovereigns, with the UKs long average maturity of public debt of 15.2 years contrasting with 7.8 years in the case of France, 5.8 years for the US, and a weighted average of 7 years for G7 countries.

Moreover, the Bank of England has been buying gilts in the secondary market, says Shen. With the expansion of QE to GBP 645bn as announced in March, the central bank should at minimum approach holding 30% of outstanding UK debt securities in 2020, up from 24% at end-2019, with the significant possibility that QE is further enlarged. Even if purchases represent only the momentary transfer of UK debt to the central bank, this goes some way in curtailing the 2020 increase in UK government debt owed to the private sector  the segment of sovereign debt rated by Scope.

For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar.

Dennis Shen is a Director in Public Finance at Scope Ratings GmbH.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

More From FXEMPIRE:
But an independent scientist said it would be too high for workers to bear

Turning up the temperature inside buildings could reduce the spread of the coronavirus, scientists suggested in an advice paper to the Government.

Minutes from a meeting of the scientific advisory group SAGE showed that experts discussed the idea in May.

They said there was 'moderate' evidence that the virus would be less able to survive on solid surfaces in hotter environments.

The same has been found to be true of SARS, an almost identical virus, and SAGE suggested it could be an option for businesses where improving ventilation was not feasible.

One scientist explained the reason the virus becomes weaker at higher temperatures is that the molecules move around as they take on more heat energy. The movement can disturb and break the bonds between molecules and damage the virus's structure.

But Dr Andrew Preston, from the University of Bath, said it was unlikely that temperature changes tolerable in an office would make any real difference - and that the virus is clearly still able to survive at more than 38C (100F); body temperature.

SAGE did not suggest how hot a room would have to be to weaken the virus and make it less infectious.

Businesses have for weeks been trying to find ways to reopen their doors to employees and customers to get the battered economy moving again, and high street stores have today reopened to the public for the first time since lockdown.

Offices could be advised to turn the heating up high in order the protect staff from the coronavirus, Sage papers suggest (stock image)

The discussion by SAGE was mentioned in the minutes of its 35th meeting, held on May 12, which have now been published.

The minutes read: 'There is some evidence for it [the coronavirus] becoming less stable at higher temperature and humidity within typical indoor operating ranges (moderate confidence), and some evidence that it is very stable at low temperatures (low confidence).

'This could be reflected in operational guidance for relevant organisations, though the evidence for ventilation is stronger, so changes to temperature or humidity should only be considered where ventilation can still be maintained.'

The virus's ability to survive for long periods on hard surfaces is one of the biggest barriers to stopping it, because people can pick it up on their hands without knowing.

People are more likely to catch the infection in enclosed spaces with other people, where ventilation is poor and strangers touch the same surfaces regularly.

WILL SUMMER 'KILL' THE VIRUS? Studies suggest heat and humidity that is soon to come to the UK will only slightly reduce the transmission rate - not stop it in its tracks - which is why experts say being outdoors is 'low risk'. For example, the most recently published study, on May 9, said transmission risk was only reduced by about 1.5 per cent for every degree Fahrenheit above 77F (25C). US and Canadian researchers analysed more than 370,000 cases in thousands of different cities in North America to come to the conclusion 'summer is not going to make this go away'. Another study by researchers at Beihang and Singhua universities, however, suggested rising temperatures and humidity 'significantly' reduced the spread. Using their equation, if the temperature increased by 15C, or 27 degrees F, an infected person would spread coronavirus to about 0.6 fewer people. The scientists also pointed out that in the early dates of the outbreaks, countries with relatively lower air temperature and lower humidity, like Korea, Japan and Iran, saw severe outbreaks. But warmer and more humid countries, like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, did not. A separate study that compared transmission rates with the weather in 224 Chinese cities concluded there was no relationship. 'Our analysis suggested that ambient temperature has no significant impact on the transmission ability of SARS-CoV-2,' the researchers at Fudan University said. 'It is premature to count on warmer weather to control COVID-19, and relying on seasonality to curb this pandemic can be a dangerous line of thought. 'Changing seasons may help but are unlikely to stop transmission.' Commenting on the contradictory research, Professor Hunter said: 'The coronavirus might spread less rapidly because people tend to be outdoors in the summer more anyway. 'It's an indirect impact - we are not as crammed in together during the summer. Schools are closed, people go away on holiday, and people sit in open air to eat rather than in restaurants. 'But, and there is a big but, a lot of the evidence for that is based on seasonal illnesses [like the flu].' Advertisement

The paper did not recommend a temperature which would work to kill the virus and how this would work in a real-life setting.

It also suggested changes to temperature should only be considered in places with poor ventilation.

Scientists agree one of the best ways to improve infectious disease control in a building is with ventilation which help disperse virus-laden droplets inside.

Commenting on the SAGE paper's suggestions, Dr Preston, from the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at University of Bath, said he was doubtful a hike in heat could protect staff from catching the coronavirus.

He told MailOnline: 'My suspicion is it would be hard to raise the temperature in an indoor workplace that would have significant effects that people would find bearable.

'You start to notice environment at about 25C (77F). Although it's possible it may help to reduce the virus, I can't see taking the temperature from 20 (68) to 23C (73F) making a huge difference.

'It would be such a slight contribution to infectious disease control.

'Although it might shorten the viruses stability from, say, 12 to 10 hours, thats still no significant change to a person's exposure.'

Dr Preston explained that heat breaks down bonds that keep proteins in the virus in shape.

As you increase heat, the energy causes molecules to move more and the bonds break. When proteins lose their structure, they lose their function and the virus becomes inactive.

The lipid layer around the virus would also break down the same way as it would if disinfectant or anti bacterial hand gel was used.

'Clearly the virus can survive at 37C (98.6F), because that is body temperature,' Dr Preston said - but it wouldn't be realistic to ask people to work under those conditions.

He admitted there is research emerging to suggest high temperatures may play a role in suppressing the coronavirus.

For example, researchers at Beihang and Singhua universities suggested rising temperatures and humidity 'significantly' reduced the spread.

Using their equation, if the temperature increased by 15C, or 27F, an infected person would spread coronavirus to about 0.6 fewer people.

The scientists also pointed out that in the early dates of the outbreaks, countries with relatively lower air temperature and lower humidity, like Korea, Japan and Iran, saw severe outbreaks.

But warmer and more humid countries, like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, did not.

Countries like Brazil and India - with more than 867,000 and 333,300 confirmed cases, respectively - are still battling the worst of their outbreaks despite being warm countries.

It suggests other factors, such as the strength of a healthcare system, population and age demographics or government decisions, would over-ride any protective effect of heat for limiting the spread.

Scientists say the virus is less able to spread outdoors because viruses UV rays in sunlight damages the genetic material, meaning people are less likely to pick them up from surfaces.

And droplets containing the virus will be blown away quite quickly usually if there is a breeze.

Professor Alan Penn, a member of SAGE, the Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, reassured that those who flock to the parks that the risk of catching the virus outside is lower.

He said on May 13: 'The science suggests that being outside in sunlight, with good ventilation, are both highly protective against transmission of the virus.'

Other scientists say they 'totally agree' with Professor Penn and advocate spending more time outdoors, where the virus is less likely to survive.
CHARLESTON, W.Va., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Aetna Better Health of West Virginia, a CVS Health company (NYSE: CVS), today announced that the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) has awarded the company a statewide Medicaid contract through the Mountain Health Trust managed care program. The Mountain Health Trust program serves most Medicaid eligible groups, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), pregnant women, Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the West Virginia Health Bridge Medicaid expansion population, and beginning in early 2021, the West Virginia Children's Health Insurance Program (WVCHIP).

Aetna Better Health has been committed to providing quality care to Medicaid beneficiaries in West Virginia for more than 23 years. Last November the company was awarded the sole contract for the state's new Mountain Health Promise program. Through this program, Aetna Better Health provides physical and behavioral health managed care services on a statewide basis to more than 20,000 children and youth in the foster care system and individuals receiving adoption assistance.

"Providing high-quality health care to our members is critical to our mission. As a company with a long history of caring for West Virginians, we are proud to serve Medicaid beneficiaries in all 55 counties across the state," said Todd White, CEO, Aetna Better Health of West Virginia. "We remain committed to our strong partnerships with the state, our providers, and community-based organizations to deliver on our goal of providing better health outcomes to our valued members."

Aetna Better Health of West Virginia currently serves 160,000 members across the state through the Mountain Health Trust and Mountain Health Promise managed care programs. The new Mountain Health Trust contract term begins July 1, 2020 and runs through June 30, 2021.

About Aetna Medicaid

Aetna Medicaid Administrators LLC (Aetna Medicaid), a CVS Health business, has over 30 years of experience managing the care of the most medically vulnerable, using innovative approaches and a local presence in each market to achieve both successful health care results and effective cost outcomes. Aetna Medicaid has particular expertise serving high-need Medicaid members, including those who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare. Currently, Aetna Medicaid owns and/or administers Medicaid managed health care plans under the names of Aetna Better Health and other affiliate names. Together, these plans serve approximately 2.4 million people in 16 states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Texas. For more information, see www.aetnabetterhealth.com.

Aetna Media Contact:

Leigh Woodward

860-900-6058

[email protected]

SOURCE CVS Health

Related Links

http://www.aetnabetterhealth.com


MOSCOW, June 15 (Reuters) - U.S. ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said on Monday that Russia's sentencing of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan to 16 years in jail for spying would harm relations between Moscow and Washington, the Interfax news agency reported.

Whelan's lawyer said after the verdict that his client had been told he would be part of a prisoner swap with a Russian national held in the United States, something the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had proposed on many occasions.

A Russian court found Whelan guilty of spying for the United States earlier on Monday and sentenced him to 16 years in jail after a closed trial which U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque. (Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Writing by Alexander Marrow Editing by Andrew Osborn)
KEY HIGHLIGHTS

IndiGo is flying at 30% of its planned summer capacity, up from 20% in late May

IndiGo wants to ratchet up its capacity to 50% and then 70% but don't have an exact timeline

IndiGo says that its load factors, revenues and future bookings are going up since domestic flying was allowed

IndiGo wants to get out credit shells issue as quickly as possible

Three weeks after the government permitted domestic flight operations, the largest carrier IndiGo has been witnessing sustained growth in the air traffic. In a conversation with Business Today, IndiGo's CEO Ronojoy Dutta says that everyone expected a jump in air traffic after the lifting up of the lockdown, and believed that the demand would crash afterwards. But Dutta says that didn't happen. In fact, IndiGo has added 130 more flights since May 25 to take its total flights to 350 now.

"If the pent-up demand was the sole fuel of all the traffic, it should have gone away in two weeks. But that's not happening. It's not like there was a peak and it came down," he says.

ALSO READ: IndiGo targets 50% daily flight capacity by July; profitability 14 months away

Dutta says that it's important for IndiGo to get more planes up in the air for two reasons. Firstly, it will help IndiGo cover for its higher fixed costs. The airline has about 40 per cent fixed costs, including lease rentals and employee costs. While IndiGo has cut staff salaries and sent some employees on furloughs to bring down staff costs, it's not negotiating with lessors on the rentals. Though there are discussions going on with stakeholders like hotels, transportation companies and IT suppliers to bring down the fixed costs.

"We are not pushing hard with lessors. IndiGo's relationship with lessors is very critical to our success, and we have a lot more planes coming. We want to make sure that we absolutely fulfill our past obligations. As we take more aeroplanes, there's room for negotiation there. It's a forward-looking rather than a backward-looking process with lessors," he says.

The second reason to increase capacity is to handle the refunds issue better. IndiGo, like many other global and domestic carriers, have issued credit shells against cancelled bookings during the lockdown period. Some of the cash refunds have been processed following the directives of Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), but a large chunk of refunds is still stuck in the form of credit shells. A large number of passengers of these cancelled flights have been asking airlines and online travel aggregators (OTAs) to issue cash refunds, but Dutta says that airlines like IndiGo are in a bind.

"The government asked us to shutdown all flights. Then, they said don't take any future bookings. If we don't have future bookings, how do we pay for those refunds? We got caught in that bind as did the whole global industry. All the US airlines, Air France, and Air Canada got huge amounts of money from the government. We got zero. We want to get out of this credit shell issue as quickly as possible. The best way of doing that is to put more flights in the air," Dutta says adding that by September-October, IndiGo will be in a position to issue cash refunds where it's absolutely necessary.

As per regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), IndiGo's market share in the domestic segment has gone up to 50.6 per cent in May. Though the airline has flown for just seven days in May, the true picture of market share and other key performance metrics (load factors, on-time performance) would emerge in the June data.

ALSO READ: Aviation Ministry can't make up its mind on filling middle seats in flights

IndiGo hopes that wide-bodies would become uncompetitive; and Indian domestic carriers would emerge stronger in the post-COVID world. "The wide-bodies market has really crashed. It's sharply down because of this issue of how do airlines [with wide-bodies] would get connecting traffic. Because the competitiveness of these one-stop flights from the Middle East and Thailand goes down appreciably, and the wide body planes in particular become less competitive to narrow bodies, I think Indian aviation will be in a stronger position," he says.

As key passenger revenue segment has been hit, the airlines like IndiGo and SpiceJet have ventured into newer areas like all-cargo operations, and chartered flights. IndiGo, in particular, has converted 10 of its existing A320s aircraft into cargo planes besides doing about 10 chartered flights a day for individuals, and groups.

However, since the opening up of the domestic flights, the tariff pattern has been uneven. For instance, there are more bookings happening on the Mumbai-to-Patna flight as compared to Patna-to-Mumbai flights. In general, the air traffic has been largely unidirectional with more flying towards the east of the country.

Dutta says that it's partly because airlines have to adhere to fare bands across all flights for three months till August, as suggested by MoCA. For instance, fares on Delhi-to-Patna flight can be priced in the band of Rs 3,000-9,000 per ticket. So even if Patna-to-Delhi flights are typically at 30 per cent load factors (vis-a-vis 85 per cent loads on Delhi-to-Patna flights), the airline cannot bring down the fares below Rs 3,000 to stimulate demand.

"That's part of the problem with this band and I hope the government takes it away in August as promised because we need a little more flexibility to play on this unidirectional traffic, and bands somewhat come in the way of that," Dutta says.

ALSO READ: How IndiGo is turning Covid crisis into an opportunity
I have always believed adult friendship is a scam. As children, we befriend those around us easily and unconditionally; as adults, our decisions are calculated and purposeful and are usually to do with advancing a career or with social standing. While, as kids, our boundaries are set by parents and family, as adults, we set our own boundaries, making measurements on how much wed like to invest in a person versus what they offer us in return. The pandemic made me rethink these ideas.

Some time ago, a colleague-friend said she viewed friendship as the truest, most selfless relationship in life. Her words prompted me to look back at my own friendships. I fully believe in the concept of friendship, and what it brings to life. Maybe I read too much Harry Potter as a child, and watched one too many episodes of Shaka Laka Boom Boom, but friendship to me meant living every adventure together. Friends should be willing to live and die for you. When I asked my friend Elena, who was visiting me from Greece, if she would marry a friend just because he needed a passport to Europe, her answer was an unequivocal Yes. Friends should be willing to go any lengths to be there for you.

As an adult, I realised that doesnt really happen. I tied friendship bands and made promises of forever, but bonds dont last: cities change, priorities shift, and more often than people admit, partners get in the way. With this solemn understanding, I made peace with the fact that maybe friendship wasnt to be one of my blessings. I believed it not with resignation but with pragmatic acceptance: you cant have everything, and I had much else.

Author Srishti Chaudhary (Courtesy Penguin Random House)

I have a supportive family, and romantically, Ive been loved and respected in a way that can be enviable. I never had the existential crisis that makes me question my purpose in life as I always had a certain level of professional clarity. On top of that, I am unbearably optimistic. I can talk to anyone as long as they are not deathly boring. Ive met several people just once in life and kept up contact for years. I love company and thrive on conversations. Despite misgivings, a lot of my friendships are more than a decade old, and Im still in my twenties. So if true and selfless friendship wasnt fated for me, so be it.

But I saw something different about friendship in the pandemic, a nuance that doesnt reveal itself too often in the humdrum of daily life and the swarm of people around us. I started to see truth in the selflessness of friendship my colleague was talking about -- or rather began acknowledging the experience of it, as I already believed it to be true. Just as everyone else, I found myself checking up on friends. This urge to reach out to friends while in lockdown has been natural for everyone, but in the absence of commitments that normal life demands, it was experienced more truly. I found myself worried and concerned about them, especially those who live alone. I offered them all the time I had to chat, no matter what stuff I had to do, and they did the same.

304pp, 299; Penguin

It helped that there was a unity of feeling across the world: the pandemic and the lockdowns may have been enacted differently but the consequences were similarly felt. For the first time, when I called and asked the other person how they were doing, I heard the answer to exactly that: how they were doing, and not the chatterings of a busy life. We tried to make sense of the collapsing world around us, delving deep to articulate how we felt. When people are stripped of their decorations, the materiality that is present so strongly around us, there is nothing left but your humanity to offer. And this humanity asks friendship to simply listen, and share; without the drama of it all. No catch-ups over coffee, no Sunday brunches, and no pictures to commemorate meetings: just naked conversation.

So as we unlock and go back out into the world, I will remember how isolation drove us closer. When we stay two metres apart and are unable to kiss and hug those who we love, I will remember how friends can be there for you without being there. And while they may not be able to cross certain boundaries for you, Ill remember that fleeting moments of care and warmth are the greatest adventures of life, memories that stand out as spots of love in a tragic world.

Something has changed. Maybe adult friendship is not as big a scam as I originally thought.

Srishti Chaudharys second novel, Lallan Sweets, will be out in July 2020.
SAN ANTONIO, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alleging they were sickened by toxic, mold-infested military housing, a group of U.S. Army families sued the corporate landlords and managers of thousands of Fort Hood homes for fraud and deceptive trade practices today, according to Pulman, Cappuccio & Pullen, LLP and co-counsel.

Filed in San Antonio federal court, the lawsuit by nine military families accuses three companies of systematically under-maintaining the privatized housing and then defrauding the families about the condition and repairs of the homes. According to the lawsuit, Fort Hood Family Housing LP, FHFH, Inc., its general partner, and their parent company Lend Lease US Public Partnerships LLC:

subjected service members and their families to deplorable conditions, including pervasive mold that sickened them and destroyed many of their possessions;

took the full base housing allowances of the families while providing woefully substandard houses unsafe for human habitation;

made a "litany of promises" to perform future repairs and to make the houses habitable without any intention of fulfilling those promises, and;

took active, deceptive measures to hide the extent of the harmful living conditions, including painting to cover up mold, coercing third-party testing/remediation companies into issuing false or misleading reports, and deleting work order requests.

In the lawsuit, the families assert, "Defendants refuse to admit the truth regarding the severity of the problems in the housing for which they are responsible. Defendants refuse to remedy the underlying conditions that cause mold in the houses they lease to service members, instead moving them to hotels or temporary 'hospitality suites' with just as many problems, all the while assuring service members the temporary lodgings are just fine."

The families allege they have suffered symptoms of toxic mold exposure, including respiratory illnesses, like pneumonia and asthma, nausea, toxic encephalopathy, ear infections, mental illness, severe nosebleeds, skin rashes, and headaches.

The families are represented by Pulman, Cappuccio & Pullen, LLP, of San Antonio; the Law Offices of James R. Moriarty, of Houston; Watts Guerra LLP, of San Antonio; and Johnson Reist PLLC, of Plano, Texas.

Ryan C. Reed, of Pulman, Cappuccio & Pullen, LLP, said, "Fort Hood is nicknamed 'The Great Place,' but service members and their families have discovered that living there is anything but 'great.' Instead, many service members' time living there has been marred by neglected, filthy living conditions in on-post housing that has caused the service members and their families injury, personal property damage, illness, heartache, and insult."

Mikal Watts, of Watts Guerra LLP, said, "These companies have proven themselves to be substandard, cheap, slow, neglectful, and duplicitous. The stories of the affected military families are consistent and horrifying. These families, some of which have endured multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, deserve to be safe at home. Their service to our nation should be respected. Their hard-earned base housing allowance should not require their families to live in dangerous mold and face catastrophic health consequences."

Fort Hood, located near Killeen, Texas, is currently home to more than 50,000 service members and their family members. The Defendants now manage an estimated 5,617 houses in 11 neighborhoods at Fort Hood, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges deceptive trade practices, breach of implied warranty of habitability, breach of contract, negligence and negligent misrepresentation and gross negligence, statutory fraud in a real estate transaction, common law fraud, unjust enrichment, and violations of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

The case is "SFC Jesus Joseph Brown and Emilee Brown, et al., v. Fort Hood Family Housing LP, et al.," No. 5:20-cv-00704 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division.

CONTACT: Erin Powers, Powers MediaWorks LLC, for Pulman, Cappuccio & Pullen, LLP, 281.703.6000, [email protected].

SOURCE Pulman, Cappuccio & Pullen, LLP

Related Links

https://www.pulmanlaw.com


- A 50-year-old man saved the sum of P56,000(N43,108.72) for his son to buy him a phone on his graduation day

- To achieve that, the man said he had to put in a lot of effort for many months to save the sum

- In one of the pictures shared by CNN on Facebook, the man could be seen with the coins he saved in his piggybank

The length at which loving parents will go to make sacrifices for their children is always a thing of wonder. A man in the Philippines worked hard to make his son feel special.

A truck driver, Edwin Bayson, saved hard and long and used the savings to buy his son a mobile phone as a graduation gift.

According to CNN, the 50-year-old man who stays in Carmona town said that he had to save for four months to be able to get P5,600 (43,108.72).

The father said his son graduated from a two-year applied engineering course, adding that he is also passionate about vlogging. He said he always used his friends' phones to perform the task.

Bayson said that his son now has his personal device to do what he is passionate about as he waits to get a job.

See their pictures below:

A collage of the father and son. Photo source: Facebook/CNN Philippines

Source: UGC

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that a lady with the Twitter name Belle has shown off the great gift her daddy got her when she graduated college.

The 20-year-old said that when she was in high school, her dad struck a deal with her that he would give her a car if she could graduate on time and with good grades. In a tweet on Friday, May 1, the lady said she achieved it as she graduated at 20 and got her BA.

In other news, Duro Oluwu is a designer with great influences as he decorated the Vermeil Room in the White House.

The Nigerian said that his aim is to create good pieces that people would always engage and never be tired of.

My idea is to create a beautiful feast for the eyes, reminiscent of a warm and joyful season, filled with international treasures and signature fabrics, he spoke of his work in the White House room.

It should be noted that he decorated the room during Barack Obamas presidency in the US. He said that he was sure Michelles visitors would be as delighted as she is when they visit the room during the holiday season.

The composition of the room was comprised of 8-foot-tall Christmas trees wrapped with vintage African fabrics encrusted with shiny balls. There were also patchworks at strategic places in the room.

The success story of Rocky Dawuni | #Yencomgh

Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Get interactive via our Facebook page.

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Source: YEN.com.gh
The search intensifies for missing Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen as her case sparks nationwide attention from local and national celebrities.

Guillen's family remains hopeful they will find Guillen alive.

MISSING SINCE APRIL: Family of Fort Hood soldier Vanessa Guillen want answers on her disappearance

Houston rapper Baby Bash shared a message on Facebook and committed to adding $5,000 to the reward for information on Guillen.

Salma Hayek shared two Instagram posts with Guillen's photo and important details about her case.

"Her mother Gloria, claims that her daughter had complained to her about a sergeant sexually harassing her," Hayek said. "When her mother asked her to report him, Vanessa said other women had reported him, and they were not believed."

"Vanessa and Gloria, I believe you and I pledge to put Vanessa's photo on my stories every day until she is found," said Hayek.

The family has also started a GoFundMe account to raise money for a lawyer. The account has raised $49, 561 to date.

On Friday, June 12, a peaceful protest was held outside the gates of Fort Hood, and the family vowed to hold protests every Friday until Guillen is found.

Guillen was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, purple leggings, and black Nike shoes. She is 5 feet, 3 inches tall, and weighs 126 pounds.

According to a Fort Hood press release, Pfc. Vanessa Guillen is a highly valued member of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, said 3rd Cavalry Regiment commander Col. Ralph Overland.

We will maintain our resolve to locate Pfc. Vanessa Guillen and will continue our efforts until she is found, Overland said. We will never quit searching.

Anyone with information is being asked to contact Army CID Special Agents at 254-495-7767 or the Military Police Desk at 254-287-4001.

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Episode 16

OH&S SafetyPod: ASSP Safety 2020: Transitioning to the Digital Space

Due to COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings, ASSP's Safety 2020 show has gone virtual! Listen in as Editor Sydny Shepard discusses the benefits of a virtual event with ASSP President Diana Stegall.

I dont know about you - but pre-COVID-19, I was excited for June because I knew that I would be traveling to Orlando to attend the American Society of Safety Professionals Safety 2020 Conference and Exposition. ASSPs Safety show was the first large trade show I attended after becoming the Editor of OH&S and I have fond memories of getting to meet all of you, walking the expo floor and seeing all the new products as well as sitting amid all the safety professionals in the conference educational sessions.

It really was my first foray into the safety industry and I always am excited to attend, but this year, because of COVID-19 and the recommendation to socially distance and avoid large crowds, ASSP had to pivot and move to a virtual platform.

I was interested in what that might mean for Safety 2020, so I brought Diana Stegall, ASSPs 105th President on the podcast to talk about the decision to go virtual, the advantages and benefits this new format, and if you stay until the end youll get to hear a sneak preview of what is to come next year for Safety 2021!

Listen to this episode of OH&S SafetyPod on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and more.

A special thank you to Bradley:

For almost 100 years, Bradley has created the most complete and advanced commercial washrooms and comprehensive solutions that make industrial environments safe. Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Bradley is a USGBC & ISEA member and manufacturer of locker room products, plumbing fixtures, washroom accessories, partitions, emergency fixtures and tankless water heaters. https://www.bradleycorp.com/
The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
Images of hundreds of Irish teenage girls are being used on sordid Twitter accounts without their knowledge or consent.

Girls - some as young as 13 - are pictured on highly objectifying Irish and British Twitter accounts.

The accounts have caused great distress to the teenager whose first names were used along with their pictures. One of these accounts was removed from Twitter late last week.

Last month, the Irish Examiner reported on disturbing Twitter accounts, featuring stolen photos of more than 60 teenage girls from Cork captioned with degrading and highly sexualised language.

Many of the girls whose images were posted without their consent to the most recent Twitter account are from the north Dublin area.

Another account, proclaiming to show British girls, also features some Irish teenagers.

One teenager told the Irish Examiner that she was just 13 in some of the photos stolen from her.

Reading the comments made me feel sick, she said.

I just find it scary. They used pictures from when I was 13 which is my sister's age [that] probably made me most sick.

The Only Irish Girls' account, which has since been suspended, was opened in October 2011 and had amassed 3,576 followers.

Many of those commenting, often using very lewd language, had profile pictures of men in their 50s and 60s, some pictured with families.

Want to be invited to her slumber party, was one of the many comments made.

The second account, claiming to be British, encouraged its 44.6k followers to Rate and retweet her.

Legal experts say that legislation has not caught up with technology and this gap allows online abuse to often go unpunished.

The horse has bolted in terms of saying dont put your image up online, Noeline Blackwell, of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said.

The online world is with us. So its about trying to curtail the harm that it is doing in some ways with more legislation.

There is the challenge that you dont always know the extent of theft of peoples images really because the internet is so global.

Where we cant actually enforce legislation we must try to work to improve the culture."

Ms Balckwell called for legislation to criminalise the theft or misuse of intimate images and for comprehensive complaint systems so that misappropriated images could be removed from internet platforms quickly.

She also called for education and public awareness campaigns to prompt a change in culture to stamp out "the kind of casualness where people think its OK to abuse another persons image."

Ms Blackell and multiple organisations under the leadership of the Children's Rights Alliance are currently lobbying the Government to amend draft online safety legislation to include a Digital Safety Commissioner whose office would hold media companies to account and enforce online safety regulations.

They also want to see an efficient and effective complaints procedure included in the legislation so that individuals can complain about any online infringements of their rights.

"The current draft of legislation is absolutely insufficient," Ms Balckwell said.
Global coronavirus caseload at 7.76 million, nearly 430K dead

Iran Press TV

Sunday, 14 June 2020 5:55 AM

Cases of infection with the new coronavirus have surpassed 7.76 million across the world, and the death toll is inching close to the 430,000 mark, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Some 7,766,625 people have been infected and 429,732 others have lost their lives worldwide since the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in China late last year.

Out of the global caseload, some 3,698,227 people have recovered.

The largest numbers of confirmed cases are reported in the United States, Brazil, and Russia. The highest numbers of fatalities have been registered in the US, the United Kingdom, and Brazil.

Europe has been witnessing a rise in the number of people contracting the virus over the past couple of weeks, as lockdown measures have been relaxed in most of the countries across the continent.

Latin America, regarded as the new epicenter of the virus, has Brazil and Peru at the top of its list of countries with the highest cases.

The following is the latest updates on the coronavirus pandemic from around the globe:

Ukraine registers record high for third consecutive day

Ukraine has recorded its highest daily count of new coronavirus infections for the third day in a row, more than double the counts earlier in the month.

The Ukrainian Health Ministry reported 753 new cases on Saturday, compared with 683 the previous day.

Ukraine was recording fewer than 350 new cases a day in early June.

The total number of confirmed infection cases in the European country stands at 30,506 and deaths at 880.

Germany's confirmed cases pass 186,000

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany rose by 247 to 186,269, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases on Sunday.

The reported death toll increased by six to 8,787.

Spain to open borders to EU on June 21

Spanish media announced on Sunday that the country would open its borders to the European Union (EU)'s Schengen area on June 21, except for Portugal, the border with which will open on July 1.

Spain's El Pais newspaper and Ser radio station also reported that the Spanish government, as previously announced, would allow foreign tourists to enter the country on July 1 without self-quarantining.

Brazil's new cases keep soaring

Brazil has registered 850,514 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, and its total death toll reached 42,720, the Brazilian Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

Brazil reported 21,704 new cases over the last 24 hours and 892 fatalities.

The mounting toll in Brazil comes as the country has plans to ease quarantine restrictions and reopen businesses amid pressure from President Jair Bolsonaro and his followers.

Far-right Bolsonaro has accused state governments of exaggerating the number of infections and deaths to undermine his presidency, playing down the gravity of the crisis and dismissing COVID-19 as "a little flu."

Chile's health minister resigns in toll scandal

Chile has the highest number of confirmed cases per million people in Latin America, reporting a total of 167,355 cases and 3,101 fatalities as of Saturday.

Also on Saturday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced the resignation of Health Minister Jaime Manalich following a controversy over the official coronavirus death toll in the country.

While the Chilean government has said publicly that the disease has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people since the first case emerged in the country on March 3, a report revealed on Saturday that Chile had informed the World Health Organization (WHO) of a death toll of more than 5,000.

Ciper, a Chilean investigative website, reported that the Health Ministry had told the WHO that as many as 5,000 deaths in the country were linked to the coronavirus.

Nearly half of Chile's population of 18 million is now on a strict lockdown.

Mexico reports some 3,500 new cases

Mexico's Health Ministry on Saturday reported 3,494 new infections as well as 424 deaths, bringing the totals in the Latin American country to 142,690 cases and 16,872 fatalities.

The government has said the real number of infected people is likely higher than the official count.

Argentina's cases pass 30,000 mark

Coronavirus infections in Argentina surpassed 30,000 on Saturday, with 815 deaths recorded since the beginning of March.

The record of 1,531 positive cases detected in one day brought the total tally to 30,295.

In 18 of the 23 Argentinean provinces, there are gradual plans for the resumption of almost all activities, except for events that involve crowding.

The government of President Alberto Fernandez has ordered the extension of lockdowns until June 28, and is expected to press on with strict containment measures at least in the capital, Buenos Aires.

China records 57 new cases

China on Sunday reported 57 new cases of infection, the highest daily figure since April, amid concerns about the resurgence of the disease.

China's National Health Commission said in a statement that 38 of the new confirmed cases were locally transmitted, 36 of them in the capital, Beijing.

Beijing has linked the recorded jump in new confirmed cases to a meat and vegetable market in the city's southwestern Fengtai district. Chinese authorities ordered the shutdown of the Xinfadi wholesale market on Saturday and asked people to stay home in 11 residential estates in the vicinity of the market.

Beijing also ordered a city-wide food safety inspection that focused on fresh and frozen meat in supermarkets, warehouses, and catering services.

China now has 83,132 cases of COVID-19 and a related death toll of 4,634.

South Korea reports 34 new coronavirus cases

Health officials in South Korea on Sunday confirmed 34 new coronavirus cases, as an upward trend in new infections continued in the country.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 30 of the new cases were in the densely-populated Seoul region, where half of the country's 51 million people live.

South Korean authorities have attributed the new cases to nightlife establishments, church services, and door-to-door salesmen.

South Korea has now recorded 12,085 virus cases and 277 deaths.

Pakistan closes nearly 1,300 coronavirus hotspots

Pakistani authorities have identified and sealed off nearly 1,300 high-risk areas as part of measures aimed at containing the rising trend in new infections across the country.

The country reported 6,472 new cases on Saturday, the country's highest single-day tally.

Pakistan has a total of 132,405 cases and 2,551 deaths.

The government in Islamabad put the country's entire population of 220 million under lockdown in March. The government has since relaxed restrictions to save the economy but the decision has caused a surge in the number of infections.

Indonesia reports 857 new cases

Indonesia reported 857 new coronavirus infections and 43 more fatalities on Sunday, taking the total number of cases to 38,277 and deaths to 2,134.

Indonesia has tested 322,933 people for the virus as of Sunday.

Egypt's one-day coronavirus infections at new high

Egypt's Health Ministry on Saturday confirmed 1,677 new coronavirus cases and 62 fatalities, the highest daily increase for both counts since the virus was first detected in the country in mid-February.

The Arab world's most populous country has registered a total of 42,980 cases and 1,484 related deaths.

Egypt has the highest death rate from COVID-19 among Arab nations.

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CPA Central Committee Statement

Homebuilder Scheme

The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemns in the strongest possible terms the Morrison Coalition governments Homebuilder Scheme.

The politically motivated $688 million scheme was opportunistically launched in the Eden Monaro seat during the by-election, an insult as it will do little to help the fire affected community rebuild. It falls way short of what is needed to support jobs and meet housing requirements for the community across the country. Housing is a right not a commodity.

There is only one thing that will create affordable housing and address the current housing crisis: a revival of public housing and a revolution in how it is used. Nothing but a massive and ongoing infusion of high-quality, publicly owned and managed housing of diverse types must replace the inefficiency and choking dominance of the unaffordable private market.

It is an imperative that the proposed Homebuilder Scheme be redirected to the building of public housing. The current scheme announced by the PM is a sham policy, without Parliamentary approval and with the stated aim of stimulating the private construction industry. The qualifying requirements for the grants are so poorly thought through that eligible applicants will be highly restricted. Many will be unable to get the highly publicised $25,000. Those most in need will not have $150,000 to spend on renovations. The scheme only runs for six months so it will eliminate many attempting to rebuild in bush fire areas. Also, six months is a tall order to get a planning and building approvals through any council.

This scheme does not attempt to challenge or eliminate homelessness in Australia. Every night tens of thousands of Australians sleep on the streets and this number continues to rise. How can this Homebuilder Scheme even start to turn around the growing housing gap?

The CPA demands that existing and new housing developments be taken over by government and turned into public housing projects which are urgently needed in all states and territories. This will require billions of dollars of public investment. It will create much needed, well paid jobs to alleviate the precarious conditions which the market forces of capitalism have delivered to too many people.

Post pandemic, the government must take up the responsibility of lifting the country out of the recession. Only a public sector-led recovery can provide for the interests of workers and their families. Housing construction is one way to create jobs while also providing community benefit. Other measures include building public schools and hospitals, staffing and equipping them adequately, research and development of renewable energy sources, and providing the necessary funding that is required to save the tens of thousands of jobs that are at stake in our universities. There is a pressing need to provide such infrastructure to remote Indigenous communities.

The CPA demands universal accessible public housing and the redirection of the Homebuilder Scheme to building publicly owned and managed housing as a matter of urgency.

The CPA also demands the sales of public land, public housing and public sector services be stopped, and government funds be directed to maintenance work on existing public housing stock.

The CPA calls on government at all levels and the opposition to involve the community, unions and advocacy groups currently dealing with the housing crisis to find an adequate solution to the housing crisis.

CPA Central Committee

9th June 2020
Just like the entire nation, late actor Irrfan Khan's son, Babil Khan is also devastated with the sudden demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The actor hung himself inside his room and was found dead at his Bandra residence yesterday (June 14, 2020). From Amitabh Bachchan to Shah Rukh Khan, from Karan Johar to Alia Bhatt, entire film industry mourned his death.

A few hours ago, Babil, who recently lost his actor-dad, also reacted to Sushant's demise and wrote, "WTF is happening? I can't find the words :',(/ .Man, if you feel clear signs, don't go searching for a reason, please go to the doctor instead."

Many netizens nodded in agreement with Babil and said that they're also very sad after hearing this heartbreaking news.

A user wrote, "It's very sad indeed. Can't imagine how lonely and helpless one must feel to take such an extreme step. Human instinct is to preserve one's life and to take your own life likely comes from a place of deep pain and loneliness. It can also become easy to think that no one truly cares or understands. I wish that any one feeling something similar reaches out. Reach out to somebody; ideally a medical professional. I think that people would be surprised how many people will care if they know that a fellow human is distressed. Be kind to everyone folks, especially yourself."

Sushant Singh Rajput's Death: Could This Be The Reason Why He Died By Suicide?

While another user wrote, "People can't. That's the issue. Mental health issues are difficult to come to terms with, to discuss, to see a doctor, to live and cope with - may his soul find its peace "

2020 can't be more cruel to the film industry!

(Social media posts are unedited.)

Worried about your mental well-being or of someone you know? Help is just a call away. Reach out to the nearest mental health specialist at COOJ Mental Health Foundation (COOJ)- 0832-2252525, Parivarthan- +91 7676 602 602, Connecting Trust- +91 992 200 1122/+91-992 200 4305 or Sahai- 080-25497777/ SAHAIHELPLINE@GMAIL.COM
A virus doesn't care about borders. That's just the way a global pandemic rolls.

But the differences between what's happening on this side of the 49th parallel compared to other side are striking beyond just the case count and the death tolls.

While Canada just edged past 100,000 positive cases, the United States has more than two million. Our death count is 8,183 compared to the U.S. total of 115,436.

Here's another number to consider: The bill Michael Flor received from a Seattle hospital after his 62-day bout with COVID-19 left him near death. When he got to the bottom of the 181-page itemized account, the total tab was $1,122,501.04.

"I opened it and said 'holy (bleep)," Flor told the Seattle Times.

It's not as if Flor, 70, didn't realize his COVID-19 hospitalization was going to be expensive, even though he was unconscious for much of the stay. Near the beginning, his wife Elisa Del Rosario remembers him waking up and saying: "You gotta get me out of here, we cant afford this."

As it turns out, Flor won't have to pay for the vast majority of it because he has insurance. There are also special financial rules that only apply to COVID-19 cases, which further reduce the financial burden on patients.

But as Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat noted, Flor's hospital stay and the bill has "family and friends marvelling at the extreme expense and bizarre economics of American health care."

 Paul Samyn, Winnipeg Free Press editor

THE LATEST NUMBERS

Note: Manitoba and Canada figures may not match due to differences in data sources.

THE LATEST IN MANITOBA

The province has reported three new cases of COVID-19 this weekend, raising the total to 304 since the outbreak began.



On Friday, the province announced one new case, in Winnipeg, breaking a weeklong streak with no new cases of the virus detected. Updated statistics on the number of tests performed and other details on the new cases will be released on Monday.



The third phase of Manitoba's reopening plan is tentatively set for June 21. It involves allowing larger gatherings and the loosening of travel restrictions. Gatherings could increase to 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors. The 14-day self-isolation period would be lifted for those who travel to provinces and territories west of Manitoba, along with an undefined section of northwestern Ontario.

THE LATEST ELSEWHERE

The number of deaths from the novel coronavirus globally has surpassed 431,000, out of 7.8 million cases. The countries hardest by fatalities, according to numbers tracked by Johns Hopkins University in the U.S., are:

the United States (115,619 deaths),

Brazil (42,720 deaths),

United Kingdom (41,783 deaths)

Italy (41,783 deaths)

Canada has more than 100,250 cases, with 8,146 deaths.

On Sunday, China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months. Parts of Beijing were locked down, highlighting the difficulty of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic.

A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed on the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.

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 discovery sparked fears of a possible second wave of a virus that was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December but which appeared to be declining in the country by March.

Russia, which has more than 500,000 confirmed cases, was emerging from its first wave "with minimal losses," President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday. The country has recorded nearly 7,000 deaths, a figure that some speculate is too low.

Israel has reported a spike in cases as schools, businesses, restaurants, bars and tourist reopen. As a consequence, 177 educational institutions throughout the country are closing again after nearly 500 students and teachers tested positive for the virus.

The pandemic is accelerating in Africa. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the African continent surpassed 232,815 as of Sunday morning, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 positive cases rose from 225,105 on Saturday. The death toll reached 6,244 as of Sunday morning.

The agency, which noted that the virus had spread to 54 African countries, also said 106,459 people who were infected with COVID-19 had recovered. Countries highly affected include South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana and Algeria.

LOCAL NEWS

NATIONAL NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

COVID-19 BASICS
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15)  National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon on Monday defended the need to pass the Anti-Terrorism Bill amid mounting criticisms against its supposed unconstitutional provisions.

Esperon claimed the proposed measure is clear about its definition of terrorism, which excludes advocacy, protest, dissent, stoppage of work, industrial or mass action, and other similar actions in exercising civil and political rights.

"Activism is not terrorism. And terrorism is not activism," he said in a media briefing.

The bill qualified that actions would not be considered as terrorism if they "are not intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person, to endanger a person's life, or to create a serious risk to public safety."

Critics have argued the danger in the provision, since the Anti-Terrorism Council, composed of Cabinet members, will have the power to determine what constitutes a risk.

Esperon assured that there are safety nets in the proposed law and that there's nothing to worry about.

Under the bill, illegal surveillance, violation of rights of detainees, torture and inhumane treatment by persons in authority are all punishable.

"Katulong natin dito ang special courts. Kapag may hinuli ka, dapat mag-report ka agad doon. Pangalawa, kailangan mag-report ka din sa Commission on Human Rights para mag-imbestiga sila kung tama ang naaresto. At nandiyan din ang tinatawag na oversight committee ng Kongreso na ang mga miyembro ay galing sa House of Representatives at sa Senado," the national security adviser said.

[Translation: The special courts will help us here. When you arrest someone, you have to report that right away. They also need to report to the CHR so they can determine if they have the right person. There is also an oversight committee composed of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.]

Unconstitutional?

Critics have said that there are unconstitutional provisions in the Anti Terrorism Bill, such as the warrantless arrest, detention of up to 24 days of suspected terrorists, and the power of the Anti-Terrorism Council to identify suspected terrorists.

But for Esperon, they are justifiable.

"Bakit kinokontra yung sinasabi nila na ang Anti-Terrorism Council ay may kapangyarihan na magbigay ng order for arrest? Totoo yun dahil yung ipapa-aresto, na-proscribe na at meron na tayong surveillance. At kung hindi man ay ginagawa na niya yung terroristic act. May preemptive capacity ang Anti-Terrorism Council."

[Translation: Why are they against the provision that allows the Anti-Terrorism Council to order arrests? The one going to be arrested would already have been proscribed and under surveillance. Or if not, he is already in the process of committing the terroristic act. The Anti-Terrorism Council has a preemptive capacity.]

The Anti-Terrorism Bill is now up for signature by President Rodrigo Duterte, who had certified the bill as an urgent legislative measure.

Esperon urged critics to question it before the Supreme Court once Duterte signs it into law.

"Ako ay naniniwala sa kakayahan at kredibilidad ng Supreme Court. Kaya kung ano ang desisyon nila, tatalima tayo doon. We will abide by that. E di pabayaan natin silang dumulog sa Korte Suprema. Tingnan natin kung anong mangyari," Esperon said.

[Translation: I believe in the ability and credibility of the Supreme Court. Whatever its decision, we will abide by it. We will let them bring the issue to the Supreme Court. Well see what will happen.]
President Moon Jae-in speaks during a weekly meeting with senior Cheong Wa Dae aides, Monday. Yonhap



President Moon Jae-in called on North Korea on Monday not to stop a peace journey despite some troubles, making his first official remarks on North Korea's renewed saber-rattling.



"The direction the two Koreas should go together is clear," he said during a weekly meeting with senior Cheong Wa Dae aides. "We should not stop the current inter-Korean relations again, which have overcome a longtime severance and the crisis of a war with difficulty."



He was speaking in front of pool reporters and TV crews, as the two sides marked the 20th anniversary of the June 15 Joint Declaration adopted in a historic summit between the late leaders of the two Koreas -- Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il.



Moon said he's commemorating the anniversary with a "heavy heart," apparently referring to frosty inter-Korean ties highlighted by Pyongyang's decision to cut all communication lines with Seoul and even a threat of military action.



Moon cited his own summit deals with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018, one reached at the truce village of Panmunjom and the other in Pyongyang.













He said his government would make "incessant" efforts to implement summit agreements.



"(We) can't let the promise of peace on the Korean Peninsula, which I and Chairman Kim Jong-un made in front of 80 million Koreans, revert," Moon stressed.



The April 27 Panmunjom Declaration and the Sept. 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration represent a "solemn promise" for both South and North Korea to implement faithfully, he added.



Noting that denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang are in a drawn-out stalemate, Moon proposed that the two sides make it their initiative to produce a "breakthrough" in the peace process.



"We have come to a time when we cannot wait any more for the conditions to improve," he said, proposing that the two sides push for joint projects that they can decide themselves as the "master of the Korean Peninsula's fate."



He also raised the need for the South's National Assembly to formally approve major inter-Korean deals.



If those agreements had been ratified by the National Assembly and had "continuity" despite a power shift, inter-Korean relations "would have developed much more than now," he said.



Over the weekend, Kim Yo-jong, an influential sister of the North's leader, issued yet another provocative statement saying that the military would be in charge of a next step to respond to the distribution of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets by some activists here across the border. (Yonhap)
New Delhi:

Police have issued sketches of suspects spotted moving suspiciously near a Naval base at Uran in neighbouring Raigad district, even as multi-agency search operations are on to trace them a day after a high alert was sounded along the Mumbai coast and adjoining areas.



Based on the description given by some school children at Uran who spotted the armed suspects, their sketches were issued late last night, police said on Friday.



The schools and colleges in Uran and adjoining areas have been shut on Friday.



As per the reports, five to six persons were sighted in Pathan suits and appeared to be carrying weapons and backpacks, Naval spokesman Cdr Rahul Sinha had earlier said.



Some reports said they were in military uniform.



Despite carrying out massive combing operation in Uranand Karanja areas with the help of Navy, Coast Guard, CISF and Quick Response Team, police are yet to trace the suspects.



The elite commandos from National Security Guard (NSG) and state polices specialised Force One have also been roped in, police said.



Navi Mumbai Commissioner of Police monitored the situation throughout the night alongwith other top officials.A strict vigil by police and other security agencies is being maintained in the area.



A high alert was on Thursday sounded along the Mumbai coast and adjoining areas after a group of men were spotted moving suspiciously near a naval base at Uran in Raigad, leading to search operations by multiple agencies.



The alert came four days after the Uri attack which left 18 soldiers dead.

Also read:

Watch Video: Mumbai goes on high alert, NSG teams deployed

The Navy pressed its choppers for surveillance and heightened patrolling in the sea by its vessels and high-speed boats.Some children from Uran Education Societys school first spotted the suspects, and their teacher informed the police, the police said.



Subsequently, the Western Naval Command issued a highest state of alert along the Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Raigad coasts where several sensitive establishments and assets are located.



Western Indias biggest naval base, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, fertiliser plants, refineries, power plants and the countrys largest container port, JNPT are located in close vicinity of Uran.



Coastal security has been top priority after the 26/11 attacks, in which multiple locations in Mumbai were targeted by Pakistani terrorists who landed using sea route.



The fishing town of Uran is located across the eastern water front of the financial capital. The base located close to the town also houses units of MARCOS, the Navys elite strike force.

(With PTI Inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
Hundreds knelt on benches and on the cool grass at Princess Park Saturday as they held up their fists in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Hundreds knelt on benches and on the cool grass at Princess Park Saturday as they held up their fists in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

Thats the length of time prosecutors have said 46-year-old George Floyd, a black man, was pinned under a Minneapolis police officers knee before he died last month, sparking anti-racism protests around the globe.

BUD ROBERTSON/THE BRANDON SUN Protesters at Saturday's peaceful rally in Princess Park kneel in silence and hold their fists high for eight minutes and 46 seconds  the length of time a Minneapolis police officer knelt on George Floyd's neck before Floyd died.

Saturday evenings protest, which was to run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., was at times sombre, other times boisterous, but always respectful as people carrying placards waited for Black Lives Matter organizers in Brandon to show up and get the event started. They never did.

As the crowds waited for the event to begin, the call went out and they marched to 18th Street and back to the park, waving their signs, cheering and chanting over and over "No justice, no peace!"

After the minutes of silence, heartfelt music (once a power source near the stage could be found) and heartbreaking stories flowed through the participants, numbering close to 300.

As he waited to perform onstage with his sister, Galli, 17-year-old Kenyi Kubari said he needed to be here.

"Racism happens everywhere," said Kubari, who is originally from South Sudan.

BUD ROBERTSON/THE BRANDON SUN Protesters stand and hold up signs in unison during a peaceful rally at Princess Park on Saturday evening.

He said he has even been bullied and called the n-word.

"Its important to bring awareness, even to small towns," Kubari said.

For Kobi Lim, a Vincent Massey student, the emotion was raw as he spoke to the crowd about generations of Chinese Canadians being subjected to hundreds of years of racism  himself included.

"Look at the people around you. Let them know they have your support," he said before picking up his guitar and belting out a song with lyrics such as "You cant take us down. You cant break us down."

BUD ROBERTSON/THE BRANDON SUN Kenyi Kubari, who is originally from South Sudan, plays for the crowd during Saturday's rally.

He was then joined fellow Vincent Massey student Shelby English, who took to the microphone for another song.

Once the music was done, those who attended the rally were invited to go up to the stage to speak.

"Theres power in numbers and were going to prove that, because its time, man, its time for us to get rid of this (racism)," said Abdul Koromah.

"Its time to come together as one and fight police brutality, fight racism," he said as the crowd whooped their approval.

BUD ROBERTSON/THE BRANDON SUN Kobe Lim and Shelby English perform for the appreciative crowd.

"Continue to sign petitions, continue to post on social media "because it matters," Tyvon Cooper said as he stood on the stage.

"Were all in this together. Just remember to do your part."

This was Brandons third large-scale anti-racism protest in recent weeks.

On Thursday, hundreds of people marched to Princess Park from the Keystone Centre and the Healthy Living Centre for a protest organized by the activist group Brandonites Engaged Against Repression.

The Friday before, approximately 200 people took to the streets to show their support for Black Lives Matter marches across Canada and the United States.

Jazmin Davie has been to all three of the protests in Brandon.

"I think its important to show my support," said Davie, as a Black Lives Matter sign rested at her feet.

"I dont think people should be surprised (that there is racism in Brandon)," she said. "Theres racism everywhere. There is no place that is free of it."

 brobertson@brandonsun.com
File Photo

London: An international group of 17 experts has claimed that Covid-19 disease can lead to diabetes in healthy people and increase the risk of pre-existing diabetes.

Many scientists, including Stephanie A. Emile of King's College London in the UK, have suggested that there is a double or indirect link between Covid-19 and diabetes.

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Photo In a study published in a daily newspaper, they found that people with diabetes had a higher risk of contracting coronavirus and dying from the infection. It said that 20 to 30 per cent of the deaths due to Covid-19 were due to diabetes.

Researchers said that coronavirus, on the other hand, can lead to diabetes and digestive disorders, which can be fatal.

File PhotoThey also said that it was not yet clear how much coronavirus affects diabetes. Previous studies have shown that the ACE-2 protein, which binds to the corona virus and allows it to enter human cells, is found not only in the lungs but also in other organs and organs involved in glucose digestion, such as the small intestine and kidneys.

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The scientists said that it is possible that the coronavirus could alter the digestive system of glucose, causing problems in people already with diabetes or the risk of a new disease.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 11:02:44|Editor: huaxia

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CHENGDU, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Sichuan Wolong National Nature Reserve Administration said it has installed a total of 120 infrared cameras to strengthen the monitoring of snow leopards, a species under top-level protection in China.

The cameras achieved full coverage of the habitat and potential habitat of the creature, with an area of 1,200 square km, according to the administration.

In May, the nature reserve dispatched 10 teams to collect data and conducted research on snow leopard habitats, finding the snow leopard population there had remained stable. During the period, they also increased the number of infrared cameras in the area from more than 90 to 120.

The cameras in the nature reserve have been playing an important role in studying the species. Over 29,000 images of various wild animals have been obtained from the cameras over the past more than 10 years. Enditem
Hunters Creek

6/7/20 at 1415 Hours. 1-100 Block of Sleepy Oaks. Credit/Debit Card Abuse. The victim reported that upon reviewing a bank statement he located a charge for a food delivery that was not his. The delivery company would not provide any information about the delivery location to the victim and said only the police could get it. Information was obtained and provided to detectives for their follow up investigation.

6/8/20 at 1400 Hours. 600 Block of Voss. Driving While Intoxication. Officers were dispatched to the area in reference to a multivehicle accident. Upon arrival officers located 5 vehicles damaged as the result of a drunk driver. In addition, it was learned that the same driver had hit another vehicle farther south on Voss and fled that scene as well as striking a guardrail and cement barrier. The 28-year-old suspect failed field sobriety tests and a subsequent breath test at a .19%. The female was booked into the Harris County Jail.

6/8/20 at 1800 Hours. 7500 Block of River Glynn. Public Intoxication. Officers were dispatched to the area in reference to a male subject running through the neighborhood yelling. Upon arrival officers located the subject who was highly intoxicated. The subjects mother was contacted however, she refused to pick him up. The 24-year-old male was placed under arrest and booked into the MVPD Jail.

6/11/20 at 2000 Hours. 1100 Block of Riverbend. Soliciting. Officers were dispatched to the area in reference to a solicitor going door to door. Upon arrival officers located the subject who they recognized from a previous contact and warning about not soliciting in the area. This time the subject was issued misdemeanor citation and told the next violation will result in his arrest.

Piney Point

6/8/20 at 2300 Hours. 1-100 Block of Lacewood. Burglary of a Habitation. The victim reported that he had heard a loud noise earlier in the evening in the rear of his home. Later, the victim noticed that the rear door had been forced open and a wallet was missing from a nearby counter. MVPD detectives were notified and responded to the scene and took over the investigation. Officers are searching the area for any video surveillance footage.

6/9/20 at 1415 Hours. 11100 Block of S. Country Squire. Burglary of a Habitation. The victim reported that upon checking his currently vacant rental home, he found where the rear door had been forced open. Entry had been made; however, nothing was missing from the unoccupied home. Detectives responded and took over the investigation and are currently working the case.

6/11/20 at 1230 Hours. 300 Block of Piney Point. Theft. The victim reported that a theft had occurred at her home. A review of a video doorbell showed the theft was committed by an Amazon delivery driver. Officers located the Amazon truck traveling through the Villages and initiated a traffic stop. Upon contacting the driver, officers located the stolen property on the driver who also admitted taking it. The 26-year-old male was placed under arrest and booked into the Harris County Jail. An Amazon supervisor responded to the scene and took possession of the delivery truck. The suspect was also instructed that should he remain employed with Amazon, that he was not welcomed to return to the Villages.

Bunker Hill

6/10/20 at 0730 Hours. 11700 Block of Flintdale. Fraud. The victim reported that upon checking his banking records he found that a check that he had written to the US Government had been changed to an individual that he did not know and cashed. He had deposited the check into a mailbox at the Post Office. Information about the cash was obtained and provided to detectives. The victims bank account and credit report were flagged.
Migrants: dozens detained in Tunisia over illegal departures Suspects told investigators they wanted to travel to Italy

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, JUNE 15 - Tunisian security forces have detained four youths accused of preparing to participate in an illegal crossing during an operation last week to prevent illegal immigration in a home in Hiboun, in the governorate of Mahdia, the Tunisian interior ministry said in a statement. The ministry said that the four, when questioned by police, admitted that they had travelled to the region on June 10 with the aim of illegally departing for Italy after paying 1,000 Tunisian dinars to a person from the area who would put them in touch with those who organized the crossing.



Prosecutors confirmed the arrests and opened an investigation for the ''formation of an agreement to secretly leave the maritime borders''. In a separate operation, the national guard apprehended on the coast of Jebeniana, in the governorate of Sfax, 25 people who were preparing to board a vessel to illegally travel to Italy. They were all reported to judicial authorities.



(ANSAmed).




The 1941 Malim the Great translated into English in April reignites the renowned writers work for a new generation.

In the early 1940s, two young Egyptian writers  one born in 1911 and the other in 1916  both entered their novels into an Arabic Language Academy competition. Both Naguib Mahfouz and Adel Kamel already had literary standing; both had published pharaonic-themed, philosophical novels.

But in 1942, the committee rejected both Mahfouzs social-realist The Mirage and Kamels satirical Malim the Great. Both novels used language in fresh ways and were critical of Egyptian society.

From that moment, the two gifted writers followed very different paths. The elder Mahfouz went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, while the younger, Kamel, gave up writing for reasons unknown. Still, they remained close friends.

In 1993, a year after Kamel moved to Houston, Texas, to be with his daughters, Mahfouz wrote a tribute: Adel Kamel, The Harafish, and Literature. This now appears as a foreword to the English translation of Kamels great satiric novel Malim the Great, which appeared in April under a different title in the hopes of appealing to a new audience: The Magnificent Conman of Cairo.

It was Adel Kamel who invited Mahfouz to join the Harafish, a group of some of Egypts most prominent writers, poets and cinematographers. Mahfouz said they called the cafe where they met in the early years the Vicious Circle because they talked endlessly about their frustrations with the country.

All of them were at the beginning of their literary lives, Mahfouz wrote in his essay, translated by Waleed Almusharraf.

Adel Kamel was at the vanguard: brilliant and doing exceptional work, he said.





Doubts on art

Kamel published several plays and two novels in the late 1930s and early 40s. But, beginning in 1945, he began to have doubts, Mahfouz wrote. He doubted the role of literature and the point of art as a whole.

Although Kamel was alive when Mahfouz published this essay, he made no public response.

Kamel immersed himself in his work as a lawyer, married an Armenian Catholic, and had three daughters who attended French schools and later moved to the United States. Before he joined them in Houston in the early 90s, Kamel continued to spend a great deal of time with the Harafish. His literary friends were paramount in his life, his daughter Mona Farid told Al Jazeera over the phone.

Farid said she did not know why her father stopped writing; that Mahfouz would probably know better. In his 1993 essay, Mahfouz wrote: Our guess, and it was a guess, was that he did not get the recognition he deserved and that he was terrified of wasting his life.

Yet even though he stopped publishing, Kamels novels were never completely forgotten  neither his first novel Malek men Shoaa (King of a Ray of Light) nor his satirical Malim the Great, both of which were reissued in Arabic by Al-Karma Publishers in 2014.

Al-Karma launched in 2013 and one of its core undertakings was Al-Karma Selects, a project to reintroduce modern Egyptian classics. The firm was looking for books that were long out of print, a rarity to find  but still not in the public domain, publisher Seif Salmawy said in an email.

Important and amazing novels, autobiographies and non-fiction titles by sometimes-obscure authors who perhaps wrote one or two brilliant books and then vanished for various reasons.

Salmawy said he considers Malim the Great, one of the most important works of fiction to come out of Egypt in the past century.

It had long been out of print and many people had heard of it, but very few had actually read it, he said.

Nihilist spirit

Translator Waleed Almusharraf had just moved from Cairo to Illinois when he heard about the novel from a friend. The more he read, he said, the more he recognised his own, contemporary Cairo in the book.

Its humour, the seriousness and helplessness of its activists, the sincerity and pretentiousness of its artists, the miscommunication between its classes, the crowds, the harshness, the orientalism, everything, Almusharraf told Al Jazeera.





He added: I started translating it before I was done reading the novel.

The novel follows two protagonists from different social classes whose lives converge. The first is Malim  the impoverished son of a conman who wants to make an honest living  and the second Khaled, the drifter-idealist son of Ahmed Pasha.

Egyptian novelist Nael Eltoukhy, who wrote about the book when it was republished in 2014, said Kamels novel fits well into the contemporary literary landscape.

Maybe because of its darkness or of the nihilist spirit hovering in it, I could see groups of hipsters gathering every day in the same place to talk about arts and literature. I could see features of our contemporary world in this novel.

Kamel continued to meet with his Harafish friends until he moved to Houston, where he lived the last 13 years of his life, passing away in 2005. In those final years, his daughter Mona Farid said he missed his friends and he read all the time.

For the most part, Kamel kept his literary life separate from family. We talked mostly about his spiritual convictions, not literature, Farid said.

Although her father came from a conservative Coptic background, and his daughters were raised Catholic, he had a more encompassing view than the traditional religions. He also read about Buddhism, about Hinduism. He opened my horizons and I think hes the one who made me think, much more, out of the religious box.

Maybe literature or art didnt define his happiness, Farid said, because he went beyond.

In any case, Kamels daughters were pleased to see one of his novels arrive in English translation. During exchanged emails about the forthcoming English edition, one wrote: Akhiran. At last.
LONDON (Reuters) - A man identified by the crowd as a far-right protester was carried to safety by a Black Lives Matter protester on Saturday as animosity was briefly set aside on a day of clashes in London between police and rival groups. Pictures showed a white man clutching his head as a black man carried him over his shoulders, flanked by police in riot gear.

LONDON (Reuters) - A man identified by the crowd as a far-right protester was carried to safety by a Black Lives Matter protester on Saturday as animosity was briefly set aside on a day of clashes in London between police and rival groups.

Pictures showed a white man clutching his head as a black man carried him over his shoulders, flanked by police in riot gear.

The man had been set upon on the steps leading to the Royal Festival Hall in central London and badly beaten, before other protesters stepped in to protect him, Reuters journalists at the scene said.

Earlier in the day there were skirmishes between anti-racism groups and far-right activists. Anti-racist protesters have rallied for days against racism and police abuses since the death of African American George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

(Reporting by Dylan Martinez and Michael Holden; Writing by Sarah Young; Editing by Frances Kerry)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Sam Kinahan (6) and his dad Ivan, who donated a kidney to help him

Father's Day this year will be extra special for dad Ivan Kinahan, as it will mark just over one year since he donated a kidney to son Sam (6).

Sam had been on dialysis since he was four months old and life for the Baldoyle family has changed dramatically since the transplant.

Ivan said he has never regretted it and would encourage people to consider organ donation.

"Sam used to attend hospital three times a week for three hours every single week, whether it was Christmas time, birthdays, you name it," Sam's mum Chloe said.

"Since getting the kidney, these visits have slowed down considerably, and we are now at a point where we only attend for review once every six weeks."

Before the transplant, Sam, who has a sister, Ali (9), could not have a bath or go swimming due to his dialysis line.

"He started swimming lessons in February and loved the water but unfortunately Covid curtailed that for a short time," said Chloe.

Father's Day last year was on June 16.

"Ivan was just home from hospital and really feeling the effects of a major surgery and still quite unwell," she said.

"This year, we will be able to savour the day and the amazing gift that Ivan has given to Sam."

Ivan said: "I felt both lucky to have been such a close match and also privileged to be able to help him.

"I've never regretted it for a second and would urge anyone considering organ donation to embrace the gift we all have within us."

Sam was diagnosed with a rare kidney condition called Posterior Urethral Valve when Chloe was pregnant with him.

She said many people do not realise a transplant is not a cure but another form of treatment.

"We know Sam may need another kidney or more as he grows and we want to urge as many people as possible to have that difficult conversation with their families about what their wishes would be regarding organ donation," she said.

They have praised the support from the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) and will be taking part in the Virtual Run For A Life for the association this month.

Incredible

"We will complete it on the last day, on Father's Day, in a tribute to Ivan but to all donors, both living and deceased, who selflessly save lives every day," she said.

"The IKA is an incredible charity, we have made many friends and had amazing support...they really empower patients and their families to deal with a very serious illness."

Organ donor awareness ambassador Ray D'Arcy ran in last year's IKA Run For A Life event along with almost 500 others at Corkagh Park in Dublin.

The event will run over three weeks and people can enter as many times as they like by registering each time at ika.ie.

Organ donor cards can be obtained by phoning the Irish Kidney Association on 01 6205306 or free text the word DONOR to 50050.

You can also visit ika.ie/get-a-donor-card or download a 'digital organ donor card' app.
Stating that water of India's share from three of six rivers in "Akhand Bharat" is flowing into Pakistan, Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday said the Central government is trying to stop this outflow. He said Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh will get this water. Addressing virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally of Gujarat BJP from Nagpur in Maharashtra, he also said India believed in peace and non-violence and do not want to be strong by becoming an expansionist.

"There were six rivers in Akhand Bharat (passing through both India and Pakistan. As per division, waters of three rivers was reserved for Pakistan, while water of other three rivers was to be used by India. Water of our share was also flowing into Pakistan," Gadkari said.

He said states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh were not coming together on this issue earlier.

"For the first time since 1970, I asked our (former J&K governor Satya Pal Malik and Punjab Congress CM (Amarinder Singh) to sign a treaty. We are working to stop the water from flowing into Pakistan. Now Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal will get this water. Our government shows the courage to take this decision, otherwise nothing has happened since 1970," he said.

He said, "Seven out of nine projects (related to division of water of rivers) where consensus had eluded states earlier have been cleared after CMs of these states were brought together to resolve the matter".
Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, also said any conversation with him was classified.

Attorney General William Barr, speaking at the same event, said Bolton had not completed the process necessary to publish his book and the Justice Department was trying to get him to delete classified information.

Bolton's "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," is set to be published on June 23.

The publisher, Simon and Schuster, said in a news release on Friday the book provides an insider account of Trump's "inconsistent, scattershot decision-making process."

The book details Trump's dealings with China, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Iran, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, the publisher said.

"This is the book Donald Trump doesn't want you to read," Simon and Schuster said.

Trump fired Bolton in September amid simmering differences on a wide array of foreign policy issues.

Bolton argues that the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives should have expanded its impeachment probe against Trump last year to beyond questions over whether Trump invited foreign interference from Ukraine.
By Gina Lee

Investing.com  Gold was down in Asia on Monday morning, giving up some of its earlier gains, amid increasing investor fears of a second wave of COVID-19 cases over the weekend.

Beijing reported a surge of 57 new cases on June 13 after weeks of single-digit numbers, after an outbreak in Xinfadi market.

Tokyo also reported its highest number of cases since May, with 27 of the 47 reported cases traced back to recently re-opened nightclubs and bars.

Record numbers of cases and hospitalizations were also seen in some recently re-opened U.S. states, including Florida and Texas.

Gold futures were down by 0.15% at $1,734.65 by 11:53 PM ET (4:53 AM GMT). Stocks, which usually move in the opposite direction to gold, were mostly down on Monday.

Investor sentiment was further dampened by disappointing data from China. Industrial and retail sales data for May missed investor forecasts, with industrial production increasing 4.4% year-on-year and retail sales declining 2.8% year-on-year and disappointed expectations of recovery signs in the country.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to uphold its pessimistic view of the U.S. market when Chair Jerome Powell delivers his policy report to Congress later in the week.

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Germany on Tuesday becomes the latest European country to launch a smartphone app that seeks to break the chain of coronavirus infection by tracking encounters between people and issuing a warning should one of them test positive.

A growing number of countries in the region have opted to use Bluetooth short-range radio to measure the risk of exposure, after concluding that tracking people's movements using location data would be intrusive.

European Union member states hope soon to agree a common approach for an international 'roaming' feature that could help revive travel and tourism.

WHAT'S THE STORY SO FAR?

Since there is no cure for COVID-19, governments have turned to technology to create a sort of digital 'herd immunity' against the flu-like disease.

After initial efforts misfired, Apple and Alphabet's Google - whose iOS and Android operating systems run 99% of the world's smartphones - developed a standard that logs contacts securely on devices.

Germany joins a growing list of European countries - led by Switzerland, Italy, Poland and Latvia - to create Bluetooth apps based on this decentralized approach.

HOW DOES THE GERMAN APP WORK?

Germany's Covid-Warn-App, developed by SAP and Deutsche Telekom, will be available for download on Monday night from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Once the app is installed it will typically show a 'green', or safe, status.

Should the user spend more than 15 minutes within two metres of another app holder who later tests positive for COVID-19, they would receive a notification advising them to seek medical advice.

WHAT ARE THE SECURITY FEATURES?

The Bluetooth exchanges logged securely on devices are encrypted and pseudonyms are used, so the identity of the other person is not known.

In another security feature, positive test results would be uploaded by the German app using a QR code from the lab.

Other phones scan the system and, if one finds a so-called infected key in its log, the holder receives an exposure notification. No data is stored centrally, making it impossible to reconstruct an individual's relationships.

SOUNDS COMPLICATED - WILL IT WORK?

The design of Bluetooth-based apps represents a trade-off between usefulness and privacy. It is not possible, for example, to pinpoint the exact time and place of risk events from the app alone.

Protecting privacy, though, is a key selling point for the German app, which is voluntary and will need to be adopted by a large share of the population to be useful.

Norway on Monday halted its COVID-19 app after the country's data protection watchdog objected to the app's collection of location data as disproportionate to the task, and called for a Bluetooth-only approach.

Germany's app is intended to complement, not replace, existing contact tracing efforts that rely on interviewing people who fall ill with COVID-19 and calling people they have met.

Where the app can come in useful is in public settings - such as a train trip or bus ride - where people don't know each other. Its speed is also a plus as COVID-19 can be spread by people who have yet to develop symptoms.

WHAT ABOUT FOREIGN TRAVEL?

Although the apps are national, the idea is that they should be able to 'talk' to each other. Such interoperability would make it possible to monitor infection risks when people travel between countries.

EU member states have already agreed on broad guidelines for interoperability, and are close to backing the creation of a central gateway to handle data traffic between the apps based on the Google-Apple standard, sources say.

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Sitamarhi (Bihar) [India], June 16 (ANI): Residents of Lalbandi village in Bihar's Sitamarhi on the India-Nepal border said that they are in a "state of fear" after an Indian was killed in firing by Nepal's security forces.



"Situation is very tense in our village. People are fearing what might happen in future," one local said.

Echoing similar sentiments, another local said, "There is a lot of difference in the situation now. There is fear. Earlier, people used to go there to meet their relatives."

An unprecedented incident of firing on Indians took place on Friday on the India-Nepal border when one person was killed after Nepali security personnel opened fire on them.

Lagan Kishore, who was detained by the Nepali forces after firing on the border, returned to Sitamarhi on Saturday after being released by them. (ANI)


Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday appealed to all political parties in Delhi to set aside their political differences and unite to fight the outbreak of Covid-19 in the national capital. The home minister also asked the political leadership of all parties to urge their workers to ensure that the Delhi governments Covid-19 guidelines are implemented on the ground.

Top leaders of the BJP, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress and the BSP attended the meeting. Shah appealed to all four parties to ask their party workers to help the administration in ensuring the implementation of the Delhi governments coronavirus protocols.

Shah and Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal have assured the people that there will be coronavirus testing for all in Delhi during an all-party meeting to discuss the management of the coronavirus situation in the National Capital Region (NCR), which takes into account Delhi, parts of Uttar Pradesh and parts of Haryana.

ALSO READ | At Amit Shahs all-party meet, Congress demands Covid-19 testing for all

Political differences must be forgotten and all parties must work together for the people of Delhi. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we should all work together to fight this pandemic, Shah said.

The united face of all political parties will only work to enhance the peoples trust and help to make the Covid-19 situation in Delhi normal soon, the home minister said at the all-party meet.

Mondays meeting comes barely a day after the home minister held a high-level meeting with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, following which the Centre announced a slew of measures to fight the capitals coronavirus health crisis.

Coronavirus tests per day in Delhi will reach 18,000 in the next few days, the Home Minister said. Most political parties had unanimously demanded more testing of samples. We will have to increase Covid-19 testing in Delhi by adopting new solutions, Shah said.

Delhi is currently, the state with the third-highest Covid-19 tally preceded only by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. The capitals tally of coronavirus infections has climbed to 41,182 and the number of deaths due to the infectious disease has touched 1,327.
A proposal to potentially open the waters off Ningaloo Reef and Shark Bay for oil and gas exploration makes clear the industrys intention to push south from the Pilbara into these ecotourism hotspots, environmental groups say.

The federal government's acreage release process is to ask industry to nominate areas they are interested in for oil and gas exploration then put those nominations out for public comment.

Ningaloo Reef. Credit:Alex Kydd

The recent releases indicate Commonwealth waters off the World Heritage areas of Shark Bay and Ningaloo, plus Exmouth Gulf and the north Kimberley, could be the next cabs off the rank.

The government will consider the public comments then put together a formal release of areas on which oil and gas companies will bid.
Thousands participate in the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march to mark LGBTQ Pride Month in Hollywood on Sunday. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

I'm Black. I'm gay. And I'm just going to say it: Monday was a wash for equal rights.

On the one hand, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, does indeed protect gay and transgender Americans.

"The answer is clear," Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote for the 6-3 majority. "An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undistinguishable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."

Far from the stunning decision some have made it out to be, were talking about basic rights. Rights that, for the most part, have ceased to be seen as controversial or as making some sort of political statement. And this is true not just in California, but in states all over the country.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court declined to hear  count 'em  eight separate cases that would have opened the door to challenging "qualified immunity," the doctrine that protects police officers from civil lawsuits alleging brutality and other civil rights violations.

So ridiculous was this turn of events that even Justice Clarence Thomas, the court's only Black and most obtusely conservative member, issued an unusual dissent.

At a time when protests are still popping up daily to denounce injustice at the hands  and sometimes knees  of police, it's hard not to compare the pace of change and acceptance for the LGBTQ community and the Black community.

Being Black and demanding equal rights is still very much a controversial and a political statement. But being gay or lesbian or bisexual and demanding the same? Not as much. Not anymore.

Think about it.

It was only eight years ago that Joe Biden, then vice president and now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, caused a firestorm by merely saying that gay people should have another type of basic equal rights.

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I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties, he told NBCs Meet the Press.

Three days later, Obama, clearly trying to save face, followed suit. A few years after that, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to get married.

And now, every June, corporations spend millions of dollars developing parade floats, rainbow-colored sneakers and shirts and backpacks, and ad campaigns to tout their commitment to diversity.

In a normal year, the pride parades in Los Angeles and San Francisco are so dominated by Twitter and Google and Netflix and Hulu and Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase and the like that it's almost impossible to catch a glimpse of a church or a small nonprofit that does real grass-roots work on the ground.

Though it started as a protest, ironically by transgender people of color demanding equal rights, pride today is typically thought of as a harmless party.

Im not saying discrimination has completely disappeared for the LGBTQ community. Far from it. Especially for transgender Americans, who just last week watched as the Trump administration rolled back protections against sex discrimination for patients under the Affordable Care Act.

But why is it that holding a pride celebration didnt become something akin to a holding political event until word got out about a possible partnership with Black Lives Matter? Even though the many protests in L.A. have been peaceful for more than a week, there's still clearly some fear out there that things might turn ugly.

On Sunday, though, thousands of gathered for an "All Black Lives Matter" march, starting in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard before heading the few miles into West Hollywood. It was a beautiful act of protest and solidarity meant to build bridges, as there has always been more than a touch of homophobia in the Black community and far more than a touch of racism in the LGBTQ community.

But the very existence of the march also made abundantly clear how far we have to go.

In West Hollywood, I watched as people ate brunch on the newly reopened patio of Roccos and ignored the dozens of protesters chanting no justice, no peace while blocking Santa Monica Boulevard.

All around, the names of the Black and dead were scrawled in rainbow colors. On the glass of the patio. In chalk on the ground. Michael Brown. Tamir Rice. Tony McDade. John Crawford III. Natasha McKenna. Walter Scott. George Floyd. But still the brunch eaters were oblivious.

Meanwhile, several storefronts remained covered in plywood on Sunday. Perhaps the owners of those shops and restaurants were worried or afraid that thieves would snatch up their merchandise or that vandals would shatter or spray-paint their windows?

The truth might be a lot more complex, but the more simplistic message came through loud and clear, and it was disappointing.

Its going to take more than a few murals on plywood insisting Black Lives Matter to rectify that.

As a friend  Black, gay, from West Virginia and seemingly out since birth  once told me: Youll know youre done coming out, pausing to rub his lips together with the shiniest lip gloss Id ever seen, when youre as comfortable with your gayness as your blackness.

Those words stuck with me. Today, thinking of the protests, Id tweak and flip them.

When America is as comfortable with blackness as gayness, then youll know were done coming out.
Donald Trump is blaming an uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalisations solely on an increase in testing rather than his push for governors to reopen their states even as the sometimes-deadly disease continues to spread.

"If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any," the president said Monday during an event for seniors at the White House.

A number of states have reported record numbers of sick people requiring hospital stays since the pandemic begin, even as they continue steps to get their economies open again.

But the president and his team have denied that his insistence governors get their states open is causing the increase in cases.

Mr Trump's remark was merely the latest time the president has made strange comments about Covid-19 testing.

He has consistently sounded inconsistent messages, bragging that the US has tested more people than other countries while also complaining that the number of known infections (2.1m) and deaths (over 115,000) are so high because of that testing rate.

Vice President Mike Pence joined him during the same event in blaming the testing for the number of cases.

Mr Pence, still the head of the White House's coronavirus task force claimed "steady progress" in putting coronavirus "farther and farther in the past."

And, like his boss, he said the increases in cases stems from a "dramatic increase in testing."

Meantime, the president gave no indication he might delay a campaign rally scheduled for Saturday night in Tulsa Oklahoma. The county's public health director and others are concerned, as coronavirus cases there climb, a large indoor rally might exacerbate that increase.

"We're going to talk about where we're going, where we come from," Mr Trump said, offering the slimmest of previews of his message in five days in the deeply red state.

"We have hot spots as I said you might [say]," the president said of places with high or increasing infection rates, "we'll take care of the hot spots."

He did not elaborate on how.
ATHENS, Greece, June 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TOP Ships Inc. (the Company) (TOPS) announced today that it has entered into a placement agency agreement with Maxim Group LLC relating to the sale of the Companys common shares (the Placement Agency Agreement). Pursuant to the Placement Agency Agreement, the Company entered into a securities purchase agreement with certain institutional investors in connection with a registered direct offering of an aggregate of 60,000,000 common shares at a public offering price of $0.13 per share (the Registered Offering). The aggregate gross proceeds of the Registered Offering is $7.8 million. The Registered Offering is expected to close on or about June 17, 2020, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.



Maxim Group LLC is the sole placement agent in connection with the offering.

The common shares are being offered pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form F-3 (File No. 333-234281) previously filed and declared effective by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A prospectus supplement relating to the offering will be filed by the Company with the SEC. When filed, copies of the prospectus supplement, together with the accompanying base prospectus, can be obtained at the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov or from the offices of Maxim Group LLC, 405 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10174, Attn: Prospectus Department, or by telephone at (212) 895-3745.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Any offers of securities will be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and accompanying base prospectus.

About TOP Ships Inc.

TOP Ships Inc. (TOPS) is an international owner and operator of modern, fuel efficient ECO tanker vessels currently focusing on the transportation of crude oil and petroleum products.

Story continues

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides safe harbor protections for forward-looking statements in order to encourage companies to provide prospective information about their business. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements, which are other than statements of historical facts.

The Company desires to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and is including this cautionary statement in connection with this safe harbor legislation. The words believe, anticipate, intends, estimate, forecast, project, plan, potential, may, should, expect pending and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions, including without limitation, our management's examination of historical operating trends, data contained in our records and other data available from third parties. Although we believe that these assumptions were reasonable when made, because these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies which are difficult or impossible to predict and are beyond our control, we cannot assure you that we will achieve or accomplish these expectations, beliefs or projections.

For further information please contact:

Alexandros Tsirikos

Chief Financial Officer

TOP Ships Inc.

Tel: +30 210 812 8107

Email: atsirikos@topships.org
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Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) London  Mon, June 15, 2020 13:06 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdec9c79 2 Science & Tech Google,Winston-Churchill,search-engine Free

Google said Sunday it would explore why the picture of Britain's World War II leader Winston Churchill disappeared from a top search results list of former UK prime ministers, during controversy over his record on racism.

The search giant said the photo's removal from its horizontal list atop search results for former British premiers was due to an automatic update and "not purposeful", but apologized "for any concern".

It noted that the issue only applied to its so-called "knowledge graph" listing and that many images of Churchill were still easily found on its search engine.

"We're aware an image for Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his knowledge graph entry on Google," the firm's search liaison arm said on Twitter.

"We apologize for any concern. This was not purposeful & will be resolved. Images in such panels are automatically created & updated. During an update, they can briefly disappear."

The statement added his photo would be restored to the list as rapidly as possible.

"We'll want to explore exactly why an automatic update caused it to disappear & see if there are any improvements in those systems to address."

However, the change provoked a swift backlash on social media.

"Mind blowing if this is deliberate policy, @Google," said Conservative lawmaker Simon Clarke.

"Western Europe would almost certainly be enslaved if it wasn't for the man whose photo is now absent."

Read also: Australian police arrest two after Captain Cook statue defaced

Britain's WWII prime minister has become engulfed in controversy after a Black Lives Matter protest in central London last weekend led to his statue being defaced with the word "racist".

The vandalism was widely condemned but Churchill critics also argue he was consistently bigoted and discriminatory to non-whites during his lengthy political career, with his policies leading to the death of millions during famine in India in 1943.

Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who wrote a biography of Churchill, has called his targeting "absurd and shameful" and said anti-racism protests have been "hijacked by extremists".

Thousands of self-styled "patriots", backed by far-right groups, assembled in central London on Saturday vowing to guard statues and memorials there.

The gathering led to violent clashes with police, who made more than 100 arrests and saw six officers injured.
BNZ's parent company, the National Australia Bank (NAB), revealed that it would provide financial services courses for all bank staff across Australia and New Zealand, an industry first in both regions.

NAB partnered with the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA) to provide a unique level of training and education for its staff. Mainly, it will give NAB bankers and all support function colleagues formal qualifications to improve their skills and careers.

BNZ will set the programme in motion on April 2021 and will be available to everyone in the bank, not only the frontline staff.
15.06.2020 LISTEN

The bottom line of today's world, which applies to every person on this planet - irrespective of their social, economical or geographical positions - can be simply jotted down in a few words: "COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed our lives" as said by Dr Jameel Zamir, Director of Programmes at International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), East and Southeast Asia and Oceania region.

Dr Jameel Zamir was among the panelists for World Health Day Webinar which also launched the Sustainable Development e-Talks (#SDGtalks), co-hosted by Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore and CNS.

Menstruation does not stop during pandemics

During emergency or other crisis situations, safe pregnancy care, safe abortion or menstrual hygiene becomes even more vital, so we have to ensure that women's health and wellness does not slip down the priority in responding to the crisis. Products related to menstrual hygiene, such as, sanitary napkins, tampons, etc are very important for ensuring women's menstrual hygiene.

Hence, they ought to be considered as essential commodities. In many societies, openly talking about menstrual hygiene is still considered a taboo and many a young girls and women in countries like India still use unhygienic products (rags, paper, etc) during menstruation. Many organisations like Sustainable Health Enterprise (SHE), Goonj, Code Red, among others, are working towards providing women with proper affordable and accessible sanitary napkins. During the lockdown to contain COVID-19 pandemic in India, several local groups had to step up their efforts to address the need for sanitary napkins and contraceptives. One such group is Asha Parivar led by Ramon Magsaysay Awardee Dr Sandeep Pandey.

While the world eagerly and desparately waits for scientific breakthroughs to prevent and cure COVID-19, we also need to review the reasons for not being able to fully translate earlier scientific breakthroughs into public health gains without delay. For example, even routine immunization is not reaching every child in the country. That is why it becomes even more critical to address these barriers which prevent communities across the nation to access quality healthcare in a rights-based manner.

When it comes to sexual and reproductive health, there are gender-specific barriers that aggravate the disparaties in access to options to prevent unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and HIV. In National Family Health Survey (NFHS-IV), the unmet need for family planning was 12.9% and contraceptive prevalence rate was 47.8%. Teenage marriages were 26.8% and teenage pregnancies were 7.9%. Despite male sterilization being a non-surgical reversible procedure, only 48,000 male sterilizations were done during 2018-2019 as compared to over 33 lakhs female sterilizations. Abysmally low utilization of male condoms and very poor programmatic uptake of female condoms is yet another reminder of deep-rooted gender-disparities and stereotypes.

In these unprecedented times of COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes far more important to outline what actually are essential services for us as human beings. As said by Dr Jameel to Citizen News Service (CNS), some services which are essential in our day-to-day lives are being neglected because of excess demand and shortage of supply- such as availability of contraceptives and other essential reproductive health services have taken a backseat. Indeed it is important and rather quintessential to put the sexual and reproductive health services under the essential services' list, though these are swept away under the carpet many times as a non-essential service.

The lockdown has proven to provide some sort of relief to stopping humongous spread of COVID-19 but it is a double-edged sword, especially when one sees that healthcare for non-COVID-19 related illnesses or conditions is severely impacted. Children and women's health is also an essential part of health security.

"With the continuance of lockdown, the importance of midwives, nurses, and doctors who assist the birth of children is also highlighted. In a dire situation like this, infants and mothers can be at risk if not treated properly", said Dr Zamir.

The International Planned parenthood federation(IPPF) has constituted a task force for COVID-19, especially for 121 countries where sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services have been severely affected. This task force is working to strengthen community education and awareness about COVID-19, ensure continuity of essential SRH services, secure essential supplies of SRH related products and ensuring safety of suppliers and agents who provide these services. In order to analyze the results, they did a survey in 121 countries. In 25 countries, across the East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific, shortage of SRH services was reported.

Dr Zamir shared that IPPF, which is a federation of national family planning associations, has several member associations (like those in Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, China) which are finding solutions to advance rights-based access to sexual and reproductive healthcare in the pandemic situation. Such innovations include tele-medicines and even home delivery of sexual and reproductive healthcare services/ products in Malaysia (such as contraceptives).

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released multiple guidelines for the people to be aware of the problems they could face during the time of the pandemic and how to combat them. One of the most important aspects of these guidelines is the act of self-care. Along with regular measures such as social distancing and respiratory hygiene, people are also advised to maintain proper sexual and reproductive health without the help of any external support- such as a health worker- in a pandemic related lockdown situation. These guideline address multiple issues such as family planning, pregnancy, childbirth, newborn care, safe abortion etc.

The WHO also highlights the importance of proper care and nutrition of pregnant women and new mothers, along with proper hygiene and precautions while breastfeeding. It also suggests the use of contraceptives to reduce unintended pregnancy, and other lifesaving measures to avert maternal mortality.

The COVID-19 related lockdown has also precipitated a deeply entrenched human rights violation in the form of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence. In the initial few weeks of the lockdown itself, the government of India's National Commission of Women (NCW) reported, "From February 27 to March 22, a total of 396 offences (including all types of abuses) related to women were reported to the NCW, while from March 23 to April 16, as many as 587 such complaints were received."

Dr Zamir rightly points out that those suffering due to sexual and gender-based violence struggle to report it. Reporting it during the lockdown becomes even more difficult. In such days of lockdown, which is implicitly a home quarantine, it becomes rather more difficult for women who face domestic violence to come out.

Healthcare for non-COVID-19 related problems has slipped down the priority. Routine immunization came to a halt and services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) became more difficult to access. People living with HIV or those on anti-TB medicines were struggling to ensure uninterrrupted treatment during the lockdown.Dr Zamir shared that "One of the biggest impacts of COVID-19 is that it has profoundly impacted on the accessory family planning information, services and sexual and reproductive health and rights."

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a test for not only the basic structures of society but also of the complex social and health networks that need to bear the brunt more than any other industry which have direct implications on people, especially women. Sexual and reproductive health services are always at the centre of health responses and become even more critical during crisis situations.

Anjali Roy, Ankit Kumar, Anurag Ratan, KS Lakshmi Naraayan, Kaustubh Jain, Sartaj Singh

(authors are students of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Indore, India and part of the internship at CNS (Citizen News Service) currently)
MTN Ghana Foundation congratulates voluntary blood donors as the world commemorates World Blood Donor Day on 14th June 2020 under the theme Safe blood saves lives. The slogan for the day is Give blood and make the world a healthier place.



Commenting on the celebration, the Corporate Services Executive of MTN Ghana, Samuel Koranteng said, As we celebrate World Blood Donor Day, I would like to salute all individuals who have donated blood to save lives. We say special thanks to those who have participated in MTNs Valentine Days Save a Life initiative. We commend them highly for the commitment to this cause and for their compassion for humanity.



MTN Ghana Foundation also commends the work of the National Blood Service, the Ghana Blood Foundation, all Blood banks and all other supporting partners.



Mr Koranteng said I also take the opportunity to appeal to all eligible blood donors to donate blood at regular intervals to save lives. In this era of Covid 19, voluntary blood donation is very critical as all planned blood donation campaigns have been disrupted.



Blood is an important resource for both planned and emergency medical conditions. It is vital for treating patients who find themselves in emergency health situations such as accidents and child birth. Despite this urgent need for blood, records indicate the general scarcity of safe of blood in blood banks across Ghana. According to the National Blood Services, there is a national demand for about 280,000 units annually. However less than 50 per cent is raised each year. It is against this background that MTN Ghana Foundation has over the years organized an annual blood donation campaign dubbed Save a Life to support efforts in restocking blood banks across the country and to help create awareness on the need for safe blood.



The MTN Ghana Foundation understands the critical role blood plays and has been at the forefront of blood donation for over a decade. MTN Ghana Foundation initiated the annual blood donation exercise dubbed Save a Life initiative in 2011 to help restock blood levels at the National blood bank.



Since the launch of the initiative, the MTN Ghana Foundation along with staff of MTN and their friends and partners have collected over 20,036 units of blood to save lives. This years blood donation exercise had a total of 24 donation/bleeding centers in all 16 regions of Ghana. The Foundation also commenced the construction of a GHS 300,000 blood bank for the maternity wing of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital. The blood bank is expected to be completed by end of October 2020.



In recognition of its efforts, the MTN Ghana Foundation was adjudged the highest corporate blood donor in 2013, second highest corporate donor in 2014 and one of the highest corporate donors in 2015.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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For those whose religion is not retail, shops were not the only thing allowed to reopen on Monday.

As thousands of people lined up to be allowed in high street stores, one may have been forgiven for not noticing that, to somewhat less fanfare, places of worship were also throwing wide their doors for the first time since the coronavirus lockdown started.

Certainly, one may have been forgiven for not noticing in Sheffield.

Here, the queue for the citys Primark stretched down the road and round the block. The queue for the nearby Cathedral Church of St Marie  the regions main Catholic centre  topped out at just half a dozen.

This is the world we live in, said Bob Rae, one of those six. People find their joy in different ways.

Even that dwarfed the numbers waiting at the Anglican Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Paul. Just three worshippers were sat on steps there when doors were released for the first time since March.

Really? pondered Bob, a retired journalist. Maybe Catholics are a bit more fearful?

Whatever the case, the relatively low-key openings of such places of worships perhaps belied the sheer significance of this new easing of restrictions to millions of the countrys faithful.

Were over the moon, said dean Father Chris Posluszny. I think when we closed no one anticipated it would be so long. Its been necessary but there have been so many people missing coming here.

In the interim, he has been running an online mass every Sunday. Just me and a video camera in an empty cathedral, he said. Its gone well  I had a letter from someone watching in Australia  but a cathedral needs people.

For now, it should be said, the rules around reopening buildings of faith remain ultra-limited.

People are allowed to attend for private prayer only. No congregations, such as mass, or ceremonies such as weddings, are permitted. The overwhelming majority of mosques and Hindu temples  where the main purpose of the building is to facilitate group worship  have decided to not yet open at all as a result.

Individual prayers can be performed anywhere, primarily at homes, said Imam Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. Accordingly, opening the mosques [on Monday] will cause more challenges as the expectation from the community will be to resume collective worship.

Father Christopher Posluszny, dean of Sheffield Cathedral Church of Saint Marie (Sheffield Cathedral Church of Saint Marie)

In Sheffield, every single mosque currently remains shut. So does the citys Hindu Mandir.

We may open for individual prayer at some point, said Waheed Akhtar, adviser to the trustees at the citys Madina Masjid. But the overriding concern is the safety of those who come here. We have a lot of elderly people, people with health conditions, Bame people obviously  all disproportionately affected by Covid-19, so we are taking time to make sure we have everything in accordance with the guidelines.

That be as it may, among those who could access their place of worship in the South Yorkshire city on Monday  including those two cathedrals and the citys Shri Guru Gobind Singh Ji Sikh Temple  the joy appeared almost palpable.

Perhaps you can be guilty of taking a place like this for granted because you assume it will always be there, said Margaret Nalty, a retired nurse outside the Anglican cathedral. So to have it snatched away without any warning was shocking.

Theres a paradox, she describes, which appears felt by people of all faiths who The Independent speaks to.

On the one hand, the last three months have proven that they dont need a building to be a community; that it is the people they have kept seeing during online congregations or chatted to in Whatsapp faith groups that are the real bricks and mortar of their religion. On the other, they have never felt the importance of their respective places of workshop more acutely.

It feels good to be back, put it that way, said Ms Naltys friend Susan Daines, a retired teacher. Its hard to explain. Its faith so you cant articulate it. Not how youd like. But being back here, it intensifies the significance of the experience.

As they headed in, one at a time, there was a strange pause when each greeted church officials they may otherwise have hugged after such a long absence. I dont know how to greet you, Ms Daines laughed. It is a feeling were perhaps all getting used to across all walks of life.

Inside, pews had been removed to ensure social distancing and hand sanitiser stations were everywhere. Once a set number of people arrive  probably around 30 or 40  it will be one in, one out.

Weve got a lovely space here, said vice-dean Canon Keith Farrow. The challenge was  for all places of worship  to ensure people feel like they are coming into a safe space but also a holy space. I think weve done that.

The importance of reopening cannot be underestimated, he said: Weve been here on this site for almost 1,000 years and very rarely have the doors been closed. Weve gone through revolutions, through the reformation, through the blitz, and the doors stayed open. Even in the plague I dont think they closed. So this has been a burden for all of us. But one that now becomes a joy to be back open again...Hopefully, the first step towards to normality again.

It is something, back at the Catholic cathedral, Bob Rae hopes too. As it happens, he is one of the bell ringers there. When he took hold of the ropes on Monday morning to mark the reopening, he noticed the calluses on his finger tips  hardened from years of holding the rope  had gone soft over the last three months.

It was actually quite painful after all this time, he said. But worth it. How wonderful to hear them again.
A man is dead after several gunmen opened fire at a north Houston block party Sunday night, separating children from their parents as they crouched under cars for cover.

An upwards of 200 people were in the 5600 block of Chapman Street when four men started shooting around 7:40 p.m., according to Houston Police Department detective L. Lange. As bullets flew, several people  including children  ducked for cover or scattered, Lange said.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi VIjayan's daughter Veena got married to Communist Party of India-Marxist youth leader and Democratic Youth Federation of India national president P A Mohammed Riyas on Monday in accordance with COVID-19 protocol.

The marriage was held at Cliff House, the official residence of the chief minister, with less than 50 people, comprising close relatives and friends, participating in the function.



Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan visited the chief minister's residence and wished the couple.

The marriage had been registered under the Special Marriage Act last week.

Industries Minister E P Jayarajan was the lone member from the ministry who took part in the function.



The couple, in their forties, exchanged garlands and Riyas tied the 'thali' (mangalsutra), around Veena's neck.



Veena is the director of an IT firm, Exalogic Solutions Private Limited, a venture she started in 2015, headquartered in Bengaluru.

She also worked with Oracle for nearly eight years.



Riyas is the national president of the DYFI since February 2017.



This is the second marriage for both Veena and Riyas.
MANILA, Philippines  A total of 390 overseas Filipino workers who were repatriated from Laos and Norway have returned in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

In a statement, the DFA said the latest group of repatriates is composed of 125 land-based workers from Laos and 265 sea-based workers from Norway.

They arrived in Manila on Sunday, June 14 via Air Asia and Evelop Air flights.

The DFA said that upon arrival, the repatriated Filipinos underwent thorough documentation screening and briefing on current safety protocols prescribed by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID).

They also underwent RT-PCR COVID-19 testing at the airports one stop shop to ensure that they are free from coronavirus disease.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) also made psycho-social counseling available to OFWs who may wish to seek such service, the DFA said.

They will be temporarily housed at the Bureau of Quarantine-approved facilities for mandatory quarantine while they await the results of their RT-PCR test, it added.

The department said the repatriation was made possible through the help and coordination of various government agencies tasked to ensure successful repatriation of overseas Filipinos amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The post 390 Filipinos repatriated from Laos, Norway back in PH  DFA appeared first on UNTV News.
A U.S. Air Force fighter plane with one pilot on board crashed into the North Sea on Monday. The status of the pilot wasnt known.

The F-15C Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing was on a routine training mission from RAF Lakenheath when it crashed at 9:40 a.m. local time (4:40 a.m. EDT). The cause of the crash wasnt immediately clear.

U.K. search and rescue authorities are taking part in the search of the crash site.

Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force base that hosts the U.S. Air Forces 48th Fighter Wing, known as the Liberty Wing. The base is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of London.
"As a former military pilot, I understand the mission of this great corporation to provide global security and innovative solutions for the brave men and women who protect our freedom," Taiclet said. "I come into this role at a time when our nation and its allies have been tested globally by new and emerging threats. Now more than ever, it's critical we continue to deliver the best systems and equipment in the world. I'm honored to succeed Marillyn, who is rightfully one of the most respected CEOs in America, and to lead a workforce that is inventing and advancing the technology and security of our future."

"This disciplined leadership transition reflects deliberate and thorough succession planning and is being implemented strategically at a time when Lockheed Martin is financially strong and positioned well for the future," Hewson said. "I have every confidence Jim and his executive leadership team will continue driving sustained success through sound business strategy, strong customer relationships and deep mission focus."

About Jim Taiclet

Taiclet's tenure as CEO of American Tower Corporation started in 2003 and he became chairman, president and CEO in 2004. Since then, American Tower grew significantly and increased its market capitalization from approximately $2 billion to more than $100 billion. Taiclet guided the company's transformation from a primarily U.S. business to a global player in its industry and he is widely regarded as one of America's most successful CEOs.

Prior to joining American Tower in 2001, Taiclet was president of Honeywell Aerospace Services, a unit of Honeywell International, and prior to that was vice president, Engine Services at Pratt & Whitney. He was also previously a consultant at McKinsey & Company, specializing in telecommunications and aerospace strategy and operations.

Taiclet began his career as a U.S. Air Force officer and pilot and served a tour of duty in the Gulf War. He holds a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University, where he was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson School, and is a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Academy with degrees in engineering and international relations.

About Marillyn Hewson

As president and CEO, Hewson led Lockheed Martin through a period of consistent financial performance and impressive growth during which the corporation's market capitalization increased 280%. During her 37 years at Lockheed Martin, Hewson has held increasingly responsible executive positions with the corporation, including president and chief operating officer and executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Electronic Systems business area.

In 2019, TIME magazine identified Hewson as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World," and FORTUNE magazine ranked her No. 1 on its list of "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" for the second year in a row. In 2018, she was named the "CEO of the Year" by Chief Executive magazine, a Top 10 "Businessperson of the Year" by FORTUNE magazine, and one of the "World's 100 Most Powerful Women" by Forbes.

Additional Leadership Transitions

Several other executive leadership appointments became effective today as part of the transition. Frank A. St. John, 53, became chief operating officer. In this newly created role, he is responsible for the strategic, operational and financial performance of all the corporation's lines of business. St. John joined Lockheed Martin more than 30 years ago as an engineering intern and took on roles of increasing responsibility in engineering and program management before joining the corporation's executive leadership team. Most recently, he served as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) business area and prior to that as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control (MFC) business area.

Stephanie C. Hill, 55, succeeded St. John as executive vice president of RMS. Most recently Hill served as senior vice president, Enterprise Business Transformation, where she led the corporation's Digital Transformation and Enterprise Information Technology teams. Prior to that, she was deputy executive vice president of RMS and senior vice president for Corporate Strategy and Business Development. She has held positions of increasing responsibility since joining Lockheed Martin in 1987 as a software engineer.

Yvonne O. Hodge succeeded Hill as senior vice president, Enterprise Business Transformation. Previously Hodge was vice president of Business Innovation, Transformation, and Enterprise Excellence for the corporation's Space business area. During her nearly 18 years with Lockheed Martin, she has served in several leadership roles. Prior to joining Lockheed Martin, Hodge spent many years at AT&T in managerial and executive positions, including vice president of operations for business customers.

About Lockheed Martin

Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 110,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com.

Please follow @LMNews on Twitter for the latest announcements and news across the corporation.

SOURCE Lockheed Martin

Related Links

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Tables at Gran Caffe L'Aquila have been removed in favor of shelves of groceries. Read more

With their restaurant business at Gran Caffe LAquila shuttered by the pandemic, owners Riccardo Longo and Stefano Biasini have converted the first-floor cafe seating into an Italian grocery store.

At the same time, theyve added an online store and are shipping their signature gelato nationwide. Grocery items are available for in-person shopping as well as by delivery from Mercato.

Its a bold move right down the block from Di Bruno Bros., which last year added a restaurant and wine bar on its second floor.

With the future so unclear right now, we had to create something more flexible, Longo said, adding that the format will remain in place at least until dining rooms are allowed to reopen. He said the groceries would then shift to a warehouse for shipping.

This is actually a fun project, he said.

As a boy, Longo shuttled between Italy and the Philadelphia area, where his family owns the Toscana restaurants. Business interests in Abruzzo led Longo to Biasini, the champion gelato maker who co-owned Gran Caffe, which was destroyed with the rest of the city in a 2009 earthquake.

With coffee roaster Michele Morelli, who has since moved back to Italy, Longo and Biasini relocated the business to the United States, opening in December 2014 at 1716 Chestnut St. on two floors: cafe/bar at street level, with restaurant seating and glassed-in rooms for coffee roasting and gelato-making on the second.

The changes in the restaurant business caused by the coronavirus are just as seismic.

Longo and Biasini have removed the tables that lined Gran Caffe LAquilas wall, across from the gelato counter and bar, making way for shelves stocked with coffee, packaged crackers and cookies, breadsticks, sauces, cheeses, olive oil, pastas, along with basic ingredients such as chickpeas, lentils, polenta, and flour. Cheese and salumi are sliced to order. An Italian wine and beer shop are in the back.

The e-commerce inventory now is about 120 items. Longo expects it to reach 500 within a year.

GCL is still open for walk-in gelato and coffee, as well as cocktails and prepared foods to go. About 85% of the restaurant menu is available  but not the famed carbonara. It does not travel, Longo said. After 15 minutes, you have scrambled eggs.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
By PTI

LONDON: 'Fleabag' star-creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge is reportedly in negotiations with the producers of the James Bond film franchise to work on a spin-off following the iconic British spy's daughter Mathilde.

It was recently revealed that Daniel Craig's Bond in 'No Time to Die' has a five-year-old daughter named Mathilde after the film's call sheet was sold on eBay.

The makers, who brought Golden Globe-winner Waller-Bridge on board to 'spice up' the script of 'No Time to Die', now want her to offer ideas for a film focusing on Mathilde as she trains to become a spy.

"Bond bosses are very excited about 007 having a daughter and creating a new franchise around her.

"It is likely to feature Bond conflicted over having to train her up as an assassin combined with Waller-Bridge's trademark black humour, shown in 'Killing Eve'. She may just offer ideas and co-produce as roles are yet to be decided, but bosses are keen to give her a big part in the film's production," a source told Mirror.uk.

'No Time to Die', which marks Craig's fifth and final outing as Bond, will hit the theatres in the UK on November 12 and in the US on November 20.
Americans are twice as likely to trust contact tracing technology provided by Big Tech to keep their data private over government-run apps.

People age 25-44 rank COVID tracing apps as a bigger digital privacy threat than identity theft or cybercrime.

The least-likely age group to use the apps are those most susceptible to the virus: 88% of people 55+ said they do not intend to download.

Government + Healthcare workers are the least likely to download COVID contact tracing apps, with 84% reporting they do not intend to download.

Roughly 40% of Americans said no organization should have access to COVID contact tracing app data; if data must be shared, people are most comfortable giving access directly to hospitals, followed by Google/Apple and then their state government.

Over 75% of Americans believe their digital privacy is at risk if COVID contact tracing app data is stored centrally so government and authorities can access the data.

"We believe these survey results send a clear signal to both app creators and the government. COVID contact tracing apps could fail before they launch if developers don't communicate to the public how they plan to protect people's privacy," said Travis Witteveen, CEO of Avira. "Furthermore, most Americans reported they currently trust Big Tech over the government; for the success of this important venture, the technology experts should lead the charge on COVID contact tracing apps."

About Avira

Avira provides a consumer-focused portfolio of security and privacy solutions for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, home networks, and smart devices (IoT). All Avira features are available as licensed SDKs and APIs. Working together, Avira and its partners protect more than 500 million devices globally. Avira solutions consistently achieve best-in-class results from independent security tests.

Avira is a privately held company headquartered near Lake Constance, Germany, with additional offices in the EU, the United States, and Asia. For more information about Avira visit www.avira.com.

Infographic - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190716/Avira_COVID_Survey_1_Infographic.jpg

Infographic - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190717/Avira_COVID_Survey_2_Infographic.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1190718/Avira_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Avira

Related Links

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The Borno State Government in collaboration with an NGO, North East Regional Initiative (NERI), is to establish four community radio stations in the state.

The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Information and Culture, Babakura Abba-Jato, made this known on Monday in Maiduguri at the flag-off of an inter-ministerial press briefing to mark the First Anniversary of Governor Babagana Zulum in office.

Mr Abba-Jato said already, the station for Biu town had been completed and operational, while the remaining three would be sited in Monguno, Damasak and Dikwa towns.

The commissioner also said the Borno Radio and Television station (BRTV) had been provided with a new transmitter, while booster stations would be established to ensure that it covered the entire state and beyond.

We are also going to put the television station on satellite for our citizens in diaspora, Mr Abba-Jato said.

READ ALSO:

He said the state information unit has been equipped with facilities to make it more effective.

We have also resuscitated the state printing press that had been dormant for many decades, Mr Abba-Jato said.

The commissioner whose ministry covers the state Fire Service, said 62 fire engines are undergoing rehabilitation to boost the state fleet of fire-fighting engines.

The development will make Borno to be the state with the highest number of fire-fighting engines in the country, the commissioner said.

(NAN)
On May 18, Chhattisgarh police got information from intelligence officers about Maoist leader Deepak Teltumbde camping in the jungles of Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh to meet some villagers.

Police swung into action to track the central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) but found that they got the intelligence input a day late.

Milind Baburao Teltumbde alias Deepak Teltumbde alias Jeeva is one of the senior-most functionaries of the CPI(Maoist) and special zone secretary for Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (MMC) zone.

Teltumbde has been given the task to create a new territory that allows rebels easy passage from east to west and vice-versa, and safe abode for the senior rebel leaders.

Police officers said Teltumbde has been visiting the MMC areas regularly and has recruited about 200 locals for a commando unit, called Vistaar Dalam, of MMC.

Deepak is presently concentrating on training and developing human intelligence inside the MMC which the Maoists lack, a senior police officer of Chhattisgarh said.

Jitendra Shukla, Rajnandgaons superintendent of police (SP) who has been tracking him for long, said Teltumbde mostly lives in the jungles of Mandla, Rajnandgaon and Kawardha districts in Chhattisgarh, which comes under MMC zone

But he has spent the past four months in the urban areas of Maharashtra for meeting party cadres and working out a strategy, Shukla said.

We have come to know that in Nagpur, he met many people most in an auto-rickshaw to prevent detection. Teltumbde has a good network in Vidharbha region especially in Nagpur, he said.

Teltumbde never trusts anyone, another Chhattisgarh police officer, who has created his digital profile based on interrogation of rebels, who worked with him in the recent past, said.

A close aide of Teltumbde surrendered in 2019 in Rajnandgaon, which helped the police get information about his movement during Moaist operations in three states, mainly in Madhya Pradesh.

Well-informed and well-read, Deepak is always on the move. He knows the jungle in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra very well and it is not easy to catch him, said the second senior police officer, adding that off-late he has developed health issues, which has restricted his movement.

Deepak is suffering from spondylitis because of which he has lost conscious while walking in the jungle. He has diabetes and his right knee has also been operated once, he said.

Teltumbde moves heavily-armed bodyguards and a platoon of Maoists in the jungles. According to senior Maoist leader Pahad Singh, who surrendered in 2018, he takes all the major decision of the zone.

He was the person who pushed the idea to develop Amarkantak as base area of MMC, in a meeting in 2016, in which Central Committee Members (CCM) of the CPI(Maoists) including him were present, a senior Indian Police officer (IPS) officer who interrogated Pahaad Singh, said.
Television crews set up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, June 8, 2020.

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will not hear cases regarding a doctrine that shields police and other public officials from lawsuits for conduct that does not involve a "clearly established" violation of the law.

The announcement, made in an order, comes as the nation reels from weeks of protests against police violence spurred by the brutal arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month that ended with his death in police custody. The four officers involved in the arrest are now facing charges.

The doctrine, qualified immunity, has come under increasing scrutiny by critics who say it gives blanket protection to law enforcement officers even when they violate civil rights. The burden imposed by qualified immunity on victims of police violence is exacerbated by the fact that prosecutors rarely charge officers for excessive force violations, often leaving civil lawsuits as the only remaining avenue.

The doctrine was established by the Supreme Court in 1982 and has been expanded over time. Increasingly, the top court has required victims to cite a case with precisely the same detailed facts as their own in order to prove that the action against them was a "clearly established" violation of the law.

Justices Clarence Thomas, one of the court's most ardent conservatives, and Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, have both criticized qualified immunity on separate grounds.

Thomas has argued that qualified immunity is essentially a creation of the justices  substituting "our own policy preferences" for that of Congress. Sotomayor has written that qualified immunity "tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished."
Heavy police presence in Brooklyn, New York, following a protest on June 12, 2020 in New York City.

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea announced on Monday that the NYPD's anti-crime unit will be eliminated.

Some 600 plainclothes officers who have worked out of the agency's 77 precincts will now be reshuffled into detective work and neighborhood policing.

Calling the decision a "seismic shift" in the department's culture, Shea added: "I would consider this in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of 'Stop, Question, and Frisk.'"

On Friday, numerous city leaders expressed their support for cutting the NYPD's 2020-2021 budget by $1 billion amid ongoing protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The New York Police Department is disbanding its anti-crime unit in what Commissioner Dermot Shea described on Monday as "a seismic shift in the culture of how the NYPD polices this great city."

"This is 21st-century policing," Shea said at a news conference. "We must do it in a manner that builds trust between the officers and the community they serve."

The move will impact some 600 plainclothes officers, who will be transitioned into other assignments like neighborhood policing and detective work. In the past, they've worked out of the department's 77 precincts, targeting violent crime, The New York Times reported.



"I would consider this in the realm of closing one of the last chapters of 'Stop, Question and Frisk,'" Shea said. "I think it's time to more forward and change how we police in this city. We can do it with brains. We can do it with guile. We can move away from brute force."



Shea admitted that the decision is "not without risk" because the anti-crime unit's work includes taking firearms off the street. Without them, the risk is "squarely on my shoulders," he said, according to WABC-TV.

Story continues

Police reform has become a rallying cry not only in the United States but across the world after George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died while a white police officer placed a knee on his neck for almost nine minutes in a bid to restrain him. Floyd's police killing sparked outrage, which manifested in the form of protests with thousands calling for an end to systemic racism and police violence.

In some cases, however, rioters hit the streets and looting, arson, vandalism, and police clashes took attention away from the Black Lives Matter movement.

"Thankfully, here in New York City, angry demonstrations have turned peaceful. Thoughtful discussions about reform have emerged. We welcome reform, but we also believe that meaningful reform starts from within," Shea said, per NBC New York.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on June 7 that the city would be "shifting resources to ensure that the focus is on our young people."

Other police reforms included overhauling 50-a, a section of New York Civil Rights Law that says personnel files of police officers, firefighters, and corrections officers are "confidential and not subject to inspection or review" without their permission.

On Friday, several city leaders issued a joint statement throwing their support behind cutting the 2020-2021 NYPD budget by a whopping $1 billion.

The "unprecedented reduction" would "not only limit the scope of the NYPD, but also show our commitment towards moving away from the failed policing policies of the past," the statement said.

The group promised to save money by "reducing uniform headcount through attrition, cutting overtime, shifting responsibilities away from the NYPD, finding efficiencies and savings in OTPS spending, and lowering associated fringe expenses."

Shea shared a defiant message on Instagram on May 31, telling police officers that he was "extremely proud" of them as videos surfaced on social media showing them shoving protesters, yanking people's masks down to hit them with pepper spray, and even using horses and police cruisers to barrage into crowds.

Expanded Coverage Module: black-lives-matter-module

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Thiruvananthapuram, June 15 : The Kerala government on Monday came out with a new order easing the lockdown norms, exempting those who come to the state for business purposes. The order said business travellers need not undergo the mandatory 14 days of home quarantine.

The order states that there are people who visit the state for a short time for business, official work, trade, medical, court cases, property management or other such purposes. However, all such persons arriving for business purposes have to get prior permission by applying through the state government website and get an e-pass, the order said.

"Since placing them in home/institutional quarantine is not feasible, the government has allowed them to visit the state for a period up to 7 days without mandatory quarantine, after obtaining entry pass through the Covid-19 Jagratha portal. The students who visit the state for exams or academic purposes can stay for a period of 3 days before the start of exam and 3 days after the exam is over," said the order.

In case of any violation to the above norms, strict action will be taken against the persons and others involved in it, the order said.

Currently there are 1,340 corona positive patients under treatment in Kerala.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe on Sunday urged Kenyans to present themselves for Covid-19 in a bid to detect the deadly virus early.

Speaking when he toured medical facilities in Othaya, Nyeri, the CS said it is easier to manage the disease when it is detected early.

When you test early, and in the event we detect the virus early, it becomes easy to manage the disease, said Kagwe.

He also raised concern over non-communicable diseases which he said contribute to one in every three deaths and is projected to rise in the country.

Kagwe urged people with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to follow medical advice and observe containment measures since they are at a higher risk of contracting the virus.

Non communicable diseases are becoming a major sources of concern because of the growth in mortality rate, he said, adding: NCDs have the potential of driving a household into poverty, and can reduce family incomes by 30%.

Kagwe noted that NCDs are often silent and usually one will not show symptoms until too late, further stating that early action is best and is cheaper.

The number of infections in Kenya rose to 3,594 after 137 more cases were confirmed on Sunday following the testing of 3,167 samples.

The new positive cases are distributed in counties as follows; Nairobi (92), Mombasa (16), Kajiado (15), Busia and Kiambu, four cases each, Kilifi, Nakuru, Nyamira, Uasin Gishu, Siaya and Muranga, have one case each.

32 more patients were discharged from various hospitals, bringing the tally of recoveries to 1,253.

Three more patients died, raising the total number of fatalities in the country to 103.

In Nairobi, the 92 cases are from; Mathare, 25, Embakasi East (10), Kibra, and Westlands, nine cases each, Langata (8), Ruaraka (6), Dagoretti North (5), Embakasi South, Kasarani and Makadara, four cases each, Embakasi West, and Kamukunji three cases each, Roysambu and Starehe, one (1) case each.
The new map of Nepal, incorporating areas like Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura in Uttarakhand, which are Indian territory, unanimously approved by the Himalayan nations Parliament through a constitutional amendment bill on Saturday, is a provocative step that is certain to worsen ties between Kathmandu and New Delhi.

This crisis was building up over the past few weeks, since the K.P. Singh Oli government had released the new map in May, and it was then the Indian government should have fast-tracked the long-delayed foreign secretary-level talks to defuse the issue.

Now, while Mr Oli sought a dialogue with India after the bills passage, New Delhi is unlikely to respond positively to such sledgehammer tactics. It is quite certain Mr Oli who has been under huge pressure domestically for some time, including a challenge to his leadership from rivals in his Nepalese Communist Party is exploiting the territorial issue to whip up nationalistic fervour.

It is due to this that all other Nepal parties found themselves compelled to support the bill in the lower house.

Now it will go to the upper house, the Rashtriya Sabha, which is expected to be a formality. Then things will further deteriorate.

There is also the China factor. Mr Olis government could survive earlier this year, fending off a challenge from some predecessors like Prachanda and Madhav Nepal, because the Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu, presumably on Beijings instructions, interceded on his behalf to urge they dont bring down his government.

Mr Oli had a huge political debt to pay to the Chinese, who have been systematically raising their profile for decades in the landlocked country sandwiched between China and India. With their deep pockets, they have also, often successfully, tried to displace India from its traditional role in Nepal.

And it doesnt seem like a coincidence that the fresh crisis in India-Nepal ties is happening when Sino-Indian relations are on the edge following the Peoples Liberation Armys incursion in Ladakh.

But even if Mr Oli is playing the nationalism card for domestic reasons, or is being instigated by the Chinese (as Army Chief Gen. M.M. Naravane hinted some time ago), the cartographic crisis with Nepal also represents a huge failure for Indian diplomacy.

Granted that Kathmandu was acting difficult, to say the least, and violating all norms on the resolution of boundary issues, it was still the responsibility of Indias foreign office to act more mature than our smaller neighbour.

Historically and otherwise, Nepal and its people occupy a very special place in our hearts and given the open border and free movement between the two countries, the Nepalese are an intrinsic part of every aspect of Indian life. Nowhere is this more so than the Indian Army, whose seven Gorkha Rifles regiments have over half their soldiers coming from Nepal.

The Indian Army chief is traditionally a general in the Nepal Army, and vice versa. For reasons of ethnicity, culture and otherwise, Nepals daily life is intertwined with Indias in a way it never could with Chinas.

And the Oli government knows well it will take far more than passing a few bills in its legislature to get control of territory that is historically Indian. It may therefore be time for the diplomats to get down to brass tacks.
Many Americans suffer from a spiritual sickness, a singular brand of ennui only found in the most industrialized nations, where prosperity is spread among a vast middle class. White middle class Americans have no culture to center them and tether them to a community. Most of the ethnic whites lost these critical ties to "their heritage" when their parents and grandparents fled the cities in the aftermath of WWII. Adrift in the suburbs, jumbled together with thousands of other well-to-do strangers, they became despondent.

Growing up, they lived lives that were planned by doting parents, who sheperded them from high school on to college, where the young adults of America go to "find themselves" in yet another layer of social conditioning masked as "education".

Like the Gen Xers who came before them, Millennials suffer from the same plight, only their sense of collective sense of entitlement and selfishness is more all-encompassing. Their parents appeased and coddled them to such an extreme degree that every minor setback in life is interpreted as some grand injustice, since they were never challenged, or pushed outside their comfort zone.

Once they hit 25, they slowly start to realize that the dream career they had in mind - a sprawling Manhattan apartment, a good-paying job, perhaps as a gossip columnist at a widely read alternative newspaper - is simply beyond their grasp. They didn't work hard enough, they didn't have the smarts, the drive or the wisdom. But the notion that their failures are consequences of their own mistakes simply doesn't compute; it's not them - it's the system. It's capitalism, or racism or white supremacy.

Yes, that must be it.

Anger and resentment can metastasize into hatred and fury at an alarming pace. Often, logic has nothing to do it. But for everyone thinking about joining the mob, we believe there's a better method of dealing with these uncomfortable feelings, and it starts, unfortunately, with something that's kind of uncomfortable: Taking responsibility for yourself. To that end, Twitter user @luinalaska, has some strikingly articulate thoughts (emphasis ours):

Some of you have done NOTHING with your life and youre mad. You have a college degree & a smart phone with access to virtually *anything* and you can barely get out of bed in the morning while you spit on people who built a whole world with nothing but a horse, map, & axe. Youve made nothing with access to everything. Youve conquered nothing. Hell you cant even conquer yourself. So go tear it all down. Scream into the void how unfair it all is. Its not that youve wasted your short time here. Surely not. Dont bother with your own legacy youre busy shitting on the long dead who arent here to care. Go burn down every Starbucks. Thatll show them. Torch the Target. Tear down every monument. Deface every memorial. But what have you built? What do you leave behind? So take your benzos. Watch your porn. Get Uber to drop off your dinner. Buy an adult coloring book. Have sex with strangers to ease your crippling anxiety. Its not you. Its the system really. It isnt fair. Go cancel someone. Dox someone. They deserve it. Youre the good guy. Dont write an epic novel worth building a statue to remember you. Go troll seven year old problematic tweets ever on the hunt for the boogeymen. See now youve accomplished something. Cancel everyone. Youre a warrior now. A real hero. And lastly whatever you do never ever take even a moment to self reflect on your own failures. Never own them. Never take a hint of responsibility. Remember youre just a helpless victim of circumstances beyond your control. This all means nothing. Its like you werent even here.

We wonder whether the reason leftists find authoritarianism - their brand of authoritarianism - so appealing is simply because it would allow them a free-floating get out of jail free card, an excuse for all occasions. Because the one drawback of being free, is that people then expect you to take that freedom, and accomplish something with it.
A man has been charged with robbery and manslaughter after an 86-year-old was attacked on her doorstep 19 years ago.

Hilda Lockert was robbed outside her home on the Overton Road estate in Brixton, south London in on April 30, 2001.

Two weeks later she died on her birthday, May 15.

A post-mortem concluded that the victim died from a blood clot.

Junior Young, 37, has been charged with robbery and manslaughter after 86-year-old Hilda Lockert was attacked on her doorstep on the Overton Road estate in Brixton, south London, in 2001

On Monday, Scotland Yard said that Junior Young, 37, has been charged with robbery and manslaughter over the attack in 2001.

It is believed that Lickert was targeted by two teenagers who grabbed her shopping bag and coat before pulling her to the ground.

She was left with a broken leg and injuries to her head and hip.

The victims purse, which had 15, her bus pass, flat keys and a Tesco loyalty card, were all stolen.

Young, of no fixed address, has been remanded in custody and is due to appear at Croydon Crown Court on Tuesday September 1.
Outdoors and auto retailer Super Retail Group is raising $203 million to beef up its online capabilities and lock in distribution deals with international sports brands as it looks for growth past the coronavirus crisis.

The announcement comes as the business reported a surge in online sales but mixed trading results at its physical sites for the past two months. Overall sales at the retailer, which operates Supercheap Auto, Rebel Sport, BCF and Macpac, stayed positive despite the weak trading environment.

Super Retail Group will raise $203 million to help the company move more sales online. Credit:

Chief executive Anthony Heraghty told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald the funds from the raise would not be used to make any drastic changes at the company, saying instead it would be employed to simplify Super Retail's business structure and invest further in its existing brands.

"We want to be in a position of confidence to invest strongly in stuff that we know that works," he said. "There are no radical departures from the strategy, it's about having the confidence to execute on what's working."
MOSCOW (AP)  A Russian court on Monday sentenced an American security executive to 16 years in prison on spying charges, a verdict that drew an angry response from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who denounced the mans treatment by Russian authorities as appalling.

The Moscow City Court read out the conviction of Paul Whelan on charges of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison. The trial was held behind closed doors because authorities said that was needed for the trial to consider sensitive data.

Whelan has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up. The 50-year-old corporate security executive and Marine Corps veteran from Novi, Michigan, was arrested in Moscow in December 2018 while he was in Russia to attend a friends wedding. Before the verdict was read, Whelan was seen holding up a sign from behind a glass screen that read SHAM TRIAL!, MEATBALL SURGERY!, NO HUMAN RIGHTS, PAULS LIFE MATTERS, DECISIVE ACTION FROM POTUS AND PMs NEEDED?!, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FLORA! Flora is the Whelan Familys dog.

Speaking to reporters after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan denounced the secret trial in which no evidence was produced as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. He described Whelans conviction as a mockery of justice and demanded his immediate release.

Pompeo said the United States is outraged by Whelans conviction after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses.

We have serious concerns that Mr. Whelan was deprived of the fair trial guarantees that Russia is required to provide him in accordance with its international human rights obligations, he said in a statement.

Whelans brother David said lawyers will appeal the verdict that he denounced as political, adding in a statement that the courts decision merely completes the final piece of this broken judicial process.

We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities, the statement said. We look to the U.S. government to immediately take steps to bring Paul home.

In speaking with The Oakland Press, David Whelan said his brothers case has clearly become political because the 16-year sentence is so monstrously out of proportion to anything that he could have potentially done.

We look at Pauls situation a little bit like a war, he said. Sometimes you win battles and sometimes you lose battles. Today feels like a loss. No matter what our hope is about getting him released, the reality is that he is now facing 16 years in a Russian labor camp. Theres nothing thats going to change that. I think thats a little bit of a gut punch today and I think were all still trying to process that.

Whelan said hes still hopeful that the federal government will continue to speak out about his brothers wrongful imprisonment and advocate for a safe return home.

We tried to be patient at the start because we realized that escalation was difficult, he said. Even today, I dont know if a statement from President Trump is actually going to be as critical as it might be eventually. Were pleased with the fact that Ambassador (John) Sullivan made such a strong statement and that Secretary of State (Mike) Pompeo also spoke out today about Pauls case. As long as that engagement continues and exists, that signals to us that they realize its still a problem.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected allegations that Whelan has become a political hostage, saying during a conference call with reporters that his guilt was proven during the trial. Peskov refused to comment on whether Russia could be eyeing Whelans exchange for some of its citizens in the U.S. custody.

Whelan, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, denies the charges of spying for the U.S. that his lawyers said stem from a sting operation. Whelans lawyer has said his client was handed a flash drive that had classified information on it that he didnt know about.

Whelan has publicly complained of poor prison conditions in Russia and has said his life is in danger. Last month, Whelan underwent surgery for a hernia.

The treatment of Paul Whelan at the hands of Russian authorities has been appalling, Pompeo said. Russia failed to provide Mr. Whelan with a fair hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal; and during his detention has put his life at risk by ignoring his long-standing medical condition; and unconscionably kept him isolated from family and friends.

Whelans Russian lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, pointed at Russian official statements signaling a possibility that Whelan could be exchanged for Russians Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko.

There have been proposals of exchange, the issue is being discussed, he said.

Bout, a Russian arms trader, is serving a 25-year sentence in the United States for a 2011 conviction on charges he conspired to sell millions of dollars of weapons to Colombian rebels. He insisted he was a legitimate businessman.

Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot, is serving a 20-year sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was arrested in Liberia in 2010 and extradited to the United States.

Russian officials have cast the convictions of Bout and Yaroshenko as politically-driven and pushed for their release.

David Whelan said his brother, like other Americans imprisoned in foreign countries, are being used for hostage diplomacy. He doesnt expect an exchange will happen and added that his family will not advocate to the federal government, or anyone else, that swapping someone is the best way to free his brother.

There are punitive measures, like sanctions or something else, that would allow for the same end result, he said. And frankly, if the U.S. and Russian governments want to rebuild their very weak relationship right now, there may be better things to offer and work out so that Paul can at least become a part of the rebuilding of that relationship rather than merely a transactions of goods.

Despite the verdict being handed down, hes hopeful that Americans will not forget about his brother and the other Americans just like him.

I hope that they will always consider that fact that there are people who havent come home and that need the help of their government to be freed and come back to a country that does value the sorts of rights that are being abused in these other counties, he said.

U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and U.S. Representatives Haley Stevens (MI-11), Tim Walberg (MI-07), Fred Upton (MI-06), Bill Huizenga (MI-02), Dan Kildee (MI-05), Debbie Dingell (MI-12), John Moolenaar (MI-04), Jack Bergman (MI-01), Elissa Slotkin (MI-08) and Andy Levin (MI-09) released the following joint statement following Whelans sentencing:

For 17 months, Paul Whelan has been unjustly detained by the Russian government. Russia has not presented any credible evidence to prove their outlandish charges, and they have refused to grant Mr. Whelan his basic human rights or the ability to properly defend himself in court. Today, the Russian government harshly sentenced Paul Whelan despite not presenting credible evidence and denying him basic rights. This has gone on long enough. During his detention, Mr. Whelan has endured unimaginable hardships. He was denied necessary medical care until his condition required a life-saving emergency surgery. He was barred from speaking to his family for over a year. He has been threatened by prison guards. Despite months of harsh and cruel treatment, we remain steadfast in our commitment to working with the Whelan family to end this nightmare. Mr. Whelan should not continue to be held as a political prisoner, and he should be allowed to return home to his family in Michigan immediately.

 Mark Cavitt, MediaNews Group reporter, contributed to this story
A New York police officer is alleged to have bumped into a protester deliberately before his colleagues pounced on him and pinned him to the ground.

Terrel Tuosto told TMZ he was taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Nassau County, Long Island on Saturday.

Tuosto claims he was 'set up' by the officers who he believes were 'simply sick' of seeing him demonstrating over the death of George Floyd.

In the footage Tuosto speaks into a microphone as officers tell him to move onto the other side of the street, he responds by telling them: 'I have the right to walk where I want.'

'Your job is to serve and protect,' he adds.

Terrel Tuosto said he was taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Nassau County, Long Island on Saturday. Pictured: officers haul him to the ground and pin him down

As officers pin Tuosto to the ground, other cops yell at the demonstrators to stay back as they complain about the treatment of their comrade

But the police are intent on steering Tuosto and his comrades into the other lane.

Tuosto attempts to sidestep one of the officers who then blocks his path and after he makes contact with him, the other cops quickly descend on the demonstrator.

'He's not resisting! He's not resisting!' yells Mike Motamedian, who filmed the incident.

As Tuosto is hauled to the ground by several officers, the others form a cordon around them and shout at the protesters to stay back.

Nassau County police said Tuosto's disorderly conduct arrest, as well as that of two others, was necessary. They told TMZ that Tuosto was 'moving across lanes of traffic.'

It appears that the incident will receive further scrutiny after New York Attorney General Letitia James' Office commented on Twitter: 'Please report this and send visuals to my office.'

Nassau County police said Tuosto's disorderly conduct arrest, as well as that of two others, was necessary. They told TMZ that Tuosto was 'moving across lanes of traffic.'

Tuosto last week spoke into a megaphone to demonstrators marching through Rockville Centre.

According to the Long Island Herald, he told the crowd: 'We need to see police officers be held accountable for their wrongful actions, their prejudices.

'We need to see other cops, the good cops with the good hearts, be incentivized [and] be able to have something good happen to them if they speak out against this racism and this oppression that is happening to us.'
University workers and students in Australia, like their fellow staff and students around the world, confront an historic assault. Governments and managements are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate tens of thousands of university jobs and slash wages and conditions.

Not only are the livelihoods of university employees, both academic and administrative, permanent and casual, at stake, so are the conditions of students, whether domestic or international. The job losses, together with course and campus closures, mean lower quality education, larger classes and worse services and facilities. This is on top of many students losing their jobs and international students being denied any welfare payments, threatening them with destitution.

Despite intense opposition among university workers, the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) are collaborating with the university managements to push through ballots to impose the cuts.

The Committee for Public Education (CFPE) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) call for no votes in all these ballots. This is a first step toward a unified struggle by university workers and students for the defence of jobs and conditions and for the right to decent, free and first-class education for all, including international students.

This will require the formation of democratically elected rank-and-file committees of university workers and students. These must be completely independent of the trade unions, which have shown they are nothing but industrial police forces. The NTEU and CPSU have not only opposed any mobilisation of their own members, but also any joint struggle with students. As for the National Union of Students, it has disappeared from view.

Such committees are essential to (1) organise a nationwide, unified struggle to defend all jobs and basic rights, (2) protect university staff and students from unsafe COVID-19 conditions and (3) link up with workers and students internationally who are facing similar critical struggles against the impact of the worsening global crisis.

University workers need to reject the ultimatum being put forward by the governments, management and the trade unions: accept wage cuts and other concessions or face redundancies. This is the framework created by governments and the financial elite.

The worsening global pandemic is not the only cause of the deep crisis in the countrys 39 public universities. Universities have been starved of funds for years, with billions of dollars cut by every government since the last Greens-backed Labor government of 200713. Increasingly, soaring class sizes, rising student fee debts, rampant casualisation and corporate restructuring have dominated campuses.

Aided by the unions, the federal Coalition government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison is exploiting the pandemic to intensify this process. It has left the universities facing estimated revenue losses of $16 billion over the next four years alone, primarily caused by the pandemics impact on high-fee paying international students.

COVID-19 is not simply a natural disaster. The pandemic has triggered a monumental failure of the capitalist profit system around the world. Every aspect of the response of governmentstheir protracted cuts to public healthcare and medical research, lack of pandemic preparation and indifference to the lives of working peopleflows from the subordination of human needs to private profit and the accumulation of personal wealth.

An unprecedented rank-and-file revolt triggered the collapse of a pay-cutting national framework agreement volunteered by the NTEU. There was outrage as the union worked behind the backs of its members to offer to cut wages by up to 15 percent, while still allowing, by its own admission, the elimination of 18,000 jobs.

For two months, the NTEU stifled all opposition by conducting backroom talks with the employers on their joint national framework, thus permitting the government and the employers to go on the offensive.

Having already axed the employment of thousands of casuals, universities across the country have begun unveiling further job cuts, including forced redundancies. So far, they include at least 400 at La Trobe University, about 300 at Deakin University, and nearly 300 at Central Queensland University.

The Morrison government has excluded the public universities from its JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, while pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into corporate pockets via stimulus packages. The government has told the universities to slash costs, focus on greater alignment with industry needs and end their reliance on overseas students, especially from China.

This means accelerating the pro-business transformation of the universities into vocational institutions, which is antithetical to critical thinking and the exposure to new ideas that young people must have for a genuine education and preparation for the future.

As part of their broader rush to lift all public health restrictions to restore corporate profits, the government is also demanding that the universities, like schools, physically reopen, despite the danger of COVID-19 outbreaks in crowded lecture theatres and classrooms. Already, the University of Adelaide has begun resuming face-to-face teaching.

The NTEUs collaboration with the employers is not an aberration. It is part of a wider drive by the unions to enforce cuts to jobs, pay and conditions in partnership with employers across entire industries, such as retail, fast food, hospitality and the clerical sector. In the words of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Sally McManus, the unions are giving employers everything you want.

Having suffered a debacle over its national framework, the NTEU is resorting to anti-democratic methods to try to ram through votes for deals it is striking with individual employers, designed to deliver multi-million dollar cost cuts.

At Western Sydney University, the NTEU shut down debate and relied on management threats of redundancies to try to push through an agreement. That deal will go to a postal ballot on June 17. It involves pay cuts of up to 6 percent over six months, plus seven extra days of mandatory leave, to save the management $15 million, with no real guarantees against job cuts in 2020, let alone beyond that.

In an email to members, NTEU branch president David Burchell described the deal as a measured and appropriate sacrifice by all University staff that is in line with the historic values and mission of the trade union movement. This is a revealing comment on the role of unions in enforcing sacrifice by workers for the benefit of employers. For his part, the universitys vice chancellor, Barney Glover, sent an email to all staff, thanking the leadership of both the NTEU and CPSU for their willingness to constructively engage with University management.

At La Trobe University, the NTEU even defied a branch meeting vote to reject its national framework and fight all job cuts. It is backing a management postal ballot on June 16 and 17 for a wage-cutting agreement, based on the national agreement, that would still allow around 400 redundancies.

At other universities, such as Melbourne, the NTEU has opposed postal ballots conducted by the management without the unions agreement. But this is not because the union rejects pay and job cuts. On the contrary, the unions sole preoccupation is with preserving its place as the vehicle for imposing such attacks. After that universitys staff voted last week to defeat the managements ballot proposal for a 2.2 percent pay cut, NTEU president Alison Barnes said the result sent a message to other universities to work co-operatively with the union.

The NTEUs anti-democratic methods are not new. By such means, the NTEU has imposed regressive enterprise bargaining agreements for decades. These have helped managements and successive governments, both Labor and Liberal-National, turn the universities into highly-casualised business conglomerates.

The bitter experiences of recent weeks show that the NTEU will stop at nothing to satisfy the employers and retain its enforcement role. To fight this assault, it is necessary to build genuine working-class organisationsrank-and-file committees of university workers and students.

These committees should demand that, instead of big business being bailed out with billions of dollars, and billions more being handed to the military, resources be poured into healthcare and education funding, to protect the population from COVID-19 and guarantee the basic social right to free, first-class education for all students, including international students, and full-time jobs for all university workers.

These demands require challenging the capitalist profit system and its grip over society. That means turning to a socialist perspective, based on the total reorganisation of society in the interests of all, instead of the financial oligarchy. We urge all university workers and students who want to take forward this fight to contact the CFPE or IYSSE, both established by the Socialist Equality Party.

Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com

CFPE Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/commforpubliceducation/

Twitter account: @CFPE_Australia
The Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 323 new coronavirus cases Monday, raising the statewide total to 79,121.

The health department also said 6,243 deaths are tied to COVID-19, including 28 new fatalities reported Monday. More than two-thirds of the states deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes.

The department released new statistics Monday; the numbers reflect cases and deaths reported as of midnight. There are 513,909 individuals who have tested negative, the health department said.

The number of new coronavirus cases has dropped in recent weeks, even as state officials have ramped up testing of the virus. Its been a month since the state has reported 1,000 new cases in a single day.

Fewer people are being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals in recent weeks.

The health department said Monday 859 coronavirus patients are being treated in hospitals, which is about one-third of the number of those hospitalized during the peak weeks.

Reopening Pennsylvania

Over the last few weeks, Gov. Tom Wolf has been gradually easing restrictions designed to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

On Friday, the Wolf administration moves eight more counties into the green phase, the least restrictive in the governors color-coded plan to gradually reopen Pennsylvania (red, yellow and green). These counties will go green on Friday: Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Luzerne, Monroe, Perry, Pike, and Schuylkill.

Currently, there are 46 counties in the green phase, while 21 counties are in the yellow phase. There are no counties in Pennsylvania in the red phase, denoting a stay-at-home order.

Nursing homes

Across Pennsylvania, 4,268 coronavirus deaths have occurred in nursing and personal care homes.

There are 16,612 resident cases in long-term care facilities who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, along with 2,936 employees at those facilities. Altogether, there have been 19,548 infections in nursing homes and personal care homes.

Cases have been found at 642 facilities in 47 counties.

Statewide, 5,996 health care workers have contracted the coronavirus, according to the health department.

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Boris Johnson's team has reportedly ditched the Gender Recognition Act. (AP)

A charity has hit out at Boris Johnson over his plans to ditch a new law allowing people to self-identify as a different gender.

Theresa May's government drafted the Gender Recognition Act, which would have enabled transgender people change their birth certificate without a medical diagnosis.

But the plans have now been shelved by Number 10 with ministers now set to announce a ban on "gay cure" therapies, in what was described as an attempt to placate LGBT people, according to The Sunday Times.

LGBT charities criticised the move after it was revealed on Sunday, with Nancy Kelley, chief executive of Stonewall, describing it as extremely disappointing.

The attempt to ditch the new laws were revealed on Sunday. (Getty)

The report in todays newspapers, that the government looks set to drop plans to make it more straightforward for trans people to get legal recognition of their gender, is extremely disappointing if accurate, Kelley said.

These reforms would have made many trans people's lives much easier, as we know from the changes already made in Ireland five years ago.

The majority of the public responses to the consultation on reforming the Gender Recognition Act supported these changes.

This is another blow to our community during a difficult time.

According to The Sunday Times, the acts reversal was reffered to in a leaked paper which being slated for publication by the equalities minister Liz Truss at the end of July before MPs break for the summer.

Watch the latest videos from Yahoo UK

The paper is said to be part of a public consultation which found that of the 100,000 respondents, 70% were in favour of allowing people to self-identify as a man or a woman.

However, officials were said to believe that the results had been "skewed" by an "avalanche" of responses generated by trans rights groups.

A Government Equalities Office spokesperson said: "We will publish our response to our consultation on the Gender Recognition Act this summer.

"The minister for women and equalities has also made clear that she will be bringing forward plans to end conversion therapy shortly."
Defense attorneys and prosecutors appeared as little boxes cluttering a screen, video conferencing into court on monitors placed on the courtroom wall and their now-empty counsel table.

Misdemeanor Judge Kelley Andrews sat at her bench, mask on and surrounded by plastic shields. In a past life, her docket might have brought several dozen defendants and lawyers into the courtroom, but on a recent Thursday morning, only 14 people occupied the space at its peak.

For three months and counting, since the novel coronavirus hit Houston, Harris Countys courts have existed in a state of limbo. As administrators this month reopened the justice complex to higher capacities and non-essential proceedings, most activities will remain on video platforms while judges and county leaders continue determining the safest way to get people back into the courts and move along mounting caseloads.

Our hands have been tied, said Robert Schaffer, administrative judge for the Harris County district courts. I think were several months  many months  away from normal operations in the courts.

The reality of holding court during a public health crisis is frustrating for many. Attorneys want to help victims and defendants get justice, judges also want to alleviate their caseloads, and people in jail or on bond want their freedom.

On May 27, more than 39,000 active cases were pending in the felony courts alone  up from roughly 27,200 active cases at the end of May 2019, according to the Harris County District Attorneys Office.The Harris County Jail population is meanwhile on the rise, despite officials early efforts to curb incarceration rates during the pandemic.

But without the threat of jury trials, which are on hold until Aug. 1, lawyers dont have incentive to do much with their clients cases, court officials say.

For some people, this is holding up their lives, said Darrell Jordan, administrative judge for the Harris County Criminal Courts at Law.

The ultimate question is how to move cases without endangering the public, and judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys are largely erring on the side of caution. Pleading large numbers of people out of jail isnt the right answer, nor is making them appear in the courthouse during a pandemic, said Alex Bunin, Chief Public Defender at the Harris County Public Defenders Office.

Were definitely concerned about the safety of all participants, Bunin said. But I think in most situations, our clients dont want to give up their rights just for efficiencys sake.

Rules of the court

Lines into the Harris County Criminal Justice Center are almost nonexistent. In order to limit occupancy and maintain social distancing, the only people allowed inside are court staff, lawyers and the few defendants whose cases are on the docket. Family members are told to wait outside behind a metal barrier.

People must wear masks and pass a verbal screening test to get through the front doors, but security and elevator lines at the 20-story skyscraper in downtown are short. Only two people are allowed in an elevator at a time, and social distancing is supposed to be enforced in the courtrooms and hallways.

Inside, some courtrooms sit entirely empty as judges conduct jail dockets from home, and others are occupied but eerily quiet without the normal crowds.

Each judge is running their court differently, but all under the base guidelines set forth by the county and state. No more than 21 people can be inside a criminal courtroom at a time, and no more than 25 people can be inside a civil courtroom in the courthouse across the street. Most attorneys, including those at the district attorneys office, conduct business from home using a video conference call.

The state on June 1 reopened courts to in-person non-essential proceedings, but those are expected to be few, officials say. Almost everything can occur over the video conference service Zoom, which is how the state has urged most proceedings to take place, Jordan said. Still, the courts now use staggered docket times to prevent defendants from flooding the buildings.

The most essential proceedings in civil courts tend to be temporary restraining orders, temporary injunctions or hearings on child custody cases, Schaffer said. In criminal court, defendants in jail can appear in person for pleas, although that isnt always necessary. On Thursday, Andrews allowed a defendant to plead guilty to a DWI via Zoom.

Still, most cases are stagnant, court officials say. A majority of defense attorneys had been resetting their clients cases months in advance, but its now becoming clear that this is no longer just a temporary situation, Jordan said.

Defense attorneys need to know that this situation is no different than any other legal matter they deal with, Jordan said. Theres a way to deal with their business, but they just need to be creative. The attitude has to be, This is the new normal.

A court reintegration committee meets weekly to sort out the future of the courts, including members from the district attorneys office, individual courts, county engineers and the defense bar. Getting everyone to agree can be difficult, but there isnt a choice, said Jim Bethke, the countys director of justice administration.

We have to work within our new construct, Bethke said.

Individuals do agree on some things. A survey answered by 3,183 prosecutors and defense attorneys in the civil district, criminal district, county criminal, juvenile and family law courts showed consistency about safety measures that should be taken inside the courthosue.

The answers also showed glimpses of their work: Only 6 percent of people who answered said they had waived a right to a jury trial. Just under one-quarter said they had conducted any sort of evidentiary hearings or bench trials over video.

Mark Thiessen, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, agreed that both prosecutors and defense attorneys arent working their cases up to the point where they could be tried. While attorneys who are fearful of catching COVID-19 cant be docked for having public health concerns, he said, working through video calls is still much more cumbersome and difficult to coordinate than going to the courthouse.

Theres half the bar thats afraid for their lives, he said. Its kind of a logistical nightmare getting back to this new normal.

The district attorneys office, most of whose prosecutors have been working from home, did not make anyone available for comment.

Arkema case to resume

After months of waiting, one defendant walked out of the courthouse on Thursday knowing that his case would finally progress. His case had been reset before, but now is expected to stay on the docket.

He turned in some paperwork on Thursday without too many complaints.

No movement in a criminal case sometimes is a blessing, he said.

Without jury trials, the pressure is off, a number of attorneys and judges said. Defendants arent getting the best plea offers, Bunin said, and with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice not accepting new inmates, people dont feel the need to get their sentences started when they can remain at home on bond or in the Harris County Jail, closer to their families.

In civil trials, defendants dont want to pay money from a judgment or a settlement before they have to, Schaffer said.

Trials are set to restart after Aug. 1, which will bring more logistical issues to the courts operations. The district clerks office, which oversees jury selection, is moving the process from the basement of the county administration building to NRG Arena, agency spokesman Al Ortiz said.

Some jury proceedings have been approved to take place next month, Ortiz said. Five district court grand juries have terms ending in July and need new jurors, and a trial against Arkema, Inc., a chemical plant that caught fire and released pollutants during Hurricane Harvey, can resume in July at NRG. It has been on hold since March.

The district clerks office will send out 5,000 summons in order to get 100 prospective jurors to appear for each of the five district courts needing grand juries, Ortiz said.

This is the possibly the longest the county has gone without jury trials, the most recent being during Hurricane Harvey, when the courts stalled for two months. Schaffer said he never imagined it could get much worse than that.

It was a mess, he said. This is taking it to a new level.

samantha.ketterer@chron.com
China violated the International Health Regulations (IHR) of the World Health Organization in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee allege in a new report on the origins of the pandemic.

The interim 50-page report, a copy of which was obtained by National Review, also raises new questions about the complicit role the WHO played in allowing the Chinese Communist Party to delay crucial information about the novel virus. It recommends that WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus be removed from his position for his full-throated defense of the CCPs response and embrace of their revisionist history, and calls for an international investigation into the CCPs failure to slow the spread of the disease.

It is highly likely the ongoing pandemic could have been prevented, it states. As such, it is incumbent upon the United States and likeminded WHO Member States to ensure the accountability and reforms necessary to prevent the CCPs malfeasance from giving rise to a third pandemic during the 21st century.

One study has found that China could have prevented 95 percent of coronavirus infections if it had immediately implemented travel restrictions, containment measures, and social distancing after Wuhan laboratories sequenced the novel virus and discovered its resemblance to SARS by December 27. Instead, health officials ordered the labs to hand over or destroy the samples.

The House Foreign Affairs Minority, led by Representative Michael McCaul (R., Texas)  leader of the China Task Force  claims that, despite reports to the contrary, the CCP never told the WHO of the outbreak, in direct violation of Article 6 of the IHR, which requires a member country to inform the WHO of all events occurring within their borders that may constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The argument that China violated the IHR was first raised by Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of McCauls China Task Force who asked the State Department and Department of Justice in April to bring a case to the United Nations International Court of Justice.

Story continues

Based on the fact that the initial outbreak in Wuhan was caused by an unknown agent and from an unknown source, Republicans argue that the WHOs guidance criteria for reporting potential incidents was not met. A timeline of the viruss early days shows that Wuhan doctors noticed a cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown cause on December 21.

In sum, as early as mid-December, and no later than December 27th, the CCP had enough information to assess it was legally obligated to inform the WHO that the outbreak in Wuhan was an event that may constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the report argues. Had the CCP not been committed to covering up the outbreak, it would have answered YES to all four of the criteria and notified the WHO. The CCP failed to do so.

The report points to comments made by Dr. Michael Ryan, the Executive Director of the WHOs Health Emergencies Program, who said in an April press conference that the organization learned of the new disease from our epidemic intelligence from open-source platform partners PRO-MED  not the CCP  on December 31. It also points to the WHOs COVID-19 Technical Lead, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who said on April 13 that right from the start, from the first notification we received on the 31st of December she believed that of course there may be human-to-human transmission.

It is hard to reconcile the WHOs own Technical Lead saying that on December 31st she knew that of course human-to-human transmission could be occurring with the WHOs January 13th statement that there has been no suggestion of human-to-human transmission, the report states. Either the WHO willfully ignored their experts, or they deferred to CCP pressure.

More from National Review
Ahmedabad: India is not interested in land of Pakistan or China but wanted peace and amity, Union minister and senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday.

Addressing virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally of Gujarat BJP from Nagpur in Maharashtra, he said India believed in peace and non-violence and do not want to be strong by becoming an expansionist.

"India never tried to grab land of its neighbours like Bhutan and Bangladesh," he added.

The Minister of Road Transport & Highways and MSME also said that COVID-19 crisis will not last long, as a vaccine is on its way soon.

"India do not want land that rightfully belongs to Pakistan or China. All India want is peace, amity, love, and (want) to work together (with neighbouring countries)," Gadkari said.

His comments came at a time when India and China are engaged in a stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Talking about the completion of one year of the second term of the Modi government, Gadkari said its biggest achievement was to bring peace in the country by dealing with matters of internal and external security.

"...Whether it is about almost winning over the Maoist problem or securing the country from Pakistan-sponsored terrorism...There is China on the one side of our border and Pakistan on the other side. We want peace, not violence," he said.

"The strong steps taken by our government against terrorism and naxalism; giving importance to internal and external security has made peace possible in the country," Gadkari said.

During his speech, the Nagpur MP referred to famous novel "Mrityunjaya" by Marathi novelist Shivaji Sawant, saying peace and non-violence can be established by only those who are strong and not weak.

"We should not make India strong by becoming expansionist. We want to make India strong for establishing peace. We never tried to grab land of Bhutan. Our country made Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the prime minister of Bangladesh after winning the war (with Pakistan in 1971), and our soldiers returned thereafter.

"We did not take a single inch of land. We do not want land either of Pakistan or China. All we want is peace, amity, love, and wanted to work together," he said.

Gadkari also said the coronavirus crisis will not last long as scientists in India and abroad have been working to develop a vaccine.

"This crisis is not going to last long. Effort is on in our country to develop a vaccine for coronavirus. Scientists across the world are working in this direction.

As per the information received by me, I can say with confidence that very soon we will find vaccine. Once we develop a vaccine, we won't have to fear the crisis, Gadkari added.

"The crisis is deep, not just for our country but for the entire world. Our government under Modiji is standing with the people. Let us leave aside negativity, and with self confidence, we will deal with the crisis and defeat the coronavirus," he said.

Referring to Emergency, Gadkari further said India has braved many crises, and so has the BJP since its formation.

He said, "(From Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Gandhi to successive Congress governments) the Congress gave the slogan of 'garibi hatao ', but the condition of the common man, farmers and the poor did not improve".

On the other hand, poverty of Congress party leaders, workers, and flatterers ended, he said.

Gadkari also referred to annulment of Article 370 and the "sacrifice" made by Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee.

"We brought terrorism exported by Pakistan under control by repulsing terrorists, but the Congress lacked courage and did not give importance to the crisis," he said.

Gadkari said the NDA government was guided by the concept of "Antyodaya" of Deendayal Upadhyay.

"We reached out to the poorest of the poor by opening 35 crore 'Jana Dhan' accounts. We provided LPG cylinders to 9 crore families, and constructed two crore houses under the 'Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana', he said.

He also listed promotion of bee-keeping, khadi industry, e-rickshaws, cleaning of the Ganga river as major achievements of the government in the last six years.

"The Road Transport and Highways ministry is working to develop Jammu and Kashmir by constructing roads, tunnels, and encouraging local crafts for the economic development," he added.
It's been three long months for Kingsville resident Cody Soulliere, 27, and his American husband, Ryan Knierim, 33, who haven't seen each other in person due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Despite loosening of the restrictions which allow American spouses to cross the border and enter the country, Knierim  who works as an assembly line worker at the Jeep plant in Toledo, OH  said he still can't visit because of the 14-day self-isolation period that visitors must abide by.

He says he can't take that much time off work.

The couple started dating in 2017 and married the following year, and said they filed their paperwork so that Soulliere could immigrate to the U.S.

"After about a year and a half of filing, I finally got my interview at the U.S. [Consulate] that was scheduled for March 23rd, and it's the last step of your immigration process," Soulliere said.

"And five days before, I received a notification that it was cancelled just because of the pandemic. So, that was quite the blow. And then, Ryan and I found out that the border would be closing as well to U.S. citizens. So, he was no longer able to cross into Canada."

Submitted by Cody Soulliere

"It's very frustrating," Knierim said. "Obviously, we want to see each other and there are many other families out there that are torn apart."

The couple said they call and text each other every day, but being physically apart has been hard on the both of them.

Submitted by Cody Soulliere

"It was stressful at the start because every month, you know, we were waiting to see if ... the government would allow spouses to come in or if they would start to ease border restrictions. But, every month that passed by, they kept extending it," Soulliere said.

"It just takes a toll on your mental health a little bit, especially because we were so close to the finish line in this case. And I haven't been able to see him. He's missed a couple of birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day [which is] coming up."

'Love is essential'

The couple said they hope by sharing their story, others in similar situations will speak up and raise awareness of the issue.

Story continues

"Hopefully, maybe the government will see this and they'll understand that love is essential no matter where you live and there's got to be something else that they can look at doing to allow us to see each other," Soulliere said.

Submitted by Cody Soulliere

"We get the precautions being put in place, Knierim said, "but can we, maybe, add a procedure at the border to, you know, take our temperature? Make sure that we're not sick and, you know, we're feeling okay?"

"I think [for] family members and spouses, I think there should be an exception to the rule to not have to quarantine for two weeks because we can't take two weeks off of work ... especially not on a whim," he said.

"We would just like the opportunity to be able to see each other without all these restrictions put place," Knierim said.

"If we're healthy, I don't see why not?"
It was a bit amusing since we were about the same age as the prisoners and of a similar view, wrote Stangas, who lives in Metuchen, N.J. Heck, when we were at the RFK field we ended up letting a few slip out a gap in the fencing  turning a blind eye and ignoring it. All-in-all it was mostly tedious and boring and we got little sleep.
WASHINGTON  Even as the Supreme Court banned employment discrimination against LGBTQ people Monday, Congress remains far from passing legislation that would do the same in other facets of life.

The House approved a bill barring discrimination on the basis of sexuality or gender identity in May 2019, with all Democrats and eight Republicans in favor. But the Equality Act has gone nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate, where it has only one GOP co-sponsor.

Now, advocates say, the Supreme Court ruling extending employment protections for gay, lesbian and transgender Americans shows the need for more action by Congress.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a President Trump appointee who wrote Mondays Supreme Court ruling, crafted it narrowly to apply only to whether people can be discriminated against in their work.

Sadly, theres still a large swath of ways in which LGBTQ individuals can be discriminated against without federal statutory protection, said Kimberly West-Faulcon, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Public accommodations, for example, such as having the right to eat in restaurants or use the same bathrooms as others, are not affected by Mondays ruling.

LGBTQ rights advocates could use the ruling to try to expand court protections over time in other areas, but it would take years of litigation and agreeable judges.

Democrats and LGBTQ advocacy groups say thats where the need for the Equality Act comes in. It would immediately ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in areas including housing, health care and education. They called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to bring up the bill.

Leader McConnell must end his partisan obstruction and allow the Senate to vote on this critical legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said in a statement.

That sentiment was echoed by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She called Mondays ruling long overdue, and argued that more was still needed to strengthen protections for LGBT Americans in all aspects of their lives.

Most Republicans have opposed the legislation. They argue that the bill, in requiring society to recognize peoples gender identity, would put women and girls at a disadvantage by allowing women born as men to compete in their spaces.

Supporters of the legislation have dismissed such criticisms. The American Civil Liberties Union called it fear mongering intended to push transgender and nonbinary people out of public spaces.

Congress has come close to passing legislation offering more protections for LGBTQ people before. In 2013, the Democratic-controlled Senate passed an employment discrimination law on a bipartisan vote with 10 Republicans. But the GOP-led House did not follow suit, and only four of the Republicans who voted for it then still serve in the Senate.

J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The Supreme Court has also shown no indication that it would be inclined to extend the protections beyond Mondays ruling. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the 2015 high court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage, and Trumps nominees to the court since that ruling have no track record suggesting they would hold that the Constitution offers broad protection based on sexuality and gender identity.

In fact, Mondays ruling  which focuses on the explicit wording of the law  shows how important it is for Congress to act if members want LGBTQ protections extended, West-Faulcon said.

If youre focused on what rights LGBTQ individuals should have, it really should be a clarion call to Congress that if you pass statutes that protect peoples civil rights, there seems to be a Supreme Court majority willing to hold that up, West-Faulcon said. This is not an indication that this court is necessarily going to interpret those rights into the Constitution any time soon.

In fact, leaving the issue up to Congress is one argument that conservatives might agree with  although theyd argue that Congress should not pass the Equality Act.

While the question of whether to amend (the federal Civil Rights Act) to add more categories may be a difficult one as a matter of policy, the question of the Courts role on this issue was an easy one, tweeted conservative judicial activist Carrie Severino. Allow the people to decide the issue through their elected representatives.

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan
Sunday marked three years since 72 peoplemen, women and 18 children, including an unborn babydied in Grenfell Tower in an act of social murder.

They died in a tower block that was turned into a death trap as part of regeneration plans hatched by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council (RBKC) and its tenant management organisation (TMO).

The 24-storey tower was encased in cheap, flammable cladding. With the building also having myriad fire hazards on the inside, a small kitchen fire on the fourth floor engulfed the entire structure in minutes.

Millions in the UK and around the world were shocked and outraged that this could happen in the middle of Londonone of the richest cities in one of the richest countries in the world.

Protesters demand justice for the victims of Grenfell

What happened was a crime and yet today the guilty political and corporate parties are no nearer facing justice than they were on the morning after the fire.

Everything that has happened over the last three years points to a cover-up more grotesque than that perpetrated against the victims, bereaved and survivors of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. Last November, after more than 30 years, the Hillsborough families were denied justice for 96 deaths with no-one held responsible.

Three years on from Grenfell:

Not a single person at RBKC, the TMO or any of the leaders of the companies involved in covering Grenfell in highly flammable cladding have been arrested or charged with any crime.





The inquiry set up by the government under Sir Martin Moore-Bick was convened under the Labour governments 2005 Inquiries Act, and has no power to determine, any persons civil or criminal liability. Protection of the guilty was guaranteed by Moore-Bick and then Prime Minister Theresa May agreeing that any issues of a social, economic and political nature be barred from the inquiry.

Sir Martin Moore-Bick

The Inquiry has granted all natural persons, or individuals, immunity from prosecution for any oral evidence they give. Earlier this monthafter months of lobbying to secure immunity from prosecution based on their testimony by the corporations and other organisations involved in cladding the tower and refurbishment, they too were granted additional protection against criminal prosecution. Attorney General Suella Braverman announced any statements given to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry by legal persons cannot be used as evidence against them in a future prosecution. A legal person includes any limited liability partnership or an incorporated company, effectively granting immunity to all the corporations involved in Phase Two of the Inquiry.





The first phase of the Inquiry did not begin until three months after the fire, on September 14, 2017. It finally issued a Phase One report more than two years later, on October 30, 2019. Its criticisms were focused on the failings, real and imagined, of the London Fire Brigade, not on the criminals responsible.





The second phase of the Inquiry only began in January this year and was then delayed for months to grant legal immunity to the guilty and then by the coronavirus pandemic. It is due to restart next month. The Guardian reported Friday that due to the halting of the Inquiry, Criminal charges are not now expected to be even considered until 2022 by the Metropolitan Police. It was reported in January that the polices own study of the Inquirys final report may take until 2025 eight years after the fire. Given the glacial pace of the Inquiry and non-existent police investigation, it is possible that a decade will pass before the police make any decisions.

The governments of May and Boris Johnson have shed no end of crocodile tears over Grenfell. Yet again, Downing Street, other government buildings and the Houses of Parliament were bathed in green light last nightthe colour adopted by the Grenfell community in their fight for justice. But everything else is business as usual. At least half a million people still go to bed every night in unsafe buildings. Over 23,000 households remain covered in flammable cladding. Thousands of households are deemed high-risk and could suffer the same fate as Grenfell as they are covered in the same type of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding. Despite repeated statements that remedial work would be prioritised, next to nothing has been done to make safe even the most dangerously compromised buildings.

A report published last week by Parliaments Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) committee notes that Grenfell was an entirely avoidable tragedy and that those who died paid a terrible price for a catastrophic failure of industry and Government. This statement alone justifies arrests, charging and trials of the guilty.

Titled Cladding: Progress of Remediation, its introduction adds, But Grenfell Tower was not a unique building. That night, there were more than 450 high-rise residential or other publicly owned buildings in England with the same, or similar, dangerous ACM cladding systems. There are still over 300. And this doesnt include the many thousands of buildings of all heights with other forms of combustible cladding or those buildings with serious fire safety defects, including combustible insulation, timber balconies and walkways, missing fire breaks and faulty fire doors.

After having investigated the progress of remediation of high-rise and high-risk buildings, the HCLG concedes, It is deeply shocking and completely unacceptable that, three years after the Grenfell Tower fire, there are still 2,000 high-risk residential buildings with dangerous cladding.

As of May 2020, of the 457 high-rise residential or other publicly owned buildings over 18 metres initially with ACM cladding, 149 had completed remediation works and 307 were yet to be remediated.

This is only the tip of a gigantic iceberg. In addition to those 300 buildings with ACM cladding awaiting remediation, we now know there are likely to be a further 11,300 buildings with other forms of combustible cladding, of which approximately 1,700 are high-risk and likely to require urgent remediation.

The government has committed just 1 billion to make buildings safe. The HCLG estimates that The Building Safety Fund will need to be increased to address all fire safety defects in every high-risk residential buildingpotentially costing up to 15 billion.

Despite its damning findings, the HCLG, made up of Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, offers nothing to remedy the crisis. It merely asks the government to ensure that all buildings of any height with ACM claddingbe fully remediated of all fire safety defects by December 2021 and that buildings with other fire safety defects, including non-ACM cladding, should be remediated before the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2022.

Put bluntly, this will not happen.

The Grenfell fire revealed the gruesome outcome of a decades-long and ongoing war against the working class, which saw the removal of all restraints on wealth accumulation for the super-rich, including building and fire safety regulations. The fire exposed the failure of capitalism, which is unable to provide the most basic requirement of safe, affordable homes.

Boris Johnson tells London Assembly members and protesting firefighters to get stuffed when being challenged about fire service cuts during his tenure as Mayor of London

As prime minister, Johnson, who told protesting firefighters to get stuffed when they opposed his cuts as Major of London, is implementing a Malthusian herd immunity policy that has led to the death of well over 60,000 people during the pandemic. At least two Grenfell survivorsone of them 63-year-old Virgilio Castrohave died of COVID-19.

Nothing good can come of the whitewash that is the Moore-Bick inquiry. Those such as Jeremy Corbyn and the Fire Brigades Union who continue to support it are facilitating a state cover-up.

The Socialist Equality Party reiterate our call for the Grenfell families and their legal teams to withdraw all cooperation from these fraudulent proceedings. We urge all those fighting for justice to demand that the guilty are immediately arrested, charged, and put on trial.

For further information visit the Grenfell Fire Forum Facebook page .
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Heavy police presence in Brooklyn, New York, following a protest on June 12, 2020 in New York City. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, protestors have called on lawmakers to reform US police agencies.

Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Protests across the country about ending police brutality faced by African Americans have erupted in response to the Memorial Day officer killing of 46-year-old George Floyd in Minneapolis.

While some have called for defunding or even abolishing US police forces, others have called for other approaches to reform, like changing the way US law enforcement officers are trained.

Experts who spoke to Insider said the lack of uniformity in police education presents challenges that could be rectified by instituting national standards.

"They are so different from one another," Dr. Rashawn Ray, a fellow at the Brookings Institute told Insider about local police trainings around the country. "Honestly, it's not even like apples to oranges, it's more like fruit to vegetables."

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

On May 25, four officers of the Minneapolis, Minnesota Police Department were involved in the caught-on-video killing of 46-year-old George Floyd. Floyd, a black man, told the white officer kneeling on his neck that he couldn't breathe. Officer Derek Chauvin continued kneeling despite these pleas and despite Floyd's loss of consciousness.

Floyd's death  captured on video and widely spread across social media  set off weeks-long national and global unrest over police brutality and racism. But the protests have also escalated calls for major policing reform in the US.

While many activists have called for an entire reimagining of US law enforcement, including the defunding  or even the abolition of US police agencies  others who likewise decry the deaths of Black Americans in police custody have urged for more pragmatic, piecemeal reforms to the criminal justice system such as officer trainings in de-escalation and implicit bias.

For example, former Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, has even called for an increase in funding to police departments amid ongoing civil unrest. And House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn on CNN's "State of the Union" said, "Nobody is going to defund the police. We can restructure the police forces."

Story continues

The divide on police reform has marked a point of contention between Americans, who largely agree the anger behind ongoing protests against police brutality is justified, but don't support "defunding police."

One approach reform advocates have called for include the introduction of a national system of standards.

On June 5, Rep. Mark Pocan, a Wisconsin Democrat and leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, put forth legislation to make federal funding for local law enforcement agencies contingent upon their meeting of national standards for training on de-escalation practices, use of force, and bias. A civilian commission would be created to determine such standards, The Hill reported.

Law enforcement experts who spoke to Insider said they believed that improvements to and uniformity among the way local US police forces train their officers are not the entire solution  but it could be a step in the right direction.

There's no cohesive training program for US cops

Police officers attend a training in Laguna Niguel, California, on September 5, 2019.

REUTERS/Mike Blake

From Los Angeles to New York City to Minneapolis, some of the country's largest police forces have different approaches to their training programs.

Los Angeles Police Department officers receive 960 hours of training in the academy, which includes scenario-based training, a spokesperson for the department told Insider. The LAPD academy training has included specific training on de-escalation techniques since 2017, the spokesperson said.

Officers are also given four hours of implicit bias training, though the LAPD spokesperson said: "implicit bias training is also integrated into the 16 LAPD basic training modules."

"Officers and Department personnel are provided in-service training and perishable skills training consistently over the course of their entire career," the spokesperson said. "When large scale or sweeping policy changes are made, the entire Department will undergo training."

Training officers about their potential implicit biases is an example of such training, he said.

Officers at the New York Police Department are trained in de-escalation tactics during their "scenario-based training unit," according to the department's website on officers' training, which a spokesperson referred to Insider. The site does not specify the length of such training and did not mention whether officers receive any training related to implicit racial or other biases.

According to The New York Times, however, the city of New York began to provide its officers with implicit bias training in 2018 as part of a two-year $4.5 million contract with a Florida company called Fair and Impartial Policing. Police officers in the state must undergo at least 700 hours in total of training before becoming law enforcement officers, according to the state of New York.

A website for the Minneapolis Police Academy says officers are trained in nine areas that include "defensive tactics," "ethics," "firearms," and "report writing" during a 14-16 week program. The website does not mention any training in de-escalation tactics or how or if officers are trained about implicit biases.

There is almost no uniformity in police training programs, particularly when it comes to their focus on their training in implicit biases, Dr. Rashawn Ray, a fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution and executive director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at the University of Maryland told Insider.

"What these look like on a local level are like apples to oranges," Ray said. "They are so different from one another. Honestly, it's not even like apples to oranges  it's more like fruit to vegetables. That's just how different they are. That is something that definitely needs to change."

Experts said an increased uniformity among training could help combat systemic issues on police forces

Police charge forward during a protest outside the White House over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police in Washington, DC, on May 31, 2020.

SAMUEL CORUM/AFP via Getty Images

Ray, who offers police agencies training in implicit biases as part of his work with LASSR, said the differences in the ways officers are trained in implicit biases alone prevents large-scale changes with in the US law enforcement system.

Some agencies request a two-hour training for officers to learn about potential implicit biases, Ray told Insider. Other agencies can request days-long training that includes the use of virtual reality technology employed by the University of Maryland researchers. There's little consistency among agencies, he said.

"We don't see huge payoffs because of the huge variations across the board," Ray told Insider. "Two hours of an implicit bias training is not going to change someone's biases they might have," Ray said.

Chris Burbank, Vice President of Law Enforcement Strategy at the Center for Policing Equality, told Insider he did not support the nationalization of law enforcement  the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, wouldn't be effective in policing local communities, he said.

"I believe policing is best done locally by people who are invested in the community, live in the community, participate in the community, and understand it," Burbank, who served for nine years as chief of the Salt Lake City, Utah, police department, added. "But there should be national standards set."

Beyond standardizing training procedures for US cops, Burbank said there should be national standards required for becoming a law enforcement officer. All potential police officers, for example, should have a four-year education prior to becoming a law enforcement officer, he said.

Ray said that national standards for police officer training could help reduce officers' biases.

"I think that's something that the public desires," Ray said of uniform law enforcement training practices. "That is something that law enforcement does not desire."

He said police agencies would likely reject having training nationalized, partially over fears they would lose funding dedicated to training their officers. Still, Ray said that national standards could be employed while still allowing local instructors to educate new and existing officers.

LASSR even offers courses to provide training to the people who train law enforcement officers, he added as an example.

Training will not solve the entire problem  greater reforms are needed

Police clear the area around Lafayette Park and the White House in Washington on June 1, 2020, as demonstrators gather to protest the death of George Floyd.

Associated Press

"You always want the best-trained police officers," Burbank told Insider. "You want them to have the most information, and you want them to have the most practical information you can always give them. However, we have viewed training especially around bias, and de-escalation, as the end-all."

He added: "The idea has been if you just trained the racist cops, they wouldn't be racist anymore and you wouldn't have these problems. What we have found is that the policies, the practice, and the procedures in your police department contribute much more to the disparity or the potential outcome of bias in policing than the individual racism or bias of the officers."

As Insider previously reported, studies have suggested that implicit bias training as it currently is executed has not been effective alone in reducing the bias of police officers.

Burbank suggested the elimination of consent searches  the practice where police officers ask individuals if they can search their property without a warrant  was an example of a policy change that could be implemented nationally to lead to fewer instances of implicit biases. He said these types of searches disproportionately target African Americans despite them having a low rate of success.

Burbank also pointed toward the use of a chokehold and other carotid restraints as policies police forces could eliminate nationally to reduce instances of implicit bias. Police agencies across the country, including in Minneapolis where Floyd was killed, have announced bans on chokehold and similar neck restraints.

"What we want to do is start to identify the polices  what are the practices, that the officers are using that are introducing bias," Burbank said.

Ray also suggested the wider deployment of new technologies may help encourage officers to act against their biases. As part of his work training officers with LASSR, Ray said he's found more success when using a virtual reality lab to place officers in hands-on situations that help trigger their potential biases.

"It's not just about implicit bias  everyone has implicit biases  it's the fact that biases are more likely to come out when people are stressed, when people are scared, and when people's adrenalin is running. That's an equation that happens to police officers almost every day."

Training is not just about telling law enforcement what implicit biases are, he added. It's about pointing them out and training officers about ways they can overcome them.

"It's about improving police officers in situations where biases where they're more likely to exist and then training the officers to reduce those biases. That is the most important thing about implicit bias training. It's not simply to education on the definition of it," he said.

Read more:

A Black man was shot and killed by Atlanta police officers after they were called on him for sleeping in a parked car at a Wendy's drive thru and a scuffle ensued

The 75-year-old protester who was shoved by Buffalo police officers sustained a brain injury and will now have to acclimatize to a 'new normal,' attorney says

A white Wisconsin lawyer was charged with a hate crime after spitting on a 17-year-old Black protester

Politicians and influencers have been accused of 'virtue signaling' during police brutality protests, but the callouts could do more harm than good

Read the original article on Insider
The activity demonstrates Mastercard and CAREs commitment to contribute to the overall effort of Vietnam in driving a strong economic recovery

The charitable move comes by virtue of the partnership between Mastercard and CARE International in Vietnam to support local women. The symbolic ceremony for the cash transfer takes place today in Hanoi with the participation of representatives of the recipients, JupViec.vn, and CARE International in Vietnam.

Each woman has received up to VND3 million (around $130) via direct bank transfer. The supported amount differs, depending on individual circumstances and financial damage caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

These women working in the informal sector are amongst the most vulnerable and most affected by the pandemic. During this time of uncertainties, the economic crisis caused by the outbreak may hit harder than the coronavirus itself, thus protecting and supporting the people have never been more critical, said Le Kim Dung, country director at CARE International Vietnam.

Our end goal is to empower and help them to overcome this difficult time. We hope that by assisting in this way, the recipients can be more proactive and flexible in spending their money according to their situation and priority," Dung added.

A quick survey conducted by CARE International in Vietnam and JupViec.vn shows that the majority of women who have received the emergency support this time will use the money to cover their costs of living, pay overdue house rents, buy medicine, clear their debts, or pay tuition fees for their children.

According to Phan Hong Minh, director of JupViec.vn, when social distancing was in place, female workers under informal employment suffered from declining working hours or even lost their jobs.

This led to greater financial pressure for these women as they still have to pay for their living expenses while receiving either less or no income.

In our case, there has been a significant decline in the number of orders on our platform in comparison to the same period last year, and our working partners have also witnessed a drop in their earnings consequently. On behalf of more than 800 house cleaners, we would like to thank Mastercard and CARE International for this humanitarian relief, which is very meaningful, said Minh.

A quick survey conducted by CARE International in Vietnam and JupViec.vn shows that the majority of women who have received the emergency support this time will use the money to cover their costs of living, pay overdue house rents, buy medicine, clear their debts, or pay tuition fees for their children.

For part-time house cleaners who also have other side jobs, such as online food sellers, tailors, manicurist, waste collectors, this money is also used to invest in their small businesses. For those who work full-time as house cleaners at JupViec.vn, they intend to use the money to buy more cleaning equipment as well as to cover the cost of transportation, phone bills, and data usage when using the app for their work.

Mastercard highly appreciates the National Steering Committees preventive efforts against the pandemic, making Vietnam one of the first few countries to open up, and the first in Southeast Asia to move forward to post COVID-19, said Winnie Wong, country manager of Mastercard.

To drive a robust recovery and financial inclusion, there is a need to include all participants of the economy and leave no one behind. That's why Mastercard has joined this collaboration to provide financial support to women who are engaged in lower economic activities in informal employment and falling behind in terms of social security and economic stability.

The activity demonstrates Mastercard's and CAREs commitment to contribute to the overall effort of Vietnam in driving a strong economic recovery. Besides this, the two partners are also working to ignite the potential of Vietnams women community that plays a vital role in promoting economic growth and reducing income inequality and poverty in the national economy.
Los Angeles, Jun 14 (PTI): The release date of Gerard Butler's disaster thriller Greenland has been pushed to August 14.

The project, which hails from STX Films, is among the handful of movies that are scheduled to release in the US theatres after the coronavirus-forced shutdown ends.

Its earlier release date was July 31.

The change came after Warner Bros decided to open Christopher Nolan's Tenet on July 31 and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman 1984 moved to October 2, reports said.

The film has been directed by Ric Roman Waugh, who previously worked with Butler on Angel Has Fallen, the third part of the actor's Olympus Has Fallen film series.

Greenland, which also features Deadpool star Morena Baccarin, is about a family's fight for survival in the face of a cataclysmic natural disaster.

As the countdown to global apocalypse approaches zero, the family's trek culminates in a desperate and last-minute flight to a possible safe haven.

Chris Sparling has penned the script for the film which has been produced by Thunder Road Films.
A home warranty contract is an insurance contract.

Thats the conclusion of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in a case in which the plaintiffs challenged a mandatory arbitration provision in a home warranty contract, maintaining such provisions are not legal under state law in any contract that references insurance.

In Sparks v. Old Republic Home Protection Co. Inc. the plaintiffs, homeowners William and Donna Sparks, sued Old Republic Home Protection Company, Inc., for breach of contract and bad faith breach of contract of their home warranty policy. Defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration of the underlying dispute pursuant to a contractual provision requiring resolution of disputes through binding arbitration, the courts opinion states.

The Sparks had purchased a policy from Old Republic Home Protection (ORHP) which included coverage for the repair or replacement cost of the home air conditioning system during the stated policy term. The ORHP-drafted contract included a provision that disputes between the parties would be resolved by arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act.

Around six months after purchasing the warranty contract, the Sparks suffered a covered loss that arose out of a faulty repair of their homes air conditioning system. They alleged in their lawsuit against ORHP that the company had a pattern of hiring unqualified contractors or contractors who would make an assessment that little or no work was needed. Asserting ORHP was negligent in the hiring of the repair contractor and therefore liable for the damage to their home, the Sparks sued ORHP for breach of contract and bad faith breach of contract.

Relying on the wording of the provision in the warranty contract, ORHP filed a motion to compel arbitration, which the trial court denied. On appeal, the Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the lower courts decision.

The Sparks had argued that the arbitration clause was not enforceable because of Oklahoma state law holding that arbitration could not be compelled in contracts that reference insurance. While the trial court gave no reason for its denial of ORHPs motion, in its opinion the appeals court noted that under Oklahomas Uniform Arbitration Act arbitration could not be compelled in this case because the contract referenced insurance within the meaning of this Act and further that the Oklahoma legislature did not intend to exempt contracts made pursuant to the Oklahoma Home Service Contract Act (HSCA) and the Service Warranty Act (SWA) from this provision in the Uniform Arbitration Act.

In its first pleading ORHP stated it is an insurance company and that the warranty agreement between the company and the Sparks was an insurance contract. In a later filing and without explanation, ORHP pled that it was not an insurance company and that this was simply a home service contract but not insurance, the high courts opinion states.

The court noted, however, that on the bottom corner of the warranty contract rate sheet submitted by ORHP, appears an insignia with Old Republic Insurance Group.'

ORHP had argued that under its arbitration provision disputes between the parties would be resolved by arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act and that the FAA preempted state and federal law.

The McCarran-Ferguson Act, enacted in 1945, gave authority over insurance contracts to the states. But the ORHP argued that the FAA, not the McCarran-Ferguson Act, controlled because Old Republic and the Plaintiffs chose the [FAA] as the law that governs all disputes.'

The Oklahoma Supreme Court said in its opinion, however, that no evidence had been presented to show that this arbitration policy provision was independently discussed or negotiated between the parties.

Ultimately, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the Plaintiffs home warranty plan meets the definition of insurance and as such is exempt from the Oklahoma Uniform Arbitration Act. The court also held that because insurance is regulated under state law, the McCarran-Ferguson Act applies precluding the Federal Arbitration Act from preempting conflicting state law.

Topics Oklahoma
The United States government will likely distribute the second round of stimulus payments that Americans are eagerly waiting for. The possibility, however, will be discussed in detail after Congress takes its annual holiday.

Taking a vacation

Lawmakers will go on vacation on July 3 and will return on July 17, as reported by Bref News. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority leader, announced on May, the officials from Congress will decide on the potential second round of stimulus payments next month.

The timeline suggests that a decision will be made after politicians take into consideration the amount of money that was allocated into the first stimulus payment and the targeted recipients of the financial support.

President Donald Trump's administration previously suggested that the second stimulus payment distribution will be considered in July.

The coronavirus pandemic has severely affected individual workers and businesses alike, causing most to shut down or close altogether temporarily. The stimulus payments that the US government distributed helped support those struggling with unemployment and business closures.

According to Forbes, a White House adviser previously stated that Trump hoped to have a two trillion dollar fund for the next stimulus bill. The advisor, Peter Navarro, said that the president wanted to have double the previous stimulus amount passed for the second round.

Navarro pointed out that the second round of stimulus payments will focus on manufacturing jobs and is vastly different from previous speculations that it would revolve around a return-to-work bonus or payroll tax cut.

The advisor also said that President Trump is intent in having two trillion dollars for the next stimulus bill and focusing it on the manufacturing side. He also noted that Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, believes pharmaceuticals and medical supplies equipment should have an incentive in the next bill.

Also Read: Stimulus Payments May Be Turned Into 'Digital Dollar' For Easier Distribution

Potential details

While the second round of stimulus payment is possible, and that Trump gives his support for the next bill, it is still not guaranteed. Navarro did not discuss having the second payment as being part of the law that Congress officials are looking into.

Last week, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary, said on Capitol Hill that Trump's administration is highly considering more stimulus payments. He added that financial support could come in the form of direct money but would be aiming to get people to go back to work.

The term direct money could mean either the next stimulus check or it could mean funding for specific businesses in sectors that have been severely hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Although the White House approved the Heroes Act, the three trillion dollar bill that would include stimulus checks of up to $1,200 per individual and up to $1,200 for each dependent to a maximum of three, The Senate will refuse to pass the bill as they see it as it is today.

McConnell also expressed his non-support of a second stimulus check coming into play amid the coronavirus crisis.

Republicans, however, will work with White House advisers to draft the next bill. Still, there might be differences between the amount of money and details of distribution between it and the previous stimulus package.

Related Article: Stimulus Check Scam: Imposters Offer Fake Stimulus Payments Online

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Celebrity chef Pete Evans has mockingly taken aim at Black Lives Matter protesters and called on them to tear down 5G towers following a series of unfounded rants about how high-speed internet spreads coronavirus.

The former My Kitchen Rules judge, 47, has courted controversy during the COVID-19 pandemic by railing against the new mobile technology.

Evans has previously suggested the technology is involved in the spread of the deadly virus - despite the federal government declaring 5G safe and scientists saying its radiation is incapable of penetrating human tissue.

There is also zero scientific evidence 5G's rollout can negatively impact your immune system.

But in a post on his Instagram Stories on Monday afternoon, the divisive chef shared a meme calling on those defacing historic statues as part of the Black Lives Matter movement to instead focus their energy on destroying 5G infrastructure.

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Celebrity chef Pete Evans pictured with his wife Nicola. He has taken aim at Black Lives Matter protesters and called on them to tear down 5G towers

In a post on his Instagram Stories on Monday afternoon, the divisive chef shared a meme encouraging Black Lives Matters protesters to divert their attention to destroying 5G towers

'Instead of tearing down old statues, if you could tear down those 5G towers that'd be great,' the meme referencing a scene from the 1999 movie Office Space read.

The meme referred to the vandalism of historic statues globally amid race-related protests in recent weeks - allegedly including the Captain Cook statue in Sydney's Hyde Park in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The post is the latest of a series of bizarre social media posts by the celebrity chef - who earlier this month endorsed US President Donald Trump's threat to use the military against Black Lives Matter protesters following the death of African-American man George Floyd.

Mr Floyd died in the custody of four Minneapolis policemen - with officer Derek Chauvin charged with his murder after footage of him kneeling on Mr Floyd's throat for almost nine minutes went viral.

The vision sparked outrage across the world and led to riots across the US, which Evans said he believed was part of a media conspiracy staged by 'the elite' to distract citizens from the coronavirus pandemic.

In late May, Evans also threw his support behind a controversial protest against 5G and mandatory vaccinations - sharing a poster for the 'peaceful protest walk' to Facebook.

'Wish I could join you all today. These are happening around Australia. Please film it for your record,' he wrote.

A Black Lives Matter protester pictured in Sydney on June 6. 'Instead of tearing down old statues, if you could tear down those 5G towers that'd be great,' the meme Evans shared said

Pictured: 5G protesters campaigning against the mobile technology's implementation in Australia

Evans was released from his contract at Channel Seven following a spate of controversial and often dangerous statements - mostly relating to coronavirus conspiracy theories.

Evans, who has also shared misleading information about immunisation, has insisted he is not an 'anti-vaxxer' but 'pro-choice'.

Vaccinations are a simple, safe and effective way of protecting people against harmful diseases before they come into contact with them, the Australian Government says.

The jabs protect individuals and others in the community, by reducing the spread of preventable diseases.

Pictured: Police stand guard at a statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park during a protest rally against Aboriginal deaths on June 12.

Telecommunications workers on a mobile cell tower at West Ryde in Sydney's north. There is zero evidence 5G towers negatively impact the immune system or help spread COVID-19

The celebrity chef, 47, earlier this month shared a Facebook post stating the riots across the US in response to the death of George Floyd are part of a media conspiracy staged by 'the elite' to distract citizens from the coronavirus pandemic

The protest Evans posted about encouraged demonstrators to meet at Hyde Park in Sydney at 12pm on Saturday.

The protesters were told 'join in' if they were 'concerned' about a list of issues which included the 'erosion' of human rights, the government's COVIDSafe app and media corruption.

The demonstration was also about the 'draconian shutdown' of the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

PETE EVANS' CRITICISM OF MANDATORY VACCINATIONS Last month, the 47-year-old appeared on The Kyle and Jackie O Show to peddle a disproved theory linking vaccinations with behavioural changes in children. Evans, who has no medical training, said: 'I've met so many mothers and their children and they tell me, "Hey Pete, my boy or girl was a healthy, functioning beautiful child - and they're still a beautiful child - but something happened when they got a shot one day." 'And within two hours, 12 hours, 24, 48 hours, that little boy or girl completely changed their behaviour. And certainly changed their nature.' Evans (pictured) has previously linked vaccinations to autism in children. The condition is actually a developmental disorder that has no scientifically proven links to vaccinations There is no evidence that vaccines can cause such changes in children. The chef insists, however, that he is not an 'anti-vaxxer' but 'pro-choice'. Dr Harry Nespolon, the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, said last month he feared Evans was 'in trouble' and advised him to book an appointment with his GP. Advertisement

Evans has previously thrown his support behind a controversial protest against 5G and mandatory vaccinations

The former MKR judge shared a poster for the 'peaceful protest walk' to Facebook at the end of May

'Our body, our choice. Australia still has a voice,' the protesters chanted as they walked slowly through the park.

The vision showed a handful of police officers walk along with the crowd.

A man played his guitar while trudging along and sang 'I don't consent, United Nations.'

The demonstrators also held on to signs, some reading 'freedom is our birth right' and 'my body my choice'.

The protest went against the NSW Government's COVID-19 restrictions at the time which allowed groups of 10 to gather in public.

Evans was released from his contract at Channel 7 following a spate of controversial and often dangerous statements - mostly relating to coronavirus conspiracy theories

Evans was also fined $25,200 in April for promoting a lamp he claimed could help treat coronavirus.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration issued two infringement notices Evans' company for alleged breaches of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.

He live streamed a video on Facebook on April 9 allegedly claiming a 'Biocharger' device could be used in relation to 'Wuhan Coronavirus'.

Anti-vaxxers spread false and dangerous theories, such as vaccines cause autism, based on a completely discredited 1998 medical report that saw the author struck from the medical register.

Before vaccination campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, diseases such as tetanus, diphtheria, and whooping cough killed thousands of children, whereas today in Australia, dying from one of these is extremely rare.
A video of Railway Police Force (RPF) constable Inder Singh Yadav running after a Shramik Special train to help a distressed mother went viral, and showed that heroes are all around us. As a father of two daughters, I couldnt see a parent in pain, Yadav says.

He was asking passengers to not venture out of the train, when Sharif Hashmi, mother of a three-month-old, made a request for some milk. I rushed to buy it from a kiosk, but the train started moving. I trusted my instinct and ran with my service rifle in one hand and the milk packet in the other, he tells us, adding that Hashmis voice was full of pain as she had been looking for milk for her child for two days.

Commendable Deed by Rail Parivar: RPF Constable Inder Singh Yadav demonstrated an exemplary sense of duty when he ran behind a train to deliver milk for a 4-year-old child.



Expressing pride, I have announced a cash award to honour the Good Samaritan. pic.twitter.com/qtR3qitnfG  Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) June 4, 2020

Yadav, 33, who has been serving in Bhopal for five years, says, Its God who helps; we are mere mediums. Main Hindustan ke veeron (frontline workers) ko naman karta hoon. 

This act of compassion led Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to announce a cash award to honour him. Bhopal RPF has been instrumental in feeding 50-100 people daily during the lockdown.

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Aryan Khan case an attempt by BJP to move Bollywood out of Maharashtra: Malik

How OTT filmmakers like Suravi Patnaik are driving the game away from Bollywood

Amiee Misobbah slaying the elegant bride look in her latest music video with veteran Padmini Kolhapure

Was Sushant Singh Rajput planning to get married in November?

India

oi-Deepika S

Mumbai, June 15: Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whose sudden death has sent shockwaves through the country was planning to get married in November this year. At just 34, Sushant was found hanging in his Bandra house on Sunday.

Sushant's cousin revealed that the actor was to get married soon, while talking to the news channel IndiaTV. It was supposed to be a private wedding in Mumbai with a few family members and friends.

Hoever, he did not reveal the name of the girl. the girl. The late actors cousin said that the family was gearing up for the wedding. They even planned to visit Mumbai soon for preparations.

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Sushant Singh Rajput was under depression: Mumbai police

Also, rumours were rife that the 'Kai Po Che' actor was dating actress Rhea Chakraborty, though many insist the two stars were just good friends.

Rajput, who was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on Sunday, was battling depression, police said on Monday.

The post-mortem report states 'asphyxia' as the cause of death and the Mumbai Police also ruled out foul play in his death.

Sushant Singh Rajput has popular movies like 'Kai Po Chhe!', 'Shuddh Desi Romance', 'MS Dhoni: The Untold Story', 'Kedarnath' and 'Chhichore', to his credit. He was also a TV sensation with two hit shows - 'Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil' and 'Pavitra Rishta'.

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Story first published: Monday, June 15, 2020, 16:36 [IST]
Jerri-Lynn here. I post this today as the UK begins to open up, in spite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, even though its long on its praise of the value of local markets a bit short on analysis of what needs to be done to keep these places viable

I used to enjoy shopping at local markets when I was an Oxford student in the 1980s, during some of the worst of the Thatcher years. I particularly loved the Covered Market. Alas, the last time I visited Oxford, I was very sad to see how that place had deteriorated, so now it caters mainly to tourists with souvenir shops rather than locals with its mix of butchers, fishmongers, and greengrocers. Although there were tourist shops even then, there was also Cardews for its loose tea and Browns Restaurant, which served up cheap and tasty traditional English fare. I think the latter two are still in business, but many of the food purveyors are gone.

During our last three years in the UK, my husband and I lived out in graduate student housing on the Banbury Road, past Summertown, and I often popped into the Summertown shops when I didnt have time or inclination to visit the city centre. But even in Summertown, I always preferred the butchers and bakers to the supermarket outlets. And I always tried to squeeze out extra time to visit the Covered Market.

By Sara Gonzalez, Associate Professor in Human Critical Geography, University of Leeds, and Paul Waley,Senior Research Fellow in Urban Geography, University of Leeds. Originally published at The Conversation

During the early weeks of coronavirus in the UK, there was an obsessive focus on supermarkets and how they were handling the pandemic. It was as if traditional retail markets and small shops didnt exist. Many markets and traders, however, continued to provide essential goods and services during the lockdown, sometimes responding quicker and in more creative ways than larger stores.

On June 15, indoor as well as outdoor markets can reopen, but it is unclear how the sector will pull through this difficult time. Research by the markets sector has found that during lockdown only around a third of markets remained even partially open and just 50% of traders expected to be able to access any of the government support for businesses.

About 40% of operators feared they would not be able to open again. But we believe that markets need to be  more than they ever have been  at the centre of local communities. And for this to happen, they will need support.

Throughout the country, markets are a vital cornerstone of town and city centres. Their impact is enormous. There are 1,173 markets in Britain, including traditional and specialist markets, with a collective turnover of 3.1 billion in 2017-18. Pre-crisis, there were 32,400 market traders and 9,000 events traders employing 24,000 staff.

Broad Benefits

But the importance of markets takes in much broader horizons. They provide affordable, fresh and healthy food and other products and services. They are also entry points into the job market for many and spaces for people to develop entrepreneurial skills.

Markets also employ more people per sq metre of space than supermarkets, distribute their economic profits locally and add footfall and vibrancy to high streets. They build local wealth and promote a more sustainable economy and society by reducing waste, shortening supply chains and reducing car-based consumption.

Markets are social hubs. They are important for the development of community ties and trust, particularly between people from different age, ethnic and social backgrounds. It is this aspect that we have focused on in our ongoing research project, which examines the value of markets to local communities.

In a review of existing research and policy, we have found that markets tend to be valued in narrow economic terms and their broader benefits are seldom taken into account. Austerity-stricken local authorities, who operate the large majority of markets, have tended to neglect them. Or they reinvent them as gentrified leisure spaces for wealthy new customers, marginalising the more traditional clientele.

Community Value

To uncover the community value of markets our research has focused on three case studies: Grainger Market in Newcastle, Bury Market and Queens Market in Newham, London. Weve conducted interviews, focus groups with customers and a survey of 1,500 market users.

Our survey shows that market users are more likely to be women, elderly, live in poor neighbourhoods, not in full-time employment and not born in the UK. At the same time, they value their markets enormously, particularly for affordable fresh produce, and rely on them for food shopping. In terms of social interaction, markets are convivial spaces where customers feel overwhelmingly safe and welcome and receive support and information from traders and other customers.

What has particularly struck us is the emotional attachment that people have expressed for their market, of a sort one would be unlikely to find for a supermarket. In particular, the market occupies a central place in peoples social maps.

They told us things like: I think the stallholders make it their business not just to talk to you but to remember what youve chatted about [and] to ask how things are. It is like a family, its like one big family.

A customer at Bury market said: When you come to the market, its a stroll. And people are very pleasant. And [you speak to people] that you wouldnt normally speak to  I dont know whether Id do that in the supermarket. Another said: The market reminds us of back home, like in India.

Economic and Social Recovery

Our research findings strongly suggest that markets can play a key role in the economic and social recovery from coronavirus. Markets will become even more crucial as customers who have lost jobs and have seen a drop in their incomes will need affordable food and other products more than ever.

As lockdown restrictions are relaxed, markets, while following the relevant sanitary protocols, can become spaces for social healing, where communities come together and people can interact again. This will be particularly important for elderly customers or those who live on their own for whom the market might be their only space for social contact.

Importantly, the COVID-19 crisis is an opportunity to promote more socially and environmentally sustainable and just local economies. Big supermarkets, by contrast, rely on unsustainable long global supply chains and prioritise profit for shareholders rather than local needs and livelihoods. There is now an opportunity to reposition markets not only as key pieces in the retail landscape but as community hubs for more inclusive economies.

Together with other groups we are pressing government to recognise the difficulties that markets currently face and take steps to support them. They are public resources and can play a central role in the promotion of more inclusive and sustainable town and city centres.
EvoShare, a microsavings oriented FinTech startup based in Berkeley, CA, and American Trust Retirement, a leading provider of best-in-class technology-enabled solutions for financial intermediaries and their clients, headquartered in Dubuque, IA, are announcing a partnership to offer a new source of retirement contributions to plan sponsors and participants  cash-back from everyday purchases. Through this partnership, plan sponsors that work with American Trust Retirement now have a new way to increase plan participation and contributions simply through employees current spending habits.

EvoShares proprietary system turns a percentage of every dollar spent at over 10,000 partnered local and online stores into additional contributions for a financial savings account like a 401(k), IRA, 529 College Savings Plan or HSA. American Trust Retirement has decades of experience using expert plan design, cost efficiency, service, and technology to create a fully customized retirement plan experience for plan sponsors.

This partnership with American Trust Retirement paves the way to giving more plan sponsors an entirely new way to boost their employees retirement savings, said Eugeny Prudchyenko, CEO of EvoShare. EvoShare is now able to expand access to its service as a unique retirement benefit as part of American Trust Retirement's offering.

Micah DiSalvo, Chief Revenue Officer of American Trust Retirement shared, We are focused on providing the retirement plan advisor community with the next generation of a retirement plan experience, particularly when it comes to helping Advisors engage participants through a personalized approach. We are thrilled to partner with EvoShare to help leverage consumer spending to drive more retirement savings for the average American worker.

Together, EvoShare and American Trust Retirement will be able to provide employers across the nation with the unprecedented ability to increase their employees savings habits without sacrificing anything from their paychecks.

###

About EvoShare:

EvoShare is a financial platform that enables employees to save for their 401(k) or 403(b) while shopping online and locally at stores, bars, and restaurants. The service allows employees to spend at their favorite businesses, and receive up to 20% cash-back toward their retirement plan through their employer.

EvoShare is the premiere cash-back retirement savings program that is giving employees a new, automated way to save for their 401(k). EvoShare provides employers with a set it and forget it experience where plan participants can spend as usual at over 10,000 participating businesses and receive up to 20% cash-back toward a financial account; 401(k) or 403(b) plan, IRA, HSA, student loan, or 529 plan. EvoShare has been featured in Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post. It won the 2019 DC Genie Award from 401(k) TV for Best Financial Technology and was a finalist for KNect365s 2019 Finovate Award for Top Emerging Tech Company.

About American Trust Retirement:

American Trust Retirement is a leading, full-service provider of retirement solutions to small- and mid-sized plan sponsors. The company works with its financial intermediary partners to bring the major cornerstones of a quality retirement plan  plan design, fiduciary oversight, discretionary trust services, cost efficiency, service, and technology  to the small- and mid-sized market.

American Trust Retirement is a division of First Mercantile Trust, a non-depository trust company domiciled in Tennessee and is part of EdgeCo Holdings, a leading provider of best-in-class technology-enabled solutions for financial intermediaries and their clients that services approximately $120 billion in client assets under custody or administration and more than 10,000 financial advisors and 500 financial institutions. This client base includes registered representatives, investment advisors, and other financial intermediaries including retirement plan record-keepers, TPAs, bank trust departments, broker dealers, and insurance companies.
Restaurant urges customers to undergo COVID-19 testing after waitress confirmed as patient

Global Times

By Wang Qi Source:Global Times Published: 2020/6/14 19:41:17

The manager of a Beijing-based restaurant on Sunday urged all their guests to take nucleic acid tests after a waitress appeared on the list of the latest batch of COVID-19 patients related to the resurgence of the outbreak in Beijing Xinfadi Market.

The waitress showed symptoms of fatigue and body aches on June 8, and visited two hospitals in June 10 and 12. She tested positive and was then confirmed as a coronavirus patient, said the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) at a press briefing on Sunday.

Located in Fengtai district, the restaurant is about five kilometers from the market. The waitress, who is the sister of the restaurant's manager, visited Xinfadi market on June 4 with the manager to buy some ingredients.

In addition to the waitress, four other employees of the restaurant are currently under medical observation and isolation, but showing no symptoms, the Red Star News reported.

The restaurant was temporarily closed after the waitress was confirmed as a COVID-19 carrier. The manager said that due to the epidemic, there have been fewer eat-in consumers and more takeaways. He also wanted to use the media to tell customers who have recently visited the restaurant to get tested as soon as possible.

Beijing authorities are organizing nucleic acid tests for those who had contact with the Xinfadi market or live in nearby residential communities, after the capital reported 36 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases and one silent carrier on Saturday.

Haidian district released a new guideline on Friday, demanding restaurants to strictly observe rules such as controlling numbers of customers, checking the health status of staff and customers, making sure there is at least one meter between customers and avoiding mass gatherings.

The Huaxiang subdistrict, where the restaurant and the Xinfadi market are located, was listed as a high-risk region on Sunday, the only such region in China, said Beijing's Health Commission.

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In Kyiv, the head of school, who, despite a positive test for coronavirus, continued to go to work, faces up to six years in prison. Head of the main department of the State Food and Beverage Service in Ukraine Oleh Ruban stated this, as 112 Ukraine reported.

"This case can be interpreted as a violation of quarantine measures and a violation of the law on protecting the population from an infectious disease. This is imprisonment from three to six years if passed by the court, as well as penalties," Ruban says.

It is noted that now 16 people in contact with this woman are in question. The head of the State Food and Beverage Service also said that there were no children among the contact persons.

Today, during an online press conference, the mayor of the capital, Vitaly Klitschko, said that despite the positive test for coronavirus, the school principal continued to communicate with people and even managed to go to work by visiting the inclusive resource center in the Shevchenkivsky district.

As we reported before, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is preparing the next changes for the regions that are aimed at strengthening lockdown restrictions.
Howard Fischer Associates (HFA), one of the leading executive and board search firms in the nation for more than 35 years, helped place Kelly Barlow as Senior Vice President, Connectivity Services at Comcast.

In this senior leadership role, Kelly will help position Comcast for growth by developing and managing product roadmaps and leading cross-functional efforts to converge and differentiate Xfinity Internet, Mobile, Voice, and Home product lines for consumers.

This is a significant role for Comcast as the company works to deepen relationships with and better serve customers with converged offerings, said Howard Fischer, CEO at Howard Fischer Associates. As a leader of the XCS Connectivity Services team, Kelly will be instrumental in redefining important product lines for consumers.

Kelly brings substantial leadership experience, driving the development and execution of advancements in telecommunications products and services. Prior to joining Comcast, Kelly worked at BT Group (formerly British Telecom), the United Kingdoms largest telecommunications company. Her work at BT focused on product marketing; value proposition development; and P&L management for consumer telecommunication products, including mobile, voice, and residential internet product development. Kelly was responsible for planning, developing, and overseeing the advancement of BT's "Halo" product, an innovative offering that converges their land and mobile services.

About Howard Fischer Associates

Howard Fischer Associates (HFA) is one of the leading executive and board search firms in the nation, committed to helping clients achieve their goals by identifying outstanding leaders who will effectively fit or help change their culture. The HFA process has been well-honed after 35 years of sustained excellence in the industry. HFA is headquartered in Philadelphia, with additional offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and Chicago. For more information, visit http://www.hfischer.com.
SAO PAULO - The leader of a group that backs Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was detained Monday, accused of raising funds for anti-democratic actions that could threaten the countrys national security.

Prosecutors didnt immediately give details about the allegations against Sara Fernanda Giromini, better known as Sara Winter, though she has publicly threatened to punch a Supreme Court justice on several occasions. The arrest warrant authorizes authorities to hold her for five days while she is investigated.

The order, signed by Justice Alexandre de Morais, also requests the arrests of five other individuals who were yet to be identified.

Giromini, a 27-year-old former feminist turned anti-abortion campaigner, leads a group, Brazils 300, that has staged demonstrations vociferously defending Bolsonaros conservative policies and denouncing the Supreme Court and Congress for blocking them.

Brazils top prosecutors office said in a statement that the objective of the arrests is to hear the investigated and gather information on how the criminal scheme works.

A post on Girominis Twitter account Monday said the arrest means, It is official: to support Jair Bolsonaro is a crime.

Sara Winter was arrested because of an investigation on the financing of anti-democratic protests, it added. Thats right, demonstrations in which seniors, children, handicapped, women came to the support of President Bolsonaro.

On May 30 Giromini led a few dozen people on a torchlit march to the Supreme Court to protest an investigation into an alleged conspiracy to spread defamatory and threatening social media posts about justices. Giromini was among the people named in the probe.

On Saturday members of her group set off fireworks in the direction of court building, hours after police cleared away one of the groups encampments from the area.

Prosecutors said in their request to remove the camp that Girominis group is a risk.

The presence of armed militias in the central region of the countrys capital represents unequivocal damage to order and public security, the Brasilia-based prosecutors said.

Giromini acknowledged that many of her supporters carried weapons, but said they were only for self-defence.
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Horrifying new footage shows Minneapolis officer Tou Thao ignoring pleas for help from bystanders as George Floyd gasped for air under the knee of Derek Chauvin for nearly nine minutes before his death.

The video was released Sunday morning by Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney representing Floyd's family.

The footage appears to be a slightly wider angle than the initial video released last month and shows bystanders desperately pleading with Thao to help Floyd.

'This is beyond disturbing, even harder to watch than the first video,' Crump warned in the caption of the video.

Crump then wrote: 'Tou Thao stood guard as Derek Chauvin MURDERED George Floyd ... while witnesses of the execution tried to stand up for JUSTICE, tried to save George's life!

'The protest of those bystanders, who refused to just stand by and let it happen, has reverberated around the world  fueling our protest against injustice and police brutality!! 8 minutes 46 seconds.'

Horrifying new footage shows Minneapolis officer Tou Thao ignoring pleas for help from bystanders as George Floyd gasped for air under the knee of Derek Chauvin for nearly nine minutes before his death

A woman and a man who witnessed the horrifying incident are seen on video asking for the officers to get help and plead with Thao to check his pulse

Crump shared the footage to Instagram on Sunday and demanded the former officers be charged with murder

Crump then called for Chauvin, Thao and two other officers who have been arrested, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng, to be convicted of murder.

'The four ex-officers MUST be convicted of MURDER for this hideous atrocity! They MUST all be held accountable!'

In the video, a man and a woman are heard urging the officers to check Floyd's pulse before more bystanders are heard pleading with the officers to help Floyd.

'You think that's okay? Check his pulse!' a man is heard yelling as Thao argued with a woman nearby.

'The ain't moved yet bro,' the man continued. 'He has not moved not one time!'

The man then asked Thao: 'Youre going to let him kill that man in front of you?'

The woman then yelled: 'Tell me what his pulse is right now!' Another woman is heard asking in the background: 'Did they just f**king kill him?'

As a crowd gathered, others are heard shouting, 'Get off of his neck!' and 'Hes not moving!'

Despite their pleas for help, not once did Thao try to get Chauvin off Floyd's neck.

Instead, he continued to argue with the witnesses, yelling for them to remain on the sidewalk and not come any closer.

A short time later, paramedics arrive and lift Floyd's lifeless body off the pavement and onto a stretcher.

Thao, Chauvin, Lane and Kueng have all been fired from the police department.

But when help finally came, it was too late for Floyd (left and right, on a stretcher)

Chauvin, Thao (second from left), Thomas Lane (right) and J. Alexander Kueng (third from left)

Tou Thao is seen during a June 4 court appearance. He is one of three officers charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of George Floyd

Chauvin was fired from the Minneapolis Police Department and arrested just days after Floyd's death. He was initially charged with third-degree murder before that charge was upgraded to second-degree murder.

Last Monday, Chauvin's bail was set to $1.25million. The three other officers have been charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Immediately following Floyd's death, Black Lives Matter protests erupted globally.

George Floyd (pictured) died on May 25 under then knee of Officer Derek Chauvin

While the majority of protests remained peaceful, buildings, businesses and police departments have burned after some demonstrations turned violent in major US cities.

Protesters have not only demanded justice for Floyd, but they've called for justice for Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and most recently Rayshard Brooks. Demonstrators have also marched for Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead by a white man in Georgia in February.

Floyd was laid to rest last Tuesday in Houston, Texas, just days before the world witnessed another black man die at the hands of police.

Brooks was shot dead by an officer in the parking lot of a Wendy's in Atlanta on Friday night.

Officer Garrett Rolfe was fired from the force after firing the shots that killed Brooks.

Investigators say Brooks, 27, fought with officers and took one of their Tasers before fleeing and pointing the stun gun at Rolfe as he ran away. Rolfe had been a member of the department since 2013.

Officer Devin Bronsan, who was also present but did not fire, has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. Bronsan joined the department in 2018.

The shooting led to the resignation of Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields, and the Wendy's where Brooks was shot was engulfed in an arson attack as protests turned tense on Saturday night.

Bodycam footage was also released showing Rolfe and Bronsan's full interaction prior to the shooting of Brooks, whom Bronsan found on the scene asleep in the driver's seat of a car blocking the Wendy's drive-thru lane.

Protesters erupted across the US once again on Sunday as thousands were seen taking to the streets to demand justice for Brooks.

New Yorkers held placards that read, 'stop defending a broken system' and 'Black Lives Matter'.

Meanwhile, in California, the words 'All Black Lives Matter' were painted on a street in Hollywood ahead of an LGBTQ+ and Black Lives Matter solidarity march.

In Atlanta, protesters stood outside a burned out Wendy's where Brooks was shot dead as they demonstrated against police brutality.

Protesters also started gathering outside the White House on President Donald Trump's 74th birthday

LOS ANGELES: Protesters crowd Hollywood Boulevard on Sunday during the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march as unrest continues in the wake of the deaths of Brooks and Floyd

LOS ANGELES: in California, the words 'All Black Lives Matter' were painted on a the Hollywood Blvd ahead of a demonstration

WASHINGTON DC: Protesters hold placards in Lafayette Park, across from the White House to protest against police brutality on President Donald Trump's 74th birthday

NEW YORK CITY: New Yorkers held placards that read, 'stop defending a broken system' and 'Black Lives Matter' as they marched through the city on Sunday

NEW YORK CITY: Thousands are seen marching through New York City on Sunday following the recent death of Brooks

LOS ANGELES: People take part in an All Black Lives Matter march, organized by Black LGBTQ+ leaders, in the aftermath of the deaths of Floyd and Brooks in Hollywood

LOS ANGELES: Several protesters are seen holding signs during a march in Hollywood on Sunday

Shocking bodycam footage shows Rayshard Brooks talking to Atlanta officers just moments before he was shot and killed in a Wendy's parking lot

Rayshard Brooks (pictured), 27, was killed by police in the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant in Atlanta on Friday

The bodycam footage that was released shows the full interaction prior to the shooting between Brooks, Officer Garrett Rolfe and Officer Devin Bronsan.

In the video, Brooks is seen speaking with Rolfe as Bronsan stands nearby. Brooks seems visibly intoxicated, and is unable to correctly identify the city he is in, saying he is in Forest Park, an Atlanta suburb about 10 miles away from the Wendy's.

As the bodycam footage shows, Brooks cooperates with the officers initially, agreeing to be searched for weapons and to complete a field sobriety test.

Brooks then insisted that all he'd had to drink was 'one and a half daiquiris'.

The officers then administer a breathalyzer test, as Brooks continues to insist that he is fine to drive home. The breathalyzer reading comes back as .108.

About 30 minutes into the interaction, Rolfe tells Brooks that he believes he is too drunk to operate a motor vehicle and that he is being placed under arrest.

As the officers begin to handcuff him, Brooks begins to struggle, knocking the body-camera to the ground.

Little else is seen of the interaction, but the officers are heard shouting 'stop fighting, stop fighting,' a taser is heard being deployed, and three shots are heard seconds later.

Video from other angles has already shown that Brooks swung punches at the officers, stole a taser, and fled, turning to point what appears to be the stolen taser at Rolfe before Rolfe unholsters his gun and shoots Brooks.

After nightfall on Saturday, flames broke out at the Wendy's fast food restaurant where the shooting took place.

Around 10pm, a fire was seen inside the Wendy's, and thick smoke billowed through the air, as multiple smaller fires burned in the parking lot outside of the building

A Wendy's burns following a rally against racial inequality and the police shooting death of Rayshard Brooks

On Sunday morning, several protesters were seen outside the burned out Wendy's protesting where Brooks was killed

People were seen gathering on Sunday to watch a woman paint a portrait of Brooks at the site of a Wendy's restaurant where he was killed

A man holds a white rose in his fist while facing traffic on Sunday outside the burned Wendy's restaurant where Brooks was killed Friday night

Protesters were seen Sunday morning outside the Wendy's where Brooks was killed on Friday night

Around 10pm, a fire was seen inside the Wendy's, and thick smoke billowed through the air, as multiple smaller fires burned in the parking lot outside of the building.

The building was engulfed in flames which shot through the air from the roof, and no emergency responders were on the scene after nearly an hour.

Atlanta fire officials said that they were unable to send trucks through the crowds of protesters blocking the roads around the Wendy's, in fear of endangering both the firefighters and the protesters.

As the fire grew, fears mounted that it could ignite a neighboring gas station, but by midnight the fire had burned out without spreading further.

Demonstrators also shut down all lanes of Interstate 75 near the Wendy's for more than an hour.

Police in riot gear were seen advancing on the protesters and making arrests at around 10pm.

Protesters gathered outside the Wendy's Sunday to protest Brooks death.

Louisville council votes to BAN no-knock warrants in honor of Breonna Taylor who was shot eight times and killed by cops

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old EMT who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police inside her home in the early hours of March 13.

Police had been attempting to serve a search warrant with a no-knock clause at her South End apartment as part of a drugs probe when the fatal incident occurred.

Officers entered the apartment and were fired upon by Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who believed a robbery was in progress. Police returned fire, striking Taylor eight times, who had been sleeping in bed moments before.

No-knock search warrants were banned in Louisville following a unanimous vote of the Metro Council on Thursday night.

Following the council's vote Thursday, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer vowed to sign Breonna's law 'as soon as 'it hits his desk'.

Breonna Taylor (pictured) was a 26-year-old EMT who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police inside her home in the early hours of March 13

'I suspended use of these warrants indefinitely last month, and wholeheartedly agree with (the) council that the risk to residents and officers with this kind of search outweigh any benefit,' Fischer wrote on Twitter.

Before the vote was held, Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, told the council that all her daughter 'wanted to do was save lives'.

'So it's important this law passes,' Palmer continued, 'because with that, she'll get to continue to do that, even in her death.'

Councilwoman Jessica Green called the legislation the most important she's ever worked on.

'We are committed to making sure that she lives on forever,' Green said, according to the Courier Journal.

In addition to no-knock orders being banned, the ordinance also requires that any officer serving a search warrant must wear a body camera.

Officers must activate the cameras at least five minutes before the warrant is issued and they must not turn it off until at least five minutes after it has concluded.

Black trans man Tony McDade was shot dead by Florida police just two days after George Floyd was killed

Though the details surrounding Tony McDade's death are murky, he was killed on May 27, two days after George Floyd died under the knee of Derek Chauvin.

McDade, 38, was shot and killed by police in Tallahassee, Florida, after being approached by police as a suspect in a stabbing.

According to the Tallahassee Police Department, McDade was in possession of a handgun and a bloody knife that was found at the scene.

Though the details surrounding Tony McDade's (pictured) death are murky, he was killed on May 27, two days after George Floyd died under the knee of Derek Chauvin

But videos shared on social media by witnesses appear to tell another story.

According to Rolling Stone, one witness said on Facebook: 'They said "Stop moving, n****r," and then they shot him after he stopped moving.'

Witness, Clifford Butler, told WFSU: 'I never heard, "Get down, freeze, Im an officer." I never heard nothing. I just heard gunshots.'

The identity of the officer who shot McDade has not been released due to Marsy's Law. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.

Demonstrators continue to demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery who was shot dead by white men while jogging in a Georgia neighborhood

Ahmaud Arbery (pictured), 25, was killed on February 23 while jogging on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick

Before Brooks' death on Friday, Georgia was already reeling from the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

Arbery, 25, was killed on February 23 while jogging on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick.

He was shot dead by Travis McMichael after he and Greg McMichael armed themselves and chased him down when they saw him running in their neighborhood.

But it wasn't until May 7 that the McMichaels were arrested and charged with murder, more than two months after Arbery's death.

The elder McMichael told police he suspected Arbery was responsible for recent break-ins in the neighborhood.

But local police said at the time that there had been no break-ins in the area for a couple of months.

Video that showed Arbery collapse on the pavement after being shot three times fueled a national outcry not just over the killing but also that more than two months passed before arrests were made.

Earlier this month, Special Agent Richard Dial of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation revealed that Travis McMichael allegedly said 'f**king n*****' at Arbery after the fatal shooting took place.
LOS ANGELES, June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) and the Latino Restaurant Association (LRA) today held meal distribution events at Mercy Hospital Southwest in Bakersfield and Adventist Health Delano Regional Medical Center. Hundreds of healthcare workers received a free meal provided by local Latino-owned restaurants. The events were made possible thanks to a grant from SoCalGas to LRA's Feed Frontliners Program, which provides support to healthcare workers and restaurants affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delano1 LRA Logo

"Mercy Hospitals of Bakersfield is overwhelmed by the generosity of the SoCalGas and the LRA," said Toni Harper, vice president at Mercy Hospitals of Bakersfield. "As we continue to weather the pandemic, our caregivers are working tirelessly to ensure every patient and family has the best care. A gesture such as this by SoCalGas and the LRA renews their spirit and for that, we are eternally grateful."

"This pandemic has impacted all of us in different ways. Our goal with these events is to express our appreciation for healthcare workers and support local restaurant owners whose businesses have been affected by the pandemic," said Robert Duchow, public affairs manager at SoCalGas. "We are proud to continue supporting the communities we serve every day."

SoCalGas employees from Bakersfield also volunteered at the events, distributing meals and care packages to healthcare workers.

Meals for the events were prepared by LRA member restaurants, La Costa in Bakersfield and by Hole-in-One in Delano. SoCalGas' grant to the Feed Frontliners Program helped fund the purchases of the meals, which will support the restaurants whose business has been impacted by the pandemic.

"The Latino Restaurant Association is so thankful to SoCalGas for partnering with us to bring our Feed Frontliners Program to the Bakersfield and Delano community," said Lilly Rocha, LRA Board Chair. "SoCalGas has been with us from the beginning, starting with a handful of meals to local ICU units to 250 meals at Adventist Health Delano Regional Medical Center and Mercy Hospital respectively. The strength of the program is in supporting two vulnerable and impacted communities - frontline healthcare workers combating COVID-19 every day and restaurants who are struggling to stay open."

SoCalGas is dedicated to supporting the health, safety, and wellness of our community. In addition to supporting the LRA's Feed Frontliners Program events, the utility has donated more than $2 million to nonprofit organizations to support the region's workforce, feed the hungry, provide bill assistance to customers, and more as part of the COVID-19 recovery. For more information about SoCalGas' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit www.socalgas.com/coronavirus.

About SoCalGas

Headquartered in Los Angeles, SoCalGas is the largest gas distribution utility in the United States. SoCalGas delivers affordable, reliable, clean and increasingly renewable gas service to 21.8 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Central and Southern California, where more than 90 percent of residents use natural gas for heating, hot water, cooking, drying clothes or other uses. Gas delivered through the company's pipelines also plays a key role in providing electricity to Californians about 45 percent of electric power generated in the state comes from gas-fired power plants.

SoCalGas' vision is to be the cleanest gas utility in North America, delivering affordable and increasingly renewable energy to its customers. In support of that vision, SoCalGas is committed to replacing 20 percent of its traditional natural gas supply with renewable natural gas (RNG) by 2030. Renewable natural gas is made from waste created by dairy farms, landfills and wastewater treatment plants. SoCalGas is also committed to investing in its gas delivery infrastructure while keeping bills affordable for our customers. From 2014 through 2018, the company invested nearly $6.5 billion to upgrade and modernize its pipeline system to enhance safety and reliability. SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), an energy services holding company based in San Diego. For more information visit socalgas.com/newsroom or connect with SoCalGas on Twitter (@SoCalGas), Instagram (@SoCalGas) and Facebook.

About the Latino Restaurant Association

The Latino Restaurant Association promotes, supports and educates restaurateurs and small business owners to ensure the equitable economic growth of the Latino restaurant sector. As a member association we work to bring our member community together to advocate for the critical issues impacting our industry and provide resources and educational opportunities to support efficient business practices. The LRA strives to create an all-inclusive Latino restaurant platform for the country.

SOURCE Southern California Gas Company

Related Links

http://www.socalgas.com


The Royal Oman Police (ROP) have announced that Visit and Express visas will be automatically extended till June 30, said a report.

The move further extends the validity of the two visa types by two more weeks, said a report in Oman Daily Observer

Visit and Express visas of all those who are in the country but are overstaying due to the airport closure, are automatically renewed and extended till June 30," the ROP source said.

Earlier on Thursday, Ahmed al Mehrazi, Minister of Tourism, had said tourist visas that were issued between March 1 and August 31 will be reissued with a new validity period up to March 31, 2021.

For children of expatriate parents who are studying in their origin country but not able to come back due to the lockdown, can try to renew their visa online from there or parents can do it from here. Various embassies are working towards this by getting the details of these students online, the report said.

However, those who are studying outside of Oman but not in their origin country and stuck there due to the lockdown need to wait till the international gateways are open and till such time the ROP announces the requirements for their civil status to return to the sultanate, it said.
By Trend

Georgia opens domestic tourism, Trend reports via Georgian media.

Georgian National Tourism Administration says local travelers are able to visit different parts of Georgia.

On top of that, from June 15, Georgias protected areas will receive visitors in accordance with the recommendations issued by the Ministry of Health. In closed buildings, visitor centers, including caves, visitors must wear a face mask and observe social distancing rule.

Visitors will be able to enter the Akhaltsikhe Fortress and Borjomi Park for free.

Vardzia and Uplistsikhe Museum-Reserves will serve visitors at reduced prices for three months.

Moreover, internally displaced persons, war veterans, children deprived of parental care and socially vulnerable citizens will be admitted to museums and reserves free of charge.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
For months now, the federal Conservatives have been fixated on where theyre sitting. This week, they may finally start talking about where they stand.

The welcome realignment in the posture of the Conservative party coincides with two major developments in the political calendar this week.

On Wednesday, activity in the Commons will wind down significantly and move to a lighter summer schedule  despite months of Conservative complaints that the House isnt sitting often enough through the pandemic. That same night, the party will hold the first of two big debates among the contenders vying for its leadership.

The four would-be Conservative leaders  Peter MacKay, Erin OToole, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan  will face off in Toronto in two encounters: first in a French-language debate on Wednesday, then an English-language event on Thursday. They will be fielding questions sent in advance to the contenders; no live audience will be present, in deference to continuing physical-distancing rules.

Reopening is happening everywhere in Canada  including in a so-far-lacklustre Conservative leadership race. Many Conservatives will be hoping that this week is a turning point in that reality.

The COVID-19 crisis got in the way of Conservative plans to replace Andrew Scheer by the end of this month, as well as even loftier aspirations to trigger a fall election and topple Justin Trudeaus government as soon as the new leader was chosen.

The leadership now wont be decided until later in August and at least one of the major contenders, MacKay, said recently that an election this fall is no longer a priority.

Languishing in opposition is always tough on parties, but being the chief critic of the government during a pandemic is a special kind of political purgatory. For at least the first couple of months of the COVID-19 lockdown, Canadians werent in a mood for the kind of partisanship that usually prevails in Ottawa.

Worse, how do you criticize a government that is churning out money and aid to frightened Canadians?

Add to this the larger, national picture, where the oppositions usual provincial allies were otherwise occupied. Conservative premiers such as Ontarios Doug Ford and Albertas Jason Kenney were busy assuming an even larger role on the national stage than they already did, further marginalizing their Conservative cousins at the federal level.

On any given day through the crisis, Ford and Kenney appeared more simpatico with Trudeau than they did with Scheer and the Conservative caucus in Ottawa.

All of this added up to an almost impossible role for Scheer, who opted to focus his attention on his safe place  the House of Commons, where he had served as speaker, and which he still appears to see as his centre of gravity.

For better or worse, Scheer has made his demand for more sittings of the Commons into the main opposition crusade during the pandemic.

Last week, he and the other federal Conservatives turned that into a deal-breaker, refusing to grant quick passage to pandemic-relief legislation because the Liberals wouldnt budge on holding more sessions in the Commons.

Heres the fundamental problem: pandemic-preoccupied Canadians arent agitating for more Parliament. Theyre worried about their health, their economic future and matters being raised by the surging debate over racism in Canada. More Commons sittings just arent currently on the agenda of the average citizen.

In fact, on this subject, federal Conservatives find themselves today where the Liberals were about a decade ago, when Stephen Harpers government prorogued Parliament (twice) and was also found in contempt of Parliament on the eve of the 2011 election.

Liberals at the time could not believe that Canadians werent as upset as they were about these offences against democracy. But they werent: Harpers government was rewarded with a majority in 2011 and the Liberals were knocked to third place in the Commons they argued was so crucial in the life of this country.

So the time has arrived to retire the not-enough-sittings refrain. Where the Conservative party will stand in a post-pandemic Canada should be the question of the summer. The old reliable party positions  smaller government and lower taxes  dont entirely fit with how the pandemic created the need for lots of government and lots of debt, which may require higher taxes to fix.

The pandemic has also exposed tension between international and domestic forces, the haves and have-nots in a world of income inequality, not to mention health-care spending and the social safety net. Oh, and climate change hasnt gone away as an issue, either.

Lively debates on any or all of the above will give the Conservatives some much-needed exercise  not unlike the rest of the country, stirring from sedentary pandemic existence into the reopening stage. As were all discovering, standing is much better than sitting.

Susan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based columnist covering national politics for the Star. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt

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CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio

Animal complaint: Coy Lane

Police cited a Russell Township man, 26, on June 6 after his German shepherd attacked two dogs belonging to a Chagrin Falls resident. A neighbor used a shovel to separate the aggressor and get the injured dogs to safety.

The owners said they were taking the dogs to an emergency vet for treatment. The Russell man faces a June 22 date at Bedford Municipal Court.

Animal complaint: West Washington Street

While riding her bike at 5 p.m. June 5, a girl was scratched and bruised by a dog. The dog owner said she was walking the dog when it chased after the bike and attacked the rear tire. She was not aware that the girl had been scratched.

Police gave the dog owner a verbal warning about maintaining control of the pet.

Neighbor trouble: Bell Street

A resident called police after finding dog feces on her porch June 4. She asked that it be documented in case an escalation of events occurs.

Fraud: Commons Court

Someone created a fraudulent check drawn on a residents bank account. The victim received an overdraft notice from the bank and reported it to police June 4.

Found property: Riverside Park

A ring found in the park was turned over to police June 1. The owner can identify it and claim it at the police station.

Assistance: Solon Road

An employer asked police on June 3 to serve a no-trespassing warning to an ex-employee. The former employee was notified.

Suspicious: Cleveland Street

Police were unable to locate a reported man and younger-looking female taping homemade signs over stop signs at 1:39 p.m. June 2. Both were described as wearing masks.

Read more from the Chagrin Solon Sun.
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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Kabul, Afghanistan  Mon, June 15, 2020 10:46 586 fc6853813033f564188675f8bdebe2da 2 World Afghanistan,Taliban,peace-talks Free

Afghanistan's government and the Islamist Taliban group have agreed that Doha will be the venue for the first meeting in their peace talks, both sides said on Sunday.

The talks, known as the intra-Afghan dialogue, will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after years of fighting.

No date has been announced for the meeting, but it is expected to take place after the two sides settle differences on the release by the Afghan government of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, which could be as soon as the end of next week.

"The first intra-Afghan meeting will happen in Doha," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Reuters, adding that the Islamist group was ready to hold intra-Afghan talks within a week of the release of 5,000 prisoners.

The Afghan government has released 3,000 Taliban prisoners so far under an agreement signed between the United States and the insurgent group in February.

That deal outlined a roadmap for withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan and peace talks to end the 19-year war.

The government wants talks to begin as soon as possible but has issues with the release of a few hundred high-profile Taliban prisoners, a senior government official told Reuters.

The official said the government had offered an alternative prisoner release list to the Taliban.

The spokesman for the Afghan Presidential Palace, Sediq Sediqqi, said on Twitter that Doha had been agreed as the venue for the first talks but said no permanent venue had been agreed.

The Qatari capital was the venue for signing the deal between the United States and Taliban. The insurgent group has had a political office in Doha since 2013.
CANADA passed the first anniversary of the release of the report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), but with little attention in the media outside expressions of frustration (Ottawa rebuked for inaction on MMIWG report, June 4, 2020) and little demonstrable change.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 15/6/2020 (586 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

CANADA passed the first anniversary of the release of the report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), but with little attention in the media outside expressions of frustration ("Ottawa rebuked for inaction on MMIWG report," June 4, 2020) and little demonstrable change.

The inquiry, unfortunately, has been largely forgotten by the public at large. As also reported in the Free Press, the federal government has now put actions on hold, citing COVID-19 ("Pandemic sidelines MMIWG action plan," May 27, 2020).

These results were relatively predictable, given the inquiry, from the start, was largely political in nature. Throughout its brief history, there were many serious problems and missteps, from a host of resignations to silly errors cropping up within the final report. The major finding of the inquiry itself was viewed by some as political, too, with the labelling of the MMIWG situation in Canada as "genocide."

The inquiry commissioners obviously wanted to dramatically focus attention toward this ongoing and serious problem. There have been, however, broad concerns raised about overuse of the term "genocide," diminishing its meaning and impact. My own sense is that the tactic was unsuccessful, with most Canadians appearing to have simply tuned out, which was not the desired outcome.

A potential opportunity also may have been missed, if the inquiry had, instead, just asked the powerful and resonant question: "What do we call it in Canada when thousands of citizens disappear off the streets, and no one knows what happened, nor seems to care?" An abrupt label might not have been needed after all.

The prime ministers delay in responding to the release of the report was equally predictable. The Liberals wanted a positive media reflection on themselves, which did not happen. More importantly, the "genocide" label by an internal Canadian inquiry has been dramatically problematic for the Liberals desired bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

It is not good for Canada when such countries as North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and others can, with some validity, "tut-tut" at us. A number of Indigenous commentators have also expressed the viewpoint that Canada, when compared to Norway or Ireland, should not get a UN seat, specifically because of the MMIWG situation.

Earlier, also under the radar screen, the annual day of awareness for MMIWG came and went on May 5, with virtually nothing mentioned in the media. But what was definitely discussed in national news on that day was the full-court press by the Liberals to secure the UN seat. Talk is cheap, while actions speak volumes, especially regarding what is truly considered important by a government.

At this point, many might raise the obvious question of why someone involved with economics would be focusing on MMIWG? There is an important economic connection to be made, but one that is still largely unknown by many, if not most, Manitobans.

Until a few years ago, Manitoba was considered, with some validity, the aging backwater of Canadas West. Earlier in this decade, however, Manitobas Bureau of Statistics began producing reports showing a dramatic shift in our demographic situation. Manitoba today is the third-youngest of Canadas provinces.

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Importantly, we are not likely to face the same serious problems regarding a disproportionately greying population as elsewhere in the country, particularly Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes. We have all witnessed the tragedies in central and eastern Canada of COVID-19 impacts on over-stretched long-term care homes. Proper and appropriate management of such institutions represents an obvious consideration everywhere in the country, but it is the growth in proportional impacts that is the emerging concern.

There are two key reasons for Manitobas situation. First has been adroit and targeted immigration, for which past governments can take credit. Second, and of direct relevance, is Manitobas burgeoning Indigenous population. Manitoba today has the highest proportion of Indigenous citizens of any province in Canada, with Winnipeg notably having the largest Indigenous population of any city in the country in absolute terms. Manitobas Indigenous population is also continuing to grow, but these features are barely ever mentioned.

Manitobas future will see an increasing number and proportion of Indigenous citizens, who are also relatively younger. With that development comes an important economic observation and realization: if Manitobas Indigenous population becomes economically successful, then everyone in Manitoba will reap huge economic benefits.

Importantly, the essential rationale here involves neither altruism nor human rights, but instead the vested self-interest of all of us, which in economic terms has always been recognized as a powerful motivator.

It is in this regard that the future of every young Indigenous woman becomes extremely important to everyone in Manitoba, for reasons beyond the essential matters of life and death. After all, in the future she could become the ER physician who saves your life during the next pandemic, or the entrepreneur who hires your grandchildren.

Robert Parsons teaches sustainability economics in the MBA program at the I.H. Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba.
Reuters

Researchers in Thailand began collecting samples from horseshoe bats to test them for coronavirus amid concerns they may pose a threat to local residents, a government statement said on Saturday.

They plan to collect 300 bats over three days from a cave in the Chanthaburi province in the southeast of the country. The bats will be released following the tests.

Thailand has 23 species of the horseshoe bat, but there has not been an investigation before.

The source of the virus remains a matter of debate after it emerged in China late last year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in April said that all available evidence suggests that it originated in bats in China, but it was not clear how the virus had jumped the species barrier to humans.

The research team in Thailand includes Supaporn Wacharapluesadee, who identified the countrys first case of COVID-19 in January.

The reason we need to investigate the horseshoe bat is that there are reports from China that the COVID-19 virus is similar to the virus found in the horseshoe bat, Supaporn said.

Thailand was the first country outside China to record a case of the virus. It has so far reported 3,134 cases and 58 deaths.

Researchers from the National Parks Department, Chulalongkorn Hospital and Kasetsart University entered the cave on Thursday evening and re-emerged in the early hours of Friday with samples of bat blood, saliva and faeces.

Investigators were concerned that villagers in the area could be at risk of infection.

Locals have been known to eat bats, Supaporn said, adding adequate education and information programs were needed.

Local transmissions have waned in recent weeks with new cases coming from Thais returning from overseas.
MOSCOW (AP)  Russia's Foreign Ministry on Thursday welcomed President Donald Trumps reported plan to withdraw more than a quarter of U.S. troops from Germany, saying it would help bolster security in Europe.

Trump has reportedly signed off on a plan to cut the number of troops stationed in Germany from 34,500 to no more than 25,000.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that we would welcome any steps by Washington to scale down its military presence in Europe.

Such steps would undoubtedly help reduce confrontational potential and ease military and political tensions in the Euro-Atlantic region, Zakharova said at a briefing, adding that the large U.S. military presence in Germany is a vestige of the Cold War.

Zakharova challenged the U.S. to also take its tactical nuclear weapons home from Germany.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer told reporters earlier this week that Berlin hadnt yet been informed of any U.S. troops pullout. She warned that if the U.S. goes ahead the move would do more harm to NATO as a whole than to Germanys own defense.

Relations between Russia and the West are at post-Cold War lows following the 2014 Russian annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula, Moscows alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and other issues.

Moscow has described the deployment of NATO forces near Russian borders as a top security threat.

Zakharova strongly warned Washington against redeploying some of the troops from Germany to Poland, saying it would further exacerbate tensions and undermine prospects of dialogue between Russia and NATO.
Hita Gupta is a 15-year-old sophomore at Conestoga High who has created the Brighten a Day foundation to assist seniors in nursing homes as well as children in hospitals. Her organization makes goodie baskets and cards that are delivered, produces videos that are sent to the facilities as well as procuring and delivering smart devices to help seniors connect with family and friends. She holds the Kindle she donated to the Genesis Wayne Center on June 5, 2020. Read more

Hita Gupta used to volunteer at a nursing home near her residence in Paoli, trying to brighten the days of the senior citizens in the long-term care facility.

Now she spreads sunshine far and wide.

A 15-year-old sophomore at Conestoga High School, Gupta has created a nonprofit organization that specializes in bringing cheer to socially isolated seniors as well as hospitalized children.

Her Brighten A Day foundation started out by sending goody bags  each one stuffed with an adult coloring book, a large-print puzzle book, and packs of colored pencils  to Philadelphia-area nursing homes, and sending letters with uplifting messages to facilities in neighboring states.

But backed by donations through a GoFundMe page as well as the work of an expanding army of volunteers, Gupta has since widened the scope of her project, which has reached as far as Hawaii and now includes videoed messages as well as the delivery of smart devices to help residents communicate with loved ones.

Its been wonderful to see how many people have reached out to help, Gupta said. Weve been able to reach so many seniors  who are among the loneliest people in our society  and let them know they are not alone.

Guptas project has lifted spirits at Genesis Wayne Center, according to Kaylee Nichols, the facilitys recreation director.

Its impressive to see a high school student take that kind of initiative, Nichols said. That generation, they normally dont think about seniors."

Gupta was motivated to take action when the coronavirus outbreak meant she was no longer allowed to visit the nursing home where she had been a volunteer.

That made me determined to do something else to try to help, Gupta said.

At first, she used her own money to purchase the materials for the goody bags, which she dropped off at area nursing homes.

She soon realized she could make a bigger impact. She started the GoFundMe page, expanded the foundations website, and began organizing volunteers from around the country to write cards or make videos for nursing-home residents, who have been the most severely impacted by COVID-19.

They have so much anxiety, in addition to loneliness, Gupta said.

Some of her volunteers specialize in having conversations with seniors, and she herself has taken part.

Some of them get teary-eyed, Gupta said. But we just talk about regular stuff. They are so appreciative, knowing somebody wants to talk with them. Its hard, because their families cant go and see them.

She said her interactions with seniors are reminiscent of her weekly Skype calls with her grandparents, who live in India. Thats why Gupta expanded her project to include the acquisition and distribution of smart devices  anything that will enable Skype or Zoom access  to nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

She recently dropped off a donated Kindle device to Genesis Wayne Center.

What she is doing is more important than ever, given the restrictions created by the lockdown, Nichols said, noting that the Wayne Center residents have been unable to see family and friends since mid-March. For a young girl to let them know there are total strangers out there that care about them, its really extraordinary.

The foundations website  brightenaday.weebly.com  includes a page filled with thank-you notes from facilities around the country.

From Woodbury Senior Living in Minnesota: The residents are enjoying your cards and feeling your love.

From Maunalani Nursing and Rehab Center in Hawaii: Aloha Hita. Your Brighten a Day has TRULY IMPRESSED us  you have made many of our people cry because they are very happy and touched.

From Hibbard Skilled Nursing and Rehab Center in Maine: This is amazing work you are doing. Thank you for thinking of us.

Gupta works most of her days on her project. She spends the rest of her time doing schoolwork  her favorite subject is math  as well as reading. She has a big helper in brother Divit, 10, who writes many of the cards and helps assemble the goody bags in the familys living room.

Im very proud that Hita is able to bring smiles to so many seniors and children, her mother, Swati, wrote in an email.

Gupta said her foundations name is a reflection of her determination to chase away doubt and depression for folks in need.

I thought of the sun, Gupta said. I thought of people in the dark, lonely, and how much I wanted to brighten their days and bring joy to them.
Black Lives Matter Protester Oluwatoyin Salau Found Dead in Tallahassee After Going Missing

The Tallahassee Police Department confirmed that protester and Black Lives Matter activist Oluwatoyin Salau was found dead after going missing for more than a week.

The department said that both Salau, who went missing on June 6, and 75-year-old Victoria Sims were the victims of a double homicide, according to WCTV and WTXL.

A suspect in the case, 49-year-old Aaron Glee Jr., was arrested, said Tallahassee police. Other details about his arrest are not clear.

Family members of Salau also confirmed to USA Today that she died.

Police said at approximately 9:15 p.m. on Saturday that investigators arrived on Monday Road to investigate a missing person case. They found two bodies in the area.

Aaron Glee Jr. (Leon County Sheriffs Office)

Salau, 19, had written on Twitter about being sexually assaulted, saying she then called the police after the incident. Salau then didnt respond on Twitter after people asked if she was safe and hasnt written on Twitter since.

Following news of her death, a number of people remembered her on Twitter.

Rest In Peace, Oluwatoyin Salau. Im sorry that your life was so painful in your last days on earth. You were trying to change America for Black lives. Thank you. We need #JusticeForToyin, one person wrote.

Mid 40s lives in a gray painted duplex apartment style house drives a white clean Silverado Chevrolet truck https://t.co/psDCtYva2n  Oluwatoyin (@virgingrltoyin) June 6, 2020

He came disguised as a man of God and ended up picking me up from nearby Saxon Street. I entered his truck only because I carry anything to defend myself not even a phone (which is currently at the church) and I have poor vision. I trusted the holy spirit to keep me safe.  Oluwatoyin (@virgingrltoyin) June 6, 2020

Sims, who worked as an AARP volunteer, was well-known for her involvement in local Democrat Party politics.

AARP Florida deeply regrets the death of Vicki Sims, a long-time AARP volunteer. We understand that the Tallahassee Police Department is pursuing an investigation into her death. Few details are available at this time. Vicki is survived by two daughters, Brenda and June, and several grandchildren. She was a member of the Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church. She retired several years ago from the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, AARP said on Sunday, according to WCTV.

Other details about Simss or Salaus case were not immediately provided.
Courteney Cox stepped out in Malibu, California to shop at the farmer's market in the well-heeled beach locale on Sunday.

The 56-year-old Friends star donned a blue plaid mask on her outing to stay safe amid the coronavirus pandemic, which can travel between humans using the eyes, nose and mouth as primary entryways.

The Mothers and Daughters actress rounded out her casual ensemble on the sunny Sunday in an ash grey sweatshirt with blue jeans and white sneakers.

Star watching: Courteney Cox, 56, stepped out in Malibu to shop at the farmer's market in the well-heeled beach locale on Sunday

Cox, who played Monica Gellar on the program, wore sunglasses and had her dark locks pulled back on the weekend outing as restrictions have been slowly lifted in her native Los Angeles in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown implemented back in March.

On Saturday, she wished her daughter Coco (with ex David Arquette) a happy birthday as she turned 16-years-old.

'Happy sweet 16th cocolo, Youre my little quirk of the universe. I love you,' she wrote alongside a clip of her offspring at a younger age.

In a recent segment on her show 9 Months With Courteney Cox on Facebook Watch, Cox told her daughter she was feeling 'exciting, emotional' and 'great,' during her pregnancy with her in the early 2000s.

Staying cautious: The star wore sunglasses and had her dark locks pulled back on the weekend outing as restrictions have been slowly lifted in her native Los Angeles

Looking back: On Saturday, she wished her daughter Coco (with ex David Arquette) a happy birthday as she turned 16-years-old, posting a retro clip

Nostalgic: Cox's Friends castmate Matthew Perry took a nostalgic look back at the hit show in an Instagram post Sunday, sharing a shot of a Friends billboard in LA advertising the upcoming HBO Max incarnation of the popular NBC comedy

Cox's Friends castmate Matthew Perry took a nostalgic look back at the hit show in an Instagram post Sunday, sharing a shot of a Friends billboard in LA advertising the upcoming HBO Max incarnation of the popular NBC comedy.

Perry called it 'the show that thanks to all of you, doesn't go away.'

The top-rated hit also starred Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer among its core cast.
By definition, a wet market is one that is either outdoors or indoors (but often outside) and that consists of vendors who sell perishable food items like fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables. Wet markets come in many shapes and sizes, and some even sell live animals that are slaughtered on the spot for customers to buy. Wet markets are distinguished from dry markets that focus on selling non-perishable products like electronics. These markets have come under fire in Asia, as the novel coronavirus is thought to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan. In China, wet markets are officially banned from selling wildlife, a practice that began around 2003 in response to the SARS outbreak, but sometimes the practice continues. People around the world have called for the ban of wet markets in light of the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Wet markets can be fabulous places to take in local culture, however, and are responsible for providing a livelihood for millions of people worldwide. Here is a look at ten of the worlds largest wet markets, and what they have to offer.

10. Rungis

One of the pavilions of the fruits and vegetables sector in the Rungis International Market, France. Image credit: Photo: Myrabella/Wikimedia.org

This market is enormous. The Rungis food market is the largest of its kind in the entire world. It is located just outside Paris, and it caters mainly to the locals, requiring card entry. This market, like many worldwide, operates in the wee hours of the morning, and is open from midnight until 7 AM. Vendors spread out over 232 hectares, and sell over 7bn worth of food every year. Fish, wild game, cheese, it is all here in high quality, catering to many high-end French restaurants and specific clientele.

9. Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji Fish Market. Image credit: Arian Zwegers/Flickr.com

Love fish? This market is located in Tokyo, which does not come as much of a surprise when you learn it is the largest fish market on Earth. Tuna is auctioned off at 5 AM daily. Other parts of the Tsukiji Market sell goods such as vegetables, sauces, and pickles, as well as a wide assortment of Japanese snacks and any sushi knife you could possibly ever imagine or want.

8. Porta Palazzo Market

Porta palazzo Market of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. Image credit: Xadhoomx/Wikimedia.org

If European markets are more your style, you would not wish to miss the Porta Palazzo Market in Turin, Italy. This market is the biggest in all of Europe, and is made of 800 stalls that cover 50,000 m2 (164,000 ft2). Here, you can find many farmers selling directly from their land daily, providing a wide assortment of fruits and vegetables, as well as cold cuts, cheese, flowers, household goods and clothing.

7. Central De Abasto Market

Fisherman Stand, Central Market, Jerez. Image credit: Jerezplataforma/Wikimedia.org

Mexico is also home to massive wet markets. The Central de Abasto Market is Mexico Citys main wholesale market, providing buyers with food stuffs and other items from across the country. This market is located in the eastern borough of Iztapalapa and is proudly the most important commercial establishment in all of Mexico.

6. Otavalo Market

Otavalo Market. Image credit: Dan from Brussels, Europe/Wikimedia.org

Located about a couple of hours for Quito in Ecuador, Otavalo Market is the largest outdoor market in South America. This market is steeped in history that is reported to go all the way back to the 1500s in Poncho Plaza, where indigenous people would gather to sell their handmade wares to European settlers. You can find beautiful traditional blankets, clothing, and housewares at this extremely colorful market, but also loads of fresh produce, meat, and Ecuadorian street food.

5. Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte Central Market. Image credit: Ricardo Villela/Wikimedia.org

Brazils Belo Horizonte Central Market is recognized worldwide as a diverse location. There are over 400 stalls here, and you can buy non-perishable items like religious statues and handicrafts as well as produce, organic fruits, meat, dairy, and spices and herbs. Traditionally cooked Brazilian food is also available, with Saturdays marked by the offering of traditional feijoada, Brazilian black bean stew.

4. Tatehana Wharf Morning Market

Some mornings are best spent at the bazaar, and if you find yourself in Japan, the Tatehana Wharf Morning Market is not to be missed. This is the countrys biggest morning market, and it is set up each Sunday in Aomori Prefecture in the north of Japan, about two and a half hours from Tokyo Station. This market sells the food you are craving, and runs from mid-March through to December.

3. Namdaemun Market

Namdaemun Market. Image credit: tragrpx from Pixabay

Namdaemun is Seouls oldest and largest traditional market, dating all the way back to 1414. It is immense, and consists of many streets filled with pedestrians looking for the best deals on anything and everything. Located near the Great South Gate in Seouls old city, Namdaemun is known for its clothing, housewares, suitcases, TVs, and also its food. Street food is present here in abundance.

You can also purchase fresh produce, meat and other Korean fare in multiple blocks housing about 10,000 vendors and shops. One of the great things about this marketplace is that it is not just open in the early morning, nor just the evening, but has vendors selling 24/7. Yes, at all hours of the day. Welcome to the Korean style of work and life!

2. Khari Baoli

The Khari Baoli Market. Image credit: Nicolo' Zangirolami/Shutterstock.com

If you define a wet market as a marketplace that sells perishable fresh items, Khari Baoli should be included in the list of the best. This market is the largest wholesale spice market in Asia, and is found in New Delhi, India. Be wowed by the rows upon rows of every flavor imaginable, presented in a colorful, impressive array of natures bounty.

1. Azadpur Fruit and Vegetable Market

Last but not least, Azadpur is another great market in India. Also located in Delhi, this is the citys largest vegetable market, offering locals and tourists a wide variety of produce to choose from.
What else does it take to prevent more of these deaths?

J. Scott Thomson, who served as the police chief in Camden, N.J., from 2008 to 2019 and was the president of the Police Executive Research Forum from 2015 to 2019: Within a Police Department, culture eats policy for breakfast. You can have a perfectly worded policy, but its meaningless if it just exists on paper.

At the Police Executive Research Forum, we released a survey in 2016 that found that agencies spend a median of 58 hours on training for recruits on how to use a gun and 49 hours on defensive tactics, but they spend about only eight hours on de-escalation and crisis intervention.

To change the culture around the use of force, you have to have continuous training, systems of accountability and consequences.

What do you want to see happen next?

Alicia Garza, the principal of Black Futures Lab who helped coin the phrase #BlackLivesMatter and helped found the Black Lives Matter Global Network: Most immediate, we need accountability for the death of George Floyd.

Increasing the charges to second-degree murder for Derek Chauvin, and also charging the other three officers involved, was really important. Most of the time, there is unrest, and then there is a quick move to convene a grand jury, and people think there is no way that they couldnt hold these officers accountable.

Time and time again, as in the cases of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, grand juries have decided not to indict. So the elemental first step is to show that law and order applies equally to the police.

Thats it for this briefing. See you next time.  Isabella

Thank you

To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.

 Were listening to The Daily. Our latest episode is one mans discovery of how hard it is for a felon to get a second chance in America.

 Heres todays Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Cubicle furniture (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here.

 Tara Parker-Pope, the founding editor of Well, discusses lowering coronavirus risk with Dr. Linsey Marr, one the leading experts on airborne viral transmission, at 1 p.m. Eastern on Monday. (6 p.m. in London.) R.S.V.P. here, or catch up with that and other Times events later.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The office of New York Attorney General Letita James has interviewed Amazon employees from several city Amazon facilities as part of its investigation into the companys response to the coronavirus, according to a CNN report.

James office spoke to employees concerning allegations related to the use of personal protective equipment, along with the firing of Chris Smalls  an employee who said the company fired him after he organized a protest, the CNN report said.

We are saddened by the tragic impact COVID-19 has had on communities across the globe, including on some Amazon team members and their family and friends," an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. From early March to May 1, we offered our employees unlimited time away from work, and since May 1 we have offered leave for those most vulnerable or who need to care for children or family members.

We also invested $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives, including over $800 million in the first half of this year on safety measures like temperature checks, masks, gloves, enhanced cleaning and sanitization, extended pay and benefits options, testing, and more, the statement continued. "This includes two weeks paid leave for any COVID diagnosis or quarantine, and launching a $25 million fund to support our partners and contractors. initiatives.

Amazon said it has always followed the guidance of health authorities, its own workplace health and safety experts and an independent epidemiologist.

Employees began raising concerns about working conditions at JFK8 nearly from the start of the diseases spread, the Advance/SILive.com has reported. Workers protested on March 30 and April 6.

Chris Smalls, who helped organize the walkouts, said the company fired him after the first protest.

However, in a statement to the Advance/SILive.com, Amazon then said Smalls was released of his duties because he violated social-distancing guidelines. Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered a separate investigation by the citys Commission on Human Rights to investigate Smalls allegations.

In late April, Amazon workers across the country, including on Staten Island, staged a call out of work to protest what they maintained were unsafe working conditions during the pandemic.

Several weeks later, on May 5, the Advance reported that a worker at JFK8 had died from the coronavirus.

Amazon told the Advance the employee was last at the facility on April 5 and was diagnosed with the disease six days later. The worker had remained in quarantine since then, the company said.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 20:12:05|Editor: huaxia

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VIENNA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday expressed "serious concern" over Iran's lacking engagement with the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.

"I note with serious concern that, for over four months, Iran has denied us access to two locations and that, for almost a year, it has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify our questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities," Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, told a board of governors meeting held online.

He said that this was adversely affecting IAEA's ability to provide credible assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities at these locations in Iran.

The director general called on the Islamic republic to cooperate "immediately and fully" with the IAEA, including by providing "prompt access to" the locations specified by the agency.

Iran's Foreign Ministry on Monday urged the IAEA to avoid unconstructive decisions regarding Iran's nuclear program. Enditem
Cardiologists need real time full disclosure data from remote cardiac monitoring and accurate alerts for ambulatory homebound and post lockdown cardiovascular patients for quick action that could saves lives, Long says.

As cities emerge from the pandemic lockdown, leading ambulatory cardiac monitoring provider InfoBionic and other industry experts are asking how the shutdowns can potentially affect heart health. One important aspect of learning more about the novel coronavirus implications on the bodys organs is the now unrefuted understanding of its impact on the hearts of previously healthy people and those with some type of heart condition.(1) Determining the impact on heart health during COVID-19 lockdown for healthy people and preexisting heart condition patients is one major challenge, says Stuart Long, the CEO of InfoBionic. The other is how to deal with the significant and broader influx of people requiring remote cardiac monitoring to avoid life threatening heart related outcomes from COVID-19.

When COVID-19 began to emerge, cardiac damage was a consistent finding indicating a broader problem. Health researchers now know that those with preexisting conditions, those with undiagnosed heart disease and a subset of previously healthy COVID-19 patients are at major risk.(2) Just as more will be known about these groups through further studies in the next several months, the same can be said about the effects of the lockdown itself on these groups.

While CDC data shows that coronavirus cases dropped 44% during shelter-in-place orders, the heart health effects of that time period have yet to emerge via studies.(3) What we do know is that this is sure to be a mixed bag of health outcomes when you add in the fact that heart inflammation can be life threatening, and it can happen in people who dont have any preexisting risk factors. Inflammation that leads to Atrial Fibrillation (AF) can come from a wide verity of health conditions. Studies show COVID-19 can attack organs like the heart and brain, as well as the respiratory system as a consequence of inflammation.(4) The question of whether lockdown is and has been bad for the heart is an ongoing one. Some observational data shows that lockdown has potentially improved heart health since it has resulted in lower resting heart rates, more people exercising and adhering better to medication regimens.(5)

There is also an equal amount of observational and anecdotal data showing how lockdown may lead to a more sedentary life, which increases cardiovascular stress and danger for all groups.(6) In cases where people have preexisting conditions like AF that are linked or directly involve cardiovascular disease, remote cardiac monitoring may be key as they return to more regular routines or continue in lockdown.

Whether its fear of infection, sedentary lockdown lifestyles, or lack of knowledge, the pandemic has profoundly impacted cardiac care and intervention. Evidence shows that ER visits decreased by 42% over four weeks in April, compared with the same period in 2019 and rebounded somewhat to 26 percent in May during the pandemic.(7) The concern is that people with serious medical conditions, like CVD, are avoiding hospitals, according to CDC analysis.(8)

More leading healthcare voices are saying in-person cardiac care visits are now safer in specific areas of the country, though a significant portion of patients may still be hesitant to do so.(9) Major North American cardiovascular societies are simultaneously issuing guidance for health professionals on safely reintroducing diagnostic tests and invasive cardiovascular procedures, with an eye to regions with lower rates of infection.(10) Non-invasive heart monitors for cardiac arrhythmia detection are a crucial diagnostic tool in all vulnerable patient scenarios.

What is clear in all of this is that the pandemic has profoundly changed things societally and in terms of health and healthcare for the foreseeable future. This means that more fact-based studies and evidence are necessary to know where we are in terms of cardiovascular risk cross populations, and where we need to go in the future.

Cardiologists need real time full disclosure data from remote cardiac monitoring and accurate alerts for ambulatory homebound and post lockdown cardiovascular patients for quick action that could saves lives, Long says. Solutions like the MoMe Kardia platform have an important role to play in remote diagnosis and ongoing empirical data studies that contribute to understanding of the pandemics long-term effects and treatment.

About InfoBionic:

InfoBionic is a digital health company transforming the efficiency and economics of ambulatory remote patient monitoring processes by optimizing clinical and real-world utility for the users that need it mostphysicians and their patients. The Massachusetts-based team of seasoned entrepreneurs leverages successful careers in healthcare, IT, medical devices, and mobile technology, along with specific expertise in remote monitoring and cardiology. Their first-hand experience with the complexities of traditional cardiac arrhythmia detection and monitoring processes led to design of the transformative MoMe Kardia platform to remove the roadblocks, thus amounting to a faster and more effective process for decision-making and diagnosis. InfoBionic is the recipient of the Frost & Sullivan 2019 North American Remote Cardiac Monitoring Technology Leadership Award. For more information, visit http://www.infobionic.com.

1. Maria Cohut, Ph.D. New study warns of COVID-19 impact on cardiovascular health, Medical News Today, May 19, 2020, medicalnewstoday.com/articles/new-study-warns-of-covid-19-impact-on-cardiovascular-health

2. Ekaterina Pesheva. COVID-19 may spark cardiac trouble in multiple ways, Harvard Gazette, April 14, 2020, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/04/covid-19s-consequences-for-the-heart/

3. Coronavirus cases plummet by 44% due to shelter-in-place orders, according to this study drawing on CDC data, May 5, 2020, MarketWatch, marketwatch.com/story/coronavirus-cases-drop-by-up-to-44-due-to-shelter-in-place-orders-study-drawing-on-cdc-data-shows-2020-05-04

4. These are the ways doctors think coronavirus can attack the body, World Economic Forum, May 1, 2020, weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid-19-lungs-heart-blood-brain/

5. Coronavirus doctor's diary: Is lockdown good for your heart? BBC News, May 5, 2020, bbc.com/news/health-52535044

6. Michael O'Riordan. COVID-19 Lockdown Inactivity May Spell Trouble for CVD Prevention, tctMD, April 24, 2020, tctmd.com/news/covid-19-lockdown-inactivity-may-spell-trouble-cvd-prevention

7. By Reed Abelson. E.R. Visits Drop Sharply During Pandemic, New York Times, June 3, 2020, nytimes.com/2020/06/03/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html

8. Kathleen P. Hartnett et. Al others. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Emergency Department Visits  United States, January 1, 2019May 30, 2020, CDC, June 3, 2020, cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6923e1.htm

9. Life after lockdown should start with this healthy to-do list, American Heart Association, June 3, 2020, heart.org/en/news/2020/06/03/life-after-lockdown-should-start-with-this-healthy-to-do-list

10. Safe Reintroduction of Cardiovascular Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Guidance from North American Society Leadership, The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, April 27, 2020, annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(20)30688-3/pdf

# # #
The video above is from January 2019; Whelans brother denies allegations of spying.

American Paul Whelan, a former Marine, was convicted by Russia of spying on Monday, receiving a 16-year prison sentence in a maximum-security prison colony.

Whelan pleaded not guilty to the espionage charges and claims he was set up in a sting operation orchestrated by Russia's intelligence services. He was visiting Russia for the wedding of a friend when he was arrested in December 2018 after receiving a USB flash drive that allegedly contained classified Russian information.

Whelan's trial began March 23 but the proceedings have been closed to the public and many of the case's details have emerged through his lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov.

"This is slimy, grubby, greasy Russian politics. Nothing more, nothing less," Whelan said just before the sentencing. Prosecutors had asked for an 18-year prison sentence.

In this photo taken on August 23, 2019, Paul Whelan, left, stands inside a defendants' cage during a hearing at a court in Moscow.

Zherebenkov said Whelan would appeal the verdict. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow denounced Whelan's s trial as unfair and said no evidence for his alleged crimes was provided. In Russia, a maximum-security prison colony is akin to a labor camp.

A 'face mask and an onion': Americans detained abroad face threat amid pandemic

Whelan, 50, is the director of global security for a Michigan-based auto supplier. He was born in Canada to British parents and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports. The U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, John Sullivan, described the allegations against Whelan as spurious and the court case as a "mockery of justice." Former CIA agents have told USA TODAY that Whelan does not fit the profile of a covert U.S. intelligence operative and that it's more likely the Russians nabbed him as leverage with the Trump administration in a game of geopolitical chess.

Ex-CIA agents: Paul Whelan doesn't fit spy profile, was likely set up by Russians

"If Paul were being tried in Washington  or Dublin, London, or Ottawa  then I might have some anxiety about the outcome. A conviction would reflect evidence of guilt, a sentence would reflect the severity of Paul's actions," wrote Whelan's brother, David, in an email to reporters ahead of the expected verdict. "But this is Russia. A conviction merely reflects that the defendant did not confess. And the sentence, whatever it may be, says more about the legal system than it does about the defendant's actions."

Story continues

Whelan has said he is a victim of "political kidnapping" and begged President Donald Trump to intervene on his behalf. "Mr. President, we cannot keep America great unless we aggressively protect American citizens wherever they are in the world," he said from inside a glass enclosure in Moscow City Court in June last year.

Whelan said he has been threatened, abused and unable to access medical care during his imprisonment in a czarist-era Moscow prison. After the verdict, his brother said in a statement that the family will continue "to fight for Paul's release" and that they were "looking to the U.S government to immediately take steps to bring (him) home."

"We had hoped that the court might show some independence but, in the end, Russian judges are political, not legal, entities," the statement said.

Held abroad: Whelan family continue to fight amid accusations of spying in Russia

While Trump has touted his record of securing the release of Americans held abroad  including the recent example of Michael White, a U.S. Navy veteran freed by Iran  the president has said little publicly about Whelan. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Moscow to release Whelan last week during a brief media availability. "Rest assured Ambassador Sullivan and his team will keep fighting for Paul," Pompeo said.

On Monday, Pompeo said he was "outraged by the decision of a Russian court today to convict U.S. citizen Paul Whelan after a secret trial, with secret evidence, and without appropriate allowances for defense witnesses."

Xiyue Wang, an American graduate student who spent more than three years behind bars in Iran before being released in December, told NPR in an interview that his Iranian interrogators were not especially interested in gleaning any information from him. He was told he was being held because Iran's authorities believed he would be useful in their negotiations with the U.S. Relations have deteriorated under Trump.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: American Paul Whelan, a former Marine, convicted of spying by Russia
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As the global coronavirus pandemic inches closer to the six-month mark, its devastating impact on the performing arts is becoming more and more evident. Concerts, theater and all large-scale performances face enormous obstacles before they will be able to resume programming.

In the classical music field, musicians and associated staff face not only long-term unemployment but also the prospect that their jobs and careers may never return. One survey of tens of thousands of musicians in Britain reported that at least one-fifth said they expect their careers will end because of the pandemic. Nearly half of these professional players are not covered by the inadequate government assistance program for those facing job losses because of COVID-19.

Royal Albert Hall London (Photo creditDiliff)

The challenge facing all musical ensembles and concert venues, large and small alike, was highlighted by the announcement this week that the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was canceling its programming, not just through the summer, but for the Fall 2020 season as well. The Philharmonic announcement came just days after a similar statement from the Metropolitan Opera. Deborah Borda, chief executive of the Philharmonic, said it was possible that the orchestra would have to cancel the rest of the 2020-2021 season as well.

The Guardian reports that such major British music venues as the Royal Albert Hall and the South Bank in London have warned of imminent catastrophe. The world-famous Royal Opera House, with a hundred people on stage, a hundred in the pit and 2,700 in the audience, can only last months, given that its public subsidy is merely 20 percent of expenses and it needed to sell 95 percent of its tickets, even before the pandemic, to break even. The director of Londons renowned Wigmore Hall is quoted as warning that [o]rchestras could be going to the wall in the next 12 weeks.

Simon Rattle, currently the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and previously the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, said, about his own musicians, Im desperately worried for my orchestra in London. Im so scared for the financial hardship that they will be going through.

Ludwig Van,a music website in Canada, reported recently on a survey of classical music listeners that indicated the seriousness of the challenges facing live musical performance. More than 60 percent of concertgoers said they would wait for as much as an additional six months after government restrictions are lifted against large-audience performances, before they returned to the concert hall. Most would wait until an effective treatment for the coronavirus is discovered, or a vaccine is developed, proven effective and publicly distributed. The well-founded reluctance of this audience, including a high proportion of older people at higher risk for COVID-19, only highlights the criminal negligence of governments everywhere in reopening economies and forcing workers back to their jobs without effective safety precautions.

New York Philharmonic

Some sources hold out hope for outdoor performances during the summer months, where social distancing is possible and the open air makes disease transmission less likely. There have been suggestions of socially distanced orchestral concerts, in which seats are spaced six feet apart. Numerous complications and difficulties have been pointed out, however, including crowding in lobbies, the use of lavatories, lining up to purchase tickets and enter the hall and the possible need to screen concertgoers for signs of illness. In addition, concerts with audiences of 20-30 percent capacity are sure to lose money.

Just as difficult is the question of ensuring the safety of the performers themselves. The local public radio station serving the small city of Asheville, North Carolina recently interviewed the conductor of the Asheville Symphony, Darko Butorac. String sections, for example, if we need to, we can wear masks, he said. That provides a layer of protection and we distance fairly easily from each other. But woodwinds and brass sections generate more aerosol than breathing. Its like sneezing continuously. And if thats an environment where we dont feel safe, we cannot have a large orchestra performing.

These considerations apply equally to vocalists, both soloists and chorus. Choral concerts, from local amateur groups to the more famous professional choruses, will not be performing while the pandemic continues. All of these factors make large-scale live performances unlikely before the development of an effective vaccine. It is increasingly being suggested that it will be 2022 before major concert seasons resume.

The Asheville conductor suggests that future programs can lean toward smaller-scale works, from the Baroque as well as from the 20th century. The basic repertoire from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century would, however, be extremely difficult if not possible to perform live. Works of Brahms, Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Mahler, Bruckner and Strauss, will be the last to reappear.

Classical-Simon Rattle (Photo creditMonika Rittershaus)

As in every other sphere of life, the coronavirus pandemic has triggered and exposed an underlying crisis in the classical music world. The business model on which music performance is based relies increasingly on high ticket prices and especially on the patronage of a section of the super-rich, the same class whose control of the economy led to the criminal unpreparedness for COVID-19 and has since led to economic collapse.

Moreover, the current state of cultural life as a whole is untenable. The sharp divide between high and low culture and the widespread degradation of the popular arts are the inevitable product of unprecedented social inequality. The pandemic has accelerated and brought to the fore processes long at work.

While classical music companies in Germany and elsewhere in Europe receive far greater subsidies than in Britain, in the US the situation is even worse. Orchestras and opera companies plaster the names of wealthy patrons on programs, seats and even the titles of the orchestral positions themselves. One could not ask for a more vivid illustration of the bankruptcy and irrationality of 21st century capitalism, where the oligarchs indulge their vanity while creating the conditions that lead to the disappearance of music and other live performance.

Musicians face the same problems as the working class as a whole. The solution lies not in various schemes to tweak the failed status quo, but a united struggle to defend culture along with jobs, education, health and every other basic right and achievement of civilization. The crisis of cultural organizations is bound up with the challenges of the many millions who have lost their jobs or are being forced to return under unsafe conditions.

The revival of musical life requires, first of all, a massively funded and internationally coordinated campaign to eradicate COVID-19 and to prepare for similar pandemic threats in the future.

Musicians, like all workers, must fight for full compensation for lost earnings for the duration of the pandemic. This must be accompanied by the struggle for full public funding for arts and arts education, massively expanding the audience for music and other performing arts, along with education and career opportunities for all. This is possible, however, only as part of the socialist reorganization of economic life, placing the resources of society under the control of the vast working class majority.
Bengaluru, June 15 : Coronavirus precautions went for a toss at the wedding of a Karnataka legislator's son in Ballari, where Health Minister B. Sriramulu and many other politicians were also spotted.

"I have come across this. A large holding (wedding) was there. We have initiated action. A case has been registered," Ballari Superintendent of Police C.K. Baba told IANS on Monday.

Baba said the case was being investigated and the event's visuals were available.

The Health Minister also attended the Hadagali MLA Parmeshwar Naik's son's wedding, where the Covid-19 norms were violated. Sriramulu was neither seen wearing a mask nor maintaining physical distancing while being photographed on the stage with the newly-wed couple.

Other politicians who attended the wedding included former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Priyank Kharge, G. Parameshwara, Lakshman Savadi and Prabhu Chauhan.

Several people were also seen attending the weeding under a tent and sitting on chairs without maintaining social distancing.

According to the central government guidelines, only 50 people are allowed to attend weddings amid the pandemic.
When Kourtney Kardashian posted a photo of her cuddling a lamb on her trip to Wyoming on Sunday, it appeared to be nothing more than a happy vacation snap.

But the image has caused some major buzz among the reality star's fans who have noticed Kourtney's flannel shirt looks very familiar.

Internet sleuths identified the shirt as belonging to Kourtney's ex-boyfriend Scott Disick, who she shares three children with.

Intriguing: Kourtney Kardashian has caused a stir with this snap of her seemingly wearing Scott Disick's flannel shirt as she cuddled a lamb in Wyoming

While it's not unusual for Scott to join Kourtney, 41, and their kids on trips away, fans of the pair are going wild with speculation they may be getting back together.

The discovery will no doubt sting Scott's recent ex Sofia Richie - especially as it seems he wore the same plaid shirt on a date night with her in 2017.

Scott, 37, broke up with Sofia, 21, last month after three years of dating.

Kourtney has been enjoying the natural beauty in Wyoming and Montana over the few days and sharing snaps of her children taking in the stunning scenery.

Looks familiar: Scott is pictured wearing the shirt on a date with Sofia Richie in 2017 - who he split with last month

There was no sign of Scott in any of the Instagram posts Kourtney shared, however, Us Weekly confirmed via a source that he is on the family trip.

The former couple are apparently staying at Kim and Kanye's $14 million ranch with kids Mason, 10, Penelope, seven and Reign, five.

Kourtney was glowing in the snap which she posted on Sunday that showed her wearing her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing baggy jeans.

A source also revealed the family is joined by 'Kim and Kanye and their kids, Kylie, Stormi, Khloe, True and Kris.'

'Theyre all having a fun time doing family activities like swimming, etc,' said the insider. 'Scott hasnt been speaking about his breakup with Sofia.'

Going wild: There were plenty of comments from fans speculating that the duo are dating again

Behind the camera? There was no sign of Scott in any of the Instagram posts Kourtney shared over the weekend, however, Us Weekly confirmed via a source that he is on the family trip

Birthday girl: Kourtney shared this image on Monday of daughter Penelope playing with cousin North - who just turned seven - on the grounds of Kim and Kanye's $14 million ranch

Scott and Kourtney, who dated from 2006 to 2015, were also together for his 37th birthday celebration in Utah last month.

'Kourtney and Scott had so much fun with the kids in Utah and the kids want them to do family trips all together more often,' an insider told the magazine.

'Scott is so happy that he and Kourtney get along so well and how easy it is with her. Its weird to everyone else, but not to them. They are really like best friends.'
Germany Says Further U.S. Sanctions Over Nord Stream 2 Would Interfere With EU Energy Security

June 14, 2020

The German government has "noted with regret" a U.S. proposal to expand sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.

"New sanctions would constitute a serious interference in European energy security and EU sovereignty," a statement by the Foreign Ministry said on June 14.

A group of bipartisan U.S. senators early this month submitted legislation to stop Russia from completing the controversial natural gas pipeline along the floor of the Baltic Sea.

The United States already has taken steps to halt the $11 billion project. A bill passed late last year allowed Washington to impose sanctions on any vessel that helps Russia complete the pipeline, forcing Western-owned ships to stop work.

To get around the legislation's impact, Russia has sent its own vessel to the Baltic Sea to lay the remaining 160 kilometers of pipeline.

The new proposed legislation widens the sanctions in the existing law to include any entity that provides insurance, port facilities, or tethering services for the project as well as any company that certifies Nord Stream 2 for operation.

Senator Ted Cruz (Republican-Texas), sponsor of the bill introduced on June 4, said there was bipartisan consensus that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline "poses a critical threat to America's national security and must not be completed."

The United States opposes Nord Stream 2, claiming it undermines Ukraine and strengthens Russia's grip on Europe's energy industry.

The pipeline would enable Russia to reroute natural-gas exports to Europe around Ukraine, depriving Kyiv of billions of dollars in transit revenue.

Moscow has accused Washington of using sanctions to open the door for more U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to Europe.

Based on reporting by dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/germany- says-further-u-s-sanctions-over-nord- stream-2-would-interfere-with-eu- energy-security/30670340.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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Queensland Woman in Court Over Strawberry Needles

A former farm supervisor was linked to the contamination of a strawberry through a DNA test found on a needle, a police officer has told a Brisbane court.

Former strawberry farm supervisor My Ut Trinh, 52, was a person of interest early in the investigation into deliberate strawberry contamination in 2018, says Detective Sergeant Gary Perrett.

But officers found there was insufficient evidence to charge Trinh until they received DNA test results linking her to a needle, he told a committal hearing in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday.

Trinh is charged with six counts of contamination of goods to cause economic loss.

She was working at Berrylicious in her hometown of Caboolture, north of Brisbane, between September 2 and 7, 2018, when she allegedly inserted needles into the fruit.

A man found a needle when he bit into a contaminated strawberry on September 9, sparking a national food safety frenzy with strawberries stripped from shelves nationwide.

Detective Sergeant Perrett said more than 240 copycat incidents were reported after the initial incident.

It went berserk, he told the court.

Perrett was asked about leads like a report of a suspicious person seen on a road in a strawberry farm a few days before news about the contamination broke.

He was unable to provide information about any follow-up to that report, but told defence barrister Terry Morgans strawberry farms are open to the public.

You can walk into these strawberry farms at any time at any placehe may have been stealing strawberries, Perrett said.

The officer said leads provided to police were followed up and documented by other officers, while he and a colleague focused on the investigation into Trinh.

The hearing was adjourned until July 27 for information about leads provided to police and how they were followed up to be given to the defence team.

By Cheryl Goodenough
As of July, Turkey will resume all those tourism facilities planned to be reopened as part of normalization process, said the countrys culture and tourism minister on Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN Turk, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy commented on the revival of tourism in the country.

"In tourism, there is no other country that has done certification better and more reliable than Turkey," the minister said.

Emphasizing that Turkey needs to adapt to a new normal, the minister talked about the new measures that the countrys hotspot airports will take.

"As of today, tourists from Germany will come to Turkey. When foreign visitors come, they will be health-checked, and body temperatures will be measured. If there is a suspicion, tourists will be taken for a PCR test. These measurements will start in Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman, Izmir, Istanbul airports, the country's provinces with the most tourist attraction," Ersoy said.

The country's main priority in this process is to resume air traffic to all countries, according to the minister.

"We are hoping to increase air traffic in July, he said, adding the process of opening air traffic for most countries in the world would complete in August.

We have sent letters to at least 60 countries which provide most tourists to Turkey. We have informed them of Turkey's tourism certification program, and our enhanced hospital infrastructures," he added.

To a question about the reopening of Hagia Sophia for worship, Ersoy said: "If the court decision comes through [to open Hagia Sophia for worship], I will not be worried about tourism, we will find a solution."

Hagia Sophia, called by historians the Eighth Wonder of the World, is one of the most-visited museums in the world and a gem of architectural history.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated his intent to restore Hagia Sophias mosque status, and recently allowed a special Quran reading there.

Turkey on Wednesday reported 2,241 more recoveries, 17 deaths and 922 more cases of the coronavirus.

The pandemic has killed more than 413,100 people worldwide, with over 7.29 million confirmed cases and more than 3.41 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the US Johns Hopkins University.

Image Credit:  AA
Sara Ali Khan is devastated by the news of the death of her first co-star, Sushant Singh Rajput. The 34-year-old actor died by suicide; he was found hanging in his Bandra apartment on Sunday.

Sara, who made her foray into films with Abhishek Kapoors Kedarnath opposite Sushant, remembered him with a heartbreaking post on Instagram. She shared a behind-the-scenes picture from the making of the film, in which the two of them were seen laughing heartily. Her caption simply read, Sushant Singh Rajput, followed by a series of heart and heartbroken emojis.

We will never see him smile again, an emotional fan commented on the post. Will miss this face terribly! Really sad and shocking! May god give his family strength! Just doesnt seem real, another wrote.

Sushant was found hanging at his home by his domestic help, who alerted the police, IANS reports. A team of police officials rushed to his house to investigate. No suicide note has been found, the police said.

The last rites will be performed after his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna tomorrow, the actors spokesperson told PTI on Sunday.

Also read: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, found dead at Mumbai home

Sushants management team requested fans to celebrate his life and work. It pains us to share that Sushant Singh Rajput is no longer with us. We request his fans to keep him in their thoughts and celebrate his life, and his work like they have done so far. We request media to help us maintain privacy at this moment of grief, they said in a statement.

Sushant established himself on the small screen with the popular show Pavitra Rishta before making the switch to films with Kai Po Che! in 2013. He had acted in films such as Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, Raabta, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Sonchiriya and Chhichhore. He was last seen in the Netflix release Drive.

If you need support or know someone who does, please reach out to your nearest mental health specialist. Helplines: Aasra: 022 2754 6669; Sneha India Foundation: +914424640050 and Sanjivini: 011-24311918

Follow @htshowbiz for more
A 12 second clip of the incident was shared on social media: (ImKingFola - Twitter)

Video has emerged that appears to show a white woman setting fire to a Wendys in Atlanta, during protests over the death of Rayshard Brooks, as police offer a $10,000 (7980) reward to find her and other suspected arsonists.

Mr Brooks was shot dead by police on Friday, after officers found him asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane of the restaurant.

Video of the incident was released to the public by authorities, which showed a struggle between Mr Brooks and officers, Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan, as they attempted to arrest him for failing a sobriety test.

During the struggle, Mr Brooks managed to get hold one of the officers tasers, and as he attempted to run away from the scene and the police he was shot at three times by Mr Rolfe and later died from his wounds after surgery.

In the aftermath of Mr Brookss death, protests took place in the city, and the Wendys where he was killed was set on fire.

Footage has now emerged that appears to show a white woman setting the fire.

In the footage, that has circulated on social media, some protesters can be heard shouting that they have nothing to do with the burning down of the fast food restaurant.

Look at the white girl trying to set s*** on fire, one of the protesters says. Look at that white girl trying to burn down a Wendys.

This wasnt us, the protester adds. This wasnt us!

A WHITE GIRL SET WENDYS ON FIRE pic.twitter.com/TeFsebDZpV  THA GREAT BEAR  (@AzeemBearnard) June 14, 2020

The Atlanta Police Department has offered a $10,000 reward for information that will lead the authorities to those suspected of arson.

The incident came amid protests across the US following the death of George Floyd, who died after being detained by Derek Chauvin, who at the time was a Minneapolis police officer.

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Mr Floyds death sparked protests, in opposition to police brutality against African Americans, which have spread across the world.

In the aftermath of Mr Brookss death, Mr Rolfe was fired by the department, and Mr Brosnan was placed on administrative leave, pending an investigation into the incident.

Atlanta Police chief Erika Shields resigned from the force. City mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms supported the decision and said the use of force in the incident was not justified.

She said: I do not believe that this was a justified use of deadly force and have called for the immediate termination of the officer.

The mayor added: Because of her desire that Atlanta be a model of what meaningful reform should look like across this country, Chief Shields has offered to immediately step aside as police chief so that the city may move forward with urgency and rebuilding the trust that is desperately needed throughout our communities.

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Protesters set fire to Atlanta restaurant after black man shot dead
New Delhi, June 15 : The Supreme Court on Monday put on hold, for 10 days, the disbursal of Rs 50 crore compensation by LG Polymers for the Vizag gas leak incident, as directed by the National Green Tribunal.

A bench comprising Justices U.U. Lalit, M.M. Shantanagoudar and Vineet Saran noted that the Andhra Pradesh High Court expeditiously dispose of the pending application in connection with the incident. On June 1, the NGT had ordered the South Korean company to deposit Rs 50 crore.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for LG Polymers, contended before the bench that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had directed the directors of the company to deposit their passports in the court, and this order is without jurisdiction. The LG Polymers moved the apex court challenging the NGT and the High Court orders. On the last hearing, the apex court had allowed 30 company personnel to access the plant for maintenance and other purposes.

Rohatgi argued that despite this order, the District Magistrate did not allow the company personnel to go inside. As the bench asked if a nod from the authorities was sought for the removal of the hazardous gas from the plant, Rohatgi replied the plant has been sealed, and this order was passed without expert opinion.

He also pointed out that the High Court is yet to take up the matter despite a large number of committees having been formed to watch over the case. He argued the DM's order preventing two lawyers getting entry inside the plant was not proper.

Rohatgi clarified that his client has moved the apex court to challenge the order in connection with deposit of the passports in the court, and also the order issued to seal the plant. He insisted that sealing of the plant is unconstitutional.

The apex court has asked the High Court to dispose of these pending applications by the end of next week, and also restrained the disbursal of the compensation amount for a period of ten days.

On May 26, the apex court allowed 30 employees of LG Polymers India Ltd to supervise "round the clock safety measures" at its sealed plant in Visakhapatnam, where a gas leak in May claimed 12 lives.
Small Business Development Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has said that South Africa is ready to relax state of disaster regulations as part of an advanced level 3 lockdown.

Speaking in an interview with eNCA, Ntshavheni said that the decision to move to this advanced lockdown level could be taken as soon as the department receives the go-ahead from the medical advisory committee.

When the President announced the movement to level 3, he also announced what he called the advanced level 3, which will include sit-down restaurants and also opening up of personal care services, Ntshavheni said.

We have started developing the protocols.

Ntshavheni said that during her departments consultations with the Department of Health, one of the more challenging debates centred around whether tattooing should be allowed under the advanced level 3 regulations or not.

These advanced level 3 lockdown regulations could see the re-opening of sit-down restaurants and businesses such as hairdressers and nail salons.

Ntshavheni said the relevant health and safety protocols required to enable this relaxation of regulations have been developed, and the department is ready to implement these advanced level 3 regulations as soon as it receives approval from the medical advisory committee.

This follows after the government recently confirmed it was not considering reinstituting the ban on alcohol which was active under COVID-19 alert level 4.

This is despite a number of premiers and local government figures calling for the alcohol ban to be revisited due to its adverse impact on the health system.

The decision of cabinet stands, Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu said.

It is not a thing up for reviewal; we have not discussed the reviewal of those measures. Not at all.

Restaurants ready to open

South African restaurants have said they are ready to open as soon as regulations are relaxed.

The Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) estimated that restaurants employ around 800,000 people in South Africa, and lobby group the Restaurant Collective has recently stated the industry is ready and desperate to open.

Fast-food operators have been able to provide delivery services for some time, and under current lockdown level 3, restaurants were able to reopen on 1 June for collections and deliveries.

Under the state of disaster regulations, sit-down service is still forbidden until lockdown level 1.

However, according to Grace Harding, chief executive officer of Ocean Basket, who heads up the Restaurant Collective, this easing of lockdown restrictions does not serve the restaurant industry.

She stressed that sit-down restaurants have a vastly different operating model to takeaways, with deliveries representing a mere 10% of total sales under normal circumstances.

Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavhenis interview with eNCA is below.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to reconsider the structure of our economy, our society and our politics. While it's easy to focus on immediate fixes to challenges confronting us, it's vital we also devise long-term solutions that ensure our society remains inclusive and compassionate and serves all walks of life.

In this spirit, we should revisit the inclusion of mandatory community service in the national curriculum, which has long been opposed by the education establishment.

We need to encourage our children to be caring members of the community if we are to surf the next crisis. Credit:Alamy

Integrating community service with schooling from late primary school onwards would help teach civic responsibility and life skills and instil self-confidence. It encourages students to become active members of our communities and apply what they learn at school to real-world problems.

Service could include assisting at nursing homes, creating permaculture gardens, being a reading buddy for kids in rural and remote areas or implementing social entrepreneur-type ideas to help solve issues on mental health or financial literacy. It could even help lead students to their future careers.
By Cara Luddy, Communications Assistant at Central Library

Looking for a new read? Check out these fiction titles for adults that are available in the OCPL catalog. All of these books fall into the #OwnVoices category, meaning the identities of the authors are reflected in the identities of their characters.

Visit www.onlib.org or call (315) 435-1900 to check these out!

Coming-of-Age

Everywhere You Dont Belong by Gabriel Bump

 Everywhere You Dont Belong by Gabriel Bump

Claude is your typical kid trying to find his place in the world. When riots come to his neighborhood in Chicago, he grapples with picking a side.

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

 Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Wallace is young, Black, queer, and out of place in the Midwestern town where hes pursuing a degree in biochemistry. He keeps everyone at a distance until one weekend changes everything.

Historical Fiction

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

 Deacon King Kong by James McBride

A church deacon shoots a drug dealer at point-blank range in the middle of a housing project. Uncover what led to this act of violence and its effect on a community.

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

 Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

A collection of lost work from the celebrated author. Includes eight short stories from the Harlem Renaissance.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Vignes sisters are identical twins. When they run away from their small Southern town at the age of 16, each of their lives take very different paths.

These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

 These Ghosts Are Family by Maisy Card

Stanford Solomon has a giant secret. He faked his own death and stole his best friends identity  Stanfords real name is Abel Paisley. Nearing the end of his life, hes about to meet his daughter who thinks hes been dead for 30 years.

Mystery

Trouble is What I Do by Walter Mosley

 Trouble is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Private investigator Leonid McGill may have bitten off more than he can chew when he agrees to deliver a scandalous letter for an old bluesman.

Romance

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

 Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory

Olivia Monroe has no intention of dating, but a night of flirting with a handsome stranger and the surprise delivery of cake may change her attitude.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

 Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

Follow the lives of three women in the South, before and after the Civil War. With the birth of an accursed child, secrets and tensions are brought to light.

Lakewood by Megan Giddings

 Lakewood by Megan Giddings

Lena drops of out college and takes on a suspicious job to help pay her familys debt. All she has to do is take part in a secret medical program and lie to everyone about whats really going on.

Remembrance by Rita Woods

 Remembrance by Rita Woods

Told from the perspective of four women with supernatural powers; travel from Ohio, to Haiti, to New Orleans over the course of two hundred years.

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

 Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both possessing incredible powers. When Kev is incarcerated, Ella uses her power to visit him and encourages him to start a revolution.

Upbeat

It's Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan

 Its Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan

Loretha, about to turn 68, feels accomplished with her life and is optimistic about the future. When her plans are upset at the last minute, her friends are there to help her chart a new course.
On Monday, the airline announced that it would offer flights from Luxembourg Airport to 10 destinations abroad starting in July.

In July, Ryanair will take up its flights from and to Luxembourg again. Over a month after Luxair, the low-fare-airline intends to compensate for the lost business during the lockdown.

Most notably, Ryanair promises to relaunch its summer programme with popular destinations such as Porto and Madrid. The airline company also announced that while there would be no limit on the number of passengers on each flight, certain sanitary measures would apply.

Ten destinations are currently available on Ryanair's website. Upon enquiry by RTL, the airline company confirmed that the currently available destinations are Spain (Barcelona from 22 June, Madrid, Sevilla, and Palma in July), Milan Bergamo in Italy, Malta, Lisbon, Porto (from 23 June), London, and Edinburgh.

Flights to Berlin, Toulouse, and Dublin are still unavailable and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The relaunch of flights remains dependent on travel authorisations by each country. The company has published an overview of the current restrictions applying to each destination on their website (in French).
With President Donald Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla., less than a week away, health experts warned that the indoor venue and potentially large crowd could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk.

"I'm concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event," Bruce Dart, director of the Tulsa city and county health department, told the Tulsa World. "And I'm also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well."

The scheduled rally comes as new infections are trending upward in at least 21 states across the South and the West, prompting some governors to rethink reopening plans and renewing concerns that the country could be a long way from containing the pandemic. Alabama, Oregon and South Carolina are among the states with the biggest increases. Alabama saw a 92 percent increase in its seven-day average, while Oregon's seven-day average was up 83.8 percent and South Carolina's was up 60.3 percent.

Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious-disease expert, warned that waves of infection could come "back and forth" for months.

Fauci said in an interview published Sunday that the coronavirus will linger in the country for months and that it will be about a year before things return to normal.

Fauci also told the British Telegraph newspaper it probably will be months before travelers from Britain and the European Union are allowed in the country and the real end of the crisis will only come with the development of a vaccine.

"I would hope to get to some degree of real normality within a year or so. But I don't think it's this winter or fall, we'll be seeing it for a bit more," he said, expecting the virus to go back and forth in the United States through a few cycles.

Fauci also noted that while the virus has been suppressed in major cities like New York, Chicago and New Orleans, cases are spreading elsewhere. "We're seeing several states, as they try to reopen and get back to normal, starting to see early indications (that) infections are higher than previously."

This spread will probably mean the bans on visitors from Britain, the European Union, China and Brazil will remain in place for the time being. "I don't think there's going to be an immediate pull back for those kinds of restrictions. My feeling, looking at what's going on with the infection rate, I think it's more likely measured in months rather than weeks," he said.

Fauci was, however, optimistic about the development of the vaccine, with several good candidates under development, that could be ready by the end of the year.

"We have potential vaccines making significant progress. We have maybe four or five," he said. "You can never guarantee success with a vaccine, that's foolish to do so, there's so many possibilities of things going wrong. (But) everything we have seen from early results, it's conceivable we get two or three vaccines that are successful."

The indoor venues and large crowds anticipated for Trump's rally Saturday in Tulsa and the Republican National Convention in August could help spread the coronavirus, putting attendees and others at risk, infectious-disease expert Michael T. Osterholm told Fox News.

Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" that chanting and shouting can help aerosolize the virus, exposing the thousands expected to attend both events.

"Would I want my loved ones in a setting like that? Absolutely not," Osterholm said. "And it wouldn't matter about politics, I wouldn't want them there."

The venue for Saturday's rally, the BOK Center, has a capacity to seat more than 19,000, but Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted Sunday that 800,000 have signed up.

When registering for tickets, attendees were required to acknowledge a disclaimer that they would not hold the Trump campaign or the venue liable if they got sick.

Osterholm said he also anticipated that the nationwide protests in the past few weeks over police brutality could increase the risk of transmission of the coronavirus, especially with police using tear gas and detained protesters being held in cramped jails. Several National Guard members in Washington and Nebraska have tested positive, but Osterholm warned that what happens in the next two weeks will be "telling," especially as many states also are reopening.

Osterholm added that it is nearly impossible to predict the impact of these large gatherings and reopenings.

Special Investigation 147 NY dams are 'unsound,' potentially dangerous Thousands of dams have not been inspected in over 20 years.

"We're not driving this tiger, we're riding it," he said.

Even if cases continue to decline in the summer, Osterholm said the worry remains: Like influenza, the coronavirus could return with a vengeance in the fall.

Osterholm said the virus won't slow its spread until it has infected 60 percent to 70 percent of the country. He estimated that the coronavirus has infected about 5 percent.

As he cheered the reopening of the economy during an appearance on CNN, Larry Kudlow encouraged people to keep being smart about venturing out into the world.

"Social distancing guidelines must be observed," Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser, said Sunday. "Face-covering in key places must be observed."

But when asked whether that meant that Trump's supporters should don face masks at his upcoming rally, Kudlow demurred.

"Probably so," he said.

On Sunday, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., was asked on the same CNN program whether he would wear a mask to the rally. He said he "hadn't decided on that."

"You see actually very few masks in Oklahoma now," Lankford said. He added that his state was "far ahead of the rest of the country" in terms of having controlled the threat of the virus, even though cases in Tulsa and across the state have spiked in the past week.

- - -

The Washington Post's Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
BETHESDA (dpa-AFX) - Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) said that James Taiclet, 60, became president and CEO of the company. He succeeds Marillyn Hewson, 66, who has served as chairman, president and CEO since 2014 and president and CEO since 2013. Hewson will become executive chairman of the board. Taiclet will continue to serve as a member of the corporation's board, which he joined in 2018. In March 2020, American Tower Corp. (AMT) said its President, Chief Executive Officer and executive Chairman Jim Taiclet stepped down from the company to become president and CEO of Lockheed Martin. Taiclet's tenure as CEO of American Tower Corporation started in 2003 and he became chairman, president and CEO in 2004. Prior to joining American Tower in 2001, Taiclet was president of Honeywell Aerospace Services, and prior to that was vice president, Engine Services at Pratt & Whitney. He was also previously a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Lockheed said today that Frank St. John, 53, became chief operating officer. St. John joined Lockheed Martin more than 30 years ago as an engineering intern and took on roles of increasing responsibility in engineering and program management before joining the corporation's executive leadership team. Most recently, he served as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Rotary and Mission Systems business area and prior to that as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin's Missiles and Fire Control business area. Stephanie Hill, 55, succeeded St. John as executive vice president of Rotary and Mission Systems. Most recently Hill served as senior vice president, Enterprise Business Transformation. Before that, she was deputy executive vice president of RMS and senior vice president for Corporate Strategy and Business Development. She has held positions of increasing responsibility since joining Lockheed Martin in 1987 as a software engineer. Yvonne Hodge succeeded Hill as senior vice president, Enterprise Business Transformation. Previously Hodge was vice president of Business Innovation, Transformation, and Enterprise Excellence for the corporation's Space business area. 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.
Kerala's Kumbalangi to be first synthetic pad-free village in India

How Kerala Police CCSE under Cyberdome is fighting crimes against children

Kerala govt issues new guidelines for short-term visits to state

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Thiruvananthapuram, June 15: The Kerala government on Monday released guidelines for short-term visits to the state.

The order stated, "They (visitors) shall provide details of local itinerary along with purpose of visit, local accommodation&contact person. Any deviations from this shall be informed to authorities with valid reasons."

Kerala Govt issues SOP & health advisories for short visits to the state; says,"They (visitors) shall provide details of local itinerary along with purpose of visit, local accommodation&contact person. Any deviations from this shall be informed to authorities with valid reasons." pic.twitter.com/bqLtSYSP86  ANI (@ANI) June 15, 2020

Coronavirus Lockdown: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal says 'no lockdown plans in Delhi'| Oneindia News

Here are standard operating procedure (SOP) and health advisory issued by Kerala:

Travellers should register on the covid-19 jagratha portal and obtain entry pass for their visit

Concerned district collectors will approve the short visit after verifying the details

The local contact persons/company/firm/sponsor shall also be responsible for the short visit of the person

They shall go directly to the hotel/place of stay without halting at any places in between the place of arrival and place of stay.

They shall not meet anyone or visit any places other than the purpose for which they got permission. They shall not visit any hospital or public places.

They should refrain from coming in contact with elderly (above 60) people with children below 10 years

Students who come for attending an examination or for other academic purposes shall not go out of their rooms for any purpose other than the approved one

During their stay in Kerala, the traveller should follow all Covid-19 advisories and precautions including social distancing, frequent hand washing and wearing face masks

Travellers should carry hand sanitiser and an extra face mask white travelling

Room service or online food delivery facility should be sought for their sustenance.

They should not extend their stay in Kerala without obtaining prior permission from Government authorities concerned

They should contact DISHA helpline 1056 they develop any symptoms of fever, sore throat, cough, breathlessness and diarrhoea even if mild. They should not come out of their room without the permission of local public health authority.

If they develop any symptoms, even if mild, they shall be moved to Covid-19 treatment centres and they need to undergo testing and based on the result further management shall be offered.

If the traveller tests positive within 14 days after return from the state, they shall inform the control room at once

If the traveller fails to follow any of these conditions, they should undergo 14 days institutional or paid quarantine.

Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday requested the Centre to make arrangements for the return of the expats from abroad making more testing kits available for them.

In a letter to PM Modi, the Kerala CM has also asked the Centre to make testing 'free' for the expats saying that if there is no facility for PCR tests, at least rapid tests should be done for the returnees in the state.
Army delegations from India and China on Monday held discussions along the contested Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh to break the stalemate that began with a confrontation between rival patrol parties near Pangong Tso on the night of May 5-6, two senior officers said on the condition of anonymity.

The talks took place at two locations along the LAC -- brigadier-ranked officers met in the Galwan area and Colonel-ranked officers in Hot Springs -- as part of continuing efforts to resolve the standoff, said the first officer cited above.

The talks were positive and frank. As long as talks are happening, we are moving towards a solution, said the second officer cited above.

Army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane last week said disengagement of Indian and Chinese forces was taking place in a phased manner along the LAC where the situation was under control.

India and China are continuing diplomatic and military engagements for an early resolution of the standoff between border troops, the external affairs ministry said last week. Naravane said on Saturday he was hopeful that perceived differences between India and China would be put to rest through the continued dialogue.

Army delegations, led by major general-ranked officers, met for the fifth time last week in eastern Ladakh to resolve the standoff.

Limited disengagement of forces at Galwan Valley, Patrolling Point 15 and Hot Springs began after a meeting between Lieutenant General Harinder Singh, commander of Leh-based 14 Corps, and Major General Liu Lin, commander of the Peoples Liberation Army in South Xinjiang region, on June 6.

India is now focused 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.

Last months violent confrontations between Indian and Chinese soldiers in eastern Ladakh and north Sikkim triggered a military buildup on both sides of the LAC that stretched from Ladakh to Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, as reported by Hindustan Times on Friday.

The Chinese buildup began immediately after clashes between border troops in Ladakh and Sikkim on May 5-6 and May 9, respectively, and predated the June 6 meeting between Lieutenant General Singh and his Chinese counterpart.
Samaritans Ireland is calling for a national plan for mens mental health as part of efforts to encourage men and boys to take good care of their mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Samaritans Ireland is making its call as part of Mens Health Awareness Week (Monday, June 15 to Sunday, June 21). The week aims to raise awareness of preventable health problems, support men and boys to live healthier lives, and encourage them to seek help or treatment early.

Measures to support mens mental health is also one of the key asks in Samaritans 4 Asks 4 A Safer Ireland as part of its 2020 Manifesto.

Niall Mulligan, Executive Director of Samaritans Ireland, said: As we begin Mens Health Awareness Week, it is important we focus on the issue of mens mental health and emotional wellbeing. From our research, Samaritans know that less than 20% of men over the age of 18, who are experiencing mental health difficulties will seek help from a mental health professional, and less than 35% will speak to their GP during a tough period.

"In particular, middle-aged men on low incomes have been the highest risk group for suicide over many years. Far too little is known about what really works to support these men when they begin to struggle. To address this situation, we need a specific well-resourced national plan, for reaching and supporting all mens mental health, and in particular, middle-aged, low-income men.

A recent report by Samaritans, Out of sight, out of mind: Why less well-off, middle-aged men dont get the support they need focused on the lived experience of men, looking at what support men in this at-risk group want from services when they are struggling.

Niall Mulligan added: The men Samaritans spoke to had been struggling for years with poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and feelings. Despite experiencing many well-known risk factors for this group, opportunities to help them at critical points before they reached crisis were missed. Crucially, the men we spoke to didn't view community-based support services, focused on fostering connection and community, as relevant to them before they reached crisis. At a time when the latest CSO suicide statistics for the Republic of Ireland, confirm an increase in annual suicides of 69 (352 in 2018; 421 in 2019), and with every 3 in 4 suicides being men, the need for a well-resourced, national plan, to reach and support men at high risk of suicide is now critical.
Official White House Photo by Tia DufourBy JOHN SANTUCCI, KATHERINE FAULDERS and MIKE LEVINE, ABC News



(WASHINGTON) -- Just a week before the much-awaited book by President Donald Trumps former National Security Advisor John Bolton is set to go on sale, the Trump administration is expected to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking an injunction to block the book from being released in its current form, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.



The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the coming days and could come as soon as Monday, sources said, cautioning that some details are still being worked out.



Bolton, who departed the Trump administration last fall, was originally supposed to publish his book, The Room Where It Happened, earlier this year, but it was met with delays from the White House as the book went through a standard prepublication security review for classified information by the National Security Council.



In a description of the coming book, Boltons publisher says, What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation.



According to the description, posted online, Bolton details potentially impeachment-worthy transgression across the full range of Trumps foreign policy.



The NSC and Boltons team have been at odds about the information in the manuscript, according to letters exchanged between the two and provided to ABC News by Boltons attorney, Chuck Cooper, and the White House.



The NSC claimed the book continued to contain significant amounts of classified information, but Boltons lawyer pushed back, claiming that none of it could reasonably be considered classified.



In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, Cooper wrote that on June 8 White House lawyer John Eisenberg asserted in a letter that Mr. Boltons manuscript contains classified information and that publishing the book would violate his nondisclosure agreements.



This last-minute allegation came after an intensive four-month review, after weeks of silence from the White House, and -- as Mr. Eisenberg admits in his letter -- after press reports alerted the White House that Mr. Boltons book would be published on June 23, Cooper wrote.



"This is a transparent attempt to use national security as a pretext to censor Mr. Bolton, in violation of his constitutional right to speak on matters of the utmost public import," he wrote. "This attempt will not succeed, and Mr. Boltons book will be published June 23.



In a related press release, the publisher said that in the weeks before Bolton's book was printed, Bolton worked with the NSC to address NSC's concerns, and the "final, published version of this book reflects those changes."



The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment for this report.



This is a developing story. Check back for updates.



Copyright  2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
The few words of French that Geovany Perez Garcia has picked up in his six summers in Quebec aren't enough to carry on a conversation.

But he is able to get his message across when he goes to the bank in Sainte-Marie, in Quebec's Beauce region.

Every week, he sends money to his parents and younger brothers back home in Guatemala.

"Tengo una gran familia  I have a big family," Garcia said with a smile. The 29-year-old is one of the 7,275 temporary foreign workers who have made it to Quebec so far this year.

Normally, the province's farm industry employs 16,000.

Garcia considers himself lucky his paperwork was ready when the COVID-19 pandemic hit North America. Guatemalans who were still waiting to have their work visas processed were stuck, he said.

"They lost everything because they weren't able to travel," said Garcia. He knows how much there is to lose.

He's worked at the same berry farm, Aux Fruits de la Colline, for six years. The money he's made has allowed him to buy his own house and land in Huehuetenango, northwest of Guatemala City.

"Before, I didn't have a house," said Garcia. "But now, gracias a Dios, and thanks to my work here, I do. I cultivate coffee and corn  that's my job now."

Julia Page/CBC

COVID-19 adds to anxiety of leaving

A few kilometres down the road, Guilman Alberto Rueda Lopez is tending to blueberry bushes at Bleuetiere Marland.

For the six months of the year that he's home, the 28-year-old also works on a farm. But there, he's paid by the job  not by the hour  which rounds up to around 50 Guatemalan quetzales.

"That's about eight dollars a day," he said. "Here, I make that in less than an hour."

Annie Marcoux, the co-owner of Bleuetiere Marland, said in April that she didn't know whether Lopez and her three other Guatemalan workers would be able to come.

Even though the province was offering a $100 weekly bonus to get Quebecers out in the fields, Marcoux wasn't convinced they would stick around for a full season with irregular schedules.

Story continues

"Working in a field is hard," Marcoux said.

"Even if it's Sunday or Monday, there are fruit to pick. And if it's raining, it's your day off."

Her four workers finally managed to make it out of Guatemala, and are willing to make those sacrifices, she said.

"That's what I'm here for," said Lopez  back for his third year, this time with his younger brother in tow.

Julia Page/CBC

At just 22 years old, Yoni Adolfo Rueda Lopez was hesitant to leave home.

"The truth is I was nervous because I didn't know what to expect, what kind of work I'd be doing," said Yoni.

"There was that," he said, "but also this disease."

When the phone call finally came in April, both brothers were anxious about travelling through airports. "Of course a person gets nervous, because no one wants to get sick," said Guilman.

Outbreaks in Quebec, Ontario farms

Their fears weren't unfounded. Eighteen workers on a farm in the Monteregie region have tested positive for COVID-19. Two workers in Ontario have died after contracting the virus.

Jocelyn St-Denis, the executive director of the Quebec Produce Growers' Association, said given the tens of thousands of cases of COVID-19 across Canada he is not surprised the virus is showing up on farms.

"Foreign workers who come here are like local workers," St-Denis said. "If they go to town, if they go out, they face the same risks as you and I face on a daily basis."

He said in addition to the mandatory 14-day quarantine for workers when they first arrive, farm owners have to respect strict guidelines provided by Quebec's workplace health and safety board, the CNESST.

Guilman said he feels safe now that he is on the small family farm. The 14-day quarantine was fine, if not a little boring. But those first weeks far from home are when he misses his wife and two children the most.

"On one hand it is difficult and sad," he said. "But you know that you're coming here to work and make a better life."

Julia Page/CBC

Working with family helps. And it is also how many workers end up being hired locally.

Garcia is the one who referred Edy Garcia Sales to work at Aux Fruits de la Colline.

They grew up together in Huehuetenango and call themselves cousins, primos. With the price of food and services climbing in Guatemala, he said there are few opportunities right now in his home country.

Julia Page/CBC

With a one-year-old daughter waiting at home, he said the trip was worth the risk.

"It's for them that I'm here, working hard for a better life," he said.
Imanol Lujan, 17, left Honduras without telling his family. He had heard from relatives and friends about the process of migrating to the U.S., and his ultimate goal was to seek asylum and live with his sister in Massachusetts.

After crossing into Mexico in March, the coronavirus pandemic hit. Once Lujan crossed the border into the U.S., he spent less than 10 days in the country before being deported back to Honduras.

"I wanted an opportunity," Lujan told Telemundo News Investigates. He said he didn't have a credible fear interview to explain why he was seeking asylum nor did he see an immigration judge.

Last week a federal judge halted a similar deportation of an unidentified 16-year-old Honduran minor, hours before it was supposed to take place. The plaintiffs, led by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argued that the government is violating the rights of migrant minors by not granting them an asylum hearing.

Honduran teen Imanol Lujan recently migrated to the U.S. from Honduras but was deported and sent back in a matter of days under new pandemic measures. (via Telemundo)

Like Lujan, hundreds of unaccompanied minors have been deported before they could seek asylum or reunite with relatives. In late March, through its Title 42 authority, the Trump administration took measures to restrict immigration to protect public health during the pandemic.

The Border Patrol detained 2,938 unaccompanied minors in March and 734 in April. Under normal conditions, unaccompanied minors are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), an agency under Health and Human Services, that handles their care and placement.

The ACLU lawsuit claims unaccompanied minors have the right to be processed by ORR, be placed in a youth shelter and have an asylum hearing.

But amid the pandemic, only 1,852 unaccompanied minors were transferred to ORR in Marchmostly before the new pandemic measures took effectand 62 were transferred in April, according to data that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent to Telemundo News Investigates.

The ACLU lawsuit says that nearly a thousand minors have been swiftly deported from the U.S. under the new measures. Telemundo News requested the updated figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) but have not received them.

Story continues

In the U.S., then sent back

In the third week of April, Lujan crossed the U.S. border; two women and their respective children whom he met in Mexico also crossed with him. Near McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol agents detained them and asked for documentation.

Lujan showed them his birth certificate. The group was then divided and put in different vehicles, he said, and he arrived at an immigration station where his fingerprints were taken. He recalled the station was surrounded by a fence, "like a prison," he said, and he shared a cell with about a dozen minors, between 15 and 17 years old. They slept on the floor and were given nylon blankets, he said. The teens were from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. Inside the cell, there was no social distancing, Lujan said, but they were given masks and gel sanitizer.

Four days later he was taken to a hotel, where he shared a room with another Honduran teen; they spent the day watching television, and immigration agents brought them three meals a day to their room. Lujan says he felt well treated there.

"I asked for calls but they told me no, to wait for my moment," said Lujan. For those 10 days, his family did not know his whereabouts.

Lujan said he was not shown any documents nor was he allowed to request asylum. He said that agents told him if he kept on insisting, his parents would be detained for allowing him to travel alone to the U.S. CBP did not comment on Lujan's specific allegations.

"They put us on a bus and they didn't tell us anything, until we were there, at the airport." The young man says he was deported on April 24 by plane, along with hundreds of other Hondurans, all wearing face masks.

Upon arriving in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Lujan said he was tested for the coronavirus and it came back negative.

Lujan's case is similar to what's described in the ACLU lawsuit. The group claims that the 16-year-old minor, also from Honduras, was first at a detention center and then in a hotel and was not allowed to request asylum.

The Administration has sought numerous regulatory mechanisms to prevent non-citizens from seeking protection in this country, but the process through Title 42 under discussion here goes beyond any of those efforts because it leaves almost no open avenue to seek protection," stated the ACLU.

A group of 40 public health experts in May sent a letter to the Trump Administration urging the administration to halt immediate deportations and instead hand over unaccompanied minors to relatives or guardians in the country.

Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said in March that the entry of undocumented immigrants "can potentially expose the United States to transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases." The Government considers that border stations to process migrants can be a source of contagion.

Under that directive, border agents are deporting migrants immediately to their last country of transit - usually Mexico. If that is not possible, the Government says that "CBP works with partners from other agencies to safely remove the person to their country of origin and keep the person detained for the shortest possible time. " Unaccompanied minors are part of that group.

The ACLU alleges that existing immigration laws state that unaccompanied minors seeking protection must be provided with the right to seek asylum and should not be automatically deported "even if they have a contagious disease."

CBP spokesperson Matthew Dyman said that all migrants, including minors, who have been detained may be subject to immediate deportations due to the risk of carrying contagious diseases.

"CBP works closely with their countries of origin to transfer them into the custody of their governments and reunite them with their families quickly and safely, whenever possible," he said.

An earlier version of this story was reported by Noticias Telemundo Investiga.

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California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday called for legislation that would help decertify police officers for serious misconduct  a type of accountability platform that has been long missing in a state that prides itself on criminal justice reforms.

The decertification tool was one of a host of police reform recommendations Becerra announced during a virtual news conference, along with de-escalation and use-of-force policies that would cover all law enforcement agencies in California.

While many of the recommendations will already be enacted into law in January, the states authority to strip officers of their badge has only recently begun to gain traction amid a national reckoning on police misconduct, particularly in communities of color.

Were pushing ahead on significant plans to support or sponsor legislation that works to decertify police officers for serious misconduct, Becerra said.

This, he said, would include provisions requiring law enforcement agencies to complete investigations even after a peace officer leaves that department.

Becerras announcement comes three weeks after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, sparking protests and riots across the country as people expressed outrage over police killings and excessive uses of force, particularly against black people.

California is one of just five states in the nation that does not operate a statewide system to decertify police officers when theyve been fired or resigned amid serious misconduct allegations. The other states are Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

The lack of a system has created a substantial loophole for problematic officers to leave their departments and get hired in a different city, said Dennis Cuevas-Romero, a legislative advocate at the American Civil Liberties Unions California Center for Advocacy and Policy.

This can play out in a few ways, with a new agency checking into an officers background and deciding to turn a blind eye, Cuevas-Romero said, or it simply fails to check their background file at all.

Another possibility is an officer could resign during an investigation and get hired at a different department before the investigation is completed.

In these cases, Cuevas-Romero said, the original agency often drops the internal investigation and just kind of washes their hands of the officer.

Californias sworn officers are currently certified by their own departments and training academies.

Cuevas-Romero noted an effort in the early 2000s to give the California Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, the authority to decertify police officers, but it was quickly shut down by police advocates.

POST does have minimal authority to decertify, he added, but it is limited to officers who received their certification based on fraudulent or misrepresented information, or due to an administrative error.

Officials in San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area have pledged to initiate new oversight policies, rethink long-standing norms of policing and redirect funds away from law enforcement toward more community services.

Police unions in San Jose, San Francisco and Los Angeles issued a joint statement Monday saying they would work with Becerras office on his police reform proposals.

Now Playing: Demonstrators light candles during a youth led protest to defund the Oakland Police Department in front of Mayor Libby Schaafs house in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. Video: Sarahbeth Maney / The Chronicle

We appreciate that the Attorney General is engaging stakeholders, including police officers in his ideas for improving policing in California, officials said. Many of his proposals have already been successfully implemented in our departments or are part of our national reform plan announced (Sunday) by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, San Francisco Police Officers Association, and San Jose Police Officers Association. We are open to engaging the Attorney General on the details of our ideas and his.

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.

Becerra said he hasnt yet identified a lawmaker who would author his decertification proposal, nor does he have specific recommendations on which types of misconduct would qualify for decertification.

What I can tell you is that its going to be an idea thats going to be getting a lot of attention, and we hope to be in the mix of those who are providing input on this and other of the proposals for reform, Becerra said.

Among the attorney generals other recommendations are speeding up the process for enacting use-of-force reforms, ending the use of pepper spray against children in juvenile detention, and banning choke holds, carotid restraints and any body positioning intended to cut off the flow of blood to a suspect.

Under these guidelines, police would also be required to give a verbal warning before using any deadly use of force, discontinue bite and hold canine techniques and prohibit shooting at or from a moving vehicle.

Ultimately, Becerra said, policies should require deadly use of force to be used only as a last resort.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
First came the dash to equip U.S. hospitals with protective gear when the coronavirus swept across the country. Now companies are scrambling to get a limited supply of masks, gloves and disinfectants they need to reopen.

For businesses already struggling from the pandemic, that means further constraints on time and costs. The shortages also present a conundrum as America's economy restarts: If companies can't get enough supplies, more people are at risk for the virus, adding to the prospect of a second wave that would leave the market even more short of protective equipment.

"It's been challenging," said Peter Elitzer, president of Peter Harris Clothes, a discount retailer that has reopened almost all of its 79 stores. "How do you find the masks? How do you find the sanitizer? How do you find the wipes? Forget it. To get the Clorox wipes is completely impossible."

Elitzer shelled out $60 a gallon for hand sanitizer before tracking down a distiller that could produce it for $35 -- still triple the usual price. Plastic barriers, masks and thermometers are selling at premiums, he said. The company had to furlough workers just to cover the $50,000 in added expenses.

Inventories will remain tight and short-term price spikes are expected for high-demand items as businesses crank back up just as doctors begin performing elective surgeries again, said D.G. Macpherson, CEO of W.W. Grainger, the largest U.S. distributor of industrial supplies. Hospitals also are rebuilding stockpiles ahead of a potential second wave of the virus later this year.

"Things are still challenged now in a number of categories," Macpherson said in an interview. "It's getting better, I would say. But there's a long way to go."

As manufacturers scurry to meet demand, bottlenecks are popping up. Honeywell International crammed a typical nine-month procedure into six weeks to open production sites for N95 masks in Rhode Island and Arizona. The company wants to add more capacity but is bumping up against a lack of the filter material that's sandwiched between the inner and outer layers.

There's no easy fix because there are only two manufacturers of the machines that produce the material, said Will Lange, chief of Honeywell's personal protective equipment business.

Disposable gloves and hospital gowns are among the items with the biggest kinks in the supply chain, he said. Honeywell is looking to set up U.S. output of hospital gowns after beginning a production line in North Africa. The company doesn't make gloves but procures them from third-party manufacturers and sells them, a task that's become difficult after the World Health Organization put in an order for "multiple millions" of them, Lange said.

The tight market for those products could become critical if covid-19 resurges. As it is, cases are accelerating in some states.

"I don't think the supply chain is ready yet for a second wave of massive demand for PPE," Lange said. "It's probably going to take about nine months to get to a really good spot."

Maryam Barnes, an orthodontist in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas, said she is paying exorbitant prices for masks, gowns, face shields and other supplies just as the number of patients she's able to schedule has dropped by half because of social distancing.

"Disposable gowns -- those are ridiculous," Barnes said. They can cost as much as $20 each, whereas it used to be $20 to $30 for boxes of 50, she said.

The top concerns among small-business owners are whether customers will return as they reopen and if there will be adequate supplies of hand sanitizer, disinfectants and face coverings, according to a survey in May by the National Federation of Independent Business.

The trade group, which represents about 300,000 small businesses, had urged members to begin accumulating those supplies about a month ago in anticipation of the reopening, said Holly Wade, director of research and policy analysis. There's concern that larger companies with more buying power will have an edge in acquiring essential goods, squeezing small businesses even more on availability.

"There's so much strange business activity that's happening right now," Wade said. "Even if they have a supply now, it's unclear how long those will last and if they'll be able to restock."

H Town Restaurant Group, which has four locations in the Houston area, stocked up on about six weeks of supplies including masks, gloves and sanitizer and is purchasing more in case a second wave of the virus puts more pressure on the supply chain, said co-owner Tracy Vaught. The group is operating at a loss as it opens its restaurants at limited capacity, and the extra cost of protective gear for her 150 employees doesn't help.

"It's just what we have to do to be in business," Vaught said. "It's not negotiable."

In Albany, N.Y., Elitzer of Peter Harris Clothes worked from his dining-room table during the lockdown to secure supplies. Locally made face coverings cost $8 apiece before he received a shipment from China at $1.45 each. He negotiated acrylic barriers down to $75 each from a local sign manufacturer, after initially paying as much as $175.

Other entrepreneurs are also proving resourceful in finding their own solutions. Steve Trollope, who co-owns a prenatal-imaging center in Reno, Nev., resorted to making his own hand sanitizer from aloe and Everclear grain alcohol to provide for workers and the patients he attended throughout the pandemic.

"Early on, it was a real scramble. We were at the point of getting desperate to locate certain items," said Trollope, who now can buy sanitizer again. "The supply chain seems to be mending itself."

Grainger expects demand for plastic barriers, masks, disinfectants and other supplies related to covid-19 to be elevated for the long term. Companies are adopting practices that won't fade even if the virus eventually does, said Macpherson, the CEO.

"For the next few years, we're going to be in a world where these types of products are going to be the norm for how we work," he said. "Frankly, when we go into the grocery store, you ask yourself, 'Why didn't we always have this? Why did we let people sneeze on each other in the first place?'"
Indonesia to allow back destructive seine and trawl nets in its waters

by Basten Gokkon

June 15,2020 | Source: Mongabay

Indonesia plans to lift a ban on the use of seine and trawl nets, which were outlawed under the countrys previous fisheries minister for threatening the sustainability of the countrys fish stocks.



The ministry, led by Edhy Prabowo, said earlier this week a revision to the 2016 ban would allow fishers to once again use two-boat purse seine net (known locally as pukat cincin), one-boat seine nets (payang), Danish seine nets (cantrang), and shrimp bottom trawl nets (pukat hela dasar udang). Edhie, who took office last year, has argued for the use of these nets to boost catches and in turn attract greater investment in Indonesias marine capture fishery, the worlds second biggest.



Certainly, there will be national standards applied, including environmentally friendly standards. Well also be able to control the use through regulations, quota and monitoring, Trian Yunanda, the director of fish resources management at the ministry, said in a public discussion June 9.



Edhies predecessor, Susi Pudjiastuti, banned the use of these types of nets because of their high potential for overexploitation, bycatch and damage to the marine ecosystem. Her decision was largely praised abroad by marine scientists and conservation biologists, but was opposed domestically by fishers, particularly those operating in the Pantura region off northern Java, who had invested heavily in the gear. Susi eventually allowed an exemption for these fishers to keep using cantrang while gradually transitioning to more sustainable fishing nets by February 2020.



With the lifting of the ban, however, fishers will be free to go back to using seine and trawl nets.



Conservationists have slammed the decision, calling it a step backward in efforts to develop a sustainable fishing sector in the country.



The new direction of this policy is certainly a step back. Legalizing fishing gear that has been banned poses an alarming threat to the sustainability of fish stocks in the ocean, Arifsyah Nasution, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, told Mongabay in an interview.



Seines and trawls are highly effective equipment for sweeping up large amounts of fish, but they are known to be extremely non-discriminative. A 2010 study by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) showed that nearly 50% of cantrang catches were bycatch and discards.



A 2015 survey by the fisheries ministry found that many cantrang boat operators had marked down their size. This practice alone is estimated to have cost the country as much as 10.44 trillion rupiah ($878 million) in lost revenue.



The government, in this case the fisheries ministry, is currently putting the future of a healthy fish stock and marine ecosystem in Indonesia on the line, Arifsyah said.



The use of cantrang is a politically contentious issue in Indonesia. By far the biggest users of this type of net are the Pantura fishers, who represent a significant voting bloc. The fishers and their supporters say the nets arent as destructive as others make them out to be because fishers use them further away from coastal reefs. But critics say many fishers typically modify the nets to work like a bottom trawl, and that they deploy them near the coast.



Critics of the rollback have suggested it was made under pressure from the companies that own and operate large fishing boats. While these fleets account for a small percentage of catch volume compared to the millions of small-scale fishers throughout Indonesia, they carry heavy political clout.



Theyve got connections to political parties, business associations, parliament and other government institutions, such as the coordinating ministry of maritime affairs, Mohammad Abdi Suhufan, national coordinator of the NGO Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW) Indonesia, told Mongabay.



Abdi added these owners and operators of large vessels stood to benefit the most from the resumption of seine and trawl fishing. He said his organization had not been asked by the fisheries ministry to consult on the reversal of the ban.



This plan is one of the many inconsistencies from the fisheries ministry in managing the countrys fish resources, Abdi said.



Experts say allowing the use of seine and trawl nets once again will exacerbate tensions between large-scale fishers and their more poorly equipped small-scale counterparts. Theres already a long-running hostility between the two because many of the larger vessels operate close to the coast, competing directly for fishing grounds with small and traditional fishers.



This is a gateway for IUU fishing practices and exploitation of marine and fisheries resources in Indonesia, said Susan Herawati, secretary-general of the NGO Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), referring to the practice of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The impact is clear: small-scale and traditional fishers will lose their maritime space.



Experts have called on the fisheries ministry not to push through with lifting the ban, and instead focus on efforts to promote the use of sustainable fishing gears, empower small-scale fishers, and combat IUU fishing practices.



If the fisheries ministry is no longer siding with traditional and small-scale fishers, then its better to disband the ministry altogether, Susan said.

 2020 Copyright Conservation news

Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods.
Press Release

China Unicom selects Nokia core networking products for 5G



Deal includes multiple Nokia Software, ION products, including Unified Data Management, User Plane and Session Management Functions.

Builds on Nokia's existing 4G relationship with the Chinese CSP

15 June 2020

Espoo, Finland - China Unicom has chosen Nokia to support the buildout of its 5G SA Core network in China, marking an expansion of Nokia's existing 4G working relationship with the Chinese communication service provider.

Nokia has been awarded an approximately 10% share of China Unicom's 5G core network. The core network performs a variety of functions, including setting up connections, bandwidth management, scaling and securing the network, and, now with 5G, opening up the network to support new, software-enabled use cases such as network slicing.

The Nokia Cloud core products that China Unicom selected provide Unified Data Management, Session Management and User Plane functions, and are complemented by Data Refinery and NetAct, all deployed on Nokia's CloudBand.

Unified Data Management, a critical function with the arrival of 5G and the evolution to cloud architecture, manages all subscriber data and services efficiently and cost effectively. The Session Management Function is a fundamental element of the 5G Service Based Architecture, primarily responsible for interacting with the decoupled User Plane Function as well as subscriber session management. The User Plane Function delivers the packet processing foundation for the Service Based Architecture, by allowing packet processing and traffic aggregation to be performed closer to the network edge, thereby increasing bandwidth efficiencies while reducing costs.

The deal also includes products from Nokia's Cloud Packet Core portfolio, including the Nokia Cloud Mobile Gateway. The product provides the 5G standalone Session Management Function and User Plane Function, in addition to supporting the 4G Serving Gateway and the Packet Data Network Gateway in China Unicom's network.

Nokia currently has a 17% market share in China Unicom's rapidly expanding VoLTE network, where it has deployed Nokia's cloud-based vIMS platform. This deal will further enhance the long term partnership between China Unicom and Nokia. Nokia has provided critical support in getting China Unicom's 4G network successfully established, and will continuously support China Unicom in its 5G networks up and running in the future leveraging its advanced core network solutions.

Markus Borchert, President of Nokia Greater China said: "Nokia is very proud to expand our working relationship with China Unicom beyond 4G. We are looking forward to close collaboration with China Unicom on novel business models and 5G service innovation to enable an open 5G ecosystem."

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.

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Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.com
A Paris court convicted three former French government officials along with three others for involvement in millions of euros of kickbacks in arms sales to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Commonly known as Karachigate, the Agosta Submarine scandal was a major military scandal in the early 90s which involved massive kickbacks between France and Pakistan over negotiations to acquire submarines.

In 1994, the murky deal was signed between the then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and French president Francois Mitterrand. After eight years, 11 French engineers were killed in a suicide bombing in Karachi, Pakistan. Initially, the killings were considered as a terrorist attack but further investigations linked it to the submarine sales.

According to media reports, there were suspicions that the car bombing was an act of revenge after President Jacques Chirac ordered to stop the payment of secret commissions. Investigating judges concluded that the kickbacks were used to fund the failed presidential bid of former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur when Nicholas Sarkozy was a budget minister and his election spokesperson.

Balladur lost the election to Chirac who cancelled the payments on the submarine contract after coming to power. Sarkozy associates in the scandal include businessman Nicolas Bazire, who was Balladurs campaign manager in 1995; and Thierry Gaubert, a former aide to Sarkozy.

Read: Macron Says Accelerating Frances Exit From Lockdown For Greater Economic Independence

Multiple corruption charges on Sarkozy

Sarkozy has also been facing charges of illegally financing his 2012 re-election campaign. The former president was accused of hiding the cost of his re-election campaign with the help of a public relations firm. The 64-year-old is facing multiple corruption charges since he left the office in 2012.

According to the preliminary charges, Sarkozy was accused of taking millions from the then Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Sarkozy was also accused of illegally obtaining information from a magistrate about another investigation. He was suspected of a quid pro quo with the magistrate promising him a job in exchange of information on the investigation involving him. The quid pro quo was for investigation in alleged illegal financing for the 2007 presidential campaign.

Read: France 'stands Firm' Against Racism, But Won't 'wipe Away' History: Prez Macron

Read: France: Prez Macron Claims 'first Victory' Against COVID-19, Declares Paris A 'green Zone'

(With agency inputs)
By Express News Service

Filmmaker Spike Lee has issued an apology for his comments defending director and his friend Woody Allen against the whole "cancel culture" in Hollywood.

He took to Twitter to take back his words of support, reports variety.com. "I deeply apologise. My words were wrong. I do not and will not tolerate sexual harassment, assault or violence. Such treatment causes real damage that cant be minimised," he posted on Twitter on Saturday.

In an interview on a radio station WORs talk show In the Morning, Lee shared his thoughts on how Allen has been treated. "Id just like to say Woody Allen is a great, great filmmaker and this cancel thing is not just Woody. And I think when we look back on it we are going to see that - short of killing somebody - I dont know you that you can just erase somebody like they never existed. Woody is a friend of mine, a fellow Knick fan, so I know hes going through it right now," Lee said.

Allen has fallen out of grace with many people after accusations resurfaced that he molested his adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow when she was 7-years-old. He has denied the allegations. Amazon also canceled a movie deal with Allen, resulting in them settling a USD 68 million lawsuit.
The Ajumako Campus of the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), in the Central Region, has put in place a standby medical team to attend and manage any case of Covid-19.



The Dean, Faculty of Ghanaian Languages, UEW, Ajumako Campus, Professor Charles Owu-Ewie, made the revelation when Zoomlion Ghana Limited disinfected the campus on Friday, (June 12, 2020).



We have medical personnel on standby who will attend to any student who may test positive for the covornavirus, he said.



According to him, the medical team will act as first respondents, isolating and managing any Covid-19 case that would be recorded on the Ajumako Campus.



He said the disinfection exercise was the last leg of the campus readiness before the students finally return.



and as part of the protocols, every student coming to campus will first have his/her temperature checked before allowed entry, he noted.



For those who were not resident on campus, Prof Owu-Ewie said, there will be a daily check of their temperatures with thermometre guns anytime they arrived at the campus main entrance



On that score, he assured that they will ensure all the students abide fully by the Covid-19 safety protocols.



We know there is some apprehension amongst the students and parents, but we believe by adhering to the Covid-19 protocols we will prevent a coronavirus attack on campus, he said.



While welcoming the idea of mass testing of all students, the dean of the faculty of Ghanaian languages of UEW indicated that themometre guns would be used as a precaution to know those who were ill for the medical team to advise accordingly.



Further, he said the university has bought Veronica buckets, soaps and alcohol-based hand sanitisers which will be put at entrances of lecture halls, offices and various halls of residence.



The university also has loads of nose masks which will be given to the students who will be returning to campus, Prof Owu-Ewie further disclosed.









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Jetstar Pacific Airlines shareholder Qantas Airways Ltd. is withdrawing from the joint venture and has plans to transfer its 30-percent stake in the budget carrier to Vietnam Airlines, the latter said in a statement on Monday.

Qantas low-cost arm Jetstar owns 30 percent of Jetstar Pacific Airlines, while Vietnam Airlines holds nearly 70 percent.

Vietnam Airlines said on Monday it has reached an agreement with Qantas Airways for Jetstar Pacific to be rebranded as its original name, Pacific Airlines.

The name change was meant to improve the business operations and profitability of the Vietnamese majority-owned budget airline, while promoting the size and strength of the Vietnam Airlines brand in the domestic market.

Jetstar Pacific will carry out the necessary procedures to complete its transformation into Pacific Airlines with a new logo and brand identity.

The carrier will officially operate under the new brand pending government and regulatory approvals.

Pacific Airlines will also switch to Saber  a flight booking system used by Vietnam Airlines, from the current Navitaire system employed by Jetstar Pacific for the sake of network integration.

A check-in counter of Jetstar Pacific Airlines at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam is seen in this undated file photo. Photo: Cong Trung / Tuoi Tre

According to Vietnam Airlines deputy general director and Pacific Airlines chairman Trinh Hong Quang, the move will enhance the firms operational efficiency and competitiveness in both the traditional and budget aviation segments, steadily boosting its recovery post-COVID-19.

With a highly competitive domestic market in Vietnam and the disruption caused by the coronavirus, the time is right to take advantage of the strength and scale of Vietnam Airlines in its home market, said Jetstar CEO Gareth Evans.

Streamlining customer and booking functions will enable further cost savings and position the airline for a stronger future as international travel restrictions ease, Evans added.

Vietnam Airlines and Qantas will continue to review the budget carriers structure and future shareholding arrangements.

The arrangements include an option whereby Qantas Airways will transfer all its shareholdings in Jetstar Pacific to Vietnam Airlines.

Qantass involvement in Jetstar Pacific dates from 2007, when it received approval from the Vietnamese government to buy a 30-percent stake in the Vietnamese carrier, then-owned by the government via its State Capital Investment Corporation.

In 2012, Vietnam Airlines took over the governments stake in Jetstar to become its majority owner.

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Bamako, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Jun, 2020 ) :Dozens of troops were either killed or are missing after militants ambushed their convoy in central Mali, military sources said on Monday.

About a dozen vehicles came under attack on Sunday at Bouka Were, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Mauritanian border, a senior military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Pro-Independence Rebels in South Yemen Seize Convoy Carrying 64 Bln Riyals in Cash

Sputnik News

19:32 GMT 14.06.2020(updated 19:46 GMT 14.06.2020)

The south Yemeni secessionist movement seeks to undo the Yemeni unification of 1990 and restore a separate independent state of South Yemen.

Separatists from the Southern Transitional Council in southern Yemen took control of 64 billion Yemeni riyals (equivalent to roughly $255.5 million US) on Saturday, with a convoy carrying the cash intended for the central bank in Aden commandeered by militia and redirected to a nearby military base.

In a statement cited by Reuters, the STC, which controls Aden, called the action "part of several measures to end sources of corruption and to prevent the use of public money in supporting terrorismby some leaders of the Yemeni government."

In addition, the STC said that the seizure was aimed at preventing the further depreciation of the currency, which it says will now be used to aid governance in areas under its control.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government denounced the seizure as an act of "piracy."

The move comes amid escalating tensions between the STC and the Saudi-backed government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Both parties had formally agreed to put aside their differences to fight the Houthi militia in November 2019. However, in May, the STC accused the Hadi government of violating the peace agreement.

The STC seeks to restore the state of South Yemen, formerly the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, the Cold War state which ceased to exist in 1990 when the country unified.

Now in its sixth year, the civil war in Yemen has caused the deaths of over 100,000 people, with the UN estimating that 75 of the country's population is in dire need of humanitarian aid amid the Saudi-led coalition's blockade of Houthi-controlled population centers.

 Sputnik

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A Perth woman who repeatedly smothered her teenage daughter with a towel in a 'terrifying' attempted exorcism has been spared jail after she received a suspended sentence.

Kylie Anne Weinbrecht, 34, pleaded guilty in the West Australian Supreme Court to endangering the life of the then 13-year-old girl in September 2018.

The mother-of-four also admitted charges of burglary and property damage.

The court heard Weinbrecht had been failing to comply with psychiatric treatment and regularly smoking cannabis when she smothered her daughter as a punishment for allowing mental health workers into their home.

Weinbrecht dragged her daughter into their backyard, sat on her chest and covered her face, later telling police she thought she had been performing an exorcism.

A remorseful and relieved Kylie Ann Weinbrecht (pictured) leaves the Supreme Court of Western Australia on Monday after escaping a jail term for smothering her then 13-year-old daughter with a towel in 2018

The girl lost consciousness three times and the ordeal only ended when her sister managed to pull Weinbrecht away.

Justice Gail Archer on Monday sentenced Weinbrecht to four years in prison but suspended the sentence for a period of two years, accepting that the mother-of-four's mental illness had contributed significantly to the offending.

She also imposed family violence restraining orders banning Weinbrecht from contacting her children for two years.

Justice Archer told Weinbrecht that by the time her suspended sentence expired, the twins would be aged 17 and in a better position to protect themselves

'What you did to (your daughter) was very damaging and she could have died,' the judge told Weinbrecht.

'That event would have been utterly terrifying.'

Two days earlier, Weinbrecht had forced the girls and her autistic eight-year-old son to help her break into and damage her brother's home.

The court heard Weinbrecht believed her sister-in-law had killed their children and hidden them behind the walls, something she also told her own kids.

Kylie Ann Weinbrecht (pictured) told reporters as she left court on Monday that she was sorry for her actions and would 'try to do better'

Justice Archer conceded there was a 'significant risk' Weinbrecht would reoffend if she failed to properly manage her mental health and drug issues.

But she noted Weinbrecht had been fully compliant with her bail conditions, passed multiple drug tests and was receiving mental health treatment.

A pre-sentencing report highlighted Weinbrecht's 'genuine remorse' and stability in her life which made her a suitable candidate for community supervision.

'You need to stay off cannabis and you need to do what your doctors tell you to do,' Justice Archer said.

Weinbrecht briefly addressed reporters outside court, saying she was sorry for her actions and vowed to 'try to do better'.
MOSCOW -- Russian investigators have opened a criminal investigation against opposition politician Aleksei Navalny for suspected libel over comments he made on social media.



The Investigative Committee on June 15 accused Navalny of libeling a World War II veteran who was featured in a video clip with other Russians expressing support for proposed constitutional reforms.



In a social-media post on June 2, Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics, described those in the video as "traitors," "people with no conscience," and "corrupt lackeys."



In its statement, the Investigative Committee said the comments contained "deliberately false information denigrating the honor and dignity" of the WWII veteran.



It said the probe was still under way.



Navalny faces penalties ranging from a fine of 1 million rubles ($14,255) to 240 hours of community service if convicted.



In recent months, Russia's state-run media outlets have shown videos of WWII veterans, celebrities, and ordinary people expressing their support for proposed constitutional amendments to be put to a national vote scheduled for July 1.



Among other changes, the reform would allow Putin to stay in power after his current second consecutive presidential term ends in 2024.



Navalny, 44, has endured multiple incarcerations in recent years, a barred attempt to run for president, and a hamstrung bid for the Moscow mayor's post.



He was barred from running for president in 2018 due to a tax-fraud conviction that he has called trumped-up.



In March, Navalny and his associate Ivan Zhdanov said that their bank accounts had been emptied and all their payment cards and those of relatives were blocked in what they described as a move to discredit and disgrace them.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15) - Catriona Gray gave a sneak peek of her rendition of Raise Your Flag, which was based on her slogan during her stint in Miss Universe 2018.

Gray said the message of the song is very timely as it encourages everyone to raise their voices for what they stand for.

It feels like Im coming full circle. This song was birthed from representing and making my country proud in Miss Universe, said Gray on Instagram.

Now, with it releasing during a time such as this, I feel like the message is still one that needs to be heard, but now it applies to all of us, in raising our voice and raising our flag for not just our country...but for what we stand for.

Raise Your Flag was originally performed by KZ Tandingan and rapper Kritiko in time for Grays homecoming last year after winning the Miss Universe crown.

The song came from Grays interview as one of the Top 20 semi-finalists when she was asked on what would she call her song if she would be given a chance to write one.

Recently, Gray was one of the celebrities who spoke against the controversial anti-terrorism bill. The beauty queen expressed on social media that she wants a revision of the said measure.
CLEVELAND, Ohio  A Canton man was accused Monday of federal weapons charges, unsealed two months after authorities and publications identified him as carrying an anti-Semitic sign at an Ohio Statehouse rally over coronavirus restrictions.

A federal indictment charges Matthew Paul Slatzer, 36, of Canton with possessing a .38-caliber Taurus revolver on Feb. 2, when he brought it into Fast Times Pub in Canton. When officers arrived, he threatened to kill them, according to a police report.

In April, numerous groups identified him as attending a rally in Columbus that protested the states extended closing because of the coronavirus, according to a story about Slatzer in the Cleveland Jewish News and several interviews.

He carried a sign with an illustration of a rodent with the Star of David on its side and the words The Real Plague, according to the publication and interviews.

This illustrates the dangers that far-right agitators present and the need for strong gun laws that protect us from them, said Casey Weinstein, Democrat state representative from Hudson.

James Pasch, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, agreed: [Slatzer] is someone who has promulgated hatred for years. Were thankful to the FBI and law enforcement for removing him from our streets.

Slatzer was charged in Stark County Common Pleas Court with possessing a weapon in a liquor establishment, a felony of the fifth degree. He was released on his own recognizance in March and later arrested in May.

Attempts to reach his attorney in the Stark County case, Kenneth Frame, and Canton police were unsuccessful. Attorney Anthony Vegh said he was appointed to the federal case Monday, and he has only reviewed the indictment in the case.

The federal charge stems from Slatzers conviction of domestic violence in 2010. A person convicted of the crime cannot possess a weapon. Authorities are seeking to seize all of his guns through forfeiture, the indictment said.

He is set to appear in U.S. District Court on Thursday for an arraignment.

The case against Slatzer highlights a push by U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman to file federal weapons charges against those with convictions for domestic violence.

In 2018, Herdman said the majority of the firearms charges his office has historically brought involve people with prior felony convictions. However, he said his office would screen more cases to try and bring more federal charges against people who committed domestic violence, including those with misdemeanor convictions.
Afghanistan's government and the Islamist Taliban group have agreed that Doha will be the venue for the first meeting in their peace talks, both sides said on June 14.

The talks, known as the intra-Afghan dialogue, will be the first high-level meeting between the two sides after years of fighting.

No date has been announced for the meeting, but it is expected to take place after the two sides settle differences on the release by the Afghan government of 5,000 Taliban prisoners, which could be as soon as the end of next week.

"The first intra-Afghan meeting will happen in Doha," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Reuters, adding that the Islamist group was ready to hold intra-Afghan talks within a week of the release of 5,000 prisoners.

The Afghan government has released 3,000 Taliban prisoners so far under an agreement signed between the United States and the insurgent group in February.

That deal outlined a roadmap for withdrawing foreign forces from Afghanistan and peace talks to end the 19-year war.

The government wants talks to begin as soon as possible but has issues with the release of a few hundred high-profile Taliban prisoners, a senior government official told Reuters.

The official said the government had offered an alternative prisoner release list to the Taliban.

The spokesman for the Afghan Presidential Palace, Sediq Sediqqi, said on Twitter that Doha had been agreed as the venue for the first talks but said no permanent venue had been agreed.

The Qatari capital was the venue for signing the deal between the United States and Taliban. The insurgent group has had a political office in Doha since 2013.
(CNN)  Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan say they are "disgusted" by President Donald Trump's remarks on the nationwide protests against racial injustice.

The Facebook founder and his wife this week shared their thoughts in an email to a group of scientists who are backed by their nonprofit organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). The scientists recently raised concerns about how Facebook has handled Trump's posts on the platform.

"We are deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump's divisive and incendiary rhetoric at a time when our nation so desperately needs unity," Zuckerberg and Chan wrote. "This is an extraordinarily painful inflection point in our nation's story, particularly for the Black community and our Black colleagues, who have lived with the impacts of systemic racism for generations."

The email was provided to CNN Business by Jason Shepherd, a scientist backed by CZI who helped put together the letter to Zuckerberg earlier this month. The email was first reported by Recode.

The response came days after more than 140 scientists who have received funding and support from CZI penned an open letter to Zuckerberg that urged him to "consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language."

In the letter, the scientists pointed to a widely condemned Facebook post Trump sent during the protests, which said: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

This "is a clear statement of inciting violence," the scientists wrote. "Like many, we were disconcerted to see that Facebook has not followed their own policies in regards to President Trump, who has used the Facebook platform to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements."

In the email sent to the scientists on Tuesday, Zuckerberg and Chan said the group's letter had been "shared and discussed by CZI's entire leadership team," and added that they took the "concerns seriously and to heart."

But Zuckerberg and Chan offered little in the way of new action. Instead, they shared earlier Facebook posts written by Zuckerberg, who defended the company's stance and pledged to review its policies about content moderation, voter suppression and the state use of force.

CZI did not respond to requests for comment on Zuckerberg and Chan's response to the scientists.

Zuckerberg's decision to leave the Trump posts up has alienated many of the company's own workers. Last week, some Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout over inaction on the matter.

One employee even quit his job last week, telling CNN Business he was worried that Facebook would be used to further escalate violence in the United States.

The couple also stressed that Facebook and CZI are "entirely separate and independent organizations," though acknowledged that they share a leader.

"In this moment, we understand that CZI's relationship to Facebook is not an easy tension to bridge," they wrote, adding that Facebook's policies "are not the decisions of CZI as an organization."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan say they are 'disgusted' by Trump's comments."
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Epic mountains that appear to be hovering in the sky. A mist-shrouded Manhattan Bridge. And battling stallions.

These are some of the incredible scenes captured in jaw-dropping photographs that have wowed the judges in the 2020 Moscow International Foto Awards (MIFA).

The contest, now in its seventh year, has been flooded with entries from photographers in over 100 countries, with the competition aiming to recognise and support emerging talent.

Among the other incredible entries that have impressed is a striking image of the Northern Lights over the Lofoten Islands in Norway, an aerial shot showing the changing seasons in the Czech Republic and a serene snap of a field of paepalanthus wildflowers in Brazil.

Hossein Farmani, founder and president of MIFA, said: 'Now more than ever, photography has a crucial role to play, in telling the uncensored truth about what is happening on our planet whilst transposing us away into a world of possibility and imagination.'

Scroll down to see a selection of the mesmerising winning images...

Italian photographer Isabella Tabacchi wins the prize of photographer of the year thanks to a series of images showing the stunning landscape of Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. This image shows white-capped mountains appearing to hover in the sky above a foreboding volcanic foreground

French photographer Camille Briottet captured this dramatic scene - two stallions embroiled in a battle in the Camargue region of France. The incredible image earns her a silver prize in the nature category

Kirill Simakov, from Russia, took this image of a mist-shrouded Manhattan Bridge on a foggy morning in New York. It earns him a bronze prize in the architecture/bridges category

Japanese photographer Reiko Takahashi scoops a silver prize in the nature/underwater category for this incredible image of a whale shark she spotted at Richery Rock in Thailand. She said it reminded her of a UFO

Martin Krystynek from Slovakia earns a silver prize in the events/sport category with this jaw-dropping image. It shows a BMX biker performing a trick at the summit of Lomnicky Stit, one of the highest peaks in the High Tatras mountains of Slovakia

On the left is an amazing shot by Italian photographer Roksolyana Hilevych that she took near the island of Gimsya in Norway's Lofoten Islands. It is the winning image of the nature/landscape category. On the right is a stunning shot by French photographer Patrick Hertzog showing the ice caves under the Vatnajokull glacier on the south coast in Iceland. It is the runner-up in the nature category

Tomas Neuwirth, from the Czech Republic, is given a gold prize in the fine art/collage category for this standout drone image called 'Road Between Seasons', created from the merging of photos taken over the same spot during strikingly different weather conditions in the Jesiniky Mountains, Czech Republic

On the left is a serene shot by Marcio Esteves Cabral of a field of paepalanthus wildflowers in Brazil. It earns him the silver prize in the nature/flowers category. On the right is an image called 'The Blue Viper Strikes Again' by Australian photographer Robin Yong that earns him a gold prize in the nature/pets category

British photographer Christine Eastwood is awarded a bronze prize in the architecture/interiors category for this image, called 'Brummy Baths'. It shows the interior of the Moseley Road Baths - an Edwardian swimming pool in Birmingham

French photographer Greg Lecoeur takes the gold prize in the nature/underwater category for this amazing shot that shows crabeater seals swimming around an iceberg in the Antarctic peninsula

On the left is an image by Canadian photographer Louis-Philippe Provost, who earns a silver prize in the architecture/buildings category. It shows the facade of the Via 57 West building in New York. On the right is a scene in Antelope Canyon, Arizona, captured by Nick Psomiadis, from Australia. It earns him a bronze prize in the fine art/landscape category. He said: 'I had the privilege of capturing this scene where the sand is seen falling from above. This was due to the strong winds blowing outside'

Australian photographer Stanley Aryanto captured this snowy scene at Sunwapta Falls in Alberta, Canada. The shot earns him a silver prize in the nature/seasons category

Li Po-Yi from Taiwan wins a bronze award in the advertising/travel and tourism category for this mesmerising image, which shows a colourful building on Jingwei Avenue in the Jiulongpo District of Chongqing City in China
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A giant 'All Black Lives Matter' murial has been painted on Hollywood Boulevard as protests continue in the wake of George Floyd's death.

The words were painted in a rainbow of colors near the famous TCL Chinese and Dolby theaters on Saturday.

The painting was made to honour black LGBTQ community members during the 50th anniversary of the first Pride celebration.

A photo taken with a drone shows people painting an 'All Black Lives Matter' mural on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California

The words were painted in a rainbow of colors near the famous TCL Chinese and Dolby theaters on Saturday

The painting was made to honour black LGBTQ community members during the 50th anniversary of the first Pride celebration

An aerial view of Hollywood Boulevard painted with the words 'All Black Lives Matter near the famous TCL Chinese and Dolby theaters as protests continue in the wake of George Floyds death on June 13

The words were painted in bright colors to represent the diversity of the LGBTQ community including colors in the Rainbow flag and Transgender Pride Flag.

The LA Pride march and festival, which was due to be held yesterday, was forced to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, All Black Lives Matter protesters marched on Hollywood Boulevard yesterday to express their solidarity with the LGBT community. Protesters standing against racism and police brutality held signs with the LGBT flag during the event.

The demonstrators were also honoring Tony McDade, a black transgender man killed by Tallahassee, Florida police on May 27.

June is LGBT pride month in the US.

Hollywood Boulevard has seen numerous mass protests against police brutality over the past two weeks, including a 200,000-strong crowd last Sunday.

All Black Lives Matter protesters hold rainbow-colored signs near a mural of George Floyd during their solidarity march with the LGBT movement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday

All Black Lives Matter protesters marched on Hollywood Boulevard yesterday to express their solidarity with the LGBT communit

All Black Lives Matter protesters hold rainbow colored flags during their solidarity march with the LGBT movement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard

Protesters take over Hollywood Boulevard during the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march as unrest continues in the wake of the death of George Floyd, on June 14

Yesterday several thousand people gathered for an anti-racism solidarity march from Hollywood to West Hollywood.

By midday yesterday, the crowd had swelled onto Hollywood Boulevard in a protest planned by black LGBTQ leaders and organization.

'The protest is in direct response to racial injustice, systemic racism, and all forms of oppression,' the events website states.

All Black Lives Matter protesters hold signs and rainbow flags during their solidarity march with the LGBT movement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre

he demonstrators were also honoring Tony McDade, a black transgender man killed by Tallahassee, Florida police on May 27

Protesters crowd Hollywood Boulevard during the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march as unrest continues in the wake of the death of George Floyd, on June 14

All Black Lives Matter protesters hold signs during their solidarity march with the LGBT movement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles

Protesters take over Hollywood Boulevard during the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march as unrest continues in the wake of the death of George Floyd, on June 14

'The LGBTQ+ community must extend its support to unite against oppression, police brutality, racism, transphobia, and the many other disparities disproportionately impacting the Black community.'

The protest came a week after a 200,000-strong crowd gathered in the same spot to demonstrate against the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

Floyd's death at the hands of police officers during an arrest has sparked global unrest and a renewed debate around racism.

He was arrested on a charge of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a grocery store on May 25 and died after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pressed his knee to Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes during the arrest.

8 Protesters march down Sunset Boulevard to demonstrate against police brutality after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, in Hollywood, California, on Sunday

rotesters take over Hollywood Boulevard during the All Black Lives Matter solidarity march as unrest continues in the wake of the death of George Floyd, on June 14
Despite the fact that Ukrainian legislation clearly defines in which cases citizens are allowed to protect themselves from assailants in any way, even employing weapons or other objects, and not bear any responsibility for this, these rules actually don't work. And the proof of this claim goes beyond the high-profile case of Serhiy Sternenko.

Deadly self-defense

The life of Serhiy Pankratov of Izmail was broken in 40 seconds. The brawl in a roadside diner in the fall of 2015 lasted about that long. There were 15 attackers wielding iron sticks, knives, and handguns.

"When 15 people attack you, you defend yourself They shoot, stab, and kill. After the shot to the head, I no longer could That's truly scary," he told TSN.Tyzhden.

The video of a man being knocked off his feet, stabbed and shot in the head was captured on CCTV footage. Although Serhiy doesn't remember what happened after the shooting, the video shows that the man's instincts kicked in. He grabbed a pistol from the ground after one of his stabbers dropped it. He started firing at the gang. Then it turned out that he fatally wounded two of them

And then the cops took Serhiy from the hospital to throw him into a pretrial detention center for three and a half years, suspecting him of the alleged premeditated murder of two or more persons. At the same time, law enforcers simply "forgot" about the assailants and the very attack on Pankratov.

"I've never met such an outrageous case," says Serhiy's lawyer. "I'd been a judge for 10 years and lawyer for another 25 years. In Soviet times, I personally acquitted people in self-defense cases. But this case is so obvious  after all, the actions of all 15 of the attackers have been caught on video, on four CCTV cameras!"

Moreover, all attackers were identified within the first month of the probe: "Their names, whereabouts, phone numbers... But they are still noted as 'unidentified persons.' Meanwhile, Pankratov had been in custody for 3.5 years."

Five years into the day of the attack, Serhiy Pankratov is no longer behind bars, while still being investigated. And the charges pressed are still messing up his life.

"While the probe is underway, I can't even get a job or leave country And I can't even imagine what it will further be like," says Serhiy.

Another man from the TSN.Tyzhden report is Anton Farb, a martial arts instructor. He teaches students to defend themselves from a knife-wielding attacker.

"Most people are killed in knife attacks. The other top deadly weapon is you'll never guess  an ax! At one time, in the 1970s, researchers did an experiment in the U.S. before coming up with the 21 foot rule. If the attacker wields a knife, while a policeman has a pistol in his holster, the 21-feet distance is enough for the attacker to kill," he says. Demonstrating how psychologically and physically difficult it is to draw a knife when a group of attackers are trying to kill you, Anton seems to be telling his own story.

"No matter how hard I prepared for this, believing that one day I might be assaulted, they caught me off my guard. It was unexpected," he recalls the terrible event.

In the spring of 2017, three attackers assaulted Anton in the center of Zhytomyr. They sought revenge for a petty argument on a bus over an open window.

"They ran up from behind, grabbed me by my backpack and started beating me. I tried to hit back. I knocked one of the attackers off his feet, while realizing there are two more. I draw a knife and start waving it. I hit the guy in the neck and the other in the arm. I imagine what three fit men could do with one. How far they would have gone, I don't know. It is better not to expect that you will go through the mess with just a few bruises. You must assume the worst. Most often, it's precisely such stupid petty conflicts that end up in murder," says Anton.

Eventually, the well-trained man stopped the assailants, got into a taxi and drove off. And in a few hours, police came and took him to the station where he was charged with an attempted premeditated murder of two or more persons. And here only wide publicity and a good lawyer helped the man.

"The victims came to the station with their cuts, got questioned, identified, and the probe could have ended up totally differently. We went, gathered all CCTV footage from the area and quickly identified eyewitnesses of the incident. We gathered all that evidence and in two days brought it in, appealing to shut the case. And the prosecutor, tnahkfully, decided to close the case," said Anton's lawyer Vitaliy Kolomiets.

Ironically, Ukraine's self-defense legislation is better than in some American states. If you were attacked by a single assailant, self-defense must be proportionate  you may inflict light or medium injuries, but you will be held liable for inflicting grievous bodily harm or death as exceeding the limits of self-defense. However, in three cases, you are allowed to defend yourself as you wish, using weapons or other tools, without having to bear any responsibility.

Here are these cases:

If the attacker is armed;

If you are being assaulted by a group; and

If someone tries to break and enter your home.

However, in reality, things are way more complicated.

"So, someone has been injured or killed, proceedings are instituted, and the investigation begins. The investigator collects material for a month or two, putting it into two or three volumes of case file, and here a question is raised  the detective has indeed found that the person really was fighting off a group attack. But what is he going to do? The investigator thinks to themselves: "I have poor results in this reporting period. I did a lot of work but no one will praise it and I won't get a promotion.' And people are told: 'Let's just go for Article 118, you will get deferred sentence or a fine, and then we will close this case. For the investigator, this would be a positive result. And that person thinks: 'Well, okay, I might have some criminal record of one year of deferred sentence'," lawyer Vitaliy Kolomiets tells about the sad realities of such cases.

Two proceedings are instituted at once in such cases  in one of them, victim is the one who defended themselves. And in another one, he is suspected of attacking those whom he fought back. So everything here depends only on quality of lawyers and public response. As isin the case of Serhiy Sternenko.

Prison or grave

Serhiy Sternenko is an Odesa-based activist. TSN.Tyzhden earlier reported about all three attacks he had survived.

The last time was two years ago when two persons attacked Serhiy and his girlfriend Natalia outside their own house.

"At one point, I drew my left hand forward and felt that I had been stabbed. And then I started waving around the knife," he says.

Serhiy was defending himself against two armed thugs and fatally injured one of them. By law, his actions were justified. But Sternenko's enemies are too influential.

"It couldnt be a coincidence. In four months, three attacks outside my house. This clearly testifies to these attacks having been orchestrated," says Serhiy.

For the two years since the attack, he has been walking around with bodyguards. Also, he has been defending his right not to be convicted of murder.

"Definitely, my life has turned upside down. It's changed a lot. That's because while I used to fight off the assaults, now I am fighting off the Ukrainian punitive system, which seeks to put me behind bars for repelling the attacks on me. But people should understand that they can find a way out of prison, but they will never find one out of the grave," Sternenko said.

In fact, the attack on Serhiy is of no interest to anyone but him. After all, law enforcers have only pressed "hooliganism" charges against the assailants. Sternenko says that a huge amount of evidence has been gathered in the case, which would allow to press charges against a few people, except masterminds: "There are grounds to do so. But these decisions are not being made. And this can be done only from the high offices at the SBU and the Office of the Prosecutor General."

Last week, Serhiy was summoned to report to the Security Service to be charged.

But Sternenko's case is no longer just a criminal investigation. This is also about corruption, PR, and political pressure. And the trouble is that this case affects the interests of all other citizens  because it completely devalues the basic human right to protect people's own lives. The government enforcement machine in a brutally unjust attack on an individual is sending a bunch of signals: from the unscrupulousness of the law enforcement system to the murder of the moral laws of society.

Of course, when you are attacked, you will defend your life anyway as instincts kick in. However, when someone sees a woman being raped or some old man being mugged, they might think it is wiser to just flee from the scene. Currently, Serhiy is being defended not only by lawyers as everyone who still believes in their own dignity and the right not to be killed is on his side.

Stanislav Yasynsky, Serhiy Osadchuk, Olena Kuznetsova
New reported details about the Trump family have emerged in an upcoming biography about First Lady Melania Trump, which suggest she had to enforce firm boundaries with her stepdaughter Ivanka when Donald Trump took office.

According to the upcoming book, Ivanka initially suggested renaming the First Ladys Office to the First Family Office - a move that was apparently vetoed by Melania.

The White House has denied the book's claims, with a spokesperson telling Business Insider: "This is totally false. The media is once again running untrue information from anonymous sources and not once did anyone fact check this with the White House or Ivanka Trump."

Business Insider also claimed that a Simon and Schuster spokesperson revealed that the White House had "declined [the author's] request to speak with her for the book or to respond to written questions."

Getty Images

The book, titled The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, claims Donald Trumps presidential win took the family by surprise and that Melania was in the midst of renegotiating financial arrangements with her husband of 15 years.

According to the books author, Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Jordan, Melania used the surprise win to her advantage by renegotiating her prenuptial agreement with the President to ensure Barron got his rightful share of inheritance, particularly if Ivanka took the reins of the family business.

When Melania initially delayed moving to the White House, Jordan writes that Ivanka began to make changes. In an extract published by The Washington Post, Jordan claims Ivanka began to establish herself in the West Wing and was also eyeing real estate in the East Wing as well, the domain of the First Lady.

As Melania stayed away, Jordan reported that staff and money that would have been in place to support her as First Lady were diverted to support those in the West Wing, including Ivanka.

Jordan, who interviewed over a hundred people for the book, claimed some said Ivanka treated the [White House] as if it were her own home - making use of the presidential facilities, including its private theatre.

Getty Images

As Ivanka reportedly asserted her position in the White House, Melania is said to have shut down Ivankas proposal to rename her office to the First Family Office.

Jordan writes: Melania did not allow that to happen. It was tradition, and she was not going to let her stepdaughter change it. Ivankas office remained in the West Wing.

Getty Images

Eventually, Melania and Barron moved into the White House after she had finally renegotiated the prenup to her liking according to The Washington Post.

Once she was there, she reportedly put her foot down. Melania did not like [Ivanka treating the White House like her own residence] Jordan writes, When she and Barron finally moved in, she put an end to the revolving door by enforcing firm boundaries.

AFP/Getty Images

Though Melania has kept a relatively low profile during her husbands presidential term, her work has included spearheading an anti-bullying initiative called Be Best.

Former White House communications director Sean Spicer also told Jordan that Melania was very behind-the-scenes but incredibly influential, with the president taking her views very seriously.

Getty Images

Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner have become key figures during their father and father-in-laws term, with Ivanka accompanying Trump to the G20 summit.

Christine Lagarde's 'priceless' reaction to Ivanka Trump caught on camera

President Donald Trump is set to face off against Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the US general election on November 3.

The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump is set to be published tomorrow by Simon and Schuster.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-16 04:45:13|Editor: huaxia

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Medical workers are seen in a COVID-19 quarantine hospital in Cairo, Egypt, on June 15, 2020. Egypt reported on Monday its highest single-day COVID-19 deaths with 97 fatalities, taking the death toll in the North African country to 1,672, said the Egyptian Health Ministry. According to the ministry's spokesman Khaled Megahed, 1,691 new COVID-19 infections have also been registered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases to 46,289. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

CAIRO, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Egypt reported on Monday its highest single-day COVID-19 deaths with 97 fatalities, taking the death toll in the North African country to 1,672, said the Egyptian Health Ministry.

According to the ministry's spokesman Khaled Megahed, 1,691 new COVID-19 infections have also been registered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total confirmed cases to 46,289.

The spokesman added 398 patients have recovered and were discharged from hospitals, raising the total recoveries to 12,329.

Megahed highlighted Egypt's close cooperation with the World Health Organization regarding the pandemic, the relevant case detection and the necessary medical care.

Egypt announced its first confirmed COVID-19 case on Feb. 14 and the first death from the respiratory disease on March 8.

Since March 25, the Egyptian government has been imposing a nighttime curfew as a key precautionary measure in combating the highly infectious virus.

On Sunday, the government started implementing a shorter eight-hour curfew instead of nine hours, which will continue until the end of the month, amid a "coexistence plan" to maintain anti-coronavirus precautionary measures while resuming economic activities.

Also on Sunday, Egypt announced that air traffic in all Egyptian airports will be resumed from July 1 as the country prepares for the return of foreign tourism, after more than three months of international flight suspension over the coronavirus concerns.

The most populous Arab country has already started gradual reopening of services and offices, and allowed operation of over 230 hotels for local tourists with 50-percent capacity after they were given official hygiene safety certificates.

Egypt and China have been cooperating closely in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, through mutual provision of medical aid and sharing experiences in containing the spread of the deadly respiratory disease.

In early February, Egypt was among the first nations to provide aid to China in its fight against the coronavirus outbreak. China, after having largely controlled the pandemic, returned favor by sending three batches of medical aid to Egypt.

On April 16, May 10 and May 16, Chinese doctors held video conferences with Egyptian counterparts to share their experiences in prevention and treatment of the virus.
HAYWARD (BCN)

Three suspects were arrested after seven shots were fired early Sunday at two California Highway Patrol officers in a patrol vehicle.

The shots were fired from a black Mercedes Sprinter van heading south near the Lewelling Boulevard offramp on Interstate Highway 880 by the Interstate Highway 238 flyover, but neither officer was hit.

Shortly after, CHP officers located and stopped a van matching the description, detailing three males, ages 20, 18 and 14.

Multiple firearms found in the van were taken as evidence.

The driver, identified as Ethan Escobedo, 18, of Los Angeles, was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer and shooting at an occupied vehicle.

The CHP - Golden Gate Division is investigating the shooting and asks anyone with information to call its tip line at (707) 917-4491.

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.
South Korea's military has strengthened its monitoring of North Korea, but no unusual moves have been detected so far, a source said Monday, after Pyongyang threatened to take military action against the South.



In a statement Saturday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, said its military will be entrusted with the right to take the "next step" against the South in the latest in a series of threats made by the North in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent across the border by activists here.



Amid concerns over the North's possible provocation at the inter-Korean maritime border or near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said there have been no unusual activities by the North to report on.



"We are closely monitoring North Korean military's moves and are maintaining a firm military readiness posture. As of yet, there has been no incident to give additional explanations on," JCS spokesperson Col. Kim Jun-rak told a regular press briefing.



A source said the military is keeping close tabs on the North with its surveillance assets in the front line, as well as in the air and on the waters.



"The monitoring has been heightened overall," the source said.













Describing the current tensions on the peninsula as "extremely high," Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said the military is maintaining a firm readiness posture "against all possible situations."



During a seminar in Seoul, the minister said the military has been investing a record high budget in improving capabilities to respond to any possible security threats, including those from North Korea.



He cited the deployment of advanced weapons, such as the F-35A stealth fighters and Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, as some of the steps South Korea has taken to deal with outside threats.



"In order to effectively curb and respond to North Korea's evolving nuclear and missile threats, our military will ... continue to develop various measures to implement a catered deterrence strategy based on a firm South Korea-U.S. alliance," Jeong said. (Yonhap)
Saudi Arabias oil giant Aramco has cut the crude oil shipments loading in July to at least five of its customers in Asia, Reuters reported on Monday, quoting sources familiar with the plans.

The move from OPECs top producer and the worlds largest oil exporter comes after Saudi Arabia hiked its official selling prices (OSPs) for July by the most in at least 20 years.

Last week, after the OPEC+ group had agreed to extend its record collective cut of 9.7 million bpd by one month to the end of July, Saudi Aramco sharply raised its prices for all grades to all regions.

The pricing of Saudi crude, typically released around the fifth of each month, generally sets the trend for the pricing for Asia of other Gulf oil producers such as Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran. The pricing of Saudi Aramco, the Kingdoms oil giant, affects as much as 12 million barrels per day (bpd) of Middle Eastern crude grades going to Asia.

Although an increase in Saudi Arabias prices didnt come as a surprise, the steep rise for July really surprised refiners, especially those in Asia, who had enjoyed three months of very cheap supply from Saudi Arabia, when the Kingdom was keeping its prices low to boost market share while demand was crashing in the pandemic.

Increased OSPs have caught us by surprise and these are not attractive to refiners specially in a market where refining margins are weak, R Ramachandran, head of refineries at Indias BPCL, told Reuters.

Due to the steep increase, at least one major Saudi crude oil buyer in Asia has nominated nearly one-third lower supplies from the Kingdom for July, a source with direct knowledge of the nominations request told Reuters.

Other refiners in Asia will likely look to buy more competitively priced arbitrage oil cargoes from the United States and West Africa and cut supply of what is now more expensive crude oil from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East as a whole, some of Reuters sources said.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed Australia will record its two largest-ever budget deficits in history as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

A temporary doubling of unemployment benefits and $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidies were unveiled in March as COVID-19 threatened to spark the worst economic downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

Now the government is planning to spend another $72billion fast-tracking transport and resources industry infrastructure programs, on top of three existing stimulus packages worth $154billion.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured in Canberra on June 15, 2020) has confirmed Australia will record its two largest-ever budget deficits in history as a result of the coronavirus pandemic

Mr Morrison, who was treasurer before taking over as PM in August 2018, hinted a shrinking global economy would also play havoc with Australia's finances as demand diminished for key exports.

Before the onset of COVID-19, his Coalition government was re-elected promising to return the budget to surplus for the first time since 2007.

'We are looking at a record deficit this year and next, and not just because of record COVID-19 expenditures,' Mr Morrison told the National Press Club in Canberra on Monday.

'Revenues have taken an equally large hit and while lower expenditure measures have been designed to be targeted and time-limited in accordance with the principles we set out, the impact on revenue will be longer lived as the economy makes its way back.

'This will require us to recalibrate our fiscal strategy.'

The extent of the upcoming budget deficits was confirmed to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia after Mr Morrison announced the government would spend $72billion to fast-track 15 major transport and resources infrastructure projects, in a bid to provide 66,000 jobs.

As a proportion of gross domestic product, the upcoming budget deficits for this financial year, and the following one, would dwarf the size of Labor's ones during the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago.

In the 2009-10 financial year, Kevin Rudd's first-term Labor government revealed a $54.8billion deficit as it gave out $900 cheques to Australians earning less than $100,000 a year.

A temporary doubling of unemployment benefits and $1,500 a fortnight JobKeeper wage subsidies were unveiled in March as COVID-19 threatened to spark the worst economic downturn since the 1930s Great Depression. Pictured is a Centrelink queue at Abbotsford in Melbourne

The budget deficit for that financial year comprised 4.2 per cent of GDP.

Deloitte Access Economics is predicting a $143billion deficit for 2019-20, that would comprise 7.3 per cent of GDP.

It forecast a $133billion deficit for 2020-21 which would make up 7.2 per cent of GDP.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson, an economist, said the stimulus spending measures were justified in the face of COVID-19.

'The way to repair the budget is to repair the economy,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Debt is going up because of the hit to the economy flowing through to a hit to the tax take.'

Workers affected by the coronavirus shutdowns are also receiving $1,500 a fortnight in wage subsidies as part of the $70billion JobKeeper program, with the cost last month revised down from the original $130billion figure announced in March. Pictured is a shop for lease on Bourke Street in Melbourne

The Parliamentary Budget Office is forecasting a $191billion revenue collapse in the 2020-21 financial year, as royalties from mineral exports dried up.

The PBO also forecast debt at the end of this decade would be $620billion higher than the government's earlier forecasts.

Since the end of April, the Morrison Government has temporarily doubled unemployment benefits, adding a $550 coronavirus supplement to the existing $565.70 a fortnight JobSeeker payment.

Until September, jobless Australians are receiving $1,115 a fortnight, as part of a $66billion stimulus program.

As a proportion of gross domestic product, the upcoming budget deficits for this financial year, and the following one, would dwarf the size of Labor's ones during the Global Financial Crisis more than a decade ago. Pictured is a home renovation site in Brisbane

Workers affected by the coronavirus shutdowns are also receiving $1,500 a fortnight in wage subsidies as part of the $70billion JobKeeper program, with the cost last month revised down from the original $130billion figure announced in March.

An earlier stimulus program gave $750 payments to 6.5 million Australians, including aged and disability pensioners, the unemployed, parents, students and apprentices, as part of an earlier, broader package worth $17.6billion.

All up, Treasury is already spending $153.6billion on welfare-focused measures.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's budget won't be delivered until October, with coronavirus delaying the usual May date for spending announcements.
(ANSA) - Rome, June 15 - Sources at Venezuela's embassy in Rome on Monday denied a report in Spanish daily ABC that Venezuela funded Italy's anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) in 2010.

The embassy sources said the report was "false and absurd" adding that the Venezuelan authorities would take legal action.

The sources said that the movement was "totally unknown in Venezuela" in 2010.

The M5S was founded in 2009.

According to the report, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who at the time was foreign minister under Hugo Chavez, sent 3.5 million euros to the late Gianroberto Casaleggio, who co-founded the M5S with comedian-cum-politician Beppe Grillo, via the country's consulate in Milan. The embassy sources said that was implausible because, at the time, the Venezuelan Consul to Milan had only just taken up the post.

The report is set to cause further tension for the M5S after a clash at the weekend between Grillo, who has now taken a backseat, and M5S bigwig Alessandro Di Battista.

The M5S has performed badly in local and regional elections since winning over 32% of the vote in the 2018 general election after which it supported two coalition governments led by Premier Giuseppe Conte - the first an alliance with the rightwing Northern League and since last year the current coalition featuring the centre left Democratic Party (PD) and other smaller groups. The M5S's support has shrunk to well below 20%, according to opinion polls, and, in the light of this, on Sunday Di Battista proposed that the movement should hold a "constituent assembly".

Grillo dismissed that idea, saying it came from people with a sense of timing like a character from the film Groundhog Day.

The row has led to speculation that the M5S could split.


On Friday, North Korea announced that it would be dropping its pursuits of a diplomatic relationship with the United States, two years after the iconic handshake between President Donald Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un.

According to USA Today, the historic meeting of the two leaders had "faded away into a dark nightmare." It also reported that Ri Son Gwon, the foreign minister of North Korea, released a statement suggests Pyongyang's most explicit intentions of giving up reconciliation with the Trump administration.

Hopes of reconciliation

Trump made history after becoming the first US president in office to meet the North Korean leader personally. One year after the confrontation, the US president stepped on North Korean soil when he met with Kim at the heavily fortified border area that separated the two Koreas, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

A third meeting between the two leaders ended in gridlock after Kim demanded US sanctions on Pyongyang be lifted before it starts working on eliminating its nuclear arsenal.

A nuclear expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Vipin Narang, noted that Trump considered his first meeting with Kim as a win, and so did the North Korean leader. Narang said that the US president continued to reassure the people that there would be no war, as reported by The New York Times.

The advantage that North Korea got from the exchange was the reduced pressure on their country. Kim noted that the news came while they were still expanding their missile and nuclear capabilities.

Americans praised Trump's initiative with the North in the beginning as their first encounter marked a milestone after a quarter-century of empty promises. While the meetings seemed to be effective, the details into the agreements were full of doubts and loopholes.

Also Read: North Korea Cuts All Communications With South Korea Afte rAnti-DPRK Leaflets Spread

The ambiguity could be seen when the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, demanded a list of the North's nuclear facilities as the first step in denuclearizing the country. North Korean officials saw the request as a method of obtaining a target list for potential US missile attacks.

Pompeo, however, replied that he did not need a target list, which implied he already had one beforehand, but that it was to guarantee the North would hold its end of the bargain of removing its nuclear capabilities.

The list, however, never arrived, and future talks and agreements quickly deteriorated on how to implement a vaguely-worded conversation.

A failed gamble

The gamble that Trump made on North Korea has gone bust and results in him joining the list of presidents who have failed to reconcile with the North on their nuclear weapons.

According to CNBC News, former White House adviser to then-President George W. Bush, Victor Cha, said that no progress was made in accounts of the objectives of the official summits. Cha also noted that it was the front that Trump placed all of his personal capital.

The main benefit that Trump received from his attempts to denuclearize the North was avoiding a war with the country, he added.

Multiple speculations and rumours surrounding Kim's death and health had surfaced after he was missing from the public eye. Trump tweeted his excitement when Kim was reportedly back after his sudden reappearance at the opening of a fertilizer plant.

Related Article: North and South Korean at Risk of Losing Reduced Military Tensions After Anti-DPRK Leaflets Spread

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The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday (June 14) that monsoon has covered a large part of west and central India but its progress is expected to get slower this week as low pressure weakens.

The IMD said in a statement that the monsoon has advanced into the remaining parts of central Arabian Sea, some parts of northeast Arabian Sea, Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, remaining parts of Maharashtra (including Mumbai), some parts of Madhya Pradesh, most parts of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and some more parts of Bihar.

"Conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of North Arabian Sea, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, remaining parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar and some parts of East Uttar Pradesh during next 48 hours," the IMD said.

IMD Director-General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra predicted that the progress will be slow for a week after that.

"The low pressure area that helped in the progress of monsoon last week is weakening. So, the progress of the monsoon will be slow for a week," Mohapatra added.

He noted that the formation of another low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal next week would help in the progress of monsoon.

The IMD statement added that widespread to widespread rainfall is very likely to continue over Maharashtra, Gujarat, most parts of central and east India during next 4-5 days with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over Konkan and Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat.

Isolated heavy over south Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh and Marathwada are likely during next 2-3 days, the IMD said.

The IMD said that India has received over 31 per cent more rainfall so far this season. Of the four meteorological divisions, the south peninsula has received 20 per cent more rainfall; central India has 94 per cent more precipitation and northwest India has 19 per cent more rainfall.
The Deputy Communications Director of the New Patriotic party (NPP), Mame Yaa Aboagye has urged Ghanaians to partake in the upcoming voters registration exercise.



According to her, the registration exercise is a critical part of the democratic process in ensuring free and fair elections.



She said this during NPPs tour in the Ashanti Region to train and educate party leaders for the exercise.



We need to take this upcoming voters registration seriously. We live in a democratic world and in order to win political power, it has to be through democratic means. Therefore, the journey for victory 2020 starts with the registration. Let us go out in our numbers to register.



Mame Aboagye is a member of a team led by NPP General Secretary, Mr. John Boadu to tour the Ashanti Region with some national executives of the party including the National 3rd Vice Chairman, F.F. Anto as well as the National Nasara Coordinator, Abdul Aziz Futah.



The tour is aimed at preparing the partys Regional and constituency executives for the voters registration exercise by the EC which is scheduled to begin on June 30, 2020.



The team already held similar training workshops in the Central, Ahafo and the Bono Regions.



Mame Yaa implored all Ghanaians and the NPP members to go out in their numbers to participate in the exercise.

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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(Bloomberg)  Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, who heads news site Rappler Inc. thats been critical of President Rodrigo Duterte, was found guilty in a libel case seen as a test for press freedom in the Southeast Asian nation.

A Manila court on Monday convicted Ressa, who was accused by a businessman of cyber libel for publishing an allegedly defamatory article in 2012 linking him to trafficking and drug smuggling, CNN Philippines reported. Ressa was sentenced to up to 6 years in jail, but can post bail and appeal the ruling.

The government, in getting this case to the court, had to do legal acrobatics, Ressa, whos also facing cases for alleged tax evasion and media foreign ownership violation, told ABS-CBN News over the weekend. We have done nothing wrong.

Ressas online libel case sets a dangerous precedent and is seen deleterious to press freedom, said journalism professor Danilo Arao from the University of the Philippines. It may also have a chilling effect on social media users critical of the government, he added.

Dutertes government values free speech and upholds press freedom by safeguarding the media environment and the media workers, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in a June 5 statement. Last month, the Philippines largest broadcaster ABS-CBN Corp. was ordered shut by the government after its permit lapsed.
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-15 15:50:32|Editor: huaxia

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HONG KONG, June 15 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Disneyland will reopen on Thursday with reduced capacity and enhanced health and safety procedures, the theme park said on Monday.

The Hong Kong Disneyland has been closed since Jan. 26 to avoid the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak. All six Disney theme parks around the world had been closed due to the epidemic.

The Hong Kong Disneyland Monday said in a statement that during the initial reopening phase, visitors aged three or above are required to make an online reservation prior to their visit and make a health declaration during the reservation process. Children aged under three can enjoy free admission without reservation in advance.

On reopening, visitors are required to undergo temperature checks upon their arrival and wear face masks inside.

The statement said the majority of the parks' attractions, gift shops and restaurants will resume operations with controlled capacity and hotels in the resort are also gradually resuming their services.

The park will also implement social distancing in queues, restaurants, attractions, and facilities, and increase the frequency of sanitization and disinfection measures in high-guest contact areas. Hand sanitizer dispensers have been installed throughout the park.

The statement also said the Castle of Magical Dreams, the park's centerpiece which has been closed due to extension, is entering its final stage of the transformation and will welcome visitors later this year.

The Hong Kong Ocean Park, another theme park which was forced to close in January due to the epidemic, has reopened on last Saturday.

The Shanghai Disneyland reopened on May 11, becoming the first among six Disney theme parks worldwide to welcome visitors again since the outbreak of the COVID-19. Enditem
June 15, European countries gradually began to open borders for tourists from the European Union, as Reuters reported.

"The Schengen area of 22 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland operates control-free crossings. But for three months they have been mostly closed. Officials hope lifting internal border controls will allow a gradual reopening to other countries from July and revive a tourism industry that flatlined during the lockdown," the message said.

European leaders hope that the abolition of internal border control will allow the resumption of the gradual opening of other countries in July and revitalize the tourism industry, which closed during the pandemic. After all, tourism makes up almost 10% of the EU economy and even more in the Mediterranean countries.

Travelers will no longer have to tell the purpose of entering Germany, and France does not oblige them to be quarantined upon arrival.

In addition, Finland opened borders with Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, where the epidemiological situation is similar. And the Netherlands lifts restrictions on tourist trips to 16 EU countries. In Spain, the borders will be closed until June 21, but some Spanish islands are an exception.

European Commission called on all countries - members of the European Union to open internal borders by June 15.

As reported before, Ukraine launches international air service.

According to the Ministry of Health, in Ukraine, since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, 31,810 people have become ill, 14,253 people have recovered, 901 people have died. During the day in Ukraine revealed another 656 cases of infection with coronavirus.
The Maharashtra Cyber, a nodal agency established by the Maharashtra government for the investigation of cyber crime and maintenance of cyber security, has issued a stern warning to those circulating disturbing photos of Sushant Singh Rajput. The 34-year-old actor died by suicide on Sunday.

In a series of tweets shared on its official Twitter handle, the Maharashtra Cyber said that the circulation of such pictures was not only in bad taste but also illegal. A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri. Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste, the agency said.

It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action, another tweet read. A final tweet added that the pictures doing the rounds online must be deleted: Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth.

A disturbing trend has been observed on Social Media platforms by Maharashtra Cyber that pictures of deceased actor Shri. Sushant Singh Rajput are being circulated, which are disturbing and in bad taste. (1/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

It is emphasised that circulation of such pictures is against legal guidelines and court directions, and are liable to invite legal action. (2/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

Maharashtra Cyber exhorts and directs all netizens to refrain from circulating the aforesaid pictures. The pictures already circulated should be deleted henceforth. (3/n)  Maharashtra Cyber (@MahaCyber1) June 14, 2020

Also read: Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, 34, found dead at Mumbai home

To stop the circulation of photographs, producer Sajid Nadiadwala had also written a letter to Maharashtra government and spoke to the state home minister. Sajid and Sushant have collaborated on a number of films. Nadiadwala is also an office-bearer of the Indian Film and Television Producers Council.

DCP Pranay Ashok, spokesperson of the Mumbai Police, said in a statement that Sushant died by suicide and a police investigation is on. No suicide note was found, he said. The last rites will be performed after his father and other family members arrive in Mumbai from Patna tomorrow, the actors spokesperson told PTI on Sunday.

Sushant acted in shows such as Kis Desh Mein Hai Mera Dil and Pavitra Rishta before making his Bollywood debut in 2013. He had acted in films such as Kai Po Che!, Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story and Chhichhore.

Sushants last film will be the romantic drama Dil Bechara, which marks casting director Mukesh Chhabras directorial debut. The unreleased film is an official adaptation of John Greens bestselling novel The Fault In Our Stars.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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- Ghana's COVID-19 case count has shot up to 11,964

- The country has also recorded 54 deaths from the pandemic

- Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo has announced that it is now compulsory for everyone to wear the face mask

- Our manifesto: This is what YEN.com.gh believes in

President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday, June 14, 2020, announced that 54 COVID-19 patients have died so far in Ghana.

In his 11th COVID-19 address to the nation, President Akufo-Addo said the countrys case count has also shot up to 11,964 with 4,258 recoveries.

We have a total of 4,258 patients who are fully recovered and been discharged and are now free of the virus, the president said, adding: So, our scrutiny, in effect, must be on the number of active cases, i.e., people who remain on our books as still positive.

READ ALSO: Ken Agyapong explains how he made his first million dollars at age 36 in 1996

He further noted that Ghanas deaths recorded from COVID-19 continue to remain low compared to global numbers.

The number of COVID-19 related deaths, sad though each death is, continues to remain very low. One of the lowest in Africa and the world, he noted.

Akufo-Addo also said that the wearing of the face mask is now mandatory. Leaving our homes without a face mask or face covering on is an offence."

The Police have been instructed to enforce this directive, which is the subject of an Executive Instrument," he said.

Residents of the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western and Central Regions  which have recorded the highest number of cases so far were warned by the president to be careful and abide by the safety protocols.

READ ALSO: George Floyds murder: Rawlings jabs Trump; says its time for US president to rescue his image

YEN.com.gh earlier reported that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in a previous address to the Ghanaians, listed 11 different local foods that can help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the president, 11 Ghanaian foods, namely oranges, kontomire, millet, cashew nut, crab, plantain, okra, dawadawa, brown rice and mushrooms; are very helpful in the fight against COVID-19.

Parts of Accra flooded after hours of rain | #Yencomgh

READ ALSO: We are signing new artistes to generate income & pay Menzgold customers

Get interactive via our Facebook page.

Source: YEN.com.gh
NPP Member of Parliament for Tema West Constituency, Carlos Kingsley Ahenkorah has emphatically stated that President Akufo-Addo and his government have done "what Napoleon could not do" to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.



He said persons who keep blaming the President and his government of being the cause of the rise in the disease should bow down their heads in shame for not being fair because this government has been very proactive in curbing the spread of the disease.



"Indeed we have done our best to curtail the spread of COVID-19. What else can man do comparing to the already laid down measures by this government?"



He said the shortage of PPE's in our hospitals are not deliberate actions since the government is never happy losing a soul in this fight.



Speaking on UTV's 'Adekye Nsroma' newspaper discussion programme, the Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry dared members of the largest opposition party to seek the postponement of the 2020 elections if they claim the compilation of the new voters' register will accelerate the spread of the coronavirus, and as well depict the concern they claim to have for Ghanaians.



" . . Ask that this year's general elections be postponed to next year (2021) if you claim the compilation of new voters' register will spread the pandemic," he said.



Carlos Ahenkorah insisted Ghana would have encountered a lot of problems during this period if President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was not the leader.





Source: Elizabeth Semiheva Bedi, peacefmonline.com









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Southern California police shot and killed a man whom they believed to be carrying a gun. Police authorities issued a statement on Saturday stating that officers had responded to a call from a convenience store at a gas station in San Bernardino.

The police report said that a man was seen "waving around a handgun".

According to the statement, "patrol officers came to the scene and found a suspect that matched the description." The latter then was reportedly still carrying what the police believed to be a black handgun in one hand.

The statement also said a shooting incident involving one of the responding officers took place that struck the suspect and led to his injury.

The man, according to the police report, was brought to a hospital where he was declared dead. Authorities said that the suspect was a Hispanic. However, the initial report they obtained described the man as "white". He was not identified right away.

Photos and Videos Captured

A mobile phone from a passing vehicle and later on uploaded on YouTube captured authorities as they pointed their weapons at the man, "near a gas pump shouting for him to 'drop the gun!" As the video captured, the car circled a corner, and the camera capture has obstructed a burst of gunshots were heard.

Meanwhile, the police department posted on its Facebook page, some screenshots from videos captured at the scene of the incident.

One image also came from the body-worn camera of an officer showed "a man in shooting position" was pointing at a parked cruiser of the police.

It was unclear though if he was holding a gun, and officers did not say either if one was even recovered.

An Apparently Common Police Misconception

This is not the first time the police get involved in a shooting incident in California, believing their suspect is armed with a gun. Early this month, a 22-year-old man of color was yet another victim of police killing. He was reportedly unarmed when a cop shot him to death.

According to reports, young Latino man, Sean Monterrosa was kneeling on the ground when Vallejo officers fatally shot him one early Tuesday morning.

In relation to the incident, police chief Shawny Williams said the Latino was kneeling in front of an establishment he was allegedly looting when an officer shot him that caused his death.

Records presented that Moterrosa "was shot five times" from a vehicle's windshield. The chief of police said the cop who shot the young man was one of the many officers who arrived at the scene, specifically at a parking lot where there were around 12 people there.

Williams also stated that while in kneeling posture, Monterrosa was showing what appeared to be a gun's butt. However, later on, the investigations revealed it to be a long hammer of about 15 inches, tucked inside the pocket of the top he was wearing.

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LONDON - Scientists at Imperial College London will start immunizing people in Britain this week with their experimental coronavirus shot, becoming the latest entry into the race to find an effective vaccine to stop the pandemic.

In a statement on Monday, the British government said 300 healthy people will be immunized with two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed at Imperial, which has been backed by 41 million pounds ($51 million) in government funding.

So far, the vaccine candidate developed by Imperial College London has only been tested in animals and in the laboratory, where it produced much higher levels of antibodies than would normally be seen in infected people.

Many scientists have warned that the pandemic might only be stopped with an effective vaccine, which typically takes years to develop.

In the long term, a viable vaccine could be vital for protecting the most vulnerable, enabling restrictions to be eased and helping people get back to normal life, said Robin Shattock, who is leading the vaccine research.

The vaccine uses synthetic strands of genetic code based on the virus. Once injected into the muscle, the bodys own cells are instructed to make copies of a spiky protein on the coronavirus. That should in turn trigger an immune response so that the body can fight off any future COVID-19 infection.

About a dozen vaccine candidates are currently in early stages of testing in thousands of people. There are no guarantees any will work but theres increasing hope that at least some could be ready by the end of the year. Oxford University recently began an advanced study involving 10,000 volunteers, and the U.S. is preparing for even larger studies in July that involve 30,000 people each testing different candidates, including Oxfords and one made by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc.

Scientists have never created vaccines from scratch this fast and its far from clear that any will ultimately prove safe and effective. Still, numerous countries, including Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S., have already placed advance orders for millions of vaccines that could be available by the end of the year if they prove to be effective.

The World Health Organization noted Monday that there have been about 100,000 new cases reported every day for the past two weeks and that relaxed restrictions in many countries have led to a new surge of cases.